The case of Philip J. Fry had always been a hopeless one, but for some reason this time, it was different.
Very different.
Unbelievably different. So different, people had begun to suspect that maybe something had gone a bit, ahem, wrong somewhere along the line (cue the whispering behind turned hands). And not just the usual "Oh, it's just Fry, of course he's like this." No. This time, everyone was actually worried for him. Pitying him. Hoping maybe, someday this whole thing will pass over without incident and he'll suddenly and unquestionably get better; straight back to normal. ("Not that I'm saying that anything's wrong with him, no, no, no, of course not! I just. Well, you know..." They would always trail off somewhere around there, not daring to suggest that, God forbid, something was actually wrong with Fry, but even an idiot could tell that they thought that he should be locked away in an asylum).
But by then, it had been six months. Six whole months of this. 'This' being a whole big lot of far-off make-believe stories, concerned and intruding neighbours and the occasional therapist tending to the young man. ("I realise that you don't think I need to be here, but I have been informed that Philip's behaviour for the past few months has been rather...abnormal." They would always seem to spit the word out, and if they didn't, they would say it as if being anything less than conventionally 'normal' was a fate worse than death.)
It was, to say the least, a bit aggravating.
So what if Phil had been telling a few stories and having a few vivid and lucid dreams? It was harmless, so why should anyone care? It's not like he'd turned to a life of drugs, crime and hookers. He wasn't going around to the children of the town and forcing them to believe his stories (the children did end up believing in them, but that's besides the point). It's not like he was criminally insane, as most people were beginning to think. In actual fact, Phil had been acting his usual self, besides the stories he came up with and the raised level of affection he had for his family.
But of course, no one else seemed to notice this. Everyone had thought that Philip J. Fry had finally gone insane in the membrane.
"It was Y2K, I tell ya!" Yancy Fry Sr. not-so-subtly said, (read: shouted) discussing his youngest son's 'condition' with his half present wife.
"Uh huh. Sure, honey," she replied absentmindedly, eyes glued to the television screen. Not even a whole second later, Mrs Fry enthusiastically jumped up in the air in triumphant celebration. "Haha!" She laughed. "Take that you wankers!"
If anyone else in the room had been paying attention to the TV screen besides her, they would've known that her least favourite football team had just now suffered another crushing lost, and therefore had been officially knocked to the bottom of the table with little to no hope of climbing back up it.
She sighed with a smile and sat back down on the couch next to her husband, who was probably still ranting about automatons and cyborgs taking over the Earth.
"Sorry, what was that hon?" She asked him innocently.
"The virus!" He exclaimed as enthusiastically as his wife had while watching the game. "It's infected Phil! I don't know how they did it or why it's lasted this long but it has and they did. What else could it be? No boy of mine would be going around spouting crap about robots and aliens and mutant cyclopes without a foreign party having a hand in it!" He theorised with absolute certainty.
"You're probably right," she answered, once again not entirely listening to her husband and instead focusing most of her attention on the TV, flicking through the guide to see if any interesting sports were on.
At first glance, it would seem that one could correctly and without a doubt say that Mrs Fry loved sports more than she loved her own flesh and blood. And though, while maybe being partially right, anyone who said so couldn't be any further from the truth. While the woman did enjoy her fair share of sports (and admittedly and shamefully may have been just a teensy bit neglectful towards her children while watching a game or two) she loved her children more than anything in the world. They were her moon and sun, her Earth and sky, her everything, and despite sometimes driving her up the wall, she would gladly give up watching the rest of the season for her two beloved sons.
And that's why it hurt her so much to see Philip acting like this.
Frankly, it wasn't so bad; she knew it could be a lot worse. But having him insisting and not believing otherwise that these people that he'd made up were real and even crying out for them in his sleep shook her to the very bone. It just wasn't like him. She'd tried to be supportive of her son nonstop, listening to the crazy stories he'd share - flying to the moon, attending school on Mars with a monkey and saving the planet from giant brains, just to name a few - and calming him down after his near constant panic attacks over his - dead? Future? Missing? (She couldn't keep track of what Phil was saying most of the time) - 'friends' that she couldn't bring herself to remember the names of.
She could put on a brave face. An aloof face. A nonchalant one. (She opted for the third.) She had too, because she had no idea what it could possibly be like for her husband and her older son if half of the family was going off the deep end.
In all fairness, it had been half a year since he'd started being like this and she could be starting to crack.
But she knew that there was nothing (too much) wrong with her son, even though the rest of the town thought so. She just hoped that, with all her heart, she wouldn't start to think like them as well.
A/N: woops i accidentally started another fic without even finishing the last chapter on my other one! (but really, sorry about that DX ill try to get back to it as soon as i can) anyway, just gonna say right now that this fic was pretty rushed, as in i just kinda wrote this first part without thinking of anything else in advance. so it would be pretty awesome of you guys if you could give me some feedback on this cause honestly im on the fence about it, but if i do continue i have a few different ideas as to where i could go with this. thanks for reading!