Embitterment
By: Glass Mermaid
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognize.
AN: RenoxYuffie for the win!
Also, this story is completed already. I will be posting chapters weekly, so that I can double check them all and make sure everything is correct. On with the show!
Chapter Ten
Cid allowed her to use the scraps and spare parts that he either had in abundance or knew he'd never need, keeping tabs on her sticky fingers and their penchant for pilfering some of his more useful parts. The first time he let her play around, she simply jammed together several bits of scrap and called it art. It had taken a day or two of her begging and pleading before he let her back into the parts bin and he was curious to see what she'd come up with because she'd yelled at him every time he'd tried to take a look over her shoulder.
"You just about done, brat?" he asked around a cigarette. "I need you packed and ready for the trip to Junon by early mornin' and knowin' you, you haven't got shit done yet."
"Patience old man!" she retorted, "Or are you worried you might keel over on me before you get to see this masterpiece?"
"At the rate you're goin,'" he muttered sourly.
More time passed, the ninja singing merrily to herself and the ring of metal clashing together occasionally meeting his ears. He had stopped fiddling with a spare alternator long ago in favor of a relaxing smoke and listening to her enthusiastic activity. He sat with his legs outstretched and his arms crossed limply, aware that he had work to do but content to put it off a bit longer.
"Prepare to be amazed!" she crowed, and held up a ridiculous hunk of jammed together scrap.
Cid looked it over.
"What is it?" he asked, unimpressed.
"What isn't it?" she replied gleefully, skipping over to where he sat, the scent of flowery soap drifting softly off of the warmth of her body. "I call it the Raginator 5000 and it's just about the greatest thing ever built."
Setting it on the table, she proceeded to flick one of the parts, making it swing into another. It tapped repeatedly, and she squealed with excitement.
"It's somethin' alright," he agreed dubiously, staring at it.
She shoved his shoulder hard and he grunted. "C'mon! I know its totally useless and stuff but I made it and it does something!"
He stood, clapping her on the shoulder as he passed and carefully ignoring the softness of her bare skin. "That's right, brat. Good job. Now, I got to work on finding that damn faulty spark plug so we'll be set for tomorrow."
Grabbing his tool belt off the table, he wrapped it snugly around his lean waist and strode over to his tool cabinet. He threw open the doors and began shoving wrenches, screw drivers and other gadgets into the pockets, cursing occasionally when he saw some of them missing. He settled his hands on the top shelf and hung his head tiredly.
"Brat," he called, "bring back the shit you were usin' before I– "
The girl in question abruptly silenced him by darting underneath his arm and popping up in front of him, so close that he felt a shock of awareness pass through his body. Disturbingly quick, she slid all the tools she'd been tinkering with back to their appropriate spots and turned triumphantly to face him.
Tilting her head upwards to meet his eyes, the smile drifted slowly off of her face as she became conscious of the fact that his arms were settled intimately above each of her shoulders. The scent of engine grease and warm leather was drifting from his clothing like cologne, and she could see the fine golden stubble peppering his strong jaw. He was staring at her, cerulean eyes just as startled as her own must have been, and when he shifted his weight to his other leg, her breasts brushed lightly against his chest.
She gasped sharply and his eyes turned a darker shade of blue before they both broke away from each other.
Yuffie crossed her arms over her sensitized chest, face crimson, and Cid ran an agitated hand through his hair.
"Make sure you put them all back where they belong, brat!" he muttered, and grabbing onto the reprieve like a lifeline, Yuffie pivoted on her heels and stuck her hands on her hips.
"Look for yourself, geezer! I bet you I put those tools away better than you ever have in your entire life!"
Keeping his eyes away from her and tamping down the desire still spinning confusingly through him, Cid waved her off.
"I'll be lucky if I ever find my goddamn stuff again now that you're through with it!" he barked.
Yuffie followed him as he shoved open the door and went outside, heading towards The Shera.
"I could so totally beat you at everything ever!" she cried flippantly. "An old guy like you is lucky he can even find his way into the house after dark!"
Veering off towards the aforementioned house, Yuffie waved jumpily to the blonde and stuck out her tongue.
"In fact," she trilled, "I bet you don't even know how to fix that engine thingy! I bet you're just going to start hitting it with a hammer until one of your other crew guys takes pity on you and fixes it himself!"
Whatever he might have replied to her lame insult was lost as she, still laughing nervously, slammed the door behind her. Shaking his head and swearing, Cid hurried over to The Shera, where he quickly lost himself in the repairs; the repairs that he knew damn well how to fix. He stubbornly refused to admit that anything strange at all had happened in the shop, but hours later, lying in the dark beside a silent Shera, he found sleep hard to find.
Down the hall in the guest room, a bewildered, miserable Yuffie clutched a silver earring so tightly in her palm that the stud punctured the skin, the pillow quietly drinking the trickle of blood that mingled with the salt of her tears.
He sat with Rude in a little café in the nicer part of Edge, sipping halfheartedly at a decent cup of black coffee while his partner did the same. The low conversations and quiet laughter gave the air a peaceful lull, and he tried to quell his boredom by tapping repeatedly against the side of his cup with a spoon. He'd tried to explain what he was going through, as well as his awkward conversation with Cloud.
"I don't even know. It's like, when I was with her I was as normal as I get. I could relax," he snorted.
He wondered if Rude was vaguely hurt by that comment, and he awkwardly shoved a hand through his hair. He fucking sucked at this.
"Rude, man, its different here. I mean, we're tight, but the job is always there to, you know? Of course you know."
Rude looked at him, dark sunglasses obscuring his features. "Reno," he murmured. "I love you."
Bursting out laughing, Reno relaxed, waving his friend off. Rude cracked a small grin.
"Fuck yea, man. Get in line." He sobered, a thoughtful expression settling uncomfortably on his face. "It's like, when Tseng or you look at the ditz. Like you don't know whether to hug her or smack her. It's like that, but in a good way."
Thinking of her now, the feelings fluttered nervously within him. The sore, tender and exasperated affection that had been plaguing him for weeks poisoning his vitals once again.
"Why'd she take off?" Rude asked.
"She didn't like what she saw after all," Reno scoffed. He paused, thinking of the night everything went to hell.
He hadn't done anything differently. It was business as usual taking out that target. But when he first became a Turk, taking lives hadn't been old news. Now, years later, he felt jaded and tired and empty. Fuck, who was he trying to kid? He'd felt empty for years, but for a time, when Yuffie had been there, that emptiness hadn't seemed so bad.
"I don't like what we've become," he said finally.
"It's never mattered before," Rude murmured, "Why is this tearing you up?"
Lifting his pale blue eyes from their lethargic contemplation of the coffee, Reno met the shaded stare. He shifted in his seat, dragging himself up to a better position and dropping his arms onto the table.
"Rude," he began slowly, "It was different when we first started this job, right?"
"Times change," the other replied. "Now, we try to make up for what happened."
"If they're smart, people don't have the shit we've done to make up for," Reno said bitterly.
"Nobody forced you to join the Turks," a new voice returned.
Glancing up, Reno met the tolerant dark eyes of his leader. Gracefully, Tseng took a seat, posture perfect, not a strand of his silky black hair out of place.
"I see you're still acting like a child, Reno," an amused, aristocratic voice said, and Rude quickly stood and pulled the remaining chair out for Rufus.
"Nice to see you to, Boss," Reno snorted.
Leaning back and throwing an arm over the back of his chair, the redhead surveyed the three men surrounding him.
"What's with the sausage fest? Where's the ditz?" he asked.
"Elena is running an errand for me in Junon," Rufus replied easily.
"Tell me Reno," his boss continued, "are you having second thoughts about working for me?"
Reno shrugged, unimpressed, and fiddled with the handle of his coffee mug. "There is nobody in this entire damn world better built for this line of work than me."
"Yet, you continue to act as if the world is ending and you can find the way to save it at the bottom of a bottle of alcohol."
Reno frowned, his fingers stilling.
"Respectfully sir, you've never bitched about my drinking before," he said defensively.
"There is a difference between drinking," Rufus murmured, "and drowning."
"Oh fuck, is this like, an intervention or something?" Reno groaned, looking around the table in disgust.
Tseng raised a brow. "Does it need to be?"
Slapping his palms down, Reno leaned forward and shook his head. "When did you all become head-shrinkers?"
"We're not," Rude said, "we're just concerned."
"Look, I don't… It's just… This is fucked up, talking about this in a coffee shop like we're chatting about the weather!" Reno spat.
Lowering his voice, the red-haired man focused hard on his cup and forced his words to flow.
"We say we're trying to repay this debt to the planet, yet we do the same messed up shit we always do! I'm just trying to figure out where I stand in all this. I've got a lot of debt to repay. I just never… Damn. I never knew it would cost me so much."
"You're referring to the girl," Rufus stated blandly. "The AVALANCHE member."
"You know her name, sir," Reno shot across the table coldly.
"Yes," Rufus smiled, "but word is you have a rather violent aversion to hearing it and I thought it best remain unsaid."
"It uh," he glanced around the table, uncertain about releasing the tight hold he tried to keep on his emotions. "Isn't getting any easier."
"Nor will it," Tseng said evenly.
Looking at the dark haired man in disgust, Reno sighed loudly. "You couldn't bullshit me and offer me some lame little motto about time healing all wounds or something?"
Tseng smirked. "I have too much respect for you to do that."
"Fuck," Reno rolled his eyes, "Next you're going to try to make out with me or hold my hand."
"Get in line," Rude intoned, sharing an amused look with Tseng, and Reno warded them off with his hands, eyes wide.
"Leave me out of your kinky life plans!" he snorted.
Chuckling, Rufus waved over the waitress and placed an order for an espresso. Tseng followed suit, and they sat back to wait.
"You're Wutaian, right?" Reno asked quietly, looking sideways at Tseng, who nodded. "Mind telling me what the fuck is wrong with your princess?"
Thinking for a long moment, the leader of the Turks swept the length of his long black hair back over his shoulder, somehow managing to keep the gesture unfeminine.
"Aside from being crass, impolite and insufferably exuberant, there is so much wrong with that particular girl that I don't even know where to begin," he said. "However, I believe that her reaction to the events she witnessed and her subsequent escape had little to do with you and more to do with her."
"What?" Reno asked blankly.
"What Tseng is trying to say," Rufus offered, "is that witnessing that blatantly brutal side of your job brought things she had avoided accepting to the forefront of her mind in a very abrupt, violent way. Perhaps she realized she was less tolerant of your lifestyle then she had first anticipated."
"She jumped ship because she tried to forget what being a Turk is all about and seeing you in action scared the shit out of her," Rude interpreted. Reno smiled gratefully at his partner before taking another swig of his drink.
"She knew I was a Turk," he mused.
"No matter what the job, it's one thing to know what somebody does. It's an entirely different thing to witness it," the black haired man explained.
"Oh, and being a ninja is all rainbows and chocobos? Her hands are no cleaner than mine!" Reno hissed, silencing himself when the waitress returned and placed the beverages ordered in front of Tseng and Rufus. The latter offered the girl a polite smile and she scurried off.
"Our princess is," Tseng tried, "a complicated creature. She is young and headstrong, the only heir to a long defeated nation. She never stays in one place for long. One might even say she fears commitment. Perhaps she wasn't just running from what she saw."
"If you're telling me she took off because she was in love with me or something," Reno scoffed, "I'll walk out right now because that's just fucking stupid."
"Only one way to find out," Rude said quietly.
"What? I should chase after her like some lovesick loser?" Reno laughed.
Rufus exchanged another look with Tseng.
"Whatever you do," Tseng said, "we've got your back."
"Cue the violins," Reno snorted, shoving himself out of his chair. He tossed a bit of gil down and offered the other men a smirk.
"You ladies enjoy the rest of your day."
He sauntered out of the coffee shop, looking more like his usual self than he had in weeks. Nodding politely, Rude followed closely behind while the other two watched them go.
"You seemed… rather compassionate to Reno's plight, sir," Tseng said.
Coolly amused blue eyes turned to black ones, and his pale hand swept the long blonde bangs away from his face in an arrogant, elegant gesture.
"Good, loyal help is hard to find, and he has been with us for an admirably long time," Rufus murmured. "It's why I keep him around."
Tseng smirked slightly.
"I thought you kept him around because he's the only one of us who knows how to decently pilot the helicopter."
"Well," Rufus smiled evasively as he brought his cup to his lips. "There is that."
My apologies for the shortness of this chapter. The next one is a bit of a doozy, and the chapter break seemed appropriate. I'll probably post the next chapter earlier to make up for the shortness of this one.
Thank you for all your reviews! I love to hear from you!