Luis mustered the Turk. He seemed… cold. A little too emotionless and controlled. But wasn‘t that part and parcel of becoming one if the suits?

Leaning back against the workbench behind him, Luis grinned. As always with him, a sarcastic comment wasn‘t far away. 

„Well, of course.“, he claimed, raising his hands as if the Turk had caught him in the act and he was surrendering, „Guilty of wanting to get ahead in the current projects. The upper management is impatient, they don‘t want explanations, they want results. Besides…“

His arms lowered, he nodded towards the other, lifting his chin a bit.

Auto-pilot as somethin' he'd seen more times than he liked t'count over a lifetime of huntin'. But Dave could count on one hand the amount o' times he'd seen that robotic kinda action and response come from a kid.

An' Reno was one o' them.

That was why he'd given the other fellers a nod to head away an' do whatever taakss they thought most important 'fore nightfall. Reno was good at stichin' together the wound; too good if he was bein' honest. It took practice t'get those kinda neat stitches.

An' the unflinchin' gaze said a lot.

"I'll deal with yer mother." Dave drew in a breath, lookin' between the kid an' his newly bandaged injury. He let out a breath, knowin' that kinda answer was gettin' neither of them nowhere; him an' Ida's oldest boy weren't exactly on the ebst terms, but they were slowly gettin' to some kinda common ground. "Sit down Reno, please."

Only when the boy was sittin' on the camp-chair beside him, starin' into the space where the fire would be when night fell, did Dave speak again. His hand ran over the covered stitches. "Ye an' me know her mama is far too intelligen t'believe our lies an' I respect her too much for that. M'gonna be tellin' her it was them magiteks done this."

This had never been part of the plan.

Stay in the hunters, keep doing hunts and level up through the ranks. Learn how to fit into this new world. Be an ally to Meldacio, not a hindrance. But this was a complete panicked shit-show.

The tipster network had proven their worth, sending word from one to the other of a rumour heard in Accordo of the Empire investigating the hunters. From a contact in Galdin, the warning had travelled to Hammerhead, then on to Duscae, where Wiz had sent it out to all tipsters in the area and made it to Lestallum and up Alpine Stable to Meldacio itself.

But exfill had remained panicked and rushed and Freya had just managed to drop one truckload off at Lestallum before changing to a refueled truck and returning to HQ to complete pandemonium. She had been standing in the bed of the truck, ready to take hold of any supplies when word had broken of airships by the vesperpool. Rushing to get into the truck's cab, she was as surprised to see Reno in the driver's seat as he was appalled to recognise her as his passenger. Crap.

But the little boy between them prevented any outburst, along with the impending threat of imperials marching up the road from the opposite end of the outpost. He was a sweet little thing, getting fairly scared at first at all this rushing and yelling, but the distraction of jokes and her phone done wonders until he fell asleep. Freya didn't dare break any silence with Reno either; she was acutely aware of how to read him and knew not to poke his temper. But then the truck got a flat and she climbed out to look at the damage, already coming to the same conclusion as him; they needed a haven and he should focus on his youngest brother.

A quick scout around the area and she nodded, shotgun in-hand and shouldering a rucksack. "- to Pullmoor?" It made sense; the station beyond would be a good aim come morning with its Cotton Alley safehouse Kaleb had told her about. Leading the way, Freya waited until Reno fell into step and made sure little Will was still asleep.

Loqi was easy. He was more of a kid than her — Aerith didn't really have to do anything to earn his approval. When she had taken to sitting in her room (because the Tummelt estate was so overwhelming) in came the little boy with a determined crease in his nose. Apparently Reno didn't want to play dinosaurs for the hundredth time. She didn't mind, though.

Ida was a mother. Through and through. Aerith had been given a place in this home and a second chance because the Tummelt matriarch found a crying little girl and listened to a dying mother's last wish. She didn't back down, even if her life would be so much simpler if she surrendered Aerith.

Baldur... he was scary. It was easy to skirt around him, he hadn't much warmed to the idea of harbouring one of Professor Hojo's escapees.

That left Reno. Loqi made it so it was impossible to see him as scary, even if Aerith thought the older boy was moody because of her. She hadn't been around many people, most days were spent in a metal cell that had been her only home up until now. The first time she saw a television she cried because it scared her. Everything was so new and overwhelming and she didn't understand things that everyone else treated as naturally as breathing. But she did understand Reno had a secret language.

He said one thing and meant another. He apologised with a roll of his eyes. He promised something with his fingers crossed. He wasn't scary, but he wasn't straightforward either.

Even the odds?

Kunsel had to stop the smirk that wanted to pull up the corners of his mouth. Reno was a Turk, one of the most dangerous of the infamous spooks.

"I don't need her here to even those odds." Turk versus Soldier and the odds were clearly tilted in Kunsel's favour.

He knew that, but it all depended on how far away Rude was. If there were other Turks laying low close by. He could literally bounce the asshole's head off of the ceiling and ground, as promised. But that would draw the ire of Tseng and the other Turks, draw Shinra here. Bring attention they didn't need. Bring attention to the little family they had managed to hide from the company and its scientists.

So Kunsel stayed where he was standing, not reaching for a weapon, but not taking his eyes of of the lightning-fast Reno either.

Reno… did not react like Reno at all. There was no snark, no bite, no shrug, no non-caring little shit reaction. Nope. Instead he dropped his tools and got himself hurt like he was a freshman-hunter.

Loqi watched all this without even pulling a face at his brother’s little injury. Especially not when that non-answer followed.

His reaction had given him away well enough. Loqi wasn’t stupid. This might have worked when he had been a little kid still. But something was fucking going on and Loqi hated not knowing…

Raising his eyebrows a little, as Loqi looked down to Reno, he regarded him with the most don’t-shit-me-look only a teenager could muster.

She had tried biding her time and she had tried to broach the subject with Ida, and things hadn't changed. Enough was enough. No more walking on eggshells or hoping that this strange distance might dissipate in a few days, it had been weeks and she felt shut out.

"You speaking from experience, huh? You Turks really have strange ways of showing affection."