Duo's First Kiss(Funny)
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Everything is better in groups. Monkeys are more fun when you have a barrel full of them; even ants can be mildly entertaining when you have a farm. So when you put together five young, strong-willed teens who have all been trained to kill, things get interesting... to say the least. Hormones may clash, tempers may flare, and lives may be endangered as battle-hardened soldiers struggle for dominance. Even the most light-hearted of scuffles can turn deathly serious.
"Move over, Aqua! Let me roast my marshmallow!"
Or not.
"No!" the blonde girl replied, as Rena continued in her futile attempt to shoulder between Aqua and Sephiroth. "It's cold, and I'm not going to let you use our campfire for that lump of -- of --" She eyed the white glob of marshmellow warily.
"It's a marshmallow. An old Nedian treat," she explained, raising the long stick that served as a makeshift skewer for her prize. "And it's gooood." She held the stick high above her head and let the melting marshmallow, in all its gooey glory, ooze slowly down into her open mouth.
Aqua's lip curled in distaste. "That's disgusting!" Aeris turned slightly green.
Rena waggled her marshmallow-laden tongue at her.
Sephiroth, who had until then been ignoring the antics of the others , reached back and yanked on Rena's ponytail, dumping her onto her back with a startled yelp and leaving only her feet in the circle.
"Ow." Black-booted feet twitched feebly. "I think I got marshmallow up my nose."
"Serves you right," Sepie said to Rena's feet. "Now be quiet."
Rena heaved herself upright, blatantly ignoring Seph's command and grumbling to herself the entire time. "Jeez, aren't you grumpy?" she muttered, rubbing her smarting scalp. "Sheesh. Wonder what it is that Cloud thinks is so special about you."
Sephiroth stiffened, his dark grey head snapping sharply toward the Nedian girl. "What did you say?" he demanded, death in both his eyes and voice. Aeris looked at the both of them worriedly.
Though common sense would have dictated that she either apologize or shut her mouth, Rena did neither, for common sense had deserted her long ago. "Cloudie. Doesn't he have a thing for you or something?"
Aggravating an already irritated person is never a good idea, especially when that person is an ace killer and sharp-shooting soldier named Sephiroth, who has been known on more than one occasion to pull a gun out of any manner of skin-tight clothing. But if anyone had ever told that to Rena Lanford, she hadn't been listening.
Anger flared in the man's eyes, and Aqua tensed, ready to move out of Sephiroth's way if he decided to attack Rena. But he apparently stifled any homocidal urges he was feeling, and instead rose and stalked into the trees that surrounded the little clearing they had set up camp in.
"Ah..." Rena began, but Sephiroth kept walking until he was well into the trees and out of sight. Rena sighed. "Touchy, touchy." She shook her head mournfully, then proceeded to pluck bits of marshmallow off her face and hair.
Cloud cleared his throat, stopping Rena in mid-pluck.
"What?" she asked. "You don't want me to go after him, do you?"
Aeris, Cloud, and Aqua looked back at her across the fire.
Rena shook her head emphatically, her hair swinging side to side. "No way. Why would I have to go get him? Just 'cause he decided to get all mad over something I said..."
Her voice faded into silence, and the others continued to look at her. "It's not like he's going to get lost or something... Just because it's a little dark... and cold..."
They blinked.
She frowned. "You don't think he's going to get cold, do you? With just that thin shirt and those shorts he wears... He might get sick... or lonely... or attacked -- aw, hell!" She ran off in the direction Sephiroth had gone.
The other pilots looked at each other. There was a long silence.
"Well, that was easy," Aeris remarked.
"Didn't think he'd be able to convince himself," Cloud commented.
* * *
"Where'd he run off to?" Rena muttered. She jogged between the trees, her hair bouncing against her back, following a curved and twisted path that she made up as she went along. Moving only in the general direction that Sephiroth had gone, she went wherever her feet took her. "Just because I said something about Cloud... Big deal," she continued, apparently not yet tired of hearing her own voice. "He has a crush on him. Big deal. Why's he bothered so much?" She frowned, and kicked a stone out of her path. "Why does he even care? What makes him so important? Just 'cause he's king of the World..."
Her expression turned pouty. "Why does that make him so special? He just follows him around all the time, yelling 'Sephiroth, save me!' and 'Sephie, come kill me!'" she mimicked in a low-pitched voice that failed to sound anything like Cloud's. "He doesn't care that I --"
A lanky figure sat at the shore of a small lake a few feet in front of her, staring out at the water.
"Sephie," Rena said, stopping short. "Oi, Sephie!" she called. The boy didn't move, and Rena walked down the gentle slope that led to the shore. "Hey, Seph."
"What do you want?" he asked, without turning around.
"Well, hello to you, too," Rena returned with exaggerated annoyance, flopping down and leaning against a nearby rock. "I just wanted to find you, see if you were okay," she explained. Sephiroth ignored her, and Rena frowned. "Hey, it's not like it was my choice or anything! The others were worried, so they made me come get you," she explained.
Sephiroth remained silent.
"Hn. You don't like talking, do you?" Rena queried.
"You seem to do enough of it for the rest of us," Sephiroth finally replied. Rena stuck her tongue out at the boy's back.
Rena blew her bangs out of her eyes, then leaned forward and peered at HSephiroth."Ne, Sephie," she said. "What are you so bothered about Cloud for?" She saw the boy's back stiffen, and bit her lip. Maybe she had gone too far.
Sephiroth's shoulders relaxed, and so did Rena. "Nothing," Sephiroth answered coolly. Rena raised an eyebrow, though Sephiroth couldn't see it. "Then why'd you run off all of a sudden?"
"I don't care about Cloud. I want to kill him, but I can't, so I don't," he replied. "That's it."
"But he's in love with you," Rena pointed out, wondering why she was arguing Cloud's case. "Doesn't that matter?" If that's what he thinks of the people who love him...
Sephiroth snorted. "He's not in love with me. Hesees me as something new and mysterious to pique his curiousity, and follows me around because he thinks it's an exciting way to escape the boring, everyday routine of a bachelor."
He had just said more words at once than Rena had thought possible for him. It's a wonder his tongue didn't cramp, she thought wonderingly. "So... that's it?" she said out loud. "You don't care about her at all?" Why was she pressing the issue so much?
"I'll protect him if I have to. What else do I need to do?"
"So you're not in love with him?" Rena asked, surprised. Why did she suddenly feel like smiling?
"No. Why should I be?"
Rena blinked wide sapphire eyes. "But... but the hero gets the girl..err..boy. That's how the story goes!" She silently congratulated herself for coming up with that clever little pun.
Sephiroth remained silent for a long time. "...And if the hero doesn't want the guy..but a girl?" he said quietly.
Rena felt her heart begin beating rapidly, and she wasn't quite sure why. "Then... Who does the hero want?"
Sephiroth turned around, focusing an intense silver gaze on Rena. The girl gulped.
Sephiroth opened his mouth, and Rena suddenly felt faint.
Lightning tore through the sky at the same time a thunderclap resounded through the air, roaring its supremacy. An instant later, rain fell from the skies, building rapidly into a torrent nearly as loud as the thunder that pounded the grass into the ground and instantly drenched the two that scrambled up the slope.
Sephiroth's mouth was moving, and Rena had the irrational notion that she was trying to finish what he had begun to say. Mentally slapping himself, she yelled, "What?"
The other shook his head that he wouldn't be able to hear. Instead, he merely pointed at a nearby group of closely clustered rocks that they could use for cover. Rena nodded and followed Sephiroth inside their makeshift shelter.
Sephiroth moved deep inside the rocks to find a place where rain couldn't seep through the branches, finally stopping at a satisfactory spot. Rena, however, remained at the edge of the rocks, her heart pounding in her throat and unable to move.
What was he going to say? He was going to say something, wasn't he? Rena thought. And what kind of lame line was, 'Who does the hero want?' She suddenly felt panicky, and her breath caught. Maybe he wasn't going to say anything. Maybe he was just telling me to shut up!
He closed her eyes, and tried not to scream out loud. She didn't turn around, not when he knew Sephiroth was standing there. She couldn't meet that piercing gaze that she could feel burning into her back. She couldn't even move; she felt too self-conscious knowing every movement she made would be followed by those eyes.
But what if...?
"Rena."
Rena tensed. Just hearing him say her name...
He's talking to you, idiot! she screamed at himself.
"Uh... Um, hai, Sephie?" she said, turning around stiffly, and regretting it as soon as he met Sepiroth's eyes.
Sephiroth stared at her for a long time, and Rena wondered wildly what he was going to say. And just keep your mouth shut for once, she pleaded silently. Whatever came out of her mouth was sure to worsen the situation.
He was opening his mouth.
He was saying...
"It's stopped raining. Didn't you notice?"
Rena blinked.
"Oh... yeah," she stammered. "Yeah, I knew. Uh... so let's go."
Sephiroth stepped past him and out of the shelter of the rocks, Rena slowly following.
As soon as they were out, Rena shook herself off, then stripped off her saturated shirt, having a tank under it. She wrang out the soaked cloth as much as she could, though she knew that it would be a long time before it dried completely. She tucked it into the waist of her pants, noting with a small amount of dismay that no part of her, not even what was covered by clothing, was left dry, not even her toes.
Sighing, she pulled her ponytail over her shoulder and tried to squeeze some of the water out of it. As she turned her head to reach the upper parts of her hair, she caught sight of Sephiroth.
Despite himself, she smiled appreciatively. Sephiroth was just pulling his shirt up, and the wet, glistening stomach muscles he revealed were quite nice, indeed. His lifelong training had been worth something, after all.
She looked up as he realized Sephiroth had caught her staring at him with a goofy grin on her face.
Rena was going to have the decency to be abashed, but then she noted that Sephiroth expression contained not only confusion, but embarassment, as well. Taking comfort in Sephiroth's discomfort, she said with an impish grin, "Takin' it all off, Heero?"
Sephiroth didn't seem to know what to do with that. His mouth worked for a while before he came up with something to say. "Turn around."
Rena's smile grew wider. "Why? Embarassed to admit it?"
"Wh-what?"
I think he's actually blushing. "It's not like it's anything I haven't seen before, you know." All her earlier uneasiness now gone, Rena was really enjoying himself.
Sephiroth suddenly realized what the loud-mouthed Nedian was trying to do. His first reaction was anger, but his second was another, less common feeling for him -- mischievousness.
Suddenly, without even checking to see if Rena had turned around, Sephiroth stripped off his shirt completely.
He heard a distinct choking sound coming from Rena's direction, and felt a surge of satisfaction.
Rena gasped. Part of her was shocked at Sephiroth's brazen action, while the other part was stuck staring at Sephiroth's bare chest, watching single droplets of water trace their way down his chiseled surface of his muscular torso. She lifted her eyes and caught Sephiroth gazing evenly back at her, the corners of his mouth raised in what threatened to become a smile.
She found herself smiling back as she realized that Sephiroth had just wordlessly joined her little game. I never knew he had it in him, she thought with distinct amusement.
"Can the hero get anyone he wants?" Sephiroth asked with a straight face.
Rena matched him stare for stare. "Maybe," was all she said in reply, refusing to give in any more. She wasn't going to let him win by fulfilling her sudden urge to kiss him, as she knew Heero would want her to. After all, he probably already had a bad enough image of Nedians in his mind because of Rena; better not to let him think they were easy, as well.
"Anyone?" Sephiroth repeated, raising an eyebrow. Rena didn't see the gesture, as her eyes were locked on Sephirth's upturned lips.
IwillnotkisshimIwillnotkisshimIwillnotkisshim.
Sephiroth smirked.
Screw her Nedian pride. She'd at least save the tongue till later.
Fin
