raspberryturk | Rude's Apartment, Edge, Thursday Afternoon

Entry tags:

Rude's Apartment, Edge, Thursday Afternoon

Reno had a bit of a dilemma, and he had today off by some miracle. And so, on his day off, he was going to attempt to fix it.

His living space since he'd moved in to Rude's apartment had become a little on the cramped side. Sure, it was more space than he'd had while he was living in the dorms on Fandom Island. But while he was in school, he hadn't been trying to cultivate greens, either. Unless one counted the green fuzz that sometimes grew on whatever he'd left sitting around, but that was a different thing entirely. As it stood, Reno was staring in bewilderment at the contents of Rude's living room.

Rude had set off for work today with a clearly stated mission for Reno to handle before he got back. He didn't care how he did it, just so long as it was done.

The clutter... would have to go.

So much easier said than done, when you were used to stockpiling whatever you could get your hands on, and you had people sending you care packages from all over creation. Nevermind the assorted bits he'd managed to gather with full intent to toss together a makeshift greenhouse in he future.

"Mako," Reno sighed, plucking the ferret out of his beans for the umpteeth time this afternoon, "I think this couch-surfin' shit ain't all it's made out to be, yo."

[NFB for distance, naturally, but open for the usual riffraff to give their phone calls and what-have-you!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"She'd be a crappy Turk," Ino said, irritated by that idea. "Especially if she's too dumb to see why someone might have the teeniest issue with that and take it out on her."

Totally different if you knew they'd have a problem and did it anyway, after all.

"I--" she huffed. "I don't know. I want a place I can fight."

"There ain't nothin' sayin' you can't fight there in the fall, if you play your cards right," Reno noted. "You just gotta kiss ass an' stay reasonable, right?"

Yep. There was the bruise on his knee, right there. And it wasn't like Reno was going to stop prodding at it.

"That don't leave an opening for you to practise your powers, no, but at least it's exercise."

"I'm bad at kissing ass," she informed him, almost lightly. "In case you couldn't tell."

Really, Ino was epically bad at kissing ass.

"That's true, though, I guess 'bout the exercise," Ino admitted. "And 'least it's more interactive than training by myself." Which Ino did a fair bit of anyway. "But it's not nearly so worth it, you know, when I can't practise everything. Well, almost anything. I just want to be able to fight like we did. That was fun and useful."

"Any time you wanna swing around here, lemmie know," Reno offered. "I know, Portalocity'll probably charge you right through the ass, but we got monsters here to beat up, and ruins to smash around if you avoid the mako leaks, and a whole wasteland where you ain't gonna accidentally trip over nobody who don't like what's gotta look like magic bein' thrown around."

Never let it be said that Reno wasn't useful.

"And your monsters give loot," she said, having remembered that. "Bet if I killed enough monsters it'd make up for the portal costs." Eventually.

She swung herself upside down, legs hooked around the branch to keep her from falling, and stretched. "Do you think I ought to write that letter? Explaining my point of view."

"I think writin' it couldn't hurt, so long as you keep it civil, zoto." No, the irony of Reno telling anybody to keep it civil was not lost upon him. "If you wanna read it to someone first, to make sure it sounds good, hell, call me up when you got it written, and I can give it a listen, too."

He couldn't do anything for grammar or wording, no, but he knew wonders about tone. Being a Turk meant that he was two-thirds killer, one-third manipulative bastard, after all.

"Maybe I'll do that," she sighed. "Not that it'll be much of an apology, but I guess an explanation might work almost as well. Least it makes more sense now."

Even if the bratty part of her cried that civil was for wussies.

"Seems like I keep pouring problems in your lap," Ino added ruefully. "Don't mean to or nothing."

"Hey, you're my Rookie. I do this kinda thing for Rookies," Reno replied, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "You should'a seen the time I had with Elena's big sister, yo. Trainin' her was like tryin' to get through to a friggin' brick wall."

Elena's sister had been a special sort of stupid.

"Elena doesn't seem like the type to have a brick wall sort of sister," Ino said idly, adding that to her small pile of 'things she knew about the Other Rookie' and swinging herself back up on the branch. "Kinda neat that they're both Turks though. All in the family."

Ino was fishing, yes.

Oh, and Reno was well aware that Ino was fishing now, yes. he kind of enjoyed playing this little game of give and take with his Rookies. See how well they could guess at what he wasn't quite giving up.

"Were both Turks," he corrected, casually. "Her sister's dead, an' Elena's on leave, zoto."

"Don't much sound like it's a good time to go on leave," she said glibly, glossing over differences between leave and quit and the piddling amount she knew of the rest of it. "And sucks that her sister's dead."

A beat while she contemplated asking how and why and when and decided that was way too obvious.

"You guys totally need better sky in your world," she said, instead.

"You ain't even seen it, yet. It's clearin' up some," Reno noted, glancing out the window.

...

"Still kinda green. But clearin' up some, yo."

"True," she said lightly. "But when has details like seeing something first stopped me from having an opinion?"

Ino was just going to sigh over the idea of a green sky. That was so wrong.

"Eventually I really need to come help you kill monsters," she decided. "Just so I can see your world."

And snoop, but he had to expect that.

Well, of course he expected that. She wouldn't be one of his rookies if she wasn't a dirty little snoop.

"You'll hate it," Reno promised. He was grinning. "I look forward to tossin' you at a Sahagin or somethin'. Those fuckers try an' jump on your head."

"Oh, I see," Ino said, actually amused, "you're just going to find the most annoying monsters and fling me at them and laugh aren't you? What sort of a host is that?"

"It keeps you on your toes," Reno insisted. "At least I ain't huntin' down Boundfats to throw you at. They look about as appetizin' as their name suggests."

Kind of like a hedgehog had babies with a frog. And then ate the Goodyear blimp.

She snickered. "Who did the naming of these things? Really 'cause I'm getting the image of a bouncing tub of lard. Ewwwww. Are they hard to kill?"

"Nah, they're pretty much one-hits." For, you know, Reno. "And they're pretty much bouncin' tubs of lard, too. They hop, an'they jiggle."

They named things pretty accurately on Gaia. Boundfats were bouncing fat things. Bat Eyes were giant eyes with bat wings. Kalm Wolves were wolves. From Kalm. Behemoths were fucking huge. Shocking.

"Do they actually hurt people?" Ino asked idly. "Or do you just kill 'em 'cause they count as monsters?"

"They spit fire," Reno replied. "An' yeah, they do kill people. Not everyone's been trained up like I have, zoto. Most people don't stand a chance against 'em."

The idea of a bouncing tub of lard that spit fire was...

Well. The mental images alone were weird.

"Guess people try to stick where it's safe then?" Ino asked. "And take chances where they've got to? Imagine that leaves a lot of room for the monsters."

"It does. An' they're pretty thick in the ruins, especially by the reactors. I think they spawn in the mako leaks, or somethin'."

Reno didn't know. It was all sciencey shit, to him.

"Isn't there a way to clean up the mako stuff?" Ino asked. "Since it's bad for people and stuff--maybe, I don't know, give it back to the planet?"

"I bet that'd make what's left of AVALANCHE pretty happy," Reno mused. "Givin' it back is probably harder'n it sounds. The equipment to dig it up an' move it around runs on mako, too."

Messy. Messsssy. Dammit.

"I guess we're all kinda hopin' that The Planet'll just suck it up again on its own at this point."

"Can't you guys use, like, gasoline or something?" Ino checked. "Like, instead of mako? Does mako hurt the ground? I know it hurts people and if it's breeding monsters then probably hurts animals too."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject