fandomhigh | The Day After Doomsday: Getting By In a Post-Apocalyptic World

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getting by

The Day After Doomsday: Getting By In a Post-Apocalyptic World - Period 2

"You ain't gonna see it comin'," Reno announced, the moment the butt of the last student to enter the classroom hit the chair. "I don't care if you been watchin' it fallin' down on your heads for weeks, I don't care if you were warned on the news, I don't care if you're the reason it happened or if you put your life on the line to keep it from happenin' or if some kinda magic vision popped into your head an' showed you exactly what tomorrow was gonna look like, yo. I don't friggin' care."

Apparently, Reno's caring reserves were running on empty, today?

"When you're standin' there in the aftermath, lookin' over whatever's left and realizin' that everyone is dead or gonna be that way real damn soon? When you find yourself face-to-face with the actuality that everything you know ain't never gonna be the same again, you will not be ready."

He took a moment, giving the students in the classroom a significant look.

"I don't know how each of you is gonna take it, and a lot of that might depend on what it is you're faced with, yo. But lookin' at the examples I know? People when they're desperate ain't friendly creatures. I seen kids wanderin' the streets with sick little siblings to watch out for, no family to their name an' nobody in the world wantin' to help. Nobody can. They're all in the same friggin' situation. I seen people resort to looting, I seen the kinda shit that a panicked mob can do. I seen people just completely give up and wait for it, or get themselves killed in a panic."

There was a pause, then, while Reno grit his teeth and tried his damnedest to not feel so godsdamed human. Of all the subject matter that they tackled so far, this was the one that was hitting him closest to home.

Go figure.

"I saw people who had a whole lotta nothin' but their pride all their lives, let their brains turn off and cling damn hard to what they had, because that was all there was left for 'em in the world. But it was too damn big for 'em all at once. They couldn't just walk out there and face that they could never go home again, couldn't just step in and start pickin' up what they could. It took 'em a lot of time before they got to that, yo. Time an' work. Even the people who looked like they were doin' what had to get done, bit by bit? They weren't ready for it, either. Don't think for a moment that they were."

Deep breath.

"Another discussion class today. How do you think you'll react when you're standin' in the aftermath, and what do you think it'd take to snap you outta it? Talk about it if you feel comfortable with it, clam up if you don't, I ain't gonna judge. Practical crap like pissin' on rags to get drinkin' water, anyone can do. Talkin' about yourself can be damn near friggin' impossible. Just be damn respectful no matter what you think of what other people are sayin', because if I hear shit-talk about the person who admits they're gonna hide, I'll personally drag you outta the friggin' room and leave you there. Bein' afraid? That's the most sane damn response there is."

[Open!]

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"They ain't all been?" Reno shot her a wry smile, stuffing his hands into his pockets with a shrug. "Ain't like it's the happiest subject matter on the course calendar this year, Rookie."

"I like the course," she said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "But this one, this topic--you can't do nothin' 'bout, you know? And can't say for sure how you'd react 'till you're there."

"That's true," Reno agreed, his little smile twisting momentarily into a thoughtful frown. "Still figure it's an important one to get into, though, no matter if it's somethin' that people can change or not. I don't want anyone here leavin' this classroom under the impression that they're ready for the worst, just because they sat in on some summer class for a few weeks one time."

She bobbed her head.

"Or that they'd be a victim just like everyone else?" Because that was what Ino had spent class pointing out to people that they might not be.

Ino had issues. Ino was also well aware that, in her world, it was even likely that if something happened her world that her village would have a hand in it.

"It was interesting." Food for thought, really.

And there was his demented little smile, rising from the dead!

"Yeah, ain't like everybody whose seen shit come tumblin' down is perfectly innocent," he agreed. "Even a couple of Gaia's so-called heroes after Meteor were terrorists with a pretty decent tally of innocent lives on their hands."

He didn't so much as glance toward Cloud ~~if he was there.~~ There had been a lot of players in what had happened in the events leading up to Meteor, after all. There was no sense in finger-pointing when he had plenty on his own head to deal with.

"Can be a big friggin' shock to the system, seein' what's left and knowin' that some of it's on your head. Even harder to actually get to a point where you can accept that, yoto."

Edited 2010-08-02 18:35 (UTC)

"And some of it you don't ever accept, yeah?" Ino wasn't stupid about the serious things. "I don't know. It just didn't seem right to leave it with one side of things bein' assumed."

She looked sheepishly at him.

He could have laughed at the expression on her face, just then. It took a moment of smirking and shaking his head in bemusement before he could actually formulate a decent reply.

"Don't let me stop you," he decided. "It's a good damn point to make, but... all things considered, I ain't the one who should be makin' it. Glad you stepped up to, Rookie."

Too hypocritical, lecturing students who were liable to be innocent for assuming that they would be innocent, coming from him.

She shrugged, smiling a bit.

"Just don't expect me to teach your class all the time," she teased, tugging at her hair. "I need to talk to you though. 'Bout--notebook stuff. Didn't just come up for the apology there."

Ah. Yes. The notebooks.

"You got some new notes to run by me for accuracy, or what?" Reno's eyebrow twitched upward slightly, and he idly reached up to straighten his goggles. "I'm all ears, yo."

Ino tugged out a notebook--red, for Gaia--and flipped it open to a page that she'd marked with a sticky.

"I need help with this," she said earnestly, and held it out for him to read.

Ino had written, at the top of the page she'd opened the notebook to:

Zack's put together almost as much as I have about what happens to Gaia.

She didn't think she needed to elaborate why she needed help here.

Had Ino ever seen Reno so bothered by something that it earned a hiss of breath between his teeth?

He held up one finger, looking around to be certain that no other students were about, and then he made a point to loudly announce that he'd leave rum out for the squirrels tonight if they backed right the hell off of this one.

He'd worked with them for a while. He figured he knew how they worked.

"... How much," he said, turning back to Ino once that was over with, "is that much?"

She hadn't and the realization of that scared her.

"It weren't me who told him," she said, almost babbling in her haste to let him know that. That she was still trustworthy. "He don't know how he fits in," and neither did Ino, which bugged her, "but he knows 'bout Midgar and he knows 'bout Edge and 'bout Jenova bein' Calamity and thinks that Calamity is what happened to Midgar--he don't know 'bout Meteorfall--and that ShinRa ain't likely to survive that 'cause Midgar is it's center of power though there's Junon and stuff. Thinks that Angeal was broken mentally by Jenova for what happened to him. Knows that SOLDIER can count as monster. And that Jenova can use monsters, makes them, to do her bidding."

Breathe Ino.

"And that people--I think it's Cloud, I do, but he didn't say--stop bein' on ShinRa's side and go against them and that none of it's enough to make sense and it's breaking him up, Reno."

And she was near tears by the end of it, because Ino could deal with the secrets, however badly herself, but the idea of breaking Zack hurt her in ways she hadn't known she could be hurt.

"I don't know what to do."

Oh. Right. As if Reno had totally forgotten what it was like to watch the world fall apart around him, here was the carpet being swept out from underfoot all over again.

"... He knows that much," he echoed, flatly. "He tell you all that himself?"

There went the neighborhood. That wasn't going to stop him from reaching a hand to rest on her back.

"You say anything to him about it?"

"He told me," she said, leaning into the touch and staring at him worriedly. "'Cause I pushed and pushed and wouldn't let him get away with lying to me and sayin' that nothing was bothering him."

She glanced down at her notebook, just for something to do.

"I... I told him that I didn't know how he fit in, that I wanted to know," because she did and Reno knew that already, "and that I thought he were a hero anyway even if he don't believe it and that fate don't got to stay the same and we can fix it. And 'bout fear and 'bout change and breaking and everything and it's all wrong."

But she wouldn't tell him that Zack had cried. That was hers to know only.

She wouldn't tell, and Reno wouldn't ask. He couldn't imagine the happy kid crying, anyhow. All accounts from the tiny handful of survivors said that he hadn't even looked afraid in the end.

"That'd be... too friggin' much for anyone," Reno allowed, frowning deeply while his mind raced overtime. "You told him you can fix it, huh?"

Focus on something. Something to hone in on. Cut the losses. Anything.

"I had to," she said, because otherwise she'd have been scared that, right then and there, Zack would've broken on her. "He needed to hear it. I needed to say it. I believe it."

"If I tell you things, everything could break," he said, though... The way he said it hinted that he was considering it regardless.

Everything could very well already be broken.

"And if things keep up like this," she said, swallowing hard. "Zack is going to break. He's not well. I know him better than anyone. He's not dealin' well at all."

"I can't just... give a step-by-step fly-by report of everything that led to that point," Reno noted, nodding toward the desks, making his way over to them and sitting down on top of one.

Chairs were for people who weren't tall, lanky, and about to give out at the knees.

"I... might be able to tell you things to look out for, zoto."

"I know," she said, following him over and leaning against the desk he was sitting on. She didn't want to give him space, not right now. He was a comfort-person.

"I just... I don't know what to do. Zack can't stabilize himself and that's... I can guess that's important, right?"

It was a fair guess, with how no one said anything about Zack.

"Big puzzle piece," Reno agreed after a lengthy pause. "Kid's gotta get back on his feet, zoto. Even if things do go different somehow, you know what he's capable of now, Ino."

Okay. He could make this call. Make this call and tell Elena what the hell was up and maybe... The world wouldn't end.

And if it did, it wouldn't be for lack of him trying, this time around.

She nodded.

"I know what he's capable of." There were advantages to going on missions with him. Even if the missions he took her on were ones that--wouldn't get her killed. Hopefully.

"I don't... I don't know how to put him back together," Ino said, fingers curling up and nails biting into her hands. "I got him to promise he... he wouldn't lie to me. So I'll know how he's feelin'. But..."

And he'd gotten a similar promise from her, but shhh.

"Even back on my Gaia, he had it rough for a bit after Angeal," Reno noted, thinking back a few years and then some. "Company tried to send him on vacation a few times to pull him outta his funk."

He smirked faintly, remembering that much.

"Del Sol, yo. They sent a handful of the Turks along. And we still couldn't get Tseng into a friggin' swimsuit." Which... was a tangent. "He's got a lotta shit on his shoulders that ours never did, but he's got somethin' else that ours didn't, too."

Edited 2010-08-02 21:13 (UTC)

Ino could, possibly, be forgiven for just blinking stupidly at him for that comment.

"He ain't the sort that a beach'll cheer him up," she muttered, because that was easier than--something. "He's got a lot more issues. Ain't nothing that can off-set that." Vampires, monsters, the future...

"He's got you, don't he?"

Okay, granted, their Zack hadn't been a Fandom-educated vegetarian reserves leader with a pet gerbil, either. Maybe the timeline had been screwed a long time ago. Maybe it wasn't, yet.

"There's a lot of shit there to sort through, yeah. But our Zack didn't have nobody who really knew it."

No, their Zack had the flower girl. Who was... a special snowflake, but who never did understand the job he was doing, did she?

The Day After Doomsday: Getting By In a Post-Apocalyptic World - Period 2

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