The Highway
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
Other Disclaimer: No, these towns aren't in the game. I'm assuming there would arguably be towns so small they wouldn't show up on a map, just as there are in real life. And really, would you put these places on a map? Read, enjoy.
Gone
I set out runnin' but I take my time
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine
If I get home before daylight
I just might get some sleep, tonight—Grateful Dead, Friend of the Devil
It wasn't a ditch, exactly. Technically. Maybe.
He figures Rude is either in the Hall of Fame for sheer awesomeness, or is packing his shit and getting the hell out. The former would have likely required a briefing from Reno on the Care and Feeding of Batshit Crazy Boyfriends. The gods know, he has enough experience with Cloud.
The latter would only take a good dose of common sense.
Vincent toes a pebble at the side of the road where he sits, pulled off to get out of the sun. The solitary road trip had been his own idea and Rude hadn't argued. Rude never argues. He wonders if this is good or bad. He wonders more and more, these days. He only knows that his inner demons are quieter and quieter from the lack of horror in his life. Maybe they'd gone looking for it elsewhere, even. It's bad when you can't even stay possessed anymore.
And so, he becomes more and more restless.
And he goes for a ride. And he thinks, just shy of a hundred miles east of Junon, that even though they had talked about it, leaving a note that morning might have been an exercise in relationship communication, instead of packing a bag in the pre-dawn light and slipping out like the shadow he once was. He had kind of meant to turn around and go back, or call, or something but there is no signal out here. He pulls over in a gas station to refuel, and picks up a postcard. Apparently the nearest town is Cedar, according to the card, as there certainly is no metropolitan center here that he can see.
What to write? I'm sorry? I fucked up? I have no earthly idea what I'm doing here? I should probably turn around but I don't want to do that until I know why I left? I told you I was bad news before we slept together and this was what I meant?
In the end, he falls back on his first language, the one that had served him for what was now the majority of his life. Silence. He leaves the message portion blank, addresses it and drops it in the mailbox.
Katur
My Mama mapped out the road that she knows
Which hands you shake and which hands you hold
In my hand-me-down Mercury, ready to roll
She knew that I had to go—Sugarland, Already Gone
The downtown area of Katur looks as though it is trying painfully hard to look hip, possibly for the five or six people under fifty that still live here. With a wry chuckle, he remembers he is no longer in that demographic. The coffee shop is decorated in burnished copper and tasteful greens and burgundies, and he actually thinks he might get decent food here but a stale scone gives him pause. The last two towns were quiet, at least. Desolate, more like. He has sent blank postcards from each, to let Rude know he is still alive.
He looks at this one for a very long time, realizing that if he weren't such a chickenshit coward he'd call. It is the first time in three days he's had a steady cell signal. He stares at the cell for a while, and at the postcard he has selected. It is a print by a local artist, advertising a nearby haunted house.
The irony does not escape him.
I'm sorry I didn't leave a note or say goodbye. Love, V.
He drops it in the mailbox before he loses his nerve. Walking across to a small diner advertising breakfast served 24 hours, he orders eggs with cream cheese and fresh chives. They are wonderful, and the coffee is likely the best he has ever had. It's a lovely small town but he thinks he could never live here without eating his own gun. Edge is small, geographically, but it is busy. Everyone is always doing something, going somewhere. People here move like flies stuck in honey, who haven't realized they are half suffocated yet.
The man behind the counter chats him up, introduces himself. "So Vincent, what do you do?"
"I'm retired."
"You're too young to be retired."
If he only knew.
Nowhere
I was tryin' to find my way home
But all I heard was a drone
Bouncing off a satellite
Crushin' the last lone American night—Bruce Springsteen, Radio Nowhere
The Deluxe Motel was nothing to write home about. And yet, he did. He turned the yellowed postcard over and wrote a quick note. It was easier this time.
Rude, just pulled over to rest. Yes, I know if I had good sense, I'd be home already. Love, V.
He felt tired, achy and confused. He had been sure at first that this trip had been a good idea. Get out on the road, blow the cobwebs out. Think clearly, for a change. Get settled with the past. Now, here, in some cracked formica diner, he felt…adrift.
He convinced himself it was good to be adrift somewhere new. Even if that somewhere new didn't get a cell signal, didn't get a radio station worth shit, and he wasn't even going to hope that the rooms had televisions, let alone satellite. Two of the motels he'd stayed didn't. Anyway, hadn't he come here to get away from it all?
Good thing. He's obviously succeeded, in spades.
The waitress is wearing enough hairspray that she likely violates local fire ordinances, but she refills Vincent's coffee mug anyway. Privately he thinks the sign outside advertising Fine Food overstates things a bit, as usual and hopes that the Clean Rooms claim is a bit more truthful.
Being a leisure traveler is turning him into a cynic. Even more than he has been.
"You want some lemon pie, honey? Fresh, this mornin'"
She is sweet. He gets the pie.
Elgin
I'm tired of running round looking for answers to questions that I
already know
I could build me a castle of memories just to have somewhere to go
Count the days and the nights that it takes to get back in the saddle
again
Feed the pigeons some clay
Turn the night into day
Start talking again if I know what to say—Blaze Foley, Clay Pigeons
Two days on the road, straight. He didn't know why he rode that long. Money was not an option, he just didn't want to be alone. He pulled over in another motel advertising a bar. He needed whiskey, he needed a bath, and he needed to charge his phone. He is amused at this last item, particularly as he has not used it the entire trip. He rides until he sees a sign called The Colonial Inn. It looks as colonial as the ShinRa building, only older, and a half burned-out neon sign tells him that there are cocktails and a laundromat.
Rude,
Something wrong with the cell phone, not that anyone could get a signal out here. Battery won't hold a charge. But like I said, things are a little rural. It's not the end of the world, but I think I saw it on the last mileage sign.
The food is awful here. The middle of the continent is not what you would call a culinary haven. Everything is fried and no one has heard of an artichoke.
Love, V.
It bemuses him to notice that this note is longer than the last one, as if Rude's absence makes it easier to talk.
"Excuse me, how late are you open?"
"Ten pm, sir." Gods bless nowhere-ville motel bars. You can drink all night, as long as you are asleep by nine thirty.
"Is there a liquor store? I need to be up late tonight."
"'Bout a mile down, on the left of the main street. Can't miss it." Vincent doubts indeed that he can. There is no need to call it a main street here; if there is another street, secondary or tertiary, he hasn't seen it. "Better go now, though, they close at eight."
He returns to the bar after his purchase out of courtesy, putting his postcard in the next morning's post at the desk on his way in. The bar isn't fancy. Dark square and plain, the burgundy vinyl of the stools just beginning to crack. The music isn't bad and, except for an older couple playing video slots in the corner, Vincent is the only patron. "So what brings you to Elgin?"
"Passing through." It was a simple enough answer, and all Vincent knows, himself.
"Yah, all anyone does it seems."
"You didn't."
"This is what I do." It's something Vincent can understand, somehow. He thinks back to when he first joined AVALANCHE. He was only there for the prospect of killing Hojo, really. Revenge, and something…something he really couldn't name, but it was a solitary quest. But one by one, they had cracked him. Cid's profanity, Cloud's sadness, Barret's impatient tactlessness, Tifa's nosy mothering, gods, even Yuffie. And he found that once you let people be a part of your life, being alone isn't an option again. And so, he finds himself talking to a strange bartender in a town he has never seen on a map.
If he had sense, he'd turn around. He'd make this road trip something else. Go visit Cid, and Barret, and Yuffie. Go home and see Tifa and Cloud. And then take Rude on a vacation he'd never forget.
He paid out his tab and went to his room.
He never did have sense.
Erlanger
What in this world
Keep us from tearing apart
No matter where I go I hear
The beating of your heart—Cyndi Lauper, I Drove All Night
The next day is a brutal, all day ride into the huge metropolis of Erlanger. He's never heard of Erlanger, either. But the road there is riddled with construction, and inexplicably, traffic. He hopes for their sake they are headed somewhere else, somewhere farther down the road. The hard, uneven, gravelly road has beaten him half to death on those few stretches when he was able to go fast enough for the bike to do so.
He is frustrated, his phone is dead, and he is nearly out of both coffee and booze.
Erlanger is dry.
"You really don't carry alcohol?" He is sure his voice rises an octave on terror alone.
"No sir. You can drink here, you just can't buy or sell."
He has a small amount left from last night, but he hadn't counted on actually needing it all tonight. He heaves a sigh and signs out a room. He is exhausted enough to sleep right this minute, booze or no.
It is a habit now; he picks up a postcard. The picture of the Executive Inn is nothing if not hideous. It looks like an air traffic control tower shoved down in the middle of a whorehouse.
Rude,
As a bonus, it's ugly too. I have somehow run out of both patience and energy in a dry city. Sober, the food is worse. I think they reached their peak at mashed potatoes, and began to decline from there. I may have just eaten dog food.
Bike is making a funny noise. May have to pull over for maintenance tomorrow.
The simplicity of rural life is killing me. I'm pretty sure this was a dumb idea. I can't quite remember what I was trying to escape.
Love, V.
He hadn't meant to write that last part, he has been keeping it light. But he doesn't know, anymore. He thinks of the things he hasn't been writing on the postcards.
I'm lost.
I miss you.
Will you take me back?
I'm so scared you won't, even though you said you would.
He is sixty years old, even if Rude thought coffin years didn't count, and has had two relationships in his life. As much as he wants to say about Lucrecia being beautiful and broken, it's an inescapable fact that she turned her back on the young Turk without a pot to piss in, and married a scientist who would be good for her career. Looking back on it without sentiment and honor and all that, he couldn't honestly say that was coincidence.
It was kind of bitchy, now that he considered it here in the clear light of afternoon, on a scratchy comforter and drinking scotch out of plastic motel cups, really.
Still, he had loved her.
Then. He had been so much younger. He should have…well. He'd still have done all he could have to stop the evil that was Hojo but he'd have wasted a lot less time and tears on, how had Cid put it?
"Somebody that didn't give a fake tear about your dead ass till her husband shot ya!"
Cid never was a fan. Come to think of it, none of his friends were. Cid just didn't care if you knew it.
But Rude…Rude who wakes him from his nightmares. Makes him tea. His partner in sarcasm. Rude, who has taught him a passion that he hadn't been able to imagine back then. Rude. Yeah, looking at it now, he was definitely dating up. He rolls over, determined to get some rest. Later, when the traffic cleared, he'd drive south and then head back. Back toward home and hope like hell Rude as the forgiving type.
Towapas
Well I'm going down to Lincoln town
Turn your pretty little head around
Take the next train outward bound
Carry you out of Lincoln town—John Hiatt, Lincoln Town
Two hundred miles south of Erlanger is a place called Towapas. Vincent won't call a mechanic, tamale stand, bar, motel, and bus stop a town, exactly. Like everywhere else on this cockbrained trip of his, he wouldn't find it on any map, but it serves his purposes for the time being.
He finally pulls over in a motorcycle repair shop, the grinding noise becoming serious. As he fears, it is the transmission and will be a timely repair, and an expensive one. He walks across to another motel and bar combination to use their pay phone, and then realizes he has forgotten his wallet in the bike.
Returning to the bike, he discovers his wallet is missing, the victim of some random wandering thief that had been watching the parking lot. It would, naturally, be no issue if he could call home.
If he had a phone.
Like most people in the age of speed dial, he has no one's phone number memorized except Rude, who turns his personal cell off during work hours and his Turk PHS won't accept anything but official numbers. He decides to try the office number.
He has a little over a hundred gil cash in the pocket of his jeans and so he gives some to the bartender in return for the cost of directory assistance.
"Rude."
"Last name?"
"He doesn't have a last name."
"I'm sorry sir. We can't…" So much for the direct line. Main switchboard?
"All right. ShinRa Department of Adminstrative Research."
"Security clearance code?" The automated voice on the other end asks him
He is half tempted to give his real one and see if it's expired after thirty-odd years, and thinks better of the idea. He calls directory assistance a third time "Reeve Tuesti, World Regenesis Organization, please." However, the tinny voice on the other end of the line regretfully informs him that the WRO does not accept collect calls.
"He'll accept this one." He is losing patience. The money in his pocket is not enough to cover bus fare back to Edge.
"I'm sure you think so, sir, but…"
"Look. Walk in there and tell him that Vincent Valentine is making a collect call out of necessity and he will, believe me, give you permission to transfer it." A few agonizing moments of silence pass before he hears the charges accepted.
"Vincent! What on earth have you gotten yourself into now?" He nearly weeps with relief. If nothing else, Reeve will get him back to the right side of the continent, and he can deal with his fucked up life from there.
"I need you to either wire me a good deal of money, or a new credit card. Or both would be nice. There is a place about a four mile walk from where I am staying that accepts wire transfers. The people here have been nice enough to give me a room without a credit card, with my broken bike as collateral."
"Start at the beginning. The caller ID has you at…gods, that can't be right."
"Towapas. I went on a bike ride to clear my head."
"It must have been fairly murky. That's practically on the other side of the continent."
"Thank you, I know that. Anyway, the phone died, the bike died, and my wallet was stolen." Put like that, the story sounds worse than the country western song playing on the jukebox. "Let me give you the phone number where I'm staying." He reads it off a matchbook from the bar, reflecting that he didn't even know places had matchbooks anymore.
"All right, I'll wire the money, it should be there in ninety minutes to two hours. Put me through to the front desk of the motel, the WRO will cover your room. It will be 24 hours on your card. Anything else?"
"Can you get this number to Rude?" It comes out all in a breath.
"Rude?" He realizes, belatedly, that Reeve knows nothing of their relationship. Hell, only Cloud and Reno know, and Tseng has guessed but is feigning ignorance.
"He may not want it. But if you could give it to him with a message? His voice is sticky in his throat and he suspects Reeve can hear it. They have been friends too long for him not to. "Tell him I want to come home."
He is sleeping in his room when he hears a helicopter land in the field nearby, and he opens the door before Rude can even knock. Whispered into his hair, he hears, "You gonna get me a postcard?"
"You want one?
"Sure. I knew when I got the last one, you were coming back."
"That's when I realized, shit, all those miles, I have to turn around and do it all again."
"This time it will be faster. I can fly you there."
The carpet nails from the cheap shag bite into his bare feet as he stands, half in and half out of the door and lets Rude hold him. The man is still in his work suit, sweating in the hot dry air.
"You just left work?"
Rude gave a tight nod. "Told them I needed a helicopter and left. Tseng said come back Monday."
"Will you take me back?"
"You never left."
A thousand miles away, and he's already home.