i just wanna leave tonight

[klutziness]

WHO: Rikku [klutziness], Santo [rocksforbrains], and some of their friends!
WHERE: All over the City.
WHEN: During the event.
WHAT: Rikku & Santo Tear Up the City With Some of Their Friends Part 2, Electric Boogaloo
WARNINGS: TBA! All starters will be closed. Please PM me or Franky if you'd like to do something, or ping one of us on plurk!

Leaving the City had been the easiest and hardest thing Rikku had ever done. She'd built a life there, one better than she could've imagined when she popped out of the Porter almost ten years ago. But despite all the ups over the years, the downs had eventually piled up too high. The registration crackdown on imports had been the last straw, and getting out had been the only option she and Santo could see. And with the Porter shut down, there didn't seem to be much reason for them to wait around for friends and family from their homes. They had each other, their friends here, and that would have to be enough.

Years passed. Their family grew. Chavvi is three now, and the light of Rikku's life, and she's amazed every day that she could love someone so, so much. She's just glad she and Santo were able to get away, to build their life the way they wanted. She's content. Keeps herself busy. Doesn't have a problem staying away from the City and maintaining long-distance friendships.

When she gets the call that the Porter has flickered back to life, everything changes.

The trip is supposed to be short. She packs their bags, sends a message off to StarkTech that she'll be paying a site visit (her first in years), and tells Santo she and Chavvi are taking a road trip. Not a long one, hopefully, but an important one.

"I've just gotta check on things!" It's what she says nearly a hundred times before she actually leaves for the City.

"What if someone we know showed up? I gotta be there!" It makes sense to her. And later, she tries to make it seem fun: "Think about it, we can take Chavvi to all your favorite pizza places, and show her off to everyone in person instead of over a webcam!"

Eventually, she scoops up Chavvi and blazes the trail first, just to check up on things. She's kept tabs on what goes on in the City, but it isn't the same as actually being there. Santo says he'll follow, and she nabs them a room at a swanky hotel for when he arrives. It's a good thing living in the desert is cheap.

Comments

[rocksforbrains]

If there was one thing Santo did not do, it was spend the last three hours after getting off the bus wandering the City trying to find where the hotel actually was.

That's because it was two hours, at the most.

It wasn't so much that he was being dumb or didn't care as it was that, well, his navigational skills had atrophied. Moving from a city to the middle of nowhere had been an adjustment period, the kind where you take the part of your brain adapted to living your entire life in an urban environment and chuck it in the garbage so it could be replaced with important information like "there are coyotes howling in your backyard" and "Oh God sand really does get everywhere." Now, though? He's totally acclimatized again.

And trying to get the key left for him downstairs through the electronic lock on the door.

"Oh c'mon!" He grumbles after the third time it feels to make that sweet beep of unlocking. "Did they just give me a library card or something? Work, damnit-"

[klutziness]

Being a mom is everything Rikku ever hoped, plus a little extra--the extra being finding out exactly how hard it is to put a toddler down for a nap when she does not want to sleep. The high she gets after successfully getting Chavvi to close her eyes is like finding some super rare loot on a Queen Coeurl. No, it's better. Waaay better, no question.

She knows when Santo's bus was supposed to arrive, so she gives him about an hour and a half, knowing he'll spend it wandering, before she starts to get a little worried. But she tells herself it's fine, he'll get here soon. He always does.

Fifteen more minutes, and her stress starts to morph into exhaustion. Five minutes later, she's passed out in the cushy armchair, and misses his first three attempts to get into the room. But the fourth manages to get through her sleep haze, and she jolts upright in the chair, hearing him grumble from the other side of the door.

"Santo?" It's very obvious that she's been asleep, based on the way his name comes out a little slurred. But her brain starts to catch up, and she staggers out of the chair, heading for the door. "Santo, babe! Stop with the key, I'm gonna open the door!" There is a fifty percent chance that she will try to open it from the inside as he does the outside, and nothing will be accomplished.

[rocksforbrains]

Luckily, the coin flip comes up tails, and Santo's hand is off the door as Rikku starts to open it. He promptly throws the card off to the side, grinning down at her.

"Hey. Miss me?" This is Santo's way of saying 'I missed you' that doesn't imply that he spent any amount of time lonely or sad at all. With his somewhat slimmer 'travel size' rock body he slips in through the door, moving and speaking quietly, not taking the chance of waking Chavvi up just in case. "I woulda been here sooner but I ran into an old friend and things just kinda happened."

[klutziness]

Grogginess dissipates from her in just a few seconds, and she loops her arms around his neck with a giggle. "Nah." Which is code for, "So much." She pushes the door shut behind him with an outstretched leg, gently so it won't slam and wake Chavvi. She isn't ready yet to try and put her down for a nap again, not by a longshot.

Rikku rolls her eyes, and gives a gentle, loving scoff. "Oh yeah, of course." She grins, a little wicked, and can't help but tease: "So what happened?"

[rocksforbrains]

That question makes his grin falter only for a second. So much shit happened in that time wandering and not all of it was good. The last thing he wanted was to burden her with that, especially when they might all be low-key stressed about the whole Porter thing.

"Uh, ran into an old friend from school. We hung out for a bit." He says, shrugging a little. That's the simplest version to go with. He wraps his big rocky arm around his wife's waist, holding her close.

"What about you guys? Been settling in okay? Any problems with the lil' pebble?" He had to pick from a few pet names for Chavvi when she was born and 'chip off the old rock' was way too long.

[klutziness]

She sees the change in his face, but lets it go. For now. It's been a hard couple of days for the both of them, and she doesn't want to make things worse until they've had time to get their bearings.

"Sounds nice." And she says it with such a chipper tone that it's easy to let the conversation move on.

With his arm around her, she has no problem rolling her eyes and leaning back dramatically against his rocky forearm, heaving a long-suffering sigh. "She's perfect, of course." And she lifts herself just a little to add: "At least when she isn't giving me a million reasons why she couldn't take a nap because she didn't want to be asleep when her daddy got here." Which is still perfect, but Rikku can't help but be a little jealous that she isn't Chavvi's favorite parent this week.

[rocksforbrains]

That garners a gravelly chuckle as he sits - very, extremely carefully just like all his interactions with furniture - on the edge of the bed, moving his arm aside so that she can slide off next to him if she wants. "Hey, at least you can talk her into going to bed. If it was me here I'd probably have given in." Because of course Santo is the parent who has problems saying no. He's aware of that, but being aware of it and able to actually do something about it is two different things.

His tone shifts to a little more serious as he fidgets in his spot on the edge of the bed. "So, uh." He starts, then stops to find his words before finishing the thought. "You didn't notice anyone following you guys or anything? Nobody shifty hanging around?" He's a little paranoid about being back in the City again. Aside from meeting Rikku and the bright spots of hanging with his friends he didn't have the best memories of the place, to say the least.

[klutziness]

"Trust me, you would have. She's a sly one." Rikku never thought she'd have to be the "no" parent, but here she is, making sure little Chavvi doesn't rot all her little teeth out with sweets and has a reasonable bedtime. But she can't say she minds it--in fact, she's kind of grown into it. She plops down on the bed beside Santo, only lasting a moment upright before sprawling over the mattress.

But she lifts her head as soon as he starts asking if they were followed, and is sitting up again to wrap both her arms around one of his, shaking her head emphatically. "No, nobody followed us and nobody has even lingered outside the hotel or anything. I sent a couple of bots out to wander around the hotel as soon as we checked in." She understands his paranoia, and knows it isn't entirely unfounded. One of the perks of being a longtime StarkTech employee is that she's got access to all sorts of tech, including the little droids she'd designed herself. "We're safe here, I promise."

[heal_or_execute]

Mordin doesn't know the details of the raid that's been reported, or of the casualties that are said to be inbound to this particular Resistance safehouse. It's been chaotic, conflicting scraps of information filtering in from different sources. So he prepares based on his best estimate of what to expect: bullet wounds, shrapnel wounds, inhalation of gas.

When Rikku comes in, the alien doctor is waiting for her with a bed ready, supplies and instruments on the table next to him, and a glowing omni-tool prepped on his forearm.

"Hello," he says in his most comforting voice as she's laid on the bed. "Going to take a look at you. You'll be all right."

[klutziness]

Coming to the City wasn't supposed to be dangerous.

Before they'd left, she'd taken such care with covering her and Santo's butts. She'd wanted a family, and had known that the only safe way to do that was to erase a lot of the life they'd led in the City, first and foremost anything related to vigilantism. It had been difficult, but a few strings here and a favor cashed in there had gotten the job done. They'd gotten off easy, compared to a lot of their friends. She still feels a little guilty, which might be why she'd been at the site of the raid in the first place. She rarely appears in-person for her dealings with the resistance, but she'd wanted to see some familiar faces. Wanted to remember the better times.

And now here she is, lying on a bed with cuts and scrapes and at least a sprained wrist, and all she wants to do is scream and cry and blow something up. That's all easy to do in the middle of the desert when nobody is around to see or hear you, but there are people who had been counting on her in this safehouse, who expected things of her, and she can't let them down like that. So she bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes iron, face scrunched up with determination not to lose her shit.

Seeing Mordin helps. Hearing him, too. He's a calm point in the chaos, and she does her best to focus on that and not how much she just aches everywhere. "Just no needles, doc." She tries to make it sound like a joke, but she's actually dead serious. She can't handle a needle on top of all this bullshit today. "Slap a band-aid on me and I'll be fine. I'm resilient, y'know?"