Reno hears screaming, Tseng hears deafening silence. It helped, back in the day, when he would shatter everything in his path to not hear it, because back then it would have terrified him, and thus he built this quiet, peaceful place inside his own head where everything moves a little slower, where color and commotion is too far away to be anything but heart-breakingly beautiful. And Reno is in the very same place, even if it's the stark opposite; he can tell by the hand grasping at his throat, crying out for something that only he knows how to fix.

For him, it seems slow, methodical, the way he swipes the blade from Reno's grasp at such a precise angle that even the over-eager quick of it doesn't so much as leave him with a scratch. In reality, it's a blur of motion that culminates with Tseng hovering the blade over Reno's throat as he tangles up their legs to get Reno walking farther backwards still. Back, back, until Reno has nowhere to go but bullied up against the wall.

Then, Tseng will start to undress him, to tear down his jacket and rip open his shirt, close just like before, pressed in until their foreheads touch. "Don't trust me?" he asks with a smile that doesn't quite touch the blankness in his eyes.