Reno kept his mouth shut for the rest of the flight, huddling down amongst the luggage while Rude flew. He was freezing, but he didn't' want to ask Rude to turn the temperature up any higher. If Rude was more comfortable freezing, then Reno wouldn't interfere. After Rude's outburst Reno was determined to keep his head down until he could figure out a way to repair the damage he had done. His determination to stay awake, however, was not nearly as strong as his determination to be good to Rude and he fell asleep, head cradled on his improperly packed duffel bag.
Rude landed the helicopter beside the small wooden cabin they were going to be staying the week, or longer, in and shivered, pressing his sunglasses farther up his nose as sunlight reflected off of the virgin snow. "Shiva's tits, it's fucking freezing up here."
Rude looked back with a small smile, expecting Reno to be cracking up with laughter at the mention of Shiva's icy tits, but instead he found his joke wasted on the sleeping red-head's dead to the world ears. He sighed, he had been hoping to undo some of the tension he had created, but Reno's sleeping face clearly showed that he had not registered a word of what Rude had said. Rude stepped out of the chopper, his boots sinking into the crisp snow below him with a small crunch. He reached into the back of the chopper and started tugging out his duffel bags, uncovering Reno and exposing him to the cold air. Reno shivered and curled into himself, his eyelids twitching but not opening. Rude shook his head and tugged his bags to the cabin, smiling as the fresh snow crunched and cracked under his feet, the sound of his footsteps echoing slightly in the empty air. The snow wasn't fresh, that much was obvious to him, but it was clean and crisp enough that Rude was fairly sure he could use it for drinking water and find that it was purer than any of the water that was filtered and boiled and squirted into plastic bottles to be sold on grocery store shelves everywhere. As he unlocked the door he heard a small snort from the helicopter as Reno rolled over, waking himself as he fell on the cold metal floor of the aircraft. Rude chuckled and opened the door, setting his bags inside. "Get the rest of them, Reno! Don't you dare come in empty handed!"
Reno shivered and blinked at the bags sleepily, frozen fingers scrambling to grab hold of their straps. He yelled back, his voice echoing with a metallic tin lent to it by the hull of the helicopter. "Shiva's tits! It's fucking freezing!"
Rude smiled and shook his head, going to the fireplace. Luckily there was enough kindling in the wood box that Rude could get a small fire going before Reno managed to huff and puff himself up to the cabin, but there wasn't going to be enough wood to keep it going.
Reno shivered and walked up the hill, the few bags Rude had left for him clutched in his freezing hands. He stepped inside Rude's footprints, shivering more as cold snow seeped into his shoes and soaked his socks, numbing them quickly. Reno hated being cold. It was the worst thing ever. He tromped inside, tossing the bags onto the floor and stripping off his snow and water filled boots. "It is freezing!"
"Its winter weather, Reno, what do you expect?" Rude raised an eyebrow as he poked at the fire, encouraging it to engulf the logs he had tossed on it.
"But this is Modeoheim's version of summer!" Reno shook and closed the door, feeling no relief from the cold even though he was indoors. "Where's the fuckin' thermostat! I'm going to crank the heat up so high I burn this bitch down!"
Rude rolled his eyes behind his sunglass, stabbing at a long in the fire that refused to catch. "I'm making a fire Reno, calm down. We should conserve energy as much as we can so we don't blow the generator. Unless, that is, you want to risk not having hot food for the rest of the week because you've cut off the electricity our oven and microwave run on?"
"Well, you've already proven that we can make a fire so that's not a huge issue, Rude. We can always roast marshmallows for the rest of the trip, right?" Reno scanned the walls, searching for the elusive thermostat.
"I'd rather not do that, thanks anyways." Rude stood and wiped his hands on his pants. "Now, would you rather help me chop wood or would you rather cook?"
Reno blinked at Rude. "Why do we need to chop wood? I thought we had wood?"
"Not enough to last us the rest of the night. There are a few tiny trees outside I can chop down and bring in though. It'd mean you'd need to go outside though." Rude opened one of his bags and pulled out a heavy coat and gloves, slipping them on as he spoke.
"I think I'd rather cook then." Reno wrinkled his nose at the mention of going outside. "I'd rather stay inside and slave over a hot oven than go outside and freeze my ass off."
"You hardly have an ass to freeze off, Reno." Rude pulled up the hood on his coat, making sure that he was well insulated against the cold outside.
Reno frowned. "No need to insult my ass just because you haven't had it in awhile."
"And I don't plan on having it ever again." Rude frowned and grabbed an axe from the wood box. "Have dinner ready when I get back, okay?"
Reno winced at Rude's words and nodded, wanting to slap himself for making what he had done into a joke when Rude was obviously still upset with him. "Okay…Sorry."
Rude slammed the door shut behind him and stomped to the backyard, grabbing a well-used and well-rusted wheelbarrow from a small shed behind the cabin. He shoved the wheelbarrow through the snow, going farther from the house than he had planned to. Reno had no sense of decency or tact, this was a fact that Rude should have learned to deal with years ago and, in fact, Reno's somewhat insulting nature had never really bothered him before. Now that he knew what Reno had done to him and how hurtful he had been, he was more than a little offended by things the red-head did. He grabbed his axe and started swinging at a small tree, determined to work out a bit of his rage at the saucy bastard cooking his dinner.
Reno shivered and walked to the kitchen, his toes turning a light blue color as they slapped against the floor of the kitchen. He poked around the cupboards, frowning at the under-stocked provisions they had been stuck with. He would be able to make one meal, perhaps two, but tomorrow they would have no choice but to go grocery shopping. He was lucky enough to find pasta and sauce, but any meat he had planned to add to the sauce was quickly discarded after it was opened; Reno didn't have the best sense but he knew better than to cook meat that smelled the way that meat did. He started boiling water and hovered over the pot to try and absorb some of the warmth the electric burner was putting out. He wished Rude would let him turn on the heat, but he knew better than to argue about it. Reno had only seen Rude get this angry a handful of times and in none of those times was the anger directed solely at him. He had been lucky thus far in life not to suffer Rude's wrath, but now, as he stuffed dry pasta into lukewarm water impatiently, he knew he was going to have to endure his friend's hatred until he could sort out just what he had to do to make Rude like him again. He held no hope out for making Rude love him, but a quick touch to the bite mark on his neck reminded him that the next time Rude's affection was offered, he wouldn't be able to refuse again.
Reno could hear Rude's chopping echoing through the window and he frowned, shutting the window and locking it tight. "No wonder it's so damned cold in here!" Reno quickly checked the other rooms, forcing each frost-coated window to close and making sure each door had something shoved in front of it to keep the air from drifting out. He could still hear Rude chopping wood, but the sound was muffled by the glass between Reno and the outside world. He searched the cupboards again, tossing out rotten food and making a list of what food he would have to buy the next day. He wasn't even going to entertain the idea of asking Rude to contribute to the food supply, not when Rude was so mad with him. Besides, he owed Rude anyways; after all, over the years he had mooched more than one meal off the man without paying it back. He shook his head at his own rudeness and made a mental note not to be such a dick in the future, at least, not to Rude.
Rude wiped sweat from his brow, staring at the decimated trunk of the tree in front of him. He wasn't very good at wood chopping. All the logs that had been in the wood box were even and had almost exactly the same size and shape. The logs he had just cut were of various sizes and shapes. He knew there were more efficient ways to chop wood than what he had just done, but he felt better for the exercise and didn't think too hard on his ugly hunks of tree meat. He shoved the wheelbarrow back through the crisp snow, staring at his breath as it fogged up in front of him. He hoped that Reno hadn't completely destroyed their food in the process of cooking, he had only brought a few freeze dried meals and he wasn't sure if he had told Reno about them or not. Hopefully he had, because otherwise Reno would have most likely made a very pitiful dinner that he would have to force himself to eat simply because he wouldn't want to waste the food.
He grabbed an armload of the wood and stepped inside, stomping the snow off his boots. "I'm back."
"Awesome! I just finished the food!" Reno called back from the kitchen, his voice sounding more cheery than Rude had planned on it being.
Rude set his misshapen hunks of wood in the wood box and tossed a few on the fire before stripping off his coat and gloves and setting them on the back of the couch to dry. "What did you make?" He looked at his bags, hoping to see that they had been rummaged through, but, to his dismay, they hadn't been touched.
"Food." Reno grinned as he dusted off two of the plates he had found in one of the cupboards.
"What kind of food?" Rude asked hesitantly, taking off his boots.
"Good food." Reno set the table, proud that, for once, he had been able to cook pasta without it turning into a goopy glue-like substance.
"What kind of good food?" Rude didn't like this game anymore, but he was too scared to go and look at what Reno had made.
"The kind of good food that you like to eat." Reno slopped some past and sauce onto the plates and rummaged through the kitchen drawers for silverware.
"What kind of good food that I like to eat?" Rude took his time poking at the fire to build it back up.
Reno rolled his eyes and poked his head out of the kitchen. "Just get your ass in here and eat, Rude."
Rude sighed and walked in, preparing for the worst. "Where did you find the food?"
"In the kitchen, duh." Reno sat at the table and grabbed his fork, digging in with haste.
Rude sat and looked at the food. "I didn't know there was food in here."
Reno raised an eyebrow. "The how the hell were you expecting me to make dinner?"
"I have this freeze dried stuff in one of my bags that I thought you would make." Rude poked at his spaghetti tentatively, checking it for signs of life. When it didn't move in retaliation he gave a sigh of relief and took a hesitant bite.
Reno blinked. "You didn't tell me you had food in your bags."
"I thought I did…" Rude chewed thoughtfully and nodded in approval, deciding that if Reno wasn't dead just yet that it was probably safe to eat what he had made. "You didn't do half bad on this though."
"I've learned how to use the timer on the microwave and figured out that the directions on the side of the box aren't optional." Reno quipped as he crunched down on his spaghetti.
"That's good. Thanks for not making poison." Rude chuckled and ate.
"When have I ever made you eat poison?" Reno raised an eyebrow, glad that Rude wasn't spitting his food out.
"Remember when you made me a birthday dinner last year?" Rude shuddered at the memory. Reno had been trying to make up for breaking another set of his sunglasses and had done so by cooking him a special birthday dinner. The only special part about it that Rude had been able to pick out was the hospital trip afterwards where they both had their stomachs pumped.
Reno shuddered. "Oh…right. That. I forgot about that."
"I try to block near death experiences like that from memory." Rude ate with a smile.
"Hey, you can't call it a near death experience! It wasn't nearly that bad!" Reno frowned and slurped up a noodle.
"Yes it was." Rude chuckled and set his fork down, plate clean.
"Was not!" Reno pouted, stabbing at what remained of his spaghetti. Rude lowered his sunglasses and raised an eyebrow at him, giving him a look that made him sigh and relent. "Okay, fine, it was that bad."
Rude nodded and got up, setting his dishes in the dishwasher. "Admittance is the first step to recovery."
"You know, the people at the rehab joint Tseng sends me to after every New Years party say the same thing, but I've yet to buy it." Reno stood and cleaned up his cooking mess, giving Rude a sidelong glance. He could still feel some tension beneath the surface of the conversation, but at the moment none of it was breaking out into the open.
"I don't see why he sends you there, you never learn anything." Rude helped Reno clean up, knowing that if he kept jabbing at Reno's feelings enough he would eventually either feel better, or get a good enough apology that he could legitimately be better instead of just feeling that way.
Reno winced and scraped burnt sauce from the bottom of the pan; he had left the burner on and the messy red substance had turned into a black paste. "I learn new ways to escape from a rehab clinic, that's something, right?"
"Yeah, I guess so. You're escape artist skill is one you use to get out of everything, regardless of whether its good f or you or not." Rude shut off the oven, watching the red hot burners cool and turn black.
Reno winced again, scraping at the sauce pan with malice. "What the hell do you want from me? The promise that I'll spend a month in rehab giving up every bad substance I've ever touched? Fine, you've got it. The second we get back I'll check into a clinic and give up having booze and the occasional cigarette."
Rude sighed. "I don't care if you drink, Reno, I just care that you can't seem to stand being with me unless you're drunk off your ass."
"Am I drunk right now?" Reno frowned, tossing the mess of a pan against the bottom of the sink.
"No, I don't think so." Rude blinked as Reno chucked the pan.
"Then obviously I can stand to hang out with you without it." Reno stomped from the room, heading to the living room to warm his freezing fingers by the fire.
Rude sighed and flipped the ruined pan over, filling it with hot water in the hope that after a night of soaking it would resemble something that could call itself a pan again.
Reno frowned and sat as close to the fire as he could, shivering as the warmth slowly seeped into his skin. Why did Rude have to keep reminding him of his failure? It wasn't like he didn't know he had fucked up! Then again, he wasn't exactly acting remorseful, even though he was. He still hadn't apologized, not the way he should have apologized at any rate, but Rude had to realize he was sorry, didn't he? As Rude walked past him to sit on the couch he realized that the exact opposite was true; Rude had no idea whether or not he was sorry. Rude didn't know how he felt or what he wanted and that was what was making Rude upset, not the fact that he smoked a cigarette the other day or even that he had left after sex all those Friday nights; it was the fact that Rude had no idea how he felt or why he felt that way. Reno sighed and tucked his cold nose between his knees as Rude turned on the television, frowning at the sound of static. "Great, no tv either."
"Nope. Nothing up here but you and me." Rude sighed and flipped through the fuzzy channels without interest, lying back on the couch to digest the mostly edible meal that Reno had made.
Reno looked over at Rude, feeling something besides the cold urge him to lie down beside the warmer man and cuddle him. He wanted Rude to feel better, but he had no idea how to make that happen. Well, that was a lie, he had every idea on how to make that happen, he just wasn't sure he wanted to do what his brain told him he should. His brain got him into a lot of trouble and he didn't want to listen to it anymore, it was what had gotten him into this trouble in the first place. Had he listened to his heart instead of his head, perhaps he wouldn't have been such a douche-bag to Rude in the first place. Reno sighed and nuzzled his face into his knees, letting the warmth of the fire chase off the chill that made him want to scramble over to the couch and squeeze in between Rude's warm body and the soft cushions, forcing himself to ignore the something that pushed for it even after the cold was completely erased from his lean frame.
Author's Note: Well, this chapter is getting us a little farther in our story.
Does anyone else simply adore saying "Shiva's tits, its cold out here?"