The Reaper | By : crystalwind Category: Final Fantasy VII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 676 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Warnings: Not a whole lot to warn about for this one, except perhaps a ridiculous amount of immaturity and swearing.
Chapter Twelve – The War
The next month that passed far, for the most part, unremarkable. Reno returned to meeting with Whisper, but found himself sitting and drinking tea in silence more often than conversing with the albino recluse. He didn't return to the Tech Labs, having no real reason or desire to do so, although he did continue visiting the library at night to read whenever the mood took him. During the day, his behavior didn't change a great deal. He started paying more attention in his classes, actually looking up at the whiteboards instead of staring at his desk, but he still didn't talk a great deal, and that only when he was called on. Although some of the life had returned to his eyes following Devin's departure, it didn't return to his personality.
The Deadline came and went; nobody remarked upon it, but every Trainee felt that extra bit of pressure to perform well; now they couldn't leave without being killed. Several of the senior Turks had suggested to Tseng that he remind Reno of the Deadline, but Tseng declined to do so, deciding that Reno knew when it was and would remove himself as he saw fit. When the Deadline had passed, Reno remained.
It was nearly the fourth month of training before Reno finally seemed to break out of his shell.
'Learning about heat transfer has got to be one of the most boring classes in the entire fucking world.' Reno sighed, only half listening to the instructor as she lectured about the Sun.
"So, if you're cold at night, what ways are there to warm yourself up?"
Reno's hand shot up immediately. "Friction!"
She stared at him. "I was hoping for something along the lines of 'blanket', or 'fire'."
"So… friction isn't a method you're used to using, huh?" Repressed snickers were breaking out throughout the classroom, and the instructor glared at him before turning away, clearly choosing to ignore his existence completely.
"As I was saying, there are several methods of conducting heat…" Reno smirked again, slouching in his seat. 'Maybe this class isn't so bad after all…'
Over the course of the next few days, Reno seemed to return to normal, and things in the Training Center were as though nothing had ever happened to him. If he sometimes stared at his scars in the mirror and hated himself for them, or silently cried himself to sleep at night, well… No one else ever noticed.
The toothpick hung for a moment, wobbled, and fell, bouncing off of Reno's face and landing on the floor. He sighed, bending over to pick it up.
He. Was. Bored. Classes were cancelled for the day (nobody really explained why, and Reno hadn't been able to find out on his own), and he had absolutely nothing to do. Hence the reason why he was currently sitting in an abandoned lounge on a floor of the ShinRa building that he wasn't allowed to be on, shooting toothpicks at the ceiling with a straw. He had stolen the toothpicks from the cafeteria, and was trying to make a picture on the ceiling with the different colors, but thus far the toothpicks were defeating him. This stupid red one kept falling every time he managed to get it stuck… He glared at it before sticking it back in the straw, tilting his head back and drawing in a deep breath. He just had to angle it right, and…
The straw, along with the enclosed toothpick, was snatched out of his mouth before he had to opportunity to blow. Standing up and spinning to scowl at the offender, he was only half surprised and entirely displeased to find Rude standing there, giving him a disapproving glare from behind his shades.
"What the fuck, yo?!"
Rude's only response was to reach over, grab the rest of the toothpicks from the table, and walk away. Reno twitched. First his booze, now his toothpicks… this guy was really going too far.
"You know what? Hey Baldie! Look at me, you giant mutant freak! What the hell is your problem? Those are my toothpicks! Hey! Sunglass-Guy! I'm talking to you!" Rude smirked and continued walking, leaving Reno behind to rant.
Reno sighed, frustrated. He'd been wandering through the Tech Labs for hours now, trying to find something to get Rude back with. He didn't need anything like the neurotoxins or biological agents; he wasn't trying to hurt the guy, just annoy the living shit out of him. He also didn't particularly want to mess with the paintball gun again; Rude was probably a better sniper than him, and that would only turn out badly in the end. So far, however, he hadn't found anything else that would really help him. 'All this shit and nothing useful!' He huffed, kicking a nearby shelf in annoyance.
He yelped, hopping around in favor of his now-throbbing toes, and fell over, cursing the gods and the shelf and Rude and the lab techs and anything or anyone else he could think of. It took him several moments of increasingly creative swearing to notice that he'd knocked a box off of the shelf when he kicked it. A small piece of paper had floated down to rest next to the box.
Curious, he crawled over, snatching up the paper. 'You're welcome.' He grinned, grabbing the box and ripping the lid off.
Inside the box was… a stick. A metal stick, sure, but… a stick? Reno pulled it out of the box, wondering why the techs had wanted him to find it. Metal stick, black handle… switch. He smiled, holding it by the handle and flicking the switch on.
He promptly electrocuted himself.
"Motherfucker!" He dropped the stick (Electric Rod from HELL) with a shout, sharp currents of electricity traveling through his body and making his muscles twitch and spasm. He glared at the rod. "What the hell was that for?" Predictably, the rod didn't answer, and Reno sighed, gingerly picking it up again.
This time when he flicked the switch, he made sure that the only part of the rod touching himself was the handle. It practically hummed, and he could sense a faint vibration running along its length. Curious, he reached out and touched it to the back of a nearby metal chair. The chair exploded in a violent fountain of blue sparks, shooting from its location to crash into the opposite wall. Reno grinned. 'This… is awesome.'
He played with the rod for a while, zapping various objects with it, before putting it back in the box and scrawling a note to the techs. He wanted one.
Finished with the note, he sighed, looking around. He hadn't really accomplished what he'd come here for; the lab didn't really have anything in it that he could use to annoy Rude without maiming him at the same time. Shrugging, he put it off to bad luck, and resolved to raid the supply building the next night. They probably had some more mundane objects lying around that he could use. In the meantime, he'd have to resort to something a little more childish.
When Rude came into his office the next day, he was startled to see that his desk was… he didn't really want to say ransacked, but… Someone had scattered his pencils and files everywhere. He glared. None of the other Turks were suicidal to mess around with his desk; that left only one person brave or stupid enough to break in to his office and cause a mess.
That brat was going to get it.
Reno sighed, stumbling over to his desk. He couldn't believe how much stupid homework the instructors were assigning this week… It was like they had all gotten together in a secret meeting and conspired to assign as much work as possible and make it all due on the same day, with exams to follow. Rubbing his eyes, he pulled a notebook over to him, tugging at the cover.
It wouldn't open.
Reno blinked, not entirely sure if he was really awake yet or not. He tugged at the cover again; no effect. The pages were equally stuck together. He frowned before leaning over, cautiously, and taking a sniff. Glue. Somebody had glued his notebook together! He scowled, pulling out his other notebooks. Same result. Not only were they all glued together, but… they had been in his room, with him, all night! None of the other Trainees were skilled (or stupid) enough to have gotten in and pulled it off without waking him; that left only one person he could pin it on. His eyes narrowed.
Payback was going to be a bitch.
Rude straightened his tie before walking into the conference room, Elena and Tseng in front of him. They were the first ones there; the seats were all pushed in neatly, tray of coffee and porcelain mugs waiting in the corner. Rude's seat was farthest from the door, and Tseng and Elena were seated before him, waiting patiently for the rest of the council to arrive. He resisted the urge to yawn, pulling out his seat and sitting without looking at it. These meetings were always so boring…
A loud farting noise ripped through the conference room.
Rude froze, hands gripping the edge of the table, as Tseng and Elena slowly turned towards him. He stared back at them, baffled and embarrassed to the point of immobility. His stasis was only temporary, however, and he stood as slowly as he had sat down, turning to stare at his seat. His humiliated look (somewhat hidden by the ever-present sunglasses on his face) was quickly replaced by a foreboding glare, and he reached out to his chair, picking up a… whoopee cushion.
Elena burst out laughing, and Tseng covered his mouth with his hand, trying to pretend that he wasn't smiling. The whoopee cushion had the word 'Payback' scrawled on it in black ink.
A loud crash reverberated through the hall of the Dorms, and several Trainees curiously poked their heads out of their rooms. They quickly withdrew when they heard Reno cursing from inside his room. Not something anyone there wanted to be involved in…
He only slowed down his swearing to snarl, glaring furiously at his chair. He had sat down, fresh notebook in hand to make notes for one of his essays, and one of the legs on the chair had snapped in two, making him crash face-first into his desk and onto the floor.
Grimacing, he jerked the remains of the chair toward him, muttering more curses under his breath. What were the chances that he, of all people, would be absolutely fucking cursed by a goddamned piece of shit chair that… had a leg sawed ¾ of the way through. Sawed. Through. He clenched his jaw.
Rude was confident when he walked into work the next day; he had no meetings to attend to, he had locked all of his pens and paperwork away where that punk couldn't get to them… today was going to be a good day.
He opened the door to his office and was two steps in before he realized that something was wrong.
"Motherfucker!"
Everything in the office… stopped. Pens and pencils stopped scratching, phone conversations halted, Turks and secretaries alike stared at each other, their doors, their desks. Had that been Rude?
Concerned by the fact that, in the entire time he'd known him, Tseng had never once heard Rude swear, let alone yell, the Head of the Department left his office quickly, almost as worried by the silence following Rude's sudden outburst as he was by the shout itself. When he arrived at Rude's open doorway, all he could do was stop and stare.
The desk, walls, carpet… even the ceiling were completely covered in red-painted smiley faces, grinning evilly down (or up, in some cases) at Rude. They were everywhere. It would probably take weeks to get rid of them all, and the desk and carpet would have to be completely replaced.
"Sir, I have a Trainee that I need to go murder."
Tseng nodded, stepping aside so that Rude could leave. Staring one last time at the ruined office, he left to return to his paperwork, shutting the door quietly behind him.
When Reno returned to his room after his morning classes, he was expecting to take a shower, do some homework, and possibly take a nap. He was not expecting to find his bed, desk, walls, carpet… even the ceiling completely covered in syrup.
He stared. He didn't even yell, or curse. It was just so… unexpected. Didn't that overgrown behemoth have work? Cleaning to do? Repainting? Recarpeting? Desk-shopping? How did he manage to turn the prank around so quickly?
He huffed angrily. 'Two of us can play the pick-up-shit-from-the-convenience-store game.' He turned and stalked away, slamming the door behind him.
Rude had returned to work not long after he left, saying only that he'd "run some errands" when Tseng questioned him. He was smug, moving his paperwork to an unoccupied lounge to work in. His smug mood didn't even disappear when a toothpick (one from the cafeteria, decorated with red plastic) fell from the ceiling and landed in his coffee. He'd gotten the brat back good, and nothing was going to spoil his mood for the rest of the day. Nothing.
How wrong he was.
His car was covered in toilet paper. Covered. He dropped his briefcase. This… this was really going too far. He sighed, adjusted his tie and sunglasses, and walked to the car, praying that the toilet paper was at least clean before he began to peel it off.
Reno couldn't stop the startled scream when he fell out of bed, air raid sirens going off right next to his ear. 'Oh shit!' He scrambled off of the floor and into the hallway, wondering where the hell any bunkers were around the Dorms. You'd figure they'd brief something like that…
Only four other people piled into the hallway: the two people on either side of his room. They all stopped and stared at each other, each dressed only in some form of underwear. 'Why isn't anyone else trying to get out…?" Reno looked around, confused, before he slowly began to realize that the sirens weren't going off over the PA system; they were originating from his room. He stared at his open door. That might explain why only the people immediately surrounding his room had been startled awake by them…
Gritting his teeth, he stalked back into his room. A portable siren stood on a plain wooden barstool, right next to where his head lay when he slept. How he had managed to avoid it when he fell out of bed was anybody's guess. Now he started swearing, ripping the siren's power cord out of the wall and storming out of the room. The other four watched him go, wondering where he'd gotten an air raid siren from, and why he was going outside in his boxers. Their first question was never answered, but the loud crash of the siren being smashed repeatedly into the sidewalk answered the second one. Shrugging and grumbling a little bit about being woken up, they all turned and went back to sleep, leaving Reno to take his anger out on the mangled siren alone.
'Fine. You win. Depriving me of sleep is completely uncalled for and inhumane, but you win. This time.
…
…
P.S.
Where can I go to get a portable air raid siren repaired?'
Rude smiled, tucking the note into his drawer.
A/N:
Like I said, mainly just a lot of immaturity here. The transition from Reno being kind of depressed to being back to his original self wasn't as smooth as I would have like, but given that I thought up the scenario while I was in bed, and didn't get up to write it down in favor of getting some much-needed sleep, I guess it's not too bad.
Stick around to find out what exactly Reno wrote in his note to the techs, and whether Rude replies to the question about the air raid siren ;)
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