"Are you drunk?" Tifa exclaimed indignantly, offended by his offer.
"No, why would you say that?" Reno asked, staring at her.
"Because you just asked me…" Tifa started to explain before she was interrupted.
"I just wanna know if you are up for sex, no strings attached. It's a Yes or No question." Reno said, leaning casually against her doorframe.
"How can you ask me that and still say you're not drunk?" Tifa demanded to know.
"Honey, if I was drunk, you'd know it." Reno flippantly replied.
Richard staggered out of the bar, feeling sick. He didn't understand why either, everyone else there seemed to be drinking more than him. And what he drank didn't taste all that good either, but he'd show everyone and be the biggest asshole he could be, and in his mind badass and asshole had become synonymous with each other, and badasses were always drinking in bars, according to what he saw on TV. Groaning in discomfort, he leaned back against the brick building to steady himself, wondering when the earth would stop moving enough so he could find his car.
"Do you need help, young man?" a female voice asked kindly. Richard moved his head to look at the much older woman who spoke, and that was a mistake. Suddenly he was bending over and vomiting all over her high heels. "Oh dear." she said and quickly stepped back. Taking a napkin out of her purse, she wiped her heels off the best she could.
"Sorry." Richard cried when he finally stopped.
"I'll finish cleaning up inside. Take care of yourself, young man." the woman said before hurrying inside.
"I guess you're feeling better." the older woman said a couple days later when Richard had recovered enough to try again at the bar, his stubbornness refusing to allow him to give up.
"Oh." he felt embarrassed when she spoke to him. "I'm sorry about the other night."
"It happens. How come a fine young man like yourself was drinking alone anyway?" she asked.
"I wish I knew." he admitted unwittingly.
"What's your name, son?" she wanted to know, getting more curious about him.
"Reno." Richard replied, trying out his made-up name for the first time. Sure he had come up with it by accident, but he felt a certain pride about it, since it was linked to the first time he had sex, and he was hoping using that as his name would get him more sex.
The older woman pursed his lips, realizing that couldn't be his real name, but men were funny about things like that. "You can call me Ellie. That's my real name, Ellie Beasley." she told him, as her need to meddle and flirt with attractive men of any age took over, and this one stood out immediately to her when she had spotted him outside the bar. "So tell me, why's a hottie like you drinking alone? You need some pointers?"
"No!" Tifa snapped. "I don't want to have sex with you."
"Why not?" he asked, wondering if she was seeing anybody and that's why she said no.
"Because no man worth having would bang on a stranger's door late at night and ask her for sex when she's got two young children in the house, that's why!" she exclaimed, about to slam the door on him, except he was still in the way.
"So it's not because you're still seeing that Cloud guy?" he asked.
"How would you know about…you!" Tifa stared at him, finally placing him. She should have figured it out earlier, she already knew Elena and Rude had been undercover Turks, and Reno was obviously one of them, but that short, shy, and awkward boy being the same person as the man before her was a bit much.
"Yeah, me. So is it because you're seeing him or you just have something against a little fun?" he persisted in knowing why she wasn't interested.
"It's because you clearly don't know anything about women!" Tifa shoved him out of her doorway and slammed it in his face, turning around to find Marlene and Denzel staring at her.
"Are you okay?" Marlene asked as Denzel fired his own question at her. "Who was that?"
"Yes, I'm fine, and that was just a confused man from my bar." she told them. "Now please go back to bed, just like I am." Tifa was confused herself. An older dangerous man who had posed as someone her own age years ago to betray her trust had knocked on her door in the middle of the night just to ask her for sex. What was the world coming to?
Reno was also confused as he entered his own place later that night, alone. He didn't understand why he wasn't glad that she had rejected him. That meant he didn't have to worry about ending up whipped by her like his other selves were. But she actually turned him down, and rudely too! Ellie Beasley had given him some pointers so many years ago, and her advice had helped him out considerably, and as he learned what he was doing, it got to the point where he never slept alone anymore if he didn't want to. Realizing he was starting to feel sorry for himself, he stood up out of his favorite chair in disgust. "Fuck this! I don't have to put up with rejection! I'll show her…I'll make her want me!"