Created: 9-2-03FIGHTING TEMPTATION
The trio had just came back from a tiring mission of convincing Charlie Chaplin not to take the racing horses business. Tuddrussel groaned in fatigue as he cracked his sore neck.
“Ugh, that was some tough assignment today. I didn’t think that those horses would be ravin’ over us like mad dogs!”
“Well, it was you they’re raving at,” Larry snorted as he moved towards the main control room. “If you hadn’t drenched yourself in carrot juice, we would’ve saved the manslaughter.”
“Hey, it wasn’t my fault that doggone carrot juice got on me!” Tuddrussel protested angrily. “That darn popcorn guy didn’t have his eyes watchin’ where he was goin’!”
“Whatever,” Larry sighed. “I’ll have to type out our overall report for today’s missions.”
“Hey, Tuddrussel, let’s play hide-and-seek!” Otto, the ever energetic little orphan said in a cheery voice. “I’ll be ‘It’ this time!”
“No thanks, kid,” Tuddrussel refused, waving Otto’s cheery suggestion away. “I gotta make sure that the tin can there doesn’t write anythin’ stupid about our missions.”
“OK,” Otto shrugged nonchalantly as he headed off to his bedroom to get his colouring books.
Tuddrussel paced quickly towards the main control room. He saw Larry 3000 typing away furiously at the keyboard, the screen showing out dozens upon dozens of words. Tuddrussel was pretty impressed. He could never type so many words at once. Heck, he couldn’t even figure out which control is for what. He slowly walked towards Larry and, laying his hands on Larry’s shoulders, said with a grin, “Hey, there, Lar. What are you typing?”
“A report, obviously,” Larry replied, annoyed. “I’m done with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Joan of Arc and Florence Nightingale and now I’m getting to the part where you get drenched in carrot juice and got chased by those hunger-stricken horses.”
“Oh no, you don’t!” Tuddrussel grabbed Larry’s cold metallic hand. “I told you it wasn’t my fault. It was the popcorn guy! He spilled the doggone carrot juice over me!”
“Oh, come on, you big oaf! You know I have to be honest at every report I write! If I were to bluff my way out for your sake all the time and The Council gets word of the truth, we wouldn’t be in this squad anymore!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah! Blah, blah, blah and all that crap! Now you erase that sentence right now and rewrite it!” Tuddrussel grumbled as he reached his index finger towards the ‘Backspace’ key, ready to delete the sentence saying about him and the raving horses. Larry, as expected, protested loudly and slapped Tuddrussel’s hand with his hard metallic hand. Tuddrussel yelped in pain and annoyance and grabbed both Larry’s hands with one hand and reached over the ‘Backspace’ key with another. Larry wouldn’t give up without a fight. He struggled and wrestled his way to stop the bulky officer from doing anything stupid. They wrestled in front of the screen for a few minutes or so until both of them lost their footing and fell onto the solid floor.
“Oh, you are a great big oaf! An oaf and a buffoon at that!” Larry complained loudly as he tried to get up. “You are always trying to mess things up!”
“Me?! You are the one always tryin’ to screw things up when I almost got it right!” Tuddrusssel was also struggling to get up, but had his arm tangled in Larry’s arm. “Why, I oughta…”
That was when the cat got his tongue. He realized that he was actually on top of Larry, his face inches away from the robot’s cold face. They stayed stationary there for a full 5 minutes, not even moving an inch. Tuddrussel’s eyes were staring straight at Larry’s round ones, not blinking for that full 5 minutes. None of them said a word. They just stared and stared like they’ve never seen each other before. They had no idea why.
“Larry? Tuddrussel? What happened? What are you doing on the floor?”
Otto’s tiny voice brought the duo back to reality. Tuddrussel pushed Larry flat onto the floor to support himself back up on his feet. Larry groaned a little and picked himself up off the floor. Otto was staring at them questioningly as the duo tried to regain composure.
“I, uh, sorry, Larry. Didn’t mean to do that,” Tuddrussel muttered as he adjusted the belt on his waist.
“Yes, yes, yes. I’d better get to this report quick. It’s almost dinner time and I haven’t done anything yet,” Larry patted himself off the dust and went back to his typing. Tuddrussel scratched his chin sheepishly as he walked out of the main control room together with Otto.
“What just happened? Why were you on Larry?” Otto asked.
“Well, uh…just a small accident, kid. Nothin’ to worry about,” Tuddrussel was in the brink of stuttering but managed to maintain his cool. He tried to change the topic. “So, uh, is the game hide-and-seek still on?”
“Yeah!!” Otto cheered, forgetting immediately what he just saw. Somehow, deep in both Tuddrussel and Larry’s mind, they simultaneously had a very, very disturbing question.
‘Why did I suddenly feel so…different towards him?’
“Dinner is served! Cheese soufflé and spaghetti on the house!”
“Cool!”
“Man, not another one of ‘em soofies again!”
Our resident robot, the main household manager of the squad, whipped a great tasty dinner again, but as usual, Tuddrussel always had something to complain about the food.
“If you don’t like it, I might as well give it to Otto. At least he appreciates my cooking better,” Larry huffed and passed the plate of soufflé to Otto, who scooped it into his mouth heartily.
“Yeah, whatever,” Tuddrussel muttered as he scooped spoonfuls of spaghetti into his plate. “At least I had somethin’ decent to eat.”
Otto and Tuddrussel tucked in hungrily as Larry did the dishes. As usual, Tuddrussel ate like a pig. He gobbled everything up within seconds and had not only a second helping, but a third and fourth helping, leaving Otto pretty less spaghetti to eat. Otto had to do with the soufflé. Larry noticed and had his hands on his waist.
“Tuddrussel, you glutton! You’re hogging all the spaghetti! Leave some for little Otto!”
“Ah, the kid has your soofie, he’ll make do. I’m hungry here,” Tuddrussel replied nonchalantly.
“It’s OK, Larry. Your soufflé is delicious, he can have the spaghetti,” Otto replied. Always the generous one.
“See, what did I tell ya? Ain’t he the sweetest thing?” Tuddrussel said in a cute voice before stuffing the last portion of spaghetti into his gut.
“Obviously, you big numbskull, that you don’t give a hoot about poor Otto,” Larry complained as he spooned a ladleful of extra spaghetti he had originally separated out to be kept for tomorrow’s lunch or supper onto Otto’s plate. “It’s no wonder that your ex-wife Sheila dumped you.”
That caught Tuddrussel’s sensitive side. He banged on the table and growled, “Now you listen here! This thing ain’t got nothin’ to do with that ol’ coot Sheila. You leave her outta this!”
“Oh, was I wrong? Well, forgive me, Tuddrussel, but I just don’t see any other reason why she divorced you in the first place besides the lack of responsibility you’re showing on Otto,” Larry replied sarcastically. “Clearly you’re well aware of that!”
“Hey, things just didn’t work out between Sheila and me, so we’re better off separated. That ain’t nothin’ to do with unable to raise children!”
“Guys, guys, stop fighting!” Otto, the peacemaker of the trio, came between them. “Your argument is going nowhere. You don’t have to fight over the spaghetti I didn’t get!”
“Quiet, kid!” Tuddrussel snapped at Otto. “This is between Larry and I. We’re having an adult conversation, so you just run along and take that soofie somewhere else to eat.”
Otto sighed and took his plate of spaghetti and soufflé. When Tuddrussel start saying that he and Larry were having an ‘adult conversation’, he knew that this fight was something he could never pacify. As soon as he left the dining room cum kitchen, the robot and the officer started squabbling again.
“Now what’s the big idea of suddenly bringin’ up ol’ Sheila, huh? What exactly is your darn freakin’ point?” Tuddrussel had his hands balled into tight fists, urging to strike the robot down.
“My point is that if you are unable to even show a little bit of responsibility for our little Otto here, like sharing something as simple as food, for instance, you sure well are not cut out to be a Time Squad officer, and sure no family man for that matter!” Larry pointed an accusing finger at Tuddrussel.
“What does family man attitude gotta do with anythin’ about the Squad? I’m perfectly clear about my responsibilities! My job is the same as you: go around the world through time and fix it real good before history goes into a great bull stampede! What’s wrong with that?”
“Oh, you think that’s all your responsibilities? What about your responsibilities here? You just kick off and relax and do nothing while I have to slave away cleaning up after you!”
“No one asked you to clean up after me!” Tuddrussel poked Larry’s metallic chest. “You can just be as carefree as we are and stop tiring yourself!”
“Why do you think I want to do all these work! It’s because I like you a lot! I’m doing these things for you, and all I want is just some respect and gratitude!!!” Larry shouted out, for a while not realizing what he had just said.
“Oh yeah? Well, you…what did you just say?” Tuddrussel widened his eyes when the words hit him like a mallet on the head.
“I said I’m doing all these housework for you because I like…” This time Larry stopped short and clasped his hands over his mouth when he knew what he just let out. He quickly let it slide and took in the dishes to the dishwasher. Tuddrussel closed in on him and had his hands on his hips.
“Alright, Larry, what were you trying to say?”
“Nothing. Nothing in particular,” Larry replied, feeling his circuits heating up. He could assume that he was actually blushing. “Are you done with the orange juice yet? I got dishes to wash, you know.”
“Larry 3000, what did you just say?” Tuddrussel said through gritted teeth, his hands on Larry’s shoulders, hard.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Larry went into a state of denial as he pushed the bulky officer out of the kitchen cum dining room. “Now get out of my kitchen! I’m busy with the dishes!!”
Tuddrussel growled grudgingly as he glared at Larry doing the dishes deliberately slowly. He had said something. He knew it! He just wasn’t sure if that was what he heard. He had to know.
Even if it means forcing it out of the tin can.
Tuddrussel tossed and turned on his bed. He found it hard to sleep with the question still in his mind: What was Larry trying to say? He just couldn’t figure it out, and neither did he dare to think that whatever Larry said was what he said. He had to know. He just had to know!
He jumped off the bed and walked towards Larry’s room. He tried to move as quietly as possible so as not to wake up Otto. No point waking the little critter up and let him bug into his own personal business with Larry. As he went in, he saw Larry standing near a socket with an extension plug in the socket from Larry’s chest, recharging him as he slept. Tuddrussel turned on the nightlight to prevent causing any hullabaloo in the middle of the night.
“Lar, hey, Lar, wake up,” Tuddrussel poked at Larry’s shoulder, forcing him out of his slumber. Larry groaned and blinked his blank eyes open.
“Wha…What? Who is it?” Larry turned to see the big bulky officer in his pajamas staring back at him. Larry sighed nonchalantly. “Oh, it’s you, Tuddurussel. What are you doing here? Do you know what time it is?”
“I don’t give a damn about what time it is,” Tuddrussel waved that question off. “I’m here to ask you some questions.”
“Well, hurry up because you just disturbed me from my beauty sleep,” Larry groaned.
“I wanna know what you were tryin’ to say just now after dinner.”
“Oh, not that again!” Larry raised his hands dramatically. “Can’t you just let it go already?”
“If I could, I wouldn’t be here now, would I?”
Larry shook his head tiredly and replied, “Oh, you really are a big plunk of an oaf. Just improvise! Whatever it is you think I’ve just said, that’s exactly what I said! Happy now?”
Tuddrussel again went into silent mode for a full minute. He inched away slowly and whispered, “You don’t mean to tell me that…what you just said was that…you have feelings for me?”
“Yes, that’s right and I…” Larry’s eyes suddenly popped wide open and his circuits began to soar high into the roof. “Wh…What?! I did not say that!!”
“But you just said that whatever you just said, that’s just what you said,” Tuddrussel replied, his face going a little bit pink. “Isn’t that what you just said?”
“Of course not!! Only a dumb oaf like you would ever think up some ridiculous, ludicrous thoughts like this! Why, I…” Larry didn’t get to finish his words. He accidentally tripped over his own extension cord as he was advancing towards Tuddrussel and fell with a loud thump onto the floor. His opened chest buzzed and sizzled loudly, the electrical currents surging through his whole body, making him twitch like he was having an electrical shock. Before Tuddrussel could figure out what had just happened, the robot stopped twitching altogether and lay motionlessly on the floor without making a sound. Tuddrussel had to wait until he had snapped out of his dazed reality before he came back to this reality.
“Hey, Lar. Lar, you OK? Lar, get up.” Tuddrussel tried to shake Larry awake.
“What’s going on? What’s all this racket?” Otto asked with a glass in his hand. Obviously, he woke up to get himself a glass of water. “What happened?”
“Oh, uh, hiya, kid,” Tuddrussel turned around, quite surprised to see Otto awake. “Well, uh, ol’ Larry’s got a lil’ problem here and…”
“Larry?!” Otto widened his eyes when he saw the electrical static still popping out of his body. He put away the glass of water and ran towards him, shaking him. “What happened to him, Tuddrussel? Is there something wrong with him?!”
“Well, uh, I don’t know. He just fell and…”
“Tuddrussel, look!!!”
Tuddrussel looked where Otto was pointing and was shocked. Otto had rolled Larry around and he was shocked to see that the single long plug that connects the extension cord and the other end of another plug to the socket was jabbed deep into his chest and had caused a short circuit or some kind. When Tuddrussel pulled out the plug on his chest, he could see that the jab had caused a strong damage towards the inner contraption of his chest. Some of the wires and circuits were so mangled, that even the basic knowledge of mechanics Tuddrussel had ever learn during training wasn’t capable enough to help him figure out how to fix it. It seemed that the plug had really got into his chest contraption really deep.
“Oh no, this is major serious trouble,” Tuddrussel finally found his voice.
“What are you waiting for, Tuddrussel? Fix him, for goodness sake!” Otto tugged at the officer’s pajamas.
“I can’t. It’s too complex for me! I never even passed mechanics! I don’t know the heck how to do this!”
“What are we going to do? We need Larry for our missions! We can’t just let him be this way!” Otto began to panic.
“There’s only one thing to do.”
Otto looked at Tuddrussel questioningly.
“We have to take him to Main Head Quarters.”
Otto’s eyes bulged in awe as he feasted his eyes upon the technology and the structure of the Main Head Quarters. Humans and robots co-existed with each other and everything in the premises was fully high-tech. He was so engrossed with the surroundings that he almost lagged behind Tuddrussel who was carrying Larry 3000 and rushing down to a tall building bearing the sign ‘TIME SQUAD UNIT CONTROL’.
He paced as quickly as his little legs could possibly carry him to catch up with the bulky officer. They went past a number of rooms which bear the signs like CAFETERIA (ROBOTS ONLY), CAFETERIA (HUMANS ONLY), and JANITORIAL ROOM, RESTROOMS, SIGNAL CONTROL, TIME CLOCKS, CALENDAR WATCHERS and the like. He followed Tuddrussel until they reached a room on the 5th floor called MAINTENANCE ROOM. Inside, it looked almost like a mechanical lab, but much more high-tech and so much more sophisticated.
“Hello, Tuddrussel. It has been a while,” it was the ever nonchalant, ever professional-minded J-5. He was trying to fix a few screws and connect some wires on himself. “What brings you here?”
“Look here, J-5, I don’t usually beg people for favours, especially when he’s in line with ol’ Sheila, ‘coz I don’t wanna have anything to do with her…” Tuddrussel’s mumbling was stopped by Otto’s nudge on the ribs. He lay Larry on the operating-like table and said, “But I need your help. Larry had an accident and I need ya to fix him.”
J-5 took a look at Larry’s mangled contraption and said, “My, my, Officer Buck Tuddrussel, have you shoved him into the micro-blender or something? He looks as if he had been stabbed by a samurai sword or by some swashbuckler!”
“Don’t try to make me feel worse than I’m supposed to. I feel bad enough already,” Tuddrussel’s heart turned real sour all of a sudden. He didn’t know why. “Just fix him already. I’ll be waiting outside.”
“Alright, run along now,” J-5 quickly finished his last bit of wiring before attending to Larry. Otto had that can-I-help type of look on his face but J-5 clearing his throat signaled a firm ‘No’. Tuddrussel had to drag the little orphan out of the maintenance room.
As the duo sat outside waiting for J-5 to be over and done with, Tuddrussel spied at the corner of his eye someone he never wished to see: Sheila, his ex-wife. She stopped in front of him and said, “Well, Buck. Fancy seeing you here.”
“Yeah, well, something came up and, uh, we’re here to fix things up,” Tuddrussel muttered enough for her to hear, his eyes not looking directly at her. Sheila turned to Otto with questioning eyes and Otto told her about Larry’s accident.
“No wonder J-5 is taking his time,” Sheila shifted her gaze at the maintenance room. “I suppose this is a result of you and Larry 3000 engaging in one of your childish fights again, isn’t it, Buck?”
“It’s not my fault!” Tuddrussel protested, standing up in a thrice. “He fell over himself and got that plug jabbed into his gut! Not me!”
Sheila looked back at her ex-husband without much expression. It was obvious that she was all too used to Tuddrussel’s emotional outbursts. She sighed and said, “I bet.”
“When will J-5 be done and Larry be OK?” Otto asked, worried.
“Well, judging by his mechanical expertise, which ol’ Buck here hadn’t mastered ever, I suppose he’ll be done in no time. So don’t you worry your little head over Larry 3000, kid. He’ll be fine.”
“He’d better be!” Tuddrussel growled. “If anything wrong happens to ol’ Lar, I’ll wring his neck so hard it’ll pop out of its sockets! And I mean it!”
There was a long, full 3 minutes of silence as Sheila and Otto stared at Tuddrussel’s sudden outburst. As much as they were used to his outbursts and angry words, they never expect this guy who always pick fights with the robot and often getting at each other’s throat would actually care about him. Sheila smirked and tried to hold back a scoff.
“I divorced you because I thought that you and I are never going to work things out. Now I can see that you have confirmed my thoughts even more,” Sheila said before leaving the scene. Tuddrussel suddenly lit up when he realized what his ex-wife just said.
“Hey, whaddaya mean by that?!” the bulky officer demanded, but Sheila was already far away to answer him. Otto tugged at Tuddrussel’s shirt, resulting to Tuddrussel’s snap, “What is it, you lil’ brat?!”
“I think what Sheila means is…” Otto forced a smile, “that you…like Larry.”
Tuddrussel stared at Otto absentmindedly.
“Don’t worry, I understand,” Otto said as he patted heartily at Tuddrussel’s back. “There are certain people of your, uh, likings in my orphanage, of course, they get beaten because of that, but sometimes the guardian just can’t beat true love now, can she? It’s perfectly normal.”
“Wha…What do you mean by…?” Tuddrussel was in a state of denial when he heard what Otto had said, but Otto also had excused himself to go to the cafeteria for some moola. Well, at least his explanation was pretty sincere.
Tuddrussel rested his butt back onto the seat. His mind began to wander at all the things he had been through with Larry, Otto or no Otto. Throughout training, he was taught to compromise and go along with his robot partner. It was his luck he got a British-accent robot Larry 3000 as his partner. Throughout training, there was nothing but fighting, arguing and more fighting. None of them seemed to be able to get along, yet some way, somehow, they ended up as a team. They have been through thick and thin together during their mission to correct time and history. They had their squabbles in the HQ, but never once were they separated during missions. They were always there no matter what. When Otto arrived, they seemed to be much more in cohort with each other and they were actually able to tolerate each other better as they got together to raise Otto like a family. It was as if they were the parents and Otto was their child that never had.
Their child that they never had…
Tuddrussel gasped when he felt his face going really warm and heated up. Has he actually begun to admit that he does have strong feelings for the tin can? Has he actually realized that he was…in love with Larry 3000? It couldn’t be! How could he be in love with a robot of obsolete design? This is impossible! But then again, if he didn’t have feelings for Larry, he wouldn’t wish that J-5 would not mess up in repairing Larry. Worse of all, he would’ve actually tried to simply fix Larry up or get another robot partner than go all the way to the Main HQ to have him fixed by his ex-wife’s partner whom he didn’t want to have anything to do about. He sighed and hid his face in his large hands.
“Please…Please, you piece of tin can…Please be alright…”
“Tuddrussel, are you alright?”
Tuddrussel looked up in a thrice and was really surprised and relieved to see Larry 3000 standing in front of him, good as new. He stood up almost immediately and was in the verge of taking Larry into his arms and hugging him till the end of time, but he managed to control himself. No point making a scene. Besides, he was lucky he didn’t do it—Otto was just coming back from the cafeteria.
“Larry! You’re alright!” Otto exclaimed, rushing forward to hug him. Larry hugged him back and patted his head.
“Good as new, Otto, thanks to J-5 and no thanks to the buffoon standing beside me.”
“Hey, no fair! I…” Tuddrussel protested but Otto stopped him.
“Let’s not fight again, shall we? I wanna go back to our HQ. I feel like I haven’t been sleeping for years!”
“Well, I must agree it is still your bedtime. Come on, run along now. We all need some shut-eye,” Larry said as he started pressing some buttons on his arm.
“By the way, it was Tuddrussel who brought you here,” Otto said briefly before they all vanished into thin air back to their HQ.
Tuddrussel walked quietly out of the bedroom towards the kitchen cum dining room. Otto was still asleep so he decided to start breakfast without waking the little orphan. After all, he was awakened in the middle of the night and rushed together with the bulky officer to the Main HQ. He does need his rest.
In there, he saw Larry frying eggs and bacon. Tuddrussel took a whiff. It smelt good, as always. He had to admit, Larry sure was a good cook. He walked towards the table and poured himself a cup of coffee. His daily bread, as he always said. Larry noticed his existence.
“Oh, good morning, Tuddrussel,” Larry’s voice sounded a little awkward.
“Yeah, mornin’,” Tuddrussel replied.
“Eggs and bacon?”
“Ain’t got a problem with that.”
“I guess that’s a ‘yes’,” Larry replied as he brought Tuddrussel his share of eggs and bacon. Tuddrussel cut a small piece of egg and shoved it into his mouth before he started asking.
“So, uh, how are you feelin’ so far?”
“Never been better, Tuddrussel. All my bodily functions are in perfect order.”
“Yeah, that’s swell. Uh, Lar, there’s…uh…somethin’ I wanna tell you…”
“Yes? What is it?” Larry turned around to face him.
Tuddrussel hesitated, scratching his chin while he tried to put his words together, “You see, um, I’ve been thinkin’ a lot and, uh, well, it comes to my attention that…uh…well…I, uh…”
“Oh, spit it out, Tuddrussel! I haven’t got all day!” Larry groaned. Tuddrussel stood up abruptly and blurted it out.
“I love you!”
Again, another deafening silence between the robot and the bulky officer. This time it lasted for a full 10 minutes. After the silent mode, Larry broke the ice unexpectedly by walking towards Tuddrussel and wrapping his arms around his waist. Tuddrussel was quite taken aback at first that his face became unusually warm and red.
“You know I’ve waited so long for you to say this,” Larry whispered.
“Well, he he, it took me quite a while to figure out,” Tuddrussel chuckled, scratching his chin again sheepishly before wounding his arms around Larry’s waist.
“I was so desperate to let you know how I feel about you, but I never got the guts to say it. Besides, I’ve always thought you were too much of an oaf and a buffoon to understand what I have to say, so I didn’t think I would ever have the chance to tell you or confess to you. That’s why I’m in a state of denial that day, because since you won’t get it, I might as well not admit it.”
“Why do you always think that I’m stupid?” Tuddrussel asked. “I passed the training and became a Time Squad member now, didn’t I?”
“I meant that you are a bimbo when it comes to serious feelings like this,” Larry replied, grinning a little.
“Guess I am a little slow on that, huh?” Tuddrussel admitted and planted a kiss on Larry’s forehead. Larry began to heat up like a radiator. Tuddrussel lit up and asked, “Are you blushing, Larry?”
“I guess so,” Larry was also quick to realize his rising body temperature.
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“Another adult conversation, I assume?”
Larry and Tuddrussel tore from each other as soon as they heard Otto’s voice. It was a reflex, really, but Otto understood what was going on. Otto walked over to his plate of eggs and bacon and said with a sly grin, “Don’t worry. I’ll take my breakfast outside.”
As soon as Otto’s out of sight, Larry whispered, “Does he know about…us?”
“I guess he had an idea,” Tuddrussel replied before wrapping his arm around Larry’s waist again. Larry chuckled sheepishly. Suddenly the time alarm went off, signaling another time crisis.
“Oh, joy!” Larry said sarcastically. “Another back-breaking mission for us!”
“Don’t worry,” Tuddrussel replied as he placed another kiss on Larry’s forehead. “There is plenty of time for us to spend a little time-out.”
This looks like the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
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