[Fic] Across Distant Shores - 8
FF7 - Rating: PG-13 - Part 8/10? - Warnings: Violence
Pairings: Rufus/Reno (established) - Status: In progress, incomplete.
Summary: "You're stuck on the shores of Hell, and the only way out...is through." Shinra moves against its own, the President against the Vice President, with the Turks caught in between. All loyalties and motives are called into question, and as the Company comes under attack by enemies, the Turks are forced to question just who and what they are fighting for.
Chapter Summary: Avalanche moves against Reactor 5, and Reno gets dispatched after Aeris.
Total word count: 16,873 (oh, this is so a 3000 word one shot.)
Point VIII: The Beginning of the End
The call comes when he’s in the chopper heading down to the Sector 5 Slums. He almost reaches for his PHS at the chime, when he realises that it’s a Company-wide broadcast, coming at him from the chopper’s comm. system.
He flicks a switch and it’s audio-only. The train system has been locked down. Unidentified persons found onboard. All Shinra security and military personnel to go on level 1 alert.
A second beep signals a call from Tseng, and Reno hits a button to switch it over. “What the hell’s going on?”
“The President expects another strike at the southern reactors. We’re locking down Reactors four through six.”
“He’s what? He’s going to... do I need to get back there?”
Tseng glances sharply off to the side and looks back. “This is for your information only. Proceed with your present mission. Rude and I will be on site. The President intends to set up a trap for Avalanche.”
“Lure them in and blow them up? That’s not only retarded, that’s-“
“Lure them in, trap them and kill them. We won’t be blowing up our own reactors. In any case, we’ll handle it. Proceed as planned.”
The relief he feels at that is so sharp it almost hurts. It’s almost scary, the way the first thing he assumes the President will do is to blow up their own reactor just to catch a few small fry. But given all that has happened recently...
Fortunately, the bottom line still bites. Hard. The Prez may be an asshole, but he’s a money-minded asshole who won’t destroy his own resources.
Unless they’re worth more destroyed, Reno thinks, his fingers curling in on the flight stick until he can feel his entire arm shaking. He’s almost succeeded in blanking out the entire issue surrounding Rufus until now. Thinking too much can get you killed - that’s one of the first things they teach you in Basic, right up there with emotional attachments will get you killed and fraternising within the Company is strictly forbidden.
Yeah, but he has an executive override, right? Got it right it right from the Vice President’s mouth in that rather memorable snogging session ...
He doesn’t realise that he’s choked out a curse until one of the MPs - George, he thinks he’s called -- glances up at him in concern. “You alright? Bad news?”
“Avalanche bastards striking again,” he says, masking the moment behind derision. The soft curses he hears from behind him indicate that the anti-Avalanche sentiment is presently running high.
He revs the throttle as they clear the edge of the Plate, and angles the chopper down. Lights blink out on the control panel, weaker lines of communication being severed. The scenery whips past outside, the supporting pillar of the Plate falling away so quickly, but it’s not fast enough for him. He wants... he needs to be moving, going somewhere, doing something about the axe hanging over his head. He wants to run, wants to smash his way through gunmetal doors and glass and...
...and he’s going the wrong way instead. Going after some flower girl in the Slums. Going after another potential victim for the sake of getting one back.
He realises he doesn’t know if Rufus would approve at all.
--
Sometimes, they fight. Like every couple fights.
Sometimes he doesn’t understand at all. The workings of Rufus’ mind are so horribly alien to him that the guy might as well be from another Planet. They’re standing inches apart but it might as well be miles, the way they’re grasping and yet can never quite reach.
Rufus stands there, arms folded across his chest, the glacial expression on his face cracked at last. Beneath it is a seething pit of lava: anger and frustration warring for equal standing. “Sacrifices need to be made,” he says, and Reno loses it and grabs him by the front of his jacket, shaking him.
“How many sacrifices? How do you decide who deserves to live and who deserves to die? Your own damn dad! Do you have no heart at all?”
“Shut up.” Rufus’ anger is still icy cold. “You don’t understand at all. You don’t understand anything.”
“I understand that you’re a power hungry little brat who would stop at nothing to further his own ends! Who’s next, huh? Me? After you’ve so cheerfully strung me along?”
Rufus wants to hit him. He can see it in the clenched fist at the corner of his vision. He braces for the impact across his chin, but Rufus grabs his hand instead, ripping his grip free and shoving him away. He turns away, and his shoulders are shaking. “Get out,” he says, his voice a harsh whisper. “Get out and don’t come back until you know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“You’re not running away from me this time!” Reno snarls. “Stand your fucking ground and deal with it! For once! Don’t think that you can just walk away all the fucking time! One day it’s going to come right around and bite you on the ass-“
But they don’t talk about work. Ever. And Rufus does turn and walk away from it. Days later, or sometimes weeks, they speak again, tentative at first and then with increasing confidence that the other side has forgotten all about it. They rarely apologise. And things roll on from there.
He finds Rufus in his office sometimes, staring out at the city and an almost empty bottle of whiskey on his table, expression gone totally dead, and he wonders what the other is thinking of.
He wonders what Rufus sees, when he looks out of his window in Junon.
Most of all, he wonders what Rufus sees, when he looks out of those unreadable blue eyes at him.
“Stay alive,” Reno whispers. “Stay alive long enough for me to ask you. And maybe then I’ll really understand, right?”
--
The reports flood in thick and fast when they land, and they put the mission on hold for a little longer to listen. The Ancient has been at large for so long that a few more minutes won’t matter anyway.
Avalanche group located in Reactor 5, the reports read. Avalanche group has defeated token opposition and headed towards the reactor core. Bomb set. Group retreating. Rude to disable the device, while the President personally supervises the final elimination of the terrorists...
“What the fuck is he thinking of?” Reno grouses. “If the fat bastard gets killed trying to play hero it is not our fucking fault!”
Kazui, the only Wutainese on the team and the one who’s supposedly a SOLDIER candidate, patches his buddy’s helmet cam through to the chopper’s screens, and they crowd around, watching as the Prez rattles off another of those speeches he’s so fond of. There are only three of the terrorists, but Reno frowns at one of them.
Years ago...
No, he thinks. It can’t be. Zack had black hair. But that sword...
The screen dissolves into static as the mechanised unit makes an appearance, and Kazui apologises. Reno waves him off, muttering about the shitty reception due to that huge-ass metal pizza overhead.
“All this talk of pizza. You’re making me hungry,” George mutters.
“Well, let’s get a move on, then,” Dax says. “Sooner we finish this the sooner we get to chow.”
“Don’t see why they didn’t dispatch a squad to deal with them. They have all these 1st classes sitting on their asses not doing a thing. And they send in one huge metal piece of junk...” George says.
“It’s embarrassing,” Kazui mutters, his accent being a tad more pronounced. “It is as if we are being replaced. Are we not good enough?”
“No idea,” Dax says. “Maybe that’s the next generation of SOLDIER, huh? Class Zero.”
“Stop screwing around and hurry up,” Reno calls, arming his EMR and swinging it over his shoulder. “I’d like to get home before next week, if you ladies don’t mind.”
They laugh and turn to follow.
“Hey Reno. Can we hit up Wall Market while we’re here? Kaz here says he’s never been.”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever. But I’m not going to pick you up. You catch the train back yourselves,” Reno returns.
“Awesome!”
“Do I really want to go to such a place?”
“Yeah. Trust us. You do.”
“We’ll even introduce you to the Don. He likes your type.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Who is this Don?”
“It’ll be love at first sight, man.”
“Yeah man, totally.”
--
They hear voices when they near the Church. Reno goes in ahead, all ready for a fight, and stops dead.
It’s that Avalanche dude. And there’s a huge freaking hole in the roof. The Double-Ewe-Tee-Eff factor just kills him. And the second one’s the Ancient... they’re busy having a Moment, so Reno just pauses and lets them enjoy it. Somehow, he finds himself thinking of all the conversations with Rufus that had been interrupted midway -- yeah, like that ...conversation... we were having over his desk when the Prez called -- and he decides, hell the mission can wait just a few seconds more.
The Avalanche dude glances at him, and Reno waves him off, idly checking out the exit routes. He considers telling the MP team to get round to the back and stop them from getting out that way, but he figures that they won’t make it in time.
The Couple finally decide that it’s Hey, time to run as others file in behind him, and Avalanche-dude shoots them a glare before they take off through the backdoor. And in that instant, Reno notices something he missed earlier-
--Mako eyes.
An ex-SOLDIER? That would explain the miraculous falling-through-the-roof-and-surviving-without-a-scratch thing. But there’s definitely something weird happening here, he reflects, as he sets off after them. There are flowers - “Don’t step on the flowers” - here, when nothing except glowing slime grows under the Plate...
“You just stepped on them yourself!” George yells.
“They’re ruined!” Kazui points out, and all three start laughing.
“You’re gonna catch holy hell!”
“Shut up,” he mutters.
“Get them,” Reno snaps, as the Ancient and her bodyguard make a dash for it. George opens fire and the Ancient falls, sliding down stairs in a series of thumps that almost makes Reno wince. “Get her,” he tells the squad. “And remember, it’s mission failed if she gets killed!”
He glances up at her bodyguard, who stares in confusion before running the other way. Well done. Coward.
Dax reaches the Ancient just as she runs up the first flight of steps. He reaches out, and she whacks him, hard, in the stomach. He stumbles, and the next thing Reno sees is a barrel toppling out of nowhere. “Above-“
The crunch nearly stops his heart. No time even for Dax to cry out; the thing falls straight onto his head. George yells, and Kazui curses, and before Reno can call them back they’re leaping towards the Ancient...
The second barrel brings George down as Reno charges across the space between them. Kazui lunges forward, grabbing the Ancient by the arm-
--Then screams and falls back, clutching at his eyes, as she detonates a round of fire materia straight in his face. “KAZ!” Reno stumbles over barrel fragments, taking the stairs two by two. “KAZ BEHIND YOU!”
The MP stumbles, blinded, and the barrel catches him by his legs as it thumps down from above. There is the sickening crunch of bone and Kazui screams as he gets rolled down the stairs. Reno grabs him, clutches him by shaking shoulders as he whimpers in pain, and watches with narrowed eyes as the Ancient makes a break for it.
He fumbles for a tranquilizer, stabbing it into Kazui’s arm and breathing a small sigh of relief as the body in his arms relaxes, consciousness going. Kazui’s hand falls away from his face and Reno hisses in anger and sympathy at the sight of the carnage. No amount of mako or materia is going to be able to save his eyesight now.
He avoids looking at Dax’s mangled corpse as he searches for George’s pulse and finds none. The barrels were loaded, massive things, easily a ton. There’s no way he can retrieve the bodies from under them, and he mumbles a quiet apology to them and their families. He’ll send a squad down here later, but now he has a critically injured team mate that he needs to get back home.
He closes George’s eyes with a movement he’s grown far too familiar with in his course of work. Stares for a moment at that face, almost peaceful in death, and thinks about the pizzas he won’t eat again.
“Goddamnit.” The curse is mumbled, slurred, but the anger is building up in him, hot and fast. This isn’t war. This isn’t Wutai. This is some bunch of arrogant, self-righteous pricks unilaterally declaring their own kind of stupid war against them, and costing lives, and Reno is really, really, fucking pissed.
Kazui’s body is deadweight in his hands and he stares at that ruined face, recalling youthful features and bright enthusiasm. And he thinks of Rufus, of Chris, of Avalanche, and it’s all he can do not to scream.
--
Pairings: Rufus/Reno (established) - Status: In progress, incomplete.
Summary: "You're stuck on the shores of Hell, and the only way out...is through." Shinra moves against its own, the President against the Vice President, with the Turks caught in between. All loyalties and motives are called into question, and as the Company comes under attack by enemies, the Turks are forced to question just who and what they are fighting for.
Chapter Summary: Avalanche moves against Reactor 5, and Reno gets dispatched after Aeris.
Total word count: 16,873 (oh, this is so a 3000 word one shot.)
Point VIII: The Beginning of the End
The call comes when he’s in the chopper heading down to the Sector 5 Slums. He almost reaches for his PHS at the chime, when he realises that it’s a Company-wide broadcast, coming at him from the chopper’s comm. system.
He flicks a switch and it’s audio-only. The train system has been locked down. Unidentified persons found onboard. All Shinra security and military personnel to go on level 1 alert.
A second beep signals a call from Tseng, and Reno hits a button to switch it over. “What the hell’s going on?”
“The President expects another strike at the southern reactors. We’re locking down Reactors four through six.”
“He’s what? He’s going to... do I need to get back there?”
Tseng glances sharply off to the side and looks back. “This is for your information only. Proceed with your present mission. Rude and I will be on site. The President intends to set up a trap for Avalanche.”
“Lure them in and blow them up? That’s not only retarded, that’s-“
“Lure them in, trap them and kill them. We won’t be blowing up our own reactors. In any case, we’ll handle it. Proceed as planned.”
The relief he feels at that is so sharp it almost hurts. It’s almost scary, the way the first thing he assumes the President will do is to blow up their own reactor just to catch a few small fry. But given all that has happened recently...
Fortunately, the bottom line still bites. Hard. The Prez may be an asshole, but he’s a money-minded asshole who won’t destroy his own resources.
Unless they’re worth more destroyed, Reno thinks, his fingers curling in on the flight stick until he can feel his entire arm shaking. He’s almost succeeded in blanking out the entire issue surrounding Rufus until now. Thinking too much can get you killed - that’s one of the first things they teach you in Basic, right up there with emotional attachments will get you killed and fraternising within the Company is strictly forbidden.
Yeah, but he has an executive override, right? Got it right it right from the Vice President’s mouth in that rather memorable snogging session ...
He doesn’t realise that he’s choked out a curse until one of the MPs - George, he thinks he’s called -- glances up at him in concern. “You alright? Bad news?”
“Avalanche bastards striking again,” he says, masking the moment behind derision. The soft curses he hears from behind him indicate that the anti-Avalanche sentiment is presently running high.
He revs the throttle as they clear the edge of the Plate, and angles the chopper down. Lights blink out on the control panel, weaker lines of communication being severed. The scenery whips past outside, the supporting pillar of the Plate falling away so quickly, but it’s not fast enough for him. He wants... he needs to be moving, going somewhere, doing something about the axe hanging over his head. He wants to run, wants to smash his way through gunmetal doors and glass and...
...and he’s going the wrong way instead. Going after some flower girl in the Slums. Going after another potential victim for the sake of getting one back.
He realises he doesn’t know if Rufus would approve at all.
--
Sometimes, they fight. Like every couple fights.
Sometimes he doesn’t understand at all. The workings of Rufus’ mind are so horribly alien to him that the guy might as well be from another Planet. They’re standing inches apart but it might as well be miles, the way they’re grasping and yet can never quite reach.
Rufus stands there, arms folded across his chest, the glacial expression on his face cracked at last. Beneath it is a seething pit of lava: anger and frustration warring for equal standing. “Sacrifices need to be made,” he says, and Reno loses it and grabs him by the front of his jacket, shaking him.
“How many sacrifices? How do you decide who deserves to live and who deserves to die? Your own damn dad! Do you have no heart at all?”
“Shut up.” Rufus’ anger is still icy cold. “You don’t understand at all. You don’t understand anything.”
“I understand that you’re a power hungry little brat who would stop at nothing to further his own ends! Who’s next, huh? Me? After you’ve so cheerfully strung me along?”
Rufus wants to hit him. He can see it in the clenched fist at the corner of his vision. He braces for the impact across his chin, but Rufus grabs his hand instead, ripping his grip free and shoving him away. He turns away, and his shoulders are shaking. “Get out,” he says, his voice a harsh whisper. “Get out and don’t come back until you know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“You’re not running away from me this time!” Reno snarls. “Stand your fucking ground and deal with it! For once! Don’t think that you can just walk away all the fucking time! One day it’s going to come right around and bite you on the ass-“
But they don’t talk about work. Ever. And Rufus does turn and walk away from it. Days later, or sometimes weeks, they speak again, tentative at first and then with increasing confidence that the other side has forgotten all about it. They rarely apologise. And things roll on from there.
He finds Rufus in his office sometimes, staring out at the city and an almost empty bottle of whiskey on his table, expression gone totally dead, and he wonders what the other is thinking of.
He wonders what Rufus sees, when he looks out of his window in Junon.
Most of all, he wonders what Rufus sees, when he looks out of those unreadable blue eyes at him.
“Stay alive,” Reno whispers. “Stay alive long enough for me to ask you. And maybe then I’ll really understand, right?”
--
The reports flood in thick and fast when they land, and they put the mission on hold for a little longer to listen. The Ancient has been at large for so long that a few more minutes won’t matter anyway.
Avalanche group located in Reactor 5, the reports read. Avalanche group has defeated token opposition and headed towards the reactor core. Bomb set. Group retreating. Rude to disable the device, while the President personally supervises the final elimination of the terrorists...
“What the fuck is he thinking of?” Reno grouses. “If the fat bastard gets killed trying to play hero it is not our fucking fault!”
Kazui, the only Wutainese on the team and the one who’s supposedly a SOLDIER candidate, patches his buddy’s helmet cam through to the chopper’s screens, and they crowd around, watching as the Prez rattles off another of those speeches he’s so fond of. There are only three of the terrorists, but Reno frowns at one of them.
Years ago...
No, he thinks. It can’t be. Zack had black hair. But that sword...
The screen dissolves into static as the mechanised unit makes an appearance, and Kazui apologises. Reno waves him off, muttering about the shitty reception due to that huge-ass metal pizza overhead.
“All this talk of pizza. You’re making me hungry,” George mutters.
“Well, let’s get a move on, then,” Dax says. “Sooner we finish this the sooner we get to chow.”
“Don’t see why they didn’t dispatch a squad to deal with them. They have all these 1st classes sitting on their asses not doing a thing. And they send in one huge metal piece of junk...” George says.
“It’s embarrassing,” Kazui mutters, his accent being a tad more pronounced. “It is as if we are being replaced. Are we not good enough?”
“No idea,” Dax says. “Maybe that’s the next generation of SOLDIER, huh? Class Zero.”
“Stop screwing around and hurry up,” Reno calls, arming his EMR and swinging it over his shoulder. “I’d like to get home before next week, if you ladies don’t mind.”
They laugh and turn to follow.
“Hey Reno. Can we hit up Wall Market while we’re here? Kaz here says he’s never been.”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever. But I’m not going to pick you up. You catch the train back yourselves,” Reno returns.
“Awesome!”
“Do I really want to go to such a place?”
“Yeah. Trust us. You do.”
“We’ll even introduce you to the Don. He likes your type.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Who is this Don?”
“It’ll be love at first sight, man.”
“Yeah man, totally.”
--
They hear voices when they near the Church. Reno goes in ahead, all ready for a fight, and stops dead.
It’s that Avalanche dude. And there’s a huge freaking hole in the roof. The Double-Ewe-Tee-Eff factor just kills him. And the second one’s the Ancient... they’re busy having a Moment, so Reno just pauses and lets them enjoy it. Somehow, he finds himself thinking of all the conversations with Rufus that had been interrupted midway -- yeah, like that ...conversation... we were having over his desk when the Prez called -- and he decides, hell the mission can wait just a few seconds more.
The Avalanche dude glances at him, and Reno waves him off, idly checking out the exit routes. He considers telling the MP team to get round to the back and stop them from getting out that way, but he figures that they won’t make it in time.
The Couple finally decide that it’s Hey, time to run as others file in behind him, and Avalanche-dude shoots them a glare before they take off through the backdoor. And in that instant, Reno notices something he missed earlier-
--Mako eyes.
An ex-SOLDIER? That would explain the miraculous falling-through-the-roof-and-surviving-without-a-scratch thing. But there’s definitely something weird happening here, he reflects, as he sets off after them. There are flowers - “Don’t step on the flowers” - here, when nothing except glowing slime grows under the Plate...
“You just stepped on them yourself!” George yells.
“They’re ruined!” Kazui points out, and all three start laughing.
“You’re gonna catch holy hell!”
“Shut up,” he mutters.
“Get them,” Reno snaps, as the Ancient and her bodyguard make a dash for it. George opens fire and the Ancient falls, sliding down stairs in a series of thumps that almost makes Reno wince. “Get her,” he tells the squad. “And remember, it’s mission failed if she gets killed!”
He glances up at her bodyguard, who stares in confusion before running the other way. Well done. Coward.
Dax reaches the Ancient just as she runs up the first flight of steps. He reaches out, and she whacks him, hard, in the stomach. He stumbles, and the next thing Reno sees is a barrel toppling out of nowhere. “Above-“
The crunch nearly stops his heart. No time even for Dax to cry out; the thing falls straight onto his head. George yells, and Kazui curses, and before Reno can call them back they’re leaping towards the Ancient...
The second barrel brings George down as Reno charges across the space between them. Kazui lunges forward, grabbing the Ancient by the arm-
--Then screams and falls back, clutching at his eyes, as she detonates a round of fire materia straight in his face. “KAZ!” Reno stumbles over barrel fragments, taking the stairs two by two. “KAZ BEHIND YOU!”
The MP stumbles, blinded, and the barrel catches him by his legs as it thumps down from above. There is the sickening crunch of bone and Kazui screams as he gets rolled down the stairs. Reno grabs him, clutches him by shaking shoulders as he whimpers in pain, and watches with narrowed eyes as the Ancient makes a break for it.
He fumbles for a tranquilizer, stabbing it into Kazui’s arm and breathing a small sigh of relief as the body in his arms relaxes, consciousness going. Kazui’s hand falls away from his face and Reno hisses in anger and sympathy at the sight of the carnage. No amount of mako or materia is going to be able to save his eyesight now.
He avoids looking at Dax’s mangled corpse as he searches for George’s pulse and finds none. The barrels were loaded, massive things, easily a ton. There’s no way he can retrieve the bodies from under them, and he mumbles a quiet apology to them and their families. He’ll send a squad down here later, but now he has a critically injured team mate that he needs to get back home.
He closes George’s eyes with a movement he’s grown far too familiar with in his course of work. Stares for a moment at that face, almost peaceful in death, and thinks about the pizzas he won’t eat again.
“Goddamnit.” The curse is mumbled, slurred, but the anger is building up in him, hot and fast. This isn’t war. This isn’t Wutai. This is some bunch of arrogant, self-righteous pricks unilaterally declaring their own kind of stupid war against them, and costing lives, and Reno is really, really, fucking pissed.
Kazui’s body is deadweight in his hands and he stares at that ruined face, recalling youthful features and bright enthusiasm. And he thinks of Rufus, of Chris, of Avalanche, and it’s all he can do not to scream.
--