Apartment Above Pick Your Poison, Sunday

[intraspective]

In the end, Ino hadn't bothered to go to the Parents' Weekend… thing…

She'd felt that it'd be pointless, all things considered, given her lack of visitors. It was nice, though, to feel the extra buzzing in the back of her mind that indicated more people on the island. Made it livelier. Reminded her a little of Midgar, though there were far more people in one block there than in the entire island here.

Usually she'd pay more attention to what was going on outside, but this weekend was making her feel weird and nostalgic and even a little envious (which was damn stupid, but there you go) and so she'd headed over to her shop and, rather than putter around in the front end, she'd locked the door behind her and headed into the apartment upstairs.

The back room on the ground floor was used for mixing most of her soaps, lotions, teas, and things like that. Things she sold to the average person without worrying about it.

Her upstairs apartment, however, was where she worked with the dangerous things.

Ino braided her hair back tightly, coiling it around and around her head like a crown, pulled her safety goggles on (it would be really fucking stupid to get poison in her eyes) and gloves on, and settled in to work on things most people would never get a chance to buy.

It was funny how this sort of thing relaxed her.

[Backdated due to internet issues. For one.]

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[intraspective]

She turned away from him, getting up to go and touch the leaves of one of her plants. The leaves were thick and deep, dark green, the undersides silver. They were the origin of the poison she'd given to Lucille on painted hairpins.

"It's too late for any one assassination to fix things, ain't it?"

[raspberryturk]

"At this point..." Reno frowned a little. Her near future was his own distant past, it was surreal to be scouring it for clues. "... Depends how far gone you are. Shin-Ra put a target on your backs yet?"

Wasn't like Zack was the only one with that problem, after all.

[intraspective]

And she... she'd never known much about this part of the future. Just that it happened.

"Not yet," she said, frowning at the leaves. "We got standin' orders to shoot Verdot on sight; Tseng just took over but, like, it's Verdot." So that order wasn't being paid much attention to. "Ain't much going on right now. Quiet, with Zack havin' gotten out early and Cloud having disappeared. AVALANCHE lookin' for materia, we're playin' the game of mousing around for what they've got."

[raspberryturk]

Reno smirked a little at that. Oh, shit, yeah. He remembered the stupid 'shoot on sight' order they'd been under, as if the Turks were going to turn on and kill their own boss.

Their loyalty to the company was second only to their loyalty to one another.

"You got any of 'em yet?"

Because he was already thinking of a really easy solution to the giant murder summon issue.

[intraspective]

A slow smirk crossed her face at that.

Did they have any of them?

"What?" she said wickedly. "You mean like this one?"

Yeah, that was one of the materia they were looking for that Ino tossed into the air and caught. Absolutely.

[raspberryturk]

Reno actually blinked. Blinked and stared, hard, at the materia that he was suddenly looking at.

Gods, that was a familiar little ball.

"... You ain't takin' that back with you to Gaia, are you?"

Like, ever?

[intraspective]

"It usually lives with all my other materia," Ino admitted. Deep in the depths of her pockets where most people forgot she had it. "So this marble ain't a thing I should be doin' that with?"

[raspberryturk]

"No materia, no Zirconaide," Reno replied, wide-eyed. "Shit. Fuck, Rookie," sorry, he wasn't even thinking about not calling her that right then, "that's the fuckin' out we never had. You got a whole gods-damned multiverse to hide that little round bastard in. Best we had was keepin' it on us at all times."

[intraspective]

Ino flinched, her fingers fumbling with the materia--not dropping it, but almost. Almost.

"I'll get rid of it," she managed to say, her voice tight. A little higher.

It hurt. She hadn't thought being claimed that way would hurt so bad.

[raspberryturk]

Reno caught that flinch and checked himself, taking a moment to dial it back. Compose himself again.

Mind his mouth.

"... AVALANCHE would still be a problem," he noted, more sedately. "They'd still need to be taken care of. But you'd basically neuter 'em if you can put that materia somewhere they can't get it. Then all you'd have to deal with are the Ravens, the AVALANCHE crazies themselves, and ShinRa's hard-on for takin' out Verdot."

He paused.

"... An' Sephiroth, later. But with a full pack of Turks, what the hell, right?"

[intraspective]

Ino drew in a breath. Then another.

She felt... she didn't know how to she felt. Hollow. Sad. It was stupid, wasn't it? There was a way to fix things--or not even that, to change them, and she had it right there in her hands.

"I'll get rid of it," Ino said. "I got a few ideas 'bout how."

If nothing else, she was pretty sure Jono could destroy it.

"What you're sayin' now, though, it's a total tune different than before."

Before she'd left, before Zack hadn't died, before she'd... something. Changed.

[raspberryturk]

"Had a lot of time to think since before," Reno replied. "Spend a decade or so pickin' up the pieces from a ruined world, you start to stop givin' a shit."

He shrugged a bit.

"Tseng'll probably kill me. Fuck'im, yo. It ain't his world and it ain't mine. You made it yours. You get to call the shots, now."

[intraspective]

It wasn't the sort of thing that should be decided lightly. Or quickly. Or impulsively.

She knew good and well she should take the time to stop, think about how they were going to do it, before doing anything.

"Then, yeah," Ino said, "I want that. It'll be somethin' you ain't seen before. There won't be no guarantee it'll turn out better than your world did. But it'll be different. It's worth a shot."

[raspberryturk]

"Hey, if it kills me, at least I died tryin'," Reno replied, a wry twist to his smile as he leaned back against the doorway and crossed his arms over his chest. "And the only way it can be worse than back home is if it actually does end. Right now you got a fightin' chance, at least. You know it's comin'."

There was a pause, and then he tilted his head, lips parting in that lupine grin of his.

"You gonna let 'em know I'm comin', or should I come knockin' on the door an' confuse the shit outta Tseng, first?"

[intraspective]

Ino pursed her lips.

She should really let them know he was coming.

"Ain't no secret from when I started that I were--that I knew another Reno," she said, changing her mind about saying that she were another Reno's Rookie to something a little less... painful. "And I ain't very happy with the lot of 'em either right now."

She loved them fiercely. She hated them all more than a little these days too.

"Do what you want to do in that regard. Just let me know."

[raspberryturk]

They would try to kill him. Reno had no doubt in his mind that they would try to kill him. But considering he could run laps around his younger counterpart, thank you Lady Ghanima, he was fine with the attempt.

Shit, it could be fun.

"It's settled, then," he decided. "I gotta take a bit of time to tie up loose ends back in Junon, let Rude get all his teary goodbyes outta his system and all..." Yeah, okay, that part would be hard on Reno, too. Maybe he could talk Rude into tagging along? "But I'll let you know when I make the trip. Maybe I'll even knock on Tseng's door before saunterin' into his office to introduce myself."

But probably not.

[intraspective]

"I look forward to you and Rude 'causin' a ruckus," Ino said mildly.

Yeah, she caught that thought. She didn't mind.

"I look forward to hearin' how it's goin'."

[raspberryturk]

Look, Reno just did everything better with his partner in crime along for the journey.

Tseng would hate it. Elena, who had basically been Rude's rookie, would hate it even more.

"I'll keep you informed," Reno drawled. "Hell, odds are you'll hear from one or both Tsengs before I even have a chance to draft a report, yo."

[intraspective]

"Just what I needed," she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. "Lectures and bitchin' from more than one Tseng."

[raspberryturk]

"Hey, you an' me both, right?" Reno smiled easily; it didn't entirely mask just how done he was feeling just then, but shit, that was basically his life. Had been since Zirconaide, at least. This seemed like a good step to take. Something headed in the right direction, instead of just spinning his wheels.

It seemed good.

"Odds are, the lectures'll mostly be for me anyway, zoto."