A/N: A huge thanks to Alf, Haleigh.l, Bluzie and Boy-o for editing and support.

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Cubicle Wars

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Chapter Two

After a quick stop at my parent's house—well, their garage to be exact—I drove to work feeling giddy with anticipation. If everything worked out as planned, the guys wouldn't know what hit them. I was thankful I didn't have to worry about Ranger since he was going to be out of town on business for a few days.

Grabbing the big duffle bag from my trunk, I rode the elevator up to the fifth floor giving a little finger wave to the guys in the Control Room. I stepped out of the elevator and took stock of my surroundings. Hmmm, it was still early but it looked like everyone was already at the office working away in their cubicles seemingly oblivious to my presence. Yeah, riiight…

Though the Merry Men all appeared to be busy, I could feel their eyes following me. I crossed the office with trepidation, stopping in front of my work space. Well damn! You had to give the guys kudos for effort and the 'wow' factor. Not totally imaginative—filling my cubicle completely with packing peanuts—it was nevertheless an effective and inspired prank. They had secured a clear plastic sheet over my entry way so that the area could be filled to the very top with the little Styrofoam pieces.

Taking a deep breath…it was now or never. And the Oscar for Best Actress in a Fan Fiction goes to…

"Oh my goodness, what have you done to my cubicle. How will I ever get my work done? What will I do?" I said in my best Scarlett O'Hara imitation as I drew the back of my hand up to my forehead. Merry Men throughout the floor peered over their cubicles snickering at my 'plight'.

Lester came up beside me putting his arm around me. "Beautiful, what do you say we call an end to this prank war. No one's going to think less of you for throwing in the towel. There's no shame in admitting you got in over your head. I mean it's not really fair is it, one little girl from the Burg against all of the brain power of RangeMan." Oh, he did not just say that. This jerk was toast!

I smiled at him and then pulled out of my jean's pocket a long, thin strip of black material that I tied around my head, a la Rambo. Reaching into the large duffle bag I'd brought, I pulled out my dad's leaf blower and plugged it in to the nearest outlet. Lester just looked on in bewilderment, doing a damn good goldfish imitation.

"Oh I dunno, Lester, I've never been one to just give up." Okay, so he didn't have to know about my many failed attempts at going on a diet..er, or exercising. "You know someone once said that a professional is an amateur who didn't quit…and I don't really see myself as a quitter." I smiled into the nearest security camera and gave a middle finger salute before ripping down the plastic blocking the entrance to my cubicle. I let the leaf blower rip.

Holy Winter Wonderland, Batman! My devious counter-attack worked even better than I ever could've imagined as I sent packing peanuts shooting EVERYWHERE! The office looked like the inside of a snow globe. Man, those little Styrofoam suckers could really fly! The guys stood dumbfounded with their mouths hanging open as I moved the blower back and forth in a sweeping motion sending an explosion of chips high into the air. A tap on my shoulder broke me from my deranged reverie. I turned to see which Merry Man had enough balls to actually get that close to me in my maniacal state…Ranger.

"Ohhhhhh fuuu…dge!" At least that's what I hoped it sounded like over the sound of the leaf blower. I pressed the off button and lowered my 'weapon'.

"Ranger, you're back from your trip. Good flight? It's been quiet around here without you." Maybe he wouldn't notice that the fifth floor had been blanketed in a layer of white chips. I glanced around the office…okay, probably not.

He looked me up and down taking note of my headband and the leaf blower in my hand.

"Explain."

"Um, ha ha, I could tell you Ranger, but then I'd have to kill you." I tittered and could feel my eye twitch with a nervous tic. Ugh, I seemed to do that a lot around Ranger. I looked at him for a reaction, hoping for something of the chuckling variety. Nothing. Damn this man really needed to find a sense of humour...and fast.

I sighed. "Just a little joke between me and the guys, Ranger."

"Santos, clean this up. When I come back I don't want to see a single paperclip out of place." Ranger used his very effective 'the mere sound of my voice, will make you crap your pants' tone. He turned to me. Oh Shit!

"Stephanie, seventh floor. We need to discuss your future at this company." Damn. I was so going to get canned. Tears welled up in my eyes as I nodded my head in agreement, afraid that if I opened my mouth, I'd start bawling. I followed a few paces behind Ranger as I watched him pull out his cell phone and talk quietly into the receiver. Well, I guess I could be thankful that he didn't ream me out in front of the guys. I may not have a roof over my head next month but at least I had my pride…and my shoes. The elevator ride up was silent and I took great care to avoid making eye contact. Yeah, I really screwed up this time.

Ranger and I had been spending more time together at work and it felt like I was really getting to know him. Since the DiSanti incident, he had pretty much become my sole partner on stake-outs which gave us lots of time to talk. Who knew his vocabulary extended beyond 'Yo' and 'Babe'. He was even loosening up a bit around me and I actually got him to take a bite of a Krimpet! I just prayed this dumb prank didn't jeopardize our growing friendship.

I shuffled along behind him as he unlocked the apartment and I followed him in.

"Go sit in the living room. I'll be with you in a minute," Ranger said as he headed for his office.

Still unable to find my voice, I nodded and went to sit down on the couch. Hey, if I was going to be canned, I might as well be comfortable right? After five minutes had past, there were no finger nails to speak of on either hand and I was beginning to wonder if my toes would reach my mouth. Ranger came out of the office just as there was a knock on the door. He opened it and took a tray from Ella; then, he joined me on the couch.

My eyes bugged out when I noticed a big bowl of popcorn, a can of soda and a bottle of water on the tray. He placed it on the coffee table and picked up the remote control turning the flat screen TV on to an internal live video feed of the fifth floor. I watched the screen in horror as Merry Men were on their hands and knees picking up the foam chips and putting them in huge piles on the floor around the office.

"Ranger, I'm so, soo sorry…I—." He placed a finger on my lips.

"Babe, I'm proud of you. Those knuckleheads have been asking for it since you started back working in the office. I wondered how long it would take you to stand up for yourself. You're going to fit in here at RangeMan just fine." Then...he started to laugh. Okay, well maybe it was a crinkle around his eyes, the upturn of his lips and the slightest shaking of his shoulders but that translated into rolling around on the floor in side splitting hilarity for a normal person.

"But Ranger—"

"Shhh, Babe, we're missing all the action." With that he handed me the soda and picked up the bowl of popcorn, settling in beside me. We sat there for over an hour watching the guys clean up the fifth floor while Ranger kept up a running commentary of the poor bastards hard at work.

When it looked like they were almost done, Ranger pulled out his cell phone and pressed some numbers.

"Luis, have you been watching the fifth floor monitor? Yeah…they've been punking Steph for a while now." He winked at me and chuckled. "Now might be a good time to test the new central air conditioning system. What do you think?" He paused. "Maximum output sounds about right." He snapped his phone shut and then grabbed the bottle of water.

I looked at him quizzically.

"Just watch, Babe. Time for an encore." I could hear a low humming coming from the video feed; then, those huge piles of Styrofoam chips started moving slowly at first until the chips picked up speed and began swirling and scattering throughout the office. Merry Men, looked on with expressions of horror frozen on their faces as they attempted to throw themselves on the piles in ill-fated attempts to keep the Styrofoam peanuts from blowing away. I doubled over with laughter as tears streamed down my face. We watched as the men huddled together and after much gesturing on Binkie's part where he did a lot of chest poking, the guys hung their head and picked up white pieces of computer paper, waving them in surrender.

"Have they had enough, Babe?"

"Yeah Ranger, I think they've learned a valuable lesson today." Ranger made another call and like magic the sound of the fans stopped and the chips floated to the floor.

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Epilogue

For the first time in…well, probably forever, I was up before my alarm. I looked out my bedroom window. It was a dank, dreary, drizzly Monday morning, with the sun nowhere in sight. I sat up and stretched before bouncing out of bed with a goofy grin on my face. Could there be a more glorious day?

The weekend had been wonderful. As part of their unconditional surrender, the Merry Men had agreed to 'volunteer' at a charity car wash with the proceeds going to the Trenton Senior Center. Grandma had gathered all of her friends from the Clip and Curl together to get their cars washed and ogle the fine male specimens. Damn, I was glad that I'd added the shirtless, speedo clause. Ranger was nice enough to help me draft up the official document he called the 'Surrender at Discretion'. He's a cunning bastard which is one the reasons I lo…um...er…like him so much…in a purely non-sexual, friendly way.

I don't think the guys will ever sign a document again without first reading the fine print. From their constant grumbling that day, I figured they'd missed the subsection that stipulated sunscreen was to be applied by appointed third parties, aka Grandma Mazur and friends, every two hours. A-a-and, they probably missed the really, really fine print that gave the first party (me) permission to photograph parties of the second part (that would be very hot speedo clad Merry Men) including the publishing and distribution of said photographs. Ranger had assured me he was in possession of top of the line telephoto equipment.

By late Saturday afternoon, with no end in sight to the line of cars waiting to get washed, the guys were getting a little testy. It finally occurred to them that it was the second and even third time for some of these cars to come through to get washed. Apparently, Grandma and her friends had been driving their sparkling clean cars around the back of the Senior Center and throwing mud on their cars just so they could get in line again. On the bright side, the Merry Men raised over one thousand dollars for the Senior Center and Grandma had given me a free pass from driving her to viewings for the next month. Can you say win, win?

At the end of a long grueling day it took the Merry Men all of two seconds to give up the name of their ring leader. I had a planned a special somethin' somethin' for him.

I smiled to myself as I parked my car in the underground parking at Haywood and headed for the elevator. Pressing the up button, I waited, giving a little finger wave to the guys in the Control Room. I could hear distant music getting louder as I watched the numbers light up indicating the elevator's descent. I began to sing along to the growing sound of the Bee Gees as I put the digital camera up to my eye waiting…

"Ah, ah, ah, ah stayin' alive, stayin' alive."

As the elevator doors opened, I was treated to a scene from an 80's disco complete with spinning mirrored ball, flashing coloured lights and a disco dancing Lester, clad in a bell-bottomed, white, polyester three piece suit over a black silk shirt. As he approached his big finish—the classic John Travolta finger-pointing poise—I happily snapped pictures.

"Going up," Lester said, ever the good sport.

He pulled me in to the elevator. The music resumed and we danced the Hustle together as the doors closed.

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A week later…

Ad found in the classified section of The Times serving Trenton and surrounding areas:

Professional Office Prankster:

Are you tired of being the butt of workplace jokes? Want revenge on co-workers who take pranking too far? I make typical office pranks look like ' Amateur Hour'. Guaranteed results. Testimonials from reformed jokesters available upon request. Reasonable rates. Cases taken on an individual basis. Evidence of being a pranking victim a must. Trenton area, call 55J-OKESonU for an interview, ask for Steph or leave a message.

The End.

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A/N: Yes, reality is often stranger than fiction. I couldn't make this stuff up…well, I could but why bother when real life is sooo delicious! On Youtube search "I WORK FOR PEANUTS" and "DISCO ELEVATOR - REMI GAILLARD"