A/N: And guess who's got writer's block. If you guessed Mel Gibson, you're an idiot who should just give up. It's me! So I'm just going to write this and hope it goes away. It probably won't, and the story will probably suck, but here goes.
Disclaimer: FFVIII does not belong to me. See how bad my writer's block is? I can't even write a decently amusing disclaimer. Pity me, please?
Irvine straightened his hat for the millionth time and smelled his flowers for the million and first. Everything had to be perfect. Today was his big date with Selphie. Satisfied, he proceeded to knock on her door.
"Who is it?" came the muffled reply.
"It's me," Irvine answered. Hearing his girlfriend fumbling with the doorknob, Irvine took a second to pop a mint into his mouth, just in case. When Selphie opened the door, he stepped forward to give her a hug, then recoiled in surprise at the sight before him. The Selphie that answered the door was not the normal, preppy, sunshine-y Selphie. This Selphie had hazy, unfocused eyes and limp hair. "What happened, Selphie?" a concerned Irvine asked.
"I couldn't find the snooze button on my alarm, so I tried to throw it against a wall and accidentally hit my coffee pot. I haven't had any coffee yet."
Irvine flinched, recalling the last time she had spent a length of time without caffeine. "We gotta get you caffeinated!" he shouted. He grabbed her hand and began towing her to the Cafeteria.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE OUT OF COFFEE?" a panicky Irvine screamed at the lunch lady.
"We don't have any more coffee. We ran out of beans a month ago, and Headmaster Cid is too cheap to buy any more," the lunch lady explained. Out of ideas, Irvine headed back to the table where he had made Selphie sit down.
"We've hit a snag. The lunch lady said that they don't have any more coffee. What should we do?" he said, sitting down next to her.
Struggling to keep her eyes open, Selphie replied. "Zell might have an idea." After saying this, her head fell onto the table and she started to snore. Concerned, Irvine reached over and began to shake her lightly.
"You awake Selphie?" When all he received in response was a gigantic snore, he stood up. "You stay here, I'm going to go get Zell." Seeing Quistis entering the Cafeteria, he called her over. "Quistis, I need to find Zell. Could you stay here and watch Selphie? She hasn't had her caffeine yet, and she's out cold."
"But they're serving pancakes today!" Quistis complained.
"Great! I knew I could count on you," Irvine said before running off. Quistis huffed indignantly, then sat down. Three of the Trepies came over to see what the matter was.
"What's the matter, Instructor?" the only woman of the group asked. The two men just sat down on either side of Quistis and began to stare and drool at her.
"Irvine's making me watch Selphie and I want pancakes," Quistis answered in a whiny voice.
"I'll get them for you, Instructor," the Trepie said in an abnormally cheery voice for one who was awake at such an early time before getting in the food line. Satisfied, Quistis settled back into her chair. Thank God for overachievers and suckups.
Zell was near the directory, showing off to a group of girls that had come to watch him "train". Just for show, he threw in a couple of flips and handsprings. Finishing his routine, he flashed a grin at the girls and stood confidently in the middle of the hallway, waiting for the compliments that his admirers were about to shower on him. Just then, Irvine rounded the corner in a fast walk and grabbed the back of Zell's shirt. Zell managed to make an odd sort of strangled gurgle before Irvine dragged him away.
"Zell," Irvine said, releasing his hold on the fighter's clothing. "We have a problem. Selphie hasn't had any coffee this morning."
"No! Not again! Why not?"
"Her coffeemaker is broken and the Cafeteria's out."
"This is bad. This is really bad. What should we do?"
"I don't know! Why do you think I came to you?"
"Because Squall wasn't awake?"
"Well there's that. But we all know you're the creative one."
"Have you tried the coke machine?"
"Not yet."
"TO THE COKE MACHINE!" Zell shouted, and took off running, dragging Irvine along by his ponytail.
The two men crowded around their only hope of caffeinating the sleepy Selphie. Feeding some money into the slot, Zell pressed the button for Mountain Dew. When nothing came out, he pressed it again. Confused, he pushed all the other buttons. Angrily, he jabbed at the coin return button. Yet again, nothing came out.
"NO! THE STUPID THING ATE MY MONEY!" Zell exclaimed.
"What do we do now?" Irvine asked.
"Do you have a dollar?"
"What's a dollar?"
"Um…do you have twenty Gil?"
"No."
"What? Why not?"
"Because I left it all in my room."
"Well go get some of it!" Zell said, smacking Irvine upside the head. Irvine ran off to fetch some Gil.
Bored, Zell sat down next to the coke machine, closed his eyes, and began to whistle. A shadow fell across him, and he opened his eyes to remark on how quick Irvine had been, only to realize that it was some kid he didn't know. Zell watched him hit the Mountain Dew button, grab his drink and run off. Just then, Irvine reappeared.
"Here," he said, handing Zell some cash. Zell stood up and carefully fed the money into the slot. However, before he could jab the button, the bill came back out again, wrinkled. Angrily, Zell shoved it back in. Again, it wasn't accepted.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Zell shouted furiously, snatching the wrinkled bill out of the slot. He slid it against the corner of the machine, then put it back into the slot. When it finally stayed in, Zell impatiently jabbed at the button for Mountain Dew. An apologetic message blinked across the display. Irvine bent closer to read.
"Sold out." Infuriated, Zell shouted at the sky.
"I HATE THIS FRICKIN' THING!" he screamed, shaking the coke machine from side to side. Calming down, he let it go and turned to Irvine.
"Could we get her a Pepsi or something?" he asked.
"No. Mountain Dew is the only soda she hasn't built a resistance to yet," Irvine answered sullenly.
"I have some caffeine pills in my room she could have."
"How long would one of those last her?"
"At Selphie's level of tolerance, about ten minutes."
"Go get them." Zell ran off to fetch the precious medication. When he came back, his arms and his pockets were bulging with cases.
"What?" he asked when Irvine threw him a questioning look.
"Why do you have so many?" Zell blushed.
"Um…it's kind of hard to explain. Let's just say I had some problems when I was younger."
"Whatever. Let's just get these to her." Irvine grabbed most of the cases Zell had in his arms and began stuffing them in various pockets he had sewn into his long jacket. The two then ran back to the Cafeteria.
When they got there, they looked around for Selphie and Quistis. Seeing neither of them, Zell stood on a table to get a better view. Spying Quistis vainly trying to eat a rather large pile of pancakes while fending off unwanted advances from two male Trepies. Zell ran over to her, knocked the two stalkers unconscious and sat down next to Quistis.
"Where's Selphie?" he asked her.
"Iumfow," she answered around a humongous mouthful of delicious, pancake-y goodness.
"Do what now?" Irvine asked, sitting down on her other side. Quistis held up a finger, made a tremendous gulp, and took a deep breathe.
"I don't know," she said.
"I asked you to watch her," Irvine said.
"I was too busy trying to eat. I'm hungry."
"Well do you know where she went?" Zell asked.
"Why would I?"
"Because you were supposed to watch her."
"Ugh! If I tell you where she is, will you let me eat my breakfast?"
"Maybe," Irvine responded.
"Have you checked the Quad?"
"Um…no."
"Well, go do it!"
"Gosh, there's no reason to yell!" Zell said. He quailed when Quistis shot him a look of anger. "Alright, alright, we're going! Enjoy you're friggin' pancakes!"
At the Quad, Zell and Irvine looked high and low for Selphie. Well, mostly low, because there was no way the extremely sleepy girl could have gotten high. So they searched low.
"This is hopeless," Zell said. "She's not here."
"She has to be," Irvine responded. "Those students we stopped said they saw her coming in here. Check behind those bushes."
"I already checked there."
"Well check there again."
Little did the two friends know that up above them, a fully awake Selphie was hiding on the metal roof over the stage. Her body had detected the lack of the energy giving substance and had compensated by sending the adrenal gland into overdrive. With the extra adrenaline flowing through her, Selphie was able to stay alert.
So there she was, watching her two friends wandering around the Quad, looking for her. Chuckling quietly to herself, she prepared to give Irvine a flying tackle. "Booyaka!" she shouted as she launched herself off the edge. Irvine just had enough time to turn around and see something land on him. Surprised, Zell ran over to the large tangle of bodies on the floor. Helping the two up, he questioned his friends.
"I thought you said she was out of it," he said to Irvine.
"I thought she was," came the answer.
"Well, I'm up now!" Selphie replied perkily.
"Oh, well that's just great!" Zell exclaimed. "I spend half the morning at the coke machine from hell, the rest of it carrying a huge amount of caffeine pills around the Quad, just to learn that Selphie doesn't need them!"
"You sound angry," Irvine rationalized.
"Angry! I'm extremely angry! I am miffed!" Zell shouted.
"Wait, miffed?" asked Selphie.
"Yes. Miffed. How the frickin' hell are you awake if you didn't have caffeine?"
"I don't know. I guess I must be running on adrenaline overload or something like that."
"Well this is just great! I could have been asleep right now! But no, I just had to be in the Quad, bringing caffeine pills to a girl on an adrenaline high! Thanks for ruining my day, Irvine!"
"You're welcome," Irvine replied naively . Just then, a rumbling sound came from Selphie's body.
"Well, that's slightly ominous," Zell said as Selphie began rubbing her head.
"Ow! My head hurts!" Selphie said before collapsing. Concerned, Irvine bent down to check her pulse.
"I think we ought to take her to the hospital wing," he said to Zell.
"Oh, fine! But I'm still mad at you!" Zell grabbed Selphie's arm and hoisted her up. Together, they began to drag Selphie's limp body out of the Quad.
"So, what do you think made her collapse like that?" Irvine asked Dr. Kadowaki as he laid Selphie down on the bed.
"I don't know. You say she was running on adrenaline overload?" Zell and Irvine nodded. "Well, maybe her adrenal gland burst. I'm not entirely sure if that's a bad thing. What? Why are you two looking at me like that? I'm only a school nurse! I didn't fake my way through medical school or anything like that if that's what you're thinking!" she answered.
"Um, Irvine, I think we should take Selphie to a hospital. We could take better care of her than this quack, and you're an idiot."
"I resent that!" Irvine and "Dr." Kadowaki shouted at the same time. At that instant, Selphie sat up in the bed.
"Caffeine…" she said drowsily before falling back into the pillows again.
"Aah! It's a zombie!" Dr. Kadowaki shouted.
"It's not a zombie stupid. She just needs some caffeine," Irvine said. "Zell, the caffeine pills, if you will." Zell dug in his pocket and pulled out a bottle of the life-giving substance and gave it to Irvine, who took twenty of them out and fed them one by one to Selphie.
For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, Selphie rocketed out of the bed, bounced off the wall and tackled Irvine. "IRVINE!" she shouted as she glomped him.
"Ulmph…" was all Irvine could manage, as his face was between…well, you get the point.
"Um, Selphie?" Zell said.
"Yes, Zell?"
"You might want to get your boobs off of Irvine's face. As much as I'm sure he's enjoying it, I don't think he can breathe."
"Oh. Yeah, we don't want him to suffocate on cleavage," Selphie said, getting up off the floor.
"Well, I'd have died a happy man." Irvine said, brushing dirt off his hat.
"So how did you get me awake?" Selphie asked.
"We fed you caffeine pills. You should be good for about two hundred minutes," Zell answered.
"Two hundred minutes?" Selphie questioned.
"That's what I said."
"Why does my tummy hurt?"
"We think you're adrenal gland burst. Doctor Kadowaki's not entirely sure if that's bad, so we were just about to go tell Headmaster Cid that he should fire her," Irvine answered.
Then, the three SeeD members turned to the readers of this crappy story and said "The End," because the author is too tired to think of a better way to end this story.
Author's End Notes: What? Give me a break! It's like 3:30 in the frickin' morning and I am sleep deprived. Like the Bare Naked Ladies say, "There's so much joy in life, so many pleasures all around, but the pleasure of insomnia is one I've never found. With all life has to offer there's so much to be enjoyed, but the pleasures of insomnia are ones I can't avoid." Then the song goes on to talk more about how the guy can't sleep, but that's a different story. One I won't be telling tonight. Or this morning. Whatever it is. Leave me alone, I'm tired.