raspberryturk | Room 429, Sunday Night

"Hey," Rikku said, leaning against him and nuzzling in a little. "No hurting your head. I'm fond of it."

This called for a moment taken to lean back just slightly.

"Today sucked."

He figured she already knew. Reno had to share this fact anyhow.

"Today sucked hard," Rikku said, sneaking one hand into his pocket to fish around for his keys. "But we're okay. And everyone's back. That's not such a bad day, zoto."

"Any apocalypse you can walk away from, yo..."

He rested his forehead on the door again, sighing.

Tseng was not going to like his next report. Not one bit.

"He didn't kill you. That's pretty kickass."

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "Didn't ... kill you either."

Deep breath.

"Said ... something about ... you know. Saving you, if I ... did some work for him."

This was a casual comment, as she slid his key into his lock. Just, hey, randomly. In case he was curious, or whatever.

Yeah, that was pretty curious, wasn't it?

"That so?"

His reply was just as casual. A little glance to the side, his forehead still pressed against the door.

"You're better than that," he said. Pretty firmly, all things considered.

It would have been one hell of a waste if she'd said yes.

"Better than what?" she said sharply, looking over at him. "Really. What is it you think -- how many times have you said that you're -- this job, Reno. You can't leave and it's not gonna be ..."

He closed his eyes and sighed against the door.

"You're above becoming some loyal stooge for some guy who wants all the power," he mumbled.

At least one of the two of them had to be. Reno had already pretty firmly established that he wasn't.

"Great," she said, turning the doorknob and nudging him slightly so he'd realize she was opening the door, and not, you know. Fall when she did. "That's awesome. I'll be above it. And then in three months when you get a call to go back, and in four months when you've stopped calling and I don't know if I got dumped or your luck ran out? I'm gonna really love being above that. That'll be nice to snuggle with on lonely nights."

Reno stood as she opened the door, pulling in another slow breath and opening his eyes again.

"If I stopped callin', it wouldn't be because you got dumped," he stated.

Which... probably wasn't as reassuring as he'd intended for it to be.

"Awesome," Rikku said, storming into his room and folding her arms. "So in four months, I'll be pretty sure you're dead somewhere. That's much better. Do you have any idea --"

She bit her lip and looked away.

"When that happens, all I'm gonna think about is this. And how I could be a stooge for that bastard, and it'd suck, but not half as much as ..."

Oh.

Oh, that was...

"If I die doin' what I do, it'll be in some other world that he ain't got a grasp on anyhow, Rikku. Floatin' in the lifestream, or whatever the hell it is you do when you're dead on Gaia."

All that... almost-religious scientific spiritual bullshit that he'd never really cared to pay much attention to.

"It'd just be a waste, Rikku. Over a maybe."

Edited 2008-06-23 05:31 (UTC)

"A waste?" Rikku stared at him. "He can stop it. Could have. I do some work, get my hands dirty, and you do live to see thirty. I bet for a little extra, he could have thrown in something that kept you from going back there. How on earth is that a waste?"

Seriously. When she said "I love you", what the hell did he think that meant?

"Means I never get back home," Reno replied. "Never go back to do my job. Never find out if Gaia falls apart entirely or if people manage to fix things."

A pause. He made his way over to his bed, reaching to run a hand through his hair and rethinking that motion a few seconds before he would have caused himself a good deal of pain.

"And he's a rat. Last thing I want is my girl sellin' out to-"

He took a seat. He shook his head, scowled, closed his eyes again.

"You're better than that."

He was stuck on this point.

"Never get to leave and not come back," Rikku said, watching him flatly. "Never take off and get yourself killed. Never kill more people for the government. You'd rather ... do that, than stay here."

He took another breath and looked at her evenly, shaking his head.

"Never get to atone."

After telling Alice that this was her chance to do it, he had somehow realized how badly he needed to do so, himself.

Kid always managed to make his brain twist into knots like that.

"Great," Rikku said. "So I shouldn't have done it anyway, because selling myself out to some hell deity, I mean, hey, it's a bad idea, and look, who knows if he keeps his promises, but really: that'd mean you lose your job, and that's way more important than ... you know."

Me. Us. Fandom.

Awesome.

Edited 2008-06-23 06:03 (UTC)

"Stayin' alive ain't about the job. Goin' back-" Oh, wonderful. "Rikku, you stop and hear yourself for a moment. Selling yourself out to some hell deity, like it's freakin' nothin'. That means you do his dirty work. You lose who you are so you can get blood on your hands, you run, kidnap, torture innocent people because they got in his freakin' way. You become a Turk with the serial numbers filed off, workin' for the guy who tried to turn the closest place I got to a home now into Hell on Earth."

Half of what came out of his mouth just then, he hadn't really been listening to himself.

"I'd rather go on livin' knowin' I'm gonna die than stick around and see you turn into me."

"And when you're dead, I'll have all this high moral ground," she said, trying to get her voice not to shake. Dammit. Dammit. "I'll be a super-nice person who only killed a couple of people and I can pat myself on the back for how nifty I am. I'll sleep great at night, you know, except for the fact that you'll be dead."

"Then maybe I'll try harder not to die, okay? Maybe next time I go out on a job, I'll have somethin' worth comin' back for, and maybe that'll be what makes the difference!"

Being a hero sucked. This was why being a hero sucked. The aftermath was always just as bad as the whole process of getting out alive.

"You know when I'm gonna die, Rikku? Because I sure as fuck don't! Because up until a few months ago, I didn't have shit to live for anyhow. Do the job, get it done, and if somethin' takes me out, what the hell does it matter? I wasn't livin'! And now I got this girl I gotta come back to, and he was talkin' shit about making me watch you die and I nearly puked just thinkin' about it. Reno of the fuckin' Turks, hurlin' on Hades' sandal. What the fuck is that? When I gotta make it out alive because I got you to come back to?"

Deep. Breath.

"I helped fuck up my planet. I'm here to make it better. And if I make it better, maybe I won't die when I go back next time. Do I know that? No. Do you?"

"I don't want to take that chance," she said, and now she was tearing up. Great. Awesome. "It's not just that you go save the freaking planet, and you know it. It's that this job of yours tends to have a high mortality rate, and the retirement plan seems like it sucks. So you're either gonna smash yourself into little pieces for them, killing and maiming and whatever the fuck else they ask you to do, until there's nothing of you left, or you're gonna say no, and that's when I stop getting calls. You really think it's that insane that I want to stop that? Because maybe you don't know what it means when I say I love you, Reno."

Reno was not going to choke up. He wasn't. He was going to lean backward on his headboard and stare at the ceiling and take this opportunity to hate everything while he did his damnedest not to cry.

He wasn't crying.

He was just breathing.

Loudly and raggedly and it wasn't the same fucking thing.

"And I love you too. And that's why it'd fuckin' kill me if you made all the same mistakes I made for my sake."

"You'd be alive," she said softly. "I know it was the wrong move. I turned him down. And ... some day, that's ... gonna be one more thing I have to carry. That I could have saved you, and I ... didn't."

"Right now," he mumbled, looking back down toward her, "it ain't even nearly an issue. I'm as alive as I'm ever gonna be."

Deep breath.

"Told you once I thought only a fool dies for their job. Haven't changed that opinion. Backing it up now with somethin' pretty solid. I mean, shit, Rikku... I-"

Deep breath.

"You're the first person who ever gave a shit enough to actually have a problem with what I do."

Deep breath.

"You don't gotta make a deal with the devil to keep me comin' back to you. I'm gonna make damn sure that'll happen anyhow."

"You don't mean that," she said softly. "When I get sad, and when I worry, you tell me you're gonna be just fine and work's not dangerous at all. And when you sit up nights and smoke, you tell me that you could go home any time, and then it's just a matter of when. I get that. I don't have the right to complain, I knew that all along. It's just."

She shrugged, awkwardly. "Some day you're gonna show up and tell me to move on with my life, and you love me, and you're sorry, and then that'll be it. And he was saying, if you do me a few favors, that ... doesn't have to happen. And you'd rather go home anyway. Things to do, promises to keep. Even if that means ... what it means. And I'm supposed to just ... accept that."

Edited 2008-06-23 07:02 (UTC)

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