The Turks Christmas Special : Nine Eggs A-Cooking
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She was in Reno's house; that much she remembered. From previous visits, she also had slept here enough times to know her head was in one of his pillows. This was not the comfortable mattress, which meant she was in his bed. Her mind had not engaged far enough for her to remember that Rude's stuff was in the guest room, and so her automatic, nonchalant assumption was that they'd had sex. She was no longer bothered by the fact it wasn't a relationship; just casual sex. Friends with benefits, as the kids were calling it these days.
She sniffed.
There was something wrong. Something positively, severely incorrect; in all respects fucked up, if you will. Had she been awake for the night of urinal soaps, cat ramblings, and Lines, she would not have used the term mentally without laughing. She tried to pinpoint the problem without moving, as this bed was quite reassuring. Definitely the smell; the one smell that Yuffie hadn't been expecting when she woke up for the first time was that of sausage, and so there was something quite screwed up in Reno's house.
She dismissed it as a morning commercial on public television or something and drifted off.
Half an hour later, which seemed like the blink of an eye -- she hadn't even opened one yet -- she realized this notion was notoriously absurd, and not just because he had no television set, wondered if that was even a phrase she could use in this situation, and drifted off for another ten minutes. The thought of going to sleep again and leaving Reno to manage food for himself shot her out of bed, throwing on her AVALANCHE get-up, and hurling herself out of his room.
It was a good thing she had, said her jostled and irritated brain, because Reno'd fallen asleep as well. It didn't occur to her that on the couch away from the kitchen was a strange place to fall asleep, and shirtless and with his fly down was a bit under-dressed for the Turk this late in the morning. She was accurate there; it was just shy of 11:00. But it was certainly far too early to understand that the clothes laying on the floor around the couch weren't his, and if they were, Yuffie needed to have a talk about his sexual issues.
"Thanks, y'dope," she grumbled, tossing her eye-crust at him as she made her way to the kitchen. She needed water; her morning voice was a hellish thing.
"You're welcome, sunshine."
Yes, reasoned her quickly-awakening brain, there was something seriously fucked up in Reno's house. If the other half of her mind remembered correctly, her name was Scarlet, she was happily eating Reno's sausages, and she'd stolen Yuffie's silk robe.
The ninja searched for a way to greet her. Nothing came to mind. She then tried to reason a response to her pilfered robe. Nothing there either. At last was the hunt for a way to politely tell the blonde to leave. Stocked zero in that region, too. "Uhh. . ." was the only thing that came out, and it was enough to pry Scarlet's eyes from the gossip columns. She jolted quite high when she saw Yuffie, whose early-morning vocals had matched Reno's uncannily.
"Shit, kid, don't you knock when you come in?" she asked a second or two after her heart had returned to her chest. She made a quick job of folding the paper, wrapping the robe she was wearing tightly around her, and going back to the stove.
Yuffie glared at her back. Her mind was engaged and things were piecing themselves together now; she'd fallen asleep too quickly and Reno had gone out for dessert or something, was that it? "Yes. I knocked when I came in. That was yesterday morning. And that, though your sausage smells wonderful, is my robe."
The blonde thought nothing of it, apparently, but did seem a bit surprised about that last remark. "Oh, I'm sorry; I thought maybe he snagged this from a hit and thought it would make a good present for someone. Be a darling and watch these eggs while I go change?" She obviously didn't give a shit if Yuffie wanted to be a darling or not; she just up and left the kitchen.
The former AVALANCHEr heavily considered throwing the pan of eggs at her when she came back, then decided that she really did need a place to stay and messing with Reno's job was not the way to hang around longer. And she didn't know why she was getting pissed off about anything but the robe; Reno had mentioned that he and Scarlet had a relationship akin to their own. It was probably just the fact he'd not even taken into consideration the fact she was sleeping in his room.
"What can I say?" He'd laid back on the couch in that suave manner when he'd mentioned, during her last visit, "I'm just one irresistable son'bitch."
She snorted, flipping the eggs she was only watching because she expected a few on a plate of her own when they were done. She made sure to scramble three out of the six -- Reno's giant frying pan had been taken from a construction site he'd worked in in college -- to prove a point. "No," she told the pan. "You're just a perpetually pubescent man with too much drawing power for your own good."
". . .Then you won't make me two pieces of toast while you're there?"
Yuffie surprised herself; she was becoming more and more like Reno every day she stayed here. After all, it only took half a second of debate before she spun around and threw the spatula at him. Her accuracy was improving, though, said his forehead.
Reno dropped like a fly, gripping his head so hard that his brain hurt, and gave out a low "Ooooooww." That was followed by the more characteristic, louder, "FUCK!" as he realized just what had happened to him. "Dammit, Yuffie, what the hell was that?!"
"Why is that whore wearing my robe?!" she countered, and he looked positively baffled.
As if cued, Scarlet walked into the kitchen in the suit she'd brought in the car. She tossed the robe onto the couch and cackled. "This is great! I didn't even get an invitation to the wedding and I'm already catching the end of the honeymoon!" She seemed much more amused than the two of them, and rightfully so; she knew how it must look.
Reno's forehead was starting to bleed. One of the corners must have nicked him just right. "Scarlet, what the hell happened last night?"
"Reno, shut up. You, too, ninja; throw anything at me and I'll shoot you." She pulled a chair out from the table and sat down again. "Someone slipped you something at the club last night, Reno; I found you talking to a bar of soap. Rude brought you back, I stayed to make sure you didn't keel over on us. You peeled off everything but your pants, took a piss, and collapsed on the couch. I had shit all over me, so I took a shower, put the girl's robe on because I didn't want to wear this all night, tossed the rest of the clothes at Reno trying to wake him up, failed, and made myself at home in the guest room. Sun came up, I got tired of reading the articles in Rude's tittie mags, so I came out and decided to make you breakfast. Fucking hell, you're the two most ungrateful people I've ever met." She lit up a cigarette. "Pop some toast in while you're close, huh?"
Reno fixed his houseguest with a stern look and helped himself to a cigarette he felt he was entitled to.
Yuffie's face took on a shade something like Schmidt's hat and she quietly gnawed her fingernails down.
And so were things at Reno's house.
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There are times a pair that have been together for an extensive amount of time can simply stare at each other and have a conversation that way. Despite Yuffie's hyperactivity and Reno's earlier blow to the head and drug dosage, they were doing it right now, at the counter of an expensive clothing store.
They'd found a cigarette burn in the Wutain robe and Scarlet had decided to buy her another one out of pure generosity. After suffering barrages of "You know what that word means?" and the like from the redhead, she'd been defended by the ninja who felt obligated to do such because of that morning's misunderstanding and the fact she was about to go blow eight-hundred gil on imported fabrics and customizations. There was a brief period of Reno irately saying she should just go stay with Scarlet for the time, and when Scarlet had said Reno could have full custody of their daughter, Yuffie had stopped defending both of them and gone to change. Reno had just made himself a morning margarita and called it good. The blonde had won the fight, and that was good enough for her.
But now they were doing that silent communication, and it was driving her fucking nuts.
As she got her check book out, Yuffie rolled her eyes and shoved Reno toward the counter, where the replica robe laid. 'For fuck's sake, Reno, be nice and offer payment!'
He held his hands up in defense, then stepped back and made a sweeping motion at the counter. 'Does it really look like I carry that much cash on me? You pay for it if it's so cheap'!
She slapped her hips and crossed her arms, nose in the air. 'Like I brought any cash from Wutai? Besides, I think you ashed on it anyway.'
His jaw dropped. 'You're a fucking princess!'
Yuffie put her hand above her head and shook it. 'You seem to think Godo supplies me with shopping money.'
The redhead flipped her off and walked out of the clothing store. 'Fuck you; I'll be in the car.'
The woman behind the desk offer a reassuring pat on Scarlet's back. The red-suited woman was sprawled over the counter, check in her outstretched hand. The woman leaned down to her ear as Yuffie stomped around mumbling. "Newlyweds you forgot to buy a present?"
After she recovered from wondering how this woman didn't recognize the three of them, Scarlet got off of the counter and raised her voice to a level Yuffie could surely hear, as well as most of the people around them. "Oh, no, they're not even dating officially."
Yuffie ignored everyone around them for a moment. "I'd rather kill myself than shack up with that fucking jerk!"
Scarlet, however, used the publicity to her own advantage. "Funny, shacking up and fucking are two things you two seem to do just fine. Huh."
Within half an hour of their leaving the store, Yuffie in a murderous rage and Scarlet cackling so loudly that even the ignorant clerk knew who she was, the tabloid reporter in the store shopping for his wife's birthday had the story all written up and sent off. Yuffie Kisaragi, tragic suicidal in denial of her relationship with stingy, abusive Reno Drannor whose main goal was sex, their fights fueled by Scarlet Chassity, who was more than likely having a steamy side relationship with Reno. Needless to say, it reached Godo relatively quickly and he put out a bounty on Reno, who was surely the father of Yuffie's child, said the magazine.
When the tabloids ran that story, the bounty was retracted because everyone knew he was bullshitting them, the bounty-master got hold of that unreliable article and called it unethical, and everything was legally-perfect-yet-emotionally-twisted in Wutai. So said the same tabloids, anyway.
Funny, the way things happen. Also funny, the fact that none of that could have.
Because it just wouldn't be an Official Yuffie Kisaragi Visit if something didn't fuck itself over, and this time it was Yuffie herself.