Mystery, Chapter 2

Reno woke this time to the smell of soup and thanked Gaia, not for the first time, that he fell in love with a man who could cook. He staggered to the bathroom and coughed and hacked until he could pass into his lungs, then into the kitchen to eat.

"Feeling any better? Rude told me what you tried to pull."

"I know, I was awake for part of the lecture."

"Sorry, you just scare the shit out of me when you do that. Stop it."

"Feed me and I'll consider it." It was wonderful, chicken and noodles with spinach and ginger and…"Lemon? I never would have thought of that."

"Reno, to you, the kitchen is where I put the beer."

Point taken.

"I read the email that you sent with your dying breath from work. Disturbing. Not just for what they can do with it now, but what they can do in the future. A lot of really bad things can be based on that technology."

"Shit. Kinda wish you hadn't brought that up, babe. But you're right. That's a whole new can of worms."

"Bigger can than what could happen when I hear Zack waving me to the Lifestream?" he said around a mouthful of linguine.

Oops.

"Yeah, that thought crossed my mind." Silence. "Look, I had the living shit scared out of me last night by random footsteps and scratching and a doorbell. This is serious baggage they can dredge up and throw in people's faces, fuck with their heads…" He didn't mention the nightmare he'd had when he lay down that afternoon, born of worry and narcotics. Smoking a cigarette on the balcony, an fog had pressed in on all sides, blocking somehow his reentry to the loft; in the fog he could hear singing. The voices knew his name.

What if he'd been wide awake in the heat of battle and had that image sent into his mind? What if they all did, at once? The possibilities, as Cloud had pointed out earlier, were not good.

"And twice as bad when the baggage hasn't left the airport. Look, I'm not insulted, Reno. I get it. It's the first thing I thought when I read the email. And likely, the first thing you thought when you sent it."

Oops, again.

"But short of packing me off to a desert island, it's something we have to face. And you need to go back to bed, you're feverish." Cloud cleared the dishes; the conversation was apparently over.

Reno dreamed of fire.

In the small part of his mind that was still awake, he knew it was the fever, or maybe the drugs, but he knew fire. Felt it. Smelled it. He stood on the steps of a temple he had never seen before, unfamiliar symbols carved into the gates. He was running in slow motion, the desert air burning in his lungs. Unarmed, he felt naked. He knew, as thing were known only in dreams, that he must get into the temple before the doors closed, that there was something in there that he must have. Must save. Men were running after him to stop him but he slipped in just before the doors shut, leaving him in near darkness.

The inner doors stood open, the sanctuary lit only by a brazier.

Sephiroth turned; he was holding a child in his arms. "It's far too late. You came for this? It's far, far too late. Charming though. Chivalry always is. Go back to your dreams, Reno." Sephiroth's hand dropped to reveal cottony blond hair; the child turned his blue eyes toward Reno in silent question as fire leapt up from the brazier, plunging the sanctuary into a hell of flame. Charred flesh choked his nostrils.

His own screams of terror woke him.

"Now, what the fuck was that?" Cloud actually had to hold the glass of water still for him to drink, his hand was shaking so hard, and was nearly as pale as Reno.

"I dreamed Sephiroth had you, well a child version of you, and burned you to death inside some temple while I watched."

"And you're worried about my head being fucked up."

Reno wished a little for those days when Cloud was still silent and brooding. "I'm still worried about that, just add mine to the list, ok?" He steadied his hand and took the glass.

"Could just be the drugs. That cough syrup is an opium derivative, I had wicked ass dreams last time I took it." Cloud didn't sound like he really believed it either. Beetle glared at them for interrupting his nap. The damned cat, as usual, had slept through the entire thing. "And I thought cats were supposed to be sensitive to mood shifts and shit like that? This one is just, I don't know…"

"Special. Barrett should have named him Loz. Can I have some bourbon?"

"Not with a fever." Beetle stretched and shoved his ass in Cloud's face. The animal seemed strangely proud of that part of his anatomy. Cloud was unimpressed; he'd seen better. "What do you think it means?"

"Sounds pretty transparent to me, yo. Almost lost you to Sephiroth before. And I'm afraid of you getting hurt again, with these Screamer things. Especially with me being sick as shit." The feeling of helplessness came back to him from the dream as the flames roared up between him and the child Cloud.

"I'm not a child now."

"I know that." Reno ran his hand through his hair, making a worse mess of the rat's nest there. He needed a shower; he could smell the sick-sweat on himself and he itched. "I don't think that's the point." The conversation had long passed the stage of being productive; they were just nitpicking at each other now and it was teetering dangerously on becoming a fight, just out of sheer peevishness. Reno got up and headed for the bathroom.

The steam of the shower was heaven in his battered sinuses and lungs, as the heated water washed away layers of fever sweat. He washed until his fingertips were pruned. Drying, he was actually dizzy with exhaustion.

Being sick was for the damn birds. He put on a fresh pair of pajama pants and crawled back in bed, foregoing his cough syrup for work email. Cloud entered with some juice and a cup of tea. "Sorry about earlier. I'm just being a whiny bastard, I guess."

Reno patted the bed for his lover to sit next to him. Cloud went one better and leaned down into an embrace. Reno decided he'd checked enough work emails for the day. "Yeah, hell of a time for the bad guys to get motivated. Apparently, Tseng and crew haven't made much headway. And maybe it's just inactivity, fever, drugs, whatever, but something just feels…off."

The lay for a while in a silent agreement.

Cloud looked up from the circle of Reno's arms, checking his temperature with the back of his hand like an overprotective mother. "You're still too warm. Did you take your antibiotic?" Reno nodded, drinking his juice before Cloud noticed that too. And then his tea. Sometimes, it was just easier to head that off at the pass. "I've noticed it too, like a hum of static electricity or interference, like you'd get if a radio isn't quite tuned right. Makes my hair stand on end."

"Well that's one mystery solved." He planted a soft kiss into Cloud's fluffy spikes.

"What?"

"Never mind, babe." He was growing tired again, but sleep was not exactly appealing to him. "What's that noise?"

"Fucking cat's into something. Let me see." Reno instantly missed Cloud's warm weight in his arms. He rolled over and was flirting with the drowsiness when he heard Cloud fighting with the cat, then a funny feeling ran through his brain like a free fall. "Well what have we here?"

Reno opened his eyes to see Cloud holding his EMR in one hand and in the other, the mangled remains of a Screamer. "How did that get in here?"

"Hell if I know, my guess is it was tossed onto the balcony when they were throwing them around the first night and asscat here dragged it in for a toy. It was damaged when I found it and ah…further damaged it. Which could be why all it was giving you was fucked up dreams instead of voices in your head."

"Why not you? All you got was edgy, you said"

"I'm not sick and drugged within an inch of my life. It probably made you more susceptible to the effects. I'm taking this to Tseng." Cloud put it in a plastic grocery bag, taking care to handle it as little as possible. He grimaced as though it were made of rotting flesh. "You get some sleep. You too, Beetle." Beetle licked his ass and shot Reno a look of pure satisfaction.