Room 308, Wednesday Midday

[the_merriest]

Rikku was in her room. Working on her mech droid thing for Invent-o-whatever class.

Which was, thus far, a miserable failure, and not helped much by Petey attempting to eat the outlying bits of it.

That was okay. It was a mech droid. Mech droids were safe. Not arguments or coats or anything else she wasn't thinking about. Because she wasn't. She was working on her mech droid.

She had a fruit basket on her desk - hers, from class, because she hadn't given it to anyone yet. Because that seemed mean and she was too tired and empty to be mean today. Because she had a feeling maybe she should keep it.

Her door was wide open. In case anybody wanted some fruit. Poke at the mech droid. Bother Petey. Talk. Something. Right?

Comments

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

After Driver's Ed, Dawn decided to drop in on Rikku. "Howdy," she leaned in the doorway, finally finding her friend among all the droid and tools. "Busy? I could come back?"

[the_merriest]

"Dawn!" Rikku bounced up, reaching out for a totally duckable hug. "Hi! No! I. It's okay? I'm just. Um."

Vague flailings of the unscattered and underslept variety. "For. Class? Yeah? The, uh, thing."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

Dawn hugged Rikku back, not at all sure what she'd just said. "I think I need a verb?"

[the_merriest]

"Oh!" More flailing. "Sorry. Sit? There's ... totally room, um."

Somewhere in the midst of the droid and kitty. Probably. More or less.

"Project. For class. Uh. Bad week. Not 'cause of the project. Totally different story. This is gonna be a patrol droid if I can make it work but no weapons on it 'cause he's all weird about weapons but any time I try to argue it he just drops it. Maybe I can add them in later. I mean, what good's a patrol droid if it can't zap fiends?"

Rikku would apologize for making less sense than usual if she realized she was.

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

Dawn almost sat on the kitty, but recovered in time to just sit on the floor instead.

"Go back to the bad week part?"

[the_merriest]

"Oh! Uh." Rikku sat down abruptly. "The, uh, guy. Trip to Slutsville, and then it kinda turned into ... like. Dating? And ... it was really ..." She bit her lip. "Really ... good, too. But it turns out he's evil. Not. He didn't do bad stuff to me or anything? Um. He's just ... evil? Back home? So I kinda ... left. And. You know."

She gestured vaguely. You know how it is, date a guy and turns out he's evil. Fandom and all.

Petey was now attempting to sniff Dawn's jeans. They might be interesting. Jeans and all.

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

Dawn reached down to scritch between Petey's ears, more for something to do while she gathered her thoughts together. "Okay. I think I need more details here about the evil. Like, is it capital E 'I want to end the world' evil? Or is it 'I'm going to become stalker-guy and try to rape you in the bathroom' evil?" She paused. More scritches came Petey's way as she added the last part quietly, "Or is it I used to be confused, turned evil for a while, but I'm learning and getting better but everyone still thinks of me as evil Evil?"

[the_merriest]

Rikku swallowed, hard, and was staring at her fingers, which were doing nice twisty things in her lap. "It's. Um." Deep breath.

"Not the stalker-guy thing. He wouldn't ... he'd never hurt me." And strangely enough, she was as sure of that as she'd ever been. "Or taking over the world. Not that ... kinda thing. He. Um. It's. More."

She held this one for a long pause before letting it out again. "More, hi, I work for the government and I do whatever they tell me to, I don't ask questions, I cash the paychecks, and I know it sucks but I keep doing it 'cause it's all I have. Because. I. Used to have nothing, and now I don't, except there's all this ... blood on my hands. Lots of it. That. That kinda evil."

She squeezed her eyes shut. And. Okay. Still breathing.

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"Okay," Dawn scooted over closer to Rikku, putting her arm around her and dumping Petey into her lap. "I don't know for sure that that's evil, Rikku. Not saying it's not bad, but--maybe he could stop doing it? If he's not going to hurt you, and he doesn't hurt or kill people because he wants to..."

Her head was starting to hurt. "Blood on your hands is bad, but...he could change if he wanted to?"

[withoutverona]

Romeo didn't really have a particular reason to visit Rikku, but it was his day off and he hadn't talked to her since she was three.

He stuck his head through the open door. "Good e'en, are you busy with anything in particular?"

[OOC: Heading home in about 15 min., then back after 7.]

[the_merriest]

"Hiya!" Rikku said. Not her usually perky sort of hi. Kinda ... flat. Tired. "Uh. Just ... class. Stuff. For ... inventing. How are you?"

She stood up, fidgeting a little. "Have you ... talked to ... uh. Any ... body? Recently?"

They were best friends, weren't they?

(OOC: A-OK, I will see you then!)

[withoutverona]

"Not today," Romeo said, shaking his head. "Last night? Yurika, Jamie, Ferris, Brooke, Annette, at the party."

He frowned. "I didn't see you there." And, as her flatness registered, now he was looking at her more closely, remembering she had seemed sort of flat in religions class yesterday, too.

"How are you?"

[the_merriest]

"I didn't go," she said quickly. "I meant to. It sounded fun? I just. Didn't go. Uh. So you ... didn't talk to ... Reno. Okay."

That was good. No. That wasn't good. Reno was probably sitting in his room drinking himself into some sort of coma. That was bad. Very bad.

"You ... should," she decided abruptly. "Cause. He's ... not okay. I think. Maybe. And I can't. We sort of. Um."

Deep breath. "It's all wrong."

[withoutverona]

"I didn't talk to Reno," Romeo echoed, not quite sure where Rikku was going with this but forming an idea. "You ... you broke up? Did he hurt you somehow?"

Because if he did, as much as he loved Reno ... well. He knew Rikku first.

[the_merriest]

"No," she said quickly. "Not ... not like that. He wouldn't. I mean. You know."

She stared at the mess of droid parts on her bed, then shook her head.

"I'm not ... sure how much ... I mean. It's okay to ..." Deep breath. "He's ... done things. And I can't just ... be okay with it. And. He's your friend too, so I can't ... tell you, in case you're not okay with it 'cause he probably needs someone and he deserves to get to tell you if he's gonna, I mean, and I know it's nothing to do with me, I just can't ..."

She squeezed her eyes shut, shivering. "Sorry. This. I don't mean to - I have to sound crazy and I ..."

[withoutverona]

Romeo listened closely, trying to make sense of the fragmented sentences, of what Rikku was saying in part by how much she was not saying it.

She'd listened to his own story, the whole soggy sorry mess of it, without blinking, without a cross look at him. What Reno did, then ...

Was for him to ask Reno. Later. He was talking to Rikku, now.

"You don't sound mad," he said, first. "Just ... confused. And a little broken."

"What can I do?" he asked, tentative. Getting sympathy was much easier than giving it.

[the_merriest]

She sniffled again, and gave him a hesitant smile. And then walked over and reached out for a squeezy sort of hug.

"This helps," she said, snuggling in a little. Because it did. "And, uh, something else. If it's okay. It's cool if it isn't."

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Sokka poked his head in the door. "Hiya, Orangey -- ooh, fruit!" He made a beeline for the basket. "So, what's new?"

[the_merriest]

"Hey, that's not for you," she frowned, looking at the basket.

She blinked, considering the specifications, and then shrugged. "Okay. It can totally be for you. Have some. Uh. I'm working on my ... you know. Project."

She stuck her tongue out at that and gestured to the mess of a mech droid on her bed.

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Sokka pause, hand hovering over the basket, and shrugged. "Well, if it's for someone else... I mean, I'm not the sort of person to... touch... other people's... fruit." He sighed. "Okay, pretend that came out snarky and sexually suggestive. I guess I'm kind of 'off' tonight. ...Hey, project's lookin' good!"

[the_merriest]

"This is where I'd crack a joke about you always being off, but I'm not in a mood to be mean. Have an orange or something, it's okay, I was gonna give it to someone but I hadn't figured out who yet." She gestured vaguely. "Mech droid. I thought I'd ..."

She lowered her voice. "We have them back home. So I kinda didn't invent it. I'm just ... upgrading." Frown. "And taking the weapons off."

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Sokka shrugged. "Professor Glitch and his thing about weapons. I mean, I get that using knowledge for evil is bad, but not all weapons are EVIL. I nearly got dragged into the spirit world 'cause of that kind of thinking..." He trailed off, peering at her. "What do you mean, you're not in a mood to be mean? Are you feeling okay?"

[the_merriest]

"I had to save the world," Rikku said coolly. "We didn't tell Sin very nicely that it shouldn't devour islands any more. We killed it, and I had an ancient legendary weapon to help me do it. I get ... mad sometimes. About the whole ... some people get to sit and say, weapons are bad, you're vicious and wrong for having them, and then when wild boars storm in, they climb up on the tables and wait for you to take care of it so they can go right back to telling you how bad those weapons are. So long as they keep their hands clean, they get to be better than you. It's bullshit."

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Sokka nodded. "Yeah, and then the giant owl-monster tries to tell you that saving the world makes you just as bad as the man who KILLED the MOON."

...Trust him, it really does make sense in context.

He shrugged. "The people who don't LIVE our kind of life don't understand. Sometimes, you gotta kill or be killed, and that sucks, but it's the way it is."

[the_merriest]

"If I don't kill fiends, they're gonna eat whoever walks by next," she said. "They're not ... rational. I can't ask them not to be monsters. I kill them so no one else dies."

She blinked. "Someone killed your moon?"