Happy Birthday was made for you

No answer. Rude frowns, wondering if he did something to upset his partner. He surveys the table again and realizes why Reno didn't answer- he remembers Reno saying something about someone having the shots until there's no viable option to shoot again, or he shoots an opponent's ball or the eight ball.

He rubs the back of his head with a sigh. Apparently he's out without training wheels now. Rude unzips and shrugs out of his suit coat, his shirt still crisp and clean under the dim lights. Today wasn't a mission day, so he had no reason to break a sweat.

Vague hints of patterns swirl in places the shirt clings to his back and arms, though not clear enough to define the great serpent and its water whorls winding from one arm, coiling around his torso, to the other arm. the bartender stares anew, even though he isn't close enough to catch sight of those hints- the silent patron never removes his jacket here.

Rude rolls his shoulders to pop them and stalks around the table, weighing his options. He may not have the touch and go skill at such a game like Reno has, but he can at least make a well-educated guess to his next move.

He finally leans over the cue ball, eye on another target behind the shades, and his brows are drawn into what usually looks like an angry line- only those who work closely with him know that this is a concentrating face, as Rude hardly ever lets his face look *angry*.

By the time he's sunk three targets and run out of options, he's staring down past the cue ball and realizing that he's facing his partner. Sweat drips from Rude's brow now onto the table, and he absently notes how quickly the fabric of the table absorbs the droplet. Sweat stains his shirt under his arms and across his back, rendering the coils of the beast nearly visible.

The sunglasses, blessed barriers and shields, give him the gumption to lock eyes with the leaning redhead. Something seems off, but he can't place it. "There are no other moves for me," he rumbles, laying down the cue and leaning on his knuckles at the edge of the table. "What now?"


Reno continues to move his fingers across his hip, dipping down to brush at the junction of his thigh. He stills the instinctual buck of his body to meet each touch, some tiny part of him still clinging to sobriety enough to think that openly jacking off on his first trip to Rude's favorite bar might be considered bad taste, but it gets hard each time not to just grab himself.

A hunger grows in his gut, something reduced to the most primitive of needs and fueled by the week he's already had, and Reno decides that tonight he has to fight or fuck something and soon. His heart speeds up a bit when Rude strips out of his jacket and he stops moving entirely as he stares hard at the faint lines he can make out under the shirt.

Gods help him...he wants to touch that. He wants to know if it really will come to life under his fingers, coil around him and consume him whole the way he imagines it should. It surprises him when he realizes he's never seen Rude without his shirt on before and he hunts through his memories convinced that he can't be right.

No, he can't think of a single time. Not once in a year has Rude ever looked anything but professional. The man keeps his tie neat even in the middle of a firefight. The fact that he's seeing some of his partner that he's been denied up till now just makes him want to peel the shirt off all the more and the night's drinking helps push any thoughts of fear or shame out of his head. He's not gay...he just wants to fuck Rude.

When the words come to his mind, Reno cocks his head to the side and looks at his partner again, this time letting the drink shut up all of his usual protests. The man across from him is the epitome of death, a walking angel with a soul as black as his wings and hands that can crush the life out of his enemies.

Rude is a powerful fighter, a damned good marksman and can build a bomb better than anyone on Gia and gods help Reno, he wants to kiss the man. It's a foreign thought at best. Reno shakes his head and cusses himself a fool for even thinking Rude wouldn't snap his neck like a twig but that only evokes a mental image of Rude's strong hands around his throat and for some reason that only makes him hotter.

He's a sick fuck but at least he knows it; it's hard not to be for anyone working as a Turk. Every piercing glare Rude gives the table, every intense look just fuels the fantasy playing out in Reno's head regardless of his will. Rude looking at him with that intensity. Rude's strong grip on his arms. Rude's sweat slicked over his skin.

Reno shivers and starts the slow stroking of his inner thigh again. His breathing picks up more than it should for someone who's standing still but he keeps it in check enough that only Rude might notice.

And then Rude's looking at him, talking to him in that throaty growl that makes the hair on his arms stand on edge and his thumb accidentally rubs the side of his hardening dick and he's chewing down a moan and.....Reno sucks in a deep breath and closes his eyes, trying hard to make himself calm back down.

He doesn't want to open his eyes because then he'll see the shirt that's sticking to Rude in all the right ways and then he'll want to stare at the tattoos until he can figure out what they are.

"Now?.......Now I need a fuckin' smoke."

His voice is lower than normal, saturated with lust and the need to have some sort of vice that will pull his mind off all the other things he wants to be doing. He forces his eyes open and stares hard at Rude for a few seconds, his breathing a little labored, and then he's off the wall, scotch still in hand, and heading for the front door.

And he can feel the eyes on him, as if they were tongues and fingers in their own right. He doesn't understand it, the way Reno has the inherent talent to touch people without lifting a finger. Rude has felt these eyes before... and he often came within inches of slapping himself in the face when he found himself unable to stop thinking about them.

Why does he only remember these things after drinking? Is it that hard to face when he's dry? The more he thinks, the more he realizes that most of his daily thoughts for the last several months have been the same few thoughts on repeat: this isn't the time to think about Reno.

You don't have time to be confused or fascinated. This is the reason you think this way, so you have no more reason to think this way. You have more important things to do than daydream. Daydream? Rude doesn't daydream.

He lifts his head slightly when he hears the change in his partner's voice. It's dropped. There's something filthy about it he can never put his finger on when he hears it that way. Something invasive, insidious, dark... alluring. Reno uses this voice when he sets his eyes on a woman he wants to take home. Reno uses this voice when he's restless, when he flirts, when he fucks. And Rude's heard him when he fucks.

Rude's almost walked into the wrong storage room several times. Rude's listened, each time, for two minutes longer than he should have. Every time, he's torn between feeling sick to his stomach and feeling the annoying twitch in his groin that he has no use for. Rude doesn't have time to be that confused or fascinated. He has more important things to do.


His eyes cross for a moment, vision going fuzzy as he leans more heavily on the table. He shouldn't have had so much so fast. He should pace himself next time. When he opens his eyes and his sight stabilizes, he watches Reno walk away. the hair shines unnaturally in the dim lights- it catches every shade of blue in the place and throws it into a violet sort of luster that should be illegal.

It reminds Rude of the satins strewn over the couches in Wutaian love temples. the muscle in his left forearm jerks, as if to jar him out of his reverie. He glances toward the table with their jackets, the bartender, and the door... and stalks after his partner, face set in stone as he gives the outward appearance of calming himself down.

The air outside is cold and bitter with cigarette smoke and the hint of fireplaces from the residential sites. His jaw twitches as he watches Reno against the wall out here. Only his truck sees the man this way. Whoever had been here before is gone.

Reno's hair catches in the small niches of brick at his back, flipping in irritating directions. rude wants to smooth it back down, brush the dust from it- grab it and pull- pin those wiry shoulders to the wall behind it- he blinks. Isn't Reno cold out here? "...I thought it was your turn," he manages, a strain in his voice that neither of them are accustomed to hearing.