Cowboy
Cowboy
By NightsDawne

[This is the 4th chapter in one night, so please point out any mistakes in your reviews. Or blatant fits of mania. Whatever.]


Chapter 4: The Making of a Man

Selphie pounced Irvine before he'd managed to work his way back as far as the buffet table, slapping her hands over his eyes from behind. "Guess who?"

"Ain't but one lovely dulcet voice like that in the whole world, that's for sure.."

Selphie grinned. "Mmhmm?"

"Quistis Trepe!" Irvine immediately found himself ducking from a barrage of blows. "Ow, Sefie! I knew it was you, I was just kiddin'!"

"Irvine Kinniepoo, you'll turn into a Trepie over my dead body!"

"Do the words 'just kiddin' not register or somethin'?" Irvine slipped his arm around Selphie's waist. "Now how can I make it all up to ya, you pretty thing, you?"

Selphie did her best to maintain an angry frown, but a flicker of eyebrows from Irvine threw her into a convulsion of giggles. "Oh stop it, Irvine. I'm not going to be one of your conquests. Saying 'no' is the only way I can keep you interested."

"That's because I know if I keep at it long enough you'll say 'yes'." Irvine moved for a kiss but Selphie ducked out.

"Keep at it, you're not close yet, you hopeless womanizer."


Irvine ranged his way home from another trip into Galbadia to deliver messages, rifle hanging loose at his side, stride long and easy. The shrimp boy who'd been so easily intimidated by Martine was gone, grown into a tall and lanky teenager who'd miraculously missed out on the plague of acne that haunted his peers back at the Garden. Girls had quickly noticed him and he'd made no hesitation about noticing that they noticed him. The fact that he wasn't a student and wasn't a SeeD lent something of a mystery to why he was at the Garden at all, and he milked it for all it was worth to build a reputation as a dangerous romantic figure. He was finally in a groove, no longer worried about what Martine thought of him. After all, they were pretty much stuck with each other until he turned eighteen, and something was bound to come along to change his circumstances by the time that happened. He was better than good with a gun and devestatingly fantastic with the ladies, a regular cowboy. He was even growing his hair out, having given up on the cropped look that kept his pretty face looking prepubescent. Anything that seperated him from the military-style cadets scored him more points as a heart throb, and that was a niche he found he liked to fill.

To further stand out at the Garden, he had spontaneously decided to start smoking, and thus had procured a pack of cigarrettes in the city. He had a smoke out, dangling from his lips, not yet lit, but present, giving him an aura of maturity, he confidently thought to himself. He figured it was like losing his virginity and he wanted to enjoy the foreplay. He sat down on the last hill overlooking the Garden and dug a book of matches out of his pocket, then rolled the unlit smoke in his lips for a while, smiling in self-satisfaction. He was fifteen, good-looking, deadly, and most of the guys his age still had to lie about sex. If he could only get Martine off his back for good, life would be perfect.

"This one, old buddy Seifer, is for you. I bet you'd be damn proud of me right now." With a flourish he struck the match to life and held it to the end of the cigarrette, inhaling deeply. A spasm of coughing made him suddenly thankful he didn't have an audience. "Damn, this is gonna take a bit of gettin' used to." He removed the cigarrette from his lips and studied it for a moment, then squinted his eyes a touch like he'd seen actors in westerns do when they smoked and gave it another try. If he had to, he'd smoke the whole pack right there until he got the hang of it. He laid back in the grass and set to work.

A shadow moved across his face and he sat up. A woman was standing not ten feet away from him, the sun behind her framing her red hair and hiding her features, but revealing the silhouette of her shapely legs through the gauzy white fabric of her long skirt. Irvine let his eyes travel every inch of those legs without the least bit of shame, a low whistle escaping him.

"Are you from the Garden?" the woman asked, her voice revealing youth.

Irvine shaded his eyes with one hand, trying to make out her face. "In a manner of speakin', yeah. I live there. Ain't seen you there before, though. I'd remember if I had."

The woman laughed, walking over and sitting down next to Irvine, letting the sun dance across her face at last. Irvine leaned forward to gaze at her, bedazzled. She was simply stunning. "I'm April. And you're...?"

"In love.." Irvine flashed a grin. "The name's Irvine. Irvine Kinneas."

"How old are you, Irvine? You look pretty young to be smoking."

Irvine glanced down at his forgotten cigarrette and quickly took a shallow drag. "Yeah, well, I'm old enough. I live life fast and hard. It ain't the years, it's the mileage."

April smiled and helped herself to his pack and matches, lighting up. "I'll bet you're just practicing for those after passion smokes."

Irvine coughed and this time it wasn't the cigarrette. This woman moved faster than he did. "Well, that's one use for them. Say, how old are you?"

April flipped her hair back over her shoulder. "Eighteen. Do you want me to show you how it's done?"

Irvine stared at her blankly for a moment. ".... Oh.. you mean smokin'?"

April nodded. "It's pretty obvious you're not used to it." She took a long, deep drag during which Irvine found himself leaning forward involuntarily. She managed to make it look so sensual. She leaned into him and pressed her lips to his, sliding her tongue between his lips and then blowing the smoke into his mouth. Irvine thought he was going to faint but managed to inhale.

"That was incredible," he whispered. April smiled and stubbed out her cigarrette, then took his and crushed it out before pushing him back into the grass.

"We'll practice the after passion smoke.. after."

It was after dark by the time Irvine got back to the Garden. He wasn't even sure how he'd managed to get dressed again, the past two hours were a bit of a blur, but he knew he'd just had the best time of his young life. He strode through the corridors with a smile on his face that broadcast his effective status as a man of the world. The whole world seemed to be calling his name.

Irvine felt his collar grabbed and pulled himself out of his daze. "Kinneas, you dipshit!" It was one of the members of the Garden's hockey team, a senior with no love for the swinging cowboy. "Can't you hear the damn loudspeaker? The headmaster's been yelling for you to get to his office for the past fifteen minutes."

Irvine smiled sheepishly. "Oh, him. Right. Thanks. I, uh, heard it, yeah." Irvine extracted his collar from the player's meaty grip and straightened it before turning back around and walking back towards Martine's office. Not even his arch enemy could bring him down tonight.

Irvine didn't bother to knock on the door, just letting himself in. Let Martine deal with it, he wasn't a cadet. He flopped down on a chair and kicked a mud-caked boot up on the desk, casually pulling out his cigarrettes and lighting one up. "You wanted ta see me, boss?"

Martine scowled and shoved Irvine's boot off of his paperwork. "Smartass. What's that?!"

"It's called a cig-ar-rette. Tobacco, in a thin sheet of paper, with a filter sometimes, as is the case here. Lovers smoke them." Irvine smirked.

"You want it shoved down the front of your pants you'll keep smoking it in here. Put it out, now, Kinneas."

Irvine made an exaggerated sigh and snuffed it out on the edge of Martine's desk. The headmaster stared for a moment, then growled and reached over to grab Irvine by the shoulder, hauling him bodily onto the desk. "You want to die, boy?!"

Irvine gulped and held his hands up placatingly, putting on his most charming grin. "Sorry about that, headmaster. You ain't got an ashtray."

Martine gritted his teeth and shoved Irvine back into his chair. "If you weren't such an idiot you'd still be a cadet. As it is, you're just an errand boy and that means one of these days I'm going to kick your sorry ass! Right now I've got work for you to do, though. I want you to find my neice and drive her back to the city."

"Wow, I get to use a car?" Irvine grinned and cracked his knuckles.

Martine eyed him. "I'll check the mileage. If you go anywhere other than straight to her home and straight back here I'll feed you to Cerberus!" Irvine settled down meekly. The school mascot was a fearsome beast and didn't like him very much to begin with. Martine motioned to a picture on his desk. "That's her, she's somewhere around the Garden. Find her. Her name's April."

Irvine froze halfway into reaching for the picture to get a look. Somehow he didn't feel he needed to, but with a slight wince he did anyway. A beautiful and familiar redhead. "Oh, shit."

Martine looked up. "Oh, shit, what?"

Irvine got to his feet and stretched, smiling nervously. "Nothing. Just a random case of 'oh shit'. Am I dismissed?" Martine narrowed his eyes at the young gunslinger, then nodded and turned back to his paperwork.


"So what'd you want to see me for if it wasn't for some good old-fashioned lovin', darlin?" Irvine cast his glance at a passing blond with a very short cadet uniform on.

Selphie smiled and unloaded her video camera from the strap over her shoulder and pressed it into Irvine's hand. "I got a fresh battery. You're going to play cameraman and get some shots of Rinoa and Squall. And don't get punched out by Zell this time?" She planted a friendly kiss on his jaw where he'd taken a hit earlier in the evening and vanished into the crowd of revellers.

"Great." Irvine pursed his lips at the camera. "I wonder if Squall'd let me shoot him and Rinoa gettin' nasty."