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Caritas - Monday Evening

Arashi was spending most of his time behind the bar sitting down. No reason as to why.

And no that wasn't him limping slightly when he walked and it had nothing to do with spending the previous night on the couch with his husband who wasn't really his husband that he might have been thinking of divorcing to the point that the paperwork was hidden in his desk at home.

At least Arashi thought he spend the night with him on the couch, it was difficult to tell since there had been absolutely no sign of the bastard when he woke up.

Nope, no reason at all for him to be kind sore and cranky as he went through the bar and got it ready to open.

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With plenty of Angry theraputic songs.

Arashi promises to be pleasent to anyone who comes in.

Just don't push your luck.

For some quiet lounging time.

Romeo went into the lounge when he got to Caritas. He needed quiet time to talk to Rikku, and the extra noise from the bar would distract him.

He fingered a small, tissue-wrapped package in one pocket as he waited for the girl.

Rikku bounced into the Lounge, glancing around for -- hey! Romeo. She shouldn't bounce too much, because of the wrapped tray of cookies she set down proudly.

"Ta-da!" she said. "Chocolate chip. I didn't even mess them up. I kinda didn't know what your favorite kind was, but everybody likes chocolate chip, right? Unless they're allergic. Oh. Crap. You're not allergic, are you?"

"Not allergic to anything," he said, smiling and reaching for a cookie. "You baked these? I didn't know you cooked."

Normal. Watch Romeo be normal.

"I can, yeah," she nodded. "I did a lot, when it was just us growing up. Mom was gone, and Pops had things to run, so I'd cook for me and Brother, you know? And then I got bored with it. That's when I get worried, halfway through a recipe when I have nothing better to do and start improvising."

Improvising usually led to an inedible mess and starting over. That didn't make it any less fun.

"We had a cook," Romeo shared. "I stayed away from the kitchen, probably wisely. I can use a toaster and, if I stretch myself, a microwave."

He paused as he crunched into a cookie. He had no idea what to tell her first.

"...I don't know where to start, Rikku. I am sorry I stormed off."

"Totally my fault," she said quickly. "I need to watch my mouth. I really didn't mean that against -- you or your ... group? I just say things wrong, and I yell too much, and I wasn't thinking. I even let Dojima lecture me about it, and that was while I was calling her mean names."

She flagged a waiter down to beg politely for a fuzzy navel. Embarrassment went well with alcohol.

"She let you call her names?" Romeo's mouth quirked. "It's .. I won't say all right, but I do understand some of why you feel the way you do." Some.

He leaned back. "I don't talk much about my faith, do I? It's hard, since no one here shares it."

"Not much," she said quickly. "I don't ... look, if it's ... something that helps you? Then I won't ... you know. I'm happy you have it. I just ..."

She shrugged, awkwardly. "Dojima said I need to trust you guys. Not to just wake up one day and go, 'They said I can't talk to filthy Al Bhed any more, so, kiss off.' She's right. I should."

She flushed, playing with the edge of the cookie tray. "A-and yeah. I called her a hypocrite. And self-centered? And she said, okay, she was, so what, and we both yelled some more."

Romeo sighed inwardly. "There aren't Al Bhed in my world," he reminded her. "And church never told me not to talk to anyone. It was the only place where we were under the same roof as Capulets without a fight at hand, though that was sometimes a near thing. And, to add to that, I do have my own mind, though I'm sorry people in your world give theirs up."

"She is a hypocrite and self-centered, he agreed. "Ino thinks she did the best she could, maybe."

"It didn't?" Rikku said, relaxing somewhat. "That's ... what worries me, you know? Uh. Yevon ... excommunicated people for going against them. If you questioned, or if you helped the Al Bhed, or anything. I got ..." She swallowed, hard. "Into a stupid fight, with someone, for saying he should think for himself, and he said some ... really mean stuff."

Oooh, her drink. Just in time that she could poke the straw into the glass and play with it. The straw made a nice sound, chipping against the ice.

"So ... you guys try to ... your church, I mean. It's trying to ... help people get along?" she asked. "That's ... I mean. You and the Capulets, you guys hated each other. I wouldn't have thought you could go anywhere and not ... have a fight start."

She smiled at him, somewhat wryly. "Maybe she did," she said. "I ... was mostly upset that she didn't ... hint more. Except that's not fair, maybe she did, to you. I mean, not telling me, I'm okay with, but -- she should've let you know she had things she couldn't share. Or was that off-limits, too? I don't think I ... get her group."

Edited 2008-09-09 02:03 (UTC)

"The nutshell of he beliefs, beyond that our God is God," Romeo told her, "is 'treat others as you would want to be treated,' I won't pretend we Catholics have a perfect record of that -- no one would after 2,000 years -- and I won't bore you with a summary of eleven years of parochial school. But the adult I trusted above all others, at home, was a friar, and he -" Romeo faltered. "He did his best."

"I'm fairly certain you go to Hell if you start a fistfight in church."

Edited 2008-09-09 02:21 (UTC)

"Nobody's perfect," Rikku said quickly. "I mean ... if you're all saying, 'hey, be good to each other' and that gets messed up, that doesn't mean you weren't saying it. Just that people ... aren't good at that kinda thing. It doesn't mean you didn't try."

She hesitated. "Yevon ... talked more about ... what people did that was wrong. How Sin -- the monster, I mean -- it came about because of people who did bad things, and you could only stop it by atoning. So we Al Bhed, we ... by not believing, that meant we didn't atone, and that meant every time Sin took out a village, someone's family ..." She shrugged. "It made it hard."

Now was a good time for a sip of her drink. "Can anyone go in your churches?" she asked. "They didn't like me going in. I wasn't doing anything, honest, just guarding Yunie while she prayed."

"People are horrible at kindness," Romeo agreed. "There's sin in my faith -- small s -- but there's also love and redemption. I always liked those parts more." He was not sharing his conviction he was dammed; he knew that would set her off again.

He gave her an odd look. "Of course you could come in. They barred you, really?"

"Those parts were always ... the bits that sounded nice," she admitted. "Where people believed and it gave them hope, or where people were kind because they thought Yevon would want that. It was ... less often. But Yunie would Send the dead, and ... that part, I always wanted to believe. That she could dance and turn and ... people who were trapped here would find their way again, could go be at peace."

She'd closed her eyes once or twice and wished them along. If anyone could send souls home again, it was Yunie. They told her later that, at Mi'ihen, Yuna had danced until she fell over from exhaustion. Maybe a few of the Al Bhed lost there were allowed to sneak through the door.

"They tried," she shrugged. "I wasn't ... welcome in a holy place, 'cause it was sacred and I was one of those people. And Auron told them to shove it, I was a Guardian anyway, and they were all 'she can't be a GUARDIAN if she's AN AL BHED' and I said, all I care about is Yunie, move it. So they did."

Paraphrased, but close enough.

"I like Auron," he decided. "No, there are some parts you couldn't do, but as for just sitting there, anyone can." He touched the thing in his pocket. "Would you be offended if I gave you a sort of ... religious trinket?"

"I do, too," Rikku smiled. "I wish you could've met him, he was something else. He was really a Guardian, the rest of us were just trying not to screw up."

She glanced at him. "I don't think so," she said, curious. "What is it?"

"I suspect you did a sight better than that," he said, drawing the packet out and setting it on the table between them. "Open, then I'll explain."

Rikku opened the package, carefully, looking over the beads and at the pendant. The latter was oddly familiar, and it took her a moment to place it.

"The church downtown has ... this on the wall, doesn't it?"

"It's a crucifix," he explained tenderly. "On a set of beads, like this, it's called a rosary. You use them to count prayers, or to meditate. I hoped you would take it as a token that not all religion is ugly."

"So ... you use this for praying, and things like that?" she said, lifting it gently and running her fingers over the beads. "Does it help?"

"I think it does," Romeo said. "I don't know if God cares. I doubt He does. But when you're reciting prayers, it's nice to have something to do with your hands." At least it was for him, but he was jittery anyhow. "And I think they're just beautiful."

"I fidget," she said a bit sheepishly. "It's always nice to have something to do with my hands."

She hesitated before asking. "If ... sometimes, I go into the meditation room, at Wellspring? If I took this with me, that's not ... disrespectful or anything, is it?"

"I wouldn't think so," Romeo decided. "Not if you approach it like anything sacred, even if you don't believe in it." He managed a smile; this had gone better than he had hoped. "And besides, it's misused often enough. People wear them as jewelry, hang them in cars and from guns..."

"It wouldn't mean I was ... practicing, would it?" she said. "I mean. Totally no offense to it, just that I'm not and all. And -- no, I'd treat it with respect. We always -- even in the temples, Guardians can't go into the inner sanctum, so we'd wait nearby. Even if you don't believe, disrespecting is ... that's just rude."

The beads were soothing, to run her fingers over. Strange.

"No more than having sat through religions class made me a Buddhist or a Jew or whatever Professor Biff was," Romeo said. "He might be better than I am at convincing you most Earth religions aren't like those on your world -- at least most of the time -- if you can find him. I think radio said he came back."

He smiled at the way she played with the beads. "They were my mother's."

"He's back?" Rikku said. "I kinda ... liked him. I didn't think I would. I didn't mean to sign up for his class, even, and I thought I'd hate it. He ... some of the things he talked about, it kinda reminded me of ... Yunie, on her pilgrimage."

Particularly the bit about pulling people in to join. Rikku had been trying to kidnap Yuna, and next thing she knew, she was a freaking Guardian.

She looked up suddenly, fingers freezing in place. "Oh," she said. "I can't -- I mean, this is yours, I shouldn't --"

Romeo shook his head slightly, indicating she should keep them. "I've other things from her," he said. "My father's house is still full of them, for that matter. It's not like with your mother."

He patted his pocket for his cigarettes. "So. Yurika." And ... he wasn't quite sure where to go from there.

"I'll take good care of them," she said solemnly. Meaning it, and realizing how important these must be to him, somehow.

Rikku considered. Deep breath. "I ... kinda know how you're feeling. It's not the same, at all, but we ... had our own mess, you know? With Reno's job. I had to tell him that I needed time, but that's me. Maybe you need to yell and scream, or maybe you need to be away for a bit. It's okay. It's ... hard 'cause ... you're angry, and you just want to stomp out, but you still ... you know." She shrugged, awkwardly. "Love them. At least, I did. If I didn't, it would've been so much easier, you know?"

He gave her a smile. "I seem to need to complain about her to half the school, mostly," he said. "I know the taste of fury, but I've never been able to stay angry for long. When I hate someone, it's cold, and I cannot be cold about her."

"And I do. Love her."

"Yeah," she said, shaking her head. "It's not ... something you can turn off easily. So there's really no good answer, right away. You're the only one who knows if you wanna stay with her or not. I mean, you love her, but she's hurt your trust. And things are different, now, or ... maybe it's just they've always been like this and you didn't know. That's your decision. But you don't need to make it right away."

She brushed the hair out of her eyes. "However I can help, I mean, I want to. If you want to vent and yell and scream, or if ... you want me to check up on her, or if you want to get ice cream and watch bad movies. Or advice. I have lots of advice, just, you know. Not sure any of it's any good."

Romeo shrugged one shoulder. "Advice can never hurt, and let me decide if it's any good."

"I think ... you need to talk to her," she said carefully. "Even if it's just to yell and vent and then storm off. I think you need time, and you need to know way more about what she's doing and how that's gonna affect both of you. I think you need lots of hugs and ... from there, I just hope it's all gonna be okay. With you guys, I mean. I think she's sorry, but that doesn't mean that it was okay for her to do what she did. That's ... up to you, you know?"

He gave her a rueful look. "I'm not exactly angry anymore," he said. "I am, but ... I won't help things by yelling. And I'd be a bit of a hypocrite to be angry at her for not telling me something."

He shrugged. "It will be different, with us. I need to get to know her again. But I hope it will be okay."

"I hope so, too," she nodded. "It's ... I think if you both want it to be, it can. Sometimes that's all it boils down to, right at the end. Whether both of you are willing to see it through, you know?"

The world can end now, but only 7:30am - 4:00pm pacific Mon - Fri until September 19th.

....Best not to ask.

Edited 2008-09-09 00:46 (UTC)

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Caritas - Monday Evening

The Stage

The Bar

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OOC