Final Fantasy VIII: Five Times Zell Beat Seifer
1)
"Fuck off and die," Zell had said, tasting blood and seeing red.
"There's no way I'll die before you, chicken." Seifer's voice had been confident. "I bet you won't live past twenty."
They had both walked away with bruises and their own ideas of victory: outlive and outlast.
Now Zell sat on a too-hard sofa in the Galbadia Garden lounge and stared at his hands. For the first time, he wish he had lost.
2)
"It was dumb luck," Seifer said, walking out of the crowd still thick around the stadium. He was careful not to jar anyone with his arm as they trailed through the twilight back toward Deling City.
Zell had yellow feathers in his hair, on his clothes, and in his eyelashes. He patted his pocket and grinned. "It wasn't just luck. Maybe if you hadn't called your chocobo ugly, he wouldn't have lost." He shot a glance at Seifer's arm and frowned. "Or attacked you."
Seifer rolled his eyes. "Because chocobos can understand humans. It's just a stupid bird."
"Well, mine won," Zell said. "What do you have to say to that? Mine liked me because I cheered it on."
Seifer reached out and brushed a feather off Zell's shoulder. "A lot," he said, raising an eyebrow. "I knew there was a resemblance, but I never knew you were so serious about keeping it in the fam—"
"Oh, shut up!" Zell said.
3)
"You're an asshole," Zell said, shoving Seifer into a tree. "Take it back."
The bark scraped his skin as he leaned into the motion of the attack. "You should accept your feelings for Leonhart," Seifer said calmly. "It will make it easier to deal with the rejection."
Zell's hand twisted Seifer's shirt. "Take it back, you fucker."
Seifer stuck his leg out and nudged Zell's, hoping to throw him off balance. Instead of releasing his grip, Zell took Seifer down as he fell to the forest floor, soggy from the rain that had fallen earlier.
They landed side by side. Seifer pushed as Zell pulled; they succeeded in tangling their legs as Zell put an elbow into Seifer's head, making everything blurry. Zell rolled them over, strength and light weight helping him as he straddled Seifer and pressed him into a collection of rocks.
"Get the hell off me," Seifer said, head pounding, trapped by his own coat and a lap full of moron. "Are you insane?"
"You're such an ass," Zell said, angry and affectionate, and kissed him.
4)
Shells dug into Seifer's back and water rushed up and down his body. He breathed in salt-flavored air and opened his eyes. Zell was throwing his fists around a few feet away, laughing—his eternal battle with an invisible enemy.
Zell saw him looking up and stopped, but didn't lose the grin. He swept wet and limp hair out of his eyes. Drops of water rushed down sun-reddened skin into the waistband of his shorts. Seifer closed his eyes again.
"You ate my dust, baby!" Zell paused. "Or...bubbles? Whatever. I thought you said you could swim."
Seifer sat up on his elbows and stared at the buoy floating so far out from shore. His arms ached and his throat hurt from breathing. The image of Zell peeling his shirt off replayed itself in his mind. He didn't answer.
"Come on," Zell said. "You can use my shower and then buy me the dinner you owe me."
He held out his hand. Seifer took it, and hid his smile.
5)
Sweat dripped in Seifer's eyes. He wiped it away with his bare arm. The right sleeve of his coat was somewhere on the trampled path behind them, soaked with blood. The other was wrapped around Zell's arm.
"Only way across," Zell said. He pointed through the bushes to a burned swatch of land between them and the free forests of Timber beyond it, where Galbadia troops could no longer go.
"You're not serious," Seifer said. "It's probably guarded, or worse, mined."
"I came across it to get you, asshole," Zell said. "It's the only fucking way." He punched at the ground. "When did you become a coward?" Zell's sneering was new and not altogether pleasant.
Seifer took a deep breath "I'm not," he said. "I just have a better developed sense of self-preservation than you."
"Bet you couldn't beat me across," Zell said. "Prison's probably made you fat and slow."
They stared at each other, challenge offered. Seifer stood. "Let's go," he said. "And when I kick your ass, you owe me a new coat."