huggingcompetition | redheadedstepson Terra Firma

Entry tags:

reno,
rp threads

redheadedstepson Terra Firma

Getting shot through space would be traumatic if you weren't asleep and/or being beamed through it at the speed of life itself. It only felt like he'd had a long, restless sleep when Emil's eyes opened to focus blearily not on the smooth metal ceiling of his tiny apartment, or, more often than not, someone else's, but on the generically spackled ceiling of a hotel room in Malay. He was sure he was dreaming at first; he'd had dreams like this before, where he was back on earth and preparing to go about his day, at least until someone new happened out of the bathroom, or turned over beside him in the bed, but a quick glance around told him the one thing that made his heart sink straight into his stomach.

"Reno?"

Silence. just wind and surf and birds outside the cracked open window, and his own pulse plodding along strangely placidly.

He checked his phone to confirm what the date was, finding himself only a little bit alarmed to find out that time had passed here. Not much, but some. Enough to have taken up his vacation before he had to head home and begin arranging for the next winter sports season.

It would go like that for months after arriving back home and settling back into his routines. Wake up, work out, practice, visit with friends and family, with the underlying feeling that something was just off. It almost felt wrong just going back to his life now.

Sometimes, he'd try to talk to a concerned friend asking questions. Explain that he wasn't sleeping well. Making an effort to rationalize that he wasn't unjustified in feeling like something was missing or wrong. He had so much on his phone that confirmed what he already knew: this "dream" of his, about all of these people he'd met, couldn't be fake. He had photos taken of the park, of ladies he'd made friends with, of interesting people he'd met in the observatory or at the rink, of Koller and Reno and Mo Guanshan and Sam. He still had messages from some of them.

He reread those a lot as time went on. He couldn't possibly have fabricated those, surely. He'd start doubting every so often, wondering if it was all an elaborate, staged thing, like he'd been brainwashed. He joked that he'd been abducted by aliens, which did throw off some concern with the humor of it, but feeling so left of center never really stopped.

Even when the world started turning into the sort of low-key hell that had always been predicted by the sci-fi writers of the last century, Emil kept going. He went to the finals another few times, even making it to the Four Continents, with a piece that he'd choreographed on his own, to a remixed piece that he'd once worked on when he was still in his "dreamstate". That year he dressed in red with a yakuza-style phoenix emblazoned on his costume's back.

The summer after, he opted to take time off from his normal busy schedule to spend time close to home with his family, to reflect on what he wanted to do with the few years he had left in his skating career. He only had a few years left in him after all, as his body filled out and matured. He'd kept his hair short and feathery, but let his beard grow fuller and make his face much more mature. He walked the streets of Prague like anyone would the streets of home, having moved here the year prior after leaving his parents' home. It had been a move advised by his coach and some well-meaning publicists after some suspicious occurrences, including redirected phone calls and some increasingly freaky "fan-mail" that had apparently never had a name or return address attached. He'd been curious, but followed the advice nonetheless, if only to keep his actual fans from going on some kind of witch hunt.

Pulling out of his distraction for a moment, he stops in his meandering path through a small city park to sit and take a moment to zone out, a tablet in his lap for his fingers to flick across mindlessly. It's become home to a massive photo gallery, transferred from his phone when it was finally on the verge of death. The background of it is, predictably, a starfield, though if anyone looked closely enough at it they would realize that it isn't the view from anywhere on earth. In one corner of the image is a figure standing without paying attention, a shock of red hair tied and twisted into a haphazard bun over a simple tshirt, hint of tattoo peeking from the collar. Emil finds himself glancing back at it as he scrolls through an article linked from his Twitter feed, barely absorbing a word as his mind wanders.

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When Emil first disappeared, Reno didn't think too much of it. Their lives were very ebb and flow on the station, the two of them with their own cadre of friends they spent time with. They knew where their hearts were, knew who they belonged to in the end. They had made promises to each other. They would leave together...

So it was two days before Reno suspected anything strange was going on. Normally his texts were answered within a day at the latest, but sometimes you got wrapped up with a partner (or tied up, literally) and couldn't do anything but wait out what you were doing, so he let it go. Asking a few people some innocuous questions resulted in answers he didn't like. No one was with Emil. Emil was with no one.

By the third day, Reno went looking for answers. Only by tamping down on his temper was he able to get anything, and he was only able to do that because of almost a year of good influences teaching him better negotiating skills. Emil had been ejected from the station at some point, for disruptive behavior. Since he may have a negative impact on the overall experience for others, he was escorted home.

Reno was alone again.

Koller was gone, Emil was gone, and when he started looking - really looking - a lot more people he knew were simply vanished. It was another two days before he was able to pull himself together, go around asking for information on the people he knew that were still there. Worlds, full names, ages, relevant dates. So many people from Earth meant a good possibility that they were all from the same place. He may yet see them again.

When he filled the last few boxes on his card, he demanded a ticket home. When they agreed, he stopped them, explaining the situation about his intentions for travel to the home he wanted, not the home he'd left. It wasn't an uncommon request, evidently, though usually reserved for worlds more aware of the station's existences. Still, he'd fulfilled his part of the station contract; where he wanted to go wasn't necessarily relevant, and thereby of no concern to them.

That was how he ended up in Prague, the only name he could immediately remember in terms of the country Emil was from. Unfortunately, the station hadn't seen fit to put him precisely where Emil was.

So began the complicated dance of missed connections, two lives magnetic but too distant to attract. Emil went on with his sports, Reno watched from afar, TVs in stores, pubs, cheap motels. He learned the rest of the language and a few others, learned the country, the history, the world. He was scattered, piecemeal at best, but he learned. If nothing else, Reno had always been a resourceful survivor.

He consoled himself knowing the Emil was out there, alive and well. Maybe he'd forgotten Reno, maybe this was the wrong Emil; wrong world, wrong time. Maybe a lot of things, but he was there, Reno could see him, and it was good enough while he kept trying to get closer.

Crime was naturally the easiest route, Reno not at all above such things, and he soon became a bit notorious in the underworld, fingers in a lot of pies. It wasn't work that would make him wealthy, but it kept him fed and clothed and allowed him more maneuverability than simply being a well-behaved transient. It also resulted in a long record of minor offenses, but nothing big was ever pinned to him. He ran jobs, got involved in criminal groups that he could remember the names of based on things Koller had said, and eventually he was able to get closer to Emil on his own. Not close enough to touch, but he was there the show Emil wore the phoenix.

He remembered.

That competition was enough to press Reno on, renewing his ambition. If Emil remembered, there really was still hope, even as the years crept on.

Reno continued to practice his skating, amusing his criminal companions, but they never argued his skill either on the streets or on the ice. The plan was, if he couldn't get to Emil through conventional means, he'd just have to get there through things he'd not intended to do, like professional skating. Unfortunately at his age, with no legal records and no sponsors, it was almost impossible to get far, but it kept his spirits afloat, kept him from losing faith.

Maybe faith was all one needed, in the end?

It was pure happenstance, Reno standing at a food cart that the gang he was in coordinated with. He collected the usual funds, leaving the coffers mostly full because draining them like some guys did was bad for business and morale, and turned just the right way to lean again the cart for idle chatting when he saw him. Older, hairier, more filled out, but definitely the real Emil. He'd taken up the habit of casually flirting with anyone that looked anything like the skater just to keep the spark from guttering out. In that moment he realized it wasn't necessary - it would have exploded into life again even if it were dead ashes.

For a long time he just stared, watching the other man - no longer a teen, no. He felt suddenly unmanned, afraid of approaching him after so long. There were so many possibilities, so few good. Emil may have found someone else - Mickey? Sara? - he may have given up while Reno held on. What if coming back home and picking up where he'd left off meant putting away everything from Lagunbiru? What if he didn't want Reno back in his life? What if, what if, what if.

"Hey...you got any of those shrimp-lookin' things you had last time?" Reno asks, tilting his head back to look at the cart cook.

"They're actually shrimp, boss."

"Oh, well, whatever. Dish me up a plate?"

"You gonna go talk to that guy you been starin' at the last ten minutes."

"Has it been that long?"

"You're scarin' off customers."

"My bad, man. Come on, shrimp."

A moment later and Reno wandered over to the bench, trembling inside despite the casual way he sauntered, turned and settled on the other side of the bench, crossing his legs and leaning back.

Inches. Inches between them. He almost can't breathe, trying to keep his inhales and exhales slow while he heart races wildly. He counts to five, waits, schools himself to calm and lifts the plate, holding it off to the side and well within Emil's field of vision.

"You like space stuff? I never really got it. It's kinda pretty 'n all, but I'm not really smart enough to get into the science. I got a friend that loves that shit but...we don't talk anymore," he murmurs, arching a brow and looking from the tablet up to the other man. His own Czech is all but flawless now, though just as lazy and informal as anything else he ever did, and full of preferential slang where applicable. Some things never changed.

The words burn in his ears and Emil's fingers slow in their flicking across the screen, curling in against his palm.

"I had a friend that never really understood it, but he would follow along all the same and asked all sorts of things about stars when we'd go looking at them. We talked about going to where we could see the core of the galaxy one day, but it's been years..."

When he looks back at Reno, his eyes are a little reddened, but his smile is soft, inviting as he plucks a shrimp from its tray. He pulls the tail off and pops the rest into his mouth, chewing slowly. With a wet sort of chuckle, he looks back down at his hands. "Sorry I don't have anything to share this time around," he says quietly, his throat working after he swallows the bite. One hand comes up just shy of the side of Reno's neck, trembling just the slightest bit. No matter how he might still feel about it, he can't assume that Reno still holds any feelings for him. What if that particular flame was snuffed out? Maybe he could handle it if they were only friends this time around.

But that's a pretty big maybe.

"No offense, man. That guy sounds like trash. You could do so much better. I mean, I'm available," Reno remarks with a lopsided smile, picking up a shrimp to eat tail and all.

"Oranges would just give me heartburn right now. I think I'll do fine with the shrimp," he muses, looking down at the plate, then over at Emil. He falls silent for a long time, just staring, ignoring anything said or done in favor of letting the reality sink in. For all the casual grace they were forcing on themselves, Reno's fairly sure they're both about to vibrate out of their skins.

May as well take a plunge.

"Jesus, he doesn't waste any time," the cart cook remarks to himself, watching the scene unfold at a distance. Reno leans over, tossing the shrimp aside to loop both arms around the skater, catching him in a crushing hug.

"You stupid asshole, I've been looking for you for years."

"Well, you know how things are. You get separated..."

The silence spins out for a time, at least until he's being dragged into a crushing hug that he only hesitates for a moment before returning it, his arms looped around Reno's neck, a hand buried in the back of his hair. So they know eachother and it's not quite as weird, though it still probably was when witnessed from a distance. And now the cook gets to watch Reno being gently fussed, hands carding through his hair and on the man's face, a serious look on his apparent beau's.

"I can't believe they sent me home without you... We were supposed to come back together, all of us, what the hell are they playing at?" He continues to grumble like that, berating every last official he can think of for making this happen. It does off after a time though, with Emil's hand curled around Reno's, pressing the man's palm against his cheek.

"I missed you so much, Reník."

"I thought I was gonna kill someone," the redhead confesses, sighing with that same crooked smile as Emil touches everything, like reassuring himself Reno was real. He doesn't mind, the familiar hands passing over his face feel like they're brushing off gathered dust and polishing the grime, renewing the vibrancy of a discarded thing.

"I had most of my card full already so it didn't take long, but I didn't know where to go and they weren't any help. That slapped me down in the middle of an alley in Prague. I've been trying to contact you ever since, but you just...I don't know. It didn't work, anyways," he murmurs, frowning a bit in frustration before reaching up and tugging gently at the thicker beard.

"You grew up." And he's not sure how he feels about the missed time. The changes don't matter - he'd always thought emil was older than his actual age, so finding out he was a teenager had been a bit of a surprise. He just feels bad having been somewhere else while Emil was struggling, too. No matter how much he resented possibly being forgotten, knowing he wasn't was enough to make the former Turk feel guilty for not having forced contact somehow.

Not that he hadn't tried. His arrest record said that well enough.

He is about to say that he was surprised he hadn't heard anything, until he considers the year prior, when he'd gotten a really strange package in the PO box that was set up specifically for fanmail. It had been confiscated as a suspicious parcel before he'd even gotten to see the writing on it. That had happened a lot in the last handful of years, and while he'd agreed that it was safer to just dispose of weird, frankly stalker-like mail clogging his inbox, part of him had wondered just where all this was coming from. He'd never had a fan so adamant. But back then he'd still been certain that he'd come home alone, in those moments he could still convince himself of the validity of his memories.

"I...I moved recently, and got a new phone when the old one died. It had to have a different number. When I tried to connect to yours it said it was out of service, or it didn't exist. So I thought..." He trailed off, swallowing hard. He'd thought Reno just wasn't there, and wasn't coming. His hands fall away from Reno's face, one staying curled around the other man's fingers loosely.

After a moment he gestures to the new duds Reno was wearing. "You look good," he offers somewhat lamely. The only real physical difference he could see as he is in the man was the slight wanness of his face. There was probably more he couldn't see yet, underneath the layers.

"Yeah I know. I've been keeping an eye on your movements for a while as best I can. Gotta make a living, too. I'm not some world class athlete like you, people aren't showering me with sponsorships and praise," the redhead remarks dryly, arching a brow at Emil. Not angry, just amused.

"Do I now?" he asks with the same dry note, glancing down at himself. He's not terribly fond of the styles he can afford in suits, not high enough on the food chain to be raking in a great deal of money to blow on nice things. He's absolutely not showing Emil the shithole he lives in. Then man would probably get tetanus walking through the stairwell.

"We're probably going to completely freak out about all of this when we're not in public...best to ask now..."

He pauses, inhaling deeply and steady himself again, hand never ceasing to tremble in Emil's. Emil went home to family and friends, a support structure; Reno arrived alone, lost and confused. He spent two years struggling, and time before that on the station. Time he wasn't going to talk about until they were both ready.

Emil didn't need to feel guilty for just how long Reno had been on his own.

"What do you want to do? Is this...are we...alright? Are you alright with this, still? What we are? Or...were. I don't know. I spent all this time thinking about how it was going to go when we saw each other again but I still wasn't prepared. I've gotten in a lot of trouble while I was here, I've got a reputation - but I promise I haven't done anything serious. Nothing really bad," he murmurs, looking over at the other man with a soft sigh before brightening slightly.

"Oh! But I did find someone. You might be interested..." He smirks faintly, reaching into his breastpocket and tugging out his wallet. Like a father showing off pictures of his children, Reno tugs out a number of small, crinkled photographs. Quite a few somewhat familiar faces from the station, though most a bit younger. Including one Vaclav Koller.

"Turns out running with criminal organizations can get you pretty damn close to just about anyone, if you have the right details. I didn't have a lot else to do while trying to figure out ways to see you, so I went to see others, too." A network of people Reno felt fairly strongly about in different ways. Kids that he kept tabs on, would help someday, if they needed it, even if they never remembered him.

Emil's first instinct is to ask where Reno's set himself up now, but Reno puts a block in front of that thought when he looks back at him and asks if they could still do...whatever it was they were doing before now. The relationship thing. Emil gnaws fitfully at his lower lip as he thinks about it in context with everything else that's happened to him up to now. This is the first time he's ever truly felt guilty over coming from means, knowing Reno has been fighting for everything he has. But...the man is asking first. It means he wants it, or at least that's what Emil wants to believe.

Of course, when the photos come out the slight melancholy is broken, and he glances over the photos. There are faces he recognizes even if he can't readily put names to them, and others that he still has contact with at least on a tertiary basis, where other skaters and athletes are concerned. He smiles faintly at the image of Koller, taking that one to look at a little closer. It would still be a while before he could make contact without it being really weird, but knowing Reno, he probably had a plan for that already. In the photo, he puts Koller at about 18 years old. Emil hands it back after staring a few moments longer, then tucks his fingers back along Reno's

"I think...going back to that after this long will be strange. I want to say yes, and say we go to a hotel or somewhere and celebrate, drink and party and do the things we used to, but..."

He looks down at their hands, his own squeezing down on Reno's gently, the trembling of the man's fingers almost amplified by that in his own.

"I think it's time to reconnect a little. Maybe go out on a proper date for once, yeah? Then whatever happens after that, we'll let it come as it will."

"Huh? Oh! Holy materia, Emil, that's not what I meant!" the redhead scowls, frowning at the skater. Not angry, just frustrated.

"I'm not asking you about a hookup or anything. Shit. I'm asking about us. Us, you know? As an item? A thing? It wasn't like I expected you to wait for me or anything, but if you found someone else I wanted to know. I'm not getting in the way of whatever you made for yourself with me out of the way," the Turk mutters, just barely keeping himself from pulling his hand away, turning in on himself and putting up the walls that had become so necessary over the last few years.

"I just needed to know if we're supposed to keep trying, or if I took too long getting here."

Emil waits for Reno to talk himself out, his own expression shifting to frustration in kind. That isn't quite what he'd meant either, but arguing is kind of pointless. He loosens his hold on Reno's hand though, letting him pull away if he needed to; it was silly of him to try and take it to begin with, knowing how Reno used to react when he even offered his hand.

"There isn't anyone else, Reno. In all of this is just felt wrong. I mean...there were dates here and there but it never worked." He continues gnawing at his lip, eyes on his knees. "At first I thought, maybe moving on would be better, especially if you never came back. We all did things with other people before anyway, so this shouldn't be too hard. But it's different here. And...I don't really know how you'd feel about being exclusive anyway. Your life doesn't revolve around me, and vice versa."

"I haven't been with anyone since I got here," Reno admits after a moment, frowning at the loosened grip, unsure how he's meant to read it. He pulls his hand away, but only so he can fidget his hands in his lap, plucking at his suit jacket edges, fussing over his appearance pointlessly. Nervous. Upset. Uncomfortable. He's not sure why he thought it would be them running at each other across a field of flowers, but surely something other than being back at square one?

It felt like deja vu, all the circling.

"I didn't look. I didn't want to. I came all this way for you. Not anyone else. I didn't come here because I was looking fro fresh material, new faces. Whatever. I turned myself inside out to rush here, across time and space, because we were supposed to be together...I thought." He sighs softly, turning away and slouching on the bench to lean back, head tilting to stare up at the clouds passing, hands stuffing into his pockets.

"How the fuck do you think my life doesn't revolve around you?" he asks, cursing needlessly out of frustration, though his tone isn't angry and his voice isn't raised. He feels...defeated. Was it all just Lagunbiru? Was their worst fear - that everything was the drugs - really real? Had he made some terrible error in judgment following someone, who finally came to their senses and realized he wasn't worth a damn?

Had he in fact been too late? Was it his fault, in the end? He'd always thought if they broke it off, it'd be his fault...Should he have fought harder? He was so afraid of drawing the attention of the authorities before he knew the languages, new the streets, the way the currency worked. Things Emil hadn't prepared him for. Had he been so cautious that he spent too much time?

He's fallen silent, teal eyes darting about, looking at things only he can see as he runs over everything he must have done wrong. But how is he supposed to fix it? How does he fix two years of absence? He wants to get up, to leave and sort his thoughts out, come up with a plan, try to make things right, but if he leaves, if he turns his back for a second, he just knows Emil will disappear again.

"What am I supposed to do?" he murmurs, not for Emil's ears. Just a weary question for the world.

Emil is struck by the need to continue being delicate with Reno and the situation they're in, even if he wants to just shake the man by the shoulders and make him aware just how much he still wants this, even after this long. But he's not that assertive, and he doesn't want to spook the man into retreat, or worse, cause another fight. The ones in the past still weigh on him.

Instead of making the arguments that he wants to, Emil stands, dropping the tablet into the large pocket of his cargoes and turning back to Reno with his hand out, though he doesn't expect it to be taken.

"Come walk with me, ok? I'm heading home anyway."

His head lifts slowly, looking at Emil uncertainly for a moment before pushing himself forward, taking the hand without hesitation. Whatever Emil thought, Reno's life really did revolve around the relationship he'd had, and still wanted, with the skater.

He doesn't care about time an distance like other people might have, but then, he'd spent years watching Emil on televisions, reading about him in magazines...Emil had...what? A couple of photos? So while Reno lived in the past and clung to it in the present, Emil moved on? Was that how it worked? If a person wasn't there all the time, they faded away?

He pauses, a hand on his breast-pocket, then slips away from Emil for a moment, walking back over to the food cart. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out the money he'd collected, setting it back down on top of the cash drawer.

"Tell 'em I quit if you see 'em before I do."

"It's not a retail job, you know? They might come after you."

"Nah. I'm not runnin' with anything of theirs. But let 'em try," Reno shrugs, wandering back over to Emil and snatching his hand again, as though daring anyone to question it, leaving behind the bewildered cart cook.

Emil stood where he was and watched the exchange when Reno went to return the money, unsure what was happening but gleaning a little from the way they were looking at eachother, and back at him. He takes Reno's hand without a second thought when the man comes back to him, and on a whim he leans forward to press a small kiss to the corner of Reno's mouth.

"You know, you sort of threw away your lunch before," he points out, walking at Reno's side with their hands laced together almost casually. "We could go eat something. Or order in. Like old times."

It feels weird referring to before like that, but he wants to put it firmly behind him, now that the only part of it that really mattered to him has come back into his life. Regardless of his personal turmoil with the situation, it doesn't change that he does still have feelings for Reno. He's overjoyed to have run into him again. He just has to find his balance again to be able to say what he wants to: even though his entire life hadn't revolved around bringing Reno to him, he'd never forgotten. He didn't want to.

"I think you'll like my place," he offers as they turn onto a wider street with large, luxurious apartment buildings overlooking the Old Town quarter. "It's a lot more spacious, and the shower's really big...." He continues, talking about the skylight that leads straight onto the roof of the building, the view from the east-facing windows and the spare bedroom that hadn't been touched, the studio space in which he trained for the skating season and the little home gym for training for the rest. A fully-stocked kitchen and ready access to the markets makes it seem practically perfect. He shakes Reno's arm, looking back at him almost seriously, if not for the determined look in his eye. "You have to visit all the time."

The kiss, after everything else, feels out of place, but it isn't unwelcome. It seems almost painful, really, and he closes his eyes for a moment before following along, memorizing streets and crossroads, taking note of any known criminal activity points, because it was his life and he still needed to be careful until he really changed things.

"I'm not going in," Reno states when they get close enough to the building that he's officially "walked Emil home".

"You said we had to start over. Do it properly. Well...we just met," he sighs, pressing a smile and rubbing his arm where he'd been gripped and shaken. "I can't go in. It's not the first date, yet. Right? So...I know where to find you. I'll visit a lot. But...just to pick you up. Until you decide I'm a proper boyfriend."

No bitterness there, but it's internalized. Not towards Emil, but himself. He always knew he wasn't good enough for Emil, that the skater deserved far better. Well, if it was to be a fresh start, then he'd just have to make himself worthy.

"Mm...it's offseason, right? When are you free? When are you able to take a night off from practice?" Because he wouldn't be accused of interfering with Emil's structured life; he wouldn't be to cause of the man's decline. He'd rather just disappear for good.

Emil hadn't expected that. He'd thought maybe inviting Reno in would be a good starting place for them to be able to talk and get to know eachother again, to learn what happened over the years Reno had been here and Emil had been working toward. It wasn't a bad alternative though. He offers a small smirk, head tilting as he looked back at Reno.

"Ok then. Square one, we've already passed. We've met. Talked a little, we can pretend we just exchanged names. I'm not used to taking days off, even during the summer, but...I think it won't kill me to maybe excuse myself from it for a night. If you're not doing anything Friday, there's a little place not too far from here. How does lunch sound?"

"Sounds kinda gay," Reno replies with a snort and small, sly little smile, arching a brow at the skater before raising both hands in a shrug.

"Lunch it is, then. I'll come around eleven thirty? If it's close we can walk. Talk on the way. About...whatever you want," he shrugs again, tucking his hands in his pockets and taking a step back.

"It was nice meeting you, Emil."

He can't help but laugh about that. "I hate to break it to you, but the entirety of this is gonna be kinda gay."

A large part of him wants to follow after Reno, to cling and be reassuring and demand that Reno let out everything he's feeling. He wants to know everything that happened, he wants to be properly guilty over this so that he can be done with it sooner. But he wants to keep his word and start over and make sure that everything goes well this time around. There's no caveat that requires them to whore themselves to others, and nothing saying they can't just have a normal relationship now.

Well, relatively speaking. The learning curve won't be as extreme for them now.

When Reno backs off, Emil's hand comes up, waving him back over. "Hold on, you still need my number don't you? It'll be easier to coordinate that way." He plucks a slender phone from another pocket, offering it so that Reno can put his own information in, intending to text him right back as soon as it's done.

He takes the phone, holding it thoughtfully before shrugging slightly and holding it back out with a slightly sad, mostly apologetic smile.

"I don't have a phone," Reno explains, chewing one side of his bottom lip with a small shrug, reaching up to scratch the edge of one eyebrow.

"I'm not a legal citizen...I don't have the identification they want for a cellular contract and I didn't want to waste money all the time on burners. I've had to save a lot...chasing you down wasn't cheap," the Turk barks a soft, helpless laugh. It hadn't amounted to much, all those trips, bribes, fake IDs left and right.

"It's okay. I'll figure something out and we'll talk about it at lunch, right?"

Edited 2017-08-29 01:53 (UTC)

Emil nearly vibrates on the spot, wanting to simply offer to put Reno on his own plan, to get him a phone and help him set up faster and easier. He keeps the thought to himself though, instead rubbing his hand along the underside of his jaw in thought. He takes his phone back and lifts it briefly, considering whether he should at least take a photo of the two of them together. A new one tucked away with all the rest. Proof to give his friends that he wasn't just making it all up in his mind.

He'll refrain for now though. If he takes a picture, he might want to put it up on his social media, and who knows what Reno will say about that.

"If you want, I can help you put together paperwork. ID and things. If you've got a criminal record...that actually helps a little, establishing a timeline, kind of. It gives you a presence. It also looks good when you start 'cleaning up'. Just. Let me know what you want to do next ok?"

He'd probably be pleased as punch, really. Proof that he still mattered when he was trying very hard not to feel like he didn't.

"That's gonna look great to your friends, huh? Criminal boyfriend. Tch," he sighs, not terribly proud of what he'd had to do. He doesn't really regret much of it, since he stayed out of anything violent and had a reputation for being fair with people, even if extorting them. Doesn't mean he's got anything to be proud of.

"I'll ask questions about papers myself. You've got enough to worry about without worrying about me, too. Mind yourself," the redhead sighs, scratching the side of his face before tapping a foot.

"Write your number down for me. I'll call you when I can from the phone in the shop near my place, alright?"

Emil nods some, still looking a little unsure, like he really does just want to take care of it himself if only for the sake of his own conscience. But Reno does have a point when it comes to getting the work together himself. They'd figure this out.

He laughs a little, waving off the concern. "At first, yeah, they might be worried but as soon as they see you're not in it for money or anything like that and you aren't getting me in trouble they'll ease up. Besides, when they see you skate- have you kept up on it? Or should I teach you how not to fall over again?" He smiles a little more brightly at that, slipping a hand into one of his pockets for a receipt, as well as a mechanical pencil he has to click a few times before the lead pops out. His number goes on the receipt for Reno to hold onto.

He pauses in the act of holding it out, figuring that he could risk taking that picture, even if he's not sharing it with anyone.

"Er...can I? Since I don't have anything but the old pictures..."

"Tch. I can skate," he mutters, glancing off to the side a bit huffily. He could skate. He could skate extremely well now, but without legal legitimacy, there was no way to go forward with skating, and he'd never gotten any interested sponsors. Of course, the rinks he skated weren't important enough to attract that kind of attention, anyways.

"What?" Reno murmurs, looking up from the numer he was trying to memorize - just in case - before realizing what was being asked.

"You have to ask? Since when have I been camera shy?"

"Just figured I should ask, given the whole criminal thing," Emil replies with a shrug before moving himself to Reno's side, taking his hand out of sight of the camera and taking a frankly handsome selfie of the two of them. Undeniable proof that this is, in fact, his Reno. He eases away after taking a couple of shots, facing the other man again.

"Then maybe we can go to one of the rinks soon. I really want to see how good you are now."

"I'm not a fuckin' terrorist, Emil. Sheesh, gimme some credit," he grumbles, reaching up and checking his hair and ever-present goggles before leaning in and smiling for the photo.

"Mm...well, maybe that can be one of our dates," the redhead snorts, smirking softly and raising both hands out in a shrug. Not like he was going to let Emil say they needed to start over without dragging it out until the other man regretted and reneged on the decision. It's not even a competition, but Reno has to win.

"You gonna go inside now or keep standin' here? I got calls to make and work to do before I can quit my job and cross my fingers I don't end up in serious drama."

redheadedstepson Terra Firma

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