Catching Glimpses Chapter 6
Turks' Pride
By Kiyara
"A night with me is something you’ll remember all your life!"-Reno Lynley
.
Reno awoke to find someone prodding him in the side with a foot. "Hey Lynley!
Wake up!"
"Ugh…"
"C’mon Sleeping Ugly, let’s go! You’ve been sleeping for two
hours!" The person kicked him harder.
Reno figured out that he had fallen asleep on the deck of the ferry, which
was probably why he was so sore and stiff. He also figured out that it was
Dinah kicking him, and he acted accordingly. As he stood, Reno swept a leg
across the backs of her knees. Dinah went down hard.
"Don’t kick me again," Reno warned her.
Dinah pulled herself to her feet and glared. "I do what I want, bastard.
Look, we’re here, okay? I was just waking you up, though now I’m
starting to think it would have been a better idea to let you sleep and leave
you here…"
"Too late for that now, isn’t it?" Reno grinned at seeing her black
mood.
"Just come on!" Without turning to see if he was following, Dinah
moved off into the crowd of disembarking passengers.
Reno shrugged, and followed her, still grinning. Kicking her felt
good! I oughta do it again sometime… He went down the gangplank
with the other passengers, doing his best to blend in with the crowd. Dinah
was waiting for him at the bottom.
"So where is this safe house?" she asked as she fell into step beside him.
"Not here; that’s for sure," Reno replied.
"On this continent, then?"
"Yes, on this continent."
"Hmmm… Where would you go where you’d feel safe, that’s
on this continent?" Dinah mused aloud. "…Midgar! You’re from there,
right?"
"Right," Reno grumbled.
"And you work there and all of your friends are there-"
"You make it sound like there’s so many of them. There’s actually
only four."
"That’s not something to be proud of… Your few friends are
there, you live and work there, you grow up there… it’s only natural
that you would go there!" Dinah finished, looking pleased with her
reasoning.
"If you figured that out, I think our enemies would too. It’d be stupid
for me to bring you there," Reno retorted. Moving along the streets easily,
he kept to the shadows and watched the people around him with an ease born
of long practice.
"Oh. Right." Dinah was watching him too. "…Y’know, it’s really
obvious you grew up on the streets."
"Is that an insult?"
"No. Just an observation," Dinah answered, rubbing at her eyes.
"Oh."
"Where’re we going?"
"An inn that I know of that’s nearby." Reno was beginning to lose patience.
She was like a little kid with all of her observations and questions.
"Good. I haven’t slept in…well, what seems like forever.
"I really don’t care."
"God, do you have the worst mood swings!" They walked along in silence for
several minutes, Dinah swinging her jacket angrily.
Then Reno stopped in front of a large building that looked like a nuclear
war shelter. It was tall and ugly, made of thick blue-gray concrete. "Welcome
to the Hotel Turks’ Pride." Reno snickered, and held the door open for
her in a mock gesture of servility.
Dinah stomped on his foot as she smiled mock graciously at him and went inside,
leaving Reno cursing and limping after her. "You’ve got to be kidding
me about the name."
The inside was almost as ugly as the outside. It was a mix of garish, bright
furnishings and a neutral gray paint on the walls, along with a beige carpet.
A large desk was in the back of the ugly lobby, and had a revolving chair
with several books stacked on it. The desk had a computer and a little bell
of the kind that you ring to get service on its brown, flat surface.
"No, I’m not. The guy that used to own it named it that in the hope
that Shinra personnel would stay here when they came to Junon, and the new
owner just didn’t want to go through all of the paperwork that was needed
to change the name. Ironically, none of us liked the inn, and so the
hotel’s own namesakes would never stay here."
"Ha ha. Very amusing," Dinah answered sarcastically as she went up to the
front desk and rang the little bell.
A short, fat little man appeared. He was bouncing and humming to himself.
That is, until he saw Reno.
"Reno?!" he cried out. The little man groaned. "You’ve got to be kidding
me!" He slumped into his chair and against the desk. The books, apparently,
were there so he could actually see over the desk.
Reno’s mischief making grin widened. "Why if it isn’t Fat Man
Palmer!"
"Oh dear God no…" Palmer seemed to be repeating to himself.
"Uh, I take it you two know each other?" Dinah asked, looking from Reno to
the slumped man at the desk.
Reno turned to her, the grin, if possible, widening. "This is Palmer, the
ex-Shinra exec in charge of the Air and Space Department. I always used to
enjoy tormenting him." Reno snickered.
"You guys can have your little reunion later, after I go to bed. Right now,
I just want a room," Dinah replied tiredly. Then she saw the smirk on
Reno’s face begin to direct itself toward her. "I mean two rooms!"
"What, you don’t want to sleep with me?" Reno asked, a mock hurt expression
on his face.
"No way in hell!" Dinah answered sharply.
"Well fine, if you feel so strongly about it…" Reno teased.
"Yes, I do!"
"All right, all right. You don’t hafta burst my ear drum… Palmer,
we need two rooms."
"O…okay," Palmer said, seeming to recover. He typed in something on
the computer, then took two keys out of a drawer. He dropped one into
Reno’s outstretched hand, and the other into Dinah’s palm. "3rd
floor, room numbers 34 and 35. Enjoy your stay."
"Hey, wait a minute. Don’t you have to pay?" Dinah asked.
Reno glared. "Nice going. He had forgotten!"
Palmer shook his head. "No. It’s on me as long as you get out of here
first thing in the morning without having harassed me."
Reno looked torn. "I can’t harass you?"
"Don’t you know a good deal when you hear one? Let’s go, stupid!"
Dinah gave him a shove toward the elevator.
"Stupid? Watch who you’re calling stupid, bitch." He walked to the
elevator.
"Shove it up your ass, Reno."
They got in the elevator, and Reno punched in the number three, sending the
elevator rocketing upward.
"…"
"What are you planning?" Dinah asked suspiciously.
"What?"
"I figure that if you’re not talking and insulting me, then you’re
planning something particularly diabolical and evil. I want to know what
it is."
Reno grinned. "I was thinking about what I would have done to Palmer if he
hadn’t paid for the rooms."
"God, you are so juvenile." The elevator dinged, then the door slid open.
They strode out into the hallway, arguing noisily.
"Hey, I’m not the one who told someone to ‘shove it up your
ass’!" Reno retorted.
"Well, you deserved it!"
"What makes you think that?"
"Gee, I don’t know. Maybe the use of the word ‘bitch,’" Dinah
replied sarcastically.
Reno opened his mouth to say something when Dinah reached out and grabbed
his arm. He stopped walking. "What’d you do that for?"
She pointed to the room number on the door in front of him. It was number
34. She was already unlocking the door to 35.
Reno quickly unlocked the door to his room and stepped through. Before closing
the door, though, he stuck his head out the door. "You sure about this? A
night with me is something you’ll remember all your life!"
He ducked as a shoe narrowly missed his head.
Dinah’s angry reply was, "Yeah, sure. I’d remember it for the rest
of my life as my one big mistake." The door slammed shut.
"Hey, you forgot your shoe!" Reno called to her closed door. Her door shot
open, and a seething Dinah stepped out.
"Uh oh. She’s pissed." Reno ducked back into his room, closing and locking the door. Outside, Dinah grabbed her boot and then slammed the door again.
.