Soft vs Hard, Chapter 4

He stepped out of the elevator, congratulating himself on thinking of the on-site gym as an alternative to driving all the way across town to his house. After a quick shower and a change of clothes from the overnight bag he kept in his car, he was feeling much better and ready to get back to work

He was walking towards his office, mentally going over what needed to be done before day's end: start paperwork on the new witness; touch base with the Manchester bureau chief; assign marshals to the case. Unfortunately, multi-tasking had never been one of Stan's strong suits, which is why he failed to notice the puddle of strawberry jam by the conference room door. Even more unfortunate was the fact that his spiffy new Italian leather shoes were made to impress, not to prevent slips & falls. Lacking any non-skid properties, they could do nothing to prevent their owner from suddenly becoming airborne and landing ass-first into the sticky stuff.

Cursing under his breath, he pulled himself up, checking for damage. Nothing hurt but his pride, he concluded, though he'd need another change of clothes; he certainly didn't want to walk around with a sticky wet stain on his butt...

He looked around, suddenly noticing the office was empty. When he'd left earlier, he'd made it very clear that the two agents were to clean up their mess before going anywhere. And yet, looking around the room, he could see no improvement; if anything, the place looked even more of a mess than it did before. He was hard-pressed to find a single surface not marred by some kind of food by-product: a small lake of what he could only assume used to be vanilla ice cream next to the filing cabinet; a mound of congealing whipped cream by Mary's desk; chocolate hand prints on top of the copier, of all places; a trail of cherries, nuts & chocolate sprinkles leading down the hallway...

The marshals themselves, however, were nowhere in sight. He couldn't imagine they'd gone home – not if they expected to have jobs come tomorrow morning – so it stood to reason they were somewhere nearby.

He heard a loud thud coming from the end of the hall, followed by muffled voices & laughter. Could they be hiding in the utility closet? Why on god's green earth...

Shaking his head, he refused to even think about why they might be holed up in there; the possibilities were simply too frightening. Those two might be the best agents he'd ever worked with, but they were also the most infuriating. Talk about arrested development!

Well, he was done enabling them. He was going to put a stop to all this juvenile behavior, once and for all. Those two needed to grow up and behave like proper U.S. Marshals.

"Mann! Shannon! Get your asses out here!"

He was rewarded by the sound of something crashing to the floor, followed by more muffled laughter and what sounded like... squealing? He was thankfully spared from having to think about that one for too long by the younger marshal's reply.

"Coming!" he shouted through the door.

This triggered a fit of hysterical laughter from Mary, confirming that both marshals were indeed holed up in the closet. What were they doing, playing hide & seek? Exasperated, he walked down the hall, taking great care to avoid the numerous smudges & hand prints plastered all over the wall. Something about those hand prints was off somehow, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong with them...

Shaking his head, he stopped short of the closet door, waiting for the marshals to come out. A full minute passed, then another, without either agent making an appearance.

"If you're not out here in 30 seconds, I am coming in there and dragging you out!" he shouted, making no attempt to hide his mounting frustration.

"Be right out!"

"I'm starting the countdown right now!" he yelled back, wondering what could be taking them so long to come out of the damned closet.

Just as he was about to rip the door off its hinges in sheer frustration, a disheveled-looking Marshall stepped into the hallway, carrying a mop & bucket. The younger marshal was a mess: hair sticking out whichever way; shirt half-untucked & showcasing a variety of food-based stains; pants wrinkled, one belt loop hanging by a thread; and one missing shoe. Amazingly enough, though, there was not a single smudge anywhere on his face or neck. What were the odds of that?

"What did she do to you?" he asked, somewhat perplexed. "Try to drown you in a bucket of rocky road or something?"

"Or something," the younger man replied, smirking.

"Never mind," he sighed. Whatever inane prank they'd been playing on each other, he decided he really didn't want to know about it. "Is Tweedledum planning on coming out any time soon?"

"Right here, Stan!" chirped the blond agent, suddenly materializing in the doorway, looking just as disheveled as her partner. "Ready for clean-up patrol," she added, brandishing paper towels & a bottle of Lysol to emphasize her point.

"What happened, exactly? You were supposed to get the place cleaned up, not make it look as if a smorgasbord exploded in here!"

"Sorry!" they replied in unison, though neither one looked all that remorseful.

"Oh, for the love of god... What do I have to do to make you two behave? Throw you over my knee and give you a spanking?!"

"Maybe you're right," Mary replied, barely suppressing a laugh. "Maybe a good spanking is exactly what we need!"

Marshall at least had the good grace to keep quiet through this, he noticed, though he had suddenly turned beet red and seemed close to hyper-ventilating. "Sorry about the mess," he stammered out haltingly. "We'll take care of it. That's why we went into the closet. To get... stuff... cleaning stuff... I mean, why else would we have been in the closet, right?"

"Yeah," piped in his partner, "we had some trouble getting a handle on things at first, but we've got it all figured out now. Things are just swell!" she continued, earning a panicky look from Marshall.

"What are you two up to?" he asked, more out of habit than because he really wanted to know.

"Nothing," she replied, stifling yet another laugh, enjoying her partner's continuing unease. "We had an argument, which you are only too well aware of – sorry again about that, by the way – but now we've reached an understanding."

"And what is that understanding, exactly?" he asked against his better judgment. He was pretty sure he really didn't want to know...

"Well, while I maintain that soft food is still superior when in a bind, I have come to see the merits of Marshall's point of view. I'm ready to concede that, in certain cases, hard can also be good. In fact, hard can be very good sometimes," she added, smiling innocently.

"Never mind," Stan interrupted, holding up a warding hand. "I don't want to know... I don't want to see or hear any more about this... Just... Leave..."

"We can't just go. We can't let you clean all this up..."

"Oh, don't worry. I have no intention of cleaning this mess up myself. I'll call the cleaning service, ask them to come over right away. But, rest assured, the cost of doing so is coming out of your paychecks!"

"Fair enough," Marshall replied, looking suitably chastised. "Sorry again about... well, about everything..."

"Forget about it. Just go home. Get cleaned up. And whatever the problem is, for god's sake, get it out of your systems before you show up for work tomorrow morning!"

"Thanks, Stan," Mary chided in, looking remorseful as well. "We owe you."

He watched them leaving, noticing a pair of chocolate-colored hand prints on the back of Marshall's shirt. Those things were really starting to annoy him; he couldn't figure out why it mattered, but he sensed that they somehow held the key to some greater mystery...

Just as he was about to chalk it up to an over-active imagination, he noticed another hand print, this time in vanilla, on Mary's left butt cheek. A hand print that perfectly matched the hand that was right now resting against the small of her back, guiding her towards the elevator.

Suddenly, everything just clicked into place: the closet, the disheveled appearance, Mary's comments and Marshall's reaction to them, those damned hand prints... In one moment of blinding clarity, it all became horrifyingly clear.

Oh hell...

No wonder it took them forever to come out of that closet...