Author's Note: Thank you all for the awesome feedback!
Okay, so this chapter might be a bit of a gap filler, but I wanted a bit more Marty!G and also a heart-to-heart with Sam, to set things straight between the partners. And I was also in dear need of some fluff after all the fighting. Otherwise I get sad myself ;) Plus, I have to prepare the stage for the next mini arc.
I still have to figure out some stuff about the crime plot. I hope I'll manage to wrap this up in either the next chapter or the one after.
Anyway, I still hope you'll like it ;)Read, review, and enjoy ;)
Marty and Callen spent the time with a bit of chat, but mostly... they just enjoyed each other's presence. After all that happens, you really learn to appreciate that. Suddenly the teenager glances over to the door expectantly and hops off the bed to get over to his chair.
"Something wrong?" Callen asks. Of course he wouldn't admit that he actually misses the closeness, but... well, he does. That's no crime, is it? His brother was almost killed, then you get a bit... clingy.
"Doctor comes to check on you," Marty shrugs his shoulders.
"You really have the ears of a bat," Callen shakes his head with a grin. Marty smirks as he eases down. That is the moment the doctor makes his appearance, "Mr. Callen, how are we today?"
"Great!" Callen exclaims dramatically, to which the teenager chuckles, "Marty, stop laughing."
"... what happened to you?" the doctor frowns as he turns to the teenager with curious eyes.
"Someone broke into my friend's house and attacked him," Callen explains. Really, at some point he is glad that the doctor seems laid-back about all this.
"Oh goodness. Bad luck must be chasing the both of you," the physician shakes his head.
"You have no idea," the brothers agree simultaneously.
"Okay, Mr. Callen, then let's have a look at the bandages," the doctor declares as he gets on the gloves. Callen pulls his gown away enough so the doctor has a clear view at his stomach. The physician starts to work on the bandages, "You have to tell me if it hurts."
"Sure," Callen nods. He knows that routine by now. He's had too many hospital stays to the count.
"So... did you catch the people who broke into the house?" the doctor asks surprisingly casually.
"Yeah. Marty got them, police just had to pick them up," Callen smirks proudly.
"My, my... A lot of agents in that club of yours," the physician makes a face. This is really the oddest bunch he met so far, and he met and treated a good share throughout his career.
"Kinda," Callen smirks. The doctor goes on with his check-up as he speaks, "... the stitches are looking good. We'll do another US to see if there's bleeding. Later the day we'll have another CAT scan to be on the safe side that your organs didn't take damage."
"... does that perhaps mean that I can get outta here if the results are good?" Callen suggests.
"You really want to get out of here, huh?" the physician shakes his head. He knows that agents or police officers usually want to get out the fastest possible, but this guy really tops it.
"Nothing against you and your working place. Is just that I hate hospitals in general," Callen smirks.
"You're certainly not the only one who tells me that," the physician shakes his head with a chuckle on his thin lips.
"I don't know if that's reassuring, but well," Callen jokes.
"Well, I can't guarantee you, because I need to have a look at the scan. If there is no bleeding or other abnormalities, then we can think about releasing you, if you take it easy," the doctor says, to which Callen smiles broadly, "That would be wonderful."
"Alright... well, US is clear, so first step is done," the doctor nods.
"Awesome," Callen exclaims mockingly.
"Well, someone will get you to the CAT scan within the next couple of hours. I'll be back once I have the results, and then we talk about your further treatment," the doctor says as he takes off the gloves and puts them in the trashcan.
"Thank you," Callen smirks, nodding his head at him.
"Shall I check you over, too?" the physician suggests, turning to Marty, who blinks at him incredulously, "What?"
"Yes, please. That'd be great," Callen smirks with a hint of mischief in his voice.
"No, please," Marty shakes his head.
"Marty, if the doctor wants to have a look at you, you will let him have a look at you, no arguing," the agent demands sternly.
"I'm fine! EMT's checked me," Marty insists. Really, he doesn't want to. He just got out of hospital himself. He just got over the state as a patient. And the teenager would like for things to stay that way a while longer. The doctor walks up to him as he gets on the next pair of gloves.
"And the EMT said that we have to watch out for cough and dizzy spells," Callen argues. Sam gave him all the details, of course.
"None of which I had," Marty rolls his eyes.
"It's always good to have that checked another time. It really can't harm," the doctor argues with a smirk.
"Listen to the expert," Callen nods, thumbing at the physician. He is actually glad to see Marty, well, acting like a teenager, defiant and pouting. As if on cue, the boy rolls his eyes, only proving G's point.
"Fine, okay," Marty sighs, knowing that this is a fight he won't win. The doctor makes a quick check-up, much to the teenager's dismay. That is why he hates hospitals also. There is too many doctors in them.
"Well, you should take it easy for the next couple of days. And you should especially rest your should and knee so that you stop being sore," the doctor advises him once he is finished.
"Sure," the teenager shrugs. As if he couldn't have guessed that much...
"Thank you," Callen nods politely.
"Alright, I'll see you around for the CAT scan, then," the doctor claps his thighs.
"Looking forward to that," Callen winks at him. With that the doctor takes off.
"Told you I was fine," Marty snorts.
"Still messed-up knee and shoulder, oh, not to mention the cuts on your arm that almost ripped the limb off," G argues. And he doesn't care if he is giving another mother-hen impersonation here.
"Stab wound in the stomach, four hours of surgery. I think I win," Marty huffs.
"Okay... point taken," G smirks.
"I hate hospitals," Marty sighs, leaning back in his chair.
"Me, too," Callen smirks. Marty blinks more often after a while, his head sluggishly shooting back up again once he realizes. Callen can't help but chuckle, "Scoot over here."
Marty grimaces at him, "Huh?"
The teen thinks for a second, but simply then simply goes with it, "I slept through, dunno why that is."
"Coz even tough guys like you and I are beat after fighting off three grown men with guns without weapons and save two little kids in the process. One night does not account for that," Callen chuckles.
"Huh," Marty exhales, blinking again.
"Is okay, I keep watch, you just sleep it off," Callen offers in a soft voice.
"Hm," Marty mumbles tiredly. He leans his head and arms on the rim of the bed and closes his eyes. Callen tousles the teenager's locks affectionately, happy that Marty finally gets to relax at least some. After all he's been through, rest is the best he can do. And, truth told, it helps G ease, too. The agent actually took a liking to Marty's philosophy: he's good for as long as Marty's good.
So... they are both... at least better than before.
Hours pass in which Marty sleeps peacefully while Callen finds peace in the mere body contact, in the presence of his little everything. And he was that close to losing it. Because of one stupid mistake, because of this case. It makes G sick to the stomach thinking about it. His little brother could have been killed because of... because of his job? Is it really? It's nothing Callen ever had to think about for as long as he was just himself in the world. But now there is Marty... and... if something happens to the agent, then this will affect Marty greatly, as they had it the days before when it was "simply" Callen being stabbed. But now... a case got so close to home that Marty's life was at potential risk, more than that... if not for Marty having the skills he has... he would have been dead.
The agent shakes his head. He doesn't want to think about that. It's too hurtful to even imagine that... no. Just no. He simply wants to cherish that he still has his kid brother. Everything else will be dealt with in due time. One step after the other, Nate said. Now they have to focus on getting better first. Only once they took that hurdle, they can think about how to handle Marty's safety. Callen wipes a fast tear away from his cheek before he grabs Marty's hair a little tighter to make himself aware once again that Marty is here. And that's all that matters.
Suddenly there is a soft knock on the door-frame. Callen glances over to the entrance to see his partner standing there, the uncertainty written all over his face.
"Hey," Callen says softly.
"Hey," Sam nods, biting his lower lip.
Marty stirs awake, his eyes immediately on Sam, "Hey, Sam."
"Hey, kiddo," Sam smirks.
"Did we wake you, huh?" Callen chuckles sympathetically as Marty straightens back up.
"Heard the car already when he drove to the lot," Marty says as he stretches.
"Why do I even bother to ask, huh?" Callen huffs.
"Dunno. You tell me," Marty shrugs. G smirks at him, ruffling his curls once more, "What's in the bag?"
"The clothes you asked for," Sam says. Callen nods his thanks. Sam grimaces. Neither one is sure how to approach the topic. After a longer pause, G is the one to break the ice eventually, "Marty? How about you get yourself some chocolate bar from the vending machine down this way?"
"You can just tell me that you wanna be alone with Sam, you know," Marty grins. Even he can sense awkward silence when it is in front of him. G chuckles at that, "Well, then would you do that so that I can talk to Sam? And because you gotta keep up with the eating?"
"Sure," Marty nods, hopping off the stool and outside.
"He seems a little better," Sam says once Marty is out of eavesdrop.
"Yeah, I think he's coming down from fear and shock," Callen nods.
"He was anxious to see you," Sam tells him.
"... speaking of which... I noticed you didn't come in when you brought him," G argues.
"Yeah, well, I thought you needed some time to, well, figure this out," Sam admits.
"Might've been," Callen nods. There is another moment of silence before Sam just breaks out, "... G, I... I can't even tell you how sorry I am. I never would've imagined that those guys come after us. You know that I take it serious with the security. I... I never would've done that to endanger Marty. I wouldn't do anything purposely to endanger him, G!"
"Sam, I know that," G sighs. Of course Sam wouldn't.
"Seriously, I...," Sam bites his lower lip.
"But... the timing was just awful," Callen can't help the comment. Marty was just doing so well, and then... crisis strikes.
"I know, G, and more than anything I wish I could go back to the time where I considered going out for a night and then just stay home, but... fuck, G, I didn't know," Sam shakes his head.
"Yeah... well...," Callen sighs.
"I can't even tell you how sorry I am," Sam insists.
"I believe you," Callen nods.
"So... how mad are you? Just so that I know?" Sam asks.
"I'm not really mad, Sam. I didn't see it coming, so I can't say that I knew it or whatever. It's just that this is Marty and... ah, fuck! This is just so screwed up!" Callen shakes his head. They shouldn't be forced to have such discussions, really. They should argue about the kids staying up all night or watching a TV show they weren't supposed to watch. Or a vase that broke. Not the possibility of the children getting killed thanks to their job.
"I know – and believe me, we will make the people responsible for this pay," Sam says with determination welling up. They silence another time.
"Hetty already briefed me," Callen nods.
"We will get them," Sam repeats, "they will pay for hurting the family like that."
"When you called last night, I thought I'd die from shock," Callen admits, gripping his bed sheets a little tighter.
"I picture," Sam grimaces sympathetically. He could at least get into the car and drive back home, do something, anything, but G? He just had to sit this out and anxiously wait for Marty. Sam can only vaguely imagine how painful this must have been for his partner.
"I mean... he's been through so much and... he was making so good progress...," G sighs. He is just so darn afraid that Marty will just hit the next low. And Callen doesn't want Marty to go for the next low. Nate told him that this is normal, but who'd want his little brother hurting, really?
"I think he really just needs some time to figure himself out and... process this... and I think things will be way easier once Nate's back from this assignment. He'll know exactly what to do with what you don't know now," Sam assures his partner.
"You're probably right... but... Marty just didn't deserve that on tops of everything," G exhales. It's just so unfair.
"He surely didn't," Sam agrees.
"... but by the end of the day... I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at me!" Callen admits.
"Why?" Sam frowns. That is actually an admission he didn't see coming.
"I let it slip, don't you see? That guy stabbed me and that's when it all went down," G breaks out.
"G, no one saw it coming," Sam argues.
"Right, but I should have. Sam, that normally doesn't happen to me, c'mon," Callen huffs. No, normally he sees a knife coming and dodges it. He was trained for just that.
"G, don't do that to yourself, okay?" Sam argues.
"What now? Marty could've been dead! Fuckin' dead!" Callen grits his teeth.
"I know, and this is beyond scary, but... I know it's terrible thinking about it, but if Marty hadn't been the babysitter for the girls... they would've been fuckin' dead also. My kids are alive thanks to Marty. And as awful as it is to think that... at some point I'm glad that he was there to protect them, coz no one else would've managed," Sam admits, biting his lower lip.
"I'm with you on that one, but... it could've come differently. And you know that as well as I do. That those guys didn't shoot him was a lucky coincidence and thanks to his fast reaction, but... but just one wrong step and he could've been dead, and the girls also. And all that because I let myself get stabbed," Callen grits his teeth. If he hadn't gotten stabbed, they would have been at home. And the both of them would have played babysitter the girls. Then everything would still be... less chaos, "He could've been dead, Sam, I just can't get it out of my head. He could've been dead, gone forever. I can't afford to lose him. I just can't."
"But you didn't. He's alive and so are the girls. And next time... we'll just do it better, make sure this doesn't happen again," Sam argues.
"You and I both know that it doesn't work like that. We can never know," G retorts.
"And you can never know if your kid doesn't get run over by a bus. Doesn't mean that it also happens," Sam sighs, "and Marty's a boy against all odds, let's face it."
"I don't like that, at all," Callen mutters.
"You think I do? It's what us... parents... in whatever the sense now... feel like all the while," Sam shakes his head.
"That part sucks," G sighs, though a grin tugs at his lips.
"Tell me about it. But seriously G. You shouldn't do that to yourself," Sam argues.
"What now?" Callen questions, so Sam replies, "Blaming yourself for what happened, coz if you do that... Marty will know and then he'll blame himself even more for making you sad. You know the kid, G, better than anyone else here. He'd go down if you did that. He needs you as his anchor, not as the one to push him over the edge."
"... you might be right," Callen exhales.
"I am, trust me," Sam smirks.
"... at this moment I'd just love to take him home and not leggo till he is better and all this is over," Callen admits, covering his eyes. Again, he couldn't care less if he is being overly emotional now. This is Marty they are talking about. For that little guy, he even makes a fool of himself, with pleasure.
"You can do all that once you're outta hospital," Sam winks at him. Callen looks at him before he nods with a sigh, "right..."
"So... are we good?" Sam asks tentatively.
"What? Yeah, yeah, we're good," Callen nods. He doesn't blame Sam. He can't, really. He didn't see it coming, so he can't blame anyone for it either. And anyways, they should probably stop the whole self-blame trip. That doesn't do anyone any good.
"Good," Sam nods, visibly relieved at that. He feared that Callen would bear him a grudge for this.
"This situation is just crazy," G huffs. Sam just smirks to himself as his partner runs a hand over his face. G doesn't even know how much he is like his little brother and vice-versa. It's one of the funniest things to all team members that Marty and Callen share certain gestures, habits, and that they are likely to refer to something with the same words without knowing it, and be perfectly unaware of the similarity that is seemingly there by blood.
"Surely is. But we'll find the people behind all this," Sam assures him.
"And then we bring those bosses to the boatshed and I'll make sure they don't walk out of it on their own feet again," G declares gloomily.
"With you on that one," Sam nods. He could hold back with the minions, but whoever gave the order... will get it, right in his face.
"I'm just glad once I'm out of this. It's killing me to be stuck here doing nothing," Callen grumbles, which makes his partner chuckle softly, "Feel with you, but I guess you'll be fine in the next couple of days."
"The sooner the better," G nods. He has some business to handle, that much is for sure. Suddenly, Marty stands in the doorway again, "Safe to come in?"
"Yeah, yeah," Callen smirks.
"I thought you were supposed to get yourself something to eat?" Sam frowns as Marty walks inside, but the teenager just shrugs at him, "I gave it to a small kid crying down the hallway. The boy was totally upset coz he busted his toy car."
"Of course you find the one kid crying in the entire building," Callen rolls his eyes. Marty seemingly has a magnet for that.
"What can I say? Kids dig me," Marty shrugs with a smile.
"Surely do. So... you wanna head out or you wanna stay with G longer?" Sam asks.
"Doc said I'll have my scan little soon, and that will take some time. You really should go with Sam. This is gonna be boring above everything," Callen argues.
"He's right," Sam agrees.
"And you're supposed to eat also. Coz I think if I keep you around all this time, you'll only give everything to small crying kids ," Callen adds.
"Okay," the teenager nods.
"And you can come by morrow again to hang around. If they don't release him until then," Sam offers.
"Alright, see you morrow then, G," Marty says. He gives his brother a brief hug. Sam shakes hands with his partner and with that they walk up to the door.
"Bye, kiddo," Callen tells him, and Marty replies, "Bye."
Sam and Callen exchange on last look before Sam takes the teenager back over to his place. It's looking better again, right?
"We're back!" Sam greets as they come inside. Marty already walks ahead, but then stops dea in his tracks. Michelle already rounds the corner.
"Oh, hey there," Michelle smirks. Marty glances around, visibly shocked, "The hell?! Everything's..."
Fixed! Everything is fixed, for goodness sake! Marty can't help but stare.
"You have the best employer ever. I hope you tell that Hetty often enough, really," Michelle snickers.
"What now?" Sam frowns at her incredulously as he comes closer, too.
"Well, after you left a horde of architects and a whole bunch of craftsmen swarmed in here and fixed everything just the way we wanted it, upon Hetty's order. I love that woman so friggin' much. Coz I mean... look at it, Sam! This is gorgeous!" Michelle exclaims excitedly.
"Wow," Sam nods, visibly impressed. He knows that Hetty makes many miracles happen, but he is always amazed at it.
"It's exactly the colors I wanted and so fast!" Michelle smirks.
"Yeah, if there is someone to do it, it's Hetty," Sam winks at her.
"Marty? You do me a favor and watch the girls for a little while? I wanna cook in my new kitchen a bit," Michelle asks him.
"Sure. Upstairs?" Marty nods.
"Yeah. I think they are damaging the beds all over. You know, Hetty's given Marie a canopy bed and now Jazzie wants one, too," Michelle rolls her eyes.
"Maybe I can get them into a round of crawling on the ground," Marty shrugs.
"How does that work?" Michelle makes a face.
"When mean bats fly above your heads to eat your face?" the teenager replies, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Childish fantasy is amazing," Michelle smiles.
"That and a good weapon to get kids into things they don't wanna do," Marty nods, Well, I'm off then."
With that the teenager walks upstairs.
"You know that she did that for him, right?" Michelle asks, now more serious.
"What?" Sam blinks at her, "She fixed our house for Marty?"
"I mean, she also did it for us, but I honestly think she pushed this so that Marty sees that everything's back to Status Quo," she explains.
"Status Quo?" he knits his eyebrows at her with a small smile on his lips.
"You know how he was about the situation... he blames himself for the fire and all. Now that he sees that things are fixed...," she shrugs, and Sam completes, "He'll feel better. Definitely."
"Really, wish I had a Hetty over at my agency," Michelle shakes her head with a smirk.
"She's one of her kind," Sam smirks.
"Pity," she shrugs.
"Just imagine two Hettys together... I don't know what would be if those they came together... I mean... they'd take over the world," Sam grimaces.
"True again... how's G, by the way?" Michelle asks.
"Better. I think they will actually release him from hospital soon," Sam nods.
"And... how is it about, you know...?" she grimaces. Michelle knows that Sam was actually afraid to face his partner after this entire disaster.
"We're good. We talked it out," Sam smirks.
"Then I'm glad," Michelle smiles at him.
"Me, too. Believe me. I was honestly scared that he'd, you know, not trust me with Marty ever again. He's so extremely protective of the kid," Sam shakes his head.
"Naturally. You're the same about our girls, and so am I. Parents would do anything for their children, and G... well, he doesn't have kids, technically, but Marty's the closest thing to a child that he'll get, unless he has other children later on, but you know what I mean," she gesticulates.
"Totally. Sometimes they really act more like father and son than big brother and little brother... and other times they are the latter. It's really funny watching that mix," Sam smirks.
"I bet," she snickers. Sam hugs her from behind, "Next time you come to the game as my personal cheerleader. Then you might get a chance?"
"You wish," she snorts.
"Definitely do," he smirks.
"Whatever. So okay, I'll cook meal in the new kitchen now. So excited!" she smirks.
"Can't remember you saying that in a while," Sam snickers, "with such enthusiasm."
"When I got my last kitchen," she argues, to which Sam nods, "True."
"And if you're a real good man, you fix the bathtub," she smirks.
"What did the girls do to it this time?" Sam rolls his eyes.
"I honestly don't have a clue. The water just won't go away... and that was once the craftsmen were gone, so I couldn't ask them to fix it," she exhales, though neither one can be really mad at them at times such as these. They are happy... and a bit crazy, but what child isn't?
Sam walks upstairs to fix the bathroom, once again. And for once he is actually quite glad for normalcy to claim its place so fast. Hetty is right with what she told Michelle: back to Status Quo at this point might be the best thing to do after all. And it feels about just right.
The culprit for the bathtub is located after some digging also: marbles. Sam asks himself how they managed to stuff them in there, but he gave long since up on trying to figure it out. The girls just always find a way to create chaos. He walks into the Marie's room to find the two rolling on the ground, Marty standing above them drowning them in their stuffed animals.
"Do I want to know what this is?" Sam makes a face, so Marty explains, "The girls just got to the Cuddly Falls, where cuddly falls down on you."
"Of course," Sam shrugs, "But could you quit for a sec?"
"Princesses? Your dear Father has important matters to discuss with you. He seeks an audience with you," Marty declares dramatically. The two are instantly on their feet, looking at their father with huge eyes.
"So now. I found marbles in the drain for the bathtub, girls. And I know that Marty or mommy didn't put them there. And we had the talk about how we don't put stuff in drains or sinks," Sam lectures them, but then Marie jumps in, "But daddy, we had to!"
"Right, we had to, for the sake of the mission," Jasmine joins her.
"Girls, now don't come me with that again. Is okay that you tell yourselves stories when playing, but I don't always want to fix the bathroom once I come back home. That can't continue," Sam argues sternly.
"But there lives something in the drain, daddy!" Jasmine insists, and her sister adds, "Uh-huh. So we had to put'em in there."
"Girls!" Sam cries out, but then Marty jumps in, faking exasperation, "Oh, you seriously did that?!"
The girls stare at him now, very much surprised by his sudden shriek. Sam can't hide the confusing either.
"What's wrong, Marty?" Marie asks.
"That's the only way to calm the beast. The snakes didn't work... and the Power Balls neither," Jasmine insists.
"Coz daddy took them out," Marie nods.
"I can't believe it that you did that, oh my god!" Marty makes a face.
"What?" the two blink at him with huge eyes, so Marty goes on, "Aren't you afraid that the snakes come back out and bite you in the bottom?! Oh goodness! I won't even put a foot in that tub!"
"Daddy took them out again," Jasmine argues.
"But what if they had babies in there and now they come nibble on your butt when you take a bath?!" Marty argues dramatically. The girls look visibly distressed.
"And then the Power Balls, girls! What if they only boost the powers of the Gremlin that lives in there... or the snakes now fuse with the Gremlin and create a huge monster Gremlin with snakes as arms and then he... oh God! How could you do that?!" Marty gesticulates wildly.
"We didn't know!" Jasmine exclaims.
"But..." Marie gapes.
"What do we do now?!" Jasmine asks hastily, and Marie joins her, "What do we do?!"
And then they ask in a chorus, "Marty, what do we do now?!"
"Well, first of all: Never feed the beast again," Marty lectures them playfully. The girls nod hastily.
"Oh... that's a hard one, coz you already fed it. I mean, if you hadn't fed it, it would've just dispersed into thin air by the next full moon... but now you fed it. That's bad. Real bad. Bad-bad," Marty taps his finger against his chin. The girls look very distressed.
"Marty, now help us already!" Marie cries out.
"Right! We don't wanna have snakes nibbling our butts," Jasmine whines.
"I don't know... I just don't... I never met one that was granted to grow that big, really! … but wait! Ah, there, now I remember! Follow me! Quick!" Marty makes a dramatic pose before he walks ahead into the bathroom. The girls follow suit. Sam glances at the scene with curiosity. Now he wants to know what the teenager has in mind to make the girls quit that. Jasmine started it two years ago, and Marie joined a year ago... since then, they have the sink fixed about twice a day. Marty, once inside the bathroom, grabs one of the cleaners from the shelf and walks up to the bathtub, "I only know one spell from a very, very old witch who's used to live next door before a chant went wrong and she ended up as a toad. The only way to kill a Snake-Gremlin is this here."
He makes a theatrical gesture towards the girls, who nod at every word before he goes on, "So, if you have a Snake-Gremlin living in your drain, you gotta pour some of it through that hole here, but make sure it's just a bit, or else everything's gonna explode, boom, boom! House's gone! And you don't want the house gone or else you'll go to Alice in Wonderland. And we all know that no one wants to go there for as long as there's this creepily grinning cat roaming around."
"Definitely," the two agree. Sam chuckles. The girls, for some reason, never liked Alice in Wonderland, ever.
"Okay, secondly, never do that without an adult present. Otherwise the magic won't work," Marty tells them, to which the girls gape, "Oh."
"Well, let's see, ah, your daddy is here, so we can do it," Marty winks at Sam before he goes on, "Never-ever even think about drinking that stuff. If you do, you will turn blue and red and then you'll blow up like a huge balloon and explode."
"Never!" the two agree.
"... so now that we clarified that... we have to make the chant. But you gotta help me or else it won't work... so now we say the magical word together: BANZAI!" he exclaims as he makes a dramatic pose, and the girls join gleefully, "Banzai!"
Marty leans over the tub and "sneaks a peek" at the drain, "There, Gremlin dead. But it can still come back as a zombie if you give him more to feed on."
"Never again!" the two insists.
"Good. Then it's time for the Princesses to make sure the Cuddlies get back into the box before they come eat the furniture, after all it's all new now. Would be a pity if the Cuddlies eat'em all," Marty explains. And with that the girls run off. Marty puts the cleaner away before he walks past Sam, "Welcome?"
"If you don't know whatcha wanna do for a job, you might try teacher or kindergartener," Sam chuckles. Marty's methods are unconventional, but Sam actually has hope that the girls will finally quit the drains as their playgrounds.
"I guess I'd get many calls from upset parents for making kids believe that Gremlins live in their drains," Marty snickers.
"I don't mind. You even got them into the security management," Sam smirks.
"Sure as hell you don't mind, coz you already failed to make them stop with the candy," the teenager smiles.
"Hey," Sam huffs playfully.
"Just kidding," Marty smiles at him before he hollers, "GIRLS! Are they yet back in the box so I can sit down on it to make sure it's shut?!"
He walks back into Marie's room and immediately carries on entertaining them. Sam smiles to himself as he makes his way back downstairs.
"Drain's fixed. And I think the girls will leave it alone from this point on," Sam smiles victoriously.
"What did you say to them?" she frowns.
"Marty handled it," Sam shrugs.
"Are we just gonna let him raise our kids?" Michelle jokes.
"Just until they are out of that phase, maybe?" Sam suggests.
"Will be difficult once G is outta hospital," Michelle smirks.
"You said yourself, we just gotta make sure he comes by all the time. Problem solved. I never saw the girls giving in that easily. I mean... he just tells them that there's a Gremlin in the drain and they believe it," Sam shakes his head.
"He really has an active imagination," Michelle grins.
"I thought our girls were the worst, but he really tops it. Born story-teller, really," Sam shakes his head.
"Well, I don't see what's wrong about that. He's simply very creative, I'd say," she shrugs.
"Definitely," Sam nods. Suddenly the doorbell rings, "I'll get that."
He opens the door, "Nate!"