Junon, Gaia, Thursday Afternoon

[raspberryturk]

Junon, Reno supposed, wasn't half bad. Sure as hell better than Edge, which he couldn't wait to get the hell out of, especially after that weird-assed argument in Tseng's kitchen.

Tseng's ex-kitchen, Reno supposed.

He was sitting in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant on one of the city's lower levels, the world's crappiest coffee slowly dissolving a coffee mug in one hand, waiting for somebody in particular. He'd left Edge a little early, dragged a few of the boxes of paperwork along with him so that Rude wouldn't have to haul it all here, and then he'd started to poke around.

Yeah, Junon had suffered a bit since WEAPON's attack. But then, where the hell hadn't?

... Besides Kalm. Lucky, lucky-assed Kalm.

[Open for anyone who might want to call, or who has reason to be in Junon!]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

Reno didn't bother fighting back that small, wry smile on his lips there.

"You wanna fill me in?"

Not that Reno had to make her tell him. He could guess.

[intraspective]

"It sounds so stupid," she sighed, closing those eyes of hers and looking tired, beyond tired, for a moment. "Followin' love, no?"

[raspberryturk]

See? Totally called it.

"Ain't that stupid," Reno noted, idly. "You wanna know how many times I told Tseng to shove it, when he tried pullin' me away from Rikku?"

Hint: Lots.

[intraspective]

"Why--why would he do that?"

Ino was... sort of suspecting she'd gotten the job offer he wasn't going to hear about because of Zack.

[raspberryturk]

Reno just shrugged. Took another mouthful of coffee. Made another face.

Eugh.

"Well, she's an anti-government ex-con for a start. At least, technically. Didn't much care for my bein' a Turk. I guess Tseng saw her as a threat, yo."

Not to ShinRa, not even to the Turks, but to Reno's own loyalty. Or, at least, his usefulness.

[intraspective]

Ino chewed on her lip. It was going to bleed if she kept that up.

"Weren't--Weren't he right, though?" she asked, tentatively. "He don't got you the same way he did...?"

And lookit Ino sneakily steering the conversation away from her own issues. Oh, Ino.

[raspberryturk]

Well, not that sneaky, really. But Reno shrugged and went with it.

"There's a lotta things he don't got the same way he did," he noted. "ShinRa's gone. The Turks are just four people in suits. What's the point waitin' hand and foot when we ain't nothin' but glorified bounty hunters in fancy uniforms, now?"

Even to Reno's ears, that sounded damn near like blasphemy.

But the more he fought with Tseng... The more need for him that he found on the island? The more true it felt.

[intraspective]

Ino just... stared at him. That was, really, another shock, to hear him talk like that.

"But you're a Turk."

Sneaky was relative when you'd been through as much as Ino had in the last week and a bit.

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah," Reno agreed, not so much as missing a beat. "But the Turks ain't Turks. Each one of us... Tseng, Elena, Rude an' me? Yeah, sure, we're Turks. I'm damn friggin' proud of bein' one. I earned it."

Damn, the more he sipped at this coffee, the more he wanted to see what kind of use he'd get out of it on the battlefield.

"But we don't stand for what we used to, no more. It's gettin' hard to be proud of the work, even if I'm damn proud of the job."

He hoped to the gods that Rude never heard this. The poor man would probably cry or some shit.

[intraspective]

"Oh," Ino said, looking down. "I guess that... makes sense?"

And yet, she made that a question.

[raspberryturk]

"I can see how you're totally followin' what I'm sayin' here," Reno sighed. "What I'm sayin' is... Sometimes you gotta follow what you feel like you gotta follow, zoto. I got Rikku. You got your puppy."

He could not believe that he was being an advocate for True Love. Especially not True Love with Zack.

"Home's where they need you to be, yeah?"

[intraspective]

"Ain't thought that far yet," she admitted, downcast. "Just--home weren't there."

It was a pretty lie, no?

[raspberryturk]

It was. Maybe next time she'd wrap it up for him in a cute little bow.

"Was at one point," Reno noted, carefully.

[intraspective]

Ino looked around the restaurant for lack of a better way to avoid his gaze.

"Started school four years ago," she answered, feeling more than a little odd about it all.

[raspberryturk]

"Spend long enough away from someplace, things change," Reno observed, keeping his gaze on her face. She'd have to look back at him sooner or later, after all. "They change when you're there, too, just, they ain't changin' without you, zoto."

[intraspective]

She lifted one shoulder, still studying the restaurant. It was... a small thing, but she didn't want to face him for that.

"Always seemed the same to me, when I went there."

[raspberryturk]

"Always?"

Reno remembered the conversation they'd had after her falling-out with her team.

"Nothin' stays the same. If you think it does, Rookie, then you just ain't payin' attention."

[intraspective]

She looked at him, eyes cold.

"Always, until it fell apart."

And that hurt, in so many ways.

[raspberryturk]

Reno didn't even bother trying to hide the wince.

"You got Zack," he replied, tiredly.

For... fuck, gods only knew how long. But there was that.

[intraspective]

"I have Zack," she said, repeating it because that much, at least, was solid. "And I've got the school."

Ino stared at him.

"But I've only got the school for a little longer."

[raspberryturk]

"So did I, a year and a half ago," Reno pointed out. And... shit, had it really been that long already? "Took me a year, but I found a place to have again. Just had to be patient about it, zoto."

[intraspective]

"I ain't always patient," she said, with a sigh. "I don't know. I can't--I can't even go back now, if I wanted to."

[raspberryturk]

"You know," Reno noted, "my offer still stands. Line of work's changed, but now that they're settin' up in Junon, you never know what'll come from it, zoto."

Because this was a totally healthy, happy place to settle down. Yes.

It was also sorely lacking in Puppy.

[intraspective]

"Your offer," she echoed, frowning slightly. "But what 'bout Tseng?"

[raspberryturk]

Reno just shrugged.

"He ain't never been disappointed with Turks I hand him in the past, yo."

And there had been a few, yes. Like the spike-haired punk that was trying to steal ShinRa motorbikes, that one time.

"Ain't his second for nothin', Rookie."

Well... when they were getting along, at least.