Hi guys, it's been a while, but Chapter 5 is finally finished! I had this essay that was due, 2,500 words and it killed me. So here is another installment, that I really enjoyed writing. It gave me cravings. The next chapter won't be up for a while, I have an exam on Friday, so I need to focus and study. So if you have a prompt, let me know and I'll have plenty of time to give it a shot.
Keith: There is a guest appearance from a previous chapter, he sort of was thrown in though.
Liulfr: I was on a roll! Plus it was pretty fun to write his bit.
Keith: I did enjoy it . . . well, disclaimer. LiulfrLokison does not own any character that you recognize from the franchise, other than myself and any background characters that pop in everyone now and then.
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Chapter summary:
Meetings require coffee.
Keith doesn't have his coffee.
Terror ensues.
Thank the Goddess for ice - cream.
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Chapter 5: Department Meetings Are Hell
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Being the head janitor didn't mean he had to deal with just messes and filling out the occasional paperwork for certain requests.
Keith also had to deal with department meetings.
Normally, the head janitor wouldn't need to attend these, but SHINRA didn't operate like a normal company. President Shinra was all too well aware that Keith wasn't just an ordinary employee, and found his input at meetings to be rather valuable. Which meant he was dragged once a month to the department meetings, the only good thing about it was that they scheduled it at midday (if he had to be there at dawn, Keith would probably murder someone).
Listening to Palmer and Heidegger drone on was pure torture, but having to pay attention to Scarlet's sickeningly sweet voice as she tried to hint at more funds for the Weapon division without being blunt made him want to hurl. He pitied Veld (who was the poor soul having to sit next to the busty red dressed woman), Tseng was lucky enough to sit on the sidelines as he was the Turk Director's second in command. Keith always sat between Sephiroth and Hojo, someone had to keep the two separated, plus Hojo would always be working on his latest project under the table, scribbling away in his chicken scratch that only certain people could actually read. Keith liked to take peeks at the notes, adding his own thoughts when everyone else was distracted with their talking.
Sephiroth said nothing, a blank stare on his face and occasionally he would sip at his mug. Everyone in the meeting room had a cup, always coffee but Lazard was the only one who drank tea (considering how much coffee the blonde went through dealing with his SOLDIER's during the day).
Keith would be the first to arrive. It was an unspoken rule to let the janitor in first to claim his seat, otherwise someone would find dead rats in their ventilation systems (Heidegger had been the only victim thus far, the others had quickly caught onto it. Although they wondered how Keith managed to get the dead rodents that far up the ventilation shafts). Keith was a vindictive bastard, and everyone knew it.
Like clockwork, Sephiroth would arrive next, give Keith a greeting and claim his cup from the small kitchenette connected to the room opposite the bathrooms on the other side of the room. (The meetings could run long sometimes). A minute later, Veld and Tseng would enter, claim their mugs and take their seats. Reeve would come five minutes after them, head buried in papers but once Keith placed the inventor's cup in front of him, he would place the blueprints into a folder and take the drink with eager thanks.
Hojo would arrive after Reeve, slipping into his seat next to Keith while clutching a mug of coffee that he would only brew in his personal office, and while they waited for everyone else, Keith would take a look at the professor's latest project.
The rest of the department heads came in at random after that, Jenny (the Public Relations department head) would steal a quick hug from him and give him an "Afternoon Pops" with a cheery grin before sneaking into her seat.
President Shinra would arrive last, and the meeting would get underway.
After the meeting was over (it usually lasted an hour), they would all depart for lunch. Normally Keith, Tseng and Sephiroth would leave the Tower for one of their favourite diners (and their usual go to for take – outs) and order lemon pepper chips. Although after the fifth time, the waiters knew their orders without having to be told. Sephiroth began to leave generous tips for the staff, they just wanted to relax after the meeting and the staff being that attentive was a godsend.
Sometimes Jenny would join them, but that was a rare occurrence.
The only reason why the three of them were able to survive through the meetings was because of their coffee.
Except, the three of them weren't exactly drinking coffee like the rest of the department heads.
Because Keith was the first one into the meeting room, he was able to brew the specific drinks without anyone finding out. Not many knew about this fact, but Keith wasn't a huge fan of coffee, he found the stuff too bitter and the smell gave him a headache. It didn't give him the caffeine hit that he required, and warm drinks made him rather sleepy. So instead, his coffee mug was filled with root beer.
Yes, he drank root beer.
He found the cold drink to be rather perky, it woke up his taste buds and it was a drink that had to be sipped at slowly.
Sephiroth was easy to appease, the man was a chocolate hoarder. So, Keith would brew up a cup of hot chocolate and leave the steaming hot drink on the bench, Sephiroth would arrive a few seconds after he finished brewing it.
Tseng was similar, the Wutainian Turk could appreciate a hot warm drink that wasn't coffee (the Turk department reeked of coffee and he could understand why Tseng wanted something different). But Tseng liked a little kick to his drinks, so Keith would spike the Turk's hot chocolate with a little rum. That woke the Turk up, and in response to the drink, Keith was allowed full access to the Turk Weaponry if he ever needed it.
Of course Veld was in the room when Tseng got his drink, so Keith ended up making the same for Veld, although he added a pinch of cinnamon which seemed to agree with the Turk Director's taste buds.
Reeve practically lived on coffee, and by the time the inventor arrived, the smell of rum was still fresh, so in return for his silence, Keith would gift Reeve with rum spiked hot chocolate as well. The strong smell of coffee from Hojo's mug overpowered the rum smell, so their secret was safe from the other Department Heads.
(Little did the others know, was that Keith supplied Hojo with a stash of special coffee that was imported from Wutai. Keith had a good friend who lived in the Wutainian section of the city selling the coffee, so he got a good discount from it).
These drinks were the only reason the six of them managed to survive through the monthly meetings.
But during this monthly meeting, Keith was having a crisis.
He had no root beer.
His usual supplier was full out, as they had run out of normal beer because a bunch of SOLDIER's had gone partying to celebrate a promotion, and so the root beer had been surrendered to appease the rambunctious group. There was no time for Keith to find alternative places selling root beer (it wasn't exactly the most popular drink in Midgar), and his supplier was only able to get a new batch in tomorrow, thus the reason why Keith turned up to the meeting without his drink in hand.
He still made the others drinks as normal, but they all noticed how his cup was steaming. They were all prepared for the shit storm that was to come.
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Twenty minutes into the meeting, Scarlet had taken over and was giving her standard sales pitch of needing more funding for her department, when there was a loud thunk.
Everyone turned to where Keith sat, and those not privy to the drinks agreement were shocked to see the ash blonde man was digging his forehead into the tabletop, angrily muttering words (that should not be repeated to younger audiences) under his breath that was muffled by the polished wood surface.
Heidegger was already pushing his seat away from the table, having made an extensive list of indicators when Keith was going on a furious rampage (after the dead rodents incident, he had paid the Turks a large sum of gil to research it so he wouldn't have a murderous janitor after his head). The only people who were enjoying the steadily paling faces of their colleagues were Hojo, Sephiroth and Tseng. Reeve looked rather concerned, and Veld was rather neutral to the situation (although Tseng would swear on his favourite pistol that he saw his boss hide a smirk behind his raised cup). Jenny looked like she wanted to vault over the table and drag Keith out to a bar to unwind, probably bringing Reno along with her, she knew her Pops well.
Most of the rooms occupants were probably thinking Keith's current state of mind was due to having to clean up after Zack's latest prank, which had involved sixty two lizards, two point six tons of sand, thirty five sticky notes, forty four jam jars, eight bottles of cleaning wax, fifty three blocks of butter, seventeen kilograms of dog food, (yes, they weighed it) and one industrial sized wheelbarrow. No one wanted to know what had happened to the secretaries' entire stock of glitter pens.
The entire SHINRA staff swore to never talk of it again. Although there was the stray lizard scurrying around the building every now and then, not all of the escapees had been caught. There was a debate on whether the lizards had come from Hojo's labs, but the professor was keeping silent on the matter.
None besides Sephiroth was aware of the fact Keith had helped out with that prank (where else would the cleaning wax have come from?)
The rest of the department heads were looking to Hojo (who seemed to be the only one who could interpret Keith's maniacal mumblings), and by the utter delight on the esteemed professors face that was steadily increasing to pure and unholy glee, none of them wanted to know what thoughts were currently running through Keith's brain to cause his demonic growling.
The moment Keith finally lifted his head from the tabletop, everyone froze, not daring to breathe in case they set him off.
Unfortunately for them all, the person in charge of the budgeting department had been sick, and so had gotten the next best person to fill in for them.
Apparently Connors didn't get the memo that Keith was in the meeting.
The guy had been focused on Scarlet's exposed cleavage so much that he hadn't noticed Keith sitting a few chairs down from him. He hadn't seemed to recognize the mop of ash blonde hair since he always saw Keith wearing the standard blues around the building.
Keith never wore his uniform to the meetings, if he was going to be stuck to a stiff backed chair for a whole hour, he was going to wear whatever the hell he wanted. Today he had stuck to denim jeans and a nondescript green button up over a black singlet, a pair of sturdy black boots on his feet (which may or may not have been the pair he used in street brawls, you couldn't walk through the slums without coming across one).
The moment those stormy blue eyes looked up, Connor let out a high pitched squeak and promptly fell out of his chair, he was out cold before he even hit the floor. When they looked back on the incident, none of the rooms occupants could blame Connors for fainting, most of them felt light headed at Keith's murderous glare.
Except now they were cursing Connors to kingdom come, terrified at what Keith would do.
Thankfully some people still had their wits about them and distracted Keith from giving into his homicidal ideas.
Sephiroth shot out of his chair and swiftly carried Keith out of the room over his shoulder, most were too shell – shocked to comment on the silver haired General promising Keith that they would get fudge sundaes, fries and pizzas as he walked out the door.
Once Sephiroth and Keith were out of earshot, Veld turned to the President with an almost bored expression. "Sir, I think it would be in our best interests to re - schedule this meeting to a later date during the week." President Shinra quickly nodded, dabbing at his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief before rising to his feet. "Agreed. Everyone is dismissed. Someone leave Connors a note."
Tseng was all too happy to slap a sticky note onto Connors forehead (the man had caused many complaints in the Turk department), before making his way out of the building to join Sephiroth and Keith for lunch.
Although he did make a reminder to himself to keep an emergency stock of root beer for Keith in case something like this ever occurred again.
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Keith could officially say he loved Denise.
The owner of 'The Chocolate Ranch' (you can see why Sephiroth loved the place), was a bubbly fifty year old woman with salt and pepper hair, possessing an attitude of a twenty year old. Her laughter was infectious and her chocolate cakes were simply divine.
She always greeted them with a smile, and on Sephiroth's birthday, she had made the General a monstrous chocolate sponge cake, layered with lemon jelly and napoleon ice – cream, drizzled with chocolate syrup and crumbled Snickers on top.
She could always read their moods, so the moment that Sephiroth walked in with Keith slung over his shoulder, she got straight to work.
In mere seconds of them sitting in their usual booth, Denise placed in front of them a stack of lemon pepper fries and a napoleon ice – cream sundae, strawberry wafers stuck into the chocolate syrup drizzled confection, banana slices hidden between the coloured scoops.
"You, are an angel Denise."
Keith blurted out between mouthfuls of ice – cream and wafer, almost hugging the sundae bowl to his chest.
Denise gave him a soft pat on the head, a bright smile on her face as she saw the grateful expression on Sephiroth's face. The General was more open with his emotions around those he liked, and Denise was one of his favourite people, especially after the birthday cake.
"You know how to make a girl feel special. You enjoy that sundae, and I'll fix you up something special. It looks like you need it." Denise bustled off to the kitchen after greeting Tseng who had just entered the diner, relief on his face when he saw Keith had been pacified.
The whole incident was over.
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Well, maybe it wasn't.
The next day Genesis had burst into Sephiroth's office and demanded to know the details of yesterday's meeting. Some of the Silver Elite had seen Sephiroth carrying Keith out of the building and where creating a social media shit storm about the unknown stranger that Sephiroth was actually touching.
Needless to say they were frothing at the mouth.
Luckily for Keith none of them had seen his face (the only image captured was very blurry), so he could continue his work as he pleased.
The one good thing about the incident was that Connors had refused to come back to work, claiming leave due to trauma and injuries sustained (he gained a concussion from hitting a chair arm on the way down).
Besides that, life around the building was the same as usual.
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A/N: And Chapter 5 is over. Hope you enjoyed I know I did. Connors really was just thrown in at the last moment. Let me know what you thought, and if you've got a prompt, please share it! I really would like to do another prompt chapter.
LiulfrLokison out! :3
