nightseer

 Adventures in Cross Dressing


Selphie stared at her birthday gift from Mr. Cid in awe. It was a magical, wonderful box, and she had plans for it.

To everyone else it was a plain, ordinary cardboard box, the only remarkable thing about it being how large it was, but the good stuff was on the inside. Old children’s party dresses, long frilly skirts, blouses with fake pearls and sequins, floppy hats, a couple of old wigs, dress shoes and sneakers, and a giant collection of mix matched scarves and wraps to go with every outfit. The best part was the small kit of make up under the furry blue and white hat, its pink case appearing to glow in the sunlight. Selphie reverently opened the pink case and her eyes twinkled at all the bright, wonderful, sparkly, beautiful colors inside.

“Cid, are you sure this is a good idea?” Edea whispered to her husband. She did not like the way Selphie was hugging the make-up to her chest and bouncing around.

“You did say you were worried about often she played ‘War’. I thought a good set of make believe clothes from the flea market might keep her busy for a while,” Cid murmured back.

Edea waited for the real reason.

“It was cheaper than the bike and she can’t break it,” he added a moment later.

Edea nodding in understanding, but she couldn’t get rid of the sinking feeling of dread in her stomach. Selphie was dangerous enough on her own, but the little girl armed with clothes and make-up, and full of birthday cake and ice cream surely meant bad things. Edea knew Selphie would find away to turn the innocent gift into a weapon, and if the excited expression on Quistis’s face was any kind of clue, the little blonde girl was going to help.

Zell whimpered, and Seifer started edging out of the room, keeping his back to the wall and both eyes on Selphie.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Irvine was the first to fall.

Edea found him sitting at the kitchen table the next morning, dressed in a dark red chiffon gown, its ruffled skirt hiked up to his knees. His eyes were surrounded with pink and purple eye shadow, his lips were painted a lurid shade of red, and his hair was coated in a sparkly red glitter Edea recognized from the arts and crafts kit in the playroom. He also had the silliest grin on his face, which could only be explained by the pink lipstick kiss mark on his cheek, the same color pink as the lipstick Selphie was wearing.

Seifer, Zell, and Squall were staring at him in horror while Quistis and some of the older kids laughed. Little Harry stood up on the bench and reached out a hand to grab one of the red clip-on earrings dangling from Irvine’s ears. Squall yanked Harry onto his lap and scooted farther down the bench before he carefully inspected the toddler’s hand to make sure it hadn’t been contaminated.

Edea bit her lip and picked up the camera still in the kitchen from the day before. As she took a picture of Irvine in all his glory, Edea tried to convince herself she was doing this just to record Selphie’s artistic talents, not to…oh say, have future blackmail on the children.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Zell was next to go.

If all reports could be believed…Oh, all right, fine, have it your way.

Edea was listening in on Seifer and Squall planning Selphie avoidance techniques, and overheard Zell had swallowed his pride, gathered his courage and marched up to girls’ room to get it over with. Selphie and Quistis and tagged teamed him, purple scarves and pink stockings flying everywhere as they dragged him into their room. Surprisingly, according to Seifer, Zell hadn’t screamed once, even when Selphie laughed manically as she locked the door.

So with camera in hand, Edea went upstairs and folded some of the scarves lining the hall as she waited for the door to open. She had only folded two before the door opened and a very cowed Zell stepped out. He had a wide eyed, shell-shocked expression that looked horribly wrong on his blue and purple painted face and his feet were tangled up in the long purple skirt he had been forced into.

Edea quickly snapped a picture before she gently guided Zell to the bathroom to wash off the make-up, running her hand through his hair to make sure the black glitter wasn’t applied with glue like Irvine’s had been.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Edea found Harry and one of the older boys, Mitchell, after lunch. Harry was sitting on the couch, and Mitchell was tied up next to him, a long green scarf wrapped around his wrists, a pink one around his ankles, and flinching every time Harry whacked him with his feathery black hat.

She had trouble making out Mitchell’s story as she untied him, but the gist of it was Squall had barely escaped to the beach by leaving his toddler shadow behind. Selphie had done a quick makeover on Harry, dressing him up in one of the frillier shirts, dumping some yellow glitter on his head and giving him the hat to play with, before sticking him in the living room as Squall bait. Squall hadn’t fallen for it, but Mitchell had, and Selphie and Quistis, bored, had jumped him before going after Squall.

As she snapped a picture of the fleeing ten year old in his hot pink party dress, Edea silently prayed the girls wouldn’t jump any of the other older kids before she could warn them not to. Not all of them were as easy going as Mitchell. Harry held up his hat for her to see and even though he was make-up free and still had his overalls on underneath the lemon-yellow shirt, Edea took a picture of him, too.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Carrying Harry outside and trying to not get hit with the hat he was waving around, Edea followed the screams and war-whoops down to the beach. She wasn’t at all surprised when Selphie and Quistis ran past her, giggling and carrying two shopping bags stuffed with clothes. Moments later, Squall ran up to her and skidded to a halt, tripping over the hem of his blue sequined dress when he saw her and Harry. Edea took advantage of the moment and snapped his picture.

With that done, Edea helped Squall out of the heels. She managed to brush some of the blue glitter out of his hair and blue and grey make up off his face before Squall practically snatched Harry from her and slowly guided him to the house, muttering how Selphie and Quistis were pure evil for attacking defenseless babies and he hoped they got Seifer into the green thing.

Edea chuckled softly as she watched Squall stop halfway up the path so Harry could put the hat on his head. She fingered her camera thoughtfully as a rare smile crossed Squall’s face. She took a picture of that as well and set off to find Seifer. Now that Squall had mentioned him, Edea realized she hadn’t seen or heard Seifer at all since she had spied on him and Squall after breakfast. It was a very odd thing to not see or hear Seifer for an hour, let alone for the boy to miss lunch.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Seifer lasted a week dress free.

Edea didn’t know where he was hiding during the day, but she did know he was swiping food for lunch because apples, chips, and cookies kept disappearing. On the third day, a pouting Selphie put the make up away, and she and Quistis quit dragging their bags of clothes around as they hunted for him. On the fifth day, Seifer started coming to lunch again and the nest of pillows and blankets Edea had found in her closet during bed check the first night was gone as Seifer was sleeping in his bed again. On the sixth day, Selphie and Quistis disappeared for a while, making Seifer twitch at every shadow, but they reappeared later so Edea could take pictures of their new outfits and complement them on their improved make up skills (they had learned a lot from experimenting on the boys).

Seifer should have taken that as a warning sign and gone into hiding again, but he didn’t.

On the seventh day, it was pure luck Edea had her camera with her when it happened. There were only two pictures left on the roll and she was wondering what she could take pictures of before her trip into town the next day when the shouts started. She ignored them at first, they were playful shouts and those were allowed inside on rainy Saturdays. Then Zell snuck into the kitchen to grab some flour. After a brief debate on whether she should stop him or not, she gave in to her inner devil and silently followed him back to the playroom.

The playroom was the one room in the orphanage allowed to be an organized disaster area. The rest of the house had to be clean at all times, but for the playroom all Edea asked was they clean up their messes by the end of the day and that they not get anything too disgusting on the carpet. Peeking around the door, Edea decided this was the day Selphie and Quistis learned how to get flour out of carpet because this had to be their idea.

Squall was off to one side and trying to keep Harry from playing with (i.e.: eat) the makeup; Zell and Irvine were sitting on Seifer’s legs; Quistis was sitting on Seifer’s hands and trying to hold his face still; Selphie was holding a small brush covered in bright sparkly green eye shadow, and Seifer was in the middle of it all, dressed in a flashy green dress, his face and hair covered with flour and screaming threats at the top of his lungs.

“Hold still,” Selphie ordered over Seifer’s shouts, rubbing the eye shadow on Seifer’s face. When she couldn’t get anymore color out of the tiny foam brush, she held it out to Squall. He ground it into a random color on the make up tray and handed it back. Selphie looked at the black eye shadow for a moment before shrugging and going for Seifer’s other eye.

After repeating the process with the blush and lipstick, Squall closed the make up kit (making Harry pout and try to open it again), grabbed a blond wig and blue-green scarf from the box, and tossed those at Selphie. A brief struggle ensued, but in the end Selphie got the wig on Seifer and tied it in place with the scarf. Selphie grinned wickedly and sat back to admire her work. Irvine started a count down.

“One…” Selphie clambered off Seifer.

“Two…” Irvine and Zell moved so they were still holding Seifer’s legs down but not sitting on them, and Squall grabbed Harry and moved out of the way.

“Three!” Quistis, Irvine, Zell and Selphie dived out of the way.

Edea had a split second to take the picture of Seifer, capturing his white face with his black and green raccoon eyes and purple lips on film for eternity. Then he was up and running, nothing more than an olive green blur as he raced for the bathroom, and Edea just barely managed to get a full picture of him as he wrestled with the bathroom door…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“…And that’s why I joined Ultimecia,” Seifer said. He took a swig of his beer and smirked at the orphanage gang’s shocked faces. Did they really expect him to explain his real reasons? Psshht. Yeah, right. Not going to happen. People who actually told the truth during Truth or Dare were pansies and idiots. “Romantic dreams aside, it was pure and simple revenge.”

“You spent most of the war harassing me, moron,” Squall observed dryly. “According to your story it was Selphie’s birthday gift. You should have been bugging her.”

“What Squall said,” Selphie said, bouncing on Irvine’s lap. A confused expression crossed her elfin face, and she frowned at Squall. “Wait, what?”

“You’re the one who said I should be in the green. Do you remember how many ruffles and beads were on that damn thing?” Seifer shot back at Squall. He fingered the pictures in his pocket. Maybe it would be worth the humiliation…

“He’s lying,” Rinoa declared, leaning against Squall and looking up at him lovingly. “There’s no way that really happened.”

Seifer gagged. Okay, that was sickening. It had been bad enough watching the freaky kid fawn over Leonhart, Seifer didn’t need to see his ex do same damn thing fourteen years later…

Seifer blinked at that thought and stared at Rinoa. And maybe that was why Rinoa was calling him a liar. It had to piss her off there had been someone else besides Ellone and her Leonhart cared deeply about, someone Leonhart had tried to keep safe when they were kids, and to know that someone had ties to his past she never would. Even if Matron never told them where the kid was now, the mere memory of him would irritate Rinoa.

He put his beer down and pulled the pictures out of his pocket, catching everyone’s attention. He shuffled through them until he found the one with Squall in his blue dress and smiling as the toddler put a feathery black hat on Squall’s head, and handed the pictures to Rinoa. She paled then flushed as Squall took the stack from her. Seifer sneered at her as Squall stared at the top photo, frowning as he tried to remember.

“Call me a liar now, Princess.”