Title: Carousel
Fandom: FFVIII
Characters: Seifer, Rinoa, Fujin, Edea, Quistis.
Genre: Drama
Rating: M

Other: Done for seventhe's Meme of Five
"Five times Seifer Almasy hooked up with somebody (and the one time he wished he hadn't)"
Unfortunately this came out less funny than I had hoped so there's actually only four parts, and hookup #3 counts the same as the 'one time he wished he hadn't.' Plus, he doesn't actually hook up in the fourth path, not really at least. When I wrote it, I didn't think of it as a pairing, but it might have come out that way in the end anyhow. I'll have you all know that this did spring from a plot which originally ended up with a happy, drunken Seifer waking up in a surprised Zell's bed.

---

The very first woman Seifer ever laid was Rinoa. He was full pride and the sort of confidence that only youth could imbue; they met over a lazy summer vacation in Timber.

"So what's your name?" she asked him, her lips curved into a friendly smile. She looked a little bit younger than him; fifteen was no age to be joining a resistance faction, he thought to himself. Then again, sixteen was no age to be taking part in a mercenary school like Garden. He shrugged it off and focused on her plump, pink lips, which were infinitely more interesting than her age or her resistance faction.

"Oh, come on. Show me yours and I'll show you mine," she said with a brazen wink. Okay, so she was young and naive, but Seifer had to hand it to her. She certainly wasn't timid.

"Name's Almasy," he told her, a cocky grin spreading across his face. "Seifer Almasy."

"I'm Rinoa," she offered, her lips parting into a full-blown smile. Her teeth were just as rounded and perfect as the rest of her. "You're with SeeD, aren't you," she observed.

"You have a good eye," he admitted with a careless shrug. "Still just a cadet, but I'm workin' my way up there," he told her proudly. "Wouldn't be caught dead in one of those gay uniforms, though," he added with a sneer.

Rinoa tilted her head and squinted at him, humming lightly. Then she graced him with a dazzling smile. "I don't know. I can almost picture it. I think you'd look kinda cute."

"Cute, huh?" he said, turning and eyeing her speculatively. She wasn't that bad looking after all; he noted with approval that she seemed to be a fan of tight, stretchy clothing and indecently tiny skirts. The more he studied her legs, the more he thought he might be in love. "I don't do cute, Rinoa," he told her, liking the way her name rolled off his tongue. She seemed to like it too, because her smile grew even wider.

"Oh?" she said coyly, lifting one shapely eyebrow. "So what do you do?"

"Dangerous," he told her, giving her what he hoped was a matching grin. Then he let his eyes travel down the length of her fitted sweater, lingering on the creamy patch of thigh left exposed by her shorts. "And you, if you'll let me," he muttered appreciatively. He hadn't expected her to actually hear that last part. So he was still somewhat reeling in surprise when she wrested the lead from him and began talking up a storm. A very rapid storm, which was very quickly followed by an invitation to leave.

"And go where?" he asked as she grabbed onto his coat and pulled him towards the door.

She sent him a mischievous smile. "Does it really matter?" All too soon, it became clear what she had in mind. Pushed up against the back wall of one of Timber's local magazine publishers, hidden between a few large, empty crates was hardly the time or place Seifer would have thought he'd have his first serious encounter with the opposite sex. Or any kind of sex at all; Rinoa, however, was pushy, demanding and a lot less shy than she looked.

"Hey, you sure you wanna do thiiiisss..." His words trailed off into a sharp hiss as her tiny hand cupped the front of his pants. Her fingers were unusually strong and flexible, and he had to bite his lip to suppress the groan that bubbled to the surface. She said nothing, hungrily nipping at the flash of his exposed throat; that her kisses and bites were a little too wet and unexpectedly clumsy clued him in to the fact that she was just as inexperienced as he. So they were both good actors, he noted wryly, at least until it came time to deliver the goods. Still... and she was making it hard for him to hesitate, especially when she did that thing with her tongue -

"Rinoa."

She pulled away from him, flushed, and huffed angrily. "What?" she asked. "Don't you want this?"

The look in her eyes, of bravado barely covering a nervous uncertainty, gave him the warning. One little push, one misstep in that whole bad boy act, and the little fiction being woven around their illicit tryst would reveal itself for what it truly was - messy, sweaty, and not particularly romantic or comfortable teenaged sex. But something else warned him too - that she needed this, the painful gropes and the silent denial of the obvious and the rush; that refusing her, while the right thing to do, might hurt her more.

Seifer had never been one to quibble with morals; he was young, so was she, and the sex was free. So she had a little emotional baggage hiding somewhere behind those large brown eyes and luscious pink lips? He could handle it. He always did want to be someone's knight in shining armour, after all. And if he got a little on the side, what harm was there in that?

"Just wanted to take another look at you, beautiful," he covered, reaching for her once more. Her smile broadened, and she stepped into his outstretched arms willingly.

Later on, when he knew her a little better, he would understand what had happened. It wasn't so much his winning personality or his handsome features that landed him that score, as much as he would've liked to believe. It was more that he was everything her father didn't like - young, brash, mercenary, SeeD. That he was nothing more than a conquest, or perhaps even just a point to be made in some messed-up father-daughter rivalry stung at his pride; the hurt, however, didn't actually register until almost two years later, when he saw her dancing with Squall.

. x . x . x .

He didn't think his second woman would be Fujin; in fact, to be honest, he couldn't imagine Fujin sleeping with anyone. She obviously loved him and Raijin because they were members of the Posse, which was practically family. But she was also a buddy. You didn't sleep with your buddies. That, in the end, was also why he made the first move. He found her in the Training Centre, leaning on the railing and letting the wind ruffle her short, white hair. She was surrounded by an oppressive air of melancholy.

"Fuu? That you?" he asked carefully.

She didn't reply, only shooting him a baleful glare from over her shoulder, as if to silently ask if he was really that stupid. She had a point; being the only albino in Balamb made her a little hard to miss.

He sighed and scrubbed at his neck with a gloved hand in irritation. "Alright. Dumb question," he said, joining her on the balcony and lighting up a cigarette. The Disciplinary Committee had confiscated a few packs earlier from some wayward students; Seifer had no problem holding onto some of the goods for 'closer inspection.' Fujin, however, gave him another clear, disapproving glare.

"DUMBASS," she said, plucking the cigarette from between his lips and tossing it over the side of the railing.

He watched it fall guiltily; it wasn't the lost cigarette that made his head droop, but the angry girl next to him. "You know we didn't mean it like that, Fuu," he said quietly. "Raij and I were just messin' around, that's all."

Fujin's lips compressed, her eye still narrowed with fury. "BOY?" she asked bluntly, her question dripping with sarcasm.

Seifer winced, his fingers twitching for the missing cigarette. "Well, you are one of us. You're part of the Posse, Fujin. Wouldn't be the same without you."

"BOY," she repeated flatly, some of the fury dying from her eye, only to be replaced with disappointment and a muffled hurt. "FREAK," she added, crossing her arms.

Seifer swore under his breath. Well, it was crystal clear that she wasn't 'one of the guys' right now. In fact, Fujin was dangerously close to approaching that hallowed 'girl territory' that he had once thought was completely foreign to her - complete with sniffles and tears. In a way he was disappointed; he had thought Fujin was made of stronger stuff. But in another way, he understood - she really wasn't a guy, and she didn't like girls, no matter what current rumour was floating around on the Balamb social network. Fujin simply didn't like stupid, frivolous things. She didn't do girly, not like his Rinoa did; that didn't mean she wasn't a girl, though.

Fujin shifted slightly, and Seifer studied her nonchalantly from the corner of his eye. She wasn't all that bad looking, actually; if you could get past the messily cropped white hair and single burning red eye, Fujin was actually quite delicate. She was tiny, especially in comparison to her two towering companions, and very slender. If she hadn't chosen to habitually mask her boyish curves under those genderless military pants and formally-styled uniform jacket, she'd actually be quite a looker. Especially when she was mad; it brought a heightened flush to her cheeks that helped alleviate the stark paleness of her colouring.

And she was definitely mad right now. Well, Raijin had told him to do 'whatever it takes, ya know' to get them back into her good graces. He wondered if it would be considered 'cheating' if he was doing it for the sake of friendship. Ah, the noble sacrifices one sometimes had to make - it was all in a day's duty for a knight, he figured.

Fujin sensed his shifting mood and stiffened, whipping her head around to glare at him when he leaned in and snaked his arm around her waist.

"SEIFER," she grit out. "YOU. ME." She reached over and shoved him away. "NO."

"Well..." he admitted, giving her a cavalier shrug to mask his disappointment. "I thought it was worth a shot. Anyway, at least you know now what I think of you."

"STUPID," she said after a moment, though with more amusement than she had previously had. "RAIJIN?" she asked in exasperation.

Huh. How to answer that one. "Well, yeah, it sorta was his idea, I guess," Seifer told her. In a manner of speaking. He knew of Raijin's pathetically not-so-secret crush on Fujin; in all likelihood, if he followed through on his plan, Raijin would become just as pissed as Fujin was now. Seifer was pretty certain that doing Fujin wasn't what Raijin had meant when he instructed Seifer to do anything. But what Raijin didn't know wouldn't hurt him. Still, maybe it was better this way; on the off chance the big man did get wind of certain activities between the other members of the Posse, Seifer was sure he wouldn't be willing to go to these same lengths to bring Raijin back into the fold.

Fujin simply rolled her eye and glared at him crossly. "FAKE," she grumbled with a note of disappointment.

Whoa. What? "You mean, you would if it wasn't just for that?" Seifer paused as new and interesting possibilities slowly began to filter through his mind. So as long as it wasn't contrition sex, Fujin would be receptive to his advances?

Fujin sighed heavily, her eye flickering. "FUN," she admitted reluctantly. Then she gave Seifer a critical look. "BAGGAGE," she added crossly.

Now it was getting really interesting. "So, you mean, you wanna have sex, but you don't wanna deal with commitment?" Seifer asked her cautiously. Maybe she really was a guy on the inside. Or at least, a guy's dream come true. After all, Fujin did like contact sports just as much as they did - at least, you'd think that from the way she threw her weight around on the Disciplinary Committee - and she could still put them all to shame when it came to their beer belching contests. Either way, it was a heady mix that he was finding increasingly attractive by the second.

"FUCK BUDDIES," Fujin agreed simply.

"I really hope that was an imperative," Seifer replied, reaching for her eagerly. He paused as another flicker of disappointment passed over Fujin's face.

Shit, he thought privately. Maybe he had been assuming too much; what she was saying had sounded too good to be true. He was certain Fujin was going to start in on him with all that girly tears and emotion crap again. He got enough of that from the few times he saw Rinoa already; he didn't need it wracking his Posse now, too. He began to pull away from her but stopped when she grabbed his wrist and forcibly pulled him closer.

"RAIJIN," she explained crossly at Seifer's look of confusion. "NO BALLS." She gave Seifer a critical once over and then shrugged. "MAKE DO."

Ouch. Well, there went his pride. It wasn't often that Seifer was bested at anything by Raijin, but apparently he wasn't Fujin's first choice for a partner after all. Well, he could work around that. All those little details seemed significantly less important when Fujin was already busily pulling down the zipper of his pants. "I got more than enough balls for the both of us," he told her with a grin, eagerly reaching for the button of her collar.

"PROVE IT," Fujin commanded him. So he did.

. x . x . x .

Edea was not Seifer's third time, but she was his third woman. Or more correctly, she was the third woman he had the pleasure - or the horror - to experience. The horror coming from the fact that she was a possessed, psychopathic murdering sorceress. The pleasure coming from the fact that she was, in addition to being one fine looking woman, a very thorough and excellent teacher. That, and that logic, time and even space had started to become disjointed in Seifer's perception. He no longer knew the date or where he was; all he knew was the pull of Edea's golden eyes, drawing him in. He lived for her commands; he was her weapon, her knight, an instrument to be used as she orchestrated. He didn't need SeeD anymore, he was something better. He could show them all; show them that he wasn't a failure, that they were the real losers. And she - Edea - was magnificent, a dark jewel that eclipsed the light of the sun. He could see nothing but her.

Her lips parted, and he was surprised to find that her teeth were not pointed. She beckoned to him, and he came willingly; he was her knight, her servant, he obeyed without question. He didn't remember how he had wound up in her arms, in her bed. Floating amidst a heady sea of pleasure, a bright flash of light caught his eyes. It was a shaft of moonlight spilling into the warm yellow candlelight of the room, strangely out of place with its cool, pale light. A rustle of fabric, a whisper of silk, and Seifer felt his eyes threatening to close as her lips wrapped around him. And then white fire was racing up his spine, a thin veneer of pleasure that was barely covering the burning, raw ache beneath. It was agony. He felt as though a desert wind was blowing through his hollow body, eroding at what little bits of self he had left to call his own. In desperation, his eyes sought out the cold patch of moonlight on the floor, a lonely square of clarity in the stifling heat of the room.

A memory whispered at him from the paleness; of alabaster skin and a red eye; of an encounter that didn't taste of pain and desperation, of a time when things had been simpler. There was no room for fun or laughter now; his Sorceress was deadly serious. Her lips left him only to be replaced by dangerously long-nailed fingers. He let out an uncontrolled gasp and his balls tightened when she squeezed him almost cruelly. His eyes drifted to the top of her head, and another memory whispered at him, of dark hair that fell around him like a curtain, framing a soft pink smile. Edea's lips, in contrast, were dark, the purplish black of a bruise. When she smiled, it was a joyless thing. She rose above him, ageless, glorious, her dark hair sweeping around him and blocking his view of the cool moonlight. The nipples on her breasts were as dark as her wine-stained lips; she guided his hands to them and settled against his length, her mouth parting in a ferocious smile.

"You will have no more distractions, my knight," she told him, her voice deceptive velvet, but her eyes cold steel. His back arched as she thrust her hips against him in an urgent demand, her grin widening. Seifer blinked; he had been wrong; her teeth were as pointed as her nails. She clamped around his shaft, and the sensation of sharpness, of pain, of being pierced struck through him, even as he fought against the uncontrollable tide of pleasure that was rising.

"You are mine," she hissed lowly, and he felt himself scream, the light melting into a blackness parted only by her cruel laughter.

. x . x . x .

It was a long time before Seifer ever slept with another woman, and for that he was glad. Edea had taught him many things, including the limits of the human body - his body - and he wanted nothing more than to forget all of it. When he met up with Raijin and Fujin again in Balamb, after everything, they had accepted him with open arms. He noticed instantly the change, however - they could no more go back to being the old Posse than he could go back to being their unquestioned leader. His friends were loyal, yes, but also wiser. He didn't mind. He had made enough mistakes for several lifetimes; he didn't need to add more of theirs to his conscience.

There was another reason for the displacement, besides the obvious fact that he no longer belonged in the sun and the light and the carefree happiness of Balamb. Raijin tried to be discreet; he could tell, as he had also once tried to be discreet. But he knew Fujin well enough to see that she had moved on; or perhaps he had forcibly pushed both of them out during his bout of madness. Their blind faith in him had left them with nothing to cling to but each other, and now he was their third wheel.

So he wasn't surprised when they didn't go searching for him after their brief, disjointed reunion. He was surprised by who did, however.

"Trepe," he swore, wiping a dribble of blood away from the corner of his mouth and he recovered from her blow.

She cracked her whip in return, eyeing him coldly. "What, no Instructor this time?" she asked, circling him warily. It was pointless, really; the war had changed her, just as it had changed him. Quistis had always been a competent instructor, even when she was younger; now she was absolutely lethal. Whereas he was little better than a sack of potatoes, at least when it came to fighting. In fact, come to think of it, potatoes probably were more lethal; at least you could throw those. He couldn't even lift Hyperion anymore without his hands shaking visibly. So he didn't make the attempt.

"Trying to run away again?" she asked, her brows furrowing slightly. She had caught him just outside the train depot in Dollet; lacking money but at no loss for recognition, he had been trying to stow his way out on a passing cargo freight. To where, he didn't know. Somewhere as far away from everyone else as he could get; the Island Closest to Hell sounded like a good destination, though he had actually been aiming for the Shumi Village. He stole a page from Squall's expansive book, answering her with a dull "whatever." That caught her attention, and her whip lowered marginally.

"Why aren't you fighting back?" she asked, her blue eyes narrowing suspiciously. He mumbled something, and she tilted her head in confusion and leaned in. "What? Speak up, I can't hear you," she snapped, her voice falling back into its familiar Instructor cadence.

"I said I can't!" he finally roared at her. "You want proof? Here, see?" He held up Hyperion, letting it glint in the cold moonlight, and already the metal of the blade was clattering noisily in his hands. He remembered another strip of moonlight, another bout of madness, of the thick, heavy feeling of pleasure that coursed through his body as he fucked his own mother -

Hyperion hit the ground with a loud crash, and Seifer's hands were cupped around his head, gripping his short blond hair and pulling at it painfully. This, more than anything, seemed to convince Quistis of his honesty; Seifer and she were similar in that regard, always doing their best to appear flawless before others. Now, he was a shadow of his former self, ragged and pathetically weak - in front of one of his worst enemies, no less. He wondered if she'd perform a mercy killing; Quistis knew him well enough to understand the depth of this particular humiliation.

"You're pathetic," she said finally, folding up her whip and stowing it on her belt.

Figures, he thought. Quistis always had been a cold bitch, at least to him. He heard the sound of her boot heels clicking against the concrete, and they came to a stop in front of him. He looked up at her wearily. "Well?" he said irately, glaring at her. "Gonna arrest me for war crimes now?"

Quistis silently perused him, her entire face radiating disapproval. "What happened to you?" she finally asked. "You're hardly the boy I remember, the one who managed to overpower me and the rest of the Detention Centre team just for the sake of helping out his girlfriend."

Seifer sat back on his heels, resigned to his fate. So Quistis wasn't here to kill him after all; it figured. He wondered if she was just talking to clear her guilty conscience. She was, in a way, partly responsible for who he was today; she had let him get away. At least, he knew she'd see it like that. Hell, on some level even he saw it like that. Before, he might have taken pride in his skills, in being able to overcome his own Instructor. Now, he could only wish she had been better back then - or that he had been much, much worse.

"That kid was killed in the war," Seifer answered her directly, meeting her gaze. "There's only me now." A short silence loomed between them, and growing irritated, Seifer finally broke it himself. "Well, if you're not gonna kill me, have you got a smoke?"

"I don't smoke and neither should you," came her immediate, automatic reply. Then she shifted her weight uneasily, and he gave a little inward groan. Here it comes, he thought to himself.

"Seifer. When you were with Matr- Ultimecia," Quistis amended quickly as he stiffened. "Did... something happen?" She let the sentence hang politely, and Seifer felt the churning rage, the ball of sick, disgusted anger that Ultimecia's possession had permanently left behind bubble in the pit of his stomach. He shot to his feet and grabbed Quistis, turning her and slamming her into the rusty metal sheeting of the wall. And for a moment, he saw Rinoa, smiling back at him eagerly. Another moment and he saw her screaming for mercy as he fed her into Adel's waiting arms. And in Adel's smile, he saw Edea's teeth, pointed and grinning, gleaming in the candlelight as she rose above him like a glorious demon. And then there was only Quistis, her eyes wide, her breath coming in heavy pants, and flakes of rust and dirt still showering around them from the force of the impact.

Pale, perfect, beautiful, untouchable Quistis; she probably drifted through the war as easily as she had drifted through her classes. A real-life flesh and blood iron lady. He hated her; he hated her strength; he hated that she had become everything he had once wanted and now could never be. "Oh yeah, something happened," he hissed, his grip tightening around her arms. He was sick of being polite and tap dancing around the issue; he wanted to shake Quistis, to see her perfectly coiffed hair fall around her in haphazard waves, or see that crisp, tailored suit tattered and smeared with dirt. He wanted her to be as low as he was.

"You want to know what happened?" he snarled, leaning in, letting his sour breath blow into her ear. "I'll tell you. I'll even show you," he hissed, running his hands over her shoulders and down the front of her vest. He stopped at her breasts, clutching at them tightly and eliciting a sharp cry of pain; there was nothing tender about his caress. "Oh yeah," he told her as her breathing hitched, continuing his brutal exploration of her body. "I touched her like this. I ran my hands all over Matron, and she liked it." He bent his head and sniffed at the juncture of her neck deeply; he wasn't surprised to find that Quistis smelled like oil and leather. She was one of Garden's top war machines now, after all. He wondered why she hadn't pushed him off yet, and continued to paw at her gracelessly as he spoke. "I wanted her, too," he whispered harshly into her ear, grinding his pelvis against hers forcefully. He was close enough now that he could feel the wild pulse of her heart under his lips; they brushed against her skin as he continued to speak.

"I wanted to fuck her and I did, I took her every way you can dream of and more than a couple you can't," he growled. "I liked it." The memories were pouring back into him now, the ones he desperately tried to bury and forget; it was Edea again, his own mother writing beneath him, towering above him, with her blackened lips and her dark smile. His frantic struggle to force himself against Quistis' body slowed and stilled; his voice broke. "Oh Hyne, I loved it." He sagged against her, the angry lust that had choked him deflating quickly and turning into bitter self-loathing.

Their breathing stilled, and after a few more minutes, Seifer began to wait with a growing sense of dread for her response. His forehead was still buried in Quistis' shoulder, his face pressed into the leather buckle of her battle vest. He was tense, waiting for her to move, most likely for her knee to come up between his own to add a more distinctly physical aspect to the pain.

What he felt, instead, were her arms circling around him; and then a gloved hand, carefully cupping his head. She didn't punish him for his half-hearted attempt to rape her, nor did she try to respond to his brutal advances and kiss him. No; the memory was faint, but there, buried somewhere underneath the huge pile of shit that had become his life since those innocent childhood days. She was hugging him, hugging him gently, and he realized faintly that she was talking to him, whispering soothing, quiet words into his ear.

"Shh, Seifer. Calm down. Try to calm down," she repeated as she gently stroked the hair on the nape of his neck in a steady, soothing circle. It was only then that he realized his entire body was shaking, just as badly as his hands had when he tried to lift Hyperion. She was still talking, and he focused on her gentle, low voice and the soothing smell of leather and oil. "You're safe now," she whispered. "I'm here. Quisty's here. I'll take care of you."

The memory was growing stronger now; struggling to win against the encroaching darkness of Ultimecia's sharp teeth and voracious appetite. Her black smiling lips were fading in the memory of a sunlit summer day, her malicious laughter being drowned in the gentle sound of waves. It was an ocean, and sand, and a collection of children too young to realize what it meant to be broken. Arguments with Squall, teasing Zell constantly. And an angry, frustrated Quistis pulling them apart, always trying so unsuccessfully to throw herself into the role of their Matron. A chill wracked his body; just the hint of that name threatened to pry lose his hold of the shaky memory; then he felt Quistis' arms tighten, as if she could drive that darkness away with a hug and a few soothing words.

"Let it go, Seifer. You don't have to be strong anymore. There's nothing left to prove," she told him, and he cringed against her, his hands balling into the fabric of her peach vest. "Let go of your pain," she commanded, the hint of a sternness making its way into her voice.

"What if I can't?" he asked hollowly, still bunched uncomfortably against her. "You don't just get sane again after something like that, Quisty. It's never gonna go away, not for someone like me. Go back to your hero friends and leave me alone," he mumbled roughly, though his hands didn't loosen in the slightest. He felt her lips form into a wry smile as she planted a displaced kiss against the crown of his head. It hurt, because he could feel the pity burning through where her lips had touched him. It hurt even more, because he couldn't gather enough strength to reject it; he was reduced to accepting pity from Quistis like a whipped dog. A Sorceress' lapdog. He bristled, trying to rally his pride one last time. "I don't need you."

"Let me be your knight, and I'll protect you," she answered simply.

His ragged breathing stilled, and he sagged against her in defeat. When they finally separated, he looked away from her in embarrassment as she straightened her clothing. "About that," he said uselessly, trying to find the proper words. "Sorry," he finished lamely.

Quistis, once she had straightened herself out, looked back at him coolly, her professional mask firmly in place. "There's no need for that," she told him briskly. "Clean yourself up and let's go."

"Go where?" he asked suspiciously, wondering what happened to the flesh and blood girl who had hugged him from moments before.

"Garden," she said, gathering his gunblade off of the ground. It was much too big for her, but she hefted it up with both hands and threw it over one shoulder. Then she hesitated; after a moment's consideration, she quickly stripped the glove off of her free hand with her teeth and then, unexpectedly, reached for his own.

Seifer recoiled instantly, both from her words and her touch. "Are you batshit insane?" he snarled at her angrily, trying to snatch his hand away. "Squall's gonna have my head on a fuckin' pike quicker than you can say Galbadia!"

She was persistent and faster than him, and his vehement protests died down as her warm, bare fingers closed against his own in a firm grip. "I told you, I'll take care of you," she repeated without fanfare, and he realized with a jolt that she was perfectly serious. Somehow, he had managed to bag the great Instructor Trepe, and he hadn't even been trying. It was too bad the mere thought of sex brought bile rising to the back of his throat. It didn't seem to matter at that moment, though; he was ready to get off that wild carousel ride and plant his feet on solid ground. And, he thought as his hand went slack in her own, things didn't get much more solid than Quistis Trepe.

Something like a smile began to pull at his face, and he let her pull him away from the ruined building and towards the light of the town. "Knight or not, if you tell the chickenwuss about this I'm gonna have to kill you," he remarked casually, feeling some of his old confidence returning.

Quistis jerked on his arm, sending him stumbling forward to walk next to her and simply rolled her eyes. "You can test my loyalty, but don't try my patience," she replied cattily, as though the past half-hour had never happened, and he was the same old Seifer and she the same Quistis. Only their linked hands told him differently, but as they neared the entrance to the town, that warm hand gave him a reassuring squeeze.

Seifer drew a deep breath, staring at the city and thinking of all the things he had done wrong. There was still time to go back, to leave Quistis and escape to his own destiny of obscurity. He thought about Rinoa and Fujin and all the things he had done wrong, and wondered how badly he'd dent up Quistis' perfect life. Well... she was offering, and he had nothing left to lose. He always had been selfish when it came to women, after all.

"I'm ready," he told her.

And he was.