DISCLAIMER: If you do not like having your name used, please send me a PM and I will remove it from the story. Thank you for the consideration and happy birthday Ran!
"Ahhhh." Ran Hakubi sat down in his comfy chair and flipped the leg rest up, a bottle of beer in hand. He had just finished a shift at his job and was looking forward to being able to sit back and spend his birthday in quiet solitude. It wasn't like anyone was going to remember it anyway, so he might as well spend it the way he wanted.
He reached for the remote and flipped the tv on. Maybe there would be a Good Eats marathon going. A guy never knew how lucky he could be, right? He'd already gotten crap luck by having to work on his birthday. There had to be something good that would happen.
*knock knock knock*
"Eh?" Ran set his beer down on the nearby table and listened. That kind of sounded like knocking…but he wasn't expecting anyone…
"Helloooooo~ooooo?" *knock knock* "Ran? Are you in there?"
The KP author set the leg rest back into the down position and stood up. There was no way that could be who he thought it was. Why would she come all the way here? He went over to the door, self-consciously smoothing his shirt down before opening the portal to the outside.
"Tar—"
"RAN!" The blonde cheerleader's joyous scream cut off his semi-question. The writer was further taken off-guard by the woman launching herself at Ran, squeeing in excitement as she gave one of her best author friends a hug. "Happy birthday!"
Ran managed to catch her and instinctively gave her a hug back. Blinking in surprise, he asked, "You remembered my birthday?"
Tara giggled and gave Ran another squeeze before she let go, falling a few inches to the ground. "Of course I did! You thought I would forget about you?" She stepped to the side of Ran and tsk'd as she looked around the room. "This doesn't look set up for a party at all!"
"I hadn't really planned on having a party." Ran shrugged. "It's just another year of me getting older."
The blonde set her eye on Ran. The look in them was one Ran knew all too well and he shied away from her in hopes of preserving his limbs.
"Ran. You are going to go out with me and we are going to celebrate your birthday in the manner that it deserves." Her demeanor did a 180 as a smile brighter than the former MaceCo's explosion when Mace failed to make the invisibility/moisturizing cream with the energy of a neutron star set on her face. "Let's go paint the town! It's not every day that you turn 28, you know!"
"I'm not su—"
"RrrrAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAA~AAN." Tara began to pout. "We should go oooout and celebraaaaate your biiiirthdaaaay." Her lip jutted out slightly and her eyes began to water. "Please?"
What little resolve Ran had to stay quickly melted as he saw his dear friend give him the dreaded Puppy Dog Pout. He had yet to meet someone that could resist that look and was sure that he would never meet someone that would ever be able to withstand it. "Okay Tara. But!" He raised a finger. "We are only going to one place. Just go out and get a few drinks, talk a bit, see what we've both been up to. Capisce?"
Tara nodded in agreement. "I just wanna take you somewhere to celebrate. Just need one place to do the proper celebrating that it deserves."
"Thanks. I'm a bit tired from my shift and I had just been planning to sit back and relax for the rest of the night."
"They made you work?" Tara asked as she half led, half dragged Ran out the door.
"Yeah. There was an incident with some llamas escaping…"
About a half hour later, Tara had dragged Ran halfway across the town looking for what she called 'the right scene'. Ran knew they had passed several bars that would have been just fine for sitting and talking while drinking, but Tara turned them all down flat. 'They didn't look right' she said.
Ran really did feel touched that his friend had remembered his birthday. But he still didn't really feel much like celebrating. It was just another year. What did it matter?
"Here we are!"
"Wha—?" Ran managed to choke out before being swept through the door of what he thought was a bar. He tried to look around the room but found that it was completely swallowed by darkness. The only light there had been was what was coming from outside and that disappeared as soon as the door swung shut. He also managed to somehow lose Tara in the darkness.
For a moment, everything was still. Complete darkness, complete quiet…it unnerved him.
Then lights flashed on all at once, blinding him momentarily. While he couldn't see, he could clearly hear the thunderous noise around him. A chorus of voices yelling all at once:
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAN!"
His discomfort was quickly washed away by the warm flood of emotion that filled him. Ran ducked his head, feigning sore eyes to wipe them, before he faced the room full of his friends.
"Did you guys plan this just for me?" he asked. He had been caught by such surprise that he just couldn't think of anything else to say or ask and instantly felt silly for it.
"Nah, we all decided to come out and eat at the same time in the same place and just happened to all yell the same thing at random. Of course we didn't plan this for you," Absentialuci responded in an offhand manner.
Maceecam turned to her and blinked confusedly. "What are you talking about? This thing took weeks to—"
"I was being sarcastic," Absentialuci deadpanned.
"I knew that," Mace instantly replied. "It just felt like the right thing to say."
"Happy birthday, bud," kgs-wy said, coming up behind Ran and patting him on the shoulder. "I bet you didn't suspect a thing, huh?"
"Not one." Ran searched the crowd for the blonde cheerleader who was ducking sheepishly behind whitem. "You set me up!" he cried, half out of joy and half out of disbelief.
"I'm sorry!" she giggled, standing up and raising her hand as if under arrest. "Someone had to go get you and I wanted to be the one to do it."
"We had been arguing about it…but you know how Tara can get sometimes…" Ron nervously chuckled. He took a quick glance at Tara before looking back to Ran.
"None of us wanted to miss your birthday, Ran," Kim said, walking up from the back of the crowd and standing next to Ron. "We wanted to celebrate another year of having you be our friend. Without you, we wouldn't have any of the Top Ten that you give us."
"Not to mention the numerous bon-diggety crossovers you've done," Ron interjected.
"And we also wouldn't have the touching tales of Ron and I struggling through our hardships…for better and for worse." Kim slipped her arm into her beau's, squeezing it as she looked at him adoringly.
"Face it, brother," kwebs said as he took Ran by his other shoulder, "you're stuck with the bunch of us."
"You guys…" Ran choked a little but managed to keep a hold of himself as he was led to the head party table.
"Hey, you deserve it!" Neo the Saiyan angel yelled. "You actually wrote a Kim and Ron story I can tolerate."
"Hush!" Kittypuppy said sharply, giving Neo a look that said all that needed said about if the angel misbehaved. The Kigo author turned her attention to Ran. "You're our friend. Of course we're gonna make you celebrate your birthday!"
"Yup!" Mace jumped into the chair opposite Ran. "It took a lot of favor-doing to get this place all to ourselves. You owe me a lot!" The inventor paused. "…maybe just a sample of your DNA."
"No Mace," Ran said. "I appreciate the party. REALLY appreciate it. But not that much."
"Oh come on! Just a small sample…" Mace coaxed. "Really, you won't even notice—"
"No Mace," Ran said more forcefully, his eye twitching.
"Mace, I think you should listen to him," Anabri said. "Don't make me sic my pets on you…"
"YOU ANGELS WILL NOT RUIN MY EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL ATTEMPT!" Mace cried as he flung himself onto the table and into Ran's face. "Give me a DNA sample! I'll give you…uhm…" he looked around the room for a second "…MaceCo?"
"You already gave that to me," KittyPuppy said.
"Oh. Right." While Mace searched his brain for something that he might be able to convince Ran to give him a DNA sample, everyone else backed away from the main table. The ex-CEO looked at everyone in surprise. "What?"
"RAN-HULK SMASH!"
"Huh?" Mace looked to where Ran had been…and looked up several feet. "Oh…right…"
Just as Ran-Hulk's fist was about to smash into Mace's face, a bright neon glow surrounded Mace and he disappeared in a puff of blue smoke. A frighteningly cute giggle could be heard above the hushed whispers.
"Now KT," KT's father, JA, started, "you know you weren't supposed to bring any of your toys here."
KT giggled again and replied, "I just brought it in case something like this happened. You know how Mace can get sometimes. He'll just stay in a safe place until he can calm down enough to rejoin us." The young genius put her hairdryer-like ray gun back under the nearby table where she had stashed it.
While JA began to debate his daughter on whether bringing her toy was a good idea or not, Tara stomped up to Ran-Hulk and gave him a pouty glare. "No," she said, pointing her finger at Ran. "Bad Ran-Hulk! No punching out Mace!"
Ran-Hulk roared and shouted, "TODAY ME BIRTHDAY! TODAY ME GET SMASH MACE!"
amers came out of the crowd, closely followed by kgs-wy and kwebs. "You don't want to smash Mace," amers told Ran-Hulk.
"ME DON'T?" Ran-Hulk's brow furrowed in confusion.
"Nope," kgs continued. "Instead, you want to try some of me and kwebs' special mix of Captain Morgan's Private Stock and Coke..."
"It's mostly Captain..." kwebs added, holding up a small glass filled with the mix.
Ran-Hulk considered this for a few seconds before he calmed down completely, shrinking back down to become Ran. kwebs came up to him and offered up the glass of the special drink, which Ran accepted and drank down with flourish.
"Let's GET THIS PARTY STARTED!" Ran yelled, raising the empty glass to the air. The room erupted into yells and applause. The DJ, a certain naked mole rat, started up the music and everyone began to dance, drink, talk, or try to sneak bites of Ran's special birthday cake, courtesy of Ron Stoppable.
Anabri kept herself entertained by sending her pets after their favorite chew toy, which completely ruined whitem's night, while several of the women ordered some Peach-Fried Pie to celebrate the night. Ran, kgs, and kwebs made the night a competition. One which ended up being wasted since at some point during the contest Anabri took a break from torturing whitem to switch the alcohol with water and laughing when the guys couldn't figure out why their drinks tasted different.
In the corner of the room, KT was talking into her ray gun which had a voice that was begging to be released and promised to be good the rest of the night (though it didn't promise anything of its clones). Slyrr, MrDrP, and Penumbrus discussed various details from the Kim Possible show with Wade and Vivian Porter playing devil's advocate and JA debated with the tweebs on whether the father in the group should let his daughter play with any of his top-secret devices.
Eventually, everyone was rounded up in a group with Ran once again sitting at the center table. He was surrounded by all his friends, fictional and real, who were trying to get the timing right for singing the birthday song. It may have taken the group 5 false-starts and one sneeze to get it, but soon they had managed to get the song going with the help of Mace the conductor who was thankful to have finally been released from his tiny protective bubble.
~Happy Birthday to Ran,
Happy Birthday to Ran,
Happy BIRTH-day, dear Raa-aaan
Happy Birthday to you!~
For Ran Hakubi on his special day. Once again, happy birthday!