"You know what you're doing there, kid?"

Ugh. It was the walk of shame, but way, totally, completely worse, because it was Cid who the one who'd caught her.

As Cloud and Yuffie had emerged from the woods, they were delighted to see that everyone at camp remained asleep — although, Cloud, deep in his thoughts, couldn't help but worry about how vulnerable the party was without a sentinel to take watch during the night. A pang of guilt rang throughout his chest but was swiftly battered away by Yuffie, who must have seen the expression on his face before decidedly smacking his chest. She shook her head at him, as if to say, "Relax. Nothing happened."

Well, something happened in those woods. Something awesome. The guilt in Cloud's chest was promptly replaced by a smugness, a realization of his own sexual talent. Victory. When Yuffie noticed him again, he heard her scoff in her throat. He grinned. Scoff or not, she knew he was good.

The ashes of the fire still smoldered, casting a scarlet aura around them. Cloud, hesitated for a brief moment before winking at Yuffie before loping off to make his bed. Yuffie couldn't help but notice how his shoulders bowed around him… how his feet almost seemed to drag. Despite their little escapade in the woods, it was clear that they still remained exhausted. They needed rest. Everything would be better in the morning.

And then Cid happened.

He, was in fact, not asleep at all as Yuffie had trudged to her own space beside Tifa. Cid, instead, was sat just outside the ring of light surrounding the deadened fire, all of the angles of his face and body shrouded by darkness despite the full moon. Yuffie startled, dropping her blanket and quickly reaching for the shuriken that was normally latched onto her back. Her fingertips grasped at air however, and she faltered before realizing that she knew the voice who spoke to her.

"Ugh. This is so gross."

Yuffie heard the sound of something sloshing — something that sounded very much like the whiskey bottle Cid always kept on his person. If she was to have this conversation, she would need about half of it to keep from withering away out of humiliation.

Reluctantly, remorsefully, so mortified she wished she was dead, Yuffie shuffled over to where Cid sat, flopping down on the ground in a careless pile of limbs. She wordlessly extended a hand to her side, and when Cid handed her the bottle, she didn't so much as glance at him before chugging the whiskey straight from the top.

"You're telling me," he said his voice low and gruff. He snatched the whiskey away from her and downed another mouthful. "Out of all the yaw-hoo's here, pining away for Cloud, it had to be you."

Yuffie grumbled to herself. Everything was terrible. The night was abruptly freezing, the breeze a slice of ice. The stars were all dead lanterns in the sky… absolutely nothing in the entire world was good or happy. Orgasms did not exist.

"It's not like that," Yuffie said. She extended her hand for the bottle again.

He passed her the whiskey, but, Cid, being Cid, continued to mock her. He clicked his tongue — a habit of his when he's about to be sarcastic — and Yuffie braced herself for what was probably going to be a scathing reprimand.

"Oh, so that's what we're gonna go with, eh? 'It's not like that,'" he mimicked, his voice far too masculine — and even, bitter — to resemble anything like Yuffie's.

"You're a poor impressionist. Don't quit your day job," Yuffie spat. Oh wait. You don't have one. How tragic."

Cid went silent then and Yuffie wondered if she'd been too quick to insult. After all, Cid hadn't actually done anything wrong. He was merely curious and in the wrong place at the wrong time! Her fear was unfounded though, and Cid began to chuckle a few moments after that, the gruffness of his voice dissolving into something warmer, more friendly.

"Well, shit, kid. Didn't know ya were so touchy about him. Love's a bitch, huh?"

When Cid reached for the bottle, Yuffie leaned away from him. She took another swig of her own and swatted him away with her free hand.

"Hey!" Cid protested. "That's my shit. Give it back!"

"I'm not in love with Cloud. He's an idiot! You take it back!"

"Women fall in love with idiots every day. Nothin' new there."

"I swear to God I will drink all of this just to spite you." Yuffie threateningly tilted the glass bottle up, towards her mouth.

Cid scowled at her. "No you won't. You'd die."

"A welcome change."

"Cloud would be sad if you died! The love of his life, gone! What would he do without you, kid?"

"Get five other girlfriends and then complain about them too."

"HA! SO YOU ADMIT IT."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Cid."

"Goddammit, what?!"

"I don't like the way you talk to Shera."

Cloud froze. Yuffie's tone — the sereneness of it, the careless curl of it in the air — was alarming. It reminded him of Larbeight and how she had approached him at their stay in Costa Del Sol. It was too casual… too lofty to be anything other than what was utterly dangerous.

She had an agenda.

The man named Cid, of course, turned beet red with barely concealed rage. He sucked his cigarette dry, heaving with brimming anger at Yuffie's dare to call him out on his own… sunken airplane. In what world did a broken airplane not sink anyway? And how was Cid able to keep his cigarettes dry despite being stranded in the middle of the ocean?

"What ya gonna do about it, kid?" Cid rasped in between several puffs. The head of the cigarette glowed a fierce red, mirroring Cid's rage on a minute scale. It transforming his mouth into a tiny stream of almost-fire, as if Cid was a dragon who could flame-throw whenever he opened his lips. Cloud remained silent. Tifa who was next to him, did the same.

Yuffie and Cid locked eyes — a clash of bright blue and grim hazel. As the ocean water lapped against the plane, she remained poised in her crouch, coiled tight and elegantly like a lion before its prey. After a thick, awkward moment of nothingness, Cid clicked his tongue and spat over the side of the Tiny Bronco.

"Yeah, I thought so."

Mumbling an impressive number of expletives under his breath, Cid shuffled over to the middle of the airplane, where the control center was. Somehow he produced the tools necessary to open the hatch leading into it, and he promptly busied himself while Cloud and Tifa remained stiff with tension, trading glances between Yuffie and then each other. Yuffie sprung upright, her spine straightening with fluid motion, and Cloud felt like wincing. Even in their short time together, he could tell when Yuffie was up to something.

She wasn't finished with Cid yet.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yuffie viciously snarled out a string of the most profane curses she could think of. The alcohol was warming her, thickening her from the inside out. Her mind felt like cotton balls and words were so much harder to find than before… but she definitely didn't mean to say that she was Cloud's girlfriend! She'd only meant that he had two as it was! Tifa and Aerith!

"I'm going to kill myself."

Yuffie looked at the bottle. It had been nearly full when she found Cid, and now it was at half-mast. Tomorrow morning was going to bring nothing but a wicked hangover. Oh, goodie. She drank another gulp despite this. If she was going to be hungover, she might as well make it count.

"Yuffie," Cid whined, "Give it back already!"

"Oh my god, fine. Here, you big baby," she replied. Cid greedily snatched the whiskey away from her.

"You drank too much of it," he muttered into its neck. "I need at least half to even get a buzz."

"My condolences for your alcoholism."

Cid laughed mid-drink and spent the subsequent few minutes coughing all of the whiskey out of his windpipe. Yuffie was quiet while he gasped for air, but she grinned to herself and took satisfaction in how off-guard she could catch Cid. Even when he caught her off-guard first.

Cid might not have felt a buzz… but Yuffie sure did. The night sky was spinning slightly, rotating back and forth on its endless axis. Somehow, the sky seemed more beautiful like this, as if it was a celestial candelabra adorned with infinite, tiny jewels that swayed back and forth to some sort of cosmic dance. While Cid continued to cough, Yuffie took advantage of his inability to speak.

"Cloud and I aren't dating. It's like, we're best friends, but we also have sex. Well, had sex. Once. Awhile ago. Now we just do foreplay—"

Cid began coughing harder, his face even in the lowlight of the fire embers turning a shade that looked kind of dangerous. He put his palm out to halt Yuffie from speaking but she was oblivious, too lost in the sky to see that Cid wanted NOTHING more to do with this conversation anymore, and he was so, so sorry that he'd asked or started it, and now he only wished that his esophagus would close up for good and that he would die and not have to stand any more of this ridiculous and disgusting—

"—because there aren't any beds around. Which, by the way, is totally bogus. Like, shouldn't there just be random beds all over the world? I mean, people need to sleep. Where are they supposed to catch some rest? On the ground like us? Talk about a lack of hospitality. The world really just doesn't care, I guess. How else am I supposed to get laid?" She sighed. "But, anyway, Cloud is great. Completely psychotic, but I trust him and he's hot and we just really have a good ti—"

"Yuffie—" Cid hacked out, his lungs sounding as if they'd turned to ash, "Shut up. Shut the fuck up."

Yuffie's head snapped back down as her attention was brought to Cid, who was now doubled over and inhaling deeply through his nose and mouth. Her eyes widened in confusion — had he been coughing all this time? How did he not asphyxiate? Or less dramatically, pass out?

"Get it out, old man. Rebuke the devil." Yuffie grinned as she pretended to throw holy water on him.

"Fuck," Cid breathed out, "You."

Yuffie pressed her hands to her face and cackled into them so loudly it sounded like a fiend of some sort — a rogue summon materia that sounded like a crossbreed between a chocobo and imp, perhaps. She patted him on the back as he started laughing again, palm and wrist slightly limp due to the effects of the booze.

"There, there. It's all over now."

Cid groaned and ruffled his hair with a hand. "Along with my sanity and every good other thought in the world."

Yuffie scoffed, her hand turning into a fist on his shoulder blades. She lightly punched him.

"You're the one who asked. If you hadn't started it, we wouldn't have had to get into my sex life," she said, a giant grin plastered across her mouth. "Or, a lack of one you could say, since Cloud and I only banged onc—-"

"I'll kill you," he half-whispered, half-rasped. Yuffie sunk into a fit of giggles at Cid's continuous discomfort because honestly, he deserved it and she deserved a good laugh.

"Like how you tried to kill me when we first met?"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It had all happened so fast. One minute, Cid was tinkering with the control panel, his big, meaty hands somehow completing a myriad of delicate processes with a precision that impressed even Cloud. Tifa sat quietly next to him, staring at the horizon of blue ocean and tilting her face towards the spray of the waves which lapped against the Tiny Bronco. The day was mild, warm really, if you could get past the insistent wind nipping at their bones. Cloud was momentarily reminded of his time on the Junon cargo ship, where he promised Aerith he would commandeer an airship and take her for a ride. What would the ocean look like from below? Would Aerith shift her face towards the sea salt as well, like Tifa? Where wold Tifa be during all of this anyway? With them, wandering the many hallways of the airship? Next to Aerith? Wouldn't that be awkward?

Such thoughts raced through Cloud's mind, and then there was violence and yelling and more swear words than Cloud had ever heard in his life — words that he didn't even know existed, yet somehow they were there in the air, wrapping around each of them like a banshee alarm.

"Yuffie!" Cloud shouted. What was she doing? And why was it always her who got into trouble?

They were moving, gliding on the airplane. Cid must have manipulated the controls in order to get the tiny airplane mobile so that they could tread through shallow waters. When he was daydreaming, he thought Yuffie had been pacing the length of the airplane as Cid worked, but now she and Cid were face to face and Cid was screaming at Yuffie about something to do with manners and puberty and "stupid fucking infants trying to tell him what to do, and doesn't anyone have respect for their elders anymore?"

"You're going to treat Shera more nicely from now on," Yuffie said in a low voice — her dangerous voice. The blank mask of mystery was on her face again, and though she was much smaller than Cid, despite the fact that she had to look up at him, she seemed to vibrate with strength and power. She seemed, in that instant, so much taller than the man who had hurled insults at the woman who'd saved his life on their failed journey to outer space.

"Oh yeah?" Cid sneered, another cigarette lit, closed between each lip. Every time he exhaled, smoke poured out of his mouth and into Yuffie's face, though she never flinched from it.

"What are you gonna do about it if I don't? That dumbass has it coming for ruining my life. My dream. All of it, gone, thanks to her," he despaired. "If I feel like calling her names, then I'm gonna call her the damn names. And there's nothing you can do about it—"

So fast, just as she'd been with Larbeight — so quick she practically blurred, Yuffie in one fluid motion unhooked the shuriken from her back and propped it against Cid's chest so that the outer blades met with the soft flesh of his neck. He silenced himself immediately as his face turned purple with outrage.

"Nothing I can go about it, huh?" Yuffie whispered. Cloud and Tifa jumped to their feet, mouths agape with disbelief at the young ninja and her willingness to go so far.

"Yuffie, cut it out!" Cloud commanded. His face, like everyone else's, with rigid with stress. "We're not starting a fight with the only guy who can get us to land."

Yuffie glowered with disapproval at Cloud's words, though she never took her eyes off Cid.

"I'm sick and tired of watching injustice happen right in front of our faces," she snarled. The mask was slipping, cracking, and cold fury was beginning to melt onto her features, turning them dark. Turning the hazel of her eyes into unfamiliar pits.

"Shera doesn't deserve that kind of treatment for saving his pathetic, miserable life," she continued. "And if I have to be the one who intervenes, then so be it."

Cloud took a step towards Yuffie, his palms raised in surrender. "It's not your job to police who's right and who's wrong, Yuffie. I don't like it anymore than you do, but we can't just go around and threaten everyone who's being a dick." Cloud shot a venomous glare at Cid, who returned it with equal fervor.

"This is ridiculous, " Cid spat. "Let me go, or I'll have to make you, kid."

"Yuffie…" Tifa murmured, her eyes beseeching Yuffie's. She wanted this calamity to end! At her voice, Yuffie's scowl faltered, and she frowned at Tifa before bringing her attention back to Cid, who remained frozen as her shuriken scraped against his throat.

Yuffie searched Cid's eyes, one by one, until the cold fury from her face dissipated, and all that was left was the mask. She took a singular step backwards and sheathed her shuriken in its place. Cloud exhaled long and slow. Close call.

Cid smirked at Yuffie, and then at Cloud, and then at the air where he closed his eyes and cracked his neck from side to side. He brought a hand to his throat, rubbing away the feeling of the shuriken against it, and began chuckling.

"That's the thing about you women," he grumbled happily. "You're all so damn weak, you can't ever pull through on your own threats. Should've taken the chance when you had it."

With a meaningful look at the three of them, Cid turned his attention around back to the control panel where he began steering the Tiny Bronco towards their next destination. Cloud had about one second to process this image before Yuffie erupted in motion again before he could fathom a retaliation —which of course he should have — because this was Yuffie we were talking about and of course she was going to get back at Cid for that.

Ugh. Damn her. She always had to have the last word.

Somehow Yuffie had drop-kicked Cid so perfectly that he tumbled off the airplane. He began flailing in the water, kicking against the current and screaming, but Yuffie was already there where he fell, his clothes a fist in her hand which meant she was the only thing preventing Cid from being sucked underneath the plane… where he would inevitably be eviscerated by the propellers. Cloud felt a shout bile in the valley of his stomach.

Cid was doomed.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Actually, it was you who tried to kill me," Cid chuckled, face a pleasant red with all of the booze and the fondness of the memory.

"Was it?" Yuffie teased. "I can't recall. Hm. How funny."

Cid slipped into a fit of chuckles and took another swig of the whiskey.

"Yeah, fuckin' hilarious."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tifa grabbed onto Cloud, both of her fists flowing with the power of the materia equipped into her gloves.

"Cloud, what do we do?"

Cloud shook his head. This was too much. Too far. Yuffie was way too impulsive to be allowed to interact with anyone. If it was his choice, he'd lock her away where she could take a time out. He'd ground her or something. But they were in the middle of the ocean, and since grounding her was not a viable choice, Cloud merely swallowed down his disapproval and slowly walked to where Yuffie held onto Cid. What surprised him was Yuffie's face — there was no trace of rage on it, but rather, a playful impishness, that seemed rather inappropriate at a time like this.

It's not like it was friggin' recess!

He put a hand on her shoulder, just as he did at Costa Del Sol. This time, however, she did not dismiss him.

"Yuffie, stop this. Let's pull him back up and we can scream at him like normal human beings."

Although the Tiny Bronco wasn't moving too rapidly, it was still maintaining a fair pace and Cid struggled against the pull of the motion beneath him.

"What are ya, fuckin' crazy?!" he screamed, his head bobbing in and out of the water. "What the fuck?! Get me out of here, you crazy stupid broad!"

Yuffie grinned, a terrifying gesture. "What was that?" she yelled back down so Cid could hear. "I can't hear you over your raging misogyny! Do you need help?"

Cid, choking a bit on sea water, ground his teeth in frustration. He looked to Cloud, who also leaned over the airplane to gaze down at him.

"Put her in her place, would ya?!"

Cloud wrinkled his nose. Her place, huh? Where exactly did Yuffie belong to be, besides in a dungeon of some sort where she couldn't wreak havoc on people like the little gremlin she was? Still… even with his life at stake, Cid was still an ass. It was becoming harder to disagree with Yuffie's methods as Cid hurled expletive after expletive at her.

"I'm not gonna kill him, Cloud," Yuffie muttered so that only he could hear. "I just want to scare some etiquette into him. You know, show him who's boss," she finished with a smile. Cloud had a hard time suppressing his own. That was his favorite smile of hers — the reckless one that abandoned reason. It was infectious.

Cloud turned his gaze onto Cid. "Hey, man. Just promise to quit being a dick. That's all you have to do, okay?" Was it ever really that easy though?

Whatever Cid in reply to Cloud was lost as Yuffie extended her reach so that he sunk below the water.

"Yuffie!"

Her devilish smile never faded. "What? Haven't you ever heard of water-boarding before? It's a process, Cloud, trust me."

And so the process continued for what seemed like hours, although it couldn't have been more than 15 minutes. To Yuffie and Cloud, it was nothing. To, Cid, however…

"Okay!" he yelped as Yuffie brought him above the surface once more. "Okay, fine. I'll try to be nicer to Shera. Maybe she doesn't deserve everything I say about her. Now pull me the fuck up!"

Cloud rocked back on his heels and Yuffie, delighted with the surrender, sighed contentedly.

"Promise?"

Cid visibly muttered something to himself, and his face turned red again. "Fine. I … fuckin' promise. I guess. Goddammit."

With Cloud's help, Yuffie yanked Cid back onto the Tiny Bronco where he kneeled, coughing and sputtering and gagging out salt water. Yuffie kneeled next to him and slapped her palm against his spine, helping all of the ocean out of him.

"There, there. It's all over now."

Unexpectedly, Cid began laughing so hard that he had to brace his hands on the plane too, so that he was on all fours. Cloud, Tifa, and Yuffie exchanged bewildered glances. Maybe it was a mental breakdown. Who knew?

"You got some balls, kid," Cid said in between each string of chuckles. "You got some big, masculine balls somewhere in that tiny ass body of yours."

Cloud and Tifa grimaced at the imagery, whereas Yuffie returned his laughter. She continued patting Cid on the back.

"Vaginas are way more durable than your shitty boy-balls, but sure. I'll take the compliment."

Cid only laughed harder at that.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"You should know better than to bring up genitals," Yuffie said, eyeing the full moon as if it was about to fall out of the sky. "I have no problem talking about mine the way you talk about the male anatomy."

Cid harrumphed in agreement. "Guess I should think it through from now on."

"That's probably a good idea."

Cid offered Yuffie what was left of the whiskey, but she waved it away. "No thanks. I'm going to be dead tomorrow morning, or wishing that I was."

"Mhm."

"And," she continued, meeting Cid's gaze in the hazy dark they resided in, "You don't have to worry about me and Cloud. It's not what you think it is. It's just blowing off steam."

Cid's mouth turned down at the corners — a movement visible even to Yuffie, despite the darkness.

"I'm always gonna worry 'bout you, kid. I just want you to be careful. Something like that can turn into something else in the blink of an eye."

Yuffie then mirrored his frown.

"And Cloud's sword is huge, so I'm not sure that I could beat him in a fight. But I'd try. For you. Maybe."

Yuffie swallowed down a lump in her throat. She crawled over to where Cid sat and threw her arms around him. He grumbled something — something about "you're making it awkward" — but Yuffie hugged him anyway, until she was done and rested on her laurels.

"Are you going to stay up for the rest of the night?" she asked him.

Cid nodded in affirmation. "Yeah. Can't sleep after picturing the two of you… fornicating in the woods. Ugh," he gagged to himself, causing Yuffie to break into giggles. "If I went to sleep now, I'd just have nightmares, so yeah, I'm stayin' up."

"That's all your fault, you know."

"Yeah, yeah. I know."

"'Kay. As long as you know it."

"Gee, thanks."

She knew it would "make it awkward", but Yuffie leaned over and kissed Cid on the cheek. He practically jolted in his seat, making the bottle in his hands swish and slosh from side to side. When she laughed, Cid cracked a smile because damn that kid and her affections, and damn Cloud for noticing and accepting them, and damn everything because there was not enough FUCKING whiskey for him to have any real fun that night, but he was feeling pretty good after that trip down memory lane anyway.

Yuffie darted away with a ghostly laughter which seemed to linger in the air far after she had gone and settled in next to Tifa, who unconsciously wrapped herself around Yuffie. There were only a few hours left in the night so keeping watch wasn't going to be hard by any means. The only difficult part would probably be scrubbing that SHIT about Cloud out of his goddamn head, which would undoubtedly take awhile. While he was glad the kid wasn't in love with him, it still made Cid feel a little nauseous to know that she very well could be one day, because they all knew — they ALL knew — that Cloud would end up with either Tifa or Aerith, and that was it. Which is how it should be, since Yuffie deserved so much more than that dumbass. Cloud was a good guy, but damn, was he an air-head.

Then again, so was the kid.

woooo i got this one out "relatively" fast (FOR ME), and i just really wanted to have fun with this one because this fic started out fun and i wanna keep it that way! :D thank you everyone for your feedback so far and on the last chapter, it really helps gives me motivation to keep writing! obvi this isn't a linear chapter but has flashbacks incorporated into it - from current day to when they first met cid! i have a feeling yuffie wouldn't have been able to sit around and let cid treat shera that way so i just started daydreaming and here was the result! hope you like it! god i have so much more to write lmao xoxo (also sorry if this isn't good writing, i'm literally so rusty but i'll get back into it soon)