Ta-da! After god-knows how long I have come back and shiny-fied this fic of mine! The grammar has been cleaned up and I reduced some of the n00b-factor :D (hurrah!)


'Come'on Yuffie!'Reno snaps across the last inhabited table of the Seventh Heaven, 'place your friggen bet!' she slyly kicks him but he doesn't seem to flinch, taking the expression of 'poker face' a little too far in her opinion.

'Hold your chocobos! Poker is an artful game y'nno?' she retorts, looking around the table for some support but Cloud looks like he might go catatonic at any moment, Cid leers innocetly at Tifa who gives him 'actually touch me and you may never walk again' looks while Barret decides that this is as good a time as any to dismantle and make repairs to his gun/arm, laying oily springs and cogs all over the table in some sort of order, even if no one can tell what it is.

'Whatever.' Reno yawns as he stacks his chips in colour-coordinated piles, and there are quite a lot of them to do this with at the moment, but not for long! Finally she's got a break, and has a full house and is sure Reno's really bluffing this time.

But unfortunately, hasn't got anything to win back her lost materia with.

'Um… I haven't got anything to bet with,' she mumbles, staring remorsefully at the best hand she's had all evening.

'Then you're out and I get to fill my waterbed with shiny materia tonight,' he chuckles as she goes to kick him again… but realizes too late (just as she breaks one of her toes) that he's been sitting cross-legged on the chair all night, and she's been giving grief to a table leg all this time.

The redhead leans forwards and starts to drag his final winnings across the table (everyone else having the sense/boredom to fold several rounds earlier).

'Maybe you should go back and play with kids your own age, Yuffie,' he comments snidely, but as an inventive ninja should, she's always got a proverbial ace up her proverbial sleeve to get out of a sticky situation.

'WAIT!' she screeches, making Cloud jump out of his seat (and catatonia) with shock, and even distracting Cid from rolling a cigarette, 'I can bet I can bet!' she gushes, then stands and wriggles out of her top and tosses it triumphantly on the pile, 'raise you the designer-label top of an incredibly resourceful Wutai Princess,' she grins as Reno quirks a finally interested eyebrow at her.

'Reno, you're not going to accept that are you?' Tifa gasps just loud enough for him to hear and take the appropriate instruction from. Unfortunately it's a hopeless cause, because as Yuffie sits again in her modest (but certainly not training) bra Reno carefully counts out his chips.

'I'll see it.' He announces coolly, 'lay 'em out princess,' even before the hiss of his voice ends, she wheels her hand up in the air and windmills it down to slap out her cards on the table with such force that all Barret's cogs go flying.

'Nice, Yuffie.' He mutters darkly, only to be drowned out by her supposedly victorious screaming.

'FULL HOUSEEE!' she hollers, scrambling to grab her winnings until Reno springs his hand out to slap down on top of hers.

'Not. So. Fast. Princess.' Each word bounces off his tongue sounding more sinister than the last, and as he slowly turns over his own cards with his other hand a part of Yuffie dies inside. 'Straight flush…your game's over.' He flips the final card and she lets out a pained whine.

'Nooo, you have to give me my stuff back!' she whinges, receiving yet another (of the numerous) icy stare from Cloud for disturbing his petulance with what he labels 'kid stuff'.

'Oh-no,' Reno smirks, picking up the just the tank top from the top of the pile, 'this sleeps with me tonight…' he rubs it between his hands then buries the lower half of his face in it, breathing in the scent as she squeals in disgust.

'Oh god no now you can have it!' she spits, and pretends to gag as he runs one hand through his gravity-defying hair while rolling the material carefully between his fingers.

'Mmmm, stillwarm,' he chuckles.

'Please stop that you freak!' she wrinkles her nose and he just winks back at her as if it were an acceptable reply.

'Reno, give her back the top…' Tifa sighs, feeling tension running too high for this to end nicely anymore.

'Don't do it!' Cid cries spontaneously: more on man's principle than actually wanting to see that brat without a top, but making Cloud victor of the lets see if I can not/barely talk all night competition – with Yuffie coming in instant last place followed closely by Reno (because if she remembers correctly it started 'what's Shinra scum like you hanging out here with us decent people for?', to which he replied 'aren't you still underage?', thus making her the first to lose).

'Tifa, if you think I ever wanna touch that again!' she now adds haughtily, 'and I don't think I'll stop feeling dirty for weeks now…'

'Oh reall…' Reno starts.

'Shut up you pervert!' Yuffie snaps back at him, 'I think we have all been physically repulsed enough tonight.' He slumps back in his chair with her top still between his fingers, and slowly wets his lower lip with the tip of his tongue, 'and…besides…' she starts maliciously, to cut up his apparent victory, 'you're not fooling anyone with that straight-guy act…'

'WHAT!' he screams, leaping up from his chair like it bit him and glaring at her, 'I am not g…'

'Sure, sure, yousay you're not,' she interrupts, 'but lets be realistic about this, Reno… there's Rude… all that over-compensatory flirting, which is about as convincing as Vincent's sanity by the way… the sexy-boy-toy you call a weapon…' reciting this she gives him an impish grin, which wavers only slightly as he throws her top down on the floor and stomps around the table to her.

'I am not gay Yuffie.' He hisses, leaning down and eyeing her up partly as a challenger, partly as a girl; and although she narrows her eyes at him and glares back, she feels herself starting to blush under the predatory gaze.

'Feeling warm?' he asks sarcastically as her slight flush quickly turns the colour of his hair.

'Shutupyoustupidperverthowthehelldidyoudothat?' she mumbles out of hearing range (and speed) of the others.

'Just my natural charm…' he replies proudly, sticking his tongue behind his teeth and grinning triumphantly.

It takes her a few seconds, but just before the window for a comeback closes she manages a word or two

'It doesn't make you straight!' She bites back wickedly, and seeing the irritation flare up in her redheaded adversary matches his smarmy grin with one of her own.

'Right!' He yelps, 'I'll prove it!' he leans over, grabs her face and yanks her mouth up against his, holding it there for a few seconds as everyone's' jaws drop open (even Cloud). Reno casually lets her go again, but not before tangling his fingers in her hair and ruffling it almost affectionately, and then closing the deal with a wink as Yuffie Kisaragi's mouth joins the other's on the dirty barroom floor.

Now despite being temporarily stunned by the Turk's daring, she quickly regains her mental footing and twists her head around as Reno strolls back to his seat, smirking at him condescendingly.

'That's how people kiss their mom…' she taunts, ' soooo stillbent!' she then bursts out into hysterical laughter and he scowls at her.

'Now you're justasking for it princess…' Reno mutters darkly as he saunters back to face her, grabbing hold her shoulders and lifting her to her feet while squaring her body up to his. Then he pushes her back a step, against the edge of the table, and brushes the hair off her face with the back of his hand while seeming to survey her for a few seconds.

She suddenly has just about enough time to steal a breath before he plunges his lips over hers, leaving courtesy, etiquette and control of one's salvia behind as he kisses her near-cataclysmically; running one hand around her waist and knotting the fingers of the other in the back of her hair.

He's no sooner touched her lips than he has his tongue prying them apart and slipping between with motion practiced on women, thankyouverymuch, and much to his own surprise she doesn't bite his second-favourite appendage off and stab him with the nearest broken bottle.

Instead he feels her hands clawing frantically up the sides of his jacket, gradually slowing to a clutch around his upper back as she starts forming a coherent resistance movement to fight back the overzealous occupier of her mouth with.

From this point of besting one another at the versatility of their tongues, they lose track of time ever-so slightly and only when Tifa shrieks 'Guys enough! We get it!' do they leap apart in surprise, and look around the circle of disdainful faces with amused embarrassment.

'Okay Yuffie,' he proclaims coolly, for once using her name as he trails a hand down her arm and unhooks it from the back of his jacket, 'in a sudden change of heart I've decided to allow you your things back tempor…'

'Awesome!' she squeals, wriggling out of his clutch and skipping across the empty floor to pick her top and redress what decency she has left. However, as she hastily re-dresses and stuffs various materia (not all hers she might add) she hears his ever-jading voice behind her.

'Ah-ah-ah, now what part of allow didn't you get,' he says as he saunters up to her, 'this'he tucks his fingers under the bottom of her top and yanks her backwards by it, 'still belongs to me.'

'What?!' she moans wretchedly, 'whadd'ya mean?'

'Well,' he says, pulling her back again by the scruff of the questioned article, 'I won it fair and square, which that means I can do whatever I like with it… and if you so happen to be in it then I suppose that's not my problem.' At this he suddenly swings her back even further and then throws her over his shoulder, and waving goodnight to the stunned audience begins to carry her out the door.

'HEY! What the hell are you doing?!' she screams while kicking and pounding her fists into his back, which unfortunately seems rather toned and not susceptible to the weak pawing of her protest.

'I'm taking my winnings back to my placeYuffie,' he explains, patiently, jogging his shoulder to re-balance her over it, 'and it seems like you're gonna be joining them. Say bye guys.' After a few mute seconds of realization, she continues to make a show of fighting him off, but becomes less and less determined until she simply gives in, and waves cheerfully to the rest of her company as she bobs out the door.

'Uh, bye guys,' she parrots as he raises one hand briefly as a valediction and kicks open the door into the street, 'guess I'll see you in the morning.' She goes on as his hand starts running up her leg.


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