AN: I'll leave the prompt at the bottom – it's a spoiler for the entire story.
Enjoy!
"C'mon, Rude! It'll be funny!"
"…"
"No? Imagine it, go on! He just walks in and it's the first thing you see in the morning!"
"…"
"Even after he recoloured your apartment and Mr Chair pink? Really?"
"…"
"Tseng! Don't you think it'll be funny?"
Tseng sat at the far end of the Turks' shared office, eyes glued to the computer screen. "Hnn," He murmurs, not looking up. But the slight curl of his lip and his motionless fingers on the keyboard give away more than Tseng is willing to admit.
Elena notices this, of course, as she glances between Tseng and Rude with big blue eyes. The latter is still sitting in his chair, hiding behind his shades and holding an open file, reading or fake-reading, as if Elena was talking about something as mundane and unimportant as chocobo-raising and how important it was not to feed your chocobo chocolate.
"Tell you what, I'm betting you fifty bucks that you won't be able to do it," Elena leans back, satisfied, thinking that Rude won't be able to resist a dare.
Rude's head tilts minutely, although his expression stays as impassive as ever.
"Add fifty to that," Tseng offers from the corner, eyes still on the screen in a failed attempt to feign disinterest in the conversation.
"I'll throw in eighty more," Rufus Shinra's cool voice filtered through the intercom that was wired privately from the President's office to the Turks', before the intercom clicked to indicate the end of the announcement.
Rude closed the file and pushed his chair back, before exiting the office. Elena rushed over to Tseng with glee and tried to give him an excited hug.
Rude exited the main ShinRa building and made his way to the market, needing relief from the three of them, even if just for a moment. Reno was on sick leave (or self-imposed leave, rather) and Rude couldn't help but think that this whole business with the shaving of the redhead was particularly ridiculous. Not a single Turk in Turk history had been more agile than Reno, and the present lot of them couldn't even keep up with his tactics and actions in combat, let alone try and shave him before he could react. Also, Reno was one of the smartest and quickest-witted Turks around. What made anyone think that anyone could possibly distract the redhead long enough to shave his hair off?
Then Rude thought back to the day he had gone home and opened the door, only to see that every single square foot and every single item in his home had been recoloured pink. Even from behind his shades, Rude was blinded for a moment, especially when he realized that his favourite chair was now pink. He then heard the cackling from outside his window, like a witch in broad daylight performing some sort of ritual. By the time Rude had gotten to the window, all he could see was the whipping of a red ponytail around the corner.
If anyone knew Reno inside out, it would be Rude.
Well, then Rude would try.
Rude should have known that sparring was one of the worst times to try and pull one on Reno. But timing attacks wasn't Rude's strongest point.
Reno was squinting through the simulation goggles, which transformed Reno's view of the training room into a simulated reality. Right now, Reno was staring down a growling bahamut, spit dripping from its jaws. Reno was poised to attack, gingerly keeping a low centre of gravity as he readied himself to move wherever he needed to to dodge the bahamut's attacks. Right as the bahamut's tail whipped back in preparation for a spinning attack, Reno jumped into the air to dodge the virtual tail-
-only to be slammed face first into the nearby wall by Rude. Rude grabbed Reno's arms and twisted them behind his back, making use of the fact that Reno couldn't see him with the goggles on to catch him unawares. Reno yelled out in surprise, before kicking backwards with practiced ease and catching Rude in the shin. Rude grunted as his knees buckled, his shin stinging from the impact, dragging Reno down to the ground by his arms.
Reno wriggled free the moment he felt Rude's grip slacken, throwing off his goggles and turning on his partner. "WHAT THE HELL?" He screamed, arms flailing and hair dancing wildly, before Rude kicked Reno's legs out from under him and grabbed his hair, his other hand reaching for the shaver in his blazer pocket. Reno continued spewing vulgarities and clawing at Rude's skin as Rude desperately tried to connect the shaver to Reno's head.
Tseng opened the door to the training room just as Reno kicked out with both feet, sending Rude flying a few feet away to land on his side.
"I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU, RUDE YOU SON OF A FUCKING DUCK SUCK-"
Two strands of Reno's hair were grasped in Rude's fist, long and silky and fiery red in the light.
Tseng grinned faintly and went back out, shutting the door behind him.
Rude was seated next to Reno at a board meeting with SOLDIER, while Sephiroth stood at the front of the room and pointed at all sorts of statistics and diagrams. This had been going on for two hours, and the only two people in the room who didn't look bored were Sephiroth and Rufus Shinra.
By the first hour, Reno was already sprawled on the oval-shaped table, strands of hair pooled around his head like molten lava as he rested his head on his arms. Rude waited patiently for another forty minutes like a hawk stalking its prey, before his trained eye deemed that Reno was in a deep enough slumber for Rude to execute his plan, by the steady rise and fall of Reno's chest.
Rude brought out the shaver, flipping the power switch from under the table and bringing it up to Reno's temple just as Sephiroth turned to flip the screen and bring up the next pie chart.
There was one heart-stopping moment where Rude stared Reno right in the eye, his emerald green eyes wide, impossibly-alert, and glinting with killing intent, before Reno's hand was on Rude's wrist and the shaver was twisted out of Rude's grip.
"MY HAIR IS BEAUTIFUL," Reno shrieked from his seat in the meeting room, waving his fist at Rude and promising all sorts of ways that he could twist Rude's arm off and stuff it where the sun didn't shine. Meanwhile, the various 1st Class SOLDIERS in the meeting turned to stare at who had only been rumored to be one of the best martial artists among the Turks, one of the youngest ever enlisted to protect their dear president. Reno continued screeching insults and very colourful things about Rude's ma, as he grabbed onto any and all objects he could reach on the tabletop, and flung it at Rude's head.
Rufus sat facing the front, impatiently gesturing for Sephiroth to continue while Reno tried to jab Rude in the eye with a paperclip.
"Reno, we shouldn't be walking here-"
"Shaddap," Reno snapped, ducking under the KEEP OUT ribbon surrounding the rubble of the construction taking place next to the bar, and settling for walking straight through the dust and dirt in what was the shortest way home for him.
"It's dangerous, something could fall-"
Reno spun on a heel and glared up poisonously at Rude, or as poisonously as he could from where he stood half a foot shorter than the man. His brow was furrowed defiantly, and Rude could very clearly make out the alcohol-induced dilation in his green eyes.
"Get off my back, partner," Reno bit out, voice only slurring slightly, before he turned and stalked away, his ponytail whipping in an arc behind him and slapping Rude in the face.
They had been at the bar, doing their usual Friday night routine before the weekend, when Reno lost badly in a game of cards to a man with bad teeth and a knowing glint in his eye. If you asked Rude, the man probably had more tricks up his sleeve than Reno could tell. Of course, it didn't help that Reno was already half drunk off his ass, and very triumphant that his hair was still intact. Reno hadn't taken to losing very well, cursing and throwing bottles around in a tantrum that got both him and Rude kicked out.
Rude exhaled louder than usual, which could be considered a sigh by his standards, and followed behind the redhead. Rude wasn't exactly sober, either, but he still had his wits about him. Just as Reno swayed dangerously near to a pile of boulders, Rude quickened his pace and pulled his partner back by the arm.
"Re-"
Reno spun around on one heel and promptly lost his balance, falling to the ground at Rude's feet. His arm still in Rude's grasp, Reno rebalanced himself and grabbed a metal pipe from the ground next to him and swung back up, using his momentum in the swing to jam the pipe into Rude's face.
"Not this time, you little shit," Reno smirks, lazily twirling his ponytail around his fingers, one eyebrow raised cockily at his partner on the ground. "Ha! Trying to catch me off-guard, pretending you're keeping me safe, eh? How many times have you tried to attack me with that shaver, yo?"
Rude was on the ground, clutching his pounding head with one hand as he glanced up at Reno through broken sunglasses. Another reason to get back at the redhead, Rude idly thought. His vision swam, as the two Renos in his sight glowered down at him and kept edging backwards towards his home.
I wasn't trying for that, Rude wanted to say, but he was too busy trying to refocus on one Reno. He tried to get up, fearing his partner would try to climb the loose rocks and get squashed flat, but balance failed him as pain shot through his head. He grunted, the Rude equivalent of expressing pain, and slumped back on the ground.
As Reno continued walking backwards, crossing the road to the next street, the flickering lights of a certain signboard illuminated his form and reflected off his red hair, the same hair his partner had been trying to rid him off for the past week.
"I hope you fucking die!" Reno yelled gleefully. "Or get your head cracked open by a-"
Reno was still shouting snidely and making a scene of giving Rude the finger when the signboard outside the half-built takeaway shop fell squarely on him.
"I… guess it counts as him shaving Reno?"
"I suppose so. Even if he technically had no other choice. Elena, you're covering their medication bills."
"Whaaat? That's unfair! Shouldn't we all share?"
"It was your idea…"
Rude could hear the pout in Elena's voice without even opening his eyes. "Still… I can't believe the opportunity to actually shave him just came about like that…"
Rude felt the slender hand of his Boss slip something under his pillow, before they all went back to their office to finish up paperwork. Rude waited patiently till the other Turks were gone, lying on the ShinRa hospital bed on his back, and made the effort to keep his breathing even and his eyeballs immobile under their lids. He knew he was only hospitalized because his head needed monitoring, but he still hated the fact that Tseng insisted he be sedated so he could rest properly, and planned to take full advantage of that to miss the teasing and pats on the back for now.
Once their footsteps had faded, Rude cracked an eye open, letting himself get accustomed to the glaring illumination of the fluorescent hospital lights. His nose and throat felt raw, his left eye still aching from where Reno had rammed the pipe in his face, and his head hurt from the alcohol. Rude never got used to hospitals, no matter how many times he got himself injured in the course of his job. Reaching a hand under his pillow, Rude pulled out a standard ShinRa company envelope, ShinRa logo emblazoned on the front.
It had all hundred and eighty dollars in it, too.
Rude groaned softly and ran his hand over his face in frustration, his left eye throbbing at the contact. He hadn't intended to do it for the dare, when he had crawled up to Reno after the signboard fell, and shaved half his head off so he could properly bandage his head and prevent him from bleeding to death. Reno would probably think otherwise, though, and probably would all the way till the day he died.
Reno, meanwhile, was still blissfully unaware of the breeze that could now touch his bare head. He slept like a baby in the next bed, rid of his electrifying energy and speed for once. Right now, he was completely harmless, face blank and almost serene, unlike the brutal killing machine he could be.
Rude was quite sure that harmless would be the last thing Reno would be when he woke. The pink house was going to be nothing compared to the hell that would break loose next.
Rude glanced at the sleeping – bald – redhead in the bed next to him, at both their bruised, battered and bandaged reflections in the window opposite their beds, then to the pool of money sitting in his lap, and sighed a long-suffering sigh.
AN: Prompt – Rude has to shave Reno's hair off, regardless of whether it actually happened or not. (i.e it could be in a dream)
But that wouldn't be fun, would it? :3