Mission 47: Best Friends Forever
It was another normal day at the Seventh Heaven. Marlene and Denzel were playing upstairs, Cloud was hanging around idly downstairs while he waited for a new delivery request to come, and Tifa was cleaning the counter. Everything was normal and nothing was out of the ordinary.
Then Reno came running in, he stopped leaning on the counter, his breaths fast and heavy, he looked as if he had been running for a long time. Reno tried to speak but no sounds were produced from his dry throat, while his starving lungs continued trying to recover. "W..."
"W?" Tifa blinked trying to complete the sound into a word, "w... whiskey?"
Reno shook his head.
"W..." Tifa went over the names of different drinks in her mind, wondering what Reno wanted.
"Water..." Reno finally managed to force the word out.
Tifa tilted her head curiously and blinked. "Right, water, maybe you should sit down. Cloud, check his temperature."
Cloud nodded, "okay," he wasn't sure why they were helping a Turk, but then again, they were not enemies anymore and Reno was a good customer for Tifa's bar. Though the redhead still occasionally pulled a few annoying pranks on Cloud that made the delivery boy wish they were still enemies. Cloud placed his hand on Reno's forehead, lifting the goggles to do so. "Warm... It feels like you have a fever."
"No fever," Reno tried to say. Then Tifa placed a glass of cool water in front of him on the counter and all words were momentarily forgotten while he drank it in a split second, "more."
Tifa was a bit surprised, but she complied none the less and after Reno drank his fifth glass of water, he seemed to have recovered considerably. "What's going on?"
"He has a fever," Cloud pointed out, as if that alone could answer Tifa's question. Reno was odd, for lack of better term, when he was healthy, so Cloud found it logical to think that he would continue being random in a different way when he was ill.
"It's not a fever, I just feel warm from running for the past... what time is it?" Reno asked.
Cloud looked at the time on his PHS, "Nine thirty-five."
Reno counted on his fingers and finally replied, "ten hours, that's how long I've been running." Reno's face was nearly as red as his hair, he seemed to irradiate heat, and it looked as if he had lost some weight. "I'm hungry..."
"Why were you running for that long?" Tifa asked, while she rushed to prepare a nutritious meal for the exhausted Turk. Her motherly instincts had kicked in and she didn't even bother asking what he wanted to eat. Reno would eat what Tifa gave him or she would force it down his throat, it was for his own good.
"Today is our day off, so last night I went to get Rude to ask if he wanted to go to the Gold Saucer and party all night or something. But instead of just saying no, he tried to kill me! He chased me all over the city until I finally lost him a while ago," Reno explained.
Cloud couldn't help it but to smile, "serves you right!"
"Isn't that a bit harsh?" Reno complained.
"I'll have to agree with Cloud," Tifa voiced, "maybe now you'll learn your lesson. Poor Rude, having to put up with you all the time, that poor man must have finally snapped."
"But Rude has always been my best friend, he's never tried to kill me before..." A plate of food with meatloaf, mashed potatoes and rice was placed in front of Reno and next to it a tall glass of orange juice.
"Eat," Tifa was commanding yet motherly all at once, "every bite."
Reno did a funny little salute, "yes ma'am!" Tifa was a great cook anyway and he was hungry, besides, he didn't need someone else trying to kill him today.
Then Rude entered the Seventh Heaven causing Reno to almost choke on his food. "..."
"You're not going to try to kill me again are you?" Reno asked.
Rude's expression remained unchanged "..." there was a pause until finally the cause of Rude's homicide attempt on his best friend was explained, "sleep walking."
Reno's jaw dropped, "sleep walking?! You were sleep walking and trying to kill me?! But I yelled at you to stop, why didn't you wake up?"
"Ear plugs," Rude replied. He slept with his sunglasses so Reno couldn't if his eyes were open or closed and Rude could follow Reno by use of his Turk senses alone. "Security camera," Rude didn't say a lot, but he spoke the words that needed to be voiced. By chance he had run into Tseng who managed to safely approach Rude enough to wake him up. Then they investigated to see how far Rude's slumbering destruction had gone, the apartment building's lobby was a mess.
"Are we still best friends?" Reno childishly asked and Rude nodded. "Good, I thought you were tired of having me around. Of course that's not true. No one can get tired of me." Reno... he never learns...
End of Mission 47
Disclaimer, I don't own Final Fantasy VII. Mission 47 was inspired by Kaeghlighn's review and the mission title is a reference to The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.