intraspective | Apartment Above the Boards, Tuesday Morning

Reno gave a little snort at that, finding a wall to lean back against while he mulled that over.

"And you're plannin' on never comin' back, are you?"

She was a Turk. She wasn't wired that way.

“Ain’t never said that,” she said, since… yeah. “I know. And I also know I ain’t in the safest job. Reno, I ain’t going to get killed by Sephiroth but there ain’t no sayin’ I’m going to live a long and happy life either. Turks don’t tend to do that.”

And it upset her, to think he’d get himself killed if she died on a job.

"I know," Reno said, letting that flat emptiness in his voice break, letting at least a little bit of emotion show when he spoe. "Fuck, Rookie, I know. I'm the one that's seen it happen, remember? Seen it more'n any of the green kids they have runnin' around here. Poured one out and moved on and you don't gotta lecture me on that shit because gods help me I know."

He blew out a breath and stared up at Midgar's sickly green sky.

"I ain't expectin' you to live forever. But everything AVALANCHE didn't take, Sephiroth did."

What did she expect him to do? Roll over and take that? Just move on? Had they met?

They'd met a time or two.

“I ain’t tryin’ to lecture you,” she said, her voice tightly controlled. “But if I’m important to you then you’re important to me and I ain’t keen on hearin’ you’ll be dying if I kick the bucket due to something. I ain’t plannin’ on it but you know how plans go.”

She took a breath.

“Showin’ you that video weren’t meant to rip you up. It weren’t. Tellin’ you one of the futures weren’t meant to do that either. We’re going to fix it so don’t you dare go fallin’ to pieces before we even get started.”

"You don't get it," Reno muttered, pulling his lighter from his pocket. "I gotta have this right now. I don't take it and I end up staring at footage of that silver-haired bastard cutting you down, not her, you, I'm gonna pull the same shit."

And now he was patting his other pocket down for his smokes. He scowled.

"Let me get this out of my system while it doesn't fucking matter so that I don't do something stupid when it does."

“I’ll tell Rude on you,” she threatened. She was going to text him anyway, just watch her, Reno. “You ain’t serious that freakin’ out now would keep you from doing stupid shit later. It wouldn’t for me. Do I need to show up so you know I’m fine right now?”

Reno fell silent at that. There was the faint sound of a lighter being sparked. Another silence. An exhale.

He watched the smoke curl up to join all the rest. All of Midgar's sky, just ugly, sickly smoke.

"I dunno," he drawled. "Do you?"

Gods, it was an ugly night.

Both inside and outside?

“Maybe I ought to,” she snapped. “What do you think?”

Inside and outside. Everywhere.

Reno sighed.

"You don't need to. I'm already over it."

He was not. But that cold hollowness was back in his voice and he was walking again, his footsteps silent in Midgar's streets.

She didn't believe that for a hot minute.

"If you're sure," she said dubiously, even as she flipped tabs and began booking a portal. "I mean, there's still a lot of time between that and now."

Reno didn't believe he'd sold it, either.

"Plenty of time," he agreed. He turned down another alley, started making his way toward the train station. Down to the slums. The monsters were better down there. "Time to work our way up to the challenge."

“And it’s gonna be a big challenge,” she noted, as she booked her portal. “There’s tons to do. But, hey, Zack wants me for something—I’ll talk to you later, okay? You sure you’re good?”

She only had ten minutes to make her portal.

"Yeah, Rookie," Reno said, and now the sound of feet slapping pavement could probably be heard. "I'm good."

The sound of an incoming train could probably be heard. Reno didn't much care. She'd find him one way or another if she wanted to.

Let her.

It was perhaps twenty minutes later, that Ino was down amongst the lower city herself, her pale blonde hair a beacon in the gloom of Midgar’s slums. It was an ugly, smoky night but Ino loved it fiercely.

It wasn't anything like the green, clean place she'd grown up in but Midgar was her home.

When she found him, he was fighting monsters. Ino wasn’t particularly surprised.

She sat down on the debilitated roof of one ramshackle house, legs dangling over the edge, and watched him. Sure, she could help, but in watching him, she could tell just how not okay he was.

He hadn't used a potion since he'd started. There was sweat on his brow, the tie holding his hair back had broken and his suit was torn. It was anybody's best guess whose blood that was, but his fighting was sloppy tonight, he didn't bother dodging incoming attacks. Who cared? Wasn't like the shitty little things lurking in Midgar's underbelly could do him any real harm. He just wanted to fucking feel it.

The hound he was facing snarled, and he snarled back, rushing forward to break the damn thing's face in with his EMR. The crunching sound it made was the most satisfying one he'd heard tonight.

It was probably no surprise at all which sector he'd followed the tracks to.

It really wasn’t.

Ino just watched, blue eyes fathomless as he slammed his EMR into the hound’s face.

Sure. Sure, he was fine.

Except he wasn’t.

The hound collapsed and faded, leaving a scattering of gil and a potion on the ground. Reno turned and stalked away, leaving both behind. A few moments later, some of the braver folks who lived nearby came out to pick through the dirt for the pocket change, anything they could use to feed themselves with later.

He turned down an alleyway. Vanished from sight for a moment.

"Took care of that thing Zack needed fast."

She glanced up at him, unsurprised he'd made it to the roof.

“I lied,” she said blandly.

"No shit," Reno replied, his expression flat. His eyes half-lidded, hair loose around his shoulders. "Now what are you gonna do?"

Ino tucked one leg under herself casually.

“I were thinkin’ I’d come remind you I were a pain in the ass,” Ino said, without a change in expression. “Since you seem to need remindin’ and all ‘bout my continued existence."

She wasn’t as fast as he was, and he was already battle alert and dangerous, but it took no effort to smudge his mind for half a second.

And in that half a second her hair yanked sharply at his feet, as she twisted to kick him in the stomach—and off the roof.

Since he wanted to feel something and all.

Reno's mind sort of re-aligned itself somewhere between the roof and a pile of wooden crates down below. There was an ache in his guts that hadn't been there a moment before, and another half-second to react before he went crashing through rotting wood and rusty nails to end up laying in a somewhat unceremonious heap at the bottom of it all.

He was standing again a moment later, glowering up at Ino from the street, ignoring the ache of it all.

"Cute."

He was running right back up to join her, and this time he was doing it directly up the side of the wall.

She grinned down at him, all cool, sharp-edged arrogance and rising recklessness.

"Always," she said, as her hair whipped out around her, her Crystal Cross glittering in the dim light of the slums.

Ino didn't try to stop him from getting up on the roof--that would defeat the purpose--but she spun through the air in a backflip, putting a bit more room between them, chakra keeping her feet from slipping on the uneven roof.

Not that Reno had any illusions about the safety of the roof that they'd parked themselves on. Down here, a person could go crashing through at just a wrong step, after all.

Wasn't stopping him from charging at her, stun baton held out to his side, footsteps impressively steady even as he swayed in his stride. There seemed to be little in the way of strategy, just a need to run and swing and feel.

And wasn't that going to be a surprise for any poor fuckers who lived below them?

She didn't bother to move, just braced herself, instead, to catch his EMR on her Crystal Cross. He was stronger than her (faster, better) but Ino wasns't bad herself.

Besides, she cheated outrageously, her hair having wound itself into twin braids that lashed out at him savagely. Being chakra infused, they hit like a pile of bricks, rather than hair.

And Reno, who was fully capable of avoiding that attack, took it full on, letting that hair smash into him. Good. Hit him harder. Only made him stronger, after all.

Maybe he needed that.

Maybe he was reaching out with his empty hand to grab one of those braids before she could pull it back yet.

And maybe he was going to just keep running.

Edited 2018-04-26 00:30 (UTC)

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