I debated whether to share this snippet or something from my Rinoa/Zell fic in progress, but the Rinoa/Zell fic actually has half a chance of being finished one day, so I'll go with this. Here's a gratuitous scene fragment in which Zell tries to free Squall from the electrical torture device in D-District Prison.


Holy shit.

Squall’s strapped up on the wall, arms out. Head lolling, and for a terrified moment Zell thinks he might have found his corpse.

“Squall!”

Squall twitches at his voice, just a little, and he’s alive. He’s alive.

“Holy crap, Squall, what happened to you?”

[...]

Zell runs over, gives the control panel a quick inspection. Hits the button below the label RELEASE.

Someone starts screaming, and Zell jerks around, raising his fists, before he realises—

It’s Squall. Zell couldn’t have imagined him making a noise like that.

Shit. Shit! What’s happening?

Squall’s bitten off his scream, but it’s clear he’s still in pain. He’s jerking and twitching and breathing so hard Zell can hear it across the room, and all Zell can do is stand there, frozen and staring.

He has to stop this. He doesn’t know what this is, but he has to stop it.

He looks back at the control panel, in a panic, and it hits him: the release button is the one above the label. What the hell has he done?