You've Got Another Thing Coming

I sat by a table, munching on my delicious French fries and onion-covered salamander steak, while Cherokee sat opposite me – chugging down glass after glass of carbonated mineral water. Rose was still in the kitchen, bonding on the female level with the two chefs that seemingly adored her after she taught them how to make fast food with a twist (the twist was Tabasco and lemon, just so you know).

We had been sitting like this for over an hour, too tired to actually eat and drink as quickly as we wanted to. However, what could also be accounted for were the numerous times we had been interrupted by a green little Irish leprechaun – whose name we learned was Hans – who constantly tried to sell us homemade inventions created out of various clock-parts that he’d stolen from the White Rabbit’s watch, milk cartons and Styrofoam.

I glanced at the scene where tonight’s entertainment – two very young girls that preformed a puppet-show – were screeching their hearts out to a severely disastrous remake of Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene.

“…but soft! What light through yonder window breaks?” the youngest looking of the two cried out, wiggling her puppet so violently that its head came off. After an embarrassing silence and the up-fishing of the puppet-head from a bystander’s soup, the play carried on in the same unforgiving fashion.

“Gah!” I screeched, salamander-steak flying in little speckles from my mouth as I did so. “I can’t take any more of this!”

Cherokee looked up at me, slightly dazed from drinking a little too much water, and froze in his spot. “What?”

“They’re butchering a classic!” I whimpered and felt a sudden need to get into foetal position and hide in a dark corner somewhere. “It’s torture…!”

The fairy sighed and shook his head. “You are even stranger than I imagined,” he snorted. “And that’s saying something!”

I recalled our first encounter for the second time that evening, and I had to give him right.

“Not the best first impression, huh?” I grinned half-heartedly, a nervous tint to my forced giggle.

He snorted yet again. “Clearly not,” he agreed. He then met my gaze, holding it steady as my own swayed a bit from sheer tiredness.
“I do want to apologize, though,” he told me; something which immediately made me re-focus my attention. “I was clearly not the best company, nor was I very…” he trailed off.

“Compassionate? Understanding? Trust-worthy? Nice?” I suggested, and he glared at me through thick eyelashes that made a girl at a nearby table glare at him jealously.

“Pleasant,” he growled low at me, lowering his head and leaning forward over the table.

Instinctively, I leaned forward too.

“Well, you weren’t that either,” I agreed. I then felt a sudden urge of boldness, and spat out:
“How come you’re so much nicer to me, now?”

Cherokee shrugged. “Don’t know. ‘Suppose it might have something to do with my baby sister no longer staring at you like you’re the finest piece of meat on the market.”

I choked on some left over piece of French fry that had been stuck in between my teeth. Cherokee reached over to thunderously pat me on the back, which only led to me loosing my breath and gasping for air for one reason or another.

When I had collected myself (and drunk Cherokee’s eleventh glass of water) I leaned back on the padded seat.

“So, basically,” I said, tuning back to the part of our conversation that didn’t involve me coughing my lungs out or getting patted half to death, “what you’re saying is; that you’re nice to me because I’m no longer male?”

He paused for a bit, seemingly in though, before nodding his head. “Yes.”

I shook my own head to try and clear it up a bit, but the fog of sleep had clad it all too thickly in a white misty blur, and I gave up.

“So,” my tongue spoke without my brain’s approval, as the latter one had gone for a nap eons ago. “Do you like me now?”

Cherokee appraised me for a moment, and nodded his head again. “You’re cute, but weird. You’re nutty and sarcastic, but you have your moments. However,” he concluded, “as your mind has been listed MIA, I suppose you can’t help it.”

I glared at him, a futile attempt when you’re so tired the needles in the floorboards look inviting.
“Thank you, oh considerate one,” I grumbled under my breath, if such is possible.

“So, how about it?” he suddenly wondered after a couple of seconds of silence.

I started. “How about what?” I wanted to know. I had been drifting off – again! – and had been paying no attention to whether he had said something or not.
He could have been discussing poverty, famine and death penalties for all I knew; all I did know was that I was too fatigued to even bother to pretend.

“Do you forgive me?” he repeated, and my mind whirled in attempts to remember.

Oh! He had apologised! Right; okay.

“Sure,” I said and waved it off carelessly. “It’s forgiven and forgotten.”

For the first time ever – right then and there – I saw Cherokee smile without some other intent behind it than just a simple smile.
It was quite beautiful, and I found myself smiling back.

Only when my nose hit the hard surface of the wooden table did he break eye contact and rise from his seat. Accompanied by my heavy breathing and gentle protesting, Cherokee walked over to the bar and the pale bartender girl who had now returned.

“Chrissy, I need a room,” he stated and leaned over the desk, reaching in under and snatching a key. “I’ll just take my usual one,” he told her and tossed her the key.

Chrissy eyed my almost unconscious form. “You need any help with that?” she wondered, already half-way out the door to the back rooms.

“Nah,” Cherokee waved it off. “As long as you go in front and open the doors, I think I’ll be able to handle it.”

“Good.” Chrissy waited for him to go back, and when he returned she held the door open and proceeded through a maze-like corridor, Cherokee hot on her heels with me dangling like a dead eel from his arms.