raspberryturk | Room 429, Sunday Night

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)

"If you said yes, Rikku, there wouldn't be a home. Not here, not in Gaia. You'd be backin' him up, and I'd be backin' you up, and everything we're sittin' on would be Tartarus." He gave the bed beside him a very careful pat.

Ow.

"So you would'a saved my life and done everything he wanted, and here I'd be, stuck in the over-underworld and my girlfriend would be miserable because she'd be spendin' all her free time helpin' him make the place into hell, and maybe not having to watch you make all my mistakes is worth going off to die someday."

...

"Rikku, what I do... It kills you. Kills you from the inside long before the job ever ends your life. Hades can't keep me alive. And watchin' you die the same way I did would just kill me even more."

Rikku walked over, careful not to bump any of her burns on any of his, and settled into the spot next to him.

"But I don't want you to die."

"Then I'll actually start to try not to, for once." He looked over at her, offered her a bit of a smile. "Can't just up and die on a girl who makes Cuban Pete sound so damn badass."

"You missed Fandom Peril," Rikku said, grinning as she settled back against him. "I, uh, we were contestants on a game show -- not really peril, just -- we annoyed the crap out of Hades and made up our own categories and I kept singing it. And buzzing along, with my buzzer. And I changed one of the categories to 'Things Dumber than Hades.' That one pissed him off."

Okay, the settling down against one another thing? That was nice. Reno could totally deal with that.

"Who the hell are you gonna mutiny against now that he's gone?"

He was always looking for an excuse to see her in that mutiny outfit of hers. Preferably when she wasn't a pony. Or a fairy.

"I don't know," Rikku frowned. "Zoe's all scary, and besides, she's cool. Who on the faculty do we not like?"

She glanced over at him, finally processing something.

"Did he ... burn your hair?"

Nobody readily came to mind so far as naked mutinying was concerned. And Rikku's question kind of managed to jolt him to that other topic entirely.

"I been growin' out that ponytail since forever," he said. And he mostly wasn't pouting, too. Mostly.

Not really.

It was a pretty blatant pout.

"And it stinks like a sonofabitch." He turned around a little. "How bad is it?"

What wasn't burned clean off was singed quite nicely. The joys of being grabbed by a god whose hand was on fire.

Rikku ... stared.

It was sort of weird to be expecting your boyfriend's waist-length ponytail and instead see .... a couple inches of black singed dead hair.

"It's ... uh ... it's ... pretty bad, zoto," she said. "I think ... you're. Gonna have to start over."

Okay. That was a pout. And that was a groan. And that was Reno vowing to kick the shit out of every motherfuck back on Gaia who ever figured they'd summon their own version of Hades on him.

As soon as he stopped being a confused berserk petrified toad, or whatever.

And that was Reno groaning some more.

"Did I mention I been growing it out since forever?" He reached a hand back to check out the damage. Which, all things considered, really just hurt more, but he had to know.

...

"Last time it was this short, I was just learnin' the name AVALANCHE. This is gonna take ages to grow out again."

~~It was fortunate for Reno that the hair of Square characters tended to grow ridiculously quickly.~~

"It's. Kinda." Rikku stared. "I think it's ..."

She hopped up. "Do you have scissors? We can cut off the singed stuff, see how it looks."

~~Well, if Rikku's managed to get waist-length in the two years Sin was gone ... MIRACLEGRO?~~

Edited 2008-06-23 08:18 (UTC)

"Scissors?"

...

"Yeah, I got scissors. Uh. Over- Somewhere in here." He was up and headed for his dresser. And opening it. Which continued to be painful, but there was a certain level of shock involved in unexpectedly losing two feet of hair, and so he mostly didn't notice. He held them up. Victory theme. Ish.

"Scissors."

Presto.

I bet that's what they put in that ShinRa-brand specially scented rose and vanilla shampoo made with thirteen different kinds of perfume that Sephiroth wastes a bottle of every time he washes his beautiful silver hair.

"Are you okay?" Rikku said, leaning up for a quick peck. "You got some scorches going. We should've ... hit the clinic, maybe."

She, uh, had a few burns herself. Stupid fire hell-deity.

"I think it's cute," she decided. "Your hair, short. Kinda ... freeing, yeah?"

~~i wonder if they call it BishieWash~~

"Kinda... short," he decided. Clearly this was a conclusion that had required thought to reach. "I don't need to hit the clinic. Just gotta sleep this off or somethin'. Maybe snag a potion in the morning if I still feel like shit."

He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head a little- and whoa, was that ever light- and settled back down on the bed.

And then he was talking again.

"You know how you said you gotta take me to see Spira sometime?"

"Yeah," she said, climbing onto the bed next to him. Beds were perfect for snuggling that way. "Only if you wanna go and all. You can totally say no. And then I'll just kidnap you and take you anyway."

"I still wanna see it," he affirmed, and yeah, snuggling back seemed like a great idea. Even with the scissors in his hand. The scissors could go on the nightstand and he could live in a pipe-dream that maybe in the morning his hair would be back. Snuggling took top priority, here. "I was just thinkin'... I mentioned Gaia, but never really offered back, yoto."

Ah, thinking.

"I wanna take you there, too. Show you Midgar, show you Edge, whatever else we manage to run into on the way. I mean, you don't gotta. There ain't nothin' worth nothin' on Gaia anymore. Buncha' ruins. Buncha' dirt. Some rocks..."

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