fandomhigh | Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

Whoa. That had to suck.

Rikku leaned over, peering at the guy with bright-red hair.

"Hiya! Uh. You okay?"

It sucked.

He wasn't about to pull himself to his feet just yet. The ground was nice. Hey, there was sky up there. And. Some freaky girl who couldn't dress herself. Nice.

"No." It was really more of a noncommittal grunt than an answer as he sat himself up.

"Yeah, I saw, I mean, you fell," Rikku chirped, cheerful and oblivious as always. "I didn't even see what you slipped on. Might've been your shoelaces. Do you need a hand?"

"No," he grunted again, pulling himself to his feet and giving that loose patch of turf another kick for good measure. Stupid ground. Stupid island. Who the hell ever heard of 'Virginia,' anyhow? Rude was going to hear about this. 'No, dumbass. It isn't a resort. And the girls are annoying and don't know how to dress.'

And that was coming from the guy who made tailors weep with the way he wore his suits.

"'M fine, yoto."

"Are you new here?" she asked, bouncing on her toes. "I just had to come down to the picnic, you know? Terrorize the newbies with all the weird stuff. Except then I feel bad when they think I'm crazy and freak out and all. But it's true so it's not like I'm hazing them or anything, just, you know. Fair warning and all. Uh. You sure you're okay? Bad day?"

"Bad somethin', anyhow." Reno didn't bother to dust himself off. Dusting himself off would indicate that he actually gave three shits about what people thought of him, at this point. He had already determined that high school sucked, so he was going to just do whatever he needed to do to get the job done and leave. "You got the terrorizing bit down pat, yo. Good job."

Okay, that was not very nice, thank you very much.

"I was just offering to help you since you fell over on your butt," she huffed. "If you don't want my help then you should have said so. There's no need to be rude about it, you know."

Her haughtiness required italics.

"Rude's my partner. I'm just entirely unpleasant, yoto."

Aw, he had hurt the feelings of the kid who should have let her parents dress her in the morning. He felt terrible. Kinda. ... No. Not really.

"You asked if I wanted help. I said no. How is that not sayin' that I don't want help, again?"

"Okay, I don't know who the hell Yoto is, but I'm Rikku," she said, eyes narrowed. "Look, are you some kind of Al Bhed hater, or are you always a jerk? I was just making conversation and you got all -- jerk-y. If you don't want people making conversation with you, you shouldn't be at the freaking newbie picnic. In fact, just get a sign to wear around your neck. 'DO NOT FEED MR. GRUMPYPANTS.' That should do wonders."

"Mr. Grumpypants?" ... Reno was going to stare at her, here. Here was the undeniable evidence that he had stumbled into a pit of lower life-forms. "I don't know what the hell an Al Bhed is, yoto. Really, I don't care, yoto."

He was going to use his nonsense word in excess for this one.

"I'm not exactly here because I wanna be, zoto."

"Oh. Well then, in that case, I think the thing to do is to totally be a complete prick to everybody else and make sure you have a miserable time and spread it around. Totally don't make friends or anything. Make sure it sucks just as hard as you think it will. That sounds really smart. You must be such a clever guy." The eyerolling, it was epic.

Edited 2008-01-04 18:32 (UTC)

"You have a better suggestion, Rikku?" He crossed his arms and attempted to stare her down.

It would probably have something to do with sunshine and sparkles and baby freakin' chocobo. He was sure of it.

Rikku gave him the stinkeye. "You're stuck here? Wow, check it out. You can either ... be miserable, and hate everything and everyone and just splash that around, or ... follow me here ... you can say the heck with it, I'm stuck here, I might as well enjoy myself. Meet people. Have a good time. Normal people would pick one of those, and stupid jerks who just wanna wallow in being grumpy would pick the other. See if you can figure out which is which. All by yourself."

He hated it when the crazy ones were right. He had plenty of experience with the crazy ones being right, after all.

"Okay. So, assuming that I get over the fact that I was sent to attend freakin' high school classes in a hole in the ground island in the middle of nowhere? Name somethin' here that makes it worthwhile, yo. And make it better than 'sunshine, sparkles, and baby freakin' chocobo.'"

"Why should I?" Rikku set her chin. "You're just gonna be all 'oh, no, not THAT. That sucks, I already know, 'cause I haaaaaaate it. I hate eeeeeeverything.' Fun! Besides, you're being all mean and you didn't even apologize for that."

"First day jitters," Reno replied with a dismissive shrug. He wasn't at all jittery. "Okay. So, assuming that I'm not always pissed off at everything. There anything remotely decent about this place?"

"Oh," Rikku said. Well, she was gullible. "You're nervous? It's okay, really. People here are nice. And it's fun here. They have all kinds of neat machina and the classes are pretty sweet and weird stuff happens a lot. Nothing scary, just weird. And besides, scary stuff is nothing to worry about, 'cause there are butt-kickers around."

Huh. The girl seemed to be honestly concerned, or something. Nice.

"Weird stuff doesn't bother me. And I'm not terribly worried about stayin' in one piece, either. Plenty of experience there, yoto." He paused and raised an eyebrow. "So, what. This place got bombs and bandersnatches runnin' about that weren't mentioned in the pamphlet?"

The one that he mostly didn't read.

"My bombs are all in the weapons locker," she said sourly. "And I haven't seen a bandersnatch since Gagazet. My friend Mel goes patrolling for vampires, except there usually aren't any. Except like a month ago, there was, and I guess her brother, too, when he showed up Parents' Weekend. So it's not really no vampires. Not many fiends to kill, though. Which sucks, but I just went home for a supply run so I'm all good."

"Things are more interesting if there are monsters running about," Reno said with a shrug. "Guess I'll cope. Somehow."

Rikku shrugged. "There are awesome classes and naked mutinies and ooooooh, we need more cheerleaders. That's always fun."

Huh. So Rude hadn't been entirely full of shit. That was good to know.

"So, you on the 'squad, then?" There was a beat. Wait for it. "...Wait. Naked mutinies?"

"You betcha! And we need more people to try out." She bounced. "Do you cheer? And we haven't had a mutiny in ages. I think it was summer. We were supposed to have one for John Crichton's wedding and I totally forgot. Not like at his wedding? But afterwards? 'Cause he taught Annoying Your Teachers last summer and that ruled and he managed to get pictures of what we did to Hades's office and oh man, I miss his class."

"I'm more inclined to appreciate the cheer team than ever aim to be on it," Reno replied dismissively, inclining his chin as he gave the crazy, bouncy girl another look-over. Maybe none of the cheerleaders on this island knew how to dress themselves. Given that she was wearing short-shorts, he was suddenly hoping that such would be the case.

And, because he had to ask. Had to.

"Dare I ask what one does on a naked mutiny, yo?"

"I'm sure you'd do great," Rikku said reassuringly, missing his point entirely. "It's more about having fun than anything, you know? And naked mutinies are when you all strip down and redecorate the vice-principal's office with, like, little pony figurines and posters that say "Some-bunny wuvs you" and other crap that's going to make his hair turn bright red. Except the first time I think it was glitter and boykissy posters? The first one just kinda happened, anyway."

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