Elena laid in her bed, sighing heavily as she listened to Reno get ready for bed in the other room. It didn't seem like the red-head was able to do anything quietly. Elena and Reno were on a mission together in Rocket Town and Elena sincerely wished that she was anywhere else. She would've taken a mission in the war torn Shinra hating villages in Wutai over a mission with Reno. The entire trip Reno had been doing all he could to push her buttons and make her angry. Elena didn't quite understand the allure making her upset had for Reno, but she was sure it had something to do with the red-head's undisguised love for being punished. She had already slapped him so hard that she had bruised his tattooed cheeks.
Elena groaned in frustration as Reno watched his television in the room adjoined to hers, turning the volume up as loud as he could manage to get it. She wished that Rude hadn't gotten sick. The bald man would've been valuable on this mission purely for his ability to make Reno shut the hell up and go to sleep. Elena sat up, knowing that it was pointless to ask Reno to turn his television down and more pointless to try sleeping while it was on. She decided to pull out her own phone and give the bald man she was missing a call.
Rude picked up on the third ring. "Hello?"
Elena wrinkled her nose; Rude sounded awful. "Hey, Rude, you feeling okay?"
"No. I feel like shit. You?" Rude coughed into the phone, his voice sounding like he had swallowed gravel.
"I'm going to kill Reno, but other than that I'm fine." Elena walked to her mini-fridge and pulled out an orange. She was tempted to grab one of the many small bottles of liquor provided by the hotel, but she was sure that she'd catch flak from Tseng about drinking while on a mission.
"Oh, he's got his television up, right?" Rude blew his nose into the receiver.
Elena nodded and started to carve up her orange, pretending the ripe orange flesh was Reno's skin as she chopped it off. "Yeah, he does."
"Okay, I'll give you a tip. There's an app you can download onto your phone for a gil that's a soothing noise maker. If you play that as loud as you can, you'll get his attention and he'll stop. Works every damn time." Rude's chuckling sounded like a blender with a bad attitude had crawled down his throat.
Elena blinked, a brutalized and bleeding hunk of orange dangling from her fingertips. "Really? That works?"
"Trust me, Elena, it works." Rude cleared his throat noisily.
"If this works, Rude, I'm bringing you a bottle of that brandy you like." Elena smiled and popped the hunk of orange into her mouth.
"I'd rather have a straight shot of that weird throat numbing spray but I'll take what I can get." Rude coughed into the phone loud enough to make Elena cringe.
"Get some rest, okay? I'll let you know if it works or not." Elena chewed her orange, imagining that it was Reno's soft, soft head squishing between her teeth.
"Alright. Night, Lena." Rude hung up without another cough.
Elena got down to business quickly, setting her brutalized orange into the mini-fridge for later and started searching her phone for the application Rude had told her about. It didn't take long, and soon she was a gil poorer and an application richer. She sat in bed, turning the volume to its highest setting before shutting off the light and tucking herself in. She pressed play and waited.
As soon as the high pitched croon of a whale sounded, the television in the other room went quiet. The sound of Reno swearing seemed eerily quiet in comparison. The whale crooned and squeaked at Elena's bedside, making her raise an eyebrow. She had no idea how people slept to such odd noises. She would learn to sleep to them, however, if it meant that Reno would be quiet. She was about to call Rude and thank him for his suggestion again, when the door between the two rooms was opened with force. Elena looked up and found that she could only stare at Reno in disbelief.
The red-head was wearing a nearly transparent nightgown with faded orange sleeves covered in a pattern of small pink hearts, sunglasses, and flip-flops. 'Too Hot!' was written on his chest in girly orange letters, the writing only visible because the fabric around it had turned nearly invisible. Elena's jaw dropped in awe at the mixture of horror and hilarity that was Reno. "What the hell are you wearing!"
"A nightgown! I've had it since I was eight, so don't judge! It's fucking comfortable!" Reno stomped over to Elena's phone and silenced it. "How do you know about the whale noises? How much did Rude tell you!"
Elena laughed, unable to contain herself. "He just said it would shut you up! Oh my Gaia, why on Earth are you wearing that! It's transparent!"
"If you turn the noises on again I swear I'll shoot you! And stop making fun of my nightgown! Guys are allowed to wear them too!" Reno set his hands on his hips, frowning darkly at her.
"Guys shouldn't wear ones that have little pink hearts on them!" Elena plucked the thin sleeve surrounding Reno's bicep.
"Shut up! I don't wear it in public so it doesn't matter!" Reno batted Elena's hand away. "I'll keep the television on low all you had to do was ask!"
Elena laughed and sat up; cringing as she accidentally looked too low in the process. "Shit, Reno! Wear boxers with that thing! That's so nasty!"
"Shut up! My junk isn't nasty! Besides, unless you're a lesbian you should like looking at my junk!" Reno frowned, not bothering to shield himself even though she could see more than she had asked to see of him.
"Straight girls don't like looking at junk that's crooked, Reno!" Elena began hyperventilating with laughter. It was all too much! Reno was dressed in a nightgown that was meant for a little girl and, to top it off, he had been wearing it regularly enough over the years to fade out the fabric to the point of transparency! How had she never noticed!
Reno flushed, his tattoos blending into his cheekbones. "It's not crooked! You just saw it at a bad angle!"
Elena held her stomach as she began getting a stitch in her side from laughter. "It's crooked! Crooked and sad!"
Reno frowned and stomped out of the room. "You're crooked and sad!" His juvenile comeback had Elena gasping and crying on her bed.
Elena laughed as Reno slammed the door shut, trying to force herself to calm down. It took her a few minutes, minutes that were spent carefully storing the image into her brain so she could use it later for laughs, but she finally managed to catch her breath enough to call Rude back.
"It worked, didn't it?" Rude rasped into the phone instead of a greeting.
"Like a charm! Rude, have you seen Reno's nightgown before?" Elena giggled into the receiver, her breath coming in short gasps.
"Oh Gaia, he wore the too hot one again, didn't he?" Rude chuckled softly into Elena's ear.
"Yeah! I'm dying over here! It's for a little girl!" Elena laughed and Rude had to wait another five minutes for her to calm down enough to hold a conversation.
"Don't tease him too much over it; it's the last thing his shitty mom ever gave him before she dumped him into the foster care system. It was his older sister's first. He's sensitive about it." Rude wiped the smile off Elena's face with ease.
Elena blinked in shock. "Oh, I wasn't aware. I'll apologize tomorrow. Hey, why did the whale noises work?"
"Well, a few years back Reno took a cruise on his vacation. While he was standing near the edge of the boat, flirting up some girl, a whale surfaced and did its little water spout thing, you know, how they breathe? Anyways, the whale spewed watery mucus all over him. So now Reno hates whales and anything to do with them." Rude chuckled and blew his nose noisily.
Elena laughed and filed away her blackmail, lying back in her bed. "I'm definitely going to bring you alcohol and cough drops when I get done with this stupid mission."
"Thanks. I appreciate it. I'll make sure I'm not wearing my nightgown when you come over." Rude sneezed and coughed hard into the phone, giving Elena time enough to register what he had said.
"Wait a minute, you have a nightgown!" Elena blinked in shock. Rude was one of the manliest men she knew, besides Tseng of course. How could he wear something as girly as a nightgown?
Elena could almost hear Rude grinning into the phone. "I bought it on Reno's recommendation and since they don't really sell men's nightgowns, it's girly. I won't tell you what it looks like, but I will tell you this before I hang up and leave you to your nightmares about whales and Reno's nightgown; nightgowns are the most comfortable things I've ever worn. It's better than sleeping in the nude."
Elena gaped in shock as Rude hung up, staring at the screen of her phone. Why did all the men she knew have to be so strange?
Author's Note: Reno's nightgown is based on…..MINE! Actually, I'm wearing the very nightgown as I write this piece. I've had it since I was eight, but since I'm a girl it's totally acceptable for me to wear nightgowns to bed. And yes, I have grown since I was eight; it still fits because when I got the gown it was way too big. It's way too small now, but it's still comfortable!
And the whale story is probably my favorite part of this whole one shot!