Reno doesn't know if he's alive anymore. Sure he's survived, he's a survivor after all. Tseng said that, once, when he'd found Reno fighting like a wildcat in an alleyway, high as a kite, but still managing to pummel the dumbasses into oblivion. He didn't know he'd stained his hands that day, but his hands are so bloody nowadays, what is one more in the ever-growing list?
He knows he's slipping, knows that ever since the time he'd dropped the Plate. He feigns as well as ever in the workplace, but he's crumbling, hundreds and hundreds of hands dragging him down, eyes hateful and nails trying to nail him down, just so they can pin him and pull him into hell.
Too late, he thought ruefully, I already am.
Rude knows that something's up with him, but it's not like they really care in their profession. Once a Turk, always a Turk. That guy, Vincent Valentine, is a superb example of it. He's legendary, even he'd be awed to even spar with him. Not that he'd ever say it, despite how many inanities, how many quicksilver, false words drip from his smooth lips, how many lies his body has woven for just as many people.
He is living in a hell. But he can't remember the heaven that once existed. He knows that a "heaven" existed for him, paradise, but he can't recall anything of it. He only feels a warmth, a ghost of a genuine smile, a pair of lips that were turned up in a smile, (completely innocent) and he can't stand the fragments of it.
He wants the whole paradise, not some ghost, even as it taunts him every(momentsecondminutehour)day like romantic movie that's impossible to recall. He knows the formula of the movie, but he doesn't know the exact things that make that movie actually good compared to the generic others.
He wakes up in a cold sweat. He stares at his hands, phantom-blood dripping between the fingers that've held more weapons than anything else, the palms that've spent more time destroying than creating, and presses them to his eyes.
It stifles the flow of tears, even as he takes shuddery breaths, ones that fight for control, rather than being lost in the flood of emotions. He regains control, as fast as ever (too slow) and fumbles for the keys.
He can't find them. He can't find them. He can't find them.
He needs (open skies, the wind, cold) to find them. He smiles, and he tries to recall when he started smiling at himself in mirrors. He can't remember, but he surveys himself.
He looks (young, brown-eyed, clear-skinned) maddening. His manner of styling himself makes him so much more contrasting to his partner, Rude, and only a fool would fall for his untidy act. Only a fool would fall for it. He adjusts his goggles, grimacing at the smudges on them.
He heads to his bike (I don't know how to ride! Don't tickle me!) and then the world turns into smudges, a rapidly growing town where a skyline of glittering skyscrapers existed, the air tastes like ice and fire and stale like nothing is truly clean.
He wonders if anything ever is, and then remembers the sparkling water that healed geostigma, one that Aerith brought, and a slight, faintly self-deprecating smile appears. If a Cetra-
whoa
-he narrowly misses clipping a girl, why on Gaia would a kid be doing out here in the wild? He kills the engine, and starts preparing a speech that would make his voucher, Tseng proud when she walks, with the natural grace of being comfortable in her own skin, and bops his nose and flicks his windblown ponytail.
"Well hello stranger, haven't seen you in a while." she laughed at his expression, her laughter like the wind on a hot day, refreshing and unexpected, and ushered him in. Her apartment is fresh, smelling sweet with a vanilla scented candle, and breakfast on the table.
It's furnished well, with expensive brands and decorated warmly, but mess is everywhere, laundry unfolded, a bunch of items tossed onto a conglomeration he assumes was once a chair, and she clears off the couch, breezing into the kitchen.
"Sorry about the mess Sinclair, didn't expect anyone." she said, ruffling his hair naturally, as if she did it everyday, even as a puppy jumped into his lap, pelt soft, their color a dozen of hues, splotches of grey and black and brown with spots of white.
Their talk is easy, too easy, and he can remember why he felt doubt at the opportunity to become who he has, and it's only because of the fact that Tseng favors him that she's lived this long. She's not attractive as the courtesan's bodies in the Honey Bee Inn, nor does she powder or emphasize her features as talentedly as actresses and celebrities, but she smiles easily, and she's real.
Something he missed, living among- he shook his head, and smiled charmingly at her. She giggled, snorting out eggs, and snaps a photo of him.
"What?" She giggled again, wiping tears and shows him the photo. He looked… so much like him, when he'd been trying to schmooze with the teenager who'd babysat them both.
"You're a goofball. But other than that, what's the reason you came? I don't remember giving my address out, fans you know, I'm a vlogger on the web." she addressed him, with her full attention, with a honey-sweet smile that he knew was natural. She acted naturally, lying first nature to her, as a slum child, honesty was a card only to be used in times of absolute chaos to strike the most damage. Honesty was the best weapon, if implemented beneficially.
"You need to stop looking." Of course she took it as if she was a fool, laughter like ice chips, her voice like nails with the way she smiled, the way she spoke.
"Looking? Then I'll be lost forever, and while being lost isn't such a bad thing, if I'm lost forever, doesn't mean I'll lose myself in madness kya kya~" Her laughter was mocking now, smile wide, teeth showing, obviously fake. And the laughter, she couldn't have known.
If she did…
She smiles at him, sad, tears sparkling under the moon. Her hair floats and that's unnatural-
She hmphed, tossing her hair, only shoulder length now, hands on hips. Her personality, whether fabricated or real, (he can't tell anymore) he wanted desperately to be true. She flickered slightly, the hologram keyed only to his DNA relying on his juice for materia, and he pours more energy into it. She breathed, lips slightly chapped, and smiled.
"Listen, I'm never going to stop doing what I'm doing. I don't care who the hell you are, who you thought I was, to give up this easy over something. If you stop me from doing what I'm doing, then you're making me have a slow suicide." she said, eyes cold, voice icier.
"I told you I can disappear, and I only stayed because I thought you could change. Please tell me the kid who promised me that we'd someday see the stars, see the world is still alive because otherwise, really, then I'm just a failure."
"Help them. Help AVALANCHE."
Her voice echoes, bouncing inside his head, a thousand different phrases, scenes, emotions, feelings, reality and mindscape warping, even as ghost-cold hands cups his face. He can'tcan'tcan't rememberforgethold and her eyes, eternally youthful because (he was the one to make them that way) because she never gave up that spark, the joy, the happiness even if it would kill her.
It did kill her, in the end.
It's not a pretty story. she said.
Tell me anyway. he'd requested, like a fool.
And sealed was his fate.
He remembers the tale, and she smiles sadly, wiping away tears, somehow tangible enough to do so, yet weighing as much as snow. He can't hate her for doing what she did, and in the end, it saved the world didn't it?
"I think you know why I did what I did, and I'm sorry. Don't forgive me, I don't deserve it." she says, placing a soft kiss on his forehead. "But live Re, because you have a right to life and living. Don't live for anyone else but yourself okay? Don't give yourself to someone so wholly that you can't live for yourself."
Too late, he thinks, even as she fades into the night, her spectral form dissipating like snow in the face of the sun. She never left behind a trace.
a.n. a doozy. I may or may have teared up while writing this. This chickadee? She was an SI, Self-Insert, pure and simple. The writing is definitely different, because I did write this half-half, and I was busy and life happened.
I know this is extremely confusing and I'll explain. The SI, OC, was never given a name because it was irrelevant. There is no need for one, and yes, she was ultimately and ally to AVALANCHE. However, Reno and her grew up together, and she knew what would happen, so she cinched it to make it so that as many people as possible didn't die and there are a ton of opportunities to develop this but uhm, nay. I'm busy all hell, and I suck at time management. I don't wanna adult.