Turks Party

Turks Party
By: Zeng Li

"Are you sure you don't want me to drive?" asked Reeve, getting into the passenger seat of Tseng Wulong's black sports car. He was very much aware of the speeds Tseng was prone to driving.

The Turks' leader laughed. "Are you kidding, Reeve? One beer and you're sloshed. I'd only end up driving you home anyway."

"Aw, that's not true. It takes two to put me out."

"Same difference." Tseng put the car in gear, and Reeve instinctually pushed his head back against the headrest, prepared for a sudden jolt at take off. Tseng watched the man and eased the clutch out, slowly accelerating to highway speeds.

Reeve caught the Wutan's grin. "Very funny. Or did someone finally teach you how to drive?"

"Ha." Tseng downshifted and floored it, illegally passing a delivery truck on a blind curve. Next to him, Reeve was petrified and pale as a sheet. Tseng just laughed at him more.

Reeve undug his nails from the sides of the seat and began to relax. "Tseng-sama! With stunts like that it's amazing you haven't gotten yourself killed yet!"

"Relax... I happen to know that the on-coming lane is closed due to road work. I'd have never done that otherwise. Though it was worth it to see your face."

"Shut up... Next time I drive, drunk or otherwise."

The black sports car didn't stop until it reached Reno's apartment complex on the Sector 3 plate. Reeve's knees were wobbly already, even before the alcohol, just from Tseng's carefree driving.

Reno's had a 2-story end unit with an upstairs balcony. Rude was already there and, more than likely, already half stoned. Reno was into his first bottle of beer, probably too busy setting up to hit the liquor too much.

"Hi ya', boss!" Reno greeted them at the door. "I see you brought the virgin."

"So what if I'm a virgin," said Reeve. "At least I wore 3 layers of clothing here today because I know you're gonna play another one of your stupid strip-party games."

Reno grinned. "Of course. I've got one tailored to chance today instead of the kind that it's too easy for me to intentionally lose. Or win...which ever way you look at it."

"I'm surprised you play the games at all, Reno," said Tseng. "Why don't you just take off all your clothes now and get it over with?"

"Well, come on. Someone else has to be it for a change. Oh, here..." Reno handed Tseng and Reeve each one numbered token, a mischievious grin all over his face. "Here's how today's game works. Throughout the party, I'll be calling a random number zero through nine. If your number gets called, you have to take off an article of clothing. If zero gets called, everyone takes off one thing. And Reeve, you have to take all those layers of clothes off and get on the level with the rest of us."

"On to me, huh?" said Reeve, shrugging out of his jacket.

"Yeah. But don't worry. You know I don't wear a tie, so I'm already one up on all of ya!" Reno smiled wickedly.

"Why am I not shocked...?" said Tseng, pocketing his #3 token and sitting down on the sofa.

"So, who else is coming tonight?" Reeve stole a handful of pretzels before sitting opposite of Tseng.

Reno downed the last of his beer. "Let's see... Elena, Scarlett, Heidegger, Rufus, and maybe even this guy I know called Nathaniel Westminster."

"Nathan West?" asked Tseng. "You mean that imaginary friend of yours that supposedly lives in your freezer?"

"He's not imaginary. You just...haven't met him yet."

"Yeah...I'll bet…"

Elena arrived with Rufus a while later, followed by Heidegger and Scarlett.

"Well," said Reno. "I guess Nathan'll have to be #9. He can't make it tonight, but I'll call him and let him know if he has to take a piece of clothing off."

Tseng caught Elena looking idly at her token numbered 4. "Reno?" he said. "Are you sure it's fair to make the women play...?"

"What are you talking about?" the crimson haired Turk replied. "They have eight pieces of clothing whereas the guys have seven. Assuming they're wearing bras..."

"Kyaa, haa, haa, haa!" Scarlett cackled. "I'm gonna beat you this time, Reno!"

"This is stupid!!" bellowed Heidegger. "Come on, Scarlett! Let's go to our usual place in the guest room..."

"Coming, Heidegger, honey...!" She traipsed off to the bedroom with Heidegger.

"Ugh..." Tseng cringed. "Why do you let them do that?"

Reno shrugged. "Heidegger's usually too worn out from climbing the stairs to the second floor to do much else. Scarlett'll come back down in a minute."

Rufus fired up the stereo and helped himself to more wine. Next to him, Reeve just watched. "What's the matter, Mr. Urban Development? Still traumatized by Tseng's driving?" the VP asked. "Here...loosen up..." Rufus poured Reeve a glass of red wine.

"Thanks..." Reeve said timidly, taking the glass.

"Hey, come on! Let's get the fun started!" Reno called over the noise of the stereo. "Time to draw the first number!" Rude stood over his shoulder as he rolled a 10-sided die. The multi-faced object bounced and skittered across the table before coming to a rest with the number 3 facing up. "Who's got three!?"

A pit developed in Tseng's stomach as he drew his token out of his pocket in hopes that it had been Reeve who'd received that number. Unfortunately, the token that he produced was numbered "3".

"Whoo-hoo! Tseng, baby!" Reno exclaimed for all to hear. "Jacket, please...!"

"Figures..." Tseng could hear Elena giggle as he shrugged out of his suit jacket and handed it to Reno.

"Way to go, boss!" Reno grinned.

"Shut up..." Tseng sat back down next to Elena, who immediately threw herself against him.

"Oh, Tseng... Why don't you just take the rest off and come with me to the bedroom...?"

Tseng could smell the alcohol on her already. "Elena, you're drunk. We can talk about this when you're sober again."

She laid her head against his arm, and he just went with it.

As predicted, Scarlett came back down stairs soon after going up. She immediately hit the booze and began teasing Rufus. He dodged her and sped off into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door to keep her away.

Five minutes later, Reno called out the next number for his twisted little game. "One! Hey-hey!! That's me!" He quickly flung his jacket off and piled it on top of Tseng's.

"Typical..." muttered Tseng.

"Bet he's happy," said Reeve.

"He always wins these stupid strip games of his. Which is fine by me 'cause it means I'm not the one humiliating myself."

"Amen..." Reeve clinked glasses with the Turks' leader.

The sight of Reno walking around naked at one of his own parties was not just common, but these days it was expected. No one would play strip-poker with him any more because the outcome was so predictable, and strip-Twister was getting mundane, too.

Heidegger's number was the next one to come up. But, since he was upstairs asleep, and no one wanted to see him naked anyway, they decided to ignore it and just go on. Reno rolled another number and came up with 3 again.

"Aw, come on...!" Tseng whined as it meant he had to lose another article of clothing. Elena reached for his tie to get it off of him, but Tseng batted her away, afraid she'd try taking off more than just that.

Scarlett began getting slap-happy and made it very obvious that she wouldn't return to some semblance of normal until she'd slapped someone.

"Why don't you just go howl at the moon or something?" said Reeve, tired of her antics.

"Or go back to that street corner and buy more of the stuff that makes you act like a normal human being..." added Rufus.

"Ah, I see two people here that want to get slapped!" she raised one hand up as if poised to strike, her long finger nails gleaming like talons.

"Go ahead, Reeve," said Rufus. "You may be her slap victim tonight."

"No thanks, Rufus. I don't want her to scratch my face with those claws."

"Hmm. One guess as to how Reno got those scars under his eyes. Is he up to something we don't want to know about?"

Reno heard the whole thing and leaned on the back of the sofa between Rufus and Reeve. "Ruf, you know as well as I where I got these scars from, and it certainly wasn't from Scarlett. If they were, I would've had cosmetic surgery to remove them a long time ago."

"Shut up!!" the blond bitch squealed. "I can just use my Slap-All Materia and get you all at once, but I'm trying to be nice!"

Except for the stereo, the room went temporarily silent. Finally, someone let a tiny laugh get away at the thought of what she'd said.

"I heard that!!" Scarlett immediately homed in on her prey.

Elena shyly had her shoulders drawn up to her neck as Scarlett approached. Tseng stepped between them and gripped Scarlett by the wrist before she swung at the other girl. He applied immobilizing pressure and bent the limb into a defenseless position.

"Leave her alone, Scarlett. Go upstairs and slap Heidegger all you want," he said.

"Hah! That'll just wake him up, and I know none of you want that."

"True..."

She used her other hand and delivered a halfway-decent slap to the side of Tseng's face. He let go of her wrist, and she went cackling off to the kitchen in search of more liquor.

Tseng plopped himself down next to Reeve on the sofa. "Too much to drink, sir?" asked Reeve.

Tseng rubbed the sting out of his cheek. "Her or me?"

"Both."

"Eh, I wasn't in the mood for a fight. She likes that anyway. And here I'm worried about Elena trying to take the rest of my clothes off."

"Don't worry about it," Reeve clapped an arm around Tseng's shoulders and squeezed him in a hug that the Turk wasn't all to comfortable with.

"All right..." Tseng stood up quickly. "Now I'm worried about you..."

Reeve smiled, amused at Tseng's increased paranoid-level that augmented with each drink he had.

"Come on, come on!" Reno called over the rest of the noise. "Let's draw another number!"

"Reno, we're supposed to do that every fifteen minutes," said Rude. "It's been five."

"Ah, so what! I'm getting impatient!" Reno rolled the die between his hands. "Come on, one...!" He threw the die across the table, and it came to a halt on the number 5. "Aw... not me... Hey, who's got five!?"

A little bit of blush showed through on Reeve's face as he admitted to having that number after seriously considering trying to cover it up.

"Oh, loosen up, Reeve," said Tseng, who was probably just looking for someone else who'd shed as much clothing as he had.

Reeve took his jacket off and gave it to Reno. "Yeah, Reeve," said Reno. "Relax. You know I'm the best at losing these games! Or winning, as I see it."

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Have some more wine...!" Reno refilled Reeve's glass, which was still only half emptied.

Elena was already sufficiently drunk and wobbled her way to the pool table where Rude and Rufus were in the middle of a game. She hiccupped a few times then crashed down on top of the table, scattering the colorful balls from their places.

"Aw, man!" Rufus threw his cue stick to the floor. "TSENG!!! Get your drunken Turk off the table!"

Tseng came over and lifted Elena's small body off the table. "Come on. No more booze for you, kid."

Elena reached up and kissed Tseng on the lips even as he held her. "Oh, Tseng..." she cooed dreamily. "Where are you taking me?"

"To the bedroom...so you can sleep!" he emphasized before she got the wrong idea. She was pretty much asleep by the time he placed her on Reno's bed.

When he returned to the living room, he found Reno barefooted and standing on the coffee table telling dirty jokes. He missed the punchline of one and confronted the young redhead about his bare feet.

"A little anxious, Reno?" he asked mockingly.

"Huh? Oh, I always walk around my apartment without shoes."

"Yeah, right. You just want to be one step closer to the inevitable."

"Whatever, Tseng. Come on, let's draw one more number then we can play Themed Scrabble." Reno retrieved his die, and this time Tseng watched to be sure Reno reported the truthful result. The die rolled out to a 7. "Ugh...that's Scarlett," said Reno, scooping up the die. "Let's forget that one and roll again."

"Reno, you're cheating!" Tseng growled at him.

"Hey, do you really want Scarlett to start flinging her clothes of with all of us still among the living?"

Tseng thought about it and, sadly enough, agreed with Reno.

"Thought so. Come on, one!" Reno threw the die again and 9 came up. "Ooh, Nathan, Nathan...!"

"Reno!! That's not fair either! Nathan's just a stupid imaginary friend of yours that none of us have ever seen!"

"Come on, Tseng. Just because you've never seen him doesn't mean he doesn't exist. He just couldn't make it here tonight. I'd better call him up and tell him he's gotta take his shirt off or something." Reno picked up the phone.

"And if he's taking a bath, tell him he's won so we can stop playing this stupid game."

By the time they returned to the living room, Reeve had the Scrabble board all set up. "And if you lose, Reno, you're not entitled to take some of your clothes off," he said.

Reno grabbed a handful of tiles. "All right, take 12 tiles. Tonight's theme is..."

"I'll pick the theme tonight, Reno!" Tseng insisted. "I fear what's really on your mind."

Reno shot him a look but remained silent.

"How's about...building implosions?"

"Okay," Reeve agreed. "And any names of the Controlled Demolition, Inc. guys counts as double."

"And spelling out 'Jack Frost' counts as triple!" added Tseng.

"And anyone who successfully spells out 'Phillyblast' automatically wins the game!" said Reno.

"And we can trade tiles, remove smaller words as we see fit, and build off the board if necessary!" said Tseng.

Rufus walked by and had heard all the pre-game "rules" being declared. "Why don't you guys just place all the tiles on the board the way you want and forget about the stupid score?" he asked.

"Because..." Reno whined. "That's no fun."

Rufus just shook his head and returned to the pool table where he and Rude were starting a new game.

"All right. Who's got a good opening word?"

Reeve rearranged his 12 tiles. "I have 'rubble'."

"I have 'Oops'," said Tseng.

"If somebody can give me an 'A', I can spell Loizeaux." Tseng anxiously offered up the tile. Reno took it. "Okay, what do you want in return?"

"Well, if you have a 'D', I can spell 'Implode'."

"Here you go..."

"Although, if I do that, I sacrifice an 'O' from 'Oops'."

"Oh, I got an 'O' I can trade with you," said Reeve holding up a tile.

Rufus looked over his shoulder at them while lining up his next shot. "I don't get them and their made-up rules." He hit the cue ball and knocked one striped ball into the corner pocket and came within millimeters of sinking a second. "Aw, damn...!" he cussed and poked the offending ball from across the table with his stick so it would fall in as well.

"You were saying..." Rude grumbled.

After the other bunch ran out of funny words in their themed game of Scrabble, Reno decided it was time to draw another number. He threw the 10-sided die, and it skittered off the table and onto the floor. "That doesn't count," said Reno, bending to pick it up. "Ooh... A one! That's me! Maybe it will count!"

Tseng grabbed Reno by the collar. "If you want to count it, count it as the shoes and socks you took off half an hour ago!"

Reno scowled. "Okay. Okay. Fine... But let's do it again." He rolled the die, and when he saw that it had come up 3 again, he laughed maniacally. "And Tseng wins again!!"

"Dammit!! No friggin' way!" Tseng leaned over Reno, who'd dropped to the floor in hysterics. "Aw, man! Are you sure that thing's not weighted?"

"I'm sure! If it were, I'd have made sure my number was 3."

"Of all the damn lousy times for probability to be anomalous!" Tseng hissed as he pulled his shoes and socks off and handed them to Reno to add to "the pile."

"Oh, stop whining, Tseng, and just be glad I didn't invite Hojo. Though if I had, maybe we'd get to find out how many you-know-what's he has. I'll bet he's got more than one…"

"Ugh! You are sick!"

The door to the kitchen opened up and a red-dressed figure staggered out. "Reno... baby......" Scarlett slurred, the alcohol fumes all but visible as they radiated from her. "You're......out of...Vodka......" She passed out, crumpling to a heap on the living room floor.

"Rude!" Reno called to his friend at the billiards table. "Party-goer disposal time!"

Rude leaned his cue stick against the wall and walked over to where Scarlett was collapsed on the floor. Rufus eyed the room to be sure no one was looking and grabbed one of his striped balls and placed it in a corner pocket.

Rude lifted Scarlet over his shoulder and brought her to the second floor balcony where he threw her over and into the shrubbery below.

"Whoo-hoo! The bitch is gone! This calls for another throw of the dice!" Reno grabbed up his precious little random number generator.

Tseng grabbed his wrist firmly. "If you dare roll another three, Reno, I swear..."

"Hey! Don't blame me! It's all pure chance. I simulated this game with myself and 8 other imaginary players, and almost everyone gets their chance sooner or later."

"Okay, Reno. That might have been more than I wanted to know."

Reno wrenched his hand out of Tseng's vise-grip. "Tell you what. I'll let you roll the die, okay? Here..."

Tseng squeezed the die and rubbed it between his hands before rolling it across the table top. "No...!!"

"Ha-haa...!!" Reno cheered. "A three...!! Tseng loses yet another article!!"

"Dammit! What the hell is this!? Pick-on-Tseng night!?"

"Quit whining and give me your pants!"

"No!"

"Do it, or I'll have Rude do it for you!"

Rude grinned and cracked his knuckles, but Tseng complied with the rules of the party game before intervention was necessary.

"Oh, if only Elena saw you now...!" Reno smiled wickedly at the amount of flesh Tseng was beginning to show.

"If she saw me now, she'd just go ahead and help me with the rest." Tseng, now in just his boxers and white dress shirt, sat on the sofa and held a throw pillow on his lap.

"Damn. We need more ladies here," said Reno. "This way we could play Spin the Bottle. We've got plenty of bottles now that Scarlett emptied their contents into her stomach."

"Reno, you scare me," said Tseng. "I wouldn't put it beyond you to play Spin the Bottle with all guys."

"The rumor about me and Rude is just that...a rumor...with no truth to it!" Reno countered right away. "Come on, Tseng. Loosen up like Reeve here. For once you're lagging behind in the drunken category."

"Maybe I need all my wits intact considering I'm losing at this stupid game of yours."

"All right, all right. Let's occupy ourselves with another game for the time being. Hmm...I was going to arrange to play pin the tail on the jackass, but Heidegger's asleep right now, and I think poking pins into him might just wake him. So...how's about a nice, non-bloody game of darts? I got the board right over here."

Reno opened up the doors covering the dart board where it was mounted, and he jumped to quickly remove the picture of Rufus he had taped to it.

"Too late, Reno! I saw it!!" Rufus yelled at the skinny Turk. Reno just grinned sheepishly, crumpling the picture in his hands. "Just wait 'til we get back to the office on Monday, you big twit!"

"Aw, shut up and go back to cheating at billiards with Rude." Reno grabbed the sharp metal-tipped darts.

Reeve won every game of darts to the point that Reno and Tseng got bored. Reno looked out the window and saw a blue sports car pull up.

He opened the front door in advance. "Yo, everyone, especially you, oh-so-skeptical Tseng! Look who's here!"

A young man with dark brown hair walked in and waved to everyone.

"Guys! This is Nathan West...the friend of mine that you all think is imaginary." Reno took the young man's jacket. "Here, I'll take this. It's the article of clothing you lost when I rolled a 9."

"Gee, thanks, Reno," Nathan said sarcastically.

"So, where's the Yugo? Cyrus still won't let you drive it?"

"Hell, no. He keeps giving me the stupid Ferraris and Corvettes. He doesn't care about them nearly as much as he cares about that Yugo of his."

"All right, all right. C'mon in. You've got a lot of drinking to catch up on. If you want any Vodka, you'll have to go suck it out of Scarlett. She's in the shrubbery somewhere."

"Ugh..." Nathan shuddered. "Just give me a ginger ale."

"This calls for celebration!" Reno announced. "Let's call another number!" He retrieved his 10-sided die.

"Uh...looks like Tseng is losing, Reno," said Nathan.

"Yeah, I know. It's hard for me to cheat at a game that's entirely up to chance and probability." Reno rolled the die, and it came up 7. "Oh, 7 and 8's don't count. Those are Heidegger's and Scarlett's numbers, and we all mutually agreed that we don't want them participating."

"Who has zero?"

"Oh, that's the 'special' number tonight...you know..." Reno rolled out the die again, and it came up 8. "Ugh...no good again. See, Tseng, three's aren't the only things that ever come up."

Tseng folded his arms and narrowed his eyes.

"Here, Nathan. Do the honors." Reno relinquished the die to his friend.

Nathan tossed it across the table, and it stopped at another 3. Reno laughed so hard that the combination of that and liquor made him dizzy. He fell over into Rude's lap on the loveseat. Tseng stopped halfway through unbuttoning his shirt to watch the spectacle. Rude quickly dumped Reno off of him and onto the floor.

Reno shook his head and stood up, reaching a hand out for Tseng to deposit his shirt in. "What a collection, Tseng!" he said, tossing the white shirt onto the pile in the corner of discarded clothing. "Most of this is yours!"

"Reno, if I end up losing this game of yours, I swear I will make this coming week living hell for you..."

"You'll have to clear that through your superiors!" Reno countered.

Tseng looked over at the Vice President. Rufus nodded. "You have my permission Tseng. Just make sure you save a piece of him for me."

"Lighten up, Tseng!" said Reno. "I'm down to three pieces myself. I could still lose... I mean, win this game yet!"

"Like that wasn't your plan from the start," Tseng grumbled.

"Yo, Nathan. Go up to my bedroom and wake Elena up and get her down here. She's missing her little personal fantasy!"

"Reno...I swear..."

"What are you going to do to me?" he asked his boss. "When we're Turks, we're all business and we don't goof around. Besides, I'm pretty hard to humiliate, you know."

"There's always the fitness room. A thousand push-ups a day for a week, Reno. How's that? Might actually build up some muscle on that flimsy, injury-prone body of yours."

"You're on, Tseng. But only if you lose your shorts tonight. Hey, how's that for incentive of keeping you a good sport?"

Elena staggered down the stairs with Nathan at her side holding her up. She squinted into the relatively bright light of the downstairs. "Huh...? What's going on?" she slurred.

Tseng turned his back to her, hoping his long black hair would cover up his bare back so she might not notice.

"Go to Tseng, honey..." said Reno taking her hand and walking her over to their boss.

Elena hiccupped and nearly stumbled, getting caught by Tseng's arms before she hit the ground. "Ugh...Tseng...?" she looked up at him through blurry eyes.

"Sit down, Elena, and close your eyes," the Wutan gently lowered her onto the sofa.

"Oh, Tseng...!" she clawed at his bare, well contoured chest.

He grabbed her hands and pulled them away from him. "Don't move, Elena, okay?" He backed away from her and went off to the kitchen where she couldn't see him. After a minute she was unconscious again.

When he came out of hiding, he found Reno in front of the TV playing video games while the others watched. He poked his head in to see what they were up to.

"Oh, there you are, Tseng," said Reno. "This is the game I was telling you about where you design your own race cars. You're supposed to make them as safe as possible because if you're driver dies in a wreck, it's game over. Of course, you know what I do with it, right?"

"You probably make it so the guy's guts get smeared all over the wall every time you crash, right?" Tseng assumed, knowing Reno's sick-o mind.

"Sometimes. I also like to use it as a simulator for when I get into a real accident, I know what injuries to fake so that I can sue the ass off the other driver."

"You're evil, Reno," Tseng said plainly.

"Don't you know it! Hey, watch this. If I get the car over 225 miles an hour and ram it straight into a wall, they guy's head comes off."

Tseng shook his head, but couldn't help watching. The room filled with all sorts of "Ooooo's" in reaction to the bloody graphics. Elena stirred, but Tseng quickly went behind her and began rubbing her neck and shoulders to lull her back to sleep. He considered giving her more booze to keep her knocked out, but he didn't want her to have too much that her body would force it out the way it came.

Tseng sat far back, idly watching Reno beat up a poor video game driver with his poorly designed cars. He even had a Yugo in his arsenal of cars which killed the driver at any impacts above 20 miles an hour.

Against what his sane mind was telling him, Tseng had another beer. His head buzzed and tuned him out of the rest of the things around him for a little while. He only snapped to attention when Reno announced another rolling of the dice.

"I swear, Reno..." Tseng warned from across the living room. "One more three and I'll really make your week one hell to remember..."

Reno glared back at Tseng, still wanting a one to come up for himself, but kind of hoping for a three just to see what kind of so-called wickedness his boss would bestow on him for the next 7 days. He threw the die before the audience of Nathan and Rufus.

Reno clapped his hands together. "All right!! We all win!!" he exclaimed.

"Not another three...!" Tseng growled, his heart racing.

"No, no... Not a three, Tseng," Reno couldn't conceal his crooked grin. "It's a...ZERO!!!! Everyone has to take a piece of clothing off!! That includes you, Tseng!" He flung his pants off as quick as he could, revealing his light blue boxers which got partially covered up by his long white dress shirt.

Rufus shrugged out of his trench coat, and Reeve happily shed his tie. Nathan took off his shirt, revealing a sleeveless undershirt beneath, and Rude finally dropped out of his jacket, the first piece for him to remove. Elena was still passed out, so no one bothered her, but near by was Tseng, who was already beginning to blush.

Reno's grin could've lit up a runway in Junon. "Come on, you big winner, you! Don't be shy!" he said. "Yo, Rude. We might have to force another glass of wine into him, but I think we can get him to do it."

Tseng scowled. "I'm not taking my shorts off, Reno!"

"Now, now. We've all played this game fair up until now, and I'm sure if it were any of the rest of us, we'd be good sports about it."

"Except for that pansy, Reeve..." said Rufus.

"Still. Come on, Tseng. You've seen me do it enough times."

"And," added Rude, "we're Turks. We're supposed to be resistant to shame."

"Yes," said Reno. "If you were stripped naked and had to fight for your own life and for the lives of your fellow Turks, you're supposed to do it without being distracted by your own..."

At that, Tseng quickly stepped out of his boxer shorts and tossed them onto the pile in the corner. "Happy, Reno? Well, you should be, up until Monday when your week-from-hell begins."

Elena woke up briefly and looked at Tseng from the back. A little yelp escaped from her, and he instinctually turned to her. Her eyes went from totally wide in disbelief to completely closed as she dropped unconscious again.

"All right, fine!" snorted Tseng. "You successfully got me naked. Now, can I have my clothes back?"

"Be a sport, Boss," said Reno. "I've spent hours at a time naked at my own parties. You know that."

"Yes, I know. And it terrifies me to think what kind of gremlins in your mind make you not mind it. But I'm different, Reno!"

"Go on, Tseng. Be yourself. Or if you want to hide from us all, I'm sure you could get Elena to entertain you upstairs."

"How's about I take you upstairs and entertain you; begin your week from hell a little early?"

"What the hell is this!!" boomed an unexpected voice behind them.

Everyone turned and saw Heidegger coming down the stairs. Jaws dropped, and Tseng immediately crossed his arms across his privates. A deep, disapproving glare came from the burly commander's eyes.

"Tseng!! What on earth are you doing, you pervert!"

Tseng visibly shook, horrified that his superior would see him this way. "It's not my fault! I lost playing one of Reno's stupid strip party games! It's all his fault. Don't worry, I intend to make his life absolutely miserable for this."

"And I'll make both of yours miserable! Now, where's Scarlett?"

"In the thorn bushes out front, doing who-knows-what," said Rufus.

"WHAT!? Scarlett!? Darling...!?" Heidegger lumbered outside calling to his aging bimbo companion.

Reno handed Tseng back his clothing. "Ugh...sorry about that, man," he replied soberly. "I guess we all forgot about him, huh? Bad timing, eh?"

"Yeah..." Tseng grabbed his clothes and redressed quickly, any potential humor of the moment gone completely.

"Hey, man..." Reno sat down next to Tseng and put his arm across the guy's back. "Guess I'll take any disciplinary action you want to throw my way. I deserve it after the humiliation I caused you."

Tseng snorted a laugh. "It wasn't all that humiliating until Black Beard showed up. But don't worry. I won't let him come down on you for it."

Reno squeezed his arm around Tseng's neck, drawing him closer and kissing his cheek hard. "What a guy, Tseng!" he leaned hard on his boss's shoulder to push himself up to his feet.

Tseng shook his head to get rid of the after-effects of Reno's joshing kiss. A week from hell...? Oh yeah....

THE END

Go to Chapter 2