Thanks for the memories

“Thanks for the Memories”
A Reno fanfiction
Chapter 1: “I was a teenaged criminal”
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*Disclaimer: The world that this story is set in and all characters therein belong to Square-Enix. This fiction piece is strictly a non-profit exercise of creativity and entertainment for people (like me) who can’t get enough of this world and the characters.*
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I grew up in the slums of Midgar. I know, poor me, right? Don’t pity me too much, yo. I’ve got it pretty good now. In those days it was different, though. My old man was a construction worker and he died in an accident on the work site when I was eight. Ma never had a good education and she struggled to keep a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs after that. She did everything she could to make sure I stayed in school and had some kind of quality of life, but it was real tough on her, yo. There ain’t a lot of places in Midgar rushing to hire a housewife that can barely read, so Ma earned her money cleaning houses for people that were better off than us.

We went without electricity or running water a lot of the time and I eventually started stealing from stores and pick-pocketing people to help make ends meet. I always lied to Ma and told her the food I brought home was from charity. When I brought home money to help pay the bills, I always made stuff up, like I earned it washing people’s cars, or running errands, or busing tables at the local bar. It wasn’t always a lie but the truth was, it paid more to shoplift or snag some poor sap’s wallet than any of that other stuff ever did, yo.

One time I admitted I won some money gambling with other kids and boy, was that ever a mistake. Ma was so upset she took me over her knee and then made me give back every penny to the kids I won it from. After that, I was real careful to keep her thinking I was on the straight and narrow. What the hell else could I have done? She was working her ass off and she wasn’t making enough on her own to keep up the rent, keep us clothed and fed and pay the utility bills.

I finally got caught one day when I was ten and they called Ma up and told her I’d shoplifted. I thought for sure she was gonna blister my ass, yo. You know what she did when she picked me up at the police station? She hugged me and kept saying she was sorry, over and over again. She blamed herself, see. When we got home, she made me swear I’d stop stealing to help out, concentrate on school and let her worry about the bills.

I love my Ma. I couldn’t say no and believe it or not, I kept my word. I started learning how to fight at an early age, ‘cause the bigger kids liked to pick on the scrawny runts like me. Other than a few scuffles here and there I stayed out of trouble for a few years after that, yo. I got really interested in machinery and I started studying it obsessively. Turns out I’ve got a knack for mechanics, yo. I got pretty good at fixing appliances around the house, but airships and helicopters were my favorite things to read about.

It was hard and all, but when I was twelve she started seeing this guy named Nick and eventually let him move in with us, it got a whole lot harder. Oh sure, he helped out with the finances and we hardly ever went without a utility after he moved in, but by the time I was fourteen years old, he’d gone from being overbearing and mean to outright fucking abusive, yo. He started smacking Ma around and when he started smacking ME around, she had enough and tried to take me and leave. I don’t know what he said to her but I’m pretty damn sure he got her convinced that leaving him would be the last thing she ever did.

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Reno sniffed and examined his reflection in the cracked bathroom mirror, pulling his long, auburn bangs out of his eyes. His nose was still bleeding, though not as bad now as it had been a few minutes ago. It was hard for him to see through his left eye, which was almost swollen shut.

“Bastard,” the redhead muttered as he stuffed a piece of rolled toilet paper up each nostril. He and Nick had gotten into it as soon as Reno came home from school. He should have known better than to mouth off to the butcher by now; the man was more than twice Reno’s size and he’d already beaten him a couple of times before. He was just glad he had strong, healthy teeth or he’d probably have some gaps in his smile by now from being hit in the face and jaw.

~If I had any balls, I’d fight back. I just don’t know what he’d do to Ma if I did. Can’t trust the police to do anything about it, either. They don’t pay attention to what people do in the slums unless they catch us stealing from someone important, yo. What the hell am I gonna tell Ma? She’ll argue with him if she knows he did this and he’ll just beat her for it!~

No, he couldn’t tell his mother. As terrified as she was of her boyfriend she’d always stood up to him when he laid hands on Reno—which always resulted in her getting smacked around too. He figured he could just tell her he got into another fight at school. She’d never actually seen him fight so she’d probably buy it. Like his mother, Reno had a slim frame and a lot of bullies made the mistake of thinking he would be easy to push around because of that.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing in pain. He dropped the lid on the toilet and sat down, waiting for the bleeding to stop.

~One of these days, things are gonna change,~ he swore to himself, ~I’ll make enough money to set Ma up with a good house and she’ll never have to work again or worry about abusive fuckers smacking her around, yo.~

He told himself he believed that…told himself it was going to happen eventually. Unfortunately for Reno Flynn, it seemed less likely with each passing day that his goals would come true. Poverty was a vicious cycle that most people never broke out of.

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“Reno, your face!”

As soon as his mother came through the door and saw his black eye, she dropped her purse on the floor and hurried across the small living room to him and cupped his face. He winced when she gently touched his black eye.

“It’s okay, Ma. Don’t get worked up, okay?” He forced a little smile and kissed her on the cheek.

“What happened?” She demanded as she stroked his face.

Reno forced himself not to look at Nick, who was sitting on the worn armchair in the corner of the living room, watching the television. “I just got into a fight after school, that’s all.”

She sighed and shook her auburn head. “Oh, Reno…again? What started it this time?”

“I keep telling the kid to watch that mouth of his,” Nick interrupted, “he never listens though, does he? Gets him in trouble all the time, Lena.”

She looked at her boyfriend with a mixture of fear and suspicion, then turned back to Reno again. “Honey, is that true? Did you provoke someone at school?”

Reno swallowed the angry words on the tip of his tongue as he looked at Nick, who was staring at him with a smug warning in his brown eyes. It was bitter medicine but the redhead knew what would happen if he didn’t go along with it. “Yeah, Ma. I shoulda’ just walked away but you know my temper, yo. I couldn’t resist tossing an insult out.”

Lena gently combed her son’s unruly bangs out of his eyes and shook her head. “Well, what’s done is done. I want you to put a steak on that eye to bring the swelling down.”

“I’m not letting him put good meat on his damn face,” Nick growled, “let him use ice or something.”

Lena closed her eyes and nodded, knowing better than to argue with him. She put her arm around Reno’s waist and guided him into the kitchen. “I’ll make you a cold compress and you hold it on there for at least fifteen minutes, young man. Is that understood?”

“Yes Ma,” answered Reno amicably.

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The next weekend, Reno was hanging out in the ally with some friends when he found a pipe laying in the road. He picked it up and studied it, weighing it in his hands. It was heavy but felt surprisingly balanced in his hand.

“What are you gonna do with that?” Jamie asked him as he swung the pipe experimentally.

Reno shrugged, keeping his sea-green eyes on the metal object as he whirled and swung it in a diagonal arch. “Practice,” he said with an inspired little smile.

“You’re getting kinda scary, man,” Lee said as he backed away from the redhead’s increasingly stronger swings.

“Sometimes you’ve gotta be scary to make it in life,” Reno grunted, kicking out at an invisible opponent while simultaneously slashing the pipe.

His friends looked at each other and shrugged. They knew Reno had problems in the home and they were pretty sure his mom’s boyfriend had given him the black eye that was finally fading. It wasn’t surprising to either of them that he was practicing his street fighting skills more and more and getting better with each day.

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“Yo, check it out.”

Reno showed his buddies the new moves he’d taught himself with the pipe he’d found last week. They made amazed exclamations as he twirled the object deftly, flourishing it with the skill of a martial artist. He spun, kicked, swung and brandished the pipe for a few minutes, working up a minor sweat.

“That was cool, Reno!” Lee said enthusiastically, looking at the redhead with admiration and a little envy in his hazel eyes. “How’d you learn to do all that stuff?”

“I’ve been watching fighting competitions on the tube and reading up on some things,” he answered with a shrug. “I just teach myself to do things they do and make a few adjustments. Got myself pretty good a few times while I was learning, though.”

“You couldn’t get that good just watching that stuff on TV,” Jamie said with certainty. “Admit it, you’ve been taking lessons somewhere!”

Reno gave him a look. “With what money? I’m so broke I can’t pay attention, much less pay some dude to teach me to fight. My Dad used to be good at streetfighting, so maybe I just get it from him.”

Jamie still looked doubtful. “Maybe. Think you could teach us how to do some of that stuff?”

Reno grinned.

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By the time his fifteenth birthday was just a couple of weeks away, Reno had a small following of other teens his age. He gave them lessons in self-defense and took any payment they could offer in exchange. He grades dropped a little because of the amount of time he spent teaching fighting lessons, but he’d always been a bright student so the drop wasn’t significant enough to endanger his chances of graduating. When he wasn’t instructing or studying, he spent his time reading about helicopters and learning everything he could about them and mechanics.

He was feeling pretty good about himself and starting to think things were going his way until he came home one evening after teaching lessons and heard his mother screaming before he even reached the door.

“Ma!” Reno dropped his backpack on the stoop and yanked it open, searching for his pipe. He heard Nick yelling at her, calling her a whore and a bitch while she sobbed and begged for him to stop. His hand closed around the cool metal of his pipe and he bounded to the door, yanking it open with his free hand and holding his weapon with white-knuckled hands as he lunged inside.

He took in the scene quickly. His mother was curled up against the corner of the living room wall, nursing her arm—which was hanging at an odd angle. Her lip was torn and bleeding and there were marks around her throat. Nick loomed over her with clenched fists, advancing on her threateningly.

Everything seemed too bright and too sharp to Reno as his rage consumed him. He launched himself through the air in a flying kick, his sneaker connecting solidly with the older man’s back. Nick was taken by surprise and he fell forward to his hands and knees. Groaning, he rubbed his back and twisted to look up at his attacker. Reno stood over him, slapping the pipe against the palm of his other hand. His lips were pressed into a hard, grim line and his blue-green eyes were narrowed hatefully.

“Get away from my Ma, you asshole.” He was amazed by how calm he sounded. He’d always thought that if he walked in on the man beating his mother he’d be yelling at the top of his lungs and striking out at him blindly. His mind was amazingly clear as Nick stared up at him with surprise.

“Think you’re pretty hot stuff, don’t you kid?” Nick growled after recovering from his initial surprise. “You think that fucking pipe is going to help you?” He launched himself at Reno and the redhead rolled aside nimbly and swung out hard with his pipe, cracking it against Nick’s left arm—which was precisely the same arm that his mother was nursing. The butcher howled in pain and tried to swing his right fist at the teenager, but Reno ducked under the attack and kicked out with his foot, hitting Nick in the solar plexus.

“R-Reno,” Lena called in a shaking voice.

“It’s okay, Ma. Just stay there,” Reno said without taking his eyes off the gasping butcher. When Nick tried to struggle to his feet, Reno shoved him back down with his foot. The redhead crouched in front of the butcher and rested his pipe on one shoulder, ready to use it again if the man gave him the slightest reason.

“Get out of our house,” Reno said in a low, dangerous voice. “Get out of our house and leave Ma alone. You don’t touch her, don’t talk to her, don’t get within twenty feet of her and don’t even ever LOOK at her again, got it?”

Nick glared at him. “I’ll get you for this,” he threatened, “both of you. You’re dead meat!”

Reno’s eyes dilated in response to the threat to his mother’s life. He abruptly hit the butcher on the side of the head with the pipe and it made a satisfying “ping” sound. Lena cried out as her stunned abuser fell back and Reno grabbed hold of the large man’s feet and began to drag him out of the room.

“Reno? W-what are you doing?” Lena called.

“Stay there, Ma. I don’t want you to see this.” Reno continued to drag the groaning man, his adrenaline rush lending him strength. He grunted with exertion as he dragged Nick down the hall into the bathroom and shut the door.

Lena flinched as she heard the sound of the pipe making contact with Nick’s body again and again and again. His screams were cut off quickly, presumably because the weapon knocked him unconscious. She shook with sobs, realizing that her sweet, bright son was murdering a man in their bathroom. Bewildered with pain, fear and shock, she held her broken arm and cringed against the wall.

When Nick’s skull was smashed beyond recognition, Reno finally stopped slamming the pipe into it and pressed shaking fingers against his neck, checking for a pulse. Finding none, he lowered his ear to what used to be the man’s nose and mouth and listened, placing a hand on the chest. No breath stirred his hair, no heartbeat thumped under his hand and the broad chest was utterly still.

Reno staggered to his feet and dropped the pipe to the floor. He felt wetness on his face and he reached up to wipe at it. The sticky fluid smeared on his face and when he pulled his hand away, it was red with Nick’s blood. He hastily wiped his hand off on his pants and swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. The redhead opened the bathroom door and stumbled out, returning to the little living room where his mother still cringed in the corner.

She looked up at him as he crossed the room and fell to his knees before her. Her green eyes were wide and her lips were trembling. She looked like she was afraid of him. “Ma?” he whispered, reaching out for her. She didn’t respond. Reno felt his heart twist in his chest.

“Ma, he…he was gonna kill you. He said so! He never would have left you alone and the cops wouldn’t have stopped him. Ma?” His vision blurred with tears and he began to tremble. He’d been forced to take on responsibilities that more fortunate kids his age never had to deal with, but he was after all still just a fourteen year old. “He’s threatened to kill you before, hasn’t he?”

Lena reached out with her uninjured arm and stroked Reno’s hair. “My boy,” she whispered, “I know you did what you felt you had to do, Reno. My sweet, brave boy.” She drew his head to her shoulder and kept stroking his hair as he cried. “Reno, we have to call the police and I need a doctor,” she whispered as she kissed the crown of his head. “I want you to keep being brave. You were protecting me, but what you did…there’s going to be consequences.”

He nodded and sniffled, reaching up to take her good hand in his. “I’m sorry, Ma. I…I had to do it.”

She sighed shakenly and nodded.

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Yup, I had a criminal record before I was even old enough to legally drink a beer, yo. Since I was a minor and it was ruled as self-defense, they sent me to Juvenile detention. My sentence was for three years. Ma came and visited me every Saturday. She told me she was getting by okay but I noticed she was getting skinny. I worried about her all the time. I knew she wasn’t pulling in enough money to eat decently and still pay rent and I wanted to get out of that place as soon as I could, so I could find work and take care of her.

While I was in Juvie some guys tried to pick on me until they found out I was in there for killing a dude. I got a couple of hangers-on, mostly guys that got pushed around a lot and figured hanging out with the crazy redhead would give them some protection. Honestly though, I stayed on my best behavior and you may not believe this but I hardly talked to anyone. That’s right…the blabbermouth of the Turks was one of the most behaved, quiet inmates at Juvenile detention.

I did make a couple of friends while I was there but I can’t remember their names now. One of ‘em made me realize for the first time that I was a flaming homo. Now, I know most people don’t like to hear details about minors that young so I’ll spare you and just say the guy taught me how to experiment with my methods and perfect my own unique style of kissing. Oh yeah…he also taught me how to give great head, yo. Hope that info doesn’t make you blow chunks.

Like I said, my sentence was for three years but I got out in two and a half because of good behavior. So let’s see…I went in just before my fifteenth birthday so that made me…seventeen when I got out again. I never graduated from school but I had plenty of mechanical skills, so when I returned home to Ma I started fixing people’s cars for money. I saved up as much as I could and by the time I was eighteen I had a big enough customer base and enough cash to open up my own repair shop.

The problem is in the slums of Midgar, even when you’re doing good for yourself there’s still plenty of bad to go around, yo. You got your street gangs, you got your crime, you got your slum lords…and you got your medical problems that cost way too much to treat on what you make. Ma was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months after I got my business going. No matter how much extra business I brought in, I couldn’t pull in enough gil to pay for her treatment and we had no health insurance. I tried making myself presentable and applying for a loan from the bank but they said I didn’t have any collateral worth listing and I didn’t have a decent enough income to qualify for it. I never fucking got that…how can you only qualify for financial help if you can prove you don’t NEED it in the first place?

I was at the end of my rope and didn’t know what the hell I was going to do, yo. As it turned out, one of my buds knew a loan shark, whose car I happened to fix one day. The dude thought I was cute and my bud told me he’d loan me the money to have Ma taken care of, but in exchange I had to give him sexual favors until I finished paying him back. I know…fucking sick, isn’t it? But I would have done just about anything to make Ma healthy again and giving an older guy head now and then or letting him feel me up when he wanted to seemed like a small price to pay when the only other option for me was to let the cancer spread and kill her.

I took the deal, of course. Sucked to be me but Ma got her surgery and her treatment, and after a few months she was in remission and getting her strength back. I didn’t let what I had to do to make that happen get to me, man. I just took care of Ma, kept practicing my fighting techniques, kept my business going and put as much money each week as I could afford on the loan payment, to get it over with as fast as I could. I found an arcade that had a REAL flight simulator and I spent a couple of hours every week there, just fooling around on it. I wanted to fly more than ever, yo. Nothing like having fantasies of flying away when you’re giving head to a guy you normally wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole because you owe him money.

I was getting close to my nineteenth birthday the first time I met Rufus Shinra. Man, that’s a memory I’ll never forget, but I’ll have to tell you all about that sometime later, yo.

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-To be continued