A/N: The next two weeks are going to be very busy for me (I think I have like 7-8 med school exams in between the two of them), so the chances of me uploading a chapter during them are very low. Hence why I'm uploading another chapter so soon after the first one to make up for the soon-to-be extended absence.
I was going to leave the last chapter as the end to the vacation arc, but that felt a bit unfinished to me. So I'm going to use this chapter to wrap up the arc instead. It's in a similar format to the Random Family Moments chapters, but it features characters outside of the family. Apart from, you know…the Nightmares.
I realize I haven't done an "Epic Fantasy Adventures" chapter in quite a long time. I haven't forgotten, I just need time to do some D&D research that I don't have time to do right now because med school.
Chapter 56 – Friends Back Home
Pink Rabbits and Payment
The days following the family's first vacation were spent in quiet recuperation. Mike had staved off the exhaustion of long driving sessions and crazy Vegas nights as long as possible, but everything had finally caught up to him once they had finally come back home. Not wanting to see him accidentally hurt himself, the ghosts had all but carried Mike to his bed and dropped him on there so that he could properly recover.
"Will he be all right?" Liz asked as she watched Mike lay sprawled on his bed. The way he had complained about not feeling well and an upset stomach, some of the ghosts were wondering if he had ended up getting sick somehow.
Charlie nodded. "He's just tired," she explained. "Mike hasn't really driven out of town for a long while now, and certainly not for vacation trips like the one we went on. The last time he did something like this was when he was still working for Eisensteel. That and the fact that he ate two buffet dinners in a row. Give it some time, I'm sure he'll be fine."
"I'm not an invalid, you know," Mike's voice grumbled from his room. "I'm just tired as hell. And that buffet was worth it."
Charlie smirked. "See?"
For the next few days, the ghost kids mostly stayed to themselves as Mike recovered from his fatigue. The Marshalls were excited to know that their friends were back home and wanted to hear all about their vacation from them personally, but they decided to wait until Mike was ready first.
It wasn't until a week later that Mike decided he was ready to get back to his daily life. "So has anything happened while I did my best impression of a Snorlax for the past few days?" was his first question.
"Melody dropped by a few times," Jeremy answered. "She wanted to see if you were all right."
"We told her that you were recovering and couldn't see her," Susie added.
"For an entire week?" Mike winced. "Geez, I feel kind of bad now for just leaving her hanging like that. Next time she comes by I'll make sure to talk to her."
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. "That's probably her," Liz pointed out.
Mike immediately raced for the door and swung it open. Sure enough Melody was standing outside with Bonnet clinging to her right shoulder. "Hey there!" she greeted him, looking relieved. "I tried to contact you a few times, but…"
"Yeah…sorry about that," a sheepish look crossed Mike's face. "Haven't been feeling well for the past week ever since we got back from the vacation."
Melody smiled. "Glad you're all right now," she said as Mike opened the door wider to let her in. The woman quickly crossed the threshold, Bonnet holding on to her shoulder as she did so to avoid falling off.
A wry look crossed Mike's face. "It probably had something to do with the long driving hours I put in. Or the fact that eating two buffet dinners in a row screwed with my stomach."
"You know that's not healthy right?"
"In my defense, I was letting the ghost kids partially possess me so they could taste the food," Mike countered.
Melody smirked. "I wonder how many times THAT sentence has been said before," she commented as she followed Mike to the living room. The ghost kids dropped their phones and laptops and waved at her as she sat down at the couch. Bonnet looked at the phones and laptops with utter fascination, prompting Charlie to begin showing her how the bits of technology and the Internet worked. The former Marionette inhabitant opened a Youtube video featuring a walkthrough of one of the "Trollface Quest" games, causing Bonnet to erupt into hysterical giggles at the hilarious stupidity and stupid hilarity going on.
"She's almost like a little kid," Melody gave pink bunny rabbit a fond look. "I really enjoyed taking care of her." Bonnet looked up and waved at the woman, who happily returned the gesture. "I know she's supposed to be yours, but…can I borrow her some more? For a little longer?"
Mike grinned. He hadn't missed the close relationship between Melody and Bonnet, and something told him that she could take care of Afton's now pacified creation better than he ever could. "You know what?" he declared. "You can keep her. She's clearly happy being with you and I've already got plenty of company."
Melody's eyes shone and Bonnet raised her arms up in delight. "Thanks so much, Mike!" She exclaimed. "It's really nice having a companion when I have to do some engineering by myself. Her eyes suddenly caught the bags of Las Vegas souvenirs. "So how was your vacation?"
"It was AMAZING!" Susie declared, almost glowing with happiness. "I can't remember having so much fun!"
"We got to fly around the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, and play around in Las Vegas!" Gabe elaborated. "We all had a great time!"
Melody laughed. "That's good to hear. I always insisted that Mike needed to get the hell out of this tiny little town for something that wasn't Eisensteel related. Thank God he finally took my advice. I'm honestly surprised he didn't do it earlier with you guys."
"That's mostly because I was still in the Marionette," Charlie explained. "I can turn myself invisible as a normal ghost, but a floating Puppet flying around…"
"…yeah, I can see how that could cause a few problems," Melody conceded. "I can just see the headlines now: SLENDER MAN PUPPET WITH FACE TERRORIZES LAS VEGAS."
Mike burst out laughing but the kids just gave the two adults confused looks. "What's slender man?" Cassidy asked.
"Don't worry about it," Mike waved it off. "Anyways, I bought a couple of souvenirs at Vegas and some of them are for you." He reached into one of the bags and Melody's eyes widened when he took it out.
It was a miniature slot machine, carefully crafted to imitate an actual Las Vegas slot machine as accurately as possible. Melody experimentally pulled the lever down and the slots rolled for a few seconds before landing on three lemons. Before she could say anything, Mike handed her the machine and took out a few more souvenirs, including a mug, a glass hexagonal prism with a miniature Las Vegas inside it, and a snow globe. "All yours," he declared as he put them back into the bag and handed it to her.
"Thank you so much, Mike," Melody said softly as she accepted the bag. "I'm going to put these up in my bedroom when I get home. They all look so beautiful." She gave him a grateful smile. "I know I said this before, but you really are the best."
"Heck yeah he is!" Fritz cheered, with various expressions of approval and agreement from the other ghosts.
Mike shrugged and grinned. "No trouble at all, Mel," he replied. "And now there's one other thing we need to talk about."
Melody gave him a confused glance. "What about?"
"How much I'm going to pay you for taking care of my house and workshop for the past few days."
"WHAT?" Melody squawked. "I can't accept that! You're already giving me gifts! Hell, if anything, I should be paying YOU for using your garage!"
"Good luck trying to convince Dad to change his mind," Jeremy smirked.
"I know…" she groaned as she palmed her face. "Don't forget, I've known him a lot longer than you guys have." She sighed. "All right then, let's get this over with. How much are you going to give me?"
"It's up to you," Mike offered, causing Melody to perk up.
"How about nothing?" she innocently suggested, causing the kids to start laughing.
"Not gonna happen," Mike smirked, causing Melody's head to slump again. "Now then, I'll give you a choice. You can either take 1000 dollars for the past four days you've been taking care of my house…or 10% of the money I've won from my game nights at Vegas."
Melody looked at Mike and the ghost kids carefully, but their faces were betraying nothing. She shrugged. "I'll take the second option, I guess," she answered, confident that she would be getting only a small amount of cash. People always lost in casinos, and there was no way Mike could have hit a jackpot of some kind…right?
Mike's grin widened and he reached a hand out to Liz. The orange-haired ghost girl giggled and placed a small check in his hand, which he handed over to Melody. For the second time in a row, Melody's eyes bulged as she read the amount listed on the check.
"Congratulations, Mel," Mike grinned. "You just made the easiest six thousand dollars you've ever made in your entire life!"
Melody looked at the check and the 6000 dollars emblazoned on it for several seconds. Then, her eyes rolled to the back of her hand and she fell backward onto the couch, head rolled back, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
Mike and the ghosts all sweatdropped while Bonnet crawled over to her new fainted owner, tapping various parts of her face lightly with her tiny pink arms in concern. "Uhhhh…dad?" Fritz finally spoke up after several seconds. "I think you broke her."
His father brushed the back of his hand against her forehead and shrugged. "She'll be fine."
Reunion Among Friends
Barely a few days after Melody's visit to Mike's house, the kids all got a message from Alex and Meghan on their computers. "We want to hear all about it!" both siblings had demanded as one.
When it quickly became apparent that a simple Internet or phone conversation wouldn't satisfy either set of kids, Mike and Ryan had promptly and hastily arranged a smaller-scale playdate for the friends to reunite as quickly as possible.
"Charlie's down in the basement taking care of something," Mike told the kids before he and Ryan went to the dining room to exchange some small talk and for Mike to give his Las Vegas souvenir gifts to his old friend. "She'll be up soon enough."
"We saw the picture of the suite you sent us," was the first thing Meghan said when they situated themselves in the living room. "I'm so jealous! It's like you're living in a miniature palace on top of a skyscraper!"
"With extra gold too!" Cassidy added.
"Man, I wish I could fly around the Grand Canyon like you guys did," Alex replied wistfully. "I'm guessing you did something like that too at Vegas?" He groaned when the kids only grinned in response. "I know you guys said you didn't want to be ghosts, and I'm sorry, but the way you talk about your vacation makes being a ghost sound awesome!"
"It has its ups and downs," Jeremy conceded. "Let's just say that there was a whole lotta down before we finally got to enjoy some of the ups." The Marshalls knew better than to ask for details.
"What was your experience like?" Gabe asked, changing the subject. He had always wondered how their experiences would compare to their friends, though given the many advantages they had as ghosts he doubted that the Marshalls would have had as much free reign as they did.
"Dad only got us a regular hotel room," Alex replied. "I mean, don't get me wrong, the room itself is amazing, especially at that cheap of a price. But we just don't have the money to get an entire sky suite like you guys did."
"You know, if you go back there, we could ask dad to pay for a suite," Cassidy offered.
Alex shook his head. "No way, man. From what I've heard from mom, our dads argued for entire days over whether or not Dad should accept the money to pay for his college loans before he finally accepted. And that was for something very important. There's no way in Hell Dad's gonna accept money from Mr. Schmidt over something as small as a hotel room."
The former Bonnie inhabitant shrugged. "Whatever floats your boat."
"Do you think that we could go someplace together sometime?" Susie wondered. "It would be amazing if we could all go on one giant summer vacation!"
Meghan frowned. "If we do, it would have to be during the summer," she replied. "We still have school and there's no way our parents are gonna take us anywhere major during then." She smiled at Cassidy. "Let me guess, all of us going to Disneyworld?"
Cassidy pouted. "Am I that predictable?"
"It's all you've been talking about every time we bring up vacations, Cass," Liz joked, eliciting laughter from everyone, even Cassidy herself.
Alex peered at the orange-haired ghost girl. "Huh, I just noticed something, Liz," he remarked. "Your voice sounds different from what it used to."
"Huh?" Liz asked, startled. A small part of her was worried that she might have unconsciously sounded like Scrap Baby to her two friends. That was one aspect of her that she did NOT want them to know. Ever.
"It's the accent," Alex explained, and Meghan nodded as she recognized the same thing her brother was. "Back when we first met, you had a distinctive British accent. But now you're honestly starting to sound more like a regular American girl instead."
"Really?" Liz said in wonder. She hadn't even noticed any changes to her voice. She turned to her brothers and sisters. "Did you guys notice anything different?"
Fritz thought for a moment. "You know, now that you mention it, Alex does have a point. Your voice DOES sound different than what it used to."
"Hey, you're right!" Gabe added. "I can't believe I haven't noticed it before," he added sheepishly.
"It's probably because you spend every day together, so it's hard to notice gradual changes." Alex theorized. "As for us, we only see each other a few times, so we can notice differences more easily."
"Makes sense, I guess," Liz conceded thoughtfully.
"Aww, I kind of missed your British accent. British accents are funny," Meghan said with a giggle.
"Well, I don't," Liz retorted a little more sharply than she intended. At the strange looks the Marshalls gave her, she quickly backpedaled. "Sorry, that came out a little harsher than I wanted. I'm happy with sounding like everyone else in my family." And it was true. Anything that distanced herself from William Afton was a plus in her book, even if it came with the unfortunate cost of distancing herself a little from Michael as well. But knowing her brother, she doubted that he would mind.
Alex shrugged. "Well, this playdate won't be as long as our normal ones, but we still have more than an hour left. Do you guys mind if we go downstairs to your basement? It's the one part of your house we haven't seen yet and since we've known each other for a while I don't think your dad will mind us going down there."
"Sure thing!" Fritz answered, and the children climbed (or floated) down into the depths of the basement. Alex and Meghan whistled as they took in the décor and the furnishings.
"Dang, this place looks just as cool as the rest of the house!" Alex declared. "Feels nice and cool here too!"
Meghan looked over at the TV. "Why does your dad have a second set of video game consoles besides the ones already in the living room?" she wondered.
"Oh, that was for when Dad still had a job. He sometimes hosted parties in the house for some of his workers and video games were apparently a huge thing with them. That and the fact that you could have one group of people watch TV and another group of people play games depending on what people felt like doing."
Alex and Meghan's heads turned to see an unfamiliar (but still ghostly) figure kneeling and inspecting something rather odd. A black and red bear animatronic with a missing eye, holding a microphone and with a golden star emblazoned on its chest. The two siblings looked at each other, silently asking the same question: what the heck was that thing?
The figure got up and turned around. A ghostly teenaged girl with brown hair and matching brown eyes. The two Marshalls stared at the girl blankly, and then it clicked. "Wait a minute!" Alex spluttered. "CHARLIE?"
Charlie grinned. "Surprised, Alex?" she asked. "This is what I look like now that I've been freed from the Puppet. What were you expecting?"
"Uh…someone in elementary or lower middle school, just like everyone else in your family?" Alex answered weakly.
"To be fair, she DID look like that for a couple of days," Gabe decided to try and rescue Alex. "Then one day she tried to do an experiment with magic and it caused her to turn into a teen."
Meghan shook her head. "I'm not going to even BEGIN to try to understand how that happened. Anyway, what's that thing you were working on?"
"Oh, this?" Charlie gestured towards the black bear. "Just a little maintenance on an alternate body that I can possess whenever I need to. He's called Lefty."
"You should probably get that missing eye replaced," Alex remarked.
"I could, but then it just wouldn't be the same," Charlie explained. "My original dad left this for me before he died. It wouldn't feel right changing Lefty beyond fixing him up a bit."
"We can relate," Meghan murmured sympathetically. "We had a granddad who had an old music box he left us before he died. It's so worn down but we'd never get it repaired, since it would mean basically tearing the thing apart."
"Sorry to hear that," Fritz apologized, uncharacteristically serious.
She shrugged and smiled. "It happened a long time ago, so we're over it by now. On a happier note," she turned towards Charlie. "CAN you possess Lefty right now?"
Charlie shook her head. "The Endoskeleton is currently in the garage so I can't possess it. Mike usually takes it out once a month to clean and fix it up."
Alex shrugged. "Oh well. Would've been cool if kind of creepy to see you move around in Lefty, but nothing we can do about that. Why don't we go back upstairs to see how our dads are doing?"
There was general agreement to his words and the children climbed back up the stairs. As they made their way back to the living room, Meghan decided to confront her brother. "Bro, you've been giving Charlie some odd looks ever since you first saw her. What's going on?"
Alex put his hands up in defense. "Look, I'm still not used to Charlie being a teen. I honestly thought she'd be the same age as the other ghosts. Seeing her like this took me surprise, is all?"
"Oh, really?" Meghan smirked. "I think something else is going on."
"What are you…" Alex's widened as he realized what his sister was insinuating. Some of the ghost kids had connected the dots in the same way, and were trying their hardest to suppress smirks and giggles. "What the hell? NO!" he exclaimed vehemently. "I don't think of Charlie like that!"
"So you don't think she's attractive?" Meghan asked innocently. Charlie, in the meantime, was spluttering in shock just as much as Alex was.
Alex glared at her. "I didn't say that!"
"So you do think she's hot?" Liz smirked as she took over Meghan's attack, causing the surrounding ghosts to start collapsing into full-blown laughter.
"What the hell am I supposed to say? No? Obviously I'm going to say yes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go around asking her for a date!" Alex retorted. "Besides, look at her! She looks three to four years older than me! And she's a ghost! What you're saying is wrong on so many levels!"
"What's going on?" a new voice asked as Mike poked his head into the living room. "Something funny?"
"I think Alex wants to go on a date with Charlie!" Fritz answered quickly before either Charlie or Alex could stop him. This caused another bout of hilarity in everyone besides two named individuals, who were too thunderstruck to even say a word.
"Oh, really?" Mike's smirk took on a predatory edge as he looked over at Alex. He didn't really think the Marshall brother had a crush on his daughter, but he figured he might as well milk the humor out of this interesting situation for shits and giggles. "Then I'm contractually obligated to warn you as her father that any funny business you do with Charlie will result in me breaking out the shotgun that may or may not exist."
"Wait, what? SHOTGUN?" Alex exclaimed in horror as the kids around him only laughed harder.
"Toodles!" Mike cheerfully waved as he vanished out of the doorway. Alex only groaned and buried his face in his hands as the kids, while Charlie desperately tried to calm down her siblings.
"I hate you," he glared at his sister. "I hate you so much."
The only response he received from her was a smug smirk. "Then I'm doing my job."
/
A/N: I think that's a good way to wrap up the vacation arc. At least with regards to the part with Melody, the part with the Marshalls is kind of more its own thing with the vacation only getting a passing mention in the beginning.
I'm NOT actually shipping Charlie and Alex by the way, this was just Meghan and the ghost kids poking some fun at the "older siblings" of their respective families. Plus Mike's little mini-speech was fun to write.
As I have promised everyone who voted for the Rockstar animatronics, that will be the next major arc. I have a couple of fun ideas that I can use to play around with them, though not all of them will be implemented immediately. But that will almost certainly not come til after my exams.
Until then, hope you guys enjoy!
