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The grin split a face that had recently witnessed a killing, and he was laughing. With a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, he seemed to blend into the dark surroundings a little too easily, and he motioned wildly in some anecdote he told. Red hair spilled down his back, more of a tail that you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it, a suggestion of some paradoxical vanity that only a vain person would see as such.
The young man, the young killer and the one laughing at that particular moment, didn't give much thought to his appearance on the whole. As long as he blended in and was comfortable, he didn't spare the mirror more than a second glance.
Any spectator would have concluded that he was alone, judging from the sounds of a one-sided albeit lucrative conversation, had they missed his quiet companion. The second man seemed to be an antithesis of the first, hairless, stiff-collared and hands steepled on the bar in front of him.
The two Turks had recently gotten off duty, and they seemed to be sheer opposites. Reno describing the horrors of getting blood stains out of suits to Rude in all detail, and Rude only half listening with his eyes darting around the bar out of habit.
People glanced at them out of the corners of their eyes. The slightly more inebriated patrons openly leered. Potential rebels shot them veiled glares. Rude stored all of this information away for later use as he absorbed everything in one wave of sensory knowledge.
"Rude," Reno's voice emphasized his long time partner's name with annoyance, "are you listening?"
"Baking soda," he repeated, "I'm telling you. That gets stains out of anything."
Reno knocked back the remnants of his drink, and for a moment he appeared strangely silhouetted with his head thrown back. Rude shook his head slightly and squeezed the bridge of his nose; it had been a long day.
They never talked about assignments after they were completed. In fact, if any eavesdropper had ever listened in on the two Turks' bar conversation, they would have been sorely disappointed. The dialogue ranged from how to get blood out of suits to who Scarlet was banging that week.
Reno's immovable grin glared out at Rude through the dinginess of the bar, although he was in his element and obviously felt the most comfortable amidst filth such as this. He balanced his chin in his bony hand, his wrist looking like some emaciated toothpick and his angular face scarred and dangerous. A bored Reno was not a good thing.
Rude gulped slightly.
"Hey Rude?" his voice was slightly thoughtful.
"Yeah?"
"I have a question," Reno's voice carried some serious weight to it, like lead.
Rude just raised an eyebrow slightly and waited, surprised at his friend's sudden change in mood, and he actually began trying to scrape together at least some emotion to offer up Reno.
"I'm broke. Buy me a drink?" Reno's laughter howled out across the tables sticky with spilled beer and liquor.
"Fuck you, Reno," the other man replied without thought, and ordered them both a drink.
By the time true night time had rolled around, Reno's eyes were sporadically focusing and unfocusing as he looked at Rude, trying to slur out a story and not quite succeeding in forming an actual plotline. Sometimes Rude had to suspect that he made up his little exploits as he went along.
Reno was very drunk; Reno was often very drunk. This was not a new experience for Rude. It was when the red-haired Turk began to direct curses in the general vicinity of those he knew very well were vehemently anti-Shinra that he began to be concerned. Rude knew that he could probably take down half the people in the bar before he actually took a hit himself, and he wasn't worried about that.
He was worried about losing the welcome, open door policy of his and Reno's patronage to this particular place. The bartender was relatively friendly and, remarkably, hadn't fully developed the obligatory abhorrence of Shinra that every slum dweller had. But Reno's mouth was quickly degenerating the harmonious situation.
"You," he said, his finger pointing lazily at no one in particular, "are a fuckin' pansy ass bastard who couldn't beat my mother, God rest her soul whoever the fuck she was, in a god damned fist fight."
Rude cringed. Reno sneered in the general direction of a group of men slightly younger than himself who were all glaring at him, youthful rebellious fire sparking in their eyes as their hatred for the youngest Turk in the Department of Administrative Research began to mount and slowly peak.
"Shut up Reno," Rude ordered point-blank, and socked his partner in the arm. Reno didn't acknowledge it or him for that matter.
"That's right!" his voice was a slurred imitation of itself, "Rude here will fight you!"
With that, eight men proceeded to get out of their seats and the entire bar went silent. There was a split second of absolute stillness; then all hell broke loose. Everyone who didn't have a weapon or materia vanished, those who knew what was good for them took refuge downstairs, and Reno just stared dumbly at the hoard coming to accost him.
For a moment, he looked slightly amused, and then as if rationalizing through his alcohol induced haze that he was dreaming, proceeded to pass out. The mob stopped in their slow attempt at intimidation, not really sure what to do now that their verbal tormentor was no longer a viable source of revenge. No sense in flogging a dead horse. So, of course, their gaze turned to Rude. Rude sighed.
Ten minutes and a few cracked knuckles later, Rude was shoving a half stumbling Reno out of the bar.
Reno grinned lazily once they were outside, "Thanks Rude. Hey, wazzat my fault?"
Rude glared at him through the sunglasses, but Reno was too drunk to notice.
"Yes."
He considered that response for a moment, "Oh."
"I'm taking you home," the sober man said as he hoisted Reno up to stand straight by the loose collar of his shirt and jacket, hauling the incoherent Turk behind him.
"Okay," came the complacent response, followed by that same drunken cackle, although there was something slightly off-putting about Reno when he laughed. One was never quite sure of whether he was amused or simply insane.
Rude's suggestion and Reno's agreement to it didn't last long however. Rude blinked fatigue away as he numbly led Reno home, slightly losing his usual keen awareness of the surroundings.
It was enough for Reno to pull away for a moment though, and he stood up straight as a rod suddenly, although he still looked privately amused as he always did, even in sobriety. Rude just stared at him, asking, "What?"
He watched, slightly dumbfounded, as Reno walked over to a parked car on the street where they had been walking. The lanky Turk just stood there for a moment in the pallid streetlight looking at it, as if he had suddenly picked up some random train of thought.
With the efficiency of a slum thief, exactly one of the things he had formerly been, he managed to unlock the car and climb into the driver's seat. Rude, who at this point was mildly entertained, just stood watching in full doubt that Reno would ever be able to actually start the vehicle. Something had gotten into his friend tonight, and he put it down to temporary insanity.
Reno felt underneath the steering wheel with the concentration of a surgeon, and Rude just crossed his arms, waiting for the other man to finish his drunken exploit that he wouldn't remember in the morning so they could continue on their way.
He wasn't expecting the rumble of a loud, sputtering engine and the slam of a door. Reno's eyes took on a maniacal gleam as the rusty powder blue car sped off down the street and with a screech of wheels turned around a corner.
For a moment, Rude just stood there with his arms still folded and the same expression on his face, not quite believing what had just happened. He blinked at the sudden silence.
Reno had gotten drunk, gotten them into a fight, hot-wired a car and was now driving around Midgar somewhere, drunk and wild as a bat out of hell. And he had thought their day job was interesting enough.
Suddenly the car roared back around the corner and squealed to a halt a few feet in front of Rude who didn't bother to move out of its path. Reno's fiery head bobbed out of the open window.
"C'mon!" he shouted, wholly excited and obviously high on adrenaline and alcohol, "get in!"
Rude didn't doubt that he'd leave him here, so he opened the door and got in for lack of a better plan. He was beginning to think that someone in a higher metaphysical position hated him.
"Reno, where are you going?"
Reno was hunched over the steering wheel, flooring the gas pedal and vrooming through the empty and abandoned streets of Sector Two. He didn't answer, but that odd humor had somehow faded into something more sinister.
"Reno!"
Suddenly he screeched to a halt, the brakes pounded down, and they were whip lashed to a stop.
"Where do you want to go?" was the crazed response.
At this point, Rude didn't know if he should just knock the other man out and seize control or suggest they drive to Costa del Sol. For some reason, regardless of the fact that an ocean separated them from that particular destination, he guessed that Reno would probably agree anyway.
For a moment they sat there, everything still, the vinyl of the seats cold and hard and the light fog in the air making everything unbearably frigid. The particular place they had stopped was just out of the reaches of any one streetlight and Reno's sharp features were shadowed as dark hollows fell across where his cheeks and eyes were.
They looked at each other for a moment, Reno's green eyes a little wider than they should have been normally and still drunk, although at this point Rude wasn't sure whether it was alcohol or spontaneity driving this illogical tirade on.
Finally Rude made a grab for the steering wheel, his hand lighting on the rather wide circle of it and he shimmied across the three-passenger seat to lean over Reno and turn the car off. Reno didn't try to commandeer anything, but Rude wasn't prepared to feel the front of his shirt gripped and yanked down.
Reno had managed to slip his lithe form to lie down, one of his legs bent at an awkward angle to the floor and the other resting on the seat. He knocked Rude's balance out from under him efficiently and the befuddled Turk crashed down to land on top of Reno.
"Rude," he said lowly, his mouth forming the name carefully, trying not to slur, "where do you want to go?"
Rude just looked at him like he was insane, trying to right himself, but the Turk wouldn't let his grip go and he pulled him down harder. He used his wiry strength to press his lanky body against his partner's and stared at him intently.
In the darkness, he hissed in agitation for being ignored and reiterated his question.
"I said," he repeated in a sort of tumble of words, "where..." -pressing his hips up- "do..." -down- "you..." -up- "want..." -into a rhythm- "to..." -he forced Rude's hips with his own- "go?"
"Reno," his voice was razor-edged, "what in the hell are you doing?"
The other man smiled self depreciatively, "Don't you want a piece of ass?"
Rude stared at him incredulously, trying unsuccessfully to stop Reno's rhythm against him, finally saying, "What is wrong with you?"
He just smiled enigmatically, throwing his head back the same way he had in the bar for a moment before letting Rude go and shoving him away almost roughly. The car roared to life and screamed down the street once more.
"Where do you want to go?" his voice was crazed and practically hysterical, "with a one way fucking ticket?!"
Rude was gripping the dash board of the car, white knuckled, partially concerned at Reno's evident lack of sanity and partially at the fact that he was hard. Great. Add it to the list.
"Is something bothering you?" he asked calmly, more unnerved by Reno's earlier actions than grand theft and the temporary shift in hysteria the that the other man was experiencing.
"Yes," he said in a drunkard's voice who's about to reveal his sorrows, but he didn't say anything else. Rude figured the car would run out of gasoline before Reno's paroxysm did, knowing that the gas gauge was dangerously pointing to "E".
They didn't speak for a few minutes and Rude had no idea whether Reno realized his escapade was to be foiled by a lack of resources. He was used to Reno's drunken nightly outbursts. Granted, they weren't usually this extreme, but every now and then the unhinged Turk would show a side of his personality that only appeared in the moment just before a kill.
The car slowed, reality sped up, and they stopped moving.
"Reno," Rude began, looking at his partner sideways and said in a wry tone, "are you ready to go home now?"
"Where do you want to go?" he repeated, his voice slightly hoarse from yelling earlier in the bar and from the energy he had exerted; he seemed almost sapped now, but one could never tell with Reno.
"Home," Rude replied blandly.
Two green eyes turned to focus on him and glittered dangerously, their strange color highlighted by the artificial light streaming through the car windows. Reno's hands were still gripping the steering wheel the same way he gripped his gun, firmly, with a powerful confidence.
But he looked down, strands of red hair obscuring his face as he stared blankly into his lap for a moment.
"We're here."
Rude's eyebrows raised as he looked outside to realize that they were in front of Reno's apartment building.
"C'mon," was all he said as he got out, slamming the heavy door and fumbling with his keys as his tall form retreated down the walk towards the slightly run down building.
Rude had two options. He could avert disaster, let Reno go inside alone and collapse and wake up sober, or he could obey and simply follow him.
Where do you want to go?
Where did he want to go? Where, indeed. Where had he ever wanted to go, what had he ever wanted to do? In fact, Rude reflected, when was the last time he had "wanted" anything?
A small voice piped up in his head as he sat in the cold car, the windshield frosting slightly from the condensation on the outside of it. It told him that he hadn't felt the way Reno had made him feel those few minutes ago in a long time, that his body never felt that awakened until he killed someone or until he was destroying something, such as his job was.
And he wanted something now.
So he got out of the car and followed Reno, knowing the path and the apartment like the back of his hand. He climbed the stairs with the cigarette burns near the top and the smell of new cheap carpet in the hallway, the peeling white paint on the ceiling and the old flowery wallpaper on the walls.
Reno's door was there with "157" emblazoned in tarnished bronze plated numbers, the seven hanging at a slightly crooked angle. The door was open with the keys still dangling from the lock.
The apartment dark and uninviting. He could sense Reno within it somewhere, and he suddenly felt as if he was on an assignment, his trigger finger itching.
The front door led directly into a hallway with doorways flanking it on either side, the bedroom at the very end. Every nerve and inch of skin on his body was humming with a newfound energy and awareness.
He passed the first doorway that led to the kitchen on his left, knowing Reno wouldn't be in there. His footsteps were practically silent against the well worn carpet, and he slowly rounded the corner into the darkened living room. There was a couch, Reno's head silhouetted against the large window that looked out onto a view of brick, and the TV in the corner that was switched off as it so often was.
Rude intended to snake over to his partner, although had no inkling of what to expect, and in the process managed to trip over a discarded bottle of some sort. He tripped gracelessly, then righted himself, his natural ingrained balance taking over.
Uneasy that Reno had not yet turned around, the silent man announced in a voice which sounded suspiciously sober, "I want you to fuck me, Rude."
Rude stopped in mid-stride. He stopped, blinked, and then blinked once more.
"What?"
"You heard me," Reno still hadn't turned around, "and I know you want to."
Rude blanched, "Jesus Reno."
No response.
Not knowing what to say, he lost his former thoughts of what resembled lust and moved to simply sit down next to Reno on the couch. They sat there looking out the window at the bricks. They sat for a long time.
"Where do you want to go?" Reno asked again.
Rude looked over at him and took off his sunglasses finally, bringing his face closer to Reno's than he could ever remember, "Nowhere."
Reno just looked at him, not averting his gaze, and they stared into each other's eyes for a long time as if it was the most obvious thing in the world to do, and there was no fear between them. It was lifeless. It was fearless. It was what Reno wanted to leave behind.
He tugged Rude to him and laid down on the couch, abandoning his former fervor although he seemed to have exchanged it for a methodical sort of touch. Rude obliged this time, and lust shot through his veins again as he felt Reno's body underneath of him, and suddenly he did want to fuck him.
And he didn't want fearlessness, or lifelessness or monotony, he didn't want killing to be the only way he felt alive anymore.
So he gave in, thankful that in the darkness he would have a harder time recognizing himself when this became a memory. It was pure efficiency as he stripped Reno, made the necessary preparations, and he fucked him in a mindless drive of sudden ferocity, indulging in feeling.
Reno gave as good as he got, letting hoarse low screams rip through his vocal chords, his eyes squeezed shut in concentration. He gritted his teeth, and it was almost as if he was trying to reclaim that wasted petrol of the car, the energy of his youth, the liveliness that everyday life used to have.
When it was over, and they were both too weak to sit up, before the possible repercussions of the act began to dawn on either of them, Rude could only stare at Reno's hair, and in his fog he noted its shade. It wasn't really red, and yet it wasn't carrot or even scarlet either, just the color of his hair. It bled through the colorless shades of the room, and it slashed a tiny piece of Rude's mind that would bleed the same color forever after.
It was sometime later, when they were both re-clothed and sitting in silence with a muted TV on, the blue glare of it flashing against the pale white of Reno's skin, that someone spoke.
"Why?"
Reno looked over impassively, "Why what?"
Rude studied him for a moment, "What was this about?"
The head turned away again to stare mindlessly at the TV, as if pondering something important, and when he spoke he didn't look back at Rude, "Reality isn't real enough these days."