Title: What I Learned In Church

Author: Lacey

Rating: T

Words: 1872

Pairing: Reno Centric, RudeReno

Summary: Reno goes over what he's learned from Rude dragging him to church every Sunday.

Warnings: Cursing, implied yaoi, vague-ish AU (Reno's life before the Turks coming in), Reno POV

AN: Alright, this is for the Song Inspiration contest on TMB. I read the lyrics and decided it was a very Reno song, so I thought to myself that this would be something good to try. :3 So, here we go.

Being a Turk, I've dealt with a lot of society's scum in my life. Burglars, thieves, assassins, murderers, SOLDIERs that don't want to listen to orders, remnants of a fallen SOLDIER that don't know when to stay down...I've dealt with a lot of that shit in my life, it's my job to, but the scummiest scum I can think of is still from before all this.

Rude says I've had anger problems ever since I was ten. He's known me my entire life, since I could talk, and we've been friends and partners since before I can remember. Our mothers wanted it that way. Rude's father skipped out on 'em when he was still young, but mine...decided to hang around and mooch off my mom and me as long as he could, draining our funds for alcohol.

He beat me when I came out to him an' mom. Said 'no son of mine' and all that shit; personally, I would have liked to take a gun to his head at that point, but mom just told me to go to Rude's. When I came back, of course, I was hit again; he said I couldn't hang out with Rude anymore because he didn't want his son being butt buddies with a black kid, for 'Gods' sake'. I tried to explain that Rude wasn't black, that he was South American, but dad wouldn't hear it.

That man tortured me emotionally for years, turned me into the badass motherfucker I am, today. While I thank him for my skills in fighting and being able to take on people bigger than Rude, I have so much hatred in my heart for him that I just can't stand him anymore. I got to the point that I was taking out my anger on most people, drinking myself into a ditch, and...just generally causing a ruckus everywhere I went.

That was when Rude decided to take me to church. The preacher-man and I sat down with my lover and we had a long conversation, with him making saucer-eyes at every curse word I uttered. I was only twenty at the time, I guess he didn't expect it, for some reason. He said the best thing for me to do is let it go and pray for him. That I should just pray that he'll stop messing up and that he'll become better.

Well, that certainly put a great idea in my head. Another idea he gave me was to keep a journal of all the things that I think in a day about my deadbeat dad, and see if I can try to change any of the thoughts to positive ones. He was starting to sound more like a psychiatrist than a church-man, but that was fine with me. Keeping notes on stupidity is something I like to do in my spare time.

After that, Rude took me out for my first journal; a leather-bound book that was about the size of half my forearm, and he even got me fancy roller-ball pens with the good ink that dries as you write it so you know it's good. I began my first entry on the way home from the store, huddled in the seat with my knees as a desk, feet pressed against the glove compartment and shoes on the floor of the car. While I know my position made Rude angry and nervous, he didn't say a thing; I guess he didn't want to interrupt my 'healing' process. I wrote for the upside of an hour; it didn't take that long to get home, but I wasn't disturbed once we had parked. Rude just went inside and left me out in the warm sun to write my feelings out and 'heal'.

Little did he know what I was actually writing.

I pray that some day, you find a nice woman with the jugs you love to squeeze who seems to find you super attractive, and her girlfriend comes up and decks you in the face for getting a grope in. I pray that someday, you have another kid and he grows up to be a criminal and shoots you dead where you stand, and leaves you there to bleed out. I pray someone comes into your house one night to rob you and ties you up to the bed and turns it up so that you hang there, and slowly removes your fingernails one by one, then your toe nails, and then slits you up and lets you bleed to death with your ex-wife's underwear shoved down your throat.

I paused a moment, licking my lips, then smiled slightly.

I pray that some day, I can go back to see you and you'll except me for who I am, no matter if I have to smash in your face and rip out your fake liver in order for you to do so. I pray that Rude will be able to prove to you that he's not some N word, and that he's way better than you could ever be. Rude takes far better care of me than you ever could; he's so sweet to me, he's firm when he needs to be, he knows how to make me calm and he definitely can handle my 'shit' way better than you can or ever could. I pray that someday, he's the one that kills you. That would be the best thing in the world to watch.

You laying in your recliner, a whole empty pack of beer at your side, stammering and trying to get mercy, but those strong hands won't give you any. He'd choke you until you were dizzy, and then he'd punch you until you spit out teeth. Eventually, he'd get bored and mutter something dark and amazingly brilliant at you, since he can do that to me all the time, and snap your neck with a quick movement of his arms. And those strong hands would leave your body and return to mine...

"Reno?" I blink a little as I look out the rolled-down window to find my lover there, staring at me.

"Oh..yeah?"

"It's time to get out of the car. You can come write in the house, if you want." I blush slightly and nod, working around so that my feet are in my shoes again and I open up the door once he's stepped back. "Is it making you feel any better, though, baby?" He asks as I climb out of the car, leaning over to kiss him.

"Mm...I think it is." He grinned, licking his lips and smiling happy. Another kiss, this one longer and more full of joy, and I purr softly.

"Mm...I'm glad, Ren. You suffer too much." He ruffles my hair and takes my hand and we head into the house, the car door shut behind me. We lay out on the bed, him half on his side, one leg up and leaning back on his arm. I'm on my stomach, shoes kicked off and legs bent at the knee, kicking back and forth slowly as I feel his hand sweeping down the curve of my back. My writing is still frantic and furious, but it's mellowing out at the feel of that hand.

I know that hand could crush stone, if it so chose to, and that most people would fear it. It's like a little kitten to me, though, brushing against me and making me purr. We both wore our best Turk uniforms, and it's quickly coming off my upper body. Soon, he's caressing bare, pale flesh, and I purr softly and close my eyes as I continue trying to write my anger out. He's quickly distractin' me...I already said that he knows how to calm me down. I close the book and lean over to him, kissing his cheek and resting my head against his still-clothed shoulder for a minute, before smiling a little.

"Mm...you're making it hard to journal about Veg-head." His name is Vego, but it's so much more fun to make fun of him.

"Well, I don't want you so tense that you start throwing up again."

"I only do that when I drink too much, too."

"Still, you hide your booze in the most unlikely places, you could have been drinking out in the car." But I know he knows I wasn't.

"I wasn't, babe, promise." I smile in reply, nuzzling up against him and crawling onto his lap. I'm sure he doesn't smell alcohol on my breath, so it's all good. We share another kiss and I roll over to lean back against his chest, grabbing my journal and opening back up to write in it, my legs up over both of his, and we recline a bit against the headboard.

I kind of wonder what would happen if Rude and I made a sex tape and sent it to you. You'd put it on and watch it, because we'd disguise it as your normal porn, and you'd get an awful shock. Would you watch it all the way through, or would you call us on us? I'm sure Elena would get a kick out of picking that up.

"Reno..." Rude growls in my ear, but it isn't anything to be worried about. "You shouldn't wish such things on her. you know she'd probably kill you for making her do that."

"It's my personal thoughts, doesn't mean they'd have to come true, babe." I laugh, shaking my head. "Come on, really? I know you wouldn't let me tape our sex."

"Yeah, you're right." He smiled, kissing the nape of my neck. "You're so silly, Ren. Do you really want all that bad stuff to happen to him?"

"I do. I want worse than this, but...I have limitations to whatever I can write in here, I think. I don't want whatever listens to us at the end of the day to read this and think I'm just out for revenge. It's far more than that."

"You want justice...but Ren, I don't think that an eye-for-an-eye is what you want. You can kill him, torture him, whatever...but he's bound to have one friend or someone who cares about him. So, then they come for you. I'd kill them. Then someone else would kill me, and from there it would just be a never-ending cycle."

"Well, the how about an eye for an arm? He's taken far more from me than just my eyes, Rude." I whimper a little, sighing softly.

"But think...without him being an ass, we wouldn't have gotten together." I know he's right...I was gay, but at the time, Rude was just my best friend. He didn't know if he wanted to do anything more, but one night...I was completely inconsolable. To calm me down, he began to act much more like a lover than a friend, and it stayed that way ever since. I smile a little, then add to my journal.

Thanks, old man, for the best thing in my life. I still pray you die soon, and painfully. Let's go with liver disease, yay!

AN: Alright, that's done. :3 I liked writing this...it was pretty fun. :3