Jul 09, 2007 23:41
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Pairing: Irvine Kinneas/Selphie Tilmitt
Theme Set: Gamma
Rating: PG-13 for innuendo and mild cursing.
Author's Note: I'm surprised I finished this at all - I just got set upon by four balls of meowing fluff and some sort of terrifying flying creature that cannot honestly be an insect because OH MY GOD IT'S HUGE AND SCARY AND COULD PROBABLY KILL ME.
#01 - Air
She's always preferred Trabia to Balamb; the clearer air around the snowcaps, uncluttered by sea salt or fish or ships or his infuriatingly omnipresent scent, which she can't place but can't seem to get rid of - it follows her around like a sick puppy, even when he doesn't.
#02 - Apples
She tastes like apples and cinnamon and something else he can't name.
#03 - Beginning
He almost dropped his gun when he turned around and realized who he was looking at - were they really the same people, or were his eyes just playing tricks on him?
#04 - Bugs
Once, in the Deep Sea Research Center, some insect crawled into Selphie's boot - the situation ended when Squall yelled at her to just take off the damn shoe and get rid of it, after she'd already shrieked herself hoarse and nearly choked Quistis in terror (Irvine and Zell both still tease her about it).
#05 - Coffee
He drinks his coffee black, which she thinks has to be the most disgusting thing ever; she fills the cup to half-full with sugar and cream before even considering pouring the coffee, which he figures completely ruins the effect of drinking it.
#06 - Dark
He wakes up in the middle of the night and she's right there, curled up next to him, shivering - he had forgotten that she had that phobia of being alone in the dark.
#07 - Despair
"We're never gonna get out of here," Irvine mutters, digging his foot into the tangle of wires leading deeper under the ocean.
#08 - Doors
She panics because she just knows they're trapped, and they're gonna die here, so far under the waves, somewhere they're not supposed to be, and nobody's ever gonna find them; then Irvine finds the mechanism that opens the door and she nearly cries in relief.
#09 - Drink
She glares at him when he kisses her, but is far too drunk to care.
#10 - Duty
He grins as he leans closer - "Since when do you ever do exactly what you're told?"
#11 - Earth
Leaning against a window, high up in space, watching the world turn without her far below, she's never felt so alone.
#12 - End
"This is it," she says, "this is the ending," and doesn't want a reply.
#13 - Fall
Her knuckles are white, clutched around the harness of the escape pod, and she thinks she might be screaming (she also thinks it might be his name).
#14 - Fire
There's something unspeakably frightening about her, and it has less to do with her than with the way he reacts to her - she's so passionate and alive and he knows (and doesn't want to know because it hurts so much) that people like her can never live very long.
#15 - Flexible
He starts to make a crack about how useful her old dance training is in certain places, but she hastily clamps a hand over his mouth (Rinoa sniggers uncontrollably for the rest of the day and absolutely refuses to let her live it down).
#16 - Flying
She's amazed at how easily the Ragnarok moves under her fingers, and suddenly has to restrain the urge to just take off into the blue and never, ever look back (it would be so easy).
#17 - Food
She eats like a horse when she eats at all and he doesn't think it's very healthy.
#18 - Foot
When she slams the door, he stands still, face smarting where she slapped him only seconds before, and then realizes that everyone around is staring at him - this is foot-in-mouth syndrome at its worst.
#19 - Grave
She doesn't know he's watching her when she kneels in the wreckage of Trabia and cries.
#20 - Green
He's never seen anything quite like her eyes - her hair, other people have worn, and her dress was picked off a shelf, but no one can imitate the way her eyes sparkle when she turns around and laughs.
#21 - Head
She hates being so much shorter than him (because he keeps looking down her shirt).
#22 - Hollow
When Ultimecia is defeated, all of a sudden he doesn't have an excuse to stay around and she doesn't have an excuse to keep him.
#23 - Honor
She wonders if he even knows what fidelity means sometimes.
#24 - Hope
"We're going to make it out of here," Squall says, and she doesn't believe him; "It'll take more than a crazy sorceress to get rid of me," Irvine says, and she feels oddly better.
#25 - Light
Dawn breaks red on the morning they face Ultimecia and she doesn't think she's ever wished harder to hold onto night.
#26 - Lost
Trapped somewhere in between the beginning of the world and the end of it, he thinks he's going to die.
#27 - Metal
She keeps flowers in her dorm and says it's because all these steel walls and pretty iron-wrought bedposts can't be entirely healthy.
#28 - New
There's no place for a baby in a Garden full of mercenaries and she wishes it was a problem she had.
#29 - Old
She goes back to Trabia every year, just so she won't forget.
#30 - Peace
None of them quite know what to do with themselves after the unimaginatively-named Second Sorceress War.
#31 - Poison
She's intoxicating and addictive and so damn good it almost hurts.
#32 - Pretty
He tells her every day how gorgeous she is and he doesn't think she's ever believed a word of it.
#33 - Rain
Even though it's pouring, he knows it isn't rain on her face - he just wish he knew why it couldn't be.
#34 - Regret
"I'm sorry," she whispers, and won't tell him what for.
#35 - Roses
She tells him lilies are much, much prettier than any other flower and he takes mental notes.
#36 - Secret
She has a picture of him in drag and doesn't remember where it came from, but it always makes her smile (he has no knowledge of this picture, which is really a good thing, because he'd burn it - Irvine made an incredibly hideous woman).
#37 - Snakes
He completely freaks out when he walks into their dorm and finds a snake in a dry, brightly-lit aquarium on her desk, and wonders why he can't have a normal girlfriend who likes puppies or kittens.
#38 - Snow
He has absolutely no idea how she survived in Trabia (Trabia, as in, ice) wearing the dresses she does.
#39 - Solid
"Ouch," she mutters, rubbing her head where she crashed into him, "get fat or something, will you?"
#40 - Spring
She smells of cherry blossoms and vanilla, even in winter.
#41 - Stable
Nothing is ever really consistent in their relationship - sometimes they're friends, other times lovers, and then sometimes enemies - and he doesn't think he could handle a lifetime-kinda-relationship if it was more stable.
#42 - Strange
He eats peanut-butter-and-pickles sandwiches and then wonders why she won't kiss him until several hours after lunch.
#43 - Summer
She spends half the summer cooped up inside complaining of the heat, until he throws her off Balamb's dock.
#44 - Taboo
"What if we hadn't been able to get back after fighting Ulti - " she begins, but stops at the look on his face.
#45 - Ugly
"Rinoa's beautiful," she says suddenly one morning, "you don't have to keep lying to me."
#46 - War
When they fight, the entire Garden knows about it, and begin taking bets on how long it'll be before Irvine grovels (the last winner was a cadet who said six days because Irvine's libido wouldn't let him hold out any longer).
#47 - Water
She's like a fast river - lively and rushing and completely unstoppable.
#48 - Welcome
Garden is home, even when she wishes it weren't.
#49 - Winter
He doesn't understand what she finds so beautiful about snow, but to her, there's nothing prettier (especially when it's splattered all across his face from the best snowball she's ever thrown).
#50 - Wood
"For luck," she whispers, and hands him the tiny figurine, "because nothing bad has ever happened to me while I've had it," and he wonders if she remembers that he was the one who gave it to her in the first place.
!set gamma,
final fantasy viii