Author's Note: This is a song-based story, designed with the auditory stylings of "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" as performed by Relient K in mind. This story contains just one verse, but the song itself is pure joy and I recommend looking it up for a listen if you possibly can. Enjoy!

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The Turks Who Don't Do Anything

The one crap thing about being on a salary, Reno reflected as he scuffed his way down the hall to the fifth floor break room, was that you didn’t get sent home when there was fuck-all to do. Nope. He was under orders to stay in the damn building and keep his phone on and, Tseng assured him, he’d know if Reno left.

At least he didn’t have to look busy or anything.

The box of doughnuts was left on the counter in the break room from yesterday, and if the three left in there had survived that long it probably meant they were the heinous melon-jelly ones from the place near Elena’s. Nice of her. Terrible damn doughnuts, though. He grabbed one anyway, and a cup, and started filling it with coffee out of the big urn next to the box.

One of the desk monkeys in the big office next door had a radio on. It was just loud enough to hear through the wall, but not loud enough to make out words. Reno dumped a paper packet of sugar into his coffee and sipped on it as he leaned closer to that wall to hear a little better.

---

We are the pirates who don't do anything,
We just stay at home, and lie around

---

Huh. Pirate songs at work didn’t speak well for that particular desk monkey’s future with ShinRa Corp, but it wasn’t as though it was his own ass on the line so he didn’t have to care. He settled down in one of the plastic chairs around the table in the middle of the room and tipped back. There had to be something he could do without actually, technically leaving the building.

Diversion wandered in; or rather, Elena. She had her sleeves rolled and her hair clipped back like she was about to get out in the field and do some damage, but Reno knew what enforced boredom looked like and it was written all over her. She sat down across the table from him.

“Hey, El.”

“Hey, Reno.”

“So what’s going on with you? Big important shit?” Reno poked a finger into the doughnut and squished out a gob of yellow-green slime.

---

And if you ask us to do anything…

---

Elena rolled her eyes at him. “Big pile of nothing, more like. Why are you even eating that?”

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We'll just tell you—we don't do anything!

---

“I’m not eating it,” Reno pointed out. “I’m just…looking at it.” He held it up. “There’s no way this didn’t come out of the science department.”

Elena made an impatient noise at him with her nose, and got back up to get a cup of something from behind him. He heard pouring noises and drawers thumping, then the cabinets, and finally just “shit.”

“Problem?”

“We’re out of tea bags again. I keep telling the commissary crew I hate coffee. They never listen. They never listen, and they never leave tea bags.”

“Just drink the damn coffee, El. It’ll make you grow up big and strong.”

“I’ll pass. If you’re any example, it makes you grow up sleazy and lame.”

“Hey. I make it all work, yo.”

He was working up the nerve to take a bite out of the doughnut, listening to Elena trying to fight the drawer back into place behind him, when Rude walked in. As usual, his face was blank. Shades on. Smooth. But there could be only one reason for Rude to wander into the break room in the middle of the morning and it wasn’t because he had something better to do elsewhere.

“Lemme guess,” Reno asked. “Keep your phone on, don’t leave the building.”

“Damn it!” Elena squawked, and there was a brief slosh before the dripping started.

“Eh,” said Rude, taking a seat and leaning back comfortably to read the magazine tucked under his arm. He propped one foot up on his knee and looked for all the world like a guy whose sole duty, one he took very seriously, was loafing around. Yachting Monthly, Reno read on the magazine’s cover.

“What’s up with that, man? You don’t have a boat.”

---

I've never hoisted main sail,
And I've never swabbed the poop deck,
And I've never veered to starboard, cause I never sail at all!

---

“Retirement,” said Rude.

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And I've never walked the gang plank,
and I've never owned a parrot...

---

Elena threw a wad of wet paper towels and a soggy cup into the trash can and swatted a few loose hairs out of her face. “Retirement sounds nice, but I’d settle for a vacation. How long has it been since we had one of those? Have we ever had one of those?”

“Before your time,” Rude said solemnly, turning a page.

---

And I've never been to Boston in the fall!

---

Reno shoved his chair back and got up to get more coffee. He realized, once he got to the coffee pot, that he hadn’t actually drunk any of the cup he already had, and swigged it down so he could spend a few seconds pouring another one. Was this the sort of entertainment he was reduced to?

“This is bullshit,” he complained aloud. “I don’t care what’s going on, it’s a goddamn crime to just keep us stuck in here. I mean what the hell? What d’you figure the President’s done that’s so bad he has to have us free and on call all fucking day, just in case?”

Elena chewed a nail, glancing idly up at the clock over the door. “If it’s important, I’m sure Tseng will let us know.”

“Bet they’re getting it on right now. Bet that’s why Tseng’s the only one not in here.”

Elena took the half-squashed doughnut out of his hand, shook it once, and tossed it into the bin. “You can ask him when he gets here, can’t you?”

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We don't know what he did
But we're down with Captain Kidd!

---

“Hmph,” said Rude, eyes still on his periodical. Reno and Elena got the hint, and sat down.

“It’s not even noon yet,” Elena complained, folding her arms behind her head. “The comissary’s in building A-5, do you think we can go that far?”

“Probably not,” Rude said. “Steal someone’s lunch out of the refrigerator.”

“Too late,” Reno grumbled. “What d’you think I had for breakfast?”

---

We don't wake up before lunch
But we all eat Captain Crunch
We don't smoke, we don't chew
We watch Captain Kangaroo!

---

“Pig,” Rude said, his tone flat. He turned another page, to a fold-out spread of some gorgeous wooden boat plowing under full double-masted sail through impossibly blue tropical waters, straight toward a reef of white sandy islands with palm trees. In the foreground, there was a chest of treasure or something with a few silver coins sparkling up through a meter of water.

It was pure photo-manipulation. The water wasn’t nearly deep enough for a boat like that. She’d be stuck right next to that cheesy treasure chest on the reef. Run aground with nothing but a handful of chump change for company.

He thought he might know how that would feel.

“I’m going to go kill that son of a bitch in the next room and his motherfucking radio,” Reno announced, scraping his chair back loudly and stalking out of the room with his shoulders hitched protectively up around his ears.

---

We are the pirates who don't do anything,
We just stay at home, and lie around
And if you ask us to do anything…
We'll just tell you—

---

Tseng appeared in the doorway mere seconds later, attending carefully to one of the buttons on his shirt cuff. “I’m glad to see you both here,” he said. “Reno is somewhere nearby, yes?”

“Should be,” Elena told him, folding her arms. “He had a question for you, too.”

“He usually does.” Tseng crossed the room to check the drawers under the coffee urn, then the cabinets above them. He frowned. Elena smirked.

“So,” she asked, “can we get something done now?”

“Unfortunately, no. The President requires us to stay on alert on the premises until he leaves this evening. No other orders.”

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—we don’t do anything!

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Through the wall, there was the loud crunching noise of something breaking.

Rude turned the page again. “Hope that’s the radio.”