Disclaimer: We do not own Final Fantasy 8 or any of the characters; they all belong to Squaresoft!
Zell, Selphie and Hotdogs, Oh my!
Selphie walked stealthily into the cafeteria clutching Squall's gunblade tightly. "Yes Toodles, the area is surrounded, we have to sneak past the evil Huffelumps and Woozles!" she said as she walked against the walls. The lights were turned off in the hallways so she couldn't see where she was going, but the cafeteria lights were on, so she knew that someone had to be in there.
She decided, just to be safe, she should army crawl the rest of the way. So she laid down on the floor on her stomach and started to crawl the rest of the way into the cafeteria, she was dragging the gunblade behind her. "What are you doin?" she heard a voice say. "Squall? What the hell are you crawling around on the floor for?" she turned to see Zell standing there.
Instead of answering him she put her finger to her lips and continued to crawl. Zell raised his eyebrows in astonishment. Him and Selphie always would sneak out of the dorms to finish up the left over hotdogs, but Squall was the last person he expected to see going to the cafeteria at midnight.
"The Woozles are amongst us!" she whispered, "For your own safety my dear friend, you must crawl too!" she said still slowly making her progress towards the cafeteria. Zell shrugged and plopped down on the floor and started to crawl beside 'Squall'. He had heard the rumors from Irvine and Rinoa about his and Selphie's behavior and he decided to just play along.
"Toodles tells me that they are ganging up on us!" she exclaimed jumping to her feet.
"Okay, okay…" Zell started, "First of all, who is Toodles? And what are the Huffelumps and Woozles?"
Selphie stared in astonishment at Zell's ignorance, she couldn't blame him for not knowing who Toodles was, as she had just renamed Griever an hour ago, but why didn't he know who the Huffelumps and Woozles were?
"Don't you ever watch Winnie the Pooh?" she asked. He shook his head 'no'. She just sighed and said quickly, "I shall explain it all, once we are out of danger." She said grabbing him by the hand and leading him in a sprint to the doors of the cafeteria.
Once they were safely within the walls of the cafeteria they snuck to where the lunch ladies leave the leftover hotdogs. Selphie energetically discussed how the Huffelumps and Woozels are Winnie the Pooh's worst enemies. And Zell just stared in amazement as 'Squall' discussed such a childish cartoon.
Once they finished their hotdogs, Zell and Selphie went their separate ways. Zell explained that he promised to meet his girlfriend at the 'secret spot' ((oooohhhh)) and Selphie decided to skip on back to Squall's room. She set Toodles down inside his case (or as she liked to call it, his bed) and she crawled into bed and went to sleep.
*The Next Morning*
Squall woke up. That night had been by far the worst experience that he had ever known. Not only did he have to sleep in a pink bed, surrounded by pink walls. But he had to stare into a giant Irvine picture that was hanging over Selphie's bed. He hadn't been able to reach it the day before with the marker. So it was the only one that didn't have a mustache, and all night. That picture stared back at him.
He got out of bed and walked to where there was a full body mirror hanging on her door. He examined his reflection and shook his head in shame. [Why can't girls wear 'normal' pajamas? Why not boxers and a tee-shirt? No she has to have these pajamas that say 'princess' all over them.] He then walked over to where Sammy was still sleeping. He went ahead and fed him and got dressed into Selphie's yellow dress.
After he finished putting the boots on, he walked into the bathroom. She had all sorts of makeup on the counter, along with a pink toothbrush and a purple 'Hurt-Free' hairbrush. [Why do girls have to use all this special stuff?] Squall picked up the hairbrush and brushed his bed head tangled hair. Then he brushed his teeth, but after he finished that he stared blankly at all the cosmetics that were sitting there. "Psh…forget it." He said to himself as he walked out the door.
He walked at a reasonable pace to the cafeteria for breakfast. He was still tired, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. As he was just ready to enter he was stopped by Quistis. "Hey Sefie!" she said smiling.
"Hey…" he answered dully.
"What's wrong? Do you not feel well? You don't look too good today…" she asked worriedly. Squall just continued to walk into the cafeteria. Quistis followed. "Well anyway…" she continued, "Today some of the junior classmen are preparing to take the SeeD field exam today, they were wanting you to come in a give them a little pep talk before it all happens! You are always so sweet to them, they really love you." She said smiling.
Squall stared blankly at her for a long time. "Fine." He answered quietly and continued on his way to the cafeteria.
"Thanks Selph!" Quistis called after him, "You will need to be in my classroom after breakfast!" Squall continued to make his progress to the cafeteria. When he finally made it, he noticed Selphie was already in there, but of course, she couldn't be doing something normal. She had his gunblade laying on her table and she was eating her favorite cereal, Lucky Charms!
"Hearts, stars, and horseshoes, clovers and blue moons! Pots of gold, rainbows and me red balloons!" she started singing as she shoveled another spoonful of the marshmallow clad cereal in her mouth. To her, the cereal part was the grossest stuff, so she just singled out all the marshmallows instead.
Rinoa was sitting beside her, holding her head in her hands. She stared at her 'boyfriend' in utter disbelief. Squall stood in line to get some Special K cereal (he always liked eating healthy). He decided, once he got his tray that he would sit by Selphie and Rinoa. Once he sat down, across from Selphie, Rinoa noticed that 'Selphie' was eating healthy.
"It's all too confusing…" she stated getting up. "I'm going to see if Dr. Kadowaki offers therapy sessions." She said leaving. Squall stared at her back as she left, shook his head and continued to eat his Special K cereal.
"Catch me Lucky Charms! They're magically delicious!" she said smiling and picking a balloon out of the mass of cereal. Squall decided on ignoring her for the time being, but then he remembered something.
"Selphie." He whispered so that no one else could hear him. "Earlier this year Cid banned you from eating Lucky Charms didn't he?" he asked. She looked up and an evil smile crept across her face.
"No…" she answered innocently. Squall eyed her suspiciously and she finally admitted, "I have a hyper problem." [no kidding…] "…and when Cid found this all he took my one love from me…besides Irvine…Lucky Charms! But when we switched bodies, I realized something awesome! I could eat Lucky Charms because they wouldn't expect to see a hyper Squall." She smiled evilly again, and continued to dig through her cereal for any marshmallows she could have possibly missed. [Great…] he thought as he shoveled the last of his Special K into his mouth. Then he noticed something about his gunblade. It had a band-aid on it?
"Selphie what did you do my gunblade?" he asked, trying his hardest to stay calm.
"Oh this?" she asked pointing out the band-aid. Squall nodded his head, "Toodles got a boo boo!" she said picking it up and kissing it.
"WHO THE HELL IS TOODLES?!?" he screamed. At this everyone in the cafeteria turned to see what was going on.
"Oh yeah, I renamed Griever. His name is Toodles now, he didn't like the name Griever because it was too depressing…" she explained.
"How do you know what Griever thinks? He's an inanimate object!" she just shook her head smiling.
"If he's just an inanimate object why are you making such a big deal about it?"
This was pushing Squall over the edge. He gritted his teeth, "Well, that's alright, because I renamed Mr. Tinkerbell to Sammy."
Selphie gasped and put her hands to her mouth, "You DIDN'T!" she exclaimed.
"I did…and I think he likes Sammy better." Squall said standing up to dump his tray.
"How do YOU know what Mr. Tinkerbell prefers? I've known him longer!" she screamed at him.
He shrugged, "The same as how you know Griever prefers Toodles…" he said walked out of the cafeteria. Selphie stood in her seat boiling with silent anger but decided that another bowl of Lucky Charms would fix it. So she stood up and got in line again. People all over were staring at them. When she saw this she looked around again.
"Stop it or Toodles will bite you!" she said holding up the gunblade. Everyone went back to (or pretended to) eat again.
Squall walked in his slow boring pace as he walked to the second floor classroom. Upon entering Quistis greeted him, "Selphie! Good timing! I was expecting you would give us one of your 'Famous Selphie Entrances' though." She sounded kind of disappointed.
"Yeah!" one of the kids yelled from the back of the room, "Give us a dramatic entrance!" he exclaimed. Quistis giggled.
"Go ahead, humor them Selphie, you always do!" she said pushing him out the door. [What?!? This is NOT cool!"] he thought as she shut the door behind him. [How would Selphie do this? She always seems to make a fool out of herself. And I am not like that.] he decided to improvise.
Squall pushed the door open and bounded in slowly. "Everyone. Love and Peace." He said dully and stood in the middle of the room. Quistis stared at him in awe.
"Well, I'm getting a feeling Selphie must be tired this morning." She said eyeing him suspiciously. "She's in here to give you some advice on your Field Exam today, and to help relieve your stress, because she went through the same thing about a year or so ago." She walked passed Squall and whispered, "It's all you." Then she sat down at her desk to grade the written exams to see who would be going and who wouldn't.
Squall looked around at all the nervous faces, these kids weren't more then two years younger then him, so he decided to tell it like it is. "Don't screw up. Out there it's life or death, and when you screw up it pretty much means death." He thought he was doing really well. But he didn't notice that in reality he was scaring the crap out of the junior classmen. But he just continued in his pessimistic tone, "Always listen to your leader, especially if he's Seifer…" he said looking back at Seifer who was sitting in the back of the classroom (sleeping). [I can't believe he hasn't passed it yet!]. "If you screw up, then the real SeeDs will be forced to take action and that wont be good on your score…"…
*Back with Selphie*
"Squall…we need you on the deck! Squall…" the intercom spoke.
"That's me!" she exclaimed happily as she skipped out of the cafeteria. The Lucky Charms had already kicked in, and now Selphie was ten times as hyper as normal (thought it was impossible, ne?) She took the elevator up to the top floor and bounded into the room dramatically.
*Cid's POV*
"Yes sir!" Squall exclaimed saluting Cid, but when he brought his hand up he smacked his hand against his forehead. "Ouch…" he said rubbing it. Cid wasn't paying any heed. So he just turned to face him.
"Tom here tells me that you have made a hole in one of our walls," he said pointing to one of the Garden Staff people. He looked at Squall again to see him jumping up in down in place. Cid cocked his eyebrow in amusement.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! I remember you! You must be! Wait, wait! Don't tell me!" Cid stared at Squall. "You are…no that's not it." He thought a little bit longer then he snapped his fingers, "That's it! You are my long lost Aunt! Hilda!" he said shaking the man's hand.
"Uh…" the man looked uneasily at Cid. Cid pulled Squall off of the man and continued.
"Squall!" he said hitting him in the back of the head. Squall turned from the man to look at Cid again. "Since you are the leader, we can't have you setting bad examples! We want you to fill in that hole."
"Can Toodles come with me?" Squall asked, and giving Cid the puppy dog eyes.
"Who is Toodles? Is that Rinoa's new nickname or something?" he asked, slightly confused. Squall shook his head 'no' and held up his gunblade. Cid cocked his eyebrows again and just sent him out the door.
*Narrators POV!*
Selphie skipped happily to Squall's dormitory. She thought that if she was going to do some handy-man work, then she should at least change her clothes. As she entered and looked through Squall's stuff, she finally found some old overalls and an old tee-shirt. She put them on and skipped out to where, surely enough there was that hole in the wall.
The Garden Staff had conveniently placed some putty there, with a putty knife (scraper…whatever…we're girls, we're not supposed to know these terms!) She picked it up and started to fill in the crack.
As Selphie worked really hard on the wall, Rinoa came walking out of the infirmary. Her first therapy session went great. Dr. Kadowaki told her that she needed to talk to Squall and try to see if he would tell her anything. So she confidently started down the hall. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw 'him' wearing overalls. Rinoa turned on her heel and started back to the infirmary for some more therapy, but Selphie noticed her first.
"Rinny!" she exclaimed. Rinoa stopped and turned slowly. "Looky, looky!" Selphie exclaimed pointing to the wall. It was clear she was trying her best to fix the hole but now the wall looked uneven and had small air bubbles forming in the putty. "Isn't it beautimus?" she smiled big eyeing her 'masterpiece'. Rinoa started to slowly edge away. When she finally got away, she ran back to the infirmary for more therapy. But she had to wait. It was Irvine's session at the time.
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heheheh! I'm starting to feel sorry for Squall! How can I do this to MY baby? Even I do not know! (-Anna) However! We are going to post the next chapter hopefully very soon and you can expect to see Laguna as a guest star! Lol! ^__^