Title: Catch Me When I Fall
Author: Jen
E-mail: evilcommanderbond@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.angelfire.com/gundam/shinjiteru/thebeginning.html
Categories: Dark/Depressing
Sub-category: Non-Anime
Part: One of One
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Arc or Series: One Shot
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None
Warnings: Foul language, blatant talk of sex, Reno's usual pissy attitude. ^_^
Summary: Reno finds that some bonds remain, regardless of what tests them...

Disclaimer: While I wish I could own and abuse, er play with the Turks, they aren't mine. FF7 isn't either, but then you knew that. They only belong to me in my deluded little world.

I just needed someone to talk to
You were just too busy with yourself
You were never there for me to
Express how I felt
I just stuffed it down
Now I'm older and I feel like
I could let some of this anger fade
But it seems the surface
I am scratching
Is the bed that I have made
~Staind 'Fade'

The bottle was warm. He swirled the liquid, watching it slam against the edges of the glass like it was angry for the confinement. Two hours ago, it might have foamed over. Now, it looked pretty much like it tasted. But still, he raised it to his lips, saluting the air out of sarcastic need. He took a mouthful, slid it around his tongue as if it were a delicacy, not cheap, two dollar beer, and swallowed.

It was bitter. It went down hot and flat, a reminder of what, he didn't know. His failures, maybe? That was why all men drank, wasn't it, to forget?

"So why the hell can't I?" He muttered. Sharp, hard eyes the color of vivid blue glass narrowed at the beer in his hand, as if it somehow had all the answers.

Shifting, rolling his shoulders in restless fury, he shoved from the sofa cushion with his elbow, rising to a sitting position. It was threadbare, worn in places and from things he didn't really care to consider. One end was littered with trash. Empty beer bottles, take out cartons, cigarette packages. It overflowed onto the floor.

The carpet wasn't in much better shape. But he didn't care. Memories clung to this place like ghosts. He opened the door to them every night. And shut it with alcohol.

A newspaper sat on the coffee table, just out of reach. Probably Rude's doing. Reno didn't read about the world if he could help it. He saw the worst humanity had to offer, why reinforce that? Hell, he was a part of it.

The big man apparently thought he was going to get bored. At some point, every day of his life was about boredom. That was why he got the adrenaline rush off his job. But man, wasn't it a bitch to tumble back down?

Relenting, he reached for the paper with his free hand, only to watch it flutter out of his reach. He had forgotten about the wrist cast. That was what three beers did to you, he supposed. Overlooked the fractured wrist, the bruised ribs, the torn muscle in his shoulder. Though he failed to see how. Pain wasn't something you just ignored. You buried it deep, but it always surfaced.

A prescription sat next to him. A bottle of tiny, white pills. He might have taken them, but he somehow doubted narcotics and alcohol mixed. Besides, beer was its own, natural pain killer. At least he could control how much of that went into his blood.

"You live like a pig."

Spoken softly, tentative. But he wasn't fooled.

The smile he turned on the woman in the doorway wasn't inviting.

She wore a short skirt, and heels that increased the length of her legs, but looked barely wide enough to support her weight. Her top was tight, spilling her cleavage over the edge of the fabric and barely covering enough of her midriff to be considered decent. But then, what did he expect from someone who screwed people for a living?

"What do you want? Money?"

She had beautiful once, stunning in a fresh, untouched way. But hard-living and constant drug use had worn it down to nothing, so that she looked old beyond her years, with faded eyes once a match for his, and lines that time couldn't erase.

Sighing, she pressed her hand to her forehead. "Please, don't. I didn't come to fight."

"Then why?" His tone was clipped, unforgiving.

"Michael, do you have to attack me?"

"Don't call me that." His eyes settled on her, biting into her where she stood.

"Fine, Reno. I'm not here for money. Can you at least invite me in?"

He swung his arm out. "By all means. Clear off a seat. Don't expect me to get up. I'm a bit fucked over."

She came in, tottering on her heels, before falling into a chair across from him after sweeping the discarded papers from it.

"I noticed."

Like this, her eyes clear, without the haze of a high, she almost reminded him of the girl she had been. Before choices made her what she was.

Pale, and washed out, she was a fragile shadow of the kid he remembered. So it was foolish to even compare her to the image that clung to his memory.

She was fiddling with the hem of her skirt, forcing the fabric further up so that it exposed a healthy portion of her too thin thighs. He thought she looked as she always did when she was using. Rail thin, with sores on her face, and track marks in her arms.

Because it hurt to look at her, he lit a cigarette and worked up the animosity, the disgust he wanted to feel for her.

"I know what you're thinking, that I'm using. But I'm not. I quit six months ago."

He hadn't seen her in eight. That wasn't unusual, however. They rarely crossed paths unless she needed something from him.

"You look like shit, Celia, so pardon me if I don't believe you."

Celia flinched. He forced down the flare of conscience the motion caused, reminding himself that pity didn't help sick people get past their addictions. He should know.

She rubbed at her arms, sliding her fingers into the crevices of her elbows in what he thought was guilt.

Her eyes followed his gaze.

"They aren't from using, Reno. I'm not lying. I..."

Something spasmed, broke her expression, and she leaned back, looking utterly drained, as if the act of talking to him was too much for her.

It triggered a feeling in him, had him sitting back, cold and afraid in an apartment that was hotter than it should be because he hadn't gotten around to getting the air conditioning repaired.

When she spoke again, it seemed to come from far away. "This is hard for me, Reno. I've never asked you for something before that meant anything to me."

"Then get on with it." But a part of him wanted to tell her to shut up and get out.

She took a breath. A steadying one, he thought.

"I'm dying. Three years ago, I learned I had HIV. Most people can live a long time with it and do fine. But mine is worse. It's progressed into AIDS. And I'm dying, Reno."

The pain in his chest hurt so that he could barely take a breath. Suffocating, drowning, flailing against the truth in her words. Someone that meant everything had sat across from him, wane and small in her hospital gown, and told him nearly the same thing. And watching her die had torn him apart.

Past stiff lips, he heard himself ask, "What do you want? Why're you telling me this?"

She sat up, unmistakable pain in her face. "You're my brother, Reno. The only family I've got. I want you to be there when I die."

Laughter, mirthless and near hysterical bubbled up and escaped. He pressed his fingers to his eyes, not caring that his wrist ached for it.

"Do you know what you're asking me, Celia? To watch someone else waste away in a hospice bed, with pain control measures that aren't fucking holding up to their end of the deal? I can't do that. I won't."

"Please... I'm not going to beg you. I know I deserve this. I've led a careless life. Don't shut me out. Don't pretend I don't exist like you've always done. Hear me."

"Hear you? I tried to pull you away from this a long time ago, Celia, and you wouldn't have it."

"What? You thought you could save me, Reno? After you ignored me for so long? Daddy was dead, and mama was going crazy, scaring the crap out of me every day, hurting me, and yet, you had your friends and who gave a shit about little Celia. Then you got thrown in the army after that stupid hold-up stunt. And I was so alone. I needed to survive, and that was the only way I could do it. Don't preach to me, dammit!"

She sat back, trembling and pale, save for two bright spots of color in her cheeks.

"No... no, why the hell should I preach to you? I just dropped a huge slab of concrete and metal on thousands of people because the big man in charge said to. So yeah, you're a whore," she closed her eyes to this, "but I'm a murderer."

Dying. Christ. He couldn't do it. He couldn't watch her fade, until she all but disappeared in front of him.

"You're all I got, Reno. I don't want to die alone."

"I can pay for the hospice. I can't watch you die."

"You chickenshit bastard!" She threw at him, and then she was crying, hard sobs that shook her thin shoulders as she smothered her face in her hands.

He looked away from it.

Scars, old and well worn, surfaced.

Six years ago, in the faint, straining light of dawn, he had sat at the bedside of the woman who made the other half of his soul, held her hand, and watched as mercy finally claimed her pain-wracked life, limp and weightless, and not at all like the woman he had married. Yet, looking at her, touching her cheek in death with the back of his hand, he had only seen her smiling that first time and stealing a part of him nothing could ever give back.

"I'm not a nice guy, Celia."

"No, you're a coward."

His gaze shot back to her.

"Why, because I can't watch you die? Because I can't watch what you've done to yourself? Where were you, when Lolina died, when I needed someone? In some stranger's bed, doped up and fucked up, and too wasted to know what was going on?" He accused, because it was easier to accuse than to accept blame.

"God, Reno, that's not fair! You never cared about me when I needed you! Thirteen and scared, because mama wasn't right in the head. You left me alone with her!"

His jaw tightened. She was right, he knew it. He hadn't been there. It had been easier to run with his friends, drinking, smoking, stealing... anything to forget where he came from and what he had to go back to. A selfish, angry teenager, not caring whether or not his sister needed something too. So would things have been different had he tried, had he stuck by her instead of running?

A headache was brewing, pounding at his temples.

"Celia... let's not do this. We both screwed up. We can't change that now."

She stood up, walked to him, and fell beside him.

"Don't let me die alone. I'm scared, Reno. I'm so scared."

She began weeping again. He felt moisture sting his eyes, and blinked furiously against it. God, she was pitiful.

Sliding an arm around her shoulders, he winced at the fragile, bony feel, and pulled her to him.

He jammed his good hand through his uncombed shock of red hair, longer than his sister's. In another lifetime, they might have found that amusing.

Like his sister, his face was all sharp angles. Past it, his eyes held everything he had ever witnessed. They carried their baggage with them, but in places no one could see.

He couldn't harp on her weight overly much, either. He was long, and thin, and no matter how much he ate, it didn't fluctuate. They shared the same coloring. The same eyes. The same color of hair. The same fucked up lifestyle. They were, in every sense of the word, siblings. And for the first time in as long as he could remember, she had actually asked him for something she needed.

But God, why couldn't it have been anything else?

Her tears subsided after a time. An occasional sniffle broke the silence. His shirt was wet, plastered to his skin and uncomfortable. He didn't tell her that.

Regardless of what he wanted, or thought, she was right. They were all the other had left of blood family. Their father was dead, and their mother, sick from Dementia and in a Home, might as well have been for all she remembered them.

In his years as a Turk, he had done many things, most of which were nothing to be proud of. Turning his back on her when she needed him would top them all. He just didn't know how to do it.

"I'm tired... I shouldn't have thrown a fit like that," she whispered in a fractured, weary tone.

"It's late. You can stay here."

She lifted her head. "Are you sure?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"I'll just rest on the couch. Until I feel strong enough to leave."

"The couch isn't anything special, Celia."

"Yeah, well it'll top a lot of the places I've been," she answered wryly.

He set her back, stood. "I'll get some blankets."

Her eyes were closed, and it was only then he noticed the dark bruising beneath them, how sunken her cheekbones really were, and the lack of moisture on her lips. Not using. Just sick. Unbelievably sick, so that she would never get better. Funny, but he had always expected one of them to develop Dementia like their mother and simple forget the real world existed.

Not used to company, unless it happened to be sharing the same bed as him, he simply ripped one of his own pillows and blankets from his bed. She was already asleep. Setting the pillow down, he lay her head on it and covered her, making certain to remove her ridiculous heels first.

Now, she looked like the child he remembered, lost amid a blanket and prisoner of the world of dreams.

He threw himself into the chair she had vacated, sat back, and watched.

Where she lay, she was already half-dead. And he was going to have to watch what was left of her fade.

"What other choice do I have?" He was all she had left. And dying alone had to be frightening. No matter what she had done, she didn't deserve that.

She didn't deserve this. She had only been a kid when her world collapsed, and he hadn't been their to catch her as she fell.

His eyes drifted shut. The tears that burned behind them slid warm down his face. It wasn't supposed to hurt like this. But Reno couldn't remember a day where it hadn't. And he lived, still.

Unlike his sister. Unlike his sister.

"I'll watch you die, Celia. I'll watch you die, because no one else will."

He captured the discarded beer, raised it to his lips, and drank.