Of Antidotes (and Lack Thereof)
AN: Post ACC. Elena messed up, Tseng is awkward and Rude is too hot for his own good. Reno likes all of these things.
Lightning flashed down towards the earth, and for a split second, the only man left standing among the row of fighters was illuminated, his bright red hair whipping behind him in the wind from the blast like a burning ribbon in the dreary night. Erupting into a tower of sparks and hoarse screams, the menacing creature before him collapsed to its knees, spindly legs and vicious claws dissolving into streams of light which either slowly dissipated into the atmosphere or sunk into the earth.
With a tired shrug, the man knelt down beside the collapsed blonde by his side, unceremoniously poking her cheek until finally pulling out a small green bottle from his pocket. Removing the stopper with his teeth, he poured the contents of the bottle onto a fairly large wound in her side and allowed it to settle into the pool of congealing blood. The green liquid slowly began warming her skin and seeping into her body, the enticing emerald threads of mana knitting her wound closed and restoring her alertness once more.
The redhead continued poking at the woman until an exhausted, trembling hand waved him away. "Leave me 'lone, Reno," Elena mumbled, groggily getting to her feet. Her blazer had been torn during the fight, but other than that she seemed relatively unharmed now that the curative had worked its magic.
"Fine, but you'll miss me later," Reno responded in sing-song, despite being out of breath still. His arm burned from the overuse of the materia he had been wielding for that mission, but other than a few scratches, the man was safe. Turning his attention over to the third prone figure in their ensemble, he stared at the semiconscious man with a quirked eyebrow. "And how 'bout you, buddy?"
"I'm fine," the tall, well-built man groaned, attempting to push his way to his knees from his collapsed position. "Let's push forward. We'll get to Gold Saucer soon-" and with that, his knees buckled beneath him, the momentum throwing off his sunglasses as the large man toppled onto the ground.
"Rude!" Reno cried, dropping his nonchalance instantly and quickly turning the man over. "What the hell's the matter with you?" He quickly wiped the dirt off his partner's cheeks, feeling the chill settling into the man. Reno groaned as he noticed the pallor and thin sheen of sweat quickly developing on his partner's normally tan skin. "Some simple meetup with the Boss this turned out to be," he grumbled, waving Elena over.
"What is it? What's wrong with him?" Elena muttered, dragging over the kit they had packed for the trip, kneeling down beside the two men. "What do I need to do?"
Reno paused, then shrugged, the tenseness in his shoulders abiding. "Poison, and he's getting a little dicey, but he'll be fine. Just use some healing materia on him. You stocked them up in your brace, right?" Reno murmured airily, gesturing towards the kit.
With a start, she felt for the wrist guard all the Turks wore underneath their sleeves to house their materia, motion quickening as she gripped around her arm. "But I thought that you were handling restoratives for this mission," she muttered, confused. "Tseng wanted us to find a mako deposit and see if we could strengthen the elemental stuff we pawned from Strife after delivering our intel at Gongaga, right? After all, we already finished strengthening the curing ones on our way to down so I thought you were going to hang on to them."
"Wow, I really hope no one else is listening to you explaining the entire plan to us, 'Laney. Good job."
She groaned, rolling her eyes in her search. "As if, Reno, you know what I mean." She paused before turning a crimson shade, punching the other man lightly in the arm. "And can you let that go? It's been years since that whole Sephiroth-in-Junon thing…"
The redhead snickered at the memory, but a pained groan from the larger man prompted him back into a semblance of seriousness. "And also, no – holding that stuff was your job. Y'know, being our lovely healing damsel for once, yo." Seeing her expression freeze, Reno sighed, running his hands through his sweat-streaked hair. "C'mon, Elena. Do we not have any antidotes left?"
The blond rummaged through the kit, her face paling, her movements becoming more and more frantic as she searched. Eventually, her face turned upwards, a sheepish expression filling it momentarily. "…Oops?"
"For fuck's sake, 'Laney," Reno groaned, running his hand quicker through his bangs in frustration.
Shame filled her face, as packing the kit had been her job before they had left the small outpost two days earlier. "Do I have to call him?" she whined quietly, but the sudden dark glint in Reno's eyes was more than enough to make her back down.
The small woman meekly reached her hand into her pocket, pulling out her issued cell phone. Breathing in slowly to boost her courage, she sighed and quickly pressed the speed dial button to reach their (likely very disappointed) Director. Seeing Reno's deadpan expression, she stumbled away to have the conversation with Tseng – she did not want the prankster to overhear the stern man reaming her out as if she was new on the force again.
Turning his attention back to a shivering Rude, Reno nabbed the kit and began taking inventory of what materials they had. "We still have a tent with us, and… damn, we have a lot of those bottles," he muttered, counting how many remained of those same green vials he had used on Elena. Doing a quick calculation, he grinned towards his partner. "Good news, yo – we've got more than enough to keep you going till the Boss gets here with an airlift. Would you look at that!"
Rude chuckled, but his voice was pained. "Now if only any of those were good for poisons," he coughed out, but before Reno could respond wittily, the man's head lolled to the side and his eyes snapped shut, the only indication of his life being the quick, ragged breaths weakly moving his torso.
After pouring a potion from one of the green vials into Rude's mouth to keep his immune system from failing, Reno stood up from his haunches and stretched, cat-like in the darkness of night.
A crunching of leaves alerted him of Elena's return. "And how did your lovely chat go?" he asked, a part of him wickedly curious despite being angry about this less than ideal turn of events.
"Give me the tent, Reno. I don't want to talk about it." The pout was almost audible in her voice.
Grinning impishly, he tossed the requested materials to her and began preparing for a long, long night in the cold.
Night had long fallen by the time the Turks managed to set up their campsite for the night. With the absence of rain, it was easy leaving Rude's resting figure close to the fire to stay warm. It was also close enough to easily notice a change in his condition, so the mobile pair had taken turns on watch duty for the night, stoking the fire and ensuring their safety from any creatures lurking in the wilderness. And, as he had yet to sustain a large injury during their trek, Reno was assigned to first watch, leaving the junior Turk to have some rest.
"Are you sure you'll be alright?" she mumbled doubtfully, looking over at the elder sprawled on the ground, watching her with lidded, sleepy eyes.
"Even if I wasn't, I wouldn't let you take first shift. Who can actually trust you to stay awake, since you can't even pack some antidotes properly in venomous monster territory?" Reno quipped, causing Elena to flush and storm into the tent in embarrassment.
"What-ever!" Reno heard her furious whisper from inside the tent, but after a moment of rustling in their sparse selection of bedrolls, all sounds ceased from her.
He glanced over at the tent from where he was seated, concern showing now that she was out of his view. "That was a nasty one," he muttered to himself, leaning his head back to look at the cloudless night sky. The wound on her stomach had been healed, yes – but curative potions could only do so much to block the memory of the pain, and it always took extra sleep to truly cure the body of fatigue.
Elena had always been the most sensitive to pain. She had never lived the type of life he himself had, and no matter how much she tried to hide her suffering when she was injured, it always showed up on her expression. Too honest for her own good, he thought, but there wasn't much humour in his mind. After all, she had just healed up fully from the injuries inflicted during the Reunion incident – she wasn't in any shape to be on a mission.
Whatever. Let her sleep. Reno was fine with it; since Reno was the most able-bodied, it was only sensible he took the first shift, despite the long yawns and sluggish movements he displayed, settled in by the fire.
Maybe he was a little too able-bodied, as it were.
Reno bit his lip, feeling a hot desire start to swell in the pit of his stomach as he watched the slumbering giant with his piercing aqua eyes. He regretted undressing his partner before tucking him into the bedroll – the firelight cast a golden, enticing glow on Rude's pale, sickly complexion, drying out most of the sweat and leaving before Reno the image of exposed, strong shoulders and muscles straining underneath tawny, warm skin that he knew too well underneath his fingertips-
"Fuck me," he groaned, sinking further into himself against the log he was propped up against, letting one leg flop out straight ahead of him towards the small fire pit.
A low, husky moan drew his attention back onto his partner, the shadows dancing across his face highlighting the furrow in his brow and the creases in his eyelids which were normally covered by his ever-present shades. The man groaned again, tossing his head in a fever dream, expression morphing into one of shock, then pain as the poison-induced hazed filled the Turk's mind.
"And what the fuck are you thinking about, huh partner?" Reno murmured, letting his eyes linger on the silhouette of Rude's prominent Adam's apple against the fire. The unconscious man gulped slightly, the lump in the man's strong, thick throat sliding down, then back up, catching Reno's attention with the barest movement.
Shaking his head quickly to clear his thoughts, the tired redhead pulled off the goggles from his forehead and slid off the rough elastic holding his ponytail together, sighing in relief as the tension in his neck eased. Slipping off his own unkempt jacket, he tossed it behind his head as a sort of pillow and settled in, watching his partner strain against his sheets in his nightmares. He had administered another dose of curing mana earlier, so he had some time to relax.
A snort bubbled through Reno's lips as the sleeping man began to blush in his dreams, imagining what might be plaguing Rude's mind. "Wonder if it's Tifa?" he giggled, a fond smile on his lips. The flame the other Turk had held for the beautiful bartender had been the most entertaining thing in the hectic times of Avalanche and Sephiroth, as the normally stoic man always, without fail, completely lost his cool the moment their targets appeared before them. With a sigh, he added to himself, "She does have nice tits. Always lookin' great."
It was nice to see you lookin' alive again, after Chelsea and all, he added silently, but he would never address that with his partner. Some things were too personal for him to dig up like that – hell, nearly everything from before the Zack Fair incident was a bit too awkward to touch.
He knew that Rude's mind was likely not still focused on Tifa either – after all, the woman had been pining for Cloud Strife longer than any sane person should pine for someone, and the moment that the two brats they'd adopted together had come into the picture, Rude had immediately backed off. It wasn't like she would ever really be in a relationship with the blond deliveryman, but his proximity seemed to be all she needed.
Reno was perfectly okay with that – throughout the entire Reunion conflict, he had taken every opportunity to flirt with his stoic partner, even if it had been just to distract his friend through the pain of rejection from the beautiful woman. However, after Cloud had wrapped up the incident in a nice little bow, it had finally been Reno's time to shine.
After all those years of working as partners, it only took two months to get Rude addicted to him in bed. The redhead mildly regretted not seducing him earlier – it had been one of his best decisions in his life, as Rude had stayed by his side as his partner without a qualm in the world when their relationship had changed. The only thing it normally changed was that missions together were a lot more fun than in their previous years.
As he watched the prominent muscles in Rude's sleeping shoulders flex and relax, he felt own hand start drifting below to the clasp of his belt, the heat flooding him even more. Fuck, even when he's passed out he looks good, Reno sighed to himself, remembering how those shoulders felt in his grip, strong hands circled around the redhead's waist in all of the dingy motel rooms they had taken sanctuary is during their brief mission breaks.
Letting a soft moan escape his lips as he squeezed the ever-growing bulge on top of the fabric of his suit pants, a hint of bitterness filled his mouth. It had been far too long since the pair had been alone together, and when we finally get 'Laney out of our faces, of course Rude is fucking poisoned!
A pained groan escaped Rude's lips, and Reno leaned in closer to the unconscious man. His chest was moving rapidly, breath coming out in ragged gasps, body clearly in utter pain trying to fight against the venom from their last foe. His knuckles were clenched so hard, the tanned skin had gone white, the veins protruding almost worryingly.
For the nth time that night Reno just ran his hand through his freed hair, but this time he decided to shift his entire body to sit beside the slumbering man.
"Did they pick the wrong guy for this job," he muttered, staring at his partner without a clue on how to proceed. Pouring potions down his throat was all well and good, but wasn't there anything else he could do?
He pulled out his phone, noticing a few messages from Tseng lighting up the screen. 8 pm was when he had sent it – great, it was almost 10 pm, so he was late on Tseng's response. Groaning, he opened them up, expecting nothing but anger in the man's tone.
'Pickup will be one mile north of your location, 0500h. Airlift. Antidotes and elixirs will be supplied. Is there anything else you need?'
"Nah boss, we're good," Reno said under his breath as he typed a response, surprised at how mild a tone he was using. Normally the man would be much more upset by seeing his Turks make a mistake so grave – had he already gotten his anger out when he yelled at Elena?
Only a few moments after sending his reply, the small screen lit up again. He flipped the cell open, reading the text in surprise, then amusement.
'Are the others safe? Anything we should bring to the rendez-vous for immediate care?'
Is this bastard asking for 'Laney?
With an almost feral grin at the thought, Reno responded, 'I could always go for a cold one, boss. Elena just needs a good cuddle, or even just a hug. From you, preferably.'
To his immense satisfaction, the man never responded, leaving the redhead to return to watching the man at his feet toss and turn in his dreams. He knew it was a little cold, pointing out Elena's long-standing crush on their Director, but Tseng (and just about everyone else at Shinra) already knew about it so he didn't see the harm. The stern superior had been showing more concern for her after returning from the North Cave with the girl, so it wasn't unwarranted, either.
A joking answer was the best way for Tseng to rest easy – for all his jokes and quips, they both knew that Reno would be serious only if need be. It was better for everyone that his words remained as banter.
As he watched the small flames dance and flicker through the dark night, his eyes misted over, recollections filling his mind. It was odd to have this situation – he was usually never the caregiver, always the receiver. Whether it was a hangover, or the deepest battle wounds, Rude had always been the one to nurse Reno to health. Looking back, it was nearly impossible to recall just how many times he had opened his eyes, only to feel a rough, calloused hand leaving his forehead and a weight lift up from beside him as he saw his familiar partner standing over him.
Even back in their trainee days, Rude had helped him adjust out of the Wall Street life in the slums, watching the lithe man shake from withdrawals and regrets. The mere thought of those days, the aching, the pain-
Long eyelashes fluttered against a gaunt cheek, sweat leaving trails in the dirt on dark skin. "Water," Rude croaked suddenly, looking blearily out towards the dark night.
Immediately, Reno helped the tanned man sit up and lean against the log, handing him his canteen. The scent of his partner – so familiar by this point it was practically his own personal aphrodisiac – hit him instantly, and he couldn't help but breathe in deeply to catch every bit of it. His blue eyes followed the trail of water rolling down the sides of the man's mouth as he eagerly drank, and before he could stop himself, Reno leaned forward and let his long tongue drag a slow, sensuous trail up along the vulnerable underside of Rude's jaw. The metallic tang of blood hit first, followed by the sweat and dirt and, underneath it all, the taste of skin which had become so familiar to him after the events of the Reunion. It was intoxicating, being this close to Rude this way after all the missions they had been stuck on with Elena, forcing them into abstinence.
The sudden contact forced the other man to cough violently on his water, so much that Reno had to take the canteen away. "Sorry, partner, I couldn't help myself," he muttered sheepishly, awkwardly rubbing the other man's back until the heaving coughs calmed.
It was certainly hard for Rude to look disheveled – the lack of hair certainly aided in his image of perfect taciturnity – but as those reddened eyes glanced up, exhausted, heavy lidded as they met Reno's, his chest rising steadily with shallow breaths, a thin sheen of sweat glistening across tan skin with blanket strewn haphazardly around a bare torso, Rude certainly looked disheveled indeed.
"Y'know, for someone who's so sick, you shouldn't make yourself look so damn fuckable."
Rude's voice rumbled deep in the back of his throat as the man came to his senses, taking in his surroundings while clearing his throat. After a moment, he said simply, "I don't think my body could manage that."
Reno grinned, and without even sparing a glance towards the tent, he crawled over, swinging a leg over to straddle Rude. Resting a hand under the larger man's chin, he raised it and planted a kiss onto the man's muscled neck, rubbing his cheek against the stiff bristles of his goatee. "I'm sure we could figure out a way," he murmured lowly into Rude's ear, grinding his hips into the larger man's as his head started to haze over. It had been way too long-
"Reno." The word was firm despite the shakiness of the deep voice, and Reno had to sit farther back on the other's lap. Testing his skin condition with one hand, he groaned and sighed in frustration. "You're still pale," he muttered in defeat, sitting back on the ground beside the man cross-legged. "Dammit."
Rude blearily looked at the redhead, a choked chuckle leaving his throat when he saw that the younger man was aroused. "When's our ride getting here?" he croaked, drinking some more water.
Reno pulled out his phone, showing Tseng's messages to clarify it. The less the bald man had to speak, the later he would need to take another restorative, meaning they could hold out for longer should the need arise.
"By the way, you ran out of shades. Just thought you'd like to know."
The large man momentarily looked at him in fear, mouth agape and eyebrows furrowed together, until returning to normal – but the fear remained in his eyes. After a moment, he grimly nodded, accepting his fate, and then tried to change the subject. "Food?"
Reno raised an eyebrow – the other had long known about his lack of skill in the culinary arts. "If you're talking about my kind of food, I regret to inform you – we're a little too far to be hitting up a bar right now. Don't exactly need more poison in you, either."
Rude didn't acknowledge the comment, instead motioning for the other to pass him the heavy kit bag they had carried. With trembling fingers, the man searched inside, until he unsteadily pulled out a nondescript can. "Get the pot?"
Reno immediately groaned, reaching over to the back of larger camping equipment they carried always. Removing a small pot, he quickly grabbed the can out of Rude's hand and got to work stabbing it open with his pocketknife. The smell of nauseatingly bland, preserved chicken stock filled the air, and he turned his nose up in disgust. "You wanna eat this shit?"
Rude grunted, letting his head rest tiredly against the log. Every few moments, his body would tremble, as if he was being shaken by some unseen force violently – the poison was still in his body, after all, and he was slowly becoming more and more fatigued fighting it, even with the help of their plethora of potions to help. "Need to eat something eventually."
Wrinkling his nose in disgust, the redhead gave in, slipping his hair securely into his hairband once more at the base of his neck to prevent it from catching the flames. He wrenched off the lid of the can, pouring thick, gelatinous noodles and saddening soup into the bottom of the pot, sitting the entire thing on top of a warm rock by the fireside. He settled in beside the prone man, feeling the heavy weight of the man's thick arm resting pressed against his thigh. It was warm, the feeling of that mere contact sending shocks of pleasure zipping through Reno's frustrated body. Unfortunately, he couldn't act on those feelings – all he could do was sit and stir the pot, glancing at the tent occasionally to see if Elena had stirred.
After a few minutes of silence, only interrupted by the fire's popping and Rude's laboured breaths, Reno muttered, "Okay, this is so fucking domestic, yo."
Rude snorted, causing the redhead to look over at him, but what he saw made him freeze – instead of the exhausted, injured man resting, he found glimmering hazel eyes watching his movements, the flickering flames reflecting in them brightly with specks of gold shining underneath. A fond smile graced Rude's normally stern face, which for once wasn't impassive – it was at peace.
Reno felt heat, far hotter than any of the desire he had felt earlier, flood his pale cheeks. "What's that about, huh? Something on my face?"
"I could get used to this," the other man croaked good-naturedly.
Reno ran over his words, trying to justify the very noticeable blush he felt in his face. "What, shitty soup from a can? I can text the Boss to bring that tomorrow too, yo, if that's what you really want-"
Rude raised a hand to cup Reno's cheek, thumb brushing his hair out of his eyes. "I could get used to this look," the man clarified, callused thumb running gently over Reno's tattoo.
Reno looked away, busying himself with the task of pouring the soup, now liquefied more, into a small metal bowl. "Eat your damn soup," he muttered, placing another green vial for the man to take for his next dose.
With a small smile playing on his lips, Rude obliged, lifting himself up a bit more to reach the food. Reno busied himself with stirring the remainder in the pot, looking away from his partner as Rude slowly but steadily downed the mixture, as well as the medicine.
Liked that look? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Reno thought furiously, stirring a little too vigorously as he lost himself in thought. What, I look good sitting here, stirring this shit while he's off dying?
Maybe he likes being taken care of for once, another part of his mind whispered, making the man pause. He really had never needed to take care of the tanned man before, despite all their years of working together. Reno had always been the one needing his assistance, and he was happy with that. He had never expected that the stoic man would like to have Reno reciprocate in such an intimate way.
After all, taking care of each other like that was something that couples did, not just partners… right?
"Goddammit, partner. Look at the mess you've made," he muttered, watching the contents as he slowly stirring the remaining soup in the pot by the side of the fire.
A rough, hardened hand slowly gripped onto his free one, squeezing ever so gently in response, before returning to rest on Rude's chest as he fell into a more steady slumber. Reno could only stare in shock at the larger man.
A voice from the tent broke Reno out of his surprise from the sudden display of affection. "Reno, go to bed – I'll take watch," Elena called from inside the tent, the sound of shuffling giving away her movements.
"'Kay," he called back, eyes not drifting from the sleeping figure bathed in the light from the fire. He almost didn't even notice when the crunching of leaves in front of him paused, Elena leaning down to look into his frozen face inquisitively.
With another heavy sigh – filled with tenderness and warmth, this time – he tore his eyes away, picked up his jacket, slung it over his shoulder, stuck his free hand in his pocket and sauntered slowly over to the tent. "Take care of him," he drawled to Elena, who was rubbing red-rimmed eyes sleepily as she stumbled over to the fire. "I made some soup. Dare you ten gil to try it, yo."
That last phrase caused the blonde to perk up and shuffle over to the small pot. Scrunching her nose in suspicion, she leaned over the mixture and breathed in heartily before turning back to the retreating redhead, jaw agape. "You cooked?! Okay, well, it was from the can, but still! Who are you, and what did you do to Reno?"
The man chuckled and crawled inside the tent, immediately curling up in the pocket of warmth Elena had left only moments before. A part of him regretted not staying outside, curled up next to Rude as he slept, but he knew that it wasn't practical. Imagine how many people would win money in the office if they knew me 'n Rude were fucking, he thought sleepily, burying his cheek into the dirty fabric of his work blazer. I doubt they'd wager on more than just a casual relationship between us, anyways.
That thought made his exhausted mind pause, trying to process what he had just said to himself. More than casual? Would they be wrong if they did wager on a more serious relationship between us? Is this more than casual?
With the crackling of the fire outside and the image of clear hazel eyes, bright with fiery flecks of gold and warmth and trust during that moment of clarity, in his mind, a small, satisfied smile tugged his lips.
The antidote would arrive the next morning, along with a hearty scolding from Tseng in the chopper, but there were no more sunglasses to wear, and those hazel eyes would tell him the answer tomorrow. He'd bet money on it.
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