Baby's Breath

It’s supposed to be a quick stop. A grab-n-go, nothing flashy since Reno’s still recovering. But first the Shinra helicopter has to circle the shopping district until they find a safe place to land, and pedestrians have to hurry to get out of the way so they aren’t crushed by it, wind blowing their hair and clothing around. All that considered, it doesn’t feel much different from an official assignment for Reno.

“You sure about this?” Rude asks.

Reno just grins. Rude should be used to his odd requests by now. He should know that he loves to flex his authority any way that he can.

“Don’t you want to stretch your legs a little? We’ve been in this tin can for hours.”

As if to demonstrate, he hops out and stretches as soon as his feet touch the ground. It’s all so… civilian, he and Rude going on a grocery run together on their way back to HQ.

“Assholes,” someone mutters as the crowd continues to thin.

Reno looks out at the people, but doesn’t catch the culprit. He taps his shoulder with his EMR and saunters towards the sliding door entrance. Tensions have been high lately.

“Eh. Looks like there are some good sales today, at least.”

They always have the best produce, topside. It gets shipped fresh from the farms. Reno likes the sweet stuff.

“Just get what we need,” Rude sighs, pushing up his glasses instinctively.

What they ‘need’ happens to be a few packs of gummy candy, chips, and yes, spare ingredients for the dinner Reno wants Rude to make for him. Why cook when you have a partner who can do it for you? Reno spends most nights at Rude’s place anyway these days. They get off work late, and though it started out with Rude taking care of his more carnal needs, now he’ll take care of the other ones too. He cooks for Reno, and even does his laundry sometimes.

“Damn, can’t they give us a Shinra express lane or somethin'?”

Company perks don’t apply in the market, apparently, and Reno has to fill his arms with food and snacks until Rude picks up and offers him a basket to put them in while they wait. It’s busy, and most people are buying a lot more than they are, enough to feed their whole families. Non-perishables to store in case they get trapped by rubble when another plate falls.

Rude points out that the self-checkout line is shorter and Reno makes a beeline for it. A young woman beats him to it, a distracted, tired looking mother. Her little girl is sitting in the top of the cart, so small she looks like she might actually slip out. Reno's not sure he's ever seen a kid so young up close. He's definitely never held a baby.

Rude subtly elbows him when he stares, but he doesn't take his green eyes off the toddler. Why isn't she intimidated? Why isn't she stressed and worn thin like the rest of them? She smiles, all gummy and wet, and looks up at him with big brown eyes. So full of hope and all that nice shit.

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

Her mother finally turns around, petting her hand through the kid’s soft-looking curls.

Reno slinks up to the checkout as she wheels the cart away, baby with it, and the kid has the audacity to wave.

“That was weird.” Reno starts scanning their small haul, thinking he might actually want rice instead of noodles.

“Kids stare at everything.”

“Yeah, but it was…. Nevermind.”

She’s never seen a Turk before, that's all. It's not like she knew enough to be impressed or anything, even if her eyes were like endless orbs of ancient knowledge and life. Even if she singled him out among the crowd. Even if she was maybe the cutest, tiniest, most adorable thing Reno has ever laid his eyes on.

Whatever.

He snatches up their food and quickly makes it back to the chopper, where he doesn't speak again until they’re up in the air, his brows furrowed and a string of red licorice in his mouth.

“What do you think about kids?”

“What about them?” Rude maintains his signature poker face.

Reno looks out the window as the aircraft banks to their right. “Having them,” he clarifies.

“I haven't thought about that in a long time.”

“Yeah, right?” That's the sensible answer, in a fucked up world like this. Even on the plate, even in a cushy job. If Shinra succeeds with its mission. It would be stupid, wouldn't it?

“You and what’s-her-name never talked about it?”

Reno is always catty when discussing Rude’s past relationship, not that he’s jealous or threatened by it or anything ridiculous like that.

“Not really,” Rude answers.

Satisfied with that information, Reno resumes his duties as co-pilot and they make it back to HQ without any further detours.

But sitting on the island in Rude's kitchen later, watching his back as he cooks, Reno just can't stop thinking about it. He can't ignore the warm fuzzy feeling in his chest. The way that little girl made him feel something he hadn't felt in a long time. The corners of his lips twitch as he fights back a smile just thinking about it.

Rude is none the wiser, and to distract himself, Reno keeps working his way through that same bag of licorice, piece after piece.

“Guess I'd have to find someone if I wanted a family,” he ponders out loud.

Rude exhales hard through his nose. “Reno finally settling down? Seems unlikely.”

“You don't know that,” Reno argues. “I could find a wife.”

“Why haven't you?” Rude challenges.

He spits the licorice out of his mouth to protest. “I—”

Aside from being married to his job? Maybe because there are bigger things he's dealing with. Like keeping Midgar from falling apart and completing their mission.

“I'm kidding.”

“Yeah, you better be.” Reno scowls. “Hurry up.”

It's true though, at 28 he's nearing that time to settle down. People in the slums get hitched even quicker, with their shorter lifespans and all. At least their shitty lives are over quickly. That's how he justifies it.

Rude sets a bowl down in front of him, hot and steaming.

“Actually, I don't need a wife,” Reno decides as he stares into the swirling broth. “There's a shit ton of orphans down there in the slums.”

Rude crosses his arms, leaning his hip against the counter in amusement. “There's one beneath Sector 5.”

“That's what I'm talking about. Kids are in high supply.”

“They're not products, Reno.”

“I know, I know.”

He lets the conversation die there. He couldn't do it himself anyway, not practically. The long, intense hours he works, the way he comes home exhausted and crabby. Maybe he could take the kid to work and make the newbie watch it. He just needs—

“You can't talk like that if you want them to adopt to you.”

A partner.

He and Rude spend so much time together already, it might even work. But Rude said he didn't want it, and Reno’s never seen him around kids before, he can’t imagine they'd like the guy. It's a delusional pipe dream at best.

Eventually, Rude takes his apron off and starts washing up. The post meal conversation usually goes like:

The least you could do is wash the dishes.

Nah, I'd rather suck your dick.

And Reno ends up on his knees or bent over in the kitchen. This time he disappears into the bedroom and starts shrugging his clothes off while he waits for Rude to join him.

"You're really into this kid thing, aren't you?”

Rude comes up behind him, pulling Reno’s back to his front. Reno only has his boxers on and Rude dips his big, warm hand beneath the waistband to slowly start stroking him to hardness. He fits in his hand nicely, filling out a little more with each aching throb.

“I mean it's— It's not a big deal.” Reno tries not to sound too breathy and fails as Rude teases the sensitive skin behind his balls. “Never thought about it until—”

Holy shit, he realizes. That little dusting of freckles over her nose. Her pretty tan skin. That kid looked like Rude.

“Fuck!”

Rude's hand goes still, surprised by the sudden exclamation.

“No, fuck, keep going.”

Is that what this really is? He wants Rude’s kid? He wants a kid with his partner? Shiva.

“Relax. You're tense.” Rude's words rumble through his chest.

It's petrifying, and Reno spends the rest of their steam blowing session quieter than he usually is and completely in his own head. He hardly makes a peep as he lays back on the bed and Rude starts kissing him all over. He doesn't demand that he fuck him deeper, harder, or faster. This time, he lets Rude handle the pace, lets him take him apart and put him back together again.

It started out small, this nameless thing between them, with touches and closeness and jokes. They'd talk about their escapades with girls until it eventually became, I'm down if you are. Getting off together, and then, getting each other off. Now Rude just spreads him out on his soft bed and fucks the living daylights out of him. There's nothing to worry about when both of them are covered in each other's sweat and cum.

“I'm close, should I—”

“Inside.”

They’re far past the point of condoms. When Reno feels Rude shudder and go still inside him, he comes untouched.

He comes to the thought of it knocking him up.

He's so fucked.

Reno notices every goddamn kid he sees after that, even tosses the beggars in the slums a few gil when he's out for reconnaissance.

“A Turk with a conscience?” a guy on a crutch taunts from an alley nearby.

There's some haggard laughter that follows, and Reno’s hackles raise in response. He lowers his EMR from his shoulder and the nearby squad of public security notices the change in atmosphere and starts heading over.

“Shinra never cared about us!”

Reno sneers, annoyed and already in a bad mood from all the baby mumbo jumbo. He feels like he can’t fucking think. “You'll shut up if you know what's good for you.”

“Stand down,” a security officer backs him up.

The man can't back away quickly enough with his limp. His back hits the wall and he leans into it for support. “Hey, I didn't mean it like that—”

“Oh, you don't say?” The rod crackles with electricity when he raises it threateningly.

“Please, my wife's eight months pregnant.”

And the vermin are still watching, ducking behind crates and debris. Reno turns around and they flinch, scattering like bugs under a rock.

Maybe it wouldn't be the best idea to beat this man into a bloody pulp, not in front of the street urchins at least.

“You better learn to keep your mouth shut, then, buddy.” Reno gestures with a half-hearted flick of his wrist for the man to get on. “That shit gets you in trouble, I’d know.”

“Y-yes, sir!”

Reno sends public security off too and once they're gone, Rude finally returns with the information they needed.

“What now?” he asks, waiting for his next orders.

“Nothing to report. We've got some time.” Reno’s eyes are shifty, avoiding Rude’s. He gets up off the railing he was sitting on and kicks a small rock. “Can we visit one of those orphanages we were talking about?”

Rude’s reaction is subtle, the micro expressions of surprise on his face. Not just that Reno wants to go to an orphanage of all places, but that he's asking for permission.

He nods, and the pair of them head off down the nearest winding alleyway in tense silence.

What they find where there should be kids outside playing and makeshift, scattered toys, is a locked door and covered windows. Not a damn kid in sight. Reno knocks twice and rattles the doorknob.

“Guess they're closed.”

Rude points to his left, where the sign says ‘open for visiting’.

Reno narrows his eyes, and there's movement from behind a curtain covering the nearest window. So they are home. He breaks the lock on the door when he kicks it open. A woman gasps and pulls the kids away from the resulting dust and debris.

“Hi, there,” Reno gives her a shark tooth smile, bending down to her height and getting in her face like he normally would for any old intimidation.

“We’ve done nothing wrong!”

“Bitch! That's not why I'm—!”

“Reno.” Rude takes him by the shoulder, pulling him out of her face. “Sorry, my partner and I were just visiting. But it seems—”

There's a tug on Reno’s blazer and a little girl looks up at him. “Don't you have any manners?” she scolds.

“Sasha!”

The little girl is undeterred, and Reno takes one side step away from her, to pull the fabric of his jacket out of her grubby little hand.

“Hm.” Not nearly as cute as the kid at the market was, but then again, that one was younger. This one has developed an attitude. He crouches down to her eye level to get a better look at her messy hair.

“And what do you know about manners, little girl? I assure you, I'm a professional.”

She eyes him hard, staring at his chest and not just because she's so short. “Your shirt’s not on.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it's not.”

“It's supposed to be like this.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm a guy. I can have my tits out if I want to, sweetie.”

Rude pinches the bridge of his nose with a deep sigh.

“Sir, please. Please leave.”

They’re really not going to give up without a fight, are they? Reno wonders what’s so bad about him that a Turk mingling with kids is like mixing gasoline and fire. They’re just kids. Just stupid little people.

Perhaps it’s the audacity that has him doing what she asks eventually. Or it’s the way the kids are looking at him, like an alien from another planet. None of them are noteworthy or worth his time anyway. Plus, it kind of smells like diapers.

He shrugs, and turns on his heels, “Come on, partner.”

They go off to drink instead, since Reno is supposed to be recuperating anyway. He’s supposed to relax, whatever that means. All he can do is wallow as the man at the bar shows off pictures of his dumb, ugly kid.

Rude’s plan for cheering him up is to stand there like a silent tree.

Reno scoffs, knocking back his second drink. “Real helpful, partner.” The bitter alcohol stings his throat pleasantly.

“You're not yourself,” Rude mutters.

“I wasn't gonna hurt anyone.”

Rude should know that. He doesn't want to hurt these people, that isn't the point of the work they do. Believe it or not.

“I think Tseng’s right. You need to—”

“Don't wanna hear it.”

He looks around the bar at all the normal people doing normal things. Drinking, talking, shooting pool. He never used to think that's what he wanted and now, when he looks back at Rude it's all he can think about, his head full of ‘what-ifs’. He scratches at his scalp like he's suddenly got fleas, like some kinda bright idea can be worked out if he thinks hard enough about it.

Rude is still watching, judging him. The bartender gives him a look and Reno says, “He's fine.”

He wishes Rude would have a drink with him, but that seems out of the cards.

“Suit yourself.”

By the time they leave, there's enough alcohol in his system that he starts talking crazy. Even he knows how it sounds. Wanting 2.5 kids and a picket fence? It's absurd to his own ears and he'd never say it to anyone but his partner. Rude is his safety net. Rude would do anything for him, anything except what he really wants, apparently.

“You think Hojo and his scientists could freeze my sperm? Since I'm already ancient. Might never find anyone—”

And because Rude's Rude, he knows exactly what’s wrong. It took him less than the hour they were in the bar to figure it out. Reno lets out a small ‘oof’ as he's pushed the rest of the way out of the door and back against a crumby brick wall.

Rude kisses him quiet. His mouth is gentle but his grip is hard. He pins Reno's hands above his head with one hand, and splays his fingers over his lower belly with the other. Where his womb would be if he had one. “Is this what you need?”

“What?” Reno’s heart flutters, he's drunk and hallucinating. He must be. “What are you talking about?”

Is Rude saying what he thinks he is? No, don't be stupid.

Their lips meet again, Reno's wet with alcohol, his tongue in Rude's mouth this time. “I need you,” he whispers frantically.

He only lets himself get like this when it's real bad. On the rare occasions he's gotten wounded at work, or something managed to actually spook him. It's not often, but Rude is always there for him and he never brings it up after.

Rude dives into his role like a true professional. Holding his waist, kissing his neck, and driving his hard cock against him. “I've got you.”

“I want you to…” Reno whimpers pathetically at the feeling. I want you to give me a goddamn baby, already!

Rude grunts, maneuvering him into a suitable position, feeling up his ass through his pants, stroking, his deft fingers unzipping them and sliding them down.

He's gonna breed you, the drunken voice in Reno's head so helpfully supplies. It has him painfully hard, and if he were anywhere else he'd be stripping his cock raw, jerking himself with the urgency he had when he was fucking thirteen. Fuck, he needs Rude’s cum so bad.

“You can take it like this, right? Need my seed that badly.”

Reno is panting like a bitch in heat, his head drops forward. Rude sticks two fingers in his mouth for him to suck, and it’s so good, it’s so fast and it’s raw and dirty—

Until there's a crash down the alley as a cat knocks over a trashcan. Or something. They both turn to look, and then back to each other. Rude’s pulling his fingers out— no no no!

“Fucking cockblock!”

Reno spends the night at his own place for once, just reeling. Now that he knows Rude thinks about it too… that he finds it hot… It’s easy to take his leaking cock in hand, imagining Rude’s cum dripping down his thighs, so stuffed it causes a little bulge in his belly and he has to turn his head and bite his pillow from how hard he comes.

It doesn't take long for the guilt to come rushing back. The terrifying clarity of true realization. There are things he can no longer deny, or run from.

He can't do this. Rude’s right.

Reno does have more free time on his hands, now that Rude's with the feisty little rookie. He also has a lot of candy, so he decides to put it to good use.

The next time he shows up at the orphanage, he's not empty handed. They aren’t expecting a visit from a Turk, so it goes much better than the last time. Shinra isn’t sniffing around at all and clearly everyone is less on guard because of that. Some of the kids have never tried the snacks that he brings and consider them genuinely impressive. They love the gummy texture of the moogle candy and the chewy chocobo marshmallows are a hit.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he snaps at one of the caregivers. “I’m off the clock.”

“But surely you could… teach them something?”

“Teach? What do I look like, Charlie the fucking Chocobo?”

It’s not like they’d let him teach these kids how to hack computers or drop plates. He barely fucking knows how to cook let alone clean. He can fight, and torture people until they spill their deepest secrets but that's no good for a four year old, he doesn't think.

He decides to start with helicopter mechanics, wheeling up a chalkboard and erasing the basic math problems scrawled across it to draw up some schematics. Most of the kids are way too young to have any idea what he's talking about. They don't understand aerodynamics or engineering. They do think it's cool though, most of them, except for one of the older kids in the back, leading against the wall with his arms crossed. There's always a skeptic, Reno thinks. His EM mines are more of an interest to that one, his EMR too. Reno shows off a little for him.

The little girl from his first visit, Sasha, is trying on his goggles. Looking through them and up at the plate above with newfound curiosity. Reno finishes up his "lesson" and goes to sit by her.

“You can call me uncle Reno,” he says, before realizing how creepy that sounds. “Wait no, don’t call me that. Just Reno.” He helps fasten them to her head so they don’t just fall off.

Sasha nods, and bites into one of the fluffy yellow treats he brought for her.

“What happened to your parents, kid?”

“My daddy got sick from the medicine he took.”

“Medicine?” Reno narrows his eyes. “Oh. Medicine. Did he— was it like a shot?” He points to his arm, where one would inject into their veins.

She nods and he gets a sinking feeling about it. Not medicine, but drugs. Illicit, addictive, and dangerous. Unfortunately, the timelines link up. Shinra infiltrates the slums when they need to keep the gangs in check, what better way to do that than lacing the supply chain? Half the drugs in the slums are Shinra manufactured, anyway. It’s always an inside job.

Reno has signed off on shipments himself, facilitated late night trades, and eliminated whoever they needed him to eliminate.

As always, he was involved in it.

“Sorry to hear that,” he mumbles.

“Where’s your parents?” Sasha asks, surprisingly unbothered.

“Honestly? Dunno.” He reaches into the bag of sweets and frowns when he discovers it to be empty. Kid eats more than he does.

He hasn’t spoken to his parents in years. A decade maybe. They’d be easy enough to find with the databases he has access to, but he’s not sure that he wants to know what happened to them. Without knowing, he can fill in the blanks himself. Sometimes it's better that way.

The next time he and Rude have sex, it’s no holds barred. More like fighting than fucking. Reno climbs him like a tree. Rude is quick to throw him down, pinning him while he tears his clothes off. Buttons go flying. Reno hisses when his jaw catches an elbow.

He’s being a brat, and Rude isn’t having it, using his size and strength to his full advantage. Reno is delighted when he ends up face down, ass up. “You gonna fuck me or just take a picture?”

Rude pulls his hair hard. He uses his ponytail like a goddamn leash. “If you stop whining.”

“Come on, you love it when I bitch.”

Rude’s tip nudges his entrance and it still feels so huge, every time. Reno gets off on knowing that he’s the only one Rude uses like this.

Wait, he is, isn’t he?

“Shit!”

Slowly, Rude breeches his tight rim, and he’s rapidly brought back to the present moment, the currently getting fucked open by his partner’s beautiful, perfect, thick fucking cock. He feels like he can’t breathe, it’s so much.

“Gonna come in you.”

Reno hisses, “Get me pregnant! Ngh— fuck!”

“That what you want? You want me to knock you up? Claim you? Make you mine for the next eighteen years?”

“Rude!” The wet sound of skin slapping together fills the room as Rude’s hips slam against his own in a ruthlessly fast pace. He's so deep inside, stuffing him the fullest he's ever been.

“I want it— I want it so bad—”

His rim is sore and puffy, abused by the aggressive snap of Rude’s hips. His neck aches from the sharp angle as Rude grips his hair. He can hardly gasp his desire in an intelligible way, copious amounts of lube leaking down his thighs and messing the sheets.

“Please, please, gimme your cum.”

“It’ll slow you down. Can’t be in the field when you’re carrying my child.”

Reno whines, babbles, “I still— I—”

Rude pinches his nipple meanly and it drives him fucking wild. “Your tits would be pretty, all full of milk for my baby.”

“Your baby. Oh god.”

“Mine, that’s right.”

Reno jerks suddenly as his whole body decides to conspire against him, to give him an orgasm so intense that it hurts. It’s the level of euphoria that changes a guy. Toe curling, eye rolling, unbearable pleasure. A cry rips itself out of his throat and Rude stops inside him, thumb rubbing circles over one of his nipples, kissing him to keep him from floating away (or passing out).

He thought the first time was bad. There’s no coming back from this shit.

Rude lays him on his back to slide back inside in missionary. To “see his face when he knocks him up” he says. But Reno thinks he really just wants to suck his tits. To lick and pet, and kiss all over his body. Even touching his soft, sensitive cock. He won’t stop doting, even after he finishes, his cock still buried inside.

“Fuck, Rude, stop.” Reno groans, half-heartedly shoving him off.

When he’s gone to go clean up and gather a wet cloth, Reno has too much time to himself to think about it. The way he wants to put a pillow under his hips and keep them elevated, give it a delusional chance to stick inside…

Rude comes back looking pensive. He withholds the towel. “We need to talk about this seriously. It's gotten out of hand.”

Reno can’t help but burst into a nervous laugh. “I am serious.” He can’t believe this. Rude just blew his mind, how is that a problem?

“If we adopted, I don’t think it would be fair to them. What if something happened to us?” Rude asks.

Reno pauses, because he doesn't like thinking about that, doesn't like acknowledging the fact that he's started to worry when Rude's off on missions with Elena.

“Well then they’d be right back where they started,” he says with a scowl.

Rude raises a single eyebrow at his attitude, it takes a lot for Reno to genuinely snap at him like this.

“Listen, I can't do this by myself.”

“I think you're getting ahead of yourself.”

“How?! ” He sits up and slams his fists on the bed. “I've been visiting that orphanage, you know. I bring stuff for the kids. Fixed their door.” He growls in frustration not unlike a naked, angry kitten. “Since when do you care so much anyway, huh? Don't act like you haven't done things too.”

“That's not what I'm saying.”

“It is, though, isn't it? You think I'd be shit at it. If I was—”

“Reno, this isn't about you, you know it isn't.”

“Yeah, and if I was a chick you'd have knocked me up already. We've been fucking for years.”

Reno gathers his clothes. There's a brief, unspoken exchange between them, in the tenseness of Rude's shoulders and the twitch in Reno's eye.

What are we?

Partners.

Reno slams the door behind him.

That's not what this is, wanting kids. He's not trying to be some savior. Maybe he just needs something else to think about besides Shinra, and besides AVALANCHE and all of the people he's inadvertently, permanently fucked over in the last few months.

Somehow, he ends up standing outside the children's home in the middle of the night. Sitting there like a shadow, unraveling and utterly alone without his partner.

“Mister Reno, what's wrong?”

He looks behind him to see Sasha standing there, barefoot in her pajamas and rubbing at her eyes.

“A lot of shit.”

She frowns a bit at the swear word, but crawls up on the log next to him and pats his back. He wants to laugh at the irony of it all, being comforted by a little kid.

“You should be in bed, how'd you even get out here?”

“I'm sneaky,” she giggles.

“I can see that.” He wipes his face with his shirtsleeve and is surprised when it comes away wet. “Time to go back inside. It's not safe out here for you.”

He escorts her back in through the window, and makes sure she gets inside safely.

“Lock the window,” he says, quiet not to wake up the other kids. “I’m gonna wait here until you’re tucked in.”

Once she’s back in bed, with the window locked and shut, he finds himself wandering aimlessly through the slums. Walking down a dark path to who knows where. If he were anyone else, it’d probably be terrifying. Dangerous even. He can’t bring himself to care.

“You look lonely.” A raspy voice comes from the shadows, sing-song and salacious.

“Don’t we all,” he quips. One foot in front of the other, don’t stop.

“I can fix that.” There’s a gentle hand on his arm, and the pretty figure of a woman as she steps into the light. Scantily clad, and skinny.

He laughs, and it sounds manic, echoing in the distance of the night.

“How much?”

She tells him the price. Her hand squeezing his bicep, testing. She looks surprised by the lean muscle she finds.

“Kinda steep.“

“I'll cut you a deal, since you're prettier than my usual clients.” Her voice is little more than a purr, nails long and catlike too.

He’s gotta do everything his goddamn self, so he goes with her with one single thing on his mind. Thankfully, she offers him something to smoke, lighting it for him while she slithers down between his legs to get the good stuff.

“Watch your teeth,” he warns.

His PHS vibrates in his pocket on the floor. He can see the screen light up through the dark fabric of his pants, but he doesn’t answer it. The last person he wants to talk to is Rude. He doesn’t want to hear about how reckless he’s being or how he shouldn’t fuck this woman raw because a baby’s not worth the potential diseases. Nothing a little potion can’t fix, right? At least the motel is clean.

She’s pretty, but there’s a nasty scar on her face that distracts from it. Blue eyes and dark brown hair. Soft cheeks and a small smile. She wraps her lips around his cock, and he has trouble getting hard, admittedly. There’s a nervousness in him to the fact that he’s doing this. He’d thought he’d go into it the way he goes into everything, with borderline reckless abandon. An unmatched confidence that years with the Turks would attest to.

Instead, he’s having second thoughts, and when he’s on top of her, it only gets worse.

She whispers sweet nothings, moaning when he finds the right angle. “Right there, just like that.” Empty praise, fake orgasms and false encouragement. You can do it, baby.

But there’s a big problem: he doesn't want this if it isn't with his partner. He pulls out a little too late, fighting his own instincts. The last few ropes land on her stomach.

“Don’t worry,” she says, pushing his sweaty bangs out of his face. “Got myself sterilized a long time ago.”

Reno didn't notice the scars in the dark. As he gets dressed to leave, he says nothing, just tosses the gil on the bed and steps back out into the cool evening with his PHS still ringing in his pocket.

Notes:

Thanks for reading!
Kudos and comments help me write faster ;)

Chapter 2 Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The whole baby thing haunts him so badly that when Elena says, in a meeting one day, “Guys, I need to make an announcement,” his chest tightens and his breath gets caught in his throat. It’s not fair, he thinks. Only for her announcement to have absolutely nothing to do with pregnancy. He’s so relieved and viscerally uncomfortable with his own reaction that he slinks off to steal food from one of the employee break rooms like he’s the one that got knocked up. Pregnancy cravings, right?

The worst part is that Rude starts blowing him off. They haven't spoken since they had their little disagreement and it's making Reno feel crazy. Hormonal, even. Sure, they’ve been fucking for years, but it’s not always been consistent. Sometimes they go months, even a year or two, without touching each other in a gay way. Rude will find some big boobied bimbo he prefers to stick it in, or Reno will convince himself he doesn’t want to take dick up his ass anymore (and use his disappointingly slim fingers instead).

Sometimes they’re just busy, too strung out and too professional to jerk each other off in the chopper. But that’s not the case now, and after just a few days of sexlessness Reno’s torn up about the idea of Rude fucking anyone else but him.

He still has a key to Rude's place, so he sneaks over when he knows Rude won't be home. He takes up residence on the couch, just to feel less alone. The pillows smell like him, so. It gets the job done.

When Rude gets back from an assignment Junon, Reno’s awake and blasting loud music from his PHS, trying to drown out his thoughts while he sprawls out, metaphorical tie loosened like he owns the place. Old empty takeout containers on the coffee table.

Rude frowns. “Can you turn that off?”

Reno just groans and curls into himself like a dead flower, or a dying animal. Roadkill, that's what he feels like. Left to die on the side of the highway. Oh, it’s so melodramatic he loves it.

“Are you sick?” Rude asks. He takes the device himself and taps the screen to pause the screeching electrical shred.

For a moment, Reno wonders if he is. If he caught something bad from that whore in the slums. It would be his own fault, if he did.

“No, I'm just—” he gestures uselessly, flailing his limp wrist around. He doesn't know what to call this. “Pissed.”

“Okay, that’s a start.”

A start at naming his feelings because he's kinda bad at that. Mad is something he can feel just fine, but guilt? Grief? Regret? Hell no. He can't let himself feel sad, it wouldn’t be professional.

“You hungry?”

Reno looks away from his partner, quietly admitting, fully perceived and therefore defeated, “I could eat.”

Rude just huffs, barely a laugh while he takes off his jacket, tie and gloves in that order.

“I'm not gonna apologize, you know,” Reno says.

“You never do.”

That still leaves the elephant in the room though. The baby blue mastodon with pink bows. It's the fact that Reno gets off on something like procreation— and only with his partner. Someone must have slipped something in his drink when he wasn’t looking, cast a spell with some weird baby-making aphrodisiac materia.

“We’ll go out tonight,” Rude offers. “Clean up.”

Reno looks down at himself. What's wrong with what he's wearing? Sure his clothes are a bit creased and he hasn't showered in… a while. But he still looks hot, just in a greasy rat kinda way. He’s pretty sure Rude sighs in relief when he finally gets up.

“I heard that!” he snaps.

Despite his reluctance, the quick shower helps, and once he’s done drying and styling his hair with the hair dryer Rude keeps just for him, he's feeling more like himself. Rude collects the long strands down his back, loose and not yet wrangled into their clip. He shivers at the touch.

“Ready?”

“As I'll ever be.”

It feels weirdly like a date, and not like the other 10,000 times they've gone out together, for work or otherwise. He’s suspicious as to why Rude takes him somewhere so nice, lets him order whatever overpriced, overly fragrant cocktail he wants and doesn’t say a damn thing the whole time.

When Reno takes his wallet out to split the bill at the end of the meal, Rude stops him.

Reno frowns, “Why do I feel like a dog that's about to be put down?”

Maybe Rude is gonna break the news that he won't indulge his little fetish anymore. If that's what it is. That's what it has to be, cause there's no way in the darkest depths of hell that Reno actually, genuinely, wants to be a dad.

He just wants to call out for his baby daddy while he cums buckets split open on his dick.

Scratch that, Rude's likely gonna tell him they have to stop fucking all together because he's not normal about it anymore. In that case, he'd rather be the one to call it off, thank you. Reno the Turk does not get dumped.

“You're wining and dining me like a chick, man. Cut it out.”

It's giving him the creeps, Rude looking at him all night like that. Getting him tipsy while he's as stoic as ever. Reno realizes belatedly that he's been cozied up to his side in the private booth they're sitting in. His hand on Rude's thigh while they dine on expensive delicacies shipped in from Costa del Sol.

All of that would be fine and dandy if they were on a date, but this isn't a date, so he yanks away like he's been burned, smooth fabric and chiseled muscle be damned.

“Just being a good partner,” Rude explains.

That's what this is.

“You feel sorry for me,” Reno accuses, with a little hiccup afterwards. He covers his mouth but won’t bite his tongue. “I can do my job.” But does he want to?

Rude pays and Reno teeters a little when he stands up too fast, blood rushing from his head. Instinctively, he reaches for Rude to steady himself. Knowing that if he falls, strong arms will catch him.

Outside of the fancy, candle-lit lounge, Rude leans down and kisses him. His lips pressed gently to the side of Reno’s head.

Okay then.

“You’re a mess,” Rude murmurs.

Reno wants to slap him and he wants to fuck him at the same time. Both. Both would be good.

You're too good for me, he thinks.

“So do you want to talk about it now?” Rude asks. “This… thing. You ran out before I could tell you why I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Reno’s heart sinks. No he does not want to be let down again. He doesn't want to be rejected by the only person he has and will ever want this with, guaranteed.

“You’re right, it’s a bad idea. But I’m full of those.”

Old habits die hard. His hand is on Rude’s front, splayed across his abdomen. They’re standing close enough for him to see the light freckles on Rude’s face, and for Rude to see the parts of his irises that meld from liquid blue to ethereal green.

There's no Mako glow in his eyes, just something devious and homegrown.

Reno grins, “Let me show you when we’re home?” Home. Rude doesn’t mention the usage of the word. “Truth is… I’d rather chat when you’re inside me.”

He gives him those eyes, heavy-lidded, batting his long eyelashes: Throw me a fucking bone.

It’s a short drive, and the air is warm, and thick. Reno is practically squirming in his seat. How good Rude looks and smells, and feels, is the best kind of tease. Gods, he feels like he’s in heat from the wanting. It’s been weeks since he’s had this and the anticipation is killing him.

He wants to moan the word: partner, partner, partner.

Rude parks, and Reno paws at the door handle clumsily. Rude comes to his side of the car, opens the door the rest of the way, and picks him up to carry him inside.

“I’m not drunk!” Reno yelps. “I can walk.”

“But do you want to?”

“...Not really.”

So he's carried into Rude’s place.

They barely make it past the threshold and into the bedroom.

With two of his own fingers stuffed in his hole, wet and slippery, he spills the beans. He tells Rude every humiliating dream while he opens up for him, eyes screwed shut so he doesn't have to see his reaction.

“I want you to knock me up, so fucking full people think I’m having twins. I wanna get sore, and tired, and I want you to come home to me and rub my feet . I want you to name em’. Want em to look like you. Wanna get their names mixed up when I’m calling out for em. All that corny shit. Keep carrying me around— Yeah, baby, that's it. Fucking breed me ‘till I'm yours forever.”

Rude’s already pitched a tent in his trousers. “Come here.”

Reno crawls further into his lap, kisses his neck, his jaw, slithers up to his pierced ear for a lick and a nibble. “Don’t you think I’d look pretty?”

“I do,” Rude whispers.

Reno’s hovering, not quite touching his boner. But Rude is warm like a furnace beneath him. Oh fuck, he's gonna have that inside him.

He sits up straighter, so Rude’s eye level with his chest. He kisses him, lips ghosting smooth pale flesh, and then he helps pull what's left of his shirt out of the way, just enough for Rude to latch on.

“Fuck,” he hisses, hips jutting into Rude’s abs just for some friction. “Yeah, you’re such a tit guy,” Reno teases. “You’d love it.”

Rude just moans, and with one hand strokes over Reno’s erection, like a little reward for his offering. Quick pumps.

Reno thinks about how much he likes these quiet intimate moments between them, where it feels like the world isn’t occupied by anyone but them. He's never had this within anyone else. Just his partner.

“I’d keep my pussy tight for you, baby,” he purrs.

“Reno.”

“Tell me how bad you need me.” He won’t sink down on top of him until he does.

“You've got a filthy mouth tonight.”

“Never been a problem before.”

His cock is wet and leaking against Rude’s abs as he grinds. The alcohol makes him sloppy, warm.

“Reno. I need you,” his partner finally admits. Rude looks just as bothered, gazing at him with those dark, sexy eyes.

“Fuuuuck,” he whines, taking him slowly, his rim stretching to accommodate the girth. Rude’s dick is as pretty as the rest of him, long and cut. His chest is bare, and Reno rests his free hand flat on his pec.

He sinks down until his ass is flush with Rude's body, one hand on each cheek, spreading him wider. He starts rocking his hips slowly.

“If— If I didn't know any better, I'd say you took me out cause you missed me. Missed my tight ass so bad. Didn't you, honey?”

Rude’s eyes are closed, and his lips are parted. His hands move up to Reno’s hips, guiding him while he bounces, taking him deep, deep inside every time.

Reno rides him until his thighs burn, and his cock is painfully stiff. The way Rude looks at him when he opens his eyes, just a crack. The reverence. He makes Reno feel insanely beautiful sometimes, with just that one heated look.

A strangled sound escapes him when Rude starts bucking up to meet him, skin slapping against skin, he feels him get harder inside. “Mmm— f-fuck, yeah, like that—”

Rude groans and suddenly he's flipping them, shoving Reno onto his back. He's more than flexible enough for it, bent in half and feeling his partner in his guts. It's not the only way he's ever been inside him, Reno has grown accustomed to his fingers digging around for bullet fragments before fixing him up with a cure.

It just gives him even more to think about, in terms of what this actually is.

Rude is fucking persuasive.

“‘m close,” Rude says, from the back of his throat.

Reno digs his nails into the solid muscle of his back, feels his fingers slip slightly in the sheen of sweat. Rude cums before he does, rigid on top of him while his cock pumps out everything he has.

“Mm…” Reno hums. “So fucking much.”

He can feel it, the extra glide when Rude pulls out slightly, still hard. He’s already tugging on his own cock, self-indulgently and whorish. Up from the base and squeezing near the head. Rude looms over him, touching his sore thighs, kissing the side of his neck. Reno feels so entirely covered by him, full of him.

Rude. Rude is everything.

“Agh— Shit, I’m—” It hits him like a crashing wave. A gasp of air, and he’s drowning.

Rude takes over, knuckles brushing over the back of Reno’s hand, coaxing him to let go of his sensitive length while the thick pulse of cum thins to a dribble.

“Good?” he asks, an air of amusement in his voice.

“Good,” Reno answers shakily.

Somewhere in the cloudy haze of post-orgasm, Rude wipes down his mess and tucks him into bed. Albeit, both strictly on their own sides, no cuddling. He usually doesn’t have time to wish they would before he’s nearly passing out from exhaustion, work on his mind.

The thing is, Rude is just… his person. He doesn’t know how to describe it. It’s not like they’re boyfriends, no that doesn’t feel quite right. It’s… part of the job, the sex they have with each other. It comes with the territory of relying on each other more than anyone else. The safest and most sane person to be taking care of his needs with.

It makes sense. Turks don’t have time for personal shit, and it’s a bad idea. Rude learned that the hard way with what’s-her-name.

“I'm okay,” he says sleepily, now that he's gotten it out of his system. Rude was worried about him, that’s why he did this.

Rude raises an eyebrow. “Are we?”

“Yeah. Yeah. We’re good.” Reno reaches up to clutch the downy pillow he's lying on, pulling it into a one armed hug.

He has what he really wants already.

Except, that gooey, satisfied feeling doesn't last for very long. In the morning, they're getting up together, getting ready for work together, fighting for space around the sink in the bathroom. Moving around and behind each other like expertly choreographed dancers.

Rude makes coffee, while Reno cleans his weapon and preps the concealed shoulder holster Rude wears under his shirt, laying it out for him next to his tie.

In the kitchen, he can’t help but glance at the empty stools perched near the kitchen bar and imagine there were kids sitting there eating sugary cereal for breakfast as they get ready for school.

When he's at the office, he finds an open terminal and gets right to typing. He enters his father’s name first, his full name, a miracle he still remembers. Since there's only one of the guy, and he's got a record, his photo pops up immediately.

It’s a mugshot.

Date of birth is listed: unknown. Date of death is— Date of death.

Reno quickly closes out the tab and types his mother’s name instead. There's more information on her, full paragraphs of text. The photo is from a work ID. He has her deep set eyes. It's sorta like looking into a mirror, except that she isn’t really smiling.

In contrast Reno, even when he catches his reflection in a window (or a sword) flashes his pearly whites and thinks, damn I look good.

Skimming over the dates, he reads as far as the residence section, and then sees Sector 7 listed in front of her address.

“Fuckin’ hell.” He leans back in the chair and sighs. Fingers tapping idly on the desk. It’s not long before Tseng finds him, and Reno scrambles to shut off the monitor, only for his boss to give him the spiel about playing games and watching porn on company hardware.

He's not even on company time because he's not supposed to be there— and he’s salaried anyway.

He zones out through most of the speech, because family never mattered to him before, and now it feels like a priority. His loyalty was to Shinra (and to Rude) before anyone else. So why now? Why does he want to have something to lose? The past version of himself would call the current version of himself shit-for-brains.

His parents were going to die anyway. If he could have said goodbye, what would he even have said to them? Thanks for fucking at the right time to make me? That's about it.

The orphanage looks the same as it had the last time he saw it. But there’s an older, scrappy kid he doesn’t recognize hanging around, with dark skin and messy dreadlocks. He confronts Reno while he’s installing better locks on the doors. Security cameras are next but they’re not too keen on surveillance around the slums.

The boy hovers behind him, arms crossed judgmentally. Reno hears him scoff and then say, “We don't need Turks getting involved in our business.”

“What business?” Reno turns around to face him, tool still in his hand and dirt on his knees. Great. “How old are you, twelve?”

“Fourteen, and I’m not falling for your propaganda.”

“That’s a whole other department kid.” Reno huffs, standing to his full height. “What makes you think you can stop me?”

The kid eyes the screwdriver wearily. “See, that's what I'm talking about, you're all the same. You only come here when you feel guilty about something.”

“You're all the same,” Reno says back.

The kid laughs at him, actually laughs, and his posture relaxes. “You wouldn't know.”

“You don't think I'm one of you, kid? Where do you think I came from, huh? Sure as hell didn't come from money.”

“Wait, you?"

“I worked my way to the top.” He points to the still standing plate. “You can do the same thing you know. If you want better for yourself someday.”

“How?”

Reno sighs and wraps his arm around the kid’s shoulder, bringing him in close. “I'll tell ya. Here’s what you gotta do.” He censors some of the blood, but the sweat and tears are still part of it. Truthfully, Reno takes after his dad a helluva lot more than his mother. Looks more like her though, and he wrinkles his nose at the thought.

“What's wrong?” the kid asks.

“Nothin'. You remember what I told you.”

He claps him on the back, and heads off on his way.

Drastic times call for drastic measures, and that’s how Reno finds himself wandering into Hojo’s creepy ass lab on the 65th floor of the Shinra Building. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right?

“Oi!” he calls out, annoyed already by the sheer humiliating fact that he’s stooping so low.

The professor takes an interest in him immediately, halting his research on a very sickly looking guard hound to give him his full attention. Attention that Reno really does not like to have. His eyes linger for too long as they slowly rise up the length of his body. He touches him, inspects him without permission.

Reno slaps his hand away with a tsk.

“How can I be of assistance to our Turks’ second in command?” The professor asks curiously.

The response is much different than the one Reno usually gets when he sneaks into the lab to satiate his curiosity (and occasionally mess around with the monsters and the beasts).

“I wanted to ask about…” he lowers his voice to a whisper, “...fertility treatments… that might be included in the Shinra employee benefits.”

Hojo smiles wickedly and Reno instinctively covers his cock with his hand.

“My dick works fine, thanks. It's more… my partner and I, see. We can't… conceive. Naturally.” He tacks on that last bit rather hopefully. Because maybe they can, maybe through Shinra tech it’s in the cards for them to have a baby.

“So she’s faulty.”

“No! Nothing’s wrong with Rude, he’s—”

“Ah. Yes.” Hojo tuts, as if disappointed. “Homo sapiens aren't so blessed with same-sex procreation. Perhaps I could intervene with the natural order of things.”

“You can knock me up?” Reno immediately regrets asking.

Even Hojo looks surprised, and a little baffled. He pushes his glasses up where they’ve slid down the bridge of his nose slightly, adjusting them to sit comfortably. “Well, that is… not what I’d recommend.”

“Can you clone us a kid, then? Me and Rude.”

Hojo turns to type something into one of the computers. Reno realizes belatedly that it’s his file, with all of his information. His age and the results of his last physical. The professor is searching for something. Evidence that he’s batshit insane, perhaps.

“Isn't this fascinating . Not a strong inclination I usually observe in males. Though I suppose you are of that age.” He hums, amused. “Potentially… if I took your x-chromosome… hm, perhaps through in-vitro gametogenesis. I'll need to collect some samples.”

He mutters a few unintelligible things to himself, moving around the lab to catalog various supplies and gather a needle and swab.

Reno takes off his blazer, rolls up his shirt sleeve and holds out his arm with a sigh. “Go ahead.”

“Sit here.”

He does, with a little pout. “Don’t make me regret this.”

Hojo quickly finds a vein and the needle pricks him without much pain, he takes several vials of blood, which is far more than he needs, Reno is sure of that. But his body is already property of Shinra company. It’s not like he hasn’t signed his rights of privacy away a long time ago.

He swallows nervously when the cotton swab approaches his face.

“Open up.” Hojo smiles. “Here comes the airplane?”

He does so with a grumble. The swab slides into his mouth and pets over the inside of his cheek and gums, and then Hojo is retracting, placing it into its own vial.

“Last but not least, I need the most important component.”

Reno stares at him blankly, until it dawns on him what the professor is asking for and he reaches down to protect his nuts again. “Like hell you do, nice try.”

Hojo frowns. “Fine, fine. Bring me something from your partner as well. I need a fresh sample of DNA for the best odds of survival.”

And Reno couldn’t get out of that lab any sooner. What he’s doing is messed up, and it feels messed up to take one of Rude’s emptied coffee cups out of the trash, seal it up in plastic and drop it off for Hojo’s assistants. But he’s already gone this far, there’s no going back. He’s taken the plunge off the deep end, just like he did when he typed in the code for the plate separation.

The ends justify the means.

When the message comes through on his PHS that the research has completed, he’s already in deep shit with his conscience. Drowning in it, to be exact. But Hojo welcomes him in with an odd sort of infectious excitement. He has numerous screens alight with rows and rows of lettering that Reno understands to be genetic code.

“What would you like?” he gestures to the information. “A specific hair color or eye color, perhaps? A boy or a girl?” He turns back to the monitors, combing over the endless possibilities of the millions of different combinations of their genes.

Reno feels his stomach drop. This isn’t what he wanted at all. “I want it natural, yo. Like if we actually did it.”

“How boring.” Hojo types something up and most of the information disappears. “I think I can manage a rather natural result. I'll have several viable embryos ready with the use of donor eggs.”

A single fear pops into Reno’s head. “From a human, right?”

Hojo just laughs.

“From a human? Don’t fuck with me.”

“Of course. Nothing less than the best for our precious Turks.”

The more he thinks about it, though, the less he cares if the kid has a tail or three eyes. He’d love the little test tube baby anyway, as long as they don’t come out crazy like Sephiroth. Deep down, he does hope that it looks like them, at least a little. That they have Rude’s eyes and his smile, and Rude’s affinity for heat in the dishes he eats and Reno’s cutting sense of humor. That would be nice. Cute, even.

“Anyway, uh. Thanks.” Reno taps his EMR against his shoulder and saunters off. It’s a pretty good deal all things considered. A whole baby at no cost but his dignity.

When he’s home, Rude is already waiting.

“Rough day?” he asks.

“Eh. I’ve had worse.”

Hojo, the crazy bastard, actually does it. Reno receives an urgent message alerting him to come to the lab. There, the scientist reveals five little petri dishes laid out on a steel table.

“Five?” Reno pales a little. One kid is doable, two is a stretch. But five? Rude is gonna kill him.

“For now, yes. I’m still in the very early stages of this process. They’ve yet to be transferred, but once they are I’ll keep you informed on their progress.”

Reno stares at what looks like nothing at all. There are three females and two males, that’s what the notes say. Blastocysts. Other than that, they could be anyone, really. He feels that same smile from all those weeks ago tugging at his lips again. “Heh.”

His first mistake is getting attached. Once he's got time at HQ, he visits them on his breaks, reads up on their notes, even talks to them when they're little more than clumps of cells. It’s easier to daydream about a future with little kids running around. He thinks about shit he never thought of before, like names and nursery rhymes.

Then the first one stops growing, and then two more.

Two months later Hojo breaks the news. “The specimens were not viable and had to be disposed of. I'm sorry. But if you would like to reproduce through more traditional means, and you’re willing to provide—”

Reno stares at the empty tubes where there used to be embryos. “I'll think about it.” That’s all he says, before promptly getting the hell out of that cold, sterile lab.

He can’t help it, as soon as he sees Rude in the hall laters he can’t hold the mournful tears back anymore.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Rude is immediately concerned, pulling him off to the side to get to the bottom of his disheveled state. Reno doesn’t cry, especially not during work. He’s a consummate professional.

“I’m an idiot. I fucked up, Rude.” He sniffs. “I thought—”

“Tell me.”

He bites his lip, and his eyes begin to water. “They weren’t even the size of a god damn— why am I crying?”

“Reno, what are you talking about?”

“I asked Hojo to make us clone babies,” he blurts.

Rude freezes, and then he's scrubbing one leather clad hand against his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Gods, Reno.”

“It didn’t work. So no biggie, right?” he tries to laugh, but it sounds more like a sob. Pathetic.

“How?” Rude sounds mad. Oh, he's really mad. He's pissed and Reno’s gonna get in such a shit for this.

“I got some of your DNA, and some of mine, and he did his thing.” He feels like he's going to choke to death on his own sticky feelings, the visceral discomfort is overwhelming and suddenly he's breathing way too fast. Air rushing into his lungs shallowly and getting stuck there.

Rude has no reason to be his partner anymore. If they had a kid, then maybe he wouldn't leave, but—

“Hey.” Rude is wrangling him into his arms, pulling him into a more secluded corner while he sniffles wetly. “Calm down.”

“I’m so fucked. I don't think I even want this anymore, man. It's so goddamn hard!”

If they had a real kid and anything ever happened to them… he'd probably throw himself off the top of the Shinra building.

Rude lowers his glasses, so that they're eye to eye. He looks at him, really stares into his soul and it's sobering, drowning in those honey-colored irises.

He cups Reno’s face in one hand, forcing him to hold his gaze, and just breath. “We’ve always figured everything out together. So we’ll figure this out too, as partners.”

“Okay. Okay, yeah.” Reno swallows and nods shakily. “Partners. Rude? I—” The words don’t come out, he wants to say too many things at the same time. Just a few weeks ago he felt like he was running out of time and now he feels so helplessly young and foolish.

He gapes, blinking back tears. I’m sorry. I love you. Please forgive me this time.

Rude, because he's Rude, says, “I know. Me too.”

“Why aren't you mad at me?”

“I am.”

Reno nods again, and they go back to work.

But they don't get to figure it out. Because shit happens, and Reno isn't even thinking about a baby anymore with the world fucking ending.

Sephiroth happens. The meteor happens. Everyone’s diseased and dying from geostigma. Shinra is a skeleton of what it used to be, and there’s still work, always work because once a Turk, always a Turk. He’s seeing this thing through to the end.

Years go by, sometimes fast, sometimes slowly, but Rude never leaves him, they never aren't partners. In the most casual way possible, Reno starts dropping the L word, and Rude says it back. Not always with words, sometimes just in the way he always has his back. How he brings him food, untangles his hair when Reno’s too tired to brush it. They live with each other, permanently and Reno’s drunken, “Love you, man” declarations quickly gets replaced by throaty, “I fucking love you”s when he's riding Rude into oblivion.

Then one day, when they're eating cold pizza and nursing bruises from another freak helicopter incident they shouldn't have been able to walk away from, Reno says, “Maybe we should get rings,” and Rude says, “Yeah, let’s do that.”

And then they’re… married. But they don't tell anyone (which leads to Elena shrieking one day, “Oh my god, when did this happen?!” when she sees his ring finger).

And then there’s a lull in things. Rufus and Reeve are rebuilding and Shinra related work settles down a little, and he starts thinking again, what if they found a surrogate? Sasha, and the other kids in the slums, they're probably all gone. But they could make it happen, they could make a safe place to call home.

He looks at his body in the mirror. Narrow hips and flat, pale chest, not exactly the image of fertility. He's gotten softer in the last year or so though. Less action. A lot of hurry up and wait around. But Rude loves his body just as much as he always has. They wake up tangled in each other every morning. Reno starfish-ing Rude out of the bed.

Sometimes, Reno still aches with the “'what-ifs'”. He's in his mid 30s now, and it's not too late. The idea of finding a surrogate becomes a little more practical. Rude would probably take to the idea if they asked Tifa. He chuckles to himself when he thinks about it, but there's jealousy behind the heat in his cheeks too. At least she’d never agree to it. The conversation would be a short one.

“Wanna help us have a baby?”

“No, you killed my friends.”

Not exactly productive.

He finds himself slightly drunk and eyeing Elena up at the bar, wondering why she hasn’t gotten knocked up yet. Then he thinks that the thought of having Elena as a mom is downright terrifying. Rude catches him staring.

“Elena is suddenly your type?”

“Gross. Never say that again.” Reno recoils like he’s been gravely insulted.

Rude slides onto the stool beside him. “You thinking about that again?”

“What's it to you?”

“Maybe I have a good reason for asking.”

“Oh?” Reno raises an eyebrow, eyes glinting with mischief. “What’s that reason, partner?”

“I like how hot it makes you.”

“Damn right, you do.” Reno’s grin widens and Rude’s shades slide low enough for him to see the warm amber of his eyes. He licks his lips.

“Been awhile since we—”

“Get a room!” Elena hollers.

They haven't done it like this in a long time, desperate and rushed and horny, Reno pleading for Rude to knock him up. It makes him feel young again, stupid and reckless. Rude grabs his hips, shoving him into the wall in the bathroom, growling, “You’re so greedy.”

“H-hah! Ahh…” Any retort Reno had planned, he's suddenly forgotten. “Rude!”

“Shh. You can be good for me.”

“Fuck! Don't—” Don't talk like that, he wants to say. “Don’t stop,” is what he ends up whining.

Rude groans when he clenches down around him, tightening up as his climax approaches quickly. He's got one hand on his cock and the other splayed against the graffiti covered wall, holding himself up.

“Gonna cum,” Rude murmurs. “Don't waste a drop.”

“Won’t— won't, baby, never. Please, fuck— give it to me.”

Rude’s grip tightens and thrusts all the way in, so deep Reno can feel him in his belly, and the hot release flooding his hypothetical womb makes him tighten up and tip over the edge, his cock spilling messily onto the wall and the floor between his feet. “Shitshitshit.”

“Yeah,” Rude rasps, Reno's body milking him rhythmically. “Take it all.”

Reno is so sickly, overwhelmingly in love. It’s gross. Makes him want to fucking hold hands.

No one says anything when they leave the men’s room together, but everyone knows they just did it. Reno’s hair is a telltale sign, so is the way he limps out of the bar.

“How have things been?” None other than Rufus Shinra asks him directly. They’re overseeing a large cargo shipment as it’s unloaded from the harbor in Junon. Reno is on bodyguard duty, not that he’s needed so often these days.

He answers without thinking, “Inventory is all accounted for, no losses. A few stowaways but they were easy to deal with.”

“I meant with you,” Rufus clarifies.

He gawks. “Me?”

“This isn’t a test, Reno.” Rufus looks amused, which feels a little dangerous. “You’ve been a Turk for a long time.”

“Are you callin’ me old?” He taps his EMR against his shoulder.

“I’m calling you skilled.”

He’s probably blushing. A direct compliment from the boss man himself? It feels good, especially after everything. All the fuckups he has on record, the reprimanding that started day one of training.

But then Rufus says, “Have you ever thought about what you’d like to do after retirement? We could use you for training.”

Reno makes a face. Retirement isn’t something that was ever an option for a Turk. You’re a Turk until you die, you don’t just walk away from the company. Though he supposes things are different now. Still. Reno, retired? What would he do, move to Costa del Sol and cook in the sun like a crab?

“That’s a ways off, ain’t it, boss?”

“Sure, but it’s always worth thinking about.”

Reno has never known his grandparents but he thinks they would sound a lot like this, finding any opportune moment they can to question him about his life choices.

“I don't know. I oughta ask Rude what he wants.”

The president seems pleased enough.

A multi-story building collapsed in Edge. It's bad. The dust takes days to settle. Reno and Rude volunteer to help with clean up which mostly means pulling bodies and body parts out from beneath the rubble. It's… fitting. For them. Fair, he supposes. Karma for everything.

But when they get to a yet unsearched part of the fallen building, dust settled in thick, heavy layers, he hears crying. Faintly, at first he isn't sure that's what it is.

“Is that…?”

Rude nods, already heading to find the source of the pitiful sound.

“Here!” Reno shouts, when he finds it.

There's a crawl space small enough for him to fit his upper body in, a slap of crumbling concrete, and beneath it, a small child in hiding. The area reeks of dirt, blood and decay.

“Hey, sweetie, come on out of there.” He can't see their face in the dark but their stuttered, hiccuping sobs sound weak. It's already been almost 24 hours since the building fell. She needs food, water, and probably sleep. That is, if she isn't hurt or bleeding.

“I'm gonna have to go under and get her,” he decides.

Rude eyes the precarious structure, poorly supported and Reno hastily adds, “I'll be fine. You might have to pull me out though.”

Rude nods, and he starts crawling his way beneath, thankful for the fabric wrapped around the lower half of his face, keeping him from breathing in the dust.

He feels around in the dark until he touches something soft. The crying stops, and gently, he tries to pull her towards him, hoping he isn't grabbing onto a broken arm.

“Yo, Rude?”

He tries wiggling his way backwards but with the kid in his grasp, he's mostly dependent on Rude sliding him back out.

In the light, he squints, eyes still adjusting. Rude is brushing some of the debris and dust out of the toddler’s hair. She's small and much younger than he thought. Still teary eyed, hiccuping sobs.

“Okay?” Reno asks, both the girl and Rude.

“She looks okay but I'll go find a medic.”

That leaves the two of them alone, and the poor thing is so exhausted she’s already falling asleep in Reno’s arms, her face so covered in dust he can hardly see what she looks like.

Rude returns with a small crowd. The medic comes in leaping over piles of rubble and kneeling down beside the two. The onlookers are parents hoping their missing child has been found alive.

“Anyone in the hospital still missing a kid?” Reno asks hopefully, knowing just how many people are already under blankets, lined up and waiting to be taken away and identified.

“I’m not sure,” the medic says. “Most everyone else is accounted for. We've got a small area of wreckage still left to search.”

Turns out that no one is missing this little girl. They can't identify her yet. Reno stays with her, gets her cleaned up with the other volunteers while they wait for her family to arrive but no one ever comes.

Then it’s late, and everyone is tired, and there’s no one around to take her.

“We could bring her home,” Rude offers. “For now until we find her family. If anyone can find them, it's us.”

“Right. I'll talk to Tseng.”

He reaches out to all of his contacts, any of the Turks still kicking around who knows more than the average person does about anything.

But they find nothing over the next few days. Just a bunch of dead ends.

Reno's determination doesn't wane. If it was his kid, he would be losing his mind looking for her. While she’s safe with them, wrapped up in an old blanket and eating applesauce because Reno still doesn’t cook anything more than “just add water” meals, her parents are out there thinking she's dead.

She sits quietly and watches him scroll through his PHS. He’s still reading up on the casualties and reports from the rescue mission as they come in.

“You talk?” he asks her curiously.

The little girl just blinks. With the gravel out of her hair she’s quite cute. Curly black hair, pale skin and almond eyes.

“That’s fine, but it’d be a lot easier if you could tell us who mommy and daddy are.”

Rude comes out of the shower shirtless and in just his sweatpants. The little girl shies away from him and Reno laughs. “Yo, she’s scared of you.”

“Understandable,” Rude says flatly.

“She likes me though,” Reno brags.

“You saved her.”

Reno makes a face as he thinks about it. “Guess so. I’m a bit of a hero, huh? I should tell Strife. He’d be soooo jealous.”

Rude smirks cause he’s always hated that guy.

“Uh, do you think I should give her a bath or something?” Reno wonders out loud. Without waiting for an answer, he’s up from his chair, heading over to pick her up. She reaches her arms for him when he gets close, and it makes him want to melt on the spot.

“Might help her sleep,” Rude reckons.

So Reno takes her into the bathroom and starts running the water, checking the temperature with the back of his hand while he waits for the water to warm up. He wishes they had toys or rubber ducks or whatever it is that kids like to play with. But then he thinks she probably wouldn’t play with them anyway. She sits patiently in his lap while he pours some of their body wash under the running water and lets it bubble up.

Then he takes her torn, dirty clothes off and sets her down in the water. She looks up at him like a wet kitten.

“Sorry kid, it’s probably pretty obvious I have no idea what I’m doing.”

She’s silent as ever, so he just sighs, sitting cross-legged on the rug and leaning against the side of the tub.

The bathroom is sparsely decorated, but clean. He and Rude are both efficient men with efficient grooming habits. Though Rude is the one responsible for keeping the plain white tile spotless. Hanging from the head of the shower is a shelf for high end shampoo and conditioner. Rude’s expensive shaving cream is sitting near the sink.

Reno gets an idea.

He squirts some of it onto the tile wall and draws a meager little cactuar with his finger. It gets the girl to smile for the first time as he plays with it, scooping a bit of it onto her nose like frosting that smells like petrichor and fresh pine.

Reno hardly needs to shave. He's never been able to grow a full beard. The peach fuzz he grew as a teen never extended past that and it never came with chest hair. So he’s not exactly thinking about Rude getting pissed at him for wasting it. It’s a lot more fun to play with the soft foamy texture anyway, and soon he’s got her trying it out, drawing her own shapes and squishing the foam between her fingers.

The fun tires her out, and by the time he’s toweling her off and putting her in one of his softest t-shirts to wear like a nightgown, she looks like she’ll fall asleep any second.

He finds Rude already in their bedroom, and starts making a little bed for her on the armchair in the corner of the room that he pulled closer to the bed on the first night.

“I can head out and do some recon tomorrow if you stay with her,” Rude offers.

“Sure, leave me on babysitting duty,” Reno pouts.

Rude raises an eyebrow at the little girl who is already tucked under a blanket and fighting to keep her eyes open. “Doesn’t look that difficult.”

Reno rolls his eyes as he climbs into bed and turns off the light. He has a lot to think about, namely the wreckage he’s been digging through the past few days. He also thinks about flames and the roar of screeching metal and screams. Thinks about the feeling of the wind in his hair, and the sound of the helicopter blades. Rude, holding him and telling him they were on their way back, that he was okay.

When he jolts awake a few hours later, there’s something soft and warm against his chest. He blinks in the darkness, trying to make out the form of the little girl curled up against him. She must have somehow climbed up onto the bed while he was sleeping.

He's so scared of squishing her that he doesn’t close his eyes again.

In the morning, Rude wakes up, looks to the empty armchair and asks, “Where's the kid?”

“Shh. Sleeping,” Reno mumbles.

Rude leans over him to see her still tucked up against his chest, her hair messy from sleep and sticking in all directions.

Reno doesn't get it, how a little kid could like him so much, of all people. He's not Tifa, or even Cloud, who kids seem to weirdly trust. He's not a pretty lady with a big bosom for a kid to nestle into. No, he's just some guy with sharp teeth and a bad knee.

But she likes him.

She's very interested in his work. Nosy as hell. Damn little Turk in the making. Five days of living with them and she learns his whole routine. She still hasn't spoken though.

Luckily, Tseng is accommodating and Rufus understands too. So they’re both officially off of clean up and given time to care for the child.

When the day comes for Reno’s weekly grocery run, Rude seems unphased. “Just take her with you.”

Reno is holding her on his hip while he looks through the kitchen mentally cataloging the things they need to stock up on. “You think?”

He still thinks back to that cute kid in the supermarket all those years ago, how domestic and comforting it seemed to have a little tyke accompany him on what is normally such a boring errand.

Turns out it's... not comforting. It’s work. She’s touching everything, and everyone thinks she’s so cute that they keep trying to ask Reno how old she is and telling him how lucky her mom is that he’s so involved.

Shiva’s tits, the bar is low.

But Rude comes home, walks in on Reno trying his damndest to make dinner, and the look on his face makes all the stupid questions and the jar of pasta sauce she accidentally knocked off a shelf and broke totally, completely, 100% worth it.

Week two. They don’t even know her name. Reno starts calling her “dumpling”.

Rude comes in with news, two months after the building fell. “I think I found a lead. Someone said they heard about a kid missing from Gongaga. Couldn't find the direct source but if we do—”

“Could be her.”

“Yeah.”

Reno can’t help but hold her a little tighter for the rest of the day.

Her mother sobs when she sees her. It’s been years, she says. Far beyond the fall of the building that day. No wonder it was so hard to find her, her father had wanted it that way. He ran off with her after her mother started the process of ending their tumultuous relationship.

“I never thought I would see her again,” she cries, big shiny tears in her eyes.

Reno is happy. He’s not jealous or upset, he’s just, so, so relieved, and he tells her to call if they ever need anything. If someone tried to take her again, he and Rude would take care of them personally.

Good thing her father is already dead. One of the bodies they pulled out of the building no doubt. He was using an alias, so they wouldn't have known. They couldn’t have.

They send the little girl from Gongaga birthday gifts every year after that, and Yule gifts, and pictures from the short few months they spent together. Her mother returns photos of her own, of her little girl Kiyo growing up.

Reno isn’t paying attention to the movie they’re watching when his phone buzzes and the screen lights up. He sits up a little straighter where he had been cuddled shoulder-to-shoulder with his husband.

“Should I pause it?” Rude asks.

“Nah, s’okay.”

He can see it’s a message from Kiyo’s mother, with a video attached. She’s speaking for the first time ever, babbling happily to her mom. Reno is stunned by the message that accompanies it.

She keeps asking for Reno! Will you come visit sometime?

Speechless, Reno elbows Rude, who squints down at his phone screen.

“Do you want to visit?” he asks, to which Reno nods without hesitation, feeling so painfully young again, and yet, very old at the same time.

But Reno is not an old man. He’s like… 38. Rude is an old man, he’s 40.

He starts needing glasses to read, and wears them more often than his sunglasses. Reno can still read just fine but his fucking knees.

And his left shoulder, and his back on some days… maybe he should have cooled it with all the gymnastics and hard landings back in the day.

He's meandering down an alley in Edge reminiscing when he hears a whisper behind him suddenly.

“Is that him?”

“Shh!”

Reno turns around, “What the—?”

He hears the footsteps stop, but sees no one, until two boys peer around the crates they were hiding behind. One in front of the other.

“Hey, you might not wanna mess around with a Turk, pipsqueak.”

Tan skin, teal eyes. Matching tattoos on their neck that are too faded for him to read.

They’re still following him.

“If you’re hungry—” They don't seem deterred. “Hey. I’m warning you.”

He gets pushed up against the wall, little grubby hands in his pockets, taking his keys, his wallet, and patting him down.

“ Hey!”

When Rude returns home there’s a crudely done tripwire in his foyer. Why is there a tripwire in his foyer?

He steps over it, tentatively calling out, “Reno?”

He’s tied up, but not gagged, in their living room. Big mistake by whoever captured him.

His partner tugs at his restraints, leaving rope burn on his skin.

Rude doesn't move, instead casing the room with his eyes. They eventually land on the child in his kitchen, eating all his leftovers, kicking his feet against the cabinets as he sits on the counter, chowing down.

Another one appears from the shadows down the hall.

“They’re—”

“Hi, dad.”

Reno winces. “So Hojo lied.”

Epilogue

For semi-clones, they’re very much their own people— despite Reno’s blue-green eyes, and Rude’s (former) dark brown curls. One of them has a heavy dusting of freckles, the other doesn’t. One of them really likes knives and the other has a thing for fire… and explosives… and taking everything apart to wrongly put it back together again.

They were clearly raised like little weapons, on their own for so long they never properly socialized.

Rhys is the freckled one, and the pyromaniac. Rowan is a little smaller than his brother, but smarter, probably.

“Original,” Reno deadpanned, when he found out their names.

He got right in Rowan’s face, looking for the Mako glow behind his irises. Thankfully, there was none. No Jenova cells either. They were fully human, meant to be the Turks 2.0, or something. The product of an evil genius with too much time on his hands and Reno’s admittedly poorly thought out plan.

“How'd you find us?” he asks over dinner. Their stomachs are bottomless pits.

“You're easier to find than you think,” Rowan says.

Rhys cackles.

“What do you mean by that?”

Rowan shrugs, but Rhys continues, “They always told us you guys were the best.”

“We're not?” He looks at Rude, expecting him to back him up. When Rhys reaches for the dwindling dish of Corel Casserole on the table, Reno pulls it away from him, sliding it across the table. “Well. You got anywhere to say?”

Rude glares at him.

“What?! They're feral! ”

“Your food sucks anyway.” Rhys pouts.

“Jokes on you because it's poisoned.”

His eyes go big and Reno gets up from his seat to grab his empty plate, and Rowan’s too. “Rule number one kid.”

“Wait!”

“He's joking,” Rude clarifies.

Reno makes a poor attempt at stifling his laughter. Oh, he loves being an ass to children, they're so gullible. So innocent. They get him back for it though, and the next day, none of the light switches in the apartment work anymore.

“So, we’re staying?” Rowan asks carefully.

“Yeah, you can stay.” Reno says, after fixing the wiring, and only electrocuting himself a couple of times (he’s pretty used to it by now).

“You’ll have a curfew, and you can’t just come and go as you please,” Rude adds, no-nonsense.

“Besides, aren't you like ten? It's not like you have anywhere to go.”

The boys exchange a look with each other and Reno doesn't like that he has no idea what it means. The silent conversation they just had with each other gives him an idea of what it must be like for others when he does the same thing with Rude. Only he and Rude don't even have to look at each other anymore, they just know.

“Can I have my own room?” Rowan asks, to which Rhys looks put out by.

“How many rooms do you think are in this place? You seriously haven't cased it out yet?” he slaps a palm over his forehead. “You're sharing the spare.”

They only have one extra bed but it's big enough that the two of them can keep sharing it for now.

So Reno, it turns out, is very much not cutout to be a boy dad. Rude though, he loves it.

When Reno gets home from a simple delivery assignment (one they should have hired Strife Delivery services to do, thank you very much) Rude has one of the boys’ dolls tied up in his hands. Both of them hovering over his shoulders like an angel and a devil, only both of them know how to kill a man.

“As you can see, Mog is properly restrained at his feet, his knees, his waist, his arms, his neck, and the top of his head. So when he's waterboarded, he won't be able to break free and injure us.”

The boys nod, in rapt attention.

Rude continues, “He's gonna tell me what he knows and if he doesn't, we're gonna take this bamboo shiv and stick it under his fingernails. Got it?”

“He's gonna talk,” Rowan warns.

Rhys is squeezing Rude’s shoulder with unbridled energy, “You're gonna tell me what you know, kupo!!!”

Reno silently backs away and closes the door behind him.

The boys don't have any issues sharing with each other, but that doesn't mean they don't find reasons to fight. They find many other reasons to get annoyed with each other, and sometimes he and Rude have to separate them, Reno taking Rowan while Rude has Rhys, and the next time, they'll switch.

When Reno has Rhys, it doesn't go as smoothly. They're like oil and water together. Or, oil and fire.

“Hey, you can't stab your brother.” he sighs, walking the boy down the street to cool off. “You can't stab anyone actually.”

“I wasn't trying to stab him! He fell on the knife!”

“Did you push him?”

Silence.

“Can you teach me how to use your EMR?” Rhys asks. He's always jumping from subject to subject.

“Great time to ask. Try me again in six months.”

“Six months?!”

“You're too young to use materia.”

“Rude let me use Cure last week.”

“That’s—” Reno sputters. Goddamnit, Rude. “That's different!”

“How?”

“Because you can't kill people with healing materia dumb ass.”

Rhys grins at the curse word. “I'm telling on you.”

“Yeah? Well, you're being a dumb ass, you little shitbird—”

Rhys just raises an eyebrow challengingly.

“Fuck! Fine! One move.”

Rude doesn't mention it when Reno comes home with a branch shaped burn on his arm.

Eventually, when they’ve learned enough manners to be properly introduced to other human beings, Reno and Rude take the boys to Seventh Heaven to meet Marlene and Denzel, who are both in their teens now. They help out around the bar sometimes, when Tifa needs the extra hands. Reno thinks that they might even be a good influence.

The place is industrial like a lot of Edge. Concrete walls decorated with framed photos and art, exposed rafters on the ceiling.

“Twins? Wow, they really look like you two.” Tifa looks shocked, when they come in through the front door. It had been raining, and they’re all glad to be inside.

“Careful, he's gonna go after your blender,” Reno warns, eyes not even on the kid. He just knows.

Rhys pulls his hands away from the appliance and goes to inspect the pinball machine in the corner instead.

Cloud is sitting at the bar. “Not interested”, like he usually appears. But Reno is sure that he’s more on edge than he seems. Rowan approaches him, curious about the Fusion Sword on his back. Reno kind of is too, if he’s being honest.

“Don't touch,” Rude warns.

Cloud shrugs. “He's fine.”

The weapon is complex, composed of several different blades, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Different applications. It looks heavy and difficult to wield.

Rowan sits idly on one of the stools right next to Cloud, then starts leaning over the bar while Tifa makes Reno a signature Cosmo Canyon. Strong, tart and bitter. Just like he likes it.

“Someone told me once to embrace my dreams,” Cloud surprises everyone by saying. “What’s your dream?”

Rowan shrugs. “I don't know. I don't have one.”

“Arson,” Rhys answers.

“He's joking!!”

Reno does a spit take.

“Who do you think their mom was?” Reno asks the dark of their quiet bedroom one night.

“I don't think they have one.”

“I mean… the professor used a donor. What do you think she was like?”

“I thought you were their mom.”

“Shut up!” Reno blushes. “That's not funny.”

Rude moves closer, leaning over him and grabbing his waist. “So you're not?”

“Well, I—” Oh, he’s getting hard.

“Hm?” Rude coaxes.

“Just fuck me already.”

“That's what I thought.”

The more they get to know the twins, the more Reno sees of himself in them. He sees his own lack of hesitation, his own ambition and recklessness. He also sees the one track mind, and the sometimes self-detrimentally blind loyalty. The boys act like they don't care, even when they do. They would do anything for each other, and as planet continues to rotate around the sun, anything for Reno and Rude.

“Rude. Should we tell them about Sector 7?”

“They probably know.”

“But should we tell them? Our side of the story.”

“Someday.” Rude sighs. “They know what Shinra used to be.”

“Yeah, what we used to be. I'm the fucked up reason they exist— what they went through, before us.”

Rude takes him by the shoulders, holds him still. “All those people are dead.”

There was a time when Reno used to think that maybe he should be too. Maybe that would have been justice. Or Karma. Or the universe working itself out.

He changes the subject, running a nervous hand through his messy bangs. The movie they were all watching is almost over. “So what are we gonna do when they're older and start fighting over the same girl?”

Rude releases him, before taking his free hand in his own and squeezing. “We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Right now, let's just make sure that they're happy.”

The boys are both passed out on the couch across the room, leaning on each other fast asleep. They don't share a bed anymore and somehow, that made them even closer.

“Oh god, they're gonna get married and leave us alone someday aren't they?” Reno suddenly realizes just how much that’s going to suck. But it also won’t suck, because he wants that for them. He wants them to grow up and get stronger, and smarter, and happier. He wants them to succeed.

“We'll cross that bridge when we get to it too,” Rude says, humored. “And we won't be alone... Are you crying?”

Reno buries his face in Rude's chest while his shoulders shake. It’s humiliating, that the only thing that ever really gets to him is this. Their kids. Their family.

Rude kisses the side of his face when he finally looks up. He can probably taste the salt on his skin. “Reno, they’re okay now,” he says, “and so are we.”

Notes:

If you had told me I’d end up writing Reno experiment-trapping Rude, I’d have never believed you. But here we are.
Thank you for reading! I always love to hear what you think!

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Comments

Rosedrop on Chapter 1 Tue 07 May 2024 01:04AM UTC

Oh man, there’s just so much good stuff here: Reno and Rude’s little trip to the supermarket, Reno at the orphanage, his slow but steep descent into what he actually wants ahhhhh. I frigging adored Rude finally scratching that itch for Reno but, of course things can never be simple for them. I freaking loved this and can’t wait for the next chapter 💝💝💝

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1. finalproject on Chapter 1 Tue 07 May 2024 06:37PM UTC
  
  He really went 0 to 100 very quickly. 😅 Blame his hormones perhaps, mans is going THROUGH it.
  And poor Rude went from 😏 to 😨 when he realized Reno was for real. I love writing them like this, totally husbands who aren't actually husbands. Idiots in love. We'll see if they get it together in the next chap! Thank you so much for reading ✨
  
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Nylazor on Chapter 1 Sun 12 May 2024 06:55AM UTC

Fuck this is horribly interesting, Reno is definitely letting bhis breeding kink get to his head

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1. finalproject on Chapter 1 Sun 12 May 2024 06:18PM UTC
  
  Thank you so much! Next chapter gets even worse I fear 😩 but there will be a happy ending, promise!
  
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foolinthemoon on Chapter 1 Mon 26 May 2025 08:34PM UTC

This is not what I was expecting. I did not expect the character study of Reno wanting to get pregnant and be permanently attached to Rude like he isn’t already and then to just fight the urge of just wanting a kid.
I love that you always bring up Rude’s freckles. Everyone always gives Reno the freckles and I’m just pointing at Rude like “HELLO??? THE FRECKLES ARE HERE!” Bless you

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kemakoshume on Chapter 1 Thu 03 Jul 2025 01:08AM UTC

i have the strongest urge to kiss the ground that you walk on for this fic. the subtle character analysis of reno and his growing codependency with rude is so good. cursing himself because god damn it, if he was a woman they’d be tied together forever by now. there’d be something that would always be shared between them by way of a child (even though their career killing and the trust they need in one another to do what they do is a soul tie all on its own). i love that rude indulges him but also completely sees this new kink for what it is. lovely fic!

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1. finalproject on Chapter 1 Fri 04 Jul 2025 05:09PM UTC
  
  Thank you so much! What a pleasant surprise to get a comment on this fic! I hope you like the second chapter as well. Have an awesome day! :D
  
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levisupportsbreastcancer on Chapter 2 Wed 03 Jul 2024 04:10AM UTC

I can't even begin to describe how wonderful of a journey this story was... it's so lovely I could cry...actually I did ;.; This is going in the rudexreno hall of fame for sure.

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1. finalproject on Chapter 2 Wed 03 Jul 2024 05:05AM UTC
  
  Oh, thank you that means the world! I adore this little family, Rude and Reno and their escaped lab experiment babies. 🥺 I'm glad they mean something to you too!
  Maybe in the future I'll write more of them, with a little timeskip, I'd love to explore the twins' personalities some more.
  
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2. 1. levisupportsbreastcancer on Chapter 2 Sat 13 Jul 2024 02:57AM UTC
    
    So do I!!!! the kids was such a pleasant and fun surprise! it really was a great end to this fic. it was really heartbreaking when we thought they died, I felt so bad for reno ;.;. even with the pregnancy kink and baby fever madness, it all felt so natural and real, like this could be canon if rude and reno were really a thing.
    I'm so happy they got their little family in the end. after seeing that they didn't adopt after Kiyo, I was afraid thinking that they stopped trying and gave up on kids. It couldn't have gone any other better way. ;_;
    
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cuteinsanity on Chapter 2 Fri 05 Jul 2024 03:41PM UTC

this was hot hot HOT🔥 and also so cute!
thank you so much for writing a m/m needing kink without mpreg

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1. finalproject on Chapter 2 Fri 05 Jul 2024 04:47PM UTC
  
  Thank you!!! I've always found it hot when characters have a breeding kink despite knowing they can never actual get pregnant 🤭 they can try and try, but it'll never happen.
  
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Kantae0302 on Chapter 2 Mon 22 Jul 2024 10:22PM UTC

It was so good, I'm in love, thanks for such a lovely fanfic😭🥹💕🤲

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1. finalproject on Chapter 2 Tue 23 Jul 2024 02:10AM UTC
  
  Thank you so much!
  
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peculiaryll on Chapter 2 Fri 26 Jul 2024 07:00AM UTC

oh my god this was so good i feel like my
life is now changed. thank you so much for sharing this to the world

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1. finalproject on Chapter 2 Fri 26 Jul 2024 03:17PM UTC
  
  Aww, I'm so happy you liked it! Thank you very much ❤️
  
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TurksEnjoyer on Chapter 2 Mon 09 Dec 2024 11:53PM UTC

This deserves more comments. I come back every few months to reread this because it's just so fucking sweet. Reno grappling with his newfound desire for a family with Rude while dealing with his feelings of guilt, Rude trying to suss out what Reno really wants and trying to be the voice of reason, I love them both so much here. I only wish we'd gotten to see what Rude thinks of the whole thing, but still this Reno centric piece is a banger. A true R&R classic.

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1. finalproject on Chapter 2 Tue 10 Dec 2024 07:37PM UTC
  
  Wow, thanks! That means a lot. I think this is actually the sweetest thing I've ever written, as an angst enjoyer first and foremost. It was really nice to write something so soft and I'm glad you think so too! I would have loved to write Rude's POV in this. It would have been a lot of "what the hell is going on with Reno" combined with "I need to give Reno what he wants" and trying to figure out how. I think, behind the scenes, that Rude was working it out in his head just as much as Reno was messing about with Hojo trying to make it work. It wouldn't have been easy for him to say no to Reno, even if he knows it's a bad idea.
  I miss writing these two! Maybe my next r/r work will be from Rude's POV. :)
  
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Myszygo on Chapter 2 Mon 12 May 2025 05:43AM UTC

Love this so much! Reno is such a mess, and Rude who's trying to collect him is the sweetest thing 🥺 I love their dynamic so much! They're friends, lovers, partners and parents - family for each other in every way 🧡 They're feel so real in this. Hope you give us more od them in other fics 🧡

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1. finalproject on Chapter 2 Tue 20 May 2025 02:35AM UTC
  
  Thank you so much! These two are my OTP so I will definitely be writing more of them someday! Your comment means the world to receive! <3
  
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foolinthemoon on Chapter 2 Tue 27 May 2025 12:25AM UTC

This was totally unexpected but amazing. I can’t believe I somehow missed this (2024 was hectic for me to be fair) and now I’m catching up. What a wonderful journey. I loved it so much. Reno wanting to be a dad(mom?) and even resorting to Hojo!!!! I cackled so much.
I adored this. His kink born of an actual desire. I loved him with the little girl in the tub, and I felt so bad for him when I realized he and Rude actually HAD kids and that Reno missed those years he yearned for so much. But seeing him experience it with the girl and then Rude being a boy dad was such a treat.

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Work Header

Baby's Breath

finalproject

Summary:

Chapter 1

Notes:

Chapter Text

Notes:

Chapter 2

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Chapter Text

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Kudos

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Rosedrop on Chapter 1 Tue 07 May 2024 01:04AM UTC

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finalproject on Chapter 1 Tue 07 May 2024 06:37PM UTC

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Nylazor on Chapter 1 Sun 12 May 2024 06:55AM UTC

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finalproject on Chapter 1 Sun 12 May 2024 06:18PM UTC

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foolinthemoon on Chapter 1 Mon 26 May 2025 08:34PM UTC

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kemakoshume on Chapter 1 Thu 03 Jul 2025 01:08AM UTC

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finalproject on Chapter 1 Fri 04 Jul 2025 05:09PM UTC

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levisupportsbreastcancer on Chapter 2 Wed 03 Jul 2024 04:10AM UTC

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finalproject on Chapter 2 Wed 03 Jul 2024 05:05AM UTC

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levisupportsbreastcancer on Chapter 2 Sat 13 Jul 2024 02:57AM UTC

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cuteinsanity on Chapter 2 Fri 05 Jul 2024 03:41PM UTC

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finalproject on Chapter 2 Fri 05 Jul 2024 04:47PM UTC

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Kantae0302 on Chapter 2 Mon 22 Jul 2024 10:22PM UTC

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finalproject on Chapter 2 Tue 23 Jul 2024 02:10AM UTC

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peculiaryll on Chapter 2 Fri 26 Jul 2024 07:00AM UTC

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finalproject on Chapter 2 Fri 26 Jul 2024 03:17PM UTC

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TurksEnjoyer on Chapter 2 Mon 09 Dec 2024 11:53PM UTC

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finalproject on Chapter 2 Tue 10 Dec 2024 07:37PM UTC

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Myszygo on Chapter 2 Mon 12 May 2025 05:43AM UTC

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finalproject on Chapter 2 Tue 20 May 2025 02:35AM UTC

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foolinthemoon on Chapter 2 Tue 27 May 2025 12:25AM UTC

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