Title: That Stupid Dance
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Subject: Hope Estheim, Noel Kreiss
Summary: Hope's just bitter that Snow had taken from him the only girl who would've accompanied him to the Valentine's Day dance. Ugh, Academia and their stupid customs.
Additional Notes: Takes on the paradox ending in Academia, 4XX AF. Hope/Noel. A short (belated) Valentine's Day fic.
That Stupid Dance
Hope hated him, he really hated him.
Snow Villiers.
In all the years that had passed (not including those spent sleeping in a time capsule, of course), Hope would've hoped Snow had learned a thing or two about his faults. But, nope, here the man was, charging recklessly into eras in which he did not belong.
Typical.
Fine, Snow had good intentions, Hope could give him that. He had saved Hope's life, kinda, though for all intents and purposes Serah had already beat him to the punch. At the least, Snow could have left him a replacement assistant, or someone else to take to the Academy's formal Valentine's Day dance in three days; not that he'd asked Alyssa yet, of course, but Hope had a gut feeling she'd be the only one to say yes to him.
Instead Snow left him with a bodyguard, who not only knew little to nothing in the field of science, but was also a male who wouldn't likely be interested in attending a dance with another male. Then again, if he really was to be assassinated in three days' time, perhaps Snow's gesture had been a nice thought, after all.
Hope was just bitter.
But not stag. He would not be going alone to that dance.
Hope didn't really see how he'd be assassinated in three days' time. He wasn't surprised, especially if his fate would have initially fallen into the hands of autonomous machina. It seemed everyone wanted him dead, humans and machines alike, though Hope supposed that's what Noel was there for.
Noel was a nice guy, really, but he was dead-weight. He followed Hope around like a puppy, supposedly to keep the man guarded at all times. Hope couldn't tell which he preferred more. Alyssa had been clingy, but at least she made herself useful through research; Noel understood the concept of personal space, but couldn't even distinguish protons from electrons.
It really was quite the predicament, and it didn't help that he still didn't have a date to that damned dance. Academia and its stupid customs, Hope hated it all, but he hated Snow more for leaving him behind in the mess. To think, finding a date would've been such a difficult task - he was only the Academy's founder, no big deal, after all.
But if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that he was not going alone to that dance. He wouldn't be made a fool of himself, especially if Noel insisted on following him to the dance, too.
Hope was getting desperate. With only one more day to find a date, Hope was running out of time. And so, he devised a strategic plan, which he ironically named Last Resort.
Might as well kill two birds with a single stone.
So he approached Noel, or rather turned around to face him, and asked the younger man to the dance.
The response?
"What's Valentine's Day?"
Right. Academia's customs would be beyond Noel. Why Hope hadn't thought to ask Noel earlier, Hope had no idea.
But at least he wouldn't be going alone.
One trip to Academia's shopping district later and both men were ready for the dance, dressed in matching tuxedos and bow ties of slightly different shades of blue. Hope escorted Noel into the grand hall where the dance was to take place; already it was filled with other researchers, who all greeted Hope as if speaking to a revered person of importance.
He wasn't alone, though. Which meant he wouldn't be sitting at that table where all the single men and women were supposed to sit. To think, the "Singles" table had been Alyssa's idea, yet she wasn't even there to see how Hope had overcome the trial of finding a date. Typical.
But Hope was no longer bitter. Stupid customs aside, come tomorrow and he'd finally be able to focus on his research once more. Come tomorrow, and three days' time would have passed, and maybe Noel would finally stop following him everywhere he went.
So he let himself enjoy the night. In the preliminary dancing before the scheduled dinner, he discovered just how shockingly good Noel was at dancing, and he allowed himself to be carried away. Despite the fact that Noel had merely been a last resort, he really was beginning to see Noel in a different light, more than the useless bodyguard who kept following him around.
It both scared and shocked him. But if Hope had any feelings for the other man at all, by the way Noel looked at him as they danced, Noel would have already known.
At first Hope took offense to the fact that people had assumed he'd be coming alone, especially when he'd arrived at the dinner tables only to find his designated seat at the "Singles" table. While Noel calmed Hope down ("Relax, Hope, it's just a misunderstanding, I'm sure,"), arrangements had been made to seat Hope elsewhere, with Noel by his side.
It was only then that Hope realized that the Academy's damned dance and the projected date of his assassination were one and the same, only when the person he'd swapped seats with had taken a swig of the wine at his table and collapsed only moments after.
From there, the dance had gone to hell.
Days later, Noel was still by Hope's side. As it turned out, the man was a fast learner: In time, perhaps he wouldn't be as useless at the Academy as he'd once been.
Hope was scared to death, sure, especially since no one knew who had been responsible for the poisoned mead that had been meant for him. But with Noel's hand entwined beneath the table with his own, his paranoia was pushed to the back of his mind, and Hope was glad to be alive.
In the end, he'd had himself a (decent but still in-training) research assistant, a bodyguard, and a date to the dance, all thanks to Snow. He'd bet all his life earnings that Snow hadn't meant for anything that had happened to happen as they did, but then again, heroes didn't need plans, blah blah blah, the typical excuses from Snow.
And now he wasn't alone. And though that didn't mean so much with the dance through and through, it was still a pleasant thought to entertain. Perhaps he didn't really hate Snow for what he'd done, if only for the part where he'd left Noel behind.
He wouldn't be admitting that to Snow anytime soon, though.