Author's Note: This is gonna start off a bit slow, but I promise it'll pick up.

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The Turks Christmas Special : Eleven Teapots Whistling

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"You want some coffee?"

Okay, Reno silently admitted, he did make a mean fucking cup of coffee. Hell, he'd once considered selling it to coffee chains for the gil, but he didn't have the resources for mass-production of the blend he used. Still, it did well to woo over an associate he needed to get on good terms with. "What in Holy's name is in this?" they would ask with a bit of astonishment, and he would just grin and say it was a family secret that they would have to find out on their own.

He was so busy in his train of thought that he didn't hear her first response, which was not an unnatural thing for Reno. "I said yes!" she shouted. "For Leviathan's sake, quit standing there smiling at the ceiling and get me a towel, wouldja?" The sentence came out garbled from Yuffie's mouth, probably due to the fact her teeth were chattering like nobody's business.

Reno broke from his pleased gaze at the ceiling panels and hurried off to do just that, as she had, in fact, just dug his car out of the snow. Of course, the offer for a cigarette expanded; she'd be getting the royal treatment for not making him walk around in this weather, and they both knew it. Given how open Reno's house was, he yelled to her as he was walking around looking for a towel, "So why did Godo kick you out this time?"

Yuffie sat herself down in Reno's armchair, which he never really used unless he was sitting in his living room. To her, it seemed like all the time that he was in there, but to Reno, it was only when she was around, due to the fact few other people ever visited. "I suppose we could say it was just bad timing on my part." She was lying through her teeth, which were quite active at the moment. "On second thought, could you make some tea instead?" She blinked a few times. "Yeah, I want tea," she murmured, furrowing her brows and musing to herself for a bit.

The redhead tossed a towel in at her on his way to the kitchen, adding in a comment about his tea being really bad, but she didn't catch it. Reno watched as the snow started to fall outside again, sighing as he hunted through cabinets for the kettle. "So, what's this about bad timing?" he called, eager for conversation.

"Uh, yeah." Yuffie sounded a bit flustered, but her voice relaxed as she sank into the chair, curling her bare legs beneath her. Her teeth started to settle down with the help of Reno's central heating, prohibiting speech that didn't sound like someone was typing as she talked. "Let's just say that I dished out one of my nasty little surprises at the wrong time. You know what's going on in Wutai, right?"

Reno leaned to the side and took a quick once-over of the front page of the daily paper. "Uhh. . .oh, yeah. The thing about Da-Chao falling apart because of new Winter Day construction."

"Reno, that was last month; that's all fixed and over with now."

He checked the date on the paper, thus taking his focus off of the kettle and burning his hand on the stove. "Yow! Shit. . .yeah, well, they cancelled my paper subscription when I socked the delivery boy for knocking over my coffee cup while I was sitting on the porch one morning. And you know I watch no television whatsoever." Reno didn't much like the media since they'd finished focusing on AVALANCHE and Heideggar had become an attention whore who dispensed everything about the Turks.

"Bastard shoulda died in the Prod Cloud," said Rude constantly, and it was a true wonder he hadn't.

Yuffie grinned. She'd stayed with Reno numerous times and had always complained about his lack of television, but she didn't really mind either. Talking beat media. "Right. Well, Wutai's got this major Materia shortage right now, and my old man wanted to send me out to find the caves again. You know the routine; big blowup from both of us, I run out saying I'll never come back. Well, this time I decided to say I was pregnant, so he didn't send anyone to tail me he was so damn surprised."

"This was your plan, or that was just an added bonus?" Reno wasn't doing too badly with the tea, but that wasn't saying much as far as tea quality goes.

The ninja rolled her eyes, perusing Reno's stack of magazines in the pocket of the chair. Just the usual; music, booze, and cigars. "Well, when I leave home, there's not usually much of a plan. I just yell, grab my bag of stuff, and come to your place because nobody ever comes to Midgar from Wutai."

"Speaking of coming to my place, did they ever send you the thank-you check from the ball?"

"Yeah, I got it a few weeks afterward."

Reno still found it more amusing than not, the way they had become closer since the AVALANCHE "war." Reeve's idea of redemption for the company was to have a public ball, with an executive attendance requirement. It was requested that each employee try to take an AVALANCHE member or affiliate, but it wasn't a requirement, as that would have been one hell of a ratio to fill. Scarlet had found her way into Cloud's pants -- no one was truly surprised -- and to spite him, Tifa accepted Rude's invitation. Elena had decided to go stag and had floated around the alcohol table for a while, and many AVALANCHE members didn't show, as expected.

Left with a day to the ball, Reno had made a last-minute trip to Wutai, promised Yuffie much freedom from her father, and it had been a date full of drinks, company cake, and trashing the empty offices with Elena. After that, they'd hit the dance floor for the more upbeat songs and Reno had shown off his more-than impressive swingdancing skills with Scarlet. She had then proceeded to reserve him for the night, a thing he was never sure of his feelings over, and Cloud had sulked off with Tifa in the end.

The redhead poked his face out of the kitchen after getting a wet rag for his hand. The one thing he hated about the stove was that it was so fucking touchy; one notch or two to the left and it would cool down a good fifty degrees. There was no meaning in the numbers on the knobs; it was all a guessing game. "I suppose green tea'll work?" He had a strange memory about teas; he was often admonished for being too much like Cid Highwind. "And nothing extra in it, right?"

Yuffie knew what he meant. Reno often took his tea with a bit of alcohol, as he liked everything he consumed to have the most bite possible, and as quickly as he could. The vodka to orange juice ratio in his screwdrivers would have baffled a brewery. "Not today. Besides, it's nine in the morning; too early to start drinking."

He shrugged and opened the refrigerator, rooting through it for his good alcohol. "Oh, speaking of illegal activities for minors, did you happen to grab the cigs out of the car after you uncovered it?" The redhead was still surprised that she'd done it; that wasn't an easy task.

A few seconds passed before the pack in question was thrown in his direction; upon hearing them smack against the wall outside the door, Reno put the teakettle on and picked them up. With the smooth moves of a nicotine addict, he slid one from the pack and into his lips before Yuffie knew he had them in his hand at all. "How long've you been smoking, Reno?"

He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling, in a different place than his musing-about-his-coffee spot. "I'ono. How old am I now?"

The ninja laughed a bit. He often asked her that, and she wasn't sure if it was supposed to be something to keep her on her toes or if he truly didn't remember. "You were twenty-four when I was in AVALANCHE, so you'd be twenty-six this year. Want me to show you that on paper, Mister Executive Employee?"

"I'm alright," he said with a grin. He loved it when she came to visit; it really relaxed him for a bit, and she knew how to make him laugh. "Yeah, so it'd be eighteen years now. Hell, those years fly by."

Yuffie's jaw literally dropped. Sure, she'd been expecting a high number, but "high" for years of smoking when you were twenty-six was supposed to be nine or something. "Good god, Reno! I'm surprised you're not dead yet!"

His grin didn't waver a bit. "Yeah, you're tellin' me. Shit, I gave myself to fifteen, but I'm still kickin'." He put the cigarette to his lips again and had the lighter almost to the end of it when Yuffie, with the speed of the ninja she'd been raised as, reached forward from her prone position in the chair, took it out of his fingers, and snapped it in half. She did this nearly as smoothly as he'd taken the thing out, and he didn't seem to like this sudden care from her. "Hey, what's the big --!"

"Reno Drannor, you've been smoking for eighteen years, and Leviathan help you if you can't stop doing it around me so I don't have to watch you die!" she exclaimed, and Reno was kind of surprised how serious she sounded. He was probably more surprised that she'd managed to liberate the entire pack from his pocket in her fluid motion, and now sat on those in a huff. "God, at least go outside or something."

In true Reno fashion, his one response to this was, "God, these days you get into my pants without even me knowing it."

She scoffed and relaxed, arms folded over her chest. "If you're done being a jackass, your kitchen is on fire."

So it seems, was the redhead's next thought as he turned and saw the black-tinted smoke pouring out of the doorway. That was a sign that the kettle had been on for a bit too long on a burner that was, as he'd said, too fucking touchy for his liking. He hurried to turn the stove off, but he picked up the conversation again. "I suppose you'll wanna go shopping, right? Every time you come, you drag me to Wall Market."

The young woman smiled her bright smile, and all was right in Reno's house again. "Of course! Would it be an Official Yuffie Kisaragi Visit if I didn't drag you to look at dresses I won't buy, Materia I won't achieve legally, and food that you'll end up paying for? I think not."

"I have to admit, you're right about that. Want anything for breakfast while I'm in here? I've got so many eggs that I'm starting to convince myself I'm laying them at night." He started toward the cupboard, where he knew the teabags were, silently mourning the loss of his cancer sticks. He knew they were bad and he was way past his limit of smoking years, but, hell, he also knew as well as anyone else that he was addicted.

Yuffie grimaced, standing up and walking to the kitchen to investigate for herself. "Ehh. Green tea and eggs? You've gotta be kidding me."

"You're talking to the man who honestly calls beer a breakfast drink," Reno replied flatly, dropping teabags into the two cups. "Besides, breakfast doesn't really count. It's just that meal you have as an excuse to drink a shitload of coffee and wake up."

"Well put, Mister Uplifting," she mumbled as she crossed the kitchen and bobbed the teabags up and down, the redhead leaning against the counter in that too-lazy-to-work way he always seemed to stand. She had just come to stay two or so weeks ago, which made this visit a pretty fast one. But Godo, as he knew, could be a dick, and so he didn't mind.

He smiled, giving her the once-over. She looked damned healthy; always had, to him at least. He had recently realized that the days of calling her Legs were over; he actually saw a real woman under the childish, ninja facade. He saw her as Yuffie Kisaragi instead of a good lay nowadays. "Speaking of uplifting shit and things that wake me up quickly, how long are you planning on crashing here this time? Assuming you'll be staying for Winter Day, so I've gotta shop sometime without you, Leviathan forbid." His face was awash in a look of mock horror.

"As long as I can annoy you into a drunken stupor," she said cheerily, hopping onto the counter and swinging her legs back and forth. Reno's mind told him the days of calling her Legs were over, but she still had the things and they were as hypnotizing as they had been two years before.

Reno grunted. "I sometimes wake up in drunken stupors, babe. You're either gonna have to come up with new staying conditions or stick around until the booze kills me. Neither one bothers me, personally, so I'll leave it in your hands. By the way, Rude's shit is all over the guest room from when he stayed here last time he got locked out of his apartment, so we're gonna have to bunk up together."

The ninja looked mildly discomforted. "Your bed doesn't bunk, Reno. I'll be astounded if it even holds two people." He'd let her sleep there last time she'd stayed, and she remembered how small the bed was.

"Good thing it's winter and the body heat is useful, then, right?" He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and pulled back in time to avoid her half-assed slap.

"You live to drive me bonkers, don't you?"

"Would it be an Official Yuffie Kisaragi Visit if I didn't at least try?"

She scoffed. "You are such an asshole."