fandomtownies | The Park, Saturday Afternoon

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The Park, Saturday Afternoon

Okay, so, Reno's Rookies were having issues. Week-old issues, sure, but this was the earliest that he could book a portal out. He would have been here sooner if only Tseng would have let him steal the chopper for a few days.

Tseng really was a stick in the mud sometimes, Reno decided. Who cared about conserving fuel when it was a matter of Rookie sanity?

... Reno sometimes had slightly skewed priorities.

In any case, he'd snagged a spot on one of the benches by the pond, and was casually puffing away at a cigarette, taking a few hours to just get used to crap like 'living green things' and 'fresh water' again. He'd left ~~handwavey~~ messages for the Rookies, so that they'd know where to find him if they felt up to it. But right now, even if it was only for a weekend, he was going to savor the feeling of being home.

[Open park is open, naturally!]

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Okay.

Okay. So. She'd hung up on him. On Thursday. Because... just because.

Because.

She'd gotten his message, sure. Which had left her--hesitating, for a bit, because...

(Again with the Just Because.)

Because she wanted to see him and wasn't sure if she should. Which was--stupid. He'd kinda come to Fandom just because she'd called and needed him. Which was... something. It made her feel warm, inside, to know that.

That was what got her down there. Step by step, hands shoved in a light jacket, armlet from Zack on one arm, the bracelet she'd picked up in Midgar's slums on the other. Neither were a potion but she was still working on that one. It was stupid, to be worried about things from Gaia. She hadn't picked up her copy of Loveless yet. She'd have to try and read it again, soon.

She was not going to fear a whole world because of one being. Not for long.

Ino leaned against the back of the bench. This, too, was a bit of courage.

"Yo," she said softly.

And there was Reno, craning his neck to look back at the ninja, exhaling, and then stubbing what was left of his cigarette out on the bench.

Okay, now he could pull himself to his feet, give her a good once-over, and make certain he could take in how okay she was or wasn't.

And now? Now he was making his way around the bench and reaching to pull her into a friggin' hug. Because he'd wanted to do that since Thursday, and it still seemed to him like she was a Rookie in need of one.

See? Totally got soft, here.

"Yo, Rookie."

He could hug her. She was reaching back. Stepping into it. Would it be alright if she clung for awhile? She'd wanted a hug since Monday and he was the first to give her one.

Elena had given her words. Jen had called her names. Romeo was letting her visit him. Tyler-sensei... she hadn't told.

She buried her face against him, shoulders trembling but she wasn't crying, and just breathed. He smelled like cigarettes. Like Edge. Like Reno.

It was safe, here.

Hey, Reno was here. It was all good. He... didn't do this hugging thing much except with Rikku, of course, but if it was good enough for Ino, then, shit, he could spend the whole weekend here, being safe.

"Hangin' in there?"

Considering what he suspected she'd been through, she seemed to be doing pretty damn well, if you asked him.

That got a nod against him and Ino reluctantly admitting to herself that she was going to have to pull back in order to really talk to him. She loosened her grip and stepped back, not far.

"Can't do much else," she admitted, mostly to the ground. "Ain't going to--break. Or nothing. I... thank you. For coming."

"You're my Rookie," he pointed out. "It's what I do, yoto."

Well. It was. Or, at least, it was one of a multitude of things on a very long list of stuff that Reno did. Much of which involved Rookies, unless it came with the caveat, '... when drinking.'

That was a different matter entirely.

"What you been up to since we talked?"

"Talked to Tyler-sensei 'bout missing class on Monday," she said, pinking up a bit at his first bit and choosing to answer the question instead. "And a lot of writing."

She hadn't been the sort of girl to keep a diary, before Fandom. But here--writing things out was easier and now it was habit. Made her feel like there was something accomplished when she looked back at the words she'd written out.

"Not... much else."

Rookie had been hiding, yes.

In the face of something like that, Reno might have even chosen to do the same. The hiding bit, at least.

That depended entirely on whether or not there was an island left by the time he was done freaking out and punching walls, of course.

"Sounds like as good a way to handle the week as any," he mused, looking her over one more time for good measure. "You always wear armor to the park?"

Her hand went to brush the armlet, without thinking.

"If I don't wear it now," Ino said, looking up at him. "Then I'll never touch it again."

Avoidance was just as habit-forming as everything else.

Reno gave the armlet a look, and then Ino a different look, and then he was nodding at the bench.

"Take a seat, Rookie. We gotta talk."

Gaia didn't mean Jenova. In fact, some of Gaia was everything that Jenova wasn't.

She gave him a look of her own but stepped around the bench to sit down without a word.

A talk.

Okay. Right. She could do a talk. She didn't know what that look of his had been about but--talking. Ino was pretty good at talking.

Bowing her head slightly, she fussed with the armlet, adjusting how it sat on her arm (needlessly, pointlessly) and swallowed.

"'bout what?"

Did she want to know?

Why not, right?

"So, once upon a time, there was this race of, like, planet-mother fine-tuned-to-nature tree-huggin' hippie people called the Cetra," Reno said, flopping back on the bench and slinging his arms up and over the back of the seat as he looked up at the sky. "They were pretty much everything that your average blue alien bitch bent on universal destruction happened to loathe about The Planet, so when she touched down, she... more or less obliterated 'em. Stop me if you heard this one before?"

Storytime with Reno could be so... unique, though.

He did have a way with words.

Ino didn't ask what this had to do with her. Even if she'd flinched at the word 'bitch'. When applied to Jenova it--

Well. No. She wouldn't call Jenova something so... normal.

"How did people stop her?"

Cetra. She hadn't heard that word before. Were they the same as the Ancients?

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