Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Chapter 1: A New Turk

Reno moaned as the intense wave of pleasure of his own release washed over him, and he let his eyes close, savoring the quiet bliss that followed. He collapsed, spent, his cheek pressed against his lover’s sweat-damp skin, breathing rapidly from the effort.

“Not that I’m compainin’… but you keep this up, you’re gonna be too tired to walk me over to Wall Market in the mornin’,” Lira’s voice teased, her breath softly tickling his ear.

“Guess that means you gotta put it off ’til I recover enough to protect ya,” the teen panted softly, nuzzling her. He felt her hands begin a gentle caress along his spine.

“… We talked about this, Reno. I’m not stayin’ here. I can’t take it anymore. Anything’s better than Sector Two. Even workin’ for Corneo.”

Reno gave a heavy sigh and forced his head up just enough to look her in the eye. He knew he couldn’t talk her into staying… and truth be told, after what had happened a few months ago, he didn’t have the heart to try. But that didn’t mean there weren’t other options.

“Why can’t we just find some place over in Three, huh?”

“Because. Three is expensive, and that asshole at the Lonely Dragon doesn’t pay you enough to actually live there… even if we got a place together.”

“Hey, c’mon, Lira… Wilfred’s an okay guy.”

She gave him a derisive snort, and let her hand travel down past his waist, gently cupping his backside, and giving it a soft squeeze.

“Please. You’re one step above slave labor at that bar. If he paid you any less, it wouldn’t even be worth the effort. You could do so much better in Wall Market. Even if you don’t want to get into the market itself. There are bars there, too, ya know. And plenty of girls outside of the brothels needin’ bodyguards.”

Lira’s lips found his, silencing his protests before they even had a chance to form, and her other hand snuck between his legs, teasing him insistently.

“Hey, now… Thought you were concerned about me wearin’ myself out?”

“Easier to to talk ya into somethin’ when you’re hard,” Lira replied with a smirk.

“No fair usin’ my own body against me.” The complaint was a half-hearted one. She wasn’t wrong… He did find it much harder to think with most of his blood volume rushing to his groin. Lira giggled evilly and the redhead suddenly found himself on his back, his lover straddling him.

“Oh, shut up and fuck me again.”

“… Well, if you’re gonna insist on it…” he replied, grinning.

---

“You’re gonna think about it… right?”

“… Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna think about it,” said Reno. Lira smiled and brushed a few stray strands of crimson out of his eyes.

“Really think about it?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” She leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. “Because I hate thinkin’ about leavin’ you there all alone. Two’s no place for someone like you, Reno. Never has been. You deserve better.”

The redhead glanced upwards at the gaudy building, with it’s flashing lights and skimpily dressed girls hanging around the entrance.

“This is better?” he said, uncertainly. For such a supposedly high-end place, the Honeybee didn’t exactly scream class.

“Anything is better than that hellhole.”

“Lira! Rose is ready for you!” a woman, dressed in an utterly ridiculous-looking – at least in Reno’s opinion – bee costume called out from the brothel entrance, waving her over. He snickered.

“They gonna make ya wear that?” he teased.

“Anything is better than that hellhole,” Lira reiterated with a soft laugh. She kissed him again. “Be careful headin’ home. I’ll see ya this weekend, right?”

Reno nodded, and she flashed him a smile before hurrying up the front steps and being escorted inside. As the door closed behind her, the redhead let the his own smile fall from his face, and heaved a heavy sigh. What really irked him about this whole situation was that Lira was right. Just about anything was better than Sector Two. Even this. At least here, she wouldn’t have to worry about being robbed or raped or beaten up or worse. Don Corneo may have been slime incarnate… but he protected the things that made him money.

He kicked at the dirt, disgruntled, and turned, heading back the way he’d come.

Lira was right about something else, too. There was plenty of work for him here… and in all likelihood, it would pay a hell of a lot better than working at the bar in Sector Three. The only reason he was hesitating was because he knew what would inevitably happen to him if he followed Lira to Wall Market.

Reno was pretty. And pretty young men in Wall Market didn’t get hired as bartenders or bouncers or bodyguards. They ended up as rentboys hopping from one cheap motel bed to the next for fifty gil a fuck. Considerably more, if they weren’t too picky about the gender of their clientele and were willing to spread ’em for the guys, too… or were open to certain… fetishes.

Even at his most desperate, he hadn’t been willing to go as far as selling himself. He’d seen what that had cost his mother. And he’d seen what it had cost Lira, too. Once you went down that road, it was damn near impossible to get back out… and he didn’t want to end up stuck here in the slums forever. One way or another, he was going to find a way up to the Plate someday.

But not today. Today, he was delivering his best friend to a whorehouse, because, sickening as it was, a whorehouse was better than Sector Two.

Reno scowled as he ignore the sign pointing the direction to the train station and slipped out into Sector Seven. Supposedly, Shinra Company was going to extend the tracks to all of the sectors in the slums eventually, but for the time being, only Wall Market in Sector Six was up and running. He wished they’d fucking hurry up. It’d save him a long, risky walk, especially now that he was going to be making this trip on a regular basis to see Lira.

As he made his way through Seven, he gazed jealously at the houses that lined the streets. They were ramshackle, sure… but it was obvious that the people who lived in them worked to keep them in halfway decent condition. Not like in Two, where, if your roof caved in, you moved to the other corner of the building and hoped the Ifrit-forsaken rats didn’t infest the rubble.

Sector Two was full of drug addicts, pedophiles, gangbangers, and thieves. There were, of course, decent people there, too; mostly those too poor to afford the cost of living in the nicer sectors. But by and large, Two was a slum within a slum. It was where Midgar’s trash dumped its trash. And it was where Reno had spent pretty much the entirety of his sixteen years on the planet.

Sector Seven soon gave way to Sector Eight, and the redhead cut across the defunct rail yard near the central pillar, where the hulking bodies of old trains loomed like the skeletons of long-dead beasts in a gloomy twilight. It didn’t matter that it was barely eleven in the morning… the slums were always like this. A grimy, artificial twilight, with a faint hint of mako-green in the soft glow that gave everything the prominent look of decay.

Or maybe it just accentuated the actual decay of the slums. He’d never really been sure.

Shinra didn’t spend much on the slums. Areas that were more or less uninhabited, like the train graveyard, got the bare minimum when it came to power for lighting. There was no profit in it.

A loud clatter to his right brought Reno to a dead halt as he wound his way amongst the train cars, and a moment later, he darted into the shadows, out of sight, eyes scanning for the source of the noise. He’d have preferred to avoid getting jumped on the way home if at all possible, and while this part of Sector Eight didn’t have much of anything in terms of housing, he’d heard there was a small gang that had claimed it as their territory in recent months.

He held his breath, concealed in the shadows of a rusted out passenger car, watching and listening for any kind of movement. Several long seconds passed and, at first, there was nothing. Just as he’d begun to relax a bit, however, another piece of metal crashed to the ground, the sound echoing across the trainyard. An ugly little creature bounded out of a pile of debris. Beetle-like horns stuck out above an almost disturbingly human-like face. It’s yellow eyes and squashed features made it look a bit like an old man with a hairless dog’s body. A grin spread over Reno’s face as he recognized it.

A cripshay. Free lunch.

The little bastards may have been ugly as a behemoth’s ass, but roast ’em up a little, and they weren’t a half bad meal. And given that he was flat broke until his next paycheck… in four more days… a free lunch was sounding pretty good right about now.

Reno dropped into a low crouch and reached into his back pocket, silently unfolding the knife he kept there. It was good, high quality knife with a well-honed edge. He’d won it in a poker game after work about a year ago… though he was fairly certain its previous owner had stolen it. It was probably the most valuable thing he owned at the moment, and it came in handy.

The cripshay hadn’t noticed anything was amiss and had wandered closer to the redhead’s hiding place. It was almost too easy. Without making a sound, he darted out, and one hand bringing the blade down hard on the creature’s neck, while the other seized hold of one of the horns, just in case he missed the spine and it tried to make a run for it. It squealed once… in fear or in pain, he wasn’t sure… kicked out at him, and then flopped over, half-paralyzed. It struggled for breath, and clawed at him with its front leg. Reno frowned and pulled out the knife to reposition it under the animal’s chin and forced it upwards into the skull. The cripshay finally went still.

He didn’t particularly like killing the damn things. It always left him feeling just a little guilty, especially when his aim was off and they suffered like that. But… he had to eat. He made quick work of butchering the large rodent. Better to just do it here and get it over with. He really didn’t need a bunch of entrails sitting around attracting other critters back at home.

He wrapped the meat in an old newspaper and stuffed it into his bag, and then wiped off the knife before folding the blade back in and tucking it into his pocket. At least he wouldn’t be going hungry today. Reno stood and started toward home again. Just one more sector to go… Then he could cook the little fucker, clean up, and head to work with a full belly for once. It almost made up for having to leave Lira behind in Wall Market. Almost.

The redhead wiped his hands on his jeans as he walked, grimacing at the mess. Yet another reason he didn’t care for hunting cripshays. The bastards bled everywhere. If you weren’t careful, you ended up walking away from them looking like you’d just gone on a murder spree. At least he hadn’t accidentally cut into the stomach this time. He’d have to soak for hours to get that smell out. Plus it practically advertised to anyone downwind that you had food on you… and that was a great way to get yourself mugged.

He hoisted himself over the upturned bed of flatcar that had derailed and was lying on its side, and made his way past the Sector One pillar. A few people were out and about, but he largely avoided them. Reno didn’t travel in this part of the slums very often, and he didn’t know it well. Better to avoid confrontation than seek it out.

The teenager was just nearing the edge of Sector Two when his luck ran out.

“Hey! Kid!” a loud voice called out to him, and before he could even turn around to respond, a hand seized him by the shoulder, yanking him backwards. A moment later, he was spun around and backhanded rather viciously across the face, sending him tumbling to the ground. Large fingers clamped down on the front of his t-shirt and hauled him up again, bringing him face to face with an equally large man. Black hair hung in greasy clumps around his face, and bloodshot eyes stared at the redhead. “Hand over your cash,” his attacker hissed, and Reno instinctively turned his head away from the man’s rancid breath.

“Don’t have any,” he replied.

“Don’t you fuckin’ lie to me ya little slum rat! You got gil on ya. This shirt’s practically brand new. Either you hand it over… or I take it.”

Yeah… it was new, alright. But only because his friend, Kel, could him things like that on the cheap. He’d spent the last of his cash on cigarettes. Yesterday. He was tapped out.

“I’m tellin’ ya… I don’t got shit ‘cept a goddamn cripshay I caught a little while ago! Let go of me, fucktard!”

The man’s only response was an angry yell as he punched the teen in the face. Reno tasted blood. This wasn’t good.

His hand reached for his knife. He’d killed plenty of cripshays and other vermin… but he’d never tried to take out another person before and his stomach twisted slightly at the thought. He had a feeling that it’d be a lot different… but judging by the way this guy was looking at him, it was either take him down quick, or get his ass thoroughly pulverized. He had the look of a junkie. Most likely wanted cash for a fix… and if that was the case, he’d be desperate. Reno wasn’t going to talk his way out of this one.

He flicked the blade out and stabbed at him. The sharp metal penetrated the man’s chest, and his grip on the redhead loosened and finally released as he staggered backwards and dropped to his knees. Reno, too, dropped to the ground, but quickly got to his feet again, prepared to run if he had to… but his assailant didn’t come after him again. He fell, lying motionless a few feet away.

The redhead swallowed back against the sudden wave of nausea that hit him. He’d just killed someone. Sure, it was in self-defense… but he’d fucking killed someone! He turned away from the body, and leaned forward, supporting himself with his hands on his thighs as he drew in a deep breath, trying to steady himself. After a moment, he stood, only to realize he was shaking slightly.

And that was when the second attack came.

“You little guttershit!”

Reno’s eyes widened as he suddenly found himself with his own blade at his throat. Apparently the son of a bitch wasn’t quite as dead as he’d thought.

‘Oh, fuck…’ he thought, searching his brain from some way… any way… out of this mess.

“Let him go.”

The voice was perfectly calm, and when Reno looked up, he saw that the owner of said voice had a gun trained on the pair of them. He was Wutaiian… and definitely not from around here. Long, jet black hair was swept neatly back in a ponytail. He was dressed in a crisp, black suit, not a thread out of place, with polished shoes and a perfectly straight tie. He stared down Reno’s captor with an alarmingly calm expression, and the redhead shuddered involuntarily. Somehow he could tell… this was absolutely not the first time this man had killed someone.

“Why don’t ya make me, assho–”

The junkie didn’t even get to finish the sentence. The gun went off, Reno felt a painful burning sensation in his left cheek, and then, suddenly, the man holding him hostage dropped. Reno’s knife clattered to the ground. He darted away several paces before he dared turn back.

The man was most assuredly dead now. Blood oozed from a neat, round hold dead center between his eyes. He stared upwards at the Plate above them, a look of permanent surprise etched on his features.

A hand gently came to rest on Reno’s shoulder and he jumped, half-expecting to be next on the stranger’s hit list. Instead, the Wutaiian simply handed him a handkerchief. It was only then that Reno realized that sharp sting he’d felt was the bullet grazing him. He hesitantly accepted the proffered fabric, and pressed it to the minor wound.

“The next time you try to kill someone… make sure you’re fully committed to it,” he said. He bent down and retrieved the knife from the ground, handing it back to the teenager. “Otherwise, you’re liable to wind up dead yourself.”

Reno nodded faintly and took the blade. The man flashed him a faint smile and then turned and tucked his gun back into the holster under his jacket.

“I’ll be seeing you again, Reno,” he called out as he walked away. “Very soon, I suspect.”

~end chapter 1~