Title: Flour and Water
Author: Moorish
Disclaimer: Squeenix owns all. Only they're not creative (or insane) enough to do this with it.
Notes: Alright, so anyone who reads the 100 drabbles I write (there are like what, four?) will notice that I've finally written the (gasp!) dreaded het that I hinted at in the summary. It's Yuffie/Tseng. I've never seen anyone write this pairing before, never, not once, even though they're the only two Wutaiin people that you get to take a good, hard look at. And I know that, in groups, people of the same ethnicity tend to gravitate towards each other. I don't know if it's physical or what, but that's the way it is. So, here it is. Crackpairing!fic, by moi.
...
They stick, like flour and water. It is the only thing that Yuffie can think of that seems right. On their own they are little more than elements, decent enough (she supposes), but rather boring. But together they make something useful. Something good and proper that she thinks even her father would be proud of.
It begins, unsurprisingly, in a bar. Not Tifa's bar, not 7th Heaven, because only Reno goes into Heaven on a regular basis and comes out again, whole and alive. Not everyone who frequents that place is a friend of ShinRa. Not everyone there likes the Turks. Yuffie thinks that maybe Cloud has something to do with Reno's continued existence. Cloud, yes, and Tifa, too, because Tifa looks at the redhead with soft eyes sometimes. But that's not the point.
The point is that it isn't Tifa's bar. It's a dive, a hole in the ground better suited to murderers and pickpockets than the future queen of Wutai, but they don't ask questions, and they don't card her.
She sits at the bar with a warm glass of beer in one hand and a shiny new materia in the other. A green, one she took from Rufus while they helped the weakened President out of his wheelchair and into the healing waters of Aeris' pool.
(To be truthful, they'd stripped him, first, just to make sure the water got everywhere it needed to, and maybe she'd ogled a bit, because Rufus ShinRa has always been a very attractive man, even for a Westerner.)
But, again, not the point. The materia rolls between her fingers (which are slightly less than adroit, now that she's pleasantly sloshed), and, almost idly, she tosses the little ball up into the air, intending to catch it as it comes down again…
Only it never comes down.
Yuffie can smell him even before he slides onto the stool beside her. His is an uncomfortable scent, that makes her think of the great palace that waits for her when she returns to Wutai; one that reminds her equally of blood and gunpowder, incense and ritual.
She doesn't want him to be here. Tseng is everything that she is not, everything that her father wishes her to be: powerful but in control, quick-thinking, self-disciplined…
A man.
She knows that Lord Godo would have preferred a son. She also knows that her father's expectations of her are significantly less than those he would have for a boy. Godo has never tried to make her feel bad about her gender, but she feels it nonetheless. That feeling, and that lack of expectation, was what led her to become a thief in the first place. What led her to join Cloud on his suicide mission…
No. Thinking about that is even worse than thinking about Tseng. So she slumps her shoulders and swivels, glaring at him over the rim of her glass. He is, right now, the lesser of two evils.
"Wha'ya wan'," she slurs, and realizes that she is, perhaps, a bit more than sloshed. Shitfaced, she thinks, is a more proper term.
Tseng is as impeccable as ever. His blue suit is crisp and neat, his tie straight, the smooth and glossy fall of his hair slicked back against his skull like black ink. Yuffie wants to touch it, because it looks almost wet in this dim light, and she has to forcefully clamp down on that urge. Her fingers twitch. She wants to steal him.
Best not to think of that. Best not to think of a lot of things.
Tseng's thin lips curl at the edges, and he places the green materia on the bartop.
"I never thought to find you here, princess," he says. Yuffie mouths the rim of her glass, then takes a long sip. She doesn't like being called "princess," and most of her friends know this by now. It is a title she feels she has not earned yet. Maybe once she grows a pair of testicles, she will finally be worthy of royalty. But not now, and she slams the glass back to the bartop with the unpredictable strength of one who is very, very drunk. Then she goes to stand, only she must not manage it very well, because the next thing she knows is that she's falling, and it's Tseng's arms that catch her. "Mmph," she says into his chest. His very firm, gunpowder and cologne smelling chest.
"Aren't you a bit young to be drinking?" That secret little smile is still there, and his dark eyes glint with a malicious mirth that is common to all Turks. He is very tall, compared to her. She only comes up to his collarbone.
Aren't you a bit half-blooded to be so attractive? That's what goes through her head, and she knows that to say it would be horribly insulting, because no one can help the circumstances of their birth, but it's there, anyways. Fortunately, what comes out of her mouth is only a slurred "Fuuu…" sound. And she's relieved, because she's never thought of herself as being quite that racist before, and she doesn't want it to come to light any more than it has to.
Tseng chuckles, a sound like rolling thunder in her ears, then easily rights her, stands her straight again, and loops his arm around her waist.
"Let's get you home, princess."
She swipes the materia from the bartop before they leave. Even drunk, her priorities are clear. Then she is silent for a while, until they reach the street outside, when she looks at Tseng with (relatively) clear and gimlet eyes and says, "M'not a princess."
The Turk glances at her, but does not seem surprised. He doesn't seem to be anything but amused, really. "Not a princess? And here I thought your father was Lord Godo."
She buries her face in his side. "Is," she mutters. "Jus'…no' ready fer it yet. No' ready fer…fer him."
It's his turn to be quiet, now. She doesn't mind. With the reactors gone, the night air seems so much sweeter. She takes a deep breath and can almost feel her head clear. Just a bit.
"For what it's worth, I think you're ready. Even back then, I thought you were."
She knows what "back then" means, what it means to all of them. Before all this Advent nonsense, back when there was only one madman trying to destroy the world instead of three. Thank Gaia it's over.
Thank Gaia.
"Really?" She tilts her head backwards in order to get a better view of his face, as opposed to the warm curve of his pectorals (nice though those were). His expression is neutral, which doesn't surprise her, but then his eyes flick to hers and she thinks, Yes. He really means it. It's a high compliment from someone who normally shows all the emotions of a dead man, but Yuffie thinks that this will not be the last. She hopes it will not be the last. Maybe, with someone like Tseng on her side, she can win her father's approval…
Without needing to grow a pair of balls, that is.
...
A.N: I crave feedback. Give me feedback and I'll write more.
Well, I was gonna write more anyways, but I'll write it faster! Ideas are appreciated, too. Yuffie seems like the type to concoct some crazy, harebrained scheme to attract Tseng's attention. However, I'm not terribly good with concocting harebrained schemes. So, ideas. Yes. Send them. :3