Castle on the Sand [[FF7 AU, Multiple Pairings, M]]
Title: Castle on the Sand (Part 1)
Author: cog_nomen
Rating: NC-17
Warnings:M/M, M/F, TL;DR
Prompt: Final Fantasy VII (any part of the compilation), assorted cast, necking and nookie, 1920s AU "Everybody knew that the ShinRa juice joint had the hottest jazz, the coolest drinks, and the dancers with the best gams in all of Midgar."
Word count: 9,032 (19,025 total)
Summary: 1920’s era FF7 AU. Various pairings, mostly ShinRa oriented. Major pairings: Angeal/Zack, Tseng/Elena. Minor pairings: Vincent/Veld(Verdot), Rufus/Reeve, Reno/Rude.
A/N: See Author's notes here, on my LJ.
Everyone scrambled to fill in that void, when alcohol meant power and anyone with a bathtub and some grape juice could dream. It was like the gold rush all over again, only with all the advances the Great War had brought to the technology of killing people and the brutality that people were capable of. Advances in technology became advances in weaponry - the Model T became one of the new blunt instruments in the hands of those who needed to make accidents happen.
Rufus ShinRa couldn't exactly say that he loved it, but rather he enjoys the way that things fall neatly together. Prohibition hadn't made him rich; rather it had made him richer - by way of his father's untimely and violent demise. Amusingly enough, he hadn't even been able to raise a glass at his father's wake, just the year before in 1928, because the police had made a laughable appearance on the pretext of sympathy in part. They seemed to think it would clear them of blame if they made a public appearance there. Rufus finds that amusing, too.
Instead they'd had a drink afterward, at the private memorial where only those invited dared set foot. Just him and his thugs and his corporate goons (equally useful in the current climate). But they didn't drink to his father's life, behind closed doors. Instead they drank to his timely death.
"A shame you won't be around to see how much better than you I do, old man." Rufus said, lifting a glass that contained perhaps some of the last remaining of his father's brandy. Prohibitionists had come through and smashed all the kegs that his father had slaved so long to make perfect - his father had been so upset about it that Rufus couldn't help but genuinely enjoy watching it run down into the gutters like so much piss.
The others raised their glasses, too. Some looked anxious at the prospect, some looked downright excited. Hungry, the way he felt inside when he thought about the things he wanted most. Rufus had smiled as he drank that sweet malt, just like he smiled now when he remembered it. He had taken this opportunity and made it his own.
It was his father who had seized the opportunity to contract himself out for the armaments of ships in the tentative, war-ridden waters of 1915 - after the sinking of the Lusitania, even passenger ships were afraid to sail the waters unprotected. A lot of seafaring captains had feared to be put out of business while the triples - Alliance and Entante fought it out with splash over onto the rest of Europe. Fear could have crippled supply lines, starved nations. The seas were the highways of trade and no one was willing to let the U-boats make it their own.
Protection of course became defense, and defense turned slowly to offense - and in 1918, Rufus’ father had made a fortune contracting for the navy’s ships at Queenstown - not only installing upgraded weapons but maintaining the finicky, brand new long-gun technology. It was his father’s idea to equip the smaller faster boats with rams to destroy the German u-boats that had everyone shaking in their well-shined military boots. It wasn’t as successful at poking holes in submarines as it was in bolstering the navy’s confidence again.
With that fortune, his father had returned home a new man - a rich man. Seemed War had made a lot of old men, and ruined a lot of younger men. Rufus had seen the soldiers come home, too. They’d gotten off his father’s boat with hollowed, unseeing eyes and marched back into real life with no drinks to comfort them - while they were away fighting, the politicians had passed the unloved Volstead act.
That was what was currently making Rufus rich. All it had taken was a small investment - a word in the ears of some hardworking carpenters, a few arrangements to rework his father’s ludicrous ‘summer home’ in downtown - a better use for it than his father had made, meeting his whores there where he could lie unconvincingly to Rufus about being on business.
With the basement reworked, Rufus extended the efforts to make himself appear a socialite. The other young rich all seemed to be living that kind of life, and no one bats an eye when people start coming and going from the place at all times. Of course the palms he greased at the local P.D. helped matters too. It meant that only friendly officers patrolled the neighborhood, that vigilante cops or those too loyal to the law never came close enough for there to be a conflict. Overall, it kept things clean in town - especially since some big names in Midgar were frequent customers.
That was how he’d gotten here, lounging in the back of his own speakeasy, securely tucked away behind a hidden passage in the basement of his father’s old pleasure palace. It swung here, on weekends - ShinRa meant the best. Everyone knew that the ShinRa juice joint had the hottest jazz, the coolest drinks, and the dancers with the best gams in all of Midgar. The serving girls weren’t hard to look at either, Rufus picked them himself as a matching set.
The birds worked, the men drank, and at the end of the day everyone paid or got paid. Things were smooth, because Rufus made them smooth. He never has to dirty his own hands for that - he employs the equivalent of two-legged dogs. They were thugs, but loyal for the money he paid them and the booze they got free for helping in its transport and the security of his establishment’s prosperity.
He enjoys their company, too. It’s something of a guilty pleasure. His father always warned him never to get involved with those he employed - it was that distance between his father and his father’s men that had allowed Rufus to secure their loyalty for himself. What he couldn’t buy with friendship, he’d bought outright.
“She’s this real sweet dame, alright?” Reno is saying, in the middle of one of his famous anecdotes. There were four of them officially, and the bartender and the barfly unofficially - both working when it suited them or when they felt threatened. They’re all less talkative than Reno, even the new girl.
“And I swear by Moses, I swear I don’t know she’s already got a daddy.” Reno gestures with his cigarette, and Rufus debates internally pointing out that Reno’s the least likely person he knows to mean a swear on a holy name. “This fly-boy, he gets home from the war just as I’m winning a round of struggle-buggy.”
“More like losing a round.” Rude is the second of a two-man team. He and Reno do the collection work, ferry the goods in from Canada or Mexico, or even the next town over if some basement brew house whips up something that doesn’t smell or taste like piss. He is succinct, the big six of their two-man act. What Reno can’t stop with foul language or a quick beating, Rude can finish with real force.
Reno shrugged, as if he were winning either way in his opinion.
“So he catches me, and swear to god if I didn’t feel like shit when I saw him standin’ there with his duffel and still in uniform from all his rush t’get home.” Reno continues, pushing a hand through his messy red locks. He’s an unusual, skinny little fellow, with a matching set of scars that had some kind of story but it changed every week. “But he forgives the broad, ‘cause he’s a real prince I guess. I gotta run away with my pants around my ankles though, ‘cause I’m sure he doesn’t wanna see my face twice.”
“Nobody wants to see it the first time.” The new girl quips. Elena’s all business, trying too hard to make up the fact that she’s an adorable little package that wrapped herself up in the smallest man’s suit she could find. She wore it well, and spent a lot of her time attempting to look fierce. Rufus thought it made her cuter, but he’d also seen her tear men who told her that apart with nothing more than her bare hands and a few well placed kicks. “That’s why you only go after the desperate dames.”
“You’re lookin’ a little desperate yourself, baby.” Reno leans over the table, pushing her buttons just to see her wind up. His eyes flick to the fourth of their party -currently at the bar. “When you gonna’ make a move on, I wonder?”
Elena kicks him under the table, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him in a way that confirmed everything he said. Reno grins and clutches his bruised shin, in a way that’s more victorious than injured.
Rufus wonders when that development had come around. They’d been an unlikely match-up, the girl he’d wanted to keep close as an enemy and the chinaman he’d picked up for delicate work. Tseng is constantly underestimated - he looks just asian enough and keeps his hair long. Truth was, he was born and bred in San Francisco, spoke perfect English, and thought very little of his ‘stuffy and overbearing’ heritage. In fact, he couldn’t even tell you what country his parents had boated over from - it was entirely possible his nickname was a misnomer.
Still, he was great at getting in and out of places and making the people inside inexplicably dead. At first, Rufus had expected them to get along poorly - she was a real bearcat, always all bristly to prove she was just as good as the boys were. Elena was too. Tseng isn’t quiet, not the way Rude is, but he’s reserved. He’s fairly dignified and thinks far enough ahead that he never seems to say too much.
Currently, he’s negotiating the next round of drinks from the bartender - another of Rufus’ acquisitions, though a less interesting one. Vincent was supposed to be dead, and was about as interesting as a corpse sometimes. Rufus finds him useful - he knows how to mix every drink anyone could think of and is pretty sharp with a shotgun.
And Veld, the veteran who had come back with the war in his eyes, and now had nothing in them at all. He leans on the bar, with an attendant glass in whatever stage of consumption and a crystal glass he’s used so many times as an ashtray now that it serves no other purpose. He’s always smoking, usually drinking. He usually beat Rufus to the joint - he comes in with Vincent when he unlocks the place, the two had that kind of arrangement.
Elena just glowers at Reno. She knows exactly when to hold her tongue, because to protest would only make her look guiltier. Rufus knows better, now that he’s looking. She doesn’t want what she has, but that doesn’t mean she’s any less interested in Tseng. Rufus keeps to silence, drinking. The seven of them are the usuals - they’re always visible because that way trouble never comes inside.
Rufus prides himself on keeping his joint stress-free. The patrons never have to worry about a raid - in fact several of the local police force frequent the place. They have an agreement - police enjoy their alcohol as much as the next bloke. They’re also smart enough to value their lives. Rufus can’t be tied to any of the blood in the streets - not him nor his pack of dogs - but anyone with some sense can see the theory of his involvement.
It isn’t that there are senseless killings; just that anyone who tries to get in the way of his rising star tends to disappear if they can’t be convinced that what they were doing was unwise. The system works well - lately people thought before they tried to cut in on his line of work, and usually realize it’s a bit better to work within the existing system.
Tseng returns with the drinks, carefully balancing beer mugs. He still has to make two trips, the last with his and Elena’s drink. Rufus watchs the silent interchange between the two and decides whatever becomes of that partnership is for the best. They are an effective team - though he doesn’t see any such recognition in the Chinaman. Seems Tseng has walled himself off from that sort of emotion - or at least Rufus has never seen him express it.
“Here’s to another beer!” Reno exclaims, the traditional blessing. At one point it had been traditional to toast to ‘another quiet night’ but that had been deemed a cursed item after trouble seemed to break out every time they lifted glasses to it.
Everyone raises their drink, even Rufus.
----------------------------------------------------
Cops and mobsters are half again the same. If a guy is smart, he can get in with both. Information is just as valuable as liquor. Angeal works both sides of the equation carefully. What he hadn’t counted on was doing such a good job as an officer that he would be saddled with the overenthusiastic rookie recruit that looks good enough in his officer’s uniform to make Angeal reconsider his personal rule of not touching co-workers.
Zack has the brightest blue eyes he’s ever seen, and is always ready to go, ever cheerful, and has a distinct brand of optimism that reminds Angeal - distinctly - of a puppy. He overdoes everything he possibly can, a point which Angeal tries very hard not to love him for.
Ultimately, he fails. So when Zack barged into his apartment one night on oversized paws of enthusiasm, Angeal had just resolved himself to behave as best as possible. After all he was the senior officer, and beyond that he valued the friendship of his younger partner too much to risk scaring him off with an unwanted advance.
Zack never seemed to notice when Angeal looked too long, the kid’s attention span was probably too short for that. Still he seemed to sense the hole in Angeal’s life - one that was shaped distinctly like a personal life, something beyond work - he stuffed himself into it because ‘partners take care of each other’.
Angeal hadn’t even realized the hole was there until Zack had shown him what it could mean just to just go out to a movie theater with a friend, and watch the latest Charlie Chaplin film. Zack was crazy about Charlie Chaplin, and insisted on dragging Angeal to The Circus a year earlier - while some pianist sat in the front of the theater, and the lights were dimmed, a story unfolded in motion picture. They sat in close and Angeal pretended he was looking at the movie, and not the way the grey tones flickering across the screen lit up Zack’s eyes. Every so often they would dim, when the screen went black so that dialog could be displayed.
It was on the way home that everything had changed. Zack stretched out as they left the theater and grinned up at Angeal with his bangs hanging over his face in a way that made Angeal’s heart twinge in his chest. He was grinning, Angeal remembered, he’d laughed like an idiot through most of the movie and almost loudly enough to be embarrassing, but the good spirits were infectious when Zack was involved.
“Hey!” Zack had said, pointing, still smiling. “You’re grinning!”
Angeal realized he was, and arched his brows. “So what?”
“I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before.” Zack pulled his features into a comical grimace. “Usually you’re Mr. Bluenose.”
“Says you.” Angeal felt the smile fade quickly from his features - if only Zack knew what his evenings had usually involved before Zack had overlapped into them.
“Hey don’t quit smiling - it suits you!” Stepping into Angeal’s path, Zack lifted his arms behind his head and walked backwards, looking earnest. “I mean it, it’s the berries.”
Angeal had scowled further, reprimanding himself for relaxing so much. Of a sudden, he’d really wanted to scoot down to the speakeasy and get thoroughly ossified. Why couldn’t Zack just get it, he wondered. The kid just couldn’t keep his distance, had no concept of the way that people sometimes lied to each other or used each other. The kid didn’t seem to realize that not everyone could be taken at face value. Even Angeal’s interest hadn’t been purely in friendship, though he thought himself decent enough to never act on it. The kid was going to get himself into real trouble that way.
“Hey, come on. I’m sorry, Angeal.” Zack stopped suddenly enough that Angeal bowled into him. Zack’s hands dropped to Angeal’s middle and steadied them both as they tripped on each other. Angeal had just lifted his hands to Zack’s wrists to pull them away, too occupied with where the kid’s hands were going to see what was coming next.
Zack leaned up and kissed him. It was sudden enough that it took Angeal a moment to wrench the kid away by his arms. For a moment, they were both quiet - Zack looked genuinely worried, his blue eyes getting bigger. Both of them were breathing faster, and after a second, Angeal at last realized what had actually happened.
The hell with it, he’s decided. They’d sort it out later if it genuinely needed sorting. Angeal pulled Zack back in, and the kid leaned into it, as the spark came back into his eyes - some little victory bell sounding in Zack’s mind. Somehow, Angeal thought, Zack always got what he wanted. It didn’t really matter with his mouth under Angeal’s, willing and enthusiastic in this, too.
Zack’s hands came up and gripped at Angeal’s shoulders when he let go of the kid’s wrists, refused to let Angeal draw back before he was ready to finish. It went on long enough for Angeal to know it wasn’t an accident, wasn’t something that Zack would reconsider later and decide it was a mistake. The kid had planned this, somehow. Taken all the steps leading up to it, maybe driven Angeal just crazy enough so that he had the least likely chance of being rejected.
It worked. He couldn’t have said ‘no’ then even if he’d wanted to. Zack’s mouth was soft under his, but not completely yielding. His tongue pushed against Angeal’s, sliding under, and then against the roof of his mouth, to explore everything it could touch. The kiss tasted like popcorn, faintly. It was that, partially, that made Angeal remember that they were standing in the middle of the street in front of the movie theater - even if it was late enough that no one was really around.
He drew back, and Zack sighed, eyes closed for a second longer before he let them open again, long lashes sliding back to reveal the blue beneath. It was painfully Zack, the expression enough to get Angeal’s blood going.
“Kid,” He’d said, and they were both panting. “We gotta get out of the street.”
“Yeah,” Zack said, grabbing Angeal’s wrist as they drew apart, dragging him forward. “Let’s get a wiggle on.”
Zack was smart enough not to let Angeal have enough time to change his mind. He hadn’t let things slow down at all once they made it back to Angeal’s pad. He was pushy for a kid, more than Angeal would have expected - Zack always gave off the impression that he was innocent and inexperienced, but his were the hands doing all the major advances.
It was Zack who pinned Angeal back against his own apartment door after the older man had finished locking it, and Zack who’d kept kissing him until he had no idea which way was up or down, save that he was pretty sure Zack’s hands were headed south faster than he was really comfortable with.
Angeal pushed them away from the door, and Zack’s hands locked on his belt. Zack refused to surrender his momentum to Angeal’s slower and steadier pace - it seemed like the kid realized that giving Angeal a chance to think could shut this whole thing down.
Finding himself with his knees backed up against his own couch, and then his balance forced to the point where he had to sit, Angeal finally found the break he needed to get hold of Zack’s hands. Their eyes met, and this time instead of hesitation, Zack’s shone with azure victory. He knew he was going to get what he wanted - and that he genuinely wanted it was what stalled the question in Angeal’s throat. He didn’t have to ask ‘are you sure’, because it was written all over Zack’s expression. Zack was positive.
“Alright.” Was all Angeal said, finishing the conversation that hadn’t taken place. Zack’s smile turned into an outright grin, and he stripped off his suit jacket. Angeal watched him, hands turned upright on his knees. His own pinstripe pants were starting to feel a bit restrictive, despite the generous cut that was fashionable these last few years.
Zack didn’t stop looking at him, pinning him with his gaze. His hands traced his suspenders up to his shoulders before he shrugged them off and began to pull on his tie. Angeal felt his patience actually begin to strain as Zack began to slow down - he looked smug. He was trying to get to Angeal - to cause the older man’s patience to break at last.
“I thought you’d never let me do this, old man.” Zack said, fondly. His fingers were clever on the tie’s knot - he actually untied it rather than just loosening it and pulling the loop over his head. Angeal might have bet that Zack didn’t even know how to tie a Windsor in the first place but he was beginning to learn that a lot of what he’d thought about Zack was probably wrong.
“Kid,” Angeal answered, and he could hear the heat in his own voice. “All you had to do was ask.”
Zack seemed satisfied - pleased, even with that answer. He’s out of his shirt fast after that, then slides up over Angeal’s lap. Angeal let his hands finally wander where they’d wanted - over the plane of Zack’s stomach and the round of his thighs.
From there, it was a rush. Zack was in a hurry to get Angeal’s clothes undone, if not off, while their mouths met again. The kiss made Angeal forget his resolution to take things slow. Zack drove them both with his enthusiasm, his hands almost everywhere at once.
Angeal broke the kiss with a wet sound when Zack’s warm hands cupped his groin, finding how ready Angeal had become and giving an encouraging squeeze. Choking back his hiss, Angeal reached down, intending to slow the pace. Zack wouldn’t be dissuaded.
“Hey,” He said, forehead resting against Angeal’s so they could look into each other’s eyes. “Let me. Please?”
Zack must have realized the effect that had on Angeal since the kid’s hands were on his cock as it jumped in response. He didn’t comment, just went for Angeal’s zipper and Angeal let him. There was probably no way he could have convinced himself to slow down at that point, not with Zack so close and so ready.
It had been a long time since someone else had touched Angeal - long enough that he leaned his head back along the top of the couch as Zack coaxed, controlling his breathing and focusing on the slow build of warmth that moved toward his center. It helped that Zack’s touch wasn’t completely inexperienced. He was sure of what he was doing and eager.
When Angeal was sure he wasn’t going to last much longer, he went for Zack’s zipper. By then the kid had his mouth fixed on Angeal’s exposed neck and he didn’t stop Angeal from undoing his pants.
Zack was just as hard as he was, just as ready. He groaned into Angeal’s shoulder as the older man worked his length free to touch. Their hands were a confused tangle in the proximity, and Zack started to make pleading noises.
Zack hurried his pace in encouragement, ignoring the warning that Angeal hissed.
“Close.” He tried again, his hips shifting up into the firm hand. His voice had sprung free from him without real thought, somewhere in his mind he hadn’t wanted Zack to rush this to an end, but he couldn’t have stopped then.
“Yeah?” Zack sounded pleased, breathless. Satisfied that he could do this to Angeal. He made an encouraging noise, sped his pace up to tip Angeal over the edge and Angeal couldn’t have said if it was Zack’s voice so close to his ear or his clever, insistent fingers that finally did the trick.
When he came, Zack didn’t complain in the least or draw back from the sticky mess. Instead he kept stroking - the slide much eased now - until he’s sure Angeal is done. The older cop found himself more relaxed than he had been in a long time as he came down, gathering his breath and his wits.
He didn’t even realize he’d closed his eyes until he opened them again, to see Zack’s dark eyes right there. All that was left of their brilliant blue is a thin rim around the black of his pupils. Angeal realized his own attentions had stilled and he had a flash of impatience with himself.
Pushing until Zack shifted his weight off of Angeal’s lap and leaned back against the arm of the sofa, he resumed the motion to keep Zack from protesting, following Zack down until he could get his mouth on Zack’s cock.
Zack sucked in a sudden breath; it locked in his chest for a long moment. Angeal could feel the kid’s hips shifting against his flattened palm and felt his own victory when Zack’s breath escaped in a loud, encouraging groan. The kid sounded more than ready, and Angeal pressed his tongue into the underside of the shaft as he drew his head back.
It didn’t take much; Zack encouraged him with his voice whenever Angeal found something he liked - honest and easy to read even in this. Taking the encouragement, Angeal focused his attentions until Zack cried out that he was ready - at the same time his cum spurted along Angeal’s tongue. He swallowed, sat up.
Zack stretched smug along his couch like everything was still the same. Angeal realized it was more than that - everything was okay, too. He could stretch out and Zack knew everything, but curled up beside him anyway. There was barely enough room on the couch, but neither had any complaints.
----------------------------------------------------
Tijuana. You can get anything if you can get there. Thing was, no one really wants to live there. Sometimes, the boss sends them down to bring all the amenities back - once a year they have a Tijuana party. There wasn't much to celebrate, so any occasion that was out of the norm was a big hit. They almost always ran out of tequila.
Still the fastest way to get around anyplace outside of the city was horseback. They don't get stuck on holes, don't need to go on roads where cops patrol. They are quiet, go where you tell them, and could also go all the places flivvers went. Sometimes faster, with no winding or where the traction was bad.
That was how Reno and Rude wound up riding back into town late that night, though the sound of hooves clopping along on the cobbled streets is loud, it really isn’t any match for the fact that Reno is complaining with every step. Things had gone sour at the border, and he cradles his arm close to his chest and Rude hovers just behind at a distance that keeps threatening to bump their horses together. It’s wearing on the nerves of riders and steeds both.
Reno’s horse - dark hide splashed with irregular white spots like spilled milk crawling snowflake patterns over the floor - is pinning its ears and threatening to kick. They get back late, and Tseng sees everything in how flustered they are. Reno is too loud, Rude is too quiet. He reaches up to take the reins from them.
“Rude.” He says, and the darker man looks down at him, brows arching over his sunglasses. “Get Reno to the hospital. I’ll get it inside.”
“Thanks, man.” Reno says gratefully. He’s obviously not dying, but his arm is broken, and Tseng thinks the quicker that gets set the better it will heal. “Tell the Big Cheese we made it back, too, okay?”
He’s starting to turn his horse, tired.
“Hey.” Tseng says, and they both look at him. He can read how long the last few days have been. Even the usual synergy they have has worn thin. They’re sick of each other, sick of things going wrong. They both could use a drink. “Take the car.”
What a pair they would have made, trying to find some place to hitch their horses at the hospital. Reno looks at Rude. Rude looks at Reno, and they both chuckle. Tomorrow - later today, technically - is Cinco de Mayo. There’s tequila in time for it now, and everyone’s OK. In the end, Tseng thinks, that means a job well done. It was only when someone didn’t get to enjoy a drink they’d worked hard to have because they were left holding the bag that Tseng started to worry.
“Yeah.” Rude says, tossing Tseng the reins of his horse. “Tseng’s right, we better take the other hayburner.”
----------------------------------------------------
Rufus bet the filly in the race, a fact that Elena knows is rare. She's grateful for it. She also remembers the day in 1915 when Regret won the Kentucky derby and showed all the boys how it was done. She thinks Rufus probably remembers that, too.
She was a distant cousin of Capone's, a black sheep in the family, though she knew exactly how to keep her mouth shut when it was important, she refused to play ball when it came to the matters of becoming some docile female trophy wife to be married off to cement some family friendship. Capone had sent her away from Chicago as much so he wouldn't have to look at her as his excuse to do so, which was so that she could spy on the ShinRa family. Rufus had bought her for a tidy sum and some respect, and she'd never looked back.
"My first love was a tommygun," She confesses, after they've all made it several drinks in. Reno sits back with his arm in a cast and assumes his best listening pose. It involves slouching and looking vaguely interested while he keeps his drink dear at hand to chase off boredom should she bore him. Thinking back on it, she recalls how the smooth wooden grip mounted at the front of the gun had practically begged to be touched.
Her father had caught her rubbing her fingers over the knuckle-spaced ridges at the front of the grip, and he'd picked it up and took her out back to show her what it could do.
"He showed me how to use it, but he had this look on his face, like he thought it'd scare me." Her father looked at every girl like a dumb dora, especially her mother. Elena hated her a little for putting up with it, hated her sister for letting Capone marry her off like a trophy, but her father she couldn't hate at all. "The boys laughed when I creamed a target with it, and I laughed too."
"Doll, you're one in a million." Reno says, half mocking, but it’s alright. It’s just ducky, in part because no matter how much Reno talks, he still looks at her like she knows which end of the gun to hold. As much as he goes on about how much he loves a flapper in a tiny skirt, he never tries to tell her that she should be one. "He let you keep shooting after that or did he realize his mistake?"
"He thought it was harmless. I remember one of the goons, McCoy - used to call him Real McCoy - he'd call me 'little Capone'." Elena had always loved that, she can't remember why exactly. Thinking about it brought up all the other memories she hadn't considered. Her family wasn't her family anymore, now she was paid to be in the ShinRa's pocket, and all those people from her past don't matter.
McCoy had been shot up by the cops, she remembers. They'd got it in their heads to take out one of Capone's torpedoes, or that they might get him to sing if they could take him, but they couldn't. Real McCoy had been quiet, she remembered, but a better shot than her father and better at listening too. Her dad and one of the other goons had come home in a whirl one night - she remembered all the shouting. Remembered that Real had been slung between them and there were all these funny red blossoms on the front of his shirt, like painted flowers with dark oozing centers. Her dad had made him lie on the tile so they could mop up the blood after he died, and he -had- bled, but hadn't made a sound besides a low, wet chuckle when he saw her at some internal irony he saw. 'This's what happens when you set your boyfriend on people, kiddo,' were some of the last words he'd said before her father made her go to her room. She hadn't liked the tommygun nearly so much afterward.
"Poor bastard." She says aloud, and the others know what she means without having to ask. To a man, they raise their glass and drink, even Tseng who barely ever drinks a drop.
----------------------------------------------------
"The old man's a tragedy," Reno says, not quite yet in his cups so much as he would like. "He was married before the war and when he came back turns out old man ShinRa had use for someone who could kill. Wife says war's changed the man - as if war wouldn't. Bullshit reason to leave him. She was fuckin' around; leaves just him and Dead Vic as companions. She's gone, he lets everything human about him go away with her."
"He didn't need it anyway." Tseng says, pushing his hat down over his eyes and leaning back like the smug Chinaman he is. His drink's barely touched. Rude keeps quiet on the matter. Might be a million versions of Veld's story but they all ended wit him at the speakeasy long before and long after the rest of the crowd.
Rude sees the way he measures his drinks, strings himself along on that razor-fine line of just-in-control and wondered just what Veld needed. It’s either to give up, get sloshed and toss off with someone he'd never see again and surrender completely to self destruction or to clean up, straighten his suit, and try again.
“You are one cold bastard.” Reno says, gesturing with the arm he’s got in a cast, and then wincing. Rude thinks that’s a bid for sympathy - Reno’s had enough to drink now that it can’t bother him very much. In fact, earlier Reno had said that the cast made him feel like a real sheikh, he was sure all the girls would want to hear about his daring caper.
“Dry up.” Tseng answers, dry himself. “None of us really need any of that stuff - it just gives you a weakness someone can exploit.”
Rude doesn’t miss the way Elena’s eyes slide toward Tseng when he says it, like her heart might be breaking a little. Rude spends as much time as he can watching, rather than talking. He thinks maybe that he knows the most about the way things go between all of them because he knows how to just shut up and listen.
For example, there are three girls up on stage, dancing away to the delight of most of the drunken patrons. Almost all the eyes are on them - except for the small circle of patrons at the back table. Rufus’ table. The boss had put in an appearance earlier in the night, with that book keeper of his that could make some kind of magic on paper so all the profits looked legal.
All they have to do is sleep in a warehouse on weekdays and answer the phone the right way - if it ever rang. It rarely does. Reno and Rude share that duty, when they weren’t running supply lines - a fact that most knew. What most people didn’t know was that just last week before they’d left, all three of the girls up on stage had spent the whole day keeping the two company there. The phone hadn’t rung in the middle, a fact that Rude was grateful for.
The girls - they often dance at the joint, long legs and no shame - were equally interested in seeing Reno and Rude entertain each other as they were in entertaining the boys. Reno was happy to oblige, he’s more of a showman than Rude, in some way that always makes Rude feel less awkward about that sort of situation. He doesn’t have to show off or try to make more out of it than the basest of acts. Reno does all that for him. And it usually means the girls fell into his lap instead of Reno’s.
Reno makes a big show out of hating that, but in private he’s said he’d rather have Rude’s mouth on him than any of the girls.
There are two other sets of eyes that aren’t on the girls. Vincent and Veld are talking to each other - Rude’s never seen either of them so much as glance at the broads that come into the place. They both enjoy the jazz well enough, but not the women.
Then there’s Elena, she’s all eyes on Tseng. She’s always all eyes on him, and Rude doesn’t know how the guy hasn’t noticed it yet. Tseng seems to want to be Veld, but didn’t have it in him to gut out everything in his core and throw it down the gutter like so much upchuck. Rude is pretty sure he’s got it just as bad for Elena; he just doesn’t know it yet. The girl’s easy on the eyes, even if she’d shiv you if you said it to her face. They were centimeters from figuring each other out, Rude thinks.
It’d be explosive when they did, he was pretty sure. He drinks again, and the bull session seems to have moved on from Veld.
“I hear tell that Reeve’s been making eyes at that Sheba up on stage.” Reno goes on, knowing full well that it’s a lie. The book keeper was property now, Rufus’ signature all over him like so many checks deposited in the bank.
“Baloney.” Elena says, she has a good nose for sniffing out Reno’s bullshit. “He’s into blondes, they’re all brunette.”
It was a more delicate way to put things.
“Doll, you think hair color matters when they got gams like that?” Reno uses his one good arm to make a round shape in front of his chest. “The one in the middle’s got it.”
“Tifa.” Rude says, he remembers her name. Reno, he thinks, genuinely doesn’t. That’s part of listening, too. Remembering.
“Absolutely!” Reno agrees. Elena looks vaguely disgusted with the pair of them, but it won’t last. She likes them all well enough. Rude knows she wouldn’t just stay for the money Rufus is paying her. Elena likes the respect.
Rude wishes she’d have left her book open just a little longer before she closed her bank to anyone but Tseng. He’d have liked to see how fierce she was in bed. She was such a live-wire, and he’d never admit it but that makes him all weak in the knees. It’s part of what he was so fond of in Reno.
“You boys are real pieces of work.” She says, but she knows Reno’s just razzing her now. She’s smiling. Tseng’s back to being quiet. Reno is finishing his drink. Everything’s good. Rude thinks there’s only one place to go from here - up.
----------------------------------------------------
"So what'd they find when they got there?" Tseng sets himself up for a punch line well enough, even if he was a bastard.
"Umbrellas." Reno says, grinning hugely. "Boss wanted to make sure they knew they were gonna be all wet. Show 'em he understood."
Everyone is several drinks in. The hoofers have quit, the jazz is slowing down and losing quality as the musicians enjoy rounds between songs. Tseng’s still on his first glass, still keeping his clear head.
“Umbrellas!” Elena snorts, past her limit now. She knows she’s drunk though, has cut herself off before she gets totally tanked. She giggles into her water, both hands wrapped around the glass as it sloshes dangerously.
“You slay me.” Tseng says - he’s heard the story before. Reno thinks it’s funnier every time, even though Tseng sets it up the same way. It’s one of the signs between the four of them. Means the night should start winding down - drink wise. There’s still enough patrons in the bar - it is a party after all - that they can’t all knock off and leave the protection to Vic and Veld.
“Hoss,” Reno says, fried to the hat “Let a guy have a little fun, huh? I mean I broke my arm gettin’ the stuff here.”
“Yeah.” Tseng says. “Elena and I will stay today.”
He glances at Rude, and behind his sunglasses, the other man seems to agree. Rude stands up, and hooks his hand under Reno’s good elbow to help him out of his seat.
“Whoa, hey.” Reno scoops up his glass before he goes, makes sure to empty it of the last sip. “Swell.”
He leans heavy on Rude, one arm slung around the taller man’s shoulder even though it’s a bit of a reach for the redhead. When the glass slips in his fingers, Rude catches it barely. They both look un-coordinated.
“We better walk, huh?” Reno says, peering owlishly up at Rude. Rude rolls his eyes at the obvious statement, and Elena has to shove her hands over her mouth to stop laughing.
“Beat it!” She encourages them, as they head out of the bar. No one pays any attention. She’s recovering well, and after they leave she just sits grinning and having long sips of water.
“Hey.” She says after a moment, when Tseng’s attention has wandered to where one of the three dancers - Aerith, he was pretty sure her name was - was flirting her way into free drinks in one corner of the bar. He glances back at Elena.
“How’d you get here?” She asks, and he can’t help but be wise.
“I took a Jitney.” He says, and feels his mouth even into a smile. He has another sip of the same warm alcohol.
She shakes her head, propping her chin in her palm and leaning her elbow on the table to look at him intently, refusing that answer.
“Baloney.” She says. “You know what I meant.”
“If you mean to Midgar, I took a train.” He never cares to get into his past - it’s not as interesting as everyone assumes. San Francisco wasn’t the best memory. He didn’t fit in with the people that looked like him - he didn’t speak Chinese. He didn’t fit in with the people that didn’t look like him either, despite a common language.
She’s still looking at him. It’s one of those demanding looks Elena gets, and he resigns himself.
“I met old man ShinRa when he was traveling around shipyards selling his u-boat spikes. He tried to hire me as a translator, and I just took his money and made up nonsense. Didn’t take him too long to see through the trick, but when he figured out I wasn’t too shabby with a gun he figured he’d gotten a bargain anyway.”
Elena arches her brows.
“That’s it, honest. You know everything else.” Tseng doesn’t know why everyone seems to assume there’s so much more to him. He lets them, usually. It was useful. Elena should know better by now - she’s spent enough time with him.
What saves him from further questions is Rufus coming back downstairs with the book keeper half an hour prior to last call. When there are patrons in the bar, Rufus is always there for the end of the night. He sits down, and Reeve takes the chair beside him. Tseng notes that the book keeper’s collar looks rumpled, the knot in his tie isn’t as precise as it had been before they’d left.
“Is that the same drink, Tseng?” Reeve asks, looking at the suspicious lack of ice in Tseng’s glass. Tseng nods, and Reeve shakes his head. It was strange, but Tseng has the strangest feeling that Reeve gets exactly what Tseng is - a job in a suit.
Rufus chuckles.
----------------------------------------------------
Reeve is slowly detailing for Elena exactly how the figures line up on paper to make every bit of money legal for Rufus. Rufus doesn’t care how it’s done, to be honest. He knows that it’s water-tight, and if there’s one thing he inherited from his father that he’s most grateful for it’s the book keeper.
Once Rufus had gotten past the man’s shy exterior, the way he enjoyed only the simplest things in life - he’d really gotten to like Reeve. The guy had grown up in the middle of nowhere, but if anything that made him leaner, resourceful. He was also a prodigy with numbers, so Rufus paid him well and kept him close to his hand like a pet bird with an invaluable trick.
If he’d said that was all there was to it, he’d have been lying. At first Reeve had been a distinct challenge - painfully shy, unsure of what even he wanted. It had taken a lot of doing for Rufus to convince Reeve that it was him. A lot of careful dance steps - a give and take. A lot of compassion - and he found he had extra reserves of it than his nature would have allowed for anyone else.
His dogs are one thing, and he has affection enough for them. They’re all unique, exotic. Reeve is neither.
“I route the money through some companies in other countries.” Reeve says, and he grabs a napkin to detail how it works with some figures and a diagram that involves a lot of rapid scribbling, some boxes with letters in them, and arrows between.
It doesn’t make the least amount of sense to Rufus, but he looks at them anyway, as if he’s following along. It gives him an excuse to lean over Reeve’s shoulder.
“They’re just some guys we pay to pick up the phone and O.K. the transfers between here and there. Once the money’s out of the states, they can’t trace it, not that anyone cares.” Reeve’s diagram gains two dots and a curved line in the middle, indicating a happy face.
The guy is painfully, adorably, backwater.
“So like we have Reno and Rude pick up the phone in the warehouse here.” Elena says, leaning over Reeve’s other shoulder. It probably makes the guy a little uncomfortable, by the way he’s shifted his weight into Rufus - who traps him there with some small amusement.
“Yeah, you’re on the trolley.” Reeve says. “But I don’t let Reno and Rude touch the numbers.”
“I wouldn’t either.” Tseng says. Now that the clock’s winding down, he’s having more of his drink. He looks over at the bar, catching Veld’s eye. Tseng holds up his arm and points at his wrist, and Veld checks his wristwatch without any kind of expression.
He holds up three fingers.
“Last call!” Vincent agrees, in a ringing tone across the bar. A number of chairs scrape backward on the floor, voices exclaiming on how it’s gotten so late all of a sudden. Some walk out easily, some shuffle up the stairs and then keep going up at the landing to sleep it off face-down in one of the beds upstairs. They know better than to try to make it past the front door obviously plastered.
“You want anything before Vic throws us out?” Rufus asks, amused, and Reeve glances up at him as he stands up. He nods, but doesn’t have to elaborate. Rufus likes that in Reeve - he’s easy to please. Lean farm living had stripped him of any pickiness he might have once had.
“You need a ride home?” Tseng asks Reeve, as Rufus is heading to the bar. Rufus can practically hear the guy blush.
“Nah.” Reeve answers, surprisingly without stammering. He’s getting better at the whole game. “I’m staying.”
“I could use a ride home.” Elena stuffs herself into the conversation - either eagerly seeking any excuse to get Tseng within fifty feet of her apartment, or genuinely trying to put the attention off of Reeve before the accountant turned an even deeper shade of red.
Vincent uses two of the glasses that match the ones upstairs when he pours Rufus and Reeve’s drinks - brandy, and not the coffin varnish variety.
“Have a nice night, boss.” He says, as he passes the glasses over, knowing Rufus will be taking them upstairs with him. Veld gives a faint salute, and Rufus knows that any of the lingering patrons will be escorted out by the pair in the next twenty minutes so that the place can be locked up behind.
Elena’s getting up as he gets back to the table, and Tseng’s shrugging on his coat. He pauses to make sure both of Rufus’ other dogs are at the bar before he’s ready to go. Veld isn’t on the payroll - Rufus had offered, but Veld had declined on the reason that he didn’t want to have to hold himself back for duty (Rufus couldn’t imagine what else he actually held himself back for instead) - but he’d protect this place and Rufus just as loyally as if he was.
“See you tomorrow.” Rufus says, and Reeve crumples up the napkin as he takes up the glass Rufus passes him.
----------------------------------------------------
Reno wouldn’t lie. Life before ShinRa had been pretty shitty. The warehouse he and Rude lived in now wasn’t exactly ace, but it was a roof. There were beds. Even an area walled off in back for a kitchen. Best of all there was Rude there, all the time.
Until Reno was ten, he’d had six sisters. Six constantly working mouths, six family members who could spend an hour in front of the bathroom vanity dolling themselves up or dolling each other up. He was the oddity, and while they all had their arguments with each other or their moments of obsession with each other’s attentions - as it went in all families - none of them was in so much demand as he was. He’d have told you he hated the attention, but he loved it.
The problem was that any time enough girls got together, it reminded him of his family - they were chatty, dames. Each one reminded him of one or another of his sisters. They’d grown up in Boston, all Irish immigrants with hair in various flavors of red and neighbors with the same brogue, the same origins.
They were all dead. In 1919, Reno had been home with the measles, and then something as ridiculous as a giant wave of molasses had swept through the North End where his sisters and mother were bringing their dad his birthday lunch. He worked at the paving yard in north end, and they’d all drowned in a sweet, sticky wave.
He wasn’t sure what had really happened, just that his life had practically ended and he had to get out of there. He still couldn’t stand the smell of molasses, didn’t like it when people other than him got too loud or chatty. It made him think of home, which made him think of the girls, or his mother.
“Hey are we there yet?” He’s not looking up as Rude half drags him home. The bigger man’s pace is patient with Reno’s stumbling and fumbling. Reno is looking down at his uncooperative feet and wishing they’d just go straight and stop tripping all over each other.
“No.” Rude answers. He’s succinct, he’s not anything like any member of Reno’s family, and with a family the size that Reno’s had been, that’s hard. Reno likes it that way. Rude’s his new ‘home’, his new ‘family’, so distinctly different from the old one that he doesn’t have to worry about old memories or any shit like that getting in the way of it being jake again.
“Mmfh.” Reno groans, feeling his stomach shift suddenly. “Hey, quit.”
He gags, feels himself getting ready to throw up, and Rude just stops still, letting him work through the nausea without complaint. The cast is so awkward to work with, and Reno has his good arm around Rude’s shoulders so he can only kind of lock his knees and press the round of the plaster to his stomach as he wills it to calm down.
Rude is patient and quiet. He’s not girly at all, and Reno wishes he could tell the guy to his face how much that means to him, but he can’t even really explain it to himself. Reno talks a lot, but he isn’t so hot with words - but Rude understands him anyway.
“Okay,” Reno says, wetly, but even as he says it he realizes it’s no good. He’s going to upchuck, and Rude can tell too.
Unpleasant business, Reno thinks distantly as he empties the contents of his stomach into the gutter. That done he shifts to pull his arm down off of Rude’s shoulder so he can wipe his mouth with one sloppy, open palm. Rude keeps his arm down by Reno’s midsection.
“Okay.” Reno says again, and this time it’s more confident. He feels a lot better, ironically, with nothing in his stomach. “Yeah alright. Let’s get home.”
Go to part 2.
Author: cog_nomen
Rating: NC-17
Warnings:M/M, M/F, TL;DR
Prompt: Final Fantasy VII (any part of the compilation), assorted cast, necking and nookie, 1920s AU "Everybody knew that the ShinRa juice joint had the hottest jazz, the coolest drinks, and the dancers with the best gams in all of Midgar."
Word count: 9,032 (19,025 total)
Summary: 1920’s era FF7 AU. Various pairings, mostly ShinRa oriented. Major pairings: Angeal/Zack, Tseng/Elena. Minor pairings: Vincent/Veld(Verdot), Rufus/Reeve, Reno/Rude.
A/N: See Author's notes here, on my LJ.
Everyone scrambled to fill in that void, when alcohol meant power and anyone with a bathtub and some grape juice could dream. It was like the gold rush all over again, only with all the advances the Great War had brought to the technology of killing people and the brutality that people were capable of. Advances in technology became advances in weaponry - the Model T became one of the new blunt instruments in the hands of those who needed to make accidents happen.
Rufus ShinRa couldn't exactly say that he loved it, but rather he enjoys the way that things fall neatly together. Prohibition hadn't made him rich; rather it had made him richer - by way of his father's untimely and violent demise. Amusingly enough, he hadn't even been able to raise a glass at his father's wake, just the year before in 1928, because the police had made a laughable appearance on the pretext of sympathy in part. They seemed to think it would clear them of blame if they made a public appearance there. Rufus finds that amusing, too.
Instead they'd had a drink afterward, at the private memorial where only those invited dared set foot. Just him and his thugs and his corporate goons (equally useful in the current climate). But they didn't drink to his father's life, behind closed doors. Instead they drank to his timely death.
"A shame you won't be around to see how much better than you I do, old man." Rufus said, lifting a glass that contained perhaps some of the last remaining of his father's brandy. Prohibitionists had come through and smashed all the kegs that his father had slaved so long to make perfect - his father had been so upset about it that Rufus couldn't help but genuinely enjoy watching it run down into the gutters like so much piss.
The others raised their glasses, too. Some looked anxious at the prospect, some looked downright excited. Hungry, the way he felt inside when he thought about the things he wanted most. Rufus had smiled as he drank that sweet malt, just like he smiled now when he remembered it. He had taken this opportunity and made it his own.
It was his father who had seized the opportunity to contract himself out for the armaments of ships in the tentative, war-ridden waters of 1915 - after the sinking of the Lusitania, even passenger ships were afraid to sail the waters unprotected. A lot of seafaring captains had feared to be put out of business while the triples - Alliance and Entante fought it out with splash over onto the rest of Europe. Fear could have crippled supply lines, starved nations. The seas were the highways of trade and no one was willing to let the U-boats make it their own.
Protection of course became defense, and defense turned slowly to offense - and in 1918, Rufus’ father had made a fortune contracting for the navy’s ships at Queenstown - not only installing upgraded weapons but maintaining the finicky, brand new long-gun technology. It was his father’s idea to equip the smaller faster boats with rams to destroy the German u-boats that had everyone shaking in their well-shined military boots. It wasn’t as successful at poking holes in submarines as it was in bolstering the navy’s confidence again.
With that fortune, his father had returned home a new man - a rich man. Seemed War had made a lot of old men, and ruined a lot of younger men. Rufus had seen the soldiers come home, too. They’d gotten off his father’s boat with hollowed, unseeing eyes and marched back into real life with no drinks to comfort them - while they were away fighting, the politicians had passed the unloved Volstead act.
That was what was currently making Rufus rich. All it had taken was a small investment - a word in the ears of some hardworking carpenters, a few arrangements to rework his father’s ludicrous ‘summer home’ in downtown - a better use for it than his father had made, meeting his whores there where he could lie unconvincingly to Rufus about being on business.
With the basement reworked, Rufus extended the efforts to make himself appear a socialite. The other young rich all seemed to be living that kind of life, and no one bats an eye when people start coming and going from the place at all times. Of course the palms he greased at the local P.D. helped matters too. It meant that only friendly officers patrolled the neighborhood, that vigilante cops or those too loyal to the law never came close enough for there to be a conflict. Overall, it kept things clean in town - especially since some big names in Midgar were frequent customers.
That was how he’d gotten here, lounging in the back of his own speakeasy, securely tucked away behind a hidden passage in the basement of his father’s old pleasure palace. It swung here, on weekends - ShinRa meant the best. Everyone knew that the ShinRa juice joint had the hottest jazz, the coolest drinks, and the dancers with the best gams in all of Midgar. The serving girls weren’t hard to look at either, Rufus picked them himself as a matching set.
The birds worked, the men drank, and at the end of the day everyone paid or got paid. Things were smooth, because Rufus made them smooth. He never has to dirty his own hands for that - he employs the equivalent of two-legged dogs. They were thugs, but loyal for the money he paid them and the booze they got free for helping in its transport and the security of his establishment’s prosperity.
He enjoys their company, too. It’s something of a guilty pleasure. His father always warned him never to get involved with those he employed - it was that distance between his father and his father’s men that had allowed Rufus to secure their loyalty for himself. What he couldn’t buy with friendship, he’d bought outright.
“She’s this real sweet dame, alright?” Reno is saying, in the middle of one of his famous anecdotes. There were four of them officially, and the bartender and the barfly unofficially - both working when it suited them or when they felt threatened. They’re all less talkative than Reno, even the new girl.
“And I swear by Moses, I swear I don’t know she’s already got a daddy.” Reno gestures with his cigarette, and Rufus debates internally pointing out that Reno’s the least likely person he knows to mean a swear on a holy name. “This fly-boy, he gets home from the war just as I’m winning a round of struggle-buggy.”
“More like losing a round.” Rude is the second of a two-man team. He and Reno do the collection work, ferry the goods in from Canada or Mexico, or even the next town over if some basement brew house whips up something that doesn’t smell or taste like piss. He is succinct, the big six of their two-man act. What Reno can’t stop with foul language or a quick beating, Rude can finish with real force.
Reno shrugged, as if he were winning either way in his opinion.
“So he catches me, and swear to god if I didn’t feel like shit when I saw him standin’ there with his duffel and still in uniform from all his rush t’get home.” Reno continues, pushing a hand through his messy red locks. He’s an unusual, skinny little fellow, with a matching set of scars that had some kind of story but it changed every week. “But he forgives the broad, ‘cause he’s a real prince I guess. I gotta run away with my pants around my ankles though, ‘cause I’m sure he doesn’t wanna see my face twice.”
“Nobody wants to see it the first time.” The new girl quips. Elena’s all business, trying too hard to make up the fact that she’s an adorable little package that wrapped herself up in the smallest man’s suit she could find. She wore it well, and spent a lot of her time attempting to look fierce. Rufus thought it made her cuter, but he’d also seen her tear men who told her that apart with nothing more than her bare hands and a few well placed kicks. “That’s why you only go after the desperate dames.”
“You’re lookin’ a little desperate yourself, baby.” Reno leans over the table, pushing her buttons just to see her wind up. His eyes flick to the fourth of their party -currently at the bar. “When you gonna’ make a move on, I wonder?”
Elena kicks him under the table, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him in a way that confirmed everything he said. Reno grins and clutches his bruised shin, in a way that’s more victorious than injured.
Rufus wonders when that development had come around. They’d been an unlikely match-up, the girl he’d wanted to keep close as an enemy and the chinaman he’d picked up for delicate work. Tseng is constantly underestimated - he looks just asian enough and keeps his hair long. Truth was, he was born and bred in San Francisco, spoke perfect English, and thought very little of his ‘stuffy and overbearing’ heritage. In fact, he couldn’t even tell you what country his parents had boated over from - it was entirely possible his nickname was a misnomer.
Still, he was great at getting in and out of places and making the people inside inexplicably dead. At first, Rufus had expected them to get along poorly - she was a real bearcat, always all bristly to prove she was just as good as the boys were. Elena was too. Tseng isn’t quiet, not the way Rude is, but he’s reserved. He’s fairly dignified and thinks far enough ahead that he never seems to say too much.
Currently, he’s negotiating the next round of drinks from the bartender - another of Rufus’ acquisitions, though a less interesting one. Vincent was supposed to be dead, and was about as interesting as a corpse sometimes. Rufus finds him useful - he knows how to mix every drink anyone could think of and is pretty sharp with a shotgun.
And Veld, the veteran who had come back with the war in his eyes, and now had nothing in them at all. He leans on the bar, with an attendant glass in whatever stage of consumption and a crystal glass he’s used so many times as an ashtray now that it serves no other purpose. He’s always smoking, usually drinking. He usually beat Rufus to the joint - he comes in with Vincent when he unlocks the place, the two had that kind of arrangement.
Elena just glowers at Reno. She knows exactly when to hold her tongue, because to protest would only make her look guiltier. Rufus knows better, now that he’s looking. She doesn’t want what she has, but that doesn’t mean she’s any less interested in Tseng. Rufus keeps to silence, drinking. The seven of them are the usuals - they’re always visible because that way trouble never comes inside.
Rufus prides himself on keeping his joint stress-free. The patrons never have to worry about a raid - in fact several of the local police force frequent the place. They have an agreement - police enjoy their alcohol as much as the next bloke. They’re also smart enough to value their lives. Rufus can’t be tied to any of the blood in the streets - not him nor his pack of dogs - but anyone with some sense can see the theory of his involvement.
It isn’t that there are senseless killings; just that anyone who tries to get in the way of his rising star tends to disappear if they can’t be convinced that what they were doing was unwise. The system works well - lately people thought before they tried to cut in on his line of work, and usually realize it’s a bit better to work within the existing system.
Tseng returns with the drinks, carefully balancing beer mugs. He still has to make two trips, the last with his and Elena’s drink. Rufus watchs the silent interchange between the two and decides whatever becomes of that partnership is for the best. They are an effective team - though he doesn’t see any such recognition in the Chinaman. Seems Tseng has walled himself off from that sort of emotion - or at least Rufus has never seen him express it.
“Here’s to another beer!” Reno exclaims, the traditional blessing. At one point it had been traditional to toast to ‘another quiet night’ but that had been deemed a cursed item after trouble seemed to break out every time they lifted glasses to it.
Everyone raises their drink, even Rufus.
----------------------------------------------------
Cops and mobsters are half again the same. If a guy is smart, he can get in with both. Information is just as valuable as liquor. Angeal works both sides of the equation carefully. What he hadn’t counted on was doing such a good job as an officer that he would be saddled with the overenthusiastic rookie recruit that looks good enough in his officer’s uniform to make Angeal reconsider his personal rule of not touching co-workers.
Zack has the brightest blue eyes he’s ever seen, and is always ready to go, ever cheerful, and has a distinct brand of optimism that reminds Angeal - distinctly - of a puppy. He overdoes everything he possibly can, a point which Angeal tries very hard not to love him for.
Ultimately, he fails. So when Zack barged into his apartment one night on oversized paws of enthusiasm, Angeal had just resolved himself to behave as best as possible. After all he was the senior officer, and beyond that he valued the friendship of his younger partner too much to risk scaring him off with an unwanted advance.
Zack never seemed to notice when Angeal looked too long, the kid’s attention span was probably too short for that. Still he seemed to sense the hole in Angeal’s life - one that was shaped distinctly like a personal life, something beyond work - he stuffed himself into it because ‘partners take care of each other’.
Angeal hadn’t even realized the hole was there until Zack had shown him what it could mean just to just go out to a movie theater with a friend, and watch the latest Charlie Chaplin film. Zack was crazy about Charlie Chaplin, and insisted on dragging Angeal to The Circus a year earlier - while some pianist sat in the front of the theater, and the lights were dimmed, a story unfolded in motion picture. They sat in close and Angeal pretended he was looking at the movie, and not the way the grey tones flickering across the screen lit up Zack’s eyes. Every so often they would dim, when the screen went black so that dialog could be displayed.
It was on the way home that everything had changed. Zack stretched out as they left the theater and grinned up at Angeal with his bangs hanging over his face in a way that made Angeal’s heart twinge in his chest. He was grinning, Angeal remembered, he’d laughed like an idiot through most of the movie and almost loudly enough to be embarrassing, but the good spirits were infectious when Zack was involved.
“Hey!” Zack had said, pointing, still smiling. “You’re grinning!”
Angeal realized he was, and arched his brows. “So what?”
“I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before.” Zack pulled his features into a comical grimace. “Usually you’re Mr. Bluenose.”
“Says you.” Angeal felt the smile fade quickly from his features - if only Zack knew what his evenings had usually involved before Zack had overlapped into them.
“Hey don’t quit smiling - it suits you!” Stepping into Angeal’s path, Zack lifted his arms behind his head and walked backwards, looking earnest. “I mean it, it’s the berries.”
Angeal had scowled further, reprimanding himself for relaxing so much. Of a sudden, he’d really wanted to scoot down to the speakeasy and get thoroughly ossified. Why couldn’t Zack just get it, he wondered. The kid just couldn’t keep his distance, had no concept of the way that people sometimes lied to each other or used each other. The kid didn’t seem to realize that not everyone could be taken at face value. Even Angeal’s interest hadn’t been purely in friendship, though he thought himself decent enough to never act on it. The kid was going to get himself into real trouble that way.
“Hey, come on. I’m sorry, Angeal.” Zack stopped suddenly enough that Angeal bowled into him. Zack’s hands dropped to Angeal’s middle and steadied them both as they tripped on each other. Angeal had just lifted his hands to Zack’s wrists to pull them away, too occupied with where the kid’s hands were going to see what was coming next.
Zack leaned up and kissed him. It was sudden enough that it took Angeal a moment to wrench the kid away by his arms. For a moment, they were both quiet - Zack looked genuinely worried, his blue eyes getting bigger. Both of them were breathing faster, and after a second, Angeal at last realized what had actually happened.
The hell with it, he’s decided. They’d sort it out later if it genuinely needed sorting. Angeal pulled Zack back in, and the kid leaned into it, as the spark came back into his eyes - some little victory bell sounding in Zack’s mind. Somehow, Angeal thought, Zack always got what he wanted. It didn’t really matter with his mouth under Angeal’s, willing and enthusiastic in this, too.
Zack’s hands came up and gripped at Angeal’s shoulders when he let go of the kid’s wrists, refused to let Angeal draw back before he was ready to finish. It went on long enough for Angeal to know it wasn’t an accident, wasn’t something that Zack would reconsider later and decide it was a mistake. The kid had planned this, somehow. Taken all the steps leading up to it, maybe driven Angeal just crazy enough so that he had the least likely chance of being rejected.
It worked. He couldn’t have said ‘no’ then even if he’d wanted to. Zack’s mouth was soft under his, but not completely yielding. His tongue pushed against Angeal’s, sliding under, and then against the roof of his mouth, to explore everything it could touch. The kiss tasted like popcorn, faintly. It was that, partially, that made Angeal remember that they were standing in the middle of the street in front of the movie theater - even if it was late enough that no one was really around.
He drew back, and Zack sighed, eyes closed for a second longer before he let them open again, long lashes sliding back to reveal the blue beneath. It was painfully Zack, the expression enough to get Angeal’s blood going.
“Kid,” He’d said, and they were both panting. “We gotta get out of the street.”
“Yeah,” Zack said, grabbing Angeal’s wrist as they drew apart, dragging him forward. “Let’s get a wiggle on.”
Zack was smart enough not to let Angeal have enough time to change his mind. He hadn’t let things slow down at all once they made it back to Angeal’s pad. He was pushy for a kid, more than Angeal would have expected - Zack always gave off the impression that he was innocent and inexperienced, but his were the hands doing all the major advances.
It was Zack who pinned Angeal back against his own apartment door after the older man had finished locking it, and Zack who’d kept kissing him until he had no idea which way was up or down, save that he was pretty sure Zack’s hands were headed south faster than he was really comfortable with.
Angeal pushed them away from the door, and Zack’s hands locked on his belt. Zack refused to surrender his momentum to Angeal’s slower and steadier pace - it seemed like the kid realized that giving Angeal a chance to think could shut this whole thing down.
Finding himself with his knees backed up against his own couch, and then his balance forced to the point where he had to sit, Angeal finally found the break he needed to get hold of Zack’s hands. Their eyes met, and this time instead of hesitation, Zack’s shone with azure victory. He knew he was going to get what he wanted - and that he genuinely wanted it was what stalled the question in Angeal’s throat. He didn’t have to ask ‘are you sure’, because it was written all over Zack’s expression. Zack was positive.
“Alright.” Was all Angeal said, finishing the conversation that hadn’t taken place. Zack’s smile turned into an outright grin, and he stripped off his suit jacket. Angeal watched him, hands turned upright on his knees. His own pinstripe pants were starting to feel a bit restrictive, despite the generous cut that was fashionable these last few years.
Zack didn’t stop looking at him, pinning him with his gaze. His hands traced his suspenders up to his shoulders before he shrugged them off and began to pull on his tie. Angeal felt his patience actually begin to strain as Zack began to slow down - he looked smug. He was trying to get to Angeal - to cause the older man’s patience to break at last.
“I thought you’d never let me do this, old man.” Zack said, fondly. His fingers were clever on the tie’s knot - he actually untied it rather than just loosening it and pulling the loop over his head. Angeal might have bet that Zack didn’t even know how to tie a Windsor in the first place but he was beginning to learn that a lot of what he’d thought about Zack was probably wrong.
“Kid,” Angeal answered, and he could hear the heat in his own voice. “All you had to do was ask.”
Zack seemed satisfied - pleased, even with that answer. He’s out of his shirt fast after that, then slides up over Angeal’s lap. Angeal let his hands finally wander where they’d wanted - over the plane of Zack’s stomach and the round of his thighs.
From there, it was a rush. Zack was in a hurry to get Angeal’s clothes undone, if not off, while their mouths met again. The kiss made Angeal forget his resolution to take things slow. Zack drove them both with his enthusiasm, his hands almost everywhere at once.
Angeal broke the kiss with a wet sound when Zack’s warm hands cupped his groin, finding how ready Angeal had become and giving an encouraging squeeze. Choking back his hiss, Angeal reached down, intending to slow the pace. Zack wouldn’t be dissuaded.
“Hey,” He said, forehead resting against Angeal’s so they could look into each other’s eyes. “Let me. Please?”
Zack must have realized the effect that had on Angeal since the kid’s hands were on his cock as it jumped in response. He didn’t comment, just went for Angeal’s zipper and Angeal let him. There was probably no way he could have convinced himself to slow down at that point, not with Zack so close and so ready.
It had been a long time since someone else had touched Angeal - long enough that he leaned his head back along the top of the couch as Zack coaxed, controlling his breathing and focusing on the slow build of warmth that moved toward his center. It helped that Zack’s touch wasn’t completely inexperienced. He was sure of what he was doing and eager.
When Angeal was sure he wasn’t going to last much longer, he went for Zack’s zipper. By then the kid had his mouth fixed on Angeal’s exposed neck and he didn’t stop Angeal from undoing his pants.
Zack was just as hard as he was, just as ready. He groaned into Angeal’s shoulder as the older man worked his length free to touch. Their hands were a confused tangle in the proximity, and Zack started to make pleading noises.
Zack hurried his pace in encouragement, ignoring the warning that Angeal hissed.
“Close.” He tried again, his hips shifting up into the firm hand. His voice had sprung free from him without real thought, somewhere in his mind he hadn’t wanted Zack to rush this to an end, but he couldn’t have stopped then.
“Yeah?” Zack sounded pleased, breathless. Satisfied that he could do this to Angeal. He made an encouraging noise, sped his pace up to tip Angeal over the edge and Angeal couldn’t have said if it was Zack’s voice so close to his ear or his clever, insistent fingers that finally did the trick.
When he came, Zack didn’t complain in the least or draw back from the sticky mess. Instead he kept stroking - the slide much eased now - until he’s sure Angeal is done. The older cop found himself more relaxed than he had been in a long time as he came down, gathering his breath and his wits.
He didn’t even realize he’d closed his eyes until he opened them again, to see Zack’s dark eyes right there. All that was left of their brilliant blue is a thin rim around the black of his pupils. Angeal realized his own attentions had stilled and he had a flash of impatience with himself.
Pushing until Zack shifted his weight off of Angeal’s lap and leaned back against the arm of the sofa, he resumed the motion to keep Zack from protesting, following Zack down until he could get his mouth on Zack’s cock.
Zack sucked in a sudden breath; it locked in his chest for a long moment. Angeal could feel the kid’s hips shifting against his flattened palm and felt his own victory when Zack’s breath escaped in a loud, encouraging groan. The kid sounded more than ready, and Angeal pressed his tongue into the underside of the shaft as he drew his head back.
It didn’t take much; Zack encouraged him with his voice whenever Angeal found something he liked - honest and easy to read even in this. Taking the encouragement, Angeal focused his attentions until Zack cried out that he was ready - at the same time his cum spurted along Angeal’s tongue. He swallowed, sat up.
Zack stretched smug along his couch like everything was still the same. Angeal realized it was more than that - everything was okay, too. He could stretch out and Zack knew everything, but curled up beside him anyway. There was barely enough room on the couch, but neither had any complaints.
----------------------------------------------------
Tijuana. You can get anything if you can get there. Thing was, no one really wants to live there. Sometimes, the boss sends them down to bring all the amenities back - once a year they have a Tijuana party. There wasn't much to celebrate, so any occasion that was out of the norm was a big hit. They almost always ran out of tequila.
Still the fastest way to get around anyplace outside of the city was horseback. They don't get stuck on holes, don't need to go on roads where cops patrol. They are quiet, go where you tell them, and could also go all the places flivvers went. Sometimes faster, with no winding or where the traction was bad.
That was how Reno and Rude wound up riding back into town late that night, though the sound of hooves clopping along on the cobbled streets is loud, it really isn’t any match for the fact that Reno is complaining with every step. Things had gone sour at the border, and he cradles his arm close to his chest and Rude hovers just behind at a distance that keeps threatening to bump their horses together. It’s wearing on the nerves of riders and steeds both.
Reno’s horse - dark hide splashed with irregular white spots like spilled milk crawling snowflake patterns over the floor - is pinning its ears and threatening to kick. They get back late, and Tseng sees everything in how flustered they are. Reno is too loud, Rude is too quiet. He reaches up to take the reins from them.
“Rude.” He says, and the darker man looks down at him, brows arching over his sunglasses. “Get Reno to the hospital. I’ll get it inside.”
“Thanks, man.” Reno says gratefully. He’s obviously not dying, but his arm is broken, and Tseng thinks the quicker that gets set the better it will heal. “Tell the Big Cheese we made it back, too, okay?”
He’s starting to turn his horse, tired.
“Hey.” Tseng says, and they both look at him. He can read how long the last few days have been. Even the usual synergy they have has worn thin. They’re sick of each other, sick of things going wrong. They both could use a drink. “Take the car.”
What a pair they would have made, trying to find some place to hitch their horses at the hospital. Reno looks at Rude. Rude looks at Reno, and they both chuckle. Tomorrow - later today, technically - is Cinco de Mayo. There’s tequila in time for it now, and everyone’s OK. In the end, Tseng thinks, that means a job well done. It was only when someone didn’t get to enjoy a drink they’d worked hard to have because they were left holding the bag that Tseng started to worry.
“Yeah.” Rude says, tossing Tseng the reins of his horse. “Tseng’s right, we better take the other hayburner.”
----------------------------------------------------
Rufus bet the filly in the race, a fact that Elena knows is rare. She's grateful for it. She also remembers the day in 1915 when Regret won the Kentucky derby and showed all the boys how it was done. She thinks Rufus probably remembers that, too.
She was a distant cousin of Capone's, a black sheep in the family, though she knew exactly how to keep her mouth shut when it was important, she refused to play ball when it came to the matters of becoming some docile female trophy wife to be married off to cement some family friendship. Capone had sent her away from Chicago as much so he wouldn't have to look at her as his excuse to do so, which was so that she could spy on the ShinRa family. Rufus had bought her for a tidy sum and some respect, and she'd never looked back.
"My first love was a tommygun," She confesses, after they've all made it several drinks in. Reno sits back with his arm in a cast and assumes his best listening pose. It involves slouching and looking vaguely interested while he keeps his drink dear at hand to chase off boredom should she bore him. Thinking back on it, she recalls how the smooth wooden grip mounted at the front of the gun had practically begged to be touched.
Her father had caught her rubbing her fingers over the knuckle-spaced ridges at the front of the grip, and he'd picked it up and took her out back to show her what it could do.
"He showed me how to use it, but he had this look on his face, like he thought it'd scare me." Her father looked at every girl like a dumb dora, especially her mother. Elena hated her a little for putting up with it, hated her sister for letting Capone marry her off like a trophy, but her father she couldn't hate at all. "The boys laughed when I creamed a target with it, and I laughed too."
"Doll, you're one in a million." Reno says, half mocking, but it’s alright. It’s just ducky, in part because no matter how much Reno talks, he still looks at her like she knows which end of the gun to hold. As much as he goes on about how much he loves a flapper in a tiny skirt, he never tries to tell her that she should be one. "He let you keep shooting after that or did he realize his mistake?"
"He thought it was harmless. I remember one of the goons, McCoy - used to call him Real McCoy - he'd call me 'little Capone'." Elena had always loved that, she can't remember why exactly. Thinking about it brought up all the other memories she hadn't considered. Her family wasn't her family anymore, now she was paid to be in the ShinRa's pocket, and all those people from her past don't matter.
McCoy had been shot up by the cops, she remembers. They'd got it in their heads to take out one of Capone's torpedoes, or that they might get him to sing if they could take him, but they couldn't. Real McCoy had been quiet, she remembered, but a better shot than her father and better at listening too. Her dad and one of the other goons had come home in a whirl one night - she remembered all the shouting. Remembered that Real had been slung between them and there were all these funny red blossoms on the front of his shirt, like painted flowers with dark oozing centers. Her dad had made him lie on the tile so they could mop up the blood after he died, and he -had- bled, but hadn't made a sound besides a low, wet chuckle when he saw her at some internal irony he saw. 'This's what happens when you set your boyfriend on people, kiddo,' were some of the last words he'd said before her father made her go to her room. She hadn't liked the tommygun nearly so much afterward.
"Poor bastard." She says aloud, and the others know what she means without having to ask. To a man, they raise their glass and drink, even Tseng who barely ever drinks a drop.
----------------------------------------------------
"The old man's a tragedy," Reno says, not quite yet in his cups so much as he would like. "He was married before the war and when he came back turns out old man ShinRa had use for someone who could kill. Wife says war's changed the man - as if war wouldn't. Bullshit reason to leave him. She was fuckin' around; leaves just him and Dead Vic as companions. She's gone, he lets everything human about him go away with her."
"He didn't need it anyway." Tseng says, pushing his hat down over his eyes and leaning back like the smug Chinaman he is. His drink's barely touched. Rude keeps quiet on the matter. Might be a million versions of Veld's story but they all ended wit him at the speakeasy long before and long after the rest of the crowd.
Rude sees the way he measures his drinks, strings himself along on that razor-fine line of just-in-control and wondered just what Veld needed. It’s either to give up, get sloshed and toss off with someone he'd never see again and surrender completely to self destruction or to clean up, straighten his suit, and try again.
“You are one cold bastard.” Reno says, gesturing with the arm he’s got in a cast, and then wincing. Rude thinks that’s a bid for sympathy - Reno’s had enough to drink now that it can’t bother him very much. In fact, earlier Reno had said that the cast made him feel like a real sheikh, he was sure all the girls would want to hear about his daring caper.
“Dry up.” Tseng answers, dry himself. “None of us really need any of that stuff - it just gives you a weakness someone can exploit.”
Rude doesn’t miss the way Elena’s eyes slide toward Tseng when he says it, like her heart might be breaking a little. Rude spends as much time as he can watching, rather than talking. He thinks maybe that he knows the most about the way things go between all of them because he knows how to just shut up and listen.
For example, there are three girls up on stage, dancing away to the delight of most of the drunken patrons. Almost all the eyes are on them - except for the small circle of patrons at the back table. Rufus’ table. The boss had put in an appearance earlier in the night, with that book keeper of his that could make some kind of magic on paper so all the profits looked legal.
All they have to do is sleep in a warehouse on weekdays and answer the phone the right way - if it ever rang. It rarely does. Reno and Rude share that duty, when they weren’t running supply lines - a fact that most knew. What most people didn’t know was that just last week before they’d left, all three of the girls up on stage had spent the whole day keeping the two company there. The phone hadn’t rung in the middle, a fact that Rude was grateful for.
The girls - they often dance at the joint, long legs and no shame - were equally interested in seeing Reno and Rude entertain each other as they were in entertaining the boys. Reno was happy to oblige, he’s more of a showman than Rude, in some way that always makes Rude feel less awkward about that sort of situation. He doesn’t have to show off or try to make more out of it than the basest of acts. Reno does all that for him. And it usually means the girls fell into his lap instead of Reno’s.
Reno makes a big show out of hating that, but in private he’s said he’d rather have Rude’s mouth on him than any of the girls.
There are two other sets of eyes that aren’t on the girls. Vincent and Veld are talking to each other - Rude’s never seen either of them so much as glance at the broads that come into the place. They both enjoy the jazz well enough, but not the women.
Then there’s Elena, she’s all eyes on Tseng. She’s always all eyes on him, and Rude doesn’t know how the guy hasn’t noticed it yet. Tseng seems to want to be Veld, but didn’t have it in him to gut out everything in his core and throw it down the gutter like so much upchuck. Rude is pretty sure he’s got it just as bad for Elena; he just doesn’t know it yet. The girl’s easy on the eyes, even if she’d shiv you if you said it to her face. They were centimeters from figuring each other out, Rude thinks.
It’d be explosive when they did, he was pretty sure. He drinks again, and the bull session seems to have moved on from Veld.
“I hear tell that Reeve’s been making eyes at that Sheba up on stage.” Reno goes on, knowing full well that it’s a lie. The book keeper was property now, Rufus’ signature all over him like so many checks deposited in the bank.
“Baloney.” Elena says, she has a good nose for sniffing out Reno’s bullshit. “He’s into blondes, they’re all brunette.”
It was a more delicate way to put things.
“Doll, you think hair color matters when they got gams like that?” Reno uses his one good arm to make a round shape in front of his chest. “The one in the middle’s got it.”
“Tifa.” Rude says, he remembers her name. Reno, he thinks, genuinely doesn’t. That’s part of listening, too. Remembering.
“Absolutely!” Reno agrees. Elena looks vaguely disgusted with the pair of them, but it won’t last. She likes them all well enough. Rude knows she wouldn’t just stay for the money Rufus is paying her. Elena likes the respect.
Rude wishes she’d have left her book open just a little longer before she closed her bank to anyone but Tseng. He’d have liked to see how fierce she was in bed. She was such a live-wire, and he’d never admit it but that makes him all weak in the knees. It’s part of what he was so fond of in Reno.
“You boys are real pieces of work.” She says, but she knows Reno’s just razzing her now. She’s smiling. Tseng’s back to being quiet. Reno is finishing his drink. Everything’s good. Rude thinks there’s only one place to go from here - up.
----------------------------------------------------
"So what'd they find when they got there?" Tseng sets himself up for a punch line well enough, even if he was a bastard.
"Umbrellas." Reno says, grinning hugely. "Boss wanted to make sure they knew they were gonna be all wet. Show 'em he understood."
Everyone is several drinks in. The hoofers have quit, the jazz is slowing down and losing quality as the musicians enjoy rounds between songs. Tseng’s still on his first glass, still keeping his clear head.
“Umbrellas!” Elena snorts, past her limit now. She knows she’s drunk though, has cut herself off before she gets totally tanked. She giggles into her water, both hands wrapped around the glass as it sloshes dangerously.
“You slay me.” Tseng says - he’s heard the story before. Reno thinks it’s funnier every time, even though Tseng sets it up the same way. It’s one of the signs between the four of them. Means the night should start winding down - drink wise. There’s still enough patrons in the bar - it is a party after all - that they can’t all knock off and leave the protection to Vic and Veld.
“Hoss,” Reno says, fried to the hat “Let a guy have a little fun, huh? I mean I broke my arm gettin’ the stuff here.”
“Yeah.” Tseng says. “Elena and I will stay today.”
He glances at Rude, and behind his sunglasses, the other man seems to agree. Rude stands up, and hooks his hand under Reno’s good elbow to help him out of his seat.
“Whoa, hey.” Reno scoops up his glass before he goes, makes sure to empty it of the last sip. “Swell.”
He leans heavy on Rude, one arm slung around the taller man’s shoulder even though it’s a bit of a reach for the redhead. When the glass slips in his fingers, Rude catches it barely. They both look un-coordinated.
“We better walk, huh?” Reno says, peering owlishly up at Rude. Rude rolls his eyes at the obvious statement, and Elena has to shove her hands over her mouth to stop laughing.
“Beat it!” She encourages them, as they head out of the bar. No one pays any attention. She’s recovering well, and after they leave she just sits grinning and having long sips of water.
“Hey.” She says after a moment, when Tseng’s attention has wandered to where one of the three dancers - Aerith, he was pretty sure her name was - was flirting her way into free drinks in one corner of the bar. He glances back at Elena.
“How’d you get here?” She asks, and he can’t help but be wise.
“I took a Jitney.” He says, and feels his mouth even into a smile. He has another sip of the same warm alcohol.
She shakes her head, propping her chin in her palm and leaning her elbow on the table to look at him intently, refusing that answer.
“Baloney.” She says. “You know what I meant.”
“If you mean to Midgar, I took a train.” He never cares to get into his past - it’s not as interesting as everyone assumes. San Francisco wasn’t the best memory. He didn’t fit in with the people that looked like him - he didn’t speak Chinese. He didn’t fit in with the people that didn’t look like him either, despite a common language.
She’s still looking at him. It’s one of those demanding looks Elena gets, and he resigns himself.
“I met old man ShinRa when he was traveling around shipyards selling his u-boat spikes. He tried to hire me as a translator, and I just took his money and made up nonsense. Didn’t take him too long to see through the trick, but when he figured out I wasn’t too shabby with a gun he figured he’d gotten a bargain anyway.”
Elena arches her brows.
“That’s it, honest. You know everything else.” Tseng doesn’t know why everyone seems to assume there’s so much more to him. He lets them, usually. It was useful. Elena should know better by now - she’s spent enough time with him.
What saves him from further questions is Rufus coming back downstairs with the book keeper half an hour prior to last call. When there are patrons in the bar, Rufus is always there for the end of the night. He sits down, and Reeve takes the chair beside him. Tseng notes that the book keeper’s collar looks rumpled, the knot in his tie isn’t as precise as it had been before they’d left.
“Is that the same drink, Tseng?” Reeve asks, looking at the suspicious lack of ice in Tseng’s glass. Tseng nods, and Reeve shakes his head. It was strange, but Tseng has the strangest feeling that Reeve gets exactly what Tseng is - a job in a suit.
Rufus chuckles.
----------------------------------------------------
Reeve is slowly detailing for Elena exactly how the figures line up on paper to make every bit of money legal for Rufus. Rufus doesn’t care how it’s done, to be honest. He knows that it’s water-tight, and if there’s one thing he inherited from his father that he’s most grateful for it’s the book keeper.
Once Rufus had gotten past the man’s shy exterior, the way he enjoyed only the simplest things in life - he’d really gotten to like Reeve. The guy had grown up in the middle of nowhere, but if anything that made him leaner, resourceful. He was also a prodigy with numbers, so Rufus paid him well and kept him close to his hand like a pet bird with an invaluable trick.
If he’d said that was all there was to it, he’d have been lying. At first Reeve had been a distinct challenge - painfully shy, unsure of what even he wanted. It had taken a lot of doing for Rufus to convince Reeve that it was him. A lot of careful dance steps - a give and take. A lot of compassion - and he found he had extra reserves of it than his nature would have allowed for anyone else.
His dogs are one thing, and he has affection enough for them. They’re all unique, exotic. Reeve is neither.
“I route the money through some companies in other countries.” Reeve says, and he grabs a napkin to detail how it works with some figures and a diagram that involves a lot of rapid scribbling, some boxes with letters in them, and arrows between.
It doesn’t make the least amount of sense to Rufus, but he looks at them anyway, as if he’s following along. It gives him an excuse to lean over Reeve’s shoulder.
“They’re just some guys we pay to pick up the phone and O.K. the transfers between here and there. Once the money’s out of the states, they can’t trace it, not that anyone cares.” Reeve’s diagram gains two dots and a curved line in the middle, indicating a happy face.
The guy is painfully, adorably, backwater.
“So like we have Reno and Rude pick up the phone in the warehouse here.” Elena says, leaning over Reeve’s other shoulder. It probably makes the guy a little uncomfortable, by the way he’s shifted his weight into Rufus - who traps him there with some small amusement.
“Yeah, you’re on the trolley.” Reeve says. “But I don’t let Reno and Rude touch the numbers.”
“I wouldn’t either.” Tseng says. Now that the clock’s winding down, he’s having more of his drink. He looks over at the bar, catching Veld’s eye. Tseng holds up his arm and points at his wrist, and Veld checks his wristwatch without any kind of expression.
He holds up three fingers.
“Last call!” Vincent agrees, in a ringing tone across the bar. A number of chairs scrape backward on the floor, voices exclaiming on how it’s gotten so late all of a sudden. Some walk out easily, some shuffle up the stairs and then keep going up at the landing to sleep it off face-down in one of the beds upstairs. They know better than to try to make it past the front door obviously plastered.
“You want anything before Vic throws us out?” Rufus asks, amused, and Reeve glances up at him as he stands up. He nods, but doesn’t have to elaborate. Rufus likes that in Reeve - he’s easy to please. Lean farm living had stripped him of any pickiness he might have once had.
“You need a ride home?” Tseng asks Reeve, as Rufus is heading to the bar. Rufus can practically hear the guy blush.
“Nah.” Reeve answers, surprisingly without stammering. He’s getting better at the whole game. “I’m staying.”
“I could use a ride home.” Elena stuffs herself into the conversation - either eagerly seeking any excuse to get Tseng within fifty feet of her apartment, or genuinely trying to put the attention off of Reeve before the accountant turned an even deeper shade of red.
Vincent uses two of the glasses that match the ones upstairs when he pours Rufus and Reeve’s drinks - brandy, and not the coffin varnish variety.
“Have a nice night, boss.” He says, as he passes the glasses over, knowing Rufus will be taking them upstairs with him. Veld gives a faint salute, and Rufus knows that any of the lingering patrons will be escorted out by the pair in the next twenty minutes so that the place can be locked up behind.
Elena’s getting up as he gets back to the table, and Tseng’s shrugging on his coat. He pauses to make sure both of Rufus’ other dogs are at the bar before he’s ready to go. Veld isn’t on the payroll - Rufus had offered, but Veld had declined on the reason that he didn’t want to have to hold himself back for duty (Rufus couldn’t imagine what else he actually held himself back for instead) - but he’d protect this place and Rufus just as loyally as if he was.
“See you tomorrow.” Rufus says, and Reeve crumples up the napkin as he takes up the glass Rufus passes him.
----------------------------------------------------
Reno wouldn’t lie. Life before ShinRa had been pretty shitty. The warehouse he and Rude lived in now wasn’t exactly ace, but it was a roof. There were beds. Even an area walled off in back for a kitchen. Best of all there was Rude there, all the time.
Until Reno was ten, he’d had six sisters. Six constantly working mouths, six family members who could spend an hour in front of the bathroom vanity dolling themselves up or dolling each other up. He was the oddity, and while they all had their arguments with each other or their moments of obsession with each other’s attentions - as it went in all families - none of them was in so much demand as he was. He’d have told you he hated the attention, but he loved it.
The problem was that any time enough girls got together, it reminded him of his family - they were chatty, dames. Each one reminded him of one or another of his sisters. They’d grown up in Boston, all Irish immigrants with hair in various flavors of red and neighbors with the same brogue, the same origins.
They were all dead. In 1919, Reno had been home with the measles, and then something as ridiculous as a giant wave of molasses had swept through the North End where his sisters and mother were bringing their dad his birthday lunch. He worked at the paving yard in north end, and they’d all drowned in a sweet, sticky wave.
He wasn’t sure what had really happened, just that his life had practically ended and he had to get out of there. He still couldn’t stand the smell of molasses, didn’t like it when people other than him got too loud or chatty. It made him think of home, which made him think of the girls, or his mother.
“Hey are we there yet?” He’s not looking up as Rude half drags him home. The bigger man’s pace is patient with Reno’s stumbling and fumbling. Reno is looking down at his uncooperative feet and wishing they’d just go straight and stop tripping all over each other.
“No.” Rude answers. He’s succinct, he’s not anything like any member of Reno’s family, and with a family the size that Reno’s had been, that’s hard. Reno likes it that way. Rude’s his new ‘home’, his new ‘family’, so distinctly different from the old one that he doesn’t have to worry about old memories or any shit like that getting in the way of it being jake again.
“Mmfh.” Reno groans, feeling his stomach shift suddenly. “Hey, quit.”
He gags, feels himself getting ready to throw up, and Rude just stops still, letting him work through the nausea without complaint. The cast is so awkward to work with, and Reno has his good arm around Rude’s shoulders so he can only kind of lock his knees and press the round of the plaster to his stomach as he wills it to calm down.
Rude is patient and quiet. He’s not girly at all, and Reno wishes he could tell the guy to his face how much that means to him, but he can’t even really explain it to himself. Reno talks a lot, but he isn’t so hot with words - but Rude understands him anyway.
“Okay,” Reno says, wetly, but even as he says it he realizes it’s no good. He’s going to upchuck, and Rude can tell too.
Unpleasant business, Reno thinks distantly as he empties the contents of his stomach into the gutter. That done he shifts to pull his arm down off of Rude’s shoulder so he can wipe his mouth with one sloppy, open palm. Rude keeps his arm down by Reno’s midsection.
“Okay.” Reno says again, and this time it’s more confident. He feels a lot better, ironically, with nothing in his stomach. “Yeah alright. Let’s get home.”
Go to part 2.