FFVIII: Origins (6)

[edenbound]

Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Pairing: Irvine/Selphie, developing Seifer/Squall, developing Quistis/Rinoa
Warnings: Angst
Chapter: Six
Rating: PG13
Summary: The girls go shopping, Seifer and Squall check up on some admin, and Irvine and Zell go out for that drink.

It’s a nice day. The sky is a comfortable deep shade of blue; the few clouds are light and fluffy, cheerful rather than threateningly full of rain. Which is somewhat of a factor in Rinoa and Selphie managing to persuade Quistis to come out shopping with them while Seifer and Squall follow something up and Irvine takes Zell out for a drink or two. Irvine has been ordered not to let Zell get drunk and not to get into trouble, and Quistis has told Seifer and Squall (to the accompaniment of Irvine’s amused jokes) that if they bicker and fight when they’re supposed to be searching for leads to Seifer’s parents, she’ll whip them. She was only half joking.

Selphie has stopped in front of a pet shop. Quistis and Rinoa exchange amused glances, watching her coo over a small grey and black striped kitten that paws at the glass of the window display. “I think I ought to get it. Look, it likes me already, it wants me to buy it, I think. Do you think Irvine would mind? I don’t know whether he’s a cat or a dog person…”

“I can’t imagine him minding either way,” Rinoa says, and Quistis interrupts her, laughter in her voice.

“I don’t think you should get a pet, really. They’re not encouraged in Garden.”

“Squall’d overlook one, for me, though, wouldn’t he?”

Rinoa shrugs slightly, looking rather amused. “He didn’t mind it when I had Angelo in Garden, but I’m not a SeeD. Either way, Garden might not be the best place for an animal. It’s… well, sometimes I think it’s not the best place for people, the way Squall’s turned out.”

“I think Irvine would really like a cat. I mean, he’s like a cat sometimes. All that independence and laziness and things like that. And cats lick themselves all the time, don’t they? Irvine’s good at licking things.” Selphie winks a little as the other two make faces at the unnecessary information, and then both of them laugh with her. Selphie moves to go into the shop, smiling brightly at them. “I’ll only be a minute. I just want a better look at it. You can come in with me, or wait, or if you want to, you can just go on ahead. I’ll catch up with you.”

Quistis glances at Rinoa, who shrugs. “We’ll wait.”

Selphie smiles a little more and vanishes into the shop.

“Do you think it’s wise to let her go in there? We might never get her back out,” Rinoa says, quietly, laughing a little all the same. She feels awkward with Quistis, now, after that conversation on that cold and windy evening, but she shows no sign of having taken any of it to heart. She didn’t mean to sound as if she was saying Quistis was heartless. She really doesn’t believe that. She just –

She doesn’t really know what to think of Quistis, sometimes.

Quistis shrugs slightly. “She’ll probably think the kitty is cute even when it takes a swipe at her, but I doubt she’ll stay in there too long. She has a long list somewhere of all the shops she’d like to visit while we’re here.”

Rinoa nods a little and then sighs, wondering how Squall and Seifer are doing. They seemed friendly enough when they set off, though they don’t seem to be showing any more signs of actually getting together. She hopes that they’ll at least get closer, since they’re working together. She did have hopes when they chose to go together… but, of course, Seifer knows Squall better than the others. And Irvine and Zell had plans anyway.

As if reading her mind, Quistis sighs softly. “How do you suppose Seifer and Squall are doing? And how well are you doing with your plan on getting them together? I don’t suppose you’ve got much further yet? Not that I really expect you to manage it anytime soon, if at all – no offence to you, but the pair of them are the most stubborn people I’ve ever met.”

“It doesn’t seem like Cupid’s on my side at the moment,” Rinoa says, shrugging slightly. She tries not to sound as disappointed about that as she feels. She really has no idea why she so much wants Seifer and Squall to be happy, nor why she’s so adamant that they’d work well as a couple. She just has a feeling – her instinct – and she’s sure Quistis won’t really accept that as a good reason. She adds the next without even thinking, and hates herself for it before it’s even fully out of her mouth. “Cupid seems to be against me in general right now, not letting me get them together and doing me no favours with my own love life…”

“I can’t see why,” Quistis says, apparently not taking it as whininess. She laughs a little and gives Rinoa a sidelong look. “I wouldn’t be asking me for advice, though. Cupid doesn’t seem to favour me, either. Every time I think I have a crush on someone, it turns out to be a purely sisterly feeling coming back to haunt me from my unremembered past with the person. Or the person doesn’t swing my way.”

“I hope you find someone soon,” Rinoa says, somewhat insincerely. She’d like nothing more than to hug Quistis now – kiss her, maybe – show her that Cupid really doesn’t spurn her. But, she thinks, with a sigh, it’d be kind of stupid. Quistis likes men – gay men, if she’s referring to Seifer and Squall as she thinks she is, but nonetheless, men. And she always seems to think of Rinoa as a nuisance. Even as she started to get more proficient in battle situations, she never felt that Quistis approved of her.

Well. She does hope Quistis will find someone soon. As long as that someone is her. She sighs softly.

“I don’t see why you don’t already have someone,” Quistis says, more quietly than before. Rinoa looks up, feeling almost shy as she meets her eyes, and tries to say something. Tries to, well, echo the sentiment. But she feels like that might spoil the moment, so she doesn’t say anything, and just smiles a little and wonders whether she should break the eye contact.

Selphie breaks the moment for them, coming out of the shop, mercifully without a kitten in her arms – and Rinoa is almost annoyed, and at the same time, relieved, that the tension is broken. Selphie smiles at them both. “Okay, I’m done cooing over the animals. It scratched my arm, look! Anyway, it’s still really cute. Shall we go and get an ice cream or something? What do you want?”

Quistis shrugs slightly. “Chocolate, I guess.”

Rinoa thinks for a moment, and then shrugs slightly. “Strawberry.”

“And vanilla for me! Come on, you two, I saw a place selling ice cream up here. I wonder if your choice in chocolate says deep things about your character?” Selphie tips her head in thought and then shrugs it off. “People see meaning in everything, even when it isn’t there.”

Rinoa hmms softly in thought, nodding slightly. “I suppose strawberry has to do with being childlike, naïve, innocent, since most kids I’ve met like strawberry. Think it fits me more?”

“Maybe a little. Chocolate… well, chocolate is supposed to be all about being sensuous.”

“It doesn’t fit me at all then,” Quistis says, laughing.

Rinoa bites her lip. She’s sure that Quistis could suit chocolate quite well, if she wanted to let herself go. If her dreams have ever been at all accurate about Quistis’ character, that is. She pushes the thought away, catching up to Selphie and nudging her gently. “What about vanilla? That’s supposed to mean boring sex or something, isn’t it?”

“Ah, but I always have sauce and sprinkles on it!”

---

The room is small and cool and quiet apart from the sounds of rustling paper. Seifer and Squall have wedged themselves into the records room somehow; both sitting at a small table on chairs that look suspiciously about to collapse. Squall has a record book in his hand that is almost white with dust, and he has his leg pressed against Seifer’s thanks to the space constraints, and he finds that he really doesn’t want to complain.

He blows some of the dust off the cover, hating the feel of it under his fingers, and Seifer sneezes loudly. “Shit, don’t they ever clean in here? I didn’t even think anyone ever kept records like this. It seems a bit pointless to me. Why would anyone want to know that on this day fifty years ago Jimmy the paper delivery boy was ill because he drank spoilt milk?”

Squall snorts softly. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things Garden has records of. There’s an entry for almost every day you were studying there before the war. ‘S. Almasy caused a fight in the upper corridor with two junior classmen today’. ‘S. Almasy made Instructor K. James run away crying today’, ‘S. Almasy and S. Leonhart destroyed ten chairs and three tables during the course of a fight’… and, of course, records of hot dog sales. Give me five minutes on my Garden computer terminal and I could tell you how many hotdogs were sold on the first day of sales.”

“At least that’s digital records. This is all on paper, in books, and in no order I can figure out, and –” Seifer breaks off, dropping the book he’s holding in frustration. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything. Even if there is something to find. Matron didn’t even know my parents’ names and her records are good.”

“There’s a difference between not knowing and not being able to find something, though,” Squall says, quietly. After a moment, he puts his hand on Seifer’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “They’re here somewhere, for some reason. If there’re records of Jimmy the paper delivery boy falling ill because he drank spoilt milk, there’s bound to be some record, somewhere, that talks about your parents. Maybe when they got married, or when you were born. It’ll be recorded somewhere.”

“Somewhere,” Seifer says, bleakly.

“I’m not used to dealing with you being all negative.”

“You’re just not used to dealing with me being anything but in your face with a gunblade,” Seifer says, snorting softly. “If you want a professional opinion, I think you’re dealing with me fine. Fujin usually kicks me when I get negative and she’d probably find some way to challenge me about it. Give me something to work against.”

Squall laughs. “I think you’ve got enough to work against already. Shelves full of badly organised record books and dust.”

He shrugs slightly and Squall snorts softly, leaning over his shoulder to look at something in the book he was flipping his way through. After a moment, he looks up and smiles at Seifer a bit, pointing to a certain entry in the table on the page he was looking at.

“It’s a good thing this isn’t just up to you, or you would be looking forever.”

“What?” Seifer asks in confusion.

“Look,” Squall says, rolling his eyes.

Seifer looks. And then curses softly. Squall pulls away for a moment to let him take it in, watching him carefully, trying not to miss any of his reaction. Confusion is replaced by a kind of incredulity and then hope, followed by an obvious decision not to get too excited about this. Seifer’s finger runs over the entry again and again, a tiny smile appearing on his face. Squall hopes this is going to turn out well. That Seifer’s hope, however much he’s trying to squash it, will turn out not to be too optimistic.

He wants to see Seifer really smile, somehow. He’s seen him smirk and he’s seen his smiles recently, but there’s something missing. Some satisfaction or self knowledge, something that’s important to Seifer that he’s always wondered about and never had. Squall wants him to have that, to be happy with himself, to smile completely. He hopes this is going to do that for him.

“Abigail Roberts. James Almasy. Seifer Almasy.”

“A record of your birth,” Squall says, quietly.

Seifer nods slightly, seeming a little incredulous again. “Abigail… my mother’s name was Abigail?”

“Looks like it.”

Seifer takes a deep breath. He never really believed he would find anything, somehow. He thought he did, but it’s a shock to actually find something, to actually have his parents’ names under his fingertips in a dusty old record book. He was almost expecting to find that as far as anyone can tell, he never did have any parents. And yet they’re there. Under his fingertips.

“They’re probably dead, aren’t they?” he says, softly. He believes that. Seeing them there makes him believe they existed – even that they loved him. But he can’t imagine them being alive now.

“It seems… likely.”

“I wish I knew what they looked like.”

Squall bites his lip, looking around the tiny room. “There might be some further record of them in here. Some of these records have photographs in them. It wouldn’t be easy, but we could have a look. There’s bound to be something, and it’s only a matter of time.”

Seifer shakes his head. “There’s no point in you wasting your time.”

“Wasting my time? Seifer, I – you obviously really care about this. Why would it be wasting my time for me to help you try and find out more about them?”

He shakes his head again, looking up at Squall with a slight smile. “I’m sorry. I’m grateful for the offer, but I’ve always had a mental image of what they’re like. I don’t really want to know how wrong I was or anything. Or at least… I’m not ready to know yet. I probably would like to know sometime. But I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about all this and I’d hate to find out all at once that I was completely wrong…”

Squall snorts softly. “Only you would be worried about imagining things wrongly. You really hate being wrong, don’t you?”

“I really hate making a fool of myself.”

“Only you know what you think your parents were like.”

“I’d still know I was wrong.”

Squall rolls his eyes and then returns to business, digging out a bit of paper and his pen. “Write down your parents names. We can try tracking them down more specifically now, whenever you feel ready to. I’ll help you.”

Seifer nods slightly, taking the paper and the pen and writing the names down carefully. For a moment he just looks at them there on the page and wonders if he is wrong, or if his dreams and daydreams ever came close to the truth of things. He smiles a little as he thinks about it all. His father, in his mind the brave, brave soldier. His mother, staying behind, worrying, looking after him, waiting for his father to come back.

More than not wanting to be wrong, he just doesn’t want to lose the vague comfort of such dreams. He’d hate to find out his father was like, well, Zell’s. That’d take all the warm cosiness out of his old dreams, somehow, and make all the comfort those thoughts had ever given him some kind of lie.

Squall catches the faint smile on his face and smiles himself. He doesn’t know why it does things to him, to see Seifer looking a little more, well, complete, but it’s a good feeling and for once that’s all that matters. It’s always mattered before, to know why he feels the way he feels, but sometimes people – his friends; Rinoa and Seifer most of all – do this to him, and for now he’s content to just feel that strange happiness.

It’s like that old saying, ‘it’s better to give than receive’, but not quite.

“Tell me what you imagine your parents were like,” he says, on a sudden impulse. Seifer looks up, his eyes, for a moment, unguarded.

“I imagined they’d be… you know, stereotypical young couple. Really in love. Soulmates. So sure they’d be together forever. The kind people say are naïve but really envy, you know what I mean? Kind of like you were with Rinoa for a while. And I… I always think of my father as a soldier. My mother waiting for him to come home. Looking after me. Me being a brat of a kid but they loved me anyway. Sometimes I think I can remember her face, but I would’ve been so young then… blond hair, green eyes, like mine. But… soft. Really… affectionate.” Seifer takes a breath and flushes a little. “Shit, I sound like an idiot.”

“Not at all,” Squall says, quietly. It hurts somehow to think of Seifer imagining his parents. He had Raijin and Fujin, but in some ways he must’ve been as lonely as Squall himself. And much as he likes to look like a lone wolf who needs nobody, Squall knows that Seifer does need somebody. That’s what their fights were about, as much as anything. Seifer needed the contact, the release of the familiar surge of emotions.

That’s what the disciplinary committee was about. Seeing people. Talking to people. Even if nobody’d liked Seifer because of it. They hadn’t liked him before he’d established it, either.

“I never had dreams like that,” he says, biting his lip.

“Did you ever have daydreams at all?”

He bites his lip harder. “Not really. I always just thought I’d be happy if I did well. So I worked as hard as I could, trained all the time. Shiva approved, I think. Every time I started talking to anyone, and they looked like they might be my friend, she’d urge me to spend longer and longer training. I adored her. I’d do it. And when I was done, whoever it was had stopped being interested.”

“You still junction Shiva?”

Squall sounds a little sad. “No. I loved her and she was a good partner, but she was Shiva. She didn’t love me in return.”

Seifer feels a little awkward, seeing exposed emotion in Squall’s eyes. “Sorry.”

Squall shrugs. “I got over it.”

“You got over a lot of things,” he says, even more awkwardly. “You’d never have had a conversation like this with me before the war.”

“I grew up. So did you, I think.”

Seifer nods slightly. After a moment, Squall gets up and starts putting the record books back on the shelves, in a kind of thoughtful silence. Seifer works beside him, wondering what he’s thinking, not wanting to disturb him even now they’ve said so much to each other that would never have been possible before.

He lingers over putting that last, important record book back. Squall waits for him, his eyes unreadable. Finally, and with the utmost care, he slots it back into place on the shelf.

Squall just smiles at him. “Ready to go?”

---

“I can’t believe my dad is such a bastard.”

Irvine snorts softly, handing Zell another drink and sitting down on the stool next to his. They’ve been here for a while already, but thankfully Zell has been inclined to linger over his drinks, and Irvine’s good at holding alcohol, so thus far neither of them are going to be in trouble with Quistis and Selphie when they get back. That could, of course, change.

“It’s best not to think about it, you know. You have Matron and your adoptive mother, and they really do love you to bits. It’s not like you need that… sperm donor in your life.”

“Sperm donor?”

Irvine shrugs. “Sure. That’s all he did, right?”

Zell grins a bit, taking a few gulps of his drink at once, but then putting it down. “I suppose. I still sort of wish it wasn’t that way, though. Say… do you have any kids?”

“I like to think if I did, you’d know and I’d be taking care of them, at least a little,” Irvine says, quietly. There’s a tiny hint of hurt in his voice and Zell winces a little, knowing he’s put his foot in it – not for the first or last time, of course. “I’m not some sort of slut, and except when I’m really, really drunk, I use protection. And I have Selphie now. But I’m really not like that guy. If I had a kid, I’d want to see him or her, have some sort of part in their lives. I know what it’s like growing up without a whole family, and if I could, I’d do my best to see that kid didn’t.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Zell murmurs, wanting to kick himself.

Irvine shrugs a little and then, grudgingly, nods. “I know.”

“I hope that treating kids like shit isn’t genetic,” Zell mutters, after a moment. “I’d hate to think that if I ever have kids – and I don’t really want to, but you never know, right? – that I’d treat them like that. Who’d say to their kid that they were a nuisance when they were little because they were always crying?”

“It’s probably a fair assessment.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean… not in that tone of voice. More jokingly. Less accusing.”

“I know what you mean,” Irvine says, quietly, nodding a little. He reaches out and claps Zell on the back gently, making him look up. “You’ve got to think more positively. Forget about that guy and focus on the good stuff. That Matron and your ma love you. That if you’re ever a dad, you’re going to be a hundred million times better.”

Zell has to smile. “I suppose so.”

“Stop supposing and start believing,” Irvine suggests, and finishes off his drink. He gets up to get another, noting that Zell’s is still a little more than half full. He likes this, this relaxed feeling, this feeling of being with a friend and just drinking to loosen up a bit. No particular goal in mind beyond getting Zell to look a little less like someone just killed his puppy or something.

When he gets back to his stool, Zell looks up at him, biting his lip. “Do you think you’re going to find your parents?”

Irvine shakes his head slightly, settling down comfortably and sipping at his drink before answering aloud. “Not really. I haven’t even really got the faintest clue, since Matron was our best bet and she had no idea. I don’t really mind. In the end, I have friends and I have Selphie and I’m pretty content with that.”

“So you’re pessimistic about it. Squall must be rubbing off on you.”

Irvine snorts softly, putting his drink down and winking at Zell. “If you ask me, I’d like a little more of Squall to rub off on me.”

It takes Zell a moment to get it, and then he makes a face, blushing a little. “You just said you’ve got Selphie, doesn’t that mean you should keep comments like that to a minimum?”

“That doesn’t count. It’s not like I’d have sex with Squall or anything. I just happen to think he’s hot. Kind of hard to ignore him being one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen. Don’t you think he is?”

“I’m not attracted to guys.”

Irvine raises an eyebrow. “You’ve never even thought about Squall like that? Wow.”

He shrugs. “I’ve never been that interested in sex at all, really. I mean, I’ve thought about sex as often as any guy does, but I’ve never been all that obsessed with the idea of having someone or anything like that. I know people are good looking or whatever but I don’t get the sudden urge to jump them and drag them into bed with me.”

“You must use all your sexual energy up on sparring.” Irvine winks. “What a waste.”

There’s a moment of uncomfortable silence.

“Irvine, if you’re coming on to me…”

He rolls his eyes. “Relax. I’m not going to jump on you and drag you into bed with me just because I happen to think you’re pretty hot. I love Selphie, remember?”

“Right. Right, sorry.” Zell shakes his head slightly, realising that he put his foot in it – again. At least Irvine doesn’t seem to get too worked up over it all, just accepting it all with that same lazy smile. He smiles at him again now, making him relax a little. Friends forgive their friends, the smile seems to say. Even when they’re stupid idiots. Zell takes a deep breath. “So you never thought much about your parents?”

“I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about them, but I haven’t obsessed over them like Seifer always did.”

“Always did?”

“Yeah. Even back in the Orphanage, he’d always be telling us about how his daddy was a soldier but one day he’d be coming back for him and his mother would find them and they’d be happy. He always said that like it made him better than the rest of us somehow. I used to feel sorry for him, I think. I’d always accepted no one was coming for me.”

“Irvine…”

He shrugs again. “It didn’t bother me that much. I had Selphie to play with, and Matron to love me and scold me and fix me up when I fell down.”

Zell nods slightly, thinking that over. After a moment, he looks up again, raising an eyebrow and hoping he isn’t putting his foot in it again. “Are you ever going to have kids with Selphie? I mean, I know she probably wants kids, she seems the type, but do you want kids?”

Irvine shrugs. “Why not? Selphie’d love it and I like kids most of the time. And I’m sure Quistis would love to be a babysitter for when I want time on my own with Selphie.”

“Is that all you think about?”

“A good proportion of the time,” Irvine admits unashamedly, finishing his drink. “Finish up your drink and let’s get going. I don’t feel like getting lectured at by the ladies for letting you stay out past your bedtime, and speaking of sex, I’m actually planning on getting some sometime soon.”

“Too much information, man,” Zell says, wearily. He finishes his drink and puts the glass down with a sigh. “Let’s go.”

Irvine sighs softly as they leave the place, realising that though the drink loosened Zell up a bit, it hasn’t really done anything for him in the long run. He’s not sure what will, except maybe time, but it’s odd to see Zell so… deflated. As in, not shadow boxing or doing acrobatics or grinning that insanely endearing grin of his.

“Hey,” Zell says softly. Irvine looks up at him. “Thanks for trying.”

“You’re welcome,” Irvine says, sighing again.

He hates it when trying doesn’t quite cut it.