Sweet Cowardice

Hell Week

Written By: Fox

Notes:

This chappie is going to be separated into days by ~Day~. Yeah. I usually hate reading this style of writing, but this works for the chapter. Please bear with it. *coughs*

~*~

CHAPTER 3: Hell Week

~Monday~

It was the first day of Hell Week and both Squall and Irvine were a little edgy from start to finish of the day.

To start it all out, they both woke up late, reported to their offices late, and ended the work day with a long talk from Laguna that started out “If I had started out my life the way you have...” and ended in “-one of you wouldn’t be standing here right now with a pissy look on his face as we speak.”.

This only served to irritate Squall to the point that he dug his fingernails into his palms until they bled to keep quiet. Irvine slipped him a peppermint candy to bite on half way through the lecture since he had noticed when Squall’s hands started to drip on the carpet.

As they both left Laguna’s new portable office aboard Balamb Garden they were instantly trapped by a concerned Zell whom insisted on buying them dinner. Dinner consisted of Zell wolfing down an obscene amount of hotdogs much to both young men’s disgust as they played with their own plates of chicken alfredo. Zell would end up offering to clean their plates for them and they were stuck sitting politely through his wolfing and half baked conversation about some fighter from the good old days.

Then came a long phone call from Selphie to give her reports to Squall whom barely took notes that evening while Irvine listened in and made faces at some of the things Selphie would add. Squall would mumble about how “grown up” Irvine had acted after feigning exhaustion and hanging up on the young woman.

Nida was then recruited to come down and help move all of Irvine’s favorite items and guns to Squall’s rooms. She remained quiet and helped Irvine place all of his things where he asked, but couldn’t help noticing when a close on irate Squall started looking about ready to strangle a redecorating Irvine.

Nida watched the two interact for a moment, then slowly backed out of the room, not to be found again for a couple more days.

That night Irvine fidgeted all night as he grumbled to himself about being cold and wanting to strangle Squall for making him sleep alone on a futon in a corner of the room. Squall himself was laying in his own warm bed, wide eyed and looking ready to bolt at the slightest noise.

Between the two of them, sleep seemed to be an imaginary friend that hated them.


~Tuesday~

Irvine found himself stuck spending all of Tuesday morning doing a demonstration on shooting techniques for the local SeeD trainees to watch and marvel at. All that afternoon was spent in an almost equally brainless endeavor handing out fliers and talking to some of the trainees about a class he was supposed to be starting next week.

That is if he was able to survive that long.

Squall on the other hand was almost permanently glued to his chair behind his desk, blood shot eyes scanning pages and taking notes on reports that were presented to him all morning and afternoon. Early that evening found him alone finally, and yet he still wasn’t pleased as the noise that was left to bother him for hours on end was his own eyes blinking. After listening to them blink for almost five minutes straight he fired them. Of course that left him open to listen to them flap only more until he gave in and left his office to try to escape to his dorm.

Halfway there he bumped into Irvine whom was in an equally exhausted state and barely greeted him. They both agreed that the best thing for them right now was to try to go to sleep.

With the heroic mind set of sparing the garden their irritability and exhaustion by retreating to the dorm and subsequently to each of their beds, they defied fate and eating and headed to the dorms.

Unfortunately fate wouldn’t allow this. Xu caught them just before they made it into their dorm and forced them to accompany her to dinner. Irvine found himself completely surprised to find that one woman could talk for almost two hours straight, then comment that she had a wonderful conversation with two nearly dead looking men (whom hadn’t spoken a single coherent word back) without skipping a single beat. Both men smiled happily as they watched her leave before dragging themselves to their room.

A full night’s sleep was once again elusive, but this time they were able to catch snippets of it, ten minutes at a time.

Squall was sure he heard Irvine murmur something about breeding cockatrice once in the cowboy’s sleep.


~Wednesday~

By Wednesday morning, Irvine was beginning to get out of his slump. His mind and body were now focused on his work and his official transfers from Galbadia to Balamb were almost complete. He was even able to show some of the old cowboy spirit and flirt, but he drew the line when it came too close.

He was desperate to win, and he’d be damned if he’d let anything as little as a flirt snowball into his loss.

Squall, however, was slowly starting to get worse. He had the shakes and had to excuse himself several times during his meetings and reports to go vomit up bile since he’d already emptied the contents of his stomach nearly an hour into the day. He would comment on how cold his offices were and would be found near the end of the day with a pair of blankets wrapped around himself at his desk, his teeth chattering as he tried to write legibly.

He was also starting to show signs of giving up. Occasionally that evening before bed Irvine would see him pick up a stray razor blade from somewhere in the dorm and run the pad of his thumb over the dull edge. Whenever Irvine cleared his throat however, Squall would drop the blade and grumble to himself, obviously reprimanding himself for touching it.

That was the first night Irvine was able to sleep well. Squall wasn’t nearly as lucky and was stuck staying up, watching him jealously.


~Thursday~

Irvine was back in the full swing on Thursday. His spirits were back up and his mind was clear.

For once he wasn’t thinking about where the nearest least watched bathroom was in relation to his location in the garden. He didn’t have to worry about how safe a bathroom it was to get away with either giving a sexy looking guy head or vice versa. He wasn’t focused on where a good closet was where he could feel up a girl’s uniform before sliding his cock into her and know no one would hear them moaning behind the door.

At least not nearly as much as he used to.

Squall however was the largest dark cloud that wandered around garden that anyone had ever seen.

Without his precious drugs or alcohol to dim his mind and let him forget his problems between his work and past that he hadn’t wanted to deal with, he was forced to realize at least a few very ugly truths about himself.

The first was his breakup with Rinoa was mostly his fault.

He had been stupid to think he could have had a relationship with the girl. Of course he loved her. He always would love her. Love had nothing to do with it. He had let himself believe he could be exactly perfect for her, but that was complete bullshit. No human was perfect, and when you can’t stand a personality trait that you can’t fix (like her incessant nagging at his style and lack of “emotional talking”) there is no fix for it.

Neither could change enough, and that’s all there was to it. His blindness to that truth was what was at fault.

The second was that he was easily obsessed.

Whenever something happened that he didn’t like or (he thought he didn’t) need in his life, he turned to the same outlets. If not booze, it was drugs, or vice versa. Sometimes even random acts of violence and sudden need for release through monster hunting, though he hadn’t done either of the latter two for quite some time.

He had been obsessed with Rinoa, and his obsession had only shifted to another person, which led to the third truth.

The third was that he was starting to really get used to someone being around at night again, and he had had some very disturbing thoughts about the cowboy in nothing more than his chaps and hat of late.

This was a newer development. He found it was ugly based on the fact that there was nothing he could have done to be prepared for it.

Knowing gay and bi people wasn’t that big a deal to him. After all, he knew that the “guy” Selphie was with wasn’t exactly anatomically male yet. Quistis and Xu had been an item since Quistis had given up on Squall. Hell he didn’t even blink an eye when he found out that Ellone had experimented with some random girl!

But him being gay...

He sucked in a deep breath and stared at a pile of paperwork. He didn’t want to face any of it anymore. God help him but he honestly wanted to just crawl into his old habits and forget everything again. He didn’t want to think of Irvine or the bet, or anything at all for that matter. All he wanted was to hide away and be left alone.

He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a brand new bottle of whiskey and stared at it like it was a long lost friend. He was about to open it and take a drink when a voice nagged at the back of his head that he could do this anytime without guilt in only 3 days. He was bound and determined that this was not the time to do it. Besides, Irvine knew about the bottle and it being brand new.

That night he and Irvine ate alone, and they both slept well.


~Friday~

Friday found both men wide awake and at the training center. Irvine was put through his paces with Squall only supporting him. Today was going to be Irvine’s SeeD test, and the young man had already done the requirements. After an hour Squall determined that Irvine was sufficiently warmed up and headed out to the main lobby with him.

Irvine paced nervously as he waited. Soon his name was called out and he found that he was partnered with a beautiful young blonde and a young Trepie that clung to him, begging for facts about the now dead trainer.

Squall shook his head as he followed the three, having volunteered to be the group’s main supervisor. He walked them to the parking lot where he pretended to stop and watch the other SeeD groups load into their cars and head out.

Irvine threw him a thumbs up from the driver’s window and Squall nodded back at him.

Once the trainees were out of sight the special supervisor’s cars drove up and Squall boarded.

After a short ride into Balamb he boarded the second charter ship. He kept to himself, the instructors on board being respectful and letting him brood. Almost two hours later found Squall and the others landing on the beach at Centra Ruins. He looked up at the rusted out, abandoned Centra and smiled wistfully, remembering attaining Odin and Tonberry King here. He shook the memories away and walked forward. The last ship arrived and docked, the volunteer SeeD instructors filing out.

“Okay, the last ship is here, and everyone can hear me right?” He asked as he spoke as loud as he could. He was glad it wasn’t nearly as windy as it normally was today.

All the instructors nodded.

“First, I want to thank Instructor Paris of Trabia Garden and Instructor Moren of Galbadia Garden for volunteering their time to become a supervisor.” There was polite applause all around before he continued. “I have set up a mock battlefield with monsters instead of targets through out the area based closely on the sort of monsters I encountered with the group I had been with during the second Sorceress War.

“It is completely closed off so that it is safe and is designed like something of a maze. I have assigned everyone into pairs based on your individual specialities. Please step into the maze and only interfere if the students are in danger of their lives.” He read off the pairs and the group they were to locate and watch. Soon only he and the instructor from Trabia remained. They shook hands and headed off.

The day passed quickly as Squall and Paris watched and evaluated their team. Soon time was up and only 3 out of the 7 groups had made it through the maze. Irvine’s group had been the first ones through. A buzzer went off and the real SeeD entered the maze, clearing it of monsters. The rest of the SeeD candidates were given a pat on the back and sent home.

Of the nine students only 5 were passed on as SeeDs, Irvine one of them.

The celebration ball was spectacular, and Squall almost kicked himself for his thoughts as he saw Irvine wearing his new SeeD uniform for the first time.

Sleep was mercifully dreamless for him and he was only too glad when he went to bed.


~Saturday~

Squall was swamped with requests for SeeD to intervene on minor skirmishes among some rebel parties that were starting to pop up all around Esthar. The fact that Laguna even admitted to the odd number of rebel factions meant that either Laguna was in one of the said factions and was ruling Esthar based on the group’s opinions, or he was already decided on what he was going to do.

Either possibility being a truth was what disturbed Squall the most.

Without thinking about it he opened his drawer and pulled out the bottle of whiskey, opening it and taking a large swig out of the once full bottle.

That night at dinner Irvine cornered him.

“What’s wrong Squally? You look like your dog died.”

Squall stared glumly at his plate. “No... Just busy trying to figure out how I’m going to work the office tomorrow when no one wants the job.” He had already decided that Irvine was not quite the right guy to send to Esthar since he had already been one of “the faeries” that had acted as Kiros. His personal ideas would seem rude and not what Laguna would need.

“I can do it.” Irvine offered freely.

“I’m really behind on paperwork.” Squall said, hoping to dissuaded the cowboy.

“So? I got nothing to do.” Irvine said simply.

Squall became nervous. “It’s ok, really.”

Irvine got suspicious. “Squall, you aren’t hiding anything, are you?”

Squall shook his head defensively. “Of course not!”

“Then you won’t mind me doing it.” Irvine replied logically.

Squall couldn’t argue. He spent the night worrying that Irvine would read the requests and ask to go as said cowboy snored soundly.


~Sunday~


Irvine followed Squall to his office where they spent a good amount of time filling out and filing forms. Squall would be nervous occasionally, thinking the mail would come by with another request any minute. Irvine noticed this, but didn’t let on.

Around noon Squall offered to get lunch while Irvine hung back and continued his filing, not yet seeing the request forms. Squall immediately dashed down to the mail sorting rooms and asked about the mail where he found out it was all already sent to the offices. He sighed believing he was in the clear and returned to his own office with a picked up lunch from the cafeteria.

Irvine had his back to Squall when Squall approached and was obviously looking something over.

Immediately Squall started to sweat bullets. “Whatcha got Irvine?”

Irvine turned around and held up the half gone bottle of whiskey.

Squall’s stomach dropped to the ground.

Irvine set the bottle on the desk and walked past Squall. He stopped at the doors.

“I knew that you were nervous about something Squall, I just couldn’t quite put my finger on what. I should have known you couldn’t hold out.”

“No, Irvine, it’s not like that! I.. I can explain!” He rattled off about Esthar, his hands gesturing out his words. “-and by the time I noticed I had had any of the bottle it was at the halfway point.” he muttered pathetically.

Irvine shook his head and walked out.

Squall winced as the doors slammed behind him and sank to the ground on his knees.

~*~

Yup that’s it for this chapter.