Outside Room 429, Late Tuesday (After Radio)

[the_merriest]

Okay. So. She'd tried sleeping some, last night. Got some sleep. Not much.

He sounded like hell on the radio; she felt like hell, right about now.

So Rikku was going to sit, hugging her knees, by door 429.

(for he whose door was modded with permission. note: this conversation gets kinda serious, touching on his drinking issues, so viewer discretion is advised.)

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[the_merriest]

"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.

[raspberryturk]

"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."

[the_merriest]

"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.

[raspberryturk]

"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."

[the_merriest]

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.

[raspberryturk]

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.

[the_merriest]

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."

[raspberryturk]

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.

[the_merriest]

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.

[raspberryturk]

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.

[the_merriest]

"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."

[raspberryturk]

Something reached into his chest and grabbed onto his heart, right about there. Just like always.

Sitting there with an unopened bottle in his hands. A lifeline. And he couldn't cry anymore. Everything was just still and stark and dead and dry, and there was an invisible hand clamping around his heart that refused to let go.

Just like always.

He didn't want to be there, anymore. Wanted to lose himself in the blur and the fuzz of it and not feel anything. Was easier. So much easier. Would take that hand out of his chest and maybe he'd breathe for a while, or he'd cry himself to sleep and it wouldn't matter because he'd be too pissed to remember it in the morning, anyhow. And he could deny anything was ever the matter, deny that anything was ever his fault, and he didn't have to feel.

"I'm fine."

It was almost cold, the way he said it. Cold and tired and empty and thirsty and dead.

[the_merriest]

"Right," she said, standing up and dusting herself off. "You're great. You drink 'cause you like the taste of it. You kill people 'cause you think it's fun. You love your job, and you're perfectly fine. Awesome. Let me know how that's working out for you, zoto."

She was going to get some sleep. She could use it.

[raspberryturk]

He sat there, his hands closing around the bottle, just to have something firm still resting in them. Just because it was something that wasn't going anywhere, while everything else was spinning.

"Clearly," he said, and the firmness that had been in his voice a moment before had all but vanished, again, "it's not."

He swallowed, and shook his head, and tightened his grip on the glass until his knuckles were white.

"I don't expect you to be okay with what I am. I don't want you to be okay with what I am. If I was okay with what I am, I wouldn't..."

He wouldn't be just like always.

"... have told Rufus I wanted to come home. Here's home. I just... I gotta cement it, is all. Make sure I... made my point. Or... somethin'."

[the_merriest]

"You know what I'm not okay with?" she said, stopping, at least, though she didn't turn around to face him. "You, thinking this is all you are. The uniform. I'm a Guardian, and I'm damn good at it, and if I wasn't, I'd be missing a huge chunk of me. But I'd still protect people. I'd still fight. I wouldn't give up."

A slightly bitter pause. "And you think I'd leave you if you didn't have the job? When have I ever been that shallow?"

[raspberryturk]

"You haven't," he sighed, and maybe she'd hear the light sloshy 'thump' of the bottle rolling out of his hands and onto the floor. "I mean. I know you hate what I do, hate what they make me do. Would probably make your day, if I wasn't this. Or... Somethin' like that."

He wasn't going to get up just yet. Wasn't going to look up, either. Sitting there was just fine, for now.

"I know it don't make no sense. I can't take me and see me without bein' that other kid instead, and you're not gonna take off just because I'm... Whatever I'd be. Without the Turks. Probably won't even ever be that kid again. It's just... me bein' stupid. I know."

[the_merriest]

"You're Reno," she said quietly. "That kid left, so you're Reno. You were a Turk. Maybe you still are. Maybe you always will be. Maybe you left that, too. But you picked the name yourself. It's you. You're you. They gave you a uniform and showed you the sky, and then you did all those things. You don't owe them. You're not just who they said you are."

"I'm not just a Guardian, I'm not just an Al Bhed, I'm Rikku." The inflection on those two syllables was decidedly Al Bhed. "You're Reno. You always will be. That's it."

[raspberryturk]

"Maybe that's what I'm worried about," he said, and it was barely a mumble. "Maybe I'm not worried that I'm gonna stop bein' a Turk. Maybe I'm scared that I'm gonna stop bein' Reno."

Deep breath. Look up.

"Tell me I'm bein' stupid. I am. I know."

[the_merriest]

"You are," she said, in that same tone. "You are being stupid. Oui yna yldehk cdibet. I don't know any other languages, or I'd do more. You can't stop being Reno. Being a Turk isn't a superpower. It's a job."

[raspberryturk]

He nodded slightly. The two languages were enough, really. They covered it well enough.

"I think I can quit. I think I actually got the option. It's somethin' I never thought I would get. And... I don't wanna die for this. I'm not gonna die for my job. And I don't wanna lose you."

It was all said in the same tone. 'I don't wanna die' was just as much a reason for wanting to quit as 'I don't wanna lose you,' and neither of them had been reasons for anything before Fandom.

[the_merriest]

"I'm not saying you have to," she said. That same calm, almost detached tone. "Maybe you don't. Maybe it's different. Maybe I haven't decided yet if I want to stay either way. Maybe ..."

She made a frustrated noise. "It's late. We should be sleeping."

Right.

[raspberryturk]

Late. Should be sleeping. Trying to sleep. Something. Yeah. He could see that.

"You had a hard weekend," he said, and he was hauling himself to his feet, now, the bottle still on the floor. He'd return to it, later. Now wasn't the time. "I'm not gonna dig my claws in and make you go through this, Rikku. If you can't... Well, shit. That's fine. Not wantin' to lose you can be... I wanna be your friend, even. If that's... still okay, I mean."

He'd blown himself up. Yeah. And then he went right back to standing on guard for Rufus. He could see how this would be an issue.

"I'm sorry," he said again, and this time he actually knew why, "for draggin' you through hell and still not knowin' where I stand with all of it. Even after all that. It ain't fair. Especially not to you, zoto."

[the_merriest]

"It isn't," she agreed. "It's ... you say that they're not all that matters to you. But ... all of that, and you're still leaving me hanging because you haven't figured out what you want with them. They're first. They're always first."

She shrugged. "Then you think you can come back to me and tell me where I'm going to fit into the rest of your life, and ... I don't know how I'm supposed to not resent that. Especially after watching you die."

That time, she said it without her voice wavering at all.

[raspberryturk]

He had to stop. Had to shove his hands into his pockets to keep himself from reaching into other pockets for his smokes again. Had to make more words.

Words were hard.

"Then resent it. At least we got this far. If you're gonna resent me, at least now I know why."

It hadn't really been rocket science, true. But that didn't make it any easier to swallow.

"Maybe if I ever get my shit together, there'll be less to resent. I'd like that, even. If now's too much. Or not enough. Or both. I can... I can live with a maybe, if that isn't too much, zoto."

[the_merriest]

"And you'll get back to me, once you have the rest of your orders?" she said, eyes blazing. "You get your shit together, find out what they want from you, and then fit me in around the edges? No. I'm done with that. Done resenting it and done with ..."