Title: Drinking the Kool Aid
Fandom: Justice League International
Genre: Humor/Romance
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ted/Booster
Summary: There are many reasons why you do not let Booster and Beetle have monitor duty at the same time. Here are several of those reasons.
Notes: Written for a_trill

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He wasn't sure who he was more upset with. The rest of the team, who were all surely out having a wonderful New Year's Eve without their buddy Blue Beetle to make bad jokes about everything, or J'onn who had calmly and forcefully told him that it was his night on monitor duty .

Of course, he'd protested; many times, in fact. But that all came to a screeching halt when J'onn had informed him that Batman covered monitor duty on Christmas without a complaint and that if he wished to protest any further that he'd have to take it up with Batman.

"Not like Bat-Scrooge probably cared about missing Christmas anyways," Ted muttered under his breath as J'onn left.

With a resigned sigh, he armed himself with the latest copy of Entomology Illustrated and plopped down in front of the monitors.

"Monitor duty. On New Year's Eve. I hate my life."

Flipping to the Eudicella gralli centerfold, Ted started when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Who's the lovely lady beetle?"

"It's a flamboyant flower beetle."

Booster snorted, "Flamboyant, eh?"

Ted turned around in his chair. "Well, sometimes it's also called a striped love beetle."

Quirking an eyebrow, Booster leaned down to look at the image. "Not the usual type of girl you see in pinups."

"Actually, it's a male."

Booster's grin widened as he tried to pry the magazine from Ted's hands. "Ah, so you're cheating on me with a male flamboyant love beetle. I should have known."

Tossing the magazine aside, Ted reached up and grabbed fistfuls of Booster's uniform; pulling it and the wearer down towards him as their goggles clattered together and lips met.

As the two broke apart grinning at one another, he said, "Sorry. You're stuck with me."

"Lucky me."

Noting the clock over Booster's shoulder, Ted wistfully asked, "So, you heading out somewhere?"

Booster blinked. "Aren't you? I'm here for monitor duty, so I guess you're off now."

"Monitor duty?"

"Yeah, Max just told me that I had to do it New Year's Eve because I skipped out early on Christmas Eve. And I think he was afraid I'd try and promote myself too much at the swanky party he made the rest of the team go to."

"I'm guessing J'onn and Max didn't talk this over," Ted began trying to contain his excitement, "because J'onn just assigned me monitor duty tonight as well."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Through a fluke that I think they will never be stupid enough to repeat, it's you and I on monitor duty tonight, Booster ole buddy."

And as if it was planned, some drill they'd rehearsed many times, he called out. "I'll go get the sleeping bags."

"And I'll get the Lincoln Logs and legos!"

The two dashed off to gather supplies, each carrying armfuls of odd items in and then running back off to bring in more. It took them several trips, but finally the room was filled with piles of junk. And the night was only beginning.

It had taken them only about two hours to finish their first endeavor- a giant log cabin with a lego door that was now standing floor-to-ceiling inside the room.

"It's perfect," Ted said, appraising their handiwork. "Definitely better than pitching a tent in here."

"Monitor Duty sleepover, here we go!" Booster remarked as he rolled out two sleeping bags inside it.

The actual monitors they were supposed to be watching long forgotten, the two started off the night by mixing various Kool Aid flavors together and tasting the results. Sure, they'd been banned from having anything alcoholic while on monitor duty ever since Guy got so drunk he swore he was seeing an alien invasion in the static of an off monitor; but they suspected that no one had ever realized that getting wired off the sugar in Kool Aid was equally dangerous.

Giggling as he poured out their twenty second mixture, Ted said, "Okay- this one is Solar Strawberry Star Fruit Raspberry Reaction."

Already having a sugar buzz from the previous twenty one tests, Booster tapped his paper cup together in a toast with Ted and then downed the new flavor.

"Not bad," he murmured. "Though I still think Oh-Yeah Orange-Pineapple Man-O-Mango-Berry was the best."

Ted snickered, "I think you just liked licking off me when I spilt it."

"Oh-Yeah Man-Berry," Booster murmured seductively.

The two started laughing unstoppably, even though this joke had already been made about twelve times. Clearly sleep deprivation and lots of Kool Aid was not a good mix for one's mental health.

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Hours later, the two had taken to playing various board games they'd scrounged up from around the place.

Ted had gotten into a long winded explanation of how a Gum Drop Mountain was scientifically impossible and Booster had decided that after thirty minutes of being a good friend and acting like he cared that Beetle needed to be silenced. This difficult task was accomplished easily by Booster, who went straight for a rambling Ted's weakest point- his mouth. The kiss definitely did the job and brought the comments about atmospheric pressure and gumdrops to an end, but it also ended the game abruptly when they decided they'd rather makeout on top of the game board rather than play a game on it.

After this, they decided they needed a more mature game to keep it from happening again and Booster suggested Truth or Dare.

"Okay. But since we do enough Dare-material pranks on our teammates on a normal basis, all dares must be focused on the person who is taking the dare. Agreed?"

A bit wary that Ted had something he'd been waiting to do up his sleeve, Booster agreed. "Okay. But if you try anything too messy, I'll just get you back for it."

They went through all the usual dares and truths; each one seemingly waiting for just the right moment to spring their worst dare or truth on their best friend.

Booster struck first on a truth that he was almost afraid to ask. "Okay- being completely honest, what is one thing about my physical appearance you've always been scared to tell me." Ted stared and he rubbed his head nervously. "You know- like does this spandex make my butt look big or is my hair stupid looking or…"

"Your eyes."

Booster froze. "Yes?"

Smiling Ted said. "I really like them. Then again, I'm partial to blue."

His bravado coming back right away, Booster winked. "I'll have to keep that in mind then."

"Oh and you're too small. But I'm not saying where," Ted joked. Booster swatted his arm.

"Shut up. I know it's my feet."

"Clearly."

"Okay, your turn."

"Truth or Dare," he asked, barely repressing a mischievous grin.

"Dare."

Almost unable to contain his glee that Booster had picked dare again (he'd been avoiding it since he'd been dared to eat something fuzzy from the back of the fridge) Ted leaned over and whispered into his ear.

"No way!"

"Trust me, the backup dare will be worse."

Knowing that Ted would hold to that, Booster warily stood, left their log cabin and headed down the hallway. He returned minutes later in Ice's old outfit from her Ice Maiden days. Ted fell over on his side laughing.

"I hate you, Beetle."

"Remember, it's…for the rest of the night… unless we both… end up naked." He finally managed to get the sentence out through gasps of air and more laughter.

"Fine. My turn to ask: truth or dare."

Either distracted by Booster's attire or just laughing too hard to think straight, Ted answered "Dare" without really thinking about it.

Booster grinned. "Payback time."

"What, Fire's old outfit?"

He shook his head. "Oh no. I'm not that nice."

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Tora had been the first to insist upon it, and Bea was quickly won over by her puppy-dog eyes and pleading. Finally, the others agreed to head back and celebrate the strike of midnight at the Embassy; half because they thought Tora was right that they shouldn't have to celebrate alone and half because they'd just realized that they'd left Beetle and Booster alone on monitor duty together.

But no matter what disaster they expected, nothing had prepared them for what they walked in on. After getting over the fact that yes Beetle and Booster had constructed a large log cabin from Lincoln Logs in the monitor room, Guy daringly opened the lego door.

"Argh, my eyes! I am going to have to burn that outfit now, you know!"

Of course, even J'onn and Batman were somewhat curious as to what could traumatize Guy so much and leaned to peer in alongside Bea and Tora.

"Is that my…" Tora started, trailing off as her mouth dropped open.

"It appears they've crashed after a massive sugar high," Batman deduced immediately on seeing the empty Kool Aid packages.

J'onn massaged his temples as Guy continued to rampage behind them, and Bea just smiled.

"Oh come, you have to admit that they look really cute all cuddled up like that."

"Like hell they do!" Guy snapped, "And as much as I'd love to see my green uniform next to that lovely one of Ice's, I never want to see those two in them. Ever!"

Tora rolled her eyes and turned to Bea. "As much as I hate to say it, we do need to take a picture of it."

"Why, to torture Guy with?"

She shook her head. "No. Scott will never believe it otherwise. He promised Barda he wouldn't come in until very late tomorrow, so they'll definitely have woken up by then."

As the two ladies went down the hallway to get a camera, J'onn turned to Batman.

"We can deal with these two in the morning."

Batman nodded and swept around to usher a still ranting Guy from the room. J'onn cast one last look into the cabin, the two superheroes in their borrowed Ice and Green Lantern costumes curled up together with content smiles on their faces, and closed the lego door.

"Happy New Year, Beetle and Booster."

And in the distance, a clock began to chime midnight.