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jaded_grinWell, I’m home and I can hardly get anything done these days. It’s really odd how much I’ve gotten used to being alone and how little I like people hanging over my shoulder all of the time or spontaneously touching me. My family is so demonstrative…I’m pretty sure I’m a changeling baby! So, here’s this week’s crap episode, I hope next week will be much better. I go home on Saturday so I’ll keep my fingers crossed!
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“So,” Tseng said, watching the jade-eyed beauty perched so hesitantly on the edge of the hotel room’s single desk. “Have you given some thought to my suggestion?”
He liked the way Kadaj’s big eyes widened, liked the exotic shape of them—the cat-like tilt that complimented those slit cat-pupils. The boy’s eyes were large and gorgeous, his lashes a darker shade of silver than his fine, wispy hair. Tseng had touched that hair when Kadaj was a young child, had run his fingers through it and found it to be heavy and surprisingly thick, so fine that it had slipped through his fingers like spider webs.
He could see the pulse ticking in the boy’s slender throat—so graceful, his race. So lovely and supple and well-suited to love that it was no wonder the entire country was so decadent. Kadaj, he knew, was descended from the Cetran people’s most esteemed line. His breeding showed in the fine structure of his face, in the delicate and long lines of his throat, in the slender but dainty length of his fingers.
If only Kadaj knew who he was, then he would never settle for being Reno’s creature…
“I…I’ve been with him for a long time, he saved me,” Kadaj finally said. They spoke in his mother-tongue, that sharp and clipped language that Tseng had taken great pains to become fluent in. “I can’t just turn away from him…”
“He would turn on you,” Tseng breathed, slipping around behind him so that Kadaj was forced to lose sight of him or else make it patently obvious that he was keeping close dibs on Tseng’s whereabouts. He reached out once more and stroked the long length of the boy’s spine, every bump of vertebrae and every dip committed to memory. “I know for a fact that he would turn on me, and our dealings run far deeper and for far longer than yours…”
Let him think on that. He was Cetran, after all—though he’d been snatched from his rightful place too young to remember it, awareness of potential betrayal and manipulation was instinctual for those such as Kadaj.
Kadaj breathed unsteadily, his head turning just a little. The movement made Tseng smile, knowing that the boy detested anything being at his vulnerable back except for a wall.
“Sir—”
“Tseng,” he patiently corrected, and moved fluidly around when Kadaj turned more fully to face him. He sat next to the boy on the desk and cupped his soft cheek, content to take his time.
With such a treasure at stake, Tseng could be patient. Life had taught him that he would get what he wanted in the end, regardless—he would have Kadaj.
There simply wasn’t any way to stop him.
“Tseng,” Kadaj breathed, and his fear was intoxicating, as was the flare of desire he could sense behind it.
Like the pied-piper, Tseng would continue to undermine Reno’s place in Kadaj’s life, would continue to imply that greater happiness rested with himself, would gently push at the boy’s limits until he had access to that which he required.
And when he was done? Well, should there be anything worth saving, then Tseng supposed that his family would very much like to know the boy’s whereabouts…after all, it isn’t every day that one’s rightful heir is restored to a long, unbroken line of kings.
Tseng smiled at Kadaj, silently biding his time.
***
Yazoo had never laughed so much in his life as he did that evening with Yuffie, Genesis, and Elena. Though the woman had seemed to be almost pouting for a long while, Elena had finally done an abrupt about-face once more and become rather animated and chipper. Neither Yuffie nor Genesis rebuffed her attempts to be nice, but they didn’t seem to encourage her, either.
“So,” Genesis said, tipping his wineglass up for a sip before he cut his eyes at Rude, whom Yazoo had invited to join them. He didn’t consider Rude a servant of any kind, and tended to treat him as more of a friend and an equal than the way Rufus treated his own help. “You’ve been such a lovely little darling all night long but you’ve failed to introduce me to this fabulous hunk of man.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” Yazoo gasped, embarrassed by his faux pas—he almost never forgot himself to the point that his manners suffered for it, but the excitement of meeting Genesis had quite driven it all from his head. “Oh, please do excuse me! This is Rude, my bodyguard.”
Genesis gave him an indulgent, smug leer—every bit as feminine now with Rude as he’d been masculine and chivalrous earlier with Yazoo—and purred, “If he’s half as good as he looks, I wouldn’t mind about his manners, either.”
Yuffie snorted with laughter, covering her mouth with her slender hand.
Yazoo saw one of Rude’s fine eyebrows lift over the top of his sunglasses, but he didn’t deign to comment.
“It’s a nickname,” he explained, giggling a little when Genesis merely turned that leer on him and switched yet again to flirtatious heterosexual with an ease that made Yazoo vaguely jealous.
“So, Yazoo, darling,” he said, putting his glass down. They were lingering over wine since Yazoo was so reluctant to return to his empty and lonely home. “What on earth is it like being married to the ShinRa?”
“Well, it’s probably everything you think,” Yazoo evasively said, unable to resist glancing Rude’s way.
“So he’s a dull, womanizing spendthrift with the intellectual capability of a flea and the motivation of a hibernating bear?” Genesis offered, and refilled Yazoo’s glass as he gasped in soft and amused surprise. “I figured as much—a woman like you is wasted on a man like that, darling, take it from me. I’ve been wasted on more men in my life than you’ll probably ever have the misfortune of meeting, so I speak from experience.”
“He’s not so bad,” Yazoo whispered, compelled to defend his husband of so many years.
“I’ve seen him all over the city—a different girl every night,” Yuffie added, popping a strawberry into her mouth from the depleted plate of after-dinner desserts. “Hell, just the other night he was all over me, and I told him a billion times that he ain’t my type.”
“Too much money?” Genesis empathized, giving Yuffie a pout.
“Too much cock,” Yuffie corrected, and grinned that shark-like grin. “I decided last night that it’s girls for me, now, Genesis—boys fuck me, fuck me up, and fuck me over.”
“Amen!” Genesis sighed, softly knocking his glass against hers before draining it down.
“Well, they aren’t all bad,” Elena said, picking up her spoon to lick off a bit of icing while Yazoo just slowly drew back a little, disconcerted by the conversation. “Take me for example—I live with ShinRa Senior, you know? He’s a boar in the sack but he’s a sweetheart the rest of the time. I wouldn’t trade him, even though he makes me crazy sometimes.”
Yazoo gave her a grateful smile, happy to hear that Elena was no longer an utter wreck at the idea of staying with Rufus’s father anymore.
“Yazoo, I had a question for you,” Genesis said, leaning close to smile into Yazoo’s face. “Dearest, would you mind terribly coming by my agency at some point? I have decided to expand my area of interest to clothing design and I would love, love, love to have you support it.”
“Oh, I would be flattered,” Yazoo said, but hesitated, concerned. “It’s just that…well, I have a very specific wardrobe that I keep to and I don’t really know if it would suit…”
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t panic,” Genesis told her, Yuffie hanging over his shoulder to second it with another ferocious grin. “I would never embarrass you…well, not where clothing is concerned, anyway. I can’t say that I won’t shriek across a restaurant when I see you next, I tend to be high strung and I do so adore you! Say that you will? Please?”
“Please?” Yuffie begged, echoing him, both of them giving him the puppy-dog eyes.
“Oh, well alright,” Yazoo agreed, blushing with pleasure, a soft smile on his face. “I don’t suppose I can say no to that, can I?”
“My dear Cetran Swan, I am Genesis Rhapsodos—no one says no to me,” he teased, and winked before he polished off the rest of the wine.
***
Rufus was nearly beside himself by the time that Yazoo came home. He’d been drinking in his den most of the evening, happily plotting to himself and busily spending the money that he planned on having eventually. He’d phoned Reno twice and been booted to voicemail. When he’d phoned that diamond-hard and sharp little bodyguard of his the boy had told him in clipped, short tones that he hadn’t the faintest idea of where Reno was at and that if Reno knew what was good for him he’d stay gone for a bit as Kadaj was in no mood to put up with his shit.
Rufus had been appalled and shocked by his impromptu speech but had been spared a reply as Reno himself came strolling into the room.
And now, Yazoo was home.
“Go on!” he urged, shooing Reno out of the door and leaning drunkenly against the frame.
“Rufus,” Reno lowly said, glaring at him. “It ain’t like I can get Cateyes in the sack and get you your stuff tonight, asshole, okay? Take it down a notch.”
“Didn’t you get the camera today?” Rufus whined, hearing Yazoo’s soft footsteps echoing on the landing. He hissed at Reno, “Hurry up he’s going to his room!”
“Hey, you ain’t allowed in there, I am,” Reno reminded him, scowling. “Yeah, I got the camera, but I can’t exactly waltz up to Cateyes and say, ‘Hey, babe, let’s fuck, but hang on a second while I get this camera in place’—you get what I’m saying, yo? Let me do this my way, Rufus. You’ll get your shit, okay? You don’t fucking need it right now anyway.”
“Oh stop!” Rufus snarled, and shoved him out of the door. “Go on! Go get him!”
“You’re such an asshole,” Reno growled, and stalked off down the hallway.
“Whatever, just go do it already!” Rufus spat in a stage whisper, flailing his hand at him. He grinned in triumph to see Reno take the stairs two at a time, catching up to his wife. To himself, he whispered, “You won’t be such a high and mighty little bitch pretty soon, Yazoo, will you? Nope, you’ll be just like me…”
He practically giggled with glee as he skimmed up the stairs, keeping well back on his way to his own suite. He could hear Reno’s low, lazy voice carrying down the hallway and Yazoo’s own, soft and purring and somehow sad.
Rufus ducked down the hallway and cast a grin back over his shoulder.
Yep, in no time at all he’d be one very rich man with one extremely biddable wife.
Reno would make sure of it.
***
“Hey, Cateyes, wait up a sec,” Reno called, catching up to Yazoo as he was poised to go into his suite.
“Reno, hello!” he said, smiling at him, always so happy to see him. He cocked his head, the illusion of womanhood perfect to the very flutter of his eyelashes. “What’re you doing? I thought you’d taken Rufus somewhere.”
“Nah, he’s fucking drunk already,” Reno told him, chewing his lower lip a little. Seeing Yazoo as he was, melancholy and vulnerable, almost childlike in his simple need to be accepted—well, it paused him. But he wasn’t controlling an Empire because he was a good man, no. So he smiled at Yazoo and asked, “You been out and about? You look nice.”
“Thank you!” Yazoo said, blushing prettily. It was so easy to make him happy, so easy to satisfy him. “I went out this evening with Elena. She was keen to come back with me but I’m feeling a little tired—I had wine tonight.”
“Look out world!” Reno teased, knowing that Yazoo and alcohol mixed as well as water with oil. “You tipsy?”
“Not quite,” Yazoo laughed, opening the door and going into his parlor. He left the door ajar, the signal that Reno had come to understand as an invitation to come or go as he pleased. “No, I only had a glass altogether, I was being careful, but it did make me a little sleepy. Are you staying here tonight or do you have big famous-man plans?”
Reno snorted a little in derision but he knew that Yazoo knew how much he enjoyed his notoriety. He’d come up from less than nothing and he was proud of his accomplishments. He felt justified living the lifestyle he lived, and nothing would change his mind about that.
“I’ll probably go home, got somebody waiting for me,” he said, remembering that Kadaj had been angry this morning and would probably require some serious wooing. He couldn’t have his best asset go all rogue on him. “You going to bed?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Yazoo sighed, dropping his handbag down on a scrollwork table and taking his earrings out. “I may watch the news or something. I really just didn’t want to be around Elena any longer—isn’t that awful? Oh, I’m terrible, really, but she just isn’t restful. Perhaps I’m being ungenerous…I’ll make more of an effort to be friends with her.”
Reno laughed a little at him, hearing Yazoo go from vaguely critical to abjectly repentant.
“You know, maybe people would stop treating you like a doormat if you’d stop acting like one, yo,” he said, fiddling with a pretty filigreed marble clock because he really wanted a cigarette and Yazoo strictly forbade smoking anywhere but in his breakfast nook. “Man, Cateyes, you got this fancy shit all over the place!”
“I like fancy things, and don’t call me that,” Yazoo reminded him, and turned to lean against the table, arms crossing beneath the perfect illusion of his breasts. He tilted his pretty head, his jade eyes half closed and oddly hurt. “Reno…do you truly think I’m a doormat?”
It made him laugh again to hear the doubt in Yazoo’s voice. Never in his life had he met someone so eager to please, so easily led as Yazoo. He knew it was a combination of Mommy-Jenova being the overbearing dragon that she was, being forced into a façade of femininity, and being browbeaten by Rufus for so long…but it still amused him a little and made Yazoo that much more precious to him.
“Cateyes, you gotta have more confidence in yourself,” he sighed, and put the clock back down. He gave Yazoo an indulgent smile and patted his soft cheek. “Ain’t I been telling you for years now that you’re one of a kind?”
“Not in any kind of good way,” Yazoo breathed, and offered him a tremulous smile. “Well, I shouldn’t keep you. I’m sorry I’m so out of sorts…please, feel free to join me for breakfast whenever you like.”
“How about dinner instead?” Reno inquired, shaking his head a little. No matter how many times he told Yazoo to be more assertive, the beautiful man merely wound up dissolving into apologies and penitence.
Yazoo’s brows drew close and he asked, “Dinner? Is there an occasion? Rufus hasn’t said anything—”
“No occasion,” Reno assured him, heading for the door. “Rufus is gonna be busy for awhile and you know I get bored. You can come to my new restaurant, see how the food is.”
“It isn’t a…” Yazoo’s voice dropped to a low whisper and he added with a scandalized look on his face, “…a strip club is it?”
Reno laughed aloud again, genuinely amused. He’d spent his fair share of time with Yazoo’s people—nobody knew more about flesh than the Cetrans—and it amused him to no end that Yazoo was more uptight than any nun Reno had ever met during childhood.
“Nah, Cateyes, it ain’t a strip club,” he said. “I’ll come around for you.”
“Call first,” Yazoo said, and flushed a little when Reno gave him a quizzical look. In an apologetic voice he softly explained, “I’ve met some people…they’re quite happy to have me out with them. I might be gone.”
Reno lifted one eyebrow, impressed, and winked at Yazoo before he let himself out into the hallway.
So far, so good.
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“So,” Tseng said, watching the jade-eyed beauty perched so hesitantly on the edge of the hotel room’s single desk. “Have you given some thought to my suggestion?”
He liked the way Kadaj’s big eyes widened, liked the exotic shape of them—the cat-like tilt that complimented those slit cat-pupils. The boy’s eyes were large and gorgeous, his lashes a darker shade of silver than his fine, wispy hair. Tseng had touched that hair when Kadaj was a young child, had run his fingers through it and found it to be heavy and surprisingly thick, so fine that it had slipped through his fingers like spider webs.
He could see the pulse ticking in the boy’s slender throat—so graceful, his race. So lovely and supple and well-suited to love that it was no wonder the entire country was so decadent. Kadaj, he knew, was descended from the Cetran people’s most esteemed line. His breeding showed in the fine structure of his face, in the delicate and long lines of his throat, in the slender but dainty length of his fingers.
If only Kadaj knew who he was, then he would never settle for being Reno’s creature…
“I…I’ve been with him for a long time, he saved me,” Kadaj finally said. They spoke in his mother-tongue, that sharp and clipped language that Tseng had taken great pains to become fluent in. “I can’t just turn away from him…”
“He would turn on you,” Tseng breathed, slipping around behind him so that Kadaj was forced to lose sight of him or else make it patently obvious that he was keeping close dibs on Tseng’s whereabouts. He reached out once more and stroked the long length of the boy’s spine, every bump of vertebrae and every dip committed to memory. “I know for a fact that he would turn on me, and our dealings run far deeper and for far longer than yours…”
Let him think on that. He was Cetran, after all—though he’d been snatched from his rightful place too young to remember it, awareness of potential betrayal and manipulation was instinctual for those such as Kadaj.
Kadaj breathed unsteadily, his head turning just a little. The movement made Tseng smile, knowing that the boy detested anything being at his vulnerable back except for a wall.
“Sir—”
“Tseng,” he patiently corrected, and moved fluidly around when Kadaj turned more fully to face him. He sat next to the boy on the desk and cupped his soft cheek, content to take his time.
With such a treasure at stake, Tseng could be patient. Life had taught him that he would get what he wanted in the end, regardless—he would have Kadaj.
There simply wasn’t any way to stop him.
“Tseng,” Kadaj breathed, and his fear was intoxicating, as was the flare of desire he could sense behind it.
Like the pied-piper, Tseng would continue to undermine Reno’s place in Kadaj’s life, would continue to imply that greater happiness rested with himself, would gently push at the boy’s limits until he had access to that which he required.
And when he was done? Well, should there be anything worth saving, then Tseng supposed that his family would very much like to know the boy’s whereabouts…after all, it isn’t every day that one’s rightful heir is restored to a long, unbroken line of kings.
Tseng smiled at Kadaj, silently biding his time.
Yazoo had never laughed so much in his life as he did that evening with Yuffie, Genesis, and Elena. Though the woman had seemed to be almost pouting for a long while, Elena had finally done an abrupt about-face once more and become rather animated and chipper. Neither Yuffie nor Genesis rebuffed her attempts to be nice, but they didn’t seem to encourage her, either.
“So,” Genesis said, tipping his wineglass up for a sip before he cut his eyes at Rude, whom Yazoo had invited to join them. He didn’t consider Rude a servant of any kind, and tended to treat him as more of a friend and an equal than the way Rufus treated his own help. “You’ve been such a lovely little darling all night long but you’ve failed to introduce me to this fabulous hunk of man.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” Yazoo gasped, embarrassed by his faux pas—he almost never forgot himself to the point that his manners suffered for it, but the excitement of meeting Genesis had quite driven it all from his head. “Oh, please do excuse me! This is Rude, my bodyguard.”
Genesis gave him an indulgent, smug leer—every bit as feminine now with Rude as he’d been masculine and chivalrous earlier with Yazoo—and purred, “If he’s half as good as he looks, I wouldn’t mind about his manners, either.”
Yuffie snorted with laughter, covering her mouth with her slender hand.
Yazoo saw one of Rude’s fine eyebrows lift over the top of his sunglasses, but he didn’t deign to comment.
“It’s a nickname,” he explained, giggling a little when Genesis merely turned that leer on him and switched yet again to flirtatious heterosexual with an ease that made Yazoo vaguely jealous.
“So, Yazoo, darling,” he said, putting his glass down. They were lingering over wine since Yazoo was so reluctant to return to his empty and lonely home. “What on earth is it like being married to the ShinRa?”
“Well, it’s probably everything you think,” Yazoo evasively said, unable to resist glancing Rude’s way.
“So he’s a dull, womanizing spendthrift with the intellectual capability of a flea and the motivation of a hibernating bear?” Genesis offered, and refilled Yazoo’s glass as he gasped in soft and amused surprise. “I figured as much—a woman like you is wasted on a man like that, darling, take it from me. I’ve been wasted on more men in my life than you’ll probably ever have the misfortune of meeting, so I speak from experience.”
“He’s not so bad,” Yazoo whispered, compelled to defend his husband of so many years.
“I’ve seen him all over the city—a different girl every night,” Yuffie added, popping a strawberry into her mouth from the depleted plate of after-dinner desserts. “Hell, just the other night he was all over me, and I told him a billion times that he ain’t my type.”
“Too much money?” Genesis empathized, giving Yuffie a pout.
“Too much cock,” Yuffie corrected, and grinned that shark-like grin. “I decided last night that it’s girls for me, now, Genesis—boys fuck me, fuck me up, and fuck me over.”
“Amen!” Genesis sighed, softly knocking his glass against hers before draining it down.
“Well, they aren’t all bad,” Elena said, picking up her spoon to lick off a bit of icing while Yazoo just slowly drew back a little, disconcerted by the conversation. “Take me for example—I live with ShinRa Senior, you know? He’s a boar in the sack but he’s a sweetheart the rest of the time. I wouldn’t trade him, even though he makes me crazy sometimes.”
Yazoo gave her a grateful smile, happy to hear that Elena was no longer an utter wreck at the idea of staying with Rufus’s father anymore.
“Yazoo, I had a question for you,” Genesis said, leaning close to smile into Yazoo’s face. “Dearest, would you mind terribly coming by my agency at some point? I have decided to expand my area of interest to clothing design and I would love, love, love to have you support it.”
“Oh, I would be flattered,” Yazoo said, but hesitated, concerned. “It’s just that…well, I have a very specific wardrobe that I keep to and I don’t really know if it would suit…”
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t panic,” Genesis told her, Yuffie hanging over his shoulder to second it with another ferocious grin. “I would never embarrass you…well, not where clothing is concerned, anyway. I can’t say that I won’t shriek across a restaurant when I see you next, I tend to be high strung and I do so adore you! Say that you will? Please?”
“Please?” Yuffie begged, echoing him, both of them giving him the puppy-dog eyes.
“Oh, well alright,” Yazoo agreed, blushing with pleasure, a soft smile on his face. “I don’t suppose I can say no to that, can I?”
“My dear Cetran Swan, I am Genesis Rhapsodos—no one says no to me,” he teased, and winked before he polished off the rest of the wine.
Rufus was nearly beside himself by the time that Yazoo came home. He’d been drinking in his den most of the evening, happily plotting to himself and busily spending the money that he planned on having eventually. He’d phoned Reno twice and been booted to voicemail. When he’d phoned that diamond-hard and sharp little bodyguard of his the boy had told him in clipped, short tones that he hadn’t the faintest idea of where Reno was at and that if Reno knew what was good for him he’d stay gone for a bit as Kadaj was in no mood to put up with his shit.
Rufus had been appalled and shocked by his impromptu speech but had been spared a reply as Reno himself came strolling into the room.
And now, Yazoo was home.
“Go on!” he urged, shooing Reno out of the door and leaning drunkenly against the frame.
“Rufus,” Reno lowly said, glaring at him. “It ain’t like I can get Cateyes in the sack and get you your stuff tonight, asshole, okay? Take it down a notch.”
“Didn’t you get the camera today?” Rufus whined, hearing Yazoo’s soft footsteps echoing on the landing. He hissed at Reno, “Hurry up he’s going to his room!”
“Hey, you ain’t allowed in there, I am,” Reno reminded him, scowling. “Yeah, I got the camera, but I can’t exactly waltz up to Cateyes and say, ‘Hey, babe, let’s fuck, but hang on a second while I get this camera in place’—you get what I’m saying, yo? Let me do this my way, Rufus. You’ll get your shit, okay? You don’t fucking need it right now anyway.”
“Oh stop!” Rufus snarled, and shoved him out of the door. “Go on! Go get him!”
“You’re such an asshole,” Reno growled, and stalked off down the hallway.
“Whatever, just go do it already!” Rufus spat in a stage whisper, flailing his hand at him. He grinned in triumph to see Reno take the stairs two at a time, catching up to his wife. To himself, he whispered, “You won’t be such a high and mighty little bitch pretty soon, Yazoo, will you? Nope, you’ll be just like me…”
He practically giggled with glee as he skimmed up the stairs, keeping well back on his way to his own suite. He could hear Reno’s low, lazy voice carrying down the hallway and Yazoo’s own, soft and purring and somehow sad.
Rufus ducked down the hallway and cast a grin back over his shoulder.
Yep, in no time at all he’d be one very rich man with one extremely biddable wife.
Reno would make sure of it.
“Hey, Cateyes, wait up a sec,” Reno called, catching up to Yazoo as he was poised to go into his suite.
“Reno, hello!” he said, smiling at him, always so happy to see him. He cocked his head, the illusion of womanhood perfect to the very flutter of his eyelashes. “What’re you doing? I thought you’d taken Rufus somewhere.”
“Nah, he’s fucking drunk already,” Reno told him, chewing his lower lip a little. Seeing Yazoo as he was, melancholy and vulnerable, almost childlike in his simple need to be accepted—well, it paused him. But he wasn’t controlling an Empire because he was a good man, no. So he smiled at Yazoo and asked, “You been out and about? You look nice.”
“Thank you!” Yazoo said, blushing prettily. It was so easy to make him happy, so easy to satisfy him. “I went out this evening with Elena. She was keen to come back with me but I’m feeling a little tired—I had wine tonight.”
“Look out world!” Reno teased, knowing that Yazoo and alcohol mixed as well as water with oil. “You tipsy?”
“Not quite,” Yazoo laughed, opening the door and going into his parlor. He left the door ajar, the signal that Reno had come to understand as an invitation to come or go as he pleased. “No, I only had a glass altogether, I was being careful, but it did make me a little sleepy. Are you staying here tonight or do you have big famous-man plans?”
Reno snorted a little in derision but he knew that Yazoo knew how much he enjoyed his notoriety. He’d come up from less than nothing and he was proud of his accomplishments. He felt justified living the lifestyle he lived, and nothing would change his mind about that.
“I’ll probably go home, got somebody waiting for me,” he said, remembering that Kadaj had been angry this morning and would probably require some serious wooing. He couldn’t have his best asset go all rogue on him. “You going to bed?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Yazoo sighed, dropping his handbag down on a scrollwork table and taking his earrings out. “I may watch the news or something. I really just didn’t want to be around Elena any longer—isn’t that awful? Oh, I’m terrible, really, but she just isn’t restful. Perhaps I’m being ungenerous…I’ll make more of an effort to be friends with her.”
Reno laughed a little at him, hearing Yazoo go from vaguely critical to abjectly repentant.
“You know, maybe people would stop treating you like a doormat if you’d stop acting like one, yo,” he said, fiddling with a pretty filigreed marble clock because he really wanted a cigarette and Yazoo strictly forbade smoking anywhere but in his breakfast nook. “Man, Cateyes, you got this fancy shit all over the place!”
“I like fancy things, and don’t call me that,” Yazoo reminded him, and turned to lean against the table, arms crossing beneath the perfect illusion of his breasts. He tilted his pretty head, his jade eyes half closed and oddly hurt. “Reno…do you truly think I’m a doormat?”
It made him laugh again to hear the doubt in Yazoo’s voice. Never in his life had he met someone so eager to please, so easily led as Yazoo. He knew it was a combination of Mommy-Jenova being the overbearing dragon that she was, being forced into a façade of femininity, and being browbeaten by Rufus for so long…but it still amused him a little and made Yazoo that much more precious to him.
“Cateyes, you gotta have more confidence in yourself,” he sighed, and put the clock back down. He gave Yazoo an indulgent smile and patted his soft cheek. “Ain’t I been telling you for years now that you’re one of a kind?”
“Not in any kind of good way,” Yazoo breathed, and offered him a tremulous smile. “Well, I shouldn’t keep you. I’m sorry I’m so out of sorts…please, feel free to join me for breakfast whenever you like.”
“How about dinner instead?” Reno inquired, shaking his head a little. No matter how many times he told Yazoo to be more assertive, the beautiful man merely wound up dissolving into apologies and penitence.
Yazoo’s brows drew close and he asked, “Dinner? Is there an occasion? Rufus hasn’t said anything—”
“No occasion,” Reno assured him, heading for the door. “Rufus is gonna be busy for awhile and you know I get bored. You can come to my new restaurant, see how the food is.”
“It isn’t a…” Yazoo’s voice dropped to a low whisper and he added with a scandalized look on his face, “…a strip club is it?”
Reno laughed aloud again, genuinely amused. He’d spent his fair share of time with Yazoo’s people—nobody knew more about flesh than the Cetrans—and it amused him to no end that Yazoo was more uptight than any nun Reno had ever met during childhood.
“Nah, Cateyes, it ain’t a strip club,” he said. “I’ll come around for you.”
“Call first,” Yazoo said, and flushed a little when Reno gave him a quizzical look. In an apologetic voice he softly explained, “I’ve met some people…they’re quite happy to have me out with them. I might be gone.”
Reno lifted one eyebrow, impressed, and winked at Yazoo before he let himself out into the hallway.
So far, so good.
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Date: 2008-12-29 03:32 pm (UTC)Rufus has no idea of what he's getting into :P
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Date: 2008-12-30 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-29 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-29 09:52 pm (UTC)Genesis is win! <3 The way he so casually and easily switches between flame and hetero. He even managed to get a reaction out of Rude!
I was reading somewhere (probably Uncle John's Bathroom Reader) about how there has to be one sweet, likeable character in a (soap) drama or people have no one to root for. The example used was Dallas when they killed of Patrick Duffy's character (because of contract disputes) and the viewership level went down. I guess that's why everyone roots for Yazoo despite the fact that he is a freakin' doormat.
----
One of the gifts that Christmas brings is a new appreciation of distance and personal space. In July and August, you may feel lonely and separated from your family. In December, you remember why that was a good thing.
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Date: 2008-12-30 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 05:33 am (UTC)So, All My Circuits on Futurama reminded me of the missing part of the Soap Opera Medical Trinity. Coma, horrible illness....and amnesia. Oooh, and if you give it to Rufus in the form of head trauma, then you can dress him in canon!bandages. :D And he could forget that Yazoo's a guy and just think that he has such a sweet and lovely wife and Yazoo can be all conflicted because it's positive attention but it's (gasp!) wrong but what's one kiss and....*ahem*, here's your plot back, I seem to have run off with it back there. :D
So, due to a scheduling change, the monkeys and I did actually get to watch some The Young and the Restless, but it was mainly holiday party stuff and gifts.
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Date: 2008-12-30 05:55 am (UTC)LoL at running away with the plot. =j
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Date: 2008-12-30 06:43 am (UTC)Hey, I gave the plot back, din' I?
:D And I was going to reply to *your* comment on also picking up on the "should there be anything left" line about Kadaj. *wibbles*
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Date: 2008-12-30 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-22 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 08:03 pm (UTC)