Back in his own room, Reno stretched out on his bed, hands behind his head. Even after three months of working for ShinRa, it was still hard to accustom himself to the relative luxuries of being a Turk.

Seventeen. Damn. He was too young. Too young to have lived the life he had, too young to have lost so much, too young for all the scars on his world-weary soul.

To goddamn young.

He closed his eyes, thinking that he might be able to sleep tonight. But instead, he saw her face. That beautiful, innocent face. His eyes flew open. No sleep for him tonight. He knew that if he closed his eyes, allowed himself to drift away, the nightmares would come again.

Sighing, he swung is feet over the edge of the bed and stood, pulling on his jacket. The only sleep he would get would be when he passed out over the bar. If that could even be called sleep.

He knew what people thought about him. Knew they called him a drunk. A waste of skin and air.

Soulless.

He knew.

But they were the ones who didn't know. Didn't know how he drowned himself in alcohol just so he could have some peace from his own nightmarish mind. Didn't know that his soul had died in the slums, lying in a pool of her own blood. Didn't know how he had tried to join her.

But then there had been T'seng. His savior. His mentor. His killer.

T'seng had taken him off the streets, away from the slums and into another world of cruelty and deceit. The only difference between his new life and his old was that now, he was paid for the things he did.

T'seng had taught him everything he knew. How to shoot. How to kill. How to block his ears from the screams he caused, how to silence his own conscience until his heart as cold as the corpses he made.

T'seng had made him more ruthless and cold-blooded than living in the streets could have, if such a thing were possible. Any remnants of a conscience that he might have had were brutally crushed under T'seng's tutelage until Reno wondered if he were still a man.

You could take a man out of the slums, he thought as he walked down to the bar. But you couldn't take the slums out of the man. They made their mark too deeply in his heart, his soul, his being.

When he entered the bar, Reno made his way over to the nearest empty stool. The barman recognized him as he sat down and poured him a double whiskey.

"Wait." Reno stopped the man before he could leave. "Leave the bottle."

"Sir?" The barman hesitated.

"You heard me." Reno's tone brooked no argument.

"Yes, sir." Leaving the bottle on the table, he turned to attend to another customer.

Reno nursed his first drink carefully, trying to put his whirlwind mind in some semblance of order. But as he unleashed long buried memories one by one, he found that he needed the alcohol to help him cope with the pain.

Lying in his bed, trying to shut out the screams from downstairs. One shot of whiskey. Poof, gone.

Hearing the door slam behind him as he and his sister were thrown out onto the streets by their own uncle. Another shot. Buried.

Trying to quiet his sister's cries of hunger while his own stomach cramped with emptiness. That one took two shots before it disappeared.

The feeling of the back of a hand connecting with his jawbone when he was caught stealing food. Down another shot. Fffft, vanished.

Standing on the side of the street, selling himself so that they could have enough money to survive. One shot. Another. Another. It took three shots for that one to go away.

The memories came faster now, harder. He was more than halfway through the bottle.

A knife slashing his skin as was initiated into one of the Sector gangs. That one left easily.

Explaining to his sister why they had no parents, no food, no home, no money. He let that one burn in his mind before dispatching it with another shot.

Watching her cry on cue at the side of the street, distracting passers by long enough for him to take their gil. He poured himself four shots before that memory even dimmed.

Seeing her young face smile proudly as she tried to gain his approval by showing him the things she had stolen. He emptied the bottle trying to forget that one, but in vain.

He called for another bottle. The room was spinning now, but the memories came in swarms.

Hearing the window shatter as a rival gang took his sister away from him into the night.

Seeing her body, broken and bleeding, face down in the gutter, a bullet through her young heart.

Feeling his rage build up inside of him as he stalked down the gang's base each and every night.

Letting his heart grow cold as thoughts of vengeance burned his mind.

Staring his enemy in the face as he pulled the trigger of his gun, feeling the hot blood spatter onto his own face.

Hearing the sickening sound of a knife plunging into his chest, his own hands on the hilt, his last thought before he passed out knowing he should have done better for her.

Opening his eyes to see a man standing over him. A man who's words changed his life forever.

Reno. My name is T'seng. I've been watching you.

Damn him! Reno slammed his shot glass onto the bar with such force that he heard it crack. Damn him to the lowest of hells. I wanted to kill him, he remembered. I wanted to die and he wouldn't let me. He saved my life that night, but killed my heart. Killed my soul. And yet, he found, as he always did, that he could not bring himself to hate the man. T'seng had done him a favor that he didn't understand until weeks later. Reno had wanted to die. But death was too merciful for the likes of him. Now he lived day in and day out with a pain in his soul, scars so deep that they couldn't be seen but still bled. They would bleed until the day that the Fates decided that he had suffered enough and then he would be able to rest. But until then he would absolve himself of his sins through the pain of living; his own private mortal hell.

Suddenly, he was aware that someone was standing beside him. Aware of eyes boring into his fallen head.

Go away, he thought viciously. Go away and leave me to my torment. But the man stayed, and so did the eyes. Finaly, Reno looked up. And up.

Six and a half feet above the ground, a pair of black sun-glasses looked down at him. What Reno could see of his face was perfectly expressionless, not even neutral. Just blank.

"Go 'way," Reno slurred, dropping his head again. The man did not move, and Reno caught a glimpse of a familiar blue suit just before his head hit the bar. Dammit. Another Turk.

"Wha'ya want?" His voice was muffled by his arms and a solid oak slab, but the other man understood him perfectly.

"Reno?"

"Yeah, that's me. Did T'seng send you to find me?"

"..."

"Guess not." Wearily, he picked his head up from the bar and looked back up at the stranger. "Who are you, anyway?"

"...Rude." The tall man sat down beside Reno and motioned for the barman to get him a drink.

"Well then, 'Rude,' why're ya comin' to look fer me?" The alcohol had gone straight to his head. For a moment, he had the crazy belief that he was back in the slums, talking with his fellow gang members. Or enemies.

"There's a mission next week. You, T'seng and I."

"Fabulous." He groaned in disbelief. This man had searched him out, interrupting his nightly self-torture at the bar to talk about something occurring seven days later.

Seven bloody days. He said as much.

"Don't flatter yourself." Rude poured himself a drink and drained it slowly. "I came for a drink. Saw you here. Thought you might be Reno."

"Oh." Reno sat there for a moment, digesting what he had been told. Slowly, deliberately, he picked up his shot glass and set it back down. He did this several times in slow succession. "Damn." The bottom of the glass was cracked through, and what little whiskey had been left had by that time pooled in a ring around the glass.

Drunkenly, Reno stared at the puddle. He wanted another drink, but was unwilling to give up his glass. Somehow, his drunken mind was trying to convince him that having the glass in hand meant he was set for another drink. Regardless of it's current condition.

"..." Silently, Rude watched his co-worker in all his half-drunken glory. He motioned for the barman to get another glass and slid a few bills over to pay for the minor damage. Deftly, without wasting a single movement, he filled the new glass, plucked Reno's broken one out of his hand and replaced it with the whole one without him even knowing.

Without hesitating, Reno drained his newly acquired drink with amazing alacrity and tried to pour himself another.

Rude was amazed, and amused, at how even though drunk past the point of coherence, Reno was still able to tell the difference between a full glass and an empty one by feel alone.

But enough was enough. Waiting for Reno to release his grip on the neck of the bottle, Rude calmly took it and slid it down the bar.

"Wha-?" Reno lifted his bleary eyes from the bar and tried to focus on something. Anything.

"You're drunk."

"Yeah, so?" Reno dropped his head back into his arms. "That's th' idea. I get drunk enough, they lemme 'lone."

"They?" A single brow rose in question.

"Yeah. Them goddamn mem'ries. An' them words, too."

"Words?"

"You know what they say. All them people 'round here, what they say 'bout me." He laughed bitterly. "I'm jes' a drunken idiot street punk tha' got pulled offa th' streets. Only reason I'm a Turk s'caus I ain't got no soul. And they're right, too. M'soul's dead. M'heart, too." His usually handsome face twisted in pain. "'N she's dead. She's dead. Dead!" he suddenly screamed, rising to his feet. Closing his eyes, he threw his shot glass into the mirrored shelves behind the bar with such force that shards of glass flew everywhere.

"She's dead," he sobbed, sinking back onto the barstool.

Minorly dismayed, Rude assessed the damage in he bar, completely expressionless. Broken glass was everywhere, behind the bar, on the floor, the tables. Spilled alcohol was beginning to pool everywhere, and it was already dripping from every nearby countertop.

He sighed, inwardly. ShinRa did pay him well...

Sighing again, he reached for his wallet. After counting out bills twice, he shook his head and handed the entire wad over the counter to the barman who was rising shakily from the floor behind the counter.

"Just get him out of here," the barman said, pushing the money back at Rude. "I don't want this to turn out like the last time."

"'Last time?'" Rude raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, a buddy of mine was on duty when it happened. He got dead drunk and started smashing things, but then he got violent and started screaming stuff at some of the customers. Got a couple guys with that rod there. Fried 'em up good. So if you'd just get him out now, before he really starts causing trouble, I'll forget about all this," he waved at the damage behind him.

"..." Rude re-pocketed his wallet and glanced at Reno, who was still sobbing on the bar. After a moment of consideration, he pulled him to his feet and threw one arm over his shoulder.

"Wha's goin' on?" Reno looked at Rude dazedly.

"...You're going back to your apartment." Without another word, Rude half dragged, half carried Reno out of the bar and back to his room.

After what seemed like hours later, Rude finaly got Reno to his place and lay him down on the bed. He passed on the idea of trying to return him to responsiveness and instead went into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. While trying to find a glass, he was surprised at the amount of liquor Reno kept in his apartment. Briefly, Rude wondered why the younger man even bothered going to the bar when he had everything he needed to get dead drunk for a week right in the comforts of his own home.

Back in his own place, Rude sat in a large chair facing the front door, leaving his sunglasses on. He was surprised to find that his usually dormant curiosity was slightly piqued at Reno's strange character. For a moment, he wondered who the "she" was that he had been talking about in the bar, then shook his head. He had never been one to pry, and he would find out soon enough if Reno decided to tell him. But, he admitted as he reached up to turn off the light, he was mildly intrigued.