#reno marks

[chaos-dumpster-fire]

Roadtrip selfie! Don't look at those signs, Im sure there's no meaning at all behind which ones are showing, none at all.

Alternate versions below the cut (feat. pencil sketches, black-and-white ink, and colored variant)

[chaos-dumpster-fire]

Drabble

Summary: A quiet moment between two very fucked up people. Cracked timeline. Discussions of suicide and homicide. Neutral pov

The wind blowing by is a relief to both of them as they leave the base, a breath of fresh air as snippets of their conversation are carried away by its current.

“Burning?”

“Check.”

“Guns?”

“Check! My girlfriend~”

“Bakland. Gunshots tearing apart entire body?”

“Of course.”

“You are running out of non-anomalous methods.”

“Yep! I’ve worked on this for a while.”

Avery elbows Reno away from the car, steering them both around the vehicles and towards the grassy clearing. Reno stops when Avery does, watching as the other man drops to the ground and pats a spot to show Reno should do the same. The grass is soft, and it doesn’t look like it’s staining their clothes.

“You wanna throw me to 106 again? Cheered you up the first time.”

“Can’t risk containment breach. No.”

The sky is light blue, the clouds are just sparse enough to let the light shine without blinding anyone, and both of them are thinking about Reno’s final death.

“D’you think is connected to your mind or body?” Avery finally blurts out, startling Reno with the rapid motion of their arms.

“Sorry?”

“If we take your brain out of body, move your mind, consciousness, whatever, into something else, then kill both it and body, which one comes back?”

Something in the air shifts at Avery’s transition from abstract to theory, the hand nearest to Reno twitching as through trying to write.

“I don’t know? Sorry,” he adds when Avery glares at him. Avery glares a lot. “We can find out?”

Avery nods, lying back down. 

“In a while. I have deployment next week. Oh don’t whine,” snips in at Reno’s frown, “If I find something in the caves that could kill you, I promise I will figure out how to get you in there with it. Deal, паршивец?”

“Deal! Thanks.”

“Chodela. Chodela ебаный сумасшедший, that’s what you are.”

“But you’ll do it?”

Avery sighs. “Always do, don’t I?”

The sky is blue, the clouds are drifting overhead, and for a few, brief moments, there is a soft quiet over two men who are normally neither of these things.