[FFVIII][Fic] Changes (Irvine + Zell, SFW)

[wallwalker]

Title: Changes
Fandom: FFVIII
Characters: Irvine, Zell
Rating: SFW

Irvine reacts to Zell's tattoo. Mostly an excuse for meta about the side effects of the GFs, probably. Written for fic_promptly some time ago, but not archived until now.

At first, Irvine hadn't thought he'd ever be used to that... that thing on Zell's face.

That was how he'd thought of it when he'd first seen it, a sprawl of black ink over his skin, stark and glaring and obviously not belonging there. He hadn't even been able to look at it, and for a few short days he'd been glad that Zell hadn't remembered him. If Zell had remembered... well. Irvine wasn't sure what he would have said if Zell had asked him why he'd kept looking away. As it was, he was a guy who'd just been assigned to work with them for the first time, and they just ignored most of his quirks.

He wanted to ask Zell about it. He wanted to ask him if it had hurt, wanted to ask him why in the world he'd done it. He remembered how Zell had been back at the orphanage, a timid little kid; he remembered how he would fall and skin his knees and then try to hide them, and to hold back the tears. He had always been afraid both of pain and of showing that he was hurting; Seifer had a way of grabbing on to any weakness, physical or emotional, and twisting it over and over until his target was brought to their knees.

As much as Irvine wanted to believe that it was just the Guardian Forces that could change a guy so much, that it was because of the amnesia that had forced them to build up new personalities from nothing, he didn't think that he could. The GFs didn't change their personalities altogether. Something else must have done that, but what?

He wanted to ask Zell about it, but he didn't think that he could. Not yet. The conversation would have been too awkward; he would have wanted to talk to Zell like an old friend, and Zell would have treated him like a stranger. Maybe later, when he could find a way to remind them, he'd work up the nerve to ask.