He reached toward the nightstand
for a bottle he knew wasn't there.  All the same, he felt the instant
need for more liquor.  That man.  That man again, in his dreams,
that he had--he shivered.  What the fuck was wrong with him? 
Why couldn't he shake such a sick vision?  He was a fucking lady killing,
sharp shooting, deadly and dangerous bastard, dammit.  He needn't
be dreaming of that... chrome creature.  He didn't really want that. 
He couldn't possibly really want that.

        Aggravated, he cursed himself
for not loading up with free booze from the night before.  The bar
was all his, and he should have taken something with him.  He'd sobered
up way too fucking fast last night.

        He drew his palms up and
down his face several times with a grunt.  What a morning.  He
might have actually felt better with a hangover.  Anything but a dream
like that.  It wasn't even that fucking good, really.  It was
just a dream about what had happened the night before; only in the dream,
he hadn't been alone.  He'd woken up with the image of that man grinning
up at him knowingly, a trickle of his blood falling from the corner of
his cold metal lips...

        He growled, violently throwing
the covers off and getting up.  This was not what he wanted to think
about.  Not after all of that.  He ought to be as embarrassed
as all hell to have been jerking off in a deserted bar after his girlfriend--the
love of his fucking life--dumped him.  To another guy. 
He ought to be more than embarrassed, he ought to be ashamed.

        With that thought taunting
him, he took a quick, cold shower.  He didn't even feel himself shivering,
too busy trying to keep the vision away from his head.  Instead, he
was going over slow and deliberate ways to kill Hojo.  One thought
lead to a worse, and he'd hoped that eventually there would come a point
at which there could be no worse so he would be able to decide upon that. 
Sure Shin-Ra would decide they had no use for him anymore, but they'd have
to fucking
catch him first.  Though he'd likely be kicked out
of the Turks, as well.  They could
handle him as he was.  They
could handle him killing Hojo, and maybe even gutting Lucretia.  But
if he tied them to something like strangling a man with his own intestines,
there may be second thoughts regarding the safety of the rest of their
organization.

        He toweled off, wondering
how in the hell he'd slept through his alarm.  The window in the bathroom
was letting in early afternoon light.  Not that it mattered, really. 
He was probably more or less expected to show up late, if at all.

        Fucking nightmares. 
Granted that this particular one had been more pleasant than most others,
but it was the idea of the thing that so bothered him.

        He realized that he was
still obsessing about that dream--about that impossible man that had caused
all of this.  He suddenly wished the silver bastard were real
so he could beat the shit out of him.