Venomous Part 2 – Pernicious

Disclaimer: This is a work of art, not intended for profit or offense. I own no rights to the subjects. ~I keep forgetting to update my account. this story has been out on my Livejournal, for like, weeeeeeks. Sorry :P

A snake bite has aggravated the already fragile relationship between tomboy Carter Mason and misplaced Princess Rosalinda Montoya. Neither does Rosie's first day at an American high school manage to heal the abrasion.

Rosie shuffles quickly into Carter's room and shuts the door firmly behind her, still uneasy about the large green lizard she stumbled upon not moments before. Henry was actually the Head Royal Gardens Keeper, not quite the "reptile wrangler" as Carter had suggested. Moreover, with the memory of the rattlesnake encounter still fresh in her mind, the alien creature's sudden appearance had more than just startled the young princess.

As Rosie removes her blouse and puts her arms through the sleeves of Carter's old shirt, she thinks to herself that it would indeed be beneficial if she researched some of the local fauna in this part of Louisiana. She was quite unwilling to look a helpless fool again in front of Carter Mason.

Carter opens the door to her room swiftly, carrying the first aid kit, just as Rosie is pulling faded gym shorts up her slim thighs, her white underwear contrasting noticeably against her tan skin in the dim light.

"Gah! Geez, what happened to modesty!? You forget it in the bathroom?!" Carter's first instinct is to shield her eyes and turn. She ignores the fact that the door was closed before.

"I am simply changing into the garments you presented me. What have I done now that has upset you, Carter?" Rosie's hands snap the elastic band of the shorts to her hips and then fall to her side, turning to address Carter directly. Her tone is clipped, but she still holds her head high, showing no embarrassment whatsoever at being caught with her pants down.

Carter swats at something invisible before her face. "Whatever, it's nothing. I need to check your bite before you go to bed." She walks up to the girl and waits. "Uhm, you can sit down, ya know," Carter insists with a lazy sweep of her hand in the general direction of Rosie's bed.

"Oh, yes." Rosie bends gracefully to sit on her bed, her uninjured leg tucked beneath her. She keeps her eyes on Carter's face and notices her features set into a stoic concentration, the same from the first time she inspected her wound (Rosie remembers fleetingly Carter pressing her mouth to her leg, leaving a tingling sensation in her leg and a fuzzy feeling in her mind).

Carter gets on her knees in front of her and removes the bandage carefully. It'll take at least a week for the slightly swollen wound to heal, but Carter feels a smidge of pride at her good work in cleaning and dressing the injury. She pokes lightly at it.

"Does it hurt bad?"

"It is quite uncomfortable to walk with, yes, but I am able to keep the pain under control."

Carter looks up at this answer.

"You don't have to, ya know. You're supposed to be a normal girl, you can bitch and moan about it. It is a snake bite, after all." She looks back down at Rosie's leg. "Although, I'm kinda glad you don't," Carter tilts her head and chuckles a little.

"I know no other way of behaving. Bemoaning an injury only places your suffering on others. One should hold high to her own standards and see through to the end of her ordeal. That is what I have been taught by mi familia.

"Huh. How noble of you." Carter's eyes look up at Rosie from under her short eyelashes.

"Why, thank you, Carter." Rosie smiles. Obviously the quip did not register with the princess. Carter should have known better. She shakes her head.

The girl's gonna get eaten up alive at school tomorrow.

"Can you feel this, Rosie?" Carter runs the tip of her finger up and around the flesh wound, testing for any nerve damage from the trauma. Rosie feels the pleasant sensation as she keeps her eyes on Carter's studious face, and she replies with, "Yes, it feels… fine."

Carter nods and begins unwrapping a new roll of bandage. "Ok, so, you're good. But let me know if you feel any more pain or if it starts bleeding or anything, ok?"

"Yes, I will. Thank you, Carter." Carter secures the cloth with two pins and stands up and retreats to put away the first aid kit.

Rosie crawls gingerly into bed, observing Carter's excellent work on her calf before settling in for the night. She sits up and waits for Carter to return. Which actually doesn't happen for another 20 minutes, as she is heard cleaning up the living room and saying goodnight to her father. Carter walks in with Major Mason just behind her, and he throws Rosie a salute, "'Night, Rosie. Sleep well."

"Goodnight, Major Mason. I wish you a pleasant evening as well." He smiles warmly at her and closes the door behind him.

Carter plops her book bag on her bed and settles at her desk chair for her homework. Rosie watches her for a while before quietly wishing her a goodnight. "Mmhmm," Carter replies distractedly. Rosie allows a frown to mar her features before banishing it away and turning off her lamp. She curls under her covers, facing away from Carter.

About an hour later, Carter lets out one too many frustrated groans, spurring Rosie to rise from her bed and approach the tomboy. Her dark hair is mussed up, presumably by a hand pushing roughly through it several times.

"Do you need help, Carter?"

"Wha- What?" Carter turns to her and regards her as though she forgot she was in the room (she did). Rosie clears her throat and takes a step forward, "With your studies… it seems you are having some trouble… could I perhaps help you with it?"

Carter is sorely tempted to refuse her and send her back to bed, but this damn math problem, its been driving her insane. She sighs in defeat and waves Rosie over.

"If you understand the intricacies of Sine and Cosine and why they must be infernal pains in my butt, then by all means, try your luck."

Carter leans back and stretches while Rosie comes close to her side and inspects the math book. She gets distracted for a second by Carter's abdomen showing beneath her shirt as she lifts her arms up and crosses them behind her head, balancing on the back two legs of her chair.

"May I?" Rosie gestures to Carter's pencil, and Carter nods her head. Rosie picks up the pencil and starts jotting numbers and equations down on the margins of Carter's notebook. Carter notices that her mouth quirks and her lips purse when she concentrates, before she directs her eyes down to observe how Rosie is solving the problem.

"Ah. See, you had the right idea, but you read the question wrong. You were trying to solve for the inverse of the function, when in fact this section just asks for the derivative. See here?" Rosie points to the formula she's written in the margins.

"Ugggggh, really? I've been redoing that stupid problem for the past 10 minutes! I feel so dumb," Carter groans to her lap as she slams down her chair and places her forehead into her palm.

"It's a simple mistake. Please don't berate yourself. You obviously know what you are doing with the rest of these problems." Rosie's hand comes to rest on Carter's shoulder, which causes the girl to shy away. Rosie clasps her hands in front of her, as if she didn't just notice the reemergence of the tension between them.

"Uh, all right. Yea, well, thanks for the help…"

"It was no trouble. Thank you for allowing me to assist you. Goodnight, Carter."

"Yup, Night." Carter waves absently over her shoulder as she jots down the beginning of the next problem. Rosie makes her way back to bed and within 5 minutes Carter snaps off her desk lamp and shoves her books into her bag, dropping it to the floor.

Hours later, Carter opens her eyes and notes the time: 3:13 am.

Rosie has been sniffling constantly from across the room for the past half hour, and Carter bemoans the thought of having to take care of a sick princess on top of babysitting the kindergarten-level socialite.

It's been so long since she's cried herself to sleep, she doesn't remember the sound as it comes from beneath Rosie's quilt blanket.

~~\

Rosie, who has been seated at the wooden kitchen table since 6:30 this morning, presumably waiting for the family meal to start, leans toward the ajar door of Carter's room every few moments to see Carter's form blur back and forth in a frenzied motion. Inside, Carter is busy tossing random bits of loose paper, half-used notebooks and broken pencils and pens with little to no ink left into one of her old school bags. Satisfied, she checks her watch and heads out to the kitchen, where she matches her father's pace circling around Rosie and the table, a dance of stale cereal and cutlery performed and perfected through the years. Carter notes that the puzzled girl is dressed in an assortment of Carter's own clothing, some pieces of which Carter herself has not seen in years.

Carter rarely eats much for breakfast, and certainly won't today since her packing for Rosie ate up most of her precious time. As she chugs down milk she wonders if the princess has ever skipped a meal before.

Carter relishes in the slightly staggered look that crosses Rosie's face as she is told, "you're 16; you go to school," and Carter's tan, recently "supplied" backpack is held out in front of the girl's face. Carter smirks and leads the way out to the driveway. Rosie follows after politely saying goodbye to Major Mason.

Carter's plan of keeping at least 5 feet in front of or behind Rosie at all times works well enough, despite the guileless girl's efforts to match their paces, her smile never wavering in the face of the strange looks she invites. Until lunch, that is, when Rosie starts to make a spectacle of herself with her fancy hamburger date. Carter groans and shuffles quickly over to her.

Over the next few minutes, Carter allows her guard to relax slightly. She gives in and admits that naiveté on Rosie is kinda cute, sometimes, like when she's got a condiment mustache and insists on the "pinky out" rule. She allows herself a small chuckle before Principal Burkle makes himself heard over the cafeteria din.

That familiar feeling is back, the one that Carter recognizes is her gut, telling her something bad is about to go down. She sinks into her seat further.

Annnnnd, score yet another point for Carter's Gut! Carter thinks cynically as Rosie stands up on her chair and boldly nominates her as Homecoming Queen. She can feel the stares of everyone in the building, and hear them all thinking (well, most are actually saying it aloud): Carter Who? Where? Does she go here? What kinda name is Carter for a girl?

Carter flees the cafeteria quickly with her lunch in tow, but has lost her appetite. In fact she feels just the opposite of hungry, and wishes she could find a bush to hurl her stomach contents into. Her flight is quick enough that she loses Rosie, and she spends the rest of lunch period in the bathrooms at the library.

Being the last student into final period and the first out keeps her from hearing anything Rosie has to say, and making her way to the back of the bus with several members of the wrestling team save her during the trip back home. When they arrive, Carter pushes right past a waiting Rosie at the end of the bus steps, but with every shrill cry of her name, Carter feels her heart pound faster and her blood boil. She finally snaps at being "ordered to stop." She stops, but only to retort angrily.

When she sees her dad coming to break up the fray from the corner of her eye, a childishly devious notion passes through her. Maybe if she can convince her dad that Stage 4 for Princess #379 is doomed to fail, she'll get sent somewhere else. Like an asylum. Or a nunnery.

Her dad seems unfazed however, and instead shows interest in Rosie's "adventure in school today." Carter feels her jaw grinding in frustration, and she just can't handle seeing that "high and mighty" look on the foreigner's face anymore. She stomps off toward the house, leaving Rosie and her heavenly reaching eyebrows in her dust.

~to be continued.