nightseer

Misunderstandings


“Matron said this is where you and Seifer found me.” Pulling his legs up against his chest, the teenager looked around the misty beach, his lips forming a disappointed pout. “I can’t remember it properly. Things don’t fit the way they should.” He glanced up at Squall, a hint of confusion in his expression. “I don’t know where you came from. The Squall I remember liked swords, not gunblades.”

“I wanted a challenge when I got to Garden,” Squall said as he sat down in the sand next to the boy. He stared at him, curious about how his subconscious had aged Harry to fifteen (sixteen? He would have to ask Matron). He was a bit taller than Squall had imagined and his glasses were a hair thicker than Squall remembered and his hair…

Squall picked up the knee length braid and gently tugged it. “Are you still afraid of scissors?” he asked, unable to stop his smile or keep his amusement from his voice. Perhaps it was the dream’s location or just the safety of it being a dream, but the wall he normally had between what he felt and what he allowed others to see wasn’t there. “It wasn’t that bad. Everyone else has gotten over it.” Squall paused, thinking of a certain redhead’s long hair. “Except Irvine.”

“Oh really?” Harry asked, reaching over to tug at Squall’s shoulder length hair. “This isn’t anything that involves scissors getting close to your ears.”

Squall snorted and batted Harry’s hand away with his hand that wasn’t holding Harry’s braid. “Seifer almost cut my ear off. What’s your excuse?”

Harry shrugged. “It’s not this long when I’m awake. It really stops here,” he said, patting the middle of his thigh. “I lost a chunk of it to Colin’s gum during my second year of school. Fours years after Matron sent me there,” he added at Squall’s confused look. Harry frowned, mirroring Squall’s expression. “This is a dream, right?”

“I don’t know. I thought I was dreaming,” Squall said slowly, trying to think around the misty barrier between him and his thoughts. “Matron said Rinoa and I would have dreams like this, but we don’t.”

There was a flicker of emotion on Harry’s face Squall didn’t want to put a name to as Harry stared at him. “Rinoa?”

“My girlfriend, she’s a sorceress. I thought I was her Knight,” Squall said, not noticing right away how he referred to their relationship in the past tense. When he did, he shook his head, as if to realign his thoughts. “I am her Knight,” he said firmly.

“If you say so,” Harry muttered, that emotion back in his eyes for just a moment. Then he leaned towards Squall, a strange expression on his face. “You think this is real? This dream?”

Squall nodded warily. He couldn’t remember ever seeing Harry so desperate when they were children. Not that his memory was reliable. “I think it might be.”

“Then you can tell me how everyone is. If they’re okay,” Harry said excitedly. He shifted position, lying down in the sand, crossing his arms and laying his head on his arms, looking up at Squall with a hopeful, begging expression. “Please?”

Squall stared at the braid he was holding in his hands. Considering he had never let go of it, the move Harry had just done could only be done in dreams or with magic, both of which applied here, making it difficult for Squall to know which one was responsible. Before he did anything else, he needed to know if this was a dream or if…

Squall viciously stomped the thought down before it could form.

Deciding it was only a dream, just his subconscious at work, and he could act as childish as he wanted in his dreams, Squall laid down on the sand, facing Harry. Playing with the leather tie on the end of Harry’s braid, Squall rested his head on one hand. “I tell you, if you tell me what you’ve been doing since you disappeared.”

“Deal.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Squall was on the phone again.

Not that Squall being on the phone in the middle of the night was an unusual occurrence, Rinoa reflected. But it was normally because someone on the night shift had called him, not because he had suddenly woken up from a dead sleep and gone straight to the phone. And it definitely wasn’t like him to call Edea while Cid was with her at the rebuilt orphanage. It was practically an unwritten law among their group not to interrupt the couple’s time together.

Rinoa tried to tell herself it didn’t hurt Squall had gotten up to call Edea, instead of talking to her.

“…fine…at school …” Squall tied another knot on the string he was holding. “…years…why now? Why not…”

Rinoa frowned as she watched Squall talk and fiddle with the string of leather in his hands. She could hear the occasional word or fragment of a sentence, but nothing that helped her understand why Squall had woken up so suddenly. Why he had practically bolted from their bed, waking her up as he left the room. He never did that; he always tried not to wake her when he had to get up during the night.

“…real…tie…” Squall shook his head at something Edea said. “No…wrong, both of you.”

Rinoa stepped forward at the anger in Squall’s voice, wanting to do something to help him. She must have made a sound, because the next instant Squall turned around, his knife in his hand and ready to fly. Rinoa saw her panic reflected on his face, as he dropped the knife and the phone on the carpet.

“Hyne, Rinoa, you…” Squall ran a hand over his face in an attempt to get control as he knelt and picked up the phone. “Are you okay?” he asked, looking up at her, his expression practically begging her to say she was fine, that they were fine.

Rinoa nodded, unable to take her eyes off the knife. She had almost died. She had almost died because of Squall. She had almost died because Squall had…

She could have stopped it. Rinoa knew she could have; she had seen Edea stop a bullet, but…

Rinoa turned and ran back to the bedroom, slamming and locking the door behind her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You look like Cousin Itt,” Michael said when Harry opened his bed curtains.

“Who?” Harry yawned as he rubbed his eyes, then stared blankly at his dormmate, who was already dressed for the day. Five was far too early to wake up in Harry’s opinion, but a necessity if he wanted hot water in the shower. Unlike the girls’ dorm, the boys’ dorm didn’t have an everlasting hot water supply.

“Character from an old Muggle television show,” Michael said, with a long suffering sigh of someone who felt he was surrounded by morons. Harry didn’t take it as an insult, since Michael thought everyone, even Merlin, was a moron. “He was covered in hair that reached the floor. He looked like a walking wig.” Michael stared at Harry, his head tilted to the side as he studied him. “You know, if you grew your hair another few feet and cast a thickening charm, you could dress like him for next Halloween.”

Harry blinked. It wasn’t just too early to be awake; it was too early for Michael’s weirdness. “Wha?”

Michael sighed again and held some of Harry’s loose hair right in front of his eyes. “I saw you braid this disaster last night. How did it get loose?”

Harry groaned. “Damn it! I told him to leave it alone,” he whined, flopping back on his bed and getting a face full of Rabbit’s fur. “It’s going to take me hours to get the tangles out.”

The next few seconds were quiet as Michael thought about the implications of what Harry had just said and Harry thought of every way his words could be interpreted.

“I don’t want to know,” Michael muttered as he walked back to his bed to get his school bag. “I really don’t.”

Harry gave it three days, four at the most, before the whole school ‘knew’ he was gay.