Notes: Well, here's another parody. Just to ward off questions, I'm not bashing the pairing, only poking fun at the way it's usually handled in fanfic. To anyone who can pull it off without it looking like this, more power to you.
As for Vicki, she's my RP character. I like giving her headaches, but sometimes I run out of ways to do that in-game. So, she gets to appear in a fanfic.
Warnings: Intentional OOC behavior on the parts of several characters. Also, I apologize in advance for Nakuru's message.
Disclaimer: Card Captor Sakura and all related characters, places, and concepts belong to CLAMP.
Strange Behavior
In a typical school in London, a boy and a girl walked out of a class together.
"Stupid history classes, never teach anything besides U.S. History," the girl grumbled. "Please tell me I wasn't the only one to draw a blank when he mentioned the Sino-Japanese War?"
"Oh, yes, Japan. The most beautiful place in the world. Home to the most exquisite flower of them all, the plum blossom," the boy replied.
"Very funny, Eriol. Anyway, do you mind if I come over-"
He cut her off, "Oh, Tomoyo, why did I ever leave you behind?"
"…are you trying to make a joke, Eriol? And who is this Tomoyo?"
"Oh, if only I were joking. But, no, I left Tomoeda before I realized my true love. It has torn me up ever since!"
"Oh, so she's one of Naoko's friends?" she asked. "Why haven't you ever mentioned her before?"
"The thought of what I had lost was too painful. I could not so much as utter her name until now!"
"…o-kay. Anyway, I was hoping that we could start with the Ming and Qing dynasties, and work our way to the wars from there-"
"Oh, don't speak of China. All the time I was in Tomoeda, I paid more attention to Sakura's Chinese friend than to the delicate plum blossom!"
"…do you have to keep bringing her up?"
"I can't help it! Everything reminds me of my beloved Tomoyo!"
The girl glanced sideways at the boy, then tried again. "You know, I heard about this one sculpture that fried birds in the air…"
"Tomoyo would have loved to tape that!"
"I figured."
Eriol disappeared en-route to the library, but Vicki did not mind. He was acting strange, and she only knew of one person who could help explain matters to her. Unfortunately, he was not in the library, either.
"Spinel? Spinel! Where are you? I need to talk to you!"
After much searching, she eventually spotted a black tail poking out from one of the cupboards in the kitchen.
"Spinel? Is that you?" she called.
"Go away," a muffled voice replied.
"Spinel, I need to talk to you! Eriol's acting weird; he keeps talking about-"
"I know. Why do you think I'm hiding?"
"Well, you shouldn't be! You're supposed to do something!"
She threw open the small door, exposing the cat-like guardian, as well as the cupboard's edible contents.
"What the- are those sweets? You usually avoid them like the plague! Aren't you allergic?"
Spinel pulled himself up with all the dignity he could muster. "Actually, they make me drunk. That's what I want. Now, will you please let me be?"
She gaped at him. "Are you serious? Eriol needs your help, and you're getting drunk! What about your responsibilities!"
"Trust me, Vicki, we're both better off getting drunk in this situation," he replied.
"Oh, come on, it can't be all that bad-"
A noise from somewhere in the mansion caused her to stop talking and listen. She turned back to Spinel after a moment, incredulous.
"I- is that Eriol? Singing?"
Anything Spinel might have said was drowned out a second later, as the noise increased. Vicki quickly slammed the kitchen door, then closed the window for good measure.
"That…sounded like a…love song," she gasped. "Why is Eriol singing love songs? And is he trying to be heard in California or something?"
"He's trying to reach Tomoeda, I believe. And yes, those are love songs. He wrote them himself, for Tomoyo," Spinel answered.
"Oh. Well, I guess that's…in line with how he's been acting…" she said. "Wait a minute, how did you know that it was about Tomoyo? I couldn't understand anything!"
"I've seen this before," he sighed.
"You don't mean…"
Spinel sighed again. He wanted to get drunk, not think about it more.
"This has happened numerous times in the past. It's always the same; all of a sudden, Eriol starts behaving in such a fashion. From what I hear, Tomoyo changes similarly, and at the same time."
"So, what do you do?"
"Most of the time, Nakuru…takes care of the situation before he gets too far along."
"And, what happens when she doesn't?"
"The effects vary greatly. Most often, Eriol becomes like this, but in the past, he has considered moving back to Japan, joining a gang, or even starting his own world-famous band." Spinel sighed yet again. "Be thankful that he has not done anything drastic yet."
"Yeah, I guess," she said. She looked away for a minute, until realized something.
"Spinel, if Nakuru's the one who usually fixes this, what are we going to do now?" She paused for thought, then spoke up again. "Should we go to Ms. Mizuki for help?"
"Kaho? You could try, but I don't think that she will be able to help. She's the one who gave me the sweets. She left some alcoholic drinks for you, by the way," he answered.
"Why? Doesn't she still care about him?"
"Of course she does, but sometimes he acts in a very unusual fashion when she tries to talk to him like this. I believe that she stopped trying after he sent her death threats."
"Death threats? I can understand why she's staying out of this, then," Vicki said. "Still, that doesn't help us."
"I have already sent an e-mail to Nakuru. With luck, she will have noticed Tomoyo's behavior where she is, and will have some suggestions by tomorrow."
"Oh, that's a relief. Is there anything I can do to help while we wait?"
Spinel considered that for a second. "Actually, if you could send a similar message to Yanagisawa-san, asking for her observations on the Tomoyo situation, that would be very helpful."
Vicki looked at the closed door. "You mean, use the computer? Out there?" At Spinel's nod, she sighed, and moved to the door. "If I'm not back in half an hour, I couldn't take it ran back to my house, so don't come after me."
"I will have a drink prepared for you when you return."
"Thanks," she said, then, squaring her shoulders, she left the safety of the kitchen.
Ohayo, Suppi-onii-chan!
Gomen about Eriol-sama. I don't like it when he's unhappy. It makes me unhappy and then I start crying and my outfit gets all messed up and I need to change and that makes me more unhappy and then Yue-onii-chan tells me to stop being so shallow so I yell at him and then we get into fights and Kero-chan-onii-chan joins in and my outfit gets burned!
Anyways, about your
question, hai, Tomoyo did start acting strange yesterday. It's
funny, isn't it? How they always go all crazy at the same time?
Baka, if you ask me.
Oh, you also wanted to know about Sakura-chan and Syaoran-kun? Well, they're baka too. They act like they're glued together at the lips! It's so kawaii! Oh, and Meiling-chan seems to be normal, along with everyone else! We'll get things straightened out over here, never fear! Not that you'd doubt my abilities, ne, onii-chan?
Your onee-chan
Nakuru
PS: Why don't you convince Vicki-chan to try the usual method? Remember to take pictures and send them to me if she does!
Vicki read the e-mail, read it again, then buried her head in her arms.
"Does she have to use Japanese?"
Spinel looked over at the young woman still nursing her head. "They make your hangover worse; that is what you mean?"
She nodded, then winced from the movement.
"I believe that Eriol keeps some spare headache potion in that cabinet, if it is really causing you trouble," Spinel said.
"Thanks for telling me." She snatched up the bottle and gulped down several mouthfuls, one right after another.
Spinel waited a moment. "Feel better?"
"Yeah. That's stuff really effective," she replied.
"It should be," he sniffed. "As for Nakuru's reply, I believe that she has been affected as well; not as badly as some of the others, but still not quite normal…if you can ever call her 'normal'. And how did your reconnaissance go? Did you find out anything from Eriol's friends?" Spinel asked.
"Not much more than you've already told me, really," she replied. "Probably nothing that you don't already know. I mentioned it to Alan, and he basically told me that they wait for everything to blow over, and laugh at Eriol in the meantime. He also said that sometimes Eriol thinks that his name is Eli, and that he obsesses over 'Madison', whoever that is."
"Yes, I already suspected as much. What about Naoko? Have you heard from her yet?"
"I'll check now, just give me a sec." She turned back to the computer and started typing; Spinel fluttered across the study to land on the desk, facing the screen.
"Junk, junk, report from useless spam blocker, more junk…here we are! Naoko Yanagisawa!" she exclaimed.
Vicki-san,
It is good to hear from you again. As for your questions, I have noticed a change in Tomoyo-chan's behavior. I believe that Meiling-chan has as well, and I know that Rika-chan and Chiharu-chan share my concerns. We are planning a distraction, the three of us together; it is in discussion stages only, but I think that we will ask her to redesign all the cheerleaders' uniforms. That should be enough to keep her occupied, and if not, I am certain that Meiling-chan has something planned.
I am…worried about Tomoyo-chan, to tell the truth. She seems to have lost all interest in her usual activities; she has not once tried to film Sakura-chan and Li-kun, even though they provide her with many opportunities! She spends all her time sighing over Hiiragizawa-kun, even though I do not remember her ever feeling that strongly about him before. Well, that is not quite true; she has acted this way in the past, for brief periods. They have always started without warning and ended just as abruptly. I am not sure if you understand, or if any of it helps, but I hope that this all turns out all right.
Yanagisawa Naoko
"Well, it looks like they will have the situation over there under control in no time," Spinel said after a pause. "That will help us, naturally, but we still need to find some way to make Eriol forget about Tomoyo."
"What about Nakuru's method? Didn't you say that it almost always works?" she asked.
Spinel looked away. "It has not failed yet, but I am not sure that you would really want to try it." He leaned in closer and muttered something in her ear. Vicki pulled away almost reflexively, and looked at Spinel like he had gone mad.
"She does what? And you want me to do that now? And…" -she scanned Nakuru's message again- "she wants you to take pictures?"
"I am certain that she would destroy them once she returned to normal…" he said, uncomfortable nonetheless.
"Not good enough. If you're going to go with that sort of distraction, leave me out of it. Besides, how do know that it would even work if I did it?"
"That is a good point; perhaps it is the shock value of one who could be considered his daughter demonstrating those types of feelings for him that breaks him out of this state…" Spinel mused.
"Well, this is going nowhere, unless you think that jumping Eriol and dousing him with ice water would do some good. By the way, where is he? I haven't seen him since I left last night."
Spinel snorted. "To the best of my knowledge, he is on the roof, writing poetry dedicated to Tomoyo and sighing dramatically every five minutes, to the second."
"…at least he isn't singing anymore," she said.
"Indeed."
"Listen, I'm going home now, before I get the urge to drink myself stupid again. Since we don't seem to be getting anywhere."
"That's probably a good idea. By the way, what did you do after you left?" he asked.
"I'm not quite sure, but I do know that I called home from some Underground station at three in the morning. My parents weren't too happy, but at least I'm not grounded," she answered.
"So you will come over tomorrow?"
"Of course. No way I'm leaving you to handle this alone."
Spinel,
You won't believe what happened! Daidouji-san's already back to normal, and I barely had to do anything! Isn't that great?
What happened is that the cheerleading team ganged up on her all at once. They "requested" redesigned uniforms and said that she was the only person they trusted to do the job right. Then, just as Daidouji-san started getting really excited about the fabrics, Meiling-san and Li-kun started arguing. Just a few meters away! I could see the whole thing! Even better, both Sakura-san and Daidouji-san did as well!
Well, I couldn't hear exactly what they said, but I saw that Sakura-san took Meiling-san's side over Li-kun's. He kept yelling, this time at both of them! So, I called Touya-kun, told him that Li-kun was upsetting Sakura-san, and in one minute flat he was in the thick of it and threatening to beat Li-kun to a pulp! Now Sakura-san's angry at both of them and Daidouji-san's too busy trying to patch everything up to think about Eriol at all! Would you believe that Meiling-san planned the whole thing? She's really good at getting them to act normal!
Well, I guess that means that I have everything under control over here. Now it's your turn to fix Eriol. Hopefully it'll be easier now.
Nakuru
P.S. You didn't tell Miss Adams about my last message, right? I didn't really mean it.
Spinel pointed to the postscript. "I told you that she wasn't serious."
Vicki ignored it in favor of the main body. "So, everything's just peachy over there. Now, how does that help us again? Eriol's worse, if anything. He hasn't budged in over a day!"
Spinel smiled slyly. "Not directly, but now he should be more open to…distractions."
"Meaning?"
"We can finally get him off the roof."
"Great," she said. "You wouldn't have any plans for what to do after that, would you?"
Spinel's smile grew wider. "As a matter of fact, I do. Now, if you wouldn't mind doing me a favor…"
"Eriol! There's a call for you!" Vicki shouted out the window.
"I care not! All that matters is my Tomoyo!"
"Oh, for…" she muttered. "It is Tomoyo!"
"Tell her I'll be right there! And tell her that I love her!" he called back, just before he started for the skylight.
Vicki pulled her head back inside. "Are you sure that this will work? And he won't remember the lie?" she asked Spinel.
"Just trust me," he replied.
Anything she might have said was cut off by Eriol entering the study. He looked around, surprised at the lack of an active phone call, but before he had a chance to say anything, Spinel flew up to him, holding a photograph.
"There you are. Vicki and I were just discussing it. It seems that she spotted a magical disturbance nearby and managed to take a picture of it. You wouldn't be responsible, would you?" Spinel asked.
Eriol took the photograph and examined it carefully. "No, I didn't do that… It looks like a levitation spell gone wrong, though…" he said.
"Perhaps you should investigate it?" Spinel suggested.
"Yes, that sounds like a good idea…" Eriol mumbled, half to himself. "Where did you see this, Vicki?"
"Kensington Gardens," she answered quickly. Spinel shot her a look, but Eriol was too busy getting his key and coat to notice.
"Thank you very much. I'll be back soon," he called back to them as he walked out the door.
"Kensington Gardens," Spinel repeated under his breath.
"You said to make it a challenge! And nobody looked twice at me," she added when he still did not look up. "Really! The crazy tourist act works every time. I bet they get asked to do stranger things that throw rocks all the time."
"I didn't mean- Never mind," he sighed. "It worked; that's the important part. Just don't expect it to do so next time."