Oh, and for the drinks. I went to a website to look up stuff, entered a list of ingredients Reeve would likely have, and they made a list of stuff that could be made for that. I'm not telling you the site, because I don't encourage drinking. NO DRINKING! It's BAD!
Theme: Brown
Cinnamon
When he wakes, it's because he's knocked the alarm to the floor in an attempt to shut the wailing off. Instantly a curse comes to his lips, just like every other day. A curse at himself, at fate, at the world around him. As he rolls to the side to glare at the fallen clock there is a self pitying mewl from the kitten who had chosen his stomach as a bed yet again. Elsewhere there is beeping as an automated coffee machine comes to life to reassure him that yes, it really is time to haul himself up. Through the fog in his mind, a weary man hauls himself to the shower, whose song was like that of a siren.
And after that, it all followed in the same formula that it had for time untold. He didn't know when it had begun, or when it would end, not that either much mattered by this point. In the usual melancholy he showered, drank coffee, fed the feline, headed to work. The daze was the same as he swam, and lifted weights, and just existed. It was five cups of coffee between starting and lunch, no more, no less. Later, he has the same boring, meatless lunch. There is routine disapproval from the woman who delivered it, and routine picking with no appetite to be found. Let none forget the practical plethora of paperwork either.
Then comes the only break from the tedious routine of life. The Turk enters his office. With the Turk comes violently red hair, horribly messy clothes, a barely repressed desire for a lovely body, and a confidence all his own. After a moment the whole thing turns into routine as well. The habit has almost broken the last of him by this point. What was once a little five minute shelter from the monotony of life was not as much of a repeat as everything else. Reno knows that he is going to say no, and he knows that Reno knows. They both know he wants to say yes, and they both know he never will. It would bring a tear to his eye, were that not out of his normal routine.
So, in the end, like always, the Turk leaves, mumbling something about having to strengthen the red in his hair. The same bad, tasteless joke in the same bad, tasteless life. While he's thankful that Reno has left, pulling away the temptation to break the cycle, it hurts, just like it does every other time. He's not sure how much more of it he can take before he just breaks down and cries.
And, somehow, he's shocked to find that his cheeks are wet.
Somehow he makes it through the routine of the day. The cup of coffee an hour, the paperwork, the staying in until nine, somehow it all puts him back on track and by the time that his cheeks no longer feel oddly stiff from the dried tears, he's got control again. Once he's read, just a bit later than normal, he packs up his stuff and heads out into the night for yet another evening of ritual. Just another night of jeans and coffee and leftovers and news that isn't filled with any news at all.
In the end he curls up in bed with a kitten on his stomach, knowing that in the morning he's going to hit the alarm clock off of the table and there will be a pathetic mewl and distant beeping. It's the way of things, and he's grown to accept that.
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It's to laughter that Reeve awakens no more than an hour later. Laughter and the smell of cinnamon. The scent of the spice draws him from the bed more than the laughter. For all he knows, the laughter is some lingering dream. But cinnamon…
Reeve's feet slip into fuzzy brown slippers as a fuzzy brown robe is pulled on. And down the brown and beige hall he shuffles, slowly making his way towards the scent of cinnamon. By the time he makes it to the living room the man became sure that something was different, other than the delicious smell. The laughter grew stronger instead of fading away. In fact, it took on the voice of someone he knew.
"Look! Sleeping beauty is up!" a voice cheered.
At last Reeve really woke up, and gawked at the pair of Turks sitting smack dab in the center of his living room. The plain brown couch had been pushed up against a wall and the wooden table placed on top of it. In fact, most of his living room had been pushed to the walls to leave room for the odd couple. Rude was sitting up straight many different bottles and glasses and garnishes all around him. Reno was stretched out on the floor, grinning like a drunken fool. And given the way Reno went about life, Reeve wouldn't have been surprised.
"What… what are you doing here?" Reeve croaked out. This wasn't normal. Not at all.
"You seemed lonely at work. You were crying man. So, like, me and chrome dome here went out and got lots of fixin's and we're like… gonna get you good and liquored up."
"I don't drink."
"Ya do now!" Reno chuckled before slowly getting to his feet and shuffling for the kitchen. When he returned it was with a piece of cinnamon toast. "Come on. Ya know we ain't leaving until you're wasted."
After a moment more of staring, Reeve slowly shuffled closer to the pair. This was very unusual…
"Sit!" Reno commanded, patting the floor next to where he had plopped himself down.
No sooner was the man seated than Reno shoved a piece of cinnamon toast into his mouth. "Eat! Can't drink on an empty stomach!"
It took a lot for Reeve not to choke on the food suddenly in his mouth, but once the first bite went down, once the taste of cinnamon reached his tongue, Reeve began to devour the toast. He even went so far as to lick his fingers when it was done.
"Woah," Reno commented, which lead to Reeve opening eyes he hadn't even realized he had closed. "Man, you must really like toast."
"What do you…"
"You've been, like, sucking on your fingers for three minutes!"
While Reeve was sure this was an exaggeration, it probably wasn't far off. Cinnamon was something he didn't keep at home because… well, Reeve was slightly addicted to the taste. He'd discovered very shortly after his initial hiring into the ShinRa company that everything tasted better with cinnamon.
"The cinnamon," he began to explain, only to be cut off by the red-head.
"Rude, we need a Hot Gold."
In shock the executive watched the older Turk set about mixing several things together. Well, not several things. Just what looked like orange juice and some gold-ish liquid. A cinnamon stick was plucked from some container and added to the glass that was then passed to Reeve.
"What…"
"Just try it. Let the cinnamon soak in for a while. Or you can do like I do and use the stick as a bit of a straw."
"Why would I…"
"Just do it," Reno insisted with a smile.
After a few moments Reeve gave in with a sigh and sampled the drink.
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When he wakes, it's not because he's knocked the alarm to the floor in an attempt to shut the wailing off. He doesn't roll to the side to glare at the fallen clock, and there isn't a self pitying mewl from the kitten who had chosen his stomach as a bed yet again. While elsewhere there is beeping as an automated coffee machine comes to life, for once he doesn't seem to be moved. There is a fog in his mind, but no shower calls out to him through it. In fact, all that does is the now empty glass laying on the living room floor some five feet away, and a cinnamon stick that had fallen from his mouth some time during that night.
Instead of waking, of starting his routine, of condemning himself to another round of the usual, Reeve just cuddled up to the heat of the bodies he was between. Work could wait. The world could wait. Hell, even cinnamon coffee could wait another hour or so.
Here, now, like this…
He was breaking the routine, for once and for all.