Mortification of the Inner Flesh
Elena watches Reno down his fourth bottle of beer. She knows exactly what he's running from, and it isn't guilt.
No, the only one of their merry little party who's running from guilt is her.
Sometimes, if she gets drunk enough, she can scratch her fingernails against the ledge of crazy that Reno lives in. It's like surfacing from a lake and getting your fingertips on the dock, but losing your grip and falling back in.
She wishes she could shed her humanity as easily as Reno does.
Tseng warned her. That's the kicker. Tseng warned her she'd have to die inside in order to be a Turk—that may be why she's in love with him—but she didn't listen and now she's a killer who's in love with a man who by his very nature cannot, will not, love her back. Oh, he'll take her to dinner and he'll sleep with her in his very gentlemanly way, but he he does not and cannot and will not love her back.
Most days, she doesn't mind.
What Reno's running from is the ability to care. He's making noise and fuss and motion because some days, if he doesn't, if he goes still and quiet, he remembers what he does and he almost gives shit.
Rude is much the same. He's bridled up his mouth because he's bridled up his heart but there is no reining in the human soul. You have to crush it. You have to fuck it up until it is irrevocably broken and looks kind of like Reno. But see, unlike Reno, Rude is actually functional. He cares less than she does, but more than Reno does.
That's why he wears sunglasses. He's never the same person with them off as with them on. They're a convenient mask.
He probably blames them for what he does in the course of job.
Elena thinks about this as she drains her third drink.
She's never figured out where Tseng stands. Is he human, like her? Or is he dead, like Reno? He's from Wutai, she knows—which makes her think he's just crazy, and she finds that as endearing as the time he asked her out dinner—but he isn't quite as cold as Reno. Formal is not dead inside. He looks at her, at what she does, with a very alive passion. Not with the grasping need of somebody trying to re-drown his own humanity.
On her fourth, she wishes could get to the top of that lake, find that dock. Haul herself out. Walk along it barefoot and feel the hot concrete under her feet. Walk along and then walk away and never look back.
Reno's shirt is unbuttoned even further than usual. Rude's jacket is gone, hung over the arm of the sofa. She grins, notices that Reno has propped his feet on her coffee table. She takes his shoes off and throws them at the door. They hit that dent in the plaster where Rude once lost his temper (Reno claims it was Rude; fuck if she believes him only she does, a little).
"Dont throw my shoes," Reno bitches
She ignores him, reaches for another beer. Normally it's not her style. But she's getting used to it.