hey hey! Well I wrote this as a 30 minute challenge, but after finishing it and editing it... Well it took a little longer. Oh well!

Summary: Reno writes a letter that will never be sent to swallow the stories that will never be told; his own little way of making it through the night.

Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII or the stuff related to it. Chelsea is an OC and I do own her (even if its just a name ... )

Hey, Tseng. I hope ya never read this, coz the only way that's gonna happen is if I take advantage of the draw full of pretty knives in the kitchen sometime tonight (what's left of it anyway).

This job- it ain't easy, ya know? They recruit ya young because the older ya get the more ya reflexes suffer. They recruit ya young so they can influence ya; wipe away any humanity or conscience that ya might have left. Those things ain't needed for this job. This job requires ruthlessness and brutality - if ya care, ya get killed. Not a threat, just a fact.

This job- it doesn't give ya a choice really. As soon as ya took me from my family, that family wasn't mine anymore. You were my family, and ya told me I had no one else. Needed no one else. My old family wasn't dead, but they might as well be, and they would be if I didn't do what I was ordered to do.

For a while I felt special - we all did - this was something we were picked out for because we were different, we were better than everyone else. Sure, we were scared, but we knew we would grow out of it, and we were right. Death comes with the job. It's something we learnt the hard way to just accept - accept it and move on with life, try not to get killed ourselves.

After a while though, after the special feelings faded, all we were left with was this numb void inside us that got bigger the longer we lived. Learning not to care means learning to throw away emotions that every normal person needs to survive, and the more we kill, the more it eats away at us.

I always meant to ask ya though, why us? I'm pretty sure I wasn't exactly the sort of person you'd usually pick for this job - then again, all ya had to do was train me. Now I'm second in command so I guess ya did a good job of it. Paper work sucks though, and that ain't never gonna change. You made me the way I am today. Was I ruthless before? Nah, I wouldn't go that far. I never killed unless there was no other choice - now I kill because ya tell me to, it's something I don't question. Cunning? Ya caught me picking ya pocket on the streets, that speaks for itself. Sure, I was good at fighting, but only on the streets. I killed three people before ya recruited me; one worked in prostitution and had it coming the moment he came up to me, the other was an innocent (the wrong place at the wrong time), and the last one... Well ya know about that as well as I do. Maybe better- I never did ask for the details.

After I joined though... well I stopped counting bodies after I reached ten. That was around eight or nine years ago.

I remember my first kill on the job. Judging by the file he was fairly wealthy, or so it seemed from the picture. The file itself didn't have much information. I asked ya what he'd done wrong, and ya told me that it didn't matter - he had pissed off the President and he had to be dealt with. No one publicly humiliates the president of ShinRa and lives to tell the tale. Even though he really is an asshole. Are we meant to kill people for speakin' the truth? Ya told me not to think about it, to just get in and do it, so I did. But ya informants got somethin' wrong, I never bothered finding out why.

I killed the man simple enough, climbed in through the top floor into his study; his chair was facing away from me. I didn't kill him straight away, I've never told ya that, but for some reason I just couldn't pull the trigger. He turned and looked me straight in the eye, and he smiled. He smiled at me, yo! How creepy is that! He looked so tired and sad... I dunno. It made me feel like apologizing to him somehow. He told me 'I thought you might come. I didn't expect you would be so young though- it's such a tragic shame. You look like you'd be the same age as my son you know.' Then I killed him. Those were his last words, right before I shot him in the centre of his forehead, beautiful point blank. Ya couldn't have done it better yaself. I didn't expect his family to still be at home - like I said, the informants got something wrong. They weren't meant to be there, ya told me they would be on holiday in Costa Del Sol, but it turns out the trip was delayed. And we don't leave loose ends.

Not even people yo.

It wouldn't have been a problem if his twelve year-old kid hadn't walked in on me, but she did. Now the whole family is dead. His son really was the same age as me, I checked. I know I shouldn't have but I felt like I needed to know. (I didn't. Stupid retard - that's me yo!)

This job isn't easy. I know ya know. It takes such a toll on us. We act like we don't care, and everyone calls us 'bastards', 'arrogant', and 'murderers'. I won't deny any of it, ya know it's true as well as I do, but this front we wear, the uncaring smirk I put on when I shoot someone in the head as he begs for his miserable life, telling me that he has a wife, a family, starving children to feed; the heartless, cold way that we write our reports, like we're just delivering a package, not blowing up a building with people in it. Like we're paying a visit to a client, not blackmailing money and cooperation out of him. Like we're taking someone on a trip instead of kidnapping them and forcing them to join the army under threat of their family being slaughtered in their beds.

Did ya know I had two sisters? Course ya did, you were the one who picked me up, you were the one who brought me here. I work for you - you've read my file yo.

Well they're both dead now.

You sent me on a mission only last week, ya told me that there was a terrorist group and I was meant to kill the leader of the faction that was becoming more violent. I'm pretty sure ya knew, but I didn't catch on until I saw her face close-up. After I had already shot and killed her. I thought she looked familiar yo, I was positive I'd seen her somewhere. One of her friends saw her lying there, and they screamed out her name before Rude killed her. I've never had a revelation more horrible than that. Who would've seen it coming? I've been following your orders for so long, that I sometimes forget to think for myself, ya know? I never bothered to read up on her history, to me she was just another target.

But it turns out that she lost a brother at an early age, to this company no less, thus the reason for her hatred towards us. Guess what his name was?

I realised afterwards that it didn't matter if ya knew or not, ya didn't tell me - wouldn't tell me - because ya knew I wouldn't bother checking. You always were a heartless bastard.

In that moment, I realised how much I hated, no, despised ya for 'just doing your job'. I confronted ya about it when I returned. We were both quiet, and then ya looked at me with a stupid, blank expression, and ya told me that that sort of family had no place in a job like ours. The only family we were allowed already belonged to the company.

I knew it was true, but it didn't matter anymore. As soon as the words left your mouth my anger deflated; I could tell ya noticed and ya smiled this sad little smile, like you'd forgotten I was there.

Besides, I hadn't seen her in nine or ten years. I didn't even know her anymore. It'd be best to wipe her from my memory. She'll go up in smoke like this letter.

So, here I am yo. Why am I writing this to ya? It's not like I'm gonna post it to ya in the mail. I've been doing this job longer than most, second only to you. I know I always seem happy, and mostly I am, but there are some moments that I hide from everyone else; some moments where I curl up in a corner somewhere and try to stop existing because it'd all be easier that way. I deal with it through smoking, I deal with it through alcohol, I deal with my rage by killing people that ya tell me to kill. There are moments when I feel like throwing those files at ya and saying; "Ya know what? Follow them yourself. Kill them yourself. Make Rufus do his own dirty work for once in his fucking life." How can we atone for our sins when we keep on killing? Every death weighs us down a little further, digs that hole a little deeper. But hey, that's our job.

And it's a bitch, ya know? Hell, you've been doing it for so long that ya don't even care anymore, or at least you act like ya don't.

I never really thought that I would reach the point where I couldn't take your indifference anymore, where your sharp, sarcastic words would actually cut through my uncaring demeanor and stab me like a fucking knife, where ya would make me see how worthless I've become.

How low we've fallen.

I hate depression yo. I reckon after I've written all this I'll feel better - like I always do - and burn it on the fire - like I always do - and you'll never know. Ya wouldn't care anyway.

Didja know that this is the 13th letter I've written like this? Course not. But it's the only way I know to deal with everything. I think that if I didn't do this, if I didn't have Rude or Elena, hell! If I didn't have you, I wouldn't even be here anymore. I'd have ended it long ago.

This might sound weird, but I'm not doing this to get back at ya for anything. I'm not doing this to point out your flaws - ya try to hide them, but I know they're there - or accuse ya of anything. I'm not doing this for ya at all really. You might not care, but the others do. I'm not blind. Elena's always had a thing for me, and what can I say? She's always been beautiful to me. If it wasn't against company policy, and if Elena didn't have that bloody stick shoved up her ass then we might've had something, but she'll always be like a sister to me now. Rude's been my buddy for years now, he's like a brother to me yo. We were a family. We are a family. There's no one else we can turn to anyway, the only thing we have is each other.

In my last letter, I was so low that I thought I wouldn't make it through the night. I know its hard to believe, I almost didn't believe it either yo, but there was that knife, and just one well aimed slash would rid me of this stupid life forever. Rude came back though, from whatever mission he'd been on, and we sat there for hours, just drinking coffee.

I love coffee. It always drives ya crazy whenever I'm hyped up on it, but I love the high it gives me. It gives me some time to pretend that I don't care, to convince myself of it, until I find that I don't care at all. It doesn't last long - but it's better than nothing. Better than drugs (I'll never make that mistake again).

Rude knows about the lows, he's been through them himself, he still does. We all do. I bet even you do. Not everyone gets through them though, remember Chelsea? Ah well. She was never cut out for this kind of work anyway. She's probably in a better place, at least I hope so...

Do ya ever wonder if there's a heaven or hell? Or is there just the Life-Stream? Everyone ends up there eventually, which seems kinda stupid to me. But I'm sort of glad at the same time - to be honest I'd rather not end up in hell yo.

Ah, shit. It's five AM. I only got a few hours of sleep ya know. It sucks when the depression hits at night; ya wake up wanting to die - it's not exactly fun, and I really don't recommend it, but hey, ya never listen to me anyway. I wonder if Elena is up yet? She usually makes breakfast at six - cliched, yeah, but damn can she cook. I know coz I'm always up by then; I never sleep well these days. If it wasn't so damn important to not be killed in my sleep then I'd feed myself some of them fuckin' sleeping pills Rufus has to take at night. That bastard really does have the weight of the world on his shoulders, ya know? I feel kinda better now. Can ya tell? I always swear more when I'm happy yo! I guess thats weird. Who am I kidding, everything about me is weird! Not as weird as you, but then - no one is as weird as you are, man. I bet you're more messed up than me.

Ya know what? I'll kill whoever ya tell me to, but right now I'm more inclined to kill for a cup of coffee. And there ain't nothin' ya can do about it! (please don't take away the coffee machine, please please please don't)...

Well I guess that's it. Time for ya to burn, little-letter.

Or big-letter.

Hey! This is longer than most of the reports I write for you, Tseng!

... Damn it. Ya really gotta go now, stupid letter, else Tseng will figure out I'm not as illiterate as I pretend and he won't accept my paragraph-long reports anymore...

Have fun burning! And, uh, if there is a hell,

well -

I guess I'll see ya there.

thanks for reading! R&R let me know what you thought?