/
Glass Slipper
Part Two
/
"Oh, Prince!"
"Oh Fuckerella!"
"Oh Prince!"
"Oh Fuckerella! You've got the sweetest snatch ever. It's the most beautiful pussy in the kingdom. It's the perfect fit!"
"Give me more, Prince! Give me more!"
A few of the guys have to hide their heads in their arms to keep from snickering too loudly. Reno grins.
They're piled up on Saint's bed like this, the four youngest of the male Turks. Sometimes Rude joins them for nights like this but tonight it's just the core enthusiasts: Saint, Rafe, Uri and Reno, lined up lying on their stomachs on the mattress like a huddle of girls at a sleep-over, watching a favorite prime-time drama. If they were in curlers and with fresh paint on their toes, the scene couldn't be more complete.
It's an interesting phenomenon, group porn nights. All the men concerned would, on any other occasion, claim a total and willful ignorance of each other's sexual tastes and habits, strictly as a matter of course, but not for these times. Nights like these, there are shots had, there are tapes traded, there are giggles and snickers and flagrant misuse of the rewind button and it all, somehow, doesn't strike anyone as odd, far less suggestive of something.
"Marry me, Fuckerella!"
"Ohhh!"
"Sweet Krishna," Rafe hisses, shielding his eyes with a hand.
Reno is pleased. The guys were as wary as Rude was when Reno started to talk about the plot, but once the video hit the lesbian scene between Fuckerella and the stepsisters in the first act, the whole group was hooked. He knew from the start that there was a strange hypnotic quality to this little gem; the guys are staring at the screen like freshmen in a sex ed class, eyes wide and glossy like they're watching one of the most engrossing things in their life. Train wreck phenomenon, probably.
It's getting pretty hot now. The girl's on her back tossing her platinum blonde curls around and Prince Cumming's thrusting into her harder than ever and the TV speakers are a constant spike of tinny shrieks and groans and Saint, the youngest of the four Turks, is all but falling off the edge of the bed leaning so far forward and at least one of them is probably starting to pop a boner, and Reno finds even he's getting into it more than he should, and--
Someone's cell phone rings.
There is a collective, synchronized groan and sag, and the men start groping for their pockets muttering about who forgot to turn theirs off and what could anyone in the world want this time of night and someone eventually manages to pause the disc, frozen right on a frame of Fuckerella's mouth expanded to a perfect "O" at the onset of her stage-orgasm, blinking out as a pinkish glow into the room.
It turns out to be Rafe's cell. He sits up on the bed and the others twist around and listen as he replies defensively to Samantha on the other end, saying that it's just a boy's night, no he didn't forget about tomorrow, no he didn't eat that sundae she was saving in the freezer, and then the guys hear her wheedling about wanting Rafe to take her shift tomorrow because her period came early and if he was a man he'd do this for her and everyone except Reno yells their disgust. And then Samantha starts shrieking about letting the boys hang around to hear their call, you're such an ass Raphael, and the mention of the full name sends the others into out and out shouts of laughter until Rafe lobs the phone at Uri's head, thereby neatly ending the conversation.
Mood sufficiently killed, Rafe stands up to stretch and switch the lights on. He goes over to the player and ejects the disc, frozen frame blipping out back to the player's wait-screen again.
Reno objects. "Hey, c'mon, it wasn't even getting good yet."
"This thing," Rafe says, holding up the disc, "is like a fuck with your grandpa. If you close your eyes hard enough it might make your dick happy but then you're waiting around for an eternity and a half for it to go again. I swear this thing's got like an hour between sex scenes."
"So what's the problem? That's how long you take to get it up again anyway."
"Yeah? Your mom was tellin' a different story last night."
"That was beyond lame, man."
Saint lolls about a little on the mattress and nudges Reno's elbow. "Yo, man, can I borrow that?" he asks, and the question makes Rafe and Uri crack up.
"Figures," Uri snickers, readjusting his glasses.
"What? Hey..."
Rafe tosses Fuckerella onto the carpet and draws up the other still untouched cases, only two of them now. The boys get bored easily. "Okay, now let's watch some real stuff, huh?" he says, holding up the cases. "We got our pick here of hot girl-on-girl with some double-anal for the finale, or--"
"What about my bondage tape?" Uri complains.
"Man, no one wants to see that shit, Uriah."
"Fuck yeah; Rafe gets enough of that from his old lady," says Reno.
"Hey, shut up! Look, okay, lesbians? Or there's this." Rafe holds out the cover for them to see closer. "Live homegrown dickgirl, straight from Wutai. You want a laugh, this is it."
On either side of Reno, Saint and Uri give a low laugh of morbid interest, the same kind that has schoolkids kicking each other in the knees to see how much pain it causes. Reno only falls silent.
"Dickgirl it is," says Rafe brightly, setting aside the other case.
The silence doesn't hold out. "Hey, come on," says Reno. "Don't put that shit on. It's sick."
"Oh-ho! Ladies, I think we've finally discovered the edge to senpai's tolerance on the porno-meter." Rafe grins. "What's the matter, Reno? Too cockshy?"
Reno persists. "You know what that shit is?" he asks, like a health official about to lecture some poor soul on the rat content of peanut butter. "It's a bunch of faggot trannies with breast implants and pussies cut out of their asses. You're beating off to a bunch of dudes."
Saint and Uri, for their part, diminish in their enthusiasm.
"Hey hey, a real professor in the audience." Rafe makes a face. "Whatever happened to 'don't knock it till you try it'? These guys are promising the real deal here."
"Right, 'cause porn has a history of truth in advertising."
"C'mon, a snatch is a snatch."
"You wanna watch queer-ass shit, that's your deal," Reno sighs, resigned. "I'm gonna duck out." He starts to rise, but Uri urges him back down.
"Come on, senpai, live a little," Saint drawls beside him. Rafe sticks the disc in and starts it through the load sequence.
What is Reno supposed to tell them? That he's seen enough of this shit to want to stay the hell away? That he knows damn well what a real hermaphrodite looks like and that he's sick of this comfortably surreal fantasy people propagate, like sawing off antlers to make a unicorn, how of course they accept some hideous... hideous pantomime, and yet if for one second they considered--
Rafe joins the others on the bed and drapes an arm over Reno's shoulders so he won't go anywhere, murmurs hot breath in his ear while the parody on screen spreads his legs and mewls Wutainese come-ons to a gang of ready men. Grabbing his wrists, grabbing his ankles, hooking arms around his chest--
Reno climbs off the bed. He has to crawl clear over Saint to manage it but he does it anyway, amid groans and jeers about, man, he's such a pussy, and he laughs back for them to have fun licking each other's asses later and he'll see them tomorrow, shyeah. And he tells Saint to bring the disc back by next week or else.
They laugh him clear out the door and he hears it in his head all the way to his room, admonishing himself and wondering if it's too late to call Natasha, and deciding that he doesn't care.
/
Cyr is avoidant the next morning in the office and eventually Reno has to ask if he has something on his face. It's that time in his cycle when his libido is really peaking and even his desk partner looks tempting --Odin in Heaven, what a horrible thought-- and every glance makes him worry more than he knows it should.
Cyr replies innocently, "You do have a life outside work, right, Reno?"
"...What?"
"I mean, hobbies? A special someone?"
"...Are you coming onto me?"
"No. I just meant-- Goddammit, here's your mail."
Reno regards her warily. It sounds like a cover, and he wonders once again if maybe someone's been gossiping, maybe Rafe and the others this time-- but porn nights are a lot like secret societies, and Reno's sure the guys know that if they tattled, he has plenty of dirt to sling right back their way, stuff that would even turn Samantha's ears red.
But in that case Cyr's expression doesn't make much sense, unless...
"You've been talking to Rude, haven't you."
Cyr flushes awkwardly. "It was just a few drinks."
"What, you're making that a habit now?"
"If you gotta know, we barely even talk about you."
"Oh, that makes me feel a lot bet--"
The office line rings. Cyr, eager for the escape, swivels around in her chair to pick it up.
"It's Tseng," she says, when she sets the phone down. "He wants a word again."
"Must be nice," Reno notes derisively, "living in that cute little bubble of convenient timing."
"Yes, actually."
/
Tseng's expression is more somber than usual and Reno can guess who he was visiting last night. This is a lucky kind of look, because it means Tseng's bastard side is tempered a little, and he's not going to be half the ass today he sometimes is. Damned if it isn't miserable what it takes to get in that state, but Reno's gonna feel grateful.
He looks up when Reno approaches his desk and asks if Reno's looked at his mail yet this morning.
Reno had carried the bundle with him up from his office and now he awkwardly thumbs through it while Tseng waits, sitting back in his chair with what counts as exceptional patience, coming from him.
"It's your third notice," Tseng tells him, when Reno finds the memo near the bottom of the stack.
"Yeah, my bad, I keep misfiling these under my kitchen sink."
Tseng sighs. He lays down his reports and pushes a single sheet of paper across the desk to him, along with a pen.
"I've scheduled you for Friday. Just sign it and show up, that's all I ask. I realize it's a bit much coming from you."
"I don't need a physical," says Reno, half laughing. He spreads his arms. "Look at me. I'm in exactly the same shape I was this time last year."
"It's standard procedure after a cardiac arrest," Tseng reminds. Reno begins to shrink back; Tseng notices and presses, "Look, this is important. It happened on company time so it's a company liability. I'd ask the same of any of the crew."
Reno admits, grudgingly, that he would. And that most of the staff would be similarly bullheaded, to which Tseng shrugs and says that he knows Reno fares best when spades are spades, and he has a bad taste in his mouth from kissing the VP's ass all morning, and a headache from the flight back from Healin before that, so Reno can just deal with it.
Reno's mouth twitches. "How is he?" he asks, softer, and both men know he doesn't mean the princeling.
Tseng hesitates a moment, expression hidden behind folded hands. Then he lowers them to his lap and scowls openly. "Veld is not in any condition to hear about our failures," he says sourly.
The sergeant grinds his back teeth slightly. "Then tell him about the good stuff!" he argues. "What about that riot we stopped the other day?"
"What, the student one? That's been featured on every liberal radio broadcast and has made the front page of the underground press from here to the Canyon? Oh, yes, that was brilliant on our part."
"So we spin it!"
"Some things can't be spun, Reno. Or have you forgotten that Veld detests lies?"
"I bet not half as much as you hate telling them."
"Aptly noted," says the lieutenant, tapping his papers on the desk to straighten them. "Just sign it and go, sergeant."
Reno doesn't budge. "Put me in charge of the Kalman investigation," he says.
That one actually causes Tseng to laugh. Surely Reno's joking.
"I'm not."
The acting-captain of the Turks studies him carefully for a long moment. It's the sound of Reno's voice that does it, maybe, or his expression. Or just the fact that he never talks like this unless he's serious.
"I'll send you a copy of the files," Tseng says eventually, leaning back in his chair. "Mind you I don't expect anything, but you can consider it a side project."
Reno salutes. Sloppily, but Tseng seems flattered for the effort. He gestures to the paper again and Reno pulls out a pen, his own. Red ink.
/
Now this. This is the fun kind of work. This is old school.
Reno taps his baton on the edge of the chair between his legs and sighs theatrically. He complains loudly about how the lamp is giving him a headache and the guy's fagsobbing isn't doing him any favors.
"B-but I told you!" the subject wails. "I don't know anything!"
"Been there, got the t-shirt. Thought of any new ones yet?"
Rude enjoys these jobs too, Reno knows. He doesn't have to talk, he doesn't have to be clever, he just has to stand by the door with his arms crossed and watch the show. Because, really, this is theater.
The guy stapled to his chair probably doesn't think that, but that's always the thing with entertainment. The individual experience seems unique, but try going to that chocobo rodeo four years in a row. You start to pick out which lines are scripted, which fights are thrown, and who's the real jackass schmuck for being there, and here's a tip: it's you.
Unfortunately, most people are only interrogated once in their lives, so the pattern's never picked up. But sitting on the opposite side of the table (well, all right, he's more beside it, the better to grin in the fucker's face), Reno gets to see the circus, and enjoy it all the more as a result.
He rolls the edge of his baton over the edge of his mouth and licks the tip. "Let's try this again, huh?"
Rude has mentioned to him in the past that there's evidence to suggest electroshock therapy is not the best method of interrogation. For one thing, it destroys the brain cells you may be after. In Reno's experience, however, it's a tactic that can't be beat. Efficient, usually, too.
The subject spits into Reno's face.
Yeah. Usually efficient.
"Maybe we're not making ourselves clear," he says more forcefully, wiping the mucus away from his eyes. "Always tragic when communication falls through, don't you think, Rude?"
"Maybe we oughta simplify," says Rude, because that's the line. They got it from a movie once.
"Yeah. Put it in a language our buddy here'll understand," says Reno, grinning into the bastard's face, because that's part of the script too.
Rude leaves the doorway. It's a small little shack so he only has to walk a few paces, duck under the lamp, and wait for the guy to really start trembling in his shadow. Then Rude selects a finger.
Man, more Thursday nights should be this fun.
/
Historians will tell you that every major center of civilization founds itself along a major river. Water, they say, is the lifeblood of a society. No water, no easy agriculture; no agriculture, no room for accountants and all that jazz. At least that's the idea.
The Jormungand is Midgar's answer to the river hypothesis. It runs the length of the Midgard continent from the Icicle Channel to the Mideel Sea, and if you were to track it by helicopter or airship you would see that it weaves like a spidery vein across the terrain, until it gets to the valley of Hermoor. Where once upon a time the eight forgotten villages were founded, and the Jormungand wraps around in nearly a perfectly circular oxbow. Hence the name.
When those villages became cities and the cities became a kingdom, with metal battlements and a suspended surface above its slums, and demand overtook the river's capacity, the Jormungand was depleted to a dirty trickle at the base of a too-large aqueduct, worming its way pathetically through the heart of Midgar's ghettos and evaporating as oil and toxic fumes long before it reached the southern delta. It remains, in a way, half a fond childhood memory and half an elaborate, not-too-funny joke, that always likes to get told in the dead hours of the night, when someone is dragging another someone up to its edge, while the latter is wearing cement shoes and a burlap sack over their head.
"Well, Jimmy," Reno says, slapping the sack-headed figure on the back, hard enough that he shudders and almost loses his balance. "It is Jimmy, isn't it? No? Jim, I'm afraid you've reached the end of the road."
Beneath the hood, Jim-though-that's-not-actually-his-name whimpers and cringes.
"We just want you to know you've been very helpful to ShinRa inquiries," Reno says near his ear, arm around his shoulders like a buddy. "Top notch. Really. We enjoyed every minute of it, even when you started crying like a bitch."
The whimper breaks into a sob.
"Geez, here we go..."
They hoist him out onto a naked beam, the gutted remains of some ancient structure crumbling underfoot with exposed wires looping like streamers from its underside. Rude gets the chain secured around Jim's neck and Reno offers up some last bits of praise for a job well done all around.
"But unfortunately," Reno says at last, "it looks like you know too much for your own good, Jimmy."
He gives a play shove. Jim screams and gibbers through his tears.
"Relax!" Reno laughs. "Who's ever heard of drowning in the Midgar River?"
And this time Rude and Reno push for real.
"At least," Reno reflects as Jim's screams reach an abrupt halt far below, "when you're not dropped from a height of eight stories."
/
Reno leans over his arm when they check the time on Rude's phone.
"Man!" Reno complains. "If we'd spent another half an hour breaking his teeth, we could clock some overtime. Better not call it in yet," he tells Rude, who nods prudently. "C'mon, let's go grab a bite."
They do, or at least they have the thought to, but get derailed finding a bar instead. After maybe forty minutes spent on beer and sushi they skip out the back into an alley to call up Tseng. Rude calls and Reno fakes screams and pleas for mercy, while Rude informs with perfect monotone delivery that they're just finishing up here, and could Tseng be generous and clock them out at roughly one-ish? All in a night's work, sir.
This done, they go back to the bar. They order shots, and Reno chats bullshit while Rude listens and contributes, and then, what the hell, they order up a few more.
"What you been saying to Cyr?" Reno says after what should be too many.
"Nuh."
"No, go on, say it."
"Cyr thinks you're a queer."
"I'm a queer?" Reno demands, landing his glass hard on the counter. "I'm a queer? Lemme tell you who the real queer is. Tseng. There's a fuckin' queer. You wanna know what I am?"
Rude lifts his head. "What?"
"I'm a goddamn professional," says Reno.
They head out when the bar closes, trod sullenly back up to the plate on the last train out, and when they reach ShinRa Tower, Reno, who feels the night is younger than it is, invites himself over to Rude's apartment to top off the evening.
And then Reno is on his couch, draped over the cushions completely boneless and limp, and he's bitching about Cyr and Tseng and the entire department, how he never really wanted to do this, you know, it was just the only thing he could do.
He's horny as fuck, he says, climbing over Rude's arm, and they're both too lazy to reach for the AC so their skin sticks together and Reno loosens his partner's tie for him, shit at putting the things on but god how he can take them off.
Rude is a quiet drunk, but that doesn't mean he takes his drink well. Matched one for one with Reno, he actually fares a slight bit worse, and so can't muster up a protest when Reno leans in closer to him and slips a knee between his thighs.
"You horny too, huh, partner?" Reno murmurs in his ear, his eyes closed, hands exploring even as he says, "We should call up some whores, whaddya think. Order us some whores."
"Yeah," Rude agrees, without being completely sure what he's agreeing to. Reno is unzipping his pants for him. "Yeah."
"I ain't a queer, man."
"Nuh."
"I ain't a fuckin' queer."
And then there are hands, rough fingers, and Reno's voice by his navel, wow, big boy, and the wet brand of a tongue.
And then things get even hazier.
/
Reno doesn't get what he's hearing at first. When he wakes up a little more, he realizes what it is: nothing.
His body is used to waking up early in the morning but it's attuned to the sound of the talk radio, and there is no radio. There's no alarm. There's no sound, and the sheets feel wrong, and there's something warm by his shoulder.
He looks over, and discovers, ah, that's where his hangover was. He wonders if it's possible to feel your own brains spontaneously combusting.
He doesn't have his radio because this isn't his room. This isn't his bed. This is Rude's bed. This is Rude. Hello, lover.
Shit.
Shit.
He climbs up into a sitting position, as if this can help matters, which it doesn't. The nausea hits and his head feels like his brain is sloshing up against the wall of his skull and the room is spinning, and under the sheets he can feel the rawness of his skin, the flaky gluish film that's got to be way more than his own, the ache of muscles that says he got fucked sideways and inside-out, and then the memories come flooding back, rising like steam out from under his skin. Fuck. Oh god, fuck. And then they-- And then he--
Reno pulls the sheets off and gets out of bed.
He staggers a little, stiff feet uncertain, loose bunched socks dragging on the carpet. He finds his clothes scattered on the floor close to the bed and dresses as quickly as he can, grabs his shirt off the couch, doesn't bother to put on the shoes. Any second longer in here is going to be a second too late.
He closes the door quietly, into the silent hall, discovering for the first time just how much like an overstarched hotel this place really feels, in his socks on the linoleum, and nothing but him and the florescent lights overhead for noise.
It occurs to him suddenly, standing there, that he's forgotten his nightstick. And that he can't go retrieve it now, and waking Rude up to unlock the door isn't an option.
Actually, seeing Rude's face again isn't an option that Reno likes to think about. Not while his body is still sore. Not while his head hurts and vision blurs at the edges and the anxiety is suffocating and good god, he slept with Rude. Rude. His partner. The closest thing he has to a friend. His sick, stupid attraction got the better of him and now it might've just cost him everything. How do you explain something like this?
Answer: you don't. You fucking run.
/
Rude thinks he hears the door shut when he wakes up. The sun is filtering through the blinds into his vision and it eases his eyes back shut again, too comfortable to move just yet, too early to wake up, give him just another ten minutes, with...
Huh.
The hangover headache catches up when Rude reopens his eyes. Shit. The hell.
What the hell did he do last night? He remembers the job. He remembers going out for drinks, vaguely remembers taking the train back up to the surface... This is his room, so he must've gotten back here, at least, which is a start.
He... oh yeah. Oh god. His spine's practically jelly; there's a warm, pleasant ache all the way through his pelvis, down through his legs. He remembers-- sweet Shiva-- that was an incredible fuck. Tight like a virgin but so wet, squeezing him right in and--
--And he can't remember her face. Goddamn.
Who had it been? He remembers Reno mumbling something about calling over some whores... That must be it, but he can't for the life of him recall what they'd looked like, or what they said their names were. And he doesn't know whether to feel guilty, considering that that normally isn't a problem, but shit that was a good lay. That was better than a good lay. He's sure of that much.
"...Urgh."
He's also sure, sitting up, that he drank too much. He wonders if he's got time for a shower before he needs to go in. And clean up, since it looks like Reno did a number on his living room.
That guy. Even if he is just passing for straight, he's one hell of a good luck charm. Even with the unfortunate side effects.
/
Reno knows he'll be late to relieve Saint and Rosalind but he doesn't care, he needs to stop at his apartment. The talk radio greets him when he gets inside and buzzes on about tax hikes and state-sponsored religion while Reno goes to his bathroom and opens the medicine cabinet.
One for his heart, one for the hangover, one for the sex. He's guessing if he was too drunk to stop himself he was too drunk to remember a rubber, and gods willing Rude was too out of it to remember anything except passing out, in which case he wouldn't have been the cautious one either.
He washes the pills down with water from the tap and presses his forehead on the mirror; easing cool. The fluorescents hurt his eyes and his entire face seems a few notches too tight, taste in the back of his mouth like retread vomit. Not sexy. It never does happen like it does in softcore, does it.
He knows he stinks of sex. Worse, he smells like Rude, and if he walked into the office like this he's sure at least one keen nose is going to point it out. Really, really not what he needs right now.
He starts the shower going and undresses. He catches his reflection in the mirror as it starts to steam up and he stops a moment, seeing the marks dotted across his skin: hot, dark red, like daubs of paint over the fainter traces of his scars.
He never lets anyone mark his body. Natasha would never even try but Jose he'd always told no, like the others past and present, and it's for a reason. The last people to leave an imprint on his body were the ones to leave him these scars. As far as he's concerned, that's all the territoriality he should be made to deal with.
But Rude went ahead and did it. Without thinking. Without Reno thinking, so it's his own goddamn fault.
They itch under the spray of the shower. He touches the dark hickie on his throat and as he does so he can feel the memory rise up from the fugue, remembers Rude's eyelashes brushing his jaw, the quiver of his tongue trailing the line of a collarbone, and a shudder washes through him. It coils at the base of his pelvis and the longer he dwells on the situation the harder the memories come back, the echo of touches, gentle pinches, strong fingers gripping his flank and pressing between the knots of his spine. The feel of his lips. The way his skin tasted in Reno's mouth.
He'd been... Shiva, Reno must have been drunk, to fit that inside him. Nothing to write home to Maria about but there are reasons Reno only goes to smaller guys like Jose, if he goes to guys at all: part of the problem with having both is that you lose size each way, and even an average-sized cock can hurt if he's not ready for it.
Well, he was plenty ready last night, it seems. Really... really ready.
"--Ah--"
His head throbs. His hair falls into his eyes and the water eases them shut and his cunt is aching, folds twitching around a phantom sensation, remembering Rude's cock sliding into him, pushing, grinding against that perfect spot just in response to an intuitive rhythm, so full, so hot it nearly burns--
Reno grapples the shower knob with a shaking hand and forces it all the way to the right. Ice cold water pours down his back.
/
Cyr is not a morning person, but she tries her best. It requires coffee and a dart board, most days.
This latest rota is not to anyone's tastes in the department. Patrol beats are screwed up, hours are ungainly, Rafe and Samantha's fuck-time is consequently now an afternoon activity-- the list goes on. Cyr especially does not like having to show up for her shift ten minutes early to clock Saint and Rosalind out just because Reno is always, unerringly, ten minutes late.
This time he's worse than that, and Cyr's throws at the dartboard are getting frighteningly accurate. When the door opens, Rude almost doesn't manage to duck in time.
"Reno not in?" he manages, from near the floor.
"He's not with you?"
He's wearing his sunglasses indoors again. Between this and the quality of his voice, Cyr makes a deduction.
"You two are unbelievable," she says, scowling. "It's not even the weekend yet and here you are--"
And then she notices the mark on his neck.
Cyr's hands fly up to cover her mouth, the same moment her eyes go wide. "Oh," she says. "Oh. Oh. Senpai, I never thought you, of all people..."
"Whatever you're thinking-- it's not that," he says bluntly, getting to his feet. He dusts the dirt off his knees. Another stellar clean-up job by seasonal night staff.
"Sir yes sir."
"Stop that."
"Right, so then, who?"
Rude eyes her uneasily.
/
He stops at the corner by the lounge and takes a slow, careful look around the edge. And then he's glad he did.
Rude is talking to Cyr. Talking to Cyr, first thing in the morning, must've come straight from his apartment. He looks serious, but then Rude always looks serious, and now he's serious and embarrassed, his ears are going pink and even without reading his lips Reno can guess exactly what he's talking about--
"My, this is a change."
Reno hates the office in morning. Unfortunate high-pitched screams carry far too well through the empty hallways.
He spins, clutching at the wall for support, and Tseng chuckles.
He looks the same as he always does, the lieutenant. Hair pulled back smooth, with thin alert eyes that seem to suggest sleep is a superstition of the masses long since disproven by science and willpower.
"And a tie, even," Tseng continues to note, quietly amused. "To what do we owe the occasion?"
Reno wishes for all the world to shrink into the drywall. He knew the fresh and buttoned-up shirt was pushing it even before taking a chance with the tie. So much for hiding in plain sight.
"Well, it-- You know-- Just felt like--"
"Well. Whatever sort of impression Rude is making on you--"
"He-he-he's not! I mean-- yes! Totally! What you're saying."
Tseng arches an eyebrow. Tseng arches eyebrows the way few men can.
He lets it go, seeming to realize it's just not worth the effort. "Anyway," he says, "regardless of this new leaf of yours, it's a relief to see your mind is as absent as always..." He extracts an imposing-looking memo from his bundle of papers.
Reno pales, if that's possible. He'd forgotten about the appointment.
Down the hall, an office door opens, and Reno can hear Cyr murmuring, and Rude's footsteps.
Panic reflex takes over. He snatches the paper from Tseng's hand and embarks back toward the elevator.
"Half an hour early, aren't you?" Tseng remarks, surprised.
"There's probably-- probably paperwork to fill out or something! Better to be prepared with these things!"
"Huh," says Tseng, unable to muster anything else, as his junior sergeant rushes off. He goes to investigate the coffee-maker.
/
"Well, you gotta find her," Cyr tells Rude, so resolute it could make you bleed. She stops him when he stammers a protest. "C'mon! You don't got a good reason not to."
It seems to Rude that Cyr is far too pleased to see him blush. He starts out the door.
He stops, after a foot or so. He taps his fingers on the handle.
"One thing," he says.
Cyr is all over this one. "A clue? D'you got a lead? Something she left behind?"Rude takes the object from his pocket and passes it to her.
She turns it over in her hand. "...But this is Reno's nightstick."
"Give it to him later," he mutters, and resumes his exit.
"Well, wait! What was that 'one thing,' then?"
"This conversation never happened."
"...Oh."
Rude shakes his head to himself. Standards. They fall from you one by one. Doing this on office hours-- Reno must be rubbing off on him.
/
Reno hates the ShinRa Medical Center. It has nothing to do with any particular aversion to those in the medical field-- Reno loves doctors, at least the kind that sign his prescriptions without a second glance, or really anyone so long as it isn't Hojo, but medical bureaucracy always manages to fill him up to his monthly allotment of hate for humanity, and for one simple reason: patients are filed according to sex.
"I'm sorry, you're here on behalf of your... sister?"
"I'm here on behalf of me; can you give me the fucking form?"
The doc he sees now is good in his book, because he once took Reno aside and explained it. See, back in the days when people used leeches and penicillin, mutated freaks like Reno were classified according to absence or presence of testes, but along came wars and plagues and mako poisoning, and then female fertility became a big, big thing to the medical field. So it didn't matter if you were viably male, identified as male, wore male clothes and held a male name, if you had a fully-functional uterus, that made you a girl.
This would be a minor nuisance in the back of his mind under normal circumstances. But clinic reception offices beat out the custodial department for employee turnover, so every time he comes down here, he has to go through this all over again. And all while keeping voices down low enough so that the rest of the waiting room doesn't get an earful.
Eventually the doc comes out to see what's going on and clears the matter up quietly, including making Reno release his grip around the secretary's collar, and leads him back into the exam room. A nurse, far less questioning than the desk lady and used to this routine, measures and weighs and tests his blood pressure and draws a sample from his vein, and while she goes away to borrow the centrifuge and do her tests, the doctor tells Reno to take his shirt off and checks his breathing and his heart.
"These lights're killin' me, doc," Reno says when the boredom starts to sink in and the headache is gnawing at him.
"Nothing we can do about it, kid. Now, this arrest was when, last Monday?"
"Look, I'm only here because my boss made me." He's glad the doctor's behind him taking a listen with the stethoscope on his back. Reno doesn't think he can quite handle the guy asking questions about Rude's... well, handling.
"Your friends should have made you first," says the doctor. "Been doing any strenuous exercise since then, any running?"
"Not really."
"Sexual activity?"
"Yes," Reno relents, even knowing this is just opening yet another can of worms.
"Uh-huh," the old man says, in that voice that means 'I'm gonna bring that up in just a second.' "Intoxicants, carcinogens, hallucinogens?"
"Nix on the last."
"Hung over?" He's just fucking amused now.
Reno rolls his eyes. "It's on its way out. Look, man, I'm telling you--"
"Notice any breathiness after running? Light-headedness? Vertigo?"
"A bit, yeah."
"Mm-hmm." There's a scribble like the guy is making a note on his pad. "Numbness in the extremities?"
"Look, doc--"
Here it comes. "Sexual activity in the past 24 hours?"
"Does this really matter?" Reno demands.
This is theater too, Reno knows. The weighing and measuring and the same repetitive bullshit tests and questions. Only now Reno's the jackass schmuck for being here.
"In your particular case it may. Male or female?"
Reno clenches his teeth. "Male."
"Mm-hmm. Vaginal?"
Something breaks. "Yeah, and I was riding him cowgirl too," he snaps. "Anything else you gotta know?"
The stethoscope hesitates a moment on Reno's back. Then it leaves. Reno hears a shuffling of paper and quick scribbled writing. Reno's ears flush. Hypersensitive, much, boy-o?
"You can put your shirt back on; I think we're done here," says the doctor. He tears the upper few sheets off his prescription pad and passes them over. "Take these down to the ladies at the pharmacy. They'll get you all set up. Ask them if you have any questions."
There's the usual shit for blood regulation, calcium and vitamin supplements, the anti-virals. But there's one extra. Reno asks about it.
"Birth control," he answers, standing. Reno squawks and he shrugs. "You come in here hung over telling me you've had penetrative intercourse with a man, and you expect me to believe you were sober enough at the time to remember protection?"
"You gave me that morning-after shit!"
"That's for STDs, and I'll remind you again that it's only a cocktail remedy for our most popular local varieties. I'm having Heidi run your blood through the database and if something comes back a positive, I'm legally mandated to impress upon you to tell any and all sexual partners you may have--"
"Fuck that, let's get back to last night! I wasn't even-- Goddammit, I wasn't even--"
"Granted, no, there's a good chance you weren't ovulating. But somehow I can't trust you'll play it safe when you are. Relax," he tells him, tapping his shoulder. "Says here on your chart you've been experiencing irregularity lately anyway."
"A day ain't a fucking irregularity," Reno snarls, straightening the collar of his shirt.
"It is in this age of modern medicine," the doc says nonchalantly.
"But-- Look--"
"There's no downside and only positives. There is a small degree of weight gain, granted. We usually tell the girls it goes straight to their breasts." He laughs. Reno flops back on the medical table in aggravation. "In your case? Honestly it's a medical wonder you're still having a menstrual cycle, at your body weight. The extra five pounds will only help you stay regular."
"I don't want to be... that," Reno says lamely, thudding the back of his head against the hard cushion.
The doctor frowns. He remembers something of their past chats, anyway. "It's too early to be considering surgery," he tells Reno. "You're still young. Leaving aside the possibility that you may want children someday, there's the issue of--"
"Children?"
"You'd be surprised, the number of women who develop a maternal instinct they never h--"
"I'm not a woman!" Reno shouts, louder than he should. He sits up on the table. "And I ain't a fag either!"
"And I'm not your shrink," the doc returns. He hands Reno his tie, while behind him the exam door opens and Adelheide the nurse peeks her head in. "All I've got for you is biology and unless you're hot to trot to let the men upstairs in Bio Research have a look at you, you're going to have piece-meal answers."
He stops, turning to the nurse when she touches his arm, holding out a fold of print-outs. He takes a look over their contents.
"Stay where you are, there, kid," he says as Reno's standing up. "Seems your cocktails didn't cover all your bases after all."
/
The girls are doing a shift change when Reno walks out, scratching the bandage on his arm and leaning over to sign the form for the follow-up. The new girl at the desk hesitates with his file and starts to stutter but the outgoing clerk manages to save her and stash the thing where it belongs.
The doc had also said, packing up his stuff, that Reno should probably look into getting a home pregnancy kit, just in case. It was everything not to murder the fucker right where he stood. Hell with him, Reno thinks, walking
down the hall to the elevator: he knows how to be careful. It isn't as though these kinds of accidents happen every day--
A strong finger taps his shoulder and Reno nearly jumps. He spins around.
Reno had been trying, in his free moments, to think of how he was going to respond when he saw Rude. He knew he couldn't be avoidant, that this would be way too much of a tip-off, but all but hanging off him as he sometimes did was out of the question too. He thought about being casual, vague, or even, Odin forbid, being direct, but as it so happened, each one of these ideas fell through.
"Oh, I uh. I. Hi."
Rude stiffens. The tie is putting him off too.
"Someone die?"
"No, I just-- felt like it. Yeah."
Rude seems to accept it.
Reno tries to maneuver around him. All it does is have Rude follow behind him to the elevator.
"How'd you, uh. Know I'd be here?"
"Tseng."
"Ah."
Reno catches sight of the hickie on the side of Rude's throat and feels the one at the base of his own neck burn uncomfortably.
No doubt. Most awkward morning after ever. And he can't even tell if Rude knows or not.
"So, um," Reno tries. The elevator reaches their floor and chimes as the doors slide open. A few orderlies and a technician from the upper floors step out. "Sorry for, like, trashing your place last night."
"You left your nightstick," says Rude.
"Oh. Oh yeah."
"I left it with Cyr."
"Oh, right. She, uh... You two have a good talk?"
They're the only ones in the elevator as the doors slide shut. The numbers blink on the upper left display as they ascend.
"Company time," Rude reminds.
"Right. 'Course."
The elevator stops. Three people get on. Rude sidles closer to Reno in deference to the others and leans across him to punch in the floor numbers that the others need. Reno wishes to gods he could flatten right against the wall.
Rude's shoulder is too close. His arm is too close. Short sleeve, scythe-like tattoos curling over his skin right down to the wrist, so densely muscular and sculpted and powerful and he can feel the heat right off his flesh--
"You all right there, son?" says one of the suits.
Reno recovers himself. He lets the dude see the badge on his breast pocket. "I ain't your son, dick."
"Ah-- I-I'm sorry, sir."
The elevator stops. The suits get off. An intern with a cart of receipts from Information Retrieval gets on. Rude stays silent and Reno suffers quietly.
The elevator stops. The intern gets off.
The doors close. They're back to being alone again.
"Reno."
Here it comes...
"Yo?"
"Those whores you called last night."
Whores. Did he mention whores? He must have.
So he was safe, then.
"What about 'em?" Reno asks, putting on an easy shrug.
"You remember the name of the service?"
The easy shrug does not make a second appearance. In his chest, Reno's heart makes a low, heavy thud and doesn't recover.
"Not really," he says, still trying for casual. He stares at the opposite wall. "Why? Does it matter?"
Of course it matters. Rude wouldn't mention it if it didn't matter. What would he ask, if Reno remembered to tip them or not?
There is a long silence. The number display clicks as the floors go by.
"No," Rude grunts at last.
Liar.
/
Reno has Cyr's mail for her when he steps into their office. Rude had given him the tip that she hadn't gone and gotten it yet and that if Reno wanted to avoid darts to the face it was a good idea to make a peace offering.
Cyr accepts this modest apology and then notes the tie. Reno decides he's sick of the goddamn thing and tucks it in a pocket instead. So then Cyr asks why he's buttoning his shirt up all the way. And Reno asks why she's buttoning up hers, if she's got such a cute rack to show off. Cyr responds by smacking him. With her boot.
Ah. Good times.
Computers are switched on and email is checked, memos are thumbed through, bills and spam are chucked in the trash. Tseng had left Reno a sealed envelope containing some new developments from their field operatives, confirming a few of his projections. Bastard lieutenant didn't even have the modesty to acknowledge Reno was hitting these at least four for six, when he saw him earlier.
"I don't believe you," Cyr says, watching over his shoulder as he logs the new changes into his digital mapping program. "You don't have the attention span of a tuna."
"Beauty of a modern age, sis," he replies, though she contends that doesn't explain anything. He shrugs and shows her the map display. "Check this. If our surveillance is right with the next relay, we can almost positively narrow the transaction point to the Nibeltal."
She looks. "Not Corel?"
"Corel's too obvious," Reno says dismissively, shaking his head. He chews on the edge of his pen. "You think Corel and what do you think? Dio. But the rocks belonged to the Zabini family to begin with; he's even had them on display in his gallery."
"It could just be the black market trade. That's dense down there."
"No, precious stone moves too slow down that way, the market's too stagnated. They'd never be able to pass them off without authorities picking it up. All signs are pointing to a border kingdom in Nibeltal. Lots of private enterprises, coastal, sea routes to Rocket, Cosmo and Icicle. And take a look at the main principality. Governed by a jeweler, conveniently a cousin-by-marriage to one of the suspects in the Kalman heist."
Cyr blinks at him.
"Right," she says. "So you're the evil twin he always talks about."
Reno grins smugly. He undoes the top button of his shirt and really knuckles down into work.
/
At 11 AVALANCHE pulls a hostage situation and Tseng calls an emergency meeting to deal with it. He orders three teams to the location and draws a quick game plan on the office white board and it's all so textbook it could make you cry.
After they're sent off, the Turks go down to the armory to check out equipment and materia and Rude gestures at Reno for the two of them to get going, hey, andaley, and Reno stops in his tracks. He mutters something about partnering with Cyr for this one.
Rude is surprised. Few things surprise Rude, and this does.
He rationalizes that it shouldn't affect him. Reno is as much a cat in personality as appearance, incomprehensibly capricious and egotistical in the worst possible way, and he's waxed rat bastard at Rude before. But his timing now could be a hell of a lot better.
But what do you do? You roll with it. And at least Erin doesn't cause any headaches.
The hostage debacle runs long and everyone has to take a late lunch, and Tseng, in a show of gratitude for his team and Reno actually not goofing off too much for once, treats them. He drags the six out to an eatery in Edge, where the air is cleaner and the chocobo meat doesn't have a rubbery reheated texture, and tells them to order what they like, as long as they aren't dicks about it. Which Reno is, and gets snarled at for.
Reno sits next to Cyr as the two pick at their bandages and chew on their salads and Erin, slightly oblivious for all her good intentions, leads an impromptu toast to the two for finally showing the department what good partners they can be after all, and notes that everyone's relieved to finally see them getting along. Everyone was worried, you know, she says.
Reno lets the subtext have a good, brittle smirk and says nothing when their coworkers carry on playing thinly-veiled matchmakers. Cyr just laughs to herself.
Rude shifts uncomfortably from the end of the table.
/
This day is passing too slowly.
Afternoon means returning to HQ and then it means patrol, and stinking city heat. Reno's body is completely soaking with sweat, drenched head to foot until he can't take it any longer and he has to wear his shirt open, and Cyr sees the marks that Rude left, bleached an embarrassed pink under the sunlight. But by then they look no different than any of the other bruises and cuts, and she pays no attention to them.
"Rafe was saying there's some rave going on down in the sixes," Cyr says as they're walking down Feather Street. "You up for it, or you too old for that sorta thing these days?"
Reno bristles. "I ain't got that much on you, yanno."
"You got enough. C'mon, humor me. You haven't talked about boning all day and it's wigging me out."
Reno's lunch from earlier turns uncomfortably in his gut. "What, like you wanna hear that shit? Actually, I bet you would," he says, playing it up now for the cover. "I always guessed you were some dirty-ass dyke just as nasty as the rest of us guys."
"Suck my cock, fuzzy."
"Ha! I knew it."
"Like you wouldn't love to. Even if you weren't gayer than a Wutai tea house, you go into heat like a fucking cat. Everyone notices."
Reno thinks of the pills the doc prescribed. The feeling in his gut turns into nausea. "Shut up," he says.
"They totally do!"
"And who the hell told you I was a fag?"
"Apart from your walk?"
"Oh, fuck you."
"So you ravin' or you jerkin' off to weightlifting mags in your apartment again?"
Weightlifting-- Come to that, he always did stop by to harass Rude when he caught him benchpressing in the training hall. At the time he'd just dismissed it as pure aesthetic, but thinking about it now...
No, goddammit.
"Come in something low-cut and I'll even pay your cover charge," he tells Cyr with a smirk.
"Heh! Wear something leather and I'll pay yours."
/
Rude stays behind in his office after clocking out to check the phone registries. Using the office line to make the calls would compromise him so he prints off the list and goes through it from his apartment instead.
"Pink Sniper Escort Services."
Rude freezes.
How the hell do you start a call with a place like this? 'Hello, yes, can you tell me which of your girls you sent up to ShinRa Tower at about two AM this morning'? It hadn't even occurred whether he needs to pull rank and say who he's with. Would using Reno's name be enough? How do you be polite in this kind of situation? Do you need to be?
"I'm calling about a service this morning from about two to four AM," he gruffs into the receiver. "I think my buddy mighta stiffed your girls for a tip."
It's a start, anyway.
Pink Sniper turns out to be a miss. No, they don't offer service at the Tower due to security reasons, the guy says, sorry. The next place on the list says the same. Most of the others answer that they have on other nights, but not that morning, and two of the numbers are defunct.
When he exhausts the registry listings he tries a few of the unlisted ones he knows, and then the ones he knows Reno uses. No, they say, no girls up at the Tower, not today. One admits they sent a girl up to the residential floors on Wednesday, but after a bit of verbal arm-twisting Rude ascertains the room number is Scarlet's, and he has to drop that line of questioning before he gets bad dreams.
By the time the sun sets he gives up. He's out of numbers and it's a Friday night, not a good time to head on down to the slums to place polite inquiries, and Saint left a note about the club down in the sixes that everyone's making their weekend treat, and it'd be best to go along. Saint made a point to mention they'd looped Reno into it somehow, as though he knew this would be a main selling point. Just because Reno is an interesting thing to watch, no matter what the setting, or how wet his clothes are and what he happens to be grinding against...
A warm flush spreads through him. Some part of his brain is trying to associate every-day fascination with his partner with last night's fuck, and before he can control it the flashes of memory are bleeding into each other.
He covers his face with a hand. He's too old to let his brain run away with him on shit like this. Unhealthy interest in your partner is one thing, but he doesn't have to go and ruin the memory of a perfectly wonderful fuck by throwing Reno into it. There're some boundaries to his sexuality that Rude's just not up for crossing yet.
A rumble rises up in Rude's throat. His free hand seems to have wandered down to his lap without his awareness, and now he's rubbing against his crotch. Almost absently, like a teenage boy looking at dirty magazines.
He stops, embarrassed. Fuck that, he's a better man than that.
...
No he's not.
/
Reno takes the blood regulators for his heart and the vitamins for his immune system. He takes the anti-virals for his cute new STD and he takes the first little green pill for the birth control. He doesn't need water for the last one because it's so small it goes right down.
He strips and goes hunting through what he knows are the cleaner piles of clothes scattered around his room, trying to find something vaguely club-appropriate. And leather. He can't believe he agreed to this.
Reno doesn't own many form-fitting pants because he doesn't like to call attention to his crotch, except when he's a girl and wants to advertise. Otherwise it's just a big fucking embarrassment and, more often than not, it confuses people. Though, there can be good kinds of confusion.
He knows, intellectually, he should be looking for a fuck tonight. Any kind of fuck. It's that time of the month for it. Call it going into heat if that made it simple, but he knows his habits and knows he's usually horny as a mink this close to his period, but tonight he isn't. Except he is. Except he isn't.
It's an all new feeling to him. He can feel himself dying for it but that sensation stops the second he starts thinking about the route to get to it: random strangers at a club, anonymous bottle-blonde cunt or discreet backdoor men, tearing condoms open with your teeth, sweating and grabbing at the walls, frenetic panting and grunts and pecks on the cheek and a click of a tongue and a wink and there they go. He feels himself clenching and his stomach turn over in protest and it sickens him, thoroughly, for about the first time in his life.
But then he thinks about last night and his skin starts to burn.
Goddammit, no. It was an accident, it was a fluke; if it ever happened again it would be too soon. It's his partner, for crying out loud!
Reno sinks down onto the bed. The heat is getting the better of him; he's so wet he's making noise when he moves his legs. Not even the radio is getting him to snap out of it.
Maybe a little. Just a little. Stick his fingers in, remember how Rude moved inside him-- And then he's rolling back on the bed, legs spreading wide, back arching off the mattress--
/
--curling up on his side on the bed, pumping hard and tight, god, harder, gripping at the sheets with his free hand, panting into his shirt--
/
--mind blanking out, every muscle in his body alive and on fire for that brief, eternal moment, like suspended in the air--
/
--And the rave seems to be a miss after all.
/
Cyr is the one ten minutes late to her shift Saturday morning, still stiff and with a drug fugue hanging over her eyes, but when she sees Reno at his desk she's quick to remark, gee, guess the muscle magazines won out after all.
"I was gonna go," Reno tells her, under her sneering. "But then I remembered seeing your tits is nothing any sane man should ever be subjected to."
"That's funny," she says, seating herself on the edge of his desk. "Lowry from Information Retrieval seemed to like 'em just fine."
"Lowry would date the copy machine if it looked like it'd put out."
"And then the copy machine would get in a gossip circle with the coffee maker and the metal detector and say 'what a keeper.'"
Reno peers up at her, over the top of his monitor. "I hope you're aware this still isn't casting you in a flattering light," he says.
"I'm working on it," Cyr sniffs.
As soon as she's sober enough to get the knives in Cyr starts asking about Rude. This is turning into a habit of hers. Did Reno know Rude missed the rave last night too? No. You two been in a fight over something? No, nothing like that, shut up. Cyr asks if Reno's turning into a teenage girl unable to handle how hot he is for Rude's bod and Reno starts slinging rubber bands at her without mercy.
Rude's going on a crusade, Cyr says; don't tell him I told you. He's trying to find the chick he slept with on Thursday when you two were drunk out of your heads, and Reno answers, yeah, he knows, and doesn't say anything when Cyr starts needling with questions. He's almost relieved when one of the intern girls, Elena, comes by with a manilla envelope from Tseng with updates from the field, and then his mood pitfalls all over again when he sees the memo. A very annoyed memo.
"Oh, shit. That was today?"
He catches Tseng and Rude on their way to the elevator and the three go up to the boardroom together, the lieutenant with his two sergeants flanked to either side, Tseng muttering nastily about why couldn't Reno pick today to wear a tie, and he does realize they're going to crash and burn in there, right?
The boardroom is oddly full today, a lot of items on the agenda of which Administrative Research is a laughable footnote and all the more intimidating as a result. The mound of fat at the head of the table listens irritably while Tseng delivers the news as it stands, about Veld's condition and his impending resignation, about quarterly terrorist predictions and the department's five-point action plan for AVALANCHE, outlined in a delightful slide presentation that impresses absolutely no one, particularly Tuesti, who keeps bitching about morale.
It's the president who brings up the diamond fiasco and Tseng, patiently, tries to assure him that all is being done that can be done, and they're nearing a fruitful conclusion, and there is no cause for concern.
"This scandal is an embarrassment to our law enforcement agencies," Shinra blusters. "As this company's finest, highest paid--"
Blah, blah blah blah, blah...
"--still have no idea where the Kalman diamonds are, after nearly four weeks--"
"They're in the Brunhild principality in Nibeltal," Reno speaks up.
Beside him, Rude stiffens, and Tseng's fingers tighten on the edge of his papers. The entire room falls into a moment of affronted silence.
"Not good enough," Scarlet quips. "A search area like that would still be--"
"In the city of Brisingamen," Reno continues. "In the western theatre district near the port."
The president is quiet for a second, lacing his fingers together. "Interesting, sergeant. How long has Administrative Research been aware of this?"
"Since about twenty minutes ago, sir."
"You've actually confirmed this?"
"No, but we will once we go and get them."
"What are you doing," Tseng murmurs, barely audible, near his shoulder. Reno ignores him.
The president is amused. "Reno," he says, laying his bloated hands flat on the desk. "It is Reno, isn't it? I'm familiar with your handiwork, I think. We have a special tax for human remains removal from the Jormungand these days, thanks to you."
This is theater too. But Reno's played this bit as much as the prez has.
"All in a night's work, sir."
"Hm!" says Shinra, seeing the act too. "Well said. Well said. But not, I believe, a strong record with detective work."
Now here is the thing.
At the moment, inside, Reno is terrified. This is a normal biological response for a mammal being faced down by a much larger and intimidating predator, and the fact that this predator can not only see you fired and shamed into obscurity but can actually see you dead or worse, does not do anything to minimize flight instinct.
At the same time, Reno is nothing if not a stubborn bastard with his own body.
He shrugs.
"I'd like to think you hired me for more than one reason, Mister President."
He wonders if Tseng is about to faint. The president is chuckling.
"Quite! When do you anticipate an interception?"
"No later than Wednesday."
"Ambitious. You'll be leading the operation, of course."
"Yes, sir."
"We'd never agreed to that," Tseng murmurs weakly.
"Have you given thought to a team?" Shinra asks.
"I have, sir." He hadn't, but the brain is quick in ways like this. No more than a four-man job, he says. Two corporals from the department, snipers, and two from local enforcement, at least one of which needs to be plainclothes. A clean and easy assignment, provided they get the authorization they need. Would the committee like him to email a projected expense report?
"Ballsy," Tseng says as they're walking back after. "Very ballsy."
It's by far the most flattering compliment Tseng's ever given him.
"But stupid," Tseng continues, not to be deterred. "You were never officially put in charge of this investigation."
"That's okay; we'll retcon until the records fit."
"Odd. That sounds like quite a bit of paperwork for me and none for you."
"I'm sure with time you'll learn to forgive me."
Tseng makes a noise like he's quite sure he won't.
He leaves the sergeants to their own devices while he goes to make some sort of appeal with Heidegger. Reno tries to convey before the lieutenant even leaves that this qualifies as a Bad Idea, but can't manage. The elevator ride down is stiff and awkward.
Rude asks, eventually, if Reno was just shooting off shit about the team. Reno replies that, no, Samantha and Rosalind are better qualified, that nothing personal, buddy, but this is his operation and this is how it's working out.
Rude reminds that they've never done an op separately before and that Reno has the attention span of an autistic crack baby. Reno sniffs that Rude can do way more good here than in Nibeltal and to get off his back about it, doesn't he have a whore to find?
"You don't hafta talk about her like that."
"Fuck that shit, man. You want my advice, partner, go get yourself checked," he says, staring at the elevator doors, so that Rude can't see his expression. "Trust me on this, man."
"What," says Rude, not a man for inflection but this is definitely his incredulous voice. "You think she had something?"
"Call it an excessively informed guess."
"You think every girl I see, there's gotta be something wrong with her."
"You hearing yourself?" Reno asks. "She's a fucking slut, man. Look, just go and get checked out, right? Thank me later."
He hates this. It's like beating a dog. The worst part is how readily Rude takes it, like he thinks he deserves it. Or like this is the price paid for his endurance, or these are the trials sent to test him, or any of that Soleil religioso bullshit, and it just-- burns.
But what else can be done? If Rude finds him out it'll be way worse. At least this way their friendship stays more or less intact.
More less.
/
Cyr wants to drag Rude to a boxing match down in Sector 2 but Rude declines, citing overtime.
He spends the evening instead wandering through the lower cities, asking at the smaller brothels where the matrons keep their heads low and say, no, no, business is much too good down here to chance things up on the plate, you should try over in the next district. He keeps trying, asking the part-time hostels, the saloon girls, the ladies on the street corner. No, no business up at the Tower, no one by the name of Reno, and no one that recognizes Rude, either.
The streets feel lonelier than they should.
Reno spends his evening in the third district paying a visit to Natasha. The need is too strong to leave it unsated but when he gets down on
the bed he finds he can't get into it, that the harder he tries the more it becomes an aversion, and poor stupid Natasha cries about how it must be her fault and she tries to kiss it and rub it to excite him but nothing works and in the end he leaves in disgust while Natasha is sobbing on the mattress and Rosie tells him not to come back until he remembers how to be a gentleman and let a girl down easy.
And in his head he hears, remember how to be a girl and let a man down easy, and that doesn't help him either.
He calls Jose but Jose doesn't answer.
He flips his phone shut angrily and it closes so hard it nearly snaps, and he stalks the streets frustrated and bitterly hateful of everything, even the goddamn lamp posts, and then he sees Rude coming down the alleyway and his blood goes cold.
Still hunting for his mystery girl that isn't there, his Cinderella that doesn't exist. And if he found her, he wouldn't know it was her anyway.
Reno doesn't let Rude see him. He hides in the shadow of a pawn shop trellis and lets him walk on by, and tries not to watch him go.
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End Part Two
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