A Small Spot on the Beach, Monday Afternoon

[raspberryturk]

There had been kids. Showing up out of the blue, being bloody adorable at them with introductions and some more over breakfast. There'd been worry about two of them taking off to feed ducks, and more worry that morning about what would happen to one of them when he went back home.

But right now? Right now was all about not worrying about any of that. Right now, Reno, Rikku, Ruba, and Rede had found their way to the beach. With umbrellas of varying sizes for both the wee, and not-so-wee.

For family time.

"Bet I can make a bigger splash in that puddle than you can," Reno mused.

[For le aforementioned bits of family!]

Comments

[startswithanr.livejournal.com]

"Nuh-uh," Ruba insisted. "I can make a huge splash."

She would know, because she'd been making them the whole way down to the beach, galoshes be damned.

[the_merriest]

"If she gets a cold, I hope she tells Mommy and Daddy whose fault it is," Rikku said, smiling a little from her own umbrella.

[raspberryturk]

"And then Mommy can totally blame Daddy's less-than-brilliant high-school-kid self for lettin' her go prancin' in the puddles," Reno agreed with a big grin on his lips.

He was going to demonstrate, now, how big a splash he could make. Show his little girl how it was done!

[weetinyturk.livejournal.com]

Rede wasn't going to splash. Rede was going to cling to his umbrella handle for dear life, wondering why the sky was falling and leaving water on the ground.

But people weren't upset about it, so he wasn't going to worry too much, either. He was going to just hide behind Rikku's leg.

Bravely. Like soldiers a Turk.

[the_merriest]

"Rede and I are gonna watch you guys and score it," Rikku decided. This did not seem like the leg-cling of a boy who was dying to join the puddle-game. "I give that about an 8, personally."

[startswithanr.livejournal.com]

"My turn! My turn!" And Ruba held her umbrella off to the side and ran for the biggest puddle she could find -- Daddy's was, now, lacking somewhat in water -- and splashed in with both feet.

"I'm wet!!!" she squealed.

[weetinyturk.livejournal.com]

Rede blinked and situated himself a little more securely behind Rikku's legs.

He was totally keeping her guarded in case of rear-attack from a monster. Of course.

"... Nine," he decided, on the grounds that he was also wet, courtesy of Ruba's splash.

[startswithanr.livejournal.com]

"I win!" Ruba was dancing in ecstatic little circles, umbrella down, face up to the rain. "I win, I win, I win!"

[the_merriest]

"I think you just made her day," Rikku smiled, reaching down to put a hand on Rede's shoulder.

Turk Instructions

[the_merriest]

For later in the afternoon, when Reno pulls aside Rede for his first assignment.

Re: Turk Instructions

[raspberryturk]

Reno took a deep breath, and stuck his hands into his entirely too soggy pockets, walking up to Rede and looking at him. Carefully trying to keep that balance between 'no really, I'm your dad' and 'senior Turk' at a somewhat believable level.

He wasn't going to freak the kid out by bending over to hug him and telling him that he refused to let him go back to that freaking horrible facility with that psycho fucknuts Hojo. So he was going to pace. Soggily.

"We got an assignment for you, Rede," he said. Casually. "It's an important one. Bigger than securin' Sector 8, if you can believe it, yo."

Re: Turk Instructions

[weetinyturk.livejournal.com]

Rede straightened his back. An assignment! He would do very, very well on it and they wouldn't regret making him a Turk and send him back to the facility!

"Yes, sir," he said.

Re: Turk Instructions

[raspberryturk]

Reno took a deep breath. Right. He could do this. He'd done tougher shit, before.

This was going to suck.

"This assignment involves you bein' on turf you... probably already kinda know," he ventured.

Re: Turk Instructions

[weetinyturk.livejournal.com]

"The ... facility, sir?" Rede said. He wasn't flinching. Turks weren't scared of stupid things like labs where Hojo did weird experiments on them.

Re: Turk Instructions

[raspberryturk]

That little Turk could speak for himself. Reno was terrified.

Doing a good job not showing it, but he was terrified.

"You'll be given a list of names and phone numbers, newbie. You're to call every number on that list until someone agrees to come and take you out of there."

Righto. Pip-pip, and all that jolly good shit.

"First name on the list is gonna be me. Another me. Because sendin' you back means that nobody there's gonna know what happened here. Any of it. They ain't gonna know you're a Turk now, or that you earned your name. You gotta... Gotta let 'em know. But... subtly-like, or whatever. Think you can do that?"

Re: Turk Instructions

[weetinyturk.livejournal.com]

"I'll try, sir," Rede said uncertainly. Except he was a Turk. Right? He set his chin and tried not to be scared. "If n-no one wants to take me out of there, what should I do?"

Re: Turk Instructions

[raspberryturk]

"Keep trying," Reno said, firmly. That extra bit of a firm edge in his voice wasn't that he was trying to be hard on the boy. It was that he was trying like hell not to let Rede see him crack.

"If you do get a hold of that other me, first, keep trying. If I hang up, try again. I'm a stubborn son of a bitch, kid, but you gotta be just as stubborn."

Kid had his blood in him, and all.

"Just havin' my personal number is gonna probably get my attention. That'll be a good start. Sayin' things like Hojo's name, that'll probably help. Ain't many kids out there that know about Hojo and the sick shit he does." And it was sick shit, and he wasn't worried about watching his mouth so much, just so long as it kept him from freaking out and throwing things. There weren't many things to throw on the beach, there. He'd probably wind up having to go wading to retrieve his umbrella.

Entertaining Ruba

[the_merriest]

Rikku scooped Ruba up and snuggled her close under their umbrella. "Okay, Daddy's gotta talk to Rede for a bit. So you're stuck with Mommy. What do you wanna do?"

She wasn't worried about that. Much.

Re: Entertaining Ruba

[startswithanr.livejournal.com]

Ruba tilted her head to the side and scrunched up her face, her tongue sneaking out of the side of her mouth while she thought.

Passing the time with Mommy was, clearly, very serious business.

"We could, um." Very serious, very important business! "We could go splashin' again, or we could play in the sand, or we could look for buried treasure!"

It was common knowledge that soggy sand was the best sand ever to dig in when looking for buried treasure.

Re: Entertaining Ruba

[the_merriest]

"We could do ALL THREE," Rikku announced solemnly. "Splash around in the sand and dig for buried treasure."

She had to follow this up with a nuzzle. It was required. Legally.

Re: Entertaining Ruba

[startswithanr.livejournal.com]

Susso nuzzles were the best sort of nuzzles ever. Ruba ought to know, because she was an expert nuzzler. She demonstrated with a saturated hug-nuzzle combo. She'd spent years and years and years perfecting it!

"Oooooooor," she ventured, with a big smile on her lips, "we could hunt down the big, scary fiend-monsters that are guarding the treasure!"

Re: Entertaining Ruba

[the_merriest]

"We could," Rikku said. "That sounds awesome. Theeeeeeeen ... we steal their treasure and run away?"

Right, like this kid ever ran away from a fight in her life.

Re: Entertaining Ruba

[startswithanr.livejournal.com]

"Don't be silly," Ruba said, pouting ever-so-slightly as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Fiends are dangerous, so's we gotts to get rid of them!"

She paused for further consideration. "But we can steal their stuff first and then fight them, if we gotts to."

Re: Entertaining Ruba

[the_merriest]

"Right on," Rikku said. "Protecting the world and all that good stuff. Right? We're bad-ass fighter chicks."

She posed, and then realized she shouldn't swear in front of her daughter. Um. Oops?

Re: Entertaining Ruba

[startswithanr.livejournal.com]

"That's right," Ruba agreed, with a cheer and a clap of her hands and a bounce before she struck a pose of her own. "We're bad-butt fighter-chicks!"

She wasn't s'posed to say that other word. At least not when her parents could hear. They kept getting all worried and stuff when she did. So suitable substitutes needed to be used.

"I wanna fight a behemoth first! Can we, pleeease? I bet they have the bestest treasure. And Daddy always says that they're mean sons-of-a and then he stops and looks all funny and says gun. Can guns even have sons, Susso?"