Sun


Hey, you, with the pretty face
welcome to the human race
A celebration
Mr. Blue Sky's up there waiting
And today is the day we've waited for—Electric Light Orchestra, Mr. Blue Sky


Spring had finally come to the city of Edge. It had been the wettest, coldest winter he could remember since living here. It had rained since fall, filling gutters and puddles with a kind of half frozen gray sludge, never really ice but never really water either. Even Cloud had gotten a little post traumatic at the thought of drinking a slushie. But finally it seemed to be spring.

Which wasn't to say it wasn't still cold as shit, to hear Reno tell it. Anything cooler than the armpit of hell was a hypothermia risk to the redhead. He'd turn into a popsicle in Nibelheim, he thought. Cloud flipped the steaks on the grill and took another swig of his beer, saving Reno the trouble of shivering on the end of the balcony.

Drama queen.

He loaded up the plates of grilled peppers and near-raw beef and carried them to the table by the window where the two men made quick work of their dinner, pronounced by Reno to be "fucking awesome, yo!" as usual. Cooking for Reno was easy and gratifying; just make sure it was dead first, and the man loved it.

Cloud was still a little unused to being a grownup. There were mornings he woke and wondered whose home he lived in and when he had moved in with the man he had been in love with for eons and how the hell he made it all work. But this afternoon they were eating a meal at a real table, that didn't come out of a delivery box, in the buttery light of late afternoon and Reno was beautiful and it seemed to be working very well indeed.

When they were done, Reno carried the dishes to the kitchen and then changed out of his jeans and into flannel pants and snug t shirt. Cloud, in shorts, spared an eye roll at him as the redhead made his way out to smoke.

At least the pants would be easy to strip off him later, the inner horndog in Cloud's mind supplied helpfully, as he washed the dishes. When he was done, he walked out to the balcony to chat up Reno and enjoy the eye candy. "Nice weekend. Glad the weather finally cleared so we could grill."

"Gladder it cleared so you could grill, yo. Can you imagine me grilling? I got the starting the fire part down pretty good."

Cloud gave a small shudder and mentally calculated his homeowner insurance. He decided not to comment and instead, took in the scene around him. He'd been doing that a lot lately. Quite a few of his neighbors were out and about as well in the pleasant weather and he waved at the few he recognized. "Let's go inside."

"And waste the nice afternoon?"

"What I have in mind will get us arrested."

Reno never extinguished a cigarette so fast.

Reno sat down in the dining room chair and pulled Cloud into his lap. "I'd have done it on the balcony but it's too cold."

"It's not cold."

"Cool, then. Too cool to be naked outside."

Cloud laughed and kissed him, deep, slow, caressing his tongue against his lover's. He reached around and snapped the tie that held back his hair, bringing it down around his shoulders in the orange light of sunset. Reno smiled. "I swear, you have a fetish."

"Probably." Reno's hands settled lightly around his waist, slipped up under his shirt. Cloud kissed him harder then, tangling his hands up in the yards of red hair, feeling it around his fingers, hearing Reno moan into the kiss. He could feel him, hard against the side of his leg too but he didn't seem to be in any hurry. "You're overdressed."

"Get up a sec." Reno used the opportunity to strip them both and with a grin, pull a tube out of his pocket.

"You are getting ridiculous with that."

"You complaining?"

"No, I'm just almost afraid of where I'll find it next. Taped to the lampshade?"

He pulled Cloud down into his lap again, so that the blond straddled him. "Damn good idea, babe. Can't always reach the end table drawer from the sofa." Cloud coughed with laughter. Before Reno, he had never imagined laughing during sex; now it is as natural as breathing. But it died in his throat when Reno nibbled and licked his way down his jaw and throat to his collarbone, bending him back in an arch and grinding their hips together.

Reno's breath hitched in his throat. Cloud liked that reaction and decided to roll his hips down in a circle again. Reno swallowed, hard, and leaned his head into Cloud's shoulder. "You know, I'm always going to take my time, drive you crazy but you always…" He smiled weakly and seemed to lose his train of thought, his breath coming a little faster. They kissed, so hard Reno tasted blood but he didn't stop, his hands wandering up and down warm soft skin. Trembling a little now, he pulled Cloud against him and pressed a cool, slick finger up into him, then another. Cloud groaned and dropped his head to Reno's shoulder; the second finger teased just short of his prostate while the motion rubbed his erection against Reno's abdomen.

This was all feeling a little too good. "Fuck. Stop."

"Why, babe?"

"Gonna come." Their lovemaking that morning hadn't taken the edge off at all. It hadn't even come close. Reno grinned, slicked himself and lowered Cloud down to ride him, thrusting up gently at first and then harder. They rocked the chair with their motion as Cloud tensed, trying to hold back his climax.

"How sturdy is this thing?"

"Fuck if I know, it's your chair," he grunted between thrusts.

Cloud was fighting a losing battle. He had almost no control in this position, but Reno could always make him feel so damn good. He gasped and his vision went white as Reno stroked him inside, the angle perfect. He nearly wept from the pleasure. "Ready?" Judging from the groans, it was a yes. Reno reached between them and barely touched him before he was spilling over both of them, moaning in relief. Only a few more thrusts and Reno emptied into him.

Cloud raised his head and kissed Reno's neck, sweaty now from exertion, and laughed. "We're going to wear out this dining room set at this rate. Second time this week we've had sex on it. I guess I should have bought something more heavy duty."

"Yah. This decorator shit isn't gonna hold up." The sun was just setting below the skyline now, the light turning a pinkish purple against their flushed skin. "Get cleaned up and watch some tv? Or just bum around in bed and talk?"

"Bed. I could curl up against you forever."

"Let's do it then."


"Wake up! You gotta get up, yo, like now! Get up, man!" The urgency in Reno's voice was unmistakable, even drifting down through the cottony layers of sleep.

He didn't smell smoke. Had there been an accident? Was someone hurt? What had happened to interrupt the lazy late Sunday morning silence? Cloud pulled himself bodily into a sitting position and willed his brain into alertness. It wasn't easy. "Whatizzit?"

Reno flew into his line of sight like a bat. "The weather is fucking awesome today! We have got to go riding. Like maybe down to that seafood bar next to the ferry? You just can't waste a day like this, it's like, criminal or something. It's always raining this time of year and today it's just fucking gorgeous and it's Sunday and we're off! Get up!"

Cloud made a mental note to switch him to decaf.

However, a glance out the window confirmed that Reno, though annoying, was correct. The sky was a brilliant blue; a light breeze blew a few feathery clouds in and out of view. He looked back at Reno. Reno, his dear precious poster child for attention deficit medications.

"Let me get my shoes."


That seafood bar, known officially as The Blue Gill and unofficially as that dump, was hailed far and wide for having the best heart attack inducing sodium soaked deep-fried seafood in the area. It had been expanded, destroyed, rebuilt, though never in the same style or out of the same materials for the last fifty years. Beer came to you in a plastic cup, liquor was of questionable brands and quality, and plates were paper if you were lucky enough to get them at all. The jukebox played both country and western, and the Christmas lights stayed up all year long.

The view was worth millions.

From the bar you could see blue water for miles. Reno gazed out at the rich people waiting to get their boats out of the marina as a mosquito hawk bounced against the window. "C'mon babe, wasn't this worth getting off the sofa?"

Cloud popped his neck and tried to pick a clam strip out from amidst the onion rings without burning himself. "Maybe. Have you ever thought of taking some kind of tranquilizers?"

"Why?" Reno asked without irony around a shrimp, holding it between his teeth until it cooled.

"No reason." Cloud sat and enjoyed the scenery, mostly that inside the bar. Reno in a tank top and tight jeans could induce his own heart attack. Then again, Reno in a burlap sack could have much the same effect. "Or, we could drink more beer." The handy thing about getting a series of beers in plastic cups is that by stacking them up, you could keep some vague count of how much you'd had to drink. And drinking with Reno, this was useful information to have.

"Let's go outside. Not waste the weather."


The outside deck area, balanced precariously over the water, boasted a small sand box and a line of old booths scavenged from some long obliterated fast food restaurant, their neon vinyl glory now cracked and faded in the sun. It was one of these Reno headed for, ashtray in one hand and beer in the other, pulling Cloud in after him and circling his arm around his waist. He gave a contented sigh. "Love you. Glad we came out today."

"Love you too." Cloud closed his eyes in contentment and sipped his beer. He could still smell the frying grease over Reno's cigarette; it was a nice comforting odor. He leaned over a little and scooted back for a kiss. It was a fairly chaste one—they were in public after all—but full of promise for later. Reno ran his hand down his side too firmly to tickle, but just.

A family came out to join them with three young sons to play in the sandbox, apparent from their dress that they were adherents to one of the newer religions that had been popping up like molehills since Meteorfall. The one thing they all seemed to have in common was the connection they held between fun and sin, or the consequence thereof, as though gravity were a virtue of some kind. Reno in particular didn't grasp it but then, his idea of religion was praying for the end of his workday to come so he could get back to drinking.

The mother noticed them then, taking in the cigarette, the beers, the way leaned into each other in a very non-platonic manner. She shielded her children's eyes and shuffled them back inside and away from their substance abusing nefarious gayness. Cloud snorted from where he sat in the circle of Reno's arm. "Was it something we said?" He squinted up at Reno, who had been watching the scene with amused interest.

"One of her kids will probably grow up to have suspiciously good taste in furniture and it will be all our fault. Need beer, babe?"

"Mmm hmmm. I'll get it."

Cloud paid for the beer and watched Reno through the window as he lit another cigarette, having a little trouble in the wind. It really was a beautiful day. Or rather, it was a day, and Reno was beautiful in it. It was as though the laws physics paused in their operations; time stopped and let Cloud freeze a perfect moment of it into a crystal he could hold in his hand.

"Sir?"

"I'm sorry?"

"I was just asking if there would be anything else."

He smiled at the bartender. "No, I have everything I need, thank you." He took the beer and walked back outside to the rickety deck, and to Reno.