WHO: Kenny McCormick and Reyna Ramirez-Arellano WHAT: Talking, missing people WHEN: Backdated to last Thursday WHERE: The woods RATING: PG STATUS: Closed/Completed
Reyna would have liked to think that losing Percy wouldn't affect the way she trained or how she trained. She would've liked to think that she'd be able to separate her personal life from everything else - but unfortunately for Kenny, she'd been driving him hard ever since Percy had left. She never went at him beyond his current skill level, but she made sure he had to stay on his toes to keep her from leaving him black and blue.
“Your right side is dropping,” she told him after she'd whacked the flat of his blade against the side of his ribs. “Keep your chest up.”
*** Kenny had been training with Reyna for awhile now, probably more than a couple months. He hadn't exactly been keeping track. He'd also spent time helping her with her school work. With that, he had come to know the girl fairly well. And today, he knew something was wrong from the way she was acting. She wasn't usually this tough on him. Sure, she was sometimes but this was a bit far.
He sort of glared at her as she whacked him for what seem like the hundredth time. "Okay, seriously, what's wrong?" he asked, stopping what he was doing.
***
“Nothing's wrong,” Reyna said, still in denial. “Except for the fact that your right side is dropping and it's leaving you open to attacks.”
Which she was demonstrating quite frequently.
She gestured. “Take your stance.”
*** Kenny just looked at her, not believing her one bit. Nor did he really care at the moment that his was open to attacks. Not that he did usually (though he pretended he did), but he definitely didn't right now.
"I'll take my stance after you tell me what's really bothering you."
***
“Kenny…” She blew out a frustrated breath. “There are a lot of things bothering me. That has no bearing on the fact that you're leaving yourself open to attacks. Are you getting tired?”
She remembered the last time this had happened. He'd taken his own eye out. And it didn't matter that he healed quickly; Reyna wasn't about to let him do a repeat.
*** "Like Percy being gone?" he guessed and then added, "I'll risk it." He didn't really care if he was leaving himself open to attacks. Why should he? If he died, he'd just come back, all brand new and all. Besides, he was more concerned about her than himself.
"Just a little." Okay, that was a lie, he was actually fine right now. His endurance had gotten better since the incident thanks to the training.
***
Reyna scowled at him. She hadn't wanted to bring Percy into this, but if Kenny was bringing him up, maybe she needed to admit to herself that she was affected more than she'd been willing to admit.
“Let's take a break,” she allowed. “And...sorry.” She was willing to admit wrongdoing and apologize where appropriate. “I guess I've been taking out my frustration on you.”
*** Kenny could tell by her reaction that he hit the mark. She missed Percy very much, he could tell. He missed Ella a lot too and he did different things to distract himself from thinking of her absence too much.
He stopped and headed over to sit on a nearby log. "It's fine. I get it." There was a slight pause before he spoke again. "You really miss him, huh?"
***
“Yeah,” Reyna said, looking down. After a moment, she went to join him on the log.
“It was my birthday on Friday,” she said. “We were going to go out. He had something big planned. I don't know what. I guess I won't know now.”
*** "I know how that feels," Kenny sighed. "I miss Ella a lot too." It was the first time he ever really lost someone he was close to. Sure, he had distant relatives who've died or had classmates move away, but he wasn't close to any of them. He still wasn't sure what to do or how to feel.
He glanced over at her. "I didn't know it was your birthday," he said a bit surprised.
***
“I'm sorry you lost someone too,” Reyna said. She didn't know Ella, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that Kenny had lost someone.
She shrugged. “I don't usually make a big deal out of my birthday. Percy just wanted to do something since I was turning 18.”
*** "Yeah. It's the first time I lost someone I was close to. It fucking sucks." He didn't know any other way to describe it. He just knew that he hated it. A lot. "And sorry about Percy too. I only met him once and he seemed like a pretty cool guy. I told him I was immortal and he thought I was a god." He shook his head at that, finding the notion a bit ridiculous.
"Well, happy belated birthday. I'd say we should do something but you probably don't feel like celebrating right now." God knows Kenny wasn't in the mood for anything fun.
***
Reyna laughed, a bittersweet sound, at his anecdote. That sounded exactly like Percy.
“Where we’re from, only gods are immortal,” she explained. “They take great exception to other people being immortal, so if you're immortal and you still have all your limbs in recognizable humanoid shape, it's a pretty safe bet back home.”
Where Percy was now.
Her smile faded, and she sighed. “Yeah. Not really in the mood. What about you? What are you going to do without Ella here?”
***
"That's makes sense. I never thought of it as being a godlike power before, though," Kenny shrugged. To him, immortality was just simply not staying dead. That was it. "Actually," he said as he remembered something. "That one guy who went crazy a few weeks ago said something similar. Said he was immortal and was pretty much a god."
He just gave her a small half smile. "Yeah, I figured. I probably wouldn't either right now." At her question, he shrugged. "I have no idea."
***
Reyna stilled. “You encountered Methos? Are you okay?”
Kenny was coming along in his training, but Reyna had barely survived her encounter with him. Just because Kenny couldn't stay dead didn't mean he couldn't get hurt.
***
It was then Kenny realized that he hadn't told her about his encounter with Methos. Or anyone else, really. The only people who knew was Tea and Ella. They were also the only ones who knew that he had almost died permanently.
"Yeah, he just tortured me. I'm fine though, I was just a bit shaken up." He fell silent for a bit, debating on whether or not he should tell her that he had almost gotten killed for good. It wasn't as if he didn't trust her, he did. He just felt like she already had enough on her plate, what with Percy leaving and the whole Methos fiasco to begin with. He didn't want to add more worry.
***
Reyna’s eyebrows shot up. She'd been subjected to torture too, albeit of the psychological kind, and that wasn't the kind of thing you come out of “fine.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
She didn't ask for details. If he wanted to share them, she was going to show him she was open to listening. Otherwise, she didn't want him to have to revisit the experience.
***
"No. What's done is done and besides, I'm totally fine now. I've been tortured before, so it's nothing new. I was even tortured by the Devil himself, so if I can handle that, I can handle anything," he said somewhat half joking. It was true that he had been tortured in Hell. It was one of the more painful experiences he had, so much so that the encounter with Methos wasn't that bad. Still hurted like hell, though.
"He apologized to me when he returned to normal. I told him I forgave him, since I figured it wasn't actually him, but I was still upset." Of course he had been, who wouldn't be upset about getting their fingers broken? "But it's all good now. I'm not too mad anymore."
***
“He's still mad at himself,” Reyna said, troubled. “I wish I knew how he could've gotten changed in the first place. It's scary to think that at any point, any of us could be changed so drastically.”
She looked back at him, having needed a moment to digest what he'd said. “You were tortured by the devil? Why? How?”
***
"That's too bad," Kenny frowned. "And yeah, it's pretty terrifying to think about. Let's hope nothing like it happens again." But really, with Madison Valley, who knows what the future will bring. Surely there'll be some strange event, but hopefully nothing that will harm others.
"Yep," he shrugged. "He did all kinds of things - stabbing, burning, whatever. Sometimes he had his demon minions do it. As for why, well, he's the fucking devil. He probably did it because he felt like it or something." He had paused for a moment before adding, "he's here too. Says he's retired, but I'm not sure I believe him." Sure, Kenny was sort of friendly with Lucifer, but did he trust him? Not really.
***
Reyna wasn't sure what to say. Kenny spoke of his torture without much inflection, but it couldn't have been pleasant for him. And how had he gotten on the radar of the devil himself?
“Sounds like your life was just as eventful as ours,” she finally said.
***
Of course, Kenny spoke about it as if it were nothing. He had been dying and coming back before he even had any concept of death. To him, death and pain were completely normal things. And while death didn't scare him, the pain was something he hated but also something he could deal with. For the most part.
He nodded. "Yeah. The town I'm from is a bit similar to this one. Lots of weird shit happens but sometimes, it's just a boring, regular town with nothing to do."
*** “I don’t mind the part where there’s nothing to do,” Reyna admitted. She might be the daughter of a war goddess, but she’d already seen so much war in her eighteen years she didn’t mind the break. But she also knew that she couldn’t let her guard - or her training - down. Even a sleepy town like this had its share of threats, as they’d learned.
“You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do for you?” she asked. In the time they’d been working together, Kenny had become more than just a trainee and a tutor. He’d become a friend.
*** "It gets kinda boring for me after awhile," Kenny shrugged. Maybe that's why he didn't mind being here that much. There was strange things that happened, but not often enough that it was overwhelming. As much as he was used to strange things, sometimes it was nice to have a bit of a break from it all.
"I will if you will," he told her. Over the course of the time they spent together, he had grown to care for her. "And whenever you're up for it, I'll buy you a milkshake or whatever else you want for your birthday."
***
Reyna smiled, touched by his show of concern. “I will,” she said, picking up her sword. “Now come on. Break’s over.”