There's a Method to This Madness
Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.
Part 05: The Scythe, the Gun, and the Smiling Tummy
Prompt: Happy ((troika+scythe))
They were both so stupid sometimes. No, a lot of the time. It was always such tiny, trivial little things would send either of them into hysterics. What was the saying that Maka used? At the drop of a hat. Yep, that was it. A tilted picture frame and Kid would be a nervous wreck. A cold draft in the house, and Liz would be convinced that a poltergeist was looking to eat her. A butcher's knife sliced through Patti's stomach, and suddenly they were both freaking out like it was the end of the world or something.
Tiny, trivial little things.
It was just a flesh wound.
She hadn't died. She hadn't even been close to dying. The desperate, cornered bastard who'd lashed out at her had gotten what he deserved. And the slippery, slimy feeling of her intestines spilling through her hands had reminded Patti of spaghetti and that had made her laugh.
It was funny. Patti couldn't help but laugh. But Kid and Liz, as usual, had not appreciated the absurd humor of the situation.
And then Patti had gotten stitched up, just like a teddy bear! And Patti had gotten the happy-drinks that made the pain go away and that made even Liz's hysterical sobbing seem a thousand times more hilarious than it probably should have been. And ice cream! And flowers! Everybody was giving her flowers. And stuffed animals! She'd scored a teddy bear of nearly every color in the rainbow by the time that her tummy began to heal. And her scar! It was like her tummy was always smiling now. That pretty, puckered smile was right smack dab in the center of her body, too – not to mention evenly curved on both sides.
Serial killers always did the best knife work.
Patti didn't understand why Kid didn't love her scar.
Evisceration was a neat word. It had five syllables. That meant five hand-claps.
The bad part was the yelling. Kid and Liz both yelling at her, over and over again, even as they were crying like big stupid crybabies. They called Patti stupid and screamed things like what were you thinking? at her face. They'd been screaming at her even as her spaghetti-guts had spilled through her hands, even as she had laughed at the pain, even as she had laughed at the way that they were both totally overreacting to the problem. And much later, when he was done being a crybaby about it, Kid had come to her and yelled at her again, demanding to know why she had leapt back into her human form before the kill was finished, and Patti had looked at him and said, No reason not to.
Because she hadn't been afraid.
Kid and Liz had been with her, and she hadn't been afraid.
She still didn't see any reason to be afraid. See? She hadn't died. She was fine. Now her tummy was always smiling and she had an entire army of rainbow-colored teddy bears to decorate her room with. Everything had turned out just fine.
Evisceration had five syllables. That meant five hand-claps. Say it twice and you got ten hand claps. Patti made a song, singing and clapping. She didn't understand why Kid didn't like her song.
Disembowelment was also a five-clap word. But not so good for making songs.
Patti got to eat mashed potatoes, milkshakes, and ice cream. Scrambled eggs for breakfast, but no bacon. Stupidhead doctors were worried about her eating, but she was fine, totally fine. Patti's tummy was magic, after all. If she could eat souls, then she could eat ice cream, right? And they'd gotten most of her spaghetti-guts back into her tummy all right. Not all of them, but most of them. Patti supposed that she had Kid and her sister to thank for that, because even though they'd been falling apart at least they'd done the first aid parts right. They were Shibusen students, they'd been trained well. Even Patti remembered her first aid lessons. It had been one of the few classes that she'd ever bothered to pay attention to, because it had been so funny. Broken bone popping out? Wrap that sucker up! Knife stuck in an eyeball? Don't pull it out no matter how tempting it may be. You were supposed to bandage around the knife and wait for a real doctor to take a look at it, could you believe that? And hey, fingers cut off? No worries, those can be sewn back on! It had been the best class ever. Patti had laughed and laughed and laughed while the other students had squirmed uncomfortably every time that Ms. Nygus had clicked over to a new "visual aid" slide.
First rule of surviving an abdominal injury: Don't try to shove the guts back in!
(The second rule was don't touch the spaghetti-guts with your hands but too late, Patti's hands had been right there when her guts had started spilling. Oh well. No big deal. She was fine now anyway.)
Abdominal was a four-clap word. Abdominal Evisceration! Patti made a new song. Kid said that it was redundant, you couldn't say abdominal evisceration, that was stupid.
Patti didn't know what redundant meant, but she didn't care. Now she was starting to feel sad. All she wanted was for Kid to laugh at one of her songs again, but he seemed determined to stay miserable.
Liz curled up beside her on her bed, and read to Patti from The Wind in the Willows. Patti liked books about animals. Patti liked getting visits from Liz and Kid. Patti didn't like that Kid had stormed out of Patti's hospital room after he had called her redundant and had left Liz to read to her alone.
Liz was on one side of Patti, which meant that Patti was asymmetrical. For the first time ever ever, Patti understood why Kid didn't like being asymmetrical. Being asymmetrical meant having only one person on one side of you, when you wanted two people on either side of you instead. It was better that way. Safer. Having two people meant having symmetry, and having symmetry meant that you were safe.
Patti frowned and wriggled her toes beneath her bedsheets and frowned deeper. "Kid doesn't like Patti's songs," Patti said.
"Probably because they're horrible," Liz said.
"He doesn't like Patti's scar."
"Patti…"
"Does Kid think that Patti's ugly? Now?" She sniffled. "Because of the scar?"
"No, no, of course not!" Liz said quickly. "He's just freaking out about things. You know how his brain works."
That wasn't true. Sometimes Patti didn't know how Kid's brain worked, because he was stupid, and Patti sometimes didn't understand stupid people very well.
Patti slept for a long time. Then she got sick. That wasn't fun. Then the doctors said that she couldn't have scrambled eggs anymore, either. No more eggs and no more bacon. Patti had to keep staying in the hospital because yummy things kept making her tummy feel bad.
Kid tried to stay with Patti, but he was always fidgety and sad and upset. Patti knew that Kid was sad because when Patti was in the hospital, he and Liz had to be asymmetrical. Patti felt like she was asymmetrical even when Kid was with her, though. It was a bad feeling. And it wasn't getting any better.
Patti felt unbalanced.
One time, Patti was alone in her room. She fell asleep. Then she woke up. When she woke up, Soul was sitting beside her bed. Patti smiled when she saw him. "Hi, Soul."
"Hey, Patti."
"Wanna see Patti's scar?"
"Uh, that's okay. You already showed me once, remember?"
"Oh. Yeah." Patti grinned up at him. "Y'know what?"
"What?"
"Patti's scar is waaaaay better than yours. 'Cause Patti's scar is symmetrical."
Soul stared at her. "Well, at least now I know that Kid's mental health problems are contagious."
Patti frowned when Soul said Kid's name. She couldn't help it. Just thinking of Kid made her feel frowny and unbalanced now.
Soul noticed Patti's frown. "There's something bothering you, huh." It was a statement, not a question.
"Yep," Patti said. But she really didn't want to talk about Kid. So she talked about the other thing that was bothering her instead. "Patti can't eat a lot of yummy things anymore. The doctors say that's because there isn't as much spaghetti inside of Patti as there used to be."
"Uh… Okay," Soul said. Then he scratched at his neck and said, "Listen, Patti. I kind of came here because I wanted to talk to you about Kid."
Patti frowned again.
"He's really wound up about what happened to you, and he's not getting better. So, I just… Uh, I kind of just wanted to talk to you about it, because I've been where you've been, you know? That time when I got hurt real bad, that time that I got my scar, I remember how Maka got all freaked out about it. Like her head got all screwed up, and she kept blaming herself, and she got all emo about everything and just wouldn't get over it. And I know how horrible this sounds, but I started to, uh, I started to feel really pissed off at her, you know? Like, I'm the one sitting here trying to heal and you have to go and turn this into some huge drama about your guilt and it's starting to piss me off, right? I know it wasn't cool of me to feel that way, but I did. Even when I was trying to be cool about my scar and everything, and I was trying to get her to see that I was cool about my scar and everything, it just made her feel worse, and then I felt worse for making her feel worse, and then… Well, you know. You and Kid are kind of doing the same thing right now, I think."
Patti looked at Soul for a long time. Then she shook her head and said, "Me an' Kid are different."
"But Patti, you-"
"No, listen," Patti said. "Me an' Kid right now are like you and Maka after that time you got hurt. Soul is right. We're just the same. But what happened before is different. What happened to you and me is different. You got hurt because you were protecting Maka." Patti rested her hands on top of her smiling tummy. "Patti got hurt because she was just being careless. Patti got hurt because she was stupid and wasn't thinking about bad things that might happen and wasn't paying attention and changed too early and now Patti can never eat bacon ever again and stupid Kid thinks it's all his fault but really it's all Patti's fault and now Kid is sad all the time because of Patti and-" Patti's voice broke, and she started crying. "'M sorry," she hiccupped at Soul, reaching up to wipe the tears from her eyes. " 'M sorry," she repeated again, sniffing back boogers. Crying-boogers were the worst.
"Uh, I didn't mean to make you cry," Soul said.
"'Sokay," Patti sniffled. She used her hand to wipe away her tears and her boogers again. Then she looked up at Soul and asked, "So how did you an' Maka stop feeling icky with each other?"
"Uh…." Soul scowled for a moment at nothing in particular. "We talked to each other," he finally said. "Maybe you and Kid should do that too. Just don't ask Professor Stein for help. Trust me. That's a bad idea."
"Did you really just talk to each other?" Patti asked, skeptically.
"Er… Maybe there was yelling and hitting and a werewolf and some other stuff involved, too," Soul admitted. "But, uh… The point is, uh… Sorry. This is so uncool. I'm sorry, Patti. I guess I came here to give you advice because I once went through what you're going through right now, but now that I think about it, uh, I don't really have any good advice to give, since I was pretty uncool about it when it happened to me, too."
Patti smiled up at Soul. "Thank you, Soul."
"For what?"
"For talkin' to me," Patti said. "Even if you kinda suck at giving advice."
Soul shrugged nonchalantly. "I figure that us Death Scythes ought to look out for each other, y'know?"
Soul left then, and Patti was left alone. She played with her teddy bears. She tried not to think about bacon. She wondered what she should say to Kid when he came to see her later, because she knew that he was coming to see her later. Finally she got bored and fell asleep again.
When she woke up, Kid was there. Patti blinked and saw that he had moved a chair from the side of her bed around to the foot of the bed. He was seated in the chair, in the exact center of the room, aligned with the exact center of Patti's bed, watching her anxiously.
That was a bad sign. Patti knew that when Kid was feeling kinda-sorta okay, he was able to sit by the side of her bed all right, even if it meant that he wasn't in the center of the room. But when Kid got upset or nervous, he needed symmetry more badly. The more upset and nervous he got, the more symmetry he needed. Because symmetry made Kid feel safe. If Kid had moved the chair from beside Patti's bed to the center of the room, that meant that he was really, really upset.
"Hey, you're awake," Kid said, trying to sound casual.
"Mmm-hmm," Patti said. She didn't bother to ask where Liz was. She figured that her sister had probably told Kid to come and talk to her alone. Or more likely, she had threatened him with violence if he refused to do so.
"Patti," Kid said, "I have been discussing matters with Liz, and with my father, and with my therapist, and with my psychiatrist, as well as with that old woman with the fifty-six cats in her house down the street from us, who as it turns out gives surprisingly excellent relationship advice. I believe that I have some things that I want to say to you. I have written them down in order to ensure that I articulate them correctly." Kid unfolded a piece of paper in his lap. " 'Dear Patti,' " he began reading. " 'How are you? I trust that you are not well, or else I would not have to be writing this letter to you while you are still in a hospital. Recently it has come to my attention that you- ' "
Patti laughed.
Kid glared at her. "What's so funny?" he snapped.
Patti immediately stopped laughing. He had never asked her that question before. He had never been angry at her for laughing at him before, either.
Apparently Kid saw something on Patti's face that suddenly made him feel bad. He crumpled up the paper that he was holding and said, "Patti, listen to me."
" 'M listening."
"There are some things that aren't funny, all right? Like you getting hurt. That absolutely is not funny."
Patti frowned at him. "Are you gonna get angry because Patti made up those songs and because Patti maybe kinda sorta likes the way that her scar looks?"
"You are oversimplifying things, but in a sense, yes. I do not appreciate you making light of your injury with those songs and I wish that you would stop subjecting me to them."
Patti's frown deepened. "What do you want? Do you want Patti to be sad about her scar? Do you want me to cry about what happened instead of make up songs about it? Do you want me to start folding toilet paper and leveling picture frames and moving chairs around a room when something bad happens just like you do?" Patti sat up fully in her bed – which hurt and made her feel dizzy, but she didn't care – and yelled at Kid harder than she had ever yelled at him before. "Maybe my way of dealing with bad things is better than your way of dealing with bad things! Didja think about that? Huh?"
Kid stared at her. "Patti, I know that your way of dealing with stress is generally quite a bit healthier than my methods. I would know that even if my therapist hadn't told me the same thing yesterday. That's one of the things that I admire about you. But…" Kid bit at the exact center of his lower lip. Then he uncrumpled the paper in his lap. He looked down at it, apparently reading through it quickly, searching for the right thing that he needed to say next. Then he looked up at Patti and said, "Sometimes, however, I fear that your attitude is too laid-back regarding many things, Patti. The first and most important of which is your personal safety."
Patti leaned back in her bed and sighed.
"And I find it very upsetting when I listen to you making light of your injuries," Kid continued, more quietly now, "because I fear that it indicates that you still do not take seriously what happened to you that night. Patti, this thing… What happened, it… It was so stupid… It shouldn't have happened…" Kid's voice trailed off, as if he was afraid to continue.
"It's okay," Patti told him, as gently as she could. No more yelling. "You can say it. Say the truth." She sat up again, looking straight at Kid. "Say it. I won't get angry. Promise."
Kid took a deep breath. "You were reckless, and careless, had no regard for your own safety, and failed to take our mission as seriously as you should have. And because of that you nearly died. You nearly died right in front of Liz, Patti. Do you have any idea the hell that you put your sister through? Do you have any idea how devastated she would have been if we had lost you?"
"And what about you?" Patti asked, raising one eyebrow at him.
Kid shook his head. "I am prepared to accept the death of any of my weapon partners at any given time. I admit that I would be rather humiliated, however, if any of my weapons ever died such an atrociously stupid, avoidable death as what almost happened to you that night. So, yes, Patti, I would have been upset too. Which is why I want you to stop being so reckless. I find it very upsetting that you care so little for your own safety and even further upsetting that you care so little about what sort of an impact your loss would have on your sister and me."
Slowly, Patti smiled at Kid. "Kid… Thank you."
He stared at her. "Come again?"
"I'm happy that you said the things that you just said." Patti's grin widened. "I'm happy that you're not blaming yourself anymore 'cause it really was all my fault and it was stupid and I'm sorry and I'll never do it again. Okay?"
Kid took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay," he said.
Then there was a long, long silence.
Finally Kid pushed back his chair and stood up. "Well. Er. I'm glad that we could have this talk."
"Wait," Patti said.
He stood by the side of her bed, asymmetrical, waiting patiently.
Patti looked up at him skeptically. "Kid really isn't blaming himself anymore? Really?" Normally Kid blamed himself for everything that went wrong on their missions, and Patti knew for a fact that he had been crying and blaming himself a lot for what had happened to her, because Liz had told her about it. Had he really gotten over himself already? Was his therapist really that super-duper awesome good at fixing the craziness in his head?
Kid looked down at Patti and said, "My therapist says that I blame myself too much," he said.
Ah-ha. He hadn't actually answered Patti's question. Patti knew what that really meant. So she reached out for Kid's hand and said, "Let's make a deal."
"All right."
"Patti is gonna be more careful and take missions more seriously as long as Kid is gonna stop blaming himself for and bein' sad about Patti's scar because Patti's scar looks like a smile and is perfectly symmetrical and really really awesome."
Kid smiled and squeezed Patti's hand. "I promise," he said.
"You'd better stop being sad about Patti's scar," Patti threatened, "or else we're never gonna be able to do pervy things ever again. Not if you're gonna be all emo every time that you see Patti's tummy."
Kid laughed, then. It was such a beautiful sound to Patti's ears. "I promise," he said again. "And you are correct, Patti. It is indeed a lovely scar."