DannyMay 2020. Day Eight

"Lost"

Stanford Pines readied his gun as the swirling green enveloped him and took him somewhere else. He wouldn't shoot the moment he arrived, he still wasn't that paranoid –and he was human enough still– for that, but the moment something seemed amiss, all restrain would be gone.

He walked out –walked, instead of simply being dropped as usual– into a lab of shiny metal and glowing green lights, with weaponry as well as tools laid around and one exit behind… teenagers?

His gun quickly came up, but he didn't shoot.

They were taking cover and seemed ready to bolt away any second.

"They don't seem like a ghost to me." One of them whispered, an African-American boy wearing glasses and a beret.

"But they still got a gun!" And then a girl wearing a lot of black was pointing a small weapon –energy-based for the look of it, like his– at him and he was pointing at her but- they didn't move.

After a terse silence, Ford spoke. "I mean you no harm." His voice was muffled, but clear through the scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face.

"Prove it." Her voice was hard, but the boys were standing up, as well, not hostile, curious.

He showed them his one empty hand, and slowly opened his coat to tuck it away again, then displayed his now equally empty hands. Ford pointedly inclined his head towards her own weapon.

"Sam," it was the other boy, the one who hadn't spoken so far, but now was holding the girl's wrist. "'s ok, he's not a ghost."

Stanford didn't know it, but an unspoken 'so it won't hurt him anyway' passed between them at that moment.

The girl, Sam, finally put down her weapon and now they were staring at each other.

Awkward.

Then Ford broke the silence, because he wasn't an unpopular kid anym– because he wasn't a kid! He was an adult! A man! And he wasn't going to be intimidated by some kids with attitude ever again.

"Where are we, exactly?" He asked, looking around himself, beginning to wonder why middle-schoolers were in a lab unsupervised –they might damage something important!–, but then his focus was on the dark tunnel and its exposed circuits that had been behind him this whole time.

"Amity Park, Illinois, mister."

"Don't touch that!"

Ford glanced back and saw the teens glance between him and the tunnel worriedly, so he stepped away.

"There's, uh, there's high electrical risk in there." The boy with the NASA tee said. He had a small device with an antennae on his hand, he noted absently.

Stanford glanced back at the tunnel and its circuits. Yeah, he could believe that much, even if it wasn't the whole truth.

"You said we're on Earth?" He asked the boy with the beret, instead.

"Not really but yeah anyway." He answered. "So, if you're not a ghost, are you an alien or something?"

Ford rested his goggles atop his head and lowered his scarf, taking a deep breath.

There was the distinctive smell of chemicals that marked an often-used lab, and by god, had he missed that. He turned back to the teens, who now bore very confused expressions. "Or something." He finally answered.

As he scarfed down on peanut butter and jam sandwiches with a side of pancakes the NASA boy –Danny– had made for him, Ford though these three –Tucker, Danny and Sam, they had told him– were good kids, if a little odd, with how they just accepted a man appearing out of a portal in the middle of their basement, and only shrugging and not only saying 'yeah' when he had wanted to go through the kitchen like the starving man he almost certainly was, but had prepared him a fairly decent meal for a thirteen-year-old.

(Danny was glad his parents had made the shopping before they left for their –scientifically– paranormal symposium, since that meant the food was almost new and not sentient.)

"Do you… need anything else, Dr. Pines?" Danny asked him. "Different food, more juice–?"

"A shower." Sam –not Samantha– mumbled, earning herself a glare from her friends. "Oh, he needs it!"

Before a discussion could unfold, Ford chimed in, "A shower would be great." He sniffed his clothes, and felt nothing, but when he noticed their poorly-hidden grimaces, he realized he must be desensitized to his own stench.

Once Doctor Pines was in the shower, Team Phantom gathered to process things.

"Y'know, this is like that scene in Jumangi where Robin Williams just came from the jungle and is trying to cope." Said Tuck.

"I know, right!"

"It's just so similar!"

"He has almost no beard, though."

"And has a gun."

"Haha, yeah!"

"Seriously, though, where do you think he came from?"

The three of them sobered up at that, thinking back in the strange way the portal had acted, with those readings they couldn't understand, before apparently turning itself on before tossing Doctor Pines on them.

There had also been a pulse in the portal, just before Danny could close it.

"Must have come from a natural portal, my parents have been theorizing over them for a while now; they think they used to be many everywhere, but they can't find any. Might be more of a random thing, or their portal is working but not like they want."

"Huh, sounds legit to me." Tucker nodded. "But that still leaves where did the portal open to."

They fell silent again, only the distant sound of the shower running as background noise.

"We could just, try and ask him." The boys looked at Sam, who had her chin propped in the palm of her hand, only shrugging when they noticed her staring. "'s not like we have many options."

They agreed with her, and stared at the table, wondering who exactly was Stanford Pines?

Once they found out, though, they would wonder in what exactly they had gotten into.

Ok, a few thoughts on this:

I see Sam as the one who asks first, shoots only if necessary, but at this stage of her life she is more of a 'humans are the real monsters' mentality. Not too extreme, though. Let's just say, if it had been some weird creature that had come off the portal, she would have been more 'let's try to connect with this misunderstood creature', since Ford's a human, she went 'oh, yeah, these can be bastards and this one's got a weapon'.

I was torn between this being just pre-series or if it would be an AU for DP, so I put it a year behind the timeline so that it can be anything. It is pre-series for GF, tho.

Also, I don't really like Sam's more bossy tendencies but I don't really want to take away that character trait of hers, so let's say that at this age she just snarks/sasses at people on how she believes things should be or what she thinks should be done.

Sometimes I think I make Team Phantom too nice in comparison to canon, but I can't look at them and not think "Look at those cute geeks! They fight evil monsters and like nerdy things! How cute!" and I think it leaks into my writing. I just think they are neat!

Then again, these last two points might be because I haven't watched the show in a while and have been working mostly through fanon and my memories.

Oh, and in case it's not understandable, the 'lost' part is that Ford doesn't really know if he's back home, or if he ended up in a universe completely unrelated to his.