the_merriest | Room 308, Wednesday Midday

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Room 308, Wednesday Midday

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?

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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?"

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.

"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?"

Rikku leaned into Dawn, grateful for the touch, closing her eyes and sniffling. "H-he. I ... I d-don't think he's allowed to quit. It's. Not a nice place. And. He's. Done some really bad things. I can't just ..."

One hand was idly playing with Petey, in her lap. "H-he's ... not evil. I mean. Not deep down, 'cause ... if he was he'd be all 'yeah, so what if I did all that' or enjoying it, and not ... he drinks. He doesn't talk about it. And." Deep breath. "A-and I ... I don't know if I can do this."

"So don't," Dawn answered immediately, hugging her closer. "You deserve lots better than someone who kills people, then tries to make himself feel better by drinking and not talking."

"Y-yeah," she said, not sounding convinced. "Why can't it just ... un-happen? Three days ago ... uh. I guess three days ago we were kids. But. I mean. It was all so ... and now it's just, well, so much for that, and I don't want that. I don't want him, either, not like this, but why can't it just ... can I wake up now and this was all a stupid dream?"

Dawn didn't mention to Rikku that there might be spells out there that could do what she wanted. "It wouldn't change him, though, right? Just what you knew?"

"Would you want to have him keep a secret this big from you? I don't know if I would."

"No," she said quickly. "I'd ... he didn't say it, right away, 'cause ... he was scared I'd ..."

React exactly like this, pretty much.

"I knew it was bad, I knew he wasn't telling me yet 'cause ... it was bad? And. Then he did and ... it doesn't change him. Except. It's. He's them, now. All the people that ... standing there in Home, summoning fiends and setting fires, killing my friends ... I try so hard not to hate them, I do, I'm good, I'm not gonna start the cycle over again, but he's not supposed to be them. I don't ... I don't know what I'm supposed to do, now."

"Maybe don't do anything about it for a couple of days?" Dawn suggested, leaning her head against Rikku's. "Just kind of think about it and let it settle and see if you want to do anything? Then, maybe you'll be more thinky and less reacty?"

Rikku settled in. "That ... sounds good," she said, nodding a little. Carefully, so as not to dislodge the head thing. "Thanks. I think you're better at this than me."

Which wasn't all that hard, really.

"Sunnydale kinda specializes in gray areas," she made a face. "Especially when it comes to boys. Of all of them I ever met, only Xander didn't have a deep, dark evil secret."

"What usually happened?" Rikku said, biting her lip. "I mean, did they ... was it all just, okay, freak out, and then we're okay, or the girls went eww and dumped them, or ... ?"

Dawn considered. "Well, Angel got killed but got better, Spike went to Africa, Giles became a Watcher, ~~Andrew~~ someone else became a bigger part of the group, and Riley went to South America to be a special agent." She sighed. "Mostly, they stopped dating Buffy, except for Andrew and Giles, who never did. Because that would have been weird. Oh, and I think Oz went to Tibet."

Rikku ... tried to take all that in.

"Does your sister just ... have a thing for ... um. Evil guys?" she asked. As delicately as possible.

"She didn't know they were evil at first?" Yeah, that sounded lame even to her. "Then she'd find out later, and try to make it work anyway."

"Why?" Rikku asked. "I mean. If it went ... really bad the first time, why not go 'hey, the evil thing totally's not working for me' later? 'Sorry about your dark past, but wow, been there.'"

Because really, relationships were all about being logical. ~~Love isn't brains, children...~~

"I have no idea," she said, still not understanding any of the dynamics between Buffy and Spike in the slightest. "Buffy's kind of weird that way."

"Jude was totally different," Rikku said, frowning. "But then ... Jude kinda ... I dunno. He was Zen, I was hyper, it was awesome, but he hated me killing fiends. And I'm good at it. Things got a little sideways, you know?"

"Reno isn't Jude," she said, stating the obvious, "just like Sam isn't Dean. Stuff that bothers Sam didn't bother Dean, and vice versa. Like maybe you killing fiends won't bother Reno so much. Do you want to be with Reno?"

"I ..." Wow. That was a big one.

"He doesn't mind. The ... fiends thing. We spar, even. Totally smashed his knee up. He ... gets me. I don't understand it. It's ... until all of this, I would have said ... that I wanted that, more than anything. And now I ... I wish I knew."

"Okay. So, don't throw things away yet," Dawn suggested, "and definitely don't give any of his stuff back, if you have it. Just hang out a couple of days, and see if you can get over it, or at least learn to live with it. Y'know?"

"Okay," she said. "Yeah. That ... that sounds good. Did ..." She thought for a minute. "When you and Sam had that big fight of yours. 'Cause he was upset at Alec. Did you ... know it was gonna be okay again? Or ..."

Oh. Right. That. She chewed on her lip for a little bit and found her feet intensely interesting. "...no. I didn't know at all, and it was horrible."

That required an extra squeeze, so it got one. "Because ... you really cared about him, but you couldn't just ... be with him? Right then?" She sighed. "I feel like ... like I'm ... I either have to get over it or I lose him and those are sucky options and I wanna smack somebody until I get new ones."

She frowned. "How long did you guys ... ?"

It had been hard to even look at him for a while, but Dawn couldn't bring herself to say it out loud, even to Rikku. "A couple of days. I moved out and everything."

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