Chapter Eight- Can't Take It No More
"Please tell me that you completed your simple task," said King Tallious, staring down at his youngest son. "And secured the treaty signed by the Lord of the Dwarf Village."
"Father, they sent a beautiful woman to distract me, and I was defenceless!" Thadeous protested.
"Don't bandy words with me, Thadeous," the King warned. "Your brother and sister are to return from their quest at any moment. Please go and bathe yourself!"
"Why must I bow to greet them?" Thadeous demanded. "No one does anything special for me when I do extraordinary things!"
"For the love of the Gods, Thadeous, your sister Theodina has done more extraordinary things in the last week than you have in the entirety of your life, and she is merely a woman," Tallious exclaimed with annoyance. "What extraordinary things have you done of late? Do tell me. Enlighten me."
"Courtney!" Thadeous called to his faithful man-servant. "What extraordinary things have I done?"
Courtney produced a scroll and read, "You took a bubble bath, ate some toast, had a sleep for one hour and commissioned a naked statue of your fine self."
Thadeous looked at his father like this proved his point.
"God, if your mother could see you now," the King muttered contemptuously.
There was a sudden uproar towards the back of the courtroom, and Julie, the squire, began to shout, "Hear ye, hear ye!"
"Oh dear Gods," mumbled Thadeous, taking a drink of wine.
"It is with blossoming personal joy," Julie read from the scroll in his hands. "that I announce the return of the mighty, the magnificent, the merciful, Prince Fabious! And the enchanting, the enthralling, the enigmatic, Princess Theodina!"
A great cheer rose up in the court, and the double doors at the back of the room opened up to a fanfare. In rode Fabious and Theodina on their matching greys, a stallion and a filly, flanked by the other knights in the guard. They held on to their horses' reigns with one hand, and their other hands were grasping each other, lifted high above their heads to the adoring yells of the crowd around them.
The twins came to a stop in the middle of the court and dismounted, giving each other a warm hug before turning and grinning at their younger brother.
"Brother!" shouted Fabious, running up the steps to embrace Thadeous. "Oh my God, I missed you so!" He planted a kiss on his brother, who quickly pulled away.
"Yes, we both have!" Theodina added happily, also hugging her brother tightly, though Thadeous did not return the hug. "It is so fantastic to see you!"
"Father!" Fabious turned to the King, as did Theodina, both of them dropping to their knees and bowing.
"My son," Tallious said proudly. "My daughter." He took hold of their hands and stood them up, pulling them both into a hug. "Welcome home."
"We did it, Father!" Theodina announced. "We defeated that Cyclops in your honour!"
"As you all know," Fabious addressed the rapt crowd below the royal family. "The evil wizard Leezar has plagued our kingdom with his foul creatures and wicked ways for years."
"But with our brave, trusted knights," added Theodina. "And our dear Simon and Elizabeth," She and Fabious held their arms out for their mechanical bird companions to join them. "We have slain the latest of the cold-blooded enemies Leezar has sent our way!"
"Behold!" proclaimed Fabious. "The head of Leezar's mighty Cyclops!" He reached into his leather travelling bag and removed the decapitated cranium of the beast, holding it up for the whole court to admire. The sight brought fresh cheers from their mouths.
They were chanting the names of the prince and princess. "Fa-bi-ous! The-o-di-na! Fa-bi-ous! The-o-di-na! Fa-bi-ous! The-o-di-na!" Fabious handed the head over to the King, who in turn handed the head to Thadeous, who looked disgusted.
The King then held up a hand to silence the court, placing his arms around his eldest son and only daughter. "Once again, Prince Fabious and Princess Theodina have made me as proud as a father could ever be! All the land owes them gratitude."
"This is not the only news that I've brought home with me today!" Fabious declared, and Theodina let out a small squeal of excitement. "Father, brother, kingdom." The crowd suddenly split like the Red Sea, allowing a beautiful dark-haired woman to walk through, and Fabious ran over to take her in his arms.
"She is radiant," murmured the King.
"I'd like you to meet my bride-to-be," Fabious revealed blissfully. "Belladonna." The court erupted into cheering yet again as Fabious and Belladonna kissed.
"Three cheers for my brother and Belladonna!" Theodina shouted. "And let us all get royally shit-faced!"
-Your Highness, 2011
"So. We're tired. We're thirsty. We have no drinks," I said to the guys as we sat around the small table in the living room. "What the fuck are we gonna do now? Just stay here and hope that we get killed by the decapitation monster before we die of thirst?"
"That's kind of pessimistic, isn't it?" said Jay.
"Says King of the Pessimists over here," I retorted. "We're basically fucked. We are gonna die unless we can find some form of liquid sustenance."
"There's a couple of water containers in the basement," James said.
"Okay, great," I said with a strained smile. Just…think…positive. "Where's the door to the basement?"
"Um." James faltered. "It's…outside. Around the other side of the house."
Everyone groaned. Shit. This could not have been going any worse than it was. Fucking Hermione. I was never watching those movies for the rest of what was probably going to be my very short life.
"Please, please, please, just tell me you're joking," I begged him, putting my head in my hands. "You're telling me you built a house with no fucking indoor basement entrance?!"
"I fucking didn't think I'd need one!" he replied defensively. "Who prepares for the fucking apocalypse, Mack?!"
"Touché," I relented. I stood up and walked over to the front door. We hadn't bothered to board it back up, since with our track record, someone would chop it back down in the next two days. I put my hand on my hip and cocked my head to the side. "So. The water is out there. We are in here. Quite the conundrum we're facing."
The guys had all gathered around with me. "I know for sure there's at least two jugs of water," James said.
Jay rubbed his hands together. "Any volunteers?"
"Does anyone wanna volunteer to go with Jay?" Jonah asked.
"What?" said Jay.
"I thought you said, 'Someone volunteer to go with me out there.' I must have misheard you," Jonah replied innocently. "I'm sorry."
"You did not, you motherfucker!" Jay said angrily.
"Hey, okay, ease up!" Seth quickly interrupted. "Just chill out, dude," he said to Jay. "Just relax, man! God."
"So how we gonna do this, fellas?" asked Craig.
I thought for a second. Then an idea hit me. "I got it." I hurried into the kitchen and went through the drawers until I came across a box of matches. I threw them to Seth.
"What the fuck am I meant to do with these?" he questioned.
"Light one so the tip burns black," I explained impatiently. "Then turn all the matches upside down and cover it up so we can't see the tips. Whoever chooses the burnt one has to get the water. It's like drawing the short straw, apocalypse-style."
Seth opened the box and pulled out seven matches, lighting one of them and quickly blowing it out. He placed it back in the cluster of matches and mixed them all up so none of us had any idea where the burnt one was.
"So…" I said awkwardly. "Who wants to go first?"
"I'll do it," Craig volunteered.
"Craig. Alright," said Seth, and he held out the matches to him. "Go ahead, brother." The rest of us stood there, barely daring to breathe loudly as Craig reached out and slowly pulled a match from the bunch. The tip was black.
The guys all started fucking cheering about the fact it wasn't them, while I let out a quiet sigh of relief. No need to rub it in the poor guy's face.
"So sorry, Craig," Danny said insincerely, placing a hand on Craig's arm.
"There's a lot of guys in here that I wish it was instead of you," said James, not-so-subtly jerking his head in Danny's direction, who looked affronted.
"Wanna go best two out of three?" Craig attempted, but of course no one took him up on that. Instead, we found him a long length of cord that we tied around his waist as a safety line. If there was any problems outside, we'd be able to pull him straight back into the house.
"If I tug, if I pull in any way, or if you hear me screaming, anything, you pull me right back in, alright?" Craig instructed us as we tested how taut the rope would go.
"We'll try man, but you're pretty heavy," said Danny.
"What?" said Craig.
"No, I mean, I'm saying I just don't think it's smart to make any guarantees." I'm sure Danny thought that this was an acceptable defence. He was wrong.
"Fuck no!" Craig complained. "You promise to pull me back in! You got me?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the guys all said.
"I promise, bro," I assured him. "We're gonna do out best. You're gonna be safe."
"Alright," Craig said, sounding a little more relaxed.
"You wanna do a test run?" I asked him.
"Yeah!"
"You gotta scream," James told him. "Let us hear the scream." He let out a scream and the other six of us pulled on the rope, dragging Craig forward a few feet.
"Everyone thank Craig for doing this," said Seth.
"Thank you, Craig," we chorused. Craig nodded and cautiously opened the door, checking his rope was tightly tied and slipping outside.
"It's getting smoky in here!" Danny hissed. "Go, go, go, go!" He closed the door enough so that we could still pull the rope. We held the rope loosely in our hands, letting it move as Craig moved. We waited for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of crackling flames and crunching gravel outside.
Suddenly, the rope started to move much quicker, scraping against our hands and causing Jonah to suddenly drop it, exclaiming, "Rope burn!" This was the same time the grazing pains got to all of us, and we all let go of the rope.
"Shit!" I screeched, dropping to the floor in an attempt to grab the rope. All that happened was me smacking my face into the wood. The other guys had all tried to seize hold of it, but Craig was moving too fast, and the rope disappeared out the door.
"No, no, no, no, no, no!" we all cried, looking outside into the opaque flaming smog.
"Oh my God, he's fucked!" I groaned, looking outside in despair.
"Well, maybe he'll be okay," said Seth. "Maybe there's nothing actually out there now."
This was a theory that was totally shot down in flames when we heard Craig cry, "Fellas, fellas! Pull me in! Pull the rope! Pull me in!"
"We don't have the rope anymore!" shouted Seth. "We fucking dropped it! We're sorry!"
"You've got the rope, man!" yelled James.
"What?!" Craig shrieked, and there was suddenly a deep, guttural growl, followed by Craig's blood-curdling scream.
"Craig!" James shouted.
"What the fuck is yelling his name gonna do?!" I bellowed at him.
"What the fuck do we do?!" exclaimed Seth, before turning and yelling Craig's name some more. That was when Craig came barrelling through the door, still screaming.
"Are you okay?!" Seth asked him hurriedly, clapping a hand on his back. "What happened, man?!"
"I don't know!" he gasped out, panicked. "There's something out there!" There was another roar outside, and the something started pulling on the rope that was still attached to Craig. The force propelled Craig backwards, bringing Seth and Jay with him, and the three of them crashed into the door, landing in a heap on the floor.
The seven of us all started screaming, trying to get the thing to release Craig, but whatever it was just kept pulling him, slamming the poor man's head against the door. We were pulling and pulling, but the thing had some serious strength to it.
"We gotta cut the rope off!" I grunted, keeping a tight hold of Craig's hand and heaving.
"A knife!" Jay shouted, holding his hand out. "Somebody throw me a knife!"
The only people not trying to save Craig were Jonah and Danny, so Jonah said, "I'll get it!" and grabbed hold of a conveniently placed knife on the table. He didn't think to run over and hand it to someone. No.
Instead, Jonah decided to literally throw it at Jay, and the knife buried itself an inch deep in Jay's thigh. He stared at the knife in horror, then let out a scream of pain.
"OMG! Jay! I'm so sorry, bro!" Jonah apologised, raising his hands.
"What in the fuck, Jonah?!" I screamed. "Are you totally fucking blind?!" And then, with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever, I reached over and ripped the knife clean out of Jay's leg, causing him to let out a fresh cry. "Oh, grow a pair of balls, Jay! It's not that fucking bad!"
I quickly handed Craig the knife, and he started sawing through the rope as quickly as he could to our yells of, "Cut it! Cut it! Cut it! Cut it!" The rope snapped in two, and the sudden release of pressure sent the five of us on the floor sprawling down. I ended up collapsed across both Seth and Jay, who quickly pushed me off.
"God!" shrieked James, slamming the door shut. "What the fuck was that?!"
"I don't know what the fuck that was," panted Craig. "But I ain't going back out there."
"Craig, you didn't even get any of the water!" exclaimed Danny, who had been hiding under the table the whole time.
"The door was fucked up!" Craig retorted.
"Damn it, this is so frustrating!" James spat, walking a few steps away. "It's so close, but so far! The water, it's like, right underneath us!" He stepped on to the concrete flooring and drew a square shape in the air with his fingers. "Like, right there!"
Jay slowly raised his head. "What do you mean, right underneath us?"
"Like, literally, like, right there!" James said, jabbing his hands at the floor. "If you went right through the floor!"
Danny reached out and knocked four times on the concrete. The next thing we knew, Jay, Craig, Seth, Danny and I were sitting on the floor using screwdrivers and hammers to crack away at the concrete to make a hole down to the basement.
"You could help us, y'know!" I snapped at James, wiping my sweaty forehead with the back of my hand.
"I'm supervising the destruction of my house!" he retorted.
We took the job in shifts over the next day or so. It was the only way to prevent us all arguing about who'd done however much work. The hole was now about seven inches deep and a metre wide, and Danny, Seth and I had all been smashing away at that concrete for a good hour or so into our shift when James suddenly started yelling about something.
"Who did this?" The three of us looked up at James' open upper floor where he was standing. "Who did this?"
"Care to enlighten us on what 'this' is?" I asked him, dropping the bit of chair leg I'd been using as a hammer.
"What are you talking about?" questioned Seth.
James held something up, and I only vaguely registered that it was that fucking porno mag the guys were all obsessed with. "Jizzed all over the pages of this nice magazine I was nice enough to tell you about!"
"Well for obvious reasons I'm just gonna state that it clearly was not me," I said, raising my hands.
"Was it you, Seth?" James demanded.
"No," Seth replied, looking confused.
"It was me, Franco," Danny said, more aggressively than what was probably needed. "I fucking made jizz in your magazine."
"Why?!" James yelled.
"When I fucking jack off long enough, I end up jizzing, dude!" Danny retorted. "I'm assuming the same shit works for you!"
"Real fucking smart answer!" James exploded. "Why don't you fucking aim, huh?!"
"I have a particularly explosive ejaculate!" Danny shouted. "It just goes everywhere! It's like a fucking wild fireman's hose!" He saw fit to add gestures here. "You just gotta hold on and pray to God that it doesn't get into your eyes or your mouth!"
By this point, everything had just gotten way, way too ridiculous for me. I was bent double with laughter, tears streaming from my eyes, struggling to breathe. Is this really what we had resorted to: arguing about cum in a magazine?
"I don't know why you're fucking laughing, Kenzie!" James said angrily. "Look!" He brandished the magazine down at us, and I saw myself grinning back on the page. Oh my actual fucking God, it was one of my Victoria's Secret adverts.
"Danny!" I yelled, kicking him roughly in the shin. "That is fucking disgusting, dude! Have a little class!"
"Mackenzie, this is in no way an insult to you," Danny replied patronizingly. "You should feel complimented that you're aesthetically pleasing to the opposite sex."
"Yeah, I'm just sooo complimented that you made your dick explode all over a picture of me!" I snapped.
"The fuck kinda jerking of is that?!" James shouted. "What, you never had any brothers? You didn't learn to jizz in a fucking sock or on a fucking tissue?!"
"No, I don't have any brothers!" Danny shouted back. "I was raised in a house of women!"
"I highly doubt they fucking taught you to fucking close your eyes and fucking cum wherever you want!" James screeched.
"Yeah, thanks for that, Franco," I said, wrinkling my nose in distaste. "Nice to know what your and Dave's teenage years consisted of."
"You're getting all worked up over a fucking porno mag!" Danny yelled. "Who has goddamn porno mags any more!? Welcome to the twenty-first century, Buck Rogers! You designed a house with fucking iPads in the walls, yet you're jerking your dick like a goddamn pilgrim!"
"That's right, man! I like to fucking read!" James retorted. Seth and I had literally no idea how to respond to most of this argument; we'd occasionally make eye contact which we'd immediately break to avoid bursting into laughter.
"You think that's the only thing I jerked off in here?!" Danny shouted maliciously. "I've been dropping loads around this fucking house like a goddamn dump truck!"
"You don't cum on my stuff!" James screamed.
"I'll come wherever the fuck I want, James!" Danny stated angrily. "I'll fucking cum in your kitchen, I'll cum on your fucking art, I'll cum anywhere I want!"
"I will fucking cum right on you!" James hollered, making violent jerk-off gestures at Danny. "I will cum like a fucking madman all over you, McBride!"
"I fucking wish you'd cum on me right now!" Danny snapped. "I fucking dare you to cum on me!"
"Guys! There are less embarrassing ways to settle-!" I began as both of them started making even more violent gestures at one another, but I was interrupted by Danny. Of course.
"I'm gonna jack my dick so fucking hard in here!" he grunted, 'jerking off' the baseball bat between his legs.
"This!" James made another jack off gesture. "No more, man. All over your fucking face!" I tuned out at that point. This entire argument had surpassed ridiculous and ventured into the land of Just Plain Fucking Stupid. Danny, however, was just not gonna shut up.
"I'll cum on these walls! I'll cum on the fucking cabinets! On the fucking furniture! I'll cum everywhere!"
"If I see your dick one more time, I'm gonna fucking shoot it off!" James hissed, jabbing his gun at Danny.
"You don't have enough bullets, bitch!" Danny shouted.
"No fucking jerking off in my house, McBride!" And with that, James stormed off in the general direction of his bedroom.
Danny furiously threw his bat down, and a metallic clang rang out. "Fuck this!"
"Come on, man," I said.
"I'm just…I'm too thirsty to do this!" he said irately. "And the fucking bitter irony is I'm not gonna have my thirst quenched until I finish this! Goddamn it, I hate it!" Danny started storming off too.
"Danny, no!" Seth said in the most authoritive tone he possessed. "Don't walk away! Danny, don't walk away from me!"
"It's too late, Seth!" Danny insisted, not turning around. "I've already walked away too much!"
"Er, no you haven't!" I exclaimed. "Turn around now and it's the same fucking distance! Come back and help us!"
"Danny!" Seth shouted. "Daniel!" But Danny had disappeared around the corner.
"For fuck sake!" I growled, kicking the inside of the hole and instantly regretting it as pain shot up my toes.
So Seth and I got back to work. For another hour we stood there, uselessly whacking away at the floor to no avail. To be honest, we had little to no strength left. We were so tired, and we were so thirsty. There was nothing left in our systems to physically give us strength.
"Need a hand?" asked Jay, suddenly popping up from nowhere.
"Dude, you would be a lifesaver," I said gratefully.
"But your shift just ended, man," said Seth guiltily. "You don't have to help us if you don't want to."
"The fuck else am I doing?" Jay asked rhetorically.
"Well then, we seriously appreciate this," I said, handing him the baseball bat. "Thank you." So then all three of us were pounding away at the concrete, chipping off little bits of the floor at the time.
"I don't know what I'm thinking of this," Jay said suddenly. "But remember that time that I got you a fucking Taco Bell gift certificate for like, twenty bucks, and I bet you that you couldn't eat all of that in one sitting."
"I do remember that! I remember thinking," Seth said reminiscently. "'How much food could twenty dollars possibly buy you at Taco Bell?' And the answer is infinite."
"I wanna hear this story!" I piped up, curious.
"We went to see fucking Gladiator," Jay told me. "And Seth here sharted midway through the movie."
"Oh my God, what?!" I said, my jaw dropping. "That's fucking gnarly!"
"I did, though," Seth laughed.
"Due to the tigers' appearance," added Jay.
"I got scared of the tigers," Seth said. "Literally, when the second tiger came out, I went-" Seth gasped exaggeratedly followed by a plopping noise. "-and then I shat. I shat in the theatre." Both of them dissolved into reminiscent laughter.
"Dude. That's more than a little-" I started to say, and that was when the floor collapsed underneath us.
A/N- La-da-di-da-di. I'm still getting literally no feedback for this. Am I really doing that bad? I mean, one review would be nice… Xx Gee xX
PS- I've now added Theodina's costume and Mack's Victoria's Secret ad to my Polyvore. Link's on my profile.