Giving Orders

Every child wants to play with their parents’ toys. They want to see what’s so special as to hold the attention of their elders, experience what sort of rapture comes with partaking in the baubles that fascinate their adults, the people that are supposedly beyond such childish wants and desires. Every child wants to touch the unknown and wants to possess the secrets of those forbidden delights for themselves.

Rufus Shinra was no different. Except, his father’s toys were men and women trained to exterminate and terrorize without remorse, only concerned with pleasing their master, the rest of the world be damned. Rufus had always eyed his father’s toy soldiers with a longing, greedy wish, wanting to possess those harnessed forms of power all for his own. He had never understood how his father could squander that power, let those people go to waste while only utilizing them to prolong his own pathetic life. Rufus had sneered, disgusted with the waste of resources, itching, burning, wanting everything for his own, denied it just because that pathetic old man thought he was so worthwhile to continue living…

And then a blessing had been wrought to him, in the form of the former Silver General’s madness. For his own reasons, Sephiroth had found it festively appropriate to spit his old man on his famed weapon. The bastard’s guts had been bleeding out all over expensive ironwood desk, dyeing the wood a brilliant crimson red that Rufus honestly would have taken home and kept in his suite, had it not been required evidence for some crackpot investigation to tail the lunatic. Honestly, Rufus could barely wait to settle down in his own chair and make all of that raw power his to control, but posterity and the little voice in his head that promoted self-image warned him against not pretending to grieve.

So Rufus had played the good little son, looking forlorn and professing the numb feeling that his father’s departure of the living had settled in him, although that numb was more construed towards boredom than anything. Once everything was said and done, and the old man’s polished box was shuffled under a pile of dirt, it was with an actor’s heavy heart that Rufus settled down to business, promising to carry on Shinra’s legacy and shape up for his father’s shortcomings. All of his false sorrows boiled away to business, but he knew how to smile pretty enough to make all of the masses’ worries fade away and nod their heads in complacency, except for a few radicals who could be dealt with if they tried to find a soapbox.

Rufus settled into his place of power quite nicely. It was natural to have everyone dancing to his whims like the good little puppets they were, and all he needed to do was a few shifts in policy and the disposal of a few less competent employees. The first few weeks were spent cleaning up the muck and adjusting everything to Rufus’ personal satisfaction, getting everything just right for the way he would have it. In some ways, he could have been thought to be avoiding what he really wanted, to touch his father’s prize dolls and examine them intricately, but it wasn’t like he was afraid of the Turks.

He was saving the best for last.

The Turks were an eclectic, but tightly wound lot, feeding off of one another and drawing inspiration and motivation from one another. Rufus knew better than to just lump them into one mass and treat them as a single unit. They were one unstoppable force, but they were made of unique parts that fit together in a precise, intricate way that even the new President couldn’t fathom and didn’t try to examine, just letting that tried and true tradition continue its own autonomous governing. They followed their orders well enough, but there was something in the blond that had warned him against trying to shake up their hierarchy.

He adored his new dolls, and mentally sent the old man one of the few scraps of praise he would ever wrestle from his spawn’s grasp. It had been a wise move of the old bastard to formulate that particular department, and Rufus would give him one of the few props he was due because of it. The blond smirked a little as he pondered over the whole set, in their matching navy suits, stark contrasts to his own white apparel. He felt powerful at an almost godlike level, nearly untouchable when he had a pair at his side, following a step behind him, eyes calculating and searching, scanning over every nook and cranny of the surroundings. He almost dared some loon to burst out of the woodwork and aim a gun at his head, just to see what his pet destroyers would do.

Like any collector, he had his favorites, no matter how much he would cite having a strictly professional relationship with his employees. He just so happened to value the top three better than the rest. They were stunning examples of men carefully balanced between civility and heartlessness, still retaining their own individual personalities while being able to remain completely collected and rational in any situation. They were absolute gems, and Rufus could tell that he would enjoy playing with them most of all.

At the very top of the pile was Tseng. Perpetually composed and eternally polite, most people would make the mistake of disregarding him for his lithe build, deeming him purely intelligence and frankly useless when it came to physical protection. Rufus knew better. He remembered the first time he had talked business with the director of the Department for Administrative Research, eventually winding the conversation towards skill, bluntly asking how many people the man had killed. A shiver still wound its’ way up his spine when he thought of the partially proud, partially smug, and partially bored smirk that just barely flitted it’s way across the exotic man’s lips as he murmured something along the lines of ‘more than your nightmares could contain’.

Rufus remembered having just smiled and thanked the man for his continuing support of Shinra Electric Company, even through a change of ownership and slight readjustments in policy. Tseng had expressed a slight, curious interest in whether or not any of those new and improved policies would be making their way towards his own department. Rufus had just shrugged, assuring that he saw very few flaws in the way that particular part of the company was run, and that he was sure those few imperfections would right themselves in due time. Tseng had smiled and politely thanked his president for his time, and Rufus had a feeling that he had gotten it right. There had been a momentary exchange of power and respect, and things had come out equal.

He had the leader’s attention, and his momentary cooperation. Rufus could work with that, build it, and grow it until it became loyalty to him, rather than loyalty to the idea he figure headed.

Tseng’s unspoken, temporary approval had been his ticket to Reno.

There were times when he blessed that fact, but there were more times when he rued it. Reno was trash; born in the slums and raised to be the razor sharp man he was today. Most people would make a different kind of mistake with Reno, they’d think just because he was born under the plate and grew up in a tight spot, that he was stupid and had the usual mush for brains that most slum trash had.

They were dead wrong, but before they could rectify their mistake, he had ended their train of thought with a sharp, debilitating jolt of electricity right up one of the body’s main veins or nerve clusters, reducing his skeptics into quivering piles of flesh. Reno’s mind was sharp, honed from years of thinking on his feet and being in a daily grind of life, death, or of being someone else’s bitch. The red-head was all limbs and angles and pure, natural mean, quick to insult and send little barbs under a target’s skin while disguising them as compliments. He liked to toy with his prey, stringing them along in his verbal abuse until he voluntarily slipped and brought every little falsehood he had built up crashing and splintering into their face, all the while smirking because what he gave, he took away.

Reno liked his ability to control, and the thing was, very few people knew how to rob him of it. There was nothing that a normal mind could produce that would shake Reno, or get him into a position where he could no longer easily fire back a spark of banter. The harder most tried to insult Reno, the sharper his tongue grew, and really, the more amused he got. Reno laughed at the best of the jokes, letting them roll off his shoulders with a casual smirk and a cocky look of expectancy dancing in his eyes, waiting for something that would actually sting. He even had the audacity to tap his fingers along his rod as he idled, ready for the next interjection into the conversation that would end on his terms, no matter what his opponent tried.

Rufus took the plunge and dropped headfirst into a conversation which disguised threats and mockery under polite and idle chatter. Nothing he could have looked up on the Turk would have done him any good, so he just went forward and experienced the blast that was Reno, using his own developed cynicism and refined vocabulary against the Turk’s lazy drawl and worldly experience. He had fared decently. Reno hadn’t managed to drown him under a wave that he couldn’t compete with. Using an almost natural talent for rhetoric to lead the Turk in circles, he actually managed to stop the redhead from compiling his usual list of insults to dump on someone at a key point in time to leave them speechless with his own cuts in at the older man. But Reno wasn’t offended or even remotely put off. He laughed. He laughed out loud and he laughed with his eyes, nearly dancing in place as he played with the new piece of meat like a cat would with a mouse before it crushed the creature.

Rufus certainly didn’t end up the victor in their verbal sparring match, a little young and a little green when it came to totally dominating someone who didn’t have everything to lose, but Reno hadn’t stripped him of all of his dignity. The Turk had assured that Rufus had been a lot of fun, and that he looked forward to working with him in taking Shinra to greater heights than it had been before. Rufus knew it was utter bullshit, but he played along, accepting the mock submission and thanking Reno for his cooperation as well, the clasp of their hands in the post battle show of courtesy tight and firm. Rufus had flashed that million gil smile and reaffirmed the pleasure of the conversation and the pleased mood that struck him at the thought of having the Turk behind him one hundred percent, parting with the man on amicable terms to the rest of the employees, returning to his office to lick his wounds and stop his head from spinning.

Tseng and Reno were absolute delights, willing to verbally spar with Rufus at a moment’s notice, seemingly fascinated by the new representative of their company, trying to gauge where the man was, trying to discern if he was worthy of their concern. Where Tseng went, Reno followed, and where the top set, that was where the entire operation found its ground. Rufus knew it was imperative to lure the two to hold him in good graces if he wanted to stand a chance at ruling the world, and very few people could really gauge just how badly Rufus wanted that particular pleasure.

He was careful as he wound those two around his fingers, knowing better than to disregard the tiger even if it had been trained to guard and play with the children. He was patient, keeping himself out of their affairs, not changing their regime no matter how many eyebrows raised at his muddling in every aspect of the company except for the Turks, but he wasn’t going to change to having his throat slit in the middle of the night just for angering Tseng. He was working over a careful piece of art, where each line meant a million little intricacies that coiled themselves up under the main outcome, cradling the fragile loyalty that Rufus slowly garnered from the Turk collective.

He was patient the first few weeks, finding himself the victim of many verbal abuses from Reno’s favorite form of play and caught in nights spent trying to discern what each little line in Tseng’s nearly always neutral expressions represented. Everything was fascinating about the men and women that had been so thoroughly trained to disregard themselves as individuals, instead functioning as a tightly bound unit, everyone’s mind singularly trained on a desired goal. Rufus had every intention of making himself that goal; that focus that the Turks served without questioning. He relished the times he spent entertaining idle thoughts of adding more power to what he already held. It was a good distraction from proving himself time and time again to other businessmen who thought he was just a pretty face and a young man with no sense about himself or what he was capable of.

He had been President for nearly a month when murmurs began to crop up. People questioned his dominance over the Turks; whether or not he was afraid of the department even though he owned them in all outward aspects. Why hadn’t the President set into examining the members of that particular organization? If he had cared to explain his reasoning to simpletons, they would have learned of his faith in the department’s ability to pick up the gems from the pebbles since they had done it time and time again without fail, but people weren’t satisfied by his casual way of telling them that he saw no problems. On one hand, he really hadn’t wanted to delve deeper into the Turks before he had Tseng fully wrapped around his fingers, but on the other, he was a terribly curious, terribly greedy man…

So he had begun a review of the Turks. He called them in, one by one, examining, debating, weighing the merit of one over another as he considered the specialties that each man and woman had to offer. He was impressed by the range of people that Tseng had collected, even the newest ones that hadn’t shown their full potential yet. The blond started at the bottom and he found it much easier to intimidate the younger Turks; the ones who had recently been latched into, the kids who played at being assassins but hadn’t quite developed the cold, detached air that signified a Turk. He found it amusing to glower and scowl his way through the ranks, changing from a menace into a superior, changing his tone with the people who weren’t frightened by simple tactics because they knew them just as well.

The upper ranking Turks were formidable, but there was one in particular that caught his attention. He was Reno’s cohort and everything the redhead wasn’t; silent, instantaneously recognizable as formidably dangerous, large, and completely hairless on the top of his head. He was bulge and muscle where Reno was lean and angles, and Rufus found himself drawn to the silent giant, examining him over the edge of his report file. Rude sat with his arms folded across his chest, staring at what Rufus assumed was him, although the glasses made it impossible to tell. This little fact came across as blatant disrespect, so Rufus projected as casually and as coolly as he could, “Take off your glasses.” He was about to settle into his reading, when the Turk gave a simple noise that Rufus had to pause and consider to figure out exactly what it was. “Excuse me?”

“No.” Rude’s rumble was far clearer, and one of Rufus’ eyebrows cocked up as he sat up a little more, eyes narrowed ever so slightly before he relaxed his expression. He laid the file down, crossing his legs, bridging his fingers patiently, and stared at Rude drolly.

“Why not?” Rude’s face didn’t change in the slightest, staring in Rufus’ general direction.

“I’d rather not.” Rufus could feel his control cracking ever so slightly in an almost childish show of temper, not enjoying the fact that his orders were being brushed off like a fly on a table. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk as he made a show of reviewing the Turk’s file, casually picking through the information. Full name, age, blood type, list of mako injection dates…

“I see no signs of previous insubordination in your files, Rude…so what makes you think I’ll stand for it?” He put a certain inflection when referring to himself, looking up at Rude, resting his chin on his bridged fingers, watching the man thoughtfully.

“What have you done that says you won’t?” Rufus felt that childish rage bubbling up again, and was about to tear into the Turk when the man removed his glasses, watching the President with bright brown eyes, still carefully guarded as if he still wore the black shades. The blond let his anger subside and let out a deep breath as he talked at the wall, discussing with himself on Rude’s merits, finally agreeing to keep the man, but making a note to have him in again for further review. A mix of annoyance and intrigue bubbled up when the Turk didn’t even flinch, giving a hint of a nod and a low ‘yes sir’ as he left, footsteps heavy even as they faded a small series of scuffles and the sharp ding of the elevator.

---

Reno had laughed at him when he described his frustration with Rude. “Well, the problem there, boss, is that you aren’t Rude’s superior. You just sign his paycheck.” Rufus quirked an eyebrow as he sat back, his pen settled next to a small stack of documents. Reno exasperated him, and the president had to resist the urge to shoot the man himself more and more each day. Reno smirked, sitting on the man’s desk calmly, tapping his weapon against the sturdy ironwood furniture. The artificial redhead was amused by Rufus’ outraged look as he read into it for the confusion that dwelled before the surface. “Y’see blondie, you haven’t done anything that really makes the big guy think of you as his boss. You just kinda put your name on his paychecks and he just kinda follows you around ‘cause we haven’t had a stamp of your signature made yet.” Reno’s smirk then was wicked, but Rufus ignored it, not in the least bit amused.

“Get out of my office, Turk.” Reno laughed then as he hopped up, circling around to tilt Rufus’ chin up with his mag rod.

“No need to get so testy! Ain’t my fault y’ain’t proved yourself yet, Mister President.” There was something so nasty about the way the title rolled off the Turk’s tongue…Rufus pulled his shotgun out of it’s resting drawer, calmly pressing the black muzzle to his forehead. Reno didn’t even bat an eyelash.

“Get out of my office, Turk.” Reno snorted, pushing the barrel away from his face, calmly twirling his electro-rod by its’ strap, passing behind Rufus to come up and sit on the opposite side of his desk. “You have thirty seconds before I blow you out the window and we attribute your untimely death to suicide.” Reno laughed. Rufus fantasized about his brains smeared on the wall, the smarmy bastard.

“Well, before I go, since you’re completely clueless; cuttin’ anyone’s salary ain’t gonna do you a damn bit of good to get control.” His tone was almost ominous, but before Rufus could threaten him again, Reno was on his feet, swaggering towards the door. “Have a nice day, sir. Can’t wait for our chat tomorrow.” Rufus made a mental note to post a guard with an order to shoot on sight outside of his door, wondering how many bullets the man would spray before Reno had snapped his neck and invited himself in anyway.

---

Rude hadn’t failed his mission.

But he had botched it on such a level that the president had been sure he wasn’t reading right, or that he was reading a rookie’s return. But no. On the top of the document was a neatly printed line of identification numbers ending with ‘RUDE’ in bold, unmarred ink. He had paged his secretary to round the man up in his most controlled ‘Something is getting broken’ voice, sitting back in his chair to steam over the contents of the documents. It seemed like it had taken forever, but Rude had ever so casually meandered his way into his office as if Rufus had just called him in to talk about the weather. Rufus tossed the reports to Rude’s side of his desk. “And what the hell are those?”

Rude tilted his head in such a way that he might have been eyeing the visible papers. “Mission reports.” He seemed to appraise them for a moment more, before adding, “More than likely mine.”

Rufus rubbed his temples, shifting forward ever so slight. “How knowledgeable of you, Rude. Now, since you’re so wise, can you guess why I called you in?” Rude took the casual road again, hands tucked into his pockets.

“I’m guessing you’ve got something you want to bitch about.” The blond could almost feel his temple pulse at that. This one was just as bad as his bastard of a partner. Rufus bridged his fingers a moment, eyes closed, a few of his bangs freed from their gelled back position.

“I wouldn’t call it bitching, per say.” He almost spat out Rude’s choice of words, dipping his head a little. “I would say it’s more of…raising a perfectly pertinent concern as to the quality of your performance.” He was proud of himself. He had kept his voice amazingly level in relation to just how badly to he wanted to rip into the Turk.

“Such as?” Rude sounded bored. Rufus almost twitched again.

“…do you realize how much this is going to cost me in base repairs alone? And then accounting for how over budget public relations is going to be for trying to smooth over this mess…” Rufus took a sip of his coffee. Scalding hot. Good. He threw the pristine white mug at Rude. The Turk dodged to the side leisurely as the cup flew a little more and then shattered, its contents bled out over Rufus’ nice, neat floor, and he made a note to add that into his rant. “Since when were you so sloppy in your work? What the hell were you thinking?”

Rude shrugged a little, and Rufus thought his attention was focused on the space above his head rather than directly on his face. The president started to snap out his question again when the Turk finally rumbled an answer, completely casual. “I was getting the job done by any means.” Rufus tapped his pen on his desk, one eyebrow quirked up in a pure display of annoyance.

“I know that little part of your rulebook too, Turk. It says 'any -reasonable- means'. Try again.” Rufus’ look was sour, and Rude just shrugged.

“It was reasonable. I got my job done.” Rufus tapped his knuckles on his desk. Were all the Turks so stubbornly stupid when it came to being told of their faults?

“You got your job done, but you’re going to cost the company a large sum to mop up after you.” Rufus started to add the numbers up in his head, before turning back to address the Turk with the about sum. “It’ll cost…” He stopped, because there was just something in the way Rude was standing, the way his head with tipped…he wasn’t listening. Rufus stood up and grabbed the bald man’s tie, dragging him down to his height. “Listen to me, damn it.”

He wasn’t prepared for when Rude grabbed him by the material of his double-breasted jacket, hauling him over the desk before calmly making him sit back on the smooth almost-black surface. “Give me a good reason why.” Rufus started to snap out all of his protests and angry reasons why when Rude pressed his lips to his, the man’s coarse facial hair scraping around his mouth as he forced his tongue inside. The blond gave an angry noise of protest, grabbing the Turk’s collar and jerking on it, trying to push the man off. Rude pulled back, not even wincing when Rufus punched him in the sternum. “What, scared?”

“I do things on my terms.” He wriggled so that he was sitting up straight, winding one hand in the Turk’s tie to drag him down to Rufus’ level. The bald man shifted his stance so that he wasn’t hunched down to the blond, hands on the president’s hips. Rufus initiated the kiss this time, biting Rude’s lip and forcing his tongue against the Turk’s, refusing to let the man gain the upper hand on him a second time. He almost wondered why he was allowing this to occur, when a tiny voice reminded him that he had an undeniable ‘thing’ for power. It was his strength and his weakness, he was addicted to that rush of domination and ownership. It was a delicious drug, really, and Rude happened to house a whole lot of it. He had a powerful body and a powerful mind…and he was Rufus’, even if he didn’t acknowledge that.

Rufus would make sure he would by the time they were done.

He hooked one of his legs over Rude’s hips, closing his eyes as they kissed, enjoying the touch far more than he would ever admit, pressing up into the larger man for more contact. He refused to go pliant under Rude, absolutely dead set on the man doing things when he wanted them done. He dug his nails into the man’s wrist and dragged his hand up to his chest, setting it on the buttons of his double-breasted suit jacket. The Turk worked on getting them undone as Rufus worked the zip on the navy jacket down.

For once, Rufus was rendered speechless due to Rude’s tongue being insistently in his mouth, the Turk working at more of his damned buttons while Rufus trailed perfectly manicured nails over the Turk’s muscular sides, digging them in and scraping them down flesh, smirking at the growl he earned in return for the abuse. The bald man curled his callused fingers into Rufus’ perfect hair, dragging his head back at a hard angle, biting and kissing down his throat as he ground their hips together. Rufus showed his appreciation in a chorus of growls and taunting, breathless gasps of laughter, further driving the Turk to aggression.

It was wonderful to have such a control over the usually emotionless man. Rufus was drunk on it; the feeling of pure, unadulterated power under his fingers was making his head spin as the Turk set teeth and tongue to his throat. The President hissed at that, digging manicured nails into the larger man’s scalp. “If you visibly mark me, I’ll blow your fucking balls off.” Rude laughed, the low and husky sound making Rufus tighten his grip and take over with grinding their cocks together, mingling the rumble with the hellish sensation.

“I never knew you were so dirty.” Rufus smirked at the Turk’s pick up of unintended innuendo and his chiding, hooking a finger into the bridge of Rude’s dark glasses and tossing them over his shoulder. Rufus didn’t know if he wanted to stare into the man’s light brown eyes or claw them out, just to make the Turk hurry up.

“There’s quite a bit your organization doesn’t know about me.” The blond purred, all cold and sweet business, grinding his monogrammed white boxer-briefs clad cock against the Turk’s hands, and then his mouth when the killer for pay dragged the material down.

“That’s what you’d like to think.” He almost snarled back at the larger man, but found his words cut off in the middle of a groan, arching up into the Turk’s mouth, one hand fisting tightly into the collar of his opened jacket. Rufus swore a low oath, jerking the Turk up when he was contented to tease over the tip of his flesh, looking down from under hooded eyes.

Rude was staring back.

Rufus felt another tingle of power add up to that unbearable, needy coil of feeling that was building up in his belly. He thrust up into the Turk’s mouth, relishing in the way the man gave in, doing as the blond pleased. A small, triumphant smirk twitched at the corners of his mouth, and Rufus bowed his head back as he felt his end approach, growling out what could have been a scrap of praise or another one of his jagged little insults. He was so close…

And then the warmth disappeared. Rude grabbed the hand twisted up on his jacket collar, squeezing it, making it lose it’s grip as he pulled back and stood up, leaving Rufus with a shocked and incredulous look. “What do you think you’re doing?” He hissed, sitting up, completely ready to let that bastard have it for teasing him--

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to take care of your own damn self?” The Turk purred, rifling around in Rufus’ desk, making the blond stiffen and push himself onto his desk so he could slide over towards the bald bastard, more than intent on kicking him in the head with a still booted foot, no matter how odd the attempt might have been with his pants around his ankles. As soon as he found his target, however, Rude has his ankle in hand and was shoving him back, calmly wedging himself between the blond’s knees, dragging him to the edge of the desk. “If I hadn’t seen your dick for myself, I would wonder about you…” The man smirked, tapping a bottle of lotion he had found in the desk’s contents. Rufus felt himself flushing angrily, rising up to punch the man, or bite him, or something.

He was cut off, Rude’s lips fastening to his again, laying him back down as the Turk reached back to grab Rufus’ chair, dragging it so that he was sitting on it, Rufus straddling his lap. Rude refused to break the kiss, and Rufus certainly wasn’t going to submit, not even when two callused fingers slicked with lotion began prodding at his entrance and then invited themselves in. He gave an almost purred growl, hips rocking down to meet the intrusion, swallowing Rude’s muffled laugh in the kiss, refusing to let Rude take all control.

Maybe the Turk had more preparation in mind, but Rufus had no time on his agenda for it. When the Turk reached for the lotion bottle again, the President smacked his hand away and looked down, pulling the tight white material that served as the last blockade. He grabbed the broader man’s flesh, giving it a few hard strokes before sinking himself down on it with a growl, biting one of the metal adorned ears. “Don’t forget who’s in control, Turk.” Rude laughed then, daring Rufus to prove it.

Rufus drove himself down on Rude viciously, to the point where any sort of horny onlooker might have been mistaken about who was using who. Rude had one arm tucked around the blond’s waist, offering him balance while the other hand served as friction for the President’s cock, stroking him hard with every punishing downward thrust. Rufus had an arm curled around Rude’s neck, the other digging gouges into the expensive leather of his armrest. Their growls of pleasure and moans of frustration fought for domination in the air; Rufus’ freer vocals providing an almost perfect contrast to Rude’s guttural snarls. Rufus had no problem with ignoring his own earlier warning, marking Rude in places his knew the man’s collar wouldn’t cover.

Rude got his revenge in five, neat red lines down the length of Rufus’ spine, making the pale man arch and finally come undone in Rude’s fist, clenching his inner muscles around the Turk’s cock in such a way as to make him come as well. Rufus couldn’t help but give a triumphant smirk, planting one last hard bite to the side of the Turk’s neck, breath coming in hard, heavy pants. Rude closed his eyes, managing to control his breathing much quicker than Rufus did, sitting there silently, still buried to the hilt in his President. The blond snorted after a long moment of silence, almost fondly laying his head on the melee fighter’s shoulder. “Listen to me next time.” He murmured, mind going back to his original intent without skipping a beat.

Rude snorted. “And if I don’t?”

Rufus smirked, grabbing the man’s chin and leaning in close. “I’m just going to have to remind you who’s the one giving orders around here, Turk.” He took dominance of that last kiss, in no hurry to move himself now that he had found contentment.

---

Outside the door, Reno flashed Tseng a know-it-all smirk, folding his arms. “You owe me, boss man.” Tseng gave him a bored sort of look, folding his arms over his chest.

“You know Rude will kill us if he finds us doing things on his desk. Again.” Reno gave a light hum then, cracking his knuckles and then his neck, one hand resting on the cocky jut of his hip.

“Then you’d better be quick about it, shouldn’t you?” Tseng suppressed a faintly amused snort, trailing after the strutting redhead as they made their way back to the Turk center of operations.