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I.
Tseng thinks of Reno as he looks into the hearth fire, watching it flicker as a frosty chill falls like a shroud over Junon, brought on by winter evening and the beginnings of snowfall. Emotional whiplash strikes him like a firm hand, hard enough to feel the ghost of a bruise blooming into his cheek; he hasn’t thought about him in a very long time, if eleven months stretching into a year constitutes as a very long time. He doesn’t know why he should have now. Midgar is a forgotten wasteland in the realms of his memory where he should never dare venture again, and with it, everything Shinra has been left behind there. Everything they had left on the pyre.
Tseng had before considered his stoicism a virtue, only realising too late that, really, all it had ever been was a mask for his cowardice, and his own inability to face his desires in spite of his self-imposed propriety that had no reason to exist when it was only him and Reno alone in the shadows of some cluttered storage cupboard, of the quiet of either’s apartment, where no Shinra eyes could reach them, nor regard him with scrutiny for his debauchery.
And Reno always noticed when Tseng’s mind was elsewhere. He had the tendency to pry him open and bleeding, try to look into those dark, hidden recesses of his soul but rather than it helping to propel him forward in the right direction, he always retreated back into himself further, an undead straying from the light lest it burns him alive. All because admitting what he wants, having his wants even be taken into consideration at all, was a place that was shrouded in uncertainty and shadows and even taking that first step into it was a tortuous ritual of humiliation.
He puts his head in his hands, grasps at his hair in uninhibited frustration. If I could turn back time…
Repeat the same mistakes because you never change.
II.
He had thought a change of scenery would help him to forget, even if only momentarily. He sits in the dark corner of a sleek, modern bar in Junon, so different from cheap dive bars in the Midgar slums that smell heavily of vomit, bad decisions and the presage of regret.
In spite of himself, Reno still thinks of Tseng in the most unlikely situations. Looking into a glass of cognac, Tseng.
The hum of a helicopter overhead, Tseng.
Deep spices of cologne detected from within a crowd, Tseng.
The memory of blood on his hands from his Turk days, when merciless, vicious murder came so easily as long as he was watching with that look of quiet amusement and want, Tseng. Always. Fuck him.
He supposes he had been poisoned with that common, boyish delusion that he could have changed him, saved him from the imprisonment of himself. But instead he had been rendered weak and stupid. He had let himself burn and where did that leave him now? Drowning in cheap wine in the solitude of a Junon bar, staring with barely disguised contempt at the crowds outside, faceless, nameless lovers walking in each other’s arms.
But there had been tenderness once, a time when vulnerability was hard, but not impossible. When intimacy came with more ease, and they had begun baring just that little more of themselves even though it felt like torture at times. The first time Reno had let him see those scars beneath his chest was an act akin to tearing open his ribs and presenting his heart raw and still beating. Nothing, not a gun nor a six foot long sword pointed to his head, could have frightened him more than that contemplative silence that followed, thinking of those words, never enough of a man, always a woman, possibly flitting through Tseng’s mind. He anticipated them to pass his lips. But they didn’t.
It turned out he knew, and he had waited for so long for Reno to tell him on his own terms.
He had made an offer to do his shots for him too, if it made it any easier, he said. It was Tseng’s own way of communicating that he wanted to learn how he should approach this, that he wanted to be tactful; he didn’t want this to be a point of tension between them. And when he would kiss those scars, harrowing in its tenderness, it always left Reno on the verge of crying which he seldom ever did, wanting to fall at his feet and make some foolish confession of love.
He never went there.
Always, I love when you do this , I love when you say that , but never, I love you . It was a sentence that tasted like holiness and felt like sacrilege on his lips. A thing that remained mutually understood, but only ever unsaid. Shown through actions, but sometimes even that was never enough.
Would it have changed a thing if he had actually said it?
III.
Tseng leaves the warmth of his Junon apartment in favour of the cold outside, clad in black, a long coat and thick scarf. His hair ends up dappled with a thin veil of snow, his face tinged pink.
He looks out at the great stretch of sea, where the horizon fades into obscurity and gives the impression of an unknown world behind that shroud of grey clouds and distant fog, beautiful. The groan of an incoming ship pulling into the harbour rattles the stillness, disrupting the quiet.
Tseng is a solitary figure under the cover of grey and white and falling snow with the general air of a social leper. Everybody else remains in the safety of warmth within the shopping district, bars and restaurants and shops, their homes. He likes Junon best when it’s like this, devoid of life.
Perhaps, he begins to think, he will try the quiet countryside life of Kalm next, or overseas to Gongaga or Costa del Sol. Maybe he could venture further north to Icicle Town, or to Wutai. Now, with the fall of Shinra, the Turks being no more, the world was his oyster, and for once there is the possibility of a future.
He thinks of Reno as he looks up at the sea of amber lights within apartment windows, listens to the echoes of laughter and humanity from the shopping district across the road. Don’t even go there.
Across the street, Reno smokes a cigarette on the threshold separating the comfort of inside from the merciless cold of outside, a habit he loathed himself for picking up again a few months prior, but what can you do? The smoke curls and writhes upwards, intermingling with misty breaths. He shivers.
A lone figure catches his attention a fair distance away, an indistinct blur amongst the backdrop of fog and snowfall, a wraith only visible within the shadows. Black coat, long hair…
Tseng. He doesn’t know why the name lingers about his lips before he sees the evidence of it being true.
The figure moves closer and out of the veil of obscurity, facial features given clarity. There’s a sweep of dark hair with a sudden gust of wind. For a moment they only stand at a distance, watching each other, the same question of why are you here on both of their minds but never spoken. Reno snuffs his cigarette. He thinks of going over to him, strangling him then kissing him until they both struggle to breathe.
Silent. Tseng takes another step to close the distance slightly, regarding Reno’s movements with caution. He notes that he hasn’t changed much in all these months of separation. His hair has faded slightly into a deep auburn colour, but still startling amongst a crowd, and even in winter he wears a shirt unbuttoned nearly halfway, some black silk affair that’s almost sheer beneath the yellow lights, rather nice. Divine, even. Subtlety, thy name is not Reno. Tseng finds himself smiling against his better judgement.
“Didn’t think I’d see you again,” Reno glowers as Tseng closes the gulf, frosty breaths misting between them.
“I could say the same to you.”
There’s an agonizing hesitation, and the silence seems to stretch out for eternity. There is so much Tseng wants to say to him during this moment. I was just thinking about you, I don’t want to admit that I miss you, I am an idiot, but you can’t deny that you played your own part in what happened between us. But the only sound to pass his lips was a quiet gasp as a flurry of cold blew past them, his face remaining still as marble in its earnestness.
Reno glances at him, equal parts contemptuous scrutiny, equal parts Despite everything, I still want you written into the flicker in his eyes.
“I want to talk to you.” Tseng says before his voice of reason could catch up with him. His breath catches in his throat.
“Then talk.”
“I mean, I want to talk to you inside. Can I get you a drink?”
Reno narrows his eyes slightly, his conscience willing him to not appear eager. He responds in acquiescence, with a warning that he’s not going to pretend to be enjoying himself, or Tseng’s company.
That’s good enough for him. In that sense, they were on the same page.
IV.
“I don’t know what you think there is to talk about,” Reno says over a glass of wine, trying to avert his eyes from Tseng’s face. He feels his own reddening from irritation, or more, something like…nerves? “We laid everything all out on the table before we ended it.”
“Our judgements were clouded by strong emotion back then. And, well, I think our feelings would have changed over the course of a year.”
Reno raises an eyebrow in question, but he doesn’t linger too long on Tseng’s words. In his year of near solitude it had become easy to forget they were in love once, but it doesn’t change the fact that they had been. Two and a half years of both their lives, the memories mostly clouded by bitterness and the prominence of the bad obscuring the good, as was often the case.
“Have yours?” he murmurs against the rim of his glass.
Tseng hesitates before he gives his answer, looking rather contemplative. “Naturally, yes. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect.”
“You been seeing anybody else recently, then?”
“No.” He looks at him gravely. “What about you?”
“Nah, I think I- actually, forget it.”
They finish their drinks in silence, a million unsaid words clawing at their throats, trying to lay themselves out in the open but ultimately being reined in before they could pass their lips. The deep purple light of the bar dims slightly, falling upon Reno’s face like a sombre shadow. He taps his finger against the table surface, sweeps some of his hair behind his ear, before making an offer of getting another drink.
While he’s occupied at the bar, Tseng puts his head in his hands, and groans. Perhaps he should tear off the bandaid and just say what’s on his mind, damn the consequences.
Because what does he have to lose?
Reno slides back into the seat opposite. An opportunity to be seized before it's lost. He doesn’t know where he intends to go with this, but he cannot stand another moment of silence between them, not when Reno is right there, within arm’s reach, and he doesn’t know why he’s so afraid of that prospect of letting him slip through his grasp again. Rip the bandaid.
“I was very repressed emotionally, to my own detriment,” Tseng says before the weight of conscience can put its foot down. His voice quivers slightly, threatening to falter completely. “I believe it was part of my nature as a Turk. As the boss. It’s a hard thing to unlearn when it’s drilled into you, I think you of all people should understand that. But, I like to believe I’m getting somewhere.”
Reno raises his eyebrows, but says nothing, the command to continue written into his expression.
“I suppose that’s why I struggled with telling you what I wanted. My wants have never mattered to anybody else before, I just had to do as I was told.”
“I kind of assumed that was your issue.”
Tseng glances at his face, notices a new, apparent softness in his expression.
“But what does any of this shit matter now?” Reno then says, rather blasé. “You could have told me this a year ago and maybe we wouldn’t be here right now, like this.”
“Yes, that’s very like you, Reno, acting like you weren’t also partly responsible.”
Tseng’s voice is cutting, sharp. Silence falls over them like a shadow, and Reno sinks back into his seat like a defeated dog.
Perhaps neither of them had really changed. Just when they were getting somewhere, an opportunity to be vulnerable and understand each other, only for either of them to make some attempt at a witticism, which in turn comes out sounding like childish snark or a dig, and all that old bitterness resurfaces. The carousel comes around once again.
“I’m sorry.”
Tseng looks at him. He hopes he appears rather introspective to disguise that he’s at a loss for words at the fact Reno was the first to apologise this time, or even at all.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats for fear his words have fallen on deaf ears. He takes a long sip of wine. “Yeah, you’re right, I was a dick sometimes. A lot of the time, okay, don’t look at me like that.”
“You were. But so was I, and it doesn’t stop me from missing you.” The bandaid had been ripped, he had opened Pandora’s box. No use in trying to stray away from the light when it cannot burn you now.
He catches the corner of Reno’s mouth quirk up in barely concealed amusement. “Ah, so you miss me, then? And you decided to do nothing about it?”
“I think if I turned up at your place, you would have slammed the door in my face without giving me a chance.”
“Hm, it’s funny you should say that, since the reason why I even came to Junon was because Elena told me you were shutting yourself up in some shitty little flat down here.”
“It’s not shitty nor little, it’s a moderately sized apartment, very nice, actually. But what would she know?” Tseng brings his glass to his lips, smiling against the rim, but he feels no need to disguise it. Reno huffs a laugh, thick with an almost sultry lilt. It seemed an age since he had heard him laugh like that, how much he missed it…
“What’s wrong with us? We’re like two stupid teenagers,” he says. “Let’s stop dancing around what this conversation is really about, Tseng.”
“Yes, let’s.” He clears his throat. “So, you came here specifically to see me…”
“You’re deflecting.”
“But surely it accounts for something, isn’t that right?”
“I didn’t actually intend to speak to you, I just wanted to see if… to see if I could find you hanging around. I just wanted to see you.” Hesitation. Tseng gets the impression that he’s nervous. “Who am I kidding? I’m not even kidding you. Okay, you got me cornered, I’ll admit it, I still want you back. I don’t think I ever stopped. Loving you, I mean, and wanting you.”
Tseng blinks. It seems as though the outside cold and snowfall has grown ruthless and infiltrated the sanctuary of the bar, leaving him rattled. Not loving this, or loving that, what you’ve said or what you’ve done but loving you, a word simple enough in its foundations spoken like a benediction. Internally he wills Reno to say it again, say it a hundred times over.
Instead he leans back in his seat, his countenance at ease, stone cold as usual. His voice is steady as he speaks, his frantic heart leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. “I want you too. So badly.”
There is dappled light where there were once shadows, uncertainty shedding itself to eagerness, rekindling the old flame of desire that had become stranger to him in all of the months of loneliness. Tseng hurriedly finishes his wine, watches Reno’s face. He feels himself on fire and relishes the burn. That nearly forgotten yet all too familiar delicious burn of wanting.
It’s almost embarrassing how easy it was to say. All those moments of conflict and tension only for it, in the end, to be so easy.
Or perhaps now he has gained the virtue of hindsight to see what he had once, and know he cannot lose it again.
When they leave the bar, Tseng utters a feverish, “Come here,” under his breath as he grasps for the lapels of Reno’s jacket and kisses him, tasting the dark fruits of wine on his lips, the tenderness a disguise for something more carnal. When they slip through the door of his apartment they fall into each other with ease, encased in the lingering warmth of the aftermath of the fire. The steady thrum of I love you echoes through each heartbeat in tandem, sighed against each other’s lips and flushed skin, the previously unsaid nature of the words making the utterance of them a kind of salvation. And now this newfound virtue of hindsight has made it so easy.
Their hands are exploratory but tentative, communicating an understanding, a mutual acknowledgement: each permission granted is a privilege, a sacrament meant to be taken kneeling. When Tseng withdraws it’s to murmur everything he wants against the tender flesh of Reno’s neck, tugging aside his collar to reach his shoulder, an ex-sinner kneeling in prayer as he kisses those jagged scars. He welcomes being pried open and bleeding with the grace of a martyr.
There is no Shinra to look over their shoulders for anymore, no responsibilities casting a shadow of gloom over their day to day lives, no presentiments of old insecurities trying to make an unwanted appearance. For now they are free to enjoy this intimacy, let themselves be loved with ease as the snow outside falls with the gentleness of caressing, the sporadic gusts of wind reverberating against window panes in a rhythmic heartbeat.