A/N: Okay, yeah, this is most definitely not serious. :B At first it was supposed to be, but then I started writing it and I just couldn't stop giggling, so. There you go. Definitely something of a departure from previous chapters, but then I think the next couple are probably going to be a more separate "what if?" kind of deal, having gone full-circle from "Pyreflies" to "World Without End." I was listening to "Paine's Theme" while writing this, oddly… This one's slightly bawdier than the others have been. ::cough::

Experimentation

The girl was petite, robust, boyish and tanned from summers spent sprinting through busy city streets and playing in the salty ocean, body in blossom but far from voluptuous. Hair like an owl's feathers or tree bark: a kind of nondescript brown-black that might not really be a color at all. A lopsided smile, like a wolf. He'd always liked her. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.

He didn't ask, though he could've. They were all technically under his orders, after all, though the saucier ones tended to respect the Boss and only the Boss when it came down to it. She wasn't entirely one of them, but she was ornery enough to express great pleasure at the knowledge of why she was standing here in his doorway.

"Reporting for duty," the unmasked Fem-Goon announced, unable and unwilling to hide a grin of open humor when it sprang to her face. "2300 hours exactly."

Logos cast a searching glance into the hallway and then looked down at her face. She only came up to something like the middle of his ribcage.

"Were you seen?"

Leblanc was much taller.

"Of course not."

He retreated further back into the depths of the room. The girl's uniform clung to her smallish frame— scrawny, really— outlining the firmness of breasts and the subtle slope of waist into hips, lean muscle moving in each step. Her posterior was a tad lacking. That was a bit of a shame; Logos rather liked those.

But she was different, and that was the entire point. She wasn't the first, nor would she be the last. There was, or so he gathered, a very broad spectrum of women abounding in the world, and so there was a great deal to learn in the event that Leblanc should fall into an unexpected place. And it was so like her to do so. The boss never failed to amaze him.

"Hey, c'mon, Logos. Are we gonna do this thing or what?"

"Hmm, yes…"

She snorted. "You're awfully thoughtful for a man about to get his rocks off."

"Don't be vulgar," he accused, tongue clucking a little in obvious distaste. It was a mostly empty rebuke, though, save for the tiny sliver of offended sensibilities lurking in the foreground of his tone.

It was what he told himself, anyway, that his intentions really amounted to nothing but the noblest sacrifice for the greater good. For the Boss's greater good. Yes, and if that sacrifice entailed whispered offers, clandestine leanings-in, hands on shoulders, then by Yevon, he would sacrifice until he couldn't sacrifice any more without stopping to rest for half an hour or so.

"Lock the door, won't you?"

"Yes, sir!"

This little girl could probably drink him under the table. Leblanc became amusingly surly and nonsensical after two and a half glasses of wine.

fin