Blast Off

"I think Shawn's planning to take over the world," Jeff said wisely. He, Hunter and Matt were all in Matt's hotel room watching TV. Shawn was supposed to have joined them an hour ago, but he had called and said he was working on something and he couldn't hang out tonight. That was a very common theme with him lately. He just kept hiding out and not hanging with them, and they were all starting to get really upset with him. The only thing that was allowed to be more important to Shawn than them was Rebecca and the kids. No exceptions.

"You think everyone is planning to take over the world," Matt said in exasperation. "Honestly, can't you come up with something new? This whole world domination kick you are on makes you sound like a paranoid freak."

Jeff glared at his older brother. "I am not a paranoid freak! Who told you to say that? I'll kill them!"

"Easy there boy," Hunter said, actually scooting away from Jeff. "Don't do anything crazy. You get scary when you're crazy."

Jeff grinned. "Really?" He sounded like he was taking that as a compliment.

Matt rolled his eyes. Jeff was so weird. "Maybe we should stop being pussies--"

Hunter laughed. "Pussy," he said under his breath, giggling like an ten year old boy.

"--and we should just break down his door and see what he's doing," Matt finished, looking at Hunter like he had totally lost his mind.

"I like that idea," Jeff announced as he got up. "I'm glad I thought of it."

"You did not!" Matt objected. "I thought of it!"

Jeff folded his arms over his chest. "Just because you said it out loud first doesn't mean I didn't think about it."

"But you didn't think about it!" Matt insisted. "Knowing you, you were thinking about getting some Skittles after we make sure Shawn wasn't planning on taking over the world..."

Jeff gasped. "No! Get out of my brain! You promised you wouldn't do that anymore!" He screamed, put his hands over his ears and dived under the bed.

Hunter groaned. "Now look what you did Matt! You scared him!"

Matt smacked himself on the head. He really wished that Jeff would get over his fear of psychics. It was very annoying to have him start screaming every time someone figured out what he was thinking.

"Come on Jeff, come on out of there," Hunter said gently. He reached under the bed to try to get Jeff out of there. "I promise that if he tries to hijack your brain, I will cut off his balls and feed them to him."

Matt placed a protective hand over his crotch. "Hey! That's not even fair! I wasn't going to do anything to his brain!"

Jeff poked his head out from under the bed. "You promise?" he asked Hunter.

Hunter nodded. "Would I lie to you?"

"Well--"

"Don't answer that. Just come on out of there so we can find out what's going on with Shawn."

So Jeff got out from under the bed and the three of them went to the room Shawn was staying in. "Shawny?" Hunter said as he knocked on the door. "Yoohooo! Shawny?"

"Go away!" Shawn yelled.

Matt knocked on the door. "Room service?"

Hunter knocked again. "House keeping?"

Jeff kicked the door. "Masturbation police! Open the door for us or we will come in there and--"

The door opened so fast that it actually scared all of them. "I am not masturbating!" Shawn said grouchily. "Now go away!"

"No way," Hunter said. He, Jeff and Matt forcibly pushed themselves past Shawn and went into the room. "We want to know why you have been ignoring us.

"Are you planning on taking over the world?" Jeff asked Shawn. "Because if you are, you should either include or not enslave us. You know, because we're friends and all."

Matt took a look around the room. He saw no obvious signs of Shawn planning world domination, but he did see something else: a shopping cart with bottle rockets tied to it. "What the hell is that?" he asked.

Shawn sighed in defeat. "It's my rocket ship."

"Your rocket ship?" Hunter repeated in disbelief.

"Yeah. I got my physics degree from the University of Budapest so I could build it so we could go to the moon."

"But if you built a rocket, shouldn't you have studied rocket science instead?" Jeff asked.

Shawn glared at him. "Jeff, leave the schooling to the brains of this operation. You might hurt yourself if you don't."

Jeff pouted. "Bitch."

"So will this thing actually work?" Hunter asked.

"I don't know yet," Shawn said. "I haven't gotten around to actually testing it."

"Well there's only one thing to do then," Hunter said in all seriousness.

"Oh no," Matt said, knowing that something bad was going to come from all of this but knowing he wasn't going to get himself out of the mess.

"Shut up Matt," Hunter said impatiently. He picked up the cart. "Let's take this thing for a test drive."

Nobody but Matt had any real objections to that, so they went outside and put the cart right in the middle of the parking lot. "How exactly are we all going to fit in this thing?" Jeff asked. I don't think it's big enough for all of us. Not with Hunter's fat ass."

"Hey!" Hunter yelled. "I am not fat!"

"Yeah," Shawn said. "He's just husky, like the Miz."

"I am not husky you son of a bitch!"

"Guys just shut up," Matt ordered. "Hunter, you get in the cart first. Then I'll get in and then Shawn and then Jeff."

"Why do I have to be at the bottom?" Hunter whined.

"Because you're husky! Now get in!"

Hunter pouted but did what he was told. The rest of them got in at the order Matt told them to. That didn't turn out to be the best idea in the world because it got extremely uncomfortable in there. "I can't breathe!" Hunter gasped. "You guys are the fucking husky ones! You're squishing me!"

"Someone needs to light the fuses!" Shawn said. "I can't read them."

"Damn it Shawn, why is your ass so bony?" Matt grumbled.

"I'll do the lighting!" Jeff volunteered. He took a lighter out of his pocket and started lighting the fuses as fast as they could. The others quickly braced themselves for takeoff. "Here we go," Shawn said. "In five, four, three--"

The fireworks all went off but they didn't blast off. Instead the sparks and flames went everywhere, scaring and burning the shit out of them. "AAACCCKKKK!" Jeff screamed. "MATTY!"

"OUT OF THE CART! OUT OF THE CART!" Matt yelled.

"IT'S A ROCKET SHIP DAMMIT!" Shawn insisted.

"FUCK THOSE DETAILS!" Hunter shouted. "WE NEED TO GET OUT! I THINK MY ASS IS ON FIRE!"

Jeff hurled himself out of the car and actually landed several feet away. Shawn and Matt jumped out next. Then it was Hunter's turn. He attempted to just jump out of the cart but he ended up slipping and falling on his face. "OW! My fucking nose!" He rolled away from the cart and joined the others. They watched the cart until the fireworks stopped going off, completely afraid that it would like come over to them and start chasing them or something like that.

After a moment of silence, Shawn sighed. "Jeff?"

"Yeah?" Jeff said weakly.

"I think you were right: I should have studied rocket science instead."