raspberryturk | Room 429, Tuesday Afternoon

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Room 429, Tuesday Afternoon

"--And you don't even smell that bad," Reno said, holding his ferret in his arms. He'd been going on like this since he'd woken up and decided to strike up a friendly rapport with his pet. "Kinda like sour somethin'-or-other or kinda gunky feet or somethin'. I've smelled worse, yo. I mean, like, I smelled worse, Mako. You should'a seen the kinda junk we had to wade through as Turks. And, I mean, Midgar. There was a city that stank. I miss Midgar. And here I am talkin' to you like a nut. You know, I shouldn't even have a pet? I only agreed to gettin' you when Rikku dragged me to the pet shop 'cause I crave some kinda companionship that ain't gonna leave me just because they find out I'm some kinda heartless government tool--"

That was about the point where he furrowed his eyebrows and frowned.

"And you don't care. You're some kinda weasel thing. So why am I tellin' you this?"

Mako blinked up at Reno lazily, and then set his chin down on his lap and attempted to sleep. Snoozing was hard when someone kept trying to strike up a conversation with you, after all.

[Open door is open!]

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"Forget it quickly? He never understood what I said in the first place. I could throw him across the room, and he'd think I was playin'. Not that I would throw him across the room, yo. Just because he likes bouncin' don't mean I'm gonna be mean to him."

Reno made a face, and then stood up and put Mako back into his cage.

"I think I'm managing to annoy him, though. Lookit him, tryin' to get some sleep, and I been flappin' my mouth all day. How are you, man? You still havin' post-grad trouble?"

"I think that's going to be a given until we actually graduate," Romeo said unhappily. "I don't understand Yurika. She's so in love with me but she wants to shunt me off somewhere the second she gets her diploma. What kind of love is that?"

He blinked. Not what he meant to say. "Sorry. How was your trip home?"

"Crappy. I spent it gettin' my ass kicked by chocobos in the mountains. Almost turned me off of bettin' on chocobo races, except I'm such a gamblin' addict." Reno frowned and gave his head a shake. "And man, she loves you to little soggy pieces. It's kinda mushy, really. She's just scared shitless that you ain't gonna be safe when you get to Tokyo. SOLOMON plays dirty, yo. Maybe not as dirty as ShinRa did, they're still the White Hats, but still real damn dirty if they feel threatened."

"I lost $50 on the Super Bowl," Romeo informed him. "I wouldn't mind except now I have to work to replace it. And I don't doubt she loves me, I just think ... love is different for her."

He frowned. "I can make myself safe."

"How? Man, I got no doubts that you can hold your own out there, but once the government takes away your gun and you realize you can't talk the language, it ain't gonna be easy. Not against the suits, yo. You got some kinda plan to keep your ass in one piece? I don't wanna see you get a bullet in your brain any more'n Doji does, zoto."

"There'd be a bullet in my brain faster in Verona than in Tokyo," Romeo said grimly. "And I'm working on my Japanese. It's hard. It's hard enough for me to speak English so people here can understand me, yet I manage that. I'd learn Japanese promptly enough if I had to." He glanced over at Reno. "You spoke to Yurika, didn't you?"

"Yeah, man. I did." He offered Romeo a wry smile. "She gave me a smack to the back of the head for tellin' her you deserved to know what things are gonna be like in Tokyo. That whole she-ain't-her-own-person thing. I been there. I got a body count that'll rival almost anyone on my planet. And even if I wanted to say no, I couldn't."

He shrugged and stretched out his arms.

"Tseng could'a told me to shoot Rikku in the face, yoto. Or threatened to do it himself. You don't think she's got the same thing goin' on right now? She's walkin' into somethin' dirty for the good of I-don't-even-know, and she does want you to go with her, I think. More'n you know. But shit, man, it's gonna take more work than 'I'd learn Japanese if I had to,' zoto. You ready for that? Is she?"

Edited 2009-02-03 18:07 (UTC)

"I don't know what I can offer," Romeo said, frustrated. "I know I couldn't go work for her employers -- even if I had the gift for Witchcraft, and I don't, I wouldn't want to -- and they won't let me have a gun there. I offered to find some kind of volunteer work, or a school, but it seems as though I'm talking to a wall. I have a whole folder filled with things I could do there, and the best she could say about them was that she'd think on it."

He leaned up on one elbow. "You would have to shoot Rikku, if he asked?"

"Back when I was workin' for ShinRa, yeah. He would'a said, 'shoot that girl, Reno,' and I would'a saluted an' clicked my heels and gone 'yes, sir,' and either I would'a had to do it, or they would'a killed me, instead." A long pause, there. "I would'a been dead real quick. I could never do it. This place made me fuckin' weak, man. I won't last ten minutes on Gaia, but I gotta go back anyhow."

Reno kind of hated his mouth, right now.

"You, you're good at a whole shitload of things, man. You got your guns, yeah, but you're more than that. You're educated, Romeo. I'm jealous of your brains, here. You an' your poetry and your flowery rich-kid talk and the fact that you keep tryin' to get what you want. And I can't shut up right now and I'd like it if maybe you'd punch me in the face or somethin', but that probably won't happen so I'm gonna just tell you I think you can make it, and you just gotta prove to Doji that you won't get mixed up in the dirty shit that's got her terrified, zoto."

Reno winced. And seriously considered stapling his mouth shut.

"If all she wants is for me to keep my hands clean, I can promise that," Romeo vowed. "I know it's nothing, a promise, just air, but I can't make a situation happen until it happens."

"And I'm no smarter than you are. I've ten years at a school where my last name alone earned my good marks, a year and a half here, and a few words no one else uses. You at least can survive when things are against you."

"You don't have to go back. Please don't. I'll worry too much." He really hadn't wanted to put it quite that bluntly.

"You're more a survivor than you think you are, Romeo. You saw Gaia. Scared the shit outta you, maybe, but you did good there. A lot of good. And on Doji's witch hunt, too. You got out there and you came back in one piece, and the whole situation sucks, but I ain't the only one in this posse who can't keep myself alive, yo. Hell, I'm probably the one most likely to be in a body bag by thirty."

Stupid, stupid, annoying blunt honesty.

"And that don't even bother me. I owe it to the place, Romeo. The mortality rate comes with the territory. Kinda fitting, really. I'm the guy who killed thousands of people with the press of a button, yo. And worse. I did worse than that shit, man. Now I gotta make good out there. Even if it's hopeless and stupid and I can't possibly make up for all the people who got hurt."

He scowled and clenched his teeth and considered throwing himself at the wall a few times to make sure he would shut up. Instead, he stood and made his way to his dresser.

"I need a drink. You need a drink? Shit, I need a drink right now."

"I need a drink. Possibly several drinks," Romeo confirmed. "My best friend is telling me he's bound and determined to go get himself killed out of some notion of honor, of it being what's owed. A drink would help."

He eyed Reno. "You ... you followed orders. I can't dress it up or defend it, but it wasn't your idea. Though, that sounds hollow to me even as I say it."

"It is hollow. I got tequila, some scotch, I think there's some whiskey in there if I go diggin' under the socks. What's your poison today, man?"

Tequila for Reno today. It almost made talking about being an idiot fun. Kinda.

"It wasn't my idea, but that don't change the fact that I did it. I was a Turk. I was proud of what I was. Still am. For all the little kids whose daddies I dragged away so they could be forced into the army, and for all the towns I helped oversee the systematic murder of, and all the people who ain't even human anymore because of the shit ShinRa's science department put 'em through. You think Gaia's scary now? Be happy you didn't see what I was doin' for a livin' there before, Romeo."

He was shutting himself up now by twisting off the cap and taking a long, desperate pull from the bottle. Which wasn't going to work, really, but at least it meant his mouth was full for a moment.

"Tequila," Romeo said simply, and he was looking at Reno with new horror as he failed to make sense of what his friend was saying.

"I think I need to pray for your world."

"Tequila," Reno repeated, looking at the bottle in his hand, and then just relenting and passing it over to Romeo. He was fine with scotch, too.

"Prayin' might help. I dunno. I was never into that religious stuff. Didn't do me any good growin' up, and when I stopped livin' under the plate and started learnin' all the ways to make grown men scream, it did me even less, yo."

He was now rummaging through his drawer for the duct tape, instead of the scotch.

He was also out of duct tape.

"I got no idea what kinda difference I can make on Gaia, I dunno if I can, or if someone's gonna see my baby blues and know what it was I got myself messed up in. I don't want Rikku seein' all that. I don't wanna be talkin' about this and I don't know why I am and change the topic, please?"

Romeo shook his head; all he could see in his head was endless scenes of war ripped from a thousand combat movies. Children starving. Men screaming.

"Why?" he asked. "I wish I could change the subject but it's all I'll be able to think on, and I promise I'll talk about something else in a moment, so ... why did you do any of it?"

"I wanna be able to say I was scared for my life or they were gonna do somethin' to me to make me regret it if I didn't, and I can't even say that," Reno said, his words snowballing on ahead while he tried damn hard not to look as desperate to quit speaking as he felt. "It was all I was, is all. Wanted outta the slums, so I joined the Turks. Expected it to be dirty. Just turned out to be dirtier than anyone thought it was gonna be. And then it got worse, and worse, and it was like pullin' the rug out from underfoot, zoto. There was a war and there were terrorists and there were deserters and worse, and all I cared about was that we were Turks, and that was what Turks did."

Deep, deep pull of scotch, now.

"All I ever had to be proud of."

Romeo warily eyed the way Reno was drinking.

He supposed he could hardly blame the redhead.

"Are you still proud of it?" he asked, then closed his eyes. "I'm sorry. I promised a new topic. I like the way Yurika's hair smells."

... it was what came to mind.

"Yeah. I'm still proud of it." Reno frowned and stared down the neck of the bottle. "Not proud of everything I did, but I am proud of what I was. Dunno anymore if I'm proud of what I am. Seems backwards, yo."

Deep breath. Hey. Topic change.

"I bet her hair smells like shampoo or somethin', huh?"

"Like ... cherry blossoms and vanilla," Romeo ~~shampoo-modded~~ nodded, still looking troubled.

"I don't know what cherry blossoms smell like," Reno confessed. "No flowers in Midgar. That's ShinRa's fault, too."

Mentally. Kicking. Himself.

"Rikku's hair smells good, too. I don't know what it is it smells like, you know? I think she might change her shampoo all the time just to mix it up, seems like the kinda thing she'd do. I kinda can't tell the difference."

"I noticed that there weren't many flowers," Romeo commented. "It's such a gray world, even without the monsters and the plague. I hated it and I hate the thought of you going back there because I know I'll never want to visit."

He tried to shake it off. "Is it citrus? She seems like she'd use citrus shampoo."

"I'd miss you, man." Reno took a deep breath. Frowned. "There just ain't nowhere else I belong. And it ain't the whole world that's gray. I mean, way the hell out there, there's life. You kinda just have to work hard to find it, sometimes."

A long pause.

"And you know, I think it is citrus. Kinda... fresh an' zesty, right? Oranges or lemons or whatever."

"You could belong anywhere," Romeo told him. "My father would hire you, if I asked. You'd do well in Verona. I wish I'd gotten to take you there but it's never seemed like the right time, and I'm terrified someone would get hurt and it would be my fault."

He sighed. "You're going home, aren't you. No matter what I say."

Reno was staring down the neck of his bottle again.

"Yeah, man. I think I am." He tapped his fingers against the glass, swallowed a lump in his throat. "I can't think of anything I'd do in Verona that'd do me any good gettin' my head around what I did in Midgar."

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