Chapter 5: A Honey of a Ninja

Nancy Clearwater crashed into her chair at dinner two days later and slouched on the table.

"Done," she groaned weakly. "I'm going to need a sick day tomorrow, now, and I won't even need to fake again: I'm wiped. This had better work, I can't take this anymore. The ceiling was bad enough, but this… and I can't even brag about it to anyone! Urgh… I was afraid someone was going to walk in on me the whole time."

"Would it have mattered?" Hart asked in a whisper. "You were just in the storage room on the other side of the wall, weren't you?"

"Yeah, but I had no business being there, either, especially not making holes in the wall. Plus, I had to go in his actual quarters to test it. And then I had to clean it…"

"You tested it?" Thompson whispered, grinning. "Awesome. I hope it works too," he added. "Stealing all that honey wasn't precisely easy either."

"I'd love to join in on the whining," Holmes said, whispering like the others, "but my part was child's play – to me, anyway. Just the same, it would be nice to stop failing."

Clearwater threw her such a dirty look that Hart moved his chair away from Holmes' a bit.

"I'm sure it'll work," he said in an attempt to clear the air. "You've all done really well."

"Hopefully he doesn't change his normal routine and throw off our scheduling," Holmes said, wisely switching subject.

"It would be the first time in years," Thompson replied automatically. "I wouldn't worry."

"All right, you bunch of slow pokes!" Beach Head bellowed, "Go on and get out of here, don't you have things to do?"

The dismissal from morning PT elicited the usual groans of relief from most of the Joes. The two usual exceptions merely strolled back towards the Pit, but where both ninjas usually exuded an air of cool relaxation, as though PT had been but a pleasant walk in the park, Storm Shadow looked almost tense that morning.

"You're making Beach Head think he got to you, look: he's smiling," Scarlett remarked.

"He's giving credit to the wrong slobbering beast," Storm Shadow replied.

Scarlett bit her lips, torn between chuckling and being insulted on behalf of Timber and Beach Head. Snake Eyes automatically started signing an offer to move Timber back to his quarters, but Storm Shadow waved it off.

"You got the wrong one too," he said. "I meant Psyche-Out."

Snake Eyes laughed silently and asked whether, seriously, Timber had been any trouble.

Storm Shadow looked at him with an air of disbelief.

"You have GOT to be kidding," he said. "You know what greeted me the first morning when I came back from PT? He was lying on the bed, the remains of my pillow strewn across the whole room – mixed in with what looked like two wolf's worth of hair – and he was wagging his tail, proud as can be to have dispatched my evil pillow for me."

Scarlett chuckled. Snake Eyes started signing an apology but Storm Shadow ignored him and just kept talking.

"So I cleaned all of it up, gave him his snack and some water – I AM glad it turns out he'll eat dog food, by the way, Flint was really starting to make me nervous – I put him back to sleep and went on my merry way. You were with me when I went back for lunch."

Snake Eyes nodded uncomfortably: Storm Shadow hadn't realized he needed to put some newspaper down and so, Timber had just gone on the closest looking thing: the white rug at the foot of the bed.

"I do appreciate your replacing the rug so quickly," Tommy said, noting his discomfort. "But anyway, lesson learned in both cases: my new pillow spends the day in the bathroom behind a closed door and I have newspaper down. How you paper trained a wolf is beyond me, but you most certainly did; there have been no accidents since. So! Things were going so well that I figured every problem had its solution and I spent an hour brushing him yesterday."

Snake Eyes signed to remark that was very nice of him and that Timber loved being brushed.

Storm Shadow rolled his eyes.

"I was trying to get all the loose hair out so he wouldn't shed so much," he specified, "not to give him a nice relaxing spa treatment."

Scarlett snorted. "Been there, done that. It doesn't work," she said.

They were at the door to Tommy's quarters by then. Tommy opened it before he answered, letting both of them in the usually spotless but currently hair-covered room. Timber was snoozing away on Tommy's bed.

"I noticed," he said dryly in answer to Scarlett's comment. "The sad part is that I cleaned all this last night," he added, looking around the room.

Snake Eyes remarked that Timber had obviously grown to like him, adding he wouldn't sleep in his bed otherwise.

"I know," Storm Shadow replied. "He affectionately woke me up this morning by licking the inside of my ear."

The only reason Scarlett managed to keep herself from laughing out loud was that Snake Eyes looked miserable, apologizing and offering to move Timber back again.

"Nah," Storm Shadow said, waving the offer off with a smile. "Don't mind me, I'm just venting. None of that is actually a big deal. Besides, didn't Security tell you they would start the investigation soon? It wouldn't make sense to risk moving Timber back to your quarters again. I'm a ninja; I can handle a bit of saliva and a luscious coating of hair on everything. Now, if you two would excuse me, I need to start cleaning up again. I don't have extra vacuums to give you, so there's not much you can do to help."

Snake Eyes signed a thank you and shooed a groggy Timber off Tommy's bed and back into his own before giving him a pat and pinching his sleeping point again. He then left with Scarlett, each of them heading back to their quarters for a much needed shower before facing the rest of the day.

Snake Eyes frowned under his visor most of the way back to his quarters: something was off. It dawned on him about halfway to his destination that he hadn't heard a single shower running yet. They had lagged a bit by going to Tommy's quarters, and it was in fact possible that most people were done with their showers, but it certainly seemed odd that every single Joe on this stretch of corridor hadalready finished; more likely, the water was off.

In itself, that would only have been a minor inconvenience. However, the Pit's systems hardly ever failed. In all his years here, he remembered the water being out exactly once, and that had been when the water main had broken in the middle of a particularly cold winter. In the summer, like now, he couldn't imagine what could get the water to shut off completely, unless sabotage was involved.

He had resolved to go straight to the Command Centre and find out what was going on and he walked right past his door, only to stop in his track when he heard the sound of a shower.

He sighed and turned back, rolling his eyes at himself. Between Timber getting captured and the trapped ceiling above his bed, not to mention Tommy harping on him lately about listening to his instincts, he was starting to go a bit paranoid.

He went into his quarters, listening out, and relaxed as he continued to hear the sound of water rushing, loud enough for him to guess a shower was being used just a few doors down. There was no system failure, no sabotage, no impending doom – just a coincidence that had caused the occupants of the few rooms between Tommy's and his to not be in the middle of washing up.

He took off his clothes and stepped into his own shower, smiling at the multi-jets. Tommy smirked indulgently about the luxury every occasion he had, but Snake Eyes felt the light teasing was worth enduring: the hot water multi-massage was plain nice, and if Tommy ever stopped being a luxury snob long enough to try one, Snake Eyes was confident his brother would end up with an even higher-end multi-jets shower in his quarters within a week following.

He checked the temperature setting and turned the shower on, eyes closed, expecting and looking forward to the cold water spraying him briefly before warming up to just below scalding: the contrast never failed to invigorate him body and mind.

No cold water came out of the jets this morning. Instead, Snake Eyes was whipped by something thicker than water, something that was already just below scalding, and sticky. He jumped out of the shower, wishing for the second time in just a few days that he could curse and scream, and looked down at himself.

There was no mistaking the smell, the texture and the golden hue: he was covered in honey. He turned the shower off just as the flow was dying off and felt a drop ooze towards his eyes. He wiped irritably at it and at his forehead, but thanks to his high pressure multi-jets shower, his arm – and for that matter the rest of him - was just as full of honey as his head and the gesture only pushed the gooey, sticky substance up a little bit. The fact that the honey was cooling down to room temperature, however, did help congeal it a bit and at the very least, it quickly stopped dripping towards his eyes, stickiness winning over gravity.

He angrily turned the faucets to the sink and glared at them, seized with the irrational desire to rip them off the counter: nothing was coming out of them. He listened out and found he could still hear the sound of the 'shower' going a few doors down, which he could now guess was a recording probably playing from just outside his quarters with the volume down to fool him into thinking it was coming from a bit further.

He caught a glance of his honey spattered arms again and snarled. He had no idea why the greenshirts would think honey, of all things, could possibly cure a werewolf but the level of organization was pretty much their calling card by now: it was almost certainly them.

He wrapped a towel around his midsection but didn't even attempt to put on his mask, figuring the honey would make it stick worse than a wet bathing suit and that he'd never get the thing on properly or without getting honey in his eyes.

He walked out of the bathroom, leaving sticky footprints as he went, and headed for the phone. With any luck, the water was only down in this section of the base.

He picked up the phone, put it to his ear and started dialling Scarlett's number, his fingers moving so fast that he had already composed her extension by the time he noticed there was no tone in the phone. He took a deep breath, told himself that breaking his phone would not accomplish anything, and put the receiver down in an almost calm fashion.

The stickiness was disgusting, uncomfortable, humiliating and altogether pretty much intolerable, and he would have given just about anything right now for a functioning shower. If the greenshirts, for whatever insane reason, had determined he should not be able to wash himself off from his sink or even call on someone to bring him some water, chances were pretty good they would also keep the water off for a while. He had no intention of humouring them for however long that was, so the only question remaining was where to go.

Being seen was absolutely out of the question, especially wearing nothing but a towel; he therefore wanted to cover as little distance as possible outside of the ceiling. That meant going back to Tommy's quarters, which were a good bit closer to a vent than Shana's and also had the advantage of being closer anyway, meaning a shorter crawl through the air ducts.

He stood by his door, listening for any footsteps or voices. He peeked through his peep-hole, confirming at least nobody was standing right in front of his door, and finally risked opening the door just enough to take a look in the hall. He sighed in relief: there was nobody there.

He silently slid out and, with the ease of experience, jumped to the air vent located a mere step away from his door, pushed the loose grid up and hoisted himself into the air duct. He quietly put the grid back in place and started crawling, clenching his teeth as he acquired a light coating of dust on his hands, knees and lower legs. He also quickly realized he was leaving a trail of honey and snarled: he'd have to come back and deal with it once he was clean himself. At least, by coming this way, he'd only be out in the open again for the time it took him to drop back in the hall next to Tommy's door and duck inside his brother's quarters. It was just a shame the main ducts did not go into the quarters themselves, branching out into much smaller pipes instead.

He looked out and listened out through the grid closest to Tommy's quarters to make sure the corridor was empty and dropped out, landing light as a feather – if a sticky one – and covering the ten steps to Storm Shadow's quarters in a heartbeat. He knew he didn't need to knock - Tommy would have heard him approach and by now, he would be able to tell he was in a hurry from his pulse and breathing. Therefore, rather than risk drawing the attention of anybody else around, he just waited, ready to rush inside the door the second it opened and to face his brother's laughing heartily at him. Assuming, of course, that said brother didn't just stare at his face in mute horror – Tommy had no more seen him without his mask since the accident than any of the other Joes. If anything, Snake Eyes was almost glad to be forced into getting the 'reveal' done and over with.

He heard muffled voices from inside and the door opened to Psyche Out.

Psyche Out had started his career with a specialization in psychological warfare. When he had joined GI Joe, he had quickly been given the additional duty of team psychiatrist and psychologist and as such, he was proud to say he had seen it all and heard it all. It was obvious to any new personnel that the Joes were a quirky bunch, but to the man in charge of keeping them all somewhat sane, the fact you could still qualify them of merely quirky most of the time was a personal triumph in which he took a good deal of pride.

All in all, Psyche Out considered himself a very solid person. His very presence in Storm Shadow's quarters this morning, for the ninja's weekly visit, was probably a decent proof of that by itself: Storm Shadow, like most people on the team, hated to think he was anything less than in perfect mental health and therefore, had to be ordered to see him and deeply resented it. Psyche Out had been told that the ex Cobra was actually quite sociable with most people on the team – even when he was in the process of pounding them into the floor in hand-to-hand classes - but he had never seen that side of the ninja himself.

However, neither his years in GI Joe, nor his frequent one-on-one encounters with an irritable ninja who wanted nothing more than to be rid of him, nor his own impression that he was as stable as a particularly large rock made any difference when he opened the door to a half-naked, honey-coated, dusty, angry looking, buff, horribly disfigured and currently mask-less Snake Eyes. Psyche Out's brains did not even register who he was looking at until after he shrieked.

He heard himself scream, and although he knew almost right away that screaming was the worst thing he could possibly have done, the command to stop seemed to take a long time to reach his mouth, lungs and vocal cords. By the time it finally did, several things were happening: most of the nearby doors were opening to other Joes trying to find out what was going on, he was being shoved out of Storm Shadow's quarters and Snake Eyes was brushing against him – leaving some honey on his clothes - to get inside faster.

He fell to his hands and knees from the shove just as the door closed. The Joes that had come out of their rooms were all staring at him and at the floor, where sticky footsteps could be seen. One of them eventually thought of asking whether he was okay, but he was drown out by the various enquiries on whether that had been Snake Eyes and why he had been naked and covered in honey. The inquiries quickly degenerated into speculations involving Scarlett and Psyche Out decided he didn't want to hear anymore. He picked himself up and hurried back to his office to try and think of a way to convince Snake Eyes not to kill or maim him.

Snake Eyes stood, shaking in anger, in the middle of the room.

"They didn't see your face," Storm Shadow reported, listening out to the voices in the hall. "They're only guessing it was you."

Snake Eyes signed in quick jerky movements, asking what Psyche Out had been doing here.

"I have my weekly appointments in my quarters," Storm Shadow explained, looking like he was fighting very hard for each second he managed to stay serious. "There's too much circulation outside his office, I always felt like people could hear everything we said. I told you this morning I was seeing him today, didn't I? As for why he answered the door, he insisted because he was hoping to shoo you away."

Storm Shadow was very clearly losing his battle not to laugh: by the time he finished his explanation, he was reduced to hiding his grin behind his mouth.

Snake Eyes scowled at him, refrained from arguing whether Tommy's earlier comment indeed qualified as telling him Psyche Out was coming today and, looking around, asked where Timber was.

"Asleep in the closet," Storm Shadow said, his voice slightly altered to a higher pitch than usual and getting further from his normal tone with each word. "He must still be out cold from your pinch, otherwise Psyche Out's girly scream would probably have woken him up."

Snake Eyes sighed, rolled his eyes and instructed his brother to just laugh it up and get it over with. Tommy heartily complied, but trying to keep the volume down soon caused him to roll over on the bed, holding his sides in pain until he managed to calm down.

"I'm sorry. It's just… what HAPPENED to you? Did you find a big vat of honey and swan dived into it?"

Snake Eyes signed the whole story, including the recording of a shower designed to fool him and the phone not working, and asked whether Tommy's water was shut off as well. Tommy missed the question, rolling on his bed again, a fist in his mouth and tears streaming from his eyes.

Snake Eyes crossed his arms and tapped his foot, glaring at his brother. He had expected Tommy to find this hilarious, but his patience was wearing thin. Tommy heard the taps and managed to stop laughing and to look him straight in the eyes, still grinning but at least no longer shaking with laughter.

"Stop glaring at me like that, you look enough like my father as it is," he chuckled.

Snake Eyes blinked at him; Tommy's father had been Japanese, there was no way he had looked like a blue-eyed blond Caucasian.

"Your scars," Tommy explained, his smile softening into what looked suspiciously like nostalgia. "He got a sword slash across his face when I was a baby, and the scar shrunk the skin around his eye."

Snake Eyes' hand self consciously went to his own left eye, with the peeled back lids that made his face look lopsided by making the eye look huge.

"Up to that point, he had considered himself to be very handsome," Storm Shadow continued. "After that injury, he decided to go to the other extreme for his face to continue to be a distraction to his opponents, and purposely scarred himself on every available inch, using a combination of burns and cuts."

Snake Eyes just stared at him wide eyed for a second. He turned his finger around his temple in a universal gesture and Tommy chuckled.

"Yeah, but it actually worked quite well."

Snake Eyes chuckled too. Crazy dad or not, Tommy had just treated him to a better reaction to his face than he had ever hoped for. For a blissful moment, he forgot he was covered in honey.

"Back on topic," Tommy said. "I don't understand. How did you manage to get that much clean?" he asked, pointing at the other man's towel.

Snake Eyes signed that he hadn't.

Storm Shadow's eyebrows shot up and a smirk appeared on his lips.

"You've never heard of using honey for hair removal, have you?"

Snake Eyes' eyes widened before he closed them in a sigh: he really could have done without this additional problem. He signed to ask again whether Tommy had working water.

Tommy shook his head sympathetically. "Psyche Out was telling me it was out in the whole base except for the infirmary."

Snake Eyes sighed and went for the phone. He picked it up and dialled Shana's extension again. Tommy's phone had not been disconnected, so it did ring, but there was no answer. Snake Eyes hung up, reflecting that it wasn't surprising: Scarlett wasn't one to just hang around in her room unless she had a good reason to be there.

"I'll go get some water bottles," Storm Shadow offered. "You're going to have to wait until my shower works again before you can soak the towel through enough with warm water to remove it without peeling your hair off, but at least you can scrub the rest of yourself clean with bottled water and some soap. I'll go get your uniform, too. Other than the hand-to-hand class, were you due anywhere this morning?"

Snake Eyes shook his head and signed a thank you, resigned to the less than ideal partial sponge bath as at least a step in the right direction.

Storm Shadow signalled him to get out of sight before he got out, and as soon as the door opened, Snake Eyes heard several voices asking Tommy what was going on and demanding to know whether that naked guy covered in honey had actually been Snake Eyes. The towel-clad ninja braced himself, fully expecting Tommy would find the worst possible answer to give.

"He's not naked, don't be silly," Tommy said, his voice growing softer as he walked away. "He's wearing a regulation towel."

Snake Eyes rolled his eyes resignedly and decided to check on Timber, ignoring the uncomfortable silence from the hallway, which he could guess was the result of the Joes present knowing better than to actually laugh when he could hear them.

He opened the door to the closet and Timber, probably because he picked up his scent under the honey, groggily opened his eyes. He wagged his tail and gave a lick, painfully pulling at the skin stuck to the honey. Snake Eyes stepped back, but Timber licked his chops and got up to follow him, eager to show him some more affection while he tasted so much nicer than usual.

The thought of pinching Timber's sleeping point was squashed before it was even fully formed: if he did that, Snake Eyes' fingers would get stuck on the hair and he'd pull out a good bit of it getting his digits back. He wasn't going to prevent his wolf from kissing him by painfully pulling the poor thing's hair out.

He tried to signal his friend to stop, but Timber just cocked his head, having obviously no idea what it was he wasn't supposed to be doing since licks had never before been forbidden. Snake Eyes tried locking himself in the bathroom, but he had to give that up when Timber started scratching at the door and whimpering: the CD wasn't even on and the scratching noise and whimpers would probably not pass as being part of it anyway. He came out of the bathroom and settled into basically playing one-sided tag with the wolf while trying to make as little mess as possible.

Storm Shadow was torn between annoyance and amusement when he came back. On one hand, Snake Eyes and Timber had made a complete mess of his room by running around, Snake Eyes spreading enough honey for the hair Timber was spreading to stick to everything in clumps. On the other hand, well… Snake Eyes WAS running around the room from Timber who was attempting to lick the honey off him.

Annoyance won out strictly because of the trouble he'd had securing the pack of water bottles he was bringing back: he'd had to make a detour to avoid Psyche Out, only for Flint to show up just as he was getting the bottles. The Warrant Officer had practically interrogated him about the water, going as far as implying he was planning to use it to drench someone in their sleep. He'd had to give his word upon his honour that the water was not for a prank and to admit it was for Snake Eyes to give himself a sponge bath before Flint had finally relented and let him go on his way.

He closed the door quickly before someone could see either the mess, the candied ninja or the wolf, and then pinched Timber's sleeping point as the animal was zipping by, running playfully after his pack leader. Timber slumped to the ground and Snake Eyes stopped running, signing a thank you.

"You do realize YOU'RE cleaning this up, right?" Tommy asked, eyeing the room.

Snake Eyes nodded eagerly and pointed at the water bottles.

"You're lucky, they weren't in the fridge, so they're not even cold. They should be more than enough if you empty some of them in the sink and reuse the water until you're ready to rinse. I'm sorry, I didn't feel it was wise to…" he trailed off, listening out. "Heh," he chuckled after a moment. "I was about to explain you were going to have to scrub yourself clean all by yourself because I didn't think I should bring Scarlett, what with everyone in the hall knowing you're mostly naked and covered with honey, but she must have heard of your predicament: she's on her way. I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose: you ARE the talk of the morning."

Snake Eyes sighed and sagged, rolling his eyes and his head back. He couldn't even pretend he was going to kill the greenshirts, he knew he wouldn't. For crying out loud, the idiots were trying to SAVE him, although they HAD chosen to do it by coating him with honey… maybe he could beat them up just a little bit, or at least spend the next couple of months regularly scaring the living daylights out of them.

"I was laughing too hard to ask earlier, but didn't you smell the honey in the pipes?" Storm Shadow asked, interrupting some very pleasant thoughts where greenshirts kept yelping and literally jumping, hand on their hearts, following Snake Eyes suddenly appearing in front of them. "I know you did have the sense to wonder about the lack of other showers running until you heard a recording of one, but it IS the second time a bunch of delusional greenshirts succeed in pouring something all over you. Didn't you feel anything was out of place?"

Snake Eyes scowled at him and signed that he did NOT want to be lectured on listening to his instincts right now.

Storm Shadow sighed and signalled him to hide again before opening the door to Scarlett, who quickly ducked inside without even slowing down from the rapid walk that had brought her here.

Snake Eyes re-emerged from behind the bed, facing Scarlett, who grinned and looked him up and down very slowly, obviously appreciating the view.

"Oh, honey, what a mess you are," she said.

"He's messy, but he's still sweet," Storm Shadow commented.

Both Snake Eyes and Scarlett glared at him, both obviously feeling this particular line of puns was only acceptable coming from Scarlett. Storm Shadow snorted but put his hand on the door handle again.

"Oh fine, be that way," he said with a mock pout. "I'll just leave you two alone to scrub and go get you a uniform, Brother."

He waited for them both to disappear into the bathroom and left again, ignoring all the questions directed his way by the Joes that suddenly materialized out of their own rooms.

Even with Scarlett's help, the clean-up was not a fun process: the honey was not coming off all that easily, and it was of course coming off on the washcloths Snake Eyes and Scarlett were using. To avoid saturating the limited supply of washing water with honey, they ended up switching to a fresh washcloth several times and to hand towels when they ran out of washcloths.

They were not even half done by the time Storm Shadow came back with Snake Eyes' uniform. Tommy somehow managed not to crack up again at the sight of all the honey covered washcloths and small towels and started practicing his katas, keeping an ear out for trouble or signs that Timber was waking up.

Despite the hassle, Snake Eyes did not regret his decision not to wait for the water to come back on: it was another hour after he and Scarlett finished washing up as much of the honey as they could before it finally did. Both Scarlett and Storm Shadow had left by then to go teach the beginner's hand-to-hand class without him, which was probably the only silver lining in this whole business. He turned on the shower the second he heard the water rushing back in the pipes and only took long enough to make sure that the liquid coming out of the shower head was indeed water before jumping in.

Author's Notes

One chapter left since this one did grow out of control a bit. The next one is just everything wrapping up… somehow.

Just in case you're wondering, I swear I did not write this story JUST for the sake of getting a naked ninja coated in honey. If I had, I would have gone for Storm Shadow. Can someone else do that for me, please? I'd love to read it. Consider yourselves challenged. :P

The initial challenge was born from my telling WillWrite4Fics that I was coming up with pranks of sorts – really attempted cures - targeting Snake Eyes for an upcoming story, and one of the things I was considering was coating him in honey. The rest is history.