Happy Birthday was made for you

*A/N* As most of you have by now figured out, I suck at chapter titles. Just enjoy the story and ignore my lame attempts at naming them. Thanks. ^____^

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Rude's expression as he returns strongly suggests that laughter sometimes isn't the best medicine. He slams the ball onto the table, almost hard enough to cause a small crater with it, and is about to spit out a derogatory remark to Reno's insult when he realizes it isn't an insult.

He glares over his shoulder, flushed up from the neck, though still blessedly invisible of it fro the dim around them, but his expression softens marginally when Reno offers the cue. Rude should have known these stupid sticks had something to do with it. "I need something heavier, then," he mutters. "I was gauging it by the weight of the stick in accordance to the force needed for the path I was aiming for."

He snaps his mouth shut before he starts prattling about force and reactions, knowing Reno couldn't care less about the science of boom as long as the boom is impressive. He goes for his third beer and drains it, hardly shuddering by this point, glances back at the table, brow furrowing again, before he gives an imperceptible nod. "Show me."


Reno stares at Rude blankly as the Turk starts explaining things like force ratios and trajectories. He's never used anything like that when setting up a shot before, preferring to just eyeball it all for the most part, but Rude is a different breed of person all together and his way of doing things is usually a tad more....planned than Reno's.

The redhead tends to pop off without thinking things through where Rude is always measured and careful. It's a trait that makes Rude a great Turk and Reno a great pool player. He takes the cue from Rude and sets it back on the wall behind the table before turning and watching Rude down another beer.

He didn't mean to piss the guy off with the whole laughter thing, in all honesty it was more nervousness than anything Rude did, and he smiles in relief when the big guy agrees to let him show how it's done. Reno walks around the table till he spots a good and fairly straight shot for Rude to make and then gestures the man over.

He presses the cue into Rude's hand, his excitement of the game flooding back into his veins as it always does when he plays and for a moment, Reno forgets the night's awkwardness in favor of teaching his friend how to do something that he enjoys so much himself.

Reno tugs on Rude's jacket to move the larger man into position and then comes up on his other side, draping his arm across Rude's back and taking hold of the cue with that hand. It never dawns on him how inappropriate this might seem and his eyes stay locked on the table with that same look of impending triumph in his eyes that he gets when he plays normally.

He uses his left hand to guide Rude's out farther onto the stick, keeping his right hand back to give the force he'll need. The move forces them both to bend over and it places Reno's chin almost on top of Rude's shoulder.

"Alright, ya got a good shot here. Real straight 'n easy. Ya problem is ya thinkin' too much about it firs'. Just eye it. Ya know it ain't gonna take that much to drive this in, right? So ya just give it a little tap. Best bet? Just give th' white'n about 1 an a half times what force ya wanna give the other'n. It'll transfer the rest. Thas' about as scientific as I get with it."

He curls Rude's fingers ever so loosely around the end of the cue and lines it up with the ball, straining to reach that far around his partner without losing his grip on the other end of the stick. "Ya gotta relax, man. You're too damn tense. Ya gonna give it too much force again iffn ya don't loosen up some."


He freezes when Reno surrounds him. of course they've been this close before- you don't do the sort of work they do without having to act as a shield or battering ram now and then- but he's never noticed (never let himself notice) this scent before, or this warmth.

He tries his best to concentrate on what Reno tells him, hand loosening and curling around the cue being slipped into it, and he attempts to keep his eyes on the table, his body tensing and notifying him of the puff of breath and speech near his ear.

A woman once tried to flirt with him by sneaking behind him, leaning against him, whispering into his ear much like this, and he proved very efficiently that he has no such doctrine as 'never hit a girl.' But Reno isn't trying to hit on him. And if he was... focus.

His eyes flit back to the path in front of him, laid easy and open to make a shot, guided by the rough-hewn voice he's grown accustomed to over the months, the one he wants to punch Reno in the face for never shutting up with, the one he swears could put him to sleep if he could only trust someone a little more to be around him when he sleeps.

He nods, and takes aim, and attempts to relax the way he was told.... and his hand starts shaking, bearing the weight of Reno's hand above it. He makes a small swing with the cue, but his shaking throws him off track, and he misses once more. At least everything stays on the table this time. "....I can't,' he apologizes in little more than an unintelligible rumble. "I can't concentrate."


Reno frowns and casts a concerned look over at Rude. He can feel the tremble that starts in Rude's hand and works its way across his shoulders. At first, he's not sure if he's putting too much weight on Rude for the man to properly shoot but even through the buzz that's now full swing in his head, he knows that can't be the reason; Rude can carry Reno around like a sack of potatoes all day without breaking much of a sweat, having the smaller man lean on him shouldn't be an issue.

He wonders if the beers are already starting to throw Rude off but his partner is a big man and has enough muscle on him that a few beers and a few shots shouldn't make this kind of difference. "Rude?" he asks with a note of uncertainty lacing his voice. It's barely above a whisper, Reno's courtesy in making sure their privacy is maintained as much as possible given their surroundings. "Ya ok, man? Yer shakin'."

The alcohol refuses to budge in his brain and it hazes over the obvious reason for the bald man's discomfort, opting instead to offer up advice on how to put Rude more at ease. Reno knows Rude can do this, can't figure out why he isn't and so he nudges his partner's body with his own since his hands are too busy for a friendly shoulder punch.

"C'mon, man. Ya got this. Ain't that hard a shot. Juss' relax....an' shoot." He punctuates the sentence by guiding Rude's cue stick and snapping it against the ball, sending it flying into the solid purple and sinking it perfectly in a side pocket. Satisfied that he's done his job, Reno lets go and stands back upright, staggering a step back as his booze soaked head spins from the sudden change in his balance.

He looks up and catches sight of the bar keep staring at them before the man quickly averts his eyes, obviously uncomfortable all of a sudden. "Th' fuck'er you lookin' at?" Reno mutters under his breath, shooting the man a belligerent look.

He makes his way, albeit a tad wobbly, over to the stool and takes another strong pull off the sake. He's been hitting it hard enough tonight that the alcohol has just started to really kick in, lack of proper nutrition for the last week and the scotch lunch he had earlier fueling it along it's course, and he leans against the wall and lets his eyes flutter shut for a few seconds as the familiar spin takes hold.

His legs get that tingly feeling in them that spreads through his whole body, the first real warning sign that he should slow down but he's too drunk to care at this point and not drunk enough to pass out yet. The sake takes another hit and Reno looks almost insulted when he draws back the bottle to find that he's emptied it. He shakes it for a second and then drops it to the chair in disgust.

The sake never lasts long enough, that's why he usually drinks whiskey at home. It's cheap and gets him plastered enough to not care in as short a time as possible. Reno turns and flops back against the wall again, his hand shoving back to his pocket and his foot kicking back to the wall while watching Rude through hooded eyes.

"'S still your turn. Try it again, juss like I showed ya." He gives his partner one of his patented lopsided grins and lets his head loll against the wall while he watches.

Of course, the even closer proximity doesn't help Rude alleviate the shakes a single bit. He shakes his head while Reno attempts to soothe him, grunting in response to the nudge. When Reno pulls away and mutters, Rude looks up over his shoulder and, noticing the stare at the bartender, turns to look at him instead.

Rude stares impassively at the man until he catches his notice, and another beer is slid down the bar before the keeper looks away again with a sigh. There will be talk tomorrow of this newly exposed facet of their silent patron, speculation on the very sudden changes in his behavior. They've been curious about many things for years, snapping up what little tidbits they could observe from him and other patrons of interest.

Rude sighs when Reno leaves his airspace, convinced that he finally realized the gravity of their proximity and became disgusted with it. He hears the familiar clink of a bottle behind him and blinks, attempting to concentrate on he table, but the shaking has now given way to dead weight as the maelstrom of nerves in his stomach settles down to an unpleasantly heavy and twisted lump of disappointment.

He frowns at the slurred words of encouragement behind him and finally stands up straight, regarding the table solemnly. The only way to prove to Reno that the only one to be disgusted at is the bartender (because Rude would do anything to keep his partner from being upset with him, he realizes) is to actually do something that Reno taught him.

He studies the placement of the balls he has the authority to hit and begins calc- no. He thinks too much about it. He just needs to eye it. Rude lays the cue on the table and heads for the untouched beer, willing himself to calm down and make an attempt to stop analyzing everything. He can worry about making excuses later. Excuses for what? Don't worry about it- stop fretting and play ball.

With another heavy sigh, he sits the now-empty bottle next to the others, unaware of the small glass forest he's cultivating, and returns to the table. He rubs his face, casts about and finds the scotch bottle, leaning over the table to reach for it and take an unhealthy sort of swig- not caring, apparently, that Reno's mouth has been there too.

Or maybe he does care. He lets his lips rest against the rim for a moment, remembering the redhead's previous treatment of the bottle, and shakes his head to clear it before setting it back down and picking up his cue instead. A multicolor haze swirls out from behind his left eye and settles around his brain, the building headache seeming to dissipate as it does.

He stares at the table a few more seconds before focusing on a yellow one, moves around behind the cue ball and leans, scowling at it as if trying to intimidate it into working for him. He sets the cue the way Reno showed (touched) him to, curls a hand around the weight and gauges it the way he can't quite make himself not do, and jabs.

On contact, the target skitters toward an edge and bounces back to a different angle before rolling lazily into the pocket next to Rude's arm. He twitches... and heaves a sigh of relief, almost slumping over the table. "Now what?" he mutters at the expanse of green, as if Reno is supposed to hear him.

There's a tension, a frustration in Rude that Reno can't quite place but he doesn't like it. The man is prowling, shaking his head and staring at the table as if the pool game were stretching his patience more than it really has any right to. Another beer is sacrificed to Rude's strangely interesting lips and Reno finds himself swallowing when Rude does.

He licks his lips and looks away, studying the multicolor glass lampshade that hangs suspended over the table. Some of his senses have given up and let themselves go to the static in his head, blanketed in layers of fog, while others heighten to a degree that evokes fascination.

Reno can pick out every over bright shade of blue in the hanging lamp, every breeze that ruffles the bangs across his cheeks from a fan that he can't see, and when Rude makes his way back to the table, he can smell the lingering aftershave on his skin in a way that is entirely too primal. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose, pulling in the smell, and it makes his stomach tingle the way it did when he watched Rude's lips earlier.

The scent grows stronger and Reno opens his eyes a crack to find Rude leaning into his space. A large hand reaches out and for a moment Reno is sure Rude's about to touch him but then the moment passes and Rude withdraws with the bottle of scotch instead. He frowns when Rude presses the bottle to his mouth and takes a long pull and he tells himself it's not because he's jealous of the bottle, it's because Rude has to drive home....right?

As Reno watches Rude move around to pick another shot, he mulls over the swirl of thoughts in his head, trying to force them to make sense. The scotch bottle sits next to him and Reno looks down at it while Rude bends over the table and lines the cue up. He has the bottle in his grip before he even realizes it and he lifts it up toward his lips, pausing with it so close he can smell the vapors coming off the bottle.

Rude's lips were pressed to it and as he stares at Rude's larger form, arched and preparing to strike another ball, Reno's mind puts forth the question of whether Rude's taste would linger on the glass. Reno's tongue doesn't wait for the rest of his mind to put the pieces together, it knows what it wants, and he laps at the rim of the bottle tentatively at first.

He can just barely grab the lingering hint of meat and beer around the edge and he decides he likes it. He tips back the bottle and swigs hard from it, letting the bottle fall down to linger by fingertips against the leg that's keeping him upright at the moment. He hears the tap of the cue hitting its mark and watches the ball roll toward him. It makes the fingers in his pocket twitch, the sensation of which is far more intense than it has any right to be right now.

He unfurls his fingers and rubs at the thin layer of fabric between him and his leg, stirring up the sensation again and getting a slight hitch of breath as a reward. Part of his mind fills in Rude's fingers against his hip instead of his own and he strokes against his hip again.

His dick twitches to life against his pants and it never occurs to Reno through the haze of booze and sensation that the lack of underwear he sported today night prove detrimental if he gets himself all worked up, not to mention how unhappy Rude might be to drive a drunk and horny redhead back to his apartment.

About this time in his usual drinking routine, Reno would find the most attractive and willing partner he could, drag her off and screw her silly, but tonight he isn't interested in just another meaningless lay. The singer still isn't doing it for him and when he tells himself that he could go somewhere else to look, his mind supplies the obvious answer that there's someone just right standing in front of him....bending over a table.....

Reno's breath hitches again and he lets his eyes roll shut as his hand strokes his hip again.