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Snapshot	By : crystalwind Category: Final Fantasy VII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 682 -:- 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
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- 3
Warnings: Groping, and some hickeys. Nothing explicit though.
Text blocks in italics are flashbacks. If the large amount of italic text is too much of a pain in the ass to read, please let me know and I’ll find a less obtrusive way of marking it.
MORE IMPORTANT NOTICE! I’ve decided to go ahead and name the story Snapshot. I’ll officially change the name the next time I update, but I wanted to warn everyone first so that no one thinks the story suddenly disappeared.

Chapter One – Memories

Year 483
Sunlight filtered calmly through the window, illuminating a white room almost entirely devoid of any personal effects. A closet, dresser, and small bookshelf, all completely empty, took up the space on one half of the room. A small mini-fridge sat next to the bed on the other side, doubling as a nightstand. A pair of tanned hands worked steadily, sorting the contents of a box into two piles on the bed: that which should be saved, and that which should probably have been thrown out a long time ago. A copy of the Turk Field Manual, brand new and as of yet unopened, sat next to the “save” pile.
A navy-striped tie was one of the first items to be pulled out of the box, and the quiet worker smiled, alone and unseen in the privacy of his old room, and remembered.

“Today begins the first official day of your training to become Turks. Most of you will not make it. Some of you,” the speaker paused, letting his hard gaze travel around the room, “have already been blacklisted as probable failures.”
The large gym was filled with Trainee hopefuls, hanging on each and every word of the man standing at the podium. His face was lined and scarred, and his shaggy brown hair fell in waves around his face. He hadn’t bothered to introduce himself, entering the room with two other Turks by his side precisely at 1200 and launching straight into his introductory speech. Everyone knew who he was anyway: Verdot, the man who had either given them an invitation to join, or who had told them that they either could join or die like the criminals that no small few of them were.
There was a bit of uneasy shifting throughout the room at the mention of a blacklist. Not many of them had expected that the Turks would already be analyzing them and anticipating failure. Seated on the edges of the group, where he wouldn’t feel suffocated by the presence of so many other people, Rude remained still and silent. Of course the Turks had already started the blacklist; they had been analyzing every single Trainee since the invitations were handed out. In any case, the presence of a blacklist also meant that there was a list of people expected to pass, which was always a hopeful thing.
Verdot continued, “With this in mind, we feel that you each have the potential to prove us wrong... Otherwise, we wouldn’t have bothered to invite you here. We expect a lot from all of you, and we do not expect to be let down.” A warning was hidden in this statement, which Rude made careful note of. Putting forth any less than 100 percent effort would not be tolerated, and those who didn’t make the cut wouldn’t be around for very long. Rude had no intention of falling into that category.
Verdot’s speech didn’t last much longer. He told them about the three-month Deadline, after which they could not voluntarily quit. Implied in that was the caveat that they also couldn’t be allowed to leave the program alive. They would be given a three day grace period to come to their senses and return; after that, they would be disposed of. Verdot was not a man to mince words, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind what he meant when he said “disposed of”.
Verdot concluded his speech with a final set of instructions: “You should all have completed inprocessing by now, and may return to your rooms or the common areas for the remainder of the day. Further instructions will be passed along later in the day. Dismissed.”
As Rude followed the rest of the Trainees out of the gym, he noticed the Turks converging on Verdot, and got the feeling that they were all about to be debriefed on what they thought of the new Trainees. Vincent Valentine stood next to Verdot, where he had remained since their entrance to the gym. He gave Rude a small nod of recognition, which Rude cautiously returned. The other Turk who had entered with Verdot was a slender man of Wutaiian descent whose dark eyes were even colder than Verdot’s, if that was possible, and Rude quickly decided that he didn’t want to risk offending that man by lingering to try and talk to Vincent.
Squaring his shoulders and resisting the urge to straighten his already-impeccably striped tie and carefully-pressed dress shirt, Rude turned away and strode out of the large double doors.

Rude smiled again, carefully folding the striped tie in his hands. That had been the last day he ever wore that tie; from that point on, he and the rest of the Trainees had worn only the dark suit of the Turks, complete with a black tie for normal wear and a crimson tie for formal occasions. He set the tie down on the trash pile; the Turk uniform was his life now, and he wouldn’t need the navy tie again.
Half of the box had been emptied (most of it landing in the discard pile) before Rude paused again, this time to pull out a Day-Glo Yellow reflective belt. It was dropped onto the discard pile immediately, and the smile that accompanied the memories that it dredged up was more of a wry smirk than anything else.

The first day of training dawned bright and early. Well, early anyway; the sun wasn’t up yet, so bright was probably a bit of an exaggeration, and in any case, none of the Trainees felt particularly bright at 0300. The uniform for the morning consisted of black shorts and shirt, running shoes, white socks (which were not to have any visible logos and must be tall enough to cover the ankles, and Gaia help anyone who wore non-regulation socks), and a reflective belt bright enough even in the early-morning darkness to hurt the eyes. Today was the first day of physical training, or the dreaded PT as the Trainees would soon learn to call it.
The Trainees fell into a loose formation, and Rude immediately decided that the start of the first day of training was already a complete gaggle-fuck. Apparently the Turk Instructors agreed, because the next 10 minutes was spent with them screaming at the Trainees to “Hurry the fuck up, assholes, we don’t have all fucking day to wait on your sorry asses, get in alphabetical order!”
What followed was nearly an hour of sheer agony: more pushups, lunges, flutter kicks, and suicides than Rude could count. Half of the Trainees were on their knees before it was half over, vomiting whatever remained of dinner last night and then continuing to dry-heave as their stomachs cramped and bitterly informed them that they weren’t ready for this. When about 30 percent of the Trainees remained on their feet, the TIs decided that everyone had had enough, and called for a break. And by break, they meant run. Rude wasn’t sure how far they ran. All he knew was that 327 Trainees had reported for duty yesterday, at least 250 had made it as far as the run this morning, and less than 50 remained by the end of the run, which lasted an hour and a half and was at a quick enough pace that Rude’s chest stabbed and his legs felt like jelly by the end.
Despite his physical pain, Rude was actually able to remain towards the front of the survivors, beaten by only three other Trainees. A fourth, blond-haired and blue-eyed and seemingly unaffected by the quick pace, cruised alongside Rude and grinned when he introduced himself as Price and had to wait several minutes for Rude to gasp out his name in return. The two kept pace with each other for the remainder of the run; Rude used Price as his inspiration to not fall out, although he was reasonably certain that his fair-haired “battle buddy” needed no similar encouragement. By the time the nightmarish run finally ended, it was all Rude could do to remember his training on the beach and continue to walk instead of collapsing where he stood. Price looked around, bright-eyed and apparently unwinded, and Rude sighed internally, reminded of the fact that no matter how physically fit he was, people like Price would always outdo him on the runs, because he was too damned big to have the natural ability that they had. He actually had to work for it.

Shaking his head, Rude continued sorting through the pile. He soon dredged up a half-used pack of bore patches, and he chuckled when he tossed them onto the “save” pile. He hadn’t been the best marksman during Basic Rifle Marksmanship – he had shot a 34 out of 40, earning a Sharpshooter badge instead of an Expert – but he had certainly been able to disassemble and reassemble his weapons the fastest. Vincent Valentine, who had declined to teach the course but wandered around helping to correct Trainees, smirked when the times were called off.
An old mouthguard was the next item to be tossed into the discards pile, and Rude recalled with some surprise how quickly he had taken to Combatives. It was true that his bulk gave him a natural advantage when rolling for dominant body positions, since he could easily manhandle most of the other Trainees, but he had surprised himself – and the TIs – with how quickly he grasped the other Combatives techniques. He found the Level I Clinch Drill easy to pass, and was scheduled to begin Level II training two weeks from graduation. His leather fighting gloves, which the Combatives instructor had presented to him upon his acceptance into the Level II class, were already packed carefully away with his new uniforms.
Rude almost missed the small medical vial when he finally finished sorting items and placing the “saves” back into the box. He stared at it for a moment before picking it up, gazing quietly at the misshapen bullet inside.

Towards the end of training, each Trainee was paired with a Senior Turk as a mentor for conducting field missions. Because the Turks were expanding in size, many of the Trainees were doubled up with mentors; Rude had gotten lucky enough to be paired with Price, whom he’d made close friends with. Their mentor, a veteran Turk named Dagger, waited for them one Friday outside of classes, sealed mission envelope in hand. Both teens sighed inwardly, knowing that a Friday mission meant a weekend full of After-Action Reviews and paperwork, but they remained quiet and followed Dagger to the Briefing Room.
The mission was a fairly simple one, although it held the potential to be extremely dangerous. For quite some time now, the Turks had been tracking the actions of an entity in the slums of Midgar called the Reaper. The Reaper’s organization, known as the Lich to the city’s denizens, had existed for decades, maybe even centuries – before the Upper Plate had even been built. The Reaper himself changed periodically as previous leaders of the criminal organization grew old or tired of running it. The current incarnation, a man named Tanner, had been slowly increasing his activities over the past several months. Nothing was said directly to the Trainees, but it was rumored that Verdot believed the increase to be a precursor to Tanner stepping down as the Reaper. Such a regime change usually meant years of preparation from the retiring leader, so the change – if that’s what this was, anyway – would happen long after Rude and his classmates graduated, but Verdot – who it was rumored was preparing to step down himself – wanted to begin gathering as much intel as possible before that occurred. He also wanted to be prepared in case the increase was really a precursor to a larger grab for power; Tanner had proven himself to be a highly ambitious man during his time heading the Lich.
In any case, the mission that Dagger briefed to the two Trainees was a simple dismounted stake-out… made extremely dangerous because it was a stake-out of Tanner’s people, and because it was in the Sector 4 slums, arguably the most dangerous sector of Midgar. Sector 4 was where the Gang Wars were.
Less than an hour after the brief, the Rude and Price were standing with Dagger on the elevator that provided an easy access point between the Upper and Lower Plates, praying that it didn’t break down halfway and force them to climb the ladder down the rest of the way. Once safely on the ground, the three made the walk to Sector 4 in good time, silent most of the way. The streets were fairly empty, which was typical of a Friday in the early afternoon; most people weren’t out of work yet, and wouldn’t be taking to the streets until later, when the stores closed and the bars and clubs kicked into high gear. The Turks planned to be back on the Upper Plate by then.
The atmosphere was even quieter in Sector 4, and more tense. All three Turks were immediately on their guard; even though Tanner had increased his operations, it hadn’t really changed the overall atmosphere of the slums yet, and so a quiet, tense atmosphere generally meant one thing: two gangs were preparing to have a Meet somewhere, and everyone with any sense was staying indoors and out of sight.
The gangs of Midgar, and the associated Gang Wars, had existed easily as long as the Reaper. It was easy to understand why the gangs formed; it happened everywhere where there was a significant level of poverty. What no one really knew was why the Wars started The winners didn’t really gain any territory; even if the losing gang was entirely wiped out, the winners would usually stay out of their old territory and let a new gang to form in the area, allowing the amount of gangs to remain at the status quo. It wasn’t unusual for a losing gang to be almost completely destroyed, either; the Wars were vicious, bloody affairs, whose only true purpose seemed to be an opportunity to engage in violence. Although Turks were generally left alone when wandering the streets in uniform, there was no guarantee of safety when the gangs’ blood was boiling before or during a Meet, and none of the three wanted to get caught up in a fight; a group of 10 or so battle-mad teenagers would take down three Turks with no real concern for their own safety.
Alert and moving quickly to get to their stake-out point and out of the danger zone, Dagger and his Trainees still had no way of preventing what came next: rounding the corner of a building, only two blocks from their hoped-for safety, they ran straight into one of the gangs on its way to the Meet.
For a long, agonizing moment, the two groups of people simply stared at each other. A quick head count told Rude that there were thirteen people in this particular gang, which was bad news for the Turks. 4-1 odds in the enemy’s favor was never a good thing. As the gang members assessed the Turks and took note of their uniforms, Dagger, experienced in dealing with the gangs and knowing how quickly the situation could go south, let himself hope that the gang wasn’t too hyped up to ignore the status that those suits represented. His hopes were in vain when one of the gang members – presumably their leader – sneered, twitched in a silent signal to his companions, and drew a gun.
By the time he had his weapon leveled at the Turks, Price had fired off a shot from his own concealed handgun, Rude had donned his fighting gloves, and dagger was simultaneously flinging throwing knives with one hand and calling on his cell for immediate backup with the other. The gang leader went down in a head of blood and entrails, but that didn’t deter the others, who had all drawn weapons on his signal. The Turks quickly found themselves embroiled in a melee fight that they had no chances of winning. Few of the twelve remaining gang members had handguns, but Dagger was directly in front of one of them when she began to wildly fire off rounds; two shots to the stomach quickly disabled him, and his phone and the blade he currently held in his hand clattered to the ground. Price was the next to go down, stabbed in the leg, and Rude decided that no matter how quickly backup arrived, it was going to be too late to help any of them. He tossed Dagger over his shoulder, sweeping up his knife and cell at the same time, and grabbed Price by the shoulder, hauling him up and back around the corner.
They ran back the way they had come, Rude dragging Price most of the way, and zigzagged their way between buildings for three blocks before the pursuing gang gave up the chase and continued back towards their Meet. At that point, Rude let go of Price’s arm and allowed him to limp along instead of being dragged, and they made their way towards Sector 5, where there would be more people and less danger of being ambushed. They made it another half of a block before Rude passed out, blood pumping from a wound in his shoulder that he hadn’t even realized was there.
The bullet had passed through an artery, although it fortunately missed any major nerves. Tseng, Verdot’s second-in-command, led the backup team, and tracked Dagger’s cell phone to find the downed team. Price had managed to use torn strips of their shirts to perform some basic first-aid and stop the majority of their bleeding; the doctors credited this for saving Dagger’s life. Price argued that Rude was the one who had hauled the three of them out of there, and Verdot and Tseng compromised by not giving either of them any special recognition (although both were treated to free drinks at Mainstreet by an unknown individual, and Tseng studiously avoided looking at either of them the entire time they were there). Dagger was placed on desk duty, and Rude was accosted by one of the nurses on his way to the dining facility the next Monday, when she presented him with a small glass medical vial containing a spent slug, the blood meticulously cleaned off for him.

Rude rolled the vial in his hand for a moment, thinking about the days that had followed that mission. He wasn’t one for getting inebriated, but the free drinks that night (which he was sure Tseng would have denied buying if asked) had made him quickly surpass his usual boundaries. He and Price had stumbled back to his dorm room after, too drunk for either of them to consider that Price’s room was only next door and not too far for him to walk. When they ran into the bed and fell over on top of it, they wound up tangled with one another and descended into a fit of giggling, which would have probably irritated Rude’s other neighbor of that particular Trainee hadn’t failed out the fourth week of training. As it was, there was no one around to hear the giggling, or the drunken kisses and groping that followed. There was also no one to witness their awkward wake-up in the morning, when they realized that they were both equally naked and covered in varying amounts of hickeys and cum.
Over the following week, the awkwardness around each other had given way to the realization that they did actually like each other, and that the drunken nights had really only served to speed up a process that Rude’s reticence and Price’s good manners would have probably delayed for months. After that, it became natural for them to spend the majority of their free time together, and both were pleased to be announced as partners at graduation, even if the thrill was slightly marred by the fact that Dagger was probably going to be on desk duty for the remainder of his career and therefore wasn’t named as the Senior Turk who would continue to mentor them during the early stages of their career.
Now, the afternoon following graduation, the two Turks would be moving into their first apartments, conveniently situated next door to each other. Smiling at that, Rude pocketed the bullet, took one last look around his now-empty room, and walked into the hallway, box tucked under his arm.
He wasn’t the only person moving out last-minute odds and ends; another young Turk with pale hair and even paler skin was stepping out of his own room as Rude entered the hallway. The albino smiled upon seeing Rude, pale eyes sparkling behind his exceedingly thick glasses. “Hello, Rude. And goodbye, I suppose; we probably won’t be seeing much of each other any longer, will we?”
Rude inclined his head in greeting and smiled back. “Hey Whisper. I hope you don’t plan on spending that much time holed away in the Development section… You’re still allowed to come hang out you know.” Whisper laughed, his voice echoing down the empty corridor.
“You know Rude, I think you’re the only one of my classmates who never looked down on me for being albino, or for being half blind, or for preferring to do research instead of go to the field.”
Perhaps it was his own unusually dark skin and quiet attitude, but Rude didn’t really understand why someone would look down on Whisper for those things. “Honestly, I’d rather have someone who enjoys doing it be the one working Development; it’s probably better that way for those of us trying to use what you come up with. In any case, why look down on someone for having a job they like? And the albino thing is just stupid; they may as well look down on me for having dark skin.”
Whisper smiled again. “Broad shoulders and a dark complexion are more likely to earn you stalkers than disgust, but I suppose you never really felt the need to let that bother you. I’m certainly glad to have met you here though; it’s not often one finds a person with your patient outlook on life. I wish you the best of luck in the field.”
Rude clasped the hand that was extended to him and nodded. “Best of luck to you too, Whisper. And I’m serious about hanging out; I’ll be keeping in touch with you.” Whisper nodded in return, promised to check his messages every so often, and turned to lock the door behind him. Rude continued on outside.
He was ambushed almost immediately. “Rude! Rude! Stand right there!” Squinting against the sun, he found himself tugged into place next to Price, with one of their fellow graduates lifting a camera and demanding that they both say “cheese”. Price wrapped an arm around his waist and he grinned, just in time for the flash.

A/N: I’ve decided that I really don’t want to actually write any lemons with Rude and Price… you’ll understand why later in the story, but for now there probably won’t be any lemons in the story, just some inferred “situations” between the two.
This is a couple years before Reno leaves his home over in Reaper. I have a timeline going to keep things straight, I just haven’t decided yet whether to release it or not. If I get reviews from this asking me to make it available, I’ll post a link in my profile (a link to a modified version, which doesn’t give away key events that haven’t happened yet or take place in another unfinished story ;-) ).
Anyway, I started this a while ago (umm, before the 4^th of July weekend, and I’m sorry to whoever I told that I’d have it updated that next week, I was too busy doing stuff with family over that weekend, as predicted, and Army training sucked up the rest of my life between then and now). So, sorry for the long time between updates :( I’s still doing training, but I’ve moved into classroom mode for the most part, so we’re getting released around 4:30pm most days, which hopefully means I’ll have more energy and time to update now :p
I don’t know if this will be the next story I update or not – I feel like I’m neglecting Fallen, but I haven’t sat down to really outline what I want to have happen with Axel’s childhood; I have a couple of key events but nothing to fill the spaces in between yet (that’s actually kind of where this story is at now that I’ve finally churned out this chapter). Shifter might be next, since I have a better idea of what I want to happen next, but I have some serious plot holes to figure out first (sometimes things make way more sense in my head than they do on paper, and that needs to be remedied before I can post my next chapter, hehe). I also want to start Royalty, but I have 3 in-progress pieces already, and as with the others, I have no specific plot for Royalty yet – I just want to finally introduce Rufus :p (well, he is supposed to appear in Fallen, so I might have to start that story soon-ish anyway).
ANYway… if you guys have any preferences on which story you want to see updated next, maybe I can accommodate :)
Oh, and I started a blog, in case anyone’s interested (it’s mostly me bitching about Army training right now, but maybe someone will find it entertaining?...) It’s at: http:// cbonadeo . blogspot . com (remove the spaces of course)
Reviews!

Brijearin - thanks for the review :)
ASOTA – nope, different partner :) Vincent will appear frequently during this story, but he’ll remain in more of a friend/mentor role, not as Rude’s actual partner. There will also probably be an Interlude chapter with Vincent and Tseng at some point (since I kinda-sorta “introduced” Tseng here too…)

Aand… feel free to point out grammar and typos as you find them :) (and if you’ve managed to find plot holes in the first actual chapter, point those out too, and then smack me for dropping the ball so early :p)
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Snapshot