Everlong

Psycho Rooster and Ellipsis the Great

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'Rising Star of the Struggle World, Hayner Rhodes...hah! I'll shove a rising star right up his stubborn--'

"Hayner!" Olette Ames snapped, interrupting the television's broadcast as she entered Hayner's dressing room, waving a small pack of letters in one hand. She slapped them down on the table beside Hayner, who was wrapping one of his wrists, and glared at him. "This is the fourth one this week, Hayner! It's starting to scare me!"

Hayner sighed, tying off the wrap and grabbing the remote control for the television, shutting it off just as his own photo showed up on screen. "Olette, I'm bound to get some hate mail..." Hayner gestured to the letters, picking a small tube of IcyHot that lay on the coffee table in front of him,"That's what happens when you get famous!" He scoffed, waving his hand about before unscrewing the cap of the muscle cream. "And besides, they're just letters! Letters can't hurt you, Olette...unless you had some childhood trauma, like...paper cuts or something." He trailed off, making an odd face.

Olette scowled profusely, crossing her arms over her chest in determination. "Yeah? Well there's something else that happens when you get famous." She paused for effect, watching as Hayner quirked an eyebrow, obviously waiting for her to continue. Olette threw her arms up into the air. "You get a bodyguard!"

"Pfffft." Hayner blew out, squirting some of the IcyHot onto his hand and slipping his fingers underneath the collar of his shirt to rub the cream onto the back of his shoulder. "Olette, I'm a Struggler. What the heck do I need a bodyguard for?" He tilted his head to the side, massaging the muscles of his shoulder as he spoke. He was obviously not giving Olette the attention that she so desired, because the petite woman stomped her foot angrily.

"To guard your body!" She snapped, hands flying out as if the gods would provide some divine intervention and knock sense into the Struggler. "I don't care what you are, we're hiring one as soon as this match is over!"

Her finger pointed to Hayner and she took a step forward to accentuate her statement.

Hayner squirted more of the muscle cream into his hand, this time rubbing his other shoulder. He shook his head, protest on the tip of his tongue before he sighed. "No! Just no!" He rubbed the back of his neck, capping the IcyHot and tossing it onto the small coffee table of the dressing room. "Besides, they're way too expensive..."

Olette huffed, looking just about ready to pull her hair out. "Hayner, you're getting famous, just like you said. That means we can afford it."

Hayner shook his head again. "Not yet, we can't." The dressing room door opened and Pence came in, ready to greet the two when Olette interrupted him.

"Well, we definitely can't afford for you to get hurt...or worse, killed!" Her lower lip trembled, and Hayner rolled his eyes.

"Come on Olette, I know you're not gonna-- "

The door to the bathroom slammed shut as Olette locked herself inside.

Pence glanced from the bathroom and then over to Hayner, suckling on a sea-salt ice cream before pulling it out of his mouth with a 'pop'. "Umm..." He began, surveying the room awkwardly. "That went well."

"Shut up." Hayner groused, snatching up one of the many fan letters from their spot on the table. He ripped it open with vigor, withdrawing the envelope with loopy scrawl and a kiss mark for a signature. He read it slowly, a gradual smile appearing on his face before finishing it and tucking the letter back into its envelope.

Pence sat down in one of the adjacent seats as Hayner grabbed a small yellow package, opening it and turning it upside-down to let the contents spill out into his hand. The first thing Hayner caught was a small red orb that looked so painfully familiar that Hayner's heart stopped in his chest. Second came the letter. It was typed, signed only with a single dot of red at the bottom. As Hayner read, the icy feeling in his gut became colder and colder, his eyes skimming over his own address and the words 'Don't fight Setzer Gabbiani in the Finals next month or your possessions will be the least of your worries.' with dread.

Pence sat up, observing the red ball in Hayner's grasp. "Hey what's --" He stopped, head tilting forward and eyes squinting in realization. "Isn't that YOURS?"

Hayner nodded slowly, eyes ghosting over the words a second and third time before he calmly folded the note up and set it on the coffee table. He pocketed the orb, stretching his arms out and shaking them wildly to try and knock off the sick feeling in his stomach.

Olette peeked her head out of the bathroom - eyes red - and sent a glare at Hayner, slamming the door shut again. Hayner grunted, wiping his clammy palms off on his pant legs and standing up. "Just some freak." he muttered under his breath, stretching his legs and shaking them out. "I can handle it myself."

A knock came from the door and Hayner jumped, his surprise making Pence chuckle lightly. He leveled his friend and assistant manager with a glare, stomping over to the door and flinging it open.

"Fight's in ten minutes, Mr. Rhodes." A petite girl stood there, hands clasped in front of herself before she bowed curtly. Recognizing her as one of the assistants that worked the Struggle circuits, Hayner thanked her and sent her on her way before closing the door. He turned back to Pence, snatching up his headgear from next to the door and shoving it on.

"Help me gear up." Hayner snapped, evidently displeased that Pence continued to smirk at his friend's skittish attitude. Pence finished off his ice cream, tossing the Popsicle stick into a nearby trash bin and standing up.

"What are you gonna do about the letter?" He asked, picking up the chest piece and approaching Hayner. Hayner scoffed, stomping past Pence to grab up he note.

"This is what I'm gonna do," he said, tossing the letter into the trash and looking at Pence. "What?" Hayner snapped. Pence shrugged, walking over to him again with the chest gear.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

-- --

Glasses clinked together, voices chattering for a moment before a cheer echoed across the bar as the Struggle Match on the small TV in the corner of the room blared the latest game.

"And Hayner Rhodes lays another vicious hit to Vaan Elliot's gear! Look at him dive for those orbs!"

Seifer Almasy, one of the bar's regulars, choked on the sip of beer he had just taken. "'Dive for orbs'...? When did these matches get so blatantly sexual?" He asked no one in particular, turning in his chair to look at the television.

"I don't think that's what they meant, y'know?" Rai, sitting to Seifer's right, said. It was a wonder he had been able to hear Seifer, with all of the bets being tossed around.

"Yeah, sure." Seifer snorted into his glass disbelievingly. Then, surveying the two opponents on the screen, he frowned and scoffed, "No wonder--what a shitty lot Strugglers these days are. I mean, look at 'em! I dunno which scrawny blond jerk is more menacing," the word dripped with sarcasm, "the one who looks like a stripper...and a cheap one at that...or the one that looks like a chocobo. Jeez. Making it sound like a lame porno's probably the only way they can get people to watch!"

Fuu just stared at the screen quietly, and Seifer followed suit, shaking his head to himself.

"Chocobo." Fuu said suddenly, startling Seifer a bit. He glanced over to her, gaze incredulous before glancing back over to the screen with a laugh.

"Chocobo-head, huh? Alright." He looked around for a moment, reaching into his back pocket to procure his wallet. He flipped it open, pulling out a crisp hundred dollar bill. "Oi, you! Bookie! Fuu's putting a hundred on the chocobo!"

The bookie in question, a fidgety fellow whose name no one bothered to remember, nodded and took the money. "A hundred on Hayner Rhodes." Scribbling it down and tucking the money away with the rest of the bets, the man smirked. "Dunno what yer puttin' your money on him for, though. They say he's good, but he's still too green to beat Elliot."

Seifer shrugged. "Not my first choice, either...then again, I'm used to Strugglers who actually look like men, not prepubescent kids."

The bookie laughed huskily, shaking his head and moving on to take bets from other bar-goers.

"And now we're heading into overtime, folks, with the scored tied: one round to Elliot, and one round to Rhodes!" The commentator roared as Seifer's attention was diverted back to the television.

Seifer's eyebrows shot upwards as the camera zoomed in on Rhodes' corner of the arena. "Is that...Olette?" He chortled and shook his head, hand running idly over the rim of his glass. "Well I'll be...never knew she had it in her." Then he laughed again and took a big swig of his beer.

Rai, stuffing his face with the complimentary peanuts the bar gave out, looked over at his friend. "What're you talking about?"

Seifer, about to take another sip of his drink, pointed at the screen. "Boning a rising Struggle Champion -- for little Miss Valedictorian...well, that's some balls right there."

Rai choked on a peanut shell. "Eh? That's Olette Ames?"

"Yep, and it looks like she's got herself quite the cushy job." Seifer sneered, watching as the brunette girl continued to pep talk the Struggle fighter. The television cut to commercials and Seifer turned to his beer, drinking heavily from it. He'd known Olette during their high school years, given that the softspoken girl was the one who helped tutor Seifer in three different subjects. Seifer had always boasted that he would pay her back one day, but once graduation had rolled around and they'd parted ways, he hadn't seen her again.

The commercials ended and Seifer turned to look back at the screen as the third match began to decide the winner. The chocobo-headed blond looked a little worse for wear, his eyes dark and filled with such thought that Seifer had half a mind to to bet that the kid wasn't even focusing completely on the match. He was short, but not as short as his opponent, and had a lithe figure covered in various struggle gear.

The bell sounded and Seifer was torn from his thoughts to watch the referee grab Hayner's hand and throw it up into the air. Seifer leaned back in disbelief. "You've gotta be shittin' me." He glanced over at Fuu to see his friend attempting to hide a satisfied smirk at all the groans and curses from lost betters. She stood, flicking her hair out of her eyes and approaching the bookie to collect her winnings. Seifer ran a hand through his hair, setting down his beer mug and watching as Hayner ran over to his manager and assistant and hugged them both. His eyes concentrated on Olette and Hayner's embracing forms, an amused grin pulling at his lips.

"Well well, Olette. Looks to me like you picked a keeper."

End Prologue

Psycho Rooster here! This is a collab fic, not with Random Kyuubi, but with another author who calls herself Ellipsis the Great. She's practically a connoisseur of SeiferHayner, so I requested we write something together. Sorry the prologue is so short, but we thought this would be a good place to end it. Expect longer chapters than this for the rest of the fic. I hope you guys enjoyed, and please drop a line!