Chained to you
Chapter Five
Author's Notes: Slight AU, set before the seed exam but Selphie and Irvine are there and Quistis is still an instructor.
Chained to you
Chapter Five
I stared around the empty space where the camp had stood, only a few things were left disregarded by the group. Broken, unwanted equipment. Seifer set me down on my feet. Still steadying me from behind.
"We’re so screwed." He whispered.
I was thinking the same. He lifted me back into his arms. "Come on we might be able to use some of this stuff."
"They wouldn’t have let anything go that worked or wasn’t of use to them."
"S’okay I’ve always been good at fixing things like this." He sat me back on a patch of grass near to what looked like the remains of my tent after Seifer had put his foot through it. I watched him set it up, all the pegs going back in the ground, tent standing except for the big hole in the side. The sun was up and shone down on us, the light hit something shiny in the far corner of the site hitting me in a the face. I squinted against the bright reflected light. I leaned to the right to try to and get out of the way of it.
"Seifer?"
"Hmm?" He was trying to fold the material to try and fix it but it didn’t work, the wind always undid his work again.
"What’s that?" He turned to look over his shoulder at me then to look at where I pointed. He winced as it shone in his eyes too.
He got up slowly. "Stay here." He told me not that I had a choice.
I watched him get closer to the shining object, pulling it out of the ground and lifting it above his head, the light catching it at another angle letting it change shape into… Hyperion.
I heard Seifer laugh.
"What is it?" I asked. "They left Hyperion?"
The blonde walked back a few steps towards me, now wearing his trench coat over his bare torso, gunblade in hand. He threw me a card. "Here read this."
"This was with your stuff?"
"Our stuff." He corrected and threw me my gloves a picture that Selphie had taken of me and Seifer fighting over food. I studied the card, it was one of those official seed things. In memory of: typed neatly on the top and our names scribbled under it.
"They think we’re dead."
Seifer sleuthed his gun blade. "Not everyone." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a potion. "Dead people don’t need these."
He knelt beside me and held it out. "Now open wide chickie."
"You take it."
He paused. "What?"
"There’s not enough to cure me completely, not enough to get me walking but it’ll cure you and then I won’t feel so guilty for you carrying me."
He hesitated, I pushed the hand holding the bottle away from me.
"Be selfish, you’ve had the practice you know what to do, drink it."
He gave me a look but he uncorked the vial and downed it. I nodded, pleased when he threw it away. "Better?" I asked.
He nodded. "Much."
Seifer helped me closer to the tent. "Here you can…try to fix this."
I gave him a doubtful look "Did I mention that I’m really terrible at this stuff?"
He chuckled. "Yeah I saw what you did to your tent remember?" He laughed.
I frowned. "Hey it wasn’t that funny." I think I pouted for a second time and I quickly got rid of it for a scowl directed at Seifer.
He smiled as he stood, moving his shoulders and touching his chest to check if the potion worked. "You’re cute chickie." He smirked as he left me.
"Hey, where are you going?"
"To get some food and something I left in the woods."
I frowned in confusion, starting work on playing with the tent hole. I glanced down at my aching leg to check on it, I had had to put it on the ground a lot so bit soil and twig and leaves got into it. I winced as I picked the bits out of it. I thought of Seifer going off like that, honestly the guy getting better and suddenly he thinks he’s in charge and can do whatever he likes. I was glad to have my gloves back, hands felt naked without them. I slipped them on and flexed me fingers to get used to them again. I was just looking at the holey tent again when a ground dwelling monster landed at my feet, dead and leaking green blood. I looked up at the sky where it had come from and wrinkled my nose, pushing it away from me with a shoed- foot.
Seifer jumped down for the grass hill behind me. "Breakfast is here!"
"What? You want to eat this thing?"
"Yeah, why not?"
"It might be poisonous." I studied it. "And it doesn’t look very tasty."
"Don’t be such a chicken."
"I’m not!" I yelled at him. "But look at it." I gave it a little shove.
It’s skin was rubbery grey with strange red markings on it, it’s face was all scrunched up in death, eyes tightly shut and legs curled up into it’s body.
"Don’t judge on appearance, if I had done that I’d say you were a little blonde runt." He smirked and I glared at him, making a noise in disgust.
"I don’t get you." This was the Seifer of many faces, maybe it was the turn of arse-hole to make an appearance, hopefully not here to stay.
I watched him skewer the thing on a long stick and gather up the rest of the left-over firewood into a pile. "You junctioned?"
I nodded.
"What spells you got?"
"1 scan, 2 blizzards and 3 fires." I cast one of the fires on the pile of wood, he held the monster kebab over the flames and knelt down beside it. "Tasty BBQ monster." He said, licking his lips.
I looked at him doubtfully. "Uh huh." I sighed. "What are we going to do now?"
"Well-" He sat down probably, making himself comfortable on the hard ground, holding the monster on a stick in one hand. "We’re about 10- maybe 15 miles from Timber, that’s not so far."
"But I can’t walk, you’ll have to carry me and that’ll take ages."
"Then you’d better get used to the food chickie." He handed me the ‘food’. "Hold this."
"What are you doing now?"
He moved towards a bit of material that had been flapping around the camp in the wind, probably half a tent or something. I watched him cut it into lengths with his blade. "Here." He knelt beside me and started to dress my wound as best he could with the bits of material.
"Where’d you learn to do all these secret things?"
He smiled. "Well unlike you chickie I have this thing it’s called a brain and it lives inside my head, it can be quite usefully sometimes."
I frowned. "Arse-hole."
"Would you believe me if I said I was a boy scout?"
"No, I would have remembered, we all grew up together remember?"
He nodded. "How can I forgot?"
"What’s that supposed to mean?"
He chuckled. "Nothing." He pulled the make-shift bandages tight.
"Ow! Tight!"
"It’s supposed to be."
"But you’ll cut off my blood circulation."
He gave me a look.
"But then my leg will drop off."
"It won’t, it’s just to stop the bleeding, you can loosen them in a while."
"How long is that?"
"What?"
"How long does it take?"
He bit his lip. "I think I was sleeping in class that day."
"You don’t know?!"
"Well I knew more than you did."
I frowned. "If my leg falls off, I’m suing you Almasy!"
"You do that but remember who carried you all the way to Timber instead of leaving you to die."
"I wouldn’t die, I’m not some girl!"
He didn’t say anything, taking the food for me. "I think this is done."
"What should we call it?"
"Call it? It’s not a pet chickie, it’s breakfast."
"I know but it’s a new species of monster so shouldn’t we give it a name?"
"Maybe." He put the cooked monster on the grass and used the stick and his gun blade to cut it open.
"That’s not very hygiene." I muttered.
He rolled his eyes. "This is the wilderness chickie, besides I thought you’d be used to food that could give you food poisoning after all those hotdogs you eat."
I gave Seifer the finger. "My hotdogs are great!"
"Then you should like this then." He grinned. "How about we name it Hotslug? Looks like a slug tastes like hotdogs."
I rolled my eyes.
He pulled off a piece of the dark meat and handed it to me. "Take a bite."
I gingerly took it and sniffed at it.
"Come on chickie it won’t bite you."
I slowly bit into it and chewed gingerly. Not as bad as I thought, tasted a little like rabbit except for the odd after taste.
"Well?"
"It’s okay, sort of."
He grinned in victory and ripped off a piece for himself, taking a bit. "Tastes better than it looks."
"And smells." I added.
Seifer cocked his head. "You know it looks a little like Squall."
"I does not!" I chuckled.
"I does, you know when he scrunches up his face in a scowl, that’s what this thing looks like."
"Oh yeah." I chuckled.
"Think we should call it the Squall-slug." He grinned mischievously at me and handed me another piece of meat.
"Yeah he’ll love that."
I watched him start to fix the ripped side of tent again, while chewing on his breakfast. I frowned as he took out a tiny roll of what looked like sticky tape. "Where’d you get that?"
"Before the two groups split up, Raijin and Fujin were here and Raijin had this stuff, he kept ranting about fixing Fujin’s weapon after he broke it." I smiled. "But she wouldn’t have it, she said it would look tacky."
"They’ll miss you." I said.
He nodded. "And your mother, she’ll think you’re dead."
I looked up quickly. "MA! I didn’t realize-"
"They think we’re dead chickie, if we don’t get back in time they will probably sell our stuff and cross us off the garden register."
I jumped up, or tried to. "Then let’s go then!"
I instantly wished I hadn’t jumped up, my bad leg crumpled beneath me, pain shot up my spine and I fell- into Seifer’s arms.
I frowned in confusion, my head throbbed as I looked up into a pair of green orbs above me.
"Let’s hold off on the charge just now okay?" He said.
I groaned in pain as in set me back on the ground and offering me more meat.
Great, ma thinks I’m dead, she’ll probably loan my room out to a travelling bum and I’m stuck here with Seifer.