Brief Summary: Just a little oneshot with a Doopity the Dancing Dolphin headcanon.

Hello and welcome to a pointless Doopity headcanon/theory, with a heavy dose of headcanons about Melvin's home life and relationship with his dad. I hope you enjoy this thing that I randomly thought of as I make a one off gag from the show sad for some reason.

Mr Mrs Sneedly were in the lab, hard at work. Gaylord and his wife had been tasked by the government to work on a very important mission of genetically altered dolphin super soldiers. After weeks of research, they had managed some success with one particular test subject, which they were keeping in a large tank in their living room. So far, the animal appeared to have some intelligence, but it was still not completely right, and all it seemed to want to do was dance. And instead of shooting lasers, like it was supposed to, all it did was manage to shoot rainbows.(When they tested the combat capabilities of the rainbows, hoping that maybe they could still work as desired, results were negative. The rainbows couldn't hurt anything, and were just kind of gross to look at in general.)

None of this, of course, mattered much to their 7 year old son. From the moment he came back from school one day to find an intelligent dancing rainbow shooting dolphin in his house, his reaction was much the same as practically any 7 year old (he may have been a super genius, but he was, after all, still a human child, and what child could resist the charm and wonder of a dancing dolphin?). He was enamoured by that dolphin, from the very moment he saw it.

Not having any friends or anything to visit with after school, he could often be found with his face pressed against the aquarium glass, watching and conversing with the marine abomination. He would spend hours sitting by the tank, and telling it all about his day. He even went so far as to name it.

This was when his father decided it was time to intervene. It was one thing to watch a test subject, and it was alright to be fascinated (science was fascinating, after all), but if his son was going to be a scientist he was going to have to learn to distance himself and remain objective. Naming this creature was going too far.

So Melvin surprisingly found himself encountering his father one day when he was going to have his daily chat with the newly-christened Doopity.

"I've noticed you've been spending a lot of time by this particular experiment, son".

Keeping his head down, he politely replied, attempting to sound as mature and professional as possible, "Yes, sir. I, um, find Doopity...very interesting".

" 'Doopity', uh huh", Gaylord raised a critical brow at the statement, and chastised, "Don't name it, Melvin. This is a lab animal, not a pet. It may not even survive the duration of the experiment. Remember, it's unprofessional for a scientist to get so attached to a test subject."

"Yes sir".

Despite the warnings from his father, Melvin couldn't keep away from Doopity. After a bad day, Doopity's, uh, "kind" gaze and dancing cheered him up in a way nothing else really could. He felt like, when he talked, Doopty listened, there was just something about the look in his eyes that made it feel like he was heard and understood. He personally considered Doopity to be his best friend.

Meanwhile his parents were still trying to make the dancing dolphin less of an idiot, and more of a terror of the deep capable of competent underwater warfare. So far, they had gotten nowhere. In fact, to the Sneedlys it seemed like they may have made it dumber instead. They juggled numerous theories, and ran multiple tests on the animal, but still no success. Maybe dolphins were just too nice? Should they have tried sharks instead? Time was running out, and it looked like they had to regrettably chalk this experiment up as a failure. Plus having to care for that dolphin was costing way more than it was worth. It was time to pack this experiment up, and send in what they could.

That afternoon, Melvin came back from school ready to tell his pal Doopity all about what he did, but he gaped for a moment when he saw that the whole aquarium was gone. He pushed down his rising panic, reasoning that the tank had just been moved. Or Doopity was just somewhere else for tests. After all, even if Doopity was his friend, he was also his parents' experiment. Though he normally would never interrupt them, this time Melvin made his way to his parents' lab, hoping for good answers to his questions.

"Father, mother?" he leaned cautiously into the lab, peeking around the room for his parents, still hesitant to interrupt their work. Gratefully, it looked like they were just doing paperwork at the moment, and turned to face him.

"Yes, dear?" his mom asked, and his dad grunted in acknowledgement of his presence, which was enough.

"I was just wondering. Where did Doo-the dolphin experiment go? Are you running tests?"

His father sighed, and his mother shuffled papers anxiously.

"Oh, that" his father said, setting aside his pile of papers to address him, "That experiment was a failure, I'm afraid. We had the test subject released back into the wild".

"What?!" he cried, unable to stop himself even though he hated arguing with his parents, "Do you mean that Doopity is gone?!"

"Well, yes" replied the adult straightforwardly, confused at the reaction, "There's no point in keeping around a failed experiment".

"He's gone?!" the child wailed, tears springing to his eyes. "But I loved him! he sobbed, tears rolling down his face for the loss of his friend. "I want Doopity back!"

The dad grimaced, looking away from his child to busy himself again with the paperwork. He looked back up and his son was still standing there, sobbing and rubbing at his eyes, intermittently hiccuping what sounded like Doopity and who could tell what else through the tears. All of this over one lab animal. He looked to his wife, hoping she had any idea what to do for a crying child, but she looked just as confused as he did.

"Ok, why are you? Stop crying. I'm...yeah I don't know how to deal with this, I have to…" Grabbing the rest of the paperwork, in the hopes that he could actually get it finished on time, and leaving their son to his wife, he left through the door that led to their bedroom to finish his work uninterrupted by unreasonable emotional outbursts.

To her credit, his mom made an attempt to console him, rounding the table to pat him on the head. She gibbered her way through a kind of condolence, telling him, "Oh, that's terrible, Melvin. I know you liked that thing". She ended with awkward mumbles, letting her hands fall to her sides, seeming to not know what to do anymore. Giving him an intended encouraging shove towards the hall, she told him, "Why don't you get a snack, hmm? I need to go help your father".

Sniffling, and still recovering his normal breathing, he dutifully replied, "okay". And left the lab behind. He made himself a snack, gazing towards the living room where Doopity had once been, and felt tears coming back as he went up to his room. Looking around his room, he briefly wondered who he would talk to now. Reminiscing about his long talks with his beloved Doopity and already regretting his loss, he decided to settle at his desk and half-heartedly design a new invention.

And so, he never saw Doopity again. He lost him.

And that's definitely what happened.

This started out as just a little blurb of headcanon and just kind of sprawled out of control. Also I can only picture Melvin being really formal with his dad, and the whole thing with him just clicked. Because sensitive Melvin emotionally distant and objective science dad = a recipe for emotional disaster.

RR if you feel like it. Reviews always make me happy. Hope you have a nice day despite just reading about a seven year old crying his eyes out.