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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"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."

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.

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