Disclaimer: I may not own Final Fantasy VIII but I STILL HAVE MY SANITY!!! AAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAA!!! *Sammy-Chan's sanity can be seen flying out of the window*
Chapter Eleven
"Hey mom …" Rinoa said wearily answering the door, "Dad …"
"Thought we'd drop by for breakfast!" Julia explained happily as she allowed herself in the house, her husband grunted an agreement and followed her while his daughter shut the door behind them.
Rinoa was still very much nervous but she tried acting her calmest. Squall, who had been semi-calm suddenly became a little more agitated, "Mrs. Heartilly … Caraway."
"Hello Squall …" Julia replied though Caraway only glared long and hard at his son-in-law, "Alex, Riana!" The grandmother hugged her two grandchildren; "We're taking you out this afternoon!" The two children seemed, to the two parents, to have popped out of nowhere.
"Oh, to a toy store?" Riana clapped her hands joyfully.
"Ma, I'd really appreciate if you told me before making decisions involving my kids." Rinoa sighed as she rubbed her temples.
"As I would appreciate it if you didn't disconnect the phone lines because I tried calling you to tell you last night … and you're completely screwing up my annoying mother role." Julia smirked slightly as Rinoa's face vaulted.
Squall only flushed whilst thinking, 'Holy shit, the old lady's psychic!' Caraway looked slightly confused, "What do you mean by the phones were disconnected?"
"Yeah, I'll go start breakfast." Rinoa suddenly changed the subject, "Mother, might want to make yourself useful?" She glowered at her young mother. The age difference between Julia and Rinoa was the same as Rinoa's age gap with Alessandro.
"Ah yes, then I could criticize your methods." Julia joked while smiling slightly as she followed her daughter in the kitchen. "And we could talk more about the disconnection of the phones …"
Squall remained with his father in law and tried helplessly to break the ice, "Well … how've you been in the restaurant business?"
" … It's been good." Caraway replied coldly.
Riana had followed her mother and grandmother into the kitchen though Alex had remained, twiddling his thumbs aimlessly, suddenly a question formed in his head, "Humans die if they don't breath for a while, right?"
Before Squall had the opportunity to reply, Caraway was already on the ball, "That is an excellent question, Alessandro. You're a bright boy; you must get it from our side …" He sneered at Squall who only glared back, "I think the best way to answer your question is to try a human experiment. Personally, I think your father would make the perfect guinea pig …"
"Think … you think?" Squall's temper suddenly flared, "Sure there, buddy. You think a lot but you still don't got too many marbles rolling up here, do you?" He pointed to his head to demonstrate, "Listen, I'm really sorry if I ruined your whole life by-"
"Squall!" Came a warning voice from the kitchen.
"Clam it, James!" Another surfaced.
Both feuding men held back their tongues but continued to look fiercely at one another, their looks so intense that words were not needed to relay emotions.
***
"Make another one of your smart comment and I will shove my foot so far up your ass that you'll be crapping out shoe-shaped turds for a month, at least!" Caraway threatened, pounding his fists on the table angrily.
All hell had broken loose once more and even the children's presence deranged nothing in the argument … the two men were at each other's throats once more, "Do you have some sort of obsession with my ass? Because you seem to talk a lot about it!" Squall snapped back.
Rinoa was constructing a small catapult out of a spoon and a knife laid out on its side. She loaded it with a piece of scramble egg … and fired.
"THAT WAS MY EYE!" Squall yelled out suddenly, placing his hand on his wounded eye for a moment before glaring at his wife.
Caraway snickered but in response got a spoonful of beans splotched on his forehead from his own spouse. "Julia, damn it!"
There was an awkward silence only broken when the two kids at the table burst out laughing at their mother and grandmother's ingenuity. That's when the four other children (because it would be a lie to call them adults) broke into smiles, forgetting temporarily their disagreements.
"By the way, no one's answered my question yet …" Alex said after a while, pouting, "Do humans die without air?"
Riana clicked her tongue in an annoyed fashion, "Stop being a moron, Alex. Of course people die without any air. You try holding your breath for five minutes straight, tell me about it later!" She said as-a-matter-a-factly and rolled her eyes.
"Riana! Don't call your brother a moron!" Rinoa reprimanded.
"You call daddy a moron all the time and he's your … your husband." She had to search for the right word for what her father was to her mother.
"Oh ho! Busted …" Squall smirked at Rinoa who only glared back angrily. The rest of the meal went by rather silently, save for Julia's occasional giggles.
To the eyes of outsiders, this family was simply picture-perfect. Squall and Rinoa were very beautiful people (physically) and they sounded to be quite pleasant (socially) since they kept up fairly friendly conversations with their neighbors.
The children were polite and had inherited their parent's good looks. The daughter was an exceptionally bright child and the son, though his habit of asking random questions, was quite the potential athlete.
Of course these were just rumors, more accurately … they were assumptions. Most were correct however, no one knew of the Leonheart-Heartilly problems. It seemed to some, that they had none, causing stares of utter jealousy. Some of these stares annoyed Rinoa to the point where she had the urge of shooting that person on the spot, yes that urge had still remained with her throughout.
When waving good-bye to her kids going off with their grandparents and receiving those stares of sheer covetousness from her right neighbor, Mrs. Brenden, she actually considered yelling out something fretfully obscene.
Mrs. Brenden who was examining her growing rose bushes waved her and Squall over to the fence, "Why hello, Rinoa. Squall."
"Hi." Rinoa replied simply. Squall did the same.
"I was just wondering, I mean, would it so bother you very much if I asked you a question?" Mrs. Brenden asked smiling a pleasant, though very much fake smile.
"Ask away." Rinoa answered slightly curious as to what this woman wanted of her.
"Lillia, Karen and I were all chatting over a cup of tea yesterday …" The middle-aged woman started and Rinoa couldn't help thinking 'Wow, they have cups of teas in the after-noon … is it just me or do old women of ninety years old do that too?' "And we were all wondering … how old are you?" 'That was blunt … that was blunt, did she just ask that? That was really freaking blunt. Did you hear that?' She looked at Squall quizzically but then remembered that she was thinking this and not saying it.
"Uh …" She started off awkwardly, "Well …" 'I've got a profile upstairs. You can even know my fucking blood type if you want …' She breathed in deeply, 'Cool it, Rin … cool it …' She reminded herself in time, "I'm twenty-four." 'There, blunt questions deserve blunt answers.'
Rinoa noticed that Squall was staring off at a nearby tree as if something interesting was poised there. She didn't bother snapping him back to reality. Mrs. Brenden gaped at her as if she was wearing a large sticker on her forehead stating something vulgar like 'Up Your's'. "You … are twenty-four? Only? So then … so then how old are you?" She gestured to Squall.
"Twenty-five." He replied absent-mindedly, however, the innocent stare at the tree had been replaced by an angry glare.
"So … so …" Mrs. Brenden babbled like she had just encountered a loose hyena, "So … … seventeen?" She couldn't quite get the whole question out.
Rinoa was getting quite irritated with the personal questions from a woman she barely knew, 'Yes, Mrs. Brenden, I screwed Squall when I was seventeen.' But instead she replied quite politely, "Yes, we got married at seventeen. If that's what you mean."
"Thank you, it is. Quite. Yes …well good-bye." She returned to her beloved rose bushes and Squall and Rinoa returned inside their domicile.
"I think you just crushed all her hopes." Squall said with a smile as he closed the front door behind him.
"Why do you say that?" Rinoa asked snappishly.
"Well, had you said 'I'm thirty-seven' she would have asked you why you look so well-preserved and if she could please use your secret for her own gain. But instead you replied that you were twenty-four. So … basically, you have no secret to give and now she's sad because she's getting all ugly."
Rinoa had to stifle a laugh, "That's mean, Squall." She plopped down on the couch and turned on the television, "I'm sure she's quite content now because she has a nice, juicy topic for her next tea party."
"Aw, don't tell me you wanted an invitation." Squall joked as he sat down next to her.
Rinoa decided to play along with the game, "Oh yeah, really I did. I meant, they probably share Martha Stewart magazines and exchange little secrets like 'Henry just isn't the same as he used to be, it's so unsatisfying!'" She let Squall do the guessing on what she was talking about. "No thanks, I'd probably be sick in my cup."
Squall smirked, "Wow, I guess I wouldn't want you to go to those tea parties either. Then who knows what the neighborhood would find out about me?"
"Oh, you have no faith in me. I mean … the worse I'd tell them is how much of an immature idiot you are that can't keep his mouth shut for his own goddamn sake." She said, hinting at today's breakfast with her parents.
He shoved her playfully, "I'm not an immature idiot."
She shoved back, "Also a premature ejaculator."
"I AM WHAT?" He was more shocked than angry and he didn't have time to block the oncoming pillow. In a matter of seconds, the two kids were wrestling on the floor. "Take it back!" Squall had the upper hand.
"Never!"
He was on top of her, one knee on each side of her waist, staring down at her defiantly, "Take it back, you know it's not true." He smirked as he held her wrists back with his hands.
"Maybe it isn't … but there are worst things." She returned the smirk.
This caught him off guard, "Like … what?" His grip on her wrists loosened slightly. The cause of his downfall. "Tell me …"
"Like being a total dumbass!" She smirked as she wrenched free of his grip on her wrists and then pushing him off next to her. It was her turn to be on top so she climbed on top of him, "And that applies to you too …"
"Maybe. Wait …" He looked thoughtful, "Maybe I could grab a beer with Mrs. Brenden's husband and tell him all about how interested we are in having a couple exchange with him and his wife." That sent Rinoa into full-blown laughter.
"Oh right, you seem to be forgetting one thing. If you do that, you're getting stuck in the mud too … with Gina Brenden might I add." She stuck out his tongue and him, "And you're such a jealous dimwit, you wouldn't let him come within ten feet of me with those intentions." She got off of him.
"Well …" He sputtered, "Maybe not … but that wasn't exactly my point." Squall scrambled up after her and plopped back down on the couch in a pouting sort of way. Sensing his anger at the lost argument she sat down next to him and shuffled near him.
"Aw, don't be mad. You always lose the fights you pick with me anyways." She stifled a laugh.
"Ha ha … real funny." He pouted slightly. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him in a gesture to win him over. Unable to ignore the gnawing urge he kissed back and was quite disappointed when she broke off.
"I hope the kids don't come back with a crap load of toys." She said after a few minutes of silence, while watching an advertisement for some sort of action figure. "I'd wish she had forewarned me that she was taking them out today." She frowned, referring to her mother.
"Just wanted to spend time with them, I guess …" Squall replied. It struck a memory … 'Jason Banks wanted to spend some time with his daughter the night I killed him. I killed him and his daughter, both. What is wrong with me?' "Rinoa …"
"Hmm?"
'I can't keep it from her forever.' "I have something to tell you …"
Sammy: And how will she react? Well, obviously she won't pat him on the back and say 'There, there Squall, it's ok.' So you better stick around for the next chapter coming out next week! And … if you want it to come out then you'd better review … *Evil glare* Muwahah! I'm evil! *Gets a tomato thrown at her* CURSE IT!