"When your body becomes a fount and you cannot stop pouring..." Tseng murmurs, and it's like a song, lilting and melodic and whimsical. That was the best part, wasn't it? No matter how he pressed his hands, no matter how he stilled his breaths, no matter what, there was no option but to let himself spill upon the floor, emptied until there was nothing left. He would have loved to go as Reno did, gasping, completely at the mercy of his failing vessel. Sephiroth was far too merciful with him.
Which is a sad thought. Perhaps he didn't suffer enough for Reno. He likely would have come to regret that, had his death proved permanent. But now, there is a lifetime of agony awaiting him, and he is sure that Sephiroth will spare him not one second that he is due.
The only thing that puzzles him, the one part that doesn't quite align when it feels like he and Reno are in each other's heads, feeding off the energy between them, is what it must have felt like to long for someone in those final moments. He cannot even contemplate the why or the how. The compulsion does not make sense to him at all. Reno is bound to Rude, presumably the same way that Tseng is bound to Rufus, but he wouldn't have wanted him there. He must be missing some fundamental difference between them.
And he should feel sad. Or horrible, perhaps? He was in the car when all this happened, speeding down the streets, counting seconds, cutting corners, breaking every traffic law along the way. And it still hadn't been fast enough. He hadn't gotten there in time, and he'd regretted it. Or had he? All that he can remember is the quiet calm of needing to cause hurt, the silent steps he took until it was done. Right now, in retrospect and with Reno sitting here beside him, the memory makes him smile.
"Good," he says, pressing his palm over that mark upon Reno's chest. Not to cover it from sight, but to feel the thing that unmade and reshaped him. Tseng has stood a thousand times before death's door, with steel beams piercing every part of him and Genesis's fire cooking his own flesh while he swallowed down his melting screams, and it's never been worth it to be afraid. That is how all the best parts pass you by. His thumb strokes along the raised ridge of scar tissue. "Now you will remember."
His gaze lifts. He's thinking now of Reno's hands working inside of him, that debt of perfect pain that he could never hope to repay. But Reno is... different now. Perhaps it is the opportunity that he needs to come as close to it as he could hope. His fingers close crushingly around the hand that burrowed through him, and he lets that anger darken up his eyes like smoke blotting out the windows of a burning building. "I will never let you forget."
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Which is a sad thought. Perhaps he didn't suffer enough for Reno. He likely would have come to regret that, had his death proved permanent. But now, there is a lifetime of agony awaiting him, and he is sure that Sephiroth will spare him not one second that he is due.
The only thing that puzzles him, the one part that doesn't quite align when it feels like he and Reno are in each other's heads, feeding off the energy between them, is what it must have felt like to long for someone in those final moments. He cannot even contemplate the why or the how. The compulsion does not make sense to him at all. Reno is bound to Rude, presumably the same way that Tseng is bound to Rufus, but he wouldn't have wanted him there. He must be missing some fundamental difference between them.
And he should feel sad. Or horrible, perhaps? He was in the car when all this happened, speeding down the streets, counting seconds, cutting corners, breaking every traffic law along the way. And it still hadn't been fast enough. He hadn't gotten there in time, and he'd regretted it. Or had he? All that he can remember is the quiet calm of needing to cause hurt, the silent steps he took until it was done. Right now, in retrospect and with Reno sitting here beside him, the memory makes him smile.
"Good," he says, pressing his palm over that mark upon Reno's chest. Not to cover it from sight, but to feel the thing that unmade and reshaped him. Tseng has stood a thousand times before death's door, with steel beams piercing every part of him and Genesis's fire cooking his own flesh while he swallowed down his melting screams, and it's never been worth it to be afraid. That is how all the best parts pass you by. His thumb strokes along the raised ridge of scar tissue. "Now you will remember."
His gaze lifts. He's thinking now of Reno's hands working inside of him, that debt of perfect pain that he could never hope to repay. But Reno is... different now. Perhaps it is the opportunity that he needs to come as close to it as he could hope. His fingers close crushingly around the hand that burrowed through him, and he lets that anger darken up his eyes like smoke blotting out the windows of a burning building. "I will never let you forget."