Title: Trailer, Trashed

Author: pronker

Rating: PG

Era: Sometime before the end of The Falcon and the Snowjob episode, which lasted one week in canon.

Summary: The Short Happy Life Together of Skipper and Kitka.

A/N At one point, there was a "Write Like Hemingway" contest and there may be one still and perhaps this fic could fit into it. It is worth a try.

Premise of fic is that the two lovebirds decide that trailering sounds like fun. Premise after five hours driving time, a delicious dinner and a flute of champagne is that trailers squeak when you don't want them to. Reference my cartoon on deviantArt and here on theforceDOTnet, same username. Response to prompt #69, "Flex." Thanks to @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha for suggesting a ficlet could emerge from a cartoon.

IOIOIOIOIO
IOIOIOIOIO

She breathed hard and I breathed hard as we moved together until she stopped me with a look and then some words. "Skipper, I cannot stand that squeak another second. Do something."

"Now?"

"Fix it or I'm leaving." She fluffed her belly feathers in that way she had and she still looked good to me. I caved like I never had in Pamplona because it had been a lucky break to secure a spot in Hernando's Hideaway Trailer Park late on a Saturday night and I did not want to fight to get back my deposit. This moonlit night was made for loving and not fighting. It did not happen that way often in my life.

"Hang on. There is some WD-40 around here. There must be." The thing about a rental vintage 1947 Robin Hood trailer is that cupboards are many and unlabeled and some were empty because we set out on holiday with much passion but little planning.

She rustled her russet feathers as I hunted. I dumped drawer contents onto the floor. When I stood on the bed to reach the overhead compartments, I heard her mutter the way some birds do when they want you to overhear them so they can say later that you misunderstood them. "All this to go through and he's short, to boot."

Now I was in a bigger hurry than ever not to let this beautiful falcon fly away. I threw and tossed and pitched until a cronk and an "Ow! Those tuna cans hurt!"

"Sorry, Kitka, sorry! I'm doing the best I --- "

"Just get on with it, will you?"

Zip, zero, nada, ziltch lubrication in the overhead compartments. Nothing in the closet. Nothing in the latrine. No WD-40 anywhere. It was too bad Kowalski was not on this trip because he always came through with at least one option I could use. Good old Kowalski.

There was a mess on the floor that I had made but I could not stop the search to police the area. Soon she would leave and I would be a sad, sorry penguin all alone on this Date Night To End All Date Nights. Would she be sorry, too? And why didn't she help me out here? It was the very least she could do. No, she just lay there with her legs in the air to flex her talons with their Hot Berry Blush claw polish. Back and forth, spread and stretch and tighten, she pumped her feet until I could not think straight. It had been fun to paint her toes, though.

"Well, Skipper?"

I panted even though I was not doing anything as strenuous as I was fifteen minutes ago. I was desperate. "I know! I'll open the cans of tunafish and use the oil to grease the spring axles! It'll work excelente, what do you say?"

"I say that I refuse to stay in a trailer smelling of tunafish."

I flung myself to the floor. She looked startled. "Now wait a minute, Skipper, you don't have to beg --- "

She might have said something but I did not hear her because I spied drawers under the bed as well and no vintage trailer rental bird worth his or her salt would let an unsuspecting couple drive away with no WD-40 to ---

"Ahah! By Rockefeller's oil, here it is!"

"Watch out! Slow down! Don't trip over the --- never mind."

She spoke a sentence or two in her melodious squawk but I was busy thinking how Kowalski and Rico and Private would be motherhenning me like crazy because I tried to run on top of the cans with the mermaids on their labels. It was my team's job to second guess me when I was wrong but I was not wrong in this sitch because I was doubletiming to finish the job I had started.

I tripped against the door. The door sprang open and then more cans rolled out with me body surfing on top of them. I beached on the ground of Our Romantic Spot. Somehow the cans all got on edge to roll away out of sight into the philodental bushes but I did not care because throughout the hubbub I did not drop the WD-40 like an unprepared commando might have done.

"I'm on the mission, Kitka, be patient." I knelt in the #5 mesh gravel and squirted. She watched me from the door for a moment and then I heard her settle back down again.

I squirted faster.

WD-40 did what WD-40 does best and the rest of the trip passed as smooth as a silky bull's ear.

IOIOIOIOIO

The End.

IOIOIOIOIO

 

WD40 saved the week end

 

Thanks for reading! Yes, anything that upsets the apple cart needs fixing straightaway.

 

I noted the tuna can resolution fairly oiley on, and wouldn't have given Kitka a chance to object.

Great story and pace, and the highlight for me, were your descriptions around the fair falcon's tootsies and claw painting/polishing.

Well done.

 

Good to start the work week with a pun! I agree, to object at such a moment is un-birdlike. And thank you for the r/r; in the episode, Skipper mentions her talons as especially attractive, so "flex" served well as the prompt. Here is the couple:

 

Hello, it's good to see you! Thanks for the kind words. It's such darn fun to imagine circumstances to showcase characters and in RL, it takes a trip for two lovers in close quarters to bring out all kinds of stuff!