Author's Note: I wrote this in August of 2006 and I guess I just kind of forgot to put it up here. It was a prompt by Scarr C, with the theme of Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover. So that's that.
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Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover
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They'd been meeting a lot, whether it was on the streets of the little port city he tended to frequent when his bar tab in Junon warranted skipping town, or trekking through the woods outside Mideel on completely unrelated business
They'd been meeting a lot, whether it was on the streets of the little port city he tended to frequent when his old bar tab in Junon had warranted skipping town, or trekking through the woods outside Mideel on completely unrelated business.
"If I didn't know better," he said, not even looking up from what he was reading, "I'd say you were stalking me." He paused, then closed the book and leveled her with a gaze. "And frankly, I don't know better. Thus, if two and two still make four, you're stalking me."
"Please," she sighed, sitting down in the plushy chair right next to him. She was dressed in the latest fall fashion, that being a wooly black duster and leather gloves. Underneath it, he was sure that her little ninja self was pulling her hair and shoving her face in the sandbox. "You're probably stalking me; a book store? Please. If that's not a pictures-only sex guide, I'll faint."
He rolled his eyes. "As immature as ever, I see."
She had become a kind of treat to run into, he supposed. They hadn't exactly become friends since that whole 'Meteor fuck-mess,' as he so eloquently put it, but they'd come to some kind of irritated disagreement.
When he thought of Yuffie, Reno thought of a small, irritating thing in the back of his head that just wouldn't come off its post until he addressed it formally, but there stood his conscience with a gun in its mouth and a 'Don't You Dare' sign over its head. Or something. Less complicatedly, Reno compared her to a scab. A scab with really great legs and eyelashes, but a scab nonetheless.
So they just bitched at each other until one of them stood up and pretended to go to the bathroom, then they ran into each other a few months later.
"'As ever?'" she repeated. "You act like we've known each other for –"
"Years?" Reno cut her off and watched realization creep over her face. "It'll be six next month. Fucked up, isn't it?" She was still staring dumbly at him. "I'm the one who went through Mako treatments; I'm the one who forgot half his life because Turk policy is to never discuss your childhood and where you came from; I'm the one that got knocked in the head by your goddamn metal star kabob piece of shit thing – " He paused and laughed at himself, as he liked to do. He felt it kept him younger. "I'm the one turning thirty-nine, and you're the one who can't tell what day it is."
She had ordered a latte somewhere in there, but still paused to furrow her brows at him once more. "You're turning thirty-nine?"
He sipped at his own drink, setting the book on the table. Obviously, none of that had gotten through to her at all. "That is most definitely not the point, goddamn whipper-snapper." He put his feet up on a stack of newspaper and unconvincingly glared at her.
Yuffie smiled fondly at him. As much as she didn't like to admit this, there was some strange charm to the redheaded antagonist of her would-be account of life. As much of a thorn in the side as he'd been six years ago – she still didn't trust his math skills, and would have to think hard about that later – she'd taken a kind of liking to him, much the way a scab takes a liking to its host. She bothered him, he scratched at her, and at the end of the day, they still coexisted semi-peacefully and, differing from their physical relationship, slept soundly with each other at night.
"Don't give me that look."
"Sorry," she sort of giggled. She knew he liked her just as much ( unknown to most, he'd taken her under his wing for a while and shown her some alternative self-defense styles ) but was too used to getting paid to be an asshole to cut her some slack. Besides, they wouldn't have gotten along nearly as well if they actually had gotten along well.
They sat in a silence while she pulled her gloves off and he shifted around in his chair. He'd given up drinking a few years back, but still felt the need to ingest something addictive, so he'd moved on to gourmet coffee. And books. He'd started reading in college after his first Mako treatment to freak his roommate out by illuminating the pages, but when he realized it wasn't having an effect anymore, he'd started paying attention to the words and decided that he might read a few. Since then, he hadn't not had a book on his person at all times; in fact, he looked so distracted during most of his missions because half of his mind was on a twist in some fantasy novel plot.
When Tseng had admonished him for this, he'd just kicked his feet up and replied, 'That just means I'm too fucking good for distractions, silly little Wute.' The dock in his pay had, for once, not been worth it.
The redhead scratched at his stubble for a second, then started twirling a loose strand of hair around his finger as he turned his attention to the pouring rain out the window. Businessmen on their lunch breaks ran to and from their cars frantically, newspapers stretched uselessly over their heads, collars pulled up to their goddamn ears. "What are you doing here, anyway? Trying to do more than just look like a drowned rat?"
"I don't know, really," she replied. Her latte came and she tipped the barista with a warm nod. "I was on the phone with Daddy, kind of wandering around – you know I'm going to be queen come next spring, right?" He shook his head, but she waved it off. "Anyway, I am. You should come to the ceremony. I was on the phone with him, and suddenly I wound up here just as it started to rain. Browsed the romance novels for a while, then I found you here."
"Damn kids and your romance," Reno muttered.
The ninja laughed out loud at that one, and his face plainly said that he'd missed half of the joke. "I want to still know you in twenty years, Reno. You'll be the most bitter old man on all the Planet." She stood up and pretended to have a broken hip, growling, "Ol' Man Reno, out on 'is porch wit' da hose, sprayin' dem damn hoodlum kids." He scooped up his book and hit her in the shin with it, but she only laughed harder and sat down. He'd gotten the other half of the joke, and he didn't think it was all that funny
"Hey, speaking of you being an old man, when are you going to have some grandkids for me to influence?"
Reno actually spit coffee out at that one, and it was in that second that their facial expressions traded places. "Grandkids?" he spluttered. "Shit, Legs, I'd have to have kids before that. And a wife before that. And hell, a girlfriend before that one."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "What did you call me?"
"Grandkids," he laughed. "I've got a fourteen-year-old cat, if that counts for anything. He's like a kid. Lives off my gil, watches too much damn TV, and pisses all over everything when I get him drunk. You can come and try to be his bad influence, but I think he'd take after his old man and just scratch the skin off your leg."
She was going to ask again what he'd called her, but a window-rattling bout of thunder shook the air up a little less than her thoughts and she forgot what she was going to say. She pulled her hand off his wrist and hoped she'd done it before he noticed.
He'd noticed, but he decided not to embarrass her too many times in one sitting.
"You don't have a girlfriend?" she asked quickly. "'Cause, you know, the image. Boozehound, womanizer, all that stuff."
Reno stuck his tongue out at her. "Oh, the things we can put in print if we want to. No lady for me since my sophomore year in high school; I'd spent most of my time on my studies, and after that, I was too busy getting rid of people to settle down and start a family. Same goes for Rude and Tseng; poor guy had no surviving family at his funeral aside from us." His eyes grew dark and thoughtful, as they always did when his fallen comrade got brought into a conversation.
"The wedding ring?" The ninja hadn't noticed the look on his face, but all at once it was gone.
He twisted the band on his left ring finger. "It was a badass ring, but they only had one size, and that's where it fit. Plus, they recommend you don't wear jewelry while operating a stick that shoots out big fucking charges of electricity, so I had to go with the left hand." There was another quiet moment, accented by the roll of thunder, and the conversation seemed to die off on its own. "Any more asinine questions for me, kid?"
Yuffie gave this one thought, because she knew he was a sucker for answering questions. If it didn't involve his personal life, he would answer anything at great length and enjoy himself while he did it. In her attempts to be annoying and stupid and inquisitive, she knew she was giving him random bouts of entertainment, and she felt kind of good about it for some reason. Her eyes suddenly lit up. "Oh, actually, I do. Godo used to make me do this one to train me how to properly judge character when I was going through the shinobi exams. If you were to assign a book title to each of the Turks, what would they be?"
He sat stunned for a second, kind of surprised at the depth of the question, but decided that she had a whole collection of hidden traits that he'd started uncovering some years ago. "Book titles, eh?" He sincerely thought, chewing on his stirring straw, and started with the easy one. "Well, Rude, he wouldn't have a title, but he'd be an illustration in a police novel or something. You know, some cheesy little drawing; badass guy in a cloak taking a swing at a cop, knocking the shit out of him. Probably a whoosh and a pow drawn in the frame somewhere. You know?"
Yuffie shrugged and nodded, as if saying that she had the same idea, but didn't interrupt him with a comment.
"Tseng. . .Tseng. . ." His face took on a lot of different forms as he thought about this one. "Tseng would probably be something like, The Last Great Warrior or some shit like that. Something real elegant and brave and what have you, Holy rest his soul." There was more sincerity in his voice than she'd heard before, but it was gone just as fast as most of his emotions.
He chuckled. "As for Laney, that one's just as easy. Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover. Self-help book mixed with a guide on being a whore."
Yuffie actually gasped, but he wasn't apologetic. "What, you think I'm kidding? Her bed's seen more guys than anyone else in the company. The rumor that Scarlet's the slut was a mistake; someone spotted the wrong blonde at a party and word spread too quick for anyone to realize it'd gone too far." He took a drink and shook his head, like he didn't trust his own words. "Nah, fuck, she's a head case. That's why we never got along, I think. She's like a. . .a. . .man-onizer." Again, he laughed at himself.
The quiet settled as she took in his assessments, but he had the next word. "As for me. . .well, you tell me, babe. What book title would you give me?"
Before she'd even thought of it, "Prince Charming" had flown out of her mouth, far too clearly for its own good. She fumbled for words under his bemused gaze, turning her eyes to the ground and not realizing that the black turtleneck did nothing to hide the red flushing across her face. She quietly excused herself to the bathroom, took up her bag, and blatantly walked out the front door without another word.
He laughed quietly for a while, read a few more pages, and paid both their tabs before exiting out the back, sparing her the idea of sharing that cab with him.