It was almost noon when Tseng finally got back to his apartment, dumped his bag on the floor, dragged himself to the bedroom with the last of his stamina and dropped down on the bed. He had spent the past couple of hours at the hospital receiving a blood transfusion that made him feel a lot better, and medical checkups confirmed that he would not suffer any permanent effects from his injuries, but the lack of sleep and his exhaustion had finally caught up with him. He kept his eyes closed for a few minutes, simply inhaling an exhaling slowly, hoping that the burning sensation in his limbs would go away, but he had no such luck. He rolled over on his back and slid his hand in his suit pocket to pull out his phone. Chief Veld had already relieved him of his duty for today, and he would probably stay in command of the Lazard operation for the time being, seeing as Tseng was out of the picture for today, the crucial first day of the investigation. He still wanted to know what was going on, but there no new information of significance had reached him. Presumably, no one had had any time yet to write their reports.
He had received another message from Rufus a little earlier, asking how he was doing. It had been sent around the time Tseng would usually arrive in the office on a normal day. The thought that Rufus fell right back into his usual routine and was waiting for his first coffee of the day put a light smile on Tseng's lips. He pushed himself up laboriously, pulled the hair tie out of his messy hair and slipped off his suit jacket. He dropped it to the floor right beside the bed, deciding that he would clean up later because he had no energy right now. He took off his shirt and pants, slipped under the blanket and rested his head on the pillow. Struggling to keep his eyes open, he picked up his phone again to sluggishly type a belated response to the vice president: "I was at the hospital. I'm ok, just tired. Sorry I left so suddenly last night. I hope you're okay. I'll stop by later." Rufus' answer came promptly, before he even had the chance to put down his phone: "Sleep tight, beautiful 3" Tseng had to blink a few times and force his eyes to focus on the blurry text on the screen before he could believe what he had just read. He had no idea that his master had such a cutesy side to himself. It still made his heart flutter a little, although he could not tell if that was an aftereffect of being shot, losing a lot of blood, and then overexerting himself after a serious lack of sleep, or if that message actually made him a tiny little bit happy. No one had ever sent him something like this before and he truly had no idea how he was supposed to feel about. Still holding the phone, he let his hand sink down to his chest and closed his eyes.
He was still holding the phone in his hand when its persistent ringing tore him out of his sleep. It took him a moment to force his dry eyes open and by the time he managed to look at his phone, the ringing had stopped. Still lying down, he checked his missed calls to find out that the person who had tried to call him was Zack. He had a message from him, too, nothing from Rufus, and nothing from any of the other Turks either. He could only assume that Chief Veld had ordered them not to contact him today because it was very unusual for no one to need anything from him for so long. He sighed and opened Zack's message, which read: "Hey man, what's going on with Director Lazard? Is it true that he's gone? What the hell happened?"
Sighing again, Tseng put down his phone, sat up and rubbed his eyes. His head was aching again, his stomach growled angrily, he was extremely dehydrated and his whole body felt sticky. It took him a moment to decide which of his needs had to be taken care of first, but then picked up his phone again and responded to Zack: "Sorry, I don't know what the situation is right now. It's classified anyway. I'll let you know ASAP." He checked what time it was to find out that it was already 3 pm. It was the first time in a while he had slept at this time of the day and decided that it was a terrible time to wake up and he would never ever repeat that, if given the choice. His phone's beeping alerting him of another message from Zack startled him: "You OK?" He groaned at this stupid question and part of him wanted to respond in all caps that he was not f*ing okay, but even more than that, he wanted to be left alone for now, so he replied: "I'll be in touch." Reconsidering for a few seconds, he added: "Check up on Sephiroth", and then sent the message. Before he finally put down his phone, he ordered food from his favorite place, hoping his stomach would not revolt after several days of little eating, but tried not to think about it too much.
He slowly swung his legs over the bedside and looked down on the ground when his feet touched fabric and was annoyed to find his clothes in a pile on the ground. The prospect of having to tidy up now was awful, so he decided to postpone it again. His vision went dark for a brief moment when he stood up reluctantly, but it returned after a few seconds and he did not faint this time. He dragged himself to the kitchen sink, poured a glass of water and gulped it down in the matter of a few seconds, and then poured another one. He opened one of the drawers and pulled out a pain killer, of which he took two time the normal dose with the second glass of water.
Having made substantial progress toward becoming functional again, he made his way to the bathroom to take a shower. While he had to sit down on the ground halfway through to keep himself from fainting, he still considered it a success as he felt a lot better once he finished. When he looked at his face in the mirror for the first time since yesterday morning, he was shocked to see how worn out and exhausted he looked, with dark rings under his reddened eyes and deep lines around his mouth and on his brow, which he never realized that he had. He put on a bathrobe, brushed his teeth, washed his face and put on moisturizer, hoping against better judgement that these lines would not remain, and then called himself a fool in his mind for caring about something like his anti-aging routine at a time like this.
Just as he had hoped, the food he had ordered had arrived in the meantime and was waiting for him to pick it up outside his apartment door. He sat down with it and forced himself to eat slowly, congratulated himself on managing to finish three quarters of a serving and put the rest in the fridge. The painkiller had started to take effect, too, and he was feeling a hundred times better. He drank another glass of water and returned to the bedroom to finally tidy up his clothes, having to sit down only once throughout the process. He picked up his phone again, found no new messages and after a short moment of hesitation decided to text to the vice president: "Thank you, sir, I slept well. I'll be there in 30 minutes." As he began to get dressed, his phone beeped and the response read: "I can't wait." Tseng smiled wryly and slid the phone in his pocket. It was good to know that the vice president was back to safety, away from anything that could harm him, but worrying at the same time because he could imagine that being back to captivity after his success in Wutai had to be tough. Rufus was probably bored and disappointed about not being released immediately after his return from a successful mission. While Tseng was willing to provide the distraction Rufus would need, and to give his life for him and whatever else he desired, he was also worried that the spark of an emotion he had deep inside would develop into something bigger that would envelop him just like Rufus' arms had when he laid next to him in his feverish dreams, but then consume and destroy them both.
He rubbed his upper arms as the memories of the feeling of being in Rufus' arms all of a sudden rose to prominence his mind. Although he had been barely conscious at the time and it could very well have been a dream, the warmth and comfort he had felt at the time was just as present and clear in his mind as the food he had just eaten was. Remembering how good he felt and how he did not want to leave Rufus' arms made him sad now, because Rufus had been so caring and gentle with him and yet, Tseng knew that he could not respond in kind. Adjusting his tie, he finished getting dressed. Although he was not expected at work today and it was already 4 pm, he still chose to put on his uniform and stop by at the Turks' headquarters, even if it was just to visit Rufus. He felt useless just hanging out at home while the other Turks were chasing Lazard. He at least wanted to fulfill his duty to the vice president and start putting together the reports for the Wutai mission, which was a necessary part of every job. And writing reports was always easier while the memory was still fresh.