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| The characters of "Combat!"...oh for cryin' out loud, you know they don't belong to me. Copyright 2003 (yeah, in my dreams) by Mel A Day...um, Hour?...In the Life of a Fanfic Character “Oh for the love of…hurry up, Kirby!” “Hey, this is the first chance I’ve had to go in ages, leave me alone.” The muffled voice from the other side of the closed door sounded suspiciously smug. “Kirby, if you aren’t out of there in two minutes, I swear I’ll break the door down.” After taking nearly every bit of those two minutes, Kirby unlocked the door and walked out of the little room as he wiped his wet hands on his pants. “It’s all yours, Littlejohn.” Before the big soldier could get through the door, another body slipped past his. The door shut in Littlejohn’s face as he heard the click of the lock. “Doc! I can’t believe you did that. It’s my turn.” A snort of laughter behind him made Littlejohn spin around, shooting Caje an angry glare. “Well it was. I feel like I’m gonna burst.” “Ah, c’mon. You can sneak off more often to use the john than I can. Jeez, I’m in nearly every story.” “Is that my fault? At least you don’t have to carry the stretcher as much as I do. I think my arms are gonna fall off.” An indignant, “Hey!” came from inside the bathroom. “Okay, so maybe Doc carries it more than I do. Still, the damn thing gets heavy. And it’s usually you or the Sarge taking it easy while we carry you.” “Hey, you think I like it? If they ain’t shooting me or stabbing me, I’m getting beat up by somebody. It’s almost as if they like doing that to me.” Another indignant “Hey!” from the bathroom had Caje shaking his head. “It’s not even the same, Doc. They hardly do much more than give you a flesh wound.” Opening the door, Doc wiped his hands on a towel. “Hey, I’ve been killed off once or twice ya know.” “Not very often. I think they’re afraid of the readers turning on ‘em if they do. Besides, they have to keep you alive to take care of me.” “Yeah, yeah. Seems like that’s all I do is bandage up you and Sarge.” All three stepped back in surprise as someone flashed past Doc into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. A plaintive wail from Littlejohn announced the blur’s identity. “Saaarge! I gotta go!” A certain amount of relief colored the response from their sergeant. “Cross your legs, Littlejohn. I just had to hold it for over fifty pages.” Groaning in agony, Littlejohn did as Saunders suggested. He added a little dance to it, looking for all the world like a five-year-old who’d waited too long to go. “Saaarge.” “Zip it, Littlejohn. Rank hath its privileges.” “In that case, shouldn’t I have my turn first?” Chuckling at the sight of their lieutenant standing there, imitating Littlejohn’s painful stance, the others shared a smile. It was nice to see someone else having to wait his turn. Several others lined up behind Hanley and Caje did a double take. “Doc Walton? Jeez, where’ve you been?” Shooting the Arkansas medic a dark glance, Doc Walton crossed his arms and frowned. “Ah, I’ve been sitting in that damn extras room for ages. For some reason they like him better than me.” Covering his mouth with his hand, McCall muttered, “Maybe ‘cause you ain’t got a personality.” “What was that?” Pasting an innocent look on his face, McCall shrugged. “I didn’t say anything.” Doc…uh, the second one…was looking fairly smug. He couldn’t help it that he gave them more to work with. When the door opened once more, Littlejohn shot the others such a look of death that nobody dared enter before he did. Seeing the group gathered around the latrine, Saunders tried to appear stern. “What is everyone doing here? Don’t you have Germans to be killing, or getting yourselves wounded or something?” Taking a quick headcount, Doc shrugged. “Billy must be out there somewhere, doing something. I shudder to think what they’re doing to him right now.” “Hey, if they’re busy with him maybe we can catch a little break.” “Don’t kid yourself, Kirby. You know he’ll end up in trouble somehow and you guys will have to save his butt. Then I’ll have to bandage it.” “Well I sure ain’t gonna bandage his butt.” “Shut up, Kirby.” Shaking his head, Saunders seemed to be actually worried. “They’re up to something. I can feel it. It’s like they’re all comparing notes and conspiring to hurt us.” “You’re paranoid, Sarge.” Looking around, Caje shivered. “No, he’s right. Like they’re all conspiring to wound me or make me suffer.” “Get over yourself, Caje.” “Shut up, McCall. You lead a fairly charmed life here. And you get more bathroom breaks than we do.” “What I wanna know is, how come all those times I play poker they can’t make me win more often?” “Good grief, Kirby. Is that all you can think about?” “Well…yeah.” Rolling his eyes, Caje gestured to Doc…uh, the second one. “Can you believe this guy?” “Quite frankly, no.” This time the indignant, “Hey!” came from Kirby. “You’re supposed to be neutral, Doc.” “Yeah, right. Now that I can tell you how I really feel…you’re a pain in the neck, Kirby.” “Jeez, ya think ya know who your friends are.” An undefined…something…had Caje, Kirby, Doc and Saunders looking up and frowning. Littlejohn stumbled through the door, still zipping up his pants. “Ah, man. What are they doing to us this time?” With a collective groan, the five men gathered up their equipment and headed back into…well, wherever they came from. The blurred form of Billy Nelson whizzed past on the way to the bathroom. “Your turn guys. Gotta go.” “Swell.” Looking back at his sergeant, Kirby raised his eyebrows. “Whose turn is it to go first this time, Sarge?” “Yours.” “Aw, man. You know they’ll pick on the first one they see.” “Better to get it over and done with, soldier.” “Aw, man.” Kirby disappeared into the void, where an echo of evil laughter could be heard. Caje shot Saunders a puzzled look. “It wasn’t really Kirby’s turn, was it?” “No, it was mine. But I sure as hell wasn’t going first. They’d have had a field day with that.” Looking at the others, Saunders gathered his resolve. And his courage. “Well, men. Guess it’s time.” Rifling through his bag, Doc mumbled under his breath. “Hope I have enough bandages. You can bet somebody’s gonna catch it.” “Maybe they’ll be so busy with Kirby, they won’t notice us for a while.” The hysterical laughter from his comrades that followed that comment made Caje cringe. “I’m dead meat.” The evil laughter echoing from around him pretty much confirmed his suspicions. Even as the bullets began to whiz around him, Caje shook his head. “Crazy writers. Jeez.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Heheheh. Ahem, uh, The End. |