It was four in the afternoon, Reno was 65 floors up in the air, and the air conditioning had broken.
"Fuck me," he hissed, slamming into the bathroom with a fury usually reserved for surprising targets getting blow jobs. "Come the fuck on, what the fuck, this fucking company owns the goddamned planet and we can't-" he grunted and shoved the perpetually-out-of-order stall door open with a shoulder, "-even-" hoisted himself up on the toilet and lifted up the slotted-in drop ceiling tiles, then boosted himself up, "-fucking-" shimmied along through cobwebs and wiring and dead rats along the office ceiling, growling like a military dog on a bath day, "make sure our shit works!" He had to shimmy extra-hard by a pair of vibrating ducts and it make him so mad that he just jerked himself through, heedless of the sound of fabric ripping. It served Tseng right for making him wear the goddamned thing anyway.
He pulled out the roll of canvas holding tools from under his shirt and set to work on the unit he had located by the company blueprints. 'All very custom, so don't get lost,' Reeve had mentioned when he handed them over, 'though why not go through the ducts?' Reno had told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had seen some shit, but had no desire to see the number of people shitting he would if he went that route.
"Planet fucking wept they couldn't make this harder to get to, the fuckers!" Reno grunted in discomfort when the broken air circulation unit for their floor shocked him along the arm. It was strong enough of a shock that it made his leg spasm and bang against the abrasive roof tiles he was precariously balancing on. The mastered lightning materia slotted into his belt buckle prevented him from becoming yet another fried rat, but it sure didn't tickle, he'd say that.
"Why should we when we have such capable handymen?" Tseng's voice emanated from below him, ghost-like. Reno sighed, fighting off the pain of a shoulder cramping as he wrenched out the blown component he was looking for, and struggled not to sass Tseng back. Bad idea, especially lately. Reno'd been running on too short of a fuse as of late, to the point where Rude, ever even-keeled, had peeled his sunglasses down last night to look reprimandingly at him over them.
Reno had overstepped the line before with Tseng and gotten his ass handed to him for it. He respected the guy, mostly, but they'd always had unique ways of getting under each others' skins. He didn't need that right now, couldn't take it, couldn't dish it out safely.
Reno collapsed against the floor for a second, breathing heavier than he'd like to be. Fishing down his pant leg to find the replacement part he convinced the science department intern to make for him on their weird experimental printer ('3D printer?' he said, sneering a little, "what a shitty name, who even thought of that'), he drew it up and looked it over.
He felt mean these days, like a dog starved. He'd been trying not to bite anybody, trying not to take a limb in teeth and tear, but he'd been trying awful hard as of late. Felt like it was harder every day.
"Somebody has to, boss. Can't sit around waiting for you pansies to handle it." He heard Tseng snort and felt a mingled curl of relief and apprehension when nothing more was said.
Rubbing his sweat off the part on his shirt, Reno slotted it in, secured it, and waited for a contented moment while the machine thought about it. Soon enough, the LED panel on the side displayed an error code ('NONSTANDARD PART' his ass, he wasn't waiting for Tseng to approve the weekly order and get a real part for five times the cost). Perhaps concerned by the ominous, and obnoxious, beeping sounding through his office, the scrape of Tseng's chair on the tiles could be heard.
"… Everything all right up there?"
Reno, in the process of using his phone to jailbreak the air circulation unit, made an extremely cranky noise.
"Just fucking fine up here, a million fucking degrees and rising but yeah, it's fu- it's fine."
He was honestly starting to feel like he was melting. His hair was plastered to his scalp, his jacket soaked through with sweat all the way from front to back, and the fucking update was only 35% loaded in.
"Reno," Tseng said, and Reno clenched his jaw, fixing his eyes on the app like it was going to magically blast Ice on him any second. "The reason I ask is…."
"Boss I don't fucking care right now! I'm sweating like a pig and I just finished the Gabrankytev sweep at dawn and I just want to chill for a second!"
The silence was deafening.
Reno squirmed, feels himself blushing. It was a bad giveaway, but he was a redhead and some things just couldn't be helped. He was seven feet above Tseng and technically in another room anyway, so he just embraced it for a moment. It eased some of the pressure in him.
"I understand that, Reno," Tseng said after another beat, and Reno almost wanted to melt through the tiles and become one with the building at how gentle he sounded. It made him uncomfortable, made him relieved, made him wish he'd never even started this fool errand. He should have just gone to the bodega and bought like five million moogle pops and eaten every. Single. One.
He'd have felt steadier if Tseng had just told him to meet him in the gym in an hour, don't forget the Cure this time.
Tseng seemed to be content to wait while Reno worked, for now. The app took another few moments and then he was in, and the air unit was turning on, and he was just so- fucking-
"Ow! Oh shit, ow!"
"Reno," Tseng said, this time right next to him, and then a tile was opening and Tseng was poking his head up, dark eyes glinting oddly in the half-light, "come down."
Reno held up a hand against the sudden stream of broiling hot air, eyes watering, and nodded. He rolled sideways and slithered through the tile Tseng had pushed aside, and even though the air hadn't really started cooling yet, it felt so much cooler down on the tile floor that it was all he could do to keep from lying down and never getting up again.
"Heat waste," said Reno, and shut his eyes. He was lying spread-eagle on Tseng's floor and he felt disgusting. His back was really, really wet.
"Yes," Tseng said, considering ceiling the tile he had lifted up before slotting it carefully back into place. He wasn't short, but neither were Shinra ceilings, so he was standing on his chair. For some reason, Tseng had historically been so opposed to rolling office chairs that it bordered on the dogmatic. Reno found it in himself to wonder if it was actually a contingency plan for if he ever needed to climb up into the ceiling himself. "That, and I think you cut yourself in the ceiling."
"Huh?" Reno's eyes flew open. There was a small, but very red, stain on the ceiling tiles. In Tseng's stark, monochrome office, it stood out like a green chocobo. Tseng hopped down, put his chair in place, and started to rummage in his desk, emerging with an old-fashioned metal first aid box that had some chips in the paint.
Reno sat up and felt himself over. He found the gash on his ribs, explored it a little and then stopped abruptly because it sure did go in a bit. "Oh. Shit. Sorry."
"Take off your jacket and shirt," Tseng said absently, pulling out a bottle of what looked like medic-grade Potion and a few other things, "and come sit on the desk. I'll patch you up."
Reno turned his head and looked at the door. "I can just go down to medical," he said, and started to gather himself up.
Tseng tapped the desk with a nail wordlessly, still not looking up from his box. Reno stood, conflicted, and looked at the spot on Tseng's immense, pristine desk that was being readied for him. He wished, when things like this happened, that he could just be like Elena, could hop up on that desk like it was his favorite thing, and just bask in the attention, bask in the fact that for whatever reason he'd been forgiven for totally flipping his shit like a rabid Nibel wolf.
"I want to ask you something anyway," Tseng said coolly, as if he hadn't noticed that Reno was looking for excuses to stay and to bolt.
"Sure thing, boss." He slunk over, shedding his jacket and his shirt like he was just walking to the shower. Tseng wrinkled his nose at the pile of clothing left on his floor but didn't comment on it. Tseng tapped the desk again. Reno hopped up, feeling very much like he was at the doctor's but without the weird crinkly paper.
At that moment, Tseng was close enough that Reno could see that he was sweating too. He could smell the scent of his body, warm and animal but somehow so sophisticated, just like everything else about Tseng. The very top button of his shirt was undone, a rare concession to heat that Reno couldn't really look away from.
"Here," Tseng said, putting a hand on Reno's shoulder and twisting him just so. "Lift up your arm, please."
His dad's a doctor, Reno remembered as Tseng started to clean up the smear of blood running down his side. His dad was a doctor and his mother died in a war-protest-turned-riot. She was Shinra MP. He knew this because Tseng told him once, when as a new recruit he called him some racial shit he really didn't think he wanted to ever repeat again. Then Tseng beat him into the gym mat for a week straight, ten hours a day, and in retrospect Reno is pretty sure he deserved every inch of that truly epic beatdown and then some.
"Hold still," Tseng said, as if Reno didn't always freeze up near-instantly when it came to touching, medical or otherwise.
Silence again. The slightest hint of cooling air drifted in from the vents and Reno felt like he should be proud of himself; instead, he just felt stupid for getting sliced up and needing to be patched up.
"Did you go to medical after the bust this morning?" Tseng was putting something on that numbed the area, his hands nimble and professional. "I'm going to have to put in some stitches."
"I didn't need to," Reno said, and blushed right up to his ears. "Until uh, the vents, that is."
"I'll give you a once-over while you're here," Tseng muttered, and when Reno turned his head to look at him and protest, he caught sight of his own flesh yawning open, pressed that way by Tseng's fingers, and felt a little dizzy. "Save you on the paperwork."
A whole lot of olive branches being extended here. Enough to make a whole fucking tree. Reno's eyes tightened. Tseng caught that as he threaded the needle and looked him up and down.
"Not numb enough? I can put on another-"
"What's up, boss? What do you want?" Reno looked at the top of Tseng's head, and, tellingly, Tseng didn't look back up at him. He could feel, distantly, the pull of the catgut through his flesh.
"A few stitches in," Tseng said, "Probably five. Some paperwork from your work this morning. You've already fixed the air, so we're clear on that."
"Yeah?" Reno said, challenging, and for a second he wanted to reach out a put a hand on Tseng's shoulder, over the confident motion of his stitching. He wanted to reach out and feel the steadiness there, feel it seep into him and maybe stay there, just for a little bit.
"Yeah," Tseng retorted, teasing Reno by adopting his street-tough accent, tone and all, for a moment. Reno felt himself ease a little. He'd never been good at people being nice to him. He was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, or, more accurately, fling itself at his head. Teasing was just hostile enough that he could play at being ruffled, play at not feeling cared about.
Elena was good at that. She was tough, that bitch. Reno thought about her again, thought about her sitting in his place, her little heels hanging off the toes of her feet, her nylons running from having shimmied around in the ceiling. He thought about her for a moment longer, feeling fondness for how good she was at just letting people do whatever at her, not letting it touch what she was about to do. Didn't bother her like it did him. She'd probably had more practice at letting shit slide, he thought, and sighed. He'd never tell her any of that.
The air was getting colder, and when Tseng slid his hands around Reno's ribs gently to test his work and make sure nothing else was off there, goosebumps rose up his sides. Reno didn't comment on the prickling wave sliding down his skin, looking out the window at the muggy haze of Midgar instead. It was hard to see the city in the dimming sun, but not because of the low light level. It was the haze of humidity, of pollution, of a million and more lives steaming up off the pavement and into the sky.
"What did you want to ask me, man?" Tseng guided his arm up on the non-injured side, testing mobility. He paused with Reno's elbow in his palm and gave him a look. "Er, boss."
"You grew up in Sector Four, didn't you?"
He knew it. He just fucking knew it. He knew it was too good, too relaxing, to stay that way. There was always a drop after a high.
"I did," Reno said, and breathed in when Tseng told him to, breathed out when he told him that too.
"Did you ever hear of the Gaea Commune?"
Reno said nothing.
"Reno?"
Reno said nothing.
"Reno?" Tseng stopped his inspection of Reno's sizzled arm and looked him full in the eyes. He looked half-concerned, half-confused.
Reno wetted his lips. "Yeah," he croaked out. "Why?"
Tseng hesitated, then went back to inspecting where Reno got shocked. He reached into his medical box and pulled out some gauze.
"You got less injuries busting into a warehouse with two dozen armed men. Maybe I should set us up a training course on urban exploration to improve that."
"Tseng." Reno tried to jerk his arm out of Tseng's grip. Tseng, an old hat to Reno's resistance to being treated, simply hung on to his wrist and pulled him back in.
"They've been stirring up some anti-Shinra sentiment, that's all. There have been some reports over the years of… strange situations there. The few people that have left have described it as more of a cult than anything. They're apparently a prominent group in the area these days, convincing people Shinra's going to kill them with vaccines and mysterious chemicals in the air."
Reno sat in silence with that for a bit.
"Of course, they're not entirely wrong about the latter." Reno's gaze flicked down to Tseng's face, confused. Tseng gave him a quirk of a smile. He was bandaging up the raw spot on Reno's arm, he was just asking him for information from the local perspective, he was just making a little joke to lighten the mood, but fuck it all, he had no idea how local Reno's perspective on this was. "The problem is, they've been attacking Shinra employees in the sector and there are rumors they're planning something… larger."
"They gonna' try to blow up the reactor?" He supposed he wasn't surprised.
Scratch that. He was actually surprised this hadn't happened sooner.
"I…. hope not," Tseng said, brows knitting. He straightened up. "You're familiar with them?"
"Ha!" Reno said, and Tseng tilted his head like an inquisitive wolf that was just about done with sniffing around and was ready to put some teeth on the matter.
"Do you have any contacts we might be able to tap? It seems like something is happening there that may be…. The situation has escalated rapidly in the past few weeks."
"Well, Tseng, my man, you're in luck." Reno felt a little too filled up with things, and blustering like a gangster, a cool guy, a swag asshat who knew what was up and what was down, helped him to vent some of that pressure. Tseng, confused by the abrupt tonal shift, remained silent. "Because my mom is dying, and she sent me a message to come see her before she does."
Tseng, always composed, always cool and together, gave Reno a look about as filled with different things as a Sector Four burrito special was: pity, concern, confusion, shock, worry, calculation. Over it all rose… sympathy.
"Reno, I… apologize. I had no idea." He leaned in, handsome even with Reno's blood under his fingertips and the orange smear of antiseptic pronounced on his index finger, handsome with sweat drying as the aggressive corporate air conditioning started to flood in. "I can ask somebody else to handle this. I'll draft up your leave paperwork-"
Close with his dad, Reno realized, like a good Wutaian son, even here in Midgar. Close and raised right and raised well and a good, loved son.
"My mom," he said, talking over Tseng, who was still too off-balance and busy being compassionate to look annoyed, "sent me a message to come see her at home before she dies. I haven't been back there in fifteen years and my man," he reached out and flicked Tseng's lapel, unable to meet his eyes as the realization hit his boss, "she said to bring my ass down and a friend if I want because she is dead real soon, and the whole fucking family wants to see me there for her death and her burial."
Tseng made a noise, but then Reno was curling over on himself and he couldn't hear anything but his own heartbeat. Somebody was crying, making wrenching, animal keens, but Reno wasn't sure who it was. He was too busy jamming his hands on his face to shut out light and sound and everything, everything hurt. Whoever it was making those awful noises, he wished they would shut up because he had a lot of stuff on his plate right now and he just couldn't handle anything else right now.
His face was wet and his whole body ached and he just killed seven men today and broke a whole lot more's bodies into pieces and he was so, so overloaded that he wished he could just- vanish into the sun, get eaten up like an asteroid and never be seen again-
In the middle of all of that, he felt arms around him, a pressure on his head. He jerked back like an animal hit, and in that action he realized that Tseng had wrapped his arms around him, was embracing him, was talking to him. He had his head over Reno's, was resting his chin on the crown of his head, pressing Reno to his chest, to his throat. Reno couldn't bring himself back enough to understand what he was saying, but it sounded comforting. It sounded kind.
It just made him cry harder.