"Youth is wasted on the young."
George Bernard Shaw
.| While We're Young |.
Squall splashed a handful of cold water on his face and failed to suppress a groan.
What a ridiculous, exhausting two weeks.
First, the failed kidnapping disaster of Timber, then traipsing through monster infested plains to get to Galbadia Garden, rounded off with a pointless Tomb fetch quest to prove their abilities to a General who assigned them a semi-suicidal assassination mission. As if they needed to kill a myriad of small things to prove that they were willing and able to kill one big one. As if being Garden graduates wasn't evidence enough that they were certified capable.
What an infuriating waste of time.
If this was meant to be a mere introduction to life as a SeeD, no wonder most died young.
Turning off the water, he exited the bathroom, rubbing a towel over his jaw and the sticky back of his neck. At least their demanding patron sprang for individual hotel rooms on what was likely to be their last night on earth. It was nearing 21h00 the evening prior to Edea's parade. Less than twenty-four hours until everything went to hell.
'Don't think about it,' he urged himself while removing the heavy outer belt that stored spare bullets. In theory, there wouldn't be a need for such items tonight. Deling was a heavily fortified city, no monsters, and he was dressed in his civilian garb so the G-army would leave him be. Tonight was about…
Squall glanced around the opulent suite, trying to find something - anything - that could distract him.
He wasn't the bubble bath type.
The religious texts from the bedside drawer left much to be desired.
The mini bar was revealed to be well stocked and worth a laugh to imagine General Caraway's face when he got the bill. But drinking solo was too loner-ish, even for him.
Staring at the bed, he considered the invitation of the soft sheets and king size feather mattress. He had been sleeping on either a cot, camping roll or musty smelling, motel room carpet every night for who could remember how long, chivalry coercing him to assign the beds to the females on his team whenever they travelled.
He wanted to be tempted by it. Regrettably, his adrenaline was still pumping too furiously. Better to stay up all night, pass out at sunrise and be thoroughly rested right before the mission.
Yes.
Slamming the mini bar door shut, he grabbed his jacket off the back of a chair and headed for the door.
Hotel lobby it is.
"Hey! Squall! Come 'er buddy!"
One step down the stairs towards the bar and he already regretted it. Apparently his new party member, the South's most lecherous sniper, had the very same idea of how to waste away the night. In fact, watching him waver on the stool with a one third empty bottle of amber liquid in front of him, he had probably come to the conclusion much earlier.
Squall almost backed up, despite the likelihood of offending, for he barely knew the guy and therefore had no obligation to humor him. Then he considered the hollowness of his hotel room and the dire stakes of tomorrow's mission. Against better judgement, he descended the eerily familiar staircase (this was indeed the same hotel from his Laguna dreams) and took a seat not directly beside but adjacent to Irvine at the bar.
Without asking, the cowboy reached over the counter to steal a fresh glass, half filled it from his bottle and slid it over. His push was a tad too enthusiastic as well as diagonal and if it hadn't been for Squall's reflexes, it would have smashed to the floor long before reaching him.
"Thanks," Squall muttered, giving the glass a curious sniff and wrinkling his nose. "What is it?"
"Just the cheapest whiskey money can buy, which also means it's the most effective." Irvine took a swig straight from the bottle, followed by a full body shudder, slamming it back on the bar just shy of hard enough to break it. "Woohoo!"
Squall almost laughed. This Galbadian native and Selphie were quite possibly made for each other.
Taking a hint from his colleague's reaction, Squall wisely took a more careful sip. The liquid burned as it went down, like pure fire in his throat, but he managed not to cough or otherwise reveal that he had never touched hard liquor in his life. The odd glass of champagne or beer at a celebration, sure, but this was the sort of stuff that got cadets into trouble.
At least Irvine hadn't lied about one thing, Squall acknowledged as he took another, heartier sip and felt warmth spread to his limbs. It was effective.
"Great minds think alike, huh?" Before he could protest, Selphie was sliding onto the stool between them with a knowing grin on her face, as if she had caught him in the act of being human, and Zell was revealed to be a little further down accepting a pint from the bartender. Squall buried his nose back into the glass. Whatever he has been searching for when he came down here, it definitely wasn't a Sorceress Assissination Team bonding exercise. Technically, it was a risk even being seen together.
He should have gone to another bar or at least a far away table in the back of the room.
But he was still looking for…
Something.
"Hey." Zell waved as he sidled up to them, glass in hand, uncharacteristically somber ever since they had left Timber. His expression begged for moral support; for one of them to acknowledge that he hadn't doomed all of their livelihoods by announcing they were from Garden in front of President Deling. A stern glare from Squall reminded him that they were in public. This was not the time nor the place and SeeDs didn't celebrate dumb luck. So, instead, Zell downed his pint with impressive speed and gestured for another. A professional in the end, though too little too late. "Fine night for forgetting, huh?"
On that point alone, Squall agreed. He raised his glass in a loose imitation of respect.
"Here here!" Irvine stepped in and forced his bottle to clink violently upon each of their drinks. "May the night remain young and may we get old!"
"Fat chance!" Selphie said through her signature, high-pitched giggle, as if their impending deaths were a salacious little joke. "Just to confirm, Squall, the bill will be taken care of, right?"
A brief nod as he polished off his whiskey. "Yes."
"In that case, break out the top tier stuff, dear bartender! Mama needs the fanciest, strongest margarita you can conjure, stat!"
"Just a reminder-"
"That we have things to do tomorrow at 19h00. Yeah Yeah." Irvine interrupted. "As long as we hit the hay before sunrise, we'll be right as rain way before then. Now will you please just shut it and let your colleagues get shamelessly plastered on someone else's dime?"
Not knowing what to say, Squall gestured to the bar and slid off his stool, relinquishing it to Zell so that the three of them could debate the most efficient method of decimating their livers.
He wanted to chastise but, with the one sampling he had consumed, could not deny the effects were pleasant. If only because he felt numb enough to not think. And not thinking too much was key to getting through if not succeeding in this mission.
Maybe Irvine was the wisest of them all.
Squall had one foot on the first stair, considering with equal distaste whether to head to the front door or elevator, when a flash of blue caught his eye like a torch flame in the darkness.
Rinoa, aka: Princess.
She was sitting in a shadowed back corner, just as he had been planning to do if Irvine hadn't lassoed him first, tracing the rim of a tall, half empty glass with her pinky while staring blankly ahead. Either at or through him.
He wanted to shrink under her gaze, feeling exposed, but, just like the night of his graduation ball, something about her intrigued him. Especially when she raised one finger to the ceiling, as if pointing out a shooting star, and then curled the digit to beckon him closer. Before he knew it, after checking that none of the other three noticed his aborted departure, he was making his way to her hidden booth.
"Hi," she greeted, a wide but strangely sad smile on her lips. Glancing at the space beside her, she shuffled further down the bench seat. "Care to join me?"
Only a few hours ago, the answer would have been a resounding 'no'. After all, she was not only a client but an infuriatingly disorganized one that had been a thorn in his side for the past several days. Dragging her around had been a form of tepid torture - death by one thousand paper cuts - and hearing her sympathize with Seifer's execution and confess she perhaps once loved that idiot was all the proof he would ever need of incompetence.
Then they had come here. To Deling: her hometown as it was recently revealed.
That she was Caraway's daughter was a pill he was still struggling to open the bottle to, let alone swallow. How a General's kid became leader of a small town rebellion was an enigma that couldn't help but pique his curiosity, like meeting a kitten trained to diffuse bombs. Fascinating but also...why?
Girls of her social standing should be spending the summer getting manicures, wearing silk sundresses straight off the runway, sipping cucumber water at some overpriced resort while gossiping to and about their small circle of equals. Presently, Rinoa's nails were chipped and one finger was wrapped in a sloppy bandage from a grendel bite a few days prior. Her athletic outfit was streaked with dirt and a couple of days passed due for a wash. It was only her air, the way she sat straight, ankles crossed and a pinky unconsciously lifted from her glass, that gave any hint to her true upbringing. She could have been wearing a paper bag and no one would doubt that she belonged in such a place, that she had been born and bred to epitomize privilege.
Squall wondered why he hadn't noticed such details before. In the same moment, he realized that he hadn't ever dared to survey her too closely. Their initial interactions - the ball and the Timber fiasco - proved only that she was as impulsive as she was beautiful. Such traits had sent warning bells off in his head and the default had been to dismiss her as a ditzy rebel queen wannabe: harmless unless inspired and to be handled like a faulty landmine unearthed from battles no one remembers.
Looking at her now, considering the invitation of the booth, Squall felt an urge to figure her out. As if her raison-d'être was a code he could solve by rearranging the pieces until it all clicked into logical place.
He had always appreciated a well crafted riddle.
Blaming the whiskey's influence, empty glass still in hand, he moved in beside her.
"What are you drinking?" she asked, shimmying the glass from his grip and sniffing it. "Ug. Whiskey? Seriously?"
Squall shrugged. "Irvine's choice. Why? What's wrong with it?"
"It's an inevitable ticket to vomit town if you keep it up. Rookie mistake. Don't you know you have to stick to clear liquor for such marathons?"
Rookie. He hadn't been called one in years though it was undeniable that, in the case of alcohol, it was definitely true.
Without waiting for a response that would probably never really come, Rinoa instead flagged down the waitress. "Hi! May we please have two double vodka sodas in a tall glass with a splash of grenadine and a cherry. Put it on- what room you in?"
"Umm, 912," Squall said without thinking, nodding his approval to the waitress before she turned to fetch the order. Strange. Surely Rinoa had her own room to charge. Maybe she feared daddy's reprimand if he saw liquor under her name.
"Aha. I'm 812. Good to know you're right on top of me." Falling back in her seat, suddenly more pirate than princess, Rinoa titled her glass to heartily gulp down the remainder of her drink. Squall almost laughed for the second time that evening. So it was just a ploy to get his hotel room number. Of course. It was the ball all over again, being yanked practically kicking and screaming into a strange, mockery of flirtation. He would have walked away right then if he wasn't so intrigued.
"Has anyone ever told you that you lack subtlety?"
"Sure. Every day. What of it?"
"Just that it may get you into trouble."
"Hasn't it already?" Her tone was light but Squall could see that odd sadness in her expression again. Before he could comment or even decide if he wanted to mention it, their drinks arrived and Rinoa grabbed hers directly from the waitress's tray, taking another eager sip before the coasters were placed.
Seems like the SeeDs were far from the only ones looking to forget tonight.
Against all impulses telling him to get up and leave, Squall dragged his own drink closer and stared into the pink abyss, frowning.
Tonight was about...something.
"I call it a 'forget & forgive'," Rinoa explained without solicitation, slouching against the cushions and stirring the concoction with her pinky. "The soda helps keep you hydrated so you don't feel as terrible the next day, vodka is one of the cleanest and direct ways of feeling the effects and the grenadine and cherry balance it all: a touch of sweet to what would otherwise be colorless and harsh. Makes it all worthwhile."
"Hmm. Makes sense," he said sarcastically while twisting the glass by it's rim.
"Just drink the damn thing, Squall. Not everything in life has to be analyzed, you know?"
"I wasn't analyzing. I was-" He struggled to find a word other than 'thinking'. Because to her, those two words probably meant the same thing. But analyzing implied making logical, objective observations. Thinking was much less tethered. Thinking could be fantasizing and in fantasy anything was possible. Considering the drink once more, Squall was trying to decide whether this was a rabbit hole he wanted to fall down.
Glancing at the wall clock, he noted that it was only half past 21h. Still plenty of time to stop, change course and rest up for the mission if he so decided. Sure, the odds were pretty high that they would all die tomorrow, but that wouldn't excuse idiocy today.
Or would it?
He knew what she would say, even if he had only met her a little less than a month ago.
Rinoa leaned more towards fantasy than logic. She formulated plans based on hope and feeling rather than fact and recon. So far she had made him dance and drink and feel. Maybe this was what he needed tonight. A touch of color. A cherry on top of a lifetime of greyness.
"This is stupid," he said to his glass right before indulging in a sip. It was lighter than expected, especially after the punch of the whiskey. Bubbles and wisps of syrup camouflaging the astringent liquor. It reminded him of Rinoa herself: outwardly cheery but clearly built upon some bitter foundation that he couldn't begin to comprehend the depths of.
"Yes," she agreed, already finishing the last sip of her own and then dabbing her lips with a cloth napkin. "I for one need a little stupid tonight. So either we can sit here counting everything we haven't yet done in eighteen years or," standing up, she held out her hand in offering. Squall regarded it like most would a hot poker.
"Or what?"
"Orrrr...we go scratch a few things off the old bucket list. Interested?"
He looked at her hand, then her undeniably intriguing brown eyes, his drink and then his boots, blushing the whole while. Hyne, how he hated blushing. He felt hot and muddled from the liquor, but not nearly enough to straightforward accept. There were too many dangers to consider. The Galbadians soldiers recognizing them. The Sorceress somewhere in the City. Rinoa's skin.
He finished the drink if only to prompt himself into making some - any - decision.
He chose a medium. Not taking her hand but still standing up and gesturing to the stairs.
"Lead the way."
*Author's Note*: Randomly today, lamenting my lack of posting here in ages, I dug into old folders and extricated this geezer from my Squinoa OTP days. It currently exists as 56 pages of mostly smutty insanity that I must have written back when I felt more *SHAME* as a writer and wouldn't dare post anything too saucy. It has no conclusion as of yet (I suppose I got my smut kicks out, hit it and quit it), but I hope to fix that in the coming weeks as I dole out sections every couple of days just to get it out there. Huge thank you to my peeps Calytrix and Stick Electrons for convincing me to just go for it. This fandom is the best, isn't it? 3