Written for jenovasboy over on livejournal, with the prompt Dreams are wishes the heart makes - and a Sephiroth/Reno pairing!
I stared at this for ages, going "oh my god...There's no WAY I can write this!"
But, hey. It worked. And I'm not going to complain.
Enjoy!
Sephiroth dreams of freedom.
Dreams of endless space, dripping-green forests whose comforting shadows will hide him from any who try to drag him 'home'. Sky-piercing mountains that will let him touch the sun, that will hide him in snow and ice and show him the Aurora on nights so cold they should kill him. Sun-baked, dusty prairies that stretch on forever, no other speck of life in sight – where he can just run, run and scream at the sky and tear down each and every shield he's raised over the years. Break them down and shatter them, crush the bricks into dust and blow it on the North Wind, watch the crumbly specks vanish, never to return.
Sephiroth dreams of running away – of disappearing in the middle of the night, with the moon mother to watch over him as he leaves even his sword behind in the army-bare suite of chambers. Silky moonlight sliding over his skin, the exact same shade as his hair as he dons casual clothes, steals a bike and vanishes like a glittering shadow in the night.
He's lain awake a hundred thousand times, planning it all down to the last detail. He knows the routines of the guards, knows when the watch changes and for how long the posts are left unmanned – down to the last tenth of a second. He's lost count of how many times a bag's been packed and ready beneath his bed, just waiting for the moment an ungloved hand will reach beneath the mattress, grasp the straps and swing out of the window like a falling star. Or how many times he's stood on this side of the glass, bag over his shoulder and hair tied back out of his face, shadows playing over his eyes as he kisses his blade goodbye and steps towards the window.
But he's never done it.
Every time, there comes a point where he just can't take that last step. Can't throw the window back; can't swing his legs over the ledge; can't drop to the ground with all the sound of a cat.
And it drives him insane.
He yells and shouts and breaks everything he can touch, ripping apart the ShinRa apartment like a whirlwind. The mattress is disembowelled, feathers everywhere; the furniture becomes no more than a lot of expensive firewood; and he throws what little crockery and glass he owns at the walls until there's fragments of everything everywhere, book-torn pages falling like sad, heavy snowflakes as he falls to his knees and rages. Even the carpets don't escape him – torn into shreds, long, thin strips with just his nails, and he's grown so good at it he can slice up an entire room's worth of carpeting without separating a single piece from the rest. A long, thin coil that spirals around where he sits on the floor, unable to cry because that's just not what he does, but something in him's bending and breaking under the pressure, under the bottomless anger and desperation, and it hurts so much, so badly, that he tries and tries and tries to remember how to cry.
Because surely tears can't evoke the same pain as coiling it all up inside, tense and tightly sprung, pushing at his boundaries – and he knows he can't hold it all in forever. Someday, he'll finally, finally snap.
Once, just once, he wondered if, maybe, he'd be able to take that last step if there was someone standing beside him.
)0(
Reno dreams of green.
Dreams of sparkling ribbons trailing through night-black air, bright as cloth woven of stars, souls glittering like pale gems between the threads. Of the planet's life-force, whispering like velvet through the sky, through the earth, the water in the rivers. Dreams of that perfect light, the glow that soothes the burning fire inside him that's desperate to get out, to burn and char and scream wordless emotion at the sky itself.
Reno dreams of leaving the Turks to find it. Kissing Rufus goodbye, because though he'd give his life for the ShinRa prince, they both know it's never going to work out between them. Not while Reno catches the faintest shadow of green in the corner of his vision, everywhere he looks. Tastes it in everything he eats, drinks, swallows it down with his beer until he's filled with it, filled to bursting with this wordless longing to get up and go, to follow the whispers and find it.
He can't count how many times he's almost done it. Kissed Rufus goodnight, promising with ash on his tongue to be back in the morning. Slipped out of the apartment block, down the stairs, picked up his bag from where it's hidden, ready and waiting, in a storage cupboard on the ground floor. Pushed open the door and gone out onto the street, feeling guilt like a heavy weight in his stomach as the rain beats unforgiveness on the slick pavement.
But he doesn't go. Gets to the city walls, the city gates, but the bonds tying him in place are too many and too heart-warmingly perfect to cut through. Rufus, Tseng, Rude. Adrian, Elena. There are too many people who love him, too many people he'd hurt by leaving for him to just up and leave. The place he's made for himself here fits him almost perfectly, with just a bit of looseness around the edges.
It chafes, but he can live with that. If he has to.
He doesn't tell Rufus that some nights he wakes up crying, when he can almost see green light pouring out from under his skin because he's so full of that longing it breaks his heart. That he has to focus every second of every day so his mask doesn't slip – so they don't see just how badly he's doing, how hard it is for him to sleep, to listen, to talk when underneath everything, he can hear those whispers and see that light, feel it brushing over his skin.
It's calling him, begging him, but he doesn't know how he can go.
Once, just once, he wondered if he could leave if someone else walked beside him.
)0(
Sephiroth and Reno see their dreams in each other's eyes.
When the General is called before Rufus ShinRa, of course Reno's there, Reno and half a dozen other Turks. If the red-head's standing a little closer to the blond prince than the others, well, they all know they share a room and a bed and there's nothing they can do about it anyway.
Sephiroth has his arms crossed over his chest, and Reno isn't really paying attention to their conversation. He's trying not to keep turning his head, trying not to try and catch the hint of green in the corner of his eyes – because the others have started to notice, and yesterday Elena asked him what was wrong, why he kept twitching and spinning around as if to catch an attacker.
But it's hard, so hard, and when a whisper of light appears suddenly in the corner of his other eye, he's not quick enough to stop the immediate reaction. His head turns, suddenly, and Tseng catches the motion and follows his gaze, frowning when he sees nothing.
Reno can't look away.
Sephiroth's eyes are the exact colour of the Lifestream. The exact same shade that's haunted him for months now, that coils around his heart and inside his head until he's living, pulsing green just beneath the skin, waiting for the day someone notices. Lifestream and moonlight, and his breath catches as he stares, heart missing a beat.
He's found it.
Sephiroth and Reno see their dreams in each other's eyes.
When the General is called before Rufus ShinRa, he stands to listen and keeps his face carefully blank, unreadable and hard. His sword is a weight on his hip, but he doesn't reach for the old familiarity of the hilt. The Turks would only see danger then; would be on him in a second and he really doesn't want to have to kill their finest in Rufus' study.
It's so hard to get blood out of the carpets, after all.
Sighing mentally, wishing himself away, his eyes wandered over the Turks he might have killed, in a different future. He knows Tseng, the ebon-haired first in command, just under ShinRa in the hierarchy, but the others are just faces to him – and he's too heart-tired to deduct the other's identities from his own knowledge.
Flash of red.
Internally, he frowns as he looks to the man standing just behind ShinRa. Long, burning red hair, tied back in a scruffy ponytail that falls like ruffled silk down his back. Tiger-claw tattoos resting on his cheekbones – angry red, and they must have been painful to get done, right on the bone.
Musing, his gaze rises – and halts.
It's as if someone with enough strength to hurt just punched him in the stomach. It's like leaping from a jet, free-fall without a parachute.
It's like stepping out of a window, clutching a rucksack over your shoulder.
Freedom. Wild, endless space, stretching on forever. An untamed heart, burning and blazing like fire, the bright, electric green of the Aurora. Eyes that will hide with him in the shadows, hold his hand as they touch the sky together, that will run and run and run on forever at his side.
He's found it.
)0(
When Sephiroth is dismissed, Reno runs after him. Excuses himself, offers to escort the General to his car, and is gone from the room before Rufus or Tseng can even speak.
He catches up with the silver-haired warrior just down the hallway, where Sephiroth is waiting for him.
And then there's a hand tugging the long rope of red silk, pulling Reno's head back as he's pushed into the wall, an arm around his waist. A mouth on his, and they're both instantly drowned as Reno's arms come up around the General's neck – spice and honey and wood-smoke, moonlight and crushed pearl and mako, tasting and biting and devouring, nails and breathless moans, teeth and skimming palms under shirts and they can taste their dreams on the other's tongue, can taste them and feel them and they can't breathe for trying to meld together.
Sephiroth doesn't care that Reno's set him alight, and Reno doesn't give a damn if he's already addicted to the mako taste on the General's lips. They kiss again, softer, tongues dancing for a moment before they pull away, Sephiroth brushing his hands through the Turk's hair reverently as Reno's thumbs rub over the other's cheekbones.
Whispered words – tonight and third floor and I'll be waiting.
)0(
It's only later both of them realise that, somewhere along the kisses, their dreams mixed together to form something new.
)0(
Sephiroth excuses himself early that evening. Checks over his bag one last time, changes his clothes and sits on the bed, head in hands and his hair a curtain against the world, trying not to feel sick with fear and anticipation.
His sword a black band, thick and marker-drawn, on the blanket beside him.
Across the city, Reno kisses Rufus' sleeping brow before slipping out of the room. He pauses just a moment in the doorway, looking back at blond locks picked out in the moonlight, before he gently shuts the door. Walks down the stairs and feels lighter for every step.
Tseng's waiting for him by the cupboard, the rucksack in his hand.
Neither of them speaks; not a word is said as Tseng silently hands the bag over, and Reno swings it over his shoulder. They both know what he's doing – Reno didn't dream for a moment that his commander wouldn't be here tonight; and not only because Reno's a bloody great Turk.
He takes Tseng's hand in his, clenches it tight as Tseng returns it. Look after him for me, yeah? He says softly, nodding up the stairs towards Rufus' apartment. Make him happier than I ever did.
Tseng doesn't ask how Reno knows about his feelings, and Reno doesn't tell, but the head Turk nods, eyes softening as he steps back, leaving the path to the door wide open.
Walk in starlight and in peace, Tseng says softly as Reno pulls the glass-paned door back.
The red-head grins, eyes bright as he pauses, the door open in one hand.
Peace? He laughs quietly, and Tseng can see that, for the first time in a long while, Reno's not faking his happiness. Thanks for the blessing, but I'd rather live the exciting life.
Knew you would, Tseng grins as Reno salutes laughingly – and then the firey-haired Turk is gone, the door clicking shut gently.
)0(
Yo! You gonna let me in?
Sephiroth looks up – and blinks at the grinning red-head framed in his window. They're three floors off the ground, and while it's nothing for one of them to jump, he wonders how Reno climbed it so silently.
But he tosses it open, careful not to hit the other, and Reno swings in like a gymnast, grin bright and eyes glittering like emerald fire.
You ready? He asks, scanning the room briefly before his gaze returns to the General – and Sephiroth is caught irresistibly by the dreams he can see twining like ribbons through the fire.
He gives a small smile, and nods, glancing for a moment at his sword.
Reno follows his eyes, but says nothing about leaving the weapon behind. Sephiroth can't see the electro-rod anywhere on the ex-Turk, and it's doubtful that it's lying in the rucksack either.
Let's go, he said softly, holding out a hand for Sephiroth's.
He doesn't hesitate this time. Entwines his fingers with Reno's warm ones, and walks straight out of his life.
He doesn't look back once.
)0(
The third time they kiss they're still in view of the city gates. Reno couldn't stop his ecstatic laughter, and Sephiroth couldn't hide his smile as they ran. Mako-enhanced, neither of them feel as if they'll ever need to stop.
Until the natural high grows too much for them, and they can't not touch each other.
And with Reno on his back on the ground, arching and gasping with his fingers knotted in Sephiroth's hair, ankles locked around the General's hips to pull him that much closer – as Sephiroth kisses that spiced-honey mouth, tilting his head until the two of them fit together like silk-covered puzzle pieces – as the stars watch over them both, they exchange hearts like lovers tokens, and know that, at last, the dreams they've searched so long and hard for have come true.