raspberryturk | Room 429, Sunday Afternoon

Reno had the good sense to listen to the radio, and smile and nod at it, and then continue to drink.

This did not mean he was fully aware of what was going on. But he did have a notion that something was amiss.

Fire blow out. Lighter go in pocket.

"I happen to have a coupl'a bottles to spare," he replied, turning around to glance at her. "But you gotta share it, yo. I'm rationing it."

No, he wasn't. But it seemed like a good thing to say at the time.

"Playing with fire? Are we five again?" she asked rhetorically, coming the rest of the way in. "And I think I can deal with rationing. Maybe it will inspire me to cut back on my other bad habits." No, it really wouldn't.

"We're bored again," Reno replied. "Five was bad for my image, yo. And my job. And my relationship. I'm avoidin' five and maybe I'll burn the island down if it tries to push that shit on me again, yo."

Five itself had been fine. But it had made things... complicated.

He pushed himself to his feet and wandered over to raid the contents of his dresser. Warm booze was still booze, dammit.

"You prefer rum, tequila, or nice, boring, warm beer?"

"Tequila." Which would probably give him a decent indicator of her mental state, since she tended to avoid large amounts of it since Mexico.

Although she should, in fairness, say something before she borrowed the booze. So he wasn't tempted to throw the bottle. "Lots of things are bad for your image or for relationships. Like being a lying bitch." Yurika raised one hand bitterly. "Hi, my name is Yurika, and I'm a raging hypocrite. Booze please?"

"Ah." Reno scrounged about for a bit in a futile search for a paper cup before just shrugging and handing the bottle over to her. "Neither of us are diseased, right? We're good to pass it back and forth."

Divvying up the booze was important, too.

"You know, there's a certain sorta art behind bein' a lyin' bitch," he mused. "And a ragin' hypocrite. I think there's a club or somethin'. If there ain't, there should be. What's goin' on?"

"No, Red, I don't have cooties. Drinking from the bottle is fine."

"Club? I'm in." She bit her lip for a moment, then shrugged. "Cliff notes? I might have neglected to tell my boyfriend a few key facts. Like the fact I work for SOLOMON, and I have since before I came here. He's not too thrilled with me right now."

"SOLOMON." Reno raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. Expression neutral. Thoughtful, but neutral. "Not somethin' you could just talk about, I'm gonna guess."

Seriously, there should have been a club.

"Is there where I chuck a thesaurus at your head or whatever? Turnabout bein' fair play and all that? Or do you need some badly-made ramen, instead?"

Believe it or not, this was Reno being supportive. He hadn't started name-calling, after all.

"Got it in one. I compromise the cover, things get unpleasant very quickly." Yurika was pretty sure Reno could fill-in the blanks. "Lucky for me, the bastard who holds my leash left me a loophole on Friday, and I took advantage of it to spill my guts. It probably wasn't my best idea, but it's too late now."

If there was a club, she'd help collect dues. They could meet at Caritas every Thursday night.

"So please, throw things," she replied, taking a nice long drink from the bottle. "It'll be a nice change of pace."

"Tell you what," Reno offered as his hands moved from over his chest to in his pockets, "you tell me what's up, if tellin' me is somethin' you can do, and I'll use that knowledge to figure out how big an' heavy whatever it is I throw at you is gonna have to be. Fair?"

She probably had a few more guts to spill. He was all-ears.

"The short version is that they sent me here to perfect my cover. I'm being sent to hunt the Hunters after graduation," Yurika answered, holding on to the bottle tightly. It was nice, gave her something to focus on. "There's something rotten at the STN-J branch, and they want me to find the secret behind the new Orbo production."

"It's one job, and that's it," Yurika said firmly. "That was the deal, and I'm done. In return, I get my life. No arranged marriage, no being locked away somewhere for the benefit of the family, I'm free and clear." Maybe if she kept saying it, she'd actually believe it.

"I should have been in-and-out of here, and it would have been fine." She shrugged slightly. "Except Father Juliano has decided to move up my evaluation. I'm supposed to assemble a team for a Hunt, and they'll send us off sometime in the next few months as a test of my leadership abilities in the field. He told me 'any means necessary' to recruit my team, so, I decided I get to tell whomever I damn well want whatever I want. He doesn't like it, it's his own fault for leaving it open."

"Loopholes are nice like that," Reno mused, and now he wasn't leaning against the wall, he was pacing the room thoughtfully. "So you... told Romeo, gettin' out in the open about it and hopin' that he'd join the hunt? And that's why he ain't happy. Because it was kept quiet this long."

Ow. He'd been there himself, yeah, but it wasn't him being screamed at this time around. "Trust is a damn fragile thing," he noted.

Conversation like this required that he go digging for a bottle of his own. Rum would do.

"How you holdin' up?" No, really, the tequila had been a hint. But it was the thing to ask, wasn't it?

"I told him because I wanted to," she replied a little more sharply than needed. "If I'm being perfectly honest, the idea of him being anywhere near SOLOMON makes me scream, and I'd rather keep him as far away as possible. I haven't exactly been honest with them, either, especially in regards to him."

Oh good, he was getting his own bottle, that meant she could clutch hers a bit harder and take another drink. "Another part of me wants him there, because I'm selfish and shallow and I can't make up my own damn mind. But that's not why I told him."

Reno opened up his rum and took a thoughtful mouthful before looking back at her.

"Ain't easy, is it? Comin' out in the open with what you are and what you gotta do?" Another mouthful, a moment to let the taste sink in, and then he swallowed. "But it's out there now. Kinda figured there was somethin' not bein' said. Wasn't gonna dig for it, though. None of my business."

He shrugged.

"You need anything, Doji? More booze? Someone to bitch at? A professional killer?"

He'd put it out there. After all, there weren't many other things that he had to offer.

"Want to come hunt a Witch with me sometime in the next few months? It'll be killer," Yurika sighed. "Pun intended."

"I'm not ashamed at what I do, or even what I did," she said quietly. "I won't be, because I think what I'm doing is right. I just wish he'd believe me."

Reno looked at her for another moment, then turned back to his dresser.

He kept everything in there.

A moment later, he surfaced with a half-used roll of duct tape, eyed it for a moment, and then tossed it to her.

"Give him time, zoto. Let him chew on it a bit. You may need this more than I do right now. If nothin' else, you got me for your hunt, alright? Come Hell or Holy."

Yurika reached out to catch the duct tape one-handed, looking blankly at it for a moment before she burst out laughing.

"Got a dictionary in there too, Red?" she gasped, trying to dash away the tears leaking out of her eyes. "Now's your chance, while my arms are full."

"Dictionary's hardcover. I ain't supposed to throw a book at you until you try to give me back the tape, anyhow. Weren't you payin' attention last time we all went through this kinda thing?"

He took a short walk to take a seat on the other bed, looking across the room at her, thoughtfully.

"At least you're doin' what you're doin' because it's somethin' that's gotta be done, right? 'You go out, and you do the job?' You knew what the hell you were talkin' about then, didn't you? Wasn't just a bunch'a words."

"Short attention span," Yurika drawled, taking another nice long sip of tequila. "Or at least, that's what you're all supposed to think. Whoops, givin' away secrets again. My bad."

"No, it wasn't just words. Sometimes, you do what needs to be done." Yurika set the bottle aside so she could play with the roll of tape. "Basically, Zaizen claims he's created something that can remove a Witch's powers, that it allows a humane Hunt, but he won't let Headquarters have any, or see his research. We don't even know if it's safe for the Hunters to use," she sighed, "and I'm the test-dummy who gets to go find out."

"Even worse, the people he captures with the Orbo vanish into his factory, and aren't seen again. There's even been reports of Seeds and Craft-users going missing, too. It stinks. Badly."

"Sounds like bad business to me," Reno agreed, inspecting the rum as though perhaps doing so would help him think. "You're figurin' out what's goin' on with this Orbo stuff, then? That's what this is about? Figure out if he's yankin' your chain and playin' dirty, puttin' a stop to it? Or are you just gonna be the one who gets to play guinea-pig with this humane Witch-retardant crap?"

Her, them, we? Reno would do it, sure. Wouldn't be the first time he'd played around with dangerous experimental substances, or anything.

"Sounds like a hell of a job."

"All of the above. As a Hunter at the STN-J, I'd be required to wear and use the Orbo on the Hunt," Yurika replied, twirling the roll of tape. "I've also got to be sneaky, and try and dig up the dirt on both Orbo and the factory."

"Heeeey. Sneaky. I'm good at sneaky," Reno mused, passing the bottle from hand to hand before taking another swig. "Turk thing. We're good with dirt. Kinda gotta be."

Once again, making certain that it was clear that she had someone willing to dive into this. Wasn't that what friends were for? Sure it was.

Tseng would pitch a fit. Tseng never had to find out.

"Reno? Thanks." Yurika gave him a tired smile and raised the bottle in a toast.

"So, any suggestions on how to grovel appropriately?"

Reno raised his own bottle, and down went another swig.

"S'what I do," he replied. And really, it was. "As for grovelling... Like I said. Give it a little time. Breathing room helps, right? Maybe when he cools down some, he'll give you another chance to at least explain. S'the best I got, I'm afraid. I ain't too good with this romantic shit either, yoto."

"I live across the hall from him, and we have Monday class together," Yurika sighed. "It's going to be hard to avoid him."

"I wasn't going to get involved with him, I really wasn't," she said, scowling at her bottle. "I tried not to. He was just so dammed persistent!"

"Rikku was like that, too. Kinda right there and you don't even know what the hell it is, except it's probably a bad idea and you can't say no anyhow?" Seemed like it, anyhow. Perfect and wrong. Bad, wrong, terrible, stupid, beautiful and irresistible. Right under the skin. "Don't avoid class or anything. I mean, givin' space don't mean you have to stop livin' your own life, zoto. Just keep to the other side of the room or whatever. If that doesn't work, put some duct-tape over his mouth and make him listen."

A pause.

"Because, you know, duct tape fixes everything."

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