Irvine Kinneas smiled at the girl in his arms and kissed her again, happy that she'd said yes to the date. Quistis Trepe was quite the catch. Off limits, some said, but here she was, in his arms, and he wanted more than anything to make her his. Wouldn't the Trepies be royally pissed if they knew?
"Having fun now?" he asked and held her tight.
"Maybe," she replied and tucked a strand of her long blonde hair behind her ear.
"Just maybe?" he asked.
Quistis smiled up at him and put her hand on the side of his face. "I keep thinking this is too good to be true. That I might wake up and this will all have been a dream."
How sad that no one had ever bothered to try to get to know her. How sad that no one had ever been loving with her. He could tell that no one had ever touched her this way before, or showed her any kind of affection. Doing so now brought fear into her lovely green eyes, and fear was not an emotion that he'd ever seen in those eyes, not even when faced with great danger and hopeless odds. "Don't be afraid," he whispered. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"No?" she asked and looked away.
Irvine turned her face back to his so that he could look at her eyes. Hyne, she was crying! "Don't cry. I don't ever want to make you cry, Quisty."
"I'm sorry," she whispered and wiped her eyes. "It's just that all of this scares me, you know? I don't want to get my hopes up, and I don't want to have any feelings for you and then watch it all fall apart. I can't handle something like that, Irvine, so don't do this if you don't mean it. I don't want to be one of your conquests."
"Is that what you think I'm doing?" he asked.
She nodded and looked away again, out at the harbor and the darkness of the ocean beyond.
"Hyne, Quistis, you're my friend. I wouldn't do that to you."
"What about Selphie?"
"What about her? We broke up six months ago. Things weren't working, so we called it quits. What more is there to say?"
Quistis sniffled. "She told me you cheated on her."
"She did, hunh?" he drawled. "That's not the truth."
"Then what's the truth?"
He sighed. "I love Selphie to death, don't get me wrong, but my feelings for her were those of a friend. Remember, at the orphanage? We always played war together, and that's all there ever really was between us," he said. "She's a great girl, and she's fun, but I couldn't keep up with her. You know how she is. She jumps from one thing to another, and she can never sit still. It was like dating a tornado."
Despite herself, Quistis laughed.
"But you, Quisty, when we were kids, I always wanted you to play with
me, but you were too busy helping Matron and acting the part of a grown-up."
"I remember that," she said softly and he reached out to cup her face.
She closed her eyes and turned her face away a little.
"Don't be afraid to let someone love you, Quisty. You'll never know love unless you risk getting your heart broken."
"Have you ever had your heart broken?"
"Yeah," he said with a sigh. "Once, when I was fifteen."
"What happened?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"She was a girl from Galbadia Garden. We had a counterterrorism class together. We dated for a while, then she dumped me for an instructor. Married him, had his babies," he said. "It's silly now, but at the time, I was crushed."
"I thought you were the heartbreaker."
It was his turn to be embarrassed. "Nah. That's all talk. I'm not really like that."
"Come on, now," she said and raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not!" he said and held his hands up. "That was just sort of an image thing. And just because I appreciate beauty does not mean that I'm some kind of horny playboy. I may be a flirt, but I'm not a sex fiend."
Quistis laughed out loud. "You certainly made it seem that way."
"Yeah," he sighed and took in every feature of her lovely face. "Maybe I did."
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Because you're beautiful," he said. "And if you don't mind, I'd like to kiss you again."
"I don't mind," she whispered and he cupped her face once more and placed his lips softly upon hers. He felt her sigh and tremble a little in his arms and he pulled her a little closer.
A shrill voice broke the night, and he groaned. He already knew who it was before he looked over to see Rinoa, dragging Squall along behind her.
"Irvine? Quisty? Is that you?" Rinoa called out.
"Hi, Rinoa," Quistis said and she quickly removed herself from Irvine's embrace. Irvine cleared his throat and threw her a pointed glance. He wished Rinoa, for once, would mind her own business. He liked her and all, but he wasn't thrilled with her at the moment, for showing up now. Not that it was her fault, but still. Most people would have left them alone and asked questions later.
"Did I just see what I thought I saw?" Rinoa demanded to know. Squall grinned over her shoulder at him and shook his head.
"What did you think you saw?" Irvine asked and he took a long swallow of his beer.
"It looked like you two were kissing," Rinoa said and giggled.
"Oh, no. We weren't kissing. Quistis choked on her beer and I was giving her CPR," Irvine teased.
"That was not CPR!" Rinoa said and slapped him playfully on the arm.
Irvine sighed. "All right, all right," he said. "I lied. Quistis threw herself at me. I had no choice but to kiss her back."
"Irvine Kinneas, you know very well that's not what happened!" Quistis cried, obviously mortified. "You kissed me!"
Rinoa grinned and clasped Squall's arm again. "I think it's sweet."
Squall rolled his eyes.
"So, what are you guys up to tonight?" Irvine asked, but he didn't really care what they had planned. All he wanted to do was be with Quistis.
"We're taking a walk down to the beach," Squall replied. "You guys want to join us?"
"Naw," Irvine replied. "I think we'll hang out here for a while. Maybe we'll see you later."
"Sure thing," Squall said and he winked at Quistis, which further mortified her. She put her face in her hands and groaned.
After they left, Irvine pulled her close again, though she pulled away. "Don't be like that."
"You didn't have to embarrass me," she said. "Now Rinoa's going to tell everyone that we're a couple."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Because we're not."
"We could be."
"But we're not."
"I'd like us to be," he said. "Look, I really like you, ok?
Don't worry about what other people think, and don't worry that I'm going
to break your heart, because you, Quistis Trepe are the only girl I want."
***Notes***
Soooo.....most of you are correct!
I noticed that there weren't a lot of these on FanFiction.net, and I kind of like this pairing, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm not sure what to do with it from here, and I said that it would be short....this may be it for now, since I have three other projects going on at this time, two of them are works in progress on this site (Oceans Apart & The Devil's Playground) and I'd like to focus on those....but I might post a chapter here and there, should inspiration hit me......
R/R, please!