raspberryturk | Room 308, Monday Afternoon

Cool head. Turk was a mindset. The mindset was cool head. Reno was making a point to stay in that mindset now, because if he didn't, he was going to just... fail.

"No. It's no excuse." Cool head. "Didn't mean it to come off like it did. Wanted to see Tokyo. Wanted to show you somethin' that was as close to Midgar as we were ever gonna get. And I sucked at it, and I flew off at the mouth wrong. And there's no freakin' excuse. I'm sorry, zoto."

She waved it off. "Doesn't matter," she said. "We saw Tokyo. It was good. You quit your job. 'Sgood. You'll be miserable in three weeks and go back to it. That's good, too. Dunno why I had to come here to talk about it. Stupid."

"I don't even expect you to give me that much credit," Reno muttered, directing a scowl toward the floor. "Ain't like I earned it, here. Just figured I would tell you that I wanted to sort things out before lettin' the rest of it come back. 'Cause... I don't usually sort. I run. And this time I tried it, and now I know why I don't try to fix things. Seems like I suck at it."

"What's there to sort?" she asked. "You quit your job. Just so I'd go, 'hey, he quit his job, everything's great now'? You know it's not gonna be that easy. You know it's not gonna work like that. And --"

She rolled her eyes. "And I don't believe you're going to stay away. I tried to stop being who I was, for someone. It doesn't work. You'll just resent me and go back to it sooner or later."

"Didn't quit for you. Quit for me. Quit for ... Gaia and ... justice. I don't fucking know. I quit 'cause I just can't do his dirty work no more, and I went to tell you 'cause it was a problem anyhow and you deserve to know. And now you know. I quit." He pursed his lips and chewed on his cheek for another moment before speaking again. "Wasn't Rufus who made me what I am, anyhow."

"But you're still doing work for them."

She was still leaning back against his door, arms folded, watching him like this was an interrogation. Maybe it was.

"You said that. Tseng's gonna hand you some stuff, to do. So you'll be doing the same damn thing, under the table, and you'll pretend it's different. It's not."

Reno certainly felt like it was an interrogation.

"Tseng isn't Rufus. I trust Tseng. And I can say no to the work." He almost smiled, then. Almost. It wouldn't have been an entirely sane smile, if he had. "Figure that out, huh? Me, sayin' no? Like maybe I should be used to gettin' the option? Like, yo, Reno, you wanna go blow up some ... I dunno. Some orphanage or some baby ducks or a bubblegum factory? And I can just go, gee, I'd love to, but I got this personal rule against blowin' up bubblegum factories. Maybe next time, zoto."

"And then Tseng says, do it or I shoot your girlfriend," Rikku said coldly. "And you say, yes sir, you bet, sir, and he says, by the way, the President says hi."

Reno pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

"Tseng quit, too, Rikku. And Rude. And Elena."

She narrowed her eyes, watching him as if she expected there to be more coming.

When there wasn't, she asked, "Why?"

"They can't do it anymore, either. We don't owe Rufus anything. We were tired of all the shit when it was his old man runnin' the world, yo."

He shrugged.

"Rufus probably sees it like some kinda mutiny. That's exactly what it is. We walked out. He wants to rebuild his company, he's on his own."

"Then ..." The wheels were spinning, but slowly. "No. Because ... he didn't let me shoot him. The President. He's still ... loyal to him. He wouldn't just leave. It's a trick."

"He didn't let you shoot him 'cause it was his job to protect him. S'what made him a Turk, Rikku. You do the job. It ain't his job anymore." Reno shrugged, like this logic was the most natural thing in the world.

He'd been living by it for years.

"Turks are loyal to Turks first, Rikku. Even Tseng's said 'no' before."

"What makes you think he's going to be any different?" Rikku looked away. Hey, a wall. It was a nice wall. "I know, he said 'no' once or twice. I also know what he said 'yes' to."

Like, say, handing Reno orders to destroy a whole town.

"You know what. You don't know the why." Reno furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the other wall. He didn't want to get into the technicalities behind the whole mess with the plate. Put up the 'Turk mode' front tenfold so he'd be able to talk about it with a straight face.

Still didn't want to go there.

"Tseng wouldn't give us orders to do anything he wouldn't have done himself if he had a choice. There was a lot of shit goin' on, then. He had things to do too, zoto. Was a mess."

Stone face. Cool head.

"No excuse," she said softly, her eyes dropping to the floor. "There was no excuse for that. You can't tell me he had a good reason. He didn't. You know he didn't."

And neither had he.

"No excuse," Reno agreed. "No excuse for doin' what we did. Just, he had a reason for passin' it off on me. Wasn't like he was makin' some big attempt at savin' his guilty conscience or whatever. No excuse for the rest of it. Never will be."

Even Turk Mode was failing Reno, here.

He licked his lips. And he kept his eyes on the wall. And he wondered if maybe his chest was supposed to hurt like that. Tight and hollow and trying to jump up into his throat.

She was going to squeeze her eyes shut and try to think of something else. Something that wasn't the plate or Home or Yevon or his Turks. Something. Anything.

"So why are you telling me this?" she said, finally.

"You deserve to know." Reno looked at the ceiling, next. The wall was losing its charm. "Make whatever you wanna make out of it, I guess. Just thought maybe I'd tell you, 'cause you don't come last. No matter how much I suck at showin' you that."

Ceilings. Fascinating. This one was kind of tobacco-stained. Maybe he'd get up there and... scrub it sometime. Or something.

She lifted a shoulder. "I asked last night," she said. "I asked if you wanted to try. You didn't. I'm not going to ask again."

"Don't ask again." He shrugged. "I'm not gonna make you chase me down. I was drunk last night, comin' down off a job. You asked if I wanted to maybe go somewhere and pin you to a wall and screw you. That... maybe ain't the same as tryin'. I wanna try. If you're done..."

He swallowed and shrugged again. "Maybe I heard you wrong. Maybe you heard me wrong. Sure seemed like we were talkin' about sex to me."

Edited 2008-10-20 23:31 (UTC)

"I asked ... if we could stop being weird," she said softly. "If we could stop fighting and go somewhere and kiss and talk and have sex up against a wall and snuggle and ... all of it."

She took a steadying breath, and her voice had a harder edge to it, this time. "I'm not ... some kind of ... you know, you act like, how dare I talk about sex. How dare I go, can we stop fighting and kiss and find each other again. Right. I'm some kind of tramp, and I offended you."

Reno was making a mental note, now.

Don't ever talk to anyone about anything ever again. Talking was bad news.

Okay. Noted.

"I'm sorry," he said again. And he shook his head. And he breathed. "I just wanted to talk. Talked wrong."

Rikku was going to close her eyes and lean against the door. And count to a number.

Ten. Ten was a good number.

And then she was going to start somewhere.

"I'm not a bad person for wanting to sleep with you."

Okay. That was definitely somewhere.

Edited 2008-10-20 23:43 (UTC)

Never. Never talking again.

"No. You're not. Never said you were."

Just speaking. That was completely different.

Reno's gaze had moved from the ceiling to the wall again. Wall. Hey.

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