Disclaimer; I don't own anything in Final Fantasy 7 or Before Crisis, and all characters – apart from Lorraine, Helena and Divine, are not mine.

-- I was trying to find out when Before Crisis was coming out in Europe one day, and came across this snippet of information concerning Rude at the start of Before Crisis: "this top member of the Turks is an introvert who doesn't seem to get along with Reno at first, though this changes over time" andI just thought; what could have happened to have made them like each other over such a relatively short space of time? Et voila.

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Chapter One; The day we first met

The figure was waiting for him as he stepped off the platform. Smoke from the dilapidated engine curled around it; stock still, its clothes and hair, even its form itself, rippled fluidly in the half-light. Rude swallowed and stepped forward through the shrouds. The man who coolly confronted him was only slightly shorter than himself; and this was impressive for any normal human being. He stood passively, arms behind his back, black hair sleekly outliningthe sharp lines of his navy suit; a total nonentity in the crowded mess of noise and colour that surrounded them. The black hole, as usual,waited for him to speak. He was bad at starting conversations to begin with, without this intimidating figure to hinder him.

'I hope no-one died while I was away.'

The man paused, for a sick second Rude thought he somehow had the wrong person. Then he nodded, and gestured with an immaculate finger for Rude to follow him to a sleek black car that was waiting, pouring thin grey smoke into the crowded square outside the station. He sat uncomfortably beside Tseng in the dark interior of the car, his reflection cast darkly a thousand times by the polished wood veneer. He jumped when the older man tapped a finger on the glass divider in front of him. The driver gestured silently that he could hear.

'We have one more stop to make. The sector seven railway station, please.' The voice was level, controlled, as silky as the raven hair crushed against the sable headrest. It had a natural grace that, it seemed to him, could turn to cruel, sharp words with perfect ease.

The dark car sped on through the smoky streets, moving through the battered vans and equally as silky estate cars like a shark gliding through so much tuna, turning the Station St. corner without braking and swerved right across the roundabout to avoid a half-wrecked car travelling at a terminal pace. Tseng stepped out of the car almost before it had come to a halt on the pitted pavement of the railway station, and beckoned again for Rude to follow him. He carefully placed his suitcase next to the dividing 'wall' created by the driver's seat, and clambered out of the car.

They waited for roughly five minutes. The Turks were always on time, but the trains, it seemed, operated on no such agenda. When the train finally pulled lazily into the station, Rude wondered who the next recruit was to be. He was sure now, although Tseng hadn't deigned to tell him, that someone had indeed died. Or the powers that be had decided to boost theri numbers.After all, heknew from experiencethat Turks were 'recruited' from all over the world, and the rails were the only way to get this far into the city. Braving the streets with even one bag, let alone the plethora of luggage that most travellers carried was a guaranteed one-way ticket to the mortuary.

Tseng stood up suddenly, Rude followed suit, although hesincerely hated being part of the welcome committee.

The figure that eventually appeared, looking decidedly uncomfortable in the press of people, was the exact opposite of what he had been expecting. All of the Turks he had seen thus far in his stay in the city were smart, well turned-out citizens, and certainly at least respectable in appearance. In fact, the complete polar opposite of the kid he saw before him. He was shorter than himself by about a head, and said head was covered in bright, bedraggled red hair. His clothes; a black shirt and what were probably jeans; although they were so faded and dishevelled that he couldn't really tell, were crumpled around the boy's wiry form. The dark clothes and strange hair contrasted his face in a way that was both startling and uncomfortably fascinating. It reminded Rude of a lizard he had once seen sitting in the shade of a rock, exposed to Mako energy from the nearby reactor, and its eyes glowed as it lay in a curiously human fashion, paws crossed in the dirt.

This boy – this…youth, generated the same air of confident laziness, his half-closed aquamarine eyes shining brightly, framed by two unexplained crescent marks on his high cheekbones. His thin, flat nose seemed to curve in a childish manner, and his lips were bowed, making his mouth too small for someone over the age of fiteen. He looked Wutaian, severely so, and at the same time, the unusual features had come together to create a face that was, while surprisingly uninterested and wistful-looking,aggravatingly striking. In comparison to Rude's solid, thick-jawed and tanned features, the boy looked decidedly juvenile. Rude shook himself mentally; the boy looked strange, too frail and too young to make a good Turk, nothing more to it.

In the relative gloom of the station, his pale skin shone, picking him out from the crowd with unerring accuracy. Surely this couldn't be the new man? Perhaps it was the burlychap behind him, or the respectable-looking girl searching the platform beside him? No. The youth - boy, rather, Rude decided he couldn't be more than sixteen- spotted Tseng and meandered over to him with a careless step. Without waiting, the boy shouldered the small bag he had been dangling from his thin, long fingers; spoke to the waiting Tseng;

'Turks, right?'

Tseng nodded in affirmation. The boy turned to Rude and gave him a snake-like grin. He felt his lip twitch up almost involuntarily, but something irked him about his manner, it was too affectedly casual, as if he had something to prove by being dishevelled and suave.

During the ride back to the Shinra building, Tseng sat in the front, Rude tried to take up as little space as possible in a corner of the expansive back seat, and the other boy sat in a contained sprawl in the opposite corner, his face turned to the speeding lights of the city flashing past. He sighed and turned to face the seat in front of him.

'Where're you from, then?' he queried, not bothering to face the surprised Rude. He paused, wondering whether the question was directed at the invisible Tseng. After an uncomfortable pause, he decided not. 'Around.' His voice abrupt, realising the kid thought he was a recruit too, despite that fact that he was wearing the damn suit.He hesitated again, wondering whether it would be correct to return the query. He decided that he didn't care enough to try. He didn't want to know. The boy laughed softly, the quietest sound he had heard from him thus far. 'Lucky old you, I'm from down there.' He said, smiling, one long finger pointing down pressed against the slick glass at the floor of the assumed he meant the slums. As if "around" didn't mean the slums; how unobservant could one person be. He rested his head on his hand and raised his eyebrows shortly to show that he'd heard. The boy laughed again, he could feel the bright mirrors of his eyes on him in the dark. But neither of them had anything more to say.

The car coasted to a halt at the back end of the Shinra building, outside gleaming double doors bearing the legend: 'Halls Of Residence'. This, it seemed to Rude,was where newcomers to both the city and the Turks stayed, hopefully until they could find somewhere else to live.

They followed Tseng through an expansive atrium and into a smaller joining space. A cork board holding tarnished and numbered hooks from which dangled sets of brass keys hung on one panelled wall. Tseng lifted two up, holding them with the tips of his slender fingers as if keen not to touch them. He handed the boya key tagged with a red key chain on which were printed in white the number 63. With the words;

'34th floor. Wake-up call is 6 o'clock. Show him up, Rude.'

He turned and entered one of the double sets of lifts in a corner of the grand room. Rude sighed and folded his arms.His plans for tonight had involved warming up his empty flat and trying to sleep, not babysitting.The lift returned to the ground floor once again. He lookedwith mild annoyanceat the other, who was appraising his situation blankly. He saw the other's gaze fall on the stairs. He turned his startling eyes upwards to Rude.

'Race ya up.' It was a barely audible challenge. Rude almost laughed, it seemed so childish in such a backdrop as this. He settled for pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose and shooting the amicably taunting figure a withering look from behind their safe mirrors.This cocksure kid obviously just wanted to make fun of him, and he didn't like games. The too-small mouth grinned, said brightly that it was his loss and dissapeared in a blur of red and black and white that spun up the stairs. Rude frowned, and started as the boy turned around halfway up the staircase and actually shouted at him.

'It's Reno, by the way.'

Not for the first time that day, Rude was nonplussed, aggravated.

'What?'

'You never asked me my name. It's Reno.AndI already know yours.'

The boy named Reno left him standing in the middle of the over-polished floor, with the growing feeling that he ought to give it a few scuffs for good measure. Now the boy was beginning to annoy him. He sighed, and lay back on the bed, his feet dangling over the edge. With more than a little sarcasm, he muttered;

'Reno, I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.'