Title: Standing In An Awkward Position
Disclaimer: Well, Max and his gang own these toys, but since he's not using 'em, I'll take 'em out for a spin.
A/N: Dunno if any of you oldsters recognize me, but this section's one of my former stomping grounds. There's a lengthy note post-story should anyone be interested in the how and why of this travesty. Without further ado, I present wacky situations and vague Grim/Mandy subtext, as is my wont.
A hoard of teenage girls surrounded the suburban house, pounding on the doors and windows. A few even ventured a perch in the crooked dead tree before disappearing forever. Mandy, Grim, and Billy lounged in the living room, TV turned up to drown out the screaming tweens. Somewhat unusually, Junior joined them, sitting in silence.
A feminine arm burst through the window, bloodied fingers clawing the air.
"Your turn," Mandy informed Grim absently, and the reaper sighed theatrically and heaved himself off the couch. Holding his scythe like a club, he bashed the questing limb until it retreated.
"I hate Valentine's Day," he muttered darkly.
"Say-what day, now?" Billy chirped.
"Valentine's Day," Mandy clarified impatiently. "You know, the reason that your followers have mobbed the house every February for the past three years?"
"Oh, yeah..." Like most meatheads with disproportionate brain-to-brawn levels, Billy had found his calling in high school sports. This had garnered him a burning, unrequited following of females, to his utter and eternal obliviousness.
A box of chocolates was hurled through the window, hitting Junior squarely in the back of the head.. "Ow!"
"What are you doing here anyway?" Mandy asked.
"...I don't like to be at my house on Valentine's Day," he mumbled, voice slow with horror. "It's..." He trailed off, expression saying everything mere words failed to convey.
Unwelcome mental images marinated in a moment of awkward silence between girl, mutant and skeleton.
"I wish I could untink dat," Grim drawled.
"Ditto. Well, if you're here, make yourself useful and get that one," Mandy ordered, pointing to a screeching specimen crawling through the broken glass.
Junior sent a lazy tentacle over and flung the intruder back out of the house, knocking out the rest of the glass in the process.
"Dis is gettin' ridiculous," Grim growled.
"Give the people what they want, then," Mandy conceded. "You wanna do the honors, Squid Boy?"
Without ungluing his eyes from the TV screen, Junior threw his cousin out to the wolves. A squeal of epic proportions resounded, followed by some kissy noises and the sound of retching.
"Said it before and I'll say it again: Romance is for the weak-minded," Mandy droned.
"Riiight," Grim replied sarcastically. "And you're not jus' sayin' dat 'cause da only male on de planet even remotely interested in you is Irwin." The years hadn't been especially kind to Mandy. She looked like a rolled-out version of her ten-year-old self, with a blunt, girlish face and a solid frame. Combined with a glare that'd stop a serial killer at twenty paces, she wasn't exactly fighting the boys off.
"Correct."
"So ya never want any sort of love at all, den? You're just gonna seethe ya through life an' die alone?"
"Oh, no, Grim," she countered with sickly sweet sarcasm. "I'm just dying for some stooge to give me pretty flowers and a ring so we can go and get hitched and have 2.4 kids and a hamster named Harvey."
He chuckled dutifully. It was pretty ridiculous, especially the concept of Mandy letting herself be wooed by some hopeless sap. He couldn't even imagine what kind of man she'd go for, anyway. Probably some insane take-over-the-world type.
Actually, scratch that. She wouldn't want the competition. The type she'd go for would be someone useful to her but completely within her control, capable of independent thought but not action. A brainless minion would bore her instantly.
"Anyway," she continued, derailing his train of thought, "I won't die alone. I've got you."
"Contractually."
"Details, details."
"Dat wasn't what I was talkin' about and you know it."
"And you care... Why?" she asked pointedly.
"...I don't," was all he could answer lamely.
"So it's a non-issue.'
"THE GIRL COOTIES!" Billy howled from outside. "IT BURNS! IT BURNS MY SKIIIN!!"
"Sounds like he's having fun," Mandy observed.
"Nothin' more in de spirit of da season than screams of suffering and revulsion."
"Exactly." She shook her head in disgust. "It's moments like these that would dissolve my last shred of faith in existence in general if I had one left."
"The world's funny like dat."
"Whatever."
Junior rolled his eyes in his put-upon way. He'd managed to avoid his parent's eightieth or so honeymoon just to be the sole witness to the universe's most nihilist flirting ever. What a deal.
Still, it wasn't all bad, he considered as he snagged one of the chocolates that had whaled him in the head moments ago with an inky tendril and popped it in his mouth. At least his aunt and uncle had a premium cable package.
A/N II: Title and inspiration come from "Skeleton Song" by Kate Nash. It's not completely appropriate as a Grim/Mandy song, but it got me thinking about "girl and her skeleton" stories, so I hacked this out as a sort of footnote to my old OTP. The setup here is random and forced (I did exactly no planning on this one, besides for Grim and Mandy's convo about love. The rest was stream of consciousness.) but one of the nice things about writing fic for cartoons is having the option to do extended talking-head exposition as long as you do it for cheap laughs.
I probably didn't need to put Junior in here since he doesn't do a whole heckuva lot, but his outside persective was useful. Also, I just plain like him. He's one of the more lucid characters on the show. (And how else could I have fit in the cringe-worthy Nergal/Sis joke?) However, I don't subscribe to the theory that he's destined to be the baby-daddy for Mandy's demon spawn, myself.
The "two-point-fraction kids and a pet" joke is kind of played out, but Harvey the Hamster is a reference to Weird Al's old TV show. It seemed appropriate.