Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Chapter 83: A Trip South

“Honestly…” Esme tutted as she bustled about the kitchen, “You need to take better care of yourself. You know how susceptible you are to cold weather. And what in Hades’ name was that husband of mine thinking, sending you off to freeze all day at a protest?” She turned suddenly, a large wooden spoon in her hand, which she shook at him angrily, “When he told me you were sick again this year, he was just damned lucky that I already had supper on the stove… because if that frying pan had been empty, he’d have gotten it upside the head.”

Tseng laughed quietly in response, but it quickly turned into a hacking cough. Though the threat was one that was made often, to his knowledge the fiery woman had never actually made good on it.

“And as soon as I get some hot food into you, you’re going straight back to bed, young man,” his mentor’s wife added, “I’ll have none of this working from home nonsense from you like last time. Your reports or whatever can wait until you’re feeling better.”

The under the weather Turk silently held up his hands in surrender. He hadn’t been all that shocked to find the woman on his doorstep early that morning, demanding she be let in to tend to to him. It certainly wasn’t the first time. Since his first day as a Turk, both Veld and Esme had accepted him as a part of their family… even going as far as to take him into their home for nearly a year when he’d found himself broke and on the verge of being kicked out of his apartment as a rookie.

“This really isn’t necessary, Esme…” he protested, though he knew, from experience, that it was pointless. She was here, and by god she was going to mother him whether he liked it or not.

“Hmph. You know me better than that, Tseng,” she replied, sternly, but with a smile behind her eyes, before returning to her cooking.

Tseng sighed and settled back in one of the kitchen chairs. He wasn’t getting out of this. Though on the bright side… he certainly couldn’t complain about the menu. Esme was a superb cook, and she was a strong believer in the old adage of feeding a cold – though she balked at starving a fever. She fed those, too. At the moment, true to her distant Mideelian ancestry, she was preparing him a breakfast of sausages, potato hash with peppers and onions, bacon, eggs, fried mushrooms, and her family recipe soda bread. If he hadn’t utterly lost his sense of smell hours ago due to not being able to breathe through his nose, he was certain he’d have been in heaven just sitting in the room.

“I always thought soup was more appropriate when one is ill,” he lightly teased, his voice somewhat coarse with congestion.

“Soup is only appropriate as a meal when your throat is too sore to swallow or you can’t keep anything else down,” she replied, firmly. “You need something to keep your strength up. If you’re good, I’ll make you soup for lunch.”

A moment later, she plunked a fully loaded plate down in front of him, and handed him a fork.

“You… do realize I’m only one person, correct?” he replied, eyeing the mound of food. It was quite considerably more heavy a meal than his normal breakfast fare. She chuckled softly as she wiped her hands on a towel.

“Oh, come now. Your protege would have that finished off and be begging for another helping in five minutes flat,” she said with an encouraging smile.

“That is because Reno has a bottomless pit where his stomach should be. Normal human beings have a finite amount of space.”

Esme laughed and joined him at the table with a freshly brewed pot of tea, of which she poured him a cup before taking a seat across from him.

“Breakfast and then bed,” she reiterated. “And then I’ll clean up a bit and be back to check in on you this afternoon.”

Tseng made one final, halfhearted, effort at protesting this coddling, but was swiftly cut off.

“Eat those eggs before they get cold,” Esme chided him. At last, he simply admitted defeat and sighed, before digging in to the breakfast platter before him.

---

By the time the sun had risen high enough to be seen over the mountains, he’d made it to the trail that would lead him upwards, past the foothills, and through the Mythril Mine. Reno had considered taking a shortcut directly over the rocky terrain… if only to lessen the time spent on the back of a chocobo… but in the end, he’d decided that his riding skills just weren’t up to snuff and he’d much rather make it to the other side in one piece than risk being thrown into a gorge for the sake of saving an hour or two.

When he got back to Midgar, he was going to petition Veld to request a second helicopter for the team. The fact that he hadn’t been permitted to take their current one because Sykes and Petra were heading off to Nibelheim for a day or two, and that he was stuck on this fucking overgrown pigeon at all, was proof, at least in his mind, that they desperately needed a backup aircraft.

Reno reigned the bird in at the bottom of the path leading up to the mine and slid from its back with a groan. The chocobo warked at him and shook out its feathers.

“Aw, shut up. It wasn’t exactly fun for me either, ya know,” he muttered at the creature, as he stretched stiff muscles and got his blood circulating again. Why the hell some people actually enjoyed riding these things, he’d never understand. It was an uncomfortable, jarring, more than occasionally painful process at even the best of times… and the birds themselves were assholes. This one, at least, was slightly less of an asshole than the chocobos he’d ridden in the past, but it was still an asshole.

And he was barely halfway to his destination.

It didn’t exactly help that he wasn’t entirely sure what his destination ultimately was. “South, past Fort Condor” was kind of a lot of territory, and that was the best Rude had been able to do for him. He shuddered as an icy wind whipped past him. That was another bonus that going through the mines would provide. He’d be out of the cold – relatively speaking – for a little while. The chocobo warked again, impatiently, and nudged him forward with its head. Apparently it, too, was eager to get out of the wind and the flying snow.

“Alright already… fuck,” he grumbled, seizing the reins and walking the avian up the path towards the mine entrance. He supposed he could have ridden through the passageway… but to be honest, the idea was a little daunting. Chocobos, in general, didn’t like being underground to begin with, and there were plenty of places that a bad fall off of the back of a seven foot tall bird would be problematic, to say the least. On his own two feet, he was relatively safe from that.

As he reached the natural cave that opened up into the main mine, he spotted a group of miners, probably from Kalm, squeezing themselves into the elevator that descended to the lower levels. Reno shook his head. That was one job he didn’t want. Growing up underneath a literal city was one thing. Purposefully dropping fuck only knows how deep into a bunch of tunnels beneath a mountain? Yeah, no thanks. He could happily go on with his life if he never had to experience that. The cave on top of the mines put him under more than enough solid rock for his taste.

There was something primal about the thought of being so deep inside the planet, and… though it certainly didn’t leave him paralyzed with fear, it was a disquieting one nonetheless. Kind of like being deep underwater with only a tiny air tank to keep him alive… which, if he was honest, was something else he was really in no hurry to do again. It was one of those things that… if he had to do it, he’d be okay with it. But if he didn’t have to, so much the better. Kind of like Rude’s attitude toward heights, or Zephyr’s toward tight spaces.

Or his towards riding an Ifrit-be-damned chocobo, for that matter… though he wasn’t so much afraid of that, as he simply hated it with a fiery passion. Right now, though, there was nothing he could do about that. It was either the chocobo… or walk all the way to the southern coast. As he led the bird, who upon entering the cave system seemed to be getting a bit nervous, he vaguely wondered if walking might be preferable.

---

Tseng had tried to sleep. Esme had been very insistent that he needed to spend the day in bed, after all, and he knew that if, when she arrived for his afternoon feeding, he was to be found anywhere else… he was going to hear about it.

Sick or not, however, it was late into the morning, long past the time he’d normally be up and going about his day. Sleep wouldn’t come, and after awhile, he abandoned the effort and removed himself to the living room instead. It was, he reasoned, an acceptable compromise. The couch was very nearly a bed anyway with enough pillows and blankets piled on top of it, and had the added benefit of being near the television. Though he didn’t care for most of the mindless junk that passed for daytime entertainment these days, it did, at least, provide a little background noise while he spent his time under the covers.

On the bright side, his fever had gone down. It hadn’t fully broken yet, but he seemed to be well on his way to recovery. Or at least to enough recovery that he could return to the office in a reasonable amount of time. The cold itself would likely linger for the rest of the week and through the weekend, if past experience was anything to go by.

He was doubly annoyed by his illness, given that, had he not gotten sick, he would be the one traveling south today in search of Kai. Not that he didn’t trust Reno to find her, if she was really there… but she was his friend. He wanted to help.

Reno had been entirely correct when he’d said she’d been gone too long. Kai loved the outdoors, and she found solace in nature… but she was about as far from an introvert as a person could get. Even though she enjoyed her alone time, to rest and recharge, she ultimately needed to be around people. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d been doing, alone, for so long.

He’d assumed that the Zenshou would figure into her plans one way or another, but if she really had gone after them, there’d been no indications of it that the Turks had been made aware of… and they’d certainly been watching. He was just thankful that Veld had agreed with him that they needed to start looking in earnest… because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand not knowing where in the Nine Hells she’d disappeared to.

Had Tseng been physically up to it, he’d have gone with Reno this morning… his pain in the ass immune system be damned. But somehow, his first cold of the season always seemed to leave him feeling listless and exhausted. He very seriously doubted that he could have kept up… even with all of his stubbornness.

After awhile, Tseng reached for his PHS. Perhaps he couldn’t be there in person… but that didn’t mean he couldn’t keep himself in the loop.

---

“Give it back,” the redhead hissed, angrily, eyes narrowed as he held his gun trained squarely on his newly acquired nemesis. This showdown had been going on for almost a full five minutes, neither opponent willing to blink. “Don’t make me do it… ’cause I’ll fuckin’ do it. I don’t care if I gotta walk. Give it the fuck back. Now.”

He’d made it out of the mines a short while ago, and had just been preparing to remount the Shiva-forsaken chocobo, when his PHS had rung.

And that had led to his current standoff.

In a split second, the device had been snatched from his hands. Now, the chocobo gripped the phone tightly in it’s beak, trilling at him in what Reno could only surmise was a challenging tone. He flipped the safety off on his gun and moved his finger to the trigger.

“You got five fuckin’ seconds, asshole. Drop it.”

He had no idea if the stupid bird had any idea what he was saying – though Tseng had always insisted the goddamned things were smart – but he was kind of out of ideas. Either the bastard dropped the PHS, or he really was going to have to take matters into his own hands one way or another… because while company-issue phones were tough, they weren’t indestructible. Something that small wasn’t going to stand up to the crushing force of a chocobo’s beak. He’d seen them crack open fucking carob nuts before with those things… Most people used a hammer.

The chocobo trilled again, and the tossed the phone into the air, warking loudly. Reno felt his stomach drop.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” he shouted, but it was already too late. The phone dropped back down again, and the chocobo neatly swallowed it whole. Reno let out an enraged scream, and opened fire. The chocobo gave one final wark as it took off running, and the string of profanity that echoed off of the mountainside in its wake could likely be heard clear down at Fort Condor.

The redhead emptied the clip, though it was an utter waste of ammunition. The bird had been out of range within the first three or four shots. And the fact that he’d missed all of those shots just meant that he needed to spend some extra time on the firing range. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he didn’t really want to kill a chocobo… not even a pain in the ass chocobo that had just eaten his goddamned phone.

That was his story, and he’d swear to it on pain of death if anyone asked.

With a sigh he shoved his sidearm back into its holster, and turned to look down at the snow-cover trail that lead down from the mountains.

“Unbe-fucking-lievable…” he muttered, as he started the long trip to Fort Condor on foot. “I just fucking got that PHS…”

In fact, he’d only had it since about the day Kai had left. It had been the replacement for the the one that had ended up skewered into his chest in Costa del Sol. He’d kind of been hoping it would at least survive through the holidays. He was pretty sure this year was going to be a new record for him. If his count was correct, that had been number four, which meant that the one he’d be requisitioning when he got home would be number five. No way had he ever managed to destroy that many phones in any of his previous years as a Turk.

As the winds picked up and another round of snow began to fall, he realized that he might to have to alter his travel plans a bit. It probably wasn’t a great idea to be wandering around, looking for fuck only knew what out in the middle of nowhere during a snowstorm. He’d have to stop in at Fort Condor… which he’d intended to do anyway, but now, without a mount, if the snow got any heavier he was going to have to wait it out. Maybe even spend the night, if it was getting dark by the time the skies cleared. Knowing the terrain that Kai liked to partake of during her little camping trips, he probably wasn’t going to find her on foot, at night, in a blizzard.

---

Rude glanced up at the sound of the knock on his office door.

“Come in,” he called out, and a moment later, Veld joined him. The Turk commander glanced around at his surroundings.

“You’re far neater than your mentor ever was,” he observed, and Rude snickered quietly. Tres had always been highly organized… but the man had had his own way of being organized. If you didn’t understand his system, you had little chance of finding much of anything. Security by obscurity, as he’d always told him. Rude, however, didn’t care for clutter and found it distracting. Veld shook his head.

“In any case… I was just wondering if you’d had the opportunity to check in with Reno lately. Apparently, Tseng tried him a short while ago, but there was no answer. I had the same result.”

Rude shrugged. “Haven’t heard from him since he left this morning. But you know him and chocobos… he’s probably still trying to coax it through the Mythril Mines. Or one of them finally managed to tick him off enough that he made good on his threat to cook it and eat it for lunch.”

Veld snorted softly in laughter. “Let’s hope not. I’d very much like to get the deposit back on that bird. We’re more than a little over budget this quarter.” He glanced down at his watch. “Let me know if he calls in with an update, will you? I’m due in the training hall.”

“Yes, sir,” Rude replied.

---

By lunchtime, Reno had trudged his way from the mines all the way to Fort Condor… swearing loudly under his breath the entire way at the Shiva-be-cursed chocobo that had fucking eaten his phone and abandoned him on the mountainside. Those feathered bastards were evil… and no one was ever going to convince him otherwise.

Now, however, he was sitting in the fort’s tiny mess hall slash common room slash briefing room, still shivering has he downed a second cup of coffee courtesy of the installation’s commander. The outpost was decidedly short on space. Of course, there were only around five or six soldiers garrisoned here at any given time, so… it wasn’t like they really needed it. Their only duty was to guard the mako reactor, after all.

Fort Condor was something of an oddball in Shinra’s portfolio. It had no associated town. No permanent residents, as the soldiers rotated through on a monthly basis out of Junon. No real reason to even be out here, other than the reactor. He’d never quite understood why the Company had built the damned thing out, literally, in the middle of nowhere. The closest town was, in fact, Junon, and it was a good day’s walk. Beyond that, there were a handful of spots farther south along the coast – towns so minuscule you really couldn’t even call them towns. In fact, most of them were just homesteads that had been built up by whomever had happened to be around to claim the land back in the day. There was the occasional inn for travelers passing through, and he knew of at least one tiny village that had sprouted up around a ferry harbor that shuffled passengers between the mainland and the southern islands… but that was about it out here.

In fact, that harbor was where he was planning on heading just as soon as his teeth stopped chattering. Well… assuming the weather cooperated. He had just enough daylight to make it, if he wasn’t fighting a snowstorm. That, however, was looking less and less likely.

He didn’t have any concrete evidence that Kai had stopped there… but it was probably his best bet. If anyone had seen her after she’d left the general vicinity of Fort Condor, it would have been the people at the harbor. It would be a good place to go for supplies – which even Kai would eventually have to do – as well as find transportation. The smaller islands down south were largely uninhabited. Perfect for someone who was looking to get away from her troubles and be alone with her thoughts for awhile.

Of course, that was all just a guess. He might get down there and find no trace of her… but he had to try.

---

Tseng awoke to the sound of knocking at his front door, and groaned softly as his body protested his efforts to reorient himself into a more upright position. After a moment, he finally managed it, and from there was able to drag himself to his feet.

Apparently his earlier wakefulness had only been temporary… because at some point between attempting to call Reno and waiting to hear back from Veld after he’d called his mentor and informed him that he hadn’t been able to contact Reno… he’d completely crashed. As he made his way over to the front door, Tseng glanced at the clock and noted that it was now after noon. Which meant that the knock most likely heralded Esme’s return. Tseng groaned again as his head throbbed in protest of his new position, and he reached for a tissue, blowing his nose, before making his way to the door.

When he opened it, he was met with a much different figure than the one he’d been expecting.

“Rude?” he queried, surprised. The younger Turk grinned slightly.

“Hmph… snow kicked up again and the roads got pretty bad fast. Veld didn’t want Esme out in it, so I volunteered to pick up your lunch and bring it over. Perks of four wheel drive,” he said, stepping inside and closing the door behind him, banishing the icy wind that had tried to accompany him into the condo. “Hope you’re hungry,” he added.

Tseng’s eyes quickly shifted to the large basket his fellow Turk was carrying, its handle over his left forearm, and sighed, shaking her head.

“I swear she must think we all eat like Reno…”

“She said being sick is making you too skinny,” Rude commented, chuckling. Tseng snorted softly… and immediately regretted it, as the sudden change in pressure made his head throb even harder.

“I’ve been ill for barely a day and a half,” the senior Turk deadpanned, but obligingly led the younger Turk towards his kitchen. He heard Rude snickering quietly behind him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, setting down the care package, “Because you look terrible.”

“I feel about as well as I look,” Tseng admitted, coughing into one arm and dropping heavily into one of the chairs at his kitchen table, “I hate winter.”

“Esme says I’m supposed to make sure you eat all of this…” the younger Turk said, with a faintly teasing tone to his voice, as he set his load down on the table, “But I’d rather avoid retaliation when you’re feeling better, so I’m just going to let you decide what to do with it all.”

The ill Wutaiian sighed, and reached for the basket, noting that it contained no less than three rather hefty sandwiches overloaded with meat and cheese, a bowl of mixed greens, and what looked like a thermos of hot soup… He rolled his eyes slightly.

“After breakfast alone, I shouldn’t have to eat for at least three days…” he commented, but began unloading the various containers anyway. He couldn’t exactly claim to be starving, but Esme really was a very good cook, and hot soup, at least, did sound rather inviting at the moment. “Has Reno finally checked in?”

Rude shook his head.

“… Not yet,” he replied, somewhat hesitantly, and Tseng frowned. “He hasn’t answered any of my calls, either. But he may still be up in the mountains. You know how badly the mythril deposits can affect cell signals.”

“He left quite early this morning, did he not? I would have thought he’d be to Fort Condor by now, at the very least…”

Rude smirked slightly. “Well, he is on a chocobo, sir. The way Reno rides, he might have ended up over in Nibelheim somehow by now…”

Tseng snorted softly in laughter. It was an exaggeration, of course… but not by much. The redhead had certainly improved since his rookie days, but he never had really taken to riding, and still struggled with it.

“One would hope that if he’d managed to be dragged all the way to a different continent by a rogue chocobo, he’d have the good sense to call and let someone know.”

“Hmph… I’m pretty sure he would. That’s why I’m not worried. Yet,” Rude chuckled, “I’ll let you know when he eventually checks in.”

“Thank you,” the senior Turk replied, gratefully. He wasn’t really that concerned about his protege. After all, Reno was an expert at taking care of himself, and had been since he was a child. Still… old habits died hard, and there were times that Tseng had to forcibly remind himself that there was no need to be so overprotective. That in mind, he opted to change the subject slightly. “By the way… have you found him a Christmas gift yet?”

“Not yet,” the younger man said, settling in across from him and leaning back in his chair, “Why does he have to be so hard to shop for?”

Tseng chuckled, smiling widely at his colleague. “The problem is that he’s not hard to shop for at all… He’ll treasure anything you give him. Which results in the gifter feeling unrelentingly guilty for buying him something mundane on account,” he replied, and paused for a moment, “Though I would have thought you’d be giving him something from the culinary realm, given his recent foray into your area of expertise…”

Rude shook his head. “We… mutually decided to end his cooking lessons a few weeks ago.”

The senior Turk cocked an eyebrow in curiosity. “Oh?”

“… They were getting too dangerous.”

“It can’t have been that bad…” Tseng replied, dismissively, as he opened the container of soup. A cloud of steam erupted from within, and though his sense of smell, and with it much of his sense of taste, had long since succumbed to general congestion, he found that he was looking forward to the dish.

“Hmph… our last lesson ended with a knife accidentally embedded in my boot. Which I was still wearing at the time.”

Tseng blinked, somewhat incredulously, and finally just sighed. “I’m not even going to ask how that happened.”

“I think he’s happier with take-out, anyway,” Rude snickered, “He doesn’t get the same enjoyment out of cooking that I do. He’d rather just eat the result.”

“You may well be right about that… though I will never understand how a person can survive on a diet made up almost entirely of pizza and drive-thru burgers and not be utterly sick of them by now,” he commented, rolling his eyes slightly.

“You and me both,” Rude replied with a grin. Reno would happily eat just about anything you put in front of him… but he definitely had his preferences. And most of them trended towards cheap, fast, and greasy. Tseng had long ago noticed that Rude made it a point to feed the younger Turk something healthy on occasion for years now…

He had to admit, there were times when Tseng slightly envied the redhead’s ability to consume enough food for a small army and never gain weight. He wasn’t sure he could tolerate the perpetual hunger that accompanied that ability, himself, though. His protege ate constantly because he really had no other choice. Reno’s somewhat hyperactive metabolism never had quite evened itself out… and it didn’t look like it had any plans to ever do so. Though, to be fair, that didn’t seem to bother Reno. “Hmph… Did you know the rookies are having a contest?”

Tseng raised an eyebrow. “A contest?”

“To find something Reno won’t eat,” Rude snickered. The senior Turk couldn’t help but laugh.

“I wish them all the luck in the world,” he chuckled, knowingly, before glancing over at the clock, “But… I think you’ve kept me company long enough. If the roads are really getting as bad as you say, you should get back to the office before you’re snowed in with me… and my germs.”

Rude snorted a quiet laugh and got to his feet. “Esme said to tell you that she’ll be bringing you dinner tonight even if she has to employ a sled dog team to do it.”

Tseng smiled and shook his head. “I… honestly wouldn’t put it past her to do just that if it ever came to it…” he fondly replied.

---

“Oh, come on…” Reno muttered impatiently as he gazed out across the white-blanketed landscape. It had been snowing heavily all afternoon with no signs of stopping, and the temperature had dropped drastically since lunchtime. When he’d realized that he probably wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, he’d borrowed the commander’s radio and put in a call to Junon… specifically to Viridia, asking her to relay his whereabouts back to Midgar for him. She’d sounded decidedly amused when he’d explained what had happened to his phone.

It annoyed him somewhat that the radio was his only option at the moment… but for whatever reason Junon HQ had decided that their personnel assigned to the remote fort didn’t have any need of a military-issue PHS, even for emergencies. And if any of them had brought along their personal phones, they apparently weren’t willing to admit as much to a Turk.

He supposed he couldn’t really blame them. It was technically contraband, and though he had no particular obligation to report them for it, they didn’t know him. Why the fuck should they trust him not to?

Still… it would have been nice to actually talk to one of his fellow Turks directly, rather than playing a game of messenger. Particularly since he was basically stuck here until the morning with nothing to do but watch the snow come down. But on the bright side… at least he wasn’t going to have to walk whole way to his destination. One of the patrols had offered to give him a lift as far as their southern-most checkpoint. The ferry port was only about a twenty minute walk from there, according to the young soldier he’d talked to.

The redhead huffed in vague annoyance, his breath coming out in a wispy cloud in the icy air, and he turned to head back inside the fort. It wasn’t exactly late, but there really wasn’t much sense in staying up much longer. And besides… he’d be leaving early tomorrow morning.

Hopefully, he’d be coming back with Kai.

~end chapter 83~