raspberryturk | Room 429, Monday, Early Evening

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Room 429, Monday, Early Evening

After checking on Romeo this morning, Reno had headed back down to his own room. It wasn't that there was anything of particular interest in there, really. His laptop was still useless and he still didn't have any desire to start on his report back to the boss. It was more that, by and large, he didn't feel up to going anywhere else.

He'd spent a short while looking over the texts on his phone that he'd been ignoring all week.

There had been a lot of them.

Dumbass. You owe me. Laptop in mail. -- Thanks, Rude.
Report incomplete. Send update as soon as possible. -- Tseng.
Do not do anything that will jeopardize your assignment. -- Tseng again. Most likely after a couple of days sitting on Reno's failure of a last report.
Get yourself killed, I kick your ass. -- Rude again.
Report still not received. Is this a cause for concern? -- Tseng. Good old Tseng.
Is there a particular reason you haven't been checking your texts and e-mails? -- More Tseng. Reno would thank Rude later for not telling Tseng that his laptop was toast.
Do not get involved with the statues, Reno. We can't afford to lose another Turk. -- Tseng.

There had been more like those, but Reno had stopped there, closed his phone, and set it to the side.

He still didn't feel like answering them. Tseng could wait.

Right now, he'd just crack open his window a little, light himself a smoke, and look outside over the island for the rest of the afternoon, and then on into the evening, while the sky grew progressive shades of dark.

[The door is shut, the post is open. Ooooh. :o]

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It wasn't a perky knock, exactly, because there'd been so much lately that things were ... kinda weird? But it was still fairly upbeat. People were back. Didn't have a bad dream about angels chasing her. Good, right?

There could always be worse, right?

Reno exhaled a lungful of smoke and watched it drift out the window, tempted for a moment to simply not acknowledge that there was a knock at all. But it was an upbeat sort of knock, and upbeat usually belonged to certain people who he wouldn't turn away at the door even if he wanted to.

But he wasn't getting up, dammit.

"It's not locked."

That ... wasn't a normal sort of reply.

Rikku stepped in, shutting the door behind her. "Nope," she said. "Totally isn't. Check that out."

"Crazy world we live in, huh?" He turned his head a little, looking at Rikku out of the corner of his eye before taking one last drag from what must have been his tenth cigarette that evening and crushing it out. "Hey, Rikku."

"Could always lock it for you," she said softly. "If you wanted it locked. Just ... flip the switch and go. So you don't have people ... wandering in and pestering you."

"Nah. Unlocked's good, too. Never know who's gonna stop by, right?" He stretched out his arms a little. He'd been sitting in that same spot for far too long, today. "How're you doin'?"

"I'm ... good," she said, hesitantly. "Saw Romeo, and Deadpool. Both back safe and sound. Got a little grumpy in Invention class, but that's kinda standard. Feels ... weird for everything to just be ... over now, doesn't it?"

"Weird, sure, but that's nothin' new." Why had he snuffed that cigarette? ... he didn't feel like bothering to light another. "That's how it usually goes, doesn't it? The storm hits, and then everything goes quiet again?"

Usually, it was just the eye of the storm, and there was more yet to come. Reno found that sort of thing happened just as often with chains of events as it did with bad weather. "It's good to see 'em back, anyhow."

"Then you just gotta deal with it all," she said, leaning back against the door. "You don't smoke very often, do you?"

"The tobacco usually goes dry and stale between when I buy a pack and when I get around to opening it," he replied with a shrug. "Not really a habit so much as ... somethin', zoto. I dunno."

She considered that for a few minutes before she came to sit on the edge of his bed.

"Something bothering you?" she asked. "We ... did it, you know. Saved the day, all that good stuff. It always ... feels a little flat, later. Luke and Dawn and I, we were gonna start a club for that, for how ... right after you save the world, everybody thinks you're gonna have a huge afterparty, and all you really want to do is sleep and freak the hell out about what could have gone wrong."

And bury the bodies. But this time, there hadn't been any. That was a nice improvement.

Reno would never tell anyone how much he preferred burying the bodies to not being able to find them at all.

"I'm fine," he lied. He wasn't the greatest liar, but shit. The last person he wanted to worry was her, and he wasn't certain he could really talk about any of this anyhow. "It's nothing, yo."

Burying the bodies ... would have been a step up from leaving them there, like they didn't matter. But the building was coming down and sometimes all of your options suck.

She had a feeling Reno had times like that, too.

She took a deep breath, and let it out, slowly. "Can't talk about it, or don't want to?" she asked.

He shook his head, shrugged his shoulders. Sitting there being concerned about nothing didn't do anyone any good. Being Not Okay didn't help anyone. Drinking wasn't going to change a thing, and people had already made it clear that it was a shock he made it through the week with his head on his shoulders and fuck them anyhow.

"Everything's good. That's good. I'm good. It's good."

Good.

Okay. She nodded, slowly. "You know, it's hard, sometimes," she said, slowly. "Cause sometimes ... people need to tell themselves it's okay, when it's really not, and it's the only thing holding them together and so the last thing you wanna do is point out that all the seams are ripping and all that. Cause ... it's all they've got, and you all just pretend it's not there until they can staple the bits back into place and you all laugh and joke and you pretend you didn't notice."

"And ... other times?" Deep breath. Lots of those, tonight. "Other times they're just ... trying to tell themselves it's okay, cause ... it's what they always do, and they don't know how to ... take a minute. And let it all fall apart, if it's got to. Like ... like you were saying, on the roof. Remember?"

This was a totally different shift in topics and had nothing to do with him being okay. Or, you know, with him being a shitty liar. Still. New topic, here.

Topic changes were always good except when they weren't really. And even then, it was nice to pretend this wasn't still the same conversation. Because he was good. He had said so, see? So he was. Totally good.

"...You saw Deadpool today? That's good."

Everything was good.

"You good?"

If everything was good, of course she'd be, right?

"Yelled at him, a little. He said I could punch him, and he owes me ice cream. Lots of hugs. We're good now."

"I'm ... I'm not sure how I am." Deep breath. "I'm a lot better than I would be if you hadn't talked some sense into me. I was gonna snap sooner or later, if I didn't let some of that out. It's ... hard to, you know?"

"Got a bit of an idea," he mumbled, and he nodded his head and shrugged his shoulders and tried not to feel numb about the whole week. "Glad you're better. Ice cream and hugs, huh?"

"The minion-mentor relationship is nuanced and requires upkeep in fascinating ways," she said, smiling. "Not a universal cure, there. And the ... yelling was the helpful bit, anyway."

She chewed her lip. "Man. You're as bad at this as I am, you know that?"

"That says a lot," he replied, attempting a short-lived smile. "You're pretty bad at it, zoto."

"Tell me about it," she smiled. "And you're sucking pretty hard right now, too."

"I guess sayin' that it's no big deal, I'm just bein' stupid, would just make me into a hypocrite after the talk we had on the roof, huh?" The smile was gone again.

"Not necessarily," she shrugged. "But it might make you a liar."

"Wouldn't be the first time I made a liar out of myself," he sighed, and then turned around, finally, to actually face her.

He took a deep breath. Right. Talking. He could do that.

"Been that kinda week, sure. I mean, we did it, and it ain't like I'm lookin' for freakin' accolades or whatever. Go out, blink a few times, no big freakin' deal. It's what I do- stupid shit. I do lots of stupid shit, and this shouldn't fuckin' bug me." He was smiling again, sticking out his tongue and everything like he was trying to make it all seem like one big joke. Funny, right? Good to laugh at, or something.

But he wasn't really amused. "Everyone's back and they're all doin' good and they're still managin' to all be fuckin' upset about it like oh, shit, bad week, and maybe it could'a been the other way and maybe nobody could'a come back, and just for a moment I gotta be stupid about this and go, 'shit, guys, good to see that still bein' alive is so fuckin' terrible.'" He grit his teeth, there. A little. Shook his head. The grin was gone. "And I can't even tell anyone why, and I got a fuckin' report to write and if the boss knows I had some kinda stupid personal investment in this and that's why I ignored direct fuckin' orders not to get involved all week, he'll pull me, okay? And this place grows on you, and the people here grow on you, and I'm a fucking idiot for lettin' it all creep up and make me care, yo."

Rikku shook her head. "So ... you're mad that there wasn't an afterparty? It's rough as hell. Just because people are alive doesn't mean everything's okay, just like that. I'm sorry we didn't all bounce back as quickly as you did. It takes time, zoto."

Deal with that, first, and then the bit at the end, with his boss. And him worrying about it all. At least he was talking, finally.

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