Office Hours, Thursday

[raspberryturk]

Reno... really didn't have anything better to do today but come and hang out in his office, no.

Okay, sure, so there was the mother of all freaking bouquets on his desk, courtesy of his smart-assed co-teacher. And the flowers were starting to go a little...

Uh. Soggy, Reno supposed, was a good word for it.

So he was here today, up to his elbows in rotting flowers, with his nose wrinkled as he picked out all the valuable little nick-nacks from inside of it.

Pearls? Seriously?

The one upside, anyhow, was that Reno could sell some of this crap off and send the money back to Edge or Junon or something. This monster could totally go a long way, back home. Not that he suspected for an instant that maybe something like that was what Genesis had in mind...

[Open door, open office! Since I remembered that Reno actually has one of these things, today!]

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[the_merriest]

And there was a chirpy Al Bhed lingering in his doorway. Maybe not all that chirpy, today, but she seemed ... more centered, somehow.

"You busy?" she asked.

[raspberryturk]

"Do I look busy?" Reno glanced over his shoulder, smirking lightly at the Al Bhed in question. "Besides the flowers, anyhow?"

There was a small heap of things on his desk that could probably be sold off for a decent price. Or he could stuff them in Genesis' doorway, because he was too damn proud to accept charity. One of those.

[the_merriest]

"Should I be jealous?" she teased, nodding to the bouquets with a flicker of a smile. "If some pretty girl's been sending you flowers, I need to go knock her teeth out."

She paused to sniff them with a frown. "How come you let them go bad?"

[raspberryturk]

"I grew up in Midgar," Reno pointed out. "You think I know what the hell I'm doin' with flowers?"

He scowled at the bouquet, and then shrugged. "It ain't from no girl, anyhow. Co-teacher got 'em for me, because he thinks he's clever, or some shit. We did dancin' in class a few weeks back, and I joked that if he wanted to dance, he better be gettin' me flowers, yo."

He'd gone nuts with that, apparently.

[the_merriest]

"Okay," Rikku said, considering that. "He can hit on you, so long as I get to watch."

That was totally fair.

"How is your class going?" she asked. "Sorry I took longer to get back than I thought I would. Yunie's not ... always the easiest to track down."

[raspberryturk]

"Hey, so long as you're back and you're okay," Reno replied, grinning her way while he wiped his hands on his pants. "I can't complain about class. Makin' the students sing in public this week. We'll see if any of 'em get chased outta town with rotten fruit before the weeks' through."

A pause.

"How'd it go?"

[the_merriest]

"Okay, fess up," she laughed. "Are you just amusing yourself by torturing them? You can tell me."

She took a seat, watching the flowers for a bit. As if they might do tricks.

"I ... don't know," she admitted. "I said a lot of things I really needed to say. I'm ... not sure she gets it. But I ... it felt good to say, even if she doesn't, you know?"

[raspberryturk]

"What, that ain't what Rookies are for?"

Students, Reno. They are your students.

"Sometimes, it's the sayin' it that counts," Reno noted, nodding a little. "I'm pretty sure that Tseng ain't never gonna get what I gotta say, but that don't stop me from spittin' the words out, yeah?"

Okay, Reno probably could spit those words out a little less abrasively, someday. That would do him a world of good. But he was commiserating, here.

"So, you feel better about it, now?"

[the_merriest]

"Yeah," she agreed. "It's ... really good to just have them out there. Maybe I don't give her enough credit. Maybe she does understand. But I kind of feel like ... like maybe I'm free of it. Like maybe even if she doesn't understand ... I don't have to ... let that dictate what I do, or how I feel."

It was kind of horrible to say out loud, and at the same time, it felt so good. Cleansing.

"I can't ... I don't even know how to thank you," she said. "For ... everything."

[raspberryturk]

Reno shrugged a bit.

"Hey, that's what it's all about, babe," he replied, holding one arm out and inviting her to a half-a-hug.

Only half, because his other arm had rotten flower goo down the length of it.

"Or at least, so I hear."

[the_merriest]

"Grooooooss," she laughed. Not at him, or the hug, but rather, the rotten flower goo.

And, well, because joking about things that didn't matter was way easier than talking about things that did.

"They kinda smell funky," she said, along that same vein. "Maybe you should throw them out, zoto."

[raspberryturk]

"I'm pickin' out the nasty ones," Reno replied, giving his arm a shake. Flower goo? Everywhere. "I don't wanna let 'em go to waste, yo."

For the record, Reno hated flowers. Totally.

[the_merriest]

"It makes sense," she said easily, leaning up to drop a kiss on his cheek. "Do you want some help? We could peel out the bad parts and make some pretty bouquets out of the rest."

[sith_happened]

Anakin rapped on the door jamb after his Ethics class. "Do you have a moment?"

[raspberryturk]

"All the moments in the world," Reno sighed, making a face at... was that a sapphire? What the hell? And then nodding over to Anakin as he set it down on the desk in the small pile of crap that he'd been pulling from the bouquet.

It was so weird, waving him into the room as a peer, when Reno himself had taken Anakin's Ethics class, back when.

"What can I do for you?"

[sith_happened]

Anakin's thinking was along similar lines. "Nice office," he said. "You got flowers?"

Anakin was being a little avoidy today.

[raspberryturk]

Hey, Reno was totally cool with avoidy. Reno had figured once upon a time that he had the market cornered on that avoidy crap, but then he'd come to Fandom.

"Yeah, they're some kinda joke," he replied, taking a step back and inspecting the mess of them. He was pretty sure that he'd picked out all of the rotten ones. There was a massive heap of them in a garbage bag in the corner of the room to show for it. "I don't usually go puttin' pretty bouquets on my desk or nothin', yo."

... Really, Reno didn't do much with his desk at all, generally.

[sith_happened]

"You never really struck me as the type to care about interior design," Anakin agreed.

He took a deep breath. "I've been spending some time counseling Zack recently," he began.

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah?" Reno's tone was quite carefully neutral, right then and there. He dusted his hands off and glanced Anakin's way, eyebrows lifting just slightly.

He was afraid that he knew where this was going already.

"SOLDIER Boy in some kinda trouble?"

He wasn't playing dumb so much as he was playing... cautious.

[sith_happened]

"I believe the various timelines here have given him a glimpse at his future that he wasn't entirely prepared for," Anakin replied equally cautiously.

[raspberryturk]

Friggin' timelines, anyhow. Reno didn't bother to bite back the beginnings of a scowl as he rolled his sleeves back down again.

"Messy shit, ain't it? Dabblin' in timelines. Never know how many nightmares an' half-stories you could trip over, when you go pokin' around, yo."

[sith_happened]

"You've seen my various family members around the island," Anakin said. "I know the issues that can crop up." He ran his fingers though his hair. "I won't tell him anything, but I was wondering if I could get the story from you, just so I help...ease his mind."

[raspberryturk]

Reno pursed his lips a little at that. He hadn't really told anyone the whole story, front to back. It was long, it was messy. There were some things in there that he wasn't particularly proud of, and some that he'd spent the last few years beating himself up over.

"... You know, it's a whole world at stake, if any of this gets out?"

He had to make certain that there was no question in Anakin's mind about that, yes.

[I have to head off to sleep, now. Mind some SP?]

[sith_happened]

Anakin nodded. "You can trust my discretion," he said quietly. "Would you like me to chase the squirrels away?"

[NP! My brain is scattered too ;)]

[raspberryturk]

Reno shrugged.

"I'll buy 'em a bottle of whatever the hell they want if they piss off," he replied. "The squirrels and I go way back, yo."

They understood one another.

"It's a long story," he added, as if that was going to somehow deter this conversation at all.