Mix

One: Kebab

"Come on, Strife, can we go already?" Whined the redheaded boy. His companion's backside was sticking out from under a bench while the rest of his body investigated something under there.

"Gimme a sec... someone's kicked something back here. I think it's a CD." Was his muffled reply. Reno sighed and, seizing Cloud's belt loops, pulled the blonde-haired boy from under the bench, ignoring the indignant yelps. Dropping Cloud on the floor, he snatched the object the boy had been holding up like a trophy after his departure from the Realm Under The Benches as mentioned boy sneezed violently and attempted to get the clumped dust balls out of his spiky hair. Unsuccessful in his attempts, he gave up and rose to stand next to Reno and also studied the object.

"Kebab Mix," he read aloud.

Reno gave him a disgruntled look. "So glad ya can read. Now, can we go? If we don't hurry they'll lock the showers... and then I will hold you fully responsible for us smelling like Harley's dirty socks." He tossed the disc to the side, much to the annoyance of his friend, and set off at a quick walk towards the changing rooms. Cloud rescued the intriguingly named 'Kebab Mix' and hurried to catch up with his friend.

"Reno... someone's probably lost this," He said pointedly.

"Great observation there. Either that or they just left it there because they didn't like it, Ne?" He grinned back.

"Renoo... We should return it."

Reno turned to face his companion, and then quickly turned back when he nearly walked into the wall. "How do you suggest we do that?"

"...put up a 'Lost' poster in the gym?"

"Uh... Cloud..."

"What?"

"Look... you've gotta stop being so damn nice, Ne? You make me feel so bad."

"...Sorry..."

"AAH! Stop it! Don't say sorry unless you've done something to apologize for!"

"Sorr- uh I mean... So why don't you want me to put up posters?"

Reno paused at the door to the change rooms which was blissfully unlocked. "I didn't want to break your little heart over the idea of not being able to do something nice for someone... but I'm pretty sure I saw some third-class kick it on floor forty-four's west hallway. So I really doubt you'll know a good place to put up posters."

"But Reno, why can't I just put up posters in a lot of the hallways? Like the west-forty-four hallway, where he left it."

Reno laid a hand gently on his companion's gravity-defying spikes. "Cloud, poor innocent Cloud. We're in the military here, not some high-school. You just can't put posters up in hallways, it's not done! They'll tell you off. And I never said they left the CD there, did I? I do so believe it has suffered the empty-can effect."

"Uh." Cloud stared at him blankly. "Empty can effect?"

The redhead sighed. "Okay. See a can lying on the side of the road. What do you do?"

"Put it in the bin?"

"NO! You kick it."

"...Okay... so I kick it."

"Exactly. And so it's a few meters or kilometers away from where it sta-"

"Kilometers? Who's gonna kick a can along for a few K's?"

"...Look... I dunno, okay? So than someone else comes along, kicks it... and it goes further away!"

"Not necessarily."

"...what?"

"Suppose he or she came from the direction I went. Then he or she would kick it towards where it started."

"Cloud... just... no. Everyone's going your direction, okay?"

"Why?"

"I don't know... Concert in a park?"

"There are no parks in Midgar. Everything's dead." He replied, a tone of sadness in his voice. One has a tendency to miss nature when one has grown up in a mountain town.

"...A concert in Wall Market."

"Oh gods, who'd wanna go there?"

"Heheheheh."

"Apart from you, pervert. I mean, come on, the honeybee inn! Does anyone there have any morals? And then there's those cross-dres-"

"Cloud."

"Oh sorry... where were we? Can-kicking?"

"Yes. So the can gets kicked, and it moves further and further away from where it previously was. So it travels from sector 2 to sector 7."

"...kay."

"And, you see, no-one knows where the can came from, because it was there when they got there!"

"...kay."

"And so, to conclude, there is no feasible way to return this CD to its owner, as both owner and location of abandonment and or misposession of said CD is unclear!"

"... Reno? I have to say, it freaks me out when you talk like that."

"Soooo-ry. Now can we shower?"

"...kay."

"And, Strife, don't get too upset."

This was met with silence.

"And don't go all silent like that. Sheesh, you're way too silent for your own good." Reno chided, slipping into one of the stalls. Cloud followed suit, and for the next ten minutes the two silently showered. Reno's voice eventually rose above the hissing noise of partly defect shower heads which mostly sprayed at a ninety-degree angle to the shower head instead of straight down like one would expect.

"Cloud... say something. Silence is too freaky."

"Um... sorry..."

"But not that."

"Uh, so- I mean..."

Reno sighed, and silence from the two ShinRa troops dominated for a good four minutes.

"Uh, Reno?"

"Yes?"

"Well, people stick posters on their room doors, right?"

"Damn right. Speaking of which, Miss April is getting a bit old. Mind if I replace her?"

"Reno, why do you insist on posters of smutty women on our door?"

"Is there any other type of woman?"

"RENO!"

"So, Strife, what were you going to ask?"

"...do you think I'd get in trouble for putting a 'Lost' Poster in the dorm hallways?"

"I guess not. I mean, no-one other than the people who sleep there go into the hall there. Why would anyone want to go near the rooms of sixty unwashed ShinRa recruits?"

"Well, high chances that the CD belongs to one of us, right?"

"Huh. Where's your logic there?"

"Well, we get paid far less than, say, a Third class, and we burn CDs to save on Gil."

"And since the Thirds are rolling in it, they would afford more than six copies -should their black little hearts desire it- of the album and so wouldn't bother burning it?"

"Something like that. Yeah."

"Good thinking, Cloud-O! Sure, if ya want post posters in our lowly little grunt hallway and the hallways of all the other lowly grunts."

"I wish you wouldn't call us that."

"It's true! We are lowly! Maybe if they realized how crazy were are going, like poor little Harley, they would do something. Hey Cloud, can you go spaz and smash a couple of beds like Harley did? Maybe then I'll get promoted, out of amazement that I survived two spastic roommates,"

"Oh hell,"

"Is that innocent little Cloudie Strife, swearing as dirtily as his innocent mouth could allow? Do tell why?" Reno enquired as he stepped out of his cubicle and waited for Cloud to follow suit. He was not disappointed, as the boy burst out and promptly started pacing back and forth on the plain cream tiles.

"Oh hell... Oh hell... When they finally dragged Harley off... It was when he had reached my desk... and he grabbed a buncha papers off my desk! And then they took him to medical... where they probably threw them out!" Reno watched with a vague interest as Cloud worked himself up over 'a buncha papers'.

"What was so important about those papers?"

"They are... they WERE... my notes for my essay! How the hell do I get better than five percent if I don't have my damn materials?"

"Ah, that essay we have to do for written? Don't know why they bother us with that shit. Does it really matter if we don't learn the history of ShinRa if we're good fighters?"

"RENO!"

"Whaaat?"

"I'm an AWFUL fighter! The only reason they haven't-"

"Booted your scrawny ass back to your isolated little hick town is because you're a regular little Einstein?"

"AAAAARGH! I HAVEN'T GOT ANY NOTES!"

"Shut up and let's go get dinner."

Next chapter: Stuff happens!

But, really, I shouldn't have started this. My science partner wants me to finish my half of out essay draft by... Tomorrow? Ahh hell... She's a bit too uptight, damn thing isn't due for at least a week.

But I guess I should of worked on that or the fic I've been promising myself I'm going to finish the first chapter of for the past three months or play 'We Love Katamari' (Picked it up today! God it's freakily colourful) or something... but no, I write this. Ehh, this is what I get for having an overactive imagination and giving it plenty of time to wake up my muse. That and I find having characters engage in pointless conversations is really relaxing.

Another thing I'm going to add here for anyone that actually reads this is that I can't believe they're charging AUS$45 (Yes, I'm Australian.) for the Cloud & Sephiroth figurines! $45 for adjustable, molded CHUNKS OF PLASTIC! Naturally, I need both of them. And if whoever's there is STILL reading this, can someone please tell me anything about Before Crisis? Please? Like, are those Anime screenies of Cloud & co floating around off it? So is BC an Anime? Is it released in English in America yet?AAARGH SO CONFUSED!

So, um... If you like/hate/read/glanced at/other this fic, PLEASE R&R! Gods, really, I depend on reviews.

If it's more fun that way, try to guess who's CD it is. Revealed in next chapter! That is, if i don't spend the whole chapter having Reno and Cloud talk about random junk. Does anyone actually like reading conversations like that? Cos, seriously, i love them.

So, um. Yeah. Taa-taa! - Scarlett