We rise at dawn [active/closed]

[fatedcircle]

Characters: Squall and Selphie
Content: Squall gets woken up by a visitor bright and early
Location: Squall's room
Time of Day: Morning, backdated to before the html effect
Warnings: None

By all accounts, Squall wasn't really the kind of person who tended to sleep in. There had never been time in the Garden, and he'd carried the habit of rising early into the war between Chaos and Cosmos - which hadn't actually helped, save in making it so that he was capable of falling asleep just about anywhere.

Still, he had to admit that it was nice to be back on the Satellite, even if only because it meant not having to deal with the strangeness of that universe. (He'd forgotten, a little, that it meant he'd be in closeish proximity with Selphie, but well... that problem was soon to solve itself).

Comments

[booyaka]

Everyone being back? That was a great thing, as far as Selphie was concerned. Being what felt like the only person here stunk really bad. She got pretty lonely, in fact. And worse? She'd gotten bored. It gave her far too much time to plan and plot fun things, which meant getting into trouble things, but there were certainly plans on her horizon. Things she entirely intended to get Squall to help with, like it or not.

So right at the crack of dawn, she bounced out of bed, chirruping and singing, and skipped right on along over to Squall's room. Hrm. He was still asleep. Well. Only one way to fix that.

She jumped up onto the bed and started bouncing up and down. "Wakeupwakeupwakeup~ It's morning~!!"

[fatedcircle]

It was probably just as well that Squall didn't have his gunblade on the Satellite. Even months after he'd come back from fighting for Cosmos, his first reaction to something unexpected (such as, for example, overly-perky friends jumping on his bed) was to basically come up swinging. Admittedly, he did still reach for where his gunblade would have been, but that was only habit and he couldn't really do much of anything with a handful of nothing.

It took a moment longer for him to realize that it was Selphie who'd woken up, at which point he promptly wished he could have stayed asleep. Not that it would have gotten her out of his room, but it would have at least been nice.

"What is it?"

[booyaka]

"Rise and shine!"

Selphie broke out into a burst of giggles then plopped down on the bed unceremoniously. "It's morning and we've got a whole day ahead to catch up now that you're back!" Even while sitting cross-legged, she was still a bundle of wiggles. "We absoposolutely have to start with something fun!"

Not that seeing Squall groggy and grumpy in the morning wasn't fun in its own fashion, but while they'd been running around saving the world, she'd already seen enough of that. Still, even masked in sunshine and cheer, she genuinely was grateful to have a familiar face around again. Being separated from all her friends blew in a big way.

[fatedcircle]

Squall was grudingly willing to rise. He was not, however, particularly inclined to shine, even under normal circumstances. Then again, Selphie was probably used to just that.

"Like what."

As ever, he doesn't exactly sound particularly thrilled, but when has he been when confronted with Selphie at her most perky? (It might be nice to have a familiar face on his end as well, but the perky part is a little grating, this early in the morning.)

[booyaka]

She was all too used to Squall's lack of cheer in the morning, but it wasn't going to stop her from at least trying to spread a little. "A tour." Yep, that would be the most fun right out the chute. "This place is huge! Bigger than the Gardens, any of 'em." Selphie ought to know after spending her whole time on the satellite trying to figure out where the heck she was going and more or less being utterly lost.

"After that, I think we should organize a welcome back party for everyone." Which meant she'd already volunteered him to help her with that. A soft snicker broke out and the spunky one pointed to Squall's head, "But maybe you better take care of the bedhead first."

[fatedcircle]

Of course it would be something that involved actually spending time with Selphie. Why would he ever have imagined that it would be something else? Fortunately, it was easy enough to get his hair to behave, and after a moment or three of work it was back to normal.

"...A party."

[booyaka]

"You bet! A big one! It'll give everyone a chance to get to know each other." Especially herself. Selphie never could stand the idea of being around people she didn't know. Which gave her the perfect excuse to socialize. "Besides, it's exciting to have more people around!"

For a split second, a pensive look flashed across her face, which she immediately forced away with a bright and cheery smile. Her first weeks here were lonely, not that Selphie would ever willingly own up to that. Nor the fact that for the first time in her life, she wasn't surrounded by people and it spooked her.

"Bet you're glad to be back too, huh?"

[fatedcircle]

"I'm more glad to be out of that dimension," Squall answered with a shrug. Not that he'd been worried about his ability to handle things, but it had been... awkward, he supposed. Not something that had had an easy answer at the time, and that had been the worst of it to be honest.

Not that he was going to mention that fact. Selphie would only have had a field day with it.

"I ... suppose it would."

[booyaka]

"Yes!" Selphie let out a whoop at getting that concession out of him and promptly bounced off the bed. "Well, c'mon! Let's go! Oh and I wanna meet all your friends." She paused, leaning over to peer hard at Squall. "You have been making friends, haven't you?"

She had to check. It'd be just like him to be all broodypants loner without someone to kick him into action.

[fatedcircle]

"I know some people here," Squall answered. It might not have been quite what Selphie had asked - he certainly hadn't been making much of an attempt to make friends - but he hadn't really been alienating people much. It's hard to, really, when you have to spend such close proximity to anyone you might have antagonized even unintentionally.

Besides, it was hard to fully commit to being a loner with Zidane around, not that Selphie was aware of that just yet.

[booyaka]

No, not what she meant at all. "That's not making friends, Squall." One last stern peer at him and then she cracks her knuckles. "Guess I've got my work cut out for me then."

[fatedcircle]

There was a moment of silence, as Squall wrapped his mind around what Selphie had just said and the associated implications. Sure, he might still be more or less feeling his way around the concept, but he knows a thing or two about how it's meant to work.

"I don't think it works like that."

[booyaka]

Except in Selphie's world, that's exactly how making friends worked. She sort of railroaded her way into everything and swept everyone along for the ride. But this is looking like a way more serious situation than she realized at first, so she flopped back onto the bed, criss-crossing her legs.

"You have more friends than you realize, Squall. Loooooots of people look up to you, and we all really like you bunches. You just gotta learn to trust us the way we trust you."

She reached out and poked at his forehead with one finger while scrunching her nose up. "Besides. We saved the world. We have totally earned the right to fun."

[fatedcircle]

Squall is pretty much always serious, so really, it shouldn't be any sort of surprise that the situation itself is similarly serious. True, he trusts people, but it's never been easy for him to. It's always taken work for him to realize that he does maybe trust people whether that comes from realizing the depths of his feeling for one single person or from what had come of the Thirteenth Cycle.

(He still has the crystal, he's pretty sure. He's just not sure if it'll come hand if he asks it. No one else has demonstrated an ability for anything even remotely similar, on board the satellite and Squall has no reason to assume that he'll be the exception to the rule.)

It takes a moment before he answers. He's never really thought of friendship as being trust. Yes, he's realized that he trusts certain people to have his back when he needs them to, but he has a sneaking suspicion that isn't quite the same as what Selphie has in mind. It's... more of a professional thing, to him. A trust that someone can do their job well enough to not need his concern, and he's not really sure that he can actually successfully articulate that fact.

"I do trust people."

[booyaka]

"No you don't." Leave it to Selphie to be utterly blunt in calling Squall out. "We trust you. And not just to smack things with your gunblade. We trust you with what's going on with us. We can tell you stuff."

Well, most of them would tell him things. Selphie was probably the worst out of the whole crew about redirecting attention when something was bothering her and forcing on the sunshine and cheer. Most things she'd share with any of her friends, including Squall. But the negative stuff? Not as much.

"But you don't share. Kinda stingy like that, you know. If you trusted us, you'd talk to us more."

[fatedcircle]

What was there to share? He'd never been terribly open, emotionally speaking, and even Selphie directly pointing that fact out wasn't going to be enough to get him to change something that was so very much a part of what he was. Sure, he could keep it in mind but he wasn't really certain he could actually change things that much.

Not everyone was as naturally bouncy as Selphie was, after all.

"Trust doesn't need to mean talking."

[booyaka]

Talk maybe wasn't totally the word she wanted in this discussion. It was more about sharing. That's really the crux of the issue is that it's always up in the air how much he trusts them because he never shares what's going on, almost ever. Unless he was losing his temper, which was a super scary thing. But even then...

"You're pretty stingy. We never know what's going on in your noggin. Because you never share with us."

Selphie wrinkled her nose then pulled her knees up to her chin. "You know, you can do that sometimes."

[fatedcircle]

What was there to even share? His feelings? Surely no one wanted to hear those, when he often wasn't sure of them himself. Not to mention the whole thing about him being in charge of the Garden now, and he was pretty sure that most people weren't going to be all that interested in hearing the thoughts of their Commander. Not on a regular basis, anyway.

"I'll think about it."