raspberryturk | Edge, Thursday Evening

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Edge, Thursday Evening

"I'm friggin' bored," Reno announced, possibly to nobody in particular, possibly to the bowl of beans that he'd picked. "Bored bored bored."

The beans said nothing.

"You know how bored I am?"

The beans waited patiently for a reply.

"I'm so friggin' bored, I'm talkin' to string beans."

This was what happened when Reno got himself suspended from duty for two weeks.

Fear.

[NFB for distance, as usual, but totally open for phone calls!]

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Reno sighed and smeared the bean paste on his pants. He'd wash them later, or something.

"Keep it that way. No talkin' about tomorrow. Live in today. Works better for everyone, yo." He took a slow, deep breath. Calm. Calm Reno was calm and was going to be breaking out the rum tonight. "Ain't easy when you know things, is it? Stuff that'll sting down the road. You just wanna shout it offa the rooftops, zoto."

Zack is going to die.

"No," Dinah said, her voice hoarse. "It isn't." She looked down through the window at the lawn, and said, "I think I'd want to know. But. Easy to say, when I don't know what's coming." She thought of Connor Hawke telling her about being a superhero, and marrying his dad, and how hard it was to believe that sometimes. And sometimes not wanting to believe it. Reno was right; live in the now. "And in the now, it's over, there's nothing to talk about anyway, and... Zack's a hero." She sighed, shook her head. "Has to be enough."

Swallowing, Dinah said, "Anyway. Uh. Before you hang up, I have something for you. For the now."

"He ain't one just yet," Reno noted. "He's got to earn his stripes yet. Kick him in the ass if he looks like he's slackin' off, Rookie. Okay?"

Reno figured a swift boot to the butt couldn't hurt anything, at least.

"What you got, sittin' in the now?"

He was still calling her Rookie. So he didn't hate her. That meant a lot. Dinah swallowed hard, and said, "Hang on. I'm sending it through."

DIY Water_Filter.jpg.

She got back on the line, and said, "You guys can make them yourselves. I think the grass will be the hardest part, but we can ship that too, until you have enough grown for it to work. And I've got pages and pages on how to make bigger ones." Dinah had wanted him to be thrilled about this when she first thought of it, but now it felt like a tiny peace offering after a huuuge screw-up. "I'll e-mail you those."

Reno was... kind of staring at the picture, having stuck Dinah on speaker so that he could talk and look at the same time.

"That's for cleanin' up water, is it?" It was simple. It was so simple. "You're right, we are gonna need some kinda grass. Hell, send me seeds. I still got plenty of dirt right here, yo. I can grow it here myself an' then set 'em up around Edge."

Clean water! There were those who could actually afford places to live, and they were lucky enough that they did have some form of filtered water. But there were still entirely too many people living on the streets out there who didn't have that sort of luxury.

This would go awesomely with beans.

"I'll do that, and send you those little lawn-cutting samples for starters. Oh, and a few UV lamps, and a bucket of chlorine powder." Dinah smiled again, heartened. She sent another file (DIY!.pdf), reminded of Karla, immediately offering to help New Gotham when Dinah shared the memory of the Narrows with her. "Gotta do what we can, right?" She shook her head. "And yeah, Zack-- we run together a lot, and hang out, and there's no way he'll slack, but if he ever gets down or wants to quit, I'll make sure I'm there to keep him going. Okay?"

Reading material! Reno was going to save that one for later. Get Rude to go over it with him, because Ifrit knew he wasn't going to be able to decipher half of those words himself.

"I appreciate it," Reno decided, grinning faintly. "That's all you gotta do. Kid needs his friends. Don't we all?"

"Yeah." Dinah got a little more cheerful, and said, "He has a lot here. Arthur and me and Turtle and I think he was going on a date with Fiona? And he gets along okay with Leto, and Ben Skywalker, and other people too. He'll be okay." She'd make sure of it. "How's other things in Midgar?" She paused. "That would not mess up the future or the past by telling me. How's Mako and your friends? And did you turn into a girl last week?"

Reno laughed a little at the list. Bunch of names he knew, couple he'd never heard before. He'd been out of Fandom just for the summer, and he was already too far out of the loop for his comfort. Damn it anyhow.

"Life in Edge is life in Edge," he noted. "Mako's still a ninja-weasel-goose little dipshit thing, an' Rude's doin' fine, too. An' I was the hottest lesbian on Gaia, yo."

Clearly, he was proud of his time spent as a girl. Reno was... special.

Dinah hooted at that. "Seriously? Are there photos? Did you kiss anyone while you were a girl?"

"I showed my boss my boobs," Reno replied, gravely.

Actually the truth was waaay so much worse than that, but he didn't want to scar the rookie for life by telling her that it had been a dancing striptease. And that it had involved an awful lot of jiggling.

"You didn't! Dude! Seriously?!" Dinah cracked up, one part relief at being able to and one part the mental image of tall redhaired girl-Reno flashing his boss. "You have more cojones than anybody!"

"It was totally worth the suspension I got doin' it, too," Reno said. And yes, he was totally bragging. Only Reno would take getting suspended without pay as a point of pride. Honestly, now. "You wanna hear cajones? I licked him on the friggin' lips."

A beat.

"I swear, I can still taste the paperwork."

Not that Tseng had tasted like paper or anything.

Edited 2009-08-21 01:04 (UTC)

"..ahahahahahaa..."

And that would be Dinah falling down on her ass laughing, totally out of control because wow, licking your boss is steps way beyond flashing and if Reno was good with it, Dinah could only applaud.

So she did.

Reno grinned and waited it out.

"Life with the Turks, Rookie. Ain't never a dull moment."

A beat.

"Unless you're suspended. An' then the time you ain't workin' is freakin' boooooring."

"Awwwwww," Dinah said, lying on the floor, with an occasional hiccup escaping her. "People should applaud you! Bring you flowers! Send you booze!" She thought about it. "And maybe some of those hand-held video games, even if they get old too. How long are you suspended for? Doesn't he need you to work?"

"Two weeks," Reno replied, sighing. "He was gonna just put me on sewer duty, scoutin' around to make sure that nasties ain't gonna crawl out into the streets or whatever. I'm good by that. I come from the slums of Midgar, yo."

They smelled about the same.

"An' then he just... changed his mind. Figured a suspension would work better, I guess. He's right. Boredom sucks."

"Harsh," Dinah sympathized. "Very harsh. Sewers suck, but boredom?" She shuddered. "Craaaazy time. Your boss is smart. Mean, but smart. Maybe he'll go easy and cut it short, though? Although it would suck to have to promise not to do that again or something." She grinned. "I'll send you games to make the time pass for a while. Oh, did you get my last package, with the book and stuff?"

"You sent me a kaleidoscoooope," Reno crooned, grinning up at the ceiling. "That's friggin' awesome, Dinah. I ain't never had one of them thingies before, yo."

Dinah grinned, sitting up and hugging herself. "You liked it. Yaaaaay." She'd been looking for fun things, silly things. A Slinky was going in the next care package. "It's extra-durable. I bet you could hit an ogre with it, if you had to. Even though it's more fun to just lose an hour staring at the pretty colors."

"I'll hit monsters with the toys that're made for hittin' monsters, an' I'll enjoy the drug trip without the drugs in my spare time," Reno decided. "Less a chance it'll get Kalm Fang drool on it, or somethin' that way."

"Kalm Fang?" Dinah had to ask. "Speaking of stuff that sounds like drug trips...."

"Kinda like a wolf. Travels in packs, has one hell of a bite, yo. They live outside of Midgar. Always have, zoto."

Well, as far back as Reno could remember, anyhow. Which was long enough.

"Ahhhh. And also, ack. I'll stick with Blind Seer and Blysse, thanks." Dinah fell quiet a moment, then said, "We had another invasion, sort of. Two plus weeks ago now. Vampires in another dimension."

Oh yeah. Reno remembered mention of that, too.

"I heard about that," he noted, sobering up some. "Sounds like you made it through, though, huh?"

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