raspberryturk | The Seventh Heaven Bar, Edge, Wednesday Night

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The Seventh Heaven Bar, Edge, Wednesday Night

Admittedly, a Wednesday night was a pretty shitty night to go to any bar that didn't actually have something going on. And, in a place like Edge, it wasn't just Wednesday nights that were like that, even at the most popular stop for alcoholic swill in town. It wasn't as though people were going to get together and sing karaoke. Name that tune was pretty much a thing of the past, too. Trivia night? Not so much. But if you got Cid Highwind drunk enough, he'd tell you all about that time he spent about five minutes stuck outside of Gaia's atmosphere.

Word to the wise: Don't get Cid Highwind drunk enough to tell you all about that time he spent about five minutes stuck outside of Gaia's atmosphere.

Fortunately, Reno didn't come to the bar unprepared. He was a Turk. He came prepared for anything, thank you very much. There was a stun baton hidden up his sleeve, extra money for booze tucked away in one pocket, and a deck of cards in one hand. Tifa even tolerated his presence here because he was more or less good business, and he tended to handle her cutting him off when she'd decided that he'd had enough with... minimal leering. Which made him significantly less obnoxious than some of the folks that stopped in for drinks.

And anyhow, kicking the asses of the bar's other regulars at poker? Totally made hitting this place up on his evening off worth any unpleasant aftertaste that his allotted few servings of Corel Ale left behind.

Hey, it wasn't Reno's fault that Barrett was shit at calling bluffs.

[Open for anyone who might want to give Reno a phone call, or what-have-you. He'll probably gloat at you relentlessly, just to rile up the big guy some more.]

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And hello, Reno's phone ringing. Again.

It was kind of a shame that Reno wasn't as popular with the other patrons of the bar as he was with people who had his phone number!

He'd pretty much given up on poker by this point. Vincent had managed to get a hundred Gil from him, and even Reno knew when he was beat. So he was sitting around with a glass of Corel Ale in one hand, leering at the local girls when his phone rang. Leering could totally wait.

"Yo!"

"Reno," Arthur greeted, jovially. "How are things?" He'd been in the 21st century for too long. Somewhere, Uther was cringing.

"Things ain't bad!" Reno wasn't cringing! Reno was on top of the world!

Ooh, that chick's bra strap was showing!

... Also, it was Tifa, who was now fixing him with a dirty look. Reno smiled the smile of a man with absolutely no shame, and even waved a merry little hello before returning to the conversation.

"I mean, all things considered. Just made a small fortune in Gil playin' a game of poker, yo."

Ah, people and their gambling. "Sounds like your world is on a swing up," Arthur said, infusing his voice with some dry humor and something upbeat at the same time. Hush.

"Nah, not really," Reno replied. "But I ain't got no issues winnin' every last coin that some people got to their names. I like to think of it as a neat little swap-off for the scars, yo."

Reno? Hold a grudge?

... Well, yes. With a passion. Why?

There was a short pause on the other end of the line.

"Fair enough," Arthur said, at last. "We were attacked by gremlins a few weeks ago, don't know if you've heard..." He hadn't spoken to Reno in too long.

"Oh, I heard," Reno agreed. "Rookie of mine sent me pictures. Looked like nasty little shits, if you ask me. Sorry I missed it, yo."

No, really. He was. He'd pouted for a full ten minutes when Ino sent him that photo, damn it.

"So, how'd that go? The reserves kicked ass an' took names, I'm bettin'."

"We've been suffering some communication troubles," Arthur hedged, "But we lived to tell the tale, and a great many gremlins fell that day." Listen, boasting was in his blood.

"Almost sounds like you need to hire on some messenger boys, yo," Reno mused, making a rude reach across the table for what was left of the beer nuts.

Considering the amount that he'd tossed across the room while trying to peg off Vincent, these wouldn't last him long.

"Someone dedicated to just gettin' the word out, deliverin' orders from your mouth to their ears."

"That's why we have support reserves," Arthur replied, flicking the last part of his meal across the room with deadly accuracy. "When can we expect you back here, at that?"

"You miss me that much?" Reno laughed a little, popping a peanut into his mouth, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. "To be painfully honest, man, I been chewin' on the idea of maybe hittin' up the island for another semester. Maybe beg the ol' dog an' lagomorph for my job back in town. Get the hell outta Edge for a bit."

This was his way of admitting that Edge had him beat, yes. It wasn't ever going to get much more straightforward than that, from Reno's lips to Arthur's ears.

"In the meantime, I ain't opposed to swingin' by every other Tuesday to poke at your recruits with sticks, if this is you sayin' that they might need it, yo."

"We hardly need it," Arthur was forced to point out, "But you've had trouble staying away as it is. I was merely wondering when to prepare for your next appearance."

A beat.

"Although should this be during a reserves meeting, I'd hardly refuse you from taking the stage, as it were."

"Miracles happen, when Turks take the spotlight," Reno chuckled, and two more peanuts later, he was back to throwing them across the room. "What you been gettin' 'em to do since I left? Not more runnin' around makin' maps, I hope."

Some part of Reno was fairly certain that maps of the island could just as easily be attained by hitting up Turtle & Canary with a pocketful of spare change.

... At the same time, he maybe secretly enjoyed the mapmaking exercise, too.

Maps, yes, maybe. Strategic ones? Nevermind the valuable experience learning the island...?

Arthur had had worse ideas, in his opinion. "Training," he said, "We're about to start working towards a drill for all the reserves. Simulate an invasion, that kind of thing."

"Oooh, ooh! I can invade! I can invade!"

If it wasn't painfully obvious by this point that Reno was on at least his seventh glass of Corel Ale this evening...

There was a slight pause as Arthur evaluated that response and determined just what it was.

There was another slight pause as the British in him kicked in in full.

"Yes, and then you can invade Poland while we're at it."

"That depends," Reno decided. Unlike Arthur, he didn't tend to take moments for evaluation. Mostly he just let his mouth run off and pretended that he didn't sound like an idiot.

Usually, it worked.

"How's the booze in Poland?"

"Potent, no doubt," he said, barely keeping the laugh from his voice. "It's cold out there, I hear."

"I got nothin' against cold booze, man," Reno decided, tossing another beer nut.

He actually wasn't certain who it was that he was aiming at, anymore. Some poor schmuck trying to enjoy his ass-nasty cheap drink.

"Which would be a great asset," Arthur acquiesced, "If you were in Poland."

"But I ain't in Poland, so I gotta make do with this warm shit that tastes kinda like a carrot went and puked in it," Reno sighed.

Carrots could totally puke, right? No? So much for that analogy, then.

"I just mean, you wanna have your recruits all get the same sorta experience learnin' how to fend off attackers, yo. Might be worth lookin' into maybe gettin' people who have already been there and done that to do the invadin'. We already know our way around, alumni an' junk like that. Think your Rookies can handle an attack by informed opponents with a shitload more experience with the terrain than they got?"

"Actually, I was discussing this with Leto," Arthur started, which was probably a promising start to anyone who knew his history with Leto, "And we're talking about running two drills. A warm-up, as it were, in the Danger Shop, then moving on to an actual one employing students and teachers unattached to the reserves. We're doing a run-up at Fight Club this Sunday."

His rookies.

Huh.

From Reno's mouth, that didn't sound too bad.

"Well, you tell me when it's goin' on," Reno decided, grinning. "I want in on that noise, yo. I'm sure I can get Tseng to give me the time off for it, even. It's for a good cause, an' all."

And anyhow, it wasn't as though Tseng could keep Reno in one place if he had ten feet of steel cord and told Rude to hold him down.

"I'll make sure I do," Arthur agreed, grinning a little bit himself. "Someone's got to keep this semester's new meat on their toes."

Although in Arthur's mind, that might have partially involved Reno pulling another streaker and surprising the hell out of the newbies.

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