irrevocable

disclaimer: ffvii is not mine.


Rude is no stranger to silence.

He watches, he moves and he breathes through silence.

And yet, the silence that rings so clearly like bells in an empty school, and empty building, is new. Different.

Awkward.

Who was the one who initiated it? Who was the one that made all their noise cease? Certainly, he had noticed the difference in the subtext between the two, suspecting but never…

However, that all changed.

And they have stopped like two hands of the same clock while the ticking third wheel hand continues, almost inaudible.

Two deadly weapons – no longer human, encased in a numb barrier, detached from the world of emotion, disconnected from all that had defined them in the past.

Rude doesn't know them anymore.

Elena moves with precision now, speaking only when necessary, avoiding—him—everyone. She holds the gun to her heart, armed at all times, never flinching, always firing invisible bullets that move seamlessly through air.

She's a far cry from the girl who used to smile and stutter and make a ruckus as she made another mistake, a red flush forming easily on her easily blemished cheeks. Now there is only cold white bone.

Reno is a dead man walking.

Eyes that glittered in mischief and malice no longer hold their shine; instead they revert back to those cold eyes of a killer.

He moves with no grace, but like a puppet disguised as a corpse. He falls and he slumps and he drinks; a pale imitation of his former self.

They don't speak unless spoken to.

They don't work unless ordered to.

They don't kill unless implored to.

Two Turks. Two friends.

They've broken into shards of bleeding glass.

Rude can sense emotions – dulled, diluted, distorted, but the emotion still lingers in the air.

There's rage. There's spite. There's tension.

But they don't say a word.

And Rude moves forward as they turn back, silent as ghosts. He is the only one making a noise now.

Only a silence that does not make sense connect the three Turks together.

Rude is silence's best friend – and yet he has no idea what caused it.