Don't Step On The Flowers

Okay. So the fight against the centaur yesterday had been fun.

The fight against Hades today had been... less fun.

But they'd pulled people out of Hell-Or-Whatever-It-Was, and the day was saved. Or something of the sort.

Clearly, the best way for Reno to celebrate this was to bang his forehead against the door, down one ponytail and up one Rikku.

He'd get around to actually opening his door eventually. Just as soon as he felt up to pretending that his hands weren't too charred to dig the key from his pocket.

[For the modded-with-permission girlfriend!]

It had been A Day. A week. A whole weekend and Reno, who was still both puny and plastic, was in need of a drink.

He wasn't in a bad enough way that he was going to go to the bar. There were certain things that action figures shouldn't do in public. Sure, he could go to The Perk to give computer lessons and he could scar his friends for life, but the bar? Even if he was hurting for a drink and a smoke and a hell of a lot of escapism, he wasn't going to head to the bar. Besides, he had his own booze. It was simply a matter of getting into it. Easy as pie.

Or, it should have been, except the bottle toppled over as he was attempting to pry the cap off, and it took him with it. The next thing he knew, he was on the floor, face down in spilled scotch, and his body was a good four inches away from his head.

Oh, good. Not only was he an action figure, but he was an action figure with a freaking faulty balljoint for a neck.

This would have been less problematic if his body wasn't more interested in saving the booze than it was in solving the fact that it was slightly decapitated at the moment.

"No, stupid, I'm over here."

It was going to continue being A Day.

[Open! And I swear, he'll be normal again tomorrow. I just had to. My own Reno action figure's head falls off on a regular basis. Pretty, yes. Lots of points of articulation? For sure. But clearly not made to do much looking around, poor thing.]

Reno was pacing, casually, back and forth in front of the captive that he had duct taped to a tree that he, himself, had made painful acquaintance to a month and a half before.

His Electromag-Rod was resting on his shoulder, and every now and again, he'd give it a very casual sort of tap. Letting his prisoner know that he meant business.

"You ain't been very cooperative with me this week," he spat, then took a mouthful from the bottle of Everclear that was in the hand not currently holding a stun weapon. "I tell you to do your job, and you don't want to, yo. You're supposed to work, when I want you to work. And instead you sit there, like you got some kinda right to it, and you know what? That just don't sit right with me. You understand?"

The rod got another tap on his shoulder. He took another mouthful of the booze, and he turned to face his duct taped captive, pointing his weapon dangerously, sneering.

"I think you're laughin' at me inside. You laughin' at me on the inside?"

No answer.

'No answer' was a bad answer.

The poor, totally demolished laptop learned the meaning of pain, right there. A thorough beating by a drunken Turk with an electrified stick. That would sure teach it a lesson.


[Open if you have some reason to be out in the middle of nowhere in the woods in the dead of night. But otherwise, Reno's content to drunkenly brutalize the hardware in peace.]

Reno was in a mood. But it wasn't as bad a mood as the one he'd been in on Tuesday when he did his broadcast. A few conversations had, at the very least, helped him get his head on straight again, and he'd picked up a replacement for his duct-taped mess of a laptop at T&C earlier, so he was good to go.

In a mood, but good to go.

He cracked his knuckles, loaded his e-mail up, and started to type his report.

( Oh, Tseng was going to LOVE this. )

Reno was not the greatest typist in the world, but he was sure that his report got the message across pretty clearly.

[The door's closed, but the post is open if anyone has a burning need to stop in to prod Reno.]

"Permission to crawl under the bed and die, sir?" Phone calls. Phone calls were the worst idea that every freaking universe out there could possibly have come up with. Phone calls were going to be the death of Reno, one of these days. This phone call felt like it had the potential. Freaking phone calls.

( Cut for Length, Coarse Language, and because the conversation goes perhaps disturbingly dark. )

[Preplayed with the astounding the_merriest, who continues to be an awesome Tseng. Similarly, the post is open only to the non-Tseng version of the same, if you please.]

Right. Typing up that stupid report for Tseng. Boring, stupid, somewhat distracted report. Things were Not Right On the Island of Fandom. Rikku was worried, and her worry made Reno... uneasy. And Radio had been... off. So Reno's report was far more detached than usual.

Somewhere around halfway through, he heard the announcement.

( So his report... )

His laptop threw off a couple sparks from where it sat on the floor across the room.

He sighed, pulled out his phone, and sent a text to Rude. Will be needing new Laptop.

He was going to have to find Rikku.

[Door is closed. Am heading for work shortly, but the post is open if you don't mind insane freaking slowplay that will not be replied to until later tonight.]

Reno was in a much better mood when he woke up on Tuesday morning. Apparently, sparring with Faith had done wonders for him.

There really wasn't anything like bleeding to improve a nasty grouchy funk, he figured.

And, he was pleased to note, his shoes (which he had cut the tongues out of in a most sadistic manner and would have to replace), were no longer whimpering pathetically. It was a good day all around. And really, only one thing would make it better.

( He would obviously have to vocalize that one thing. )

When the song had ended, to a chorus of invisible singers going 'la lala' to the trumpets, Reno just stood there for a moment, looking confused.

...

At least the shoes weren't mouthing off?

[Open-ish, though Tuesdays are the day of omg bad availability, as per the norm. My apologies go to Cake. It had to be done.]

Reno was beginning to wonder if perhaps Tseng would take his suggestion to extend his report deadlines to Tuesdays more seriously, given that weekends tended to be... strange.

This week's report to the boss consisted of offhand references to trees, duct tape, and a missing cell phone, a casual mention of talking frogs and chocolate milk, insisting that his new room was just great, plus a very adamant assertion that it had been exactly a week since he had sent that last report, so he was still, technically, on time.

And also, he'd be needing more dress shirts and a large supply of hi-potions. No reason.

[Just the typical "Reno types an e-mail woo" post. The door's closed, but the post is open-- if you don't mind that I'm not going to be here for most of the rest of the day, and slowplay's still good with you.]

Okay. So Reno's report back to Tseng was now four or so days late. Reno was also blue. Now that he was too freaked out to show his face in public, it would be a great time to hole himself up in his room, bite the bullet, and type the stupid thing out.

Nearly the instant that he had hit send, he had received a reply.

( So he opened it! )

Needless to say, he was on his feet and out the door, blue face and all, very quickly.


[NFI, for this is establishy goodness, la la la.]