I used to be so big and strong.

I used to know my right from wrong.

I used to never be afraid.

I used to be somebody

I used to have something inside

Now just this hole that’s open wide.

I used to want it all

I used to be somebody

NIN – Down in it.

3. Down in it.

Arriving at the shanty town, Reno looked out the window. It was still dark, so there was no one outside but the police, but this was one sad place, guess all this fighting would have its casualties, and Jenova had been a cruel goddess. Suddenly, his own crummy apartment seemed attractive compared to these shacks made of scrap. Tseng stopped the car and sighed, “Alright this is It,” and got out.

Reno followed, and they were shown to a shack by a police officer that apparently wasn’t happy with their company at all, “This should be left to the police, this is a police matter, not a Shin-ra case.”

“Yadda, yadda, yadda,” Reno said mirroring the complaining tone of the officer.

“You think you are so smart and fancy with your little badges and all, but you are lapdogs, mindless zombies!” the officer sneered. “You care nothing about this kid, or the other kids.. You don’t care about the people who live here, all you care about is the president, and neutralising this maniac before he hurts big brother.”

Reno turned around and shoved the officer so hard he sat down in the mud. “Listen you fuck, if I wanted your opinion I would have fucking asked for it in twelve copies, alright?”

Reno felt a hand on his shoulder. When he looked he saw Tseng who just shook his head. “Just ignore it,” he said.

The officer got up and cried out loud to his colleagues, “did you see that? I’m gonna file a complaint on you buster!”

Reno looked at Tseng with a pitiful expression, before he turned to the officer “Yeah, well boo-hoo,” and then he willed himself away from the scene, he could hear another officer telling the aggravated one if he even knew who they were.. And Reno smiled to himself.

As they entered the shack where Folsom was, Reno covered his mouth with his arm, Folsom had been dead for a long time, he had been killed way before Fedora, you didn’t need to be a wiz-kid to know that! He had been stashed somewhere else, and then moved here. Tseng turned on his flashlight and moved the light cone up and down Folsom’s body. “He castrated him.”

“Ouch,” Reno said, removing his arm from his face. “Why on earth would he do that? He didn’t castrate the other boys he snuffed.”

“No, but he didn’t gut all the girls either, only Fedora.” Tseng stated.

“Where is that damn note?” Tseng said. And searched the room with the flashlight.

“Here,” an officer said. “It was attached on the door.”

“Hmmm” Tseng said and looked it over, the same as before, only this had a picture of another young boy, “Vanja” Tseng said, “He’s the next one.”

Reno sighed “but we have no freaking way of knowing if he has been dead for weeks, like Folsom.”

“No,” Tseng said, as he turned the note around and read the back. “Reno!” he said with urgency in his voice, Reno hurried to his side, and squinted as he tried to read the damp note, behind the wet plastic folder, in the crappy light from the flashlight. He tried to wipe some water off the plastic, and read slowly. “Call off your lapdogs?” he looked at Tseng and paled, “what the hell?”

“We need to call Rufus Shin-ra right now” Tseng said. And clutched the note.

“Agreed,” Reno said.

As Tseng sat in the car talking with Rufus Shin-ra, Reno stood in the pouring rain, trying to figure out how much of the liquid in his cup was coffee and how much was rainwater. Reno smiled at a police officer that came over to him. “Special agent Vaughan” he said, wiping rain from his face. “I apologize for the run in you had earlier here.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Reno said. “It happens.. Who was that moron anyways?”

“Th-that is just the case” the officer said “we don’t know, we thought he was local, but the local sheriff didn’t know him.”

“Really?” Reno said, “So he was some bystander?”

“In a police uniform?” the officer said.

“He called us lapdogs” Reno said to him self, “oh crap!” he turned and ran to the car, dropping his coffee on the ground, splashing water up his legs. He banged on the car door “Tseng! Tseng! You wont believe this shit!” he yelled.

Tseng opened the door and let Reno in, “wait a moment I am on the phone here,” he whispered. He returned to the call and answered with, ‘yes sir’ and ‘of course sir,’ then he hung up and turned to Reno. “What is wrong?” he said.

“The cop that attacked me calling us lapdogs, was not a cop at all, he was a poser, he came out of nowhere and grabbed me right?” Reno said, “Who else called us lapdogs today?”

“The killer,” Tseng said visibly shaken. “Oh my god, we had him, right there!”

“That was some goddamn slick move,” Reno said. And reached for a cigarette with shaking hands. “He knows who we are, oh crap Tseng, what if he targets us instead?”

“I don’t know” Tseng said, reaching for a cigarette much to Reno’s surprise.

“If this is what its like being a police officer I am amazed they are not all in an asylum,” Reno whispered. Taking a drag on his cigarette. Reno almost jumped from his seat as a police officer banged on the car window, Reno rolled it down, and said, “we will be there in a second.”

“You don’t have to, We will close the area, and take the victim to the lab, but we can’t work in this dark, so we will have to wait until morning, so I suggest you both get some sleep, it will be a long day tomorrow.”

Tseng nodded, “Thank you officer” he said “We will be in first thing tomorrow.”

____________________________________

They drove in silence, and Reno only mumbled something as he got out of the car in front of his building. Making his way up the stairs he cursed himself for not fucking that idiot up to begin with, he should trust his instincts more, and his instinct had told him to fucking kill that guy!

As he got to his door, he noticed something was wrong, the door was ajar, he carefully pushed it open, “Cloud?” he whispered. But no answer came, he flicked the light switch, but the light didn’t turn on, this was most unnerving, “Cloud?” he called again, but no answer came, Reno grabbed his electro rod with one hand, and for the first time he was glad he had been given a flash light as standard special agent gear. He turned on the flash light and stepped into the room, he listened for every single little sound, but he couldn't hear anything, he let the cone slide over the floor and up on the wall, he almost dropped the flash light, as he saw the walls was covered in missing posters. “Fuck me!” he whispered. And then carefully searched the kitchen and bathroom, ‘he didn’t even do the dishes,’ he thought to himself, as the light swept across the dirty kitchen. He slowly moved out again and into the brightly lit corridor of the apartment building. He put the flashlight away, but held a firm grip on his electro rod. He dialled the number for Tseng, and got a very sleepy voice in the other end. “He was here man! You gotta get here fast, this is some fucked up shit!”

Tseng cursed a great deal, but swore that he was on his way, and that Reno shouldn’t do anything stupid.

Fifteen minutes later Tseng was standing in front of Reno’s door. “Did you call the police?” he asked.

“No,” Reno said, “I called you.”

“Well you should have,” Tseng said, “but just leave that alone for now, it seems safe enough.”

“I’m not gonna sleep in there man!” Reno said with a scowl.

“No one is asking you to” Tseng said with a mothering tone, “you can sleep on my couch.” he smiled.

“You mean there ain’t room for me in your coffin?” Reno said with a grin.

“Or you could stay at a motel” Tseng said sternly and started to walk down the corridor. Reno walked after him not saying anything.

___________________________________________________

They arrived at Tseng’s shortly after, Reno had never even thought about Tseng having a place to live, thinking of it, he didn’t know anything about Tseng at all! Tseng opened the door, and hung up his jacket; Reno did the same and took off his shoes before he walked on to the plush carpet, “uhm Tseng, I’ve been thinking! Reno said.

“You don’t say,” Tseng answered from the bedroom.

“You know, the time between this guy yelling at me in the shanty town, to the time I got home, it just don’t make sense.” Reno said. “It must have taken forever to stick those posters on the walls.”

“Yeah, he even needed to clear a path first,” Tseng said as he came out from the bedroom carrying an extra bedspread for Reno.

“You’re just such a funny guy, you know that ,Tseng?” Reno pouted.

Tseng put down the bedspread on the sofa, and sat down in a chair. “I know what you mean,” he said “he didn’t have time, so what would that mean?”

“That there are two killers?” Reno said.

“Or that the guy on the scene in the shack town wasn’t the killer,” Tseng said, “We need to find that guy”

“Like ‘that’ is going to be easy,” Reno said slumping back in the sofa.

“We could try and find out who’s had their uniform stolen,” Tseng said.

“Ah,” Reno touched his nose with his finger “you’re one smart puppy.”

“Why thank you,” Tseng said dryly.

They sat in silence for a moment, until Tseng suddenly said, “Who was that message from, you know the one you got earlier?”

“That.. uhm.. is private, I don’t think you’d be interested,” Reno said.

“Give me a chance, after all we should try and know each other if we are to be stuck like this, I don’t like having strangers under my roof,” Tseng offered.

“Did you talk to Rude?” Reno said with a groan.

“Well, yes! As a matter of fact I did,” Tseng said, “and he thought you would feel alone, and he..”

“He has a lot of smart ideas” Reno said wincing, when in fact he couldn’t help but to be a little flattered that his old partner would even bother calling Tseng.

Tseng stood with a sigh and smiled sadly “Well I tried,” he said. “Is there anything you need before I go to bed?”

.

Reno looked at Tseng and thought to himself, besides a bottle of liquor and getting laid, seriously? “Nah, I’m alright” he said, “I just need some sleep.”

“Alright, sleep tight.” Tseng said as he turned off the ceiling light, and went into his bedroom.

Reno sat there on the sofa and starred off into nothingness for what seemed like forever, why the hell did this happen now? He had not lusted after anyone but Cloud for ages, and now suddenly he could think of nothing but to creep into Tseng’s bed and fuck him raw. Reno let out a little tormented mew, and got up, tossed off all but his boxers and got into the bed made on the sofa. This was terribly comfortable, the bed linen smelled of Tseng, Reno thought that he would go insane if he didn’t got this sexual tension out of his system, but he couldn't very well wank, while sleeping on a colleague’s sofa, so he tried every single trick in the book to make it go away.

He must have fallen asleep at some time, because he suddenly woke with someone shaking him, and he heard someone call his name. He sat up and almost butted heads with Tseng. “Whaaa’” he whined “where’s the fire?”

“You cried,” Tseng said sitting down on the bed, still holding onto Reno’s shoulders. “Nightmare?”

Reno blushed, “I did?” He remembered hat Cloud had told him that sometimes he would cry like a baby in his sleep, but he had not really believed it. He touched the skin under his eyes, and sure enough it was wet from tears. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, feeling very awkward, being caught in a humiliating situation like this, but he was also painfully aware of Tseng’s hands on his shoulders, and he had noticed that the other man wore nothing but underwear either. “I’m fine now, just go back to bed,” he said.

“Alright” Tseng said, “Just call if you need anything, promise?”

“Yes, I promise” Reno said and lay down again, watching Tseng walk back to his bedroom, this must be a test he thought to himself, its gotta be!

TBC