raspberryturk | Room 429, Sunday Night

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Room 429, Sunday Night

Okay. So the fight against the centaur yesterday had been fun.

The fight against Hades today had been... less fun.

But they'd pulled people out of Hell-Or-Whatever-It-Was, and the day was saved. Or something of the sort.

Clearly, the best way for Reno to celebrate this was to bang his forehead against the door, down one ponytail and up one Rikku.

He'd get around to actually opening his door eventually. Just as soon as he felt up to pretending that his hands weren't too charred to dig the key from his pocket.

[For the modded-with-permission girlfriend!]

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"And then you woulda shot some guy who was, so far as you know, just tryin' to save the future," Reno pointed out.

It had to be pointed out.

"It's never easy, Rikku. Even when it's just the job, and he's been askin' for it. Light up. Quiz' em. Let 'em drop. Kills you a bit more every time."

Rikku nodded. "I couldn't. I can't. I keep thinking of what-ifs and yet, when I put myself back there? It's still aiming for his gun."

She exhaled noisily. "One step forward, two steps back, back and forth and I never get anywhere. Don't you ever feel like that? Really?"

"Never," Reno replied, giving his head a shake. "For the past couple of years, it's been all steps back. At least so far as back-there goes."

A pause. A shrug.

"Here's been kinda different."

"Here's a pretty amazing place, that way," she said, settling in. "Nobody cares that I'm Al Bhed. People just ... help each other. Your world is falling apart? Let's get a group and head back there, kill the monsters, save the day."

She brought his fingers up to her lips. "Plus I keep meeting the most interesting people."

"Save the day..." It was a bit of a thoughtful echo, tapering off for a moment before that easy grin of his slipped back onto Reno's lips. "That's what this place is really for, ain't it? For meetin' people?"

Fandom High Dating Service. It would be a huge hit.

Rikku shrugged. "Maybe we're all here to help each other," she said. "Don't laugh. I just think sometimes ... maybe we all came here because ... I couldn't get Tidus back myself, and Cable needed help watching the baby, and we all went to Valentine's world to save it from those creepy shadow-things. I think maybe ... we're all here to help fix each other's worlds. And then we go home and things are better for it."

Reno chewed on that one for a moment.

"I dunno. Some worlds are kinda beyond help."

...

"A little."

"You never know," she said, lifting a shoulder again. "Your world's dying. I used to think mine was, but we stopped all that. Just because it seems impossible doesn't mean it is."

She made a face. "And it's starting up again, so maybe that's not the best example, huh?"

Reno lifted a shoulder slightly.

"All the more reason for us to visit Spira sometime soon," he decided. "So I can find these New Yevon twits and beat in their faces, yo."

... He actually really, really wanted to.

"Wouldn't help," she sighed. Because seriously, she thought about it a lot, and that was the conclusion she reached. Unfortunately. "Maybe this coalition thing will work. Oh, man, that reminds me, I have letters to write back to."

She sat silent a little longer before asking, "Why do you think your planet's dying? I mean, you said something happened to the ... Lifestream? ... but you stopped. Didn't you?"

"We did. But... I dunno. It's like a person, I guess. Stop the bleeding, and they might live, but if you bleed 'em too much, then there's nothin' to keep their heart beatin', even if they ain't losin' blood anymore."

Leave it to Reno to come up with analogies involving bleeding to death.

"The planet already had one big, gapin' wound in it. And then we made it worse by openin' up more in other places, and we damn near leeched it clean. I mean, there are places where stuff grows? But they don't make up for the damage. Not really."

... Happier topics. Happier topics?

"Who you gotta write back to?"

Happier? Please?

"You closed the wounds," Rikku said calmly. "If it's not too much blood, people can regrow it again, you know? You just need to give them time to heal."

Idly, she wondered if Yunie could heal things like Lifestreams. If she could move pyreflies ...

"A couple of people," she frowned. "Got a letter or two this weekend, haven't even opened them yet, so I need to sit down and reply already, but -- you know. This has been going on. One's from the Crusader Lodge, so I'm guessing that's Gatta. The other's probably Gippal."

Bleh, Gippal.

Reno could tell that Rikku was absolutely thrilled over this Gippal guy.

"Gippal?"

This was why he was ditching further conversation about Gaia in favor of pestering her to find out who in the world that was.

"It's nobody," she said, folding her arms and glaring off into space. "Just some stupid jerk that I have to write 'cause he's part of the machina faction. So ooooh, he's in charge of something, looks like he's not the complete moron I figured he was. Good for him. And I have to be nice or he can mess things up and he's being a dick."

Nobody. Really. Seriously.

"Ah." Reno quirked an eyebrow. "Nobody whose ass I gotta kick, then?"

Because it was entirely possible that he had that notion that maybe he should be kicking this guy's ass, and he had to make absolutely sure, here.

That idea seemed to perk Rikku right on up, for that matter.

"You could kick his ass," she said brightly. "I wouldn't stop you. Just don't say it's from me, 'cause I have to be nice. And besides if you said it was from me he'd ..."

Uh.

"Think it was about something else," she covered. Or, you know, completely failed to cover.

Reno was not in the least amused. Honest.

Except how he absolutely was, of course.

"What kinda somethin' else?"

He was smirking. This just seemed like the perfect time for a good old-fashioned smirk.

He could be included in the glare, too. Just a warning and all.

"He'd assume you were jealous," she said haughtily.

There. See how he liked that.

And now, Reno was quirking an eyebrow and leaning forward and giving Rikku the look.

"There any reason I should be jealous?"

This Gippal guy was going to die. It was official.

"No," Rikku said dryly. "Unless you really care that I got suckered into making out with him when I was really drunk and really, really down this one time."

This one time. When they saved the world, and people died. That'd be when.

She made a face. "The next day, I spent puking, and he bragged to all his friends about it, and it got back to my brother, which means Pops found out, and I wanted to kill him."

Edited 2008-06-25 07:50 (UTC)

"So it's okay if I kick his ass."

It wasn't a question. Reno was going to pummel this asswipe ten ways to Sunday.

"Good to know."

"I have to write him now, and he's all 'oooooh, Cid's girl, look who missed me, I knew you'd come crawling back.'" She shuddered. "What he told his friends wasn't even true. You don't want to know how pissed Pops was. And he was a total asshole to Jude and all 'oooh, you got a boyfriend, how cute, I know you'll be back' and what's with guys? Is this fun for him, just to be as huge a dick as possible? Is that it?"

Not that this was related to how Rikku assumed Reno was an asshole way back at the beginning when he was being arrogant and all that. Possibly. Much. At all.

Edited 2008-06-25 07:54 (UTC)

But Reno was an asshole. So he was possibly the best person to ask about this sort of thing, wasn't he?

Well. He was an asshole of a different color. Kissing and telling was one thing, kissing and lying was a totally different ball game.

"Guys like him gotta make up huge freakin' lies to look good to the boys," Reno mused, "because they suck too damn much to ever actually really score with a girl."

It made sense to Reno, anyhow.

"I dunno," she said, slumping back. "Pops thought I was a tramp, that's always fun to hear, and this was right after we ... l-lost everyone, so I got lectured and I was still trying not to puke and now he just acts like a jerk whenever I see him. He saunters right on up to me and messes my hair up and he gets all 'awwwwwww, Cid's girl, look how big you're getting.' What's with that. I used to think he liked me, but if he did he wouldn't be such a ... loser about it."

Rikku: using logic on matters of boys. Mistake number 1.

Reno raised an eyebrow at that.

Rikku logic was ... Rikku logic. But it was not boy logic.

"So kick him in the balls," Reno decided. "That'll fix your problem real quick."

...

Well, it would.

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