MHA #1, Friday Evening

[the_merriest]

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.)

Comments

[the_merriest]

"I think he's doing science experiments," Rikku said. "You know. 'Does gravity still work? ... Yup!' He's making sure we won't float away."

[raspberryturk]

"Totally possible, that," Reno mused. "I fall on my face way more often than I land on my feet, yo."

It was sad because it was true.

[the_merriest]

"I'll take either over things landing on you," she said, her smile twisting a little at that.

Like, say, entire chunks of highway.

[raspberryturk]

Entire chunks of well-built highway.

Totally important to note, there.

"That'd make both of us," Reno noted, smothering a wry smile with another puff of smoke. "I like to think I done a pretty good job, avoidin' that the past couple years, yo."

[the_merriest]

"You have," she said. "Neither of us have had the world end in a few years. Maybe things are starting to settle down, finally."

She was going to wriggle closer and see if it was okay to snuggle against his side. It was, wasn't it? Maybe?

"Not too much," she said. "I like getting to fight fiends. Is that weird?"

[raspberryturk]

"You're askin' me?" Reno wasn't going to protest if she wanted to be closer. "I'm the one that fuckin' giggles when I get orders to take down monsters, yo."

So, really. The pot and the kettle were quite cozy together, here.

[the_merriest]

It was a really cozy couch. More so when Petey decided to make an appearance, sniffing at Reno's ankles and nipping.

"I don't think I could live somewhere ... without a little bit of danger," she admitted. "I mean, I get restless here, and this place is weird."

[raspberryturk]

Heeey, Petey. Reno spared the cat a crooked little grin, and then... glanced across the room, at the glass on the floor.

Riiiight. He should get to cleaning that away before the critters got to it, too.

"You get used to livin' on the edge," Reno mused, wriggling his toe in order to keep Petey distracted from the mess at least until he was good and ready to go clean it, "and it gets weird, tryin' to handle anything else. You keep waitin' for somethin' that ain't never on the way."

[the_merriest]

Petey was going to nom Reno's toe. Got it!! Hey, he got it!!! Om nom nom!!!!

Just to show there were no hard feelings, he was going to lick the toe, intermittently, between vicious killer bites.

"Is that why you feel like you're going soft, here?" she asked. "You used to say that sometimes. I didn't know what you meant, except ... I think I'm starting to."

She'd been rusty, with the fiends back home. She didn't like feeling rusty. And she had realized, once she started, how much she'd missed it.

[raspberryturk]

"That's part of it, yeah," Reno agreed, smirking down at Vicious Killer Cuban Pete. "Spent a lot of time worryin' that I'd go back to Gaia, get in a fight against somethin', and it'd mop the friggin' floor with me, yo."

That hadn't been entirely what he'd meant, no. But it was a start.

[the_merriest]

"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?"

[raspberryturk]

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_merriest]

"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?"

[raspberryturk]

"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.

[the_merriest]

"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.

[raspberryturk]

"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."

[the_merriest]

"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.

[raspberryturk]

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."

[the_merriest]

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."

[raspberryturk]

"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.

[the_merriest]

"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."

[raspberryturk]

"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.

[the_merriest]

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.

[raspberryturk]

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.

[the_merriest]

"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.