03 Setting Things Straight
Enchantment of the SeasJuly 8, 2013GymFreddie shot up, squawking loudly as the cold water washed over him. "Jesus Christ Fred chill the fuck out! It's almost time for the seminar man, you need to get to your room and get dressed." Dennis looked down at him, his head cocked to the side with an eyebrow up. "Are you okay, man?" "Y-yeah, I'm fine." Freddie climbed shakily to his feet, shambling out of the bathroom still in his soaking wet shorts. "Umm... Fred you really don't-" "Please... Dennis..." Freddie looked back and locked eyes with him in an almost begging expression. "Just..." He sighed and started out the door, finally straightening up. "I'm fine, alright? I'll skip breakfast and just shower. If I'm late I'll take the heat for it." He walked out and to his room, picking the card off of the nightstand where Dennis had left it. "Thanks, man." He headed out to his room and then to the shower. He steamed himself clean, standing with his forehead against the tile with the hot water turned all the way up. He just stood there for the longest time, until the water began to cool. He finally turned it off and got out. He lazily dried himself and dressed. He stopped as he walked out to look at his bed. It was soaked through to the mattress with more fluids than he cared to think about. I'll... strip it and flip the mattress later... He headed out and walked to the gym, counting the boards in the deck as he went along the outside of the ship. He walked in to see Anne and Dennis walking around, talking and cleaning up. "Hey! Glad I got here bef-Urgk!" His feet lifted off the air as Anne's massive fist buried in his stomach. She recoiled quickly letting him fall to his knees, gripping his stomach and gasping for breath. "I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you, Fred. Deal with it.
My gym is riding on this. If we don't show out, I don't get paid, and the gym closes. That means no olympics, no youth programs, no food on my table and no place else for you to take your sorry moping ass! You have till tomorrow. Don't even bother coming this afternoon, if the cruise directors ask I'll tell them you're sick. I'm keeping your pay for today." She pushed his shoulder with her foot, knocking him onto his back to make him look up at her. "Fix it. Talk to me, talk to Dennis, talk to a shrink, call fucking home and talk to mami. I don't care how, but get better." She stared down at him angrily, like a mother with a moping, whiny child. "Alright, Anne. I'll handle it..." He stood up nodding and started out of the gym. He took a deep breath as his stomach throbbed. In the midst of that pain he felt hunger, his stomach was still empty after last night's heaving. His head throbbed when he thought about last night, so he resolved to hurry to go get food, whatever would distract him. He rushed through the Windjammer, paying quickly and heading straight for the buffet lines, grabbing whatever suited his fancy without regard for its nutrition or portion size. He walked through the tables head low, looking for a secluded booth somewhere in a corner or against a wall.Enchantment of the SeasJuly 8, 2013Windjammer cafe Freddie felt the plate ripped from his hands and an empty one shoved in it's place, "That's not right, Mr. Olympics, go back and try again." Came the now familiar voice of Lilliana. He looked up at her, his eyes sleepy, glazed-over, almost hollow looking. He turned back without saying anything and headed to the buffet lines. She took the plate from his hands and said, "Jesus, just follow Sisy, you're in no condition to think. High protein or high carb?" "Carbs..." He said quietly as he glanced around trying to find Cecily. "I can take...a few hundred extra calories today. Sugars and dairy fats would be preferable..." He grabbed the nearest seat and sat down.Cecily took a seat on the far side of the table, not looking at him, she asked, "What happened to you this morning?""It's... I don't know..." He sighed
and laid forward, resting his head on the table. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to keep an eye out for you..." Dropping a plate of salad, fruits and nuts in front of him Lilliana said, "Damn right you're sorry. Whatever the fuck is wrong with you, you need to fix it. This is the second time I have found you in a state that is not right in as many days. So, you ready to talk yet? Or do I have to treat you like I really want to right now?""Do what you want..." He didn't look up at her, just reached forward to get a piece of fruit. "If you're going to hit me or something though, we can go to one of our rooms... I don't want you to get in trouble..." "Ok, let me try this again. I don't want to have to take you to a room to get answers, and you don't either. I spent a year in the service as part of an infiltration and information extraction team. I don't want to have to make you talk, and I really don't care that much, but whatever is going on with you right now is affecting my Squeaker, so I am going to do something about it. I prefer to do this the easy way." Lillian looked up at the distracted bird, "What ever happened last night was a trigger, and trust me, I know what it looks like. So, its your turn or we will try the hard way.""You're right." He said as he started to eat. "Last night I had sex for the first time in my life. After that I had the first, and I hope, the last threesome of my life. Then I ran to Dennis' room, puked my guts out, lost half of the gravel out of my gizzard, and fell asleep in the shower where I dreamt the most vivid flashback to date..." He looked up at her finally, only half-lidded as he picked leaves out of his salad to nibble at. "Does that help?""Not one damn bit." She said taking a bite of the food he originally picked off the buffet, "What I got out of that was you had a bad date, could be you found out she was a guy, and that traumatized you enough that a night of sex sends you into a panic attack." She looked up at his have lidded gaze, "So, who was she?""Last night? Some cat named Layla. I think she was Siamese... She spoke chinese, I know that much...""No the 'One' you mentioned yesterday,
this all has to have something to do with her." "..." he sighed and looked back down at his food, shaking his head. "Anne told me to have this handled by tomorrow... So... Her name was Nayelis. We met for the first time in grade school..." He went on to tell Lilly everything from the beginning. Their childhood together, moving to America as teenagers, and what he remembered of that night. How she had been his rock, the friend that was always there even when he was uprooted and moved away. How over years they slowly became more than friends. And how she died.Tapping her right eye with a fork, "This thing here is the remnants of my last combat action. My buddy Hank blamed himself for it and other things for years. I will tell you one thing I learned from the day I lost sight in this eye, Life is too short to live in the past. She was important to you right?" Freddie nodded his head, "Ok then. If she were here now and saw you like this, what would she say?""She'd curse a mile in spanish and beat me senseless..." He chuckled a little as he took a bite out of a kiwi. "Woah there, slow down, I heard a laugh." Taking another bite and talking out of one side of her mouth, "Once she was done beating some sense into you... " Stopping for a moment she looked over at Cecily, "Shit, he is like Hank." And looked back at Freddie, "I choke-slammed him on a workbench, you think that will help you?"He looked up at her, not doubting for a second she was telling the truth. "I don't know where you'll find a workbench around here..." He went back to his greens watching his food. "How do you just let that go, though? I... God help me, I've tried... I just... I can't help but see her... everywhere... I wake up and still expect to smell her breakfast... Her shampoos are still sitting on my counter... Granted I could throw those away..." He looked away realizing how creepy that sounds. "You don't. Trying to let go is not the way for some people. Think of it differently. She is waiting for you, I saw you cross yourself, I am guessing catholic. Stop trying to forget and start living, not without her, but with the knowledge of seeing her
again. What will she say in the end when you have wasted your life, alone, and pushed everyone else that tried to help away?" looking up, "Shit how do I attract all the broke-dicks? First Hank, now you." Looking back at him, "OK, your options are simple, wallow in self-pity or man up and show her what you're really made of. What's it going to be ten piece?""There's not really a choice there..." He sighed deeply and sat back in his chair, his arms falling loose to his sides. "Good god she's going to rake me over the coals for last night though..." He shook his head again and started eating, his mood lightening slowly but surely. "And actually, Baptist. Old habits and all, though." "You still have a life time to make up for that. Everyone makes mistakes. Now, you going to be in class this afternoon?""If Anne will let me... She told me to take the afternoon off... And to be honest it probably wouldn't hurt. I didn't particularly rest last night..." He looked up at her with a little bit of a smile. "Ever sleep in a hotel bathtub?""Nope, you ever sleep in a puddle of your own piss in the Iraqi desert with an otter poking you in the ribs?" She retorted with a smirk. "I will trade a nice tub for that anyday. What's the punishment if you don't show?""I don't know if there's a punishment or not, honestly. She's keeping my pay for today, I know that much." He shrugged. "I'll go and see what she says, at any rate." With a broad toothy grin, "Want me to talk to her? Cecily missed out on her nugget snack this morning and deserves a retry. And I want to see some of these moves she tries on you.""Her... Nugget snack?" His head tilted a little looking at Cecily. "What've you been telling your mom?" He smiled. Cecily just shrugged and picked at her food."If not, you can go wallow in your hole somewhere and we can hit the arcade." Lilliana said finishing off her food. "Alright..." He stood up shaking his head. "What do you guys want to do till then? We have a good... 45 minutes... I want some cake." He started walking to the buffet."Get two more tweety." she said as he grabbed Cecily's plate raking some of its contents onto hers."Yes ma'am." He smiled and went on to the buffet, filling three plates as full of ice cream and cake as he could manage.Enchantment of the SeasJuly 8, 2013Gym Freddie's stomach was more than a little jumpy as he walked to the gym along with Cecily and Lilliana. Anne and Lilly were... More than a little alike, and he wasn't sure how well that would work. Besides that he was told to take the day off explicitly, but he was working on it, so she shouldn't be too mad. "You're not gonna make a scene or anything, are you Lilly?" He looked back at her with a smirk, trying to play it off as a joke. "Of course not. I am just going to talk." Lilliana said, still sporting a huge grin. "She's the walrus, right?" Cecily pointed to Anne and said, "Bear, she's a bear." "Ok then, make with the introductions chicken little." Anne walked straight up to Freddie, completely ignoring Lilliana and Cecily. "I told you not to come back today Ten Piece. You decide you wanna talk?" "Umm..." He visibly shrunk a little and moved to the side. "I, uh... I took care of it. Anyway, this is Lilliana Fargo, Cecily's mother." Anne walked past him and up to Lillian, looking at her, and at Cecily, and back again. "Dear God her father must have been a brave little mouse." She smirked widely down at her. Looking up at the bear, Lilliana said, "And
someone must have forgotten how to read. Adopted."Anne smiled widely and smacked Lilliana's shoulder, laughing a little. "Well you know that's just a jarhead, isn't it? I've slept since readin that. How're you today Ms. Fargo, and what brings you to our seminar?" Freddie kept his distance, waiting on something to go horribly awry."I prefer Lilly if you don't mind, Miss... um... Alphabet Soup. And I came in because this jackass of yours told my Sisy he would see her here today and he missed it. So I thought we'd go for a try two.""I prefer Anne, Lilly." She nodded at her. "Well..." She looked over at Freddie and back to Lilly. "I was gonna give that horse a rest, he's startin to act like we've run him lame... You have reason to think different?""Hmm.. that kinda sounds like what I heard, but a few details were omitted. Anyway, what's in it for you if he's not here? From what Squeaky says, Dennis is about as helpful as an extra set of hands in a titty bar.""It'll give him time to rest. He's a good kid. Besides if he forfeits his pay all it's gonna do is pay his salary when we get home." She looked over at him with a smirk. "Well Sisy here wanted to fold him into a pretzel, and I wanted to watch. I know where you're coming from on the money ends up in his pocket eventually, but he's trying to go to school and could use it. So, how about this, friendly sparring match, I win he stays for the day, you win he stays with no pay."Anne laughed big and loud looking down at Lilly, not particularly derisive, just very amused. "Hahaha! I won't let him work for nothing! I do him better than that! But I'll spar you anyway if you want. What's your experience? Training?" "Wii fit Plus daily with your um.. advanced combatives and a little extra that I can't talk about. I've seen your resume." Lilly said with a smile. "Drill rule, tapout or no out?""Tapout. Let me grab you a set of gloves from the back.
Freddie, Dennis, line everyone up for me." Anne turned towards the back to get a pair of gloves. A few minutes later everyone had been lined up and organized. Anne walked out in front of them with both pairs of gloves in-hand. "Alright people! Before we start class today a friend has asked to spar with me. I thought this might be a good enough opportunity to introduce you all to sparring, which we will begin tomorrow. My partner will be Ms. Lilliana Fargo." Anne nodded to Lilly, waving for her to come to the front of the class. "I grabbed a set for you Lilly, hope they're not too small." She tossed the tight red MMA gloves to Lilly and began slipping her own on.Slipping the gloves on she said, "Even the wooly mammoth thinks I might be fat. They seem fine." Tappin her fists together to get a feel for the padding."Alright. We'll begin on Freddie's call." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye as he walked to the middle of them, with his arm in between. "Positions, ready, FIGHT!" He then backed away as quickly as possible. Stay standing, if you're on the ground she has you dead to rights., Lilliana thought to herself. Watch and learn, everyone has a weakness. She bounced a bit and slowly moved in hands open high to guard the face, knees bent to form a smaller target. She's a big one, can't treat her like Hank. Then she waited for the first shot.Anne stood, shoulders square in a low stance, her hands open and palms facing Lilly. Her right leg was a little forward, and her head was low, trying to stay at or below Lilly's eye level. She didn't move much. Her feet seemed planted. Her face seemed calm and almost sleepy-eyed. She wouldn't make the first move, not on someone who she didn't know. Best case scenario it's someone who knows what they're doing, worst case it's a complete novice who may not be able to defend against her. She had to wait. Wait, guage her skill level, and counter accordingly. Like an instructor, not like a fighter."Um.. are we both doing the same thing here?" One question, open fight or make it look nice for the cameras?" Lilliana asked as she plotted the few
opening moves might break Annes defence. She does this for a living Lilly, she has one up on you."Sorry, I don't know you so I can't really open up on you to start with. I can give you a little to work with though." Anne lunged forward, faster than she should have been able to, her right arm extending in a straight jab.Lilliana stepped to the left dodging the easy move, She's fast and moving forward, keep it above the belt, you're in a gym. She grabbed her right wrist with the left hand and using Anne's strength and speed to support her, cartwheeled up wrapping her legs around Anne's powerful neck and swung behind her tossing all she could back trying to break the stance and pull Anne off balance just a little, "Damn you're big." Lilliana released and rolled to the floor behind her. Raking a three point stance readying for a second try.Anne's weight was dropped too far for Lilly's maneuver to work. The claws dug into the wooden floor might have helped slightly as well. Anne turned on the balls of her feet, moving away from Lilly. "Alright, that wasn't bad.You might have underestimated my strength a little though.""Well, the only excuse I got is I am a few years out of practice, and you do this all the time." Looking up from her extremely low position Lilliana summed up her options. "Let's try a different angle. Any out of bounds body zones?""Nah. Just avoid claws and I'll do the same." Anne smiled down at her, assuming the same position as before. Low, heavy, check the anchor foot. I have to get her down. Lillian stood to just higher than a squat and launched at the right leg, stopping just short and dropped to a hand-planted spin kick at the shin. The hit felt like a furry tree, so she reversed directions spinning to the balls of her feet wrapping her arm around Anne's knees and lifting with all her strength, releasing a growl with the effort. Just as she started to feel Anne's leg give way she felt four thick fuzzy fingers shove down the back of her pants and lift her off the ground, upending her as the other arm wrapped tightly around her waist. Shit, too close. Leaning on Anne's chest to try what the old team often call a dirty move, with one hand to either side she gently tickled just above
the waistline of the bear's sides. With no response for the actions she said, " Definitely not like Hank." Then relaxed in the grip sliding higher on her chest to wrap her legs around the neck again for an anchor to pull free. Once high enough she pounded on Anne's arm while looking for her wrist.Not content anymore to wait on Lilly to free herself, Anne dropped forward, slamming Lilly on the hardwood floor. Or at least, it looked like she did. She took most of the drop with her free hand, only letting Lilly take enough of the blow to feel it, before putting her weight down hard on the smaller feline. "How long d'you think someone will let you wiggle before they just drop you on concrete?" Slightly out of breath from the drop, "How often do you take the brunt of the fall off your opponent?" Fully relaxed her body to slide out from under the weight of the larger bear, and move to a small distance to catch her wind. "You're one really big bear. Your dad wasn't an elephant, was he?" Standing she takes a different more open martial art style stance that does not match any official form."Nope, not an elephant. Just an Icelander." Anne stood up and shook herself off. Lilliana locked eyes with Anne and mumbled something under her breath. From the far end of the gym the sound of falling echos out. Lilliana flinches, ducked low and launched forward striking full force into her opponent's knees with a quick jab to the throat growling loudly with each strike. Grappling Anne's right arm and wrapping her legs around the arm and shoulder she pulled it into a bar grip and began to shout in what appears to be arabic.Anne gasped a little as she tried to catch her breath. She saw the look in Lilly's eyes and knew she was going for the throat, barely having enough time to swallow hard and brace herself. She held the armbar with brute force, not escaping from it, but holding it firmly as she returned the yelling in arabic, attempting to talk the cat down. Hearing the gasps from the crowd and the response from the bear, Lilliana blinked and looked around. Seeing Cecily slowly stepping back from the group, she released the hold, "Shit, Shit Shit!" dropping
to the floor, "Mother fucker. I'm sorry. Did I hurt anyone?""Not at all, lucky enough!" Anne put her arm over Lilliana's shoulder and patted it gently. "This lady is a fellow veteran of our nation's Armed Forces. All of us who've served struggle to some extent with Post-Traumatic Stress. Thanks for coming up here with me, Lilliana." She patted Lilly's back and shook her hand. "I should have known better than to try this. I am sorry you had to see that." Lillian said apologetically."Now that that's over with we can begin class for real! I just want you to notice the pace. It was half, probably even quarter speed, and it was very controlled! We're experienced people. I'll expect a lot more from you. NOW! Dennis! Take warmups!" She backed off as Dennis took her spot, and started leading the class in some inane warmup routine. She walked off to the side with Lilly and smiled, patting her back. "Sorry that turned out the way it did." "I am sorry again, some things just don't go away, no matter how hard you try. That is the main reason I don't come to things like this myself." She looked up at the Anne, "So... I would have gone with a throat stomp if you didn't relent. Usually worked on big'un like you." Lilliana said with a smile. Anne smiled wide. "Yeah... aiming for the soft squishy parts is usually the best answer for stuff like that. A good way to have gotten out of the first hold I put you in would have been to dig your claws in instead of tickling me. If I had've known I wouldn't have gone through with it, though." "You said no claws. As for the other, we all have to deal with it, I have't had an episode like that in years, so I didn't think much of it." Lilliana looked over at Freddie, "You need to go a little easier on drumsticks over there, he has some issue he needs to work out. Took me two days to get him to even admit to it.""Shit? Really?" She looked over at him, watching him work with the class. "He's always been the good one. Behaved, always on time, courteous, obedient... a good, honest, hard-worker.
Never figured that was a problem." "Yah, he's like a battle buddy of mine, but Freddie is functioning better. Just watch his eyes, you'll see it. That strange blank stare, like he's not even there. Know what I mean?" Looking back at Anne, "I think this morning was my fault, I was poking fun at him yesterday about his only fun memory being getting his ass kicked in the arcade by me. He pushed himself into something he wasn't ready for. if you catch my drift.""That slutty cat? Yeah I heard all about it from Dennis' dumb ass. Wore his ass out, didn't she?" She chuckled a bit but quickly changed her tone. "Yeah... I know something happened a few years ago. He hasn't told me what, yet, and I haven't felt like pushing it.""That little moIe is the only reason I did, she was having fun here, and he was her anchor, safe harbor. It's something I got her used to with the others, and I kinda dumped it on Fred before I really knew him. He's a nice kid and good with her for the most part, I felt it was safe enough, even though I meet him trolling the arcade." She said with a wink."Yeah, well... He doesn't drink, and doesn't particularly like being around drunks, so that cuts out most of the lounges on this ship. What lounges that don't cater to the young and drunk crowd are either for the 50+ or 18- groups. I can see why he picked the arcade to kill time. And to be fair, you were trolling the arcade too." Anne smirked back at her. "Nay, I was looking for something fun for Cecily. I lost her at skeeball for a few hours. He lost me at the Pinball," She said watching Cecily. "She has some things we are working through too and I did not want to leave her there alone, not yet anyway.""I can understand that... She's doing great here, by the way." She looked over at Cecily as well, who was currently receiving guidance from Freddie. "So, there a Mr. Fargo?""No, and I really don't expect anyone to put up with me, but our little family is a good support structure with the needed elements." Holding her hand out, If you don't mind I am going to hit the pool, Cecily should be Okay here.""Oh yeah, she'll definitely be fine!" Anne smiled and looked Lilly up and down. "You visit the Solarium yet? Maybe my kid could babysit your kid and we could go get a bottle, hang out in a whirlpool for a while?""Maybe some other time, we got a date a good movie tonight. I got your number." Lilliana said with a smile."Heh, sure! I won't let you put that off till the end of the cruise." She smiled and waved as Lilliana walked off, licking her lips as she watched the firm-but-shapely, round feline ass swing out the door.