THE INEXPLICABLE BAD LUCK OF KENNETH TUCKER
| OUTTAKES |
{Because, cuh-LEARLY everyone needed more of Tucker's least favorite not-duo.}
/after fifth drive with Emma's retaliation; following fourth section in TIBLOKT/
On the sixth drive, Tucker was itching to throw his entire clipboard at Alonso instead of just his pens from before.
She had apparently forgotten the food and drink she had brought in her previous attempt to break Daniel's focus, and was now munching on one of Tucker's hidden chip bags in the back. He smelled Fritos. And those were his favorite.
"Alonso, quit dwindling my chip supply down. I practically live on those," Tucker demanded, immediately following Daniel's sneeze and quiet butterfly mention before he wiped his snotty nose on his bare arm. Tucker had shied away from him at that.
Emma continued chewing. "Uh, no can do, Tucker. As much as I respect you," at that he almost snorted, because, what, "Daniel hasn't really commented, so. I don't see why I should stop."
Tucker sighed loudly and shifted in his seat, the car moving slightly from the movement. "Alonso, Miler's not one to break focus while driving, alright? Maybe you should spend your time watching the road—"
Emma's munching reached an all-time high.
"Alonso!" Tucker angrily thrust his arm into the backseat and stole the bag from her. Yep. Fritos.
Emma made an irritated noise and moved closer to the center console. "How can you still drive like this?" she complained, face turned toward Daniel.
Daniel didn't even glance at her. "Believe it or not, Emma, not all of us have pregnancy pounds blocking our bodies from the steering wheel."
Tucker's mouth dropped open. "Miler, pull over."
Daniel kept on driving.
Alonso looked affronted. "Are you—are you kidding me? I'm not actually pregnant! Oh my—"
"May Buddha have mercy on your sure-to-be ugly-ass baby," Daniel cut in, eyes light and face wiped of emotion.
"PULL OVER."
/after Demma's first true argument; following fifth section in TIBLOKT/
Let it be said that while Miler was a decent driver, he was still himself (so, in other words, pervy). Kenneth Tucker had always prepared himself for when that danky side of Daniel came out "just because" instead of when he made fun on Alonso with every breath. He just hadn't wanted it to be so…danky.
It was about halfway through Alonso's turn when Tucker heard Emma gasp from beside him. "Oh my God, ew, Daniel, get your foot out of the window!"
Tucker's head snapped to his left, taking his eyes off the road and now seeing what Alonso was talking about. Daniel's left leg wasn't on the floor of the backseat, like it had been throughout the majority of Emma's practice time, but was instead sticking out through her open window. He was smushed against the inside of the car door in order to be physically able to torment her like that.
"Miler!" Tucker exclaimed, the clipboard he held flying up into the air in exasperation. "You're gonna cause a wreck! Stick it back in the car!"
Emma groaned loudly and smacked at Daniel's leg, eyes skittering around everywhere but the road. "So gross."
"Just like your face?" Daniel asked, rather calmly as he pulled his limb back inside the confines of the vehicle without so much as an explanation.
"Oh, really?" Emma snorted, attempting to compose herself by flicking a piece of hair away from her face. She actually returned to looking through the windshield. "Then why do you take so many pictures of me?"
"Because I like to laugh."
"When have you EVER laughed?!"
Tucker got a sudden chill, and his split-second suspicion was confirmed when he glanced to his right. "Wha-Miler!" Daniel's right leg was stretched out above Tucker's lap, foot resting juuuuust outside the now rolled-down window. "How did you even—get that out!" Against his better judgment, Tucker grabbed at Miler's calf and tried to yank it away from the window.
Daniel sniffed loudly and stretched his leg out even more. A second later he elicited a high-pitched noise, just after Tucker pulled on his leg.
Emma jumped in her seat and the car stopped moving for a consecutive three seconds. "What the hell?"
"Dick—hurts," Daniel semi-screeched, his groin pressed on the center console to be able to stretch his leg out Tucker's window.
Tucker's face contorted uncomfortably and he shivered, but he shut his eyes and pulled Miler's leg out of the window and threw it—and, subsequently, the unfortunate body attached to it—into the backseat where it belonged.
Emma scrunched her nose up and coughed. "Oh my God, it smells awful!"
Tucker nearly retched. "Miler, was—was Bryce right? Does your ballsack smell?"
"Nyehhhhhhh."
Tucker was close to crying. "Air it out! Air it out, all windows down, and keep your disgusting body in the vehicle, Miler!"
"Nyehhhhh."
/following previous section/
Emma drove second the next time, but that didn't make anything better. Not that Tucker had any hope it would; he had seen too much.
The scent of something baking in the backseat had started as soon as Emma climbed into the front seat, and honestly, it wasn't as concerning as one might think. It was more of the fact that Miler could have been baking—say, his mom's jeans or something. Tucker had an uneasy feeling that that had happened in an alternate universe.
After five minutes of Daniel's regular unusual noises, Tucker sighed and rubbed at the crease between his eyebrows. "Miler, why in the world did you bring a microwave back there in the first place?" he asked slowly.
"And why is it even working?" Emma wondered aloud, glancing at her ex-boyfriend in the rearview mirror.
"Actually it's a mini-bake oven," Daniel corrected, patting the top of the contraption if only for the loud noise it made.
Emma flinched. Tucker grimaced.
"I'm making cookies, Emma. Not that you need to get bigger, I mean," he added as if it were an afterthought.
"Alonso, just drive," Tucker quickly said when Emma opened her mouth. She mumbled a curse, but complied.
They somehow managed to drive along in silence for a few minutes—which Tucker was grateful for, don't get him wrong—but it was almost unwanted when Daniel broke it by opening the oven and shoving his hand right into it without a mitt.
"AEEEEEEEEE!" he howled, back slamming into Tucker's seat and making the older man go "oof!"
The car swerved and there was a loud horn honking at them before Emma could get the car back under control. "Daniel!"
Tucker placed a trembling hand on his chest and barked out, "We're switching. We're switching."
Emma turned to look at him. "But we already—"
"My God, we're switching."
Daniel made another painful noise. "I'm burnt."
"Shut the FUCK up!" Emma yelled, maneuvering the car off the road. She unbuckled and pushed open the door, stomping around to the back and climbing in before saying, "What is WRONG with you?"
Tucker was still breathing heavily, so Daniel shut the oven's door and pointedly said, "Don't touch that." Then he got out and went to the driver's seat.
Daniel, being the good driver he was, kept his eyes on the road and drove them quietly along the highway they were on. Tucker's breathing returned to normal. And Emma rarely made a noise from the back, save for when Daniel politely (seriously) asked her to scratch the back of his knee; well, the back of his knee. In fact, Tucker was just about to check if she was even in the car when an alert popped up by the speedometer informing both the men (using the term loosely) in the front that a door was open.
"What the—" Tucker turned around in time to see Emma unplug the oven and send it tumbling out of the car and onto the road.
"What happened?" Daniel asked, as he wasn't looking away from the road. Tucker made a mental note to give him some extra points for that, but Alonso was getting a hell of a lot more for her little stunt today.
Emma crossed her arms and proudly stated, "Your shitty oven leaving the car."
Daniel gasped, eyebrows arching on his forehead making his hairline move upward. "My mini-bake oven!"
"Miler, don't even think about turning this car around," Tucker demanded, resituating himself in his seat and picking up his clipboard again, marking their points down. "Head back to the school."
The rest of the drive was spent with Emma grinning in the back and Daniel grumbling sad profanities.
/following previous section/
The next practice, Emma and Tucker stood waiting outside his car, the former tapping her foot on the ground impatiently. Where was that Miler?
After ten long minutes, someone finally showed up—but it wasn't Miler. It was Mia.
Emma looked at her disdainfully. "What are you doing here? Is Daniel actually so distraught about his stupid mini-bake oven that he's not coming?"
Mia paid her no mind and instead turned to Tucker. "Daniel got diarrhea. Like, really bad diarrhea. So I'm taking his slot today."
Tucker shuddered. "Say no more." He motioned to his car and the three of them filed in, Emma at the wheel.
Mia was still situating herself in the back middle seat when they got going, at which point she snapped her fingers and said, "Oh, and Emma, Daniel said he'd…" She quickly consulted the text from her boyfriend. "Lo—oh wait, like to be here to take more zoomed-in pics of your face, but the mere thought of it gave him the shits again." Her thumb lightly pressed on the sleep/wake button of her phone and she glanced up at the other female in the car, the smallest of smiles playing on her face. Dating Daniel and becoming best friends with Andi had certainly made her more patient with people and situations she didn't particularly enjoy, but seeing Emma's reaction to this was still amusing.
Emma opened and closed her mouth a few times, gaping like a goldfish before sputtering out, "Tha-that bastar—"
But Tucker had apparently been thinking ahead. If Mia was having her practice time early, instead of with Charlie, then that could mean… "Black, are you telling me I might have to prepare to be with Miler and GREENE in this enclosed space on another day this week?"
/after the bridge incident; following sixth section in TIBLOKT/
Daniel had sighed seven times in his second hour of practice already.
"Man, isn't it just a wonderful day?"
Tucker rolled his eyes and continued staring at the windshield.
Emma was sleeping through her practice time; through the entire practice, actually. Daniel had had just enough time to ask her twice to scratch the back of his knee (well, the back of his knee) at the beginning of their outing. Tucker had yelled, "For the love of God, Alonso, just scratch his knee!" and Daniel had screamed, eyes still on the road, "THE BACK," at which point they realized that Emma had somehow fallen asleep.
/after the interstate lesson; following second-to-last section in TIBLOKT/
Thirty-five minutes.
For thirty-five whole minutes, Alonso had been driving, Tucker had been breathing, and Miler had been snapping pics in the backseat.
Not only were both of Emma's eyes twitching, but her entire face had taken to the abnormal movement. Tucker hadn't said anything, as she was finally looking at the road, but he had to wonder how she could possibly focus under such Miler-ish conditions.
Alonso's foot pressed down on the gas pedal a bit more than usual, making Tucker uncomfortably grip his clipboard. "You know, Daniel, as Maddie would say, you better not be getting my bad side," she proclaimed amidst the camera clicks, evidently feeling the need to say something to stop the chortling Miler in the backseat.
"Emma, are you insinuating you actually have a good side?" Daniel commented, the shuttering camera noise punctuating his statement.
Emma scoffed, having the gall to look offended by…anything he said. "Excuse me—"
"Pics out, dicks out!" Daniel exclaimed sassily, head moving just like the Z-formation snap trend for young preteens.
Tucker was trying to disregard everything they were saying, but that caught his attention. He twisted around in his seat and frantically asked, "Wait, Miler, is it actually out?!"
Emma's head whipped around as well, and just as they had confirmed Daniel's miler was, in fact, covered, there was a loud bump and the car dipped before jerking back up. Both Emma and Tucker snapped back to look at the road while Daniel turned to look through the back window at the pothole they had just hit dead-on.
Tucker frantically looked from the front to the back. "Alonso! There's a construction worker in there!"
Daniel had a pervy expression on his face. "Whoa, a real life TMNT." Except he pronounced the acronym 'tim-mint-ee.'
Tucker slapped his palms onto the dashboard. "Alonso, pull over! We're switching seats!"
Emma glared back at Daniel but complied and pulled over. When Daniel's door opened at the same time Tucker's did, Tucker settled him with a no-nonsense look. "Oh no, Miler. I'm driving us back."
Emma stopped walking and threw up her hands. "Then I'm sitting in the front."
Daniel nodded solemnly and shut his door. "Good thinking. New pic angles."
Tucker tried to ignore them and finally pulled them back out onto the open road. It said a lot about his tolerance that he was driving now and not during the godforsaken interstate lesson.
/after Daniel passes and Emma fails; following last section of TIBLOKT/
"You know, Alonso, I'm not even sure you would've been able to pass anyway," Tucker said one afternoon from beside Emma. Sophie, another failing student, was in the back rubbing leaves on her face.
Emma raised her eyebrows. Now that Miler had his license, she was much more collected during their lessons, even with Sophie. Actually, that might have been part of it: neither Emma or Tucker were convinced that those leaves weren't weed. They looked eerily similar.
Tucker continued before she could comment. "You missed an hour of driving when you were sleeping that one day."
"Um!" Emma put a hand out and looked at Tucker, to which he gave her a look and she focused back on the road. "Daniel didn't even show up once and literally sent his girlfriend to take his place!" Her eyes had travelled back to her teacher.
Tucker shook his head. "I'm not here for you to vent your jealousy to, Alonso, now watch the road."
Sophie sighed happily from the backseat. "These ferns are so calming."
Emma and Tucker shared a look. "I'm not jealous," she answered after a moment, readjusting her grip on the steering wheel. "Not of that, and not of anything to do with Danny Boy. I just don't like him, and I don't like Mia either."
Tucker's eyebrows furrowed. "But she fixed him."
"And I didn't break him! Contrary to popular belief," Emma grumbled, tapping the steering wheel with her index finger. "He's always been creepy."
"I don't doubt that."
Sophie leaned up between them and smiled, turning to Tucker. "Can I bring in a full fern next week?"
Tucker merely made a face and said lightly, "Sit back down, Johnson."
Once Sophie was quiet again and Alonso had stopped tapping, Tucker shifted his weight around and cleared his throat. "Alonso. I know this is going to sound…odd, but I think you might actually be missing Miler," he commented tentatively, touching his clipboard to the dashboard.
Emma choked. "Right. Just like I miss his dirty thong laying in the backseat."
But they could both hear what said…man would say about 'missing Miler.'
"Damn, that's a good band name."
/a few moments later/
"Wait, Alonso, are you telling me he had a thong in the backseat."
I made this for lovethatignites for Christmas (along with many, many other Daniel-related items; I'm sinning, I swear) and honestly, once I read over TIBLOKT and could get back into writing this version of Demma, it was really gross/fun to write. These two…poor Tucker. Oh my.
Merry Christmas! Review!
