raspberryturk | A Secluded Corner of the Beach, Sunday Evening

"Mourn in--?" Reno narrowed his eyes a little as he picked that phrase apart. "I'm not-- It's."

Huh. Okay. He was going to have to take a moment. And put together words. Ones that made more sense than "I'm not it's."

Righto then.

"If I'm pullin' away, Rikku, it ain't just from you. It's just, lately things are weird. Off. I'm off. When things go weird, I mean, like this. Like not bein' able to fall back on just... buryin' myself in the work. Or the dirt. Or whatever I can dig up under my fingernails."

He looked back up at the sky. One hell of a sky, wasn't it? Even with the clouds like that.

"Am I makin' you feel like you... should be lettin' go?"

Rikku closed her eyes, listening to all of that. Trying to find a real answer. Because 'no, seriously, everything's fine' was just as bad coming from her as it was from him, right?

Okay.

"You're ... making me think that any minute now, you're gonna ... stand up, and brush your pants off, and go, 'okay, the hell with it.' And pack a bag and kiss me good-bye and catch the next chopper to Gaia. Because ... being without the Turks is killing you, and there has to be something back there that's gonna be close enough." Inhale. Exhale. Getting words out: good. "I wouldn't blame you. You're not ... you lately. You're not happy lately. If you'd be happy there, then go. Please. Just that ... maybe I'm trying not to hold on too tight so it's not gonna hurt so much when you do."

"When I do," Reno echoed, a bare murmur as he shut his eyes and gave his head a shake. "There won't be no 'when I do,' Rikku. This is... It's just a lot, yeah? Nothin' that goin' back there is ever gonna fix. It ain't so easy as all that, yoto. I can't just walk away from everything here and go back to nothin'. It'd be... empty."

"You've seemed pretty empty here, too," she said gently. "I'm ... sorry that you've lost them. I am. I mean, you know I kinda never liked your job, but ... I know what it was to you."

"I just ..." Sky. Sea. Beach. Breathing. "If you could get it back, even if it meant losing you, I'd throw your ass onto the next chopper."

"If you did that," Reno replied, turning again to face her, "I think I'd end up losin' me, too."

Dammit, she was wibbling now, and had to lean over, had to steal a kiss and bury her face against the side of his neck and breathe. Breathing. See. Breathing was good. Yes?

"I want to help," she said, softly. "I just don't know if I can. Or what I should do. Do you know? If I can? Because I ..."

It was cold out. Getting colder. And. There she was, and they were both working on that breathing thing. And that meant that he was going to have to shrug out of his jacket, and drape it over her shoulders, and then pull her close. And maybe never let go.

"You are. This. Right now. You are." He took another breath, and turned enough so that he could bury his face in her hair. Kissed the top of her head. "Some of it's... I mean, you don't wanna hear it. It's dirty. I said you didn't have to be okay with it, and I meant that. This here. This is... Us. This is good. Just, on the side of us, I think I gotta find somethin' to make myself useful with, is all."

Something that, preferably, didn't consist mostly of drinking and torturing Smoochy the adorable television rhino.

"I love you," she said softly. Because she needed to say it. They only seemed to say it when it mattered, didn't they?

She pulled his coat closer around her and tried to think. "You need ... something to do. No, that sounds like stupid busy work, and that's not what I mean. Something meaningful to do. Are you still doing research, like on power sources and things like that? Could you tinker with droids and ... that's ... kinda not your thing either, huh?"

"Kinda... I dunno. That thing we were talkin' before- that science project of yours. That seemed kinda like somethin' I could get into. I mean, even if it's just us bouncin' ideas like that around, that was somethin'. I wasn't just bein'... I dunno. A lump of Reno."

He didn't do so well when he was just a lump of Reno. He needed Things To Do in the Here and in the Now.

"I whined to Rude once," he noted. "Turk work wasn't this enough, wasn't that enough. Sittin' and waitin' all the time was... boring. I should'a joined SOLDIER. That," he continued, "was me bitchin' for the sake of bitchin'. I wouldn't have traded it in. It was dirty work, yeah, but nobody else was gonna do it. That's what I need to start lookin' for. Somethin' that there ain't nobody else around here wants to do. Somethin' that's gotta get done, anyhow."

There was a pause, then, and he squeezed her tighter in his arms and breathed her in again.

"I love you, too. You know that? I wasn't just sayin' it, when I said you were a reason to wake up in the mornin'."

"Did you want to work on that, with me?" Rikku asked, sitting up to look at him quizzically. "The defense system? I mean ... it's not beating people up or anything interesting like that. I figured it was just me being stupid and tech-y. If you want to, I'm sure Tyler wouldn't mind, and I could use some help trying to get it all together, you know? I have ideas but ... I'm not sure how it goes together."

She bit her lip. "Dirty work that needs to be done. There probably is a lot of that around here, if you know where to look. There's certainly enough back home. Fiends everywhere, and someone has to kill them, you know?"

"You're piecin' together a security system for a whole island, you're gonna need someone who made a livin' on beatin' the system," Reno pointed out. "Putting 'em together can't be much different from takin' them apart, zoto."

He shrugged his shoulders a bit.

"Even that. I could handle that. Make a run to Spira now and again, you know? Plenty of fiends out there, like you said. And it'd be... doin' some good. The WRO has most of the monsters handled around Edge, so they don't really need a guy like me runnin' around beatin' on boundfats and giant freakin' maggots outta the blue."

"You'd know where the best gaps are," she said, nodding. "The ways people are going to attack it, first. I don't, really. I know how to set up patrol droids, but not what the system's got to try to get around, you know? I'm not sure how to make it failsafe. I don't want people getting hurt from what's supposed to be a defense system. That's why I'm not sure if there should be weapons at all, at least not in the first round."

She was thinking, now. "If not Edge, are there other places? I doubt your whole world's safe. Not after the things we saw happen. You could take weekend trips to other spots, clear out some monsters. Maybe ... maybe Tseng's not passing on those jobs because they're not what you used to do."

"You figure he's gettin' those jobs in the first place?" Reno mused on that for a moment, and then shrugged. "Maybe I'll give him a call sometime soon. See if there is somethin' goin' on, anywhere on Gaia, that I can stick my nose in."

There was a somewhat chagrined pause, at that. "We don't got the choppers anymore. Those were ShinRa's. So if I do end up goin' back to Gaia for odd jobs, I'm gonna have to ride birdback."

Reno was so not an equestrian. Avianestrian? Chocobo-rider. That.

"For the time being, maybe I'm gonna have to settle for helpin' poke through your schematics for an early warnin' system, at least. It doesn't have to be offensive, no, just so long as it watches the entry points and gauges threats well, zoto."

"No idea," she admitted. "Maybe he's just getting things in place, hasn't started taking jobs yet. I don't know. You should call and pester him."

Maybe Tseng was the type to need someone to light a fire under him, to get things off the ground. And a bored Reno was certainly useful for that.

"Chocobos make good time," she shrugged. "Although not really compared to an airship, or a chopper, or anything. But way better than walking, especially in Mi'ihen."

She considered for a few seconds. "... What you said, earlier. About how ... some of it's dirty? The stuff that ... I'm not okay with."

Edited 2008-11-17 07:54 (UTC)

Reno could imagine already how well a pestering sort of call to Tseng would go. Probably something like, 'Tseng! Tseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeng! I'm bored.'

It would be a thing of beauty.

"That stuff," Reno agreed, his expression shifting to an uneasy sort of frown. "I mean. I know you don't wanna hear it."

"I don't ... like it," she said, carefully. "I mean, that you ... did those things? But if you need to talk ... about anything, I'm here. Yeah? It shouldn't be ... where I'm only okay with you talking about stuff that's pretty, and safe."

"I don't wanna just toss the stuff that ain't safe at you, either," Reno pointed out. "I mean. Just knowin' it, sure, that's safe. But it's not clean. It's blood on my hands and some of it I even miss. I don't go out lookin' for it, but if it came my way, like it did on Doji's hunt back in Japan... I'd be on it. I do it good. But I don't wanna just chuck it at you, either. I mean. It bugs you, right?"

Rikku was chewing on her lower lip. Trying her damnedest not to wave things off, pretend it was all a-okay. No, seriously, it's all fine, really.

"You miss it?" she asked. "You mean ... getting to be useful, or ..."

She was just going to let that one hang.

"What I do out there, I do well," Reno replied. Part of him was thankful that they were actually talking this out. The rest of him was screaming in the back of his head, abandon ship! Abort! Abort!

He ignored that part.

"Chasin' down that Amano guy for Doji, that was child's play. Got thrown around a little, but that's because I let my guard down. Gettin' rusty."

That sort of thing happened when your most recent opponents have been bladed discs and overpasses.

"I ..." Still worrying her lower lip between her teeth. "In Gaia. When we fought that Bahamut of yours? I thought ... I thought about how much I missed that. Slashing, punching, dodging, knowing when to pull back, it's ... it's almost like a game you're focused in on, yeah? I ... I like being good at that. I felt crazy-awesome when he went down. Even if most of it was that Cloud-guy. It wasn't all him, you know?"

Slight pause. "Is that what you mean?"

Reno tilted his head a little, chewing on what she was saying. And then he gave her another little squeeze.

"That. That's what I mean," he agreed. "It's not just about... gettin' out and... you know. Hurtin' people. It's the challenges. It's when I get out there and I remember that I'm damn good at doin' what needs to get done. The stuff other people don't wanna dig their hands in, because it's too dangerous or too monotonous or too menial for 'em. And then I get out there, and I tear hell all over it, and there ain't nothin' monotonous or whatever about it. That's what I miss. That part, that satisfies me."

"I think that's ... why I liked being a Guardian," she said. "Because some people can't fight back against the fiends. But it's not just, hey, I'm a good guy, I protect people, it's ... I'm good at it. We got Yunie to Zanarkand alive. She was only the fifth Summoner in a thousand years. And most of them didn't get kidnapped by Maesters or put on trial or half the stuff we went through, and we still managed it. Okay, Yunalesca almost took us out, but she didn't. You know?"

Messy exhale. "I can't believe I was going to give it all up. I worry about that, you know. You, giving it all up for me, and then ... not being you any more. It's too easy to do."

"I take it you know how easy it is from experience, huh?" Reno frowned a little.

Ah yes. Jude. The tree-hugger who didn't like Rikku killing monsters.

"You know, I'm not really... givin' it all up. I'm just workin' on ways to get somethin' back, and up to my knees in a whole lotta nothin' like it in the meantime. You're, like... this whole different level, zoto."

"Unfortunately," she said, trying to shrug it off. "I made him armor, and a non-lethal weapon, so that when we went home, we could take out some fiends. Supply run. But he kinda ... wasn't okay with it."

He grew up in Toronto. It had to be weird, adjusting.

"You're giving up some of it." She was fidgeting again. "I mean. You said you'd ask me, first, what jobs I was okay with you taking. So you might give up some of the uglier ones. And ... maybe that's not ... fair to ask."

She shot him a curious glance. "What do you mean, levels?"

Reno stared at Rikku somewhat incredulously.

"Okay. He sounds like the kinda guy who'd throw his girly little arms in the air and shriek like a toddler with a squirrel in his pants before he'd ever make a move to protect himself if he was attacked by a monster. Uh."

Reno knew nothing about this Toronto place, but he was pretty sure that even weird Canadian cities had their rough neighborhoods. And possibly moose. He'd heard something about Canada having moose.

"There's a difference between ugly and important, Rikku. If I don't take the ugly ones, Rude or Elena will. Elena's not really a rookie no more, zoto. She's earned her stripes." He shrugged. "Just so long as I ain't stuck at the 'helpin' old ladies cross the road' point, I'm good."

He was watching the sky pretty intently, now. There were stars up there, once the clouds drifted past. "Levels. I mean. Like you gave things numbers, you know? You said Turks came first, and you came second, and... That ain't the case. I mean, I'm kinda at a loss without the Turks, but if it was just them... I'd be runnin' in place, yoto. I moved forward, since I got here. Since I met you."

Edited 2008-11-18 06:29 (UTC)

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