A/N: I keep underestimating the length of these chapters, and that's why this one got a little late. I need to keep a schedule on these things. No long hiatus, though yet!
Chapter 6: Retro
What followed was a haze of half-anger, and half-worry in part of the other Crystal Gems. Pearl and Garnet called the rest of the park crew over, ushered everyone into a different room in the tower, and made it clear they were going to continue their work uninterrupted. As they took the gentle, yet firm scolding from them, feelings of shame and disappointment came over some of the kids, while everyone else seemed annoyed or even uninterested. They made their way to the inside of the room. They've been sent to the restaurant at the west part of the tower.
Different from the ballroom, it is not intended to appear as a fancy dining hall, after all, when you want to feed cartoons, you must take certain precautions so as to not let anything important break at their hands. The room has the appearance of a fast food restaurant with a distinctive old-school look; the booths, the floors, and the walls are decorated in simple shapes, wavy lines, and pastel colors, complimented by the white-blue LED lights illuminating the entirety of the room. Unlike most of the other rooms of the tower, it looks no worse for wear, as if, being the main eatery of the tower it could sanitize itself for obvious reasons.
The park crew took two separate booths closer to the double doors that led to the metallic-white colored kitchen, Mordecai and Rigby on one, Skips and Pops on the other. Concerns were made amongst the adults regarding who should feed whom according to age, but were assured by their current (underaged) chef that they didn't need to worry as they made their way towards the kitchen. The crew sits calmly, but in obvious boredom and dissatisfaction. Penny and Anais sit in a booth further in the back, one looking rather dejected as she hunches down to the table, the other filled with hidden, concentrated scorn, with a small, yet visible frown in her face.
Steven peeks outside the double doors from the kitchen out into the restaurant with worry in his face over the previous events, watching the sour moods. Getting even just a little bit scolded be the other Gems, combined with the current atmosphere of negativity, is enough to bring his mood down. With a sigh, he returns to look back inside the kitchen. Though normally he would show interest, he instead shows disappointment.
In said kitchen, Gumball is sprayed with a strong jet of water, enough to knock him back onto a wall and nearly flatten him. He gargles and flails as he is pinned down into the wall with all the water pressure up his body. He coughs and sputters once it's stopped, his whole body dripping wet. He looks at Darwin holding the hose attached to the kitchen sink.
"Well, is it off?" Gumball demands.
"I don't know, dude," Darwin shrugs. "It's kinda hard to tell since the paint is the same color as your fur." He flinches and sprays him again with more force. He soaks him from head to toe with extra pressure, some of the water even reaching his orifices.
"STOP!" Gumball yells between gargles. He coughs and sputters some more as Darwin finally turns off the faucet. He lies down on the floor, and gets up in a hunch. He lifts one of his ears to shake and smack the water stuck inside the canal, and he snorts the water stuck inside his nostrils. Then he smacks his lips and starts breathing heavily. "I'm done, I'm done. I think I'm good."
"Are you sure?" Darwin asks.
Gumball groggily stands up straight and hold his arm out. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's… enough." He turns his head towards the kitchen door to try to shake more water off his clothes and fur, and finds Steven standing there, his eyes not as sparkly as they previously were.
"Hey guys," he greets with a smile that seems forced. "Uhhh, we should try to figure out what's going on with this place…" He tries to instill curiosity again, however at this point, it's really anything to get his mind off of what happened.
"Yeah, we were getting hungry anyhow," Gumball says thoughtlessly as he turns around and starts to look around the kitchen. "Though, I think we'd still be rocking out at the lobby if nothing went so bad," he pouts slightly.
Whoops, no such luck. Steven's face scrunches with shame, and sulks down further.
"Dude, you know this is technically your fault, right?" Darwin points out to Gumball, almost accusingly.
Gumball stares at Darwin in seeming indifference, but understanding in secret that he can't argue. Gumball turns away from Darwin as he crosses his arms and wonders further down the kitchen, and faces Steven in apparent concern with his state.
"What's eatin' ya, dude?" he asks, sounding more like a statement than a question.
Steven doesn't make eye contact. "I'm just saying maybe we rushed into things… Maybe this wasn't such a good idea… If I had been there sooner, I could've done something, and it wouldn't have happened. We could have still had fun and it wouldn't have turned out like this. But I think everything went too fast, and now it's not looking so good."
Gumball snorts silently. "Well, dude. You can't be everywhere," he suggests casually. "What you gotta learn when you help people is, that everything's gonna gonna go wrong." He turns his back on him dramatically, his casual voice letting out some levels of sourness. "Everything!" he announces. He looks over his shoulder to look at Steven with eyes lacking any gleam.
"That's why you gotta look out for number one," he points to himself. "'Cause no one else is going to."
Steven blinks in uncertainty, still in a slump. He puts his hand toward his chin and faces away from Gumball. Gumball crosses his arms, waiting for a response, wondering why Steven hasn't tried to "correct" him as even Darwin often did. After a few moments, Steven brings his head up in realization, which Gumball takes some note to.
"Oh… wait, I get it!" Steven says with some of his enthusiasm returning. "Even though I wanna help people, I should take breaks every now and then to take care of myself, right? Some things I just can't control, and I have to deal with it. That's a pretty good advice, Gumball, I think I'm starting to feel better! Thanks!"
Gumball rolls his eyes and does a small sigh. Not really what he intended. "Yeah, sure," he croaks. He then chuckles a bit to himself. "You're a really… open dude, did you know that? I mean, is there anything that does upset you?"
Steven lets one one of his famous giggles, still not quite over his slump, but with his mood improved. He then ponders at the question. "Well, there's a lot of things that upset me, mostly about… the mortality of Gem stuff…" Steven articulated it so Gumball wouldn't get too curious about certain details involving Gumball's species (Steven still shudders at the memory, tried as he might to think of as many cat puns to try to repress it). Speaking of cats and a kitchen…
"…There is one," Steven says more loudly. "But it's pretty trivial at this point, I'm starting to grow out of it."
Gumball hums. "Go ahead," he suggests. Maybe he can exploit that later— nevermind.
Steven hesitates slightly. "It's about these things called Cookie Cats—"
"GUYS!" Darwin suddenly shrieks. "LOOK AT THIS!"
Gumball and Steven turned to see Darwin standing in front of a large, metallic, trapezium-shaped fridge, with its door open. His jaw is dropped, his eyes look as if they would pop out of their sockets, and a single fin is pointed at what is inside. Gumball and Steven quickly run to where Darwin is, and all three peek inside.
"Whoaaaa," Steven and Gumball stare in amazement at the surprisingly vast collection of foodstuff in the large fridge, arranged into a food pyramid. At the top sit the desserts and sweets like ingredients of ice cream, kept indefinitely cold by a freezer inside that particular shelf, and yet a separate shelf for doughnuts and other candies. In one of the shelves below sit an assortment of milks, cheeses, creams, and then next to it are pre-made meats; with cold steaks and chickens made to be cooked and cut, beefs, sausages, hams, bacons, and even some seafood. In the shelf below that sit all sorts of preserved vegetables, and in the shelf next to it sit colorful fruits, with tropical ones such as pineapples given particular focus. At the bottom shelf, breads sat neatly stacked in a corner, including breads for hot dogs, and bags of loafs of bread in slices were wrapped up next to the bags of other grains.
"Hey, wait a minute!" Gumball exclaims in genuine interest. He leans into the refrigerator and takes a few cat-like whiffs, then a long one. He takes a short moment to ponder at the smell, finding nothing dangerously irregular. He pulls out a random pack of sausages from the meat shelf, unwraps one, and sniffs it thoroughly. He then licks and nibbles it, and smacks his lips. "Dude…" his voice shakes in excitement. "All this stuff is fresh!"
Darwin 'oos' as he looks at the good sausage in Gumball's hand. Steven's mood fluctuates between amazement, bafflement, and a small hint of questionability more than curiosity. How all these foodstuffs have been acquired and kept fresh, particularly the things made from earthly animals, is an enigma to him. Perhaps the map will explain this further, or not much.
Gumball, however, grins in joy. He places the sausage into his mouth like a cigar, and runs to quickly grabs an apron from the kitchen's nearby closet. After tying it to himself with extreme quickness, he runs to grab a tray from a metal rolling table, Darwin following him all the way. He runs back to the refrigerator and scoops up as many ingredients as he can fit in the tray. He stops, then slurps the rest of the sausage into his mouth, chews it, then swallows it.
"UHHH, DOES ANYBODY WANT ANY HOT DOGS OR… ANYTHING?" He shouts at the kitchen door's direction. There is no response, yet he moves over to a table close to the stoves, sinks, and limitless kitchenware. He places the tray on to a table and prepares to separate the ingredients. Some potatoes, vegetables, fruits, sausages, and a chicken. Darwin quietly slips away to look for some more food, while Steven approaches Gumball, curiosity mixed in with numbness.
Gumball scrunches his eyes and breathes heavily as he twiddles and stretches his hands in preparation. He then turns toward a dot-eyed Steven, expression unchanged. "What were you saying?…" his eyebrows suddenly twist incredulity. "Cookie Cats?"
Steven grins a little nervously. "It's an ice cream! It was an old ice cream sandwich shaped like a cat head, that I liked a lot, and I thought it would give me magic powers so I ended up wasting it," he catches his breath. "I was hoping that maybe we could re-create it here. This place has just about anything, so I had this… gut feeling."
Gumball stares at nothing with his eyes wide. He slowly puts his hand to his chin, and blinks rapidly in thought. He swallows slightly. Worth it? Is it worth it? He wonders. He then squints, looks at Steven, and takes a breath.
"What'd they taste like…?" Gumball almost whispered, not a hint anywhere of sarcasm.
Oh. Steven puts both hands to the temples of his head as he struggles to remember. "It… tasted really good! Uh… I think it was a lot of chocolate on the outside part, that's what it tasted like. Then there was… some vanilla and strawberry on the inside, I think… I think that's I really remember…"
As Steven speaks, Gumball closes his eyes and his fingers twiddle in an imaginary coordination. In a black void, he visualizes the flavors with his tongue. Chocolate. A sweetly brown, iced, stimulating waterfall of fun and goodness contacting in the tongue to becoming deliciousness. Vanilla. Snowy, creamy, milky sunset condensed into a bright palette, such flavor then remembered in the palate. Strawberry. A field of redness, and a mineral-enriched taste, a true, magnificent product of gems in the ground. Not quite enough to make a full sandwich. He imagines an additional combination of flour, maybe an egg… He thinks.
"Hey," Darwin brings Gumball out of his trance smacking him slightly. "I found some more stuff there!" he points towards an open wooden cabinet right next to the trapezium fridge, containing non-refrigerated food and ingredients like cans, flour and spices. Then it's settled; it's time to begin.
"Alright, then." Gumball brings his hands out, and pauses to quickly think of simple recipes. "…Let's go make food, we're all hungry."
Steven watches as Gumball and Darwin begin to assemble in lightning speed the ingredients and tools to make chicken salad bowls, fries, and hot dogs for everybody. Darwin listens to Gumball's suggestions… Not so much suggestions as they are increasingly exasperated and micromanaging commands, demanding that the chicken be cooked exactly right, and the sausages be roasted at an extremely specific temperature. Gumball then reaches speedily at the fridge to grab soda bottles from the top shelf, nearly falling and knocking over some of the other foods. Darwin almost slips in some of the bits of vegetables that had been cut and fell to the ground, and nearly crashes into Gumball. In the spawn of minutes, both Gumball and Darwin nearly prepare at least four hot dogs, two salad bowls, and plenty of fries in the frier. The potato bits, lettuces, and even some of the ketchup begin to stick to their bodies.
"Uh, guys?" Steven asks, but no one pays attention. "I think I'm just gonna let you guys do your thing… I think this is pretty serious business for you guys." Seeing the chef's agitation and increasing chaos, Steven quietly moves to exit the kitchen, still interested in seeing how they cook, but not wanting to break either of their concentration.
He walks through the doors and through the restaurant past the booths where the park crew sit, and sits isolated in a separate booth, now as a spectator for the remainder of the time. Though he had supposedly misinterpreted the message Gumball was trying to give him, Steven truthfully has a sinking feeling about it. He looks over at Penny and Anais, and begins to piece things together from within his mind, leaning his fingers against his mouth.
Meanwhile, Skips turns his head to find the thinking Steven in a booth farther back behind where he sits, and peeks to Mordecai and Rigby's booth while Pops is distracted by the restaurant's decorations. While Skips then returns to his own thinking, Mordecai scratches the back of his head and finds more turquoise flakes in his feathers, now realizing he never had the time to wash the paint off properly.
Mordecai finally snorts. "Huh. I get it, Rigby," he says sourly. "You told me to keep looking at you so that poor cat didn't get big pointy beak shoved up his butt. Yeah, nice paternal instincts."
"Weeell," Rigby squeaks out in false innocence. "It's really more that I didn't want you to get a face-full of cat butt." He cracks a sly grin. "But now that you MENTION it…"
"Ugh," Mordecai shudders, a small sense of nausea in the taste of his mouth that almost eliminated his appetite. He leans back to the cushy booth, only to feel another surge of pain as his neck stretched. He turns his head, or at least attempts to, and takes a few moments to look at the old-fashioned imagery of the restaurant. He turns towards the booth Skips and Pops sit in, both much older than they were. He tries to feel his own face. Deep down, he begins to feel disturbed, as he swallows slightly. Mordecai snorts in irritation —and nostalgia.
"Face it dude," he begins to assent tiredly. "We're getting old."
It takes Rigby a moment to pick up on what Mordecai says, and his eyebrows rise. He then lets out a drawn, engine-like sigh, his face wrinkling into a teeth-grated frown.
"No, no we're not, Mordecai," Rigby almost scolded him, trying to sound as serious as possible in his shrill voice, before going back to a casual tone. "You're getting paranoid, man. It's all in your head! We're doing just fine! Look you got injured, okay? That's why you're hurting oh soooo much."
"It's not just this, Rigby," Mordecai states defensively, in a low tone. "It's what we're into, it's what we're missing, it's… a little like this place," he gestures the whole room. "We're spending so much time into all this, it feels like we're aging with it… you know? The eighties were thirty years ago now, and the seventies were forty. Forty, Rigby. We're gonna get past our prime, and we're gonna get just as old as all of this. We're gonna get left behind. There's gonna be new stuff coming out, and we're just sitting here not doing anything important, we'll probably end up like Pops. And, well…" he hesitates. He takes a deep breath.
"When we're gone… who's gonna care, man. Nothing lasts forever."
Rigby stays quiet. He frowns less in anger and more in slight worry. They're still too young to be having a midlife crisis… but now Mordecai just had to put those thoughts into his head. Great. What was he thinking. "Dude… I think we should talk about something else."
Mordecai sighs. "No, dude. We keep trying to distract ourselves from this. We've done that for too long. Over and over. Feels like we really need to do something with our lives besides this."
"Yeah. But we're not at home, right now, to do that," Rigby states in the same scolding tone as before, but with a strong hint of condescension. "When we get home after we're done with all of this, then we'll worry, alright?"
Mordecai doesn't respond, or even shoot a disapproving look. He's right. They shouldn't worry about time at the moment. But it's not like he's just gonna ignore it for long.
"Alright," he sighs in defeat and facepalms. Then tries to put on his usual casual tone, but he knows for sure he is not going to let his thoughts go forgotten. "Let's stop sulking around and let's talk about the, uh, Gems." He draws out the word slightly, Truthfully, he did want to know more about them, but he awaits a typical reaction.
"Oh, I get it, you find them hot!" A shout that comes from Rigby's mouth. Just as expected.
Mordecai rubs a finger and his thumb onto his eyelids. Now he feels as if he's aged thirty more years. "Anyway—" he grits.
Elsewhere in the chasm, the Gems almost finish building the beams for the Rooms. Only ten more stories left to go. Pearl works with less calm and grace, and more seriousness and firmness, particularly regarding the ruined state of the painted pillar; she would have to scrape everything off and start all over, but she simply doesn't have time for that right now. Garnet does not appear to have changed much in expression, but takes note to fasten the pace of her own work. Pearl looks up at her questioningly upon noticing this. No official announcement from her yet, but Pearl awaits as she continues her tasks. As soon as Pearl looks away, Garnet takes a quick glance at Amethyst.
Amethyst naps in a sole beam, in a position where it appears she would fall right off— laying on her stomach, weight unevenly shifted, and a foot swinging off the ledge. Her false snores almost echoed through the chasm, fully aware of how much it would annoy Pearl. Her eyebrow scrunches, and her mouth starts to smack.
Her left eye suddenly shoots open. "…'M hungry." she mutters.
She gets to her feet and starts to quickly hop down the other pillars with as much precision as she wishes. She drops her body right between the other pillars without touching them, and crouches down as she lands on her feet. She starts to jog and bounce, and do cartwheels for no particular reason as she reaches the restaurant doors. She scratches her stomach prepping itself for 'chow time' and slows herself down. She opens the doors and walks casually inside, yawning and looking around with intrigue but in no particular attention. Steven cracks a little smile upon seeing her enter, but she doesn't notice him right away. She stops next to Mordecai and Rigby's booth, and begins to listen curiously. Rigby seems to be chuckling about something.
"…So do ya think the purple one is like Muscle Man as a chick or what?"
"No, dude. She's way too hot." Mordecai says without thinking.
"I dunno I feel kinda… ambient temperature right now," Amethyst carelessly quips.
Mordecai immediately jumps up from his seat, producing inaudible gasp and watching in horror as Amethyst just stands there. Rigby lets out a wide-mouthed wheeze and simply throws back and laughs hysterically, enough to keep wheezing and almost busting a gut. Mordecai puts both of his feathered hands to his reddening face and cracking voice, while Rigby the hardest he's ever laughed since entering the tower. Amethyst's eyelids droop in nonchalance, but cracks a little smirk. All the laughter bring Skips's and Pops's attention, and they move to watch what is happening.
"Augh… Dude," Mordecai moans with a single hand to his face as his arm slumps down and his face started to get redder. "If they were here, they'd never let me hear the end of it, man," He quickly turns his head to Amethyst, who is still there. He covers his eyes again. "Aughhhh." Skips can't help but chuckle.
"Ahhhh, ha, ha…!" Rigby's laughter starts to crack, and he starts coughing from his throat becoming moist. He directs to Amethyst with a wide grin. "Epic timing! HA! I dunno 'bout you, but you're totally awesome already!"
Amethyst hums and makes a silent chuckle. "Well, I don't even have to try!" she attempts to gloat. She thinks to herself for a moment. That "accent" that they show seems somewhat familiar to her. "So what's up with you guys?" she asks playfully.
Mordecai finally takes his hand off his face, and winces when he tries to lean back again. Nope, he shouldn't be thinking about that now. "Well, y'know…" he attempts to sound casual as he tries to pull his arms behind his head in a lounging position. "We're just here… hangin' out, like we usually do…"
Rigby tries to copy Mordecai and starts to lounge himself. "Yeah, we were just— gueeigh!" Rigby stumbles back into a sitting position once he leans too far on the edge of the booth. He clears his throat, no longer quite as confident. "… We were just talkin' about you guys. You and the others are freaky… but in a good way! You get what we're sayin', right?"
Amethyst slightly nods to herself as she listens to them talk.
"Well, earlier they got a little bit too nostalgic. They're complaining about bein' too old," Skips tells Amethyst.
"Dude!" Mordecai glares at the hundred-year-old immortal yeti.
"Come on, you know you need this," Skips claims.
"Ha, ha, what?" Amethyst chuckles in disbelief. "Are you kidding? How old are you anyway? You look young. I thought birds and racoons only lived like, ten years or less."
Mordecai and Rigby's faces scrunches in discomfort.
Amethyst gradually stops smiling. "Hey, quit sulking around," Amethyst says casually, yet also serious at heart. "It's not good to look at the past for too long. 'Cause then you'll miss out on all the fun that's happening right now." She begins to lean against the table of the booth. "Where I'm from, I get that a lot, but what I like about being a Gem, is I get to see AAALLLLL the ways the stuff just changes all the time. New stuff to see and stuff, and just being in the nooow." She attempts to gesture the entire room. She stops smiling to see, just for a moment, if these two understand. She receives no response as they both start to consider.
Amethyst slowly begins to smirk again. If these guys give her the vibes she suspects, she'll have the same fun she's been wanting again for decades. "But if you really have to keep thinking about it, there's always looking at the past with a little twist," she drew out that last word in a sly, snake-like slither, all in anticipation.
Rigby looks at her and cocks his eyebrow, and Mordecai's eyelids rise open.
Got 'em. "Huh! You know, like music stuff! Just play something you liked back in the day and give it the now treatment! Works with other stuff too. You take something old, and make it look new! That way, you'll know you still got it! You gotta remind yourself that you're still alive, and you're stayin' that way!"
Mordecai swallows, his mind racing. He slowly turns his head around. But how…? "Play something we liked back then?" he throws his head back and brings his finger feathers together, processing a basic idea. He shuts his eyes tightly. "Give it the now treatment…"
"But where are we gonna get the instruments for that?" asks Rigby abruptly.
Amethyst is silent. She pouts her lips, and starts to twist her head around. She looks over her shoulder to find Lion standing on the doorway, no doubt smelling the food that Gumball is cooking up already, and carrying something with his mouth. Her eyelids open wider for a moment.
"Maybe you can use that?" she points behind her in Lion's direction.
Mordecai and Rigby are soon alarmed when they notice just what it actually is on Lion's mouth. Mordecai stumbles out of the booth to retrieve a keyboard resembling The Power that Lion is holding with his teeth. Lion opens his jaw and nearly drops it, much to Mordecai's concern. He starts to twist it around in various directions, looking to see if it has any teeth marks. Meanwhile, Steven silently calls to Lion so as to not enter the kitchen when he starts to head to it, and Lion calmly moves over to sit close to him.
Mordecai moves over to his booth to take a closer look at the instrument, and Skips and Pops soon follow. "Weird," Mordecai remarks as he observes its array of buttons with different labels for different instruments, background sounds, and "special effects", and a simulated metronome for the rhythm. A screen in the top middle displays a homorhythm, designed to play and organize the different sounds and notes as they are organized. It possesses so many "additional" buttons it almost looks like a toy. In fact, Skips figures, it probably is a toy. He guesses that they'll see how it sounds.
"Huh," Mordecai produces a small chuckle, staring at the opportunity in his very hands. "How'd you get this idea?" he asks in rising interest.
"Eh," Amethyst shrugs. "I know two guys…" She looks over to Steven, who is grinning widely in happiness as he watches.
Mordecai raises a finger up. "Alright, guys," he scans the keyboard instrument once more, searching for the right button. "Let's do this."
He presses the button on the keyboard that enables the metronome, and produces a consistent beat.*
He starts to crank up the sound with the keyboard's special effects, and the sound used for the background is settled in place. With two fingers, Mordecai starts to play an iconic tune he and Rigby recognized all their lives. They start to grin widely at how well and loud enough it sounds to them, and Skips and Pops stare in slight awe. The music sounds different, more contemporary, but they know it's the same song they've enjoyed a long time ago. He started singing a melody, also slightly different, but all too familiar for him.
"Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a woman's man…"
He sings at his casual own tone, nothing too high or too low. He starts to move around the booth, tapping the rhythm with his foot while still singing and playing. He gets up from the booth, followed by Rigby, and with the keyboard in a single arm, they both start to walk close to the booth, their feet matching the rhythm with each step.
They both then crank up the familiar chorus in harmony. Rigby joins him in singing the chorus, in his own way. He ends up shouting the "ha, ha, ha, ha"s in a small shrill, but nobody seems to mind.
Amethyst looks on in satisfaction at this performance. She had expected something more rock-like, but she very much enjoys this as well. She starts to bop her head, and watches as Skips, Pops, and even Steven gets in on the rhythm. The music also manages to catch the attention of Penny and Anais, and they turn their heads towards it. At the kitchen, Gumball and Darwin stomp a single foot to the rhythm as they begin to finish their meals in a much calmer fashion.
Mordecai temporarily stops the metronome, and gives the song's electronic sound a more space-like atmosphere. As the keyboard's trumpet instruments play peacefully, Amethyst soon, and harshly, climbs to the booth in a silent giggle. As if the room's light had turned violet, and a correspondently colored spotlight shines on her, Amethyst moves and twists her body somewhat gracefully, and flips her hair around to the sounds of the trumpets. Steven continues to watch excitedly from the sidelines, but Penny and Anais exit their booth to take a closer look, Penny starting to smile.
The beat starts back again in full swing. Still staring on top of the booth, Amethyst switches to her usual "nightclub" dance moves, but refrains in showing off too much at the moment. This time, Amethyst chooses to join in on the chorus, hitting higher notes than Mordecai and Rigby had done before, still dancing in the booth as all three sing. Now Mordecai cranks up the higher notes in the keyboard, both he and Rigby approaching closer towards the table with each of the song's 'ha, ha, ha, ha's. They sit with their backs against the table and Amethyst lies on her stomach. This culminates in the song's last words, sung by all three of them.
"Stayin' Aliiiive!"
As the song reaches his end, Mordecai takes a moment to play the remaining tones with satisfaction and a lack of pain in his back, and finally stops.
Skips, Pops, Penny, Anais, and Steven immediately clap and whistle and whoop loudly, along with some laughs. In the midst of it, Mordecai and Rigby look up at a smirking Amethyst. Her eyelids are drooped again, and shoots them both a thumbs up, winking with her visible eye. From that point forward, Mordecai and Rigby now start to truly admire her.
The kitchen doors suddenly swing open. Gumball stands tall, with one hand behind his back with the tray served forward in the other, filled with fries, hot dogs, and some bowls of salads with chicken. Darwin stands behind him with a similar proud pose. They are both still filthy with food, but it doesn't matter to them.
Gumball grins widely. "Lunch, is served!"
The room is filled with relieved sighs and anticipation, and in the case of Amethyst, very hungry growls. Mordecai chuckles and stands up to reach out and grab the tray. But as he is about to turn around, he looks into it, and his face suddenly twist into a look of confusion and mild revulsion. This prompts the others to take a look themselves, and with the exception of Amethyst, they proceed to cry in disgust and disappointment.
Gumball's eyes widen in intense worry, and his grin disappears completely. "W-what…?" Gumball immediately pulls the tray close to him from Mordecai's hands and takes a closer look. He gasps in horror at the small turquoise paint flakes scattered along the food. His work, ruined.
"AWW, *hmp*, NOOO!" Gumball cries out in annoyance in exasperation, harshly shoving the tray back in Mordecai's hands and turns away. With a short whimper halfway in Gumball's voice, Steven notices a hint of fear and sadness in it. Gumball hunches over, facing away from the table, and fully expecting a bigger wave of disappointment and scorn directed at him. Steven, Darwin, Penny, and Anais see this, and look on in worry and sympathy, unsure of what to say or what would happen.
But everyone stays quiet in thought. Mordecai and Rigby look at each other, then at an unsure Pops and Skips, who simply shrugs. Amethyst's gaze, however, is fixed on the ruined food in a predator-like manner. With the lack of response from everyone else, she eyes the tray before she steps off the table and makes a short lunge.
Amethyst grabs the tray from Mordecai, and looks at the others and with hunger in her smile. "Well if you guys aren't gonna eat that, can I have it?" Before anyone could answer, she tilts the tray to herself and pours all the contents onto her mouth, gorging herself noisily on them. Some of the food lands on the floor, and Amethyst picks it up to continue gorging. Gumball looks up at her and wrinkles his nose and lips, while the others feel like gagging slightly. She walks away to a different seat as she proceeds to try to finish chewing the amount of food she couldn't have fit normally, and trying to hold it back with her hands.
"I'll give you this," Amethyst calls out on the distance with her mouth full in Gumball's direction, and starting to suck her fingers. "It's super good.
Gumball's lower eyelids rise, too disgusted to fully take the compliment. Mordecai scrunches his "lips" as he looks in a mixture of disgust and admiral at Amethyst's behavior. He turns to look at Gumball and his face softens, but not before Gumball avoids eye contact again, with his ears flat against his head and his arms crossed.
"Well," Mordecai croaks as he walks over and crouches at Gumball's eye-level, despite him facing away. "It's alright. It was an accident," he says gently. "Don't worry about it. It sucks but, yeah, we can make some more."
"Y-yeah… You, you think you can try it again?" Rigby asks kindly, but in a small teeth-grating shrill underneath, showing signs of impatience and disappointment, but doesn't raise his voice in complaint as much as he can.
"Hey," Mordecai calls a little louder and taps Gumball's shoulder, but still kind, bringing Gumball's attention to him. He sees Mordecai looking at him in the most sincere, friendliest face he's put on in a long time since arriving at the tower. "You want us to help you or what?"
All the wrinkled, scornful lines in Gumball's face vanish, and his eyes light up. Though he doesn't smile, the shine in his eyes turn to diamonds, much to Steven's silent, yet squeaky, mouth covered joy.
"Ah, uh…" his voice creaks, and mumbles under his breath as he lowers his head and puts on a faint puppy face. "…'Kay, yeah."
He walks ahead towards the kitchen again, a little unsure how else to react. Darwin and Penny give him a supporting smile as they walk next to him. Mordecai and Anais walk behind, soon to be followed by Skips, and Pops.
Steven watches all of this. He sees how easily Amethyst brought a sense of happiness when he wasn't exactly viable to do so at the moment, and did so in her own way. He would want to talk to her about that later, to congratulate her. He sees how when it comes to help and bringing joy, he isn't alone, and sometimes he doesn't have to try. Slowly, he tries to think about just what is it that Gumball, and everyone else, truly needs. Steven leaves Lion and enters the kitchen to help, as well.
* Stayin' Alive, by Capital Cities (cover of the BeeGees)
A/N: The scene where Amethyst interrupts the conversation is somewhat based on a true story.
Originally, I was just gonna end this with the food getting ruined, but I decided to go for a more optimistic note.