Marco Bodt! Checking in! No, checking out with this random guy that I had grabbed but certainly not checking him out! Penguin Suit boy with The RoBodt as his rescuer! (coming soon to screens near you)
Our footsteps thudded along the concrete path -his more than mine as he slowed down- and yes, our friends The Muggers, those beautiful hooded bandits, were trailing behind us closely.
I'll tell you something, I have absolutely no idea how people do it in the movies; running away from the bad guy -let alone a collapsing building or an avalanche or I don't know some kind of zombie apocalypse where all the zombies are drooling and out to get you and so don't have any sort of weapon and you're just running for your life except you're only human so really you only have so much life in you- wasn't the easiest thing in the world. Leaves you wheezing and achy and so on.
Run Marco Run!
Remember Forest Gump?
I always wondered how he did that running thing. Teach me; oh great one. I lack the running ability required for such a mission as this.
BUT I HAD ENERGY DRINK AND ADRENELENE. YEEHAH!
And thus my freckled friend was pulled along for the ride with many a yelp. Sounded like hiccups with the way we were running. Or Goofy's laugh.
Using a lamp post with a flower basket on it, I grabbed onto it and swung myself round the corner, seeing as people run slower round corners. I learnt that during track. Pay attention during school guys! You leanr to save people, but for now: EN AVANT.
I hit something solid as I lunged around the corner, swinging Penguin suit dude along for the ride, and blinked a couple of times before I realised I was face to air -looked down- in front of a certain grumbling doctor -oh hey it's the nose hair trimming guy!- that had a dazed and confused expression until it shifted into something a little more scary. Or well it would have been. If I had been the size of a bug.
"You again." he sneered with a curled lip. That attitude ain't gon get you nowhere nuh-uh-
I nodded to him with a snap of my head before darting my head to look round at the sound of footsteps, shifting from foot to foot nervously. I grabbed his shoulders, willing the boy to follow behind me as the man beneath me protested, struggling but NO HIS EFFORTS WERE USELESS HAHAHA.
"Your mockery is not something I've missed but HEY! I've made some new friends, I think you should make some new friends too! Do you have friends? Do you know what they are, sir? They're like squirrels and they hide away all the titbits they know about you and sometimes they're like dogs because they like to go for you for attention and annoy you but it's also cute and sometimes they're like cats because they like to snuggle up to you and both is fine both is good, you know?
This is some little freckled guy I picked up -what a way to make friends! Reminds me of primary school, oh the memories!- and we're being chased! MUGGERS. Our new buddies! Friends! Lots of friends! It's a damn PAR-TAY out here!"
Levi squirmed beneath me and suddenly I realised he wasn't in his doctor's outfit. Why did I miss this fact? Did I like doctors in their uniforms? Or did I just like the uniforms? God how do I break the news to my parents that I'm a pervert wait do you tell your parents things like that?
"OI! Let me go, you damn brat!" He was wearing combats and doc martin knock offs and is that a wife beater OKAY THIS FEELS LIKE AN ACTION MOVIE NOW, YOU GO LEVI ARMY DUDE YOU GO, MAN-
"LEVI! Big bro! Is that you?! Yoohoo!" A girlish voice squealed from behind me.
The sound of footsteps got louder, Levi escaped my grip and turned around and suddenly I wasn't sure if I should keep running or if I should start thinking 'hey let's go against my own beliefs of not wanting to make friends with muggers'. Yeah who cares if they have knives and a possible objective to kill this freckled dude -not me, hopefully- if they know a certain scary doctor then all's good of course it is-
No. I kept running because Ohana means family and family means nobody gets left behind-
Or you know. Maybe they do get left behind because they can't keep up and prefer to hide behind short scary doctors (he really is short isn't he?). Oh god it's all my fault; I let go of him in favour of clutching for dear life onto Levi and Levi was conspiring against us the entire time, I'm so sorry my freckled brother I never meant for it to end this way I swear I never intended to betray you. Eat the apples, son, eat all the apples; they keep the doctors away, quick we need a doctor repellent, just eat the damn apples-
Levi had his arms crossed, facing the hooded muggers that had gleaming, manic smiles lit up from under their hoods and I decided I'd hide behind him too because if the freckled dude was doing so then why not, yeah, hide behind Dr. Levi even though he practically left half of my body open for aimed knives and bullets and I owed him like ten billion bucks which is probably more than the cost of my ransom and-
oh god this is how it's going to end Jean I'm sorry I never got to tell you I love you -YOUR HAIR JEAN I REALLY FREAKING LOVE YOUR HAIR I NEVER SAID THAT I LOVED YOU WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT-
With the deepest frown I've ever seen on a face and one that made him look at least twenty years older (or just like a pug tbh), Levi marched up to the hooded bandits and ripped down their disguises, revealing a girl with red hair in pigtails and a much taller guy with platinum blonde hair (ugh I've always wanted that colour of hair, probably wouldn't suit me at all but hey I can dream; one day I will be the good version -I don't even know if he's the good or the bad guy he's so weird I love him- Aru Akise from Future Diary wait I don't think he looks anything like me damn my freckles why the freckles and the wide jaw? God I just want to look like the Japanese Artificial Existence Gay Dude is that so much to ask?!).
Then Levi eyed the knives in their hands and took them off them without another word and sighed. He mumbled something about how unsafe it was to be carrying knives around in public.
…
(AGRESSIVELY PAUSES) …
Was there no lecture about how they'd attempted to kill the precious freckled boy and me and chased us down like five blocks? Why not? Levi looked like the lecture kind and he had just given them a lecture about carrying knives albeit a short one but even so?
"EXCUSE ME CAN YOU APOLOGIZE TO ME AND MY FRECKLED COMRADE BECAUSE YOU SCARED THE FREAKING LIFE OUTTA US AND CHASED US FOREVER AND I DON'T THINK THAT WAS VERY NICE-"
Levi turned to look at me with a bored expression. "Jeez kid calm down, they weren't going to try anything."
I gestured wildly to their knives that Levi was now holding. "THEY COULD HAVE KILLED HIM AND THEY WERE TRYING TO MUG HIM-"
"Yeah! You scum have no right to try and mug me. Do you even know who I am?!"
I raised my hand. "I don't."
Levi, Penguin Boy and the other two hoodlums glanced at me, seemingly irritated. The red head bared her teeth and began sizing up the boy, who was no longer protected by Levi. He walked backwards as she grew closer.
"We was tryin' to ask directions t' thee hospital t' see where Levi was and when we was asking you, you started screamin' at us like we were low lifers and telling us to mind our own damn business!" She spat in his face, raising her arms and moving her head from side to side threateningly.
"Well you've got Levi now so can you leave him alone and stop scaring him like that? Look at his poor little face he's trembling the or baby don't do that to someone of the freckled tribe-"
"Scaring him like what?"
"Uh. Invading his personal space and shouting at him, being all in his bubble, excessive noise levels; that sort of thing."
She glimpsed at me from the corner of her eye and sauntered over to me with a dangerous grin. "That's funny you should mention that! Because who was just shouting round like he owned the place, huh?" She poked my chest and she was so close that I could see the pock marked texture of her skin. "Tellin' me to not goes stabbing peoples even though I ain't done nothing!"
"Isabelle. Grammar." Levi chastened her, rolling his eyes and walking away with the white haired boy who was glaring at me quite obviously. He kinda looked a bit like a monkey. He had an under bite. You know where your bottom lip sticks out more than the top one.
'Isabelle' made a face, sticking her neon pink (lollypop affected?) tongue out her mouth a little and frowning at Levi so that he couldn't see her face. She backed down from me, bowing mockingly then looked up at me with a deadpan expression.
"Ever so sorry goven'a. Of course I never intended to ridicule you and your thickset acquaintance here." She stood upright, flicking a hand at me with bitten down and crudely made up nails as she flounced off. "Ta-ta, cheerio, boy-o! Good riddance."
Levi turned back to us from a few paces away, walking backwards alongside the taller man. "I'd apologize for her behaviour, but she's always like that so… No such luck."
Levi smirked at us, ruffling a devilishly grinning Isabelle's hair. I swore his previously elegant posture had suddenly turned into that of a gangster. I frowned furiously -that's passive aggressiveness right there- at his back.
Swiggity swag, he ain't got much height in the bag.
I turned to check on the other boy -feeling a sense of pride because he had freckles (it's really important to me okay)- and reached my hand out for him to shake, which he never took.
Instead he crossed his arms and grimaced. "If you really want to thank me you should be spending money on me. Oh wait! You probably don't even have any." he snorted grossly, chuckling at what seemed to be his version of a joke. Thank, thank him? But I was the one who saved him!
"Flegal Reeves. Don't forget that name, or else."
And he… just… walked away, down the street, huffing like absolutely nothing had happened.
Ooh he could bet his not sweet ass that I wouldn't be forgetting his name any time soon, not on my watch. I didn't have a watch. Eh. I could draw one on.
I tried to find the bench I'd been sitting on before, but ended up finding Jean at the corner I'd been at before where I'd saved Flegal. Flegal Reeves. Fat Penguin Boy. My mouth was twitching at the bruising new memory.
I saw him before he saw me, so I decided to sneak up behind him and head butt his shoulder with my head. It would've worked but he was a few inches shorter than me. I felt him tense up under my touch. He hissed worriedly.
"Ooh you're pissed, what's up man?"
"Ugh," I pushed into him, guiding him to move forwards with my head which he did, with a stumble. "Just, just ugh."
He chuckled and reached over his shoulder to pat me on that head. "I know the feeling well. Are you still up for Sasha's?"
I made a noise that meant I didn't really care either way, revelling in his warmth and smell and trying not to wrap my arms around his waist and snuggle into him but hey how bad would that really be?
"I tried to save this guy from some muggers and I ran into Dr. Levi and all the muggers were dicks and the guy I saved was a dick, and I'm not implying he was a Richard - in the how do you get Dick from Richard kind of way- I mean he was just so horrible and I am so sad right now and the world hates me and I have done nothing wrong and just uuugh."
Jean started humming along the way ( was he becoming a daytime person? Had I transformed him?!) in a way that had my heart melting metaphorically and my insides feel warm (figuratively?), after I moved from my position on his shoulder and trudged alongside him; all traces of my adrenaline high gone without a trace. Hmm. They do say that coming down from a high is pretty awful. What drugs were in that Redbull? Maybe dope. Because. I felt like one.
Eventually though, Jean had me caught up in his apparent good mood when he started singing out loud and even had me singing along. "If you let me treasure you, oh, oh, OH!"
"Bruno Mars… hey, Jean, I'd catch a grenaaade for ya." That made him hit my arm because apparently he hates that song. I don't really blame him. It was just so wail-y.
In between my bobbing head and swinging shoulders that stayed in time to the song, I nudged into him every so often and smiled, biting my lip as I showed off how much of a dork I could be with my ridiculous dance moves, and Jean returned the movement with a swift spin or jazz hands. The he saw which house we were outside of, and jumped over the front gate with energy I wasn't aware that he was capable of and completely changed his tune, literally.
"MY FRIEND THE WITCH DOCTOR: SHE TOLD ME WHAT TO DO."
Then a female voice I didn't recognise sounded from inside the house.
"MY FRIEEEEND THE WITCHDOCTOR, SHE TOLD ME WHAT TO SAAAAY."
And in that moment, I began to regret asking to see Sasha's parents; the witch and the demon hunter. (Is that the deleted episode of the Buffy series or...)
