Concrete angel

By Diane Kelley

Disclaimer:I own neither the song "Concrete Angel" nor the game or movie Final Fantasy VII. I filked the song a bit to make it fit the situation better.

Summary: This fic takes place about a year after the events of Advent Children. I always felt Rufus had a darkness about him, despite his good intentions.

He walks to work with a lunch he packed
Nobody knows what he's holding back;
Wearing the same clothes he wore yesterday,
He hides the bruises with that empty face;
oh

Reno came into work, late as usual...his unruly flame-colored pulled back into its usual ponytail, his suit in its usual disheveled condition, the first two buttons of his white dress shirt also unbuttoned. Everything about his appearance was totally normal, but Tseng's trained eye and senses tell him something is simply not right.

His boss wonders but he doesn't ask,
It's hard to see the pain behind the mask;
Bearing the burden of a secret storm,
Sometimes he wishes he was never born;

"How you doin', partner?" Rude's deep, rich monotone whispered across the cubicle as the slender Turk waved a careless greeting to his bulky, bald coworker. He noted the deep shadows under the usually carefree man's Lifestream-colored eyes, as well as the purple mark Reno tried to hide under the unruly bangs.

"Fine" he mutters."what makes you ask, yo?"

Through the wind and the rain,
he stands hard as a stone in a world that he can't rise above;
But his dreams give him wings and he flies to a place where he's loved.

Concrete Angel

The day passed quickly, thanks to a mission, then the attendent paperwork. Hewatched Reno walk out hand in hand with Rufus, as he did every afternoon, the lights glimmering off the President's blond hair. They looked happy, but the haunted look the redhead wore and the bruise on his face told a different story.

Somebody cries in the middle of the night,
The neighbors hear but they turn out the lights;
A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate,
When morning comes it will be too late

Of course they ignored the Turk's dying cries, crime happened so seldom up on the plate, but when it did it was usually CAUSED by the one who cried out in terror or one of his three co-workers. Lights went off one by one to hide them from the truth.

Rude knocked on Reno's door the next morning, as was their custom, but his partner didn't answer. ..instead the door swung open, the sight within inciting a gasp from the taller man. "Holy Shiva..." it was a bare toneless whisper.Reno laid on one side of the room, his body battered almost beyond recognition, those delicate, high-boned cheeks shattered, the icey green eyes swollen shut, the lips that Rude had wanted to kiss so many times bloodied and swollen and torn, blood in a pool all around him. On the other side laid Rufus Shinra, he was not in anywhere near as bad a condition, the only thing which told the story of what had happened being the tiny hole in his forehead and the spreading corona of crimson where his head rested against the floor. The only one in the apartment still living called his boss first, then the police.

Through the wind and the rain,
he stands hard as a stone in a world that he can't rise above;
But his dreams give him wings and he flies to a place where he's loved.

Concrete Angel

A statue stands in a shaded place,
An angel boy with an upturned face;
His name is written on a polished rock,
A broken heart that the world forgot.

"Rude's Journal: It's been three weeks since the tragic events that took the lives of two good friends. I doubt we'll ever know what drove Rufus to beat Reno to death and then kill himself, but all the signs point to the abuse having been occuring for a while prior to this 'last straw' "

He closes the leather bound book and peers at the tiny angel statue mounted on the polished granite gravemarker. It read "Reno MacGuire, August 17, 1977-January 12 2006. May the Planet grant him the rest he never received here."

Through the wind and the rain,
he stands hard as a stone in a world that he can't rise above;
But his dreams give him wings and he flies to a place where he's loved.

Concrete Angel