Edge, Saturday Afternoon

[raspberryturk]

There were some things that were totally worth getting in trouble with the boss for, Reno decided. Being a grumpy son of a bitch was good for things like getting on Tseng's nerves, teaching the rookie how to run for cover, and also for getting sent on impromptu vacations to other worlds in order to visit the girlfriend.

It had totally been worth it. But, as such things tend to go, this vacation didn't last forever, and soon Reno was hopping another portal back to Edge.

The first thing he did upon getting home was reach for the Everclear that Romeo had sent him. Romeo was still the best buddy ever, and Reno was going to have to find some way to make it up to him. Maybe he'd ship him some porn or something. That was always excellent payback, right?

And then he checked the texts and voicemails that he'd missed lately. Which led to a lot of alternating between laughing and frowning. Killing beans and killing babies were two very different things indeed. But hey, verbal Twitters were amusing, at least.

It wasn't until he went to check on the beans to be certain that they were still alive (they were) and the ferret to make sure that he wasn't dead (he wasn't) that a chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling, hitting Reno solidly on the head and reminding him quite firmly that he wasn't in Spira anymore.

Sigh.

"Home sweet shithole."

[NFB for distance and all, but Reno's open for phone calls, text messages, random letters, and all of that good stuff.]

Comments

[bitchprince]

"Reno," Arthur said, conversationally, "I don't know what retarded ape taught you how to read and write, but 'u' is not a word."

[raspberryturk]

"I'd be the retarded ape that taught myself to read an' write," Reno replied casually. "So 'u' is close enough to bein' a word for me, yo."

[bitchprince]

"It's not," Arthur said, matter-of-factly. With that subject closed... "How's Gaia coming along?"

[raspberryturk]

"Could be better," Reno replied, shrugging. Okay, so he was going to have to take some kind of grammar refresher. Or learn to use spellcheck. "It can always stand to be better, though. The beans are yellow, but now Ino's tellin' me that there are yellow beans anyhow, so maybe I ain't killin' 'em after all?"

A pause. A snort.

"You know you live an excitin' life when someone asks how things are goin', and you feel the need to report on freakin' string beans."

[bitchprince]

"Now, Reno. We all huddle around the phone every night, awaiting news of your beans," he said, dryly. There was a tinge of worry to his voice anyway, but admitting to that wasn't quite in the cards.

"You're safe as long as they're not falling off."

[raspberryturk]

"And they're not fallin' off," Reno agreed, glancing over at the beans to be sure.

Yellow beans. Who the hell thought that would be a good idea to breed, anyhow?

"The boss sent me away for a while. I guess I was gettin' friggin' obnoxious the other week for reasons that I'm gonna blame on Fandom, so he wanted me outta his hair for a while. I did some work on Rikku's world, fixin' some stuff for her old man. If I can't be productive here, I'll be productive wherever I'm at, dammit."

[bitchprince]

Paaause.

"That was definitely a Fandom reason," Arthur said, tactfully. Which he was not going into. "But that's good. Has Rikku's world suffered a great deal of damage?" Arthur did not, in fact, know a bloody lot about Reno's lady.

[raspberryturk]

"Rikku's world ain't doin' too much better than Gaia is," Reno admitted. "I think that's why we didn't go the same way after grad, honestly. She had to help keep war from breakin' out back home, and I had to come here to pick up the pieces. She's from this group of people called the Al Bhed, which kinda lives around what technology they can make up. And a lotta people there don't like that, which ain't makin' it easy, zoto."

[bitchprince]

"You're taking a great deal of work on your shoulders," he observed, distantly, and settled back on his bed.

[raspberryturk]

"There's a lotta work to be done. Man, if I could copy myself, I would."

A beat.

"Except, no. I already got too much experience with freaks who can make copies of themselves. The world don't need any more Renos than it's already got."

[bitchprince]

"I wish I could send you some men."

That distant tone wasn't liable to be really gone anywhere during this conversation, no.

"Copies or none. I'd rather the originals."

[raspberryturk]

Awwww. If Reno could, here's where he'd be reaching out to give Arthur a manly punch in the shoulder, or something.

"The originals are always better anyhow," Reno decided. "Edge needs manpower, I'd take men if you had 'em. But then we wouldn't be able to feed 'em all, anyhow. I think once they finish rebuildin' that road, that'll ease off some, yoto."

[bitchprince]

Which Arthur would happily take, because they were jocks, and actually discussing this sort of thing was just not going to happen. No.

"I should still see into finding you some horses," he opined, "And perhaps some grain."

[raspberryturk]

"Oooh, grain would be good," Reno noted. "You know, it's been real damn long since I had bread that wasn't old an' stale an' shipped in from freakin' Mideel or whatever?"

Yes, he was whining. About bread.

That was totally his prerogative.

[bitchprince]

"And if you can find a proper lot, you could try growing some," he said, thoughtfully. "I should pay you a visit."

Beat.

"Somehow."

Portals, he didn't know anything about.

[raspberryturk]

"Oh, that's as easy as bookin' a Portalocity ticket," Reno said easily. "But you probably won't like what you see when you get here, yo. Edge ain't really a pretty city."

It was kind of... gray. And dead. A lot.

[bitchprince]

"I think I can handle it," he said, on autopilot while his brain caught up with the rest of that sentence. "...Portalocity?"

[raspberryturk]

"Buy a ticket, catch a portal, it takes you where you wanna go," Reno replied, shrugging. (The shrug was almost audible, really.) "That's how I got to Rikku's world to visit her last week, yo. The boss got pissed off and shipped me offa the friggin' planet."

[bitchprince]

"You must have been quite a pain," Arthur agreed, without mercy. "But how did you contact-- Portalicity?"

Don't get your hopes up, Arthur.

[raspberryturk]

"Tseng did it for me," Reno admitted. "While I was busy bitchin'. I think he booked a ticket over the internet, zoto."

[bitchprince]

"The internet, Reno?" A beat. "You realise I'm not from this time in the slightest, right? I've got people waving 9th century myths at me saying that's when I'm from."

And that it was him, but, piffle.

[raspberryturk]

There was a long, amused sort of silence, then. Reno wasn't going to laugh. Honest.

Or mention that there was a summon from his world (or, rather, a set of summon-able deities of some sort) that Arthur kind of reminded him of, too. Some knights of the round, junk. Thing. It was another one of those weird-world-things, and he was going to leave it at that, dammit.

"You know, your Blackberry can access the internet too, right? Please tell me you didn't just burn the manual, man."

[bitchprince]

"I didn't burn the manual, it simply makes little sense," Arthur informed him. "The-- 'display' is painful enough as it is."

[raspberryturk]

"Tell you what," Reno said, chuckling and looking upward at the ceiling again, "I'll worry about bookin' your ticket whenever it comes to that, man. An' then I'll show you the modern marvels of the internet. All the bad spellin' and unexpected porn you ever hoped you could find, right there on your phone, zoto."

[bitchprince]

"Sounds charming."

Deserts didn't come this dry.

"The only porn I know of is the likes Chuck Bass and Emmett snuck Merlin," he offered.