raspberryturk | Room 308, Monday Afternoon

"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.

Okay, this was a definite start. Because. One ex who thought she was kinda trampy whenever she made a move was enough.

Please, don't let Reno be an ex.

Counting to ten again. There. Now. Something else.

"I miss you. Us. Like ... like having the room together, after the fight."

The bit where she fell asleep wrapped in his arms.

"Yeah," Reno agreed, trying not to sound as numb as he felt. "I miss that, too."

Maybe he would wander over to that wall. And lean against it. Because he was kinda just standing there like a lump.

"That was ... all I wanted," she said. Carefully. "Okay. Uh. Maybe some bad-idea-sex, except ... kissing you and forgetting everything else and seeing if maybe we're just talking too damn much and maybe if we ... kissed and went back to your room, maybe we'd ... remember which way was up, again."

She had an awkward shrug to go with it, and wondered if he was mad. He was ... all quiet. Dammit.

"First time in my life I ever say that havin' sex is a bad idea, and you decide that I went and pegged you as some kinda two-gil slut."

Reno nodded slowly, pursed his lips, and then shook his head. There were supposed to be more words with that. It took him some digging to find them again.

"And findin' up was what I wanted to talk about."

Someone was going to have to remind him in the future why he wasn't supposed to talk again.

"Said it a week ago, too," she said, shrugging. "Forget it. That's ... too much of ... someone else. I pounce, he acts like I'm trying to molest him. Which sucks, I have to say."

Well. It did.

"So ... where is up?, then?"

"Up's not here," Reno answered, simply. And then shook his head again. "Up's real, real damn far from here. This, I'm gonna say, is somewhere around rock bottom, zoto."

Reno had been to rock bottom before. It wasn't like he was unfamiliar with it, at least.

"At least ... it can't get any lower?" she asked, hesitantly.

Dammit. Promised herself she wouldn't. Wasn't going to.

And yet she found herself reaching one hand out, to see if she could take his fingers in hers.

"Yeah," Reno agreed, looking down at her hand. He didn't resist. Didn't try to stop her. Couldn't quite bring himself to close his hand around hers, though, either. "Right. Can't get any lower."

He had figured he would be happier, when they reached this point in the conversation.

Hadn't counted on being so numb.

"No. It can. Lower's what happens when you hit the rock and then grab for a chisel."

He looked down at her hand like it was an alien. He didn't take her fingers.

That had been pretty stupid. Like she couldn't figure out the pattern by now. She'd said it herself. She reached out, and he pushed her away.

She pulled her hand back as if it was on fire. "Right," she said dully. "A chisel. Lemme know how that works for you."

He flinched. And nodded. And then tried to set his jaw and look at her straight.

Couldn't focus. Damn tears.

"Just, I don't feel up to digging."

He reached for her hand.

She stared at his hand, and stared at him, cheeks flushed.

"I don't even know what that means," she said. "I'm not ... doing this. This stupid game of -- I kiss you, and you say no, but then you kiss me, and it's fine. I take your hand and it's wrong, but you'll take mine. Last night we couldn't talk, but now we can. What is this?"

"I was drunk last night," he said, simply. And then let go of her hand again and pretended to be very interested in a piece of lint that wasn't really on her shoulder. "I'm not, now. I still dunno where we're at right now. Just, if we're at the bottom, I don't feel like tryin' to see if we really can get any lower."

His eyes dropped to the floor again.

"Should'a just kissed you and pretended everything was fine, I guess."

"I don't, either," she said. "And no, you shouldn't have. But does everything have to be a war? You're keeping me at arm's-length and I don't even know why. Because you're scared? I mean, I'm terrified. Because you're confused? I sure as hell don't know what's going on. Talk to me."

Or else she could strangle him. One of the two.

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