FB - Loayalties part 3 of 3

Title: Family Bliss – Loyalties part 3 of 3
Author: Enide Dear
Pairing: Valenwind, Renaj
Warning: Aaaaaaaangsty!
A/N: Sparked by all the comments I got on FB- Slumber Party where Kadaj refers to Reno as ‘his’.


Kadaj went through the following weeks like a ghost. He ate and slept and did his chores when told, but whatever spark he had always had seemed to have died. There were no violent outbursts or protests, no sudden sparks of genius, no games to play with his brothers. The change was frightening. Kadaj was many things; energetic, uncontrollable, manic, happy, psychotic, loving, neurotic, dangerous, inspired, giggling, depressed, bored senseless or absorbed by some new thing – most often all of it, in one single day. But he was never listless.

And to make things worse, the energy he now didn’t use seemed to rebound to his brothers who wasn’t used to the sudden mood swings that gripped them and couldn’t even control them to the extent that Kadaj had.

Yazoo got frantic and could step up in the middle of the night to start making pancakes just to throw them all away when they were done, claiming they were making him fat or burst out crying inconsolable because he’d missed watching some stupid game show at nine.

Loz scratched an itch he didn’t have on his underarms until they bled and showered for hours, washed his hands until they were raw and red, claiming he felt dirty all the time and that he was afraid there were bugs under his skin.

Both of them got into a fight over a sock that was either lost in the washing machine or possibly eaten by Kitty that lasted for hours and didn’t end until Loz lost his temper completely and hit Yazoo square in the face, hard enough to split his lip.
Outraged, Yazoo took his things and moved to one of the sheds and refused to come back even after Loz sat outside the door and begged him for forgiveness for hours.

Which meant that now none of the Remnants could get any sleep either, which didn’t make things easier on anyone.

Kadaj watched it all with dead eyes but didn’t interfere.


Cid and Vincent sat on the porch one morning trying not to listen to Loz whining uselessly outside Yazoo’s shed in the backyard. Kadaj was sitting next to them, swinging his legs and staring at nothing when a car drove up to the yard.
Cid’s eyes lit up when Reeve stepped out, waving a hand whiles he held a cat-transport cage in another. Vincent’s eyes narrowed. Kadaj didn’t even look up.

“Reeve!” Cid got up to greet him. “So nice ta see ya. How are ya?”

“Fine, fine, Highwind.” Revee smiled. “I heard you were going through some rough times, so I thought I’d come out to see if I can be of any help.”

“Yer a lifesaver, Reeve. Trust me, a change of pace is jest what we need here. Right, Kadaj?”

Kadaj got up, without looking at Reeve.

“Nice to see you. Mind if I take a walk?” He said, not waiting for an answer before he started to walk slowly across the yard, not really towards anything so much as away from the farm. Cid scowled after him, but shrugged.

“Ah, well. Yazoo will be happy ta see ya. And Loz will be delighted ta see Kitty’s kitty again.”

“Princess. I named him Princess.” Reeve stared after Kadaj, but looked away.

“Ya named *him* Princess?” Cid asked confused.

Smiling wanly Reeve held up the box, showing a silver-grey feline reclining on a soft pillow and yawning, blinking at them with green eyes as it stretched with lazy grace. It somehow seemed to ooze vanity.

“It seemed fitting.”

Cid snorted a laugh.

“I’ll go get the boys. Sit down and have some tea.”

Vincent looked up at Reeve when they were left alone, red eyes disquietingly piercing.

“So where is Reno?”

Reeve recoiled.

“How should I know?” he defended himself.

“Please, Reeve. I’m not a Turk anymore but I can spot a distraction when I see one and you and Princess are just that. Probably a good idea, to. I couldn’t say what Loz or Yazoo would do now if they saw Reno but I’m guessing it would be pretty terminal.”

Reeve blushed, petting the cat that gracefully let him.

“He made it sound like a good idea.” He sighed. “I should have known better than listening to Reno.”

“Oh, no.” Vincent folded the paper he was reading, neatly, and put it down on the table. “It is a good idea. Whatever happened between them, Kadaj and Reno need to sort it out. Because when Kadaj is miserable, his brothers are to. And when they’re down, so is Cid. And when Cid’s unhappy, I am to. And when I’m unhappy….there is Chaos. Literally. And you can tell that to Rufus, because I know he’s behind this, somehow. He always is.”

“Rufus isn’t involved in this.” Reeve sat down, petting Princess’s ears. “Well, he might be from the start, but not in this, not in me being here. I’m doing this for a friend, even though it’s a sometimes very annoying friend.” He looked up. “Just as I made an anonymous phone call, a few weeks ago.”

“It was you?!”

“Who else? I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this though.”


Kadaj had found a spot on a low hill far enough away from the farm that he’d be left alone, and yet he could hear the sound of someone approaching. He didn’t look up, his arms resting on his knees and his forehead on his elbows, hiding his face. He didn’t have the energy to drive anyone away but if he just ignored them, they would eventually leave him alone.

“Kaddy?” The voice said, sitting down next to him. Kadaj stiffened, every muscle in his body seeming to freeze. “Hey, Kaddy. I survived.”

Kadaj’s thoughts raced this way and that but he didn’t move. Emotions crashed over him like a tidal wave, sweeping away the comfortable numbness that had enveloped him for so long. It was almost frightening to feel this strongly again.

“Yeah, Tseng sent me on vacation once I got out of that hospital until I’ve recovered completely. So what you say? Wanna go to Costa del Sol with me?”

If Reno had touched him, Kadaj would probably have killed him. But instead he could hear Reno lighting a cigarette and lying down in the grass next to where he sat.

“No? Icicle Inn’s more your place, I guess. Mine to. The beach and sun is all good and stuff, but having nothing to do all day drives me nuts. We can go skiing and drink warm chocolate with rum and screw on a chocobo rug in front of the fire….”

“I’m a ShinRa laughing stock.” Kadaj didn’t look up.

“What?” Reno sat up on his elbows.

“Everywhere I go, everything I do. ShinRa is there. Stopping me. Thwarting me. Outsmarting me. Manipulating me. Laughing at me.”

Reno lay down again.

“Trust me, laughing is the last thing anyone in ShinRa does when it comes to you and your brothers. Rufus ain’t doing what he’s doing for fun, you know. He and Tseng spends a perverted amount of time thinking about you guys, but they sure as Hell ain’t laughing when they do so.”

Kadaj shrugged faintly. He really just wanted Reno to go away and never come back. It felt like he would simply explode from contrary emotions when the Turk was here and he didn’t want that; the dead numbness had been so much easier to handle, a sort of void where neither past nor future had existed and the now had been all grey and flat.

“Kaddy…”

“Don’t call me that.”

“…they told me what happened at the hospital.”

Kadaj didn’t answer. His face was burning with shame and his eyes where overflowing; he was glad Reno couldn’t see it.

“I’m a Turk, you know.” Reno sighed. “I’ll always be a Turk. Hell, it’s the only thing I know how to do.” Reno blew out a smoke ring. “It will kill me one day, of course, but until that day, yeah, I belong with ShinRa body and soul.”

Silver hair flew in the wind as Kadaj shook his head. Perversely, he was relieved Reno told him the truth straight out. This way it would be much easier just to hate him.

“Just like you do with your brothers.”

Kadaj’s head whipped around, eyes flaring. Pale cheeks where flushed with anger and streaked with falling tears.

“It’s not the same thing!”

“Yeah, it is. It is to me. ShinRa is my family. They’re the family I *chose* and I love ‘em, even when Tseng’s a prick and Rufus a meddling bastard and Rude…kind of overreacts.” Reno closed his eyes. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what it’s like to mess things up epically ‘cause you want to help someone you love.”

For the first time in weeks Kadaj looked at Reno. The Turk looked pale and tired, there were still bandages showing where his shirt hitched up over his hips and his breath was a bit laboured. *Going skiing. Sure. You’d fall over in a snowpile and not be able to get up.* Kadaj shook away that irrelevant thought.

“You look like Hell.”

“I feel like it to.” Reno cracked an eye open. “But at least I’m alive to feel that way, right?”

“You deserve to feel like Hell. Go away. Go to Midgard or wherever. Don’t ever come near me again.”

Reno looked hurt.

“Why?”

“Because I’m not going to be your fucking Turk mission anymore!” Suddenly he was on his feet, screaming. “I’m not going to be used by you anymore! Must have been a great mission – your spying on us as a job came with the added advantage of getting to screw me! I trusted you! I hate you!” He tried to storm away, but Reno grabbed his ankle.

“Please, don’t leave!” he coughed in pain as Kadaj tugged himself free. “That really what you think about me?”

“I thought….I used to think you were mine.” Kadaj stared down at the Turk by his feet. “But you’re not.”

“Damn right, I’m not! Hell, Kaddy, how young are you?” Reno’s eyes blazed with anger. “I ain’t ‘yours’, I ain’t ShinRa’s, I ain’t some possession for anyone to own. I belong to myself!” He sat up, throwing the cig away. “I could leave ShinRa – but I don’t want to. I could stop being your boyfriend – but I don’t want to. Get it? It’s my damn free choice!”

“You chose Rude! I was there! I heard you!”

“Yeah, and if you’d been dying you’d call out for Yazoo. Or Loz. I’ve known you – what? Half a year? Feels like I’ve known Rude all my life. I *knew* he’d be there, if he was still alive. Sure, you were a mission at first and I never made any secret out of that. You knew it. You all knew it! As a Turk it was my job. But as myself…I started to love it. You. Started to love you.”

Kadaj glared down at him, feeling like he wanted to kick the Turk’s teeth out.

“This isn’t love,” he spat. “Love is trusting. Love is easy! And safe! Like Cid and Vincent!”

“Oh, yeah? Ask them sometime. Ask them how easy it was when they met and how easy it is now to live with either a paranoid manodepressed demon-explosion waiting to happen or a chain-smoking, restless pilot with some serious anger management problems and all the social graces of a warthog.” Reno shook his head. “For that matter, how easy is it for you to love your brothers all the time? I don’t know much about love, that’s true. But easy and safe? No, I don’t think so.” Reno watched Kadaj slump down on the grass again and very, very gently touched his arm. “It’s full of risks and hurts. But sometimes it’s worth fighting for.”

“I don’t know if I trust you. If I can ever trust you. I don’t know what I feel about you anymore!” But Kadaj didn’t remove the hand caressing his arm.

“I know. But it’s not really fair, you know. It wasn’t me saying those things and hurting you.” Reno moved a little closer.

“It was your…” he almost spat it, “family.”

“Yeah, but I don’t hold you responsible for the time Yazoo grabbed my ass. Or the time Loz held me out the window. Or even that extremely long and very boring lecture Vincent gave me about safe sex.” Reno snorted. “Which mostly seem to be ‘don’t turn into a demon.’ At least Cid only gave me his two cents about the poor quality of lube these days.”

Kadaj giggled and the caught himself, slamming his palm over his mouth.

“Bastard,” he muttered, touching Reno’s hair and pulling it out of his face.  They were lying in the grass now, he realised, pretty close and face to face. He felt tired, exhausted, still hurting, old, and very, very faintly hopeful even though he couldn’t say why. But he felt again. “I don’t trust you.”

“I know.”

“I don’t even think I like you anymore.”

“I know.”

“But…” he sighed, just a bit dramatic, “I suppose I do love you. Stupid Turk. Golden Saucer.”

“What?”

“Golden Saucer. You asked me, before. Where I wanted to go on vacation. I want to go to the Golden Saucer.”

“O-kay.” Reno cocked his head. “Why there?”

Kadaj smiled.

“I feel like taking some risks.”