-Screen goes blank-
Invisible Kyle: -Creepy voice- Do not attempt to fix your computer screen.
Invisible Whisky: -Creepy voice- This is a parody of the Simpsons Halloween special where they did a parody of that movie. You know the one.
Invisible Zing: No, what movie? …Where are my bubbles?
-Screen reappears-
Whisky: Damnit, you promised me he wouldn't stuff the intro up, Kyle!
Kyle: You were the one who was meant to keep an eye on him!
Zing: BUBBLES! My bubbles are back! WHEE!
-Guy with a sign saying "Just read the fic" walks past-
Disclaimer
Koosh: Nope, we don't own MASH… yet.
Kitty: The Sporks promised us the rights if we helped them take over the world.
Quote of the week
Henry: Look at me, sick in Korea. Boy, if I was back home in Bloomington, Illinois, my wife would be taking care of me. She'd be leaning over my bed with her hair in curlers and cold cream on her face and those chipped fingernails, kids playing ball up against the side of the house, my dog at the foot of the bed having an accident... boy, am I glad I'm here!
Give A Reason
Chapter 6: The Mayhem
So Holly and Laura had almost caused Henry to have a mental breakdown. No biggie, Hawkeye and Trapper had often sent the CO slightly nuts. Like the time they sent the geisha girl to Frank and Margaret's room when they were on R and R together, making the two Majors come home screaming for blood. Or when they stole all the trays and bedpans from the mess tent and post op (respectfully, and thankfully all cleaned out) and super glued them to the ceiling of Henry's office. And Henry had got over those mishaps… eventually.
Anyway, Holly thought while scrubbing the smirking bunny off the wall, it wasn't like they had done anything dangerous, was it?
"Get all the paint off," Margaret said from the door. She sounded smug that the two teens were being punished.
"But we put so much effort into this," Laura whined from the opposite wall to Holly, trying to remove the word "Spork" from the wall.
"You're lucky you're not in the army," Margaret said. "You'd be in the stockade by now."
Laura pouted. "Actually, Major--"
"We are lucky," Holly agreed loudly before Laura could say anything else. Second lucky save. "We're also lucky to have an inspiration such as yourself to aspire to when we grow up." She hadn't realised such filthy lies could roll off her tongue without sending her teeth black. She'd have to check a mirror when she got back to the Swamp.
However, the flattery worked. Margaret looked impressed, and walked off, letting the tent door slam.
"I hate myself for saying that," Holly said, dipping her brush into the metal bucket of cold soapy water.
"I hate you for saying that, too," Laura replied. "And I don't like manual labour."
"Neither do I," Holly muttered, standing up and trying to crack the pain out of her back. "Let's head back to the future until the heat is off. Or at least until someone else has scrubbed the paint away."
"Good idea," Laura said, beaming. Her face fell a moment. "I don't know how I got here," she said.
"S'ok," Holly said. "You can come home with me." Laura grinned again.
"Cool, I get to travel to Australia without having to worry about jet lag," she said cheerfully.
Very carefully, Holly opened the door of Margaret's tent. Laura stuck her head under the older teen's arm and the two looked around cautiously. There didn't appear to be many people in the compound, but that didn't mean they had to be any less careful.
"Now, I say we stick behind the tents and make our way slowly around the compound…" Holly was saying. They she noticed Laura was no longer in the tent beside her, but cart wheeling in the compound.
"Flintstones, meet the Flintstones…" she was singing loudly. Holly ran out and started pulling Laura behind one of the tents before someone came out to see what all the noise was about.
"Uh, not the most subtle way to cross the compound," Holly pointed out to Laura. The bubbly brunet shrugged happily. "We need to get to Klinger's tent," Holly said. Laura looked confused.
"Why?" she demanded. "You're not gonna steal something from there then sell it on eBay, are you?"
"Hey…" Holly said thoughtfully. The she shook her head to get the idea out of her head. "No, I got here through his closet," she explained. Laura's face lit up with understanding.
"Lead the way," she said. "I wanna travel around in a kangaroo's pouch!"
As they walked, Holly tried explaining that it wasn't physically possible to get into a 'roo pouch, unless one wanted to have the stuffing kicked out of them, but Laura didn't seem to care. Holly gave up when they reached Klinger's tent. Want to know how they could tell it was Klinger's? His was the only one with pink fuzzy slippered pegged to the support ropes outside.
"Maybe he tried swimming home?" Holly suggested to Laura with a raised eyebrow before pushing through into the tent.
Laura took a look around the tent as Holly went to the closet in the corner.
"Y'know," she said thoughtfully, "This is what my grandma's room would look like if she lived in a tent. Or what my mountain climbing second cousin's tent would look like if he were a cross dresser."
"A little help?" Holly asked, halfway in the closet and trying to push the back out so she could get back to her own room. She'd almost forgotten the fight she'd had with her mother before she found the 4077th and was looking forward to sleeping on an actual mattress…
Thunk.
Rip.
The back of the closet fell out, and Holly hit the ground. When she looked up, all that greeted her was ripped green canvas and rolling Korean hills. Laura looked through the back of the closet.
"Australia looks a heck of a lot like Korea," she commented.
"You're kidding me," Holly muttered. Laura glanced down at her older friend, who was still lying on the ground.
"No, it does," Laura insisted. "Look, those could be the hills that you see in the starting credits."
"No, that is Korea," Holly said. "The rip in time and space, or whatever it was, is gone. I'm stuck here."
Dun, dun, DUUUUNNN!
The two girls sat outside Klinger's tent for an hour, pondering what to do. Eventually, however, they decided to give up and to worry about it later. This depressed Holly very much, but she knew there was nothing more she could do. So, with a heavy sigh, the older girl decided to go to the Swamp for some sleep. She bid the younger girl goodbye and wandered off, leaving Laura all by herself.
Laura sat there silently for a bit, watching the ants crawl around in the dirt. She felt her hyperness steadily fade away for the first time in two days. This usually happened once a day, but since she had found herself in her favourite TV show with her pen pal… Well, her energy size had doubled a bit.
And now, possibly for the rest of the day, or possibly the rest of the week, she would be… normal… Well, at least about as normal as Laura could get.
She stood up, brushed her pants off, and proceeded to walk down the road, her hands jammed in her pockets. She finally decided to go to the mess tent, where most of the personnel were at, in the middle of committing suicide—er, I mean eating lunch.
She entered the tent, and immediately all eyes were drawn to her. They could tell something was different. She wasn't bouncing around, there was no creepy smile on her face, and she just seemed sort of drained.
Oblivious to the stares, Laura walked over to where the Swampmen, Frank, Hot Lips, Radar, Father Mulchahy, Klinger (who was wearing a very pretty blue dress that day), and Henry were sitting. She sat down beside Radar, who looked alarmed. She looked across the table at a very weary looking Henry and waved half-heartedly.
"Hi," she said dully. The officers and two corporals exchanged bewildered looks.
"Hello there," Father Mulchahy finally said, not having had the misfortune of meeting the two nuts before. "I'm Father Mulchahy."
"Laura," replied the teen. "Nice to meet ya," she added, resting her chin on the table. Frank narrowed his eyes suspiciously, his almost-nonexistent lip curling.
"Just what are you up to?" he demanded to know.
Laura stared up at him blankly. "Frank, your nostrils are flaring," she informed him.
"They have a right to flare, I'm a major," he snapped.
"Okey dokey," replied Laura dully. Then she added, "And I'm not doing anything bad… Just sitting here… Listening to you…"
"Don't you dare use that tone with me!" Frank snapped, spit flaying from his mouth. Laura wrinkled her nose up in disgust. The others watched silently.
"You're part of a commie organization, aren't you?" the Ferret continued, his voice becoming higher and higher with each word.
"Frank, you're depriving some village of it's idiot," Laura sighed, grabbing Radar's unused napkin to clean the spit off her face.
Frank's face turned several interesting shades of red. He was quite aware of the fact that the others were watching all of this with great amusement. Well, most of them anyway. Houlihan didn't find it very funny.
"You can't speak to him like that!" she shouted.
"Can if I want to," Laura shot back. "You two aren't the boss of me, thank you very much. My brain works just fine, I can make my own decisions."
The two majors sputtered angrily. If looks could kill, Laura would have been incinerated. Henry wisely decided to speak up so as to prevent any further arguments.
"Calm down, both of you!" he ordered, just as Frank opened his mouth to make a snide remark.
"I'm calm, Henry," the teen replied defensively. "I'm calm! Who needs to calm down? I don't need to calm down. You should be talking to Frank, he's the one who needs to calm down, not me." She said all of this very rapidly.
Henry sighed and raised his eyes up to the ceiling. Laura looked up there too, but she didn't see anything.
"You keep your mouth shut, you little brat!" ordered Frank.
"Oh, shut up Frank," Hawkeye muttered, rubbing his temples. "Your voice is starting to give me a headache."
"Same here," muttered Trapper as the two surgeons stood up to leave. Then he gestured over to Laura. "Come with us, kid."
Laura blinked, but stood up anyway.
"Thank goodness," sighed Hot Lips gratefully. "Finally we can get some fresher air in here."
This caused Hawkeye to make a very, very dirty retort, which we cannot put down as it is rude, crude and socially unacceptable. Plus, we'd have to up the rating to NC-17. Let's just say that it was bad enough to make Margaret scream and faint, and make the whole tent go quiet. Henry stood up and began shouting/scolding the three troublemakers, who walked out as if nothing was happening—well, Hawkeye and Trapper did anyway. Laura was laughing her head off as she followed them out.
Holly was no longer sulking in the Swamp when the other three arrived. Yes, she'd gone there originally for an attempt at sleep, but that was almost impossible in the Swamps currant condition (dirty socks, dirty martini glasses and dirty magazines, all scattered liberally throughout the tent). Laura didn't immediately notice her friend's absence, and the two Captains hadn't been aware she'd been in the Swamp to begin with.
"Hey, the Still," Laura said, perking up a little when she saw the contraption in the corner. Now, it wasn't that she and Holly hadn't seen the Still before, it was more that they had been… busy the last two days (the next occupant of the VIP tent would be very surprised by the King Spork painted onto the roof and the nurses were still trying to remove all the tiny pieces of white paper from their beds).
"I don't think so!" Trapper said, pouring clear liquid into two martini glasses.
"We don't serve minors," Hawkeye added. He took the glass offered to him from Trapper and took a swig.
"Awww," Laura moaned. "But there aren't drinking laws here in Korea."
"We promised Henry we'd look after you, and rupturing your liver doesn't count as looking after you," Trapper said stubbornly. Laura pouted sulkily. Hawkeye glanced over at his buddy.
"We could give her a sip," he said.
"No," Trapper said firmly. "I have my own little girls, and I'd kill anyone who dared give them a drink at… how old are you, Laura?"
"Fifteen," she replied sulkily.
"Right, at fifteen," Trapper continued. "What kind of person would I be, knowing I caved to a couple of kids I didn't know and let them drink?"
"Hey, where's the other one?" Hawkeye asked, glancing around. "Where's Holly?" Trapper looked around as well.
"She wouldn't have gone to visit Bob the farmer again, would she have?" he asked dryly. Laura shrugged.
"Don't look at me," she said. "She told me she was coming back here for a while." Hawkeye cast an eye over the tent.
"Well, she isn't here now, is she?" he asked.
"You don't think she's walked into the minefield or something, do you?" Trapper asked, somewhat worriedly.
"Don't worry, she knows where that is," Laura comforted him. Trapper raised a suspicious eyebrow at her, and was about to ask her how the two girls knew where everything was, considering they'd only been there less than 48 hours, when the Swamp door banged open.
"Hi," Holly said glumly, sitting on the end of Hawkeye's cot. There was a nasty looking cut on her right ear that was bleeding, and her clothes looked scuffed.
"What the happened to you?" Hawkeye asked as Trapper went over to her. Holly shrugged, trying to wave Trapper away from her ear at the same time.
"I went for a walk," she said. "Had to do some thinking. A bird or something landed on a mine and it blew up. Nothing exciting." She tried shrugging like it was no big deal, though the truth was she'd been scared half to death by the explosion.
"You ear is bleeding pretty bad, but it doesn't look like it needs stitches, just a bandage," Trapper said finally. Holly lifted a hand to her ear, and looked faintly surprised at the blood.
"I was wondering why it was throbbing," she said. Trapper was about to open his mouth and give her a telling off, when there was a fit of coughing behind him. All three turned to see Laura with a martini glass in her hand, the gin sloshing over the sides of the glass as she coughed.
"What?" she asked guiltily as the coughs subsided, putting the glass down hurriedly. Trapper rolled his eyes before lecturing Laura as Holly and Hawkeye sniggered behind his back.
A few hours later, the two girls found themselves curled up on the two surgeons cots, sipping on their very own martinis. How did this happen, you ask? Quite simple, really; the two girls bugged the two surgeons so badly until they announced that they changed their minds and that the two girls could have their own martinis. Naturally, Laura and Holly were very happy about this. Don't ask me why, I'm just the narrator.
After the two girls recovered from the horrid taste of the martinis, they began to enjoy them. Actually, they became addicted, which was bad. Hawkeye and Trapper watched wearily as the authors began to giggle hysterically, their faces flushed.
"I think we've made a terrible mistake, Hawkeye," Trapper said to his best friend.
"I think you're right, Trap," the other agreed. The two surgeons exchanged helpless looks and shrugged, as if to say, 'What can ya do?' And so, they followed that time-old saying that many use again and again; "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
And before they knew it, all four of 'em were drunk. Really drunk. This made all four of them extremely chatty.
"Without question," Laura suddenly began, taking another sip from her martini, "the greatest invention of mankind is liquor. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza."
"Here here," said Holly, raising her glass briefly before taking another sip. Hawkeye and Trapper exchanged amused glances before giggling drunkenly.
"And you know what else?" asked Holly, studying her martini glass. "Liquor is also proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
"Can't argue with that," Hawkeye remarked, standing unsteadily to refill his glass.
At that moment, Frank walked in. He took one look at Laura and Holly sipping their martinis happily and Hawkeye and Trap's red faces, and began bristling in anger. He glowered at the two surgeons, his face darkening by the second.
"You two are a disgrace," he hissed. "Have you no honour? Can you not see that these two underage teenagers are drinking? Did you actually fix them martinis willingly?"
"Guilty as charged, Frank," replied Hawkeye cheerfully.
"I'm not underaged," Holly yelled excitedly. "I have I.D.!" She swiped at her bag a few times, fingertips brushing the side of it slightly. Frustrated, she leant over further, falling off the cot, laughing as she tried to sit up. Eventually, she gave up, and just lay there, only her legs visible to the others.
"You cretins!" the Ferret said in disgust. "You two should be put in front of a firing squad!"
"Aw, Frank, lay off, would ya?" sighed Trapper. "We aren't doing anything wrong… We're in Korea, not America, so technically there's no age limit."
"But this is an American MASH unit," Frank shot back smugly. "Therefore, underage drinking is against regulations."
"Since when does anyone in this compound—aside from you and Hot Lips that is—follow regulations?" asked Holly from her spot on the floor. Franks face darkened even more.
"Well, it—it's—it's wrong!" he sputtered.
"Aw, c'mon Frank, it's not like we're gonna go to hell for it," Hawkeye snapped irritably as he finished making his drink.
"And besides," Laura added, peering down into her empty martini glass thoughtfully. "When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep. When we're asleep, we commit no sins." She looked up at everyone and grinned, her face a lovely shade of rouge. "Sooooooo… let's all get drunk and go to heaven!"
"We're already drunk!" Holly pointed out. Laura seemed to ponder this a moment before grinning.
"Oh, yeah," she giggled. "Looks like we're goin' to heaven then, guys!"
All four then erupted into a fit of drunken giggles. Frank, of course, did not find any of this funny in the least.
"Oh… you… guys!" he shouted angrily. "The colonel will hear about this!" And with that, he stormed out.
Hawkeye sighed in relief and said, "I thought he'd never leave."
Kitty: And there you have it. We hope that you enjoyed it.
Koosh: Yup! And next chapter, we'll have a special treat for all of you!
Kitty: Can't tell ya what it is, though—it's a secret! –cackles evilly-
Kyle: Oh god… we're DOOMED…
Whiskey: All of you readers… Just… review already, dammit!
Zing: BUBBLES BUBBLES BUBBLES BUBBLES…