Room 501, Monday morning-ish

[raspberryturk]

Reno did not want to wake up. Reno was wide awake, laying there in his bed, his face shoved as far into his pillow as he could manage without asphyxiating himself, but this did not yet mean that he had actually woken up.

Between stealing his own wallet, making large areas spontaneously combust in a psychopathic rage, and having casual conversation with a lion over the course of the weekend, he figured that it was well within his rights to not have to wake up just yet.

Also, his hair had been huge. And he'd drank all his own tequila. And waking up meant that he'd have to start on his overdue report to Tseng. And any such report, after this particular sort of weekend, was going to have to begin with, "No, really, boss. I'm not drunk, but..."

Reno hated this place all over again.

[[Open!]]

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[raspberryturk]

Reno folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe, his little smile turning into a slightly larger smirk.

This was one way to get rid of the frustration that the weekend had brought, anyhow.

"Not tryin' to be funny, zoto. Just makin' sure."

[the_merriest]

"You know, I heard on the radio about your class," she said, rolling her eyes. "Very funny. You totally got me. Hooray. How many other people did you pull that on?"

[raspberryturk]

"Oh, the class?" Reno shrugged his shoulders. "You heard about that, huh? Call it motivation. Been too busy dealing with big hair to ask anyone else, yo."

[the_merriest]

"Man, that's a shame. Could've had a few more laughs." Her eyes narrowed. "You know, some of us don't find this as funny as you do. Being mocked? And sooner or later you're gonna ask some girl and she's gonna be stupid or insane and say 'oh, sure, yes' and what are you gonna do then?"

[raspberryturk]

"Uh. Her."

Reno figured that this response was pretty much adequate, really.

"Really not laughin', here. Should I be?"

[the_merriest]

"You tell me!" Oh, the pent-up pint-sized rage, it was massive. "'Hey, let's go off some where and do Naughty Things. Except I'm just asking you 'cause it's an assignment. If you say no, I pout, and if you say yes, I get to tell all my guy friends that you totally wanted it, and then we all laugh.' I'm a little fuzzy on that part, by the way. What is it that is so damn funny about that? Is it a 'guy thing' and I 'just wouldn't understand'? I'd love to know."

[raspberryturk]

"Wouldn't have been askin' if I wasn't interested, anyhow." Reno shrugged his shoulders, shoving off of the doorframe and stuffing one hand into the pocket of his more sloppy than usual uniform pants. "And I don't know about other guys, but where I come from, you manage to get a girl, you don't laugh at her after the fact, yo."

There was etiquette involved in being a manwhore, dammit.

[the_merriest]

"Interested in what?!" Rikku fumed. "You can't do that. 'Hey, I've known you two weeks, let's ...'"

Furious gesturing was not flailing. Shhh.

"Even if you did mean it, that's worse. What do you think I am!? Some ... sort of ... tramp-thing!?"

It was really not helping that he was just lounging there, shirtless and rumpled and smirking at her and that made her want to ... punch him. A lot.

[raspberryturk]

Reno didn't exactly see what the issue was here. So he shrugged again.

"I offered, you said no, I said okay," he replied, "I'm failin' to see how it's really an issue beyond that, zoto." He cocked his head off to the side and smirked, here. "I mean, shit, it's not like anyone's obligated to say yes, here."

[the_merriest]

"You're a guy," Rikku said, eyes narrowed. "It's different. You can swan around like some deranged crackwhore and hey, nobody cares."

[raspberryturk]

"The hell you say?" Reno was, perhaps surprisingly, not a crackwhore. So he had to give her a 'you crazy, girl' look. "Deranged? That, I can see, yo. But what the shit does crack have to do with anything?"

[the_merriest]

"Whatever." Rikku finally remembered why she was here, and fished the wallet out of her leg-pouch. She tossed it straight at his chest. "I stole this, I'm sorry, it'll never happen again until the next time I turn into an insane fairy version of myself, yes I looked, I had to know whose it was, so glad you kicked the scary drug habit. I'm going now."

[raspberryturk]

"Never had a scary drug habit," Reno protested as he caught his wallet and stepped forward with a frown. He wasn't even going to mention the fairy thing. He'd been a pyromaniac in a leather housecoat. "What are you going on about?"

[the_merriest]

Rikku raised an eyebrow. "Fine. Whatever. You were never some bizarre junkie. That totally looked like the picture of someone who eats regularly. It's not like I'm going to tell people, but hey, don't trust me. Like I care."

Maybe this time she'd manage to turn on her heel for a dramatic exit? It had kinda failed, the last time.

[raspberryturk]

Dramatic exits were not allowed, here. Not when he was being accused of some sort of messed-up drug habit.

"I eat just fine, yo." ... "You talkin' about my ShinRa ID card?"

Reno's identification was really, very not flattering. And slightly outdated.

[the_merriest]

"I had to look," she explained, stopping her failed-yet-again exit and folding her arms. "I barely glanced at the people I was stealing from, and most of them don't look the same anyway. It was just to see whose wallet it was. Okay? I wasn't prying."

[raspberryturk]

"Except that now you're convinced I was whorin' myself out for crack," Reno replied, an eyebrow raised somewhere underneath the red mess of hair that was hanging in his eyes. "Which I wasn't, yo."

No, really.

[the_merriest]

"Fine." She shrugged. "People who eat regularly don't look like that, you know. I mean, you're --"

Probably a mistake to look down while gesturing, as he was still slouching there, shirtless, pants messy, and she lost her train of thought for a second.

"-- thin now, and you've gotta have twenty or thirty pounds on that picture. Could you count your ribs? Have you heard of sandwiches?"

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah. Two pieces of bread with stuff in the middle, yo." Reno rolled his eyes. This simply called for a good eyeroll. "Put 'em in your mouth, chew, swallow. I'm familiar with 'em."

It was a very, very not flattering photo.

"Nothin' to worry about anyhow. I'm better now. Eatin' and everything, zoto."

Which, of course, suggested that maybe he hadn't been doing well in the first place. Dammit.

[the_merriest]

"You ... really weren't eating?" Rikku asked. She didn't sound that surprised, exactly, but she was concerned. "If ... you were working for them, they had to pay you, right?"

This life-under-a-huge-plate thing didn't sound like it was for rich people, exactly, so maybe ... uh. Yeah.

[raspberryturk]

Reno was starting to get a headache, here. He wasn't sure what tangent she was taking this on, now, but he was almost certain that he might have preferred to be thought of a nasty street-whore crack-addict.

"The pay's just fine," he said, eying her warily. "It's the mako you gotta be careful with, yo."

[the_merriest]

"Mako?" Rikku chewed on her lip. "I, uh. Is that ... why you weren't eating?"

She wasn't too sure if this mako was a different street drug or some sort of anti-eating cult, but maybe she should let him talk, this time.

[raspberryturk]

"I was eating," Reno insisted. "Mako's one of those- if it doesn't kill you or reduce you to a freakin' vegetable, it'll only make you stronger, yoto."

She... had no idea what he was talking about, did she?

"Think radiation."

Did they have radiation in Spira? Maybe?

[I love this icon to an unhealthy degree.]

[the_merriest]

They didn't, but she'd been in Fandom for a year, with all sorts of people with interesting radiations and mutations and ... yeah.

"Isn't that ... kinda like poison, though?" she asked nervously. "Did they ... just, 'here, let's find out if it trashes you or not!' ... Because that's kinda ..."

[raspberryturk]

"Not in those same words," came the reply with a nonchalant shrug. "It's no big deal, yoto."

No. Really. Small dose. No coma. It was win-win.