Newbie - Part 7
Disclaimer: Hasbro owns G.I. Joe. I don't. Please don't sue. I do own Cricket, however.
I've gotten a lot of feedback; thanks, everyone. If you see something I could be doing better, please, let me know. This is my first fic, and I want to keep doing better.
Sorry about the long wait between chapters; life's been keeping me pretty busy lately.
*****
Despite Shana's assurances, Mae had really doubted whether putting marinara sauce inside an omelet would be even remotely digestible. But damned if it wasn't actually pretty good. The coffee was a hair stronger than she usually liked it, and there were far too many college kids in the restaurant for her taste, but on the whole she liked this place.
"Did I tell you?" asked Shana.
"You told me," replied Mae, mouth full of sausage and egg. "This really shouldn't work."
"And yet it does." Shana took a sip of her coffee. "How'd you wind up getting two days off in a row, anyway?"
"No idea. They get me up at 0400 tomorrow, though. With my reassignment, I get to split my day between getting my ass kicked by Snake Eyes and my ass kicked by Beach Head."
"Fun fun."
"Right. Even the sun has more sense than to be up that early, but I have to find time to get my archery drills in. So I dunno if it was a mistake, or if Duke or Flint or whoever is taking pity on me, or what, but I intend to enjoy my off-time as much as I can." She shoveled some more food into her mouth.
"Sounds like a plan." Shana pushed her homefries around on her plate with her fork. "Look, Mae, I want to apologize again -"
Somewhere through her omelette, Mae mumbled "Cut it out." She held up her hand in a "hold on a second" gesture as she swallowed her breakfast. "It happens to everyone. Believe me, I've spent many a night that way myself. Chances are excellent I'll have plenty more of them. But I honestly didn't mind. I like you, Shana. I don't know him well, but Duke seems really great and I'm pulling for you. Please don't be embarrassed; when the time comes that I'm going through something similar, you'll be the first person I run to."
"So you're not seeing anyone right now?" Shana asked.
"Are you kidding? Right now, I'd settle for Courtney's flashlight."
Shana grinned in the most evil manner she could. "I assume you don't mean her actual flashlight."
Mae laughed and tried to keep coffee from coming out her nose. "No, I have this thing where I tend not to like someone until I've known them for a while, you know? And by then..." she shrugged.
"By then you're friends and it's too late."
"Exactly."
Shana ate a forkful of homefries. "You know what's good?"
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women?" Mae ventured.
"Well, sure, that's always fun." said Shana, obviously not getting the reference. "I was actually going to suggest the pie I was talking about last night."
"I'd love to, but I think I'm gonna bust as it is." Despite this statement, Mae kept eating. She noticed that Shana was fidgety, playing with her breakfast more than she was eating it. "What's up?"
"What's up with what?" Shana asked.
"You. You're all squirrelly."
Shana realized she was tapping the plate with her fork and stopped. "Sorry. I haven't been back to work in a few days. I get kinda antsy."
"Well, we could always find you something to fill your time. Are you still thinking of going to Georgia?"
"I dunno. My dad's not even going to be there. He's back in Ireland visiting his cousin. I was really only saying I was going to get a rise out of Duke."
"That reminds me," said Mae. "Allie asked me to give you something."
"What?"
Mae rolled up her menu and gave Shana a sharp THWAK on the top of her head. "That."
Shana groaned and put her head on the table. "I know, I know."
"Consider yourself chastened. Damn, meting out justice is hungry work. Maybe I'll have some of that pie after all."
*****
Duke sat at his desk, drumming his fingers. He was all caught up on his paperwork. His morning meeting was actually over on time. It being Sunday morning, there was relatively little going on around the base for him to be supervising. Duke had nothing to do.
He picked up the phone and started pushing buttons, trying to see if he could get the tones to play "Swanee River." He hung up quickly when someone sleepily answered, "Hello?"
He needed something to distract him. Immediately.
Looking out the window towards the motor pool, he watched as Gung Ho grabbed Steeler by the wrists, swung him around as fast as he could, then let go as Steeler sailed through the air for about eight feet or so. Much cheering ensued. After that, it was Thunder's turn to throw Short Fuze. Duke was so desperate for something to occupy his brain that he actually found himself watching this contest for a good twenty minutes.
Scarlett and Cricket walked through the pool; they each carried a plastic shopping bag or two. Their eyes went wide as they realized what they were walking into.
Moments later, Cricket was sailing through the air, screaming "Wait! No! I'm full of pie!"
Someone was out with a mop and a bucket of sawdust shortly after.
*****
A very uneasy-looking Cricket knocked on Duke's office door. "Are you doing anything?"
Duke looked at his desk, empty save for a TV Guide. "Just the crossword. Come on in." As she sat, he asked her, "I need a three-letter word. 'Blank' A-Team."
"I find it very difficult to believe that on this whole base you have that little to do."
"Once we send Cobra packing, they don't usually make any noise for a while. Enjoy the quiet." He looked at the crossword again, felt it insulting his intelligence deeply, and put it aside. "Can I help you with something? This isn't about the thing in the motor -"
"Oh, no. I can handle that myself. Although I'm not sure if I'm more upset because I ralphed everything I've ever eaten since the age of five in front of a fairly sizable audience, or that the other guys were saying Clutch's score didn't count because I'm so small."
"You have to admit, you're almost comically tiny."
"I'm petite, hot dammit." She looked through her plastic bag. "I came in here because I wanted to show you something. We went into - where's that damned catalogue? - we went into some store that sold lots of fancy faux-antique looking stuff." She began to root around in the overstuffed bag a little harder. "An 'All Thnings Pretentious' kinda thing. And we - Saint Anthony, help me find this fucker -"
Duke smiled.
"- We were mostly in there to goof around, because there was no way that either of us were gonna be able to actually buy anything, right?" She suddenly stopped, remembered her blasphemy, and looked heavenward. "Sorry," she said.
"Sorry for what?" Duke asked.
"Not you." She rooted through the bag some more, and finally found what she was looking for. "Here," Cricket said, opening the booklet and handing it to Duke. "Shana wants one of these."
Duke looked at the catalog, puzzled. "She wants an 'Anglo-Saxon Kings of Britain' chess set?"
"No, although if you were hell-bent on buying it for someone, I'd take it off your hands. No, I'm talking about what's underneath it."
*****
Mae lay sprawled out on the chair, clutching her stomach, jeans partially unbuttoned, letting the Pepto do its work. She had eaten half again her body weight that morning, which was not terribly unusual, except that she hadn't expected anyone to pick her up, spin her around, and fling her.
Courtney's eyes fluttered in her direction. "Hey, kiddo."
"Hey, yourself. How are you feeling?"
"Not bad." Courtney rubbed some of the sleep out of her eyes.
"Doc says you can probably get outta here tomorrow morning."
"Whee." Courtney opened her eyes fully and looked at Mae. "You all right? You're going pretty green."
Mae related the story of that morning's adventures in the motor pool.
"Hmmm. That explains Shana sailing across my window about an hour ago."
"So what are you gonna do with your time off? Given it any thought?"
Courtney shrugged. "I dunno. I'll probably just knock around here. There's not really anywhere else for me to go."
"No family?" Mae asked.
"Not really. I haven't been back to Peoria, except maybe once or twice, since I started modeling."
Mae could see that this was a subject Courtney wanted dropped. "I'm sorry. It's none of my business."
"Every family's messed up in its own special way." She reached for her juice and slurped away. "So you're gonna get back at the Gang at Cheers in the motor pool, right?"
"You think this calls for vengeance?"
"Stop talking like that. Certainly. You need to give as good as you got, and do it as publicly as you can."
"You're a very bitter person, you know that?"
"I'm just telling you what's what."
"I'm just messing with you. Fuckin' A, I'm gonna be getting back at the motor pool guys." Mae looked at Courtney's breakfast tray, which was largely untouched. "I'm stealing this," she said, helping herself to Courtney's Jell-O.
*****
At 0214 hours the following morning, someone crept their way around the men's barracks, razor in hand.
*****
Cricket leapt backwards, bringing her right foot up simultaneously, narrowly avoiding Snake Eyes' lunge as he avoided hers.
"Come on," he signed, with Flash acting as interpreter. "I'm giving you all kinds of room to get at me. Just hit me."
"I'm trying," she grunted. She was distracted enough that she almost didn't see his foot swinging towards her lower back.
"No, you're not. If you were trying you'd have connected at least half a dozen times by now. Come on. You can't hit me and avoid me at the same time."
Cricket took a breath. Before he could exhale, Snake Eyes laid her flat on her ass. She coughed a little; she'd had the wind knocked out of her.
Snake Eyes waited for her to get up. "There. That's what you were so afraid of. You managed to survive it. Nobody goes home until you do the same thing to me."
Cricket rolled across the floor, dodging Snake's feet and gutpuching him as she came upwards. He didn't fall. Instead, he gave a small cough, and signed, "Better. Now do it again. And this time, take -"
The door swung open. Clutch, wearing a sweatshirt with the hood over his head, entered. Snake Eyes signed furiously at him. "I'll just be a minute, Snake." He turned to face Cricket. "You think you're really funny, don't you?"
"I think I have my moments. Are you referring to something in particular?"
Clutch took off his hood. The entire left side of his head had been completely shaved of all hair; eyebrows, beard and all.
Flash just about pissed himself laughing. Snake Eyes turned away.
Cricket asked innocently, "Trying something new?"
"Oh, all right. You know what? This is war. Watch your back."
As Clutch turned to leave, Flash exclaimed, with barely concealed glee, "Prankwar!" He turned to Cricket and said, "You have absolutely no idea what you've just brought down on yourself."
"How'd he even know it was me?" Cricket asked.
"Being able to do things to Clutch without waking him up is not exactly difficult," said Flash. "The man could sleep while being shot out of a cannon. The ten or twelve other people in the room with him, on the other hand, had no trouble waking up while someone whistled the Anvil Chorus incessantly as they shaved someone's head."
Snake signed, "What the hell is going on?"
Cricket, who had not totally thought the night before through at all, said weakly, "He, um, threw me." Snake stared at her. "And, um, made me throw up."
Snake considered this, then signed to Flash, "I see this ending in fire."
Disclaimer: Hasbro owns G.I. Joe. I don't. Please don't sue. I do own Cricket, however.
I've gotten a lot of feedback; thanks, everyone. If you see something I could be doing better, please, let me know. This is my first fic, and I want to keep doing better.
Sorry about the long wait between chapters; life's been keeping me pretty busy lately.
*****
Despite Shana's assurances, Mae had really doubted whether putting marinara sauce inside an omelet would be even remotely digestible. But damned if it wasn't actually pretty good. The coffee was a hair stronger than she usually liked it, and there were far too many college kids in the restaurant for her taste, but on the whole she liked this place.
"Did I tell you?" asked Shana.
"You told me," replied Mae, mouth full of sausage and egg. "This really shouldn't work."
"And yet it does." Shana took a sip of her coffee. "How'd you wind up getting two days off in a row, anyway?"
"No idea. They get me up at 0400 tomorrow, though. With my reassignment, I get to split my day between getting my ass kicked by Snake Eyes and my ass kicked by Beach Head."
"Fun fun."
"Right. Even the sun has more sense than to be up that early, but I have to find time to get my archery drills in. So I dunno if it was a mistake, or if Duke or Flint or whoever is taking pity on me, or what, but I intend to enjoy my off-time as much as I can." She shoveled some more food into her mouth.
"Sounds like a plan." Shana pushed her homefries around on her plate with her fork. "Look, Mae, I want to apologize again -"
Somewhere through her omelette, Mae mumbled "Cut it out." She held up her hand in a "hold on a second" gesture as she swallowed her breakfast. "It happens to everyone. Believe me, I've spent many a night that way myself. Chances are excellent I'll have plenty more of them. But I honestly didn't mind. I like you, Shana. I don't know him well, but Duke seems really great and I'm pulling for you. Please don't be embarrassed; when the time comes that I'm going through something similar, you'll be the first person I run to."
"So you're not seeing anyone right now?" Shana asked.
"Are you kidding? Right now, I'd settle for Courtney's flashlight."
Shana grinned in the most evil manner she could. "I assume you don't mean her actual flashlight."
Mae laughed and tried to keep coffee from coming out her nose. "No, I have this thing where I tend not to like someone until I've known them for a while, you know? And by then..." she shrugged.
"By then you're friends and it's too late."
"Exactly."
Shana ate a forkful of homefries. "You know what's good?"
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women?" Mae ventured.
"Well, sure, that's always fun." said Shana, obviously not getting the reference. "I was actually going to suggest the pie I was talking about last night."
"I'd love to, but I think I'm gonna bust as it is." Despite this statement, Mae kept eating. She noticed that Shana was fidgety, playing with her breakfast more than she was eating it. "What's up?"
"What's up with what?" Shana asked.
"You. You're all squirrelly."
Shana realized she was tapping the plate with her fork and stopped. "Sorry. I haven't been back to work in a few days. I get kinda antsy."
"Well, we could always find you something to fill your time. Are you still thinking of going to Georgia?"
"I dunno. My dad's not even going to be there. He's back in Ireland visiting his cousin. I was really only saying I was going to get a rise out of Duke."
"That reminds me," said Mae. "Allie asked me to give you something."
"What?"
Mae rolled up her menu and gave Shana a sharp THWAK on the top of her head. "That."
Shana groaned and put her head on the table. "I know, I know."
"Consider yourself chastened. Damn, meting out justice is hungry work. Maybe I'll have some of that pie after all."
*****
Duke sat at his desk, drumming his fingers. He was all caught up on his paperwork. His morning meeting was actually over on time. It being Sunday morning, there was relatively little going on around the base for him to be supervising. Duke had nothing to do.
He picked up the phone and started pushing buttons, trying to see if he could get the tones to play "Swanee River." He hung up quickly when someone sleepily answered, "Hello?"
He needed something to distract him. Immediately.
Looking out the window towards the motor pool, he watched as Gung Ho grabbed Steeler by the wrists, swung him around as fast as he could, then let go as Steeler sailed through the air for about eight feet or so. Much cheering ensued. After that, it was Thunder's turn to throw Short Fuze. Duke was so desperate for something to occupy his brain that he actually found himself watching this contest for a good twenty minutes.
Scarlett and Cricket walked through the pool; they each carried a plastic shopping bag or two. Their eyes went wide as they realized what they were walking into.
Moments later, Cricket was sailing through the air, screaming "Wait! No! I'm full of pie!"
Someone was out with a mop and a bucket of sawdust shortly after.
*****
A very uneasy-looking Cricket knocked on Duke's office door. "Are you doing anything?"
Duke looked at his desk, empty save for a TV Guide. "Just the crossword. Come on in." As she sat, he asked her, "I need a three-letter word. 'Blank' A-Team."
"I find it very difficult to believe that on this whole base you have that little to do."
"Once we send Cobra packing, they don't usually make any noise for a while. Enjoy the quiet." He looked at the crossword again, felt it insulting his intelligence deeply, and put it aside. "Can I help you with something? This isn't about the thing in the motor -"
"Oh, no. I can handle that myself. Although I'm not sure if I'm more upset because I ralphed everything I've ever eaten since the age of five in front of a fairly sizable audience, or that the other guys were saying Clutch's score didn't count because I'm so small."
"You have to admit, you're almost comically tiny."
"I'm petite, hot dammit." She looked through her plastic bag. "I came in here because I wanted to show you something. We went into - where's that damned catalogue? - we went into some store that sold lots of fancy faux-antique looking stuff." She began to root around in the overstuffed bag a little harder. "An 'All Thnings Pretentious' kinda thing. And we - Saint Anthony, help me find this fucker -"
Duke smiled.
"- We were mostly in there to goof around, because there was no way that either of us were gonna be able to actually buy anything, right?" She suddenly stopped, remembered her blasphemy, and looked heavenward. "Sorry," she said.
"Sorry for what?" Duke asked.
"Not you." She rooted through the bag some more, and finally found what she was looking for. "Here," Cricket said, opening the booklet and handing it to Duke. "Shana wants one of these."
Duke looked at the catalog, puzzled. "She wants an 'Anglo-Saxon Kings of Britain' chess set?"
"No, although if you were hell-bent on buying it for someone, I'd take it off your hands. No, I'm talking about what's underneath it."
*****
Mae lay sprawled out on the chair, clutching her stomach, jeans partially unbuttoned, letting the Pepto do its work. She had eaten half again her body weight that morning, which was not terribly unusual, except that she hadn't expected anyone to pick her up, spin her around, and fling her.
Courtney's eyes fluttered in her direction. "Hey, kiddo."
"Hey, yourself. How are you feeling?"
"Not bad." Courtney rubbed some of the sleep out of her eyes.
"Doc says you can probably get outta here tomorrow morning."
"Whee." Courtney opened her eyes fully and looked at Mae. "You all right? You're going pretty green."
Mae related the story of that morning's adventures in the motor pool.
"Hmmm. That explains Shana sailing across my window about an hour ago."
"So what are you gonna do with your time off? Given it any thought?"
Courtney shrugged. "I dunno. I'll probably just knock around here. There's not really anywhere else for me to go."
"No family?" Mae asked.
"Not really. I haven't been back to Peoria, except maybe once or twice, since I started modeling."
Mae could see that this was a subject Courtney wanted dropped. "I'm sorry. It's none of my business."
"Every family's messed up in its own special way." She reached for her juice and slurped away. "So you're gonna get back at the Gang at Cheers in the motor pool, right?"
"You think this calls for vengeance?"
"Stop talking like that. Certainly. You need to give as good as you got, and do it as publicly as you can."
"You're a very bitter person, you know that?"
"I'm just telling you what's what."
"I'm just messing with you. Fuckin' A, I'm gonna be getting back at the motor pool guys." Mae looked at Courtney's breakfast tray, which was largely untouched. "I'm stealing this," she said, helping herself to Courtney's Jell-O.
*****
At 0214 hours the following morning, someone crept their way around the men's barracks, razor in hand.
*****
Cricket leapt backwards, bringing her right foot up simultaneously, narrowly avoiding Snake Eyes' lunge as he avoided hers.
"Come on," he signed, with Flash acting as interpreter. "I'm giving you all kinds of room to get at me. Just hit me."
"I'm trying," she grunted. She was distracted enough that she almost didn't see his foot swinging towards her lower back.
"No, you're not. If you were trying you'd have connected at least half a dozen times by now. Come on. You can't hit me and avoid me at the same time."
Cricket took a breath. Before he could exhale, Snake Eyes laid her flat on her ass. She coughed a little; she'd had the wind knocked out of her.
Snake Eyes waited for her to get up. "There. That's what you were so afraid of. You managed to survive it. Nobody goes home until you do the same thing to me."
Cricket rolled across the floor, dodging Snake's feet and gutpuching him as she came upwards. He didn't fall. Instead, he gave a small cough, and signed, "Better. Now do it again. And this time, take -"
The door swung open. Clutch, wearing a sweatshirt with the hood over his head, entered. Snake Eyes signed furiously at him. "I'll just be a minute, Snake." He turned to face Cricket. "You think you're really funny, don't you?"
"I think I have my moments. Are you referring to something in particular?"
Clutch took off his hood. The entire left side of his head had been completely shaved of all hair; eyebrows, beard and all.
Flash just about pissed himself laughing. Snake Eyes turned away.
Cricket asked innocently, "Trying something new?"
"Oh, all right. You know what? This is war. Watch your back."
As Clutch turned to leave, Flash exclaimed, with barely concealed glee, "Prankwar!" He turned to Cricket and said, "You have absolutely no idea what you've just brought down on yourself."
"How'd he even know it was me?" Cricket asked.
"Being able to do things to Clutch without waking him up is not exactly difficult," said Flash. "The man could sleep while being shot out of a cannon. The ten or twelve other people in the room with him, on the other hand, had no trouble waking up while someone whistled the Anvil Chorus incessantly as they shaved someone's head."
Snake signed, "What the hell is going on?"
Cricket, who had not totally thought the night before through at all, said weakly, "He, um, threw me." Snake stared at her. "And, um, made me throw up."
Snake considered this, then signed to Flash, "I see this ending in fire."