Many thanks to all of you reviewers for your kind comments and suggestions. Here's the next chapter!
If there was one thing that the Freelancers hated more than anything, it was paperwork. Every mission, every training session, every weapons check and usage, required the evil process of writing a report BY HAND, reviewing it, having at least three other people review it and sign off on it, and then handed directly to the Counselor or the Director. It was a time-consuming process, and there was a deadline for it. If anything were to happen to the paperwork that a Freelancer had worked on…
"South, have you finished that last mission report yet?" Carolina asked over dinner one evening, and South Dakota ran her fingers through her hair in exasperation.
"I just need you and one other person to read over it before I can turn it in. I've already got Maine's signature," she pointed her thumb over at the silent agent.
"Let me see," Carolina demanded, and she started skimming over the report.
"I'll have a look at it when you're done, Carolina," North said as he shoveled mashed potatoes and meatloaf into his mouth, then drank a gulp of coffee to wash it down. Carolina skimmed through the pages and signed the paperwork, then handed it to North. Just as North started skimming through it, York came by, bumped into North's armor…and spilled his entire tray of food over the report.
The reaction could have been much worse. For the first minute, South just stared at her pristine report, now ruined, with a horrorstruck expression. A weird gurgling noise came out of her throat at the sight of gravy, ketchup, and meat chunks dripping onto the floor from the papers that North still held in his hand. She was about to let out a bloodcurdling scream when York and her brother started chuckling, then outright cackling.
"What's…so…funny?" she asked slowly, eyes glimmering dangerously.
"Your…face!" York wheezed, and he and North both fell on the ground, holding their sides as they laughed at South's horror. She immediately recomposed herself before glaring at the two of them.
"Do you have any idea how long I had to work on that report?!" she yelled, and they stopped laughing. "I had to work for five hours, print it out, and then my computer crashed! That was my ONLY copy, and that report was due tonight!"
"South, that wasn't the actual report," North said calmly to his incensed sister.
"Now, I have to try and find ano-what?"
"We've got your actual copy right here," York said, pulling a folded paper packet from inside his shirt. "Maine was kind enough to make us a copy when you asked him to read over your report." He handed it to her, and she took it with trembling hands.
"Consider it payback for that joke you played on Wyoming and Wash," North chuckled. South didn't move or say anything. It looked like she wasn't breathing. "South, are you there?" North snapped his fingers in front of her face, and South toppled to the side in a dead faint."
"You'd think that she'd be happy to see her report," York remarked as North tried to revive his sister with panic and Maine chuckled at his deal in the prank.
South may not have been entirely impressed by the report incident…nor were the rest of the Freelancer girls, for that matter. They certainly made their displeasure known the next morning.
"York, can you give me a hand in here?" North called from his shower stall. York wrapped a towel around his middle as he exited the shower.
"North, you know that I like you and all, but don't you think that we should take things slow first before the shower?" York called back jokingly, laughing at North's spluttering.
"Dude, that's- no, I'm not talking about that. Someone's been messing with my shampoo!"
"Really?" York drawled, and Maine came over to hear more of the conversation. "How so?"
"Well, I can't get my hand out of my hair now," North said, showing his upper body. His left hand was stuck firmly to his blonde hair with a white liquid substance that COULD be mistaken for shampoo…
"Alright, wrap a towel around your middle and come on out," York instructed the woebegone North Dakota. "I wonder whose BRIGHT idea it was to replace your shampoo with super glue."
Awkwardly, North tied a towel around his middle with only one hand and came out of his shower, then bent down so that York could reach up and try to free North's hand. It was not easy, and the glue refused to come away from the poor man's hair…or York's hands.
"It must be that extra-strength superglue that the girls stole from the Director's office when they made that sundae (see "Red vs Blue: Candy Men")," York grunted as he tried to wrench his hands free from North's hair, and was met with a yell of complaint from the blonde. "Maine, don't you have some mess remover back in your room?"
Maine responded with a grunt of affirmation.
"Well, let's sneak out to your room and grab it."
"Don't you think it's going to look kind of awkward with all three of us sneaking back to Maine's room?" North pointed out. Indeed, all three men only had towels wrapped around their waists in terms of modesty.
"…Fair point," York conceded. "Maine, you go to your room and grab the ointment, and North and I will stay here." Maine made to make a noise of protest but, seeing the pleading looks their faces, thought better of it. He simply went to the door and left.
A loud thud had North and York doing a sort of three-legged crab walk to the door to see Maine lying flat on his back on the floor right outside the men's locker room. "Maine, are you-" North started to ask as he crossed the threshold of the doorway and fell on his front, bringing York with him as he fell. The three men lay in a pile on the greased floor as people began crowding around…very specifically, women.
CT wolf-whistled at the sight of the half-naked men on the floor. "Whoo-ee! Aint this a treat, girls?" she asked the other Freelancers, who chuckled at the men's expense.
"It's sweet that you guys remembered we were yaoi fans!" Tex called from where she was leaning on the wall for support as she laughed. The laughter of the women rang through the hallway as the guys attempted and failed to get up off the floor, grumbling about taking revenge.
This chapter is dedicated to BIG Z1776, Freelancer Mississippi, Darkrexbeta, and EvilNickelbackObsessedTechy.