O My Lord Valentine!
--Chapter Fourteen
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy. If I did, there'd be a scene with Rufus naked in a birthday cake.
Warnings in this Chapter: Nuts.
Author Note: Hope you enjoyed chapter thirteen (which, I just noticed, was Red XIII's best chapter. Get it? Thirteen? Red Thirteen? Cool.) I had expected thirteen to be the last chapter, but I went and threw in Red's whole issue, so that makes it a lot more fun. Enjoy!
"I hate my life I hate my life I hate my life—"
"It's okay, Lord Valentine! I've got the cashews!" Reno burst into the cockpit with a jar full of cashews and a song in his heart, leaping right past Vincent, who was huddled on the floor, seeking Gaea's fluorescent green plumage for warmth and security.
"I hate cashews I hate cashews I—what the hell are the cashews for?"
"There're never enough cashews in the trail mix at that shop in Cosmo Canyon, y'know? So I always bring my own, but I didn't think I'd have 'em 'cause I keep them in the 'copter, but I stashed some in my coat for good measure."
Vincent unfolded himself from his spot on the floor, disinterested. "An entire jar."
"Mm-hmm!" Reno held up his jar of cashews, looking very pleased with himself.
"Of cashews."
"They're so good. They're like nutty orgasms—"
"NEVER SAY THAT AGAIN!"
Red returned to the cockpit with a devious smile on his face, the feather in his headdress standing straight up in a rather peculiar way as he noticed another Turk-on-Turk battle unfolding. "My, but don't they do the work themselves…"
"It's my own recipe, really." Reno's customary grin widened; it'd become so easy to pick on ol' Vinny. "You haven't lived until you've had Reno's Cosmo Nuts. They're soooo—"
"You'rea nut." Vincent stood up, brushed off his red cloak, then pointed at Red. "And you're a nut." Then he raised both arms as if to declare surrender. "The whole world is nuts!"
"My nuts are better."
"Ahem." Red ambled further into the cockpit, gesturing a quick hello to the chocobo keeper, nodding to the crew on his right. "As predetermined, our plan is to return to Cosmo Canyon—"
"With yummy nuts—"
"—ever so slowly lead the team into our hiding place—"
"With a trail of nuts—"
"And then," his voice climbed higher and louder, anticipation bubbling in his chest, "when tension's strung high, when all is said and done, when everyone's in place and the stage is set, then…THEN, Vincent Valentine, Reno and I shall be your demise—"
"He's so eloquent," Reno sobbed.
"We shall bring about your doom in the most humiliating, most horrific way possible…the only way I know how to fully avenge that…Moogle lunchbox…"
"It's awful, Red."
"I know."
Then Reno and Red hugged, and Red sobbed, and Reno pretended to be sobbing, though Vincent saw it obvious that he was actually snickering, deeply entertained by the dramatic narration and extreme words of Nanaki.
Vincent shook his head. Home in my coffin, home in my coffin… "What are you going to do to me?"
The sobbing hushed. The snickering cut short. Reno and Red, in one fluid motion, turned and glared in his direction.
"What shall we do?" said Reno.
"What shall we do?" said Red.
Then silence. Then Reno asked, "What shall we do?" He grinned at Red, and Red, hestitantly, as if reading Reno's mind, smiled in reply.
Two hours seceded fast like an autumn leaf from a tree, and Cloud sat nestled between his lovely flocks of weary chocobos, feeling their pain. He especially cared for poor choco Dasher, mangled and worn from lugging the intense weight of Barret around for three agonizing hours. "It's okay Dasher, I'll never let him hurt you again." He stroked Dasher's garbled head.
"Wark…wark-wark wark war-wark…" ("I…I feel so abused…")
"Wark wark. Waaark." ("Don't cry. Be strong.")
Tifa shielded her eyes from the sun with her glove-clad hand, squinting up into the rustic red canyon. "They've been here," she announced. "Maybe for quite some time."
"How d'ya know?" Cid asked her.
"Reno's been putting different fuel in the ship since he got here. Didn't you know that?"
"N…Yeah. Yeah, I knew!"
"Smells like ramen," Cait concluded.
Tifa shrugged. "I think it is ramen…"
"Where do ya think Reno went wit' him?" Barret said. "Maybe the cave? I can see him gettin' it on in a cave, the lil' monster fag—"
"You callin' Vinny a monster?" Cid yanked his spear out of the ground.
"Nah, he's the vampire. I'm talkin' about Reno."
"Aw. Okay."
"ANYWAY, we need to find them." Cloud gave Dasher a kiss on the head (out of eyesight from the others, of course) and stood into his best Hero stance. "This is crucial. Vincent and Red are valuable members of the team, and no matter what they're doing on that ship, it's imperative that they stop and return to the group."
"It's imperative!" Cid said.
"Like you know what that means…I feel like what I'm about to say is cliché, somehow, but I can't put my finger on why, so I'm going to go ahead and say, Let's split up, gang!"
"Elena." Rude stood over a pile of tarnished rock, peering down into the crevices through his dark shades. "Elena, come look at this."
"What'd you find?" Elena crept up behind him, peering over his shoulder. When he saw what Rude had found, she sprang back and said, "Oh my God! You know what this means?"
"This could prove more complicated than we thought..."
"No, no, Rude, you don't understand!" Elena started to pace across the rocks, cutting through the thick clouds surrounding the canyon as she wandered back and forth. "That's his joke jar; he left the good one in the copter!"
"'Joke jar'?"
"We can't let him feed them to anyone!"
"Why not?"
"Oh Rude, you don't wanna know!" She grabbed Rude by his clean lapel and pulled him away on a frantic race for Reno, leaving the strangely-colored cashews in the dirt.
"Aw, nuts." Reno complained as he entered the cockpit with a fresh batch of doctored trail mix. "I dropped one."
A/N: You guys, I'm so sorry for the long absence, and then I go and give you guys a freakishly short chapter. But I have an excuse. There's been a pretty big--and ongoing--tragedy in my family. It's caused us all to change our lives, lifestyles; I've had to move; I haven't had nearly the same amount of free time I had back in Ohio, what with community college and whatnot...but hey, I don't wanna bring down the fun atmosphere of this story, I'm just apologizing for the extended absence. THANK YOU SO MUCH for your kind reviews, and C2s. I've never been on one of those before! Yay! You guys make me wanna explode with love and happiness and kittens. Thanks, guys! And I'm taking a couple of writing classes in community college so I'll have no excuse to keep from writing this some more...