Work Text:
In James’ honest opinion, Reddit was the best thing to ever have been invented. It was how he interacted with fans, learned what people liked and disliked about their content, and—most importantly—where he discovered increasingly fantastic ways to fuck with everyone in the office.
To no one’s surprise, Adam took the worst of the pranks, because he was a cat, and the Internet loved to fuck with cats. So when James found a thread about a certain video involving cucumbers, his eyes widened and a shit-eating grin spread slowly across his face. This video was fucking glorious.
It was absolute agony waiting for lunch. As soon as his computer’s clock struck noon, James was out of his seat.
“Bruce?” James called as he pulled on his jacket. The bear’s ear twitched and he spun in his chair, yawning widely, revealing his impressive set of teeth. James was long past being afraid of those, though, not when he knew how much of a sap Bruce could be.
“Sup?” Bruce asked. James’ eyes darted to Adam, still sat between them, who hadn’t turned around. The cat was resolutely focused on his work, earbuds shoved in and eyes trained on his screen. His long tail swished in the air behind him, as it always did when he was stubbornly determined to finish whatever video he was editing. James, as always, was tempted to pull on it, because it was never not funny. Maybe later.
Instead James tilted his head towards the door. “Chipotle?”
Bruce’s eyes lit up. “Hell yeah!”
It wasn’t until they were outside the office that James pulled out his phone. He turned to Bruce who, as always, expertly avoided the antlers situated on top of his head, and held out the video.
“Watch this.”
Bruce watched about five seconds before he was wheezing out his signature laugh. He looked up from the screen at James. “Grocery store?” he asked, eyes shining. James broke out into a grin, feeling his tail lift in anticipation.
“Hell fucking yes.”
Placing the cucumber on the floor behind Adam’s chair was the easy part. The hard part was waiting.
By now Joel had caught on, seeing as there was a damn cucumber next to his desk. He leaned around his computer to catch James’ eye, a quizzical look on his face. James just shook his head, trying his damnedest not to burst out laughing, and turned back to his own computer, glancing to his left every few seconds. Behind him, Joel settled in to watch as well—he could hear the other man’s feathers ruffling as he adjusted his wings more comfortably.
Past Adam, who still worked on obliviously, James could see Bruce, who was far worse at holding in his excitement. He was practically bouncing in his seat.
But he didn’t have to wait long; James noticed the telltale signs that Adam was getting ready for lunch. Saving his work, removing his earbuds, stretching slowly and languidly. Watching him was like torture; how long could one man spend fixing his hair and making sure the fur on his ears was perfectly flat?
It was absolutely worth it, though. Adam stood and turned around and the next second had leapt a foot into the air, obviously having noticed the totally-inconspicuous vegetable on the floor.
“Mother fucker!” he cried, scrabbling backwards and nearly knocking over one of his monitors in the progress. James, Bruce, and Joel erupted into laughter, James himself almost clanking one of his antlers against the shelf behind him.
“What the fuck?” Adam croaked out, voice hoarse and high-pitched. All that time spent fixing his hair was worthless, for it now stood straight on end, along with the fur on his tail.
Before long it became tradition in the office that at least once a week became “scare Adam with cucumbers” day; it worked every time. And it was fucking hilarious every time.