Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Interludes – Scene 19

Scene Notes: By request… This is why Reno is no longer allowed in Rude’s kitchen. This takes place after Reno’s been a Turk for a few years, but well before he’d been made second in command… probably when he was around 19 or so.

From Chapter 30: Wedding Bells:

Reno snickered. “Yeah, I’m kidding. He hasn’t gone completely off the deep end. He really is still back there, though. I can only assume he’s watchin’ their every move… Don’t dare check it out for myself. I’m not allowed to set foot in his kitchen at home anymore… and I’m pretty sure he’d throw me out here, too, if I tried it.”

Elena giggled and finally took a bite. It was pure heaven… definitely Rude’s handiwork. “Why exactly are you banned from Rude’s kitchen?”

“Uh… long story. Fire was involved. So…” the redhead continued, quickly changing subjects, “While I gotcha here, what time do you want me to pick ya up tomorrow?”

---

He really wasn’t sure what had made him think this was a good idea.

No, scratch that. He’d never thought that this was a good idea… When Reno had turned up, asking Rude to let him try cooking for him again, his first response had been a resounding and emphatic no. Unfortunately, he’d been suckered into it by the pleading look Reno had given him when he’d refused. The younger man was impossible to deny sometimes, and Rude was damn near certain he was going to regret giving in on this one. But it was too late now.

He sighed as he sat, somewhat nervously, on his couch, half-watching a rerun of last week’s Shadow & Sword. He’d intentionally set the volume low so that he could at least hear what was going on elsewhere in his apartment… The redhead had barred him from his own kitchen until he finished.

“Yo, Rude… got any more butter?” a voice called out from the other room.

An eyebrow rose slowly behind dark lenses, as he mentally cataloged the current contents of his refrigerator, wondering what the hell he meant by ‘more’. Three pounds wasn’t enough?

“… Just what’s in the fridge,” he responded, fighting the urge to go and check on his friend’s progress. Had he not explicitly promised not to ruin the surprise, he would have done just that.

“Tch… ‘kay. Nevermind, then.”

He shook his head and tried to pay attention to the show. Whatever he was making, it couldn’t possibly be as bad as last time. But then… he didn’t think anything could be as bad as the last time.

He still wasn’t entirely certain what Reno had done to him the first – and until today, the only – time he’d cooked for him, but Rude had never been more sick in his life. By the time it was finally over… and it wasn’t completely over for nearly three days, though thankfully the vomiting had subsided comparatively quickly… he’d lost six pounds. His partner, meanwhile, had been perfectly fine, in spite of having ingested at least twice the amount Rude had.

“Hey, um… what exactly are capers?” Reno asked, poking his head around the wall. Rude cringed. He’d gotten into his specialty ingredients. He really should’ve hidden those. Shiva only knew what sort of culinary havoc the man could wreak if he decided to start mixing things he didn’t even recognize into whatever the hell it was he was making.

“… They’re pickled flower buds… taste a little like green olives.”

His friend stared at him somewhat incredulously for a moment. “Seriously? … Weird. So anyway… flour. Where should I look?”

“Pantry… left side, third shelf from the bottom.”

“Thanks!” Reno said, grinning, and vanished again.

Flour was pretty safe. Surely he couldn’t do too much harm with flour and butter. Even if, for some Ifrit-forsaken reason, he decided capers would make a good addition to the dish, it wasn’t likely to poison him again. Maybe it was something simple. He prayed it was something simple.

He decided then and there that if it looked too questionable, he just wasn’t going to eat it… no matter how much Reno begged him to try it. Rude heard his blender suddenly start churning away at something, accompanied by a string of profanity, and the immediate cessation of the appliance.

“… Everything alright?”

“Uh… yeah. Everything’s fine. Not a problem. But, um… just outta curiosity, do ya think that somethin’ kinda… purplish… would stain the ceiling?”

Rude groaned and got to his feet, heading for the kitchen. The redhead, however, cut him off before he could move more than a few steps in his direction, peering around the corner again. His face was spattered with something that was indeed ‘kinda purplish’.

“No! It’s fine… I got this. You’ll never even know it happened. Just stay out there.”

Against his better judgment, Rude returned to his seat, and wondered if he was going to be repainting his kitchen in the near future. Several more minutes went by with no further sounds of mysterious disasters… and he slowly began to relax. A minor blender tsunami was hardly the worst thing that could happen. And he knew Reno would clean up the mess. He could live with it. It wasn’t that bad.

He was still telling himself that when he heard the distinct whoosh of something going up in flames. For a moment, he didn’t move, convinced that he surely must be imagining things.

“Ah, fuck!” he heard Reno exclaim from the kitchen. And then the smoke detector went off. “Uh… Rude?! Fire extinguisher?!”

Rude shot into the kitchen, all but diving for the cabinet beneath the sink. But it was too late… Reno was already upending a bowl of water over the flaming pan on the stove. The bald Turk dropped the extinguisher and yanked him back. Scarcely a split second later, the flames more than tripled in size as the water made contact with the burning oil in the pan. He fell to the floor, still clutching the redhead to his chest. He unceremoniously dropped him moments later and went after the extinguisher again, dousing the grease fire as well as the smaller fires that had spread to other parts of his kitchen. When it was out, he turned back to his friend.

Reno hadn’t dared move, seemingly waiting with a quiet sort of dread for whatever Rude was going to do to him. The Turk let the fire extinguisher fall from his hand. It hit the floor with a clatter, deafening in the silence that lingered between the two men. The redhead swallowed sharply, as Rude hauled him to his feet by the collar of his shirt and looked him dead in the eye.

“You’re not allowed in my kitchen anymore.”

~fin~