Reno silently sat on the counter in his usual easy, slumped over posture. His hair was drying in in flame-licks around his head, shining copper in the overhead light. His eyelashes were still wet, making them darker and more noticeable. He made no discernible expression, and his eyes didnt reveal anything, as he looked straight ahead or down at the floor. When there wasn't an amused smirk on his face, he always looked laid-back and generally detached, but now he looked slightly pensive. Reno seemed to have his mind on something, but Tifa couldn't tell what he was thinking or feeling.
She took a step closer to him, which drew his gaze over at her. His eyes possessed a look that Tifa could only take as stoicism as they briefly swept over her. The mako in them made it more like a cold stare, which caused her to feel the slightest bit uneasy.
She bit her lip. "This might sting a little." Gently she reached over and brushed back his hair from the wound below his temple, and pressed an alcohol-dampened cloth against it. As she almost suspected, he did little more than blink; he showed no visible sign of pain or discomfort. He wordlessly stared ahead, obviously paying no heed to the silence that had settled over them.
"I heard about what you did for Cloud." It was only in Tifa's amiable nature to be talkative, so she broke the ice.
At this Reno's eyes narrowed, yet he did not look at her. At least she got a reply out of him, annoyed as he may have sounded. "What have I done for Cloud? I haven't done anything for Cloud except insult his appearance."
"Well, you helped him out back at Midgar..."
He turned his head to her as far as the cloth pressed against his face could allow, his face deadpan. "Yeah, what're you suggesting? That I allegedly 'saved' him from the wrath of a psychopath because maybe I came around and decided I wanna be his friend? Cuz if that's what you're saying, you're absolutely right! Over the course of nine hours, I've discovered what a lovely individual Cloud is, and now I see the error of my ways and want his friendship. Oh, we could be the best of friends, and I'll come over for a tea party every Thursday!"
Now that comment might have been fine by her, had it not been dripping with blatant sarcasm. Reno continued, in mock glee: "And we'll share each other's secrets, and gossip, and braid each other's hair..." She suddenly felt very ill. The comment about the tea parties had been bordering on Bad Mental Imagery, but the thought of Reno and Cloud braiding each other's hair was just too much. Tifa could not suppress a shudder.
She interrupted in time. "Okay, okay, that's enough! Just... forget I said anything."
"Whatever you say," Reno replied, the amused sneer having returned to his face. By that teasing look in his eye, he was evidently enjoying the fact that he had put her in this state of disturbance. Only when Tifa's scowl became more threatening did he let up and turn his head the other way.
They lapsed into a short silence as she finished up tending to his head injury. As he sat there, Tifa was able to study his profile. She noticed the flaws on his face: two gouging scars, one under each eye, which she had always wondered about. She found herself asking where he got them from.
It was just a curious question. For a moment it seemed as if he hadn't heard her right, but then he turned and looked at her. Intensely. Tifa couldn't tear herself away from his penetrating glare. His eyes were cold; adamantine and piercing, like icy diamonds. She couldn't tell just what she saw in his gaze, as this was almost like staring into an unfamiliar oblivion, terra incognita. Before he averted his gaze he blinked, the diamond flickered, and for a second she could have sworn that she saw something smolder beneath those unreadable eyes.
Reno didn't reply.
She didn't mean to upset him... that is, if she really had upset him. For a moment the air sort of hung between them, and Tifa fumbled in vain for apologetic words. But he spoke, and he didn't sound that way at all. "I'd rather not talk about anything remotely about my past."
Surprised at his straightforwardness, she gaped at him, and became even more astonished to see that there were no hard feelings. Tifa still couldn't bring herself to speak.
Reno stared back at her, composed as if nothing ever happened. Then a devious smile pulled at the corner of his mouth and he added, "But I'm always open to talk about how funny-looking Cloud is."
Tifa elbowed him in the solar plexus.
*~*~*~*~*
Man, everybody had just been taking it out on HIM today. Had Reno not been beaten enough? Well, most of his injuries he'd provoked himself, but still...
He leaned forward, clutching his stomach, which hurt a lot more than he dared let on. At this moment he made a mental note not to bad-mouth Cloud in front of Tifa. This whole let's-all-cause-Reno-pain thing was just getting old, and he didn't feel like giving anyone any more incentive to hit him. He just hoped that she wouldn't make him apologize; his ego was bruised as it was, considering what Cloud had said about his hair earlier, which Reno certainly had not forgotten. He vowed to get his revenge (which would have to be obtained in some indirect way, so he wouldn't have to get hit again).
But worse happened. He looked up and saw Cloud standing there in the doorway, looking rather amused and satisfied; apparently he had been there when Tifa hit him. Reno cursed inwardly at his luck. He quickly regained composure, got down from the counter and exited the bathroom, bitterly shoving Cloud out of the way.
They were in Tifa and Cloud's house back in Kalm, which was a much nicer place than Reno had expected, much to his dismay. He'd hoped that all this time Cloud lived in a ditch.
Tifa, he'd decided, was alright by him; he'd just have to watch what he'd say around her. She'd been surprisingly hospitable towards him, and had insisted that she take care of his wound. At first his answer was no, but he figured that it couldn't hurt if he let her, and she just wouldn't give up anyway. She certainly didn't pose as a threat, and it was quite obvious that she didn't regard him as one, either. But he still didn't like Cloud any more than he did when he first laid eyes on him. Cloud seemed not to consider him the enemy anymore, and actually expressed concern for him when he was hurt. But Reno did not think he would ever regard him as even a half-decent person, not since that mullet comment.
It was all kind of odd. Last time he saw AVALANCHE the Turks were supposed to kill them, but now they were supposed to be comrades. They were no longer the enemy anymore. Back then they'd had orders to execute them, so Reno did not think of them as anything more than terrorists who deserved what they had coming. Rude, he recalled, had a crush on Tifa, which Reno thought was ridiculous. Why get emotionally attached to someone whose days were numbered? For goodness sakes, they'd been assigned to KILL them, not DATE them. But now here he was with two AVALANCHE members, and he didn't need to regard them as cold-blooded killers anymore. This all still felt so weird to him, and very ironic.
The living room was very cozy -- heck, the entire house was, and Reno was upset to see that Cloud was living in better conditions than he had been the past half-year or so. But he figured that it was only so nice and clean because a woman lived here. Otherwise, he assured himself, it would be a dump.
Reno leaned back against the wall, feeling the day's events and physical stresses take their toll. His body hurt all over, and he got up and stretched out his aching muscles in the same manner that a lazy, sleepy cat would. "Question."
Cloud, who was sitting back in the recliner, looked up. "Hm?"
"Do you have any idea," Reno asked, easing himself back to his relaxed position, "why the heck a bunch of morons would wanna go all the way out to a dead city just to jump us?"
Well, he'd half-answered the question himself, they were morons. But he was certain that even a complete idiot would have incentive for doing something like this.
Looking down, Cloud just shrugged a shoulder. "Probably because of what we did in Midgar, in the beginning. Regardless of what we ended up doing for the planet, a lot of people still don't like us."
Reno couldn't argue to that. Then something clicked in his head. "Wait, you mean this happens all the time?" He didn't want an angry group of psychos armed with crowbars and who knows what else following them around the whole mission. 'Fight off mobs of AVALANCHE-hating skanks as you go about your merry business'? No. That just wasn't in the contract.
Tifa shook her head hastily. "No, it's never been this bad. Usually it's just random lowlifes -- most of the time they're drunk -- telling us off on the street, and occasionally they'd try to start a fight." At this point Reno could have pointed and laughed at Tifa and Cloud; he could have yelled, "Sucks to be you!" in their faces, maybe even done a little self-appreciative dance while he was at it. But no. He couldn't, because for several days he would have to deal with being harassed along with them. There just seemed to be so many downsides to this whole mission.
She continued, "But it's never gotten as serious as this. It's never been a big group of them, with -- what was that anyway, a grenade?"
Cloud shook his head, but Reno beat him to talking. "Bet you a million gil it wasn't."
"Why not?"
Cloud and Reno both began to explain, then stopped abruptly to glare at each other.
*~*~*~*~*
Tifa sighed inwardly and impatiently watched the two engage in their silent competition, sorry that she'd even brought it up. It turned out they both knew what they were saying, and she'd only asked to be enlightened on a subject she knew very little about, but it just had to turn into this. Thankfully it didn't last long, as Cloud just gave in and let him have it.
"Ohh, it's just standard explosives knowledge." Reno gave Cloud one last look, obviously enjoying the fact that his professional tone of voice was horribly annoying him, and shifted his gaze back to Tifa. "A grenade can't produce that big of a flame. You saw it when it happened, didn't you? The description just doesn't fit. It had to be somethin' else."
"It could have even been fire materia." Cloud added. "It could have hit some flammable material and exploded, but then that's only a conjecture."
Seeing the empty love seat as a more welcoming spot, Reno plopped down in it and made himself comfortable. He leaned back and stretched out his long legs so that his boots were resting on the coffee table, which isn't exactly the most polite thing to do when you're a guest at someone's home. Cloud gave Tifa a sideways look but they didn't say anything otherwise. Reno was just being Reno, anyway.
To her, Reno had always looked rugged and incomplete. He was tall though very lanky, with an unfinished build that reminded her more of an adolescent (most of the time he acted like one, too). He wore clothes that he couldn't quite fill in, but where they fell on him in certain places you could see the well-toned yet slender muscle show through. His posture, the way he wore his clothing, even the way he walked gave the impression that he was laid back and unconcerned; that he didn't have a care in the world. And when he spoke he didn't have the best grammar, but his occasional use of big words starkly contrasted his slum dialect. He certainly was a piece of work.
"Yeah, well..." Reno said as he laid back, his arms folded behind his head. His eyes were closed and he wore his usual impassive visage. "explosives, materia or otherwise... if they were tryin' to hit us, they were way off."
*~*~*~*~*
"'Just ignore it'? That's all you can say?!"
Cloud quickened his strides to catch up with Tifa, who heaved a sigh as she walked down the street. They were on their way back from checking Reno in at the hotel -- Cloud preferred to call it 'kicking him out' -- there was no way he'd let him stay the night at their house. They were finally able to get rid of the Turk for the night, but not without a few caustic remarks about Cloud's appearance, which was what he was worked up about at this moment.
"Yes," she said tiredly. "It's as simple as that."
They were now walking shoulder to shoulder in the dark avenue. The streetlights cast a shadow over one side of Cloud's face, yet it wasn't enough to completely hide his frown in the darkness. "But he insulted my hair again!"
When his only reply from Tifa was stern a glare, he went on:
"It's not like he's normal looking, himself. He has bad posture and apparently still doesn't understand the concept of folding clothes. He annoys the hell out of me! And you know he does it on purpose. He's trying to start a fight!"
"Precisely!" she cut in. "If you don't give him the satisfaction, he'll eventually stop."
They walked the rest for a moment in silence as Cloud absorbed this. Tifa thought for a moment that this argument was over. But then he said, "I think he'd stop a lot sooner if you'd just hit him a couple more times."
Tifa whirled around, hands on her hips. "Cloud!"
The pure light from the street lamps fell around them, soft and white. He raised his hands defensively. "...sorry. I'm being ridiculous." his voice lost its mutinous tone, and he once again sounded calm and reasonable. "But what is there that me and him have in common? I think the only thing I could see us agreeing on is how bad the rates are from the PHS cell phone companies."
She chuckled. "That's it?"
"Oh, yes. They're horrible."
Tifa snickered and noticed Cloud was smiling, too. Upon reaching their house she unlocked the door and they both walked in; Tifa heaved a deep sigh, weary and relieved. After tossing the keys onto the kitchen table she began shrugging out of her jacket. She wanted more than anything to just put this day behind her. At one point all hope was lost, and she really thought she was alone. To think today she almost lost him...
"What's wrong, Tif?"
Her train of thought snapped in two and she looked up at Cloud; she almost lost herself in his concerned mako gaze. She looked away, shaking her head.
"Nothing. It's just... today...." she gestured with a motion of her hand, but couldn't manage to put her feelings into words.
He reminisced, and solemnly nodded. "Yeah, I know. It was really crazy." That seemed like an understatement, Tifa couldn't help but think. But then he reached out and unexpectedly pulled her into a hug, which she was at first surprised at but certainly didn't object to. Cherishing the warm embrace, she rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes. "But I'm just glad you're safe."
*~*~*~*~*
Reno did not realize just how tired he was until he lay down in his bed. His eyelids felt weighed down by the sudden sleepiness, and he felt as if he'd be dozing off at any moment. But he couldn't sleep just yet, as it also occurred to him how hungry he was.
Struggling to sit up, he tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He grimaced when he looked around his hotel room. The floorboards were dark brown, but the lamps and bedding were frilly and pink. What was the deal with that? It looks like Little Bo Peep PUKED in here, Reno thought with disgust.
It had been about eleven hours since he last ate, but officially two days since he last drank alcohol. Reno was never the "glass is half empty" or the "glass is half full" kind of person. He was the more rare, "it's neither, cuz I drank it all" type. It was what his life revolved around. He'd spent the majority of his salary on alcohol the past half year or so, and Elena had told him that there was more to living a post-Shinra life than getting drunk. He was way ahead of her. Let's just say that when you get really tanked and wake up half-naked in a dumpster with a dog licking nacho cheese off your leg, you tend to do a lot of thinking. If Rude and Elena never came back to get him he probably would have straightened himself up on his own, eventually. At least, that was what he liked to think.
He laid back on the bed he was almost embarrassed to sleep on, not able to ignore the pangs of hunger, but being too tired and lazy to move. It was then that a glorious idea popped up in his head.
He sat upright, leaned over and picked up the phone. Reno had just thought of the wonderful way he would avenge himself... Cloud would be the one paying for his stay at this horribly effeminate hotel, and he was going to take advantage of that. He dialed the number for room service, not being able to suppress the insidious laughter that rose in his throat.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author's Note: Well, there it is, as promised. I think by now Reno's character is established... I made him sorta enigmatic, I guess, to make him more unpredictable. Sometimes he's hard to read, even mysterious to outsiders, but at this point he'd rather keep his distance anyway. Well, I'm leaving for vacation today. But I'll be writing some when I'm gone, and I'll be back to update! Thanks to those who reviewed!