Don't Step On The Flowers

So, the thing about getting care packages from the Rookies at Fandom was... Well, they were exciting to break open and rummage through. And Reno always found himself grinning like an idiot as he poked about at the contents. Really, until the Rookies started sending stuff like this, he could honestly say that (barring Fandom Island picnics and assorted acts of nature) he'd never seen so much food all in one place in his life.

With more care than he ever really bothered to admit he could take with something, he set the rum and the vodka to the side. One of those space heaters would come in handy right... right there, in the corner. By Mako, so that the ferret could stay warm. The seeds could sit over there, on that shelf by the soil samples that he'd grabbed, from that fertile patch out in the wastelands.

And that cookie there could go into his mouth.

The rest? Well. There were a few kids outside, and it was winter in Edge. He couldn't take them in- it was too damn dangerous for a Turk to let anybody in, even kids. Too dangerous for the kids, for that matter. But they could probably use a comforter. And a heater that didn't need to be plugged in.

... And some steaks. And some juice. And some chewy vitamins.

And so on.

"What do you think, Mako?" Reno sighed as he closed up the box and started to puzzle out how many trips it was going to take him to bring all of this stuff down to street level. "You figure that damn island made me soft?"

The ferret honked.

"Yeah. I didn't think so either, yo."

[Open for phone calls, if anyone wants!]

"Back to work, back to work."

Work for Reno, it should be noted, mostly consisted of him putting his feet on his desk and pretending to be busy. There were reports to be filed. He didn't wanna. That required effort.

Taking jobs that involved him chasing down monsters or beating terrorists to a messy pulp or, dare he say it, the jobs that required making hits? That wasn't work. That was play.

Reno? Reno was working. So hard at work. Staring at paper. Paperwork would be less boring if maybe it came in crossword format. Or word search. Or if it was written out in code that replaced each letter of the alphabet with a different picture of a naked chick. If it did that, maybe it wouldn't be so much work!

Yes, he was totally spending his time hard at work trying to will the phone to ring with his brain. Ugh, work.

[For phonecalls, of course. Reno is, as usual, boooored.]

It had been another long, hard night. Tseng seemed to be doing everything in his power to drive Reno to the point of cracking since Elena had taken off for Fandom, and Reno couldn't exactly blame him. This time, it had been a run to the outskirts of the makeshift city, under heavy gunfire, to neutralize a group of citizens who had gotten fed up with the poverty. They'd gone out, found themselves some weapons inside the wreckage of the old ShinRa building, and had taken to going door-to-door, shaking people down and waving said guns in their faces until they handed over all of their food.

Not cool.

( In Which Stuff Happens, And Reno Has A Chewy Ear. )

[Open for phone calls or what-have-you.]

Damn, it was good to be on the island.

Daaaaaaaamn, it was so good to be on the island. And sure, the room he'd grabbed at The Arms wasn't his dorm room, but he had a real, honest-to-gods bed here, instead of the lumpy couch Reno had been sleeping on for the past little while, and that alone made the whole trip worth it.

Well, the bed and the minibar. He was going to have to coordinate some kind of drinking outing with the guys before he took off again, maybe. In the meantime, he'd pick up his cellphone and leave some handwavey messages telling his buddies on the island where he could be found.

And then? Then he was going to flop backward on that amazing friggin' bed and just sprawl.

Oh, hell yeah.

[Door's open, and if you figure you'd get a call, you totally did. Mmmm, feels like home.]

Grad was over! Reno was a free man! More or less!

And there was no better way to celebrate this fact than to make his way to the hotel, hit up Tseng's room, and then instigate a drinking game of booze purchased straight out of the minibar, while watching some terrible movie on pay-per-view.

One of those Keanu Reeves movies, or whatever. Keanu Reeves starring as Keanu Reeves, doing the things that Keanu Reeves does.

"Two shots if somethin' blows up," Reno announced to the Turks assembled. "Three if it's not because of Keanu, zoto."

[For, like, every Final Fantasy character on the island.]

The girlfriends had classes. The baby needed to be protected. That was the mission. That was the job.

Hunkered down in Rikku's room. Surrounded by diapers and baby food and a smiling yellow teddybear crib. Watching the baby.

The mind-blowingly adorable baby. With the little red pigtails and the big green eyes and the wiggly toes. Very cute wiggly toes. Reno was resisting the urge to make up his own version of "this little piggy," because he didn't actually know how it was supposed to go.

Yep. Alone in Rikku's room. With a baby.

And Madrox.

"If she craps herself, you're on diaper duty, yo."

[For that guy, but the post is open! If you want to make the boys freak out good, just knock. :D]

Okay. So, the plan tonight was supposed to be pajamas and movies, or whatever. But Reno didn't have pajamas. So he was going to settle for one of his rude t-shirts. But he had no idea where they went. Probably the same place as his jacket, two pairs of his pants, all of his white dress-shirts, and every single sock that didn't have holes in it.

So Reno was knocking at Rikku's door tonight in one of his blue dress-shirts. The one with the pinstripes that he'd bought from Romeo at Pixie Dust back when there had actually been a Pixie. Socks, he didn't need. Socks were stupid, anyhow.

He came bearing potato chips! Knock knock!

[For the girl who lives here!]

There had been a handwavey dinner at one of those fancy new restaurants in town, where, naturally, Reno had excused himself to 'go to the bathroom' halfway through the meal, and had ended up paying for dinner while Rikku least expected it.

It really had been a matter of pride.

Dinner had gone well enough, at that. Nobody had turned into weird animals. Freak thunderstorms hadn't kicked up in the distance. The world hadn't ended.

Reno really couldn't complain as he laid the blanket out on the beach.

They had a sky to watch. Clouds and chill in the air and all.

[For one.]

Reno was standing around outside, after doing things of an entirely nondescript nature, leaning backwards against a nearby wall, tucked out of obvious sight.

He had a lit cigarette clamped in his teeth, and he was clearly just hanging around, having a smoke outside on an October night. Nothing the matter with that.

It wasn't at all that he was waiting to intercept somebody. It wasn't at all that he had to talk to her.

Really.

[For one.]