25
Stick face would be fine. He'd be a good boy; she was sure of it. It wasn't like she gave the man a choice when that rope scratched at the man's lips, wrapping itself around his head with her -gentle- guidance. Rope snug against his wrists, the rough fibers imbedding themselves around his bony ankles, she threaded him like a naked bobbin.
Naked was apt; the rest of his olive garb lay strewn before her like it did when the stick got a taste of that scarred man's medicine. She scooped up that thin rag that was the jacket. Fresh warmth relieved her of the cold as she slipped her arms easily through, but the flap that wisped her tender flesh blossomed the faintest of red.
"Still bleeding...!" she cursed. "Shit!"
Her sore leg and shoulder didn't fair much better, but crying over spilt milk never solved anything. Her open wound was nothing that a little duct tape couldn't handle. She was sure she saw a nice, thick roll sitting idly on the table behind the one-way glass, just as they hoisted her inside.
Her soles gladly basked in the boots' warmth as she headed for the door--limped for the door, as that swelling lump of pain refused her leg to flex. There was nothing she could do to hide it; nothing she could do for it, except pray to God that no one eyed her with scrutiny.
Tank Man let out another blaring, buzzing grunt, with a bit of consciousness hinting itself in the noise. It wouldn't be long till he came around.
"Stick Man," she sighed, as she scooped up the holster, "when the freak comes around, pray that he's not hungry."
The holster's straps constricted around her thigh like a boa snake, though she gave them a little slack. The Baby Eagle snuggled back into its nest, and she drew the strap over its claw like a safety belt.
"Now if you'll excuse me," she hobbled for the door, "I've really got to run."
The door squealed like a stuck pig as she yanked it open, shrieking on its arc back inside the dirty frame just as she stumbled through. She stole a glance to her right. Sure enough, that shiny, sticky roll of bandages was still there, flanking a patrol cap before a pile--a kit of -tools- from Stick Man's bag of tricks. Needles were lined neatly, parallel to the long edge of the table on a long, black mat. Nasty looking pincers, scissors, and other surgical tackle shared the same, black space.
She pushed all sickening, diabolical thoughts aside, dismissing them instantly as she went for the tape. She ripped a nice, thick strip from the roll and tore it down its width evenly. She let the roll clunk back on the table. Her fingers pulled the strip taut, and her arms turned it on its short side. The elbow shooed the flap away. Carefully, she laid an extreme upon her red flesh, rolling the rest of the strip down upon the wound's length. She gave the tight strip a couple pats for measure.
The syringes rolled loosely around in her grip as though they were nothing put pencils. Her fingers worked a button through the pocket's flap, and she stuffed the needles neatly into the pocket while the heel of her thumb pinned the flap against her chest. It draped over the thin plungers easily.
Anxiously, she curled her arm around the back of her head. Her hand like a claw, scooping up all the locks her range of motion could allow. She draped them over her shoulder; her eyes sore with grief while they ran over her bold, lush locks that gleamed brilliantly even in the dull light. Only recently had her locks graced that familiar spot on her back, just a little above the small where strands themselves began to part their separate ways.
"I'm sorry, baby!" She sighed solemnly, as she scooped up that thick, shiny roll again. "I love you!"
Her lips pecked the locks in the midst of their puckering. She smoothed them out on her shoulder with a sudden wipe of the hand before it swooped to the roll. It let out another rip, tearing away a strip no longer than the length of her hand, ripping it evenly down its width. She let it stick to the tips of her fingers, letting the roll clunk to the floor as she took up her hair. Letting the length of the tape fall evenly onto her hair, she wrapped the strip around her locks tightly. The weight of it yanked her new tail of her shoulder, onto her back. The very tip of the tape tapped her jacket a little below her collar.
She gave the collar a little slack, letting it fall away from the base of her neck. Her tail slipped inside easily, the tape scratching her skin at its raw edges. Her fingers pinched at the collar and she felt the collar press against her neck again. The jacket buttoned up easily enough. Her brow dropped a couple degrees as the cap's bill hid her from the hot light.
The lock clicked---POP--SNAP---when she pushed in that little button on the knob. She eased away from the door, gazing emptily at that pane of glass beside it. The heaping freak twitched more and more, every writhe alive and flowing with purpose. It looked awake, though it wasn't, and God knew only how long the squeaky door could keep it busy.
"It won't hold up." The faint figure in the looking glass replied, gazing back with the very same panic swelling in each emerald eye. Her chest puffed as she took in a deep breath, letting it sit briefly in her lungs, "Okay Kimberly, you can do this...! Go with the gut, and don't look anyone in the eye...."
She turned away at the freak's sudden twitch, hurried boots carrying her toward the sturdy door on the adjacent wall. She turned the knob, and thumbed that little button while she huffed the door open. She then angled her arm around the door's edge, giving the outside knob a little twist. It rattled predictably and gravity relinquished her hand back to her side, the door's closer guiding the heavy door back into the sturdy frame.
"That shouldn't be too much of a task," she thought mutedly aloud, "should it...?"
---
"Wow...!"
The coot was struck lame, mustering only one word in a hollow drawl, standing lifeless as though carved from stone, caught in some dizzying, terrifying rapture unbeknownst to anyone else around. He stood there rapt, his arched back lifting his chest up a few inches, his cane out from behind him, holding his frail body up like a kickstand. Uzi wasn't sure if the geezer had already departed.
There was only one way to find out, only to him since it just popped into his head. Others would have taken drastic measures, carefully laying the coot down upon a gurney and wheeling ass for the good doctor. But not him; he uncurled his only index and saw the tip wrinkle the cloth as it sank into that designer jacket. Driving his strength into his digit, the geezer tipped away dramatically with a huff--
--And the weathered eyes blinked, his cane swooping around to his side, its tip stopping him as it dropped into a control crack on the floor. Senor Senior stumbled back onto his feet, shaking sense back through that mat atop his head, batting his eyes.
"Oh...!" that slick mat shifted opposite the motions of his slick head. "What...?"
"Still alive, Senor Senior?" He asked. "That's good. By that stupid look on your face, I wasn't sure if you were dead or not."
"Me?" the coot replied. "Dead? Oh no, my young Major. You thought wrong. It'll take more than a really big cannon for this man to kick the bucket. But I must say... what on God's green earth is that thing!?"
"Oh that...?" a smiled crawled across his face.
Gazing proudly at those huge barrels that bedecked his greatest creation, a sudden rush of pride surged throughout his body. Barrels of his ultimate weapon, all three pierced through the darkness of the docking bay, crowing, flanking the shiny brilliance of the bullet-resistant tower of telemetry.
And it was his, -ALL- his--design, construction, manpower--all of it his own, and for him to control! Gladius? Ha! That was a laugh! America had nothing on the king, and there was nothing they or the -Untied- Nations could do to stop it. In fact, the nations of this disgusting, intolerable world were due for a meeting with the king. Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, "Palestine"--hell--the whole goddamn Middle East for that matter.
-It's going to end.... - He thought. -Jacob's cousins can't seem to tolerate his existence. They live only for his demise, above their own lusts for the blood of each other. I can't have that.... Not even in my death! -
"Haven't you been paying attention, dear Senior," he asked haughtily, "to anything I said? Surely you should know by now to what you are gazing blankly."
"Your king?" the coot said incredulously. "This is not a king! This is a cannon! Twice the size of Gustav, at least I must say, fixed with two extra barrels. You call this your king? Oh, my young lad, you truly are delusional...."
"Behold my salvation, Senor Senior!" he paid the coot no mind. He was on a roll. "Solomon Rex, standing before you now in all his glory and power! With him, all who oppose me will fall like the walls of Jericho. With my greatest creation at my fingertips, who can surly be against me?"
"You would truly be surprised, my young major." Senior's head twitched irritably, as though he might have been talking to the very slick cement he stood on. "I too once thought that when I toed the trepid waters of villainy. With my vast resources and my free time abundant, I thought surely no one would pester me. How wrong I was; how wrong my son's 'blue fox' tried to make me feel."
"Is there a point to this detour down Memory Lane, Senor Senior?" He watched the vast grandeur of the king shift in a circle before him as his sigh came out thick.
"No matter how strong or great you may think you are, my dear boy," tingling heat flushed up from out his belly, growling inwardly at the coot, "there will always be someone stronger or greater than you. You should know that by now, young major, and they may never appear to your expectations. Appearances can be deceiving! That's my point."
"Right...!" the king made another shift around before him.
"Then again," the Spaniard shrugged, "why should I bother anymore? I stopped making points a long time ago. There was just no point anymore, especially with my son constantly getting intimate with the giant bulb back home when he isn't with the maids."
The large bird at his hip was squawking out to him, calling for him to help it out of its nest, behooving him to let it help the old man find rest possibly for once in his life. As much as he would, he couldn't let the bird have its way. Whenever he let it go into action, it nestled back into the nest with such a terrible mess in the wake.
The bird would have to wait another time to fly the coop in an explosive fanfare. His hand flanked at the nest purposelessly as soft, hurried footsteps made his ears twitch. He had heard them every time a busy man rushed by, a salute like a sloppy karate chop to the forehead in the blur. Yet these hurried feet made his fingers curl with rationale, just how they barely bounced off the floor, off his drums, as though they belonged to a woman.
- I don't recall the Organ Grinder had more than a handful.... - his brow kinked. -Something might be up...! -
The coot babbled on without an ear to listen at an eye's stolen glance. He already relinquished his own back, although it had yet to dawn on the tired Spaniard. Shades of olive whipped around the corner further down the hall. A man in VSA colors came steadily at him upon rushed boots, arms folded squarely behind the back, face hidden by the bill of the cap. The tag read Eli, yet he looked... different somehow, as though he lost a little weight although his stature required no such need.
"Eli...!" he called. Eli squeaked--as God as his witness--that funny little stick man squeaked, both shoulders twitched in girlish surprise, as he brushed past. "Where's the fire, Eli?"
"I--um...." The stick replied. Eli was never much of a conversationalist. It's probably why he kept to himself most of the time, locked in his own little world where he could judge the lemmings with impunity as they hurried by. Maybe it's why he made a good interrogator, next to Tristian, somehow keeping those very hands square behind his back as G got his dirty and bloodied. "Uh...."
"I thought so...." He hummed. "Don't you know the procedure yet? You've been here for a few weeks, I know, but you should know the simplest stuff at least!"
"Uh--!"
"Don't 'uh' me!" He said firmly. "I'm not Galil! Sure I maybe young, but I'm still Commandant of this facility! And the Commandant does not appreciate it when you do not look at him when he's talking to you!"
"Yeah...!"
"Are you listening, Eli?" he frowned. "Look at me when I'm talking to you! Or did that bitch take a lot out of you, eh?"
Eli's fingers curled deeper into the palms... his small, slender fingers, so soft and flush with youth as though they never lifted against anyone in their entire existence. His own fingers went for his bird's safety belt, watching those strange fingers tighten in their palms at the unnerving rip of Velcro.
"Isn't that right...?" a devilish smirk tugged at the corners of his lips, his fingers tugging at the bird's butt.
"Major Drazen!"
Someone called for him, near the king's treaded feet, steps quick and intermittent as though the nameless man was running. The heel of his hand pushed the bird back into its nest, drawing its safety belt across its bulky bottom, giving the strip a nice pat as he rolled it over that plush, rough square of furry fibers.
The steps were not as hollow as the boots rushed their owner into the corridor. For a brief moment, they were flat and solid as the soles slapped at the pavement underfoot just before they ceased at a quick, sharp halt beside him. With a weighty heart, he gave the "stick" a head start. S/he would have to wait anyway.
"Major Drazen!" the silly Lieutenant called.
"Yes!" He winced briefly. "I'm right here. Thank you so much for screaming in my ear."
"Apologies, Mr. U." Shia saluted strongly. Uzi let his eyes take a lap around the sockets. Formality was such overrated pomp and circumstance; something dear daddy had been trying to teach him for some time.
"As you were." He sighed. "Now, what do you want?"
"Sir, the good doctor requests your presence."
"Drakken?" he blinked. "What does that Smurf want?"
"Uh--negative!" Shia shook his head. "The -actual- good doctor, Sir. I don't remember his name, I'm sorry."
"Don't be." The retort came in the wobbly shaking of his noggin. "The man never gave it to begin with. Don't know why though--and yet..."
He thought fleetingly. He had never seen the good doctor before in his life, but why--why did he just feel as though he had known the man long before. Maybe they did meet before... in one of those "past-life" things. Then again, it was probably nothing when it came down to it.
"...Yes sir...?"
"Seems so familiar...." He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I've been down here too long or something."
"Helsinki Syndrome, Sir?" the Lieutenant said openly. "Maybe...?"
"I... don't think I'm that bad." He felt his guts push up against his throat, feeling his gullet constrict. "Yuck!"
"Just a thought, Mr. U--!"
"I didn't hire you to think, Bonnet!" he growled. "You're hired to do what I tell you!"
"I--!"
"Now that it's out of the way," he took in a refreshing breath of cold, stale air, "what does the doc want?"
"Your measurements for your new--'delivery system'--Sir."
"Delivery system?" he blinked--before his only hand swooped up to greet his face with a hearty slap upon his strange brow. "Oh--right...! I completely spaced that. Thanks soldier. Radio the doc. Tell him I'm on my way to the medical wing right now."
Gravity seized him by the shrapnel, persuading him to pay the coot a little more attention rather forcefully. The Spaniard stood there with help of his cane, his loose features twisted barely in perplex with wide, blinking eyes. His lips scrunched in a small, sour pucker.
"Personally escort Senor Senior to the transport, if you will." He carried on coolly, though "Eli" had already made like a ghost, upped and vanished without a trace. "And be sure to round up his son before you leave before you have him leave for Elat. He's the big beefcake, brawn far over his brain with a Caesar haircut. You can't miss him, even if you tried."
"I know, Sir!" the curly top saluted.
"Good." He nodded.
"Young Major Drazen, I must protest!" The old coot made like the verb. "This 'Eli' that you simply let walk away could not have been the man you thought he was. Not with that height, or especially those fingers! I maybe well over the hill, but these old eyes can spot an imposter a good mile kilometer away! You make good from this and sound the alarm quickly!"
"I know exactly what you mean, Senor Senior." He turned for the coot. "Don't worry."
"Then what are you doing, standing around here as though it were nothing?" the coot's knuckles paled, strangling the pommel on his cane. "You must act now!"
"This coming from Senor -Tradición-?" He blinked sarcastically. "I'm shocked and amazed! You of all people, Senor Senior, should know that the thrill of the hunt is in the chase. Besides, my brother would never growl at me again if I took his prize."
"But--!"
"Let Galil take care of her. You got a plane to catch."
The corridor shook with a terrible sound; a frightening sound that bellowed from deep within the facility, deep in Hell where the unfortunately brave met the Devil's little helper personally. Senior's cane nearly slipped out underneath him in the midst of a tremor, Bonnet jumped in a frightened, girlish scream. Something wicked this way comes: Galil Drazen on the hunt.
"And so..." his bright smile pulled across his face slowly, "Kimmie's curtain falls...!"
---
Junior had enough of this scary place, where the locals were as pale and cold as their hardened hearts and their base of operation. The utter callousness unnerved him as it encroached upon his being, a thick suffocating cloud he couldn't escape, as long as his father was with that creepy, mutant major.
And if the Major was that hideous, he did not wish to know what the story was with his sibling. "Tank Man", that's what the hardened locals called him, yet few--seemingly the privy--had ever met the ubiquitous beast. The scarred man--scarred -young- man, he could say--wasn't talking. The Louis Stevens kid couldn't say a sentence without it turning into a campfire ghost story.
It didn't matter in the end. He was certain his father would tell all, dispel all the horrific hype once they were back in Spanish waters. The jet ride home--heck--the lift to the airport couldn't come soon enough. He was hot, sweaty, and the harsh lights and the dark shadows were playing havoc on his complexion. The giant bulb back home had nothing on those harsh spotlights, bright and burning like the Sahara sun. Maybe it'd be better if one of those shadows just reached out a touched him, consumed him, and stole him away from that terrible light.
"Huh...." He sighed. "I miss my Honolulu Kyle--!"
His knee suddenly buckled on its own, the leg twisting in at the hip as the horizon jumped up a few inches. His face almost kissed the slick, nasty cement below, but his knee helped him regain balance for--a tic as something clenched around his neck, scratching it as it constricted awkwardly like an arm.
"AHH!!" He squealed. "TANK MAN!! AHH!!"
"Shut up!" it said with such startling effeminacy.
"Don't kill me, please!" he begged. "I'm a good boy--honest! You don't want to eat me! I'm too lean and stringy!"
"I said shut up!" its scratchy tendril put the squeeze on harder.
"-AHH...! -"
"You calm?" s/he growled roughly.
"You going to eat me?" he asked.
"Shut up, Junior!" s/he barked as though the cords had been snipped. "I'm not going to eat you! Not like I ever wanted to anyway!"
Somehow, within the terrible surge of the panic attack, his eyes just barely worked the lids closed before they snapped right open. A sudden calm rushed through his body, his muscles eased, and he simply let the thing take control as though no harm would come.
"Wait a minute!" he blinked again. "I know that voice!"
"Knew you would." S/he--she replied. "How is the yellow trout, anyway?"
"Blue fox?" a sudden panic burned the calm to an insignificant crisp. "...AHH!!"
"What??" the tendril nearly slipped off his neck as he stumbled to his feet.
"BLUE FOX IS THE TANK MAN!!" his hurried feet took quickened turns, one behind the other, as he charged backwards for the nearest wall--pillar--whatever it was, as long it was solid and hard. "GET--IT--OFF--ME--NOW!!"
"JUNIOR...!" s/he yelled.
The shade rolled underneath his feet quickly, pushing the glistening cement away before him. The wall was in reach; he was home free--
Till his other knee gave out. The dark-and-bright ceiling swept down before him, the leech stuck on let out a yelp at his head's quick and sudden grace. His back landed upon a natural form, so soft and so small. It couldn't have been the freak of nature, surely not, if whatever Louis Stevens said had been true....
"Blue Fox...?" reality took hold of him, and slapped him one on the back of his head. "Is that really you?"
"OH...!" s/he--she groaned. "YES! Get off me...!"
"Oh--right!" he lumbered to his feet. "My apologies, my dear, sweet blue fox--!"
"Save it, Junior." His heart dropped a few beats as his eyes ran over that frown, that deep frown that just beamed the frustration swelling in her like that nasty lump on her head, below the shade of the cap's bill. "I'm not in the mood!"
"Of course...!" he blinked again. "Wait a minute! Why are you here? And why pray-tell are you wearing that tacky olive drab? You're not with that creepy major, are you?"
"Me--??" her emeralds nearly popped out of her head. "With that monster? Please.... For someone who claims to be my yellow trout, you sure don't seem like blue fox material."
"What are you talking about, my love?" he asked. "Our union is written in the stars above, on the beasts of the land and the sea! It is foolish to deny such truth, hopping across the globe, joining this strange outfit, and the like. It is our destiny! You cannot run away from it. So saith your yellow trout, and the book of Animology!"
"Why I took that stupid test, I'll never know!" she growled. "And for the last time, I'm not with this terror group! I'm actually -trying- to bail, and you're not helping!"
"So..." an eyebrow kinked. "You're not with the major?"
"NO...!" she growled loudly.
"Then why are you wearing that tacky outfit?"
"What--!?" she blinked. "Are you... serious!? And I thought that Zoolander was bad...."
"Who?"
"Oh--just forget it!"
"Oh." He shrugged. "Okay. As you say, my fox. And I do wish that you would find yourself some better trousers. You can't turn olive drab into totally fab, even for you."
"And you can quit with the Style File too...." She sighed.
"Fine." He nodded.
He let hollow, stagnant air take up the space between them. Kimberly, that little blue fox of his dreams, didn't seem like her usual, perky self. She was dead on her booted feet, a leg buckled, twisted in towards her other knee, her torso slumped to the side where a little patch of red blossomed, no bigger than a two-euro coin from what her clenched hand didn't bother to hide. Her lips twitched, quivered as they were pulled into some kind of sneer.
"You're not in pain, are you?" he asked simply.
"Me?" she bared her pearly-whites, currently in a clench. "Oh no.... Why would I be? Sure I was almost dinner for a freak on wheels, but its nothing a little band-aid couldn't fix."
"Oh!" he nodded. "That explains it."
"Why your old man keeps you around, I'll never know either." She groaned--
The room rattled! As God as his witness, the room itself rattled with a terrible sound, a horrible screeching, screaming sound like a dying bird or something, buzzing with static, crackling and snapping like a crow caught in an electric fence. Not that he had ever heard such an event, nor would he want to. Yet that after-sound was strange, a rumbling, growling sound right before it cut off, like a beast of a grizzly bear or something of the sort.
From her painful sulk, Kimberly shot her head up, her emeralds glazed over with a terrible fright, one he thought that paralyzed the fox completely as though someone shot a dart through her heart. And yet it didn't, for her other hand went straight for the holster on her hip. The little strap of fabric wagged like a tail, and that funky little pistol slipped out with urgency by her hand.
"Tank man--" she gasped, "no! It's already awake!"
"TANK MAN!?" he gulped.
"I have to go!" she exclaimed. "Are you going to help me out of here or not!?"
"You should know me better--my Blue Fox!" he pulled it together, yet no matter how hard he tried, pieces kept slipping through his shaky fingers. Amazing he hadn't squealed like a sissy, making like that cowardly Great Dane and leaping into the weak arms of the nearest person. "For you--I counted the days till my father's villainous activities brought us together again. I did--really!"
"Is that a yes?" she said gruffly.
"Yes--my love!" he bobbed his head violently. "I'll follow you to the ends of this terrestrial ball!"
"Unless you want to be Tank Man's next guest at dinner, we'd better get going." She said gravely. "And check any cuts you might have. I just have this feeling...!"
"Of what?" he asked.
"Oh--forget it." She dismissed with a shake of her head. "Come on. Let's get out of here!"
"I agree, Blue Fox--!"
"Junior!"
"What??"
---
Tara blinked, gasping for air; her abs yanked her upright swiftly from her uneasy rest upon the couch. Something was wrong--terribly wrong, as if the whole earth shifted oddly on its axis. The sudden sense of dread came over her, shaking her very being by its viscous, clammy grip.
-Oh God...! -
Kimberly was in trouble in some way, in some fashion where she couldn't make top or bottom of it. Something was gunning for her; another hunter from that crazy Major's party, cold and emotionless, carrying out its gruesome, morbid task without question or conscious.
A chilly feeling deep inside stirred her, running its icy touch down her spine, bumps protruded out of her forearms in gaggles.
"She is in trouble...!" she gasped.
"Who's in trouble, Hon?"
Her man's feet clomped upon the mat, scratching at it, so her told her as she turned for him. His tan brow glistened in the natural light, a few drops of sweat beaded on the skin. One drop became a slick smear, trailing down his crown and disappearing into that thin line of brush just a bit above his eye.
"Someone's in trouble?" the darker blond followed Yune in, his brow slick and beaded as though it were raining, his sneakers gracing the mat with a simple wipe.
The two had spent the last hour or so in free spar, Ron with that monkey kung-fu mumbo-jumbo while Yune gave him a run for his shekels. Then again, Yune hardly ever broke a sweat for as long as she knew him, at least not with her during her practice.
"What's going on, T?" Yune asked. "Did you hear from Kim?"
"No, not yet." She shook her head. "But...."
"But what?"
"I just got this feeling, and it won't go away." She replied. "Kim's in danger of something really bad! If I only knew what!"
"Well yeah, T." Ron quipped tactlessly. "She's being held by some nutcase who won't take a dirt nap."
"Don't you think I know that already?" she frowned severely.
"Guys." Yune drew his good hand across his brow, smearing the sweat away. "The enemy is out there, not in here. So don't let this escalate into a shouting match, okay?"
"Fine with me, Yune." Ron nodded. "But can you blame us? Kim's trapped somewhere in parts unknown, Sadie's out of action, and we're sitting on our hands till God knows what. We have to figure out something before it's too late!"
"I know, Ron." He nodded back. "But you said it yourself, she's lost in dark territory. And we can't very well do anything till we find her, or till she finds a way to signal. You took that STS course with her, you -should've- remembered what they said."
"Yeah..." the boy sighed, "but this waiting game's killing me!"
"We could always pray." she suggested politely. "Or you guys can always practice some more."
"That's not a bad idea, T." Yune replied. "You could use the practice."
"Me??" she blinked.
"Yeah, you!" He furrowed his brow gravely. "We're probably in so deep, we can never claw our way back out. And as crude as this may sound, T, I can't be bothered anymore to baby-sit. We can't afford to have anyone distracted during the heat of battle, okay?"
"No, that's not crude, Yune." She shook her head. "It didn't sound that nice, but I know you mean well."
"I do." He nodded, lips hinting a bit of a smirk. "And I don't think you're at your fighting best when you're in heels, T."
"I know." She smiled warmly. Her knees locked as she brought up her forelegs. Her heels slipped out of the cups as her pumps dangled by the toes. "But you have to admit, these do make my legs look dainty, don't they Yune?"
"Of course." He smiled back.
"I'll say--!" Ron's little buddy clambered out of his cloth pouch, the flap capping those beady dark eyes that seemed to be just a little bit bigger. Its tongue dangled loosely from its jaw. She wasn't sure whether to cringe or be flattered. Thankfully, it got the message when its master laid down the rules, shoving that rodent back into the burrow where it belonged. "Oh--hey...!"
"Sorry, buddy!" Ron said, slipping the buttons through the eyes of the pocket flap. "But no interspecies crushes on my watch! That's just sick and wrong, you know."
"She's already taken!" she smirked.
"HMM!" it growled.
"Come on, T." Yune motioned for the bedroom as he turned on his heel, strolling coolly for the kitchenette. "Go get changed. There should be an old BDU there and some boots I had from a while ago. They were from my really early days with The Family, so they might fit."
"Thanks...." She said flatly. "Like I haven't had enough of old Mr. Drazen already."
"Oh well." He shrugged. Her heart jumped as Yune went smoothly for that knife block on the corner.
"What the heck are you doing with that?" she asked pryingly as her worried eyes ran over the many serrations on that bread blade.
"I've been out of it for too long, Tara." He said as his shoulder twitched off the strap for the sling. It fell to the tile in a crumple. Her heart quickened as he trained that blade for his white, solid forearm. "It's time that Bin-Mok came back to active duty again."
"Oh--no you don't!" she sprang awkwardly to her feet while her heels slipped roughly back into the cups.
"Yes I am, Tara!" he slowly drew that blade down the length of the hard bandage. The bits of "sawdust" were like motes in the sunlight. "Don't try to stop me. I'm not being the gimp of this team anymore!"
"You could do yourself more damage!" she rushed for that blade. "And the hell I'm going to get an earful from the doctor!"
Her heel clomped on the tile, but she felt Ron's hand latch onto her wrist before she had a chance to lift her other foot of the carpet. It pulled harder as her front foot nearly slipped out back from under her.
"Let him do his thing, Tara." Ronald said.
"But the bones have barely had the time to grow!" her arm protested the grip. "If he removes the cast, they may not fuse right!"
"Trust me on this, Tara." Yune said. She let her forearm give into the grip as she let out a sigh. She should have known by now what futility it was to argue.
"Fine." She sighed, and let her eyes roll a lap around. "But if you get busted again, I'm not the one going who's going to get it from the doc!"
"You said that already, T." the "sawdust" was in a nice, conical pile on Robin's clean floor. She could see a bit of his skin through the clean crack by the elbow.
"Fine--whatever!" she took her arm back powerfully, throwing both limbs into the air dismissively. "Do your thing, Yune. Don't listen to me. I'm just the voice of reason in this zoo!"
"And I think we found our howler monkey too...!" Yune quipped smugly.
"I heard that!" she twisted her neck around, over her shoulder, shooting him a dirty glare. She could have shot him with something else, but that really wouldn't have helped matters.
"MONKEY!?" Ron squealed immaturely, the floor banging as hopped around the place dancing mad. "WHERE!? WHERE'S THE MONKEY!?"
"Real mature, Ron!" she growled.