raspberryturk | Room 429, Sunday Afternoon

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Room 429, Sunday Afternoon

Okay. Sunday afternoons were officially boring. The days of the week had classes and radio and reports to write for his job, and mornings and evenings meant that the ferret was awake and totally willing to be harassed, but Sunday afternoons?

Reno would like to vote that boring, lazy Sunday afternoons be stricken from the record.

He was in his room, sitting by the window and playing with his lighter. Fire go on. Fire blow out. Ooh. Exciting.

The door was open slightly in case something interesting happened to wander through the hallway, at least.

[Open, like the door~]

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Church was relaxing but didn't help Romeo decide anything, and, perversely, he decided maybe he needed advice from someone who had been on the other side. And if Reno didn't have advice, he at least might have booze.

So there was a Romeo, tapping on Reno's door.

Boring Sunday afternoons had a funny way of becoming busy Sunday afternoons, sometimes.

Reno didn't mind a bit.

"Door's open," he called, craning his neck some to see who was in the doorway. "Romeo, my man! C'mon in?"

He was already making his way to the booze, actually. There wasn't much left but beer and rum, but at least he was going to offer. He had the feeling it would be needed.

"Of course," Romeo said, coming in and settling on the floor. "Have you talked to either of the girls lately?"

The question could be entirely innocent. Really.

Reno was going to be honest, here. Vague, but honest.

"Doji stopped in, a little earlier," he answered. Casually. He wasn't going to push the topic if Romeo wasn't touching on it just yet, anyhow. "Had some tequila, shot the shit. How you doin'? Want somethin'? Beer, rum? Don't got much variety today."

"Beer," Romeo said absently. "Did she lie to you? Or should I just assume every word from her mouth is a lie?"

Reno pulled out a beer for Romeo and one for himself, walking over to give it to him.

"She didn't really lie to me. Kinda omitted a lotta truths, maybe." He held out the beer, trying not to shift awkwardly from one foot to the other. "I know about it now, anyhow. Kinda... sticky stuff, maybe."

His tone was as carefully neutral as Reno could manage to keep it.

Edited 2008-09-08 00:38 (UTC)

Romeo snorted, but accepted the beer. "Sticky is a kind word for an unkind thing," he said. "And omission for so long is a lie. She deliberately mislead me about who she is, Reno. What else should I call it?"

Reno sighed and cracked open his own beer, taking a swig before talking.

Today was a good day for drinking.

"Lying," he agreed, giving a little shake of his head. "I ain't gonna sugar-coat it if you don't want me to. What she did was lying, yeah. Situation seems kinda familiar, is all. Didn't think I'd be on this side of it, but that don't make it any less a lie."

Killers. Liars. Open their traps too early, say too much, and somebody could get hurt. So lie. Yeah. Like there was anyone in the world who hadn't lied before.

Never did seem to make things better, now that Reno had seen it sit up and bite twice.

"What kills me," Romeo confided, draining half his beer in one gulp, "is that now I can't know if she's telling all the truth, or part of it, or if the entire story is untrue and next week she'll tell me it was a delusion from a gremlin bite and we'll laugh."

He considered Reno. "It was different when it was you."

Which it was. He wasn't sleeping with Reno.

"It would be different, when it was me," Reno noted. Hadn't been sleeping together, indeed. It made a hell of a lot of difference. "I don't think she's lying to you about caring about you any more than I was to Rikku, though. It's a big lie, a lot to swallow, yeah. But that's somethin' that you just can't fake."

He paused, lifted a shoulder, and then decided now was a good time to fill his mouth with beer and just shut up for a moment.

"It feels like she's there and real in bed," Romeo admitted. "She's an actress, but .... I could tell." Romeo had never been accused of being lacking in ego.

He started peeling the label off his beer bottle. "I'm a killer." This was said flatly. "Could she have had all this planned?"

"There are plenty of killers on the island," Reno replied after a swallow and a little bit of picking at his own beer label. "I don't think that's what she zeroed in on you for."

There was a pause while Reno contemplated what to say next. Oh, to hell with it.

"She did mention somethin' about some eyes and a grin that got under her skin. I dunno what it is about you, man, but I think there's a big difference between what went unsaid and what she did let you know."

Oh, yes, Romeo's ego clearly needed additional fuel. At this rate, soon it would demand its own beer.

"She said that?" he asked, unable to contain his pleasure. "I ... it's complicated. I cannot make myself stop loving her, but I don't know if I can be with her if I can't trust her."

Reno had another beer floating around somewhere. Romeo's ego could totally have one. Reno's would have one, too. It would be like a party, with the two boys, their egos, and their booze.

"I think you can trust her," he decided, treading carefully on the topic again. "She couldn't tell you sooner, sure. But, I dunno. Seems like she would've, if it wasn't so damn dangerous."

Not like Reno, who hadn't told Rikku primarily because he was a selfish twit and didn't want to scare her off.

"Then she just doesn't think I can keep my mouth shut when something matters," Romeo pointed out. "That doesn't say high things of her opinion of me either, you know."

Reno frowned a little at that.

"Or maybe they got eyes everywhere. Sounds to me like these guys don't mess around." He shrugged. "I dunno, I'm just speculatin'. I think she was, more than anything else? Just scared."

"But if they had eyes trained on her, would she be dating me at all?" he speculated. "I doubt they like having their little toy distracted."

Reno scratched at his head, there. Oh, ow. His brain was gonna hurt in the morning.

"Maybe they even figured that she was throwin' a distraction for the other guy to see. But man, like you said, what you, uh. Felt? That, that was real. I mean, there are some things you can act out, man. And some stuff that just don't come off as sincere. Right?"

Oh, wow. Reno hoped he was right.

"Right," Romeo had to agree. "Unless she's truly evil, and ... I cannot think that of her."

And that beer label was just fascinating. "How was she?"

"She was... kinda beatin' herself up," Reno admitted. "Sorta came in and called herself a bunch'a names, and went right for the tequila. S'been since Mexico since she hit that, wasn't it?"

Beer labels were awesome. Except Reno's. His was mostly gone, now.

"She wanted to know what to do, if anything could make it better. I didn't know what to tell her. So I kinda just said to give you time. I'm not so good at this relationship stuff, man."

"I could probably help should she run short of names," Romeo said sourly.

He didn't entirely mean that.

"Time, and -- I want to speak with her, but I fear she'll give me that look and I'll forget to ask questions."

Reno knew girls. He knew the kind of look Romeo met.

Oh yeah, Reno knew the look. He knew the look really well.

"Maybe the questions gotta come as you get 'em," he mused. "Maybe you go in there with nothin' to say, instead of gettin' a script ready or whatever. Scripts don't work, you know? Just... say what's on your mind."

"I keep worrying she'll be killed doing this." That was mostly to the bottle. "And then I think it's stupid, as she's stronger than I knew, and then I think I shouldn't care, but ... that is my fear at the root of it all."

Absolutely no prizes for guessing why Romeo had that particular issue.

"I keep tellin' Rikku... I mean, someday, what I do's gonna get the better of me. It's how this stupid way of livin' goes, sometimes." More often than not, really. "I told Doji, when she told me what's up, that I'm in. I dunno if that helps the fear any, but there it is. Wherever she's goin', she's goin' with a Turk at her disposal, too. I'll keep an eye on her for you, man."

"I don't understand why she says she must live this way," Romeo bitched. "Now, yes -- she's made a promise, she cannot back out without more peril. But she had more choice to take it or not than she will admit."

He gave Reno a tiny smile. "It's good to know you would be watching, fi I don't go."

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