Room 429, Monday Evening

[raspberryturk]

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!]

Comments

[the_merriest]

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."

[raspberryturk]

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."

[the_merriest]

"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?"

[raspberryturk]

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."

[the_merriest]

"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."

[raspberryturk]

"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.

[the_merriest]

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."

[raspberryturk]

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?"

[the_merriest]

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?"

[raspberryturk]

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."

[the_merriest]

"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."

[raspberryturk]

"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."

[the_merriest]

"They don't seem like it," she said, flexing her fingers into a fist and back again. It stopped her from reaching over to take his hand. "You ... was it just you, then? Parents, siblings, friends?"

[raspberryturk]

"Doesn't really matter who was there," Reno replied, pulling on every dismissive note he could possibly hit for that phrase as though he was worried it was all going to run away for reinforcements and come back dragging along the past he walked away from if maybe he didn't.

It wasn't the most casual dismissal he'd ever managed.

"Not really, not when the kid down the street's gonna be as hungry as you, or your mom, or the freaky pervert on the streetcorner waitin' for kids to walk by, or the fucknuts who went through your stuff and took all your gil because he was hungry, too. Nothin' grows under the plate except a bunch'a yellow flowers in a church in Sector Five and a whole shitload of dumbfucks who are too afraid of the monsters on the outside to leave. Or of the people. Or of the war. Or of the sky. So food's gotta be imported, and that costs money, and there ain't much of that down there, either, zoto. And you either hate it or you learn to stop givin' a shit, because that's life, and shit happens, and you're knee-deep in it and can't get out, and nobody who's supposed to matter is gonna even consider helpin' you if you're idiot enough to try."

And if he was at all aware of the fact that he had started talking about the slums as if they were still there, he didn't show it. "So it doesn't matter who's there. Mom, kid down the street, whatever. For all they're there, it ain't like it matters. They're just other hungry idiots stuck under the plates, too."

[the_merriest]

No matter how Rikku tried, she couldn't picture it quite right.

She picked up her little family - self, brother, Pops - and plopped them into that setting. And it didn't work right. The freaky pervert on the street corner didn't get near her, because Brother insisted on walking her around everywhere and glaring at anyone who looked creepy. Days when food was short, Pops lied and said he wasn't hungry. She mugged people in back alleys, but the money didn't go into a hidden stash - she brought it home.

She wondered for a moment if life down there, under the plate, just wore it out of you. If a couple of years of being hungry and having nothing would have made her and Pops and Brother turn against each other. Maybe it did. Or maybe there was more he wasn't telling her. Maybe his mom just sucked at family.

She reached over then, slipping her hand into his. "It does matter," she said softly. "You were alone."

[raspberryturk]

He looked down at her hand, trying to pull the frown off his lips, giving a shrug of his shoulders, shaking his head.

Shrugging it off. See. He did that a lot. No big deal. It's life. Life's a bitch, shit happens, you deal. It's all good.

He gave her hand a little squeeze anyhow.

"Don't matter now," he amended, "because I'm not. Not anymore, zoto."

[the_merriest]

"Because of the Turks?" she asked, lacing her fingers through his. "They're your family, now. Right?"

He was going to pull away, shrug it off, push it aside, change the subject. She pressed too hard, maybe. But there was something hiding, lurking, right under the surface that she wanted to wrap her arms around and protect, dammit. If he knew that, he'd ... walk away even faster. Would he? Or maybe he'd let her. She'd keep her hand in his for now and hope it wasn't too much.

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah."

Her fingers, there in his hand, small and clean and warm and...

His lips quirked into the smallest of smiles. He shook his head a bit. He glanced up at her.

"Funny thing about that. For th'longest time, they were the only family I ever knew, yoto."

[the_merriest]

She gave him a small smile back.

"I was fifteen the first time someone who wasn't an Al Bhed called me a friend," she said. "I don't think it's funny. I'm ... glad you had them. You know?"

It was maybe the first time since all of this started that she was happy about it, too. But everyone needed family.

[raspberryturk]

"Weird thing about family, I guess. Never know when you're gonna end up with it or where it's gonna come from."

And there, he resisted giving her hand another squeeze.

"Sign up for a job, you think it's gonna just be a job. A way out, whatever. Kinda surprisin' how tight-knit it all is."

The same, oddly enough, could be said about high school.

[the_merriest]

"You know," she said, chewing on her lip as they reached the bottom of the stairs, "I was gonna ask you once. If ... if you would leave, if you could, and I was gonna hope you said 'oh, you bet, I'd be out of there like a shot.' Because ... because of what they've asked you to do. And what it does to you."

She took an uncertain breath. "I ... don't think I got it. How much it all means to you. I mean, I know you ... square your shoulders when you say Turk, but it's not just that. Right? There's ... good parts, and bad parts, but ... nothing's easy. Family never is. Pops is crazy and he and Brother aren't speaking, again, and Brother never thinks I can take care of myself and I was gonna strangle Yunie if she didn't stop moping on Besaid already. And I'd die for any of them, in a heartbeat. I couldn't ... just ... walk away from that. It's like losing a limb." She looked over. "Is that weird?"

[raspberryturk]

He shook his head.

"No, not weird, yo. I, uh. When ShinRa fell? When Meteor came and crushed the shit outta Midgar and we figured the boss was pretty much freakin' done for, and it was just me and Tseng and Rude and Elena and everything had gone all to hell? For all the chaos that was goin' on around us, for as much as it sucked seein' Midgar in pieces an' all that... The biggest worry I had was..."

He shrugged. Felt stupid. Death and geostigma and Meteor and the collapse of an empire and guilt and more death. Just sounded... stupid.

"No more Turks. Scared the livin' shit outta me, even after all of that, zoto."

[the_merriest]

"But I thought ..." Rikku stopped for a second, watching him, and then shook her head. Wasn't important, she could ask later.

She tugged lightly on his hand until he turned around, and slid her arms around him.

"I ... get it. I think. Your family. And ... your identity. What it means to be you, yeah?"

[raspberryturk]

... He could live with this. If talking about things ended up with him getting hugged, yeah, he could live with it.

"I wasn't anything until I was a Turk," he mumbled, and then returned the hug. "Nothin' before it's worth thinkin' on. So... just throw it all away and... whatever. Yeah. It's my identity, yo. And my family and the rest of it. And sometimes I hate it, but that don't mean I can just turn and leave it behind, either."

[the_merriest]

"That's not true, you know," she said, not letting go just yet. "You weren't nothing. Your life sucked and you didn't have much but you, you were still you."