queenoflogs | i think i'm too small now

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i think i'm too small now

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noneedforheroic
Date: June 12th
Summary: A bonfire.
Warnings: Blood and gore and language.

It's been... strange, being followed around by a pile of corpses. Comical, almost, if it weren't quite so fucking grotestque the way it scrapes and slithers after her. Twitching and death-rattling along in her wake.

She knows exactly what it is, knows exactly what fear its playing off of. She'd only crouched down once, when she'd first found it, touched Elena's blood stained face and tried her damnedest to heal her, to heal Tseng, and all of the others. She knows who they are, fine cut in dark blue suits, turned black from the damp blood that continues to spill out of them in slow rivulets. Ghosts don't run out of blood, apparently, and she hasn't tried again.

Rude's pretty sure it's going to puddle around her shoes if she stands here for too long. And she's been standing here a while now. It's been five blighted days since all this shit started, five days of sobbing and screams all throughout the Gardens, those with clear heads forced to gather up the weak before this place turns into a madhouse. Or a bloodbath.

She brings her cigarette back to her mouth and then exhales, watching with narrowed eyes as blood drips out of Tseng's mouth in kind.

She's been trying to ignore it, but it's getting there: the feeling up the back of her neck that's part frustration and part revulsion. She knows what it wants her to think, wants her to think about failure, wants her to think about the day that Tseng saved their lives even though she was their superior and could have left them to die, wants her to think about Elena taking a bullet for her even though she was a rookie and didn't know what the fuck she was doing.

She's noticed Rufus is missing, and she's waiting for it. It doesn't surprise her he'd take his sweet time, but then again she cannot possibly imagine what he might have to say. They've been loyal to him, devoted beyond anything their contracts could possibly have implied. That's why her Turks are so silent, because devotion just isn't enough.

...She needs a drink, and she needs to take care of this.

She gets the vine to come on over to her and breathes into it,

"Red. Where you at?" She brings that cigarette back to her mouth, inhaling deep. "Find something to drink, we're having a bonfire."

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"Don't let it mess with your head." An idle warning, really, because they can both stay plenty cool under pressure, even prolonged. Torturing a Turk was a recipe for wasted time.

Reno's smile, at least, is the best possible omen anyone could ask for. It lightens Rude's spirits, anyway, and she returns it with a languid sort amusement. She bets that Red has all sorts of ideas in her scraggly little head about how she'd like to get that blaze going, and while Rude has exactly two materia on her person, one green ball of healing and one orange ball of flame, she still answers no--(has she been holding out? Fuck yes she has been. A lady does not go around telling everyone about the handgun in her purse. The first you see of it is its cold little barrel pressed between your eyes.)

"I would hate to steal your thunder," she says, because she is clearly the most gracious chick in this entire little bubble of homolust. "But I got somethin', just in case you can't deliver."

They always deliver, one way or another, it's a point of pride.

"I'm gettin' used to it." At this point, she's more pissed off than troubled. It is a change of pace, though, and she had been complaining about the boredom, hadn't she? She'd say that would teach her not to complain about boredom, but it wouldn't teach her anything.

Reno is going to be so annoyed when she finds out Rude has been holding out on her (though it is a pretty good joke, dammit, Rude), but that is neither here nor there, as she doesn't know yet.

"I can fix up a little something." She's not the bomb-maker Rude is, because she doesn't have the patience for that kind of technical stuff, but she does all right with improvised incendiary weapons. "Don't you worry, me and Blondie will be there soon."

By the time Reno shows up where Rude is, she's carrying a bag, mostly full of booze, and she's carrying fake chick Rufus on her back. Plague Rufus was just too slow. Fortunately, she's not too heavy; all the wasting away will do that to a person. Reno could do without the black ooze on her shirt, but she's been filthier. Lots filthier. No problem: Kitty'll wash it out later. And fake chick Rufus is kind of like having a mean, half-dead pet. "Hey, now she can be friends with dead Tseng and Elena." Without ceremony, she dumps Rufus on top of them, getting blood all over Rufus' white pantsuit.

"...completely worthless," Rufus manages to hiss.

"Yeah, I know."

She'll be waiting, she's got the patience for it, after all. She may go through a few cigarettes in that time (starting to get there, chain smoking just to keep her mind from wandering, she could blame that on boredom or the macabre.) She raises one of her eyebrows as Reno comes shuffling along, not a hint of stealth there, lucky she didn't need it.

"Nice to see you too, boss," Rude greets, tilting her head. There's a very strange stir of emotions in her head, getting stronger now that the boss is here. They've spent a long time loyal to him, Reno even longer than her, since she let the Shinra army raise her out in Wutai for a while before she found her true calling. Maybe this reaction is because Rufus is still moving, breathing, can make eye contact. The impulse is to pick her up, bandage her up so she doesn't look so damn ugly, give whatever she wants until she's got that haughty look of pleasure on her face that means she rules the whole goddamn world.

Rude flicks a cigarette butt into the pile of corpses and plague carriers, turning towards Reno rather decidedly. She flicks some of the boss's ooze off her with bored disdain.

"We ever figure out that recipe for brain bleach?" Cause this shit is gross, the sight, the smell, the feelings. It could all use a good scrubbing.

"Don't worry about her, I'm taking good care of her." Reno ruffles Rufus' hair, almost enjoying the black humor of the situation by this point. "Nobody's going to kidnap her or blow her up or anything."

She'd struck the first illusion as a test, having seen what happened to others' fakes. She'd enjoyed killing the next couple, but at the same time, it had been wrong somehow, giving her a conflicting knot of feelings, which she didn't like, since she wasn't used to having too many feelings. So this one she'd decided to keep around, both tormenting and looking after it. Having killed and cared for fake Rufus all in the same day, her mind has partly detached itself from the situation, as it tends to do, her own personal, internal brain bleach. The expression in her eyes holds a certain blankness, but her mouth is smiling. After a moment's thought, she moves Rufus off the pile, getting herself bloody in the process, but that's okay. She likes getting bloody. By this point, she's quite the unholy mess.

"I think booze is still the closest thing we've got." Speaking of which, Reno hands Rude a bottle of it. "Outside of head trauma."

She takes out another bottle--this one full of something slightly different. They might not call them Molotov cocktails in Gaia, but that's more or less what it is. Maybe they should call it a Midgar cocktail, in honor of the exploded dead. "You ready for this?"

"Booze it is then." There's not a hint of disappointment in her voice.

And may whatever fucked up gods that watch over this place be blessed for their magic dirt. This place would be a whole lots less bearable without it. Booze and air-conditioning, that's all she asks. She can handle the rest, even if she wasn't quite used to the 'rest' including ghosts. Monsters she was used to, alien replicants bent on devouring her world; she could even go down to the orchard and pick some fruit and olives out of the trees--(Even if the latter was a memory from a long time ago. She'd left Costa del Sol and its beaches and orchards, had sent enough money back over time that her parents owned some of those trees by now. That's loyalty for you.)

She crouches down for the second time then, wastes a little of her drink to wipe the blood off of Elena's face, Tseng's too. It's not a secret to the likes of Reno that she can be... sentimental, that it's come to bite her in the ass before. All the more reason to get this over with, and Rude knows it.

When she stands, Rude lifts her bottle briefly in salute. "Always ready," she agrees, taking a long drink that hits the murmur of nicotine already present under her skin like a balm. It's what she was looking for, something cheap and easy to distract her from the steady curl of discontent brewing in the far corners of her mind. She'd maybe offer her bottle out to Rufus, at another time, but the last thing she needs to be drinking right is her necrosis all over the lip. Sorry, Boss, shit sucks sometimes.

She watches Rude wipe the blood from Tseng and Elena, and she doesn't laugh. She stands back, watching silently. Even though she's smiling, she doesn't appreciate the disrespect represented by these phony versions. They're too close to the truth of what could have been. Tseng and Elena had been ripped to pieces and almost died, and if that little Remnant bitch hadn't been so arrogant, he would have cut Rufus' throat instead of keeping him alive in order to have the pleasure of twisting the knife. It all could have turned out so differently, if just one thing had gone a little wrong. But you couldn't think about that, or you'd go fucking crazy. More crazy.

Not that almost dying was anything new. No, it's old news for all of them. That's why they deserve respect, not a stupid joke like this. Reno's smile fades, and then she's grave, for once.

She does enjoy being the one to make the bombs sometimes, even though the ones Rude makes are flashier, more elaborate and more fun. Hers do get the job done, especially when the job is something as straightforward as this. As Rude salutes her, she lights the wick and throws the bottle, quick and sure, like someone who's done it before, which is exactly what she is. The bottle smashes, sweet and sharp, and then the fire bursts, brilliantly bright and just what it takes to make her smile again as she watches it burn, the light reflected from her eyes.

Part of her wishes they could burn the whole garden down, but she's well aware that that urge is a little too crazy. She's seen that cautionary tale play out.

She reaches for the bottle she gave Rude, even though she has more booze and they don't need to share. "Gimme a swig."

Rude relinquishes the grog without a fight and when her arm is free, she slings it loosely around her partner's shoulders. Maybe it would have been harder if Red had been in the pile, she's not going to think on that too hard. She's content to be grateful someone has her back, someone who wasn't going to shrink back from the idea of showing these damn phantoms exactly what they think of their bullshit.

It's a noisy sort of defiance, a lot of sound and fury to cover up the fact that it still hits home no matter how cold-hearted and level-headed they are. They can pretend they don't humor the monarch's insolent nonsense, but that doesn't change the fact they've got a funeral pyre burning for the brothers and sisters beyond their reach, who might end up just like this while the Queen has the two of them running circles. There's no crying for the lost, Turk protocol.

Rude watches the flames licking after the shapes of her boss and her comrades, but there's nothing really there to catch light, and soon there's only smoke and ashes. The ghosts may come back, they probably will considering what she's been watching on the vine, but they'll meet the same fate all night long. She and Reno may be covered in blood and mold from hefting their carcasses into the blaze over and over again, but that's where they belong and that's where she'll see them stay.

"Now it's a party," an idle murmur.

"That's right. The party doesn't start till something's on fire." It's a big fire, too, her favorite kind. She takes the bottle, takes a drink, accepts the arm over her shoulders. Rude's warm, and it feels good. This is probably harder on Rude than it is on her. Not that she thinks Rude's weak, but they're different. Reno doesn't like to see the others like this, but in her gut, maybe even on a cellular level, she can sense it's not real, so it can't really touch her. She feels a thrill move through her body as the corpses burn and the smoke rises. She might not care for the disrespect, but it is a little fun.

Even with this current mess, things are too peaceful here for her. Some more fire's what this place needs. She wasn't made for peace. "I miss blowing shit up."

When Rude's more grim, Reno lightens up, partly in direct response, partly because they tend to balance each other out naturally. "It's too bad all of 'em showed up in such bad shape. I wonder if anyone's tried to fuck one of these fakes. Maybe fake Elena'd actually put out." She laughs.

"Nah," Rude answers with a grim little smile. "Don't think we're meant to have any fun with these things."

Their balancing act is just the oil to a complicated machine. They all spent time in each other's heads, learning all the ticks and tells and signals. Secrets made people uncomfortable, and the Turks liked to have all the secrets. But you can't just get by on silence and intimidation, and the others did their part, Reno with snide insults, and Tseng with cold threats, and Elena was pretty damn good at haughty disdain when she wanted to be, and it all led to emotions and mistakes in their enemies.

The balancing act and the well-oiled machine, it was there to keep them from getting too emotional, making mistakes and Red will keep her head clear. A few of its pieces had just gone up in flames before them, but there was a central hub to all their operations kept safe between the two of them. Maybe that was part of the bother, being separated from the family with no real estimated return. She'd like that drink back now, Reno.

"Nothing worth blowing up out here anyway," she reflects, motion around blandly. "Nothing but trees and shit. Goddamn boondocks is what it is."

"I had fun with Kitty's. I got to give it shit and fight it." That had been a bright spot, fighting and giving shit being two of her favorite things. "These ones were a little entertaining." Reno doesn't like admitting to being bothered, so she won't, making light as usual. "Here and there. Everybody all together. We should've thrown a party." She laughs, imagining Rufus in a party hat (a thing that would never happen), watching the flames dance. Plague and corpses, just like the good old days. And the relatively recent days. And probably the near future. "If they come back, we should. Then we can burn them again."

She hands the booze back to Rude, sensing what she wants. She knows when to pass the bottle; it's second nature to her.

"Sometimes it doesn't matter if you've got something worth blowing up. Sometimes it's good enough just to have an explosion." She frowns, then, as she notices some movement on the periphery of her vision. She turns toward it. Something animal. "What the fuck is that?"

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