A normal Saturday morning. The brunet-haired teenager, known by his friends as Timmy, dozed quietly in his bed. The sixteen year-old was currently somewhere between being awake, and falling right back into the waiting arms of unconsciousness, after having turned off his alarm clock, the device having woken him up a few minutes earlier, which in itself was due to the teen forgetting to turn it off the night before.
As disheveled and uncomfortably sprawled out on his bed as he looked, Timmy was actually quite content. The air coming in through his open window was just the right temperature to be perfect for sleeping in. He sighed contentedly, happy that he had two whole days of no school to enjoy and relax, since finals had just ended.
Bbbrring!
Of course, this would be a pretty boring story if we just examined Timmy's sleeping habits, so the teen's phone began to ring loudly, scaring him into jumping up from lying on his back, turning over in midair onto his stomach, and unceremoniously flipping himself out of bed, faceplanting onto his(thankfully carpeted) bedroom floor.
"Son of a-" The brunet spoke in a muffled tone, his mouth pressing into the dark blue carpet. "Ugh..." He stood up, nearly tipping right back over, and braced himself against his bedside table, then grabbed his phone and answered it. "What's-" The teen yawned loudly. "What's up, Toots?"
A loud sighing noise came from the other end of the phone, and the brunet imagined his best friend facepalming. "Have I told you how much I hate that nickname?"
Timmy chuckled quietly at his friend's deadpanning tone. "Not since yesterday." He ran his hand through his hair, frowning at the dried, slightly greasy sweat that came off on his fingers. "So... What'd you want again? I tend to sleep in on Saturdays, and you calling is really putting a damper on my plans."
"You forgot, didn't you?" This time, Tootie really did facepalm, annoyed at how ditzy and forgetful her 'best friend' could be.
"What?! Of course not! You think I forgot?! This is important! I'd never forget something as important as... Uh... What you're talking about! You know me better than that Toots..." Timmy responded in a mockingly offended tone, playing along with her, and how cryptic she was being.
"S-stop calling me Toots!" The raven-haired girl blushed and yelled as she stared directly at her phone, giving one the impression that she was mad at the device itself, rather than the cheeky brunet on the other end of the line. "...You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you-"
"Nope!" Timmy smiled as he interrupted her.
"You're impossible... And wipe that shit-eating grin, I-What? Oh... Sorry, Mom... Just Timmy being an ass again... Alright... Um... My mom says 'Hi'." Tootie remarked, clearly a little confused at how quickly her mother dropped being mad at her daughter for swearing, over saying 'Hi' to Timmy.
"Oh, well tell her 'Hi', back." The brunet responded nonchalantly as he opened his dresser to pick out some fresh clothes. The teen figured he was pretty much awake now, so there'd be little point in trying to go back to sleep.
"O-okay... Um... Mom? Timmy says 'Hi'... What? No, we're not- He's just a friend... I- Ugh! You're doing it again! Stop messing with my head!"
Timmy rolled his eyes as Tootie seemingly forgot that she was talking to him. "Tootie?"
"Wha?! But you're married! Why would you- Oh. Oh, very funny. Dad put you up to this, didn't he? Ugh... You two... And to think I used to wonder why Vicki's as evil as she is..."
"Tootie." Timmy spoke a little more forcefully now. "Not that I don't enjoy talking to you, but are you ever gonna get around to telling me why you woke me up on a Saturday?"
"What? Oh, that. Right... How did you forget?! This was your plan in the first place! You were gonna come over, remember?" Tootie spoke exasperatedly now, having grown completely fed up with the brunet.
"My plan? What plan...? Oh! Now I-" "Shit Tootie, why didn't you just say so? I'm gonna go shower now, should be over in... Fifteen, twenty minutes, tops." Timmy moved the phone away from his ear...
"Wait!" Tootie suddenly exclaimed, making the teen pause, look at his phone, then raise it back next to his ear. "So... You're about to take a shower...?"
"Yeah, that's what people tend to do when they go somewhere... Assuming they have running water. Why?" The buck-toothed teen felt a little uneasy now. Was she gonna-
"Take pictures!" Tootie half-spoke, half-squeed at him.
"Pictures?" Timmy deadpanned. "Y'know Toots, I think you got the roles reversed somewhere, I'm supposed to be the pervert, not you... Y'know, cuz you're the girl?"
"A girl can't be perverted?" The female teen spoke in an amused tone.
"Well I... I didn't-"
"'Least I'm consistent. And don't call me the girl. We're not dating. I'm a girl. One who happens to want pictures of her best friend naked. Nothing wrong with that." Tootie shrugged indifferently.
"Actually, there are-" Timmy was cut off by a dial tone, indicating Tootie had hung up on him. "Several things wrong with that..." He shook his head as he placed his cell phone back down on the bedside table. "She got me there though, definitely consistent." The brunet sighed as he gathered up the rest of his change of clothes, along with a towel, and exited his room to cross the hall to the bathroom.
He and Tootie were... Alright. They got along pretty well, now that they were in high school, and her crush on him had fallen by the wayside. Well... For the most part. She'd occasionally hang all over him when it was just the two of them, and the flirting, while playful and light-hearted, had increased by a large amount. Yet through it all, Timmy was by and large unaffected by it. They both knew that it wouldn't lead to anything(well, he knew for sure; Tootie? ...Jury's still out on that one), but she'd recently told him she'd set her eyes on their blond-haired friend, Chester, which made Timmy really not care about how affectionate she was. Weird as it may seem, the brunet opted to enjoy her affectionate gestures, knowing he'd be without them soon enough.
He remembered that, during one of his more recent visits, Tootie's mother, Nicki, had said that her daughter and he were: 'More than friends, but not quite lovers'. And that description suited him and Tootie just fine.
Timmy, realizing he'd been reminiscing a little too long, shut the bathroom door behind him and stepped over to the tub, turning on the shower and sighing in relief when he realized there was still hot water. His parents tended to use the shower as soon as they got up; his mother, followed immediately after by his father. Rarely was there any hot water left for him.
Several minutes later!
The brunet stepped out of the bathroom, a huge steam cloud billowing out around him, and making the teen mentally wish he could release a flock of white doves everytime he entered or exited a room into another one. That'd be more interesting than steam. He returned to his room, tossing his sleeping clothes into his laundry basket, then grabbed his phone and made his way back out into the hall and downstairs into the living room. "Mom? Dad? Anybody home?"
"In here Honey!" His mother called from the kitchen.
"They're actually here?" Timmy thought in disbelief. His original plan had been to check if they were around, and leave when he knew(or thought he knew) they weren't. The brunet opened the door to the kitchen, finding his dad sipping his usual morning coffee, and his mother cooking scrambled eggs. "Um... Hi?"
"Morning Sweetie!" Mrs. Turner waved at her son, keeping her gaze focused on her cooking. "What are you doing up so early? You're usually still asleep by the time we leave on Saturdays."
"Early?" The brunet looked at his phone again, realizing it was only a little after eight in the morning. "Huh... Uh, Tootie called me. We were gonna hang out today."
"Tootie..." His mother dumped the scrambled eggs onto a couple plates, one for herself, the other for her husband, then set about buttering the pan so she could make some for Timmy as well. "Oh! Vicki's sister! Now I remember!"
"Small wonder..." Timmy rolled his eyes again.
"Just the two of you?" Mrs. Turner looked over her shoulder at Timmy slyly. "Not hanging out with Chesty and Ajax?"
"Chesty and Ajax...? Who?!" "Um... You mean Chester and AJ?" Timmy asked, genuinely believing his mother couldn't possibly be that dense and inattentive.
"Oh yes! Them! Don't you and Tootie usually hang out with them on the weekends?" His mother returned to her cooking, clearly only half-interested in what her son had to say.
"Yeah... Usually, but I'm just going over to Tootie's house today. We're probably gonna play some video games, maybe go out to eat, I dunno." The brunet shrugged, not wanting his parents to pick up on what they more than likely already thought they knew.
"You know Timmy..." His father spoke up as he finished the last of his morning coffee, joining the conversation at last. "That friend of yours is related to Vicki..."
Timmy stared at his father expectantly, thinking that he had more to say, but when the older male did little but return the stare, the teen decided to speak. "Okay, and..?"
"Well..." His mother began hesitantly as she dumped the eggs she'd been cooking onto a plate for Timmy. "You and her hang out together a lot... And you are at that age where boys tend to start chasing after girls..."
"And your mother and I have been thinking that, as a teenage male who's swimming in his own hormones, maybe you'd want to... Try for a relationship with her?" Mr. Turner shifted in his chair uncomfortably, being wholly unprepared for the conversation he and his wife were having with their son.
"I mean, Vicki's always been very reliable, even offering to keep an eye on things around here after we told her you didn't need a babysitter anymore, so we figured Tootie might have a few things in common with her sister..."
Timmy looked at his mother, who now also seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable with the conversation, yet the teen himself just felt confused. "W-where are we going with this?"
"Well... Your father and I tend to be out a lot, going to the Bahamas, Florida, Tibecuador..."
"Hawaii too!" Mr. Turner interjected excitedly.
"Oh yes! Remember that time we went to the top of the volcano, Honey? So breathtaking..." Mrs. Turner trailed off nostalgically, before remembering she was in front of her son. "F-for business meetings! R-right, Honey?"
"Oh! Um... Yep! Business- Business meetings!" Timmy's father nodded up and down in rapid agreement with his wife.
"Mm-hm! Business meetings! ...Um, anyway... We know that this can be a confusing time for you, with puberty and hormones and... Other things..."
"Ah jeez... Mom, Dad, I appreciate what you're trying to say, but I really don't need to be told about 'The Birds and the Bees'..." The gears in Timmy's head finally began turning, and he realized just what was on his parents' minds. It was almost comical how wholly unprepared his parents were for this conversation, but the hilarity of it was overshadowed by Timmy's own embarrassment. "A-and! T-things aren't like that between me and Tootie! We're just friends! ...Kind of..." Unfortunately, his very obviously red face, brought on by his parents' thinly-veiled assumptions about what their son would do while they were away, did little to validate his claim.
"Oh, you're right Sweetie. I'm sure they teach you everything you need to learn about all that in school these days..." His mother waved her hand in a mildly dismissive manner.
"Actually, I learned most of it from the Internet- ...I mean, yeah. School." The brunet's eyes shifted back and forth in his head nervously, the last thing he needed was to be questioned on his... Extracurricular activities on his computer. "So... You're saying that if I theoretically had a girlfriend... You guys... Wouldn't mind her being here? With me? ...Alone, just the two of us?" The teen was no longer sure if he should see his parents' neglectful ways as such a bad thing.
"Um... Well... We should probably..." Mr. Turner began to sputter and trip over his own words, wondering how he could best escape from this conversation now that it had come to its inevitable conclusion. Thinking quickly, the man gasped and pointed to the window over the kitchen sink. "Timmy! Look at that thing coming through your window! I dunno what it is but...!"
"Wha? My window?" The brunet, still somewhat gullible, even though he was more than halfway through his teen years, quickly turned toward the direction his father pointed, which was enough time for Mr. Turner to grab his wife's wrist, sprint out of the kitchen and then house with said wife in tow, then leap into their car and speed out of the driveway, and out of Dimmsdale.
"See you in a week, Honey!" Mrs. Turner's voice echoed through the city streets and back to the Turner household, accompanied by a trail of fire left by Timmy's parents' sporty car.
"See me in a...? Hey! There's nothing coming through the window!" The brunet looked out the aforementioned window and watched the trail of fire left in his parents' wake fizzle out. A quick look around the kitchen revealed to the teen that his parents had left with such haste that his mother had seemingly forgotten to turn the stove burner off, and his father's coffee mug was somehow still spinning in midair, likely due to the haste with which its owner had fled. "Wait... Dad didn't technically give me an answer... So..." Timmy smirked to himself. For once, it seemed that the universe was playing in his favor...
The brunet-haired teen set about cleaning up the kitchen, helping himself to his parents' forgotten breakfasts, as well as his own, then cleaning up the now scattered newspaper, the plates used for breakfast, and his father's somehow still-levitating coffee mug, then grabbed his keys and made for the exit of the kitchen. "Tootie's probably gonna be furious with me for taking so long... But I still feel like I'm forgetting..." Timmy scanned the kitchen for anything that might've been amiss, his eyes eventually falling on the still-burning stove-top. "Eugh... That'd be embarrassing... 'Oh Timmy, how'd the house burn down? We finally acknowledged that you can be trusted in our absence!'" He rolled his eyes for a third time as he strode over to the stove and turned it off.
With the cleaning up finally done(and his house no longer in danger of burning down), Timmy left his house, shutting and locking the door behind him. His eyes then fell upon his own car... Or rather, the hand-me-down car his father had given him when his parents splurged on the sports car they now frequently took to go to their 'business meetings'. The car itself; an older model station wagon with wood paneling, was by no means 'cool' for someone his age, but it was practical. The teen needed something to get him from point A to point B, and that was exactly what the car did.
And, much to his annoyance, his friends took immediate advantage of him having a car, despite both having their licenses, and(AJ at least) having enough money to get their own cars. "'Course, now that I've got a car to chauffeur those two around, I doubt they'll ever get their own..." Timmy sighed loudly as he got into the station wagon. "Still, they do give me gas money, so it's not too bad..." Timmy started the car, grinning at the fact that, unlike when his dad drove it, the car always started for him on the first try. Though to be fair, the brunet took much better care of it than his father ever had, being that the man wasn't particularly knowledgeable about cars. Or carpentry. Or housework. Or parenting.
He reversed the car out of the driveway, then shifted it back into drive to begin the drive over to Tootie's house, roughly two blocks away. Yes, he could've walked the very short distance, but his car was actually a part of his plan today. "Assuming everything works out..."
At Tootie's house...
Tootie leaned against the wrought-iron railing of her front porch. Her 'guest', if he could still be called as such, was evidently doing his utmost to try her patience today. With a heavy and melodramatic sigh, the raven-haired girl sat down on the top step of her porch and dropped her head into her hands, face-first. To be fair, this whole situation was her fault, since she couldn't just have the courage to ask Chester if he wanted to hang out sometime. No, she had to get her 'best friend' involved, ask Timmy what Chester liked to do, where he might like to go, if she had any chance at all with the blond...
And that cheeky little brunet-haired sneak blackmailed her! ...Kind of. Timmy promised he'd help her with Chester, on the condition that she'd help him with... "I just don't understand him sometimes- Usually." Tootie corrected herself. "I don't know if he's got some back-asswards way of thinking, or if he's just doing this as some kind of... Polite formality, or... Or if he thinks this has got a chance of working in the first pla-" The girl took pause as Timmy's old, beaten-up hand-me-down station wagon pulled into her house's driveway. "Took you long enough! Make a stop at the Dimmadome on the way here or something?"
"It's like being married..." Timmy muttered to himself as he got out of his car. "We still good to go?"
"Barely. I'm holding your dumb ass to our agreement, hope you know." Tootie crossed her arms over her chest and put on her best pouty face.
"See? I don't even know why you need my help, you put on that cute face and it'll be love at first sight for Chester." The brunet shrugged with a smug grin on his face.
Tootie; still pouting, felt her face heat up, mentally cursing the fact that Timmy still knew all the right buttons of hers to press. "Ten dollars says that confidence is gonna disappear once we get inside."
"That's hardly even a bet, but, deal." Timmy pulled out his wallet, then took a ten out of it, handing it to Tootie.
"Wha? You're just giving up?" The raven-haired girl looked at the money in her hand incredulously. "Where's the Timmy I used to know that stayed determined until the end?"
"Well..." The brunet ran his hand through his hair, happy that it was clean and sweat-free. "This is different. Truthfully? I'm already pretty nervous... And where's my hug?" Timmy's tone went from somber to mockingly offended in an instant. "Thought greeting hugs were mandatory, stated by... Oh! You." He pushed his luck now, lightly poking Tootie's nose.
"A hug?" She deadpanned at him with a flat expression. "You're lucky I didn't greet you with a knee to the crotch. You definitely deserve that more than a hug for making me stall my parents."
The brunet stared at Tootie for several seconds, then mimicked her pose, crossing his arms over his chest, but keeping the smug expression.
"I'm not hugging you." Tootie spoke adamantly.
Timmy's response was to quirk an eyebrow up at the girl in front of him. "I got all day, Toots." He didn't, but if today didn't work out, he'd just have Tootie stall her parents on a different day.
"You're a jerk." The raven-haired girl sighed in defeat as she stepped over to Timmy and looped her arms around him, yet quickly pulled away before the male teen could return the hug. "Greeting hugs are over from this day forward."
"Breaking my heart here..." Timmy remarked sarcastically as Tootie opened her front door, bidding that he follow her into the house.
"Oh!" Tootie suddenly stopped in the middle of the living room and spun around to face the brunet, nearly causing him to crash into her. "You-know-who is still sleeping, so try and keep your voice down, 'kay?" Tootie nodded her head towards the stairs.
"Tootie, this isn't my first time here, relax. I'm just gonna talk to your dad real quick, then I'll split. Nice and simple." The brunet patted his friend's shoulders reassuringly.
"Right, because I'm sure that things are gonna be 'nice and simple' just because you said so."
The male teen looked at his friend seriously. "You know something, Toots? There's bossy, which can be sexy, then there's bitch-"
"Oh, Timmy! When did you get here?"
Timmy looked up at Mrs. Nicole Valentine, 'Nicki' to most people, and the mother of Tootie and Vicki Valentine. Physically, the woman looked like a near-carbon copy of his best friend, aged about... Fifteen years. Though he was sure she was older than that. Aside from their clothes and age, the only real difference between Nicki and Tootie was the older woman's striking pink eyes, a trait that only one of her daughters had inherited. "Just now, I know you and Tootie's dad are probably getting ready to leave, but I wanted to stop by and ask him something real quick... Er... If that's alright?"
"Hm? Sure, I don't see why not... It's not anything serious, right?" Nicki looked at the boy curiously, seeing that his hands still rested on her daughter's shoulders.
"Not... Um... Not life-threateningly serious... Just kinda serious?" Timmy frowned as he heard his voice crack, making him sound ten again.
"Well, he's still here; did... Tootie put you up to this? Kind of... Stalled us so you'd get a chance to talk to my husband?"
"Not much point in hiding it now..." "Um... Yes, but she didn't put me up to it so much as she helped me plan it out." Timmy felt a light wave of heat wash over him, causing him to begin sweating slightly.
"Alright, well... If the two of you had to go to such lengths... I guess it must be pretty important." Nicki shrugged and turned to head back into the kitchen, she was interested in Timmy's presence at her house, but figuring she'd hear whatever it was that he had to say, either from the brunet himself, or her husband once they talked.
Timmy waited until the older woman was out of earshot before turning his attention back to Tootie. "A-anything I should know about your dad? He's... Not a convict, or anything like that, right?"
It was Tootie's turn to raise an eyebrow at her friend, being genuinely surprised at how quickly he'd gone from being her confident, snarky best friend to a nervous little kid again. And she was going to have fun with that... just a bit. "Heheh... Where do you think Vicki gets her mean streak from? You know it ain't mom, so... Care to find out?" With an evil smirk, Tootie spun around to face the door to the kitchen and went in, leaving Timmy alone in the living room.
The brunet watched his friend leave, and groaned. He was almost tempted to forget the whole thing and just go home, his confidence was already feeling like it was dwindling, and the idea that Mr. Valentine might just laugh at the question he was minutes away from posing to the man... It certainly didn't help the teen's confidence...
Shrugging his shoulders, Timmy opted to follow Tootie into the kitchen and test his luck. "Already come this far, might as well see this through as far as it'll go..." The first thing the brunet saw as he entered the kitchen was Tootie, desperately trying to reach for one of the cabinets that was out of her short reach. "You want some-"
"I can do it, you've got more important things to worry about." The raven-haired girl glared at him, likely knowing that, if she had asked for his help, he would've subjected her to a bit of(admittedly playful) teasing about her height.
"Whatever you say, Tootie." Stifling a giggle at the girl as she hopped up onto the counter, Timmy directed his gaze over to the kitchen table, at which sat Tootie's parents. "Excuse me... Uh... Mister Valentine? If you're... Not too busy, could I talk to you about something?" The brunet noticed his shaking hands, and jammed them into his pockets in an effort to calm them down. He'd never met Vicki and Tootie's dad before; the man usually left before his wife did, and so Timmy wasn't quite sure what to expect when the man lowered the morning newspaper away from his face. Suffice to say, he certainly didn't expect a red-headed man with a lean build similar to his oldest daughter.
"Hm? You're Timmy, I presume? Tootie and Nicki have told me a bit about you, it's nice to finally meet the boy who's been charming my wife and daughter." The man smiled jokingly at Timmy, immediately putting the teen more at ease. "Anyway, sure. We'll talk in the living room, away from the women-folk."
"Uh... O-okay?" Timmy was well beyond confused now. He'd always assumed that, seeing as how Nicki was one of the nicest women he'd ever met, Vicki must've been able to owe her more abrasive nature to her father, yet this simply couldn't be the case. Mr. Valentine was nearly as amicable as his wife, and he joked around with Timmy like they were already friends!
The brunet followed the red-haired man back into the living room, sitting down on the couch as Tootie and Vicki's father sat on a similar, yet smaller couch situated across from the one Timmy now occupied. "Alright Tim, what did you-"
"His name is Timmy, Dad." Tootie interrupted Mr. Valentine as she came into the living room, then sat down next to Timmy on the couch and grabbed the remote with her left hand to turn on the TV, while she held a small box of cloyingly sweet-smelling cookies in her right.
"Alright, alright. Timmy." Mr. Valentine put his hands up in defense. "So, what's eating you, Timmy? You've got a look on your face that says you want... No, I'd say need to get something off your chest. Everything good between you and my little angel?" The red-headed man smiled at Tootie.
"Dad!" The raven-haired girl's face pinkened as she looked away and jammed a cookie into her mouth. "Jeez... Albays ebara-ing me..."
The brunet struggled to keep a straight face at the antics between his best friend and her father, but quickly remembered why he had come to their house in the first place and focused his gaze on Tootie's dad, doing his best to attain, maintain, and not break eye contact with the man. "Um... Where to start..." Timmy twiddled his thumbs in his lap nervously. "I'm- Uh... Not really sure how to ask this, so I'll just... Ahem... M-Mister Valentine, I would like to..."
Thud
A light weight fell into Timmy's lap, making the brunet look down to find Tootie's head resting on his legs, her gaze aimed up at him. The raven-haired girl brought one of the cookies she'd been eating up to her mouth, but stopped short as she felt her best friend's and father's eyes watching her. "Hm? Oh, no, you guys continue. I just needed a more comfortable position to watch TV, and you make a great pillow." Tootie winked at Timmy before letting her eyes drift back to the television set as she bit into the cookie.
"Tootie... You're not helping..." Timmy whined out as the girl ignored him, opting instead to try and find the most comfortable position to lay her head on in his lap. As if the girl's occasional wiggling wasn't distracting enough, her breath, now smelling exactly like the overly sweet cookies she was eating, kept wafting into his face. He wanted to lift her head off his lap and move her over so he could focus... But even as scrawny and nonthreatening as Tootie's father looked, Timmy would rather avoid getting on the man's bad side, and manhandling his 'little angel' would probably be frowned upon.
"Juss aks him!" Tootie yelled over the cookie she was eating, sending little bits of crumbs up into the air, several of which struck the Timmy's face.
"Ah! Um... R-right... I wanted to ask... A-Ask for your permission to d-date your d-daughter." Timmy released a very relieved-sounding sigh as he finished. The hardest part of the day was over. Now, he just had to hope that Mr. Valentine would give him consent.
"...That's what was so hard to say? Wow..." The red-haired man, who already looked fairly calm and collected, somehow became even more relaxed, leaning back and reclining on the couch. "You had me going for a few seconds there, I thought you might've knocked Tootie up or something..."
The brunet's gaze dropped to his lap upon hearing these words, not necessarily for the purpose of looking at Tootie though, more to hide the obvious reddish tint on his cheeks, a color that matched the one found on the face of the girl whose head remained in his lap. "Grr... Dad!"
Timmy leaned back just in time for Tootie to sit bolt-upright, throw her legs over the side of the couch as she turned toward Mr. Valentine, and whip the box of cookies directly into the poor red-headed male's face, sending his head reeling back. "Ow..."
"And you wonder why I've never introduced you to Timmy!" The raven-haired girl crossed her arms over her chest and looked away, the blush on her face growing to luminescent levels. "Like I'm dumb enough to get pregnant at sixteen..."
"Augh... Nicki? Honey...? I think..." The man sitting across from Timmy rubbed at his sore nose, fearing it might be broken. "I think I might have a mild concussion..." The male red-head picked the box of cookies up from the cushion next to him and turned it upside-down to poor them into his hand, revealing that all the remaining cookies had been turned to dust from the impact. "Agh... Well son, you got guts, I'll give you that. Both to ask me for something like permission, and to want to date my daughter... Name's Ricky, by the way... Richard, if it's all the same to you."
Timmy looked at Tootie's dad quizzically. "You have the same name as-Mmph?" The teen's sentence was cut off by Tootie's warm hand slapping over his mouth.
"Yeah, as that guy. My advice? Don't mention that name when she's around, you'll live longer that way." The girl winked at Timmy as she pulled her hand away.
"But... I gotta ask Tim- Er... Timmy, you and Tootie already seem to be together, and you get along so well... Why ask me for permission if you two are already going steady?" Richard looked at the two teens in confusion.
"What? I- Oh... Um... No, Tootie and I, we're just friends- Well, best friends, easily... You thought I was..." Timmy facepalmed, realizing his mistake. "Er... Sorry. Tootie's awesome, and she'd be a great catch for a very lucky guy, but..."
The raven-haired girl to the brunet's left rolled her eyes, seeing that Timmy was likely going to keep her and her father there until Easter at the rate they were going with the conversation. "Dad? Timmy's not talking about me, he means... The other one."
As if on cue, a thunderous bang echoed through the house, followed by shuffling footsteps that traveled through the second floor hallway until stopping at the stairs, then began slowly descending them, like their owner had just awoken from hibernation, and hadn't quite managed to re-learn to walk. The first thing the trio in the living room saw was a pair of pale-ish feet, followed by equally pale, long, slender legs, much of them being quite exposed, save for their owner's uppermost thighs and waist, which was covered by a pair of black sleeping shorts that left just enough to the imagination. The figure, now easily identifiable as a woman, also wore a rather disheveled lime green tank-top, one that she more than likely had worn to bed for years. The right shoulder of the shirt had slipped off, revealing the woman's shoulder, pale like the rest of her, though there was a barely-there dusting of freckles on it, and probably the left one too. The brunet's gaze swept over the shirt again after spotting her exposed shoulder, making him realize that his ex-babysitter evidently wasn't fond of wearing a bra to bed. Finally, Timmy's eyes moved further up, coming to rest upon the face of Tootie's older sister. That was pale too, suggesting she didn't go out and sunbathe as often as she did back when she babysat him, though her cheeks remained lightly freckled. Her fiery hair had grown a fair bit longer, though, at the moment, it was heavily disheveled and messy from sleeping, and were it not tied up in a haphazard ponytail, Timmy imagined it would likely reach the small of the woman's back, maybe a little further.
She yawned and stretched as she reached the bottom of the stairs, only having her left eye open as the other remained closed, likely hoping it could go back to sleep soon. "I heard-" The red-haired woman cut herself off with another yawn, this one leaning more towards cute than the obnoxious first one. "Ugh, I heard yelling? Is there some rule forbidding sleeping in around here- Whoa." The pink-eyed woman looked around the room. Her sister, Tootie, was blushing and refusing to look at much of anything, her dad... Had a bloody nose, likely Tootie's doing... Vicki turned her attention to the anomaly in her living room. "Twerp? What... What are you doing here? I walk into an intervention or something?"
Richard was the first to speak, after grabbing a tissue form the coffee table to wipe his hemorrhaging nose, of course. "Ah... Vicki? Mind putting some clothes on? We have a guest..."
Timmy took note of the fact that Vicki's father's cheerful demeanor had almost completely dissipated, he now sounded like someone trying to keep from aggravating a velociraptor, or maybe appease a demigod who was seconds away from destroying him with nary more than a glare.
"You mean the Twerp? This isn't the first time he's been here." The red-head shrugged indifferently. "Besides, this is my house, I can wear whatever I want." Vicki's right eye opened at last, both now focusing on Timmy, eliciting what he hoped would be a friendly wave in her direction. "And he's seen me in less, haven't you Timmy?" A grin worked its way across the woman's face as Timmy's cheeks turned red again.
"I- Well... We have a pool at my house, so..." It was true, though the sixteen year old left out the part about how he had been the one to dig the hole for the pool in the first place. That summer, one would more often than not find the red-head sunbathing by the pool, or swimming in it in her green, string bikini. "I miss summer."
"So, what are you doing here so early..." Vicki trailed off as she sniffed the air. "Hold that thought." Vicki sniffed again, her mouth beginning to water at the scent of breakfast.
The trio in the living room watched as their conversation's fourth member and subject of discussion strode out of the room and into the kitchen, leaving Tootie nodding her head back and forth in disapproval at her sister's lack of modesty, the two girls' father scratching his head as his brain tried to wrap itself around and understand the implications of what Timmy had just said, and the aforementioned male teen watching the object of his affection leave with a dumb grin on his face.
