Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Chapter 3: The Job Offer

“There’s no need for concern. If I’d intended you any harm, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now,” the Wutaiian continued in that maddeningly calm voice of his. Reno narrowed his eyes, not sure he believed that for a second.

“Just who the hell are you?” he asked, “And why the fuck are you followin’ me around?”

The man gestured to the little table in the corner, and Reno hesitantly took a seat. The Wutaiian did likewise, and rested his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers in front of him, and looking at the teenager intently.

“My name is Tseng. And I’m here on business. I’ve been watching you, Reno. And I want you.”

A slender eyebrow rose, somewhat sardonically. “Yeah, well… if that’s the sort of thing you’re into, try Wall Market.”

Tseng chuckled softly. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind. I trust you remember our first meeting? At that bar over in Sector Three?”

So it was him. Reno nodded vaguely.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you since then. And I like what I’ve seen. That’s why I have an offer for you.”

“What kind of an offer?” the redhead asked, suspicion blatantly obvious in his tone. The Wutaiian smirked.

“The kind that pays far better than bartending.”

Reno shot him an annoyed glare. “Stop with the cryptic bullshit and just tell me what it is you want me to do already. I don’t have time for this shit.”

Tseng smiled a surprisingly warm smile. “Very well. I work for Shinra Company. Specifically, I work for the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department.”

“The… Investigation… what?” Reno queried, slightly confused.

“I suspect you might know us better by another name. The Turks. To put it succinctly… I’m offering you the opportunity to join us.”

Reno vehemently shook his head. “I’m not workin’ as some goddamn snitch… Ask someone else,” he said, firmly. To be fair, he had heard that the Turkspaid their informants pretty well. But he also knew damn well what happened to people who got caught running their mouths about other people’s business.

“I’m not looking for an informant,” Tseng stated. “I’m looking for a new Turk.”

“… W-what?”

He shook his head, and flashed him a tolerant smile. “In case I haven’t made myself clear, I’m attempting to recruit you, Reno.”

“Let me get this straight. You… want me… to be one of Shinra’s Turks?” He had to be bullshitting him. Or their had to be some kind of major catch to this. He was just a kid. He wasn’t some trained killer. Hell, he wasn’t even much of a fighter, truth be told. Most of the time, he ended up getting his ass handed to him if he couldn’t talk his way out of something.

“Yes,” Tseng stated simply. Reno could only stare at him for several long moments.

“… Why?” he finally asked.

The Turk laughed, plainly amused. “For one thing… because you’re smart enough to ask me that question.” He reached into his jacket and withdrew a small bundle. It took Reno a moment to realize that it was a stack of twenty-gil notes, strapped together with a paper band. “This would be equivalent to your first paycheck. Consider this an advance. You may keep it whether you choose to accept the job or not.”

The redhead was fairly certain his jaw had just hit the floor. That had to be close to what he made in six goddamn months at the Lonely Dragon. Easily.

“So… this is for real?” he asked, in disbelief.

“Entirely.” The Turk stood and straightened his tie. “Think it over for a few days. I’ll be in touch.”

The Wutaiian moved to leave. As his hand turned the doorknob, Reno blinked, snapping out of his daze.

“H-hey…” he called after him. Tseng turned back.

“Yes?”

“So… just to be clear… if I decide to take you up on this offer, I get the fuck outta the slums. Right?”

“Naturally,” he said with a faint smirk. “I could hardly be expected to come all the way down here to train you.”

With that, he was gone, slipping silently through the door and closing it behind him. Reno remained seated at the table, staring blankly at the pile of cash in front of him. He reached out, hesitant to even touch it lest it simply vanish. That was one paycheck. He could hardly begin to wrap his head around the idea. At last, he snatched it, thumbing the bills and seeing that it really was one twenty-gil note after another. He’d half-expected to find worthless paper beneath the top one.

More cash than he’d ever held in his hand at one time… and a one-way ticket to the Plate? It had to be too good to be true. There had to be some sort of catch. No one in Sector Two just got handed their dream on a silver platter without their being a catch.

Still… what were the odds of him getting anothershot at leaving the Slums for upper Midgar if he turned this down… pretty much ever again? This might very well be a once in a lifetime chance.

Reno thumbed through the bundle of notes again. He was hungry. And he thought better on a full stomach than on an empty one. The first thing he was going to do with the small fortune he suddenly found himself in possession of was buy himself a real meal. And then he was going to go see Lira a little early.

---

Lira stared at the stack of gil that sat unassumingly on the table between them. It had been several long minutes since she’d actually said anything, let along answered Reno’s query as to her thoughts on the matter.

“How do you even know this guy’s on the level?” she finally asked. Reno shrugged, and pretended to study his surroundings. Lira’s little room in the boarding house was actually pretty nice. The furniture looked new-ish and was it was clean. There was even a little bit of security downstairs to keep out the drunks and the troublemakers. He still wasn’t quite sold on this whole idea of her working for Corneo, but at least she had a decent place to live.

“I don’t. But if he’s not… I’m mean, who the fuck else has that much money to throw around?”

“I don’t like it, Reno. Is that even how the Turks get new recruits? They just pop on down to the slums and hand some random kid a stack of cash?”

“He said he’s been watchin’ me.”

“Which just makes this even weirder, ya ask me,” she said, flatly.

“Yeah. But he did save my ass the other day.” He turned his attention back to the money. “… Lira… This might be the only chance I ever get at the Plate. You said yourself Two’s no place for me. Well, neither is Wall Market. If this is for real…”

She stood up and slipped around behind him, gently hugging him, and pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head. “I know, Reno, honey. If this is for real, you get the one thing you’ve always wanted. But what if it’s not? Who knows what he might do to you…”

His shoulders sagged. He knew she had a point, but the tempting allure of leaving the slums was hard to resist. It was risky. The son of a bitch had already shot one guy dead right in front of him. If he decided to do the same to Reno, his odds of surviving it weren’t exactly stellar. Lira leaned down and kissed him again.

“I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you, Reno…”

The redhead sighed. “Yeah… I know ya don’t.”

“… But you’re gonna do it anyway, aren’t you?”

He twisted around to look up at her. She was frowning worriedly, and he found that he couldn’t bear to hold her gaze.

“… Yeah. I think I am.”

Lira’s arms tightened possessively and she nuzzled the back of his neck.

“Please, please just be careful.” She nibbled gently at his earlobe, which quickly turned into fleeting kisses along one side of his neck. Reno closed his eyes, enjoying the attention.

“So… How the Honeybee?” he asked quietly, changing the subject.

“Exhausting.” Her hand slipped under his shirt, slowly caressing his chest.

“Heh… Can’t be that exhausting, if you got enough energy for this…”

His chair was suddenly dragged back from the table, and the next thing he knew Lira was straddling his lap.

“I’ve always got energy for you,” she said, grinning widely before laying claim to his lips. He leaned back a bit, breaking the kiss.

“Seriously, Lira… They treatin’ you alright?”

“Let me put it this way…” she replied, stroking his hair back. “It’s not exactly perfect, but it’s a lot better than workin’ a street corner ever was. And more importantly, I feel safe here, Reno. For the first time in a long time, I feel safe, even when you’re not with me.”

Reno swallowed sharply. That fucking son of a bitch, Jericho. Lira had been so terrified she wouldn’t even leave her apartment for almost a month after the attack… and even then, it had been hard for her, especially when she’d had to venture out from beneath the safety of Reno’s watchful eye and go back to work. She had been talking about moving to Wall Market for awhile before it had happened… but what that bastard had done to her had pushed her to finally go through with it. And it was why the redhead hadn’t tried to convince her to stay.

Her finger tenderly lifted his chin, forcing his eyes to meet hers.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yeah… but if I’da been there –”

“If you’da been there, Jericho woulda killed you. He almost did kill you when you went after him.” She placed a fleeting kiss on his lips. “I don’t know what I woulda done without you, Reno. I really don’t.”

He quickly found himself divested of his t-shirt, and Lira’s lips began a slow but thorough assault on his collarbone. She didn’t like talking about it, and the conversation was clearly over for the moment. He found that his didn’t mind that much. Reno picked her up, letting her wrap her legs around his waist, and carried her over to the bed on the far side of the room. They fell gracelessly into the sheets, their only objective being the removal of the rest of their clothing.

In the back of his mine, Reno vaguely wondered if Tseng was watching this, too. But the thought vanished almost as soon as it formed, as Lira’s mouth found its way to far more interesting parts of his anatomy.

---

The redhead counted the remaining gil carefully. The temptation to spend it all on whatever he liked had been difficult to resist… but somehow he’d managed. Besides… if he started flashing large amounts of cash around, he might as well paint a target on his back. Still, though, he couldn’t remember having been better fed in years. And he hadn’t spent even a fraction of what Tseng had given him. Hell, if he was smart about it, he could probably live for a good six to eight months on this.

Though he wondered if that was true topside.

If this was just one paycheck, obviously not. Living on the Plate wasn’t cheap… hence why the slums existed at all. He wondered if getting by up there would be just as hard as getting by down here. He sighed and tucked the rest of the gil into his dresser drawer, and laid down on the bed. His hand slid beneath the pillow, fingers closing around the familiar softness he found there and dragging the object out.

He held the stuffed bunny aloft, studying him for a moment.

“What do you think, Mr. Foo-foo? Am I makin’ a mistake doin’ this?” The toy remained stubbornly silent in his grasp. “Tch… fat lotta help you are.”

He’d told Lira that he was going to accept the offer, and at the time, he’d meant it. But in the three days since, his resolve had wavered somewhat. It was a big risk. And he really had no reason to trust a word that came out of Tseng’s mouth. Hell, he knew virtually nothing about the guy.

For all he knew, he might never even see the fucker again. Maybe this was just all one big – very expensive – joke. Bunch of shitheads from the Plate laughing their asses off at suckering some poor, pathetic slum rat.

But for some reason… he didn’t think that was the case. Something about Tseng seemed legit. Maybe he was lying about making Reno a Turk… but the redhead was all but certain the man was a Turk himself.

“The hell with it. I’m goin’,” he said to the bunny. “He fucks me over, ‘least I can say I tried to get outta here, right? I’m not gettin’ anywhere just sittin’ on my ass.”

The rather one-sided conversation was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Reno shoved the stuffed animal back under his pillow and clambered to his feet. He crossed the room silently, uncertain of who would be paying him a visit now. Anyone who knew him would expect him to be asleep if he were at home this time of day, in preparation for working late at the bar.

He opened the door a crack, not bothering to remove the security chain. Not that the sad little chain was going to do much to prevent someone from kicking the door in if they really wanted to, but it at least gave the illusion of security.

He blinked in surprise at the sight that greeted him. Speak of the devil…

“May I come in?” Tseng asked, and the redhead quickly shut the door enough to slide the chain out of its track, granting the Turk access. He crossed the threshold, and closed the door firmly behind himself before turning to look at the teenager again. “I’ll get straight to the point this time. Have you made a decision?”

Reno swallowed nervously. It was now or never.

“I… I’m gonna take you up on that offer.”

Tseng flashed him a brief smile.

“Good. Start packing.”

~end of chapter 3~