fandomtownies | The Perk, Thursday midday

Reno had gotten the note that Romeo had left on his desk. And had spent some time trying to come up with reasons to blow off the lunch meeting... But in the end, something to eat and good company both seemed like a pretty decent idea.

There was something amiss from his usual saunter as he headed over to the table that Romeo was sitting at, but the grin he offered his friend was mostly the same, if you squinted and looked at it sideways, maybe.

"Coffee for lunch, man? Must be real hungry, huh?"

Romeo shrugged, offering a smile that was slightly closer to his usual one than Reno's. "Aye, starving."

"I meant to order more, but ... nothing sounded quite right, somehow. You should eat, though."

Reno nodded, standing beside his seat and glancing up at the menu board. Sit down. Order. Sit down. Order. Decisions like this had never been harder to make.

He sat down, anyhow.

"Probably should," he agreed. "When it starts to sound quite right to me, too."

Romeo leaned back slightly in his seat. "I'm supposed to make sure you don't try to live entirely on alcohol," he said, and tilted his head at the menu as if the magic perfect thing would appear.

"I don't know. Roast beef?"

"Roast beef ain't alcohol," Reno agreed, making a reach for his own menu. "You're supposed to? Doji didn't send you after tryin' to poison me with microwaved noodles, did she?"

Romeo shook his head, trying to look innocent. "What? No. Someone else."

There were, of course, not a whole lot of suspects, which is probably why he continued with, "She was worried."

Reno's eyes glanced upward at Romeo from where they had been pretending to actually look over menu items.

"She was?"

That maybe sounded more hopeful than he had intended, more like an excited puppy seeing a leash and thinking about running around for a walk or a good game of Frisbee than he wanted to ever let on.

So he looked back at the menu. Made a point of it. Cleared his throat, and then continued.

"Is she... I mean. Will she be..." Uh. "How is she doing...?"

"She was ... all right, though not great. Flat." Romeo said, mulling the possibility of a lie before choosing honesty. "Flat, and cynical, and ... she wants to yell at someone and doesn't think it should be you. I think she doesn't think she should yell."

He let the menu close in his hands. "But she doesn't hate you."

Reno sat quietly for a moment, chewing on those words before giving a small nod and putting down the menu. He wasn't all that hungry at the moment, anyhow.

"I'd take it, if she was yelling. Would mean she wasn't bottling it all in." Maybe a coffee. Coffee was a drink. Drinks didn't have to be alcoholic. Yeah. "She does that, too much. Bottles it."

Then again, coffee wasn't all too appetizing, either.

"Worries the hell out of me."

"I know. She shouldn't keep it all in like that," Romeo agreed, setting down his coffee. "I can see where her way, thinking and not acting, is better than charging ahead without thought, but ... there must be a median. Somewhere."

He didn't sound so certain about that.

Edited 2008-04-03 18:45 (UTC)

"If she needs to yell, I'd take it. Anything right now. I can take it."

But coffee was the thing to order in a coffee shop...

Not thirsty.

"If she was yelling, it wouldn't be so quiet, man."

"There's nothing you can do with quiet," Romeo had to agree. "And for that alone, yelling is easier."

"I told her to talk to you, at least. I don't know if she'll listen, but I did."

"She doesn't have to," Reno said quickly, then bit his tongue and looked at the menu again. He took a breath. Ordered a black coffee. He could talk himself out of not drinking it when it was sitting there. That was a step up.

"I mean, she doesn't have to, if she's not... comfortable. I think I kinda did a real good job becomin' someone she can't be comfortable around, zoto. But talking... If she was up for talking. Or yelling. Or just standin' there and throwin' shit at me until she manages to find words. Or anything. She can."

"She doesn't have to," Romeo agreed, quietly pleased by Reno's progress in actually ordering coffee. He took a sip of his own coffee, as if reminded the drink was there. "I think she should, but neither of us is in control of her."

"Whatever it's worth," he added, eyes on the table, "I can listen, if you want to tell me what she's so uncomfortable about. Or I can not ask. You've done a good job not asking me things, and I can return that favor."

He took a deep breath. Okay. This was Romeo. Romeo was, like, the not-Rude. Romeo was Romeo. Reno could fess up to Romeo, here.

He didn't mention how much it meant to him that she hadn't told him. Maybe it went without saying.

"Back at home," he began, "there used to be pretty much just one government. ShinRa. Got into power usin' power, and then got dirty from there. They had an army- SOLDIER. And they have their Covert Ops squad. The Turks. SOLDIER did all the pretty stuff. Winnin' wars, kissin' babies on the news, crap like that. The Turks... we don't. There's nothin' pretty about bein' a Turk."

He was going to stop, now, for a mouthful of coffee. Coffee was a godsend.

Romeo exhaled. This wasn't so bad, so far, nothing much beyond what Rikku had suggested but not said. "Nothing pretty about a lot of things," he said. "It feels like everyone in power needs someone to do the dirty work."

"How did you get into it? Is it a choice, or something that you're born into?"

"It's a choice, becomin' a Turk. Some were adopted into it by ShinRa when they were young." Cissnei. "Some got the invite, and... really didn't have nothing to lose. But it's a choice. Because to be a Turk, you gotta be loyal. If you ain't loyal, you're a liability. Liabilities get disposed of."

Maybe some more coffee. Right, then.

"The problem with bein' the power, ruling through electric power, is that you get shit from all over. AVALANCHE. Terrorist group. Wanted to save the planet, because ShinRa's electric power was killin' it. They didn't have proof, really. Just, hey, you're destroyin' this thing called the lifestream, where all life comes from. Gonna kill the planet. So here, we're gonna rough you up a bit." A lot. "ShinRa was goin' nuts, and things kept gettin' worse, and worse, and the President was freakin' insane, and AVALANCHE nearly killed us all. And then they were gone. And they were supposed to stay gone."

He was going to run out of coffee right away.

"Funny how they never do, when you want 'em to."

Edited 2008-04-03 19:24 (UTC)

"If you aren't loyal, people get killed. Sometimes it's you," Romeo said flatly. It was different, the Montague thing -- you were born into it, or a hired gun, but disloyalty ... well. It never ended well.

"And the wrong ones, the ones you wanted to be rid of, they always come back," he had to agree. He was leaning forward, listening closely, trying to imagine Reno's world, this place so close to destruction. "Did you have to take care of them?"

Reno went silent for a moment, swallowed the last mouthful of coffee in his mug, waved for another one. And then he gave a nod of his head.

"Wasn't even a question about it. AVALANCHE shows up again, after tryin' to end all life on the planet... After killin' a dozen of my teammates? Yeah. Yeah, I'm right freakin' there. I'll take care of 'em."

His voice was empty as he spoke, now, his lips carefully neutral, his eyes on his mug.

"President said, they have a new base in Sector Seven. There's the thing about Midgar. It was... a split-level city. You got your slums below and the people with money, they live up top, on the plate. They get to see the sky, the people in the slums get to live in the dark in the dirt that nothin' can grow in. And the plates come in chunks. Like a pizza, yo. A sector, with people up top and people underneath."

Another mouthful of coffee. He was going to be twitching for the rest of the day if he kept treating it like booze.

"So, AVALANCHE has a base, somewhere in the slums in Sector Seven. The president won't give us coordinates, not like he's got 'em. Won't give us a chance to dig 'em up. Wants us to just blow out the supports holdin' up the plate." Pause. Frown. "Not 'us.' Only takes one Turk to hit the button."

There was a long, long pause from Romeo, trying to process this, and then: "Jesus."

"I'm going to guess they didn't even try to evacuate everyone else." There was some muted horror in his voice, though he was trying to swallow it. This was Reno. He couldn't just ... sit here and judge.

[OOC: Sorry for not being around last night, I have a rotten cold and needed sleeeeep.]

Sure he could. Reno wouldn't have blamed him for it if he did.

"More damage, they figured, the better. Pin the blame on AVALANCHE, which would be dead anyhow, and they get off lookin' like the heroes again." He scowled, darkly, and gave his head a shake. "People underneath, people up top, didn't matter if you were rich or poor. Sector Seven was just..."

Explosions and screams and metal twisting--

He took another mouthful of coffee, his eyes on the table.

"Rikku knows two things. That I work for what's left of that government, and that I dropped the plate. Not why I did it, not like 'why' makes any difference. Not with somethin' like that."

[OOC: Totally okay. Sleeeeeeep is goooooood.]

"Jesus," Romeo said again, because there was nothing to say, nothing except blasphemy. His eyes were carefully focused at a neutral point over Reno's head.

He didn't think Reno was a kid, but even so, he couldn't help wondering what kind of world used a teenager to do something like that.

Then again, who else would do it? Adults always wanted their hands as clean as possible. Better to send out some stupid kid, with a gun or ... with his hand on a button.

"I don't think the why would help," he finally said, tone flat. "Would you do something like that again, if you got another order?"

"Would I?"

Reno absently stuck a finger into his coffee, giving it a bit of an agitated stir. He didn't care that it burned. That meant that he was feeling something, right now.

"I told Tseng I would. On Monday, on the phone, yoto. 'S why I wasn't doin' so hot when Rikku found me pukin' in the wastebasket. 'S what led up to all of... this."

Honesty was a killer.

"But if I really did get that order again? If the boss were to dial me up again, and I had to choose between killin' another couple thousand people or bein' hunted down like a dog by the closest thing to family I got...?"

Those weren't the only options. They never were. Find a way out, make a way out, it was amazing what could be done with rubber bullets, but rubber bullets had been done before, they'd know. It wouldn't work again. There was only so much room for loyalty.

His voice dropped so low he wasn't sure he was actually speaking anymore, and he pulled his finger from the mug, giving his hand an almost dismissive sort of flick to get the excess coffee off of his skin. "That'd be the day they find a redheaded Turk with a bullet in his brain, and they gotta do the damn thing themselves."

Romeo winced at that. "There would be another way, somehow," he said, not sounding like he entirely believed it. "Run away. Get someone here to face them down. Something."

"Besides," he added, dropping his own voice low, eyes still on that invisible thing over Reno's head that seemed to be so interesting. "Bullets in the brain ... they solve fewer problems than you would think."

"Nice thought," Reno mused. "Some other way out. Nowhere to run to, nobody left to do any facing down. But 's a nice thought, man."

He glanced up, his face still a careful sort of mask of neutrality. Nothing the matter, nothing very great, just sitting there and breathing. Breathing was a great place to start.

Romeo certainly sounded like he knew what he was talking about, there.

"Everything's different now, anyhow. Company's got no power left, the military ain't worth shit, and there are only four Turks left, and one of 'em is a newbie. Wouldn't know dirty work if it kicked her in the ass." Lucky, lucky Elena. "I think the only reason any of us are still in on it is because it'd be sick to leave the new President to his own devices right now."

Did he want to pry? About the rest of it? Romeo knowing what it was like? Just didn't seem...

Wasn't his business, really.

"I'd be there" Romeo said, still quietly. "Whatever I could do, I would."

He wasn't deluded enough to think this would actually make a huge difference, not if the people Reno worked for were like what he thought they were, but it seemed worth saying anyhow. Because ... because this was Reno, and he deserved it ... and because in some way it would make up for Mercutio.

He emptied his own coffee, flagged for a refill. "Maybe it will go away, if it's on such shaky ground. Dissolve to air, and leave you free."

He would explain the bullet in the brain thing. He owed that much. Just ... not right now.

"Wouldn't know what to do with freedom, either," Reno sighed, shaking his head. "But it... Uh. That you'd be there. That really means..."

Being sentimental. Reno sucked at being sentimental.

"Thanks, man."

He'd ask, some other time, maybe. About the rest of it.

The Perk, Thursday midday

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject