Open Fifth
Feb. 1st, 2020 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shinonFandom: Final Fantasy VI
Characters: ...You know, I've never been sure how to tag ships in anything I've written about Setzer? Because thus far my approach to this guy has just been "indiscriminately sad-horny for competent blondes." Anyway, Setzer is in this.
Word count: ~500
Warnings: Alcohol, language
Notes: If you think you've seen this somewhere before... you have. Hi! Cleaned up and reposted solely because I came up with some hamfisted wordplay I could use for the title and I'm feeling smug about that.
Once you got to a certain level of drunk, everything you noticed conveyed its own type of heartbreak. Setzer's new winning strategy was this: get there as early in the day as possible, and then have another drink every hour or so to maintain. Getting maudlin about the afternoon light through the broken windowpanes wasn't the world's greatest feeling, but it was a distraction from the biggest and oldest hurt, and as such, a better way to ride out the end of time. The barkeep knew he had money and wouldn't cause trouble, so he didn't let his glass go empty. That was touching, in its way. The trust that could still exist in this burnt-up husk of a world. One might say heartbreaking.
The evening shadows were starting to lengthen when the door opened, even though all the regulars were already here. He supposed another traveler must have straggled into town. Well, they came and they went. At least one of his companions in misery had died, weeks back, an infection of the lungs that Setzer's limited grasp of healing magic hadn't been able to touch. He'd taken this as a sign. He just watched people now as they lived out their tragedies, waiting for his own to wind down. Maybe here was a new face. But what difference did it make, in the end?
Except - she spoke.
It was a hard voice, and it had known rough use. But there was still a trace of music in it, and that music he knew. He closed his eyes to hear it better, ignoring the words. The timbre was - stripped down, flattened somehow, and that gorgeous expressive range smothered to near inexistence, but he knew. He still knew. This was the voice that had shaken him, all that time ago.
And it hadn't been spared. She hadn't been spared. She'd had to make her way in this dead world like everyone else, and it had taken from her like it took from them. It wasn't fair. Was there no place left for beauty?
"Setzer," she said.
Everything good is gone, he thought. Sit with me and let's be wrecks together.
Instead a strong hand grabbed a fistful of his lapel. He tried to look up, but his head kept wanting to loll to one side and it was hard to see through this sudden yet unsurprising film of tears. Everything a heartbreak.
"Setzer," she said again, less patiently.
He put a hand over hers, where her fingers dug into his coat. This was a swordswoman's hand. This was -
He'd gotten it all wrong. This wasn't Maria. The memories all twined around each other in a braid, silhouettes smearing into each other, but - he remembered the aria, remembered her singing like a lark, and it wounded him to think that she wouldn't anymore, and why was he so fucking drunk, this was important -
"Celes," he said, finally, and her grip loosened.
He stared into her face, wondering, and she into his. But there was something - the set of her jaw, a cold gleam of purpose deep in her eyes - that made him look away.
Characters: ...You know, I've never been sure how to tag ships in anything I've written about Setzer? Because thus far my approach to this guy has just been "indiscriminately sad-horny for competent blondes." Anyway, Setzer is in this.
Word count: ~500
Warnings: Alcohol, language
Notes: If you think you've seen this somewhere before... you have. Hi! Cleaned up and reposted solely because I came up with some hamfisted wordplay I could use for the title and I'm feeling smug about that.
Once you got to a certain level of drunk, everything you noticed conveyed its own type of heartbreak. Setzer's new winning strategy was this: get there as early in the day as possible, and then have another drink every hour or so to maintain. Getting maudlin about the afternoon light through the broken windowpanes wasn't the world's greatest feeling, but it was a distraction from the biggest and oldest hurt, and as such, a better way to ride out the end of time. The barkeep knew he had money and wouldn't cause trouble, so he didn't let his glass go empty. That was touching, in its way. The trust that could still exist in this burnt-up husk of a world. One might say heartbreaking.
The evening shadows were starting to lengthen when the door opened, even though all the regulars were already here. He supposed another traveler must have straggled into town. Well, they came and they went. At least one of his companions in misery had died, weeks back, an infection of the lungs that Setzer's limited grasp of healing magic hadn't been able to touch. He'd taken this as a sign. He just watched people now as they lived out their tragedies, waiting for his own to wind down. Maybe here was a new face. But what difference did it make, in the end?
Except - she spoke.
It was a hard voice, and it had known rough use. But there was still a trace of music in it, and that music he knew. He closed his eyes to hear it better, ignoring the words. The timbre was - stripped down, flattened somehow, and that gorgeous expressive range smothered to near inexistence, but he knew. He still knew. This was the voice that had shaken him, all that time ago.
And it hadn't been spared. She hadn't been spared. She'd had to make her way in this dead world like everyone else, and it had taken from her like it took from them. It wasn't fair. Was there no place left for beauty?
"Setzer," she said.
Everything good is gone, he thought. Sit with me and let's be wrecks together.
Instead a strong hand grabbed a fistful of his lapel. He tried to look up, but his head kept wanting to loll to one side and it was hard to see through this sudden yet unsurprising film of tears. Everything a heartbreak.
"Setzer," she said again, less patiently.
He put a hand over hers, where her fingers dug into his coat. This was a swordswoman's hand. This was -
He'd gotten it all wrong. This wasn't Maria. The memories all twined around each other in a braid, silhouettes smearing into each other, but - he remembered the aria, remembered her singing like a lark, and it wounded him to think that she wouldn't anymore, and why was he so fucking drunk, this was important -
"Celes," he said, finally, and her grip loosened.
He stared into her face, wondering, and she into his. But there was something - the set of her jaw, a cold gleam of purpose deep in her eyes - that made him look away.
