the_merriest | MHA #1, Friday Evening

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MHA #1, Friday Evening

Rikku was okay. She was. She was back on the island with her Reno-person and their pets. And Reno didn't seem okay, and she wasn't sure she knew how to help, because it felt lately like they were talking _past_ each other, and nothing seemed to help. Maybe she was doing it wrong. It was okay, though. She'd just do it better. Whatever it was.

She was trying not to think about how he'd been out late, lately. She'd been proud when she showed Tseng that there wasn't a pile of liquor in the fridge, but that didn't mean he wasn't, say, stopping for an hour or three at the bar.

It was all the stress. So she was going to ... help with the stress. Somehow. And be cheery and helpful and ... somehow, that was going to fix everything. It had to.

Oh, hey, a letter! One from Yunie. See, this wouldn't be a bad day. Yunie would write some cheerful story and Rikku would laugh and it'd be all okay.

Except ...

Except this wasn't a ... cheerful letter. And phrases were swimming, like I wouldn't ask and please, Rikku, you're the only one who can and please let me know soon. Dutiful, polite, and sorry to impose, because ... because asking her to go back there, well, gee, it'd be hard, but that was okay. It was for the Good of Everyone, and Yuna cared about the Good of Everyone, so obviously, Rikku should, too. So personal feelings were silly and should be ignored. Right? Right.

Hardly realizing she was doing it, Rikku crumpled up the letter into a ball and threw it against the wall. A moment later, she picked up a vase and threw that, flinching at the sound it made when it broke.

One sob escaped before she had a hand over her eyes. Crying? No. Not now. Get it together.

She just ... needed a minute. Then she'd be okay again. Soon. Really.

(just for her turk. this one has nothing to do with fun phone-day antics and everything to do with some messiness that's been bubbling up, zomg. Warning: the conversation below will probably touch on some of Reno's drinking issues, so if that's going to be triggery, please stay away.)

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Rikku sighed. She did. Mostly.

"... I think I hate Tseng," she said. "Not for the ... stuff I used to. But he keeps jerking you around and I just want to rip his hair out but I don't ... ever say that. Because I don't want you thinking I hate Tseng for the old stuff, or feeling like you can't talk about Tseng, so I just ..."

"Tseng ain't even an issue anymore," Reno replied, shrugging. Tseng had told him to get out, and whether or not he'd gotten out of the man's house without a bullet in his brain didn't change the fact that he was still mostly taking that statement to heart. Tseng didn't tend to say things that he didn't mean. "Anyhow, it ain't like I don't give him his fair share of headaches. Hate him, yo. I'm... wonderin' if I'm gettin' there too, anyhow."

If he thought on it too hard, he'd know that he didn't. But he was allowed to resent the hell out of him. It wasn't like Tseng hadn't given Reno his fair share of reasons, right back.

Rikku was giving Reno a long, looooong sort of look.

"See?" she said. "This is why we need an honesty closet. Because I don't even know if you think you believe that."

"Easier to, though, ain't it?" There was Reno's twitchy smirk, coming back to say hello. "Junon, Edge, whatever. Rude's what matters back there, anyhow, and it ain't like I'll lose touch with him."

He totally drunk-dialled Rude at least every other night. It was awesome, shut up.

She returned the smile, still wry.

"If you actually didn't give a damn about him," she said, "then I don't think I'd hate him. I wouldn't bother. But he's ... important to you, and he's being all whatever and you're being all whatever and you guys had some kind of fight and ... I don't like it when he hurts you, yoto."

Reno huffed a soft laugh at that. Ah, his stupid little made-up words in the hands of amateurs. Well, Rikku was intermediate level by now, at least. She'd had practise.

"So, this ain't much different from what I'm startin' to think of Yuna, yeah?"

This? This was a genuine, if soft, smile, and she reached over to brush a lock of hair from Reno's face.

"Yunie means well," she said. "She just has blind spots you could cram a Sand Worm into. Maybe ... maybe Tseng's the same way."

"I dunno if it's that," Reno replied, shaking his head a little. "He wouldn't be the Director of the Turks if he ever let himself have blind spots. I think it's more... I don't even friggin' know. He's the other way around. He don't know how to stop thinkin' about shit."

"I think ..." Rikku considered. "I think maybe he's really good at being the Director and really bad at caring about people. Not that he doesn't. I mean. He doesn't want to, but he does."

She blinked a few times. "Which really is inside-out, for Yunie. She cares about everyone. You know why she didn't stop her pilgrimage? She thought it'd be selfish, to not kill herself saving the world."

Rikku loved her cousin a great deal. She was also starting to wonder about the girl's hero complex.

Reno was now, by some miracle, managing his best 'bitch is crazy' look.

"She... uh... ain't quite alright, is she?"

Rikku shook her head. "Her father was the last person to sacrifice themselves, for Sin," she said. "She was seven, and her mother was already dead. I think ... she thinks it's normal."

Hero complexes were apparently hereditary. Who knew?

Reno just wrinkled his nose at that. Okay, he'd nearly killed himself trying to take out the Remnants of Sephiroth along with Rude, but he hadn't spent years preparing to bomb the fuck out of himself.

"So naturally, she figures you inherited that somewhere."

"Maybe she thinks everyone's like that," Rikku said, lifting her shoulders. "I don't understand her, sometimes, I guess."

And usually felt that meant she was coming up short.

"I .... I'd like for you to come," she said. "If I go. I'm gonna ... think about it and decide, because maybe I don't. But if I do .... are you sure? That you'd want to?"

Tramping around the desert heat, in search of an old fiend that was giving everyone trouble. Really. Fun times.

"I don't think there's nothin' wrong with you not understandin' her," Reno replied, shaking his head. "You'd have to think it was normal, too. And then I'd have to tie you up or somethin' so you don't get yourself killed."

... He kinda actually meant that.

"And yeah," he added, "I am sure."

See? That, too, was sweet in a twisted kind of way. Or twisted, in a sweet way. One of the two.

"Thank you," she said, softly. "I ..."

She took another deep breath. "I wasn't kidding. About talking to Tseng, for you. I want ..."

She trailed off, searching for words, not finding them yet.

Reno shook his head a little.

"You can talk to him if you want," he said, slowly, "just don't expect no miracles outta him. It don't make much sense keepin' me around. He can't depend on me, anyhow."

Reno wasn't certain when exactly teaching on the island had started to be more important to him than being a Turk, but...

He was helping young people. Maybe it was just that the island had more Rookies than the Turks did, now.

"I want ... to know what's going on with you," she said, finally. "If ... if you're going to be drinking and staring off into space, do it here where I don't have to worry about you coming home. If you're falling apart, then ... then say it. I know I don't always ... say things right, I just ... I still want to know."

Reno was frowning now, as he patted down his pockets for his pack of cigarettes. Right now, he needed a smoke. He needed a pack, but a smoke at a time was probably the way to go about it.

"I can.... try, I guess? I mean... Talkin'. I'd feel kinda..." He pulled out his lighter, clamping a smoke in his teeth. "Like an ass, drinkin' around you."

Rikku considered that for a few seconds.

"Would it help if I drank?"

Yes, Rikku. It might make him piss himself laughing, to watch you get buzzed on wine coolers.

"Uh." Reno was making that face that he made in moments where his brain needed to scramble to catch up with his ears. "You remember Mexico?"

A pause.

"Or the cruise ship?"

"Riiiiiiight," Rikku said, nodding. "We could end up married again, or with another tattoo."

... Yes. That was totally his concern.

Absolutely. Reno was terrified that his other butt cheek would end up occupied by a drunk baby Tonberry.

"Well... yeah, there's that."

"Okay," Rikku said. "Maybe not the drinking. I just ... I want to know. Okay? I just do."

"I'm not sittin' here makin' you watch me get all... stupid," Reno replied, firmly. "You don't want to see that. I don't want you to. But I can... stop sneakin' around it. That's somethin'."

Rikku nodded. "Maybe .. maybe we both start ... talking before ... before it gets to this again," she said. "Because I don't ... ever want to bother you, and you don't want to bother me, so we don't, and that means ..."

Well. It made for a really nonexistent relationship.

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