Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Cat's Paw ❯ Chapter Twelve: Fever Frenzy ( Chapter 12 )

Cat's Paw 12

I can do this. I can. It's no big deal. Really, it's not. It's not like I'm performing brain surgery, or something. Heck, people do this every day, probably more than once! Some people make a living doing this! In fact, millions of people are most likely doing it right now, even as I sit here thinking. They're just doing it, getting it over with, and moving on with their lives. They're probably not even thinking twice about it. Well, maybe a few of them are, but for the most part it's probably as natural as breathing. And if it comes that easy to them, how hard could it be for me to do it?

Very.

Okay. I'm strong. I'm calm. I'm collected. I'm capable. I'm confidant. I can do this. No big deal.

Very big deal. Very, very big deal.

Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Hee hee hoo. Hee hee hoo.

Oh, great. Now I'm doing Lamaze.

This is just getting ridiculous! Maybe if I grasp my ears firmly and pull, I will be able to remove my head from my ass. I should just do it already and put myself out of my misery!

Okay. Here I go. Yep. Right now. I'm going in. Watch as I go! See, I'm going.

Okay, I'm going. Please keep all arms and legs inside the vehicle and place your trays in the full upright position.

"Yo, Heero! I want to apologize." There. It's done. I'm still breathing. I'm still alive. What was I worried about? It's all good. No harm done. Limbs are all intact. Movement is still possible. I have survived.

Heero looks up from his Game Boy. Relena apparently put a really nice gift basket together for him, the lucky bastard. He's been clicking away at the thing ever since I returned to the room and seems to have the same one-handed success that he did with the Game Cube. As I've fought battles with my conscience and nerves, he's apparently been waging war against some virtual enemy force, probably from outer space (they always are). My apology has yanked him back to this world rather abruptly and he looks a little confused, his eyebrows lowering slightly. Mostly, though, he just looks perturbed that his game was interrupted. "Apologize for what?" he asks, obviously impatient to get back to his game of "Wing Commander."

"For before. You know." When I was acting like a total ass. Or did you not notice? I could only be so lucky.

"No, tell me." Does he honestly not remember or is he just making me suffer? I wish I could tell, but my Sarcasm Radar is most defiantly off-line. We are experiencing technical difficulties.

"For acting all... weird," I clarify weakly. Weird. That's a mild way of putting it. Psycho would be more accurate.

Heero shrugs. "I merely assumed that was normal behavior for you."

"Heh. Very funny." I frown, a little angry. Here I am apologizing all nice and contrite and he starts making fun of me. I don't know where he was raised, but I know I was taught to graciously accept apologies when they are offered!

"I was serious." He stares at me with his creepy, blue eyes and smirks. I get that sick-wobbly feeling that arises in the pit of your stomach when you realize you've just made a colossal ass out of yourself. The one that makes you realize that your inferiority complex is fully justified.

"Oh," I manage softly. Have I been acting that paranoid lately? Suddenly embarrassed and self-conscious, I look down at my hands, examining them intently. I've always hated my hands. Sister Mary Willis used to call them pianist hands. I think she just wanted a free organist for the church. I've always thought they were ugly, myself. They just don't look like guys' hands. Guys' hands are supposed to be strong, hard, and capable. They're not supposed to be thin with stupid long, girly fingers and bony knuckles and jagged fingernails... although I suppose those would look better if I just stopped biting them. Guys' hands are supposed to look like they can do things besides snap like twigs. Like they could build a house or fix a car or snap someone's neck... like Heero's hands. Heero has guy-looking hands. Heero has hands that look like they could maul an ox. The kind of hands that built our nation!

"DUO."

Oh, Heero's talking. And apparently has been for some time. Well, I always get lost in thought. It's such unfamiliar territory.

"Yeah?" I look up reluctantly, still embarrassed. I don't quite meet his eyes, choosing instead to stare somewhat over his head. Hello, Mr. Wall. You're looking mighty yellow today.

"Duo. I was joking."

"OH! Ha. Ha. Heh..." I chuckle weakly. Yeah, I have a bit of a speech impediment. It's called my foot. "Sure, man. I'm a bit off today."

"Did they change you meds or something?" [1] he asks. I decide his monotone sounds more curious than concerned. Kind of like when someone's pet dies. No one ever really cares how the kid feels about it; they just want to know if poor old Rover got run down by a car. Guts are so much more interesting than tears. Who wants to hand out Kleenex when there's spleens to be seen?!

"Ah, no. I think I'm just overtired from all the excitement yesterday. I mean, two visitors at once. Wow. That's my quota for like, the month!" Literally.

"If you're tired, you should sleep."

Thank you, Captain Obvious. "Yeah, I think I will."

And that is that. He goes back to his game and I lay down to rest. I wish I could say that that went well. Maybe it's just my perfectionist attitude, but it really didn't make my top ten list of Most Riveting Recent Conversations. Hell, even Drippy made number six! It's a sad day when inanimate objects are more entertaining than real, live human beings.

Well, at least I can scratch the apology off my To Do list. Unfortunately, the next task is even more daunting: Make friends.

Dang. This is going to be a bit of a challenge. I don't really have much experience with making friends. At least with people. Leave me alone at a yard sale and I'll have a dozen friends in under twenty minutes, all for less than five dollars. Put me at a party and all five dollars would get me is a spiked glass of punch.

Shoot. When I dredge up my mental database of acquaintances and companions, the result is quite sadly lacking. More than half of them are imaginary and the rest are at least ten years older than me. I may not want to admit it, but I think it's time I faced facts. I have all the charisma of a rancid bag of dead guinea pigs. I am uninteresting. I am offensive. I grate on people's nerves. And furthermore, I am reminiscent of a urine sample. I should just cut my losses and join a freak show. I would probably be the main attraction because I am so desperate for a friend that I'd tell my deepest secrets to a half-empty can of Spam.

Nothing says friendship like animal by-products.

But, wait! They say that you can't befriend anyone if you don't first befriend yourself! I need some confidence, here! I need some ego-boosting action! Where's Sucky?! There's nothing like a good come on to make you feel important!

Oh, crap. Sucky's now dating the trash compactor. Damned cheatin' bastard! Well, who needs that hormone-riddled loser anyway? I'm independent! I can do this alone! I'll show them! I'll show them all!

Show them my jarring mental instability, perhaps.

Well, let's see. Why would anyone want to be friends with me? Ummmm... I have clear skin? I wash regularly? I get free medical care? Hey, in today's world, that makes me a pretty valuable connection!

Shoot. This isn't working. Think, Duo. Think. Think back to elementary school. How did you make friends then...?

Somehow I doubt Heero would be impressed if I ate a bottle of Elmer's Glue. [2]

Okay, scratch that.

God, why am I such a loser? Why am I laying here, actually trying to logically deduce how to make a friend? Friends are supposed to just happen. They're not supposed to be the result of some pre-conceived plan. For goodness sakes, I'm like Antony in "Julius Caesar," pretending to befriend the conspirators so I can speak at Caesar's funeral and win popular public support so I can be elected leader of Rome... except I'm not running for public office or befriending Heero to serve my own needs. AND I'm not Italian... I don't think.

Wow. There's a thought. Am I Italian? What nationality am I? Where were my ancestors from? I wonder if Heero and I could possibly be distant cousins or something. Aren't cousins supposed to be friends automatically? Maybe I don't need to make friends with him. Maybe we already are friends and it's just that neither of us knows it. Maybe all I have to do is sit up, roll over, and go, "yo, man!How's life been treatin' ya in that neck of the room?" and he'd laugh and tell me to stop being stupid and we'd throw stuff at each other and... and...

And there's no time like the present.

"YO, HEERO! How's life been treatin' ya in that neck of the room?" I holler a bit more exuberantly than I had planned, thrusting myself upright in bed and turning in his direction with a huge grin on my face. He flinches and drops the Game Boy, half-twisting in the bed to face me with a startled expression. He looks like a startled prairie dog. I burst out laughing. "Jeez, dude. You look like a freakin' prairie dog!" I snicker.

"What is wrong with you?" he asks soberly, his speech devoid of all inflection. I'm pretty sure if I had asked that question, I would have said, "What is wrong with you?" See, I would have emphasized the "wrong" and that would have shown my irritation and indignation. When you say it flatly like Heero did, it sounds sincere, like you actually want to know if something is literally wrong with someone. And since I'm pretty sure Heero didn't appreciate being compared to a small rodent commonly hunted by people who like to see small, furry bodies explode in a spray of blood and guts, I think the inflection was implied.

Hey! Prairie dogs and I are kinda alike! We're both fairly social, but don't confine ourselves to the company of one specific companion. We both have big eyes and brown-tan hair. Well, I normally have brown-tan hair. And, wow! We both greet predators with bared teeth!!

Hey! If Heero looks like a prairie dog and I look like a prairie dog, maybe we really are related! I wonder if we come from the same prairie dog town?

Hee hee. I like to say prairie dog. And if you say it enough, it sounds like "Perry Duck." That can be Heero's new nickname!

"Hey, Perry Duck! How 'bout putting on the TV for a while, huh? It's time for 'Deep Sea Detectives!' They're going to talk about the Monitor today! The Monitor! As in, the Monitor and the Merrimack! From the Civil War! It was one of the most remarkable events in naval warfare! We totally have to watch it! It's a defining event of our country, Perry Duck! Our country! That you built with your own two hands!" I gesticulate wildly, curling my fingers into claw-like shapes and holding them above my head like a pro-wrestler or a rabid racoon. Heero shrinks back slightly.

"Perry Duck?" he asks, sounding confused. "Are you okay?"

"TV, P.D.! P.D., TV. Heh. It's a sentence of all acronyms! Cool! It's like our own personal jargon! Duo Perry Duck Jargon! DPDJ!"

"You should calm down. Your face is turning red."

"Red. Bed. Red bed! Our beds are red! Red are our beds! We rest our heads on our red beds! See?" I flop down into my pillow, bouncing slightly on the mattress, and immediately sit back up. "Whee!"

"I'm calling the nurse," he says blankly, locating the little plastic box and pushing the button that is red just like the bed. But button doesn't rhyme with red or bed. It's no fun. Just like Heero. Heero's no fun! He called the nurse! The nurses never let me have any fun!

"You suck, Perry Duck," I growl, suddenly angry. "You make my top ten list of Major Suckage. You suck more than a two dollar hooker!"

Now Heero's red. But there aren't red prairie dogs. But there are red-headed ducks! So Heero was lying. He's not a rodent. He's an aquatic bird. So we aren't related.

But if we're not related, why is Heero standing so close to me? Only family or friends get that close and he's not family because he's a duck and he's not a friend because I haven't made him one yet and...

OWWWWWWWWW. OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW.

Oh, wait. That didn't hurt. I have morphine! Yeah for morphine!

But it was scary. I've never been punched before. I wonder if my lip will swell up? Maybe I'll look like Donald Duck! And then Heero and I will be related after all!

"Thanks, Heero!" I smile up at him from where I've fallen on the bed-that-is-red. "You're a good cousin."

He's leaning on the edge of my bed, where he probably fell after he belted me. Clumsy, clumsy, clumsy! I wonder if I should get him a helmet. Ohh! I could get a red, white, and blue one to commemorate all the effort he put into building this country with his strong man-hands!

"Thank God," he says, looking at something above my head. I try to twist around to see what it is, but my muscles aren't working too well. I'm feeling floppier than a fish!

But I'm not a fish. I'm a duck. And ducks eat fish. Oh, crap! Is Heero gonna eat me?

"He's totally flipped out," Perry Duck continues.

"Oh, dear. I knew he looked kind of pale before." A voice sighs and a disembodied hand reaches out of nowhere.

"Nooo!! It's Thing! [3] Don't let Thing touch me, Perry Duck!" But he does and Thing is on my forehead and I shake my head to try and get Thing off. "No no no no no no no no no no no no no." And then Thing's gone and I close my eyes tight so I don't have to see if Thing comes back. "Nooooo."

"Are you okay to get back to bed, Heero? Our boy here is running a bit of a fever." It can talk?! But hands don't have mouths! How is this possible?! I want to open my eyes to see this phenomenon for myself, but my eyes don't want to work. They have glued themselves shut. Maybe the Elmer's Glue I ate in Kindergarten has come back to haunt me!

"I require no assistance. Is he going to be okay?"

"He'll be just fine. This is to be expected. We'll just run a few tests, make sure he doesn't have any infections, pump him full of medication, and he should be fine by morning. No worries. Say, did he fall and hit his head? Why is his lip split?"

"I... I hit him. He... angered me."

I lie in bed and let the words just float around me. I feel like I could wake up if I really want to, but I don't want to. I want to just lie here and be still and comfy and let my arms and legs melt into the blankets... except right there where they're bunched up and digging into my hip. I want to give my bones a chance to stop hurting like they've been doing since I came back from my talk with the Praying Mantis that is Barton. I want to stop worrying for a little while and let other people take care of things.

But most of all, I want to be Heero's friend.

-end chapter twelve-

Footnotes

[1] Example med regimen (not necessarily the one Duo's on. I'm not a doctor, obviously.): Amlodopine (to prevent high blood pressure),G-CSF (IV - to stimulate the bone marrow to produce white cells), Penicillin (to prevent bacterial infections), Acyclovir (to prevent viral infections), Magnesium, Calcium, and Multivitamins.

[2] Just in case you were wondering, the consumption of Elmer's Glue does NOT cause cancer. I checked their webpage.

[3] You know... Thing from "the Adams Family." (Thank you, Amalthea, for catching that!!)

Zooie-Notes

Ohh! I wrote angst! O_O