Stuck
Yuffie wondered bitterly how long she would be stuck in here with her smelly comrade and how many small smiles, beguiling chuckles and longing gazes Vincent would have given to Shelke by the time she got out.
She growled.
She had heard the old cliché many times over and never once questioned the difficultly that a person searching through a pile of hay for a needle was a frustrating and ultimately lost cause. It was common knowledge that such a fine thing as a needle would be swallowed whole and forever lost within the equally fine straw never to be seen again by the eyes of man. That is, of course unless you were a person of great patience and determination. Yuffie had plenty of determination but no patience. Any other time she could have leaned on her companion for that missing factor. Any other time.
With Reeve Tuesti in his current state and rotten mood and extra snarky he wouldn't be of much use. He was tired, hungry and most noticeably covered in a brown mud like substance that reeked something foul.
"I've heard of looking for a needle in a haystack in vain but never a freakin' key!" In a show of her annoyance the ruffled Princess (who didn't look much better than Reeve in her wet clothes with tussled hair; she just smelled better) kicked a clump of the useless hay into the air. A small part of her hoped her tiny tantrum would unveil a small, golden key. No luck.
"This is just great!" she screamed for what seemed to be the millionth time. The frightened chocobos had long since retreated to the back of the stable as far a way from Yuffie as the petrified fowl could manage.
Sitting; no, slouched in defeat Reeve felt the need to remind her that if any of the chocobos went into cardiac arrest due to her fits he was not paying for the vet bill. Any emergency chocobo hospitalization would come out of the blaring Ninja's own pocket.
"Oh forget these stupid chickens!" she exclaimed even louder. Turning to face the frightened birds she let out a deranged but impressive 'Wark' that sent the birds into a mini stampede.
"These chickens aren't to blame for our current predicament,"Reeve huffed aggravatingly as he narrowly missed being stepped on by large, flat, orange feet. The motion of him standing caused the unpleasant aroma that clung to him to waft through the air.
Pinching her nose in revulsion, an obviously disgusted but amused Yuffie smiled. Reeve didn't share her amusement.
Narrowing his eyes to send her that stuffy professional glare he had perfected, "Our predicament is solely your fault," he tried to remain as dignified as one could when covered in dung.
Baffled by this Yuffie unclenched her nose and challenged, "Oh yeah? How is it my fault?"
"Well, for starters," Reeve recounted the hectic day in particular the moments that involved Yuffie. "Who was it that drove the chocobos into a lake causing an unexpected rescue mission?" He took care to file it in his memory that chocobos could in fact not swim, a fact he and Yuffie often argued about. Thanks to Yuffie's immaturity he had one the long standing debate. Also thanks to Yuffie the two of them had to rescue a bunch of barely treading birds from certain drowning.
Sheepishly she grinned. "Okay, maybe that was my fault," she reluctantly admitted. "But whose idea was it to be all gentlemen-ly like and offer to bring the dumb birds back to their stupid stables in the first place?" Not stopping for a breath and certainly not stopping to allow him to speak, "Seriously Tuesti, we could be back at the retort with the others." By others, Reeve knew Yuffie meant two people in particular. "We could have let Spike return the dodos."
"If I recall correctly, I never asked you to join me. You were the one so keen on coming along," he felt the need to add how her company had single handedly sabotage what would have been a smooth return of rented birds.
Said birds were now huddled near the front of the stable probably telepathically begging their care taker to let them out and away from the yelling, arm flailing girl and the man that smelled like their feces.
"I only did it because I thought you'd be lonely," she said in her most convincing, cutesy voice.
"You only did it because you thought it would make Vincent jealous," obviously she wasn't convincing enough.
At this Yuffie let out a shrill laugh that could only be equated to what a banshee's scream must sound like. "Wha?" She asked in between her fake giggles, now clutching her sides for extra dramatic effect.
Neither registered the sound of the spooked chocobos frantically clawing at the stable door with sharp talons.
"This whole vacation you've been clinging onto any man in the hopes that you'd catch Valentine with a case of the green eyed monster." Leaning against a pillar he smiled smugly at Yuffie's surprised expression. Surely by now she knew he was an astute observer at even the smallest of things. Yet he had to admit seeing his spy opening flirt with not only Cloud but the married Cid and the burly Barret hadn't exactly been something one could easily miss.
Characteristically Yuffie's cheeks puffed out as she readied herself for one of her ear shattering rebuttals; that simply meant she would without a single moment's rest insult stupid Reeve on his unbelievable nerve and his stupidness stupidity. Stupid.
"I'd choose my words carefully," the pungent man teased her. "I will report back to him and let him know what you said," smiling despite himself. "Try not to use words like stupid in your rant, Yuffie. You know Vincent likes someone with a more refined vocabulary." Pausing for a moment he faked a sudden brilliant realization. "Come to think of it, I bet that's why he fancies Shelke! Among other reasons of course."
Reeve Tuesti could be such a jerk. Seriously.
Reeve crossed a line and her knew it. The cocky smile he wore told her he didn't care and the mischievous maybe even spiteful shine in his eyes told her he had been waiting a long time to say something of that effect.
After praying to Leviathan for some efficient throwing stars Yuffie remembered Cid's anger management plan Shera had thought up for him. It was simple. Count from ten to one. She doubted it could sooth the rage inside her (and Reeve's presumptuous expression wasn't helping) but it was a worth a try. She really didn't want to be on the 6 o'clock news for killing the commissioner of WRO.
Finally reaching one and seeing nothing around she could chuck at him that would cause significant injury nor wanting to get too close to him in fear her nose would fall off she collapsed on the dirt floor with a sigh and began rummaging through the hay yet again this time deftness.
She heard Reeve shuffle and take a seat as well but didn't bother to look at him until he spoke a few minutes later. "That's useless you know,"he said a matter-of-factly.
Still pissed at him for using her crush for Vincent and envy for Shelke against her she snapped. "Oh yeah? And why would that be Dung Boy?"
Shaking off the feeling that the crude moniker of Dung Boy would become one of Yuffie's favorite taunts, "That chocobo," he gestured towards the smallest golden bird. "Ate it about an hour ago."
Somehow over her reignited yells of disbelief she heard Reeve's lame excuse. "I didn't know it was in the food bowl until it was too late." He didn't bother to explain why he had let her search aimlessly for not just one time, but twice.
"This is all your fault," she wined as she buried her face in her hands. Images of Vincent laughing that rare but worthwhile laugh danced in her mind. That wasn't the distressing part. The distressing part was that more than likely Shelke would be the person to garner his soft laugh. And to think this was supposed to be the vacation that Yuffie somehow miraculously made Vincent fall in love or more realistically like with her.
Both like and love, she decided were unrealistic expectations. It didn't matter how many men she pranced around or how many times she told Cloud he had beautiful eyes, Vincent wouldn't see her. He'd already found the companion he wanted-needed in Shelke.
Prying her out of her thoughts of Vincent was the thick, rich voice of another man. The man she had worked for these past several years. The man she wanted to in all one swoop slap across the face angrily, tease mercilessly and secretly scheme with on the best method to bother Cid.
Their's was a complex relationship. "You were the one who threw the key." At times Reeve really was like a child. It seemed as if he almost enjoyed their bickering and took the time to instigate them.
"Yeah, but only because you yelled at me and called me a boob!" Yuffie reminded him crossly.
Narrowing his eyes he corrected in a pompous fashion, "I believe the word I used was dunce."
"Same difference!"
Gesturing towards the still startled birds, "Well you pushed me into a fresh pile of chocobo droppings, let's not forget. Which is much worse than any name I could ever call you." A chocobo suddenly let out a loud 'Wark' as if offend while Reeve mentally retracted his last statement. He could think of worse things to call her but he wouldn't dare say any of them out loud.
"You mentioned Vinne and Shelke!" she said between clenched teeth.
"That was after the chocobo pile."
"Still counts though!" she shrieked indigenously. "It was mean!"
"Just chalk it up as late compensation for the shoving me into excrement." she could hear the smart aleck smile in his voice.
She didn't want too. She really, really didn't. But she did. Damn him and his insufferable child-trapped-in-a-grown-man's-body-that-just-happened-to-be-a-successful-business-man charisma.
She laughed.
That night the hired stable boy didn't come to check on his feathered charges as he normally did. Which if he had, he would have discovered the small group of birds clustered in a corner near an empty water pail and as far away from the crazy woman and the sneering man who frightened the golden creatures so with their odd and often loud ways.
Nor did their friends bother to call the front desk and report a tall, goatee man and short Wutaiianese fire-cracker missing. Tifa joked that the two bickering buddies finally had some sense knocked into them and were off at the Golden Saucer getting hitched with a Cait Sith robot as the ring bearer and a Wonder Square clown in the part of a priest.
It was Cid, however, who poetically said, "I always knew sooner of later they'd get together, damn-sure-did. They're perfect for each other," He leaned dangerously back in his chair taking a drag from his cigarette. "She's a pain in the ass and he's an asshole. Match made in Materia-freakin-Heaven!"
Back in the confines of the stable Yuffie's mind drifted to Vincent for a moment. Naturally an image of Shelke appeared alongside the gunslinger. The girl who once appeared to be no more than a prepubescent child had grown to look like a woman she really was and with such development shatter Yuffie's hope of ever catching Vincent's eye. Still short and delicate looking with gorgeous shoulder length red hair she looked like a doll. An expensive porcelain doll, the type children begged their mothers for and old women collected with pride.
With each day she looked and acted more like Lucrecia. He was tall, dark and mysterious she was short, somber and enigmatic. She didn't want to admit they matched. She didn't want to admit that they looked...nice together.
The image and the thought pinched a sensitive nerve and made the oh-so familiar feeling of jealously rise up in her empty belly. She could have wallowed in this feeling. Wallowed in the thought of knowing while she was stuck in a stuffy stable Vincent was in some room with Shelke growing more enamored with the Lucrecia shell with every passing moment. It was the sudden loud snore that brought her out of her self pity.
Gray eyes rested on Reeve who sat across from her soundly asleep with the occasional snore coming from the tired man.
Yuffie wondered how many bird pellets she could put into the sleeping man's mouth before he either awoke or chocked.
She smiled.
SHODAN Pan