A/N: Ok, so unfortunately, things are going to wind down a bit until the Lich gets back, but don't think this isn't an important part to the story, these snowballed scenes are the secondary storyline that gives this more of the real life feel to it, y'know! Now, there will be songs included in this, but only Finn and Decker will end up singing a lot. Decker's lyrics will look like the author's notes and everyone else's will be regular italics.

Chapter 8

Indeed, Decker's nose did not fail him this time as he saw stacks of pancakes with diced bits of bacon cooked in as well as an over-piled plate of bacon. But, Finn reacted differently than Decker though he would, "Jake! What the flip? Did you cook all the bacon?"

"Yeah. I just thought since there was a lot of company, I'd go all out. See?" the magic dog replied, pointing out the rest of the smorgasbord he'd laid out.

There were citrus fruits of almost any kind next to the lone bacon, along with what had to be an entire loaf of bread turned into French toast. Ever since he'd learned to control the virus better, he had formed everything that BLACKLIGHT hadn't, which was everything except excretory glands and organs. And while he enjoyed the free storage space, he liked eating and tasting things that weren't human biomass. He formed a digestive track and the proper glands that accompanied them. So the sight of all this food that he had been deprived of his entire two months in NYZ made him stand there with his mouth open, salivating. He was at the table with a plate as soon as Jake told them to help themselves.

He had two of everything on his plate (except for the bacon, he had four of that). Decker took a bite out of the pancakes and was instantly mesmerized by the flavor. They had to be better than anything he'd ever had! He began to scarf the fluffy, syrupy food until he ran out, then proceeding to get another two. Then, he began to scarf those as well, but they reminded him of something he hadn't thought about in a long time.

Home...

Now, Decker wasn't the type to get all wishy-washy over nothing, but his eating slowed as he began to think of what his home was now. He didn't have parents anymore, he'd been kicked out of every apartment in the area, and all he had left was his sister and Alex. In truth, Alex was the only one who had received the truly full story of Decker's life. From his birth, to his parents' divorce, to their deaths, and finally, to the near rape of his sister, where he had killed someone for the first time. That was when Alex re-learned the emotion, pity, and the skill, comfort. Soon, the young man was so deep in thought that he'd halted eating entirely, which, unfortunately, didn't go unnoticed by Jake, "Hey, dude? Is there something wrong with the food?"

Decker put down his fork with a sigh, "N-No, Jake, it's just... It reminds me of home... And how long I haven't been there... and I just... I-I need some air."

He got up and pushed the chair in. He headed out the door to a balcony, just below the one Finn was on the night just passed. They all saw him look up and flutter his fingers at his side, like a nervous tic. Unexpectedly, Alex wordlessly got up as well and followed the brunet out, though, after eyeing them all suspiciously, he shut the French doors behind him. "What do y'all think that was all about?" Cake asked suddenly.

Jake replied with a shrugged, but Finn and Fionna had better answers. Finn said, "He said something about home. Maybe he left his bro in his universe."

"Or his sis," Fionna continued.

While Finn and Jake felt bad for the poor guy who was jumping through hoops to get home, the group from Aaa felt a deep sympathy for him, having known Decker longer, albeit by a day or two. As they continued their breakfast in silence for the next five minutes or so, they caught bits and pieces of the conversation between both humans, but strangely enough, they never got any of Alex's voice, which they'd yet to hear. At some point they heard a muffled response from Decker that sound something like 'I know, I know' and it was not even two minutes later that the both of them came back in with Decker having a smile on his face that no one but Alex knew was fake. The pair came back to the table and the younger of the two spoke, "Sorry about that. It's just that I don't think of home very often and I guess you could say I'm more than a little homesick."

Fionna was puzzled by this, "If your homesick, why'd you use the rest of the potion to come back here?'

"I don't know, Fi..." he trailed off, but continued, "When I went through the portal, I told Alex to think of following me and I thought something along the lines of take me home, but I don't know why it brought me here. Maybe some higher power wants me here?"

He received a collective shrug from the rest of them in response when he thought a nice, hot shower could help unstress him. And, while he didn't necessarily need to clean himself, he thought the heat and steam would help. So, he turned to Finn, "Yo, Finn. You think I could use your shower?"

"Oh, uh, sure. Follow me," Finn motioned the other to follow with a nod.

Decker wordlessly followed the hero up the ladder once again, but this time into the long, wooden hallway. The walls on either side were lined with pictures of Finn, Jake, Finn and Jake, Joshua, and Margaret, their mother. This, obviously, was not a part of the house Decker had ever seen on the show because all of the different events and personalities and emotion instilled in the photographs made him want to stop. To look at each and every one of them. To absorb or just take in the aspects of Finn's life he knew nothing about.

Finn stopped just short of the next door and turned around, "Alright, here it is," he opened the door and pointed, "There's a spare towel under the sink."

"Thanks," the other replied, "But what happens if there's more than one guest? What do you do about towels?"

Finn leaned against the wall, his thumb to his lips. "Well, usually Jake just stretches super high," all the while, Finn motions with a single finger, "and then spins around until its dry, so don't worry, it's dry."

Finn didn't see the small twitch under the other teen's eye, so he waved casually and went back down to the kitchen. Shutting the door behind him, Decker shed his normal shirt to reveal the hem of his jeans, fused with his toned torso. They were more like small tendrils that slightly distorted in color going from the dark denim blue to his tanned skin color. His clothing, besides his shirt, was biomass, so they morphed and contorted into looking like his natural body would. He started the shower up and got in.

He began to delve deep into his inner thoughts, 'I don't understand. Why would it bring me here if I told it to take me home! It makes me mad... but, I guess this gives me a chance to make everything right between Finn and Flame Princess-' He got goosebumps, not just from the warm water, but from the weight of what he told Finn he'd do, 'Geez, I gotta have some sort of a plan if I'm gonna help Finn get FP back!' He sighed sadly, 'Man, why did this happen to me? Maybe I'll feel better if I sing...' So, as he washed himself, he imagined the entrance into one of the slower songs he liked, then sang:

I text a postcard sent to you.

Did it go through?

Sending all my love to you.

You are the moonlight of my life every night.

Giving all my love to you-

He stopped mid-song, finishing the quick clean when he heard a knock at the door. It was Finn again. Decker hadn't realized he'd been singing so loud.

Earlier, Finn had left to go back to breakfast. But, before he could get too far, he realized, 'Crud, I forgot to put shampoo in the shower!' He raced back to the bathroom, but went to the door across from it. He grabbed up the plastic container, but halted when something caught his ear. Singing, coming from nowhere else than the bathroom.

He pressed his ear to the door to hear some of the lyrics, but they were still a bit fuzzy. To him, Decker's voice was unlike what he'd heard from most. Although his own singing voice had matured and gotten better, it was still better at more high pitched songs (think Adam Levine). Decker's was deeper, if only by a fair bit, and had a roughness that could be easily smoothed out or utilized for rock (for rock, Gerard Way, for other, Jason Mraz). It was actually kind of pleasing to his ears.

Finn decided to knock on the door and sound off with, "Hey, Decker, I got some shampoo out here. Sorry I didn't put it in there earlier."

Decker called through the beating water, "It's alright," he outstretched an arm to reach for the bottle.

The hero cracked the door and brought the shampoo forward, "By the way, your voice is righteous. Maybe next time Marcy has a jam sess', you could come with."

Without saying another thing, Finn shut the door and walked off, leaving Decker to think it over. His arm came back into the shower and under the heat of the liquid. Deeming the environment safe, he let himself 'fan' by opening his mouth wide in a smile of pure joy and sort of bounced around on the balls of his feet while thinking, 'Oh my God! Did I seriously just get invited to a jam session by Finn?' He stopped, took a deep breath. 'Cool it,' he told himself, 'This is exactly why you haven't met any of your idols. He's just another dude.'

And even though it was normally easy, the 'actually-in-Ooo' thing made controlling himself harder. But, after washing his hair, he stopped the water. Decker got out and instead of using the towel to dry of, he made the surface area of his skin vibrate violently, thus shaking all moisture from it. The only thing he used the towel in was his hair, only for the sake of getting his usual look. Then, his pants and shoes morphed back into place.

The last to go on was his shirt. Then, he was back downstairs in a flash. Fionna and Finn were examining each other, as was Alex doing to everyone. He was still silent, but Decker understood the concept of not knowing anyone around you. What he didn't grasp was the paranoia that Alex always had going on up in his head.

His thoughts broke when Finn and Fionna stopped scrutinizing their counterparts and Finn spoke, "Wanna go for a dungeon crawl?"

"Totally!" Fionna pumped a fist, "Bring Cake?"

"Bring Jake?" Finn asked back.

Both nodded and were out the door with their siblings. Alex nodded his head at Decker towards the door the others had just left through, telling the teen just what he wanted. He nodded back. But, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the form of Ice Queen, sitting regally with an air of awkwardness around her. A smile softened his features, "Hey, Ice Queen, wanna see something cool?"

She brightened noticeably and nodded, following them both out the door into the vast, lush green planes and cool breeze of March. The two humans stood a distance away, facing each other, like a standoff. Decker took off his shirt and stuck it inside his person, then proceeded to make a replica with his biomass. He was the first to move from the stalemate with a forward dash and he tried to punch Alex. The closed fist connected with Alex's chest with a boom, but the man didn't even flinch. A shiver ran up the other's arm.

He retreated, holding his wrist as he shook his hand about, saying, "Ow! Oh man, I still can't punch your chest," he pointed at Alex, "Next time, I'm punching your stomach, it's softer."

For the first time that Ice Queen had seen, Alex smiled and chuckled quite a bit. Decker's arms turned to the coloration of the virus before completely mutating into a mass of tendrils that came together at the end of his arm to make two stubby-but-clawed fingers and a thumb in the same style. There was a faint glow of red and gold coming from the inside of his arm. Alex's left arm changed, too, but into a large sword with a wide, curved blade and a very long pike extending from the end of it. This time, Alex moved forward and cleaved the blade from right to left, hoping to take off Decker's head.

The younger man reacted quickly by jumping high and twisting in mid air to shoot a couple thick tendrils toward's Alex. They connect with the sword. When Decker came back down, it was on the other side of Alex and he whipped his hands as if he were driving a sleigh. As soon as the small wave in the tendrils met the sword, they wrapped further around it. Separate tendrils burst from the wrapping, sticking in the ground.

Alex, now trapped, merely smirked as he began to emit a red, translucent smoke from his back. He let out a loud groan when three pinkish, fleshy pods sprouted from his back. Once they were big enough, two Hunters and two Brawlers exploded from the sacs, roaring loudly as they did so. Alex pointed to Decker, siccing his pack on the younger man. Decker morphed one arm back to normal and the right into a crude-looking sword that he claimed looked like Heller's in its second-to-last state.

It looked more like some one had painted tin foil black and tried to make it sharp. Three short spikes came from the side of the top end of the blade. The next moments were a flurry of slashes, some to the pack, some to him. He slashed at one, severing one of its arms. It started bleeding profusely and roared in agony, signalling it was time.

Decker ran forward and jumped on the beast's chest, attaching a single tendril and jumping back into the air until it bungee'd, catapulting him forward. He brought the sword across and cleaved right through the creature, the burst of euphoria coursing through him as blood sprayed over him. He repeated this process of jumping slashing, cleaving until the other three were dead and he'd consumed all three. And while the euphoria had lessened over his training, it still felt good enough that he shivered. All the while, Alex made use of the time by slowly consuming the tendrils wrapped around his blade.

So, by the time Decker turned back, Alex was free, but something was off. Alex was looking elsewhere, like he'd heard something, which concerned Decker. The only other time Alex had looked off into the distance like that, both of them had hardly escaped with their lives. "Alex?" Decker approached slowly, "What is it?"

Alex mutter his first word since before he came through the portal, a word Decker knew meant trouble, "Gentek."

The brunet's eyes widened, "Ice Queen, we need to go."

Meanwhile, Finn, Fionna, Jake, and Cake had already found an excellent dungeon to go through. It looked to be the remains of an underground facility and the name had been too faded to see, but there was a symbol. It was a combination of three outlined hexagons with solid hexagons on the inside of them. The only remnants of any name was a capital 'G' next to the emblem. Against any chills that Jake and Cake felt around the place, they went in with ever-exuberant humans.

Alrighty then! Good chapter, good chapter. Hope you readers want another chapter. Oh, I'm re-rating this to T because the blood and gore isn't bad enough to merit M. So, until next time!