Lovingly Derailed

Summary - Just when Squall and Rinoa thought they'd been subjected to enough clichés and tropes, someone decided that derailing the devices would be just as fun. Will they ever survive this collection of one-shots? Mm. Probably not, but you can check it out anyway.

Disclaimer – I don't own Final Fantasy VIII. Try to guess which one of us lowly fanfiction authors does. I dare you. ;)

Author's Notes – Being guilty of using some of these conventions and also being guilty of a really weird sense of humour, I got this random idea to do this. I've got some concrete ideas for future stand alone segments, so I'll update this periodically whenever I have something. That way, it won't really distract me from Reinventing Me or whatever else I might being doing at the moment.

There will be prompts at the beginning of each 'chapter' to give you an idea of what I'm attempting to spoof so there won't be too much confusion. I'll just give this thing a whirl and see how it goes. Oh, and feel free to suggest some tropes/clichés that you'd like to see get subverted in your reviews. I may have some ideas already but it doesn't mean I can't be all ears too.

Ok, here we go!

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(Prompt: "...How Can I Be Pregnant!?")

Sitting on a closed toilet seat, Rinoa meticulously eyed the two objects in her hands. One was an empty cardboard box and the other was its unwanted accomplice of sorts, reflecting a truth she didn't want to admit. Neither item firmly gripped between her vice-like grip brought welcoming news. No. She wasn't that kind of girl the things were depicting and this wasn't something she could pull off, that's for damn sure. What was even worse was the fact that it wasn't something she could undo with the snap of her fingers either.

The sad part was that she knew what she was getting into after mulling it over for what felt like an eternity and yet she somehow forgot to even think about some of the most basic of consequences. Right now, all she could do was stare at the box in her left hand in disbelief.

It can't be, she thought to herself. No, the descriptions were slightly unclear on for how long it takes for it to work properly, that's all. Yeah. There's no way I could have screwed up after preparing for this forever.

She switched her gaze to her other hand, only to see that the action brought no more comfort than to stare at the thin cardboard box's fine print. Still, maybe there was a reason, a way to rationalize this into one neat little explanation. She didn't care what all of the signs were pointing to, it just had to be wrong somehow, some way.

"...God, I hope that I just didn't give this enough time to change colour. ...I don't think I can live with this, never mind tell him." she whispered under her breath.

I'm talking to myself, she mentally remarked, maybe I'm just going crazy and none of this is real—

The non-sugar-coated and delusion-free reality of it all finally hit her as the droplets of saline hit her painted cherry-red toenails.

She'd now officially ruined what was once a simple, but good thing. Without the courage to own up to this just yet, Rinoa stayed in the locked-door refuge of the bathroom.

After she'd spent a good twenty minutes sobbing, she began to realize that it would only be a matter of time before he'd come knocking on the door. Judging by the clock on the wall, their reservations were in less than an hour at the new restaur—

Knock. Knock.

Speak of the devil.

"Rinoa?" he called out from the other side, "...Are you alright? I thought heard some crying."

"Well..." Sniffle. "...you heard right. Unfortunately."

"...Is there something wrong?"

Rinoa sighed and got up from the closed toilet seat. There would clearly be no way she'd be able to hide this at dinner. Just no way at all. She set down the empty box on the seat and walked over to the other side of the room. It was only a matter of a few seconds before she'd unlocked and swung the door open.

"My hair's...neon yellow." she rasped, gripping the mirror in her hand tight. "I misread the box."