melodiesoflife | [Open] But you won't see me fall apart

WHO: Reno and YOU!
WHEN: Throughout the month of January, excepting the Enemy Within event
WHERE: Throughout Aqures Ixen; prompts below

The Hospital

"Wh... what do you mean, he's gone?"

"Well, he crystallized, kupo. He was taken to the hospital yesterday. But if you're Reno -- well, he had a letter for you -- "

Reno stood numb as the moogle explained and fetched the envelope for him. He remained numb throughout the day. At some point he must have left the house, though he didn't remember exactly how he got from there to anywhere. Grit was gone. First Kyo, and now... And Rufus had just arrived, too. Reno didn't know how he felt, except very confused and very, very lost. The time he spent at the hospital doubled as he watched over the two men, hoping someday he'd get to talk to them again. The boy he'd loved a world away, and the man who'd loved him without any hope of mutual affection. Reno felt as though he'd been robbed. So he did the only thing he could: remain in patient vigil, over them and over Yuki, waiting.

Palitutu's Lab

Reno continued to try his damnedest to crack Palitutu's passwords and finally get at what she'd hidden on her computer. He was making progress, he knew, slowly but surely. Still, it frustrated him that he hadn't broken it yet. He wanted to know what Palitutu was working on, what she knew, why she'd done what she had -- and he wanted to know now. Her knowledge about the crystals and the heroes could prove invaluable to everyone here; and, perhaps for selfish reasons, Reno hoped what he found could help reverse the crystallization process for heroes already trapped.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes, the burning sensation telling him he was long due for a break away from this screen.

The Pub...s...

If it wasn't one place, it was another. Old habits died hard, especially when circumstances acted as a catalyst. Whatever progress Reno had made against drinking as coping, it was slowly eroding -- as others guilty of the same probably noticed. Not that they'd likely stop each other. Things were easier to handle, or avoid, with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other.

B-04

Eventually, Reno would make his way "home." He had to. With Rufus in the city, he couldn't very well continue to stay with Yuffie and Vincent, leaving Rufus potentially vulnerable. He especially couldn't leave Rufus alone with Tifa. It just seemed to be asking for trouble. People would be able to find him more frequently at his home assignment, either in his room or around the premises. Tifa would be nearly impossible to avoid; Alice probably had forgotten everything about the strange redhead now slipping about the place. The women were hardly the most awkward of circumstances, though, as Reno attempted to make sharing a bedroom with Rufus as comfortable as humanly possible for them both.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Reno looked at the crystal figures in silence for a moment.

"Angeal was missed," he said honestly. "Zack was missed. The idea of you was missed, at least. Genesis... essentially was written out of history."

His shoulders sank. For all he stayed with Shinra, he was very aware of its problems. "They pretty much wrote off the lot of you, an' sealed all the records. Once you all got stamped with KIA, they did their best to bury you. A dark mark on Shinra's record an' all."

"Indeed." A rather sticky, thick saga closed and locked away, set never to see the light of day again. Sephiroth knew that would obviously be the way of it, in the aftermath of Nibelheim given what he'd read in his own unlocked filed, but even in knowing it did little to take the bitterness away.

"Makes me wonder, sometimes, what the hell it was all for."

It was rare to hear Sephiroth utter anything close to what would be considered a curse-word but on this particular topic he couldn't keep his feelings obscure for very long. Given as he were still, for the most part, searching for himself within himself after having all the cards laid out in front of him, as it were.

"It's ironic. That we were all brought here to be the Heroes we'd always wanted to be. Only to find that it's not a path half as gilded as it was advertised."

"I didn't even wanna be a hero." The Turks got members from all walks of life, for all different reasons. But for Shinra, the reason was the same: they were useful. They were all very good at what they did, and what they did was often not good in the least.

"But whoever gets what they asked for, right?"

It had been very much the romantic musings of Genesis, alongside Angeal's stalwart values about honor which had shaped what it was to be a Hero to many of those who made it into SOLDIER at the time. Sephiroth, however, hadn't much set out to be a Hero so much as to work at his own strengths. He'd shown a quick affinity towards combat at an early age and only the smallest encouragement had set him on a path to make a place for himself where he didn't want or need to be sheltered by the Company that had raised him; never mind the extent it might have been intended for him to do so.

One persons Hero was another's worst nightmare; Wutai had taught him that. Nevertheless, he'd reveled in the challenges and reaped the rewards well enough. Until it had started to break friendship apart.

"That's true. No matter how much we might want to shape our own destinies."

Reno scowled as he looked back at Sephiroth -- really looked at him. Thought about him. Read him.

"What made you change?" he asked finally, bluntly. "What is it here, now, that is making you want to be different? Because on Gaia, you were pretty damn clear about how you wanted to shape the future."

If Reno found out he was a product of scientific experimentation and alien DNA, he might go ballistic, too. Not that that justified doing it. What Reno didn't understand was, if Sephiroth knew his history -- and, presumably, his future -- why wasn't he going berserk the same way? What was different?

Even though Sephiroth imagined he could feel the intensity with which Reno looked over him, he only met Reno's eye contact with something of a casual air before looking again to those men who had at one time had been his best friends. Already he figured he'd stayed longer than he really intended to; they always managed to stir thoughts best left buried in his subconscious somewhere.

Reno's blunt question brought him around from a sort of daze. Sephiroth blinked, then immediately frowned as his thoughts were interrupted and taken down another path. One that might eventually find Reno his answer. The crease between Sephiroth's eyebrows deepened as he struggled to come up with anything that might definitively answer Reno.

The clear fact was; he didn't know.

"Honestly, I'm not sure." It was a question that often found it's way forward to his front of his consciousness, but ended up shoved right back into it's corner mentally. Another unresolved issue which continued to fester. Despite the lack of mako-glow in Sephiroth's eyes they did seem to take on something of a sheen as the ever-reserved SOLDIER tried to find the right words; keenly aware that Reno deserved an answer.

"It might be that I didn't experience it..." There was a peak of shoulders in a shrug, open-armed but then he folded them over his chest. "I find myself asking myself that often, why I end up that way. I just..."

Having looked away, Sephiroth's expression darkened and his narrow lips pursed together. He couldn't give off more negative body language if he tried.

"...I don't get it."

He stared at the SOLDIER for a little while longer before looking back at the crystals. He didn't experience it. Was being ripped out of time really enough to be so disconnected from the information? If Reno had only heard about the Sector 7 massacre but hadn't caused it yet, would he feel differently?

He supposed it was possible.

"Maybe you won't be him after all," he murmured.

"Oh I will be. There isn't any point dancing around that fact."

Given how he remembered things he hadn't before when he'd come back from a stasis in the past, it did seem to suggest that all of their futures -come whatever may- had already come to pass if one were to try and think chronologically. It was like whatever devices were used to 'pick' Heroes could take them from any point in their life; but their crystals held their entire essence including what would (or may have already) happen later.

Sephiroth kept his gaze forward but down at the floor some, more at the feet of those crystal statues than looking at anything specific. It was clear he didn't like the fact stated, being as he had always prized his own independence, his autonomy from any 'fate'.

"Whatever it is, truth is I just haven't gotten there yet. I'd like very much for it to stay that way, as well, for as long as possible."

Though Reno knew as well as he did, there were no guarantees. The stasis has taken others, given them back or kept them almost as if it had a will of its own. Sometimes people were changed when they returned, other times not. There was no calling it.

Not to mention what might be the climax, of all of this should they somehow overcome the challenges that stared at them from down a vast gauntlet of problems they'd been not only dragged into but pushed along.

Reno was quiet for a moment. Sephiroth was right. And Reno felt foolish for ever doubting, even for a second, that things could change. Shit happened, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

He thought he'd changed. And then he was thrown into another world, alone. Again. As if none of it mattered.

Maybe it didn't. Eventually, Sephiroth would become a murderer, no matter what "good" things happened in the meantime. "Well. When it comes t' that? We'll stop you."

"I know." A short answer, but Sephiroth lowered his tone just to keep it private somehow between the two of them. Not that there were any eavesdroppers but one can never be too careful.

"I'm counting on it. Not only for the sake of Crystallis, or of Gaia, but all Worlds that might come afterwards."

The Calamity here really wasn't all that different to Jenova in terms of it's consume-and-move-on life path. A fact that Sephiroth were, clearly aware of. There were correlations which Genesis had shown him, early on, that he'd never been able to dismiss really even if he hadn't been willing to accept the personal ramifications back then. Now though, it was hard not to think about them.

"Stay strong, Reno." The corners of his mouth twitched up in a light smile as Sephiroth turned from facing those two crystallized once-friends of his and strode towards the exit of the room. He'd already spent way long enough stood there contemplating.

[Open] But you won't see me fall apart

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we can wrap soon

Yep! Wrapping up!