A/N: I'd like to thank essen for acting as my beta reader for this fic!
"Oookay, not what I had in mind."
Joy stared at the "Sold!" sign that had just been planted on the front lawn of their home in Minnesota while the other four emotions cried out in surprise. Before they knew it, the Andersen family had packed all of their stuff in their car's trunk and were about to leave their old home behind.
While Riley gazed outside the car window, her emotions conjured up some fun ideas on what her new home would be like. From a gingerbread house to a dark castle with a dragon to a fancy white mansion to a slightly bigger and more polished version of their old house, they remained in high spirits all throughout the trip.
However, once the car stopped in front of their new home, Riley got out to see it for herself, and to say that it went against their expectations was an understatement. The interior of the house left much to be desired as well with how small, dark, filthy, and frankly creepy it was.
"A dead mouse!" Disgust shrieked, feeling her stomach heave at the sight and stench of it.
"It's the house of the dead!" Sadness cried.
"We're gonna get rabies!" Fear freaked out and climbed onto Anger's head.
"GET OFF OF ME!" Anger yelled, his head flaring up, causing Fear's rear to catch on fire. He screamed from the agonizing pain and ran around HQ, but the flames only continued to sear into his skin. While he was still running amok, Sadness, Disgust, and Anger tapped several buttons on the console, causing three memories of blue, green and red to roll into the shelves.
Just as Joy was about to pull out the fire extinguisher, Fear froze up, as though he just had an epiphany, and he fell onto the ground and proceeded to roll around. This proved to be successful in smothering the flames, and he continued rolling until he no longer felt the heat eating away at him. He let out a huge sigh of relief now that he was safe again.
"Huh. Guess I didn't need the fire extinguisher this time," Joy blinked.
Back in the real world, Riley's new room proved to be significantly smaller than her previous one, especially with how the ceiling was sloped. Joy managed to lift everyone's spirits up by getting them to think of how they could decorate the room. However, those spirits plunged down just as fast when Riley walked downstairs and overheard from her dad that the moving van wouldn't arrive until Thursday at the earliest. Her mom argued that the van was supposed to be there yesterday, while her dad claimed that he had no idea this delay would occur. Fear tried to tap on the console, but couldn't quite get his hand in amidst Sadness, Disgust, and Anger all mashing on the buttons, with several spheres of blue, green, and red rolling in.
Hoping to dissolve the tension brewing in the atmosphere, Joy plucked an idea bulb and screwed it in the console, prompting Riley to play hockey with a crumpled ball of paper, whacking it with her hockey stick into the fireplace. Her mom and dad joined in on the action, the former guarding the fireplace with a pillow, and the latter bending the rules by lifting his wife off the ground, letting his daughter score another goal before carrying her up as well. A yellow sphere rolled onto the shelves, and Joy smiled, having finally created the first happy memory in some time. These happy moments lasted until her dad's phone rang, and he ended up having to leave the house.
"Oh, Dad's gone?" Fear was starting to feel bumps on his skin. "It's going to be scary without him around. Maybe I should–"
He approached the console, only for Joy to nudge him aside while still staring at the screen.
"Eep!" he squeaked, not moving an inch as Joy found a yellow memory and played it on the screen. Riley asked her mom if they could get some pizza, and they arrived at a pizza shop where the worker handed them a box containing her favorite food.
Or at least, it was supposed to be her favorite food.
"WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!" Fear exclaimed, causing the other four emotions to either jump or wince at his outburst. Upon seeing this, he slapped a hand over his mouth, suddenly ashamed of himself.
"...what?" Sadness gasped, barely audible amidst the commotion.
"Aaaaand I'm out," Disgust cringed, slapping her hand down on the console's main button. Riley scrunched her face up and walked out of the shop.
"Okay, anchovies are one thing, but broccoli? I don't even…" Joy held a palm against her forehead.
"Congratulations, San Francisco! You've ruined pizza!" Anger seethed. "First the Hawaiians, and now YOU!"
—
"Do you want something else for lunch?" Mom asked as she and her daughter left the pizza shop. She had managed to get a refund from the worker due to there being no other types of pizza, making a mental note to not go back to that shop in the future.
Joy recalled a happy memory involving her drinking a slushie with Meg, her best friend back in Minnesota. Aside from the slushie causing HQ to briefly freeze over (even Anger couldn't thaw himself out until the surge of pain passed), it was a delicious treat that was just behind pizza as her favorite type of food.
"How about a slushie?" Riley suggested, reminiscing on how sweet they tasted. Then she placed a hand to her forehead. "It hurt my head the first time I drank it, though…"
Inside her mind, the borders of the screen displaying the memory of the slushie suddenly shifted from yellow to purple.
"Huh?" Joy paused. "Why'd the color change?"
She spun on her heel, catching Fear standing next to the memory with his hand dropping down to his side. "Fear, what were you doing back there?"
"S-sorry!" Fear stuttered, shaking on the spot. "It was the memory! I swear I heard it whispering to me, s-so I felt compelled to touch it!"
"So now you're trying to blame the memory itself for your actions?" Anger scowled. "Memories can't talk to us, dummy."
"Can you change it back, Joy?" Sadness asked out of concern.
Joy grabbed the memory and rubbed on it, but the memory retained its new purple color, not turning yellow like she thought it would.
Disgust rolled her eyes. "Great job, Fear. Riley's going to be scared whenever she thinks of slushies now."
"Was it really whispering to you?" Sadness wondered, her tone more curious than doubtful.
"I-I know it sounds weird, but yeah!" Fear responded hastily before glancing off to the side. "At least I think so…"
"Well, I'm going to have to ask you not to touch any more of these memories until we find out what's going on, okay?" Joy instructed Fear, who fervently nodded his head.
—
Joy returned to the console, facing the overhead screen with the other three emotions. They watched Riley skip her way to a set of stairs with a railing dividing the middle. Goofball Island radiated as brightly as Riley's smile when she lifted her leg onto the railing.
"Check it out!" Joy spread her arms out ecstatically. "We're gonna ride that railing all the way down like it's a water slide!"
However, her face suddenly shifted into one of worry, clinging onto the railing as she brought her leg down on solid ground. She walked down the stairs one step at a time, keeping her left hand on the railing with each step.
"Uh…what?" Joy asked, once again left puzzled. She heard the sound of something rolling on the floor and saw that it was a core memory that had fallen out of its holder.
Sadness's eyes went wide. "Oh no! That's a core memory!"
"How'd it fall out?" Disgust questioned.
"Guys! Look at Goofball Island!" Anger pointed towards the now-grayed out island. Every mechanism on it appeared to have frozen in time.
Joy spotted Fear right next to the core memory holder. "Fear, did you do this?"
"I-I, um, uh…" Fear trailed off, unable to muster up a proper response.
"Answer the question, beanpole!" Anger shouted from across the room.
Fear's breathing grew shakier. "I-I thought the thing looked off, so I…"
He paused, seeing that the core memory was rolling further away from him, and before he knew it, he lunged towards the core memory, just barely missing it with his hands. A light-purple wave began to wash over it as Fear tried reaching out, Sadness, Disgust, and Anger gasping at the sight. Joy instinctively leapt forward and snatched up the core memory before Fear's fingers could graze it, the color returning back to its golden hue, and she repositioned it back into its holder.
With Goofball Island's power restored, Riley jumped back up the stairs with renewed glee. She let out a joyful "Whoo-hoo!" as she slid all the way down on the railing. Upon landing, her feet started to skid on the floor, and she flailed wildly, trying to regain her balance. Her heart continued to race as she managed to steady herself, gasping in short breaths.
"Ooh…the floor must have been slippery," Sadness remarked. "At least Riley didn't get hurt."
"Fear! Do you realize what you were about to do?" Joy scolded. "Touching the normal memories is already bad, but if you do that to the cores, I can't change them back! We've been through this with Honesty Island, you should know better!"
Fear yelped and leapt far, far away from the core memory holder as far as he could.
…and immediately smacked his face in the window, his body sticking to it briefly before slowly peeling off. Disgust let out an exasperated groan, dragging her hand over her eyes as Fear folded himself back up.
"Sorrysorrysorry," Fear muttered out several apologies. "I know I'm not supposed to do that but I still did it! What's wrong with me? I-is this what a breakdown feels like?!"
"No, it's just you not following instructions," Anger grumbled under his breath.
Fear heard that and shrunk in his spot in further shame.
"Anger, don't make him feel worse about it," Joy shook her head. "And Fear, that's not what this is. You're just under a lot of stress, that's all."
"But I keep repeating the same mistakes," Fear whimpered. "I'm useless."
"Hey now, you're far from useless," Joy smiled, trying to lift his spirits up. "You might have a lot to learn, but you just need to find the fun. It's like learning to fly!"
"Or falling in love," Disgust interjected before swooning. "Ah, Imaginary Boyfriend…"
"Learning to fly?!" Fear exclaimed, his teeth chattering. "I can't do that!"
"Well…you could always think of something funny!" Joy proposed. "Like that time with Meg when Riley laughed so hard she squirted milk out of her nose!"
Fear shuddered. "W-we could've choked on the milk! A-and then we would've–"
"But that didn't happen!" Joy refuted. "Let's think of something else. Hmm…how about that time on the beach? Riley buried Dad all the way up to his head! Oh my gosh, he was such a hilarious sight!"
"The beach? Wasn't it really hot there?" Fear questioned. "What if we didn't have enough water? Or what if we got our skin burned by the sun? Or what if the heat–"
"Come on, Fear! Don't worry about any of that!" Joy denied before thinking of a different topic. "What do you think is the funniest movie we've watched with Riley?"
"I don't remember," Fear admitted. "Except for the ones that kept me up all night…"
Sadness stepped in with a smile. "Remember the funny movie where the dog dies?"
That last word sent Fear into a nervous wreck, collapsing onto his knees. "D-d-d-dies?! Nonononono, we can't die here! I DON'T WANNA DIE!"
Joy let out another sigh, but kept her cheerfulness intact. "Calm down, Fear. Nothing like that is ever going to happen, not on my watch."
Fear took several breaths, managing to steady his nerves. He let out one last breath, willing himself to keep calm, and stood up straight, squeezing his hands together. "Ok…I'm good now."
Sadness slumped over in guilt. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that."
"No, don't blame yourself, Sadness," Fear shook his head. "It's my fault for having yet another one of my freakouts over nothing."
Joy jumped up to Fear, having thought of something he could do. "Hey, why don't you come with me? I know something you can do that won't set you off!"
She waltzed her way towards a corner of HQ where there were many manuals on the shelves, beckoning for him. Fear followed her there, and she opened up one of the manuals, holding it out with her hands.
"This corner contains all of the Mind Manuals we have in store," she informed him. "Why not take the time to educate yourself with all the information you could ask for? The more you know, the less you have to fear!"
Fear looked at Joy, still feeling apprehensive.
"Trust me, it'll be fun as well!" she added.
He looked around the room until his eyes landed on Sadness, an idea having formed in his mind. "Sadness? Would you like to read with me?"
Sadness blinked at Fear, initially surprised at his offer before her eyes darted off to the side. "Oh, uh, I've already read most of these in my spare time. Sorry."
"Right…" Fear turned towards Joy. "How about you, Joy?"
"Oh, I'd totally join you, but I'm pretty busy with my duties in HQ, especially now," Joy politely declined.
He looked towards the green emotion. "Disgust?"
"Pass," she immediately refused, shaking her head. "I'm not really into that genre, if you know what I mean."
He shot a glance towards Anger, hoping for the best. "A-anger?"
Anger crossed his arms. "I do more than enough reading with these newspapers, beanpole."
Fear let out a defeated sigh, resigned to his fate. He took the manual from Joy and sat down on one of the chairs.
"Guess I'll get started then," he addressed Joy before muttering to himself, "That idea sure was a bust…"
"Great!" Joy beamed, not catching that last part before bouncing her way back to the console, glad that he wouldn't be jeopardizing the memories this way. Perhaps he'll adopt a more positive outlook on life by gaining newfound knowledge as well!
The memory shelves glowing blue, green and red were not exactly helping her own positivity, though.