ShinRa Dog

Reno’s breath came short, his eyes widened in shock. The words had been soft enough that he was the only one to hear them, yet Rufus was gone before Reno could recover enough to respond.

He muttered colorful swears under his breath, ears pink as he fought down the swell of interest. “Bastard,” was a common choice in his litany.

Reno startled at the touch and turned to see who it was. His gaze met Rufus's and the hunger there burned across Reno's skin like a fire. And then Rufus looked away.

He swallowed hard, heart suddenly pounding. A brief second and Rufus had instilled lust in Reno instantly. Even Heidegger standing just beyond didn't distract him. He wanted to touch Rufus back.

He heard a buzzing in his ear and realized Rude was trying to talk to him across the comms. He sounded a little annoyed, so he had probably said his name once already. "Yo. Everything clear here."

"Roger. Pay attention, idiot," Rude answered, irritation mixed with resignation. Rude was no doubt just as bored as Reno had been.

"Yeah, yeah." Reno followed Rufus with his eyes before trailing after him. Bodyguard duty had never seemed so difficult. He wanted to pull Rufus into a side room and...

@meteorcoyote

Her ears are hidden by the scarf braided into her hair, but if he had noticed they were flatter than normal. She knew he wasn’t upset at her. His body language showed that clearly enough, but his tone still stung. Her emotions swirling between rage and guilt as he patched her up.

It was true that he probably would have been alright if she hadn’t stepped in, but that wasn’t a chance she was willing to take. “You didn’t even see the bastard Reno.” She hissed in pain as he pushed the cloth against her. She knew it was serious enough that they wouldn’t be able to quickly fix it.

“At least we both can still move!” She was clearly upset as she tried to squirm away. She let out a growl as the cloth was getting darker with her blood.

“I have an idea…. Do you have any blizzard materia on ya?” Camp was too far if she couldn’t slow the bleeding more.

Reno grit his teeth. “Just shut up,” he griped, worried that her talking would make her bleed more. “No, I don’t have blizzard,” he sighed. “I only carry thunder on me.” Theoretically, he could maybe cauterize the wound with lightning, but it would be risky. There was too much of a risk that he would just electrocute her. “Do you have any?”

There was barely enough time for the men to gargle out some sort of surprised yell. The beam came tumbling down on them with a deafening crash. It was enough to stir up dust and other debris that the warehouse like structure had offered—the floor cracked and in shambles from the weight. Irritation coaxed inside his throat and nose, and he tried his best to swallow any feeling of a cough. At this point he was afraid to exert any forced movement; blood was still seeping through his jacket where a bullet he surmised was lodged.

“Re—” another forced attempt to swallow down the growing need. “—no.” Though he tried to make the name sound strong on the tip of his tongue, he could not. It was choked and burdened with worry. If he hadn’t got out in time… This day would haunt Rufus for the rest of his life. The last words he uttered, the vision that he surely would stumble upon.

Closing his eyes momentarily, he inhaled a trembling breath, lifting himself up with a grunt with the aid of the desk that he still recoiled behind. A few extra floorboards had burst upwards, obstructing the mass of debris just beyond it. Though he heard, what he hoped, were struggling grunts and cough of his Turk.

“Reno,” he choked out again, climbing around the brick and mortar of the collapsed area. There, searching for him no doubt, was Reno. Finally, he managed to ease out the breath he wasn’t aware he was holding—it trickled out with a few coughs that were not avoidable. A hand reached out to grab the Turk by his shoulder, gripping onto it with his good hand while the gun was once again returned to his saturated jacket. “Are you …” It was hard to make out exactly where to begin—he looked rough. They both did at this point. The back of his throat was coated with dirt and sand, the air still heavy with dust particles. Though he was sure this reason alone wasn’t the cause of his loss of words.

Every moment Reno spent searching without hearing back from Rufus wrenched his stress higher and higher. When he finally heard a weak call of his name, the relief was so intense, he almost stumbled. He began working his way towards where he had heard Rufus. He was picking his way around a large chunk of concrete when he heard shuffling and looked up to see his boss making his way towards him. He exhaled sharply. When Rufus put a hand on his shoulder, he gripped him by the wrist. The reassurance that he was there and real was heady.

Once he got past his initial relief, though, he realized Rufus did not look good. He was standing uncomfortably and there was a lot of blood down one side of his clothes. Worry pierced Reno’s thoughts immediately. He tightened his grip on Rufus’s wrist and used his other hand to carefully touch his bleeding shoulder, pushing some minor healing into it from his Cure materia. He wouldn’t be able to do much besides dull the pain and hopefully staunch some of the bleeding.

Now trying to remember who it was that had the lichtenberg figures headcanon, and I want to say it was @lickmyemr but I can’t actually remember? Or maybe @shutupreno

❰❰ MEDIC ❱❱ sender bandages receiver’s wounds

"Careful," Reno hissed as he felt ointment being applied to his shoulder. There was a long thin jagged burn running along his left arm from his palm to the upper part of his back. He regretted saying it the moment he had spoken; he had asked for help, and here he was being grumpy about it.

He was sulking a little. There was a reason not a lot of ShinRa employees used an EMR; it was easy to get shocked by it. In this case, he had mishandled the materia and gotten a nasty electric burn as it tried to connect the lightning to a metal pole behind him. A stupid mistake and his pride was also hurting.

Reno was just supposed to hand over some paperwork for Rufus to sign while Tseng was in another department for a little bit, no big deal. Just hand it over like normal, wait for him to read it and ask any questions, sign it, and off he would go.

Except Rufus did something odd. Reno passed him the papers, but Rufus grabbed his hand. Reno looked at him, puzzled, and found Rufus staring back at him, eyes glinting with what he could only call mischief.

Rufus pressed his lips to the inside of Reno's wrist. It sent a really unfortunate shot of arousal through his system. He froze, unsure how to react. Rufus's mouth was soft. Ridiculously soft. His breath tickled Reno's skin.

Rufus let him go and broke eye contact to examine the papers, that little smirk still on his face.

Watching Reno as he was, Rufus saw the moment the Turk saw what was behind him. He whipped his head around, only to find Reno there, too. He didn’t bother looking over his shoulder to double-check. Rufus was perfectly aware of how fast the redhead was. It was part of what made him an ideal scout and front line fighter.

Ears still ringing from the noise, his eyes instantly fell on the monstrous insect in front of them. Rufus looked the creature over, trying and failing to tie it to any of the pests he had knowledge of. He knew grashtrikes and wererats infested the train tunnels, but this oval bug with wings looked nothing like that.

His shotgun had barely touched it. And there were more.

“Re—” The creature moved and Rufus changed his reply mid-word, “Duck!” Even with the order, Rufus aimed over his shoulder. Reno moved so fast, he couldn’t be certain that his momentum wouldn’t take him into the path of his bullets otherwise. Both hit home where he intended—in one of the giant black eyes. It exploded, black ichor spraying out and falling just short of where he stood. The shriek amplified against the bare metal and concrete the warehouse had been constructed with, but Rufus didn’t dare cover his ears, not with more shadows beginning to shift in depths behind the hulking form of the creature.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. There were too many. Using his shotgun for a boost, he jetted backwards. “Reno, retreat!” he shouted, pausing to reload They couldn’t take this one on alone. He owed Reno an apology, but later. Once they had both made it to safety. There was no need to take a stand now that he at least knew what was wrong with this facility, if not why. That could certainly wait till later, too.

Reno heard the command and ducked without question. He looked up to keep track of the situation as the bug suddenly screamed and black liquid splashed. Reno jerked back as it hit mostly on the ground in front of him, although he felt flecks of warmth hit his arms. He scowled, muscles tense with readiness to run forward, but he stayed with Rufus.

‘Fuck’ felt like an understatement. Hearing that Rufus was on the move, he turned on his heel and ran, keeping up with the boss as he propelled himself with the gun’s blast. As he stopped to reload, Reno also stopped, keeping himself between his boss and the incoming wave of bugs. One of the faster critters caught up to them in record time and he lashed out, smashing it across the mandible with his magrod and discharging it. The bug shuddered to a standstill, twitching and shaking as the electricity coursed through it.

"You fucking idiot."

Reno was prone to crass language, but he wasn't sure he had ever spoken to Maeve so harshly. It probably had to do with the bandage he was currently wrapping around her waist, one red hand pressing against the cloth shoved against the wound in her side. He tied it off brusquely. "You didn't have to do that, I would've been fine." He hadn't seen the man sneaking up on him. Someone had hit him in the head and his paranoia instincts didn't work too well when the world was spinning. "Now you're bleeding everywhere!"

He took a deep breath. "Fuck." The way he carefully wrapped an arm around her and lifted her to her feet did not at all match with his angry, seething tone. "It isn't that far. They'll fix you up at camp."

           Blood flecked onto the surface of the protective desk that he was using. The gunshot still ringing in his ears as a thud and the last expel of air passed through the perpetrator’s lips as he slumped to the ground. “Sneaky bastard,” he mused, gritting molars against molars and hearing them creak inside his flexing jaw. The scuffle put down many potential threats; one had emerged victorious with threatening words branching out on the tip of his tongue—words that Rufus didn’t want to hear. Not now or ever.           “Kill him,” he said coolly.  “You’ll be fulfilling his life duty.” Of course, this was of false pretenses. Not every Turk would take a bullet in the heart for ShinRa. Their enemies, however, saw them as faithful dogs, ready to be kicked in the ribs by their owner only to whine and return with a tail tucked under their belly to ask for more. It was Reno’s laugh that reverberated off the walls louder than any gunshot, and Rufus gritted his teeth harder each time he heard a fist hit the redhead in order for him to cease. With his back still pressed against the wood frame of the desk, he grunted and checked the condition of his gun, separating it into two units of combustible weaponry. Rufus was an enigma when it came to his personal life—only Midgar published what they could and made-up stories with all that was declared ‘classified.’ The adept of his workings with a gun was a surreptitious skill that was ingrained in him after watching the many assassination attempts on his father. During his rigorous training sessions, there wasn’t a moment that he felt he would be using his firearm against someone to save his Turk. Yet, here he was…           With an inhale of breath that stung the wound in his shoulder, he gathered his strength and lifted himself from the sheltered section of the desk. It was a make or break move, and with the handicap that stricken his accuracy, he roved his eyes up to the metal beams and linked chains that held the structure together. Aiming his uninjured arm above and the other in the direction of the man and his hostage Turk, it only took a split second to pull the trigger on both guns.           One hit its target, the other grazed.

The fool wasn’t looking at Rufus. That more than anything really sealed his fate. Apparently he was under the impression that the Turk was the only dangerous thing in the room.

There was the loud noise of gunfire, louder than a single bullet being discharged. Everything happened quickly. The man pointing a gun at Reno grunted as he jerked sideways, a burning line left in his arm. The one pinning Reno down turned and looked up to his friend just as there was a loud creaking noise and the suspended chains and beams came crashing downwards.

Reno reacted with unnatural speed. He lashed out, landing a kick between his captor’s legs and as he was stunned, squirmed free and bolted towards the doorway of the room. He gasped as a falling piece of wood hit him in the leg and he stumbled, but he managed to escape the worst of the debris.

The freezing of the redhead’s athletic frame was infinitely pleasing to Rufus. To the man’s credit, he recovered quickly. Though it was difficult to tell if his move of lighting up was a power play, a result of being shaken, or a stolen moment of relaxation. Perhaps it was a mix of all three.

His lips curled invitingly. “Wondering about me wanting your information, or your ass? Shinras are greedy men, Hottie.” The nickname slipped out again naturally, and Rufus ran with it. “What if I want both?” Head tilted just so, some of the hair he’d let grow longer than his father liked feathered over his brow. Clear blue eyes, almost glowing in their intensity, peered at the info broker through the strands of blond. “I’m not here to ruin people. Just one man. My information network tells me that for someone in the business of selling people’s secrets, you’re discrete. Tell me, are the rumors true? The knowledge I seek could ruin me as much as my target.” A strange little smile quirked his lips. There was something a little flirtatious in it, but with a touch of danger, maybe threat. “Are you worth the risk?”

The Turks had done their homework, of course. They were never going to let Rufus walk into a room alone with a man they considered an immediate threat to his life. But no matter what a person’s dossier said, looking into their eyes, pushing along their cracks to see what oozed out—that was the real test. And Hotshot—Reno, as that dossier said—intrigued him on a more personal note besides. Rufus was a man of few expectations, but even so, this stripper with flame red hair and proud green eyes that called him ‘handsome,’ even after the jig was up, was not at all what he’d imagined.

Reno hid his mouth behind his hand as he smoked, examining Rufus. To his intrigue, he didn’t act any different now that his true purpose had been brought to the forefront. He shouldn’t have been that surprised, he supposed. Mixing business and pleasure, though...Tasteless.

Reno moved his hand away and exhaled smoke towards the ceiling, smirking back at him. “You seemed a little too interesting to be here just for my ass,” he responded just as crassly. He shrugged a shoulder. “If you’d like both, that’s more money for me. I certainly won’t tell you no, as long as the price is right.” Well, unless they were talking more. Reno had limits these days.

He leaned against the pole in the middle of the room, crossing his arms to make it easier to balance. He would admit that the VP was attractive. He had eyes like jewels and hair that Reno would love to pet. Beautiful. Untouchable. And probably a bit ignorant, although Reno didn’t get that vibe. “Hm.” He didn’t care who got ruined, as long as it didn’t come back on him. He mirrored Rufus’s smirk. “I’m worth it,” he purred, happy to include the underlying meaning. “Besides, I’m not stupid, handsome. Wouldn’t have made it this long. I don’t want a bullet in the head, thanks.”

-collecting drafts I owe-

Got 2 from sometimesrufus, 1 from ivory-paragon, 1 from theshinraheir, and that’s all I could find that it was my turn on.

Hmu if I’m missing one.