raspberryturk | The Woods, Saturday Evening

Rikku shivered again. "You know," she laughed. "If I weren't as trusting as I am? I would totally think you were just luring me out into the woods for your own devious purposes. I should've brought my Godhand, yoto."

Reno had a bit of a laugh at that.

"See how devious I am?" He was so very devious, wanting to show her the helicopter and all. He still couldn't believe that Rude had tried to pick her up last night. Damn Rude anyhow. "You cold or something?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Hate this weather," she said. "Used to the desert, you know?"

Okay, she was mostly shivering from pent-up excitement, but he didn't need to know that. Chopper. Chopper. Chopper. Getting to fly again. Really, it was all she could do not to bounce and giggle.

"I'm used to the chill," Reno said, shrugging off his jacket and offering it to her. "Not much sun and all, yo."

He squinted into the woods. Clearing. Clearing. Dammit, Rude.

"It's gotta be somewhere around here, I think," he decided. "Would've got out to look for it last night, but that kinda wasn't goin' to happen."

"You ... sure? I don't wanna ..." She took the jacket, hesitantly, and then shrugged into it. And tried not to giggle at how it hung off her. "I think I fail at being a Turk, here."

She looked over at him, uncertain. "You, uh. You okay? You're all excited about this but ... you keep being ... not-so-okay."

Reno shrugged his shoulders and grinned at her. Damn, she would've made a fine looking Turk. Even swimming in his jacket like she was.

"Don't have any idea what you're talkin' about," he stated.

She gave him a Look. "You're happy to see Rude. And then you drink. And you're thrilled to be on the panels. And then you talk about ethics and can't look anybody in the eyes."

Oh, yes. Rikku was observant. He'd have to keep that in mind. Yeah.

"Having a panel on ethics at a MercCon is a fucking joke," Reno replied easily, his eyes ahead of him as he walked, now. "Nothin' ethical about it. S'just varying degrees of bullshit when you get down to it. And if you are takin' the fluffy, feel good jobs, you don't need a panel like that one. I was just preachin' to the choir, zoto."

They could find the chopper any moment now. Really.

Rude was such a douche.

She folded her arms, and now she did feel cold. "You ... wanna talk about it?" she asked softly.

"Can't," he said. Might as well be honest, here. 'Tell you and I gotta kill you' was a horrible cliché, so saying the same thing without wasting his breath only made sense. "Doesn't matter."

There was another clearing up ahead. In the clearing, there was hope?

"Sorry," she said. There had to be something else to say, right? She looked over at him and tried to piece together words. "If that's ever ... a shouldn't, not a can't ..."

Clearing. She squinted a little - there was a shape peeking through the trees. "Is that ... ?"

Even if it happened to not be the chopper, and there was a freaking Hell House sitting through the trees waiting to try to beat the crap out of them, Reno would have jumped at the chance to investigate, at this point. Distractions were amazing things.

"Only one way to find out, yo," he replied, his smile a little more genuine than it had been a moment before. "Race ya."

Rikku chewed her lip and pretended to think it over. "Do you really think you c---"

And with that, she was off.

He should've expected that, right?

Hah! Sure, she could have a head-start, Reno didn't mind. He'd just push himself a little to catch up, and then ease off some to run neck-and-neck with her.

Damn, he hadn't had a good run like this in days.

Having his legs back helped. Stupid Ron.

Up ahead, sure enough, he could make out the rotor and blades of the chopper through the trees. Nice.

She pushed harder - he was catching up - faster, except she was laughing and that made it hard to ---

Rikku stared.

And stared.

And was totally going to need a few moments, here, before she was capable of speech.

Or of closing her jaw, for that matter.

It was beautiful.

Reno figured it was safe to assume that he won the race, here.

He stopped running and backtracked a few steps, grinning at her.

"She's really something, ain't she? Could fly her around for the rest of the night if she had enough gas, zoto." There weren't many places to refuel in the woods, so he'd probably have to save some for Rude to get home with. Jerk.

"This ..." She cleared her throat and tried again. "Yours? Really? You ..."

Rotors on top, like he'd said. And now she was walking again, she had to get closer and look at ... all of it, doors there, panels there, rotors on top and rails on the bottom and ...

She looked back at him, eyes still wide. "She's beautiful."

Reno wasn't certain his face could take all this smiling.

"Damn, girl. You think she's beautiful now, I hate to think what you're gonna say once she's in the air, yoto."

And now she was giggling, madly, and bouncing on her toes.

"Let's find out," she grinned.

Reno waited a whole of a second to just grin. And nod. And grin and nod. And then take off for the doors, because the sooner he was in the cockpit, the sooner he could break her brain with awesome.

Damn, he loved flying.

There were ... there were so many buttons and panels and the seats were comfy, which was a weird thing to be surprised by, but she was. And it was roomier than she'd expected and she was vibrating with nervous energy and ... he had to think she was crazy, the way she was giggling, but she couldn't stop.

"You should see Pops' airship," she said quickly, "it's old and rusty and half the dials, we don't know what they even mean, they're labelled all funny and we're just kinda guessing and it clunks when it lifts off and this is yours!? Really?!"

"Technically, no," Reno said, cracking his knuckles and stretching and closing his eyes for a moment just to breathe in the familiar cockpit.

It was nice to be here again. Damn nice.

"But Rufus can't fly, so far as I know. So this is my goddamn chopper, zoto."

He opened his eyes and there were keys and buttons and it was really like saying hello to an old friend. And she answered back, of course, with a purr and a rumble and the slow, familiar hum of the rotors overtop starting to turn.

Her breath caught when the engine stirred, another nervous laugh, and she couldn't stop watching his hands. If she'd doubted that he was as good a pilot as he claimed - and she hadn't - the sureness with which he flipped switches and took the controls would have wiped them from her mind.

And then the roar was getting louder and ... "We're ... really ...."

Really leaving the ground?

"Look for yourself," he said, gesturing with one hand toward the window beside her as though he really didn't need that hand to fly with anyhow, returning it to the controls without missing a beat.

He was going to take another moment to breathe this in. Damn, it had been a month. But the chopper was all his again, dammit, and aerospace was his bitch, and he tapped his finger against the controls, keeping beat with the thrum of the blades above them. They were singing to him. He was just tapping time.

They were rising up, and it was so different from the airship and airplanes, the raw lift of it - straight vertical, defiant and proud. The airship always felt like it was sailing through a sea-sky, nudging forward and turning slowly through corners. This was ... nimble. Concealed power purring away, making her sit and rhapsodize and he had to think she was crazy, didn't he?

She stared over at him, eyes wide, and ... no, maybe he didn't. He felt it, too, didn't he? Not the newfound awe she had, but ... he was soaking it in. Maybe you had to, to be a pilot.

"This is incredible," she said, surprised she could find words at all.

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