Episode 49
Oct. 19th, 2009 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaded_grin49
Reeve was a sweating, panting mess by the time he arrived at the ticket desk and stammered his request for a seat on the next plane to Setora.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the attendant told him, giving him a polite look of blank sympathy. “That flight is full, I’m afraid. The film festival draws quite a crowd from Midgar. You might try one of the airports in Kalm?”
“Damn,” Reeve breathed, surprisingly disappointed. He’d expected to feel relief that he had tried his best but been forced to return to his preferred solitude, but the more he considered it the more he thought that if Yuffie could bring her scattered senses together enough to go, then he should do no less. “I…Well, so much for a run of luck Tuesti…”
He began to turn from the counter, but the woman called him back, a slight frown on her face as her fingers rapidly clicked over the keys of her computer.
“Mister Reeve Tuesti?” she inquired.
“Yes,” he answered, cautious and wondering if this woman had seen photos of him very nearly naked.
“You’ve a ticket reserved, Sir,” she said, and smiled brightly, willing to be friendly now that he belonged to her airline. “Mister Rhapsodos bought twelve tickets and one of them was in your name.”
Reeve blinked at her, utterly floored.
“You mean he…he assumed I was coming?” he asked, suddenly indignant.
“There’s a note that says the passenger may not arrive,” she said. “If that helps at all?”
Reeve sighed a little and said, “Yes, I suppose it does.”
“Any bags to check, Sir?”
“No, nothing,” he said, morose about the lack of clean underwear or pajamas. “I came straight from my studio.”
“Ah, I thought your name was familiar,” she said, and winked at him. “I remember your face now that I’ve seen it.”
Reeve flushed and said, “Yes, well…alright then. May I have my ticket?”
“Here you are,” she said, handing him the ticket with a smile. “Be sure to have your ID ready for the gate guards, and you’d best hurry, Sir, they are already boarding.”
“Thank you very much,” he said, snatching it up as if it was a treasure.
“You’re welcome!” she called after him, and Reeve flushed in silent, consuming mortification when she added, “I loved your chocobo underwear, by the way!”
“I am going to kill that man!” he hissed, and rushed to the gate where his plane was boarding.
Zack was silent on the way up, silent all the way back to
It concerned Kadaj, whose own quick temper had quieted on the lift back up. Yes, he’d been angry at Zack for not listening to him, but deep down he really should’ve known better than to allow the man to accompany him. Zack was kind, he was genuine in ways that Kadaj had never known – it stood to reason that he would see only the horror of it, would see injustice. Kadaj did not try to explain to him that the Underplate had no laws but that of the Butchers, and without them they would prey on one another like wolves gone rabid.
But seeing Zack so deeply disturbed made Kadaj sorry he had dragged him down there. The man’s references to sacrilege also made him curious, wondering just what religion Zack practiced, since pious people were few and far between in the ugly, sinful city of
“Zack,” he said, and had to repeat his name to get a spark of recognition in those eyes. They stood there on the wide, sweeping steps of Reno’s House and looked at one another, Zack’s face upturned to Kadaj’s own as the boy stood stock-still a few steps above him. “Don’t think on it anymore. You will never have to go back…I’m sorry. It was a mistake to take you with me.”
Zack’s horrified, despairing eyes showed no sign of comprehension and Kadaj sighed, putting the matter aside. He turned and moved up the steps like a fluid cat, his face drawn into a frown and Zack a haunted shadow at his back.
Elena couldn’t have been more pleased.
She had a meeting with Lazard tomorrow in his office, and she was sure that the man would fund her continued existence. There would be no deceiving him – she had tried in the past and had received only his wry amusement in the process. Lazard was far too clever for her to manipulate, unlike Rufus, but he was also the only man who would pay a ridiculous sum for information on the ShinRa heir.
“Oh, Rufus, even when you’re being an ass, you’re being helpful,” she murmured, thinking of that piece of paper hidden away and how, soon, she would be free of
Free. Even through all of these years, she’d never been that. As a child she’d been unfettered, feral, determined to drag her way out of the muck and threat of the Underplate. When
She smiled with harsh amusement, thinking it very strange that she’d been more free as a miserable child beneath the plate than she’d ever been as the consort of the President.
“Oh, what have you got to smile about?” Rufus complained, stumbling into his bedroom.
“I thought you were eating dinner,” Elena said, startled out of her reveries. Her eyes narrowed to slits and she asked, “How long have you been out in the hallway?”
“What?” Rufus asked, and she breathed a sigh of relief at his clueless glare. He grouchily shoved past her to take off his cufflinks near his dresser and said, “You need to start thinking of finding a place to stay. I can’t keep you here like some kind of trailer-trash pet.”
“Like you would notice if I moved into another suite and stayed,” she scoffed, and said to herself, “Actually, that’s not a bad idea…”
“Please,” Rufus sighed, stripping off his clothing in a fumbling, graceless way that said he’d already done his damage to his bar. “The staff would notify me and that huge beast my wife keeps with her would toss you out on your pregnant ass.”
“What’s with that guy?” Elena asked, ignoring the rest. “He’s creepy.”
“Fuck!” Rufus spat, and pressed his hand to his forehead. “I forgot about that.”
“What?”
“I was supposed to do a background check on him,” Rufus said, and started yanking on a pair of pajamas. As if Elena herself had suggested such a thing, he snapped, “And just why is everyone so interested in that man, anyway?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know,” she told him. “I always assumed you’d picked him. I had no idea he was such a mystery to you.”
Rufus scowled and worked his feet into his house slippers, grumpily saying, “I’m going to eat. I suppose you’ll be eating as well, preggo?”
Elena wrinkled her nose at him and said, “Not on your life. I’m going to bed, asshole.”
Rufus quietly fumed as she climbed into his bed and got comfortable, but finally stormed out of the room in a fit of frustrated anger.
“How was dinner?”
“What?” the man murmured, splayed back in his chair with careless ease, his blue eyes mere, glittering slits beneath the heavy fringe of his dark lashes. The casual sensuality of that gaze made
“Nothing,” he said, and smiled. “I just like to look at you. You make my heart race.”
Overwhelmed, he turned his face to the window and gazed down at the lights. But when
Reeve had half hoped and half dreaded that he would be seated next to Genesis or, worse, between Genesis and Yuffie. There was nothing more withering for the soul than being caught between two bickering, self-important divas, as he’d learned the hard way. It seemed that every time he was around the two of them together there was a disaster of some sort – he was punching men named Edgar, taking mind-altering drugs, waking up nude between the two of them, or, for some reason, dragging Yuffie’s unconscious body around like some type of maltreated mule. It rather bothered him that friendship came at such a price, but he couldn’t find it in his heart to truly begrudge them.
But that didn’t mean for one second he wanted to sit between them on a seventeen hour flight to Setora. No. Thank. You.
Apparently, Genesis had not thought that Reeve would come, because the reserved seat was in the back of the plane amongst squalling infants and a group of very large people in overstated floral prints who all had a tendency to wear black socks pulled up their pasty calves and paired this audacity with brown sandals. There was no possible reason on earth that Reeve could think of to justify such a thing – sandals implied the weather was warm enough to want bare feet. Socks were just the opposite, and he was so confounded by something that was both irrational and visually reprehensible that he barely noticed when the plane took off. However, he had nothing better to look at, wedged as he was between the Costan woman and her colicky infant and the excited tourist from Gongaga chatting his ear off in twangy country inflections.
Reeve settled back, sighing, nodding politely to the man next to him as the baby screamed its discomfort to its softly crooning mother.
It was going to be a long flight.
“Kadaj, there’s someone here to see Mister Reno, but since he’s gone to Setora – ”
“What?!” Kadaj hissed, snarling at Neala, who had sense enough to scurry back behind the desk and put Zack between them. “What did you say?”
“There’s a visitor,” she weakly repeated.
“He’s gone to Setora?” Kadaj asked, and received a confirming nod. “Did he say how long he would be gone?”
“A few days,” she said, cautiously. “He left instructions for you about Elena, he wanted me to give them to you.”
Kadaj snatched the note and tore it open, scanning it quickly with drawn brows.
“That son of a bitch!” he seethed, crumpling it up and hurling it at the waste bin. “So, he thinks he can go trotting off to Setora for days and I won’t have a thing to say about it? That I’ll do his dirty work for him?”
Neala said nothing, but she didn’t have to. Kadaj knew as well as she did that he always did the dirty work. That this was the first time he’d been given an order to kill one of
Kadaj curled his lip up at her and stalked off, leaving Zack forlorn in the entryway.
He recognized the man the second he entered the office – he was the one from the Gala who had teased Kadaj. It was impossible to forget such terrified hair of such an unusually light shade, paired with such crystalline blue eyes.
“You again, Mister Cloud,” Kadaj said, recalling his name with ease. He cocked his head and regarded him, trying to guess why this man would be here in the first place. He had no ties to
“You remembered my name,” the man said, and grinned, pleased. “I’m sorry, I don’t know yours.”
“Kadaj,” the boy said, moving around to sit behind
“Yeah, ‘cause that’s a fate worse than death,” Cloud teased, and winked at Kadaj, who unsuccessfully tried to repress a smirk.
“What did you need?” he asked, keeping things on track.
“I’m not sure if you know this, but
“What kind of stories?” Kadaj asked.
“I’m a reporter,” Cloud said. “I investigate things, write stories on them…well, not recently. I’ve been reduced to publicity crap with FLASH!, they don’t really cover meaty subjects.”
Kadaj blinked, taking this in.
“Is there something in particular you wanted from here?” he asked, confused.
“I just wanted to talk to you,” Cloud said, blinking innocently, which Kadaj didn’t buy. “I remembered you were his bodyguard, and a little more than that, and I wondered what you thought of everything.”
Kadaj’s brows rose in question, and Cloud explained, “Mrs. ShinRa, all that mess.”
“I do not wish to talk of her,” Kadaj said, jolted by the mention of her name. “I would rather not dwell on the fact that my lover lies in another’s arms, if that is quite alright with you.”
Cloud seemed to accept this with very little regret, he merely smiled again and said, “Fine, let’s talk about something else. Is there anything you can tell me about her bodyguard, or the Wutain man you accompanied to the Gala last night?”
Kadaj cocked his head and a slow smile spread across his fine lips.
“Oh,” he said, affecting nonchalance. “There might be a few things…”
They moved rapidly from the chairs to the bed in the back of that lavish jet. It stood on a dais, draped in heavy, dark material designed to be drawn closed to shut the world out.
He remembered the roses, the pearls, and the note. He remembered how he’d cried after their first time together, what he’d said to
He reached up and touched the sharp angle of
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Date: 2009-10-19 07:41 pm (UTC)Oh this chapter made me laugh !!!!!!!!! things like "maltreated mule" hahahah !!!! and then the horrid description of the tourists on the plane... :P (seems like tourists dress like that everywhere in the world.. They could just as well wear a sign around their neck saying : Im a stupid tourist ! rob me !") The socks and the sandals.. quite the combo, allright.. :P
the colicky child... hahahah !!!!!! Poor, poor Reeve !
And the "terrified" hair of Cloud, I must SO remember that one ! XDDDDDDDDDD
Now I am impatient to read more smut and more about the Cloud/Kadaj meeting.
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Date: 2009-10-22 02:10 pm (UTC)Reeve is good for a giggle, isn't he? I did lend him some of my personal prejudices regarding socks and sandals, and tourists, but I think it worked well for him! And I HAD to add the screaming baby. Anywhere I go - on a plane, a train, out to eat, to the store - there is a shrieking baby, so that was a must for poor Reeve!
More to come on Monday! Wish me luck writing it, we've got some family stuff going on and that takes precedence, so yeah :D
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Date: 2009-10-22 08:12 pm (UTC)Good luck Honey with your family stuff AND your writing ! XDDDDDDDDD ((((((((((((HUGS !)))))))))))))
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Date: 2009-10-19 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-22 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-19 11:27 pm (UTC)The conversation between Cloud and Kadaj is certainly going to be interesting. Especially with Kadaj being so mad at Reno...
And the last line is one hell of a cliffhanger. There's so much that could happen >.
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Date: 2009-10-22 02:06 pm (UTC)I think that Cloud will get more than he bargained for with Kadaj. Even though he's promised not to print anything about Yazoo, he will use whatever information to get what he wants - which is more money and faster pace of life. Oh, ambition, lol!
And yes, Yazoo's last line was rather mean of me, but hehe, I'm known for my cliffies, lol!
Glad you liked it, honey!
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Date: 2009-10-19 11:40 pm (UTC)Is Zack going to realize that the Butchers do more than just 'cut up meat'? Will it help any? Will he and Cloud bump into each other? Will Cloud recognize each other? Will it be love (or at least lust) at first sight? Will Kadaj get jealous if Zack does show interest in Cloud? So many delicious possibilities...
As tender and sweet as the moments between Reno and Yazoo were, I have to admit to being scared for Yazoo. I wanted to reach into your story and cover his mouth before he made that last confession. And I'm still thinking, 'Shit, now it's really too late.' Of course it had to go that way but still... I'm worried.
Great addition, as usual.
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Date: 2009-10-22 02:02 pm (UTC)I think it will take another brush with the Butchers for Zack to realize what and who they are. In fact, I altered his storyline because of the way that first meeting went, so he may get a closer look at them than he ever dreamed. And yes, I think it will help. I think he'll be able to let go of that moral and religious pedestal that he's saved for himself and face what he's done in his past. I'm feeling a run in with Cloud, but I'm not sure how it will go. Zack is still lost from what he's seen, so yeah...And Kadaj, well, that boy is simply MADE of jealousy, so he'd probably get angry, even though he doesn't want Zack.
I can feel you on being scared for Yazoo. He is wrapped up in his first love and has been led to believe that Reno feels the same way. I am sure that, because of the promise he made Rufus, Reno will find some way to handle it gracefully, but I'm just not sure. It is in Yazoo's favor that he is the perfect incarnation of Reno's desire, but desire isn't love, and lust can't always pretend to be love well enough to fool a lover. With Yazoo being Cetran, there is a strong chance that if he tries to lie about it, Yazoo will know. We'll just have to see.
I'm glad you liked the addition! I need to go review your most recent chapter for Mad World! I've read it twice but each time I go to review it I get called away for family emergencies. We've got little ones getting sick and it's scaring me, so keep your fingers crossed for us, if you wouldn't care?
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Date: 2009-10-22 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-20 12:10 am (UTC)I hope Zack meets Cloud and sparks fly <3<3<3
Reeve is so sweet to leave his work and go to Setora. I can't wait for Genesis to find out he's on the plane. :)
Where is Setora on the map? Is it close to Chechislan and the Cetrans?
Good episode, I can't wait to see what's going to happen next.
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Date: 2009-10-22 01:54 pm (UTC)Zack and Cloud? Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe :D
Reeve is running on panic right now, as per his usual, and when Genesis sees him at last it will probably be a little more than he can handle, but hopefully he'll deal well.
Uhm, Setora is actually the word used for Cetra in the Japanese version of the game, but in this world it is down south on an island :D Oh, thank you, artistic license!
Thank you so much, boo boo! *snuggles you*
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Date: 2009-10-20 02:21 am (UTC)Oh, Yazoo... you poor naive twit. This won't end well. XD And Reeve... hahaha. I just wish something would go well for him for once! Now he's gonna have to borrow clothes from Genesis, who of course will be thrilled to give him feather boas and other hilarious things... :D
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Date: 2009-10-22 01:46 pm (UTC)Yes, Yazoo is in the flush of first love, and this is a very dangerous time. With Reno, there is no telling how he will take it, or if his response will be genuine, but I hope for the best!
Poor Reeve, lol! But the fact that he is willing to suffer to do what he considers to be the right thing shows promise! Let's hope Genesis had the foresight to pack him some things, knowing that he is absent minded, hehe!
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Date: 2009-10-20 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-22 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-20 05:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-22 01:43 pm (UTC)Reeve is a mess, but he's coming around! He just has to get over this weird idea of his that he's not Genesis's boyfriend, hehe! Maybe some time next to the squalling baby and the tourist will make him reflect a little on his situation!
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Date: 2009-10-20 04:55 pm (UTC)There's no point me even trying to comment... because all I'll do is tell you over and over that ZOMG I LOVE YOUR RENO! UUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.
... ^_^
Renoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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Date: 2009-10-22 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-20 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-22 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-30 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-06 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 10:08 pm (UTC)"Zack, don't think on it anymore." C'mon, Kadaj. Like Zack would be able to think of anything else after that experience. It makes me wonder if Kadaj has any concept of how out of the ordinary his life is. It sounds like he may have found the person who can get to the bottom of his mystery, though. Go figure!
Go Elena. Keep working the angles, girl. Who knows? Maybe you'll find a way out after all.
Oh, Yazoo. You poor thing!
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Date: 2013-06-16 01:33 am (UTC)