Chapter 4: Parades of Papier-Mâché

"How are you doing, Darren?"

A few milliseconds of silence met the question, although from a few feet down the hall that silence might as well have been a flying ass time bomb about to explode into volcano. Hearing that made me haul ass so fast towards what was so obviously Dave TALKING TO MY DAD that I almost shat myself.

"I'm doing fine, Octavius," my Dad's voice answered. I heard this as I sprinted, every syllable from this unfolding conversation evident to my heightened senses.

I reached Octo Corp's surveillance room then; many monitors were portraying the camera feeds stationed around the property. Dave was sitting at one of the computers to the left, voice chatting my father with the voice chat software. I had opened my mouth to try and say something, but instead a soft airy "huhhhhh" whimpered from the back of my throat as I registered there was nothing I could do to stop this.

Dave had noticed me rush in, and turned around from the computer, waving at me with one of his tentacles as an innocent, joyful expression met my petrified one.

"Oh, well I'm calling you today to check up on your plans for… Thanksgiving, right?" Dave asked, still looking at me, although as his question had finished he had turned back to the computer to engage in the conversation.

"Yes, we are having Thanksgiving at our new house, thanks to you," my Dad replied, his tone more mild than cautious unlike the last time he had spoken with Dave. "Which brings me to say: you are more than welcome to come. I know you are busy preparing your work, and I'm sure Kailey is busy helping you, but it would mean a lot if you could bring her. My wife and I would love to show you the house we were able to buy. It would also be great to have you guys over for the weekend while you're here."

"Oh, how wonderful!" Dave beamed. "I'm so happy I could help you with the new house. After all, it's the least I could do to help my future in-laws."

My hand flown to my face, smacking my forehead with a harsh facepalm. It had stung a bit, but I didn't care. I closed my eyes forcefully as I continued to listen.

"We'd love to attend your dinner, and stay around for the weekend! We will be busy with the Macy's Parade Thanksgiving morning, and I have an interview after that, but as soon as it's over I'll schedule us to fly over before dinner."

"Oh, I didn't realize that you were involved in that," my dad stated. "You don't have to rush over if you can't."

I felt a sigh of relief escape my lungs then, my breath having been held for a while without my realization. Despite this momentary relief, whatever retraction of not having to go with Dave to my parent's house was immediately receded when Dave replied.

"No, it won't be trouble at all! It'll be easy. Just don't start eating without us, you hear?"

My Dad chuckled, which was a surprise, but I guess he was also shifted into a semi-business mode right now. "Will do. We usually eat around lunch, but we can hold off and have actual Thanksgiving dinner this year. Well, I'm going to go ahead and let you go. See you guys soon."

"Bye, bye!" Dave said, thus ending the voice call. He immediately turned around before I could react. "You hear that, dearest? We get to go see your parents and their new house!"

"I heard," I bluntly responded, slowly letting my hand slide off my face as I focused my attention on him. "That's a horrible idea, you know."

"What!?" Dave was shocked. "What do you mean? It's a great idea!"

"No, it's bad because you're going to have to go and meet my freaking family. Not to mention I'm sure staying the night is going to be difficult."

"Kailey, I promise nothing bad will happen," Dave said, now making his way across the room to meet me. "You know me! It's not like they're going to find out that I'm—"

"An octopus, I know," I interrupted. "It's just… God, I don't know." I felt so unsure of this. How on earth was Dave going to keep this up, possibly for an entire weekend? I started imagining what would happen if he slipped up, even just a little bit. What if my mom walked in on him out of his disguise or something? What would happen if he decided to shove an entire turkey leg into his mouth like he did that entire ass fish at the Japanese restaurant earlier that year? I felt like I wanted to roll my eyes back and just stop being alive temporarily.

"You haven't seen your family in a long time anyway," Dave said. "Not to mention I'm sure they miss you too, and want to know how you are doing. How we are doing."

"Yeah, that too…" I trailed off. "I guess this whole lying-to-my-parent's thing is harder than lying to the rest of the entire human race, you know."

"I understand that," Dave said, his chipperness dying down a bit as he softened up. "You know I appreciate all your help with that." For a second, his eyes shifted around my face as he reached down to pick up my left hand, bringing it up to view in between the both of us. The fact that he was trying to make obvious the ring on my finger became evident after we had stood there for a bit in the quiet room. "If you don't want to lie about one thing, maybe actually being my fiancée would be a first step. Say yes, won't you? Marry me?"

I blushed, turning my head to the side as I bashfully tried to avoid his gaze. "Dave, seriously?" I asked, chuckling awkwardly.

"You were the one that told me to keep asking." He tilted his head to the side. "So I'll keep asking."

"Yeah, I know, nerd," I responded. I hadn't realized that Dave had reached out towards my face, soon caressing my cheek to coax my head to turn back towards him. It was a touch that was cold, but held all the warmth and love in the world within it. I found for a moment I couldn't respond as he stared at me adoringly for a few moments, unable to tear myself away for a time before I sat up straight, placing my hand on the back of his tentacle that was touching me. "Anyway, I better be getting to sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow."

"Yeah, you're right," Dave sighed. "Goodnight, dearest."

We parted slowly, softly, only my turn towards the exit making me break eye contact with him. I was blissfully living in the moment as I walked away into the hallways to venture up to my office, my heart at a flutter as I thought about how he asked me again to marry him.

Ugh! I wasn't normally the sappy type, but I might as well get used to the fact that I wasn't in a normal situation anyway, let alone a normal relationship.

. . . . . . .

"Wakey, wakey, gentleman! Today is the big day!" Dave's voice was incredibly loud as it filtered through the building's intercom. There wasn't that echo effect that would've been present if we still had the submarine, but that detail was made up for due to the fact that he must've had his mouth right up against the mic to create that blasting noise, shooting me awake like a pan had fallen from a shelf right beside me. I had been using a rollout bed to sleep in since the submarine was destroyed by North Wind, so it seemed there was really no getting away from my office, so to speak. Not only that, but there was no getting away from that stupid ass intercom just outside the hallway.

Tiredly, I peeled the covers off of me and hung my feet over the side of the makeshift bed, staring around my office for a while as I tried to transition from being dead asleep to awake, preparing myself mentally for yet another day of blatant lying to millions of dumbass people.

Yes, today was none other than the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but that wasn't just it either. There was also the interview afterwards with Rayonna, and then immediately after that Dave and I would be heading home to see my parents, for God's sake.

I groaned, placing a hand again on my head as I came to terms with my waking reality, and sat up, venturing over to the small dresser in the office to take out my clothes for the day, and started getting ready. After my preparations I looked into the mirror on the side door of the dresser, brushing my hair out and all that, when I finally looked at myself seriously, managing a classy fake smile.

Time for more bullshit, I thought to myself sarcastically, my outward expression completely clashing with what was going on inside my head as I coped, and turned around to head out my office door.

Venturing out of the office I was immediately greeting by a bunch of the henchmen walking back and forth down the hallway. Towards the leftward portion of the hall trailed a big glass window, beyond this revealing the large garage facility that housed the rest of Dave's jets and helicopters. What was left of them, at least. I could see a bunch of octopuses down there as well, perhaps preparing one of the jets for our departure to Houston this afternoon.

Catching a glimpse of a shade of blue, I looked down the other side of the hallway, seeing Edgar approaching for his daily morning checkup and info dump with me. In his grasp was a little notepad, a new one now due to the fact that he must've gone through them faster than I knew it due to all the translations he'd give me from the octopus henchmen.

Edgar arrived at my side, saluting me as he did so, and then extended the notebook. Once it was passed to me I opened the cover to start reviewing its contents, seeing all the discussions that the henchmen had been asking of me over the last 24 hours or so.

"Tell RJ and Jacob they can have the day off," I said as my eyes scanned over the statements written down. "The float is done, and there's no more preparations scheduled, so they're good to go. As for Penny…" I trailed off, putting a finger to my chin in thought. "Tell her I don't have time right now to do another gaming tournament with the squadron, but I'll definitely put it on my calendar for next week." I nodded, handing the notepad back to Edgar, then watched him scramble off back to whatever else he was doing.

Next, off to find Dave!

A few turns down a couple hallways and an elevator ride down to the first floor finally brought me to where Dave was. All prepared in his Dr. Brine persona, he was directing the henchmen in the room some final orders before he left for the parade.

"Jason! Lee! I'm putting you in charge of security for the next few days." He pointed at a pair of mint-colored octopus across the room, and then shifted his attention immediately after that towards a smaller fuchsia-colored one towards the doorway. "Mariah, carry the research documents I've prepared for today to the limo, please."

"Research documents?" I asked out of curiosity. "What research have you been doing?"

"Good morning, Kailey! Well, you were the one that told me to prepare some research to present to the journalist, remember?" Dave said, his attention settling on me for the time. "I modified my findings on the Medusa Serum for my interview."

"What!?" I said. "I certainly hope you edited the ever living shit out of that then!"

"What is the ever living shit?—never mind, dearest! I assure you it's perfectly acceptable to inform the humans."

I stared at him suspiciously, attempting to read his thoughts through his mannerisms and expressions, but that was insanely hard to do, because the next thing I knew he was immediately back to barking at a few more of his henchmen, sending them scurrying around back and forth and around the lab to get to work. I had to admit that at least he was being very proficient with this, though. If Dave was good at anything it was definitely his preparations.

"Okay!" Dave said cheerfully, exhausting all his commands to finally settle his attention fully on me. Clasping his hands together, he said, "I am ready when you are, Kailey! We should get going to make sure the float is in line and the dancers are prepared."

"Right," I acknowledged.

Together we departed from the lab and towards the front of the building, exiting Octo Corp's front doors to be greeted by the limo. Waiting there was one of the henchmen with his little driver's hat, saluting to Dave and I as we approached. Mariah had also just managed to place all of Dave's 'research documents' into the cargo of the limo as well; finishing, she lifted her body from out of the back of the limo, and gave us a wave before she departed quickly back inside the building.

"Ah, perfect timing!" Dave said. "This morning has been running quite smoothly. Hopefully the odds will be on our side all day—which they will!" He took in a deep breath, appreciating the crisp morning air. "Ahhh! Yes, glorious day! I love it when things come together so flawlessly, don't you, Kailey?"

"Nothing has happened yet," I said.

"Oh, don't be so modest! I can already taste success. Just you watch. Our appearance in the parade is going to be a hit, our interview with Rayonna will go smoothly, and so will our trip to Houston!"

So much to do, I thought, imagining everything play out in my mind. While I continued to be the doubter to Dave's confidence even then and there, I tried again to latch onto his positivity. He was confident enough, so I guess playing along as assistant like I've always done was the best thing. It's kept me alive this long, anyway.

Going into 'backseat mode' came easily as I crawled into the limo with Dave, and soon watched as we drove away from the Octo Corp building for the morning. The streets of New York were already proving to be much different than other days as we navigated through the city; due to the increase in attendance for the parade, traffic, although always horrible, was denser than usual, and the closer we got to where we were supposed to be, even the sidewalks became congested with people arriving to grab good spots for the viewing. A few more streets down, the henchman driving us finally pulled over, turning around to let loose a series of gobbles in order to inform Dave that we must've arrived.

"Ah, thank you very much for the lift!" Dave said. "We'll be off now. I'll give you a call once we're finished with everything; I'll need to grab the documents for our interview today, and after that meeting you can pick us up and bring us back to the building." After he finished speaking to the henchman, he nodded my direction, cueing me to follow, and then once again opened the limo door to allow a series of new voices and music to flood into my ears.

All lined up on the street before us were the floats for the parade. It seemed to go on forever as I looked ahead, each float unique and interesting in its own right, along with some of the performers to match that of the theme of the float. Some drums were tapping, and wind instruments were sounding off somewhere in the anticipating parade. Musicians practicing their pieces before things got serious, I supposed.

I was about to ask where our float was, but before I was able to Dave had taken my hand, and we started down the line to pass the stationary parade. Once we got to a series of science themed floats, even passing one sponsored by National Geographic, I knew we were there.

Yes, there it was, all in its glory: Dave's octopus themed parade float. Not just that, but in front of the float were the dancers Dave had told me about, dressed in bright neon colors, tints of pinks, teals, and yellows. On top of it all these dancers, consisting of a mixture of men and women, were wearing big weird looking pink wigs that were styled to—I don't know know—look like brains or something. On their arms they were even wearing tentacle sleeves.

"Wow Dave, I'm so glad you're subtle," I commented sarcastically. "Why do the dancers have dumb ass wigs that look like hairy pink brains, anyway?"

"What?" Dave asked, turning his body my way as he looked my direction. "I don't understand what you mean, dear. The wigs are octopus themed—not brain themed. You know, like our heads? Like I said a long time ago, I gotta stick to my roots, you know!"

"Sure, right," I replied. "So when do we start?"

"Soon!" Dave responded, this time in an exhale of excitement. "We better get to the top so we're prepared for when the parade starts." He latched onto my hand a bit tighter then as we went up to our float. Upon our arrival the dancers below started to happily wave at us, their tentacle sleeves bouncing around as I looked upon them in terror while I tried offhand to keep myself from tripping as I scaled up the float toward the top.

Finally upon our pedestal of the sorts, I had a pretty good view of some of the other floats ahead. Two sets up I could see a fairly large Pikachu float, followed by what looked like the Baby Shark float Dave had forewarned me about a few days earlier. Just looking at it made me twist my lips in an unsatisfied fashion as memories of the dumb song pelted my memory like hail. The smiling cartoony sharks decorated along the float's backside just made the icing on the cake.

"I hope to God they don't play that stupid song the entire time," I said out loud.

"What song?" Dave asked, hearing me despite my voice becoming muffled by the commotion around me.

"Jesus, Dave, are you really that dense?" I spit out. "We're behind the horrible Baby Shark float, you're words exactly, including "horrible"… remember?"

"Oh, yes, I'm quite aware of the absolute decimation of what they've done to sharks in this case," Dave responded. "Humans 'cutiefiying' things. Ugh!" He actually scowled then, which surprised me, but I wasn't going to complain.

"We'll just have to outdo them, won't we?" I said, lifting my hand up to Dave to await a high five.

"YES!" Dave hollered, lifting his hand upwards to smack mine, unknowingly doing it so hard that I grinded my teeth together momentarily after the initially shock of the hit set in. I wondered how the ever living hell I didn't have a broken limb from being around Dave with his tight embraces and harsh high fives. "I've got some spectacular effects on the float ready to go once we hit the press!" Dave continued to explain. "They're going to be very impressed with my little show. I've got lights ready, music—pretty much anything you can think of!"

"Mm-mh…." I mumbled my acknowledgement, still focused on my hand that currently seemed to have a heartbeat of its own. I didn't want to ruin the moment for Dave, so I kept it to myself. Maybe on our plane ride to Houston I'd scold him to give me softer high fives.

"It's time for the show, folks!" I faintly heard an announcer from the distance begin to say with a megaphone. He repeated this a few times as he drove down the line of floats on a scooter, his announcement getting loud enough for me to hear all the way through as he got closer. "It's time for the show, folks! Be prepared in T-minus 60 seconds to begin the parade!"

"Here we gooooo!" I said, a bit sarcastically at first, but as my "ooos" came out I suddenly found myself smiling. Looking on the bright side, I had never been to the Thanksgiving Parade before. Not to mention I was in the parade with my favorite person—I mean, octopus, whatever. Maybe this was going to be a good day after all. I was starting to settle in the mood of what Dave had been radiating all morning: confidence, excitement.

Then it happened. The song, soft at first as it began to play in the speakers of the float in front of us, suddenly got cranked up just as the floats began to move, and we proceeded forward. Was I seriously going to listen to the Baby Shark song the entire time!? I Instantly went from being relatively happy, to wanting to throw myself onto the concrete, but due to my eyes briefly glancing beside me at Dave in a side-stare, I saw that his reaction was exactly the same as mine.

Horrified.

"Why did they take a chant about a shark mauling somebody and make it cute!?" Dave gasped. "Why does this always happen!?"

I was too preoccupied with having to be behind the Baby Shark float at the time, but thinking about it now it was pretty funny that Dave not only 1: knew exactly the historical context to the Baby Shark chant, but 2: acknowledged the weirdness that a song about murder was now a children's song. Like, why was that a thing with people? Who decided it was fun to take songs about death and make them into cute sounding nursery rhymes? Do people sing about murder to their kids to cope!?

As the floats moved, some distance managed to break between us and the Baby Shark float. Luckily, this somewhat drowned out the music, and with the addition to the cheers of the crowd this helped with diversifying what I was hearing. The dancers in front of us had by then gotten into the full swing of their performance, making our arrival quite a spectacular one as we followed the parade route.

"Remember, I've got the best part saved for when we stop in front of the press!" Dave told me, raising his voice loudly so I could hear him through all the commotion.

"Yeah, yeah, the lights, right?" I replied, attempting to remain calm and 'professional' from atop of the float with Dave.

"More! It'll be cool, I promise!" Dave yelled back, raising one of his 'hands' then as he began waving at the crowd. He nudged me with his opposite 'elbow', said, "Just go with the flow, dearest! Smile and wave at our legion of fans!"

I continued with my fake smile, trying desperately to go ahead and wave at our fans, as Dave put it, but God did it feel odd. Again, duh—lying to thousands of people! It always bothered me that I had to do this kind of thing for Dave, from the day he first freaking kidnapped me and put me in that stupid magic circus act he pulled, to here and now. But yet again, as always, my excuse of a lifetime was I did it because… it was important to him. In the end, I did what I did, lying and all to my own kind, because doing so brought in what we needed to protect ourselves from North Wind, and mend what we had lost. I'm pretty sure that if Dave asked I'd die for him, if we're talking serious shit here.

The parade went on like this for a long while. We moved slowly forward with the other floats down the parade path, waved, listened to people cheer, "It's the Brines'!" more often than not. More awwws, more air horns, more woos and ohhhs; crying—the usual.

Finally, things got a little different. I saw the press, with all their cameras, microphones and getups. A announcer guy, all dressed up in a fancy coat, looked to be the main announcer. Floats were stopping in front of them briefly, giving a performance to show off to viewers watching at home all across the country, then after a few minutes moved forward for the next float in line. Baby Shark was stopped in front of the press then, giving me a moment to contemplate what the big idea was that Dave had in mind for this very moment.

"And here we go!" Dave said, placing his hand to his ear to begin talking into a little mic. "Proceed with the lights and music, gentleman!" I hadn't realized it, but he probably had some henchmen underneath the float working their magic. Low and behold, when it was our turn to get in front of the press, and just as the dancers began their routine in front of the cameras, our float lit up like freaking Christmas, and music began to spill out of speakers at the sides of the platform, spilling the song You're The Best from that karate movie to introduce Dr. Octavius Brine's freakish twirls, stunts and whatever-the-hells. His strange stretchy dance immediately sent the press into a chaotic uproar of cheers and thrills; the crowd among both sides of the parade path met their cheers with even louder outcries of adoration.

I was rather content on standing by to watch Dave do his thing, when suddenly I was harshly ripped from my neutral standing position and taken into Brine's arms, which stirred the already loud crowd even more frantically than I thought possible.

"What the hell—" I huffed, but that was literally the only set of words I was able to get out before I was dunked, thrown around and caught again. After a few minutes of this routine, Dave set me up straight next to him as we posed for the photographers in the front to get a few pictures of us. A series of mini fireworks went off our float then, and a rush of confetti spewed forward and onto the press. Then, after all that, casually the float started moving forward, the state of the parade returning to like it had been before.

"Dang, Dave, you could've warned me!" I finally was able to say, smoothing out my lab coat once he finally let me go.

"Sorry, I couldn't help myself," Dave said, grinning my direction. "The people love it though, you know."

"Of course," I said, still a bit irritated. "Is everything for your fans now?" It's not like I didn't like dancing with Dave, but all the fireworks, and chaos of his super ultra-desire to put on a show sometimes caught me off guard, and quite frankly, made me nervous. He should know by now how much of an introvert I am.

"No…" Dave cooed. "I just wanted to dance with you too, I guess." He put a 'hand' to the back of his neck, grinning my direction.

I paused mid stroke on my sleeves as I looked at him looking at me, my face going from slightly irritated to completely flat within an instant as my cheeks flared up in another blush. He was getting way to good at cutting me off from my anger bursts. "Dammit Dave, why do you do this to me?" I finally said.

"Do what?" He asked, raising a brow, although as he continue to stare this slightly confused persona of his finally shifted as realization took over, his crooked-toothed grin taking stage on his expression. "Oh, I know… It's obvious, cause you do it all the time."

"Don't," I said, putting a hand to the side of my face to shield my eyes from his stare. "Stop."

"Don't stop?" He joked, morphing my words together. "I'll never stop making you blush."

I was trying so hard not to lose it on top of the float with millions of people watching me. I couldn't make up my mind if I was embarrassed, flattered, or what, and it was even harder to focus on my feelings with so much going on around me in terms of noises, smells, and the cold air hitting my skin, chilling even though my clothes. I finally parted my hand from my face, having the courage to look at Dave again, although that was a mistake because it immediately sent me into another blush as he was trying to do something I could only describe as an attempt to be like… hot or something, but failing at it. He was keeping up his crooked-toothed smirk, but on top of it he had a hand leaning on the props next to us, with one leg crossed over another, as another hand swept through his fake wig.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Trying to make you blush," he responded.

I blinked a few times, slowly. "Who told you to do this?"

"James, Earl, and Jones," Dave responded, keeping up his act, but the series of name puns just sent me into another wave of laughter instead. I saw through my hysterics that he sat upright, confused as to why I was laughing, completely unbeknownst to him how he was, yet again, continuously savagely punning the heck out of celebrity names.

"Sorry, wow," I said, whipping a tear from my eye. "That was a good one."

"Did I say something wrong, or?"

"No, Dave… you say all the right things, believe me." I chuckled a bit again. "Please, never stop being you."

"That's kind of you to say," Dave said. "I don't hear it often."

"Hm? Is that so? Then I'll say it again: never stop being you; hilarious, wonderful, perfect you." After I said that, he immediately reached out and took my hand, holding onto it as his other hand clasped over the top of mine that he was already holding.

"What did I do to deserve you?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Does it matter anyway?" I asked, mustering up a smile of my own for him. "But hey, we got a show to put on!" I gestured out to the crowd. "All your adoring fans have all their eyes set on you! Let's give them your best, huh?"

"Absolutely!" Dave cheered. "I have a great idea that would make them cheer."

"More fireworks?" I asked.

"More than one way, you could say," Dave grinned, extending his hand. "Dance with me?"

"Oh, how kind of you to ask," I said, attempting to do so sarcastically, but I couldn't help but giggle again after a moment of trying to be serious. "Sure—" My hand had already taken his, and before I could even finish my acknowledgement, he had already taken me into another series of dances and twirls. I saw the lights of the float light up again, and heard the boom of another round of fireworks go off, deep blue seas of papier-mâché confetti falling around us. I had no idea if fireworks were even allowed in the parade, but I guess rules could be broken for the famous Dr. Octavius Brine.