A Day in the Life

Reno.

---31---

Running a grimy hand across his bloodied face, he closes his eyes for a single moment, completely attuned to his surroundings and the labored breathing of his fallen partner sitting next to him. He feels blood soaking the side of his shirt, still warm and wet, trickling down his side. It's necessary. And yet, for what? Rude's breathing is becoming increasingly shallow with every passing second.

The ground beneath them reverberates with the series of explosions going off several hundred feet from them. Other Turks have arrived and are attempting to stabilize the situation, but Reno is unsure if it is even possible at this point. His hands shake uncontrollably, his eyes are watering terribly from the heavy smoke, and he can feel blood running from his ears and down his neck.

There's going to be one hell of a dry cleaning bill tomorrow.

Opening his eyes, the redheaded Turk looks down at his partner one final time. The peaceful expression belies what he already knows—and he is hard-pressed not to react. He is a Turk.

Suddenly and without warning, he is thrown from his precarious position several feet backwards, his body slamming violently into the rock face behind him. Dust and rocks of various sizes fall around him as he lands, but he doesn't have the strength to cover his head. Instead, he tries to keep his eyes open as the dust begins to settle. The last thing he needs is to get knocked out.

He can't quite clear his head enough to figure out what has happened, but he can feel it. His chest hurts with every breath, and his vision is murkier than he remembers it ever being. He isn't even sure he can get back up. Bullets whistle as they pass over his head. At least he still has his hearing, even though there is a persistent ringing that is beginning to irritate the hell out of him.

Reno had never thought hard about his own death, being something that he insists he doesn't fear. But as he lay beaten and broken only a few feet from his dead partner, he is sure it is the end.

Back when he worked for the Shinra Corporation, back when AVALANCHE was still an active threat, Reno wondered if Sephiroth would be the end of everything. He had come close, but ultimately, even the General was not strong enough to defeat the planet. And it was then that Reno wondered what could possibly come closer than Sephiroth had.

"Get the fuck up!"

With a very unmanly scream, Reno's vision goes black as his left arm is grabbed roughly and his torn body is pulled upward into a sitting position—there is no way he has any energy to even try standing. Deep, ragged breaths pull themselves desperately from his burning lungs in an attempt to regain his ebbing sanity. The pain is so great, he can't think past it enough to identify the voice. Instead, he waits for his vision to clear, though he is unsure if it even will. There is blood everywhere—in his hair, soaking his clothes, escaping from his wounds, running from his ears, even filling his eyes.

When the pounding in his head begins to lessen, he raises it slightly and opened his eyes.

"You should really get that checked. It doesn't look good."

Cloud fucking Strife.

He wants to laugh, he really does, and not at the ex-SOLDIER-boy's pitiful attempt at humor, but at the situation. It is ironic, and it is incredibly hopeless.

"No shit."

With help that he would never admit he needed, he makes his way to his feet, leaning heavily on the blond warrior. It is strange. Strife is indeed more built than Reno is—his strength a poorly kept secret—but Reno is not a weak man. Yet, at this moment, he finds himself completely and utterly helpless, at the hands of his former enemy, someone he had never taken the time to trust, someone he disliked so much he couldn't explain it. He wouldn't explain it. He hoped he'd never have to face it.

But as today would have it, the Planet—the lifestream—had other plans. He'd witnessed this same situation multiple times before—utter destruction and hopeless chaos. With the Planet mere moments from her own demise, it was only natural that they would team up.

"Where's—"

Strife's voice trails off, a silent realization dawning on him so quickly that Reno doesn't have to ask him what he'd been about to say.

"Let's move."

It crushes him more than anything else to walk by the fallen body of his partner and not respond at all. He doesn't want to think about it, let alone face it. He has to keep moving—they can't stop. And yet he isn't sure he's able to last for much longer. His left arm hangs loosely at his side where he is sure it was wrenched from the socket when he'd hit the wall, and he's lost so much blood he has to wonder how he is even still alive, how his heart is still able to beat with nothing left to keep it moving.

Cloud doesn't acknowledge the fallen Turk as they move past him, doesn't even respond, but half carries the redhead until they are able to reach shelter a hundred feet away, though it could hardly be called safe.

As Cloud leans him against the rock face, Reno tries to stay on his own two feet long enough to get his bearings. Explosions continue to stir the ground beneath their feet and rocks continue to fall around them.

"Tifa held them off for as long as she could, but material doesn't seem to be working. They're using a ward strong enough to withstand our best summon."

From this tragedy-ridden, broken, and damaged ex-SOLDIER, Reno has never heard defeat; and yet the emotion in the blond's voice causes Reno to take a long look at the him, but he has his head down as if he's afraid Reno will see it on his face.

"She's gone."

He doesn't look up, and Reno wonders if the other man is crying, but he wonders more how Cloud could be here with him right now as his friends are fighting for their own lives across the compound.

No one expected for it to come to this. Death surrounded them like a fragrance, a smoldering, tangible fragrance that seeped into their pores until they reeked of its stench with a permanent imbalance. Life and death—and it is so quickly taken away.

He wants to ask Cloud what they should do. He wants to trust him. He wants to let the younger soldier lead them from this place.

But he's not sure he can.

Instead, as Cloud lifts his face and looks at him with the most stricken expression Reno has ever seen on him, they are silent.