Well Used Habits.

Setting: FFVII (post DoC)*end spoilers for DoC*
Pairing: Rude and Reno
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: WAFF, sex, explosion.
Discalmer: I don't own these characters. They are property of Square Enix.

(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)

Well Used Habits.

“Life’s gettin’ exciting again… Don’t ya think?” A pair of fever bright green blue eyes gleamed from beneath tousled ember colored bangs, a bit of manic humor curling one corner of his tender mouth, hardening its lines in the dimness and deep shadow.

“It’s over though.. Just this last piece… We’re grounded after that..” Moonlight shone dully off the rims and bows of dark glasses, the wearer seemingly unconcerned with his near total blindness in the gloom.

“Naw… You’re wrong. This is where it all begins.. We didn’t know shit. All this happened and… Well… It’s been proven that the President didn’t know any more than we did… This is where we start to actually fix it.” The subtle gleam disappeared as the silhouette inclined its spiky head to gaze down at the moonlit patchwork landscape below, here and there spotting a small point of illumination, provided now by energy from fuel oil and coal… By other power companies.. Well, bearing different names at least.

The mountain to his left shifted slightly and rumbled a soft chuckle. “When did you start caring?”

“Don’t know… Maybe when I found out how much we all have to lose. The smaller man’s voice was soft and thoughtful in the darkness.

The big man didn’t mind being sightless behind his dark glasses. It made him concentrate more on sounds… the rustle of his companion’s clothing against his long ponytail, the lilt to his voice that told the listener whether he was smiling and whether it was real.

It made him concentrate on touch and smell… Body heat, to his immediate right, hotter in some areas than in others, intimately close but not actually touching him anywhere. A faint breath of cologne and smoke, dark and sweet with an acrid tingle, filled his blank vision field with roadmaps of color and texture in a moment of sensory sinesthesia. He took a very slow breath, gloves creaking slightly where he gripped the hand rail.

“…Reno I..”

“Shut up.” The smiling voice whispered and the intimate physical distance suddenly became much more so as his partner draped a lazy arm over his hunched shoulders, pressing close. A warm puff of breath ghosted over the shell of his ear, followed by a hot tongue, sliding over an earring or two.

Rude complied with Reno’s order, cracking a small smile of his own. It was an old joke of Reno’s, once a mocking of Rude’s quiet and stoic manner, now nearly a code phrase for ‘I love you’.

It was true that no words needed pass between them. There were just some experiences in life that either destroyed a person’s belief in the existence and power of love, or irrevocably confirmed it for all time, against all better judgment and self-preservational cynicism.

Rude remained silent as cool fingertips traced up his jaw line to the spring cushioned bows of his tinted glasses, sliding them first down, and then off completely as his eyes fluttered open. When had he closed them?

“Hey… Where did ya go?” Reno’s eyes tracked over his partner’s strong features with mild concern, his knowing smirk still in place, curling one corner of his mouth in unmistakable invitation.

“M here… just..”

He was silenced by warmth and moisture.. a unique flavor and the hot press of varied textures, all of them achingly pleasant. Rude snapped his eyes closed again to more thoroughly enjoy the kiss, turning his body against the hot wiry solidity of Reno and burying his gloved hands in that wild mane, gripping the strands and gently tugging to hear the smaller man mewl against his lips.

“Mmm… I know ya ain’t teasin’ me Rude…” Reno’s voice was airy with arousal, dark with warning as he drew back, pulling the tip of his tongue across the big man’s lower lip possessively.

That voice suggested its own lovely promises and threats and Rude found himself shaking his head, “Never…” He rumbled, throat gone dry, eyes still closed, panting lightly.

“Good…” The lips and tongue and heat and pressure returned, the press of that lithe body more insistent. Rude trailed his leather covered fingers through Reno’s long ponytail, loosening the tie and freeing the bound mane, earning a small sigh from the smaller man as another one of his leather hair ties was lost, swept away through the steel grating beneath their feet and out into the night sky.

Rude could have given a fuck less about hair ties until he heard the tell tale clatter of his stolen shades meeting the same fate. “Damn you…” He growled into the kiss, gripping Reno firmly by his wild hair and turning the embrace much more forceful, bruising his own lips against his partner’s white teeth and sliding his tongue into that hot willing throat, claiming roughly before pulling back to glare down at the vandal.

“M a bastard like that… ya mad?” Reno’s eyes narrowed, swollen lips glistening wetly in the dim starlight and pulling at a defiant grin, knowing the answer already.

“Furious..”

“I bet…”

The wicked smirks twisting both their faces dissolve quickly into gentle affectionate smiles.

“Rude I..”

“Shut up.”

“Make me..”

Rude did, covering that supple teasing mouth with his own again, pressing his tongue gently inside to caress and taste with eyes shut once more, focusing on the sensations uninvolved with sight. The light scent of skin like fresh paper, cologne like amber and dark musk, sweet wild honey, a flavor like smoldering strawberry incense and brandy, intoxicating.. A sound like the definition of longing…

“Fuck Reno…” He couldn’t help but moan his lover’s name. Even after all this time and everything that had happened, Reno was ever his undoing. Totally subjugating his will just the way he liked. Getting his way like a spoiled child and knowing he’s won. Rude even cherished the redhead’s smirk of triumph, had since he had first given in to Reno’s persistent advances. He knew he would probably concede in any contest with the man just to witness it.

And there it was… Curling that expressive mouth and crinkling eyes alight with playful malice.

Rude was going to be punished later for having given in so easily, he knew this. Reno liked a bit of a fight sometimes. He chuckled, pushing off the railing and backing the smaller man up into the wall behind them. “You know your timing’s terrible Reno.”

“I think it’s pretty damn good actual-”

Brilliant yellow white fire and a roar like several Bahamut’s in chorus suddenly and briefly negated all other sensory input classifications save BRIGHT and LOUD as several missiles found their marks on the fire ball nearly ten miles away and falling slowly and almost gracefully toward the pale lights of Junon far below. The last ‘fragment’ of Omega’s corpse, an enormous segment of the torso and one entire arm/wing assembly splintering and igniting, seared to ashes in a instant of blindness and deafness, and for that instant there was nothing for the partners but white and awe.

By the time the afterimage faded there was nothing for either of them but the other, lips closing over lips, sharing frantic breath, each swallowing the sounds of the other, fingers blindly working buttons and knots.

The wind whipped around them, no longer chill, as the shockwave and air disturbance heated tropical by the intensity of the explosion rocked the Shera, residual EM first flaring then browning out the running lights. Both stumbled, Rude catching Reno’s loose collar in a firm gloved grip and steadying them both against the wall again, bodies pressed hard together, breath coming fast and harsh with adrenaline and arousal.

“Reno…”

“Yeah.. now yo..” His redhead breathed and Rude obeyed gladly, turning his partner against the bulkhead a little roughly. This earned him a lie of a glare and a breathy moan as he splayed one big hand across Reno’s back and pushed in, causing the redhead’s bared chest to meet the chilly steel.

He smirked as Reno’s body tightened and a shudder overtook him. One hand, chest and right cheek pressed to the cold metal, Reno groped downward to release his belt, the too loose trousers sliding easily down to his knees, baring his shapely backside to Rude’s hungry gaze. “C’mon” He panted, eyes slipping shut as he reached back to drag Rude closer by his waistband, deftly unclasping his belt. “Fuck me already.”

Rude knew why he was always so willing to obey Reno’s orders. Frankly the slender redhead had yet to issue him a command he didn’t like, or fail to use the tone which set his blood on fire with want, or affected an attitude which he found unappealing. Even blind drunk, even out of his mind on adrenaline and violence, even pleading to be relived of his burdens of guilt by the temporary bliss Rude could offer him, even shining with excitement and something Rude found he could again call optimism, not just foolish hope. Reno was his. Reno was beautiful.

Rude just nodded, shucking his gloves, unmindful that the wind whipped them off the outboard catwalk and away into the night. Rude rifled his partner’s pockets for something slick that, after all these years he knew just where to find.

While old habits died hard, well used habits didn’t die at all.

He ripped the blister pack nigh in half with his teeth, the time for delicacy long past, if it had existed at all. Slicked fingers slid in, drawing a sharp gasp and a groan of “more” from a mouth already fallen slack with the sensations. As if Rude had any desire to wait.

He was soon delving in with three fingers while first freeing then coating himself with the other hand.

Before Rude took his Reno against that bulkhead on the Shera, he found himself pausing, taking in all around him. The bite had returned to the wind and the shower of falling embers miles away and up was slowly winking out like stars before the dawn. Reno panted, quivering and arching into his now mild and tender ministrations, stiffening with small incoherent cries or curses whenever his prostate was stroked. Pallor accented by the starlight, flame colored hair catching what little light existed and reflecting it like strands of garnets, Beautiful… savage… tender… wild…

“What.. the fuck… are you doin’.. back there yo?” Reno’s voice cut through his haze of admiration, strained and grating as Rude’s thick fingers still worked him open with even strokes. Snapping back to the pleasant reality at hand, he smirked at the flushed back turned face.

“Loving you Reno.”

Breath catching in his throat and eyes pricking with tears he’d probably always feel every single time he heard those words, Reno swallowed hard. “Sh-shut up…” he faltered, swallowing again dryly. “Fill me… Show me yo.”

“Gladly.” Rude smiled softly, guiding his slicked erection in past the fingers he was withdrawing and pressing home with one solid thrust, pausing only briefly to adjust to the crushing closeness encircling his member. It was almost too much for both of them. It nearly always was but neither lost control, falling into an energetic, residual adrenaline fueled rut up on the airship’s windy catwalk. Mission success, they were finally off duty, fucking like it would be their last time, like they always did, just in case it was.

Well used habits didn’t die.

Both cursed loudly when they came, both breathed a sigh of the other’s name with the next series of orgasmic tremors, both braced there, panting and trembling in the wake of completion, both then stood, righting their disheveled clothing in silence, both with smirks firmly back in place.

They cherished each other simply and declared that truth to each other in so many inscrutable ways. A glare, harsh words, sarcasm, insult, threats, mocking silence… All in a day’s working conversation for the partners, but then a look would pass between them, shared like an electric arc and then no one would see them for 45 minutes. That was Rude and Reno. They had their own set of rules for a lot of different things.

They entered the airship nonchalantly, stealing an affectionate glance and sharing a soft smile as they sauntered towards the bridge to raise a glass to the success of the mission with Cid and several other “old friends” who hadn’t been able to pass up the excitement of blowing a giant monster carcass in the sky to smithereens. Old habits… well used.

~end~