Over the Hills and Far Away
Chapter Eleven - Hungry
Calico sat on the stool next to Purple and watched him silently for what seemed like hours. At first, even the bartender didn't notice her, and said nothing to acknowledge her presence even when he did. Purple, too caught up with his own thoughts to consider anything else, didn't see her at all. He rested his head in his hands and massaged his temples with his long, spindly fingers, sighing every so often. Calico touched his arm lightly and cleared her throat, causing him to jump with surprise and knock his glass flying. She caught it in the nick of time, managing to keep most of the liquid in the glass as she did so.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you, my Tallest," she said, holding the glass out to Purple, who looked at it but didn't take it. She placed it back on the bar in front of him as the bartender set about mopping up the spilt drink.
"What are you doing here?" Purple asked, eyeing her mistrustfully.
"I just wanted to see if you were okay," she replied, and his eyes narrowed slightly. As he looked at her, his fingers curled into a loose ball on the bar.
"Why would you care, mate-slave?" he asked in a voice that, though feigning strength and indifference, sounded as though it would crack under the strain of doing so.
Calico reached across the counter of the bar and gently took Purple's hand, curling her cold fingers loosely around his, just as he had done to hers during the bonding 'ceremony'. He stared at their hands for a while, before turning to look at her face with questioning eyes. Her fingers traced lightly over his, leaving a ghostly tingling feeling on his skin. She offered him a small smile, and though he didn't return it, she grinned broader still as she spoke.
"Because I'm your mate. I'm your partner and I'm supposed to care," she replied, and he rolled his eyes. She continued in a softer tone, "I can tell you're not okay. Do you want to talk about it? Maybe I could make you feel better."
There was a short pause, in which Purple pulled his hand away from Calico's. He stared ahead, obviously thinking hard about what to say and what to do. He wrung his hands together, staring into the half-empty glass that still sat in front of him. His long tongue flicked across his lips and his antennas twitched nervously. Eventually he let out a pent-up breath in a long sigh and turned back to Calico, beaten. Beaten by whom was a different matter altogether.
"Why did you pick me? I know you liked Red better," he asked dully, before adding, "You do know I don't like you, right?"
"I know," Calico said sadly, lowering her eyes, "But I can still like you, right?"
"I... guess so," he replied uncertainly, an eyebrow raised. She looked back up with a brilliant smile.
"That's good. Because I do like you, my Tallest," she said coyly, edging closer to Purple, who was looking increasingly uncomfortable and unsure of what to do with himself. She took his hand again and squeezed it gently, continuing in a voice that was close to a whisper, "If you ever need me, you know where I am."
She kissed his cheek, stood up and left without another word. Purple span round on the stool to watch her leave, his hand pressed up against the spot where she had kissed him, his eyes wide. The bartender smiled when he turned back around, but Purple didn't notice. It wasn't how he had expected it to be, he thought to himself as he span back and forth on his stool. He wasn't sure he had really liked it, but it hadn't been unpleasant. He wished Red was with him then, just so he could tell him that he'd had his first kiss.
He shook himself. Not only was Red not coming back, he had already decided a long time ago that he didn't want to spend time with Calico. He wasn't sure what had happened, or why he had lapsed the rule. Perhaps it was because he missed Red, or because he had had a lot to drink, but she had seemed a lot... friendlier? Nicer? Purple wasn't sure. But he did know that it wasn't going to happen again. He needed to try and get Red back, and the last thing he needed was some stupid female poking her nose in where it wasn't concerned.
--
Trix settled more comfortably on her bunk, glancing occasionally at Red without much interest. She had been so angry to see Calico that she hadn't wondered why she was there at the time, but now that she was thinking straight again, she realised that the Irken that was now her cellmate evidently knew the Eiscalian princess. She stuck out her lower lip and blew the quills on her head out of her eyes. They only stood up if she was angry or excited; it gave her a more intimidating appearance, but when she was resting they flopped over to one side like reeds. This guy probably knew Calico, and she didn't like that. She hated any guy that had slept with Calico on principle.
Red rolled his eyes over to Trix, watching her watching him. He was incredibly bored; though he was used to sitting around and doing nothing, he usually had someone to talk to, or order around, or some snacks to eat. He was starving now, actually, but he was more interested in his cellmate. Was she really, as Calico had said, a princess? After a while, he cleared his throat and attempted conversation.
"So, you know Calico too, huh?" he asked. Trix stared at him incredulously, an eyebrow raised. There was a long silence before he tried again with, "You're a princess, then?"
Trix sighed and turned over to face the wall, maintaining her silence in a way that was almost infuriating. However, thinking that it would be unwise to be infuriated with her, Red held his tongue. He tried to get comfortable on the hard bunk that he was lying on. All he had was a cushion to put his head on; there wasn't even a blanket. Eventually he gave up, sitting on the edge of the bunk instead. He tapped his fingers together then sighed.
"Sucks around here, huh?" he noted, and suddenly Trix had leapt up from her bunk and grabbed him by the neck, hoisting him off the ground so that his eyes were level with hers. He gagged, scrabbling ineffectually at her hands in a desperate attempt to get her to loosen her grip. She didn't.
"You wanna know how much it sucks around here?" she asked in a deadly whisper, "Sometimes it sucks so badly that, just as you've finally got a place where you can just sit on your own and think your own thoughts, they chuck some irritating little Irken who doesn't know when to shut up in with you, quickly followed by a visit from the single most evil female this side of Satania. Sound rough to you?"
"Yeah... that sounds pretty rough," Red rasped, his face steadily turning an ugly mottled green as he choked.
She threw him back onto the bunk with a grunt and settled back on her own bunk as though nothing had happened. Red sat up, gasping huge breaths and rubbing his bruised neck tenderly. At that moment the door slid open and a burly guard walked in. Red sighed in relief, thinking that he had seen what Trix had done and was moving him to a new cell, but when he spoke, his hopes were simultaneously dashed and replaced.
"Dinner," the guard said in a guttural voice, and Red grinned. Trix raised an eyebrow.
"You mean we're not going to the dining hall?" she said, and the guard shook his head.
"The Irken's a new convict. You're supposed to eat here with him tonight, so we can make sure you're not gonna kill him as well, you murdering scum," he growled. Red blanched, but tried to keep a brave face.
"Well, I'm starving. I'll have a large plate of nachos, extra cheese," he said. Both Trix and the guard stared at him.
"Of course, your highness," the guard said, barely able to keep the smug smile from his face. He backed out of the room, making elaborate bowing gestures as he did so. Red sat back, satisfied, anticipating his meal.
--
Calico hadn't been invited to eat with Purple tonight, which she was relieved about. When she spent too much time 'in-character' around him, she began to feel like an idiot. She wasn't even sure that there was any point in pretending to like him when he obviously didn't care about her. However, her pride and vanity ruled the situation; nobody turned her down, nobody was too good for her. She was going to make him love her, no matter how hard it was.
At the moment she was sitting on her own in the room that Red and Purple had eaten breakfast in, staring at the transmission screen wistfully. Her mother would probably be eating right now, back in the comfortable palace on Eiscalia. As she watched the empty screen, she saw the dining room in her mind; the table decked with delicious hot, steaming soup, tender meat, crisp vegetables and sumptuous cakes. She was waiting for the service drones to bring her meal in, imagining the heavenly Eiscalian dishes. Her stomach growled loudly in the empty room. She hadn't eaten since the mouthful of doughnut she had suffered at breakfast.
Finally the service drone scurried in, holding a rattling silver tray. He raised himself up on mechanical legs to reach the table, placing it in front of her humbly. The servants on the Massive didn't know how to act around Calico. She was married to the Tallest, and yet he called her a slave. Was she their equal, or their mistress? She acted like the latter, but in truth she wasn't sure of her position either. She looked down at the meal she had been brought and her stomach turned. There was a plate of nachos, dripping hot cheese, served with a portion of fries on which grease glistened queasily. Next to this were several churros, glazed with sticky sugar. The drone placed a cardboard cup of soda next to it, slotting the straw into the lid for her. She stared at the tray in nauseous horror before turning to face the drone.
"Is something wrong with your meal, Miss Calico?" the drone asked mildly, and she sighed.
"I... I'm not hungry," she said, standing up. Her stomach gurgled loudly again, and her cheeks flushed. She left the room quickly, fleeing to her quarters where she threw herself onto her bed tearfully. Kubb was completely wrong, she thought to herself, the food from the Massive was not the best in the Universe. In fact, she doubted there could be anything less appetising to eat.
--
Twenty minutes after he had left, the guard returned to Red's cell with a wooden tray containing two bowls and two spoons. Red sat up quickly, sniffing the air for the nachos he had been promised. His mouth was watering just thinking about it. He glanced at Trix as he did so, who remained as stoic about the prospect of food as she did about everything else. The sheet of reinforced glass rose slowly to allow the guard in, and he shuffled over to Trix first, unceremoniously handing her a bowl and a spoon.
"For the pretty princess," he smirked, but still no emotion showed on the Calorian's face. She seemed to have heard it all before. He turned to Red, smirking. "And for the mighty Irken Tallest."
Red began to smile smugly, before the bowl was shoved into his lap. He stared into it, his lip curling. Before him was a bowl of slop; some sort of weird, semi-transparent, gloopy substance that was beginning to congeal. He looked up at the guard, who had an evil leer on his face.
"This is..." Red began, and the guard's leer spread further, splitting his face.
"One plate of nachos," he said, before hocking back and spitting a lump of yellowy phlegm into the bowl. He grinned and added a contemptuous, "Extra cheese."
He threw back his head and began to cackle. He left the cell and slammed the heavy door behind him, and the sound of his laughter echoed back down the corridor as he walked away. Red sat on the bunk, staring into the bowl with mortified horror. Across the cell, Trix ate her own meal noisily, shovelling the thick, gelatinous substance into her mouth roughly, as though she daren't let it touch her tongue for too long.
She watched him as she ate, feeling a pang of pity eclipse the amusement she had felt when she had first observed the scene. Red sat there, his antennas drooping, his eyes half-lidded as he tried to pick around the phlegm with his spoon. Though he managed a couple of mouthfuls he eventually gave up and dropped the bowl on the floor, laying down and closing his eyes. When Trix finished eating, the only sound that could be heard was Red's stomach, growling hungrily as they sat in silence and tried to ignore it.
--
Putting the kiss out of his mind had proven to be more difficult that Purple had originally imagined. The incident kept replaying in his head, but when he tried to think of something else, the only topics that came to mind were the absence of Red or how worried about messing up he now was. He lay supine on the couch, shovelling snacks into his mouth without tasting them in a failing attempt to fill the void and pass the time. Every time a service drone came into the room he jumped, terrified that they would bring with them news of some reporter who wanted an interview, or of some event he had to take part in.
Red would have known what to do, he thought. The last time he had properly spent with Red was back at Minas' party, when Red had been making out with that server. Red wouldn't think twice about it if Calico had kissed him, his mind added. He considered this. It was true; Red had seen Calico as nothing more than another dispensable slave, and would have exploited her in every way he could think of. In fact, when Purple thought about it that way, he couldn't see why he wasn't doing that now. After all, what else would the princess be doing? Sitting around, taking up space, eating all of his snacks and not giving anything back. Well, he'd put an end to that, and hopefully these annoying thoughts about her kissing him as well.
"You!" he said, pointing at a random drone. The short, green eyed male stood to attention with a speed that was quite comical, "Fetch the mate-slave. Bring her here, get her to do stuff. Tell her that her break's over, and she's got to start whim-obeying now."
"Of course, my Tallest," the drone said humbly, bowing out of the room. Five minutes later he reappeared, Calico in tow.
"You called, my Tallest?" she said.
"I'm hungry, mate-slave," Purple declared, and there was a short silence in which Calico looked questioningly at the drones, each holding a different tray of snacks. He caught her gaze, but said nothing.
"You have plenty of snacks, my Tallest," Calico pursued eventually, and Purple smirked. When his face changed like that, his eyes almost swapped to red.
"Oh I know there's food, mate-slave. But it's all the way over there," he said, gesturing the short distance between his head and the tray, "and I'm all the way over here. Of course, I could pick it up and put it in my mouth myself, but as a Tallest I have much more important things to think about."
"For example?" Calico asked in a choked voice, and Purple clicked his fingers. Instantly a squadron of drones started up a puppet show on the end of the couch. He grinned at her, and she smiled back, though she was biting her tongue hard enough to draw blood.
Purple settled back to watch his puppets, opening his mouth occasionally as an indication that it needed filling with something. Funny how Calico had been so friendly earlier, but now that he was taking her up on her offer she was distant and cold. After all, she had said that she wanted to make him feel better. Perhaps she was hoping you'd make her feel better too. She said she liked you, and you're treating her like scum, a small voice at the back of his head piped up. He waved the comment aside mentally and opened his mouth for another snack. He was hungry, not lonely, and as a Tallest the last thing he needed to develop was a conscience.
AN
Please review and I shall update soon.
Invader Zim belongs to Jhonen Vasquez. I own Calico and Trix.
