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Rude abruptly pushes his keyboard aside, crossing his arms and staring at the two distractions bothering him: the sound of the ceiling fan slowly spinning above their heads and the sound of Elena pushing her pen repeatedly. While these two annoying sounds are routine by now during office hours, Rude can't help but focus on them, the intel he's looking into be damned.
All of a sudden, he hears a chair rolling and Elena's head pops up beside him. Since their – four – desks are connected, it isn't all that hard to chat like this. "Where is he?" Elena asks him, obviously having noticed the empty desk beside Rude's– the other empty desk belonged to Tseng for a long time before he got his own office down the west hallway.
Rude turns to her and simply shrugs in response. Reno has yet to give any sign of life – via message – today. Rude called him twice today, earlier, after twenty minutes had passed since he'd clocked in for work, but had received no answer. Just in case, Rude opens the inbox of his PHS, but finds nothing.
"I heard him complaining about a solo mission yesterday, could that be it?" Elena's quick to jump into conclusions, like she always is. But, again, like always, it's very useful to keep having fresh ideas.
"Or was there something else going on?" Elena then cocks up an eyebrow at him, which has Rude shrugging his shoulders once again.
"As far as I know, things with Tifa are going great," Rude finally gives her a proper answer, and it's the truth. After being enemies – and casual lovers, from what Reno used to tell him whenever Tifa came up in their conversations – for so long, they'd become a thing, officially now, only two months ago.
"Any important date, then?" Elena proposes, now crossing her arms over her chest. She looks genuinely frustrated at the lack of information on the topic, that's Reno disappearance. Rude doesn't feel as concerned, since it wouldn't be the first time Reno got to work later than he should. Then again, it's been two hours since he should've clocked in...
"Not that I know of," Rude, unsurprisingly, shrugs again. Now that "We could go check on him."
At his offer, Elena's face lights up, before she rolls her chair all the way back to her desk. "Okay, gimme a minute so I finish this mission report and we can go."
Rude can only hope they don't find a mess of booze and vomit at Reno's place.
"I think I've never been to his apartment," Elena breaks the silence that's been spreading between her and Rude, feeling uneasy– there's this bad feeling in her gut keeping her on high alert.
"There's a first time for everything," Rude comments, while he's behind the wheel. Elena stares through the window– she's not used to the slums, and had no idea Reno lived in these parts.
And before she knows it, the car's being parked. Rude gets his car keys out and pockets them, before he moves to open the glove compartment, slightly leaning over her space. When the compartment opens up, Elena finds a gun, an aspirin bottle and–
"This is where you keep your healing materia stashed?" Elena raises her brows at Rude, who flashes her a cocky grin. Out of the three of them, Rude's the one who always seems to have healing materia when they need it.
"Of course it is," Rude says as he closes the glove compartment, before he opens his door and exits the car, "come on, let's go."
Turns out they parked right in front of the building where Reno lives, Elena notices when Rude makes a bee line to the main hall, and she jogs to keep up with his pace.
Another thing Elena notices is that there's not a soul inside the residential building. There aren't even sounds of people living there. It's creepy at best.
Rude doesn't seem to care about that tiny detail, though, or perhaps he's grown used to it– by the way he's moving through the building, Elena can tell it isn't the first time he's been here, nor the second, nor the third. But considering that by the time Elena joined the turks, he and Reno had been long since best buddies, it isn't all that incredible that Rude knows his way around where Reno lives.
"We're here," Rude announces when he abruptly stops walking, snapping Elena out of her mental considerations. Then, she watches him tense and, after following his line of sight, Elena sees that Reno’s door has been left slightly open. They share a look with Rude before they both get their guns out.
Luckily, the door doesn't creak when Rude opens it so they make a quiet entrance inside. With a gesture of two fingers pointing to the left, Rude sends her to the other side of the apartment– which isn't all that big, fortunately. There's a big living room that connects two other rooms, which Elena figures they must be the bathroom and the bedroom.
Elena walks around the big couch and– "Rude!" She whisper-shouts, upon her discovery: Reno passed out right in front of the couch, and there is a red spot over his white tank top.
"Shit," Rude clicks his tongue, putting his gun down and kneeling beside Reno, moving the coffee table away so he can have some space. While he does that, Elena keeps her gun up and searches the rest of the house; while this could be easily a mission gone wrong, it could've also been an ambush. Less than likely, but not impossible.
Rude really wishes they had found Reno hangover instead of this. There's a big blood stain in Reno’s clothes and he remains unconscious, even though he's shaking him and calling his name. "Reno," Rude pats his face, which has taken a paler shade of color, "hey, wake up."
"Fuck!" Finally, Reno jolts awake, and even has the strengh to throw a punch. Rude, obviously, manages to duck away from the fist, and gently holds it to avoid any other incoming punch. "What the fuck...?" Reno mutters, going back down to rest on the ground as he blinks at him with a frown, slowly growing aware of his surroundings.
"There he is," Elena says with a smile, and it appears she's gone through the whole apartment and has come back, confident there are no intruders. "I'll go grab his medkit–"
"He doesn't have one," Rude stops her before she can waste any time they don't have, "but there should be bandages in the bathroom cabinet," he then adds and nods his chin to the door that leads to the bathroom– not that Elena needs any directions, he then remembers.
In theory, they shouldn't need any bandages if everything goes as it should with the healing materia, but one never knows.
"What happened?" Reno whispers, with one hand slowly reaching for his wounded side– Rude is quick to drive it away from there. Then, he slowly rolls the tank top up to see what he'll be working with.
"You tell me," Rude says, but there is no bite to his words. He's just worried, that's all. And the sight of the wound itself isn't helping much. "It looks like a job went wrong and you didn’t have time to lick your wounds."
"Shit..." Reno brings a hand to his face, "I feel like shit..."
"Makes sense," Rude dares to smile at Reno, even if it's the tiniest of smiles.
"Someone... nicked me with a knife before I could get to them, that's all," Reno seems to suddenly remember, and Rude just nods at the explanation, focusing on casting the healing materia. It will heal the whole wound at best, or deal with most of the injury at worst.
"Why didn't you call me?" Rude can't help but ask, while Reno's forced to keep his mouth shut because of his wound literally stitching itself back. "Or Elena? Or Tseng, even?"
"I would never call Tseng in this situation, dude," Reno barks a laugh, before he's hissing in pain and curling on himself. Bad timing, it seems.
"My bad," Rude shrugs, but it's nice to see Reno joking already.
"What about us, then?" Elena quips, making both him and Reno turn to look at her, as she stands right in front of the bathroom. Her gun is out of sight and now she has her arms crossed, with a pointed look just for Reno.
"Hey there, girl," Reno grins at her – even though he still looks tired, logically –, either oblivious or unbothered by her angry posture.
"Don't "hey girl" me," Elena's words are sharp like ice, and Rude deems it the perfect moment to step aside – both figuratively and literally. "You could've died, Reno," Elena approaches the fallen man and moves to stand over him, "you're such an asshole."
After that, Elena leaves the apartment. "Shit," Reno huffs, and when Rude turns back to him, he finds him trying to sit up.
"Careful," Rude tells him, helping him up and getting him on the couch. "I'll let Tseng know you called in for a sick day," he fishes his PHS out of his pocket and starts looking for Tseng's contact.
"Thanks, man," Reno mutters, moving on the couch so that his head is resting on the arm, stretching his legs over the other arm of the couch, like it's a bed.
"Do you want to let Tifa know what happened?" Rude asks him as soon as he's done sending the message to Tseng.
"Gods no," Reno says before he chokes and starts coughing, his body evidently still weak from the blood loss and strain it took yesterday. "She already has too much on her plate," Reno continues speaking once he's recovered from his little coughing fit. "The last thing she needs is having to take care of her stupid boyfriend."
"I don't think she would mind," Rude shrugs.
"That's the problem," Reno says with a fond smile– such a rare sight, Rude thinks with a light-hearted smile of his own.
"Okay, lovebird, you should be fine with the healing materia," Rude pats Reno's shoulder before he makes his way towards the kitchenette within the common room. "I'll cook you something and then I'll go back to the HQ, how does that sound?"
"Thanks, Rude," Reno tells him, sounding genuinely relieved and grateful. Rude tries not to look surprised, while he starts filling a pot with water to make a soup.
"Elena was right..." Reno then lets out a sigh, "it was stupid to come back home like a kicked dog instead of calling an ambulance or something, I... clearly, wasn't thinking."
"That's alright. Mistakes happen," Rude chooses a peaceful route, knowing anything else that wasn't a friendly advice would do more harm than good. "But, next time, please call us before you try to get back home, okay?"
"Will do, bud."
The next time Rude turns around to check up on him, he finds Reno soundly asleep on the couch, with his arms crossed but with a peaceful expression on his face as he rests. The soup will be a great dinner, then.