Ups And Downs
"Yes, sir." Reno spat, dropping his spark stick to the ground and lighting up a cigarette. "Whatever you want, sir."
"Reno? There had better be a damn good reason that you're sitting on my desk." Rufus grumbled, setting down a stack of paperwork on the desk beside Reno.
"I do. Lunch."
"I can't. I have a meeting with Scarlet in twenty minutes. How about later tonight?"
"It's a date." Reno grinned, hopping off the desk and striding out of the office. "I'll meet you at your place later."
"Are you all right, Rufus?" Reno asked softly, taking a long drag off his cigarette. "Did it hurt you at all?"
"No. I almost expected it to, but I feel nothing. Nothing at all." Rufus settled into the chair beside Reno's hospital bed, looking more tired then Reno had ever seen him.
"Well, he was you father, even if he was a real bastard." Reno grumbled, reaching out to stroke Rufus' arm gently.
"I suppose, but I still feel nothing. He allowed my mother to die. If he didn't need me, I have no doubt he would have allowed me the same fate. If I feel anything now that he's gone, it's relief. No longer will be taking his orders, doing his dirty work. But, enough about that, how are you feeling?"
Reno grinned, "Better. I think Hojo's been siphoning mako through my damn IV, because I'm kind of shaky. I used to get the shakes whenever I had to go in for mako treatments. But, on the plus side, my ribs are healing up quickly and I'm actually feeling pretty good. Of course, I'll feel a hell of a lot better once I get out of this bed." He paused, his expression growing suddenly serious. "I missed you."
"I missed you as well. Things have been... hectic since my father was killed."
"I heard you had a real interesting run in with my favorite boy that night."
"You heard right. Tough little bastard, isn't he? You'll have to track down him and his little buddies when you come back to work."
"Good." Reno smiled brightly, "I need to break a few of that porcupine-head's ribs before I'll feel completely better."
"You'll have your chance. I promise you that."
"So, can you stay for a while or do you have to run off?" Reno asked finally after a few moments of comfortable silence had passed between them.
"I'm staying the night. I canceled my meetings for the rest of the day. I... I need to be with you for a while. You keep me sane."
"Same here. Now, go and lock that damn door and get the hell in this bed."
"Since when do you give the orders in this relationship?" Rufus inquired, raising one blond brow in Reno's direction before crossing the room to do as Reno bidding.
"I'm injured. Humor me."
"Fine, but things will be different once you're better." A sly smile touched Rufus' lips as he shed his jacket and slipped into the bed beside Reno, more than happy to turn himself over to the redhead's warm embrace.
"Damn it all... I think I love you..." Reno murmured softly, flopping down amid the rubble. Truth be told, he no longer really cared about how the broken pieces of glass and concrete poked at him or cut tiny, biting wounds into his legs.
"What?"
"You heard me, ya damn idiot. I know we've never really talked about that kind of stuff, but I thought you probably oughta know."
"Reno... I..."
"Listen, it's not that big a deal, okay? I shouldn't have brought it up." Reno grumbled irritably, rolling over to the side of the bed and searching about blindly for his discarded pants.
"What the hell are you doing?" Rufus growled, pushing himself into a sitting position and glaring hotly at Reno's back.
"I have to get back to work. Unlike you, I still have to work for my paycheck."
"You know better than anyone that I don't want this job, Reno."
"Do I? You took it didn't you? Have you even bothered to look in a mirror lately? Have you even noticed the shit you've been pulling? Some of it's just plain wrong, Rufus. Just plain wrong."
"What would you like me to do, Reno? Run this company the way my father did? Then I could be just like him. How wonderful would that be? I could even marry a woman who despises me and pop out a kid to carry on the family legacy. That would be great, don't you think?"
Reno turned, his mako-tainted eyes locking on Rufus' wild blue gaze. "You're letting this consume you, Rufus. In your grand crusade to avoid becoming your father, you're on your way to becoming something worse."
"You don't know what it was like for me." Rufus growled, his hands turning into fists against the bed sheets.
"The hell I don't! I was raised in the slums too, remember? You think it was all love and daisies for me? My mother was a simple shopkeeper, my father was a drunk. You may have had a fucked up childhood, but it wasn't any worse then mine. My father used to beat me just for the fun of it. I ran away from home the night he murdered my mother. I made a living in the worst ways possible after that and lived in an abandoned building, teaching myself the things you learned from a private tutor. Then I came here and found you. I may have taken this job to stay alive, but I stayed because of you. Now you're dying inside, becoming the thing you hate the most and I can't do a damn thing to stop you and... you're crying." Reno broke off his tirade as he noticed the glistening wetness sliding down across Rufus' pale cheeks.
"You never told me any of this. I told you everything, but you never said anything... why?"
"I didn't want you to pity me. More than that, I didn't want you to have to know all that..." Reno said softly, running a shaking hand through his long hair, which had come loose of it's customary ponytail.
"I love you."
"Huh?!" Reno responded, blinking at Rufus in confusion. "That's your response? I love you? I tell you that I really am slum trash and you say that you love me. Damn you're strange."
"I guess." The blond president smiled a bit sadly. "But it works, doesn't it? You love me even though I've become a monster and I love you for... for being you. You're trying to save me from myself, that means more than I can say. I don't know if I can change now that I've gone this far... but I'll try."
