Disclaimer: I am making no profit from the works contained herein, the characters and places belong to Square Enix.

Author's notes: this was written completely over two days while I had no net, finished on the second day at college. Do you know how hard it is to write pron in a library with people wandering past?!

His head felt as though a hexadragon had tap danced its way through his skull, a steady, roaring ache of a pain. It almost made him feel nauseated, the even throbbing agony that prevented him from thinking beyond that pain, and he struggled to his feet. His limbs felt weak, his hands trembling violently as he found a support on the bare plaster walls, his knees almost giving way as he righted himself.

The worst of it was that he couldn't remember why he felt so weak and horrible.

Seifer limped away from the ragged, dusty mattress, feeling his way to the doorway.

He could barely see in the darkness, the slenderest of crescent moons shone through the open window, thick with dust and cobwebs. He could just about make out a dusty sofa pushed against one wall, an old lamp with the shade at a strange angle. The door was open, allowing him a view of the desert stretching out into infinity in the darkness.

There was a figure sat out on the porch.

Seifer moved closer cautiously, the floorboards creaking beneath his weight. He half believed that the figure with slumped shoulders was familiar, though he couldn't put a name, or a face to the form.

"Almasy, you should be resting." The voice was huskier than he remembered but instantly recognisable.

"Leonhart..." Seifer's voice came out in a rough croak that surprised him. On reassessment he decided his throat did feel decidedly scratchy and tender which would explain the coarse tone to his voice.

A thin curl of smoke wound its way from the hunched shape, accompanying a soft sigh. "Yes. Go back to bed."

"No... Where...?" He coughed, his lungs burning as he tried to force the words out. As he doubled over leaning heavily on the door frame, his stomach rolling violently and threatening to empty itself onto the cracked and broken wooden floor beneath his feet.

Squall stood slowly and the cigarette hanging from between his lips flared one last time as he turned around, briefly catching on the scar and the faintest of lines that were beginning to form around his mouth and eyes before it flickered to a dull red and was tossed carelessly to the floor, ground out with the booted toe of one foot.

Seifer straightened slowly; his ribs burning with the effort expended in just that simple action and frowned. Squall was a good two inches taller than he remembered, his pale features seeming washed out and even whiter than before in the moonlight, his eyes turned to silver and coal black flares that drew his gaze into them and kept them locked there more securely than any chains or stop spells ever could. He seemed the perfect, gothic tragedy of a figure, classic angles and greyscale colours. "How did I get here?"

"I brought you here." A gentle hand rose to his shoulder to coax him to turn and head back in the direction of the bedroom. It was only then that Seifer noticed he was only wearing the barest of outfits, a pair of drawstring pants that clung low on his hips, hastily tied in a loose bow. Squall's hand felt cool on the hot skin of his shoulder. "Come on."

Seifer very nearly shrugged it off, but the bubbling, burning sensation that lingered in his lungs and limbs made him feel weak and the opportunity to argue passed unseized. "Hardly the Deling Ritz, is it?"

His teasing was met only with silence until he was seated on the bed again, the dust rising as his weight disturbed it. "Sorry. Need to keep a low profile."

And then Squall was moving away, out of his reach to switch on the overhead light, the room filling with a harsh, sickly yellow tone of illumination.

He was surprised at the figure that turned towards him.

Squall was still as slender and pale as ever, his beauty refined and even more prominent than he remembered. He almost seemed older, the faintest ghosts of lines daring to appear at the corners of his eyes. He looked tired, a little haggard and thinner now.

"So, why do I feel like a T-rexaur just smashed into me?"

"Side effect." Was all Squall answered, returning to perch carefully on the end of the bed. He looked worried, which made him seem even older.

"Gee, that's real informative Leonhart. Side effect of what?" He was tired and annoyed by his own weakness.

"Stasis."

Just why that word filled him with a sense of dread Seifer couldn't pinpoint. His head was too fuzzy to narrow it down and single out a reason. "You're going to have to explain that to me Leonhart, musta missed that lecture."

"How old do I look Seifer?"

The question surprised him. Admittedly Squall looked older but he couldn't have aged. After all it had only been a few months since the war had ended. "Seventeen, that's how old you were, right?"

Squall chuckled softly, a soft, humourless noise of a laugh that made Seifer's heart beat faster with fear. There was something sleeping within his subconscious that ate away at him, making him feel even more vulnerable than the leaden weight of his limbs. He knew it was about to come out with the words that Squall would speak, if he even would.

The pale brunette seemed to debate it for a few moments, whether to tell him the truth. Finally he sighed. "Cryogenic Stasis. It's a technology that resulted from research into sealing sorceresses. It slows time to the point of almost stopping it completely for the subject." He dragged a hand through his hair and brushed it back, only then did Seifer realise it was longer, brushing shoulders now but the bangs still hung in his eyes in that familiar style. "I'm twenty two, almost twenty three, and you've been frozen for five years. They say sometimes the subjects have trouble with their memory on the first few days after awakening. It's why you feel like hell too."

"Who said I feel like hell?"

Squall eyed him, one eyebrow delicately raised in an amused arc. "And you were doubled over because you like being eye level with my crotch?"

"Well I wasn't going to say anything but..." Seifer's voice trailed off as his head ached harder, as he remembered the long haired guy with green eyes standing and watching him sadly, as the ice cold water poured in and sealed him up what he'd thought was forever. He clutched at his temples, the bubbling scream of agony spilling from his lips before he had a moment to still it.

He'd been sentenced as a war criminal. He had been the sorceress' knight after all, the one almost as much to blame as the Sorceress Ultimecia herself. The trial had dragged on for weeks, and even Squall himself had begged the judge and jury to spare his life, to keep him out and alive and anything but the death penalty. He'd never known cold could feel so awful, never knew it could burn hotter than fire in those last moments before the last of his thoughts had ceased.

When he'd stopped crying out in agony, he found himself wrapped in the strong arms of Squall Leonhart.

"I tried Seifer. It was this or death."

"Maybe I should've died." Seifer murmured, his voice cracking with the force of his emotions. Loosing five whole years was as bad as death; he might as well have gone one step further and allowed them to off him once and for all.

"Don't." And Squall still hadn't released him, his cheek still pressed against Seifer's hair.

That in and of itself was a complete marvel to him. Squall touching, holding him. The affection and comfort was not at all unwelcome but felt so strange and unlike Squall that it made Seifer wonder just what he'd missed. He lifted his head to gaze at the brunette.

"You're really twenty two?"

"And feeling like fifty. Sixty before my first cup of coffee." Squall withdrew his arms slowly, but Seifer caught his arm and pulled him close. So he'd wanted to do this for years and he wasn't about to let himself be locked up without knowing it at least once. Hyne knew when he'd come out again if they managed to stick him back in that awful tank. Hyne knew how old Squall would be next time.

He kissed his old rival, surprised as Squall returned it with just as much passion as he demonstrated. The pain melted away slowly as Squall's hands drifted over his skin, leaving the tingling healing feel of a curaga in their wake. The worst of his aches and pains melted into nothingness and he pulled Squall square into his lap, squeezing his ass firmly.

"Seifer..." Squall hissed in pleasure as Seifer's lips traced along his jaw and down his throat. He let his head fall back, baring his throat for his old rival eagerly, rocking his hips against Seifer's, grinding against his hardening cock. "There's some... something I need to tell you..."

"Later Leonhart." Seifer growled. He didn't want to hear a no, or a plea to stop, he'd wanted this for far too long to stop now.

"We're at war, again..."

Seifer unfastened Squall's belts roughly, the leather of his pants easily yielding to the adamant action of his fingers. He found Squall's sex already hard, eager to be touched and he hadn't the patience to wait and tease. He could wait for that easily, he could linger over the whole thing another time, now he wanted take Squall by any means necessary.

"Another sorceress." Squall arced up into his touch, his fingers sliding through the sticky short mess of Seifer's hair, clutching him and keeping him as close as he could.

"Fascinating." The blonde growled, hauling Squall up to tug his pants down roughly. He sucked on a finger, rubbing it roughly over Squall's opening and pushing it into him. The words barely reached his ears, his lust so awake and hungry for Squall that all his senses were filled completely by the leather clad brunette. The older figure of Squall Leonhart was so beautiful, even more irresistible than the seventeen year old boy who'd haunted his dreams.

Squall had turned into a perfectly beautiful man. And he had to have him.

A guttural, longing cry spilled from his lips and Squall arched his back. The silver-blue eyes flickered closed as a shudder of pleasure trembled through his limbs. "I have a lover..." He finally whimpered.

Seifer stopped dead, lifting his eyes to lock with Squall's. Somehow, that was more unbelievable than having Squall Leonhart in his lap, than finally having the sensation of the tightness of the brunette's body rippling around his finger.

"What?"

"I have a lover..." Squall slid his fingers along Seifer's chin, tipping his head up gently to press the softest of kisses to the corner of his mouth. "But he's very good at sharing."

"So..."

"So you deserve to know. So you need to burn off whatever's left of the sedative they used on you to keep you still while you went under. You'll probably crash when it's out of your blood stream for a while but you'll feel a lot less hellish..." Squall's eyes flickered to his lips and back slowly, his dark eyelashes a beautiful contrast to the pale tone of his skin. "So, you can either fight me... or fuck me."

Squall's body squeezed impossibly tight around the finger that was still curled inside him. He rolled his hips slowly, coaxing the invasive touch to move within him.

And he no longer cared about who Squall was fucking or why he was so eager to help him, he only cared that Squall felt like heaven and he'd not been laid in five and a half years. He wanted to throw him down and take him – by force if necessary – and listen to him scream in pleasure. Wrapping one arm around Squall's waist, Seifer rolled them both over, pinning the still shorter man and sealing their mouths together in an eager, heated kiss.

The blonde barely noticed as a bottle of oil was pushed into his hand, slicking his cock and forcing two slippery fingers into the tight sheath of muscle. He tugged the leather pants down and tossed them away violently.

Squall whimpered in a mix of pleasure and pain as two fingers scissored inside him a little too eagerly. All too soon Seifer was stretched between his legs, face buried against his throat and pushing into him, and the drawstring pants barely pushed down enough to bare his sex.

He wasn't as ready as he would have liked to have been, his body forced to stretch to take the thick, throbbing length of Seifer's sex into him. It was a pleasant pain that took his breath away and made him squirm for more.

He was rewarded by Seifer pulling back and thrusting into him, filling him in one swift movement. A breathless cry of pleasure spilled from his lips that made Seifer growl in response.

The body felt so perfect around him that Seifer could barely breathe, just concentrating on the pulsing, intense heat of the muscle stretched around his cock. And a lifetime of imagining how Squall would look as he was filled and fucked couldn't even hold a candle to how he was at that moment. His eyes darkened to the deepest of slate blues with lust, locked with Seifer's and held his gaze intently, his cheeks faintly flushed as he rolled his hips, groaning huskily at the sensation of the delicious friction.

And Seifer was just as beautiful to Squall, lips already bruised and just a little swollen from their heated kisses, the intensity of their passion making the tanned fingers of the taller man tight enough to leave bruises on Squall's hips. He was forcing himself to hold back for just a moment, Squall realised, watching
The taller man tremble over him, watching the lust surface and shift in his eyes beautifully.

"Squall..."

Squall seized the back of his head, bringing him down for the hottest kiss he could remember. "Seifer... Just move."

Seifer bucked into Squall fiercely, the brunette arching and writhing to allow Seifer to thrust ever deeper into him until there was no possible way that he could go any deeper, physically at their limits.

Pressing his lips to the flesh of Squall's neck, Seifer sucked and worried at the skin as he pushed himself as deep and hard as he dared, the faint whimper of pain that accompanied his thrusts at first melting out of Squall's voice as he grew used to the sensation, grew used to having his former rival's cock thrusting into him with as much violence as they had displayed in their duels.

As Seifer buried his head against Squall's throat, his cheek pressed against the livid mark that he had left on the pale flesh as his own mark of possession upon the leather wearing beauty; he had a single moment of clarity in which he decided that they should have done this long, long before this. That he should have been fucking Squall Leonhart as soon as he'd had that first unscratchable itch to abuse and fuck the pale and perfectly delicious body, not have waited.

This was as much of a duel as their battles. The thrust and parry of raw, animal sex and exposed emotion was just them, just as much as the gunblades were them. They were still rivals, though lubricant and a mutual orgasm was a much more... appealing way to settle things.

And then, too soon he was coming in hot pulses, deep inside Squall, the body tightening vice like around him.

And he realised that Squall was coming too, a trembling, breathless moan of his name spilling from those beautiful pale lips.

When their combined release was over, Seifer slumped upon the smaller man, still trembling. His emotions were so hard to force down behind the front of his ego and teasing, the raw, unrefined need and lust still bubbling away underneath the surface.

When he heard someone behind him applaud, he nearly jumped out of bed. He was still unsure of whether he should be ashamed of his sexuality, or whether he should celebrate it. There was no room for a rainbow flag on Hyperion. Seifer forced himself to look up, to Squall first and then back over his shoulder at the newcomer.

"You really have no patience, darlin'." The cowboy in a dusty duster drawled in a deep, husky, sexy tone. "You couldn't even wait a little longer for me to get home?" He looked older too, prettier than in the war, his hair longer and free in long waves that spilled loosely over his shoulders. Irvine still had that perfect mouth, though his eyes looked a little older now.

Kinneas. That was his name, Seifer remembered him from the orphanage and the trial, the one who'd hugged Squall as he watched from the dock. The one who'd supported him when the sentence had been announced and Squall had looked so Hyne damned heart broken.

...Squall was in love with him. Or at least, Squall needed him. That was why he'd fought so hard.

The cowboy hung his hat up and strolled over, hooking his coat over the open door on the way. His hair was loose, a sea of molten bronze and brass tones in the yellow light turned paler, the lustre wasted by the bare bulb. He smiled at Seifer, an easy going flirt of a smile that made his knees weaken a little though he would adamantly deny it.

Irvine bent down to kiss Squall's bruised lips firmly, possessively. From where Seifer watched he could see their tongues twisting together, Squall's pale hand reaching up to cup Irvine's cheek, his eyes flickering closed and a moan so deep, so husky that it made his entire body vibrate intensely beneath the press of Seifer's form bubbled up in his throat.

"Sorry." Squall apologised when the kiss broke and smiled sweetly. "Just a warm up."

Seifer suddenly felt quite guilty for the mark on Squall's throat and made a point of not looking at it. Though to no avail, as Squall bared it quite proudly for his lover's inspection. He wondered absently what Squall meant by 'just a warm up'.

"You know Almasy..." Irvine purred, admiring the love mark before turning his deep violet eyes onto the blonde. "Since you marked my lover, that means I get to mark you."

"I..." Seifer began but was silenced by Squall's lips upon his own in a hot kiss.

"Seifer, shut up and go along with it for once in your damn life.

He could hardly argue with that as he was, in his still sated state. He allowed Irvine to peel the soft cotton of the drawstring pants away from his body and lifted himself on trembling arms to allow Squall to strip off his own shirt and jacket.

"Didn't even have the patience to strip him?" Irvine tutted teasingly as he slid into the bed over them both.

"Ignore him Seifer." Squall pressed the tiniest of kisses all along the blonde's jaw and nibbled on the sensitive skin just beneath his earlobe. "He's just the same."

"What are you...?" Seifer didn't want to twist away from the gentle kisses to view for himself what the cowboy was up to behind him, and when he felt something warm and wet probing at his entrance lightly his eyes widened in surprise. He was glad that Squall was too distracted to notice it as a tongue lightly circled his entrance and pushed into him slowly.

He was not a virgin by any means, he had had several lovers, mostly female with a couple of male SeeDs for variety. It wasn't something he wished to make public, he wasn't attracted to every man, just the ones as pretty as Squall or Irvine.

And so few could compare.

The tongue felt so good as it delved into him slowly, teasing into his body with a gentleness he wished he could have afforded the smaller man who even now lay purring beneath Seifer like a big cat. Like the lion he wanted to be. Suddenly it was gone and a finger pushed into him, stretching and teasing him, brushing over his prostate hard enough to make him see stars and grow hard still buried inside Squall.

A sharp, stinging breathed over the cool flesh of Seifer's ass as the finger delved and teased into places that hadn't been touched for more than five years, He forced himself not to buck up against the teasing, taunting, welcome pain. "What... ah!"

Irvine moved up over Seifer's back to kiss his shoulder gently, smile curling his lips for Squall to see. "I said since you marked my lover I could mark you."

"I never said you could fuck me." Seifer growled.

Rolling his eyes, Squall turned Seifer's head back to face him and traced his tongue over the taller man's lips gently. "Seifer..." He purred softly, rocking his hips to make the still hardening length stir and move inside him. "Can he fuck you? While you're still inside me."

The tone of Squall's voice would have made him allow even Dincht to fuck him. Perhaps even Cid. The husky, needing, longing quality to it made the voice seem all the sexier, all the hotter and he couldn't have resisted even if he'd wanted to.

His answer was simply a kiss, though the kiss itself was not simple. He tried to fill it with all his liust and longing, to prove how much he wanted that. How much he wanted them both.

Before he realised what was happening, Irvine's cock was pushing into him, slowly stretching and filling him better than ever before. It didn't hurt, he had been too entranced by the kiss to pay attention as two, then three fingers had slid inside him. That had been Irvine's aim he realised, so when Seifer was finally filled by the pulsing heat of the cowboy's sex, the sensation of being taken and taking at the same time would take his breath away.

Seifer let his head rest on the pillow beside Squall's, the deep brown hair cool on his forehead. The faintly sweet scent of strawberries reached his senses, Squall's shampoo.

If he had had the breath, he would have laughed at that. It seemed so... strange for Squall.

Irvine kissed his lover over Seifer's shoulder. Squall smiled in response, cool fingers ghosting over his lips when they parted.

'I love you.' Squall mouthed, his eyes fixed firmly on Irvine's.

'I love you too.' He returned, sliding back slowly only to bury himself inside Seifer with such force that he moved within Squall too. "C'mon Almasy, you just gonna lay there and take it?"

Seifer growled under him, rocking back to meet Irvine's thrusts and forward to stretch Squall again. Every movement sent shocks of pleasure and pain throughout his system, shivering along his spine, down his limbs and into the very tips of his fingers.

"Fuck... Seifer... 'vine..." Squall moaned, arching and rocking to meet the intense movements. He could barely believe it but it felt even better this time. The faint pain from the first time Seifer had fucked him returned, giving the pleasure of his thrusts that edge that he needed to push him closer to the edge faster than before. He liked the violence, the raw, physical edge to the sex.

Bucking between the two men, Seifer could barely even think beyond the next thrust and the next, mindlessly driving himself harder onto Irvine's cock, impaling Squall mercilessly.

All too soon, his orgasm crashed over him, the pleasure so intense as he came again that he very nearly blacked out. And as he felt Irvine's hot rush inside him, and Squall's release sticky against the tight press of their bellies, he felt his tenuous grip on consciousness faltering.

By the time Irvine had slid out of him and slumped at their sides to kiss Squall and nuzzle like a real lover, he was already asleep.

Seifer awoke to see Squall already dressed and Irvine settled in the corner of the room with a sniper rifle. In the light of day the shack was worse, a dilapidated old building that seemed to held together only by the cobwebs strewn across the timbers and haunting the corners of the room like lingering ghosts.

"What...?"

"Company." Irvine replied, chambering a bullet and settling in the dust to watch through the scope of his rifle. The sunlight from outside gave his hair back that lustre, tied back into a tight pony tail, curling over his shoulder lazily.

Squall dug under the bed and bought out a suitcase. Opening it, he revealed Seifer's cross vest and his trench coat, along with a pair of leather pants and boots that seemed just as familiar. "Get dressed."

Seifer did as he was told silently, the outfit perfectly fine despite the image purveyed by the case that contained it, thick with dust and old cracks. Slipping it on felt like coming home, it felt to him as though he'd only taken it off a few hours before and theoretically he had, though the clothes had aged five years he hadn't. He was still the same Seifer Almasy as he had been five years before.

The only sign that the clothing was that old was visible on the crosses on the arms of his trench coat, the red a little faded, not quite the intense cherry colour that it had been.

By the time he was dressed, Squall was offering him Hyperion with both hands, like a squire presenting his knight a sword.

"I kept her ready for you." He murmured shyly.

He'd never told Squall that his gunblade was most definitely a she, though he knew that Squall's revolver had always been male to the quiet brunette. Perhaps what he'd always suspected was true and the beautiful weapon really did have a soul that spoke to whoever held it. "Did you take her out?"

"Only to keep her clean and ready. I knew you'd be back for her."

Seifer took the blade into his hand and smirked at the smaller man. "Thanks."

"She's loaded with jacketed pulse ammo. You won't get as many shots before you have to clean her again but you might need it." Squall tucked his hair behind his ears nervously, he'd hated to mess with Seifer's set up but he had known that power was what was needed for the war to come.

"Guys, hate to interrupt the 'blader love fest over there but we got company. We gonna take this on or what?" Irvine stood, shouldering his shotgun.

"What?" Seifer looked up at the cowboy.

"The sorceress has amassed a force to find and take or kill us. We're working with the resistance, I was overseeing Balamb and Irvine Galbadia... she wants another knight. One who's stronger with magic so she can feed from them more..." Squall paused, scowling. His expression was darker than the most violent of storms. "She has Zell. She wants one of us."

"That's why you got me out?"

"Half of it." Irvine chuckled.

"The other half?" Seifer arched a golden eyebrow, bracing Hyperion on his shoulder and frowning. The memories of the previous night were still fresh in his mind and the lingering pleasure still tingled through his limbs. He wasn't sure whether he wanted it to mean anymore than good sex, but there was a niggling craving for more. Not only of Squall, but of Irvine as well. Not many people had the guts to try and take him. Irvine intrigued him.

"Squall's in love with you. He's been in love with you for years which makes me think you're either blind or inconsiderate. If it's the second, I'm gonna kick your ass."

Meeting the blue-grey gaze of the brunette who was blushing redder than a ruby dragon's scales, Seifer chuckled sofly. "Little of both I guess. Now what?"

Squall offered him a hand, transferring Ifrit and spells through their touch. "Now you can either run, or you can fight."

The sorceress Xu held up a hand to halt the progress of her most elite warriors. Zell hovered at her side like a perfectly loyal dog, he'd been so easy to contain. And now, she would take a second knight, one who would give her magic the boost of power that Zell's presence had given to her physical abilities.

Xu's body was simply a vessel for Laila to return to the past and attempt to ensure her own advanced power in the future. She would succeed where her mother, Ultimecia, had failed.

The three men filed out of the small shack, and she was pleased to see that the white knight, Seifer Almasy, had survived his sleep unharmed.

"I offer you one last chance of peace!" She called across the dust of the south Estharian desert. She had no fear of failure, with Quistis, Laguna and Zell already within her ranks.

"Well. Hell of a nice day to die." Seifer muttered, glancing up at the cloudless sky that stretched on forever, just like the sand beneath it.

"Mmmhm. Though I don't plan on dyin' here." Irvine pumped the Exter's barrel once and glanced at Squall out of the corner of his eye. "Your call darlin'. Just say the word." He pulled his hat further down over his eyes to eliminate the worst of the sun's glare.

Squall simply smiled. A feral, hungry expression. He could taste the battle on the wind and he lived for it. The steel and adamantine of Lion Heart was singing in his grip eager to be unleashed once again. He said the word.

And it was "Shiva."

A/N
I doubt I will make this into a multichapter, though I may eventually turn it into a full arc of fics. I have too many works right now to concentrate on this I'm afraid, though I will be posting on hurt soon. ^_^

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