Stuck In The Middle With You
Author's Note (Please Read):
I shall give a similar Author's Note I gave in Panchito: Season One:
Comedy is subjective.
Keep these things in mind:
1. My brand of humor isn't going to appeal to everyone.
2. Do not take this seriously. (If you have an issue with something/anything let me know)
3. Please, for the love of all humanity if you do decide to review (I don't care if you do or not, I don't live and breathe for reviews) do not be this reviewer:
I'm sorry to say that this is seriously f*****up and should never be read by anyone.
(Yes, this is from an actual review I received)
Don't be this person. It's rude. You can voice your opinion- I welcome differing opinions- but come on, I'm not that bad am I? Also the cursing, refrain from cursing please.
#1: Raccoon Disease
"Look I'm sorry Quill, you just don't do that to people you know?"
"Don't do that to people?" Quill asked. "I gave you a birthday present!"
Rocket rolled his eyes, "More like a heart attack."
Walking down a hospital hallway in a makeshift neck brace, Peter Quill looked like complete and total shit. His face was droopy, sad and confused as if he was coming back from an acid trip, that or they really had no idea how anything that him to where he was now, happened. Rocket, who was walking next to him, looked slightly better but might as well have had a brown paper bag over his head that read 'I am a douchebag' written in Sharpie on the front. Ironically enough, there was a brown paper bag on the secretary's desk and a Sharpie next to it.
The secretary, who was a woman of thirty-two, looked like a sleep deprived mother of two. Bags under her eyes and a mediocre makeup job, she looked like she was auditioning for Fantine.
"Excuse me," Peter said stopping in front of the desk, "is there any way I can be looked at right now?"
The woman looked up at him, and noticed his neck brace. In truth it was just the Funnies section of a newspaper from 1984. Garfield was throwing a purple box Jon gave him to the side. He didn't even bother to open it. It only proves that even in printed form, cats are evil, egoistical assholes who only care about sleep and their plans for world domination. There will come a day when the feline population of the universe converges into a single mass against all other life forms and the only way to stop said life form would be to submit to their brainwashing device because for some reason people are that stupid and dumb to fall for the cute adorableness that is a cat's face.
In short, the secretary stared blankly at Peter and for no reason at all said:
"Why do you have a newspaper from 1984 wrapped around your neck sir?"
Peter rolled his eyes, "It was readily available."
"Uh-huh," the secretary said, eyeing him as if he were wearing tin foil and proclaiming that the world was ending. "and what exactly is the problem?"
"My friend here," Peter said motioning to Rocket, "bit me on the neck."
"Are you bleeding?"
"No, well, I was, but not anymore-"
The secretary nodded and pulled out a writing pad and a pen from a drawer. She wrote down Peter's answer to her first question and asked another:
"Do you in any way, shape, or form that you, at this moment, right now, on this day, in this year, in this hospital, in this hallway, in my purview less than three feet away from me feel like you are going to die, have a seizure, choke to death, have a heart attack, die of explosive diarrhea or have any sort of abnormality whatsoever?"
Peter looked at Rocket in disbelief, "Did she just name random symptoms?"
Rocket nodded but said nothing, he was too dumbfounded to say anything. All he did was look up at the woman and shake his head.
"Talking to stupid animals too huh?" The secretary asked. "I'll make sure that Doctor Smiles and Sunshine sees you."
Rocket hissed a bit but again said nothing. He wasn't about to get himself thrown back in jail over a stupid comment. Did it hurt him physically? No. Mentally? Possibly. Did it remind him of that one time on Xandar where he desperately wanted to ask a woman if she would tell him directions to the nearest bank so he could simply give her money in order to help a homeless shelter because for some reason he was feeling generous that morning but instead of doing exactly what his heart told him to do he went with his head and asked her where the nearest bar was so that way he could get drunk and high on crack cocaine?
Yes. Yes it did remind him of that one time on Xandar where he desperately wanted to ask a woman if she would tell him directions to the nearest bank so he could simply give her money in order to help a homeless shelter because for some reason he was feeling generous that morning but instead of doing exactly what his heart told him to do he went with his head and asked her where the nearest bar was so that way he could get drunk and high on crack cocaine?
Yes sir it did. Why? Because that same woman who was helping out a homeless shelter turned out, several months later that is, to be a complete psychopath.
"Doctor Smiles and Sunshine?" Peter asked somewhat confused. "Please tell me that's code for drugs?"
"No." The secretary said. "That's literally a man's full name."
"Smiles and Sunshine?"
"Did someone call my name?"
Peter and Rocket turned to witness Doctor Smiles and Sunshine. He was a tall man of six foot three with the face of the Chuckie doll from Child's Play. Those weird creepy eyes, the super fake looking curly red hair, the mouth of a really knocked up Barbie doll and the cheeks of every single porcelain doll ever. Keep in mind that this was a man who was the brain child of Pennywise, Billy, and Ren. He wore a white overcoat, a blue shirt and muddy sneakers. He also had the bloodstains on his pants. Note: it is not okay to be a doctor in a hospital and look like a butcher. If you are in the position where a doctor looks like a butcher and is wearing scrubs, he either just got back from a surgical procedure or he is Hannibal Lector. This guy was Hannibal Lector.
"Good evening, Peter." Smiles said to him, smiling from ear to ear.
"Um…it's two-thirty in the afternoon." Peter replied.
Smiles advanced and looked at the clock which hung precariously over the secretary. Seriously if this clock were hanging any more precious it would beat Willie E. Coyote down the cliff, anyway, Smiles laughed. It wasn't the kind of laugh that you give when you find something humorous or the kind where you are laughing at yourself- it's the kind of laugh that completely insane people use when they are about to murder someone.
Rocket looked at Smiles a bit more carefully, inspecting his face and noticing that no man smiles for that long unless he's on drugs.
"Excuse me sir," Rocket said, "but do you happen to be on any sort of medication right now?"
Smiles laughed again. "Oh, I see someone has learned the human speech. Well, to answer your stupid little question from your stupid little head- no. I am not any sort of psychoactive drug at the moment. My mind is perfectly sound."
Rocket rolled his eyes, suppressing his urge to jamb his pistol barrel down this guy's throat. "Can you just help my friend here please so we can get out here?" He sighed and lowered his head. "Jesus what is this, a Mickey Mouse organization?"
"Actually," everyone, including Peter, said, "Yes it is."
Rocket turned towards Peter a second. "What?" He said, somewhat confused.
"It's a Mickey Mouse organization, both literally and figuratively." Peter replied.
Rocket stared blankly into space, his mind trying to process everything. "I'm sorry, I'm not following you guys here." He looked towards Doctor Sunshine, "Can we just get to the bottom line of this and move on please?"
"Certainly," Smiles and Sunshine said, "follow me."
Smiles walked down the hallway, as he did this, the lights went off, instead of the usual 'lights turn on whenever you enter a hallway', you know because- psychopaths.
The room was small. Insanely small. Much like these sentences. It had four walls, all of which were yellow, but it wasn't the normal yellow, no, it was neon yellow. Literally. The walls were covered in insanely bright yellow neon lights. To add to the effect, a radio, which was on the counter, was playing Manfred Mann's Blinded by the Light.
Smiles ushered Peter to the operating table and removed the newspaper. Before he did anything in terms of his job he glanced at the Garfield comic and laughed. "Oh," the doctor said, "that cat is just so thoughtful!"
Peter's wound wasn't serious- it was a simple, non-lethal bite. Smiles nodded after a brief examination and continued to do so until the song was over. In case you didn't know, Blinded by the Light is a seven minute song. It was right about the three minute mark.
As Smiles and Sunshine began smiling and nodding like Jack Nicholson before he goes bat crazy with the axe, Rocket and Peter slowly moved to the door. Smiles, who was conscious of this, slowly grabbed a book of rare medical cases that was adeptly titled Pray to God that You Never Encounter This Because You Will Most Certainly without a Doubt Die within a Fortnight, Which is British for Two Weeks. Or in other words The PGTNETBYWMCW/OaDWFWiBf2W, or in other words, the word "The" followed by the letter "P". followed by the letter "G", followed by the letter "N", followed by the letter "E", followed by the letter "T", followed by the letter "B", followed by the letter "Y", followed by the letter "M", followed by the letter "M", followed by the letter "C", followed by the letter "W", followed the slash symbol, followed by the letter "O". followed by a lower case "a", followed by the letter "D", followed by the letter "W", followed by the letter "F", followed by the letter "W", followed by a lower case letter "i", followed by the letter "B", followed by a lower case "f", followed by the number "2", followed by the letter "W". In short, an insanely long title and acronym for a book.
Turning to page seventy-two in a chapter titled The Twilight Zone is Your Ultimate Vacation Spot under the caption, You Might Be a Department Store Mannequin If…, Doctor Smiles and Sunshine hummed the chorus of the Manfred Mann tune.
"I'm sorry," Rocket said, "sorry to interrupt your solo, but what the hell is a calliope?"
"It's a keyboard." Peter replied squinting to save his pupils from burning and retina from screaming out in pain. "Man these lights are blinding." He said.
"Yes," Smiles quipped with a laugh, "fitting isn't it?"
"Yeah, like a glove, now what's the diagnosis?" Rocket said.
"Patience," Sunshine replied. "Is a virtue."
Smiles and Sunshine closed the book and put it back in its place. He then in one stride went to the wall and shut off the neon lights leaving the room pitch black.
Cue The Exorcist theme.
Behaving as if he were in a magic show, waving his arms around like an idiot and producing an authentic evil laugh, Smiles and Sunshine slowly advanced towards Peter, eyes slowly getting bigger as he did so. They were so budged out that by the time Smiles got to Peter's somewhat uncomfortable (but still not quite there yet) zone, Rocket thought they would simply explode. Smiles breathed slowly and smiled from ear to ear again.
"I'm sorry," he said, slightly raising the pitch in his voice to sound like a young twelve year old boy, that, or simply high on helium. "I'm afraid you have Raccoon Disease! Isn't it wonderful?" Smiles turned on the lights again.
Peter said nothing, all he did was stare agape at him. "Um, uh- yeah, sure, wonderful." He turned towards Rocket. "Only what exactly is Raccoon Disease?"
The doctor sighed and smiled at the same time, "Essentially, you're going to turn into one."
"What do you mean?" Rocket said, looking at the psychopath as if he were actually sane for a moment. "Turn into one? You mean, a raccoon?"
"Yes." Smiles replied. "Isn't that wonderful!"
"No!" Peter and Rocket said.
"You do understand that I have to take care of this Idiot anyway?" Rocket said, stepping towards the doctor, somewhat pleading that what he was saying was simply a result of him being crazy and not an actual disease.
"Can you imagine the hell and pain I would be in if he were a raccoon? He would die!" Rocket shouted.
"Gee," Peter said, huffing a bit. "Thanks."
"Well I'm sure as hell not taking care of you," Rocket said, "you're on your own."
Peter nodded. "Please tell me you don't have rabies." He said.
"I'm clean." Rocket said back. "I think."
"That's it, taking you to a vet." Peter replied.
"You do that and I'll kill you!" Rocket shouted, "I'll, I'll stab your eye out with a plastic fork!"
"A plastic fork?"
"Yeah, a plastic fork." Rocket said as he crossed over to the counter, leaning up against it like Clint Eastwood and smiling like Val Kilmer. "I don't like hurting' ya Quill, I like you too much. Besides," he said, opening a drawer and finding an assortment of items that only two kinds of people would carry: an Ancient Egyptian who worshiped Anubis or a serial killer.
The raccoon paused a moment and scanned everything with a disturbed look. In truth, he threw up in his mouth a little.
In this one small drawer, there was a full set of embalming tolls, a large hook, a medium hook, a small hook, an extremely small hook, a syringe, small jars each with a different label ("Brain", "Heart", "Stomach", "Reproductive Organs", "Lungs", etc.), a pistol with seven-six rounds, and a smiley face stamp.
Rocket slowly filled the pistol's magazine and took the rest of the ammunition and the weapon itself of course, and put all of this in his pocket.
"Besides…" Peter said, edging Rocket on.
"Sorry," Rocket said, swallowing whatever bit of vomit there was, "lost my train of thought."
"Obviously." Peter replied.
"Obviously," Rocket said, somewhat loud and obvious. "You are oblivious to certain things," he waved the pistol a bit so that Peter could see. Peter slowly nodded.
"Yeah," Peter said, "I am the most inobservant person in the world."
"Really?" Smiles and Sunshine said, "I'm the observant person in the universe!"
Rocket laughed to himself a bit. "Isn't that a bit ironic?"
"It isn't ironic if it's true." The doctor replied, still breathing heavily as if he were auditioning for Scream.
Rocket slowly made his way to the light switch and aimed the pistol at Smiles' head at the same time. "Yeah well," the raccoon said, "All that aside. Is there anything you can do for him?"
"Yes." Smiles and Sunshine replied laughing deviously. "It would require you to,"
He turned towards Rocket and clutched the air as if he were grasping him and about to throw him off a cliff.
"Hmm…I guess the appropriate term would be for you to die."
Rocket shrugged, "Eh, what the hey, sure." He aimed the pistol at himself and looked at Smiles as if this putting himself on the line for Quill was a normal, everyday occurrence. In a way, Rocket's gesture was half serious and a complete act at the same time. To an extent, he seriously would die for Peter Quill, and every single time, he would make a show out of it. He did this by giving the "It's Too Cute" treatment. What exactly is the "It's Too Cute" treatment? It's the big, bushy eyes, the quivering lip, and yes, the cradling of a tail- but to quote Ferris Bueller, it may be childish and stupid but then, so is dealing with crazy insane people.
Smiles and Sunshine's face turned from devious to crybaby in three seconds. "Oh I just can't do it anymore!" He said. "Your friend is fine. You're fine. Everything's fine. It was just a simple scratch."
Rocket laughed and nodded victoriously. "Works every single time. Come on Quill, let's get out of here."
Peter stood up from the bed and helped Smiles up. "What was the dramatics for?"
Smiles smiled, "I'm insane Peter," he said.
"I never told you my name." Peter replied somewhat curiously.
Smiles nodded, keeping his smile. He patted Peter on the shoulder. "I know, believe me, I know."
Quill slowly exited the room, "How?" He asked.
Smiles laughed. "Let's just say that you don't have to say it twice. See you later Mister Quill."
Peter and Rocket exited the room and into the hallway. As they passed the secretary's desk. Peter winked at her and she smiled a bit.
"You may want to duck." She said.
"Why is that?" Peter asked, he paused, "wait, let me guess, Norman Bates is right behind me isn't he?"
The secretary nodded a bit.
Turning around to see The Most Insane Doctor Known to All Humankind, Peter noticed that Smiles and Sunshine carried a very sharp, very long hook in his right hand. Peter smiled. "Isn't it a bit too early for Halloween, Captain Hook?"
"Ha, ha," Smiles said very melancholic as if he had lost all sense of emotion. "Way to make a visual reference."
"Ha, ha," Peter replied back, "way to make a comedic cliché reference."
"Audience laughter." Rocket said somewhat randomly.
Peter and Smiles turned towards him in a blank, soul crushing stare of 'what the hell did you just say'.
"What?" Rocket replied, "It's called being literal."
"Do me a favor Rocket," Peter said, "don't do that again."
"Alright," Rocket said, "just promise me not to get me any more birthday presents."
"Oh it was your birthday?" Smiles asked. "Here," he said, handing the hook to the raccoon, "happy belated!"
"Gee," Rocket said, taking the hook from him, "Thanks." He inspected it and smiled. "No, seriously, thanks. I'm not being sarcastic anymore. This thing is awesome. You could kill two people with this thing."
Peter smiled from ear to ear and turned towards Smiles and Sunshine and looked at him like a parent does when the other spouse in the relationship goes against the other's decision. "Thank you," Peter said, "for giving my friend yet another weapon of mass destruction and pain."
Smiles smiled, "You're welcome. Now get the fuck out of my hospital."
Hope you enjoyed it! :)
Since I am in school (college) right now, I honestly don't know how frequent the updates will be, but there will be a story regardless.