Kissing Reno

I can hear the rivers roar
Outside my door
Midnight Special calls my name
Was a time I had to go
Oh but not anymore
Seems like nothin' feels the same
Since you called my name. Boz Scaggs, You're So Good

He is going to stop drinking. He is serious; however, the declaration to Tifa brings an audible snort, plus a beer. Even though it is nine o'clock. In the morning, no less.

The reason, which brings an even louder snort and a second beer—nine thirty being an acceptable time for a refill, apparently—is that he kissed Reno last night. He was drunk, he was horny, and he did what he has been wanting to do sober for years.

He wonders if 9:45 is too early for a third beer.

"Maybe you should stop fucking random first dates and having to get drunk to kiss the man you are in love with, and start fucking the man you are in love with. It's just a suggestion." She polishes the bar with a vicious snick of the towel. The woman can be seriously disturbing with table linens.

"You don't understand. He's my friend, Teef."

"He's also dead ass sexy. Get new friends. Ugly ones." She refills his glass and wipes her forehead, as if to let him know that dealing with him is the most exhausting part of her day.

He really can't do it, he tells himself. This dating thing…not anymore. He tells himself it isn't because he kissed Reno—utter horseshit, if he were honest—but rather that he hates dating. Dating sucks, it is true, but it is equally true that Reno had kissed back and that he had tasted like whiskey, cigarettes, gum. His lips had been thin, smooth, responsive.

Distracting.

"Motherfucking bullshit," he curses himself, getting out of the bed where he has been ostensibly balancing invoices. With a calculator, yet, though his friends claim such things can be done on a computer. Further curses fly when he sits on a pair of reading glasses, cheap ones thank Gaia, and finds another pair hidden among the spikes of his hair. A good shake of the comforter yields three pencils and a granola bar wrapper.

He needs to get out more.

Even if it means running into Reno, who he has avoided pretty effectively since The Kiss. Crazy Sexy Reno. Cloud can say with all honesty that he has never been in love before. He has a childhood memory of going to a carnival, of the rides and lights, of dropping and spinning too fast and leaving his stomach somewhere behind or above him, the colors and music, the sensory overload and the sweet ache inside him from too much cotton candy. He feels kind of like that now, minus the part where he threw up on his cousin.

But there is the other part too. The part he can't tell anyone. The desire to touch and be touched and to do things with an intensity that would send his poor naïve white bread dates screaming into the warm Midgar night. Gods, how he burns to lose himself in that quirky whiskey flavored mouth. Never before has he been possessed by this hunger not to take, but to give.

He is sweating. Maybe going out isn't such a bright idea after all.

The phone trills early, too early for a Saturday. Cloud curls back into the death grip he holds on sleep. His love for sleep is unnatural, nearing fetish proportions. He considers ignoring it but looks at the display.

Reno. Dimly, he hears him apologize for waking him

"Not a problem, I was about to get up." In, you know, four hours.

What would Reno feel like in his bed, under him? He fights back a moan, his hips thrust a little automatically at the thought. Bringing his mind back to reality, he invites him over for pizza that night.

Cloud collapses into the bank of down pillows and lets slumber claim him once more.

X

He has nearly stopped breathing when Reno finally rings the doorbell. He has brought enough beer for a small army and, when Cloud pulls the pizza out of the oven with the cheese bubbling over the sweet sausage, Reno looks as if he is having a religious experience.

Cloud feels something burst a little, near his heart. He has made Reno happy.

They talk of insignificant things, of work, petty gossip. Cloud thinks the way Reno drapes himself over the futon, sexy and disjointed, as though he has extra limbs, should be illegal. So should jeans that tight. One bare foot makes little circles on the coffee table and mesmerizes him. He draws his own legs up under him like a child at story hour. He finds himself telling Reno about his failed dating life, including the one night he almost called him from a bar for rescue.

"I'd have done it for you in a heartbeat."

"I know. I felt bad, asking you though."

"Why?"

"Because I turned you down for pizza to go on the damn date."

"Come on, I'd have still done it, I'd have just made you buy drinks after I rescued you."

"Say, speaking of drinks, I know this place."

"Yeah."

"Looks like you're a regular here." Reno sips his whiskey.

"Yeah, it's convenient and sometimes, I don't want to drink with people who have known me my whole life and have an opinion on it. I appreciate the support and the loyalty but man…"

"Tifa can mother people a little."

"A little? That's half the reason we didn't work out."

"The other half being well, the whole gay thing, yo."

"Details. We can NOT go this long without seeing each other again."

"Dude, no. I haven't had this much fun since…"

Cloud studies his drink. Neither can finish the sentence hanging in the air and the sexual tension is suddenly back. "I missed you. I'm sorry I didn't call."

They leave the bar as quietly as they had arrived. Cloud watches Reno stop to light a cigarette, etching the sight of into his memory, wind whipping the long red ponytail around his chest.

Cloud is relieved to get back to the loft; drunk-dragging Reno is like trying to stand Jello on its end. Reno leans against the door in what is probably a drunken attempt to look seductive, if Cloud could possibly be any more seduced than he already is. "Stand up."

"Hmmmm?"

"Stand up so I can open the door?"

"I am standing up."

"Fine." He grins as the redhead fell flat on his ass when the door opened. Sometimes life just hands you material.

Reno stumbles onto the futon. Cloud falls on Reno. It all happens like some bizarre domino chain and they are kissing again. This time, Cloud doesn't stop. He pauses once, sensing some hesitation, and again when Reno mutters something absurd about being drunk, but they start again and he knows it won't end there.

He tries to slow it down, knowing Reno has less experience with men, but he is being dragged behind a runaway train and he feels so good he finally gives up. He manages to get them both undressed before coming in his pants and thinks it may be his greatest accomplishment to date.

He reaches into the end table for lube, drawing an amused chuckle from Reno. He suddenly realizes he will be explaining to Reno at some point why he has lube in his living room and that the redhead will be inappropriately amused to discover that he jacks off in pretty much every room in his home, thanks to fantasies of him. He knows he will never live it down and prays Reno just forgets about this in a drunken haze.

He isn't counting on it. He slicks his fingers and pushes them into his lover, his other arm still slung loosely around his waist, their mouths still pressed against each other, exploring, devouring. Reno stiffens, moans.

"Good?"

"Ungh."

He'll take that as a yes, for the time being. Their erections are rubbing together and Cloud is beginning to see stars. He enters Reno as slowly as he can, given their intoxication with alcohol and each other. But Reno is having none of it and slams his hips upward, surrounding Cloud in heat and tightness.

Cloud knows he won't last long and he curses himself. He has imagined their first time—has imagined it far too many times to be healthy, truth be told—always slow and romantic and perfect. Not this drunken groping, three stroke wonder that it is turning into.

Reno, legs wrapped around his waist, gasping and moaning for all he is worth, does not seem to be complaining. Cloud leans down to kiss him. "Feeling okay?"

"Gods yes…nghh…so close…aahhhh…"

Well, maybe it doesn't have to be perfect, after all. Cloud reaches between them and joins his hand with Reno, bringing him off with a few twisting strokes, then following him when the shuddering spasms make his own pleasure irresistible. He pulls out as gently as he can, but Reno winces a little anyway.

"Sorry."

"Not a problem. Damn, that was…uh…"

"Yeah." Cloud waits till his legs work, then gets up for a warm towel for Reno, who he knew could never move himself off the futon.

And a beer, because they obviously need more to drink, yo.

"We just had sex." Reno says in wonder.

"We did."

"With, like, each other."

Cloud wants to say something smartass but the truth is, he is just as shocked, himself.

Cloud wakes to a pounding headache and a full beer. What had possessed him to open another one in his condition last night, anyway? A few moments later, he works up the nerve to turn his head.

Reno. Naked.

It hadn't been a dream.

Reno is still unconscious, so Cloud takes care of his own obvious needs. First, pee. Picking up clothing is entirely too much trouble in his still drunk/almost hungover state, so he grabs some other night's discarded sleep pants instead. It is just never a good idea to cook breakfast naked.

He pours some juice for the cotton-mouth, even drinking it from a glass since he had company, though Reno didn't seem the type to stand on ceremony even if he had been conscious. Third step is actual food. He drags eggs and bacon out of the refrigerator. Stick with the basics, his addled brain tells him. He is glad he did because he has just finished the bacon when he sees a slim but perfect ass on its way to the bathroom.

He nearly drops the eggs.

Moments later, his guest staggers into the kitchen, wearing jeans this time, top button undone, and looking so sexy Cloud nearly chokes. Cloud puts breakfast and juice in front of him, hoping his hand doesn't shake.

"Morning."

"According to you, yeah." But he is grinning like an idiot. Cloud realized he is too.

"What do you want to do today?"

"What we did last night, duh." Cloud will admit to no one, how relieved he is. A small part of him was so afraid Reno would regret this, chalk it up to drunken horniness, want to take it back. He hides his reaction by busying himself in the dishes.

"You done?"

"Huh?"

"With breakfast."

He doesn't hear Reno come up behind him but suddenly he is there, his erection pressing into his back, his hand on his thigh, the warmth seeping through the thin worn flannel of his sleep pants. The other hand is on his waist and he can feel his breath on the back of his neck. For a moment, frozen in the golden morning light, he can't move. Finally he rinses the glass he is holding and puts it down with great care.

Reno moves his hand around to his now hardened cock and begins to rub it, far too lightly. He leans back into the embrace, swallows hard. He is so aroused he thinks he might explode right there, barefoot on the tile, amidst the cooling splatters of water on the floor.

"Bedroom, yo."

Okay. Okay, he can do that.

Reno leads him to the cool dark room with its oversized bed. Cloud smiles at a memory. When he had first bought this place, he'd had virtually no money left over for anything else. And so he'd purchased the cheapest dishes, eaten the cheapest food, used towels that his friends had given him. But the bed was his prize. He'd bought the best he could afford and the highest thread count sheets, far too many pillows and a down comforter that he couldn't even see over. And all those nights of bean and rice and ramen noodle suppers had been worth it.

And now, Reno will be in that bed. He will fuck Reno. In that bed.

"Yo, nice bed." Yep, definitely worth it.

They strip off sleep pants, jeans, and crawl into the cool crisp sheets, into each others' arms. It feels impossibly good. Reno's mouth feels as heavenly as it had that night weeks ago, still so responsive and soft, Cloud doesn't even try to suppress the moan. Lost in that kiss, he begins to tangle his hand in that endless red hair as he has longed to do for eternity. He reaches his hand down to stroke Reno's erection.

"Sweet fucking Gaia…"

"Are you sore?" It occurs to Cloud that he might have been a little rough on him the night before.

"A little." Cloud can tell he almost lied about it. It brings a smile to his face. "What are you grinning at?"

He shakes his head and reaches over Reno for the lube. "Damn, babe, how many rooms you keep this in?"

"As many as I might need it. What, you thought all those calluses came from sword practice?" He takes time to slick Reno's shaft and his own entrance before lowering himself onto Reno.

The look on his face is simply, utterly, priceless. It is all Cloud can do not to laugh. Reno's eyes are as big as saucers. "Like what you see?"

"Uhhh…Holy fucking shit. Yeah. Oh, gods!" Reno begins thrusting up almost uncontrollably. Reno's cool, thin hand rest on his shaft, stroking it more firmly than he had in the kitchen but still with a gentleness that is utterly maddening. His thumb is making little circles in the pre-come that has gathered on the head; Cloud pushes himself down again and again to relieve the pressure that is building in him from those soft touches.

Reno groans; Cloud hears in him the same urgency he feels in himself, joins his own hand to Reno's on his cock. Only a few strokes and he is coming, feels Reno coming inside him. It is insane in its intensity. He could never have let himself go like this with anyone else, never trusted anyone enough to let his barriers down so much. Only Reno.

There has always been only Reno. He drops his head, spent. He pulls himself up, off his lover, and lay down beside him.

"We'll do that again?"

"And more." He breathes. Thinks. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Cloud comes undone at that and turns to look at Reno. Words are inadequate, but it doesn't matter. He is sound asleep in the soft bedding beside him.