tampered | Log; Ongoing

Log; Ongoing

When: The night of Tuesday, 11 March.
Rating: PG-13 for Yuffie's mouth
Characters: Yuffie

urbandev
Summary: Yuffie, Reeve, and being new to the City.
Log;

Dark had fallen, so the carousel and fountain were awash in lights. Despite the sun's absence, the night was warm, even pleasant. She could feel the plaza's every cobblestone under her feet as she dropped from a swift, desperate run into a more leisurely jog and then into a rather quick stroll.

She ignored the scared and smiling people around her, ignored the brightly lit shops and the sparkle of water arcing through the night. She was on a mission! Her boss was around and probably freaking out--not that she was helping, she was forced admit aloud--and she needed to find him. The rest of the world could fuck off.

She caught sight of Reeve and laughed, waving her arms in a wild, too-large arc over her head. "Reeve! I'm over here!"

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Reeve was making a thorough study of his fingernails, mostly because Yuffie had told him, very emphatically, not to look at the fountain and right now he wasn't sure what else was safe to look at. Because, now that she'd said not to, he was aware that he really, really wanted to look at the fountain.

Or that the fountain really, really wanted him to look at it. At the moment, he wasn't ruling anything out.

The sound of his name made him look up. He couldn't help smiling at the sight of the young Ninja barreling towards him. He waved his hands in return, and sent up a small, private hope that she didn't tumble into the fountain before she reached him.

Yuffie's smile grew wider, stretched into the trademark Kisaragi manic grin. She picked up the pace to a run, dodging in between people, and flung herself directly at the Commissioner. Her arms closed around him in a tight hug.

"You have no idea how good it is to see you!" She told him, then let go so she could clap her hands over her mouth. "Yeah, uh, I didn't mean to say that. Oh god I am totally embarrassing myself! C'mon shutupshutupshutup...!"

She crammed her fingers into her mouth and earned a few moments of reprieve. "Uhm, okay, have you read that guide I linked you to? That'll probably explain way more than I ever could."

Reeve stumbled back a few steps, but he couldn't not catch the girl, she wasn't giving him that option. After a moment, he relaxed and smiled into her hair, returning the hug.

"I'm glad to see you too, Princess," he said. "And I did read the guide, than you, it was very helpful." Even if that man who wrote it looked rather deranged, he silently added, grateful that he, at least, had the ability to keep his private thoughts... well, private. "I think I know a little of what's going on," he said, picking his way carefully through the conversation's landmines. "There are 'curses', which are imposed by 'deities' and are rather like status ailments. And this one makes you say -- or write -- everything you're thinking. Am I close?"

Yuffie winked at him, feeling the urge to snicker. "Give the man a prize!" At the escape of her first response from her mouth, she shoved her hands in her pockets. "Yeah, you're pretty much right on the money."

This place took some getting used to. She moved forward and looked at the dazzling lights of the fountain, but never let her eyes fall toward the pool of water. She'd been down that road before. "They say what you see in this thing could be a lie. I hope so." She shook herself, turned back to him and reached for his arm. "C'mon. Let's get you something else to look at. And I could use some dinner."

"I'm going to want to kill you before this stops, aren't I?" Reeve muttered. "Although it is kind of refreshing to see your self interest right out there undisguised." Reeve wasn't cursed, he was just naturally blunt. Or he had a death wish, both were possible.

"I didn't look because you told me not to --" he hesitated, glancing back at the fountain, but not into it. "What do you mean? What did it show you? And what happened this week?"

"Screw you," she said, but without any heat in her voice. In fact, she sounded almost tired. "Hope he doesn't think I meant that. It's been a long damn day, okay?"

She moved forward, toward the white and gold sign of Angelo Amore. Sounded like something from Costa Del Sol, and Del Sol food was her favourite apart from Wutaian. It was filling, it was tasty, it was just as comforting as Wutaian.

"Dude, totally don't want to discuss this on an empty stomach. Oh, boy. I'm going to need large amounts of comfort foods, seriously. And probably a shitton of chocolate eventually. And to kill that kid. Let's stop there, eh?" She pointed at the restaurant.

On impulse, Reeve slipped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. "Sure, wherever you want to eat, Princess." His mouth twisted. "It's not like I'd know where to go, anyway."

He allowed the girl to tug him towards the restaurant, his own feet scuffing in the dirt. "But if you're going to be cryptic, you at least have to tell me where we are. And how you got here. I thought you were with me in Junon but you've been here longer than me...?"

As an afterthought, he asked, "What kid?"

Yuffie bit down hard on her tongue to keep from saying anything when he hugged her. For once, her private thoughts stayed private.

"Didn't I tell you? I could've sworn I told him. Oh well. We're in the City. It's between worlds and can take people from different times. That's pretty much all we know about it. Currently, we're in a place called Misery Square. It's the central plaza."

She ducked inside the building. It wasn't particularly crowded, probably because it was a Tuesday night. They were rather quickly shown to a table. She flopped into a chair, rested her elbows on the table, and put her chin in her hands. "The kid can wait. Okay, the last thing I remember is being in Junon. I kicked open a door and walked into a desert. That's how I got here."

She fell quiet for a while, took a sip of the water the waiter provided. "You gotta understand, it takes us from different times. I met Zack Fair, but he doesn't remember Sephiroth's brush with batshit. And there WAS an Aeris here a while back. And a Vincent."

Reeve bit down on his instinctive urge to grill her about Vincent. Then what she was telling him sunk in. Aeris. Zack Fair. Dead people up and walking around and fountains that lied to you -- he still wanted an answer for that -- and curses.

He opted for the safer route, instead. "Just like that? A door into the desert, and... you were here?"

"Yeah. I guess that's why I like Kingdom of Sand so much. I keep thinking that if I can go there I might be able to kick the door to Gaia back open. That's pretty much all it takes. Some people die in their worlds and come here, others do pretty much what I did. Point is, it gets us here."

She took a long pull of water, draining her glass almost halfway in a most anti-princess display of mannerlessness. Compounding her apparent lack of taste, perhaps consciously, perhaps not, she began chewing on several ice cubes. Loudly.

But eventually the glass was back on the table and the ice had been swallowed. "I made a really dumb mistake. Some creepy kid said she wanted to play pictures, and I said okay. I woke up the next day with a hand-shaped burn on my arm and a hangover." She paused, but the curse made her mouth open again to say: "I was, uh, kind of delusional--like, believed Nero was still around kind of delusional--and then I hallucinated some of the shit that happened in the Deepground incident."

She stopped still. She hadn't wanted to tell him that. Her hands flew to her mouth to keep herself from saying anything else, but she soon thought better of it. If she was going to tell him, why not just tell him the whole truth in one go?

"The crazy didn't exactly go away, either," she admitted. "This is my seventh day in a row. I watched my mom die again today, but I'm still kind of numb from the whole week."

"Die." Reeve pressed his lips together and filed that information away to ponder later, then concentrated on what the girl was saying.

The first part wasn't so offensive-- it was on the tip of Reeve's tongue to say, 'well, now you know how it feels to wake up with a hangover and no materia,' but then Yuffie continued speaking. His mouth snapped closed.

"I'm sorry, Princess. That's awful..." he couldn't think of anything else to say. It was all too much.

She forced herself to wave her hand, to wave it off like it was nothing. She was Yuffie Kisaragi, crazy ninja, the Director of Intelligence who had been known to do scary things like create a "penalty tranq gun". Nothing dragged her down! At least, not for long.

"I'm mostly numb right now anyway. I might feel something later, but right now... eh. And I like that just fine. Does that make me a bad person?"

Reeve coughed, deciding it was probably a rhetorical question. "Why don't we order?" he asked, handing her a menu. "Some food will probably help both of us."

Yuffie accepted the menu and opened it, biting down on her lower lip to keep from asking who would pay. It would probably be her, anyway, as she was the one with the City money.

"Which do you think sounds better? The alfredo penne with chicken, or the three-cheese lasagna? Dude, did you know, if yaks could talk, they could never say the word lasagna?"

She bit down on her lip again and then waggled her eyebrows, rolling her eyes at herself.

"Sorry about that. We are totally having tiramisu for dessert, by the way. And, uh, was there anything else you wanted to know?"

Reeve looked sheepish smiling. "Either is fine with me.... I don't suppose they accept gil?" He chose to ignore her comment about Yaks, because... ell, that was what one did with Yuffie.

"Nothing in particular. I'm sure more will occur to me the longer I stay here, but...." He pressed his lips together and shrugged. "I'll get the penne, if you want the lasagna."

"Nope! This'll probably be about six Oranges, also known as a Yellow and an Orange." She blinked. "That probably sounded totally crazy. But that's how the stupid money system works here."

She put her hands over her mouth again and blushed vivid red, furious at the stupid City. Stupid, stupid curse! It wasn't fair!

At Reeve's comment about the penne, she snickered. "I eat off your plate often enough at work, why not here, eh? Thanks. Well, I guess it sounds like a plan."

"I'll pay you back as soon..." he shrugged. "I know the guide mentioned something about finding work. I suppose I should be able to. Maybe people need machines fixed or something."

He smirked, shaking his head. "I prefer to think of it as sharing, but if you insist." He placed their orders when the waitress came over, adding a coffee for himself. What? It had been a long day!

"Good idea. Uh, have you thought about a place to stay yet? 'Cos I totally have a spare room if you need a place to crash."

She asked for coffee as well. She thought of it as a necessary evil, but the only way to start liking it would be to drink it more often.

"I haven't even thought about work yet. Then again," she chuckled, "I don't really have to. For now."

A place to live. Shit. Reeve smiled his thanks to the waitress like she was bringing his first born child and curled himself around the mug. "I guess I should look into that. If you don't mind me sleeping on your floor for a few days." He looked into the surface of his coffee, stealing another sip. "I don't want to know how you're making money, do I?"

She smirked and shook her head. "Probably not. I'll find something, though, eventually. You know. Something not crazy."

Yuffie added cream and two sugars to her coffee. Anything else and she felt like a girl.

"By the way, no need to sleep on my floor. Seriously, I have a spare room AND a couch." A saucy grin. "Two words: pre-furbished apartment."

"I'm sure," Reeve muttered into his coffee, banging his teeth against the ceramic mug. He grimaced and took another sip. "That sounds like a better option than the floor," he admitted. "I'm old. I don't think it would be good for my back." He shrugged, taking another sip. "Any roommates?"

"Pffft," she said. "You're not old! People can't call you old until, you know, you're all geriatric and crap. I think so, anyway."

She took a sip of coffee, suppressing a grimace at the taste, and added, "I've offered some space to another new kid, Cadman, but I don't think she'll hang around for long."

"That's slightly reassuring." He was very, very glad when the waitress brought their food. Yes. Thank you, Miss Waitress, for diffusing this Very Uncomfortable Conversation. He made a non-committal noise and concentrated on his penne.

"Is the implication there that I will hang around? I assure you, I have no intentions of being a bum."

She snickered and gleefully accepted her plate, thanking the waitress automatically. Only one of the fine social niceties she'd learned from working alongside AVALANCHE. "Ahahaha, so you'll pay towards rent? Works for me."

Reeve sighed, taking a careful bite of his food -- he wanted at least a little before it was inevitably ninja-ed away. "Not exactly what I was implying. If I'm there too long, however, of course I will."

The guide had said that damnable clock was silenced when you were with other people, and he hadn't heard it since he'd first found Yuffie by the fountain. Maybe a roommate was a good idea. Or a pet. He half wondered if a Cait Sith would do the trick.

"Pffft. Roommates keep the ticking at bay. And I totally wouldn't mind." She projected a cavalier attitude about the ticking, but the truth was, it bothered her. It even found its way into her dreams. "C'mon, Reeve, we both practically lived at the office anyway. Not like it'd be much different."

She watched Reeve eat and elected to let him eat at least half his plate before she made a move for the penne. He'd obviously had a shitty day. She wasn't going to deprive him from food. Even if a return to routine would have been welcome for both of them.

"Come on. I'll get a couple coffee makers and a whiteboard. It'll be fun!"

"Thank you." Reeve murmured. It was surprisingly sensitive of her. "I can't say I'm a great fan of the ticking."

He smiled slightly, then watched, bemused, as she finally made her move on his territory. For a minute it could have been any of a hundred dozen lunches in the WRO cafeteria, or snagged in his office when they were working on a case.

"Coffemakers I thank you for, but why a whiteboard?" he asked.

She spooned the penne into her mouth, chewed, and grinned widely. It was awesome. And then, of course, she went for another spoonfull.

After a moment, she stared at Reeve as if the answer should have been obvious to a dead fish. "So we can discuss crackpot theories and you can design buildings and shit. Three people living in one apartment, whiteboard necessary. Haven't you ever been to college?"

Considering that she hadn't, and only knew what she did about colleges because she'd spent time impersonating a college student, only without all that wacky "going to class" shit, the queston was a bit rich. However, asking completely hypocritical questions was pretty much right up Yuffie's alley if not outright required of her, and anybody who knew her well either accepted it or just rolled their eyes. She was Yuffie. She operated on her own brand of logic that generally had nothing to do with the real world (but was frequently right anyway, at least when she wasn't Blatantly Wrong).

Reeve raised an eyebrow. "Do you want to change plates?" he asked, chasing her spoon away and spearing a piece of chicken defensively. Then he frowned, considered her statement, and decided to look past it.

"I'm not designing buildings on a whiteboard hanging off someone's door."

"It would be a full-sized useful whiteboard. We could use it as a wall to make Cadman's room or something. C'mooooooonnn, you know we need one." She grinned.

She gestured with her fork after she failed her theft. He was getting better at blocking her attempts. "Now, Reeve, you KNOW that'd be cheating."

"I don't care if it's a white board with magical powers, that's not an appropriate place to draft architectural diagrams." He kept a wary eye on her as he went for his coffee mug, keeping his fork poised to stab if she attacked.

Hmph. Yuffie made no further attempts on Reeve's penne. If there were any leftovers, she'd simply take those.

She shrugged and finished up her lasagna. "The architectural diagrams? So not the point. The point is, three people in one apartment, whiteboard required."

Another pause. "Ya know," the curse forced her to say, "I really am glad you're here."

Reeve paused slightly, taken aback by the sudden change in mood. He even decided not to press the issue about the whiteboard. And he have blushed. Just a tiny bit.

"Yeah," he said finally. "Me too."

He shrugged, pushing his bowl across the table and looking very, very hard into his coffee mug. "I'm done, finish it if you want."

"Nah, don't want it." She shook her head. But then a mischievous smile stole across her face and she stretched, tilting her head so she can look into his coffee mug, too. There was obviously something very interesting about it.

"What are you thinking, Reeve-o?"

"Nothing. Don't call me that," he replied automatically, even though it was kind of comforting. He hunched over his mug and ducked his head slightly.

"So, where do you live?" Yes, changing the subject. Changing the subject was gooooood.

"In building seven, apartment fifteen." She took a sip of coffee. "Two doors down from the Kingdom of Sand."

She stared into her coffee mug for several moments. "It reminds me of home."

Even as she said it, she winced.

He winced too, then reached over and squeezed her hand. "I'm still not entirely sure I understand this 'Kingdom of Sand.'" He said instead of commenting. "Enlighten me?"

"It's an apartment full of sand. Like, it's got a living room and a kitchen, and then it's a desert." She drained the rest of her coffee in one log, tasteless pull. "I'm ready to go if you are. We can check it out and then I can show you our digs."

"That sounds... interesting," Reeve murmured noncommittally. "Or maybe we could save the endless desert for another day? I think I've had all of planet strange I can stomach for tonight." He finished his coffee off in much the same manner, though he took a moment longer to savor it.

Yuffie shrugged. "Works for me. We can just head to the apartment. Couch is free."

Reeve smiled faintly. "Thank you again. I'll work on getting myself some furniture. And finding work, to pay rent."

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Log; Ongoing

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