intraspective | MHA #1, Monday Late Night

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MHA #1, Monday Late Night

It was the night before class and Reno was out…

But, well, there was a lot more than a mouse stirring about his apartment. Sneaky little blondes with clever little hands and mischief on their minds.

... and a truly terrifying amount of mayhem planned. That was, of course, what one got when Rookies got ideas and had the nerve to execute them.

"Right," one little 'mouse' murmured, as they got the door open and lugged their boxes of supplies in. "Where did you want to start?" She set her box down on the couch with a thump and grinned at her co-conspirator. "I think we should start with the dye—we can do other things while the dye sets."

[Apartment pranking done with permission/enabling of the faaabulous

raspberryturk. For the other mousie! NFB, please!]

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And a honkin' ferret!

Reno had earned this. Years of hazing gone unanswered. This one was for the rookies.

Okay, and it was personal. She'd had to see him naked. Repeatedly.

"The dye first," Elena agreed, tossing her box down with a sigh. Pranking was hard work. "Kiddie pool last. Or maybe the bathroom last. If we're here for a few hours, we might regret it if we seal that off too early."

"I don't think there's a doubt we're going to be here awhile," she mused, poking around her box. "Bathroom second last--but we can do some of the wrapping fairly early on. Just not the tree."

Yes. The tree. They were very enterprising and ambitious pranksters.

"We should at least put the tree up," Elena said thoughtfully. "Maybe not in the bathroom, but possibly the hallway. Set it up, decorate it, then leave it in a corner so we can just drag it in there as the last thing."

Last thing before the kiddie pool, of course. When you were involving real live water fowl, that should always go last.

"The star'll have to go on after we drag it in," Ino noted. "At least, judging by the height of the ceiling--we won't get it through the door without tipping over."

Ino dug out the dye supplies. "How safe do you think his clothing is?"

Safe meaning clean. Wasn't it sweet how much faith she had in Reno and his laundry habits?

Edited 2010-05-18 00:06 (UTC)

Elena shuddered. "That depends on where we grab it," she said. "Anything hanging in the closet is probably fair game."

Strike that. This was Reno. What were the odds he hung up his suits?

"I bet there are clean piles and dirty piles?" she hazarded. "If any pile seems crusty, stinky, or damp, we leave it alone. Or we burn it, for the sake of humanity."

"For the sake of humanity," she agreed, with a bob of her head. "I'll get started on that, I think."

And she was totally going to kick anything dubious under his bed. It could live there. And molder. She wasn't going to touch it more than that.

"We should have brought gas masks," Elena said, sitting down for the important work of unpacking her box. "Something could be living in his socks. If anything starts moving, it goes in the 'burn' pile."

Dye went here, holiday decorations over there, non-toxic paint should get its own pile over here ....

"Now, now," she called over her shoulder as she flipped the light on in his room and wrinkled her nose. "It might be a pet. We wouldn't want to throw out a beloved bit of animate ooze or somethin'."

Hey, those shirts looked pretty clean. Ino was going to drape them over her shoulder and continue inspecting.

"I bet the ferret-thing doesn't like competition," Elena said. "I'd suggest a cage-match, but if we get the ferret sick, Reno will kill us."

He loved that thing. She'd certainly maim anyone who hurt Rookie, so she imagined it had to be the same.

"Where is he, anyway? There's a cage around here somewhere, right?"

"One ninja-ferret present and accounted for," she reported, having found the cage and the honking wriggling excited ferret. "Hiii Mako, we're going to let you have fun! Yes we are!"

Excuse Ino, she didn't get to baby-talk animals often.

She settled back on her heels. "We want to let him out to roam free for a bit before we dig out the paint?"

"He might be hard to catch once we do," Elena laughed. "I've seen him run. He's fast for such a weird looking little thing."

This was said with affection. Really.

"I think I'm going to start hanging stuff," she added, calling to the other room as she began measuring out fishing line. Arts and crafts time was never this much fun.

"Patience," Ino informed Mako solemnly, "is the sign of a great mind."

Or something. Look, she was talking to a ferret. He didn't care.

Ino grabbed a few more articles of clothing, checking his drawers for clean things, and lugged it all out to the kitchen. She dug out her elastic bands, brought for this purpose.

"It's really too bad we don't have a weekend for this," she commented as she worked. "Imagine the damage we could do with days to accomplish it all?"

"The rush just inspires us to work harder," Elena said. "If we had a weekend, we'd overthink it. This is more like a blitz attack. He goes for a few drinks, and bam -- his whole life has changed."

Well, at least his apartment. And only surface things, at that. His clothes, sure, but not his files, not his laptop, not anything work-related. Those were being given a careful wide berth.

Ino was one of Reno's rookies, so Elena trusted she was doing the same.

Ino was going to tie cheerful little bows around the necks of his booze bottles but that was about the extent of her touching the important things.

Ino did not have a death wish in this particular instance, no.

"What?" she teased, looking up from her work with his clothing. "You don't deal well with long term planning? Tsk tsk."

"You never procrastinate?" Elena retaliated gently. "We'd end up arguing about the specifics, or second-guessing it. You leave art sit for too long and it goes wrong."

"That's one side of it," she conceded. "But if it works well, then art that takes a while is perfect."

"We'll do the best we can with what we've got," Elena said, stepping back to inspect her work.

Several ferret toys were now hanging from the ceiling, at the right level for Reno to just walk straight into them. Nice.

She heard an insistent honk from the other room, and -- well. She had a soft spot for critters, too.

"If I dig the paints out, do we want to release the ferret?"

"If you want to put up a tree with a ferret underfoot..."

Her work with the dye was coming along nicely. She was quite pleased with the eye searing shades she was playing with.

Edited 2010-05-18 02:08 (UTC)

"Do ferrets eat trees?" Elena asked.

Look, they didn't have much by way of wildlife in the slums ...

"We'll wait until we've got more done," she agreed. "Okay, the tree next, then. I picked out some really, really obnoxious lights. Wait till you see them."

"Do they blink on and off?" she asked curiously as she finished with her current job and now she was just... going to let it sit. For a bit. And wash her hands.

"I was told those are the best kind," Elena said solemnly. "And a got a couple of shorter strings that had that fat guy in a red suit on them. That one that's on all the holiday decorations?"

She wasn't from here. She just knew there was some old fat guy that everyone went crazy about.

"Santa," Ino said helpfully. What? She had three years in Fandom, she knew that much.

She leaned over the back of the couch. "Want to start doing that now?"

"Yeah, him," Elena nodded. "He starts laughing if you plug the lights in. It sounds creepy. If I were a kid, I'd be scared he'd take my toys."

Ino made a face as she fiddled with the wrapping paper.

"And then you beat him up," Ino said lightly. "Old fat guy--can't be hard to take down."

"Now that is a holiday I could get behind," Elena laughed. "Some fat guy tries to steal your toys in the middle of the night -- so you kick his ass. And maybe steal whatever he's got in his sack. Finders keepers!"

"He wouldn't get very far, I don't think, if all the kids were trying that."

No, really. A group of kids could take down anyone with a wee bit of effort.

"Tree?" she said hopefully. "Or else I'm going to go and wrap things."

And hide them. As you do.

So long as Santa wasn't packing heat. That might even the odds in his favor.

"Tree," Elena agreed, pulling the closest box out of the way so she could frown at the mess. "Do you think we have room here to set it up?"

Ino gave the room a considering look.

"I think so," she commenting, flipping herself over the couch to poke at the garland. She was sometimes five, yes. "I mean, it's not like we're leaving the furniture where it is. If it's in our way--totally easy to just move it."

"Good call," she nodded. "Okay. Tree, take one. I've never tried to make a tree before. Do you think they packed instructions?"

If not, they were going to need more duct tape.

She slid the box over in front of herself and worked on cutting it open. "I'm not so great with instructions," she admitted. "I get bored on page five, try to do it myself, and then fail, miserably."

"I think they're pretty simple?" she said, a bit dubiously. "I mean: stand, tree trunk, fake branches..."

That couldn't be too hard, right?

"So long as it's big and placed somewhere inconvenient," Elena smiled. "It's not like we need to worry about aesthetics, here."

Not that she wanted to make an ugly tree, but sometimes, it was good to remind yourself that it was okay to be less-than-perfect.

"Shhh," Ino laughed. "The garland'll cover our mistakes."

That was what garland was for after all. She shoved the couch over a bit. "Just do it here and then move it later?"

"So long as the ferret doesn't try to make that its new home," she agreed. Box: open! Success. And now ... lots of branches of varying lengths.

"They seem to be color-coded," she said, noting the little marks at the base. "Apparently, they want this to be idiot-proof."

She was not complaining, on that point.

"That's helpful!" she said, leaning over to snag a branch... or several as the one she had seemed to want to cling to a few others. "I mean, not everyone has done this before, yeah?"

"I sure haven't," Elena said, shaking her head. "I mean, trees for the holiday season, sure, but there was just one big one. You didn't put fake ones up all over the place."

Not that Midgar's holidays had been all that much like this world's, but the tree part at least connected.

Of Great Warning!

As soon as Reno left the bar, there was Adrian calling the number as instructed. See, he was good with deals.

Elena had kept the phone nearby just to be sure she wouldn't miss it. Except -- shit. She hadn't expected to have so much paint on her hands. She wiped them on a handy towel and scooped up her phone carefully.

"Hello?"

If this wasn't the hot guy at the bar, then she was going to chase them off the line very quickly.

"First, this number is definitely saved in my phone now," Adrian greeted her. Was the smirk obvious on the phone? Probably. "Second, your tattooed redhead just left the bar."

"I hope the listing is 'hot blondes,'" Elena said, glancing around hurriedly to meet Ino's eyes. She nodded to the unspoken question, and then scrambled to assist in the packing. Ino was doing a much better job than her, on that front, as Ino had both hands free. "Thank you for the tip. I look forward to returning the favor."

Never mind the bizarre background sounds, Adrian! Especially not the ones that sounded like quacking. Those were just your imagination. Probably.

(ino modded with permission for streamlining purposes, huzzah!)

For the guy who deserved all of this!

At a ridiculously late hour, Reno stumbled through the door. And promptly walked face-first into a ferret toy.

Another few steps, and there was the squelching sound of fresh paint under one foot.

Another few steps still, and he was rounding the corner to the kitchen to get some paper towel to clean up the mess with. He was met with the piercing looks from a small flock of waterfowl.

"On second thought," he muttered to himself, "maybe I'll just go the hell to bed."

Good luck, Reno!

Because, really, the world can't end during a prank!

Chloe is in awe of Ino. Just in awe. :D

Ino is delighted to be awe-inspiring~!

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MHA #1, Monday Late Night

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