CHAPTER 4:

Rude's eyes opened to the morning sun. It had been four days now since Reno had been rescued, and his wounds seemed to be healing nicely. He lifted his head and peered around his sleeping boyfriend's shoulder to look at the alarm clock. It was 8:30, and they were due at work for a meeting with Rufus at 10:00. Rude smiled. He loved waking up early and having time to just relax in bed with Reno. He laid back down, wrapping his arm tighter around Reno's ribs; the smaller man's back curled against Rude's chest. Spooning was his favorite way of sleeping with Reno. He felt like it was protective, and just the feel of holding Reno was as pleasant as it could get while one of them was still asleep. Rude lifted again slightly to get a look at the sleeping Turk. Reno was in a semi-fetal position, with his legs drawn up, bent. His elbows were bent and one hand was under his pillow while the other lay balled up by his face. His mouth was slightly open, snoring softly. He was beautiful, the very meaning of the word 'perfection'. He always looked so innocent when he slept, like an angel. No one that had ever watched Reno sleep could have thought that he could bring himself to beat people up as part of his occupation.

Rude smiled, leaning down to kiss the redhead's neck, lovingly muttering "Morning, beautiful." afterward. Reno snorted, jolted once and opened his eyes.

"Huh?" he said, looking around confused, like he always does in the morning. He stretched and wiped the drool on his cheek with the back of his sleeve.

"I said 'morning'" Rude repeated, helping gently ease Reno onto his back. He was obviously still sore. Rude still wrapped an arm protectively around his waist, leaning in to take advantage of his open mouth with a kiss. Reno made a slightly surprised, but morely a pleased moan as he put his own arms around Rude. Their kiss evolved into slow, wonderful open-mouthed pleasure, as their tongues moved back and forth between each other's lips, before Reno finally pulled away.

"Jeez Rude. Seems to me like you're looking for some afternoon delight, yo." Reno smiled up at him, already slightly aroused. It had been over a week since he and Rude had relations, and Reno very much wanted to. Anything more than three days was just too long to wait. This was the longest they had gone without intercourse, except for when they first got together. From the day of their first kiss, they waited two weeks before getting into it. From then on, they tried to do it one time per day, unless Rude was too busy with work. Rude was the only one ever busy at work, being that he always wrote all of Reno's reports for him.

"Reno, its only 8:30, and no. We can't do it until your stitches fall out. Fall out, Reno. Don't pull them out. Cloud said we had to wait until you get better." Rude replied.

Reno frowned, sticking out his bottom lip momentarily. "Oh come on. What does Cloud know? I'm a big boy, I can handle it. I'm always the bitch, anyway. What's the worst that can happen? Come on, baby, pweeeeeeeeeze?"

Though he was usually good at winning all of their arguments, Rude stood firm on this one. As much as he wanted to plow Reno clear into next week, Cloud said it could lead to Reno developing serious hernias, since the gunshot wound and all of the torn muscle tissue around it was dangerously close to his intestines. He was able to take off the butterfly band-aids and the stitches were deteriorating, but they weren't gone, and the wound was still scabby. As safe, and as pleasant as it would probably be, Rude was not a risk taker, especially not when it came to the health of someone he cared about.

"Nope. Not gonna happen until you're better. I really want to, just as much as you, but we can hold out another week together, right?"

"Um…uh…I love you." Reno said hopefully. Telling Rude those three simple words, words that he truly meant from the bottom of his heart, were usually enough to get him to give into anything Reno asked.

Rude smiled, aware of what he was trying to do. "I love you too, but the answer is still no. Come on, Reno. Be good, this is hard for me."

"Oh yeah. Well, something is hard for me too. Permit me to demonstrate." Reno said, smiling and slowly lifting the blankets, pointing downward with his free hand.

Rude looked in the opposite direction, toward the headboard of their bed. "Reno, please do not demonstrate." He tried not to laugh at Reno's shenanigans while saying this. He was just too much. Rude pulled the blanket back down, kissing Reno once more before saying:

"Go get in the shower, we need to get ready for work." Rude started to get up, helping Reno into a sitting position. "I'm gonna go start some coffee. Don't hog all the hot water, because I need to shower too."

They had gotten ready together, and were on the way out the door before Reno stopped short. "What is it?" Rude asked, pulling his jacket on, shuffling his house keys from hand to hand, before placing them into his pocket.

Reno pointed a finger toward his mouth. "Reno hungry." He said, before heading back to the kitchen. He came back with freshly opened chocolate bar in his mouth, zipping the front of his jacket.

"Candy? You're going to eat candy for breakfast? Every day you get more and more childish." Rude said with a chuckle.

"Oh yeah, if that's true, then you're a child molester." Reno joked, "And a candy bar is better than nothing. What do you have to say about that?"

"I never go without breakfast." Rude replied.

"What about today?"

"I had a couple of Eggos while you spent half the morning in the bathroom. Really, how could you waste that much time with your hair and have it still look like a mess?"

"Don't bust my chops, this looks cool." He responded as he locked the apartment door behind himself, as the two of them headed out to work.

"Rude, want to play some poker at my desk when we get to work?" Reno asked, being that he found a pack of playing cards in his pants pocket.

"I still have some reports to finish from the other night." He replied.

"God, it never takes me that long to write mine."

"That's because you never do yours! I always do them, you lazy, lazy man." Rude laughed. He loved when Reno pretended that he was good at his job. Sure, except for his clumsy accidents, he was pretty efficient at field work, but when it came to office work, he usually goofed around for most of the day. One time, Reno spent an entire day of work trying to catch a moth that had flown in from the window. He chased it around, climbed onto things, ripped the window blinds down, and used his chair as a skateboard while he threw all of his desk supplies at it. The day was over before the moth flew back out of the window and Reno took notice of the mess he had made.

"Well, its not my fault I suck at reports. I can barely read, Rude. I might be maybe at a 5th grade comprehension level, and that's being generous. I got freakin lost one time because I thought that a street sign said "Mallard" when it really said "Gossard". I was suddenly on the complete opposite side of town, yo."

"Yeah, what'd you do?" Rude asked, now concerned.

"I called you. Told you I just found a badass restaurant and that I was hungry. I talked you into meeting me, and you walked home with me. The whole time, you never even knew I was lost."

"Wow. Reno, you're as smart as you are sexy."

"Hey! Oh…wait, you meant that in a nice way."

They arrived at New Shinra twenty minutes later. The old one had been destroyed years ago. Now Rufus made a handsome living for himself and his employees by climbing back up to a seat of power almost as good as it had once been, but more of a secretive organization. Yes, they still distributed power to the city, but some of their more illegal actions were better kept under wraps now. Reno waited outside for a minute, since they were early and decided to have a cigarette. He put one to his lips and was just about to light up before Rude spoke up.

"Oh, Reno. You know I hate when you smoke. It makes you smell like ash." He complained.

"I do NOT smell like ass!" Reno snapped back.

"No, ash!" Rude corrected.

"All right." Reno sighed, removed his cigarette from his lips and tucked it behind his ear, where it was instantly ambushed and covered by a shock of wild red hair.

"You know, I spoil you." He replied.

Rude grinned. "I love you."

Once they actually got inside, Rude said he was going to go finish up one of the reports he didn't finish, before the meeting with Rufus started in 30 minutes. Reno walked through the hall, going for more coffee. Goddamn I'm hungry again. Lunch is in like three hours and I don't want to wait that long. He thought about possibly sneaking around the block for some noodles before the meeting started, as he got himself a Styrofoam cup of coffee. Yeah, that would be sweet. I don't think I'd make it back in time though, then Rude would be mad. I might as well just try to bum some Saltines or something.

"Do you have enough stirring straws?" Came a familiar voice from the doorway. Reno jumped slightly, startled out of his thoughts. He registered what was just said to him and looked down to see that he had 6 stirring straws in his cup and was about to place in a seventh.

"Elena, you hateful bitch. How are things?" Reno asked with a smile, walking over to join her.

"Good to see you're feeling back to your old self again." Elena replied. They began walking together up the stairs, down the hall and toward Elena's office.

"You seem like you're in a real shitty mood, yo. No luck with Tseng yet?" Reno asked.

"No. I don't want to ruin our professional relationship by making a move. I've told you that a million times."

"I think you're just afraid of rejection." Reno could tell. Elena had been crazy about Tseng for as long as he had been working with Shinra, but he never even gave her the time of day.

"Come on. You think about things in a stupid fairy tale world. Like I'm just going to suddenly make Tseng notice me, and then we'll be just as happy as you and Rude."

"So, you admit that you do want to be with Tseng."

"Shut up, Reno."

"Well, its not as weird as you may think. Being happy and all, it's what normal people want at some point in their lives."

"What's it like? Being happy with Rude and having something go up your ass everyday?" Elena asked, not exactly trying to be mean.

"It used to hurt at first. Rude's hung like a water buffalo, because he's black or something." Reno said, scratching his head.

"You don't know either?" Elena replied, shocked.

"Of course not. Like I care. I think he's half Black and half Asian, but I'm not just going to come out and ask. That wouldn't be right of me to just be like, "Oh, by the way Rude, I been with you for two years, but-"

"But how do you feel about him? Do you love Rude?" Elena looked serious. She never acted like it, but she was so insecure. She was so negative because she was miserable inside. Her fear was the only thing really holding her back from a good life.

"What kind of question is that? Of course I love him. Rude's the only thing I have ever loved in my life. He's the best thing that has ever happened to me. And it was because we had the guts to take a jump and be together. If he's too stupid to get it, just get him drunk and ask him how he feels about you. That way you won't be embarrassed. Hell, you want me to talk to him for you?"

"NO!" Elena yelled, getting a lot of glances from people in the hall.

"Jeez Elena, lower your voice. You don't want the whole world to know that YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH TSE-" Reno started to yell, laughing as Elena dove at him, placing a hand over his mouth.

"Shut up!" She yelled, dragging Reno into her office and kicked the door shut behind her.

"Reno, don't say anything to Tseng. If you promise to shut up about it, I'll talk to him about it."

"When?"

"God, I don't know. Next week?"

"Not good enough. Tseng! Tseng, I have something to tell you!" Reno called as he opened Elena's door, yelling out into the rest of the building.

Elena jerked him back into the room and slammed the door back closed.

"Okay, okay. Just be quiet and I'll talk to him about it today, after work. Now will you just drop it?"

"Yes." Reno said, a huge smirk on his face.

"Now, we need to get to that meeting before we get in trouble. Let's go."

-------------------------

"My sincerest apologies, Reno. Had I known that the KPS was such a threat, I would have taken extra measures to ensure your safety. This is not entirely my fault though. KPS was before my time. My father started having problems with them toward the end of his life. He left me little to no information regarding them. I had to spend most of the time you have been in captivity until now searching through our archives, trying to find every little bit and piece that had anything to do with them. My father kept most of his dealings with them secret. All I have even managed to find out about them is that they are an anti-Shinra group. They initially had their dilemma with us because of the genetic experiments we conducted in the past. My father struggled with them from time to time, and they used to be well put together. According to records, my father started feeling threatened by them, and that's one of the reasons he asked you to drop the plate down on the slums. Avalanche was the main reason, but he thought he could destroy KPS at the same time. In a way, he succeeded. The organization and professionalism of KPS died that day with Kesht, the leader of KPS."

"But, sir, that was one of the guys that were mentioned. They think that we have Kesht alive and held prisoner here at the Shinra HQ, yo." Reno replied excitedly.

"I can assure you, Kesht is most definitely dead. Our guys retrieved his corpse. We also were able to pick up ten others that had been killed, before the KPS came and we had to scatter. As I was saying, their organization died with him. Kesht's younger brother Koeft assumed the seat of power and took the remaining 50 or so members that survived to hide out. They have been operating under ground for the past couple years. They are no more than common thugs now, and supposedly, Koeft is a real psychopath."

"That's an understatement. That guy is wacked out of his gord. He may be hitting the roids too." Reno shuddered.

"Reno, we have unfortunate news. We found all of your stuff while Shinra was cleaning out the hospital, but amongst all of the dead, we didn't find Koeft. He's still alive." Rufus stated.

"WHAT?! Sir that's unbelievable!" Rude yelled, getting up from his seat and into Rufus's face. "All of that, and we didn't get him? That freak is still loose? That is just bullshit!" Rude cleared his throat and sat back down, looking rather embarrassed at the outburst he just had. "I'm sorry sir."

"While I can understand your feelings, there isn't much I can do about it for the time being. We are doing everything we can to apprehend this individual, but until then, you're Reno's protection, Rude. You and all of your friends, don't let him be left alone. Our people are hunting him. We have reason to believe a few of the other KPS members may have escaped and took off with him. As of now, they are not a threat without Koeft. If we catch Koeft, we can close the book on KPS."

Jesus, now all of my friends have to babysit me? This sucks! Just because I can't keep myself from being kidnapped, they have to put all of their lives on hold to make sure that I'm safe? That's a kick right in the ass. I'm not a fucking baby. Could it possibly get any worse? Well…aside from getting kidnapped and tortured again. Maybe the next time I won't be so lucky, and my friends won't get there until after the sodomy happens. Ewww…why do I do this to myself?

"Of course." Rude answered obediently.

"Reno, you are going to need to lay low for a while, until we catch Koeft." Rufus demanded.

"Lay low? Sir, do you know me?"

"Reno, be quiet." Rude grunted. "Yes, sir. I will keep him from going out by himself."

"Let me get this straight. I can't go down the street without someone holding my hand? God, you want someone to wipe my ass for me too?"

"It's only temporary until the remaining terrorists can be apprehended, take it easy." Tseng piped up.

"No, this is crap!" Reno snarked.

"Reno, you will do it or you're fired. You got it?" Rufus threatened.

"Pshh." Reno pouted, staring off into space.

"He's got it." Rude answered for him.

End of Chapter 4.