Ah! Another one-shot, this time with a cribbed title! Excellent.
Le Disclaimaire: I don't own DP. Or the French language, which is probably a good thing.
Parental Bonding
The time was 4:20 P.M., on a decent, well-respecting Saturday afternoon. The sky was a flawless autumnal blue, inhabited only by small, fluffy herds of cumulus clouds and the occasional pigeon. Children played at parks, birds sang in the trees, and the sun shone cheerily down upon it all. It was, in other words, the sort of day that would make even the most stoic couch potato run outside.
However decent and well-respecting it might have been however, did not stop the fact that a brick building on a street corner in downtown Amity Park appeared to be sprouting a metal octopus out of its roof, or that inside the home was a large man in a bright orange jumpsuit, currently occupied with what seemed to be a the future of fishing pole technology. A large knot in the line was the focus of the man's efforts, and he struggled with it, threading the blue line through holes in the knot and trying his utmost to yank the knot into a single, unbroken thread. All in all, there wasn't much difference between the knot before and after his efforts.
"Maybe I should have stuck with embroidery..." he muttered darkly, setting the pole down on the purple couch and heading towards the kitchen, where a mid-afternoon meal awaited. He found his son inside, eating what appeared to be breakfast. The boy's dark hair (inherited from his father) was tousled, his blue eyes looked like they hadn't been closed in months, and he was still wearing his pajamas.
"Rough night, Danny?" asked his father.
"You have no idea," Danny mumbled through a mouthful of Cheerios. He lifted the spoon again and hit his nose, dribbling milk down his face.
"No, no, son," explained his father, missing the point entirely, "you put the spoon in your mouth."
"Thanks for reminding me, Dad." This time, the spoon didn't even make it to his chin, but dropped limply back to the bowl while his mouth clamped shut on air.
The father went over to the refrigerator, where he found a note stuck on the front by a magnet in the shape of the ghost kid (not his idea.)
Dear Jack, (it went,)
I made a lunch for you, for your new diet. Yes, I know, it doesn't let you have fudge, or cookies, or butter, or peanut butter, for that matter. But you know what the doctor said. (Yes, he did know what the doctor had said.)
Love, Maddie
Jack sighed and opened the refrigerator, where he found, to his displeasure, lettuce and carrots. Rabbit food. Suppressing a shudder, he took it and went back to the kitchen table, where Danny seemed to have given up eating for the time being, instead giving the wall in front of him a long, vacant stare. Jack set the food down on the table with a thud and sat down. Even he noticed that something was wrong with his son (he wasn't stupid, just not good at reading between the lines.)
"So... Danny. Anything you want to talk to me about?"
Danny shook his head, his black hair falling into his eyes.
"Nothing?"
"No, Dad."
"Is this about bullying?"
"No."
"Cars?"
"No."
"Girls?"
"No."
"Ghosts?" The conversation, as inevitably as a freight train barreling towards a cow on the tracks, turned towards the otherworldly.
"Yes." Danny shifted uncomfortably. "But..." he said quickly, just before his father started talking, "nothing you can help with."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Dad. Positive."
Jack drooped slightly. Danny resumed attempting to pilot the spoon into his mouth.
"Say, son... What do you think of you and me doing something this afternoon, a father-son bonding sort of deal?"
Danny blinked blearily. "Whatever..."
His father immediately brightened. "We'll have tons of fun... loads of fun... Can you think of anything else, Danny? ...Danny?"
His son's face was currently firmly planted in the cereal bowl, and he was snoring.
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The time was 4:46 A.M., on the same well-intentioned Saturday.
"You know, Danny..." mused Jack as they both walked along Main Street in the downtown district of Amity Park, "as fun as I thought this would be, I can't think of any sort of bonding activity not involving ghosts in some way." His son groaned in response, now wearing his customary T-shirt and jeans instead of pink (protestedly salmon) pajamas.
"Can we just go home now, Dad?" he asked. It wasn't glamorous, or socially acceptable, or even fun, for that matter, to be seen with his father in public. It wasn't that he didn't love his father... it was more along the lines of his father being a solid six foot five, and big at that, and him wearing a Day-Glo orange jumpsuit on top of it all. The words "immediately visible" and "road hazard" came to mind.
"So, activities," his father said, mostly to himself. "We could go to the arcade... maybe go to the go-kart place?... No, no... Firing range?... too risky, already have a restraining order for that... or... we could hunt ghosts!"
Danny muttered unintelligibly.
"What was that, son?"
Danny waved it away. "Oh, nothing, nothing. Nothing ghost related, that is." He sighed. "Let's just go to the arcade." So no one can see me with you...
Five more minutes of walking found them at the old arcade next to the Cineplex downtown.
"Wow... Flashing lights, loud, senseless music? This reminds me of my high school weekends spent at the local roller disco! Count me in!" Jack pulled a few bills out of one of his pockets and shoved them into the token exchange machine. A few hundred tokens flowed out of the slot. "Fifty...? I thought it was five... All the more fun, I suppose." He scooped up the tokens and deposited a pile into Danny's hands. "Here you go, son. Knock yourself out." He took the remaining tokens and headed over to one of the older games. Space Invaders never got old.
Danny, left with enough coins in his hands to build a small army, stood there for a while before pouring the tokens into his pockets and walking over to the Zombie Commando 3 game. Just as he put in a token, a loud, familiar voice rang in his ear.
"Hey, Danny!" exclaimed none other than Tucker. Danny whirled around, eyes wide and heart pounding. "I'm sort of surprised to see you here, after last night..." He noticed the crowd of people around them. "... last night spent partying and all, and you being grounded!" The people returned to their business of wasting their money on cheap, senseless violence.
"My dad made me go do something as a 'father-son bonding activity'," Danny said, making quotes with his fingers. "So we went here, where he would be the least-"
"Hey, Danny!" boomed another voice in his ear. "How are the games going?" Danny, nearly suffering a pulmonary episode, whirled around. His father stood there, wearing a fuzzy hat and carrying at least five different toys, including a glitter lamp and a stuffed bear proclaiming "All the world needs is a hug" on its belly in an obnoxiously pink color. The crowd turned towards them again. "I forgot how good I was at Space Invaders." Danny clutched his chest and said nothing, staring up at his father with an incredulous, hunted-animal look in his eyes.
A blue mist escaped the boy's mouth, and he shivered as if cold, despite the warmth of the collected bodies and humming games. A scream, piercing and panicked, came from outside of the arcade.
"Uh... I gotta go do... stuff." Danny forced his way through the crowd towards the exit, followed by his friend and his father. "You have it?" he asked Tucker, who in response shoved some sort of high-tech soup thermos into his outstretched hand. They both ran through the double doors and out into the crisp fall air, disappearing from sight around a corner.
"Where do they go to all the time?" wondered Jack out loud, pushing his way through the crowds. "It's like they can turn invisible. " He, of course, had no clue how close to the truth he was. Someone screamed again, louder and even more shrilly. He heard some crashing noises coming from a nearby apartment building.
Suddenly, a body was flung out of one of the apartment building's ninth-story windows, crashing through the window with a ring of breaking glass. The body quickly resolved itself into a screaming young girl, clutching an even smaller wailing toddler in her arms. Everything seemed to slow for a second as she fell, passing the fifth story, the third...
He knew he wouldn't make it, but Jack ran for the building anyway, hoping some forlorn hope that he would catch her. His legs wouldn't move fast enough; it was like he was trying to run through Jell-O, but it wasn't working. He knew he was sprinting, but as he saw the body tumbling through the air and hurtling closer and closer to the ground, he felt like he was stuck in slow motion.
Faster than it seemed could be seen, only felt, a streak of black and silver arrowed out of a nearby alleyway and towards the two, now at the second floor. Jack could feel the wave of air pushed back out of its way, glowing a phosphorescent green, as well as the raw determination, even as he ran towards the building. The two were nearly at the first story now, they weren't going to make it... He heard a yelling in his ears, realized that it was him, cheering on Phantom, his enemy, but the only chance...
And then he saw the blur catch them both, a few yards away from fate, and slow down, swooping slowly towards the ground and gently setting its passengers down onto the solid street below. It brushed white hair out of its green eyes and smiled at the two children as they smiled tearfully back at him in the way of those who have seen death pass them by, by a few inches at the most. The older one gave him a quick, unexpected hug, tugging him down a few feet from the sky, but then releasing him and letting him bob upward again. The apparition glanced behind him once and then shot upward into the old brick building, presumably to fight the offending spirit.
Jack turned around and sighed, heading back to the arcade. Some days, he didn't even have the heart to even try to fight Phantom. He just acted too... human.
And speaking of human, where was Danny?
Good question... For those of you who know, review to help the other,dumber ones out!
Yeah... Chapter 2 of One For The Money should be coming up either late today or on Saturday. Never fear.