raspberryturk | Room 429, Monday Evening

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Room 429, Monday Evening

To Reno, today had been about as uneventful as a Monday without classes could possibly be.

Except for the sheep.

He never would have suspected that another day devoted to lazily surfing the internet for t-shirts with dirty slogans could possibly turn into an attack by a flock of tiny ruminants, swarming in around his ankles and attempting to graze on his socks.

With this unexpected invasion underway, Reno did the only thing he could think of.

He put a bowl on the floor, he filled it with the last of his rum, and he watched.

Who needed the internet when there was a room filled with tiny drunken sheep to watch?

He was silently hoping for a baaaaaar brawl to break out.

[The door is open, the post is open, I cannot promise sanity, as I have slept two hours in the past 48. Again. Hooray sheep!]

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"Shit happens." Reno lifted a shoulder dismissively. "Spent most of the week tellin' off my boss. I don't figure that'll be the last time it happens, but whatever. I'm used to rationing cheap food, zoto."

It was amazing the variety that could be achieved in one's daily diet simply by using instant ramen, soy sauce, and ketchup.

"Okay," she said, bouncing to her feet. "C'mon. We're going into town. Up, you. Move it."

"Why, what's in town?" Reno raised an eyebrow as he signed over a check for his last fifty gil to a small sheep posse before pulling himself to his feet.

"Stores," Rikku said. "Ones that sell food. It's the craziest thing, you're never gonna believe it. Suja, suja, let's get the lead out, here."

She watched him write the check and shook her head. "How are they supposed to cash that, anyway?"

Wait, maybe that was the point. Nice one.

He just smirked at her and shrugged.

"They'll figure it out, whatever. The hell does 'suja' mean?"

Context suggested that it was something like 'hurry the hell up,' but it never hurt to be sure.

"It means 'move'," she grinned. "As seen in context: bmayca suja ouin lrulupu-clynnat ycc yht cdub ycgehk sa xiacdeuhc pavuna E red oui.. Five points for each word you get out of that. It's like a game!"

She was already turning the door handle. Girl was impatient.

Reno had to take a moment to mull that one over.

"Please move your something and stop something me something I something you?" He raised an eyebrow. "You in a hurry, there?"

Rikku ticked words off on her fingers. "Eight! You're up to forty points. Not bad, but the lightning round's gonna be tough. And I only included 'please' to see if you'd get it. Nice work!"

She opened the door and bounced into the hallway. "I'm sorry, did you have a busy schedule of paying sheep that I'm interrupting? And do you really want me going into town by myself like this? Can you even imagine the sorts of humiliating things I could get up to? I wonder if the photo place is open. I bet they could poster-size that picture I have of your tattoo."

Reno might have gone a little pale at that. Well. A little more pale, anyhow.

"You know, I think I got better things to do than hang around here with the sheep anyhow, zoto. Uh." He grabbed for his jacket - hopefully Tseng would send one that was decidedly less pink shortly - and pulled it on, following her to the door.

"You don't have a clean suit?" she asked, giggling. "Can't you buy one in t-- ooooh, right, you're low on cash. C'mon. Something's gotta be open. I like your jacket, it's all festive."

And of course it was her fault the jacket was pink. Shhhh.

"Festive's one word for it," Reno replied with a faint smirk, rolling his eyes. "You know, I'm good, right? Don't need to make any emergency runs to town or nothin', really, yo."

"I didn't say it was an emergency," Rikku said, rolling her eyes. "It's an adventure. And we're going now because I'm bored and you should entertain me before I decide to cause mayhem in my boredom. Also, because if you have liquor but not food all week, you're going to be drunk and obnoxious, and like hell I'm putting up with that."

"I'm not gonna-" Wait. Reno had to cut himself off to rethink his next statement carefully.

He was without alcohol and mostly without food.

Tomorrow night, he would get more alcohol, but probably not more food.

Okay. So Rikku had a point.

"So. Mayhem and adventurin'. Sounds kickass, yoto."

Besides, he had liquor radar. He would find a way to get trashed. She had faith in him.

"I knew you'd see it my way," she said airily. "Besides, if you let me pick food without you, you're going to end up with horrible things. Like this canned meat I saw once with little chunks of processed cheese in it. None of it was any color that's found in nature. You really want me to go by myself? Not. Even."

Reno tilted his head thoughtfully.

"I tasted worse," he decided, pulling his key from his pocket to lock up his door behind them. "Fine. We go food shopping, yoto. But I ain't no freakin' charity case or nothin'. I pay you back the moment I get paid, yo."

"I know that," Rikku said, looking at him as if the suggestion confused her, right there. "Dude, I do not want to deal with you being drunk and hungover and belligerent all week. This is rational self-interest, right here. I promise."

She hesitated, leaning against the hallway and wondering if it was a bad idea to ask, but ... hey, it wasn't like not-talking ever did them any favors.

"You kinda ... didn't grow up with a lot. Did you?"

Reno stopped mid-step and glanced at her for a moment before turning his attention very firmly back toward the door.

"I'm grown up now," he replied, his shoulders slouching forward a little more than usual. "So there's not much point worryin' about what I did or didn't have as a kid, zoto."

"It was just a question," she said softly. "Have I ever ... told you about Home? Not when we lost it. But Home, itself, before all of that."

"Not really, no." Okay, his door was locked, it was all good, he could turn around and look at her again. "What was Home like?"

Maybe this was a change of topic. Reno could handle that.

Rikku waited for him to finish locking the door before starting down the hallway.

"Sin destroyed our island," she said, swinging her hands a little as she walked. "And our Home. Everyone was scattered. That's when Pops said we could start over. Make a new Home. It wouldn't be easy, but it would be ours. We went to Bikanel, then. All of us. We came together and everybody worked hard. It was a desert, and sand likes to clog up engines. So we cleaned the sand out of the engines. We left potions in the rest of the desert in case anyone got stranded. We sent mech droids on patrols for fiends. So what if it wasn't easy? We had our Home back. We were all ..."

She looked over at him, unsure of how to even put things into words. "It wasn't you and me and Eigaar over there. It was us. Pops was the leader, but people outvoted him sometimes. They did with Mi'ihen. And if Judda's mech droid blew a fuse and burned some of her stuff, then everyone else chipped in what they had to replace it. Not for charity, not because you should, not because anybody felt sorry for her. But because Judda's bed caught on fire. I have some blankets I'm not using, she shouldn't sleep on the floor. Most of her boots are gone, so it's a good thing that she and Lakkam are the same shoe size, because she has an extra pair."

He listened as she spoke and as they walked, his hands in his pockets and his lips pursed faintly.

"So... Everyone just gave whoever whatever when they needed it?" He raised an eyebrow, glancing at her sidelong before turning his eyes back to where they were headed. "Sounds real nice or whatever. But..." He shrugged, rather at a loss. "I mean. Why?"

Rikku lifted a shoulder. "It wasn't some kind of weird ... 'Hey, I have more pocket change than you, I need to give you mine' or whatever. But if someone else didn't have food, then you gave them some of yours. Because you had plenty. Because if you didn't have food, they would be digging through their stash. Because we all had to live together, in Home, and everyone affects everyone else, I mean, if you don't eat then you can't help me rewire the engine room tomorrow. If your things catch on fire, mine might next. Except that's not why, not really."

She folded her arms and looked at him for a long moment. "We went through so much. We had each other, and everyone else thought we were scum. We were family." Deep breath. "If some newbie Turk was living on his last box of ramen, what would you do?"

Reno shook his head a little and shrugged.

"I dunno. Some newbie? Get him more ramen, or whatever. You don't eat, you go out there and you're hungry and you don't come back alive. I don't like losin' newbies any more than I like losin' the ones I know, zoto."

Okay. So he kind of understood.

The newbie example helped.

"Wasn't like that. I mean, when I was growin' up."

"You'd do it because ... he's a Turk, newbie or not," she said, smiling a little. "Because you're protective and all of that. Right?"

She was back to chewing the inside of her bottom lip as they reached the stairs. "I kinda ... figured. That it wasn't like that, for you, I mean. You haven't said much about it or anything. It's kinda ... some of the things you don't say, I guess."

"Yeah. Because I'm protective." He nodded faintly, a moment of a smile crossing his face before he continued. "I got things I don't talk about because I made a point to leave 'em far behind, zoto. The slums weren't the most kid-friendly atmosphere. You learn not to let go of what you got, because if you do, you ain't never seein' it again."

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