Hunting for Hardyz

"So let me get this straight," Stephanie said as she sat at her desk and looked at Hunter and Shawn, who were standing in front of her, looking like a couple of scolded children. "BOTH Matt and Jeff are missing?" She groaned as Shawn and Hunter nodded. "HOW on earth did that happen?" She tapped her foot impatiently when neither one of them answered her. "Boys…if I don't get an answer in the next five seconds I'm going to get up and put my foot up your asses."

Hunter and Shawn exchanged looks and cringed. "Well you see…Jeff got lost at a gas station and just was never seen again," Hunter said quickly, completely leaving out the part where he purposefully ditched Jeff. That would only get him in trouble and he did not like that. Yes sometimes it served him well to be Stephanie's "bad boy" but today was not one of those times.

"And Matt went crazy in McDonalds and ran away," Shawn piped in. "It was so horrible. It was like listening to that Rebecca Black's Friday and not being able to make it go away at all." He was leaving out the part where he and Matt got high off of Rob's special brownies. Not only would that get him in trouble with Stephanie but he was also running on the belief that if he didn't confess it out loud, God would never know about his occasional stoner ways.

Stephanie knew that there was a lot more to those stories than what was being said. She could see it written all over their faces. However, she did not have the time or the patience to get the truth out of them. "Whatever. Just go out and find them, you hear me? You go out and find them this instant before they get themselves into big trouble-if they haven't already." That was a pretty big if, knowing the Hardyz the way she did (especially Jeff).

Hunter blinked in surprise. "You're trusting us to do that? Really?"

"Are you sure we're ready for that responsibility?" Shawn asked.

"Just GO!" she said irritably. Truth be told, nobody else, not even their girlfriends, wanted to deal with trying to find Matt and Jeff. Hunter and Shawn were definitely the last people that should be trusted in finding anyone but with nobody else willing to do it because it would just be too much of a hassle, they were the only real choices.

"Okay okay!" Hunter said quickly. He and Shawn held up their hands in defeat and exited the room as fast as possible.

"What is with her anyway?" Shawn whispered in case Stephanie were to somehow overhear them from that distance. "Is she on her period or something? Or did you knock her up again without giving her any time to recover from the last hell spawn?"

"Don't call my kids hell spawn Michaels," Hunter said as he slapped Shawn on the back of his head. "And don't talk about the periods. As far as I know she's not on them but if you talk about them, they will come. It's freaky it's like they know when you're fearing them the most."

Shawn shuddered at the thought and then pushed it out of his mind. "So where do we even start looking?" he asked. "I mean, those two idiots could be anywhere by now you know."

Hunter was damn well aware of that. "Do you even remember what McDonalds you and Matt went to?" He wanted to try to do the whole retracing their steps thing and wanted to try it with Shawn first because he would rather find Mat than Jeff. Matt annoyed him a lot less than Jeff did.

"Uh…no…" Shawn winced at the angry look Hunter gave him. "What? I was high!" He shook his head and glared at Hunter. "Do you remember what gas station you left Jeff at?"

"Yeah!"

"So that's where we'll go first!"

Hunter groaned and tried to protest but there was no winning for him. Shawn had made the decision for him and there was absolutely no changing his mind. So to his car they went and he drove them to where he had last seen Jeff. Surprisingly, Jeff was actually still in the area, standing on the corner with no shirt on underneath a leather jacket and a pair of Snoopy pajama pants that neither Shawn or Hunter had ever seen him wear before. "What in the world…" Hunter left the rest of the question unasked because he was very sure that he didn't want to know.

"Jeff!" Shawn got out of the car and took off running towards him, leaving Hunter to bring up the rear. "Jeff! Jeff! Over here!"

Jeff looked over at them and narrowed his eye as they approached. "What are you still doing out here Jeff?" Hunter asked. "We-"

SLAP!

Hunter blinked, his head rocked to the side from the force of the slap. "…OW!"

"Jeff!" Shawn looked at Jeff in shock. "What did you do that for?"

"He LEFT me here to die!" Jeff yelled dramatically. "Do you have any idea what I've been through out here? What I've had to do to survive?"

"…Become a stripper?" Hunter guessed.

SLAP!

"Ow! Become a hooker?"

SLAP!

"OW! Quit hitting me already! That fucking hurts!"

Jeff raised his hand in a threatening gesture, which sent Hunter diving for cover behind Shawn. "I've had to blend in with the natives around here," he explained, cautiously looking around to make sure nobody else was listening. "Learn their languages and customs-"

"Jeff we're not in some savage land," Shawn said skeptically. "We're still in America you know."

Jeff wasn't listening of course. "And eventually, after many trials and tribulations, the village whores made me their leader."

Hunter blinked in surprise. "So…you're a pimp?"

"Exactly Mr. Big Nose." To demonstrate his point, Jeff slapped Hunter again, only this time with the back of his hand. "Now bring me my money you fucking ho."

"But Jeff I don't-"

"NOW whore!" Jeff started slapping Hunter over and over again and even started going after Shawn when he tried to step in between them. "Give me my money! Give me my money how dare you come to me without my money! I oughta beat you with my pimp stick!"

Now neither Hunter nor Shawn were sure exactly what Jeff's "pimp stick" was and neither one of them were looking to find out. They just started running away as fast as they could, practically hopping into the car and burning rubber in their retreat. "Holy crap," Shawn said as he panted for breath. "He's lost his mind!"

"He never had it to begin with," Hunter reminded him. He was wincing, his entire face sore from Jeff's slaps. "But yeah, he's goofier than normal."

"What do we tell Stephanie when we don't come back with him?"

"Uh…maybe if we can find Matt and make him get Jeff back." That sounded really good to Hunter. "He's Jeff's big brother he has to listen to him."

Shawn nodded along and off they went to try to find Matt. Unfortunately, that was something easier said than done. They started going to all the McDonalds in the area, trying to find out if anyone had seen Matt. When that got them nowhere, they expanded their search to all the other fast food places they could find. Nobody else had seen him either though. "Are you sure you haven't seen him?" Shawn asked.

"Yeah maybe you're not thinking hard enough," Hunter piped in. "He's this tall" he held up his hand to show Matt's height "long black hair, kind of looks like a caveman…"

The boy running the cash register shook his head. "Sorry. I haven't seen him. And $5.95 will be your total."

"Well that was a bust," Shawn complained as he and Hunter left the building. They both had gotten chocolate milkshakes because this whole hunting business was hard work and they needed something to compensate them for all of their efforts. "I don't think we're going to find him anywhere."

"I know," Hunter said with a sigh. They left their car where it was parked and went over to the park across the street so they could sit down on one of the benches. "But we can't just stop. Stephanie is going to get really really pissed if we do."

"And that's just freaking terrifying," Shawn concluded with a firm nod.

"Yep."

The sound of loud drums caught their attention and they wordlessly exchanged looks before getting up to go see what it was all about. They saw a large group of people all going in the same direction they were and Hunter grabbed Shawn by the wrist so he wouldn't lose him before pushing people out of the way. "Move it or lose it people," he said rudely. "Move it or-hey! Don't give me that look! Do you know who I am?"

"No and we don't care!" some random guy said.

"Why you-"

"Hunter!" Shawn yanked Hunter by his sleeve and pointed. "Look!"

Hunter looked and his jaw dropped. Matt was dancing to the beat of a bunch of men playing the drums, naked and covered from head to toe in mud. "Uh…what the…"

"…I think the brownies made Matt lose his mind," Shawn said slowly.

"You think?" Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh. "What do we do now? Should we try to get him?'

"Well Stephanie said we had to," Shawn reminded him. "But I think he looks happy here. Unless you want to disturb him."

Hunter thought about the situation carefully, weighing the pros and cons of both decisions. After about a minute and a half, he came to his well thought out decision.

"Nah. Let's go get cheesy fries instead."