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

[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.

[raspberryturk]

"Are you kiddin', man? Peelin' it off is my favorite part, yo. You pull it back nice an' slow, an' you get yourself a good look at the sticky parts."

At least they'd die together? Kind of?

"Kinda gets the mouth waterin', actually."

[withoutverona]

"And once you've looked, how can you help but taste?" Romeo asked rhetorically. "It would be a shame to leave a nice, fresh piece of fruit to wither."

... Yurika needed to get home. Now.

[raspberryturk]

"Dammit," Reno asked, halfway pouting now. "Now you got me hungry, man. And there ain't no fruit fit for me until at least another world away."

Reno had somewhat more foreign tastes than anyone else from Gaia, clearly.

[withoutverona]

Romeo squinted at the phone, deep in thought. "Sometimes," he offered, "if you call the greengrocer, and talk about the fruit a lot, it's almost as good as tasting it."

[raspberryturk]

Reno was going to have to sit there in silence for a moment. Silence. And then a grin. And then he was laughing.

"Are we talkin' about phone sex, here?"

Because that was what it sounded like, to Reno at least.

[withoutverona]

Well, if they had to be blunt ...

"I was. But please don't tell me if you do it, because I don't need to know that about Rikku."

[raspberryturk]

... Excuse Reno. He was going to be a few moments killing himself with laughter, now.

"We'll see if I can even get a signal first, man," he decided. "And from there, whatever Rikku an' me end up undressin' with our brains over the phone will stay between me an' Rikku, yo."

A pause.

"Unless Rude walks in on the conversation."

[withoutverona]

Romeo groaned. "I suspect that in Japan," he said, "they actually make bleach for unfortunate mental images. I shall seek it out now, you know."

[raspberryturk]

Reno was going to be another few moments. The laughing thing was making the breathing thing a tad difficult.

"What, man? You don't figure I'd invite him to join or somethin'? I said I like banana, not sausage."

[withoutverona]

Romeo was laughing and flailing. Breathing was tertiary.

"... I don't even know what we're talking about anymore," he admitted. "Should I tell Rude you want his body?"

[raspberryturk]

"Noooo," Reno managed to voice around gasps for air and more uncontrollable laughing. "Rude and I are partners, but we ain't that kinda partners, yo!"

No matter what everyone, ever, seemed to think.

[withoutverona]

"It's not my" -- hooh boy. Romeo was slumped on the kitchen floor and twitching, now -- "place to judge your personal life, Reno."

[raspberryturk]

Reno had managed to wake up the ferret. The ferret that had been in a happy little sleepcoma. That ferret. There was now honking in harmonious counterpoint to the laughing.

"You're just jealous," he decided. "I know this game, yo. You want Rude to yourself."

[withoutverona]

"You caught us," Romeo said. "We were going to elope togetehr and leave only memories."

A pause.

"And a few banana peels."

[raspberryturk]

Excuse Reno. He was busy being dead. Dead of laugh.

"You'd make beautiful fruit salad together, man."

[withoutverona]

"It means the world to me that we have your blessing, Reno."

Romeo? Also ded of laugh.