Office #3; Saturday [09/26].

[somethingwithturquoise]

So it was only Saturday and already Summer's weekend was...not great! And while she was reluctant to even hold office hours right now with the whole idea of Hemorrhage and his apparent inability to be 'contained by four walls' and just stay the hell in his hotel room, this was kind of her job and her responsibility and so she pretty much had to at least be in her office today for any parents who might actually want to swing by. Maybe it might even be a nice distraction?

Ha.

Hahahaha. Okay.

And then there was the fact that her office was the office that it was, and as she sat there at the desk, and looked across at the mural with the Loth-cat that Sabine had done ages ago, she was just starkly reminded of whose office this used to be. Which was why she claimed it, of course, as a weird sort of way of preserving it and maybe still being close to him, but today, all she could do was look across the room, see that painting, and just ache. It would be just her luck. There was only one person (well, two people) in the entire multiverse she would have wanted to actually show up for a weekend like this, and that was impossible, and what she got was an absolutely dumpster fire instead, all because her grampa was a stupid, petty piece of shit.

It was almost enough to make her want to cry, and she even felt the tears starting to build up in her eyes a little, but she wasn't going to let that happen, especially not when anyone could just come into the office at any time, so she took in deep breath, tilted back her head, held it, forced it all way, way, way back down, and breathed out again.

Turned her attention to her laptop. Took care of an email from that Ignis guy. Started writing up lesson plans to make it look like she actually wrote lesson plans and didn't just wing everything. Focused on just that for the moment, something tangible and small and under her control, and hoping that Hemorrhage was discovering that he liked bathing in champagne just as much as he liked bathing in blood.

Seriously, wtf, how did he get the champagne room??

[[ open office hours is open! ]]

Comments

[1000yearstoolate]

Sometime during the morning Summer got a text:

Are you ok?

[somethingwithturquoise]

Summer glanced over at her phone a little ruefully as it buzzed with a text, almost reluctant to pick it up and see what it was and who it was from, and then she sighed when she saw it and wondered how many times she was going to hear (well, see) that question this weekend.

FINE. I'M FINE. EVERYTHING IS FINE.

And really, if you put it into perspective, as far as awful stupid things that could happen to her right now went, it wasn't even really that bad, right? Like, it could still be so much worse, but she wasn't going to think about that much more beyond that, because, again, with her luck, it would certainly find a way to get worse...

[1000yearstoolate]

Let me know if you need to talk.

Seivarden Vendaai might not be the best person for that, but at least she was trying.

[somethingwithturquoise]

Talking about it was probably not the worse idea in the world, but Summer took two seconds to think about what talking about it with Seivarden would be like, and...

there's really nothing to talk about but thank you i'll keep that in mind.

[weirderthanthou]

Jesse felt weird just showing up to a high school office unannounced, so...

Guess her assistant was sending you texts again, Summer!

The boss wants to know if you want to meet a friend of hers she's being super awk about it

[somethingwithturquoise]

Hey, look at that! A text not asking if she was okay!

In fact, Summer was sort of loving how normal this one was. Yes, Jesse being a little awkward and receiving texts from her via her assistant was considered normal. Normal was all very relative.

Ofc i want to meet her friend! y is she being awk about it tho?

And, after a hesitation, because the normal was nice, but this next part was sort of important:

also u guys have like divorce paperwork there, right? is that a town hall thing?

[weirderthanthou]

yeah there's a pile do you need me to get some ready for you and if so do you need the regular form or the alternate universe vegas form?

What? You answered the business answers first, that was just good assistanting.

and idk i cant tell if their dating or just pure stanning each other tbh

[somethingwithturquoise]

Really, Summer didn't know why she was surprised.

r there alternate universes that ARENT vegas ones? and if its region specific, i'll need alternate universe post-apocalyptic seattle, but im pretty sure just basic general alternate universe should work!

It was all just sort of a formality, anyway.

and oooo spicy! now i def have to meet this friend. i got office hours for pw but i can probly take a lunch break?

Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to get out of this office, really, but any distraction would be welcome, and that sounded like a juicy one.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto was honestly a little sad that Nina's schedule was so sparse this semester, meaning he only really had two of these teacher visits to drag Noctis on, but he had to admit, when he found out which office Summer was in, he couldn't help be a little excited...and apprehensive, because that was kind of sacred ground they were talking about here, and he was a little worried to see what had become of it.

So when he knocked on the open door and stuck his head in, he almost couldn't believe it when he saw that it was almost exactly the way they'd left it, with the big painting on the wall and all the yellow-blue-and-pink bean bag chairs and everything.

"Summer!" he gawked at her with thrilled eyes. "You have our old clubhouse! And you kept it that way!"

[somethingwithturquoise]

Well, Summer had hoped for some distractions, and an Argentum could be...distracting. She was frowning at Prompto with a quirked brow as he and his friend came into the office, the former with the comfortable ease of someone who had been here plenty of times before, dropping easily into one of the yellow bean bags on the side of the room with the mural.

"Old clubhouse?"

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Yeah!" Prompto beamed at her. "Back in our Diamond days! This was, like, our secret hideout, Mr. Jarrus let me and Vette and Nina use it all the time as our clubhouse, we'd bring snacks in here, hang out when things got really messed up, we brought in all these great bean bags! It's so cool that you kept them."

[somethingwithturquoise]

Summer's smile went a little soft, trying not to think about what sort of look might have been on BDG's face when Prompto, Vette, and Nina came up to him, asking to use his office, and she also wanted to think about it and revel in it and, god...she didn't even know about any of that!

Well, duh, Summer, it was a SECRET hideout.

"...wait, snacks?" she asked, as a thought hit her, and she moved to open up a desk drawer, and pulled out a few bags of gummi worms to toss over to the boys, "is that why this drawer is always filled with random snacks?"

[lieutenant_glasses]

After delivering a few cups of sake and passing silent judgement, Nanao made her way to another office to deliver a cup that hadn't been involved in the shouting.

"Captain Kyōraku wanted me to bring this to you," she explained, bowing a little before entering the room and setting the cup down on the desk. "And I also wanted to meet his new Jane Porter. My name is Nanao Ise; I am his lieutenant."

Who really needed a break, and, as the new Jane Porter, she thought perhaps this Summer Smith could...understand.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"The new Jane Porter?" Summer asked, quirking an eyebrow at her, and considering the cup of sake, which she would usually refuse, but it was already a long as weekend, and she wondered if she could send Nanao back with a request for a bigger cup next time. "Who's Jane Porter?"

[lieutenant_glasses]

"Jane Porter," Nanao explained, pushing up her glasses, "was the young, brilliant, hard-working manager of Turtle & Canary the last time Captain Kyōraku owned the store. He tends to fall into familiar, repetative, comfortable patterns..."

[somethingwithturquoise]

Now both eyebrows lifted, as Summer eyed the young, brilliant, clearly hard-working by assumed default woman in front of her.

"You don't say," she snorted, shaking her head a little. "Honestly, that's not at all surprising, and you said you're his lieutenant? How hard does that have to be? I can barely believe that guy is in charge of anything, much less an army. No offense."

[firstofitskind]

Nina had asked him to fake-dad, and Liam had happily obliged, which meant here he was, poking his head into the door of Summer's office, followed by a bemused looking blonde woman.

(Not, it should be noted, the usual blonde woman he could be seen in the company of.)

"Summer," he greeted.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Hey, Liam!" Summer greeted back with a smile, and a nod to the person with him. "Hi, I assumed Liam's guest! What's up?"

[firstofitskind]

“Renee Palmer,” she greeted, sticking out a hand for Summer to shake.

“We’re- well, I’m here to talk to you about one of your students, actually,” Liam said.

[badassprodigy]

And what’s a busy weekend without more texts. Right?

How’re you doing? Jeremy almost blew up the island twice this morning. That’s my day.

[somethingwithturquoise]

Was it bad that Summer's first response to that was to simply ask why didn't he?

Third time's a charm, maybe?

And she hesitated after deciding that yes, that was bad, because she almost didn't know what else to say, but he was texting her, so that was good, right?

TBD...

And, after a moment:

but not bad so far

[badassprodigy]

Well Jeremy didn’t blow up the island as Barry used the Baby Proof wall plugs after he tried to plug his phone into a cold fusion reactor. But that’s a different story.

Barry paused for a moment trying to think of a supportive response without trying to meddle in Summer’s business.

So his response was a thumbs up emoji followed by If you need anything, even if it is just to rant, I’m here for you.

[sith_happened]

Anakin was supposed to be checking up on Nina along with everyone else but he had just one, small, radio-related question. "You married a man named Hemorrhage?"

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Ohmygod," said Summer. "I was seventeen, it was the apocalypse, I was going through a lot of shit at the time, and have you ever been to the apocalypse? If you come.across a good piece of meat, you have to make.sure to snatch it up before anyone else does, god dammit!"

Thank you, Anakin, that had actually been building up inside of her all day, and it actually felt really good to get that out.

"Also," she added, "you're from a universe with a popular style of music called jizz, so I reay don't want to hear this from you."

[sith_happened]

"In my defense, I had nothing to do with naming jizz," Anakin said, grinning. "Feel better?"