The Slacker
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VIII, all names, places and characters belong to Square Enix.
The plot, setting, original places and original characters belong to me.
Summary: With no place to go, a notorious young slacker shows up with her suitcase on the doorstep of her high-school boyfriend, a workaholic college freshman.
Squall/Rinoa, Zell Quistis, Irvine/Selphie,
Rated T (may go up for later chapters.) Contains sexual references. May contain traces of Lemons.
Author's notes: For those of you reading Angel of decadence, this is the story I've been promising, although it may not work out as well as I'd hoped. As you may have realized, I know nothing of University life so if any of you can offer some feedback or experience (yours or someone else's) about how things work, I'd appreciate it. As it is now, I've based it something that is more like secondary school which is probably a bad thing. If any of you have a better way to go about it, let me know and I'll rewrite what I've done and re-plan the educational side of it in favor of something with a little more realism.
The Arrival
Sharp black brows furrowed above a pair of brown eyes as the mind behind them both struggled and failed to make head- nor-tail of the piece of paper she held in her hand.
It was all just lines and colors to her. How was she supposed to know how to read a map? They never taught her anything like that in school. They didn't bother to teach her anything in school besides the things she'd never use in real life.
The wind blowing through the map in her hand wasn't helping matters either.
"Stupid Balamb wind" she complained. She looked down to see her dog whine. "At least it's not raining" she sighed.
Just then, a strong salty breeze picked up, catching the girl off-guard and tearing the map from her grasp.
She gasped until the wind caught in her throat while her outstretched hand reached for the fleeing paper as it fluttered ever further from her reach.
She quickly tried to give chase but burdened as she was with her dog and suitcase, it was soon lost to her.
"Now what am I supposed to do?" she openly lamented. This was a strange place to her. She had never been out of Deling even once in her life.
Sure, the sunny sea breeze coming in from the harbor and the pleasant white-and-blue buildings made the town a nice place to be in but all of that was dulled a little by the prospect of being lost.
As she searched around the city, she noticed the buildings becoming smaller.
Outside the nearest one, she saw someone who appeared to be her age. She tied her dog's lead to a nearby power pole and put down her case before approaching the youth.
She seemed to catch his attention and he watched her as she approached. She noted his spiky blonde hair while she crossed the road. He seemed to leaning against the door of a building.
"Um, excuse me?" the girl asked nervously.
"Huh?" the young man asked.
"Um, well… I wonder if you could help me, you see… Um, well, I'm ah…"
"What, are you lost?" the blond asked, sensing it from the girl's awkwardness.
"Ah, yeah. I am, kinda."
"So then where are you trying to go?"
"Well… I'm looking for someone, actually."
"Oh, well that does make it a little more difficult," the blond laughed. "Do you know where this person lives?"
"No…"
"So then how exactly were you expecting to find them?" he criticized.
"I… I don't know," she admitted. "I… I had it marked down on a map."
"That's a start. You've got a map at least. Now let's see it."
"You can't," the girl shook her head.
"Why not, where is it?"
"I… lost it." The blond let out an exasperated sigh.
"Then I don't see how I can help you."
"Yeah, sorry," the girl apologized. "Thanks anyway" she said, turning to walk back.
"Hey, wait up!" the young man called out.
"What is it?" Rinoa asked, looking back.
"Who is it you're looking for? Maybe I know them."
"Um, well… It's… I don't suppose you happen to know a guy named Squall, do you?"
"Squall Leonheart?" The girl's eyes widened.
"You know him?"
"Yeah, he's a friend of mine. Zell Dincht," he said, introducing himself and offering his arm.
"I'm Rinoa" the girl replied, taking his hand and shaking it in a friendly fashion. "So where can I find him?"
"Next door down" he informed her, pointing out the direction.
"Thank you," she said, smiling. She hadn't known it would be this easy to track him down.
She quickly went back to get her things and then hurried to the door the youth had pointed out.
Once she had knocked on the door she couldn't help but feel nervous as a sudden wave of feelings began crawling up her leg to choke her. As she waited patiently, the door opened and Rinoa licked her lips, ready to explain her situation – except – something was wrong.
"Yes?" asked the young woman at the door, a tall blonde with a pair of glasses over her blue eyes and a slightly pale complexion as though she didn't spend a lot of time out in the sun.
What the, is this the right house? Who's she?
"What is it, I'm kind of busy," the young woman stated, impatiently clicking her tongue.
"Oh, sorry," she apologized. "Is um, does Squall live here?"
"Yes… why, who are you?"
"I'm… hold on, who are you?" Rinoa asked in her confusion.
"I asked first," the blonde asked, eyebrows furrowing in not only impatience but now also anger. Whoever this girl was, she was not courteous or polite in any way. If the girl aspired to make good first impressions with those she met, she had failed miserably in this case.
"I'm Rinoa. Rinoa Heartily?" she added upon seeing the blonde's blank expression."
"I've never heard of you," the girl admitted, shaking her head.
"I'm Squall's girlfriend." Again, she was met with that blank expression.
"I wasn't aware he had one," she replied.
"And who are you?"
"I live here with Squall."
"I see… and who are you?"
"Call me Quistis," she said. "I have a question for you."
"What is it?"
"I'm wondering what you're doing here. I'm assuming you're from Galbadia?"
"Yeah, I'm from Deling City."
"I thought so. I know that Squall went to school there but even so, he's never mentioned you."
"Yeah, well… that sounds a lot like him, actually."
"Does it? Either way, that still begs the question… why have you come all this way?" Rinoa scratched her head in slight discomfiture.
"That's why I wanted to talk with Squall. It's embarrassing to say it to anyone else."
"Don't tell me, you're pregnant" the girl coolly speculated.
"What? No, of course not!" she desperately answered.
"So then why did you come? What, are you selling something, were you kicked out, what?"
"I already told you, I'm only going to talk about it with Squall. Just let me talk to him."
"He's not here."
"Then I'll wait."
"He'll be back later today but I'm not letting you in until you tell me what you need to see him about."
"Why!?" Rinoa demanded. "Stop being so darn difficult!"
"Rinoa?"
The raven-haired girl turned around.
"Squall, there you are!" she exclaimed, running toward him and launching herself into a warm embrace at his expense. "Where were you, I've been searching everywhere."
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Yes, I'd like to hear that as well" Quistis chided.
"Um, well, actually… I need a place to stay," she said, gesturing towards her suitcase."
"You show up uninvited and unannounced and expect us to let you stay?" Quistis demanded incredulously.
"And my dog," the girl added with a nervous grin.
The three of them all sat around the dining table. Angelo had been tied up outside.
Dogs were not allowed inside this house, much to Rinoa's displeasure. She had tried to appeal her case before Squall but there was nothing he could do, save for offer the beloved animal a bowl of water and a few scraps of cold meat.
The table at which they all were seated around was a brown wooden circle. Rinoa knew nothing of wood and so couldn't say what it was. It was that brown 'woody' color with a shiny surface.
The girl could even see her face just by looked down at the table.
"Whoa, how long did it take you to spit-shine this thing?" she joked in an attempt to lighten the mood and lift the grey cloud that had been looming over the room. Well, not grey exactly. It was actually closer to black, like when the kid of two over-achievers brings home a bad report card.
"Spit-shine?" Quistis demanded angrily. "This is solid oak, varnished and well-cared for."
"Okay, okay," Rinoa said, raising her hands defensively as if to protect her face. "It was just a joke. Geez, don't take everything so seriously."
"I have no time for your foolishness. I was incredibly busy before you came here. You interrupted my studying."
"All work and no play makes Quisty a bad girl," Rinoa jested.
Quistis blushed slightly and looked away.
"Rinoa," Squall quietly warned, "don't push it. As it is, you're a guest here and if anyone asks you to leave, you'll have no choice to do so. It still hasn't been decided whether or not you'll be allowed to stay."
"But it's two against one, right? Majority rules. Hyne, you guys are studying politics and you don't even know that much? I swear, I could make a better student then the two of you put together."
"I'd like to see that," Quistis interjected scornfully. "What is it that you do, Rinoa? You don't even have a job, do you?"
"Do you?" Rinoa shot back. Unseen by her, Squall shook his head disappointedly and buried his face in his palm. This was heading in a dangerous direction. Soon there'd be a big fight between the two of them. Squall didn't want those two to wind up hating one another.
"No, but I'm a full time student and so is Squall. That's the difference between us. We're actually doing something with our lives, unlike you!"
"But you still don't have a job. I could study if I wanted. You think you're so great because you're a student. I could do that, it's easy. It's just like being back in school."
"You couldn't get accepted into Balamb Garden if you tried. While you do nothing each day, we're studying to earn qualifications. Someday, we'll both have well paying jobs and have big families living in huge, billion Gil houses while you're still struggling to pay the rent in a crappy room like this."
"Na-uh, I'll be with Squall so I won't have to worry, right Squall?" she asked, looking over.
Squall sat hunched over in his seat, staring down at his shoes as though they were more fascinating than the argument going on before him.
"Leave me out of it," he simply stated.
"Huh?" Quistis smirked.
"So that's your plan?" she asked cruelly. "You hope to find a wealthy husband to keep you? You intend to marry for money? Submit to some guy? Become his whore and keeper? Cook for him and clean up after him? Bare his children and become a housewife? How pathetic."
"Shut up!"
"Squall studies full-time as well but even he has a job."
"What?" Rinoa asked, surprised.
"I have two… actually," the brunette corrected.
"Actually… I can believe that" Rinoa said after processing the thought through her mind. "With you being such a workaholic, we'd never be in debt."
"Indeed" Quistis added, seemingly conceding to the raven-haired girl. "I'm sure Squall's drive to succeed would see him through any hardship… even with a hopeless leach dragging him down." Rinoa's eyes widened."
"What did you say!?" Rinoa asked.
"Rinoa… could you go?" Squall asked her.
Rinoa's eyes widened, her spirit crushed.
"But… why?" she asked.
"The two of us need to discuss this matter in private. You being here is a distraction for us. We need to look at this logically… and before I forget, we're not studying politics."
"You're going to talk about me behind my back, aren't you?" she asked.
"Most likely" Squall admitted.
"Fine" Rinoa conceded with a sigh, skulking toward the exit.
"Wait!" Squall called out to her, reading his watch. "Come back in an hour. We should have reached a sufficient solution by then."
"Alright" the girl said, continuing on her way out. How am I supposed to kill an hour in an unfamiliar place…? Guess I'll check out the harbor.
Sometimes I debate the reasoning behind all this in the first place – Squall commented. It was a strange way for things to have worked out. As it was, Squall was forced to work two part-time jobs – one in the evenings and one on Sundays– as well as study full-time.
Most people picked either studying or working. Squall had to do both.
It had seemed like a good idea to start with. With his jobs, the money he got from home and both his and Quistis' student allowances from the government, they were managing to break even but Squall was starting to regret his decision.
He prided himself on being a workaholic but even so, studying by day and working in his free-time; it was exhausting. Perhaps it would have been better all along to simply take out a Larger Student Loan to pay the fee for access to Garden's Dormitory.
Squall had been feeling restless lately but with Rinoa back in his life again, perhaps things would get a little more… interesting.
When she'd come back, she found her belongings inside – although her dog had been forced to stay tied up outside.
"So?" she asked nervously as Squall approached her. It was a solemn occasion. It seemed as though the girl were on trial. Guilty or innocent, to be confined or be banished.
"I don't know" Squall finally admitted after making the girl wait for what must have seemed like the longest time."
"What does that mean!?" she demanded.
"You can stay for tonight at least. Then we'll have to look at our options."
"So… is that a yes? Can I stay?" she asked, growing more and more excited.
"For now," he replied.
After coming home from his evening job no earlier than Eleven PM, he wasn't surprised to find that Quistis was asleep. Squall got Wednesdays off but he also worked double shifts on Thursdays and Fridays.
Being a Thursday, he'd been sharing a shift with his friend and neighbor, Zell Dincht, an energetic and rowdy Collage Freshman. The two had quickly become friends, despite their differences. Zell had been the one to introduce Squall to Quistis.
After work, Zell would take Squall out to eat or to some other such activity. Quistis always got to bed early as a general rule.
When the brunette let himself in he wasn't surprised to see all the lights off and so crept silently up to his room.
He knocked quietly on his bedroom door before entering. He wasn't sure about the new sleeping arrangements.
"Is anyone in here?" he asked in a hushed whisper. When he received no reply, he took that as a sign that he could enter. I guess Quistis persuaded her to take the couch after all Squall assumed with a slight chuckle.
He turned the light on and closed the door. He quickly shed the uniform for his job at the general store – which consisted of a dark blue shirt and pair of black trousers – and checked over his things for the morning. With everything in place, he walked over toward his bed where he was met with quite the strange anomaly.
In the middle of his bed was a large round bump.
With a perplexed expression on his face, he extended his index finger and poked at the bump.
When he got no response he decided to poke it again…
– and again…
He must have looked quite strange, standing there in his underwear, poking at a strange bump under the blanket of his bed.
Suddenly, he heard a high-pitch groan, coming from the bump.
Eyes widening, he began to panic. She was waking up and Squall wasn't even sure who it was. If she woke up and caught him in his underwear; well, that could be embarrassing. He could get in quite a lot of trouble, depending on who it was.
If this turns out to be Quistis, I'm dead – he panicked.
Slowly and carefully, he shifted the cover down a little and was greeted by strands of strait black hair.
Squall let out a relieved sigh and felt his heart grow lighter as though it were filled with helium.
"So this is where you are" he stated.
In response, Rinoa merely groaned and rolled over, although she didn't wake.
Squall knew that he should have taken the couch but frankly, he was exhausted after a long day.
Quistis would give him hell when she found out but so what? It wasn't so bad. He wasn't completely nude – he justified. He didn't think that Rinoa would mind so he carefully slipped under the blanket beside her and reached up for the second light-switch above the bed to turn off the ceiling-light in the centre of the room.
He made himself comfortable and almost immediately fell into a respectably deep sleep as he lay next to his angel, albeit an angel without a shred of self-discipline.
Rinoa wasn't any sort of delinquent per-say, but then again, she wasn't exactly an honor student or over-achiever, either. She was a slacker, but she was his slacker. They were together again, the mismatched duo. As he lay peacefully beside her, his sleep went undisturbed until the next morning.
There, the first chapter. Just nine more and I can start writing Angel again. Remember what I said, if you want a more realistic University story, I'm going to need a little help in the form of information. As it is, I'm completely ignorant on the matter. I even tried researching online but came up with nothing. Also, there is a slight reference to the title of a My Dying Bride song in there. The name of the song – The Whore, the cook and the Mother. It's pretty obvious but unless you knew of the song, you wouldn't pick up on it.