raspberryturk | A Secluded Corner of the Beach, Sunday Evening

He frowned and glanced sidelong at Rikku, then, shaking his head.

"Nobody's got me trapped here, Rikku. I'm still here on Fandom 'cause I wanna be here on Fandom, zoto." And there he went, chewing his lip again. "If they had things they needed me to do on Gaia, Tseng would'a called by now. I'm thinkin' it's a bunch of the same old new nothing. And anyhow, I have a life here. I just dunno what to do with it, now that it's not all... covert-ops this and reports that."

"You have a life," she repeated. "There's more to it than covert-ops this and reports that. Isn't there? Or is that really all you have? You've been spinning your wheels for a month now, because of this, and nothing else seems to get through to you. Maybe this life isn't what you need. Maybe here isn't where you want to be. You're just hanging out until you can figure out where to go next."

"I got you," Reno replied evenly. "I got you, and we got the posse, and here's where I belong, for now. I got... I dunno. Money down on that graduation. An' stuff like that. But it's only another semester. Maybe I stay through the summer, too. And after that, what am I supposed to do with the education? Read poetry to small children or somethin'?"

Maybe it was a matter of figuring out where to go next. But.

"I ain't exactly in a hurry to just run off and leave you behind, Rikku."

"Aren't you?" she asked. Deep breaths. In, out again. "You lost your job, and it's like you lost you. You're a shell lately. I'd rather you be there, and yourself again, then ... keep you here just because you think it's where you're supposed to be. Because you're obligated or because ... I don't even know any more."

Pause. "If you want to read poetry to kids, then ... do it, and have a great time. But if you don't, then ... don't. I don't know what you want, and I don't know if you know, either."

"There isn't even home anymore, Rikku." Reno was rolling over a little now. Sitting up and frowning. "Home was Midgar. And the Turks aren't Turks, so that isn't an issue, either. The only direction I can go in is forward. There ain't no backsteppin'. And... Anyhow... This place kinda... grows on you."

He shrugged. The sky wasn't as interesting, suddenly, as his knees and ankles were.

"You grew on me. I... told Tseng once, you were my reason to breathe. Never had one of them before. And... Shit, Rikku, you still are. Just, nothin' beyond that point makes any sense, anymore."

"So ... you're gonna be happy here because it's not like you have anywhere else to be?" She sat up, staring at her feet, and sighed. "Tseng told me that, too. I told him ... that I didn't think it was true. That you needed him and the rest of the Turks more than ... you know."

This seemed like a good place for an awkward shrug. "I mean, look at how lost you've been, without them."

"I'm gonna keep goin', no matter where I'm at. Bein' lost without them..." And damn, was that ever weird to say... "That's nothin' to be surprised about, is it? They're my family, too."

He curled his toes a little, inside his shoes. Reminded himself that now was a bad time to make a reach for that bottle of wine he'd brought along.

"It ain't the end of the world. It's just... A startin' point I've never been at before. Things are different. They're gonna be. That don't mean stayin' here ain't worth it. Just means... I dunno. Means I gotta get my shit together, because graduation comes quick."

"It isn't," she said. "They're your family. You still have them. You can call them. If something happened to you, Rude would break a few of the laws of time and space to get here."

The water was interesting to watch, as it crashed along the edge of the sand.

"So why have you been avoiding me?"

Not physically. They saw each other plenty. And when they did, he was ... not there at all.

The attention he'd been paying to his feet was now directed entirely at Rikku, and he stared at her, confused. Frowning.

"I haven't been avoiding you, Rikku. I mean, we're right here, aren't we?"

"Yeah," Rikku said, bitterly. It was directed at her shoes. "We're right here. And you're miserable and you wish you could be anywhere else. Lather, rinse, repeat. You're fine. I'm fine. We're fine. Except for how much you're not, and I'm not, and we're not. So you pull away and I don't know if I should just let you go or if I'm wasting my time hanging on. Maybe you want to mourn in peace."

"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."

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