Categories > Games > Final Fantasy 7 > Baby Reno
Baby Reno 4
0 ReviewsDue to an accident in an old Shinra lab Reno is turned into a baby. After he causes trouble in the Turks Rude seeks the help of Tifa as a babysitter.
Baby Reno
Part 4: Baby Sephiroth
Cloud wanted to dislike that child, he really did, but how could he? The silver haired baby sat contently on the blonde's lap making little baby noises, giggling and sucking his thumb. Sephiroth was giggling? Now there was something Cloud would never imagine was possible. He smiled, he didn't mean to, most certainly not, but his expression changed on its own. Cloud was in fact so lost in the fatherly feeling that he didn't notice Yuffie walk into the Seventh Heaven, kneel so that she was at the baby's eye level and proceed to coo and squeal and make baby talk. When he did notice the ninja's presence, Cloud blinked and stared and realized that it was no wonder Yuffie found it so easy to steal materia from him if he was always that distracted.
"It's my turn!" Yuffie extended her arms towards the small child waiting for Cloud to give him to her." He carefully handed her the baby and she cradled him in her arms. "You're so cute! Yes, you're cute! You're cute like a new born materia! Yes you are!"
"Surprisingly he's more well behaved than Reno." Tifa joined the conversation, once again Cloud failed to notice the approaching presence. He had been a bit stressed about Sephiroth, worrying that he'll suddenly grow to adult size and go crazy. Tifa kept telling him to relax the entire time while he kept jumping and drawing his sword over the smallest noise. Maybe her advice finally sunk in a little too deep.
"I heard that..." Cloud mentally kicked himself for letting himself relax too much. Relaxing once in a while was fine but he was so out of it he didn't even notice when people arrived. Now Reno and Rude came in without his knowledge. Then again maybe it wasn't because he was relaxed but rather the sleepless nights taking their toll and draining away his once acute senses.
"Where's Vincent?" Cloud asked. He had volunteered to take care of Sephiroth; after all he did know his mother. Then Reeve gave him a job, which wasn't so bad because Sephiroth ate like a bottomless pit and Vincent needed money for food and toys, but of course, a job meant needing a babysitter.
"I have no idea. I saw him at work but Reeve asked him to stay for a few more minutes. My guess is those minutes turned into hours. That's the problem with Shinra overtime. They tell you it'll just be a few minutes and you can go, but it takes forever. Problems keep popping up out of who knows were and well... you must know how it is." Yuffie tickled little Sephiroth as she spoke.
Cloud nodded. "I used to work for Shinra so I know how that is..." It seemed that when Vincent was allowed to leave work without too many protests, he was too tired to take care of little Sephiroth. Tifa, who loved kids, was all too happy to take care of him. True that she held a grudge against Sephiroth, but this was a completely different Sephiroth. She saw them as two different people, one of them an innocent and adorable little baby.
It evolved into a conversation about Shinra and their overtime. Reno, of course, always left even if no one told him he could go. In fact he left even if he was told not to. He wasn't a fool and in his honest opinion only a fool sacrificed himself for the job. Somehow he was never fired. Why he was never fired? Maybe because he had worked at Shinra for a long time and had a lot of information, maybe because he did have some skills or maybe because he got his job done, as long as it didn't involved working while off duty. The possibilities were endless but if anyone asked Reno he would just reply with something along the lines of "because I'm sexy." Maybe he didn't know the reason or maybe he thought that was the reason. Maybe his true job was to attract fan girls who would become customers. The world may never know.
While everyone talked about Shinra, Yuffie snuck away with little Sephiroth and retuned with him dressed as a materia. "Look everyone! Isn't he cute?" The room was filled with "aw" and "cute!"
But Reno wasn't happy. "You're an evil ninja picking on defenseless little babies." The red haired Turks gave the little materia boy an understanding look. "I know how this feels, my memories of being a baby returned after a few days... Well some of them." Reno was thankful that only a few of his memories returned because he really didn't want to remember certain things like Cloud giving him a bath and Vincent changing his diaper. "Poor little guy, you can't even more in there." The costume was basically a ball were Sephiroth could only stick out his head, hands and feet.
"But he looks cute! Besides you never complained... much." Yuffie reminded him. Oh yes Reno's days as a baby had really been something, chaotic yet cute.
"That's because I was a cheerful baby but Sephiroth isn't as much of a cheerful baby as me." Reno should know, that little silver hair bundle of noise was a total crybaby unless he received constant attention, opposite of what you would expect from Sephiroth. Since everyone had to baby sit Reno during his baby days, they got back at him by making him baby sit Sephiroth. He remembered it all too clearly.
Flashback
Sephiroth cried, rather loudly, indicating that he needed his babysitter's presence right away. "What, yo?" Reno peeked over the baby crib that had been placed in his apartment, without his permission by the power of Rude's spare key. They had decided to give Reno a long turn to take care of the baby, since everyone else needed to recover from taking care Reno when he was a baby. It shouldn't be a problem since it would seem that Reno was very hyper and energetic as a grown up too.
Baby Sephiroth only smiled looking at Reno who had at last arrived. "Goo! Daa! Baa! Goo!"
"Same to you!" Reno went on his way back to his nice soft bed but once again he heard sobbing followed by screams of agony and rushed to see what was wrong.
"Goo! Baa! Hee, hee!" Reno blinked at the incomprehensible gibberish.
"Sorry, kid I forgot how to speak baby. If nothing's wrong go to sleep, ok?" Reno waited for some form of sign that the baby had somehow understood what he was saying.
"E-o hee, hee."
"What?"
"Ee nnnn ooo, uba aba-ab."
Reno would normally think he's pretty good at understanding what people say. He even served as a translator between Cloud and Tifa sometimes. Poor Cloud would be helpless without him even if he might not admit it; at least that's what Reno thought. Then again Tifa did tend to use examples and metaphors and she sometimes forgot that Cloud could only absorb information when it was given to him nice and slow. But even with his amazing communication skills Reno still did not understand baby talk. He turned to leave in favor of finding and using some ear plugs.
"E e nnnnn o-oo Eno! Eno!!!"
Reno paused, Eno? "I get it, it's my name... sort of. Well good for you that you said a real word, or close to it. We'll celebrate tomorrow, now go to sleep."
"Eno! Eno! Eno! Eno!"
"Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!"
"Eno!!! Wah! Wah!! Waaaaahhh!!!" Sephiroth started to cry, he didn't want to sleep, he wanted to play.
xoxox xox xoxox
-knock- -knock- The door to Rude's apartment, right next to Reno's, was opened a sleepy bald Turks. "Rude you have to help me! I keep telling him to go to sleep but he keeps calling me!"
"Eo Udd!"
"He says /'Hello Rude'/... I think I'm getting this baby talk thing after all..." For a moment Reno smiled before he once again remembered his predicament. "Rude! Help!"
"You're the only one with enough energy to keep up with a baby..." Rude observed. Reno was whining, but he was whining energetically.
"Your point is?" Reno asked, sure he was still yet to experience the state of extreme exhaustion that everyone else had experienced with him, but that didn't mean he didn't need help.
"Stay with him until he falls asleep. You could try telling him a story or something."
Reno mussed Rude's words as an imaginary light bulb lit up above his head. "Right, gotcha, I can do that... But if he needs a diaper change I'll come right back!" Before Rude could refuse, Reno returned to his own apartment along with baby Sephiroth.
xoxox xox xoxox
"Alright kid I'll tell you a story like Rude said. Pay attention." Reno started while trying to think of a story.
"Eno!" Little Sephiroth cheered.
"Yes, yes Eno is, I mean Reno is going to tell you a story." After hearing Sephiroth say 'Eno' so much Reno wouldn't be surprised if he accidentally started to call himself Eno. It would be a disaster if people mistook it for Emo, then Cloud would whine that he stole his title which he had no intentions of doing. Really, someone as cheerful as him? It didn't fit in the least and besides not even Cloud was depressed these days.
"Goo!"
"Go? Ok I'll start you little impatient mini." He patted the baby on the head and began his tale. "Once upon a time there was a... a Turks, not quite as cool as me. His name was... um... Vincent! Yeah, the same name as the vampire dude." It was something that Reno had been saying for a while. He knew Vincent wasn't a vampire but that didn't mean he couldn't get a laugh out of it. It was funny when ever Vincent brought up taking care of him as a child in his attempt at defense. "An evil mad scientist put him to sleep in a coffin, of all places. Then some guy came and got him out but Vincent was really disappointed because he wanted to be woken up by his true love's kiss because all those fairy tales have that. The one who woke him up, Cloud, he kept pestering Vincent to get up like a mother on a school day, so he had no choice. Vincent went on a journey with Cloud were he met, Cait Sith who was riding on a big moogle. Together they joined the Sith, beat up all the Jedi and lived happily ever after, the end."
Baby Sephiroth did not look satisfied. It was as if he knew that was not a real fairytale. "O! Moo!"
"No? Moo? What? Repeat it slowly I'm still not fluent in baby talk." Reno requested.
"O! Oo! Ooo! Moo!" Little Sephiroth repeated.
Reno gave it some thought. "No? You don't think my story is true? Well too bad kid, that's all I have. As for moo... Moo is over there." Reno walked over to the baby crib and picked up a cow plushie. Rufus had given Sephiroth that plushie. Why? No one knew. It was logical in a way. Since babies like milk so much, maybe they like cows. Or maybe Rufus liked cows for some secret random reason. "Here you go."
"Moo-moo! Heehee! Moo!"
Reno wondered what Sephiroth could possibly want now, because he sounded like he was requesting something. "Oh right! The plushie is Moo-moo, moo must mean more. You're happy to have your Moo-moo and want another story?"
Baby Sephiroth seemed to nod his little head.
"Oh yeah, it's official I'm a total genius! Let's go out and celebrate that I can understand you!"
"Eno! Moo!"
"More fun with uncle Reno, yes, yes!"
xoxox xox xoxox
Tifa yawned as she cleaned the bar. It was a slow night, which wasn't so bad since she barely had any energy left. She was still recovering from babysitting Reno and wondered if her sleeping pattern would ever go back to normal. She had grown used to waking up in the middle of the night and now she woke up even if there was no screaming baby to tend to. She absent mindedly picked up the baby that had been placed on the counter, cleaned the counter and set him down again. "What would you like, sir?"
"I would really like it if this kid would go to sleep, but since he's not tired I'll wait for him to sleep while I'm having the usual." Reno replied amused by the fact that Tifa didn't appear to recognize him. He was a regular customer, how could she forget? She must really be tired.
Tifa snapped awake as she recognized the red head. This was one the regular customers, Reno of the Turks, Sephiroth's current babysitter. Furthermore that was little Sephiroth sitting on the counter. "Ifa! Ifa!"
"Reno! You can't go to random bars with a baby!" Tifa scolded him.
"But this isn't a random bar..." Reno replied.
"Of course not, the Seventh Heaven is the best!" Tifa had to take the moment to spread the positive publicity. "But that's not the point. You're supposed to be at home with he baby." Reno opened his mouth to say something but Tifa spoke first. "Home as in where you live, not where you spend most of your free time."
Reno closed his mouth, paused and came up with a new defensive argument. "He won't fall asleep so I thought we could pull out an all nighter together. You know a guy's night out so to speak." Tifa shook her head and picked up little Sephiroth holding him protectively. "You know nothing about taking care of children."
"It's not like I was going to let him order a drink. It's just milk for the little guy, till he's old enough. Beside I never said I know how to baby sit, I'm just guessing," Reno admitted. He was a genius indeed. It seemed that he had tricked Tifa into following her motherly instinct and taking care of little Sephiroth. Of course when she realized she had been tricked, a true nightmare broke loose as she forced Reno to sit down and listen to her responsibility speech. Poor Reno was scarred for life and he thought Elena was talkative, but Tifa's lectures were truly deadly.
End of Flashback
"My point is, Reno continued, "That this is uncomfortable."
"No it's not! Yuffie insisted. "You don't even know how to baby sit right. You got Tifa to do all the work last time, she told me!"
-sob- -sob- "Waaaaaahhh!" Sephiroth started crying.
"I told you so!" Reno felt victorious because he was right but it was short lived, as Sephiroth's screams erased any possible satisfaction that could come from saying /I told you so/.
"Ok, ok, I get it, how about the Red XIII cub costume instead?" Yuffie suggested.
"That could work, but I thought we should save that one for when Red XIII came to visit." Tifa suggested. It was rather useful that they kept baby Reno's wardrobe which now worked as hand me downs for Sephiroth. At least they didn't have to run from store to store in a panicked shopping spree since they had plenty of supplied from Reno's days as a baby.
"He's getting away!" Rude spoke for the first time catching everyone's attention. The group watched in horror as Sephiroth rolled away in his materia costume.
"So much for being more well behaved than Reno, but at least he didn't try to drown me" Cloud said as he engaged pursuit along with everyone else.
As they chased the little rolling materia baby, Elena and Tseng who were on their way to see the baby caught him. "What are you doing to the baby?" Elena held him protectively as everyone pointed accusing fingers at each other.
"Hey!" Tifa slapped Cloud's hand away when she realized that he was pointing at her, and poking her where he shouldn't be poking her at the same time.
"Sorry!" Cloud was just caught in the middle of the finger pointing confusion. "I meant to say it's... Reno's fault!" Perhaps he should have reframed from pointing completely.
"Ouch! Why can't people keep their fingers out of my nose?" While Reno held his poor abused nose, Cloud looked absolutely horrified. He removed the globe with the tip of two fingers and threw it away thankful that he actually had a globe on.
"Poor Sephiroth, being rolled around like a ball." Elena cradled the baby while everyone made excuses and finally pushed Yuffie forward.
"I didn't mean for this to happen! Reno didn't roll away when I dressed him up as a materia!" Yuffie tried to explain.
"We'll take care of him from now on!" Elena announced.
So far Tseng had been nodding quietly but after hearing Elena's words he stopped. "Don't forget we need to get up early for the next missing. We can't afford not getting any sleep taking care of the baby. It should alright when we come back. We could take care of him then." He stopped as he noticed that everyone was staring at him. He analyzed his words and tried to figure out what this was about, then it hit him like a ton of bricks. Tseng cleared his throat and resumed his silence, both demanding and begging with his eyes that the topic would not be brought up again.
"It's not like everyone hasn't already figured out you two moved in together, yo." Reno received deadly glares from both Tseng and Elena for that one. To save his job, Reno did the one smart thing he had left to do and pretended that he didn't say anything, both demanding and begging with his eyes that everyone would just drop the subject and not get him fired because he was the one who brought it up again.
The group returned to the Seventh Heaven in relative silence, save for the quiet baby sounds of discomfort and occasional sobbing that little Sephiroth expressed. They got him dressed up as a moogle as soon as they returned. It was a lot easier to move like that, even with that little bouncy ball on the end of a wire on his head but that was a good thing because he was entertained by trying to reach the little ball and play with it.
However, as things stood they still didn't have a babysitter for little Sephiroth. They thought about giving Reno another chance to really complete the mission this time, but when the red haired Turk started rambling about how he would be totally prepared with lots of candy this time around, because children love candy, they knew it was best not to allow Reno to baby sit. Baby Sephiroth was very energetic as he was, he certainly didn't need Reno feeding him candy and making him even more hyper with all the extra sugar.
Denzel and Marlene played with the baby for a while and soon Red XII arrived, which made them wish they had dressed Sephiroth as a cub after all, because it was just too cute to see him riding on Red XII aka Nanaki like that. He was still adorable as a moogle though so they decided he could stay that way.
Even Cid came by as did Reeve and Vincent, after they got off work, but the three appeared to be very exhausted. It was understandable with all the overtime Reeve and Vincent have been working at the World Restoration Organization aka WRO, yet as Cid collapsed into a bar stood, nursing a pounding headache with his hands, he received several puzzled looks. "Mood swings," the pilot simply replied. That was enough for everyone to understand. Shera, sweet, calm, patient Shera. The woman was a complete fury when her mood swings hit and where they ever hitting hard and often lately. Cid missed Shera when she was nice and patient and didn't talk back to him. Now he had red hand prints on his cheeks, a pair of bumps on his head and squished toes to prove that if he dared to talk back to her, she would not hesitate to slap him, hard, throw random items and or step on his feet. It was all only to come crying, rather loudly, in a fit of guilt soon after, seeking consolation and forgiveness from her beloved captain. Oh the joys of the approaching fatherhood. Cid wasn't sure if he would make it out alive. As much as he knew that taking care of a baby was hard work, from his experiences caring for baby Reno and later baby Sephiroth, he wished the baby would just hurry up and be born already so that Shera went back to normal.
They couldn't very well give Sephiroth to Rufus to take care of. He would accept, but only to make the baby into an advertisement. He was convinced that he could fix his image if he played his cards right and adopting a child without actually having to adopt one, was the perfect strategy for a nice image. He was already marketing the heroes with little plushies, actions figures and what not, the Midgar mall, which was more like the Shinra mall, was full of them. He even had plushies and toys that were Turks themed. Hey, if he couldn't make profit out of mako he had to make profit out of something because the WRO certainly took a large budget to stay up and running. He couldn't exactly shut them down because he had a debt to repay and most importantly because everyone would be out to bite his head off if he did.
Who would baby sit Sephiroth while those who were too tired recovered? Reno still volunteered claiming that he wanted to show the world, or at least his friends, he could do it. Of course that was at the risk of an even more hyper Sephiroth, so it was out of the question... maybe. They all wanted to help but exhaustion had settled in and it would take more than a few days to cure the extreme fatigue especially since they were busy people and couldn't really afford to stay in bed sleeping all day. "We could send him to Gun," Elena suggested happily remembering that event in which, as she so eloquently put it, /'Gun got pwned'/, her dear sister would forever fear babies after Reno literally ripped her hair out. Reno had no regrets as he only laughed when that memory returned to him.
"Let's not torture her any more." Tifa said having heard about the incident. Elena still had her sister's hair framed with the phase that best described the situation engraved. 'Gun got pwned' was thought to be abstract art but some of those who had visited Healin Lodge and not had the pleasure to hear the full story.
All those present who had enough energy left to move formed a circle leaving Reno out. The red head ran around the circle of people jumping occasionally as if they were hiding something in the middle. "We've decided," Tseng announced after a few minutes of quiet murmurs that only those who were included in the circle could hear.
"You have to take care of little Sephiroth and if you feed him too much sugar Tifa will lecture you, then I will lecture you too." Elena explained. Tifa gave a nod of agreement.
"I won't feed him too much sugar!" Reno tried to deny it but they all knew he would. If candy kept the child quiet and entertained, then candy he shall get. They all knew this would bring very hyper consequences but what's life without a few risk and besides, after giving it some thought they realized that if they could handle Reno's hyperness as a baby, they were ready to handle a hyper Sephiroth, or at least they would try. In addition they wanted to see how long it would take for Reno to use up his seemingly endless supply of energy and a hyper Sephiroth appeared to be their only option to make that happen.
Bonus
In the past...
Reno had only recently joined the Turks along with his best friend Rude. The red head always wore a pair of goggle on his forehead, it was his symbol, a part of who he was, but it seemed he wanted to add something else to his identity.
Rude had taken it upon himself to always watch out for his best friend, even if Reno was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. As they entered the tattoo parlor, he paused for a moment and asked the question Reno knew he would ask. "Are you sure?"
Reno nodded, "completely sure."
Rude didn't look quite convinced. He knew Reno very well and he could read him like a book, but this was something that had never mentioned. Because of that, to Rude the decision seemed too sudden and with little thought put into it.
Sensing Rude's doubt, Reno assured him once more. "I thought about it and I'm not going to regret it. I know I never mentioned it but I've had this idea for years."
Rude understood, Reno appeared to be very sure about the tattoos he wanted, so there was no need to further question his choice. He was just a bit surprised that Reno claimed to have this idea for so long and never mentioned it, maybe he had his reasons...
Present time...
Reno stood in the middle of the Seventh Heaven absolutely mortified as he realized that baby Sephiroth had somehow crawled away while he was distracted and open a drawer filled with things meant for Reno's eyes and Reno's eyes only. The silver haired child had taken an item from that drawer, he managed to keep it hidden until his babysitter brought him back to the Seventh heaven and he was now waving it around like a flag for the entire bar to see. Laughter erupted all over and Reno concluded that neither Cloud, Tifa, Cid, Vincent, Reeve, Tseng, Elena, Rude, and definitely not Yuffie, would ever let him forget this event. The picture was well preserved despite the years. It depicted a small Reno, still a toddler, after getting into mischief with mommy's lipstick and painting a pair of red lines on his face.
End
Part 4: Baby Sephiroth
Cloud wanted to dislike that child, he really did, but how could he? The silver haired baby sat contently on the blonde's lap making little baby noises, giggling and sucking his thumb. Sephiroth was giggling? Now there was something Cloud would never imagine was possible. He smiled, he didn't mean to, most certainly not, but his expression changed on its own. Cloud was in fact so lost in the fatherly feeling that he didn't notice Yuffie walk into the Seventh Heaven, kneel so that she was at the baby's eye level and proceed to coo and squeal and make baby talk. When he did notice the ninja's presence, Cloud blinked and stared and realized that it was no wonder Yuffie found it so easy to steal materia from him if he was always that distracted.
"It's my turn!" Yuffie extended her arms towards the small child waiting for Cloud to give him to her." He carefully handed her the baby and she cradled him in her arms. "You're so cute! Yes, you're cute! You're cute like a new born materia! Yes you are!"
"Surprisingly he's more well behaved than Reno." Tifa joined the conversation, once again Cloud failed to notice the approaching presence. He had been a bit stressed about Sephiroth, worrying that he'll suddenly grow to adult size and go crazy. Tifa kept telling him to relax the entire time while he kept jumping and drawing his sword over the smallest noise. Maybe her advice finally sunk in a little too deep.
"I heard that..." Cloud mentally kicked himself for letting himself relax too much. Relaxing once in a while was fine but he was so out of it he didn't even notice when people arrived. Now Reno and Rude came in without his knowledge. Then again maybe it wasn't because he was relaxed but rather the sleepless nights taking their toll and draining away his once acute senses.
"Where's Vincent?" Cloud asked. He had volunteered to take care of Sephiroth; after all he did know his mother. Then Reeve gave him a job, which wasn't so bad because Sephiroth ate like a bottomless pit and Vincent needed money for food and toys, but of course, a job meant needing a babysitter.
"I have no idea. I saw him at work but Reeve asked him to stay for a few more minutes. My guess is those minutes turned into hours. That's the problem with Shinra overtime. They tell you it'll just be a few minutes and you can go, but it takes forever. Problems keep popping up out of who knows were and well... you must know how it is." Yuffie tickled little Sephiroth as she spoke.
Cloud nodded. "I used to work for Shinra so I know how that is..." It seemed that when Vincent was allowed to leave work without too many protests, he was too tired to take care of little Sephiroth. Tifa, who loved kids, was all too happy to take care of him. True that she held a grudge against Sephiroth, but this was a completely different Sephiroth. She saw them as two different people, one of them an innocent and adorable little baby.
It evolved into a conversation about Shinra and their overtime. Reno, of course, always left even if no one told him he could go. In fact he left even if he was told not to. He wasn't a fool and in his honest opinion only a fool sacrificed himself for the job. Somehow he was never fired. Why he was never fired? Maybe because he had worked at Shinra for a long time and had a lot of information, maybe because he did have some skills or maybe because he got his job done, as long as it didn't involved working while off duty. The possibilities were endless but if anyone asked Reno he would just reply with something along the lines of "because I'm sexy." Maybe he didn't know the reason or maybe he thought that was the reason. Maybe his true job was to attract fan girls who would become customers. The world may never know.
While everyone talked about Shinra, Yuffie snuck away with little Sephiroth and retuned with him dressed as a materia. "Look everyone! Isn't he cute?" The room was filled with "aw" and "cute!"
But Reno wasn't happy. "You're an evil ninja picking on defenseless little babies." The red haired Turks gave the little materia boy an understanding look. "I know how this feels, my memories of being a baby returned after a few days... Well some of them." Reno was thankful that only a few of his memories returned because he really didn't want to remember certain things like Cloud giving him a bath and Vincent changing his diaper. "Poor little guy, you can't even more in there." The costume was basically a ball were Sephiroth could only stick out his head, hands and feet.
"But he looks cute! Besides you never complained... much." Yuffie reminded him. Oh yes Reno's days as a baby had really been something, chaotic yet cute.
"That's because I was a cheerful baby but Sephiroth isn't as much of a cheerful baby as me." Reno should know, that little silver hair bundle of noise was a total crybaby unless he received constant attention, opposite of what you would expect from Sephiroth. Since everyone had to baby sit Reno during his baby days, they got back at him by making him baby sit Sephiroth. He remembered it all too clearly.
Flashback
Sephiroth cried, rather loudly, indicating that he needed his babysitter's presence right away. "What, yo?" Reno peeked over the baby crib that had been placed in his apartment, without his permission by the power of Rude's spare key. They had decided to give Reno a long turn to take care of the baby, since everyone else needed to recover from taking care Reno when he was a baby. It shouldn't be a problem since it would seem that Reno was very hyper and energetic as a grown up too.
Baby Sephiroth only smiled looking at Reno who had at last arrived. "Goo! Daa! Baa! Goo!"
"Same to you!" Reno went on his way back to his nice soft bed but once again he heard sobbing followed by screams of agony and rushed to see what was wrong.
"Goo! Baa! Hee, hee!" Reno blinked at the incomprehensible gibberish.
"Sorry, kid I forgot how to speak baby. If nothing's wrong go to sleep, ok?" Reno waited for some form of sign that the baby had somehow understood what he was saying.
"E-o hee, hee."
"What?"
"Ee nnnn ooo, uba aba-ab."
Reno would normally think he's pretty good at understanding what people say. He even served as a translator between Cloud and Tifa sometimes. Poor Cloud would be helpless without him even if he might not admit it; at least that's what Reno thought. Then again Tifa did tend to use examples and metaphors and she sometimes forgot that Cloud could only absorb information when it was given to him nice and slow. But even with his amazing communication skills Reno still did not understand baby talk. He turned to leave in favor of finding and using some ear plugs.
"E e nnnnn o-oo Eno! Eno!!!"
Reno paused, Eno? "I get it, it's my name... sort of. Well good for you that you said a real word, or close to it. We'll celebrate tomorrow, now go to sleep."
"Eno! Eno! Eno! Eno!"
"Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!"
"Eno!!! Wah! Wah!! Waaaaahhh!!!" Sephiroth started to cry, he didn't want to sleep, he wanted to play.
xoxox xox xoxox
-knock- -knock- The door to Rude's apartment, right next to Reno's, was opened a sleepy bald Turks. "Rude you have to help me! I keep telling him to go to sleep but he keeps calling me!"
"Eo Udd!"
"He says /'Hello Rude'/... I think I'm getting this baby talk thing after all..." For a moment Reno smiled before he once again remembered his predicament. "Rude! Help!"
"You're the only one with enough energy to keep up with a baby..." Rude observed. Reno was whining, but he was whining energetically.
"Your point is?" Reno asked, sure he was still yet to experience the state of extreme exhaustion that everyone else had experienced with him, but that didn't mean he didn't need help.
"Stay with him until he falls asleep. You could try telling him a story or something."
Reno mussed Rude's words as an imaginary light bulb lit up above his head. "Right, gotcha, I can do that... But if he needs a diaper change I'll come right back!" Before Rude could refuse, Reno returned to his own apartment along with baby Sephiroth.
xoxox xox xoxox
"Alright kid I'll tell you a story like Rude said. Pay attention." Reno started while trying to think of a story.
"Eno!" Little Sephiroth cheered.
"Yes, yes Eno is, I mean Reno is going to tell you a story." After hearing Sephiroth say 'Eno' so much Reno wouldn't be surprised if he accidentally started to call himself Eno. It would be a disaster if people mistook it for Emo, then Cloud would whine that he stole his title which he had no intentions of doing. Really, someone as cheerful as him? It didn't fit in the least and besides not even Cloud was depressed these days.
"Goo!"
"Go? Ok I'll start you little impatient mini." He patted the baby on the head and began his tale. "Once upon a time there was a... a Turks, not quite as cool as me. His name was... um... Vincent! Yeah, the same name as the vampire dude." It was something that Reno had been saying for a while. He knew Vincent wasn't a vampire but that didn't mean he couldn't get a laugh out of it. It was funny when ever Vincent brought up taking care of him as a child in his attempt at defense. "An evil mad scientist put him to sleep in a coffin, of all places. Then some guy came and got him out but Vincent was really disappointed because he wanted to be woken up by his true love's kiss because all those fairy tales have that. The one who woke him up, Cloud, he kept pestering Vincent to get up like a mother on a school day, so he had no choice. Vincent went on a journey with Cloud were he met, Cait Sith who was riding on a big moogle. Together they joined the Sith, beat up all the Jedi and lived happily ever after, the end."
Baby Sephiroth did not look satisfied. It was as if he knew that was not a real fairytale. "O! Moo!"
"No? Moo? What? Repeat it slowly I'm still not fluent in baby talk." Reno requested.
"O! Oo! Ooo! Moo!" Little Sephiroth repeated.
Reno gave it some thought. "No? You don't think my story is true? Well too bad kid, that's all I have. As for moo... Moo is over there." Reno walked over to the baby crib and picked up a cow plushie. Rufus had given Sephiroth that plushie. Why? No one knew. It was logical in a way. Since babies like milk so much, maybe they like cows. Or maybe Rufus liked cows for some secret random reason. "Here you go."
"Moo-moo! Heehee! Moo!"
Reno wondered what Sephiroth could possibly want now, because he sounded like he was requesting something. "Oh right! The plushie is Moo-moo, moo must mean more. You're happy to have your Moo-moo and want another story?"
Baby Sephiroth seemed to nod his little head.
"Oh yeah, it's official I'm a total genius! Let's go out and celebrate that I can understand you!"
"Eno! Moo!"
"More fun with uncle Reno, yes, yes!"
xoxox xox xoxox
Tifa yawned as she cleaned the bar. It was a slow night, which wasn't so bad since she barely had any energy left. She was still recovering from babysitting Reno and wondered if her sleeping pattern would ever go back to normal. She had grown used to waking up in the middle of the night and now she woke up even if there was no screaming baby to tend to. She absent mindedly picked up the baby that had been placed on the counter, cleaned the counter and set him down again. "What would you like, sir?"
"I would really like it if this kid would go to sleep, but since he's not tired I'll wait for him to sleep while I'm having the usual." Reno replied amused by the fact that Tifa didn't appear to recognize him. He was a regular customer, how could she forget? She must really be tired.
Tifa snapped awake as she recognized the red head. This was one the regular customers, Reno of the Turks, Sephiroth's current babysitter. Furthermore that was little Sephiroth sitting on the counter. "Ifa! Ifa!"
"Reno! You can't go to random bars with a baby!" Tifa scolded him.
"But this isn't a random bar..." Reno replied.
"Of course not, the Seventh Heaven is the best!" Tifa had to take the moment to spread the positive publicity. "But that's not the point. You're supposed to be at home with he baby." Reno opened his mouth to say something but Tifa spoke first. "Home as in where you live, not where you spend most of your free time."
Reno closed his mouth, paused and came up with a new defensive argument. "He won't fall asleep so I thought we could pull out an all nighter together. You know a guy's night out so to speak." Tifa shook her head and picked up little Sephiroth holding him protectively. "You know nothing about taking care of children."
"It's not like I was going to let him order a drink. It's just milk for the little guy, till he's old enough. Beside I never said I know how to baby sit, I'm just guessing," Reno admitted. He was a genius indeed. It seemed that he had tricked Tifa into following her motherly instinct and taking care of little Sephiroth. Of course when she realized she had been tricked, a true nightmare broke loose as she forced Reno to sit down and listen to her responsibility speech. Poor Reno was scarred for life and he thought Elena was talkative, but Tifa's lectures were truly deadly.
End of Flashback
"My point is, Reno continued, "That this is uncomfortable."
"No it's not! Yuffie insisted. "You don't even know how to baby sit right. You got Tifa to do all the work last time, she told me!"
-sob- -sob- "Waaaaaahhh!" Sephiroth started crying.
"I told you so!" Reno felt victorious because he was right but it was short lived, as Sephiroth's screams erased any possible satisfaction that could come from saying /I told you so/.
"Ok, ok, I get it, how about the Red XIII cub costume instead?" Yuffie suggested.
"That could work, but I thought we should save that one for when Red XIII came to visit." Tifa suggested. It was rather useful that they kept baby Reno's wardrobe which now worked as hand me downs for Sephiroth. At least they didn't have to run from store to store in a panicked shopping spree since they had plenty of supplied from Reno's days as a baby.
"He's getting away!" Rude spoke for the first time catching everyone's attention. The group watched in horror as Sephiroth rolled away in his materia costume.
"So much for being more well behaved than Reno, but at least he didn't try to drown me" Cloud said as he engaged pursuit along with everyone else.
As they chased the little rolling materia baby, Elena and Tseng who were on their way to see the baby caught him. "What are you doing to the baby?" Elena held him protectively as everyone pointed accusing fingers at each other.
"Hey!" Tifa slapped Cloud's hand away when she realized that he was pointing at her, and poking her where he shouldn't be poking her at the same time.
"Sorry!" Cloud was just caught in the middle of the finger pointing confusion. "I meant to say it's... Reno's fault!" Perhaps he should have reframed from pointing completely.
"Ouch! Why can't people keep their fingers out of my nose?" While Reno held his poor abused nose, Cloud looked absolutely horrified. He removed the globe with the tip of two fingers and threw it away thankful that he actually had a globe on.
"Poor Sephiroth, being rolled around like a ball." Elena cradled the baby while everyone made excuses and finally pushed Yuffie forward.
"I didn't mean for this to happen! Reno didn't roll away when I dressed him up as a materia!" Yuffie tried to explain.
"We'll take care of him from now on!" Elena announced.
So far Tseng had been nodding quietly but after hearing Elena's words he stopped. "Don't forget we need to get up early for the next missing. We can't afford not getting any sleep taking care of the baby. It should alright when we come back. We could take care of him then." He stopped as he noticed that everyone was staring at him. He analyzed his words and tried to figure out what this was about, then it hit him like a ton of bricks. Tseng cleared his throat and resumed his silence, both demanding and begging with his eyes that the topic would not be brought up again.
"It's not like everyone hasn't already figured out you two moved in together, yo." Reno received deadly glares from both Tseng and Elena for that one. To save his job, Reno did the one smart thing he had left to do and pretended that he didn't say anything, both demanding and begging with his eyes that everyone would just drop the subject and not get him fired because he was the one who brought it up again.
The group returned to the Seventh Heaven in relative silence, save for the quiet baby sounds of discomfort and occasional sobbing that little Sephiroth expressed. They got him dressed up as a moogle as soon as they returned. It was a lot easier to move like that, even with that little bouncy ball on the end of a wire on his head but that was a good thing because he was entertained by trying to reach the little ball and play with it.
However, as things stood they still didn't have a babysitter for little Sephiroth. They thought about giving Reno another chance to really complete the mission this time, but when the red haired Turk started rambling about how he would be totally prepared with lots of candy this time around, because children love candy, they knew it was best not to allow Reno to baby sit. Baby Sephiroth was very energetic as he was, he certainly didn't need Reno feeding him candy and making him even more hyper with all the extra sugar.
Denzel and Marlene played with the baby for a while and soon Red XII arrived, which made them wish they had dressed Sephiroth as a cub after all, because it was just too cute to see him riding on Red XII aka Nanaki like that. He was still adorable as a moogle though so they decided he could stay that way.
Even Cid came by as did Reeve and Vincent, after they got off work, but the three appeared to be very exhausted. It was understandable with all the overtime Reeve and Vincent have been working at the World Restoration Organization aka WRO, yet as Cid collapsed into a bar stood, nursing a pounding headache with his hands, he received several puzzled looks. "Mood swings," the pilot simply replied. That was enough for everyone to understand. Shera, sweet, calm, patient Shera. The woman was a complete fury when her mood swings hit and where they ever hitting hard and often lately. Cid missed Shera when she was nice and patient and didn't talk back to him. Now he had red hand prints on his cheeks, a pair of bumps on his head and squished toes to prove that if he dared to talk back to her, she would not hesitate to slap him, hard, throw random items and or step on his feet. It was all only to come crying, rather loudly, in a fit of guilt soon after, seeking consolation and forgiveness from her beloved captain. Oh the joys of the approaching fatherhood. Cid wasn't sure if he would make it out alive. As much as he knew that taking care of a baby was hard work, from his experiences caring for baby Reno and later baby Sephiroth, he wished the baby would just hurry up and be born already so that Shera went back to normal.
They couldn't very well give Sephiroth to Rufus to take care of. He would accept, but only to make the baby into an advertisement. He was convinced that he could fix his image if he played his cards right and adopting a child without actually having to adopt one, was the perfect strategy for a nice image. He was already marketing the heroes with little plushies, actions figures and what not, the Midgar mall, which was more like the Shinra mall, was full of them. He even had plushies and toys that were Turks themed. Hey, if he couldn't make profit out of mako he had to make profit out of something because the WRO certainly took a large budget to stay up and running. He couldn't exactly shut them down because he had a debt to repay and most importantly because everyone would be out to bite his head off if he did.
Who would baby sit Sephiroth while those who were too tired recovered? Reno still volunteered claiming that he wanted to show the world, or at least his friends, he could do it. Of course that was at the risk of an even more hyper Sephiroth, so it was out of the question... maybe. They all wanted to help but exhaustion had settled in and it would take more than a few days to cure the extreme fatigue especially since they were busy people and couldn't really afford to stay in bed sleeping all day. "We could send him to Gun," Elena suggested happily remembering that event in which, as she so eloquently put it, /'Gun got pwned'/, her dear sister would forever fear babies after Reno literally ripped her hair out. Reno had no regrets as he only laughed when that memory returned to him.
"Let's not torture her any more." Tifa said having heard about the incident. Elena still had her sister's hair framed with the phase that best described the situation engraved. 'Gun got pwned' was thought to be abstract art but some of those who had visited Healin Lodge and not had the pleasure to hear the full story.
All those present who had enough energy left to move formed a circle leaving Reno out. The red head ran around the circle of people jumping occasionally as if they were hiding something in the middle. "We've decided," Tseng announced after a few minutes of quiet murmurs that only those who were included in the circle could hear.
"You have to take care of little Sephiroth and if you feed him too much sugar Tifa will lecture you, then I will lecture you too." Elena explained. Tifa gave a nod of agreement.
"I won't feed him too much sugar!" Reno tried to deny it but they all knew he would. If candy kept the child quiet and entertained, then candy he shall get. They all knew this would bring very hyper consequences but what's life without a few risk and besides, after giving it some thought they realized that if they could handle Reno's hyperness as a baby, they were ready to handle a hyper Sephiroth, or at least they would try. In addition they wanted to see how long it would take for Reno to use up his seemingly endless supply of energy and a hyper Sephiroth appeared to be their only option to make that happen.
Bonus
In the past...
Reno had only recently joined the Turks along with his best friend Rude. The red head always wore a pair of goggle on his forehead, it was his symbol, a part of who he was, but it seemed he wanted to add something else to his identity.
Rude had taken it upon himself to always watch out for his best friend, even if Reno was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. As they entered the tattoo parlor, he paused for a moment and asked the question Reno knew he would ask. "Are you sure?"
Reno nodded, "completely sure."
Rude didn't look quite convinced. He knew Reno very well and he could read him like a book, but this was something that had never mentioned. Because of that, to Rude the decision seemed too sudden and with little thought put into it.
Sensing Rude's doubt, Reno assured him once more. "I thought about it and I'm not going to regret it. I know I never mentioned it but I've had this idea for years."
Rude understood, Reno appeared to be very sure about the tattoos he wanted, so there was no need to further question his choice. He was just a bit surprised that Reno claimed to have this idea for so long and never mentioned it, maybe he had his reasons...
Present time...
Reno stood in the middle of the Seventh Heaven absolutely mortified as he realized that baby Sephiroth had somehow crawled away while he was distracted and open a drawer filled with things meant for Reno's eyes and Reno's eyes only. The silver haired child had taken an item from that drawer, he managed to keep it hidden until his babysitter brought him back to the Seventh heaven and he was now waving it around like a flag for the entire bar to see. Laughter erupted all over and Reno concluded that neither Cloud, Tifa, Cid, Vincent, Reeve, Tseng, Elena, Rude, and definitely not Yuffie, would ever let him forget this event. The picture was well preserved despite the years. It depicted a small Reno, still a toddler, after getting into mischief with mommy's lipstick and painting a pair of red lines on his face.
End
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