The Delinquent
Ff8 isn't owned by me, neither is Dr. Phil or anything else with a copyright on it.
Ah ha, I see a lot of you are remembering the whole heavy rocks cascading down on Squall's head thing. Fear not it isn't forgotten just pushed aside for the time being. This is going to develop into one of those stories with a plot that makes you go "oh so that's why that happened…"
Rinoa waved goodbye to Squall as she entered her house, glad to be home and praying that her nightmare of a day was over. Some parts of the day she'd like to hold onto and remember forever, moments that she knew she'd cherish while there were others that she just wanted to forget.
She'd realize before the end just how important those fond memories were, they'd shine a light on her in desperate times.
She dumped her bag on the floor and headed straight for the lounge, feeling that a nice big taste of Dr. Phil might make her feel better. He was so cool, a real guru or her generation.
It was then that she noticed the car keys on the table and the fact that the door hadn't been locked.
'Fuck…'
"Why aren't you at school?" Caraway called out.
She looked towards the stairs and saw him hastily cascading down them. He had a stern look on his face that Rinoa knew all too well, looks like her nightmare wasn't over yet.
"I forgot my maths book; I thought I'd duck out during study period and get it." Rinoa said quickly.
Unfortunately for Rinoa she hadn't quite got the art of lying down packed yet and the flaws of her lie were all too obvious.
"Why aren't you in your uniform?" Caraway growled.
She'd just insulted his intelligence with such a statement, well at least that's how he saw it.
Rinoa bit her bottom lip and tried to come up with something fast, she couldn't think of anything and was now thinking that it might've just been easier to tell the truth. Now not only does she have the argument ahead of her for wagging school but she also has to endure the lecture about lying to him.
"Why are you being such a dick?" Rinoa burst out.
"Excuse me!" Caraway yelled.
Rinoa cowered slightly at the tone of his voice, it was icy cold, the way it usually was when they were about to have a massive argument. This had been happening more and more lately, they were always at each others throats. Rinoa was noticing that if they weren't arguing then they weren't talking, this was now there only form of communication.
She was starting to miss the old caring dad that she had complained about when they first moved to Balamb but at the moment it all seemed like a distant memory. The thought saddened her but there wasn't anything she thought she could do about it. They couldn't go back to how it used to be now.
"I think you heard me." Rinoa stated, her resolve steadying again.
"You better watch what you say girl!" Caraway threatened.
Rinoa wasn't scared by the threat at all, she knew he wouldn't injure her physically and he'd already inflicted a lifetime's supply of emotional trauma.
"Or what you'll ground me? Send me to my room? You can't do anything to me now!" Rinoa shouted.
Caraway faltered for a second, unable to believe the audacity of this child. She was disrespecting him in ways that she'd never done before. He didn't know how to handle this.
"See, your nothing." Rinoa scoffed.
She turned quickly and exited the room, scrunching her eyes together and taking up a lot more pace when she was out. She knew that this wasn't over; this was definitely going to get ugly.
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Squall lay on his bed, a dull smile spread across his otherwise tranquil face. He didn't know why but he just felt a wave of relief come over him after he'd blurted all that stuff out to Rinoa. It was as if it had been hanging over him but he hadn't been aware of it.
He heard his door creak open and glance up to see Ellone creeping in. She was in a white silk summer dress with red rose patterns on it. On her feet were a pair of brown slave sandals and had a white shawl wrapped around her bare shoulders.
On anyone else on earth Squall would've thought that she looked stupid, he might even point and laugh at her but on Ellone it looked as innocent as her true personality. She was such a naïve person and Squall felt it his duty to protect her from the world. She saw a completely different person when she talked to Squall; he let his guard down with her.
"You look pleased." Ellone stated.
Squall smiled wider, facing the ceiling once again. His put his hands behind his head and felt the familiar slouch as Ellone sat down on his bed.
"Ya reckon." Squall replied.
"What'd ya say to her?" Ellone enquired, excitement encasing her voice.
"Go annoy someone else." Squall moaned.
Ellone stood up from the bed, giving him "the look" as she went. This was a mixture of knowing and displeasure at the fact that he wouldn't just spill the beans.
"Bye…" Squall called out after her.
He suddenly wondered why she wasn't off doing something else with her day. He shrugged it off though; she hadn't asked any questions so why should he?
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"Where in Hyne's name do you think your going?" Caraway snarled.
Caraway barged through the door. He looked absolutely furious.
"You can't make me stay here and listen to you nut out!" Rinoa screamed.
"You will do as your fucking told!"
"Fuck off." Rinoa shrieked.
She once again exited the room, knocking over a bag of groceries off the table as she did so. She kicked it on her way out and stormed off up the stairs.
"Come clean this shit up now."
"Get fucked I'm not your fucking maid!"
Rinoa slammed the stairway connecting to her bedroom shut, hoping like hell that he wasn't going to follow her now. She was relieved when she heard the front door slam and Caraway's car take off.
She sat in silence for a couple of seconds, enjoying the serenity of the place when Caraway wasn't in it. When he came home it became tense and the atmosphere was generally not pleasant.
She came out of her tranquil daze and dived off her bed. She grabbed her shoulder bag and quickly exited the house, not wanting to be there when Caraway came home again.
Without even thinking she headed over to Squall's, as she usually did when she and her father argued. She'd turned up on his doorstep in all sorts of states, furious, crying and ecstatic. The ecstatic one usually came about when she won a rip roarer of a fight.
Rinoa walked up to the front door and knocked three times then rung the doorbell. She didn't really know why she did that herself but she just did. It was sort of like her secret code to let everyone know it was just her.
The door swung open and an excited looking Ellone stood before her. Before Ellone could say one word Rinoa saw Squall racing down the stairs. He skipped the last five steps and dashed towards the door.
Ellone seemed upset by Squall's sudden company but didn't say anything; she just smiled knowingly once again and left, leaving Rinoa more than a little confused.
"I didn't expect to see you again today." Squall stated.
"Yeah well I didn't expect Caraway to be home either." Rinoa sighed.
She pushed past Squall and let herself in, feeling more at home in his house than her own.
Squall was somewhat disappointed by the fact that she'd only really come over because she didn't want to be at home. He understood though, if Caraway was his father he probably wouldn't want to be there too often either.
She made her way into the lounge and turned the TV on, making herself at home the instant she walked in the door.
Squall sat down beside her, absent mindedly sticking his tongue out the corner of his mouth and picking something out form under his nail once he was down.
"So what happened?" Squall enquired once he'd gotten out whatever had been under there.
"Nothing out of the ordinary, Caraway's just used to his military dictatorship type ruling." Rinoa stated.
Squall nodded, not really fully understanding but trying to as best he could. Raine and Laguna's style of parenting was far from Caraway's. They had much more of a laid back method.
Ellone soon entered the room, taking a seat on a nearby lazy boy.
Rinoa had decided to take a much more nonchalant approach to the whole 'Squall's inner feelings' thing. She didn't want to freak him out of anything and if she did then it might drive him away.
"Hey Rin, hows things?" Ellone asked.
"Cant complain, yourself?" Rinoa replied.
"Never better."
Ellone glanced over at Squall who was giving her the old fuck-off-and-leave-us-alone look. Normally she would've replied with her get-fucked-you-leave look but she wanted Squall and Rinoa to hook up as much as she wished her real parents were alive.
"Oh is that the time, sorry guys I've gotta go." Ellone said hastily as she ran out of the room.
She gave Squall a wink as she left, it would've been considered sly if it wasn't so obvious that Rinoa saw it.
"Well that wasn't half noticeable." Rinoa said.
"Your really getting a kick out of this aren't you." Squall said sarcastically.
"No I'm not really, you forget, I'm in this too."
Squall was going to retort somehow, but he couldn't really deny the fact that yes she was part of this. She was a part of everything now.
Lately they had been doing more and more outlandish pranks than they had done in years. Squall just felt that he had step up his game a bit when she was around, he had to impress her and the only way he really knew how to do that was to do what he was already first-class at better.
Squall sighed, resigning himself to the fact that unlike most of the shit he got into, this wasn't going to just go away. He could try though.
"So was your dad being a dick?"
Rinoa scoffed, continuing her channel surfing for a little bit before replying. Dick didn't even come close to what he was like sometimes.
"He would make an excellent totalitarian."
Squall nodded, he could actually see that. He'd felt the brunt of Caraway's anger before, Squall wasn't exactly Caraway's favourite person on earth and the fact that he was getting cosy with his daughter really irked him.
"I don't wanna talk about that fucking freak though. Who else is here?" Rinoa said quickly.
Although she was still brimming with pure unadulterated fury she didn't really want to make it worse by bitching about him. Bitching about him wasn't going to change anything.
"Just Ellone, Laguna's at work and Mom had to go to the orphanage today." Squall replied.
Raine frequently went and visited some hundred year old orphanage. It had been done up from an old abandoned one to a real nice one that housed many unaided children.
Squall had been there quite a few times with Raine but it usually depressed him. He just got this weird vibe there like the place had held onto all the children's feelings that had previously lived there.
But good came out of that place too, Raine would be gone for the night if she was going there. It was all the way on the Centra continent, why anyone would want to build anything on that place was a mystery. Because of something in the soil nothing could be planted except grass and weeds, some flowers survived but any type of food source would just die or not grow.
The soil was kinda red and it made the place seem unbearably hot, not to mention the high level of monster activity. It was completely beyond Squall why someone thought that it would be a good place to have an orphanage, but he didn't build it.
"Party at your house then is it?" a voice said from the door.
Squall looked over to see Seifer and Quistis standing at the doorway.
Quistis looked particularly pleased with herself while Seifer was looking angrier than a big fuck-off wasp that you've just sprayed with shitty fly spray.
"Whats your problem?" Squall enquired.
"I rolled my fucking car Squall, what do you think?" Seifer spat.
Squall scoffed at him, shaking his head with a huge grin set upon his face. It was that smart-ass, cheeky grin that just made your knees want to melt.
"Fuck up." Seifer snarled as he sat down on a spare chair.
Quistis bit her bottom lip as she sat down on a seat of her own, trying her hardest not to laugh. She really did get a kick out of this.
"What are you guys doing here?" Squall asked.
"I couldn't exactly go home right now because the maid will probably rat me in." Quistis stated.
"Loewi's on the piss." Seifer said flatly.
No need for an explanation there, Loewi was one of Seifer's foster parents. He was a little agro when he was drunk.
"We should do something." Rinoa stated.
"I'm with her." Seifer announced.
Squall hadn't actually planned on doing anything else for the rest of the day; things had gone so bad that he was starting to think that there was some sort of voodoo curse on this day. He had never seen a good day turn to shit so quickly.
"I better not; I've got too much on my mind to think clearly." Quistis sighed.
"I'll stay here with you." Squall said.
"Right then, let's go." Seifer said as he grabbed Rinoa by her elbow and led her out the house. "I'm borrowing your car, babe." He called out over his shoulder.
Quistis rolled her eyes but didn't say anything, she wasn't going to stop him even if she tried and if she managed to get the keys off him he'd go and hotwire it on principal.
She was also kind of glad to get some alone time with Squall, she could to air out all his dirty little secrets about Rinoa now.
She waited patiently for the soft purring that her car made when it was started. She heard Seifer reverse out the driveway and take off down the street. He didn't do a burnout or anything like that but Quistis knew that he would as soon as he got down the street.
"So…" Quistis trailed off, smiling cunningly.
"Fuck off, I'm not saying shit." Squall snapped.
"Oh you will so, so just spit it out or I'll beat it out of you."
Squall held his ground though; he didn't want to talk to Quistis about it one bit. If she knew then Selphie would know, then Irvine would find out, he'd tell Zell and then the rest of the world would know.
The only one that Squall actually felt he could talk to was Seifer, but he'd call him a 'fag' and laugh in his face. Usually he'd have a neighbourly chat with Rinoa but that wasn't going to happen any time soon now was it?
"Did you know the maximum speed for a free falling human is 190 km/ph and when they hit the ground they'd bounce like six meters in the air?" Squall said as he reached over and grabbed the remote from where Rinoa had been sitting.
"Yes I did Squall now stop changing the fucking subject!"
"Alright fine! She dived on me, like some sort of wild animal!"
"Oh she did not!"
Squall grimaced, wishing she'd just believed his little explanation. It would make life so much simpler. Rinoa would find out and nut sure but by that time he could've had an elaborately planned remark followed by some sort of cheeky grin that would surely make her putty in his hands.
Squall sighed, glancing over at Quistis. He didn't actually know why he bothered lying to her, she knew. She'd known him for way too many years not to know. They'd met when they were ten and had been attached at the hip ever since.
There was a 'fling' that happened once but they'd both been incredibly drunk and have never really spoken of it since. It was so many years ago now that it was unlikely to ever be talked of.
Then Quistis met Seifer and it changed somewhat. They'd always known each other but not on a friend basis really, in other words she thought he was a jerk and he thought she was a pompous wench. The part that changed was Squall's relationship with her, she'd gone out with numerous guys before but this was different. He understood though, they'd always be friends but she couldn't always be with him now.
"Fine! I said… what I said and she started going on about how I shouldn't run away or some shit like that and I said that she was just blind. Then she was saying something like not acting like nothing happened so I fucked off." Squall explained as best he could.
"What happened on the beach, Zell and Selphie said they seen you guys alone on the beach!" Quistis said excitedly.
"Nothing really, she just said she thought there was 'more to it than that' and I said there wasn't. We agreed to just forget about it and the rest is history."
Quistis shook her head, somewhat disappointed by his answer. She'd hoped that there had been a big dramatic scene where they both let out there true inner feeling and ravished each others awaiting bodies, but then she remembered that Squall was too awkward for that.
"That seemed a little anti-climatic…" Quistis sighed.
"I thought it lacked a certain flare." Selphie giggled from the doorframe that Quistis and Seifer had stood at.
"Does nobody knock around here!" Squall exclaimed.
"Psh, like you'd answer it you lazy bitch!" Selphie scoffed.
"What are you doing here anyway?" Quistis said, interrupting the potential argument that was no doubt going to ensue.
"Irvy had to go and help Seifer; he's having some car problems or something. So on the way he dropped me off here."
"They left like ten minutes ago!" Squall laughed.
"Nah he got to the docks and ran outa petrol."
Quistis sighed loudly, clutching his chest for air. She took a couple of seconds to recuperate, feeling her heart begin to rise up into her ribs after falling through into her stomach.
"Oh my Hyne, I think I had a heart attach." Quistis stated.
"Relax, Seifer'll be fine." Selphie said reassuringly.
"Fuck Seifer!" Quistis exclaimed. "He's driving my car!"
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Seifer angrily booted the wheel of Quistis's car, feeling the anger rise up inside of him. This was not a good day.
Rinoa sat on the bonnet, idly staring out into the ocean. He took a seat beside her and leaned against the windscreen.
"Fucked up day, huh." Rinoa sighed.
"Mmm." Seifer replied.
Rinoa pulled her knees up to her chest, rocking her body back and forth, anything to sway the boredom.
Rinoa thought about her morning, against her own will she then started thinking about Squall. She was tired of thinking about him; she needed to talk to someone. Times like this she wished she had a mum but she didn't so she'd have to settle for the next best thing.
"Why did he have to say it so confusing?" Rinoa burst out.
Seifer chuckled, he covered his eyes with his arm, blocking out the glaring sun.
"Cause that's what Squall does. He can't just say shit."
"Why?" Rinoa enquired.
"Something to do with his childhood." Seifer said plainly.
"But Raine and Laguna seem like such cool parents. They would've absolutely poured love on him."
"A lot of people's problems aren't caused by parents. Think about it Rin, is ever single character flaw you have somehow connected to yours?"
Rinoa opened her mouth, about to express just how insensitive that was, she had a dead mother, which fucked her up considerably and her dad was a complete and utter asshole. But upon deeper contemplation she found that a lot of it came from her friends.
"I rest my case." Seifer said arrogantly.
"It still doesn't tell me why Squall's so emotionally constipated!"
"He just got let down a lot…"
Seifer thought about continuing for a couple of seconds, wondering if it was his place to say. If Rinoa didn't already know about Squall's past then maybe he didn't want her to know. Everyone else couldn't really comment on anyone else in the groups' pasts because they mostly had one themselves, Rinoa was a different story though.
"…Fuck it," Seifer muttered. "You know how Raine always goes to that orphanage?"
Seifer left the question open, waiting for her to say 'yay' or 'nay', she nodded in response.
"Well she did that a lot when he was growing up too; he started this whole 'she cares about those kids more than me' thing. Laguna showered him with attention but he was also a fucking maniac with his job and this left Squall parentless a lot of the time."
"Hey, I thought you said this wasn't parent related." Rinoa interjected.
"No I just said that not every problem is parent related. Major ones usually are."
At that second Irvine pulled up, openly laughing at them as he pulled over.
"Run outa gas Seifer?" Irvine said mockingly.
"Fuck up and fill the thing up!" Seifer growled.
Ten minutes later
Still grinning widely, Irvine took off, heading in generally the same direction as Seifer and Rinoa were.
"So, what about you then?" Rinoa asked.
Seifer looked at her inquiringly, not sure what she was talking about.
"What's your story?"
Seifer chuckled to himself, bending down and taking a seat in the driver's seat. He waited until Rinoa was seated before answering.
"Another day, maybe."
This chapter was really just the aftershock of Squall expressing himself so it wasn't really terribly interesting. There had to be some because I've made Balamb somewhat like my own small hick-ass town and therefore scandal gets talked about till something more interesting comes up.
Dedication of this chapter goes to not only the usual people (that's the readers and reviewers) but to my hick town, for being inspiring enough to base another town upon.