Spin The Droidel
The Planet Express Building's front door flew upward as Bender nearly galloped into the center of the room, bearing a string of Olde Fortran bottles and a punch bowl filled with an unidentified bright green liquid. "Happy Robon...uh?" His eyes narrowed. The rest of the Planet Express crew were scattered around the interior of the building, and all were in the process of taking down the X-Mas decorations. "What's goin' on? Did the Anti-Joy League bust you?"
"My, no!" The Professor said, putting away an array of green bulbs in a cardboard box. "We pay them off every year to keep their distance. It's good for my business and their cell systems!"
"Spleck, Bender, X-Mas was yesterday!" Amy said, as she decelerated to the floor with a garland in her hand.
"It's time to put up the New Year's Decorations!" Fry held up a large inflatable New Year's Baby, who bore a glowing cigar in his mouth.
"That was my great-grandfather's," Professor Farnsworth said. "Press his stomach."
Fry did, and it blurted, "Get outta the way, I've gotta make a Yule log!"
"Adorable," Farnsworth remarked.
"But I was gonna turn the tree into a Robonukah bush!" Bender said.
"You could dig it out of the trash," Leela said.
Bender glowered, crossing his arms. "That's grunt work! Do I look like a waste disposal unit?"
"Only when you bend over, " Leela remarked.
"Good one!" fry hooted.
Bender frowned. "Yuck it up. Ever since you and Blinky started playing suck the exhaust tube you couldn't care less about Bender!"
"What'd you say, Bender?" Fry asked, wrapping his arm around Leela. "Me and Leela were nuzzling."
"Nothing," Bender said. "I just have something...in my eye unit."
Then he ran out of the room, weeping in an artificially high pitched tone.
"Splech! Why's Bender pulling a Zoidberg?" Amy asked, and at the sound of his name being spoken Zoidy popped his head around the corner.
"Yay, my friends are mentioning me!"
"You, get back to scrubbing barnacles off of the holiday bargepole!" barked the Professor. Zoidberg mumbled an apology as he skittered away. "I want to see my face glowing in that thing before we put it away."
"Fry, it's pretty obvious that Bender's jealous of our relationship," Leela explained to Fry.
"I dunno why. He's brought home lots of ladybots since we've been friends. And I don't get jealous of them unless they've got some cool stuff like lasers coming out of their boobs - ow!"
She elbowed him. "You used to spend plenty of time together without me. I think Bender's jealous of that. Plus, it is the season of Robonukah..."
"The HOLY season of Robonukah," Bender called from the kitchen.
"So I REALLY think you should do something for him that'll show him how important he still is to you. And that'll get him off our jocks," she whispered the last part.
Fry's expression took on a sudden spark of ingenuity. "Off our jocks, eh? I think I know what we should do." He gestured for the rest of the gang to circle up, which they reluctantly did.
****
After a night of dramatic self-pity and a bit of wanton property destruction, Bender thunked his way into the Planet Express building, his expression entirely dour. It was pitch dark inside, and he juggled his cigar from the left side of his mouthplate to the right.
"All right," he snapped, "who forgot to feed the core reactor? Cause it wasn't Fry...I mean my turn..." The lights flicked on and he ripped open his chest compartment, reaching in and withdrawing a blaster.
"Sur- arrgh!" the entire group shouted as one, taking cover behind various pieces of furniture as Bender fired off a round. He stopped firing abruptly.
"I know those screams of terror!" he smiled as widely as a robot could smile as he took in the sight of the office decorated for a Robonukha party. "You guys threw me a party! Whose idea was it?"
"Uh," Fry squeaked out, holding up a hand. "mine!"
Bender reached out and gave Fry a tight hug. "You're the best."
"BenderImChoking," gasped out Fry. The robot dropped him and ran toward the small wading pool they'd set up for oil wrestling. The two femmebots were already grappling in the shallow well and he settled down, hypnotized, glugging down a bottle of beer as he sat cross-legged beside it. He thankfully didn't seem to notice that they'd replaced the traditional crude oil with motor oil.
"Aww, and you even got me a coupla robo-sluts!" he said fondly.
"Hey!" one of the wrestlers shouted, "we's called 'robo-femine-pleasure units!" She elbowed her opponent in the face. "Get it right!"
"Yeah, whatever baby. Now get real dirty for daddy."
Fry felt a hand clasp his shoulder and yelped. It was Leela, who held out a small electronic droidel. "Want to play for a while?"
Fry grinned and shrugged. "Sure," he said. They sat down under the garland of beer bottles and the pined - up binary porn in the lounge and took positions on the couch. "How do you play with it?"
"I think," Leela said, "that you make a big pile of things in the center of the room. Then you take this, spin it, and if it points toward you you should read the number on the side facing up. If it comes up two, you get two take two things from the group of stuff. The game's over when the pile in the center is gone."
"What'll we bet?" Fry lit up. "Pieces of clothing? Please say pieces of clothing."
"Not pieces of clothing."
"Virtual pieces of clothing?"
"Fry, shut your sweet, stupid mouth," Leela requested. "We'll bet in lots of Rokugel candy." She took the paper dish and placed it beside them on the couch, then picked up the driodel and spun it and, after a brief sojourn around the table, it landed upon its right side, pointing toward Leela and flashing the Rohebrew. "Three!" She picked up three pieces. "Your turn."
Fry spun the droidel and it...landed on its side, pointing at Leela. He frowned as she took three more pieces. She spun and, again, it landed on her, and she took three more pieces. After the fifth time around, it dawned on Fry that Leela had loaded the droidel. And that she had all of the candy. "Hey, what'll we bet with now?"
She smiled. "How about kisses?"
"The regular kind or French?" His answer came in the form of Leela grabbing him by the shirt and planting her lips on his.
He heard the sound of something cracking behind them and, as a flood of oil cascaded over them both. "You best friend stealin' purple haired harpy!"
"Harpy!" Leela glared at him. "Shrew I could let slide. But HARPY?"
"Why'd you invite her, Fry?" He glared.
"'Cause she's our friend, Bender," Fry reminded him.
"YOUR friend, sure," Bender said. "MAYBE Amy's friend."
"I don't like her that much," Amy remarked.
"...But not mine!"
"But Bender, without Leela you would've been killed by Destructor!" Fry pointed out.
"And without her, you would've been eaten by the Chupacabra in the sewers," Amy added.
"And there's stuff you like about Bender, right Leela?"
"Yeah, without Bender I would have two watches, most of my silver collection and two thirds of my liver!"
"The liver was me," Professor Farnsworth declared.
"Guys, please, there's enough of me to go around," Fry said grandly.
Leela glared at Fry, but Bender was the one who said, "I'll take the head!" He wrapped his arm around Fry's neck.
"Fine, I want everything below the waist!"
"Bender! Leela!" Fry choked out. "Why don't you just share me?"
Bender and Leela glared at one another. "I get Sundays for Monster Truck Strip Meets."
"Saturdays and Fridays." Leela replied.
"Fine with me. Fry?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks old pal." He dropped Fry with a thunk on the floor. "Happy Robonukua, Leela!"
"Happy Robonuka, Bender!" She toasted him with an oil-soaked cocoa as she got up to help Fry.
"Now where's my robots at!?" he shouted to the suddenly festive room. And there was peace and joy for everyone at the Planet Express building that night.
Except for Bender after he got the bill for the oil stains on the Professor's couch, but that's another story.