Logic No One Could Argue: Chapter 1

“Reno. You reek. Go take a shower.”

“I don’t smell that bad, Rude.”

“Unless smelling like stale beer, old perfume and B.O. is your idea of smelling good, yes. you do. Go. Take. A. Shower.”

Reno grumbled, shoving through the doors to the dormitory showers where Rude had unceremoniously dropped him and shed clothes along the way, dropping them over his arm. Having his pants barely clinging around his hips, he turned the combination of his locker and pulled out a shower kit and made for the nearest shower. He never bothered collecting a towel before hand, figuring that most everyone in Shinra had seen him naked at one point or another throughout his career. He hung his clothes over the towel rack. If he reeked as much as Rude was professing he did, he figured they could use freshening. Plus he wanted to keep them near him in case someone got the bright idea to flush them down the toilet again. That little stunt had his pissed for weeks and when he’d finally figured out who did it, he’d made their life interesting for the next week or so with little tricks pulled off by monitoring their activities with the security system and placing well thought out pranks that they would just stumble into.

Reno didn’t take kindly to being pranked.

He was in the shower less than five minutes and had just lathered his hair when he heard the doors open and someone entered, shoes clacking against the concrete and tile floor. Since the doors were high enough that even Rude could shower without feeling exposed, he couldn’t see over the top, but he could bend low enough to see shoes. Patent leather. Only two Turks wore patent leather and one of them was dead.

The senior Turk had off-site housing and didn’t have to take showers in Shinra facilities, so what he was doing here was intriguing. He watched for another minute or so as the shoes moved back and forth, that was until he ended up with a trickle of soap creeping into his eye. The redhead jerked back, both hands cupped over his eye and one rubbing furiously to remove the soap. He danced in the shower, body jerking back and forth and biting back the stream of curses to stay quiet so no one would know he was there. Once his eye no longer felt like it was trying a violent rebellion, he bent low again and squeezed his eye shut to keep the soap from making a second assault. He saw the feet were now bare and the sleeve of his jacket was hanging over the bench. This time the soap trailed into his other eye and Reno had to fight to stay silent, hissing and spitting in frustration as he waited for the burn to stop again and rinsed his hair before once again bending low. No longer were the clothes sitting out, but the bare feet padded to another shower two stalls down from Reno.

He lathered thoughtfully, wondering exactly why someone with off site housing would be in the dorm showers when he had his own. Maybe he had plumbing problems. Maybe he’d used the company gym and his shower kit was still here. His mind played with various scenarios, some more humorous than others, as he finished lathering and rinsed, killing the water and toweling dry. Since everyone in Shinra had seen him naked, he didn’t bother with the towel once his hair was toweled out and dropped it into the bin. He dropped his clothes onto the bench nearly atop the other suit folded neatly across the bench so it didn’t wrinkle while its owner showered.

Reno was nearly dressed before the idea struck him and he toyed with it for several long moments while he rubbed product into his hair. While everyone at Shinra had seen Reno naked, he was pretty damned sure no one had seen Tseng in anything other than a suit, let alone in various states of undress. He wiped his hand on a discarded towel and grinned, finally deciding on the idea. He picked up the suit and slung it all over his arm, leaving the shoes behind and walked out of the showers to the board room where he was due for guard duty for one of the President’s meetings.

Rufus only raised a single brow as Reno sauntered in a few minutes late as per normal with a second suit slung over his arm. The blonde continued speaking as though nothing were abnormal when the redhead sidled up to Rude and laid the suit out over the window sill. He continued his speech on a particular financial issue as the big man snorted and several of the board members turned in their direction.

His speech stopped absolutely dead and he open-mouth stared at Tseng as he walked in through the door stark naked. The man carried every ounce of charisma and professional self control as though he were completely clothed and walked past the meeting’s attendees to the back of the room where Reno stood slack-jawed and staring. The Wutaian showed absolutely no emotion or even the faintest hint of a blush as he picked up the various pieces of his suit and placed them one at a time over his arm. Rufus had turned around in his chair to ogle him and three of the members of the board had pushed back from the table to stare, several others had made themselves busy with notes and two others babbled as though they had never seen a naked man before. Tseng didn’t blush, didn’t raise so much as a brow in irritation or discomfort. As soon as he had his suit collected and had cast a casual glance to the completely dumbfounded redhead, he turned and left, walking around the opposite side of the table from the direction he’d come in as though he were giving them all a good look. He didn’t bother putting on anything of his attire before he opened the door and walked right back out again, much to the squealing delight of many of the secretaries who were waiting just outside the door. Tseng’s backside disappeared into a cluster of female backsides that followed him until the door shut.

Rufus turned over his shoulder and looked at Reno for a very long time. Reno returned the shocked stare as though that were the last possible resolution he’d ever thought his superior to make. The entire board room was so silent that it nearly shattered. Rufus opened and closed his mouth no fewer than three times and each time he couldn’t make a single word come forth. Finally Reno shook his head in a form of answer and some of the board member’s heads went back and forth between each other and Rufus and Reno and then to the door. Eyes blinked wildly and mouths gaped at the scene they’d just watched unfold and stayed that way until Tseng came back in nearly ten minutes later and shut the door in the face of several of the women who were trailing around him and stuffing phone numbers and various other trinkets of their admiration into his hands and pockets as they clucked at him. He took his place at the head of the table just over Rufus’s left shoulder, acting as though nothing happened.

Still they were silent for several minutes until Rufus could formulate something to say.

“Tseng, what in the hell was that display?”

“It seems as though my suit has grown sentient and wandered into the meeting without me, Sir.”

Rufus turned over his shoulder toward Reno. “And how did you figure it had come in here as opposed to somewhere else?”

“I found a single long red hair across my shoe and since the only other redhead we have is currently out on assignment, I knew it to be Reno. Since he’s rarely more than ten minutes late on assignment, I knew he would be here.”

Rufus turned back to Tseng. “He left you your shoes.”

”Yes, but I would have looked awfully silly coming in here in nothing but socks and shoes, now wouldn’t I?”

And that was logic no one could argue against. After a long pause, Rufus regained his control and once again continued his meeting as though they had never left off.