For the Sacred and Profane,

a wish

"Hands off her, you puny brat!" Elena pulled Tifa away from Yuffie.

"No, you let go, Barbie!" Yuffie grabbed Tifa's free hand and squeezed it. She had no intention to let her go.

"She's mine!"

"I saw her first!"

"Tripped over the lamp!"

"Don't be such an ass!"

Elena gasped. Nobody had ever called her an ass. She had been called from bimbo to hobo (even when she isn't one herself but never an ass). "Say that to my face, you … you shortass!"

The girls were getting more spiteful. Yuffie thought for a while. "Easy."

Elena growled under her breath. "Spare part."

"Hey, I'm NOT!" Yuffie opened her mouth and paused. "Virgin," Yuffie said at last, crossing her arms in victory as she grinned. Elena couldn't think of a comeback. She tugged Tifa's arm closer to her.

"I-I am not a virgin!" she panicked.

Yuffie stared open-mouthed at her. "You're not?" she asked, laughing and she choked on dust within seconds. Elena buried her face in her hands. "You're a bad girl, Elena."

"I'm not—I mean … oogh! You tricked me!" Elena balled her fists stomped her feet as she made herself fall, having her heels buried in the sand. "Owie …"

"Stop this, you two. I thought I have made it clear that the first person whom I saw is my master," Tifa sighed in frustration as she curled her hair in a smoky finger.

Yes, Tifa the genie had eyes for one. That one was a mortal man who seemed too keen on getting away from the small, uninhabited island. What he didn't know was he had the power to do so. Not yet, anyways. It was the girls who had 'stumbled upon' Tifa. One claimed to have seen her first and the other who accidentally tripped over the lamp.

It wasn't the blond she saw first. It wasn't the spunky brunette either. For as soon as she emerged from the other dimension, she looked to her left and saw him, topless, showing his firm muscles as he tried to push an unmoving, broken plane. Reno, whom she was currently infatuated with – the sexy man, with the sexy voice and the oh-so-sexy hair that totally appeals to her. If she were to see the petite woman first, she'd classify her as cute and if it's the blond, pretty.

Even a genie has wants.

She approached him, who was still next to the plane, and gave him one of her best smiles. "Hi."

Reno stopped kicking the half buried fuselage. "Huh? Oh. Your plane crashed here too?"

Tifa could feel an imaginary anvil drop to her head. Plane? When she explained she was a genie to the two girls, they reacted instantly from pinching each others' cheeks to accusing themselves of hallucinating. Reno could be difficult to convince. She tried it anyway. "No, I'm a genie."

"Heh? Whatever."

Tifa huffed, displeased.

" 'sokay, Tifa." Elena patted Tifa's back. "That's the good ol' Reno being an asshole again."

"Tifa, get me home! I don't want to die starving, or as a turkey for those two!"

"Shut up, you two. I'm thinking here. We need to get away," Reno said, examining the plane.

"You're not doing anything, I see. C'mon, where's that Turkiness in you? Unleash it!" Yuffie tossed some random dry cones to him on and on. Elena on the other hand, still held onto the lamp.

"Reno, give me all your rights as master of the genie!" she demanded.

Yuffie sat on the broken left wing and swung her legs. "I wanna go home! I wanna eat!"

"Reno, Reno, Reno, genie, genie, genie, Tifa, Tifa, Tifa—"

"If you're thinking, think some more, you moron!"

"For the love of Ifrit, quit yelling, will ya?" Reno told them.

"I want candy!"

"What? Reno, I wanna have Tifa!"

"Caaandyyy! Pleeeease?" Yuffie continued to whine about her wants.

"Tifaaa," Elena wailed. "—for breakfast, lunch, dinner, bed, anytime anywhere and—"

"The hell…" Reno muttered miserably, pinching the bridge of his nose as he let Elena drone on. He tried to get his sanity intact and so far, so good. How they would get away from that wretched island, he hoped he knew.

They were flying one of Rufus' private jets when Yuffie suddenly declared she wanted to try pilot the metallic beast. There were some restricted access to the controls and she had decided to have a spree, pressing random keys at the same time. Then all hell breaks loose. The plane suddenly went to a defense mechanism and everything got locked right in the middle of flight. To make matters worst, Elena had panicked and one of the keys got stuck to her jacket, turning off the right wing and down came the plane, passengers and all.

He'd try calling Tseng or Rude. The communications should work. He had sent a distress signal to the headquarters. At least the new girl was cooperative and wasn't that noisy. "Do you have any idea how to shut them up?" he asked, pressing some buttons.

Tifa shrugged. "You could start by telling me to do it."

"Still saying you're a genie, huh?"

"Try me."

"Then I wish Yuffie's a parrot –"

Yuffie started singing loudly off-tune, still about her wants.

"Gods, she starts singing, and…" Reno muttered, glancing at Elena. She had broken a twig from a dying plant and was squatting next to a small, flat piece of land. She then doodled a lamp, sighing.

"You know, Reno, if you give me the ownership of Tifa, I'd live happily ever after," Elena said, fuming. The twig snapped and in a mixture of anger and depression, she threw the pieces to Reno and one of them got stuck in his hair.

"Ouch."

Elena stared. "You don't listen don't you?"

"Quit starin'," he yelled. "Tut. And Laney's a monkey."

"Your wish is my command," Tifa sang in glee, for Reno had commanded her to do something.

Poof! A squawk sounded right above them and screeches came from Elena's spot. "Polly wants a cracker, Poll—Yuffie wants a candy," Yuffie – the multicolored bird above flew in circles said. "—Yuffie wants a candy, Yuffie wants a candy."

A golden haired monkey screamed something almost like a 'Geronimooo' and vaulted off her spot and landed with a thud on Reno's back as she danced around. Tifa laughed with the parrot while Reno struggled to get the monkey off. She was tugging Reno's ponytail now.

"Damn, I must be going nuts…" Reno managed, pushing himself off the ground with the monkey still latched to him.

"CANDYYYY," parrot-Yuffie yelled.

"I wish you'd stop yelling, dammit," Reno muttered. With a wave from Tifa, Yuffie stopped yelling for candy and squawked instead. His patience was wearing thin and he finally exploded when Yuffie threw herself to his head, making a nest-like mess out of it. "Alright, that's it! I wish you're back to where you came from!" he yelled.

Wrong move.

The two animals changed back to their former bodies, actually adding burden to Reno's aching back and disappeared moments after. "Phew," he sighed. "You're right, genie."

"Yay, so you believe me now?" Tifa asked.

"U-huh, so what do I have left?"

Tifa shook her head. "You used everything up."

"What?"

"And it's my turn now," Tifa giggled and smoke enveloped Reno as he was sucked into a vortex, to the lamp, with Tifa.

No one heard his cries.

-- -- --

"And so, the genie and her captive made love for eternity. The end," Reno read out loud and shut the book as he walked away from the kids.

Denzel and Marlene both wore blank expressions on their faces, blinking. "Ah…" they both said. Denzel wasn't really interested in bedtime stories but Marlene's persistent pleas which made Reno get the job done for the night sounds interesting to him. He'd never seen the Turk done a serious babysitting job before. It turned out his story was just like that.

"But Reno, the man didn't want to. Isn't it sad?" Marlene asked.

Reno shrugged, "Oh, he'll learn to like it. Nobody could get away from that."

"Yeah, right. Seriously, you're bad, Reno." Denzel huffed, still sitting cross-legged with his chin on his palms. "I'd modify the ending to something else."

"Like what?" Marlene hopped over to his bed and sat, waiting.

Denzel shrugged. "The genie tortures him because she didn't get to be free. She'll use the rack or an iron maiden for that—"

"What's an iron maiden?" Marlene asked him.

"It's where you are pushed into a wardrobe and get stabbed. Lotsa times. And die looking ugly with blood all over," he said, grinning, and threw his pillow over to her. Marlene yelped in fright and jumped off, running to Reno and tugged his sleeve. Reno was checking some of the books on the shelves when she did that.

"Wha- Anything wrong, Marlene?" he asked.

"Reno, Reno, Denzel's being an asshole again!"

"Marlene," an older female voice said in a stern voice from the doorway. "Don't use that word." She was done cleaning up the bar and was going to check the two whether they stayed in bed or not when she heard Marlene's voice.

"Tifa! You're here!" Marlene ran to her. "But Reno uses it earlier in the storybook … "

"What story … book?" Tifa shot Reno. She had made sure the kids' shelves were free from anything that might corrupt them. Reno coughed before clearing his throat.

"Aladdin!" Marlene answered gleefully and returned to her bed after receiving a hug from Tifa. "With Iago and Abu!"

Denzel sighed heavily as he let his weight pull him rearward. "That's his version of Aladdin," he said flatly. Tifa narrowed her eyes at Reno. He was grinning like anything, waving an 'Aladdin' book in his hand. His version. That explains it, Tifa thought as she began tucking them both in bed. "Tifa?" he asked.

"Yes?"

Denzel sat back up. "I wanna hear your version of the story."

"You have one story already."

"One more, please?" both of them asked with practiced innocent looks. Tifa smiled. She would never refuse them when they look like that. She sat on her favorite chair beside the beds, closer to Marlene's.

"Yes, I will. Only if Mr. Reno there stays to the end of my story," she said, patting the chair nest to hers. The two kids looked at him expectantly.

"Whatever you say, highness," he breathed and sat beside her.

Tifa had skills to improvise and mix elements of entertainment in her story. She had managed to make Denzel say 'wow' for 6 times and laugh for who knows how much. Marlene on the other hand, she keeps interjecting her yet she was on full concentration to everything Tifa said. Reno was purely impressed by that. Even he felt like he was in an Alice-in-Wonderland world as he imagined everything in his head.

After making sure the kids were in bed, Tifa closed the door quietly and turned to the redheaded Turk who was tiptoeing to the exit. She cleared her throat as she slowly descended down the stairs. Reno stopped.

"Shortass. And a lot more, if I'm correct." she said, with her chin in between her thumb and forefinger.

"What?" Reno asked in bewilderment as he turned to her. That was unexpected. "You were listening, babe?"

"Some parts," she admitted, laughing. "I'm serious here, though. What else have you been teaching them?"

Reno laughed nervously as he felt for the tie that never was there. That stare she was giving him was making him choke. "New … words and their variations?"

"Reno, they're still kids."

"Growing. Marlene will find out Santa doesn't exist. But I did my part, right? C'mon, where's my present?"

"Santa doesn't exist? Who's the one dressing up as one last year?" Tifa laughed when Reno pouted suddenly, recalling a piece of memory in his head. "Ehem. What present?"

Reno raised his head up, smirking. "One that makes me dream of you every night, of course."

"Right. I'm not Sant –ah!" Reno lifted her from behind before turning around. "Put me down, Reno," she hissed. It was after a few more bear hugs he released his hold on her.

"I might have to force it out of you, Tifa Lockhart. Reno doesn't like to do things in vain."

Tifa turned around to face him, grinning. "Who are you and what have you done to my Reno?"

"I'm a genie and I'll eat you alive."

Tifa slipped from his arms and leapt up to a table. "Oh, no you won't—"

"I have a wish," a voice interrupted them.

The two of them stopped whatever they were doing. "Denzel, what are you doing – still up?" asked Reno, growled almost, through his teeth.

"I'd like to say the same thing to you, still monkeying around," Denzel retorted, narrowing his eyes.

Reno held up both his hands in defense. "I'm worshiping her, don'cha see?" He made a few weird gestures to Tifa – waves, fanning her and twirling around her as she got off the table. "So, 'sup?"

"One more story? I want horror."

"Is that a challenge? Won't you be scared shitless by a horror story? 'sides, aren't you old for that?"

"Anything coming from you won't be. Tifa, can you do it?"

"Yes, third one's the last time. It's past midnight – wait, did you say horror?" Tifa groaned inwardly and flashed Reno her best pretty please looks. Horror wasn't her forte. "Reno, help me?"

Reno took it as his cue. "Your wish is my command, sweetness," he said, wrapping an arm around Tifa, mouthing 'spoilsport' behind her to Denzel, who grinned smugly from a distance. "Let's start with the one who burps, shall we? I think there's a movie or a game on that. Was it Ju-On?"

I own nothing. Not even Ju-On. Or Aladdin. Enjoy. I think I got this done on a whim. _ I am not amused though. Sorry for the extreme lateness and half-half. The issue with my pen drive... and hey~ I finally got my driver's/driving license! YEYftw. (Which explains my happiness forgetting about homeandeverythinginit for a while XD)