Pun Wars

Pun wars: They start, escalation is inevitable, and in the end, nobody wins.

- Scott Adams, "Dilbert"
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Chris stuck his head out of his office and searched for the ever-reclining form of Vin Tanner.  How the man got any work done while leaning back in his chair like that (and how that chair didn't break) Chris didn't know, but at any rate, he spied Vin reclining at his desk.

"Hey, Vin, you want to come out this weekend and ride that new piebald of mine?"

"I dunno Chris," Tanner said, pausing a moment to blow his nose. "I'm startin' to get a colt." He sneezed for good measure and turned to gaze morosely at his boss.

"Don't you mean 'cold'?" inquired Larabee; Vin had been fine earlier. Something in his voice told Vin that he better have meant 'cold', but Tanner ignored both the tone and interruption together.

"Yup, a colt, an' anyways, that horse is a real Paint in the ass."

"Har, har." Chris rolled his eyes in annoyance, but felt a distinct sensation of foreboding crawling up his back; he slapped at it, and it turned out to be a mosquito. He retreated to the safety of his desk.

"Startin' to feel a little hoarse, too," Vin rasped to Chris's disappearing back before returning to his keyboard. Larabee scowled and wondered if there wasn't some sort of penalty for low humor in the ATF bylaws. There might be, he reflected- there were an awful lot of bylaws, and he hadn't finished reading them yet.

Buck stepped into the office, trailed closely by J.D., the both of them making as much noise as possible to announce their arrival. "You got that green paint in yet, Chris?" Wilmington half-shouted over the racket.

"A green horse?" interrupted J.D. "Never heard of a green horse before."

"It's one that ain't broke, kid," snorted Buck with an expressive roll of the eyes.

"Then don't fix it," replied J.D. immediately, grinning; Buck had walked right into that.

"Good one, J.D.," Vin snickered. "Heh heh… 'don't fix it if it ain't broke.'" His shoulders shook with silent laughter.

"Sweet Mary Mother of Jesus, who got them started?" Ezra swept into the Team Seven offices, carrying a deli bag and one of his omnipresent cups of cappuccino. He fixed Wilmington with a suspicious glare. "Was it you?"

"Hell, no," Buck said.

That left only one possible suspect. "Et tu, Mr. Larabee?" Ezra asked in trembling disbelief. "Do you know how difficult it is to persuade them to desist? You have to threaten them with arrest."

"And search and 'caesar' of personal property," interjected Vin. When Ezra stared at the sharpshooter incomprehendingly, Vin added helpfully, "You know, 'Et tu, Brute?' Julius Caesar? 'Search and seizure, search and caesar?'"

"The Bard is turning in his grave as we speak, Mr. Tanner," Standish sighed, suppressing the urge to be suddenly and violently sick- hummus never looked good in the first place, and he didn't want to see it again so soon. "Please don't defame one of history's greatest tragedies in such a way."

"Shakespeare did employ puns on frequent occasions, Brother Standish," Josiah said. His bulk filled the doorway, and Ezra suddenly felt trapped.

"Thank you, Josiah." Vin' smirk became victorious, and the southern agent sighed resignedly.

"You're most welcome, Brother Tanner," returned Josiah.

"Every time they instigate this and I complain, you keep blathering on about puns and how difficult it is to master them," grumbled Ezra.

"Personally," the ex-anthropologist said, "I find Vin and J.D.'s punning quite refreshing. It's a difficult art, punning… The lowest form of humor, but also the most difficult to pull off. The Bard was an unparalleled genius of the art."

"Yes, well, Shakespeare is also a published and famous dramatist, who also happens to be dead. Mr. Tanner and Mr. Dunne are not. They are ATF agents with too much time on their hands- but they will join Shakespeare in the hereafter if they don't cease."

Standish attempted to scowl menacingly, but it didn't work. Vin and J.D. returned the failed scowl with a smirk and giggle, respectively. "And, Mr. Sanchez, every time they start this, you harp on Shakespeare repeatedly. You are, or so I thought, a friend- please do not keep stringing me along."

"Hey, that was pretty good, Ez." Vin beamed approvingly at the undercover agent, who looked at him bewilderedly, pale green eyes wide.

"Whatever do you mean, Mr. Tanner?"

"You know, 'harp' and 'stringing along?' Get it?"

"Oh, good Lord."

"He's starting," said J.D. happily. "There is no escape. Resistance is futile."

"Please, you're Borg-ing me to death," sighed Vin, hand reaching up to smother a fake yawn. The two youngest agents exchanged high-fives.

"You all'd better not be planning on keeping this up," came the ominous warning from Chris's office, followed by a mumbled, "I need a drink... I really, really need a drink."

"I've got some good whine for ya, boss," Vin grinned in the direction of Chris's room.

"Want some cheese to go with that?" chipped in J.D.

A deadly calm emanated from Larabee's office, before: "If someone makes so much as one more pun, I will shoot them, and it will not be in the foot, the thigh, or the forearm. It will be lethal, and before you die, it will hurt. A lot."

Vin and J.D. sighed and shrugged. Not their fault if the boss had a grizzly bear's sense of humor on his best days. The office descended back into peace, the silence broken only by the occasional ringing of the phone or the shuffling of papers.

"Hey, Vin?"

"Yeah, J.D.?"

"Don't. Even. Think. About. It," interposed a third, disembodied voice.

Tanner and Dunne turned back to their work again. Some people had no sense of humor. No sense of humor at all.

The End