- A Final Fantasy VII Reno Fanfiction - by Nightcrawler666 -

Lou's finally warming up to our favourite redhead! YAY ;3 Well, sort of anyway...

Chapter 10 - Daddy!

Lou woke up to the troublesome racket of her alarm clock and rolled over to smack it.

"Ow! What was that for?" Reno screamed, disturbed after Lou's fist collided brutally with his skull. He flipped over wide-eyed and pushed her back by her forehead, making her fall off the edge of the mattress. Almost immediately, Lou sprang back up onto the bed and hit Reno again.

He shoved her away again and buried his face in the pillow, muttering many muffled curses. Lou let out an aggravated groan and dragged the duvet off of Reno's half-conscious form and dropped it silently on the floor next to her. For a moment she felt guilty. But then…

"Ha! Nice pants, Reno!" She laughed, then fell on the floor in a fit of giggles.

"Hey! There ain't nothin' wrong with my pants!" He protested, failing to recognise his humiliation. He shuffled to the end of the bed and stole back the duvet, going back to the pillow to feign sleep again.

"What Turk wears Spiderman underwear?"
"This one." He bit back.
"God, Reno! Grow up."
"I don't wanna grow up, yo! I'm just happy being as I am."

Lou turned round to her wardrobe and opened the doors, taking out some jeans and a yellow t-shirt. Reno started to laugh.

"What?"
"Hehe, nothin' much, why?" He smirked.
"What?"
"You're wearing Spongebob pyjamas… God, Lou! Grow up." He said, deliberately quoting her to annoy her. Instead, she started to laugh again.

"Do you need the bathroom, I'm going through to get changed."
"Nah, you stay here. I'll use the bathroom." Reno said, then launched himself from the bed and grabbed his clothes off the sofa leaving Lou no choice but to agree.

When he came back in, Reno was dressed in his usual uniform minus the jacket. Lou was waiting on the sofa, her t-shirt turned out to be a 'Muse' concert shirt. Reno dropped down onto the sofa next to her and she felt the springs give way despite the fact that he didn't weigh that much. Well, he didn't look heavy.

"Reno, how much do you weigh?" Lou asked. The man to her left laughed.
"Already seeing if you can take me on top of you, yo?" He teased. Lou huffed in exasperation.
"No! It's just, you're really skinny but… I guess you're also pretty fit right?" She asked.

"Thanks."
"What?"
"You called me fit. Thanks, yo." He kept teasing. He was really getting on her bad side now.

"No, just forget it. How much do you weigh?"
"Dunno. Got a set of scales?"
"Err, yes actually. They're in my bathroom." Lou pointed to the door, and expecting Reno to have moved instantly she let herself fall face-first onto her sofa. Correction -Into Reno's crotch - not the sofa. The redhead laughed and said:

"Just couldn't wait, could you?" before helping her up and leaving to go to her set of weighing scales.

"176 pounds, yo!" He called through the open doorway. "You need to turn off the radiators by the way. It's too hot in her, yo." He finished while walking back to the living room and ripping off his shirt.
"Shit." He muttered.

"What? Reno are you alright?" Lou said, panicking considering the last time he'd said that he'd put his fist through his bathroom wall.
"God! I only popped all the buttons off my shirt, yo. No big deal woman, calm down!" Lou ignored him. Holy Jenova he could be moody sometimes…

There was a loud knock at the door, followed by someone shouting for Lou.

"I'll get it!" Reno volunteered, running to the door in nothing but his trousers. When he opened it there was a very tall man with well-kept golden hair and brown eyes. He wore a blue and white pinstripe suit and stood with his nose in the air. Reno beamed a huge cheesy grin at him. The Turk could've sworn he heard him snort at him.

"And who might you be, young sir?" The man asked, looking Reno up and down as the younger of the two pushed his goggles further up his forehead.
"Reno, yo! Who the hell are you?" He asked, holding up his hand for a high-5. Again with the snort.
"Reno who is it?" Lou shouted in the background, before walking over and peeping over Reno's shoulder.

"Daddy!" She screamed, and flung herself at him. Reno was confused. He'd never really thought Lou had a family. He didn't, he was just some orphan from the slums. Looking at Lou's dad she was from a pretty stuck-up family.

"That's your Dad?" Reno asked, unbelieving.
"Yup. Oh, Reno put a shirt on." She said, embarrassed that a shirtless stranger had opened the door to her father.
"Yes darling." Reno joked.

"He's your boyfriend?" Lou's dad asked her, traces of disgrace and disgust across his face. Lou shook her head and said to him:
"I need to go to work now Dad. I'll call next time I can see you, Ok?" She said, then hastily retreated to her flat.

Her father moved forward and was about to ask who the man in there with her was before the door slammed in his face. He walked away, concerned for his daughter even though he didn't really know who this man was. How did they meet? How long had they been living together? Maybe it was like she said and he wasn't her boyfriend. Even then, he might have been her fiancé! Or married already! He was particularly worried now.

Lou slammed the door, relieved that it had been Reno who opened it now. Sure enough he'd have plenty of questions about Reno and why he was wandering (shirtless) around her house. She felt guilty that she'd lied to him about it being a work day, but it was for the best. He'd worry even if she'd told him Reno was her adopted son or something ridiculous like that. He could never believe anything she said.

"What was that all about?" Reno asked from the kitchen. He still wasn't wearing a shirt.
"Oh, just my Dad. He can be so annoying sometimes.
"I didn't know you came from royalty, yo!" He joked, mostly on how posh her dad was.

"I hate my family, can we not get into that? Can't we talk about your instead?" Lou suggested, not knowing enough to have stopped herself.

Reno suddenly turned and stared hard into her fridge, muttering things about how stupid it was to talk about family. Lou carried on with it, not so much oblivious as curious. There was no question she was oblivious of how protective Reno could be.

"Come on Reno, tell me about your family!" She said, bouncing over and putting her hands on his shoulders. He span around and shut the fridge door with a deafening slam, angrily throwing Lou's hands away and slapping her across the face.

"Shut the fuck up! Just… Leave me alone for the day, alright!" He shouted, storming out and into Lou's bedroom to curl up in the sheets.

An hour later and a bruise had started to form on Lou's face. She'd stayed on the settee since then and cried, but not because Reno had caused her any amount of pain but because of the pain she'd caused him. She'd never seen anyone turn so violent so quickly, and she felt responsible for him. His phone had rang several times, and it was probably Tseng or Rude (because only the work phones have that annoying ringtone) but it had always been silenced with a bang and some swearing.

If she didn't feel so scared of it she'd go in. Truth is she did. She was petrified. He still had his EMR in there, and probably his spare firearm. She wished she couldn't visualise him doing that, but in her time at the Turks the amount of times she'd seen him shoot people were too numerous to count.

Eventually, two hours later, Lou crept slowly over to her door just to see what he was doing. She half expected to see him cutting himself or something. You can't imagine how relieved she was when she didn't.

He was still making muffled screaming noises, but he was taking in deeper, slower breaths. She walked over, cautious of where she put her feet because somewhere there was a creaky floorboard, and slowly lifted the duvet. He was asleep. Reno looked so peaceful all of a sudden, but his breathing pattern wasn't right.

Lou shook him awake, and he resumed his fury and snapped at her.

"Reno are you… I'm so sorry Reno!" She said, crying herself and moving to hold him in a tight hug. The embrace wasn't quite as tight as she hoped it to be, and she ended up having to strengthen it when Reno tried to push her away. She heard a click and almost fell off the bed, seeing Reno with a pistol aimed her way.

"Get out." He said, his voice unnaturally sadistic.
"R-Reno, I-"
"Out." He repeated.

Lou blinked back tears of betrayal and jumped on him, ripping the gun from his hands and punching him with all of her might. He grabbed her hair and dragged her towards him, then moved himself and pushed her throat down on the mattress.

"Reno! Get off me you bastard you-" She screamed, and someone opened the apartment door and came rushing in. It was Lou's next-door neighbour - Kyle. Reno turned towards the noise and realised there was someone there, but continued to push Lou away from him. He noted to himself how bad it probably looked, and how he was being ridiculously hurtful towards her. In no time the stranger was punching Reno to no end.

Lou was quickly released from the strangling grip and she struggled for breath, then saw her friend Kyle had thrown Reno to the floor and was using heavy hiking boots to kick his stomach in.

"Kyle don't! He didn't do anything!" Lou yelled. Kyle stopped kicking and both men looked at her, Kyle with confusion and Reno with shock. Then, Kyle dragged Reno off his feet and pressed him against the wall, putting heavy hits in on his jaw and then kneeing him in the chest. Lou had ran over and was quickly pushing Kyle out of her door, then ran back to Reno and threw him on the bed. He was coughing up blood. Lots of it.

"Lou. I-" Reno said, then gagged on his own breath. Lou forced him to lay flat on his back, with his head and neck supported at a 45 degree angle by pillows. Bruises were already forming over the ones he had received not days ago, but this was nowhere near as bad. She used a damp cloth to clean around his mouth and gave him a glass of water, then left him alone for a few minutes before he shouted her back.

"Reno, what do you need? Anything, this is all my fault. Are you fine now?" She asked, taking the empty glass and refilling it. She began to rub Vaseline on his chest, and old trick her mother had taught her to steady someone's breathing. Her brother had asthma.

Reno cleared his throat and grabbed the new water from the nightstand. He practically threw it down his neck, making Lou laugh a little.

"What?" He asked.
"You just practically breathed that in !" She replied.

She was shocked when Reno dragged her forwards from where she was stood beside the bed, and pressed his broken lips to her own. She leant further in, for reasons she didn't quite understand, and put her hands either side of his head. His tongue pressed against her teeth begging to be allowed entry and even though she promised herself not to grant him any she ended up letting him in anyway. It was pretty one-sided really, considering Lou never actually asked for it, but she enjoyed it anyway, right to the point where Tseng and Kyle were stood in her doorway.