Lord. Tseng quickly averts his eyes. Takes a very long drag from his cigarette and carefully forms a ring of smoke with his lips before he scores it through the middle with a breath and blows it all away. A fresh cigarette wouldn't be the same. He likes this one. It tastes like Reno, like blood and mischief and the sort of verve that he'll never, ever know.
He was never supposed to see this. Tseng would have loved to take a picture, but he didn't. The creation of it was what was important. His carving, Sephiroth helpless but to feel those markings burn into manifestation. It was supposed to be the last thing he would ever say to this world. Not only is it not that now, but Reno heard it. This isn't what he wanted at all.
He ought to push Reno off this cliff.
Instead, his fingers catch around Reno's wrist, steering the phone closer. He looks over his work with new eyes, and it's just as perfect as he remembers making them, but maybe there is a touch of the divine within them now. Reno has seen them. And that... That is something, a sort of excitement he has not known for years, one that has been all but forgotten. He can't even remember what to call it. All that he knows is it draws him in closer, under the pretense of scrutinizing his own craft, though what really happens is that he leans into Reno's shoulder and the two of them balance one another perfectly.
His own words come back to him.
"I thought you'd get a kick out of it," he says quietly. His head tilts, a little conspiratorial, the gleam in his eyes alight with just a little bit of mischief. "I suppose no one else shares our brand of humor, considering..."
Considering the lengths he went to in order to ensure that he died by the same blade as his colleague. This death has made him so transparent. As much as Tseng loves pain, as much as he reveres the act of suffering, this is not the kind of agony that suits his particular tastes.
He draws his thumb across his belly, clicks his tongue to make the sound of flesh ripping. Maybe no one else will ever get them. It hardly fucking matters.
no subject
He was never supposed to see this. Tseng would have loved to take a picture, but he didn't. The creation of it was what was important. His carving, Sephiroth helpless but to feel those markings burn into manifestation. It was supposed to be the last thing he would ever say to this world. Not only is it not that now, but Reno heard it. This isn't what he wanted at all.
He ought to push Reno off this cliff.
Instead, his fingers catch around Reno's wrist, steering the phone closer. He looks over his work with new eyes, and it's just as perfect as he remembers making them, but maybe there is a touch of the divine within them now. Reno has seen them. And that... That is something, a sort of excitement he has not known for years, one that has been all but forgotten. He can't even remember what to call it. All that he knows is it draws him in closer, under the pretense of scrutinizing his own craft, though what really happens is that he leans into Reno's shoulder and the two of them balance one another perfectly.
His own words come back to him.
"I thought you'd get a kick out of it," he says quietly. His head tilts, a little conspiratorial, the gleam in his eyes alight with just a little bit of mischief. "I suppose no one else shares our brand of humor, considering..."
Considering the lengths he went to in order to ensure that he died by the same blade as his colleague. This death has made him so transparent. As much as Tseng loves pain, as much as he reveres the act of suffering, this is not the kind of agony that suits his particular tastes.
He draws his thumb across his belly, clicks his tongue to make the sound of flesh ripping. Maybe no one else will ever get them. It hardly fucking matters.