A Secluded Corner of the Beach, Sunday Evening

[raspberryturk]

There had been a handwavey dinner at one of those fancy new restaurants in town, where, naturally, Reno had excused himself to 'go to the bathroom' halfway through the meal, and had ended up paying for dinner while Rikku least expected it.

It really had been a matter of pride.

Dinner had gone well enough, at that. Nobody had turned into weird animals. Freak thunderstorms hadn't kicked up in the distance. The world hadn't ended.

Reno really couldn't complain as he laid the blanket out on the beach.

They had a sky to watch. Clouds and chill in the air and all.

[For one.]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

"I kill people for a living and make bets with Rude to see how loud I can make them go crunch," Reno pointed out, reaching for one of her hands. "You ain't me. You won't be. That's fine."

...

"Did Tseng stop you? Or did you stop you, and Tseng tellin' you not to is the easiest excuse for your changin' your mind?"

[the_merriest]

She let him take her hand, idly, twining her fingers through his. Still not looking over.

"I don't know," she said, in that same flat tone. Shrugging again. "I had the gun, I wanted him dead. He should be dead. Then Tseng jumped in front of him, because hey, you guys can die, but not the fucking President. I said he should move or I'd shoot both of them, but ... I couldn't have. The other boss, yes, but not him and Tseng. And then Tseng said we should go look for you guys, and I got so angry. He knew you had to be ... dead, he was just trying to distract me. And then he said you ... you d-deserved a ..."

Dammit. "Burial."

[raspberryturk]

"Turks don't get burials," Reno replied. It was a tired sort of reply, but he was just as intent on getting to the meat of the matter as he had been a moment before. "It bugs you, you didn't pull the trigger? Or what?"

Trying to understand. Trying to piece it together.

He hadn't exactly been there, after all.

[the_merriest]

"I know," she said. "We were going to find ... something we could ... bury. That's why we were ..."

Out there. Digging through rocks as her fingers cracked and bled.

"We killed Seymour," she said, finally. "We had to. He was a threat, he'd kidnapped Yunie, he was evil. And it still hit me pretty hard, when we did. That we'd taken a life. The finality of it. And Seymour was -- I mean, someone had to stop him. Yuna tried to get him to turn himself in and he just laughed at her. He was crazy. But it was still huge, just ... deciding to kill someone, and doing it."

There was a slight pause. "I didn't feel that. With your boss. Maybe 'cause I didn't do it. I thought ... once I was myself again, I'd be horrified that I was even going to. He wasn't killing anyone, standing right there. He wasn't holding a gun on me, and it was me or him. I just ... wanted him dead. And all I can think of is, I wish I hadn't let Tseng talk me out of it."

[raspberryturk]

He furrowed his eyebrows a little and looked down at their hands. Hers in his. His, all bloody, even if the blood wasn't there to be seen, and hers... relatively clean.

Still clean. Damn near immaculate, in comparison, really.

"Maybe it's not that your moral center is gettin' wobbly," he ventured. "Maybe it's that your sense of reality is catchin' up to it."

Not that killing Rufus was going to save lives, or anything. But at the same time... Reno could trace a good many of the planet's problems back to the younger Shinra's actions.

Control. Through fear.

[the_merriest]

Rikku shook her head. Pulled her hand away.

"I don't kill people," she said. "Not unless they deserve it. Not unless I have to. That's what it means, being a Guardian. I don't just shoot people because I don't like them. Your boss-guy is evil. But I wasn't thinking about how evil he was, right then. I just wanted him to suffer. I should ... be bothered by that. Something. I don't understand."

[raspberryturk]

Reno heaved a bit of a sigh, re-claiming his hand and looking out toward the water.

"Maybe Deadpool's right, then. Maybe all that matters is you didn't do it. Maybe you're right. Maybe you weren't gonna do it anyhow. You don't kill people. Don't just shoot 'em because you don't like 'em."

He chewed his lip for a second, and then shrugged.

"I dunno. I think if I ever watched you go up in a fireball, I'd probably take out whoever caused you the biggest trouble in your life, if they were sittin' right there, though. I mean. We already established that you're not me. But... Just sayin'."

[the_merriest]

"I wanted to," she said softly. "He ... I just thought it was his fault, you know? Because of him, you'd done terrible things, you'd had really awful stuff happen to you, and ... you were gone, and that meant he was going to hire someone else to fill your spot. And then they'd do terrible things, and get tortured, and blow themselves up. And he'd dust himself off and hire someone else. It had to stop. So ... I was gonna stop it."

[raspberryturk]

He was reaching for her hand again. Tentatively, this time. If she pulled away again, he wouldn't blame her, really.

"When somethin' like that happens, maybe you're not supposed to think straight. Maybe, if you were lookin' back on it now and you didn't do anything at all, maybe that'd be when you started to think that somethin' was the matter." Reno looked down at the blanket they were sitting on, shrugging. "I mean. It... was a lot, yeah? And knowin' him, it ain't like he was makin' a big deal of it or whatever. Could be it wasn't reality catchin' up to your morals, just your morals kinda got caught up in the reality of it, instead."

[the_merriest]

She let his hand slide along hers, pulling it back towards her, grateful for the touch. Hoping he didn't take it amiss that she'd let go, a minute ago.

"I wanted him to hurt," she said, nodding along with what he said. "He didn't seem like he did, so I was gonna hurt him. That's ... not really good-guy-ish of me. So I should be glad Tseng stopped me. It just ... feels like I wimped out, instead. Like I'm too much of a good guy, too nice, too kind. I'd just put the gun down and be sad you were dead and ... I didn't want that."

[raspberryturk]

"Plenty of stuff hurts Rufus," Reno mused. "Just not the stuff that ought to, I guess. Wouldn't surprise me." Rufus was, after all, the guy who ordered AVALANCHE to kill the Turks.

Nice guy.

"When big things happen, you wanna do somethin' about it, right? I mean... Even if there's nothin' you can do, it sorta feels like you're doin' it wrong if all you do is sit down and take it. Been through too much to take it all quiet-like." He shrugged. "That don't make you a failure for lettin' Tseng talk you down, Rikku."

A pause.

"The guy could probably talk his way outta hell the day he gets offed. But when you're dead-set on killin' someone, I don't think anyone can talk you down unless you really wanna be, somewhere in there."

[the_merriest]

"It felt like a failure," she said softly. "And it feels wrong that I wanted to. Except it doesn't. It feels wrong that I don't care that I wanted to. If he were still your boss ... if he were still handing you ugly assignments and filing his nails and whatever ... I'd ..."

She couldn't say for sure if she would, or not.

That ... kinda bugged her, too.

[raspberryturk]

"Don't think on a what-if too hard, Rikku. You won't never figure it out for sure, and then you'll spend the rest of your life kickin' yourself over a 'maybe.'"

Now Reno was going to reach for the wine he'd brought along. And two glasses. It was a wine-in-glasses kind of moment, and Rikku was getting a small glass of it before he was going to even think about taking some for himself.

"You didn't do nothin' wrong. You didn't pull the trigger, and you didn't fail to act, either. You got your point across. That's somethin', Rikku."

[the_merriest]

Rikku took a huge gulp of the wine, and curled up against him. "It was when he mentioned you," she said. "It was ... we ... I was angry, and I hated him, and I had my gun out, and Tseng said ... Tseng mentioned you. Us finding something. And that was ..."

Snuggling in. Warm and safe and he was alive. Okay. "... You were more important than ... how much I hated him, right then."

Even if she had been sure he was dead.

[raspberryturk]

Reno nodded slowly, snuggling back against her with a sigh.

"Did I ever say thanks? I mean... for comin' to get me at all? Even if you didn't know what it was you were gonna find under all that?"

If he did, he was going to say it again.

[the_merriest]

"I think I was too busy yelling," she admitted, sheepishly. "We had to go. Looking, I mean. We didn't think we'd find anything, I mean, I didn't, but ... I wanted something to ... say goodbye to."

She shook her head. "Romeo and Dojima, they were off with Elena, saving little kids who got hurt in the explosion. I should've gone, too. I just couldn't."

[raspberryturk]

"Glad you didn't."

He would probably be pretty dead by now if she hadn't.

"Gotta say, I'd rather be right here like this than..." He waved a hand slightly. "You know."

It was possible that she was starting to rub off on him a little.

[the_merriest]

That got him a playful look. And a wriggle.

"You'd rather snuggle than you-know?"

[raspberryturk]

And that earned her a smirk and a short tickle-attack to the sides.

"I'd rather you-know than a lotta things, Rikku," he retorted. "You know, it'd keep us warm out here on the beach, zoto."

... Well. It would. Exercise and all.

[the_merriest]

"You'd rather you-know than just about anything," she laughed, pulling away from tickling fingers and trying to steal a kiss. It required ninja-like sklils to attempt both at once. "You're hopeless."

[raspberryturk]

"Terrible," he agreed, allowing her to steal that kiss- see, she was totally a ninja. "You're not complainin', are you?"

[the_merriest]

"I don't think so," she mused, kissing the tip of his nose. "If I were complaining, I probably wouldn't nibble your ear."

This was a good time for ear-nibbling, wasn't it?

[raspberryturk]

"Definitely not complaining," Reno agreed, snuggling in a little more.

He felt a lot more at-ease, now. Like maybe he wasn't running in place so much.

Who would have thought that just saying words could be so helpful?

Huh.

[the_merriest]

A light kiss on his ear, and then she reached for the bottle of wine again. Her glass was empty, and she liked the tingly glow she was getting.

"Are we ... okay?" she asked. "Because we kinda weren't, I think, which is weird because we weren't fighting or anything, but ... it seems like maybe we are, now."

[raspberryturk]

"We're okay," Reno agreed, settling back and waiting for her to fill her glass before reaching for the bottle himself. "We're good. We're better'n we've been, I think."

A pause. Thoughtful.

"We gotta just talk like this more, zoto."