InsaneJournal

Reno can Remember [FFVII]
Title: Reno can Remember
Fandom: FFVII
Characters: Mostly Reno, briefly Rude, a lot of thoughts on Rufus, and brief mentions of Cloud’s group, and a random Shinra employee.
Wordcount: 1038
Rating: T
Warnings: Death? (except, you know, not really, because I’ve written later fics in this arc and Advent Children exists?)
Summary: Reno had a tough couple of days once he heard the news about Rufus...
Note: This is part of the ongoing saga of Reno and Rufus. I imagine that the flow of this is highly disjointed. If it is, I have succeeded in doing what I was trying to do with it.

Reno can remember the day he gave up on his job. He was surrounded by chaos and he knew what it meant. It meant no more Shinra. Or at least, not the Shinra that was a superpower unto itself. At least, no more Turks. Probably.

When he said goodbye to Cloud and his group, he had no idea if he would ever see any of those guys again. He had no idea if he would see anyone again. In his mind, there was a pretty good chance he and everyone else were just going to die and that would be the end of it. From what he could tell, a lot of people he used to work with already were dead.

Somehow the thought that Rufus might have been one of those people hadn’t quite occurred to him. He was more concerned in the short term with trying to figure out what he was supposed to do now that Shinra had toppled, that he was presumably out of a job, and that he was pretty sure that the apartment he had shared with Rude was now a pile of rubble. On the other hand, having an apartment to himself was not an entirely unappealing concept.

The news took a couple of days to circulate, regular communication lines being disrupted as they were. It was a day or two after when Reno heard about Rufus. Maybe three. He could never quite remember afterwards, except that it had been long enough for him to start looking for a new place to live. The word had come from the mouth of somebody who presumably worked for Shinra, though hell if Reno knew who. Some nobody who had gotten the vague assignment of tracking down people who would be interested in knowing that Rufus’ office had gotten blown up, that communication had gone down, that nobody had heard from the president or been able to get through all the rubble since it happened and he was presumed dead.

Reno can’t remember exactly when that messenger found him. What he can remember was that it felt like all the rubble of that building had just fallen on his head. And that he had just stammered to the messenger that he understood and walked away.

Rude asked him later that day if he was okay, and naturally he said yes. Of course he was okay. He was always okay. He was a Turk, right? Was, at least. But wasn’t being okay with people dying part of his job description? It was a silly question. There was no possible way that hearing that Rufus had died should affect him too much. He should have guessed it, in all of that commotion. Besides, people die, right? How many people had he killed or helped kill? It happens.

Rude listened patiently for about a half hour to all of the reasons why Reno was absolutely, perfectly fine, and then decided his friend needed to be left alone for a while.

Reno can remember feeling pretty damn lost once Rude was gone. His thoughts ended up scattered in a million different directions at once. One part of him was completely, positively sure that Rufus was still alive. He knew it was a function of Rufus’ position and the image he tried so hard to portray, but the man had always seemed untouchable on some level (and much as Reno had often pointedly attempted to undermine that, he had never really succeeded, and in most regards he had never really tried -- more it had been sort of fun trying to get under the man’s skin -- ...which was soft and pale and quite imminently touchable... but that was a particularly poor train of thought for the moment.) So... he couldn’t die, right? He was invincible, wasn’t he?

And part of Reno knew exactly how stupid that line of reasoning was. He of all people should be perfectly aware that nobody is actually invincible. Some people are better at keeping themselves alive than others. Or they’re more lucky. Reno probably counted himself among the latter group. He would have handed Rufus credit for both, but that didn’t make him invincible. Not by a long shot.

Reno hadn’t exactly been happy with Rufus since he became president. For one, he had barely given Reno the time of day, which was just frustrating. All that time he had spent breaking through that stupid barrier Rufus put around him for the sake of his image. And he had succeeded! He had succeeded and he was happy with that and the most annoying part of it was Rufus had been, too. And then Rufus got to be president and there was the wall again. Admittedly a more professional wall that time around, and less rage-filled. No, Reno had not been happy with Rufus. He had been pretty damn furious with him, actually. He had maybe even hated him. But, just, damn.

And now it was just all a waste, wasn’t it? There wasn’t a Rufus to be mad at. There wasn’t a Rufus to ignore Reno for the sake of his reputation. There wasn’t a Rufus to issue commands for him to follow eventually at his leisure. There wasn’t a Rufus for Reno to puzzle out over again once he decided the challenge was irresistible. There just wasn’t a Rufus.

Reno can’t remember all of his thoughts, but he can remember that was a pretty terrible night, and that he didn’t sleep much. He can remember becoming intimately acquainted with the patch of ceiling over his new bed in his new apartment because he just kept staring at it. He can remember being sad, wistful, angry, horrified, and all sorts of other things. He can remember that his pillow had gotten a good beating several times over. He can remember feeling very intensely alone. He can’t remember if he cried.

The three days after that also generally escape his memory. He spent them very, very drunk, and trying very, very hard not to think.