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If there was one thing Reno hated, it was enigmas. So it stood to reason that the man Tseng chose to partner him with was one big walking contradiction.

"Reno, this is Rude." Tseng made the introduction. "Since we're short-handed at the moment, he'll be doing your hand-to-hand combat training, in addition to explaining to you what being a Turk entails."

Reno squinted at the guy. A good three or four inches taller than him, with the sort of muscles that come from actually using them, as opposed to spending all your time hanging around a gym. Despite his size, he wore his blue Turk suit like he'd been born in it. His skin was the color of Mideel Roast coffee with cream, he was completely bald, and his eyes were firmly hidden behind a pair of expensive designer shades.

"Reno Dakota." Reno held out a hand, which was engulfed by the other man's.

"Rude Johnson."

"Rude?"

"It's a nickname."

If Reno though he was going to tell him what it was a nickname for, he was quickly disabused of that notion. Rude was certainly polite, and probably one helluva Turk, but damned if Reno could get anything personal out of him.

This annoyed him. As did the fact Rude turned him down when he invited him out for a drink at the end of shift.

Later, sitting in a bar in the 4th Sector, nursing a bottle of scotch, Reno decided he was going to unravel this guy if it were the last thing he ever did. After all, he had a rep to maintain.


Easier said than done. Attempts to look up Rude's files simply brought a reprimand from Tseng about how new recruits weren't allowed to access company records until they gained proper clearance. Reno had snorted at the idea that something like proper clearance was going to stop him; but that was before he discovered the computer mainframe was locked up tighter than Old Man Shinra's bank vault. Access codes were apparently changed at random, and if there was a pattern to the whole thing, he'd be damned if he could figure it out.

In the meantime, he was getting his ass handed to him on a daily basis by Rude. He'd figured the guy would at least lose the shades to work out, but he'd been wrong. Eyes permanently hidden, he spent two hours every day introducing Reno to whole new realms of pain. By the end of the first week, Reno was beginning to wonder why the hell he'd joined the Turks in the first place.

Because you're 19 going on 20, and you don't want to spend the rest of your (probably short) life taking it up the ass from guys who smell like they've been sleeping in a dumpster?

Okay, there was that. Nineteen was practically ancient for a hustler; and there was an unspoken hierarchy at Wall Market that decreed if you hit the big 2-0 without being lucky enough to find someone who wanted a ' permanent paid companion,' the class of your clientele dropped significantly. Translated as, you ended up getting all the druggies, drunks and whack jobs no one else wanted.

His trip down memory lane was interrupted by Rude, who stuck his head into the office they shared. "You coming or not?"

Shit. He'd forgotten hand-to-hand practice.


Going on three weeks, and Reno thought maybe he was getting the hang of it. Rude definitely had one up on him as far as size and stamina went, but he was faster and less orthodox. Rude had remarked that he could always tell someone who'd learned to fight on the streets; it didn't matter where they came from, he said, the fighting style was almost exactly the same.

"Yeah?" Reno'd considered that. "You gonna write a book?"

Rude looked up from tying his boots. "Might decide to one of these days."

"Become a rich author and quit the Turks, huh?"

What might have been the ghost of a smile quirked up one corner of his mouth. "The only ex-Turks are dead Turks, kid. I wouldn't plan on an early retirement if I were you."

Reno smiled. "Wouldn't dream of it. So, you wanna got out for a beer?"

"Where we going?"

It took a moment for him to realize that Rude had actually shown some interest. "Wherever you wanna go. I'm still kinda new to the upper plate."

"Know just the place."


Just the place turned out to be called Corley's. Reno wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but he had to admit, the bar fit Rude. Unpretentious, with good food, and better booze, and, much to his surprise, a jazz combo playing on a small stage in one corner.

"You like jazz?"

Rude nodded. "Used to play piano in a band when I was younger."

Reno tried to fit the concept of Rude playing jazz piano into what he knew about the guy. It was like trying to get a round peg in a square hole.

Half-a-dozen beers later, he was stupid enough to ask the question. "So. Why the shade all the time?"

"That's just driving you crazy, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is. I mean, do you wear'em to bed?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

He couldn't figure out if that was a come-on or not. Looking at Rude was certainly no help. He just took another sip of his beer and smirked.


When the truth finally came to light, it came in a most unexpected way.

It started with Rude coming out of the locker room one Friday without any shirt. Reno'd known he had a tat just from what he'd been able to glimpse under the tank top he usually wore. Now he stood there, back to Reno, wearing nothing but a pair of loose black pants. Dark blue dragons twisted across his back, overlapping in a confusion of curves and scales. Red-tipped claws dug into both his shoulders, and Reno found himself wondering just how far down the damn thing went.

Rude turned around and gave him that little half-smile. "You like it?"

"Hell yeah. How long'd it take to do?"

"Couple of months. I was gonna get Leviathan, but the guy who ran the shop was from Wutai; he took one look at me and said I needed dragons."

"He say why?"

Rude shook his head. "Just said I had to have dragons. You got any ink?"

"Nah. Always wanted to get Ifrit on one arm, but I never had the gil."

"Kid, your arm's too skinny to fit Ifrit. Half of Ifrit, maybe..."

He thought briefly of being mad, but somehow had this idea that the teasing was a sign Rude liked him. "You're right. Have to make it full-body."

Rude snorted (if it'd been anyone else, Reno would've called it a laugh, but he didn't wanna get his hopes up). "Well, it'd be one way of scaring people off. Have it done in fluorescent ink, then you can jump out of alleys and give people heart attacks."

Reno snickered. "The Turks new secret weapon, huh?"

"Yeah. But I doubt Tseng'd be willing to pay for it. So, we're gonna try something different today. You come at me, and we'll see what happens."


Two hours later, when Rude called a halt, Reno was feeling pretty smug. Damned if he hadn't made the guy work up a sweat. Mind you, he'd never actually connected with him hard enough to do any damage, but you had to take your victories where you could.

If there was one thing about working at Shinra Reno truly loved, it was the shower rooms off the gym. Clean, tiled in Shinra red and gold, cubicles big enough to fit four or five people in, and the water never turned cold in the middle of cleaning up. Plus, they provided you with soap and shampoo. Before, showers had been something he'd only encountered if his client lived on the upper plate or was willing to spring for a decent hotel room.

He stripped off the company pants and t-shirt, throwing them in the nearest hamper, then pulled the rubber band out of his hair. All the while, he was surreptitiously checking out Rude. He had yet to get a good look at the family jewels, but damned if the dragons didn't go all the way down his ass and onto the back of his legs. It was a nice ass, too.

Stepping into the shower, he turned the water on and adjusted it. What he called 'tolerable' most people would've called 'being boiled alive.' Working the shampoo into his hair, he heard the hiss of Rude's shower start up.

He felt like he was finally starting to get somewhere with the guy, but the reason for the shades remained a mystery. He'd tried taking shorter showers, but he had yet to get out before Rude; and even if the guy were stark naked, he was still wearing those damn sunglasses. He was seriously beginning to think there was something wrong with his eyes; his refusal to take them off went way past any desire to be cool.

Mind preoccupied, he dropped the soap.

It was the steam's fault. One of the side effects of liking long hot showers was that they generated enough steam to run the Midgar trains for a couple of days. He bent down to pick the soap up and somehow or other slipped instead. His head hit the tile floor with what he was sure was an audible crack, knocking him breathless. When he was finally able to breath again, he only managed to inhale water and choke.

Next thing he knew, a pair of strong arms picked him up and hauled him out of the shower, lying him on one of the padded benches. "Hey, kid, you okay?"

He managed to quit choking, drew in a mouthful of clean air, and looked up to find himself staring into Rude's eyes.

He almost choked again. Of all the things he'd considered, all the possible reasons as to why the guy refused to lose the shades, the real reason had never entered his mind.

Rude's right eye was dark blue; so dark it was practically violet. His left eye was gray, the color of clouds before a storm. Both of them had odd golden-brown flecks around the irises.

He gradually realized Rude was talking to him. "....you okay? You hit your head pretty hard."

His head throbbed in sympathy, and Reno winced. "Stupid soap!"

Carefully, Rude helped him sit up, which produced a wave of dizziness so strong he was sure he was gonna puke. "Think maybe I should take you by the infirmary just to make sure you don't have a concussion. Can't have you dropping dead on company time, now can we?"

Reno managed a snort. "Gods forbid."

He suddenly realized he was sitting on a bench in the gym, face to face with a naked Rude without his sunglasses, and all he could do was make bad jokes.

"Here," Rude handed him a towel. "Get yourself dried off. Can you get dressed okay?"

"Yeah, just give me a couple secs." Reno reached up to touch the back of his head, wincing again. "So that's the reason for the shades, huh?"

For a minute, he thought Rude was going to ignore him. "When I was a kid, all anybody ever did was tease me about it. Or stare. It was like nothing else about me was important except my eyes didn't match. Bought my first pair of shades when I was ten."

"I think it's cool." Rude looked at him, frowning. "Seriously, man, I think it'd be so fuckin' cool to have eyes that didn't match. Makes you special, doesn't it? How many other people out there have eyes that are two different colors?"

"So it doesn't bother you?"

"Hell no. I wouldn't mind looking at'em all the time." Reno went to lean his head against the wall and yelped. "Does Tseng know?"

"Tseng knows everything." Rude's lips quirked in a way that Reno now knew meant he was smiling.

"Yeah, he has to, doesn't he?"

Rude went across to his locker and came back with his clothes. "Get dressed and I'll take you down to the infirmary."

"So. The ears aren't the only things you've got pierced, huh?"

Rude actually laughed out loud. "Sweet Shiva, you are something else, you know that?"

"You're not the first person to say that." Reno finished drying off and slipped his shirt on. "I can see the nipple rings and the Prince Albert, but what's with the bars along the underside?"

Rude just shook his head. "I'm stuck with you, aren't I?"

Reno glanced up and grinned. "Most likely, yeah. Just think of it as the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

"Friendship my ass."

"And a fine ass it is too."

"Reno!"

"Hey, can't fault a guy for admiring the scenery." He started wiggling into his slacks. "So. Any more secrets you care to spill?"

"It's Rudolph."

Reno looked at him, eyes wide. "Your parents named you after a fuckin' reindeer out of a fairy tale?"

"Says the man named after the mythical Lost City of Gold."

"Good point. So, after we're done at the infirmary, you wanna get some beer and go to my place? I got porn."

Rude, fully-dressed, slipped his shades on and turned to face Reno. "Would it be too much to hope it's just ordinary porn?"

Reno finished fastening his hair back and looked at Rude. "Are you implying I'm a pervert?"

"Your reputation precedes you."

"Damn. You've been talking to the girls in the steno pool, haven't you?"

"Like I could get away with not talking to them?" He clasped his hands over his chest. "'Oh Rude, it must be so wonderful to be partnered with Reno!'"

"I'll make you a deal. You don't question my taste in porn, and I won't tell anyone that more than just your ears are pierced."

"How about you don't say anything to anyone about what you know and I don't kill you and bury the body where nobody'll ever find it?"

"I can live with that."

"Good boy."