Cliffie: I'll admit, I love this piece. It was fun to write, mostly because I'm currently obsessed with dark!Reno. He's just so much fun!
Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this. Please review!
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy or any of the characters. This is for entertainment purposes only.
She likes the city just as it goes dark; as twilight eats away at the last vestiges of daylight, slowly absorbing it and turning a lush purple-blue. It's quiet at this junction -- quiet after the bustling day, quiet before the rowdy night. She sleeps away much of the days, is always awake until two or three in the morning because the night refuses to let her go. She tends her bar and smiles and laughs and enjoys it, but her favorite time of day is twilight.
She walks the streets, boots making little noise on the stones. The air sighs softly, closing in tighter around her. It's nearly summer, with heat around every corner. She can still feel it in the air, hot and wet and Edge's summer is something she's never enjoyed very much.
She links her hands behind her back, letting her head fall back to gaze at the changing sky. There is no fear in her posture. Even if someone were foolish enough to attack her, thinking her easy prey to pickpocket, she would prove them wrong soon enough. Her edge is still finely honed. She practices every day, sometimes with Cloud and sometimes with Barret, practices until her muscles ache. But that's the only real way to keep in shape, to keep herself up to par.
Footsteps in the street next to her, sudden and loud. She glances over, trying not to show any nervousness. Reno returns her look with an easy grin, winking lazily at her. He matches her stride without trouble, looking for all the world like he belonged right next to her.
"Yo," he says calmly.
She tries not to let her exasperation show. "What's up, Reno?"
He shrugs. He's all power and long limbs and finely tuned muscles. Power, speed, and danger in one untidy package with the bow (tie) undone. "Nothing much, babe."
They don't talk for a while, letting the silence lay between them. Tifa's seen him and the others more and more lately, ever since Reno discovered she serves the best whiskey in Edge. He comes just for that, he says, but she privately thinks he comes for other reasons. She likes him -- all of them -- well enough, so she doesn't say anything about.
"What brings you to the city this time?" she asks. She likes silence as much as the next person, but with Reno it's different. She's not afraid of him -- she should be, she knows, but she's not -- but she never knows what to expect. He's unpredictable, in all the wrong senses of the word, and she treads carefully around him, not knowing if what she says at any time might set him off. He doesn't show any temper around her now, but she sees the steel beneath the smiles when Cloud taunts him or Barret mutters darkly under his breath as Reno passes their table towards the bar.
She knows he's not all silk and pretty eyes and flirty words, and he knows she gets it.
"Not your whiskey this time," he says, regret in his voice. "Sorry, babe."
She gives him a curious look. "Mm? Then why? I can't imagine you an errand boy."
He laughs, hands easy in his pockets. "It's a little bit of a more... darker mission than errands. But, in the end, I suppose you could call it that. An errand."
Tifa blinks, trying not to show her surprise. She stares the buildings all around her, suddenly uncomfortable, wishing she could have kept the silence. So he's on a mission? She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. He walks easily, strides long and lethargic, a way that only Reno can pull off.
He walks without a care in the world, not concerned in the least that he's off to kill someone.
She thinks, briefly, about leaving him now. But she can't bring herself to. To break away now would be to abandon him. She's never abandoned anyone, not even if they didn't need her. She's stubborn (stupid) that way.
They're halfway to the bar and nowhere near when he moves, his motions like liquid and flowing so smoothly they take her breath away.
She never even knew he had a gun until he pulls it out and shoots calmly. Only once. Once is all that's needed.
Tifa hates herself for flinching away, instinctively backing up as she prepares herself for a fight. Her hands curl into the familiar shape of a fist, and she crouches slightly, balanced on the balls of her feet.
"Not today, babe," Reno says, as calmly as ever. "This is not your fight."
A blur of black, and Reno ducks smoothly, moving back and throwing the man to the ground. He puts a foot on the chest, points the gun at his head, and smiles.
The red seems to sparkle in the twilight, and Tifa stares, entranced.
Reno takes two steps back, turns, and fires. Tifa doesn't have the time to move or scream or anything as the bullet passes her head. She can feel the wind brush her cheek, stirring hairs and making her nerves collapse.
The man behind her falls without a sound.
The street is still, everything frozen. Then, with a lopsided grin, Reno lowers his gun. He gives her a slow look. His face is relaxed, calm, grinning still even, but Tifa suddenly sees the darkness in his eyes. He's tainted, far more than she is, tainted and stained a dirty black that was perhaps once red.
She can't bring herself to move away, even though she probably should.
And the more she looks, the more she realizes something separates the two of them. There's suddenly a vast space of aching emptiness lying there, because he's somehow inexplicably older than her in so many different ways. Older, even when he pretends not to be, wishes not to be, and Tifa wonders when he grew up.
He's still smiling, crazy and red and there's blood on his pant leg but he doesn't notice.
"I'll meet you at 7th Heaven," he says. There is no darkness in his tone, but the shadows remain in his eyes. "I have to clean up, but have a whiskey ready for me, babe."
And she nods and walks away because there's nothing else she can do.
When Reno arrives, the blood is still on his leg, but no one seems to notice. Tifa passes him his whiskey, and he smiles at her.
She shouldn't return it, but she does, and the junction the two of them stand at remains immovable.