Rude's Apartment, Edge, Thursday Afternoon

[raspberryturk]

Too much drinking. Toooo much drinking, and fretting, and getting the rookie in trouble. And nothing in the world made a guy feel like cleaning his mouth out with sandpaper than a night that started with Corel ale, and then headed into rum and ice-cream territory. And really, it was a wonder that Reno had managed to drag his sorry ass back home last night in the first place.

Eventually, it would occur to him that there were only so many places that Rude could have swiped that rum from, and he'd be suitably cranky about it. But for now he'd just content himself with ooozing over the edge of the lumpy couch, scraping the taste from his tongue with his teeth, and then fumbling about for his jacket, which had been ringing off and on for the past two hours.

Well, not his jacket. The phone in his jacket pocket. He didn't want to answer it. That ringtone was his boss, and he didn't have to be in until later, and Tseng could just go and kiss his own--

"Yo?"

"Reno." Oh, Reno knew that tone already, and was already wondering if he could get away with hanging up and insisting up and down that his battery had died. Tseng was not a happy man, by any stretch of the imagination. "Are you aware of the current situation regarding Elena?"

It wasn't a question. It was phrased like one, sure, but Reno knew better than to think that Tseng was asking him anything. Tseng phoned Reno when he knew damn well what he was going to say. And then Reno snarked right along with it, in the sort of counterpoint that usually ended in him pulling overtime with a salary cut.

Really, it was one of Reno's favorite hobbies. Between this and seeing exactly how long it took for him to get himself slapped by hot chicks in front of their boyfriends at the local drinking holes? Reno probably needed to find some better ways to pass his spare time.

"Aware, as in, aware, or aware as in you're gonna tell me what you want already, Boss?"

"She walked out last night."

... Huh. This straightforward stuff wasn't exactly how Reno had expected the verbal tapdance to go. Tseng liked his roundabouts and his figure-it-out-for-yourselfs, typically.

"An' you want me to do what about that, Boss?"

"She informed me shortly before doing so that you had been drinking with her. What can you tell me about that?"

"We were checkin' out Tifa's tits."

"Reno."

"And talkin' about gettin' Rude laid, yo."

"Reno." Reno could practically hear Tseng pinching the bridge of his nose and counting to ten in his head, in that statement.

"An' then talkin' about how she'd rather screw you than watch Tifa an' Cloud go at it like moogles in heat, yo."

Silence. Dead. Silence. The sort of silence that meant that there was something lurking in wait just around the corner, and it was going to jump out and tear at Reno's jugular at any given moment. Reno was insane. He liked these silences. It gave him an opportunity to figure out exactly how to parry whatever the hell was coming next.

"I should ask, then," Tseng finally said, his words even and calculated and practically dripping venom, "why it was that I wasn't made aware of Elena's affections sooner."

Again, not a question.

Again, Reno should have known better than to open his mouth.

"Well, Boss," he said, cooly, in that sort of tone that implied that he really did have better things to do, and if Tseng didn't mind, perhaps he could consider letting him hang up sometime soon, "I kinda figured that any competent Turk would be able to tell when the Rookie was trippin' over herself because of a crush, yo."

More silence. This wasn't the 'lurking in wait' silence. This was the 'Tseng is probably counting his bullets and calculating all of Reno's available escape routes' silence.

"Where is Elena now? There was no answer at her apartment."

"Oh, she left already. Figured she'd get one good day livin' it up around Gaia before takin' off for a while."

"Taking off, Reno?"

"I told her about this place where she could find herself a little piece of sky, zoto. Plenty of hot ass there that ain't gonna blow her off, even."

"I see."

"I even promised not to streak at her graduation ceremony."

Silence. More silence. Reno really, really wasn't going to like what was coming next, was he?

"Take the day off, Reno." ... Well. That had been unexpected. "As we're now down one Turk, you won't be getting another one for a very, very long time."

And then the line went dead.

Daaaaamn.


[NFB for distance, as usual. Reno's open for phone calls or what-have-you. Elena's whereabouts mentioned with enabling permission from findingelena, and I find Tseng's temper to be entirely too much fun to play. Entirely.]

Comments

[withoutverona]

"And if I do the shopping I might accidentally buy pureed octopus or natto or candies that taste like tuna," Romeo reasoned. "Have you ever had natto, Reno?"

Seriously. Fermented soybeans, sold to perfectly innocent Americans. That was just wrong.

"Instant noodles are the lesser evil. And I wasn't impugning you, just ... wondering. I hope she turns up once she's had some chance to calm down."

[raspberryturk]

"I saw pictures of the stuff on the internet," Reno noted, wrinkling his nose somewhat. "I think that's one of the few things you wouldn't get me to put in my mouth if I'd been on a binge and someone dared me, yo."

That really, really said something about natto, didn't it? All... slimy, and eugh.

"An' I'm sure whatever way the Rookie goes once she's wearin' a cooler head'll be the right one her her. Can't fault her for takin' off, really. If any Turk was gonna run away from here, now'd be the time to do it. Ain't like Tseng's gonna make me hunt her down, anyhow."

[withoutverona]

"I tried it once and then went through almost a bottle of mouthwash to get rid of the taste," Romeo said. "Don't make my mistake."

He found a beer and opened it, not sure he followed Reno's point. The last he'd heard, Turks weren't exactly popular, but that didn't make it a good time to quit. "Forgive a stupid question, but why is now the time to run away?"

[raspberryturk]

"If she took off back in October or before then," Reno replied, sounding kind of bitter about this deal, "we would'a been huntin' her down. We ain't technically Turks anymore. I don't gotta pretend to kill the rookie."

[withoutverona]

Romeo leaned against the fridge, feeling the coolness through his shirt. "Before October you might have had to do more than pretend," he said flatly. "Right?"

Whee, cheerful phone call.

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah," Reno agreed with a sigh. "Not a good time to be a Turk. So I can't really bitch that the worst I gotta do is take the missin' shift, man. Beats the alternative."

Reno was excellent at cheerful phone calls. Really.

[withoutverona]

"By far," Romeo agreed, almost easily. "And it'll give you something to do besides tending to your beans."

[raspberryturk]

"That's right," Reno laughed. "No worryin' about the Rookie takin' all the excitement when we gotta go hunt monsters or whatever, yo. I'll get more exercise."

See? Always a silver lining to every cloud. Every cloud except Cloud. If there was a silver lining there, Reno would leave it to Tifa to investigate.

[withoutverona]

"We wouldn't want you out of shape," Romeo teased back. "Oh, did you talk to Arthur about horses while you were here? He seems to think you need them."

Romeo didn't get it, but it wasn't like Verona was full of pack animals. That was why they had trucks.

[raspberryturk]

"They can handle more weight than a chocobo," Reno replied, nodding in spite of the fact that he was on the phone, here. "Not bad when you consider we don't got no standard way to fuel vehicles no more. An' they eat the same junk as the birds do, too. Might do our world a world of good."

[withoutverona]

Romeo made a thoughtful hmmming noise. "I have no idea how to buy ones that are any good," he said. "Other than that small thing, I would love to help."

[raspberryturk]

"Hey, don't worry about it, man. I wouldn't know how to pick a good horse if the good one kicked me in the ass, so we're about even there, yo." A beat. A short laugh. "Keep sendin' booze. That's always a huge help, you know."

[withoutverona]

"At least if it's kicking you, you know it's not dead?" Romeo ventured. "And I sent another care package before I left Fandom! I finally remembered your clothes, too. And red oranges."

He could have given Reno the things while he was here, but that would have been logical.

[raspberryturk]

Earth logic had no place in this friendship, anyhow!

"Oh, man. This is why you're the best Romeo I ever met," Reno grinned. "This job is a shitload easier when it comes down to keepin' the peace and not lookin' like a Turk. You got no idea."

It was like Reno was going undercover or something. Perma-undercover.

Tseng was going to have a fit.

"I'm gonna save the seeds from them oranges, see if I can get 'em to grow, too. Might as well, right?"

[withoutverona]

"You might even get oranges out of it, someday," Romeo agreed. "I'd come visit you if there were oranges."

[raspberryturk]

"And then I'd share 'em," Reno decided. "Gotta make the trip worthwhile, after all."

A pause. A snicker.

"You like oranges better'n beans, huh?"

[withoutverona]

"... doesn't everyone?" Romeo asked, a little warily. He had a feeling there was a dirty joke in the making here and he didn't get it.

[raspberryturk]

There probably was a dirty joke in there. They'd have to dig for it for a while to find it, maybe.

Ah, yes, there it was.

"Well, good to know you're still a fan of the fruit salad, yo."

[withoutverona]

...

"Mmmm," Romeo said, after a moment in which he ascertained that, yes, this was a friendly assault on his sexuality. "But you're still the banana fan, aren't you?"

He was twelve.

[raspberryturk]

Oh, they were both twelve. But at least this twelve-ness might lead to a conversation more epic than that time they'd discussed ripe melons back in the common room, in the day.

"What can I say? Just so long as I ain't havin' someone else's leftovers, I ain't gonna be picky."

He was straight as an arrow. He was. But there was innuendo afoot.

[Soooomebody's been reading old threads, don't mind me.]

[withoutverona]

"Well, no," Romeo said. "You're a fruit-eater, not a scavenger."

He was going to die from trying not to laugh.

"How do you feel about juicy fruits?"

[Oh, god, I was still writing Shakespearean then! *GLEES*]

[raspberryturk]

"I like 'em full an' sweet," Reno noted, laughing. If he died of laughter, at least he wouldn't have to worry about pulling Elena's overtime now that she'd left. "You know I can't resist sinkin' my teeth into somethin' like that, man."

[Good times, good times! I may just die of nostalgia reading back on stuff like that, you know.]

[withoutverona]

"Just your teeth?" Romeo asked, also laughing. "Sometimes if something's especially succulent, I like to use a tool."

He meant a spoon, of course.

[raspberryturk]

Of course!

"Depends on the fruit I'm workin' on, I suppose," Reno conceded. "If it's somethin' that was a bit of a challenge to get into, I might just use my fingers, yo. Get a feel for what it is I'm about to get my mouth all over, first."

Twelve. Twellllve.

[withoutverona]

"Of course, you might have to peel back the outer coating to get your fingers into the juiciest bits," Romeo snickered. "Fruit tastes better peeled, don't you find?"

This conversation was going to kill him.