A/N:Im Back! Thanks again for reviews! I am thinking about making this into a Zell/Selphie, but I'm not too sure because of reviews saying do it/don't do it. .blah blah . . I'll just go with whatever I type. OK?
"Scars are stories, history written on the body."
Selphie and Zell sat down at a table across from each other and almost immediately a waitress dressed in a black mini skirt dress and a white pinafore came over. Zell ordered what they were. Selphie studied him watching the waitress's ass as she walked away.
"Typical guy."
"Huh?"
She smiled but it hurt because of a bruise on her cheek, so she stopped.
An eruption of giggles came from a table behind them where some more people had just been seated. Zell peeped over the partition each table had behind them and quickly sat back down.
Selphie tilted her head to one side.
"Anyone we know?"
Zell deliberately looked away from her and said quickly, "Nope, err no; we don't know 'em."
She could tell when he was lying so she peeped over for herself.
Her stomach lurched. She sat back down, crossed her arms over her chest and looked at Zell.
"No-one we know huh? They look pretty familiar to me."
Zell sighed and apologised. "I thought it'd be better if you didn't know they were here. We can leave if you want."
"No! I'm not that weak. Besides, if we get up, they'll see us for sure."
Selphie slumped back into the red padded seat.
'Oh well. At least Irvy's not there . . . but neither is Celia. Argh, I've gotta stop thinking about him! It's not as if we're friends anymore. Maybe I should concentrate on the friends I DO still have, before they piss off too.'
She hung her head down and began nonchalantly picking at her fingernails.
"Whatcha thinkin' Sef?"
Trying to shrug off the grey cloud that was hanging above her head, she looked up at Zell and teased, "I was just imagining you naked in the shower."
Zell blinked. Selphie giggled at his lack of reaction and kicked his leg lightly under the table.
He loved hearing her girlish laughs, this one in particular, because she sounded more like the old Selphie.
She stopped laughing when the waitress cave over and gave them their orders. A toffee fudge sundae with extra chocolate and an extra large hotdog with onions, mustard and tomato sauce.
On the table behind them, Selphie heard her name being mentioned. She listened in harder.
". . . . Yeah she's gonna totally have a breakdown sooner or later. Can't wait! I'm glad we stole Irvine off of her; he deserves to have three gorgeous girls to shag, rather than a plain ugly freak of nature like Selphie Tilmitt . . . ha ha ha!"
Selphie decided to stop listening at this point.
Zell had heard what they said too. He swallowed what he had in his mouth and as usual, backed up his friend, shouting out, "You know, I heard AMBER WATSON takes it up the ASS."
Amber heard this and stood up, coming round to their table. Nichi stayed sat down.
"Zell DINCHT. I knew it was you squealing. You're only jealous 'coz YOU can't have me, short piece of chicken shit."
Zell scowled at her. "Blow it out you're ass! If you weren't a woman, I'd beat the crap outta you. But then again, I can't be sure you are a woman. Underneath all that clown make up and peroxide hair dye, you could be anything."
Amber did the whatever sign with her fingers and walked away, dragging her friend out of the café with her.
Zell turned to Selphie with a triumphant grin on his face.
Selphie returned the smile and laughed at him.
"Thanks a lot Zell. I owe you."
Back At Garden . . .
Selphie wondered why people were sniggering at her as she walked in with Zell.
"Um, Zell, is my skirt tucked into my knickers or something?"
Zell leaned back and stared at her ass for longer than was needed.
'She has one helluva nice ass . . . Mmm.'
"Well?"
Zell faced her again, "Oh! Err, no. Why'd ya ask?"
Before she could answer, Rinoa came running up to them both.
Panting she said, "I've been looking for you everywhere Sef! I think you should see this . . ."
Rinoa handed Selphie a piece of paper, but Zell snatched it rudely before Selphie got to it.
"What is this?"
They all stared at it.
In the top right corner was a picture of Selphie and next to it in the middle in big black letters was typed -
8 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT SELPHIE TILMITT
1. She fantasises about Rinoa Heartily and Squall Leonhart doing it.
2. She swallows.
3. She receives anal sex.
4. She gives Zell Dincht hand jobs under the table in Instructor Trepe's class.
5. She's a stupid freak.
6. She's a slut.
7. She talks about everyone in garden.
8. She's on Anti-depressants! Weak bitch.
JOIN OUR 'WE HATE SELPHIE' CLUB!
Zell frowned a bit, reading number 4 again.
'I wish . . .'
Rinoa looked at Selphie, her chin was wobbling and her eyes were filling up with tears.
Leaning towards her friend, Rinoa wrapped her arms around the slender girls waist and gave her a tight hug.
Selphie sobbed into her friends neck.
"I can't take . . . this anymore."
Rinoa gave Zell a worried look and whispered to him to look after her.
She leaned back a little so she could look at Selphie.
"Selphie, ignore all this. Everyone knows none of it's true. I've already destroyed half of the leaflets. I'll go around looking for the rest. Don't worry."
Rinoa brushed the tears off her friends cheek and ran off, snatching leaflets from people's hands as she went.
Zell crumpled up the leaflet he was holding and threw it into a bin about a couple of feet away.
Selphie was about to run off, but Zell noticed and grabbed her wrist.
"No ya don't missy."
Selphie punched him weakly on the chest.
"Get off me! Zell!"
"Nope. You'll only run to your room and cry. And that's fine by me, but you're not going alone."
She turned to look at the blonde clutching onto her. Her make-up had run and her eyes were all watery.
"Zell . . . how . . . how did they know I take pills?"
Zell moved his hand down from her wrist and slipped it into hers. She gripped at it tightly with her fingers wrapped in his.
"I don't know Sef. I didn't tell anyone. I wouldn't. You're my best girl."
They began to walk toward the dorms. People were still looking at Selphie and sniggering a bit. However, one glare from Zell was enough to make them shut up.
They all knew how hot headed he could get, and also how much damage he could do with one punch or kick.
"Are we goin' in your room or mine?" Zell asked, making it sound seedy.
"Mine" Selphie replied, not in the mood for the frisky blondes innuendos.
Once inside, she went immediately to the bathroom as her friend sat down on her bed and sifted through her CD's. Zell was glad they went into her dorm. He liked Selphies room. It was covered in photos of the group and had little sunshine stickers everywhere. On the bed there were a couple of stuffed toys, including the penguin from Irvine. Her whole room smelt of candy floss. That's another reason he liked it. It smelt of her.
Selphie sighed and sat down on the edge of the bath. She was still rather hysterical from that leaflet.
'How the heck did they know I was on anti-depressants?! The rest of that stuff they wrote . . . how embarrassing. Yeah sure, I give Zell hand jobs, everyday and twice on Sunday. Geez. Would people really believe that?'
It was obvious to her that it was Celia, but seeing as she was such a suck-up to the instructors and the headmaster, no-one would ever believe she did it.
They were ruining her life. Why couldn't they just leave her alone? They'd gotten what they wanted, which she assumed was Irvine. What she didn't know was that they got some sort of kick out of making Selphie suffer and weren't about to stop anytime soon. They were having too much fun.
Selphie was too upset to even cry, although she was going into overdrive with emotions, she felt numb. Reaching out to the bathroom cupboard, she got out the razor which felt comfortable in her hand and familiar to her skin.
Out in the bedroom, Zell had put on one of her Jack Off Jill CD's.
In the bathroom, Selphie heard the first song playing.
'Turn her over, a candle is lit I see through her. Blow it out and save all her ashes for me. Curse me sold her the poison that runs its course through her pale white skin with strawberry gashes all over all over . . Watch me fault her, you're living like a disaster, she said kill me faster with strawberry gashes all over . . .'
As Zell listened intently to the words, he thought of his friend in the bathroom.
'She's been in there aggggesss. She wouldn't ever hurt herself would she? Nah. Would she? What if she is? Hell, what am I s'pose ta do? What if I bust in there and she's on the toilet? But what if I don't and she's carving herself up?'
Zell was about to get up and go over to the toilet door when Selphie came out pulling down her sleeve and then rubbed her tired eyes.
Looking up, she mumbled, "Oh, you're still here. Thought you would've vanished like the rest of them."
A puzzled look formed on Zell's face, making his tattoo go all distorted.
"What's that s'pose ta mean?"
Selphie walked over to her CD player and turned it off.
"You had to put on that song didn't you. Depressed enough thanks."
"Stop ignorin' my question. WE haven't left you. You still got friends."
"Really? So . . . how come they never come see me anymore? Apart from you."
Zell ran a hand through his spiky hair.
"Well . . . you know the deal with Squall and Rinoa . . . and Quistis is back teaching. They're busy. And hey, you still see you're friends from Trabia."
Selphie walked over to Zell and stood in front of him with one hand on her hip.
"So, what's with you Zell? Why do you care so much, why haven't you pissed off like the rest of them?"
"What?! Because you're my friend and I care about you! Stop lookin' at me like that!"
Selphie let the frown lift off of her face and she plonked herself down on her bed next to Zell.
'What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I being nasty to him? He's like the only one I have left. He DOES care and he's my best friend. And he is pretty cute, especially when he frowns like that. Huh? Where'd that come from?'
She turned to her friend. He was looking down at his gloved hands and picking at a piece of cotton hanging out from the stitching.
"I'm sorry for snapping at you Zell. I care about you too."
Zell looked up at her and into her green eyes. He'd never really looked so deeply at her face and eyes before, but when he did, he found he was speechless. The cut on her lip had healed but there was still a small, faint bruise, yellow-ish in colour, on her cheek.
"Zell?" She smiled, "Are you okay?"
Zell eyed her up, not meaning to make it so obvious, and mumbled, "You really are pretty Sef. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They're just trying to destroy you because they're jealous. Just . . . don't do anything stupid."
'Too late.'
Zell stared back into her forest green eyes and saw them filling up with water.
"Shit, Didn't mean to make ya cry."
He leaned over and took Selphie in his arms, squeezing her a little too tightly into a hug.
Selphie let out a small gasp of pain. His squeeze had caught the cuts on her left arm, and a couple re-opened, beginning to bleed again. She didn't realise this and thinking nothing of it, continued hugging her male friend, savouring the warmth coming from his toned body.
Selphie pulled away and ruffled up Zells hair. He tutted and fussed with it until it looked like it did before.
Reaching over to put a CD on, she noticed a dark red patch on her uniform sleeve.
'Oh no!' She panicked and tried to hide it, and although it was only around the size of a ping pong ball, Zell had already seen it.
"Erm, Selphie . . . where'd that blood come from?"
Selphie laughed nervously and avoided her friends gaze.
"It's . . . er . . . you know, a cut from when I got beaten on. Yeah. It must've re-opened."
Zell grabbed for her wrist and held onto it, not so hard that it would hurt, but strong enough to make her stay sitting down.
"Show me then."
Selphies green eyes grew wide. She desperately didn't want her only friend to think she was some sort of weirdo who took razors to herself for fun. It wasn't like that, but he definitely suspected something.
"Damn it SEF! SHOW ME!"
She was determined not too, so she tried to wriggle free of Zells vice like grip, but to no avail.
Taking things into his own hands, he rolled up his friends left sleeve, still holding onto her wrist.
Zell was used to the sight of blood, but it still shocked him when he saw Selphies arm with a crimson river running down her ivory skin.
Dotted around were random cuts, some deep, some just scratches, maybe around eleven or twelve in total. They all seemed to be kept to one area; her left upper arm.
Zell knew that Selphie had done it to herself and it upset him that she felt she had to do this.
"Selphie, why?"
The usually happy girl in front of him, was now about to cry again but didn't get that far. Zell pulled her into a hug and rocked her a little, calming her down and stopping those tears spilling down her face.
"Come on, let's patch you up again."
He took her small hand and led her into the bathroom, getting out the bandages.
Selphie sat down on the edge of the toilet seat. Zell ran a wadded up piece of toilet tissue under the cold tap, crouched down in front of the brunette and wiped it smoothly along her arm, getting off the blood that was dried on and dabbing at the cuts that were still oozing.
She flinched when he did this so he apologised.
"Zell . . .Do . . . do I disgust you?"
Zell stopped tending to her wounds and studied her face.
"Why did you say that?"
Selphie exhaled and replied, "Because of these . . ." She pointed uncomfortably at her arm, which had now stopped bleeding.
"You don't disgust me Selphie. I'm kinda upset you did this though. Why didn't you come and talk to me when you felt like doing this?"
Zell continued to bandage up her arm, wrapping layers of the soft white cotton around the cuts.
"It wasn't that easy Zell. The way I feel . . . it's like nothing is inside me."
At any other time, Zell would've joked and made what she said seem dirty, but now he just crouched and listened.
"Everything that was inside me . . . it just up and left . . . like Irvine. I never thought I could feel numb and worthless and stupid and that I'd be better off dead. But when I took that blade to my skin . . . it was like a release for me. Just seeing something come out of me made me feel like I was still here and that I was still something. After all, if I bleed, then I must be real, right?"
". . . I never knew you felt like this."
"No-one did. I paint on smiles every morning for them, but inside, I'm dead, I'm choking and I can't breathe and it hurts so much more than I can tell. I didn't even feel any pain when I cut myself. It was weird. As if I was caught in-between worlds. But it was scary Zell, I was scared. I still am."
Zell got up from his crouching position and held Selphie in a tender embrace.
Brushing a few hazel brown tendrils out of her eyes, he whispered, "It's okay, Selph. Im here. I'll protect you."