the_merriest | Outside Room 429, Late Tuesday (After Radio)

"I wanted to," she said. Floor. Floors were good to stare at. "It's never gonna be him. Is it? He was faking that stupid wheelchair. Tseng and the blonde girl, they got messed up, and you and Rude, you ..." Couldn't say it. "So he'd just get himself more Turks. Was never going to be him. He'd never pay for it. Any of it. And he just stared at me like he thought it wasn't even all that interesting. Oh, hey, I was gonna shoot him? Huh. Tseng, take care of that. And Tseng did, because he's just his bitch. Not the President. Never the President. He'd let you die but ..."

Shit. Shit. Shit. No crying, Rikku.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Reno was now making his way over to sit down beside her, to put an arm around her. To pull her close.

"You can't fake the stigma like that. Rips through you and tears you apart and pushes it outta you through your skin. I think he's just a cold enough bastard he's just stopped showin' it. When he's about to die, I mean. Tseng took care of it, 'cause it's his job. It's... what Turks do. Their job. Not 'cause of Rufus. Not 'cause of ShinRa. It's 'cause they're Turks."

He bit his lip and squeezed Rikku closer and he was just spitting out words, now, not trying to contradict anything. He was just... sorting. Maybe if he could say it like they saw it, she'd understand. She didn't have to agree.

"Tseng talked to Rufus. Before he talked to me. He's in the same place I am. Doesn't know where he stands with ShinRa. Maybe he quit, too. Worst thing a Turk can do for the company is to stop bein' a Turk. Without us, all Shinra has is his money. And the world hates him too much to let him buy it. That's why he needs us. S'why Tseng said no to him yesterday morning. 'Cause it'd leave ShinRa without its hands, yoto."

"I don't ..." She shook her head, pulling back enough that she could look at him. None of it made sense.

"Why not let me shoot him? If it didn't matter, and ... if he was going to quit, except not quit, and you didn't quit, so you're still ... you're not taking yourself away from him. You didn't quit. You're still ... loyal, and his, and you always have been, and ... I get that, I just hate it, because ..."

She bit her lip. "It's. You're. I know, it's who you are, it's what you are, it comes first. And second, and third, and then somewhere around eighth, that's me, and everything else you care about, and ... I'm ... it's too much."

And when she had said that, all Reno could do was stare. Stare until his brain jump-started itself and his heart crawled back down out of his throat, where it had attempted to pull what was left of the ramen he'd had for lunch up to.

"You... really believe that?"

His tone was tired. Flat. Dead all over again. He couldn't cry, this time. All he could do was stand there and wonder what he'd done so wrong that she honestly thought she meant... damn near nothing to him.

Rikku shrugged. "It's ... who you are," she said softly. "It's what you are. You ..."

Tired. Empty. Hollow.

"You're a Turk. You're ... how many times have you said it? That you're nobody, you're nothing if you're not a Turk. That's ... all you think you are."

And his heart was sinking, now. From his chest to his guts to his toes.

"It's... somethin' to be proud of, Rikku. First time I ever held up my head and said my name, it was this name. Wasn't that other kid, wasn't that nobody." He was so very interested, now, in whatever was on his floor. A bottle. Hey. "It's just... Joinin' the Turks was never about ShinRa. Rufus could'a died on Sunday and I'd still call myself a Turk. Still be damn proud of what I was and what it meant, even if there weren't no Turks left. I'm not gonna ever stop bein' one. It's who I am."

A long pause.

"But it ain't what I do. We do what we do, no matter what, because of what we are. But it ain't the same thing. We can stop doin' it and still be Turks. But we can't stop bein' Turks and still do it. Used to be, that was the only thing kept us goin'. We get it done. Why? 'Cause we're Turks, zoto. Now... Turks are still there. Yeah. But... That ain't what keeps me goin'."

"Your boss said ..." There was a wry smile, directed at the floor. "That. That's me. But you ... do you know how that sounds? For you to ... you're nothing without this. You choose this over everything. It's killing you, and you hate it, but it's still ..."

She made a frustrated noise. "I don't understand. If you don't care that he could've died, then why didn't Tseng let me kill him? If you hate him, why are you still working for him? I don't get it. I never have. I just ... hate your job. And it's gonna k- ... kill you, sooner or later, but that's what you want. No matter ... what it costs. And it's almost been me."

Might still be.

"The mission was to keep Rufus safe," Reno said, simply. "Tseng kept him safe. S'what he does. S'what he is. And now Rufus is better, so maybe... the mission can change. Maybe we're always gonna be Turks, but maybe what Turks are can change, too, and we can just... change with it."

He shrugged, like that made all the sense in the world, to him.

"It isn't a job. I get paid for it, sure. But it isn't just a job. It's me. Me an' Turk. It's the same thing. And bein' me maybe doesn't have to kill me. Not anymore. I'm gonna be a Turk until I die. Even if I quit."

"Like being a Guardian?" she said. "Except ... it's different. We were ... we wanted to save the world. We had to keep Yunie alive, not because she was paying us, but because she was gonna ... no, you know, I didn't become a Guardian to help Yunie save the world. I didn't. Yunie said she needed me, so I had to keep her safe. Alive, as long as I could, even if the end was gonna be her death. Maybe I could talk her out of it. And she said ... even if I couldn't, if she was gonna die ... it could be on Gagazet, and it'd be all for nothing, or it could be against Sin, and she would've really done it, and if she had to die, couldn't I help her make sure it wasn't ... wasted?"

She had no idea why she was telling him this. She didn't mean to. It just seemed to spill out of her.

Reno chewed on that for a moment. It all seemed so different, the motives, the mission, everything was ... better. Nobler. Something that he envied and was altogether terrified to try to reach for all at once.

But there was something else that he could touch on.

"Pride," he said, after a moment. "The pride's the same. I mean... I heard you before, bein' all upset at yourself because you were a guardian and this didn't go the way it was supposed to, and that ain't how it should be. And... I mean. I do the same thing. 'Cause I'm a Turk. And... Turks don't let that happen, and I should'a known better. And maybe it's not what you're doin' right now. I mean, the pilgrimage is over, right? But that don't change the fact that it's still there and it's still you, zoto. And losin' it would maybe be like... like cuttin' a piece of you away."

"Guardians ... protect," she said, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. "I shouldn't have pulled that gun on him. If he ... if he was standing right here, now, doing something evil? Hurting someone? Then I'd shoot and not blink. But ... he wasn't. I should be protecting. Not ... getting revenge, or lashing out."

She flushed. "I ... we went after Bahamut, and I should have been panicking, worrying about you, scared about the kids in the town center, and all I kept thinking ... was how alive I felt. Leaping off the rafters and slashing my Godhand and ... I felt like I was me again. Monster shows up, monster's going down. The end. That's ... that's what it means. You stand between whatever's dangerous and the rest of the world. The pilgrimage is over but ... I'm ... still a Guardian. I hope."

That was, really, what her tattoo meant, wasn't it?

Edited 2008-10-09 06:18 (UTC)

"You are." He shrugged, considered, for a moment, if pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with Rikku in the room was a bad idea. Decided against it. And then did it anyhow, maybe as an excuse to wander over, next, and crack the window. Over there, by the window, seemed to be a... safer sort of distance. "You ain't no less a guardian now than you were before, zoto. It's what you are, who you are. Sometimes, what you do don't match up just right. But that doesn't change the rush you get or the pride you feel, does it?"

"But it's not the same," she said. "Is it? You're ... I wanted to help people. I protect. You ... your job isn't ..."

She shook her head. "I don't understand. How you have pride in it, when it's ... you told me what they've made you do. What it means. I don't ... understand."

"It was the difference between starvin' to death in the slums, and bein' considered a person and talked to by name. Even if it was just by them."

He shrugged. "Yeah. It's different. Means somethin' that you don't even wanna try to understand. Trust me on that. But they gave me the sky, Rikku. The Turks did that. Tseng and Verdot and the rest of 'em. Not ShinRa. Turks."

"Kinda like ..." Rikku bit her lip. "I never had friends before, who weren't Al Bhed. I've been called awful things. It's not the same, just ..."

Just that nobody had called her a grease-monkey in months.

She shook her head again. "It's ... not the same, at all. But. But being a person and not being ... that, it's ... that part, I think maybe I do get."

They'd never starved, at home, never let the Yevonites take their pride, but ... she still wore the goggles around her neck. Two years. Maybe she always would.

"They're my family," he said, though he'd usually refused to use that word. Was his job. Was what he did. Because he was a Turk. And now it was... "I'm not loyal to Rufus. Signed my contract to his old man, who happens to be dead, and his old man's company, which happens to be just as dead. But the Turks? Tseng and Rude and even the Rookie?"

He shrugged, took a deep inhale from that cigarette of his, and then snubbed what was left of it on the sill. Most of it. He didn't care.

"Family, Rikku. And they're important to me. But they sure as hell don't take up slots one through eight."

"I don't ..." Deep sigh while she tried to sort things out. "I ... I'm glad you have a family. I am. I don't like what you had to sell of yourself to get one. I'm not okay with this. And it's not your family that takes the first spot, anyway. It's ... being a Turk. That matters to you more than anything. The rest of it's just all a part of it. I don't ..."

She rubbed her eyes, not even sure what she was saying, any more.

"It ain't that I'm afraid of not bein' a Turk," Reno said, and it was abrupt. A sudden realization that just sort of smacked him in the face, right there. "It's that I'm afraid I'm gonna forget how to be me."

A pause. And a frown. And a shrug.

"And if I lose me, then... I lose everything else. I mean. I dunno what I mean. Just maybe I thought I was doin' somethin' right. All these good things start fallin' into my life, and I never had that before, when I was that other guy. I don't wanna go back to that. Just means I'd be all... Nothin' again."

This part was not easy to say.

"I don't wanna be alone."

Edited 2008-10-10 07:16 (UTC)

That earned him a very dirty look.

"Listen to yourself," she fumed. "If you lose your job, you'll be nothing, you'll be nobody, you'll be alone. The hell with all of us here. The hell with everything you are that doesn't have the TURK label stuck onto it. That's not just slots one through eight, that's one to infinity. Nothing else counts."

Good to know that being with her still counted as being alone.

She was too busy raging to process that that wasn't exactly what he'd said.

He was looking at the floor again. Hated this. Hated hims- everything. Hated everything. That summed things up well enough.

"If I lose that piece of me, I'm just that kid again. That kid's a nobody. Everyone leaves that kid. That's the kid that... hides in corners and... steals food, and..."

He shrugged. He was terrible at just coming out with it. He was being stupid and selfish. She was right. He should just... give up the Turks and stop clinging to all of this so that she could see him for what he was and get disgusted and kick garbage in his face and leave and he could crawl back under the plate and never see the sky and right now he was heading for that drawer and digging for the booze there had to be booze he needed it he wasn't thinking straight anymore.

Long week.

Oh.

... Oh.

That answered her question, about how many times her heart could break. At least once more. There it went again.

She walked over to him, quietly, wrapping her arms around.

"That kid?" she asked, very very softly. And she repeated a name she'd only said once, one that she thought she would never say out loud again. Just a whisper.

"I told you. I love you. No matter what name comes along."

Reno froze. The whole world had ground to a halt. He could feel the warmth of Rikku's arms around him, playing counterpoint to the cool glass neck of whatever bottle he had reached for in his hand, but he couldn't read what kind of booze he had grabbed through the tears that were threatening to stop by for another round and damn it, he wasn't going to cry. He wasn't. Street kids didn't have the luxury. Neither did Turks. He was being stupid and weak and...

And he was too busy trying to rationalize his way out of crying that he didn't even realize that he was, in fact, sobbing. Sinking to the floor and breaking down and he couldn't. He couldn't.

Whatever it was. He couldn't. Not that kid. Not Reno. Couldn't be stronger than that. Had to cry.

Holding on. Couldn't. Couldn't say she'd be his, no matter what. Because. That was why she was here, wasn't it? But that was the wrong way around. She wasn't sure if she could be here if he was a Turk.

Dizzying and wrong and she felt like screaming and crying, herself, but she didn't know why, and if she started, she'd never stop.

"Breathe," she said gently. "I've got you."

That much she knew was true.

On the floor with his hand in the drawer and sniveling and sobbing and getting snot and fucking tears all over himself over something so stupid stupid stupid stupid, just a name, name of some dead kid, some kid he hadn't been for as long as he could remember a life worth living, wasn't worth crying over, never had been worth crying over, nobody ever cried over that kid. Maybe someone would'a cried over the Turk. The Turk was somebody. If something happened to the Turk, he'd drop off the face of the planet entirely and more people would remember him than that street punk that he used to be. Reno of the Turks was totally fine with the possibility of slipping off into obscurity after he died. At least other Turks knew he'd been alive. And the bottle was in his lap now and he still couldn't see what it was. Wasn't really looking. Didn't need to know.

Booze was booze and he'd down the whole damn bottle the moment he was alone no matter what was in it, anyhow.

"Sorry... 'M sorry. You don't have to... I'm. 'M fine, zoto. 'M sorry."

She said she had him. He wasn't even sure which him. Nothing made sense anymore, and there he was, sitting on his floor choking on himself and apologizing.

He'd been doing too much apologizing, lately.

"For what?" she said, pulling back to look at him. "You're not fine. You don't have to be, if you're not."

She wasn't. That was okay, wasn't it?

"If you were okay, you wouldn't have gone straight for the booze. Just like always."

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