Work Text:
It’s early afternoon when the text comes, and later Reeve will chuckle a little at the irony of it coming while he’s typing on some report or another with one hand and eating his lunch with the other.
(Tacos, incidentally. From whatever truck Reno found parked closest to the office, delivered with a side of not-so-veiled threat to physically drag Reeve out of his office to order off said truck in person if he didn’t go on his own tomorrow.)
It’s the standard text notification noise and it only comes once, so clearly it’s not an emergency or from anyone he needs to pay attention to at that very moment and it can wait until he’s got a hand free. Once he does, he finds a single text:
I have a (possibly odd) question if you have a moment.
From Tseng.
Oof, Reeve thinks, grimacing a little.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk to Tseng at all. It’s just... uncomfortable. After everything that happened between them. After Tseng just up and dropped off the grid without a word to anyone except the terse handwritten resignation letter he left Rufus, and then months later resurfaced just as suddenly by way of one awkward phone call to Aerith. After that first face-to-face conversation he and Tseng had, where they just started to unpack a little of their extensive and overstuffed baggage with one another.
Of course he wants them to be able to have a normal damn conversation like normal damn grown adult men without it being weird. Of course he wants to believe that Tseng genuinely wants to earn his trust back the right way. It’s just jarring to be going about his business as normal and just out of the blue hear his phone ping and see a text from Tseng lurking there in his messages.
Still, it could be worse. He could have called.
Something wrong? he texts back. Work-related? he adds, because he’s not sure he can handle anything personal coming from this man on Organization time. Or at any time at this point, really, but never mind that.
Sort of, Tseng replies. I’ve been on a job with Vincent the last few days, just noticed something about him and I’m a little afraid to ask him point blank.
Okay. That’s a relief, on at least two levels. It’s at least sort of work-related, and he’s working with Vincent which means he’s staying out of trouble. But Tseng also seems concerned, and it’s about Vincent, which is the opposite of a relief. Go ahead, Reeve replies, and he waits.
It takes a long time for a response to come, long enough that Reeve thinks something might have come up that’s more urgent than a cryptic text conversation. And then:
Does he ever eat?
Of course he does, Reeve starts to reply. Then he stops, thumb hovering over the send button.
He thinks about it for a long time, long enough that Tseng probably thinks he’s had something more urgent than a cryptic text conversation come up.
Has... has he ever actually seen...
Slowly, Reeve backspaces that of course he does into digital oblivion and instead replies:
Can I get back to you on that later?
Reeve does not get back to Tseng on that later, because he spends the rest of the day racking his brain and still doesn’t come up with a definitive answer. And it keeps him up a lot later that night than he’ll ever admit, for a number of reasons.
Partly because his brain thinks it’s been handed a puzzle to solve, and now it’s going to sit there inside his head doing just that into the wee hours of the morning whether he likes it or not. Partly because now that he’s thinking about it, he’s also worrying about it. Because, well... he kind of... he might sort of be thinking about...
Look, let’s just call it what it is.
He’s interested, okay? He is interested. In Vincent. Yes, like that. And why shouldn’t he be? Vincent is a decent guy and he’s easy on the eyes and Reeve is very single and as long as he’s not being creepy or gross about it, he’s allowed to be interested. And to worry a little. Okay, more than a little now. God. Okay, yes, Reeve’s default state is worry and it’s not like Vincent doesn’t already have enough awful stuff in his history to worry about, except...
Except up until now he’s never specifically thought about whether or not Vincent is eating. And if it’s something Tseng noticed and decided was worth worrying about...
Okay, he thinks, in an effort to get his brain to please just let this go so he can sleep because he has an early meeting in the morning, let’s just... think this through logically. Of course he eats. Right? Everyone does.
Except... can he remember a single time he ever actually witnessed that?
He didn’t have Cait watch Vincent too closely or too often while they were chasing Sephiroth, for a number of reasons, many of which involve Vincent’s marksmanship and/or that thing where he sort of literally turns into a monster when he gets angry. After that... well, how often has he really spent enough time around the man to tell? Vincent comes by the office once in a while looking for work. In and out in maybe an hour, usually less. Once or twice he’s come home to find Vincent hanging out in his living room with whatever Turks decided to break in for funsies that day; once or twice he’s tagged along when another Avalancher decided to come harass him. He doesn’t remember if any of those occasions involved the ordering of pizza. And a few months ago there was that Midwinter dinner at New Seventh Heaven, but apparently something urgent came up and Vincent had to leave for work-related reasons before the food hit the table.
But so what if he can’t remember the last time he actually personally saw Vincent eat something? Maybe it’s just a weird hangup of his, maybe he’s just self-conscious about eating around other people. Really, Reeve thinks, has he ever met a single Turk, current or former, that didn’t have some kind of weird hangup about something? He’s still not used to seeing Tseng wear actual colors; Vincent being nervous about eating where anyone else can see him would be right about the same level of weird hangup as Tseng’s carefully curated hipster-black-right-down-to-his-underwear wardrobe.
(this is neither the time nor the place, Reeve thinks, to think about Tseng’s underwear but never mind that)
So there he has it. Of course Vincent eats, just like anyone else. He’s just got some weird hangup about it, that’s all. Puzzle solved. Now he can sleep.
Okay, his brain says. It sounds infuriatingly unconvinced. Just for the sake of argument... what if he doesn’t?
Reeve cracks one eye open and glares at his alarm clock. It’s four in the morning. For fuck’s sake.
Fine. God. Fine. Just for the sake of argument: if--if--Vincent doesn’t eat, clearly he doesn’t need to. Simple as that. No, Reeve doesn’t know the full extent of exactly what Hojo did to the man and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t ever want to, but he’s aware of the whole immortality thing and it’s not that far of a stretch to infer that, being immortal, Vincent doesn’t need to eat. It’s... not especially pleasant to think about, considering what Reeve knows about him, but it’s a logical, rational explanation.
And maybe he really doesn’t need to eat, but...
Reeve’s brain goes, once again, exactly the last place it needs to go at four in the morning when he’s got an early meeting: those long legs in leather pants that he dutifully averts his gaze from every time Vincent shows up at his office or his apartment because, again, he would like to look but he does not want to be gross about it. Hell, this is not even remotely the first time he’s found himself awake at some ungodly hour thinking about Vincent’s legs.
Except this time, he’s not thinking about what it might feel like to run his hand up one of them. He’s thinking about those long, slim legs connected to those narrow hips and that even narrower waist disappearing under--come to think of it, has he ever seen Vincent without that cloak on? It practically swallows him from waist to sharp chin and cheekbones and--
And how sure is he, Reeve thinks, the thought heavy and cold in his head, that Vincent is just... naturally built like that?
...oh, hell.
Reeve fumbles around on the nightstand for his phone. It’s four in the morning and he has an important early meeting but fuck it, Tseng put all this in his head, he can damn well share in the misery.
I’m not sure he does, he texts, and then he puts his phone on silent and tries to sleep.
He’s expecting snark when he comes out of that meeting and checks his phone, and he knows it would be at least somewhat justified depending on what time zone Tseng is currently passing through, but he finds none. Just a simple that’s what I was afraid of.
Except Reeve knows Tseng well enough to know that nothing from him is ever that simple. I’m not going to confront him about it, he replies, maybe a little snippy, but best to get that out in the open and done with.
Did I ask you to? Ah. There’s the snark. But the next text softens the edges of it: I’m not sure either of us should, but it’s going to gnaw at me until someone does. A pause. Then: Oh, hell. Maybe I -am- asking you to.
Well. There it is. What about Aerith? Maybe he’d take it better from her.
Another pause, longer. I think he might take it best from you, actually.
Reeve waits for Tseng to elaborate. He doesn’t. Reeve is sure as hell not going to ask him to, because asking his ex why a man he’s currently kind of interested in might possibly take a confrontation about a delicate and very personal subject better from him is a whole new level of awkward and Reeve has no desire to go there today or ever.
What about both of us? he replies before his rational mind can override that, and he instantly regrets it. Even if Vincent hasn’t heard the story, just being in the same room with Reeve and Tseng as they tiptoe around each other has probably told him more than he could ever want to know.
Well, screw it. In for a gil, in for a grand. Come over next time you’re both in town. I’ll make dinner and just... not make a big deal about it and see what happens. Yes. He is actually doing this. He is actually offering to cook dinner for both his ex and the man he’s currently kind of interested in, the latter of whom might not actually need or want to eat at all! There is no possible way this could end in disaster and possibly multiple proverbial and literal shots fired!
A disturbingly long stretch of radio silence, during which no matter how hard Reeve tries to make himself, he can’t quite tear himself away from the screen.
That’s a brilliant idea, actually, Tseng finally replies. If we’re wrong, we never have to say another word about it.
Reeve almost asks what happens if they’re right and decides against it.
He almost asks again a week later when Tseng informs him they’ll both be passing through Edge in a few days and again decides against it.
So here’s the sixty-four thousand gil question: what do you cook when both your ex (who you’re trying to rebuild a somewhat civil relationship with) and the man you’re currently kind of interested in (who may or may not have one or more food-related hangups and who may or may not actually eat, at all, ever) are coming over for dinner?
Nothing with ambiguous etiquette attached to it (i.e. fried chicken with bones in). Nothing potentially messy (i.e. spaghetti). Nothing extravagant. Nothing complicated. Nothing overly spicy. All of which narrows the field to a few comfort-food staples, excluding the loaded baked potato soup he and Tseng used to be so fond of after a rough day because that is the last piece of baggage Reeve wants to start unloading tonight.
Turns out it doesn’t really matter what he cooks. The fact that he’s cooking for Tseng at all is dredging up feelings he’d rather not deal with right now, and when Tseng walks in with Vincent in tow and smells Reeve’s home cooking, something flashes across his eyes that hints that it’s mutual.
We’re not going to make a big deal out of it, Reeve had said, and now he’s a little worried that it’s going to become a big deal for reasons completely unrelated to their concerns about Vincent. “Hey,” he says, like he hasn’t spent the whole day popping antacids over this. “Come on in.”
“Thank you,” Tseng says, like an autoresponse, then there’s just the faintest shake of his head. “Something smells good.”
“It’s, uh--” Reeve ducks back into the kitchen, mostly for the purpose of giving himself a valid reason to not stand there unpacking his mental baggage while Tseng and Vincent relieve themselves of their literal baggage. “Give me a few minutes, just need to get the pie out...”
“Pie?”
That was Vincent. One word, an echo of Reeve’s own. Not much to go by. But he... sounds interested?
“Oh,” Tseng says, and he does know Tseng enough to suss out the tone of one word from him, and that tone is valiant but perhaps insufficient effort to sound casual. “Did I forget to mention Reeve offered to feed us tonight? What were we having, anyway?”
“Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole--it’s full of bacon, you know--” Reeve can’t bring himself to look at either of them while he extracts the pie from the oven and sets it on the counter to cool. “And, uh, apple pie, there’s ice cream for it if you want?” There is no immediate response. “Vincent? Would you like a plate, or...”
“Sure,” Vincent replies, without the slightest hesitation, and with all the casual ease Tseng just tried so hard and failed so utterly to convey, and Reeve is certain he cannot have possibly heard that right.
When he takes a little risk and turns around, he sees the same written clear across Tseng’s face.
“Something wrong?” Vincent asks. Is he on to them?
Are you going to tell him? Reeve thinks at Tseng as loudly as he can. Since you’re the one who brought it up in the first place? Or are you going to make me do it?
As far as he knows, Tseng is no psychic, but his face must be doing something to convey all of this clearly enough. Tseng clears his throat softly. “Ah--it’s nothing, just--well, come on then. Have a seat.”
Coward, Reeve thinks, but he doesn’t explain it either.
Reeve isn’t sure what he’s expecting to see when he sets Vincent’s plate down. He thinks he might have expected Vincent to take a polite nibble or two, maybe to halfheartedly graze on it and leave him and Tseng trying to small-talk their way through the first home-cooked meal they’ve shared since... never mind that. It doesn’t matter.
What matters right now is that he absolutely didn’t expect... this.
Small talk? Who has time for small talk right now? Who has the mental capacity for small talk while Vincent Valentine, six feet tall and skinny as a rail, is sitting there making meatloaf and mashed potatoes and green beans disappear at a pace that borders on alarming? And if he were frantically bolting that food down like he was starving, Reeve would probably be a little less gobsmacked here, but he’s not. He’s eating quickly, yes, but in that efficient, methodical way people who are used to having to eat fast and run tend to--well, the way most of the current and former Turks Reeve has known tend to, come to think of it.
Vincent doesn’t seem to notice the absence of small talk at the table, or care if he does notice it. He doesn’t try to start any himself, but that’s on brand for him anyway. He asks Tseng to pass him the ketchup once. He asks Reeve if there’s more tea once. He asks if there's enough for seconds when he’s cleaned his plate. Other than that, he says nothing.
But two bites into his second plate, he looks up. Reeve doesn’t know what kind of look is on his own face, but if it’s anything like the vaguely horrified fascination on Tseng’s, he can’t really blame Vincent for looking at both of them like they’ve lost their entire minds. “What?”
“I’m just... glad you like it?” Reeve half-laughs, still not really sure he’s actually seeing this. “It’s fine! There’s plenty! It’s just...” He glances over at Tseng. Tseng does not offer assistance. “To be honest I didn’t think you’d...”
Something flickers across Vincent’s face and he pointedly puts his fork down with a soft grumble. Not entirely unkind, just... that particular brand of annoyance that comes from being worried about when the person being worried about doesn’t think it’s warranted. “Aerith put you up to this.”
“Wh--” Tseng’s eyes go a little wide. “Aerith!? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’ve already been over this with her. She said she’d drop it. Obviously she didn’t and now she's got you two in on it.”
“No!" Reeve splutters. "We--she didn’t--” Did they... did they really just need to go ask Aerith what was up with Vincent’s eating habits? Was that really all they needed to do, all this time? (Or perhaps, Reeve wonders with a little grimace, should they have just... stayed in their lane about this whole issue?) “We just--”
“We were worried,” Tseng says. “It just occurred to me the last time we worked together that I’d never seen you eat, I asked Reeve if he’d noticed the same and he said he did, so... no, Aerith had nothing to do with this. It’s squarely on us.”
“It’s on you, actually,” Reeve says. “You’re the one that texted me about it.”
“And you’re the one who suggested this fine dining experience.” Ah. There’s the snark again. It’s almost a relief. “At any rate... Vincent, you do understand why we might have been concerned, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I know what it probably looks like to you.” Vincent shuts his eyes and huffs out a sigh. “I don’t do it on purpose.”
Reeve doesn’t say anything to that. Neither does Tseng. Given what they both know of Vincent’s history, he’s sure they’ve both considered that possibility and he’s sure Tseng is just as relieved as he is to hear that it isn’t the case.
“I don’t get hungry. And my sense of time is... weird. From the...”
“The thirty-year nap,” Reeve offers, and Vincent nods. “So... you literally just forget.”
Vincent shrugs a little. “If someone puts food in front of me I’ll eat it. Otherwise... yeah. I forget.”
“For... days at a time,” Tseng says, and there’s something in his tone that indicates he’s not sure any of this is true but he doesn’t know where to even begin to dispute it.
“Mhm.” Vincent just picks his fork up again and makes another clump of mashed potatoes vanish.
Reeve, for his part, decides not to press the issue further, grimacing a little as he thinks of the current Turks’ very credible threats to bodily remove him from his office if he “forgets” lunch. And of that one time Elena actually followed through on it. And of the times long before that, when Tseng gently scolded him for skipping lunch to deal with some emergency or another, when they were still...
No. Best not to go there right now.
“I don’t have much room to call you out on that,” Reeve says instead, with a weak little chuckle. “But would you consider coming over for dinner when you’re in town? I’d feel better if you did.”
Vincent raises an eyebrow, a few speared green beans halfway between plate and mouth. “Both of us?”
Tseng clears his throat and looks a little like he’d rather throw himself in front of a train than hear the answer to that question.
Reeve doesn’t know where Vincent spends his nights when he’s in town and at this point he feels like they’ve fussed over the man’s well-being enough for one visit. Maybe they’ll press for details another time, but for now they just bid him good night once he’s finally had his fill (three slices of pie with ice cream!) and watch him disappear into the dark.
Tseng, for his part, has a standing reservation on Reno and Rude’s couch. But he insists on staying to do the dishes. Reeve is not strictly comfortable with being alone with Tseng in his apartment at this hour, but right now he feels a little like a balloon that’s had half its air let out and the offer of free cleanup help is too good to refuse.
“It’s the least I can do,” Tseng says as he’s scrubbing the caramelized ketchup out of the meatloaf pan. “You’re right, of course, I was the instigator here. If I’d known you’d worry this much about him, I wouldn’t have said anything to you.”
“No, it’s fine.” It actually is. “I’m glad you told me.”
“It was kind of you to extend that standing invitation to both of us. You didn’t have to.” Tseng rinses pink suds out of the pan, inspects it for further stubborn meatloaf debris and, finding none, sets it in the drying rack. He says nothing else. He clearly wants to.
“Use your words,” Reeve prods, and Tseng lets out a soft puff of a laugh.
“If you were to ever decide that... well, that three's a crowd... I’ll understand if you ask me to make my own dinner arrangements.”
Reeve flinches like he’s bitten down on a stray piece of aluminum foil in a baked potato and very much wants to tell Tseng to please stop using words. “I said both of you could come. I meant it.”
“Hm.” That plate is clean. It’s been clean. Tseng keeps absently scrubbing at it anyway. “Are you ever going to ask me why I thought he’d take being confronted about his eating habits best from you?”
“No.” No, for a number of reasons, none of which Reeve wants to elaborate on right now.
He hears a soft chuckle come out of Tseng. It’s the one that always precedes some self-deprecating bit of bullshit, of the sort Reeve has been very clear about not wanting to listen to. “You could do far worse than him. You have, in fact--”
“Tseng.”
“Right. Sorry.” He clears his throat and goes back to the dishes. “Just a thought.”
“I can’t.” It’s the truth. So what if Reeve doesn’t say exactly why it’s the truth? “I just... I can’t. Not with him, not with anyone else, and I don’t want to talk about it right now. Please drop it.”
“Fair enough.” Tseng goes back to scrubbing dishes and doesn't say another word about it, and Reeve isn't sure whether that's a relief or not.