Time and Tides Archives

Rude tilted his head to one side slowly, trying to make sense of what Reno was talking about. The words themselves wouldn't have been too startling, but it was Reno. Reno didn't talk like this, so now that he was, it was important to listen. Rude just wasn't sure why his partner was saying this, or why he had suddenly trailed off, mouth open and eyes fixed on his.

"...Reno?" It was a quiet question, Rude trying to figure out what was going on with his partner through alcohol and all the stress of battle and waking up in a different world where your home was nothing more than ruins. Maybe the redhead needed to be reassured that Rude didn't mind Reno knowing things about him? He wasn't sure; it was as if everything had suddenly gotten thick and all he could do was try and move through it. "...I do too."

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Reno barely heared Rude's words. He saw his mouth move, he heard something, but his brain just couldn't make out what had been said through his alcoholic haze. Swallowing a lump that had formed in his throat, Reno's gaze slipped to Rude's mouth, his eyes tracing the neat lines of his facial hair, the curve of his lips... and suddenly Reno felt himself leaning closer, his head tilted the opposite way to Rude's.

And then he snapped and pulled back quickly, giving an awkward laugh. "Ah, look as us, being total saps! You're my pal, 'course I like knowing what makes you tick!" His voice was all too loud and his grin wavered for a moment, thus he fixed it by emptying the bottle of beer he had down his throat.

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The world that had seemed so thick and slow a minute ago suddenly seemed too fast as Reno jerked back and laughed it off, Rude's brain spinning. What had just happened? Blinking, Rude shook his head to try and clear his thoughts, shifting back and making a slight show out of stretching, just to show that he wasn't moving because it was awkward, no, nothing like that.

"Knowledge is power." Agreement, an out for the both of them, and now it would be over with it. They wouldn't speak of this again; one or both of them would probably forget it by morning. Or at least, that was what he was telling himself. Reaching over, the Turk grabbed another bottle and leaned back, glancing up at the ceiling behind his sunglasses before taking a long drink.

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Reno nodded, fumbling for another bottle, taking three off-mark attempts to grasp it before managing to. Once he had, the redhead yawned whilst removing the cap. It was painfully awkward in the room and Reno wasn't used to it. Sure there were plenty of long silences between the two of them (usually when he was tired or too drunk to bother with words), but none were ever awkward. Not like this.

Shifting in place, Reno glanced at his partner, his pointed nose wrinkling before he looked away again, with a sigh. He didn't like this one bit and... had he tried to kiss Rude?! No. NO. Impossible. Just... no.

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Rude stood, brushing some invisible dust off his suit. The atmosphere was getting to him, and so was the alcohol. "Be back." Setting his bottle down, careful to make sure it actually stood, the bald Turk headed into the bathroom in an attempt to get away from the awkward silence. He would have to go back out, of course, but maybe the couple of minutes would help some.

Finishing up, Rude washed up and decided to stall a bit longer, telling himself that looking at his wounds in front of the mirror was a perfectly legitimate and responsible thing to do. He didn't need to be there for that long, though, so the bald Turk finished up and headed back out into the room, hoping some of the awkward atmosphere would have dissipated.

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Without warning, as Rude stepped out of the bathroom, a redheaded bullet shot at him, throwing thin, yet toned limbs around him, attempting to tackle him to the ground. Reno had even go so far as to put his goggles over his eyes to keep from getting a stray elbow to the face and ending up with a black eye.

Squirming to hang onto Rude from the front, Reno's arms coiled around his neck and his legs around Rude's waist yet he purposely ensured his limbs were fractionally too tight to coax Rude into a scuffle like they were known to do when Reno got bored and didn't have any explosives to play with.

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"Reno!" One pale hand knocked his sunglasses off as the bald man stumbled, trying to balance as the redhead squirmed. With limbs wrapping around him and alcohol still making its presence known, it took a moment and a lot of wavering. Rude wasn't entirely sure, but he thought he might have run into the wall at one point.

Trying to peel his partner off of him wasn't going to work; Reno's grip was pretty solid. Grunting slightly, Rude jabbed him between the ribs with two fingers instead, trying to get the skinny redhead off, or at least in a position that let him use more of his arms.

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Wriggling at the fingers prodding his ribs, Reno clung to Rude, one arm slipping loose to reach over Rude and grasp a handful of his jacket, to keep from falling off him. With a playful and fairly gentle slap to that bald head, Reno snickered, digging his knees into Rude's sides.

"C'mon, you want me off, get me off!" Grinning, Reno was tempted to start biting like he had in the past but he went against the idea, seeing as they'd been mauled by wolves recently and neither of them needed anymore bite marks. No, Reno opted for blowing a raspberry on Rude's head as a follow up to the slap.

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Oh, now that was uncalled for. At least Reno wasn't biting, but really? His head? That was just...

Not enjoying the knees digging into his ribs, Rude went for a light kidney shot in an attempt to get him to loosen his grip. It probably wouldn't be enough to get him to let go, but the Turk followed it up by jumping onto his bed, Reno-side first, and grabbing the redhead's hair.

They were Turks, they were supposed to fight dirty.

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"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" His hair? Really? No, no, that was uncalled for.

Coughing slightly at having the wind knocked out of him when Rude gave him the dig to the kidney, Reno coiled himself tighter around his partner, squeezing his knees tighter against his sides. However, the hair-pulling had gave him a shove over the edge and Reno sank his teeth into the nearest bare flesh, which would be Rude's head if the redhead thought he'd ever get a good bite in, but instead he opted for the neck, growling like an animal as he bit down.

Yeah, they did fight dirty.

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Elena had taken the 'easier' route to Dollet...that was, she'd caught a couple airships to get here, instead of fighting her way through a bunch of wolves like the other two Turks had done. It meant that when she arrived at the inn, she was pretty much in one piece, if still rather annoyed at the whole idea of what was going on.

But she was going to see her partners! And the President! So this was a good thing, either way. A quick check-in at the desk told her where Reno and Rude were staying, and up the steps she went. She hadn't thought to ask which room was which, and...probably should've knocked first, but it wasn't as though there was a lot of Privacy at Healin. So here's Elena, popping the door to Rude's room open and looking inside.

"Hey guys, I'm...here..." She trailed off, letting the door finish swinging open as she stood there watching a shirtless Reno biting at Rude's neck while Rude...laid on him and pulled his hair?

"...what the hell?"

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At the door opening, Reno blinked up at Elena, his mouth still attacking Rude's neck. He even raised a hand to wave at the girl, but after a moment, Reno released Rude's neck, leaving a mark similar to a lovebite on his flesh, flopping back to the bed and detangling his limbs.

"You win! Stop pulling my hair!" Reno grinned at Elena, patting Rude on his head. "How you doing, Elena? Get here okay?"

It was odd. Reno was indeed shirtless and pinned to a bed by his much larger partner, and had been biting his neck... but the redheaded Turk seemed entirely relaxed in the idea and whilst the amount of alcohol imbibed probably helped, Reno honestly didn't see the problem.

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As soon as Reno let go, Rude moved away and grabbed his (thankfully unharmed) sunglasses off the floor, pulling them over his eyes. Unlike Reno, he knew exactly what it had looked like, and what the mark on his neck would look like to... well, everyone. Straightening himself up a bit, he proceeded to walk over and grab his previously abandoned bottle of beer and took a sip.

Barely glancing at Elena, Rude grunted "Have a drink" before sitting down a bit stiffly. He didn't bother to say anything else; for one thing, it was Elena and didn't have the conversation privlidges that Reno did. Reno had already asked the right questions anyway. Besides, he really didn't want her to try and interrogate him about what they had been doing before she walked in.

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Elena said nothing as the two of them managed to disentangle themselves from each other and acted as though nothing had been going on. She opened her mouth to make a comment, but stopped when Rude offered her a drink. Elena wasn't a big drinker, she tended to be the one-fancy-hard-mixed-drink-nurser while her Turk compatriots were hitting the barrels. But after that, well, what was the harm. So before she answered Reno's question, she moved to take one of the beer bottles and cracking it open, before taking something of a long swig.

As the bitter taste faded, she turned back to Reno. "I took an airship to get here, it was fine. I don't recognize anything outside, but I flew over the Midgar ruins, that was..." She shook her head.

And then she pointed the bottle between the two of them, waving the end of it at them. "What was that?"

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"Bah, those ruins ain't our Midgar. Nothing to talk about there." Which was a quick 'shut the hell up both of you' before Rude and Elena considered discussing it. He didn't like the idea of even thinking about that place.

Scrambling towards the beer, Reno went through the bottles until he found one remaining favourite of his. Popping the cap, he took a swig whilst rubbing at one of the numerous wounds he sported. And then Elena asked her question and Reno gave her a blank look.

"What was what?"

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Glancing at Elena, Rude shook his head slightly, a quiet 'We'll talk later' as Reno steered the conversation deliberately away from the ruins of Midgar. He didn't want to talk about it either, but he had been remarkably less upset by the ruins than Reno had been, and besides, he wanted to know what Elena thought.

Correct: he wanted to know what Elena thought about the ruins. As she brought up his and Reno's little wrestling session, Rude wanted nothing more than for her to not think at all and just let it go. As it was, he shrugged. "Wrestling."

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Elena frowned at Reno's assertion that it wasn't Midgar. It was a bit messed up, sure, but it was still Midgar. Still, she let it slide, and just smirked at Rude when he said 'wrestling.' She knew it was probably just harmless wrestling, but she wasn't going to pass up the chance for a bit of pleasant ribbing.

"Wrestling that ends up with you having a hickey and Reno without his shirt on..." She turned to look at Reno, and then frowned as she considered him, taking a small sip of her beer. "You're a mess, what happened?"

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Reno grinned almost wickedly, taking a sip a moment later. "Well, you know what they say. You stick with someone long enough and the inevitable happens." Reno laughed, despite the slight slur in his words. "They also say you shouldn't slap a bald bear on its head. S'good advice to follow." The problem was, his first statement felt like it was gradually proving true. Yet, it didn't even seem like a real problem at all.

When Elena mentioned his wounds, Reno shrugged a little. "Pack of wolves. Rude and me dealt with them." At which point, the redhead pointed the head of the bottle he held towards Rude's busted up knuckles.

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Reno really should get a medal for making things awkward, Rude decided, finishing off his bottle of beer as the redhead joked. Simply shaking his head, the Turk quietly muttered something derogatory about redheads before putting his now-empty bottle away. He'd lost count of how many that was. Oh well.

Noting the point toward his hands, Rude held them up so Elena could get a better look. "We have limitations on what we can do in combat here. I had to find hand-to-jaw; I'll need new gloves." The last part could have possibly been a joke, but it wasn't entirely likely that Elena would be able to tell. Then again, he'd been drinking for a while, so who knew? It had been a long, confusing day, so it wouldn't be that far-fetched.

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"You dealt with them rather...directly, I see," Elena sighed, shaking her head. She leaned forward to examine Rude's hands carefully, considering the injuries, and then looked over at Reno and his as well. After a moment she shook her head and took another sip of her beer, setting the bottle down on the edge of whatever was convenient, a desk or a chair. "Don't start wrestling again." She said with a very 'don't ignore mom's instructions' order before she stepped back out of the room.

A couple minutes later she returned with a roll of bandages and some first aid stuff she'd borrowed from the innkeeper. "You first. Hands on the table." She said, waving the bandages at Rude.

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Reno grunted at Elena's mom-mode, being all to used to it by now. Finding his place upon the bed, Reno stretched out, dressed only in his low-riding pants and a pair of socks. Adjusting his goggles upon his head, he gave a yawn and watched Elena leave. "Ma's ticked, Rude. Your fault," he joked, hooking an arm under his head, watching his partner from his sprawled position on the bed.

When Elena returned, Reno gave her a lazy grin and squirmed to get more comfortable. "Listen to your ma, Rude. She'll ground you if you don't," he cooed, yawning again a moment later.

The alcohol was hitting him and he was getting very tired very quickly. Which meant, of course, that his fellow Turks might get some peace and quiet.

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Setting his hands on the table so Elena could work on them, trusting her to do a good job, Rude rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. Of course Reno joking would start about the blonde Turk being their mother. If she was, she probably would have lost it by now; very few people could put up with Reno for too long. He was one of them, but their relationship was special, in that 'wrestling half-naked with teeth' way. ...Right.

Quietly, so Reno couldn't hear from his sprawled-out spot on the bed, Rude muttered "Might be easier to treat him if he's passed out." Though he really didn't want the redhead taking his spot for sleeping, he could work something out. Besides, it wasn't like he hadn't slept in uncomfortable places before. A bit louder, he added "Thank you, Elena."

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Elena tossed Reno a bit of an irritated look when he told Rude to behave, and then sat down across from the bald Turk and began examining his hands. Elena tended to end up in this role often, most likely because she was the least likely of the three of them to get injured. Sure, she did...the beating she'd taken at the hands of the Remnants came to mind immediately, but she didn't hurl herself into danger or fall out of moving helicopters with the frequency that the other two did.

"Probably, though he ends up like a sack of potatoes when he's sleeping," Elena murmured back as she began wrapping bandages around Rude's injury. "Of course Rude," she said a bit louder. "You're always an easier patient than some people."

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"I hear you talking about me!" Reno called over in a lazy, rather sing-song way. "I'm a good patient. For the Director. Because he's not you, Elena," he teased, sticking his tongue out at her before wriggling his way right over onto his stomach, exposing those deep claw marks on his back to the air in the room. He yawned and stretched, nuzzling the pillow that he'd cuddled up.

He was just beginning to get comfy before his brain switched into drunken-talk-mode. Muttering something entirely incoherent, he blinked over at Rude. "Rude. Rude~. Ruuuuuuude. I'm seeing like... three of ya now, man." Then with a pause, and a sudden jerk to a sitting up position, Reno's pale complexion tinted a sickly colour.

"...I'm gonna throw up!" He scrambled from the bed, darting to the bathroom with incredible accuracy considering his alcohol levels, and skidded to his knees in front of the toilet, leaving the door open for all to hear.

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Rude made a quiet noise of disgust as Reno began to clean out his stomach in his bathroom. Looking up at Elena, he made a small gesture toward the bathroom. "Have fun."

Then again, he'd probably get roped into helping her anyway.

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"We only talk about you because we care," Elena quipped at Reno as she finished up bandaging Rude's hands, lifting them and turning them this way and that to make sure she hadn't missed anything. She seemed to be perfectly content to ignore Reno's tauntings...it was the first time she'd seen him drunk, after all. "Okay, now don't punch anyone for a day or two Rude," she said with a teasing sort of smile.

It was just then that Reno went running off to the bathroom. She watched the spare where he had been laying as if contemplating something, and then sighed and slumped back in her chair. "I'm not checking his injuries if he vomits all over himself." She said firmly to Rude.

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After a few minutes of emptying his stomach of the alcohol he'd drank, Reno managed to get a hold of himself. Rinsing his mouth out, the redhead returned to the main room silently. This usually meant he was tired or too ill to complain. A sure fire way to tell Reno wasn't all right.

Settling down upon the bed, he yawned lightly, nuzzling the pillow, his worst wounds bleeding lightly in places. He was exhausted, uncomfortable, unwell and not even slightly at home in this world.

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Rude gave Elena a slight smile, though his face went back to mostly blank and stern when Reno returned. Waiting for some sort of sarcastic comment, Rude tensed slightly when the redhead didn't say anything, and tensed even more when he curled up on the bed. Quietly murmuring a thank you to the blonde woman once more, Rude stood and made his way over to his partner.

"Reno. Let Elena check you out, then you can sleep." And while Rude really didn't want to give up his bed, he would let the redhead sleep in it if it was really that bad. He'd already bled on it, after all.

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Elena frowned at Reno as he collapsed into the bed without a single witty comment. That was typically the 'alarms going off' moment in her head. Reno always had a comment. Even in the worst of times.

She stood and followed Rude over, bringing the bandages with her. "Reno, it'll only take a couple minutes. You'll feel better." She offered, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, hoping he'd sit up.

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Grumbling at the two of them, Reno shifted to sit up, wavering slightly. The alcohol, wounds and now the sickness had all taken their toll on him. As resilliant as he was, Reno was a lot of talk and a whole lot of accident prone, which left him in a lot of scrapes.

His wounds were still weeping lightly, but he managed to keep himself sat up, yawning a little, grasping Elena's shoulder to keep himself steady.

"Hey, I'm fine. Just tired. I'll be okay in the morning... probably have a hangover, though," he joked, giving a light laugh. Still, he didn't look too well.

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