Case of Yuffie |1| (FF7 [PG-13])
Title: Case of Yuffie
Chapter: 1--Meeting at the Bar: Drunken Babble
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yuffie/Rude, Tifa, Cloud, Barret, Marlene, Cast
Summary: Picking up the pieces of life on the fringe of Midgar--and gawd, if Rude would just stop breathing her air!
Notes: I like to read/write strange pairings. And yes, my title is [purposely] completely unoriginal.
The floor was so warm and gawd, if this was the way she was going to go she didn’t care, this was absolutely damn amazing, the best thing ever in her life and-
She didn’t mean for it to happen. Not like it did anyways. Not…and she was so sorry. So sorry. Oh gawd Rude, she didn’t mean it, she didn’t mean it at all. Why did you believe her?
The first time they’d met had been a happy coincidence in the way being stuck in a car with tightlipped, ice eyed Strife was a happy thing. Point in case: it sucked. It wasn’t even actually the first time they’d met, the first time they’d met having consisted of her beating him up and stealing his spare change in Gongaga. It was the first time they met like…that though. As more than her beating him up for spare change and stepping on his face on the way out.
They met in a bar. That Yuffie wasn’t even supposed to be in because she was underage, but the wonder of fake ideas and fast talking had circumvented that little problem. The bar, full of dim lighting with frequent blackouts and enough smoke to make for a cloud of pollution, looked like shit. But that was to be expected. After Meteor, everything looked like shit. Even she looked like shit, despite her naturally godlike and uplifting nature. There were dark smudges under her eyes from lack of sleep and numerous blisters and cuts on her hands. All from helping with the endless details that needed to be attended after a giant chunk of space rock attempts to eat a major city. She’d cleared rubble, put up buildings, looked for survivors, and treated the injured and the diseased. She’d even found someone’s stupid cat stuck up in a collapsing apartment building.
She felt like shit. She looked like shit. It was the new trend. Everyone looked like shit. Looking to the bar stool at the counter on her left she observed that even Rude looked like shit.
And that’s where Yuffie spit out her drink. What the hell? Was she seeing correctly? While she counted how many drinks she’d had in the last five minutes those dark shades turned in her direction. As it happened she wasn’t seeing things. That was definitely Rude. Rude the Turk. Rude the guy that had tried to kill her. Several times, but who was counting?
Okay, maybe he let her go back in the train tunnels of Midgar. And maybe he hadn’t actually ever said anything insulting to her. And had helped get her down from Da-chao-which she was just playing around, getting caught by Don Corneo like that, it was all obviously just for kicks on her end-back in Wutai. But he’d tried to kill her. Yuffie distinctly remembered him attempting to punch a hole through her head. She didn’t know about Cloud and the others, but she wasn’t exactly over that.
So when Rude turned his shiny, bald head in her direction to look at her from behind those stupid shades that he thought made him look so cool she said: “Wanna buy me a drink?”
Gawd she was going to die of embarrassment. She was pretty sure it was possible. Out of all the things she could have said like, “you look like shit, get hit by a train lately?” or “I so kicked your pathetic ass back in Rocket Town” or even “Where’s your wife? Reno leave you for Tseng?” she asked him if he wanted to buy her a drink. Great, now he thought she was hitting on him. She could feel death looming just out of reach, taunting her with its sweet release.
Rude stared at her. And stared. At least she thought he stared, it was kind of hard to tell with those stupid shades. And then he waved the bar tender over and bought her a drink. A chipped glass was put in front of her. To Yuffie’s keen eye she’d say that whatever was in it was far better than the piss she’d been given the first time around. Apparently being a Turk still had some pull. Being a perceived friend-or at least cheap, floozy date-of a Turk still had some pull too. That last thought should have bothered her, but she couldn’t really care.
Yuffie had nightmares. Daymares. Her life was some sort of -mare. She wanted to get drunk to the point where she couldn’t stand and anything and everything that could constitute as rational thought was gone from her head. She did not hesitate to take a first sip, but did it deeply, blatantly and loudly. In fact she downed the whole glass in that first sip. It wasn’t a big glass.
The bartender took notice and poured her another without even being asked. She’d never had that happen before. Usually around this time she’d be getting the once over, the twice over and questions like, “are you sure you’re thirty-two”. Yuffie knew who she’d make sure to go drinking with from now on. Then she remembered he was a Turk and everything ShinRa. Even the fact that ShinRa was dead didn’t erase the grudge she had. Some things were too personal to ever be satisfied.
“You’re alone,” she observed. Oh that was a smart one Kisaragi-as if it hadn’t been painfully apparent to everyone in the first place. “You are too,” he said after a moment. And then conversation just stopped. It was like the concept of words had hit a brick wall and gone splat. There was just this big thing of silence between them as they drank themselves as drunk as humanly possible.
It was like hanging out at the bar with Cloud, only minus the disapproving stares-“You’re a minor Yuffie” and “Since when the fuck do you care Cloud?” came to mind-and the deep sulk. Rude didn’t even have a sulk. Rude didn’t have anything. It was like sitting next to a block of wood. And it was boring.
“How’s life?” She asked somewhere around the fifth glass.
“…” Rude was such a great conversationalist.
“Yeah, I know, I like that adjective too. I do-occasionally-use the words ‘fine’ and ‘shitty’, but you’re old, so I can understand why you wouldn’t abandon the classics, being from the Stone Age and all,” she told her empty glass and set it down for a refill, which came swiftly and silently and noticeably lacking a second ID check.
There was silence. Then: “I’m twenty-seven.”
Yuffie patted him on the back, maybe a little rougher than required. “You admit that in public? Brave man. So…what brings you to this hole out of all the other holes?” She fiddled with her glass, turning it back and forth between her calloused fingers. She wasn’t really expecting an answer, so she was surprised when Rude spoke up.
“Nostalgia for Midgar I guess… I want to help,” he said and took a deep drink from his glass-which was bigger than hers, not that she cared, at all-with a slow, methodical tilt of his hand that was kind of annoying. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, make him realize he wasn’t an action figure, his arms did move in more angles than ninety degrees.
Instead Yuffie danced her fingers across the countertop and kicked her feet a little until the stool she was sitting on squeaked. She had a thing about staying still she was told. “It’s Edge now,” she informed him. “And helping’s what I do.”
He looked at her. She couldn’t tell what kind of look it was-she really disliked those shades-but it was a Look. “Are you saying I can’t help?” He asked finally. He sounded like a robot.
Yuffie stood up from her stool and downed the last of her alcohol. “I’m saying: come by my place tomorrow-today?-in the morning,” She said, setting down her glass and giving him another, hard, pat on the shoulder. He was giving her that Look again. It made her want to break his mysterious shades. “Your place?” He asked slowly, repeating her words.
“Yeah, the place four crappy buildings down that’a’way,” She told him, pointing in the general direction even as she made for the door, walking backwards the entire time. He watched her leave and didn’t say a thing. Maybe he was stunned by her beauty. Maybe he was stunned by her brilliance. Maybe he was stunned by how thoroughly she’d kicked his ass back in Rocket Town. Regardless, she left him with the bill. Sucker
Chapter: 1--Meeting at the Bar: Drunken Babble
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yuffie/Rude, Tifa, Cloud, Barret, Marlene, Cast
Summary: Picking up the pieces of life on the fringe of Midgar--and gawd, if Rude would just stop breathing her air!
Notes: I like to read/write strange pairings. And yes, my title is [purposely] completely unoriginal.
The floor was so warm and gawd, if this was the way she was going to go she didn’t care, this was absolutely damn amazing, the best thing ever in her life and-
She didn’t mean for it to happen. Not like it did anyways. Not…and she was so sorry. So sorry. Oh gawd Rude, she didn’t mean it, she didn’t mean it at all. Why did you believe her?
The first time they’d met had been a happy coincidence in the way being stuck in a car with tightlipped, ice eyed Strife was a happy thing. Point in case: it sucked. It wasn’t even actually the first time they’d met, the first time they’d met having consisted of her beating him up and stealing his spare change in Gongaga. It was the first time they met like…that though. As more than her beating him up for spare change and stepping on his face on the way out.
They met in a bar. That Yuffie wasn’t even supposed to be in because she was underage, but the wonder of fake ideas and fast talking had circumvented that little problem. The bar, full of dim lighting with frequent blackouts and enough smoke to make for a cloud of pollution, looked like shit. But that was to be expected. After Meteor, everything looked like shit. Even she looked like shit, despite her naturally godlike and uplifting nature. There were dark smudges under her eyes from lack of sleep and numerous blisters and cuts on her hands. All from helping with the endless details that needed to be attended after a giant chunk of space rock attempts to eat a major city. She’d cleared rubble, put up buildings, looked for survivors, and treated the injured and the diseased. She’d even found someone’s stupid cat stuck up in a collapsing apartment building.
She felt like shit. She looked like shit. It was the new trend. Everyone looked like shit. Looking to the bar stool at the counter on her left she observed that even Rude looked like shit.
And that’s where Yuffie spit out her drink. What the hell? Was she seeing correctly? While she counted how many drinks she’d had in the last five minutes those dark shades turned in her direction. As it happened she wasn’t seeing things. That was definitely Rude. Rude the Turk. Rude the guy that had tried to kill her. Several times, but who was counting?
Okay, maybe he let her go back in the train tunnels of Midgar. And maybe he hadn’t actually ever said anything insulting to her. And had helped get her down from Da-chao-which she was just playing around, getting caught by Don Corneo like that, it was all obviously just for kicks on her end-back in Wutai. But he’d tried to kill her. Yuffie distinctly remembered him attempting to punch a hole through her head. She didn’t know about Cloud and the others, but she wasn’t exactly over that.
So when Rude turned his shiny, bald head in her direction to look at her from behind those stupid shades that he thought made him look so cool she said: “Wanna buy me a drink?”
Gawd she was going to die of embarrassment. She was pretty sure it was possible. Out of all the things she could have said like, “you look like shit, get hit by a train lately?” or “I so kicked your pathetic ass back in Rocket Town” or even “Where’s your wife? Reno leave you for Tseng?” she asked him if he wanted to buy her a drink. Great, now he thought she was hitting on him. She could feel death looming just out of reach, taunting her with its sweet release.
Rude stared at her. And stared. At least she thought he stared, it was kind of hard to tell with those stupid shades. And then he waved the bar tender over and bought her a drink. A chipped glass was put in front of her. To Yuffie’s keen eye she’d say that whatever was in it was far better than the piss she’d been given the first time around. Apparently being a Turk still had some pull. Being a perceived friend-or at least cheap, floozy date-of a Turk still had some pull too. That last thought should have bothered her, but she couldn’t really care.
Yuffie had nightmares. Daymares. Her life was some sort of -mare. She wanted to get drunk to the point where she couldn’t stand and anything and everything that could constitute as rational thought was gone from her head. She did not hesitate to take a first sip, but did it deeply, blatantly and loudly. In fact she downed the whole glass in that first sip. It wasn’t a big glass.
The bartender took notice and poured her another without even being asked. She’d never had that happen before. Usually around this time she’d be getting the once over, the twice over and questions like, “are you sure you’re thirty-two”. Yuffie knew who she’d make sure to go drinking with from now on. Then she remembered he was a Turk and everything ShinRa. Even the fact that ShinRa was dead didn’t erase the grudge she had. Some things were too personal to ever be satisfied.
“You’re alone,” she observed. Oh that was a smart one Kisaragi-as if it hadn’t been painfully apparent to everyone in the first place. “You are too,” he said after a moment. And then conversation just stopped. It was like the concept of words had hit a brick wall and gone splat. There was just this big thing of silence between them as they drank themselves as drunk as humanly possible.
It was like hanging out at the bar with Cloud, only minus the disapproving stares-“You’re a minor Yuffie” and “Since when the fuck do you care Cloud?” came to mind-and the deep sulk. Rude didn’t even have a sulk. Rude didn’t have anything. It was like sitting next to a block of wood. And it was boring.
“How’s life?” She asked somewhere around the fifth glass.
“…” Rude was such a great conversationalist.
“Yeah, I know, I like that adjective too. I do-occasionally-use the words ‘fine’ and ‘shitty’, but you’re old, so I can understand why you wouldn’t abandon the classics, being from the Stone Age and all,” she told her empty glass and set it down for a refill, which came swiftly and silently and noticeably lacking a second ID check.
There was silence. Then: “I’m twenty-seven.”
Yuffie patted him on the back, maybe a little rougher than required. “You admit that in public? Brave man. So…what brings you to this hole out of all the other holes?” She fiddled with her glass, turning it back and forth between her calloused fingers. She wasn’t really expecting an answer, so she was surprised when Rude spoke up.
“Nostalgia for Midgar I guess… I want to help,” he said and took a deep drink from his glass-which was bigger than hers, not that she cared, at all-with a slow, methodical tilt of his hand that was kind of annoying. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, make him realize he wasn’t an action figure, his arms did move in more angles than ninety degrees.
Instead Yuffie danced her fingers across the countertop and kicked her feet a little until the stool she was sitting on squeaked. She had a thing about staying still she was told. “It’s Edge now,” she informed him. “And helping’s what I do.”
He looked at her. She couldn’t tell what kind of look it was-she really disliked those shades-but it was a Look. “Are you saying I can’t help?” He asked finally. He sounded like a robot.
Yuffie stood up from her stool and downed the last of her alcohol. “I’m saying: come by my place tomorrow-today?-in the morning,” She said, setting down her glass and giving him another, hard, pat on the shoulder. He was giving her that Look again. It made her want to break his mysterious shades. “Your place?” He asked slowly, repeating her words.
“Yeah, the place four crappy buildings down that’a’way,” She told him, pointing in the general direction even as she made for the door, walking backwards the entire time. He watched her leave and didn’t say a thing. Maybe he was stunned by her beauty. Maybe he was stunned by her brilliance. Maybe he was stunned by how thoroughly she’d kicked his ass back in Rocket Town. Regardless, she left him with the bill. Sucker