Double Coupon Day
By
Nicolle
1st Note: OOC One Shot!
2nd Note: I am working on
another Army Life, I swear... To find out where I've been, check
the profile.
3rd Note: This is the brain child of my husband who
is firmly of the opinion that it should be a flash movie. (hint,
hint, hint!)
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 7 belongs to Square-Enix. The bagging your own groceries joke belongs to Larry the Cable Guy.
Double Coupon Day
Cloud opened the cupboard and then closed it. He opened the fridge, stared for a bit, and then closed the door. He turned to the tea drinking, red clad, boots up on the good end table, ex-Turk and said, "Vincent, we need to go grocery shopping."
"Send Tifa."
"Do you really want to spend another month eating tofu?"
Vincent put his tea down and sat up with a grimace. He huffed and stood. "Fine. Let's go. Nothing is worse than tofu turkey for a month." He immediately regretted those words when he and Cloud stepped inside the grocery store. It was Friday. It was social security check day. The place was packed from produce to dairy with senior citizens from all over Midgar.
"Oh no," Cloud groaned.
"Let's just get this over with."
They rolled into the produce section. While Cloud bagged apples, Yuffie threw a five pound bar of chocolate in the cart. Vincent plucked the offending chocolate out of the cart. "We can't afford that."
Cloud grabbed Yuffie before she could run off. "What are you doing here?"
"I was hiding in the car from Tifa. She was trying to feed me rice cakes. Rice cakes!"
Cloud threw up his hands and was smacked in the back of the head by an old lady trying to get her cart through the tiny aisle. Cloud dropped Yuffie and she disappeared into the crowd. The old lady continued to pummel Cloud with a handbag until Vincent grabbed him and pulled him out of the old lady's way.
"We need to get to the pasta aisle."
Cloud nodded and drew the ultima weapon. Except that he didn't have the ultima weapon on him. Frustrated, he looked around and spotted a baguette sticking out of a bakery basket. He snagged it, swung it around, decapitating, and used Blade Beam to cut a path to the pasta aisle. They shot through the hole before it could fill with the elderly. Yuffie, like a jack rabbit on speed, was waiting for them and dumped a ton of candy in the cart. Cloud grabbed her again as Vincent tossed the candy out of the cart and onto the floor.
"Look. We don't have the gil for all of this. You'll have to kill something and takes its gil if you want all this candy."
Yuffie thought about it and then nodded.
Cloud dropped her and Yuffie ran off into the crowd. He turned to see Vincent had already finished in the aisle and was moving on. Cloud caught up to him. "We'll split up. I'll go get dish liquid and you get milk."
Vincent maneuvered carefully through the throngs, ducking the occasional purse. He found a ravening horde blocking his path to the milk. He sighed and settled in to wait when a purse got lucky and smacked him in the back of the head.
"That's it." He turned into Chaos and roared. The throngs scattered in terror and left him alone with the milk. Careful, so as not to puncture the carton, he scooped up his prize with a claw and put it in the cart. He turned just in time to see Yuffie dragging the body of an elderly man into the pet care aisle, a shuriken sticking out of his forehead. "That's not good." He paused and thought while he began to look more like himself and less like... himself. He shrugged and wheeled the cart around front.
Cloud starred at lines that went on forever. He spotted something shining in the distance and pulled on the cart, sending Vincent, who had been holding onto the cart, sprawling. Small children jumped on Vincent's back and beat him with squeaky toys while he huffed. Cloud got up to the lane and found a register plated in gold and exquisitely decorated. It was completely empty.
"Score!" He wheeled the cart over.
And a clerk stepped in front of him. "I'm sorry, Sir, but you'll have to use a different lane."
"But this one is open!"
"It's reserved, Sir."
"For who!"
Rufus Shinra walked up to the register with a pack of Tic-Tacs, paid with a shiny credit card, and walked out.
Cloud sighed. He looked at the long lines and then he spotted the self-checkout. As he pushed his cart forward, One-Winged Angel started playing over the loud speakers.
"This isn't good," he muttered.
Sephiroth walked up to the self-check out... with three cartfuls of groceries.
Cloud threw his hands in the air. "Oh come on! It's not like you need that much food! Do you even need to eat?"
"It doesn't matter if I need to eat or not. I want it and the food is mine... Just as soon as I check out." He turned to the machine. "Now how do these things work? I've never done this before." Sephiroth made a big show of going really, really, really slow. As the General scanned a package of fish for the twentieth time, Cloud started banging his head off the cart. Every time Sephiroth killed some poor store clerk, he'd get a 'Wait for Cashier' sign on the screen, and each time he'd sit back and clean his finger nails with Masamune. After an hour of pure hell, and Yuffie managing to get through Rufus Shinra's lane without comment, Cloud decided it was time to check out and leave.
He tapped Sephiroth on the shoulder. The General turned and got a face full of OmniCoupon. Summarily defeated, or at least knocked out, Cloud kicked the silver haired villain out of the way and ran his groceries through check out. As he bagged his own groceries, an elderly woman patted him on the shoulder.
"I'm so glad they hire people like you here."
Cloud put his head in his hands. "Yeah. Me too." He got up to the counter to sign his credit card receipt when the cashier held up a hand.
"Sorry, Sir. We have a problem with your order." He pointed to the OmniCoupon. "You can't double that." Cloud slammed his head off the cashier's register.
Back home, with a house full of not tofu, Cloud looked at Tifa. "Where's Vincent?"
Back at the store, Marlene, holding onto Barrett's hand, leaned over. "Mr. Vincent? Are you okay?"
Vincent looked up from the Weekly World News, which he'd managed to pull from a stand. Children were still jumping on his back and hitting him with squeaky toys. "Would you be so kind as to get them off of me?"
