Disclaimer: Grumpily not mine.

A/N: Originally written for the ficlet collection A Riotous Symphony. The idea is that you put your playlist on random/shuffle and then write a ficlet related to or inspired by each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. I went beyond the remit with this one, though, and ended up extending it into a fic of its own. The song that inspired it was The Ballad of Big Poppa and Diamond Girl by Cobra Starship, which I think is actually a pretty good pair of nicknames for Cid and Yuffie.

The Ballad of Big Poppa and Diamond Girl

© Scribbler, August 2010.

Yuffie sat in bed, arms folded, pouting. It was a good pout. She knew about pouting, and it was a bloody good pout. Pouts were supposed to be rounded at the edges. Pointy expressions – frowns, scowls, glowers, glares – hurt your face after a while and lost their effectiveness when they started to wobble, because nobody could balance on pointy things forever (which is why chairs are made from wood and wicker, not arrows and barbwire). Pouts, on the other hand, were round and soft, like butter left too long in the sun. You could sink your face into a good pout and stay there for hours.

The door opened. Cid came in bearing a tea tray. Yuffie's pout deepened. She sank lower under the covers, attempting to bury her chin between the two sides of her collarbone. Her leg twinged, making her freeze in place. It was only half healed. She had thrown Aerith out before she could finish. Stupid leg. Stupid Cid. Stupid tea tray.

"Go away."

Cid only grunted. She knew then it hadn't been his idea to visit. Probably everyone had drawn straws. She had kicked up a real fuss. Even Leon had looked shocked at her language, insofar as he could look shocked. He had blinked more than usual. Aerith had actually winced, and she was used to being cussed at. Nothing like a really bad injury to make someone put on their cussin' britches.

Yuffie glared at the tray. "I don't want any tea."

"Tough," Cid replied. "You're havin' some."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"Can't make me."

He plonked the tray on the nightstand, sat down and levelled a glare at her that could strip chrome from steel. He didn't bother descending to childish repartee, just repeated himself at a lower pitch. "Yes, you are."

Yuffie sensed the implied threat. She sniffed and looked at the teapot askance. It had a yellow smiley face on the side. Way tacky. She liked it instantly, but couldn't admit it. "Is it that awful herbal crap?" Aerith had tried to make her drink that stuff more than once. She said it was soothing. Yuffie disagreed. There was nothing soothing about a drink that tasted like old socks and cat pee – or what she imagined old socks and cat pee tasted like, having sampled neither.

Cid snorted. It wasn't far from a grunt, but had more derision in it. "As if. That stuff taste like gerbil piss and bitumen."

Yuffie's bad mood shifted slightly, like an irascible guard dog curling its paws under itself. It could still leap up and tear an intruder's throat out at a moment's notice, but for now it settled for growling softly and observing what happened next. She watched Cid pour two cups and hold one out. It didn't match the chunky pot, being a delicate little teacup decorated in roses. Pink roses. She wrinkled her nose to hold in a laugh. It looked so ridiculous in Cid's square hand, she couldn't not laugh.

Cid's glower deepened. He interpreted her nose-wrinkle for disdain. "Take. The. Goddamn. Tea." Something in his tone made her accept. His shoulders lowered from below his ears. He picked up his own cup and blew on it. "What the fuck were you doing climbing the North Tower, anyhow?"

Yuffie looked hard at the brown liquid. "I heard Leon say Maleficent left some old scrolls up there, but they couldn't get the door open. He thought they might be, y'know, secrets to the magical doohickeys and booby traps she left around the castle, or maybe something else useful. Merlin said the door was warded, and it might take weeks for him to figure out how to break the enchantments."

"So you decided to scale the fucking wall?"

"There's a little window. Nobody else would be able to fit through it." The tea started to quiver in front of her. She blinked and her vision cleared. "It faces the courtyard. You can't reach it from any angle except up. Or maybe down, but that'd involve flying, and Cloud's gone AWOL again, so …" She trailed off. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Stupid brat. You got your leg broke for no good reason."

"It was so a good reason!" She caught Cid's expression and lowered her eyes. Her tone turned sullen. "Everybody thinks I'm useless. I'm a freaking ninja, with ninja skills and talents and … and endowments!" She grimaced. Her internal thesaurus had betrayed her. Straight as a bean pole and only just curvy enough not to be mistaken for a boy, she was anything but endowed. "Nobody asks me to do anything serious. They just give me tasks that keep me out of their way. I just thought …" She sighed. "I would've been fine if Squall hadn't yelled at me like that. He distracted me. I would've been hunky dory, peachy keen, and … and …"

"Finer than frog's hair?" Cid offered.

"Yeah! If that wasn't, like, a totally gross analogy. If Squall had just stayed quiet and let me get on with it, I wouldn't have got distracted, and I wouldn't have fallen off. Ninjas don't fall off unless they're distracted or pushed."

Cid took an experimental sip of his tea. "Some ninja," he muttered.

Yuffie sagged. That was what she was talking about. Nobody thought she was a valuable member of the team. They all just tolerated her; or that was how it felt. Quirky little Yuffie, the baby of the bunch, who thought she was a leading lady when really she was just part of the supporting cast. Everybody had constructive roles to play in the rebuilding of Radiant Garden. Everybody except her. She just hung about the fringes, playing at being a fighter and making a nuisance of herself. Even when she was trying to be useful, the others saw her as a pest, although most were too polite to say it. It was like they had all forgotten what it was like to be a teenager, chock-full of hormones and looking for an outlet that increased self-esteem without making you look like you cared too much.

"What you need," Cid went on, "is a good set of grappling hooks."

Yuffie's ears perked. She feigned nonchalance. "Yeah, right."

He looked at her appraisingly. "Or maybe some of those hand an' knee spikes mountain climbers wear. I could rig up a set for vertical surfaces. Have to curve the spikes down some, so's we don't get a repeat of this fiasco. More grip needed for old stone like these, an' some sorta provision for distributin' your weight evenly. These old stones crumble like turds baked in the sun if you ain't careful."

"And again with the gross analogies." Yuffie licked her lips, wondering if this was a wind-up. Cid's sense of humour was unpredictable. The weirdest stuff made him laugh. "You'd do that for me?"

"Those scrolls ain't goin' nowhere if the door's warded. An' you're right: nobody else is skinny enough for that lil' window. For once, you bein' a scrawny punk-ass kid might come in handy."

"Asshole."

"Stupid brat."

"Super asshole."

"Stupid retarded brat."

"Super asshole times infinity!"

"Keep goin'. I think you almost hurt my feelings with that one."

They traded insults until the teapot was empty. Cid finally left to inform Aerith it was safe to go in and heal Yuffie's fractured tibia now. Aerith was standing right outside the door. Had he made less noise with the cuts and saucers, Yuffie reckoned Cid would have pulled open the door to find Aerith with her ear pressed against it. Of Leon there was no sign. Naturally. He was probably off polishing his gunblade, or brooding on the battlements, or something. Aerith stared at Cid and then at Yuffie, who waved cheerfully.

"I thought you'd killed each other. You were in here a long time."

Cid grunted and swept past.

"Where are you going?"

"Workshop."

"But –"

"I'm goin' to my workshop," he cut her off in a tone that brooked no argument.

Aerith watched him go and sighed. "Sometimes I don't know why I bother."

"It's because you loooove us soooo much," Yuffie singsonged. "Can I get my leg fixed so I can get out of bed now?"

"That depends. Are you still going to put poison shuriken in my bed?"

"I said that?"

"Amongst other things."

"Oh." Yuffie paused. "Sorry."

Aerith sighed and shook her head. "It's all right."

"You know I didn't mean it, right?"

"Yuffie, old as I may seem to you, it wasn't that long ago I was a teenager, and I do remember what it was like. I know you were just trying t help. Just … try not to help in such a spectacular fashion next time, okay? Washing the dishes will do just fine. Or you could do the laundry. Or clean the toilets."

"Uh, on second thoughts, leave my leg alone. Bed-rest, that's what I need. Lots and lots of bed-rest. And chicken soup. Can you make me some chicken soup?"

Aerith smiled and held her hands over the broken leg. "Hold still. This will tingle a bit."

Fin.

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