April 25th, 2011

A/N: Ok, so this is my first delve into FFVII and I had an idea for the quote simmering in the back of my brain for a while, but whatever I was planning came out as well …this and not anywhere near what I was thinking. It's been an interesting write if nothing else and a first time with a serious attempt at the second person point of view and no quotations or actual dialogue. It was killer, lol. (If all the 'you's get confusing, feel free to substitute them for 'Cloud' since it's his p.o.v.)

Also, even though Reno didn't have a hell of a lot of time in the game his character changes a lot in the way he talks and acts and it made me interested in what else we didn't get to see. So thus my interest has brought about this attempt at exploring what makes him tick.

So please read and let me know what you think I would greatly appreciate the feedback!

Warning!: Contains spoilers for the plot of the game Final Fantasy VII

So, when this loose behavior I throw off

And pay the debt I never promisèd,

By how much better than my word I am,

By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;

And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,

My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault,

Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes

Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

I'll so offend to make offense a skill,

Redeeming time when men think least I will.

Henry IV Part I Act I, scene two, lines 201-210 by William Shakespeare

Enlightening Encounters?

The first time you see him is right before the Sector Seven Plate is dropped. He's all lean angles, well-earned confidence with a hint of arrogance, and he simply looks at you with a gaze that can only be described as electrifying. He's got a cocky grin on his face and a swagger in his step that is half predatory and half hyperactive energy as he approaches you. He talks to you with an almost childlike enthusiasm as he pushes the button that begins the countdown and your heart races due to the anxiety and adrenaline spike the situation causes.

Your time is precious little but you engage in combat anyway. What he's done and who he's allied to and just wearing that damn suit alone is unforgivable. Not to mention the overwhelming need to pound that expression off of his face in a very violent and painful manner. He takes you on three to one and he fights with ease. He does not win, no, but though defeated it still seems like he won something else. His stance is strange, his movement fluid and unpredictable, implementing a style filled with coarse refinement that you don't doubt for a moment is only something he could use. And throughout it all you can't help but feel like he's toying with you because he's so at ease with all of this despite the fact that the three of you are angry as hell and happily taking the opportunity to pound his face in even with the doom clock running in the back of your minds.

As time begins to wind down the clash of the fight ends with an almost abrupt stop as he drops out of his fighting stance and slides into a slouch with a lazy grin. Your attention is diverted with the sound of helicopter blades and he takes the opportunity to make his escape. Even though he is now gone the last expression on his face confirms your suspicion that he didn't give his all in the clash and that pisses you off. But then you realize despite whatever cocky display or perceived arrogance he had never condescended to you, never thought you weren't worth the effort. Maybe he didn't go all out because you would meet again when you weren't supposed to be running for your lives. And the thought is so utterly ridiculous but you push it to the back of your mind because the truth is the three of you have literally seconds to, well, run for your lives.

The second time you meet is quite sometime later when you are trying to navigate the maze of the Mythril Mines. His dark skinned partner and the young woman who was obviously still green immediately ambush you with their spiel once you get into talking range. And he just saunters up, smooth and cool voice cutting easily into the conversation. It's with lightness and ease that he teases the newbie and it should strike you as awkward to witness an enemy like this but he's so enigmatic and full of life and personality so unlike everyone else that it seems wrong for you to want to end it. Then he turns to you and asks if you remember him and are you ready for payback for Sector Seven?

You are confused because even though you landed him in the hospital for some time, hence why he was eerily absent during your assault on the Shinra Tower, you are undoubtedly the one who was supposed to be doing the 'paying back.' You aren't sure if that is actually what he meant in the first place and while this goes on in your head you answer him in the negative before you can stop yourself.

He takes a split second at your response before all the easy laughter and the fluid laziness transforms so he is positively radiating with a previously unforeseen fire and anger. His rage is instant and palpable and somehow the thought of being crushed by the Sector Seven Plate is infinitely less dangerous then this being now seething with raw fury.

You don't quite know what just happened in the last minute and you feel like you missed something important. But he's riled up and if it's one thing you know it's the language of combat so you rush in three on three and the fight is on.

You meet several more times during your crazy chocobo race of running around trying to stop Sephiroth and saving the planet. Each time is different, a new side of the man in that aggravating Turk suit. But though the grin is always something different, the feeling behind it still manages to be the same.

You learn in Gongaga that he can be just as human as everyone else and even get his buddy who's so silent all the time to talk about something as intimate as love interests. Even as one eye slides over to make contact with you and said love interest is walking around the corner he just grins and keeps going. You fight this time too but you can't help but feel that he's acting for this altercation. Acting for Elena because it's what she expects? Or acting for Rude as a way of helping him? Or acting for the cause? Or acting for you because it's what you need? Or maybe acting for himself?

The clash this time is no where near as heated as previous battles. It is almost friendly and somewhat comforting in its now familiarity. You notice that it's odd he's the first to shy away at the end of the fight but he's the last to take his turn to leave. Right before he slips away he leaves you with the parting quip that although it may look like they are running away they haven't lost. These words leave you puzzled and when you realize he left with the last word you can't help but feel faintly amused.

You traverse pretty much the entire damn planet in your epic quest. It is tiring and the tribulations you suffer from it bear down on your soul and you haven't even finished it yet. You meet him in many of those places though and each time now you can't help feeling half-exasperated at everything he is and half-grateful for running into him. Grateful because seeing him means you're on the right track, or on the right track to disrupt Shinra, both together makes it even better. Also grateful because an encounter with him reminds you of everything you're doing and why and the impending fight is one of the best ways you know of to get rid of some of the stress that's been mounting up inside of you since the last time both sides went against each other. A fight in Rocket Town, a merry chase via submarine for the Huge Materia, a mandatory battle inside the confines of the sunken Gelnika, plus the other run-ins all pointed you in some sort of direction and ironically kept you sane enough to keep going.

You were thrown for a loop when you saw him in Wutai. Stumbling onto the three of them in a bar in a fairly out of the way chain of islands made you pause in disbelief, but you didn't know what you weren't supposed to believe, because if it's one thing you learned about him is that you can't predict what the hell he's going to do next. The three of you stand awkwardly in the doorway for a moment too long because Elena notices you, or she's the only one who lets you know you've been noticed since he and Rude just keep nursing their drinks. She's all business suddenly and in your face but it almost seems like she needs the ever impending fight. But it doesn't come.

His voice is not slurred and comes out in a drawl as easily as if he hadn't downed half of the empty glasses on the table. It's a familiar flow but it's authoritative, commanding almost, yet soft also in telling her to leave you alone. This strange mix makes you realize something serious must have happened on their side because Elena stops without too much complaint and even Rude speaks up. He continues speaking and the sound lures you in and it occurs to you it sounds comforting despite the actual words spewing out of his mouth. Whatever had happened made the two of them rely on him even more for the strength and guidance he seemed to be able to emit for them.

That's when it hits you that this situation was wrong and you are still uncomfortably standing there just inside the door too long after Elena has rushed out. He just lifts the next glass and with a silent toast continues on. You leave as soon as you remember how to control your feet.

If the scene at the bar was shocking then the other run-in in Wutai mere hours later would probably be described as shocking. Or enlightening. You aren't entirely sure.

He and Rude are out of the bar when you meet and the atmosphere from earlier is gone and you are fully expecting the fight that was denied earlier but it still doesn't come. Instead he offers to team up with you, making it perfectly clear that it's only temporary, because both sides were missing a member and that it's only a means to and end and afterward it's back to business as usual. You are questioning of the blatant lack of underhandedness but say nothing. But even with the shock and the differences between you it doesn't stop you from accepting somehow. The thought of joining forces with him and Rude doesn't make you uncomfortable or as sick as you would have thought.

You find both Yuffie and Elena captured by Don Corneo and the sleaze bag reminds you of your cross-dressing catastrophe and you find yourself filled with an annoyance and maybe not a little animosity towards the man. But it is not you who rushed to confront the Don. He easily slips by you and leaves you standing next to Rude and your group of traveling buddies before you could blink or open your mouth.

He slowly corners the Don in paced slinking steps that scare the crap out of Corneo. The Don obviously knows him, or recognizes him at least, and is spluttering uncontrollably as he backs away towards the cliff face and away from the one approaching him. He is slightly predatory and the slight bounce at the end of each slinky step forward betrays some of his amusement. He is a cat with a mouse. They talk and even when Corneo brings out his ace in the hole, the switch that could drop both of your captured comrades to their fate with the push of a button, he doesn't even bat an eye. The Don thinks he has the upper hand now and it shows in his manner and condescending words.

You wonder idly why all of you are just calmly sitting on the sidelines and watching this altercation unfold like some sort of bizarre play. But you are all enthralled. Because even though he hasn't lost his cool for a second you know you should be panicking for your friend. Instead you watch as the tables are turned and it almost feels good to watch Corneo start to sweat. And then the Don is hanging off the cliff looking up at him, and he just throws the words the Don said mockingly serious right back in the Don's face. He leans over and answers that he does what he does because it's his job. And with that perfect timing the Don slips off the cliff face into the abyss below.

It takes you a few seconds of watching this unfold to see that he had put on a show. Or maybe that answer had put himself on show. Either way it felt like maybe he said a little too much because he couldn't quite hide from the meaning of the words. His job to Shinra? His job to humanity? His captured subordinate? His job to himself? Whatever it was, this show is what let you sit back and watch instead of being in the center or it. You admit to yourself there was a certain amount of finesse involved and if you were the one to have handled the situation there was no way you could have made it look so, for lack of a better word, cool.

With Elena and Yuffie rescued he moves to leave with his two comrades in tow and he slips as effortlessly passed you as the breeze that follows him down the mountain. You remark to yourself it felt strange not to have the familiar clash of wills and weapons, but maybe you were supposed to get something else out of this encounter besides the bruises.

You are running underground in the maze of pipes when you run into three figures in blue suits. It is when you meet with an easy, friendly, grin and a blue gaze that seems to say 'this is it!' that you know this will be the last encounter with him, at least until the whole Meteor and Approaching Doom business had been resolved. You look at his laid back stance and wonder why he's there in the middle of the sewers just standing around waiting for you.

He gives you some crap about it being (or not being?), official Shinra business to interact with you again. But then he gives you a choice. And it makes you start. The world has gone to hell around all of you and whatever caused you both to fight each other in the first place doesn't matter as much as the problem of possible world annihilation. This is a chance to pull together, but maybe you and he were already on the same side. You decide to hell with it and hoped he was in the mood to give you a good warm up. As the fray began he jumped in to challenge you and you had no doubt that your choice made him amused, judging on the way the lazy grin morphed into a saucy smirk.

After the world was more or less saved you find yourself in the new equivalent of the old Seventh Heaven bar and take note of how life goes on. For some reason when the door opens for the next customer coming in off the street you can tell things are going to get interesting based off the aura you are feeling coming off them. Casual, sure of them self steps command attention and they take their time coming up to the bar and stopping next to you. You take this time to look to the owner of the powerful presence and see him. You see him with that vibrant red hair and that ever damnable, hate-able suit, and a general feeling of knowing and comfort.

You can't help but stare a moment because you never expected to see him here. Or was it unexpected to be in front of you because you never exactly reconciled or forgiven him? Or maybe it was unexpected to be in this place that so ironically resembles the target of that fateful drop of the Plate? But he is here now and it makes you think of what his motives are, because in all of your interactions with him, you never really knew who he was or what he was about.

You must have had a stupid, surprised, but hopefully only mildly puzzled expression on your face because his eyes glint with more of that knowing he was giving off upon his entrance into the establishment. He slaps you heartily on the back with all the ease and familiarity of a long time friend as he finally sits and orders a drink in one fluid motion. He looks into your face to see you still giving that same look as before. His face splits into a roguish grin that makes him clink his glass with yours, take a sip, and laugh at you have no idea what. But as you take your own glass to complete your half of the toast you find yourself thinking, if you were going to make sense of the insensible, you would have to start with Reno.

A/N: So there you have it, my first FFVII fanfic. Lol, and I used Shakespeare to make sense out of Reno. The concept amuses me. But arrgh, the ending. I also had an idea to use the same quote for Rufus. Does this sound like a good idea?

Please review with thoughts/comments/criticism on the story and thanks for reading!