Turn It Into Magic

"I think it's safe to say that we can eliminate Marilyn," Abi sighed after 24 hours of examination had passed. The three girls were tired and bored out of their minds. The examination itself had been filled with a whole lot of nothing. Marilyn and Twiggy had watched their movie, ate pizza for dinner with Zim, took their respective showers, and fell asleep together. The girls then decided to take shifts, and Iggy was the one who witnessed Twiggy awakening the singer with soft kisses. However, aside from some early morning sex, nothing worth note happened, and it was easily decided that neither of the men were unfaithful.

"I think it was safe to say that five hours into the thing," Elizabeth said as she stretched. Abi placed Marilyn's folder on what the girls had begun fondly calling the 'Discard Pile.'

"So John is next, right?" she asked, although no one needed to answer her for her to know she was right. "Pogo's going to be coming for me soon, and you guys can't watch him through the chalkboard, so do you want me to hook the laptop and cameras up to the TV?"

"That would be nice, thanks," Elizabeth smiled. That way, she would be able to move to the couch, and it was much more comfortable than the armchairs. Abi stood and began setting everything up while Elizabeth got up to brew a pot of coffee for herself and some hot chocolate for Iggy. Just as Abi finished and sat down, Pogo wandered into the room carrying two take-out boxes. Abi opened her mouth to tell him to go back out and knock but was cut off by the keyboardist.

"John ordered Chinese for you two," Pogo announced to Elizabeth. He nodded to Iggy as well as he handed the boxes to the girl at the cupboards.

"Oooh, sweet," Elizabeth grinned, happily taking the boxes from him to check their contents.

"What about me?" Abi pouted.

"I have your food in my room," Pogo smirked, quite pleased with the fact that he was in total control of Abi for the night.

"Trying to wine and dine me now?" she asked as she stood up to leave with him.

"You figured me out that easily?" His voice was amused, and his arm slid around her waist. Abi promptly swatted it away.

"Bring her back in one piece!" Elizabeth called.

"No promises," Pogo cackled as he and his voluntary victim left the room.

Elizabeth settled down next to Iggy on the couch with two Cokes, and she handed the other girl her meal. They turned their attention to the TV, where John, Zim, Ginger, and Tim were eating their own Chinese food in the dining room. Marilyn and Twiggy soon joined them, and Trent was nowhere to be seen.

"What's going to happen to Abi?" Iggy asked, sounding concerned as she poked at the scoops of rice before her.

"With Pogo, anything can happen. He could... y'know. Or he could just talk to her all night," Elizabeth responded. "We'll find out tomorrow."

"Ah," Iggy nodded, and looked at the screen. There, John and Ginger were feeding each other forkfuls of food and generally just making a mess. This caused Iggy to ask, "So how did those two get together? John and Ginger, I mean."

Elizabeth smiled fondly at the memory and prepared herself for the inevitably long story to come. "Well, it all started with a boner."

__________

Abi sat in a recliner in the deepest corner of Pogo's messy room. She munched carefully on the sweet and sour chicken she had been given and warily watched Pogo as he sat cross-legged on the bed, also eating and watching her. This continued for a very slow half an hour while Pogo consumed two boxes of food and Abi finished just over half of one.

"So, Abi," Pogo began. "You're here for compensation. The compensation that was your choice. That you willingly agreed to. Correct?"

"That's correct," Abi said with a confused nod.

"In that case, would you then consider all the goings-on that are sure to take place tonight consensual?"

"Hell no!" Abi exclaimed. "Just because I made a deal to come here-"

"But I'm in complete control, remember? And if I tell you to say it's consensual, then you have to agree," he said, then he smiled, slightly amused. "Although it probably wouldn't stop me if you said it wasn't."

"Pogo's you're an ass."

"Trust me, I'm well aware,. Now, where would you like to begin?"

"Why are you asking me? Don't you have something in mind?" Abi asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Of course, of course," Pogo assured her. By now he had stood up and was pacing in a small path at the foot of the bed. "But I just wanted to see if, maybe, I could accommodate you so that you don't have to feel like tonight's a complete waste."

"Well, I could really use a nap," Abi said, running her eyes for effect."

"I'd be glad to let you nap-"

"Really?!" the girl was almost ecstatic.

"As long as I can sleep with you. In the most literal sense."

"You're an asshole."

"You've established that. So what do you say? Are you that tired?" Pogo smirked. Abi debated her options. She could take a nap now, deal with the keyboardist's disturbances, and wake up refreshed and ready to face the rest of the night, or she could stay awake and hope they both made it until morning.

"I think I'll take the nap, thank you very much," she said, making a beeline for the bed.

"You're welcome. But don't you want to take off a few layers of clothing? I mean, you'd be so much more comfortable," Pogo offered, plucking the fabric of her jeans as she crawled up to the headboard. "I could even see about finding you something a little more... comfortable."

Abi internally shuddered as she thought of the revealing outfits Pogo could think up and consider 'comfortable'. "No thanks. I'm quite fine how I am," she said. She curled up on her side to face the wall and closed her eyes.

A depression on the bed indicated that Pogo was getting cozy next to her. It wasn't long before she felt a hand on her thigh. It was out of character for her to ignore such advances, but she did so anyway in hopes of Pogo giving up. However, she had no such luck, as the keyboardist's fingers were slowly creeping their way downward.

"No, Pogo. This is nap time, not play time," Abi murmured, putting on her best drunk-with-sleep voice and the most effective pout she could muster.

The keyboardist pulled his hand back into a more respectable position. "You have a half an hour," he said, then sighed in frustration. Abi couldn't help but let a smile make its way onto her face.

__________

In following with the preschool references, these hours of observing the men served as story time for Iggy and Elizabeth. The latter caught the other girl up on the goings-on of the hospital as John talked to Twiggy. Both of them were waiting for Marilyn, Tim, Ginger, and Zim to finish their game of cards.

"So what was the war all about? I hear stories of it, but I don't know what happened," Iggy mused, taking a sip of her Coke.

"Ah, the Great War of the Maniggy Hospital. I don't remember exactly how it started. Pogo was likely being a smart ass, and I think it was directed and Tim or Trent. We'll have to ask Abi when she gets back. Anyway, three teams formed. John, Pogo, Zim, and Twiggy were on one; Tim, Trent, Daisy, and Marilyn were on another; and the last was made of Ginger, Abi, and me, but we were neutral," Elizabeth said. She filled Iggy in on some of the battles that ensued during the time, not forgetting to mention that that was when they had found about Pogo's crush on John.

"How did that come about?" Iggy asked, enthralled.

"There was some sort of argument when we came to visit their battle station. It just happened to pop up," the other girl shrugged.

"What happened next?"

"Well, I believe that Tim kidnapped Abi for..." Elizabeth trailed off, her eyes widening. "My god."

"What is it?" Iggy looked more confused than when she had arrived at the hospital.

"Tim kidnapped Abi for Trent!" Elizabeth exclaimed, bouncing excitedly in her seat.

"And how did she get out?" Iggy asked, wondering if the tale of freeing Abi was so electrifying that Elizabeth would get that excited about it.

"Pogo came and got her, but that's not the point. Don't you see? Trent wanted Abi! He's her secret admirer!" she exclaimed, exasperated.

Iggy took a moment to let that discovery sink in, then couldn't help but echo Elizabeth: "My god."

They both sat in silence for a moment, attempting to wrap their head's around the situation. Iggy was the one to break the silence.

"It's kind of pointless to keep watching John, then, don't you think?" she asked.

"Yeah, it is. I'll change it to Trent's room," the other girl said. Elizabeth entered a few commands into the computer, and the view on the TV changed from the card game to Trent and Tim's room. Since the blonde was downstairs with nearly everyone else, Trent was there alone, looking at something on his laptop.

"I guess it kind of makes sense now. The fact that they're hardly ever around each other, I mean," Iggy pointed out. She stood and cleared away the mess they had left after dinner. "Would you like some coffee?"

The other girl nodded absently, then yawned and murmured, "Of course we'd figure everything out within an hour of Abi leaving. Of course."

__________

"Got any sixes?"

"Nope."

"Fuck! Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. Go fish."

Zim growled to himself and pulled a card from the pile. He had quite an impressive number of them in his hand and had made absolutely no matches thus far in the game.

"Her Zim, got any nines?" Ginger smirked at the guitarist over his minuscule hand of cards.

"Oh, I don't know! It's not like I don't have one of every fucking card in the deck," he replied sarcastically while handing a nine over to Ginger. The drummer was almost the direct opposite of the man he'd taken the card from. Ginger was in the lead with six matched so far.

"By the time it was Zim's next turn, his hand of cards had shrunk, as everyone knew to ask him for the ones they needed.

"Tim, you got any eights?"

"No."

"Fuck!" Zim threw his hand of cards down on the table. "I give up. Let's play a different game."

"I don't know any other card games," Ginger said, also throwing his cards into the mix.

"We could play Twister!" Twiggy suggested happily. As soon as he said it, his face fell. "Oh yeah. That's banned. Nevermind."

"Well, if we're done with this game, then I'm going to go see Trent," Tim said. The remaining two men threw their hands of cards into the pile. "See you guys later."

"Bye, Tim!" Twiggy called with a wave. A few of the other men muttered something as well, but the blonde was out the door before he could hear them.

__________

The sound of a door opening startled Elizabeth and Iggy out of their conversation. The noise had, thankfully come from the TV and not from someone intruding into their office.

"Oh, good. Tim's finally there," Elizabeth said. It was getting a bit boring just watching Trent play around on his laptop.

The blonde's first action was to wrap his arms loosely around Trent's neck and give the man a peck on the top of his head. Trent offered no response, not even a grunt of recognition.

"I think this settles it," Iggy said. On the screen before them, Tim was chatting away to Trent, who seemed to be easily ignoring him with an annoyed look.

Elizabeth turned to Iggy, who seemed to be thinking the same thing as her. "This is kind of making me sad," she murmured as her eyes returned to the screen.

Iggy nodded in agreement. "Well... it looks like we've got our match."