Disclaimer: FFVII belongs to Squenix. So do all the characters appearing in this story, (except for maybe a few randoms). Good? Good. Glad we straightened that out.

Sakura-Angel: Oy vey. I'm very very sorry about how slow I'm churning this story out. I meant for this to become much longer, but it's been sitting on my computer for a frustrating amount of time, and I decided I might as well post it. They're both becoming increasingly aware of their, erm, attraction to each other (while displaying twin cases of denial). This chapter places special emphasis on that. After all the Cloud and Tifa stuff, I thought this might be welcome.

Hidden Ache

Okay, so he didn't exactly feel like the coolest person on the Planet at that moment. No big deal.

He was just your average guy, out to buy some flowers.

... Okay, your average assassin out to buy some flowers.

Yellow and red ones.

For his dead boss.

Right. Nothing... remotely unusual about that at all. People got bouquets for their dead employers(/fellow assassins) all the time, he'd bet.

...

God, he felt dumb.

"I'm not sure- not sure you would l-like those, sir-er. They don't make too please- pleasing an arrange-ament," stuttered the extremely helpful and lispy florist. "Y-you won't impress a lay- lady with those."

He wanted to snap that he wasn't buying them for a lady, but that was just admitting all over again that he had lost more control of what he did and said lately. So he just tipped his head at her and gave her a tight smile. "Somehow I think she'll like 'em."

The old woman just about-faced and led him to the cash register. When he had paid and turned to push open the door though, she gave him the stink eye and mumbled, "Lousy man."

"I heard that," he called in a singsong voice just before the door shut, bell jangling. She was left with an open mouth and a stutter that would disappear for the rest of the day.

He stalked down the sidewalk, left hand strangling the stems of his stupidly bright flowers. He felt like a complete idiot like this. What had compelled him to do this? Since when did Reno ever show that he cared about someone by actually going out of his way?

Must be that damn bit of sensitivity sprouting in his stomach. He thought he felt sick this morning.

He pushed open the weathered doors of the church and found it gratefully empty. The grip he had on the bouquet loosened as he tipped his head up to look at the ceiling. It looked close to caving in, in his opinion, but something about it still held strong. He felt a strange twist in his gut. He always felt a little wrong in holy places. He lowered his head again and walked the aisle.

It was not the best way to honour a person, but it was the only way Reno could think of. There was no monument or anything he could do this at, and he figured this was the next best thing. The arrangement of flora was half-tossed half-laid-down at the very front of the church, flowers dead among flowers alive.

He produced a half-empty bottle of whiskey from his coat. He was tempted to speak outloud, explain to Tseng why he was doing this, say how much he wished the bastard was alive to drink this with him. But he didn't. He merely let his shoulders sag lower, and poured the liquid over the flowers and the floor.

A bit unorthodox, but Reno and Tseng weren't your average Joes anyway.

"I don't think that's allowed," a voice told him from the doors of the church.

Damn. Should've sensed them sooner. "I don't think I care," he replied, wishing that it had sounded more witty and less mournful. When the last of the whiskey had been drained onto the floor to seep between the already warped floorboards, he turned to the pair.

"Don't know how happy they'd be about that," Tifa said to him, smiling, door no longer concealing her form.

"Who, oh love bucket o' mine?" he smirked a ghost of a smirk. He felt the mako flare behind his eyes at the sight of her.

"You know. Tseng. Aerith. This was hers, you know." She made a grand gesture, so unlike her, at the four humble walls and multitude of flowers.

The other visitor suddenly appeared from behind her at these words. He said nothing, merely looked at Reno with equal measures of distrust and indifference. He strode up the aisle, light from outside bursting through the stained glass windows and catching the bits of brighter blonde in his hair. His back was straight, but he was not proud or arrogant.

It suddenly struck Reno that Cloud was by any standards quite good-looking. Couple this with a heart big enough to save the Planet, and he was a superhero-heartthrob rolled into one. This realization would not have bothered him a month ago. In fact, he'd have laughed and joked, what good was that? But something had changed him.

The devil speaks. "Cat got your tongue?" She said good-naturedly, those red-brown eyes clapped down on his own as she walked by. He was seemingly stupefied, nailed to one spot on the floor by the smell of jasmine.

And since there was no jasmine growing in the church...

"No, as a matter of fact..." he stumbled for a comeback, scent wrapping itself around his head and settling into his memory forever.

"You expect me to believe that you were thinking about something?"

Since when had she become so... teasing? She sounded like... him.

Holdonaminute. That's not how this was supposed to work. She was supposed to be his prey. She was supposed to be the confused one, the one who sat with her mouth hanging open as he skipped circles around her. This was his challenge, correct?

So... why did it seem the exact opposite? He needed to redeem the situation. Quickly.

"You seem awfully perky today," he replied a touch too late, snarkiness back in his voice. He approached her and him slowly, each footstep far too loud for a place supposedly solemn and silent.

"Yes, well," she craned her neck to look at him. "It's been a good couple of days."

And there it was again, that slight smile that said everything. It was the kind of smile that was the product of an exceptional experience. It couldn't help being there. It just was.

His gut told him it was something to do with the superhero. "Yeah?" He ran a hand through his hair, which he suddenly wished was freshly washed. He lied through his teeth, "Same here."

"Really? Well, I guess everyday of your life has been exciting, huh?" she said in a small talk voice. She was talking to him like she hardly knew him, and it bothered him.

"Well, there is a difference--"

"Teef, you done paying your respects yet?" Cloud placed a hand on her shoulder as easily as if they had known each other their whole lives. And then Reno realized that they did.

"Oh! Yeah, I really should..." she looked him straight in the eyes again and pointed to where Cloud had been standing earlier.

"Yeah, go ahead. Don't need to ask my permission," Reno laughed a little hollowly, stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned away from the pair. The moment his eyes left hers he felt more like himself.

She threw him off. Every damn time he thought of her now, or came into contact with her, he became some bumbling idiot, conscious of how dirty his nails were or how inadequate he was in comparison to her childhood crush, who suddenly seemed like some glowing god. Where he normally wouldn't have given a shit, he cared, maybe even obssessed over a little. He was nothing like himself.

He was in deep. What he was in, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that it was something different, tottering between the edge of unwelcome and needed. And it was all because of her. He saw Cloud through her eyes. He felt a small bit of something indescribable rise in his chest, beating its weak wings. A blend of resentment, awareness, and... want.

"See you, Reno," she bade him farewell, waving to him with her free hand. Her other hand was holding Cloud's. Together they exited. She looked like she was being pulled away from him, by Cloud, and Reno felt the stupidest alarm go off in his head, an urge to grab that other hand of hers, tug back. But he recoiled against himself, horrified that he could even think such a thought.

He was still standing in that same spot minutes later, with only Tseng and living and dying flowers and the smell of jasmine for company.

--------

"Well, that was obvious."

Tifa's eyebrows went up, surprised expression wasted completely on her blonde friend's back. She was unsure if he wanted a reply, but hazarded one anyway, "... What do you mean?"

"The Reno... thing," he said unsatisfyingly. Trust Cloud to be completely vague and still somehow perceptive.

She spoke slowly, as if either Cloud or herself were handicapped. "Reno. Thing. I'm afraid you're going to have to elaborate."

He stopped on the sidewalk (she stopped with him) and ran a hand through his hair, as if the action would help him explain. He really was no good with words. "I'd really like to not sound like a gossipy teenager." His face was so serious and concerned with this fact that she couldn't help but smile.

"Well, you're going to have to suck it up," she laid down the law, not unlike Reno did to her a few painting days ago. Then she realized that he really had crept into her mannerisms and speech, and was a little freaked out that Cloud might somehow use this against her.

He looked a little tragic, 'oh do I really have to?' thinly veiled over his features. Clearly, the blonde saviour did not take to girly fraternizing particularly well. "Guys don't talk about other guys," he informed her, and dismissed that part of the conversation with a wave of a hand. He began walking, steps falling in time with hers.

She dropped his hand (she hadn't realized they were still holding hands), and pleaded with him, "Oh come on, Cloud." She followed him, feeling like a small yippy dog bouncing alongside a stoic bull. "You can't just not explain something like that."

The blonde hero quickened the pace by half a step. He thought up a response, feeling boxed in, "... Yes I can." And promptly crossed the street.

"What was obvious? Hmm?" she asked once she caught up with him.

He looked ahead, maybe even made a point of doing so, and said with a straight face, "Him. But now I'm thinking you too."

She blinked pointedly and forced her legs to move. She gulped. It was bad enough that she thought of Reno and herself... as Reno and herself, but now Cloud?

She tried to push this thought away. It was possible that Cloud didn't mean that he thought that she thought that she liked Reno, right? That was pure garbage. It was ludicr--

Wait. Did Cloud say "him"? As in Reno? As in, Reno thought of herself and himself as herself and himself? As a... duet? A doublet? A coming together of two people kinda sorta thing? Cloud couldn't possibly think that. And most importantly, Reno couldn't possibly think that.

"Buh."

"I see," said Cloud.