Hi guys! This is my first attempt at writing fan fiction, so pretty please be nice. If you want to be mean, at least read it! Reviews would be awesome and I'd love you forever.

I don't own Final Fantasy 7. I wish I did though.

Just one shot to the head and then it would all be over. Easy enough, right? Reno had though so only minutes before, but now he was having second thoughts.

He scolded himself for his weakness. It wasn't as if he didn't know how to shoot. It wasn't even that he couldn't take a life. He had taken so many that he had lost count a long time ago, and they had reasons to live. Most of them had family, friends, lovers, or some other reason to keep going, but Reno didn't have any of that. He had no reason to live, so why was he hesitating?

Everything was ready. There was even a suicide note on the coffee table, less than a foot away from him. The only thing that was in his way was himself.

He took another swig of the beer in one hand and another drag on the cigarette that was in his other hand to calm his nerves.

"Tell ya what, if by some miracle someone comes through that door," he motioned to the front door of his apartment. "And saves your sorry ass within an hour, then you can live," he compromised with himself.

He stuck the cigarette in his mouth, freeing a hand. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and set an alarm for an hour, taking a gulp of beer as he did so.

He set the phone beside the note and went to take another drink of beer, but it was empty. Sighing, he carelessly dropped the bottle on the hard wood floor and watched it shatter.

Reno laid down on the couch and watched absently as the alarm counted down to his death.

Death, Reno mused. There had been plenty of death in Reno's life.

Reno still vividly remembered his first kill. He was only seven at the time.

When Reno was born, his father fled and never came back, leaving Reno with his mother. She did as best she could for him at first. It was hard to be a single mother in the slums, and she soon had to turn to prostitution. One thing led to another, and it take long before she was addicted to drugs. Reno didn't know what she was on and neither did she. She just whatever drugs she could afford and paid for them with the money she got from sleeping with the men her pimp sent to their house.

Reno would always try to go to sleep when the strangers arrived. They scared him and he snuggled his teddy bear as him mommy and the men would make loud noises in the next room. Reno didn't know what they were doing and his mom always told him she was doing what she "needed to" for them to survive. Reno just accepted that as the truth and didn't push any farther.

One night, one of the men stayed longer. Soon, Reno could hear them yelling in the next room. Then he heard his mother scream. Terrified, Reno covered his head with a pillow and pulled his blankets closer. This muffled the yells for a while, and Reno managed to get to sleep.

He was asleep for less than five minutes before his mother screamed again, much louder this time. Then she screamed again. Reno sat up in bed and hugged his knees to his chest as tears began to sting his eyes and blur his vision.

When she cried out again, Reno rushed out of his room and started banging on her door. "Stop it!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Leave my mommy alone!"

The door was thrown open by the belligerent drunk who was in the room with her. "What?!" the man hollered at the small child.

"Leave her alone!" he shouted again.

The man laughed. "Fine. I don't want anything with that cheap whore." He stumbled to the couch and sat down, resting his head in his hands, obviously feeling the beginning of a hangover.

Reno ignored the drunk, but he wondered what "whore" meant. He knocked on the door again. "Mommy? Are you okay?" he asked innocently. No answer. "Can I come in?" When there was still no answer, he opened the door.

Everyday since, Reno wished he hadn't. Even Reno, with a child's ignorance, knew she was dead. There wasn't a reason to even check.

Silently, Reno made his way to her body. Her usually beautiful face was marred with ugly slashes and blood. His eyes slowly traveled down her lifeless form. Eyes stopping at her naked chest, he realized a knife sticking stiffly out of her abdomen. Blood was everywhere. It stained the sheets and the mattress and there was a steady dripping sound as it made its way down to the floor. In Reno's young mind, the blood looked like spilt red finger paint, only it was much messier.

Reno covered her body with the sheet and climbed into bed next to her, paying no mind to the blood that got on him. Reno snuggled up to his mother's side and stayed there for more than ten minutes. He didn't know ho long he would have stayed if the drunk hadn't wondered in.

For a split second, Reno expected him to apologize, but he leaned over to take the knife out of his mother. He locked gazes with young Reno for a moment before reaching for the knife. Instinct kicked in as Reno quickly grabbed it and pulled it out of his mother. The sound the exiting blade would have made Reno throw up under normal conditions.

Standing up on the bed, Reno pointed the blade towards the sobering man, who was now laughing at him. "Really, kid? Just give me the knife," he ordered calmly. Neither he nor Reno was ready for what Reno did next.

With one swift slash of the blade, Reno cut the man's throat open. He cried as more blood spilled onto the floor and blood from a slit artery splattered on his face.

He ran out of the house and never looked back.

The sun was rising as he wandered the streets of the slums, searching for someone to help. He could not actually see the sky because of the plate above him, but he saw that it was getting much brighter.

Tears came to his eyes as he noticed that somewhere in the world, a kid was waking up to a wonderful day. Maybe they would even go on a picnic with their mother. Reno had always wanted to have a picnic with his mother.

It took hours before he found a man walking on the street. He was well groomed and he wore a neat suit. No one dressed like that in the slums, so Reno knew he must be a Turk. Reno rushed to him and told him what happened in between sobs. Reno could not remember exactly what he told him, but he remembered the look in the Turks eyes. There was no sorrow or sympathy as the child explained. The Turks eyes were emotionless.

Reno remembered wanting to be like that. He did not want to be a Turk, but he wanted to have the same numbness so he would never feel pain again.

The Turk let Reno finish his story. Then he took him to an orphanage and went to clean up the house.

Reno never forgot a single detail about his first kill, but there was still one memory that was even more vivid.

That memory that drove Reno to killing himself only happened hours ago.

A few hours prior to Reno preparing to kill himself, there was a huge tragedy. AVALANCHE brought the plate down on Sector 7, killing thousands of innocent people. There was only one thing most people did not understand. AVALANCHE did not do that. Reno did.

It was a simple mission. All he had to do was set up a massive bomb and wait for the scapegoats to show up. Then he would detonate the bomb and make a quick escape by helicopter.

It should have been easy. After all, explosives were Reno's specialty and getting away would be easy enough. Everything should have gone according to plan. There was only one problem, it worked perfectly.

Reno set the bomb, fought AVALANCHE, and made his escape by helicopter. As he flew away from the structure, he could hear metal scrapping hard against metal and people yelling below.

By the time the plate fell, Reno was a safe distance away. He should not have heard it, he was too far away, but he heard thousands of people begging for help. He wasn't sure if it was real or just his torturous imagination, but their cries replayed in his head even as he lie on the couch, ready to end his life.

He was still staring at the alarm as it got down to one minute. Sighing, he loaded his gun and put it to his own temple. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, there was a loud knock on the door.

He groaned as he set the gun beside the note and opened the door.

"What do you want, Rude?" Reno asked, annoyed that the man had interrupted his suicide attempt.

"I heard what you did today. I wanted to make sure you were okay," he explained. "Are you okay?"

That was the most Rude had ever said to him, but Reno did not really care. Nothing mattered anymore. "I'm fine," he lied.

"Can I come in?" Rude asked, polite as usual.

"No." Reno tried to close the door, but Rude pushed it open and entered anyway.

Rude scanned the room. His eyes were quickly drawn to the suicide note on the coffee table. He walked to the coffee table and picked up the peice of paper. It was short. It simply said: I have no reason to live. Don't play sad when I'm gone.

Reno watched Rude as the indifference of Turks that he had admired as a child turned to pure sorrow.

Rude cast another look at the gun before pulling Reno into his strong arms. 'I love," he confessed shamelessly.

Reno opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted as the alarm on his phone went off.

"I love you too." Reno hugged him back.

Rude had come just in time to save him. Reno had a reason to live now.

Thank you for reading!

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