Chapter Text
There was nothing surprising about Reno’s reaction when Rude suggested the idea of a mating bite.
They’d been working together for five years and dating for two of them. Rude knew it was a miracle the dating part had lasted this long. He hoped he might get a second by asking Reno a question that had been on his mind since before they first kissed.
It took a month after meeting him for Rude to be sure his feelings for Reno weren’t just lust or a passing infatuation, and they haven’t wavered since. It only took Rude years to tell Reno how he felt because he sensed Reno needed to come to Rude if it was going to last, and that was exactly how it happened.
Reno kissed Rude drunk off his ass. He’d been partying, dancing, probably doing drugs, like he did most weekends with his band of degenerates (to be clear, Rude didn’t dislike the degenerates—if anything, they reminded him of Reno). The degenerates had been kicked out of a place, and Rude was the first person Reno called to come to their rescue. Rude got them all home safely, Reno last, and in the entryway of Reno’s apartment, Rude got a sloppy kiss that he was sure Reno would forget by the following morning. Yet it was clear Reno remembered because of how awkward things were between them the next day at work.
It took a month for Reno to bring the kiss up again, and when he did, Rude agreed they should see where things went, outwardly performing caution when inside he could not have been more eager.
Reno didn’t make it easy on him, not during that first year, anyway. He cheated, he started stupid fights, he did everything imaginable to push Rude to his absolute limits. Rude wore him out simply by being the more patient of the two. He knew Reno didn’t mean it, that rebellion was just in his nature. To trust someone after all Reno had been through required that Reno drag them through hell. He had to make sure Rude saw every last one of his demons and still never thought to run.
Nothing scared Rude, because there was no darkness in Reno that Rude couldn’t identify in himself. Rude’s conviction only grew stronger the more he learned about his partner. Reno could be messy, but he was a mess only Rude could clean up. What Reno gave back in return was a fantastic, harrowing, thrilling existence that invigorated Rude beyond his wildest expectations.
Once Rude passed Reno’s tests, Reno began to show a side of himself Rude was convinced no one had ever seen. A sweet, often clingy, omega who just needed someone to care for him.
The mating bite would only confirm what was obvious. They belonged together, but he suspected Reno might not see it yet.
Rude knew how Reno felt about mating bites, because he’d heard about it for three whole years before they started dating and (less often) for the two years after that. Reno thought it was bullshit, a control tactic forced upon omegas to trap them, to make them docile and subservient. He thought it was the stupidest thing an omega could do, willingly give up their freedom to be tied to a single alpha for life.
Rude felt it came less from principle and more from pride. Reno needed to blaze his own path, rushing to give a middle finger to anyone telling him what to do or how things should be. He could handle being caged as long as he held the only key.
Rude consulted his mother, his friends, his most trusted co-workers, asking if they thought it was too soon, and they all said the same thing. You’re perfect together. Why wait?
They didn’t know Reno like Rude did, but they were saying exactly what Rude wanted to hear, so he tried to convince himself it was true.
It’s perfect. Why wait?
Rude gets the courage to ask when they’re sitting on the couch watching TV. He’s been putting it off all evening, but there’s no reason left to hesitate.
Reno is curled in his favorite armchair, cocooned in a ratty, red blanket he’s had since childhood, eyes glued to the TV because Reno spends all his free time trying not to think about what happened at work that day. Rude understands. It isn’t easy.
“Reno?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you pause the TV for a second?”
Reno groans from the effort of reaching for the remote, but does it.
The silence is just awful. Rude wishes he’d let the TV run.
“What’s up?” Reno asks, turning the remote over in his palm because he can’t exist without distraction.
Reno must be able to tell something’s up. Even though they aren’t bonded yet, Rude is still attuned to his omega’s emotions, reading him by the subtlest change in his scent. Reno is probably doing the same thing now, feeling Rude out, wondering what could be important enough to disrupt their evening ritual.
From the couch, Rude can only see Reno in profile, lit by the TV screen, turning the remote in his palm. Rude fixates on the motion. Reno’s long fingers, flipping up, then down.
“I love you, obviously,” Rude begins. A poor beginning, and Rude knows it, reverting to cliches because it’s easier than attempting to convey the truth. We both know I love you more than you love me.
“Um, sure,” Reno deflects, because he hates being confronted with affection (outside the bedroom, anyway).
“I’ve been thinking about our future.”
“Wait.” The remote stops rotating. Rude stops breathing. “Are you breaking up with me?”
“No. Of course not. I’m trying to ask you something.”
“Well, I’m gonna die right here in this chair if you don’t say it soon, partner. You’re freaking me out.”
Rude forces the words out, attempting to sound sure of himself.
“I’ve been thinking about us being bonded. Permanently. With a mating bite.”
Reno’s stillness becomes eerie, as if Rude paused their lives with the shock of the suggestion.
“I know how you feel about it, but I…I think we’ve been together this long…Maybe we should, you know, consider it.”
How else can he say it? Call it alpha bullshit, call it desperation. Rude just wants to know Reno is serious about their relationship. Reno is so close-lipped about his feelings, and Rude needs to know where he stands, whether this relationship could really last, or if Rude’s just wasting his time, creating a fantasy of a person Reno can never actually be.
Reno allows the remote to fall into his lap, opting to pick at the loose threads of the ratty blanket instead.
“I don’t see the point of it,” Reno says. “Never have…You know that.”
Rude does. He expected this. In fact, he expected every means of evasion imaginable, because he knew who he was dealing with—an omega who was used to squirming his way out of commitment, thinking the sentimental way most people did things was both boring and also beneath him.
“If two people are gonna be together, they can just be together,” Reno continues. “Why does everyone else have to know it? And besides, it’s not fair that an alpha can claim an omega but not the other way around.”
“I know,” Rude sighs.
He wishes Reno could understand that if the opposite were true, if Reno could bite him, Rude would bare his neck in a heartbeat. He’d shed as much blood as it took.
“I’d get a tattoo of your name, right on my neck, so everyone would know,” Rude offers.
“That is not the same.”
“Fine, but…” Frustration seeps into his tone. “If we’re going to be together regardless, then the bite is just a symbol of it.”
It scares him to say it that way—if—because it hints at what really worries him. It’s not about the bite itself but the finality of it. Maybe Reno doesn’t expect them to last. Maybe he’s already planned a way out. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but eventually, and probably when Rude least expects it, because Reno is crafty like that.
“I’ve heard it hurts like hell,” Reno adds.
It can’t really be about the pain, can it? Reno’s taken everything from shanks to bullets. Nothing fazes him. His resilience is almost frightening.
“It’s not as painful if you’re in heat,” Rude suggests, but he knows he’s losing conviction with each of Reno’s rebuttals. “And I’d do everything to care for the wound, to make sure it heals quickly.”
“Why’re you pushing it?”
“I know I want to be with you, and—”
“More like you want other alphas to stop hitting on me. Ain’t gonna happen. You should’ve dated someone less hot if that’s what you wanted.”
“Reno, God damn it.”
“What I’m saying is the bite only benefits you,” Reno points out, because of course Reno is always keeping score of what’s good for him.
“You’d have protection against other alphas,” Rude adds.
“Psh, like I need that.”
“You never know.”
“I can defend myself!” Reno protests.
“I know. I know. But it still doesn’t hurt.”
“Yes, it does. I’ve heard it hurts like hell.”
It’s obvious Reno means to drag them in circles, wearing Rude down until he changes the subject, so Rude will have to make his final stand before Reno gets the chance. Still, his lips resist asking the question, knowing what the answer might be. It’s only his growing agitation that pushes him to speak.
“What are we doing here then?” Rude asks. “What’s the future for us if we’re never going to be bonded?”
“Rude, where the fuck is this coming from? Things are good.”
“And you’re okay with things being like this forever?”
“Forever?” Reno asked as if this was his first time considering it. “I mean, I guess so? Yeah.”
“You’ve never thought about us being bonded before?”
“Sure. There’s something super kinky about an alpha owning you and everyone knowing it.”
Rude resists the urge to rolls his eyes. Typical Reno. Rude’s not trying to own him, and he doesn’t like how non-specific Reno is being. An alpha. As if that’s all Rude is to him.
“I wouldn’t take a kink that far though,” Reno clarifies.
“So you’re telling me no?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Not my thing.”
“So you never want a mating bite? With anyone?”
Reno hesitates for so long and looks so uncomfortable, Rude can only interpret it one way. Not from you.
Should they just end it now?
Imagining Reno out of his life is impossible though. They’re linked in home, in work, in friendship, in love and sex. Their lives and futures are all mixed up, and Rude never minded that, because he thought there would never be a need to untangle them.
Clearly, Reno doesn’t think so. Clearly, Reno is willing to tumble his way out of all those webs and knots and mazes if it means he can get to the other side alone.
And maybe Rude should just let him go, but he doubts his heart will let him.
If Rude expected their disagreement to have any effect on Reno’s libido, he was wrong. It takes about twenty minutes, the length of Reno’s program, before he’s crawling into Rude’s lap, grinding on his crotch, presenting his neck and waiting for Rude to scent him.
No discussion of what happened. No inkling that Rude might be upset, or, more likely, Reno has an inkling but is desperate to suppress it by any means necessary.
Rude tries his best to mimic Reno’s energy, to kiss him like usual, to get hard for him. Rude is just as eager to forget what happened, but his body doesn’t get the message. The more Reno tries, the more Rude feels like he’s drowning, simply going through the motions, hoping Reno doesn’t notice something is off.
Reno is getting frustrated, but doesn’t say it. He sinks to his knees, his lips closing around Rude’s soft cock, and all Rude can think is this could be the last time. Reno won’t let the mating bite comment slide. It’s going to drive him stir-crazy, and he’s going to leave, and Rude should’ve known better than to ever suggest it.
“Rude…” Reno stares up at him with those gorgeous eyes, lit by lamplight, his lips wet and still parted. He is objectively gorgeous, but he looks like a stranger, like he no longer belongs to Rude.
“Rude?” Reno asks again. “You’re not that upset about the mating bite, are you? I mean, I told you for years I’d never want that.”
Rude knows that, of course. It was just that he was hoping two years of love and devotion would change his mind. He was wrong, and that’s probably his own fault, but how did nothing about their life together change Reno the way it’s changed Rude.
Rude used to agree with Reno on mating bites, if not as vehemently. He didn’t understand why alphas got so caught up on it. He accepted Reno’s logic about it being a control tactic. He figured he could live without it.
Now, here he is, looking at the person he loves most in the world, and all he wants is to be closer to him, as close as possible. He wants to know what it would be like to experience the crazy head rush that comes with a mating bite, the euphoria of that connection, and all the supernatural abilities that come with it. He wants that with Reno and no one else.
Reno isn’t exactly correct that omegas get nothing from the bite. Omegas can read their alpha’s emotions better. They become more attuned to their scent. The bond deepens for both of them. The only difference is Reno will forever be marked as a claimed omega. Alphas will know he’s off-limits just from his scent. Nothing like that will happen to Rude. He could claim another omega tomorrow, but of course he wouldn’t. Reno is his ride or die. He meant it about the tattoo. He’d do whatever Reno wanted to prove himself.
“You’re being an asshole,” Reno says, getting back on his feet. “You’re making me feel guilty when you should’ve known not to ask me that.”
Rude doesn’t know what to say. It hurts, but it also feels like Reno’s words can’t touch him, like Rude has already built a barrier between them, and he doesn’t know how to go back.
Rude has been making a habit of going to bed early in an attempt to stop Reno from initiating sex.
At this point, Rude wishes he could just fuck Reno like he used to. It would make this all easier, even knowing their relationship is heading nowhere. He should savor Reno’s body these last few times before Reno breaks it off and Rude is alone and fumbling, trying to fall in love again and failing, fantasizing about what he has right now, because even this broken, awkward thing with Reno is better than not having Reno in his life.
Reno appears in the doorway, quickly noticing that Rude is lying in bed awake. Fuck. Rude can’t even pretend now.
Reno starts stripping off his clothes, crawling under the covers and straddling Rude’s hips.
It’s a miracle Reno still wants to fuck Rude with how cagey Rude’s been, but then again, Reno has always had an insatiable sex drive. Some days Rude wishes Reno would actually go screw someone else, just to give Rude a break, but he knows that would be devastating (from experience), so he gives Reno what he wants whenever he can, pushing himself beyond his usual limits. Reno always makes it worth his time anyway.
Reno kisses him, their chests pressed together, Rude’s arms closing around his waist. It does feel good to have Reno there in his arms, where he’s always fit so perfectly.
The night after their argument, Rude struggled to get it up because he was in shock and he felt estranged from Reno. Since then, it’s mostly happened because of Rude’s fear that he’ll never be able to have an erection again, and Reno will leave him even sooner.
Rude just needs to focus on how sexy Reno is, how good he smells. He invokes the words of their favorite roleplay, the one where Reno gives Rude all the power. Reno becomes his plaything, his baby, sweet and subservient. The first time Reno succumbed to him that way, Rude was certain no one else could make him feel that much power or desire. It was the moment Rude became addicted, with Reno as his only fix.
“Baby,” Rude whispers, clenching his fingers into the side of Reno’s neck, tugging him closer.
Reno gasps into his mouth, kissing him with renewed urgency.
“I need to get fucked, daddy,” Reno mutters. “I need it so bad.”
It sends a tingle through Rude’s whole body, concentrating in his groin. He’s starting to get hard, thank God.
“Scent me,” Reno requests, baring his neck.
Rude places a kiss there, inhales deeply. It’s impossible to describe Reno’s scent except that it smells like home to him.
God, he can’t lose this. Rude has to give Reno everything he wants. Fuck the mating bite, fuck whatever Rude wanted. He can’t lose Reno now.
Rude scents him, feels Reno’s body relax into his. They’re so good together.
Holding Reno in his arms, breathing the scent of this scrappy, crass, hilarious imp of an omega, Rude doesn’t know how to let him go. Because Reno brought out all those qualities in Rude, making him more adventurous, giving Rude an outlet for his filthiest sexual desires, because Reno didn’t see anything as off-limits. Reno judged people for a lot of things, but being a freak wasn’t one of them. Reno rejoiced in deviance and spat at the status quo. And now Rude wants to force him into the status quo with the mating bite, and maybe that’s not fair, but it doesn’t stop Rude from wanting it.
He can’t decide which is the worse torture. Staying with Reno knowing Reno will never truly belong to him, or being without Reno, knowing what he lost.
It becomes painful having Reno this close, knowing it’s as close as he’ll ever get.
Why doesn’t Reno want the bite, really?
Maybe Rude is better off not knowing.
“Sorry,” Rude mutters. “I’m feeling off.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Just tired, I think.”
He searches Reno’s face, enraptured by his beauty, but it feels so untouchable again, like Rude will never truly know him, because there’s always been sides of himself Reno won’t show. He cheated on Rude a dozen times, maybe more. Reno has made his life hell, and still Rude can’t look at him and see anything but a person he adores.
Rude just wants him to be happy, and it occurs to him that maybe Rude isn’t the best person for him. Maybe there’s someone out there who Reno wouldn’t cheat on, who could give him all the sex he wanted with no reservations, someone Reno could share his whole self with.
What if that person was never Rude, and it was just his own hubris telling him it was?
“Rude, what the hell is going on with you?” Reno demands.
“Nothing,” Rude insists.
Reno uses Rude’s chest as leverage to push himself up and off, collapsing on his side of the bed, turning so he’s facing away.
“This is bullshit,” Reno says. “You’re punishing me over something I told you I never wanted.”
Rude is starting to realize their relationship can’t continue, but it’s hard to imagine sleeping alone in sheets that smell of no one, in a home that’s empty and quiet. That will be painful, but this, waiting for Reno to feel the same way, knowing he won’t, is even worse. As soon as he gets the courage, Rude will make a plan for how to divide their things. He’ll start looking for a new place. He’ll have it all settled so Reno can move on with his life with someone else.
Reno will go ballistic on him. He’ll say cruel things that will hurt like hell, even though Rude will pretend they don’t. He’s used to absorbing the shocks of Reno’s temper whenever Reno got the impulse to cause trouble. Reno had fallen out of the habit over the last year, but Rude still remembers every last insult of those early months.
Now all that time spent feels wasted, and Rude feels like an idiot for ever thinking he could change Reno in any fundamental way. All of this just feels like a farce, a brief period of stability in Reno’s life that he’s been itching to skip past.
So why doesn’t Rude want it to be over?
Reno can’t stand it much longer. If sex addiction is really a thing (and Reno doubts it is because wanting sex is the most natural instinct in the world), Reno guesses he has it, because celibacy is torture to him. Having a smoking hot roommate who won’t fuck him is maybe the worst thing to happen to him since having a smoking hot co-worker who wouldn’t fuck him.
But Reno got Rude in the end. He did it poorly, with an impulsive, drunken-high make-out because it took two substances for Reno to be brave enough, but he did it. He tricked Rude into thinking he’s hot shit relationship material, and Rude bought it. He let Reno move in with him, he struggled through all the hell Reno put him through.
At the time, Reno didn’t understand why he felt that constant compulsion to cheat, but now he gets it. He knew he wasn’t actually good enough for Rude then, and he knows he’s not good enough now, and he thought maybe he could demonstrate that from the beginning, and Rude would break up with him, and everything would be set right. But Rude just…didn’t break up with him, and he didn’t allow Reno to break up with him either.
All that is in the past though. At the moment, Reno desperately needs Rude to fuck him, more than anything. He needs to feel Rude’s cock filling him while Rude calls him baby. Reno needs a filthy little fantasy to get lost inside so he doesn’t lose his goddamn mind.
Reno undoes every last button, letting his suit jacket and dress shirt hang loose, trying to look real slutty, like back in those early days when they still fooled around at work almost every day. Nowadays they save it for home out of convenience (and not wanting to get fired, there were a few close calls), but Rude will remember how it was when he sees Reno this way.
They’re working from home today because they found black mold back at the office, and that is an absolute godsend. Rude seems awfully worried they breathed some of that shit in, but Reno figures if some teensy mold spores can take him down, he deserves to die anyway.
Reno strokes himself through his pants so that when he straddles Rude, it’ll be obvious he’s got an erection. Rude loves that shit. It’ll work. It might not have worked last time or the times before that, but by now, Rude has gone more than two weeks without sex. He must be ready to burst.
Unless Rude’s cheating on him, but Rude wouldn’t, right? And who would he cheat with? He did have that thing for Tifa, but she’s not interested. Surely not. She wouldn’t do that to Reno, because unlike Reno, she’s a nice person. Reno could almost like her if he didn’t know Rude used to have a crush on her.
This is so not the point right now. The point is getting fucked. Reno finds Rude sitting at his home office desk, frowning at the computer screen. He looks so sexy when he’s concentrating, but the very sexiest when he’s concentrating on Reno.
Everyone knows “working from home” is actually just an excuse to fuck around and do whatever you want from the comfort of your couch. If they were actively preparing for missions, that might be one thing, but they’re not, so there’s nothing to do but, like, answer emails and read company memos, and Reno sure as hell isn’t doing that. Rude will catch him up anyway, so there’s no point.
“Hey,” Reno says.
“Hey.” Rude barely glances at him. The fuck.
Reno tugs Rude’s chair away from his computer and sits in lap, so quickly Rude won’t have time to protest.
“Hi,” Reno says with a cocky smile in an attempt to wash away Rude’s vague annoyance with him. “You looked bored.”
“Did I?”
Why does Rude seem nervous? What’s there to be nervous about?
Rude hasn’t even touched him yet. No arms wrapped around his waist or a hand on his thigh. Rude used to take charge of things, and now he refuses.
“I thought I looked good today,” Reno says. Anything to get Rude’s attention on him.
Rude surprises him, tracing the tattoo under his eye with his thumb, then tucking Reno’s hair behind his ear. It’s been so long since he’s been touched, it gives Reno a full-body shiver.
“You always look good,” Rude says.
“Then why won’t you fuck me?”
Reno planned to have a little more finesse than that, but his mouth is always two steps ahead of his brain, and it comes out sounding every bit as desperate as Reno feels.
“Work is busy.”
“Bitch, we have the same job.”
“Exactly. I’m working for two.”
Reno laughs.
Rude does handle a lot of the boring shit for Reno, the shit he hates. Paperwork and injury reports. Rude’s good at that stuff. He knows how to make it sound professional. If Reno did it, he wouldn’t be able to leave out the snark and the fuck you’s, and he’d never be able to politely disguise what he’s really trying to say the way Rude does. It’s truly an art. They’re a good team, that’s all he’s saying.
“You deserve a break,” Reno says, “and so does my dick. It wants to take a nice, relaxing dive into a pool called your mouth.”
It’s such a dumb thing to say, but Rude has always appreciated that Reno is unhinged. In fact, Rude was once charmed by it, because he was a little unhinged himself. Normally a comment like that would make him laugh, but Rude only looks agitated.
“I have to finish this,” Rude insists.
Frowning. He’s always frowning. Frowning and not making eye contact. Like he’s hiding something.
“What if you take a swim in my mouth? I need dick so bad. You have no idea. You can put it literally anywhere.”
Rude evades him, staring down at his lap, not even noticing Reno’s gorgeous tits are on display.
“I can’t right now. Maybe later.”
“You’re gonna regret it when I leave you for the mailman,” Reno declares, because they do have a super hot alpha mailman, and both he and Rude have talked about it a lot. If they ever had a threesome, it would 100% be with the hot alpha mailman.
“I couldn’t even blame you for that,” Rude says, and it’s not what Reno wants to hear. He wants to hear Rude say how dare you, get back here, daddy is going to spank you.
That’s what old Rude would have done, but now all he does is work and avoid Reno like the plague.
Are they really breaking up over the mating bite thing? Really?
Reno can’t loiter here like an idiot anymore. He’s gotta rub one out alone. What a sad life he’s living.
“Nevermind,” Reno mutters, getting to his feet and storming out of the room.
He thinks maybe Rude says his name, but Reno doesn’t come back.
It’s been three weeks now. Three weeks of awkwardness and not a hint of sex. Time to bring out the big guns.
Rude is brushing his teeth, getting ready for bed.
“I think I’m gonna go off suppressants for a while,” Reno announces.
It seems to peak Rude’s interest. He spits into the sink, then gives Reno his full attention.
“Why’s that?” Rude asks.
“I absolutely, ferally need you to bone me.”
Rude’s smile quickly fades, and he returns his attention to the bathroom mirror.
“Why the fucking whiplash?” Reno asks. “You seemed excited for a second there.”
Reno’s been trying so hard not to lose it and give Rude more proof that he’s immature and not worth keeping, but it’s growing more difficult with every day.
“It’s not a good time,” Rude says. “Too much going on. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but just…not now.”
Reno’s so fucking desperate to get that smile back, to get any reaction from this alpha he loves so much and who seems to regard Reno as no more titillating than an incident report.
Reno tugs off his shirt, his pants, his underwear. He goes for broke, sinking to his knees at Rude’s feet.
“Please, daddy,” he whispers, trying to become Rude’s pleading, desperate toy, begging for Rude to care for him.
This is the part where Rude tugs his cock out and deposits it down Reno’s throat, but Rude does nothing at all, except for looking mildly uncomfortable.
“Reno,” he sighs.
His resigned, slightly disappointed tone makes Reno think of his actual dad, and now his boner is gone.
“Forget it,” Reno says, getting to his feet and trying to maintain as much dignity as a guy with his dick out can have. “My bad for thinking you might actually want to fuck your omega for once.”
Reno doesn’t wanna hear Rude’s response to that. He trudges to their bedroom, departing before Rude can try to stop him, which, disappointingly, Rude seems to have no interest in doing. Reno snatches up the first pair of shorts and shirt he sees and tugs them on, slamming the door to make a point, then realizing this is the first time in a long time he’s acted this petty with Rude. Back in the beginning of their relationship, Reno acted how he always acted in relationships—needy, bitchy and dramatic, but Rude slowly wore that out of him, yet it’s coming back so naturally, just like Reno feared it would.
If Rude isn’t cheating with Tifa, who else could it be?
Axel. Son of a bitch, it has to be Axel, that arrogant prick who works for Organization XIII and looks almost like Reno’s doppelgänger. Because of course Rude wants nothing more than to have a sexy redhead with a terrible attitude ruin his life.
Reno’s gotta get out of the house. He throws on a jacket, slams the door behind him, and starts walking. It’s late autumn, and the sun is setting. It would look pretty if Reno weren’t so upset.
He makes it past the corner bodega and their favorite bar with the good happy hour. They made out in a booth there on their first date. Rude was embarrassed when the waiter caught them, but that didn’t stop him from kissing Reno again once he left. Reno used to be that irresistible to him.
But the mating bite…Rude doesn’t understand. Reno can’t keep this up forever. He’s been so good all this time trying to impress Rude, to function at even half Rude’s level, but Rude will realize Reno’s not worth all this effort, and if they’re bonded, that realization will be excruciating, because Rude is loyal to a fault. He’d stay with Reno no matter what, even if he started to hate him a little, and that would be a terrible ending for them. Rude should see that plainly, but he’s too blinded by all the ways Reno has tricked him into being complacent, thinking Reno doesn’t have a fire raging right underneath the surface that could burn them both at any moment. It’s not a matter of if but when.
Reno should break it off, allow Rude to find a normal, sane, functional person who can fulfill all his wildest dreams, but Reno loves Rude too much. He’s been hoarding Rude’s affection for two years, enough to sustain him for a lifetime, because he knows no one will ever tolerate him the way Rude does.
Except Rude won’t even fuck him now. Rude might even be cheating on him.
“He isn’t cheating on you,” Reno mutters to himself, sounding like a crazy person.
It’s cold out. Reno should’ve worn sweatpants at least, but he can’t go back home. He looks at his phone, checking if Rude’s called him. No calls, no texts. This is very bad. Very, very bad.
When Reno returns, Rude is going to break up with him. He’s sure of that. All the signs are there, whether Rude is cheating or not.
Would the mating bite be so bad? Could Reno consent to it even knowing the future pain it would cause? It would feel amazing in the beginning, having Rude so attentive and attached to him, happy in his conviction that he’d caught a good one. There would be a honeymoon period, maybe a long one, and Reno could look back on that fondly, the same way he will the last two years.
Rude might not even want that anymore though. He might have taken Reno’s rejection to heart and decided Reno isn’t worth it, which is why he won’t fuck him, but doesn’t have the balls to break up with him either.
Reno is itching to do something desperate and wrong, something that will distract him from all his terrible thoughts.
Is Reno taking this too far? Should he call up Elena and ask if he’s being a whiny bitch? Eh, she’ll tell him he’s being a whiny bitch regardless, but it won’t change the fact that Reno needs to get laid, to forget, and Rude won’t fuck him, so he needs another option.
There’s a bar down the street, a trashy, divey one with trashy, sketchy people.
Is this a terrible idea? Will Reno regret it?
He decides it will hinge on what happens next.
If Rude called him, texted him, any communication at all, it means he still cares, and Reno will go right back home and apologize and try to convince Rude to stay with him.
But if Rude didn’t reach out, then it means Rude’s giving up on him, on their relationship, and that gives Reno permission to go nuclear, because Rude started it by trying to make Reno into someone he’s not, and Rude should know him better than that. Rude should know Reno’s spiraling right now, that he can’t handle rejection, that he’s a mess.
Why is Rude doing this to him? Why is he making Reno act crazy, then not even checking to see if he’s okay?
Reno feels like he’s 18 again, like he’s reverting back to that chaotic person he used to be before Rude taught him about discipline and loyalty.
Their entire relationship has been built on Reno pretending he’s better than he is and Rude believing it.
He wishes Rude would show up now, hug Reno and tell him to stop freaking the fuck out. Reno’s mind has always been his worst enemy, and that’s why he can’t be left alone too long when he’s like this. That’s why being with Rude has been so good for him. When Reno gets this way, he goes to Rude, and Rude tells him it doesn’t matter that he’s a mess because Rude is going to fix it by fucking him until he forgets he exists.
Reno positively does not want to exist right now.
He takes a deep breath. He’ll check his phone, and if he sees any word from Rude, he’ll go home. If not, he doesn’t know what he’ll do, but he’s sure whatever it is, he’ll regret it.