MCA -2, AKA The New Reno-and-Rikku-Land, Monday Morning

[the_merriest]

Rikku had totally thought it was like gonna take her a few more days to wrap things up. Because Gippal had been fighting with Eigaar and the airship had been making all kinds of clunky noises and Pops was being stubborn and, like, all the Al Bhed had chosen the exact same moment to go crazy, and it was right when Reno needed to be at the Newbie Picnic because he was teaching again and how cool was that???? So she had told him to go on ahead and she'd just follow up when she'd smacked some sense into the rest of her people.

But Eigaar and Gippal had made up, and Brother had fixed the airship -- did that mean Brother was actually getting good at something???? -- and Pops had been all snarky about how she shouldn't keep her booooooooooyfriend waiting. But that was just Pops being Pops. He liked Reno. The Al Bhed had kind of adopted him. It helped that he knew how to fix things. And spoke the language. And had weird eyes.

Anyway. It was only Monday and she was totally, totally free to do whatever she wanted, and what she wanted was to be in Fandom with her favorite bestest Turk ever. They'd been world-hopping for a few years now but nothing ever felt like home. Maybe Fandom would.

He'd texted her the room number, and it was crazy-early. Why knock when you had lockpicks? Really, if she'd knocked, he might have thought she was replaced with some kind of a pod person.

It occurred to Rikku like after she broke in that it was a good thing she hadn't gotten the apartment number wrong, because she might have totally broke into someone else's apartment and they might have been upset. But she would have dealt with it, and besides, this was totally Reno's place. Nobody else had a Mako honking excitedly to see her.

"Hiiiiiii, baby," she cooed as she shut the door. "Mommy has lots of stuff in the hallway. Are you going to be a good boy and not make a run for it?"

First step: uncrating Petey. The two of them would at least keep each other busy.

(JUST FOR THE GUY WHAT LIVES THAR. Wow, I missed this girl.)

Comments

[raspberryturk]

"Nope," came a lazy sort of drawl from the sofa. "Second you leave that door unguarded, I'm gonna make a freakin' beeline, yoto."

So what if she'd been talking to the weasel? Reno was right there, and like hell he was going to peacefully sleep through the apartment being broken into.

"Hey, babe. You want a hand with the heavy shit, or should I grab Stupid, there?"

[the_merriest]

Rikku leaned over the edge of the couch so she could kiss just the tip of Reno's nose. "I'll manage," she laughed. "Though I think you could build an airship out of all the junk I brought."

'Junk' meaning broken machina, scrounged up from the bottom of the ocean. Old technology, far more advanced than anything Spirans knew how to use, rusting and incapacitated, but so full of promise.

"I was gonna try not to wake you," she added. "Guess chirping at the weasel kinda screws that up. Hey, why are you on the couch, anyway?"

Did they not have a bed yet? She could sleep on the floor. She'd slept on worse, really.

[raspberryturk]

"Weaselface fell asleep on my chest," Reno chuckled. "And once that happened, there was no hope, you know? It's bad luck to move a sleeping weasel, yo."

No. No, it probably wasn't. Hell, most of the time, Mako just slept right through being moved around.

"How was the trip?"

With all of the machina, and all.

[the_merriest]

"Orrrrrrrr maybe you just zonked out with him," Rikku teased. "Once Mako's out, how can you resist? He starts snoring and bam."

That was Petey's best quality. On nights when she was convinced she'd never get to sleep, he'd hop up, stretch up next to her, and nap like he got paid to do it. Usually did the trick.

She balanced herself on the arm of the sofa. "Not so bad," she said. "Somehow straight-shots to Fandom always seem to work better than the layover hell we usually go through. Although one customs lady at Portalocity didn't want to let me bring all of the baggage, and I had to get in her face about it. I mean the ticket doesn't say there's a limit to bags. Not anywhere that I checked. If I can carry 'em, they're my problem, right??"

There were ... rather a lot of bags in the hallway. Yes, they were unguarded. But seriously. Who'd steal a bunch of broken machina, anyway?

[raspberryturk]

Around here? Probably anything from a squirrel to a gremlin.

"Sounds about right to me, yo. They don't have to haul shit. They just gotta, what, hit a button, open the portal, and let you do your thing?"

It didn't sound hugely complex, really.

[the_merriest]

"It's not like I had to take two trips," she huffed. "But I wanted to bring all those weapons we've picked up, and some of the engine pieces, and then it all got huge, so I just ended up strapping all the luggage together and dragging it along."

Good thing the machina was already broken.

"Oooooohkay, maybe I will get your help," she added with a bit of a sigh. "It was a longer trek than I realized and now I kind of just want to sit here and stare at things."

If she was going, she could keep going with the best of them, but sometimes once she sat down, she realized just how tired she was. Inertia set in. Yuck.

[raspberryturk]

Inertia was pretty brutal, it was true. It was part of the reason Reno hated settling down in the first place. Still, he was on his feet in the blink of an eye, and already peering out into the hallway a moment after that.

"Ifrit's tits, babe. You could've just stuffed it all in an airship and dragged that here, zoto. This gonna all fit in here?"

Reno didn't mind a little clutter and he could sleep anywhere, but he was pretty sure they'd lose the ferret and the cat under all of this. Possibly forever.

[the_merriest]

"Of course it is," Rikku said. Inertia be damned, she was going to pop up and poke into the hallway to -- Oh.

Right. There kind of was a lot of it.

"We could use the spare bedroom as a workshop," she suggested. "Give us room to spread things out a little and work on them."

Or at least pile the crates there. That would ... be a good start.

[raspberryturk]

"You plannin' on spreading things out on top of other things?" Reno was giving her a side-eye from where he was hanging out the doorway. "I'm sure we can keep some of this in our pockets, but you miiight've gotten a little carried away, yo."

They'd maybe been a little spoiled with all of their travel, and then the airship, and just how sparse Reno's apartment in Junon actually was...

[the_merriest]

"Maybe a little," she admitted, sheepishly.

Going overboard was one of her specialties. She got super-excited and then bam, there she was, doing a dark magic ritual solo to try to bring back her cousin's dead boyfriend. That kind of thing.

"You know what we need?" she said, as the idea struck her. "A workshop. A real one. Like, somewhere big so we can spread out and not get axle grease on the carpet or have Petey and Mako take naps inside the engine."

[raspberryturk]

"I'm still pickin' cat hair out of the pistons after that last time," Reno snorted. "There's gotta be some empty place in town. Like, Stark isn't bad, but then we gotta work around the people already there, yo."

Which wouldn't be so bad, but again, Rikku... had a lot of crap with her.