Dog Will Hunt (16)

This is my first ever Reno x Rufus fiction, so here it goes. Warnings: This is a very dark fiction, so please don’t read this if you have a problem with emotional intensity, use of the word “cunt” or any general sort of squickishness.
Title: Dog Will Hunt Rating: Mature (for adults only, so if you aren’t one, I take no responsibility for any scarring you may receive!)
Description: Rufus ShinRa finds himself oddly drawn to his Turk, Reno. This is a dark fic that explores several issues for both men and isn’t at all a pretty, happy story–but it ends well, I can promise that, and there’ s loads of good smut!
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII or any of the Square Enix characters which appear in my story, nor do I make money off of my writing. I do it for the love, people! For the love!

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16

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Reno wasn’t at work the next day, but that was hardly unusual. Still, Rufus found himself concerned when Tseng reported it to him. Surely he was safe? Perhaps he’d just gone from Rufus’s penthouse to one of his girlfriends’ homes and overslept? When Rufus had finally left his room that day, Reno had been long gone.

            To his relief the man came to work the next day but delivered no debt to be paid for his remarkable performance. Rufus sadly wondered if the payment Reno required was to be free of him. He stuck to his plan, willing to keep distance between them, to let Reno win. He authorized a large bonus for him and sent him a message explaining that their deal was concluded, that he’d enjoyed their game but was throwing up the white flag, so congratulations on a sweeping victory and please inform him of any way to settle their debt in a satisfactory way.

            He received no reply but he hadn’t expected to. Having won, Reno would simply move on. He’d gotten what he wanted from Rufus and there were other people to be used. The debt would hang over him until Reno saw an opportunity to use it to its fullest advantage. He was many things, that red-headed Turk, but he was certainly no fool.

            Rufus passed the days in a fugue of misery, his gaze returning time and again to that conspicuously empty chair. It seemed to mock him with its silent presence, reminding him of the things that had happened. When Tseng came in to tell him that Reno hadn’t reported for work for the past week, Rufus had the damned thing removed from his office.

            “Do you want me to do stop-pay paperwork on him, Sir?” Tseng inquired, and if he found it odd to see a janitor carrying away one of the matched set of chairs, he didn’t show it. He stood stiffly before Rufus’s desk, a pen in his strong, blunt-fingered hands. He was the picture of grace and refinement, but Rufus had seen those same hands reach out and snap someone’s neck in mid-conversation, simply because his father had made a gesture for it to be done. Good dog. God, how disturbing.

            “Christ, no!” Rufus said, aghast. He’d told Tseng to deal with the Turks as he saw fit, that he didn’t want any part in their punishments or rewards unless something truly outlandish happened. Tseng had done his best to keep the issue of Reno’s truancy a non-issue, but after a week it simply couldn’t be handled at his level anymore.

            Unhappy, Rufus motioned for Tseng to sit in the remaining chair and asked, “In all honesty, Tseng, what do you think?”

            “That he’s a security risk and needs to be eliminated,” Tseng bluntly said. He was showing that emotionless front that Rufus had seen many times over the years, enough times to know that it covered a distaste for what was being asked of him.

            Rufus blanched, and whispered, “He’s like a child to you, Tseng, how can you even think it?”

            “The safety of ShinRa comes before family, Sir,” Tseng intoned, his face smooth and calm. “But truthfully, Sir, I think he is either having a tantrum or simply gone. He has an extremely bad temper, as you know.”

            “Yes,” Rufus murmured. “Have you started looking for him?”

            “I await your orders on this, Sir,” Tseng smoothly said. He made no secret of his irritation with Rufus. The remaining ShinRa’s reluctance to make a firm decision regarding his AWOL Turk, thus ensuring his own safety, made Tseng angry to no end and he wasn’t afraid to show Rufus that he thought the young man needed to either shit or get off the pot—make a choice or let Tseng handle it before Reno tried something crazy and forced both their hands. “A decision must be made.”

            Rufus arched an eyebrow at him, too confused by his misery to follow.

            “When we find him, Sir, do we eliminate him or return him?”

            A new dimension to the game unfolded beneath Rufus’s feet, undermining his solid ground. Was this how Reno claimed his prize? After Rufus declared him the winner, would he force acknowledgement by leaving the man no choice but to have him killed?

            Rufus wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

            “Look for him, Tseng,” Rufus whispered. “He’s far too valuable of an employee to lose. God, he’s worked here longer than most, has upheld ShinRa through the worst of times—”

            “Which makes him an uncommon threat to its continued wellbeing, Sir,” Tseng pointed out. “But I will do as you wish. We will track him, and report to you for orders when he is found. A warning, Sir—Reno was a Turk. It might take some time to find him.”

            “It doesn’t matter,” Rufus sighed. “Only find him, Tseng, don’t let him know we’re there. I just hope he hasn’t blown his brains out somewhere or done something else equally appalling…”

            “We are Turks, Sir,” Tseng softly reminded him. “Appalling things are the best we can hope for. I will start the search immediately.”

            Rufus watched him leave, bothered by it all.

            He spent the nights tossing and turning, already feeling guilty, unable to sleep in his own bed. Had he put Reno in this position? Had his formal, impersonal note irritated his temper-laden Turk into pulling the final trump card out of his hat? Most nights he just got up and removed that coil of hair from its coffin, simply looking at it and wondering why the idea of Reno being lost to him was so very, very bitter.

            Three days later Tseng was back in his office to give a status report. It seemed that Rude and Elena were rather resistant to the idea of finding Reno, despite Tseng’s assurance that they were not expected to eliminate him.

            Instead of being angry that their loyalty was questionable, it made Rufus smile sadly, pleased that his erratic, manic Turk had at least two people in the world who cared about him…besides Rufus, that is.

            Tseng, apparently, found his smile odd, but ignored it. Discretion was so bred into him that it was a part of his bones. Instead, he withdrew a sheaf of papers from a folder in his lap and cleared his throat.

            “Well,” he said, looking over the report. “We’ve checked his apartment and those of his close friends, but we’ve found nothing. Though I believe Reno to be uncommonly intelligent—far too much to actually risk hanging around his usual haunts—I’ll be sending Rude down to the tattoo parlor at some point to see if he’s shown up there…”

            Rufus snorted, unhappy and derisive. “No doubt getting more disgusting displays of violence inked onto his hide would overrule the common sense of actually hiding.”

            Tseng gave him a long, steady stare and said, as if Rufus should know such a thing, “Sir, it’s where Reno worked on his off-time. He’s an artist, Sir. It’s how we recruited both Reno and Rude.”

            Rufus couldn’t hide his bewilderment.

            Tseng sighed heavily and reminded him, “It’s in his personnel file, Sir, if you’d care to look. I don’t remember exactly who went down there, but one of the Turks went to get a tattoo since it is—to all reports—the best place to get such things done, even if it is an unsavory place. Reno and Rude worked as tattooists there, both of them considered excellent ones at that. A fight broke out with their usual rowdy crowd and the pair dispatched them with ease. It raised a few eyebrows, got some attention, and I was sent down to recruit them. However it managed to survive the place is still in business, and Reno always spent the majority of his time there practicing his trade.”

            Rufus felt as if his brain was swimming. In a whispery croak, he asked, “How long did Reno work there, Tseng, before we found him?”

            “Years, Sir. Since he was a boy,” Tseng answered, stacking the papers in his hand with the air of one whose business is concluded. “As I understand it, he learned the craft from his own father, who died while Reno was a teenager. If reports are accurate, Sir, the place is named for Reno’s mother…Nina, I believe.”

            ‘And she don’t have a four-leaf clover tattooed so high up on the inside of her right thigh that you gotta spread her wide just to see it…’

            ‘I got it when I was a teenager, silly. I wish now that I hadn’t, it’s hardly proper…’

            Rufus ShinRa was almost positive that he was going to pass out.

            “Sir?” Tseng asked, disturbed. “Are you quite alright? You look a little pale…”

            “Fine,” Rufus gasped, not fine in the least. “Find him, Tseng! Find him and bring his skinny ass back to this office right this instant!”

            God, Reno had a lot of explaining to do!

            “And Tseng!” Rufus called as his Turk was leaving his office. “Please do order a large bouquet of flowers to Miss Whitney for me with an abject but tasteful apology included.”

            Brows drawn so that the small dot on his head folded in concerned wrinkles, Tseng softly said, “Of course, Sir. I will do so immediately.”

            Once he was gone Rufus stared at that empty spot where that blasted chair had been, his eyes wide. God, all those time’s he’d mentioned Nina’s, and he’d been speaking of a place. How could Rufus have been so terribly stupid? It had been in Reno’s personnel file this whole time! At any second Rufus could have read it through and won the game…

            But Reno had known more about Rufus than Rufus had known about himself. Reno had known that Rufus, in all of his terrible arrogance, would never read his file. Why?

            ‘Because I never thought of him as a person with a past, just a dog at heel,’ Rufus realized, and felt terribly ashamed.

            Growling at his own stupidity, Rufus turned to his small work computer and did something he should’ve done months ago—he accessed Reno’s personnel file and began to read.

            It was there, all of it, every answer to every shocked question he’d ever asked, but the truth this time. Nina’s was the name of a tattoo parlor where Tseng had recruited Reno and Rude, it had survived Meteor-fall and undergone a relocation to Edge at no little expense to the owner. Rufus wasn’t surprised to find the deed in Reno’s name. It must have been a terribly costly venture to move that shop and all of its equipment to a brand new building…probably costly enough to require the involvement of unsavory characters loaning money…Gambling debts, Rufus’s lily-white ass. Never one to ignore opportunity knocking, Reno had jumped at the chance to join ShinRa, and had gone to an amazing amount of trouble to ensure medical care for his ill daughter.

            Christa.

            “Fuck!” Rufus groaned, and banged his head on his desk. Was nothing what it seemed? Christ! Rufus had accused him of pedophilia and Reno had just grinned at him like a delinquent and shrugged, letting him make his assumptions. Now that he recalled their interaction, it seemed less that of two lovers than that of a besotted father and his high-spirited child—the way she’d leaned on him, drawing comfort, the absent way he’d held her close as if to keep her safe. He’d teased her and played with her as any father—albeit, one rough around the edges—would, there hadn’t been anything inappropriate in what Rufus had seen except what he’d made for himself.

            How had Reno had a child and Rufus hadn’t known about it? There had never been a single time when the man had missed work for a sick daughter, or to go to school functions or any of the dozens of other things that children required as they grew…Then again, he had called in “hung over” an awful lot, and was always late without excuses. He just didn’t talk about her.

            From what he’d read in the file, Reno couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen when she’d been born, and born with severe medical problems to boot—no wonder those hospital bills had gone unpaid! What could a father who was essentially still a child himself do about such a situation? He hadn’t given her up, though. He’d raised her as best he could and let the bills pile up until Rufus had cleared them for him all these many years later. His sociopath Turk was actually a loving father—if that wasn’t too much to get his mind around, Rufus didn’t know what was! Feral and cruel Reno raising a child alone, juggling ShinRa’s demands with a sick daughter…Rufus wasn’t sure he himself could’ve done it, and his respect for the man only heightened.

            He slumped back into his chair and really examined everything.

            What he’d thought he’d known about that frustrating, amazingly beautiful man had been wrong. Reno had told him little lies, and Rufus knew now why he’d smirked as he’d told them—because even the tiniest amount of interest on Rufus’s part would have proven him a liar. It wasn’t as if he’d just made things up, no. He’d taken Rufus’s assumptions, Rufus’s conceited, snobbish guesses about his doings, and had simply agreed. He’d used that preternatural intuitiveness of his to read what Rufus thought of a situation and had presented him with the worst-case scenario that he could concoct. Reno had read him like a book, seeing what Rufus thought of him, seeing what Rufus assumed about him, and then he had made it appear as if he was that thing and worse. Why? Why go to all the trouble when he wasn’t half as indecent or lowly as he’d pretended?

            A sudden, strange thought occurred to Rufus then. Reno hadn’t just given him what he’d expected, he’d given him an illusion that he’d wanted. The truth was there, but Rufus had wanted him to be worthy only of his scorn and horror, because that had made it easier to blame his attraction on Reno, easier to point the finger at him and call him the aberrant one. It had absolved Rufus of his unwanted responsibility where their tryst was concerned and had kept him safely unable to actually feel for him. So, like a chameleon Reno had taken on the spots and stains of an utter deviant.

            Just as Rufus had needed.

            In the end, though, it hadn’t worked. Rufus had struggled with his realization, but over the last few weeks of what they shared he’d managed to finally confess to himself that he did care, that he’d cared for longer than he wanted to admit, he’d just been too frightened of Reno’s reaction and his own depth of emotion to own up to it.

            Was it possible that all of this effort, all of Reno’s carefully constructed illusions had been borne of a similar emotion? That, far from being a sociopath, he’d been someone who was willing to mask himself for the sake of someone else? And someone willing to mask themselves for someone else didn’t do it out of sudden curiosity—whatever had prompted Reno to undertake such a deception had been lying in wait for a very long time, and Rufus wondered just how long his Turk had looked at him from that god-forsaken and soon to be reinstated chair, hiding it from him behind smirks and bored looks.

            It made sense, in retrospect. If he looked carefully at that last night together, hadn’t Reno been almost frightened? He’d touched Rufus that night like he’d never done before, with such a violent torrent of responsiveness that Rufus had felt like they’d drawn closer together. Given his attitude towards Reno, given the way Rufus had always spoken to him and expected him to behave, was it so farfetched that Reno might actually think such a display would be unwelcome? Grounds for things to end?

            And then, too, any of the many times that Rufus had tried to end it, Reno had always managed to manipulate him right back into his grasp. Like the first night they’d actually slept in the same bed together. Whenever Rufus had hit a wall of resistance and given up, Reno had unexpectedly bent to his whims and managed to hide it as selfish interest.

            And that awful morning, when he’d reacted so instinctively to being trapped while he was still drunk and vulnerable…Rufus could still see in his mind’s eye that gleaming blade. Such a sharp blade to cut through all of that thick, fine hair. It could just as easily have cleaved into his fingers. Reno could have pressed the barest tip of that blade against his skin and forced him to let go.

            But he hadn’t.

            He could have whipped it against Rufus’s throat with that same startling speed and scared the piss out of him.

            But he hadn’t.

            Rufus had always likened Reno to a sociopath, and had, at times, been rather convinced that the man actually was. He formed no natural connections with anyone, counted only Rude as a friend, kept no lovers for longer than it took to finish his pleasure. From Rufus’s former cynical vantage point, Reno was charming and hard to resist when he wanted something and would never hesitate to take it from someone weaker, but should any of them die it wouldn’t bother him. His disconnected disregard made him an excellent Turk, but also a frightening parody of a human being.

            But in that instant when he could have threatened, could have maimed, he’d turned that terrible temper on himself. He’d chosen to harm himself instead of Rufus; indeed, he hadn’t allowed that sharp, fine blade even near Rufus’s fist. When it came down to a split-second decision, Reno had not hurt him. It could be years of protecting him, but Rufus didn’t think that was it—even when protecting him, Reno had often used physical ‘incentive’ to make Rufus comply with his smaller demands. He was a bully, it was simply what he did.

            For that same reason he’d hidden himself so skillfully from Rufus, Reno hadn’t wanted to hurt him.

            With both of them trying desperately not to let the other know how deeply they’d gotten involved, it was no wonder such a chasm of misunderstanding had opened between them. And all this time Rufus’s snobbish, arrogant, and conceited assumptions had kept a wall of intentional deceit between them.

            “Christ, what kind of monster are you?”

            “The kind you require, yo.”

            Rufus finally—finally—understood all of the bits and pieces he’d been given, and his own complicity in his ignorance appalled him.

            Christ, he’d been a real bastard. Never once had he considered Reno’s feelings or even thought that he had feelings. He’d never treated him like a person, just a thing. Even his gross attempts to get to know his Turk had been based on his own snobbish misconceptions about him. He’d never asked about Reno’s home life or even thought that he might have one, no—everything was based on his conjecture, on what he’d so high-handedly thought he knew, and this whole time there had been a person looking back at him just waiting to be acknowledged. A person Rufus consistently and thoughtlessly treated like an animal.

            Fuck. If—no, when—they found Reno, Rufus would personally go to him and clear all of this shit up. He didn’t care if he had to make a fool of himself, if he had to beg. He would bring Reno back, if only as his Turk. Time apart had shown him that he couldn’t, in fact, live without some sign of that insufferable man around him. No more ideas of buying him an island and sending him on his happy way. He wanted Reno back in every way that mattered, and he would make it up to him if it took the rest of his cursed, pampered life.

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