Hope finds Snow at a dance club after hours, downtown. It's somewhere he's never been, due to the fact that he hasn't been eighteen before a few days ago. Besides, most clubs in New York, you had to be 21 for admittance.
He lets the valet take his car, after an hour of gridlock, and is faced with a long line. A row of people stand in all manners of repose behind a plush red banister, and Hope moans at the wait. A few minutes goes by, and he shuffles forward a few steps.
"I'll never get in at this rate!" He states aloud. Need and despair clutch at Hope, and ignoring the protesting and shouting of the angry crowd, he cuts out of the rope and jogs up to the bouncer.
"...Alright, little missy, you and your friend here can go mosey right on in..." Hope hears a familiar voice, and peeks behind a piled updo to espy...
"Ry!" With happiness at finally seeing a way in, Hope laughs with relief. The rhinestone cowboy apparently also works the front door of one of the trendiest nightclubs in New York during his off hours.
Complete with a toothpick hanging out of the corner of his mouth, the man who escorted his parents to Hope's 18th birthday party looks up from an I.D. and waves to Hope.
"Well, I'll be damned. Little grown man wants to get his education early. I'm pretty sure I attended an event that commemorated your birthday a while back, so I'm pretty sure I know exactly how old you are, young guy. Today ain't your lucky day, little ranger. Rules are rules." He lazily waves Hope off. "I of all people know that you ain't twent..."
"It IS my lucky day, that's what you don't understand yet. Ry, you need to let me see Snow." At Hope's words, an audible gasp sounds behind him, even through the music pouring out through the club entrance's doors, and murmurings ripple through the line.
Ry squints down at Hope. "You can't get in, boy, that's what I'm aimin' to tell you..."
As a last resort, knowing that he can't be turned away, Hope leans over the podium, trying to pitch his voice to where only Ry can hear. "It's about the military operation. I'm in. I gave Light the green light. It's about West Point...please...I'm not here to...to...dance. For old time's sake?"
Ry moves his toothpick from one side of the mouth to the other. Not breaking his gaze from Hope, he tucks his chin to his left shoulder, cupping his mouth and speaking quickly into a holstered walkie talkie strapped there. There is more angry muttering and jostling behind the panicked young boy during this time, and after what seems like forever, Ry finally straightens, then nods slightly.
"Go on in. Enter the door and take the door to your left. You will be escorted to Mr. Villiers." Ry leans over, unclips the barrier hook leading inside, and Hope walks away, curious but too thankful to ask his old comrade about the formality in using Snow's last name.
He follows Rydea's instructions and a beefy silent type, complete with shades inside the darkly lit nightclub, quickly ushers the young boy up stairs and through service corridors winding around the interior perimeter of the club. The steady wub-wub of the music coming through the system is muffled here in the concrete and florescent lit back hallways. After a few landings and a brief interlude, the quiet guy knocks on a door in a complicated pattern. Pause. The door cracks open, and cool air wafts out.
"Thanks. The young Mr. Estheim is safe with me. You're good to go." Sunglasses dude nods, then Hope is through the door.
He finds himself in a room as dark as the rest of the nightclub interior. It's a security room, it looks like, with a bunch of monitors showing everything going on inside.
Snow is in the room, blonde hair gleaming in the low lighting, back turned to the monitors and to Hope. He has set up his own gaming console station, and looks deep in an RPG shooter game, hopping from foot to foot. "Come on in, Hope. I've ordered some takeout, if you want some."
"I-I'm good, thanks." Hope steps in, eyes flicking from space to space. "Alyssa told me that I could find you here. What are you, some sort of head of security for this place in your free time?"
At just that moment, a knock sounds at the door, and a muffled voice can be heard shouting over the din. "Hey, boss, there's a situation down in Sector 3. Jared might need some backup. I'm going in..."
"Dammit!" Snow cries out, and Hope sees that his character has been blown by an enemy grenade in the game he is playing. He throws the controller on the ground, and Hope winces as he sees the expensive looking equipment bounce off the floor.
"Yeah, I wanna handle this one. They ruined my kill streak." Snow shouts back, and he cracks his knuckles.
"Hey, kid, d'ya mind waiting up for me for a moment? I'll be right back." Hope nods, and Snow claps a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Thanks, kid."
Trying to set his teeth back from edge at being called "kid," Hope kicks his feet around the dark little office for a while, glancing at Snow's dead character being lobbed at by random gunfire while the camera spins on the scene endlessly.
Curious, Hope pauses mid-stride, and checks out the screens on the other end of the room. They're the ones pointed at the interior of the club, a live feed to the outside. It isn't hard to find the camera that's trained on the area where Snow's at.
"Whoa." Hope lets out in grudging appraisal at his old friend, who is in the middle of breaking up a barfight. He can barely make out Snow's locks peeking of his knitted beanie to distinguish him from almost single-handedly breaking out what looks to be a fight between two rival crews that had happened to be on the same turf. A flying elbow is all that can be seen rising above the surf of bodies pressed all around his friend. Necks and jaws fly back wherever the beanie and elbows are. There is a small circle of calm amidst a storm that is Snow Villiers, and in a flash, the two rival sides are quieted. The cops show up just as Snow has the two leaders of the opposing factions in locks under each muscular arm. The rest of the black shirts from the club's security sort the rest of the bystanders for questioning and possible arrest.
Snow speaks to one of the cops for a few moments, looking frustrated and harried. After a little while, he walks back to the concrete hallway, and to Hope's side in the little room.
By the time Mr. Villiers enters the TV room once more, Hope is lounging in a comfortable position on the overstuffed couch in front of the gaming screen, peering casually at a half-eaten takeout box of noodles.
"Sorry about that, kiddo, I just had some work to do. Duty calls." Hope looks at Snow under hooded lashes. There is a scrape on one arm and a couple of fresh bruises, but otherwise the blonde looks none the worse for wear.
"You're the OWNER of this club, not head of security." Hope states, eyes twinkling. "The cops talked to you, and after that, no one else. No one else was called."
"Guilty." Snow grins, then tosses one of Hope's boots off one of the couch cushions so that he can sit down. "Save some of that lo mein for me, alright? And keep your feet off the couch. Sheesh, man, what were you, born in a barn or something?"
"Nope. I was born in a hospital. You?"Hope grabs an extra pair of chopsticks in plastic packaging that is in a bag on a nearby end table. There is enough piles of half-eaten food around to feed half an army. At first he was going to decline eating Snow's dinner, but boredom and the realization that there's plenty going to waste changed the young man's mind.
"Hah, very funny. I wasn't born on this planet, and you know that." Snow snorts. "Now, as much as I appreciate this visit, I know you didn't come here just to hang out and catch up on old times. Which we still need to do sometime soon. So, what's up?"
"In short, I need some verification that I can trust Alyssa." Hope states around a mouthful of takeout. "I need some sort of proof that we can trust her. Also, I want to make sure that her and Light haven't gone batshit crazy in 18 years. Is what Light claims true? I mean, about Bhuni coming back possibly." Hope has decided that he will use the abbreviated version of the old god's name. It sounds less scary to shorten it. That way, he can suppress a shudder.
Snow gets serious real quick. He puts his controller back down, and squarely looks the younger in the eye. "I can't give you proof that you can trust Alyssa. You're on your own on that one, pal. But what I can do, is verify Light's claim. Well, I can at least say that I believe her, 100%. I mean, it just makes too much sense to ignore."
"Have you personally seen anything that would make you think that it's the old god trying to come back, and not just some unidentified happenings that are making Light paranoid about things being traced back to him? If I'm going to sign my life away to the government, I'm sure gonna need some damn good conspiracy theories headed my way, other than things happening that could be attributed to other phenomena, like the standard martian alien sightings or top-secret government projects."
"We ARE the top-secret government project, so on that, you have verifiable proof that we aren't behind the weird stuff you hear on T.V." Snow sighs. "There have been radio waves coming from the beyond, stuff that sounds like it's on a frequency similar to Bhuni's voice. I also think that there are some weird gamma rays, pictures taken from our satellites that haven't been released to the public, that take shapes a lot like the old god's hand outstretched, and always pointing toward earth, no matter what corner of the universe we find these light sources coming from. And then...there are have been people that the pentagon has under quarantine. Most people would say they are possessed, but not to us. There is a group of people, known terrorists from all different corners of the world, sleeper cells with nothing to link them except rantings and ravings about hearing voices from their 'master.' Their 'master' commands them to do things, all sorts of evil things, and they act under those instructions. It's our special op, me and Light and Sazh and Fang and Vanille, to find these people scattered all over the world before the regular troops can get there. We sneak in, grab them, and take them back to a special detainment facility. For questioning. It's beyond what normal people are aware of. They all speak their master's name, 'Bhunivelze.' We try to be there before their plans hatch, to protect civs and minimize damage, and we try to round up all the sleeper cells. There are more every day. We fear of losing the battle, of what we do somehow leaking to the general public. We fear that if the regular people know, then Bhunivelze's plan will have worked, to get the people to find out about him, and how this world came to be. They'll start asking questions, and our team will be uncovered. That's at least what we can figure out, Hope. That in order to come back to our world fully, the souls that have escaped him and fled to this planet will have to start to worship him again. When they do, then the barriers that keep him from directly influencing this plane will be broken, and he will have free reign on the people's souls again. We have to keep him hidden, silent. I don't see an end to the work we have in sight, though. I'll be truthful with you, Hope. We haven't yet understood just how these people find out about him in the first place. They are so different from the one another, and work autonomously. Each one believes he or she is 'special,' you know, like most kooks believe, and that they alone are working through their divine master's will. We hope that this is because the god can't marshal enough willpower to gain access into a collaborative group's mind, and that he can only pick off certain people one by one to spread his name and do terrible deeds through him. As of this point, it's been a game of cat-and-mouse between him and us, with us scrambling to defuse his nefarious plots quicker than they can be found out. So far, it's worked. But we find ourselves busier each day. With you to join our team, and putting that brain of yours to work with us, we're hoping you can uncover what makes certain people more receptive to his coercions, Hope. Maybe then we will have the edge over Bhunivelze that we need to get the upper hand once and for all. You're the missing link that we've been waiting for."
"Just how long have you guys been stalking me?" Hope asks, and he realizes just how much of a teenager he sounds by asking the question. He doesn't care, though. He IS a teenager.
Snow sighs. "You don't think we'd honestly not make sure you were okay while we were here, did you? We tried to find each other as soon as we realized that we had made it to this planet alive and safe. We all came here at the same age as we were when we left, fully grown. But you, of course...well, you already know the story. You entered this place the 'normal' way."
"That isn't answering the question." Hope isn't hungry anymore, and places his food on the table.
"We've been here for about a year. We were already in the military when we 'woke up.' From one moment I was dancing out in the stars, shooting toward a big blue planet, and the next, I was on base, waking up on a cot. That was quite an experience, and shock, mind you."
For some reason, a gripping sense of unease lessens somewhat from Hope's stomach. It would have been weird if he had been shadowed by this group ever since he was a baby. This seems silly for all it's reassurance, considering that now he believes Light's story about the old god, now that Snow has given him a bit more recon of what is actually happening.
"So that explains how you guys know about my grades and what-not. It also explains what Alyssa was saying when she came to my house to recruit me." Hope slumps back into the cushions, raking a hand through his hair. Snow punches him hard, jolting him forward.
"Hey! I thought I told you to stop punching me like that." He moans, shooting is friend a sour look.
"You're gonna have to get used to it, especially now that you've made the decision to enlist in the military and help us." Snow stands up, and stretches his arms behind his head. Then he pauses, and turns to his young friend. His blue eyes sadden. "You ARE helping us, aren't you, kiddo?"
"Okay, you've got to stop calling me that, too. Ground rule. Number one, no punching. Number two, don't refer to me as if I'm a kid."
Snow laughs. "That last one's gonna be tough, bud. You've always been a kid to us, between this world or the last."
Hope sighs inwardly, begrudging the easy switch from "kid" to "bud," but then also closes his eyes and sees bright flashes of him older than Snow. He was older than any of them, once. He is also eighteen now.
But then, he knows he is much older than any of them realize. There is a deep, dark place inside him where he wants to forget, that time when he was alone with Bhuni. It was just him and the presence of the god for so long, up on a cold, lonely...ship? No, that wasn't the term used toward his old home that he lived in, watching the centuries pass by while the god tortured his mind for memories and information. He stayed in a stasis, forever young but watching as generations passed beneath him, as everyone he knew and loved died, and their children's children died.
It was an ark. Hope opens his eyes. Yes, that was the word for it. An ark. That was where he was perpetually fourteen for so long, until one of his oldest friends came to set him free from the torture and misery of being imprisoned by the god. Light rescued him. And then, he remembers helping her...somehow...but why Light? Why is she so different to him than any of his old friends?
Snow didn't know. Snow wasn't aware of just how old his mind is, inside this young body. Then, to be born as an infant after so long of detached awareness...so cruel. No wonder his mind shut down the memories and the counting of time. No wonder his brain wanted to believe he was only born a normal child, and that his dreams might be misguided delusions. Of course, Hope had WANTED the woman with the rose hair to be real, to be at the beach waiting for him after he had woken up. That is why he had waited every night for so long. But he still wants to reject this branch of the military his friends are involved in, and he still wants a normal life...just with all of his old friends in it. He made the decision to bridge the juxtaposition in his life, but...couldn't he have just the best of both worlds? Ack, the farther down the rabbit hole Hope falls, the harder it is to try to keep his sanity...
Hope snaps back to the present, at Snow's expectant gaze. He sighs. "Yeah, I'm gonna help you. I already told Light that I would so...I guess I don't have a chance to back out, do I?"
"Yeah, actually you do. Now's the best time." Snow shrugs, and decides to respawn his character to continue his game. "Now that you know what's up, and aren't part of the program yet. I mean, you know none of us WANT you to back out, but..." Snow shrugs. "I at least owe it to you to be honest, don't I?"
Hope nods, and grabs the other controller. "Punch me in, bro. I want in on this. Let's talk about all this next level stuff another day. I'm in, but right now, I don't wanna think about it."
"Sure thing." Snow nods like he understands. "But you're covering delivery."
Hope side-eyes his old friend. "Delivery? What delivery?"
Snow gestures to Hope's empty takeout box. "You ate the rest of my dinner, bro. House rules. You laid some ground rules, tiger, but I've got my own. You eat a man's food, you pony up. I don't mind sharing, but if you stay, I need more. A man's gotta work on fuel, you know."
Hope is flabbergasted, blinking and looking around at the legions of little white boxes littering the dimly lit room in various states of disarray. "Uh...sure?" His voice catches at the end, embarrassingly. "Just how much more do you need to eat, anyway?"
Snow shrugs. "Just punch #2 on the phone and ask for the usual at Club Pulse. They know what to send. Oh, but you have to give em your card number. You DO have a debit or credit on you, right?"
Hope picks up the phone receiver Snow hands him. "You have the takeout place's number on speed dial?"
Snow dials in the console to recognize Hope's controller as a second player, not looking at Hope. "Yeah, you don't?"
Hope just sighs. "I don't even want to know how much the usual at Club Pulse is going to cost me."
Snow laughs. "No, you don't. But you're going to be a West Pointer soon, right? You can afford it, now. Hurry it up. I'm hungry and I want to play. Waiting on you for both."
Hope laughs, resigned. There are a lot of things on his plate, but right now, he is going to take a much-needed bachelor night in with his friend.
"Oh, by the way, you're invited to my wedding. It's next week. We've been waiting on you to ask you, and we planned it after your 18th, cause we knew we'd see you by then, to explain everything. You're coming right? And by the way, you're my best man, so you need to find a tux."