raspberryturk | Between... Somewhere, and the Dorms, Monday Night

Reno was going to have to file that one away to bring up again in a moment. The kid didn't like her killing monsters.

Kid had issues.

"It wouldn't never be the same if I went back, anyhow," he said, finally. "I mean. Might be somethin' like it. Rufus wants to rebuild. I don't want a part in that, and he can't rebuild without his Turks, zoto. Tseng said no, too. I dunno 'bout Rude or Elena, yet. I can't see either of 'em bein' okay with it. I dunno what I got, over there. I got you, here. I mean. I hope I do? Feels like I do."

He had her in his arms, and he was heading through the doors, and he was pretty certain that he did. But he didn't want to sound presumptuous or anything.

"You've got me," she said softly, pressing a light kiss on his cheek. She wanted to add that he had Romeo and Dojima, too, but that would sound like she was ducking what he was really asking. And she didn't want to. At all.

"He wants to rebuild? You said ... the world's kinda falling apart. Isn't that a good thing? Rebuilding? Trying to ... make it work again?"

Reno's grin was the pained sort of grin of a guy who had heard the same song too many times, and he knew that listening to it once more didn't change the fact that he still hated how the last verse went.

"Rebuild ShinRa," he said, leaning his head a little to rest against hers for a moment before he started on the stairs. He figured that was all he really had to say about that.

"Oh," Rikku said. And then after a longer pause, "Oh. Like. All the bad ... the ... like, when you had to ..."

She winced. "That's ... you can't." She shook her head. "I mean. Not 'cause of me, like, I just mean ..."

It was destroying him. Wasn't it?

"I can't," Reno agreed, nodding slightly. One flight of stairs down. Two more to go. Dammit, fourth-floor living. "We can't. The Turks can't. Tseng was the first to speak up. And... He's right. We can't. I gotta call 'em. Talk to Tseng. Figure out what's goin' on, now."

He stopped on a landing for a moment, to take a break.

"I'm bein' a chickenshit."

Rikku looked around at the landing-stop.

"Am I heavy?" she asked. "You can set me down. I don't mind."

"Yeah?" He lowered her to her feet, rubbing idly at his shoulder. "It ain't that you're heavy, yo. I'm just gettin' tired."

The fact that he'd been living off instant ramen this week, whenever it occurred to him that he ought to be feeding himself totally had nothing to do with that. Really.

He smiled a little.

"Missed you."

"Missed you," she murmured, reaching up to brush his hair out of his face. "You look tired, zoto. You're not taking care of you."

And now she had no idea if she wanted to feed him soup and wrap him in blankets instead of dragging him back to his room for sex. Weird.

"Why are you ... chicken-shit?"

"Keep pickin' up my phone and goin' to call Tseng, and I keep hangin' up. I mean, this should be easy to do. It's just a phone call. I dunno, maybe I'm worried I'm gonna talk to him, and he'll tell me Rufus cut some kinda deal, and he wants me back on Gaia now. I mean. Won't happen or nothin'. It's just too many maybes."

He was doing his best to keep up that smile. If he smiled, maybe he wouldn't look so tired. All he really accomplished was a tired smile.

Okay. So maybe he hadn't been too worried about his health, last week. Fine. Whatever.

"Oh," Rikku said, pulling her hand back uncertainly. "You could ... call and ... end up leaving, you mean. Yeah. That's."

A very good reason not to fall into bed with him, tonight.

Dammit.

She shrugged. "You should ... call. Worse not knowing, isn't it?"

He shrugged, too.

"I'd call and end up tellin' him I ain't goin' back. I'd call and it'd be... Maybe I'd leave. Wouldn't be to Gaia. Either way, it's the not knowin' that's the worst part. Tryin' to figure out if I'm gonna end up a fugitive, or if I'm just gonna end up jobless. Not much of a difference, if you squint at it."

"Not ... much of one at all," she echoed. That was. Well.

How many ways did he have to say it? No point to anything if he didn't have his job, right? He kept saying she was first, but she wasn't the thing he couldn't live without. Okay, then.

She leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Let me know. How it goes."

Keep her in the loop, or whatever. That'd be nice. She was ... gonna ... go now. Okay. Going.

He reached forward, then, grabbing her by her arms and shaking his head and trying to pull her close again.

"No. I mean... Either way, I'd be free of 'em. Free of all of ShinRa's shit. I don't mind bein' on the run. Did it before. I'm damn good at it. And Romeo was right- there are other worlds, there might not be other Turks, but that don't mean I don't have... options?"

Options. That word.

He wasn't holding her very tightly. If she wanted to try to go, she could. Just. He had to keep her here. Say that much.

"Don't mean I don't still have the rest of my life. I just gotta find a startin' point."

She wasn't pulling away. She wasn't turning around yet, either.

"You can't live like that," she said softly. "Even if you could, you wouldn't want to. You keep saying, you're ... nobody if you're not a Turk. You can't just give up all of that and pretend it doesn't matter. Not 'cause you think it'd ... make everything work."

"If I run away, I'd just be a Turk on the run." He swallowed, shook his head, let go of her arms. "Once a Turk, always a Turk. I don't gotta be a Turk for ShinRa. I can run and keep my pride with me. They'd stop followin' quick enough, anyhow. They don't wanna hunt me any more'n I'd wanna hunt them."

He was pretty sure. He hoped.

"Wouldn't just be doin' it to make things work. Would be doin' it to keep things from workin', too. Rufus doesn't get my help this time. Lessee how he does on his own, zoto."

She hugged her arms around herself. "Wouldn't you miss it? It's your home. Everything you ever ... you know? Knew. And your friends. You could ... help people. Except maybe you don't wanna. Spira, we ... we need to rebuild, too, and for a long time, I thought I didn't want to go back to that. It was all dead and dying and I just didn't want to be there for it, you know? I'm not so sure any more."

She made a frustrated noise. "But you said no one's hiring Turks, and if you're on the run, that kinda ... doesn't work anyway."

"Everything I ever knew was Midgar, Rikku. Top, bottom, it don't matter, there's nothin' there that's like it was before. I... could help. I wanna help. It's just too much, and I dunno where to start, even if I can make a clean break from ShinRa. Could run off with the WRO, I guess. But even that's kinda..."

Hey. His toes were fascinating right now.

"Could help with Spira, maybe. I mean, you want technology, I know technology, that kinda thing. Just, I dunno if you want it if it means your world turns into mine."

"You don't ... have to help," she said carefully, turning around. "I mean. That was why I left. Too much, and I didn't feel like helping, and I wanted to be somewhere where 'Al Bhed' didn't mean people treated me badly. We ..."

She lifted a shoulder. "Technology wouldn't turn my world into yours. Would it? I mean. This world has technology, and it's still alive. Yours has it, and it's dead, but mine's just as dead and it's never had any. Right?"

"Right..." He sighed and lifted a shoulder and turned to head up the stairs again. Walk and talk. They didn't have to have this conversation in the stairwell of the dorms, did they? "Everything I know how to pick apart runs on mako. And that won't do anyone any good on Gaia, either. So there's gotta be... other stuff. This world has things like solar and oil and wind power. Stuff like that. Works for them fine, right?"

"We don't have mako," she shared, following him up the stairs. "And we've got some technology. It's not the power sources that get us, zoto. It's how to make things run that use them. We just don't know what there is to build and how to build it. That's why I send so many diagrams home. Charts and ... you know. Blueprints."

"What we really gotta do, then," Reno mused, finally stepping onto the fourth floor, "is take your power sources, and put 'em to our tech, and see if we can make that work for both worlds, yo. Gaia's biggest problem since losin' the mako is that it can't make anything run. And you got... nothin' to run? We just trade off, then. Make it work for both worlds."

It seemed simple enough in his head, anyhow.

"That ... sounds like it could work," she said, giving him a curious glance. "Which means we're totally missing something important, here, because nothing's ever that easy. Especially not once we've got the two of us involved, right?"

Exhibit A: their entire relationship.

"Somethin' like that." Reno was almost smiling again. It was still a tired smile. But it wasn't forced, this time. "I still gotta call Tseng. Who knows, maybe I can strike up some kinda deal, myself. I don't gotta go back to ShinRa, instead I get to help save the world."

And then he was laughing. It wasn't a strong laugh or a loud laugh. It wasn't much more than a chuckle, really. But it was a laugh.

"Maybe this way, it doesn't gotta suck."

"I doubt he'd want you ... bringing ShinRa technology for all the Al Bhed to borrow," she frowned. "You never know. You should call him. Does he want to save the world? Maybe he'd go for it."

They were almost at his room.

"Weren't we supposed to be ... uh."

You know. Bad idea sex? Something?

"In the hallway? We could. Wanna head back to that landing we were standin' in?" Reno smirked faintly and pulled out his room key, stepping up to his door. "Tell you what. We get into my room, and if we keep talkin', we keep talkin', and if we tackle one another and screw like chocobo in heat, then we tackle one another and screw like chocobo in heat, zoto. Win either way."

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