Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Strange Bedfellows ❯ Becoming a Non-Threat ( Chapter 2 )

~Two~

 

Reno had the habit to show up in the weirdest places.

 

At first he thought Reno was keeping tabs on him for Rufus. While that was probably quite true, Cloud was beginning to suspect that Reno actually liked him. It was a strange thing to realize and so Cloud did his best to ignore it while subtly taking it for granted. If Reno wanted to be helpful and pleasant (as pleasant as he could be anyway), Cloud wasn't about to complain.

 

One such meeting happened in Kalm. It was late at night and Cloud knew he'd need a healthy dose of coffee before being able to go on. Midgar was a short trip, true but Cloud had been going since early in the morning. He still didn't sleep enough, which caused Tifa a lot of worry and grief.

 

Their relationship was so confusing to Cloud. He never knew if she was playing wife, mother, or long-suffering friend for him. Since Aeris's death, his love life has been in shambles and he still didn't know what he wanted. Cloud was wary about getting into anything serious with Tifa lest she think he was just treating her as the second best option.

 

Maybe this was also the reason Cloud was somewhat vulnerable to Reno's idle, flirtatious banter. He wouldn't be interested in a deep and meaningful commitment; Reno just wanted to have a good time and get laid. Yet that sort of confidence intimidated the hell out of Cloud, and he hated that The Turk could still do that in any shape or form.

 

It was still mildly surreal for Cloud when Reno greeted him as though they were old friends. As soon as he entered Kalm's small tavern, Cloud heard a familiar, boisterous, “Yo, Cloud!”

 

He sighed softly and crossed the room to meet him. Cloud could have ignored him and had tried in the past, but that only seemed to make Reno more determined.

 

“I thought you were a Turk, Reno,” Cloud greeted him dryly. “You're not doing your job well if you let your quarry know you're watching.”

 

Reno snorted and Cloud watched as he added seemingly countless spoonfuls of sugar into coffee that was so pale it was nearly white. The Turk chuckled, “You couldn't ignore me if you tried, yo. Now sit down and keep me company.”

 

“Hm,” Cloud obliged mostly because he couldn't find a reason or an excuse to blow him off. A pretty young waitress joined them a moment later, and Cloud ordered his own cup of coffee while Reno shamelessly flirted with the girl. She blushed and giggled and Cloud couldn't help but think of Tifa; she hated girls like that. After the waitress left, Cloud shook his head.

 

“Do you have to do that?” He asked softly.

 

“Do what?” Reno asked absently as he stirred his sugar leaden coffee.

 

“Flirt with everything with a pulse,” Including me, Cloud neglected to add.

 

Reno shrugged, “can't hurt, right?”

 

“Whatever,” Cloud shook his head slowly, “It's just a little pointless, isn't it?”

 

“Nah, you're just frigid,” Reno replied with an easy grin.

 

“Shows how much you know. Only women can be frigid.”

 

Reno sniggered, “Was that a joke, Strife? I'm impressed.”

 

The girl returned with Cloud's coffee and a flirty smile for the Turk. Cloud thanked her quietly and Reno returned her attention, but seemed to tone down his hyperactive hormones.

 

Or maybe he was just re-directing them….

 

“So Cloud,” Reno began conversely, “When was the last time you got laid?”

 

Cloud shrugged, stirred a single spoonful of sugar into his coffee, and dutifully pretended that Reno hadn't just asked him about his non-existent sex life.

 

Reno was, if nothing else, persistent. “Hmm…okay then, I get it. So you're with Tifa, eh?”

 

“It's not like that,” Cloud murmured, staring into his coffee as if it held the secrets of the known universe.

 

“Well what is it like? Seriously Cloud, what's with the monk routine?” Reno's brow was furrowed and Cloud could see that he really didn't understand.

 

“I don't think it's any of your business, Reno so just drop it,” Cloud sighed heavily, wishing that the ground would just open up and swallow him.

 

Of course Reno didn't let it go. The man seemed to have an inability to drop a subject if he really wanted to know about it. It was probably what made him so good at digging up information, but sometimes it was difficult to have a conversation with him.

 

“Ah, then it's got to do with that Ancient—“

 

“Her name was Aeris,” Cloud cut in sharply as he glared at Reno.

 

“I know,” Reno shrugged, “but she's dead, yo. Pining over a dead woman is almost as bad as pining over someone unattainable and alive. You need to move on, y'know?”

 

“Have you ever been in love, Reno?” Cloud asked coolly.

 

Reno was silent for a long time before he answered. He sipped his over sweetened coffee and rummaged through the inside pockets of his jacket until he produced a rather crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Well…That's kind of a loaded question, don't you think?”

 

That caught Cloud almost completely off guard. He'd so expected that Reno would laugh and say that of course he'd never been in love or that he didn't even believe in love. Cloud managed to recover his shock and even shrug nonchalantly, “Not really, you either know the feeling of you don't.”

 

“Yeah, thought you'd say something like that,” Reno chuckled. “Listen, I don't know if I've been in love or what. I know I've been fond of and liked people, but love…I've never really understood that term.”

 

Cloud relaxed a little; that response had been a bit more like he'd expected. “If you don't understand it then don't lecture me about getting over Aeris. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget her.”

 

“Okay fine,” Reno nodded, “but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy yourself with someone else.”

 

Before Cloud could argue that point, Reno stood up and pulled a few rumpled bills out of his pants pocket and threw them onto the table. He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and exhaled a long stream of pungent grey smoke. “Well whatever,” Reno shook his head, “I've gotta go. I'm technically still on the clock and Tseng will have my head if I don't check in soon. See you `round.”

 

“Hm,” Cloud nodded, somehow both disappointed and relieved to see him go. The strange, contrasting feelings of fondness and loathing were becoming associated with Reno more and more often these days. It was profoundly vexing and just another thing Cloud didn't want to think about. Unlike all the other things he was avoiding, Reno was not so easily ignored.

 

“Oi Strife!” Reno called from the door before leaving, causing Cloud to turn to look at him, “You'll think about what I said, right?”

 

Cloud turned away coldly and scowled slightly. Yeah right, He thought, but it stayed with him anyway.

 

 ~*~*~*~*~

 

 

Reno had a wealth of bad habits. He smoked too much, drank even more than he smoked, had a vocabulary filthy enough to make a whore blush, and didn't seem to know the meaning of an honest, committed relationship. Even still, the advice he'd given Cloud in Kalm's tavern returned to him time and again.

 

It led him to seek comfort in Tifa for a time, but in the end even that didn't work out. The love was there but the desire was problematic. Somewhere along the line, it had just disappeared between them.

 

After a few weeks of trying to be the lovers everyone assumed that they were, Tifa had let him down gently. One could have love without sex and sex without love, but there didn't seem to be a grey area that Cloud could find.

 

It became just one more thing for Cloud to regret.

 

What the hell was wrong with him if he had actually considered Reno's stupid advice, anyway?

 

When The Turk called him for yet another vaguely clandestine job, Cloud kept him on the line just a bit longer than usual.

 

“You were wrong, you know,” Cloud told him as he leaned against Fenrir and stared out into the ocean's horizon. His most recent delivery had been to Wutai, and Cid would be picking him up in a few hours in order to take him back to the main land.

 

“What?” Reno replied through the faint hiss of a shitty connection. Getting a clear signal on Wutai was often spotty at best.

 

“What you said about…'enjoying yourself with someone'…It was wrong.”

 

He heard Reno chuckle, “Really? You tried to get yourself a bit of action, yo? Good for you. How'd it work out?”

 

“It's like I said: It didn't. I tried with Tifa and it just…completely blew up in our faces,” Cloud explained haltingly, finding it odd to be confessing this to Reno.

 

“Too much history?” Much to Cloud's surprise, The Turk seemed genuinely interested. Just another piece of information, Reno's favourite coin of trade, he supposed.

 

“Not exactly,” Cloud replied softly, “I guess…” He trailed off, not wanting to open up and be vulnerable to anyone much less a former adversary. “She wasn't what I wanted.”

 

“Yeah, that happens,” Reno said and Cloud for some reason imagined him nodding sagely as he spoke, “but that doesn't mean I was wrong, yo. It's like you were trying to make things too complicated for yourself.”

 

Sad but true, Cloud admitted silently.

 

“Well, whatever,” He felt his lips twist bitterly. Why the hell was he bothering with sex and desire (or lack thereof) when he was always so busy? Cloud had more important things to worry about. “I'll call you when I get back to Midgar.”

 

 

TBC….