Room 504, Monday Evening

[intraspective]

Paperwork was not Ino's very bestest friend ever, no.

Especially when she probably didn't know enough about the subject to fill in all the blanks. This was not stopping her from going through the pile and filling in anything she did know, mind, but it did mean she was gathering a list of questions that Ino was pretty sure the village only wanted so they could totally be insanely nosey.

Did it really matter if he had siblings, after all?

Ino was pretty sure he didn't, anyway, but that wasn't the point.

Once you'd ascertained that, oh hey, no they were not a threat to Konoha and yes were willing to swear on this, Ino was of the opinion that the rest of it was garbage.

This did not stop her from doing it, of course, but it did mean she was muttering to herself about utter idiots who needed a book written for a visitor as she steadily worked her way down the questions. Music was on, the door was half open and Ino was working on her bed.

[Open door, open post!

ETA: The phone call with Reno is chronologically last, plz. The content of the call is NFB!]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

"Somewhere, hidin' under my show-stoppin' good looks and a chocobo tattoo," Reno decided.

Sure, he totally kept his feelings in his ass.

"So, care to tell me why it is you hate me sometimes? Or do I gotta figure that one out all on my lonesome?"

[intraspective]

"Do I get popcorn and a first row seat to you figuring it out on your own?"

That was a blatant stall for time, yes. Lookit that.

[raspberryturk]

"Popcorn's probably stale," Reno mused, idly swinging his baton out to the side to crispy-fry a Boundfat that was stupid enough to bounce its way into his line of fire.

Yep. Securing the neighbourhood. Totally hard work.

"Why? You wanna make the trip to watch?"

[intraspective]

"Nooot particularly," she answered. "But you are the one that made it an option."

Also: he couldn't smack her over the phone.

[raspberryturk]

Of course, that just meant that he'd have to smack her twice the next time he saw her in person, to make up for lost time.

"Well," he mused, "I guess that means you're gonna have to just out an' tell me, yo."

[intraspective]

"Your orders suck, yo."

That wasn't supposed to have come out slightly petulant, but.

[raspberryturk]

Well. That wasn't exactly what Reno had been expecting.

... Come to think of it, Reno hadn't exactly been sure what to expect. And some part of him was mildly bemused at the fact that he'd given her orders, though he'd have to think for a moment about what orders he could have possibly given her, and she was following them. Huh.

Totally his Rookie.

"An' what about 'em sucks so much?"

[intraspective]

"Sucks 'cause I gotta bite my tongue and not say things're goin' to get worse and gotta watch as his time hits your history."

Someone was snippy. One guess for who.

And yet, still obeying. Shut up.

[raspberryturk]

... Reno was getting the sinking feeling that after this conversation was through, he was going to have to find some corner to go puke in.

"You been hangin' around with the SOLDIER kid, huh?"

[intraspective]

"Zack," she corrected, eyes narrowing but not really seeing her paperwork. "And yeah. A bit."

More than a bit, if she were honest.

[raspberryturk]

"Enough that you hate knowin' shit about what happens around here, an' not bein' able to let him know," Reno replied, his tone even. Thoughtful, even while the rest of him hollowed itself out and he worked on not feeling anything.

[intraspective]

"Call it a tiny sense of empathy," she drawled.

It... was sort of empathy. Ino wasn't good at labelling it as such, though.

"You know, after hearing 'bout Genesis Clones and Angeal killin' his own mom while Zack tried to save her and how things are fuckin' up royally there, right now."

[raspberryturk]

Oh. Well, shit. Zack was there, then. Genesis was in the picture, now. Angeal's mother was dead, so Banora had probably been flattened.

And, to top it all off, Zack and Ino were apparently close enough that Zack felt comfortable telling her about it.

"That's Gaia for you," Reno replied, almost dismissively. Almost. Damn it, why did the Rookies all have to make friends with him? "Fucked up. Royally."

[intraspective]

Her eyes sparked with anger.

"And you know what happens next," she scathed.

"And even I know just a tiny bit more than he does right now. Secrets within secrets and lies within lies."

[raspberryturk]

Reno grit his teeth, then, and he managed to match her scathing tone with the barest hint of a snarl of his own.

"Yeah, I know what happens next. He musta just met Tseng. The Turks got friggin' records of everything from here on in, years of 'em. An' I can't afford to tell anyone what's on any of it. Gaia can't afford it. Midgar's bad off enough now."

[intraspective]

Ino was tempted to hang up on Reno.

Except she wasn't sure if he'd call back right away, or if he'd stop talking to her, and Ino didn't want to know which it was.

"What about Zack?" she demanded. "Can he afford it?"

[raspberryturk]

No.

No Zack can't afford it. And there's no way to fix this, and Reno had tried to save him, back when it was Zack living and breathing in his own time, and all they found was the mess left behind when it was all said and done.

Mission failed.

"That don't matter," Reno replied, finally. He put a little extra growl into it, just because if he didn't, then he was likely to mumble it. And this was not a conversation that he could afford to mumble through. "You saw the ruins, Rookie. The timeline gets fucked up, you wanna know how much worse it could get? I can tell you all about Meteorfall, if you'd like. Real good time, that was."

Get angry, Reno. If you get angry, then you won't have room to feel like shit about this.

[intraspective]

"Timeline gets fucked up, maybe it gets better from being fucked with," she snapped, getting off her bed and slamming the door to her room hard enough that it smashed back at her before she got it shut, hard enough that he might have heard it, and bolted it shut.

"Different times, different futures. Meteorfall ain't happened yet! Your city ain't in ruins yet. Your planet ain't quite so dead yet!"

[raspberryturk]

"You wanna gamble my entire world on that?"

That was said with that level of 'don't fuck with me' coldness to it that Reno very, very rarely felt the need to bust out. The one he reserved for moments like hitting a button and damning millions of people to a crushing, screaming death all at once.

"On a maybe."

[intraspective]

"Not on a maybe," Ino insisted. She was stupidly fearless, sometimes. "On foresight--on, more knowledge. You know what's happening. You I bet know the whys and hows and where it could maybe be stopped."

"Risky, yeah. I know."

[raspberryturk]

Reno shut his eyes and grit his teeth and sat himself up, burying his face in his hand for a moment. Drawing in a slow, deliberate breath.

"There's only one guy out there who could'a ever stopped it, Ino. An' for him to be able to do it, shit's gotta happen the way shit happened. S'all there is to it."

[intraspective]

Ino didn't like that answer. Ino didn't believe in that answer.

Reno, however, she generally believed.

"Why?"

[raspberryturk]

Reno took a deep breath. Counted to three. Let it out niiiice and slow. Seriously, seriously toyed with the options, here. Tried to figure out how much he needed to get into before this would be good enough.

Finally, he settled on, 'detailed, but still vague.'

"Because in order to save the world, this guy's gotta believe with everything he's got that he didn't live his own life. He's gotta believe that he lived Zack's."

[intraspective]

"Thought you didn't like games with the mind, Reno."

Snide, oh yes. And maybe a bit cruel.

[raspberryturk]

A bit, yes.

"I ain't the one fuckin' with him. He's the one that comes to that conclusion alllll on his own, zoto."

And, okay, sure. Maybe the Turks facilitated Hojo getting his hands on them in the first place. But that was then. This particular Reno wasn't putting his hands into it again.

"Anyhow, the guy gets better."