milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Somewhere on the planet called Gaia, an unsuspecting but probably really friggin' deserving son of a bitch is getting killed and there might just be a lot of blood. Maybe even some guts spilling out, washing the landscape and scenery in dull red before the planet's guiding force rises up to call that sorry poor fuck back home. The Lifestream picks up around the bastard, engulfing him in a wash of green and blue and white light. Absorbing everything the guy is and was, taking all his memories with it to share, redistribute. It's a handy way of making sure no one who dies ain't ever gone for good and somewhere on the planet called Gaia, a family -- however small -- will come to know that one of its members won't ever be there any more. Somewhere else on Gaia a murderer's wiping blood and guts off his weapon, his hands, his suit, cleaning things up, congratulating himself on a job well done. Maybe even his partner's there patting him on the back, and then they go out for a drink and make a toast: To The Job.

It's happening somewhere, but today -- no matter how much he wishes he was -- Reno ain't involved with that kind of fun. Nope. As much as he yearns for the thrill of a good assignment, they don't really do that shit very much any more. All this planetary rebuilding and babysitting the boss for hours are fine for a friggin' moron, but he's a Turk. All his life, he's trained to do the shit Turks do. This nice-guy crap's a real disappointment.

Faced with all that, what's left for a guy but to head to a bar and drink? Shit, it sounded like a good idea to him, especially when he fingered that butter knife in his pocket and thought about this place at the next door he opened. That's how come his skinny butt's glued to a bar stool, his second bottle of Wutai Pale Ale in his hand and a third sitting there waiting. When he drinks, he doesn't waste time.

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"Why would I save your pie? I don't know, Chuck. Probably because it looks better on the plate than all over my lap." That's one thing.

"Why would I start the pie trouble in the first place? Probably 'cause I'm the baby of five kids and that's the kind of shit the youngest always pulls."

That's two things. "And why would I kiss you? Let's see. You're a lady, I'm a guy. You're cute and I like you. Plus, it makes you blush and that's cool."

There. That's three things he might do. "Which one of those were you talkin' about, Chuck?"

She nods easily at the first two 'why's', grinning just a bit. But that last one makes her twitch still. Her eyes take on a sort of deer-in-the-headlights look.

"The pie!" she says way too quickly for it to be true.

Of course it's the pie.

That blush? It's not going anywhere.

Shit, she's pretty friggin' cute.

The pie. Right.

"Speaking of pie... here." He digs his fork into his own pie and offers her a mouthful. "I promise: no tricks. No muss, no fuss. Just pie. It's really good and you have to try it."

He really ain't foolin' this time. No tricks. To prove like he means it, he cups his right hand under the fork. Makes it look like a friggin' offering, but he's serious about it. He already made her blush enough times, and Charlie... she's nice.

Despite the fact that she should be suspicious, her expression suggests that she's not at all. Charlie just grins in appreciation and leans forward to take a bite.

She blushes just a bit when her chin brushes his cupped hand, but she gets that under control (well, relatively) in just a few seconds.

Then she giggles. "You know," she says after taking a moment to get herself under control. "I already had some of that earlier today." Her voice is low and secretive, as if she's just pulled off a daring con job and she's letting Reno in on it.

"No shit, huh?" He gives her a modest little grin. "Was it as good then as it is now?" Fuck, he already ordered that third ale, so he might as well drink it. He could drink a lot more than this and planned on doing that until Chuck here sideswiped him with pie.

But an open bottle of Wutai Pale left untouched is a friggin' sin. It's against his own personal religion, so he takes a nice long sip. "I'm glad you stopped by with pie, Charlie. You got a gift, you know that?" Shit, he bets she could take anyone's bad day, shake it up, and make it better.

"It's nothing special," Charlie shakes her head with a grin. "People just need good food and a friendly smile. Anyone can handle that."

She wraps her hands around her coffee mug before hunching over to taking a long sip. "Hey, I bet you'd be pretty good at it!"

Which demonstrates just how great a judge of character Charlie is.

All the fuck he can do when faced with such eternal, misguided, and beautiful optimism is grin -- just a tiny bit -- and sip his beer. He ain't the guy who brings a smile to peoples' faces and he knows it.

It's so nice to be mistaken for someone who gives a fuck, though. Nice change of pace.

"Listen, Chuck. You got enough energy to take care of my part of that for me. I'm counting on you."

"I'll do my best, Mister Reno, sir." Charlie tries to sit at attention and throws up a terrible excuse for a salute.

It goes about as well as one might predict. Poorly.

Shaking his head in moderate amusement, he goes ahead and finishes his pie. Now he has no more ammunition to use against her, 'cause he ain't gonna pour his beer on her or anything like that. He knew before that half-assed salute that she'd make a terrible soldier. She's too friggin' perky, and no one's ever heard of a perky friggin' soldier.

"All right, Chuck. I'm gonna finish this beer and get back home. In a much better mood, I should add."

Hey, she makes him smile. There ain't a hell of a lot of people who actually do that.

She would make an excellent soldier! It would just take a very, very special sort of army. It would probably be pretty terrifying, actually.

"Mission accomplished, then," Charlie beams at him.

She leans over abruptly to give Reno a quick peck on the cheek. It's just a quick act of revenge. Because... that'll teach him! Yep!

She's all kinds of sweet and he'll take that little kiss as a sign he's completely victorious here. He ain't so sure what the fuck the victory's over, but he'll take it.

Grinning, he parks his ale bottle on the bar. "You're cute, Chuck. See you next time, okay?" Reaching over, he ruffles her hair. So what if his hand stays there just a second longer than it should? She doesn't look like she minds.

Then he reaches into his pocket and sets enough gil down on the bar to cover his drinks and their pie and her coffee and a little extra, 'cause that's what you do in a bar.

"See ya."

What the fuck: he kisses the top of her head, then turns and walks to the door.

She giggles and blushes all at once.

She likes Reno. He's sweet.

"See ya!" she calls at his back.

From Kate's booth near the bar, it's hard to miss that familiar voice saying see ya and even harder to miss that wild head of hair. She looks up from her beer and idly watches Reno walk toward the front of the bar.

And open that nonexistent door.

Slowly, she rises to her feet, her eyes never leaving that glimpse of the outside she's getting. There's sunlight that comes in through what amounts to a neat door-shaped hole in the wall, and that's what gets her, what reels her in and won't let go.

Abandoning her beer bottle, she starts for the door almost before she has a chance to think about what she's doing. She sees the rectangle of daylight start getting smaller, as if a door's closing on it, and she sprints between tables and right through the opening.

And just like that, painlessly, she's out, stopping abruptly on the other side.

Three beers -- excuse him, ales -- or not, he didn't get to be a Turk at a young age by being an asshat. Well, at least not by being a stupid asshat; he knows when someone's following him. For a while he pretends like he doesn't notice: he walks through the streets of Midgar like he could give a fuck about anything. Stops, looks in the window of that new take-out place -- hey, it's crowded, that's a good sign -- and checks out some of the rebuilding. That's Reeve's business, all that WRO crap, and the center of the square's looking pretty good these days.

Of course, Sector 7 still looks like hell but that ain't where they are and it ain't where he lives so he doesn't care. Well, yeah, he does, but he can't give it up about that to anyone ever, so... he runs his hands through his hair, gets distrustful looks from a couple people (probably always hated Shin-Ra and he doesn't take it personally), works his way toward the crowd hanging out in the square.

And yeah, she's still there. The fuck's her name again? He only met her a couple times, but he likes her. Kate, that's it. Her name's Kate, and she fell out of the rafters at the bar then showed up when he was bartending. Once he remembers it all -- gets it clear in his beer- and pie-filled brain -- he turns slowly.

"HEY." He nods her way. "The fuck you doing in Midgar?" Not that he has any complaints and just so she knows that, he offers her a smile.

At least it's almost a smile.

She knew he had to be on to her. It was like he was being a little too leisurely about looking around at things he's sure he probably sees every day, and it's not that she wants to tail him...

But she does need to know where she can find him -- or someone who can help her figure out where to find him -- if she needs to get back, right?

Folding her arms over her chest, she gives him a blameless half-grin. "Taking a breather. Seeing the sights."

Raising one eyebrow, he nods back in the direction of the first door he -- they -- walked out of. "So you just opened the door at the bar and found yourself here in Midgar. Ain't that convenient. Shit, you wanted to follow me out here, all you had to do is ask. I would've said sure."

He's real easy. How come she doesn't know that?

Still, he can't be mad. Sneaking around doing things is kind of a specialty of his. The only difference is he gets paid to do it, and he gets paid real well.

"And now you're out here: what are you gonna do? Can I at least give you a map of the city or something? A place to crash? I have a spare couch."

"Didn't have a chance to ask."

Maybe if she'd caught him before he left and had a chance to talk to him, but even as she watched him leave, she didn't plan to tag along.

Not until she saw that glimpse of sunlight -- it feels great out here, and part of that's the sheer rush that comes with getting away -- and then she knew she had to try. It wasn't somebody's home, and she's pretty sure that's helping Reno react more favorably here but maybe she's wrong.

"Wouldn't turn down a map." Her lips press together in a smile. "You in the habit of offering your couch to strange women?"

"The stranger the better." The words are out before he has a chance to think about them, but it ain't like that's new for him. "On second thought, I ain't so sure you make the grade." He gives her a little grin that's more real this time. "Just kidding. You want a map? Come on over to work with me. We'll get one from the man himself." It's Reeve's job to rebuild here and his office has all the latest information and shit.

"So really, though. You just wanted a trip away from the usual?" He nods her over in the direction of a pretty important-looking office building with flags on it. Yeah, it sure as fuck looks like the kind of place everyone wants to spend their friggin' vacation.

That's the kind of thing she could hear Sawyer saying, but she only rolls her eyes in passing before she answers with more of a smile.

He is helping her out.

"You could say that." Turning, she starts in the direction of the building he nodded to. "Been told I have trouble staying in one place for long." Not willing to end it on that, though, she goes on and gestures back toward the construction work being done on some of the buildings they've passed. "So what's going on around here? Looks like something pretty bad passed through."

He barely gives a passing glance to the square any more. "Oh, just Meteor. You know, doom and gloom, the destruction of life as we know it. This badass SOLDIER wants to be a god, decides to wreak a little bit of havoc on the Planet. The usual shit." It's over so he can be cavalier about it now and anyway, he made his own contribution to this city's destruction and he's not about to talk about that. "So that was a couple years ago, almost, and this" -- he waves to the city like it's his personal playground -- "is the rebuilding that's happened so far. Slow process." That there was a lot of damage is pretty friggin' obvious.

"You know. Same old shit."

Yeah, right.

"Come on. Get you your map. You got any gil?"

"A big meteor?"

She's not following him on the bit about the soldier wanting to be a god, but none of it seems like much of a big deal to him. It makes her wonder if he was out of town when it happened. If they're still working on it like this after a couple of years, the city must've been in horrible shape immediately after the meteor hit.

As they walk, she arches an eyebrow at him. "Can't breathe underwater, if that's what you mean."

She's pretty sure it's not.

That's right, most people don't know about the place. "No, Meteor. Capital M. It's a spell. He summoned a giant meteor to crash into the planet. It's... maybe what you'd call a form of magic. And Meteor... shit, that's big friggin' magic." He couldn't do it, wouldn't want to do it, despite his avowed love of pyrotechnics. Nope, regular bombs are good enough for him.

"And gil. G-I-L: it's the money here." He opens the door to Shin-Ra's Midgar headquarters, flashes his ID, makes up a name for Kate on the guest register like he did for Lara when she was here -- they'll waive asking her for an ID since she's with one of their own -- walks her past the potted plants and shiny floor and paintings on the walls toward an area with a big sign that says URBAN DEVELOPMENT on it.

Of course, the man in charge ain't in his office, but he knows the girl who runs shit for him here and it's a simple enough matter to sweet-talk her out of a copy of the city map. It ain't like anything on it's a secret or anything.

As soon as they get back out and into the city proper -- no one wants to talk about shit here at Corporate where the walls definitely have ears -- she can take a look at the map, figure out what she wants to do next. His offer of a couch is only good one time, and he won't be askin' her again. If she wants a place to crash now, she's going to have to let him know.

She didn't know this place had magic.

In retrospect, she doesn't doesn't think that would've stopped her from getting out while she could.

Once they're back outside, she partially unfolds the map -- just enough to find where they are on it -- and then looks over it at Reno.

"Tell you what. You let me borrow enough to get into the cheapest hotel around here, and you drink on my tab at the bar until we're even." He's being nice enough, but she's not so sure she wants to sleep on his couch. If her suggestion doesn't work, she'll just have to rethink that offer. "And that way you don't even have to make your place presentable."

She's got a friggin' point with that last one. He had advance notice when Lara was here, but now his place is back to its usual comfortable mess.

This is a risk, lending her money. And it ain't like he minds gambling, 'cause he doesn't. It's just he won't expect ever to see it again, and he ain't gonna expect to drink on her tab either.

"Tell you what. Give me that map for a second." When she does, he grabs a pen out of his pocket and circles a spot on the map, writes the address next to it. "So this is where I live. You get in any trouble or anything, come on over." Then he hands her one of his business cards; that's got his phone number on it. She's covered for getting in touch with him, at least. "Now, how long are you planning on staying in Midgar?" The amount of gil he might lend her will go up based on how many nights she stays, of course. "And how were you planning on getting back to the bar?"

If she was planning on that and he knows he's right: she didn't think this through at all.

"I'm planning to avoid trouble, but thanks." Folding the map up, she stuffs it in her pocket and crosses her arms. "If I find out your trick doesn't get me back on my own, I was planning to stay until I saw you again. I followed you so I'd know where to look for you later."

She tips her head slightly.

"If I'm here longer than a night, it won't be on your dime." She hesitates. "Gil."

If she's here any longer, she'll earn her own keep. She's only willing to borrow the money because it seems preferable to sleeping on his couch. The less he feels she owes him the better.