Tifa cursed the two Turks as the slim redhead and the burly brown man dragged her between them. She resisted and tried to twist from their hands clamped onto her wrists but couldn't seem to get away as they dragged her through their headquarters and to goddess knew where. She was livid at being abducted in broad daylight when she was just minding her own business and going grocery shopping.
"Yo, you kiss your man with that mouth?" Reno crudely said.
"That's none of your business and don't get any ideas. I would sooner kiss a goat" she said.
"I have plenty of women to kiss, I don't need no girls" Reno dismissively said as the guards opened a door and Tifa was thrust unceremoniously into a cell and the door slammed behind her.
"Should we check her for weapons?" Rude asked Reno.
"Nah, she don't carry any and that get up she's wearing couldn't conceal nuttin'" Reno replied.
"Let me out, I haven't done anything!" Tifa demanded.
"We'll let you out when we're ready" Reno said.
"I'm treating my lady to a special lunch" Rude said to Reno with a conspiratorial wink.
"Go ahead, bro. I'm probably ordering something later" Reno said with a smirk and Rude left and Reno was just about to leave when a familiar sounding voice softly told him she had brought some towels for the new prisoner and bed linens.
"Okay, but be quick" he said, unlocking the door to admit the maid and personally stood on guard as she walked by him.
Tifa didn't really get a good look at the maid as she stepped past Reno and into her cell but there was something really familiar at how she held herself and her gait. "How can you work for such corrupt people?" Tifa spat at her as she made up the bed. The back she displayed to Tifa was willowy and well molded, that bespoke of her being a young woman. She wore a green polyester uniform over a good figure and her hair was bound into a tight bun.
She turned around "Because they pay really well and offer full benefits" Aerith told her.
"Aerith, what are you doing here of all places?" Tifa said in a stunned voice.
"The Turks aren't half as bad as they seem. I was captured like you and thought I would be turned over to Professor Hojo but his summons took a long time coming. So, I got bored and found out a maid had quit and they were in a bind. I offered to take her place and they agreed but I was heavily guarded at first when making my rounds. Then it was like Hojo forgot about me, I must have walked by him dozens of times when he visited and he never noticed me. Talk about hiding in plain sight. His summons never came and the Turks arranged for me to escape and gave me a great reference letter" she explained, smiling at the memory. "Now I have the income I earn here as well as what I make from my small floral business."
"Then what are you doing here?" Tifa asked her in astonishment.
"I turned up for work the next day as I was scheduled" Aerith said with a frown as if wondering what Tifa meant.
"But you're literally in a viper's nest" Tifa said, flabbergasted at the naivety of her friend.
"I'm perfectly safe" she assured her "and the benefits can't be beat."
Even Reno nodded sagely at this.
"Why not join me on my rounds? We can talk and I could use another pair of hands. The other woman I normally work with called in sick" Aerith suggested.
"I can't allow that. She's newly incarcerated and a suspected member of an eco-terrorist group" Reno protested.
"So am I. Come on, Reno-kins. You can watch us to make sure we don't get up to any funny business. We need a little girlfriend time as it's been ages. What harm can it do?" Aerith said, giving him a guileless smile.
"Don't call me that! I don't like this. I have my orders" he insisted.
"Don't pout" Aerith said, giving him a fond look that gave Tifa pause. Was it possible that something was...
"I wasn't" he insisted.
"Tifa, do you as member of a suspected eco-terrorist group that shall remain nameless, promise not to try to escape?" Aerith asked her with mock seriousness in her voice.
"I swear" Tifa said with a giggle.
"See? She promised. Besides, she's in a building surrounded by some of the deadliness men and women in the world...and you" Aerith wittily added to his frown. "She's not going anywhere" Aerith said playfully sticking out her tongue at the glowering man. This made Tifa relax and she realized that Aerith was the same innocent girl she had ever been and she had just gained another friend and protector in the unusual man. To know Aerith was to feel protective of her and like her in similar doses. "Now put your key inside that lock and release your new maid" Aerith said with her hands playfully on her hips and Reno unconsciously pouted again, but did as she requested.
"Come on, we'll stop by Loren's locker and borrow her uniform, she's your approximate size but not so blessed in a certain department" Aerith said with a cheerful giggle as the unlikely trio followed the girl as she pushed her trolley of cleaning supplies before her. Tifa came next, feeling much better now that she had a friend with her and a fuming Reno stalked silently behind them shadowing their every move.
Reno allowed the two women to go into the locker room and was given a mouthful by the belligerent Aerith in a very non-sweet manner when he attempted to come in. She all but threw him out on his ear and loudly proclaimed of a woman's right for privacy when she changed. He again pouted as he waited outside for the two girls to rejoin him with his arms crossed over his chest and wondered when his day had went so wrong. Why was he playing prison guard to a prisoner he'd routinely picked up? Why had he even allowed her out of her cell? She was supposed to be locked up and detained until Tseng got back to question her about a certain event Avalanche might have been involved in, not traipsing around acting as a maid.
Soon, Tifa wore a uniform similar to Aerith's, only with a lot more cleavage on display. She also wore a green kerchief fashioned into a hairband tied jauntily into a bow on one side of her head. Reno was trying to avoid looking at Tifa's cleavage as she moved around with Aerith. "Isn't she pretty?" Aerith had asked him when displaying Tifa to him when they exited the locker. Reno dragged his eyes from the girl's creamy abundance of bosom and muttered for them to go to work.
He tailed them when they cleaned each room from: washrooms, to the break room and offices, including his own. The constantly cheerful Aerith greeted everyone and Tifa wasn't surprised how well liked she was. She was talking to a formidable looking man the size of Barret with a deadly scar on his face. "Did Abbie like my cookies?" She was asking him.
His smile softened his stern features "she loved them. They made her feel better about losing her tooth. She scored the highest scores in her ballet class last weekend" Tony proudly bragged.
"I'm so happy for you. You must show me any videos you took" Aerith said to him.
"I have it on my PHS..." He said as he went to fish it out of his pocket.
"Get back to work!" Reno snapped at him.
"Yes boss, I'll show you the next time" he promised Aerith.
"I'll hold you to that" she said giving Reno a look of reprimand. "You know what we need?" She said to Tifa.
"Oh, our working song. It's been ages. Do you want to start or shall I?" She asked the green-eyed girl.
"Lollipop/Lollipop" Aerith sang.
"Oh lolli/lolli/lolli" Tifa chimed in.
"Lollipop..." Aerith echoed.
"Pop" Tifa said at the end of the chorus and before the next verse and both looked expectantly at Reno.
"What?" He asked them at their scrutiny of him.
"As the final backup singer, you're supposed to supply the popping sound" Aerith carefully explained to him as if to a particularly slow child.
"You have to be shittin' me! I ain't gotta..." he protested.
"Every party has a pooper and that's you you you" Aerith sang as she poked him playfully in the chest. "Now be a good boy and play along or no more cookies for you you you" she added.
Reno looked at her impatiently and then hooked a finger into his mouth and made a popping sound much to Tifa's surprise.
"Much better" Aerith said and resumed singing "Call my baby Lollipop/Tell you why/'Cause he's sweeter than an apple pie/And when he does his shaky rockin' dance/Then I haven't got a chance/I call him. Lollipop..." She sang as Tifa supplied back up lyrics on the downbeat and a reluctant Reno supplied the popping sound when prompted. So, the two cheerful girls cleaned each room as the deadly assassin shadowed them. The offices and other rooms now clean, they moved onto the on-call rooms.
"What are these?" Tifa asked Aerith as she vacuumed the carpet while Tifa stripped the bed and Reno pointedly ignored them both and his PHS held more of his attention then the girls with him.
"On-call rooms furnished for the Turks, they have all the convenience of home. The Turks keep odd hours and sometimes need to recharge their batteries and get some shuteye" Aerith explained.
"Oh, I thought for dealing with female prisoners" Tifa said.
"We ain't such do such things for kicks or otherwise and are forbidden to mess with prisoners. Being a Turk means girls want you, we all have our own fan clubs and that makes sure we get plenty of ass...dates" Reno said as he glanced up and realized he was talking in front of the innocent Aerith and corrected himself. He had a feeling her bustier friend was worldlier. He eyed her speculatively and realized she wasn't that much younger then him. She was eighteen to his twenty years and if she looked like that as a teenager, what a woman she would make!
"The Turks are very considerate and sometimes take naps together to spare me having to clean so many of the rooms. Though sometimes the rooms smell funny afterwards and they leave these drippy rubber things in the wastebasket I can't fathom the use for" Aerith said with an adorable frown as she helped Tifa put clean sheets on the bed. Tifa shot a look at Reno at this. He seemed to be trying to ignore them but Tifa could have sworn he was blushing at how his PHS suddenly held such a fascination for him.
"We need to get fresh pillows. These are all chocobos down filled and need to be specially washed with each use" she said putting the two in a bag and opened the closet to retrieve more when Tifa took one from out of the bag and playfully swatted her friend with it, causing her to drop one of the two she held. "What do you think you're doing?" She asked her when Tifa nailed her with a giggle and Aerith more firmly grasped the other one in her hands and hit her back until they were a mass of giggles and batting each other with their feather filled weapons.
"Enough now, get back to work" Reno ordered them as he put his phone away and stepped in between them. Tifa looked at Aerith shrewdly and she quirked a smile at her...and the Turk got a face full of pillows right in the kisser from both girls.
"Oh, you're not going there" he said, when Aerith swatted him on his exposed chest and Tifa nailed his butt from behind. He looked back at them with a deadly calm expression and tried to retain what dignity he had left and this made them both crack up. Another pillow caught him in his expressionless face and he gave up and swept up the pillow Aerith had dropped and soon they were all battling each other until feathers filled the air and covered each surface; including the three combatants.
Tseng strode ahead of Rude and Elena. "What do you mean Tifa Lockhart is not in her cell and is helping Aerith with her chores? She's not on the payroll here. Your orders were to detain her until I get a chance to question her about her involvement in the skirmish that took place. She's not even a person of interest, she's as harmless as a pesky fly and I planned to release her right afterwards. I cannot tolerate my orders not being fulfilled. I'm going to hamstring Reno when I find him. He should know better" he snapped as he strode on ahead of them with a full head of steam to the point it seemed to stream from his ears. He already knew where the trio was, the chip implanted in Aerith they rarely monitored saw to that.
Tseng opened the door to the on-call room and all three froze at what they saw: the other three froze as well at the interruption. Aerith's neat bun was now uncoiling and feathers stuck to her hair. Tifa's hairband was now around her neck and the snaps she had managed to snap up to contain herself inside the cheap polyester uniform had given up the ghost and only a utilitarian white bra preserved her modest and her disheveled hair was equally bedewed with feathers. As for Reno, the tips of each one of his spikes were artfully decorated with a feather and his own goggles had slid around his neck as well. He spat a feather out in surprise at Tseng's appearance.
"Hi Elena, Rude. Are you done with the on-call room so we can clean it? I hope you didn't get peanut butter and jelly stains all over the sheets again. Those were so hard to get out the last time. You should be more careful when eating in bed" Aerith lectured the now blushing Turks and Tseng's look of disapproval nailed them like a laser beam and they both flinched at this and looked guilty.
"Reno, what's the meaning of this?" Tseng thundered at the scene.
Reno dropped his pillow, straightened his uniform and batted at his hair and restored his goggles and regarded his superior. Tseng's face was a thundercloud at Reno's display of unprofessionalism. Reno thought of what to say and shocked even himself by pointing at the two teenagers and saying in a sulky voice "they started it!"
Tseng just turned on his heel and wondered if he was commanding a bunch of lunatics.