The Naked Truth

By: Tani

Synopsis: Janine gets more than she bargained for when she's forced to stay at the firehouse.

Timeline: August 1989

Rating: M; for strong language, blatant nudity and adult situations. Smut-less but still on the suggestive side...VERY suggestive. *sly wink*

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters nor do I profit from their use in this story. My purpose is one of philosophical fulfillment: I write, therefore I am.

Author's Notes: So this is my first posting to this site, but it's far from my first fic. I wrote it some time back in the late 1990s or early 2000s. I can't remember which. *blinks* Hey! Stop calling me old! Not...old! *chugs prune juice and slams down glass* Anyway, I've been lurking hear for a while, reading and reviewing, but I never posted anything. I figured that needed to change. Maybe the creative juices will flow again if I just put myself out there. Feel free to review, but I won't flip if you don't. This was originally just a one shot, but I broke it up into short chapters to help with the flow of the story. This was one of my favorite RGB stories I've ever written. I think it's funny and I hope you like it too. I'll be posting all the chapters in one day, so it'll be complete ASAP!

And by the way, I don't write RGB yaoi or yuri, so no naked gay GB smut here. If you don't like that, leave now. You've been warned. Janine and Egon shippers on the other hand will likely be pleased as pie. Mmmmm......pie. *blank stare...blinks* Sorry, drifted for a second there.

Enjoy, faithful reader! I'm off to go find some pie!

PROLOGUE

Sunday night – 9:15 p.m.

Janine Melnitz struggled to get her last key into the corresponding lock on her front door. Her three overnight bags kept getting in the way, as did the purse she carried with the strap clenched between her teeth. She finally got the door open and made her way into her newly repaired and refurbished apartment.

It was the first time she'd been back since the guys had demolished the place while curing themselves of their health chip-induced ghost allergy. She couldn't even tell that there had been any damage. She took her bags into the bedroom and dropped them. To her surprise, there was an artfully wrapped gift box on her bed. The attached card read, 'Welcome home, from a secret admirer'. Knowing her guys, she decided not to get too excited just yet.

She slipped out of her pumps and sat down on the bed, stretching her tired feet and wiggling her toes. "Men are so lucky," she muttered to herself. "Only women and drag queens truly understand the hell that is high-heeled shoes."

She leaned over to open the box. When she saw what was inside, she nearly choked with laughter. It was a very common housewarming gift, a plant. A geranium to be exact, a reminder of the last time they'd wrecked her place. Only Dr. V could be that twisted. She'd have to remember to get him something nice in return. Like maybe a box of gourmet chocolates . . . which she'd hide under his pillow . . . before hinting to Slimer where it was stashed.

All vengeance aside, it was really sweet of the guys to pay for the repairs and to replace her damaged furniture (even though it was all their fault). Winston's dad had given them a great deal and his construction company finished the job in record time. The guys then came over and put her new furniture into place where they knew she'd be most pleased with it. All in all, she had to stay with the guys for only a little while.

Just long enough for all hell to break loose.

Janine still couldn't help smiling about it. She had been at the firehouse for two whole weeks without incident. Ironically, it wasn't until the very end of her stay with them that things got very uncomfortable. Janine didn't work on Saturdays during the summer due to the light load of busts, and it was clear from their adherence to their usual weekend habits that they'd forgotten she was there yesterday. She certainly wasn't gonna put in any weekend overtime for a while, that was for damned sure.

She was glad that this didn't all happen when she first came to stay, or things would have been very weird for those two weeks. However things would still be pretty weird in their working environment for a while if she didn't find a way to break the tension. Lucky for her, she had just the thing.

Janine went to her closet and dug out her photo albums from the back of the top shelf. She searched through the big dusty tomes, smiling in reminiscence of all the events captured in the images contained therein.

Finally, she found it. "This oughta make them feel better. The things I do for my guys." She carefully extracted the photo and took it into the living room. She pulled two typed labels out of her purse, one was a note and the other was a mailing label addressed to Ghostbusters Central.

She wrote something on the back of the photo, put it into a business-size envelope, affixed the label with the note on the back, and then sealed it. She put the sealed envelope into a larger manila envelope, sealed that, and then pasted on the address label. The guys would never know that it was from her. She then used colored pencils and a glitter glue pen to decorate the manila envelope. She put it into her purse to drop off at the post office on her way to work the next morning.

She returned to her bedroom to change into her pajamas, chuckling at the previous day's events.