Prelude to Disaster

This fic is for Bleuwyn, Motchi, and Nineshadows (best of luck and joy as we endeavor to write our non-VinTifs!), and for LilTigre, who adores Reeve...and for Randi Lynne, who adores CidxYuffie. Before I begin (or get flames from rabid fangirls), I remind you all that this fic takes place in an Alternate Universe, and is in no way a reflection of my feelings about any of the characters...especially Reno...but with exception to Lucrecia. Ha. Also, I think it takes a complex person with deep-seeded issues to act this way (and I'll get into them in later chapters), and I'm tired of seeing Reno portrayed as either a slacker or a flirt, or a simple-minded jerk. And even though he's a 'bad guy' here, I'm going to try to give him more dimension than that.

(-warnings: language-)

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I was lying on our bed when he returned, staring at the wall with the sheets bundled tightly in my arms. My eyes were puffy and red, and they burned like hell from all the rubbing I'd been doing, but he didn't notice that. He didn't even try to seek out my face. He just cozied up behind me like he always did; I flinched at the contact, but he didn't seem to notice that either, or if he did, he was doing a good job of pretending it wasn't there. So I tried to pretend that he wasn't there.

When he finally reached out to skim the curve of my hip with his rough fingertips, I forcefully threw his hand off of me with a wild bat of my arm, drawing my knees up even nearer to my chest.

"Aw, babe. What's wrong?"

I clenched my teeth, my jaw set in firm determination to not whip around and deck him square in the face. How I hated that patronizing, unassuming tone. I was half-convinced he did it on purpose - no, I knew he did - as if by playing clueless, he couldn't be blamed for anything that had happened only minutes before. Well, he'd seemed to know exactly what was going on then.

"You know what's wrong," I said, mimicking the lilting, sing-song voice he'd used. I, myself, would never talk to him like that. That tone was reserved for small children and fluffy animals.

I held my breath as I waited for his reaction. For a moment, there was nothing. But then I felt him push away from the body I'd hardened against him to lie on his back, presumably to watch the ceiling fan turn. "I don't know what to tell you."

His reply was offhanded, as if he were mentally shrugging to himself. That was it? He had to be joking! After all that happened earlier...he ran off, leaving me a mess of raging tears...did he really expect things to be as if it never happened at all?

"I can't just turn it off like you," I said, not bothering to hide the swell in my throat that had become so laced with bitterness over the last several months.

It was times like these that I envied him. Reno never had to deal with anything. He could do or say whatever he wanted, and when confronted about it, he could yell and scream and say the nastiest, most hurtful things imaginable, before walking out the door without batting an eye at the pain so obviously etched on my face. And if I was still angry when he came back, then I was the one with the problem. Honestly, I can't figure out why he thought he had it so hard.

His weight shifted on the mattress, and I felt him leave it, his socks shuffling against the carpet as he stood. "Well, when you're done feeling sorry for yourself, I'll be out there."

How dare he! I jumped to my knees, glaring furious daggers at his retreating form. Oh, no. He wasn't getting off that easy. "You called me a fucking cunt, Reno! That's the worst thing you could say!" I clenched my fists tightly as I shouted after him. "How did you think I would feel?"

He turned swiftly around to face me, eyes wide and wild with no small amount of incredulity. "You were acting like a cunt!" he exclaimed, as if it were the simplest thing in the world, and if I weren't so stupid to not realize it, then our problems would be solved.

I climbed over the bed to stand several feet away from him, my arms so tensed at my sides that they burned. "I'm sick and tired of the way you talk to me!"

"That makes two of us!" he shot back.

Ah, right. Reno always had his fail-safe plan; whenever he couldn't think of anything to say and didn't have a good excuse for the way he was acting, he would throw my own words back at me, whether they were applicable or not. Though, he usually didn't resort to that until much later in our fight. He must have been tired.

I blinked. "What?"

"I'm tired of you talking to me like I'm some kind of dog!" he spat.

"Oh gods, Reno!" I hit my forehead in disbelief. "All I asked you to do was to leave your phone on, and on you."

"So you can call me five times an hour?" he prodded, raising his eyebrows and taking an angry step in my direction. Still, I held my ground.

"I don't do that. And you should expect a call when you're not home even after all the bars are closed!"

"Oh, so you can tell me where I should be, then. Gee, thanks Mom," he said, turning on his heel and walking away.

I put my hands on my hips as I watched his lazy stride. "What the hell is so important that you can't be interrupted?"

"...Fuck you," he called over his shoulder.

I stood there stewing for a minute before following him into the living room. "What was that for?"

He stopped dead in his tracks then, turning around so suddenly that I had to jump back, shoving his finger into my face. "Don't pussyfoot around. If you've got something to say, then just say it," he ground out, squinting his eyes menacingly at me. "But don't play games."

Right, I nearly forgot. I only did this because it brought me loads of joy and I got a kick out of seeing him suffer. "You think this is a game to me?"

"I don't know what it is," he said, walking through the room and into the kitchen to rummage through the refrigerator.

"Reno, you come home talking about-"

"Shut up!" he yelled, cutting the air with his hand. "Just...shut the fuck up."

"No," I said firmly, stomping my foot. "I will not. You wanted me to talk, so I'm going to."

"Thank you!" he shouted, as he slammed the door shut.

I brought my voice dangerously low as I was only seconds from giving him a pounding he would never forget, my eyes narrowed into tiny warning slits. "You always come through here, talking about how much everyone likes you at work, how they appreciate you at work, how the girls at work think you're so great..."

"I'm waiting."

"Well, what do you expect me to do, when you go off without me? Just sit here with a smile?"

That was my main issue with Reno. He made it seem like I didn't have anything to offer him, like I didn't do enough for him. Everyone else around him appreciated him in his eyes, though I thought someone other than myself should explain to him that they didn't care about what their shameless flirting was doing to his personal life, that they didn't care about the woman waiting for him at home, and that there was a difference between truly appreciating a person and appreciating the idea that they might be an easy lay.

Because Reno never listened to me. Apparently, I was out to ruin his fun.

"We work together," he growled, like I didn't understand that already. Hell, that they worked together was half the problem! "We're already there. It's not like it's just me and a bunch of girls all the time."

But I knew the type, and I wouldn't go so far as to call them 'girls'. They hung all over him (there was one in particular that just would not leave him alone; I like to refer to her as Scarlet the harlot...my little nickname), and he wasn't the only one. And the other guys? They treated their girlfriends just as badly.

"So why do you turn your phone off?" I asked. "Or, even worse, why do you leave it on and in your car, so I keep trying to reach you? Do you have any idea how crazy that makes me?"

"Oh, you're definitely fucking crazy," he said, leaning against the counter with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. I heard somewhere that hearing that line was as good as hearing a confession. "How about this; you just worry about you, and I'll worry about me."

Impossible. "That's not a relationship, Reno! That's roommates."

"Then why don't you say what you want to say!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" I screamed, waving my arms in exasperation. "I just did!"

"Right," he muttered, violently brushing past me.

He wasn't really waiting for me to say just anything that was on my mind; he wanted me to come out and say that I didn't trust him. It took me a while to figure this out, that he wasn't completely unaware that I'd been talking the whole time (although he always disregarded what I said), but that he wanted something specific. I used to just think he was crazy, but I'd learned the hard way. And while I knew this, I wouldn't dare say it; I was too afraid. Because if he hadn't yet found his way into another woman's arms (despite all the circumstantial evidence that told me otherwise), I was sure that little admission would take him all the way.

Reno laced his shoes and grabbed his coat from where it had been draped over the back of the armchair. "I'm going out," he said, making his way to the front door and swinging it open.

I knew he was going to leave, and I could feel everything slipping out of my reach again. "You shouldn't be out there with them," I said, a bit softer in an effort to stay him long enough to change his mind. "You should be here with me."

"Because you're such a joy to come home to," he jabbed, without even stopping to look at me. He shut the door behind him then, and disappeared into the night.

Ouch. All right, so maybe 'cunt' wasn't the worst thing he could have said. And I was all alone again.

Before I could help myself I was crying and walking back to the bedroom. I hadn't thought there were any more tears left, but I'd been mistaken. I felt more than ready to sink lifelessly into the mattress, wanting nothing more than to fade into comforting black and never wake up again, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to sleep, not when he was out with gods-knew-who, doing gods-knew-what. But I reached over to turn out the bedside lamp just the same, noticing something familiar sitting on the nightstand.

His phone.

And that was when I cursed and put my fist through the window.

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AN: Next chapter...Reeve! And...Cloud, Vincent, Yuffie and Cid. So far, my plans are to update this once every Saturday, or at least by Sunday. At any rate, once a weekend, if things work out. Meanwhile, I would LOVE to hear what you thought about this chapter.

Thanks to Motchi's husband for the story title. It was either that, or "Reeve me Alone." Motchi suggested, "Reeve it to Tifa." And while things like "Exchange Policy" or "Cheque Your Personal Baggage at the Door" seemed more serious, how could I NOT use it?

'Till next time...

Love.