storm suite: breaking

hurricane
II

She didn't teach me anything, of course. I didn't think she would.

I'm not gonna talk much about what happened after she pulled me through -- couldn't tell you through what, but through something, I know that. For one thing, I don't remember a whole lot about it. Been telling myself that, anyway. And, you know, there's just some things I'm never going to tell anybody, especially not you, even if I'm not really telling you. There's things nobody ever needs to hear about, not even me. Especially not me.

But she pulled me through, and it was dark over there, and there's no words for the rest of it. And I'm not gonna try.

I know she told people to say I was dead, in the meantime. Didn't then, but I didn't know much of anything for a while there. Except her. I don't know, maybe it wasn't a rumor at all; maybe I was dead. Yeah, I know, king melodrama, but no -- literally. I don't know what all happened down there, wherever there was. Could've been anything.

I don't remember anything about the parade; we were in her place, she told me we were going back -- back where, back from where, I didn't bother asking -- and after that it kinda... blanks out. I was pretty out of it. Or at least, that's the closest thing I can think of to say how I was. I know I fought with Squall, but I don't know if I remember that or I just found out later; I know I lost, too, even though I couldn't believe it then. It's a little easier now. I remember D-District, though, and having a grand old time torturing Squall when he couldn't fight back. You know, like a fucking coward? Yeah.

But the thing -- the thing that still scares me, if I'm gonna stick to the facts like I said I was -- the thing is, for a while there at the time, I really believed it. I thought I was doing the Right Thing, for the first damn time in my life. Everyone at Garden was wrong, I'd been right all along, it didn't mean anything if I'd fucked up there, now I'd been born again and I knew I was right and it was all okay. And it made sense then, I swear it did. Of course it did. Garden was a bunch of evil mercenaries, how could I not have known there was some huge horrible secret about SeeD, something that threatened her? Squall was just another whore, no wonder he didn't care -- and so were all the rest of them, wind-up dolls, never thought about anything but money and themselves. Nothing like her. And you got cast as my old girl who'd gotten too wrapped up in her stupid rebellion and gone over to them. You were all against me, and especially against her. Everybody was against her and me except her and me, and they all had to pay. And pay. Sure, it made sense. Just like beating up your wife and kid makes sense, while you're doing it. Drunk's logic.

And the thing is, for a while there, I really did love her. A knight has to, I think; that's the rule. More than you, more than Raijin and Fuujin, much more than staying alive. If she'd told me she needed me to die, I would've nailed myself on a cross just so she'd know I was serious. And it's funny -- remembering that part doesn't scare me so much. There's worse things you can do for somebody than die.

But one way or the other, she was right about one thing, at least: no more games. I was all done playing angry god. I had a goddess now; and I knew when I was beat.

It wasn't long after I headed a missile strike against my home of ten years that Raijin and Fuujin caught up to me. Once I had them back, I started feeling a lot more like my normal self.

See, that's me being ironic. Nobody normal would ever have to say the first part of that sentence.

Actually, I guess that's not very ironic.

Still. We picked them up in Balamb, once the whole Garden-to-go thing had gotten underway. Soon as they had the B-Garden flying around, I sent a bunch of soldiers to work on getting the Galbadian one doing the same thing. Never said I was original. I was busy -- getting new troops trained, looking for Ellone -- and I ended up leaving them there to run things on their own. Still, it was good just to have them around again. Just knowing they had my back like always.

Truth is, I was scared. I was starting to pay attention to where I was and what I was doing again, and half the time I didn't know where I was and I didn't know what I was doing, and the stuff I was in charge of wasn't just out of my depth, it was the middle of the fucking ocean to some dumb green kid fresh out of military school, and I knew it. She might have been running me, but I sure wasn't anybody's idea of the epitome of competence, and I knew that, too. If she cut me loose for some reason -- I didn't know why she would, but I didn't have any trouble believing she could, if she wanted to -- I wouldn't stand a chance. So, having some stability, something to remind me of the old days when I'd felt on top of shit... yeah, that was good. That was okay.

Ever driven a medium-sized boarding school? No, I bet you wouldn't have, but I guess you might have seen it done. Let me tell you something, they can't corner for shit. Pretty good for ramming other medium-sized boarding schools, though. I didn't do much steering, but I sure did appreciate the guys who did -- or I would have if I'd thought about it. Mostly I was just busy running the place. I always knew what she wanted, and I always did what she wanted, even though she didn't say much of anything to anybody; mostly she just stayed in what used to be the headmaster's office, now all full of shadows and her curtains, wearing her mask and sitting on nothing. I wasn't exactly a crazy fan of her decorating scheme, and I hated all those times when she wouldn't say anything and she had that bird-beak keeping me from telling if she was mad or not, but that last was really the worst for some reason: not that she could just sit in the middle of space like that, but knowing that she had so much power that she'd just as soon do that as sit on something that existed. Creepy. No, creepy doesn't come close to it.

And I was starting to realize I didn't like looking at her -- like a doll, a puppet, something somebody else was moving, and in this world when I could see her face she looked like Matron. But not like Matron. Maybe like a side of her I'd never seen. I wasn't used to that; in her own place, she didn't look like that. She didn't look like anything at all. Actually, I think maybe that's why she wore the mask all the time: she wasn't used to having a face.

Look at this dumb kid, wouldja, standing out on a hotel balcony in the safest little beach town in the world and pretending his hands are only shaking from cold. This big dumb fucked-up kid who never knew what was going on but kept going with it anyway. Who's he trying to fool, do you think? It's not that cold out here.

Yeah, she scared me. I loved her, but she scared me bad, and tell the truth, she still does. Even now, with it all over, I've got to fight not to capitalize her pronouns in my head. Do you blame me? ...No, I won't ask that yet.

But you know, it's not like she had to, either; she could've been nice if she'd wanted to. She could be nice. I think... I think she scared me because I wanted her to. Because there was some deep down part in the stem of my brain that said I was supposed to be scared like this, this was the way it was always supposed to be. That as long as I was scared, as I knew there was somebody upstairs who was bigger and stronger and who made me cringe every time I tried to talk to them, I'd be home. And what kind of shit is that? What the fuck am I supposed to make of that noise? That she just reached in and plucked out how that was what I needed, and she was right. Of course she was right. I loved her like a wind that knocked me down.

I don't know. I still don't know.

I don't know why I keep trying to go around the edges. I'm telling this story backwards and sideways and every way I can except the right way, and I can't make myself cut it out. Except it's fucking five in the morning and there's this late-night movie going, You Can't Go Home Again by Seifer Almasy, directed by the sorceress Ultimecia, may she rest in peace, and I want to be the worst critic, I want to say, hey, that guy on the screen can't act for shit, who'd ever think that was me, but I can't. It was. And I keep talking about plays and movies, but it was my fucking life, you know? This is your life, Seifer, take it or leave it already. And... shit, I don't know what I'm talking about. What good's it doing anybody, me going through this trash?

I'm so fucking tired.

Here, let's have a couple more fucks for good measure, 'cause you know how swearing fixes everything. Fuck fuck fuck. There we go. Now where the fuck was I?

Right. Gardens. Big fight. Shit kicked out of me again. Twice. Guess I wasn't any better at being a knight than I was at being a SeeD, huh?

I remember Squall leaning over me, at one point. I think the fucker was actually making sure I was okay. I tried to tell him you wouldn't be able to beat her; I'd say I didn't know if it was a brag or a warning, but it'd just be more bullshit. I knew, all right.

Come on, what'm I trying to say here? ...I'm trying to say I know how she worked, as much as anybody does, and it wasn't an accident. I don't think she just grabbed you because you were there; I think it was mostly for me. So I'd get my shit together, maybe. Because when she was you, that was a lot worse than Matron. That was just one big fucking mess in my head, if you know what I mean. When it was you leaning over me and picking me up, but it was her, but it was you, and telling me I was worthless but there was one thing left I could do... well, I guess you can see how that shook me up a little.

And even if you don't, I guess it worked, because I got up and went to find Pandora.

But it was in the first few weeks there of looking for it -- when I was rounding up soldiers to haul the damn thing out of the ocean -- that I really seriously started to think about walking out on the whole mess. Raijin and Fuujin were gone; they'd skipped out during the fight with the Gardens, so I was on my own again. And... well, she wasn't exactly keeping me company.

And why the hell shouldn't I go, anyway? I'd already screwed up once; what if I did it again? What if I just couldn't do anything else? I didn't feel protected or special anymore, I felt like a dumb kid who's in the doghouse for breaking the window with a baseball, and that was something I could really do without. I wanted out, while there was still an out to go to. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to fix what I'd fucked up, and I wanted what she'd said she'd give me; but more and more I wanted to run, too.

And then, when I finally got into Lunatic Pandora and was scouting it out -- sure, on my own, why not? -- I climbed all the way in to what I guess you'd call the control room, and on the ground in front of all the big glowing tubes and globes, sitting there like it owned the place, was a brand-new unopened bottle of Scotch. Probably the same brand Daddy drank, though fucked if I can remember. Nobody'd been that far inside the big brick since the control system was installed, but the bottle looked like it couldn't have been sitting there more than an hour or so.

I guess, in the end, some conclusions are just foregone. I guess every wheel eventually turns around back to the place where it started.

I guess these are lousy fucking excuses.

So I drank half the bottle, puked a few times, drank the rest, passed out stone cold on the weird glowing floor, and slept like a rock until morning.

And when I woke up, I was hung over as hell and felt like shit, but I didn't feel like running anymore.

One of the first things I figured out was that the day after drinking is like the day after a really hard workout; the best thing for it is more of what made it hurt. No problem with that, either: the bottles just kept showing up. It got so it didn't even surprise me after a while.

I had no idea how to drive the damn thing, but she helped me out with that too, I guess. Whispering in my ear, or in my brain, or somewhere. So eventually I got the controls figured out, and I just headed where she told me to go; later, I wondered how much steering I really had to do at all. Not that it really matters. There's probably a law in Esthar against driving giant monster beacons while intoxicated, but hey, there're probably laws against breaking Adel out of prison and trying to end the world, too, so what's the difference. Yeah, go ahead and try to give the commander of the entire Galbadian army a ticket. Get the time-traveling body-hopping sorceress, while you're at it.

It's funny, you know, in that way that it isn't funny at all: how the first time in my life I really felt like an okay human being was fighting Galbadia, with you, and the second time was running Galbadia, with her. I'd say ironic again, but you know, I find myself not knowing what I mean by that, exactly. Most of the time, people say "ironic" when all they really mean is "stupid".

So.

I was pretty wasted most of the time, from there on out. At some point a bunch of soldiers dragged Ellone back to the brick, and I guess at some other point the Lunar Cry brought Adel down, but I sure as hell wasn't paying attention. I did notice all the monsters running around eventually, though; mostly they left me alone. And then I could feel her, and that was really all I needed to know.

I don't know why she stayed in Adel all that time. I'd have thought she'd want you back, but maybe that's just me. She didn't even seem to mind being in the Tomb; actually, I think she kinda liked it. Nice and quiet in there, maybe. No bullshit to put up with. And I don't know if it was me being so smashed, or her not having that goddamn mask on all the time, or even her looking like Adel and not anybody I knew, but somehow she didn't freak me out so much while she was in there. Matter of fact, when there wasn't anybody to order around and there wasn't anywhere to go, I went in there and talked to her for a while. Just talking and talking. I don't really remember what all I said -- don't really want to -- but I'm pretty sure she was listening. Probably laughing at me in there. This drunk fucked-up kid of hers, telling her all the shit she already knew about him. How funny is that?

Maybe you could tell, and maybe you couldn't, but I was trashed when you guys showed up. Sincerely stone fucking drunk. I could still fight -- could've done that in my sleep by then -- but I sure as hell couldn't think, and I'd be real surprised if it didn't show. So I didn't, don't, still don't blame the guys for leaving when they did; I wish they hadn't had to see me like that at all. I think, honestly, I would've gone with them, if there'd been any way I could. I think that's why I let em go.

Only thing I don't get is why they haven't left again. But that part comes later.

So, ass kicked for the third time. No big surprise. And dammit, I swear to god I wanted to be through with it right then, I wanted to just lie there and drown in my puke like the lousy fucking excuse for an anything I am, leave it up to all of you what happened after that, just leave me out of it, but no. She wouldn't let me. I know I can't defend myself, not for what happened after that; I did it on my own, and I can't say she made me. But I can say one thing: that she wouldn't let me. The bitch wouldn't let me just die.

And what happened after that... ... no. I can't talk about that right now, even with my mouth shut. Maybe I should get a big blackboard, the kind they use in schools that aren't spoiled rich Gardens, write I will not feed people I love to monsters on it a hundred times, then erase the whole thing and do it again and then again. Maybe after a couple years of that, I might have the right to talk to you about it. But not now. Not at five in the morning when all I want's to drink myself to sleep. Right now, I've got nowhere to begin.

So I'll keep this short and to the point: We fought, I lost. And I took you to Adel, and I gave you to her, and then I passed out cold on the floor. And I'd make another crack here about being a lousy knight, but you know, come to think of it, I think that's exactly what she wanted from me. Do your job, and get out of the way.

Yeah. No problem.

Obviously, I don't know what happened after that; but I hear time did compress, just for a little while, which should probably mean more to me than it does. Guess that explains the dreams I was having, anyway. If they were dreams. Can't see how it matters either way.

I mean, it's not like I remember them.

*

They lied. You can go home again.

(Thud. "Seifer." No, you never heard it, you didn't hear a word.)

Today Seifer is not playing, because he is hiding from Daddy. Sometimes this works, though it is of course unpredictable. Daddy is not a force to be predicted, or reckoned with. Barely survived. Daddy drank all morning as he hammered the boards up into the walls to keep the rain and wind outside, cursing the hurricane female under his breath, clearly offended at being given no reason why it has chosen to hit him. Had Seifer the age and words, he might have been able to present some insight on this subject, but he is still five and under the bed, singing in a little boy's choked tuneless voice. He doesn't remember all the words.

(thud no no NOT THERE)

(Blacks and bays dapples and grays all the creak on the stairs I heard it run I have to but the doors are all "Seifer." Pretty horses. Pretty little horses. Please. Please. Please.)

("Seifer." Not real. Lions. The jungle. The wind. When you wake, you shall have, nothing nothing nothing nothing)

His legs are much shorter than his father's, and he almost doesn't make it to the stairs. He can hear the hammer swing, whoosh, and without pausing to consult him the base of his brain twists him jerkily to one side, letting it pass harmless inches from its intended target, high on his spine. If it had landed, he would have felt nothing again, but Seifer's hand is up to catch himself on the wall, and the hammer comes down glancingly on his forearm instead, splitting the bone like an axe in wood. Pain explodes, black and red flowers, an angry beast set free. He screams out of practice, it hurts less that way, and they are both almost frozen by the desperation in his child's voice; it doesn't sound human. Only the wind answers, though. Rain pain.

He can hear the wind throwing sand now, in true petty fashion, and the rumbles and thuds as it uproots bits of human life and tosses them aside. What do they mean to a storm? The rain sounds like a rusty drill boring into this dark kitchen, where it is otherwise silent except for the soft ticking of a board on a loose nail, and the sound of Seifer's breathing. Outside, the windchimes sound their unnecessary call. The linoleum is cool on his cheek and the backs of his legs below his shorts, and it warms slowly to his skin as he lies there, not moving. He tries to stay still, because he knows it wouldn't happen, not really, but he can't shake the thought: if he moves, if he shows there's still some life in the quarry, then perhaps the corpse on the floor will drag itself up by its hold on his ankle, turning that grin back to him; perhaps it will adjust its head to its funny new angle, and climb to its feet, hammer swinging, saying, You may have killed me, Seifer, but that doesn't matter. I am still your father.

The hurricane crews find him in the wreckage the next morning, and they have to break the dead man's fingers to remove his hand from Seifer's leg. The sound is like snapping twigs. He will never forget it.

*

When I woke up, the place had gone dark, and there was nobody around. And I figured it was over -- or at least that if it wasn't, I didn't wanna know about it.

So I left my gunblade stuck hilt-up in the ground, and I walked away.

Just the facts.

becalming
II

Well, look at that. Sun's coming up. I can just see it turning the ocean all pink and gold, at the edge of the horizon. Pretty, I guess; though it seems like a shame to waste it on me.

Afterward, I found Raijin and Fuujin still hanging around Tears' Point, god knows why. Guess it's a good thing they didn't go off to Esthar, at least, or I would've never found them. Well... good thing for me. Maybe not so good for them. Either way, though, I didn't have to say a word: I just started walking, and they followed just like always. I love those guys, you know. Wouldn't say it to anyone but you, but it's true.

We wandered around for a while. At first we were trying to stay away from the towns and cities and stuff, since it hadn't been too long ago we were the bad guys and all, but after awhile I started to realize we didn't have to worry. Nobody even knew who we were anymore. Even when we came to Balamb, which was extra weird -- I mean, Raijin and Fuujin'd been stationed here for what, almost a week? It was like we'd just slid right out of everybody's heads. But you know, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I couldn't blame them. Who'd ever think that big dumb guy hauling freight on the dock for minimum wage had been a Galbadian captain once? Or that the quiet girl who always looks worried used to be the commander? And that dumb shit getting smashed in his hotel room, the sorceress's knight? Please. Don't make me laugh.

I've only left them once, in the meantime: in Dollet, for three days or so, while I went to see Edea. She's back home now, her and Cid. They're rebuilding the old house by the ocean, hoping to fill it up with their own kids, if they can. I'm glad for them both. I mean that. She deserves the quiet.

She didn't seem too surprised to see me, and she didn't throw me out on my ass either, which was real nice of her, considering. She just looked at me, standing there in the falling-down doorway and feeling like an idiot, and I think she wanted to say something but couldn't figure out what. So instead she invited me in and made tea, which I guess works as well as anything. Cid poked his head in at one point, and he looked kinda worried about the whole thing; but he didn't kick me out either, and I said hi and he said hi and we shook hands, and he poked himself right back out.

So she and I talked. We talked about a lot of things.

I haven't made the trip since then, even though she told me I was welcome back if I wanted. I'd say I'm taking some responsibility for the guys, but really it's just that I'm not safe to travel. Lately, three days is three more than I can get through sober, I'm falling apart so fast. Once you're addicted to it, see, alcohol isn't a drink, or even a drug; it's a slow, wasting disease that just happens to be a beverage. Like drinking a can of cancer. The plague at your convenience.

I'm surprised I even made it through tonight, but I did. I'm kinda shaky and I feel like shit, but I'm still clean, for whatever that's worth. Probably not much.

I told her about you, you know. And she didn't say much about it -- at least not as much as she could've -- but the one thing she did tell me was to go see you. Just go find you and talk to you, and maybe get started clearing up the mess I'd made. Which, hey, sounds like a great plan to me, except for me being fucking terrified of the go see you part.

And then about a week ago, ha ha, I ran into you, on the biggest piece of shit street in this piece of shit town. Just went out to buy some more diseases, and there you were just standing in line at the store, and the sun was shining off your hair and you looked the same as always. Like a knife in my head, through the skull and into the gray meat. Rude fucking awakening.

And you went white when you saw me, and there went at least another ten knives. I thought I wasn't going to have a head left by the time you got done with me. No big loss.

So, as I'm sure you remember, I staggered for a minute and then asked if we could go somewhere and talk, and you said we are somewhere, and I'm sorry, but I don't think I can talk to you. How many knives now? Forty? A thousand?

So I said, hey, fuck you, I've got better things to do than take your shit, so you hate me now, boo-hoo, so long. No, that's not right; what I said was please, don't do this to me, if you want me to get on my knees I will but don't tell me I can't even have a chance. Or maybe I said, look at me, goddammit, what do you think I have left if I can't even hope for you? You think as long as I'm down, you might as well kick me?

I don't know what I said. Probably wasn't any of that. Probably just as well.

But I know what you said back.

You said, "Seifer, I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm just telling you that a lot of things have happened to me, and I don't know if I'm ever going to be the same. And I don't know what you want from me, but... I'm sorry, but I don't think I can give it to you. Not right now. Maybe not ever, but definitely not yet. There's... a lot I have to understand first. There are things I have to think about. And even after that, I really don't know."

And I said, "So what am I supposed to do?"

And you thought about that for a minute.

"Write me a letter," you said, finally. "Just... write me a letter, okay? And I'll read it. And then I'll see if I can write one back."

This hotel isn't all bad, I guess. For one thing, you can just take off your shirt and jump into the water from your balcony, if you're on the first floor and are so inclined. And if you didn't care about those pants anyway. And fucking hell, is it cold in here.

Nice sunrise, pink all over; the sky's clearer than I've ever seen it here. I kind of wish you could see it, though I guess maybe you can from the Garden, if you're awake. Can't think of any reason why you would be, though. The tide's starting to go out, and there's seagulls screeching around the rocks under the hotel and the pier. No wind, no clouds. Just as calm as could be.

I could just stop treading water right now, stick my head under the water and try to hold it there. Or find the current and let it pull me away from shore, and drag me down. I bet if I really gave it a shot, it wouldn't take long at all. Maybe ten minutes, no more than an hour. And then it'd be over.

Hurricanes.

Shit.

No, I ain't gonna drown myself. I don't have the balls to do anything the easy way. In a couple minutes I'll probably just get out of the water, go back in my room, and take a shower, and then I'll open up that bottle of Scotch I haven't been letting myself have all night, and I'll drink myself stupider until I fall into bed, and try to sleep for a couple hours with the curtains open and the sun on my face. And then I'll get up and I'll sit down at the big ugly desk in my room, and I'll write you a letter, just like you told me to. And I'll try to send it before I can remember it's all just for a maybe, an I'll-see, and throw it away.

And I guess what I'm trying to say here, and what I've been trying to say since I started this whatever it is I'm doing, is that this is the letter I'm not going to write. Maybe I should, but I won't, because even if it's the one I need to write, you don't need to read it. I'll get up tomorrow and write you half a page of bullshit, about Raijin and Fuujin and about the weather and about how I'm doing, and in the daylight I'll know better than to let any of this get through; but even so, I think maybe you'll still be able to read this one in between the lines, 'cause you were always really good at that kind of thing. And I guess maybe that's the best I can hope for. If not better.

And the other thing I'm trying to say, Rinoa, even though you'd never know it with how I keep screwing it up every step along the way, is that I miss you.

Fact is, I miss you a lot.

epilogue

Dear Rinoa,

I'd say 'Well, here goes nothing,' except it isn't really nothing, is it.

It's a clear, sunny day, and it keeps making me think of last summer. It rains a lot more in Balamb than in Timber, so all the blue got kind of weird after a while. I'm sure it'll be pouring by this afternoon now that I've said that, though. There's not much wind, either, so the ocean looks really smooth and glassy. It's nice.

I can't believe I'm talking about the weather. Not only is it boring as hell, but it's exactly the same where you are. I'm an idiot.

The guys are doing all right. Raijin's been working down at the dock. He's got this job where he carries heavy stuff around. Not surprisingly, he's pretty good at it. Fuujin's been tutoring some kids, off and on. I think she wants to start teaching her fighting style, but she's still working on getting licensed. They said to say hi. Well, okay, no they didn't, but I'm sure they would if they knew I was writing you.

How's it going there? Is it true Timber's been declared independent? We don't get much news here, but I thought I heard something about that. Congratulations.

All right, so that's the weather, work, and politics. I think I'll just stop here before I can sound like even more of an ass. You know me, I'd find a way.

I miss you.

S

P.S. How's Squall? Tell him

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