I think it's easy to forget, at least for me, what exactly the Turks do for a living. Sure, everyone who's a FF7 fan knows that they make their living performing assassinations and kidnappings and the like, but they're so often used for comic relief or as the "cool" characters that what their job really entails is sometimes pushed aside. That was the inspiration behind this. I wanted to write about the darkest sides of Shinra, the sides that only the Turks really know firsthand.
This was one of those weird one-shots that pretty much wrote itself. Once I started it, I couldn't stop and this is the result.
Rating for language, some gore, and overall subject matter.
Behind Closed Doors
Screams reverberate off the metal walls, resonating with a sharpness that slices to my soul, cutting deeper than the sharpest sword. Every syllable engrains itself in my memory – just another transgression that can never be forgotten. I bite back a wince as his shrieks reach a new decibel and the crisp smell of singed flesh reaches my nostrils.
I am the cause of this.
My fingernails dig into my skin, a futile attempt to divert my attention from the emotional to the physical. Some distant part of my mind recognizes the sensation of warm blood sliding down my fingertips, dripping into splatters on the ground like crimson rain. I bury my nails deeper.
Though I would have never thought it possible, his screams arch closer to the line of hysteria. A chill slithers up my spine as my eardrums pound. The cleanest of my hands flips the switch, silencing the crackle of electricity that had flickered just on the edge of hearing. Anything to quiet the anguish. Cries of pain diminish into strangled whimpers.
It was almost easier to listen to the screams.
My jaw clenches as I force myself to switch over to the mode that the suit I wear deems necessary, trying my best to look through my victim rather than at. If I see him, really see him, I'll think of all the facts that I should forget in this moment. Everything that makes him real.
My gaze falls into his, taking in the emerald eyes and terrified hatred. A terror that I caused. A hatred that I deserve.
Facts from his file begin to scroll through my memory: His name is Gavin Talis, age thirty-five. He works for a museum on the edge of Sector Six. He was widowed five years prior and never resumed dating. In his apartment, live his five children – ranging from ages six to thirteen.
His crime? A matter of circumstance – stumbling across the wrong information at the wrong moment. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Son of a fucking bitch.
He's real again. The more I try not thinking about him, the more I wind up doing exactly that.
Daggers stab behind my eyes, tiny pinpricks of moisture threatening to obscure my vision and shatter my mask of resolve. I avert my gaze, allowing auburn bangs to hide my turmoil as I fight to regain my composure. My arms cross over my chest and I try to feign thoughtfulness.
I don't know if I succeeded and I do not care if I failed.
When I look up, he shouts as best he can, his voice shrouded in weary rasps, "What the hell do you want from me?"
Resolve like tempered steel creeps over my persona, as I try in vain to turn into the Turk I'm supposed to be. My lip curls upward into a sneer as I slam my hands onto the table beside the console with enough force that my pen rolls off and underneath the electric chair with a clatter.
"I believe we've been over this, haven't we?" I force my gaze to remain on his inflamed forehead while he tries to glare at me, his face contorting with an indescribable pain. "We want to know what the hell you saw in the alley of Sector Four three nights ago."
"I swear! I saw nothing!"
He's telling the truth – I can feel it. Chances are he wasn't even in Sector Four this week much less that night.
That's not the answer Shinra is looking for, however. They're searching for someone to lay blame on for the murder of a Shinra employee – a murder ordered by President Shinra himself and completed by Tseng's hands.
They will do anything to bleach their hands of the crimes they have forced us to commit. Even if it means blaming a man who committed a minor transgression on a drunken night scarred by the anniversary of his wife's demise.
Fucking Shinra.
Reno was the one forced to "arrest" this man days later by setting the fire that trapped him in his own museum – Scarlet's mad idea. He said the only thing the man requested was that his mother be sent to look after his children while he was away.
Too bad he was never scheduled for a return.
"That's not what our sources say," I return, my body rigid as I stare him down – as if it will make him confess to a crime he did not commit. "I don't give a damn about the lies you're fabricating, I just want the fucking truth."
His brow raises and with a pained tremor, he shakes his head in denial. "N-No. I swear! It's the truth!"
"Liar!" I spit, my open palm connecting with the charred flesh of his cheek, dead skin cells grating across and flaking off my leather half-gloves before raining into his lap. I try to forcibly shut down my hearing to drown out his whimpers, but it is to no avail – they only embed themselves further. It is like a knife to the heart that the wielder continues to twist deeper.
My fingers move of their own accord, slicing deeper into my flesh, even as I fight against the acidic tang of bile sliding up the back of my throat.
When I turn back to him, I note that he is dismayed, the terror increased ten-fold.
Because of me.
I back away, switching to a colder, more calculating facade. My feet carry me back and forth in front of him, forcing his eyes to follow me and increasing his fear with the anxiety of not knowing when I'm going to stop. If nothing else, it is a show put on for the cameras.
It is the only way to piece the fragments of myself back together and continue with my job.
Several minutes pass before I stop and walk back towards the console. For just a moment, I allow our gazes to lock as my hand moves to hover over the switch. I look away as my finger brushes against the cool metal trigger. "Do you have a confession?"
"You expect me to confess for a crime I didn't commit? Fuck no," he says, his voice gone cold, knowing already that his answer cannot change his fate, knowing that Shinra has already engraved it in stone. He has no options. They call the shots here.
He could single-handedly have destroyed an entire Wutai force and they wouldn't even care.
My own voice drains of all emotion as I say the customary response, "Than you are hereby charged with the murder of SOLDIER, Third Class, Yulan Respant. The punishment for such a transgression…is death." Without the slightest waver, I flip the switch.
I turn away without looking back. His cries echo in my ears as I head towards the door, avoiding looking into the security camera that has been recording the session. All Turks are aware of its existence to tighten the shackles that bind us to Shinra. They know we will not do anything too reckless if we know they are watching.
Like freeing the victims we are sent to take care of.
It is their twisted way of inspiring loyalty.
Because we all feel so damn loyal to our prospective executioners.
I fight to suppress a shudder, as his cries grow louder. The tears that threatened my composure begin stinging once more and rise to blur my vision.
Rude steps forward and places a hand on my shoulder to guide me into the empty hall. Stationed just inside the door, he was supposed to provide me backup – as if I would need it against an already broken man. It is customary, however. In truth, the presence of a comrade is just another security measure against us.
As the door clicks shut, I hear the last of Gavin Talis' wails fade into oblivion. A man destined to be forgotten by all but his family and the murderer whose nightmares he will haunt for eternity.
Rude's hands rest on the tops of my shoulders for a moment, fixing me with a level stare, before drawing me to his chest. All formalities long forgotten, I bury my head into his shoulder succumbing to the long inevitable pain, as tears cascade down my cheeks, soaking through his blazer and sullying his dress shirt. Rude just lets me cry. His hand rubs along my upper back, being as consoling as a Turk knows how. Like a big brother would.
These are the nights I hate being a Turk.
When I am reduced to hiccups and dry sobs, he holds me until I pull away. "I'm okay," I whisper, feigning bravado as I wipe at my cheeks with bloodstained hands.
"No, you're not," he replies.
I nod. I cannot lie to him. The only ones capable of calling a Turk's bluff is another Turk.
A feeling of helplessness sweeps over me, an emotion almost foreign to my very being. "Does it ever stop hurting?" I ask, the child in me coming out, unbidden.
"I would worry more if it didn't."
My gaze shifts to the congealed blood on my hands, his sentiment ringing true. Regardless of how much I wish the pain would leave, it is better to feel it than nothing at all. "Of course. Then we really would be monsters," I murmur.
He nods in agreement.
This is why there is a rotation scheduled for tortures. They are often more capable of stripping away all humanity than the assassinations.
On these nights, we become like empty shells.
Rude walks beside me to my quarters – a silent sentry on the darkest nights. When we reach the door to my quarters, he asks if I need anything. With a forced smile, I tell him that I don't. I doubt he believes me.
My eyes flicker to his moistened blazer as he turns to leave and I note where my blood has marked his shirt. "Sorry," I say, feeling as though I should apologize for something, anything – because I cannot apologize to Gavin. Even if it is only for a sullied shirt or the trouble I have caused. A lame excuse for an apology feels better than giving none at all.
Or at least I had hoped so.
His eyes are hidden behind those damn sunglasses, his expression unreadable. "No apologies in our line of work," he replies, his tone lighter, a play on a part of our creed. He leaves before I can come up with a fitting response.
I throw my blazer across a chair, one hand rubbing at a headache that has been brewing all evening. I will not sleep tonight.
My eyes fall shut. The image of burnt flesh surrounding shimmering green eyes flashes behind my closed eyelids. A tendril of smoke climbs upwards from his shoulders as he is burned from the inside out. I can almost smell his death.
And I caused it.
The words ring through my head on an endless loop, as if it is sung by the Midgarian Boys Choir. My stomach churns with every repetition until everything wells up in the back of my throat.
I ignore the knock at my door, my hand already covering my mouth as my feet carry me to my bathroom. Water splashes up at me as I vomit.
My breath comes out heavily as I take in the putrid smell, my self-hate already forcing me to the edge of hysteria. I'm trembling all over. The only thing holding me upright are my arms locked above the toilet's rim.
There is a snap and the clatter of a doorknob smacking into the wall as whomever was at my door rushes in. I do not care who it is. President Shinra himself could walk in with papers signed for my execution and I wouldn't even blink.
In truth, it might be a relief. At least this would end.
Hurried footsteps click across the tile, pausing in the bathroom's doorway. My ears barely hear the voice murmur my name or the clink of glass on tile. Fingers brush my cheek as his hands sweep my hair from my face, holding it back as I retch again.
When I have nothing left in me but dry, broken heaves, I finally feel as though I can ask the question that has been on my mind for months, "Why?" My voice shatters as my vision distorts and warm moisture streaks my cheek.
It is a question that encompasses every facet of Shinra. Why us? Why these victims? Why does the yearly death count seem to be the only damn thing they care about?
"I don't know, 'Nei. I don't know," he murmurs, his voice no louder than a disheartened breath. The weight carried within his tone suggests that he asks himself the same question every damn day.
Water runs for a moment and then coarse fabric brushes against my lips. There is a moment of silence before I hear the squeak of an old handle and water rushing from the faucet a second time. With shaking hands, he peels away my half-gloves and scrubs my fingers.
Blood. He's washing away the blood. My blood.
The cloth slaps against the tile and his hand tightens around my wrist. He knows that I will not let him heal the gashes. He understands that I need those scars. As reminders.
Because what happens behind closed doors never truly stays there.
He tugs gently on my arm, forcing me to turn and look at him. With eyes so focused on the past that they're almost unseeing, I note the rumpled dress shirt, the unzipped blazer. Reno. A small corner of my mind realizes that Tseng must have let him in with the master keycard.
He pulls me into an embrace, moisture that has already dripped from my nose and eyes, smears across my cheeks as I hide my face in the creases of his uniform.
I feel like shit.
Nights like these are filled with darkness, loneliness, the uncertainty of whether or not it is even worth spending another day with this company, even though the only alternative is death. Only my fellow Turks understand the sentiment.
It isn't until my tears turn to sniffles that he raises his cheek from the top of my head and lets me go. I try to look away, but his hand catches my chin, tilting it upwards. Concerned blue eyes flicker across my face as one thumb wipes a tear from beneath my eye. "I brought you something, yo." A hand reaches behind him, picking up a bottle off the tiled floor.
I know what it contains immediately: Whiskey.
My brow furrows as I take in the smooth curves of the bottle and the amber liquid inside. He knows I don't like alcohol.
"Tonight, you need it," he whispers, as if dissecting the emotions reigning at the very heart of my thoughts tonight.
His meaning is clear: I'll hate myself more in the morning if I don't.
In answer to my faint nod, he takes me by the hand and leads me to the living room. He sets two glasses on the coffee table and begins pouring the liquid inside. Its nights like these that remind me exactly why my comrades drink so damn much.
A sad smirk crosses his face as he hands me a glass and he raises his in a toast. His voice is bitter and laced with loathing as he speaks, "To Fuckin' Shinra."
I nod, my glass striking his with a clink. "To Fucking Shinra."
Thanks for reading! :)