Learning To Swim

Chapter Three: The Trip

Sylvia is up to speed and Peepers sort of is. Let's see what happens next.

A lot of Peepers POV in this chapter. He's not the easiest character for me to write for, so I hope I did him justice. He's got some things to think about, and he's essentially going to be the only sober character for much of this.

Sorry this chapter was late. I had a lot of trouble with some of these scenes.

See you at the bottom!

Commander Peepers paced back and forth in the waiting room on the planet Macrostomia.

This was all they needed. One more issue to deal with. At least the conquering had gone well for once. Dreznor and all its impressive military might was finally theirs. It was all thanks to his own brilliant strategies, and maybe helped along by the fact that Wander and Sylvia hadn't shown up to ruin everything this time.

Not that he was planning to admit to that in front of the troops.

Hater had seemed distracted during the invasion, no doubt from the unfinished mess of a conversation they'd had earlier. That was probably what had led to his accident. As usual, Hater had waited on the ship until the populous had been subdued, striding out confidently to take his rightful place on the former ruler's throne once the resistance had been thoroughly crushed. Dreznor was a much more militarily minded planet than most of those they invaded, and it had been a tough battle, even with their forces divided due to their civil war. There was consequently quite a bit of rubble, broken machinery and injured soldiers from both sides littering the ground when Hater emerged.

It was while he was climbing the stairs to the royal palace, smirking at the trembling citizens and the quaking ruler, that he stumbled over a fallen helmet that no one had thought to clear away, tried to catch himself on the damaged railing at the side of the stairs, and tumbled off the side when the railing snapped. He ended up with his head stuck in the smoking remains of a battle mech, and when the watchdogs pulled him out, Peepers noticed that he'd chipped one of his front teeth pretty badly.

They'd had to rush through the rest of the surrender, Peepers having to assign an extra battalion to the conquered planet, as they'd yet to set up any infrastructure or even read off Hater's list of demands to Dreznor's former king. They would have to return here to finish the mop-up properly once Hater's tooth had been seen to.

Hater himself had been fuming about the whole incident, grumbling around the bag of ice he was holding to his mouth and promising dire consequences to whichever watchdogs had been in charge of securing the area. He was clearly in a lot of pain, so his grumbles weren't as loud as they usually would have been, but the watchdogs were all giving him a pretty wide berth despite that. There certainly would have to be a meeting about proper safety procedures on conquered planets, and Peepers had already made a mental note of that along with a hundred others.

For the moment, however, the first order of business had been fixing Hater's tooth, so the skull-ship had set off for Macrostomia, where Hater's usual dentist was located.

Now, with nothing to do but wait and fret, Commander Peepers found his mind drifting back to the argument he and Hater had had this morning. He'd put it out of his thoughts as best he could while the invasion had been going on, but it had been at the back of his mind ever since it happened, and he could admit to himself that Hater hadn't been the only one who was distracted.

In actuality, the commander was still struggling to make sense of what Hater had told him. From Peepers' perspective that might as well be impossible. There was no sense in what Hater had said. There couldn't possibly be. It felt like he was beating his fists against the thick metal walls of the skull-ship. There was no way to break through. If someone had asked him yesterday whether Lord Hater's obsession with Wander could get any more ridiculous, he would have responded with an emphatic 'no.' Actually, he'd probably blast them for their disrespect and forcibly deny that any such obsession existed, but that was beside the point.

He was used to Hater going on and on about Wander; interrupting meetings to demand Wander contingency plans, sending the watchdogs on extra patrols around the skull-ship because he thought he'd seen something orange, and blowing off invasions in favour of half-baked destruction attempts every time the vagabond was sighted.

It hadn't been a good situation. It had, in fact, been driving Peepers up the wall, Hater's fixation on the scruffy nomad leading to more and more of a backslide both in the galactic villain leaderboard and in their reputation with other villains. Not to mention the constant derailment of their plans and the serious blows to troop morale that resulted. He had begged Hater to focus more on conquering, to just ignore Wander when he turned up. He'd tried to explain that Wander was only a threat when Hater let him be, all to no avail.

Still, as damaging as the situation had been, at least he could rationalize it somewhat. Wander was an annoying, destructive pest the universe would be better off without, after all. He had agreed with Hater on that part.

His disgust with the whole situation had stemmed more from the fact that it had become clear that destroying Wander was never going to happen. It would just lead to more instances of the watchdogs getting involved in a bake-off, or ending up in the infirmary with zbornak related injuries, sometimes escalating to the whole skull-ship exploding, and Hater being humiliated.

Then Peepers would have to deal with it all. Again.

But this…

This was something else altogether, something completely unprecedented.

Hater had said he didn't hate Wander anymore. He'd said Wander was no longer his enemy.

Frankly, Peepers was finding that a little hard to swallow. It all sounded like some great, cosmic joke, much like the great, cosmic joke that was Wander himself.

Not that Hater had been lying. Lord Hater, for all of his immense power and cunning when he was properly focused, had always been terrible at lying. Peepers knew every single one of his tells, from the way he would posture and bluster his way through his sentences, to the way his voice would rise slightly in pitch and his toes would scuff around on the floor while he talked.

No, Hater had been telling the truth this time, at least so far as his perspective was concerned.

And that in itself was concerning. If Hater had been lying, Peepers could have rationalized it as the overlord trying to avoid his accusations about Hater ditching invasion plans to chase after Wander. It would have been a weird lie, but he could at least have made some sense out of it. The fact that it wasn't a lie though…well, that meant something strange, even bizarre must have happened.

Something no doubt centered on the scruffy orange headache of a do-gooder who'd been hounding them for two years.

Yes, it was all Wander's fault. That was the only possible explanation for what Peepers had heard. It was always Wander's fault lately, whenever something went wrong for them. Now, how exactly this was Wander's fault, well, that was still something Peepers was wrestling with.

But it was the only solution that lined up with what the overlord had told him. Wander must have done something to Hater, manipulated him somehow; that was all Peepers could conclude. Wander had been overly focused on Hater since day one, after all, always showing up when they arrived on a perspective planet, singing a song or starting some ridiculous game; goading Hater into chasing after him and completely decimating their plans. He did it on purpose; Peepers was sure that he did, at least some of the time. And this had to be some new way to mess with the struggling Hater Empire, to distract them when they were already dragging in the dregs of the galactic villain leaderboard. Wander had always seemed to be trying to make friends with the overlord, but Hater had always responded with more fury which, while not constructive and helped him feed into Wander's inane distractions, had never been anything close to reciprocating Wander's supposed affection.

Peepers didn't know what Wander had done exactly, how he'd managed to convince Lord Hater to go along with his ridiculous 'friends' rhetoric. That was the sticking point in his mind, the part that he still couldn't figure out. The annoying hippy didn't actually have any special powers after all, despite what Hater had insinuated when he was at his most paranoid. His only special powers seemed to be being annoying and distracting, fields in which he excelled. Still, Wander must have done something, and Peepers was going to find out what it was.

His first step would have to be to grill Lord Hater for more information, but subtly; find out what had actually happened, not just last night on Clathor VI, but all the other times last week when the nomad had been alone with the overlord. Peepers had assumed those 'meetings' had gone the way they usually did, and been happy not to witness the ridiculous chase he was sure had happened. After talking to the overlord, however, he'd realized there must have been something else going on.

Hater might be annoyed at his prying, but Peepers was determined to find out what Wander had done, and set it right so that everything returned to normal. Even if normal was still frustrating and damaging, it was certainly better than whatever this was.

No more waiting, he decided. As soon as Hater finished his appointment and they were back on the skull-ship, he was going to get those essential details, no matter how uncomfortable it was for his boss. Whatever Wander had been doing to Hater, Commander Peepers was going to find out, and he was going to put a stop to it. This was one scheme by the annoying hairy string bean that was not going to further damage the Lord Hater Empire. He promised himself that.

Getting the details was going to have to wait.

Peepers glanced over at Hater where he slumped beside him in the shuttle. His eyes were unfocused and he was drooling slightly. Once the overlord had woken up from the dental surgery it became obvious that he wasn't all there. The dentist had 'helpfully' informed Peepers that Hater had taken a massive dose of electricity during the appointment and that it might take a while for the effects to wear off. It didn't seem to have hurt him all that much; being a powerful electrical skeleton man had its benefits, but it had clearly scrambled his brain a little, hopefully temporarily.

Peepers frowned, fingers tightening on the wheel of the shuttle.

Another delay.

Another roadblock preventing him from advancing, from achieving something in this Grop forsaken galaxy. It seemed like lately all he did was trip over roadblocks, usually orange, furry ones, and most of the time into a hard, blue fist.

Right now, they were on their way back to Dreznor to finish the mop-up, assuming Lord Hater was alert enough to participate.

"My mouth tastes like purple!" Hater announced suddenly.

Case in point.

"Sir," Peepers leant over, pushing the skeleton slightly so he was more or less upright in his seat. "I know you're suffering from a substantial electrical squid incident, but do try to pull yourself together. We need to complete our conquest of Dreznor so we don't lose all the ground we've made up. Then, when you're feeling better, we really need to talk."

"Talk about what, little eyeball guy?"

Peepers winced at the sudden nickname. He hoped that wouldn't stick once his boss had sobered up. Hater's voice was warbling all over the place, but at least he didn't seem in pain. He seemed pretty happy all things considered which…if he was as agreeable right now as he seemed, this could potentially be Peepers' opportunity to find out some information, assuming Hater's memory was still working. He might be more likely to answer honestly right now, assuming Peepers handled this delicately.

"Actually, sir, you were about to tell me what you and Wander had been up to lately." Peepers kept his voice carefully neutral. He watched Hater out of the corner of his eye, trying to gage his reaction.

"Wander?" Hater looked confused for a moment, as though trying to place the name. Yep, he definitely wasn't all there right now. The next second his face cleared, a too-big smile spreading across his skull. "I know that guy! Me and Sunshine Banjo-Face had a really nice time last night!"

Peepers winced again, partly at Hater's voice; happy and thick and somehow gooey in his ears, and partly at the admission that yes, Hater had been getting along with Wander last night. There had been a small part of him that was still hoping Hater actually had been trying to destroy Wander at the carnival, and had just gotten distracted instead. It would have been frustrating to find out Hater had been lying to him, but at least things would have been back to normal. It wouldn't have been ideal, but it would have certainly been less bothersome than whatever he was investigating right now.

"Did you?" he managed, still trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "And what exactly did you do together?"

Hater blinked a few times, pupils shrinking and expanding out of sync with each other as the gears in his electricity-addled mind turned slowly.

"We played racy games and shooty games bouncy games!" he announced proudly. "We had lots of fun! Then we had snacks. I got popcorn!" He slumped over again, looking at Peepers sideways. "Can we get popcorn right now?"

"I don't think that's a good idea, sir." Peepers leant over to push Hater upright again.

"Aw, but I waaaant it!" Hater's eyes filled with tears and his lower jaw trembled. "Wander would get it for me!" he argued.

Peepers almost slammed on the breaks at that. He surprised himself by getting flustered, stumbling over his words.

"Sir, you don't…why are you…" He trailed off, starting again after a moment. "Don't compare me to Wander!" he snapped. "It doesn't matter what Wander would do. You can't have popcorn right now. It would be bad for your tooth. Besides, we're on a deadline. We have to finish things up at Dreznor and start working on our next conquest, remember?"

"Awww, stupid, dumb eyeball guy." Hater crossed his arms, looking petulantly away.

There was silence in the shuttle for a few minutes, except for small sniffs and snivels from the chair beside Peepers.

"Well," Peepers continued eventually, trying to ignore the small part of him that wanted to cave to Hater's tears. "What did you do after the snacks?"

Hater stopped snivelling. He was quiet for a moment. Then he turned, face pulled into what would have been a sly smile if his eyes hadn't continued dilating.

"I don't know," he said sulkily. "Maybe I don't remember."

"Oh Grop." Peepers smacked his head forward onto the steering wheel. He didn't want to deal with this. Dealing with the regular Lord Hater was already a headache sometimes. This version of him seemed much more aggravating, although he was probably still more likely to give Peepers a straight answer to his questions. "Well, what would help you to remember?" he asked, voice forcibly pleasant, eyelid trembling with the effort not to snap.

"Popcorn!" Hater said immediately.

Peepers sighed. That's what he'd thought.

"Fine," he relented painfully. "We'll stop and put our very important invasion on hold while we get you a snack. But you have to eat carefully. We do not have time for another trip to the dentist today."

"Yay!" Hater cheered, arms flailing in the air. Peepers grudgingly adjusted the ship's rout, heading towards a convenience store where he could buy snacks. At least it didn't take them too far out of the way.

Five minutes later, Hater was completely happy again, munching popcorn in the seat next to Peepers and looking out of the window.

"Sooooo," Peepers started again once they were back on track. He was trying not to let his nervousness about the conversation topic show too much. "You played some games and ate some snacks with Wander. That must have been…fun."

"The funnest!" Hater grinned and Peepers felt his shoulders slump.

"Right," he said dully. "And how do you feel about Wander now."

"Sunshine Banjo-Face is great! I love that guy!"

Ugh, seriously? Commander Peepers wanted to slam his head into the steering wheel again. This was getting worse all the time. What could Wander have possibly done to mess Hater up this badly? Unless some of it was the electricity talking. Yeah, it was probably that. It had better be that.

"R-really?" Peepers forced out. Hater nodded, munching another handful of popcorn before continuing.

"He's so soft and squooshy and he smells nice, like sunshine and, um, banjos!"

"Sir!" That was it. The shuttle lurched to a stop as Peepers slammed the breaks on. "You can't possibly…" He choked, gagging on his words briefly. "How would you even know what he smells like?" he demanded.

"'Cause he hugs me, duh." Hater rolled his eyes, although it seemed to make him dizzy and he stopped, one hand clutching the side of his skull. That made sense at least, although Peepers had been hugged by Wander as well, and had never noticed how the hairy orange vagabond smelled. Unfortunately, the watchdog commander didn't have time to even reach for the potential lifeline before the skeleton lord continued. "And especially when we smooched." He grinned proudly before his face fell. "But then you and Blue Punchy-Lady came in and ruined everything. And I didn't get any more smooches." He seemed to think for a moment. "Or my burger!" he finished with another pout.

Peepers barely heard the complaint. He was frozen to his seat, fingers twitching involuntarily on the wheel. His brain felt like someone had dipped it in salt water. His vision swam for a moment as he stared aghast at his boss. That revolting hairball had kissed Lord Hater last night, at least if what the overlord had said had been accurate, but Hater hadn't been angry about it. He had seemed uncomfortable and tired last night when Peepers had finally found him, but he hadn't been angry. He hadn't wanted to chase after Wander and Sylvia. He'd yelled a bit, but he hadn't really seemed upset at Wander at all. He'd…Oh flarp! He'd yelled at Wander not to tell Sylvia what they'd been doing. And this morning, well before the interference of any electrical squid-creatures, Hater had told Peepers straight to his face that he no longer hated Wander, that he'd had fun with him at the fair.

Hater hadn't said anything about a kiss, but if that had actually happened, that would make sense. Hater wouldn't exactly be eager to share the news that his greatest enemy had kissed him with his third in command, or anyone else. Peepers could barely stand hearing it. He gave an involuntary shudder at the thought.

Even knowing that it had to be part of some manipulation from that stringy, orange headache.

Much as it creeped him out, he could imagine Wander pulling a stunt like that. He hugged everyone he could get his furry arms on, so why not kiss them as well, especially if he thought it would distract Hater. But if that had happened, Peepers would expect Hater to want to destroy the furry menace even more. It couldn't possibly have resulted in any other reaction.

Except apparently it had.

Yep, he was still obviously missing something.

Glancing over at his boss, Peepers noticed that Hater had finished his popcorn, without getting any lodged in his teeth, apparently, which was a relief. The skeleton was now poking at his glove with one hand, apparently trying to dial a number into it, though without much success.

"Sir, what are you doing?"

Hater looked up.

"I'm gonna tell my buddy what we're doing. Then he can shimmy-shammy to the chromeskull, and we can all have fun together!"

"You're calling Wander?" Peepers leaned over again, trying to grab Hater's hand to stop his dialing. Hater, however, seemed to have perked up a little, leaning away and holding his glove out of Peepers' reach, tongue between his teeth as he continued. It seemed to be taking him a while. He'd already had to restart twice.

"Sir," Peepers protested, caught between keeping the shuttle on course and stopping the call. "We are in the middle of an invasion. We really don't have time for…"

He was cut off by the faint sound of ringing coming from Hater's glove, then a click.

"Sylvia here. Who's calling?" The zbornak's crisp voice sounded vaguely distracted, as though she was in the middle of something. Hater held his glove close to his face again, voice a little too loud when he spoke.

"Hi, Punchy-Lady. Is Sunshine Banjo-Face there? I wanna talk to him!"

There was a long pause, Hater smiling at his glove, Peepers frozen with one hand outstretched, still trying to interrupt the call. Then there was another click, and the line went dead.

Peepers completed the action that had been arrested when Sylvia had picked up the phone. He reached across the shuttle and grabbed Hater's hand, hanging up the phone on their end. Hater had still been looking down at his hand, as though he hadn't quite figured out he'd been hung up on. When the realization finally sunk in, Hater looked back at Peepers, eyes big and sad and lower jaw trembling slightly. He eyed his phone as though he were thinking about trying again, so Peepers hastened to redirect.

"Well, guess he was busy. Hey look, sir; there's the skull-ship! We're back."

Hater's dilating eyes shifted to the viewscreen as he focused on the skull-ship, still looming over the curve of Dreznor.

"Woah," Hater said, sounding impressed. "That's so big! Who's ship is that?"

Peepers sighed in relief, wondering if he should try to take Hater's glove for safety.

He'd gotten some more details, much as he rather wished he hadn't, and it was probably best to leave the conversation here for now. Encouraging Hater to talk about Wander when he was feeling like this would clearly cause more problems than any information that he gained would be worth. Right now, he needed to get his lord back to his room to recover, since it was clear he wasn't up to finishing the conquest at the moment. Hopefully he'd be back to his normal self soon, with an asterisk, that is, and they would be able to fully secure Dreznor and move on to the next perspective target.

Hater started eyeing his glove again as they pulled into the hanger and Peepers sighed again. It was going to be a long day.

Hater opened his eyes and was immediately hit with a wave of dizziness. His eyeballs felt too big for his skull and he had to blink a few times before everything settled into place. He seemed to be lying in his bed in his own room on the skull-ship. His tooth was no longer hurting, so that was good. The rest though…

The events of earlier today came to him in a haze. He wasn't sure what was real and what was merely a dream he'd had during his dental appointment.

He vaguely remembered Peepers picking him up and the trip back in the shuttle, but the details refused to line up properly, though he thought it was a fairly enjoyable trip. Then he sat up sharply, context flooding back. Embarrassed heat spread across his skull and he buried his face in his hands. Had he actually acted like that; rambling about Wander in front of Peepers of all people? Not to mention trying to call Wander through Sylvia and getting hung up on. He didn't even think he'd had Sylvia's number memorized. He still didn't remember everything he'd said, and it was unclear what things he'd said out loud to Peepers and what things he'd only thought about. It all felt like a bit of a blur.

An embarrassing, uncomfortable blur, best forgotten and buried in the depths of his subconscious.

"Ahem."

Hater's gaze shot to his third in command, sitting in a chair by his bedside. Peepers seemed to have been working on something on a data pad, but now his eye was focused firmly on Hater. He looked tired and slightly frazzled and Hater found it difficult to meet his gaze.

"Peepers!" he managed. "What are you…" Hater's mouth felt dry and he licked his jaws before continuing. "What are you doing here?"

"Just waiting for you to wake up, sir." Peepers' voice was quiet, but frustration leaked out of him with every breath. His eye narrowed on Hater's face. "And making sure you don't try to call Wander. Again."

"Oh." Hater had rather hoped that part had just been a dream.

"Now," Peepers continued. "If you're feeling more like yourself, Lord Hater, we have an invasion to finish." He stood, placing the data pad on his chair and clasping his hands behind his back. Hater had the unpleasant impression that he was a small child about to be reprimanded. "But first, I'd like you to tell me what else you and Wander did together yesterday."

The question was pointed, the look on Peepers' face telling Hater in no uncertain terms that the watchdog knew at least some of what had happened between him and the nomad in the trees last night. Hater swallowed thickly. As beaten up as he felt right now, he had a feeling he'd feel a whole lot worse a few minutes from now.

"Okay, maybe there are a few things I didn't mention earlier," he began.

Hope you liked it!

So, this chapter was a reference to The Fremergency Fronfract. Lots of things were different in the situation in my story, so things changed a lot. Hater wasn't upset at Wander and didn't list him as his emergency contact, (much as I love that episode), so Peepers picked him up.

Hater was hard to write in this chapter. I wanted to capture some of the energy he had in the episode, though unfortunately Peepers didn't give him as fun a day as he had with Wander.

Guess Peepers is finally (mostly) up to speed. We'll see what he makes of that information. We should get some more Hater and Wander interaction soon. I've missed writing it.

See you all soon!