A/N: Reno/Elena, R for sex and swearing. I love this pairing dearly, and there's really not a lot of fiction around for them. I hope you all enjoy. :)
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When he twisted the wrist that was pinned at the small of my back to hit the lock of the hotel door, I realized he wasn't drunk.
Unbelievable. He wouldn't even oblige me that way. He always has to be so difficult.
Because, I had it all so carefully planned out. Detail was always my specialty. I can even tell you that the precise moment it all started was when he leaned over to me in some bar in Junon, reaching out his hand to brush clumsily at my shoulder.
"Piece of lint," he explained in a hoarse slur. He put the bottle he was clutching to his lips and tipped his head all the way back, and I could see the muscles in his white throat working as he swallowed. He dragged his arm across his mouth carelessly when he was finished and flashed me one of his maniac grins. "Know that drives you crazy." I was startled beyond words. He turned his attention to flagging down the barmaid for yet another bottle of whatever liquor he was currently inhaling, and I took the opportunity to stare. His clothes were, strangely enough, immaculately pressed, although that was probably because Shinra took care of employee laundry. But he wore them as an inconvenient necessity, with the minimal amount of tucking and buttoning needed to keep them from actually falling off of him when he moved.
It was then, you see. Or don't you? I think it's obvious. He understood how I felt about keeping my uniform spotless. He didn't relate, because he was a complete slob. He just understood. I know it doesn't make sense when I try to put it in words. Maybe it's all in my mind. I do tend to sort of run away with things. But then again, maybe it's just that those kinds of sneaky truths only make sense to lovers. But there I go again; I'm getting ahead of myself.
I can even tell you when I was sure that he knew it, too. During the fiasco at Wutai, with that slimeball Corneo. I've seen him carry out more death sentences than I can count. I've never seen his professionalism crack. That's my weakness. That's what he's always teasing me about. But there was a near-fiendish hatred twisting his face as he sent the Don tumbling down the mountainside, and I knew it had nothing to do with the man himself. It was personal, the way he ground his heel into Corneo's fingers slowly, agonizingly, giving him a few moments of suspension against the slippery rock to plead for his life, mocking him, before lifting his foot and watching him plunge farther and farther until his descent was arrested suddenly by brutal rock. It was completely unprofessional.
I almost laughed, watching him from the mountain wall. He was cool, unruffled, in control of the situation. And what a situation. If the ropes weren't cutting viciously into my skin, I would have thought I was dreaming. Hundreds of feet above the struggling remains of a once-proud city, mingling casually with Shinra's sworn enemies, having just dispatched Midgar's most notorious pimp, he looked relaxed to the point of boredom. But I could feel him shaking slightly as he helped me down from my ropes. I hid a smile in his shoulder.
And after that, all that was left for me was planning. It was simple enough. We would both just get drunk enough. Drunk enough to be deliberate or mistaken. Drunk enough to laugh at our foolishness in the morning or swear undying love. Drunk enough to not get hurt, because otherwise it would destroy me. Just the thought of his rejection made me physically sick. If he smirked at me, oh, no, Lena's being too eager, too weak, too innocent, too unprofessional, too human, the poor rookie, it would kill me. I'd put my gun to my head, I swear it, knowing that he'd laugh at me even then.
No time to worry about it then, though. It was totally impossible because my god how could his hands be all those places at once, and I was getting dizzy, I couldn't breathe. I didn't want to stop kissing him long enough to breathe. I heard myself making small whimpery sounds into his mouth. He gave an answering, echoing hum of self-satisfaction, the bastard.
"You should've told me you were gonna start feeling friendly before, Lena." I could feel each word as he formed them against my mouth, his lips flowing into their eternally amused curl. Talking and smirking and kissing at the same time. So very Reno. "I would have sprung for a better room. This dive doesn't even have any fucking curtains over the windows." He laughed. His laugh always has an edge of hysteria to it, just like his personality, just like his eyes. "I guess it doesn't matter, since they're too goddamn dirty to see into." I tried to say something, anything. He was always going on like that. Talking. Being witty or crude or both. It was daunting; it made me feel like a kid eavesdropping on a grown-up conversation. Not that feeling inadequate is new to me. It took a long time for me to gather the courage to banter with him. But now I couldn't get out a word; I was panting, actually panting, like a dog, feeling my ribs swell against the confinement of the body that was pressed across the length of mine, crushing me into the wall relentlessly, my face flaming with embarrassment. He pulled his head back a little and stared hard into my face.
The things that man could stand to stare at. I remember him staring without flinching at the bodies, mangled and crushed and shattered, that were part of the debris of the Sector 7 plate, twin scars livid on the white skin stretched across his cheekbones, an edge of hysteria in the way he held himself. I remember not being able to speak, and now he stared at me with the same eyes that saw that (and I saw it, too, I wanted to tell him, but I couldn't put it in words), blue like mine but not like mine, not like mine in the least, so different that it's a miracle that they're the same damn color after all.
"You okay, baby?" There was always the ghost of a smirk creeping around his face, always. It would never leave until he did, because it wasn't part of his body, it had to be a part of his soul that had leaked out prematurely. Or so I always thought. I think of strange things like that sometimes. Right now it was skirting around in the right corner of his mouth. I kissed it.
"Yes." It was barely a breath, I couldn't seem to manage any more, but it was enough for him because he gathered me up against him and made for the bed and it's a good thing there's so much wiry power in him because my legs were shaking and useless.
He snapped the light switch as he moved away from the wall. And he wasn't drunk and I knew it, and I wasn't drunk and he knew it. I could feel his scars under my fingers. An involuntary noise of fear escaped my throat as he pulled cloth away, exposing skin, and he paused, staring into my face again, hard. I tried to get away with closing my eyes.
"Elena." He, too, had lost his voice somewhere along the way to this and was molding breath into wordshapes instead. "Elena." I opened my eyes, feeling the burning creep up behind my eyelids and no, not that, not in front of him. "I know, sweetheart. Not gonna hurt you." I let out a laughing, sobbing breath at this and pressed my face into his neck. You have to be able to understand it now, how he couldn't possibly relate to being a scared, scared little girl in Sector 6, held down and hurt and scarred and afraid. But he understood me. Only me. If you were to suggest that he had an empathetic bone in his body, he'd laugh you out of the room. So would I, for that matter. He doesn't. It's just me. I don't care how selfish I sound, it's true.
He was waiting, so I slid my hand up his back (had he or I gotten his shirt off?) and plunged it into his sleek hair, clutching the tie that held his ponytail together and tugging it off. He bared his teeth at me in another of his dangerous grins as his long hair slipped over his shoulders to frame both our faces in a curtain of flames.
"I've been wanting this for so fucking long," he practically growled as he leaned into me again, and I wanted to say really? How long? I would have ended up saying a whole lot of stupid stuff like that if I could only work my throat, so it's probably a good thing that I couldn't. So I only let out a singing sigh and turned my face into his again, shivering as layers were pulled away and the cold air bit my skin. I twisted urgently against his warmth, trying to meld my skin to his, and he twisted too but a lot more effectively because suddenly I was on fire, and my thoughts trickled into complete incoherence for a good long time.
My mind was the first thing to turn back on as I came back from whatever far off place he had taken me to. I amused myself by thinking that he made love like he fought. Brutally. Relentlessly. Thoroughly. Well.
My nerve endings woke up next, and I felt his fingers moving steadily through my hair, sending pleasing tingles all the way down my spine. I sighed softly and opened my eyes, the ivory expanse of his chest greeting me. I lifted a hand to caress it idly, and I felt more than heard the way he sucked in a harsh breath. He seized my hand in mid-motion and brought it up to his face. I thought he was going to kiss it and leave it at that, but after a few motionless minutes, I looked up. He was giving my hand the same hard, bemused stare he had used on me before. His gaze shifted down to me, and he smiled, a surprising hint of shyness around his mouth.
"You've got such small hands. I can't believe you can even manage to pull a trigger, babe, much less nearly outshoot me." He flashed me a taunting smile. "Nearly." I refused to take the bait. He was underestimating me; I knew him well enough to be able to recognize his feints for what they were, most of the time. I crawled up higher on his body and laid my head next to his on the pillow, the tip of my nose brushing his cheek.
"You know I don't want to talk about who can shoot better now...even though I have a higher accuracy percentage than -"
"Zero point seven percent higher isn't anything to write home about, rookie. Besides, I've never even run the course sober." I smothered a laugh and frowned suddenly. He was good at dodging.
"Reno." I tried to sound stern, but it came out with a pleading note that made me cringe. He looked at me out of the corners of his eyes, the eternal smirk dancing across his lips.
"You're an animal in bed, Laney. I never would have guessed." He wasn't distracting me anymore, and he knew it.
"Reno." I felt him tense up underneath me, a sudden wary anger snapping across his eyes.
"Are you even gonna give me some damn time to think? God, Lena. I can't even fucking remember the names of the things you make me feel. It's not going to be easy to learn them over again." He laughed humorlessly, a jangling, jarring noise that made me flinch. "All these years I've been dead inside, babe. Dead." He lifted his hand to his temple made a mock trigger motion. "Excuse me if I don't spout a fucking sonnet after one roll." I recoiled, the angry words landing somewhere in my stomach and burning. I wanted to be indignant and offended and lofty, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the scars that were standing out in sharp relief against his skin.
"Sorry," I murmured in confusion, not sure at all what I was apologizing for. The scars, maybe. There was a second of hesitation, and then the hand that was resting on the small of my back moved slightly, urging me close again, and he let out a long, heavy breath, turning his face to press a small, apologetic kiss to my forehead.
"No," he muttered gruffly, "don't apologize, sweetheart. I owe you some pillow talk, right?" I shifted unhappily, but he kissed me again to take the edge off the comment, and then leaned back with a thoughtful, almost uneasy look in his dark blue eyes. "I...hm. I can't..." He huffed in frustration. "Well, there's the effect you have on me, Lena. I'm at a total fucking loss for words. That's a first." He ran his fingers through his hair restlessly. I hesitantly moved a hand up to his face, resting it on his cheek.
"You don't have to say anything." I said softly. The sheets rustled as he twisted to look at me. "I mean," I continued, unnerved by his eyes on me, "I shouldn't have, um, pushed before." I leaned my forehead against the side of his jaw, half-afraid that I had made things worse with my fumbling. He was silent for an agonizingly long time, stroking my back lightly.
"I'd do a hell of a lot for Tseng and Rude," he said finally, speaking with a slow, careful deliberation. "We're more than partners, we're...friends. More than friends. We're all that we've fucking got, really. You'll probably never hear me say that out loud again, though." A ghost of a smile flitted across his mouth. "Even so...we're survivors. We've all learned in our own ways that you have to look out for yourself before anything else. We all understand." He drew in a slightly shuddering breath. "But it's different with you." He laughed again, but this time it was a subdued, almost wistful chuckle. "I actually care more about what happens to you than what happens to me. Sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it, baby?" I puffed out the breath that had been clinging painfully to the inside of my chest, and it came out suspiciously close to a sob.
"I love you, too," I said tremulously, before I could reconsider. I closed my eyes and nestled in the curve of his neck and shoulder, curling tightly around him, tense and praying for a positive reaction. He didn't move for a full minute, while I tried not to hyperventilate. I was concentrating so hard that I was startled when he brought his other hand to rest lightly on my hair and turned his face slightly to rest his lips on the crown of my head. Relief streamed through me from the point of contact, relaxing my muscles, so that I practically melted against him.
I felt him hide a smile in my hair.
When he twisted the wrist that was pinned at the small of my back to hit the lock of the hotel door, I realized he wasn't drunk.
Unbelievable. He wouldn't even oblige me that way. He always has to be so difficult.
Because, I had it all so carefully planned out. Detail was always my specialty. I can even tell you that the precise moment it all started was when he leaned over to me in some bar in Junon, reaching out his hand to brush clumsily at my shoulder.
"Piece of lint," he explained in a hoarse slur. He put the bottle he was clutching to his lips and tipped his head all the way back, and I could see the muscles in his white throat working as he swallowed. He dragged his arm across his mouth carelessly when he was finished and flashed me one of his maniac grins. "Know that drives you crazy." I was startled beyond words. He turned his attention to flagging down the barmaid for yet another bottle of whatever liquor he was currently inhaling, and I took the opportunity to stare. His clothes were, strangely enough, immaculately pressed, although that was probably because Shinra took care of employee laundry. But he wore them as an inconvenient necessity, with the minimal amount of tucking and buttoning needed to keep them from actually falling off of him when he moved.
It was then, you see. Or don't you? I think it's obvious. He understood how I felt about keeping my uniform spotless. He didn't relate, because he was a complete slob. He just understood. I know it doesn't make sense when I try to put it in words. Maybe it's all in my mind. I do tend to sort of run away with things. But then again, maybe it's just that those kinds of sneaky truths only make sense to lovers. But there I go again; I'm getting ahead of myself.
I can even tell you when I was sure that he knew it, too. During the fiasco at Wutai, with that slimeball Corneo. I've seen him carry out more death sentences than I can count. I've never seen his professionalism crack. That's my weakness. That's what he's always teasing me about. But there was a near-fiendish hatred twisting his face as he sent the Don tumbling down the mountainside, and I knew it had nothing to do with the man himself. It was personal, the way he ground his heel into Corneo's fingers slowly, agonizingly, giving him a few moments of suspension against the slippery rock to plead for his life, mocking him, before lifting his foot and watching him plunge farther and farther until his descent was arrested suddenly by brutal rock. It was completely unprofessional.
I almost laughed, watching him from the mountain wall. He was cool, unruffled, in control of the situation. And what a situation. If the ropes weren't cutting viciously into my skin, I would have thought I was dreaming. Hundreds of feet above the struggling remains of a once-proud city, mingling casually with Shinra's sworn enemies, having just dispatched Midgar's most notorious pimp, he looked relaxed to the point of boredom. But I could feel him shaking slightly as he helped me down from my ropes. I hid a smile in his shoulder.
And after that, all that was left for me was planning. It was simple enough. We would both just get drunk enough. Drunk enough to be deliberate or mistaken. Drunk enough to laugh at our foolishness in the morning or swear undying love. Drunk enough to not get hurt, because otherwise it would destroy me. Just the thought of his rejection made me physically sick. If he smirked at me, oh, no, Lena's being too eager, too weak, too innocent, too unprofessional, too human, the poor rookie, it would kill me. I'd put my gun to my head, I swear it, knowing that he'd laugh at me even then.
No time to worry about it then, though. It was totally impossible because my god how could his hands be all those places at once, and I was getting dizzy, I couldn't breathe. I didn't want to stop kissing him long enough to breathe. I heard myself making small whimpery sounds into his mouth. He gave an answering, echoing hum of self-satisfaction, the bastard.
"You should've told me you were gonna start feeling friendly before, Lena." I could feel each word as he formed them against my mouth, his lips flowing into their eternally amused curl. Talking and smirking and kissing at the same time. So very Reno. "I would have sprung for a better room. This dive doesn't even have any fucking curtains over the windows." He laughed. His laugh always has an edge of hysteria to it, just like his personality, just like his eyes. "I guess it doesn't matter, since they're too goddamn dirty to see into." I tried to say something, anything. He was always going on like that. Talking. Being witty or crude or both. It was daunting; it made me feel like a kid eavesdropping on a grown-up conversation. Not that feeling inadequate is new to me. It took a long time for me to gather the courage to banter with him. But now I couldn't get out a word; I was panting, actually panting, like a dog, feeling my ribs swell against the confinement of the body that was pressed across the length of mine, crushing me into the wall relentlessly, my face flaming with embarrassment. He pulled his head back a little and stared hard into my face.
The things that man could stand to stare at. I remember him staring without flinching at the bodies, mangled and crushed and shattered, that were part of the debris of the Sector 7 plate, twin scars livid on the white skin stretched across his cheekbones, an edge of hysteria in the way he held himself. I remember not being able to speak, and now he stared at me with the same eyes that saw that (and I saw it, too, I wanted to tell him, but I couldn't put it in words), blue like mine but not like mine, not like mine in the least, so different that it's a miracle that they're the same damn color after all.
"You okay, baby?" There was always the ghost of a smirk creeping around his face, always. It would never leave until he did, because it wasn't part of his body, it had to be a part of his soul that had leaked out prematurely. Or so I always thought. I think of strange things like that sometimes. Right now it was skirting around in the right corner of his mouth. I kissed it.
"Yes." It was barely a breath, I couldn't seem to manage any more, but it was enough for him because he gathered me up against him and made for the bed and it's a good thing there's so much wiry power in him because my legs were shaking and useless.
He snapped the light switch as he moved away from the wall. And he wasn't drunk and I knew it, and I wasn't drunk and he knew it. I could feel his scars under my fingers. An involuntary noise of fear escaped my throat as he pulled cloth away, exposing skin, and he paused, staring into my face again, hard. I tried to get away with closing my eyes.
"Elena." He, too, had lost his voice somewhere along the way to this and was molding breath into wordshapes instead. "Elena." I opened my eyes, feeling the burning creep up behind my eyelids and no, not that, not in front of him. "I know, sweetheart. Not gonna hurt you." I let out a laughing, sobbing breath at this and pressed my face into his neck. You have to be able to understand it now, how he couldn't possibly relate to being a scared, scared little girl in Sector 6, held down and hurt and scarred and afraid. But he understood me. Only me. If you were to suggest that he had an empathetic bone in his body, he'd laugh you out of the room. So would I, for that matter. He doesn't. It's just me. I don't care how selfish I sound, it's true.
He was waiting, so I slid my hand up his back (had he or I gotten his shirt off?) and plunged it into his sleek hair, clutching the tie that held his ponytail together and tugging it off. He bared his teeth at me in another of his dangerous grins as his long hair slipped over his shoulders to frame both our faces in a curtain of flames.
"I've been wanting this for so fucking long," he practically growled as he leaned into me again, and I wanted to say really? How long? I would have ended up saying a whole lot of stupid stuff like that if I could only work my throat, so it's probably a good thing that I couldn't. So I only let out a singing sigh and turned my face into his again, shivering as layers were pulled away and the cold air bit my skin. I twisted urgently against his warmth, trying to meld my skin to his, and he twisted too but a lot more effectively because suddenly I was on fire, and my thoughts trickled into complete incoherence for a good long time.
My mind was the first thing to turn back on as I came back from whatever far off place he had taken me to. I amused myself by thinking that he made love like he fought. Brutally. Relentlessly. Thoroughly. Well.
My nerve endings woke up next, and I felt his fingers moving steadily through my hair, sending pleasing tingles all the way down my spine. I sighed softly and opened my eyes, the ivory expanse of his chest greeting me. I lifted a hand to caress it idly, and I felt more than heard the way he sucked in a harsh breath. He seized my hand in mid-motion and brought it up to his face. I thought he was going to kiss it and leave it at that, but after a few motionless minutes, I looked up. He was giving my hand the same hard, bemused stare he had used on me before. His gaze shifted down to me, and he smiled, a surprising hint of shyness around his mouth.
"You've got such small hands. I can't believe you can even manage to pull a trigger, babe, much less nearly outshoot me." He flashed me a taunting smile. "Nearly." I refused to take the bait. He was underestimating me; I knew him well enough to be able to recognize his feints for what they were, most of the time. I crawled up higher on his body and laid my head next to his on the pillow, the tip of my nose brushing his cheek.
"You know I don't want to talk about who can shoot better now...even though I have a higher accuracy percentage than -"
"Zero point seven percent higher isn't anything to write home about, rookie. Besides, I've never even run the course sober." I smothered a laugh and frowned suddenly. He was good at dodging.
"Reno." I tried to sound stern, but it came out with a pleading note that made me cringe. He looked at me out of the corners of his eyes, the eternal smirk dancing across his lips.
"You're an animal in bed, Laney. I never would have guessed." He wasn't distracting me anymore, and he knew it.
"Reno." I felt him tense up underneath me, a sudden wary anger snapping across his eyes.
"Are you even gonna give me some damn time to think? God, Lena. I can't even fucking remember the names of the things you make me feel. It's not going to be easy to learn them over again." He laughed humorlessly, a jangling, jarring noise that made me flinch. "All these years I've been dead inside, babe. Dead." He lifted his hand to his temple made a mock trigger motion. "Excuse me if I don't spout a fucking sonnet after one roll." I recoiled, the angry words landing somewhere in my stomach and burning. I wanted to be indignant and offended and lofty, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the scars that were standing out in sharp relief against his skin.
"Sorry," I murmured in confusion, not sure at all what I was apologizing for. The scars, maybe. There was a second of hesitation, and then the hand that was resting on the small of my back moved slightly, urging me close again, and he let out a long, heavy breath, turning his face to press a small, apologetic kiss to my forehead.
"No," he muttered gruffly, "don't apologize, sweetheart. I owe you some pillow talk, right?" I shifted unhappily, but he kissed me again to take the edge off the comment, and then leaned back with a thoughtful, almost uneasy look in his dark blue eyes. "I...hm. I can't..." He huffed in frustration. "Well, there's the effect you have on me, Lena. I'm at a total fucking loss for words. That's a first." He ran his fingers through his hair restlessly. I hesitantly moved a hand up to his face, resting it on his cheek.
"You don't have to say anything." I said softly. The sheets rustled as he twisted to look at me. "I mean," I continued, unnerved by his eyes on me, "I shouldn't have, um, pushed before." I leaned my forehead against the side of his jaw, half-afraid that I had made things worse with my fumbling. He was silent for an agonizingly long time, stroking my back lightly.
"I'd do a hell of a lot for Tseng and Rude," he said finally, speaking with a slow, careful deliberation. "We're more than partners, we're...friends. More than friends. We're all that we've fucking got, really. You'll probably never hear me say that out loud again, though." A ghost of a smile flitted across his mouth. "Even so...we're survivors. We've all learned in our own ways that you have to look out for yourself before anything else. We all understand." He drew in a slightly shuddering breath. "But it's different with you." He laughed again, but this time it was a subdued, almost wistful chuckle. "I actually care more about what happens to you than what happens to me. Sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it, baby?" I puffed out the breath that had been clinging painfully to the inside of my chest, and it came out suspiciously close to a sob.
"I love you, too," I said tremulously, before I could reconsider. I closed my eyes and nestled in the curve of his neck and shoulder, curling tightly around him, tense and praying for a positive reaction. He didn't move for a full minute, while I tried not to hyperventilate. I was concentrating so hard that I was startled when he brought his other hand to rest lightly on my hair and turned his face slightly to rest his lips on the crown of my head. Relief streamed through me from the point of contact, relaxing my muscles, so that I practically melted against him.
I felt him hide a smile in my hair.