Author: Swythangel
Email: swythangel@hotmail.com
Title: Catnip
Type: Comedy
Rating: PG –13
Disclaimer: Megami Kouhosei is owned by Yukiru Sugisaki-sensei. If I owned them they wouldn't have killed Ernest, Zero and Erts would be together and I'd have Roose to cheek-pinch.
Possibly Garu/Ernest, Garu/Leena at first and everyone/Garu XD
Catnip
Leena jumped him in the hangar.
And not with affectionate maternal cooings or even the sweet nuzzlings that their make-up sessions normally consisted of. She literally JUMPED him. Leena never did that. Ever.
But today was obviously an exception. He had barely managed to peel her off of him with the excuse that First had scheduled a briefing, hurriedly leaving the hangar to mutter to himself about the strangeness of the day.
[Whatta day.] Gareas thought to himself. [Reconnoitering a colony, getting bitten by its infernal animals and now my girlfriend pastes herself on me when I'm too fucking tired and irritated to appreciate it.] "What next?" He said aloud, unmindful of the stares of the other people in the GIS hallway.
His ankle twinged a bit then and he remembered the bite marks the creature had left. [To go to the infirmary or not?] It hurt a bit certainly but was it enough to actually submit himself to the tender mercies of the infamous Dr. Rill Croford? An image of the doctor who called herself the "White Madonna" surfaced in his mind, coupled with the gruesome stories he had heard from her unfortunate "victims".
[I can take care of this little scratch. No need to bother the good doctor.] He nodded to himself, satisfied with how brilliantly he had outmaneuvered what could have been a potentially disastrous situation. [After all, what can a little scratch do to me? I'm sure it was just a harmless animal. It looked like a squirrel too. Its harmless I'm sure.]
He didn't notice the almost-hungry stares that swiveled to his direction as he went pass.
***
The next day, Garu woke up to find flowers on his doorstep. Not one, not two but a dozen bouquets. All from different people.
[What the fu---Is it Valentine's day or something?] He wondered to himself as he left the flowers where they were, striding through the corridor without giving them another thought, straight to the Mess Hall for breakfast.
He found the early risers - Yu and Ernest - on one side, sharing the silence and their respective second or third cups of tea and whathaveyous while ignoring Rio who was digging into his food like there was no tomorrow.
[At last, something normal.]
He approached his fellow pilots, making a straight line from the door to the table where they were. Ernest saw him first and nodded his head in greeting, a small smile on his face. Normal.
And Yu would ignore him like normal. Only he didn't. He saw dark eyes widen imperceptibly before it looked away, a blush rising on his cheeks. It was strange but Garu thought nothing of it. He was used to Yu being strange. What other adjective would you use for someone more comfortable with talking to someone non-verbally?
Rio kept on eating. He didn't see Garu since he had been facing the other side of the room. Garu snuck up behind him and when Rio paused from his eating, he forced Rio into a neck lock and gave him a cheerful "Good Morning!"
Rio predictably started to whine. "Gaaaaruuuu, you jerk! I was eating breakfa.." He didn't quite finish his sentence when he looked at Garu and his attitude promptly changed. "You want my bacon and eggs?"
Garu stared at Rio who was still offering his plate to Garu. Even Ernest who usually took everything in stride looked properly taken aback. Rio never offered anyone his breakfast. No one even thought to take Rio's meals from him under pain of death.
Before Garu's still sleep fogged brain could react and tell Rio that he didn't want it, Yu beat him to it, speaking in his controlled voice that Garu could have sworn held a tinge of anger.
"Gareas-san does not need a half-eaten breakfast offered to him."
Yu then stood up, went to the food line and got a tray, which he offered to a bug-eyed speechless Garu.
It took a moment before Gareas recovered and burst out. "What has gotten into you guys? Have you all gone nuts?"
He turned on his heels then and stalked out of the Mess Hall.
"Yu?" He heard Ernest say as the doors closed on him, Ernest's voice struggling to appear normal, "are you feeling alright today?"
***
"You idiotic Pilot! You should HAVE gone to me the moment you returned to GIS!"
The "White Madonna" lectured a disgruntled Garu who suffered in silence. He might be prone to his own outbursts but he was also intelligent enough not to anger someone who could very well stick a needle into you with sufficient reason to do so. His temper was at the end of its rope though, the edges too frayed by the lecture that ate his morning.
"It was only a small scratch."
"A SMALL scratch? Hah! Idiot! With the various lifeforms on the colonies 'just a scratch' might well turn into the modern equivalent of a bubonic plague."
[Yeah yeah. Yadda yadda yadda.]
"Now tell me exactly what sort of animal it was."
"I told you already, Doc." Garu allowed exasperation to come into his voice. "For the nth time, it was this fluffy little animal that resembled a squirrel crossbred with a skunk."
Rill Croford frowned at him then. "This squirrel-skunk, did it emit a certain smell? Faintly sweet and addicting?"
"Exactly!" Garu said, "I remember I followed it because of the smell."
A tsk-tsk-ing sound followed what he said as Dr. Croford turned to one of the screens and clacked away, muttering.
"What?" Garu asked.
No one answered him.
"OI, someone tell me what's happening?!"
"Ssssh!" One of the nurses shushed him.
"Fine," Garu muttered subsiding on the bed with one of his legs propped up. Thjs was the leg that Croford had poked and prodded, the one with the small crescent moon on the ankles from the creatures' teeth.
After some time, Croford finally went near him and cheerily, well it actually looked like unholy glee to Garu, waved a small padd to him. "I'm afraid I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first."
"Let's just have it all out, Doc." [Geez, women! Always going round in circles.]
"Well, the good news is, you won't really need to be quarantined and you're perfectly fine. Th..."
"Does this mean I can go out on missions with Eeva Leena?" Garu interrupted the Doctor in midspeech which earned him an irritated glare that he naturally ignored.
"Yes bu..."
"I knew I wasn't delusional." Garu said sliding off of the bed with a cheerful grin, his usual bravado returning. "You should check up on Yu and Rio though, Doc. They seem a bit loopy, and some of the other GIS staff, they're all bo..."
WHAM!
The padd hit the side of Garu's head and Garu glared at Dr. Croford. "What the fuck did you do that for?"
"Idiot! I haven't finished my diagnostics. Now get back on the bed before I apply drastic measures."
Garu complied, irritation still in his eyes.
"Now as I was saying. The bad news is that for the next few days or weeks, I am not so sure how long, your sexual drives will be heightened..."
Garu grinned. "You mean horny? I'm always horny."
WHACK! "Let me finish! AND your body will be producing a significant amount of pheromones. Hence you will be catnip to all the GIS crew."
"C...catnip?"
"Old Earth plant of the mint family. Cats love it."
"And I..."
"Am afraid so!" Rill Croford said with some relish. "In other words, everyone will be attracted to you and most probably," she continued with unholy glee, "will want to chain you to their bed."
"Fuck! That can't be true." But even as his mind was processing this bit of information, he could feel two sets of hands stroking lightly on his arm. He stared from side to side to find the two nurses looking at him with hooded eyes. What was worse was he could feel himself responding.
[Hell!]
When he raised his head to the doctor he saw the same look enter her eyes. "Uh, er, Doc? I think I should be going now. I just remembered, I need to, uh, reconnoiter. Yeah! That's it, I need to reconnoiter. Bye!"
And with none too gentle hands he wrenched himself away from the two nurses and ran the hell out of the Infirmary.
***
Garu was sitting inside Eeva Leena, refusing to go out. He was safe here, away from all the fucking insane people who had been throwing themselves at him all the fucking morning.
He was totally freaked out. GIS crew he barely even knew had sidled up to him while he had been walking innocently in the hallways and groped him. Groped HIM. And it hadn't been restricted to just women either. There had been MEN who suddenly groped his ass out of nowhere. A lot of them sported black eyes now much to Garu's satisfaction.
Rio followed him around like a puppy offering him food with Yu close at his heels, throwing Garu smoldering looks. It drove Garu fucking insane.
Rio, Garu could handle. You could distract Rio with something shiny or throw him in Phil's direction and he'd be momentarily happy enough to allow Garu time to get away. Besides he could always beat the crap out of Rio and have done with it.
Yu on the other hand was creepy. Garu wasn't used to seeing emotion from the Tellia Kallisto pilot, let alone smoldering ones. He couldn't just brush him away because he never did anything but peer at Garu through the hallways. Well maybe he could have but Garu wasn't insane enough to tell someone off when Garu knew that the someone in question wielded a bad-ass katana and could slice Garu to pieces.
Teela was the same as ever though. Probably the only one who wasn't affected at all. She treated him with the same impassiveness that she always did. Garu wasn't surprised. It would take more than a Gareas Elidd to shake a reaction out of her.
And Ernest? He was grateful that Ernest had been called away to GOA to teach some Candidates exercises. How freaky would it be to have his best friend coming unto him?
He stayed away from the other Repairers. Best not to brew up more trouble.
What irritated him the most however was Leena's continued advances. Garu would have been delighted if his girlfriend threw herself at him when she was out of the influence of the 'catnip', then maybe he could finally get to home base. But not like this.
For all that Leena was a very liberal girl, they had never gone past more than heavy snogging, any red blooded male would be crazy not to WANT their girlfriend throwing herself at them. But Garu wasn't stupid. If he took advantage of Leena in this state he'd never live it down ever. Leena'd have his head.
[I'm perpetually horny and I have a TON of people throwing themselves at me but I can't take advantage.] He thought morosely. [This sucks.]
"Garu?"
Garu was distracted from his morbid thoughts by the questioning voice just outside Eeva Leena.
"Garu, are you there?"
He stayed silent, hoping the other would take a hint and leave. Garu should have known better.
"Garu? I've searched the whole GIS and I know you're in there so you might as well come out." The voice was firm. "I'm not leaving until you do."
Garu didn't even think, just reacted as he poked his head out of the protective shell that enveloped Eeva Leena to glare at the trespasser.
"Have you ever heard of the concept of privacy, Ernest?" He snapped at his best friend as he extricated himself from the dissolving "membrane".
"Yes." Ernest said cheerily, ignoring the glare Garu threw his way. "But everyone, and I mean this in the most literal sense possible, has been looking for you and have been asking me your location since I came back to GIS so I thought I'd do everyone a favor and find you."
"Shit!" Garu swore, raking his hands through his hair in apparent agitation.
Ernest tilted his head to one side in inquiry. "You alright? You don't look too good." He looked towards the side, a bit lost in thought. "Actually a lot of the people who came to ask me for you didn't look too good either. They looked really flushed and agitated like you do now. Is it a virus do you think?"
A strangled growl issued forth from Garu.
"If you're sick, you need to go to the Infirmary, Garu." Ernest prodded gently.
"No way am I going back to that insane place." Garu muttered, almost to himself. [I'd probably get raped while they anesthetize me!]
A firm hand placed itself on Garu's shoulder and he reacted like he had been burned, swiping the hand away and looking at Ernest in alarm.
"What?" Ernest said, looking a bit confused at Garu, rubbing the hand Garu had knocked away. "You're acting a bit jumpy, Garu. ARE you sure you don't need to go to the Infirmary?"
Garu blinked and looked carefully at Ernest who looked back at him with mildly perplexed blue eyes. The cerulean eyes weren't glazed over at all and no flush tinted the pale complexion. [He's not affected.]
"Garu? Your emotions are jumping all over the place. What HAVE you been doing?"
[This is just perfect!] Garu crowed internally. He could stick with Ernest all day. No one would openly molest him with other people around.
And Ernest wasn't one for touching so he wouldn't touch Garu at all. Garu's already heightened sexual drives wouldn't suffer so much and since Ernest wasn't affected, Garu would not have to fend off his advances. Not that Ernest would ever MAKE advances. The blond pilot was too...mild mannered for that. (Garu would have used the word pansy if this wasn't his best friend he was talking about.)
Garu grinned broadly. "Nothing, nothing. Its just stress" He pushed Ernest forward. "Let's hang out. Help me get rid of all this nervous energy." He didn't even ask for the other's permission as he continued on his way.
"I'm confused." Ernest said as he allowed Garu to push him wherever he wanted.
Garu barked a laugh that was almost on the hysterical edge as he looked cautiously around for signs of crazed sexual molesters. "Sometimes, Ernest, ignorance is really bliss."
***
TBC
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