A Dish Best Served Cold,
By Ealinesse
DISCLAIMER:
I don't own Final Fantasy, just the plot to this story, and a couple of painfully annoying original characters. Woohoo. ^_^Summary:
A stakeout doesn't go as planned, and the two people least happy about it are the same two who have to drop everything and work together to keep themselves alive… and sane.Warnings:
Language, (Kiwi Spelling), More Language.Category:
Action/Adventure.Chapter Three...
Her hands were rubbed raw, her wrists were rubbed raw, she could almost swear that she'd dislocated her shoulder, her shuriken was digging into her side, and she was tired. Damn tired. But damned if she could sleep right now. Not with Reno still up in that tree, and her still here… wherever that was.
The torches in the distance had long since receded into the nothingness, and she couldn't be sure but it had to have been at least two hours since her encounter with the men. And she still didn't have a torch. Damn it, damn them, and damn Reno for making her worry.
At the thought of the Turk she struggled futily against the bonds that held her again. The handcuffs rubbed deeper, and the rope was only slightly less giving. Great, she was getting chafe from trying so hard. She gave up, but knew she'd have to try again soon. She couldn't stay here forever.
Little did the men know it, but they'd effectively tied her in the worst possible position, in the worst possible place. Had it been any other tree she could have perhaps caught a glimpse of Reno up in the tree, but no, they'd had to tie her to the one tree in the forest that she didn't want them to. The one tree in the forest that she had any affiliation with, and the one tree that she actually gave a damn about… Not to mention that this was the one tree that Reno could fall out of and land on her.
Yuffie laid her head back against the unforgiving bark of the tree, experimentally smacking her head against the trunk just for good measure. The trunk didn't give. She hadn't expected it to. The thought darkened her mood. She scowled.
"And damn the shitty tree, too," she muttered sourly, closing her eyes. If she couldn't sleep then so be it, but she wasn't just going to sit there and stare at nothing. That was just plain pointless.
* * * * *
Pain, possibly the first thing he'd ever really known, and possibly the first thing he'd ever learnt to deal with. To a point.
Reno groaned, a sound that came from deep in his throat that not only belied his physical pain, but his frustration at not knowing. How long had he been lying here in this godforsaken tree? Seconds, minutes, hours? … Days? How was it even possible to figure out the time when your arm was just as sore as the rest of you?
And where the hell was Yuffie?
Well, there was only one way to find out.
Eventually, after what seemed like a thousand lifetimes, Reno gathered the energy to open his eyes. Ah, so they did still function, though somewhat reluctantly. Sharp pinnacles of light that had only before been red specks behind his eyelids made him blink them closed immediately. He shivered in reaction before realising that it was daytime. So it wasn't a torch shining in his eyes. They hadn't been found, that much he could assume.
Or could he?
"… Reno, that you?" came a small voice from below him. The tone sounded weary, bored almost, and very, very angry. Belatedly he realised it was coming from Yuffie. He realised there was no hint of the usual whine in her voice; he imagined that had worn itself out hours ago. A strange sort of relief ran through him upon knowing she was safe.
He opened his mouth to speak, but wasn't prepared for the ragged cough that erupted from his unused throat. After a moment he got the breathy hacking under control, a shaky hand going to his throat when he realised what that meant. Okay, so he'd been out longer than he'd thought. He opened his eyes again, noting that through the trees the sun was just below its zenith. Around noon, then. He'd been out at least ten hours. He lifted his arm; the watch confirmed it.
Shit.
"Yuffie?" he managed when he tried again, sounding a lot less like himself than he would have liked. "'the hell's going on?"
There was a low growl from beneath him. "You tell me, you've been the one dozing in the tree all night!" But there was some emotion beyond her anger there, and he knew suddenly that something was keeping her down there, and he wouldn't be able to see what it was until he got up. Until.
He put his hands underneath him and pressed upward, knowing that it was going to more than hurt him to stand. He swayed a little, pressed a hand against his side, the other against the tree just to stay upright, but he managed it. He looked down and his eyes widened at his current elevation. A sudden wave of vertigo washed over him as he realised that he'd obviously climbed a lot further up than he had thought.
Hastily Reno re-established his bond with his knee joints. Falling from the tree would not help things right now. He began to climb down. Or, more accurately, stumble down. When he reached the bottom he was puffing, coughing soon after. When he got his breath under control he finally found himself able to focus on other things…
Like the fact that Yuffie was tied to a tree in front of him, looking impatient, but none the worse for wear. In better shape than him at least. He imagined he resembled hell warmed over.
He smirked, feeling suddenly better, and stood straighter, ignoring his side. Like always it could wait. "Comfy?" The scowl that painted itself across Yuffie's face was more than worth the pain it took him to stagger over to her.
Yuffie glared up at him out of the corner of her eye. She didn't move; she couldn't. "Get me out of here!"
"Of where?"
"Reno!"
"All right, all right!" He snickered and began to kneel by her side when a sudden wave of dizziness knocked him to his knees. He gasped for breath and his gloved hand flew to his side, his vision blotting out completely before he found himself supported by the trunk of the tree. He blinked away the nausea, tried to ignore the sickening feeling of the bullet moving around in his side, and looked up at Yuffie.
"… Reno?" she asked after a moment, suddenly hesitant to be so boisterous.
He paused, frowned, then leaned in behind her and began to unhinge the ropes to distract his shaking hands. "Fine," was his clipped reply.
Out of the corner of his eye Reno saw Yuffie's scowl deepen "I've been stuck here all night, and by the time those idiots were gone, you had passed out completely. I was yelling for you, all night, and not once did you so much as acknowledge me! My ass you're fine."
Reno winced. "How loud were you-"
"Loud!"
"Oh. And I didn't-"
"No!"
Reno grinned. "Slept like a baby, huh?"
"Well I'm sure glad somebody did. And by the way, stop grinning. This is not funny."
Reno bit his lip and screwed up his face from beside her. "I'm not grinning."
"Right. Just get these ropes undone!"
"I am."
"No you're not, you're just-"
Reno stood slowly, smirking as, as he did so, said ropes fell from around Yuffie to the ground. He lifted his hands palm-up in surrender, before raising his eyebrows in question. "Just what?"
Yuffie scowled and clambered to her feet, dusting herself down in disgust. "That's the last time I chase some thugs away for you, Turk."
"Chase them away?"
"Yes."
"You chased them away while tied to a tree?" Reno watched as Yuffie continued to eye him with an icy sidelong glance. "A truly amazing feat."
"Oh, shut up, Reno." She turned to face him, glared, and when that wasn't punishment enough moved forward and prodded him in the shoulder. "Let me take a look at your side."
Reno grimaced and took a step back, and it wasn't until she looked down at the injury that he noticed the bloody gash across her cheek. All thoughts of harmless insults and irrepressible banter flew from his mind. Eyes widening, Reno took a wary step forward, a distant fear rising in his gut as he recognised the slash on Yuffie's cheek for what he also hoped it wasn't. Unbidden, a flash of memory returned to him, and his hands flew to his own cheek, where similar scars lay.
"No… "
"… Reno?"
He looked up, not realising that he'd looked away, and again he caught sight of the dried blood, the long gash. "Who did that to you?"
Yuffie's brows furrowed and she brought her hand up to her cheek, wincing lightly at the light contact. "This?"
"Yes."
Yuffie shrugged, puzzled. "Why does it matter?"
"Who?" For once Reno was not in the mood for abject phrases. If that was what he thought it was, then Yuffie could be in serious trouble. When the ninja didn't answer, just frowned, he scowled. "Brat, I need to know-"
"I don't know, okay? I fought them in the dark so they wouldn't find you, and I didn't have a torch. Most of it were just lucky swipes." Her fingers flew lightly across her cheek. "This was one of them. Why?"
"Never mind. What happened to them?"
"They left."
"Was Donovan with them?"
"Who?"
"The man you knocked out in the alley."
"No. They said something about reporting to him back in Midgar."
"Where did they go?"
Yuffie pointed. "That way."
"Did you hear why they were going that way?"
This time a small smile crept onto Yuffie's face. "Uh, yeah. I told them you left me behind."
"You what! And they believed you?"
Yuffie sniffed indignantly. "I was very convincing. And besides, what is this, twenty questions? If so, when do I get my turn? I'd rather like to know why I got tied to a tree and-"
"And so they went looking for me that way, and never came back?"
She sighed. "That's right."
"Right, then." Reno turned and began to take a look around the woods. After evidently seeing what he wanted, he began to walk with slow, deliberate paces in the opposite direction to where Yuffie had pointed.
Not believing her eyes, and not sure she even wanted to believe, Yuffie bolted after him. "Where are you going?"
"I would think that was painfully obvious, Yuff."
"Okay, let me rephrase that. Why?"
Reno stopped then, and a dozen expressions flickered across his face. When he finally looked up at her, his eyes were shadowed. "Do you want to be here when they come back?"
She hesitated. "Surely they'd be gone by now. We could head back to the road and catch another car. We're safe no-"
"You really think that?"
No. She didn't.
She had no reply to that. Yuffie shivered, the thug's words from the previous night echoing through her mind unpleasantly. She resumed walking then, but paused after a moment as she noticed how slow the Turk was moving. It had obviously cost him a great deal to even so much as humour her outright.
"All right," she said like it actually mattered. "But at least let me check your side over first. That bullet has to come out."
"No way," came the reply. "It can wait. The last thing I want is to die of blood poisoning because you've gone and got it infected. Besides, that cut on your face needs checking out just as badly."
"Stop changing the subject, my face is fine. You, on the other hand, look like a light breeze could blow you over."
Reno smirked. "I'm a Turk. If that means anything to you, then you'll know that I've been through a lot worse." He paused then, as if he were about to say something else, then closed his mouth, obviously thinking better of openly saying whatever had come to mind. She watched his eyes flicker to her cheek before he turned and began again his laboured pace.
"We'll see," she distinctly heard him say. And for some reason, those words were of no comfort to her. With a sigh of disconcerted frustration, she raced up to follow him, but tripped on something entirely unexpected.
Red-faced, Yuffie clambered to her feet even as Reno turned to face her, amused. Wondering what the hell she'd been stupid enough to stumble over, she looked back, paling at the sight of the bodies she had long-since forgotten about. About to comment with distaste at the state of the man's face, she instead found her eyes drifting toward a very familiar object. Disbelieving, Yuffie picked up the small cylindrical item and turned it in her grip, quickly finding a small switch on its side. Biting her lip, Yuffie flicked the object, delighted when the small bulb inside flared to life.
"Well I'll be damned," she said, now feeling more than a little annoyed at her apparent lack of good fortune. "Of course, now, in the daytime I would manage to find a bloody torch."
* * * * *
Goddamn was she thirsty. She had no idea how long she'd been without food, and whenever she asked Reno, he seemed to get a kick out of saying, "too long". The joy he seemed to get out of this eluded her, however, but she humoured him. She was definitely getting a kick out of how much the countless twigs that littered the forest's floor seemed to like Reno's feet.
"Damn it all to fucking hell!" Reno cursed, stopping for the thousandth time before squaring his jaw in annoyance. Somewhat awkwardly, he bent down and unlaced his boots, before removing said footwear and emptying out what must have been at least a dozen small objects. "Waterproof, yes. Forest-proof, no."
Yuffie snickered. "'Forest-proof?'"
Reno shot Yuffie a dark look as he put his shoe back on. "You know what I mean. I can't get ten paces before I fill the remainder of this fucking thing, " Reno gestured frustratedly in the general vicinity of his boot, "with crap!"
Yuffie watched pensively as he began to walk again, and followed slowly behind. She was more than a little puzzled when he stopped within the next few feet.
"What's the matter," she grinned, "More prickles?"
He lifted his arm in the air without turning around, then shook his head and continued on. "Never mind. It's nothing."
"Nothing."
There was a snort of amusement. He shrugged negligently and tried to dismiss her attention. "Nup. Just thought I heard a stream or something, that's all."
Yuffie froze, her eyes narrowing in annoyance. Those words had been carefully crafted, and even at the mere suggestion she felt the dryness of her lips, and flicked her tongue out of dampen them down. She sighed. "Stop making shit up. I really am thirsty."
They wandered another few steps, after which the sound of trickling water became apparent to her as well. Hesitant, she slowed her pace before realising that she wasn't hearing things. "And I really do hear water," she said slowly as she ran ahead.
Reno reached her shortly after, a little less steady on his feet, his side hurting him more than he was willing to let on. He crouched beside her and she saw his hand hover lightly over the surface of the small stream before plunging in and bringing a small amount of water to his lips. She grinned and mimicked the action, feeling the soothing trickle of the water down her throat. She sighed and sat back for a moment on the heels of her hands by the edge of the small creek, suddenly aware of the dirt and the grime that no doubt covered her face. She shifted onto her knees and brought her face close to the water to take a better look.
Filthy.
With a look of resignation Yuffie bent further over and began scrubbing vigorously at her face, but stopped when she reached the cut on her cheek. She frowned, leaning closer to the water. What had Reno meant when he'd said "we'll see"?
"How do you feel?"
Yuffie fairly jumped out of her skin. Leaping back from the water she failed to compensate for the muddiness of the bank, and her boots slipped on the edge of it. It was a matter of seconds before her feet were utterly soaked. She jumped disgustedly to her feet and clambered up the bank, turning to face Reno.
Ready to punch the Turk for the amusement she knew to be there, Yuffie was surprised to see him sitting in a way similar to how she had been before, not a metre away from the place where her foot had collapsed the bank. His face was carefully neutral, but if she thought that there had been even so much as a trace of humour just below the surface, then she was wrong.
Ending the tirade she had barely begun, Yuffie stopped dead, suddenly a little more than unsure of herself. "What do you mean, 'how do I feel?'" she said after a moment, anger long-since faded. "What aren't you telling me?"
Reno got to his feet then, and Yuffie tried to ignore his eyes on her cheek. "Answer my question."
"F-fine," she said hesitantly. "I feel fine."
Reno narrowed his eyes at this, then stopped his progress towards her and turned away. "Sure?"
"Positive," she said slowly. "Why are you asking me this when you're the only one who is hurt?"
As if on second thought Yuffie saw Reno's head angle downward toward his side. She watched his shoulders seem to slump, and moved to stand in front of him. Earlier on she'd been able to ignore all the blood that he'd lost, but right now, standing dead-on she paled visibly as she looked through the sizeable hole that had been torn in his shirt. She winced, feeling vaguely sorry for the Turk.
"Reno, you really need to wash that out before it becomes infected. And even before you can afford to get some medical attention or a Cure spell, you first need to-"
"Get the bullet out, I know, I know. But hell if I'm getting the thing out in the middle of nowhere-"
"Reno," Yuffie growled. "It's more likely to get infected if you leave it in there! Stop wussing out and just get it over with."
"Wuss?"
"Turk, wuss, same thing," Yuffie said almost negligently.
Reno seemed to freeze for an instant, and Yuffie was afraid that his next words were going to be in anger. Instead he merely let out an annoyed sigh. She watched as he cast a look behind him, then a frustrated glance at her, then sat down again on the bank. Yuffie followed quickly behind, feeling her boots squelch with the water that had saturated them. She cast him a sidelong glance, watching as confusing emotions continued to war across his face.
She was about to speak again when she was beaten to it.
"I'll cut you a deal," Reno said slowly from beside her. "If you clean out that cut properly, then I'll wash off my side, but not a moment before."
Yuffie frowned, but didn't comment. Obviously this was important, or he wouldn't be kicking up such a fuss about it. She pursed her lips. "And the bullet?"
Reno sighed again from beside her, and Yuffie considered how out of character it sounded for him to do so so often. "Consider it gone."
Feeling like she had just won a major victory on her part, Yuffie smiled and proceeded to carefully scrub at the cut on her face.
* * * * *
From beside her there came a low grunt of pain accompanied by a final splash of water. "I don't think I can get the bullet out by myself you know."
Yuffie felt a lump grow in her throat. She knew that she would be the one to end up doing this, but there had always been the hope that she wouldn't have to. She was almost tempted to go back on her word and tell him he could leave the damned thing in there, but decided against it. It had to come out, and it had to be soon. As it was, he was lucky he hadn't contracted a major infection.
She sighed and squared her jaw before looking at the wound Reno had cleaned up. She could do this. She'd seen Tifa do it before. She'd seen Cid cauterise a sword wound. Hell, she'd even been stupid enough to stitch her own leg up once, but that was different. She trusted herself enough to know that she was responsible for her own mistakes, but sticking your hand inside someone elses insides to remove something that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place admittedly made her more than a little squeamish.
She let her eyes drift up to meet Reno's.
Something akin to amusement and apprehension flickered across his face. "Not going to go back on your word, are you?"
Yuffie scowled and tried to keep herself from retching. Managing to look contemplative for but a second, she shifted her expression into that of a smirk. She crossed her arms across her chest. "No, actually, I'm rather looking forward to digging around in your insides so you can bleed to death."
This time Reno's look was one of brief surprise before he covered it up. "Oh, good," he said finally with a loud snort and a grin. "My life rests in the hands of a sadist bitch."
Yuffie snickered, then sucked in a deep breath and began looking around for something she could use to stop the bleeding. Finding what she needed in the sleeve of her shirt, she tugged at it until she felt the satisfying rip of the fabric. She did the same with the other sleeve, then proceeded to ball them up and place them by her side.
She looked Reno in the eye. "You're sure about this?"
Reno just stared back at her, then lay carefully back on the grassy bank, hands behind his head with a wince. "You're the one who told me it has to come out. Better sooner than later, right?"
She didn't like the sound of those words, but found she had nothing to reply then. Closing her eyes, Yuffie thought back to the day Tifa had dug the bullet out of Cloud's side. She ignored the fact that she had at least had something other than water to clean out the wound, and she had had at least two extra pairs of hands to hold her patient down…
Without thinking Yuffie opened her eyes and realised that if she was going to do this, it had to be now. Before she could talk herself out of it.
She shuffled over to the creek and rinsed her hands thoroughly, forcing her breathing to stay normal. Shaking the excess water off her hands, Yuffie turned and bent over Reno's side, chewing on the side of her lip. She cast a quick glance at Reno, then seemed to decide on something else.
"Do you want something to bite down on so-"
Reno procured a bleached twig from behind his head and bit down on it with a grim determination. Apparently, he had already thought of that.
Right.
She had to do this. Hell, she couldn't afford to worry about the fact that even he, the victim, was more ready for this than she was. She bent even further over the Turk's side and pulled the shirt up. Allowing her hands to hover over Reno's side, and her eyes to adjust to the angry red sight, she began to count down in her head from a nice, big number.
Reno must have seen her hesitancy. "It's going to hurt either way, Yuff, and counting down in your head won't make it any easier than it is," he spoke around the twig. "You know what you have to do, now do it."
That was the confirmation she needed. With the kind of grim determination that she had never known she'd possessed for such things, and the memory of Tifa doing the same thing in the back of her mind, Yuffie went to work, trying to ignore the sudden tenseness in Reno's muscles, and the way his face twisted with the pain no matter how he tried to guard his expression…
* * * * *
Yuffie ignored the sickening feeling pooling inside her gut and continued with her… task. She had been at this for nearly fifteen minutes, seemingly every second clearing the blood away in an effort to merely see past the end of her own hand. Every now and then she cast a nervous glance up at Reno, telling herself that the paleness of his face was more to do with the contrast of all the blood than anything else. She had long since ceased to asked him how he was holding up, and she wouldn't do so until she found the goddamned bullet.
Tearing again at the hem of her shorts, Yuffie cast a sidelong glance at the ball of blood-soaked fabric by her side. So much for only needing to tear up the sleeves of her shirt – she'd long-since resorted to converting her pants to shorts. When the material again gave way, Yuffie screwed it up and put more pressure on Reno's side.
When enough blood was satisfactorily cleared away, she began again, probing with her fingers at Reno's side until she again realised that she was going to have to open the wound wider; there just wasn't enough room for her fingers to enter and remove the bullet safely. She just hoped she wasn't making the wrong decision.
But just as before, Reno sighed. "Just do it, Yuff," he ground out. "I would have thought you'd enjoy the idea of gutting me like a fish."
Yuffie mimicked his sigh and dipped her shuriken in the creek again, using the tempered steel to extend the bounds of the entry wound. When she felt it was wide enough, she swallowed around the lump in her throat and dropped the bloody weapon with heartfelt disgust. This time when she began to feel around for the bullet, she had enough room to move, and it was with a satisfying feeling of elation that she realised she had finally found the cause of the Turk's pain.
Taking the time to dab at the wound again, Yuffie kept the material in her hand when she was finished and used her free hand to explore the wound she had been desperately trying to work with for the past quarter hour. It was deep, but not overly wide, and she was relieved to finally find that the bullet had stopped just passed a rib instead of carrying further on and hitting something more vital.
Yuffie sighed. Now all she had to do was get the damned thing out and stop the bleeding.
She bit on her tongue and reached deeper, feeling sick and wretched for even doing such a thing, and paling visibly at the short grunt of pain that rose from beside her. After what seemed to be no less than a lifetime Yuffie felt her hand close in on the bullet, and she tried hard to stop her grip on the thing from slipping.
"Nearly there, Reno…" The words were as much for her as they were for him, and out before she could stop them. Yuffie licked dry lips and forced her concentration to linger a moment longer as, suddenly, bloody flesh gave way around her hand to release the bullet with a sickening pop. "There," she exhaled, and felt all of her resolve collapse from around her. She dropped the bullet to the ground bonelessly and immediately pressed the least bloodiest of the makeshift cloths against Reno's side with suddenly shaky hands.
"Done," she said again with some satisfaction, and when there was no answer, Yuffie realised that with nothing else to do she had to check on Reno's condition.
Carefully applying even pressure to the wound, Yuffie scrambled around to kneel by Reno's head, where she could take a closer look. He was pale, very much so, and a fine sheen of sweat covered his forehead. Even from about a metre away she could see how tightly his teeth were clenched to the small twig. Yuffie blanched, but forced herself to keep a tight reign on her common sense. He was breathing; she was at least to be glad of that.
"Reno," she said after a minute, bending further over the still Turk to check his pulse. If he was unconscious, then that was at least a start. "Reno, can you hear-"
Her words were cut off as something very close to her was thrown into her face. Yuffie blinked and flinched away from the object, then tentatively blinked her eyes open to find what the hell had just had the gall to flick her in the face. When she saw it, she blinked. A twig. Right. That would mean that Reno…
"Jeez, Yuff, can't a guy get a little… rest around here?" His voice was breathy, almost shaky, but it was there, faint humour bubbling just below the surface.
Yuffie turned away from his somehow steady gaze and expelled the breath she hadn't known that she had been holding. She looked down at her hands, not surprised to find that she was shaking like a leaf. God, how the hell had she managed to even grip onto the bullet by doing that? Counting to ten, she slowly brought herself under control without so much as a word from Reno.
When she finally felt herself calm, faint anger rose up under the surface and she turned back to Reno, who was grinning at her like the Cheshire Cat. She punched him lightly in the shoulder, her eyes narrowed. "Why didn't you say anything!"
Reno began to laugh, but thought better of it when his side twinged in pain. He shrugged instead, a raised eyebrow belying his amusement. "Turk, wuss, same thing, remember?" He snorted, seeming vaguely satisfied with himself. "And besides, you were a lot less rough with my side when you thought that."
Fairly fuming, Yuffie only just managed to keep her face from turning a nice, deep shade of red. She ducked her head, then on second thought turned her whole body around and began to scrub the blood off her hands and the shredded cloths in the creek. "You're an asshole," she muttered under her breath. "Incorrigible, bloody asshole."
Her only answer was a laugh from said asshole, and four words.
"Why thank you, brat."
With a raised eyebrow she continued her scrubbing, relief coursing through her despite the Turk's last comment. Yep, she thought dryly. He's going to be just fine.
* * * * *
