The Edge of the Campground, Thursday, Late Night

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The Edge of the Campground, Thursday, Late Night

After Reno's conversation... thing... with Ghanima earlier, he really hadn't had it in him to return to his cabin just yet. He was in that drifting sort of mindspace. The one where the rain was just another layer of thoughts to wade through, and the chill in the air was just another icy hand grabbing at his shoulder.

He wanted to start running and not stop until it felt like his lungs were on fire. But he'd done that a few times already that day, and it hadn't really worked. He wanted to punch tree trunks until his knuckles were raw. But he'd done that, too, and couldn't be bothered to head back to retrieve a potion from his alcove. The evening, therefore, had left him with bloody knuckles and a damp jacket, partly from the weather, and partly from the sweat.

He didn't want to be near people yet. Which was why he was standing at the edge of the campground, fumbling with a lighter and his soggy cigarettes, eying the Lupus cabin, and listing all the reasons he could think of as to why he would be better off spending the night outside in the rain in the preserve, instead.

[For one, please. Headed to NWS because these two are incorrigible as always.]

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She'd stayed late at the campfire, and was sitting and watching the flames when she had that itchy feeling of someone watching, just out of sight. She glanced around for a minute or two before she could pick out his form from the rain. He hovered around the edges, as if he almost wanted to come over and couldn't quite nerve himself up to it.

She made her excuses and got up, heading over to where he was lurking.

"Bad day?"

They'd done this inside-out a week ago. Deja vu.

"Bad something," he replied, giving the slightest shrug of his shoulders before giving up on his package of cigarettes entirely and tossing them off into the nearest patch of tall grass. He'd probably regret it later. "Maybe bad. I dunno. Could be worse. I think."

He could be playing peon. Wouldn't that be a shame?

"You can come over, you know," she said, shrugging a little. "There are s'mores and it's warm over by the campfire. Sit and talk to people. It might be nice, yoto."

He chewed on the filter end of his cigarette- he'd had it lit for a moment, and now it was dead from the moisture all over again- and he eyed the campfire for a moment, scowling.

"Might be. Might be a good idea I keep my distance, instead. Probably wouldn't go over too good if I start.. venting or whatever."

"You're in a tree-punching mood?" She folded her arms around herself a little tighter. "You kinda seem all ... wound up. Tense."

He was flickering with nervous energy, somehow. She wanted to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder, or his jacket, and wasn't sure if he'd shove away roughly.

"Can I ... help? Or am I just ... making it worse?"

"Dunno," he admitted, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head and spitting out the useless cigarette, too. To hell with it anyhow. "Wouldn't be pretty, zoto. Don't figure you care much for the topic of the day or whatever, though. It'd just be... I dunno."

He really, really didn't know.

"Soft spots an' shit. Kinda wanna smash things, yoto."

This time she did reach out, hesitantly, her fingers playing idly with the edge of his jacket. If he pulled away, even slightly, she'd let him.

"I'm not just in this for the good times, either," she said softly.

He didn't pull away, his eyes flicking down to the fingers on his clothing, his lips still pulled into that strained frown.

"I feel like I'm losin' it, here. Tellin' people too much and it turnin' out to be not enough, should be expectin' it to turn around and bite me in the ass. It ain't no fuckin' wonder I came here not tellin' nobody nothin'. Makes my job easier."

There was a nice, solid tree nearby. It wasn't really pulling away if it was just a sidestep to smash up your knuckles against tree bark, was it?

"Ain't even been doin' my fuckin' job. Come to this fuckin' island lookin' for cures and fixes and I reach for a bottle, first, and."

And.

And what?

And then people, second. He'd shown up with a mission and he dumped it to the side to turn this whole damn thing into happy healing time for Reno, meanwhile there were people struggling just to feed themselves back in Edge while their bodies were corroding away, and just because the WRO had managed to restore some semblance of order to society didn't mean people were dying any less frequently. Didn't make Edge into Midgar the second. Didn't make any of it into home.

He held up his hand for a moment, watching idly as fresh blood oozed from between the cracks in the scabs that were already covering his knuckles.

"Been lettin' people get to me so I open the fuck up, and when I do, they make me fuckin' regret it. Can't stop bein' a Turk. Quittin' now ain't gonna fix anything. And I talk too fucking much, here. You'd think I was fuckin' Elena with the way I been shootin' off my freakin' yap about things nobody's gotta know. 'Here, lemmie just tell you about everything we gotta do. And then that'll give you the perfect opportunity to aim for a fuckin' gutshot because you know how to stop us. Tee fuckin' hee.' I ain't no damn rookie. I know better."

Edited 2008-05-30 17:55 (UTC)

She let her fingers fall back to her side as he punched the tree, and tried not to wince.

"Is this ... because of me?" she asked softly.

He'd opened up, and she'd dumped him, and a week ago she'd thrown it in his face.

"Lots of people," he replied, after a moment of silence. A moment to mull it over.

Maybe part of it was her. But he wasn't going to single her out. She had valid reasons. He understood that.

He wiped the back of his hand on his jacket and shook his head. "Gotta start actin' like a Turk again, is all. I came to Fandom and I got comfortable. Got freakin' lazy. I can't do that. That shit just ain't me."

"O-okay," she said carefully, closing her eyes and not tearing up. Not. She wasn't. If he didn't see it, it didn't count.

She was pushing too hard, getting too close, and he needed to shut off and go be ... that other Reno. Okay, then. Right. That was ... right.

"Okay," she said again. "I'm ... s-sorry. I didn't mean to ... you know. I'll ... I'm gonna ... go make some ... s'mores. 'S good."

Now was a good time to make a quick exit and figure out if he was calling things off entirely, or just pushing her back to arm's length.

"What? Wait, Rikku!" He ran after her, mentally cursing himself for yet again not saying the right words. Couldn't get it straight. There was a line between Turk and Student, and he had no idea where it was drawn, and if he had to step one foot over the line, he fell all the way across face first, every damn time.

"Rikku, you don't gotta go anywhere, dammit. That ain't what I was sayin' at all!"

"Isn't that what you ..." She whirled around, eyes wide. "I'm not ... i-it's okay. You need. To be ... the Turk, and not ... Reno, and I pushed too hard, and it's okay, I ..."

Some sort of vague gesture, to keep herself from wrapping her arms around him and snuggling in. It wasn't? Because ...

Oh, fuck that noise.

He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, himself. If she wasn't going to, someone had to.

"What I was sayin', Rikku, is that I gotta start bein' the Turk and Reno. It's more than just my job, yoto. It's my responsibility."

Oh, good, because she fit so nicely here and she wriggled in closer and sighed.

"I th-thought maybe this was ... you know. Because of what happened, a couple ... weeks ago?"

He told her his name, the real one, and that was about as un-Turk-like as he was ever going to get, and ...

"Okay," she said, breathing him in. "Okay. How do I ... h-help? With that. Research? Sparring? I want ... to help."

He shut his eyes and he gave her another squeeze as he pressed his lips to her forehead.

"Sparring's good. Research is kickass. I been here a semester and then some, and I still don't know what it is I'm lookin' for, exactly. Electricity ain't just it, even if it is a start. There's..."

Getting help meant opening up, Reno.

"There's... a lot. Goin' on back home. Not just the fall of the company or anything like that. I'm here to fix a lot of shit, and I lost sight of that altogether, yo."

"There's ... the sickness, going around. Right?" Her fingers were playing with his jacket again as she settled in. "You need energy stuff, and people are sick. Is there ... more, too? Is that something I shouldn't ask? I wanna help, if ... if it's okay to tell me, you know?"

"Nah, it's okay." He shrugged a shoulder and leaned his head against hers and sighed. "Ain't just that people are sick. It's that a lot of people are sick, and people are livin' out of whatever they could scavenge from what used to be Midgar, and the ground's still dead all around the city, even if the sun is startin' to come out now and then. Anything could come stompin' through and there wouldn't be nothin' stoppin' it. We're down to three seasoned Turks and what's practically still a rookie, and Tseng didn't even want me to come here, because they can't afford to be down a man. SOLDIER's long gone and sure, the company's money is goin' to the WRO, and maybe there's somethin' here that could help with some of it. Somewhere."

"Okay." Rikku was thinking. "You need ... would weapons help? Armor? If you're worried about the city, then could you set up patrol droids? We had some on Bikanel. Easy enough to dismantle if you know the trick, and designed to take out anything they encounter that isn't human. I even made up a prototype to add GPS tracking to them, for class last semester."

She chewed her lip. "You need ... more Turks. Does that mean you have to ... go back?"

"Droids would be a huge help," Reno admitted, giving a nod of his head. "ShinRa used to be real big on 'em. Made as much use of 'em as they did infantrymen, yo. Not so much, since everything went under, though. Ain't seen a functional piece of machinery like that shit in over a year, now."

He wasn't answering the other question. Not right away.

He had to take a moment to frown thoughtfully, first.

"I ain't leavin' until I find somethin' worth takin' back, or until they can't do without me. Might be around until grad. Might not be. But that's how it is, for a Turk. Goes that way no matter where I'm at, Rikku."

"I know," she said softly. "I just ... if it comes to that. When it comes to that. We'll deal. Okay?"

She settled in, frowning as she chewed on the rest of what he'd said.

"You ... haven't seen a functional one, or you haven't seen any of them? I mean, do you guys have busted ones just laying around?"

"Functional," came Reno's reply. "Most of 'em are buried under what used to be the ShinRa building, I think. There are dozens of the freakin' little things all fried out all over Midgar, sure. Just gotta go foraging for 'em, is all."

He loosened his grip, backing off slightly to look at her.

"We'll deal. We will."

If they could. They would. Right.

"We will," she said calmly, leaning up to kiss the tip of his nose. "I'm yours. That's not gonna change, even if you get shipped off. Okay?"

She tilted her head at him curiously. "How come no one's fixing them? The busted ones."

"Okay," he agreed. That was enough, for now. Maybe. "Nobody's fixin' 'em because..."

He frowned and shrugged.

"Couple of reasons, I guess. Ain't nobody to fix 'em, anymore. And They're kinda like ... weapons, you know? Nobody's really too anxious to let ShinRa rebuild 'em, monsters be damned, yoto."

They'd deal with the rest when it happened. She hated realizing it was a "when" and not an "if," and swallowed past that sinking feeling.

"I could ... fix them," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "I mean. Probably. We ... that's what we do, take things that are busted and reverse-engineer them, you know? But that ... doesn't help with people not liking that they're ShinRa stuff, really."

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