Edge, Friday Afternoon

[raspberryturk]

Distress calls from Rookies, left, right, and center. That was what Reno came home to, after over a week without phone reception out in the wastes. And now it was the countdown, before one Rookie would get here, with Ifrit only knew what kind of trauma fresh in her head.

Pick up the phone. Dial numbers. He had well over an hour, between the time Ino's portal would arrive to pick her up, and the time it would actually make it into Edge, after all.

"The boss sends me on one mission in the middle of nowhere, Mako, an' the whole universe goes to Hell without me, zoto."

[NFB for distance, as usual. Open for anyone who needs a Reno call or who wants to give one, all calls will sit chronologically before a certain Ninja visitor, yo.]

Comments

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

Elena was in her room. Needed to go out drinking. The drinking didn't help as much as it should.

When the phone rang, she scooped it up without even looking at the number.

"Yeah?"

That was almost hello.

[raspberryturk]

That was about as close to a hello as Reno had been expecting, really.

"Rookie." That was almost hello, too. "Got your message, yo."

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

Elena ran a hand through her hair, sitting up straighter without consciously realizing it.

"My message was painfully short on details," she said. "I should have clarified. I'm fine. I didn't mean to upset anyone."

Reporting in. She barely kept herself from calling him sir.

... Reno would probably piss himself laughing if she tried that.

[raspberryturk]

Reno would laugh so hard he'd forget to breathe if she tried that, yes.

"You're fine, huh?" A beat. "You always sound this professional when a former co-worker calls you on the phone to see how you're doin' then?"

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

"I'm ..."

Damn. He had her, there.

"I thought you were calling in a semi-official capacity," she lied. "And I think I got you in trouble with Tseng. Unintentionally. Again. So if you want to bitch me out for that, you have the right."

[raspberryturk]

"Tseng can go fuck himself. If I'm in shit for not knowin' somethin', he should stop sendin' me to the wastes for weeks on end, yo."

Because having no connection to the outside world made getting a hold of current events into a bit of a challenge.

"What happened, Rookie?"

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head. "It was just a fucked-up bout of narcolepsy with some mystical dimensional weirdness going on. Body stays here, mind goes over there. Got to play in a little wasteland that makes Edge look like Costa del Sol. Got my ass kicked for being stupid. Deposited back home, without a scratch to show for it. My counterpart wasn't half so lucky. That'll teach civilians to recruit blindly."

That was ... certainly coherent, right there.

[raspberryturk]

Oooookay then.

Reno exhaled a breath he'd been holding. Okay. Elena was fine. Some other Elena, not so much. But that other Elena wasn't his Elena, and so he had no reason to be upset over that. People died. Fact of life.

"How you been holdin' up since?"

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

There was a pause, while Elena tried to lie to herself. Or him. Maybe both.

"Not so great," she said. "I try not to sleep. When I do, I see that fucking place again. I drink, and it doesn't help. I was supposed to help them. Instead, I got her killed. What kind of fucking Turk am I?"

[intraspective]

Ino was quietly proud of herself. She hadn't freaked out, or melted down, or lost it in her hour to put things all in order.

As accomplishments went it was pretty small. But it was huge. She'd managed a shower, gotten all of her weapons, and packed a backpack. The work helped distract her. She hadn't called though. Ino would deal with that when she got back. She'd tried three times before giving up because the thought of talking to someone--someone nice and normal. Normal by--Fandom.

The trip to the Causeway had been... stressful. Ino had skulked and slunk and snuck her way through the island to get from the dorms and all the time utterly sure that someone would sense her or something. She made it though, staring at her phone as it ticked down the last minute.

Then her portal was there, and she was stepping through, and then she was somewhere--

Edge's smell hit her first. Pollution, that reek of dying things, of things better off death, of trash. A bit of rust. Like sprinkles. Ino's shoulders relaxed slightly, a small bit of tension leaving her.

This was no Fandom.

The street was dirty gray rock. Dust too. Another breath. Just what she needed. Not Fandom. And no chance of it being taken as home either. Yes.

"Reno?"

[raspberryturk]

Reno had been leaning up against... Well, it appeared to be the beginnings of a wall, some kind of slapped-together structure consisting of what was once a corrugated tin roof and some steel poles for support. It was enough to support him, at least.

But when he sat his Rookie step through, he pushed his way off of it, hands in his pockets as he made his way over to greet her.

"Welcome to Edge, hungriest piece of shit city this side of Junon, zoto."

See? Best vacation spot ever.

[intraspective]

It... kinda was. Right this moment. No reminders of anything like Fandom. Or like home.

Ino swallowed, tried a smile that didn't reach her eyes, and was a rather poor attempt besides, and blurted, "It's perfectly wrecked."

That was kind of a compliment, kind of a shock, and kind of exactly what was needed. She could breathe here.

[raspberryturk]

Well, sure, she could breathe here, but it was a wonder if anyone ever actually wanted to. Piss and death and rust and pollution. Lovely smell, that.

"Don't get much more wrecked than this, yo. Do yourself a favor an' don't go wanderin' down any alleyways, day or night, huh? You wanna come inside? Go walkin'? Find somethin' to beat up? Edge is a wealth of options like that, Rookie."

[intraspective]

There were all sorts of ways to breathe, though, and Edge wasn't crushing her the way Fandom had been.

Ino blinked at him. Looked around. "That's not my name," she said half heartedly, because she didn't really mind it. "I--walking. Please."

[raspberryturk]

"We walk," Reno agreed. See, decisions were easy, this way. "Pick a direction. We got wastelands over there, hungry people over there, a bar that-a-way, an' ruins if we head out an' around the buildin' and keep walkin'."

See? Reno was the best tour guide ever.

"We can stop an' pick up somethin' to eat, while we're out. I ain't been home long enough to go shoppin'. Our menu tonight consists of potatoes, spuds, tubers, an' taters. Best variety in town." A beat. "We can spice it up with beans."

[intraspective]

People were bad, she wasn't comfortable with them right now, so that cut out the bar and the... hungry people were out--what sort of a tour was that, seriously--Ino contemplated the direction the wastelands were in, then the building.

"This way," she said, going to walk around the building. Ruins! "I've got ration bars if we're out too late. Your beans doing well then? What about the peas and radishes?"

Plant talk. She could do plant talk.

[raspberryturk]

"They were all still green when I got home from the job," Reno replied, his hands still in his pockets as he sauntered along behind. "The peas got little flowers on 'em. That's a good thing, right?"

Flowers. In Edge. He kind of felt like he was playing God here, now.

Around the building, there was a road. The road kept the other buildings separated just enough so that they had a particularly jarring view of the place Reno used to call home.

Clearly, the residents of Edge didn't much care for setting up camp in the shadow of something less depressing.

[withoutverona]

Romeo was, for once, not bored in Tokyo.

This was because Romeo was tipsy and just came back from a night of karaoke. Somehow, calling Reno was the best idea ever.

Ring, ring.

[raspberryturk]

After the last two phone calls, Reno was starting to wonder if Romeo's ringtone meant that Tokyo had been ravaged by giant lizards, and this was going to be another Rookie-in-need call.

So he almost sounded tentative, even, as he answered the phone.

"Yo?"

See? So totally almost tentative.

[withoutverona]

"Reno!" Romeo said, not tentative at all. "Dost thou know the words to 'Karma Chameleon'?"

Toooootally worth calling somebody saving the world in another dimension about, yep.

[raspberryturk]

"Dost I?"

Oooh, Romeo was drunk. In that happy kinda way that made Reno not understand half the crap that was coming out of his mouth. Reno loved that particular variation on Romeo-drunkenness. It never ceased to give him a grin.

"Ain't it just a bunch'a the title, an' then, 'You come an' go,' or somethin' like that?"

[withoutverona]

"Aye," Romeo said seriously. "And then something to the effect that loving would be easy if thine colors were like -- something. I mistrust my ears."

"Also," he added, "why wouldst the colors make anything easier?"

[raspberryturk]

Heee. Wouldst.

"Well, if we're talkin' literal chameleons, there's probably some kinda scientific shit explainin' that whole line away," Reno decided, laughing.

Daaamn, did he ever need this conversation.

"Only science I know is mechanical junk," Reno noted. "Sittin' in the cockpit of a chopper'd kinda suck if everything was written out in greyscale, yo."

They could use weird logic to explain away a song like professionals.

[withoutverona]

"I think the song is not about real lizards," Romeo said doubtfully. "I don't know. It was the last song at karaoke and I realized I knew not what the words meant, so I called thee."

Of course he did. Reno was the best at interpreting '80's songs.

"Isn't there a manual for the chopper? That would be grey."

[raspberryturk]

80s songs from another planet, no less! Clearly, Reno was a professional, after a year and a half on Earth!

Riiight!

"Sure, there's a manual. I don't bother with it, though. I know my chopper in and out, man."

Well, Rufus Shinra's chopper. Which Tseng rented out when he could. Which Reno stole whenever he could get his paws on the keys. Which wasn't often.