Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Chapter 18: The Kitchen Incident

Reno was released from the hospital after a week. By day three, he’d felt more or less okay – and by day five, he was practically bouncing off the walls – but after his reaction to the anti-toxin… and, alright, if he was being honest, the two additional times the same thing had happened afterwards… Ward didn’t seem too keen on letting him out of her sight for more than a hour or two. He knew it was for his own good. That didn’t make him hate it any less.

On the bright side, though, he had Kai for company. The senior Turk was improving quickly, and by the time Ward was ready to turn him loose on Midgar once again, Kai, too, was slated to go home soon. She was still going to be on medical restriction, however, and hadn’t even been cleared for so much as desk duty. At least Reno was allowed to go back to work… even if he wasn’t cleared for field work yet.

Rude had been in to visit him almost daily… in part to make sure the redhead was recovering, but also to express his gratitude. Apparently it had been Lira’s inquiries that had alerted Don Corneo to the fact that a Turk had been kidnapped in his territory, and led to the subsequent, and unexpected, rescue op.

Rude, too, was on somewhat restricted duty, owing to a broken thumb… but apparently that wasn’t enough to get oneself yanked out of the field. His friend had merely been instructed to keep it splinted and take it easy during training sessions.

“Ready to go home?” the bald Turk asked, grinning slightly, as he strolled into Reno’s hospital room shortly after work on Monday.

“I was ready to go home three fuckin’ days ago,” the redhead replied, scowling in the general direction of the various pieces of monitoring equipment he’d finally be unhooked from. “Thought Tseng was pickin’ me up.”

“He was… but Veld needed him for a last minute security detail. Scarlet wanted to pay a visit to the Corel reactor to see the materia production facility firsthand. He’ll be back on Wednesday. I volunteered to come spring you.”

Reno grinned widely. “Thank Ifrit. I am dyin’ to get outta here.”

“Aww… Sick of my company already, baby Turkling?” Kai snickered from across the room.

“I’d be a lot less sick of ya if you’d stop callin’ me that,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “I have a fuckin’ name, ya know. It’s Reno. Ya know… just in case you forgot, seein’ as you haven’t actually used it all week.”

Kai giggled and leaned back against her pillows. “Oh, I haven’t forgotten it. I just love how exasperated you get when I refuse to call you by it,” she teased. Reno sighed and turned to Rude.

“And everyone says I get annoyin’ when I’m in the hospital. Be glad you didn’t have to put up with this shit all fuckin’ week, pal…”

Rude chuckled, shaking his head, and glanced over at Kai.

“You gonna stop by the office tomorrow?”

She wouldn’t be working, of course… but everyone was anxious to see her back on her feet.

“Count on it!” the diminutive Turk said with a grin. “Hope all my other little Turklings are ready to get back to work. You guys better not have let ’em slack off too much…”

The redhead groaned as he headed for the door. “Kai, do you ever think about anything other than torturin’ the rookies?”

“Not if I can help it!” she called after him, laughing.

---

An hour and a half later, Reno was splayed out on his couch… in much the same position he’d been in since the moment he’d returned home. He briefly raised his head just enough to peer over the back of the piece of furniture, into his little kitchenette.

“You sure you don’t want some help?” he queried.

Rude snorted softly. “Reno… Your kitchen’s so small I barely fit on my own. I don’t think the two of us together could even move, much less cook.”

The redhead silently acknowledged the point and laid back down. “… I could just order a pizza, ya know. You don’t gotta do all this… ‘specially with your hand all fucked up.”

“You’ve been eating hospital food for a week,” Rude said, definitively, “I’m making you a decent meal, end of discussion. Besides… I went shopping specifically for this.”

“Tch… suit yourself, man,” he snickered. “But, uh… speakin’ of cooking… Raincheck on me returnin’ the favor? I still wanna do it.”

Rude grinned as he rummaged through one of the drawers in search of a spatula. “And here I thought for sure I’d escaped the threat of almost certain death by food poisoning…”

“Hey!” the younger man returned, sitting up and glaring at his friend. “I thought you were gonna let that go…”

“I said I’d let you try and redeem yourself,” he replied, smirking teasingly, “I never said I’d forget. Friday good for you?”

“Friday’s perfect. Tch… I’ll show ya,” Reno muttered in response… and then turned his attention towards the oven. “Hey… what are you makin’ me, anyway? It smells fuckin’ amazing…”

“Hanger steak with charred scallion sauce and a nice shaved fennel salad.”

Reno blinked. “What’s a fennel and why would you put somethin’ that needs shaving in a salad?”

Rude couldn’t stop the laughter that escaped from his lips as he turned to face the redhead.

“And you wonder why the thought of you cooking again scares me a little,” he sniggered, and tossed him a small white bulb with bright green, somewhat fuzzy looking, stalks growing out of the top. “That’s fennel. It’s in the carrot family.”

“Weirdest carrot I’ve ever seen,” the redhead said with a shrug, before tossing it back to the chef. He sighed quietly and shifted position so that his arms were flat on the back of the couch, chin resting on top his hands. “Man, is it ever nice to be home… I gotta tell ya, I’m really lookin’ forward to sleepin’ in my own bed tonight.”

“What? You haven’t spent enough time in bed this past week?” Rude joked. The redhead rolled his eyes.

“It’s not the same, and you know it,” he shot back. “Tch… ‘sides which… I don’t think I got a full eight hours of uninterrupted sleep the whole time I was there. Assholes insist on buggin’ ya every hour or two to make sure you’re not dead. Fuckin’ pain in the ass. Oh… hey, that reminds me… You still up for a birthday trip? ‘Cause Tseng came through and got me some extra vacation time.”

Rude glanced over at his friend and shook his head slightly. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to follow your brand of logic. How did we manage to go from fennel to hospital procedures to your birthday in under ten sentences?”

The redhead just shrugged. “Seemed perfectly reasonable to me. So… birthday trip? We said maybe Icicle Inn… ?”

“No Gold Saucer this year?” Rude teased. That had been his nineteenth birthday… and though Rude had had a good time, keeping up with his friend had proven a definite challenge. Especially once the hyperactive teen had made it to the various food vendors that populated the amusement park and overindulged in their sugar-laden fare.

“Heh… Well, I was considerin’ that, too,” he admitted, sheepishly. “I kinda want to go someplace new this year, though.”

The bald Turk snickered. “You’ve been to Icicle Inn.”

“I’m not countin’ the mission where it was snowin’ so hard I couldn’t see five feet in front of me the whole time I was there. Or the other mission where it was snowin’ so hard I couldn’t see five feet in front of me and we almost got our asses handed to us by those Zenshou guys,” the redhead grinned. “‘Sides… I didn’t get to try snowboardin’ either of those times, ‘n that’s half the reason for even going to Icicle Inn.”

Rude raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “What’s the other half?”

“All the hot chicks on the slopes who are gonna need someone to keep ’em warm after a long day of skiing…”

“Should’ve known,” Rude snickered, shaking his head before turning back to his steaks.

---

Liam stared blankly at the elevator’s control panel for a moment before he realized that, if he wanted to actually go anywhere, he was going to have to press a button. He shook his head and reached out, tapping fifty-eight. The doors began to slide shut in response.

Dear Kjata, he was tired. Monday had been… hellish. The pace of his training was starting to pick up, and sparing with Tseng in the morning had been downright brutal. So had the gauntlet in the afternoon, after Tseng had left on assignment… which Cissnei had made the rookies each run twice. And Remy had put them through almost an hour of running afterwards… and then, he’d been tapped to join her on an overnight stakeout. To make things worse, he hadn’t slept well at all when he’d finally been able to get to bed last night, in spite of being utterly spent. Consequentially, he felt like he was asleep on his feet this morning.

The elevator doors were nearly shut when an arm suddenly wedged itself in between them, forcing them open again, and a familiar figure slipped inside.

“Damn, kid… you look like the fuckin’ walking dead,” Reno said, when he caught sight of the rookie, “You feelin’ alright?”

Liam sighed, and nodded.

“Yes, sir… I had stakeout duty with Remy last night. I’m just tired,” he replied, and groaned “… so tired…”

The elevator chimed, depositing the pair on the Turks’ floor, and Reno guided the exhausted rookie out into the hallway and towards the lounge.

“Heh… come on, rookie. You need coffee.”

“… But I don’t drink coffee…” Liam replied.

“Yeah, well… I think ya need to start,” the redhead snickered, “Unless someone changed the schedule while I was out, you’re with Sato first thing today. Last thing I wanna get stuck doin’ on my first day back is scrapin’ a rookie off the walls ’cause he fell asleep before he could disarm a bomb.” He paused for a moment. “Well… actually the last thing I wanna get stuck doin’ is catchin’ up on my paperwork. But that’s probably unavoidable.”

Liam laughed quietly at the joke, as Reno deposited him on the couch in the lounge. Before he knew it, the rookie had a mug of steaming black liquid in his hands. He took a sip… and promptly gagged.

“What in the nine hells is in this?” he asked, suddenly very much awake. The redhead took an experimental sip from his own cup and grimaced.

“This is what Veld calls coffee,” he replied, in disgust, “Ugh…”

“And just what’s wrong with my coffee?” the Turk leader’s voice demanded from the doorway. Reno turned just in time to see him strolling into the room. Veld poured a cup for himself, and downed close to half of it.

“Tch… Nothin’, sir. Ya know… other than feelin’ like somethin’s eatin’ away at your stomach lining after ya drink it…”

“Hmph… Your generation has been spoiled by the infinite number of expensive coffee chains on every street corner. This is real coffee. Not some prissy little mochalatteccino or whatever it is you kids order these days,” Veld replied. He refilled his mug and turned to leave… but not before glancing back at the redhead with a slight smile. “Welcome back.”

“Heh… a better welcome woulda been coffee that doesn’t look like it’s gonna climb out of the pot and come after you, sir…” Reno jokingly called after him and Liam was almost certain he heard the senior Turk chuckle as he brushed past Remy on his way out. The redhead’s attention immediately refocused on the new arrival. “… Please tell me you’re gonna share.”

It took Liam a second to recognize what the woman was holding… and when he did, he almost laughed. Remy calmly pulled one of several large styrofoam cups from the tray and handed it over to her fellow Turk.

“Of course. You’re the whole reason I stopped on my way in this morning. I couldn’t bear the thought of subjecting you to… that… after having been in the hospital for a week. It very well might send you back, and we’re shorthanded enough with Kai still on medical leave,” she replied, and glanced over at the rookie on the couch, “And I thought Liam might need it, as well. It was a rather late night.”

The redhead blinked.

“When’d you go so soft?” he asked, suddenly grinning, “First time I got stuck on stakeout duty with you, the next day ended with you torturin’ me in a flight sim set to Impossible.”

“And you know perfectly well what you did to deserve that. I can always take that back and pour it down the sink…” the senior Turk said, warningly.

Reno shook his head, in a blatantly over-dramatic denial, clutching the cup to his chest. “No! No, I swear, I’ll be good! Just… don’t take my coffee away, Remy!”

Remy snorted softly in laughter. “Knock it off.”

She handed one of the drinks to Liam before taking her leave to, presumably, pass the remaining beverages around to the rest of the team. Liam glanced over at his superior as he sank down onto the couch next to him.

“Er… what did you do to deserve it, sir?” he queried, curious. Reno laughed, and took a drink.

“Ya know… normally, I’d be the first to tell ya… but as a general rule, I try ‘n avoid pissin’ off Remy. One hospital stay’s enough for me,” he said with a somewhat teasing grin.

---

For the rest of the week, Reno was largely tied to his desk, catching up on the paperwork he’d let pile up before his injury. Occasionally, he was given leave to help with training – usually on the firing range, or as a stalking target… things that didn’t require much in the way of physical exertion – but most of his on-duty time was spent in his office.

By Friday afternoon, he was actually looking forward to coming into work on Monday more than he was the weekend… because, with any luck, on Monday morning, Dr. Ward would officially clear him for field work, and he could go back to pointedly ignoring his stack of unfiled reports and requisition orders.

He glanced up as Rude made his way into their shared office and settled himself into his chair with a deep sigh.

“What’s up?” the redhead asked. Rude shook his head.

“Istev…”

Reno’s eyebrows went up at the mention of the name. They’d been looking for that rat bastard of a bomber for almost two years now… but every time they’d come close to finding him, he slipped through their fingers. It annoyed the ever-living crap out of the redhead that Istev still hadn’t been brought to face justice for what he’d done… but he knew that it was a lot more personal for Rude. Istev hadn’t just murdered several of his friends… he’d killed his mentor. That wasn’t something you could ever just let go.

“Lemme guess… we got a lead, and it was already too late. Again.”

Rude nodded, and Reno echoed his sigh.

“We’ll get him, Rude. Might take awhile, but one of these days, we’ll get him, and we’ll make him pay.”

“Not today, though,” Rude replied. The redhead smirked slightly.

“Nope… not today. Today you get to sample a gourmet dinner, courtesy of yours truly, instead!”

And eyebrow rose slightly behind the bald Turk’s dark glasses.

“That reminds me. I still need to give Medical a call and tell Dr. Ward to be on standby tonight…”

“Oh, ha fuckin’ ha,” Reno responded, dryly. “Just trust me. It’s gonna be great!”

“Why? Did you decide to have dinner catered instead of cooking it yourself?” the other Turk snarked. Reno folded his arms over his chest and glared at his friend.

“Ya know… I’m gettin’ just a little sick ‘n tired of everyone thinkin’ that I’m some kinda menace in the kitchen. Tseng’s cooking is way worse than mine.”

Rude finally cracked a smile and raised his hands, placatingly. “Alright… alright. I’m sorry. I said I’d give you a second chance, and I meant it. I’ll quit teasing you.”

“Good,” Reno said, his usual grin returning, “’cause I got some great plans for tonight…”

---

He really wasn’t sure what had made him think this was a good idea. Oh, sure… he’d told himself that the first time was just a fluke. The result of inexperience and a willingness to eat just about anything. A one-off tidal wave of miserable luck.

Now that it was actually happening, though, all he could think about was just how much time he’d spent in the bathroom after his last run-in with Reno’s “cooking prowess”.

But it was too late now.

Rude 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. I can manage…”

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. By the time it was finally over… and it hadn’t been completely over for nearly three days, though thankfully the vomiting had subsided comparatively quickly… he’d lost six pounds and had had to postpone his Hell Week. His friend, 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. Sort of.”

His friend stared at him somewhat incredulously for a moment. “Seriously? People eat flower buds? Weird. So anyway… flour. Not the kind that grows in a garden. 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. Rude 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?!”

With a feeling of dread, Rude shot into the kitchen, all but diving for the cabinet beneath the sink and retrieving the small extinguisher from it’s holder. But it was too late… Reno was already upending a bowl of water over the flaming pan on the stove.

The bald Turk’s eyes widened in horror as he dropped the extinguisher and yanked the smaller man back towards him. 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 tightly to his chest.

… and then unceremoniously dropped him moments later and went after the fire 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.

“Are you alright?” he asked, and Reno mutely nodded. Rude relaxed slightly before stating, in a tone that left no room for argument, “Good. You’re not allowed in my kitchen anymore.”

“… Yeah. That’s… totally fair,” Reno said, nervously, glancing around at the disaster site. “So, just so we’re clear… you’re not gonna kill me for this, right?”

To be honest, at the moment, Rude was too relieved to be angry. Well… too angry. He certainly wasn’t happy that part of his kitchen was slightly char-broiled… but ultimately, he was just glad his friend wasn’t hurt. That could have been a lot worse than it had been. At least he wouldn’t be taking Reno back to the hospital tonight.

“Kill you? No,” Rude replied, and then smirked. “But I am going to tell everyone about this on Monday. In excruciating detail. Now seriously… get the hell out of my kitchen. I mean it. You’re officially banned. For life.”

Reno groaned. “… Do ya really gotta tell everyone?”

Rude simply stared him down for a moment, and eventually the redhead sighed in resignation.

“I’ll… just go order us a pizza,” he said, slinking off into the living room.

---

“Hey…” Reno’s voice queried, in a somewhat softer than normal tone. Rude looked up from his second slice of mushroom and pepperoni. It wasn’t really his favorite food, but he had to admit… Nicky’s made a damn good pizza. The redhead had, rather surprisingly, barely made a dent in his half.

Rude sighed, and set his dinner aside for the moment.

“… I swear to Shiva, if you finish that sentence, so help me, I will find the nearest pool and throw you into it,” he said, preemptively. This was a fairly normal pattern with Reno, even after so much time. He screwed something up, silently beat himself up for it, and then hesitantly sought reassurance that the afflicted party didn’t hate him for it. Granted… it didn’t happen as often as it used to, but his friend had never quite gotten over his own deeply ingrained issues of self doubt. He still needed the occasional reminder that he didn’t need to be perfect.

The redhead snorted in faint laughter. “I’m doin’ it again, huh?”

“Yes… and it’s seriously annoying. You know better… especially with me.”

“Sorry… I just… ya know…”

Rude smirked and reached across the couch, dragging the redhead over to him and into a tight side hug… before mercilessly driving his knuckles into the younger man’s scalp.

“Ow! Cut it out, ya dick!” Reno groused, squirming in an attempt to free himself. Rude snickered and a moment later, released his now-scowling friend.

“You’re my endlessly obnoxious, pain in the ass little brother, and I love you. That’s not gonna change. Not even if you burn down my entire apartment,” Rude assured him, and then snickered, ” But… please don’t ever burn down my entire apartment.”

Reno snorted quietly, and Rude hurriedly added.

“And, yes, you’re still banned from my kitchen for life.”

~end chapter 18~