Dollhouse

Disclaimer, I don't own DP

Based off the song 'Dollhouse' by Melanie Martinez

Full Summary

AU, Were Danny lives with his 'picture perfect family'. What more could you want when you have friends, your parents have money, and your life seems in order? Danny has to deal with the fact that his family is not picture perfect, far from it. Who better to help him deal with this than an old college buddy?

My feet click down the tile halls, heel toe, heel toe. Neatly polished shoes match the newly pressed pants and matching shirt. My backpack was worse for wear, the patchy purple bag hanging on it's last thread of life. Due to my demands to keep the ancient old piece of material.

I was severely regretting that decision as my bag dumped for the umpteenth time that morning. Books and binders shoved under my arms I managed to unlock my locker and shove in as many things as possible before hurrying down the hall. The late bell had rang for the last time reminding me of my misfortune.

First my alarm thought it was a good morning to keep silent leading to my missed breakfast. Second, my old backpack chose this very day to give up on it's expanded life and fall apart in the middle of the street, leading to my very awkward shuffle to school. It was just very bad luck that I had a test during first period. Lancer's going to have my butt.

I came to a halt at room 203, pausing before turning the knob. Mr Lancer barely spared me a glance as he handed me a detention slip as I slunk into my seat. It was just bad luck that I knew no one in this class. Leaving this to be a very boring forty minutes of my day.

The bell rang at what felt like much later than usual. Lancer collected our papers from our desks and I could help but sigh. My failure of a test sat on my desk half finished, with mostly scribbled answers. I guess it was my own fault. Staying up late playing Doomed online had it's consequences.

Life seemed to take pity on me as the day passes by at a much more reasonable pace. I soon found myself sitting at our table outside, under an oak that us three claimed as our own. Tucker was the first one there, already digging into his burger.

"Hey dude!" Tucker greeted around a mouthful of food. I offered him a smile to hide my slight disgust at lack of manners.

"You see Sam around? She wasn't in third period." I ask, picking at my food. Tucker shrugged. I could tell by his new glasses and vest that he'd been shopping. Something that he didn't do often.

"Last I heard she got in trouble with the principle, something about frogs."

"That's rough," I say just as the said girl jogged up behind me.

"Hey." Sam said, a bit breathless, as she took her seat across from Tucker, her purple dress flaring behind her. We look at her expectantly as she digs into her salad.

Tucker is the first to lose his patients. "So?"

She looked up. "'So' what?"

The darkest kid nearly smacks his forehead. "What's this about you smuggling frogs?"

I nearly choke on my drink. "What?"

They both ignore me. Sam puts on a rather proud look on and sits a bit straighter in her chair. "Oh that, it's nothing to gossip about really. I just happen to know some guys who were more than willing to help me release some animals in need."

"You smuggled frogs from biology class!" Tucker exclaimed. "How are science experiments animals in need, they have literally nothing better to do."

Sam narrowed her eyes. "Nothing better to do that be cut up by humans who think they control animal rights? I think not! It is inhumane and there are multiple of other, harmless, substitute."

"Oh right, what're we going to use, gummy frogs?" He scoffed.

"I was thinking about something more mechanical actually." The goth smirked, and we knew at that moment she had another plot up her sleeve.

"Wait, before you pull us into one of your crazy plans," I said, "how much trouble did you get in with the school."

"Eh, nothing more than lunch clean up and then some. Something I know we'd all enjoy."

Tucker and I shared a collective groan, knowing there was no way of getting out of it. We then cleaned up our lunches and headed for the brooms.

We spent the remainder of the day helping out with Sam's after school punishments, a small price to pay for our close friendship. It wasn't all too bad, and I was in no rush to head home.

All too soon I came face to face with our large brick house, with three too many levels. I had yet another battle with my backpack while opening the door and settled for dropping it in the closet, fully intent of buying a new one for next year. I didn't bother announcing that I was home, it was a slick chance that they'd even noticed I was late.

I grabbed an apple from the fridge and set up toward my room, quickly plopping on my bed. I was fully settled with sitting on my laptop wasting hours when my sister banged on the door.

"Danny! Mom wants to see you!" She hollered.

I gave her an 'okay,' and heard her stomp down the stairs. It was odd that my mom would want to see me, her and my dad spent most of their time in their offices, going over business work they one day hoped I would take over.

I found my mom sitting at the kitchen table, next to my dad who was face deep in his food.

"You wanted to see me?"

She looked up and gesture to a seat next to her. I took the seat at the far end of the table. I was slightly surprised when Jasmine joined us at the table, it was so long ago since our last family meeting. Or family anything.

"We figured it would be easiest to tell you kids together," she started. "And I warn you, it is some big news to take in."

Already I wanted to leave. My mother's sickly sweet voice never dropped a pitch as she spoke, always holding an underlying bite to it.

"You father and I have decided that we needed a bit of a break, and work is picking up, as you two know." Sure as hell we know.

It was rare to see either one of our parents outside their offices or head deep in paperwork. And the paychecks kept rising, giving them an excuse to think we were satisfied.

Jasmine spoke up next. "Wait, what are you guys saying. You're not divorcing are you?" The nervousness in her tone affected me as well; could this be the reason behind the family meeting?

My mom shook her head. "Of course not dear, don't you think such a thing. Its just," she looked over at her husband for advice and he gave her a thumbs up. "We think we all need a vacation, at least for a little while with all that's going on. So me and your father agreed that it's best if we visited Vlad's for a while."

"Wait, what?" I asked, completely bewildered. Why would our parents want to see him, least on a vacation. The old man had done nothing for us in our time of need. The billionaire straight out refused to lend us money during dept, even if dad said they were the best of buddies.

"Yes Danny. You kids will like it there, and that way we can get out work done and have some more stability. It will only be for the summer kids, and then we'll be back together before school."

"Wait." Jasmine said. "You're not coming with us?" Her tone made our parents wince and look at each other.

"Don't worry Jazzy-pants. You can still write to us and all that, it's just a short break is all." My dad comforted with a spoon full of fudge in his beefy hand.

Jazz's face turned red, from anger of hurt I didn't know, and she stormed off without a word. I watched her stomp up the stairs with her pricey pastel skirt bellowing behind her.

"You're serious aren't you." My mom just gave me a sympathetic look with a hint of annoyance.

"Its nothing you did sweetie, it's just work and-"

"I know," I cut her off, standing. "I've heard it all before. Just tell me when we leave." With that I stalked off toward my room, my stomach boiling.

I crashed into my bed face first, fisting the comforter. The stars and rockets hanging from my ceiling swayed in the breeze, the hints of summer warming the room. I huffed and glared angrily at the walls, wishing that my anger was kicking at my parents. It was one thing to send your children away for a night, or maybe a week. But a whole summer, that was practically disowning.

For a picture perfect family this family held a lot of flaws. One of them being everything. Take the money off our name, take the fancy things we owned, and pull the smile off our pictures and you would see the true people living here. We paint our smiles on our faces and play our roles, no one truly knowing the dysfunction held inside the walls.

It was no wonder our parents were tired of us, we took up space. Once they got tired of something they shipped it away, it's how they work. Soon my dad will realize that he's tired of hitting on every woman at the local bar and come home to his wife. Someday my mother will wake up and realize that she's tired of conning businesses and work for what she needs, legally. One day my family will realize that all we do is tear each other apart.

One day someone will look through the curtains.

I grabbed my phone and sent a quick message to Sam and Tucker, telling them to log onto Doomed. If I couldn't take my anger out of people them virtual villains were the second best.

I spent hours battling monsters and cyborgs while night fell, purposely avoiding dinner. It was mere hours before morning that I fell asleep. Just a week left of that prison called school before I'm shipped off into yet another prison. With a man I just barely know and sister who barely knows me.

What a vacation to look forward to.

*And there we have it, a short little thing I came up with at two in the morning. Woe is me. If you like this and I get some reviews it'll be continued, just something I thought of listening to Dollhouse. A really great song, if your interested. Tell me what you thought! Sorry for any mistakes, I'm a suck writer.

Thanks for reading bbys!