Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Interludes – Scene 30

Scene Notes: Tseng broke when his sister died.

From Chapter38: Restoration:

“Tseng was different back then. He was pretty cocky, actually. But don’t ever tell him I said that. I kinda enjoy livin’,” Reno said, with a joking wink, “He was the best and he made sure ya knew it. He’s mellowed a lot over the years. Don’t know if he’s ever told ya what happened to his sister but… that changed him. A lot.”

The rookie nodded. “Yeah… He told me about that,” she said, softly.

“First and last time I’ve ever seen him cry. Fucked him up pretty bad for awhile. I don’t think he’s ever completely forgiven himself for her death. Probably never will. He told me once that he’d never make the mistake of puttin’ loyalty to the company before family again… because he didn’t think he could live with it twice.”

---

The lights were off. Which was odd, given that Reno knew Tseng was there. His car was parked in its usual space, the curtains were drawn tightly over the front window of the apartment, and the door stood slightly ajar.

He’d heard about the bombing shortly after it happened. The entire Sector 3 station was decimated. Hundreds dead or injured. He’d heard about the Turks’ involvement a few hours later, after he’d returned from the mission Tseng had sent him off on that morning… it you could consider being a glorified delivery boy a ‘mission’. Rude had filled him in on what he’d missed. He’d also informed him that Tseng had left the office shortly afterward and hadn’t returned. He was still missing at quitting time.

Veld was tight-lipped on the subject… apparently the details were need-to-know, and the rookies on the team simply didn’t need to know. He hadn’t been particularly concerned… until he’d returned home, that is.

Technically speaking, it wasn’t home anymore. He’d moved out. Or was in the process of, anyway. His new place, in the same building as Rude’s, was still a little bit of a work in progress… So he’d been splitting his time the past week or so between his apartment and Tseng’s spare bedroom. His mentor didn’t seem to mind.

Which was why the redhead had felt perfectly justified in showing up without warning after Veld had cut him loose for the day. The moment he saw the open door, he knew something wasn’t right. Slipping silently inside only confirmed it.

Reno stopped short just steps beyond the threshold and backed into the shadows, one hand reaching for his EMR, the other slowly easing the toppled floor lamp out of his path in case he had to make a hasty retreat during his investigation. Tseng’s apartment had been trashed. Completely trashed. Furniture was overturned, books were scattered, décor had been torn from the walls and flung aside… Virtually nothing he could currently get eyes on had been left untouched.

A part of him wondered if he ought to be calling for backup. The place looked like a battle to the death had been waged there not long ago. It was only the distinct lack of blood or a body that made him push forward alone. He crept through the darkened living room to the nearest door… which happened to be the guest room he’d been living in for the past four and a half months… and cracked it open, peering inside. Though just as dark as the rest of the apartment, it was clear that, for some reason, his space had been left entirely untouched… which struck him as bizarre, given the state of the rest of the premises. Once he was satisfied that no one was hiding in the shadows, he shut the door and moved on.

The kitchen was, like the living room, destroyed. Drawers had been ripped from their docks, their contents scattered. One seemed to have been flung violently into the wall, leaving behind a gaping hole in the plaster. Reno’s grip tightened on the handle of his weapon as he moved stealthily down the hallway towards the master bedroom. As he approached, he heard a faint sound… heavy breathing… shuddering, gasping breaths. His pace quickened as he imagined Tseng, attacked and injured in his own home.

The reality was much worse.

He was seated on the floor next to the window, knees drawn up towards his chest, head in his hands. He didn’t even look up when Reno hit the wall switch, bathing the room in light.

“… Boss?” he ventured, not certain what was going on, or how he should be handling this. Tseng still didn’t look at him.

“I killed her…” came the muffled admission from his mentor, in a voice laced with more sadness than Reno had ever dreamt it possible for three little words to convey. The redhead looked around, half-expecting to see a corpse laid out on the floor. There was only the general destruction of the man’s bedroom. He tucked his mag-rod back into his jacket and knelt down beside the senior Turk. The familiar – though decidedly out of place – scent of liquor that hit him as he did so took him by surprise. Tseng virtually never drank to excess. A mostly empty bottle beside him, and the shattered remains of a second across the room seemed to indicate that today was the exception.

“Who?” he prodded, confused. Tseng had killed a lot of people in the time Reno had known him. That was their job. He’d never seen his superior react like this, though. The Wutaiian drew another shaky breath and finally lifted his head.

Anguish. Horror. Disgust. Self-loathing. Gone was the poised, unflinching exterior Reno had come to know so well. Tseng’s eyes revealed it all. The tears that ran freely down his cheeks only added to the unmasking, and Reno recoiled slightly in shock. Nothing got to Tseng like that… Nothing.

“Mayu…” he whispered, voice cracking with emotion. Reno’s eyes widened. He’d only met the woman a handful of times during her recent visit, but Tseng had made it clear that his sister meant a great deal to him… and that if the redhead were to lay so much as a finger on her, he wouldn’t be getting said finger back. She was supposed to be on her way back to Wutai by now…

Tseng let his head drop back into his arms with a sob, and Reno was torn between staying with him or slipping out of the room and calling for that backup after all. Veld had known him far longer than Reno had… maybe the Turk leader would know what to do…

Reno swallowed sharply. Seeing Tseng so distraught was terrifying. He’d come to believe that the man was unshakeable. Watching him fall apart right in front of him left his feeling helpless… and more than slightly worried. He didn’t know what he should be doing. He didn’t even really know what had happened… and he wasn’t sure if he should press for more details or if that would only make things worse.

There was one thing he knew he had to do, however. He wasn’t certain it was strictly necessary, but he wasn’t about to take the chance. Reno reached into Tseng’s jacket and removed his gun from it’s holster, tucking it into the waistband of his pants behind his back… well out of the Turk lieutenant’s reach.

“Come on, Boss… Let’s get you off the floor…” he said a moment later, urging the other man to his feet. It took some effort. Tseng was well past wasted… and Reno wondered if the two bottles he knew about were just the tip of the iceberg. They’d almost certainly come from the redhead’s little stash in the kitchen he hadn’t gotten around to relocating yet… and he had a lot more than just two. He helped him stagger over to the bed, and sat with him until he finally passed out.

---

Reno yawned as he tied off the last of the trash bags and shoved it out the door. He’d deal with them properly after he’d gotten some sleep. It had taken all night. The apartment was far from pristine, but at least it no longer looked like a pack of raging nibelwolves had gotten inside. Though he wasn’t sure what to do about the hole in the kitchen wall…

Tseng had still been sleeping off last night’s binge drinking when he’d checked in on him a little while ago… and Reno’d had the dubious pleasure of finally calling Veld and telling him what was going on, as it was obvious that the man would be in no shape to head into the office today. If Veld had been surprised, it hadn’t shown… and he’d given the rookie leave to stay with him for the day, which only made Reno more concerned. The Turk leader had sounded worried.

“… You cleaned.”

The rookie jumped slightly at the unexpected observation, and turned to see his mentor, looking pale and drawn as he leaned against the wall for support. Apparently even hungover and exhausted, Tseng could still sneak up on him.

“Tried to, anyway. Figured you wouldn’t be up to it for awhile.”

Tseng nodded slightly and made his way over to the couch, silently collapsing onto the cushions.

“So… You gonna tell me what last night was all about?”

The older Turk flashed him a pained grimace and sighed heavily. “Sector 3 was my idea. My fault. I don’t know what I was thinking, suggesting something like that. And Mayu paid for it…”

Reno took a seat next to him, watching him carefully. That made a little more sense than the scant answers he’d been given last night, at any rate. If his sister had been at the Sector 3 train station yesterday… no wonder Tseng was blaming himself.

“Wrong place at the wrong time… You couldn’t’ve known…”

Tseng turned to him, a look of rage on his face.

“I did know! I could have warned her!” he shouted, suddenly standing. Without warning, he upended the coffee table, sending it flying several feet from where it had rested. “I could have saved her…”

“Tseng…”

“Leave me alone.”

“Boss, I don’t think –” Reno began, only to cut himself off at the nearly homicidal look in the other Turk’s eyes. He quickly swallowed what he’d been about to say.

“Get out, and leave me alone!”

He didn’t try to argue. Something told him that trying to talk to him right now wasn’t going to be especially productive… and might very well prove hazardous to his health. Reno stood and slowly backed away until he was sure he was out of range. He couldn’t recall ever being legitimately afraid of Tseng. Intimidated, certainly, but he’d never had the impression that he might actually harm him. Right now, though… he wasn’t so sure about that. Right now… it seemed to be taking everything Tseng had in him to restrain himself.

He didn’t want to leave. This wasn’t like Tseng at all, and Reno had no idea what the man might do once he was gone… but there wasn’t much choice. Decision grudgingly made, he turned and started towards the door. Tseng said nothing further… not even when the redhead scooped a small object off of the side table before he departed.

Reno closed the door behind him. As he made the short walk down the front path, his hand clenched around Tseng’s gun in a white-knuckled grip. He didn’t know what the man might do… but there was no way in hell he was going to leave him with the temptation to do something that couldn’t be undone. He couldn’t go through that again.

~fin~