This crawled out of my head at 4:20 AM. Stupid head, wouldn't let me sleep.
The story you're about to read is chock full of mentions of sex. And some swearing. And Reno being an ass. And Cloud-bashing. And for once, it's not AU!
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The Bet
Reno and Zack had a bet.
It had started years ago, when the two had just become friends. When the Wutai war was still on, and when General Sephiroth was known for his sword skills and icy nature, not for trying to conquer the world or some stupid shit like that.
The bet was simple enough: whoever would get more ass, won. Male, female, it didn't matter as long as they'd have something to prove it by. Zack, of course, claimed that he would win, whereas Reno was adamant that the elusive reward of winning the bet (they'd never actually agreed on one) would be his. They both agreed, though, that the competition was far more interesting and fun than could possibly be legal.
The rules were simple enough: have sex with someone, obtain some sort of a trophy, and move on. It sounded cruel and cold, but the two were unofficially ranked the Hottest Pieces Of Ass In All Shin-Ra, so such things as morality didn't bother them much.
There were only a few restrictions: The General was and would always be off limits. Neither would approach him with sex in mind (well they would, but they wouldn't act on it), because 1) bedding him would be instant victory, and 2) if the man would learn of their little bet and that he had been a part of it, he'd murder them both. Neither doubted that.
Another restriction were the other Turks. Tseng, a friend of The General, would also at least maim them. Rude probably wouldn't, but Reno claimed that he couldn't work with those brown puppy eyes staring at him from behind the sunglasses every day, hurt at being used so. Rude was big and strong, cold as ice if he needed to be, but according to the redhead, he was 'just a big baby'.
And it was indeed so much fun trying to win the bet, no matter that there was no tangible prize to be reached. Half the Academy more or less knew of the bet, and some of the hornier cadets apparently had a bit of a competition among themselves, regarding who could have sex with them BOTH, and preferably one as soon after the other as possible.
Yes, it had all been fun and games. Times to look back on and be, if not proud, at least grinning like a maniac. But then HE had come along. The Chocobo Butt.
Reno had taken pretty much an instant dislike to the blond. Well, his first instinct had been to snatch him before Zack did, but the Soldier got there first. And nothing was the same after that, because Zack had to go and do the unthinkable by falling in LOVE.
And just like that, Zack called the bet off. There was not much sense in going on, not when the Soldier had so suddenly discovered monogamy. And not to hurt the little ditz's feelings, he even hid all his trophies away. WITHOUT BOTHERING TO SETTLE THE SCORE WITH RENO!
The Turk was pissed, to say the least. No matter how he begged or teased or punched, Zack was too enamoured with his little cadet to notice his old best friend. If they went out for a drink, the Soldier would just sigh into his beer like a moron, and tell Reno that he'd understand once it was his turn. When the Turk wanted to specify whether the idiot meant his turn on riding the boy or acting like a chickenwuss, the Soldier's feelings actually got hurt.
Well, BOO HOO!
Reno had started to spend more time with Rude then, still collecting trophies from his adventures. But it just wasn't the same.
The redhead didn't manage to make his peace with the Soldier (he wholeheartedly intended to, he was just waiting for the right moment) before Zack went and did something completely stupid again by going MIA while on a simple routine mission with Sephiroth and the Chocobo Butt. There was some talk about a whole town burning down, but it was just some remote hicksville that no one cared about, so Reno didn't know much about it. All he knew was that if something so bad had happened that The General had possibly died, it wasn't likely that his friend was coming back either. To the Chocobo Butt he just wished good riddance.
Years passed, Reno wasn't quite sure how many of them. Time seemed to move in strange ways when he spent most of it in a drunken stupor. Rude stayed by his side, Tseng threatened him with bodily harm. A few other Turks came and went, no one lasting long. If you wanted to be a Turk, it didn't matter so much where your other abilities lied; unless you weren't good at dodging bullets, you were soon an ex-Turk. And if you wanted to be a GOOD Turk, you had no qualms about shooting back.
Then the unthinkable happened. Reno had almost forgotten the whole incident, had considered the unfortunate trio dead and buried, until that one day he was sent to pick up the Flower Girl. And who should be 'protecting' her but good old Chocobo Butt. The man clearly didn't recognize him, but Reno knew him, and saw immediately that the blond ditz had changed. A lot. He'd certainly gotten a lot stronger, he managed to beat all of Reno's little helpers. The Turk was annoyed, to say the least, and a bit excited as well. If the little Blondie was alive, that could mean Zack was as well. And he'd finally get a chance at the blond himself. Sooner than he'd thought; he was sent to blow up the pillar above Sector Seven of the Slums, and All Hair And No Brains was there to fight him.
More like wipe the floor with his ass, as Rude so eloquently put it later on. Reno was now officially Pissed. Over the following months he got several opportunities to fight the squirt, and his growing number of friends. It was something to take one's mind off the fact that Sephiroth was back as well, and crazy to boot. But no Zack. Reno noticed, though, that Chocobo Butt had managed to learn a lot of the Soldier's moves, and was acting a lot like his old friend. It was disturbing, but only served to drive Reno on, to figure out what the hell had happened. While things cooled down between battles, he'd dig up every piece of information he could find on the Nibelheim Incident, Zack's disappearance and Chocobo Butt. He watched his adversary closely, getting snide remarks from Rude and the new Turk, Elena. Tseng's death distracted him for only a Meteor's appearance in the sky disturbed him, but not as much as the info he managed to dig out of Strife through their spy inside the Avalanche.
Zack was indeed dead, and the blond moron couldn't have let him go without stealing his memories and behavior. It amused him when he saw Strife struggling with the guilt through the eyes of the robotic spy. The world was about to end, but his adversary was gonna be miserable for the rest of his screwed up life, whereas he himself would be too drunk to notice when the Meteor hit them.
He was actually a bit disappointed when it didn't.
Midgar was in ruins, and the Company pretty much in the same state. Some of the executives stayed to try and help those who had lost their homes (pretty much everyone, in other words), but most had split. The Turks stayed in Midgar, doing their own little part in fixing the place, or at least digging up bodies, something they were used to see.
The problem was, they weren't exaggerating when they said the whole town was destroyed. Rude could lead his happy little group anywhere and they'd find more and more corpses to dig up. It was tiring, so when Reno spotted a familiar, run-down church which had surprisingly managed to stay mostly in one piece, he decided to go in and take a nap. Or cry. Or both.
In hindsight, he should have known that he'd find Strife here. Sitting on the floor, staring straight ahead with that usual, oh-so-intelligent look on his pretty face. The blond turned slowly to look up at him once Reno stopped by his side. The Turk frowned when he saw the broken eyes, and for a moment he thought he'd finally found out what guilt felt like. But the moment passed when he remembered his broken friendship.
"Yo. What the fuck are you doing here?"
No answer, just a sigh.
After Zack and Chocobo Butt had become 'exclusive', Reno had figured that he'd already won ages ago because of the sheer number of partners he'd had. But only now, when Cloud Strife was sleeping half on top of him, clutching his arm like a kid holding onto his teddy bear, the Turk could say that he'd finally won. Without a doubt. He was the man. Zack had lost.
But if he'd just won, why did he feel like the biggest bastard on the whole Planet?
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A.N.: Wrote the whole thing on one sitting. Inspired by several RenoxCloud-stories I stumbled upon last night. Hope it doesn't suck horribly. Comments and criticism greatly appreciated!
Kingdom Hearts II kinda distracted me from Reflections, but the next chapter is under work. Slowly but surely. –nervous grin-