Yes, this is one of those 'oh, they're all babies' fics (they have one or more for every fandom I assume). It's based on this time when I tried to draw the Rent characters and they ended up looking like babies. Later I actually drew them as babies. I guess this is kind of like Rugrats and I won't pretend it's the greatest thing I've ever written, but it was fun.
It was Halloween at the Seasons of Love Daycare Center. All of the children got candy as a special treat (the children who were old enough to eat on their own, anyway). In a far corner of the large room, eight small tykes were playing in a house made of paper bricks and eating candy corn, the only treat that wouldn't get the daycare providers in trouble.
"You all owe me two pieces of candy!" one of them demanded of the others. A small boy, unsteady on his legs looked up at the small vampire, for that was how the bossy baby was dressed. He had practically no hair and was dressed in a one-piece romper made to look like a tuxedo. He wore a cape on his back. And he was demanding candy.
"But we only have three each!" the other boy protested.
"Why do we have to give you anything?" another little boy asked. The vampire looked at the pink bunny and the pumpkin.
"We're playing 'rent.' I'm the landlord. You're just the refrigerator and the pet rabbit. The stupid pink rabbit," he said cruelly, laughing at his friend's costume. The pink bunny rubbed his nose and scratched at his fake ears.
"I don't want to be the refrigerator," the boy dressed as a pumpkin said; "I want to be the rock star!" He played a "medley" of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' and 'Twinkle Twinkle' on his toy guitar.
"Apartments don't have rock stars," the vampire explained, "And refrigerators don't have guitars!" He snatched the guitar away, causing the now guitar-less pumpkin to burst into tears.
"Benny!" cried a little ballerina. She toddled over to her apartment's refrigerator and gave him a big hug. "Don't hurt the refrigerator! I'm going to marry him!" The fridge cried even harder and the landlord scoffed.
"You can't marry a refrigerator, Mimi. Now give me the two pieces of candy corn that you promised as rent!" Mimi frowned at both Benny and at Roger, who was struggling out of her grasp.
"I'm not marrying you!" he whined. The pink bunny laughed. "Shut up girly bunny," Roger whimpered. Mark stopped laughing. He hated the costume his mommy had made him wear. He looked around at everyone else's better costumes. Even being a pumpkin like Roger would have been better, but he admired Benny's vampire suit (as much as Benny irritated him), and his friend Collins was wearing a basketball uniform. Angel was-
"What are you wearing?" Mark asked his friend. Angel jumped gracefully over to him.
"I'm a princess!" he exclaimed. Everyone stared.
"I thought you were a ninja," Benny said.
"Now I'm a princess," Angel insisted. "I got the clothes from the dress-up trunk." The others just shrugged and Angel went back to prancing around with his magic wand. Benny continued to ask the others for the payment and Roger tried to escape Mimi's clutches while she practiced her ballet moves and ran after him.
"Pay me," Benny told Mark. Mark smiled.
"Why does the pet rabbit have to pay rent?" he asked. Benny frowned.
"Or the frigrater?" Roger added.
"Fine!" Benny said, "I'll get the rent from my tenants. He looked at Mimi, Angel, Collins, Joanne, and Maureen." The five of them were the daughter, the "other daughter", the father, the mother, and the struggling actress who lived with them for no reason.
"If they're not paying, I don't want to," Joanne said, straightening her witch hat.
"They're a rabbit and a refrigerator. You're the mommy. You have to pay." Benny held out his hand.
"I'm their daughter," Angel said, skipping over to Benny, "I'm a dependant. I don't have to pay either." Mimi grinned and put her arm around Angel's shoulder. The two of them skipped off to plan a ballet.
"Then I'll get my payment from the parents and the struggling actress," Benny said, putting his hand out in front of Maureen's face. Maureen popped all three of her pieces of candy corn into her mouth and stuck out her tongue at Benny.
"Now Joanne and Collins will each have to give me three to make up for that," he warned her. Mark stood up on his tiny legs and walked over the fake wall.
"I don't want to play rent anymore," he said. Everyone except Benny followed him and Benny, not wanting to be left out, stopped forcing the other babies to give him candy and joined them.
It was snack time and everyone in the daycare center was hungry. Some of the weaker tots were crying from hunger, but the eight friends were too stubborn to cry from that.
"Bring us the chocolate milk!" Maureen cried, though adults can't understand baby language. Soon, a daycare worker came by and handed all of the kids two graham crackers and… 1 milk. They stared at the white beverage. "Does this look like chocolate milk?!" Maureen asked the workers in an irate tone. But the workers had moved on to other children. Maureen shook her milk violently. Roger had other concerns.
"I hate 1 milk," he said. "If it has to be white, it should be 2."
"It tastes the same," Collins said, opening his carton and taking a big gulp. Mimi smirked.
"If you close your eyes." The others- except for Maureen- laughed.
"Do you not see that this is a serious problem?" she inquired of her friends. The others looked at her. They shook their heads and continued to munch on their crackers, though Roger was still wary of the fat percentage of his moo juice. "If we let them take away our chocolate milk, what will they take from us next?" Maureen said, standing up tall and holding out her chest, "Our nap mats? Our finger-paint?"
"It's just snack time variety," Joanne said coolly. Maureen shook her head.
"This violates everything we stand for!" Her friends looked at each other.
"You're a drama queen," Benny snorted, "We don't stand for chocolate milk." The others nodded in agreement.
"But you do want the chocolate milk, right?" Maureen asked. The others blinked. "Wouldn't you rather have chocolate milk?" The others nodded. "Well, you want chocolate milk and they're not giving it to you!" She put her hands under her chin, thinking. "This calls for… a protest!"
The infants watched Maureen bustle around the playroom, grabbing markers and pieces of paper. Furiously, she scribbled the words 'We Want Chocolate Milk' on some signs, 'White Milk's For Wimps' on the others. Of course, since she didn't know how to write, the signs looked like big scribbles. She handed them to each of her friends and to other kids in the daycare, even to those who couldn't hold anything.
"They'll know we're all against them!" Maureen cried, rushing to the little stage she had constructed out of the play bricks. "Everyone gather around!" she called to the children. They came.
Benny looked at Mark. "I wish someone would make her stop," he said. Mark nodded as best he could in his bunny suit.
"Last night I had a dream!" Maureen proclaimed to her audience, most of who were sucking their thumbs or gurgling. "It was hot, I was thirsty, and I was cranky. A cow walked over to me and I asked her for milk. She was a chocolate milk cow. She told me "I am forbidden to produce chocolate milk at Seasons of Love. Here we only drink…" Maureen banged on a plastic drum, "One percent." The other children looked at each other, confused.
"We must get our chocolate milk back for the sake of children everywhere!" Her friends sighed with relief that her protest was over. Well, Mimi and Angel seemed to be enjoying it, but everyone else stared at the small brunette with horror. But the protest was not over.
"Moo with me!" she yelled. Soon, the room was filled with mooing tots. Benny was horrified, but the others reluctantly joined in. The smaller babies, who could not figure out how to moo, began to wail their heads off, which caused other kids to cry, which brought all of the daycare workers running. Maureen jumped up and down. "MOO!" she yelled, "MOO MOO!" A worker grabbed her and took her outside to calm her down and to stop her from upsetting everyone else.
The boho-babies were sitting at a small table that was covered in crayon scratches, eating creature crackers and… white milk, the one percent kind. Collins drank his merrily, trying to avoid Maureen's death glare. Maureen would not touch hers and would not touch the creature crackers because "they were part of the establishment by association."
"More for me!" Angel said, grabbing her share of the cookies. He looked around at his friends and gave each of them, except for Maureen, part of her share. Then his eyes quickly filled with tears.
"Are you okay?" Mimi asked. She took a big gulp of her milk, with her eyes firmly closed. Angel continued to bawl, but he wouldn't tell the others what was wrong. Then Collins noticed a cookie on the floor. It had broken.
"The dog fell off the table," Collins told the others.
"It's just a cookie," Joanne said.
"Why are they called crackers?" Mark asked. Everyone looked at him. So the table was in a state of chaos. Angel was in tears, Maureen was huffy, Mimi kept spilling her milk down her dress, Roger kept sliding away from her, Joanne remained indignant, Collins kept trying to tell Angel that the cookie wasn't dead, Mark wondered stupid things, and Benny laughed at all of them.
"Angel, I know what will make you feel better!" Mimi announced. "We should perform our ballet!" Angel brightened up instantly and grabbed Mimi's hand, pulling her and a huge trail of milk into the main room. The others followed.
"We're going to perform our ballet, 'Best Friends.'" Angel cheered, jumping up and down and clapping his hands. Everyone else made gagging noises and a bunch of care-givers ran over to see if they were choking. During this time, Mimi and Angel had changed into their performance clothes. Mimi still had her milk-stained pink tutu on, but Angel was now wearing a purple tutu over his outfit. They had attempted to put a variety of ribbons in their hair and had also set aside some room for the ballet. The two grinned expectantly at Roger.
"What are you lookin' at me for?" he inquired.
"We need someone to play the music." Benny laughed.
"Have fun performing the Mary Had a Twinkle Twinkle" dance," he scoffed. The others laughed, too. It was known that Roger didn't come up with the most original songs, even if his guitar only had four settings.
"Shut up!" Roger wailed, "I just haven't mastered 'Baa baa black sheep' and 'London Bridges!" Mimi patted Roger's shoulder and Angel followed suit.
"You know Roger," Mimi said, "We were thinking that 'Mary Had a Twinkle Twinkle' would be perfect for our show." For once, Roger didn't pull away from Mimi.
"You think so?" Angel nodded.
"Yes! The song really speaks to us about friendship."
"How?" asked Mark.
"Mark, you don't have to question everything," Angel said, "Just go with it."
"Yeah!" yelled Maureen. She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Could I say something in your show about the unfairness of one percent milk?" Angel and Mimi looked at each other.
"Ballets should have serious themes," Angel told his colleague. Mimi agreed. Mark's little face lit up.
"I could film your show!"
"I'll make sure no one steals your idea!" said Joanne, "It's called copy-iting!"
"I'll handle the money!" squealed Benny. Everyone looked at Collins, wondering how he could contribute.
"How about I sit in the back and pretend I don't know any of you?"
Best Friends: a ballet performed by Mimi Marquez and Angel Dumott-Schunard.
Music by Roger Davis.
Video by Mark Cohen.
With a special message by Maureen Johnson.
Benny takes money.
Don't steal this because Joanne said so.
Collins doesn't know us.
"Do you think the poster is good enough?" Angel asked, nervous. He and Mimi were standing "backstage" which was behind a bookshelf. They peeked out at their audience, which was Collins, sitting as far away as possible, and some very young babies who had no choice but to be pulled into the room in their carriers by Maureen and Benny.
"It's a wonderful poster. You're brilliant." Angel smiled and smoothed his dress. Mimi signaled to Roger to start the music and soon the sounds of 'Mary had a Twinkle Twinkle' filled the air. Mimi danced gracefully onto the stage and waved her hands around. Now the other boho babies except for Mark, who was filming, and Maureen, who was waiting for her cue were sitting in the audience. Mimi stopped what she was doing and glared at them.
"You have to go "oooooooh" because I'm sparkly," she said. The audience quickly went "oooooooh" or in some cases, "gooooooooo." Mimi continued her performance. This part of the ballet was called "I have no friend." Mimi danced sadly, wishing she had a best friend. Suddenly, Angel danced onto the stage and started the dance "I Can Be Your Friend." The two danced together, eventually dancing their piece called "Best Friends." It was a short show, but it was very good. Then Maureen walked onto the stage.
"I am here today to discuss with you a problem that plagues everyone at this daycare center. They have taken away chocolate milk, a basic freedom of every child in this country and possibly Canada. We must not stand for this. So I encourage all of you: make yourselves heard, speak your mind. Don't drink your white milk! Then they will see that we don't want it!" The other children clapped when Maureen finished and they clapped for the rest of the performers.
"It was a successful show," Benny said, "I made seven cookies!" His friends stared.
"People paid to see the show?" Mark asked. Benny nodded.
"They're over there." He pointed to the coat closet across the room. Several heads were poking out, straining to see.
"Why are they sitting in there?" Mimi asked, bewildered, "They probably couldn't even see my sparkles!"
"They weren't willing to pay enough for good seats," Benny told her. Angel gave a small cry of rage and started to chase Benny around the room.
"What's important is that the message was heard." Maureen had a satisfied look on her face, sure that the white milk period would come to an end.
"You mean how important friendship is?" Mimi asked, smiling again.
"That, too."