Chapter Text
Seifer’s favorite sound is — quiet.
That might sound like a smartass response to that kind of inquiry, but he’s not good enough with words to describe what he actually means any better than that. The concept of “quiet” is hard to pin down when he spends ninety percent of his time on the water and the sounds of wind and waves are so built into the background of his life that the absence of them is more noticeable than less. FH is a loud place — peaceful, but loud, with the added white noise of machines, boats, construction, creaking metal, and always, always people fighting to be heard themselves over it all.
He takes his little crummy motorboat way out past the city limits sometimes, further than he’s — well, legally supposed too, and probably further than is strictly safe, but whatever — he can go a long ways out without losing sight of the Horizon Bridge, and he needs all of that distance sometimes just in order to think clearly. Or to stop thinking.
Sometimes he’ll go under the city, through the barricades and the mazes of steel and iron supports that hold up the city far above (which, while not technically illegal, is also pretty unsafe and is kind of frowned upon.) Down there, every single noise is so magnified, the rushing of the waves echoing back at him off the metal structures. And that’s loud, too, but it’s — an understated kind of loud, calming.
It’s nice, it’s a peaceful life, he gets by with the fishing and the odd jobs at the docks and the occasional mechanic work, and it’s — uncomplicated, that’s the most important thing. He only answers to himself, there’s no bullshit politics in this kind of lifestyle, he doesn’t really have any friends but he doesn’t have any enemies either, which is more important. Everyone pretty much leaves him alone and after everything, that’s the best he can hope for, really.
Or, well. That was the case at least, until about a year and a half ago.
He’s parked himself a ways northeast of the city today, not too far out. He does tend to lose track of the time, because hours and days honestly don’t mean anything anymore now that, for the first time in his life, he can just live at his own pace and do whatever the hell he wants to, which mainly involves being far away from people. But he knows it’s Friday today, and it must be just about three o’clock, because he can first hear and then see the train coming into FH from the east, and despite himself his spirits lift a little bit. He shouldn’t — he tries not to get his hopes up, it’s uncool — but nevertheless, he starts packing up what he’s doing so that he can head back into the city before the train arrives.
He hates himself just a bit, but he can’t help it, it’s — it’s become some kind of, like, Pavlovian response, and he feels like a damn dog on a leash sometimes, but it’s too late now, he got sucked into this thing long ago already, he’s under, he’s down for the count. He might as well try to fight a rip tide.
He’s back in town before three thirty, which means he has plenty of time to start unloading his haul and supplies onto his stretch of dock, so that he can look properly busy and nonchalant and not at all like he’s waiting there specifically for someone to show up which he’s definitely not because that would be lame.
And there, right on time, just after four — a far-away silhouette on the bridge, shouting his name and waving him down excitedly, cheerful and loud and as obvious as can fucking be.
(And, well. Okay. Maybe quiet can be a little overrated sometimes.)
It’s about a year after he left Garden the first time Selphie Tilmitt shows up in FH. Seifer stayed at the academy for a couple weeks after a short stint in Estharian prison during the humiliating and drawn-out spectacle that was his trial. Galbadia had wanted his head on a platter — Esthar had retaliated with all kinds of research and precedent that under the sorceress’ control, he wasn’t in his right mind (he fucking wasn’t,) and eventually the consensus was that Seifer couldn't be fairly held accountable for his actions any more than Edea or Rinoa could, and since Galbadia wasn’t going after Rinoa, he was protected by proxy. Garden offered him asylum but it wasn’t a huge step up from prison, frankly, so he took off as soon as he could after the pardon was official.
FH seemed like a good a place as any for him, with no marketable skills besides killing, and a measure of infamy that was inescapable in a big city like Deling city or Timber, or even in Balamb. He wasn’t exactly welcomed to FH with open arms, either, but he keeps to himself and rarely goes up into the city, and most of the type of people who live and work down by the docks and the harbor are that sort of crochety that’s not directed at him particularly but at everyone across the board. So he fits in well enough there.
He’s not in touch with anyone from his old life. He doesn’t want to be. He assumed the feeling was mutual.
The first time he runs into Selphie in town, he doesn’t really recognize her, but the expression on her face when she sees him is that familiar combination of hostile and surprised that he’s used to seeing when he’s recognized. She’s coming out of the train station just as he finishes his shopping and is contemplating going over to the little cafe next to the platform to get a smoothie or a fancy coffee or something, just as a treat, because he doesn’t get out much. (And he didn’t want to go out today either, but he’s sick of crappy packaged meals and pub food and needs to eat a fucking vegetable once in a while. And it’s orange season, and Balamb oranges are so fucking good. They come in fresh every week at the little produce stall he usually hits up when he makes the trip to the upper city, the frequency of which is generally dependent on how many jobs he got that week, although, honestly — fuck it, fresh produce is worth splurging on, it’s the only indulgence he lets himself have, really.)
Anyway. He’s not thinking about oranges when he spots her coming in his direction from the train station. He’s mostly thinking about how much he hopes she’s not planning on approaching him, and trying to remember her name and decide whether or not he can plausibly pretend he doesn’t recognize her.
She stands in place on the station stairs for a minute, watching him, and Seifer tries to act unbothered. After a bit, she goes to sit on the bench, still staring, but doesn’t come over.
Seifer spends some time quietly panicking as he tries to remember which crimes in particular the girl is probably holding against him. She was in Dollet for their SeeD field exam, right? The messenger girl. Her hair is shorter and obviously she’s not in uniform, but he’s fairly sure. She had chased him down when he went off on his stupid hero quest at the radio tower. She graduated with Leonhart and Dincht (she had followed orders.)
There’s something else, he thinks, something on the tip of his tongue. She wasn’t from Balamb. She was a transfer student. She transferred from—
Oh, yeah, he remembers now.
But she doesn’t do anything except sit there outside the station for a while and watch him, although that’s unnerving enough as it is. When he heads home ten minutes later, she’s still there, fucking — watching, evidently unbothered that Seifer knows she’s there.
It kind of throws off the rest of his day, to be honest. He feels — unsettled. Restless. It’s been long enough that he’s mostly shaken off the paranoia, but it’ll never be entirely gone — there are still a lot people who’d be more than happy to put a price on his head if it got out where he lives, and even if he’s been more or less safe for the last year or so, he doesn’t exactly want to go around announcing his location. He doesn’t know if Garden was keeping tabs on him after he left — he wouldn’t be surprised if they did, but he also hasn’t ever noticed anything to indicate he was being surveilled or something like that. Mostly, he’d hoped that no one cared enough to go looking for him.
It doesn’t seem, from the look she had, that messenger girl had been expecting to see him there either. So he tries not to worry about it. Takes his boat out under the city that night so he can sleep on the deck and get the full force of the ocean waves echoing back at him, which is enough white noise to keep him from thinking himself in circles all night.
It honestly doesn’t even occur to him when he goes back next week, at just about the same time of day, that it could happen again.
He’d forgotten about the whole thing, actually, until she strolls out of the station on Friday afternoon, swinging a weekend bag back and forth and smiling cheerfully as she emerges into the sun. Cheerfully until she spots him, of course. Their eyes meet for a long couple of seconds.
Well, whatever. He’s just living his life and minding his own fucking business here, he’s not bothering anyone. If Garden wants to send someone to blatantly spy on him just to learn that, he can handle the scrutiny.
She sits on the little stone bench outside the train station again and watches the bustle of the crowd filtering in and out of the market stalls for a while. But most of the times when Seifer looks over to see what she’s doing, their eyes meet, and she’s not pretending she isn’t watching him, either. By the time Seifer is finished with his shopping, he’s kind of ticked off and feeling unusually confrontational, so he goes across the street to just get this fucking encounter done and behind him.
“What do you want?” she asks with suspicion, getting up from her seat as Seifer approaches.
“What do I want? You’re the one who’s sitting here fucking watching me,” he spits back.
“I wasn’t sure it was really you.”
“Okay, well, you can be sure now. Is that all? Can I get back to my day now?”
“Do you know who I am?” she challenges.
“Yeah,” he replies, but she stares him down silently for a couple moments before he realizes she’s expecting an actual answer. “Messenger girl. From squad A. Right?”
“Wrong, try again!”
“Transfer student from Trabia.”
Her face puckers up like she has a whole lemon shoved in her mouth. “Do you know my name?” she hisses.
Yes, he does. He’s pretty sure he does. He must have heard someone say it at some point. On the mission in Dollet…? No, maybe before that, when they were getting assignments? Or after that, when they were announcing the passes…? His memory is pretty shoddy these days, and there are a lot of holes, but he knows who this girl is. Somewhere.
“Selphie,” he says, when it finally comes into his head. It’s strange, because he doesn’t have any specific memory of actually meeting her or learning that, but… well, it was in there somewhere.
“Yeah, and don’t forget it,” she says sharply.
“Did you want something with me, then?” he asks after a minute passes without any further commentary from her. She’s just glaring and sort of studying him like she’s not actually sure what she does want from him.
“What are you doing here?” is what she finally says.
“Buying oranges.” He holds up his shopping bag to show here.
“In FH.”
“I live here.”
“Why?”
“Wh… why?” he repeats, a little thrown by the question which feels weird somehow. “I gotta live somewhere.”
“Here?”
“Where do you think I should live, then? Under a bridge somewhere, maybe? A nice hermit cave in the mountains?”
“I don’t think you deserve either,” she admits.
“I won’t call you for my next real estate investment, then,” he says dryly. Some sort of twitch runs across her face, like she almost smiled at that but stopped herself in time.
“What do you do here?” she asks next snidely.
“Dunno how that’s any of your business.”
She doesn’t seem to have a retort for that, and the conversation, such as it is, lulls for a moment or two. Seifer has to wonder if there’s some point she’s intending on making and if so, whether she’s going to get around to it any time soon. “I’m surprised the mayor lets you be here, you know, with how they all feel about SeeD around here.”
“I never was SeeD,” he sneers, an admission that still stings even after all this time and all the distance he’s gotten from his past, distance which seems to have shrunk to nothing all of a sudden with this tiny little scowling reminder of his worst crimes standing there staring him down. And they both know she has a point, but as much as FH hates Seifer on principal, it’s about the furthest removed place he can be from Garden and SeeD and there’s an element of protection here for him just in that. FH Public Safety wouldn’t put up for a second with any shit Seifer dared to start in their city, but they also wouldn’t let SeeD come marching in here to try peddling their own brand of shit, either.
“You’re a war criminal,” she hisses at him with clear, unconcealed disgust.
“Yeah, that’s not news, Tilmitt. I can assure you I haven’t forgotten that and no one around here has, either,” he snaps back. “So, did you have a point besides that, or what? I’m not bothering anybody, don’t fucking bother me.”
“Your existence bothers me!”
“Good. I’m leaving.”
She doesn’t say anything, or make any attempt to stop him, but Seifer still feels really uneasy as he leaves, and he refuses the urge to turn and make sure she’s not following him as he makes his way back down through the city towards home. Maybe he’s a little over-paranoid, but — well — no, this is probably exactly the right amount of paranoid to be in this situation. Things here in FH have been peaceful for him so far, but he was bound to run into some aspect of his past that wanted a direct confrontation eventually, he just wouldn’t have expected messenger girl to be the first one.
(Maybe some really deluded part of him thought, once upon a time, that someone would come looking for him — maybe Leonhart or Trepe, on orders, or maybe Rinoa, because despite everything, Seifer thought she might be soft-hearted enough to forgive, or at least still care for him. When months passed without any indication that it mattered to anyone what had happened to him, he let that half-baked optimism go. His opinion these days is that if anyone had any good-intentioned reason to come find him it would have happened in the last year and a half or so, so he’s probably not wrong to be wary of this new development.)
Selphie Tilmitt, though. A very glaring (literally and figuratively) reminder of what was arguably his worst crime.
Fuck, he’s gonna need a drink.
Morally, it’s kind of impossible to separate his extensive list of bad decisions and actions into quantifiable categories. He doesn’t necessarily remember most of what happened during those months, his brain didn’t want to remember, it was as much an innate defense mechanism as it was a result of the delicate deconstruction and haphazard reconstruction of his psyche that was performed over time. He knows that, but he doesn’t consider it an excuse. He could have probably lived in — if not blissful, at least shrouded ignorance. But he didn’t want that — he wanted to know. Needed to know.
He studied, he requested information, he read and reread all the court transcripts and the documents detailing his lengthy list of crimes. He has memorized, as close to comprehensively as is possible considering the circumstances, the catalogue of all those terrible things. He had to carry the weight of that, that’s just his fucking due. And he does, every day and every night.
Still. What happened to Trabia Garden — what he did to Trabia Garden — was arguably the worst of all those crimes, because ultimately it was just… fucking unnecessary. Trabia posed no threat, militarily speaking. They didn’t even have SeeD graduates, for fucks sake, just — cadets. He might as well have bombed an orphanage. No Trabian citizen will ever forget it — Selphie Tilmitt certainly hasn’t. As well she shouldn’t. She has every right to hate him, to wish him harm, to owe him harm, even. If she walked right up to him and knocked him out cold with her nunchaku the next time she saw him, Seifer wouldn’t even blame her.
She doesn’t do that, though. She just strolls into the bar that same evening and marches right up to plop herself on the stool next to him like she belongs there. Seifer is so taken aback that for a moment he thinks he might be hallucinating.
He’s in his usual spot at the very end of the weather-beaten bar, watching the spotty coverage of yesterday’s game on the ancient tv overhead, drinking whatever swill is on tap this month, he doesn’t even know, it’s probably gonna be terrible but only slightly less so than the other offerings here. (He’ll regret it, he always does, because the bartender never flushes the line and the tap beer makes him sick every time, but he’s decided it’s a fine night to make himself suffer a bit. Because why not. He deserves to feel as shitty outside as he does on the inside sometimes. It’s part of the schtick.)
He’s not a big drinker anyway, but it’s something to do to get out of his head, and anyway he likes baseball, and very occasionally the FH Fishheads win a game which improves the general morale down here enough to affect even him a little. Plus, being a pathetic drinking loser in public is personally acceptable to him, but he refuses to make it a private habit — that’s too slippery of a slope and he has some dignity, after all. And Reg lets him borrow the upstairs bedroom sometimes if it’s not currently being let, because once in a while Seifer does benefit from sleeping for a whole night in a real bed under a roof.
He’s not that deep into his night when she shows up, but his first thought after what the fuck? is that she must have followed him at some point, which is a bit impressive because he thought he was pretty vigilant throughout the afternoon. And she’s not exactly subtle in her bright-ass green little dress and ankle boots with big stacked heels. She must be stealthier than he’d have expected. Right up until the point where she strides over to where he’s sitting as if she was invited or something, that is.
She sticks out like — well, like a cute girl with a bright dress in a run-down pub full of fishermen and dock workers all enjoying their miserable lonely existences together in silence. Her appearance takes even Reg, the bartender, who is notoriously unflappable in Seifer’s experience, by surprise a little. “Get you something?” he inquires in a grunt after Selphie takes a seat, filling the silence generated by Seifer’s absolute failure to make any kind of greeting come out of his mouth due to shock.
“Do you have a drinks menu?” she asks.
“We have beer. We have whisky. We have grog.”
“What the heck is grog?”
“You don’t wanna know. It tastes like piss and seawater,” Seifer mutters.
“Eugh. Okay. Um, what beers do you have?”
“Millet… Millet Lite… special on tap this month is the Fish Tongue ale.”
“Is that what this is called?” Seifer remarks. Selphie’s face is doing some interesting expressional gymnastics as she apparently tries to pretend she’s interested in any of those options.
“Do you have a… a vodka and cranberry?” she tries.
“I can get you a vodka and vodka,” Reg says with straight-faced sarcasm.
“Um… orange juice? Lemonade? Anything?”
“What on earth makes you think a place like this would have anything like that to drink, Tilmitt?” Seifer inquires dryly.
“Okay. Um… I guess I’ll take a Millet Lite.”
Reg takes two steps over to the fridge, grabs a beer, and flings it down the bar toward her.
“Uh… thanks,” she says warily, even though he’s already walking off. He didn’t even pop the cap off the beer bottle. Selphie stares at it for a couple moments in some confusion before Seifer grabs the bottle and cracks the cap off against the bar top.
“Why are you following me?” he asks bluntly, handing it back to her.
“I didn’t follow you.”
“Oh, okay, please try to convince me that you walked into this place for any other reason than to bother me,” he says dryly. “Please. I could use a good laugh.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to bother you, but I didn’t follow you to get here,” she replies snidely. “I asked around. It’s not like you’re not infamous around here, you know.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to forget,” he mutters, taking a swig of his beer. It’s not actually as terrible as the name might suggest.
“Something’s been bugging me,” she says after a couple moments, studying her beer but evidently not quite brave enough to take a drink yet.
“What a coincidence, something’s bugging me right now too.”
“You said — you called me ‘messenger girl’, ‘transfer student’ — is that how you remember me?” is the question she finally asks.
It’s not the question Seifer was expecting, not by far. Maybe, if he had to guess, something along the lines of “why did you do what you did?” or “what made you turn against Garden?” or perhaps even a simple, “what the fuck is wrong with you?” He had fully expected something frustratingly rhetorical, a question he can’t answer, even to himself. And he wasn’t prepared to have an answer, either, so he has to stop and think for a moment or two to decide how to respond to that.
“Look, I’m sorry if you’re offended, but we didn’t exactly get formally introduced while I was running off to disgrace myself at the radio tower,” is what he finally says, because that’s really all he can say. Something about his answer apparently surprises her, because her expression suddenly flips from disgust to — something else.
“Well, you didn’t — disgrace yourself,” she says in a moment, in a tone that’s a bit confused. That comment is an even more unexpected response from her. When he doesn’t say anything else, because what the hell does that mean, she adds, “I just mean. You were doing what you thought was the right thing. The mission was a success.”
Seifer is absolutely speechless. Neither the sentiment, nor the tone of it, makes any sense to him at all. In the silence, Selphie picks up her drink and takes a long swig, and then makes a very scrunched-up face and a sort of gagging sound.
“Ouuuggh. What the heck is this, it’s so bad!”
“What do you even want a drink for? Planning on staying or what?” he asks in a dry tone, but with a bit of genuine curiosity. Selphie shrugs at him, and then defiantly takes another drink of her beer.
“Yes, actually. I have questions for you.”
“I can tell you right now, I probably don’t have answers for you. So maybe you shouldn’t waste your time,” Seifer tells her wryly. When she says nothing, just giving him a piercing state, he realizes he’s going to have to elaborate, so he continues, “look, I don’t remember. I can’t make you believe that but it’s true. I know what I did. I can’t tell you why I did it.”
“You destroyed Trabia Garden,” she replies scathingly.
“Yes, I did.”
“That was my home,” she hisses.
“Yes, it was,” he says wearily, “and nothing I say or do can change that, or make you forgive me. Or make me deserve forgiveness. You have more than every right to hate me and I am fully aware that I can’t change that either, and I wouldn’t want to waste my time trying to anyway. I realize that’s not what you want to hear, and it’s not the answer I want to give you, but that’s all I can say. Okay?”
She just stares, taking that all in. He knows it’s a lot to hear — fuck, it’s a lot for him to say, too, but he’s spent enough sleepless nights going over it all again and again and again to know that’s the best answer he has. The sooner she accepts that and fucks off, the better for both of them.
“I won’t forgive you,” she says shortly.
“I just told you I’m not asking you to.”
“You’re not even — guilty, are you?”
“Again, Tilmitt, I’m completely aware that nothing I tell you will make you believe this, but I assure you that I feel that guilt and regret and — and shame, all of it, every fucking second of every day,” he says, chugging down his beer. He has to — get the fuck out of here, this conversation is starting to be too much for him to handle calmly. “Nothing you do can make me feel worse about myself, okay? If it makes you feel better to sit here and give me shit for a while, have at it. I won’t stop you.” He doesn’t really want to do that, but it feels courteous to at least offer to let her vent her feelings. He doesn’t have anything else to offer, does he?
Selphie drinks some more, grimacing with every gulp of her terrible beer (he has no idea why she seems determined to drink it regardless) but apparently she doesn’t have anything to say in response to that. “Is that all now, can I go?” Seifer asks, not that it’s really a question but if she has more to say to him, he figures he should make it clear this is her chance, because he is going to have to make a concerted effort from now on to avoid encountering her, if that’s possible. It might have been a coincidence that she showed up in FH when she did and that she saw him, but she purposely spent time asking around where to find him and then actually showed up to that place as well. That was deliberate. And she said she has questions, Seifer doesn’t know what they might be or whether he’s answered any or all of them yet, so it’s more than feasible that she would do it again.
(She’s gutsy, though, not only to come down to this part of the city to find him but to actually spend time canvassing these people for information. About him. Seifer Almasy.)
She looks like she can’t decide whether or not she does want to tell him he can go. Seifer is not about to wait around for her to decide. He drains his glass and pushes it back to the other side of the bar, and then gets off his barstool. That seems to trigger Selphie into action, too, because she hops down as well and trots after him as he’s walking away.
“Don’t follow me.”
“Well, I’m not done with you,” she says in a scolding sort of tone.
“I’m done with you.”
“Nuh-uh. You don’t get to decide that. I have more questions for you—“
“Yeah, I get that, Tilmitt, but I’m telling you I do not have any answers to give you. So maybe let’s not both waste our time,” Seifer tells her snidely, shoving through the heavy bar door and letting it slam shut behind him, hopefully right in her face, so she gets the picture. A second later though, she’s followed him outside. The heels of her boots on the wooden walkway are loud even amongst the roaring sound of the ocean in every direction.
“You are so rude,” she huffs, which is an insane comment to make because there’s no possible way she could have thought this encounter would go amicably. What the hell was she expecting? Even at his very best, Seifer never was either polite or friendly to anyone, other than his posse, but even then they had a different kind of love language than the kind of friendships that he imagines Selphie has. “Don’t you even think you owe me an apology?”
“What good would that do? Would you believe it?”
“No, but it would help to know that you at least think it’s necessary,” she says — well, she’s yelling, really, to get her tiny voice above the sound of the waves — but that comment does stop him short. A little ways behind, her footsteps come to a halt as well. Seifer turns around. She’s about twenty steps behind him, and looks about as out of place as possible on this wet, grungy walkway in the dark, run-down armpit of Fisherman’s Horizon. She inexplicably still has the beer bottle in her hand.
“I don’t think it’s necessary,” he says coolly. “I think you’re going to hate me no matter what I say or do, why should I pretend I don’t know that? Don’t fucking follow me anymore.”
He turns back, takes a step. Behind him there’s a clack of her boots on the dock.
“Look, bitch,” he spins around again to snarl at her in the most menacing way he can, “I swear to god, if you follow me one more step, I’m going to walk off this pier into the fucking ocean. Follow me there if you want to, I won’t give a shit. Or get. Back.”
And she does, although the staggering step backwards is out of shock more than anything. She looks — horrified. Whether that’s at his hostile tone or the threat itself is unclear, but it’s the response Seifer wanted.
“S—Seifer, that’s—“
“You think I’m fucking kidding? Do you think I have anything to lose?!” he cuts her off. “Try me, Tilmitt. Come on, fucking try me. Then you can go back to your shiny little Garden life and tell them you finally got rid of Seifer Almasy. You’ll be a hero, won’t you—“
“Shut up!” she screams back. “You are so horrible! What the hell is wrong with you, Seifer?” She flings the beer bottle at him, and it bounces off his shoulder and smashes on the walkway between them, spraying him with an arc of shitty lite beer in the process. “I’d never — never—”
“Good, then leave me the fuck alone,” Seifer barks back.
There’s a half-moon and a couple grimy house lanterns around them, and it’s a dark night but it’s enough to see that the expression on her face is disgusted. For a second, Seifer almost believes she’s going to challenge him, that she’s actually going to call his bluff.
If it is a bluff. He’s not entirely sure himself.
They have a long staredown (she’s got a pretty impressive death glare, actually, for a tiny, cute thing. Ten pounds of rage in a five pound bag.)
Then she does take another step back. She puts up her hands in a gesture of surrender. Seifer, despite himself, breathes a sigh of relief somewhere deep down. (Interesting.)
“I can’t believe you’d even say such a thing,” she says coldly. “You are such a horrible person. How do you live with the ugliness?”
Finally, with that, she turns back and stomps away, until she’s swallowed up by the muggy darkness of the night. Seifer remains in place for a long while after that.
(Of all the questions she could have had for him—
—Maybe that was the worst one.)