Room of Handwaviness, Arms Hotel, Early Saturday Morning

[the_merriest]

Today? Today was Reno's birthday. He wasn't a teenager any more. She was going to tease him a lot about being oooooold.

When he woke up. Because they were celebrating in Fandom this weekend, since his home was kinda depressing (no offense) and her home had everybody in everybody else's business (downside of living in a commune of sorts) and neither would allow for a nice, relaxing weekend spent cuddling and not ever getting out of bed, ever.

Rikku was mostly asleep, and trying to convince herself to go back to all asleep. And wondering if Reno was up. She'd trade "back to sleep" for "morning gropey times" if he was. She was flexible like that.

(Reno modded with permission. THIS POST IS FOR: Reno, and anyone who might call Rikku or Reno frantically to panic about their AU sprog. Nice, relaxing weekend? Fandom laughs at this idea! Wait for ze OCD!)

Comments

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

"Yes, yes happy birthday," she drawled, amused at that. "Maybe that's the island's gift to you: no kids."

She glanced over at her... uh... happy family. "I got two, lucky me."

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

"Aw, yeah? Any reruns this year?"

Reno had no idea.

Reno would probably end up screaming at walls once this phone call was finished.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

It was a truth of Rookie phone calls: half of them from Ino wound up with him feeling like that. A gift of hers, apparently.

"Reruns?" she spluttered, laughing. "That's what you call 'em if they show more than once? Reno! And, no, I didn't get reruns. I never do."

What that said about her possible futures... uh, Ino wasn't going to think too much about that.

"They're cute, though, one's five and the other's 'bout nine, I think. Angeal and Inori Fair." That last bit, she dropped her voice for. Simple precaution. "You get one guess at their parentage."

He really didn't need it.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

Reno damn near dropped his phone.

Fuck. Fucksakes. Fucking fuck fucker fuckity fucknuggets McFuckerson the fucked.

"You an' Zack? Really?"

No, Reno. She was totally messing with you.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

"According to them," she said, fighting the urge to laugh. "And, believe me, they look it."

Seriously. Sooo seriously.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

"They look it? What're they like?"

Oh, yes. You better believe Reno was now attempting to figure out just how much of the timeline would have to change in order to accommodate Zack and Ino having two kids, one of them nine years old.

Damn his inability to do math. He was going to make an educated guess, and say the answer to his 'what is Zack's current age plus nine' question was a resounding, 'crap, some Zack out there is still alive'

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

"Inori's the nine year old," she said, smiling. "She's got long dark hair and Zack's eyes. I mean that, by the way; did you know some level of mako contamination or whatever seems to get passed along? Her eyes aren't as bright as his but they're... well, noticeable."

Brighter than Ino's and Ino's eyes were as blue as blue could be and still be natural.

"Angeal's blond, blue eyed but not mako-eyed, and five. He says he's going to be the bestest ninja ever."

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

"So they grew up in your neck of the woods, then?"

That would be another resounding round of 'the many variations of fuck in D-minor,' playing through Reno's brain.

"Either that, or you guys booked it to Wutai, yo."

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

"Going from how Zack's reading the menu to them right now," she replied lightly, "they're from my place. Plus there's the whole thing that both of them are in the Academy. And Zack's apparently a ninja too."

That was a snicker, yes. Zack was not the ninja sort.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

"He any good at it?"

Maybe he stuck around long enough to save the world and then became a ninja? Please?

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

"No clue," she said, lightly. "Well, not no clue--he's Jounin, apparently--but honestly? The kids ain't going to be the best judge of that, you know?"

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

Reno twitched a bit of a smile. Because if he wasn't grinning just then, he'd be freaking the hell out and kicking in the door to the minibar.

"Here's where I pretend I know what kinda rank a Jounin is, right?"

Nonchalant. Cooool. Nothing was the matter at all.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

Riiight.

"Badass elite," she said, sighing. "Kinda like your SOLDIER 1st Class, or the highest rankin' Turks. He's up there."

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

"This is me, completely unsurprised, yo."

He was. He was completely unsurprised.

He was also systematically thumbing his materia into and out of his EMR. Because it was something to do with his hands. Not unlike a nervous twitch.

"That why you called? Lettin' me know you're a mom?" A pause. "It's a little late for a baby shower, yo. But I could probably get you diapers if you ask nice."

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

"Nooo," she said, though part of that had been it. Ino sighed. "Look, you 'round Fandom at all this weekend? Or can be?"

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

Snerk. Yes. The sound that Reno made into his phone was absolutely a snerk.

"I might be able to take the detour," he mused, looking out the window over the island at large. "Why, you have somethin' in mind?"

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

"Babysitting," she said, her voice lowering further. "Look, Zack needs--space. He's not dealing with this well and I don't want him going a whole weekend and I won't leave him alone."

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

"Dealing well?" ... Oh, fuck. "Somethin' go down back home or somethin'?

He could guess. He wasn't particularly close to the kid when he'd spent that span of months hanging out with some of the other Turks, but gossip travelled.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

"He made 1st last week," she said flatly. "You goin' tell me you don't know what followed that right after, Reno?"

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

"I think I called him names by the fountain when he tried to get in the way of one of my Rookies," Reno offered, easily. "It's been a few years, yo."

He knew full well what happened right after that. Tseng and some kid in the Infantry came back being held together with potions and a prayer, and they forced the SOLDIER kid to take leave for... Well, for months. SOLDIER became practically a nonentity until the attack on Junon, because on top of the rest of it, their Director decided to take off after smuggling a ridiculous amount of gil to Hollander.

AVALANCHE continued to suck, of course, so Reno had only kind of been paying attention.

Good times. Good times.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

"Angeal," she said, not in the mood to play his word games. "Angeal's dead and a week later we've got a kid named after him. Can you guess why Zack might not be dealing so well?"

Could she drawl that more insultingly? Well, yes, she probably could. But not to Reno.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

Reno signed. Fine, fine, he'd behave. But only because she was his Rookie.

"Yeah, I can guess. It was Angeal and Genesis, too. Genesis was a bigger deal to the Turks, yo. Bastard killed two of ours, back in Banora. Angeal was just another target, so far as we were concerned."

Of course, it turned out that they were celebrating the defeat of Genesis for nothing. But at the time, it was nice to think that the guy had been done away with. So far as they knew now, he was still out there somewhere.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

"Zack didn't say much 'bout Genesis," she admitted. "Which... makes sense from his perspective, you know?"

Her heart still bled for the way Zack was dealing.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah," Reno sighed. "Genesis was his enemy. Took away way too damn many SOLDIERS. Angeal was, what, the guy who trained him up, right?"

Reno knew this. Ino didn't have to know that Reno knew this. He'd heard about it mostly from Cissnei. Unlike Tseng, Cissnei had still been young and worried, and she'd needed to get that worry off of her chest.

Re: Reno's Cell!

[intraspective]

"His mentor," she said quietly. "A second dad."

Ino was keeping that smile on her face, now, out of sheer willpower. She was good at that, when she wanted to be.