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The wind had brought the northern continent’s storm sweeping through Midgar as it travelled southward, bringing with it a thick shroud of snow coating the pavements and concrete buildings by the morning. Tseng’s apartment was already warm, permeated by the lingering smell of herbal tea coming from the kitchen, and when Reno awoke, he found an extra blanket had been draped over his shoulders. With his mind still hazy from the previous night’s restless dreams, some pleasant, others far from being so, he pulled on the velour robe left for him on the door, smelling vaguely of a citrus perfume. He opened the curtains to allow the white sunlight in, watching the stillness of outside, Midgar in stagnation.
It was a rare thing for them to be able to be like this, to exist in this quiet, unobtrusive space momentarily free of Turk responsibilities, sharing simple moments of tenderness without expectations, and with it naturally shedding one of those resistant layers they had become so accustomed to hiding behind. Or rather, it had been Tseng who tore down the wall between them and slowly lured Reno out until he could allow himself to just accept and enjoy genuine intimacy. In the traditional sense, romance was a strange, new thing, as was this thing between them. Neither of them were used to it, the vulnerability of those initial searching touches, the first kiss without restraint, the inevitability of words. For once Reno was rendered unable to speak then, the full extent of his wants dying away on his tongue with the first presentiment of a snowstorm coming.
In the kitchen, Tseng stood against the counter with his back facing him, uncharacteristically casual in a t-shirt and pyjama pants with his hair gathered over one shoulder. A deep grey fog had begun its descent upon Midgar, obscuring the view from the window, and granite coloured clouds slowly claimed their territory across the sky. The streets below were silent as a city left to dust in the aftermath of a catastrophe, save for the occasional car trudging through the roads that were yet to be cleared, or a helicopter overhead hurrying back to base before the next flurry of snow came down.
“There’s supposed to be another storm coming this way,” Tseng murmured against the rim of his mug, the contents having long ago gone cold and forgotten. He beckoned Reno towards him with a brief look over his shoulder. “Looks like we won’t be leaving this apartment anytime soon, not until some of the snow clears away at least.”
As if his voice had been the cue, the morning’s first drizzle of rain had come. It had only been a matter of mere minutes before the gentle snowfall turned to lashing hail, the sun now fully concealed behind the opaque veil of storm clouds, and with the wrath of Leviathan unleashed even the prospect of being called into work seemed impossible. The wind outside rattled against the window panes, and a sudden gust of cold had swept through the apartment.
“You’d better come back to bed, then,” Reno said when he noticed Tseng shivering, an unintentional desirous lilt seeping through his tone. He answered his invitation with a kiss, giving a playful tug of the belt of his robe. They stumbled backwards over each other’s feet with the boyish nature of inexperienced young lovers, their lips meeting once more as they passed through the door and into the warmth of the bedroom that kept them shielded from the storm outside.