11Squall's Kinda ROTFL Moment
or,
Red Right Hand
—ox-oxo-xo—
Disclaimer: FFVIII and its characters are the property of Squaresoft/Enix.
Warning: vaguely humorous and vague descriptions of slash/het sexual situations. Oh, and crack.
Rated: T, though this may be a tad low.
A/N: Because this is the closest I will ever – repeat, EVER! – get to writing gratuitous yaoi. I'm slowly working my way through the various genres for the writing practice, you see, so I thought I'd better have something resembling a go at writing some slash. (You know, just so I can say I've done some. And also to take a dig at those fics which seem to make just about every male character homosexual.) Also, because I wished to experiment slightly with my writing style.
Fans of yaoi may wish to stop reading after about a third of the way through (you'll know when). Anti-yaoi fans…hang in there. Trust me on this. ^_^
Please remain aware that while I have taken every effort to conform to established writing styles, spelling / grammar / punctuation etc, this fic is and remains unabashed crack.
SeeD Nida Glimsche's hurried footsteps echoed through the atypical calm of the men's dormitory. Usually, the passage which served as the main thoroughfare for one hundred and fifty male SeeDs was abuzz with the raised voices, treads and (occasionally) explosions which characterised any male-inhabited dorms anywhere.
Then again, the dorm-party to which he was headed had been promised to be unusually crowded even for this place.
Rumour had it that it would be so big, so noisy, such a ruckus, that Irvine and Zell had arranged for an upgrade to the dormroom in question's soundproofing. Apparently, just about everyone was going to be there. (Though probably not Squall, given that it was to be a guys-only affair and therefore Rinoa couldn't attend – and also given that Squall's presence in any vicinity meant to generate fun seemed almost inevitably to drain away said fun like some sort of walking black hole. So, at least, said Irvine and Zell, who never invited Squall to any of their parties.)
Of course, Nida had never actually attended those parties either. This was for two reasons (well, three): one, he was usually too busy piloting Balamb Garden to attend; and two, he'd never really seen the point of going to a party when there wouldn't be any girls turning up.
(Oh, and three, most of the time he was simply never noticed for long enough to score an invite. Back when he'd signed up at Garden, he'd had some vague idea that his painfully nondescript face and features would come in handy on long-term infiltration missions. Sadly, those plans had come up against a snag…
"Headmaster Cid! Reporting for duty, sir!"
"Ah, it's SeeD… … …Who are you again?")
But as for this party… Well, the Garden was parked for a couple of days for vital maintenance; so while he would be a little late, he actually had the free time for once to attend. And, despite a niggling, unexplained sense of…unease with the idea of attending a guys-only party held by Zell and Irvine, he'd gathered that popularity seemed to be a major factor in getting laid; with that in mind, attending tonight's party seemed to him to be something of a prerequisite for boosting his slim chances. (Oh, and Irvine had shot an invite at him, because he happened to be in the cafeteria at the time and all the guys were getting invited…but that wasn't the point!)
As Nida approached the dorm section within which the party was allegedly situated, his questing ears began to pick up a pulsing rhythmic beat, and voices raised in merriment of an undisclosed nature. He breathed a sigh of relief – he appeared to have received the correct directions. Before long the SeeD came to an otherwise nondescript door, the only unusual feature in sight being a small sign hung on a hook next to it: 'Guys Only!'
Rolling his eyes at the redundant directive, he checked for his supplies. Hip flask…check! (Because if the party was dead, and he was going to it anyway, he would at least get wasted…which from the noises within, seemed not to be the case – but oh well, he might as well get wasted anyway.)
Cards…check! (Because he needed the practice.)
Camera…check! (Because… well, he wasn't entirely sure why. But Selphie had asked him, and he'd never quite figured out how to say 'no' to her. The slight crush he had on one of the few girls to even remember his name and what he did as a SeeD didn't help, to be sure – he just hoped that she and Irvine weren't aware of that fact… Besides, it would likely serve as a useful gimmick…) He turned it on, in preparation for his entry.
OK, that's everything! Tamping down a spike of nervousness, he slid the door open—
—ox-oxo-xo—
Picture, if you will, a standard male SeeD's dorm room.
Picture over a hundred male SeeDs crammed therein, much like sardines in a tin.
(Come to think of it, 'sardines in a tin' is a fairly apt metaphor. Especially when considering the stickiness of tinned sardines. Though to be fair, the smell would be different in this case.)
Picture over a hundred male SeeDs' clothing, scattered on the floor, and piled in haphazard stacks in the corners. Though, you'd have to be quick – what with all those SeeDs, said piles would not tend to be in view for long…
Of course, that isn't all their clothing. Some of them have retained some portion of their standard attire. For instance, picture Irvine's cowboy hat, still attached somehow as it bobs up and down in rhythmic motions. And hey! there's Seifer's trademark grey trenchcoat, when did he get back?…though it's grossly distended just at the moment, almost as if there's more than one person under it.
(Oh wait…there is.)
Picture over a hundred variations of hair- and skin-tone, writhing and squirming against each other almost like maggots on a far-too-long-ago opened tin of sardines…limbs flailing away, the whole quivering mass to-ing and fro-ing…
…and be thankful that you can't picture sounds. Not to mention smells. (Feel free to supply your own, however, should you wish it.)
Amidst such a sensory overload, the following may be difficult. But try it anyway:
Now picture Nida Glimsche, framed in the open door. Hunched over his roiling gut, face daubed in green and etched in horror. (If you're having trouble with picturing Nida – not that you should be blamed for this – try superimposing the face of a distant relative or friend. Or your mother.)
Now picture the video camera, still rolling, in his hands. Got all that? Well, you're the only one to have spotted the camera – after all, all those manifestly male SeeDs are rather too busy at the moment to notice Nida (or your mother), let alone recognise him or spot the camera.
Now…
Now, dear reader, you have a choice.
You can either picture Nida closing the door behind him, and all the gratuitous faggotry that inevitably follows…
Or you can read on, and find out what Nida Glimsche actually does next.
—ox-oxo-xo—
—and slid the door shut again, and lurched away to find somewhere to puke his guts up.
—ox-oxo-xo—
"…Nida, right?"
Nida gave Commander Squall Leonhart a jerky nod.
"You look like you need to sit down."
He slumped into a chair. It was beyond Nida's sluggish comprehension why he'd come to the cafeteria when he was feeling so sick to the stomach. Possibly, he'd figure later, it was because the cafeteria at suppertime was a good place to find and surround himself with girls. As opposed to guys.
Seriously. Squall was the only other guy in the entire cafeteria. He shuddered at the implications. Squall's features acquired a vaguely worried cast; Rinoa went further, leaning across the table to examine his ashen face. "Are…are you all right?"
Nida's mouth hung open as his brain searched for the words.
"Oh, hey Nida! Weren't you going to Irvy's party?" And oh Hyne, Selphie was coming over. There was just no way this would end well.
"I-I-I…I-I left." He swallowed, hoping beyond hope she'd leave it at that.
"Oh really? Was the party dead, then? What a bummer!" A replay of certain recently witnessed events – specifically, the one involving Irvine's hat – flashed before his eyes. He gulped again, trying not to dry-heave. She took a closer look at him, emerald gaze digging into his dull brown orbs. "Or did you get sick?"
"I think it's more than that…" Oh damn everything, Quistis was sticking her nose in. There weren't many people who could call his bluff, but the Card King was one of them. "I mean, why would he go to the cafeteria if he was sick?"
"Heeey YEAH! What gives, Nida?"
…I'm not going to be able to avoid this, am I?
Sighing, trying to ignore the puzzled looks, he handed the camera to Squall. The Commander cupped his hand over the tiny display screen to shield its contents from the others, an action which caused Nida to praise any gods who happened to be listening. Then he hunched over to play the recording…
A minute or so later, he straightened. The look on his face…whilst definitely pale, was not exactly what Nida had expected. But at least, Nida reflected with a sudden blooming sense of relief, he hadn't appeared to have enjoyed it.
Squall ejected the datachip recording, silent; the atypical amusement faded to a more habitual frown as he appeared to sink into deep thought…
…and then a shark's grin spread across his face. Squall's finger stabbed in turn at his compatriots. "Quistis, I want you to round up all the female SeeDs, or at least most of them. Find as many as you can in ten minutes, but I don't want you to use the PA. Rinoa, could you please go to my office and bring down my laptop? I'm going to need it. Selphie, ask the cafeteria woman for a big bowl of…I don't know, stewed beetroot or something. I don't really care what, but it's got to be able to stain skin. Nida, guard the exit – I don't want any SeeDs leaving yet. You can let the cadets out, though. Come back when I call you." He leaned back in his chair, still wearing that terrifying grin, as the others went about their tasks.
A lapse of ten minutes found nearly one hundred female SeeDs (the cadets having been dismissed) crammed into the cafeteria. It also found Squall, sitting at his laptop, the centre of attention. Nida sat off to the side, still sick, looking with perplexion at his red right hand. (The cafeteria woman had served up a bowl of raspberry syrup concentrate, and Squall had promptly pinned said hand in its contents without a word of explanation.)
"…Ahem." Squall was saying something. Nida tried to pay attention, if only to ignore the flashbacks which continued to bare themselves to his horrified inner eye at irregular intervals.
"I am not here. I want this very clearly understood: I. Am. Not. Here. I am in my office right now, designing a radical restructuring of the SeeD dormitory system, for reasons which you will all soon understand. Is that clear, SeeDs?"
"Yessir!"
"Direct your attention to the viewing screen above and behind me." Nida suddenly blanched as the Commander typed a command into his portable workstation—
—ox-oxo-xo—
Picture, if you will… oh wait, we've done that already. (That, and the yaoi-fans have probably stopped reading by now.) How about we go with sounds instead?
Imagine a rhythmic beat, blaring from two tinny speakers. A named tune is not really necessary, as it's so drowned out by the moans, grunts and the odd gagging or squelching sounds of over a hundred male SeeDs that all you can really hear of it is something along the lines of doof-doof-doof, with the occasional ching thrown in at seemingly random stages. (However, it may come in handy when attempting to explaining how this whole obscene mess came about. Let's just say 'Village People' and leave it at that, shall we?)
Imagine, at various points, certain snippets of conversation, carrying their way through the speaker. (For instance:
"Yeah, take it all in Chicken-Wuss…"
"Mmf mmm [choking sound] mmph?"
"Sorry Chicken-NECK, I can't hear you!"
"Mmrmph!")
Take a moment, if you must, to excise said 'instance' from your memory.
Now imagine the many and varied reactions of nearly a hundred female SeeDs, as they are subjected to these sounds. For instance:
"OMG! No eff-ing way!"
"I think I'm going to be sick…"
"HAHAHAHAHA! That's just too funny!"
"Ohh, so THAT'S why he was walking funny the other day…"
"(sob) It's not fair…!"
"…DISGUSTING."
"You know… it makes more sense now, why none of us ever get any dates."
"So that's what goes on at those parties of theirs…"
"Is that…Seifer? When did he get back?"
"I'm gonna KILL that cheating pervert sunovabitch!"
"…Irvy…?"
—ox-oxo-xo—
Nida looked up through watering eyes, scrubbing a forearm across his rancid mouth, to find Selphie staring at him. The accusatory look in her eyes caused his stomach to wrap itself around his gullet again.
Clenching his eyelids shut in pain and shame, he didn't see her features soften for a moment.
"…Ahem."
Oh. Squall was speaking again.
"This is SeeD Nida. I want you to take a good long look at him. I want you to remember his face."
Nearly one hundred female SeeDs attempted the task. They did not, by and large, succeed at this, much to Nida's tired lack of surprise. Squall sighed, "If you can't remember his face, I want you to remember his right hand."
"…Why is it red?"
"So you can identify him as the guy who wasn't a part of that…display you just saw. Nida was simply unfortunate enough to stumble across it. Any harm to Nida as a result of this incident will result in severe disciplinary action. Am I understood?"
"…Yessir!" Nida relaxed slightly. At least the women wouldn't kill him…
Squall efficiently set about disconnecting his laptop from the cafeteria's viewing screen. "Nida, I'll have to debrief you about tonight's incident. Come with Rinoa and me to my office…" Nida staggered to his feet, scrubbing helplessly at his face. Squall stopped suddenly, snapping his fingers. "Oh right… SeeD Nida, which room was it again?"
"Zell's dorm…" He spat, trying to clear chunks of vomit from the back of his throat. "Room No. 118."
"…Right." He followed what was probably the only other straight man in the entire Garden back to his office.
—ox-oxo-xo—
"…Huh." Xu straightened in her chair. "I wasn't expecting him to react THAT way…"
"What do you mean?" The pigtailed library girl looked at her, wiping her eyes.
Quistis answered, a fond smile adorning her face. "Squall… He gave us the location, and told us he'd be busy in his office for a good long while. Do you get it now?"
"Yeah…" Selphie declared, her snarl fierce despite the reddened eyes and tear-tracks. "It means it's time for US to make our move!"
If all those male SeeDs weren't so busy just then, they might have been quaking in their boots at the bloodthirsty howl of assent which echoed from that cafeteria. (Of course, only a few of them were still wearing boots, and most of their owners were already quaking, after a fashion…but you know what I meant.)
Oh well. Give it time…
—ox-oxo-xo—
Still numb and chilled and feeling generally horrible, Nida retained enough sense of his surroundings to be a little surprised when Squall didn't immediately set about debriefing him. Instead, the Commander bustled about, dragging a long couch in from the waiting room and arranging a coffee table in front of it. Pushing Nida down on one end of the couch on the way past, the scarred brunet dug around in a cabinet for a moment, emerging with a decanter of amber fluid and three tumblers.
Never had Nida been so happy to see a brimming glass of whiskey in front of him. So he did not notice Squall typing another command into his main workstation, until a large viewing screen lit up on the wall before the couch.
Emerging from the waiting room, Rinoa ferried a large bowl of, as it turned out… popcorn? over to the couch. Putting the other two glasses of fine Estharian whiskey on the coffee table with the decanter, Squall sat down on the other end of the couch. Rinoa in turn stretched out between them, back snuggled under Squall's arm, feet resting on Nida's lap.
Uncomfortable as her closeness made him, he could not deny that the fine shapely calves of Commander Leonhart's sometimes overly affectionate girlfriend did make him feel a little better. Squall glared at him for a moment, but then seemed to take pity on the Balamb Garden pilot.
Squall sighed. "…Just this once." Nida nodded thanks; Rinoa murmured and snuggled in closer to her knight.
The three of them ruminated in silence, gazing at the viewing screen. Nida couldn't really understand why, though. It just looked like a corridor somewhere, with doors lining the sides. "Um…sir?"
"Yes, Nida?"
"What…are we watching…?"
"You'll see, Nida. You've had a stressful evening. I thought you might need some cheering up." And Squall fell silent, sipping contemplatively at his whiskey.
Nida darted a questioning glance at Sorceress Rinoa. She shrugged, obviously a little puzzled as well.
A few minutes elapsed before a sudden flicker of motion was glimpsed at the bottom border of the viewing screen. Squall leaned forward for a moment, placing his glass with an air of anticipation on the coffee table.
"Here we go…"
—ox-oxo-xo—
Picture, if you will, a certain corridor. In this case, the corridor directly outside Room No. 118, in the SeeD men's dormitory complex. The music is still going, as are the noises. It must be said, though, that Irvine and Zell must have really done a decent job on the soundproofing.
Picture the polished floor, beginning to rumble under the treads of dozens of boots.
Picture a veritable tide of femininity, charging down the corridor and into view and through the door and into Room No. 118. While you're at it, picture the large assortment of instruments held in their hands as they come into view. Oh my, those instruments look a lot like weapons, don't they… (Though, these are SeeDs. And the Commander might be kind enough to look the other way while they go sort out their deviant comrades, but he would no doubt not look kindly on fatalities. So, they're blunt instruments…or leather ones, in the case of Quistis and a few Trepies.)
Of course, Room No. 118 being as full as it is already, not all that many SeeD women can fit inside at once. But then, that just leaves all the more of them to wait outside…
Yup, that's some good soundproofing. Sadly, it doesn't work so well when the door's wide open.
The screams, along with a variety of insults and the occasional 'BOOYAKA!', go on for quite some time. I'll leave you, dear reader, to fill in the desired details of this picture. Do keep in mind, however, the following fun facts:
(1) Coitus interruptus. It's always hilarious, provided it's not happening to you.
(2) Sex toys. Often handy as bludgeoning weapons in a pinch, provided they're the right shape and size. And…
(3) A fight of this size, held in such a small area, must inevitably tumble outside… and the exit is guarded.
Got all that?
Now picture the security camera, tucked unobtrusively into the ceiling cavity perhaps ten metres down the hall from the violent display in question.
Now picture that security camera's feed, faithfully being directed to a large viewing screen in the commander's office.
And now picture Squall, Rinoa and Nida – rolling around and laughing. Not actually on the floor, because why bother when you have a big comfy couch to do it on?
Nonetheless, you get the picture.
—ox-oxo-xo—
It was several hours later.
That day went down as one of the blackest in SeeD's short history. For long afterwards, many SeeDs and other personnel suffered nightmares as a result of the incident and its fallout. For many of Balamb Garden's denizens, that day was what could euphemistically be called 'a life-changing experience'. Possibly the worst aspect of the fallout was the retirement soon thereafter of Dr. Kadowaki; the poor physician had been forced that night to treat dozens of men for injuries of a nature which should not be left to the imagination. Dozens more men were forced by their shame to quit SeeD and move out into the most remote place they could find – following the viral release of that same security camera footage…dubbed to saloon-bar music. You know, that tinny piano music that you get while Laguna's fending off that Ruby Dragon with that prop gunblade.
(Feel free to stop and picture that for a moment.)
Following their ignomious exeunt came the claims of nearly twenty female SeeDs for maternity leave. This was a by-product of Commander Leonhart's as-promised reworking of the dorm system, which involved the abolition of the SeeDs' male and female dorm complexes; Squall's move of alternating each dormroom in male-female format drew raised eyebrows from Headmaster Cid, until Squall quietly showed him the datachip that had started it all. They both agreed thereafter that, even with all the pregnancies, it was still better than the alternative.
Oddly enough for Nida, however, his life-changing experience proved to be…
…Well, several hours later.
Stretched out on his bed, Nida Glimsche found himself staring sightlessly through the ceiling. What with the whiskey (and DAMN did Squall have fine taste in whiskey or what? and never mind that he ended up puking most of it), and the bouts of nausea followed by riotous laughter (he still found himself snickering quietly in the dark, miserable as he felt), one might expect Nida to be dead to the world by now. But no, that would be too easy – those scarring images still scored his psyche every time he closed his eyes.
There was to be little sleep for Nida that night…right?
The door slid open. A diminutive figure bounced over to stand by his bed.
His wondering gaze slid over to rest upon the figure.
"…S-Selphie…?"
Yes, it was Selphie. And yes, she was wearing a nightie, her fingers absently playing with the ruffled hem. And oh merciful Hyne yes, it somehow managed to be even skimpier than her usual outfit…
"It's okay, Nida. I would've found out anyway, I guess…and hey, at least getting him back was fun!"
There was something...a spark of something, dancing in the depths of those polished emerald jewels. It flared with her slowly widening smile.
"And, I'm not done with that yet, either!"
And then, reaching over, she took his hand. Nida's index finger was engulfed between her lips, her tongue scrubbing thoroughly over its rough length. His breath hitching, stomach churning in the most pleasant way he'd ever experienced, Nida could think of nothing but a heartfelt hope that he wasn't dreaming. Sliding the wet finger from her mouth, her tongue flickered over moist lips.
"Mmm…" Selphie grinned at him. "…Raspberry!"
Yup, he was right the first time: there was to be little sleep for Nida that night. Or, as he found out later, for many, many nights thereafter.
—ox-oxo-xo—
…I'll leave the rest of the picture for you to fill in, shall I? because I'm off to find some whiskey.
Ending A/N: Hooray for whiskey! (hic) Now let the flaming begin… (Though if you want to just leave a review instead, I can't say I'd mind.)
Slightly updated Ending A/N: Fixed a mistake or two, and added a suitably crack-ish reason for the orgy, in response to a couple of reviews which noted the lack of any reason for it. (Thanks to Niqsta and Jupiter's Promise for their input on this.) And now I'm done - I have a hangover to sleep off...