Note from the author:
This story deals with the aftermath of rape. There isn't any explicit stuff in this part, but it's pretty depressing all the same. Well, ya was warned.
(no spoilers, I don't think!)
Reno was late for work- unusual, for him, and certainly not something he planned to make a habit of. Unless you have to, a small voice yelled at him from within. You share an office, remember?
Taking a deep breath, he began the walk along the corridor, hearing his footsteps seem to clang and echo. As if this walk were along a gangplank, the last walk he was ever going to take here. Smell the salt air, man, it might just be the last thing your nostrils ever have the pleasure of experiencing.
"Reno?"
He started out of his reviere, alarmed at how far away he'd been. It was Tseng. The older man looked concerned. "Reno, are you okay? Is something going on between you and Rude- did you fight?"
More's going on than you'll ever know, he thought sadly to himself, on the outside faking a smile and saying breezily, "No, Tseng, of course not."
He could hear the slight wobble in his voice- could Tseng? He couldn't, wouldn't bear Tseng finding out what had happened. Like a child who's just smoked its first, underage cigarrette, and the only thing it can think about is, Mommy and Daddy can't ever know. Only this was much darker, buried much deeper.
Help me, he tried to scream with his eyes.
Tseng smiled vaguely and moved on, taking a sip of Styrofoam coffee and pulling a face.
He felt his breath catch and stick in his throat, alone in the corridor he'd walked down a hundred times before, and so scared, because he would have to open that door and be alone with Rude.
His hand left moisture on the door as he pushed it open, feeling something twist in his gut.
Rude was seated at his desk, hands folded, staring into space with a vacant expression on his face...Reno, breathing deeply, walked in, expecting Rude at any minute to look up and address him in that languid way he had. The way that had got him here. There's only so much you can do with fake credentials and the right smile.
He'd made it to his desk, at least, sliding in between the mahogany with barely disguised relief, hands clenching it white-knuckled. Rude smiled a diamond-barbed predator grin at him.
"We've got a new assignment, partner."
Reno shivered, lost in a world of fear and icy sweat, where the word partner had many meanings, all of them bad for him. Rude, noticing the white-knuckled grip he still held on the table, widened his grin.
"So. Finally learning something, are we?"
"Nani?"
"How to be properly afraid. You weren't going to live your whole life as the surviving kamikaze pilot of this operation, you know."
"I don't really want to survive that much now, thanks." Reno spat back with all the force he could muster, instantly regretting his small piece of rebellion as Rude sprang up from his chair, sending it spinning into the wall with the force of his departure, covering the distance between the desks and shoving his face into Reno's. Hot breath in his face, Rude's touch burning him up with memory.
"Like it or not," Rude whispered, close and angry, "you're going to survive for as long as I want."
And then Rude was leaving, striding out of the office with new purpose, leaving only a slight rumpling of Reno's clothes to testify he'd ever stepped even slightly out of line. In a building like this, no-one who smelled the smoke was going to come running.
