Written as a birthday present for Vixen2004, based on her hilarious fic 'Memoires of a Mental Breakdown'. If the idea of Deepground crack appeals to you, then you should definitely read it! Consider this a preview.

Happy birthday, Vixen!

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Final Fantasy franchise.

Secret Tsviet Dance Parties

Over the years, Shelke has developed a system for categorizing people as they enter a room. It has two basic divisions: 'threat' and 'non-threat' (reflecting the basic dichotomy of Deepground), with further subdivisions according to the action that should be taken. Since leaving Deepground behind several months ago, Shelke has yet to abandon her system, although the chances of someone picking a fight and/or taking out a bad mood out on her in a violent manner are much lower. The number of times that she has categorized an entering person as 'threat; be wary' is astonishingly low, and 'threat; run' completely non-existent.

As Yuffie enters this morning, Shelke nearly places the ninja into the latter category. Through baffling and occasionally embarrassing experience, Shelke has learned that anything that makes Yuffie grin like that is probably something to be avoided.

It is a pity that flight is not an option. Yuffie would only chase her.

Yuffie bounds over and points at Shelke. The former Tsviet assesses the movement as needless dramatics, but she is used to such things—anyone who spent time with Weiss and Nero would be.

"I," declares Yuffie, "am going to teach you to dance."

Shelke blinks. Her mind flicks to Nero. "I beg your pardon?"

"I am going to teach you to dance." Yuffie nods repeatedly, like the doll with the oversized head that Barrett keeps on the dashboard of his truck. Shelke is tempted to poke Yuffie's forehead, to see if that will make the appropriate change of direction and prove her theory. But before she can make a decision, Yuffie continues, "You need to be more out there. I think you're almost at the point where we can start introducing you to polite society!"

Shelke withholds her opinion that AVALANCHE (except, perhaps, for Reeve) does not actually have any further acquaintance with 'polite society' than Shelke. Certainly the crowd that frequents the Seventh Heaven does not qualify for such a label.

"I don't see how dancing fits into that," she says instead.

"Easy. Dancing is what normal people do at parties," says Yuffie. "You know, have a few drinks, hear the music, decide that the best thing to do is get their funky groove thang on, and then there are photographs and blackmail opportunities."

Shelke files away the mispronunciation of 'thing', and its peculiar usage, to ask Tifa about. "You are not making this sound appealing." The sparkle in Yuffie's eyes is downright frightening, even for somebody who learned about fear from Nero the Sable.

"Eh, why bother? You're not going to like it no matter how I put it, so I thought I'd skip the sugar-coating." Yuffie backs away from the booth. "C'mon, up and at 'em."

Shelke remains seated. "No."

Yuffie pouts. "Awwww, Shelkie! C'mon!"

"No."

"You are obstructing my attempts to teach you normal social behavior!"

"You pickpocket drunks for fun," points out Shelke. "Your knowledge of normal social behavior is no more extensive than mine."

"I take offense to that!" Yuffie poses and points. Long practice keeps Shelke from rolling her eyes. "Out of the goodness of my heart, I am trying to help you adjust to this strange world that you have found yourself in, and you repay me with lies and slander. I am hurt, Shelkie. Deeply hurt and offended."

Shelke is unmoved by this. Besides, she has seen Tifa collect Yuffie's acquisitions at the end of the night, to be returned in the morning to sheepish men and women who don't know how they could possibly have lost their belongings.

"But no matter," declares Yuffie. "I forgive you. My heart is enormous. I can do that."

Again, Shelke withholds comment. She also does not move.

Yuffie props her hands on her hips. "Look, you can either do as I say, or we can stand here for an hour like idiots because you were too stubborn to do something simple and totally non-threatening."

Shelke mulls this over. She has spent far longer periods of time waiting, and in considerably less comfortable circumstances. But she has become accustomed to spending this hour of the morning in conversation with Yuffie, and there is every chance that the ninja will lose interest in the idea more quickly if Shelke goes along with it. This, too, is a tactic that Shelke learned in Deepground.

She sidles out of the booth and stands before Yuffie. The ninja grins. Shelke tries not to regret her decision. She reminds herself that she has faced insane scientists, insane scientific experiments, and egomaniacs with god complexes—occasionally, all in the same person. Shelke is a Tsviet—was a Tsviet—and she does not fear a Wutai flea.

So she tells herself, as Yuffie slowly circles her. The hair on the nape of her neck prickles when Yuffie steps behind her, but Shelke trusts in her speed. Finally, Yuffie circles back to the front, looking uncharacteristically thoughtful. Her lips are pursed.

"This might be a little bit trickier than I thought," she says.

Shelke cocks her head again. "Why?"

"Because you have like no ass and your boobs are like mosquito bites."

"What does this have to with dancing?"

"Well, you can't shake your booty if there's no booty to shake."

"Is 'booty' a term for the breasts, or for the buttocks?"

Yuffie covers her face with her hands. "Have I added slang to the list of things to teach you yet?"

"Yes." So has Cid. And Tifa. And Barrett. Slang irritates Shelke. It is all pervasive and each person seems to know a different variety. "I do not see how this presents any difficulty," she says. "Your breasts and buttocks are not much larger than mine."

One of the few predictable things about Yuffie is her sensitivity to feelings of inadequacy. Yuffie feels compelled to proclaim her superiority over Shelke in various arenas, and the Tsviet hopes that this will not be any different.

It isn't. "Excuse me?" demands Yuffie, eyes narrowing. It's somewhat less intimidating than the various glares that have been leveled on Shelke in her time in Deepground, but it still makes her slightly uneasy.

She perseveres anyway, because uneasiness is better than dance lessons. "Your breasts and buttocks are not much larger than mine," she repeats. "We have similar builds."

"That—that is just totally untrue," splutters Yuffie. "I am so much bustier than you!"

Shelke does not say anything. She just raises a skeptical eyebrow.

"I am!" insists Yuffie. "You're the one with the body of a ten-year-old! I'm nineteen! I actually have boobs!" But she crosses her arms over them, which prevents Shelke from directing her skeptical gaze towards them.

"We can test this," offers Shelke. "I am sure that there is a tape measure somewhere around."

"What? No. I am not participating in this. I have bigger boobs than you. End of story."

"How can you be certain?" Shelke challenges. "You refuse to provide empirical evidence. What proof do you have?"

"Um, the evidence of anyone with eyes?"

"That is not objective proof."

"You're just used to looking at Tifa's gigantic tits. That's why you think my boobs are small. But I assure you, they are generously-sized and in no way comparable to yours. Which do not exist."

This is the most ridiculous argument that Shelke has ever participated in—including the time that she argued with Nero about the definition of living. Come to think of it, his comment about her metal bra implies that she possessed noticeable breasts even back then. Shelke wonders how she might offer this information without Yuffie fixating instead on the fact that Shelke has brought up the topic of Nero yet again.

Unfortunately, she has paused too long. Yuffie's original intention has caught up with her. "How did we get onto this, anyway?" she demands, uncrossing her arms from over her breasts. "Whatever. Doesn't matter. We're not talking about this anymore."

"But—"

"No. Nice try, Shelkie. But you can't fool me."

Shelke wants to protest that this is only because Yuffie is chaotic and Shelke has not had time to learn all of her nuances yet. In time, she, Shelke, will be able to fool her, Yuffie, just as well as she was able to fool any of her fellow Tsviets.

Except, of course, for Nero. Nero spent so much time trying to fool others, including himself—especially himself—that he could spot it immediately.

"And stop staring at my boobs, would you? Seriously, it's creepy. And I know that you don't swing that way. You tried that joke already, it failed."

"No, it didn't," says Shelke, mainly as cover for the fact that she hadn't been thinking about Yuffie's breasts at all, and her staring was far more a result of her height than any kind of desire. If she admits to this, Yuffie will want to know what she was thinking about, and Shelke thinks that Yuffie is already far too fixated on any mention of Nero that Shelke makes.

That, and Shelke is not herself comfortable with the way that Nero continues to recur in her thoughts. In Deepground, it was a safety precaution. With that threat removed, the habit is beginning to feel dangerously emotional, particularly since she doesn't think nearly so much about the other Tsviets except when Yuffie brings them up in these morning conversations of hers.

Yuffie dismisses Shelke's statement with a wave of her hand. Shelke is privately relieved. "Whatever," the ninja says, something that Shelke has learned to recognise as a tacit agreement without the embarrassment of an admission. "You're stalling. We are going to learn this. Well, you are going to learn, and I will teach. Because I am awesome."

Yuffie yanks a music player out of her pocket and moves towards the speakers at the edge of the bar. Shelke sighs mentally and resigns herself to her 'lesson'. A pounding beat fills the room, vibrating in Shelke's ribcage like distant cannon shots.

"Eyes front, Shelkie! And stop pouting, would you? This'll be easy. Just watch me and then repeat, okay?"

Shelke turns her eyes front and pays attention. The quicker that she learns this, the quicker that this will will be over.

She has gravely miscalculated. It has been a full five minutes—Shelke has been timing by the clock behind Yuffie's head—and the ninja has not stopped gawping at her. The wide, staring eyes would be satisfying if they weren't so unsettling.

Yuffie snaps suddenly out of her stupor and slams a hand down on the music player, mashing the buttons all at once. One corner of Shelke's mouth pulls in a wince for the mistreated device, but it stops the music. Yuffie raises a shaking hand and points at Shelke with a shaking finger.

"You said you didn't know how to dance!" It's an indignant splutter.

"I don't," says Shelke, using her calmest and most logical tone. "I repeated your movements, as you said to."

"Bullshit! Nobody gets that right on the first try!"

Shelke frowns. "Did you deliberately choose a difficult routine?"

Yuffie looks suddenly shifty. Shelke's eyes narrow. Yuffie squirms. "Maybe, a little?" She pulls herself together with an obvious effort. "It doesn't matter!"

Shelke wants to protest that it certainly does matter, but reflects that Tifa or Vincent will be able to deliver a much more scathing and effective lecture. She still sets the matter aside to plot a more personal revenge, though, because she is a Tsviet—was a Tsviet—and you can't be a Tsviet without knowing when to apply a little judicious revenge.

She returns her attention to Yuffie.

"How?" the ninja is demanding. "How did you learn to dance? When did you learn to dance?"

"I didn't," says Shelke, with forced patience. "As I said, I repeated your movements."

"Oh my God." Yuffie stares at her with wide eyes. "You learned in Deepground, didn't you? How does that work? Were there like, secret Tsviet dance parties in the reactor or what? How did you even get the music? How did any of you learn? Please do not tell me that was part of your training."

Shelke pinches the bridge of her nose. "There were no dance parties in the reactor," she says. "The acoustics would have been terrible. And mako lighting does not lend itself to festivity." There is a terrible irony in there somewhere, about the energy that sustains the life of the Planet making everything look dead and decomposing.

Yuffie points again, still shaking. "That is a confession!" she half-shrieks. "Oh my God. Oh my God." There is an element of curiosity creeping into her shocked horror now, and Shelke braces herself for the inevitable. "That's how you got to admiring Weiss's behind, isn't it!? Because you saw him booty shaking!?"

Well, at least now she knows that 'booty' is the term for the buttocks. Shelke files this away and tries not to picture what Yuffie is suggesting.

It is somewhat too appealing a mental picture.

"There was no dancing," she says, as repressively as she can.

But Yuffie is deaf to facts. Her eyes are wide, and Shelke can almost see her crazed imaginings dancing (no pun intended, but Shelke regrets that this is not the time to articulate this inadvertent joke and receive another Funnies Tally) across them. On the positive side, they seem to have shorted out Yuffie's ability to articulate them.

Shelke edges away. Perhaps now is the time to make her escape.

Yuffie moans, and collapses into a chair. "Azul hip-thrusting," she whispers, looking as though she might cry.

Shelke abandons stealth, and flees.

Four years ago...

"What is this?"

Shelke almost goes cross-eyed, looking at the device that Nero has thrust into her face. She scoots her chair away from her keyboard and takes it from him, careful not to touch his skin more than necessary. This is both a precaution—as Nero tends to be quite, well, touchy about who touches him—and because the sensation of sparks jumping between her skin and his is quite disconcerting. Shelke theorizes that this is to do with a reaction between the mako in her body, and the stagnant Lifestream in Nero's, but has not had the chance to prove her theory.

She turns the device over. It is small, roughly the size of Shelke's child-like palm. A tiny screen takes up half of one surface, with a large circular button occupying most of the remaining space. A thinner ring around it is divided into four smaller buttons.

"Where did you get this?" she asks, looking up at Nero.

He gives her a withering look, as only a nineteen-year-old can. "I stole it," he says derisively.

Because they are alone in this room, she gives him a withering look in return. "I realize that," she says. This is clearly not a weapon: of course he stole it. "Who did you steal it from?"

"From whom did I steal it," corrects Nero, because she has caught him out and he cannot resist trying to regain lost ground. Shelke accepts the correction with a tip of her head. Mollified, Nero says, "From one of the Researchers."

Shelke would pity the one stupid enough to try to take him in for further experimentation, but she has no pity left after six years in Deepground. Particularly not for those who deserve all the pain inflicted upon them. She returns to her examination.

The device rings a faint bell in her mind, some distant memory, but she cannot pin it down. It's not until her probing fingers find the hole on the top edge that she makes the connection.

"This is a music player," she says. She's faintly surprised; she's never seen any Deepground personnel carrying such a device before. "There should have been a pair of headphones to go with it."

Nero extends one palm. A small, howling vortex drops a tangle of cord into his hand. "This?"

Shelke takes it from him, and plugs the jack into its outlet. She hooks one of the buds into her ear while Nero watches with tilted head.

"Are they testing our creativity?" he wonders aloud. "It would be so easy to strangle them with such a device."

"People aboveground do not generally try to kill each other," says Shelke. Now that she has identified the device, she almost doesn't have to think of how to control it. A few button presses take her to a menu of artists, which she scrolls through quickly. She recognizes very few of the names.

"No? Then why create us?"

It's a good question. "I said generally," she reminds him. "There are wars, and so on."

Nero evidently considers that he has won this round, though, because he is smirking. "'And so on'," he parrots back to her. "Would you care to be more specific?"

Shelke decides that the easiest way to end this line of questioning is to ignore it. "This is a device for personal entertainment," she says, as though he has not spoken. It is a strategy she wouldn't dare use with Rosso or Weiss, but Nero is slightly more tolerant than them. Maybe because she is the only one who can correctly draw the designs on his arms.

His smirk widens, but he accepts the return to the original topic. "What kind of entertainment?"

"Music," answers Shelke, finally spotting something that she recognizes. Her mother, before her death, used to play this recording. She queues up the track, but does not press play before she removes the earbud. "Here. Listen."

Nero takes the earbud from her, equally careful not to touch her skin, and fits it into own ear. He listens for perhaps thirty seconds, with no visible change of expression. Shelke interprets this as dislike.

"Press the top button," she suggests. "It will take you to a list of artists."

Nero quickly adapts to the unfamiliar controls, and Shelke watches him try different tracks with interest. She can only catch a tinny echo of the music from the earbud that dangles against his chest, but it seems that this Researcher had eclectic taste. She thinks that she hears a piano, then something jazzy, then something that sounds more like raw noise than music. Nero lingers on none of it long.

Then, he appears to find something he likes. It surprises him: his eyebrows rise, he blinks twice. His thumb, already poised to switch to something else, stutters. Shelke is seized by intense curiosity. Even though the name would likely mean nothing to her, she wishes that she could see the screen that Nero is examining. All that she can tell is that the music has a steady beat.

They linger in this tableau for perhaps three and a half minutes. Then, as the track switches, Nero pauses the device.

"What kind of music is this?" he demands, handing her the player. This time, he is not careful, and his fingers leave sparks on her palm. Shelke tries not to flinch, but concentrates on retrieving that track that has so intrigued her fellow Tsviet. As she suspected, the artist's name means nothing to her. The music itself is no more enlightening. The style is unfamiliar: something with repetitive melodies interwoven and layered on one another.

"I don't recognize it," she says.

Nero looked affronted, as though she is being deliberately obstructive. "You are not from Deepground," he says. "Why do you not recognize it?"

"Music has many different varieties," she retorts. "Do you know every weapon that has ever been used down here?"

"Yes."

There is a brief silence. Shelke is tempted to question this knowledge, but she has a sneaking suspicion that Nero is being truthful. He only gets that smug tone in his voice when absolutely certain of his superiority.

That smug tone, and that half-smirk that makes her throat squeeze.

She looks down, and looks for a way to offset her answer. She finds it when she discovers that the music can be sorted by album or genre as well as artist. "According to this, it is...dance/electronic." She holds up the device. "These are the other songs that are of the same genre."

Nero's smirk broadens into something that could almost be termed a genuine smile.

"Most informative," he says. "Thank you, Shelke." He's already slipping the earbuds—both earbuds, this time—into place as she nods her acknowledgment.

Shelke watches him leave, on foot rather than by darkness. The fingers of his free hand are tapping in rhythm against his thigh, apparently unconsciously. And is it her imagination, or are his hips swaying slightly more than usual?

How does she even have a perception of the amount of sway that Nero's hips ordinarily have?

And has she always thought that his behind is almost as attractive as his brother's?

Shelke spins away from the door and returns to her work. Her cheeks are warmer than usual, and she hopes that thinking of music, or dancing, will not always make her remember this conversation...