raspberryturk | The Woods, Saturday Evening

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.

"It is, yo," Reno agreed. And it was. Was there really any room for anything but humility, sitting in the belly of the beast as it allowed you to fly? Of course he respected the chopper. It was freedom from every other piece of shit he had to deal with, even when he was dealing with it while he was flying her. You couldn't drag ass in a helicopter. You couldn't trudge onward into the mouth of hell or the Northern Crater or whatever the hell else was out there waiting to eat you alive. Even when you knew it was going to be rough, you fucking flew. The chopper couldn't do it without him, sure. But he couldn't do it without the chopper, either. "She's really somethin'."

He glanced sidelong, the corners of his lips pulled upward just barely.

"So. You ever get the chance to pull out that toy and fly it?"

The treetops were disappearing and she couldn't stop watching his hands. She wondered how many times you had to fly before you were so much a part of the copter that you knew where all the switches were, knew what the dials would say without even looking. She had a feeling he could fly this chopper blindfolded.

"You bet I did," she grinned. "Took it swooping across the ceiling, loops around and back. Then I just kinda pestered Petey with it, playing keep-away. Keeps you on your toes, 'cause if you're not careful, you'll end up with a chewed-up copter and a smug kitty."

She was rambling, wasn't she?

"You got a crapload of practice then, yo?"

Reno was grinning at her now.

"I dunno," she laughed, blushing. "But I got better. That's good, right? Getting the hang of it, zoto."

Getting the hang of that, too.

Heh. She should leave the 'zoto' to him. She sounded more natural with 'yoto' instead.

"Good," he said, so very smoothly.

He then took his hands from the controls and stood up.

"You're gonna steer, yo."

Rikku blinked. And then gasped. And then flailed. She was an expert at flailing.

"You can't do that!" She jumped up and gestured, wildly. "You ... we're gonna ... Reno! Dammit!"

Reno was nowhere near worried, here.

Actually, he was laughing.

"You gonna take the joystick there, or are we gonna end up spittin' out leaves from the canopy of the woods?"

"But I can't ... I've never ... you can't just ..." Panic-flailing. Followed by Rikku processing exactly what would happen if she did stand here arguing with him long enough that they started smacking into the trees and --

She dove into the seat he'd vacated, grabbing at the joystick thing and yanking it. "Help?" she said, waving madly with her other hand. "Do I just move this? Do I need those switches? What do I do?"

"First," Reno said, grabbing the back of the seat to keep from barreling sideways as she yanked and sent them at a solid turn. He shook it off quickly enough, leaning forward a little to get a good look at where her hands were going. "First, you gotta breathe. Don't wail on it. Just hold it steady. Nudge it. Get a feel for it. Then figure out where you want to go and take it from there, zoto."

"Okay," she said quickly. "Okay." Breathing. She could breathe. She was good at that.

She held the joystick steady and tried to get her bearings. Switches. And dials. And ... she'd flown Pops' airship that didn't have dials marked half so neatly, so she should breathe and take a good look at them. Air pressure. Wind. Speed. Altimeter. And she didn't know what some of the words meant, but the dials were familiar anyway. This one should stay right in that range, and that one was okay so long as it wasn't really high.

They were still hovering. She curled her other hand around the joystick and took a deep breath, then tried moving it gently, a little bit over that way ... and the chopper dipped to the left. Back, and then it angled to the right.

"The handling on this ..." she murmured. Well. Pops' airship needed a full two-minute warning just to veer out of the way of obstacles.

"There you go, nice and smooth." Reno leaned forward a little more, checking some of the dials. "Seems like you already got a decent idea what you're doing, yo. Not bad."

He turned his face to look at her, that smug smile of his taking over.

"Better take her for a spin before I kick you outta the pilot's seat, hm?"

"You'd have to fight me for it," she laughed, shivering again with nervous energy. She darted a glance at him and grinned. "See, letting me fly was your first mistake."

She looked back at the console, flushing a little. "I had no idea it'd be so ... responsive. It makes you never want to land."

"Gotta land eventually," Reno chuckled. "Or we'll be goin' down the less pleasant way. And if we survive that, Rude'll kill us."

"I think we could take him," she grinned, sneaking a look back at him again. "You hold his arms, I'll punch?"

Reno laughed some more.

"Damn, Rikku. Askin' me to hold Rude's arms is like askin' Rude to beat me in a foot race." Which... was a really damn funny thought, to Reno.

"So, you're admitting he's more badass than you?" she asked lightly, nudging the joystick this way and that. Wow, flying. "I'll have to tell him you said so, yoto."

Edited 2008-02-03 05:42 (UTC)

"You kiddin'? Just because he can kick my ass in an arm wrestle doesn't mean I can't kick his in a fight." Reno leaned forward again, checking the controls. "You enjoyin' this?"

It kind of went without saying, didn't it?

"You kidding?" Rikku asked, more laughter bubbling out of her. "This is amazing. This ..."

She eased the joystick back, then pressed it forward again, still marveling at how the chopper bent to her lightest whim. She rolled it lightly in her hand and shook her head, at a loss for words.

"Thank you," she said, glancing over at him again and swallowing hard. "For ... I mean ..."

He was closer than she remembered him being.

Reno turned his head to face her, and kind of hesitated there for a moment.

Huh. He could feel her breath on his face from here. That was...

"Don't mention it," he stated. Totally stated it. It wasn't really like kind-of whispering it was any different from stating it. At all. Much.

"O-okay," she said, nodding quickly. She should be watching the dials. The console. The buttons and switches and ... other things she couldn't remember. Over that way. She'd look in a second. She would.

His eyes were right there and she couldn't place the look on his face and she was closer, now, close enough to tell there wasn't any writing on those tattoos curving around his eyes. She would have to tell him that. In a few moments.

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