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“So they sent you, huh?” Tighnari said, upon seeing who had come to visit his modest home.
“Yeah,” Cyno offered a smile, “I think everyone else is a little bit scared of you?”
Tighnari snorted with amusement, taking a step away from the door to let the other man in. “So they should be.”
Cyno strolled to the couch, stretching his arms above his head. “You gonna tell me what happened, or?”
“Shouldn’t you give me the official spiel first?” Tighnari dropped onto the sofa, on top of the blankets he’d been wrapped up in before the doorbell had rung.
Cyno rolled his eyes, “Like you need it, c’mon--”
“Nope, until you give me the spiel, you’re not here in any official capacity--!”
“Fine, fine!” Cyno groaned, crossing his arms as Tighnari laughed. “Tighnari, I am here from Professional Standards to investigate a report made against you. My name is Cyno, my ID reference is 456G2S. You are advised to quote this reference if you have any concerns relating to how this case is handled. Do you understand?”
“No.”
The pillow Cyno launched thudded against the other man’s face.
“Just tell me what happened, you grumpy old plant-man!”
“Alright, alright!” Tighnari snickered, hugging the pillow to his chest as he leant back against the couch. “So, it was an FBI team that requested the consultancy, right?”
“Right.” Cyno pulled a notepad from his pocket, quickly flipping to where he already had this basic information scrawled.
“They wanted help identifying the plants some psycho is leaving on the bodies of people he’s killed.”
“Mhmm…” Cyno quickly scanned the case notes he had.
“I got there, and the guy’s like, ‘oh, tiggynaar’-- ”
Cyno barked with laughter, “I’m sorry, what ?”
“That’s what he called me!” Tighnari exclaimed, “For three hours! I worked with the fucker for three hours, corrected him every time, but nope, he didn’t say my name right once!”
“Oh that’s rough, buddy.” Cyno tried desperately to reign in his laughter, “Sorry, I shouldn’t-- it's not funny, I’m gonna write it down as a consistent micro-aggression?”
“It resulted in pretty macro-aggression from me.”
Cyno gave up his valiant efforts, laughing harder. “What did you do ?”
“Let me finish, that was just strike one.”
“Oh god, there’s more?” Cyno quickly made a note of the micro-aggression, before looking back up at the other man.
“This scrawny white dude on his team then proceeded to interrupt me every single time I spoke .”
“Oooof…” He added ‘unproffesional and rude’ to his list of notes.
“Yeah, he was interrupting me, to explain botany to me .”
“ Oof!” ' white-splaining’, added to the list.
“ Yeah!” Tighnari huffed. “I told them about my dietary requirements in advance too, and they just hadn’t told their kitchens. So, after 3 hours of this bullshit, I had to go back to ask them if I could leave the building for lunch or if that would cause a security issue, right?”
“Don’t tell me they said no…”
“They didn’t respond at all because I couldn’t get through the fucking question.”
“Scrawny white guy?” Cyno grimaced, picturing the scene.
Tighnari nodded, leaning forward now, “I walked in, started with a ‘The kitchen doesn’t have--’ and then scrawny white guy interrupts like, ‘Oh, Tiggynaar , did you know this False Indigo plant can grow in--’ somewhere, I don’t know where, because I’d already lost it because I was hungry, my name is not Tiggynaar , and the picture he was pointing at wasn’t even fucking indigo !”
Cyno reached across to offer a placating hand on his friend’s shoulder, “Hey, did you, indi-get out of there ?”
Tighnari shot him the most withering stare he’d ever seen, but he didn’t care. He was proud of that one.
“I flipped my shit is what I did, Cyno.”
Cyno laughed, “Yeah, the report said the consultant academic…” he flipped back a few pages to find the original report, “ threw a laptop, a chair, and six pencils ’.”
“It was more than six.”
Cyno shook his head, “They’ve asked me to write a full report and recommend further action.”
Tighnari sighed, deflating and flopping back against the sofa. “It was unprofessional, and I need to keep my anger in check, I know--”
“Actually,” Cyno interrupted, “I’m going to recommend we don’t work with racists.”
Tighnari blinked at him.
“If your name wasn’t Arabic, they’d have pronounced it right. If you weren’t Arabic, they’d have listened to you. And if your dietary requirements weren’t unusual , they’d have been prepared. You were put under a lot of stress, and you reacted the way anyone would’ve in your situation. I’m clearing you of repercussions.” Cyno scrawled the words into his notepad as he spoke, signing the bottom of the page.
When a few moments passed without comment from Tighnari, he looked up.
The other man was staring at him, eyes glassy.
“...what?" Cyno raised an eyebrow, "Did you really expect any different?”
“No… I suppose not.” Tighnari smiled, the weariness that had been weighing his face down up until this point all but gone.
“Did you find food in the end?”
The loud groan from Tighanari’s stomach answered that question for him. The botanist scratched his head sheepishly.
“There are honeyed dates in my car.” Cyno threw his keys at the other man, hopping to his feet. “Go get them, and I’ll get started on some dinner.”
Tighnari rose to his feet, then took a swift step towards his friend. He pulled him into a tight hug.
“Thank you.”
Cyno smiled into the other man's shoulder, hugging him back just as tightly.
"Any time."