raspberryturk | Room 429, Sunday Night

"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..."

She looked over at him, a smile playing on her lips.

"It's your home," she said. "I wanna see it. I wanna see all of it. And you gotta show me those freaky-weird painted chocobos. And the races for them. And every last rock and ruin and bit of dirt, zoto."

"We can definitely make a pit-stop at the Gold Saucer," Reno smirked, settling down a little more. It had been a long day. They'd both been roughed up by a god. Maybe now was as good a time as any to just lay down. "Maybe rent a stupid giant turkey if you really wanna test-drive the colored poultry. There're probably chunks of Sector Eight that haven't crumbled yet. Could show you the old stompin' grounds, zoto."

Turks jurisdiction. Also occasionally plagued by behemoths, Genesis clones, robots gone bad, and nosy SOLDIER boys.

"Sector eight, really?" she giggled. "I thought Sector Eight was running across downtown, now. I was telling Dawn about that."

Blink.

"Is it okay that I told Dawn about that? Not the Turks thing. Just that ... you were patrolling Sector Eight and all."

"Nah, don't worry about it. Sector Eight's still Sector Eight. Downtown's just a decent substitute when the island goes to hell."

... Literally.

"I figure it'll be a good stand-in every couple of months, when angels and demons and faculty gone wrong try to mess the place up. You wanna tell Dawn I was off lookin' for trouble like the twit I am, you go right ahead, zoto."

He had totally taken down that centaur on his own and it was the first actual experience he'd gotten in months, damn it. And Tseng was going to hate his next report and he didn't give a shit because he felt invincible. And very sore.

"I went looking, too," Rikku shrugged, frowning. "I fought some scary pond-thing, and then I just had to try for Hades even though nobody was getting anywhere. Smart move, right?"

She shook her head. "Couldn't take down Bishop, either. Some Guardian I am."

"Hey, I jumped in to fight Hades, too," Reno pointed out. "We weren't in it to take him down, Rikku. It was cat-and-mouse while the others grabbed the prisoners, that was the point." He looked at her evenly, his lips drawn into a frown. "The team got everyone out, and we all got out alive. Maybe there wouldn't have been enough time for that to happen if you hadn't stepped in to be toyed with, too. And the baby's still alive, and you stayed around to watch the Arms after that big jerk showed up. I don't know what more you want, Rikku. I think that makes you one hell of a guardian. You're sellin' yourself real fuckin' short."

Rikku sighed, settling back against him.

"I feel like I'm always losing," she said softly. "We saved Yunie, but Auron and Tidus both disappeared. Hamlet went back home and never came back again. Maybe if I could've hurt Bishop worse, Cable could have stayed here, with the baby, instead of leaving her somewhere else. I ..."

She hadn't told him about this part, dammit.

"I had my gun," she said, carefully. "On him. He was daring us to shoot. He had his own guns out. I aimed ... for his hand. Tried to knock the gun out of it. One clean headshot, and --"

"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."

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