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Tough Love	By : tstearns Category: Final Fantasy VII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 808 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Sleeping
is my favorite hobby. And do it really well. If it was a sport, I could
sleep for my country. X-treme Sleeping.
Object would be to see who could sleep the longest under the worst
possible conditions: edge of a 500 foot cliff wall, strapped to the back of a
spooked chocobos, nuclear explosion, Heidegger's staff meetings. Ok, so that
last one isn�t really all that much of a contest, but I�d take the gold in all
of �em anyway. I�d be Grand Sleep Champion Master of the World, and I�d be happy
to challenge anyone who thinks they can beat me.

I�ve heard rumors that in some places there are people out there who are up at
the crack of dawn, jogging in parks, making breakfast, seeing their kids off to
school. Bright-eyed. Bushy tailed.

Assholes.

See, when I get up in the morning, the first thing that I like to do is take a
nap. After that, I guess I�m a little tired so I need to lay down and rest for
a while. And once that�s over, it's been a long day so might as well turn in a
little early. Yep, nothing beats sleeping. One of the few things left in the
world that I take completely seriously. And no, I�m not lazy I just happen to
be �reposefully gifted.�

Which is why I was really sorry that I was gonna have to wake up long enough to
kill the son-of-a-bitch who was trying to wake me up.

�Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.�

That voice... I knew it from somewhere. Must�ve heard it in a dream. Oh well...
Where was I? Oh yeah.

Snore.

"Reno, this isn�t funny, we don�t have time for this."

Was something funny? Had I made a joke? Didn�t think I had...

Next thing I knew, my comfy little cocoon of blankets somehow evaporated. Now
that was just soooo not nice. Time to take some drastic measures. "Lemmee
'lone," I mumbled around a mouthful of pillow. There. If that wasn't
threatening enough to make them stop, I didn't know what would. I curled over
on my side in a fetal ball and pawed around for the closest thing that
resembled warmth. I got�an arm? Somewhere in the foggy depths of my brain, I
realized something should have registered with me there. But I was sleeping.
And I was too comfy to care who it belonged to.

That voice again, hovered right over my ear. It was not a happy voice.
"Reno...you are impossible."

Oh, shit. I knew that voice now.

That caused my eyes to open, and everything flooded back to me at once. I
looked over to see Tseng standing, fully dressed, minus his navy blazer that
completed our uniforms, arms folded and looking totally unperturbed. And he was
staring back at me as I laid there totally naked in the middle of his bed.

So it hadn't just been a dream after all.

A tiny twitch pulled at one corner of his mouth. It might even have been a
smile. "Morning, sunshine."

I scowled and let out a heartfelt groan that tapered off into a whimper as I
rubbed my face in the pillow. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't...

Last night, long after the bathwater had turned tepid and both of us were
approaching the status of becoming the two biggest sentient raisins ever to
inhabit the planet, we grudgingly removed ourselves from the tub and dried off.
On the way to the bedroom, I�d twacked Tseng in the ass with my bath
towel. He�d chased me into his bedroom and tackled me on top of his
bed. That started things all over
again. This time, I�d used my mouth for something other than talking, and for
once he didn�t object. He said he always knew there had to be another way
to get me to shut up. Yeah, well, if
he�d suggested it before, I might�ve shut up a lot sooner. But I was a quick
learner�after all, I had one helluva teacher.

Satiated
and spent, we curled up next to each other under the cool sheets and fell
immediately to sleep, clinging to one another like a lifeline all night.
There was nothing I wouldn't give to be able to be back there right now. But morning had come way too quickly.

And it just wasn't friggin' fair!

"Go 'way," I muttered, scooting my way over to him, despite what I�d
just said.

"Reno, what are you doing? Besides
being difficult?"

�C�mon,
Tseng,� I wheedled. �Come back to bed. It�s much more fun in it than out of it.
I got a few ideas.� I tried flashing
him a charming, if not somewhat sleepy smile, sinking into my pillow and
feeling my eyelids pull down again. I thought I�d convinced him there a moment
as he sat next to me on the bed and I felt his hands rest on my shoulders, and
I lolled and sighed at his touch.

Then
Tseng shook me like a tambourine.

Goddammit.

"Get up. Now," he growled. "You have twenty
minutes to get ready."

"I only need five," I grinned, suggestively.

Tseng fixed me with and shadowed stare and squared his shoulders. "I
have noticed," he hissed. �Perhaps if you took a little extra time to get
yourself together, it wouldn�t be so obvious.�
He turned on his heel and left the room.

Ouch. That stung. And in very shallow place that was extremely soft
and vulnerable to me�my ego.

Oh well, up 'n at 'em. He'd gotten me that time, for sure. Not that
I would let it happen again, mind you. He was fair game now to all my
digs and jibes, no special treatment anymore.

I climbed out of bed and went over to the chair that Tseng must've brought my
clothes from the other room and laid them out on. I arched an amused
eyebrow at something that hadn't been in the ensemble before: a pair of black,
silk boxers. I couldn't help but grin at that. Maybe he forgot I
preferred to be au natural, or maybe he just figured that I�d never
listened to my mother about always wearing clean underwear. Not that I
had had a mother to listen to...but that�s neither here nor there. If
Tseng wanted to 'mother' me, so be it. Who was I to argue?

I got dressed, adjusting to the feel of the extra layer of clothing, and did
the splash-the-water-over-the-face-and-in-the-hair thing. Few minutes
later, I was looking as good as I ever do, if not a little weary. Hell,
who was I kidding? I looked like I�d flat out been hit by a bus. A
six-foot-one, 180-pound Asian bus named Tseng, to be exact. I smiled at
myself in the mirror and walked out to the living room...

There are two things I had never expected to witness in my life. One of them is
my own funeral, and barring any life-after-death superstitions or a really bad
ruling on a half-assed autopsy, I still expect that one. The other was to see
Tseng--strong, silent leader of a group of the most feared henchmen in the
world--leaning against the counter of his kitchen, drinking tea from a rounded
mug with a smiley face painted on it.

It was the funniest thing I�d ever seen him do.

I snickered unsophisticatedly before I could even stop myself, then choked back
a laugh as the cheerful yellow face seemed to superimpose over his when he
drank from it. Even Tseng couldn�t make that look dignified. He
shot me a dark look over the rim of the cup and tipped it down. "Would
you like some tea?" he grumbled, obviously not finding anything at all
funny.

I sobered immediately upon hearing his tone and shrugged, walking over to the
counter. "Sure." I�m not a tea drinker in the least.
I�m not a coffee drinker, either. In fact I stay away from most
things that don�t have a proof label or aren�t glowing radioactive green with
enough sugar and caffeine to power a small city. I have limited tastes,
but since he was offering, might as well give it a shot.

Wasn�t half bad, either. At least it gave my mouth something to do during
the non-existent conversation. I leaned against the counter that divided
us those few short paces and sipped the hot tea enduring the blanket of
silence, and if I wasn�t so damned tired I might�ve had a thought occur to
me...

What if he really was regretting this?

Nope. No way. Call it denial, call it self-preservation. I
was just gonna tuck that nasty little thought in a teeny little box marked
'airmail' and send it off to the other side of my brain. Not going there.

Finishing our tea, Tseng ushered me out the front door of his apartment,
pausing a moment to grab my new electro-nightstick thingiemajigger. As he
turned away from me to lock the front door, I reached out and rest a reassuring
hand on his shoulder and felt him go completely rigid. "You
ok?" I asked in all sincerity.

He hesitated a moment and shrugged off my hand without meeting my gaze and
finally answered, "I�m fine," clipping off the end of his words as we
walked in silence.

Oh,
bullshit. I didn�t need x-ray vision see through that. Something was
definitely wrong. Then again...this was a rather awkward position we�d
managed to put ourselves in. How often do you take home one of your
employees to spend the night and drive them into work the next day? By my
accounts, this was it�at least for us.
Even more awkward was the fact that two guys had just emerged from the
apartment together after a late night. Imagine if the Shinra rumor mill
got a hold of this one. And while I
couldn�t give a damn about my own reputation, I did care that Tseng had his
to protect.

Tseng's car was still parked at the bar we'd been at the night before.
Thankfully, it was actually still in once piece when we arrived back at
it. The walk over had been almost painfully silent, and not once did
Tseng look over at me to meet my gaze or anything. Not that I was
expecting him to hold my hand the whole way, but geeze...

I may not always recognize the best time to shut my mouth, but this was one of
those rare times when I did. I didn't say a single word on the way over.
I tried to come up with the 'magic words', the one thing I could say that
would ease the tension between us.

"If anyone asks, we'll just tell 'em I lost my keys," I said breezily
as he started the ignition to his car. Simple enough lie, easy to
remember. It would certainly explain why I had abandoned my car, and why
I had needed a place to stay. I watched him out of the corner of my eye
for a moment, his mouth tensed in a tight line and his jaw muscles worked as he
gnashed his teeth. Then he nodded curtly and drove off without another
word.

Note to self: Tseng is not a morning person.
- 5
- 6
- 7
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Tough Love