raspberryturk | Rude's Apartment, Edge, Thursday Afternoon

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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!]

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Reno was going to be silent for a moment while he processed that verbal barrage. That was a lot to cover all in one breath, really, wasn't it?

"Kick a wall hard enough, apparently you can break your foot," Reno noted wryly, running his free hand through his hair. "So she's good. You're better. Ain't no reason you couldn't kick the livin' shit outta her anyhow, right?"

Yes, that was Reno's solution to a lot of things.

"Ain't no reason I should have had to fight her either and let her steal what I know," Ino snapped back. "So I didn't and I walked away and no one can tell me why that's such a freakin' big deal."

"Ino." There was that Turk in him, coming out. Reno could understand why Ino was frustrated, but he didn't take too well to being snapped at, either, and so he was going to keep his tone firm. Talking to a Rookie. Not quite pulling rank, but the demand for respect was there, yes.

"Siddown. Talk to me. You don't want her learnin' what you know, is that it? Somethin' you been workin' on your whole life, an' it's somethin' for you to be proud of. An' then this perfect little princess steps in sayin' she can learn it overnight?"

Ino took a deep breath. Right. He hadn't done anything to her.

"In a few weeks," she said, once her tone had settled into something more civil, and she was sitting up straighter, not that he could see it. "But pretty much that. And I didn't much like that everything kept being turned around to the fact that I can't use my powers when that wasn't my problem at all. She doesn't have any control over whether she can use hers or not. That's not what Fight Club is supposed to be--people are supposed to be able to say yes or no to powers."

Reno was wearing a tired sort of grin as he thought back to the incident with the logs.

"An' hers don't turn off. I gotcha." He tapped a finger against his knee, mulling it over. "Might be because hers ain't so obvious, too. I mean, I ain't gonna excuse anything on either side, I wasn't there, Ino. But you gotta admit, learnin' stuff ain't half as... flashy as some of the stuff plenty of Fandomites can pull when they're tryin'."

"What's that matter?" Ino asked, kicking at the tree. "It's still a power, and I didn't want it being used on me. Isn't that the point of having to come to an agreement before you start fighting?"

She chewed her bottom lip. "I could tell you what was said?"

"That'd be good," Reno decided. "Let's hear what went down, yo."

He was now contemplating if it would be a good idea to get ready to hold the phone away from his ear.

Maybe during the last bit when she had lost it at Mr. Durden.

Ino settled back in her tree, cradling the phone, and gazed at the branches above her. "Okay," she said, "let's start with me and Fiona then..." Ino went on, going through the conversation word-by-word and mimicking the intonation that had been used all through out. "Then I went to Mr. Durden right after that..."

She rattled off the conversation, much the same way and then hit the one that was really--well, awful. "And Mr. Durden and I in class on Tuesday..."

Eventually she wound down and just sat there, staring up at the leaves and taking a moment to wish that she was home.

.... It probably said a great deal about Reno's patience that he managed to sit through the whole run of it. The first two encounters seemed reasonable enough. Biting, maybe, yes, but Reno was known to say far, far worse. The third, however?

"Ow," he said, finally, when she'd worn down and stopped. "That's a lotta..." He tapped his fingers against his knee, frowning. "I dunno. Sounds like there was a lot bein' said on both sides that wasn't bein' heard."

So weird for him, trying to play the voice of reason.

Ino was not going to snap at him.

No, really. She was just going to sit on her temper--he had rank over her--and try to keep her voice level.

"Like what?"

"Like how he was askin' for some respect, as your teacher and as the guy hostin' Fight Club," Reno noted, coolly. "And how you were tryin' to get across that you don't want someone pickin' up in no time what you been spendin' years gettin' just right."

Seemed like a clusterfuck all around, really.

"Respect has to be earned," she said rebelliously.

"Then don't put yourself in a position where someone's gonna ask for it," Reno replied, reasonably. "He gets respect as a teacher, first, especially since you were in his classroom at the time. An' second, just because he ain't a ninja don't mean he's a pushover, yo. I fought him. By his world's standards, he ain't half bad. Fight Club is his, so it's runnin' on his rules. His an' Lady Ghanima's."

And, while he had a fleeting sort of respect for Tyler, he owed the fact that he was still alive to Ghanima.

"His rules seem to change depending on his mood," she scathed. "I didn't even do anything wrong--how the hell am I supposed to suck it up and smile and shit when I'm not happy and he's not listening anyway?"

"You take a few steps back and you deal, Ino." Sigh. "I ain't gonna ask you to smile an' pretend everything is little yellow flowers, here. But if you can't keep a cool head about this, what else can't you keep a cool head about?"

Tempers could get people killed. He still stood by that one. Even if he let his own run away with him from time to time.

"It doesn't even matter here," she cried. "I can keep my head when it counts! But nothing here counts like that! All Fiona had to do was whine and then, just 'cause I wasn't polite enough, didn't feed him honey with my bitching, I get kicked out? Well that sure shows me that he never gave a damn 'bout anything I do, right?"

"And now you're whinin'," Reno noted, though somewhat amiably. "It's doin' you a load of good, ain't it?"

"So what?" she said, scowling. "What's he going to do? Kick me out of his class? I'm not going to it anyway, so fuck that. I can whine if I want. If he's not going to listen to me then I'm not going to listen to him. He's not important."

Yes Ino, that's totally why you'd been pissed for days. Totally not important issues at all.

"You seem pretty upset," Reno noted, ever the observant Turk, "considerin' he ain't important."

A sigh. Yes, another one.

"What class is it?"

Hey, this totally had something to do with the rest of the conversation, yes.

She rolled her eyes.

"I'm pissed off," Ino informed him. "And it's Mythbusting, not that that's important."

"Sure it is. You're compromisin' your education over some spat with the prof," Reno pointed out. "Don't show up to Fight Club, fine. But skippin' classes ain't hurtin' nobody but you, Ino."

There was a pause, while he plowed onward with this train of thought, yes.

"What kinda myths you bust so far?"

"What's it matter, really?" Ino asked. "I've already graduated from the school that matters in my world. This one, most the classes aren't exactly geared for it."

"We've made soap, we've made fountains out of soda and candy, and we've learnt how to make a cannon out of a tree."

"You made soap," Reno pointed out. "You should know Durden's classes well enough by now to know where soap leads to later."

Reno liked the soap classes, okay.

"You tellin' me, honestly, that there ain't nothin' you can take away from that class that'll give you a leg-up on the people from your world who ain't been to Fandom? Really?"

"...no," she said grudgingly. "But this class isn't very, and by now I could make my own soap and blow shit up if I wanted to."

"Mmmhmmmm." Oh, you could almost hear the smirk from Reno's end, yes. "And you got no clue what else he's gonna teach this semester, do you? Or did Durden not bother with a syllabus for the summer term?"

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