𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐬
@onepartbrave | | *Squall Leonhart
“ revenge won’t bring peace for you. ”
Despite it having been weeks since it all came to an end, he couldn’t properly shake the tenseness in his body, clinging to it as if expecting to be tossed into the maelstrom of war, death, her voice in his head and the many, countless, endless nights he had to go without sleep again at any given moment. He still couldn’t rest and had not slept through one night after he initially passed out from the wound inflicted during the fight inside the Lunatic Pandora. Nightmares haunted him, and working through what he experienced seemed hardly to be an option, not with everything slowly resurfacing. Part of him was thankful for Fu and Rai to take him in, nurse him back to relative health, and showing patience with his bouts of aggression, panic, and other signs of the scars he had brought back home. Another part privately hated them for the same, humiliated and ashamed, guilt weighing heavy on his mind and heart alongside it all. Being stuck in Balamb Town certainly didn’t help. Not with the way people looked at him, not with those who he once tried to kill being so close. Garden students, his former enemies, and townspeople that had seen him during the occupation of Balamb. It was hard to leave the hotel room his friends had rented for him most of the days. And of course, there was him. The ever-present figure during all of it, like a shadow, like a mocking mirror image of could-have-beens. Squall, who had become everything Seifer wanted to be. Squall, who had been handed all Seifer had dreamed about all his life. Commander, Knight, Hero. Someone people looked up to and relied upon, not out of fear but because they trusted and admired him. Never in his life would the blond have ever expected the other one to live up to such great titles and responsibilities. Naturally, as he was clad in such a role, Leonhart would eventually come to see him. It had taken weeks, if not more than a month (for telling time apart had become somewhat of a challenge, being without any task to follow and with his sleep meddled as it was), but Seifer was not surprised - after all, the last time they faced each other, they had been fighting for their very lives, and not just to test their strengths as it once were. Standing in front of the window leading out to a small balcony, the tall blond remained after he had opened the door to his hotel room, momentarily stunned by the sight of the brunet looking up at him with features unreadable as ever. Instincts told him not to turn his back on the other man, but he knew there was no backstabbing attack to be feared. It wasn’t Leonhart’s style to fight dirty, after all, and aside from all that, the war was over, done. Despite the window being opened, leaving white curtains to gently sway in the ocean breeze, the telling smell of alcohol hang in the air, clinging to the sheets and the tall blond’s clothes alike, same as the stench of cigarettes, the ashtray betraying just how much he smoked nowadays. Clad in black pants and a simple, red shirt, Seifer did not resemble anything of what he looked like during the months he had traveled the world in her name. He was paler, his hair a little longer and while still slicked back, single strands fell into his face ever so often, bright stubble on his cheeks and jaw, while the deep shadows under his eyes betrayed the lack of sleep. ”Revenge won’t bring peace for you.” Catching himself as he had not really listened to what Leonhart was saying, the last part had him stiffen all over again as his mind caught on to the words spoken in his direction, shoulders sliding up just so. He could not recall what the brunet had been on about before, but it didn’t really matter. Exhaling a sharp huff through his nose, scoffing in nature almost, Seifer glanced back over his shoulder, emerald eyes avoiding the corner of the room in which Fujin had hung up his trenchcoat, torn, dirty, and blood-stained. “You think I still want revenge, is that it?” There was a sharp edge to his voice, but it was a far cry from what he used to sound like back in the days of Garden, when he would taunt the other to get a reaction, any reaction out of him. “Why are you here, Leonhart? What do you want? …aside from preaching to me…”
