raspberryturk | Room 308, Thursday Evening

"Leave ... you guessing!?" Rikku was going to finally look up at him. "Do I need time!? Reno, you left. You remember that? Not me. You couldn't be here any longer, you needed air. So I gave you air. I haven't called, I haven't stopped in, I haven't so much as bothered you. I'm not the one that needed time. And now you're acting like I'm the one that's been avoiding you?"

The faintest of smiles graced Reno's lips for a moment, and then was gone just as soon as it had appeared.

"You were mumblin' at the floor again. Usually, that means you're makin' a wall of yourself, is all. Wasn't sayin' a word about us not seein' one another the past few days. I know that one's on my head, zoto." He crossed his arms over his chest- which was probably mostly so that he could attempt to stick his hands into his armpits to keep them warm- and tilted his head. "You up for talkin', Rikku? Somethin' somewhere in between mumblin' and yellin'? Gets us farther, zoto."

Rikku considered that one for a few seconds.

"Depends," she said finally. "Did you mean what you said, a second ago? You don't think it's impossible, you want to work it out, and all that? 'Cause if you came here to do the, 'it's not going to work, but hey, it's been great while it lasted' thing, then just get that over with so I can get back to freezing, here."

"If I was goin' to say good-bye, Rikku, I would'a said that on Monday, yoto."

Back around the point where they were screaming at one another.

"I came here to patch things up. And, shit, I might suck ass at doin' it, but I'm here tryin'." Freezing. And trying. "Yeah. I mean it when I say I don't think it's impossible. I'm startin' to get real skeptical that there's even such a thing as impossible, since comin' to this place, yo."

Which really went to show how easy it was to turn a hardened Turk into a big mooshy poof, when you got right down to it.

Rikku shrugged. "I dunno. I don't understand guys. Maybe you were taking some air to see if you thought we could work it out, and hey, you don't, so here we are. I'm not even sure ... why you needed air, except ..."

Except 'hey, I can't be near you right now,' which he had said it wasn't.

Another sip of lukewarm cocoa. "I ... don't know where we go from here. Or what you want from me. Or where we should end up. Or anything. And the more I hear about your job, the more I hate it. What else is there?"

"That's the worst of it," Reno said, his hands making their ways back to his pockets again. Stupid winter. "Still allowed to hate it. Nobody's gonna blame you if you do."

Deep breath.

"I don't want anything from you you don't wanna give. I don't want approval for the stupid shit I did in my life. I don't want you to have to pretend that the bad stuff ain't bad. I want you to want what you want, and maybe if I know what you want, we can... figure it out from there."

A pause. And then his eyes dropped to the floor.

"I meant it, when I had to go, when I said it was me, yoto. It wasn't I was tryin' to get away from you, or anything like that. It was... There were words. Sometimes, they get too heavy, is all."

"I do hate it," she said, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "A lot. I hate that it changes how I think of you. I hate that ... that you're all decent people, you and Tseng and Rude. People who do things like that should be ... awful and horrible and not, you know. People who could do nice and wonderful things, but instead do terrible ones, from time to time. That's not fair."

She set the mug down on her desk, which earned her a mrowl of protest from Petey. He'd been sleeping. She wasn't allowed to move while he slept.

"It'd be easier if the whole world was sittin' there in black and white, huh?" He offered her a wry smile before attempting the hands-in-armpits thing again.

He should have bought gloves.

"If it was, we wouldn't even be havin' this conversation, zoto."

"Well, it would," she insisted. She sounded like a little kid. She didn't care. "Sometimes, I just want to shake you. You're better than that. But you did those things anyway, because they were there, and who cares, and it was easier than not doing them. That's no excuse. You know that."

Edited 2009-01-23 07:03 (UTC)

"Yeah, Rikku. I know that. There won't be an excuse. Not for that, not ever, yo. The best I got is that it ain't gonna happen again. Not from me, zoto."

Hot chocolate. He should have grabbed hot chocolate.

With Kahlua in it.

"I'm standin' here right now because I wanna fix what can be fixed, yo. Are we done with the personality evaluation, yet?"

She shrugged again. "Sure," she said flatly. "We'll skip your astrological sign and lucky numbers. How do we fix this? I'm not even sure what we need to fix. Other than, it's all messed up again, and this time, we've got three or four months until it all explodes."

Edited 2009-01-23 07:43 (UTC)

"Maybe we start by fixin' us, before we even worry about what comes after grad," Reno noted, and his hands were now cupping over his mouth again so that he could attempt to heat them with his breath again.

Which wasn't working.

"You mind if maybe... I sit down or somethin'? It's kinda cold just standin' here."

Rikku frowned at that, as if she was somewhat confused by the request.

"You can sit down," she said. "You can always ... sit down. I ... thought maybe you didn't want to."

She grimaced, pulling the blankets around tighter. "It's cold everywhere. I can't stand it. It's driving me nuts."

Petey mrowled again. He didn't like it, either. Stupid cold.

"Hard to tell sometimes, if I'm welcome or not. We kinda went from talkin' to the floor to talkin' 'bout the Turks..." Reno shrugged and glanced around the room, wondering where exactly it would be okay for him to sit, now. He was going to opt for the same bed she was sitting on. Just, maybe a little off to the side, so he could shanghai the cat if his hands got too cold, anyhow.

Yeah. That would do.

"I think... Maybe I'm afraid I managed to break somethin', and that's why I didn't just walk on in and make myself at home."

Petey got up slooooowly, stretching himself out in a sleepy sort of way, and flumped over to Reno's lap. Heyyyy. Reno. Reno was warm. Reno should pet him. Peeeeeeet him?

Rikku wrapped the blankets around herself a little closer. "You ... left," she said, awkwardly. "So you came back, but you were standing there like you weren't sure if you were gonna stay put, or not. I didn't want to ... ask you to stay if you were ... just gonna ... you know. Brush it off and leave again."

Heyyyy. Petey. Petey was warm. Reno was gonna pet him. Pet the kitty.

"I wasn't..." Great. "I didn't mean to brush anything off, Rikku. That ain't why I got up and left. I couldn't breathe, and spent the last two days convincin' myself that I wasn't gonna smear invisible blood all over your walls just by showin' up in your room."

"Your blood can't get me dirty," Rikku said. She lifted her shoulders again. "I've told you that. It's ... it stays with you. Not me. I'm not ... worried that it could."

Inhale. Exhale.

"I know you weren't -- that you didn't mean to -- that it wasn't, hey, great, gotta go. I just meant that ... it was hard. Reaching out and having you leave. So I couldn't just ..."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be what you needed me to be, right then," Reno replied, eyes trained on the cat. Good kitty. "It wasn't for lack of tryin'. But if me havin' to go right then means you think I can't be what you need... I mean, I understand. Whatever you gotta do right now, I understand, zoto."

She had been reaching, and the best he could do was run away and freak out somewhere else. Way to be all that you can be, Reno.

"Do you think there's life after grad?"

"I ..." She gave him a curious look, then reached over to twine her fingers through his. If he didn't pull back. "N-no, I didn't mean ... that. I ..."

Deep breaths. She could say this. Right? "Just that ... it's hard, reaching out if you're ... when you can't stick around, so I wasn't gonna ... reach out again until I knew if you were okay to stay. So I didn't end up feeling weird and you didn't end up feeling pressured and ..."

She closed her eyes. "Do you?"

His gaze drifted toward her hand, always so small and clean, and this time, he tightened his fingers over hers and held on.

"I think, so long as we're alive, life's gonna go on. Ain't easy, but it keeps goin'. So... best we can do is figure out how to make the best of it, yeah?"

Just maybe, he was catching on.

She was nodding. Carefully. "I ... I still mean it. What I said, the other day, before things got bad. About ... how I want to be wherever you are. That I want us to be ... together, after graduation. If you do, too."

Even though it'd be harder, in some ways, with one another. Her facing everything in Spira, and him dealing with his past in Gaia. It was still better than ... than not having each other at all.

"We'll work with what we got, I guess," Reno noted, and if he happened to have a deathgrip on her hand right then, what of it? "We both got cleanup to do, don't we?"

Reno tilted his head a little, considering.

"I dunno about Spira, but Gaia's got the WRO. Could probably pull a few strings with Reeve. See if he's willin' to take a couple strays in. Tseng's kinda sucked with the whole freelance thing, yoto. Probably just layin' low."

She was not going to mention her letter to Tseng. Especially since nothing might come of it.

"You could always ask," she said, frowning. "There's .. different groups, now, in Spira. The Youth League, and the Machina Faction? Some of them are working on rebuilding places, and some of them are dealing with politics, but ... you know. Any of them could use the help. Yunie said the Youth League completely rebuilt the Kilika Docks. Like, you wouldn't even know they'd been destroyed, that sort of thing."

She was going to wriggle a little closer. If he didn't mind. He didn't, did he?

"Is that ... what you want to do? Go help with cleanup?"

"I dunno what it is I wanna do," Reno admitted, and if she was going to wriggle closer, than he was going to let go of her hand. But just for a moment, because his arm would be much better placed if it was around her shoulder, right? "Anything where I'd be useful, I guess. I mean, I ain't a carpenter or nothin', but mechanics, I can do. I'm a pilot, yo. If Spira needs machina, I can help with machina."

Gaia, on the other hand? He had no clue.

She was going to snuggle in. This was ... cozy. And. She belonged here, right here, taking deep breaths and savoring the just-Reno scent.

"You'd be useful anywhere," she said. "There's ... I mean, there are lots of places we could go. We don't have to go to my world or yours, if that's not gonna work right." Her fingers were tracing lightly over his jeans. "But ... yeah. We'd need ... lots of things. Machina, and the airship working again, and ... if we can rebuild a Home, that's gonna take some work, too."

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