AN: I promised smut, but i have to admit my smut muse took a little weekend trip, and left only my 'gay x-files' muse.. sorry!
Betaed by; erestorjunkie
Summary: In which dogs are less important than kittens.
Clutching my cure
I tightly lock the door
I try to catch my breath again
I hurt much more
Than anytime before
I had no options left again
I don’t want to be the one
The battles always choose
'Cause inside I realize
That I'm the one confused
Linkin park - Breaking the habit.
10 - I don’t know what’s worth fighting for.
Reno couldn't remember if there had been a time when Cloud looked sweeter, or sexier, than laying on his bed, scratching his stomach lazily. Turning his head, Reno smiled watching Cloud’s lips swollen from kissing. “I’m totally spent,” Cloud whispered. “Would you carry me to the shower, please?” Reno laughed softly and tried to move his arm, but gave up and let it fall to the bed again. “Sorry kitten, I can’t move.” Cloud had laughed and they had remained like that, flat on their backs in Reno’s bed, watching the sun move up in the sky, only to eventually start to caress each other again, that moment had felt like magic. And as Reno sat in his office chair, stirring his coffee with a pen, it still brought a smile to his lips, He couldn't really remember that he had ever made love to someone before, but he was sure that this had been just that. Love.
“Reno?” Tseng said touching his partners shoulder lightly, as he seemed to be lost in his own dream world.
“mmhmm” Reno mumbled, reluctant to return to the real world, his soft hazed day dream seemed much more appealing.
“Hello!” Tseng sneered, shaking Reno’s shoulder more, “would you return to the land of the living?”
“Yes, yes.. sorry” Reno said, blinking as he turned to face Tseng, but unable to stop his dirty smirk.
“Get a grip” Tseng said in a clipped tone. “We have been called out to another scene, and I need you to pay attention, special agent Vaughan”
Reno sighed deeply, trying to banish the mental picture of naked Cloud in the morning sun of his bedroom, he stood up from his chair and put his cup away. “Lets go,” he said trying to sound careless.
Tseng groaned and shook his head but left after Reno to the parking lot.
_________________________________
Once in the car, Reno leaned back in the seat, as Tseng started the car up, “What do we know about this? And why are we being called?”
“Because” Tseng grumbled as he made a turn out on the street before he finished his sentence. “There is an envelope for you”
“For me?” Reno gasped, “Are you sure?”
“No, I just know what the officer from the scene told me.”
“Shit.. What the hell is this? Have I become every fucking psycho’s pet detective?” Reno groaned while carefully cracking his knuckles in frustration and boredom.
As they arrived it was another empty warehouse, looking like it had not been used by anything but squatters for ages. Reno followed Tseng in silence through the pouring rain until they came to a big iron door that was open, and a police officer stood on the other side, looking slightly nervous, “Special agent Vaughan?” he asked.
“That’s me,” Reno answered, not liking this one bit, it just reminded him too much of what had happened in the old asylum.
“Come this way,” the officer said, leading the way down the stairs and through dark, damp cellar corridors. “We didn’t quite know what to do with this, agent. So, we decided it would be best to call you out here.”
“Why does it always have to be in these creepy-ass places? Why can’t the psychos for once snuff someone in the hotel Ritz-Royale and leave me a note, along with full access room service?” Reno whined, as they walked down the dark corridor, rapidly loosing all light sources, they all turned on their flashlights.
“Uhm, officer..” Tseng lifted his flashlight and looked at the officers nametag, “Hank Olson” he added, “This isn’t the most obvious place to look for something, let alone a dead body, might you tell me what happened prior to calling us?”
Officer Olson nodded as he came to a stand still in front of a thick metal door that seemed to be an old boiler-room. The fact that the door had old chipped paint on it that said ‘boiler’ kinda gave it away. “We had a call that there was a crime happening here,” he said, “The whole thing was a little strange because the caller gave us a very detailed description of where to look.” Officer Olsen sighed, “At first we thought it might be a prank call, but we came out anyway.”
“Was the caller male, or female?” Tseng asked.
“I don’t know, you will have to ask the phone operators about that one,” Officer Olsen said. He then he gestured towards the boiler door, “It’s here, it’s not exactly what you’d think, but.. There isn’t actually any human corpse in there..” he said cryptically. “You better go see it yourself.”
Reno gave Tseng an unreadable look before he opened the heavy door and stepped inside the boiler room, at first he didn’t really notice anything. But as he went around a huge part of the boiler machinery, he saw the strangest scene he had seen in a long time, whoever had done this had taken their time. There was two dogs, one dead on the floor, lying in a pool of blood, and from the smell of things, it had been dead for a while. In the corner was another dog chained to the wall, and behind that was a big envelope, Reno looked around, stepping closer to the chained dog, “Hey buddy,” he said softly, but the dog didn’t respond kindly to it, it freaked out and threw itself in Reno’s direction, as far as the chain would take it.
“What do you make of all this?” Tseng said standing behind Reno.
“This place was used for dog fighting,” Reno said in a low voice, gesturing towards the dead dog, behind the dog there were some wooden planks, with blood splatter on them. “And they didn’t try to cover it up.”
“Dog fighting..” Tseng mumbled to himself as he looked from the planks to the dead dog, “I suppose this fella lost, huh?”
“You got it,” Reno answered acidly. “Hey, Tseng, gimme your gun.”
“My gun? Whatever for?”
“Because I need to scratch that spot on my back that I can’t reach, and it’d look cooler than to scratch myself on a pole like an old sow,” Reno said with a smart-assed tone. “To shoot the damn dog.”
Tseng frowned and took out his gun, aimed at the living, rabid dog, and pulled the trigger. And instantly the room went silent.
“Thank you,” Reno sighed blissfully, “now, lets see what this crap is all about.” He stepped over the dead fighting dog, and snatched the big envelope. Opening the envelope, Reno hoped it wasn’t some sort of bomb. But it ‘did’ have his name written on it, so he supposed he would be fine.
Pulling the contents out, he found it was “X-rays?” he said, frowning, “It’s fucking x-ray pictures of the dogs.”
“What?” Tseng answered with a puzzled expression, “That makes no sense,” He pulled the envelope and x-rays out of Reno’s hands and flipped through them, and sure enough it was x-rays of dogs. “This one had a broken hip,” he said “but.. Still.. Why would someone give this to you?”
Reno looked carefully around the room before he paled to ghostly white. “Tseng?” he whispered his voice wavering, “Oh God.”
“What?” Tseng said. looking up, confused,at his partner who looked like someone just walked over his grave.
“Don’t you get it?” Reno spat, manically searching his pocket for a cigarette, he lit one up, moving the cigarette from his lips with shaking hands, he finally spoke. “The dog is me,” he whispered. And pointed to the dog Tseng had just shot. “The master called, and I came.”
“That don’t make any sense, Reno,” Tseng said sounding close to fatherly.
“Oh, but it does,” Reno said, his voice dropping even lower, “There is a human form of these canine gladiators, and.. Believe me when I tell you that this is no coincidence.”
“So.” Tseng said, trying to follow Reno’s line of thought, “if that dog is you, and nothing is left to coincidence, then who’s the other dog?” he pointed at the dead, rotting dog.
“I don’t know,” Reno said, “and I’m not sure I wanna know.”
“Alright,” Tseng said, “come on, lets get back to the station and get some coffee, and you can explain this theory of yours on the way.”
Reno just nodded and followed Tseng without looking back at the dead dogs, he heard Tseng ask officer Olsen to stay, and he listened to Tseng call up the lab, requesting a photographer.
Reno explained to Tseng about his younger days, before he ever came to Midgar, and after hearing all of this Tseng had to agree with him, that whoever seemed to have targeted him like this, could have pulled his personal file, and would know this. So it could in theory make perfect sense. What puzzled them both was tho the hell was the other dog then? Could it be Raiden? After debating back and forth, they came to the conclusion, that if this theory should happen to be correct, then the other dead dog would probably be Reno’s brother, Raiden.
________________________________________________
Getting home from a long days work, there was nothing that Reno wanted more than to slip into the shower, and then crawl down under the blanket and find a warm body next to his. But as he opened the door to his apartment, it was dark and silent. His anticipatory smile faltered, he made his way to the bedroom, but the bed was neatly made, just as it had been when he had left. Cloud was not here. “Cloud?” he called to the dark apartment. Strange.. Reno thought to himself, they had agreed to meet here later in the day. Maybe Cloud was just held up with something, it happened.
But Reno’s gut feeling told him something was terribly wrong. Trying to calm himself, he turned on the light over the kitchen counter, and pulled out a bottle of gin, pouring a drink for himself. He pulled out his phone and dialled Cloud’s number, half expected, but still disappointing, Reno got the voice mail. “Baby, call me,” he said, to the recorder, hoping he didn’t sound too strange, and freaked the living shit out of Cloud. He put the phone down and took a sip of his drink. But just has he was about to fill his glass once more, the phone rang, grabbing it he looked at the caller ID, it was Tseng, not Cloud. Disappointed he flipped open the receiver and mumbled, “Yeah,”
“You will never believe this,” Tseng said on the other end, sounding very excited, bordering on hysterical. Very un-Tseng’ish.
“I probably won’t,” Reno said, scratching his neck.
“Officer Olsen, Hank Olsen to be precise,” Tseng said.
“Yeah ,that guy at the dog fight scene,” Reno said, still puzzled about Tseng’s behaviour.
“He has been dead for 6 months.”
“What?” Reno gasped sliding down the refrigerator door and down unto the floor, “You gotta be shitting me,” Every memory of the dead kid in the shantytown came back, poor Folsom.
“I’m not,” Tseng said, calming a little. “I asked the phone personnel about the emergency call, just like he said I should, and they told me that no call had been made, When I claimed that Hank Olson had told me to ask, they laughed and told me that then I’d have to be clairvoyant.”
“Dog and master,” Reno breathed. “Shit, shit, shit! “ And then he took a deep breath, trying to fight the upcoming panic that batted away in his chest. “Cloud,” he whispered with a breaking voice. “He’s not here, and I can’t reach him.”
“The other dog?” Tseng said, in total understanding.
“I don’t know,” Reno whimpered as panic finally broke out, as if saying his fears out loud, made them real. “I don’t fucking know,” he croaked, wiping his tears with the back of his hand.
“I’m there in fifteen minutes Reno, hang on,” Tseng said, his own voice sounding thick too. And then Tseng hung up.
__________________________________________
Dawn broke finding Reno asleep on the couch, and Tseng drooling on the armrest of the soft recliner, the same chair that had once housed the two men’s indiscretions, not that Tseng had given that any thought as he had sat down in it, looking over the case file for Folsom, Harmony, and what existed of the crime scene rapport of the dead dogs. They both woke when Reno’s phone bleeped, indicating a text message in his inbox. Reno stretched on the couch, and reached out for his phone on the table. He flipped the phone up and looked at the text message, frowning he sat up on the couch. Tseng rubbed his eyes, and stretched. “What’s the time?” he asked, tying his tie again, to look halfway presentable.
“I just got this message from Cloud,” Reno said with a tiny voice.
Tseng stood up and walked towards the kitchen to make them some coffee, “That’s good, is he alright?”
“Cloud never sends text messages,” Reno said, looking at the cell phone screen.
“What does it say?” Tseng asked, pushing the button on the coffee machine. Before making his way back to the sofa where Reno sat.
Reno wrote the message down on a little piece of paper for Tseng. “This.”
PDMM. PAGDDM. AMMPTAMTGMD. GTPPW
Tseng frowned, “Is he high?”
“I don’t think so, but I can’t make sense of it either.” Reno sighed. “Maybe after some coffee,” he said smiling a little casual smile, before slamming his phone shut and walking off to the bathroom.
Tseng left for the kitchen, smiling to himself as he heard the shower being turned on. Cracking his neck by rolling his head from side to side, he left to open the huge glass doors to the small balcony, looking out over the city Midgar he took a sip of his coffee, and just about spurted it out again, as something caught his eye. “Of course!” he laughed, “Reno!” he yelled, calling for his partner in the bathroom.
Reno came running out of the bathroom, “What?” he asked, slightly nervous that he had received an odd looking packet or something, while he was in the shower.
“Surveillance!” Tseng leered with a triumphant tone. “There are cameras on the halls out side your door”
“My God! You’re right!” Reno lit up in a smile.
___________________________________________
Looking through hours and hours of surveillance videos of the corridor #775 they was both about to give up. When they saw Reno open his door at 7:15, turning he kissed Cloud passionately, there was no sound on the tape, be Reno remembered that he had promised to be home at ten in the evening at the latest, and Cloud affirmed that they had a date. Then Reno left out the picture.
“Running a little late, huh?” Tseng said dryly.
Reno actually had the decency to blush, “Yeah,” he mumbled.
Then nothing happened for some hours, they sat there as idiots looking at an empty corridor, running in fast forward. “There!” Reno suddenly yelped.
Tseng pushed the stop button, to resume normal play speed. And sure enough, someone walked down the corridor, buzzed Reno’s door, and Cloud opened it. Reno smiled seeing Cloud’s hair was laying down flat, it only did that when it was wet. But then the man outside the door produced something they couldn't quite see and pointed it at Cloud, Cloud stumbled backwards, and fell over, the next they saw was the man carrying Cloud out of there, leaning on him like he was helping a drunk friend.
“No..” Reno whispered.
“Hold on, I can make this frame bigger,” Tseng singled out the face and chest of the man who came to Reno’s door. Zooming in, cleaning out the pixels, and zooming in again, until the face finally stood out, even a little pixelated, they could still see who it was. “Olsen.”
“Oh crap.. Its the Folsom case over, and over, and over again,” Reno mumbled, kicking a chair in frustration. “Of course Cloud opened the door unarmed if he saw a police officer on the other side, he would have thought something had happened to me,” Reno sat down and slammed his fist down into the table so the mugs dropped off the edge and splintered on the floor. “I am going to find that fucker, and if he as much as breathed on Cloud, I will fucking kill him!”
“Do you think he’s the same who left that message on Raiden’s bedroom wall? And maybe he was responsible for Raiden’s disappearance too?”
Reno sighed, he had forgotten about Raiden, getting too emotional over Cloud’s disappearance. “I think that is a possibility, yes. Because he is apparently the one that killed Harmony too, that two crime scenes should both bare resemblance to the Folsom case, no! I can’t believe that is a coincidence.”
“I think you’re right,” Tseng said, looking at the screen with the fake Olsen’s face. “But have you ever stopped to think about just how this person even knew insider information about the Folsom case?”
“No,” Reno mumbled. Looking up at the screen too. “That thing in his hand looked like an e-mag, or some kind of tazer, standard turk, or police equipment, maybe he has someone inside?”
Tseng nodded, “That is one theory,” he said mostly to himself. “You go get us something to eat, and I will see if I can find this person somewhere in the personnel register, but that might take some time.”
”Okay,” Reno sighed and stood up, he needed to keep himself occupied anyway.