Title: And She Still Doesn't Get It
Summary: Five one-shots of a Binary Swap universe with Rhoda (Roger) and Jesse (Jessica). As a girl, Roger can still be so oblivious.
Author's Note: After writing "Across the Alternate", I realize I need to say goodbye to the genderbend versions of the WFRR characters. This is how I do it.
This is also for everyone who has enjoyed ATA!
Lamppost
Another night's work… Jesse thought as he closes the door of his dressing room. Tuxedo jacket folded on his arm, he turns around the corner in hope of avoiding "traffic". Quietly, he opens Ink and Paint Club's backdoor.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Jesse tries not to wince at the squeal-screaming of admirers waiting outside for him. One of these days, they're going to make him deaf and when that day comes he just hope he can go Beethoven. He does have to sing to earn a living.
He composes his face to a calm, collected mask. The bouncer must have tipped them off so that they won't crowd around the front door. That traitor.
He takes a deep breath and greets their clamouring with a cordial smile –time to play the Gentleman Act.
He placidly write autographs and thank them politely while they gush how great he is, how hot he is, how –most never finish their sentences for they'd swoon or just stare at him with the beginnings of drool in their mouths.
Frankly, he wished they'd just leave him alone.
In the backseat of his mind, he wonders if she's going to come. Sometimes, Rhoda would be passing by the Ink and Paint Club from wherever she came from.
Jesse doesn't mean to look up but being tall, he managed to look above the heads of the women crowding him.
Under the light of the lamppost, he can see Rhoda waiting for him. Only the rabbit is highly preoccupied with a yoyo. Transfixed, she watches the yoyo go up and down and up and down as she bobs her hand. Elated, she swings it enthusiastically in an arc in an attempt of a yoyo trick.
WHA-PAK!
Jesse flinches when the yoyo flies and bonks her in the forehead with enough force to topple her backward.
Rhoda claps a hand over the rising bump with a pained expression. But she must have sensed someone looking at her because she looks up. Her face breaks into a big grin while she holds her forehead. Then she energetically waves at him as though they were mountains apart.
For the first time that night, a real smile plays on his lips as he watches her. She wouldn't need a lamp post to shine down on her when she smiles sunshine on a constant basis. How does she still look cute while she nurses a huge bump on her forehead?
Jesse looks back at the squealing, gushing ladies surrounding him. They stare at him with dreamy eyes, excited eyes and… well, undressing eyes.
He's willing to play the Gentleman Act for them. He'll be polite, fan-friendly (within limits) and tolerable. But that's all they're going to get.
Jesse politely walks through them.
"Excuse me ladies, it's been a great night," he says as he goes to the rabbit without as much as a backward glance.
A few nights later, when she goes near the lamp post to wait for Jesse, Rhoda wonders why the girls waiting outside the backdoor are giving her dirty looks.
The Picket Sign.
Rhoda hums happily as she walks to the set. Today would be different, she can tell.
"And what is that?"
The bunny turns at the voice. Jesse's face would always remain impassive but it took awhile for her to catch glimpses of his emotion before he would mask it again with an unreadable expression. This time, there's a flash of disapproval at her –or more specifically, to the sign she's carrying.
"Oh this? I'm giving free hugs!" she exclaims.
Jesse's brows wrinkle into a light frown. In a bright red paint, the picket sign says "FREE HUGS GIVEN!" with childish doodles all over it. Rhoda explains.
"You see, working in Holly Wood can be tough on anybody. Have you seen the stress around here? It takes a toll on humans and toons," she spreads her arms wide, "Anyone in here can use a hug!"
He crosses his arms in front of him, "And what if some guy would take advantage of that?"
Really, she can be so naïve sometimes.
Rhoda rolls her eyes and waves off his words, "Jesse, no guy is going to take advantage of me."
He is taking back what he says. Rhoda isn't naïve. She needs to buy a mirror and maybe a huge bottle that induces self-realization. Doesn't she realize how hormonal toon guys can be? Especially anthromorphs. Especially wolves.
Then there's those kind of humans who has a thing for anthromorphs.
She might as well carry a sign that says "Make me your victim".
Rhoda watches as his eyebrows furrow deeper.
"Put that down," he says flatly.
She puts the sign behind her back.
"No," she says, frowning stubbornly with a pout. What's gotten into him?
She suddenly grins.
"Why don't you take it from me if you don't like it so much?"
Jesse's expression turns hard. The last time he simply touched a sign with a similar theme, it caused a stampede of fangirls to rush at him within a one-mile radius.
He watches her grin become wider as though she can read his mind. A shot of annoyance courses through him.
Rhoda startles when Jesse throws up his hands. He's hardly expressive.
"Fine. Carry that sign around. Parade with it. I don't care. If some guy touches you the wrong wa-"
He never managed to finish his sentence when Rhoda hops up and gives him a bearhug.
Jesse's whole body tenses at the contact. He has been hugged many times by girls. Most of them are the excited hugs of finally meeting their idol, the possessive hugs when having their pictures taken with him and even the kind of hugs where their hands would roam on his back.
That is why he acts distant. It discourages harassment.
But this … feels the same way he feels when Rhoda makes it known that he's got a friend.
He forces himself to exhale as though relearning how to breathe.
She feels so soft. How can anyone who hugs so hard feels so soft?
His arms raise up in hesitance.
But before he can do anything; Rhoda releases him, strangely making him feel momentarily bereft as she drops back to the ground.
"Feeling better?" she asks.
Jesse gives her a cool smile, "I do now."
Something beeps inside her mind. That is not the smile of a comforted person. That's more of a-
Her head whips up to check her sign.
It now reads "FREE HUGS! Unless you're a guy then-
Her eyes widen at the rest of the sentence.
"Jesse!" she exclaims as she looks at him with a glare, "That isn't nice!"
How he managed to scribble that while she's hugging him, she'll never know.
Bouquet
"What's Rhoda's favourite flower?"
Baby Hermina doesn't bother to look up as she puffs out a smoke ring, "That's easy. Its-" she stops.
"Waaaaiiit a minute," she says, finally looking at Jesse, "Why ya askin'?"
Jesse shrugs, lounging in his chair.
"Just curious," he says as he flips through the script, "Well?"
Mina stares at him suspiciously. Jesse's an ice prince. Why and how Rhoda managed to befriend him, she'd never know. But ever since then, he's spending more and more time with them –especially with Rhoda. Woman's Intuition is now telling her something's up.
She takes an inhale of her cigarette again.
"Just curious huh? Then it mustn't be so important," she says. He couldn't possibly be asking because… Mina shakes her head, that's impossible. He's probably asking for some rabbit guy who's either very brave or very stupid.
XOXOXOXOXOX
"She likes dandelions and carnations but she's developing a taste for roses now," Pop says.
Jesse nods but then Mina's butler says something that made him confused.
"Are you asking me because of why I think you're asking or…"
Jesse raises a brow. Why else would he be asking?
XOXOXOXOXOX
Rhoda hums as she walks back to her dressing room. Suddenly, she stops; her dainty pink nose sniffing the air. She follows the fragrant scent as it becomes stronger and stronger as she gets nearer to her door.
The bunny gasps in surprise when she opens the dressing room door and sees a bouquet of roses on the table.
She stands on the doorway, staring at the bundled American Beauties, each a deep red of colour.
"Do you like it?"
Rhoda whirls around to see Jesse behind her.
"Do I like it?" she asks incredulously, picking up the huge bouquet.
Jesse watches with a half-smile on his face as he watches her close her eyes, breathing deeply in their scent. His heart suddenly plummets when she looks up to him with a grateful smile.
"Did you…" Rhoda lets the question hang in the air.
Jesse nods, feeling his heart race. She looks surprised by the gift but not as surprised as he's expecting. Maybe she's open-minded to the whole inter-species thing.
His hands clenches for a moment. It's time to tell her.
"Thank you," she says, her soft eyes telling him how touched she is.
He steps closer to her, "Rhoda, there's something-"
Then Rhoda opens her mouth wide and takes a huge bite on the bouquet.
Jesse watches with surprised fascination as Rhoda devours the dozen, scattering bits of petals everywhere. Then he remembers what Pop said.
She's developing a taste for roses; the butler's voice echoes as she bit off the last flower clean off the stem and blissfully chew it.
Rhoda lets out a happy sigh of satisfaction with a now roseless bunch of stems in her hands.
"Thanks for the treat, Jesse. I always get hungry after filming!"
But then she cocks her head when she noticed that Jesse is staring at her.
"Is something wrong?" she asks, giving him a perplexed look while she nibbles on a rose petal.
Green eyes graze on the petal trap between her lips before looking at her again.
She looks so…
"Nothing," he says, "No problem at all."
How can she do all of those things and not know the effect she's causing him?
The Pic Fight
What she is about to do is stupid but still, worth the shot.
Baby Mina looks around the pantry. Seeing no one, she whips up a picture.
It's a photo of Rhoda when Mina dared her to have her ugliest, wackiest expression pictured. Unfortunately, Mina can't use it as blackmail material since its Rhoda's self-proclaimed purpose in life is to make people laugh.
But now it has a purpose.
Ever since Jesse asked her what Rhoda's favourite flower is, she's been getting hints at his actions towards her friend –the lingering touch of his hand whenever he would ruffle Rhoda's hair, the sidelong glances in her direction that last more than necessary and he even has the audacity to twirl one of her ears around his finger!
Anyone would be happy when they would find someone interested in their friend. But c'mon! Not Jesse! A humanoid and a rabbit? Jesse must have hit himself in the head but inter-species relationships rarely borders to romance.
Plus that guy attracts trouble in the forms of rabid admirers, horny rich ladies and weirdoes who want to market tooniphile fantasies.
She will not let those kind of people get near to Rhoda. She'd be like a lamb among wolves.
Mina places the photo on the coffee table where it would be seen.
Not if I can help it, she thought determinedly.
It's time to turn Jesse off from whatever he thinks he's feeling.
The sound of footsteps startles her and being small and a toon, Mina hides inside a drawer. She peeps from the keyhole to see Jesse enter the room.
Jesse makes a beeline to the refrigerator and takes out a bottle of Dr. Pepper. Opening it, he takes a seat on the sofa.
He sees a photo on the coffee table and he reaches over to take a better look.
Mina holds her breath, waiting what his reaction would be.
The pattering of soft feet makes him look up and the door opens with a creak. He gives a half-smirk.
"Hey Rhoda," he holds up the picture for her to see, "Nice photo."
Rhoda laughs when she sees the picture, making him smile. Most girls would have died from embarrassment right now. But she just shrugs modestly.
"Where did you get that? That's Mina's picture of me," she says, hopping up the sofa to sit beside him.
Jesse shrugs, "I found it lying around."
She mashes up her bunny cheeks, "When you contort your face, you'd discover some facial muscles you were never aware before," she says in a muffled voice because her pressed cheeks have also squished her lips in a funny angle.
Then she elbows him teasingly, "I know you want to try it!" she says in a singsong voice.
Jesse looks at her with a deadened expression before simply sticking out his tongue at her.
Rhoda bursts out laughing as though he made the funniest joke. She pulls her face in the craziest replication of the photo in return.
"But the secret lies in really angling your head," she continues with her face still contorted, "Then you have to make your eyes stare at odd angles. With enough practice, you can use your upper and lower eyelids alternately!" she exclaims, her blue eyes looking at different directions while her eyelids twitch like crazy.
He laughs at her antics. She's really one of a kind.
"It's really a special skill," she says to him in a staged whisper.
Mina rolls her eyes inside the drawer. Maybe she doesn't need to make Jesse think twice about his feelings.
Jesse looks at the picture on his hand once more.
"I like it."
None of them heard the thump when Mina's jaw drops down the wooden surface of the drawer.
Rabbit ears perk up positively. Rhoda looks at him with happy blue eyes as she clasps her yellow-gloved hands in front of her.
"Jeepers! You do? Really?"
Jesse inclines his head to the side, as though studying the picture.
"It's… you. I mean," He continues to explain when he sees her confused expression, "It shows the real you. You're not afraid to be funny."
Jesse gives her a rare smile from his usually stoic demeanour.
"That's what I like about you."
Mina cringes in disgust at the implied meaning of his last words.
Touched, Rhoda puts both hands over her heart, "Aaaaww, Jesse, that's so sweet!"
Rabbits got sharp hearing. It's a good thing Rhoda can't hear what that bastard is telling her. The less she knows; the less chance he has.
"I'm keeping this."
What?! Mina yells incredulously inside her head.
"What?" Rhoda says in surprise, "But that's Mina's!"
"Finders keepers," Jesse says with a cool smirk.
He calmly holds it up when Rhoda tries to grab it from him.
"C'mon Jesse! Give it back!"
Jesse restrains his smirk from going wider as he leans away from her, "No."
"Jesse," the rabbit says warningly before leaping at him.
He falls on his back in surprise as Rhoda grabs his jacket as handholds with her knees digging on either side of his torso. She pokes him hard on the chest with a cute angry pout.
"Photo. Now."
Mina's jaw drops disbelievingly at Jesse's unreadable expression.
That jerk! He's enjoying it!
She pops out from the drawer, neither of them noticing where she came from.
"Give that back, asshole!"
Hearts
When you're a cartoon comedienne, you got to stay on shape.
Humming, Rhoda looks at her stopwatch as she hovers in midair while her rabbit ears whir like helicopter blades. Satisfied, she bounces back on the ground. She puts a record on the recorder. A grin breaks in her face as "Ferris Wheel Goes Crazy" plays in the air.
She bobs in time of the beat in the middle of the gym. Using a ball, she activated the button of the Ball-Pitchin' Machine and the contraption lets loose a barrage of tennis balls towards her.
If you're a toon guy, you have to get hit to be funny. If you're a toon girl, you have to dodge the projectiles to be hilarious.
Quick as a rabbit, she does a pointe and spins to her left just as the balls whiz on her right. Spreading her arms for balance, she saw the balls whiz right for her midsection and she reactively bends backward, her rabbit ears brushing the ground.
The secret is not to think which Mina once said is something Rhoda is good at.
Standing upright again, she cocks her head to the side as a ball whiz past, does a cartwheel to her right and lifts up her leg at the last second a ball bounces for her toe.
Beaming with pride, she twirls before doing a victory pose at the end of the music just in time for a tennis ball to bop her in the forehead.
She falls down with a crash.
Ouch, Rhoda thinks, wincing with a giggle. She sits up on her elbows while holding her forehead, Punchlines.
Next, she surrounds herself with glass. Taking a deep breath, she makes a long, happy squeal of the high pitched quality. The glass shakes from the sound waves before shattering into bits.
After cleaning up the glass, Rhoda practices with a mallet. She rarely uses one on the show but it might come up in the script someday.
She twirls the mallet above her head and smashes rocks, bricks and vases. Using the momentum of her swing, she spins twice in midair before bringing it down on the ground with an earth-shattering crash.
Propping the mallet on her shoulder, she nods with satisfaction at the steaming crater formed.
Now comes the hard part.
Rhoda takes a deep breath, facing the mirror.
What you think becomes your reality. Humans don't notice it because it happens so slow for them. But with toons, it's as natural as air.
"Sparkles!" she says concentrating on the memory of feeling happy.
Instantly, the mirror reflects bits of light twinkling around her.
"Stars!" she says, recalling the sensation of being dizzy.
Stars dance around her head and Rhoda has to stop for a while to shake them off.
Projecting is common for toons. It can be involuntary in expressing emotions but just like acting, toons can pop them up into thin air by focusing on an emotion or experience.
"Flames!" she rages, recalling the times someone called her "Babe".
Fire bursts out from her body.
"Oops," she says to herself when she sees the entire gym covered with soot.
"Tweeting birds!" she raps herself hard on the forehead.
Eggs appear in the air and birds crack out of them, chirping. With a laugh, Rhoda opens the window to let them out.
She takes a deep breath and her hands clench the hem of her gym shirt.
"Hearts!"
Nothing happened.
Rhoda bits her lip. She needs to focus on the feeling of being in love if she wants hearts to appear. Her brows furrow as she delves on the memory when she was in love before.
Something pops up in the reflection of the mirror and Rhoda looks up hopefully.
It is a small shabby heart broken into two hovering above her head.
Rhoda slaps a yellow-gloved hand over her eyes. She feels reluctant recalling those times, but does it have to be so painful?
Let's just be friends, a memory of a voice echoes inside her mind.
No, Rhoda thinks stubbornly, she needs to focus on the times she feels elated, happy and warm –all those memories before that happened.
She clenches her fists, staring hard at the mirror. Hearts begin to appear above her as she goes through her memories of euphoria, dreaming and hope-
The hearts suddenly break into twos with jagged lines before shattering down on the ground.
Rhoda lets out a whine of frustration. In the show, whenever the script calls for hearts, she would cheat by projecting tweeting birds holding hearts. She's an A-list toon star for crying out loud! She delivers quality comedy, not bandaged blue-light specials.
She has to fix this.
Emotions guide your thoughts.
Closing her eyes, she focuses on things that make her feel good.
Think happy thoughts, she kids herself, remembering the line of Petra Pan.
She thinks of sunshine warming her fur. Of ice cream and banana splits. Of carrot candies. Of soft, warm beds in a winter night. She thinks of the genuine laughter of the audience.
That thought makes her soar.
Slowly, she paints a picture of memories that made her happy. She thinks of all the times of laughing with Mina. She recalls the good feelings of meeting kids who loved their show. She thinks of puppies and kittens.
Unbeknownst to her, she begins to glow with warmth emanating from her chest.
She focuses on being with friends. She recalls the first time she realized Mina cares. She remembers when she first made Jesse laugh. It was his eyes first that warmed before his lips quirk into a restrained smile. Then his shoulders shook before a chuckle escaped him.
Rhoda feels the corner of her lips go upward in their own accord at the thought. The memory of Jesse looking up from a photo flashes inside her mind.
That's what I like about you.
The glow bursts forth from her, waving her rabbit ears with the unseen wind. She opens her eyes from the sensation.
Blue eyes widen when she sees a fully-formed heart floating aloft above her head on the mirror.
Gingerly, she clasps her hand around it and opens her palms.
XOXOXOXOXOXO
The phone rings and Mina climbs up the stool to answer it.
"H'llo?"
Mina suddenly pulls the phone away at an arm's length as Rhoda's exhilarated voice booms out from the ear piece of the phone.
"Mina, I did it! I finally made a heart again!"
The old toon raises her eyebrows in surprise. Rhoda's inability to make a heart can be traced back to him.
"Great," Mina says, but then a thought made her still, "How did you do it?"
Static crackles in the silence on the other end.
"Ya there?" Mina asks. But then Rhoda speaks.
"It all happened so fast," she says sheepishly, "I'm not sure how I did it."
In the process, the thoughts built up rapidly in a chain reaction, giving her a hard time of catching up with them. All she can grasp are the feelings of joy, laughter and care that are left in their wake.
Then the volume of her voice escalated again, "But WHOO-HOO-HOO! I made a heart!"
Mina inspects the phone as though hoping to find a Mute Button. Rhoda happily continues.
"Although I do remember one of those thoughts were about you!"
Silence follows her words and Rhoda can hear Mina making a deadpanned expression.
"I swear, my love for you is sincerely sisterly."
"Is it?"
It would be a while before Rhoda will get it.
To the new readers: if you enjoyed this story and wanted to read more about girl Roger and guy Jessica, I would suggest you read Across the Alternate where Roger meets Jesse and Baby Mina and Rhoda meets Jessica and Baby Herman with their backstory included!
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