Pretty Little Head
Summary: Some jobs just introduce you to the most interesting people… shounen-ai, Squall/Seifer
Warnings: While this is not planned to be yaoi, it is shounen-ai, boy love. If you didn't figure that out from the pairing, this is your warning. If you don't like it, don't flame for it. You were warned.
Second Warning: I hope to manage this without OOC-ness, but it may be slightly impossible. You'll find out why once reading it. –.—
Third Warning: Oh yeah, this is AU. So, expect some things to be quite different. I might be messing with the ages a bit. (sweatdrop)
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VIII. I don't even really own the title of this fic- I stole it from a Nellie McKay CD because it seemed to work so well I couldn't resist.
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It was not a well-known fact that Seifer Almasy had a job. Most of his friends thought he was some sort of layabout in that department- surely he seemed to have enough time that it seemed he never had to be at work.
So, when Raijin and another of his 'friends' (most of whose names he had never really bothered to get to know- there were simply too many suckups in the world to remember all their names.) had their request shot down by, "Sorry, I've got work," they were understandably confused.
"Whoa, dude, since when do you actually have a job?" Derek, that was his name. Amazing really what the mind picks up even when you don't mean it to. Certainly Seifer had never thought he'd remember the man's name. He'd learned that generally he didn't need to. Names actually weren't used when addressing people as much as you'd think.
However, this insinuation that he was some sort of, of jobless layabout, irked Seifer a bit.
"Since nearly a year ago, that's when. Or at least for this job. I had a different one for two years or so before that. Got boring when they wanted to promote me to manager or something. Take my word for it, never work at a grocery store." Seifer smirked at the various stunned expressions on four faces. Actually there were five people grouped around him, but Fuujin would never deign to wear an expression of shock. It was too intense an emotion for her to express properly, he assumed.
"What, you really thought I attended college for two years without a job?" he pushed, putting an expression of mock annoyance on his face. Or maybe not so fake- it was far too easy to do to be all the way an imitation.
"But you dropped out of college, y'know?" Raijin said, cringing like a puppy about to be smacked. You'd think he'd have learned that Seifer had grown out of smacking people around sometime around his senior year of high school.
"Yeah, and you always have time to do whatever- it's like you're never busy. How do you do that with a job?" Derek asked wonderingly.
Seifer clipped the back of the man's shaggy blond head with one hand. "How do you think I paid for all the crap you dragged me into if I didn't have a job?"
"Dunno, maybe you mooched off your parents."
A repeat of the earlier blow made Derek wince and mildly glare at him, rubbing his abused head. Okay, so he hadn't quite grown out of smacking people around. Just Raijin. "I grew up in an orphanage, dumbass. Kinda hard to mooch off that." he scoffed.
"Oh yeeeaaaahh!" Raijin exclaimed. "I forgot about that, y'know."
Seifer had to restrain himself from whacking the taller man across the side of the head. Hmm. Maybe he really did have to work on this hitting people thing.
"Anyway. Yes, I do have a job and I need to get to it, so I'll have to see you later. Have fun." He waved shortly at them instead of abusing the other man.
"Bye, Seifer!!" came the chorus to his departing back.
He was pleasantly surprised when none of them tried to follow him. Sometimes it paid for the only truly intelligent one of his friends to be the kind who wouldn't pry into his life.
Well, he reconsidered, maybe she would. If it was something like if he was cutting his wrists or taking drugs. Then he assumed that Fuujin would probably hit him over the head with something either sharp or very heavy (possibly both) and drag him to the hospital. Or somewhere equally demeaning.
Seifer turned a corner, entering the place that his 'friends' had been making fun of not too long. Nice, really, that they'd already passed it- now they wouldn't be here again for a while. Well, they wouldn't be anywhere for a while, since Derek was dragging all the even partially willing to his "totally awesome skate park I found yesterday."
The girl at the counter greeted him as he entered. "Hey, Almasy. Nice to see you on time for once."
"Aww, Sharon, your words hurt me." he gasped, holding both hands over his heart. "I'm not late that much, am I?"
"Yes, actually, you are." she said sternly, attempting to keep a serious expression on her face.
"I only do it to make sure you're good and ready to see my face, you know. Otherwise the shock of seeing something so handsome might just send you into a coma."
"You do not." she snorted, losing the battle. "Go." She motioned back beyond the counter. Those midday customers that were waiting were watching him strangely. Figured. Midday customers were never regulars.
Seifer wound his way around the small, supposedly 'ergonomically shaped' standing counters that were littered across the small floor area of the shop. It was more abstract than ergonomic, but the way the counter squeezed from a foot and a half wide at either end to maybe five inches in the middle did make it easier to do his job.
He grabbed the tiny pin that was the only part of the uniform he deigned to wear; black and oval with gold lettering spelling his name. Aprons, while managing to look quite sexy on some people, were just not his thing. Plus, it wasn't like he cared what he got on these particular jeans, which were tastefully (but not purposefully) ripped across the knees and thighs, and splattered with dusky purple paint from when he had been dragged into helping Rachel, another of the girls here, paint her new dining room. The shirt, well, actually, getting something powdery on it wouldn't hurt it and getting something goopy and oil-based on it might make it tolerably less new-looking.
Rolling up the sleeves to the stark white dress shirt he wore untucked and contrasting to the casual jeans, the blonde slung himself semi-gracefully into the chair on his side of the counter designated his when he was on duty. He shared it back and forth with some girl named Sydney; she had quickly learned to deal with how he wanted it arranged, rather than the other way around. Despite the differences in their seniority, Seifer knew his way was best.
He was forced to nudge some of the brushes and bottles aside to make room across the tiny bridge of the counter, then go looking through the drawers for his remover bottle.
"No, really, ma'am, Seifer will get you. He's never had an unsatisfied customer yet." Sharon was encouraging a vaguely middle-aged woman. Seifer smirked up at the counter, where the woman was throwing him a suspicious look. He twirled a small, fan-shaped brush between two fingers, slouched in the chair with his legs thrust out and crossed at the ankle, the over-long jeans leaving only the slightly dirty soles of his tennis shoes showing. He let Sharon do the convincing.
The woman ending up heading his way nervously, clutching onto her large brown handbag like it was the only thing preserving sanity in her world. Hell, perhaps it was. Seifer didn't try too hard to understand the minds of middle-aged women. Partial understanding of women his age was difficult enough.
"Hello, ma'am." he greeted with an easy smile, pulling himself into the chair properly and leaning one elbow on the counter, still twirling the brush. "What are you looking for today?"
"Ah, just the nails." she said suspiciously, placing the handbag in her lap. Seifer gave her a quick appraising sweep. Probably about forty or so; looking for some pampering while the kids were at school. Possibly had a long put-off date with her husband, or, more likely, a new man after a divorce, he thought, looking at the absence of a ring on her finger.
"You sure you don't wanna make that the hands? I'm sure they'd come clean and pretty, fingers like that." he said, masking the suggestion by arranging the varied bottles of nail polish in neat little rows for her to choose from.
She fluttered her hands back onto the handle of her bag as if to hide them from this strange young man who, if not being perfectly serious, put on a perfect façade of sincerity. "Ah, I'm just looking for the nails." she said.
"Of course." She was a stubborn one, not to submit to his suggestions immediately. Or perhaps it'd simply been too long since he'd worked the Wednesday late morning-early afternoon shift. Usually he was an early morning or early afternoon worker. "Was there a specific color you were going for, something to match an outfit, or something more subtle?"
"Um, just something gentle?" she suggested. Definitely not used to going to a place like this.
"Of course. French manicure, perhaps?" Seifer hated it sometimes that he knew these things, but they came in handy every now and then, regardless of the stupid girliness of the trivia.
His real specialty was makeup, whether dramatic and thick, archaic and highly contrasting, or modernly understated subtlety. The early morning shifts were full of the latter, the businesswomen either too high on the social ladder or too inept or inexperienced to do it themselves coming in for others to do it for them. That was where he found his regulars.
That and in the flood of younger women and girls, teens coming in after school for this, that, to gossip, to find new products and ways of attempting to make themselves seem so much older and more mature than they were.
Which was what was currently replacing the middle-aged women who left at once looking triumphant and embarrassed. Chattering girls entered in twos and threes, sometimes singles meeting each other in the waiting area, putting their names on the roster or bemoaning the business and long wait, then leaving.
Teenage girls, while fun to look at, were the best because of the way they didn't usually know what they were looking for. They simply wanted him to do something so they could see if they liked it and then maybe try it for themselves.
Not that they would ever truly be able to reproduce it. What he did was art, whether he wanted to admit to the decided unmanliness of the subject or not. The faces were the varied canvases, the brushes, powders, liners and lipsticks his mediums. What he turned each of these strange female creatures into was completely up to his imagination.
Seifer waved goodbye to his coworkers that day feeling rather worn down, which was strange considering that there was no actual physical activity involved in the job, but was actually quite common. Teenagers were so demanding- never mind that he was truly barely into his twenties himself.
Simple enough to right that- Seifer headed off to where, if he guessed right, Derek and a few of the hard-core skater friends would be staying at that skate park till the light dimmed enough for it to not be worth the risk of bodily harm. A good adrenaline rush should happily keep him up until near three in the morning. Perfect for a Friday evening.
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Saturday was his day of mid-afternoon to early evening, getting the older and richer part of society who had strange unfathomable parties to go to, as well as the not-quite-so rich who needed something extra special for a wedding, a funeral, a holiday party.
Working holidays was a memory that made him cringe, but they paid so well that it was almost irresistible to do so. Hateable but irresistible. What a combination.
Luckily, it was just a normal weekend right now, not a crazy overloaded holiday filled with shrieking women who thought that they ought to be put first in line because of course whatever they needed was so much more important than that other biddy. He didn't envy Sharon or the other girls at the counter then.
"Rinoa!" Sharon was then exclaiming. "We haven't seen you in a while."
"Not since you and Seifer stopped seeing each other." Rachel said slyly, flicking a wet brush across an interested petite teenager's hands. Seifer resisted the urge to jab the woman with his elbow only because the intricate nail job she was working on would be ruined if he did.
"Ah, well, we got over it." the dark-haired girl said, leaning against the counter. Her sparkling brown eyes were fixed on him. He smirked and waved cockily at her, leaning back in his rickety swivel chair whose back creaked and threatened to break as he put nearly all his weight on the join between it and the seat of the chair, his long legs thrust out and crossed. He was a hazard both to himself and others as his legs, with their short, untied boots that his dark blue jeans tucked into, were probably all too easy to trip over.
"Y'mean you got over it." Sharon joked, though her tone was sympathetic.
"Seifer was over it about an hour after you left in a riot." Rachel, who had been there at the scene, snorted.
"Bastard." Rinoa laughed ruefully. "I feel sorry for anyone else you date, really I do." She strolled her way over to his desklike counter, sitting in the chair on the other side in such a way as to spin her around twice before she came to rest facing him.
"So. Do me once more for old time's sake?"
"Oh my, Rinoa, really." he said with pretended shocked propriety. "Right here on the counter? I really don't think it's big enough." His smirk turned downright suggestive.
Rinoa laughed along with the others, both employees and customers alike, though she was blushing. "You're so crude." she accused, just as she had any number of times before. "No, I want a face paint job. Anything you want."
"You're not getting this for free." he warned.
"Miserly as ever." she rolled her eyes. "Even for a poor abused old girlfriend?"
"Nope. 'Fraid you used all that up when you were my girlfriend. Best we can offer you is half price."
It wasn't that unusual, really, especially for Seifer, to give ridiculous freebies and discounts to regulars or those he liked. The competition among regulars for the attentions of any of the staff was already fierce; his talent and underhanded generosity made it all the worse.
"Sounds good. Do as you will." she agreed, relaxing into her 'doll face' as he called it, that gentle, pretty, empty look that all beautiful spoiled girls learn from when daddy shows them off. Usually it pissed him off, but for doing the makeup, or 'face paint' as they liked to call it here, it was pure heaven. She barely twitched even when he went for the eyeliner on the inside of the lid, closer to the eye than the lashes, which was more than he could say for most people.
He knew, from experience, what suited Rinoa; girlish and subtle, but still striking- and striking was his favorite to do. One day when they were still dating he had done her up as close to a Japanese geisha as he could, which had made her giggle and ask him what on Earth he was doing while it was being worked on and nearly scream at him in shock when she finally saw. It didn't actually look half bad on her with her thick dark hair though, so she'd gotten a camera and taken pictures of the looks on everyone's faces as she wore it around for the rest of the day.
"So, what's the occasion?" he asked as he finished the delicate eye work, drawing the point of the liquid liner pen away from her face.
"First date!" she chirped.
"Uh. I'm offended." Seifer gasped, twisting the pen back into position. "You would come to me just before a date with a new guy, after dumping me like that?"
"The feelings were mutual, I seem to remember." She rolled her eyes, her last chance to do so before he motioned for them to be closed.
"What color you planning to wear?"
"This." she answered, blindly motioning to her light blue duster and dark pants. A button-down shirt that had a barely dusted cloud-shaped swirling pattern printed on it in glitter showed underneath the duster. It stretched nicely across her breasts, just enough to draw attention without the downright provocative gap that sometimes happened on that kind of shirt.
"That?" Seifer eyed the sleeveless duster and rolled up shirt sleeves under it. "I'm no expert, but that looks kind of casual. You wear that thing, what, every other day?"
"I didn't say it was going to be anything serious, Seifer!" she protested childishly. "I don't want to be too formal- it might scare him off."
"Your face is enough to scare anything off, Princess." he said mockingly.
"What the hell are you doing--?!" she screeched before she figured out his insult. "Oh, ha ha, very funny." she grumbled. "I thought you screwed with the makeup."
"I could tell, oh intelligent one." Seifer was having fun now. He was never so happy as when he had complete control over those he was making fun of- if they moved, or sometimes even tried to fight back verbally—well, oops. There went that eyeshadow, isn't that purple a pretty color for your cheek? Oh my, that bright red lipstick suits your chin so well.
Her eyes flickered open as he finished brushing white, blue, and glitter over the lids. Glitter was one of the hardest things to do- too much and they looked like either an experimenting prepubescent or a fairy queen from the Nutcracker, too little and there was no point at all. And it was so easy to get too much when something was as flashy as sparkles.
"What have you been doing to yourself?" he asked in a sweet near-falsetto tone, patting her cheeks. "You're flushed, dearie."
Rinoa glared at him as she heaved a sigh. "It's sunburn." she told him. "I've been at Father's beach house, since he wasn't there at that time."
"I thought so." he said more sincerely. "Well, that skips the blush then. You and your perfect skin still doing okay?"
He received another acid glare and no answer. When he had first met her, the 'perfect skin' had been not-so-perfect, and he had teased her mercilessly about it, as any flaw in her physical appearance was likely to vex Rinoa.
Seifer placed a finger on her lips when she was going to finally respond. "Ah ah ah. Lipstick next." A muffled grumble of annoyance escaped her as he selected a color just a tad redder and darker than her lips. Gloss that was liquid enough to be shiny without being enough to be blinding in light went over that. Some girls liked the extra shine; Rinoa didn't need it.
"All done." he announced as he flicked the cap back on the gloss. He let her pull the mirror around herself- it was Rinoa, for god's sake; who expected him to show her the same courtesy he would to customers? ...Except right now she technically was a customer. Argh.
When logic failed to justify him, Seifer decided to abandon it. Logic was vastly overrated in the large scheme of things, anyway.
"Thank you, Seifer!" Rinoa squealed after checking her reflection, hugging him around the neck and sending his chair rolling back a few feet with a protesting scream of wheels. "You really need to get that chair replaced." She wrinkled her nose cutely at the cause of the hideous noise.
"I like this chair." he said. It was a nice chair. Plus, how would he annoy people just by being present for work without his chair? Certainly Sydney didn't use it, but enough people here were his friends that if anyone tried to throw the rattly old thing out, they'd be stopped.
"Riiight." She didn't understand why, of course. Silly girl. "Well, I'll call you and tell you how it goes, okay?"
"Sure." he agreed with some internal trepidation. If it went well, she'd be chattering a mile a minute about it. If not, she'd be either ranting angrily or sobbing at him for comfort. Any way, his poor ears were doomed.
"Ta!" she called as she pranced out the door after paying.
"Bye!" came the chorus from Sharon, Rachel, Seifer, and a few of the other girls, not even bothering to look up from their work.
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A/N: Right, well, here's my first chapter. I came up with the idea and wrote the first half of it in Sicily, not that it really shows. But I can blame the absolute craziness of the concept on that fact. Yes, I made Seifer a makeup artist. Fear it.
Well, fear a couple chapters further on even more. I can't wait. (squeals)
I would love to hear what others think about this. Flames, however, are not appreciated. If you think that this is too girly for Seifer, or something else, you are not required to continue reading. And if you have unfounded dislike, I don't need to hear it. If you think the characterizations are off, I would like advice on how to change them for the better, not mere that they're 'wrong' or 'bad.'
Sorry about the rambles. Hope you enjoyed.