For the next few days Stan Pines acted like a normal, non-secret-agent platypus.

Meaning, he didn't do much.

Mostly he lay curled up on the recliner and tried not to think, occasionally pulling out the photo he'd found packed in his duffle bag and staring at it, until he couldn't bear the hurt anymore and shoved it back in under his spare clothes.

He barely ate except when Dr. D (it was easier to call him that than trying to remember his freakin' long name) physically handed him the food, and spoke even less. He also slept a lot, even though he hated himself for how lazy he was being, knew he should probably get up and do something and quit bein' a worthless freeloader...but he couldn't bring himself to care. Why should he? He wasn't just disowned, he was officially dead. He probably had a tombstone or something back in New Jersey, if Pa'd bothered to shell out the cash for one. Heh, that meant now he was fulfilling that old saying, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." You know, with how much time he was spending sleeping because at least then he wasn't thinking about how far downhill his life had gone thanks to one dumb mistake.

The only time he got some energy back was when Dr. D asked if he wanted to try rebuilding the Time Travel-Inator; immediately he brightened up a little, and asked if he could be sent back to before the science fair so he could stop himself from breaking the perpetual motion machine.

Dr. D, however, wasn't sure if that was a good idea, because having two Stans in the same spot could potentially cause a paradox, and then they would probably get arrested by the time police (since time travel was capable of being invented, according to him it was therefore entirely within the realm of possibility that a group of time traveling policemen might also have been formed in the future or something to enforce the rules of the space-time continuum; that logic didn't make a lot of sense, but from a man who believed in the world being eventually overrun by evil vending machines it was at least consistent). Stan lost interest at once, and declined the offer to be sent back at all.

"I'd just be a homeless loser there, too," he muttered sadly, curling back up under the blanket.

Once in a while Perry the Platypus showed up; from what Stan overheard of his one-sided conversations with Dr. D, it was kind of a routine they had almost every day, and it was important to keep up appearances so someone named "Major Monobrow" wouldn't get suspicious.

He would often just come and sit next to Stan, and even encourage him to stroke his fur.

The feeling of a warm, friendly animal to pet helped.

Just a little bit.

Then, about a week after his arrival in the future, Dr. D came and sat down at the end of the recliner.

For a moment he just sat in silence, fiddling with his fingers. Even in his despondency Stan found himself feeling a little concerned by how quiet he was being-he'd realized by now that "quiet" and "Dr. D" usually didn't go together. Even if the other person wasn't responding, or heck, even if he was alone, he still seemed to feel the need to talk someone's ears off, even if it was his own.

Finally Dr. D cleared his throat and said, in a somewhat lower tone than usual, "I know things aren't great for you right now." He hesitated, then laughed weakly. "That's kind of an understatement, isn't it?"

Stan didn't answer. He tried to convey with his silence that yes, that was the definition of an understatement, and that he just wanted to be left alone to his misery.

Dr. D persisted, regardless. "Believe it or not, though, I know what you're probably feeling right now."

At that, Stan was unable to hold back a bit of a snort. Grown-ups always said stuff like that when something bad happened to you, but that was just something they said when they felt sorry for someone, they never actually meant it. "Why, did your parents ever kick you out?" he whispered bitterly.

He was not at all prepared for Dr. D to say, "Well, yes, actually!"

After a moment of confusion, Stan slowly twisted until he was able to sit up and look at the man head-on, giving him the intense stare he reserved for people he thought were lying. If he caught even a hint of BS, he was going to give him a black eye, host or no host.

But the eyes that stared back at his were completely guileless.

"Yeah, when I was a boy my parents abandoned me in the forest outside Gimmelshtump to be raised by ocelots for a few years." Dr. D gave a wistful sigh. "Compared to my other tragic backstories, that's actually one of the better ones. I even go and visit them sometimes-they're surprisingly long-lived, since most ocelots only live for about twenty years, and they've been around for almost twice that long."

"Gimmelshtump?"

"It's a town in Drusselstein, my homeland."

Stan gave up trying to understand where his host was from (and ignored his inner Ford, who was struggling with the concept that ocelots were rainforest creatures and this man sounded like he was from a pseudo-German country, and there was no way ocelots were indigenous to that kind of place). He slowly scooted around until he was side by side with the doc, and brushed a lock of hair back out of his eyes. "...They really abandoned you?"

Dr. D looked down at his hands. "Yeah..they said it was because I constantly smelled of pork-long story-and I couldn't come back until it had gone away, but I think it was mostly because they just never wanted me in the first place."

Stan's stomach twinged, and a fresh lump rose in his throat.

The kid's a loser! He's an embarrassment! I just wanna get rid of him!

All you do is lie, and cheat, and ride on your brother's coattails!

You're not welcome in this house!

...He definitely knew what that felt like.

"...How did you handle it?" he asked.

Dr. D shrugged moodily. "Things got a little better after I came here-not by a lot, especially lately, but...mostly I cope with my childhood trauma and all the most horrible, soul-destroying or even just plain annoying things that happen in my life by attempting acts of over-the-top, disproportionate revenge." The corner of his mouth quirked up into an awkward smile. "Speak of the devil, how'd you feel about trying that yourself?" He pulled the blueprints from earlier out of his lab coat, and opened them across their laps. "I meant to tell you before, it's for a device that I'm calling a Blow-Up-West-Coast-Tech-Inator, which I was totally working on long before I met you because...personal reasons. Which have nothing to do with you whatsoever. But the point is, once it's finished, we could-well, I guess the name makes it kind of self-explanatory, doesn't it?" He gave Stan a little nudge. "So, what do you say?"

Stan stared at the blueprints for a moment. Then, for the first time in days, he looked up at Dr. D and grinned.

"You had me at 'blow up West Coast Tech'."

Doof 'n Pines Evil Incorporated!