personalapocalypse | [FFVII] Redheaded Bastard (Reno, T)

Title: Redheaded Bastard
Author:

wallwalker
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Rating: T
Characters: Reno
Word Count: 611
Warnings: Language.
Summary: Reno's used to being called stuff like that by now.
Note: Written for

fic_promptly.

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That damned crazy redheaded bastard.

That was the sort of name that Reno was used to by now. Growing up in the slums wasn't easy for anyone, but it was double not-easy for someone who stood out. Red hair wasn't all that common in Midgar - or just about anywhere else, from what Reno had seen later in life - and it was really hard for him to hide when people could pick him out of a crowd at a glance.

Well, maybe that wasn't completely true. He could've hidden himself a little bit better. He could've worn a cap, or a hood or something. He could've just kept his head down like the rest of Midgar and looked completely unremarkable, too, and he wasn't willing to do that just to keep from being beaten up once in a while. Besides, would he have learned how to fight if he hadn't had to do it all the time? Of course not. Most people didn't, after all. Reno kind of liked not being like most people, even if it meant that a lot of the attention that he'd gotten most of his life wasn't the best kind.

It wasn't until he'd become a Turk that the kind fo attention he'd gotten had started to royally piss him off. It was little things, at first - people started to defer to him, to smile at him more when he walked by. And sure, at first that had been great. People were finally respecting him, and he'd figured it had been about time. But then everyone had started feeling really fake to him, totally insincere. And that wasn't so great. At least in the slums he'd known what everyone had thought about him.

The last straw had come at a company party - one of the few that he'd been allowed to attend as a guest, not as the security. Apparently the Turks as a whole had done something really fucking awesome, and Reno had ridden into the party on some other operative's coattails. He hadn't cared at first; in fact, he'd been grateful, mostly because the booze had been a lot better than he'd been used to.

At some point in the evening, though - he wasn't sure when but he was pretty sure he'd had one or two too many, because things had started looking pretty good, and even that creepy guy who'd stared at him way too hard the entire time was starting to look like a possibility if he would just take a damn shower already - someone had walked up to him and started talking. Reno didn't remember who it was. He hadn't much cared, at the time. He just remembered him saying something about Reno's "striking auburn hair."

Reno had laughed so hard he'd nearly thrown up. It had been a horrible social blunder, he knew that, but he hadn't cared. "Auburn?" he remembered sputtering. "Fucking auburn? Are you kidding me? It's called red, you pretentious bastard!" The man had sputtered out an apology, and Reno had been hoping that he was actually trying to get up the nerve to punch him in the face - at least he knew how to react to that - when Rude had come over and unceremoniously dragged him away.

He'd been pissed at Rude for a while. Anyone who called his hair "auburn" was an obvious ass-kisser, and would've deserved what he'd gotten. But apparently being in Shinra meant having to be okay with that sort of shit, and that was the one thing that Reno found he didn't like about it.

Oh, well. At least no one ever made him play along.