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]

"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?"

[the_merriest]

"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 ..."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

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."

[the_merriest]

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 ... ?"

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

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."

[the_merriest]

She nodded. "So what ... happened, finally? I mean, how did it all work out? You ... talked it out, or ... ?"

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"Talking, mostly," she agreed, "but also, I missed him tons. If I hadn't wanted to be with him so much, maybe I wouldn't have forgiven him so quickly. I mean, he outed Alec and put him in real danger. Aside from Alec being a friend of mine, I didn't know if I could be with anyone who could do that to anyone else, y'know?"

[the_merriest]

Rikku hesitated. "You ... aren't going to tell him about Reno, are you?" she said quietly. "I think ... if people knew, what he did, he might ... be in trouble. And I don't know if I ever want to even talk to him again, but I ... don't want that."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

It took Dawn a minute. She and Sam didn't keep secrets from each other, so this was a huge thing Rikku was asking. Sam wouldn't do that again, she knew he wouldn't. Still, it wasn't technically her secret.

"No." She studied her feet again. "I won't tell Sam about Reno."

[the_merriest]

Rikku bit her lip. "S-sorry?" she said quickly. "I ... didn't mean ... I'm just ... scared. He's. He's done awful things. Not because he's bad but because ... he had to. Except he should have just said no but I don't know what to think about it and someone would have every right to go, hey, let's ... make a fuss and I get that, I mean, I can't even ... some of it was so bad. But I can't ... is that gonna ... mess things up for you guys? Don't ... I don't want that, either. I mean. That's huge and all, you know?"

Dawn would probably know more if Rikku ever stopped flailing enough to use actual verbs and nouns.

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

If Sam found out about it, yeah, it might give them a rough patch. That was a big if, though. "No, Reno's your guy. I get that, even if you never get back together, he'll still be your guy."

"Guys need protecting."

This last was said matter-of-factly. If anyone would understand, she figured it would be Rikku.

[the_merriest]

Rikku nodded, carefully. "Y-yeah. They're all ... he's in his room, drinking, right now. Can't take care of himself and ... doesn't know how to try." She eyerolled. "Why do guys do that, anyway? They're so weird."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"I think when they get over the cooties, it leaves a vacuum in their brain, and they have to fill it with something." Dawn was starting to like this theory. "The technical term is stupid."

[the_merriest]

Rikku snickered. "It can't even affect them all the same way. I mean, Reno's stupid in a totally different way than, like, Tidus. Or Luke. And my brother ... I think he was actually dropped on his head."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"There's probably like, some genetic thing," Dawn giggling, remembering helping Luke try to fly off the picnic table when they were littler. "Like how Sam and Dean are sometimes the same kind of dumb, but different from Xander and Spike and Luke."

[the_merriest]

"This sounds like a science project," Rikku giggled. "Identifying the different strains of boy-stupid. This could be a real breakthrough for girls everywhere."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"Do you think someone would give us extra credit? We could, like, do a survey or something."

[the_merriest]

"Some sort of a psychology class?" Rikku considered it. "Biology, maybe. We should totally get some kind of research grant for this."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"See, the problem with that? I think we'd have to be taking psychology or biology to get that to work," she started braiding the ends of her hair as she thought. "Maybe we should just try to win the Nobel Prize."

[the_merriest]

Rikku chewed her lower lip again. "That depends. The committee that hands it out, are they guys, too? Guys would be all 'hey, we're not stupid.' And girls would go 'oh my gosh, this is revolutionary.'"

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

Giggling and with extreme delusions of grandeur now, Dawn suggested, "Maybe we could go on Oprah instead. Write this big famous bestseller and go buy our own island."

[the_merriest]

"Oh my gosh." Rikku was giggling harder. "And we could be all, 'My boyfriend is here, but my brother is here,' and she'd be, 'And that column? Steadman.'"

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"Yes! And there could be a special 'how to relate to this kind of boy' tutorial or self-help section!"

[the_merriest]

"We could grade the severity, too. Not just how bad the boy has it, but how bad that kind brand of stupidity is going to be on a day-to-day basis," she nodded. "'Warning: the columns in red are strictly No-Fly Zones. Do not: we repeat: do not date these boys, under penalty of severe headdesking and heavy drinking.'"

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"Ooooh, I like that," Dawn decided, "Except that sometimes you get a good one off of that list, and it screws everything up."