Tseng rubbed his forehead, an eerie feeling this wasn't going to end well. He was stuck in an airport with a coworker he'd rather not have picked to travel with, and a cranky boss who hadn't touched any coffee for at least 24 hours.
Rufus Shinra glared at Reno. "You lost the bags?!" The redhead grinned drunkenly, waving an empty martini glass around.
"Chill, Ruffy - we're fine, yo . I asked the pretty lady to watch 'em." Reno nodded towards the empty barstool seat to his right, making the blonde run his fingers through his perfectly combed hair frustratedly. Tseng shook his head exasperatedly rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Leave it to Reno to lose the important things.
"Our tickets were in there! I trusted you to not lose them, and you managed to do just that!" He was tempted to strangle the redhead, a vein starting to pulse on the blonde's left temple. "A 4 fucking hour layover and you manage to delay us even more!" Dealing with Reno's antics, intentional or not, forced stress to appear where it didn't exist to begin with.
The red-haired Turk chuckled gleefully. "Don't worry, Shacho - I got us a plan."
Rufus raised an eyebrow. "A plan? Mind sharing this plan?" Reno grinned, but as he was about to speak, Tseng clamped a hand over his mouth. The redhead's glazed over eyes flickered towards the dark dot on the raven-haired Turk leader's forehead, a goofy grin plastered on his face.
Reno caused enough stress as usual. Stress tended to multiply when he was drunk.
"Half thought-up plans while drunk never work out. Don't bother asking him, Sir."
-
"What makes you think I want to stay here?" Rufus stood in the doorway, not liking the sight in front of him. If the peeling paint on the walls and the spider web in the corner wasn't a big enough indicator, his slight twitching was. The room wasn't exactly the best, but it was the only one left available. At least the beds looked like they hadn't been touched, and neither did the fold-out couch.
It didn't appear to be a horrible room. Except when Reno mentioned something about it looking like a place for one-night-stands.
Which earned him a black eye from Rufus.
"Sir, it was either here or sleeping in the airport overnight."
"I thought this was a 5-star motel." Tseng shook his head, his hand holding Reno up despite how drunk the redhead was. The red haired Turk's head bobbed with each slight movement of the dark haired leader.
"Never said it was, boss. Motels ain't any stars 'cept one." Reno's voice came out in a lazy drawl, his eyes halfway open. "Takes time, yo."
Tseng sighed, flinching from the scent of the redhead's breath. "Reno, this is not the time for your exploits of what we don't want to know about."
Reno grinned mischievously, his hand running up Tseng's thigh. "What makes ya think you don't wanna know?" The Turk leader flinched, twisting Reno's wrist firmly and dropping the redhead with a thud on the ground beside the twin bed.
"Go wake yourself up, or I will make you take a cold shower."
The redhead shrugged, clumsily pulling himself to his feet. He wobbled for about a minute - that was all it took to reach the bathroom before collapsing. Rufus shook his head, cautiously running his hand over the bed cover. Knowing the Turk and his drinking habits, Reno would be out for a while. This was entirely his fault. If he wasn't so careless, things like this didn't happen. Things like checking into a cheap sleezy porno-type hotel room.
"I'll see if I can get another set of tickets for a flight out tomorrow." Tseng pulled out his cellphone, frowning. No service. Damn. His eyes scanned the room quickly, looking for a phone possibly hidden in the room somewhere.
But no dice.
"I'm going to see if I can find a working phone." Rufus, who was now seated on the couch, a tv remote in hand, gave a curt nod. And with that, Tseng stepped outside, closing the door behind him. The blonde's clear blue eyes flickered from the small screen to the luggage lined up against a wall. All of which was not completely unbruised.
Airports were painful and time-consuming. Since the security was much more tightened than it used to be, going through the metal detectors and security personnel having to perform pat-down searches on him each and every time he went through the airport made him consider other options. His appearance seemed to hint that he needed to be watched when passing through security.
All because he had the face of a potential terrorist. Reno stating this aloud caused all three of them to be detained for questioning at the airport they'd come from.
The redhead was getting more of his weekly pay docked for causing the aggravation.
Hence why Reno had a bruise on his neck from being strangled to death.
Rufus yawned, rubbing his eyes. Having to get up as early as 4 was irritating. Due to Reno's mouth and the incident at security, they barely made it to the flight on time. The blonde severely considered firing Reno countless times, but never went through with it - the redhead was too good of a Turk, idiot or not. Despite his lack of respect for following the dress code and coming into work drunk in the mornings, he still had a name and reputation for himself.
A hand gripped the blonde's pantleg, one that belonged to the intoxicated redhead on the floor.
"Oi, Shacho."
Rufus' eyes narrowed, breaking the redhead's grasp from around his ankle by kicking him away. "What do you want, Reno?"
Reno grinned, pulling himself up onto the couch with a sly drunken look on his face.
"Nothin' much, yo." He slowly slid himself close enough to Rufus that he was inches from the blonde's face. Rufus scowled, his eyebrow twitching slightly, repulsed by Reno's breath.
"If you value your life, get the hell off of me."
The redhead's teal eyes scanned the president's face, his expression widening into his goofy grin. "Don't worry, sweetheart - nothing bad's gonna happen."
"Sweetheart?!" Rufus' eyes widened, a very pissed off look in his glare. "What the fuck do you think I am, a girl?!" The redhead's hand pushed against his shoulder and slid down his sleeve, failing to pin the blonde to the couch, and he slipped off onto the floor with a very loud thud.
He wasn't expecting to hit Rufus' knee on the way down.
Reno groaned, doubling over in pain and curling into a fetal ball on the floor. "Fuuuuck . . . that hurt . . ."
"Serves you right, Reno."
"Sir, what just happened?" The blonde glanced up, seeing Tseng standing against the door. Reno slowly uncurled, whimpering like a hurt dog before curling under the covers of the twin bed.
"Nothing you need to worry about, Tseng - Reno needs a bag of ice, since he managed to hurt himself again."
-
Rufus crossed his arms, glaring at a tired whiny redhead sitting across from him at the airport Starbucks. "It would have been nice to not wake up in the middle of the night with someone warm against me." Tseng calmly handed the blonde the coffee he had ordered before sitting down at the table.
"I'm sorry I can't control what I'm capable of when asleep," Reno snapped, glaring at Rufus before looking away from the pain in his aching head.
"I don't see why we had to get up so damn early." The redhead winced, rubbing his left temple. The hangover was just settling in, and he was not in the mood to hear Rufus yelling at him.
"Reno, our replacement flight doesn't leave for another hour." Tseng dropped two travel-size packets of ibuprofen beside Reno's arm. "So shut up and keep your comments to yourself." The raven-haired man had been the first of the three to wake up. He had woken up due to a sore back, and he was the only one who had barely gotten enough sleep. Just because the couch could be turned into a couch didn't mean that the mattress had been spring-free. He looked forward to coming home after this trip was over to the TempurPedic he owned.
At least he wasn't the only one suffering this morning, the Turk leader mused silently.
Last night had been quite eventful:
Tseng opened an eye, not sure what he had heard. Grumbling to himself, he slowly got up and cautiously and quietly slipped into the second room. His eyesight adjusted to the dark shades and shapes in the room. He was slightly annoyed, as usual at what was going on - this was bad for his internal sleep clock. But he had to investigate, or Reno might end up dead due to Rufus' attempts to kill him. However, what he saw didn't compute in his brain. Until, of course Rufus shifted awake and violently shoved the redhead off the bed with a hard kick to the gut. "Get the hell off me!" A low groan and a thud to one side were heard, as well as making out the shapes of Reno and Rufus in the dark. A light was flicked on, revealing an angry pissed-off blonde with disheveled hair and a redhead curled on the floor in pain. "Why ya pickin' on me?" Reno glanced up at Rufus, giving a timid kiddy pout. Tseng covered his mouth to suppress a soft chuckle and glanced away. If it was any other situation, it would be fit to laugh. Not when Rufus had a look of the complete desire to kill, friend or foe. "I AM NOT A FUCKING BODY PILLOW!"
Tseng shook his head yawning. Reno got a decent thrashing before he'd managed to drag the redhead out of the room and assure Rufus it wouldn't happen again.
The look on the blonde's face was terrifying and creepy enough to make the Turk leader realize how much Reno owed him. Unfortunately, by giving Rufus the bed to himself, it meant that he wound up enduring the redhead's snuggling.
Which was way too close for comfort.
"You look awful, Tseng." Reno took several sips of his drink before sucking down the painkillers, his eyes flickering around the somewhat empty airport. "I would hope you of all people got a decent night's sleep."
"Not so much," Tseng responded shaking his head, throwing the redhead an irritated glare. "Mr. Cuddles here wouldn't leave me alone." The redhead took another sip, choking on the hot liquid.
Rufus rolled his eyes, taking the lid off the cup and stirring the cream and cinnamon swirls. "You're telling me."
The redhead shrugged, continuing to drink his coffee. "Hey - I can't account for my actions in bed."
Tseng winced slightly, grimacing at the remark. Rufus covered his face in his hand, an irritated scowl forming on his lips.
"Reno, that's enough. Until we've boarded the plane, you are to keep your trap shut. We don't want any more problems this time around."