He sighs and mumbles something in his sleep, tangled black hair falling in his eyes. I brush it out of his face, warm soft-rough strands catching on my fingers, and brush his cheek. He sighs, a smile tugging at his lips. This is a switch. Usually he watches me sleep. He doesn’t know I know. But I’ve woken up a few times to feel him watching me. It scared me at first, but he never touches me, only watches, and thinks whatever it is he thinks, before he goes back to sleep.
The breeze picks up and he shivers a bit. He doesn’t like it as cool as I do, and I kicked off the blankets again. Lean arms, stronger than you’d think to look at him, lean muscled legs. A bit of a pot belly starting from too much fast food on the run, too many luncheon speeches to men’s clubs that don’t really care what he says. Broad chest, broad shoulders with too much weight on them. The lines on his face smooth out with sleep, leaving him looking younger, as if he’s only a few years older instead of almost twice my age. Fine sweet talented lips surrounded by curly dark goatee that scratches when he kisses me, almost ... thrilling to feel it sometimes, if only because of what he does with his mouth. Fine long talented fingers as graceful at fixing toys as caressing me into cries of pleasure.
I’ve never felt ... well, I’ve never been with anyone else. But from the stories the other girls in the barracks tell about their dates, I’m lucky. He likes making me feel like that ... like I’m melting ... almost as much I like feeling it. Not as much as he likes being in me, I think. I like him in me, sometimes even especially after, just lying curled up with him, inhaling his scent and him holding me close.
Now I remember how sore I was, I am. A month of frustration because I was training in Junon, and it seemed like neither of us could get enough. I worked so hard in training to keep my mind off him, so I wouldn’t have enough energy to dream about him ... the other girls laugh because none of the guys can get a date with me. They tease me I’m trying to get assigned to Rufus. Rufus is gorgeous, but he’s such an arrogant little prick. He’d probably just bang me and go to sleep.
But I came out top of the class in training. So now I’m in line for a promotion, and I want it. The career, the pay ... the really good ones in this class get to be Turks. Tseng was there, watching the final tests. He’s ... better looking than Rufus, but he scares me. His eyes ... they look like this guy next door when I was a kid. Liked it rough, at least on his girls. One of them blew him away. But I want Reeve too ... and I can’t have both.
Even if I wasn’t sleeping with him everyone would assume I was if I refused a promotion. But if I take a promotion, I lose him. You can’t keep secrets in Shinra, and if I found ways to meet him ... they’d all think I was like Scarlet and Reeve had pulled strings to get me promoted. Like he has any strings to pull in SOLDIER. The rest of the brass tolerates him because he keeps the generators running and things fixed and doesn’t make too much of a fuss. And Scarlet tolerates him because he’s the only man she can’t get. Well, other than Hojo, and even Scarlet has better taste than that. Repulsive slimy greasy ... he used to be married, one of the girls said. A long time ago. Either he was a lot different or someone had lousy taste.
I want to grind Scarlet’s face into the carpet every time she slinks into Reeve’s office, and she does it at least once a week. I want to smash that smirk into the mud in the slums every time she tries to get him into her bed – she’s not that blatant, it’s always dinner at her club or something, but what she wants is painfully obvious. Reeve’s mine. ... Isn’t he?
He doesn’t want her. I know he doesn’t want her. Even though it bothers him so much I’m so much younger, and she’s close to his age. Even though she’s his equal and it bothers him almost as much that I’m his bodyguard, and he doesn’t believe I’m here because I want to be. Because I want him. He doesn’t want her. Even though she’s educated and smart and prettier than I am, and probably better in bed, and ... I’m just a grunt who dropped out of school and can’t understand him when he talks about his work. No. I know he doesn’t want her, he’s been staying out of her bed since before he even met me. And...oh damn, I can’t cry. I can’t. He’ll know it in the morning and he’ll think it’s something he did, and ... there. No tears. Good.
I snuggle up next to him, stretch an arm across his chest and pillow my head on his shoulder. He smells of sex and sweat and cologne, and he draws me closer, mumbling something, and ... well, neither of us has to work tomorrow. And he’s mine for now, at least.
Author Notes: This is a companion piece to Broken Shards from Elena's viewpoint. Just as a reference ... Elena's 15 or 16 and Reeve's 28 at the time of these two pieces.