. . . Insomnia Redux . . .
"They just... WORK together!" - Drakonlily
So here I was, waiting for the damn guy to stop snoring.
I needed my sleep. I'd been wandering for days and days... not that I counted time. And no, nosy little punk, I wasn't running away from home. Sometimes nationalism needed to be out with the people, sleeping in filthy neo-slums and caravans.
Alright, it was an excuse. I love Wutai, but it gets so gawd awful BORING.
I just needed to sleep. A couple hours, and I would be bounding off into the sunset like a mad mog. Or sunrise. Which way was I going again? See, my concentration was already off.
Two hours. I'd been lying in this hostel for two gawddamn hours. All the other transients were sound asleep, including the snore master on the cot next to me. Well, I'd learned my lesson about being this stealthy disguised commoner...
It blew.
I'd almost go back to the grand Cloud Strife camping trip. At least there was better food. I could kill for a Tifa Special Kickass Ham and Bacon Sandwich. It's a wonder we weren't rolly polly Palmers after meals like that.
Another loud snort. I'd had it. I was going to shut him up if I had to smother him. Pillow in hand, I made my way over to the menace. I was a sneaky ninja... he wouldn't see this coming.
It was when the very large hand was around my neck that I realized I might have been a tad wrong. I'd obviously picked out a fighter... a very large fighter. And from the slight glowiness in his eyes... shit, an old Shinra too.
"What do you want, you little pickpocket?" How rude! I was outraged. Thieves are NOT pickpockets... they have more style than that.
"Gawd... snoring..." I couldn't get out much, considering how my windpipe was a little crunched. He continued to stare at me oddly, and slackened his grip slightly.
"Whatever it is, I'm not for sale," he continued, in that low and dangerous tone. So now I was propositioning him! The heck kind of Shinra was he? I checked him out, but it was just too dark...
Then a glint. Oh gawd Leviathan no...
Big... and bald. I did NOT just run into one of them. Figures. He was supposed to be the quiet one too... seemed awful chatty to me. Where was a good full figured brunette to use as a human shield when you needed one? Hmm, there were a few children around, I'd seen them before...
No dice. At least he'd taken a full appraisal of me and quit the Mideelian death grip on my neck. If there were any marks, I'd take it out of his Materia stash... well, I'd take out of his Materia stash anyway.
I wasn't the Great Ninja Yuffie Kisaragi for nothing.
"So where's your posse, big guy?" I asked, with less sense of tact than Cid on a good day. Sue me, I was just over being a teenager, and I kinda was looking for a challenge... you know, the bigger they are, the harder they...
Alright, lesson learned. Save clichés for when you have a man full of shuriken holes and you're not hanging upside with your arms pinned. I wasn't even facing him. Probably staring at my butt... if he was anything like Wutain old farts, he liked 'em skinny and "innocent" like me.
"Hey! Put me down!" I shouted, hoping to wake everyone up. I stopped for a minute to wait for shuffling.
Silence. Stupid refugee transient punks. I hope you all die of Materia rot of the gonads.
"Glad to see some things never change," he muttered, and I felt the sensation of moving. Great. Now I was going to be gang raped by the likes of cueball here and his neon headed friend. Goody goody. I couldn't wait.
I really wish I had been trained in "escaping from the big silent man of doom" art form. Even if I had, I would have totally failed... just judging by my current state. And the blood was starting to rush to my head... oh, the pretty colors...
Snap out of it Yuffie. Gang rape. Rot of the gonads. I had to focus on the important things.
Cold air. I was outside. It was as dark out here as it was in there... no moon. All sorts of warning bells were going off in my head. But I didn't hear the chittery voice of the more chatty Turk... I just had tall, dark, and shiny here.
And he had stopped moving.
"Let me go you gawd awful pervert!" I shouted again, regaining my voice, "You're going to be sooo dead when the others get out here—"
"There are no others. They would be here by now," he stated plainly and then promptly let go of me. I relaxed so I wouldn't hurt myself when I hit the ground, but I landed on something squishy instead. Squishy and... Leviathan's piss, it smelled awful...
Had he just... oh HELL no... the Great Yuffie Kisaragi was NOT in a trashcan. I didn't even know they had these out here.
I scrambled out of there, and looked around. The prick had disappeared already. How could someone that big just... DISAPPEAR! I was the stealthy one! A ninja's got to be streamlined, you know!
I stomped back inside, surely he had some things to grab before he disappeared, and was shocked to see that he had lain back down on his cot, and was snoring away again. How in the great name of Bahamut could someone do that? It'd only been five minutes, or less, since I'd so rudely been dumped in the trash.
You are so dead, baldy.
---
It was daylight before I could exact my revenge.
A quiet day, the perfectly warm kind that begged for people to eat their food outside... just what Cueball had decided to do. Right under a tree, so that he could get some shade. Poor fool... he didn't realize that I was like a cat. A tree like this was old hat. What sort of Turk was he?
It was just too easy.
My own special brand of "water" balloon was in my hand... appropriate recourse was something I'd fine tuned in the last couple of years. The mixture in the balloon was from everyday objects, but in the proportions I used, it would do two things: one, stink up whoever touched the liquid, and two, make them very pink.
He'd look like those weird colored chocobo eggs. I couldn't wait.
"I suggest you let go of whatever weapon you hold in your hand and get down," he rumbled. NO, he was SO not supposed to do that... making me think I'd gotten him, the underhanded little... wait. I still had the balloon in my hand. All I had to do was "accidentally" throw it full force at his bulls eye of a head.
I did my best jump throw. Unfortunately, it just didn't work. Somehow, I landed before the balloon did... and ended up in it's path.
I was stinky, pink, and some big Turk with sunglasses was laughing at me. Well, his shoulders were shaking, so I figured that's what he was doing. Creepy weirdo. I'd shove my shuriken so far up his ass he'd gain a new figure.
I stomped off. Another day then. I would get this Turk if it was the last thing I did. A Kisaragi Grudge could last far into my next three lifetimes... I had plenty of time. I just needed ideas.
For now, I would trail him.
---
I had aged. My bones were weary, and I probably had nasty wrinkles all over my face. Five months... five MONTHS, and I'd tried every trick in the book. Even a few illegal things. I'd talked with Nanaki, tried to steal some stuff to use from the Shinra mansion... to no avail.
Rude, as I'd learned was his name, simply could not be tricked or embarrassed. He was a fortress, an impenetrable wall of masculinity. I was starting to wonder how in Shiva's name someone could just be that... alert.
I knew it wasn't a Turk thing. The blond and the redhead had proven that point.
Not only that, he never seemed to stay anywhere for more than three days... and it was like clockwork; his arrival and departure times were in synch with the rising and setting sun... he shaved his head every two days. He was a machine, and he was going... nowhere.
Just wandering. Like me. Confused me to no end.
I was just so... tired. I hardly slept. Every waking moment was spent... heck, I didn't even remember what had started this in the first place. Maybe I'd just sleep for a while, this counter sure was nice...
"Not a good place to sleep. Move." I didn't even have the chance to respond before I was yanked from the stool. I was legal, gawdammit! Twenty fucking years old! And when I wanted to sleep I wanted to...
Oh, it was just him. Probably was going to dump me in the trash again. I hoped the showers weren't too far... it'd taken me days to get rid of the stink from my balloon.
"The hell do you care," I muttered, feeling my eyelids droop again. And my legs were jelly. I'd gone... five days was it without sleep? Gawd Yuffie, that was dumb... it's not like you could sneak up on him in his sleep anyway.
"That, was a bar," he punctuated, "You are a young woman nearly passed out. Bad mix." Didn't know you cared so much, slimeball. Waiting for the opportune moment?
"Where are all your goons! I thought you traveled in packs!" So what if I sounded delirious! What needed to be said needed to be said! But I didn't feel nearly so cocky once I saw the cringe on his face.
No happy departure?
"They're off with their own lives now..." he whispered, still dragging me who knows where, "Married the goddamn enemy and everything." Even if I saw pink bunnies in the corner of my vision, I was instantly interested. Weren't my friends the enemy?
Right, my friends. With the exception of Nanaki, I wondered if any of them even noticed my absence. Probably too busy screwing and running businesses, and making babies, and whatever else people did when they weren't hunting sociopaths.
Heck, I didn't even know what I was doing.
"The enemy?" I asked, settling down now that he'd dropped me, "Aww, did you Turkeys hook up with the Savior clan?" Glare. That was much better than the cringe.
"Whatever. Go to sleep," he said, and crossed to the other side of the room... I was in a bed! An actual soft bed of goodness! Ah...
I didn't hear any snoring as I completely passed out.
---
It was the third day. He was gone by dawn, and I'd slept way past noon. Gawdammit. He'd be hard to track, especially in such a populated area. I tried to hop out of bed... and fell flat on my already flat face.
Great. I was still exhausted. Or my shoe laces were untied... nope, that wasn't it.
"You get 'sleep deprivation' do you?" So he hadn't left, the sly punk. And he was throwing his big educated vocabulary at me... well, I'd been tutored by some of the finest scholars! I wasn't some stupid Slum rat!
"And you get 'permanence' do you?" I returned, trying yet again to stand up. Flop again. That was just... great. I was weaker than... well, it's best not to slander the dead. He glares. I'm getting used to seeing his eyes though... makes the glare that much more potent. Wonder why he'd usually wear them. He was more intense this way.
"Why?" he asks, and I'm taken aback. Um... why what? The heck was he getting at?
"Why what?" I voiced, not intending to keep my thoughts to myself. Well, I never keep my thoughts to myself. Intention was perhaps a bad way of putting it.
"Why are you still following me?" he said, plain and slow. And that's when it hit me.
Why WAS I following him?
I had been watching him for so long out of this revenge plot on my dignity... but after five months? Even I was taking that a little too far. So if my petty little revenge wasn't the issue...
Oh, GAWD Yuffie. You clingy little... gah.
"Because you're interesting?" was what my mouth said instead. Thank Shiva that it had chosen well for once. I didn't want to admit that following him around gave me something to do that was exciting, that seeing someone as restless as me was... comforting. That his daily routines showed more about him than I had seen from any other person... gawd, just pour on the sap, why don't you?
And I used to think that of Cloud. Rude had totally won first place in the "irrational moving around" contest.
He blinked, and I thought yet again what a novelty seeing his eyes was. Dark eyes. The glow only became visible during the nighttime... for now he seemed so startlingly normal.
He smiled. It was small and weak, but it was there. Also, he crossed the room to come and sit on the edge of the bed. My previous gang rape warnings now felt something akin to stomach flutters.
Gawd Yuffie, just shut up.
"Do we have a truce?" he asked, and I nodded absently. I was a creepy pervy stalker person. Ninja skills put to good use. That was for certain. Now that my "cover" was blown... would I ever get this chance again?
"Sure, but I have one condition," I replied, time to put on the charm, "That you not kill, rape, or water balloon me should I chose to tag along." The smile again.
Turk... meet ninja. Boy... meet girl.
"Ok."
Whirlwind romance? Lots of hot sex under the overly used and described moon? Doubtful. But this was... a start. And I hoped a spark. Maybe I would annoy him in four hours... maybe we'd get married and live with lots of loud and quiet children for forty years.
I used my quick reflexes to give him a quick peck on the cheek. Not like I hadn't randomly kissed a guy before... that was old hat. And judging by the startled look on his face, for him... it wasn't. Well, not the random ones anyway.
"You've got yourself a partner. Where to next?"
AN: Requested by Drakon in exchange for pr0n. Well, not really. But close. XD