To say the previous night had gone off with flying colours would have most likely been one of the biggest lies known to man kind. If their relationship, or lack there of unless you considered the term relationship to include 'only just barely tolerating the person'; wasn't strained enough as it was this had just made it about 9,000 times worse than before.
Oh yes, last night had definitely done some damage. Scratch that, some was an understatement. Both had avoided each other like the plague and went off to their separate rooms for the night.
Until the morning, that is - when she saw the paper. And all hell broke loose, because after all - Quistis Trepe mad - was something one in their right mind would definitely steer clear of, or at least try and avoid her.
Squall didn't see it coming. He didn't even have enough time to even look up in the span of about 3 seconds in which his door was just about knocked off its hinges, and a news paper was thrown in his face. Hard.
He reached up and practically peeled the paper off of his face. And yet the only thing that crossed his angered mind was that, damn, she had a good arm - but that besides the point. "What the hell was that for?" He grit out, glaring at her.
She said nothing, but even her body language indicated she was furious when she pointed to the front page of the paper which she had thrown at him just previously. He sighed and looked to it and barely concealed a smirk. Oh, yes, the press was definitely having a filed day on this one.
The first thing that caught his eye was the picture of them kissing. Now, this was not a small picture either; it was blown up full size taking up almost all of the paper's front page. Quite literally. He didn't even bother reading the headline because something more important finally clicked in his brain.
He was a dead man. Cautiously, he lifted his gaze to meet her. He inwardly cringed, she looked mad. Incredibly mad. He could just picture the headlines now, 'Squall Leonheart Killed by Estranged Wife'. However, this was Squall Leonheart, who wouldn't (as he had told himself numerous times before), get pushed around by some woman.
"It's the press," He stated dryly, folding the paper neatly in half and placing it on his dresser. "What did you expect with all the flashes going off? For the pictures to just to stay pinned up on the photographer's wall?" He asked coolly.
If her glare hadn't been icy before, it was probably putting the North Pole to shame by now. "I didn't expect being plastered all over the newspaper!" She hissed, trying to calm her rarely active temper.
"Well unfortunately, you're stuck with it, and frankly, I don't give a damn. But for however long you're here, which hopefully won't be long - you're my wife." He looked up and stared her squarely in the eye. "So get used to it."
She stared at him in utter disbelief. "Excuse me?"
He crossed him arms. "We both know the only reason you're here is because you value your job or what ever you do and you don't want to made a fool of." He said bluntly.
She took a deep breath, "I don't understand what people see in you, but all I see is an arrogant man." The blonde finished. He raised an eyebrow, and turned his attention to his television as he turned it on.
The news appeared and she let out sigh, trying to recite things she had taught her students. Well, actually, more like the things she taught them not to do. It was evident the conversation had ended, with a disappointing score of Squall: 4 Quistis: 1. It was when she was about half way to the door when she heard her own name, now, even though her mind was screaming 'this is a bad idea' she turned to listen.
"And the news is in, we have found information on this elusive Quistis Trepe. She used to live in the small town of Balamb, and used to live in residence since she was the top Instructor in Balamb Garden. That's right - a mercenary school." Squall stared at the TV and back at his 'wife', then to the TV again. "And something that will get her fan boys going, yes Mrs. Trepe now has a fan group that will rival her husbands; is the weapon she used to instruct was whip!" He turned to his wife slowly and raised an eyebrow.
The news person made a whip cracking noise, "Damn," The man next to the female news caster said, "Leonheart must have handful with her, in and out of bed." Squall promptly fell of the bed. She stared at him, and he stared at the TV in disbelief.
Oh, no, it just couldn't have been a sword. He groaned, he knew what this meant; all the late night comedy show cracking raunchy jokes about his sex life, probably including randomly kicked around jokes about how kinky a whip could be.
She allowed herself a smug smirk (not have had come to the realization he had just come to yet), that he obviously missed as he was currently wallowing in self pity at the moment. Squall, during those few seconds, picked himself up and was contemplating the recent turn of events.
This could be bad. Being married to mercenary - she'd probably kill him in the night or something. He'd have to keep an eye open from now on, he decided. He groaned, as if it wasn't bad enough before. He had visions of rumours going around saying that he's in the CIA.
Alright, this was bad. However, in the celebrity business, you can turn anything around. He needed something big, and that could put all the mercenary crap behind them so the press could have a field day on whatever the new issue was.
Now, he just needed an idea... or an event. However, there was one major roadblock - there was none: no parties, not galas, no nothing. Okay, fine. He could deal with that. He'd just have to make one.
Squall got up, and quickly descended down the stairs leaving her by herself to collect her thoughts for a moment before following him. She didn't like that tone of voice. Not at all. By the time she had gotten down there, the whole house hold was in a frenzy, and she didn't have a clue what was going on.
She decided there was no point in trying to find him so instead, once she saw Rinoa go by poked her to get her attention. She immediately jumped and nearly dropped the tray she had been holding on to. "Sorry." Quistis apologized immediately afterwards.
The raven haired girl waved it off. "No, no, it's okay." She flashed a smile, "Everyone's just a bit stressed right now. Mr. Leonheart just announced that he'd be holding an open house party in two days. It's just really sudden, no one really saw that coming." She struggled to balance a fairly heavy vase and a pile of napkins on a small silver tray, the blonde gingerly took the vase from her.
"An open house party?'' She asked, surprised. So that's what the tone of voice was for.
"Yeah. It's on Thursday, he just announced it, and the butlers are already calling people." She sighed, "Wow, it's gonna be pretty busy soon."
The blonde nodded in agreement, "Where do you want this?" She asked, shifting the vase between her arms.
"Oh, the living room. C'mon, I'll take you there." Rinoa balanced the tray better this time, as she lead the way weaving in between the butlers and cooks. Quistis just managed to keep up after narrowly running into a frenzied cook. Finally, they arrived into the living room, already swarming with butlers whom were frantically dusting. The blonde set the vase down on the table, as Rinoa set down the tray and placed the napkins around before turning to her. "Thanks so much." She said smiling.
"It's all right." The blonde said, waving it off. The next wave of butlers came in and ushered her out in the process, leaving her in the crowd of people. While trying to get through, she only just barely got a glimpse of her husband and followed him to one of the very few rooms in the house that wasn't packed.
He turned around immediately once they were alone. "Why are you following me?" He asked coolly, staring her down.
"It's not fair making them do everything the last second. You push them too hard, they're only people." She said, staring at him equally as hard.
"You're telling me how to run my house?" He asked in disbelief.
"No-" He cut her off.
"Look, you are a small school teacher, you train mercenaries, you've got fan club. This means nothing to me. You can tell me what do, but under no circumstances I will do it." He said icily.
She opened her mouth to reply but got cut off. "Sir, telephone." An butler said, walking into the room.
Squall nodded and left her alone to try and calm herself down.
o o o
Flopping down in his 'office', and picked up the phone gingerly. "Hey, Squall. I heard about the whole mercenary thing," Irvine's voice greeted chirpily, "but, then again, everyone has." The manager allowed himself a small chuckle at his own joke, and Squall rolled his eyes.
"Anyways, we need to get the spot light of your little wife - speaking of which, man, she is hot-"
"I'm planned a gala-" Squall started.
"I mean, really, a blonde. Whoa, you're a lucky little bugger, you could have ended up with some fat-"
"Shut up for a minute, Irvine." Squall gritted out, and waited until there was silence on the other line. "I've planned a gala for Thursday."
"Yeah, yeah, so about the chick-" Squall rolled his eyes and hung up. The phone rang, he sighed before picking it up.
"That's really rude, I mean, seriously, manners a chick magnet. Anyways, so the polls on the web still say that this little mistake you've managed to cram yourself making your popularity hit the roof - Oh hey, Vanessa, baby, you know that other girl was just a mistake-" Squall cringed as he heard an audible smack on the other line, and slowly hung up the phone again.
o o o
It was around 11:30 at night when the hustle and bustle had died down and the butlers and maids had finally gotten to retire to their rooms to take a rest. Quistis was still awake, the sounds of silver ware being dropped, rearranged and the sounds of moving furniture still ringing in her ears.
She wouldn't be getting any sleep here, she knew that much. She slowly walked towards the door, trying to open without a creak or squeak. No avail, it opened with a large creak that she was sure everyone must have heard but instead the only one who heard was a not a human, but a dog.
Angelo had perked up at the sound and had found her in the hallway, it had gave her a fright to see something bounded towards her for a moment before realizing it was only the dog. It skidded to a halt millimetres in front of her, almost knocking her off balance. She allowed herself a small smile, before leaning down to pet it, it barked happily and she quickly motioned for it to be quiet.
Unfortunately for her, it only listened to it's master and continued to wag it's tail and bark. Both her and the dog heard a door open and soft footsteps coming in their direction. Rinoa looked at them both curiously for a moment, before kneeling down to Angelo. "Bad dog, you have to be quiet." She brought a finger to her lips to motion silence and the dogs silenced immediately.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I couldn't sleep." Quistis apologized, for the second time the day, Rinoa waved it off friendly.
"It's okay. I wasn't asleep anyways. You want to talk? Selphie's up too." Before she could answer, Rinoa had taken her by the hand pulled her towards her room. The blonde smiled, it wasn't very often she got to talk to people her age, besides for Xu all the other instructors were old and stuffy.
Angelo followed obediently and they made their way to her room, Rinoa opened the door and gestured for her to go inside. The room was a bit small, but homey; to be honest, if she had had a preference to Rinoa's room and her own, she would have chose the maid's room. Selphie waved happily as they came in. "Hey!" She said, with a grin.
Quistis and Rinoa waved back. "She's couldn't sleep." Rinoa explained, sitting down, as Angelo settled himself on his dog bed in the corner.
"Well, there's always a remedy for that!" Selphie exclaimed excitedly, "Girl talk!" Rinoa nodded in agreement. Somehow, she had conveniently gotten herself in-between a rock and a hard place.
"Okay, okay. First topic, boys." Selphie grinned at Rinoa. "You wanna start Rinny? Anything about any crushes?" The girl shook her head vehemently, Selphie gave an all knowing smile, and let out a fake cough; and if you listened hard enough you would have heard 'Squall', covered up by the fake cough sound. Rinoa shot the other girl a glare.
Rinoa looked the other direction, "It's just a little crush," She defended, pouting. "Besides," She smiled shyly. "Its not like he'd ever like me or anything, he's got a fan girls...and I'm just his maid."
Selphie let out a sound of disapproval, and Quistis suddenly felt sorry for the raven girl, for loving someone who might never even like her back. "You shouldn't think that way, on the negative side." She said slowly, looking towards the girl.
"Thanks, but," Rinoa said, she let out a small laugh though. "he's married, now. I'm glad he's with you and not some stuck-up girl. You know, he needs somebody nice like you..." She trailed off.
"You shouldn't give up so easily," The blonde started, "I'm only here until the divorce papers are signed, then I'm going to go home." Both stared at her.
"You're going home...? Why? If you stay here, you'll be like, rich and you'll never have to work or anything." Selphie said, confused.
"I know, but... this place is too big for me." The blonde smiled, "I like my small dorm."
"Well... we'll just have to squeeze in a lot of girl talks in between now and then right, Selphie?" Rinoa said, elbowing the other girl. Selphie nodded in agreement, but her watched stated beeping, signalling mid-night.
"Hate to be a party-pooper, but we have to get up early so maybe we should go to be early, huh, Rin?" The other girl nodded, despite their cheery appearances, both were exhausted from being on the phone, invitations, arrangements, cleaning, dusting ect.
"How early is early?" Quistis asked curiously.
"5:00." They answered in unison. Wow. She was about to protest about the most likely not getting enough sleep, but they had waved it off and said that they were happy to be of service and that Mr. Leonheart could be, on rare occasions, nice. They had said their goodnights and on the way out, Selphie had stopped her for a moment.
"You know, you look like someone who likes to read," She said with a smile. "Um, I don't really know what genre you like to read, or anything, but, uh, here." The petite brunette handed her a book. "Mr. Leonheart wrote it, he maybe a meanie sometimes, but he writes really well."
"Thank you." She smiled, genuinely. "You should to bed now though, you'll be getting up early." Even outside to school, she was still a teacher.
She walked back to her room, and settled herself down in bed before opening the book. It an action adventure book, the kind that kept you reading until you finished, or so it said. Carefully, she flipped by the publisher's name pages, and started the first chapter. It was about a Sorceress and her knight.
How ironic.
o o o
The next two days flew by, almost literally. Butlers, maids, and designers were frantically rushing around doing last minutes touch ups; and she, well, she was being fitted for a dress. She winced slightly each time the designer poked her with a stray pin. Coincidently, there were a hell of a lot stray pins. She dress was light yellow, with sequence, and incredibly uncomfortable. She had a feeling he hired the worst dress maker ever to design her dress, just to spite her.
"Finished!" The woman exclaimed loudly, tightening the back which made the blonde feel like it was suddenly hard to breathe. She also had a nagging feeling that the dress would come apart at the seams any second now, but ignored it.
Selphie and Rinoa gave her a thumps-up sign from where they were doing last minute checks. She managed to wave back before she was pulled away by the hair people. Half an hour later, she had counted exactly 289 bobby pins had been put into her hair to keep it pinned up; and she was deathly scared that if it fell down, the hair dressers would murder her.
The guests started pouring in a few minutes later, she heard coats shuffling, footsteps, loud talking, and saw at least 128 camera flashes in the span of 10 seconds. The butlers and maids were greeting people, checking invitations, and escorting them to the ball room; and for once in her life, she truly wanted to hide.
The hair dressers and designers were long gone by the time Squall had approached her from behind and taped her on the back. She jumped and wheeled around, nearly tripping on the skirt which was conveniently not hemmed properly. Squall stared, her a mercenary? for God's sake, she was bloody spastic.
"Try not to do a face plant." He said dryly, as he watched the last of the guest make their way in.
"Shouldn't you be greeting them?" She asked neutrally.
"Keeps them in suspense," He said coolly. She ignored that comment, but frowned in disapproval. She watched the clock; he waited exactly ten minutes waiting for people to settle in, before leading her to the ball room.
The second they got in there, the room went dead quiet. "Welcome to my humble home," He said smoothly, many of the women laughed, and stared at him. Well, actually, it was more along the lines of undressing them with their eyes, much to the dismay of their dates; but that was besides point.
"I would also like to announce the rumours about my wife are false. There was a misunderstanding in the news report; and the Deling News center has already been notified." Squall announced, various of his female fanciers sighed in relief. She struggled not to roll her eyes, the crowd seemed to buy it though. "Go enjoy yourselves." The blonde heard him say.
The conversation was back again, and the party was in full swing. People were mingling, and butlers were going around offering drinks. It seemed like everyone as having a good time except for her, who was being dragged around and introduced to many people who just viewed her as Squall's new 'accessory'.
"So this is your new wife," They would say; "Isn't she just gorgeous?" She had never felt like ore of a trophy in her entire life, or an accessory for that matter.
It nearly made her roll her eyes as he told them of how they were introduced, and how he had proposed, funny how he never told them the real story. She of course, was forced to nod in agreement, occasionally putting in the odd word or story every now and then, like the had rehearsed.
"Squall," She heard someone call, the brunette turned around to a blonde man in a white tuxedo.
"Seifer," Squall said coolly, the blonde felt him tighten his grip on her a bit. "I didn't see you there."
"Obviously." The other man snipped. "So, this is the infamous Trepe." He said coyly, his gaze lingering on her for a few secondly longer than necessary. "It's a pleasure," Seifer said leaning down to kiss her hand.
Squall raised an eyebrow slightly. Seifer smirked, "Oh, don't tell me you're jealous or little old me? But then again how could you?" He lowered his voice slowly. "You met her less than a week ago, after all; and besides, this is the ice king himself." He watched the other man expression, and laughed. "Don't piss yourself there. I'm not going to tell anyone; this is gonna be fun to watch though." The band started up in the background.
"Let's see how long you guys can keep it for, huh?" Seifer said, grinning, before her turned to Quistis. "May I have this dance?" He asked, bowing to her.
"No." Squall cut in, coldly.
"That's not what her eyes say." He leaned to her ear, "Such a jealous husband you have there." He whispered, taking her hand and leading her to the ballroom floor, while Squall stared in somewhat disbelief and then anger before turning back to the people who were talking to him, even though he had long ago tuned them out.
"Listen, Trepe," Seifer told her, as he lead her through the waltz. She wasn't fond of him and wasn't partial to him at all, but it was probably better than being back and there and getting interrogated. "You've gotten yourself in to a shitty position here. Squall's notorious for using girls, he'll use you for money. He'll tell you he loves you and all that crap just get you to stick around, but when he's done with you, he'll ditch you."
"What?" She asked confused, furrowing her brow.
"Don't trust. He'll use you." Seifer whispered before ;letting go and disappearing into to the crowd.
And it was ironic, because even in a swarming crowd, of hundreds people, she felt more alone than she ever had in her entire life.
Okay 4th chapter done. Sorry it took so long, I had 2 art projects due and art history, plus I re-watching Wolf's Rain again and Full Metal Alchemist and then I got hung up on different couples from the shows.. Hubb/Cher from Wolf's Rain and Roy/Riza from Full Metal Alchemist and got off track because they're cute couples, so yeah... Ahem. So the little Rinoa crush thing probably will tie in, but I will NOT bash Rinoa and this will NOT be a Quifer.
Also, I have changed my user name on Fanfiction . net to Divine Oblivion. I will also have an Live journal dedicated to my fan art and Fanfiction so you guys can have a field day on it. XD
Oh yeah, vote for who you want to be with Selphie and Rinoa. Ie. Zell, Seifer, Rajin or whatever but NOT Squall. Squall's taken. XD Yeah, no chapter 5 preview today, sorry but the next chapter might just surprise you...