No Charge
A Final Fantasy VII Fic by Serenity-chan (With a little help from AmazonTurk, just in case she needs credit)
SHIT! thought the redhead, throwing another punch and ducking the one that was aimed at his fiery red, seriously alcohol-fuzzed head. 'The fuck is the big idea!?
He had been set on by at least five guys when he had been exiting the bar - at least he thought it was five. Normally, this should have been no problem for the Turk. He was used to taking on far more and far worse than this, more often than not while completely trashed. But something was different tonight - this time was Reno's first Everclear experience. He knew he had drunk enough that it would have killed a normal person, but when had he ever been normal? Gah! There was a kick flying at his head this time, which he blocked with a fist and countered with a punch straight to the unfortunate's exposed groin.
So how had this infernal fight started? Well, he wasn't exactly sure - he knew there had been a mama-joke or two involved and he might have taken a verbal swipe at one guy's girlfriend. There was glass from a broken bottle in there somewhere, but nobody couldn't prove that the guy hadn't broken it over his own head! But hey, they started it! And they had been picking on his hair, of all things! He had taken their little jibes in stride at first, his mood softened by the strong drink in his hand - but then they had started in on his prowess with the fairer sex... Okay, he was used to the occasional gay-joke and could take that perfectly well in stride as well - it was inevitable because of his slender build, delicate features and flamboyant hair. But what that one guy said was too much! He couldn't even think about it! Then again... he couldn't even remember it.
Well, at that comment, he had pulled his EMR and that had sent the group, then numbering three, off with their tails tucked. Satisfied, Reno had gone back to his drink... Er... drinks... When he had polished off the bottle and a half, the bartender had cut him off. Could it have been that comment he made about her four breasts? Hey! He was trying to be complimentary! Was it his fault that he was seeing double? She had answered him with an emphatic yes and threatened to have him bodily removed from the bar. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he stiffed her in his tip, ignored her swearing at him, and shuffled away from the bar. It was right when he had cleared the bar's doorstep that he had felt something solid make contact with the side of his head at high velocity. His clouded mind had put two and two together in deducing that the solid something was a fist when another one connected with his ribs.
Things were just getting worse. It turned out that the guy whose mother he had insulted with a comment about a curling iron on high in a fairly obscene place was the leader of an anti-Shinra group of thugs. Well, they seemed to be anti-everybody - violent anarchists, maybe - but that was beside the point now, wasn't it? The comment was neither here nor there right now, except that the guy had two more cronies outside the bar. So now a very drunk Reno was fighting five men the size of Rude and wishing very much that he had his partner with him. Okay, it was more like he was flailing at them and making the occasional lucky hit. But then again, they weren't hitting him, so that was what counted, right? However, he had to keep moving backwards as he dodged and it was just about now that he realized he was getting backed down an alley.
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SHIT! thought the broad-shouldered, bald-headed Turk. He was just there two seconds ago! Where'd that idiot run off to?
Rude shook his head to clear out the effects of probably one too many rounds of Jose Cuervo and looked around, trying to catch a glimpse of the flaming red rat's nest. Sure enough, he had no such luck - not that he had really expected to be able to find his partner after hearing the word "Everclear" from his lips. Upon hearing that, the bald man had just pushed up his sunglasses and turned his attention back to Senor Cuervo. Reno had scampered away - yes, scampered - and begun to hit on a rather attractive blonde at the other end of the bar while waiting for his Everclear.
"Just bang down the bottle, yo," was the last sentence Rude had clearly heard Reno say as he watched the redhead wink at the bartender, choosing to block the rest from his consciousness, considering most of it was just Reno's bad innuendo.
Unfortuately, the last Rude had heard of his partner was also the last he had seen of him, considering Rude really didn't want to associate with his partner at that moment. Turning back to his tequila, Rude had assumed that Reno would continue to absorb Everclear directly into his liver until he either passed out or was kicked out. Either way, Rude knew he was going to end up dragging his partner's sorry ass back to his apartment and depositing him there to sleep away the weekend. All this considered, work was going to be a bitch come Monday, having to baby a hung-over Reno through his paperwork. And that was just if nothing else happened.
So Rude shot back the last of his Cuervo, figured 'screw the chaser', and ignored the faint burning in his throat as he pushed himself off his barstool. A quick shake of his head helped him find his balance again and it was with only minimal weaving that he approached the bar nearest where he had last seen Reno sitting. His first thought was that Reno had been wasting his time with the blonde. Then again, Rude considered himself a gentleman, but he said screw the old "gentlemen prefer blondes" bit. He momentarily forgot about Reno as he sat down at the bar and gave the bartender - a brunette with bright red streaks - a low wolf whistle. She grinned at him and asked him what he wanted.
A piece of you would be nice, he thought as he said "Well, actually, I'm just looking for my friend."
The brunette bartender looked Rude up and down, taking in the sight of his uniform.
"You wouldn't happen to mean that loudmouth redhead, yo?" she asked him sweetly, putting a bit of emphasis on imitating Reno's trademark style of speech.
Rude sighed heavily, nodding in spite of himself - if Reno had left the bar, finding him would be more important than trying to score with the bartender.
"I thought so," the attractive woman snapped. "I cut him off about half an hour ago and told his drunk ass to take a hike - preferably a long hike off a short bridge."
The bald-headed Turk's shoulders fell visibly and he pushed his sunglasses up again.
"Wouldn't happen to have seen where he went, would you?" he asked gruffly.
Before the woman could tell him off or make another cutting remark about Reno, a younger female voice popped in.
"Hey Kandi! That jackass who stiffed you's started some shit outside!" the attractive blonde from earlier informed the bartender, not noticing Rude.
"Oh just great..." Kandi groaned irritably. "Angela, call Grant over here wouldja?"
Rude stood up suddenly - he assumed this "Grant" person was a bouncer... And possibly Kandi's significant other...
"Won't be necessary," he grunted as he adjusted his sunglasses again and headed for the door, leaving the two women badmouthing Reno.
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SHIT! thought the little black-haired ninja as she nearly tripped and had to do a funny little skipping step in order to regain her balance. Okay! Note to self - posing as a prostitute in order to steal Materia is a Very Bad Idea!
The petite Wutaian princess tore along through the streets, a sizable group of rough-looking men hot on her heels - yeah, the faux-prostitute idea was definitely a Very Bad Idea. And yes, with capital letters. The high heels she had worn as part of her garish getup were no help at all, and running in a miniskirt was a bit of a challenge. If she weren't caught for stealing the Materia, it was likely she'd be arrested for indecent exposure! Her ankle turned and she hit the ground, though her training as a ninja allowed her to roll gracefully back to her feet without breaking her stride or her speed. She shook her head, cracked her neck loudly, and kept running.
NO! My endurance canNOT be giving out on me now! she growled in her head - but it was a bit too late for that.
She may have been used to running long distances at a dead sprint, but running on heels worked totally different muscles - muscles that she was NOT used to pushing at top speed. Her dark eyes darted around for a place to hide and hopefully lose her pursuers. She'd had enough sense to set up her victims by getting them totally plastered and doing a little shaking of what her mother gave her before discreetly relieving them of all the Materia on their persons. Of course... she hadn't exactly made good on her unspoken promises, so she expected they would be the slightest bit irritated... She hadn't anticipated THIS though!
Yuffie was in serious trouble. Her semi-drunken would-be "clients", were she actually what she had successfully passed herself off as, were sobering up considerably in their anger. This rendered them a great deal more agile on their feet, with the added bonus that now they could only see one of her. Her hideously bright outfit was doing nothing to help at all, not to mention it was cold! Why hadn't she waited to come up with this outfit when it was summer!? No! She'd had to come up with the "steal-Materia-by-posing-as-a-scantily-clad-street-walker" in the middle of freaking winter! Her heels scrunched along through the thinning, greyed-up snow as she continued to push herself.
Wait a sec! Was that an alley? YES! Yes it was!
She skidded for a second, then doubled back the three feet she had missed the alley by, taking off down it as fast as her little heels could take her.
"Oh SHIT!" she choked out, skidding to a stop and falling down and creating a gaudy heap of ninja in the piled-up snow.
In front of her was another group of rough-looking men, all swinging away. Some of them were armed and every so often, she could see a flash of light and hear a "gerk" sound from somewhere in the melee. Panting hard and half doubled-over, still on the ground, she tilted her head and squinted. Was that a fiery red head she saw in the chaos? Couldn't be, she thought - the image her eyes had supplied her with was just wishful thinking. Nah! It couldn't even have been that! The thought was pushed out the window by the next sound to meet her ears - the sound of her pursuers yelling "She went that way!"
"Damn it all!" she muttered, pushing herself up off her knees and taking up the best fighting stance she could - keeping her legs bent like that hurt really bad, considering the angle the heels kept her at. "All right, Yuffers, let's keep it kupo..."
The first of the men to lash out at her recieved a smart blow to the temple from the ball of her foot - she looked upon this as an act of mercy considering that she could have easily punctured an artery with her heel. The second, who had come just behind the first, was met with a less forgiving blow - the perfectly-manicured fingernails of her right hand found his left eye. She wrinkled her nose as she kicked him to the side and tried to wipe her hand on her skirt. Unfortunately, this moment of letting her guard down allowed her two other would-be "clients" take her by the arms, one on either side. Every expletive she knew and several she didn't even know existed rattled through her mind. Struggling proved to be ineffectual for the young Wutaian princess - ninja or not, the two men were much larger than her and much, much physically stronger.
"LET ME GO, YOU LOUSY FUCKERS!!" she bellowed, lashing out and kicking straight up with her left foot. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHO YOU'RE FUCKING WITH!"
Her struggling grew frantic as she felt another set of hands on her - apparently showing mercy to the first man to lunge at her was also a Very Bad Idea with capital letters. This set of hands was decidedly set on removing her top - not that there was much of it. The good thing about this was that, skimpy as her top was, since it was mostly comprised of patent leather straps, it was complicated to get rid of it. She should know, having taken thirty minutes trying to strap herself into the damn thing in the first place - not that it mattered now. Her eyes widened as she saw the man who was now minus his left eye - he was drawing a knife from inside his black leather jacket.
"Hey! You don't know what you're doing with that..." drawled a sickeningly familiar male voice. "Better put it down before you hurt someone, yo..."
Before anyone could say anything, there was a crackle of electricity, a brilliant flash, another "gerk" sound, and Yuffie's one-eyed assailant crumpled into a heap on the grey, snowy ground.
"What the---" Yuffie started...
"Talk later, sweet stuff," grunted the owner of the voice, dealing the first assailant his second kick of the night and felling him again. "Save your ass now."
Yuffie couldn't agree more, delivering a straight-up kick to the man holding her left arm, sending him reeling back into the path of her "rescuer's" fist. As she heard the thud of that man hitting the ground, she shot the point of her now-free elbow into the gut of his companion. Unfortunately, the left-hand man hadn't been hit too terribly hard, so he was back on his feet, aiming a punch rather badly at her cheek. She put her hand up to block automatically, not needing to look up yet, but when she did, it was only in time to see a black-booted foot connect with her assailant's temple. Hey! That was exactly what she had been about to do!
"HEY JERK!" she roared, watching her next move be stolen as well, as her "rescuer" planted that same booted foot on the head of the other man he had just felled. "I was about to do that!"
The man turned around, a swagger in that movement alone, flipping his red ponytail over his shoulder and giving her an appreciative smirk - he liked what he saw.
"Sorry sweetness," he said in a voice that said he was not at all apologetic. "Couldn't stand by and let a lady do a... man's... job... yo."
As the man's voice trailed off in disbelief, he and the young woman in front of him stared each other down.
"YOU!?" they yelled at the same time, each in equal frazzlement, mouths hanging open.
"Turkey!?" yelled Yuffie, who was quickly turning the same color as her "rescuer's" hair. "What the hell!?"
"I could say the same thing for you, Princess!" sputtered Reno, his aquamarine eyes still bugging out of his head - partially in surprise, partially ogling her.
The petite Wutaian clamped her arms over her chest.
"Give me your jacket!" she ordered.
The red-haired Turk tilted his head at her, his trademark smirk now firmly back in place - he stroked his chin, letting his eyes shamelessly rove over her body. Da-amn! She looked good! Her black hair had been allowed to grow almost to shoulder-length and had been carefully curled so that it flipped out and bounced with her movement. The aforementioned shoulders were bared by her lovely top, comprised of a web of black patent leather straps that covered just to her midriff. His smirk widened as he took in her navel ring - it was decorated with a little glass bead made to replicate Materia. The skirt she was wearing could have passed for quite a wide belt - hell, there was a buckle, so it may well have been! Her black thigh-high fishnets were torn in several places. That would have been very nice if it had been done on purpose, but since the most prominent tears were on over her knees and accompanied by bleeding scrapes... He scowled briefly, but then his face lit up again as he took in the sights of her stiletto heels.
"Now why would I want to do that, yo?" he asked her in his most lascivious voice, leering openly at her. "Isn't a man allowed to enjoy the view?"
"NO!" she screeched at him, lunging at him and grasping his jacket in an attempt to wrest it from his body.
His arms clamped around her, pinning her to his body.
"Oi! If I wanted to do business with you, I'd have asked how much, yo!" he said, a trace of laughter in his drawling voice as his breath carried the scent of alcohol to her nose. "I'd expect a bit of a discount, considering I just saved your sweet little ass..."
He patted her rear to make his point.
"EW! You are so gross!" Yuffie snarled, crinkling her nose in disgust. "You reek of alcohol! And there's no way in hell I'd let you pay me for sex!"
The Turk widened his eyes in pretend consideration and leaned down, placing his mouth an inch from her ear.
"So you'd work for free in my case, yo?" he asked, letting her feel his hot breath against her skin as his voice deepened slightly. "Is that how you'd pay me back for saving you?"
Yuffie was about to snap at him when she heard a solid crack and felt the Turk go limp against her, nearly knocking her to the ground. She released her grip on his jacket and let him slump face-first into the snow, jumping back into her fighting stance and kicking her heels off. The snow was dreadfully cold against her practically-bare feet, seeing as the fishnets did next to nothing, but she ignored it. She glared around at the five thugs, particularly the one wielding a wooden baseball bat - it was pretty obvious which one had floored the red-haired man with one blow. With a shriek that could wake the dead, she launched herself at Bat Boy and took him to the ground in one motion as she landed on his head. Having relieved him of his weapon and quickly dispatching him with it, she looked around at the other four.
"Urgh..." groaned that same familiar voice, its dazed owner looking up at her, slightly cross-eyed. "What the hell are you two doing?"
Yuffie rolled her eyes at the dizzy redhead, not even looking as one of his assailants came at her and she clonked him soundly on the head with his leader's bat.
"There's only one of me, you dumbass," she snapped at him, easily whacking the third thug square in the jaw and feeling it break rather messily. "And don't you forget it!"
"Ya didn't answer my question, yo," Reno shot back, attempting to push himself to his feet and landing on his ass.
There were two of his attackers left, both of them closing in rather menacingly on the ninja princess.
"Saving your ass - what does it look like?" she countered.
"It looks like you're not wearing panties," the Turk informed her, grinning lazily and keeping his eyes fixed on hers, gesturing with his hand at the rather primo viewing angle he had of her rear.
"ARGH!!" screamed the ninja, launching the bat at his head and missing rather badly in her anger - she glared at him angrily and told him "I'm wearing Moogle-print tanga-cut boyshorts if you MUST know!"
And that was the first clear thing Rude heard. He had stepped out of the bar a good while ago and immediately heard the chaos. His excellent hearing and sense of deductive reasoning - the reason he was going to live a lot longer than Reno, he figured - led him to assume that it was coming from the nearby alley. Sure enough, he saw a man's body - possibly deceased, but probably not, since Reno was drunk - come flying out of the darkness to land in a snow-clogged parallel parking space. He decided that his partner could indeed handle things. Especially if those things involved a girl in Moogle-print tanga-cut boyshorts - his partner had a huge thing for boyshorts. He ejected a drunkard from his seat on a bench outside the bar and graciously took the vacated seat, propping his feet up on the opposite arm rest and leaning back to wait.
Reno grinned at the ninja girl again, shrugging.
"You asked, yo," he said cheekily. "So how much am I looking at?"
Yuffie squinched her eyes shut, counting to ten. The two thugs kept closing in - as she finished "ten" in her head, her fist shot out in anger, catching the first one in the nose and breaking it soundly. She kept counting, picturing the redhead's face on the last assailant. The poor bastard was dead before he hit the ground, his broken nose penetrating his brain in an instant and spewing blood everywhere. The ninja girl opened her eyes and rounded on the man whose life she had just inadvertantly saved with her own hostility towards him. Reno was now propped up against the wall, one leg crossed over the other and his arms folded on his chest - he was watching her again.
Rude heard the noise of the fight dying down and turned in his seat to investigate, looking over his shoulder at the alley - he saw nothing, so he readjusted his sunglasses again and waited some more.
"No charge," the ninja told the redheaded Turk, picking up her shoes and spinning on her heel - she stepped over the dead man and prepared to walk away, throwing her last comment over her shoulder. "I think we broke even on that one."
Said Turk lunged off the ground, closing the distance between them in seconds and catching her by the arm.
"No really, I insist," he growled in her ear, pinning her against his tall, lanky body by wrapping his right arm around her small, slender form. "There must be some way I can pay you back..."
His left hand slid over her bare stomach, raising goosebumps over her whole body, then played over the few open buckles of her top. Yuffie bit her lip, trying not to rise to his bait - Reno felt her body tense though and laughed in her ear at her attempt to resist. The tall, red-haired man released a wordless growl into her ear, pressing a soft kiss to side of ther neck, just below the dangling earring. A predatory smile curved his lips against her skin as he heard her soft gasp and felt her body go just a bit more rigid. His right arm tightened around her, pressing her flush against his own larger form and letting her know exactly how his body felt about the entire situation.
"Although... if you insist, I guess I could just take the freebie and go..." he growled, slowly pulling away from her and turning to walk away.
He felt a strong yank from behind and craned his neck around to see a wild-eyed Yuffie Kisaragi with a deathgrip on his ponytail.
"Yes?" he asked in very convincing half-surprise, as if he had not at all expected to nearly have his precious hair jerked from his scalp by a Wutaian ninja princess. "Can I help you?"
"If you leave me standing here, I swear to all that is holy and several things that aren't, I will kill you, emasculate you, give you a Phoenix Down and kill you again," Yuffie growled, her voice having dropped about ten decibels and down into the depths of her range.
It was enough for him - Reno had Yuffie leaned back in his arms, his aquamarine eyes burning into her dark ones.
"Can you handle me, Princess?" he asked quietly, his voice lowered into his most predatory snarling rumble. "Think hard. You've got until five... One..."
He held her gaze more intensely.
"Two..." he counted in a dangerous monotone.
Yuffie's eyes widened and she opened her mouth, letting no sound escape.
"Three..." the Turk continued, his voice becoming more ominous.
"What happens if I don't answer?" the ninja squeaked.
Reno's eyes held an inscrutable light - the fact that she couldn't tell what he was thinking scared her more than anything.
"Four," the redhead stated with finality in his voice.
There was a long silence - Yuffie wasn't sure what to do.
"Fi---"
The word was barely halfway out of the man's mouth when it was silenced by hers sealing over it as she tightened her grip on his hair and yanked him down to her. He grinned against her lips - oh yeah, he was the man. Yuffie was kissing him with everything she had, making up for what she lacked in experience with pure enthusiasm. Reno slid his hand into her hair, pulling just hard enough to make her moan with the sensation. A sensual growl was released from one of them, but it wasn't really clear who. He shifted to pull her even closer, but overbalanced and sent both of them crashing to the ground, making Yuffie see stars briefly as her head connected with concrete and a Turk a great deal larger than her landed sprawled on top of her.
"Well that was unexpected," commented a deep voice.
There was a scramble of movement, which ended with Reno taking Yuffie's knee to his gut and falling on top of her again, cursing, and Yuffie's head banging once more against the concrete.
"What the fuck!?" growled Reno, looking around for the source of the comment.
"If you'd wanted to find different company, you could have just said something," Rude told his partner. "I mean really, I wouldn't have minded - had my own agenda for tonight, as a matter of fact."
"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!?" Yuffie bellowed from her position on the snowy ground, her words slightly muffled considering Reno was squashing her. "You speak of the Great Ninja Yuffie Kisaragi like a common wench!?"
Rude's eyes widened behind his sunglasses - the only clue anyone else had to this was his eyebrows rising just a little. He had expected a bar fight, and certainly that was what most of the evidence suggested. There were broken bottles littering the alley and several men with extensive head injuries. Sure enough, there was one casualty - looked like a badly broken nose that had entered his brain. What he absolutely did NOT expect was to come upon his partner, bruised and spattered with blood - some of it not his own - and wrapped in a heated embrace with... Yuffie Kisaragi, that ninja brat from AVALANCHE? To add onto all of it, the ninja was dressed like a prostitute, spattered with blood as well, and not at all fighting to get Reno off her!
"Reno... do I even want to---"
"Save it," the red-haired Turk snapped - he turned his attention back to Yuffie, ignoring his partner entirely. "I haven't even started paying you back yet..."
Yuffie blinked at him, then grinned.
"Can't let the effort of stealing these clothes from Tifa go to waste!" she chirped. "You wouldn't believe where she had them hidden!"
Rude did NOT want to consider the implications of Tifa Lockheart wearing a getup like that - he assumed that Cloud was one lucky bastard. Yuffie couldn't possibly have cared less what kind of implications she had just made - in fact, she probably didn't even know she had made them. The implications totally flew over Reno's fiery head and he grinned back at his little Wutaian ninja princess. His grin widened and he attempted to push himself off her, being as careful as he possibly could - then again, in his condition it wasn't possible to be very careful at all and of course, he fell for the third time. A hand grabbed his collar and yanked him to his feet.
"Thanks man," he grunted at his partner, helping Yuffie to her feet as well and picking up her discarded heels as he did so.
"Not a problem," Rude answered, shrugging out of his suit jacket and handing it to Reno.
"What's that for? I don't need it, yo" protested the redhead.
"Ahem!" coughed the now-trembling Yuffie - without Reno on top of her, the temperature dropped significantly.
Reno gave her an expression that was half lusty smirk, half genuine smile, as he draped Rude's jacket around her shoulders and pulled her close to his side.
"Let's take this back to my place, shall we?" he half-suggested, half-ordered, his voice almost deepening to a growl again.
"You'd better have that thing clean when you bring it back to me on Monday!" Rude called at Reno and Yuffie's retreating backs - then he rolled his eyes as he headed back to the bar to get re-acquainted with Senor Cuervo. "Who am I kidding? I'll never see that jacket again and after they're through with it, I wouldn't want to!"
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Later that night...
"Cloud?" Tifa called from her bathroom.
The blonde man had been chomping at the bit for a piece of her since he had picked up his napkin at dinner - on it had been written a description, by Tifa, of EXACTLY what she wanted them to be doing tonight. They had been together for a little while now, and she could be quite the little vixen when it came to surprising him. Tonight, she had sent Marlene and Denzel to bed early and placed a cowboy hat on the door of the bedroom she and Cloud now shared.
"What is it?" he called back from the bed.
"Have you seen my special outfit?" inquired Tifa's voice.
Cloud tilted his head and wracked his brains.
"Not since the last time you wore it!" he hollered back. "Any idea where else you might have put it?"
There was a momentary silence from the bathroom.
"Not a clue!" yelled Tifa, getting a bit impatient.
Cloud got out of bed, scratching his ass since Tifa wasn't in the room to see it, crossed the room and leaned against the bathroom door.
"Come on! It's always been there before!" he grouched, grabbing the door handle. "Tifa! Why's the door locked!?"
"I still can't find it!" whined Tifa, rattling around in a drawer.
"Want me to help you find it?" Cloud asked, trying not to yell anymore at the risk of waking Marlene and Denzel.
"NO!" bellowed Tifa - that just went against all she had planned for tonight!
There was a sudden wrenching sound and the door swung open to reveal Cloud Strife's mako-blue eyes boring into her darkish ones - and the rest of him blocking her exit from the bathroom.
"Then go without." he ordered, his voice deep and predatory. "You wouldn't have had it on long anyway."
A/N - Sorry Cloud was OOC at the end. But I like it that way. What do y'all think? Does it need a sequel? An epilogue? Reno and Yuffie becoming impatient and getting arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior in a public place with a count of public indecency when he figures out how to get that top off her?