I got this idea, like, two days ago, and I'm really glad I went with it. Sorry I've been MIA lately, but I have been working on some stuff. I have this long multi-chap planned out and I'm 12 chapters into it, but I'm going to wait until it's finished so there's no super long wait in between chapters. :) I also have another story in my head, but I want to finish the first two chapters. I always want to be one chapter ahead. After the final chapter for my IDDI story took over four months to do (along with the fact the dates I uploaded the other chapters were EXTREMELY spread out), I don't want something like that to happen.
That being said, here's 'Everyone Knows But You'. :)
"Where's Phillip?"
Diego Rueda walked into Daniel Miller's garage, eyeing up the place. When he saw no zombie-turned-human in the room, he asked that question. "I thought you said he was coming."
"He is," Daniel grunted, his back turned to his friend as he tried to shove some more stuff into the closet. Even though the T3 were still 'technically' banned from pranking, that didn't stop their grandmother from buying them more materials.
Maddie Van Pelt made a confused face, taking her hand out of Diego's. "Phillip told my mom and me when he left." She took a look around again, as if the pizza-loving boy could be hiding in the couch.
Daniel stopped and turned around, his expression showing complete disgust. "Why's Maddie here?"
She gasped, staring at her ex-boyfriend. "Excuse me for wanting to make sure my brother is okay!" Daniel was about to apologize, but then she grabbed Diego's hand again and rubbed noses with him. "Plus, I wanted to see Diego off."
He sighed. "Great. Just great."
Daniel had arranged for Phillip, Diego, and him to have an all-nighter (in normal terms, a sleepover) that night, complete with videos games, pizza, and maybe some Kanay magic if Diego felt like putting on a show. Nowhere on that list included one of his witch ex-girlfriends.
Before he could go back to putting away the T3's stuff, the person in question entered the room…along with Jax Novoa.
"Oh no, not Jax! Maddie being here right now is bad enough, but Jax? Phillip, get him out!" Daniel panicked, moving his arms around wildly.
Jax laughed. "Whoa, calm down, Daniel. If anything, I should be the one to be complaining."
"That doesn't even make any sense! This is MY house. And I never invited you!" Daniel exclaimed, trying to make everyone understand his point of view.
"Yeah, but I did," Phillip stated simply, watching as Jax walked over to lean on the back of the couch.
Daniel turned to his friend with a shocked expression. "Phillip! I thought you were my friend?"
"I am. But I'm also Jax's friend." He cast a glance at the wizard and chuckled. "Hehe…kangaroo…"
Jax smiled and shook his head. "That's been done for a while now, bud. No more kangaroo."
"And I'm also friends with Diego. Hey!" Phillip faced his sister's boyfriend and they fist bumped.
Diego grinned. "You got that right, bud."
Daniel groaned. "But this all-nighter was organized by me. Don't you think I should be the only person allowed to invite anyone?"
"What I think is that you need to own up to the fact that this is just a slumber party," Jax chimed in, tilting his head at the boy.
Daniel glared. "It's called an all-nighter for a reason, Jax."
Jax just rolled his eyes.
Andi Cruz's voice could suddenly be heard, coming from outside the garage they were all in. "Phillip, you in ther–" As soon as she got to the doorway, she saw her boyfriend and grinned. "Hey."
Phillip smiled. "Hi, Andi. Did you know Andi in French means beautiful?"
Andi shook her head. "No, it doesn't. I may not know a lot of French, but I know that's not true."
"Well in my book it is."
"Okay, how are all of you getting in my house?" Daniel asked. But compared to Emma's house, this wasn't bad at all.
"Your mom," they all answered.
Andi's face lit up again, completely ignoring Daniel's interruption. She and Phillip embraced tightly. "Sorry I'm late. Emma was teaching me some scrapbooking ways."
Daniel straightened up. "Is she stopping by, too?"
Andi looked extremely uncomfortable. "Um, she felt about as uncomfortable as I am to be relaying this information right now, so she passed."
He was noticeably shorter after his shoulders sagged. "Oh."
She cleared her throat and turned back to Phillip. "Anyway, I just wanted to tell you goodbye. Be careful."
Andi had had an immense fear ever since Emma and Mia Black got sucked into the video game after making Phillip a real boy: since they got them out of the video game, technically the world was still unbalanced. So shouldn't it try again? Andi really didn't want that to happen, but she loved video games as much as anyone else – therefore, all she could do was make sure Phillip was being careful.
The corners of his lips turned up into a smile as he pulled her in for another hug. "You have nothing to worry about, Andi."
Diego and Maddie were only a few feet away from them, and that scene was just too adorable. When Diego looked at his girlfriend, her eyes were glistening. "Madds, are you crying?"
Maddie scoffed, quickly wiping her eyes in one swift motion. "Pfft, of course not! Just…Daniel's BO smells so bad, my eyes started watering." She whipped her head around to look at the Miller and said, "Nice job."
Daniel threw up his arms. "I just showered, Maddie!"
"When, last week?" Jax laughed, leaning over the couch.
"You better watch it Jax."
"Or what? You scared I'm gonna steal your girlfri–…Oh wait." His smirk was so genuine it hurt whatever was left of Daniel's ego.
Andi awkwardly coughed. "Um, yeah, Maddie and I better get going now." She grabbed Maddie's wrist and they bolted out the door.
That left four guys: a used-to-be zombie, a Kanay, a wizard, and a human.
Diego, the ever-cheerful one of the group, said, "So who's ready to get this all-nighter started?"
The rest of the guys' expressions were as follows: Jax looked amused, Daniel looked frustrated already, and Phillip had a blank face. Until he took a step forward and asked, "Where's the pizza?"
Two hours later, the four of them were in a heated game of Zombies Apocalypse 3.
Phillip immediately won the first few rounds, as he had lived in the game for most of his life. Diego claimed his advantage was unfair, but this was right before Jax ended up killing the Kanay's gamer.
Diego quit.
After awhile, Phillip became bored with the game and helped Diego with his fireball trajectory. This included throwing uncooked pizzas, which he immediately ate.
This left Jax and Daniel battling it out in the virtual, and both knew that this was far more than just a game. For Daniel.
Neither of them were supposed to kill each other - they were supposed to kill zombies. Even so, their bullets were going everywhere but their programmed targets.
"You know that Emma always comes crawling back to me," Daniel gloated, directing his gamer behind a trash can.
Jax bit back a laugh and retorted, "Well any self-respecting person shouldn't need to CRAWL back to a doof like you. Besides, if you really like Emma, then you wouldn't make her crawl back to you; you would have never broken up with her in the first place."
He might have almost growled. "I needed to break up with her then. I had every reason to."
"Why, did she admit to being in love with me?"
Now Jax was just being cocky. He in no way thought that was the real reason why Daniel had broken up with Emma for the second time. Unfortunately, it kinda was.
His expression changed from joking to shocked. "Wait, that's really why? She liked me so you broke up with her?"
"I never said that and you can't hold anything against me because of something I didn't say," Daniel replied, but his tone told Jax all he needed to know.
"Wow. I can't believe you actually knew that. You never know anything," Jax went on, keeping his eyes focused on the game. "I mean, you didn't know she had powers until she finally told you, then it took you almost a year to find out she got them back."
"Nothing's perfect, Jax. I think it would do you some good to learn that."
Daniel's snotty tone was getting on Diego's nerves. He really didn't want a fight to break out. "Hey, why don't we go and eat everything in the fridge?"
That didn't work.
"This coming from the boy who has two loving parents and gets to see his siblings every day," Jax spat, trying to keep any hint of envy out of his voice.
That didn't work either.
"Teepee a house? The school?" Diego tried again, to no avail.
"What are you implying, Jax? Are you jealous of me?" Daniel was now the cocky one.
"I have no one. Except Emma. And I'm completely fine with that."
"Yeah right."
"Daniel, just shut the fuck up!" Diego exclaimed, blowing a strong wind over his best friend's head.
Daniel smacked the back of his neck and twisted around to stare at him for a second. "Dude!"
"Don't 'dude' me when you're being an idiot!" he yelled, throwing his arms out. "Since when are you such an asshole?"
"Donkey?" Phillip asked in confusion.
"Not that kind of ass, buddy," Diego waved it off.
"Diego, he STOLE Emma from me!" Daniel pointed out, pausing the game. Jax leaned back in his seat and watched the argument ensue.
"First of all, Emma was never your property, man! You have to learn how to respect people! And if she wants to be with Jax, just let her be happy!"
"Oh, so if I stole Maddie from you you'd be fine with it as long as she was happy," he retorted, thinking this would make him mad.
However, Diego kept a straight face. "I love Maddie more than anything. And if she would be truly happy with you, I'd let her go. Can you say that about Emma?"
He frowned. "I still love Emma."
"But you're not IN love with her! That's the difference!"
"What difference?"
Diego groaned, throwing up his arms and walking in a circle once. "Ugh, that's just it! Being 'in love' is completely different than loving someone, Daniel! I love you, but it's not like I wanna swing for the other team!"
"Huh?"
"Daniel's stupid," Phillip concluded.
Jax nodded at his friend. "Uh-huh."
"Oh my GOSH, what's WRONG WITH YOU?!" Diego yelled, taking Daniel's controller and throwing it away from him. "I'm in love with Maddie, Jax is in love with Emma–"
"Phillip in love with Andi," Phillip said, stepping forward to announce this.
Jax grinned and held out his fist. "Nice job, buddy!"
Phillip smiled and fist bumped him.
"And you just LOVE Emma. There's a huge difference between those two things, and I think it's time you learn that," Diego finished up, crossing his arms, huffing.
Daniel brought a hand up to his face and sighed. "Diego, stop yelling. I get what you're sayi–"
"No, no you don't. Cuz if you did you would have gone after Mia by now."
"Ohhh, that girl who almost hurt Andi?" Phillip asked, nodding. "Daniel like her."
Jax, seeing his opening, cast the levitating spell in his head and slowly brought Daniel's controller towards himself.
Daniel shook his head and held up his hands. "You have it all wrong. I never even liked Mia, let alone loved her. I love Emma."
"You also love your mom."
The wizard held in a snicker, letting the controller silently drop in his lap. He made sure the volume was turned off, then unpaused the game.
"What are you saying?" Daniel asked. He wanted to be through with all the games and just have Diego tell him straightforward what he was thinking.
"You're in love with Mia. And that's why you stay away from her."
Phillip didn't understand. "But…if he's in love with her, shouldn't he be with her?"
Diego nodded. "Exactly. But Daniel's stupid, so."
"Hey!" Daniel interrupted, standing up. "I know a lot! But you don't, because I am not in love with Mia."
"Face it, Daniel. You are," Jax commented, shooting ever zombie in sight on the game.
Phillip walked over to the Australian and leaned over the back of couch, whispering, "The one on the left is really weak. He's been through a lot, so you might want to leave him alone."
He nodded. "Sure. You know him?"
"I know all of them. They're like my siblings."
Jax sighed, and changed his course on the game. He didn't feel like killing anymore zombies.
Daniel groaned. "Why do you all think I'm in love with Mia?"
"Why do you think you're not?"
The silence that followed was almost laughable.
"You're so stupid, Daniel," he commented, patting the boy on the back.
"Look, despite whatever you three think, I know who I'm in love with and who I'm not, okay?" Daniel responded, taking a step back toward the couch.
Jax went on a full-out shooting spree on Daniel's inactive gamer.
"Alright then," Diego said, putting his arms out. "So when you gonna tell her?"
Daniel just looked away, but when he did he noticed the game. Jax just won. "What? I paused the game!"
Jax smirked. "Yeah, and I unpaused it." He gave him a thumbs up.
Daniel moaned. "Well I didn't know."
"Everyone knew but you," Diego told. "And that has two meanings."
Suckish ending, I know. But hehe, I fit that title in there like Janette Rallison. *smirky smirk smirk* Hope you liked that, and if you did please review! Tell me if you have hope for Dia in season four! *fingers crossed*