Get Used to It
An FF7 Rufus/Yuffie Fanfic
11.20.2012
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Rufus was at the limit of his temper. There was only so much a man could take. He was only human and he had been more than patient the last few months. But, enough was enough.
He had grown up in an environment of strict discipline. Everything had a proper place to be, and if it wasn't put away properly, it was assumed to be garbage. Rufus, at a young age, learned that he would never become an artist, what with his father constantly throwing away his still slightly damp masterpieces.
Even his room was spotless as a child. No toys were allowed out. One pillow on the bed, no toys out for decoration. Rufus had thought that was normal. But that was mostly because he had never seen anyone else's bedroom before. Mother always taught him that bedrooms were private places and that he should never look in anyone else's. Only once had Rufus looked into his parents' room.
The monstrous yell from President Shinra taught Rufus not to even attempt to go near the den of the animal. And as he got older, Rufus continued to lifestyle he was taught. Only what was necessary or what was socially acceptable as 'classy,' was allowed.
What he was wading through was neither necessary or socially acceptable; period.
He had promised to be reasonable. To communicate his needs in a civil manner. He tried; he really did. It was awkward the first time, but a smile accompanied a cheerful, "Sure, Rufus."
The trouble subsided for a while, but it came back. Almost worse than before. The second time was less awkward and yielded the same response.
However, to have to be reminded a third time was not something Rufus did. Even his Turks feared the "third strike." As per his promise, Rufus took a calm breath and focused his energy on trying to reach an agreement.
The door was closed, giving him an extra moment to compose himself. Knuckles curled, he knocked twice, briskly upon the wooden obstruction.
"Come on in," a voice called out. "I can't really move at the moment, so you'll have to open the door yourself."
Grimacing lightly, Rufus opened the door to the bedroom and got stuck halfway. Apparently, the problem was infinitely worse in the room than down the hall in the entry way.
"Sorry about the mess," the voice called out from the bathroom. "I was having a bad day and couldn't find something. Just push it aside."
"What is going on here?" Rufus asked as he shoved on the door. He was slim for a man, but he wasn't that slim. With the sound of items scraping and crunching, Rufus could only hope nothing broke.
Scanning the bedroom, his blue eyes dilated at the junkyard that seemed to have exploded. It wasn't junk, he knew better than to label the objects as such, but he had no use for any of it himself.
"Rufus, I really don't want to yell, can you come into the bathroom?"
Carefully, Rufus obliged the request and made his way to the open bathroom door. The floor cleared and he straightened his suit before entering the tiled room.
Sitting on the counter, feet up on the ledge, toes spread out and engulfed in a cloud of nail polish fumes sat Yuffie Kisaragi. The polish bottles had long been closed, but the fumes lingered in the stagnant air.
"Will you turn on the fan for me? I forgot to do it before I started," Yuffie smiled sheepishly as she noticed his wrinkled nose at the assault of the chemicals. He flipped the switch before she completed her request and did so with a less than amused expression on his face.
"Would you care to explain the state of our house, Yuffie?" Rufus leaned against the wall opposite of the young woman, leaving distance between the two, but giving them a direct line of sight.
"I told you; I had a bad day."
Rufus watched as Yuffie looked down at her toes, checking on the drying progress. The shade was a soft pink, like the inside of the seashell she brought back from Costa del Sol for him the week before. It was a very un-Yuffie-like color. Just to make certain of his assumption, his eyes flicked, almost lazily over to the open cabinet where she stashed all her nail polish. Bright bottles, metallic, neon, glittery. They were all bold choices, either in shade or saturation.
Something was clearly wrong if it made his wife destroy the house and paint her nails a muted pastel when she had exclaimed a few days previously that her green chocobo colored florescent polish was her new favorite and demonstrated her infatuation by painting her toenails to match her fingernails the night before. Now, not even a full twenty-four hours later, she was sitting on the counter with pale pink, almost unnoticeable, polish on her toes. Scattered pieces of cotton with alcohol and bright green smudges littering the room as far as she could throw them was all that was left of her latest obsession. Some cotton pieces showed her elite ninja level as Rufus spied a few in the bathtub on the other side of the room and behind the toilet even further away.
"Yuffie, do you want to talk about it?" Rufus knew better than to approach her when she was in a bad mood and armed, or footed, with wet nails. More than one of his possessions was ruined by paint.
"No."
"I love you," he reminded her. Sometimes, he found that he needed to remind her of how he felt. Especially when she was in a foul mood.
Not many people understood the marriage between eh Shinra company president and the daughter of the leader of Wutai. Most of the citizens assumed it was a power trip; a ploy to take over the world. Only a handful of people actually accepted that Rufus Shinra loved Yuffie Kisaragi and that she reciprocated the feelings in full.
"I love you, too," she said, still looking down, dejection evident in the slump of her shoulders.
"Is it alright for me to clean up?" she nodded at his question. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Yes," Yuffie sighed, flexing her toes and checking the paint again. "I'll help as soon as this is done drying."
"Don't worry about it," Rufus said, all of his anger dissipating after seeing the state of his precious lover. If, no, when, he found out what caused Yuffie's unhappiness, Rufus planned on squashing it out of existence. No matter if it were man, nature, rumor or thought.
As he made his way back to the bedroom to clean up the disaster area, he paused to brush a strand of hair behind Yuffie's ear and press a kiss to her temple. He felt her relax marginally before he moved away to clean up her temper tantrum.
The drone of the fan and the sound of Rufus cleaning the clothes and shoes from the bedroom floor was all that could be heard for nearly half an hour. Rufus started to worry, knowing that Yuffie was sulking in the bathroom. Having been with her long enough, he knew it only took twenty minutes for the polish to dry. Since she had yet to make any noise what so ever, he knew something was really bothering her. Nothing kept the great ninja quiet for any duration of time.
He hung up the last shirt in the closet and even changed out of his dirty day clothes before lying on the bed and calling out to his wife.
"Yuffie, will you come lie with me for a minute?"
She rustled for a moment, checking her nails again, having not noticed that they had been dry for a long while, before exiting the bathroom to comply to her husband's request.
"Come here," Rufus patted the space beside him and opened his arms so Yuffie could curl up in his embrace. He smoother her growing brown locks out of her eyes and behind her ear in one smooth, practiced motion. "Any better?"
"Yeah," she snuggled closer, wrapping both and arm and leg over him, "a little."
"I won't press you into talking about it. But I need to know that you're alright," he cupped her cheek in his hand and tilted her face up until their eyes met. His blue asked her storm grey eyes for an answer.
"I have you, right? I'll be fine," Yuffie assured him as he nodded his affirmation to her question. "As long as I have you, I will be alright."
The sun was glowing a fiery red as it headed for the horizon and they both laid on the bed, heads cocked to watch out the window. Silence was an odd thing to accompany Yuffie, even in her sleep, but that day, it was her companion. What was unnerving was the increasing number of times she would fall into the bouts of silence. Each one a bit longer than the last, a little closer to the next occurrence.
Looking sidelong down at Yuffie's face, peacefully angelic, pressed into his chest above his heart, he saw the faraway look in her eyes. Almost as if she were looking through the sunset, rather than at it.
"The sunsets on Wutai are infinitely better than the ones we can offer here," Rufus said, almost apologetically. He did feel bad, tethering Yuffie to come back to a place she never considered home. Junon was everything Wutai was not and Rufus worried that she hated it.
"Junon sunsets have something I can't have in Wutai," Yuffie replied, her eyes still retaining their unfocused quality.
"Oh," Rufus replied, a little dejectedly when he failed to deduce his wife's meaning. There was very little he couldn't figure out. But that was only if you counted anything related to Yuffie as a singular item. His thumb started to rub the metal band around his finger. It was a new habit. One more subtle than pushing his hair out of his eyes.
Yuffie felt his hand move from her waist to play with his wedding ring. At first, he played with it only because it was a foreign feeling. But she noticed him twirling it around his finger more and more often.
"I meant you."
"You meant me, what, Yuffie?"
"Junon sunsets. I have you. That's why they're special. I can't have you and Wutai sunsets at the same time. I'd rather have you."
A tug at his lips changed his sullen expression to a blissful smile.
"You are imagining a sunset from Da Chao, though, aren't you?" his question was answered with a grin and a half shake of her head.
"I'm imagining one with you beside me."
With careful ease, Rufus rolled both of them, blankets rustling, until she laid comfortably below him.
"Mrs. Shinra, I am going to kiss you."
"Aren't you going to ask for permission?"
"No," Rufus responded to her coyness by capturing her lips with his. They kissed often, for different reasons. This one was for Rufus to convey to Yuffie that whatever was bothering her, then, before and forever more, he would be there to help her. It was filled with the low, smoldering heat that promised to remain even should their wild sparks and flare of passion and lust fade away.
The return of his actions were just as fierce as his. Her strong fingers raked through his hair, grasping and tugging in more than a playful manner. They released each other at the same time, faces flushed and eyes wide, as if it were their first kiss.
The smile on Yuffie's face gave Rufus room for a sigh of relief. Her cheerful disposition was returning, making her earlier depression fade into near nothingness.
"There's my girl," Rufus caressed her face before sitting back.
"Did I go somewhere?" Yuffie propped herself up on her elbows so she could see Rufus's face.
"There was a moment," Rufus spoke cautiously.
"Oh, you mean earlier?" Yuffie pushed her hair over her shoulder. "I know it's just talk and that it's not true, and I shouldn't listen, but it's hard sometimes. Some people are so obnoxious, you know?"
"Yes," Rufus drew out the word, knowing that he should confirm her statement, but not entirely knowing her meaning.
"Well, I guess you don't really know. You don't go through the same chemical imbalance I do every month. I'm just getting more easily swayed these last few months," Yuffie rubbed her tummy. "I'm hungry."
"Let's go make dinner then," Rufus helped Yuffie off the bed and they went down to the kitchen.
Something in the corner of his eye made Rufus remember why he had gone storming into the bedroom earlier.
"Yuffie, I understand that things are bothering you more acutely, but I do have a favor to ask."
"Sure," Yuffie was snacking on some homemade pickled cabbage she made earlier that month. "What is it?"
"Could you put all of your shoes away when you're not wearing them?"
"Sure, okay."
"Really?"
"Yeah. They don't really seem to be fitting right anymore anyway."
"What? None of them?" Rufus thought back to the two hundred pieces of footwear he just put into the closet and the price of all of the shoes he bought Yuffie over the years.
"The doctor said it isn't uncommon."
"Doctor? What doctor? Are you sick?" Rufus started to panic, the icy hot burning feeling opening a gaping maw in his stomach.
"No, I'm not sick," Yuffie put the pickling jar away. "Don't… be mad at me, okay?"
"I won't be mad."
"Promise?"
"I promise. Now what is it that you're hiding from me?"
"I'm pregnant."
With those words, Rufus did not even hear Yuffie's next words, "I guess I'll have to get new shoes."
His mind went blank. Then, shock of the situation and their future flashed through his mind. Their entire world was about to change.
What Rufus had yet to realize, was that any child of Yuffie's was going to be even messier than the mother. There would be no such rule as 'everything has a place' in the Shinra household anymore. And when he finally would make that realization, several months later, his sympathetic wife would only look at him, baby girl cradled in her arms and tell him, "Get used to it."
And he would.
The End.
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Author's Notes: I know. I lied. I said I would have this up much sooner. But I wasn't really happy with the first version, so I took some time to think it over and put in a few edits.
I hope all my American readers had a wonderful Thanksgiving day and break. Or at least some vacation away from work and school.
To all my readers, who may or may not have celebrated Thanksgiving Day last week, I just want to say that I am most thankful for having all of you taking the time to read my story/ies and leave lovely reviews. Seeing just the number of people who view my stories gives me happiness for the entire day, so here is to all of you!
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