Eye of the Beholder

Author’s Notes I: Thank you blue_lioness for your review. Where’d everybody go?

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“Are you serious?” Audrey asks, her eyes about the size of golf balls.

“I tell you the man has hands as big as a catcher’s mitt and god are they strong,” Doug replies with a knowing smirk. “I wonder if he has a gay brother.”

“I wonder if that old wive’s tale is true about a man’s hand size is in relation to his…,” Maggie starts.

“Don’t even go there, Maggie, and sorry, Doug, Hank’s an only child,” Amanda states as she finishes taping up the latest packed box. “Are you guys here to help me pack or are you here to gossip about Ambassador McCoy?”

“Why can’t we do both?” Audrey teases getting the others to snicker.

“I think I’ll go work in my room,” Amanda mutters as she pushes the finished box into the spare bedroom.

“What’s the fun in that?” Doug yells after her. “We can’t tease you if you’re in another room.”

“Exactly,” Amanda retorts just as the phone rings and she goes to answer it in the kitchen.

“So, is he as hairy as he seems on TV?” Maggie asks Doug as soon as Amanda is around the corner.

“Probably even hairier,” Doug snickers.

“I wonder if you get can rug burn having sex with him,” Maggie quietly muses and the other two start giggling madly.

“Gives a whole new meaning to ‘a hunk of burnin’ love’,” Audrey snickers and they all collapse in a fit of laughter just as Amanda returns with a strange look on her face.

“I’ll be right back,” Amanda tells them as she grabs her keys and then heads out the door.

“What do you suppose that was all about?” Maggie asks.

“Not a clue, but it’s no fun to tease her if she’s not here,” Doug grouses. “Guess we’ll just have to wait until she gets back.”

The other two murmur their agreement before they go back to packing up the DVD collection, books, pictures and knick knacks in relative silence. Several minutes later they turn and look at the front door when they hear it being opened, all of them getting ready to resume their teasing. A second later, Amanda opens the door and the person who follows her in leaves the others with their jaws hanging open.

“Hank, these are my friends, Audrey and Maggie and you’ve already met Doug,” Amanda says as they step into the living room with Hank right behind her. “Everyone, this is Hank McCoy.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ladies,” Hank greets, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Good to see you again, Doug.”

“Hi,” Audrey manages to squeak out as Maggie just waves hesitantly.

“Amanda, you didn’t tell me Hank was coming to help,” Doug finally manages after several moments of awkward silence.

“Until about five minutes ago, I didn’t know either,” Amanda admits and Hank quietly chuckles behind her.

“I found myself with a free day, so I thought I’d come and help,” Hank admits looking over at Amanda. “I hope you don’t mind me just showing up unannounced.”

“No, not all, the more the merrier,” Amanda replies, a slight blush tingeing her cheeks.

“Excellent, where would you like me to start?” Hank asks.

“I think the kitchen would be a good start,” Amanda tells him and leads him to that room.

“Did see the size of his feet?” Maggie quietly gasps as soon as the other two are around the corner. “I wonder if it’s true what they say about a guy’s shoe size being equal to his…”

“I can assure you, my dear, that’s just an old wive’s tale,” Hank calls from the kitchen, stunning the three in the living room.

“Wonder what those old wive’s tales say about sharp hearing,” Doug mutters under his breath after several moments of shocked silence.

A few minutes later, Amanda emerges from the kitchen and heads toward her bedroom not even bothering to glance at her friends. Doug starts collecting the CDs for packing and then gets a wicked idea. Ever so quietly, he selects a disc, slips it into the CD player and then presses ‘play’. A few seconds later, the music starts and a man’s voice starts to sing.

You see me mowin' my front lawn
I know they're all thinkin' I'm so
White and nerdy

Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Can't you see I'm white and nerdy
Look at me I'm white and nerdy

Amanda comes flying out of her bedroom with a look of horror on her face. She dashes across the room and hits the ‘stop’ button with probably a bit more force than really necessary. She then turns on Doug who has a grin on his face that’s showing way too many teeth to be innocent.

“I thought we should have some music to dance to,” Doug says, trying to play innocent and failing if Amanda’s scowl is anything to go by.

“I was unaware that you were a ‘Weird’ Al fan, my dear,” Hank muses from the doorway of the kitchen.

“Yeah, she has all of his CDs and I believe she even has an autographed Poodle Hat around here somewhere,” Doug cheerfully tells him.

“I knew I should have killed you last week,” Amanda snarls before sulking back to the bedroom.

Doug happily turns the CD player back on and dances around the living room while he collects things off of her shelves to pack into his box. Hank chuckles to himself and returns to the kitchen to continue packing the cookware that almost never gets used. Audrey and Maggie snicker and bounce along to the music as they fill up their own boxes.

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“…and that Pomeranian has never been the same since,” Doug states garnering a laugh out of everyone except Amanda who is busily trying to disappear under the table.

“Are you alright, my dear?” Hank chuckles as Amanda tries to slide further under the table of their booth.

“The Humiliate Amanda Hour has been brought to you by Three Dead Friends Productions,” Amanda grumbles from her prone position.

“Oh, don’t be silly, girl,” Audrey snickers. “We haven’t been humiliating you for the past hour.”

“Yeah, we’ve been doing it all afternoon,” Maggie laughs as Doug and Audrey snicker along with her and Hank bites the inside of his cheek, feeling bad for the lady by his side.

“Thanks, that makes me feel sooooo much better,” Amanda huffs, crossing her arms over her chest.

“So, what do we do now?” Audrey asks, pushing her plate away.

“Let’s see, we’ve packed up Amanda’s apartment,” Maggie starts to list.

“A day early thanks to Hank,” Doug adds.

“We’ve now eaten enough pizza and beer to feed a football team,” Maggie continues as Audrey lets out a very unlady like belch. “We’ve decided that there aren’t any movies that we can all agree on and none of us feels up to shopping.”

“Says you,” Doug pouts.

“So, what can we do?” Maggie asks, ignoring Doug.

“I’m going home, taking a shower and then crawling into bed where I intend to sleep until I have to go to my parent’s house,” Amanda announces as she finally sits back up.

“Don’t be silly,” Audrey scoffs with a wave of her hand. “It’s Saturday night and we have nothing to do, so let’s find something to do.”

“Like what?” Doug asks as he drinks the last of his beer.

“I’ve got it!” Maggie announces, slamming her hand on the table and making everyone jump. “The high school near my place is having a fund raiser carnival this weekend at a nearby park. We could go there, eat lots of junk food, ride questionably safe rides, get sick and waste our money all in the name of a good cause.”

“That sounds great!” Audrey cheerfully replies.

“Count me in!” Doug adds.

“Great, you guys have fun puking, I’m going home,” Amanda grumbles as she tries to slide out of the booth to find her way blocked by Hank.

“It does sound like fun,” Hank says and she looks up into those blue eyes and nearly loses it right there.

“Throwing up sounds like fun?” Amanda asks, an eyebrow arching upwards.

“No, but a carnival has more than greasy food and rides, there are also games,” Hank answers.

“Which are rigged,” she points out.

“It’s to help the high school,” he counters.

“Which only a fraction of the proceeds really go to,” she responds.

“Please,” he requests and she instantly folds.

“Fine,” she sighs, her shoulders sagging in defeat.

The other three watch the exchange in silent fascination and look at each other with knowing looks once Amanda caves in. After deciding how best to get to the high school, the five of them leave the pizzeria and head for Hank’s and Maggie’s cars. About half an hour later, they’re walking through the gate into the park and are assaulted by the sights, sounds and smells of the carnival.

“All right, you three, we’ll meet back here at closing, ok?” Amanda shouts above the cacophony of the rides, music and screaming.

“Yes, ma’am,” the other three yell in unison and a second later they’re disappearing through the crowd.

“Shall we?” Hank suggest as soon as they’re out of sight.

“I guess,” she replies with a shrug.

“Is anything wrong?” he asks as they slowly wander through the throng of people, ignoring the dirty stares that Hank garners.

“You mean other than spending the last several hours of my life having my supposed friends tell every embarrassing story of my life from college onwards to a man I like and respect?” she grumpily responds. “Oh, yeah, I’m peachy.”

“Let’s not forget the poodle hat,” he chuckles. “You don’t really have a poodle hat signed by ‘Weird’ Al do you?”

“It’s a baseball cap that says ‘Poodle Hat’,” she explains. “It’s the title of one of his albums and yes, it’s signed.”

“Ah,” he replies with relief. “So what would you like to do now?”

“Go home, take a shower and crawl into bed,” she answers. “I don’t even want to think about all of the sore muscles I’m going to have tomorrow.”

“Is something else the matter?” he questions, noticing her continued lack of good humor.

“It hasn’t been a very good week,” she admits, looking down at the ground.

“The court case?” he inquires.

“That, among others things,” she replies.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Remember how I said that the kid that liked to climb the tree is autistic, slightly retarded and has ADHD?” she questions.

“Yes,” he answers.

“Well, the neighbors claim that the reason that they cut down the tree was because they believe that the kid is actually a mutant and they feared for their teenage daughter who’s window one of the branches went right up to,” she tells him. “They said that they were afraid that this eight year old kid was going to jump into their daughter’s bedroom and do God knows what to her. Never mind that the daughter has a black belt in tae kwon do, easily outweighs the kid by double and is almost never home. They were sure this kid was a threat so they cut the tree down. We had to have someone come in and draw blood from this little kid so they could test it and prove that he’s not a mutant. The poor kid didn’t completely understand what was going on and was very upset about having a needle stuck in him and we all had to watch.”

“Didn’t you say that you have a rather strong dislike of needles?” he inquires.

“That’s putting it mildly,” she grumbles as she wraps her arms around herself for comfort. “I’m surprised that I didn’t faint or go running from the courtroom screaming at the top of my lungs. As it was, I was pretty much useless for the rest of the day.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he tells her as he casually looks around the area they’re walking through.

“Thanks,” she mutters, not letting go of herself.

“Come on, I think I know something to cheer you up,” he says as he puts his hand on the small of her back and gently steers her through the crowd.

A couple of minutes later she’s staring up at an incredibly tall poll with a bell at the top. She watches idly as a big teenager, about the size and weight of a Mack truck picks up a large mallet in both his hands, swings it over his head and slams it down onto the target in front of him, sending the ringer up the poll towards the bell, but not quite reaching it. There are a lot of cries of sympathy for the guy and as soon as the teenager and his girlfriend leave, Hank pushes her towards the device.

“You can’t be serious,” she says, looking at him like he’s lost his mind.

“Very,” he replies with a small smile on his lips.

“I don’t think I can even lift the mallet, much less ring the bell,” she points out.

“That’s alright, I wasn’t expecting you to,” he tells her as he holds his money out for the man running the booth and the man eyes him suspiciously.

“You can play, but you can use only one hand,” the man states moments later, still not taking the money.

“Agreed,” Hank nods and the man hesitantly takes the money and then hands over the mallet. “You might want to stand out of the way, my dear.”

Amanda hastily moves out of the way as Hank takes a solid hold of the mallet with one hand. After making sure she’s safely out of harms way, he swings the mallet over his head and slams it down on the target. A few seconds later, the bell rings quite loudly but instead of the expecting cheering one would normally hear; there’s dead silence from the crowd. Hank ignores them as he hands back the mallet and points out the prize he wants. Amanda watches the people around them a bit nervously as he returns to her and then starts to lead her away from the area.

“Damn mutants,” she hears the man running the booth mutter as they leave and she gives him a cold, hard glare before turning to watch where she’s going.

A few minutes later, they’re past the crowds and off to the side where there’s less noise and it feels like her ears are ringing. Before she has a chance to comment on the relief of the sound of silence, he presents her with a big, blue fluffy teddy bear. She stares at it for a moment before looking at him for conformation and when he nods with a smile, she carefully takes it from him. She can’t help but smile at the silly thing before she quickly steps up to him and kisses him on the cheek.

“Thank you, he’s adorable,” she chuckles as she strokes bear’s fur.

“You’re very welcome,” he replies. “I’m just glad he was able to make you smile. I haven’t seen you do that all day.”

She bows her head suddenly and hugs the bear to her chest as she takes a deep ragged breath.

“What’s wrong?” he asks as he pulls her into his arms.

“It’s James,” she whispers as the tears start to fall. “He’s suing me for the dress I ruined.”

“Well that shouldn’t be too hard to deal with,” he says as he rubs a soothing hand up and down her back. “Just pay him off and be done with it.”

“He wants nearly $5,000 for it,” she tells him and he suddenly goes tense.

“That dress was nowhere near worth that much,” he nearly growls.

“I know and Mr. Steele is being nice enough to represent me in this case,” she replies with a sniff. “James wants to drag this into court, I know it, and once I’m there, it’s over. God, it makes me just sick thinking about it.”

“I swear I won’t let him touch you,” he states as he holds her closer and she starts to sob into his chest.

Kill, The Beast snarls angrily. Protect mate.

Hank ignores The Beast and its increasing vocabulary while it continues to rage inside of his head while Amanda wraps her arms around his waist and holds onto him as if her life depends on it, the bear hanging from one of her hands. The need to take her someplace safe, hide her away from the rest of the world and protect her is nearly overwhelming and he knows that those feelings come mostly from The Beast but he’s not all that opposed to them accept he’s willing to accept the impracticality of it all. They’re still standing there some time later after the tears have dried, neither willing to move yet when the others find them. Audrey and Maggie are supporting a decidedly wobbly Doug between them and the man looks distinctly green around the gills.

“There you two are,” Audrey grumbles. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

“What’s wrong?” Amanda asks, not quite ready to leave the safety of Hank’s arms.

“Doug ate an entire funnel cake by himself and then went on one of those rides that spins you around at speeds just shy of warp factor nine and got sick,” Maggie tells them as Doug lets out a burp and a groan. “They had to shut down the ride and clean it. I’m going to take him back to my place and put him to bed in the bathtub.”

“What about your cars?” Amanda inquires, still not moving from her spot and Hank’s not all that inclined to make her move.

“I’ll go back with you two and get my car,” Audrey answers.

“I’ll drive Doug back to his car in the morning,” Maggie puts in.

“So are you ready to go back, Audrey?” Amanda questions.

“Yeah, it’s no fun to go to one of these things by yourself,” Audrey replies. “But first we’ve got to get Doug to Maggie’s place.”

“Alright, let’s get going,” Amanda sighs as she reluctantly pulls away from Hank.

The other three start to move towards the gate as Amanda hugs her bear to her chest and Hank gently guides her with his hand on her back again. They walk the few blocks to Maggie’s apartment and get Doug situated on Maggie’s couch with an old tarp underneath him and a garbage can nearby, just in case. Once he’s comfortable, Amanda, Hank and Audrey leave and make their way to Hank’s car another couple blocks over.

“Where’d you get the bear?” Audrey asks as they all slip into front seat of the car.

“I won it for her,” Hank proudly states.

“How sweet,” Audrey says, a smile plastered on her face. “Wish I could find a guy who’d win me a bear.”

“Maybe someday,” Amanda yawns.

“Uh oh, you’re going to fall asleep again, aren’t you?” Audrey teases.

“Again?” Hank questions as he navigates his car through the narrow city streets.

“I’m trying not to,” Amanda grumbles as she squirms around in her seat to try and get the blood moving, but it doesn’t help that she’s pressed between two warm bodies and it’s been a very long day.

“Yeah, if you ever want to put her to sleep, just put her in a car and she conks right out,” Audrey tells him.

“Not all the time,” Amanda mutters sulkily.

“No, just about ninety percent of the time is all,” Audrey points out with a smirk. “The longer the car ride the more likely it is she’ll fall asleep.”

“I would imagine driving long distances would make you nervous,” he says.

“If I’m driving, I have a death grip on that steering wheel and there’s no way I’m falling asleep,” Amanda replies. “I’m too nervous about the other maniacs on the road.”

“Understandable,” Hank muses as he turns a corner onto Amanda’s street. “Where are you parked, Audrey?”

“Up another block and around the corner,” Audrey answers.

Hank follows Audrey’s directions and then drops her off at her car. He waits until she’s pulled out and then parks in her vacated spot. After turning off the engine, he looks down and sees Amanda leaning against him, her head on his shoulder. While he’s thrilled that she didn’t scoot over when Audrey got out, now he’s in a quandary of what to do with her.

“Amanda, are you asleep?” he softly asks.

“No,” she mumbles sleepily.

“You’re eyes are closed,” he points out.

“I’m checking them for light leaks,” she replies and he chuckles.

“Come on, I’ll walk you home,” he tells her.

Reluctantly she sits up and stretches, the bear still firmly in her grasp and he can feel his blood starting to head below his belt. He tries not to groan as he opens his car door and slides out. She follows him a second later and they head for her apartment building with one of her arms wrapped around his and the bear in a near death grip in her other arm.

“Well, here we are again,” he announces when they reach the front door.

“Thank you for everything, again,” she says as he turns to face her. “It was very sweet of you to come over and help me pack, put up with my insane friends and win me Blue.”

“Blue?” he asks, a smile playing on his lips.

“Yeah, that’s what I decided to call him,” she proudly states, holding up the bear.

“It’s a good name,” he agrees as he gently takes the bear from her and pulls her into his arms. “Are you going to start rambling on me again?”

“Not if you kiss me first,” she tells him as she wraps her arms around his neck.

“Sounds good to me,” he states.

Then he leans down and kisses her.

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Author’s Notes II: Just so people know, my original plan was to not have them kiss until Christmas. Aren’t you glad I changed my mind? Also, if you go onto youtube, and type in ‘White and Nerdy’ in their search engine, you should get the video to this song. It’s very funny and keep an eye open for Seth Green and Donny Osmond.

Disclaimer: I don’t own the rights to White And Nerdy, which is the first song on the Straight Outta Lynwood album. It is a parody of Ridin' by Chamillionaire with new lyrics by "Weird Al" Yankovic.