Most of it had just blurred into one big beating. He hit the floor first, still conscious, and saw Rude go down too. Rude struggled to his knees, trying to get back onto his feet so he could do his job, and Reno really wanted to help, but it hurt too much. He gave a pitiful moan and rolled onto his side, a precursor to actually trying to get up.
Their attacker, Kadaj, a creepy silver/white haired freak with a lean body who couldn't have been older than fourteen, saw both of them, and gave a little chuckle that was pure evil. Two steps brought him to Reno's side, and he slammed his boot into Reno's stomach with savage force. For a kid whose voice was still trying to settle into a definite tone, he was strong; Reno curled in on himself, clutching his stomach, panting and biting back his whimpers of pain. Kadaj took another three steps, and brought Rude down with a pitiless double-fisted blow to the back of the skull. Rude fell with a grunt, lifted himself up one last time, almost in defiance, and then collapsed to the floor in a senseless heap.
Reno rolled onto his back, trying to get enough oxygen into his lungs to promote proper brain function so he could formulate a plan to get out of this mess. At the same time, he was forcing his stomach to calm down. Kadaj stepped over him and approached Rufus. They began talking, but Reno couldn't tell what they were saying because his ears were ringing.
His hearing cleared up in time for him to hear Kadaj say "But sir! Surely you've noticed." Out of the corner of his eye, Reno saw the kid crouch down on one knee. The air in the room changed; it became charged with something. Reno heard a loud buzzing. It cut straight to his brain, and then to his stomach, which began to twist and hurt. He felt nauseous, almost seasick, like when Rufus had insisted on taking the boat to Wutai, and they'd hit a storm. Rude was the only one who hadn't spent a majority of the trip puking over the deck railing. Considering the fact that there had been four Turks and one ShinRa President on board, it was a feat he was despised for by all who'd been present.
The tone of the buzzing went up a notch or two, and Reno took several deep breaths, trying hard to keep from throwing up in front of Kadaj. He would not give the little creep the pleasure of seeing him like that.
In an instant, Kadaj was gone, probably out the window. Reno rolled onto his hands and knees, coughed once, and was violently sick. Much to his dismay, Rufus left his wheelchair and got on his knees beside Reno, holding his ponytail out of the way and waiting until he was finished. Reno dropped back onto his heels, panting, and Rufus pressed a concerned hand to his forehead.
"You're warm," he murmured. "Are you sick?"
"Just a cold," Reno assured him. "Don't worry about it."
Rufus's touch didn't bother him. Geostigma wasn't spread by contact; weeks of dealing with the President in his deteriorating condition had proven that. He wouldn't have cared anyway. Shock made him numb.
"You're sure?" Reno was about to answer when he saw the IDs on the floor. The bloodstained IDs. Tseng's bloodstained ID.
"Where did those come from?" he asked, fighting to keep his voice level. A Turk does not break down on the job. He does not do so in front of the President. He is calm. Collected. Cool. Unaffected by the world around him. Wait to panic until there is an appropriate time and place to do so. He reached out and picked up the card, feeling the slick roughness of the dried blood on the sleek plastic.
"Kadaj. I guess…I guess he took these after they...I thought they'd be okay, but…" Rufus trailed off. Reno collected his scrambled thoughts and got to his feet, then pulled Rufus up after him, helping him back into the wheelchair. Then he checked on Rude.
"Just knocked out." He spoke aloud for Rufus' benefit. "He'll wake up in a couple of hours." He dusted himself off, picked up his mag-rod from where it had been kicked in the scuffle, and straightened his ponytail. "If you don't need me, I'm gonna go outside for some fresh air."
"Go ahead," Rufus murmured. Reno closed the door carefully behind him, headed down the steps, and slipped into the green sanctuary offered by the trees. Just out of sight of the Lodge, a fallen log served as a bench beside the stream. Reno dropped onto it with a shuddering sob.
"Tseng…" The first tears fell just short of the ID he still had clutched in one hand. His vision blurred, but not enough to hide the streak of crimson across the image of a face he'd known so well. It was…it was just so hard to grasp. If any of them were to die untimely deaths by mistake, it should have been him. Reno the goof. The prankster. The punk. The kid who'd made it into the Turks because he was lucky, fast, and a lot smarter than he looked. Not Tseng. Not the man who'd been the most successful leader the Turks had ever had. Not the man who thought so far ahead that most people thought it was just obsessive until the planning turned out to be the difference between going home at the end of the day or dying in some festering alley. The man who everyone saw as so cold and detached, but was, in actuality, a warm, caring individual who was capable of unconditional love. The man that had always been there when he was in trouble, with a lecture on better management of his life at work, and then caring words and help when they'd left for the day.
The man that he'd loved with all his heart.
They'd been planning on moving in together; shopping for an apartment when they were off work, and making playful suggestions on how to break their relationship to Rufus. And now, he was gone, killed by three teenagers with some crazy cause and enough power to destroy anything in their way.
Tseng had been in the way.
After he couldn't cry anymore, Reno picked himself up, scrubbed his face in the stream, and made his way back to the Lodge. Rude had woken up.
In the hours that followed, Reno forced himself to be cheerful. He was going to get revenge on the freaks that had killed Tseng. Everything else was pushed to the back of his mind to be dealt with later. This included the subtle warnings his body gave him, like the splitting headache, the increasing fatigue, and the chills. He ignored them all, heedless of the situation. Tseng was his only priority.
Hauling Cloud back to 7th Heaven had almost been his undoing, but he survived it, and put his game face back on. This was nothing to a Turk, Cloud. You're just not like us. You can act different when you've lost something. You can retreat into yourself. I'm stronger, because I can't.
When the opportunity came to fight, the one Reno really wanted to kill wasn't there. Kadaj was who knew where, and these two, the older ones who one would think had more sense then this, were there, ready and willing. After taking the kids he and Rude could carry out of the way, he went after the lean, girly-looking one called Yazoo.
It turned out to be more than his body could handle, but he ignored this and fought anyway, giving as much as he could, doing whatever was necessary to get ahead. It was pure luck that they'd ended up below the building Kadaj had had the President in, but there was nothing they could do when he fell; they'd come prepared for a fight, not catching a man falling from stories above them.
The rather abrupt arrest of Rufus' fall was caused by net-pitons that flew out of nowhere. And in that nowhere stood Tseng and Elena, neat and professional, as if they'd never been…
He couldn't think about that now, even though the bloodstained ID was in his shirt pocket, burning against his heart and keeping him going against everything. He and Rude raced for the chopper, and Rude put together a pair of makeshift bombs to take out the two older freaks while Reno piloted. Cloud would take care of Kadaj. As much as he wanted to beat the kid's face in, Reno knew that Cloud had a better chance of doing so and coming out alive. Ten minutes ago, he wouldn't have cared, but now that there was the slim chance that he wasn't seeing things and Tseng really was back, he wanted to live, wanted it so badly it hurt.
Clouds gathered, signaling who-knew-what, with Cloud and Kadaj at the center of them. Then there was some kind of explosion…and then the sky cleared and it began to rain on them, on Rufus and the four Turks standing facing him in a semi-circle. A green glow grew and faded on the dark patches of geostigma, taking them away. Rufus smiled slightly.
Later, after Rude and Elena had offered to take Rufus back to Healin, Tseng and Reno stood alone on the street. After the steady droning of the chopper had faded into silence, they turned and rushed to each other. Tseng seemed content just to hold Reno, but the redhead was not so easily satisfied. He felt Tseng all over, checking for injuries. While he did so he made unconscious sounds, little cat-like mews, each time he'd assured himself that another spot was relatively undamaged and intact. He did Tseng's face last, and kissed him with everything he'd kept bottled up since Healin.
"You're back," he breathed, and relaxed. Everything was thrown sharply into relief for a split-second, and then went black. Vaguely, he heard Tseng calling his name.
It took him a few minutes to figure out where he was when he came to. The ceiling wasn't his, though he had no idea how he knew. Judging by the red light seeping through the curtains (and his room had blinds, so it definitely wasn't his place) it was sunset. A door opened, and when he pushed himself up to see who was coming in, a damp cloth fell into his lap. So he had been sick, had he? In an instant, it all came back to him: Tseng's being almost killed, Kadaj and his brothers, the rain…
"Tseng!"
"I'm here," Tseng murmured. He took the cloth from Reno, wet it in a bowl on the table beside the bed, and handed it to Reno. Having been doctored by Tseng before, Reno knew this meant that he was to lie back down and put the cloth back on his forehead.
"What happened?"
"You collapsed. You've been out for days…was this that cold you wouldn't let me treat before we left?"
"No. What happened to you?" Tseng gave a sigh that told Reno he saw right through that lie.
"I'm more concerned about you right now, Reno. You really need to take better care of yourself," Tseng continued, as if nothing had happened. He leaned over Reno and checked his pulse.
"Tseng, I-" Tseng placed two fingers on his lips and looked Reno right in the eye.
"We'll talk about me later."
"Why?"
"Do you have any idea how long you've been out?" Reno shook his head. "Nearly nine days. Much longer and I would have had to commit you to long-term care at the hospital, because of your condition." Tseng's voice took on a panicked edge for a moment, then steadied again. "You were delirious at one point, screaming and trying to fight things that weren't there. You just collapsed on me. I was sure I was going to lose you. We will talk about me when I am sure you're alright," He growled. There was a weakness behind the growl; he had been scared, and still was.
"I did lose you!" Reno yelled, shoving Tseng's hand away. "I've got your ID in my shirt! We all thought you were dead! I thought…God, I thought you were gone, Tseng. The only thing keeping me going was the thought of getting one of the guys that killed you." Tseng's expression softened. "Please…so I know I'm not dreaming." He hated begging, but there was nothing else he could do, no false bravado to hide behind. Not when he had come so close to losing everything. Tseng gave him a very small, apologetic smile.
"Okay," he whispered. "I'll tell."
"Good," Reno said, scooting over a bit and patting the bed beside him. Like Tseng's silent instructions, this was Reno-speak for 'I want to cuddle'. Tseng said nothing, but climbed onto the bed beside Reno, shifting around a bit until Reno had forced him to recline slightly against the pair of pillows he'd stood up and Reno could slip under his arm and enjoy the closeness. "Now tell me."
"Elena and I were both shot- that kid, the one that calls himself Yazoo, has incredible aim. It's on the same level as Valentine's."
"Stick to the subject," Reno grumbled. Tseng chuckled.
"We were taken somewhere by bike, and I blacked out. From there, Elena and I were separated, and tortured. I don't know if I said much…"
"Don't know?"
"Yazoo is rather compelling…he has a gift for extracting information, and making you forget about it. I know I must have said something…"
"How'd you get out?"
"We had help. Three days before we met up in Midgar, Kadaj and his brothers left. I passed out. When I woke up, Valentine was kneeling over me, and I had so many bandages I looked like a mummy. He cast something, a Heal I assume, then stuffed me with enough painkillers to put me down for hours and added a tranquilizer to make sure I stayed that way. When I woke up again, I was 75 functional instead of barely alive and I could move. I wandered around, found Elena, then we took a couple of bikes from out back and- to use one of your expressions- hauled ass." Reno smiled at the way the words sounded so strange on Tseng's tongue. "I must say, we certainly arrived in the nick of time."
"Yeah," Reno agreed. "Much longer and the prez would've been a greasy spot on the concrete." Tseng punched him lightly in the arm, but he didn't care.
"We really have to tell him, you know."
"I know." Reno didn't even have to ask who 'him' was. There could only be one that needed to know.
"But not until you're better."
"I am better."
"You're awake," Tseng corrected. "And that's where you're staying until that fever is gone."
"Yes sir," Reno mumbled sleepily.
"Falling asleep on me?"
"Mmhm."
"Good night."
Several mornings later found Reno and Tseng, both still on leave, standing in front of Rufus' desk.
"I assume this is important, because I don't generally see much of you when you're off," Rufus murmured. Reno blushed, and Tseng nodded. Rufus sighed. "What is it?"
"Reno and I need some help moving…and we thought we might call Cloud. He's running that delivery service and all…" Tseng left the sentence unfinished, waiting for Rufus to take the bait.
"Moving?" A nibble. "Both of you?" A more definite bite. "Together?" Bingo. He was hooked.
"Yes sir." Reno could hear the laughter in Tseng's voice; the man was having entirely too much fun with this.
"And…would I be right if I assumed that the purpose of this move is not for work-based reasons?"
"Yes sir." Rufus let out a long breath and tipped his chair back, running his fingers through his hair.
"How long?"
"Sir?"
"How long have you been together?"
"Approximately eleven months, sir," Reno said. Tseng looked at him with surprise written all over his face. He hadn't been keeping count, but, apparently, Reno had. Actually, Reno had just marked the first day they'd been 'official' on a calendar page he kept folded on his wallet at all times. Count the days, weeks, and months after it, and you came out to almost eleven months.
"You've done a good job of hiding it…okay, I'll call Cloud and get him to come out and help…this means you've already found a place?"
"Mmhm." Reno could see Tseng doing a quick mental tally of the time, which he found really funny. Rufus was silent for a moment, and then started laughing. "What?"
"Look at it from my point of view for a minute. I've got you, Reno, a generally lazy punk who likes to drink and get into trouble and who can smell a party from a mile away. On the other hand, I have you, Tseng, the epitome of protocol and neatness, who never comes in hung over or bruised or not at all without just cause. And now I find out that the two of you, who are feasibly the physical definition of 'polar opposites', are not only friendly with one another, but have been 'together', to put it politely, for the better part of a year. My entire view of the world had just taken a nosedive. How does Saturday sound?"
"Excellent, sir."