Author Notes - I like giving certain elements in my favourite media realistic consequences. Today, it's Gil's role as the primary victim of scares and slapstick.

Partially inspired by a review on a Bubble Guppies story I read several years ago at this point (about time). More specifically, a guest reviewer by the ironic name of Mr. Noname wanted to see the Gil shenanigans deconstructed.

Well Mr Noname, I doubt you're still reading BG fanfics and I can't even PM you cos you're a guest reviewer, but if you are I do apologise for the four year wait. I myself have wanted to deconstruct it for years now, and I think it's about time I did so. The review was on the fanfic 'Good Morning Mr Grumpfish (Alternate Version)' if y'all are wondering. Heads up, it takes a very dark turn halfway through.

I could have released this a little earlier, but I wanted to wait until after Christmas to actually make it public. After all, I don't think anyone wants to be reading a story about a young boy getting hospitalized for Christmas. Then again, we have Christmas songs about witnessing Mommy cheating on her husband with Santa Claus and Grandma being the victim of reindeer-guided vehicular manslaughter, so whatever I guess.

If you think this is too dark, just wait for the show's ten anniversary this January (yes, the show is almost a decade old now). I plan to publish a much happier story about the Guppies' first day of school to celebrate it.

CHAPTER ONE - THE ACCIDENT

Gil, at this point, had long accepted his lot in life. A seemingly-alive boomerang refusing to follow his orders? The Little Fish meowing when they should've been barking? Even Molly slamming two cymbals together directly in his face? Just normal now. There were the spooks too, such as when Deema, Goby, and Oona pretended to be a suit of armour coming to life. There were hundreds of times when Bubble Puppy, whether out of a tuba or a magic hat, barked and made him jump.

Usually, he was able to laugh along with Molly and the other Guppies. Sometimes, not so much. But... it couldn't have been that bad, right? If they just laughed whenever something went wrong, then it wasn't that serious, right?

'GIL, CATCH!'

'Huh?'

Gil was so deep in thought about it, that he forgot it was outside time at school and he was in the middle of a game of frisbee. Most of the other Guppies had joined, but Nonny preferred to dig through the sand pit for dinosaur fossils.

*bonk*

'Ow...'

The frisbee smacked directly into his forehead before he could return to reality. It hadn't been thrown that hard, but it still hurt. He rubbed his forehead as he picked up the throwing disc from the ground.

'Sorry Gil!' Deema apologised with hardly any remorse in her voice.

The other Guppies, except for the ever-stoic Nonny, laughed. Like always, Gil laughed along with them. That's what he was supposed to do, after all, even if it really didn't help the pain like he hoped it would.

'Alright then.' Gil said, adopting a cocky smirk. 'You asked for it!'

He tossed the frisbee back at Deema as hard as he could. Perhaps a little too hard, as it soared right over her head and crashed into a nearby bush. Once again, the others laughed. He couldn't remember them laughing when Oona made the same mistake just a few minutes ago.

'I'll get it!' Zooli said.

Gil shook his head, and pointed to himself. 'Nah, I'll get it. It was my throw.'

He swam over to the bush, and as he approached where the frisbee lay he could hear most of the others snickering. Before he reached into the bush to grab the disc, he hesitated. Why were they laughing? Did Deema tell a joke that he somehow didn't hear? It sounded a little too similar to the laughs of the Little Fish, and he had long since learnt that if the Little Fish were giggling, it was a sign of horrible things to come.

Today was different, though. The Little Fish were busy helping Mr Grouper reorganise the books and toys inside the classroom while the Guppies were outside. If they weren't around to spook him, then surely he was in the clear today. He grabbed onto the frisbee...

'ARF ARF!'

'ARRRGGH!'

And jumped back when something leapt out from the bush and yelped in his face. When his panicking heart finally relaxed, he realised that the 'monster' inside the bush was just Bubble Puppy. Everyone else, even Nonny, laughed.

Gil didn't understand why his friends laughed so much when he got spooked like that. Yeah, he was pretty dang jumpy - only Deema got even close to rivalling him on that. Sure, most of the time he was asking for it. But moments like that? Whether Bubble Puppy intended to scare him or not, he wasn't doing anything except for reaching for the toy that everyone wanted to play with. Why did he deserve to get spooked for that?

He didn't stay mad at Bubble Puppy for long at all, as the mermaid doggy immediately gave him a big slobbery kiss on the cheek. His tongue tickled Gil's skin and made him chuckle, and the blue-haired boy brought him into a hug.

'I'm okay!' He called to his friends, the same way he always did.

Bubble Puppy squirmed out of his arms, and grabbed the frisbee with his mouth. With a few mischievous barks, the little doggy ran away with the frisbee in hand before Gil could grab it from him again.

Gil rolled his eyes and laughed. 'Bubble Puppy! Bring that back!'

Bubble Puppy didn't listen, and continued to swim around with his little toy. Gil got off from the ground and dusted himself off, and he began to swim after his playful pet.

'After that doggy!' Deema declared.

All the other Guppies stopped what they were doing and joined Gil on his little doggy hunt. Except for Deema; she was a little too busy telling everyone else to go for her to notice that everyone was already leaving. It took her a few extra seconds to realise that she was being left behind.

'Hey!' She yelled. 'Wait for me!'

Bubble Puppy had gone quite far. Nonny had spent the entire journey worried about what Mr Grouper would think of this, but the others paid that no attention at all. They had travelled all the same to a quiet street on a rather flat hill, where the most interesting thing was that one of the houses had a moving truck out in front. A lobster and a snail, in movers uniform, opened up the back of the truck and began moving out a couple of the boxes within it.

The snail huffed as she carried a particularly heavy box. 'Good guppy... why do we always get hired for the heavy stuff?'

'Because,' The lobster said as he placed his box on the front porch. 'We're the employees they call the 'expendable ones'.' He snapped his claws as his equivalent to air quotes. 'Whatever that means.'

As they entered the house to pack some more things away, the Guppies approached the open truck. Bubble Puppy had helpfully swum on top of the vehicle, and stood by the edge looking down at his Guppy friends. He still held the frisbee in his mouth, and waved it about as if taunting them.

'Come on, boy!' Gil called to his puppy. 'Come down and give us the frisbee back!'

'Down, Bubble Puppy!' Goby ordered, like he was talking to his dragon puppy. 'Down!'

Zooli giggled. 'Wow. Bubble Puppy's as easy to convince as my cat. That's impressive.'

Gil put his hands on his hips and cocked an eyebrow. Why did it seem like Bubble Puppy was nicer to Gil's friends than his actual owner? All the while, Nonny couldn't shake off an uneasy feeling in the pit of stomach. He tapped Molly on the shoulder to get her attention.

'Um... shouldn't we have been back at school by now?' He asked.

Molly giggled. 'It's okay, Nonny! I'm sure Mr Grouper will understand. We can't go back now without Bubble Puppy!'

Deema looked around at her friends. What were they doing, just standing two feet off the ground? Crossing her arms and groaning, she swam off the ground and up towards Bubble Puppy. Even the mermaid dog hadn't expected any of his friends to simply swim up to him, and he jumped back with a whimper.

The blonde Guppy put her hands on the roof of the truck. 'Alright boy, that's enough.'

The other Guppies watched her swim up, their thoughts of 'huh, why didn't we think of that?' clear on their faces. Bubble Puppy did not obey the order, but instead playfully growled at her. Deema's response was to growl back, lowering her head to mimic a territorial dog. Most of the others witnessed the act while having nothing to say about it, with the exception of Zooli.

'Um...' She said. 'D-Did Deema just growl at him?'

'Yep.' Oona answered simply.

'Uh, and none of you think it's that weird?'

Goby shrugged. 'Eh. If you've known Deema for as long as we have, you get used to her.'

Bubble Puppy still did not drop the frisbee, but instead jumped off the back of the moving van. Deema continued growling like an angry puppy as she too hopped off the back and chased him down. Once they were both on the ground, Bubble Puppy finally conceded to his friends' demands and dropped the throwing disc. Deema stopped pretending to be an angry dog just in time for her to pick it up with her hands instead of her mouth.

'Thanks, boy.' She said, stroking his head.

Gil sighed in relief. Perhaps it wasn't the way he imagined it would be solved, but he had no reason to complain. He approached Deema, with the simple intent to ask her for the frisbee back, since he was the last one to have it before Bubble Puppy took it...

'ARF ARF ARF!'

Only for Deema to suddenly decide to act like a dog again, this time barking loudly. She almost perfectly mimicked the bark of a dog who needed to be on a leash at all times. Most of the other Guppies laughed...

'AHHHHHH!'

But Gil reacted like she really was a dangerous beast. He screamed the way he always did upon dealing with a scare like this, jumping back as far as his frightened little body could take him. It wasn't quite the reaction Deema was expecting.

'Uh... Gil?' She said. 'I-I wasn't actually trying to-'

He jumped back far enough to slam into the many boxes stacked behind him, hitting it hard enough to send himself to the ground. With his face landing on the pavement, he got only a split second to look up at the boxes behind him.

They wobbled, and they only had one trajectory.

'Oh no...' He muttered, for that was all he could do.

In a manner eerily familiar to him, many of the boxes fell out of the moving truck. And every single one of them landed on him, trapping him beneath them.

For a moment, everything was silent. Then... laughter. The Guppies, with the exception of Nonny, couldn't help laughing. It was your usual Gil shenanigans, with the boy getting spooked and managing to put himself in danger. For Molly in particular, it reminded her of that time he opened up a garbage truck, thinking ice cream awaited him before all of that trash fell on him. Or perhaps when he removed a purple block from a tower of green blocks, resulting in all three towers falling on him.

'Whoopsie daisy!' Deema said with a laugh. 'Sorry Gil!'

Bubble Puppy's jaw dropped. He ran over to the pile of boxes, not even able to work up the will to whimper. He sniffed at the spilled boxes, whining when he found himself unable to pick up Gil's scent.

Molly finally stopped giggling. 'Alright Gilly, time to go back to school now!'

She received nothing but silence. She waited for Gil to pop his head out from the pile, like he did with the tower blocks, or at least say 'I'm okay!' like he almost always did when something like this happened.

'Come on, Gilly!'

Still, nothing but silence. Everyone's smiles faded away as a horrible realisation hit each and every one of them like a truck.

'G-Gilly...?'

'GIL!' Oona cried.

Without a second thought, Oona dashed over to that pile of boxes and shoved one of them aside. Usually, a child as young as her would have no way of moving a box so heavy, but she was so high on adrenaline that she carried it away like it was merely loaded with feathers.

'G-Guys?' Goby said with a gulp. 'I-I don't think this is funny anymore...'

Zooli adopted a determined expression and turned to the others. 'Well, what are you guys waiting for? Help her!'

One by one, each of the Guppies pitched in and helped Oona push those boxes aside and search for the poor boy buried underneath them. Only Molly didn't join in, but not because she didn't want to see if he was okay. Absolutely not. It was because standing there was all she could do.

'This isn't happening...' She muttered to herself over and over again. 'This isn't happening... this isn't happening...'

She was snapped right out of her happy little world when Deema screamed. Very soon, the others followed suit. It was enough for Molly to realise the horrible truth - it truly was happening. With a gasp, she rushed over to the others. She clung onto her denial, telling herself over and over that her best friend would be okay. Maybe he was just messing with them, or maybe it wasn't too bad.

'GILLY!'

Her cheerful denial only made the ugly truth hit that much harder. Bruised, bleeding... unconscious. She couldn't even see if he was still breathing. She wanted to leap forward and bring him into a hug, but her body didn't obey. While everyone else began to cry, Nonny finally worked up the courage to reach for Gil's arm and feel his wrist. He felt a faint pulse, which relaxed his own nerves just a bit, but it seemed to be slowly fading.

'O-Okay...' Nonny stammered. 'H-He's still alive... but I'm not sure for how much longer...'

'Molly!' Oona cried, tears streaming down her face. 'What do we do?!'

Molly couldn't answer. All she could do was get on her hands and tail, and cry into the ground. Even Nonny's stoic exterior broke away to reveal the emotionally-fragile child within. The only Guppy who wasn't crying was, oddly, Deema. The Guppy who would normally be crying the hardest didn't shed a single tear, and simply stared. Not even at Gil, but just into space. Her eyes were free of any sort of emotion.

'OH MY GOD!' The mover lobster yelled as he dashed out the door.

The mover snail gasped. 'Rob? What's wrong?!'

'Call the ambulance, right now!'

The snail did precisely as she was told, and dialled the emergency number immediately. Only then was she comfortable with asking why.

'What's the emergency?' She asked.

'Some of the boxes fell on a young boy!'

'Oh god...!'

The three minutes it took for the ambulance to arrive were the longest three minutes that the Guppies had ever gone through. With every second, it seemed, they got closer and closer to losing their friend. Oona brought Molly into a tight embrace, though she couldn't do anything for her pink-haired friend. Molly didn't even notice when the ambulance, with its siren blaring, finally arrived. The other Guppies bombarded the medics with questions as Gil was lifted up into the ambulance.

'Kids, I'm afraid we can't answer any of your questions right now.' One of the medics said. 'But I can assure you, you will be the first people after Gil's own family to know if he'll be okay. We promise.'

Without another word, the medics drove the ambulance for the hospital with the injured kid in tow. Only after it disappeared over the hills did an obvious problem dawn on Zooli.

'Oh no!' She said with a gasp. 'I-I gotta tell Mr Grouper!'

Zooli dashed away to tell their teacher at once, while the other Guppies couldn't work it up to go anywhere. Goby approached Molly, with some hopeful words in mind, only to be batted away by her the moment he reached out for her. It was then Nonny noticed Deema's vacant yet terrified thousand-yard stare.

'Deema? You okay?' He asked. 'D-Deema?'

She didn't say a word, or even turn to look at him. She continued to stare as if she had seen the end of the world itself. As far as Molly was aware, her entire world was indeed ending.

Author Notes - Don't worry. This story will not have a sad ending. It will end happily. Even if the Guppies have to go through hell to get there.

I know the ambulances in the show are called 'clambulances', but calling it that in the story would ruin the tone I was going for.