jaded_grin | Episode 39

Okay, this week's is a short one, I am sorry. My time has been really weird lately, I hope things improve soon! But I think there is some intriguing stuff here, and next week's will have lots of yummy smut!

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Rude considered his options as he carried Yazoo away from the building and the beginnings of chaos inside. He had an opportunity here, he knew, a chance to go through with the plan. She was helpless, curled like a baby against his chest, sobbing softly and deeply. The tremors that shook her were purely nerves, and he knew if he pushed, she would grant him permission to do what he needed to do.

He thought of his people, waiting for him to return. He thought of how this would unite them and end the constant friction once and for all. He thought of Yazoo sitting at her table in her robe, her silver hair falling down around her shoulders and her eyes so very, very sad…

He pushed the thought away and carried her light little body out to where the drivers had parked the various cars. Yazoo’s driver was asleep, his hat cocked down over his face, and that nearly made his decision for him. It would be terribly, almost laughably easy to kill the man while he slept and make off with the vehicle undetected.

Yazoo uttered another choking sob and Rude wrenched open the back door, gently depositing her on the plush seat, curling her into the corner where she lay in a tangle of her shimmering dress, stilettos, and sadness.

He rapped on the window and barked, “Home,” startling the driver into wakefulness.

As the car shifted into gear and pulled away, Rude moved to sit across from Yazoo and contemplated her vulnerable body, thinking that he had, indeed, grown soft.

At the first shriek of the alarms, Genesis grabbed on to both Reeve and Yuffie and said, “The building is burning!” Wild eyed, he cried, “Reeve, darling, you must get me out of here at once or I shall faint dead away, I swear it!”

“If you do, you shall burn merrily away, I swear it,” Reeve hissed, craning his head around to see where the exits were. The crowds swarmed around them, fighting for access to the main doors while the journalists outside snapped photographs of the chaos.

“How about the back?” Cloud asked, nodding his head in the direction of the wait-staff, who had all disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

Reeve pushed Yuffie back a step and she swayed dangerously, moaning a little and completely oblivious to the danger. He nodded and said, “Yes, the back is the best option.”

He bent and scooped Yuffie up in his arms and Genesis swooned, sobbing, “I feel ill! I think I’m succumbing to the smoke! I feel so faint!”

Cloud glanced at the tall, slim redhead and said, “Well, I’m not carrying you. Besides, I saw Mrs. ShinRa’s bodyguard pull the alarm. I think he wanted to get her out of here. There certainly doesn’t seem to be a fire.”

Genesis glared at him and abruptly straightened, hissing, “Well, aren’t we the little investigator, hm?”

“Will you two stop?” Reeve asked, struggling to keep Yuffie’s boneless body in the cup of his arms. He glared from Cloud to Genesis and headed back towards the kitchen doors, wobbling under the weight of Yuffie’s body.

Genesis poked his tongue out at Cloud and said, “I never did like you, Strife.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a line,” Cloud said, shrugging. He took a few shots of the panicked crowd and then headed after Reeve with Genesis pouting in his wake.

Reeve cast around the empty kitchen and spied the service door to the loading docks, saying, “Yes, this way. We brought the paintings in through here, there’s a way out.”

He pushed his way through, feeling quite heroic with the passed out, supposed Princess in his arms, and hit the night air with a sigh of relief.

“Reeve, darling, what of your paintings?” Genesis asked, glancing back towards the interior with a frown. “If there truly is a fire, they will all be gone!”

“I can make more,” Reeve said, thought the idea of losing his work made him ill. It would be a waste of half his life if that place went up in flames, and he knew there was no way he could replace what amounted to detailed memories of his life. “Let’s just hope you’re right and there is no fire.”

“There isn’t,” Cloud said, confident of that. He watched Reeve struggling down the few short steps of the loading dock and went after him, saying, “Here, you got it all wrong.”

“I beg your pardon?” Reeve asked, stopping.

Cloud lifted Yuffie from Reeve’s arms and slung her over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes. With a wink and a grin, he told the startled painter, “Don’t worry, she’s used to this. I’ll take her home, don’t bother about it.”

“To her home?” Reeve asked, suspicious, and his tone made Genesis scowl.

“Does it matter?” Cloud asked, laughing. “Look, Reeve, Yuffie loves everybody, you catch my drift? She usually doesn’t puke on their shoes, but she loves them all the same. Don’t take her seriously.”

“I wasn’t!” Reeve said, indignant, drawing up to his full height, which wasn’t much taller than Cloud’s.

“Yeah, okay,” Cloud snickered, and turned away with Yuffie’s arms swinging down behind him, her hair swaying with every step. “For a lesbian, she’s a real man eater, so it’s best not to get involved.”

“I am not involved!” Reeve snapped, but Cloud was already on his way to where he’d parked his car, and didn’t respond.

Reeve turned to find Genesis leaning against the side of the dock with his arms crossed and a disapproving look on his face.

“I’m not!” Reeve insisted, and returned the scowl. “It isn’t your business anyway, I remind you! We are not dating! You are not my boyfriend! I wouldn’t date you if you were the last gender-confused man on earth!”

Genesis rolled his eyes and coolly stated, “Likewise, Reeve. Though it has, undoubtedly, escaped your notice, I have managed to launch you into Midgarian society like a goddamned pleasure liner. All of the scandal I have managed to create around you will merely keep your patrons vying for your attention.”

He pushed away from the wall with a careless sigh and flicked his hair back.

“A morally rigid, pussy-whipped, facial hair-toting, saint of a painter isn’t exactly my idea of the perfect boyfriend,” he said. “Now, do you want a ride home, or do you want to further discuss how ill-suited we are for one another?”

Reeve opened and closed his mouth several times, but he finally managed to say, “I am not morally rigid!”

One of Genesis’s elegant eyebrows rose over one sparkling, amused blue eye and he purred, “Prove it.”

“I suppose that’s a nice rack,” Rufus commented, tipping his head to consider Elena’s breasts. “A bit on the small side, really. Can’t you get implants?”

Elena took a deep breath to stabilize her patience and sweetly said, “I didn’t want implants, thank you. Some men prefer smaller breasts.”

“True,” Rufus agreed, and then pointed out, “But then they usually prefer another part of the anatomy over it, and you don’t really have an ass, either.”

“Could you stop analyzing my faults for three seconds and just let me do my job?” she flared, staring him down.

Rufus chuckled drunkenly into his glass and murmured in a stage whisper, “Someone is having pregnancy-induced psychosis!”

“Do you want to do this or not?” Elena demanded, hands on her slender hips, standing there in just her thong and five-inch heels.

“You look a little like Wonder Woman when you stand like that,” Rufus told her, and added in a vague tone, “But with less breasts.”

“I’ll blow you, shall I?” Elena growled, offended. She’d never had problems attracting men and none of them had ever complained about her packaging before. She was ready to throttle Rufus, and was understanding more and more why Yazoo had so little to do with him. He was an oaf, for all of his manners, and a drunk to boot.

“I’ve got nothing against Wonder Woman!” Rufus cried, feigning hurt. He put his glass down with an unsteady hand and asked, “Could you wiggle around a little or something? I’m not really in the mood yet.”

Elena rolled her eyes and sauntered over to him, reaching up to cup her breasts and run her thumbs over her tight pink nipples.

“I bet your wife has got nothing on me,” she purred, smirking, rolling her hips as she walked.

Rufus uttered a short, sharp laugh and said with an odd amount of true amusement, “My dear, you have no idea.”

“I…I really shouldn’t,” Zack whispered, but it came out as weak as he felt. He glanced from Mei Li to Kadaj and felt torn. It had been so long since he’d been touched, so long since he’d shared that closeness, but he firmly believed that there should be some kind of emotional attachment to the person he touched. He’d had his share of faceless, loveless sex in the Brotherhood and he’d vowed that he would never just sleep with someone.

He had a choice now, he could say no. There was no one forcing him to stay.

So why was he?

“Why should you not?” Mei Li purred, and reached out to rest her long fingers on his shoulder, the red lacquer of her talons gleaming in the soft light. She cocked her head, her heavy-lidded eyes and full mouth giving her an indolent, cat-like look. When she smiled, Zack jerked away from her, frightened of her all over again. He still clearly remembered that night when Kadaj had tried to burn the place down – he’d smelled the blood, he’d seen her sink her nails into Reno’s belly with the intent to pain him. He knew firsthand the kind of violent games that brought that type of result into play, and he had no desire to degrade himself so shamefully.

“Leave him be,” Kadaj softly called, still stroking Reno’s brow, though his green eyes were on Zack and Mei Li. “Not everyone enjoys your games. Zack is a good man.”

Mei Li laughed and asked, “What does that have to do with pleasure?”

That hand slid up his neck and she looked at him intently. Zack was so busy trying to keep his focus that he only realized that she was searching for his Brotherhood brand once it was too late. Her fingers traced the raised, slick skin beneath the heavy shock of his hair and she purred, “Ah, so I was not wrong…”

Zack grabbed her wrist and pushed her hand away, saying, “It doesn’t concern you.”

Mei Li merely smiled and tugged him by the hand to the bed before she crawled up next to Reno, her movements graceful and fluid. She lay back against the headboard with her heavy breasts thrusting up from the spill of her pitch-black hair and her soft sex laying between her bent legs.

“Zack,” Kadaj said, his eyes strangely blank. “You don’t have to.”

“I know,” Zack said, and started to undress.

“God, now I remember why I don’t like you,” Cloud breathed, grunting with effort as he carried Yuffie up the last flight of stairs to his apartment. Damn that broken elevator anyway. He’d have to call maintenance first thing in the morning, or else stop bringing home inebriated guests.

He unlocked his apartment and managed to get inside with Yuffie still relatively on his shoulder, though she was sliding fast. He plopped her down on the couch, locked his door, and went to the fridge for a beer, drinking it with relish.

“You’re still a pain in the ass,” he told her, knowing she couldn’t hear him. But he felt better bitching her out a little, and negligently tossed a throw-blanket over her to add magnanimous to his good feeling. He went back to his computer to check his mail and found returns from his source. “Good…now, let’s see who exactly you are, Mister Rude Bodyguard.”

He opened the email and his eyes slowly widened as he read:

Cloud,

The man you have pictures of is Rudolf Doležal, believed to be responsible for seventy-eight political assassinations, including the death of the Costan warlord Maximilian Blanc – you should know, you covered that one, didn’t you? The only problem is, we can’t move on him because he’s never left physical evidence behind, and no one will testify against him. We had one thousand twelve hundred witnesses to him ripping Blanc apart at the foot of his throne, but the Costans were so pleased to free of him that they pretended dogs had done it. I mean, really, we can’t get a single one to point the finger at him. He’s gone quiet for the last six years or so, shortly after he disappeared from his home country of Chechislan, which he somehow unified ten years ago. We’ve never been able to discover how, since the Chechislans are very secretive. I’m very interested in getting updates on what he’s up to, if you wouldn’t mind moling for Interpol. Like I said, we have nothing concrete on him, but maybe you can catch him at something. I have to admit I’m a little puzzled by his presence in Midgar, especially when you said he’s been there for so long as a bodyguard to Yazoo ShinRa. Then again, if he’s looking to assassinate the current President, he might be gunning for the heir as well, and what better way than to be in his house?

The Wutain man is someone we only know as Tseng – he started out an accountant at a firm in Wutai, but somehow amassed a fortune and all but owns Dai Jiao now. He has his hands in drugs, weapons running, slaving, prostitution – you name it. He’s another slippery devil, and we’ve never been able to catch him at something. If these two are connected, Cloud, I’d say keep your eyes open. It wouldn’t surprise me if something really bad goes down in the next few weeks. Tseng is no joke, and a meeting with Doležal can’t bode well for anyone. I’d send you backup, but we’re not allowed to step foot inside President ShinRa’s territory, we can only nab them in international waters or in the outlying countries. Let me know what you dig up, and I’ll keep you informed if any more information about either of them comes to light.

Don

Cloud stared at the screen for a long, long time, shocked. Now he knew why Rude had looked familiar, he’d taken photographs of the slaughter of Maximilian Blanc, it had been his first assignment at his school newspaper, of all things. He’d slipped his parents at the resort in Costa Del Sol and had made his way dead into the center of riots and confusion. He’d taken photographs of the body with a disposable camera, and he’d actually seen Rudolf Doležal leaving the square, covered in blood. It had been so long ago that he barely remembered what the man looked like, but it had made such a strong impression that the familiarity of his face had nagged at Cloud’s mind. That story had won him a scholarship to a prestigious school of journalism, and the jokes about the Reporter In Diapers had gone on for years and years, yet here he was a lifetime later knowing a dangerous amount of information about a man who had physically ripped another human being into pieces with his bare hands.

“Fuck,” Cloud breathed, but that didn’t quite cover it. He was stunned, unable to make sense of it, not sure of how he should proceed. He didn’t want to pull the police into this, but he really couldn’t allow anyone to die for the sake of his story.

Grimly, he flipped open his cell and dialed the Midgar Police.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ldyavalon.livejournal.com

I love Genesis. To itty bitty pieces. "Prove it" indeed!!!!

And Cloud had better be careful, and so should Zack *casts protection on them*

From:

Otherwise known as the journal of Jaded Grin

Episode 39

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