Author's Note: Another update! YAY! It's kind of short, but *cough cough* I was actually having issues transitioning from the end of this chapter to the next part and so I decided I would just end the chapter there, and then my issues with transitioning would be less noticeable! xD Hurray for craftiness! =) So, we definitely get a move on things in this chapter...some of you may have predicted the following, and I told one of you so...=P Hope you guys enjoy, and remember to review!!! Thanks!!! You guys rock!
Reno blinked his eyes open slowly. The dim light of a Midgar-morning that seeped through the curtains was enough to cause bursts of pain in his head, making him groan and squeeze his eyes shut again, burying his face in his pillow. He lay on his stomach, his arms curled around the soft pillow and his blood-red hair spilled messily over it and his shoulders and back. As he slowly drifted back into the conscious world, Reno noted that he was still fully clothed in his Turk uniform, except for his combat boots. He picked his head up again to carefully peek at the clock, confused. He was already an hour late for work. A slip of paper sitting next to the clock caught his eye. Propping himself up on his elbows, Reno reached over and grabbed it, ignoring the pounding in his head. It turned out to be a note from Rude, basically defining the events of the previous night, when Rude had come down to Seventh Heaven to collect Reno.
With a groan the memories flooded back, causing Reno to fall flat on his pillow again. That son of a bitch. He lay there without moving, trying to figure out what he should do. If I tell Elena, she'll just get mad and think I'm making it up to make him look bad. If I tell Rude or Tseng, they might believe me, but they won't want to tell her, and even if they did, she would eventually figure out they heard it from me, and then we're back to square one! Reno pounded a fist on the mattress in frustration. He had to do something though. He wouldn't let anyone hurt Elena.
He lay there in complete stillness, the sounds of the city outside his apartment enough to make him cringe in his hung-over state. Suddenly an idea hit him. With grim determination, Reno pulled himself from the bed, placing a hand on the wall to steady himself as he pressed a hand to his dizzy head. He found his combat boots placed neatly next to the bed, and put them on, his depressed lethargy momentarily replaced with anger and determination.
Reno leaned against the wall near the elevators on the floor where the SOLDIERS trained. He'd hacked into the personnel file system earlier and found his target: Nick Colm. All he had to do was hang around long enough for the man to pass by, as he inevitably would at some point. Sure enough, Reno didn't have to wait long before a man he recognized from the picture approached the elevators. Reno pushed off the wall, trying his best not to wince at the bright lighting in the hallway. The movement on his part drew the attention of the other man, who only casually glanced his way and then looked away again. With his brilliantly red hair, it was hard for anyone who had heard of him to not recognize him however, and just as quickly, Nick looked back, a light sparking behind the man's hazel eyes.
"You must be Reno," Nick spoke with a politeness that was clearly a thin veil over the hostility in his voice.
"You'd better pray damn hard that you honestly care for Elena," Reno cut straight to the point, not wanting to spend any more time than he had to with the man, "Because if you hurt her, I swear I will literally tear you apart." His aquamarine eyes matched the iciness of his tone. There was a moment of silence as Nick considered this.
"I'm guessing those secretary whores told you about my habits?" Nick looked almost amused by the whole situation which irked Reno. The Turk was dead serious and the man was treating it like a joke. Momentarily suppressing the spinning of his pounding head, Reno put to use his lightening speed and grabbed two handfuls of Nick's shirt, whirling him around and slamming him into the wall, actually making a dent.
"If you treat her with anything less than absolute respect, I'm going to cut you into tiny pieces and feed them to Hojo's monsters," Reno growled, his eyes flashing with anger. Nick took a minute to recover, but then he smiled evilly at Reno.
"I'm going to be the perfect boyfriend, everything you never were, until she completely lets her guard down, and then I'll manipulate her into bed and make love to that pathetic bitch until she can't even remember your name, and when she wakes up, I'll be gone and she won't ever see me again," Nick spoke every word like it was a bullet, and that's exactly what it felt like to Reno. He couldn't even manage to hide the horror and fear in his eyes and on his face. Being a Turk, Reno had seen and done it all. Almost nothing frightened him. Except for Elena getting hurt. That was something that scared him to death.
Taking advantage of Reno's momentary shock, Nick violently shoved away from him, causing Reno to stumble back a few steps while Nick entered the elevator.
"Why?" Reno asked, noting how ironic it was that this was the one question he found himself asking so frequently lately.
"Just because I can," Nick replied as the doors closed between them. This answer was worse than any cause for revenge could have been. That's exactly how worthless Elena was to Nick. Simply another play thing to be conquered and then thrown aside. Reno almost crumpled onto the ground in a pile of misery, anger, and depression right there in the hall, but he managed to hold himself together, with the intent of getting to his office and getting a drink.
When the doors opened on the Turks' floor, Reno wished he had stayed where he'd been. In the doorway to her office, Elena was busy being held in Nick's arms while he kissed her passionately. Frozen where he was, Reno thought he was going to be sick on the spot. That bastard! He knew I'd come here! From his angle, Reno could see Nick's face, and the malicious sparkle in his eyes as he briefly glanced up at the redhead. What he couldn't see was the unenthusiastic look on Elena's face, along with the slight frown on her forehead. Reno backed into the elevator hitting the button viciously for the first floor. He had to get out of there, and he had to get out now. He sank against the wall as the elevator started it's descent. Staring at his feet, the image of Elena with somebody else burned it's way into his mind, making him shudder.
When he was finally home and out of sight of the world, Reno simply allowed himself to sink to the floor, his back against the door as he buried his head in his hands. Nick was going to practically rape Elena, and there was nothing he could do about it. Elena! The woman he would die for in an instant without even thinking about it.
"I need a drink, dammit," Reno pulled himself to his feet and wandered into his kitchen, feeling a thousand pounds heavier. He hadn't felt this miserable ever before. A quick swig out of a bottle of vodka helped steady him for a moment. Eventually he didn't feel the headache from his hangover anymore. He lay stretched out on his back on the couch, the bottle of vodka in his hand was half empty by now.
"Damn," Reno's words were slurred as he slammed the bottle clumsily to the floor and sat up. Any physical pain he had from his hangover was gone, but the stinging, aching pain inside his chest still tormented him. He ran his hands through his hair, resting his head there. He wished there was a way to numb that pain as well. Suddenly an idea, more of a memory, struck him, causing him to tense up nervously and suck in his breath. His whole body frozen, Reno remembered a feeling. Feeling blissfully numb of emotions, your thoughts almost slippery, so that you couldn't really grasp them, freeing you from painful memories. This beautiful freedom from pain…and all it took was a couple little pills. Reno picked his head up, his heart rate increasing as he glanced towards the halfway open bathroom door. If he remembered correctly, there was a half-empty bottle of those precious pills, morphine, left over from his last trip to the infirmary. He could envision the small orange bottle, tucked away in the cabinet. They'd been able to trust him with the painkillers, he'd been able to use them responsibly again.
Reno rose to his feet, almost involuntarily. No, Reno. Sit your dumb ass back down! He warned himself, knowing better. Still, the siren lure of sweet, sweet, emotional numbness was seductive, and too powerful for his weary and broken heart to resist. The silence of the apartment made his stumbling, drunken footsteps sound much louder than they were. His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he walked slowly towards the bathroom. You'll just look. Just knowing they're there is enough. He took a deep, shaky breath when he reached the bathroom, leaning on the countertop. You look like shit, he observed, glancing at himself in the mirror. A wide, bloodshot-eyed face looked back at him, with a vibrantly red mess of hair standing in start contrast to his pale face, even though his cheeks were slightly flushed from the alcohol. He paused only for a moment to look at himself before turning his attention to the cabinet that held his release. Opening it, his eyes quickly searched out the little bottle, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was exactly where he'd remembered it. Trembling fingers closed around the orange bottle and he pulled it out, holding it in his hand. He slid his thumb over the label. Morphine.
It was like the entire world had been paused. He couldn't hear anything but his pounding heart, and couldn't feel anything except the tortuous pain in his chest. It had been over a month, and he hadn't gotten used to it, and it hadn't gone away. He knew it never would go away. There was only one way to get rid of it, and that was simply to numb it. He wasn't sure how long he'd been holding his breath, but suddenly he let it out in one large puff of air as his hands moved with lightning speed, before his feeble resistance reared it's head again. The lid was off, several of the pills were in his hand and then headed down his throat almost before he even realized what he was doing.
Shit! Fear gripped him as he recalled the horrid moments of his time as an addict. The moments when he wasn't high and the pain seemed so much more magnified by contrast. Guiltily cramming the lid back on the bottle, Reno shoved it back in the cabinet and slammed the door. As he made his way back to the couch, for lack of anything better to do, Reno's fears were gently killed as he once again fell prey to the glorious vision of not having to feel his heartache anymore.
Rude sighed as he rode the elevator up to their floor. He clutched a steaming coffee mug in one hand. He hoped today would be better than the previous day. Reno had been a few hours late, and then had suddenly disappeared for the rest of the day with no trace. Tseng had decided not to bother finding out where he'd gone. They'd concluded he'd needed a break, or some space, or something, and it was best that they not bother him.
When Reno showed up, a bit late as usual, Rude noticed he was behaving differently. He still appeared hung-over, as was becoming the norm, but he seemed less depressed. Maybe the day off did him good, Rude mused, shrugging and going back to his paperwork.
Reno walked into Elena's office, rapping his knuckles softly on the partly open door before slipping in.
"Why did you do it?" Reno asked, following his morning routine. He was serious, but not miserable. Another dose of morphine that morning had seen to that. There was a part of him that screamed and violently fought the drug, but it was too easy to fall back into an old habit. He could feel the resisting part of himself dying more and more every second, but the effects of the drug wouldn't allow him to worry about it, or anything else for that matter. Thus his current lack of depression. "We were happy, Elena. At least I was."
Elena bit her lip, carefully hiding her face behind a file to buy time. She second-guessed her decision enough without him bringing it up all the time. Every time she saw him, it only refreshed her guilt and frustration and confused her further. She needed him to quit asking her, and leave her alone to sort things out! For a brief moment, Elena honestly believed she was going insane. Her thoughts and feelings were so confused and jumbled!
"Reno, just drop it ok? Get over it and move on!" At this point, she wanted him to 'get over it'. The longer he stayed depressed over her leaving him, the weaker her reason became, and the more the guilt piled up. He would never forgive her for what she'd done now! She feared she had sounded more harsh than she had intended, and this feeling was aggravated by Reno's extended silence.
"Elena, if you ask me to stop talkin' to you, I will. Even if you asked me to stop lookin' at you, or thinkin' about you, I would try, to make you happy. But don't ask me to stop lovin' you, because I can't," Reno spoke quietly and sincerely, not waiting for a reply before he left the room.
Reno had the vague idea that he should be feeling awful, but instead he felt slightly pleasant. The world around him somehow didn't seem completely there, or maybe it was that he wasn't completely in the world. He didn't know, and he didn't really care either.
Author's Note: So who thinks Nick is a bastard? Show of hands? Or reviews? xD As far as his last name goes...I stole that off the credits of a DVD that was laying on my desk. =) I suck at naming people. So, those of you who actually read my little ramblings, who remembers last time when I asked for links to some good Reno pics? Well, one of my most fabulous readers and constant reviewer was kind enough to ask for my email and then SEND ME MULTIPLE AWESOME PICS OF RENO SEVERAL TIMES A DAY! O_O It's like being fed Reno intravenously and it is AMAZING! So thank you, AlayciaxReno!!! =D