My Road

Disclaimer:

I do not own Final Fantasy 7, It’s original characters, places, etc. Nor do I make any money from this fanfiction. The only things that are mine are my own original added characters. And the situations or new places added to flesh out my own story.

I do not own X Japan or their song called ‘Tears’... just love it is all... and think it fits in this chapter (especially with the bands history... and Yoshiki’s father... this fits)

Warnings:

There will be another death in this chapter... but it will be gory... and suicide. There will be some more molestation at first (lighter this time at least... its rape only because he’s underage, but its not forceful) I promise... it will be brighter for Reno for a ‘little’ bit after this (minus flashbacks)

Note:


I have finally figured out how to run a program with spell and grammar check. I edited all the previous chapters and re-loaded them. And also made a minor change to chapter 3.


I have a muse!!! *claps* we can all thank Shining Sunny! She helped me re-vamp a situation that changed in chapter 3... helping my whole story in the future to hopefully flow way better. Reno does not have a mysterious sister... he has a mysterious aunt!


Thank you Shining Sunny! *hugs* your idea was ingenious!

My Road

~Chapter 6~

Reno lay on his little bed and stretched. For the last few months he’d been having major growth spurts. His muscles ached more than they should normally, as he took good care and kept quite active with work. He still had the very boyish look about him, but was stretching up a little ahead of the game. He was finally a bit taller than the only other boy his age in the area he lived.


It was probably normal, but his feelings seemed to have changed a bit as well. He felt distant, like he was somehow outside of his body watching himself from above. He didn’t feel the dull throbbing pain of what had happened to his mother the same way anymore, it felt, further away. When Reno sat and contemplated anything that happened with news about Shinra, or about the constantly revolving inner politics of the lower plate, or anything of the like. Reno would shift to that place outside of himself and observe intently, the faces around him, the mood, and how the words were spoken. He’d identify the feeling behind the statement and consider all he knew about the subject before he’d reply.


Reno had come to have a bit of a smart lip on him because of all of this. He knew more than most, if he studied a situation. He didn’t intend to, but his attitude was forming from natural knowledge growing fast in this little boys head. He could tell it exactly how it was… to anyone but his father.


The sector he lived in was becoming a little busier nowadays with some of the people overpopulating in other sectors. Even with all the starvation and pollution and problems over the last decade or so… there is always still growth. Maybe the other sectors were busier than this one. Reno’s mind calculated the possibility’s, he still had the dark secret in the back of his mind that he wanted to run away. Maybe end up in the army, or perhaps something else. He knew there were other options out there, he could feel it.


But the boyish tendencies that separate the young from the mature were too strong in him still. He felt love, he knew pain, he’d had to live alone some of the time. So much he’d seen, yet still so young. Why couldn’t he still live like the child that was seated deep inside of him.


Reno pushed the blanket to the side of his little bed pallet and groaned as he sat up. He didn’t need to work today, so he’d allowed himself to sleep in a bit. He trudged over to the small stove and lighting it, moved the small tin container over the center. He’d been given the offer of coffee along with his rations lately. It was a freeze dried powdered drink. He’d taken to it almost instantly, liking the warmth and the refreshing feeling after drinking it. Maybe it was an addictive substance, who knew? Anything Shinra added to the rations had to make you consider that option; he’d learned that almost 2 years ago.


Reno cringed as his thoughts swept back to that day. The feeling of loss, confusion, and sick, bitter hate all rolled into one. He’d grown a lot since that day. A lot had changed. He had some new bitter memories; his father… once a stranger that visited the home rarely, now came more regularly. He really should hate the man. But instead he felt a sort of pity. This is a man he should be able to look up to, to feel a sense of safety around him.


It shouldn’t be the child’s place to provide a sense of belonging to the parent. A sense of control, safety… He sensed that his father was barely clinging onto reality. He always returned home murmuring things such as ‘you need me to keep you in line’ or ‘you need your father to teach you all there is to know in this life.’ But that wasn’t the whole of it. He came home to ‘punish’ Reno, when the boy did nothing but slave away to get some acceptance from his father. It was so mixed up, all this, from a man that Reno still didn’t know.


Reno shook his head and smirked. It was going to be today that his dear father would come home. He just knew. He added the powdered coffee to the tin and swirled it around allowing it to heat a bit more. He figured he’d better get moving. He wanted to spend some time with Kit today before he went to get rations and then get back home to mend his shirt again. He’d cut it, and his flesh with some pretty fierce scrap yesterday. They had him working in some nastier areas recently. He was a bit taller, stronger, and had more endurance… so he figured it was fine.


Rolling his neck, Reno popped it and his shoulders before bending over at the waist to stretch his waist. He’d learned the hard way from extremely sore bunched muscles half way through the day to do so each morning after waking up.


The coffee was ready to drink, and Reno was ready to head out. He had to be careful on his day off of work. Especially without having someone around that knew he had a father that was technically his caretaker. The rumors of the traffickers were becoming more and more real each week. There were more and more young kids, teens, and young widows that were disappearing lately. Reno didn’t really live in fear of it. In fact he almost dared someone to try to take him away from this slum hole. But reason kicked in, and told him to be more careful on his one free day away from the word area’s and without a team, or a father. He was still only 10 years old after all.


Making his way through the slum houses in his area while keeping his senses alert was always a small joy to Reno. He’d watch for changes and listen for new voices. He’d walk along imagining what this sector looked like up on the top plate. He’d seen a few mangy posters, but it wasn’t enough to really bring you into true focus of what it was like. But walking along on a quiet day like this, just hearing the hum of the city above was enough to let his imagination go wild. He dreamed of being a part of something bigger.


Scuffing his feet a little once he hit the softer, less walked on dirt, he grinned. “Com’on Kit... where are ya, yo?” He turned his head towards some collapsed stone buildings. Probably remains from the ancients. This area was travelled less, and less people lived here. It was farther from the center of work and businesses, what few were down here anyway. This area was perfect, well as perfect as Kit could get if he was to stay here. Reno wished he’d find a way out of the city to live in the wild. But if he was going to stay there, they might as well look out for each other.


Before long Reno heard a little “perrrt” And the soft pawed cat-like creature silently bound his way over to him. Reno gave him a grin and made a motion for them to both move behind the ruins there. They’d be safer if they were deeper out of sight.


Not only was this animal a companion. Reno felt that Kit was there for a reason. He’d saved him once. Maybe Kit was there to save him from insanity, or Loneliness, maybe? Who knows? He’d enjoy the friend... the true friend. His only other peer, as unlikely as he was, was gone to make a life of his own with the big center of Midgar itself.


After ‘playing’ or really, taking it easy and telling the Cuahl all his deepest secrets while the beast got loving and petting. Reno was beginning to think he’d better move on to getting rations and making his way home. But as he moved to get up from where he lounged with Kit, he stopped and held his breath.


It had been a couple of hours only! But a feeling of dread entered his mind, and Reno felt a sudden sense of panic. He needed to get home, and he needed to get there fast. Somehow he had the urgency, the feeling that his father was on his way, or already there. He couldn’t tell which. He just felt a sudden nauseating sensation. It wasn’t his normal homecoming… something was wrong, or going to be wrong.


He made a motion to the Cuahl to stay put, and started out in a sprint. Why was he having this feeling? What was wrong?


That throbbing pain was in his chest again. He wasn’t above himself, feeling distanced from it. No, this was here, and now. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time. He needed to figure out why. His thoughts flashed to his mother’s drawn out face with still damp tears on her cheeks. He’d never seen her like that. Why was he thinking of now, of all times.


His feet brought him quickly back to the dust ridden lopsided little hut that was his home. He skidded to a boyish stop. There were no physical differences or anything that should make him feel immediately alarmed at all. He stood still for a moment listening past his fast paced heartbeat to see if anything was different about his home. And faintly he heard breathing from out back. Could be a neighbor…


Carefully walking back towards the water barrel he kept his head up. He saw his father. He didn’t expect that, even though his heart had been shouting it to him.


“Father, what…” He stopped walking and asking his question at the same time. His father stood facing the back of the building with his hands shaking. His outfit was ripped and torn, like he’d been in battle of some sort. Reno didn’t know what his father did when he was away, so he’d learned to expect anything really.


Not only was his father’s appearance disheveled, but what made Reno take in a deep breath at that very moment was what his father held in his hand clenching it tightly. The small burlap package of Gil was in his hand, but most importantly inside it was his mother’s necklace.


Reno could tell by the look on his father’s face that he’d already opened the package. And by the air about him, he was not happy. But he wasn’t angry either, yet, at least.


The older man gripped the little package harder and bowed his head. He hadn’t seen Reno yet. And Reno couldn’t tell if he was praying to some goddess or if he was just thinking or maybe he was hurt.


“Father…” Reno tried to say something but couldn’t think of what to say. He was angry that his father had found his hidden gift from mother. And Reno knew it was for him, and not his father. There was no explanation to what he was feeling right now. Duty deigned him to look out for his father now. But his soul screamed at him to retrieve the only thing he had from his mother and hate his father for all that he was, and did, to his mother and to himself.


Reno’s father gently looked up to where his boy stood, and all of Reno’s defenses broke. “Yuri, boy… I am called Yuri. That is my given name.” The older man spoke so softly and full of anguish.


“Oh father…” Reno softly called back and took a couple of steps towards this man, holding his hands to his chest in almost a pleading manner. Would he know this man finally?


“heh…” Yuri gave a chuckle and pulled the necklace from bundle, allowing the Gil and the burlap to fall to the ground. “She was wearing this when I met her. Your mother was so beautiful. I fell in love with her so strongly. She loved me too. But when we had you, she changed. She didn’t have any time for me. Reno, I was so lonely. Why did she look at you with such love and say such things to you, but couldn’t say them to me…” He began to weep. “She needed to work!” He stopped as quickly as he started still unshed tears in his eyes. “Why’d she turn into what she did? What happened? Why did you take her away from me?” Again he cried.


Reno didn’t know what to do, He’d rather the man be hitting him or kicking him. This was horrible. He didn’t want him to hurt. He’d been trained to only want to please this man. It was a struggle in his heart, with the things his father was saying about his mother again. He’d heard the bad things before, but this time. There was raw love and pain in it too.


Reno stepped closer to his father and reached up his arm and wrapped himself around the man. ‘Please?’ he begged inside himself ‘hold me father… make us both warm… I miss warmth.’ Why did mother have to go away? Reno felt weak, and helpless, more so than he had in a long time.


-‘”Wherever we go is okay”

You said

Now what may have been

Has been stopped by time’-


Yuri felt the small yet warm body against his side and clung tightly to his arm. He looked down into Reno’s crystal blue eyes and could see the sadness. He pulled Reno’s body up to his and kissed him.


Reno had never been kissed by anyone but his mother before. And the kiss felt wrong, but he was still close to his father and being held, so he didn’t care. He just wanted someone to be there, to take care of him, to love him. He was alone, scared and lost.

-‘On that night that was too long

I had a dream where you left me

Staring at a foreign sky

I hugged my loneliness’-



He allowed his father to kiss him. It was brief and was warm but when his father’s hands began roving over his son’s body, Reno knew what he was expected to do. He leaned up against his father allowing the warmth to spread in the hand’s wake. His body felt all tingly. He began to reach into his father’s clothes, drawing a groan from him.


Reno looked up to him with tears in his eyes. He wouldn’t cry, but the sadness was there. Yuri got Reno’s pants down and lifting him up to his waist he entered him. There were no words said, and no physical pain. It still didn’t make him feel whole. Yuri worked to a completion and felt his young son release a very tiny drop of fluid. He was coming to maturity. Yuri finished with tears. What was wrong with him!

-‘My fallen tears

Are piling up on the winds of time

At the end

I feel your breath’-

Reno felt a warm and tingling sensation work itself strongly over his belly and down to his small manhood. It didn’t hurt anymore when his father did this. This time it brought a nice washing sensation over him making him feel light headed when his father was done. But it just made the burning in his chest heavier and more painful. It felt wrong. Not happy, just sad, and sore, all over his chest.

-‘Dry your tears

With love

Dry your tears

With love’-

Reno’s father sat him down gently to the ground and then handed him his mother’s necklace. The older man looked so horribly anguished.


“I’m sick….” Yuri said as he walked past Reno. “No one should have done this… No one… I’m sorry…” He picked up his pack that was behind the water barrel where he must have set it thinking he’d clean up with just coming home.

-‘Loneliness… your silent whisper

Fills a river of tears through the night

Memory… you never let me cry

And you, you never said goodbye’-

“I’m sorry Re’nocia… lets go back. You told me this would never work. You were right.” Yuri pulled something out of his bag that Reno had never seen before.


His father turned and looked right at him. And Reno never knew what happened. His father pulled a piece of metal out of the bag and lifted it up to the side of his head. Suddenly Reno heard what sounded like an explosion. Something hot and wet sprayed his face and his father’s body slid to his knee’s and then the ground.

-‘Sometimes our tears blinded the love

We lost our dreams along the way

But I never thought you’d trade your soul to the fates

Never thought you’d leave me alone’-

Reno’s whole body quivered. It was a gun which was the metal his father had pulled out. It had to be. Why!? What did he do that for?


“Father!? Why’d you leave me!? What do you want me to do?...” Reno cried out in fear. His eyes looked feral. His father left him, he was so cold. A million things ran through Reno’s mind and heart. Down here, no one cared. No one cared about a slum rat without any parents. Reno didn’t have time to feel pain and sorrow. He only had to think of what to do.


He picked up the sack with the Gil in it. He went into the hut and grabbed his couple extra pieces of ratty clothing and through them all into his blanket He put his mothers necklace into the sack with the Gil and grabbed the small handful of gill that was hidden behind the stove that he’d made so far this month and added it to it. He grabbed the small pouch that his mother had always kept as a wound kit and mending kit in one. And stepping outside he saw his father’s pack. He should take that too.


He looked at his father one more time. Oh why, why did you leave too?

-‘Time through the rain has set me free

Sands of time will keep your memory

Love everlasting fades away

Alive within your beatless heart’-

Reno knew that this was what he had to do, he had to run. He felt it in his heart. He’s craved it in his soul for so long, now that the chance was given it scared him. And the path there was started on a road of blood.

-‘Dry your tears

With love

Dry your tears

With love’-

His feet found their way back to the ruins on the edge of his neighborhood on their own accord. He looked up and saw the stone ruins. What about Kit. He needed to look out for him. He didn’t know where they’d go. But they needed to get out of here. There was so much out there. But staying in this one place, it just wasn’t safe. Reno sensed that he’d be taken, if he stayed here. He looked back in the direction of his home, or what was his home till now. He’d hold onto what memories he could, and learn. He’d observe and grow just like he had been.

-‘My fallen tears

Are piling up on the winds of time

This feeling at the end

Makes my blue rose change.’-

He looked behind the ruins and found Kit. He sat down for a few moments to collect his thoughts and his emotional strength, and decided to pull things out of his father’s sack and see if there was anything useful for him inside. He sniffed and shook his head. He still couldn’t let himself cry.

-‘Dry your tears

With love

Dry your tears

With love’-

He pulled out a small canteen, a lighter, a pack of cigarettes. He laughed a little, he’d seen his father come home drunk. But he’d never seen him smoke. Kit jumped down into his face demanding to be noticed. He didn’t know why Reno had come back, or why he’d left the way he did for that matter. And he must have smelled something different about Reno because he seemed more protective and clingy acting.

-‘My fallen tears are piled on the winds of time again

At the end I can feel your breath

Dry your tears… with love’-

He pulled out a knife in a small sheath next from the sack. It was well worn. There were some worn out wrappers of some sort. Maybe they were ammunition wrappers? He’d seen similar things before in the debris that he used to have to clean. He dug a little bit more and found a small tie. He gasped.

-‘If you could have taught me anything

You would have found what love is

If you could have taught me what was on your mind

I could have shown you the way’-

What he held in his hand was his mother’s hair tie. She’d always pull her hair back and wrap this around the tail. Reno was shocked. He knew more about this man, now that he was gone than he’d known when he was alive. Yet he was still a complete stranger. Who was he, what did he do when he wasn’t at home?

-‘Someday… I will be before you

Have you ever thought about that time?

I never imagined the pictures of that night

For now I will try to live for you’-

Reno knew that this was only a beginning. His Road would begin from this day forward. He’d make his way within his own choices. But he’d been seasoned and led in certain directions by the situations that brought him to this point. So from here on, on his road he’d be living for himself, and for his mother who’d been plucked from Gaia so cruelly. And also he’d be living for his father, who’d been so encased in a broken body and soul that he’d hurt both Reno and his mother… but loved them both also.

-‘And for…

I will try to live the love, the dreams,

And finally, the tears.’-

Kit nuzzled the boys face. Reno reached up thinking the Cat-like creature had licked his face, but when he felt fresh tears slide down his stone-still face was the first he realized he was crying. No, I can’t cry. Mother, I can’t cry… You didn’t. I’ll get stronger. Reno balled his fist. I’ll grow up. I’ll be big enough soon, to fight all of the bad people away and protect myself. Till then, I need to find my own way down the road, My road…


In the dim, artificial lighting of the lower plate of a city so massive that it was multiple towns all in one. A poverty ridden layer below a sparkling monopoly hid many hearts. And amongst it all, a boy… barely 10 years old walked solemnly through the rubble and ruins, half dragging a beaten up old ruck-sack with all the belongings he’d accumulated in his short life, with a wild beast accompanying his side as they walked. Lost in a world all their own, thinking to the future, and all the possibilities.


Reno felt of his head, his hair was falling loose. He really wished he could have it cut off. His father told him it made him look like a wench, but that Reno deserved it. He couldn’t spare the Gil. But now maybe he could make his own choices on that.


He decided that would be the first thing he’d do on his own. But only after he found a way out of this sector and get a place for him and Kit to hide.


~~~End Chapter 6~~~

A/N:

Again I want to thank Shining Sunny for the inspiration on the positive change for the build of the story (yay… Reno has an aunt… that’s cooler than a sister for him)

And I want to thank PrincessTurk. She has become a wonderful online buddy! And is now my BETA yay!! *claps* She helped inspire me to get writing again. (read her stuff… he he…shameless plug)

Honestly… there are so many beautifully talented writers… we all can enjoy… and be inspired by. We can be thankful for the gift of expression!


Reno- poor guy… He’s had a rocky start… but he’ll grow quite a bit over the next bit of story. Sorry it took me a couple of days to get this chapter done. I hope to keep moving along.

This chapter is dedicated to all those that have been raped or abused or traumatized. Such things as the Stockholm syndrome and the like can never describe the true feelings. We feel used, sick, hurt, pain, love, regret… and so much more. Especially when it is someone you love or trust(it doesn’t have to be a parent, and you don’t have to be underage)…. That breaks that trust. We feel a sense of responsibility… could we have done more… why couldn’t we fight... or push them away... we deserved it… Know that it’s not your fault. You can grow and learn to live again. And many of us have been in your shoes… you do not need to be ashamed. We all need to learn to breathe again and see the sun.


Ps: sorry for such long A/N’s this time… they’ll be shorter next time. Thanks to the reviewers and silent readers! I appreciate that you are reading my story!