Hey there!
So I was checking my [dead] LJ when, lo and behold, I realised that Nimorid's birthday was today. June the 1st. I screamed. Then I wrote this. FYI, this is a spawn of too much deviantART writing and far too little TsengReno.
For Nimorid: Happy Birthday! May your day be happy and full of cake, gifts and gorging. I hope you enjoyed this small piece as a token of my IMMENSE [the word is immense!] gratitude for having met your acquaintance this past year or so in the FFVII fandom.
Enjoy!
MR
Title: Ephemeron
By: Moiranne Rose
Summary: Things don't change in the city of Edge. TsengReno. Happy Birthday Nimorid.
For Nimorid, with love.
07:00
He is up and heading for work, another gray-scale building of slate and boring-boring-boring. And he will not be late today because his superior is too nice to be mad at him for being late and that, frankly, takes all the fun away from the actual act of being late. His black suit makes him squirm inside it because he hates the colour and how it makes him look like he's going to a funeral.
As he gets into a taxi after being passed by three, he knows it's because no one wants to ferry an ex-Turk, even though he goes far enough to pay well. The hostile stare of the driver demanding "Where to?" is ignored and he retorts with the address of his new office which is really just three letters [W-R-frickin'-O]. He leans back on the fake leather headrest and scowls: his ponytail is stuck in the door. Tugging it free, he ignores his scalp's scream of pain.
He looks at his neat-enough appearance in the window and wishes that he was still a Turk and he could get rid of the tie that's choking him.
But deep down inside, he knows he's always been one, even now. And the tie is a necessary evil.
08:15
He works with Law Enforcement, not because he enjoys dealing with secretaries who keep making scarlet-lipsticked passes at him and fake smiles masking fear as he passes through to his cubicle, but because he was born to do this work and it pays reasonably. He can deal with his coworkers as long as he can do what he has always done, what he can only do.
Rude sits three cubicles to his left but they hardly meet. Sometimes he wonders if someone planned it that way. He'd give anything to work with any of them. Even Elena, though she's been posted to Junon to help the refugees there.
[But today, Rude ghosts past his table with a hint of a smile, depositing three surprisingly thin files. He has taken off his shades, finally.]
13:39
He prowls the street in the daylight now, even though he's always uncomfortable because he can't find a single patch of shadows to hide himself in. He can't beat people up and leave them for dead, but instead ushers them into the waiting parol car and drives them back to Shi– WRO and gives them a talking to. Not even a beating. Just a heart-to-heart chat about the consequence of their transgressions. No action at all.
Sometimes he goes down to the boxing ring and has a one-on-one confrontation with the heavy hanging sacks there. Just to let out some steam after every day of being boxed in.
Thank Gaia they let him keep his EMR. Even though he doesn't use it at all.
19:17
Work ends by 7 PM every day and he hates it even if it means he's actually able to order pizza, go to a bar and find his way home by the time usual people do. Come to think of it, that's precisely why he dislikes it. Shoot him [if you can without him seeing and killing you first, of course. He still has his Turk instincts.], but he liked being exclusive. A Turk never got off work till one or two in the morning and the luxury of grumbling about never having enough time to visit the sleazier districts of Sector 6 is sorely missed.
But now he walks around Edge [that still reeks of smog and misery] weaving in and out of faceless crowds, till it finally feels like a[n in]decent time to head towards the nearest pub.
21:24
He walks into a nameless bar reeking of cheap cigarettes and alcohol, brushing off the dust from the streets. He used to be the dust of the streets, he thinks, but that was ephemeral because ShinRa fell like any other powerful empire [how old ShinRa would turn in his grave!] and he's stuck wearing the wrong coloured suit, in the wrong job, the wrong life.
Now, at this time, he escapes back to his comfort zone, in the red-light neighbourhood behind the gray highrises of Edge City. The shadows they cast make it almost like he's in the Slums again. His territory.
He slips into the chair next to another, same-clad bent back. His former superior turns immediately, his hair lifts off the equally black suit and lands back down, not a strand out of place. He kinda wonders [sometimes] how it can do that. Conditioner maybe, he thinks as he flags down a scantily-clad waitress who serves him a beer with a saucy grin.
They sip their drinks together and they don't speak. Before, it was because the drink was disgusting or they had spent their day together and they didn't have pity sessions or he had [finallyactually] submitted his report to Tseng and he knew everything his lousy subordinate had [not] done that day.
Today, and every day since that blasted Meteor fell, it's because nothing has changed since the previous day, month, year, so there's nothing to say.
21:42
Today is different [but he doesn't know it yet].
He takes the time to look over his [former] boss. The man was still giving orders, under a new name ["Special Operations" a.k.a. Killing and Espionage]. The black circles under his eyes have darkened considerably, but he looks ten years younger. He wonders, though only for a moment, if this new job Tseng is undertaking is actually doing him some good.
Tseng catches him looking and he drops his eyes to his empty mug. Somewhat subconsciously, he feels Tseng repeat the process on him. Lazily. As if he had nothing better to do.
It's such a drag, he muses, everything being exactly the same, nothing new happening. It feels like he's stuck in an endless cycle of desk-bound superficiality. Hey, since when did he know that big a word?
He must be going mad.
He looks up and sees those self-same Mako-drained eyes staring back at him. It's right now when they catch each other's eye that realize that their thoughts are one and the same. They miss the excitement [but not the paperwork], they miss the thrill [but not the old president], they even miss the quartet of dysfunctional outcasts [but not Rufus].
Then they smother the hint of disillusion and the faint ripples of realisation and call for another beer.
[They've never gone above two, though.]
{22:33
"That girl over there, she's been staring at you for fifteen minutes."
"What, yo," Reno tosses back. "Y'jealous?"
He looks away and watches the tacky lights move robotically all over the walls.
The "Perhaps." is [almost] lost amongst the outdated records playing from the jukebox.}
22:51
"Hey, now that chick's staring at you."
"Are you jealous now?"
"Haven't been in years," he says, half-lying through his crooked smile. "But just making sure."
They leave a dreadful lot unspoken. He realises that. Eyes flicking to the clock, it's almost 11. Tseng'll be going back. He finds it comforting [and unsettling] to think he knows Tseng's routine so well. Well, just like old times.
22:52
"Y'leavin'?"
"Perhaps." Reno's eyes flash at that, hot temper bubbling up from deep down.
So he had heard it the first time.
"Leave your ambiguity behind," he says, spite leaking into his voice through the hole alcoholic courage has made. "With your blue suit."
Tseng shakes his head, very slowly. "If I never left it behind?"
22:53
And he can't respond to that, because neither has he.
He can feel all the nostalgia flooding his mouth with sour longing. Casting a furtive glance around, people have started trickling in in earnest now. Lost souls with vacant eyes and pockets and heavy minds with a need to empty themselves out.
He stares at his reflection in swirling dregs and wonders what has made him sink so low.
He wonders if Tseng remembers the first time they did it, and whether he wishes that back along with his stupid suit and his stupid superiority and his stupid stupid silent stares.
{22:54
He has had a while to think things over, in the time between these touches of sepia past. He hasn't forgotten how Reno looks in the morning, trying to get out before his boss wakes up and realises they fucked under the influence of too much alcohol and too little tolerance. Or how he looks stumbling into work, trying to act as if nothing happened the night before.
Or how his self-assured smile just kept coming back again. And again. And again.
He has become good at disregarding things. But they have become good at coming back to haunt him.}
22:59
The conversation stagnated five minutes before. But now, he needs more than that. And he's sure, he's pretty damn sure, that Tseng does too. They've spent enough weeks of near-midnights talking about "what if"s with lips-pressed-thin and fingers drumming on polished wood to want something more tangible. But first, he calls for a fourth round and makes sure he finishes it in a single flourish.
"You know," Tseng says, eyes trained on the way the lights glance off the bartop. "You could never take alcohol."
And that's about as clear a "come hither" as Tseng could pull. Or maybe, he was just that desperate to see it that way.
His hands fist in Tseng's hair, so tight it hurts. He pulls that half-smile to his as Tseng gets a vice-like grip on that blasted tie. Their teeth clack, their tongues clash and there is nothing, nothing perfect about it, but the difference is all that matters.
23:07
They stumble back home, "yours tonight," Tseng says, vowels and consonants messed up [for once] by numbing inebriation [as if hinting that there will be a "tomorrow night"]. They're on the main road in three minutes, Reno's apartment in twenty and the bed in twenty-three.
23:34
Tseng {Reno} has done nothing but learn, it seems.
{01:19
And he lies awake, torso-deep in confusion, as Reno surrenders to sleep. His slurred "Goodnight"s into his pillow fade from his ears too fast to be genuine. His messy hair that bleeds the same colour as blood all over his pillow, damp with sweat. He reaches over and smooths it down, then snatches his hand back immediately, not sure whether he has the right to break the temporal haze that has settled over them.}
03:06
His eyes have a bit of trouble adjusting to the darkness, hazy vision focusing after a few blinks. He feels the acute pain of too many drinks and stifles a yawn as he turns over. And is confronted by another mass of complexity, somewhat more tangible than the burn of dreariness that coats his days and leaves him wondering why.
He groans quietly and turns over. He will deal with Tseng in the morning. Just like always.
{05:32
The air is a lot colder here than his own home, gray morning shades permeating the drafty apartment. Traffic trickling into the streets with frantic, muted 'beep-beep's. as opposed to the slow life outside of Edge, tending to Reeve's many requests through conference calls. Tseng pulls himself up and away from the warmth of another and drags on pants, shirt, jacket. His sleeping ex-subordinate shifts under the sheets restlessly, before dropping back with a sigh.
The creases in the boy's face only match the worn edges of his jacket on the floor. His eyes drop to the crumpled pants between them. Shaking off the drowsiness that just won't let up, he grabs hold of them and folds them, moving his fingers so he won't think to do anything else with them.
Once that is done, he hangs up the jacket with the tie that Reno was so eager to pull off, smoothing them over unnecessarily. Then he sits at the edge of the bed, and thinks.
And thinks.
And thinks.
But, the cold wind is too distracting, the call of 8 o'clock too urgent, and he doesn't really want to figure out the 'why's yet, just in case he loses the reality for the reasons that were never there in the first place. He lets his hand brush over one tattoo-covered cheekbone and he remembers to close the door softly on the way out.
Reno, he decides, will know how to find him. And the number should help.}
06:30
His alarm clock rings, right on schedule.
He gets up and pulls on the black suit and pants that Tseng seems to have folded for him [always the neat freak] before he leaves an hour before the sun goes up. He tears off the piece of paper with neatly-written digits and squints at it. Then he smiles.
And now, with a little rush of bravado, he throws that damn tie out of his window to land, limp and forlorn, on the dusty pavement outside.
Now his smile is bigger, more genuine.
He crumples the paper in his fist and stuffs it into his pocket. There is [finally] something to look forward to, today.
Some days, it's rough, coarse and hurts like hell. Others, it's gentle, [almost] loving. But it's always different. And that's what counts.
Because in their lives of unbearable constants, the other is the only reminder that they are human and not robots.
A/N: What I envision the Turks to feel when they're dumped into the WRO to work. C'mon, after being a Turk, who wants a desk job?
Reviews are, as always, appreciated, but never compulsory.
Love and Cookies,
MR
[Edited 240909: For the other side of the story.]