Disclaimer: Final Fantasy Viii completely owns me, and that stops me from ever owning it.

Summary: Squall was Seifers enigma. His weakness, his strength bl-trag and that's just how they ended up like they did.

Authors Notes: I refuse to let up on my use of the word Enigma. I think I am in love with it o.0

Enigma

He was an enigma, my enigma, and that's just how we wound up like this. His blade embedded in my stomach, mine half way stuck in his side.

I remember some of our past, more then it seems Squall remembers.

I remember the day we met. The day I was dragged off the streets of Deling and all the way to a tiny white orphanage in the middle of nowhere. He was already there, sitting on the table and watching a tall girl dance like a ballerena. His eyes were a beautiful sky blue, and they had focus only for the brunette dancing cheerfully to her own music.

When my arm was released I shot a glare at the man who had dragged me, and almost threw one at the woman who came to greet us until she began scolding my excort for his rough handling. Seeing I was forgotten for the moment, I pushed my way through the front door and stalked directly towards the boy with the beautiful blue eyes. When he did little more then look me over and returned to his adoration of the girl, I did the first thing I could think of to get his attention.

I pushed him over.

Sufficed to say, I soon discovered he was very volitile once provoked, and after my first few surprises when he seemed to go from ignorance to anger like magic, I also learnt just how to push his buttons.

And oh how I pushed his buttons from then on.

No doubt he was as cold as that little boy in the cowboy outfit told me, but when his buttons were pushed he heated up like nothing else. It was beautiful, and even when I was five I had a feirce want for things that were beautiful.

There were others at the orphanage, all of which soon learnt how I worked. Quisty was teased for being a worry-wart, Irvy for his complete and utter infatuation with Selphy, Zell because before I even started he was bawling his eyes out, Selphy... mostly for Irvy's complete and utter infatuation with her and even Ellone, who all the others concidered like a goddess.

And though she tended to tease back, treating it all like a game she was quite happy to play, I didn't stop teasing her like I would have if she was anyone else who hadn't backed down, no. I kept teasing her because she was just one of Squally's little buttons, and one of the most effective little buttons too.

Soon I had him so perfectly pinned that I could predict his every action down to the nines. I could lure him into a fight even when Matron and Ellone were still in the room, and I had him thowing some worthwhile punches pretty fast too - he was a quick learn.

I don't remember when it changed, can't see the moment when Ellone disapeared and Squally took to the storms he was named for. Don't remember exactly the night when he stumbled in, dripping wet and shivering with a mix of cold, exitement and pure unbridled power after Queazacoatl junctioned himself to the young boy.

I remember being jealous, and I remember following him into the storms after that.

I remember finding Shiva in the snow.

I don't think he remembers that part at all, i've never corrected his GF mumbled assumption that he was the one to find Shiva.

Our battles after we each had Gf's were astonishing, and much much more rare then our fights. The fist fights we picked up anywhere and everywhere, whenever I managed to prod an area still unhardened by Ellone's dissapearance, and as yet still unprotected by the lightning entity inside the brunet. The sparrs though, with Gf and sharpened sticks we kept outside, from the day he caught me following him when I broke cover to find Shiva, to the day I both hated and loved with ever single Almasy cell in my body, the day I left him.

He wasn't crying, but he was close, closer then he ever had since Ellone left.

"Garden wont take me until next year," Squall had told me, "to young for them." His tone would seem uncaring, but I had been around Squall as he had hardened into what he was now and saw beneath that.

"A years not that long, maybe you'll practice enough to give me a challenge," Seifer teased.

Eleven years old and I was already a complete asshole. Squall's glare told me as much.

"What time are you leaving tomorrow?"

I had shrugged, having been to concerned when Squall ran off at the announcement I was leaving then to hear the details, "probably early."

Squall fell silent, and they watched the sun slowly dip behind the horizon.

We were worn and sweaty, adrenaline used up in our last spar for an entire year, and what a beauty that spar was. Full of anger and rivalry, of ease and difficulty... perfect.

Squall was digging a hole in the dirt before him with his false blade without looking away from the sunset. I turned from it to him, intent on saying something witty that would stick in Squall's memory and continue to piss him off for the entire year, but the words faltered on my tongue as I saw a glimmer of the sunset on a tear falling from his eye... and after he had sworn he would never cry for anyone ever ever again-

There was a hiccup of a time lapse or I had a black-out, because the next I remember I had him pinned against the dirt and I was kissing him, and Hyne above, he was kissing me back.

He didn't watch me go, at least I never saw him watching. Our kiss was the last thing between us. And it was beautiful.

I think I was in love.

x.o.x.o

He called me his enigma. He called me alot of things, from ice-prince to puberty-boy and even just plain princess... that's probably how we ended up like this. My lips locked with his, his arms holding us together and our blood pooling together beneath us.

I rememeber some of our past, more of it then Seifer thinks I know.

I remember the day I got to Garden, my lips tingling with some almost-forgotten tingle of the last thing he had given me, and my heart tingling with the thrill of finally, finally, having someone to fight with such a perfect and uncensored ease that I could just let myself go, and everything I was thinking about along with it.

It was around noon, and there was noise and people everywhere, but they were easy enough to ignore.

I had to see the headmaster and get my timetable and dorm number.

The lift was quiet compaired to the halls at lunch, that was the first thing he told me as he slid in beside me, leaving behind two other kids who looked like lost puppies without his guidance.

He was taller, broader... moved on without me.

"Everyone else was adopted," was all I said.

He hummed in surprise, "not you?"

"Not me." I'd made sure of that.

"...The training center here isn't gaurded at night, you should take a look before classes start up," he idly commented.

When he left at the next stop, I kind of... drifted through the rest of the day.

Met the teachers, avoided whoever and whatever I could. I did my best to stay invisable - life seemed less complicated that way. Not easier per-se, but less complicated.

The day went slowly, and it was with embaressment that I watched the sun set as though my life depended on it.

I'd missed the thrills, the heart tightning and adrenaline forcing moments between us. I missed the sparrs, the fights, the energy-less moments in between filled up with our sort of bickering. Him pretending to pick on me, and me pretending to ignore him.

No matter how furiously I would have denied it - he was all I had, all I needed. Even after he kissed me... hell, all the more after it.

I made myself wait for the kid sharing my dorm to leave for his shower before I left to meet Seifer. I made myself walk instead of sprint. I had no idea what to expect, but anything was better then the year I'd had alone.

The training center was huge, and even as I walked through the door I knew without a doubt i'd be spending most my time here. Seifer or no. Seifer prefered.

I had a practice sword from the start of the day belted to my side, and the door to a room filled with monsters I could fight was beckoning. But I looked away, the monsters weren't what I was here for, at least not today.

Seifer was by the other door, talking with one of the kids he had been with when I arrived. When he noticed I was there, he abruptly dissmissed the boy. I would never let him know how much that meant to me.

He had a practice sword belted to his hip, and the slight twitch to his hand confessed to me he was feeling as impatient as me about using it.

"The only problem with here is we have to fight monsters as well as each other," he informed me, "just like on the beach."

I didn't bother adding to the comment, he knew me well enough to accept silence over something so trivial. He led the way inside. We cleared the path before us, more or less warming up for what was ahead for us.

My heart was pounding fast, just like it used too. Incredible how things could stay the same when so much else had changed. We double checked the surroundings, and when we met eyes again, the air was all but pure tension against us.

In a flash of moment he charged, and I was waiting.

Steel met steel and the strength was almost unbeleivable. He seem to feel the same as I stood up against it. Rival or no, I wasn't about to give up my training just because my sparring partner had moved on without me.

He smirked as though he had read my thoughts and increased pressure before pulling back and half circling me.

"So, did you miss me Princess?" he inquired as he moved, "did you miss getting your ass whipped every day?"

"Deflate your ego," I advised, darting forward and swinging the sword towards him.

I slid away again, blocking his next attack. Good, he was trying, back in the swing of things. Instinct took over where it had left off over a year ago.

Rivalry moved the fight along with a clash of powerful blows and almost hits. Speed versus Power. Defiance versus Control.

Our blades locked again, and unable to break off this time I stood my ground, determined not to give in first. My legs gave a warning tremble. Out of practice, out of strength. Damn Seifer and his military training. A year was perhaps a longer time then it now seemed.

"I missed you," the blond confessed, breathless and unrelenting. His eyes watched mine, searched them, "missed everything about you."

My heart thudded in my chest and seemed to stop, my breath held. I looked away from his searching gaze and stared at the joining of metal between us, "Seifer..."

Weight shifted against the blade in my hands, though it didn't falter. I felt warm breath on my lips and my eyelid's almost fluttered closed with anticipation, "did you miss me Squall?"

I looked up into his serious jade eyes, "I did."

There was a clutter as we ditched our swords and his lips overtook mine. I twined my fingers desperatly in his hair. Hyne, i'd almost forgotten how good his lips felt.

He didn't beat me, I didn't beat him. Our kiss was the first real challenge between us, and we took it together.

I think I was in love.

x.o.x.o.x

"Your my Enigma Squall," Seifer breathed, breath husky and heavy with the taste of blood, "my everything."

"Sap," Squall scolded, though his eyes betrayed how much the words meant to him.

"Even though my head's still buzzing from Sorceress spell, I know that I love you."

Stormy blue eyes rolled, before a pained cough fell from softly pouted lips.

"Thanks for being the one to take me down," Seifer murmered, pressing another weary kiss to his lovers lips.

"Thanks for not leaving me behind again," Squall whispered in all honesty, eyes locking onto the jade one's before him. He saw the question being held back, the almost beg for Squall to confess how he felt for once - just once - before they hadn't the chance.

"I'm your 'Enigma' Seifer... as if I couldn't love you back," he scoffed as he gave in, eyelids lowering as energy faded, "I do, love you that is."

Seifer kind-of grinned, his lips stained with blood and bruised with kisses, "thank Hyne," he murmered, before using the last of his strength to pull Squall close and let his eye's close for the final time.

x.o.x.o.x