Title: Dark Blue Suit
Author: Takebuo Ishimatsu
Pairing(s): implied Reno/Rude & Rufus/Tseng
Summary: He hoped they buried him in it. Implied Reno/Rude & Rufus/Tseng. DEATHFIC.
Warning: Reno drops the F-bomb a few times. And, of course, this is a DEATHFIC for both actual death & implied death. You have been warned.
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII.
A gentle hand pushed on his shoulder, and he allowed himself to be guided to his knees.
He supposed he should be praying, though he'd never been into the whole religion thing all that much. A soft "Thank the Planet" here and "Goddess Rude, you look like shit, yo!" there. Nothing too serious.
Or perhaps reviewing his life, smiling at all the times he'd "accidentally" brought Rufus the wrong coffee, thus resulting in him having to drink it himself. Wouldn't do to waste it after all. The Boss had gotten wise to him after the third time, but hadn't complained too much. It gave him an excuse to get out and go somewhere with Tseng that wasn't work-related.
He could be using the time trickling by to present his case, start the back-talking and the logic, stating all the things he'd done for the company in his sixteen years of service. He could even beg and plead, though it'd never much been his style. He was fairly certain Elena would start crying if he did; she looked like all she needed was a little push.
So, he should probably have been doing something meaningful in his last moments, something profound, even if only in his own head. But, for the life of him, the only thing that seemed worthy of his attention at the moment was his suit. His Gaia-damned blue suit.
They'd let him keep it.
That must mean something, right? He hoped so.
Perhaps they'd figured he was too dangerous to waste even a moment forcing him to remove it, as was customary with these...events. He smiled at the thought. He'd go down in Turk history as the crazy SOB they'd had to ambush in the detention area. Twelve of them. He figured, that wasn't a bad way to go out. Perhaps not as cool as Mr. Zackery Fair, who'd earned himself an entire army, but still kinda sweet. Twelve Turks was nothing to sniff at.
Or maybe, just maybe, a small, aching part of himself desperately wished, they'd decided he was still worthy of the dark blue cloth. Maybe he hadn't quite reached that level. He wasn't a traitor, after all.
No, not a traitor. But maybe worse. A fuck-up.
They'd dealt with traitors before, those slimy bastards who'd managed to slip into ShinRa's fold despite their extensive background checks and constant vigilance. And those formally loyal who'd finally snapped. He'd dealt with them personally, having "disposed" a whopping six total in his time with the company. Hell, sometimes they even dealt with themselves. A bullet to the brain certainly seemed like the best road to travel when there were men looking for you with EMRs and pliers and sometimes even toothpicks from the local bar.
...They'd gotten creative after a while.
Traitors either had to remove their suit or it was removed for them afterward. They were never buried with it. Sometimes they weren't even buried at all. Even Reno felt a little bad about the guy they'd left hanging up outside his little sister's window. Poor kid was apparently still in therapy three years later.
Gaia, he hoped they let him keep it.
Even if he was just thrown into a dumpster on trash day or left on top of Mt. Nibel for the wolves to eat, he wanted his suit. He loved his suit; he loved his comrades, his boss, his company. Even then. Sure, he was a little bitter, but not too much. He wasn't a traitor. He was a fuck-up.
There was a difference, right? Nevermind the fact that all of the traitors combined hadn't managed to accomplish half of what he'd done in a single night. The death of four Turks and serious injury to the President himself. Not physical injury, though Rufus probably would have preferred that at the moment.
The death of Tseng...his ultimate sin.
Not to belittle the life of his three other brothers-in-arms, they were bad too, of course. But not that bad. Tseng was precious to them all. Their father-figure, big brother and, to some, lover.
In that last respect, he was especially precious to the President and thus his sin couldn't ever be forgiven. It didn't matter that he'd trained to be the new Director for over a decade, ready and able to step up at a moment's notice. They'd make due with Cissnei, despite her never having quite recovered from the whole Zack fiasco. Or perhaps even Elena, the girl had grown some serious balls in her time with her Turk associates. She wasn't shying away from her duty right then, was she? That had to prove something to the President.
...He hoped they let him keep it.
Even if he was a fuck-up. The bastard who'd gotten Tseng killed on a routine ransom-delivery mission. Fucking blown up, along with the poor SOB they'd come to rescue. Blown up. He'd fucking dropped a bomb on the Director of the Turks, doing something they'd done ten times since Rufus became President, setting a device he'd worked with ten times more than that.
Drunk, he'd heard one Turk whisper to another when he'd gotten done debriefing his boss of the situation. After he'd returned alone. For the life of him, he couldn't remember which two it'd been, his normally keen mind failing him. He supposed it didn't matter.
Elena had immediately stepped up and reprimanded whoever it'd been. Probably newbies, then. She still maintained three days later that he'd just been tired. She was one of the loudest voices when it came to giving him another chance, telling the others that he'd been overworked and stressed since Rude's death a year earlier. She might have convinced them too, if Rufus hadn't looked straight into his eyes and asked for his version of the events.
In reply, he'd only offered six words. "I just...fucked up. I'm sorry." What else was he suppose to say? He'd just killed the man's lover. After the death of his partner, he knew what that felt like all too clearly. Even after having tortured the SOB's responsible to death, he'd only just managed to hang on. He'd found out four months afterwards that his fellow Turks had been assigned times to check-in on him to make sure he wasn't lying dead in his bathtub. Hmph. He hadn't even noticed.
Rude had been buried with his suit.
Planet, he didn't deserve to be buried with his.
He shot to his feet, only barely registering the numerous safetys being clicked off. He began undoing his shirt buttons as best he could with hands shaking out of self-hate and anger, rather than fear.
"Reno, stop it," Rufus murmured.
The redhead ignored him, concentrating on forcing his fingers to do what he wanted. When he reached for his pants zipper, however, the President moved forward and placed his own hand on top of his. Reno kept his gaze downwards, not wanting to face the other.
"I don't deserve-"
"I decide who deserves what," Rufus cut him off.
"I killed-"
"Tseng wouldn't want that."
And that was the winning statement.
Reno let his hands drop to his sides, though he still didn't raise his gaze to meet the other's. Rufus calmly rebuttoned his shirt in silence, as if it was something he did on a regular bases. Perhaps it was...had been. How many times had the Wutainese man looked upon his lover with amusement while the other "helped" him in the mornings? Gaia knows Tseng had been late to work more times in three years than his entire career previously combined.
Done, Rufus straightened out the dark blue cloth. He moved to zip the pieces together, but suddenly stopped himself. That wasn't Reno's style.
Tseng's would have been zipped up, if there'd been anything left for them to zip.
He briefly wondered if the President might not have preferred a traitor. Reno's work had made even the messiest gunshot wound look like child's play.
Rufus stepped back to his previous position.
"Is there anything you'd like to say?"
For the first time since being moved from his cell, blue met blue as Reno gave the other a calm look.
He shook his head, "I think you already know."
Rufus nodded and the flash of light glinting off of metal was the last thing the Turk named Reno saw.
Hmph. He owed Rude twenty gil when he next encountered him in the Lifestream. He'd bet that their boss didn't have the balls to off someone himself if his own life wasn't in danger.
He was glade he'd been wrong.
It was about time for him to be laid to rest.
In his dark blue suit.
AN: Don't even ask me where this came from! I just thought of it like 3 hours ago & got to writing it instantly. If there's anyone out there that wasn't scared away by the gigantic ball of *cringe* that is the DEATHFIC label, please let me know what you thought.
By the way, I do have a LiveJournal up now & I have posted a FFVII fic on it & plan to do more. ONLY FOR ADULTS! My regular, non-porny stuff will be posted on FFnet still.