raspberryturk | Edge, Saturday Afternoon

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Edge, Saturday Afternoon

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.]

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"Man, I wouldn't ruin good Jack's with nothin', nevermind the orange crap," Reno chuckled. "I got the Everclear out, myself. Does wonders for the sinuses, zoto."

Not that there was anything the matter with his sinuses, after a week and some change of breathing in clean, unpolluted air on a different planet.

"I didn't know you had sinus problems," Romeo observed, and took a swig of the whiskey. "It was a weird week here. How's home?"

Reno washed down a chuckle with a mouthful of delicious burning. Mmm, Everclear.

"Home's still home," Reno decided. "Or as close as it's ever gonna be. Ferret's still a dumbass, Rude's still got a big mouth, and apparently the beans are supposed to be yellow, so I don't feel like such a big dumbfuck now."

Such stirring conversation, Reno's beans.

"... beans can be yellow? Wait, why did you feel like a dumbfuck?" Romeo thought Reno was anything but, usually.

"I thought they were dyin'," Reno replied, leaning forward to look at the beans across the room. "Takes a special kinda talent to kill off beans, of all things, apparently. But yeah, I guess there's some kinda bean that's yellow instead of green, an' that's what I got happenin', here."

Which meant that he had successfully grown real, useful, edible food in a city in the wastelands. Where there was no fertile soil to be found, anywhere.

Which meant that he was humming a victory song in his head, hell yes.

"That means your plants grew into food," Romeo said, after he took a moment to contemplate and chug more whiskey. "That's ... congratulations."

A pause.

"Even if they are yellow."

"Yellow beans," Reno crowed, hoisting his bottle upward and making a horrible mess of Everclear down one sleeve. "It's friggin' awesome, ain't it? What's next? Purple carrots? Black radishes? White pumpkins? Red oranges?"

All of the above actually existed. Perhaps it was for the best to not inform Reno of this, or else he'd make it his personal goal to cultivate Gaia with weird-ass crops.

"m pretty sure they have the red oranges," Romeo said, heedless of what was for the best. "They're called blood oranges. Freaky, but pretty."

"...I want some," Reno decided. He'd figure out how the hell to grow them once he actually had his hands on them, dammit. "They can be all... symbolic, or some shit."

Symbolic oranges. Reno was starting to feel that Everclear buzz, alright.

Romeo sipped from his bottle again and coughed. "Fruit that gives sweet blood as juice. Symbolic of ... oh, of lives lost to just cause?"

He could try!

"I'll ship you some."

"Symbolic of that, sure!" That sounded as good as anything, dammit! "Thanks, man! I appreciate it!"

Romeo was, like, the best Romeo ever. Ever.

Reno missed him, dammit.

Damn it, Romeo missed Reno when he sounded that way.

"I'm trying to think of what to tell you about here," he free-associated. "I'm not doing too badly with staffs" -- Arthur might beg to differ -- "reserve meetings are cropping up everywhere, I fought with Ino this week, we had a fire drill...."

"Ino left me a text about that," Reno noted, idly. Just to say, hey, I knew that. Huh. "The reserves are really takin' off, huh? All the better for fightin' off gators with, yo. Man, I'm sorry I missed that, too. You been workin' that baton at all? Gettin' better with Blizzaga?"

"Yes. ~~In a totally handwavy way.~~ You always ask me that," Romeo said. "It made green ice the other day."

Huh. "What did Ino say?"

"Didn't smell like petunias or anything this time?"

Maybe he could make sno-cones with it, next!

"Oh, Ino didn't say too much," Reno ~~lied~~ said. "Mentioned that you asked her somethin' about babies. Wasn't too clear on the details, zoto."

"I didn't notice a scent," Romeo said, a touch defensively. He shifted, sitting up against the wall. "I asked her how a mission was, and she said it was fine but she was bruised. So I asked her if it was worth the bruising and it was like she didn't understand the question."

"Maybe," Reno said gently, "she didn't understand the question?"

It was weird, being the guy who could see both sides of this argument. Especially since he was the one with so much more blood on his hands than Romeo and Ino combined. Easily.

"It's not a hard question," Romeo argued. "Either something should be done or it shouldn't. You can't just say it's orders and not think about that -- and you're different."

He couldn't explain why Reno was different; he just was.

Of course he was. His orders were bigger and more horrifying, in a huge way.

"The things I did, I did because of my pride as a Turk," Reno shared. "Ino's doin' what she does out of a sense of duty for her people an' her village. It might not be pretty, but that don't change the fact that someone's gotta do it. Nobody wants the dirty shit, Romeo."

"So why does anyone do it?" Romeo asked steadily. "I hate it. We should just all -- all put down our guns or our swords or our bombs and try not to end any more lives."

[NIGHT!]

Reno had to follow that up with a little bit of a toast, and another long swig. Hell, he was a fighter and a killer, and even he agreed.

"That'd be nice," he noted. "When the world starts workin' that way, I'm sure people like Ino," and himself, "will be happy to do just that, zoto."

[Night!]

"I know the world isn't about to start working that way," Romeo said, backing down.

"If I asked you if" -- killing millions of people, but Romeo knew how well discussing that went -- "some of your missions were worth doing or not, would you be able to answer? I can understand thinking something isn't but doing it because honor's involved and you have to; It's the not thinking about it that has me confused."

Edited 2009-06-14 11:01 (UTC)

"You're askin' about the real dirty stuff, aren't you?" It was clear enough. Reno appreciated skirting around it like Romeo did, anyhow. He sighed a little, but he pressed on. "At the time, yeah. I thought it was worth it. Heard there was somethin' under there, had to go. An' I was angry an' frustrated an' damn it, they were the reason that over a dozen Turks went down to three overnight. At the time, it was worth it. An' I wasn't thinkin' I'd live through it anyhow, so it wasn't like I cared a hell of a lot about the guilt afterward."

We all know how well that turned out.

Romeo frowned, not entirely about what Reno was saying. "I'm not asking right," he said, defeated. "I'm not asking about any one thing. I don't care about any one thing; that's yours. I just don't think 'was it worth it?' is a strange question and Ino acted as if she'd never heard those words in that order."

There was a wry smile on Reno's lips as he chewed on the response to that one.

"I think," he attempted, "that so long as it's for the good of her village, so long as she's doin' it on orders, worth it ain't even a question. It always is, yoto."

He took a moment to take another nice, long pull of alcohol. Delicious burning.

"If you asked me the same two or three years ago, man, I would probably have acted the same way. It ain't about worth it. It's about doin' the job. The job is what you are."

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