Duo's First Kiss
by Talya FireDancer
Altered by- Ria Lien
Ria and Vincent glared at each other again as if they were about to gun each other down. Sparks crackled almost visibly along the line of their locked gazes, a battle of wills. Never on the battlefield had they displayed such fierce, barely-checked willingness to fight. An explosive word from either of them would set them at each other’s throats. . .again.
"Do you have. . ." Ria began, enunciating her words with determined precision, ". . .any sixes?"
Vincent's mouth quirked, his eyes never leaving Ria's. "Go fish," he uttered, his voice rock-steady.
"Ha ha!" Rena crowed and added,"Down the hatch, Ria!"
Ria spat out a lyrical curse, marred only by a slight slur, and picked up one of the shotglasses in the center of the table, downing it in one gulp. Then she groped for a card from the pile.
"Yay Ria!" Pan cheered her on, clutching her hand of cards possessively to her chest. "Way to go! Didn’t know you had it in you, ya boozehound!"
Ria glared at her and examined her cards, her eyes crossing.
At the end of the round, during which Sephiroth was forced to down another shot, but Pan and Rena escaped unscathed, Vincent emitted a slight hiccup and placed down a pair of sixes.
Ria started up out of her chair in outrage. "Vince! You dishonorable cur! You had a pair of sixes all along!" She wove on her feet, then lurched forward, fist upraised.
Vincent sprang to his feet, giving her a glare fit to kill. "I did not!" Then he glanced down at the table, and Rena and Pan were set off in a giggling fit when they saw the look that crossed his face. "Uh. . .so I did."
"You suck! I'ma...I'ma...!" Ria lunged, scattering cards everywhere. The two began to brawl.
"I didn’t see it!" Vincent yelled. "I was too busy trying to stare you down!"
"Guys, stop it!" Rena pleaded, looking in dismay at her beautiful Fushigi Yuugi deck, splayed all over the table and floor. "You’ve been fighting all night!"
"Especially since they got drunk," Sephiroth added.
"Stop or I’ll cry!" Rena threatened.
Vincent and Ria paused, fists cocked and ready to deliver punches, and Rena sniffed at them, a big, glittering teardrop glistening at the corner of her eye. "Please?" she sniffed, big eyes glittering. "If I cry, Sephie will get mad, and he’s less drunk than either of you so he’s got a better chance at beating you up. . ."
Sephiroth nodded solemnly, fixing them with an earnest look.
Reluctantly the troublemakers separated, returning to their seats and giving each other another voltage-charged glare. Sephiroth started sifting through the cards.
"I just know there’s a naked Miaka pic in here somewhere. . ." he muttered.
"Well, now what do we do?" Rena inquired plaintively. "You guys made a mess of my cards. If you ripped or tore any of them. . ."
"You’ve got enough gil to buy a new deck," Sephiroth reminded her.
Rena brightened. "Oh yeah! . . .Ne, Sephie, you’re the greatest!" She got off her seat, wavering and nearly falling until Sephiroth rised and steadied her, then she crawled into Sephiroth’s lap.
"How ‘bout we tell stories until we pass out?" Ria suggested, blinking huge eyes.
"That’s no fun," Rena pouted. "You’d start talking and then we’d never shut you up."
"Hey!" Ria protested. "I think that’s unfair! Vince, did you hear the way Rena was just slandering me? She’s supposed to be our host! All I did was make a little suggestion, and here Rena goes insulting me - "
Casually, Vincent reached out and crammed the end of Ria’s ponytail into his mouth, silencing her.
Rena clapped. "Yeah! Now, where were we. . .?" She snuggled back against Sephiroth, who put an arm around her.
"How about ‘first’ stories?" Sephiroth suggested. "Like the first time you ever got in a fight, or the first time you. . .uh, killed a girl. . ." He was obviously stuck for ideas.
"Or the first time I picked my nose- " Ria put in, eyes alight.
"That’s boring!" Rena responded, a little petulantly. Then, she brightened. "How about first kiss stories?" She cuddled Sephiroth, who looked relieved that the choppy, blue haired girl hadn’t suggested anything more explicit.
"That’s a good idea!" Pan said eagerly. Then her face fell. "But I’ve never *been* kissed."
Rena and Sephiroth boggled at him. Even Ria looked surprised. Vincent, just sat there, toying with a shotglass.
"You HAVEN’T!?" Rena gasped, eyes bugging out. "But Pan. . as much as you talk...should be pretty good with your tongue by now. . ."
"Rena," Sephiroth admonished her lightly, while Pan turned a solid shade of red and tried to slide underneath the table.
"What a waste!" Rena mourned loudly, while Pan’s face went through the entire color spectrum. "I’ll bet she’d be a damned good kisser!"
"And I’m not?" Sephiroth murmured, lips nearly touching Rena’s ear. Ria and Pan goggled at this display of public indecency.
"I have it!" Rena exclaimed happily. "I know what we should play! Whoever wins gets to give Pan her first kiss!"
Pan sat bolt upright, jaw unhinging to the table. "WHAT!?" she sputtered, waving her hands around wildly.
"I object," Ria protested. "I don’t want to play that game."
"What game?" Vince interjected, cocking his head slightly.
"Huh?" Rena looked dumbfounded. "I just said. . ."
"Rena, you didn’t pick a game," Sephiroth reminded her. "You just said what the winner would get."
Pan was making strangling noises. "There isn’t going to be any game at all!"
Rena tilted her head to the side, putting a finger to her lips as she considered. "Hmm. . .we have cards, so we could play bridge. . ."
"Not enough people," Sephiroth objected. "Ria won’t play, and Pan can’t because she’s the prize."
"We could drag-race our Chocobo's. . ." she put forth eagerly, eyes lighting up.
"Absolutely NOT!" Vincent declared adamantly, visions of his golden chobobo being absed in such a way.
"How ‘bout charades - "
"Can you imagine Vince playing charades?" Sephiroth lifted an eyebrow. "He’s about as expressive as. . .as eloquent as. . ."
Vincent glared stonily.
Rena giggled. "Ye-ep. Guess you’re right."
"Guys, I think this is a really bad idea, I mean, I shouldn’t have opened my mouth - c’mon, we’re all drunk and we’re gonna regret this in the morning. . ." Pan babbled, looking around frantically.
"Pan," Sephiroth said calmly, "be quiet."
"I don’t suppose anyone would play Strip Twister. . ." Rena said hopefully.
"NO!" the other four chorused grimly.
"I GOT IT!!" Rena yelled suddenly, his eyes lighting up. "Who can make Ria's nose bleed first! That’s the game!"
"Nonononononono!" Ria chanted frantically, eyes turning to enormous saucers.
Sephiroth considered it. "Okay."
"And the winner," Rena continued happily, "gets locked up in that closet over there for fifteen minutes with Pan!"
"You’ve got to be kidding me!" Pan exclaimed, eyes wide. She got up to run and a hand grasped her hair swiftly, Pan’s running stride snapping it taut behind him. Pan collapsed to the floor and Vince gave her the evil eyeball, hand wrapped around the end of her hair.
"You’re not going anywhere."
Pan just lay on the floor and clutched her scalp, protests grown feeble.
Vincent shot a glance over at Ria, who was cringing and looking as if she entertained similar thoughts of flight. "You try it, I’ll do the same to you."
Rena pushed himself off Sephiroth’s lap, looking speculative. "Hmm. . .what would make Ria's nose bleed?"
Sephiroth looked thoughtful, then rummaged around in the ice chest next to the playing card table where they kept the beer and wine coolers. It was mostly empty, but he found a popsicle. He fixed poor Ria with a spearhead stare and unwrapped the popsicle, beginning to lick it.
Rena started playing with her clothes, trying to catch Ria's eyes as she pulled her shirt up teasingly, then fumbled slowly and seductively with the buttons.
Sephiroth's tongue moved caressingly over the popsicle. Ria looked nauseous and started to sweat, then he boggled as Rena pushed the shirt over one shoulder, shooting a coy look at her.
"Someone. . .save me. . ." she squeaked, looking faint.
Vince looked over at the other two, then released his grip on Pan’s hair, marched around the table, squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and. . .
Punched Ria in the nose.
Ria dropped to the floor like a felled tree, twin gouts of crimson blood spraying from her nose.
"There. She’s bleeding," Vincent announced, dusting off his hands. "I won."
They all stared in shock at the fallen Ria, bleeding quietly on the floor, then at Vincent, who folded his arms over his chest and stared back. Dias gulped.
"No fair!" Rena wailed. "He didn’t play by the rules!" She pulled her shirt back up.
Sephiroth shrugged, tossing the popsicle back in the cooler. "He *did* make her nose bleed," he pointed out. "That’s the only rule there was."
Pan got up, looking like a cornered animal ready to bolt, and Rena and Sephiroth grabbed hold of her, dragging her over to the closet. Somehow, they manhandled her through the door, shoving it closed behind her. She heard a *click* as the lock was engaged.
"Haven’t you forgotten something?" she heard Vincent’s voice ask dryly, muffled.
"Oops!" Rena giggled. "Sorry."
A few seconds later the door was unlocked and Vincent stepped into the closet. Sephiroth and Rena were giggling hysterically as they shoved it closed again, locking it once more.
Pan stared over at Vincent, her heart rabbiting like mad in her chest. She could just barely make out the other boy’s features in the dusky darkness that enclosed them. The closet was *awfully* small. . .Vincent was so close to her, there couldn’t have been more than an inch or two of space between their bodies.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - Cut off for dignified reasons to the irl characters- - - - - -
When suddenly the closet door flew open. They froze.
"Woo-hoo!" Rena cheered, clapping in admiration and appreciation. "Time’s up!"
"Looks like a good one," Sephiroth observed.
Rena pouted,"Better than our first kiss, Sephie?"
"Of course not," Sephiroth assured assured her.
Ria still lay in the background where Vincent had felled her, eyes spiraling in dazed, psychedelic circles with her nose still streaming blood.
Vincent reached out, grasped the doorknob firmly, and dragged the door shut.
They could hear catcalls and cheering through the door.
