Chapter Text
Morning brings with it a sense of hope, most of it naïve, but hope all the same. And these days, even a scrap of it feels like something worth holding onto. There’s a hum of eager excitement too, riding the current of all this newfound momentum, for good measure. But too much of a good thing? Tifa’s well acquainted with that concept.
Yet despite her better judgement, she allows herself to be pulled forward by the promise of the first days of summer, toolbox in hand, water bottle balanced under one arm, and a spring in her step that all but dares the world to try and bring her down. And wouldn’t you know it–tempting fate has a habit of biting back when you least expect it.
Because of course the world wastes no time pouring cold water on her joy: leaning against a support beam amid the schoolyard rubble, looking like he’s got nowhere better to be, is that unmistakable shock of red hair, cigarette clamped between sharp canines, and a ragged clipboard dangling from one hand. Not in his usual Shinra attire, no mag rod in sight. Just a pair of washed out jeans and a messy t-shirt.
Tifa should have seen it coming. Serves her right for getting too complacent lately. Torn between turning on her heel or introducing her trusty wrench with that smug grin, she ultimately opts for neither. Instead, she’ll take the high road, or so she lies to herself. Crunching gravel underfoot, she squares her shoulders striding toward him with grim determination.
“Morning, sunshine,” Reno greets raising two fingers in a lazy salute.
Her eyes narrow. Her morning, one so full of promise just minutes ago, has taken quite the sharp nosedive. Still, maybe all isn’t lost. Maybe he’s lost. Or here to drop something off. Or maybe this is just some elaborate prank designed to test the last shred of her patience.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Nope,” he replies, popping the ‘p’ and blowing a phantom puff of smoke from the corner of his mouth. “Signed up for this gig just like you.”
“Signed up,” she echoes, full of skepticism.
“Don’t act so surprised, I know how to write, y’know.” Unphased when his attempt at humor lands nowhere, he pushes on, just as unbothered. “Shinra PR division thought my charming presence and bubbly personality might help ease community tensions. Goodwill and whatnot.”
She doesn’t flinch. Just stares at him like he might disappear if she blinks hard enough. When that doesn’t seem to do the trick, she folds her arms across her chest, letting out a loud sigh. “So they sent a Turk.”
“To a school of all places,” he grins cheerfully, clearly pleased with himself. “Very kid-friendly.”
“Is this a joke?”
“If it is,” he says, cocking his head, “I’m not the one telling it.”
A brief silence forms in the space between them while the outside world carries on utterly oblivious: drills whirring, voices shouting, the occasional sharp shriek of nails biting into wood.
“But,” he adds, tone brightening, “it gets better. Not only am I here, it turns out we’re assigned to the same task.” He taps the clipboard in his hand with mock gravitas. “Wall repair duty. You, me and some cracked foundation. How poetic is that?”
Tifa stares at him tight-jawed. Then slowly blinks.
“You’re serious.”
“Would I lie to you?” he says, almost whistling the words, a lilt of pure delight in his voice, like her thunderstruck disbelief is exactly the reaction he was hoping for.
If he strains a bit, he can just about make out something that sounds suspiciously like “unbelievable” hissed through gritted teeth as she storms off towards the site manager’s trailer.
“Hey,” he calls after her, jolly as ever “while you’re at it, put in a good word for me, yeah? I’m due for a promotion.”
“What’s he doing here?”
Daya knows it’s serious when someone usually as composed as Tifa Lockhart skips the pleasantries and cuts straight to business. As if the office wasn’t already a cramped metal box stuffed with a desk and a curling corkboard, the air finds a way to tighten further.
There’s no room for a smile, not even an acknowledging nod, just steel in her voice and tension bracketing her shoulders. That alone earns Daya’s full and unwavering attention, so she sets her notebook down, before leaning back in her chair to meet Tifa’s furious gaze head-on.
“The Turk,” Tifa clarifies, as if there could be any room for misunderstanding.
“Your new site partner.” Daya confirms. “Believe it or not, he comes with stellar reviews. One of the better transfers from the hospital site.”
Tifa does indeed find that hard to believe, yet by some arcane miracle, manages to bite back the retort threatening to erupt.
“Speaking of transfers,” she resumes, a knot tensing in her throat, “that’s why I am here. I’d like to request one. Away from him.”
A look of bemused exasperation flickers across Daya’s face.
“No can do, Tifa,” she begins, leaning so far back in her chair that it bumps up against the wall, like a few extra inches might shield her from the rising tide of Tifa’s frustration.
Which it doesn’t, for Tifa only presses on. “But he’s not even qualified.”
“Neither are you.”
That may be so, Tifa’ll admit, but at least she, unlike Shrinra’s well-trained guard dogs, is here for the right reasons. Not for optics or some PR stunt to slap on a brochure. She’s gotten up close and personal with grief and walked through its wreckage, twisted in rust and soot, enough times to know the difference between rebuilding and posing for it.
She’s seen enough hurt and misery to last a lifetime. Enough to know when enough is enough. If not for freeing oneself from the sins soiled in grime and rubble, then at the very least for the children of Midgar’s fall—those many bright eyes who had no say in what was taken from them, and who deserve more than the mess they’ve been unfortunate enough to inherit.
People like Reno shouldn’t have the luxury of pretending this is penance. Not when it’s just another paycheck. And you can’t buy forgiveness with cement and fake altruism.
“Look,” Daya lets out a tired sigh, seemingly clutching at straws by now but trying her hardest to keep it in check, “he shows up on time. Plans ahead. Works fast. That puts him ahead of half my crew.”
Tifa too is down to her last card for her voice comes out in a disbelieving weak stutter. “There must be someone else…”
“There is . And they’re already paired up, same as you.” Daya shakes her head, staring at her lap. “I’m not here to referee old grudges. I’m here to keep this site upright. Hell, maybe even push it forwards. If the staff spent half as much energy on their assignments as they do debating the damn roster, we’d be weeks ahead.”
Tifa’s jaw tightens, but Daya cuts her off before she can get another word of protest in.
“Request denied,” she says, firm but not unkind. “And if it helps, which it probably won’t, he didn’t request this either.”
Daya is right about one thing: knowing Reno is equally unenthusiastic about the grim reality of being her site partner does little in the way of easing Tifa’s irritation. If anything, it only sharpens it. Because when she returns, begrudgingly, dirt scuffing beneath her boots, he’s still there, exactly where she left him, propped against the same support beam like he owns it, carrying that insufferably coy smirk aimed straight at her in challenge.
“Judging by the look on your face,” he drawls, a wicked grin distorting his face in a slant, “the headmistress signed off on our dream team and now you’re counting the seconds 'till you can acquaint my face with a crowbar.”
Tifa ignores him. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Their assignment for the day is exterior wall duty, patching up the southwest support where numerous chips and a nasty vertical crack has just about split the structure in two. It’s a miracle the thing’s still standing. To Tifa’s great, and mildly irritating, surprise, Reno’s already pulled supplies: a toolbox and two sets of gloves placed next to a portable cement mixer coated in more dirt than a shovel in a coal pit.
Donning the gloves, slightly too big but that’s never stopped her from getting the job done before, she assesses the wall. Tall, soot-scarred, split top to bottom like an old wound.
“It needs more than pathwork,” she sighs, kneeling to inspect the base.
Reno crouches beside her, eyes scanning over the cracked foundation. “Whole frame’s shifted,” he says. “We could knock it out and start clean.”
Despite herself, she looks at him then, daggers in her eyes. “Is that what you think? That if something’s broken, you just get to tear it down?”
“What’s the point of keeping things around that can’t hold their own weight?” This he says like it is the most obvious truth out there, mockingly of course, for how could she be so foolish for not having learned this already? “Of course,” he resumes, feigning nonchalance, “we could just bandage it. Paint over the crack. Pretend like it’s all fine.”
In a tightening that begins at the back of her jaw and stretches all the way to her fingertips, Tifa shoots to her feet.
“You don’t get to pretend like you give a damn.”
“I’m standing here, aren’t I?”
The nerve, Tifa thinks. Worse than him clearly enjoying the theatre of presenting himself in a favorable light is the sheer hypocrisy of it all. The participation medal he so wrongfully believes himself entitled to only adding further insult to injury.
“That’s not the same as caring.”
“Why, cause you know everything about what people know and feel,” Reno’s voice sharpens as he too rises to face her, grin long gone. “You’re real good at assuming the worst.”
“You being the worst is not an assumption,” she spits back.
And that does something because though his posture holds firm, now the crack is looming beneath his own stunned face too and not just across the wall in front of them, composure taut at the edges.
“You look like you want to take a swing at me,” his voice drops, hoarser now. Another step towards her and she can just about smell the cigarette aftertaste on his breath. “So why don’t you?”
Tifa doesn’t back away, refusing to cede her hard-earned territory. “If I thought it would help, I would.”
“I dunno,” he counters, smiling just a little, clearly brewing something cutting. “Something tells me that wouldn’t get it out of your system.” Unflinchingly, he stares her down, looking at her face as though waiting for a dice to finish rolling.
And wouldn’t he know it—his last remark seems to undo something in Tifa because her cheeks flare hot and her lips draw in a tight line. Before the tension tips too far and she does something she can’t take back, she turns sharply around in a huff, strutting towards the cement mixer. Once in front of it, she flicks on the switch, and as the machine roars to life, its grounding growls drown out whatever biting comeback she’s got simmering underneath.
The sun prepares to dip below the horizon, taking with it the last of the day’s humid heat. Most workers have clocked out long ago. Now, the school grounds lie quiet, save for the occasional clink of metal, the flap of wind catching loose tarps, and the uneven rhythm of their labored breathing.
The silence that formed between them as they worked, on the same side of the wall, but with as much space between them as the task allowed, had been louder than any argument. Yet somehow, amidst the boiling tension, Tifa found solace in the routine of it all. The repetitive, functional motions found a way, as they always tended to, ground and remind her why she was doing this in the first place. Atonement. A new hope.
Before she even realized it, much less could stop it, something not akin to peace, and certainly not forgiveness, but rather a kind of truce born of exhaustion and spent muscle, overcame her. Not that she’d ever admit this out loud—how this sort of manual labor has a way of softening even the most furious bursts of anger, dulling its edge by giving it someplace to go.
With the back of her glove, Tifa wipes the perspiration gathering on her brow, taking a step back to survey her handywork. Her shirt clings to her back, skin sticky with the day’s heat. The mortar has dried all the way now. Ugly and uneven, but solid nonetheless. She’s made sure of it.
By the time the last seam is sealed and her tools are laid down, the wall does indeed appear sturdier than it did hours ago. Still worn and just as scarred, no longer on the verge of collapse but steady enough to do what it’s meant to.
Funny, Tifa thinks. That makes two of them.
Despite her better judgement, she glances over at Reno’s section. Unsurprisingly, his half of the wall turned out far messier than hers, by a long shot. He’s cut corners in favor of covering more ground, which is almost impressive, really, considering she thought she was skimping on finesse.
“You missed a spot. Or four,” she mutters, unable to stop herself. So much for the all too brief, hard-won serenity of silent labor.
Reno’s hand drops to his side, mortar scoop still in it, heavy with irritation. “You always this pleasant after a job well done?” he asks, barely bridling the exasperation in his voice.
“You call this well done?” She snaps, dragging her fingertips along a still-visible crack in the wall. It's barely a few millimeters wide, but it’s a flaw nonetheless. She’s grasping at straws, and she knows it.
He tilts his head, utterly unbothered. “Wall’s up. We’re not buried under it. I’m calling that a win.”
“You’d know all about people being buried under walls,” she says without missing a beat, as though enraptured in a trance. “After all, you helped write that chapter.”
For someone who gets his kicks from squeezing in the last word, Reno is quiet for a worryingly long time. The air shifts and with it, his posture straightens. Under the weight of what she can only assume to be past recollections, each one more dark and twisted than the last, he fixes her with a severe gaze.
She meets it, steadfast in her own resolve since now’s not the time to back down.That would send the wrong signal, that he’s won this round and she can’t afford to let him believe that. Trouble is, there’s a whole lot of hurt there, in his eyes, which he’s broadcasting back at her with such unabashed openness it feels almost intrusive.
So yeah, maybe she’s pushed too hard, she’ll admit, but she needed to learn where the line was and what better way to do it than to grab the metaphorical bull by its metaphorical horns and drive it straight into her worst and very real nightmare.
“You’ve got a long memory, huh?” His voice lands in a low, barely audible whisper.
“When it comes to the plate? Yeah. Turns out watching people get crushed kind of sticks with you.”
The pleasure of getting back at someone never lasts long enough, Tifa knows that. It fades even faster when the someone in question doesn’t know when to cut their losses. Someone who, if she didn’t know any better, seemed to enjoy the misery that came from having his nose dragged through the wreckage of his past crimes. Almost like he’s turned punishment into a twisted kind of hobby, maybe even a kink.
A sharp exhale through his nostrils lands hotly on her own skin. “You think I dropped it just for kicks?”
“You sure as hell didn’t stop it.”
“You think I could have?”
“I think you didn’t try.”
He lets out what Tifa can only describe as a thoroughly exasperated sigh. Good, she thinks. Fair’s fair. If she’s this worked up, the least he can do is go down with her.
“You know what pisses me off?”
In defiance, because by now, she doesn’t know how else to behave, let alone how to de-escalate, Tifa lifts her chin. “Please. Enlighten me.”
“You act like Avalanche didn’t set the whole damn thing off. Like you and your little eco-squad didn’t blow up half a reactor and call it justice.”
She opens her mouth only to leave it hanging open.
He sees an opening and takes full advantage of it. As though her stunned silence is exactly what he’s been holding out for this entire time.
“You want to count the bodies? You want to add up how many people lost power that night?” His voice is rising now, not a full-blown shout, but definitely approaching boiling point. “Hospitals, shelters, babies in incubators? But you sleep fine, right? ‘Cause yours was for a cause.”
His words are more disarming than unsettling, which makes them all that more dangerous. He’s gotten to the heart of the damage as easy as counting one, two, three. This shouldn’t happen, she wasn’t ready for it. Not from the likes of him. Tifa’s instinct is to deny it but with the fact laid bare between them like the rubble they’ve both crawled through, the protest dries up in her throat.
It was for a cause, but that’s not an excuse and even though she knows it, better than anyone, she cannot surrender the only thing keeping her head above water. Not to herself, and definitely not in front of him.
Still, she can’t help but wonder how many more lies she will tell herself to keep the sense of righteousness intact within her? Shinra’s hands are blood soiled, no questions. But hers? Maybe they aren’t as squeaky clean as she wants—no—needs to believe.
“We were trying to stop them…” it’s the best she can muster. She’s losing her footing, she can feel it, if the trembling in her lips is anything to go by, but she can’t possibly let it show.
“And I wasn’t?” He shoots back. “You think I had a choice?”
Somehow he manages to push forward and get even closer, his face now mere inches apart from hers. When he speaks again, his tone is softer, though no less biting. “I had a gun to my head, Lockhart. Literally. You think Turks get to say no?”
She shakes her head, averting her gaze for the first time. “You could’ve walked away.”
A harsh laugh pierces the air. “Oh yeah? And gone where exactly? To a bar in the slums? Maybe ask Avalanche if they’ve got room for one more outcast?”
Though her stunned silence is not an invitation for him to continue, Tifa should have learned by now: leave it to Reno to do and say the unwanted and unexpected. His next words come out in a low, tired voice. “You think I don’t know how you look at me? That I don’t see it in your face?”
“You want me to say it?” Tifa replies, meeting his eyes once more, finding much of the same hurt stripped bare before her.
“No,” he replies immediately. “I want you to admit it.”
“Admit what?”
“That whatever it is you hate in me,” he pauses, briefly, as one does before taking an irrevocable step towards calamity, “you hate just as much in yourself.”
Calamity indeed, because it brings them both to the verge of something honest. Inside Tifa, something jolts loose. That small, buried thing she’s spent years boarding up behind ironclad justifications and carefully crafted half-truths. Even looking at him feels like staring at the sun. It steals her voice, knocking the air from her lungs.
To her great dismay, Reno holds her gaze. Until he doesn’t. Until he drops it, letting it roam over her mouth, her jaw, her throat, then back so quickly to her eyes she might as well have imagined the whole thing. Except she probably didn’t. Not with how hesitant he looks now, suddenly unsure of himself, like he’s bracing for a biting comeback, a slap, anything at all to break the moment.
One that doesn’t arrive.
She just stands there, eyes aflame with hate and reproach, like a missile locking in on its target. Perhaps it’s because she’s already completed all manner of self-destruction, so what’s one more offense to tack on the list? Maybe that’s why what she does next feels less like a choice and more like the only logical next step.
One she takes towards him, closing in on what little remains of the distance between them. Hand around his collar, his back against that wall they’ve spent hours repairing with sweat, silence and fury.
It’s not graceful, and it’s most definitely not soft when her mouth crashes into his, lips clashing much the same as their words did moments ago—like fistfuls of pebbles. The surprise that flashes through him is short-lived, for he immediately takes her lower lip in his teeth, giving as good as he gets. Much of the same desperate heat and bruising desperation.
No finesse, no rhythm. Just friction and punishment.
It all ends as quickly as it begins. Breathless now, she takes a step back, and then another.
“Don’t,” she warns.
“I wasn’t gonna,” he reassures, voice wrecked, the entire weight of him seeping into the wall they’ve just rebuilt.
At least it’s still standing. Too bad the same can’t be said for whatever’s left of her. She better extricate herself, and quick, lest she risks it showing.
Notes:
Well, after a three-and-a-half-month obsessive writing bender, this beast is finally done. (Still gotta read through and edit, though but let’s not ruin the moment).
I wanted to push myself this time by switching the scenery a bit (farewell, beloved Seventh Heaven; hello, tension-fueled construction site) and starting with sexual tension already dialed up to eleven, before stacking the emotional stakes on top. Whether I actually pulled that off… yeah, fingers crossed. Needless to say, I would love to hear what you have to say!
Plan is to post two chapters a week because I’m on a ticking clock since I’m having a baby in less than three months 🥹
As always, your support is forever appreciated! Catch you soon 💙🍀
Chapter Text
There’s a lot he didn’t bother correcting her about, Reno realizes. For starters, this isn’t just another paycheck for him. Or a PR stunt, like she spat at him with that brittle, razor-edged temper she saves for people she’s already written off. Nor is he the same guy who used to check his conscience at the door and call it protocol. Not exactly, anyway.
But even he has his limits, which she so dexterously shoved him over, like dragging up Sector 7 as though he’d bulldozed it just for kicks. To add insult to injury, he likely took the bait more thoroughly than she’d dared hope, for not once did he correct her. It’s his own fault for letting her paint the picture, sign it with disdain, and hang it up in that vaulted gallery of hers labeled People I Don’t Trust.
At least playing the bastard she’s already decided he is takes less energy than arguing otherwise. Holding his ground or picking apart her assumptions would only mean peeling back layers he’s not ready to show, opening doors he’s kept locked for a reason. Doors she has no business behind. No one does.
And still, here he is. Not expecting a participation trophy, as she’s already so blatantly insinuated, just making an attempt, however pathetic, but an attempt nonetheless, to right his mistakes, of which he knows there are more than a few. One brick at a time, one screw up too late. Pretending the sweat on his brow is from the too-bright sun and not the memory of her fingers curled in his collar, yanking him down like she meant to rob him of breath.
So sure, maybe he deserves the side eyes. Earned it at all then some, for good measure. But it’s a strange kind of penance, isn’t it? Trying to patch something alongside the one person who doesn’t believe you ever will.
Penance, too, was kissing her back. Or whatever you want to call it. Kiss is putting it mildly, too clean and idealistic. Leaving room for misinterpretation, like maybe between all that heat and friction and the all-too-obvious mistake, there was a flicker of desire in there. Which, as Reno insists on reminding himself, time and time again, there wasn’t any of whatsoever.
At least not the textbook definition kind. The all-consuming, gut-wrenching, chest-swelling kind. But much colder and meaner and a sure lot rougher. A collision rather than a connection. Fever in place of clarity. Guilt dressed up as impulse.
She hasn’t brought it up since then, not a look, much less a word. She’s ignored him with flying colours and that, in and of itself, should feel like a small mercy, although it doesn’t. It's a minefield, watching each other through the slits for eyes, observing the truce but ready to send a spear whistling through the air or raise their shield in defense should the other party seem ready to betray them.
But silence has a way of expanding into a raging beast, one Reno’s never quite figured out how to tame. It’s only a matter of time before he'll say something else he can’t take back, pick a fight just to feel something, attempt to scratch an itch that’ll forever be just out of reach. That’s inevitability at its finest. And can you blame him? One look at her, and he already knows it’s a lost battle. Her holier-than-thou persona, perched atop some imaginary high ground has made sure of it.
Maybe it’s because she’s been part of the school rebuilding effort longer than he has, but she’s earned others’ respect in a way Reno, with his grand total of two days and counting, couldn’t dream of competing with. Not that respect gets you far around here.
At the end of the day, what people value most is keeping your head down and doing your job, not even well, just decently, with minimal complaining and zero drama. That’s something she’s mastered.
He’ll go so far as to admit she’s the kind of woman others look up to. Who wouldn’t want to get elbow-deep in grease and soot beside the heroine that played a role in taking down Sephiroth? Reno on the other hand? He’s just a warning label you slap on bad decisions.
But there’s the catch. Hidden beneath a veneer of martyrdom, she’s a criminal too, just like him. It infuriates him beyond belief that Saint Tifa carries herself like she’s never had blood on her hands, like she deserves a free pass.
Yeah, Shinra dropped the plate, but Avalanche loaded the fucking gun, aimed it, lit the spark and walked away from the fuse, all the while telling themselves they were saving the world. She doesn’t get to wear her guilt like a crucifix while he hauls it around like a curse. Doesn’t make it weigh any less. Not when she’ll go the extra mile to have his past regurgitated, one mistake at a time, like she’s keeping score.
Come to think of it, that’s why kissing her back was a mistake. One he would be wise to never again repeat. He may be a sucker for self-flagellation, but even he ought to have a featherlight sense of self-preservation, one that kicks in under the noble guise of drawing the line at women who think they’re made of better stuff.
But steering clear isn’t an option. Daya’s made that abundantly obvious.They are doomed to be partners in misfortune until the entire outer wall is reinforced, painted over, and blessed by the gods, apparently. Today’s torment? Tearing down a section of fickle, half-rotten wall, if you can even call it that, and replacing it with freshly laid bricks.
They’ve already done the hard part. Or what he thought was the hard part. Earlier, under the sun’s scorching glare, they took turns swinging those oversized demolition hammers, one loud, unhurried blow at a time. Now, with half the day gone, the wall’s a pile of powder and shattered stone stored away in a cartwheel and they can finally move on to the second phase: laying fresh bricks, in neat respectable rows.
Turns out, this is where the real torment begins. Because brick-laying goes hand in hand with prolonged exposure. With standing shoulder to shoulder in oppressive heat, skin prickling under layers of dust and perspiration, hands brushing by accident, or maybe not.
And somewhere in the monotony of smoothing mortar, a bead of sweat, catching sunlight off the delicate curve of her neck, flickers in his peripheral vision. It begins slowly at first, then all at once, gone too quickly, trailing along the line of her throat, skimming just above her pulse before disappearing beneath the collar of her shirt, soaked through enough to reveal the faint outline of her bra strap. It’s all so hypnotic and rhythmic and, damn her, so very alluring.
He forces his eyes back to the bricks, to the wall in the making, anything that isn't her. But it’s too late, she’s already caught him red-handed.
“You laying bricks or planning to stare one into place?” She sounds wholly unimpressed, not even sparing him a full glance.
And just like that, she snaps his foolish optimism in two and he remembers who she is. Sharp-tongued. Maddeningly composed. Annoyingly graceful even when she’s pissed. A self-righteous storm in a ponytail. And hotter than a reactor meltdown, infuriatingly enough.
A comeback, any at all, dies in his throat, when her shoulder brushes his. Just fabric against fabric, barely a breath of contact, but it’s enough to set him aflame. Apparently not just him, because Tifa too tenses, with fingers curling around the trowel’s handle with more force than the fine art of bricklaying demands. A sharp inhale through her nose, like she is trying to breathe the moment out of existence, confirms his suspicion: maybe she’s not as unaffected as she pretends to be.
Which is all the fuel Reno needs. Tipping the scales from restraint into provocation, not just because he can, but more importantly, because he wants to. She’s got that sort of confidence that’s just begging to be tested, and whether he admits it or not, there’s nothing he enjoys more than watching her flinch, making her squirm. There’s something sweet, almost intoxicating, about seeing someone so prim and composed struggle not to come undone at the seams. Because let’s face it, ain’t like she’s going to bite back, so he might as well have some not-so innocent fun while at it.
“Careful,” he mutters, voice rougher than intended. “You keep bumping into me like that, people’ll talk.”
Tifa sighs loudly, straightening her back. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
Called it, he smirks. “Too late,” he tries again, because pushing is most amusing when done repeatedly. Some call it not knowing when to quit, but for him, that’s just perseverance.
“Earlier,” she says, picking up another brick and laying it atop the waist-high wall, “you were staring.”
Well, color him impressed, she’s more upfront than he gave her credit for. But once set out on this path, not even a little bit of confrontation is enough to convince him to back off. If anything, it’s just the invitation he most desperately craves.
“Noticed that, did you?” he chuckles, turning his gaze towards her in earnest, not even bothering to hide it this time, the way his eyes drag down the length of her, catching on the bare skin of her arms, the clinging white of her tank top, the sharp line of her waist. He doesn't rush it. Takes his time with the long legs beneath that ridiculous excuse for a skirt—tight, black, barely regulation-length if this were any other setting. He lets his gaze crawl back up just as slowly, landing somewhere near her mouth. Now's his chance: to strike while the iron is still hot. “Guess I’m not as subtle as I used to be.”
He expects her to come out with one of her many biting judgements. Or a blush even, oh, now that would be the cherry on top of an already perfect dare.
But she gives him none of that. Her entire body turns to face him, trowel hanging loose at her side, tilting her head ever so slightly to take all of him in.
“That or you just stopped trying.”
He’s kept his nerve, right up until he doesn’t. Not what he was expecting. Not her matching him, word for word, stare for stare. And definitely not her having the spine to throw it right back at him without so much as a hesitant blink.
“What exactly do you think I was looking at?” he asks, attempting to mask just how dumbfounded her directness has rendered him.
“Does it matter?” She shoots back. No, she’s deflecting, he notices, and deflection is good, good for him that is. It means he’s still got a shot at coming out on top.
“It does if you want me to lie about it,” he replies with a shrug, coy smirk not far behind.
“Right,” she says with an unamused scoff, eyes locked on him with such intensity it takes every ounce of grit he has to just her gaze. “Because you’re so honest these days.”
“You really want the truth?” Reno begins, already bracing for the fallout, before ultimately digging to the bottom of his repertoire of comebacks labeled Bold as sin and settling on the only response the situation calls for.
He’s reached the end of his tether, has nothing to lose. Run out of patience, filters, reasons to keep pretending this thing between them is going anywhere but down in flames. So screw it, go hard or go home. He might as well unburden himself before it blows up in his face.
“Y’know, it’s hard to focus when your shirt’s gone see-through,” he drawls, not even pretending to look away. “Not that I’m complaining. White suits you.”
His gaze drifts unapologetically, from the curve of her shoulder, to the slight tremor right above her collarbone, the subtle rise of her chest, before ultimately landing on the shape beneath the all-too concealing fabric.
“Especially when I can see the outline of your bra.”
If he weren’t already paying such close attention to her every reaction, he might have just missed that sudden hitch in her breath. Fury floods her eyes, darkening them in the process.
“You’re such a pig.”
“And yet you haven’t walked away,” he replies, stepping even closer. “That’s the part that’s got me curious.”
Curios is putting it mildly. Really now, what special invisible powers are at work here? Less than half an hour ago, he was debating how to make the most out of a shitty situation condemned to snide remarks, moral superiority and side-eyes as her construction partner. Now, here he is, an inch away from her mouth, again, dizzy from the sweet scent of her skin, caught in her snare.
“I want you to stop—” She cuts herself off, but it’s already too late, because Reno’s already there. Not touching, but close enough that her breath lifts his shirt.
And damn her for it indeed, because he wouldn’t be here if not for the perceptible shift in her too, if she hadn’t gone from acting like she was merely doing her civic duty just by tolerating his presence to actually beholding him as more than just a mistake she made one time. Hell, the randomness of want sure is a funny thing… one minute you’re laying bricks next to someone who can barely stand your presence, the next you’re aching to rob them of air, and worse, you’re almost sure they want it just as bad.
“Something tells me you don’t want me to.”
That something being her quickening pulse, the subtle quivering of her bottom lip, that failed attempt to bite back the want with her teeth.
“Get back to work,” she mutters, without much conviction.
“You sure?” he asks, leaning close to her ear. “Cause I’ve been told I’m pretty good with my hands.”
Her answer comes in the shape of her fingers twisting his collar, shoving him, not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to shut him up, back slammed against the solid, and fortunately, taller, wall beside the one they have been working on. In between the clashing of teeth and biting of lips and throats, there’s a pool of rage, all spite laced with heat.
Reno exhales hard, half a laugh, all disbelief. “Fuckin’ knew it.”
“Shut up,” she snarls, and there’s no hesitation in her hands now for she’s already yanking at his belt with fingers that tremble more from fury than nerves.
His eyes flick to the corner of the yard. A quick scan. Nothing. And though they’re still in the open, with anyone rounding the bend able to spot them. But the shadows will hold, while impatience has wiped out all reserves of politeness and cohesion, apparently. Her mouth catches his groan as her hand brushes against the hard length of him through the thin material of his boxers before sliding the waistband down along with his trousers in one smooth, decisive motion.
“You hate this,” he growls, wrecked and ragged, turning his fingers into claws to grab hold of her hips. “You fucking hate me.”
Her nails dig into his shoulder, lifting herself towards him. “Doesn’t make me want it any less.”
Indeed, on his tongue her need tastes so raw. That’s all he’s been waiting for. Without warning, he spins her around, pressing her palms into the wall, her cheek brushing against sun-warmed concrete. One leg he pushes between hers, spreading them apart, as her breath stutters out in gasps, more from shock than fear. His hands roam over that perfect ass, lifting her skirt without ceremony, fingers gripping, kneading, claiming, all the while as his teeth graze along the shell of her ear, her nape, her throat.
“Say it again,” he challenges, pressing into her, one hand coming around to rub her clit through the wet fabric of her underwear only getting wetter, whilst the other braces the wall beside her head.
By now, he should know better than to expect her to give him what he wants, no matter how nicely he asks for it. Not that it’s too much of a problem, not with the way her back arches just so, grinding her ass and her hips into him, a fucking invitation with a pretty ribbon on top he’s about to rip in half.
He wastes no time. No more teasing, no more finesse, if there was ever any to begin with. Yanking her underwear to the side, he thrusts into her, no hesitation, burying himself to the hilt in one brutal, merciless motion. She gasps—half shock, half pleasure—walls tightening around him, stretched and split wide open, a perfect fit for all the wrong reasons. He’s overcome by a pulsing in his cock like a threat, grinding deeper, meaner, until there’s nothing left of the space between them. She chokes on a moan before he brings his hand to cover her mouth, his breath hot, no more than a tremor, ghosts across her nape.
“Not too loud now,” he hisses, not letting up, and most importantly, not letting her fight it, driving into her deeper, harder. “You don’t want an audience, do you?”
She whimpers into his palm, biting down on the heel of his hand, every twitch of her body a testament to the desperate, electric rhythm they find and lose again. It’s a punishment they’re both complicit in, bodies colliding like the wall they’ve just torn down, already broken, already falling, nothing left to salvage than what they can take from each other. Because this is what they have together, locked in an endless war against the flesh, all their sweat and loathing tangled into something unnameable.
From her, he doesn’t want anything more.
So he thrusts into her harder in an attempt to bury and destroy everything he can’t stand to face: memory, guilt, want . Meanwhile, her fingers scrabble uselessly against the wall, begging for stability that refuses to materialize. His name claws its way up her throat but never fully forms, caught and swallowed against the heat of his palm.
“This is what gets you off?” She manages to choke out. “Fucking someone you can’t stand just to feel something?”
“Don’t act like you didn’t start it”
“I hate you,” she throws her head back against his shoulder.
So now she says it, now she gives him what he’s been asking her for this entire time. That alone undoes the little remaining restraint he has, her breath hitching as a result with his every thrust, each one deeper, harder, more frantic than the last.
“I know.”
He does know. In this moment, it’s the only thing he knows with any certainty. He hates how good it feels, hates how good she feels, he especially hates how her body wraps around his so perfectly like they’ve done this a million times.
“Say it back,” she demands, barely a whisper now, her whole body trembling under him, chasing her own pleasure by grinding into his fingers. “Say you hate me.”
Control is a thread stretching thinner by the minute, so he can’t oppose her, wouldn’t dream of it. “I hate this,” he hisses, teeth bared. “I hate you.”
Tracing red down his forearm with her nails, her body locks around him and he feels it ripple through her then, the entirety of her. It’s more reprimand than release, if the way she holds it in, biting down on her clenched fist, refusing to make a sound, even as she shatters, is anything to go by.
He’s not far behind, jaw clenched so tightly it aches, burying himself deep. With each raw, punishing thrust comes another attempt at grinding the shame out of them both. At the last second, he pulls out, finishing on the gravel between them with a choked, guttural breath, one hand braced against the wall, the other bruising her hip.
Mutually assured destruction, at its finest, signed in flesh and silence.
When he finally regains enough balance to hoist his trousers back up, he feels hallowed, bereft, scraped clean from the inside out. With nothing left but the ache and the burn and the distance waiting to swallow him again, he pulls away, one breath at a time, one lie at a time. A strategic retreat, back into the distance they crawled out of.
Notes:
Once again, it is such an odd departure for me: starting the dynamic at this level, rather than treading the more traditional path of mutual interest/feelings first before the physical falls into place. So yeah, I am not so much feeling rusty, as totally inexperienced instead. Regardless, if smut’s your thing, then there’s more where this came from; and if it isn’t, well, there’s a whole lotta angst planned for the latter chapters!
Thank you so much for reading and commenting, I look forward to hearing your thoughts further!
Chapter Text
That night, Tifa scrubs her body raw in the shower. Peels back the grime, the sweat, the dust, but to her great dismay, none of the shame. It sticks, no matter how hard she tries to wipe it all away. By now, it’s second nature.
By her feet, soapy water pools, turning clearer and more transparent with each and every rinse. Still, his scent lingers, an uninvited guest composed of cedarwood and cigarette smoke. Infused as well, imprinted more like, is the memory of him, the shape of his body pressed just so against hers, the entire weight of him burned into her spine.
She brings her hands to her mouth to cover it, imitating the way he’d stifled her moans earlier, torn between wanting to spit out all surviving traces of him by discarding every molecule of his breath and saliva, and inhaling it further down, even deeper, like penance, becoming one with his essence.
The dichotomy of her own ambition petrifies her. Somewhere between interest and remorse, hunger and repulsion, there’s a sliver of solace, a miniscule one at that, but solace nonetheless. There’s still time and she has many tools at her disposal. Such as minding her own business, pretending nothing happened.
She’s done more with less, she needs to remember that.
When she steps out of the shower, steam emanates from her scorched skin. The summer night is thick with heat, the breeze so humid that she’s sweating off the effort immediately as soon as the crisp towel moves across her body. She throws herself onto bed, head first into the pillow, dampening sheets clinging to her body. Though the damage is done, parts of the mess she’s made can still be rectified. It’ll take a whole lot of discipline, maybe more than usual, but Tifa’s never lacked restraint. Temperance is a virtue she’s always had in spades, so this, theoretically, shouldn’t be a problem.
What matters most is keeping her head down, putting in the hours, getting the job done, lest they risk falling behind schedule which will only lead to people inevitably doing what they do best: start talking. Tifa can’t have that. Sleeping with the enemy is one thing. But the whole world knowing? That’s a different kind of offense. It would be torture of the highest order of magnitude, a blow she would never recover from.
She refuses to imagine how her friends would react. If Barret already spits at the mere mention of Turks, Tifa worries the truth might actually kill him. And if it didn’t, he’d damn well claw his way back from the grave just to exact revenge on every last thing touched by Shinra; and her, most of all, for letting one of them so much as breathe her air. And after that is said and done, he’d never look at her the same again. There’d be no anger there, just that deep-bone disappointment that shifts something permanent between people who used to be family.
Yuffie, on the other hand, would laugh it off, disbelieving at first. That can’t be right, she’d say. Tifa is not that self-destructive. Then upon noticing that this isn’t some sick joke she’s been left out of, she’d offer Tifa the silent treatment. The kind Yuffie reserves for those she loves the most, when they screw up the very worst.
And Cloud? Ah, she doesn’t even know. Likely, he’d do the most quintessential Cloud thing out there and just stand there, saying nothing. Tifa dreads that silence the most, the unreadable stillness, the weight of a cold gaze that sees too much and says far too little. Conveying, in a way words never could, just how utterly let down he is by actions.
Besides, whatever would she tell them if faced with the question of why she did it in the first place? What possessed her—no, what foul spirit temporarily hijacked her better judgement, rendering her mental capacities and sense of discernment so impaired?
Honestly? She doesn’t know. Can't make heads or tails of it. It could’ve been boredom, just as easily as heatstroke. Though, if she’s being completely transparent with herself, it’s most likely a form of self-castigation. For what, exactly, remains to be decided.
But to keep it along the vein of transparency, she suspects it’s got something to do with the way he doesn’t like her all that much and that’s actually a breath of fresh air because so many others appear false and facetious in their blatant displays of simply being, much less in their over-the-top performances of appreciation. Reno’s no stranger to lying through his teeth all the time, but at least he won’t stoop so low as to say what someone else yearns to hear. Rough around the edges, more foul-mouthed than not, and never giving an inch even if it means making someone’s day better. Soothing for the sake of comfort is a foreign concept to him.
There’s cruelty there, but also conviction, and part of Tifa can’t help but—not admire, for that would be an all too generous overstatement, but—acknowledge the sheer tenacity it takes to always put himself first. For all his habitual lies and reckless charm, he clearly has that obvious self-confidence she’s always lacked. She could learn a thing or two about that, but even her transparency knows its limits and she’s not quite ready to put that particular lesson under the magnifying glass.
It helps knowing that another element that feels distinctly real is his disdain for everything touched by her shadow and his refusal to sugarcoat or deny it. This is the one true thing they have in common and it’s likely why she so eagerly took the bait he threw at her, regurgitated it, and spat it back into his face only for him to do the same.
The bad news is, all attempts at convincing herself that this is where all similarities between them end have done nothing to dispel the notion that Reno is, under the right light, or when he’s blessedly silent, a passably attractive man. Threateningly handsome, honestly. She wouldn’t go so far as to call him her type—not that she’d have one but if she did she doubts it would be tall, lean, muscle-wrapped arrogance with a criminal record and a mouth that never knows when to shut up.
If only the body consulted the brain before making its choices. But enough contemplating her fall from grace. Tomorrow will be agonizing already without adding insufficient sleep to the mix. So she turns off the lights, crawls into bed, takes shelter under the sheets, tosses and turns, then tosses and turns some more until somewhere along the way between attempting to and actually succeeding at, real sleep does eventually pay her a visit, albeit all too briefly.
Today is agony. Called it. Though there is nothing particularly validating about expecting the worst and then, surprise!, watching it unfold exactly as predicted.
It’s the crack of dawn and the few volunteers up at this ungodly hour are huddled inside the makeshift break room, really just a large tent with a faulty fourth peg that screeches in protest whenever the wind so much as sighs, sipping and burning their tongues on black coffee served in paper cups that’s scalding for twenty minutes then inexplicably ice-cold the next. In the middle of it all stands Daya, handing out the day’s teams and assignments like she’s delivering a sermon; solemn, absolute, and not to be questioned.
Tifa’s still stuck with Reno, still on exterior wall duty, and, as Daya makes explicitly clear, loud enough for all in the tent to hear, they’re falling behind schedule. Through gritted teeth, Tifa forces a smile, and spares the room the details as to why. Turns out laying bricks is a whole lot harder with knees weak and wobbly after experiencing one of the most intense orgasms of your life—though she’d be caught dead ever admitting that. Not to anyone, not even to herself.
The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that her oh-so-reliable partner vanished for the rest of the day afterward, no explanation, no trace. Better than half of Daya’s crew, oh please. So yes, they’re behind. Obviously.
And this is where the real agony begins, because Reno is still nowhere to be seen. Any other day, this would be a blessing in disguise, but under the current circumstances, his absence puts her in a bit of a tight spot. And when Tifa tries diplomatically and reasonably to inform Daya that the schedule might need adjusting to reflect one pair of hands instead of two, the request gets lost in the shuffle.
So she steps outside the tent, makes a half-hearted attempt to sip the coffee without burning her tongue, fails of course, then promptly empties out the liquid onto a patch of grass cracking through the pavement by the edge of the main construction site under the guise of it being just what the ground needs, eco-consciousness by way of natural fertilization, or something along those lines. The empty paper cup she throws in the nearest bin on her way to retrieve her toolbox, stowed under the shade of a tree, before making her way towards the outer wall where a mountain of unlaid bricks lies in wait.
Expect, there is no mountain of unlaid bricks to speak of. They’ve given way to a shapely wall, which at the end of yesterday’s shift, when Tifa clocked out, was not there. She approaches tentatively, as though fearful this thing might only be an illusion prone to vanish if she gets too close or worse, just some cardboard cutout of a brick wall ready to collapse on her any moment now, like some elaborate practical joke.
Already on high alert, the sudden crunch of gravel beneath turning wheels startles her badly enough that she drops the toolbox at her feet, metal clanging as a puff of dust bursts up around her ankles. Approaching is none other than Reno, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, shirt clinging to his back with sweat like he’s run a marathon and then some, pushing a wheelbarrow stacked to the brim with more red bricks than she can count.
Is this a hallucination induced by sleep deprivation, or just a bizarre fever dream brought on by residual shame and bad coffee?
“You’re… here early,” she says, matter of factly, blinking at him.
Reno brings the wheelbarrow to a stop beside the wall, not even glancing up at her. “Gold star for observation, Lockhart.”
Her arms fold across her chest, still staring ahead at him. “You laid all of this? Yourself?”
He just shrugs, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist. “Nah. I bribed a couple chocobos to do it overnight. Had ‘em working by moonlight and spite.”
“You’re being serious?”
He finally looks at her then as a flicker of something unreadable crosses his expression before it settles back into his usual smirk. “What’s more shocking? That I showed up, or that I didn’t screw it up?”
She opens her mouth only to close it again, hesitating. “Both.”
“Fair.”
To give his hands something to do, he grips the wheelbarrow’s handles, nudging it forward to reposition it. “Relax. I’m not about to make a habit of being useful. Just figured I owed you one,” he chuckles, not quite meeting her eyes. “Didn’t exactly pull my weight yesterday, did I?”
Tifa doesn’t know what she finds more shocking: that he apparently has enough of a conscience to make up for lost hours, that he thinks he owes her anything, or that the wall he built, while not perfect, is… good. Too good. Better than she ever expected from someone like him.
“…Why?” she finally manages.
Reno lifts an eyebrow. “Why I left early, or why I fixed the wall?”
It’s suggestive, his look, incendiary too, and everything else in between. Enough to make her shift her weight, heat creeping uninvited up her neck.
Then he smirks, like that alone is answer enough. “What, need me to jog your memory about why I bailed?”
The colour rises to her cheeks before she has time to turn around to disguise it.
He clocks it, enjoys it even, because he presses on, emboldened, far too pleased with himself. “Had to leave before I made mistake number two. Or mistake number one again, depending how you count it.”
“I meant the wall,” she clarifies stiffly, brushing dust that isn’t there from her shirt.
He knows exactly what he’s doing. The silence that forms between them is too deliberate. It hands suspended a moment longer before he shrugs, the smirk fading into something less performative, almost genuine.
“The damn thing won’t build itself,” he groans. “Ain’t just for show. It’s supposed to keep the kids safe, right?”
Still, he doesn’t look at her.
“Not that I’m expecting a standing ovation or anything,” he adds, tone darting back toward sarcasm. “You don’t have to believe me.”
Obviously, she doesn’t. As understanding as she tries to be, she wasn’t born yesterday. People always have a hidden agenda. And people like Reno? They’ve got three or four, minimum. It’s practically genetic, the way duplicity courses through his veins.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she stiffens her shoulders, along with her resolve.
Reno scoffs, looking the other way, speaking to the wind. “Wasn’t expecting it, Lockhart.”
“Good.”
“Great.”
Bricklaying resumes. In furious, uncompanionable bitter quiet, as rigid and unyielding as the wall itself, which rises steadily by the hour. Although the timeline is very ambitious, two weeks for the south-facing stretch, if they keep this rhythm, spurred on by sheer stubbornness and the mutual refusal to acknowledge the other’s presence, they might just make it ahead of schedule. Spite, it turns out, is a powerful motivator.
Somehow, wordlessly, unless scoffed grunts count, they’ve settled into a neat division of labor. The wheelbarrow sits dead center between them like a no man’s land, stacked with bricks and functioning as neutral territory. Tifa works lengthwise along the top course, aligning the structure’s edge, while Reno moves bottom-up, reinforcing the foundation row by row. When the bricks run low, he hauls the wheelbarrow back to the main supply stack. Meanwhile, she checks the cement mixer, topping off the mortar mix and adjusting the water-to-cement ratio until the consistency’s just right: thick enough to hold, wet enough to spread.
The rhythm is tense but functional. It doesn’t relent even when it’s break time. As she peels off her gloves only to dump them over the rim of the wheelbarrow, the residual frustration that’s taken up residence in her entire body is amplified by a dull ache in her shoulders and back, the result of one too many hours hunched and hauling.
Across the site, Daya calls for lunch. Volunteers drift toward the tent where a folding table groans under the weight of plastic-wrapped sandwiches, lukewarm tea, and cut fruit sweating in the heat.
Tifa joins them, easing down on the edge of a low bench. It’s crowded, filled with idle chatter and the scraping noise of disposable wrappers. Reno, true to form, peels off in the opposite direction, sandwich he’s brought himself in hand, before settling under the sparse shade of a crooked tree near the edge of the site. Alone and chewing slowly. His shirt is half-unbuttoned, his sleeves still rolled, and he’s got that insufferable air about him that says I belong exactly nowhere, and I prefer it that way.
“Guess group lunches didn’t make the Turk’s list of favorite pastimes,” someone mutters between bites, deliberately loud, almost like they want him to hear.
Meanwhile, Tifa keeps her eyes on the food.
“Can ya blame him?” another chimes in, snickering around a mouthful of bread that sprays a few crumbs into the air. “Guy’s probably beat after laying six bricks and calling it redemption. Classic Shinra. Torch the place, then throw a parade for handing out buckets.”
There’s a ripple of low laughter. It’s impolite to speak with your mouth full, so Tifa strategically takes a bite of her sandwich, jaw tightening as she chews.
“What’s next?” A third one joins in. “A community garden? Maybe he’ll plant flowers for the dead too.”
This one lands harder, adding weight to the air, not enough to warrant silence, but just enough to cause a shift. Tifa tenses with it, drawing a deep, controlled breath, continuing to chew like nothing’s changed. Remaining invisible is preferable than picking a side, easier than agreeing, or worse, defending him. Given recent events, staying safely on the fence is exactly what she needs to do.
So her grip tightening around the waxy plastic wrap? An uncontrollable, unconscious side effect of the pressure building between her ribs. Unconsciously too, her eyes drift, just once, which is one time too many, towards the figure under the tree. Unmoving, unflinching. Maybe the wind didn’t carry the chatter. Maybe it did and he’s choosing to not let it show. And Tifa, for all her practiced neutrality, can’t quite tell if the pang in her chest is guilt or pity or something else altogether for which she doesn't have a name.
By the time she makes it back to the wall, the sun has crept higher and hotter, pressing down with a jabbing weight on the back of her neck. Reno’s already there, his posture loose but deceptively alert, the kind of casual effortlessness that, despite appearances, takes effort. He does little in the way of acknowledging her approach, merely sets another brick, scrapes mortar clean at the seam, all with practiced indifference.
The silence they work under now is not so much uncomfortable, but rather more… fraught. Unaffected by the bickering of mere mortals, the wall grows steadily between them, until a sense of daring she did not think she possessed takes control of her body and she blurts out yet another thing she won’t be able to take back.
“Why are you here?” Her eyes stay locked on the mortar, the words half-swallowed in the clink of tools and rustling of gravel under their boots.
“That’s a pretty broad question,” Reno says after a beat, a smirk coiling on his lips.
“You know what I mean,” she shoots back with more exasperation than she intended. It’s too early to get this worked up. “So what’s Shinra paying you for this?” she tried again, her tone bone-dry. “Or is this your new strategy? Pretend to be one us, pose for a few photos when it’s done, then get bumped up a rank?”
“Cute theory,” he snorts. “Except Shinra doesn’t give a shit. They’re not exactly tracking my brick count.”
Tifa scoffs. “They care if it makes them look good. Send out one of their most notorious lap dogs, make it a redemption arc. It’s good PR. Especially if he plays nice with the locals.”
“If you think yesterday was me playing nice…” he pauses, enough for that lethal grin of his to take on a twisted turn, before stepping closer, finally making eye contact, “…then you’ve got no idea what I’m like when I stop holding back.”
Tifa’s breath catches, a sharp involuntary inhale, subtle, but not subtle enough, feigning indifference by resuming work as though nothing’s wrong. “Don’t be disgusting.”
“Too late,” he drawls, unapologetic. “I thought you liked that.”
The next brick is slammed down harder than necessary, mortar oozing angrily out the sides.
“I don’t like anything about you,” she just about spits the words out, appealing to deflection, of the cleanest and most practiced kind.
“Careful,” he murmurs, his voice dipping lower, just enough to reach under her skin and settle there like an unwanted guest. “Keep talking dirty like that and I might forget yesterday was supposed to be a one-time lapse in judgment.”
With a loud scoff, she yanks the trowel through the mortar. She’ll admit: him beating her to the whole it was a mistake line stings more than it ought to. But she’s not going to let that deter her, much less let it show. If he wants to hit below the belt, fine. She’ll just have to make sure she hits lower.
“Yesterday was a lapse of judgement,” she reaffirms. “A moment of collective insanity. Emphasis on one-time. It won’t happen again.”
He wipes his hand on his thigh, then gestures vaguely at the wall. “We both know it’s not about ‘won’t.’ It’s about ‘shouldn’t.’ Big difference.”
Reno’s gaining the upper hand, she realizes with a bitterness that coats her tongue like ash. Her comebacks are faltering, falling short of the cutthroat upper edge they used to have. Maybe she’s rusty. Or just dehydrated. No matter the reason, it grates. Worse still, he’s dodged every attempt she’s made at peeling back the layers, especially when it comes to the one question that keeps gnawing at her: what’s his real reason for joining the school reconstruction effort in the first place?
What did she expect, it’s Reno after all. Why be honest when you can wolf your way past the truth, sidestep guilt with a smirk and a well-placed innuendo? It’s infuriating, the way he turns everything into a game, a push-pull she didn’t sign up for. And the fact that he’s good at it, irritatingly so, only fuels her urge to slap some sense into him. Or kiss it out. Which might be worse.
“Fine. Then we shouldn’t,” she fires back. “And we won’t. End of story.”
He leans in, brick in hand, just close enough for her to catch the glint of sweat at his temple and the sly smirk twisting at his mouth. “Funny,” he murmurs, “you didn’t sound so sure when you were…”
“Don’t.” Her voice slices the air between them.
Reno just lifts both hands in mock surrender. “Right. My bad. Lapse in judgment. Won’t happen again.”
“Damn right it won’t.”
“You know Lockhart,” he drawls, returning his attention to the task at hand, or at least, pretending to, “You’re a real fucking treat when you’re angry. Bet if I kissed you now you’d bite.”
The freeze starts from her fingertips before travelling all the way down her spine. She stutters, then hesitates. You can taste his audacity in the air around them, like her reaction is the cherry on top of an already perfect joke.
“You want blood? Try me.”
“Kinky,” he laughs.
“Delusional,” she mutters.
He beams his trademark grin. “Knew there was a reason I liked you.”
“You don’t like me.”
“No,” he agrees in a low voice. “I really fucking don’t.”
She turns to look at him, his eyes already there to meet hers. Across the yard, someone laughs a harmless sort of laugh. Harmless is the last thing she’d call that coy smile tugging at his mouth. Daring her to revolt, to stage an insurrection, more like. A provocation she stifles, submitting it to the recesses of her soul where all her worst impulses go to rot.
It doesn’t stay buried, whatever it is that she’s been trying to drown out. Instead, it floats to the top like oil dancing across the surface of water. Her conviction that yesterday was a one-time lapse holds strong for all of four hours. Five, maybe, but she wasn’t exactly watching the clock. The fresh smell of his aftershave mixed with his musky sweat has a way of compromising her timekeeping abilities. All of her mental facilities, if she’s being honest.
She’s got enough sense left over to at least wait until all other volunteers have cleared out, before following him out back, to the rear of the main school building. Secluded and shadowed since by now most of the sun's already dipped below the horizon. Safe enough, in theory, should anyone double back for forgotten tools or unfinished business.
There’s a strategically placed paint-stained wooden bench tucked against the wall, half-swallowed by the deepening shade, onto which she pushes him down. Or maybe it’s him pulling her onto his lap. The order of operation blurs, no use splitting semantic hairs. What matters is she’s straddling him, one hand tangled in his hair, the other tugging her underwear aside to guide his cock into her.
Before long, he tugs down the straps of her top and bra in one fell swoop, taking one nipple between his teeth while the other is pinched between his fingers. His spare hand disappears beneath the skirt bunched at her thighs, finding her clit with maddening precision, rubbing circles that steal yet another cry from her throat.
She comes once, hard, then once more, her body bruised and raw and quivering from the onslaught of overstimulation. Though it hurts, she’s no less ravenous to chase it again and again for there’s a hunger in her now that devours restraint, that spits on dignity, and she’d be wise to not subdue it, not when it’s at its most vicious state.
And through it all, not once does she look at him. She can’t afford to see that smirk turned slack with pleasure, or the way he watches her every twitch and tremble, like she’s a puzzle he’s already solved. Or worse, like he’s trying to commit every roll of her hips and shudder passing through her lips to memory, one thrust at a time.
It’s violence incarnate, his impending orgasm, as though it’s tearing a hole in the fabric of space-time itself. At the last moment, he pulls out, with fingers bruising hips as he spills across her trembling thighs. Violent too is the sound he makes, muffled only by his face buried against her neck, driving his fangs into her shoulder, keeping her there, as close as physically possible, as though he’d rather disintegrate into her skin rather than come up for air.
“Sorry,” he mutters, through subsiding tremors, voice rough, eyes refusing to meet hers. “About… the mess.”
It’s as close to remorse as either of them can hope for.
Peeling apart should be easy, yet somehow, it’s slow and reluctant and involves one too many hands ghosting over one another like they’re testing the damage. Spoiler alert: it’s total catastrophic annihilation. The kind one cannot walk away from so much as pretend it never happened.
Until it happens again.
Notes:
Apologies for the delay, bit of a busy last few days. Would love to hear your thoughts so far! If you have any favorite lines, or otherwise suggestions, I’m a sucker for your feedback and very eager to keep improving my writing!
Until next time :D
Chapter Text
Little, if anything, has been done to the place since his last visit. Though he wasn’t sure what he ought to have expected. A fresh coat of paint, a new rug or two. Something to distract the eye from those horrid kitsch landscape paintings mounted on the walls, masking as decor. No visual palette cleansers, no homely touches, nothing hospitable about the venue whatsoever. Just duct-taped stools, sticky floors and the all-too familiar stench of fryer grease and bad decisions permeating the air.
Too bad it’s still early enough in the night that you can hear yourself think, which is precisely what Reno is trying to avoid. To add insult to injury, the jukebox is broken—come to think of it, has it ever played a tune from start to finish without stuttering?—but that doesn’t seem to deter the old geezer in the corner from attempting to bring it back to life. One kick, two kicks, a slap and then an insult, for good measure, yet the old thing stays dead.
A pleasant effervescence expands in his mouth, his second glass of whiskey sweating in his hand, whilst the other clings to a cigarette burning low between his fingers. The smoke curls towards the ceiling like it’s got somewhere better to be, and he wonders if the same might be true for him as well. Either way, he’s not alone with his thoughts for much longer once the stool beside is scraped back and Rude, calm, solid, and quiet, slides into it, signaling the bartender for the same.
"Thought you quit," Rude says after a beat, nodding toward the cigarette.
"Thought you stopped giving lectures," Reno counters, flicking ash into the dented tray.
Rude’s drink arrives and after they both raise their glasses to toast the air, silence expands between them. It’s not tense, never is with Rude. Just the kind that’s given room to breathe.
After stubbing out the last of his cigarette, Reno returns his undivided attention to the glass in front of him, tracing its rim with a slightly shaking thumb. Rude watches him, patient. Always was the more observant of the two.
“So what’s the word on your rehab project?” Rude finally asks.
Reno snorts. “My what now?”
“Y’know. Schoolyard hustle. The unpaid labor. The part where you voluntarily sign up to be yelled at by people who’d cheer if your heart gave out mid-bricklay.”
Reno leans back with a tired smirk. “S’funny. You make it sound like I’m doing something noble.”
“So you’re not?” Rude raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t push.
Then another round arrives, one Reno doesn’t remember signaling for it. He steals a glance at Rude from the corner of his eye. One of his partner’s many gifts: when a retreat from honest conversation is imminent, curb its trajectory with alcohol. Not an unwelcome gift, Reno will admit, most certainly not.
“So,” Rude breaks the silence again, “when are you clocking back to your actual job?”
“Why,” Reno leans back, fighting back a grin. "Don’t tell me you miss me."
Ah, deflection by way feeble wit on his part. Classic Reno.
Rude snorts. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Well, if you insist on knowing,” he drawls, jaw and mind alike working hard to retrieve the most appropriate words that downplay his predicament, get Rude off his scent, "soon. Maybe. Just needed a break."
Rude cuts him a skeptical side-eye. "Since when do you take breaks that involve manual labor?"
Reno snorts, but it’s all weak, because by now he’s feeling cornered. "Figured I’d try something new."
"Come on, man. You volunteering out of the goodness of your heart?" Rude says, deadpan. "You are allergic to unpaid overtime."
“Earlier you called me noble,” he defends.
“And now I’m calling you out on your bullshit.”
Reno exhales hard through his nose. "Don’t give me that look."
"You didn’t answer the question."
Reno rubs the back of his neck. "Maybe I just needed to get out of my own head."
Truth is, there’s no sleep for the wicked. Or, for his demons, as he not-so-affectionately calls them. At night, when the city gets too quiet and his mind too overactive, they come crawling out of the dark, these winged beasts with even sharper claws, parading all the ghosts he helped create walking through the holes he left behind. “Following orders” my ass. That excuse ran its course long ago. Doesn’t matter how often he says it. It doesn’t scrub the blood from his hands. He dropped the plate. People died. That’s the fact that sticks.
Even when he joined the so-called resistance against Sephiroth, Meteor, the end of everything, it was too little, too late. Barely pulled his weight then and there too. He watched people die. Families crumble. The world nearly end. Seems there’s a pattern. Through it all, he kept cashing the paychecks, handed out like consolation prizes for surviving. That is the only constant.
So no, he didn’t show up to try something new. Not really. He showed up because the weight of everything, the guilt, the failures, the hollow victories, had finally tilted him off center. He needed something, anything really, to help him take arms against the despair that had been crawling under his skin as of late.
A constant losing, a constant loss, a constant capitulation, that is how he would describe the months following the last stand. And though he had been more than capable of creating around himself an impenetrable carapace of detachment with the trusted aid of overtime and after hours boozy outings, once the first cracks began to surface, the rest of the rupture was final, inevitable.
Tseng blinked incredulously upon hearing his request. Looked close to bringing his palm to Reno’s forehead to check if he had fallen prey to a fever. Upon convincing himself that Reno was in fact, dead serious, albeit rather jittery and sweaty, though not so much from a fever as from the unease brought on by displaying such vulnerability in the first place, Tseng approved with a nod, reassuring him that his old job would be waiting for him whenever Reno felt ready to return to it. Atone for your sins, he’d wisely said, which only made Reno shudder.
The hospital had been his first project. Figured he’d start where the need was greatest in a fallen Midgar. Most people would sooner spit at the mention of his name than be seen sweating elbow to elbow with a Turk, so Reno kept his head down, worked hard, spoke little. Before long, he earned a name for himself amongst the site managers who had little interest in the personal history of their staff and cared more about productivity. Just as he was starting to get comfortable with the grunts and insults of his fellow coworkers, Daya caught wind of Reno’s no-bullshit work ethic and had him transferred to the school grounds, where she was running severely short-staffed.
It didn’t make much difference to Reno. A wall’s a wall. Be it for separating the waiting area from the operating room or classroom from the school hallway. What matters is the people who will one day hopefully benefit from what that space is meant to represent, the kids this time. Maybe if the universe had even the most meagre sense of humor, it’d count for something. And if it didn’t, well at least the nightmares might go easier on him.
But he doesn’t say any of this out loud. In part because he isn't ready to admit it to himself, in part because he suspects Rude already knows. They’ve finished the rest of their drinks in companionable quiet and have moved on to something breezier, two pints of lager.
Under the buzz of cheap neon flickering overhead, Rude lets the silence work a little harder, but because he senses an absence, and omission of sorts, he breaks it after what appears to be serious deliberation: "Or maybe it’s a woman."
"Didn’t say that."
"Didn’t have to. You’re twitchier than a live wire."
For fucks sake, seems like everything as of late is conspiring to get him out of a happy mood, if he can even call it that. First it was waking up after yet another restless night, well past noon, on his one and only day off. Then it was the far too quiet, far too goddamn introspective slummy bar. And now? Rude and his endless stream of intrusive questions. And sure, calling his prior mood “happy” would be a generous overstatement, but at least the booze was helping. For a little while, anyway. Helped him outrun the flood of Lockhart-shaped thoughts and slip into the numb shell of himself he wears like armor.
But she always comes back. That’s been the pattern this past week. Just when he thinks he’s got a handle on it, when he least expects her and sure as hell hasn’t invited her into his head, there she is, lurking in the shadow of his mind. There hasn’t been a single day since that first time—that first fuck-up of all fuck-ups—that they haven’t slammed each other against some wall, half-hidden in shadows, clawing and biting, saying no, no, no, but their bodies screaming yes, yes, fuck yes. It’s a drug now. Predictable, shameful, and addicting.
It always starts the same too. One look to say I can’t fucking stand your guts, or sometimes, when they’re feeling generous, even the words themselves come spilling out. Sometimes she’ll say it first with that sinful little mouth of hers, other times he’ll start. Either way, the destination’s the same, and they end up in the same place, like clockwork. One provocation leads to another until he’s slamming into her, hoisting her leg up or bending her over and he’s furious, mad with raw anger, in part at her for undoing him this way, but more so at himself for letting it happen at all, time and time again. For falling prey to her day in and day out, like the only semblance of self-worth he can derive is measured by how spiteful his name tastes on her lips.
He doesn’t even like her, if he’s being honest. Pretty sure the feeling’s mutual. That’s what makes it so fucked up to begin with, and so goddamn irresistible. The mutual loathing, the spark of contempt that crackles under every word. It's volatile, combustible. The kind of chemistry that shouldn't exist outside a powder keg. It’s contagious too, that sheen of frustration and rage slick on her skin, spreading to him like a contagion. And yet, every scrape of her nails down his spine sends a shudder through him like it’s the only real thing he’s felt in years.
And yet, she’s not what he expected. She swears more than he gave her credit for. Cuts corners when she thinks no one’s looking. He’s seen her rush jobs, stacking bricks sloppily in favor of speed over precision like some impatient rookie. But none of it strips away that self-righteous air. She’s still stuck up high on that imaginary moral high ground of hers, acting like her and all of Avalanche’s, or what little remains of them, shit don’t stink.
But holy hell, is she a smoke show. Though he’d rather be bludgeoned to death by a million blows of a dull spoon than be caught admitting it out loud, she’s perhaps the hottest woman to ever look at him, much less touch him like she means it. Yanking him by the hair, breath ragged in his ear, trembling body, all wiry muscle and soft skin combined, pressed against his, riding that razor edge between domination and surrender. And fuck, there it is again, this unquenchable desire, reminding him, yet again, that outside the ring is where you really feel the blows, if that deep, gwaning pull in his gut, the tightening in his jeans, the clenching of his first and the jittering of his knee count as blows that is. Lust masquerading as anger, or maybe it’s the other way around.
His change in demeanour doesn’t go unnoticed because Rude just gives him a look. The kind that needs no translation.
Reno holds out for a while, gaze fixed somewhere past Rude’s shoulder like the answer might be scrawled on the beer-stained wall behind him. He downs half his drink in one rushed gulp, then sensing a gathering of courage, replies: “It’s complicated.”
"So uncomplicate it," Ruse replies like it’s the most obvious thing.
"It’s not like that. It’s… Hell, I don’t even know what it is. Just something I shouldn’t be doing."
Rude’s voice is quiet. "Yet you've been doing it anyway."
Reno chuckles darkly. "You really are a damn detective."
Rude leans back, arms crossed. "So who is she?"
Reno finishes the rest of his drink then signals the bartender for another round. Maybe it’s just his tongue eager to run wild, to unburden itself of all the secrets he’s kept locked up, because despite his better judgement, he confesses: "Tifa." Better this than the crushing weight of the remorse of his past actions, Reno thinks.
Rude doesn’t blink. Doesn’t grin. Very clearly waiting for something more substantial.
“Been… a thing. For about a week now,” he continues, fully committed to dig his grave all the way to the burning core of the universe now. Not like he has much dignity left to injure.
Rude raises a brow, slowly. Whatever he’d expected to hear in response, this wasn’t it. “Thought you two couldn’t stand each other.”
“We can’t,” Reno mutters into his empty drink. “That’s half the fun.”
Rude leans back in his chair, eyes narrowing. “You serious?”
Reno shrugs, meaning it more as nonchalance than an act of defense. “Not like I planned it. One minute we’re laying bricks, the next…” He trails off.
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
“Does she know you’re volunteering?”
Stunned by his failure to anticipate the question, Reno hesitates, pausing a moment longer, which is answer enough. A new round arrives just in time. In time to ruin himself further.
"She knows what she wants to know," he begins. “As far as she’s concerned, I’m still just some Shinra goon working off a PR stunt. I never corrected her."
"Why not?"
Reno shrugs, but it’s too calculated to be careless. "Easier, maybe. Let her think I’m the asshole she’s made me out to be than waste breath correcting her."
Silence, or mutual understanding, expands between them. Then Reno says, more to the beer foam in his glass than to Rude, "She’s not wrong, y’know."
"You ever think maybe she deserves the truth?" Rude asks, but there’s no sense of admonition in his tone. Just honest, heartfelt curiosity, the kind that makes Reno recoil.
Which he does, immediately. Not all truths are equal, however sincerely believed. That is the only reality he allows himself to accept. "What, and ruin her favorite version of me? The villain she can’t quit?"
Rude doesn’t smile, but something softens around his eyes. "You’re a lot of things, man. But I know when you’re full of shit."
Another long pause follows, quiet enough that he can hear the sound of his own breath leaving his lungs. Leave it to Rude to always find the right thing to say whenever he’s pushing the limits of his self-deprecating humor.
Much has already been disclosed, a proliferation of facts and details. And now, feeling just the slightest bit lighter (though the bar was damn near subterranean to begin with), Reno shifts the subject. From one disaster to another.
“Glad you’re not still into her,” he mutters, eyes trained on the sweating glass in front of him like it owes him something. “This’d be a hell of a lot worse.”
Rude scoffs. “Wasn’t real. Just a thing, you know that. You’ve got the real mess.”
“Lucky me,” he replies, unable to help layering his response in sarcasm.
Rude watches him for a moment. “You’re in deep, man. And watching you fall ass-first into something resembling feelings? It's like watching a cat try to swim. Equal parts hilarious as it is tragic.”
“Fuck off,” Reno barks out a laugh, but there’s no real humor in it. “Not feelings,” Reno insists, stabbing a finger toward him. “It’s just a situation. A recurring, very physical situation.”
“Sure.” Rude lets the word sit there, dry as ash.
Reno lights another cigarette. The smoke rises, curling in the air like a question he’d rather leave unasked. But the itch gnaws at him anyway, and he’s never been good at leaving wounds alone.
“Don’t even know where Strife is,” he says, aiming for distant, noncommittal, but fails. The name alone gives him away, catching heat as it tumbles out through gritted teeth like it deserves to be pronounced in a stiff lilt.
Rude shrugs. “Haven’t seen him. Figured he’d be parked right beside her. You know, like old times.”
“Honestly, same. Maybe he’s too busy saving the world again,” he replies, more bitterly than he cares to admit. Then, after a brief pause, more to himself than to Rude, he continues, “I don’t even know what the hell they are. Were. Are again. It’s like Schrödinger’s relationship. Together and not, all at once.”
Rude leans back, tactically angling himself away from the haze of smoke forming between them. “And you? You okay being... whatever you are in the meantime?”
Reno’s breathing slows while his heart gallops, settling into the silence, vibrating with it. Truth is, he’s not. He can lie to himself all he wants, that this is purely physical, a mistake with a pulse, a car crash in slow motion, a tragedy penned from the start, and all that. But if that were the case, why does the wrenching in his gut only get tighter, more sick and twisted by the second, the more he thinks of himself as her rebound, or worse, just her distraction?
Sometimes, he swears she hates him so much it loops back around, a carousel spinning back to raw nerve. Maybe there's something there. He wouldn’t even entertain the idea if it weren’t for those tiny slips, here and there, when her mouth lingers above his just so, or she takes a second too long to extricate herself from his limbs, to smooth out her skirt or adjust her bra strap, to put herself back in order, as though this might be the last time she’ll inhale his scent and she hasn’t quite had her fill, at least not yet.
But even if she does feel something, anything, she’d never be foolish enough to admit it. And he sure as hell isn’t stupid enough to believe her. And worst of all, even if it was real… what the fuck is he supposed to do with that?
Maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s the only reason this works. The fact that neither of them expects it to.
Though this too is yet another piece of honest thought he will not authorize himself to utter out loud. So instead, he takes a long drag from his cigarette, tapping ash into the tray with more force than necessary.
“Yeah,” he lies. “Fine with it.”
Rude merely scoffs, shaking his head, the shadow of a disbelieving smile creeping from the corner of his mouth.
Reno groans into his hand, exhaling smoke through his nose, watching it dissipate. “For the record, I still don’t like her.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
The laugh that punctures the sentence is a weak stutter. "Maybe I fooled myself too."
He leans back, resting the cigarette between his lips again, letting the ember burn low.
"Mutually assured destruction," he mutters. “Guess that’s always been my type.”
And Rude, ever the steady one, whatta guy indeed, Reno thinks, says nothing. Just knocks back his drink like he's toasting a funeral.
Notes:
Enter bestest pal Rude! I somehow always struggle to write dialogue between the two, trying quite hard to strike the right balance between a proper friendship and just the right amount of banter. Your feedback on how you have found this interaction or any pointers on how to improve it for the future would be greatly appreciated!
The thing I have been trying with this story is unravelling the characters’ motivation at a slower rate, both with Tifa and with Reno, so I really hope that hasn’t been a complete failure 😅
Chapter Text
The strap of the heavy bag of sand mix draws a red indent deep into her right shoulder. She’d curse, loudly, creatively, if only she weren’t running on fumes. Her limbs feel stretched thin, her patience thinner. Stronger coffee is needed, if only that were the last of her worries. Tifa rounds the corner, mouth hanging open ready to bark at whoever thought it was a good idea to leave the mixer unattended, then freezes.
There, towards the western scaffolding, she clocks him, the mother of all her troubles. Not by the bricks, not smoking under a tree, not leaning like a delinquent against the fence. But crouched beside the newest recruit, the youngest one too, seventeen tops, whose gloved hands tremble like there’s no tomorrow, struggling to align the trowel properly. Acting the mentor, of all things. No mocking comments, no snide remarks, just patient silence as he adjusts the kid’s grip before demonstrating slowly how to scoop mortar with the edge of the tool and spread it evenly across the brick with the flat side.
Tifa blinks, like clearing her vision might reset reality. It doesn’t, the image before her still refuses to compute. Reno, who handles acts of kindness the way you'd handle a live grenade—with one eye squinted shut and a lot of swearing—kneeling in the dirt beside a nervous teenager like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Worse, like he gives a damn whether the kid gets it right.
Inertia grips her too tightly, the weight of the sand bag hanging off her shoulder long forgotten. Before her, the scene continues to unfold in small, surprising increments: the way Reno nods once, satisfied, as the kid mimics the action with more steadied confidence, followed by the ghost of a grin, not his usual shit-eating smirk, but something softer, more self-contained. He pats the kid on the shoulder, then wipes his hands down the front of his already-ruined shirt, and that’s that.
He turns around slightly and spots her, and for a split second, their eyes lock. Tifa hopes she’s not looking at him with the incredulity and unease she feels, instead channeling all her energy into appearing unbothered, tightening her jaw defensively. He nods in what she can only describe as relaxed acknowledgement before making his way towards her, stride unhurried, grin lazy and crooked, as though he hasn’t just shifted the entire axis of her day with one quiet, disarming gesture.
When he walks past her, she expects him to come out with one of his many biting judgments, flippant and sharp, but instead he mutters a low, drawled mornin’, before diverting his attention to the overrun concrete mixer like nothing’s changed.
Tifa remains rooted in the spot, feeling unmoored by how abruptly the air has shifted. Whatever spell he cast on that kid still buzzes in the space he left behind. When she finally dares to move again, her knuckles are bone-white from clenching the sand mix bag which she lets drop with a heavy thud near the mixer. The hesitant quake in her step is something Reno, very deliberately, chooses not to acknowledge, just like ignores the scowl she’s working overtime to suppress.
Too busy fiddling with the cement ratio, sleeves rolled up high, then, without so much as a glance, he jerks his chin toward a bucket.
“Needs water, half fill,” he speaks in an unremarkable voice, devoid of his characteristic teasing or nerve-wrecking smugness. His tone is merely… instructional? Absurdly so.
It’s enough to make her wish to slam the bucket flat out across his head. Payback for disrupting her already fragile emotional equilibrium. For the decency he has no business displaying. For the nauseating, traitorous flip in her stomach that feels suspiciously like a middle-school crush. For simply existing.
But on this fine morning, Tifa miraculously chooses restraint over bloodshed. Returning with the bucket, she steps next to Reno, shoulder brushing his as the mixer churns.
“You were late this morning,” he murmurs, but there’s no admonition whatsoever. Maybe he's just being observant, which is somehow worse.
And because she’s been itching all this time to spill over, she does just that.
“You playing supervisor now?” she snaps, jaw tight as she dumps the water into the mixer with more force than the task at hand requires. “Should I be taking notes?”
Apparently that’s not enough to make him flinch, much less to get him to lift his gaze. He continues to behold the spiralling mortar with a sort of practiced calm that’s frankly infuriating.
“Kid looked like he could use a hand,” Reno replies, his tone maddeningly even, before dropping lower just a little, “besides, not everyone’s lucky enough to have you breathing down their neck while they work.”
The second part she’d be wise to ignore. By now, she’s learned that it’s the kind of thing he’ll toss around not when he’s asking for a reaction, rather when he’s expecting one. And for one treacherous second, she considers giving it to him. But instead, at the last minute, she pulls at what meagre fraying strings of rebuttal she can grab hold of. Smart move, for once.
“And you’re suddenly an expert on mentoring, are you?”
This should set him off, she swears by it, but despite her best effort, it too fails to elicit even the slightest of reactions. Instead, he lifts his eyes only to meet her stare dead-on. For a split second, she catches a flicker of something, barely perceptible, so unreadable, before it flattens into a faint grin.
“I contain multitudes.”
Tifa can’t decide what she hates more. How her stomach chooses yet again to incriminate her, or how even now he refuses, yet again, to rise to the bait. There’s no crude comeback, no incendiary innuendo, no slanted smirk worn like a threat. Just casual, cool restraint, like that alone is enough to spell it out for her: he’s one step ahead of her, or maybe three at this point, and doesn’t need to flex the win. The last thing she needs is all of it getting under her skin this easily. And yet, here she is, simmering, smouldering, utterly, infuriatingly drawn into his orbit.
“Don’t worry,” he adds. “Still the same asshole. Just occasionally useful.”
“Useful’s a stretch,” she mutters, but her voice falters on the last syllable, betrayed by the residual static he’s left behind, all that mental disarray, the whiplash of seeing him be anything but the man she’s made him out to be. He’s supposed to be a walking press release with a criminal record, not some sort of reluctant role model with dirt under his nail and just enough human decency to screw with her worldview.
He doesn’t call her out on it, like even that would be beneath him. Instead, he just tilts his head toward the stack of bricks next to the almost-finished wall. “You bringing that fire to the wall today, Lockhart? Or just saving it for me?”
Case and point. One thing he got right: her glare could melt concrete. And despite every nerve ending in her body urging her to turn the other way, she picks up the trowel and gets down to it, elbows bumping as they work side by side, neither moving, much less flinching, definitely not apologizing. Before long, they slip into an unspoken rhythm, a syncopated back-and-forth built less on harmony and more on friction. An unintentional choreography shaped by repetition, proximity, and muscle memory.
It is, frankly, inexcusable, how their bodies memorize each other’s patterns without permission.
Because it means she’s learning the small things, noticing things she has no business noticing. The slope of his back when he leans in to level a row. The way he hums, low and tuneless, when measuring plaster. That annoying habit where he chews the inside of his cheek when he’s lost in thought.
People don’t catalogue details like these about someone they hate. Not like this. Not in the kind of fragments that start to rearrange themselves into something dangerously adjacent to... affection? No. Absolutely not. Not on her watch.
She tries to dissipate the panic gripping her by looking here and there, anywhere but at him, for a distraction of sorts, but it doesn’t work. By now she’s spiraling head-first into panic-territory. The first time was an accident. The second, a lapse in judgment. The third, fourth, and fifth were outright catastrophes, each one a nail in the coffin of her common sense. By now, they've rounded the corner into full-blown disaster territory. Grade-A collapse.
Yet whether by accident or not, the consequences still apply. That much she knows intimately. Doesn’t need to say it out loud. The heat climbing slowly up her spine, the sting prickling every inch of her skin, that’s proof enough. She was prepared for the villain, learned how to fight that arrogant, caustic version of him.
But this? This quieter, off-script version, the one who crouched beside a trembling kid and offered something like patience, like actual help? The one who, against all odds, possesses not just a stray decent bone, but maybe an entire skeleton of good intentions buried beneath the bravado?
Now that she’s glimpsed what potentially lies under all that swagger—a miniscule sliver of decent intention—it’s all the more vital she bites down whatever the hell this is. Before it grows teeth, before it spreads like rot and pulls her under.
Saved by the bell. If the bell was a middle-aged man, strolling in like he doesn’t have a care in the world, half a breakfast burrito still in hand, helmet askew. Milo, or something close enough. He’s supposed to be overseeing the new recruits, including the one Reno had stepped in for, except Milo is just now arriving, scratching his belly like he’s wandered onto the site by mistake.
Tifa’s gaze flicks back to the kid, now working solo, more self-assured in his movements thanks to the help he’d gotten from the wrong person. Someone who, by all accounts, should be the last person on this site to offer guidance.
Before the thought can settle, and take down what little remains of her poise while at it, Daya’s voice cuts across the yard.
“Hey, Dream Team!”
Tifa jolts like she’s been electrocuted, turning just in time to find the forewoman striding toward them, clipboard tucked under one arm, boots caked in dry clay.
“Don’t look so surprised. I come bearing praise.” She stops short of them, scanning the near-finished stretch of wall. “This? It’s clean, level, structurally sound. And, against all odds—” she lifts her chin, directing the compliment evenly between them, “—ahead of schedule.”
Tifa blinks in disbelief. “We’ve still got a lot left to do.”
“Sure, but you’ll wrap it up today. Which is why, starting tomorrow, I’m moving you both inside.”
“This supposed to be some sorta promotion?” Reno grins, a mischievous grin at that.
“Wouldn’t go that far, unless you count not baking under the sun as a perk.” Daya explains. “You’ll be tackling the flooring in the old library. It’s a mess, to say the least. Rotten boards, warped joists. But if anyone can muscle through it, it’s you two. Assuming one of you doesn’t drop a beam on the other.”
“No promises,” Reno replies, half-bored, half-bait, noticing, because of course he does, the tension gripping hold of Tifa’s shoulders.
Daya grins. “Try to play nice, or at least don’t bleed on the books.”
“B-but,” Tifa begins, hoping the rest of the sentence comes out less as a weak stutter and more as an affirmative statement, “I thought the plan was to move on to painting the facade after we consolidated the foundation.”
“Plans change,” Daya lets out with a bored sigh, already half-distracted, “And frankly, your talents would be wasted on brushwork. Let the rookies handle that.”
“Got it,” Tifa concedes too quickly, almost defeatedly, offering a polite smile that never reaches her eyes.
Without another word or acknowledgement, Daya pivots and strides off, already focused on her next task.
Reno stretches, the motion lazy but so very deliberate, obnoxiously loose-limbed. “Library, huh? You ever been kicked outta one?”
Tifa doesn’t look at him, afraid of what she might find if she does. “No.”
He smirks. “Wanna be?”
She snorts despite herself and turns away, not trusting her face to maintain the illusion of neutrality, especially not with him watching, all too observant of her every move.
Behind them, Milo claps an all-too firm hand on the kid’s shoulder like he’s been there the whole time, which only makes the kid startle. Tifa clocks the entire exchange with a flat, unimpressed stare.
“Show up late, take the credit. Classic.” Reno mutters, exhaling through his nose, changing the subject.
Tifa’s voice is dry as sandpaper. “Good thing the hard part’s over.”
And just like that, the rhythm she’s been trying so desperately to outrun, returns. No preamble, no ceremony. Just mortar, stone, and the quiet thrum of unease simmering between them, caught in the carousel of her thoughts, fragile and flimsy as a cobweb with nowhere to go.
Rushing home the moment the workday ends, without lingering, without letting herself get ensnared by the toxicity of his breath. This is perhaps the first not-shit idea she’s had in a while. She refuses to let him exercise any special claim on her for a moment longer.
As if working side by side on the exterior wall wasn't punishment enough. Starting tomorrow, they’ll be trapped—enclosed, cornered, with nowhere to hide. There’s a deep, cosmic injustice at play here. One Tifa would love to scoff at, if not for the nagging truth she knows too well: the universe always gets the last laugh.
So yes, she’d be wise not to stretch the rope too thin, especially when they’ve already frayed it so. It won’t be easy, won’t be some quick fix. It’ll take a sustained effort. And that, she’s more than willing to devote every ounce of her ambition to. Anything to preserve the fiction of her dominance.
Trouble is that trouble never comes alone. It arrives in twos, threes, and full battalions. And whatever the hell she’s been experiencing as of late has felt realer than real. A sick sense of joy has begun to occupy the space usually reserved for restraint and if that’s not cause for panic, then she doesn't know what is. Most, if not all, of the rigidity that used to keep her guarded has slipped. Without it, she’s gotten sloppy. Prone to getting burned.
He’s fire made flesh, a death sentence in human form. All sinewy muscle and coiled strength, arms that could pin her down faster than a loaded gun could shoot. And goddamn it all, if that doesn’t sound delightful. Exactly what she wants, oh stupid, reckless girl, to recede behind the monumental heights of this yearning, to lose herself in the pull of him, to pulse to the beat of his rhythm without permission, without thought, without reprieve…
She hates him and wants him all the same. Most dangerously of all, she’s beginning to wonder if there’s more than the very heat of him that’s got so rattled, but the flicker of something steadier beneath it. Something that takes the feeble shape of decent behaviour, the non-performative kind, but the real deal: hard-working, punctual, infuriatingly efficient, and worst of all, humane and actually helpful, and then some other things she’s not prepared to name just yet.
She shakes her head, like sense might rattle back into place if she tries hard enough. She can't bite into that peach thinking it will taste sweet when she's already smelt the rotting.
Because at the end of the day, he’s still a Turk. Sly, duplicitous, self-serving. She keeps repeating the words like a mantra, a protective chant of sorts to ward against whatever spell he’s begun to cast. Because if she’s to survive being trapped in a library with him, she’ll need every last shred of denial she can scrape together.
Notes:
Bit of a shorter chapter this time around, but if my calculations aren’t that far off, this ought to be the shortest of the bunch? Next chapter is definitely going to be much longer, so stay tuned!
Had a lot of fun writing this one at least. Tifa in denial is so exciting to write, especially when in my other ReTi fics I have strayed away from tapping into the complicated feelings of anger/frustration.
As always I really appreciate your feedback and of course your support!
Chapter Text
Everybody needs something to pour the ache of a vicious hangover into. For Reno, that something happens to be coffee. Jet-black and unapologetically bitter, the kind that leaves your tongue tingling and your pulse half a beat faster. He might have overdone it last night, if the lingering drumbeat behind his eyes is anything to go by, but then again, it wasn’t exactly unprompted. The conspicuous absence of their usual post-shift routine—back-against-the-wall, no-eye-contact, no-names-unless-spat kind of rendezvous—was reason enough. And Reno’s preferred method of conflict resolution? Drown it in liquor and hope it forgets how to swim. Sure, it’s not really effective, but he really commits, so it’s got to count for something.
In the clear light of hindsight, her vanishing act at the end of yesterday’s shift was nothing short of a gift. A goddamn mercy, really. Nothing like being spared another installment of borderline public indecency with Midgar’s own weaponised bombshell with her superiority complex. Really dodged a bullet there, especially with her tank top clinging like sin and those thighs looking like they could snap him in two. No, he definitely wasn’t bothered. Not one bit. If anything, he was relieved. Overjoyed, even. One more second near her and he might’ve done something really regrettable. Like beg.
And yet, here he is, showing up with coffees strong enough to melt steel, one of which, tragically, isn’t even for him. Not that he gives a shit if she drinks it. He just so happened to brew an extra-large batch this morning, and he hates waste, so that's all there is to it. Besides, not like he spent the whole damn walk over wondering if she’d even show up, and if she did, what excuse she’d offer, if any, or whether she’d act like yesterday never happened.
Honestly, that’d be fucking fantastic, just what’s needed to wipe the slate clean. No reason to dwell on the faint crescent of teeth she left on his shoulder a few days ago, the ones he didn’t bother scrubbing off in the shower, or the way she moaned his name like it tasted wrong. Nope, that’d be pathetic.
This is a new day, a new location. How poetic is that? Nothing to see here but two professionals and a floor full of rotting wood. Unbothered. Totally, blissfully, unbothered.
Using his shoulder to pry open the door, he steps inside, boots echoing across cracked tiles. Dust particles rise in the stale, cold air of the old library, appearing frozen in time and neglected in a way only abandoned places can be, like the walls have forgotten what it means to hold warmth. A ray of sunlight slants through grime-streaked windows, catching on suspended motes, and, unfortunately, in her hair, pulled back with surgical precision. It exposes the soft curve of her nape.
He tries not to look at it. Tries even harder not to feel anything about it.
But it’s too late because now his breath catches in his chest like a door on a chain and before he can stop it from escalating further, his gaze is already skating down the line of her spine. She’s bent low, scowling at a cluster of warped floorboards like they personally ruined her morning. Lips pressed into a tight line of concentration, every inch of her radiates controlled irritation, which, infuriatingly, only makes her hotter.
God, this is going to be a problem.
But he’ll keep it professional.
“So,” he clears his throat, “What’s the damage?”
“Warped planks. Dry rot. Subfloor might need replacing,” she replies, all business, still staring at the floor like it might twitch. Which, honestly, wouldn’t be that surprising. Who knows what’s nesting under there, waiting to scurry out and make her day even worse than it already is.
She finally glances up, blinks, and that’s when she clocks the cup in his hand. Not the one he’s taking small sips from, but the other. The one he casually holds out toward her like it means nothing. Not like it’s a peace offering, or anything.
“Relax,” he coaxes, “It’s drinkable. Unlike the boot polish they got in the break tent.”
She eyes it warily, as though expecting it to bite. Their hands brush for a second too long when her fingers reach out to grab the cup. She doesn’t comment, takes a long, begrudgingly appreciative sip instead.
“Huh,” she mutters. “Didn’t peg you for the artisanal brew type.”
“I’m full of surprises,” he leers, leaning against the edge of a busted desk. “Want me to list a few?”
“God, no.”
“Because I make a mean omelette,” he continues, unabashedly, pretending like he didn’t hear her. “Can pick a lock in under ten seconds. And, apparently, know how to get you to take something from my hand without threatening to break it first. Progress.”
She rolls her eyes, but takes another sip anyway. “You’re still an asshole.”
He grins, unbothered. “Sure, but I’m an asshole who just made your morning better. Let’s not pretend this isn’t the best thing you’ve tasted all week.”
She doesn’t dignify him with a response, humming instead noncommittally into the lid, which is about as close to a compliment as he’ll get. She’s learned to make eyes that say more than a mouth ever could, and he, growing hyper-attuned to every micro expression moving across her face like weather, can tell she’s enjoying the bitter taste more than she’ll allow herself to admit.
“Careful,” he adds, watching her like he’s got nowhere better to be. “Too many sips and you might start associating me with good things. Slippery slope from there.”
“Please,” she replies dryly. “You’d need a personality transplant first.”
He clicks his tongue, mock-wounded. “And here I was thinking we were having a moment.”
“We weren’t.”
“We could still,” he says, and the way his voice dips makes her grip the cup a little tighter, a flicker of tension sliding between them. Just like that, professionalism’s gone out the damn window. Five minutes in, and the facade’s already cracked. New record, even for him.
Lucky (or not) for him, Tifa’s got a firmer grip on what passes for a professional work environment. The room’s been mostly cleared already, probably by earlier volunteers, but a few stray pieces remain. Aside from a couple desks stranded in the middle of the room and a crooked chair teetering on one leg, most of the space has been cleared, bookshelves emptied, their contents packed into boxes and shoved into the front corners. They wordlessly agree to relocate the remaining clutter and begin pulling up the floorboards from back to front.
He lifts the chair with one hand, dragging it toward the pile without ceremony, though the desks they decide to tackle together. Her strength shouldn’t surprise him, he’s got the bruises and concussion-grade divekick memories to prove it, but still, he finds himself impressed. She lifts from the knees, textbook form, all grace and efficiency, shouldering more than her half of the weight without a word. Her biceps flex just so, cords of muscle twisting beneath smooth skin, and for a beat too long, he forgets to breathe, nearly loses his footing, mesmerized.
Once the furniture’s out of the way, and after yet another internal pep talk that he’s totally got this under control, completely unbothered, they get down to the task of the hour: prying up the floorboards one by one to assess the real damage underneath. Tifa, annoyingly, was right. The planks are soaked through with rot, disintegrating in fibrous clumps that crumble beneath their hands. But miraculously, the subfloor beneath is still intact. Go figure. Something in this building’s holding it together.
They work in tandem for a while, pulling up boards in a silence that quickly curdles into something unbearable. So Reno, true to form, decides to bulldoze right through it.
“You left in a hell of a hurry yesterday.”
Tifa doesn’t glance over, too busy wedging the pry bar under another board. “Didn’t realize I owed you a goodbye.”
Something like a laugh squeezes past his lips. “You don’t. Just… figured we had a thing. Not a thing-thing, obviously,” he adds quickly, tongue caught on the edge of something too real. “Just a post-shift ritual, you know? Brick, sweat, then… whatever it is we do.”
“Maybe the post-shift ritual needed breaking,” she replies in a tone that’s more quiet than firm. “Why, don’t tell me you’re disappointed.”
“Fuck no,” he replies, too fast, just as another board creaks free, which he tosses aside with a little more force than necessary, because damn her for getting under his skin like this. Then, he supplements, quieter this time, “Just surprised.”
Tifa doesn’t answer right away. The next board groans as she pries it loose, her knuckles whitening with the strain.
Pretending not to, but doing it all the same, Reno watches her from the periphery. Pretending he’s diagnosing the state of decay below, like it’s safer to look at the mess under their feet than the one settling between his ribs, when really, he’s losing himself in the slope of her spine, the flex of her shoulder beneath worn fabric, the slight tremor that passes through her as she straightens, back turned, but equally disarming.
“You’re not the only one who was surprised,” she replies in a low, calculated voice. “I don’t usually…” She cuts herself off, clears her throat. “Whatever it is we do? That’s not… normal for me.”
Involuntarily, his fingers clench a fraction too long around the crowbar in his hand. Not enough to draw attention, but enough to tether him to the moment. And tethering is necessary, vital even, because her words, whether she meant them to or not, knock something loose in him
“Well,” he says eventually, “weird seems to be the theme lately.”
She huffs, barely a laugh. Then a moment of suspension, silence expanding once again between them. But it’s uncomfortable, a prelude to some larger, upcoming disturbance. He knows all the signs by now: the way her mouth opens only to close again, the slight shift in her stance, a step forward that feels hesitant and necessary, all at once. Then she hits him with it.
“You never did say why you’re really here, Reno.”
And there it is. The question she’s been smashing him over the head with since day one. One he oh so dexterously dodged before, and could just as readily sidestep again. Though now, more so than before, in part because there’s more on the line, or maybe just because he’s stubborn like that, he feels a strong desire not to answer. To glue his lips shut, to seal his tongue to the roof of his mouth against this particular question and any other question she may ask.
So instead, he appeals to playing dumb, his most-trusted deflection tactic, even pausing mid-toss of a floorboard, feigning great, theatrical interest in its grain pattern.
“Think we covered that. I like floorboards. And bricks. They speak to me.”
“I’m serious.” She crouches beside the next board, steady hands working the pry bar beneath it. “You’ve been showing up every day without fail, even early on some. You don’t slack off. You even helped a new recruit, for Shiva’s sake. Doesn’t exactly scream ‘Turk on payroll.’”
He says nothing. Not because he’s speechless, though that’s not entirely that far off, but because he hadn’t realized she’d been watching him that closely.
“I figured at first this was just some PR stunt,” she continues, already on to another board, “or maybe Tseng sent you here to keep an eye on something. But it doesn’t add up. So what is it?”
He straightens, wipes his hands on his pants, stalls like hell. He goes scraping the recesses of his memory for a time when he last felt this cornered, comes up empty, then cedes. Because maybe he’s in fact more worn out from keeping a lid on the demons than he cares to admit. And if there’s one thing he’s keenly aware of, it’s the power of exhaustion—its leverage. People can be persuaded to do just about anything when they’re in such a precarious state, caving at the edge of themselves.
“You really wanna know?” He asks, giving her a final out.
She glances up, eyebrows raised. “Wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
Well, fuck. She’s perseverent, alright. Soon enough, she’ll have him eating out of the palm of her hand if he’s not careful. The sunlight sneaking through the dirty windows paints halos across her arms, glints off the sweat caught in the curve of her throat. Makes lying feel even more pathetic than usual.
A chorus of wasps descends on the scene, ready to sting him, and finally, he says, “I’m not getting paid.”
Tifa blinks. She’s stopped fiddling with the crowbar, attention snapped to him in full. Lips pressed into a line, gaze unreadable. She says nothing, just waits, still as stone, like she knows there’s more coming and she’s giving him the space to hang himself with it
Which he does, because apparently, in addition to being perseverent as hell, turns out she’s dangerously good at persuasion, too.
“No paycheck. No mission. Just… me.” He shrugs, aiming for flippant but missing by a mile. “Volunteering.”
She stares at him, eyes narrowing like she’s waiting for the punchline.
“You’re telling me you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart?”
“No,” he says, a little too quickly. “Don’t go giving me that much credit.”
“Then what is it?” she asks, but instead of leaping to condemnation and ridicule, her voice is quieter now, almost tender. Like she’s pressing a bruise to see if it still hurts.
Which, of course, still does. It never stopped. Neither did guilt, helluva motivator now that he thinks about it. Guilt is a finger that points, digs deep and ruins everything. And sometimes, most times, in Reno’s case, it’s your own damn finger doing the pointing.
“I fucked up a lot of shit, Lockhart.” He finally dares to meet her eyes. Reflected back at him is not a judge ready to impart the final verdict, but something far worse. Someone who sees him, truly sees him. Someone who hasn’t looked away yet.
And now, because the floodgates have opened, he continues, “Some of it, most of it really… you know. Unforgivable.” He starts to trail off, the edge of his voice cracking like a fault line barely holding. “Figured maybe fixing what’s left is less destructive than dodging ghosts.” A shrug finishes the sentence.
That last line lands heavier than expected. His pulse is drumming so loud inside him she has to be able to hear it. The impulse to take off at the slightest display of honest thought is still there, but somehow, he’s rooted in the spot. Too caught up in holding her gaze. She stares at him a moment longer, like she’s recalibrating everything, like the floor’s just shifted underfoot and she’s trying not to show it. Eventually, she breaks away, but not before he catches that small flicker, neither pity nor forgiveness. Just recognition.
“You could’ve said all that from the beginning,” she says at last.
He lets out a sigh, eyes dropping to the floor before his hand drifts up to rub the back of his neck, a nervous tic she’s starting to recognize. “Yeah, well… then you might’ve started thinking I had depth or something.”
That almost earns him a smile.
“Besides, I didn’t think it’d change anything,” he confesses, because by now, what more has he to lose?
For a moment that stretches into a suspended eternity, only the sound of their breathing settling in the hollowed-out room amidst wood creaking can be heard. She raises her chin to meet his eyes again, looking neither past, nor through him, but taking him all in.
Normally he’d flinch under such direct scrutiny, but he can’t tear himself away, not now, not when she’s seeing him in a way that finally matters.
“Maybe it does,” she murmurs. Then, even softer, “Maybe it already has.”
As if a mirror previously fogged was now cleared, his body feels weightless. Not forgiven, never that, he’s not that naive, but somehow caught in a state of tranquility usually unfamiliar to him. Lately, he’s been finding himself, with her aid, able to reach territories hitherto unbeknownst to him.
Still, there are several constants. Chief among them: the dying urge to kiss her. Really taste her. Steal the breath from her lungs. And because some things are indeed easier before language gets in the way, he circumvents it entirely. One step, and then another, and before he can stop the calamity, his fingers glide along her wrists, tracing the length of her arm.
She doesn’t lean away, but rather towards him. This part he knows by heart. How her eyes darken with desire. How her breath catches in her throat, lodges there, in suspended anticipation, just below her jaw. How she stands on her tiptoes to pull herself to his mouth.
The descent, the spiral. They’ve done this time and time again, always urgent, barely civil, as though the name of the game is leaving a mark deep enough to undo the other. War by a thousand cuts, where their bodies are the battlefield and their teeth are razor-sharp blades. Only now there’s no competition, no fight, no battle of attrition.
Dare he name it, it’s almost tender. Exploratory, unhurried. Her tongue traces the edge of his bottom lip with something close to reverence, like she’s got all the time in the world and intends to memorize him, one breath at a time. He might just be made of sugar because he feels himself dissolving into her, with every kiss he’s less and less material, more effervescent, more diaphanous.
Only air moves like this, weightless and unburneded, slipping between shadow and skin, sweeping from one end of the room to the other without effort, without permission. Only air could lift her like this, settle her atop the desk like she weighs nothing, like gravity’s a myth. He’s insurmountable, invincible, at least wherever her skin burns beneath his touch. Her breath hitches. Goosebumps bloom. His fingers skim the edge of her skirt, tracing upward until the fabric yields, bunching around her hips.
In his mouth he catches a moan, and then another, until, painfully, reluctantly, he tears himself away, chasing her pulse along the slope of her jaw, down to her throat, across the sharp edge of her clavicle. He lingers there, then lower still, over her breasts, fabric-shielded, but achingly responsive all the same.
Eventually, he falls to his knees, a sinner worshipping at the altar between her legs, fingers charting venerent paths alongside the soft curve of her thighs, every inch of exposed skin a lit fuse, and him, the willing spark. Her underwear clings, damp with impatience, and he eases it aside, making room for his breath to ghost over the burning heat of her, an almost-prayer murmured against her skin, before his tongue dips low, slow, savoring rather than consuming.
A quiet, startled gasp escapes her as her fingers weave into his hair, not to guide or pull, but to anchor. A tether to the reality they now inhabit. Ever the saviour, he brings his hands to steady her thighs, grounding her to him as though she might otherwise drift away. Every tender drag of his tongue is a promise, every respite a threat.
He learns her rhythm with ruthless precision, reading every twitch, every breath hitch, like scripture, responding to her as though it’s the only language that ever mattered.
It’s almost too much, for her hips jolt forward, hungry for more, and he oh so diligently gives in, deeper now, more deliberate. Her spine arches, offering herself up entirely, head tilted back, mouth parted, as if salvation might come from above.
But it’s him she’s praying to now. And if he has his way, she’ll be chanting his name until she forgets her own.
The tremble starts small, like an electric pulse working its way up her thigh. It should be barely perceptible, but he feels it. Tastes it, and somehow, she’s even sweeter now. Suddenly, her grip in his hair is less gentle, more urgent, nails scraping along his scalp, and he groans against her low in response, a deep and guttural sound.
He pauses, just long enough to be cruel, enough to torture them both. It doesn’t last long, whatever reprieve he tries to conjure. Because he is ruthless now, relentless, unleashing fury through each and every nerve ending on his tongue, feeling her clit constrict beneath it, quickening like a second heartbeat. His fingers join in on the fun, first sliding one inside, then two, curling them just so, hitting that spot again and again while his mouth works above, coaxing, commanding.
She’s unraveling before him, tightening around him, breath stuttering, a hand flying to grip the edge of the desk like it might stop her from disintegrating. A strangled, helpless sound breaks from her throat, which she bites down quickly, bruising her knuckle, as though that might cage the inevitable. Her eyes flick to the door—because while they know they’re alone in this wing of the school, instincts trained on secrecy die hard.
But nothing will stop him now. He is locked in, ravenous. She’s quivering, thighs threatening to constrict around his head, and on any other day, he might welcome the suffocation, but not now. Not when he’s this greedy, this possessed, a raging beast no less. Her whole body arches as the orgasm consumes her, hips jerking against his mouth, a cry tearing itself loose before she can rein it back in. Through it all, he doesn’t let up, doesn’t ease, doesn’t flinch. He drinks her in like he’s starving, tongue insatiable, chasing every aftershock, every wave, every shudder, until she’s panting, boneless, trembling above him.
When he stands up, he feels his body reteaching itself how to breathe. At least where he is headed, breath is superfluous. Lost in her mouth, dissolving once more, but not before making sure she can taste the echo of herself on his tongue. He’s generous like that, sharing the addictive nectar, getting her drunk on it. His hand finds the curve of her thigh again, pushing her skirt higher. With the other, he works his belt open, fumbles with it, in part because he’s impatient, in part because he’s intoxicated by the need radiating off of her.
He wraps a hand around his cock, hot, heavy, twitching, and drags the length of it through her slick folds, coating himself in her, teasing the entrance just enough to make her jolt. He doesn’t push in. Not yet. He wants her shaking with want first, undone just from the threat of it.
But when she says his name—broken, pleading, almost greedy—he loses himself, and there it is, skin on skin contact, heat at last. He sinks into her with a ragged groan torn from the depths, arms locking around her back like he’s afraid she might slip through his fingers, dissolve mid-breath. And she does the opposite. Tightens, clenches, draws him in like a vice, a python asphyxiating its prey. And what a way to go, truly one for the books.
Something he won’t soon forget. Not because of the heat or the high, but because whatever this is, it’s no longer just friction, punishment, or distraction. It’s got sharper teeth than that, more turbulent, more savage, ripping through the barriers he so carefully erected. It’s not just sex, but rather a sensory regulation of body and mind, an implosion ready to annihilate everything in its path.
And he’ll be damned if he moves, damned if he attempts to resist its monumental destruction. That thing clawing at his ribs, the one he swears he’ll cage again after this, he tells himself it’s just a chemical misfire, a heat-born fluke. He’ll put it back in its box later, muzzle it like all the other dangerous things he’s dragged behind him.
But not now. Now, he’s a pleasure-seeker, a hedonist to the bone. Nothing he hasn’t survived before. The brain’s clever like that, makes up little games to avoid itself. Plays tricks to keep the heart from noticing the fall.
Notes:
Well, this might be my favorite chapter of this story so far. Why? Because feelings are getting involved mwuahahaha
Let me know what you think, the support has been amazing and I am so delighted you’re engaging with this little story!
InterfaceLeader on Chapter 1 Fri 08 Aug 2025 08:56PM UTC
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