Seymour didn’t bother to tap the glass or try anything else to wake Auron once he’d found the cell he was in. He picked up the chair and smashed it against the glass, immediately waking the occupant.
When the glass didn’t break at first, Seymour swung the chair again, and again until the chair’s seat and back broke off and the metal snapped.
Seymour dropped the broken chair and stared at it. He was so close, and so determined. He hadn’t encountered bulletproof glass before and thus hadn’t counted on it. Then again, he had no idea what it was.
Auron’s screaming and cursing at him aggravated Seymour too much for him to concede and try to think up something new before the trial. Auron wanted a fight, he’d give him one. That was the whole plan in the first place.
Angry at not being able to break down the glass or think of an immediate alternative, Seymour thrust his hands in his pockets and remembered the keys.
Seymour turned to the door. There was a large turnstile knob and no keyhole. He put his hand on the knob and turned it. It was heavier than he thought, but that was hardly any matter to him. He could hear the bolt sliding back.
His frown faded away before he was tackled to the ground by Auron.
Seymour refused to fight back. He’d learned not to fight back once the fight had reached him, but there was more to it this time: that was his plan. He wanted Auron to pound on him with his fierce fists. He wanted the attack and he wanted the guards out of the way.
He had planned this.
But there was on flaw in it all: when one plans to be unpredictable, the unexpected can happen.
Suddenly he began to panic.
Images were flooding his vision, blurring together, taking over. He couldn’t see Auron anymore. He saw someone he was afraid of instead: his father.
He screamed. He didn’t want to relive it. He didn’t want to remember. He had done all this to escape it.
There were guards rushing down the hallway, several back up guards had been called in, and Seymour couldn’t hear them. He was stuck.
The guards grabbed both of them and tore them away form each other.
"Holy shit!" Wakka yelled.
Seymour shook his head. Wakka’s voice didn’t belong. Ironically it had been what had pulled him out of his nightmare.
He stood there, held by three guards, unable to move, and concentrated on breathing. He was panting hard and surprised. He was sweating. Once he remembered how to breathe, he concentrated on where he was, what this place was.
"What the fuck was going on?" Lulu asked, making a big mistake.
Seymour didn’t answer.
Auron spat at him.
People pounded on the safety glass, yelling that they had seen the fight, they knew what had happened, that they were scared they would be killed. A few just stood there, not caring about the damage or the destruction as if it were on TV.
"Hey, put ‘im down," Wakka said to the other guards who were holding Seymour. "I said put ‘im down, at least that arm."
The guards dropped Seymour’s left arm, and Seymour turned to see what all the fuss was about. His arm was bent at an odd angle, swollen from the elbow and the midsection, and there was blood from just below his shoulder.
Seymour spat a gob of blood and saliva from his mouth, which had seemed impossible to swallow.
"Shit, what else on ya got hurt?" Wakka asked, reaching for him.
"NO!" Seymour yelled, suddenly struggling against the guards. "No! Don’t touch me!"
"Hey, calm down, ya? I just need ta lookit that arm," Wakka said, trying to soothe Seymour and failing.
"No! No one touches me!"
"Seymour, that arm’s broken!" Lulu yelled.
"I don’t care!" he yelled, still struggling. One of the guards had to grab his broken arm to keep him from moving so much.
Wakka winced.
Seymour continued to struggle.
"Doesn’t that hurt?" Lulu asked.
"I can’t feel it," Seymour said calmly.
"You need a doctor," Lulu said, as if talking to someone deaf… or stupid.
"I don’t care," Seymour said in the same tone of voice.
"He’s scared," Auron said.
"Damnit, I thought I told you to shut up! Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?" Lulu yelled.
Auron did not back down. "That little shit’s scared. I can tell. He’s scared of me. More than he’s scared of you."
"I told you to shut up!" Lulu yelled.
"Lu, calm down, we don’t need another fight," Wakka warned. "I say we toss ‘em back in their rooms and get Dr. Paine."
"This was a goddamn fight, Wakka! No one had any sort of seizure or—"
"He sure had somethin’!" Wakka saying, indicating to Seymour. "The way he was acting I though he had a concussion."
Lulu sighed. "He still might. He needs medical attention, not…"
"Not what?" Wakka asked. "The biggest trouble he gets into and the only victim is a chair and a broom. He hasn’t attacked anyone, I’d say that’s out of the ordinary. He probably didn’t even throw a punch, look at ‘em."
"Indeed," Lulu conceded. "I was just… now… noticing. Let’s go with your plan, but I’m worried something’s going to happen."
Wakka smiled.
Seymour started growling.
"Yeah, yeah, you don’t like talkin’ to ‘er, I know," Wakka said. "Look, just… um…"
"I’ll give you something to wrap it in, but try to stay off the arm," Lulu said. "What were you thinking?"
Seymour stopped growling and his expression changed. Auron was right. He was afraid, that was obvious now.
"I didn’t tell him," Seymour said.
"Eh?" Wakka asked.
"I swear I didn’t tell anyone," he said. "Don’t… please… don’t touch me. Make them let go, I swear… I never told anyone…I don’t… I don’t want to. Please."
"Shit," Wakka said, seeing Seymour burst into tears.
"Is that all you have to say tonight?"
"What? I don’t know what to do."
"He cries too much," Auron said. "Just like Tides."
"What part of ‘Shut up’ did you not understand?" Lulu yelled.
"Look, it’s past one in the morning, stop yelling," Wakka said. "Jus’ ‘cause we can’t get any sleep doesn’t mean no one else can."
"Tidus," Seymour said, seeming to snap out of it. "I want to see Tidus. Please."
Now Auron growled.
"Get him back in there!" Lulu yelled. "The last thing he needs is your shit, and you’re looking at another three months in there, Auron—"
"Hey, hey, hey," Wakka said. "You’re here to stop fights, not start them. And I here to stop ‘em too, so if that means I gotta put you in time out, then I’m gonna, Lu."
Lulu backed away from both of them.
"Look, let go of ‘im, but follow ‘im. Lu, go with ‘im and make sure he doesn’t try anything, 'kay?"
The guards let go of Seymour, who stood up and quickly put some distance between himself and them before slowly walking back.
"I have many skills," Lulu said. "Negotiating isn’t one of them." She walked off after Seymour, waiting until they were a fair distance away them before talking to him. "Give me the keys, Seymour."