raspberryturk | Room 429, Monday Evening

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Room 429, Monday Evening

Reno was going to sit on his bed and eye his cellphone. Dojima was right, really. If he couldn't understand the concept of giving people time, he should at least call Rude and tell him that he wasn't five anymore, and all reports for the time being would be typed up in a semi-sane manner.

And that would be why he was eying his phone.

He wasn't, however, reaching for it.

It was just fine where it was sitting. He could call Rude up any time, take the heat for getting him in crap with Tseng or whatever, and maybe he'd have things sorted out a little better by then. There were, after all, a lot of things to sort through.

Yeah. Yeah, he didn't have to pick up the phone after all. Save Rude the trouble. The big guy would appreciate it later.

[ooc: The door is open a crack, and the post is totally open for invasion from random persons. Oooooo.]

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"Of course not," she said. "You really thought you could just drink that one off?"

Maybe if he just grabbed at his face and pulled it off, then his eyes would stop burning and he'd be able to breathe again. Maybe. But then he wouldn't have a face. And. That would be stupid. Because faces were important.

Yeah.

"Knew I couldn't drink it away. Just... Maybe I could've stopped feelin', and that didn't work, so if I drank harder, I could feel less, or just stop movin' and then I could breathe, or it'd be gone for the night and it never was, never is. 'S always right there. And. I. Can't. Can't..."

He wasn't sure which part of that had made it impossible to choke back that pit in his chest, but he had to take a moment to not speak at all, or else he was going to crack, and cracking didn't work, crying didn't help. It hurt. It hurt so damn much, and letting himself hurt for it was selfish and stupid and wouldn't change anything and...

She watched for a long moment, so many emotions all tangled together. Making her head spin. Smashing her into little bits.

She stood up, carefully, still considering all of it. She wasn't okay with this. She wasn't.

She sat down next to him, on the bed, and placed one hand on his back.

He was going to be fine. He was going to pull it together and they could continue talking or arguing or whatever the hell it was that they were doing, and it would be okay, because he wasn't going to have a fucking breakdown there on his bed.

Except then her hand was on his back and he couldn't breathe all over again and it felt like his eyes were on fire and the only way to breathe was to cry.

Her heart was breaking; she should know that feeling by now. Like an old familiar friend.

She slipped her other arm around him and pressed her face against the back of his jacket.

She couldn't say "it's okay." It wasn't. It might never be.

But she could sit here, just for now, while it wasn't.

It took a while, a few minutes of forever, for him to catch his breath again and stop shaking, for him to pull himself together enough that he wasn't choking on his own breath and getting snot on his sleeves and for him to stop feeling like an idiot for breaking down at all.

And part of him wanted to keep crying, because maybe if he didn't stop crying, she might stay there.

But he wasn't crying, now, he was breathing, and everything had turned into a pressure inside of his head and made all of it a little more numb, and if he didn't say anything while he sat there and breathed, maybe she wouldn't go, anyhow.

It didn't make sense, but when did sense have anything to do with any of it?

She sat there, calmly, waiting. The choking sobs faded, and all that was left was Reno, breathing deeply. But no less wrapped in his own pain and guilt and whatever else was swimming through his brain.

She couldn't figure out what to say first.

"You didn't ... grow up there, did you?" she asked, her arms still around him. "Sector seven."

He grew up under the plate. He'd said so himself.

He gave his head a little shake, no, and he took another breath, and words would be joining them shortly. Another breath.

"Nah. Not under Seven, zoto. Been there enough, I guess. I mean, before the Turks. You do a lot of runnin' around, down there, just to find what you gotta have to get by. I mean, it's all the same crap, just with different names and buildings. Kinda runs together. You live under one, you live under 'em all. They all got the same scum tryin' to pick you up or mug you for money for food or drugs-"

Deep breath.

"Don't really matter which sector I was from. It was all 'down there.'"

Slums kid. She didn't remember much from her weekend as a three-year-old, but even her hyperactive dim self had noticed there was something strange. He guarded food like someone was going to snatch it away from him.

"Is that why you joined the Turks?" she asked. "It wasn't down there."

"Anything was better than Down There," he mumbled, lifting a shoulder slightly. "Wasn't clean work, but there was money and food and sky, zoto. Didn't see the sky until they offered me a job. It was, shit, gonna feed me and pay me and get me outta the slums, sure, I'll throw away my name and dig up bodies and whatever the hell else, because nobody gets out from under the plates."

"Nobody got out of sector seven," she said softly. It tore her lungs out to say it and she couldn't stop the words from coming out.

Edited 2008-04-08 07:17 (UTC)

He shut his eyes and gave another small nod.

"Almost nobody got out," he agreed.

Few people got lucky. But mostly everyone else didn't get out.

"Well, then," she said, shrugging. "You got out. Maybe you think it was worth it."

She was very tired, suddenly, as she pulled her arms back and straightened up. Tired like she could sleep for days and not catch up.

He turned slightly, to look at her over his shoulder.

"Never will be worth it," he mumbled.

"Probably a little late for that," she said, toneless again. She stood up so she wouldn't have to see that haunted look in his eyes. Which was blurring together as she blinked harder and that was a good reason to turn away, too. "I mean, for everyone in sector seven."

"I know." His eyes followed her now, as she stood up. That wall. He remembered that wall. Kept running into it face-first.

...

He stood up, too.

"And for everyone at your Home," he said, barely a murmur. "I know. I'm them and they're me and you can't hate and these circles we keep dancin' in are getting tiring, zoto."

Straight lines? Please?

"There were bodies, there were fiends, there was fire," she said, flatly, as if she was reciting an old poem. "After Wakka screamed at me for being a filthy Al Bhed. Before we were arrested. After Mi'ihen. Before Tidus and Auron both faded out. After we killed Seymour. Before we saved the world and more friends died and everyone in Spira was celebrating except us. We were still on that airship. And I drank until I couldn't see straight."

"It doesn't go away," he said, softly, and then pulled in another slow breath, tried to catch her eyes, because maybe her eyes weren't behind that wall, too.

"I don't know... what some of that was. Might not be my business to ask. But for all I don't understand, maybe I would, better. If I knew, zoto."

"I know it doesn't," she said. "I got drunk and made out with some jerk who spent the next day bragging to all our friends about stuff he didn't get. Just another in a long line of my brilliant moves, right there."

She lifted a shoulder. "It wouldn't change anything. Do you really think it would? I get out a map, I tell you all the bodies, I act weak and cry. And you go, wow, your life sucked. You knew that already. And that I hate the government. You knew that, too. Why would the details matter?"

"Because you do."

He didn't stop looking at her. Didn't stop trying to find her eyes.

"Life sucked, then I got here. It's not ..."

She closed her eyes, took a long, slow breath, and let it out again.

"What do you want to know?"

He shrugged faintly, running a hand through his hair and keeping his eyes on her face.

"Anything, zoto. What Home was like, or what this Mi'ihen thing was, or just talk to me about being a guardian or machina or the airship or... anything."

She opened her eyes, and finally returned his gaze.

"Home," she said, with a sad sort of smile. "Home. Mi'ihen. That's sort of ... I almost have to start back at the beginning. What it all means. But that's the one that starts with 'A thousand years ago ...'" She raised an eyebrow.

Reno nodded.

"A thousand years ago is as good a place to start as any, zoto." The smile on his own lips was tentative, at best. But 'a thousand years ago' was better than 'no.'

"A thousand years ago ..." Rikku bit her lip. "Give or take. Probably not exactly a thousand. Uh. But there was a huge war between a couple of cities and before it got solved, this huge monster appeared. Not 'huge' like Behemoths, twenty feet tall and roaring. Huge like an island. Crazy-powerful. And it took out one of the cities and ended the war and people got scared. That's when everything changed."

She looked over at him. "I, uh, this might be long? I'll try to keep it short, honest, but ... we should ... probably sit down. Yeah?"

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