#Danny just sorta shrugs and goes Yeah That Sounds About Right | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

phantomphangphucker · 4 years

Text

Ectober Day 20: Energy - The Green Sun Project Chap.10: Time To Score For The Cannibal Core

Danny’s gonna need a bit to recover and recover his energy. Energy that is very ectoplasm focused.

“DANNY!!!”. Danny winces a bit on the ground from the volume of that, but he isn’t about to bitch about his heightened hearing anywhere near his parents.

Sam and Tucker immediately grabbing his arms while going a little wide-eyed over the horrid state of his shirt. He probably looks like he got mauled, which he kinda had. By a scythe. Which was still hilarious. Danny mumbling an, “I'm fine”. Which of course gets two, “bullshit”’s in response. While his parents kneel next to him, Maddie hovering her fingers over him cautiously for a beat before pulling his shirt. Everyone, including Danny, sighing over the complete lack of injuries. ‘Massive thank you for your crazy ass healing, little buddy’.

‘Home’s home. Safe’

‘Yeah. Safe.... hopefully’. He absolutely appreciates his friends pulling him to sit up but his parents just look like they’re studying him. Jack looking in the direction where he had flopped out of a portal, “he came through a portal...”, then giving Maddie a look.

Sam and Tucker both scowl at his parents, Tucker moving to grab his legs and the two of them carry him off inside his house and to the couch. His parents don’t even bother following in a surprise to no one.

Sam grumbling, “there are times I truly hate your parents”. Danny just hums at that while Tucker pokes his shirt where there’s not bloodstains, “why’s your shirt look like you attempted to send it through a meat grinder?”.

Danny chuckles slightly emptily, “oh I don’t know. I just got impaled by a scythe, it’s no big deal. And shot a couple times, no problems here. Little mild abduction happened too, but we’re all good. I know what it’s like die now though, so that’s something to stamp out on the injury bingo card”. Both of them glare at him and his Core gives him a seriously unimpressed bass-boosted whine. Neither get to ask what the Hell as his parents come back in. Maddie walking over and kneeling to be on eye-level. ‘At least she’s attempting to seem gentle and genuinely worried about me and me alone’. “Sweetie, feel like telling us what happened? Were you in the Ghost Zone?”.

‘Okay, to lie or not to lie... that is the question. Dad totally saw the portal though. There’s so not another explanation for that and saying I don’t remember is, like, a super bad idea’. Having to make a point not to roll his eyes over Little Star sending a sad whine and comforting nuzzle. ‘Oh, it’s fine’.

Danny shrugs slightly, very pointedly ignoring the everything he’s also seeing at the moment; it was oddly already seeming like easily ignorable background noise or something. Not that he doesn’t totally appreciate the easy adjustment, “ah yeah. Ghostly abduction-”, he doesn’t even get to continue as his dad bursts out. “WHAT!?! It didn’t do anything to the Zone Core or try to take it!?!”, lifting up a blaster, “where is It and when can I shoot It!”.

‘Of course that’s what they care about’, expected but it still stung a little. His Core obviously agreeing with definitely audible bass-boosted sounds. That makes Maddie give a relieved sigh though, “It’s still making sounds, Jack dear. I think It’s fine”. Danny just scowls over being treated like he’s not even here. Maddie standing up and looking down at him, “you should have called us”.

Jack adding in, “was it that new ghost we spotted!?”, and cocks the blaster a little.

Danny would seriously prefer to be in his bed than on the couch, but of course his parents wanted to keep an eye on him. For experimentation purposes probably or just making sure he -his Core, the Zone Core- didn’t destabilise. Rolling his eyes, “it’s not my fault some psycho ghost shoved me through a portal. But no it wasn’t that ghost, dad”. No way is he telling them he can make portals now, they’d abuse that in a heartbeat. Or try to. Not like Danny would let them.

Grinning a little when he gets smacked in the face by a t-shirt, which is definitely Tucker’s fault.

‘To protect’

‘Yeah. That. Those two using me, us, as some kind of screwed up all-access pass to the Zone is super not cool. They’ll be Zone damned before I let them use me like that’. Forcing himself not to smile at the nuzzling and faint hum. While he pushes himself to sit up and goes about getting out of his ruined shirt, pulling the new one over his head.

Only kinda listening as Maddie speaks, “you need to be more careful, Danny. Not only were you completely unprotected but who knows what could have happened to the Core in there”. Danny sighs as she keeps going, “I’m this close to making your wear a hazmat full-time”. Which just makes Danny groan tiredly as she snatched away his shirt and inspects it, handing it off to Jack who runs down to the lab. Hooray, he was providing samples.

Maddie looks back to him, “do you have any idea why you were targeted?”. Sam rounding on her, “he doesn’t need to explain to you. He needs to rest”. Tucker just nods strongly.

Maddie rolls her eyes disappointedly at the teens and sounds like she’s talking to naive children, “we need to know. Who knows what would happen if ghosts got their filthy ectoplasmic hands on the Zone Core. The energy in It is extremely powerful and pure, a ghost could raise the world into oblivion with that kind of power. Danny obviously knows better than to use such disgusting things but any ghost would eagerly try to take advantage of him if they found out what he has”, huffing, “that’s why It was supposed to be and stay in proper containment”.

Sam’s scowl deepens, “so what? Danny clearly handled himself just damn fine. You breathing down his neck doesn’t help anything”.

“He could have useful information!”.

“Is that all you care about?!?”.

Maddie looks appalled, “of course not! He’s my son!”.

Sam snapping, “sure doesn’t sound like it”, and turns her back on Maddie. Her and Tucker moving to yank him up off the couch and drag him up to his room. Which he is totally cool with. ‘My room would be seriously so much nicer’. His Core giving a soft hum in agreement. He does pause a bit, signally to his friends to hold up for a bit. ‘I should at least ease their worries, because they are kinda founded. Those ghosts did show up to steal Little Star after all. Plus... if I’m never ‘forthcoming’ with information they’re gonna get suspicious of me’.

‘Let. Mean’

‘Yeah but they’ll be worse if they think they can’t trust me. Plus maybe if they realise they don’t know everything they’ll maybe possibly be open to new ideas. Doubtful but it’s worth a shot’ only getting annoyed bass-boosting in return.

“Hey”. Getting his mom's attention while he can feel his friends giving him ‘I hope you know what you’re doing’ looks. “The Core did that zapping thing so no ghosts actually got close”.

She nods and hums, looking genuinely relieved which was nice to see even if it might not be over his well-being entirely or at all. “While I’m happy, that might have drained It, Danny”.

Danny deciding to stick with the sorta honesty train, “yeah it did. Kinda wound up in the centre of the Zone place and ‘restocked’ or whatever”. She just blinks, hums, and runs off down to the lab. The three teens all rolling their eyes and helping drag Danny up to bed.

He just lets them toss him down in bed with a tired groan. Tucker snorting, “wow you sound impressively tired. Coffee?”.

Danny grumbles into the blankets, “probably a bad idea. The freaking god of time -yes we meet- said Am needs to fix me up”.

“From... the impaling?”. Danny and his Core hum a yes. While Sam scowls at the now-closed door, “Zone do they have to be so, so, so self-centred! Their kid gets abducted and all they care about is their damn science project!”.

Danny lifts up a finger, “technically their son is the science project“. She chucks a slipper at him, “that is not what I mean and you know it!”.

Tucker pats Danny’s back, “so, god of time huh? Nice”. Danny smirks and gives him a weak high-five, “they're kinda the one that went scythe happy on me though, also saved my life though so I’m getting some serious mixed messages. But hey, the Observants wanted me super dead so I’ll take it”.

He can feel his two friends staring at him. Tucker falling on his ass on the ground laughing, “your first genuine ghostly encounter and it’s the freaking Observants and a mythological god. Your luck man!”.

Danny lifts his hand up to give a thumbs up, “and turns out the Zone Core needs to actually be connected to the Zone to do the whole supporting it thing. So that happened. I can see literally the entire Zone right now”, all of them chuckle at the sad whining, “hey now, it’s weird but I’m good. I don’t feel like I’m on acid anymore”.

Tucker actually sounds worried now, “maybe you should stay home for a while”. Sam scowls, “oh like his ‘parents’ won’t force him purely for observation. Have to make sure their precious little project is perfectly fine and dandy”, everyone can feel the sarcasm dripping off her words there.

‘Agree. Mean. No like’

‘You’re not wrong. But you can’t help who your parents are. Who made you. And technically they’re your parents too. They made you too’. He ignores the slight bass-boosted sound and yawns tiredly.

Sam sighing and sounding like she just kicked Tucker, “obviously we should let you rest, but is Am tired too? Considering what you told your... ‘mom’”.

Tucker perks up, “oh yeah, you said It replenished. You actively absorbing ectoplasm now? Like a sponge”.

Danny chuckles, that probably would have been preferable to being sorta force-fed even if it felt stupid good. “Let's just say putting ghost hunger on that test might have bit me in the ass”, he can easily hear Sam gag so he adds on, “only ghost flowers though, Sam”. His Core making a low content purr, obviously having no problem with Its enjoyable meal.

Sam absolutely notices, “why are you purring”, but sounds like she doesn’t actually want to know.

“Oh because it is positively delicious”. ‘Purr more just to gross her out’ and smirking to himself over his Core doing just that, though with added crackling.

“You disgust me”.

“I would ask to try but, you know, that would melt my stomach lining”.

“And you disgust me even more”.

Danny just laughs, passing out minutes later.

Is Danny surprised he slept for an entire day? No, not at all. Sure he had been stirred awake a couple times from coldness when his parents had come to check on him and had had a few groggy tired conversations. But for the most part, he slept like a rock. Though the entire time he was sleeping it was like he was having an out-of-body experience and floating around the Zone, his mind mentally focusing in on different spots and places. It was cool but also the weirdest ‘dreams’ ever.

He wouldn’t mind sleeping more though because even now he was still absolutely exhausted, which fine made sense. He appreciates being able to feel Little Star feeding him energy, definitely not enough though. But hey, he got the rest of the week off -which was honestly only one day but whatever- for ‘getting caught up in a ghost attack’. Downside? His parents hovering like they’re watching a Petri dish that’s not doing its shit fast enough. At least that’s what he remembers from his half-awake conversations. He’s also pretty sure his mom ran an energy scanner on him, which made sense considering he had told her about depleting his Core’s energy and just being in the Zone, in general, warranted getting scanned. He’s pretty sure he caught her muttering about him basically having an endless tolerance for ectoplasm. ‘Which I had kinda figured. Told ya you didn’t need to worry about me getting ecto in my system’

‘Good safe. Need rest’

‘Heh. You mother henning me is honestly hilarious. Humans can’t sleep endlessly though. Don’t think I even can sleep anymore for now’

‘Human, ???. Sleep, ???’

Danny can’t help chuckling at that, muttering tiredly into his blankets and scrunching them up into his face, “my humanness and human things will likely always be strange for you. Though I’m guessing my tiredness is entirely not a human thing. Low in ecto”. Rolling onto his back and bunching up his pillow some as his Core hums and pulses in that comforting way. Which yeah, he’s come to quite enjoy. Sighing in content tiredness, “yeah. So sleeping honestly probably isn’t helping me much”.

‘Help yes. Absorb ectoplasm easier’

“Huh”. ‘Guess I should try sleeping more then. Don’t go gettin’ your hopes up’. Chuckling a little over getting a bit of bubbling.

Not ten minutes later Maddie knocks and comes in, smiling when she spots he’s already awake, “still feeling tired, sweetie?”.

Danny nods, “yeah”, and yawns a little just because.

Maddie holds up a solid plastic cup with a lid and straw, “whipped up something that might help”. Maddie walks it over and Danny takes it gingerly. Danny guesses by the way she stands and watches him that she’s pretty well just testing something on him. Looking at the cup, which is obviously intentionally set up so he can’t see what’s inside, ‘hey, if this is purified Zone core ectoplasm -Defted ectoplasm?- you’ve got to not freak out on me. I don’t want her seeing me behave like that. Okay?’. Danny brings the straw to his mouth as the whine in his head changes to a slight accepting hum.

Taking a sip and yup, Defted ectoplasm. Opening and closing his mouth a few times and pulling away from the drink to make it seem like he’s never tasted this before, “uh, that’s a lot of lemon, lime, and... white chocolate?”; the lemon and lime telling him there was just plain ol’ regular ectoplasm mixed in. Weird choice but damnit, now he was hungry; and maybe this would actually help. His parents weren’t morons, they did have good ghost-related ideas.

‘CONSUME’

‘I know, I know. Wait for her to leave’

Maddie nods, and Danny doesn’t miss the slight smile, her speaking as she heads to his door, “well you should probably drink all of it. Feel better okay?”. Danny nods as she closes the door.

Waiting only a beat before physically tearing off the cup lid, licking his tongue around the straw and inside of the lid, before putting that to the side. He can feel Little Star trying to jerk his hands to his mouth, ‘slow slow, don’t wanna, spill. Want all, right’

‘YES’

Danny smirks as he bends the cup slightly to angle it so that he can get as much into his mouth at once. Gulping it down greedily and moaning slightly, Core practically singing with purrs and hums. Elongating his tongue so he can lick over every inch, before putting the cup on the side table; screwing back on the lid with a sigh. Patting at his chest, ‘better?’. Getting happy humming in return.

Licking his lips and turning back over, sigh another small moan and snuggling into the blankets again; falling back asleep pretty quickly.

The next time he wakes up, Sam and Tucker are chilling in his room playing on their handhelds in their beanie bags. Him watching them for a bit before deciding to chuck a pillow at Tucker, not Sam because he has some sense. Least he felt genuinely less tired now.

“What the! Ack!”, Tucker snaps his head to him, abandoning the game on the floor, “Danny dude! You’re up!”.

Sam smacks him as she gets up too, “quiet before you get his parents up here”. Tucker just rolls his eyes as they sit on his bed. Sam points at the cup on the side table, “your mom dropped that off”.

Tucker chuckles, “with a warning for us not to touch it, ominous as fuck”.

Danny chuckles, Core bubbling too, “well it’s pure purified ecto so that's fair. I don’t think she’s realised I know that though”. Sam immediately sends the cup a scowl, Tucker meanwhile nudges him to drink it. Which honestly just makes him chuckle more and go from just bubbling to crackling. Which Sam smacks him lightly for, “stop that”, pointing at Tucker, “and you, don’t encourage him. If he needs it that’s one thing, though he absolutely should be asking where it’s coming from. Because so help me if they are just bleeding some ghost dry-”.

Danny feels the need to butt in with that because no way would he drink that then, “Sam it’s mostly the stuff from the centre of the Zone, which is at most from some plants. The rest is absolutely just sapped from the portal. I would know if there was a ghost here, which right never got a chance to mention I can sense ghosts and how strong they are”.

Tucker claps him on the shoulder, “Zone damn that’s awesome man. Guessing that’s why your breath went all visible icy mist”.

“Bingo”.

Sam rolls her eyes though smiling, “alright that’s okay, sorta, then”.

‘Good. Ego one no mad. Drink now?’ Making Danny snort and roll his eyes.

“Hey, I said it was alright”.

Danny blinks at Sam and laughs a little, “no. Not rolling my eyes at you”, and laughs a bit more while he pushes himself to sit up. Tucker finger-guns at him, “half a conversation”. This time Danny is absolutely rolling his eyes at his friends as he grabs up his cup, ripping off the lid and looking down. ‘Yup. More ecto’

‘Want, ?’ The unsureness of that makes him chuckle a little, little guy was being considerate. Or as much as It could be past the instincts, though him feeling less tired probably helped in that regard. Weird that he was awake enough to actually be able to tell that that heavy wetness in his veins that he’s become used to was ‘lighter’ than normal. ‘Well that’s one way to know I’m low, huh’.

‘Want’

‘Geez someone’s pushy’.

“Do we want to know why you’re just staring at it?”. Danny jumps a little from Sam’s voice, spilling some on his hand, “oh damn”. Both of them lean away slightly but laugh a bit at him licking his hand off, him muttering, “damn”, again and humming to cover up the whole moaning thing; he does absently note the fizzing to his eyes though as he effectively dumps the cup in his mouth. ‘Well that’s new, guessing I was too, ah, low before to be all, eye sparky’ getting some agreeing humming but it’s mostly pleased humming and pulsing in his chest.

“Your eyes are all green again dude, also, ten bucks says you can’t stop drinking right now”. Danny flips him off but... doesn’t stop. Tucker immediately laughs at him.

Danny licking off the cup and pointing at Tucker as he puts the cup to the side, “shush, nothing from Mr. Meat Sense. None of us have normal diets, at least mine is just ‘cause I’m ecto-drained from, like, so much bullshit”.

Tucker smirks but points at him, “speaking of bullshit, so you lowkey fought an Observant? Badass man, put that on your resume”.

Danny blinks at him, “Tuck, I’m pretty sure all of them were there. It was like an army of floating eyeball assholes in cloaks and precisely one dude with a clock fetish”. Danny squinting at an image from the Zone getting pushed into the forefront of his sight by his bubbling Core, an image of ClockWork holding a sign reading ‘clocks are quite fashionable, Daniel’. ‘Oh my Zone, yes I like this bastard of a ghost’

“Wow. How did you not die”.

“I did. I explicitly mentioned that”.

Tucker sticks his hands out to the side, “I didn’t think you were serious”. Sam points at both Tucker then him, “to be fair, you have claimed to have been killed by a great many things not limited to: cold coffee, an old brown shoe, a hairball, the new ceiling fan-”.

Danny butts in there, “hey, the ceiling fan did try to kill me”.

She points at him, “but did it succeed? No”, putting her hands on her hips, “and Danny, you almost die at least once a year”. Everyone chuckles at his Core whining very unhappily at that, Danny giving his chest a little pat.

Danny flops to lay back down, arms spread out, “you know, kinda surprised Little Star didn’t wake me up when y’all showed. Did every time my parents came in”.

Tucker grins, “I think It’s saying It trusts us more than them”.

‘Yes. Good homes’ home. Orange, blue, bad’

‘Fair. And my friends aren’t about to stab me with a needle in my sleep or shoot me first thing in the morning might I add’

Grinning at the bubbling before looking to his friends, “yup, little guy approves of you guys”. Both of them grin stupidly at that.

Sam starts up as her and Tucker both flop down in the bed on either side of him, “we got back our test results by the by. Almost everyone failed”.

“If you guys did I am making you sit through one of dad’s lectures”.

Both of them immediately shouting, “oh Zone no! Zone be damned not happening”.

Danny smirks and chuckles, “why I’ll have you know I damned myself a long time ago”, earning a very satisfactory round of groans, “but seriously, am I about to bleed disappointment?”.

Sam rolls her eyes enough to move her head with the motion, “with us and Valerie? Naw. Everyone else? Very. I know at least four people who only got one right”.

Danny screws his face up ‘you've got to be kidding me’, “how the Zone does that happen? Half that shit was bare basic common knowledge! Most else was barely above that!”, groaning and getting crackled at, “man Lancer so won the bet”.

Tucker leans over him, “you made a bet against him? How much? Do I get anything?”. Sam leans up just to shove Tucker off the bed, “you idiot”.

Danny chuckles, “no, just means I’m stuck teaching a class now. Screw both of you”, while Tucker crawls back onto the bed. Neither give him looks of sympathy. ‘Those bastards’ his Core crackling more. ‘You bastard’.

Danny is perfectly content with the silence until Jazz busts in, without even knocking fuck you, “Danny, you need to do whatever hides that glow and turn off your eyes”.

All three jerk to sit up, “what? Why?”.

She crosses her arms looking annoyed, “G.I.W. are here, again. They picked up on the portal problem you caused. You better not make this a reoccurring thing, I like getting to study in peace sometimes”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “hey that wasn’t my fault”.

“Don’t care. Just be normal”.

Danny shakes his head at the closing door. ‘Aaaaaaaaaand she’s gone. Can’t let anything take her away from her schooling, can she? Ugh whatever. Hey bud? You good to curl up? Because yeah no, hard pass on those twats finding you even slightly’

‘Bad. Hide. Trick. No absorb ecto’

‘Ah well appreciate the heads up’

Danny sighs and rubs at the twisted up feeling, grumbling, “hooray. More hiding. Fun”, and wincing from his stomach dropping or something, putting his hand over his stomach, “oh”.

Tucker laughs, “what? Can’t handle the ecto now?”, and laughs more. Danny laughs himself, “I very much feel like a human with a stomach full of ecto yes”.

Sam scowling, “could we not?”. Making both boys snicker at her; Danny giving his chest another comforting pat letting Little Star know he’s alright. He could feel the ectoplasm rolling and bubbling, which was weird as shit. ‘I’ve eaten weirder. Rather this over the rotten underwear again’

#ectober #ectober2020 #ectober 2020 #danny phantom #phandom #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #maddie fenton #jack fenton #zone core! danny #ghost zone core au #ghost hunger #danny being a little shit #recovery #fan fic #phan phic #my writing #phantomphangphucker

40 notes · View notes

pynkhues · 5 years

Note

55. “You broke it” fluff/angst prompt for Brio

#55 “You broke it.”

Set in The Centre and Circumference / Domestic Fic universe

He’s still reading through the last of what must be fifteen texts from Elizabeth (she’s gotta work late at the dealership, so he’s on parenting duty. It should be no big thing, and he really isn’t sure whether it’s some leftover bullshit from that dumbass ex of hers, or if she really does forget that he’s been a parent almost as long as she has, but she’s blowing up his phone like he’s ghosting her again) when he hears the crash from upstairs and the pounding of little feet on the floor above him.

Rocking his jaw, he glances down towards the dining room where Kenny and Danny are poring over their homework, both tilting their heads up at the sound, and Rio’s only just starting towards the stairs when he hears another set of feet running in the opposite direction and then a loud cry breaking through the quiet.

“You broke it!”

It’s enough to make him toss his phone (the non-work one) to Kenny, telling him to follow his mom’s instructions for dinner (and sure, Rio’s man enough to admit he’s not the best cook, but he knows how to throw a frozen pizza in the oven, Elizabeth, damn), and takes the stairs two at a time towards the kids’ rooms.

He’s not the sorta guy who likes to go into situations blind, but he’s also been around the traps long enough to know it’s best to keep expectations to a minimum, lest those notions get you sprung, but still. He can’t exactly say he’s surprised to see Marcus and Jane peering nervously out from behind the former’s bedroom door, while Emma’s neighbouring one sits wide open.

Sending an arched eyebrow back to Marcus and Jane, who quickly vanish, closing the door behind them, Rio steps into Emma’s room instead.

The theme thing still gets him, and Emma’s room in particular is an eyesore – all that sugar and spice shit – unicorn pillows and hanging fairy lights and a bright row of smilin’ Barbies, and Jesus, he didn’t even know they made pink glitter wall paint, but the sparkle catching his eye is unmistakable.

In the centre of it all is Emma, sitting on a pink fluffy rug, her musical jewellery box blown open beside her, and the second she sees him, she gives him those big, Bambi eyes that may as well be her mom’s. She holds out her hands towards him, and it’s only then that he sees the tiny porcelain ballerina from her music box, held as tenderly as a baby bird, and shit, he thinks, clocking the shattered legs of the thing, and the anxious red of Emma’s cheeks.

“I hate them,” she wails. “They break everything.”

And hell, he always figured she was the most astute of Elizabeth’s kids, but she gets no bonus points for realising her sister and Marcus have made a miniature demolition team. Crouching down in front of her, he looks at the ballerina in her hands, resisting the impulse to tear it from her grip and get rid of the thing – he’s had enough experience with shards of porcelain to know they’re a bitch to get out of cuts at the best of times after all.

“Lemme see,” he tells her, but Emma jerks her hands back to her chest, distrustful, like she knows what he’s thinking, and like he said – astute.

Before he can say anything else, a petulant voice sounds behind him:

“We didn’t mean to. We just wanted to put her in the show.”

He tears his eyes away from Emma long enough to look back at her open door, Jane and Marcus hovering there, Jane’s chin sticking up defiantly, while Marcus looks about ready to vanish back down the hallway at the first hint of reprimand. Rio gives them a distinctly unimpressed look.

“Are we talkin’ to you right now?” he asks, and he ain’t even all that mad, but it’s still enough to send the two of them bolting back down the hall to Marcus’ room.

“Can you fix her?” Emma asks when he turns back towards her, holding her hands up, and he nudges slightly at the figurine, another sliver of porcelain crumbling off her hip. He sighs, looking up to meet Emma’s desperate look.

“I don’t think so, darlin’,” he says, and Emma’s bottom lip quivers. She curls her fingers around the ballerina, clutching her in two hands at her chest, her breaths starting to come out faster, and he’s seen enough bouts of hysterics to know one when he sees it coming. Reaching over, he grabs Emma by the elbows, pulling her up against him and walking her over to her bed. He’s barely sat down before she collapses into tears against his chest, her little body wracked with sobs.

Rio sighs, scooting further back in her bed, shoving some of her unicorn cushions out of his way in the process. He’s not sure if it’s the movement, or the contact, but something he’s done seems to change her mood, the red of her cheeks spilling back across her neck in childish fury.

“I should break their things,” she hisses through her tears, her forehead creasing in anger, and Rio hums, still shoving cushions off the bed (and damn, him and Elizabeth need to have a conversation about how much money she’s spending on ugly, decorative pillows).

“Yeah? You think so? That gonna get you your girl back?”

And sure, maybe he could’ve been a little more sensitive, he thinks, looking at her look up at him, the anger giving way to that wobbly bottom lip again, but she shakes her head no, and at least it steered her off the path she was heading down (and shit, she must get that from someone else in the family, because Rio doesn’t think anything he’s ever said has gotten Elizabeth to go where he’s wanted her to).

Lifting Emma out of his arms, he settles her back among the mountain of stuffed animals at the head of her bed (and more damn cushions), reaching down to uncurl her hands from where they’re still clenched tightly around the broken porcelain. She’s held onto her so tightly some of it has started to cut at her skin, and he frowns, thumbing at a few of the bigger shards. He wants to get the thing in the bin, clean her up, but from the look on her face, she ain’t quite there yet.

He sits back on the bed, looking over at her.

“You think they meant to break her?”

The question is enough to make Emma blink in surprise, her mouth hanging open as she looks across her room to the open bedroom door, and Rio follows his gaze, unsurprised to see Marcus and Jane’s heads duck out of sight, their fingers still curled around the frame. He resists the urge to roll his eyes, looking back at Emma instead. After a second, she looks back down at her hands, shaking her head.

“They’re playing circus and they wanted a dancer, and they said mine was the prettiest,” she squares her shoulders a little as she says it, proud almost, before that house of cards falls in on her. “And that the box was slippery.”

Rio glances back at the box, still hanging open on the floor of her bedroom, a mess of clip on earrings and plastic bangles spilling out of it. A few have been shoved back in, haphazard, and he doesn’t have to have heard it to know that it was Marcus and Jane, trying to fix it before Emma found them. He makes a production out of considering her words, turning them over thoughtfully – judge, juror, executioner, settling on a verdict.

He hums a little, before glancing back at Emma.

“Sounds like it was an accident, huh?”

And he might not have been surprised by much in all of this, but he is in the way that Emma stares back at him, her gaze steady even if her eyes are watery, and damn, he wonders if this is what Elizabeth means when she tells him she feels like she’s talkin’ to him half the time she’s talkin’ to Marcus. Emma sucks in a wet, still-teary breath.

“It’s not fair,” she whimpers, and Rio nods.

“Nah, it ain’t,” he agrees. “But y’know, when things that are important to you break, or when they get broken, it don’t take away the good times you did have with ‘em. And when you put the broken thing away,” or throw it out, he thinks dryly. “It leaves room for somethin’ else to have new good times with.”

Emma gives him a look, leaning back amongst a large, gold-sequined stuffed owl, like she isn’t quite sure she understands, and he shrugs.

“Look at me and your mama, yeah? Me and Marcus’ mom, we broke, and your mama and your dad, they broke too, right?”

Cautiously, Emma nods, and Rio holds out his hand, like this is an example.

“And ‘cos we did, it meant there was room for me and your mama, and all of us here, and this house, and I know Marcus ain’t your favourite person right now, but I know he loves havin’ all you guys for brothers and sisters. He got that ‘cause of somethin’ that broke.”

Emma tilts her head at that, her forehead furrowing thoughtfully as she looks at him before her gaze goes back down to the ballerina in her hands. She rocks her head to the other side, chews on her lip before she says:

“I like having a little brother.”

“See? Just like I said. And I know you love your girl there, but maybe she’s leavin’ room for somethin’ else too,” he leans forwards a bit, moving his hand to nudge her own, careful to look her in the eye as he says. “You mind if I take her?”

He’s sure she gets what he’s asking when a couple more tears streak down her face, but after a minute, she nods, letting Rio scrape the shards of porcelain from her hands. He shoves them as gently as he can into the pocket of his jeans, before grabbing Emma’s hands in its stead, carefully checking them over for any leftover shards, or any cut that might have broken through. When he finds none, he moves to get up, planning to get her downstairs to homework with her brothers while he deals with Jane and Marcus, but before he gets the chance, Emma is crawling back into his lap, wrapping her arms tight around his neck.

“I like having a you too,” she whispers, more than a little shyly, and Rio pauses, surprised, before he drops a hand to her head.

“Yeah?”

She nods against his shoulder, his hand brushing down her hair.

“You ain’t so bad,” he tells her, and she giggles into his shoulder leaning back and tapping her nose.

“I’m the best one,” she tells him conspiratorially, and when he hears Jane start yelling in the next room and the fire alarm go off downstairs in the kitchen, he thinks she’s probably right.

(Or, at least, he does until she insists on spending the next three nights in their bed mourning the damn thing, taking his spot against Elizabeth’s chest, but that feels like a whole other thing.)

#beth boland #rio #emma boland #jr good girls #jane boland #marcus #nbc good girls #my fic #the center and circumference #domesticity #welcome to my ama

65 notes · View notes

goliath-de-senfina-sango · 4 years

Link

Local Teen Unaware of how Weird Family is, Local Goth Decides To Go All In and Learn Magick, Exhausted Teens Do Fun Dumb Teen Stuff

It was the day after they’d taken down Skulker, and Tucker had to collect up the armor. Danny helped him, of course, and he flew home with some help from his favorite ghost boy. They landed in Tucker’s room, and Tucker gave Danny a hug as soon as the suit was set down. Danny returned to his warmer flesh and blood self and hugged him back before they got to work searching for a port to plug Tucker’s laptop into. Thankfully even the dead respected the U in USB and they manage to connect. Before long, however, Tucker’s mind wanders from his code-breaking program that’s now hard at work with Skulker’s head and to his situation with Sam. And considering what all he’d learned about Danny’s family so far, he might as well ask. “Danny do you have access to transparent solar panels?”

“Yeah, all the windows at Fenton Works are solar panels - I think they run at uh 50% efficiency. Why?”

“Danny, that’s like, the exact last piece I need for my solar-powered car design.” Tucker was tempted to inform Danny of how amazing that fact was, but he knew Danny wasn’t a fan of being extraordinary, so he’d let it slide for now. “Now I just need some way of building it.”

“Well, you have the design itself saved right?”

“Yes…” Tucker wasn’t sure where this was going, but he was hopeful that it’d be a place he liked.

“We can just print out the design at my house?” Danny shrugged, as though that was obvious and the most simple thing in the world. “We have like, a pretty big 3D printer, it’s uh modular, and we use scrapped metal from junkyards that we liquified as filament. We can print a car pretty quickly.”

Danny was going to say something that made Tucker fall completely in love with him one of these days, the idiot. “Danny I need you to take me to this 3D printer. Now.” Skulker’s head was left where they’d put it on his desk, the rest of the suit stuffed in Tucker’s closet, and the pair flew off to Danny’s house.

When they arrived at Fentonworks, they turned to one of the other buildings on the block and set down there, Danny taking the time to unlock the door and everything. “So this 3D printer you guys have…”

“Well, Dad calls it the Fenton Fabricator. See, there's a theory that went around a while ago when 3D printers and fabricators first started, it was the Recursive Loop Theory. It goes like this. You buy a 3D printer. Mid-range, sorta useful, but with enough detail and strength that you like it. But then you need something a bit more detailed. So you look online and you find a set of 3D models for a second printer. This one you can build on your machine, and with only some minor parts you can make the more detailed printer for a tiny fraction of what it would cost.”

Danny took them to a set of stairs and Tucker was so focused on his friend he nearly missed all the art Danny’s ever done hanging all over the walls.

“So, you can make more detailed parts. And you find designs for a bigger printer. It's modular and sorta rough, but it needs those detailed parts. So you can then build massive somewhat detailed pieces… and so you do. And now, with your 3 printers, you find designs to a fourth. Bigger, better, more detailed, it's another generation, and you can print it off your current designs. Boom, bam, rinse and repeat. Eventually, your diminishing returns drop till you can’t make a more detailed printer, but at that point, you have one hell of a machine, particularly if you have a couple of crazy hackers building your final design as a custom project. Course, it’s not quite that easy. We had to fabricate a lot of weird and unique bits for them in other ways - well, my folks and their friends in the Secret Scientists did anyway."

“So the Fenton Fabricator?”

“Is a massive, customized high detail 3D fabricator that can even print metal and glass, yes.” Danny turned on the lights as they entered a large underground workspace. Tucker saw the fabricator and felt he might’ve gone to heaven. It was a massive aquarium tank, easily twenty feet from corner to corner and at least eight feet tall. Above it, hanging like a mechanical spider on segmented green and red limbs with shiny metal joints and points, was a motorcycle sized 3D printing extruder. Tucker could see a set of lasers for dust printing, a pair of high-heat high-speed extruders for wires, several dozen smaller legs with colors and specific grades of wire, all of which fed up and around the room to spools of plastic and cylinders of dusted metal.

“There are hidden parts in the walls with directed gravity manipulators and some arms kept out of the way until needed for assembly-based stuff. I think Mom and Dad built a car or something down here recently. The canisters are all refilled completely.” Danny shrugged, moving around the lab and grabbing up papers - notes about what feeds to use, hints for setting things up. “I can help you connect up and plug in your stuff - though you’ll have to leave it here so that the thing can print. If you’re legit making a car here, it’ll take about 2 days to finish printing it out at all, let alone assemble.”

“Danny, after I finish with that, we are so using this place for other projects together, do you understand me?” Tucker saw doors that likely lead off to other rooms in the lab and wondered just how Much of Fentonworks there was. “This is too amazing.”

“If you say so, bro. Here, let’s get started. I can help with setting up the print file.”

Sam had to say, going through the bs of school was beyond irritating when both of her friends were barred from the school until they could get around the weapons the Fentons were installing. Paulina’s gratingly loud personality was especially difficult to tune out that day, and Sam found herself feeling proud of her self control in not throwing something at the shallow cheerleading idiot when she started going on and on about the upcoming spirit week.

Once school was out, Sam grabbed the board that Danny apparently made for her after he finished Tucker’s, though she wasn’t sure how, and put on her helmet. New, magnetic boots planted firmly on the board, Sam pulled out her phone, put in the address of the Skulk and Lurk, and activated the Nav AI that Tucker had managed to make an app for to download. “One of these days Tucker is going to overwork himself into an early grave.” Shaking her head Sam took off into the sky, and no amount of gothic reputation could keep the smile off her face or prevent her from cheering. “Woooohoooo!” Who could possibly blame her? She was flying . There was nothing more awesome than this that she knew of.

When she arrived, Sam had her board hover itself up to the roof, where it was less likely to get snatched by someone who thought it’d be cool to snag a hoverboard. Walking into the store, Sam took off her helmet and grinned. The Skulk n Lurk was one part book store, one part poetry reading area, and one part coffee shop. It had the gothic, occult theme down pat with black, blue, and shades of purple being the only colors to be found around the store. Heading straight into the books section, Sam managed to flag down an employee and nudged him in the arm. “Nice mohawk, Chris, I see you’re branching out.”

Chris turned around, hair dyed a brilliant blue and his clothes all pastel shades of purple and grey with a bat-shaped nametag pinned on his chest. He smiled and elbowed her right back. “Yeah, just got it done the other day. How’re you holdin up, Sam? Parents still trying to push you into being a prep?”

“Such is my curse.” Sam sighed and leaned heavily on Chris while he laughed. “But, that’s not what I’m here for today. Think you can help me find some books on magick?”

“Cursing people is wrong, and will always go wrong for you, I hope you know that.”

Sam rolled her eyes, standing up straight. “It’s not for cursing anyone, Chris, it’s for something else.”

“Hitting that cheerleader with a love spell is not the way to go about getting over your crush on her.” Chris smirked and turned away from her, walking steadily while Sam scoffed and scowled at him.

“That’s gross on two fronts. A love spell sounds ridiculously creepy, and I don’t have a crush on Paulina of all people.” Sam made a gagging noise and Chris laughed yet again.

Ludicrous notions about cheerleaders aside, Chris lead Sam to a section about magick and left to go help another customer while Sam browsed. She held her hand up, letting her fingers brush over the spines of the books as she read their titles and stilled. There was a vibration, warm and far more humid than any bookstore should be and humming so much like Danny and Agatha and even that piece of trash Grovsner did when she was close. It was a feeling that she hadn’t really noticed until now that all of the ghosts she’d encountered shared, however few of those there were. The tiny hairs all over her arms and the back of her neck stood on end and Sam grabbed the book.

Roots, stems, rain, warmth, leaves, petals, heat, crushing cold, withering emptiness, life granting rain and growth . Sam dropped the book and just barely bit off a loud swear, staring at the cover. Magick: The Life Blood of the Earth. “Well. Danny can see weird shit, I guess I can feel it. Being that close to the portal must’ve done something to me.” Picking up the book slowly, Sam waited for any weird feelings to hit her again. When none did, she grinned slowly. “Let’s see what I can do with that.”

Danny takes some of the time after fighting Skulker to relax at home, get his schoolwork done that was emailed to him, and figure out a plan for working around the school's new anti-ghost security system. It had been two days already and he was coming up blank. Of course, it's at dinner that Danny thinks to ask his parents. "Hey Mom, you said the Fenton Finder works by keeping track of a ghost's ectosignature, right? What is that, exactly?" Jazz, as she standardly did when Danny instigated ghost-themed rants, looked as offended as one might have had their mother been described with every cuss word in the dictionary. She stabbed her chicken alfredo while holding this look for 5 continuous seconds without blinking.

Mom smiled wide and ecstatic. "Well you see, Danny, an ectosignature is the frequency of electrical signals running throughout a ghost's body, shaping its form and directing its actions."

"Like brainwaves?"

“Exactly, hon!” Mom reached into her pocket and pulled out a macaroon, which Danny devoured immediately. “When a ghost manifests outside of the Ghost Zone, its ecto signature is a signal being broadcast from the Ghost Zone into our reality. Since ghosts are 4-dimensional constructs made of exotic matter that of which exists beyond our standard perceptive abilities, a ghost can receive this ectosignature from just about anywhere on Earth or beyond. Like the best cellular reception in the universe.”

“Like any signal though, an ectosignature can be tracked! And that signal can be disrupted and blocked!” Dad only spoke in exclamation points Danny realized some time ago. He waved his fork around in presentation at the blueprint that his mind had likely superimposed on the air next to him. “The Fenton Thermos™ uses charged ectoplasm and what I’ve coined as Fentonite to isolate any ectoplasmic mass contained inside of it from its corresponding ectosignature by creating a four-dimensional enclosure! The filthy ghost is still charged with the ectosignature though, there’s a centralized network of energy that allows the ghost to immediately take on its form after it’s released.”

“So the ghost is conscious within the thermos?”

Mom shrugged. “As conscious as a ghost can be, sweety. It’s not an actual person or anything, just a static imprint of what used to be a person’s thoughts. Like an A.I.”

“The Fenton Finder™ used scanners specially made to detect ectosignatures that are on our satellites up in space! It’s also how our security system works, though that works off of scanners here in the house!”

"So is there a way to track down ghosts by their specific ecto signatures? If you can track the general signals maybe you can create a way to lock into a specific one."

"Mm, I suppose we could! That'd be useful for tracking down that scum that attacked you and friends! We've got the blueprints for the ecto signature scanner down in the lab somewhere if you wanna try the idea out, son!"

"Will do, Dad. I'll tell ya how it goes." Danny grinned around his chicken and pasta. He had a game plan now.

After dinner, Danny raced downstairs to print out the blueprint from the computer - his father stacked the blueprints in an infuriatingly chaotic way that Danny hadn't the patience to sort through - and then ran through the door on the left. Behind it was a hallway into a tunnel, one that lead Danny to the alternative lab under the building right next to the house. Hopping into his wheely chair, Danny slid over the linoleum floor to his work table and laid down the blueprint.

"Alright, I can work with this. A signal can be tracked, and it can be isolated. Which means that My signal can be isolated and tracked specifically." A smirk crossed his face. "Which means the scanners can be set to ignore my signal. Perfect!"

Danny slid over to the laptop connected to a second Fenton Fabricator, glad that his parents were always thorough enough to make a back up of everything they did. "This should be done in no time. Then Sam can help me test it and Tuck can- speak of the devil." Danny whipped out his phone and hummed, tilting his head at the simple message his best friend had sent him.

FriarTuck: Hey Dan, almost fin breaking the security in Sklkr's suit. Bout to crack this badboi open n make it mine. Muahahahaha! Hyd?

"Ugh, stars, I don't wanna think about that asshole." Danny shot back a quick reply and set his phone down, finding a notebook he typically kept around. Writing in a code only he, Tucker and Sam knew, Danny got everything down that he could. "Skulker has been a major set back in my plan to prove not all ghosts are evil to Mom and Dad, and a few other weird developments made themselves known. I can now see everything in the lower intensity ultraviolet spectrum 24/7 instead of having to concentrate, as well as the electrical currents running through everything; I can somehow see my emotional connections with people I'm close with and use those connections to influence their emotions as well as read them clearer than other aurae." He stopped, taking a breath and looking over what he'd just written. " Mierda , ain't that creepy?" Danny pulled on his hair a bit while he wrote.

"Joining that on the list of creepy-ass things about Danny: I can reach across that link to everyone and pull on their love and affection and all that and use it to heal myself. Stars, that's such a gross way to look at everyone's care for me. Just a fucking- a bandaid? A free trip to the nurse in a minute?"

Turning back to the parts being made, Danny huffed and dragged his nails against his scalp a touch too roughly. "Physiological changes in my ghost occur when Tucker and Sam are in danger; Canines grow into fangs and according to Sam my voice starts to echo as though it's coming from everywhere. Thankfully a check in Tucker's mirror proves that the changes are temporary. Reaction to my temperament? On that note: being a psychoreactive exotic material, the ectoplasm that makes up my ghostly body reasonably reacts instantaneously to my emotions, but it seems to be enhancing them as well. It's either that or maybe puberty, but I have a feeling puberty doesn't make you violently angry at the slightest provocation and likely to turn any ghost you see into a splatter on the ground." Danny groaned, closing his notebook. "I fucking Executed Skulker. What the fuck? Why didn’t I just suck him into the thermos?"

A ding from his phone and Danny snorted.

GardeningClaws: Hey Star boy, don't go angsting without us there to hug you. We will know and you will pay the price.

"And what price is that, being buried in a pillow fort?"

GardeningClaws: do you know how many pillows I have in this house?? Do you think, like a fool, that I won't use them against you?

Danny laughed, sending a quick 'fair point' before heading to the door opposite the one into the house lab. Behind it was a room with rows of lockers, each holding three sets of suits. Danny didn't need them though. At the far end, there was a large octagonal metal rim, blast doors sealed shut within.

Opening it up to just the right coordinates, Danny watched the doors pull back and felt the building charge of the portal's startup. For a fraction of a second, Danny was filled with a bone-deep fear that gripped his entire body and held him stock still. With a thunderous crack, the fabric of space-time was folded around and torn, and Danny relaxed, staring out at an expanse of white and grey. Opening the blast door, he let the void fill him up and spread outward to chill his bones and freeze his veins. Skin blue, eyes and freckles green and his fluffy hair snow-white, Danny flew past the event horizon and gasped silently at the sight before him.

The moon is so much more beautiful when you can look with your own eyes instead of through the lens of a helmet visor.

Sam, smartest of the group that she was, called Danny and Tucker both to head to her house for a horror movie marathon. “After what we’ve been through, none of these B rate movies are gonna scare us.” It was so close to inarguably true that the boys both shrugged at their phones and headed on over. Danny came down from the sky in that space where everything was heat and impossible colors, everything around him highlighted in a panorama view that almost made him dizzy. Landing in an alleyway, Danny checked to make sure he didn’t see anyone around him and took a deep breath. He folded himself up, cold edges practically trapped within him tugged and bent until the brilliant moonlight that bled from his form retreated into the center of his chest, light and freezing cold as it hummed in an offbeat pulse next to his heart.

Pulling the hood of his jacket over his head, Danny jogged out of the alleyway and down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. He looked around the neighborhood properly and hummed, wondering how he never put together that Sam was rich when the address she’d given them ages ago was very obviously in the rich part of town. “Stars, we’re really just that oblivious aren’t we?” The stars in mind, Danny cast his gaze up and smiled at the full moon that greeted him, counting the tiny dots of the stars around it while he walked. Thankfully, his odd kaleidoscopic vision seemed to extend to his human form a bit and his foot froze mid-step as a car drove past him at an intersection. “Sweet mother of the gods, why can rich people not drive right?”

When he got to the gates of Manson Manor, Tucker was there typing away at his phone. When he looked up Danny waved and grinned, pointing a thumb at the huge mansion behind the gate. “This is ridiculous.”

“It’s just so much . Why does anyone need that much space? How do they keep it clean?”

“If I meet some butler named Alfred I’m going to eat your hat.”

“Are you sure you wanna make that bet, Danny? This is looking Batman-ish.”

The gate opened up before Danny could respond to that and instead, he nudged Tucker’s side before jogging toward the door. Sam was there, opening it before Danny could trip on nothing and faceplant into the mahogany or whatever expensive wood the door was probably made from, and he instead landed on a soft carpet. Tucker nudged his foot with his shoe and Danny groaned, resigned to simply laying there for the rest of his life. Two pairs of hands lifted him up from the ground however and Danny laughed, getting up properly.

“You can’t just let me wallow in my shame in peace, can you?”

“Of course not,” Sam scoffed. “If you’re going to be ashamed, I have to be there to make sure it’s appropriate. Now, c’mon!” Sam dragged Danny down a few halls, and up some stairs, followed closely by Tucker.

“I need to make a map of this place so we don’t get lost the next time we come to visit,” Tucker muttered, and Danny nodded. When Sam opened the door she was headed for she let Danny go and grinned at them like a cat that’d eaten the canary. Walking in, Danny felt his jaw drop and took a moment to soak in what he was seeing. “You have an entire movie theater in your house?”

“I know, it’s grossly excessive and we absolutely don’t need it, but-”

“Sam, what the heck are you talking about?” Danny waved a hand in the goth’s face and snorted when she swatted at him. “This is awesome! We can marathon every Dead Teacher movie here and it’ll be like when we went to see it in the actual theaters but better !” Danny pulled down his hood and hopped over one of the chairs - of which there were two whole rows - and plopped himself into the soft cushioned seat with a laugh. “The only thing that could make this room better would be if you had movie snacks.”

“Well, good thing I have a popcorn machine right back there full of fresh popcorn, a cotton candy machine, and ordered us pizzas.” Sam grinned, sitting next to Danny with a bowl in hand full of greasy buttery popcorn, and Tucker sat on his right. “What should we watch first?”

Halfway into Dr. Sleep, the pizza arrived and three laughing teens had to pause the movie and pull themselves together from the heap of giggles that they’d become. “Oh, oh stars, that hurt , laughing so much hurts!” Danny leaned on Tucker while Sam leaned on him, the bowl of popcorn practically forgotten next to Tucker. After a few minutes, Danny took a deep breath and patted his friends on the back. “I can grab the pizza - I can fly, so unlike you two I can actually go and be back before the things are cold.” Before either friend could protest, Danny let the shimmering void of silvery dark cold spread out from the center of his chest to every hair on his body in a flash of light. He slipped through Sam and Tucker like water through the air and flew off toward the red aura of the pizza guy, diving to transform behind the front door when he appeared outside. In just a moment he was back inside and setting three pizza boxes down on the snack table. “I see we got ourselves a meat-lovers for Tuck, a veggie everything for Sam, and-” Danny gasped. “A dragon’s tongue pizza for me! Aww, Sam~”

“Oh stuff it you goof,” Sam said as she and Tucker grabbed slices and plates. “I just knew that you’d complain your pizza isn’t spicy enough unless it has ghost peppers, reaper peppers and every other kind of spice known to man and dolphin on it.”

Tucker rolled his eyes, already scarfing down his first slice. “Dolphin? Really?”

“Dolphins are the closest animals to humans in behavior and observed intellect, Tucker.” Danny took the time to go through three slices of pizza while Sam ranted about how dolphins might as well be classified as non-human people before pointing accusatorily at her.

“There is nothing wrong with my sense of taste, thank you. Anyone with a strong enough tongue can handle this pizza, Sam.” Danny took a bite to emphasize his point and smirked when he was flipped off. “I’ve just got the strongest stomach here.”

“ Excuse you? ”

“Unlike you, I can eat veggies without my stomach declaring a mutiny.”

“Um, go fuck yourself? That was the lowest of all low blows, I am utterly betrayed !” Tucker covered his forehead with the back of his arm and half fell backward. “Truly, my trust has been shattered by mine own brother, how could you? And I’ll have you know that the amount of capsaicin you consume is well beyond what any human being should have in their body.”

“Funny, I’m pretty sure I’m not human.” Danny paused mid-chew, ignoring the look of disgust on Sam’s face over the two of them talking around their food. “I wonder… what smaller changes like that might be going on because of my ghost? Like, regular puberty is already horrible enough but now I’ve got like, ghost puberty to deal with.”

“First of all, ghost wise, you’re baby.” Danny pouted at Tucker, feeling mildly offended. “You haven’t even been half-dead for a whole year yet, you’re baby.”

“Tucker, can you be reasonable for one moment?” Danny nodded, gesturing to Sam, who was clearly the only one with her head on straight between them. “Danny is always baby, not just because of his ghost.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Danny rose up in front of the movie screen, less crossed in the air as he frowned down at his friends. “I am offended, I am revolted, I dedicate my life to our lord and savior Jesus Christ and this is the thanks I get?”

“I wonder,” Sam said loudly as she walked toward his pizza box. “What it would taste like if I put cotton candy on your pizza?” Danny dove for his pizza box, nearly crashing into Sam as he grabbed it up and flew toward the ceiling. He flipped upside down and stood with his feet to the ceiling, grinning down at his friends. Carefully opening his box he took out a slice and stopped.

“Sammy that is a wonderful question!” Gravity shifted, reasserted itself in the correct direction, and Danny flipped with it, landing in front of the cotton candy machine. He dipped his pizza slice into it and smirked at the despaired wail of his friend while he ran away from her, munching away at his unholy pizza slice. “This is so sad, Alexa-”

“You don’t think I’d have Alexa in my home, do you? First you defile my cotton candy, now you insult my common sense? Do me a favor and parish.”

“Been there, done that.”

“As amazing as all that is, I was wondering something about you, Danny.” Danny flew over to Tucker, landing on his shoulders with a snicker. “So like, can you do that thing from the movie? Like, turn your head all the way around like an owl?”

A wide grin spread over Danny’s face and he set his food down on the table, before pulling the void up and out and around himself. Bright silver light illuminated Tucker and cast odd shadows on his face. To think about later. Danny turned his head slowly, cautious of being wrong, and almost stopped when he heard the pop of the joints in his neck. Still, he kept going until he was looking at Sam’s gaping face right behind him. He raised a hand to give her a thumbs up and winced at the sound of more popping joints - though, fascinatingly enough… “None of this hurts at all.”

“Well now I gotta see you spider-walk up the walls, that’s just the natural result of you showing off like this, Danno.” Turning his head the rest of the way around, Danny saw Tucker’s phone pointed at him and snorted. “Dude this is wicked !”

“Oh my gods, we have to time you, hold on.” And like that, Danny was doing laps around the walls and ceiling, reversed on all fours while Sam timed him and Tucker recorded. When he dropped back down to the two rows of seats, Danny crossed his legs behind him with a hum.

“Anything else y’all wanna test?” Tucker raised his hand and Danny let his gaze slide from Tucker himself to the brilliant yellow-gold-grek air around him. “I’m going to regret hearing out this question, aren’t I?” Tucker nodded, his grin widening and the grek in his aura growing brighter. Danny sighed and pointed at his brother.

“Can you possess people? Cause that would be pretty fuckin cool.” Tucker T posed as if that would help Danny with the wave of discomfort that crashed over him at the idea. “How would you know? Go ahead, try me. See if you can like, take me over.”

Danny drew the darkness back into his chest, warmth and the beat of his heart and the weight of gravity tugging relentlessly against him like countless invisible chains made themselves known to him. Digging in his pocket, Danny pulled out a coin, looking at Tucker with as much seriousness on his face as possible. “Heads I tell you to yeet your PDA into the cotton candy, tails I try to possess you.” Danny flipped the quarter and caught it in his open palm. He took in a deep breath through his nose, and let it out the same way. “Shut.”

Slipping back into the void, Danny stared at his Tposing best friend and considered just how he was supposed to do what he had asked. The only thing that made any sense, of course, was to slide even deeper into the void. Light and sound and even the air circulating through the room all faded away and the world shifted like a gradient scale from Xtreme Indigo to a deep dark blue sprinkled with green that lit up the empty world in bands, rivers, and threads that Danny could’ve stared at for the rest of his life and probably never grown tired of. The only constants were the gold and green aurae at the ends of silver threads that shone like solid moonlight. Danny dove for the golden light and dipped a hand in where he guessed Tucker’s head was. The silver thread practically yanked him in, and Danny sank into a desert of yellow and glittering light.

In the next instant, he was blinking unfamiliar eyes, falling out of a dumb pose he hadn’t taken, stumbling on legs longer than he was used to and warmer than he’d been in months. “Holy shit.” Danny held out his - Tucker’s hands and turning them over each other again and again. He took a few testing steps forward and back, turning and stretching every way he’d ever seen Tucker move, and felt a laugh bubble out of hi-Tuck’s mouth. “Sam holy shit!”

Sam was staring at Tucker-Danny like he was the most out of this world thing she’d ever laid eyes on and she wasn’t sure how to react to him. The cheer of figuring out yet another ability dimmed at the sight of her expression and what might’ve been horror was building itself up in his chest. Then Sam schooled her expression and pointed at him. “You sound the way you do when the two of you are speaking in unison.”

“I feel like I’m wearing a costume that doesn’t fit right, I’ll be honest about that. Stars, Tucker’s vision is horrible.”

“Alright, that voice thing is actually getting annoying, can you like, leave him now?” A moment of silence passed, the room growing incredibly small and Sam stepped closer. “Danny, you can leave Tucker’s body now, right?”

“Gimme a second, Sam, I didn’t know I could go into him in the first place.” Danny huffed and closed his eyes. He focused on what was different and wrong about being in Tucker’s body instead of his own, thought about floating upward to the surface of a large body of water, the moon coming to his mind’s eye and he reached for it. There was a solid kick at the edge of his shadows, golden sands rising up and filling the empty space to push him up and out toward the moonlight and-

Danny flopped onto the ground face first, sensing a trend of him faceplanting on Sam’s floor, and Tucker let out a loud gasp. “Holy balls, that was weird as fuck !” Danny flipped around onto his back, letting his own familiar warmth and heartbeat fill his senses before he looked up at Tucker and found him wiggling his fingers and toes. “It was like blacking out or something. I had the weirdest dream where I was like, I dunno, made of fire or something?”

“It was a lot of weird, hard to describe feelings on my end but mostly like a suit that doesn’t fit right. Like, I know what my body feels like and that wasn’t mine, ya know?” Sam and Tucker nodded and while Danny knew they had absolutely no idea what he meant, it was relieving all the same. Standing up, Danny reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the scanner he’d printed earlier. “By the way, I made something that’ll help me get back into school.”

Tucker, without missing a beat, said, “That sounds like a horrible evil device.” Sam snorted and Danny nodded. “What does it do?”

Danny launched into an explanation of what he’d learned about ectosignatures and his idea for tricking the security system at school. “Also,” Danny added when it came to mind, “the car should be done printing in my basement by now.”

“Wait, you not only finished designing it but also started making it?” Sam looked between them with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean printing?”

“The Fenton Fabricator™ is a giant, modular, high detail 3D printer that can make complex metal technologies - like our hoverboards. The first 3D printed car took a couple of days and it wasn’t as complicated as this so I guessed about 48 hours.” Danny shrugged. “Probably done by now.”

“Isn’t that cool?” Tucker practically had stars in his eyes. “We can build anything in there, Sam!”

“Before that, we gotta get this ecto signature of Danny’s recorded." Sam held up the scanner and Danny nodded. Things had to happen in the right order or things would go wrong.

Danny reached inside of himself and pulled the dark, endless space between space that rested within him out to wrap around him like a cool, relaxing blanket. The extreme indigo of the world rose to an even more brilliant blue and purple that blended together and unwove from each other and wrapped around everything. Tucker shone from within with gold that glittered like desert sands and Sam was wreathed in the viridian green of the forests. The threads between them were silver and thick as though woven from many. "I never need to take drugs cause all I need to do to get a trip is go ghost. I swear."

"Yeah, well, I think I have the reading on you right here. Tucker, can you make any sense of this?" Tucker rolled over and stared at the data on the Fenton Finder remake. After a moment of silence, Tuck started tapping away at his PDA ferociously. "I'm gonna guess that means yes."

"I can record this signal and have a filter to keep the school's system from recognizing you as a threat by tonight. Think we can break in and do it then?"

"Probably," Danny shrugged, flipping a few times in the air. "Ishiyama probably had them set the security system to an activation button or lever or verbal input. They wouldn't want them to make something automatic in case a ghost was too close to a student."

"Fair. Tomorrow night then?" Tucker grinned as Danny tucked that blanket of not so empty empty space back into the very center of his everything and flopped onto his seat.

"Sooner I can tell my family we beat Skulker the better. I don't like worrying them like this." Ever since his Spirit Vision or whatever got turned permanently on, Danny could feel the undercurrent of anxiety that ran through his family. It made his skin crawl with the itch to make them all feel better and left a bitter taste on his tongue.

"Agreed, I can only keep this info from my parents for so long." Sam sighed, rolling her eyes. With a grin she handed the scanner fully over to Tucker and ran a hand through Danny's hair, messing it up as much as she could.

Danny swatted away Sam's hand after a moment and sank further into the soft cushiony seat. "Your chair is eating me, Sammy."

"You've been getting a healthier amount of meat on you, so yeah it might be." Tucker was steadily getting engrossed in his task and Danny knew they had precious few seconds before he was completely lost to them so he decided now was a good time to be a dick.

“So like, when the first hoverboard exploded and I put up a forcefield on a reflex we completely skipped over that cause of hyper-focus but like. Should we talk about that?"

"You have protective instincts," Tucker mumbled, "and ghost stuff reacts to the deeper parts of your mind right? So it's just you defending someone you care about."

"Which reminds me." Sam poked Danny in the sides until he was squirming and giggling to get away. "You're keeping like, a journal of all the things you can do right?"

"Mostly notes on what I learned about ghosts in general, like a bullet point list of the stuff that happened with Agatha and Skulker, and stuff but yeah. I need to add ‘owl neck’ and ‘possession’ to my list of Things I Can Do."

“And what, pray tell, is on that list?”

"I can turn intangible or invisible, defy- no, actually, with what happened at the zoo I guess I can influence gravity, I can see all the radiation in the world, which is a trip lemme tell ya, I can apparently make a wall of ectoplasm?" Tucker and Sam were staring at him for a long beat of silence before both were tackling Danny and pulling him into a big group hug. “I know, I’m awesome, but so are you guys and you should celebrate it.”

“Yeah, I am pretty awesome,” Tucker said with a grin. “You guys are lucky to know me. I feel I deserve a reward for the amazingness I bring to this group.” Tucker was promptly dropped by Sam onto the floor and Danny laughed.

“Another cool thing you can do is heal yourself and other people.” Sam poked Danny in the side until he was squirming away from her in that unreal state of being, slipping through her fingers like the space between air and flopped onto Tucker’s lap before solidity came back to him. “That’s probably one of the coolest powers you have.”

“One day, Tucker is going to copy everything I can do, but with technology.” Danny poked Tucker a couple of times and got his hand swatted away for his trouble. “He’s already copied my language-”

“Spanish doesn't belong to you just because your dad is Mexican, Danny, try again.”

“And now he’s tryna say what’s mine isn’t even mine, can you believe this guy?” Danny didn’t even try to hold in his laughter now, waving a hand emphatically in Tucker’s face. “Next he’ll say I’m not the greatest ghost fighter in the world-”

“Your Mom.”

“Or the first boy to step foot on the moon-”

“Neil Armstrong - also, did you just say you walked on the m-”

“Or the unthinkable, like I’m not the very first Fenton that’s gonna be built like a brick house.”

“No no, you can’t just talk your way out of this one, Danny, you were on the moon? ” Ah, Danny loved riling up his friends.

#Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Tucker Foley #Sam Manson #OCs #Maddie Fenton #Jack Fenton #Jazz Fenton #Fanfiction #Phanfiction #fanPhiction #Phanphiction #fanfic #phanfic #fanphc #Phanphic #MCS #Monstrous Chosen Spellslingers #Rexy Writes

20 notes · View notes

thelastspeecher · 5 years

Note

Okay okay, deaged Sally and Mearl spending an afternoon with Danny and Daisy while Ford desperately tries to find a solution (Angie would insist on watching over them and Sally would be like 'do you really think your own mother wouldn't be able to control herself for one afternoon?)

👶 - De-Aging

Bro. What a prompt! What a prompt!

Hope I managed to do this gem of a prompt justice. Enjoy.

Send an emoji and one or more characters!

“I’llwait to do my field work ‘til tomorrow,” Angie said. Her mother frowned at her.

“Do yathink yer mother can’t behave fer an afternoon?”

“No, it’snot that, it’s just-” Angie staredhelplessly at her mother. This morning,both her parents were graying and wrinkled, excited to spend their visit spoilingtheir grandchildren. But after anincident in Ford’s lab this morning, both had been reverted to eight yearsold. “In yer current state-”

“Sweetheart,we can take care of ourselves,” Mearl said calmly. Angie anxiously tugged on a loose strand ofhair. “Don’t do that. Do ya want to go bald?”

“Pa…” Angie grimaced. “Look, under normal circumstances I wouldn’tthink twice ‘bout leavin’, but Stan’s at work all day, and Fidds and Ford willbe workin’ in the basement on a cure, and the girls and Tate are here.”

“Honey,we raised six children. We can handlethree,” Sally said.

“But youweren’t a child yourself then!” Angie burst out. Sally raised an eyebrow at her. “…Ma’am.”

“Go towork,” Mearl said. “We’ll be fine. Even if somethin’ goes wrong, we can findFidds fer some help.”

“But-”

“Thisain’t up fer debate, Banjolina,” Mearl said firmly. Angie glanced over at the play pen, wheretwo-year-old Danny and Daisy were happily playing with blocks. “Go to work.”

“Fine,”Angie sighed. She picked her keys offthe table and left. Once the front doorhad closed behind her, Mearl shook his head.

“Goodness,that girl is stubborn.” He glared at Sallyplayfully. “I wonder where she pickedthat up.” Sally laughed.

“And thathusband of hers is just as bullheaded. I’dwager good money that Danny and Daisy will be right terrors to deal with.”

“In someways, they already are terrors,” Mearl replied. “Did ya hear Daisy kickin’ up that fuss this mornin’? Took Stan upwards of half an hour to calm herdown.”

“True. But right now, they’re-” Sally looked at the play pen. She paled. “They’re gone.”

“What?” Mearl spun around. He gaped at the empty play pen. “They’re- how did they do that?! It- it ain’t even knocked over or anything! We didn’t hear ‘em make any noise.” He began to tug at his hair. “It’s like they just vanished!”

“Calm down,love,” Sally said, pulling his hands away from his hair. “They’re two. They can’t have gotten far. We’vebeen in this rodeo ‘fore, ‘member?”

“Right. Right.” Mearl took a steadying breath. “We’lljust look through the house, find ‘em, and bring ‘em back. Easy peasy.”

“Exactly.” Sally set off for the kitchen, Mearl closebehind her. “I can handle this room, if’nya want to check elsewhere,” she said as she opened a few cupboards.

“All right,lambchop,” Mearl replied. Sally hadfinished checking everything easily within her reach and was wondering if sheshould try climbing the counter for a better vantage when she heard a shout. “Sally!” Sally immediately raced out of the kitchen towards the sound of herhusband’s voice. She found him standinghelplessly by the back door, which was open. “The door was open.”

“It- Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no,” Sally whispered. She closed her eyes. “D’ya think-”

“Youremember how Angie was as a lil one. Sheslipped outside every chance she could. There’s no way at least one of her daughters isn’t the same way.” Mearl swallowed. “And if one of ‘em left, the other one had tofollow.”

“So wedon’t have any other choice, then,” Sally said. Mearl looked at her. “We have togo after ‘em.” Mearl’s eyes widened.

“Sally. We can’t just leave without tellin’.”

“Do yawant to let slip that we lost our granddaughters within five minutes of watchin’‘em?”

“…No.” Mearl grimaced. “But I don’t know that it’s the wisest thingto do, lovely. And we don’t have properclothes yet.”

“Hmm. Yer right, we can’t wander ‘round in oversizedshirts.” Sally sat down on the floor,her chin in her hands. Her gaze fellupon a plastic bag by the door. “Mearl, what’sin there?”

“I cancheck.” Mearl looked in the plastic bag. His eyes widened. “Clothes. Clothes our size.”

“It’s asign, then. Providence!”

“Uh, notreally,” a voice said from behind them. Sally and Mearl spun around. Stanstood there, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “More like, I dropped the bag tryin’ to catchDanny when she made a break for it,” Stan said.

“Ithought you were workin’ today,” Sally said, cocking her head.

“I wassupposed to, but I decided to just call in sick at the last minute. I figured you guys would insist on Angie goin’into the forest to look for lizards-”

“Salamanders,”Sally and Mearl corrected.

“Yeahthat. I figured you’d make her do that,and the nerds are downstairs whippin’ up a cure, and I know you guys can handleyourselves and the girls, but-” Stanshrugged. “Better safe than sorry. They’ve figured out how to sneak out of theplay pen, after all.”

“Where’dthey learn that?” Mearl asked. Stansighed wearily.

“Hell ifI know.”

“None ofour kids could do that.”

“Yeah. All the more reason for me to help out a bit.” Stan grinned weakly. “And the nerds have a tendency to work throughmeals, so it’d probably be a good idea for someone tall to be around to grabthings outta reach in the kitchen.”

“Fairenough,” Sally said after a moment. Shestood up and placed her hands on her hips, glaring at Stan. “Now, this whole incident wherein we thought welost our granddaughters-”

“You didactually lose them,” Stan corrected. “I justcaught ‘em before they could get far.” Sally’s glare hardened. “…Ma’am.”

“Like Isaid, the incident wherein we thought we lost our granddaughters stays betweenus. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am,”Stan mumbled. He crossed his arms. “How can you still do the stern mom thingwhen you’re a kid?”

“It’s askill ya learn to cultivate once you’ve raised six children,” Mearlreplied. He picked up the bag ofclothes. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, weneed to change.”

“Right.” Stan turned to go back into the living roomand caught sight of Danny sneaking past him. “No you don’t, you sucker!” Stanpicked her up. Danny let out a loudwail. “Close the door, will ya? Otherwise, they’ll get out fer real.”

-----

“Green!”Daisy shouted, holding her hand out. Mearllooked at the crayon he was holding.

“Sweetie,this is red.”

“Red,”Daisy corrected. She opened and closedher hand.

“If yawant it, ya have to ask fer it. Ya knowhow to use yer words. Use ‘em,” Mearlsaid. Daisy pouted.

“I wantit.”

“Then ask,”Mearl replied patiently. Daisy scrunchedup her face. “I won’t hand it over ifyer rude ‘bout it.”

“Can Ihave red, please?” Daisy asked finally, with an expression like she was suckingon a lemon. Mearl beamed.

“Ofcourse, dear.” He handed the crayonover. Daisy immediately began to scrawl inher coloring book.

“Geez,that was slick,” Stan said. He wasplaying cards with Tate at the table, within sight of where Sally and Mearlwere supervising Danny and Daisy coloring.

“Well,when you’ve-”

“-raisedsix kids, I know, I know,” Stan said. “Still.”

“If yawant, we could give ya some lessons,” Sally said. Stan shook his head.

“Nah, I’mfine just sorta stumbling my way through things. Even if I don’t figure stuff out this time, I’llfigure it out in time for the next one.” Sally and Mearl’s heads whipped up.

“Nextone?” Sally asked. Stan quickly turnedhis attention back to his cards. “Angie’snot-”

“No, she’snot,” Stan said, still avoiding eye contact. “Just- uh, we’ve talked about it, that’s all.” He grimaced. “And I wasn’t s’pposed to blab that we were talkin’ about it, so keep itbetween us, okay?”

“But-”Sally started.

“Sally,don’t pester ‘em. You ‘member how bad myfolks got when we were havin’ kids,” Mearl said. “Do ya want to put our daughter and son-in-lawthrough the same thing?”

“…No.” Sally turned her attention back toDanny. “This is very nice, sweetie.” Danny grinned at her. “I know I’ve said it ‘fore, but she’s got yersmile, Stanley.” Stan beamed.

“Yeah. Looks better on her, though.”

“Whatexactly are ya playin’ with Tate, by the by?” Mearl piped up. “Go fish?”

“Texashold ‘em,” Stan replied. “But we haven’treally gotten to playin’ yet. Still workin’on teachin’ him the rules.”

“Isteachin’ a child poker really a smart move?” Sally asked. “I mean, Violynn and Harper insisted on doin’that with Angie, and she turned into quite the cardsharp.”

“Exactly!”Stan enthused. “Ya gotta start ‘emyoung.” The front door opened. Angie walked into the living room. She did a double-take at the two extrachildren.

“Who- oh.” Angie grinned sheepishly. “…Right. There was that thing this mornin’. The girls didn’t give ya any trouble, did they?”

“Not onewhit,” Mearl said cheerfully. “Absolutedarlin’s the whole time.”

“Theydidn’t pull their disappearin’ act, did they? I forgot to tell ya ‘fore I left, but they figured out how to get out ofthe play pen.” Angie pursed herlips. “Don’t know why we bother keepin’it ‘round.”

“We didn’thave any issues, junebug, don’t you worry,” Mearl said. Angie sighed in relief.

“Good.” She looked over at Stan and Tate at the cardtable. “Looks like Stan spent the daywith ya, so that would’ve helped, too.”

“Any excuseto spend time with the girls,” Stan said. Angie propped one hand on her hip.

“Are yatryin’ to teach Tate poker again?”

“Yeah.”

“Fidds won’tlike that.”

“Like Icare,” Stan scoffed. Daisy abandoned herpost by Mearl and toddled over to Angie. She grabbed Angie’s leg.

“Cookie,Mama?” she chirped. Angie looked at herwristwatch.

“Well, itis snacktime. Anyone else want a cookie?”she asked. All heads in the room shotup. Angie blinked. “You too, Ma and Pa?”

“Yerquite the cook, dear. Can ya blame usfer wantin’ to partake of yer excellent food?” Sally asked. Angie’s mouth quirked in a small smile.

“‘Speciallywhen ya look like this,” she said. Sallyand Mearl shrugged. “Okay, cookies allaround.”

#I was tempted to have Ma and Pa Guck go on an adventure looking for the babs #but decided that this was the easiest way to make sure I wrote them actually spending SOME time with the babs #god them going on an adventure while de-aged woulda been WILD tho #Stanley McGucket AU #Stangie Family #Angie McGucket #Ma McGucket #Pa McGucket #Danica Pines #Daisy McGucket #Stanley Pines #my writing #ficlet #writing meme #ask #nour386

4 notes · View notes

itwascrabpeople · 7 years

Text

start a craze (ignite the airwaves) // septiplier

Boys in a band, touring and writing songs and pining. AKA Septiplier Band!AU, where they all meet when they're teenages and start a band.

Also on AO3.

DISCLAIMER: Any situations written involving real people are fictional, and are in no way meant to be actual implications on their personal lives, s'just for fun! So please press that back button if any of this makes you uncomfortable!

“Hey, you’re the Irish exchange student, right?” Bob asks, handing him a can of coke.

“Half-right,” Jack says, twirling a drumstick between his fingers. “We moved here from Ireland. Signe’s the exchange student. People keep gettin’ that mixed up.”

They’re in the basement of Bob’s house, it’s crowded by instruments and old furniture, including a single couch pushed into the corner.

“Sorry,” Bob says, pushing up his glasses. “Wade said he met you on Friday and wanted you for the band. So you’ve gotta be pretty good, huh.”

“I guess, he was sick today apparently, but said I should still come audition,” Jack tells him, then nods at the bass in Bob’s hands. “You’re the bassist?”

“Yeah, I have no real musical talent,” Bob laughs, “but I’m passable at bass, thus Mark dubbed me the bassist. Sorry about the room, by the way, my parents are the only ones that let us play.”

“Nah, It’s cool,” Jack says, “thanks for the coke.”

“No problem,” Bob says, smiling, “you can show us what you got as soon as Mark gets down here.”

“Already here, Bobby m’boy!”

Jack turns, and is faced with a strange rush of something at the sight of this Mark guy. Probably because of how close he’s standing to him.

“Whoa.”

“Oh hi, I’m Mark, I sing and write lyrics and stuff,” Mark says, taking a step back and sticking out his hand. His voice is deeper than Jack would’ve expected it to be. “You’re Sean, right? You're gonna be in our band?”

“Jack, actually,” he corrects as he shakes Mark’s hand, feeling lightheaded. “And… you haven’t even heard me play yet.”

“Oh!” Mark smiles warmly, then sidesteps. “Sorry man, go ahead!”

“Um, anything in particular? Any styles?” For some reason he can’t stop staring dumbly at this Mark guy. With his stupid shark-fin hair, and his stupid eyes, and his stupid big friendly smile, and his stupid hot voice. It has to be because of how stupid it all is. Definitely.

“Whatever you like, man,” Mark says, and there’s that warm smile again.

Jack goes and sits at the drumkit, and, with one last look at Mark, he plays.

They gel pretty quickly, him and Mark. He’s shy about letting Jack see his lyrics at first but once he does Jack swears he can practically hear the songs.

He gives suggestions about moving some lines around, and when he tries out a simple beat Mark starts humming along, and when Ethan comes down he starts working out the guitar and bass sections immediately.

After that first night of practise, Mark beams at him like he’s made of magic and insists that Jack comes to his place the next day. And Jack - with his heart caught in his throat - of course he’s not going to say no.

He realises he’s pretty much doomed from here on out.

“So you’ll do it right? You’ll be in the band?” Mark asks, eyes trained on Jack like if he looks away he’ll bolt. They’re standing on the porch of Mark’s house, waiting for Jack’s brother to come pick him up. They’ve just finished their second band practise, and Jack has to admit that they sound pretty good.

“Well.. I didn’t just come here for the food,” he says, scratching the back of his head. He looks down at the sealed container of leftovers Mark’s mom insisted that he take. “But I’ll have to next time if your Mom makes whatever this is called again, yum.”

“Kimbap, Wade likes it too so she always makes it for lunch when he’s over,” Mark tells him, then tilts his head, “So that’s a yes?”

“O’ course it’s a yes,” Jack smiles. He sees his brother’s car drive into the street. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah, great! Y’know, we’re gonna be really awesome.” Mark tells him, sounding so sincere that Jack can’t help but to believe him. Mark grins widely and, for some reason, ruffles Jack’s hair before heading back inside.

Jack tells his brother to shut up when he asks why he’s blushing.

“If one more douchebag asks me to play with his drumstick, I’m quittin’ the band.”

“Jack noo,” Mark says blandly, staring at his phone. “This is gonna be our Behind The Music breakup, isn’t it? It was all over after one gig at a sleazy bar.”

“I’m surprised they even let us play,” Bob says, loading a speaker into the back of the van. “Tell Danny those fake IDs were legit.”

“Yeah, maybe too legit,” Jack says, shuddering. “Agh, one guy’s breath smelt like alcohol, vomit, and regret - how’d they miss the whole underage thing up close and personal? I’m practically prepubescent!”

Bob tilts his head. “Yeah, you look sixteen, and some guys are into that,” he says, cringing. “Creepy guys.”

Mark peeks up from his phone to look at Jack. “Nobody like, touched you or anything, right?”

Jack looks at him, noting the hint of concern in his voice. “Nah, there wasn’t no bad touch, thankfully.”

“Good,” is all Mark says, looking down again. “Or I’d’a, you know…”

Jack clasps his hands together and bats his eyelashes at him. “Would you’ve defended my honour, Markipoo?”

What Mark says sounds like ‘shut up’ as he turns away with a blush forming on his cheeks, but what Jack hears is ‘yes’.

They got close to it once, earlier on. They were drunk and camping out in someone’s living room between shows. Wade and Ethan were passed out on the couches, snoring, while Bob had opted to sleep in the van. Jack was seventeen, and at the time he thought underage drinking made him cool as shit.

“You know, you’re my best friend, Jack,” Mark had said sincerely. He was glassy eyed and his face was all red, it tended to get really flushed whenever he drank.

“Dude,” Jack said, leaning up on his elbow. “You’re like, my first best friend ever . But you’re also the best one. Y’know what I’m sayin’?”

“Yeah,” Mark agreed, rolling onto his side to face Jack properly. Without his glasses and his hair all mussed up he looks really young, and sort of vulnerable.

“I never wanna lose that, you know?” Mark went on.” What we have… it’s different, it’s ours, it’s... special.”

Ordinarily Jack would have laughed at that, cheesy as it is, but being an emotionally drunk teenager, and Mark looking at him like he meant every word - he took it to heart.

“Yeah,” Jack sighed, and Mark moving in closer felt like another reality, a slower one where all Jack could do was lean in too and close his eyes.

Then Wade snorted really loudly, and Mark just laughed and laid back down as if nothing world-shattering was just about to happen.

And at that moment, Jack remembers thinking to himself, ‘oh no, I really love him’.

They have a hit on their hands, their manager says. They don’t believe it till they’re out on the road, and Bob turns up the radio. Wade nearly swerves them off the road in shock.

The opening line; I was crawling around in my head in the haze of a trance…

Mark catches Jack’s hand and starts singing along loudly, at stoplights and in backstreets. And it’s the last time they drive to a show in that shitty van.

Jack sighs and sets down his drumsticks. Wade and Ethan jostle the bus from the outside, trying to push it out of a ditch as Bob revs the engine.

“Y’know what they say,” Jack says, “if the bus is a-rockin’...”

“I’ve got my cock in,” Mark finishes, grinning at Jack from across the table.

“You’re such a moron,” Jack says, but he’s laughing too, and looks out the window just in time to see Ethan charge at the bus. “Although, not as moronic as those two, apparently.”

“I dunno, I kind of admire their optimism.”

Wade slams onto the bus then, huffing and sweaty as he looks at them with wide eyes. “You guys have just been sitting here this whole time?!”

“Hey, we helped!” Jack says, leaning back. “Like, the first couple o’ minutes.”

“Then we realised that none of us have the manpower to move this thing,” Mark chimes in, and flexes his arm out at Wade. “Not even my huge muscley manliness could help, it’s hopeless.”

Jack mentally congratulates himself for only glancing at Mark’s bare arm as he nods. “Y-yeah! Not our fault ya idiots are still trying.”

“Well we need to do something!” Wade says exasperatedly, a hand pressed to his forehead. “We have no freaking reception and we’re out in the middle of nowhere!”

“Actually,” Jack starts slowly just as Ethan clambers back onto the bus, “I got a signal and called a local tow company.”

“And you didn’t think to tell us that?” Ethan’s skinny form slumps right onto the table. “I can’t feel my arms. Or my legs. Or most of my upper body.”

“We liked watching you try.” Mark shrugs, petting Ethan’s blue head consolingly. “It was admirable... in a sorta fruitless way.”

“And I really thought you had it like eleven minutes in,” Jack adds, nodding at Wade who is just watching them with quiet rage. His eye’s twitching - does it normally do that? “So at least I believed in you.”

Jack dyes his hair green in the middle of their tour, and Mark decides dying his red would be cool. Wade says they look like Christmas one night on stage between songs.

“Form of - mistletoe!” Mark says, coming ‘round to Jack behind his kit and shaking his hair in his face. Jack laughs and shoves him back playfully, and the crowd loves it, cheering.

“I need a haircut, man,” Mark says. “Hey Jack, what would your superhero name be?”

“Um,” Jack says into his rarely-used mic. “JackSepticEye’s what they called me in Ireland, ‘cause I had a septic eye once, and m’name’s Jack.”

“Mine is Markiplier, apparently.” Mark shrugs. “That was my username on myspace I think, like eighty years ago. The fans found it. Meeerkiplier.”

“Those are both shit hero names,” Bob says, strumming his bass as the crowd laughs. “You’d be shit super heroes. Mark Septic Plier Tank? The hell is that? Besides, you’re both too short.”

“Hey!” Ethan says indignantly, and someone in the crowd screams “I love you Ethan!”

“Eh, whatever, shush, shush ,” Mark commands, waving his hands down. Once the crowd is quiet enough, he leans in and sings the first lines of one of their sillier songs, “Hate to tell you honey, but Wilford Warfstache killed a man…”

“Ohh home sweet not-the-road!” Mark exclaims as soon as he’s through the door, making his way towards the kitchen and flopping onto the counter. “Oh, overpriced kitchenette, I’ve missed you so.”

“Dude, I forgot you had a house!” Jack says as he walks in after him. “And a kitchen!” He glances at Mark and goes to hug the fridge since the counter’s taken.

“I forgot what not having to disinfect every surface before you touched it was like,” Mark says, voice muffled.

Jack opens the fridge and sighs. “I forgot food wasn’t only provided by truckstops and questionable club owners.”

“I forgot that you guys don’t shut up,” Tyler yells from the living room. “Like. Ever.”

“Tyler!” They both say excitedly, and run to greet him. It’s an awkward six-armed hug, but they manage.

“Aw,” Mark says, “I forgot what having a surly roommate dictating my every move was like.”

“Hey Tyler!” Ethan says, opening his arms to join the group hug.

“Wait, never mind,” Mark grunts as he’s crushed between them all. It’s a good day.

“I guess the songs are okay, but babe, do they have to be so… down ?” Mel makes a sad pouty face, as though Mark can just rewrite the whole album for her when they’re at a party celebrating that it just went platinum. God, Jack hates her.

“Ah-hum, well the songs are pretty personal, yeah,” Mark says, looking down at his drink. “I thought “Calling Doctor Schneeplestein” was pretty upbeat though.”

“Yeah I guess,” she says with a grimace. “The drum solo was a bit much - no offense Jack, but yeah.”

“Oh, offense taken, Mel,” Jack says, a fake grin plastered on his face as he sips his drink - whiskey and coke - and murmurs, “Ya shady bitch ,” into his glass. If Mel hears this she doesn’t show it, and proceeds to ignore him like she usually does.

She’s entwining her pinky with Mark’s, using her cutesy voice as she says, “C’mon babe, I'm dying for a drink.” Mark looks to Jack for some reason, opening his mouth like he has something to say before she drags him away.

Eventually Wade comes over, bottle of beer in his hand as he leans against the wall beside Jack.

Wade bumps him with his shoulder. ��You holding up okay, buddy? I feel like you’ve had that glass half-full all night.”

Jack barely hears him, watching Mel parade Mark around the room like a trophy. “Is it just me, or is she the worst?”

“Who?” Wade asks, then follows Jack’s line of sight and rolls his eyes. “Oh .”

Jack turns to him at that. “What?”

“Nothing,” Wade says, taking a swig of his beer. “Only... you know you say that about all the girls he dates, right?”

“I do not,” Jack says indignantly, setting his glass down. “I thought Amy was cool.”

“Yeah, after she married Kathryn and moved to Connecticut.”

“She was cool before that!”

“Before she dated Mark, you mean,” Wade says, a small smile on his face. “Then it was all, ‘man, has Amy been kind of an asshole lately, or what’. don’t you remember?”

“This is different. Mel has her head shoved so far up her own ass I’m surprised she can still communicate verbally,” Jack says, and unconsciously starts to fiddle with his wristbands. “Mark doesn't need someone like that. He needs someone that isn’t vapid, someone that actually cares about him, that gets him like...”

“Like… you?” The smile is evident in Wade’s voice alone.

“Shut up,” Jack says, blushing as he picks his drink back up and downs the rest of it. He can feel Wade’s eyes on him, but refuses to look up.

“It’s okay that you’re in love with him, you know,” Wade tells him, and Jack swears he can feel his heart drop to the pit of his stomach. There’s no way he can know - he’s hidden it so well.

“Wh-what,” Jack says quickly, breathlessly, “I don’t… you don’t… I don’t.” His hands won’t stop shaking so he clenches them at his sides, hoping it goes unnoticed.

Wade places a heavy hand on his shoulder, and somehow it sets Jack at ease, makes him feel a little more grounded.

“It is okay, Jack. You have to know that,” is all Wade says, then after a smile and a gentle pat on the shoulder, he walks away, probably to go find Molly.

Jack takes a deep breath, and after a few minutes of settling himself down he decides it’s time to go order another drink.

It’s not like Jack just pines for Mark and doesn’t date other people. There was Signe in high school for like two weeks. Then Robin. And Jack will count Felix even though that never really went anywhere.

So he’s not totally pathetic. He just... can’t help that his stupid heart doesn’t leap at the thought of anyone but Mark.

And if that idiot can’t see how gone Jack is like bloody everyone else can, well, he has to figure that it’s on purpose.

“It will, Bob, it’ll fuck up the band,” Jack hears Mark say from the other side of the bus. He thought they were asleep. It’s like three in the morning and they have a gig tomorrow, but Jack woke up needing to pee and the great outdoors seemed a fine choice for a toilet.

“You’re an idiot if you think something like a real relationship is gonna fuck with the band,” Bob says.

Ah, Jack figures they’re talking about Mel. They'd broken up just over a week ago, Jack doesn’t know the specifics as to why, but Mark hasn't seemed all that upset about it anyway.

“Being in love is a good thing, Mark. You can have good things.”

Something about the way Bob says this reminds Jack of what Wade said to him that night at the party. It's okay for you to be in love with him, you know.

“I don’t know,” Mark says, sighing. “I don’t know and I hate that I don’t know.”

“Look, you guys, together,” Bob says, “it just... works. It always worked.” Jack hates him a little for this. Since when is Bob so gung-ho about Mark and Mel getting back together?

“And when it doesn’t?”

"If anything actually happens because you finally grow some fucking balls,” Bob says, and Mark chuckles a little at this. “If something does go wrong. We’ll still be a band. You’ll still be my friend.”

“At least I’ll have that going for me,” Mark laughs weakly.

“Yeah, at least.”

Jack quietly heads back onto the bus, but he doesn’t manage much sleep.

The next day, Mel releases a sex tape of her and Mark.

“Oh…” Jack says, and for some reason he can’t bring himself to look in Mark’s direction. “No it’s not like that… we’re uh…”

“...Not together... like that,” Mark finishes for him, and for a long moment no one says anything. Even the lady interviewing them seems to sense the tension as she glances between them.

“Well the fans sure do “ship” it, haha,” she says, tapping her pen against her clipboard. “So, any real romance happening in your lives, or does the touring keep you busy?”

“It does keep us all very busy, but we’d like to keep that sorta stuff personal, regardless,” Bob answers, then smiles innocently. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not! It must be so overwhelming having the spotlight suddenly on you,” she says, faux-sympathy written all over her face. “Mark, I know you’ve been dealing with some heavy media attention lately.”

“Is that a question?” Jack snaps, already frustrated with how this interview has gone. When he feels everyone’s eyes on him he looks away, face flushed.

“It’s just that you’ve all been so... quiet,” she says carefully, “Which is understandable, but I’m sure your fans would love a comment from you Mark, and of course from your fellow band members.” She smiles, and it reminds Jack of a bloodthirsty shark circling its prey.

“What do you want to know,” Mark says finally, eyes downcast. “Did I know she taped it? Did my “fellow band members” watch it?” He looks up at her then, pure fury in his voice. “What? Am I into other kinky shit? Am I really that hung or was it the camera angle? What - what do you want from me.”

“This interview’s done,” Bob says, putting a hand on Mark’s shoulder, to silence or comfort him - Jack doesn’t know, maybe both. “You’re not using any of that.”

The lady laughs - laughs . “You don’t get--”

“You’re not using any of it,” Bob says again firmly, towering over her, and the lady shuts up and nods tightly.

“Well that was…” Jack finds himself saying, but Mark is already standing and walking away.

“Get out,” Jack says, trying to pull Mark out of his bunk. “You aren’t sulking here the whole goddamn tour, Mark.”

“Fuck you, yes I am.” Mark resists, rolling away from Jack and - with his extra muscle - manages to pull him halfway into the bunk with him.

“Ow , you fuckin’ ass,” Jack swears. “Tear my arm out its fucking socket, why dont’cha.”

“Hello, Tyler,” Ethan says into his phone, sitting at the table on the bus. “Hi, mommy and daddy are fighting again, I’m scared.”

“Fuckin’ - that’s it.” Jack climbs the rest of the way into the bunk, squeezing himself into the tight space between the ceiling and Mark’s body.

“What’re you - get the fuck out, Jack!” Mark squirms, but only manages to fit them closer together. There’s a lot of kicking and elbowing but Jack manages to hold Mark down. Even if it’s in a precarious, and somewhat suggestive way.

“Dude, I am in prime position to knee you in the balls, do not test me.”

“Nevermind,” Ethan says loudly. “I actually think they’re having sex. Yeah I know right? Finally.”

“Shut up!” They both say at once, and Jack manages to pull back a couple inches to stare Mark down.

“The tape isn’t your fault,” he states simply and firmly as he can.

Mark’s face reddens, and he starts pushing at Jack in earnest. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sean --”

“The questions aren’t your fault either. Fuck’s sake, Mark, we’re a team. When shit happens to you - it happens to all of us.”

Mark sinks back down and avoids Jack’s eyes. “Exactly,” he says, “and now you guys are catching all the shit meant for me. All our work - our music is ruined because of me .”

“No. That’s not what I mean.” Jack shakes his head, keeps his hand pressed to Mark’s chest to keep him still. “The music is the music, it doesn’t matter how people find it, or what they associate it with. It doesn’t even matter whether they like it or not.” Jack swallows when Mark finally looks up at him. “It is what it is, and one stupid sex tape isn’t going to change that.”

Mark is silent for a moment, then quietly asks, “And us?”

“The band is us, stupid,” Jack says, huffing. “It’s our friendship, it’s you and me. Would the band be ruined because I fucked like, I’unno, a german horse?”

“Ew, maybe,” Mark says cringing slightly, but his tone is light.

“Nah, you’d forgive me, wouldn’t ya?” Jack shuffles his body down a bit, but stops when his thigh slides against Mark’s. “We’d even write a song about it.”

“We probably would,” Mark says faintly. “Do you? Forgive me, I mean.”

Jack frowns at this. How can Mark possibly believe that any of this is his fault? “Dude, there’s nothing that I need to forgive. Mel’s a fuckin’ bitch and she screwed you over. And even if you yourself released a bajillion freaky sex tapes, I still wouldn’t be mad. Horrifyingly impressed maybe, but never mad.”

“Yeah?” Mark asks, half-smiling at Jack now in a way that makes his heart get caught in his throat.

“Yeah,” Jack says, biting hack the urge to lean down close and brush his lips against Mark's. “Now, me and the german horse on the other hand…”

Mark doesn’t say anything to that, but he does pull Jack down into a heartfelt hug. And if Jack maybe savours it for longer than he should, well, that’s no one’s business but his own.

After the tour ends, they hang out at Mark and Tyler’s place in LA, laughing and drinking every night. It’s just Ethan and Jack since Bob and Wade flew back to Ohio, so Tyler insists that they crash with him and Mark before their international tour starts.

It feels so normal, like how it was before all the crazy fame and attention.

“You’re gonna tell him, right?” Ethan asks when Jack lies down next to him on the pull-out in the living room.

Jack doesn’t answer, hopes that Ethan will just think he’s drunk and already dead asleep.

“You’ve gotta, dude,” Ethan says anyway, and Jack feels him tug at the sheets when he turns on his side. “You’ll be happy.”

Jack thinks about it the rest of the night, thinks maybe it’s time to get this weight off his chest. But he doesn’t think he can. When Jack really thinks about it he loved Mark the minute they met. When he was fifteen. And Jack’s man enough now that he can accept that he loves him, probably always will. But he couldn't bare actually saying it and having Mark not feel the same way.

It’s better this way, he thinks as he drifts into sleep. Less heartache.

Not an hour later, Tyler is shaking him awake and saying, “Something’s wrong with Mark, get up!”

“You moron,” Jack says, and wipes his nose on his sleeve. Mark continues to sleep, it’s so quiet except for the rhythmic beeps of the machines he’s hooked up to. A really cool nurse let him in when she saw he was practically lying on the floor in the waiting room.

Jack sent the others home after everything was sorted, but couldn’t bring himself to leave.

“Do you even know how bad I would’ve killed you if you died,” he says to Mark’s sleeping face. His chest hurts at just the sight of the tubes in his nose and dark bags under his eyes. “Like, super dead.”

Mark collapsed, turns out his usual minor reaction to alcohol wasn’t so minor at all. It did something to his heart. Jack only got the gist of it - that Mark plus alcohol from now on is a no-go.

“This is the part where I tell you I… I’m in love with you, or whatever.” Jack sniffles and takes his hand in his, careful of the needle stuck in the back of it. “Well nope, in fact, fuck you. You scared the shit outta me. Us. Half your family’s flying down tomorrow, by the way.”

Mark continues to sleep, his hand is heavy and warm in Jack’s as he gently holds it.

“What would I do without you?” Jack says quietly, then, even quieter, “I do love you, ya fuckin’ bastard.”

“Are you always this articulate?” Mark’s voice is gravelly and weak, and his eyes are closed when Jack nearly snaps his neck to look at him.

“Mark?” Jack holds his breath, and then the corners of Mark’s mouth lift up to a smile. “Oh you fuckin’ asshole!” It takes a lot of willpower to not smack him on the chest.

“Be gentle with me,” Mark says meekly, opening his eyes, “my heart stopped or something. I’m delicate.” He squeezes Jack’s fingers which cause him to blush.

“My ass you’re delicate,” is all Jack can say. His face feels hot and he’d really like to pull his hand away, but Mark is holding on like a vice.

“Did you mean it?” Mark asks, and for a second it feels like Jack’s heart stops.

He can’t bring himself to speak, or even look at Mark, as he nods minutely.

“Will you look at me,” Mark croaks, and his fingers are on Jack’s chin, gently turning his face. Their eyes meet, and just fuck Jack’s life, it’s a goddamn hallmark movie.

“Well,” Jack says, though he doesn’t know why, and swallows at the lump in his throat.

Mark smiles at him. “That was really cliche,” he says, and Jack tugs his hand free, hurt. “And I’m really fucking in love with you.”

Jack doesn’t say anything, can’t . But then Mark makes a soft noise and pulls weakly at his hand and Jack goes easily, hugging Mark as carefully as he can. It barely registers that Mark was quoting Hercules when he spoke up, what a nerd.

“I really would have killed you, y’know,” Jack says, muffled against Mark’s collarbone, he brushes his fingers through Mark’s dark hair. “Still might.”

“I know, you’re totally vicious and scary,” Mark says, and his mouth is right against Jack’s ear, making it tingle oddly whenever he speaks. “You’ll kiss me first though, right?”

Jack lifts his head a bit, and Mark looks so fragile, so tired and hurt. And he loves him, so, so much.

“Right,” Jack says softly, leaning down. “I’ll kiss you first.”

Only he doesn’t, as Mark surges up and closes the space between them. His lips are dry and his mouth tastes like chemicals, and like everything that Jack’s ever wanted.

#septiplier #septiplier fic #band au #bandom au #septiplier away!#fic

57 notes · View notes

thelastspeecher · 5 years

Note

The AU where Stan goes through the portal— Stan and Angie’s first holiday season without each other

I cheated a little bit. This isn’t their first holiday season without each other, since the first holiday season would be while Angie is pregnant, and I wanted this to take place after the babs had arrived. Also, this became REALLY long and I apologize for that, but I was struggling to find a good way for it to end, so.

Standucked into an alleyway. He stoodstraight against a brick wall, waiting for his pursuers to pass him. After a few minutes, the footsteps hadsufficiently faded. Stan slumped inrelief.

Thank god. It’s getting tougher and tougher to lose those guys. He rubbed his face. I needto get outta this dimension. Stanslid down the wall. I need to get home. He dugout his wallet, where he had stuffed a piece of paper with numerous tick markson it. He unfolded the piece of paper.

“Twenty,one hundred…” he muttered to himself. Heleaned his head back. “I’ve been gonefor over a year.”

It’s already December back home. I’m missing the holidays with my kids. Not just any holidays. The baby’s first ones. And unless there’s some sorta miracle, I’llmiss the baby’s first birthday, too. Stan swallowed. He took out oneof the other few things in his wallet, a photo of Angie and the girls fromHalloween. Angie was wearing a queencostume, while Danny and Daisy were dressed as princesses. He smiled. I wonder what they dressed up asthis year. Maybe Angie got a frogcostume for the baby like she wanted to for the girls. His smile faded. Thebaby. He looked at the photoagain. Without me around to be the voice of reason, she probably named itPosey. He stroked the photo. Posey’sprobably got Angie’s eyes. My ears. A snowflake drifted onto the picture. Stan sighed.

“MerryChristmas and happy Hanukkah, kids. Sorry I couldn’t be there.”

-----

Lutestrolled into the living room, bouncing Emory in his arms.

“Theworld’s cutest lil reindeer has been changed,” he sang. He looked over at the fireplace, where Angiewas hanging up the stockings. “Banjey,aren’t ya goin’ to look at yer lil boy?”

“Gimme asec,” Angie said. She stood on hertiptoes and carefully slipped the last stocking on a nail. “Okay.” She turned. “Aw, my goofy lilboy,” she cooed, crossing over to Lute. “Emory, yer such a looker!” Angiecarefully took Emory from Lute. Shekissed the top of Emory’s head. “Thankyou fer changin’ his clothes.”

“Noproblem. I’m happy to put him into thecute outfit Ma ��n Pa sent.” Lute lookedaround. “Is Emmett in the playpen?”

“Yep. The fussiest snowman to ever exist is playin’with his teddy,” Angie said, continuing to nuzzle Emory. Lute walked to the playpen. Sure enough, Emmett was sitting in there inhis snowman onesie, excitedly tugging on a teddy bear.

“Hereally likes that stuffed animal,” Lute remarked. “Where’d ya get it from, again?” Angie took a while to answer.

“When thegirls were born, Stan’s mom sent us his old teddy bear,” she said quietly. “Danny ‘n Daisy weren’t too fond of it, butwe held onto it anyways. Turns out itwas the right thing to do, since it’s Emmett’s fav’rite thing.”

“…Oh.” Lute cleared his throat. “Well, uh, Ford ‘n Fidds ‘ll be here soon to helplight the menorah. Did ya…” He caught sight of the menorah resting on thefireplace mantle. “Oh, good. Ya did put it out.”

“We’llmove it before we light it, but I set it there while I was hangin’ thestockings.”

“Why’d yahang the stockings so early?” Lute asked. “It’s not even the Advent yet.”

“Lastyear when ya took down the decorations, ya packed the menorah with thestockings.” Angie shrugged. “Figured I might as well put ‘em up.”

“Makessense.” Lute eyed the stockings. Each one had an embroidered name on it. “I don’t have one up.”

“Ma ‘n Pasaid they’ll send yours in the mail, since it looks like you’ll be stayin’ hereto help with the kidlets fer longer than we first thought.”

“Good.” Lute’s gaze landed on the stocking hung nextto Angie’s. He sighed. “Angie…”

“What?”Angie asked. She joined Lute by theplaypen.

“Stan’snot here.”

“I know,”Angie said shortly. She set Emory in theplaypen. Emory immediately crawled overto a set of plastic toy keys, grabbed it, and began to chew on it.

“Why’d yaput up his stocking, then?” Lute asked. Angie’s face hardened.

“I puthis stocking up last year, too. Yadidn’t say anything back then.”

“You werea wreck. Even sayin’ Stan’s name made yaspiral. I didn’t have the heart to bringit up.” Lute rested a hand on Angie’sback. “Yer in a better place now.”

“I won’ttake it down,” Angie said. Her handsgripped tightly on the fence of the playpen. “Ma made him that stocking the first Christmas after he moved toGumption. I’ve put it up every yearsince. I ain’t liable to change that anytime soon.”

“He’s nothere. There’s no reason to-”

“No. If I take down his stocking, thatmeans-” Angie’s lips quivered. She set her jaw firmly. “That means I’m movin’ on, abandonin’ thepossibility of his return. And he will come back.”

“Banjey,I don’t think that-”

“Drop it,Lute,” Angie snapped. She glared athim. “I mean it. I’m not takin’ the stocking down.”

“Fine,”Lute mumbled. He looked down at Emory andEmmett in the playpen. “I’ll drop it.” The front door opened.

“Mama!”two voices shouted. Angie’s frustratedexpression was wiped away. She turnedand beamed at her twin daughters rushing to her.

“Howdythere, my babies,” she crooned, crouching down. Danny and Daisy embraced her. “Did ya have a good time at yer uncles’ house?”

“Yeah!”Danny enthused.

“UncleFord tried to make latkes and burned everything,”Daisy said with relish. Lute looked overat Ford, who, with Fiddleford and Tate, had entered the living room behindDanny and Daisy.

“Thattrue, Stanford?” he asked, amused. Fordturned pink.

“I don’tknow where I went wrong. I made themsuccessfully last year,” Ford said.

“We havedif’rent definitions of the word ‘successful’,” Lute said.

“Angieate them!” Ford protested.

“Angiealso ate a country-fried steak last December,” Fiddleford pointed out. “The food she hates most in the world. Ya can’t judge a food based on whether or notsomeone who’s pregnant would eat it.”

“Youdon’t like country-fried steak?” Ford asked Angie. Angie stood and shook her head. “And you didn’t like my latkes, either?”

“Honestly,Stanford, the best that could be said about yer latkes last year was that theywere edible,” Angie said. Forddeflated. “What if I help ya out? Did ya bring the recipe with ya?”

“Uh,yes. I did.” Ford beamed. He held up the bag he was carrying. “I also brought dreidels and gelt. The girls are old enough now that I think they can learn the rules.”

“Thatsounds like fun,” Lute said. He smiledat Angie. “Don’t that sound fun? We can all learn how to play withdreidels.” Angie crossed her arms.

“Don’ttake that condescending tone with me,” she hissed.

“Somethin’wrong?” Fiddleford asked.

“No,just- Lute and I had a lil bit of a tiff ‘fore y’all showed up. That’s all.”

“Overwhat?” Ford asked.

“Thestockings,” Lute said. He rubbed theback of his neck. “We- we had adisagreement over whether all of ‘em should get put up.”

“What doyou-” Ford started. He looked over atthe fireplace. His face fell. “Oh.”

“I thinkwe should revisit the stockings at a later time,” Lute said. Angie stormed out of the living room. Lute sighed. “I’ll go talk to her.”

“No, I’lldo it,” Fiddleford said, starting to go after Angie. Ford shook his head.

“Let me.”

“You?” Lutesaid. He crossed his arms, scowling. “I think you’ve done enough to Angie.”

“What’sthat mean, Unclute?” Daisy piped up. Lute looked down at his niece like he’d just now realized she was stillthere.

“Uh,nothin’, sugar cube.”

“What didUncle Ford do to Mama?” Danny asked. Lute ran a hand through his hair.

“Oh, geez,”Lute mumbled. While Lute fumbled throughan answer for Danny and Daisy, Ford headed into the kitchen. Angie stood in front of the sink, her handsgripping the counter so tightly her knuckles were white. Her shoulders shook. Ford took a nervous step back.

“What isit, Stanford?” Angie choked out. Hervoice was thick with tears. Ford clearedhis throat.

“Ithought I’d offer comfort, but I’m beginning to think that I might not be theone best suited for that. I’ll getFiddleford.”

“No.” Angie let go of the counter. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine. I just-” She rubbed her eyes. “It’s the most stupid thing fer me to blow mytop over, but I can’t let it go.”

“What is?”

“Thestockings. Normally they wouldn’t evenbe up this early. Lute just packed theboxes wrong last year, and stuck ‘em in with the menorah. It would be so, so easy to just take downStan’s stocking.” Angie’s headdrooped. “But I can’t.”

“I’mgoing to bring him back, you know,” Ford said softly. Angie nodded.

“I know.”

“You don’thave to worry about the symbolism of the stockings. Stan will be back soon enough to put help putthem up again.”

“It’s theonly thing I can do, Stanford!” Angie said fiercely, slamming a fist down onthe counter. Ford took another stepback. “I can’t help with the portal, ‘causeyou and Fidds refuse to allow me down there. I had to take a sabbatical from my research fer my mental health. I can’t even take care of my children alone.”

“What doyou mean, it’s the only thing you can do?” Ford asked.

“It’sstupid.”

“I’veknown you for years. You’re many things,but stupid is not one of them.” Ford steppedcloser. “Explain.”

“If Imove on, if I take down the stocking, put away his clothes, he won’t come back,”Angie whispered. “He needs a beacon tobring him home, and severing my ties to him will just ensure he never finds usagain.” She shook her head. “It’s stupid. He wasn’t here when the boys were born. There’s nothin’ I could do that could bring him back, if that didn’t.”

“All Ihave to say about Stan not being there when the boys were born is that I knowhe wanted to be,” Ford said after a moment. “But that thing about a beacon…” He dug his journal out of his coat. Angie sighed. “I believe Stan tobe hopping from dimension to dimension, on his journey. Where he arrives is random, each time. But his destination could be swayed byoutside forces.” Angie eyed him.

“…Go on.”

“Stan’smolecules will want to return to their home dimension. That’s why he hasn’t stayed in one spot. Every fiber of his being is being drawn tothis reality. He won’t be content to stayin one place until he returns. But hismolecules aren’t certain of how to return.” Ford flipped his journal open to a specific page and handed it toAngie. She took it from him cautiously. “Your fondness for Stan could serve as a beacon,indicating to his molecules that this is where he is from.”

“Stanford,how would my love fer Stan be a beacon?” Angie asked flatly. She handed his journal back. “Yer tellin’ me empty platitudes in anattempt to cheer me up.”

“Strangerthings have happened,” Ford said. “You’vebeen there for some of them.” Angieshrugged. “And if I know one thing aboutStan, it’s that he’d do anything for his family. I wouldn’t be surprised if the mere presenceof his family in this dimension is what guides him home.” Angie managed a small smile.

“That’strue. Stan would move heaven and earth ferhis fam’ly.” She cocked her head. “Hang on, you did the opposite of what Iexpected.”

“What doyou mean?”

“Iexpected to be talked into takin’ the stocking down. All you’ve done is convince me it needs tostay up.”

“Whywould I convince you to do something I wouldn’t do myself?” Ford asked. Angie chuckled. “So, how would you feel about attempting mymother’s latke recipe with me?” Angiefinally grinned.

“I’d loveto, if it means you’ll keep tellin’ me I’m right.”

#normally this would be under a read more bc it is LONG #but it's also an ask and I don't like putting asks under read mores #anyways I hope y'all enjoyed Ford and Angie bonding a bit in this AU #Reverse Portal Stanley McGucket AU #Stangie #Lute McGucket #Angie McGucket #Fiddleford McGucket #Stanford Pines #Stanley Pines #Danica Pines #Daisy McGucket #Stangie Family #ficlet #my writing #ask #Anonymous

18 notes · View notes