A/N: Another Reefie fic! This time inspired by, if I can recall correctly, one of Leo's old fics. Let me go and double check. Yep, called Think Like A Man. She thinks it's horrible. I love it. Go read it and tell her you agree with me. This story is actually an aside to another, chaptered story I'm working on, dealing with Reeve's reactions to Yuffie being pregnant, tentatively called The Perils of Impending Fatherhood.
Dedicated once again to all the wonderful ladies on Viva La Reefie. Have fun, girls! This is the first of many, many inspired-by-weird-conversations to come.
Music for the writing event: Hands, by Ms. John Soda, on repeat. Very good song; I suggest you go and give it a listen.
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII; Square Enix does and they are kind enough to let me play with their story. Thank you, Square Enix.
Yuffie Kisaragi Tuesti was on vacation. Kind of. It was a business vacation. In Nibelheim. But it was still a vacation. And Reeve was there, so that was a big plus. All of her friends were there, too, so that was an added bonus that made her feel comfortable with calling this Rufus-Shinra-instigated business meeting a vacation. However.
Yuffie Kisaragi Tuesti was pregnant. Four months pregnant. And having cravings. Many, many cravings, for many, many weird things. The strawberry ice cream and sweet pickles hadn't been too badly received, though. But the raw squid, yogurt, and grapes, while absolutely delicious, just disgusted everyone. Now, Yuffie was craving garlic. Lots and lots of garlic. In everything. She made Reeve go and buy out the store. There were currently twenty-five pounds of garlic sitting in the kitchen of the rental unit. Yuffie's cravings were now easily satisfied. But.
Yuffie Kisaragi Tuesti was bored. As in watch grass grow and paint peel off the walls bored. Everyone was in a meeting or out shopping, and Yuffie had been asleep when the shopping group left. In short, Yuffie had nothing to do but sit in the little window in the apartment they'd rented for the week with her garlic and look outside. She didn't want to go outside alone. Reeve's meeting with Rufus, Cloud, Cid, Barret, and the Turks wouldn't end for another three hours, if past meetings with the strawberry-blond were anything to go by. And everyone else was out shopping, so who knew when they would be back. Except for Nanaki. He was out, as Yuffie put it, "communing with his natural element." He was really taking a walk. And Leviathan only knew where Vincent was.
Yuffie Kisaragi Tuesti sighed, leaned her elbow on the windowsill, and continued to look outside at absolutely nothing. Nibelheim proper and Shinra Mansion dominated the landscape. Plain, boring, Nibelheim and Shinra Mansion, both gleaming away in the sun. Idly, Yuffie drummed her fingers on the sash and wondered where Vincent had gone off to. You would think, she thought irritably, that since we're having this meeting here, of all places, he would have the decency to be home. Wait a minute...
Yuffie narrowed her eyes at Shinra Mansion. That curtain had just moved. Maybe Vinnie is home, and just ignoring us? Nah...
The curtain twitched again, and this time Yuffie refused to doubt her eyes. Someone was home in Shinra Mansion. And that someone turned out to be, about three minutes later, a very pale, becloaked Vincent Valentine.
Ah ha! So he is home! Why, I ought to go over there and give him a piece of my mind for ignoring us! Yuffie was about to hop right up and head over to thoroughly chew Vincent out when she saw his next actions.
One of the few clouds present in the sky on that afternoon moved away from the sun, and the light hit Vincent square in the face. He immediately threw up an arm to cover his eyes, pulled his cloak over his face, and retreated inside. While Yuffie stood at her window, staring, Vincent proceeded to move about the rest of the house, closing all the shades and drapes.
What on the planet is Vinnie doing?
Yuffie stood still, staring and thinking for a few moments before the answer to Vincent's actions and her boredom struck her, both in the same thought.
Of course! Vinnie IS a vampire! I knew it!
Yuffie began to smile. It was not a nice smile. It was a slightly evil smile. It bordered on insanity. It smacked of a Patented Yuffie Kisaragi, well, as of roughly a year ago, now a Patented Yuffie Kisaragi Tuesti Plan.
It involved Yuffie's old Vincent-Valentine-is-really-a-vampire theory, and all of that garlic she had sitting in the kitchen.
Yuffie's eyes took on a slightly manic gleam as she rubbed her hands together and began to cackle. "Oh, just you wait, Vinnie, I'm going to prove it to everybody! The truth will be known!" she said gleefully, as she walked over to the garlic and picked up five two-pound bags.
It took Yuffie three trips to move all of the garlic to the far corner of Shinra Mansion, conveniently windowless and out of sight of most of the town and, more importantly, the vampire that currently resided inside her target.
All that remained was one small trip to the store for a large ball of twine. Yuffie cackled again, slapped one hand over her mouth to muffle the sound, and ran off to the store.
Half an hour later, Yuffie was back, with five thousand-yard rolls of twine, a pair of scissors, and a ten-pound bag of small, very sharp nails.
She proceeded to plant herself on the ground, poke holes in the garlic, and string the cloves onto the twine.
In an hour, she had a very respectable pile of garlic garland sitting next to her.
Yuffie grinned and looked up at Shinra Mansion. "Sorry, Vinnie, my vampire friend; I love ya, but I'm doing this as a public service," she whispered. "Soon, the world will know the TRUTH!" Hopefully she could still climb while four months pregnant.
--PYKTP--
Reeve was attempting to balance his pencil on his nose. It had been four hours already.
Rufus was still talking. Reno and Elena had fallen asleep. You couldn't really tell with Rude. Cid had produced beer from somewhere and was busy drinking and smoking. Barret was trying to look like he was paying attention. Tseng was paying attention. And Cloud was standing by the window, staring out of it and looking for something interesting to distract himself from the drone of Rufus' voice.
After ten minutes, he finally saw it.
Shinra Mansion was across the way from the building they were in, and Cloud had been staring at it for the past five minutes, trying to figure out why it looked funny, like someone had painted little white lines and circles all over it in a horizontal fashion. It made no sense, as it hadn't looked that way in the morning, and Vincent still had a migraine or he would have been at the meeting, so he hadn't repainted over the hours they'd been stuck inside the meeting from hell. Not that he would have repainted in such a ridiculous fashion anyway, or Cloud didn't know the gunslinger as well as he thought.
While trying to drown Rufus out by puzzling over the new paint scheme, Cloud got his answer. And he realized that what was wrong with Shinra Mansion wasn't a new paint scheme at all. It was Yuffie. Scuttling about the house, draping what looked like some kind of garland over it. Cloud squinted, mako-enhanced vision finally registering what exactly the garland was. Oh boy.
"Uh, Reeve?"
"Cloud, I'm in the middle of something here," Rufus said waspishly. Cid and Barret started to pay attention at that point.
"This is kind of important, Rufus, sorry. Reeve, come over here for a moment and tell me if you see what I see," Cloud said, motioning out the window with a tilt of his head.
Reeve frowned questioningly at Cloud, but got up and looked out the window anyway. The look on his face was actually quite comical. He first looked confused, then taken aback, then he squinted, and finally, his jaw dropped open. "Oh, my sweet Holy, is that...it is. Yuffie..." Reeve slapped his hand on his forehead and turned away from the window. "Rufus, I need to go for a minute. I'll be back."
As Reeve rushed out of the room, Rufus stood up and walked over to the window himself. Upon looking out of the window, he smiled. "Well. This is quite entertaining."
The remaining occupants of the room joined the two at the window, save for Reno and Elena, who stayed asleep. Tseng shook his head while Cid and Barret started laughing, watching Reeve race across the street to try and stop his young wife from festooning any more of Vincent's house with garlic garlands.
--PYKTP--
Reeve made it to the Mansion right as Yuffie started turning the corner of the house to begin another layer of garland.
"Yuffie! What on the planet are you doing?" he asked, looking up two feet at his pregnant wife.
"Reeve! Is the meeting out already?" she asked, brightly grinning the Patented Yuffie Kisaragi Tuesti Plan Smile at him. Reeve began to despair. That smile was never good.
"Yuffie," he said warily, "the meeting is far from over, but I saw you out of the window and I wanted to see what you were doing. Come down here and tell me."
Yuffie pouted for a moment. "But I'm almost done! See?" she said, gesturing up at Shinra Mansion, which was indeed covered, save the bottom seven-odd feet, in garlic garland. Yuffie had apparently started from the top and worked her way down. Reeve had to give her points for good planning.
Yuffie smiled at him again. "All right, though! I was wanting a kiss anyway," she said, jumping down at him.
Reeve hurriedly put his arms out and caught her. He obliged her with the kiss she had requested, but refused to relinquish his hold on her afterwards. Yuffie squirmed for a moment, before giving up and settling on turning around in Reeve's arms to look at her handiwork.
She sighed contentedly. "Doesn't it look pretty? Soon everyone will know that Vinnie really is a vampire. He can't hide from the truth any longer!" she said proudly, a triumphant tinge also coloring her voice.
Reeve looked down at her. The pregnancy was making her a little more crazy every day, it seemed. He would have to pay more attention to her after this. "Yuffie...you know you cannot drape Vincent's house in garlic."
Yuffie twisted in his grasp to meet his eyes. She frowned. "But Reeve, I'm doing the world a public service, and I had all that garlic right there, and the only other way to prove he's a vampire would be to stake him...stake..." Yuffie trailed off into silence for a moment.
Reeve was about to ask her what was wrong when she suddenly came to life in his arms, bouncing up and down and grinning at him again, not the Patented Yuffie Kisaragi Tuesti Plan Smile, though, but a slightly more, sane, grin.
"Reeve! Guess what?" she said happily.
"What?" Reeve asked, smiling down at her.
"I want a steak! A nice, juicy, rare steak! With mashed potatoes! And more steak!" Yuffie proclaimed, flinging her arms wide.
Reeve tried not to roll his eyes. He really did. It was going to be a long five more months.