Final Fantasy VII: Don't Say (Reno)
Been having a bad day for no real reason, so I sat down and tried to write it out. Don't usually do Reno, but-- here goes. Probably going to come back later tonight and write some Tseng being really fucking evil to people in general.
Also, go read this fic. One of the best Veld and Turks piece I've ever read; takes the BC canon and spins it to life.
Don't Say (PG13, Reno)
Don't say you didn't want it. Because you did, because you were a slum kid, and that's what slum kids do.
959 words and a weird perspective.
Don't say you didn't want it.
Because you did, because you were a slum kid, and that's what slum kids do. They want. They want everything; they want anything that they can get. They want to stop drinking water out of shitty rusty taps. They want to stop having to fleece people just so they can eat. Down in the market you can actually hit someone who's already been robbed blind; all you get then is a handful of air and all of the blame and probably a hell of a beating.
You probably never wanted to grow up street-smart and a bit of a bastard, but that's what you've grown up to be. It's a kill or be killed world out there. When you're standing shivering with your hands over a blazing barrel and some guy walks past you on a PHS with a greatcoat done up snug to his neck and an expensive watch on his hand, don't forget that you're going to be the animal that goes in for the kill.
There are no excuses - you had to? Bullshit: you wanted to. You wanted to be as warm as he was, you wanted to sell his fancy phone so that you'd get something filling to eat that night, and maybe the night after. You wanted the world because the world wasn't yours. Whether or not it was right or wrong or whether you had to or the question of maybe-you'd-have-turned-out-a-better-person-if - none of mattered then, none of that matters now.
Don't say you didn't want it, because you did. By the time you turned seventeen and got too angry at everything to stay angry anymore, you'd have hit your own mother just to stay alive. But you didn't know her name, you couldn't even remember her face. The only thing you've ever suckled was the milk of survival: that need urge want to keep going, keep living, keep on top.
Why?
Why should you know? But it was something to live for, wasn't it? When the nights were so fucking cold your balls felt like falling off, you went to sleep dreaming of tomorrow. Lose that urge and you lose everything. So you kept going, even if you didn't really know what for.
But everything was going sort of grey coloured, because you were getting too old to run with the kids and you couldn't get a real job with that face of yours. You could laugh, but you were running out of excuses to keep laughing. Underneath the shit and the muck was the old dream of owning the world. You still wanted it. Hell, you'd have done anything for it.
When they came to you, you thought that they were coming for you, and you ran like fuckall because anyone worth their salt knew that that was what you did when the Turks were knocking. You hid in some alleyway down beyond the old Sector divisor; the place where the electrical wires the width of your palm ran all over the place and where you had to know exactly where to step unless you wanted to get fried alive. You lost them that day, and maybe it was because of that that they came back the day after.
They were better prepared, too - you tried the same trick, different hiding place, but they were fucking persistent bastards and the next thing you knew you had this black haired Wutai-looking type in your face, prodding your shoulder with a magrod and you'd seen what one of those could do to a man.
'What the fuck do you want?' you'd snarled at them, because it was better than them asking the first question. Show some spirit before you go and all of that; anything was better than a grovelling, pathetic death in an unknown corner. A kid's worst nightmare, and the sad truth for most of Midgar.
'I think,' the Wutai type had said, 'the question here is what you want.'
Don't say you didn't want it, because you did. When they offered you the job - and the house, and the three meals seven days a week, and the funky but clean clothes and the access to real healthcare - you jumped at it and didn't look back. Who cared if things could've been different or if you might have been a better person? They extended the hand and you took it.
They put you through hell and made you do a lot of things you weren't sure you liked.
But old street credo: it isn't what you like, it's what you've got to do. Got you by, and for a while you thought that you could be really good at the job. Beating the brains out of the occasional guy, learning how to watch the people worth watching, figuring out how to keep turf and how to fight fights. It was like being back down under-Plate again, except that this time the stakes were a little bit higher and the players were the rich bastards who ruled the earth as you knew it.
But there were places where even you wouldn't go.
You left that to the Wutai type, and went back to the life you would've lived anyway - got yourself a guy you could fall back on, got yourself a place you could sleep safe in, got yourself a routine and got a grip on things.
From then on it's been just taking the punches as they come, and shrugging off the shit that doesn't matter. Let the fuckers climb as far up the sky as they want; streetrats like you don't change.
And you won't say you didn't want it, because you did, and hell - you still do.
Also, go read this fic. One of the best Veld and Turks piece I've ever read; takes the BC canon and spins it to life.
Don't Say (PG13, Reno)
Don't say you didn't want it. Because you did, because you were a slum kid, and that's what slum kids do.
959 words and a weird perspective.
Don't say you didn't want it.
Because you did, because you were a slum kid, and that's what slum kids do. They want. They want everything; they want anything that they can get. They want to stop drinking water out of shitty rusty taps. They want to stop having to fleece people just so they can eat. Down in the market you can actually hit someone who's already been robbed blind; all you get then is a handful of air and all of the blame and probably a hell of a beating.
You probably never wanted to grow up street-smart and a bit of a bastard, but that's what you've grown up to be. It's a kill or be killed world out there. When you're standing shivering with your hands over a blazing barrel and some guy walks past you on a PHS with a greatcoat done up snug to his neck and an expensive watch on his hand, don't forget that you're going to be the animal that goes in for the kill.
There are no excuses - you had to? Bullshit: you wanted to. You wanted to be as warm as he was, you wanted to sell his fancy phone so that you'd get something filling to eat that night, and maybe the night after. You wanted the world because the world wasn't yours. Whether or not it was right or wrong or whether you had to or the question of maybe-you'd-have-turned-out-a-better-person-if - none of mattered then, none of that matters now.
Don't say you didn't want it, because you did. By the time you turned seventeen and got too angry at everything to stay angry anymore, you'd have hit your own mother just to stay alive. But you didn't know her name, you couldn't even remember her face. The only thing you've ever suckled was the milk of survival: that need urge want to keep going, keep living, keep on top.
Why?
Why should you know? But it was something to live for, wasn't it? When the nights were so fucking cold your balls felt like falling off, you went to sleep dreaming of tomorrow. Lose that urge and you lose everything. So you kept going, even if you didn't really know what for.
But everything was going sort of grey coloured, because you were getting too old to run with the kids and you couldn't get a real job with that face of yours. You could laugh, but you were running out of excuses to keep laughing. Underneath the shit and the muck was the old dream of owning the world. You still wanted it. Hell, you'd have done anything for it.
When they came to you, you thought that they were coming for you, and you ran like fuckall because anyone worth their salt knew that that was what you did when the Turks were knocking. You hid in some alleyway down beyond the old Sector divisor; the place where the electrical wires the width of your palm ran all over the place and where you had to know exactly where to step unless you wanted to get fried alive. You lost them that day, and maybe it was because of that that they came back the day after.
They were better prepared, too - you tried the same trick, different hiding place, but they were fucking persistent bastards and the next thing you knew you had this black haired Wutai-looking type in your face, prodding your shoulder with a magrod and you'd seen what one of those could do to a man.
'What the fuck do you want?' you'd snarled at them, because it was better than them asking the first question. Show some spirit before you go and all of that; anything was better than a grovelling, pathetic death in an unknown corner. A kid's worst nightmare, and the sad truth for most of Midgar.
'I think,' the Wutai type had said, 'the question here is what you want.'
Don't say you didn't want it, because you did. When they offered you the job - and the house, and the three meals seven days a week, and the funky but clean clothes and the access to real healthcare - you jumped at it and didn't look back. Who cared if things could've been different or if you might have been a better person? They extended the hand and you took it.
They put you through hell and made you do a lot of things you weren't sure you liked.
But old street credo: it isn't what you like, it's what you've got to do. Got you by, and for a while you thought that you could be really good at the job. Beating the brains out of the occasional guy, learning how to watch the people worth watching, figuring out how to keep turf and how to fight fights. It was like being back down under-Plate again, except that this time the stakes were a little bit higher and the players were the rich bastards who ruled the earth as you knew it.
But there were places where even you wouldn't go.
You left that to the Wutai type, and went back to the life you would've lived anyway - got yourself a guy you could fall back on, got yourself a place you could sleep safe in, got yourself a routine and got a grip on things.
From then on it's been just taking the punches as they come, and shrugging off the shit that doesn't matter. Let the fuckers climb as far up the sky as they want; streetrats like you don't change.
And you won't say you didn't want it, because you did, and hell - you still do.