Reno was nearing the bottom of his bottle when it struck him that he didn't remember drinking any of the amber liquid in front of him. Even so, he knew he had definitely drunk the stuff because his eyes were teary and swimming. He must have passed out on the counter in front of him for awhile too because his forehead definitely felt flatter than it had when he had been beating it with his palm earlier in the day. Despite the many self inflicted pain and numbs that riddled him, his thinking was surprisingly lucid. He could string two or more comprehensive thoughts together at a time; something that was often hard when he was sober. His first thought was that the empty peanut shells in front of him needed to be knocked onto the floor. His second thought came after he followed the advice of his first thought and his second thought followed the consequences of the actions of his first thought.
Tifa slapped Reno's sallow cheek and he quickly bent down and picked the shells back up, handing them to her to throw away. His second thought surfaced about the time he was bending over; Tifa had a great arm and if he could he would like to borrow it to jack off with. He was fairly sure that she wouldn't go for that though; especially since she was probably lending it to Rude every other night.
Tifa frowned and took the shells from Reno. "Can't you act like a human instead of a pig?"
"Kinda hard since according to you I'm only missing the curly tail." Reno blinked as his tongue spouted out the sentence without slurring. He knew he must be ridiculously drunk if he was talking and thinking clearly. That only happened when he had had so much alcohol that he had successfully rebooted his system and forgotten whatever gunk had made his needle skip.
Tifa shook her head and tossed his near empty bottle into the trash can behind the bar. "You're a jerk. Why don't you sober up and go home?"
"Don't wanna sober up. I remember shit when I'm sober." Reno frowned and pulled a cigarette out of his jacket pocket, sticking it between his lips without lighting it; Tifa would kill him if he smoked in her bar.
"Maybe you should remember all the awful things you do. Remorse is good for you." Tifa disinfected the counter in front of him furiously, as if his germs offended him more than he did.
"It's not always the shit I do that I'm tryin' ta forget, dollface." Reno got up, testing his balance before letting go of the counter. Thankfully he didn't fall flat on his face. "I'm gonna go smoke judgy-bear, I'll be back for my keys in the mornin'."
Tifa scrubbed at the counter and glared at it the way he was sure she wanted to glare at him. Sometimes he was glad his best friend was boning the owner of the only bar left in Midgar that he didn't get beat up in. He must have said something or done something highly inappropriate earlier; she wasn't normally so rude to him. He would probably remember what he had done in the morning after his wonderful inebriation had worn off.
Reno leaned against the wall of Tifa's bar, puffing out smoke and staring at the sky. His eyes were still watery and hard to adjust, but he could see the stars okay. They glimmered down at him and his teary eyes glimmered back. The smoke slipping though his slim lips made his eyes itch and water more, he didn't care much though. He wasn't disturbed by the discomfort. He wondered who Tifa would send to make sure he got home alright; she might act like she hated him but he knew she cared. If she didn't he wouldn't have been tailed home most every night by Cloud, Vincent, or Barrett. He didn't really like being followed home, but he wasn't going to object; especially when he was being followed home by Vincent or Cloud. He objected to Barrett because Barrett was gross and mean, but Vincent and Cloud were attractive and fun t torment. Cloud always rolled his eyes at his attempts at flirting and Vincent always shook his head and stayed silent. Cloud was more fun than Vincent; Vincent rarely had a reaction that indicated any kind of anything except for disappointment or indifferance. Cloud always got mad; he was probably still sore about the time Reno shocked him with his EMR. Reno had been trying to see if electricity would make his spiky hair lie flat; he had been drunk with some kind of reverse psychology idea for Cloud's hair. He didn't really remember what kind of twisted logic he had used to justify the experiment that had cost him one black eye and a new EMR.
Vincent eventually exited the bar and Reno crushed his cigarette end under his heel as the tall, pale man walked out. "Ya followin' me home tonight, Vinny?"
Vincent shook his head and walked in the opposite direction from Reno, voice gravelly and soft. "No, I'm not on babysitting duty for you tonight."
Reno walked behind Vincent, his thoughts stringing themselves along behind his feet slowly. "I'll follow ya home then."
"No, you won't." Vincent turned and held his clawed hand out to catch Reno in the chest mid-step; Reno was a tailgater when he walked and when he drove. He had space issues.
"Why not?" Reno swayed as he collided with Vincent's hand, his reaction time poor.
"I don't want you to follow me. That's why." Vincent removed his hand and leveled his bright red eyes with Reno's alcohol dulled blue-green ones.
Reno pouted, still swaying slightly. "Aww, come on!" He didn't know why he wanted to follow Vincent home so badly but he was fairly sure part of his to-do list for the night had been to get laid. He didn't have a chance in hell of getting into Vincent's bed, but he couldn't help trying. It was part of his forgetting process to try and get laid. Getting drunk made him forget the instance that had made him depressed; getting laid made him forget the depression.
Vincent shook his head and turned, cape flicking against Reno's front as he did. "Don't follow me home. I don't have a couch for you to sleep on."
"I could sleep on the floor." Reno would end up sleeping on the floor outside his apartment anyways; he had left his keys with Tifa.
Vincent sighed and walked away. "You can sleep on the floor at home."
"Are you busy or somethin'? I'll be quiet, yo." Reno stumbled after Vincent, toes catching lips in the cracked sidewalk.
Vincent sighed sullenly, wanting rid of his red-headed pest. "I'm not busy; I just want to be alone so I can think."
Reno snorted, "Thinkin' hurts. I'm trying not ta think."
"Thinking hurts, it's true, but it helps you deal with your problems better than alcohol. Maybe you should try thinking sometime." Vincent kept walking, wishing his conscience would let him ditch Reno before they could reach his apartment. He knew he wouldn't though; he couldn't leave the red-head to get mugged or worse.
"I think a lot, actually. I just don't like it. It's why I drink all the time. Too much junk in my head. Drinkin' washes me out." Reno tried to snag his fingers in Vincent's flowing cape, the man was walking faster than his stumbling feet could really manage and he felt he needed to grab something to help him balance.
"So does the puking you do in the morning." Vincent sighed as he felt Reno's thin fingers wrap around a corner of his cape, tugging it away with a flick of his wrist.
"How do ya know I puke in the mornin'?" Reno raised an eyebrow, still reaching for the cape drunkenly. Even though his voice didn't slur the rest of his body sure did.
Vincent chuckled softly; Reno was like a cat chasing yarn when it came to his cape. "Every drunk pukes in the morning, Reno. It's part of being hungover."
"I don't. I don't like ta puke so I don't." Reno got a hold on Vincent's cape again and frowned moodily when Vincent yanked it out of his fingers. "Will ya hold still for a second? I'm gonna fall on my face."
"Not my problem. If you want to follow me home you're going to have to keep up." Vincent did slow down a little; he didn't want to deal with Reno falling on his face and getting a nosebleed. Chaos liked it when people bled, he especially liked it when gingers bled, he claimed the blood smelled sweeter, and Vincent didn't want the demon to try and assert control over him again. It had already happened three times this night and he was having trouble keeping a check on himself.
Reno kept snatching at the cape, his vision tunneled so that all he could see was the flapping red fabric flicking between his fingers. "I would keep up if ya would let me grab the damned cape!"
"How would my cape help anything, Reno?" Vincent turned and walked up the steps leading to the apartment complex he lived in. He supposed if anyone was watching the scene he and Reno presented they would find it comical. He found it disastrous. He didn't need Reno hanging around when he lost control over Chaos.
Reno blinked as Vincent's turn snatched the cape from his vision, looking around and finding it again with some difficulty. "Dunno, just will." He was definitely starting to feel drunker. He knew it was because he was sobering up and he was losing the empty lucidity that being extremely drunk gave him. If he sobered up any more he was going to start remembering what had happened that day that had chinked his mental armor.
Vincent sighed and led Reno to the elevator, realizing that he wasn't going to get rid of his pest and that going up the stairs would only increase the risk of Reno being injured and spurring on Chaos' blood lust.
Reno followed Vincent' into the elevator and snatched his cape with a triumphant grin as the doors slid shut. "Ha! Gotcha!"
Vincent stiffened as the door shut, the elevator lifting to the floor he needed to go to. He hadn't been able to notice the scent before, but the sudden lack of downwind and the proximity made the smell stronger. He understood why Chaos had been giving him so much trouble all night; Reno had dried blood on him somewhere. It had recently dried; it had been wet earlier in the night which explained Chaos' attempts at taking over him. It wasn't Reno's blood, it smelled too bitter for that, but it was definitely on Reno. Vincent looked at Reno through narrow eyes, nostrils flared slightly. "Did you kill someone today Reno?"
Reno blinked at the question, noting Vincent's sudden change in demeanor. He let go of the cape, thinking that touching it must have allowed Vincent to read the foggy parts of his mind. "I don't remember." He wanted to keep not remembering too.
Vincent frowned and looked Reno over for the dried, crusted blood that he knew was on him somewhere. "You must have at least hurt someone. You only get blood on you when you hurt or kill."
Reno blinked and looked at his shoes. "It's on my shoes. I remember walking in it. I didn't do it. I don't think I did it. I only remember walking in it." He could remember the blood that had covered the carpet floor he had walked on earlier that day. He could remember a gun in his hands, but he couldn't remember pulling the trigger. Thankfully the victim stayed foggy and blurred in his mind, but he could tell that there was a very small child held over the victim's heart as a shield and he didn't remember much else. He knew that the victim wasn't the child's parent, however. It had been snatched from that lady in front of the building when Reno had chased the guy in. He whimpered softly and held his head as the memory started to unfold itself slowly. "Stop asking questions! You're making me remember! I don't want to remember!"
Vincent frowned and stepped out of the elevator, his spine straight. "Take off the damn shoes and leave them here. You can get them back in the morning." Chaos' appetite was making his stomach churn as the demon filled his head with images of what Reno could have been doing earlier to get blood on his shoes.
Reno did as he was told and slipped the shoes off with difficulty, stepping out of the elevator and letting the doors close behind him. He wiggled his toes on the cold floor and tried to keep the fog in his head from dispersing. He really didn't need to remember, he had done something awful and he knew it. He didn't want to think about it. It was painful to wallow in the sins that drenched his murderous hands.
Vincent relaxed as the elevator doors trapped the scent of dry blood, leading Reno to his apartment with a sigh of relief as Chaos grumbled and started to peel the violent images he had created away from the back of his eyes. "Come on, you don't want to sleep out here in the hall, do you?"
Reno shook his head and followed Vincent, staring at his cape determinedly. "Nah, not really. The floor is cold and hard."
"My floor isn't much better." Vincent unlocked the door and let Reno into his apartment, knowing he'd regret letting the red-head over in the morning when he hogged the bathroom to throw up what he had drank the night before.
"It'll be fine." Reno yawned and looked at Vincent's floor, quickly spotting the perfect spot to sleep in. It wasn't in a high traffic area so the carpet wasn't flat or discolored and it was in a nice comfy corner that he could curl up in. He liked sleeping in corners; having his back pressed to a wall was comforting. He peeled off his jacket and belt and laid down, folding his jacket and setting it on the floor nearby, laying his belt on top of it. He would strip all the way, but he wasn't sure Vincent would like that.
"Alright then, Reno. I'll lend you a pillow and blanket." Vincent chuckled as Reno settled himself into the corner, pulling spare bed things out of his closet. Gallian had a bad habit of chewing up his pillows when he took his turn at conquering Vincent's mind so Vincent kept a supply of extras.
Reno hummed and let his eyelids droop, his back pressed firmly against the wall. "Kay. Thanks, Vinny."
Vincent tossed the blanket over Reno and shoved the pillow under his head. "Good night, Reno."
"Night." Reno yawned and pressed his tattooed cheek into the pillow, eyes firmly closed to keep the fog trapped inside his brain.
Vincent turned out the lights and went to his room, noting how quickly Reno fell asleep. He remembered having similar nights when he was still a Turk, nights where remembering was the last thing he wanted to do. He supposed Reno could forget things in a much more responsible manner, but each Turk had their own methods and if Reno's was getting drunk and curling up on the floor then he would let him curl up on his floor whenever he needed to. He supposed the increase in his sympathy towards the red-head stemmed from the desperate whimper Reno had let out when he had begged him to stop asking questions so he didn't have to remember. He remembered fellow Turks making the same pleas after mentally taxing missions and he knew he had begged the same thing from Veld back then. He prepared for bed and slipped between his covers with a heavy sigh, his own memories following him into the sheets. He wished Reno had obeyed and not followed him home; he was most vulnerable to his demons in his sleep and on the nights where Chaos had caught the whiff of blood were the worst. He hoped nothing bad happened, but he knew his hopes were fruitless as his mind slipped into the fog of sleep and Chaos' mind pushed forward to take control.
Author's Note: I remember how much everyone seemed to want a sequel of some sorts to Barflies, so I wrote this. It's not directly related to Barflies, but it's similar enough that it could be.
I wrote this while listening to the song, "Innocence" by Halestorm. Great song. Give it a listen. I've got their CD and since music is full of inspiration for me you might see more shorts and such from me for a while.
If my internet cooperates, that is.