Summary: Slight Yaoi warning. A short look at the morning habits of three particular SOLDIERS. Or, two SOLDIERS and a trooper.

Legal Ass Covering: All characters used in this belong to Squaresoft.

It was Thursday and because it was a Thursday, it was a Water Day and because it was a Water Day, Cloud knew he would have to do the laundry and because he knew he would have to do the laundry, he was upset.

This, in and of itself, might not have been so bad but it was the little things in life. Like the setting of his alarm clock. 5:30! No one should have to get up at 5:30! See what Thursdays did to you? Now, getting up at six was a pain but granted, he was used to it by now. Up at six, smashing the alarm and getting back in bed until a quarter after six, out the door and halfway into his pants and only a third into his shirt at twenty minutes after six, and at the mess hall, guard post or…wherever he was supposed to be. Which, at 6:25 in the morning, was generally wherever he was NOT.

Anyway. Up a half-hour early or risk getting wet and having to do MORE laundry. Having only one spare uniform may have been shrewd financial planning on the part of Shinra but it was a bummer on behalf of the troopers who mysteriously and repeatedly ripped, spilled upon, accidentally burnt, lost, shrank, dyed embarrassing colors (Who SAID lavender wasn't manly? Just went to show he should never let Zack do the laundry, one stupid NON-colorfast SOLDIER uniform capable of ruining the whole load) their one other set of clothing. Hmph.

Moving a safe distance away from the beds, he wrapped himself in a blanket and ensconced himself down in a corner safely behind Zack's radio. The oversized monstrosity only picked up an urban rock group that frequently and unpredictably changed transmissions with radio versions of "Loveless", making for some interesting song couplets.

He peered at his clock across the room. 5:45. Fifteen minutes to go.

With not much else to do, he plucked aimlessly at the hem of his pajamas and wondered about asking his mother to send new ones for his birthday. This pair had been laundered and worn so many times that the roller-skating chocobos on it had become pale blotches of yellow and red. Zack said they looked like a Rorschach test and used it as an excuse whenever Cloud caught him snickering or staring.

Sephiroth had said he was surprised that Zack knew what a Rorschach test was. Then, he had started staring at Cloud.

Cloud had snarled at both of them and buried himself under a blanket.

5:53. He craned across the room to see the mirror and winced when he realized he had bed-head. After patting it a few times though, he decided it didn't look much different from his normal 'do. Besides, it was much easier to handle than Zack's mop.

A minor urban legend among some of the SOLDIER's was that Zack had once gone about for five days with a comb stuck in his hair simply because he had started to brush his hair, gotten it deeply entangled and never bothered to take it out. Some even vowed that it was still in there, behind his left shoulder and near the small of his back.

When he asked Zack about whether it was true or not, Zack had nodded, shrugged and said he had indeed gotten it out and had, in fact, managed to drop the unfortunate item in a cup of coffee he made for Seph while working late, startling the bejesus out of him.

It was probably not the truth but Cloud had never completely ruled it out.

5:58. Sephiroth rushed in with a highly anguished expression on his face and rushed out just as quickly.

Cloud blinked. He was early.

The door flew back on its hinges again and Sephiroth bounded through the door, carrying a bucket of water. In the passing, his expression had not lost its anguish; indeed, it had increased threefold although there seemed to be a look of high anticipation creeping in there as well.

*SPLASH*

Sputtering in the way only a highly-polished, highly-dangerous, and deeply-asleep SOLDIER can sputter, Zack awoke.

"Sword!" he bellowed and clambered out of the soaked bedding, dashing to the wall where the buster sword hung on a set of hooks. Out of the hallway (for it was too long to bring into the room with punching a hole in the wall when he turned around too quickly) Sephiroth retrieved his own masamune and bounded back into the room to face his snarling friend.

Cloud wished it were Tuesday. Tuesdays were safer. Tuesdays were when Sephiroth composed a lengthy diatribe on why Zack should immediately get out of bed, read in a loud monotone voice as fast as possible. The unwritten rule was if Sephiroth could get through the entire set using as little as three breaths, Zack would be obliged to respond with reasons as to why he should stay in bed. More than five breaths meant Zack was allowed to simply mumble and seven were tantamount to complete ignoring.

One breath meant Zack had to stand up and open his eyes when he gave his reasons. No breath meant he had to get out of bed immediately, get dressed and report. On the one occasion this had happened though, it had been a hollow victory; as soon as Zack got out of bed, Sephiroth had had to sit down from dizziness from lack of oxygen. In the resulting scramble to administer unneeded (but highly appreciated, seeing what it had…led to) CPR, Zack had gone back to sleep and Cloud and Sephiroth had missed breakfast entirely and completely ruined their present clothes, in the getting-out of.

The buster sword took out the bookshelf and books went flying in all directions. "And if you don't leave me alone, I am going to take that damn over-long sword of yours and cut you into pieces the size of your shriveled excuse for a conscience and I will JUMP on the pieces and...and...BOIL them until I make coffee out of them and I will DRINK it while sitting at YOUR desk!"

Mondays were bad but not unbearable. On Mondays, the Shinra marching band came stepping smartly across the grounds, paused under their window, and played until exactly 6:21 before marching away. Cloud had often wondered how much gil Sephiroth had had to bribe them with to do it every Monday. It had become much better since the group members had started to practice. Some mornings he even enjoyed it, although "Hail to the Dictator" was grating his nerves a bit.

Above him, the masamune smashed through the wall and stuck. Staring up with wide eyes, he brushed plaster crumbs out of his hair and made a headlong rush across the room. He collapsed into the wet and uncomfortable discarded sheets, correctly assuming that they were the item in the room the other two men were least likely to approach.

Sephiroth, showing a good deal of versatility and thinking on his feet, left the sword in the wall and grabbed the nearest long, thin object. Brandishing the coat rack, he swiped at Zack's head. Zack tripped over the coat that had fallen off the coat rack and HIS sword flew into the hall where it promptly made contact with a very unfortunate window, sticking half-in and half-out in a crunch of glass and expensive wood paneling.

Zack, not in the least bit fazed, did a counter-clockwise turn that sent him smack up against a footlocker where he rummaged for his materia. Cloud held his breath; he was dangerously nearby to the footlocker. Sephiroth began kicking furniture out of the way to get to Zack.

And everything from Sephiroth losing his sword to Zack losing his took place in less than four seconds. It looked terribly impressive.

Actually, now that he thought about it---and it WAS hard to think in the present chaos---he would have much preferred a Friday. Fridays were the best days of the week; he idly wondered if it would be possible to somehow trick both of his friends into believing it was a day ahead next week. After careful consideration of setting their clocks ahead (duck the pillow headed his way), somehow ripping out the day-sheet from all of Sephiroth's calendars (catch the vase on the end table!) or simply changing his room so he wouldn't be present (and there went their latest lamp; the folks down at the surplus store were going to KILL him. Third one this month.)

"And if you are going to use WATER, you could at least use WARM water! Do you know the potential shock damage it could do to an unprepared nervous system!" Zack yelled from his perch on the dresser, threateningly waving an orb of ice materia.

From across the room on top of a bed, Sephiroth yelled back, "I use cold water EVERY time, just as I have for the past six MONTHS! Get used to it! And if you got up on time, I wouldn't HAVE to!"

In a magnificent, unexpected, but above all, accidental slip-turned-into-a-leap from the dresser, Zack went hurtling through the air to land on his feet in front of his leader. "Maybe you should get a taste of waking up to the cold, yourself then!"

He waved the materia at Sephiroth and hissed the summoning spell. Sephiroth braced himself and Cloud waited to see what would be destroyed this time, feebly hoping it wouldn't be HIS bed.

Nothing happened.

Zack frowned and shook the crystal. When there was still no reaction, he flicked it with his fingers. "What the…have you been playing with my materia, Cloud?!"

Mostly under the sheets, Cloud shook his head and burrowed deeper, only peeking out with one eye.

"Dammit. One of the unleveled ones. 500 gil for a piece of Shinra SHIT!"

Sephiroth advanced on him as threateningly as a man covered in feathers can be, which, if he is the head of the largest active military force in the world, is fairly threatening. "Game over, Soldier."

Throwing the materia at him anyway, Zack rallied, taking refuge behind the turned-over desk with a supply of rolled-up socks. Shinra did not believe in skimping on socks and underwear, at least, given its extensive knowledge on what military men did when they had no clean undergarments.

Batting the socks away with the coat rack as quickly as they were launched at him, Sephiroth laughed, "You can't win, Zack! Cotton socks don't weigh as much as wool socks!" He ducked a pair of Honeybee Inn boxers that hurtled out from behind the desk. "And once you throw all the boxers, you won't get them back because I'm going to destroy them!"

"You and what army?!" Zack replied, as he started to ransack for spare linen.

"The one I command, you miserable excuse for a military personnel."

"Oh."

Yes, Fridays were definitely good. On THOSE days, they could sleep until 7:30 and go out and eat with Sephiroth where the food didn't make you feel sorry that it had died. And when Sephiroth came to rouse them, he could usually be persuaded to help warm either or both of the beds in a more manual way.

The unthinkable was nearly at hand. It was only 6:14 and Zack would have to stay awake. In his last attempt for freedom, Zack reached over and snagged a corner of Cloud's sheets. Hauling the entire bundle over, he plucked Cloud from the tangle and threw him at Sephiroth and then proceeded to scramble under the bed.

Catching Cloud neatly, Sephiroth patted his head absently and placed him in the nearest convenient spot. This, being the ceiling fan, gave Cloud a marvelous view but made him wonder vaguely about a redefinition of the term "convenient." He didn't wonder long though; he devoted his time to holding on.

"Gotcha!" Sephiroth dragged Zack out by one ankle. "Rise and shine, Zackary."

"I will rise but, I damn well refuse to shine. If the gods meant us to get to early, they wouldn't have made it so difficult." Zack stood on his feet and shook the dustballs in his hair from under the bed free, sneezing loudly as he did so.

Sephiroth mumbled in agreement and leaned back against the worse-for-wear wall, content with a job done well and efficiently. Zack shucked his wet shirt off crossly and threw it in the corner, muttering savagely that there would be no need for alarm clocks when he reached a higher commanding post. After getting rid of the rest of his soaked clothes, he struggled into his uniform, albeit with great difficulty since it was scattered merry hell around the room.

The two started to exit the room. From above them came a soft cough. "Hey…guys? Wanna let me down?"

Zack looked up and started violently. "Cloud! What're are you doing up there?"

"Not much. Lemme down. There's spider webs up here, when was the last time you dusted?"

Zack started to step on a table to reach Cloud but Sephiroth tugged on his pants leg (given that the SOLDIER uniform had no sleeves.) "Wait…" He whispered into Zack's ear.

Zack grinned. "Hey...not a bad idea at all."

They started scavenging around the room, picking up the clothes and bedding. Cloud craned his neck to see what they were doing, a slow feeling of dread tickling down his back. He reached back; nope, just a spider. "Just what are you doing?"

"We're going to do the laundry for you, kid!" Zack gave him a cheery wave, promptly contradicted by a malicious grin. "Don't worry, we'll leave you something to wear to the mess hall. Better not skip it either; I hear they're taking attendance today."

He backed out of the room with his arms full. Sephiroth reached up and just managed to pull Cloud down. Ignoring his struggling, he dropped Cloud on the bed and backed hastily out of the room as well.

(Sometime later)

Being the Vice President was not all it was cracked up to be.

Yes, it was fun to order Reno to bring him ridiculously overpriced coffee from the most remote Astrobucks in Midgar and then fling the entire cup out the window for not being black with THREE sugars, not two as he specified. He could flirt with Tseng without fear of being shot and dismembered and quietly disposed of in some remote ravine. Being able to pick random citizens and spend all their tax money on whatever he liked was a perk. Prank-calling Hojo to ask if the refrigerator lab was running was funny the first few times he did it. (But he ceased, growing unnerved by the way Hojo never seemed to catch on. Each time he would earnestly inform him that yes, the electricity was going, the amputated limbs stayed fresh and he'd been able to create a sort of Jell-O with blood samples that he thought would go over well at the cafeteria.)

The perfectly white suits made from the breast-down pinions of the endangered Snowy Albino Four-Toed Chicobo were pretty nifty. And he never got tired of sending Rude subscriptions to the Hair Club for Men magazine. But nothing made up for the long lazy hours in the office during Tseng's vacation-day when everyone was away and there was nothing to do except throw darts at a picture of his father and hack into the employee files to add embarrassing details to their profiles.

Rufus stared out the office window, flicked his hair back and wished, not for the first time, he had someone to fire today. But he had already gotten rid of all the interns and temps he could; he needed to keep his secretary; and most of the Turks were still somewhat useful. Somewhat.

He yawned. Life was so frightfully DULL. He fingered the shotgun absently and aimed into the hole-pocked ceiling with the intention of frightening and who knew, maybe even hitting Heidigger in the room above. His finger curled around the trigger.

Outside he heard screaming, laughter, and suspicious clicking noises. He turned and peered through the window.

There were three people out on the lawn, one of who appeared to be holding a camera and another who was holding back the third person who was…naked. He peered closer; yes, most definitely naked, quite angry too, by the sound. And getting wrestled to the ground.

He put his gun away and pulled out the binoculars instead and sent a message to his secretary over the intercom to procure a video camera. Ah, blackmail was SO delicious.

The day was looking up.

The End

And what do military men do when they have no underwear? Go commando, of course.