Episode 15
Feb. 9th, 2009 07:39 am15
“How on earth do you stay so thin?” Kadaj asked, amazed by the amount of food that Zack had eaten.
The carpenter just shrugged a little and said, “Guess I just work it off!”
Kadaj smiled at his wide, white grin, figuring that Zack probably hadn’t meant what his statement had brought to mind.
“Look at you, though—how are you even alive?” Zack inquired, indicating Kadaj’s untouched plate. “You eat like that all the time?”
“I don’t usually have time for formal meals,” Kadaj told him, finishing his wine and casting another glance over the restaurant.
“He left already,” Zack told him, that concerned look on his face.
“Oh.”
“You wanna go?” the man asked. “I’m finished, I swear…unless there’s an ice-cream parlor along the way, then I probably got room for a scoop or two.”
Kadaj laughed a little and looked at him while Zack gave the room another appreciative glance. It wouldn’t be so hard, he supposed…unless Zack was a dedicated heterosexual, which had rather lost its place as the standard these days since the Cetran nation had gained such power. Still, he was from the country, so he might be a little more traditional, but Kadaj wouldn’t let something like that stop him, and he was appealing enough to temp saints, as he well knew. The only way to find out was to try.
“Let’s just go home,” Kadaj suggested, fully planning to follow Zack’s advice and his own warning to
“Genesis!” Yuffie screeched, barreling across the restaurant.
“Oh, darling!” Genesis cried, standing as he was sniffling and summoning up some lovely tears. “You arrived just in time! Oh, dearest, I’m heartbroken!”
Yuffie reached him and they embraced, which caused her to bap one of the other diners in the back of his head with her huge, vinyl purse. “Sorry, pal!”
Genesis ignored it and they both sat down so he could compose himself properly into a state of beautiful anguish.
“What happened? I got your call and came as quick as I could!” Yuffie told him, and gestured at her outfit. “Straight from a sex-toy party, too! You sounded awful!”
“Oh, Yuffie,” Genesis whimpered, and dabbed at his eyes, carefully keeping his eye-liner in place. “I’m…OLD!”
“What?” Yuffie asked, taken aback. She hadn’t really expected a mid-life crisis, more something along the lines of ‘I want to toss myself into traffic’ or very like.
Genesis sniffled and whispered, “I got…rejected!”
“What?! Who would dare?” she demanded, aghast.
“Oh, some little actor wanting to be an understudy in Loveless—which, by the way, you need to go to rehearsal tomorrow afternoon! Ten sharp, no excuses!”
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Yuffie said, nodding a little. “So, you don’t know this kid’s name or anything?”
Genesis laughed a little and said, “Dearest, I am Genesis Rhapsodos! I can’t be bothered to learn the name of every little bit of eye candy that comes around begging a part, now can I?”
Yuffie smiled a little and suggested, “Well…maybe he doesn’t want crazy sex with the sexiest man in Midgar? Maybe he wants a relationship.”
The look Genesis gave her should have scorched her on the spot, but since it didn’t he simply snorted and said, “Sweetie, this is show business—people don’t have relationships, we have liaisons. Besides, I think he might be straight.”
“Oh, who does that anymore, anyway?” Yuffie grouched, and nabbed the glass this nameless man had left, draining it of what wine remained before refilling it. “Still, maybe he’s just looking for Mister Right, and you are just Mister Right Now.”
Genesis stopped sulking, exasperated, and declared, “You are a hopeless romantic, miss! Honestly, keep up at that rate and you’ll be married off with a dozen little brats clinging to your gigantic thighs.”
“My thighs aren’t gigantic!” Yuffie cried, and checked just to be sure.
“No! Not yet,” Genesis assured her. “But twelve babies later and you’ll be nothing but sagging breasts, flaccid stomach and gigantic ass.”
“My, my, good thing you aren’t a woman, Genesis! What a grim outlook!”
Genesis shuddered and pulled a face, fanning himself and saying, “Yes, at least that horrible excuse for a father managed to get one thing right! And may his bones be ground to powder beneath the roots of those apple trees he so adores.”
Yuffie blinked at him for a long, silent moment before deciding, “You really have some serious issues with your dad.”
“Well, it merely fuels my creative drive,” Genesis announced, completely over his former meltdown. “You just missed
“Yeah, I figured she’d be gone by now,” Yuffie sighed, wishing she’d been able to say hello. Thinking of
She laughed a little, recalling that other kid’s huge eyes and attempts to hide himself in foliage. “Pippi Tornstockings! Ha!”
“Pippi Tornstockings?” Genesis echoed. “What on earth does that mean?”
“I dunno,” Yuffie said, lighting a cigarette. “It was just a drunken Doltism.”
“What?” Genesis asked, and filched a smoke from her.
“A Doltism,” Yuffie explained. “You know, something a total dolt says.”
“Oh,” Genesis sighed, nodding a little that he got it. “Gods know there are dolts aplenty in this stupid metropolis.”
“It was Rufus,” Yuffie confided, tapping her smoke and coughing a little.
“What? When did you see him?” Genesis questioned, making an elegant show of himself and winking at a nearby diner.
“Just outside on my way in,” she answered. “He was trying to look in one of the windows. I think he was spying on
Genesis laughed and said, “She was with
“Aren’t those two a couple?” Yuffie asked, giving Genesis a suspicious glare. “What do you know about him?”
The man merely gave her a mysterious smile and purred, “I keep my secrets, my little Rose. Oh, yes, I do.”
“Hm,” Yuffie said, thoughtful. “I just always assumed those two were a thing, you know? In Wutai, they’re like the hottest couple ever.”
“Darling girl, you know
“So they’re just friends?” she asked, a little skeptical. “I mean, I don’t really know
“He’s Cetran, they’re probably from the same place,” Genesis said, brushing it off. “All of the Northerners are light, you have to go South to get any color in their pale little cheeks.”
Yuffie fell silent, thinking of her new friend and what she knew of
“Romantic!” Genesis sighed, and smacked her arm to get her attention. “Stop daydreaming about those two—it’s never going to happen. Help me finish this wine. It was 500 gil a bottle, I’m not letting it go to waste.”
There was a knock on the tinted window and he rolled it down, recognizing Rufus’s young valet. The kid looked pissed off but he tried to be respectful when he asked, “You taking Mister ShinRa out tonight, sir?”
“Yeah, why else you think I’m waiting here?”
Rufus flopped forward against the car and poked his head in the window in a cloud of alcoholic fumes, his grin wide and his hair mussed.
“What’s up, my favorite friend!” he crowed.
“You’re fucking kidding me,”
“Too much,” the kid answered, clearly happy to pawn Rufus off on
Sighing in aggravation,
“What the fuck happened to you?”
Rufus giggled a little at that and draped one arm over his eyes, looking like he might just slide down the side of the car to the ground at any second.
“I had a meeting but I got stopped by a Madame Butterfly Dominatrix.”
“You got it?!” Rufus asked, suddenly alert and excited. He latched onto
“Fuck, man, you stink like whiskey,”
Rufus grinned up at him and asked with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, “Did you kiss her goodnight? She’s really shy, you know…”
Rufus looked around in some confusion until
“You know what’s funny, Rufus?” he asked, still keeping his voice low, whispery. “You just referred to your wife as a woman.”
“I never!” Rufus denied, jerking back and dragging
Rufus curled up in the corner of the car and said, “Pippi Tornstockings, the Wutain Fetish Model,” giggling to himself while Reno sat in silence and rued the fact that he’d waited on him in the first place.
Didn’t it?
Thoughtfully,
People called him beautiful, strangers whistled at him, men propositioned him, yet here he was. Staring at himself in the mirror and wondering why his body couldn’t match his true self.
Never once had he taken any of those crude offers seriously, though his loneliness sometimes tempted him. He’d also never once considered being with a woman—he just didn’t entertain the notion of being a lesbian because he’d been raised to submit to the men in his life. He wouldn’t know what to do with a woman and, frankly, the idea scared him worse than the thought of being with a man. His mother had kept him remarkably sheltered from the casual sexuality of his own people, so his knowledge of sex was limited to romance novels and the occasional movie that made him blush and quickly turn the channel.
Blush much in the same way as he had in the car…
His phone rang, startling him. Relived to be distracted from his thoughts, he snatched the handset up and breathed, “Hello?”
“Hey, lady!” Yuffie shouted. “I’m at the new restaurant. Genesis said I just missed you.”
“Truly? Oh, that’s too bad, I would’ve liked to see you,”
“Has anyone ever told you that you could do great phone sex?” Yuffie asked.
“Do you like it? I thought it was quite grand,”
“He’s in the head,” Yuffie said. “So I thought I’d give you a call. You know, I saw your twat of a husband dumb-assing around outside—I think he was spying on you.”
“What?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Yuffie said, not sounding convinced. “You have a nice night?”
“Yes, I did,”
“You okay?” Yuffie asked. “You sound a little weird.”
“I just feel funny,”
“Oh really?” Yuffie asked, sounding quite interested herself. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure—it all sounds so conspiratal and paranoid!”
“Like you’re bonking his best friend?” Yuffie offered.
“You there?”
“Yes,”
Yuffie snorted a little and said, “I would—
“He’s not a mobster,”
“You say tomato,” Yuffie teased, but dropped the subject. “So, you have a nosy husband and a friend acting funny around you…what’s been going on with you? Anything change?”
“I’ve been remarkably off,”
“How?” Yuffie asked. “You gotta tell me this stuff,
“It’s just that…well, like this evening,”
“You sure it was an accident?” Yuffie teased.
“Stop, it isn’t like that!”
“Hm…” Yuffie mused. “Do you think you might have a crush on him?”
“What?”
“It means, sometimes for no reason things change with people,” Yuffie offered. “Like, I had a guy friend for a long time and things never went there, and then one day I was looking at him and I realized he was really good looking, but I’d never noticed it before. After that it was all over but the crying! I got nervous around him, and started stuttering when I talked and basically felt like an ass all of the time until he finally just got fed up and kissed me.”
“And then what?”
“Well, you know,” Yuffie said, trying to be polite for
“A crush,”
“So…” Yuffie said, and sounded questioning. “What do you think? You like him that way? It doesn’t have to be a bad thing,
Once the thought was planted, it simply wouldn’t go away.
“Oops, he’s back, gotta go!” Yuffie said. “Have a nice night,
“Okay,”
“Anytime!” the girl crowed, and the line went dead.
“It can’t go anywhere, you know that,” he murmured, and those full, perfect lips moved as that woman in the mirror mimicked him. “You’re just being fanciful and silly. You’re a grown, married woman. Grown, married women do not get crushes, it simply won’t do…”
He turned off the vanity lights and went to his bedroom, locking the door and shedding his robe. There were no mirrors in here, nothing to suddenly remind him of his true gender, nothing to startle him with the stark truth. He slipped into his silk nightgown and crawled into bed, curling around his pillows.
Though he reminded himself sternly that he was not at all allowed to think such things about men who weren’t his husband, he still couldn’t quite stop his excitement over tomorrow’s trip. As much as he tried to convince himself that he didn’t have a crush, the idea was too seductive to be ignored and his loneliness was a fertile bed for that seed of an idea to grow in.
Smiling in the darkness,
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Date: 2009-02-09 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 08:31 pm (UTC)And I'm constantly pitying Yazoo somehow.
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Date: 2009-02-09 10:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 09:31 pm (UTC)Poor Yazoo, loneliness is a horrible thing to have...
And Kadaj is up to trouble, can't wait to see how Reno reacts ;)
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Date: 2009-02-09 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 07:27 am (UTC)Mary SueXDchick in the soaps that everyone loves, lol. If that's what you were trying to convey, then you did it well!I'm liking the idea of RudexYazoo...that would be hot.
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Date: 2009-02-10 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 12:30 pm (UTC)I think Rufus has a serious alcohol problem and him refering to Yazoo as a woman made me *gasp*! I like your Genesis a lot and again I have to compliment you on the great job you did with Yazoo and his/ her inner turmoil^^
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Date: 2009-02-10 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 05:20 pm (UTC)First off; wonderful new episode! so much drama, so many possibilities. It's delicious.
KadajxZack: As much as I think this pairing would be really hot (oh yeah) I'm worried about Kadaj's motivations. It could really get Zack into trouble and Zack's such a nice guy...
Genesis: Okay, yes he's a diva and a 'God of the Theatre', but he really should learn the names of his dinner companions before he expects them to go to bed with him. Just seems like common courtesy to me. (Yuffie was wonderfully scatterbrained but kind. I'm actually kind of liking her.)
Rufus is still an ass.
Reno: You'd think a person with as much survival instincts as he has (had, maybe?) would back away from this situation with all due speed. Rufus is too impatient, too drunk and too stupid NOT to give the game away, and then what happens to fox-face? He likes Yazoo, admires him, and, in his own selfish way, wants him to be happy.
Yazoo: such a delicate, innocent flower. I wanna bitch-slap his mother for leaving him so unprepared for real-life (among other things). I can tell Life is getting ready to dump on him. One other thing with Yazoo, if he's going to be tempted into an affair, he should go for Rude. Reno may find the spark but Rude should make him burn (because I'm not happy with Reno right now).
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Date: 2009-02-12 02:06 pm (UTC)Genesis is irrepressible, he just writes himself :D
Not sure how the Zack/Kadaj thing is going to go, but we'll find out!
Glad you liked it!
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Date: 2009-02-11 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-12 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 08:11 pm (UTC)I actually miss liking Reno, but he is such an ass in this, sadly (but what a delightful ass that is!). He's riding far too high on his pedestal, thinking nothing can touch him and that is bound to cause some heavy bruising eventually.
Kadaj and Zack... Oh my god, that really is a sexy pairing! I just hope Zack will be able to handle it - but I guess I'm not too worried. I have a feeling that the sweet farm-boy exterior hides something... interesting underneath... Zack can handle himself... right? And I'm curious to see if this is permanent or just a spur-of-the-moment pairing...
Oh the delightful thoughts and images this puts into my head....
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Date: 2009-02-12 02:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 10:13 pm (UTC)Poor Yazoo. I wonder what happens next.
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Date: 2009-02-12 01:57 pm (UTC)