A/N: Hi people of fanfiction! My first time writing a final fantasy story and I'm so excited! I'm glad I finally put it up! :D I don't own final fantasy 7 or any of its characters T-T ...unfortunately... This is purely fanmade and I thought I'd take Reno to the next level. We simply don't get enough of our favorite red head do we? ;3 There's gonna be smut later on so if yaoi offends you don't read it! Thanks for your time and please review! :D
Y'know, ever since I was a little kid I always wanted to fly…
I would stare at the sky all day long, lying on my back in the tall grass at the edges of Midgar letting the wind caress my short crimson spikes, my tiny body full of envy and jealousy. They soared through the heavens, lighter than the feathers they wore, cawing joyously without a care in the world. The birds looked so free, so happy, and yet I don't think I ever coulda been like them. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be. I was supposed to be melted to the ground with no escape, trapped in the slums like 'a stray dog. All I wanted to be was free.
It was all I ever wanted.
However, I knew that no matter how envious I was of the skies there was a person right here for me to look up to. She was someone I could actually reach. It wasn't like the one sided relationship I had with the birds. I could extend my little hands up to the skies and never grasp them, they were intangible, unreachable. But with Ranine, I didn't need 'a pair of wings to do it; I could be just like her. She was all I ever wanted to be: adventurous, brave, courageous, giving. She was the best example any little brother could ask for.
The days we spent together, were something I could never forget. We really didn't have the best parents in the world and our other siblings fared better without us so we were always on our own. She protected me like a mother would, like our mother failed to do. She always made sure I ate, had clothes to wear, shoes on my feet. Y'know, the basic essentials to living and stuff. Never over the top, we weren't rich enough for that. Luxury was something only the snobby bastards on the upper plate could afford. Yet we lived on happily, the best we could.
Even till this day I always wondered what she would look like now. I've heard from a lot of people we grew up with that we look exactly alike, almost like twins despite the fact we were several years apart. It's funny how the person I admired most I ended up favoring physically but failing in every other aspect. I was a drunken, drugged up bastard like our father, a closeted failure like our mother, and an uneducated sack of shit like the rest of our siblings.
If Ranine could see me now she would be nothing but disappointed.
I always tried my best to be the example she had set for me but no matter how hard I tried I could never be like her. Not with her goggles, not with her looks, not even with my futile attempts at carrying on her ideas and aspirations. I was a sad excuse of a little brother, vying for a dream so unachievable.
And then I realized...
My wings were clipped from the beginning, like a flightless chocobo. I was never meant to touch the skies like Ranine was able to. I was destined to be a bottom feeder, the lowest of the low, a lap dog willing to kill for his bone. This is what I would grow up to be. Not the courageous, loving, and endearing sister I would give the world for. I was always what everyone wanted me to be, the clay to someone's mold.
I was never anything at all.
I was just Reno.
The red headed child that was always everybody else.
The sad little child that no one ever knew who he truly was.