Adult-FanFiction.org : Final Fantasy

The Reaper	By : crystalwind Category: Final Fantasy VII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 676 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
Warnings: Language. Angst. Fluffy angst.

Chapter 14 – Bitter Tears, Bitter Memories

The bar was quiet for a Friday night; only a small handful of patrons sat at the tables, and only one person sat at the bar, talking quietly with the bartender. The soft murmur of people talking filled the room, swirling dust motes giving the entire scene a sleepy appearance. The talking stopped entirely when the door opened, and a Turk strode into the room.
The bartender tensed, noticing the suit before anything else, and cleared his throat quietly, alerting his friend. The grey-haired young man turned warily, too soon to observe the bartender's serious face turn into a grin, and zeroed in on the suit as well. It took him a moment to connect the smirking face attached to the suit with his memories. "Reno?"
Reno laughed, taking the last steps in a few short bounds. "'Sup Sonny, Mel? Long time no see." His eyes sparkled with mischief, well aware of how unexpected his visit was. He seemed to have a really bad habit of disappearing for many months at a time, and reappearing when everyone thought he was dead; his picture was back up on the wall.
Following the redhead's gaze to the wall, Mel exhaled a gust of breath, shook his head, and finally laughed, hopping over the bar to catch Reno up in a tight hug. "I should just start counting from the time you disappear; nine months again, huh? You're impossible, kid." Reno only smirked, accepting Sonny's clap on the back with good grace, and sat down on a barstool, looking over at Mel expectantly.
"So, bartender, you gonna get me a beer or what?" Mel chuckled, shaking his head again, and scooted back over to his side of the bar.

The rest of the evening passed quietly. The bar never really got busy, and Mel spent most of his time talking to Sonny and Reno, catching up on the past nine months. Reno told them about life as a Trainee, although he had to be careful not to tell them anything particularly useful about the company. He skated over his troubles with Devin's gang and with making friends amongst the Turks and other Trainees, painting a somewhat idyllic image of his life above the Plate. Both older men read between the lines easily enough, but they remained silent about it, catching him up on the happenings of his old friends and the shifting atmosphere of the Slums instead.
The atmosphere had indeed shifted, and not for the better. Reno's disappearance after the Reaping had given rise to rumors that the Reaper, the largest authority figure below the Plate, was dead. His continued absence during the months following had only seemed to confirm the rumors, and a new level of lawlessness had taken root in the Slums. New gangs, young and especially violent and careless in their youth and inexperience, roamed the streets, spreading like a plague into the sectors surrounding Sector 4. Gang territories had shifted greatly as a result, and although the Reaper's domain was still (mostly) uncontested, it wouldn't be long before the gangs began to carve that up as well.
With the decline of authority and rise in violence came a rise in drug trafficking. Dirty money and diseases flowed freely, giving birth to a new level of crime in the under-city. The money wound up feeding into the gangs, who in turn fed the drug machine, creating a dark cycle of blood money and brutality that seemed to only be worsening as time went on. Reno sighed, wondering if Tseng knew of the problems appearing below the Plate. He didn't particularly want to be the one to bring it up, since he was reasonably sure that Tseng didn't like him, but… he couldn't take care of the problems himself now that he was contracted to the Turks, and he didn't want to see "his" city suffer.
Downing the rest of his drink, he stood to leave, tossing some gil down next to his empty glass. Sonny cocked an eyebrow. "We gonna see you around more than once a year from now on?"
Reno rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, rub it in… I probably won't be able to stop by unless it's on the weekends, but tell Myrna and all them that I'll stop by again some time soon." Sonny and Mel nodded, watching him put his jacket back on.
"Reno." Reno paused on his way to the door, turning to glance back at Sonny. "I'm still around you know, in case you need something." 'Information. A sounding board for ideas. A friend…' Reno gazed at him quietly for a moment before nodding and turning for the door again. He didn't look back this time.

Tseng accepted Reno's assessment of the situation below the Plate as he accepted everything: quietly, with a polite nod and a "thank you" and a general indication that Reno was now dismissed. If anything was being done by ShinRa or the Turks to remedy to growing problem, Reno was never informed.
The following months passed by in monotony for Reno. He had paperwork to do every day; some of it was relevant and interesting, but most seemed to serve no real purpose other than to keep him busy, and he got bored with it quickly. Missions consisted primarily of stakeouts, and were worse than the paperwork. Rude mostly ignored him during the missions, staring out the window instead, and eventually Reno gave up at trying to fill the silence with his own empty words. Rude never talked back anyway, and he didn't agree to go out on the town with Reno again.
As far as Reno was concerned, it only made sense; nobody really wanted to be his partner anyway.

Reno stalked forward on the balls of his feet, barely refraining from bounding ahead. Two months. Two months, and they were finally on a real mission. Not a stakeout. Not some stupid bodyguard assignment. An actual fucking job. It wasn't the coolest mission that Reno could imagine; they weren't going undercover in some exotic country to catch a terrorist, or blowing something up, or getting involved in some kind of high-speed chase, or flying anywhere, or blowing something up… But at least they weren't sitting in a damned car watching an empty building for an evening.
Actually, if Reno thought about it, he'd have to admit that the mission was probably kind of boring, and only seemed fun because it was something different. The Turks normally assigned to patrol the Slums had been catching wind of a new drug ring in the city; with the drugs came blood, and people had begun disappearing off of the streets. It wasn't necessarily any worse than the other crime organizations that festered below the plate, but Tseng had decided to try and nip this one in the bud before it became (another) serious issue. Apparently he hadn't ignored Reno's report on the Slum situation quite as much as Reno had thought. In any case, there was an informant who was willing to talk, and Rude and Reno were assigned the task. Reno suspected it was because he was from the Slums himself, and would be able to relate to the guy; either that or they expected Rude to intimidate him into talking if the snitch changed his mind. Whatever the reason, Reno was happy to be walking the street (even if they guy would probably talk without having to resort to any kind of "persuasive measures"), and his restless energy showed it.
He wasn't, however, too excited to notice when something was amiss. The streets were quiet.
Sector 3, while as much of a Slum as pretty much everywhere else, was normally a busy Sector, with plenty of shops and cafés for people to be travelling to and from. It wasn't normal for there to be no sounds, the streets empty.
Reno stopped instantly, tense and silent. Rude, who didn't spend a lot of time in Sector 3, moved to his side, eyes roving around behind his dark shades. He knew something was wrong by Reno's guarded posture, but he wasn't sure what. He turned to ask what was wrong, just in time for them to walk around the corner.
Slink was a more accurate description of how the seven street toughs moved. They were thin and wiry, as most people from the Slums were, and had the feral, half-starved expressions that all of the new, young gangs wore. Those feral looks turned into feral grins when they spotted Rude and Reno, and they made a beeline for the two Turks.
Rude, for his part, was confused. These youths looked like predators on the attack, but nobody in their right mind attacked a Turk down here, not in broad daylight and not without making it a surprise ambush. Certainly not with only seven people!
Reno, on the other hand, was less surprised and more angry. He knew from Sonny and Mel that things had changed down here; the new gangs were too violent to know caution, and too young to care about the old Code. That meant that they were too stupid to know to leave the Turks alone, which Reno kind of expected and accepted with a kind of resignation. What angered him was they clearly had no idea who he was, or if they did chose not to care. Reno had never exactly paraded around the fact that he was the Reaper – that probably would have been a tad suicidal – but at the very least the old gangs knew, and always informed their new members to stay out of his way. This close to Sector 4, this errant gang should have known, even if they weren't around eleven months ago. Reno knew that his old territory was on the verge of being contested in the Wars, but he also knew, courtesy of Sonny, that his name and face were still well-recognized throughout the Lower City. These trashy, filthy fucking brats should know better.
They obviously didn't, and he scowled when they got close. 'Scum.'
They smiled, cold shark-like sneers, and fanned out, circling around the Turks and trapping them against the building that they stood next to. Reno tensed, muscles coiled and balanced on the balls of his feet, but gave no other indication that he was concerned. Rude sighed, shifting slightly to give himself a little more working space from his partner. This obviously wasn't going to turn out very well.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" The apparent leader of the gang, a lean teenager with mousy hair and cold eyes, chuckled. "Interlopers."
Reno rolled his eyes. "Look, why don't you stop being a fuckin' twat and get the fuck out of my face. Little shitbags like you give street rats a bad name." And that was all it took.

Rude was furious, waiting in a corner of the hospital room for the doctor to finish stitching Reno up and leave.
He wasn't angry about Reno insulting the gang leader into fighting; he had kind of expected that. He wasn't even particularly mad about the fact that Reno had gotten himself hurt; in a seven to two fight, the chances of walking away unscathed weren't really likely, especially when they started off surrounded. No, he was angry that Reno had apparently decided that he could take on all seven of them by himself and had proceeded to attempt exactly that, completely ignoring the fact that Rude was there, that his partner was there, to guard his back, to share some of the work, to make sure that he didn't get shot in the arm!
Rude gritted his teeth, the low sound making the doctor flinch and speed up his bandaging. Reno continued staring at the floor, avoiding looking at him as much as possible. Rude glared at him from behind his sunglasses, and the doctor scrambled to finish, rushing out as soon as he could. Now it was Reno's turn to flinch, expecting Rude to explode on him the instant the doctor was out of the room. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the dark aura practically oozing from Rude's pores was his fault, and he braced himself, half-expecting for Rude to knock him off the examining table. Rude, of course, did no such thing.
He straightened slowly from where he had been leaning against the wall, jerking sharply at the hem of his jacket to remove an invisible crease, tugging to straighten the already perfectly straight tie. He then paced over to the examining table, slowly and deliberately, purposefully taking his time. He crossed his arms when he got there, staring wordlessly at his partner for several long, agonizing moments before he finally spoke. His words game out in a low, rumbling growl.
"What were you thinking?" The disapproval and disappointment in his voice made Reno cringe, and he didn't answer, looking further away and trying to restrain himself from curling up into a ball. He had known Rude was mad at him since the fight ended, but he hadn't actually felt bad about it until Rude spoke. Rude, discerning that Reno wasn't going to respond, continued. "Were you trying to get hurt? Did you forget that you had a partner? Do you not realize that I'm your partner to back you up?" His tone never varied, never rose in pitch, and Reno shuffled where he was sitting, transferring easily from guilty to sullen.
"I don't need anyone to back me up." If he wasn't feeling guilty and in pain enough to still be upset, his manner would have been best described as sulking. That was all it took for Rude to finally snap.
"You just got shot, you hare-brained idiot! You obviously can't be trusted to do something on your own without backup, or you'll wind up getting yourself killed! What the hell is the matter with you?" Rude's voice carried down the hall, and every doctor and nurse within hearing distance quickly scurried out of hearing distance, not wanting to be anywhere near the enraged Turk when he sounded like that. Reno, on the other hand, never had taken very well to being yelled at, and Rude's outburst made him surge to his feet, gone from sullen to furious as quickly as he'd gone from guilty to sullen.
"You act like you're so damned perfect, Rude, like you know every fucking thing there is to know about me, and I should be grateful that you're working with me and grateful that I'm here and fucking happy to have a partner! You don't know anything about me, and you don't care! Why the fuck should I be happy to have you as a partner, when you're only here because there was no other choice? Why should I want a partner at all? I don't need another person to trust and rely on and care about only to turn around and have them stab me in the back!" He stopped, sides heaving, and Rude stared, confused. No other choice? Stabbed in the back? He blinked and opened his mouth, but Reno was gone before he could ask, sprinting down the hall and out of the hospital and into the darkness.
Rude stared at the blood on the examining table, mind working to try and process what had just happened. He turned, following Reno's path out of the hospital at a much slower pace, and paused just outside the door. Night had fallen while they were inside, and it was raining.

There was very little dust at Hole in the Wall; Reno's renovations had made the building nearly airtight, and the never-ending dust of the Slums had left his home virtually untouched. Inside of the Lab, there was no dust at all; the airseal had made sure of that. The building was quiet, as large and empty as Reno would have remembered it, had he allowed himself to ever think of the place like that. He hadn't, either during the time he'd lived there before or while he'd been with the Turks. Thoughts like that were dangerous; the loneliness that they invoked tended towards the unbearable in the environments that Reno was used to. Now, alone again in the vacant house, it was difficult to keep the emptiness, and the loneliness, at bay. Curled up in a corner of the Lab, with Alyse's painting smiling down at him and his old, battered bear clutched in his lap, he wept, the tears tracing silent paths down his cheeks. There was no point to making noise when he cried; no one was there to hear him anyway.

The old photograph crumpled in Rude's fist, and he bowed his head, closing his eyes tightly against the old pain. It had been four years since his last partner, four years since the betrayal, four years since his death… The photograph made a crinkling noise, and Rude forced his fist to open, smoothing the picture flat against his coffee table. He and his partner smiled up out of the photo, taken seven years ago when Rude had graduated. A lot had changed since then.
Rude hadn't wanted another partner, hadn't wanted another weakness that could be used against him, another target for those who would try to take him down. Tseng had allowed it, knowing that Rude was competent in the field and with the understanding that Rude would allow Tseng or Elena to partner him if need be. For four years that had been enough, but Rude never counted on someone like Reno coming along.
The redhead was one of those people who blazed through life on their own wavelength, either sucking people in or scattering them according to their natures. Rude had quickly found himself pulled to the teen's peculiar personality, in spite of all of the pranks and attitudes. When Devin's group of miscreants hurt Reno, Rude felt anger boiling beneath his skin; when every other Senior Turk shunned him, Rude wondered why the Company was full of so many close-minded assholes. When he was finally asked to partner Reno during his final weeks as a Trainee, he smiled – internally, of course. Faced with Reno's wound from this last mission and his own bitter memories, Rude hadn't known what to do, and had snapped, lashing out at his partner to hide his own confusion and concern. Now that Reno had fled and left him to his memories, Rude regretted it. Reno's show of anger had done a poor job at masking his pain, and Rude was too familiar with that kind of pain himself to be fooled into thinking it was physical.
He stood, leaving the wrinkled photograph laying on the table.

Reno didn't notice when the door opened, or when someone entered the Lab; he was physically and emotionally exhausted, and had slipped into that surreal state between sleeping and waking, face resting on the softly-furred head of the stuffed animal in his arms. A pair of strong arms lifted him, and he found himself cradled in someone's lap, cheek resting against a warm chest. A hand stroked through his hair, and in his drowsy state he allowed it, too tired and hurt to turn away the comfort. He was too tired to be startled when a low voice started speaking to him, and he let the soft voice and hands soothe him, the deep rumbling in the chest and gentle rocking lulling him to sleep.
"I'm sorry, sorry, I shouldn't have yelled at you… I was worried… I wasn't the last option for you, you were the first choice for me… I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't cry any more…"

A/N:
Holy crap, it took me forever to write this. I'm actually writing this note before I even finish the chapter, because I'm stuck for how to word things for about the 100th time here :( Didn't expect this chapter to be so tough to spit out… I'd say that hopefully the next one won't take so long, but although I know what I want to have happen, most of the scenarios I've been tossing around in my head are completely unrealistic, so it might take me a while to make it actually work :( Rude and Reno will get a REAL real mission though, yay :D
Anyway, a few points below.
Name of zombie city – Claster, if only because Reno can act mentally retarded coming up with rhymes for it :p (City name courtesy of Etrixan)
Reno is still 16 at this point (if I have another full month pass by before the Claster mission, I could be mean and make it happen on his 17th birthday :p)
- 16
- 17
- 18
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Reaper