Title: Heat
Author: Enide Dear
Rating: teasing
Pairing: RufusxTseng
Summary: Tseng have trouble with Midgard heat
A/N: Second fic for TsengxRufus Summer Fun competition!

It was this damn heat. Tseng mopped his brow with the back of his sleeve – a sacrilege to the Turk suit that he would normal not even have considered. But today, it was quite necessary.

"Blue or red, Tseng?"

"The red would be more aligned with the ShinRa colours, sir."

"Ah, good thinking."

He was born and raised in Wutai and used to the sweltering, moist heat that enveloped the country every year, not to be broken until the monsoon swept in cooler air in autumn. And he had no problems with the hot sand and brilliant sun at Costa del Sol, not even in the suit. At least at the beach there were breezes and shade under the palm trees.

"I heard Zack prefers those long, surfer shorts." A snort. "A waste of a fine pair of legs and a cute ass if you ask me. *I* have nothing to be a shamed for."

"Quite…quite so, sir." Tseng felt his shirt going sticky with perspiration.

Midgard heat was something else. The city had little wind to stir it, little or no shade to seek shelter in when the sun was at noon. In summer, it turned into one big cauldron, heat rising off the asphalt and the huge buildings preserving the heat long into night, threatening to boil everyone in there. You couldn't escape it and you couldn't adjust to it. The city might be man-made, but man was not made to endure such climate.

"How about these?"

"Very snug, sir."

"Better or worse than the thong?"

Yes. City heat. That must be it.

"I, mh, the thong was…very nice as well, sir."

"Let me just bend down and pick it up again…"

Of course, since they were in a cool, fancy, air-conditioned store somewhere in the very finest shopping quarters in Midgard, the logic of that reasoning stumbled a little.

Rufus ShinRa cast a wicked, hooded glance over his shoulder at his tormented bodyguard and fiddled a bit with the lining of another pair of swim trunks.

"Do you think these white ones will turn transparent in water? Maybe I should try before I buy them. I wouldn't want to cause a scandal, after all."

Tseng closed his eyes and wished feverently for a glass of cold water.