Chapter One:
The Time Traveller
Reno Sinclair's P.O.V
The first time Reno Sinclair sees the woman she was standing in the middle of the entrance hall to the Shinra Electric company, stone faced and stock still and seemingly as surprised at being there as he was at seeing her.
She stuck out like a sore thumb.
The Shinra Electric Company was like a wasps nest that had been angrily shook. There was a buzz in the halls as the workers whirred to their stations, zipping for their deadlines and conference meetings, barking into PHS's about the latest managerial fuck-ups leaving them working overtime on a weekend night.
People in the Shinra headquarters didn't typically stand and gawk in the foyer.
She did, and it was originally what caught Reno's eye.
It was the rest that kept it there.
Wide-eyed, opened mouthed, she gaped about her in unashamed wonder, a bit like a kid in a Materia store. She was dressed strangely, Reno noted on a lingering sweep from head to toe. Some sort of uniform, snug and stiff looking, plaid in SOLDIER dark with belts and loops, a strange, embroidered symbol at her chest, what looked like an MOM with an A stitched over, and tight black trousers.
Wonderfully tight trousers.
The girl had some legs on her.
Lith, solid, toned.
Ones that could snare a Drake.
Reno had always been a legs man.
The uniform made the pop of pale skin and shockingly red hair upon her head burst in the dreary crowd like blood splatter on white tile.
That too catches his eye and holds it, refuses to let go.
That was the girl.
A trap.
A damned honey-coated trap, and Reno had a sweet tooth.
You didn't see many redheads out and about in the wild, himself an exception, and he was just conceited enough to find the colour good on her.
Real fucking good.
Reno was moving through the crowd before he knew it, slinking through the slack and pencil skirt masses, forgetting all about his Friday night schemes with a sharp tooth grin on his face.
He had been planning on hitting Wall Market up. A den of filth and obscenity, Reno liked the shanty town of immorality, both for the debauchery and the sense of absurd law it operated under barely held together by the clandestine partnership of its criminal masters. Rufus kept the place as it was as a backdoor failsafe for laundering and liaisons and investments to keep off the legitimate Shinra books.
If you had the Gil, they had the sin, and Reno had plenty of the former these days to burn for his exceedingly excessive amount of the latter.
It was also a bitch, even for a Turk, to get to from the upper plates of Midgar to the slums of the lower plates, and with this lovely cherry-red surprise before him, who was he to pass on the opportunity when it presented its delightful-
Before he made it to the woman, Rude, his partner, was already there.
Shit.
"Miss Breaker?"
Reno came to a pitiful stop beside the taller man, just as the woman whirled around in their direction. She-
She glanced around, back to Rude, around again and… Hesitantly pointed at herself.
Up so close, Reno could see her eyes.
Green seemed… Less than what they deserved. Bright, almost too bright, they put a SOLDIER's gaze to shame, and burst under her crown of crimson.
"Me? You're talking to me?"
Her voice was light, soft and smoky like a bar, with a strange, as strange as her dress, lilt to the roll of her tone.
Rude shuffled on the spot, likely frowning behind his severe sunglasses.
Perhaps a little flushed too.
Huh.
"Tseng will see you for the interview now. We we're told to bring you up to the office."
Right.
Yeah.
Fuck.
In the space and time somewhere between getting off the elevator and spotting the candy-apple woman in the foyer, Reno had forgotten he was tasked, with Rude, to shuffle up the next Turk candidate to Tseng's office before leaving.
They had gone through sixty already. This would be the last on the list.
None had passed.
Barely five had lasted more then seven minutes in the interview.
"Interview? I… You want me to go to an interview?"
Rude braced himself, folding his hands in front of him, professional and competent.
"You are Miss Breaker, correct?"
The woman stalled and then-
Smiled, a bright dimpled thing full of teeth and bite, a little too large, a little too wonky, a little too perfectly imperfect.
Sweet and sour and somehow spicy.
That was around when Reno noticed the necklace. Gold, chain long, the pendant settled at her chest. An hourglass with etching around a gilt disk.
A family heirloom maybe.
"Yes, that's me alright! Sorry, my head was away with the fairies… Lead on."
Fairies?
What the fuck were fairies?
Rude hesitated before nodding, turning. Reno-
Reno turned too, following, hands jammed into the pockets of his trouser, cavalier and careless. Rude shot him a questioning look as the trio made way to the closest elevator. Reno shrugged in response. It was enough to get his point across.
I want to see how this one turns out.
Reno wasn't a betting man-
Who was he kidding, of course he was a betting man, and for some bizarre, peculiar reason, he thought this women, this Miss Breaker, might just last more than seven minutes. If not, she might just need a shoulder to cry on. One Reno was more than willing to offer.
They slipped into the elevator, steal and chrome, and the doors slipped shut with a resolute ding.
No one saw the real Miss Breaker run into the foyer, breathless and sweaty, and late for her interview. Neither did they see her escorted off the Companies property when her name flagged up as already signed in on the guestbook.
NEXT CHAPTER PREVIEW:
They were waiting out in the hallways of Tseng's office when the crash came fifteen minutes into the interview.
A body came sailing out the door, crumpling into the hallway wall beside Rude, denting the concrete in a puff of smoke and debris.
Fifteen minutes on the dot by Reno's count.
Miss Breaker had lasted a full two minutes longer than Reno had lasted in his 'interview'.
He knew it. Rude owed him five hundred-
Tseng hobbled up from the floor.
Reno blinked at him as the dust settled. Saw his hand cradling his nose.
His bleeding nose.
It was Tseng on the floor, and decidedly not Miss Breaker.
That… That…
Miss Breaker appeared in the doorway of the office, stepping over the broken door, fierce and ferocious and violent, and intent on the crouched Tseng, a strange wooden stick in her hand.
"What kind of fucking place attempts to use cattle prods in its interviews?!"
A.N: Breaker, in old English, means trouble. Hemlock Potter deserves that name in this fic lol.
This is only a short fic. No more than ten chapters at last count, though if I add one or two scenes, it might end up being around thirteen at a push. Nothing monstrously big like my other work. This is also a bit of fun, Crack-ish, not to be taken seriously, and is mainly just smut with a bit of plot to thread it all together lol.
I have been going through a real, real dry patch in writing over the last month. Writers' block is a bitch that I would not wish on anyone lol. Nevertheless, I read up on some tips and tricks, and the most popular one is to just write whatever does come, good or bad, and to keep pushing. So here I am, with my push on that could be good or bad lol. I am planning to get back to my other fics as soon as I possibly can, and I will be updating Kenosis very soon, I just need to get out this dry patch first. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I am getting there.
Thank you for reading!