Possession

For info and disclaimers, see Chapter One.

********************

Into this night I wander
Its morning that I dread
Another day of knowing of
The path I fear to tread
Oh, into the sea of waking dreams
I follow without pride
Nothing stands between us here
And I won’t be denied

********************

He sat, silent, as Elena chattered beside him. He realized vaguely that she was talking about how glad she was that she had finally become a Turk, but his brain wasn’t really registering the words. His brain hadn’t registered any words since that night all those weeks ago. It occupied his every waking thought and haunted all his dreams, until he thought he would go mad if he saw the image of Reno behind his eyelids one more time. But he hadn’t so far, and gradually he was beginning to forget the way his partner had tasted on his lips. He didn’t think he’d ever forget the feel of Reno’s body in his arms, but that he could deal with. It was the taste that he wanted gone most of all…

Thankfully for him, he hadn’t seen Reno since the incident. They’d taken care of the Sector 7 pillar the very next day and Reno had stayed behind to run interference in case Avalanche decided to show up. Which, of course, they had. And although they’d failed to stop the bomb, they had managed to put Reno in the hospital for a while and Rude, concerned about his partner’s health despite it all, visited him once while he was sleeping, just to assess the damage Reno had sustained. As he figured it, he owed every member of Avalanche a good, solid beating.

“Rude? Rude!? Hello? Are you there?” Elena tapped him gently on the arm, and he turned to face her. Her pretty face was drawn in an expression of concern, a bit of blonde hair tumbling unheeded into her eyes. Rude reached out with one large finger and brushed it away. Around them, the low murmur of people filled the air and the scents of cigarette smoke and gin wafted through the room. The bar wasn’t technically owned by Shinra, but it might as well have been; no one but employees visited the place.

“Yes,” he replied, stifling a sigh. “I’m sorry. I was…thinking.” She gave him a strange look then, her blue-gray eyes puzzled, but shrugged easily and continued.

“I was just asking what the matter was,” she said. There was no hesitation in her voice, and Rude favored her with a small smile. The two of them had hit it off almost immediately, and Rude was very nearly convinced that she was his long lost younger sister. She reminded him so much of his mother that sometimes it hurt to look at her. Strangely enough, Elena always seemed to sense what he was feeling and, unlike most people, she was willing to call him on it.

“Its nothing. I’m just a bit worried is all.” Which was the understatement of the century. Everything was a mess right now and for once in his life, Rude could see no resolution in sight. First Reno in the hospital, then the President assassinated, then Sephiroth on the loose…And now they were sending him after the former SOLDIER with a new recruit of all things. He liked Elena, but Rude had onfionfidence in her abilities as a Turk. He had worked too long with Reno to be able to adjust to anyone else’s style.

“Ah,” Elena breathed, leaning back in her seat. “Reno.” Rude looked at her sharply, eyes narrowing behind his glasses. The way she’d said it, just the knowing tone of her voice…Surely he wasn’t that obvious? Even to her.

“What makes you say that?” His voice remained cold and aloof, as it always did, but inside his stomach was clenching violently. If Elena knew, chances were that Tseng did as well and Rude knew that both he and Reno could get in big trouble. The Turks frowned on relationships between colleagues.

“Just the way you are around him,” she replied. A tiny smile danced across her lips and she ducked her head. “Even when you’re standing across the room from him, you manage to loom over his shoulder. I don’t know how to really describe it, but that’s the way my father was with my mother, and…” Her delicate eyebrows drew together. “Please tell me I’m right and I didn’t just totally insult you.”

Rude sat back with a sigh, the cushioned chair creaking pathetically beneath his large frame. He wasn’t used to the quiet atmosphere of a nice bar; all his life he’d frequented joints down in the slums, where the only time the noise ever descended below a dull roar was when someone had just been killed. If he’d had hair on his head, it would have prickled and stood on end. But Elena had insisted on buying drinks to celebrate her appointment as a Turk and Rude had allowed himself to be convinced that a night out was just what he needed. Now, though, he was beginning to wonder.

“You didn’t,” he said, lifting his tumbler of gin and taking a sip. Behind his glasses, his eyes slipped shut. “You’re right.” Elena let out the breath she had been holding and picked up her wineglass.

“Good.” She laughed a little and swirled the rosy pink wine around the glass. “I never wanted to say anything before because I was afraid you would get angry with me. You know, for prying. But you seem like you need to talk to someone and I suppose…” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I know we just met and all, but if you want to talk we can. I don’t really know all that much about things like this, but I’ll do the best I can to-“

“Yes,” Rude interrupted. “I would like to talk.” Elena’s face lit up with pleasure and Rude felt a smile twitch his lips. There was something endearing about how eager she was to help all the time. Perhaps she wasn’t a very good Turk yet, but she made an excellent conversation partner.

Leaning forward, she clasped her hands on top of the table and studied Rude with a single-minded concentration. “You love him, don’t you?” she demanded and, at Rude’s nod, she continued. “Right, but there’s a problem. Does he not love you or something? Have you *asked* him?”

“No,” Rude replied softly. And now it came right down to it. He could confide in Elena, as he had never confided in anyone else before, and perhaps get a bit of this off his chest. Or he could back out. It wasn’t as if it was any of her business anyway…He made up his mind. “I told him, more or less, right before he got hurt. He…I’m not sure. We didn’t talk about it.”

“What happened?” Elena regarded him shrewdly and Rude shrugged, waving one large hand through the air in an abstract gesture of carelessness. The thought of detailing what had happened in his apartment made his stomach clench unpleasantly and, as before, Elena seemed to sense his mood and backed off. “Fine. What’s the problem then?”

“There is no problem.”

“There is, Rude, and I want to help if you’ll let me.” Her voice was quiet, but her tone was firm and Rude looked up. His eyes fluttered behind their dark shield as he regarded her. She was so sweet, so pr…He …He wondered how she had ever made it in the Turks, where being hard, being cold was everything. There was nothing hard or cold about Elena; she had lovely, feminine features and a soft mouth and gentle eyes and a good heart. She was everything that Rude was not and he wanted nothing more at that moment than to wrap her in his arms and protect her from the outside world.

“I don’t need help,” he said instead. There was no quaver in his flat monotone, no twitch of his face that would give him away. Elena sat, a wounded expression on her pale face, and cast her eyes down at the glass of wine in her hand.

“All right.” One tiny hand fluttered to her neck, fingers tangling in the cheap but pretty beads around her throat. It reminded Rude of a dove. “I won’t ask anymore. If that’s what you want.” Her voice was doubtful, as though she harbored suspicions about what he really want Rud Rude sighed.

“You want to know?” Elena looked up eagerly, nodding. Her eyes shone like stars and Rude smiled a little, stroking a large finger along the line of her jaw. “Fine. I’m not in love with Reno.” Her face fell a little, but he continued. “Its more than that.”

“Oh,” she breathed, her eyes suddenly alight. Her hair tumbled across her forehead and she pushed it away impatiently. “I know exactly what you mean! Its devotion and concern and need and desire and love and pain and this wonderful, horrible tightness in your throat whenever you see him…”

“Yes,” Rude murmured, catching her hand. Behind his glasses, his eyes blazed. Elena leaned forward, quivering with repressed energy, and in her face Rude saw his own inner turmoil mirrored for the world to see. “Its exactly like that. How did you know?”

“I feel the same way!” She laughed, giddy with relief at having finally told someone. Rude felt it too, but he did not allow his hand to so much as tremble. Noticing the suddenly stony expression on his face, Elena misread it and hurried on. “Not for Reno, of course! For…someone else…But it’s the same thing! I can help you, Rude, I know I can.”

“How?” He leaned back, releasing her hand abruptly. “There isn’t anything you can do. I can’t have him. That’s all.” Some of the fire faded from Elena’s eyes.

“But why?” She sounded confused and wounded.

“Because. I can’t afford to let myself love Reno. It makes me weak.” She stared at him a moment, shapely mouth open wide in shock.

“You don’t mean that, Rude!” she exclaimed. She clasped her hands tightly, perfectly manicured nails digging into her flesh. Rude could tell that his words had hurt her, but he forced himself not to care. “Love doesn’t make you weak!”

“It does!” he replied, and his voice was harsher than he had intended. “I can’t do my job properly if I’m too busy worrying about Reno, and the same goes for him. In our line of work, you can’t afford to let personal feelings get in the way. Have you ever noticed how very few of us are married or seeing someone? There’s a reason for that, Elena. None of us want to deal with the fact that one day our significant other will get a letter that starts out ‘We wish to extend our condolences for your loss…’ and ends with a stamp of the President’s signature! And they will. You can’t avoid the fact that statistically, less Turks make it to retirement age than any other branch of Shinra. Hell, even SOLDIER has a higher rate of survival than we do! It’s a dangerous world, Elena, and we do a dangerous job. And I refuse to subject myself to that torture, but more importantly, I refuse to subject Reno to it.”

There was silence for a long moment as Elena stared at him, unblinking. Rude sat back in his seat, emotionally exhausted and a bit embarrassed by his speech. Never before had he spoken so much at one time, not that he could remember anyway. He had never felt the need to justify himself to anyone before and the fact that Elena had managed to roll him over and expose his soft underbelly was more than a little unnerving. He tossed back the last of his gin and started to rise, but Elena shot up out of her seat and backhanded him hard.

Rude sat back down with a thump, one hand on his jaw and an astonished expression on his face. Elena looked horrified and scared for one brief moment, but then her lovely features resolved themselves into steely determination. “You listen to me, Rude,” she snarled. “and you listen good! I may not be the most competent person in the world. Lord knows I’ve had my share of screw-ups and I’m sure I’ll have more. But if there’s one thing I know about, its love, okay? So just…Just listen!” She paused for a moment and took a deep breath before plunging on. Rude was silent, hand still pressed to his jaw.

“Maybe we do have a dangerous job.t tht that’s no reason to deny ourselves! Don’t you see, Rude? Love can be such a wonderful thing. It can make all the horrible things in the world pale in comparison to it. Love makes you smile when you’re sad and it makes you cry when you’re happy and it makes even the stupidest thing seem like the best idea in the world, as long as the one you love said it. It doesn’t make you weak. It makes you *strong*. It lets you face life with hope instead of despair. So don’t give me any crap about putting anyone through any kind of torture! If you were any kind of real man you’d realize that you aren’t doing Reno *or* yourself any good by pretending!”

Rude blinked slowly, waiting a minute to make sure Elena was finished. She stood, hands planted on the table and cheeks flushed, glaring down at him as though he had insulted her personally. The voices surrounding them had taken on the strained quality of people who were listening but trying hard to pretend they weren’t, and the very deliberate way that no one was looking at them was beginning to grate on his nerves. He gestured to Elena to sit, his expression cold, and she obeyed almost immediately. She looked chagrined at her outburst, but Rude did not have the time to comfort her.

He didn’t agree with what she had said, not the words anyway. But the spirit behind them had struck him and he turned it over carefully in his mind. Love, she said, was wonderful. Well, so maybe it was. His parents had been in love, before his father had turned into an alcoholic. Several of his acquaintances in the slums had fallen in love and gotten married; he had played best man at one of the weddings, in fact. He still remembered the way his friend had blushed and lowered her eyes shyly when she took her groom’s hand, and the look of utter peace and contentment on her face. He had been abstractly envious of her and her happiness that day, but had never really figured out why. Could it be because he himself longed for it?

Rude had always avoided what he considered the softer emotions. Even when he had admitted to himself that he loved Reno, he had convinced himself that it was not a tender sort of regard. The world that he came from frowned on softness and usually rewarded it with death or disillusionment. Rude, desperate to escape the fate of so many others, had walled off the part of him that experienced those emotions, but somehow Elena’s impassioned speech had made a chink in the defenses. He thought of Reno and his cocky swagger and crystal green eyes, and a warmth rose in his chest. It made him giddy and, had he not had such rigid self-control, he would have smiled like an idiot. So…This was what love, real honest all the way love, felt like. He was a bit surprised to find that he didn’t hate it at all.

He rose abruptly, chair screeching on the floorboards of the bar. Elena looked up at him anxiously, but did not move from her seat. “Where are you going, Rude?” she asked, her voice thin and upset. The The hospital.” He smoothed his jacket and winked at her, though she could not see it. “I have to see Reno.”

********************

The hospital was cold. Not physically, of course; they kept the temperature right at the perfect level, so that it was not uncomfortable for anyone. Emotionally, there was something lacking though, and Rude wished he could do this somewhere else. The recycled air smelled of nothing and the grim white décor left quite a lot to be desired. He wondered what sort of unimaginative sadist had decorated the place, then dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. There were other things to consider, the most important of which lay in a small bed beside him.

Rude placed his hand gently on Reno’s cheek. His partner, who had always been able to sleep through anything, barely stirred, though his eyes fluttered beneath swollen lids. Rude lingered perhaps a moment too long, savoring the feel of Reno’s soft skin against his palm. Under his hand, a vibrant bruise in all the colors of the rainbow spread along Reno’s cheekbone. Somehow the discoloration only made him more beautiful.

Rude did not speak or smile; he was content merely to watch Reno sleep. It was a rare occasion when he was able to see his friend at rest, Reno being a sort of living perpetual motion machine. Sleeping, though, he had an innocent vulnerability about him, which was only magnified by his current fragile state. Rude had never considered himself a poetic soul, but at that moment he thought he could be content for the rest of his life if only he could watch Reno sleep each night.

But duty called. He and Elena had to set out in the morning to track down the great Sephiroth and quite likely die doing so. Rude still wasn’t sure entirely how he felt about that, but then, the Turks didn’t pay him to think. They paid him to follow orders, and Rude was quite good at doing as he was told. Calmly, though he was screaming inside, he took his hand from Reno’s cheek and rose to leave. ~I may never see you again, Reno. Sephiroth never did hold with the Turks. But I love you. I love you.~

“Say it,” a voice croaked behind him as he turned to leave. Rude betrayed no outward sign of his surprise, only turned to regard his partner. Reno’s eyes were open, their crystalline clarity dulled by sleep and pain-killers.

“You ought to be asleep.” He pretended he hadn’t heard Reno’s cryptic demand, though he knew well what his partner had meant. “In fact, I thought you were.” His voice was flat as always but Reno, ever perceptive, heard the mild reproach in the words and smiled.

“I like it when you touch me,” he whispered hoarsely. Rude ruthlessly crushed the gladness that rose in his chest. He had no time to flirt. He’d come to see Reno, to make sure he was all right and to confess, at least to himself, his love. That done, it was time for him to leave “I “I have to go, Reno,” he said, rising from the uncomfortable hospital chair. “Tseng is sending me after Sephiroth.” Reno coughed and a bit of bloody froth bubbled out of the corner of his mouth. Tenderly, Rude wiped it away with one massive thumb. “Look, you’ve talked your throat raw. Go back to sleep…”

“Alone?” Reno choked. Rude could tell that it hurt his partner to speak, so he sat down in an effort to soothe him.

“No,” he replied. “Elena is coming with me and Tseng will join us later.” Reno’s eyes went wide with fury and his face contorted in disgust.

“Elena!?” he snarled between gasping coughs. “They’re replacing me with *Elena*?!?” Rude restrained himself from laughing aloud at Reno’s indignation.

“I like her,” he said instead. “She’s green but she’s clever. Got a good heart.” Reno sputtered and choked, his eyes bugging out. He might have waved his arms if they had not been stabbed full of IVs.

“You *like* her?” Reno’s tone of voice suggested that Rude had committed the ultimate betrayal. “I can’t believe you like her!” His eyes narrowed with the obvious shrewdness of a man who is slightly high on pain medication. “Its because she’s prettier than me, isn’t it?”

Rude couldn’t contain the surprised bark of laughter that tore free of his throat. “Don’t be stupid Reno,” he chided. “You know that isn’t true.” The triumphant gleam in his partner’s eyes warned him too late that he had as good as confessed. He rose, facmaskmask of stony self-control. He did not blame his partner, of course; it was Reno’s way to trick information out of people. No, it was his mistake and he would bear the burden of it.

“Rude!” A note of pleading entered Reno’s weak voice and, in spite of himself, Rude paused. “Please, Rude. Before Tseng gets you killed…Say it just once.” Reno fixed him with wide eyes the color of sunlight on leaves and Rude caved.

“All right,” and his voice was lower than it had ever been before, a profound bass rumble reminiscent of the inexorable wash of the sea. “If you need to hear it that badly, I’ll say it.” He took a deep breath. “I love you.”

Reno closed his eyes, an expression of deep peace glowing on his battered face. “Thank you,” he murmured. “I needed to hear that…” One eye cracked open slowly and regarded Rude with the level of focus Reno typically reserved for alcohol and killing people. If Rude had not been dying inside, he might have been flattered. “Rude? Will you do one more thing for me before you go?” Rude nodded slowly, unable to deny Reno anything in that moment. “Take off your glasses.”

Rude shuddered at the request, and at the sensual growl that had crept into Reno’s voice. The way he said it…He knew that it was like asking Rude to strip naked, and yet he made the request anyway. His eyes, swollen and raw and bloodshot, drifted lazily across the planes of Rude’s face and had he not felt their familiar weight on the bridge of his nose, Rude would have sworn he had removed his glasses already, so exposed did he feel.

Slowly, he reached up and hooked a finger through the joint where earpiece met lens. He paused a moment, shaken to the core for the first time in a long time and then with a sharp tug, he laid his soul bare for Reno to see. Reno’s lips parted slightly and Rude, although he wanted nothing more than to flinch away, held his gaze steady. He let Reno see his fear and reservation, the pain of denying himself and the desperate fury at his helpless situation. He showed Reno his loneliness, his despair, his rage, and his hatred of what the world had brought him to. But underneath all that, bearing it up and holding it aside, came the love and devotion, the gentler feelings that welled out of the crack Elena had made in his defenses. He could see them glow in Reno’s eyes and, suddenly frightened, he turned away.

“Rude!” The glasses settled back onto his face and for a moment, Rude indulged in a flight of fancy and imagined them fusing with his skull. How wonderful it would be to have permanent dark lenses covering his traitor eyes…Reno coughed violently and he turned back to his friend, face carefully blank once again. “Rude, don’t…”

“Don’t what, Reno?” he asked. His voice was steady, his hands were steady, his entire being was steady as a rock. Only his eyes betrayed him and now they were safely covered, hidden from Reno’s searching gaze. “I haven’t got time to stand in your hospital room and talk.”

“You don’t leave until morning,” Reno whispered. Unlike Rude, Reno had never been able to conceal his feelings with any degree of success, so the waver in his voice was only too genuine. Rude felt a flush of guilt, but crushed it quickly.

“I have to sleep,” he replied. Reno reached for him, long fingers uncurling like spider’s legs. Rude resisted the urge to kiss them. “I can’t stay here all night.”

“You can,” Reno murmured. His voice was little more than a rasp now, and Rude could see the exhaustion beginning to tug down the corners of his mouth and eyes. “Sleep here with me.” A war began in Rude’s mind, one half of him wanting nothing more than to stay and hold Reno’s hand all night long, and the other half of him gibbered in fear at what that might mean. One look at Reno’s tired, desperate eyes decided for him.

“All right. Let me call a nurse and get a cot or something.” Reno smiled tiredly, and there was no triumph or smugness there, only genuine relief and happiness. Rude very nearly smiled.

“No,” Reno croaked. “Sleep with me.” Rude looked at the hospital bed dubiously. It was wide enough to fit both of them, if they spooned, but he was a bit leery of sharing a bed with a man as badly injured as Reno. “Please. I don’t toss and I’m pretty sure you don’t…” When Rude did not contradict this statement, Reno continued. “I just…want to be held. Just once by someone that…loves me. Its…I might never see you again, Rude. Please. I need someone to love me right now.”

Rude nodded and began to unbutton his jacket. Silently, as Reno watched, he stripped off his clothes until he was standing in a pair of deep red silk boxers and his sunglasses, clothes hung neatly across the back of the chair. Very deliberately, he removed the glasses and set them on the bedside table. Reno smiled at him then, and Rude smiled back. It couldn’t hurt to indulge in his softer side for one night, not if it meant Reno would be happy.

Carefully, he crawled into the bed and curled his body protectively around his partner. Reno twisted in his arms until they lay facing each other and, almost without realizing it, Rude sought the other man’s lips. They were cool and dry and parted eagerly when he brushed his tongue across them. The inside of Reno’s mouth was copper with blood, and Rude delved deep into it, seeking that elusive taste that had haunted him since their last kiss. His blunt fingers stroked Reno’s waist, delicately exploring his birdlike hipbones and ribcage.

Reno sighed into Rude’s mouth, snuggling closer and placing a cold hand on the back of Rude’s shaved head. He pulled away slightly, eyes drifting half-closed as they regarded the other man. “You know,” he said, and his breath was warm against Rude’s cheek. “I could get used to this.”

Rude kissed him gently, and then tucked him into a comfortable position so they could sleep. Reno immediately pressed himself against Rude’s warm bulk and curled up like a kitten. A blissful smile curved his lips and Rude, with a smile of his own, kissed Reno’s forehead tenderly. “Sweet dreams, Reno,” he whispered. “I love you.”

He didn’t hear Reno’s words, but he felt the shape his partner’s lips made against his shoulder and, although he couldn’t properly identify them by that alone, somehow he knew. “I love you, too.” Somehow, feeling it against his skin was a thousand times better than hearing it would have been and, as his eyes drifted closed, Rude’s arms tightened around his slumbering friend. Hard to believe that what he had desired for so long had finally come to be…

Rude did not dream that night, not that he recalled. After all, what was the purpose of dreaming about things when everything he had ever wanted, his entire world, lay curled in his arms? And for the first time in his life, Rude smiled in his sleep.