CHAPTER 1:
It was cold in here. Rude wondered if the others had even noticed it, as they rushed down a narrow hallway. This had to have been a hospital at one time. Only a hospital could be this creepy. Everything was white, or had been, years ago. The walls now looked dingy, as if mold was growing on them. It hardly even seemed real. The surroundings were just like one of those shitty sci-fi movies that Reno always watched at home, and even though they were all the same, he was surprised every single time at the way one of them ended. Now he was living this. He was somewhere in here, somewhere in the 8 subfloors, under the ground and away from any light that was not man-made. Rude felt lucky as ever that he had on his extra dark sunglasses today. He hated florescent lighting, the way it flickered, and the headaches it caused just looking at it. Was it him? Nobody else even seemed bothered-worried, but not bothered. Not even Vincent Valentine (the ex-Turk that hated so many things that he could write an entire encyclopedic collection about his peeves, including lights of every kind and color) seemed to be feeling anything at all. The five others: Cloud, Vincent, Tseng, Elena and Tifa seemed confident that they would find Reno unspoiled and everything would be fine. None of them knew him like Rude did, though. They knew the brave, arrogant, tough Reno, the shell he used to protect the scared, sensitive Reno that only Rude had ever known. Not to say that Reno was not brave or tough, and he definitely was not missing anything in the arrogance department, but he was none of these when he was alone. Friends were his strength, and without them, he was just a little boy trapped inside a world of men.
"I just know for a fact that he is on the bottom floor." Tseng noted to the group.
"And how do you know that, may I ask?" inquired Elena in that voice she had, fitted for a perfect bitch, which Elena was. Not that she was a bad person, she was just a bitch. Elena didn't give much of a good goddamn about Reno; she was here on assignment, doing her job on her day off. She would have been in a worse mood, but she was with Tseng, and that was enough to make it tolorable.
"Because it would be the biggest pain in the ass to get to. These people, if you can call them that, knew we were coming. They don't want us to find Reno. They want to lure us down to an ambush, then maybe they can try to use us for whatever they need Reno for, you know, incase he dies." Aside from his partner, Tseng was not a bad guy on purpose. He dedicated his life to his work. He had been the leader of the Turks for over 10 years, and as such, he was calloused. He always said what was on his mind, even if it was terrible, unless the person he was speaking to was his boss, Rufus Shinra, the man that was responsible for him being here. Tseng was unmarried and had no friends outside of work, due to his serious lack of a sense of humor.
"Jesus, Tseng. Could you be anymore discomforting?" Tifa asked, knowing that even though those two didn't have any personal feelings regarding this mission, the rest of them did. They were here doing a job, Tifa and the others who didn't even work for Shinra (aside from Rude) were here to help a friend. "This place is empty. As far as we know, we got all of them." Thinking back on that, Tifa shuddered. They certainly did. Rude even brained a few people to get some answers. It was not the kind of thing she approved of, her gentle heart would not allow it, but it had to happen. Shooting at them helped, but Rude had been cornered at the time, and the rest of the party had guns but they were busy using them. Rude had tried to reason with them, but things escalated to a point of no return.
There was a working elevator at the end of the hall, which they could all easily fit in. It took them down the last four floors, to the very bottom, eight stories underground. Once the doors opened, they found themselves looking into another hallway, only this one was as wide as three of the halls in the above floors put together, and there were doors with tiny windows in them on either side of the wall, as far as the eye could see. It was wet down here, the floor had puddles of water on it, and it smelled of mildew and something else that nobody found pleasant. It was almost like the inside of a fridge when rotting food was left inside. The eerie sounds of dripping pipes and the buzzing of the overhead lights were the only sound that could be heard for a short time. There seemed to be no lights coming from any of the rooms.
"Well, let's do it." Cloud said, breaking the awkward silence. He was always the first one to jump into a difficult task. He took the first step out of the elevator shaft, his boot making a quiet 'splish' sound on the floor. He headed down the hall, shortly followed by the rest of the rescue team. He noted to everyone not to start kicking doors open, but to save their strength and shine their flashlights through the little windows, and if there was nothing inside, do not open it. If there were still people down here, waiting to ambush them, Cloud did not want them to know their whereabouts until it was 100% necessary. So, armed with flashlights the group of six started. Three people went to each side of the hall and peered into rooms in a disorderly fashion.
"UGH!" Tifa shrieked. She stepped away from the door in front of her and covered her mouth. Of course, hearing Tifa make any notion that she was afraid made Cloud run to her. He placed a hand on her shoulder, asking her what the matter was.
"Tifa, what is it?" he asked, shaking her lightly. Her eyes were wide as she pointed a shaking hand toward the little dirty window. Cloud shrugged at the others and bracing himself for something awful, peeked into the darkness of the room.
"Oh." He sighed out slowly. Upon looking in, Cloud could not guess what happened in here. It looked as if someone dragged a freshly butchered cow in here and threw it around. There was blood everywhere, all on the walls and the floor, and more disturbingly where there was a blood splatter on the wall, there was also a dent or a crack in the foundation. Someone strong had to have been throwing something heavy around to crack the wall like that. But as much as he looked around, there was no sign of anything solid in this area. Whatever had made that mess was not in there now. Cloud looked back at the others, composing himself to calm his friends.
"It's just a bloody mess in there. Nothing else, though. Let's keep looking." He continued on down the hall, before anyone had the time to disagree. I don't care. Let them look in there if they want, but I sure as hell am not opening that door or even getting near it again. Cloud kept his thoughts to himself, not wanting to seem like a wimp. He knew to himself that it was perfectly human to be mentally disturbed by a blood-spattered room, but he was not about to explain that to two heartless Turks. It would be a waste of time, and by now Cloud was getting hastier in his hopes of finding Reno. The blood didn't shock or scare him by any means, but it discouraged him. Things like that made it less likely that he was going to find his friend in one piece. But it seemed that someone up there liked, no loved Cloud, because after looking into three more rooms, and nearly having a heart-attack when he found nothing each time, he stumbled on exactly what he was looking for, a sign of life.
"Guys, I think I found him." Cloud called to the others, motioning for them to come to him and have a look. Inside the window, though there was not much light, there was enough to see the figure of a person, sitting slightly slumped in a chair, head down but breathing enough for it to be noticed movement. This was enough for Cloud. There was a person, a person with wild looking hair in that room and that person was alive. Cloud stepped back and planted his foot into the door.
Sadly, he should have tried the knob before he decided to dramatically kick the door in. It was not locked, and the door itself was so mildewed from the moisture on this floor, that it was rotted. The sheer force of kicking it made the door fly open, hit the wall on the inside of the room with so much force that it swung back and the overzealous blond man's foot shot through it again, getting stuck in the hole he created. Of course, this made a loud, sudden ruckus, startling the once sleeping Reno to a wide awake, upright position, fixing his eyes on a stumbling, embarrassed Cloud, who was twisting and pulling his boot out of the chasm he produced. This only made it worse and tore a bigger cavity out of the entrance, but allowed Cloud to both free and steady himself, standing up straight, ignoring the moldy, wooden anklet he now wore.
"Cloud?" Reno questioned. He had been in this place for what he was pretty sure was three days, hoping he would be rescued. He even dreamed about it. But when he saw Cloud this time, the sheer gracelessness of him making his presence…well that just didn't happen in dreams. This was real. His friend was really here to help. There was nothing like seeing a familiar face at a time like this. His eyes widened as he saw Tifa, Elena, Vincent and Tseng looming behind Cloud.
"Yo." He said, waving his hand in a singular tick kind of motion. His eyes squinted and his arm went to shield his vision as Cloud turned on the light in the room. After adjusting to the blinding light he had not previously been allowed to turn on, he saw quite another face, a face with the power to make him feel like he couldn't breathe even after years of seeing him every day, all day. It was Rude. Rude was here, his partner at work as well as the only person he has ever loved in his life. The bigger, darker man was pushing past his coworkers to get to the front.
"Rude!" Reno exclaimed as the shaded Turk made his way over to him and the wheeled office chair he sat on. Before either of them knew it, they had their arms around one another, embracing as if a hurricane were trying to pull them apart, and kissing each other like there was no one else in the room. This was not the kind of moment to give a damn if other people were standing there. Reno was alive and conscious. Plus, everyone was already aware of their relationship. They were pretty open about the fact that they were together, but very few people saw them treat each other with more affection than a hug, seeing as they weren't much for displaying themselves publically. No one in the room had ever seen them kiss before. Rude could feel all eyes on them for a moment, and then the awkwardness set in, where everyone tried to just look at something else. Apparently not Cloud, though. Rude could hear Tifa trying to get his attention under her breath, by first grunting his name once…twice, and then grunting something else that wasn't even words at all, just mixed up syllables. So it sounded like a hushed, "Cloud…Cloud! Kuhrnekaanaa.." Eventually Cloud composed himself and picked his jaw off of the floor, pretending to be picking at his teeth the entire time.
Finally, they pulled apart. Given a second to let it sink in, Rude noticed that Reno's lower lip was split on the left side, he had dried blood under his nose, and the inside of his mouth tasted like something died in it. Apparently they did not let him clean himself up after whatever fight he got in. Rude stepped back to get a better look at Reno, and at this cell he had been kept in. The room itself was clean, except for the mildew stains on the walls and the water on the floor. The only furniture inside was the chair Reno was sitting in, and a rusted old pie pan on the floor. Reno himself was dirty though. His hair was matted with sweat, and was no longer pulled back. He looked wild. He had a black eye, and the split lip and bloody nose Rude noticed before. He had his white shirt and Turk jacket on. The shirt was buttoned but some were missing, and the jacket was open. Both collars were pulled up, making Reno look like a criminal. The shirt itself was bloody, probably from his nose and mouth, and it was torn on the right-front, around the place where the sleeve attaches. Looking down, he could see Reno had no pants on. Just a set of boxers to cover his hairless, slightly bruised legs. He had no socks or shoes on and his toenails were very dirty. Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Rude asked.
"Reno, what happened to your pants?" The others nodded little agreements to each other, with the same exact question in their heads. Reno looked at them, and then shrugged; smiling that smile he always does when he is joking around.
"I don't know. I guess they took them from be because they thought I might try using them as a weapon. They took them along with my shoes, goggles, and my EMR (electro magnetic rod). I lost my ring and my hair-tie too. I tried to use them as a slingshot, yo." Rude felt genuinely perplexed, with a sinking feeling in the back of his mind. That didn't make any sense. Why would they take Reno's pants and socks but not his jacket? The Turk jacket that they all wore was heavy duty, with a big, heavy zipper. If pants could be used as a weapon, then surely his jacket was just as dangerous. While Reno talked to the rest of the group, the wheels spun in Rude's mind. He looked at the smaller red-haired Turk's hands. His nails were just as filthy as his feet. There was something dark under them, a deep brownish. No, nothing about this added up at all. Looking at Reno, he seemed to be acting normal, to the untrained eye. What the others didn't know was when Reno felt the most afraid, upset, humiliated or hurt, he tried to shrug it off and make light of the situation. Just like at work, whenever Reno was over-powered and lost a fight against someone out on the field, Rude knew he felt weak and embarrassed so he never beat his partner up about it or made fun. But Reno, he had a hard time coping with failure or weakness, in his own mind. Inside he was hurting and embarrassed at losing a fight, but on the outside he would act like a total goofball to draw attention away from himself and how bad it really was. He tried to make mole hills out of mountains in front of Rude, and in front of his friends, but to himself it was another story. He was brought up tough in the Slums, and he was raised to fight. Losing was considered a weakness. To Reno the people that surrounded his childhood, weakness was something that it was okay to hate a person for.
"Ugh, what the hell is that?" Tseng asked, pointing to the pan on the floor, "They don't make you go to the bathroom in that, do they?" Reno raised an eyebrow, not able to resist a short burst of laughter, which ended abruptly as red sludge came to his lips. He wiped it on the back of his sleeve.
"No. They do have bathrooms here, yo. They feed me with that. I was only allowed to go to the bathroom once. They said they didn't want to clean up after me, so I had to hold it until they felt like letting me out for a couple minutes. They made it clear that if I made any kind of mess in here that I would have to clean it up myself. And since I don't have anything to do that with, I held it."
"But it's just your shit. It's not like you're cleaning up after someone else's shit. You should have just crapped in the corner and left it there. It would have spared you some intestinal damage from holding it." Cloud mentioned. Good old Cloud was always good for a medical diagnosis, but was never so good at logic.
"Yeah…that's sick, man. If you want to sleep in a room with shit, you be my guest. But I don't want to sleep with anyone's shit, not even my shit. And as far as cleaning it up, well fuck that. I hate shit. I'm not going to clean it up after anyone, not even myself. Hell, I flush the toilet when I am still sitting on it so I don't have to look down. You're gross, yo." Everyone in the room seemed to be looking at Cloud in a mild disgust, but no one else said anything.
After the long silence, Cloud casually stretched his arms, fake-yawning and stated, "Well, it seems like it's time for us to be hitting the old, dusty trail. We found what we came for, so let's get him home." Reno seemed to think that was a great idea and slowly stood, hunching and unable to balance by himself. Rude got on his boyfriend's left side, wrapped an arm around his waist with his right arm, and held Reno's arm around his neck with his left hand, forming a crutch. They started to walk, with Reno's right hand inside of his jacket, clutching his left side, between his ribcage and hip bone.
"What is it?" Vincent asked him, walking on the other side of Reno, a couple feet away, while Cloud and Tifa were in the front and Tseng and Elena brought up the rear.
"Just sore." Reno grunted. They continued to the elevator and took it up as far as it would go, to the main floor. When the doors opened wide, so did Reno's eyes. There were people, dead people strewn all around what used to be the lobby area of this building. There were bullet holes in the walls where some of the men that had held him captive were cut down in a hail of gunfire. There was a man that Reno found all too familiar, propped up against the front desk with his skull crushed in. Three others in the same fashion were sprawled on the floor a couple feet from the first. It was just a regular blood bath. Reno had seen people die before, and he had killed people before when they couldn't be subdued in any other way. He didn't like it, but he was used to death. For some reason though, this would not settle. Though he had seen death, he had never seen people killed because of him. He had never had someone end lives just to save his. No one had ever given such a shit before. It was truly, deeply touching, not so much from Tseng and Elena, since it was just their orders from Rufus, but from his friends. The six of these people walked into this building and took out at least 50 people, just to save him. It was enough to bring a tear to his eye, but it didn't. At least it wouldn't until no body was watching.
"Reno, take it easy." Elena declared. "You look like you just saw a ghost. This was all part of our job. You remember work, right?" she droned, very condescendingly. "Rufus told us to retrieve you by any means necessary. It didn't have to end like this for them. But they wouldn't surrender. So come Monday, that means more work for the Shinra Corp. Who else is going to clean this mess up?"
They made it out of the now shattered main glass doors, to find Cid, waiting in the driver's seat of an armored truck, parked in the handicapped spot in the front of this condemned building. Mr. Gun-hand aka Barrett who was in the passenger seat got out to open the back and help the others get inside. He noticed the state of Reno, and the blood stain that seemed to be getting bigger on the front-left side of his white shirt. Deciding to leave the lack of pants issue alone, he simply asked:
"You okay, foo?" Reno nodded, as Cloud lifted him into the truck. Once they were all inside, Barrett shut them in and returned to the passenger seat. They started moving down the road, heading home. As the truck moved, Reno started to feel more and more sick; about to throw up was more like it. The vomit pushed at the back of his mouth every time the car hit a traffic light. The slowing, stopping, going, accelerating made it slush up and down, from the deepest part of his stomach, to the top of his throat. His vision started to get fuzzy, so he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the inside of the truck, groaning. Oh no. Please don't throw up, yo. Don't throw up in here, Reno. No, no, no, no, no. Oh shit. Shit. Damn. Hell. Damn. Damn. Shit. Son of a bitch, not in front of your friends. He thought as he could vaguely hear Barrett and Cid arguing about directions. Cid was not an experienced driver, since his primary passion was air ships.
"Well, Goddamn it. I missed the exit!" Cid grunted, the sickening smell of his cigarettes leaking into Reno's nostrils. He was a smoker too, but only ever smoked Menthols. Cid's cigarettes smelled like he was smoking the tar off the road. It made the lurching in his stomach all the more worse.
"It's okay. Just stop at the light and turn left on the roundabout. You can take that to the exit." Barrett instructed. Cid muttered something with agreement and cussing in it, but Reno heard the word 'roundabout' and drowned everything else out.
Oh God! Cid no, please for the love of God don't take the roundabout! Anything but the roundabout! Please, good God no. If you turn this car all the way in a 360 angle, I am just going to lose it, yo!
The light turned green and Cid hit the accelerator. Reno could feel the truck start to turn and groaned. Tseng happened to notice it, and asked Reno if he was okay. No! No, Goddamn it, Tseng you fucking idiot, I am not okay. Oh shit, here it comes!
"Reno, my man?" Tseng tried again. "I said 'are you okay?' You look like you're going to-" Before he could finish his sentence, as the truck was making the long, tilting turn, Reno's stomach cut loose. Hot liquid vomit projected itself from Reno's mouth. It flew toward the only two people that insisted they sit on the left side of the truck, his two bitter co-workers Tseng and Elena. The acidy, sticky, pungent mess splattered the two of them from head to toe, and it kept going like a sickening horizontal waterfall for at least 10 of the slowest seconds of Tseng and Elena's day. Finally it was over. Reno swayed a little, and burped once. The last thing he could hear was a chuckle coming from Vincent's side of the truck, and Cid yelling something about who was going to clean that mess up, before darkness came, and Reno blacked into a sound, unintentional sleep, slumped over on the naturally soft human pillow that was Tifa's chest.
End of Chapter 1.