towerofanimus | (no subject)

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Characters: Reno, papers, and you
Setting: Floor 3, Floor 88, Staircase between Floors 96 to 87
Format: Either or
Summary:
Writing up info dump from the party log and Reno is head desking because what is paperwork
Diarmuid and Reno discuss Things over a game of pool
On the Staircase, trying to come up with a viable plan to map the dangerous Upper Levels
Warnings: TBA

Monday, Nov 11, Morning, 0900
Floor 3 Library

The library was quiet this morning, or at least quiet enough that Reno was able to focus and concentrate on the epic, gruelling task he had set before him. A pile of papers sat on the table next to him, along with several sharpened pencils, and a few pens. The maps he had been working on over the past month and a half were nearby, layered neatly next to them. There were a lot that he had to redraw in a more permanent ink, and keeping the notes and symbols neat. Epic, because of how large it was, gruelling because... well, gawddamit, it was paperwork. If Veld or Tseng were here, though, he could just imagine what they would say if he slacked off on the neatness and legibility of any of these things...

The thought made him pause, slightly depressed. He had been here so long, and admittedly, grew up a little, but even now he wished one of them would show up. Even for a small time. Just long enough to say "Good work," or "Nice Job," maybe even "I'm proud of you." Psh, that was too weak, though. He couldn't ask for that, couldn't even tell Elena or the kids. They were depending on him. With a visible shake, he turned his attention back to the task.

Even after all this time of writing up reports, dossiers, files, and most recently, maps, Reno still hated paperwork, and made a face at the scrawled lines he had done so far. This wasn't why he joined the Turks, it was because of the action! The romantic idea of being a dashing, cunning intelligence agent, just like all those shows on SINTV when he was growing up! Of course, when he actually got into it, the reality was way darker and more painful than he thought it'd be, but it still was a hell of a lot more interesting than paperwork. True, Tower sometimes had too much action for his comfort, but hey..

Sighing, he kept staring at the paper in front of him, wishing it had been done already instead of just only half written. It would be so much easier if he had a computer, or a typewriter. Or anything. As it is, he was getting cramps in his hand. Maybe that would help! He dropped the pencil and stretched out his left hand back and forth, getting the flow of blood worked back into it. Keep going. You're the Chief now, y'gotta keep on.

Taking up the pencil again, he started jotting off another line, and paused. Crossing his eyes, he groaned and faceplanted into the table. "Where's Shion when y'need him..."

If anyone glances over his shoulder, they may see various papers on certain topics that were over heard during the party.

Tuesday, Nov 12, Afternoon
Floor 88

Stepping out into the smoky bar, Reno glanced around to make sure there weren't any monsters hiding out around. One couldn't be too careful with the floors that looked like they didn't see a lot of use, and Reno had a couple of bite marks over the years to prove it. Or three hundred. He forgot which.

Satisfied he wasn't going to get ambushed, he started racking up the pool balls, setting up for a game, just in case. Pool was something he missed from back home, and any chance to play it in a busy and hectic Tower life is pretty nice. If Diarmuid didn't know how, he'd just have to teach him. It'd be a great distraction while they had that... chat.

Smoky atmosphere, dark interior, impending chats of dubious nature he wasn't sure he wanted to actually talk about, and Elena potentially getting into trouble somewhere in the Tower. All he needed was a pack of cigarettes, a bunch of cheap booze, and a deck of cards and it would be a vacation at the Turtle's Paradise.

Sunday, Nov 17, Mid Morning, 1000
Staircase, between Floors 97 to 87

Today, Reno was trying to approach the Upper Floors to map them. Whispers and rumors, and hell, just outright observation told him that they tended to be on the more dangerous side of the Tower. One look at the giant monsters on Floor 97, and he backtracked hard, telling himself he... should probably come back with someone in tow, because it looked like a struggle even to get a vague sense of the floor and how it was constructed. Last time he was up here scoping out the floors, he didn't remember the monsters being so gigantic.

Cussing to himself, he sat down on the staircase just between 96 and 97 and glared off into space, taking a moment to think before he went off and got into trouble. Who the hell would he ask that had the skills and the survival sense enough to help out? Maybe Riku, he was a good one, and he knew when and where to dodge if something happened. Plus, that corridor thing wouldn't hurt. Or maybe Diarmuid? Elena?

Maybe it was just getting harder to think because of the stress, he should just head down to the sauna floor and take a break. Sounded like fun, but he didn't feel particularly eager to get moving again. When he did, he'd only go a few more floors and then pause and look out over the floors from the staircase. He'd be an obstruction for a while with his rolled up unfinished maps.

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"I'm doing that as well..." Sometimes. It was hard, his feelings were all muddled and words got lost between brain and pen. He had thought it would be easier than speaking them outloud but instead it was harder.

He looked down, "I keep forgetting things. When I die..." He blinked at him, "I don't want to forget any of you..." He couldn't think of a worse fate than that.

Quietly, Reno handed the papers back to him, shaking his head. "Shion... how many times have ya died now?"

"Nineteen times..." He looked down, "I tried not to... last time... but I wasn't smart enough."

Slowly, Reno rubbed both hands over his face and leaned into the table. How... could he have failed the kid so badly? How the hell could this have happened? His training... their sparring matches. All the running. Fights. Yelling.

Shiva's tits.

Taking a deep breath in, he shook his head, hands still over his face. "Dammit, kid... I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." Shion blinked at him, "If it wasn't for you I would have died much more, probably a hundred and nineteen." Probably more actually.

"Shion, if I-" breaking off, he frowned. Last time he had said it was his fault, Shion had just taken it on himself instead of accepting that Reno could make mistakes. A certain odd feeling came with the idea that someone looked up so much to you that they were willing to take on all your faults on to themse-

Wait a minute.

That was the problem. That had to be it. Looking up at the kid, Reno gave him a careful, calculating look. "Shion, tell me about Rat."

Suzaku blinked at him, unsure what one thing had to do with another. "Rat?" He thought for a moment, there was so much he could say about him, but he had no idea what Reno wanted. "What do you want to know?"

"How'd you meet? What's the story?" Waving at the kid to sit down, he pulled over a clean sheet of paper to make his own notes. "I just thought of somethin' and I need ya to remember as much as you can."

Shion frowned but nodded and after a moment to gather his thoughts he spoke. "It was my twelfth birthday. There was a hurricane that night, and though the city was in no danger we were all to go inside. I felt really restless though, and angry... not angry like I get now just... Like there was something inside me shouting against everything. I was supposed to be writing a paper but instead I opened the window.

All the houses, especially in Chronos were the perfect temperature, regulated from the inside. But I overrode the system to open the window in the storm and went out and just screamed." He blushed, "It got lost in the storm but that was what I wanted. I had to go in before the system triggered an alarm thinking there to be a break in or something. But as I was closing the window I saw a figure. It was Rat.

He had escaped... from the correctional facility and he had been shot. He was tiny and soaking wet. His eyes were so... I can't remember the colour... but they were striking and beautiful. I didn't know he was a prisoner at the time, he was just tiny and hurt. The bullets had been coated in anti congealment... I sewed up his wounds and snuck him some food. That's when I learned that he was a prisoner, he was on the news.

I told him and he attacked me with a spoon. He was so strong, even though he was smaller than me! I was amazed, I had never seen anyone fight before." He took a breath.

"I hid him all that night, he was gone before I woke up and by mid morning the authorities were at the door."

Reno wrote down sentences in a code so he couldn't see what, and considered the story for a moment.

"So... you saved him, and he attacked you. You'd never seen anyone fight before." Something was obviously running through Reno's head, turning his expression thoughtful, and he bit his lip.

After what was far too long a moment, he patted Shion on the shoulders, "You're a good kid, Shion." He knew Shion, of course, couldn't forget anything, so when he said he had forgotten the color of Rat's eyes, something must have happened to make him forget. Of course, Reno didn't really remember the exact color when he had met him briefly last year, but knowing should give the kid some comfort. "His eyes were gray." And they might very well be, but if it helped...

"Shion, that kid owes you his life. Why do ya put so much by him?"

"Grey..." Shion blinked. It rang no bells but these memories never did, it was like learning of them all over again.

He looked down at the question and it was a moment before he spoke again, "Because he saved me back...

After I was interogated the authorities decided that although I had had nothing to do with Rat's escape the fact that I hadn't reported him meant I was a non conformist, I was dangerous but not dangerous enough to kill. So they expelled me from the special program and sent me and my mother away from Chronos... We ended up in Lost Town and my mum slowly set up her bakery. I found a job, she was never mad at me though. Even though she could have been.

Four years later I was at work, I programmed and controlled cleaning robots in the city parks. There was an incident and I went to investigate, there was dead body... All wrinkled like they had been very very old when they died, but it turned out the victim had only been in their twenties. The very next day during work my coworker fell to the ground, he changed before me, his skin drying up, his hair going grey and within moments he was dead." He played with a strand of his hair.

"I was arrested for murder, I was already on record as a non conformer so they had all the evidence they needed. They were taking me to the correctional facility when Rat attacked the car and took me out of the city... to West Town. He saved me, and saved me again because I had been attacked by a parasite bee too, I could have ended up dead like the others but he cut it out of me, and he saved me every day because I knew nothing. I was naive and stupid, I had no idea how to survive. Even in Lost Town I lived a life so controlled and perfect, I was useless in West Town and if it wasn't for Rat I would be dead a thousand times over. He taught me how to feel... how to live..." He blinked away tears.

"I'd be nothing if it wasn't for him."

Setting down the pencil, Reno rubbed his hands together for a moment, then rubbed his nose with both index fingers. He was going to try something here, and he wasn't sure if it was going to help. Diarmuid wasn't nearby to kick him if he tried something stupid, at least.

"Shion," he started, pulling his hands away and straightening up in his seat, "he didn't save you because you're smart enough and bright enough to make it on your own. That's one of the things I like about ya. You're clever. Just because you were ignorant of things outside the walls... doesn't make it your fault and it doesn't make Rat a hero."

Shion blinked. Then shook his head, "But I wasn't bright enough, I made so many mistakes. If it hadn't been for him..." He shook his head, "He is... he is a hero because he saved me, and he survived despite everything. I needed to be protected my whole life, by my mum, by him..." He shook his head, "And now you, and Elena and Xion. I still haven't learned, I still couldn't survive alone."

"Shion," Reno's voice sounded annoyed for the first time in... a long time. "I'm getting really tired of tellin' you how it is and you telling me how ya think it is. If you weren't bright enough, you wouldn't be a Turk. If ya weren't brave enough, ya wouldn't have ever gone in the cathedral and got that stone raven off my back. Rat is no hero. You saved him and he returned the favor. Not much more to it. He's dangerous and abusive, and nothin' is your fault. You can't help bein' who you are any more than I can help bein' who I am."

It was a risky move, poking at things Shion had yelled at him over before, trying to get the kid to see reason again. "Nothin' is your fault. Do ya hear me?"

Shion's eyes flickered worry as he looked at Reno, saddened that he had made the man mad at him, he opened his mouth as if to apologise but Reno kept talking and Shion's eyes blazed with anger, his fists clenching and standing up angrily.

"He's not abusive. Don't say such things!" He was shaking with anger, the only thing stopping him from all out attacking was because this was Reno, a person who had rescued him, taken him in. His dad in pretty much every way apart from biological.

"You don't even know him, you met him once. You can't make judgements about him!"

"Shion," Reno's voice was low and patient, but he stood up and grabbed Shion's shoulders to keep him from running, "I know him from the way he treated you. I know him from the way you talk about him. I know him from the way you're broken. Ya think this is something that you did? You put way too much weight in his words, and ya think everything is some fault of yours. It's not. Not his actions, not your world, not anything. You're just a kid tryin' to learn how to do everything and spreading yourself too thin, and blamin' yourself when ya fail because you forget you're just human and humans make mistakes. It's not your fault. And he shoulda gotten that, and that is why I think he's no good for ya. You need someone that..." For the first time, he faltered, looking very unsure of himself, even afraid. "You need someone that can bring out your strength instead'a making you ashamed of it."

Shion jerked away but not actually breaking free. His eyes were still angry though as he stared at Reno, his expression becoming angrier and sadder with every word he said. Blaming others for his own brokenness didn't seem fair, and he wanted to argue but he had promised to try not to blame himself for everything and so he shut his mouth and just glared at Reno, shaking in his arms.

"He's not like that." He said weakly, Reno's final words making him uncomfortable, "I don't want anyone else..." He brought his arm up to wipe away angry tears.

"Then the only solution is you got to change yourself. You got strength enough. You can tell the other part of ya, the one that's always blaming yourself to take a hike." He let Shion's shoulders go, letting him loose to make his own decisions. "Because ya wouldn't be so angry if you didn't think somethin' of what I'm saying is true."

Shion nodded, he could get behind that a lot easier. Changing himself. It's what he's been trying to do since he left No. 6, even more so since coming here. He had made efforts already but he wasn't there yet.

"I know..." He had to get rid of that part of him, so that he could stop being a burden, so he could look Reno, Elena, Xion and Diarmuid in the eye and know he wasn't a danger to them anymore. "I'll work harder."

"Don't work harder. Work smarter, that's your thing, sport." Reno rubbed a hand through his hair and sighed.

Shion just shrugged, still angry and upset but determined not to cry about this. At least not in front of Reno.

He knew Shion's moods though, and couldn't help but try to pick a little more. "...You're blamin' yourself again, aren't ya."

"No." Defensively, shrugging his shoulders up. "I promised."

"Shion..." Melting, Reno slouched forward and sighed. "Gettin' like that ain't gonna help. I just want ya to be honest with me."

"I'm fine." His eyes were angry, "I just..."

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tl'dr Shion has Rat issues

Re: tl'dr Shion has Rat issues

wow I missed this thread somehow

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