Friday Morning, The Wee, Wee Hours, Room 429
Tseng
Tseng flipped the file shut and tossed it onto his desk, the frown lines etching deeper into his face.
Page after page, the same phrases had jumped out at him. Silver-haired men. Mako reactors. Strong. Cruel. Cunning. Coincidence, he tried to dismiss it as. The Mako reactors had seen their share of criminal activity since ShinRa's fall. Silver was an unusual hair color, but not unheard of. Just a local gang, looking for something to salvage in the abandoned buildings.
Except his gut said something was off, and listening to hunches usually kept Turks alive.
Tseng reached for his cellphone and dialed.
Reno
Reno was quite comfortable, thank you very much, curled up against Rikku and off and asleep in that pleasant sort of place that he found most often when his arms were wrapped around her.
Leave it to the ringing phone to pull him out of his happy place.
With a grunt, he reached over Rikku to grab the phone from his nightstand. Turk ringtone. It was either Rude, drunk and being obnoxious, or the boss, probably calling to nag about his weekly report. It was due on Friday, after all.
"Mnngh," Reno informed the phone helpfully after he answered it. Because dammit, he was still asleep, his eyes were only half open, and if it was Rude, he was gonna kill him.
Tseng
"Reno," said Tseng crisply. "I apologize for the late hour." He wouldn't bother in a true emergency, but the distinction seemed clear enough that politeness dictated he offer a token gesture.
"Your services are needed in Edge."
Reno
Not Rude. Damn it. Reno was gonna kill Rude for not being the one to wake him up, then. Because phone calls from the boss in the dead of night, apology or no, meant that he was going to have to work his ass hard once whatever assignment he was needed on was a go.
"You know how long?"
That, at the moment, seemed like the most pressing question. Because 'not coming back' was not an acceptable answer.
Tseng
"If all proceeds as planned, a few days will be sufficient."
Tseng did not need to add that if things did not go as planned, there was no clear answer to Reno's question. Reno knew that as well as any Turk.
"Rude will arrive with the chopper in the morning."
Reno
Few days good. Routine mission, of some sort. Theoretically. Reno could work with that.
"Causeway. Morning. Got it. Anything I should bring?"
Booze was already the first item on Reno's list of necessities. Especially after the little mumble that Rikku just made, followed up by more snuggling.
... How the hell was he going to tell Rikku? Even a couple of days could easily turn into...
Tseng
"Only the essentials," Tseng said. Materia, potions, his weapon, a change of clothes. Routine mission, and if it wasn't, what Reno did or didn't pack would be the last of anyone's concern.
"You will receive a full briefing once you arrive."
And as he had said all that needed to be said, Tseng hung up.
Reno
...
"Jerk," Reno mumbled into the phone before shutting it and scowling. The essentials. Booze, porn, weapons, a potion or something, and maybe those fireworks he'd made back in the summer workshops. Yeah, yeah. Reno got the drift.
He was going to just lay there, staring at Rikku, trying to work up the nerve to wake her and tell her what was going on. Any minute now. Any. Minute. Now.
Rikku
"'Searly," said the lump somewhere near his chest or so.
It might be alive. It was certainly burrowing into the covers a lot.
Reno
"S'early," Reno agreed, swallowing a very different sort of lump that seemed to be forming in his throat. And then wiggling over her to put the phone back on the nightstand. He didn't want it in his hand. He didn't want anything to do with it. "Maybe get back to sleep? I, uh." Uh. "I gotta pack some stuff real quick."
Rikku
That didn't sound good.
Behold, a Rikku, surfacing from the deep to peer at him.
"Where're you goin'?"
Reno
"Duty calls," came the reply, as lightly as Reno could possibly manage. He really wasn't worried about the assignment. He seldom ever was. What concerned him the most was that this conversation was not apt to end well. "Some kinda job back in Edge. Shouldn't take long. I'm headed out in the morning, zoto."
He was going to hold his breath now and wait for the reply. Yep.
Rikku
"Oh." Rikku sat up, tugging the covers along, and brushed her hair out of her face. "Oh. Y-yeah. That's .... kinda sudden, yeah?"
She was very carefully not looking at Reno.
Reno
Reno, on the other hand, was making a point to not look away for as long as possible. Reading her face. Trying to figure out if there was any way to pull his ass out of this pit he'd just fallen into.
"Always is, yo. If it was somethin' they could give me a week's notice for, they would'a called in SOLDIER to do it, instead." Except they couldn't, because there was no such thing, anymore. "Honestly, there ain't many of us. I'm surprised it took 'em this long to need me for whatever routine run they're makin' me skip out to."
Why yes, he had made a point of putting extra emphasis into "routine."
Rikku
"Must be important," she said, hugging her knees. Staring at the covers. The covers, they were fascinating. "For him to call all ... late like this."
Important meant dangerous. Important meant likely to be messy. Important meant he may not be back home again for weeks.
Home. Stupid. That was his home, not here.
Reno
"Everything we do is important," Reno replied, shaking his head. Oh man. This was going great. "Tseng said we were gonna probably just need a couple of days, yo. I'll probably be back in time for classes next week, no problem."
The nonchalant reply could be attributed, at least, to the fact that Reno really wasn't worried. Tseng hadn't given him any reason to be. "He probably didn't get the assignment until late, either. S'how we work."
Rikku
And now she was peeling the covers back. Easier to slip out of bed and search for your clothes, that way.
"Last time, you had to give them my Blessed Gem just to convince them to let you come back at all," she reminded him, pulling on her shorts. "I don't have any more to give you."
Reno
He was pulling himself out of bed, too. Frowning.
"Last time, I was goin' back for an evaluation," he reminded her. "This ain't nothin' to get worked up over..." Or to turn into the amazing Rikku-shaped wall for. "I'm capable of comin' back on my own this time around. Things're different than they were then, zoto."
Rikku
She turned back around, eying him for a few seconds before speaking.
"You hope they are, zoto."
Reno
Reno frowned. Deeply.
"Last thing I wanna see before I go off on somethin' I'll be back from in three days is the back of your head," he stated.
He was supposed to be packing.
Packing could wait.
Rikku
Rikku had to raise an eyebrow to that.
"Routine. Boring. Just three days," she said. "If any of that were true, you wouldn't be so worried about the back of my head."
Reno
"I hate seein' you hit a wall like that even when I'm stayin' put," Reno replied pointedly. "Can't say three words to you, you just..."
Deep breath. Try not to scowl too much. "You hear what you think you should be hearin', instead of what I'm sayin'. Maybe I just know by now that the back of your head means you don't wanna hear what I'm sayin', and I'll be back to point that out again after I'm done the assignment, zoto."
Rikku
She considered this for a few seconds before putting her arms around him and leaning her head against his chest.
"Make you a deal," she said. "You come back in three days, safe and sound, and you get to say 'I-told-you-so' all you want."
Reno
Reno nodded, pulling her close and leaning forward to kiss her forehead.
"Sounds like a deal to me, yoto."
He had packing to do.
It could wait for a little while. Turks tended to pack lightly, anyhow.
[Establishy! Preplayed with the_merriest, who played Rikku and Tseng and is awesome and pie and all kinds of sticky sweet things that get between your teeth so you have yummy aftertaste all day afterward. Also, LJ is mean and was down for the past couple of hours. Which is possibly why I'm babbling, now. Not for interaction, but OOC is shiny.]