Room 429, Monday Evening

[raspberryturk]

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.]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

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

"Never will be worth it," he mumbled.

[the_merriest]

"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."

[raspberryturk]

"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?

[the_merriest]

"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."

[raspberryturk]

"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."

[the_merriest]

"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?"

[raspberryturk]

"Because you do."

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

[the_merriest]

"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?"

[raspberryturk]

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."

[the_merriest]

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.

[raspberryturk]

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.'

[the_merriest]

"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?"

[raspberryturk]

Huge like a giant rock from the sky. Reno had to take a moment, put it into perspective. Yeah, people would go a little nuts if there was a thousand years of Meteor taking out cities. Or, something huge and dangerous and unstoppable.

He nodded, and then looked back at her for a few seconds, thinking.

"Long's okay." And then he took a few steps, grabbed the blankets and pillows from the other bed, and arranged them at the headboard of his own.

He looked at her again, chewing the inside of his lip.

Maybe? Maybe not?

[the_merriest]

The pile of blankets and pillows. Perfect for snuggling into and telling a long painful story and ...

Rikku hesitated, a little sheepish. "I, uh. You ... told your stuff and I just glared at you."

[raspberryturk]

Reno shrugged faintly and offered her a bit of a smile.

"I'm not in the mood to glare, zoto." He sat down on the bed, scootched backward a little, into the heap. "C'mon?"

[the_merriest]

"I mean ..." She bit her lip. "You were vulnerable and I yelled and ... I mean, I came here to yell, I shouldn't just ..."

[raspberryturk]

"You're talkin' now. Thousand years of a huge monster, an' all that, zoto." He made a little 'v' with his legs and gave his lap a pat.

He could be patient, here.

[the_merriest]

This was what always happened. She had a plan, and then he waited her out. Like during Host Club, when he was politely explaining that she should hang out while he watched porn.

Rikku sighed. The hell of it was, he looked cozy.

She walked over, hesitantly. "I'm still ... I mean. This isn't, hey, great, let's ..."

[raspberryturk]

"I know," he agreed, and gave a little nod. "But it's good for talking, yeah?"

And it was better than standing and better than yelling and better than staring numbly at a spot on the floor.

... And he wanted to be close to her. But the rest, that was the important part, really.

[the_merriest]

"It is," she said. There were some really good and compelling reasons that she shouldn't sit down in the V of his legs and lean back. They seemed unimportant, at the moment.

"Are you ... okay?" she asked, settling in a little. "I ... was kinda mean."

Dammit. He wasn't supposed to smell good.

[raspberryturk]

He snaked an arm around her waist when she sat down, because that was simply the proper position to assume while doing the totally-not-cuddling-in-a-heap-of-pillows-while-talking thing.

"I'm fine," he said easily. "Don't worry about it. Your turn now, to talk, right?"

[the_merriest]

Her arm should go over his. Okay, then.

"You're not fine," she said. "But we'll get back to that, zoto."

Deep breath.

"A thousand years ago. And it went crazy, out in the ocean, tearing things up, until Yunalesca --" She couldn't help frowning at the name. "-- stopped it. With something she called the Final Summoning. It killed her, and it killed her husband, and Sin came back, ten years later. But sending it away for ten years, people thought that was better than nothing. And that's kinda how it all started."

[raspberryturk]

"Few years of quiet beats a constant fear," Reno agreed, nodding slightly and closing his eyes. Listening was better if his eyes were closed, and it was just the two of them and their words, and the rest of the world could go away. "So... people kept doin' that?"

[the_merriest]

"A religion started," Rikku said carefully. "It called itself Yevon. Yevon taught Summoners how to perform the Final Summoning. Yevon also had a list of things that people were doing that caused the monster to happen. Using technology. Being at war with each other. Not being self-sacrificing in the name of Yevon. People destroyed their machi-- machines and burned all the books on information. Anything to appease the monster, no matter how irrational it was. They lived in the ruins of advanced cities. And whenever it came back, Summoners would make the long pilgrimage to Zanarkand. Nearly all of them died before they ever got there, no matter how many Guardians they had. If you were a Summoner, it was your sacred duty to get to Zanarkand and die for the rest of Spira, or to go as far as you could and die trying. Yevon called the monster 'Sin.' Subtle, huh?"

[raspberryturk]

"Real subtle," Reno sighed, and gave her a little squeeze. "Take your whole way of life and blow it to shit because of a monster you can't take on. And... Shit, I dunno. Somethin' about makin' the summoners do that just don't sit right with me."

Kind of like taking "sacrificing yourself for the job" to the extreme.

... It actually frightened Reno a little, as he tried to piece together what that world must have been like for anyone who didn't adhere to those rules. Grease-monkeys. Bullshit. But not like anyone would care.

Save the world. But never quite the right way.