MHA #1, Saturday Morning
The first thing Rikku noticed when she woke up was that the other side of the bed was still warm. Of all the tricks Fandom had ever played on her, this one seemed the most cruel. Bad enough to be back in their old apartment; now it was just taunting her with his nearness. Or maybe he was haunting her?
She sighed and snuggled more deeply into the covers. If he was haunting her, then the least he could do was make it interesting. Otherwise, she was going to have sex with someone he didn't like, just to spite him. Those were the rules.
Rikku hadn't been sure about coming back here. She'd lost touch with a lot of her friends after ... okay, it had been four years, no dancing around the subject. After Reno Had Died.
There. See? They were just words. Everybody died, some sooner than others. Granted, 'everybody' wasn't the same as 'your spouse, father of your children, and the one person you swore you could never live without.'
That was the thing about life. It just kept going. It didn't matter if you were sure you couldn't handle one more day. Seconds became minutes, minutes became hours, and hours became days. Time just passed, anyway. Time didn't really care what you thought about it.
In the initial swell of grief, she'd felt so many strange pulls. One to be reckless, to tear off into the ruins alone and fight monsters without any equipment. She had dismissed that easily enough. The kids had just lost their father. They shouldn't have to be orphans, just because Rikku couldn't get her shit together.
Another was to lean, heavily, on Rude. She'd resisted. It would have been too easy to mistake loneliness and comfort for something else. It was practically a cliche, people falling into each other's arms over someone else's body. Rude was a good guy, it wasn't that, just ... it wouldn't have been real.
She'd had real, once. It had been incredible. She'd had nearly twenty years of real. She wasn't sure if she could be lucky enough to get 'real' twice in one lifetime, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to try.
(Maybe not just yet. But one day.)
All the same, waking up in this bed -- their bed -- with that warmth in it, that was just mean, Fandom. And she was totally going to allow herself to cuddle his pillow and stay in bed for another hour. If she cried, so be it, no one was here to see. If she didn't cry, that was okay, too.
Either way, when the hour was up, she was going to shower, and put nice, fresh clothes on, and go talk to some of her old friends. It might be hard, being here, but life wasn't supposed to be easy. And it was better to have painful memories than none at all.
(OOC: Establishy. For anyone who missed the brainstorming post, Rikku came back, and Reno ... didn't. I cut for length and for some minor emo, although Rikku's tougher than she looks. And for E: yes, the last line is totally a take-off from "Spider in the Snow.")
She sighed and snuggled more deeply into the covers. If he was haunting her, then the least he could do was make it interesting. Otherwise, she was going to have sex with someone he didn't like, just to spite him. Those were the rules.
Rikku hadn't been sure about coming back here. She'd lost touch with a lot of her friends after ... okay, it had been four years, no dancing around the subject. After Reno Had Died.
There. See? They were just words. Everybody died, some sooner than others. Granted, 'everybody' wasn't the same as 'your spouse, father of your children, and the one person you swore you could never live without.'
That was the thing about life. It just kept going. It didn't matter if you were sure you couldn't handle one more day. Seconds became minutes, minutes became hours, and hours became days. Time just passed, anyway. Time didn't really care what you thought about it.
In the initial swell of grief, she'd felt so many strange pulls. One to be reckless, to tear off into the ruins alone and fight monsters without any equipment. She had dismissed that easily enough. The kids had just lost their father. They shouldn't have to be orphans, just because Rikku couldn't get her shit together.
Another was to lean, heavily, on Rude. She'd resisted. It would have been too easy to mistake loneliness and comfort for something else. It was practically a cliche, people falling into each other's arms over someone else's body. Rude was a good guy, it wasn't that, just ... it wouldn't have been real.
She'd had real, once. It had been incredible. She'd had nearly twenty years of real. She wasn't sure if she could be lucky enough to get 'real' twice in one lifetime, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to try.
(Maybe not just yet. But one day.)
All the same, waking up in this bed -- their bed -- with that warmth in it, that was just mean, Fandom. And she was totally going to allow herself to cuddle his pillow and stay in bed for another hour. If she cried, so be it, no one was here to see. If she didn't cry, that was okay, too.
Either way, when the hour was up, she was going to shower, and put nice, fresh clothes on, and go talk to some of her old friends. It might be hard, being here, but life wasn't supposed to be easy. And it was better to have painful memories than none at all.
(OOC: Establishy. For anyone who missed the brainstorming post, Rikku came back, and Reno ... didn't. I cut for length and for some minor emo, although Rikku's tougher than she looks. And for E: yes, the last line is totally a take-off from "Spider in the Snow.")