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There are a lot of people I hate on this ship.
Take the stuck up old green Grasshopper, for instance. We despise each other because I’m stubborn and he’s organized.
Take the ladybug. She’s motherly and I’m far from it.
Take James. He’s a nasty human boy, and I’m a squishable pest with a hundred legs prime for tearing off, one by one. I hate him, and I’m sure he hates me back.
But of all the people I hate, there are two people I can tolerate. Miss Spider, the closest person to a friend I’ve ever had, and the pessimistic, stubborn Earthworm.
Our plan for the peach was to roll down the hill and get somewhere that wasn’t Spiker and Sponge’s garden, but we just had to land in the damn ocean, didn’t we? Now we’re being chased by a horde of hungry sharks and we’re surrounded by a flock of seagulls.
Our resident good-idea man and sucky human, James, thought up the plan to lure the seagulls down here and tie them to the ship to get it into the air. Good plan, just one flaw.
“And how are we supposed to get those seagulls down here?” I impatiently ask.
“Bait!” The kid says with great enthusiasm.
I, having the same idea as everyone else apparently, look expectantly over at Earthworm. It takes him a few seconds to register what we’re staring at, and afterward, he gasps.
“I find that term incredibly insensitive!” He griped, crossing his arms. I chuckle a little. It’s kinda funny how fast he went from zero to a hundred, especially for a skittish worm.
The kid reasons with him, and after only a few exchanged sentences, the worm agrees. Thank god, or else we’d all be pecked to death.
He and Earthworm run out onto the deck of the peach as the rest of us wait a few feet behind with our lovely team player, Spider’s, string; she’s spinning it as fast as she can.
James yells a few things at the seagulls, seemingly… advertising Earthworm to them. Oh, this oughta be good.
He stands up there for a few minutes, understandably shy and terrified. When nothing happens, he starts to walk back toward us.
“Well, I guess they’re not hungry! At least we tried!” He says, beelining for the hole to get back into the peach.
A sudden jolt throws us all off our balance. The sharks have rammed into the side of the ship once more. We need to get this thing out of the water, or else we seriously will die. And as much as I love joking about how I always wanna die, this ain’t exactly the glitzy and glamorous way I wanted to go out.
“You can do it, Earthworm!” James says with a bright, childlike smile. Earthworm nervously shakes his head, like he can’t go on anymore.
“Come on, worm boy! You get out there and show them what you’re made of, or else we’re all dead!” I shout hastily, and apparently he took it as a form of encouragement. He smiles this smile that I can’t seem to erase from my brain. It’s filled with a look I’ve never seen on him before: determination. And honestly, it looks great on him. Maybe I’ll have to make him smile like that more often.
Woah, what? I’ve never thought that about the worm before, have I?
I can’t think about whatever the fuck kind of feeling that was for too long, because my eyes get caught on Spider going up to show off Earthworm. I follow quickly behind.
I start to feel him up a bit, all the while looking up and stupidly yelling at the seagulls: “There’s more of him than you could ever want! Such a tall, lanky, and handsome man,” which is honestly one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever said. He turns to me with a fearful burning red face, and I feel that I’ve done my job. I step off to the side and the others follow Miss Spider’s brilliant example.
Spider throws me a ball of silk and I start capturing the seagulls as they come down one by one to snatch Earthworm up. I don’t pay that much attention to him until I hear his words.
“Ooh, this feels good!” He shouts, reaching out his arms teasingly and grabbing a whole ass seagull by the neck, throwing it full force at Grasshopper, who ties it up.
Holy shit , that should not be as hot as it is.
“Get it, worm boy!” I shout, jokingly whistling. He looks back at me and winks, returning to the seagulls. There are about 200 on the peach now.
“Come and get it, seagulls! This should be illegal!”
Yes, it absolutely should be illegal to be that good at being damn bait !
“I’m bootylicious. Que bonita, your papacita's plump and juicy!” He hollers and, I’m not exaggerating, busts down and throws his hand up. He slowly rolls himself back up to a standing position and grabs yet another dangerously close seagull.
It should also be illegal to dance that well.
It’s around this time he, myself, and everyone else realize that I’ve been staring at Earthworm’s enticing dance moves instead of doing my job.
James runs up behind me and snatches the silk out of my hands, giving me a friendly thumbs up and a devilish, yet somehow innocent looking grin. Now what the hell is that supposed to mean!?
All is made somewhat clear when the Earthworm turns around to me and beckons me over with a singular finger, probably winking at me from under those round sunglasses with the way he cocks his head to the side. He’s looking straight at me, which is shockingly accurately aimed for someone who’s almost blind. It’s the most teasing and confident thing he’s ever done, and like I said before, it a fantastic look on him.
“Ven conmigo, papi,” he cooed with a smile. James, who was now behind me, shoved me in Earthworm’s direction. I turn back to shoot the kid a glare, but he’s just innocently catching birds when I try to do so. Forget about it.
I approach the worm, and before I can even ask what the hell he’s plotting, he grabs my shoulders and dips me.
“Ah! What the hell are you doing, Earthworm!?” I shout as he pulls me back up.
“No, it’s what are we doing. We’re dancing, silly! Can’t you tell?” He says, feigning innocence. He sways me side to side, snaking his hands behind my shoulders and leaning closer to my face. I feel my face start to burn.
“No way, worm boy, I can’t dance. I’ve got 38 left feet on me and none of them were made for dancin’,” I say, starting to back away. He just pulls me in even closer, his nose nearly touching mine.
“Of course you can dance, anyone can dance if they have someone to help them! C’mon, just follow my lead.” And before I could object, I felt all logical reasoning leave my brain as he gently wrapped his arm around my waist. I go limp, letting him move me. Might as well not try to fight it and fall off the peach, right?
He spins me and dips me, and at one point he even lifts me up and spins me around. It’s a completely out of body experience, and I hardly feel like myself once we’re done. I can feel myself start to float.
Wait, no, that’s not me. That’s all of us.
“Keep dancing, you guys! You’re luring them in better than before! Just a few more and we’ll take off!” Spider shouts, spinning out the last of her thread. She looks pale, but as excited as ever.
“Yes ma’am!” Earthworm excitedly yells back, turning back to me and putting me in a different position. Now his hand is on my waist, not around, and his other hand is on my shoulder. He instructs me to mirror him with simply a glance.
“What do you think you’re doing now?” I ask in a hushed tone, meaning to sound a lot snappier than I really did.
“Just mirror me, okay? I’m teaching you.” He said with a ‘just let me have this’ kind of pathetic look on his face.
I sigh, giving in. I can’t just let him stay looking that sad, that would be mean.
He moves his left foot back in a slight lunge, so I do the same thing with my right foot. He simply chuckles and shakes his head.
“No, no. When I move one of my feet back, you move that corresponding foot forward to take it’s previous place. Apologies for not saying that sooner,” He said in this melodic, instructor-like voice. Something tells me he’s done this before.
“...apology accepted,” I murmur, taking my right foot and moving it forward instead. He smiles that damn smile again.
“Excellent! Now, at the same time as me, move your foot back to where it was.” He picks up his foot, and like he instructed, so do I. I move my foot back into place in time with him.
“Great! Now, we’ll do it the opposite direction.” And we do. My foot goes back, and his goes forward.
“Now faster,” he said simply. We did. Forward, center, back, center, forward, center, back, center, and repeat. After a few more seconds, he takes his hand off my shoulder and places it on my chin. He slowly lifts it up so I’m looking at his face, which is admittedly still looking down, but at least it’s not at our feet.
“You’re doing fantastic, but looking at your feet won’t make them do what you want them to do. Just trust your movements, alright?” He asks, way too sweetly to be someone in danger of death. I can’t speak anymore, so all I do is nod.
Just take a second to imagine that! Me, the sarcastic bitchy Centipede, at a loss for words! This Earthworm really is something.
Maybe “tolerate” is a bit too mild of a word.
I have no clue what I’m even thinking, or feeling for that matter, but I feel myself start to lean in, and I see Earthworm do it too. His eyes start to close and so do mine. I can almost-
“LIFTOFF!” The old green Grasshopper yells like an excitable child from a little ways away.
The moment is lost, and both mine and Earthworm’s faces are incredibly red as we leap away from each other, like we weren’t just all over each other, dancing. Spider shoots me an apologetic look, like she knows how much I would like to screech in confusion and anger right about now.
James looks at me and winks, that same shit-eating devil grin on his face. I’m almost tempted to go over there and shove him myself, but I can’t risk Spider’s wrath if he even comes close to falling off our now-airborne ship.
“I can’t believe we’re actually flying!” Earthworm said, returning to his typically nervous demeanor, but still holding on to some semblance of awe and a little bit of something else I can’t quite name.
Oh yeah. We’re flying.
Everyone else, excited and happy for the first time in a solid few hours, returns to the hammocks inside the peach to rest after wrangling some few hundred seagulls. Everyone but me and Earthworm.
He approaches me tentatively, and I’m almost scared that he’ll forget what we just did. Why am I so scared, you may ask? If only I knew.
I quickly turn to him before he can say anything. My words seem to fail me when I’m in need of them most.
“Ah- uhm- thank you for… teaching me how to dance… worm boy,” I say, stumbling over those 10 words a lot more than I’d like to admit for my dignity’s sake.
“It was lovely teaching you how to dance, Centipede. If you like, we could dance together again sometime… preferably alone,” he mutters the last part, but I can still just barely hear it. Something in my chest starts to constrict, and it almost hurts, even. I’m still breathless from our dance, and my face is still hot as hell. But I sort of like the feeling.
“I’d.. really like that, actually.” I fidget with my hands in my lap, a spare bit of silk that was left on the ground now the subject of my focus so I didn’t end up staring at the person conversing with me.
Earthworm stands, wiping spare seagull feathers off of his soft skin and overalls and clearing his throat. I glance up at him to see his face is just as red, if not redder than mine.
“It’s a date, then- er, well, uhm… yes, I suppose that is the right way to say it,” he stammers. I start to laugh at his embarrassment, and he becomes even more red.
“I must be turning in for the night, Centipede. It has been lovely dancing with you! Goodnight!” He squeaks, shooting me a flustered smile and dashing down the hole back into the peach.
I decide to take watch to make sure nothing happens to us. Besides, I need to think anyway.
It’s a date, then
It seemed to echo. He seemed so sure, so confident about that. I figure that, well, if the worm insists, then it’s a date. Might as well try it out.
The constricted chest problem comes racing right back when I really think about what might happen. I’ll be able to feel Earthworm’s careful hands on my waist again, be able to look right at his pretty face again.
Maybe we’ll be able to-
No, not yet.
But the more I think about it, the more I really come to the realization that “tolerate” is way too weak of a word for how I feel.
Admire seems a lot better.