Room 429, Monday Afternoon

[raspberryturk]

Reno had survived the end of the world. And Reno had survived class, and now Reno was dragging himself into his dorm room, with the bed in it that he'd been sleeping in for months, and all his booze, and his stuff.

Stuff like his toy helicopter and his dirty magazines and his witty t-shirts and-

There was a rattle and a honk from the cage on the floor.

- And stuff like his ferret.

Perfect.

Reno was going to make his way over there, pull Mako out of his cage, sit down on his bed, and let the little guy chew on his fingers until he lost consciousness.

[Open like an open thing! The door, it's still open a crack, for all your fried-Reno and bouncy ferret needs.]

Comments

[withoutverona]

Right. He should have known to expect a follow-up question. Romeo got very interested in the intricacies of lighting another smoke as he put words together. "I fell apart when I thought Juliet was dead," he finally said. "There were a lot of things I did that I don't like to think about. And I drank poison. Not the same thing at all, but I know what it is not to care if you live or die."

"It's good to hear you aren't there, though." Right? Right. Because if Reno was there, they had even bigger problems.

[raspberryturk]

Reno was now thoughtfully frowning, forgetting, for the most part, that the ferret was now chewing little messy holes in his fingertips again.

"Yeah. I'm not there, right now." He paused for a moment. "Glad you're not. Glad I'm not. Glad we're not."

Another pause.

"Was there once, too." Since they were throwing these things out there, now. "I mean... At a point where it was too much. Didn't drink poison. But... close enough, anyhow."

[withoutverona]

"It's an awful place to be." Which could probably be taken for granted but was worth saying, anyhow. "Awful."

"What did you do?" Romeo asked, tentatively. "I don't recommend poison. Things went black and I was in the hospital a week while they got my liver working again."

[raspberryturk]

Reno fell very quiet for a moment. Still wasn't so great with picking at certain old scars.

"I told you about the plate. Didn't tell you I took a running leap off the platform without lookin' to see if there was anything there to catch me."

Clearly, he had been caught.

"They put me on leave. Hired Elena to fill the empty slot."

[withoutverona]

Romeo paled. "I almost want to apologize for asking," he said, giving Mako a pat by way of making it up to his master. "What caught you, in the end?"

[raspberryturk]

Reno shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "Turns out, Tseng's the kinda reliable guy who's there with a chopper just in time to catch you on your way down."

He poked at the ferret some more- Mako was getting enough attention to make up for the whole weekend- and looked up at Romeo again.

"Wouldn't do it again, though. Not worth it."

[withoutverona]

"I could see that in Tseng," Romeo said, nodding. Tseng had struck him as scary, but good at his job. "But still. Alive is better, even if fortune favored us both."

He bit his lip, not sure how to ask this next question (as if he could come up with something more awkward. "So ... you still work for him, but ... would you still do anything he asked?" Since that seemed to be worrying Rikku, and all.

[raspberryturk]

If there was something Reno was learning about life aside from being a Turk, it was that there was always something more awkward.

"I don't think I would do anything. I mean... when Rufus called me into his office, he was talkin' about startin' the company up again, rebuildin' his empire with his loyal Turks at his side."

Deep breath.

"I told him I wanted to come back here. Told him the only reason we were stickin' it out as his Turks was because we knew he was gonna kick off soon anyhow." Another deep breath. "He essentially called me his property. I mean. I am. Was. Something. I don't think I wanna be, anymore."

He wasn't sure what it was that he wanted.

[withoutverona]

And Romeo's heart broke just a little bit. "You aren't property," he said, fiercely. "Not anybody's but your own. If you want to keep the job, keep it because it's yours, not because you're his."

"I think the secret of this place is that we don't have to go home."

[raspberryturk]

Reno smiled something of a rueful smile, reaching to drop the butt of his cigarette into a glass of liquor that had probably been sitting on his nightstand for the better part of a week.

"Until we graduate, zoto."

[withoutverona]

"I've been thinking about that," Romeo said, gesturing emphatically. This was a thing that required emphatic gestures. "We don't need to go home, we just need to leave the island. There's a world -- many worlds. There must be other jobs for you and me and Dojima."

Not that he thought she would take one, but he still planned to try a sales pitch about the concept a few more times.

[raspberryturk]

"Other jobs?" Reno was chewing on that, now. Really stopping to run the notion through his head, wondering if there might actually be something to it. "Other jobs, on other worlds."

And then he was smiling, lifting up the ferret to drape the little guy over his shoulder like some kind of sausage-shaped furry epaulet, prone to honking and the occasional bout of chewing on Reno's earring.

"What kind of jobs? What sorta world?"

[withoutverona]

"Any world where no one wants to shoot at me would be my choice. But jobs, that's where I get stuck," Romeo admitted.

"I need to talk to Yurika. If she would let me I would follow her home, and ..." he frowned. "Work in a shop? Teach? I wasn't raised to earn money, I've no idea how to do that." Though he had the arrogance of the rich that said, somehow, he always would.

"Of course, if she could get out of her job that's another equation, but I've little hope of that one."

[raspberryturk]

"The money's in doin' the junk nobody else wants to do," Reno said, shrugging faintly. "S' why Turks got paid so damn much. You get a dirty job, and money won't never be an issue."

He grimaced a little, realizing how that must have sounded. Here, Romeo, why don't you become a filthy murdering freak like me. The pay's great!

"Doin' anything. You know."

Not the greatest of amendments, but at least it was one.

[withoutverona]

"I know," Romeo grimaced. "I think I'll try and stay with clean jobs. It would be a first for the Montagues, after all."

Not that Ted Montague got his hands dirty. That's what he had staff for.

"Do you know what else you would want to do?"

[raspberryturk]

"...Else?"

Reno might have deflated a little at that.

"Never gave it any thought. I'm good at what I do. It's kinda all I know, you know? I mean, I could take chunks of it from here or there. Could pilot or service choppers somewhere, maybe. Or do... detective junk. But I think people expect someone who looks more- uh- more professional than I do?"

He shook his head.

"Don't think doin' just any one thing would be what I'm good for, yo."

[withoutverona]

"A flying detective?" Romeo was being silly, he knew it. He turned to give Reno a more serious look.

"I think you could pass if you wanted to," he decided. "Especially if you lost the hair again, or were in a world like mine where people weren't so dull and gray all the time."

"But that doesn't mean you have to choose any one thing, or not right now."

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah, no reason to choose now." Reno almost flopped backward against the bed, but the startled chitter in his ear when he shifted his weight to do so made him think better of it.

"Got a whole, what? Semester and a half? Maybe the summer, too, before I gotta know what I'm doin', anyhow? I'll figure it out. We'll all figure it out. It'll get figured."

[withoutverona]

"It will. And there's no need to get it perfect at first. We have lifetimes," Romeo said, hoping he was right.

"More than we expected, isn't it?"

[raspberryturk]

"What, lifetimes?" Reno's smile was a very, very tired one, now. The weekend was hitting him in the face like the billboard he'd been thrown into yesterday. "Wasn't expectin' to make it this far, man. If we get lifetimes? I'll take 'em."