The Resurrection Men [Reno/Cloud | Final Fantasy VII | NC-17]
Title: The Resurrection Men
Author: reversedhymnal
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: uhm, cursing, sex, snark, darker themes, and a little bit of tangled hope?
Word count: 1985
Summary: Reno is a bad influence.
A/N: The title was taken from the song I was listening to while I wrote this. I have no idea if it actually makes sense in context with the story, lol.
Tifa’s bar is dark, the golden lights overhead doing nothing save highlighting it, warming it over into soothing, rather than dingy. Cloud walks through the door quietly, tired after a long delivery ride, the dust still on his leathers and bite marks fucking gouging his sword. He wants a drink, maybe two, and a long hot bath to relieve this irritation caught tight at the top of his spine; but he almost turns on his heel and stomps right back out at a flash of red at the bar.
“Cloud,” Reno howls, and even alcohol doesn’t soften the edge of his grin. He beckons grandly to the bar, and Tifa raises an eyebrow, expectant and wry, and Cloud doesn’t really have a choice now. The door swings shut behind him, and he shifts through the crowd to lean against a stool, ignoring Reno with years of practice.
“Welcome home,” Tifa tells him, almost without a trace of hesitation. Cloud nods, manages to quirk his mouth into a little smile; “Yeah,” he says, “for a couple days, at least.”
Tifa’s smile is warm and Reno’s hand is too hot and wrong on the back of Cloud’s neck; Cloud stiffens as Reno pulls him over into some strange amalgamation of a one armed hug and a violent stranglehold, declaring, “Tequila, gorgeous. Get us some shots! This boy is lookin’ like he needs some, if ya get me.”
Cloud slides a look over at Reno, his smile long gone, and Reno leers at him for all that he’s got his blue eyes set on Tifa. Tifa rolls hers, and says, “If you start trouble in my bar, Turk, I’ll let Cloud kick your ass.”
“Mm,” Reno says, in a mockery of charm, finally turning his gaze to Cloud, “Is that a promise, yo? ‘Cause I can’t call it any kind’a threat.” He laughs and Cloud’s hands tighten on the edge of the bar.
“Tequila, please,” he asks Tifa, pulling himself out of Reno’s grip, and stripping off his gloves. There’s a tick in his jaw that Reno put there, and if Cloud is going to make it out of this bar without throwing a punch he’s really, really going to need that tequila. Damned insufferable fucker that Reno is, he almost seems more dangerous now that there aren’t any sides to take, with a world no longer on the edge of destruction.
Because Reno is all wicked angles folded into a viciously ironic weapon, long frame slumped over beside Cloud, a smile twisting his face; Cloud stares at him for a minute too long, because there’s always been something about Reno’s eyes that are incongruous with his expression - a certain dead seriousness, a certain violent darkness that can match his levity only in an extreme of opposition that sets Cloud’s nerves jangling. Unarmed, he can get under Cloud’s skin and Cloud has no way to pry him out.
“Oh, hell yeah,” is Reno’s dark, purring murmur, “I knew it was a fuckin’ good night to go out.”
Cloud doesn’t even wait for the salt shaker to hit the table before he’s throwing back his first shot.
*
The thing about tequila is how it eviscerates your moral sense; rips right into it with a burning touch and kills any sense of why something might not be a good idea. It does it easily, clinically, leaves a lingering warmth that encourages carnal purpose. While Cloud has the metabolism of a Soldier, tequila has a kick no matter what, particularly when you go through an entire bottle almost all by yourself.
Cloud doesn’t remember the transition between sitting at the bar and listening to the methodic clatter of shot glass hitting wood, in between Reno’s lilting voice and Cloud’s own quiet answers, and being in a corner of the bar and dancing. Cloud hasn’t the slightest assurance to what was earlier said - though he vaguely remembers an argument over what was the most efficient mode of transportation in a battle, a Chocobo or a motorcycle - and he really doesn’t care. It’s distant, a vague notion that it happened; Reno’s arm is around his waist, his mouth soft and wet against the curve of his ear, and Cloud wants to put his hands in Reno’s back pockets, so he does.
Tequila doesn’t care about choices; it just wants things to happen.
Reno makes a noise that’s half growl and half sigh, rubbing into Cloud’s leg; Cloud shivers with the feeling of electricity that contact arouses, and slides one hand out of Reno’s pocket and up his back, bunching the fabric of his shirt and then reaching out and twisting his hands in Reno’s rattail. Strands of hair the color of flame bright against his pale skin, and Cloud thinks, the color of danger, and his smile is off center and dark, because Cloud has spent years running straight to that.
It’s no wonder he’s running straight to Reno now, lost in a world of action and ease of guilt; where he is what he is, and he’s forgotten anything about who he wants to be. They’re both soldiers without a fight, weapons left behind in the name of peace, and aching with something lost, so they push and strain against each other instead, and Reno laughs, is possibly laughing at Cloud, but Cloud could hardly care to complain when he can fasten his mouth to Reno’s throat and stop the laughter with the pressure of his teeth.
*
It’s Tifa over Reno’s shoulder that makes Cloud realize he’s slowly sliding down from pissed to merely drunk. He remembers the taste of guilt and obligation on the back of his tongue, and feels Reno in a long slender line of iron hard heat against him, and isn’t ready to let go of this oblivion. It’s no longer perfect, but Cloud is used to tainted things, so he moves his eyes from Tifa’s dark disapproving eyes, and tells Reno, “Let’s go.”
“Fuck yes,” Reno says before he can pretend like he’s not eager as fuck. But Reno is still more drunk than Cloud is, and hardly cares, and flushed enough that embarrassment wouldn’t show through anyway. Cloud doesn’t take his hand, and his own fingers spasm around Reno’s hair for a moment before letting go. He knows Reno will follow; Cloud leaves all his things at the bar, slides in the shadows on the edges out the door, because it’s better than giving Tifa a chance to make sense of the world.
They go upstairs to Cloud’s room, and even alcohol can’t make them anything that they aren’t; they’re silent as wraiths on the steps, even the ones that squeak when the children step on them, and wake no one up. Between one step and the next Reno is sliding out of his clothes and into Cloud’s, and Cloud trembles out of control at the contact of fingertips sliding on his bare flesh.
“I’m not gonna lie,” Reno tells him in a sly aside that runs the risk of dissolving into laughter like a raven’s wing, “I like you in the leathers. But, baby. I love you outta them.”
*
Sex is easier when drunk, Cloud decides, letting the haze drift so that it’s like living in a dream, shifting through watery motions, slow and absolute. You don’t think, you don’t hesitate, you don’t question; you just act. Reno’s fingers are at his mouth and Cloud curls his tongue around them and invites them in, and they curl like they would around a trigger, Reno’s moan the gunshot.
The entire world is on fire, and Cloud gave it the tinder to burn; Reno’s hands are everywhere, and Cloud flicks his wrist like he was born to this, drunk on alcohol and the heady feeling of making someone react. Cloud turns and presses his back into Reno’s chest, their body heat intense, sweat making them slide together. Reno’s cock is pulsing against Cloud’s ass, and Cloud bites his lip viciously, squeezes his eyes shut. Fingers spasm hard enough to make bruises that will heal too quickly against his hips.
“No, no, I- ungh.” Reno’s voice is thick, like he has to remember what language means. He thrusts against Cloud because he wants it, and bites Cloud’s neck, and manages to say, “I want to see-“
“Fuck me,” Cloud mutters viciously, ripping out of Reno’s grip to press his face against his arms, his elbows on the bed, his spine curved up and pressing back against Reno’s dick so it slides against his hole. Cloud moans savagely; “Like this,” he demands, half pleads.
Reno’s answer is a string of hushed curses and to jerk away and then back in a thrust that strikes straight through Cloud, a coiling rush of pleasure. Reno’s got lube and condoms - of course he does - and it’s hissing, electrified moments before Reno’s got his fingers knuckle deep and twisting viciously into Cloud, opening him up too fast and raw, and Cloud has to bite his arm on a sudden, broken noise.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Reno murmurs like a prayer, the laughter wiped from his voice, just dark twisting sounds that slide under Cloud’s skin and curl hooks to tear him apart. “Been wanting this since you walked through that fuckin’ door tonight. Fuck. Fuck!”
“Just-“ Cloud can’t find the words, can’t remember sense on the feeling of Reno’s fingers pressing tight inside him, twisting against the sensitive walls, plunging so deep Cloud wants to claw the covers just to make sure he can survive the feeling. “A- ahhhn! Please. Please, fuck!”
Reno pulls his fingers out, just to slide his thumbs back into Cloud’s hole and stretch him wide, and Cloud’s bent over bared for him, shivering in vulnerability and need, and fuck, fuck, fuck, Reno slides his cock inside, thick and hot even through the condom, fills him so that Cloud is going insane, this weight and heat pushing into him, rocking him back down to rawest reality.
“Ohgod,” Cloud breathes, rolls his hips back tighter against Reno and grinds. He can’t think, doesn’t want to, the world stretched out and misplaced, just acts and moves and squeezes Reno’s cock tighter inside of him, makes Reno choke and snarl, claw his back in lines of red, and shoves that sharp pleasure right back into Reno.
His own cock is hard and tight against his belly, brushing against the rumpled comforter of his bed, sharp tiny shocks of pleasure that wreck him further, and he doesn’t want to touch himself, just wants to wage war against Reno and have Reno break him; wants to push that far and make it last longer, make it come slow and wicked along his spine. Reno sets his teeth into Cloud’s shoulder so that he can smother the dirty words dripping from his poisonous tongue, because if they’re found out it’s all ruined, this shared, violent relief between the two of them.
Cloud bleeds and trembles and he’s gasping against his fists, like sobbing without the tears, a silent pantomime; he and Reno beat the orgasm out of each other like it’s the only way they know to lay claim to pleasure.
*
Cloud hopes he forgets this in the morning; knows he won’t, with Reno a sticky heat tangling with his limbs, hissing slightly and readjusting, oversensitive, but not going anywhere. Cloud can’t bring himself to care.
“Do you remember how to breathe?” Reno asks, eyes lazy, sharp along the sloping edge of his tattoos. Cloud traces Reno’s quiet smirk with the length of his lips, and breathes back, “I don’t know.” Cloud realizes that Reno’s face has lost that edge, that something has made the darkness in Reno’s gaze warm over to soothing, like the lights in Tifa’s bar.
Cloud stares, long and hard, and then closes his eyes before sobriety has a chance to come back and ruin it with sense.
Author: reversedhymnal
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: uhm, cursing, sex, snark, darker themes, and a little bit of tangled hope?
Word count: 1985
Summary: Reno is a bad influence.
A/N: The title was taken from the song I was listening to while I wrote this. I have no idea if it actually makes sense in context with the story, lol.
Tifa’s bar is dark, the golden lights overhead doing nothing save highlighting it, warming it over into soothing, rather than dingy. Cloud walks through the door quietly, tired after a long delivery ride, the dust still on his leathers and bite marks fucking gouging his sword. He wants a drink, maybe two, and a long hot bath to relieve this irritation caught tight at the top of his spine; but he almost turns on his heel and stomps right back out at a flash of red at the bar.
“Cloud,” Reno howls, and even alcohol doesn’t soften the edge of his grin. He beckons grandly to the bar, and Tifa raises an eyebrow, expectant and wry, and Cloud doesn’t really have a choice now. The door swings shut behind him, and he shifts through the crowd to lean against a stool, ignoring Reno with years of practice.
“Welcome home,” Tifa tells him, almost without a trace of hesitation. Cloud nods, manages to quirk his mouth into a little smile; “Yeah,” he says, “for a couple days, at least.”
Tifa’s smile is warm and Reno’s hand is too hot and wrong on the back of Cloud’s neck; Cloud stiffens as Reno pulls him over into some strange amalgamation of a one armed hug and a violent stranglehold, declaring, “Tequila, gorgeous. Get us some shots! This boy is lookin’ like he needs some, if ya get me.”
Cloud slides a look over at Reno, his smile long gone, and Reno leers at him for all that he’s got his blue eyes set on Tifa. Tifa rolls hers, and says, “If you start trouble in my bar, Turk, I’ll let Cloud kick your ass.”
“Mm,” Reno says, in a mockery of charm, finally turning his gaze to Cloud, “Is that a promise, yo? ‘Cause I can’t call it any kind’a threat.” He laughs and Cloud’s hands tighten on the edge of the bar.
“Tequila, please,” he asks Tifa, pulling himself out of Reno’s grip, and stripping off his gloves. There’s a tick in his jaw that Reno put there, and if Cloud is going to make it out of this bar without throwing a punch he’s really, really going to need that tequila. Damned insufferable fucker that Reno is, he almost seems more dangerous now that there aren’t any sides to take, with a world no longer on the edge of destruction.
Because Reno is all wicked angles folded into a viciously ironic weapon, long frame slumped over beside Cloud, a smile twisting his face; Cloud stares at him for a minute too long, because there’s always been something about Reno’s eyes that are incongruous with his expression - a certain dead seriousness, a certain violent darkness that can match his levity only in an extreme of opposition that sets Cloud’s nerves jangling. Unarmed, he can get under Cloud’s skin and Cloud has no way to pry him out.
“Oh, hell yeah,” is Reno’s dark, purring murmur, “I knew it was a fuckin’ good night to go out.”
Cloud doesn’t even wait for the salt shaker to hit the table before he’s throwing back his first shot.
*
The thing about tequila is how it eviscerates your moral sense; rips right into it with a burning touch and kills any sense of why something might not be a good idea. It does it easily, clinically, leaves a lingering warmth that encourages carnal purpose. While Cloud has the metabolism of a Soldier, tequila has a kick no matter what, particularly when you go through an entire bottle almost all by yourself.
Cloud doesn’t remember the transition between sitting at the bar and listening to the methodic clatter of shot glass hitting wood, in between Reno’s lilting voice and Cloud’s own quiet answers, and being in a corner of the bar and dancing. Cloud hasn’t the slightest assurance to what was earlier said - though he vaguely remembers an argument over what was the most efficient mode of transportation in a battle, a Chocobo or a motorcycle - and he really doesn’t care. It’s distant, a vague notion that it happened; Reno’s arm is around his waist, his mouth soft and wet against the curve of his ear, and Cloud wants to put his hands in Reno’s back pockets, so he does.
Tequila doesn’t care about choices; it just wants things to happen.
Reno makes a noise that’s half growl and half sigh, rubbing into Cloud’s leg; Cloud shivers with the feeling of electricity that contact arouses, and slides one hand out of Reno’s pocket and up his back, bunching the fabric of his shirt and then reaching out and twisting his hands in Reno’s rattail. Strands of hair the color of flame bright against his pale skin, and Cloud thinks, the color of danger, and his smile is off center and dark, because Cloud has spent years running straight to that.
It’s no wonder he’s running straight to Reno now, lost in a world of action and ease of guilt; where he is what he is, and he’s forgotten anything about who he wants to be. They’re both soldiers without a fight, weapons left behind in the name of peace, and aching with something lost, so they push and strain against each other instead, and Reno laughs, is possibly laughing at Cloud, but Cloud could hardly care to complain when he can fasten his mouth to Reno’s throat and stop the laughter with the pressure of his teeth.
*
It’s Tifa over Reno’s shoulder that makes Cloud realize he’s slowly sliding down from pissed to merely drunk. He remembers the taste of guilt and obligation on the back of his tongue, and feels Reno in a long slender line of iron hard heat against him, and isn’t ready to let go of this oblivion. It’s no longer perfect, but Cloud is used to tainted things, so he moves his eyes from Tifa’s dark disapproving eyes, and tells Reno, “Let’s go.”
“Fuck yes,” Reno says before he can pretend like he’s not eager as fuck. But Reno is still more drunk than Cloud is, and hardly cares, and flushed enough that embarrassment wouldn’t show through anyway. Cloud doesn’t take his hand, and his own fingers spasm around Reno’s hair for a moment before letting go. He knows Reno will follow; Cloud leaves all his things at the bar, slides in the shadows on the edges out the door, because it’s better than giving Tifa a chance to make sense of the world.
They go upstairs to Cloud’s room, and even alcohol can’t make them anything that they aren’t; they’re silent as wraiths on the steps, even the ones that squeak when the children step on them, and wake no one up. Between one step and the next Reno is sliding out of his clothes and into Cloud’s, and Cloud trembles out of control at the contact of fingertips sliding on his bare flesh.
“I’m not gonna lie,” Reno tells him in a sly aside that runs the risk of dissolving into laughter like a raven’s wing, “I like you in the leathers. But, baby. I love you outta them.”
*
Sex is easier when drunk, Cloud decides, letting the haze drift so that it’s like living in a dream, shifting through watery motions, slow and absolute. You don’t think, you don’t hesitate, you don’t question; you just act. Reno’s fingers are at his mouth and Cloud curls his tongue around them and invites them in, and they curl like they would around a trigger, Reno’s moan the gunshot.
The entire world is on fire, and Cloud gave it the tinder to burn; Reno’s hands are everywhere, and Cloud flicks his wrist like he was born to this, drunk on alcohol and the heady feeling of making someone react. Cloud turns and presses his back into Reno’s chest, their body heat intense, sweat making them slide together. Reno’s cock is pulsing against Cloud’s ass, and Cloud bites his lip viciously, squeezes his eyes shut. Fingers spasm hard enough to make bruises that will heal too quickly against his hips.
“No, no, I- ungh.” Reno’s voice is thick, like he has to remember what language means. He thrusts against Cloud because he wants it, and bites Cloud’s neck, and manages to say, “I want to see-“
“Fuck me,” Cloud mutters viciously, ripping out of Reno’s grip to press his face against his arms, his elbows on the bed, his spine curved up and pressing back against Reno’s dick so it slides against his hole. Cloud moans savagely; “Like this,” he demands, half pleads.
Reno’s answer is a string of hushed curses and to jerk away and then back in a thrust that strikes straight through Cloud, a coiling rush of pleasure. Reno’s got lube and condoms - of course he does - and it’s hissing, electrified moments before Reno’s got his fingers knuckle deep and twisting viciously into Cloud, opening him up too fast and raw, and Cloud has to bite his arm on a sudden, broken noise.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Reno murmurs like a prayer, the laughter wiped from his voice, just dark twisting sounds that slide under Cloud’s skin and curl hooks to tear him apart. “Been wanting this since you walked through that fuckin’ door tonight. Fuck. Fuck!”
“Just-“ Cloud can’t find the words, can’t remember sense on the feeling of Reno’s fingers pressing tight inside him, twisting against the sensitive walls, plunging so deep Cloud wants to claw the covers just to make sure he can survive the feeling. “A- ahhhn! Please. Please, fuck!”
Reno pulls his fingers out, just to slide his thumbs back into Cloud’s hole and stretch him wide, and Cloud’s bent over bared for him, shivering in vulnerability and need, and fuck, fuck, fuck, Reno slides his cock inside, thick and hot even through the condom, fills him so that Cloud is going insane, this weight and heat pushing into him, rocking him back down to rawest reality.
“Ohgod,” Cloud breathes, rolls his hips back tighter against Reno and grinds. He can’t think, doesn’t want to, the world stretched out and misplaced, just acts and moves and squeezes Reno’s cock tighter inside of him, makes Reno choke and snarl, claw his back in lines of red, and shoves that sharp pleasure right back into Reno.
His own cock is hard and tight against his belly, brushing against the rumpled comforter of his bed, sharp tiny shocks of pleasure that wreck him further, and he doesn’t want to touch himself, just wants to wage war against Reno and have Reno break him; wants to push that far and make it last longer, make it come slow and wicked along his spine. Reno sets his teeth into Cloud’s shoulder so that he can smother the dirty words dripping from his poisonous tongue, because if they’re found out it’s all ruined, this shared, violent relief between the two of them.
Cloud bleeds and trembles and he’s gasping against his fists, like sobbing without the tears, a silent pantomime; he and Reno beat the orgasm out of each other like it’s the only way they know to lay claim to pleasure.
*
Cloud hopes he forgets this in the morning; knows he won’t, with Reno a sticky heat tangling with his limbs, hissing slightly and readjusting, oversensitive, but not going anywhere. Cloud can’t bring himself to care.
“Do you remember how to breathe?” Reno asks, eyes lazy, sharp along the sloping edge of his tattoos. Cloud traces Reno’s quiet smirk with the length of his lips, and breathes back, “I don’t know.” Cloud realizes that Reno’s face has lost that edge, that something has made the darkness in Reno’s gaze warm over to soothing, like the lights in Tifa’s bar.
Cloud stares, long and hard, and then closes his eyes before sobriety has a chance to come back and ruin it with sense.