the_merriest | MHA #1, Friday Evening

Current Mood: pessimistic

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.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"But ... not all of it?" she asked, leaning down to scoop up the vicious predator onto her lap for cuddles. She wasn't sure how much was okay to ask, but that was ... kind of what had got them here in the first place, wasn't it?

"... Is some of it me?" she asked. "I mean, just ... that you're ... focusing on things that aren't just ... being a Turk?"

Oh, man. That wasn't an easy one to answer, either.

"... Yeah," he admitted, regardless. This was part of what this whole mess was about, after all. "That's some of it too. And... Maybe I was scared I'd go back, and wouldn't be able to bring myself do the job."

For anyone who understood the Turks, they'd realize just how horrifying a prospect that had to be, for Reno.

"The hits?" she asked. Okay, it was really weird to ask about contract killings while you were kissing a really dumb fuzzball, but such was their domesticity. "I mean, were you worried that ... that it was going to make things weird with ... some of the darker stuff?"

"I was," Reno replied, his tone good and even again while he took another drag from his cigarette. "Ain't like it matters so much now, but back when? Shit, the Director would hand me jobs and I'd just sit there and stare at 'em, pickin' out all the ways they'd go wrong and tryin' to psych myself up so that I wouldn't freeze if I wound up havin' to do somethin' drastic to make it out of there."

... Well, she'd asked.

"Were you worried ..." She frowned, trying to understand. "Were you worried you'd ... mess up? Get killed? Or were you scared you'd ... do something drastic and that I wouldn't be okay with it, you mean?"

She had totally asked. She wanted to know.

"Maybe both," Reno admitted. "Maybe I was worried that I'd have to do somethin' drastic, and I just wouldn't have it in me to do. Was weird, you know, actually givin' a damn about that kind of thing. Before I came here, I never really did."

"Are you ever sorry?" she asked. "I mean ... not about us, but about ... losing some of that? The edge?"

Petey picked that moment to wriggle out of Rikku's arms and leap up to the back of the couch. He wasn't going far. Not with all of Reno's hair to sniff.

There was plenty of it! Petey was quite welcome to sniff it all.

"Only when I'm afraid I'm gonna need it," Reno replied, shrugging. "Which you could almost set a calendar by around here, yo."

Oh, good. Because Petey was now going to attempt to chew on some of it. It was too bright and happy to resist!

Just what Reno always wanted: cat-spit in his hair.

"Sometimes," Rikku said, unsure of where she was even going with this, or how to say it, "... sometimes? I ... realize that being with you means that I'm not ... as good as I used to be, about locking things up. And that's good, I mean, it's great, for me, but it's bad for ... when you need to save the world."

"For as often as that comes up?" Reno gave Rikku a wry, tired little smirk at that, around the cigarette at the corner of his mouth. "I don't think what Rude and I did accomplished much anyhow, back when. I mean, beyond a few million gil's worth of property damage, and scarin' the shit outta you."

Which sucked. But it was true.

"That's not the point," Rikku insisted. "I know why you did what you did. It was brave. I was so proud of you, even though I also wanted to punch your stupid face in."

"From what I hear, you did a good number on Tseng's," Reno noted, his face the very picture of innocence.

He was trying not to grin.

She smiled back, if a touch weakly. "Misplaced anger," she said. "I decided it was all his fault. And he was ... so upset about you guys that he didn't even retaliate."

Reno didn't realize, how much he meant to Tseng. How much his apparent death had shaken the man.

Reno actually twitched a little smile at that.

"I would'a done the same thing, Turk or not." He tilted his head, glancing sidelong at her. "I didn't know that. I mean, that he just kinda... took it."

That was... weird to know, somehow. This was the guy that Reno had watched slap the fuck out of the Ancient for opening her mouth in the chopper after Reno had set off the countdown to drop the plate. He'd sort of just... assumed that Tseng did that kind of thing. Lashed out, when shit got rough. He had a temper, Reno knew that alright. But the rest...

Huh.

"He didn't ... see it coming," Rikku admitted, wriggling closer. It was hard to talk about this. Easier when she could feel him, warm and alive, next to her. "I just ... I said, get them back, and he said he couldn't, and ... and I punched him. Then we were all trying to call you, and he took my phone 'cause I couldn't. And Romeo and Dojima and that Elena-girl, they went to help the civilians, and we just ... waited."

Tseng dialing, Rufus silent, and Rikku doing the closest thing in her life to praying that she had ever done.

Reno's mouth had gone dry. And so he swallowed smoke and guilt and decided to let that be good enough.

"I'm right here," he offered, his voice a little more quiet than he'd intended it to be. "Ain't plannin' on pullin' that stunt again."

"I know," she said firmly. "And I ... if you w-weren't ..."

She'd had time to think about this. Not that it was something especially pleasant to think about. But ...

"I wouldn't ... I w-wouldn't do what Yunie did," she said. "I d-d-don't blame her, but it's like ... she lost Tidus and she gave up. She went to Besaid and just gave up. And he ... he thought he was going to lose her most of the time and she wouldn't have wanted that for him so ... so it wasn't really fair of her to do, either. Does that ... make any sense?"

And, hopefully, not sound like she'd be completely blase about his possible death? Because she wouldn't. Really, really wouldn't.

It wasn't as though Reno would have been too bothered by it if she had been. Being a Turk kind of got him used to the idea that someday he'd die, and maybe they'd pour out a bottle for him, but then he'd be forgotten.

Being in Edge had helped to cement that notion, but without the bottle.

"Makes perfect sense," he replied, leaning forward to flick another length of ash onto the glass. "Life keeps goin'. I wouldn't want you to stop just because I did, zoto."

"I don't mean it'd be easy," she said, shuddering at even talking about this. It felt like it was tempting fate. "Or that I'd ... I mean ... I really, I, I don't know what I'd do."

She held on tightly. "But I'd ... I'd want the same. For you. To go and ... and live. Yeah?"

"Yeah," Reno murmured, leaving the cigarette behind in the mess on the table, so that he could wrap his arms around her and hold her close. "It'd be a real big damn waste if we both died that day. Especially if one of us is still breathin'."

Edited 2011-01-10 02:42 (UTC)

"Exactly," she said softly. "Where there's life, there's ... there's hope. Even when it's only a little. I have to believe in hope. Some days ... some days I think it's all I really do believe in, yeah?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

MHA #1, Friday Evening

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject