The cold Wutaian, ever strict and proper. Perfectly pressed suits and tie always completely straight, not a hair out of place.
His pen moved over the paper half-heartedly; this assignment was not one of his choosing for any of the Turks, but particularly not the one that had been requested. It would be more dangerous, more risky than was strictly necessary. Of course, that was what made Reno so perfect for it.
The angry Wutaian, rage evident only in the slight crease between his brows and the faint tremble in the hand that held the gun. He even raged silently.
They should have been more careful. Death had narrowly missed the pair, and as it was a team was bringing both of them back on stretchers. Elena was fretting and wringing her hands at the sight of her co-workers unconscious and bloody, as though the girl had never seen pain or death before. She still acted like a rookie, even after all these years.
The concerned Wutaian, tense and strung tightly as a bow. Hovering at the hospital for days on end, forgetting food and drink and open air. Worry.
He wasn't sure that Reno would ever wake. Rude had recovered quickly - the bald man had the constitution of a brick wall, and he hadn't taken the brunt of the damage, anyway. The lanky red-haired Turk, though, the messy and sarcastic and eternally unpredictable Reno had taken a blow to the head. It was chancy, the doctors said. Not everything could be healed up with a Cure materia. He could be out for hours, or for days, or for weeks, months, years. No one knew.
Tseng refused to move from his bedside. Even the orders of Rufus Shinra himself could not sway the Turk leader.
The distraught Wutaian, his constant composure lost. Bent over in a chair, head in his hands, not weeping, no, but despairing, hopeless. And as quiet, as inconspicuous as ever.
"He'll be fine, sir."
Only Elena had seen him clinging to the redhead's hand. And she was his partner; she'd never tell.
How long had it been? He had caught Tseng's eye when he had first joined the Turk ranks, but more because he was a right insubordinate bastard than anything else. How long had it taken the man's outright irritation to soften into affection? He didn't know. But Reno had found him one day, and temptation had been too much to resist. The redhead had fallen into his arms and wormed his way into Tseng's life, having returned those silent desires from a distance.
But Reno was Reno; no one could hold him in one place.
When the redhead had gone to Rude, the head Turk hadn't been surprised. When he had gone to Elena, he had been aggravated. When he had gone to Rufus, the usually composed Tseng had gotten angry - the pampered, rich son of Shinra, the one who got everything he wanted, didn't deserve Reno.
He showed nothing, acted on nothing. A Turk was loyal.
And Reno always came back to him.
The elated Wutaian, more emotion exposed on his face as he heard that familiar voice than had been in years. Holding onto his lover like nothing could ever pull him away, relief and pain and joy mingling.
He had woken up, and the first thing he had said was, "Stop worrying." Yo. Typical Reno. Tseng had actually laughed, the sound unfamiliar on his lips and in his ears as it echoed back from cold hospital walls, and the redhead had flashed him that careless grin, and the Turk could have wept from it all.
He didn't, of course. It was not his way.
The doctors said he would make a full recovery. He was out and back in his apartment before the week was out, strutting around filled with his usual life and humor. And of course his usual darkness and cynicism, his usual sloppiness and laziness, his usual tendency to piss off authority figures.
Tseng wouldn't have him any other way.
The beautiful Wutaian, body stretched out under another's, teak wood-tanned skin against porcelain. Passion and lust and love or something like it in the motion of hips and hands, in the press of kisses.
"Love you," he murmured against the back of the redhead's neck when he thought he had fallen asleep, before his breathing evened out and he fell into slumber himself.
"I know," Reno whispered to the sleeping Wutaian, an enigmatic smile on his lips.