"…I swore to get professional psychiatric help tonight, didn't I?" I question myself incredulously in the brief stillness of the room, before the rustling of fabric resumes and Tuesti chuckles a bit breathlessly at my side.

"It did sound like it, yes."

I am seated against the headboard of his bed while he lies next to me, the curtains partially drawn to obscure the light but not block my line of sight to the entryway, leaving us in a dim cocoon that is relaxing, or would be if my companion stopped his incessant shifting in his attempt to escape the 'tucking in' I had bestowed upon him over his loud protestations and languid physical resistance. I believe he would have fought with greater vigor had he been aware of my skill at binding someone in an efficient manner, no matter the material available, and sheets are better suited for that purpose than most.

"If I die of suffocation or strangulation, it will be your fault," he mutters angrily and jerks his legs within the slight clearance for movement I had allowed while I watch impassively.

"Duly noted and I will take full responsibility," I respond blandly.

"And your accountability for what you have wrought will be a source of unimaginable relief and comfort to me once I am dead. What about clots from restricted blood flow?" He wiggles ineffectually with his entire body and aims a heated glare in my direction that only manages to look cute, framed as his head is with blankets, like that of a child willingly burrowed beneath them and peeking out. "Or damage from pinched nerves?"

"You're being melodramatic. None of that is going to happen," I scold with the appropriate level of disdain in my voice that such tantrums warrant.

"I am not being melodramatic! People die, all the time, in embarrassing, seemingly benign situations. I know, because the WRO now collects the statistics and causes surrounding the deaths of nearly everyone on the planet. And," he pauses and widens his eyes to beguiling proportions, the chocolate of their true color appearing black in the gloom and glinting with flashes of golden hues when he has the audacity to actually bat his lashes at me, "my cardiovascular system isn't exactly at a hundred percent, for reasons you have been clever enough to discern."

"Flattery combined with guilt trips won't work." My rebuke is automatic, lacking any emotion as my mind races to assess the veracity of his claim while I stare at him vacantly, before I raise one side of my mouth in a faint half-smile and state, "You're overusing your supposed frailty."

"Am I? You weren't even aware that testing was still ongoing, so how can you know what, specifically, are the effects?"

"I don't need to know that."

"Oh?"

My irritation edges upwards at the vast amount of mockery he is able to inject into that one casual word, and I match the tone with my own. "Yes, I don't need to know that because I know that you wouldn't risk being rendered vulnerable to assassination by snug blankets."

"…They are more than snug. This is a blanket prison. Just what do you get up to in your free time, hmm? I'll admit that bondage wouldn't surprise me in the least, given your domineering nature."

"My domineering nature?" I scoff at the ludicrous idea and then inform him sternly, "You might play at the genial, subservient fool but you are a complete control freak, Commissioner, that micromanages everything, including how people behave, even the decisions that are supposedly of their own making."

"You give me far too much credit."

"I don't. President Shinra is good at manipulation, but you… you are on another level entirely, and if I didn't somewhat trust your intentions, I would personally terminate your life."

His futile tussling with the sheets has ceased and he gazes at me with apparent shock in response to my declaration, before his expression gradually brightens like the sun rising to cast its rays at dawn until he is beaming at me and once again throwing my internal equilibrium off-balance.

This is ridiculous! I have to stop being surprised when he doesn't react how I expect him to. He never does!

"Let me out, please?" he asks innocently, doe-eyes back at full force, and then thrashes pathetically beneath the covers. "I promise to be good."

I pointedly ignore his request and his obvious lie. "Why did my threat make you happy?"

"'Happy' isn't the right word."

"Then what is?"

"'Relieved', I think. No one with power should be able to wield it unchecked."

"So I am now your failsafe against corruption?"

"Something like that."

I growl out an explicit Wutainese oath heavy with disgust and then glare fiercely at him with the same thick revulsion. "You couldn't have picked a worse conscience, Sir."

"I disagree."

"I know you do, but what I can't understand is why. I follow orders unquestioni-"

"Like you did when you were ordered to execute your former leader and his daughter?" The steel in his voice is clear when he cuts me off sharply and effectively silences the intro to what would have become a rant.

"That was…" I trail off uncertainly, unable to find a suitably detached justification for my past disobedience on short notice.

"That was you doing the right thing, Tseng," he insists earnestly.

"That was me being weak. That was me not being fit for leadership," I snap angrily. "If my insubordination had been discovered, all of the Turks would have been executed. I put the life of one man above that of many. It was foolish and sentimental and-"

"Let me OUT!" the man actually shouts to interrupt my castigation of myself and his efforts to remove his bindings are no longer feeble as he forcefully struggles beneath them. When I remain motionless, he warns caustically in a rush, "Or so help me Goddess, I will make you regret every decision you have ever made and every action you have ever taken in your entire life that has led you to be here right now in this moment in time."

I stare at him mutely, nonplussed by the hostility in his threatening outburst. Inappropriately, I begin to feel the warmth of desire creep up through my body and spread along my limbs at the sight of the passionate animation on his face, the sound of the fervency drenching his voice from his outrage. With measured cadence, I inquire, "What will you do if I release you?"

He relaxes faintly, anger still heating his expression, but his voice is calm as he replies, "I was going to do something that I know you would like, but now I'm not so sure."

"And that was?"

"Set me free and perhaps you will find out." The pout of his full bottom lip becomes more pronounced, but the livid gleam in his eyes is unabated in its intensity.

In spite of my better judgment, I start to tug strategically on the sheets to loosen their hold on my captive, never breaking our warring gaze as I lean over him to reach the other side. He remains still even when his bonds are slackened enough to permit escape, eyes fixed unerringly on my own, and after a moment of hesitation, I slowly pull back the covers to reveal his naked form. I am expecting retaliation, but as I rake my vision over him to admire his slender, gracefully muscled shape and the attractive contrast of the short, dark hair covering his chest and trailing down his abdomen against the backdrop of pale skin, my vigilance wavers. With a physical strength and speed I had not thought he possessed, possibly born of his simmering fury, he lunges upwards to bear my weight and shoves with enough force to simultaneously unbalance and twist me over backwards. His momentum carries him down on top of me as I land on my back, violently expelling the air from my lungs, and I dully blink up at him from my rudely reversed position.

The look of astonished triumph on his face does nothing to ease my annoyance, nor does his delighted grin that expands rapidly into existence, before fading abruptly to be replaced by a pained grimace. He rises up, straddling my hips, and rubs gingerly along his ribs. "You're still wearing your guns. Why are you still wearing your guns?" He scowls down at me. "Why are you still wearing anything?" he huffs out plaintively. "I want to see you. I want to see all of you. I bet you're gorgeous underneath that armor of Turk propriety." He shakes his head quickly and amends, "I know you are, but I want to see and touch and taste," he pauses to bend down and brush his nose along my jaw, breathing deeply, "and smell. Such a sadly neglected sense it is."

"Not 'hear'?" comes unbidden from my mouth, as my rational mind and irritation scatters to the winds with a sense of unnerving inevitability in the sudden onslaught of his passion.

He hums in pleasure, the vibration shivering through the delicate flesh below my ear as he presses a kiss to the spot and I shudder. "And hear. Would you let me hear you? Would you bless me with a symphony of decadent sound from that beautiful throat?" He moves to caress my neck with his lips, venturing lower in a tender crisscrossing trail of heat and stroking from his tongue that covers every exposed part of me there before he is blocked by the collar of my suit. Drawing back to meet my eyes with open hunger, he whispers, "Would you?"

I open my mouth but no sound issues forth. I know I should have objections, I know that I do have objections, but I fail to grasp onto them until his takes my prolonged silence as consent and begins to unbutton my jacket. I grab his wrists and state firmly, "No."

The look he directs at me in response is disbelieving, and he questions with intense frustration, "Why not?"

"You want…" I falter, aware that the excuse I am about to offer is flimsy, but I hope to appeal to his own doubts, and I continue, "to keep this casual, professional."

I am correct in my assumption and the manner with which he regards me now is filled with contempt. "You insisted that professionalism wouldn't be a problem for you, and, in case you haven't noticed, we have blown right passed the casual stage."

"Maybe-"

"No 'maybe', we have. What is your real reason?"

"Stop badgering me," I snap.

"Stop hedging and I will!"

I crush the reflexive urge to deny the allegation and admit stiffly, "I am not comfortable with removing my clothing in someone else's presence."

He stares wordlessly for a moment, and then accuses, "But you said-"

"I know what I said, and I shouldn't have. It was in the heat of the moment."

Silence, except for that infernal ticking of the clock, descends on the room as he studies my expression closely, before his eyes flicker down over my chest in a speculative way that causes my teeth to grind. His face is carefully nonchalant when he looks back up and comments with little inflection, "I don't mind scars."

"Good for you," I mutter sarcastically before I can stop myself, hating the defensive quality of my words.

"Has no one-"

"No one," I confirm harshly with finality to signal that the topic is not open for discussion.

He blatantly disregards my warning and begins to ramble out his thoughts. "But… It's been five years since… You haven't… in five years. There has been no one?"

It has, in fact, been much longer than five years since I have been with another, but I have no intention of informing him of his misconception. "Five years isn't that long," I stress instead.

"Perhaps not, depending on your lifestyle," he concedes doubtfully.

"And there has been a constant parade of lovers to your bed?" I raise a skeptical brow at him, knowing full-well that not even he is good enough to have kept such tendencies a secret.

"Does it look like it?" he asks with a wry quirk of his lips, indicating with an offhand gesture at the room obviously set up to accommodate solely himself, and I wonder briefly if I am the first person he has had in this bed, before I shake the train of thought off as inconsequential.

"No, but appearances can be deceiving," I state with a significant glance at him and the tension that had been climbing dissipates as we share a meaningful, rueful smile.

"That they can be, certainly." His expression suddenly changes from amusement to a piercing focus, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinizes me critically, and he speaks distractedly, "This is fine. You may keep your clothes on. I am more than capable of working around them."

"Reeve…"

Flashing a dazzling grin down at me, he says with sincere eagerness, "Now, do you have any requests, or am I free to do exactly as I please within the guidelines you have given?"

(A/N: Started out bumpy and awkward, and might still be that way to read, I can't accurately or objectively judge what I write, but I've never had so much fun writing anything before. Although I recognize that my portrayals don't match up with the more popular ones, I adore the both of them in equal measures and I hope that shows. Also, annoys the Hells out of me, how many present him as weak and timid, but my Reeve is no one's victim… unless he wants to be.)