Rude had to marvel at the way everyone in the Turk department was avoiding work. Not that there was much to be done in the way of work; peace, no matter how temporary, had a way of tossing a wrench in the gears of the Turk department. Rude had peeked into every office after he had fetched himself a mug of coffee and had had to restrain laughter at the antics some of his co-workers were taking to avoid work yet look busy. Tseng was sorting out his office supplies. When Rude looked in, he was sorting his paperclips based on size, color, and, judging by the way he tossed them around in his hands, weight. Elena had been less interesting when Rude poked his head into her office, her blonde head stuffed into a novel that, judging by the cover, was sappy, romantic, and hurl worthy. Rude peered into Reno's office last, expecting to find something outlandish, and only found himself disappointed.
Reno was sitting at his computer, a half-eaten apple in one hand and a computer mouse in the other. Rude raised an eyebrow and approached Reno's desk, a decision he would later regret. "Reno, what are you doing?"
Reno looked up, a grin crossing his face. "Shopping."
Rude walked behind the desk and peered at Reno's computer, eyebrow still cocked on his forehead. "You're getting that?"
"Yeah, but they're out of stock online." Reno set his apple on the desk, opening a drawer of his desk and rifling through it. "That's why I'm going to go to their store in the mall to get one."
"Reno, after your last DUI Tseng revoked your driving privileges for a month. You've still got two weeks left before you can drive again. How are you planning to get to the mall?" Rude sipped at his coffee, watching Reno carefully.
"You're taking me." Reno pulled two large oranges out of the drawer and set them on his desk, closing the drawer with a loud snap.
Rude blinked, snorting softly. "No, I'm not." Even though Rude had nothing to do, he still felt that he had better things to do than drive Reno to the mall.
"Yes, you are." Reno held up the oranges, his grin wiped from his tattooed face. His teal eyes glinted dangerously as he stared Rude down and Rude was pretty sure his sunglasses were the only thing that kept Reno from sucking his soul out of his eyes with a few well-placed blinks.
"Why should I?" Rude frowned. He never liked when Reno got that look in his eyes.
"Because I have two oranges." Reno held both oranges in one hand and picked his apple back up. Rude blinked at Reno as the redhead sunk his teeth into his apple, a small drop of juice dribbling down his chin. Rude looked at the oranges, sipping his coffee thoughtfully as he contemplated his options.
Rude drove down the streets of Midgar, Reno's antics pulling the corners of his mouth into a deep frown. As Reno gave him bad direction after bad direction from his phone's GPS, he was beginning to wonder just how bad two oranges could have been. Reno's directions were certainly going to get them killed, so Rude was beginning to think he should have chosen the oranges.
"Take a left." Reno stared at his phone, teal eyes squinting sharply as he tried to read the far too small map on his screen.
"Are you sure this time? We seem to only take lefts!" Rude took the left as instructed, certain that Reno was going to get them so lost that they would end up all the way in Modeoheim. Rude didn't even remember Midgar having a mall.
"I'm telling you what the map says, dammit!" Reno frowned, his eyes nearly shut from squinting.
"If we aren't there in the next five minutes, we're turning around and going back to work!" Rude kept his hands on the wheel despite the insane urge he had to wrap them around Reno's scrawny neck. It felt like they had been going in circles for hours. They had even ended up in the slums for a brief and horrifying period of time. It wasn't even supposed to be possible to reach the slums from the upper plate without taking the train and, to Rude's knowledge, they had never even driven across the train tracks. They were back on the upper plate now and, hopefully, closer to this mall Reno wanted to go to.
"Whatever, just keep driving!" Reno looked up from his phone.
"I am! How far are we?" Rude couldn't tell if they were close or not. Apparently he needed to familiarize himself with more of Midgar than just Sector Eight.
Reno blinked and pointed to the right. "Over there! That's the mall!"
"Thank Gaia!" Rude followed Reno's finger, realizing as he turned into the parking lot of the run down mall that had they turned right an hour ago they would have been at the mall and done by now. He decided to keep that information to himself as he parked his car and stepped out onto sunbaked pavement.
Reno rushed into the mall, Rude following behind. His face was lit with glee that Rude didn't think he deserved to possess. They walked past the few shoppers milling in and out of the entrance, Reno practically skipping while Rude did his best to restrain the urge to trip him. Reno took a quick look at the graffiti covered store directory before heading towards the store he so desperately wanted to go to. Rude followed, not sure how Reno had been able to decipher a graffiti coated map when he couldn't even manage to read a clean one.
Once Reno found the store he was looking for, Rude sighed in relief, knowing that his torment was nearly at its end. He let Reno go into the store alone, not wanting to be associated with the redhead when he knew what the man was buying. Toy stores were just not up Rude's alley, but Reno loved them. Reno was such a kid sometimes. Rude cleaned his sunglasses on his jacket while he waited, noting that everyone who passed by the store was giving him a wide berth. He and Reno should have changed out of their thick, stuffy business suits before going to a toy store. It probably looked suspicious.
Reno finally exited the store, a large bag in hand and a grin on his face. He grabbed Rude by the arm and tugged him out of the mall, earning the pair more stares than Rude wanted to get. Rude drove back to work, knowing that he was going to have to explain to Tseng why they had been gone so long. He didn't want to admit that he had felt threatened by a pair of oranges, but Reno was creative and Rude knew Tseng would understand.
Reno tinkered with what he had bought all the way back to headquarters, his tongue between his teeth as he assembled his new prize. Rude was able to get back to work with more ease than he had had getting to the store; it seemed that Reno's GPS was able to give verbal directions as well as tiny, pixilated map directions. Rude wished he had known that earlier; it would have saved them a lot of time.
Rude poured himself a new cup of coffee before heading back to his office, leaving Reno to play with his new toy unsupervised. Rude sat down and resumed the busywork he had been occupying himself with before the fiasco of a drive to the mall, glad to have Reno occupied and out of his hair. He wished an assignment would come in, though. It was very boring to simply sit and wait for work to come.
Rude had finished three puzzles and was halfway through a fourth when a loud buzzing made its way into his office. He blinked and looked up, wishing immediately that he had shut his door. The large toy helicopter Reno had bought earlier whizzed into his office, a bag hung from the hooked cable attached to its underbelly. Rude assumed that there was a camera on the helicopter that let Reno know where he was flying it because the redhead was nowhere to be seen as the helicopter lowered the bag to Rude's eyelevel, prompting him to take it. Rude sighed and unhooked the bag, shaking his head as the helicopter flew back out of his office. He upturned the bag onto his desk and laughed as two large, juicy oranges rolled onto his crossword puzzle. He picked one up and started to peel it, following the loud whirring of Reno's helicopter towards the redhead's office to see if he could get in on the mischief. Crossword puzzles were boring, but helicopters that had little missile launchers, crane hooks, and video cameras on them were most definitely not boring.
Author's Note: Well, this story has been floating around in my head for a while now. It stems from an unfinished one-shot I found in my folders titled 'oranges' that had only one line written down in it (I'm not sure why I bothered to save a nearly blank word file but I'm glad I did now!), a crazy trip to the mall with my best friend Ben where I was supposed to be the navigator and my GPS didn't want to work right, and a picture drawn for me a while ago by Geovanni-Eklpiz ( gallery/30789397#/d4jpxle) of Reno flying a toy helicopter. All of that, made this.