It was that unavoidable time that always came around, whether you wanted it to or not. It was part of everyone’s life, young or old, male or female, or even somewhere in between. You couldn’t stop it, you couldn’t delay it, and you could almost never enjoy it. The time everyone becomes its victim. It was Monday.
"Oh good," Tseng grumbled to himself, noticing the severely dented and even slightly electrocuted vending machine. "Reno finally showed up on time. Why can’t he just use quarters like everyone else?
He opened the door to the meeting room. Thankfully Rufus wasn’t there yet, not so thankfully, Rude and Elena were snoring and hungover, and the Reno had decided to content himself to see how many times he could hit the ceiling with a pair of scissors.
"I thought I took those away from you!" Tseng said, nearly tripping over a corpse on his way to the table. Usually he’d just ignore it as part of the job, but it wasn’t supposed to happen at Shinra HQ. "Reno, was it entirely necessary to kill him?"
"That was the pencil sharpener. And define ‘necessary."
"Reno, he’s bleeding all over the carpet."
"The janitor can clean it up."
"He is the janitor!" Tseng said, then looked at Rude and Elena, who were just now waking up. "Why are you both drunk?"
"…" Rude answered.
"…" Elena said.
"I don’t want to know, do I?"
"He shtarted it," Elena mumbled.
"We’re not drunk," Tseng thought he heard Rude say, but it could have been the wind.
"If you’re not drunk, where did you get the traffic cone?"
"…" Rude said, shrugging.
"‘Sh’not mine," Elena said.
"Please tell me you didn’t drive here in this condition," Tseng said.
"Hey, Rude, did we go home last night?" Elena asked, but Rude had fallen back asleep.
"Oh for—where is Rufus?"
"I think he said he needed to copy something," Reno said. "That was an hour ago. What happened to your pants?"
"I don’t want to talk about it," Tseng said, and left without another word.
* * * * *
"Mmmmm," he moaned. The man in his arms rolled over, a shower of black moving with him. Hands the color of alabaster touched his face. Eyes conveying more than a thousand poem and more beautiful than the moon’s reflection on a tranquil night on the first day of spring stared up at him.
"I want a baby," Vincent said.
"Eh?" Hojo muttered in surprise to his pillow.
He reached for his clock and looked at it. He turned it over. He felt around for his glasses on the nightstand and put them on. He turned the clock the right way around.
"OH MY LORD!" he yelled. "I’m late for work!" In his haste to get up he toppled off the bed.
"Rrreowwr!"
"Sorry, Buttercup."
* * * * *
"Don’t you ‘See key operator’ me, you useless piece of junk!" Rufus yelled aiming his shotgun.
"Rufus!" Tseng yelled, coming in the door.
"He started it," Rufus said, pointing at the copy matching.
"Rufus, remember the incident with the company microwave?"
"…Sorta… What’s with your pants?"
"Sir, if I may be so bold yet again, would you please have that thing neutered?"
"He likes you."
"He likes the table leg too."
"I like you…" Rufus said, tossing his gun to the side. "…Too."
"Rufus, please."
"Tseng, teach the naughty little copy machine who’s boss, for me. Please?" Rufus said, putting his hands around Tseng’s neck.
"Rufus, we’re already late for a meeting, your dog beat you to this, and—"
"What’s Reno playing with now?" Rufus asked, his tone suddenly frustrated and serious.
"Scissors, sir. I thought you took those away from him after the incident with the window."
"Oh," Rufus said, playfully tugging at Tseng’s tie. "THAT explains the bullet hole on my desk drawer. Has he killed anyone yet?"
"The janitor, Rufus leave my ear alone."
"Tell Rude and Elena to take care of it and we’ll have an hour all to ourselves while they try and find a place to put the body."
"They’re drunk, sir."
"Oh. Well, then we have even more time."
"Rufus, please."
"You can be on top this time."
Tseng raised an eyebrow.
* * * * *
"Oh, GOD NO!" Scarlet complained, painfully walking out of the bathroom. "OW. Ow. Ow. OWW! Why now? Why?"
"Scarlet!" Hojo yelled as he raced down the hall, papers flying out of his hands as he ran. He had made a pathetic attempt to tuck his shirt in, but it had crawled out on it’s own volition. Only one of his shoes was tied, his tie was undone and thrown over his shoulder, and his labcoat was inside out and he had only one sleeve on. There were fresh scratch marks all over his face and his glasses were askew.
"Ewwww. Perv!" Scarlet said.
"Has the meeting started yet?" he asked.
"No, Tseng went to get Rufus."
"This means I still have some time. Yes!"
"Your fly’s open," she said, and wobbled away, complaining as she went and a hand over her hips.
"GAHH!" Hojo yelled, throwing the papers in the air. He dashed into the restroom, only to realize too late that it was the women’s bathroom.
* * * * *
"Not so fast—ohh, ah… yeah. Right there."
"Let go of my ear I need to—Let go of my tie, Rufus. Rufu—Ohhhh…"
"DEAR SWEET JENOVA I WAS GOING TO USE THAT COPIER!"
"Tseng, I think you just hit the copy button."
* * * * *
"What the hell?" Both Hojo and Scarlet yelled at each other as Hojo opened the door to his office.
"Ladies first," Hojo conceded.
"What the hell happened to your pants?"
"In the middle of giving me the biggest greeting I’ve ever seen come out of that damn dog, Dark Nation suddenly smelled Buttercup and decided to tell me what he thought of her."
"…Buttercup…?" Scarlet asked, going almost as green as her hair.
"Don’t be disgusting. Buttercup is my cat. What are you doing in my desk."
"Didn’t your wife leave anything in here?"
"That was thirty years ago!"
"Well, then explain these!" Scarlet exclaimed, holding up a tiny—well, tiny for what it was—G-string.
"That’s personal—er sentimental. Leave that alone! Don’t go desecrating my wife’s stuff!"
"Why does it say ‘Valentine’ on it?"
"It was a present—I mean it was going to be a Valentine’s Day—Look, I’ll give you whatever the hell you want if you’ll just stay out of my drawers!"
"You don’t even have to ask," Scarlet said, lowering the panties and giggling.
" I meant these—" Hojo grabbed the G-string, which he’d ended up pointing at, and threw it into a drawer and slammed it shut. "—THESE drawers! No what in the world possessed you to go through my personal things?"
"I wasn’t prepared at all for it, and… it’s the wrong time of the month."
"Wrong time of the month? My calendar’s on the wall, why didn’t you just—"
He was interrupted as she slapped him across the face.
"What’d I do?" he asked as she stormed out.
There was a long pause.
"Ohhhh. Right. OW!" Hojo looked down, only to stare in bewilderment at a scissors blade sticking up from the floor.
* * * * *
"Elena? Elena honey?" Scarlet asked, shaking Elena.
"Wanna stay ‘sleep, Mommy," Elena muttered
"Elena, I need to ask you a question."
"My dog ate my homew’rk," Elena answered.
"Elena, wake up. Do you have any feminine products with you? Elena?"
"Femim—Fen—Femenim?"
"Okay, you’re not ready for big words. Do you have any pads? Tampons? Midol?"
"…"
"You stay out of this Rude! Oh my God, Reno, did you kill the janitor?"
"I don’t see why everyone’s making such a big deal about all this."
"Fenim—" Elena tried.
"Oh my God Reno, I could kiss you!" Scarlet yelled and started going through the dead Janitor’s pockets.
"Eughck!" Reno said in disgust.
"Where the hell are the keys to the utility room?"
"I want my scissors back," Reno complained, staring angrily at them on the ceiling. "Where’d I put that gun?"
* * * * *
"Reeve, can I ask you a question?"
"I thought I locked that door."
"Someone seems to have shot the lock. Have you seen my gun?"
"I thought science personnel weren’t supposed to carry weapons."
"Yes, well you’re not supposed to be telling AVALANCHE the color of Scarlet’s panties."
"Hey! I thought you went home that day!"
There was a pause. "How come you get to know what color they were and I don’t?"
There was an even longer pause.
"I think Reno used it to open his soda yesterday."
A gunshot rang out across the hall and into the room.
"I take it he still has it," Hojo muttered.
"Just as well, he’s in the conference room. I’ll meet you there, I got to copy something."
"I wouldn’t recommend it. Tseng and Rufus are… using it."
"What? Again?"
"What do you mean ‘again?’ Sweet bloody—I am never using that copy machine again!"
"If that’s the way you feel about it, I’d stay away from the coffee machine if I were you."
Reeve looked up, wondering if something were wrong with the lights as he noticed Hojo’s face suddenly becoming green.
Hojo bolted out the door and into the closest restroom.
"Hojo that’s—"
A piercing shriek that sounded like Scarlet’s voice came from the restroom.
There were more gunshots, but Reeve decided to ignore it until he heard sirens.
"The women’s bathroom."
* * * * *
"Right!" Rufus said as he came into the room, acting as if he weren’t two hours late.
Not that anyone noticed.
Elena and Rude were still asleep on each other. Reno had ‘rescued’ his scissors, but at the moment he and Hojo were wrestling on the floor.
"Damnit, Reno, that’s MY gun!"
"I found it!"
"Wow, he’s pretty strong for an old bastard," Rufus commented. "Where’s Heidegger?"
"Ow, ow, ow! Damnit, don’t bite me!" Reno screamed.
"Aah! Not the hair, not the hair! I said gimme!" Hojo yelled.
Elena woke up. "Oh right," she said, holding her head. "THAT’S where the traffic cone came from."
"I’d rather not know," Rufus said.
Tseng entered the room, covered in toner.
"I told you that thing was broken. Right, now if you’ll all take your seats," Rufus started.
"Say ‘Uncle!’" Hojo yelled, holding Reno in a headlock.
"Never!"
"…Or not."
Scarlet entered the room with a bucket of ice and a gun. She sat down and dumped the contents of the bucket on her lap. "Ah. Much better. Anyone else worried the janitor had this in the closet?" she asked, holding up the gun: a semi-automatic and heavily modified Uzi. "By the way, your dog’s watering the plants."
"Oh, then we don’t need the gardener this week," Rufus said. "Hey! These are new shoes, go bleed on someone else, Hojo!"
"Not the scissors!" Reno screamed.
"Anyway, I have an emergency memo I’d like you all to look at. We—I… had some trouble with the copier, so I’m afraid you’ll all have to share. Here you go, dismissed," Rufus said, tossing a piece of paper on the table and started to leave. "Tseng, unless you’d like to negotiate about it in my office, would you please walk Dark Nation?"
Tseng sighed and picked up the memo and read it out loud. "It’s Sunday you morons. Go home."