Stanley asked for help: Family Dinner

Sunday (day 14)

Four people sat around the round table in the family room. Despite not having sides, there were clear groups, with Caryn and Shermie bunched together and Handwitch and Alex in their base form. The groups sat in awkward silence as they waited.

"So, are you both Stanley's friends?"

Handwith nodded while Alex shrugged.

"Stanley and I are more family than friends at the moment, but we literally decided on that in the basement today. We can give you a better description of our relationship in a few days."

Caryn just smiled nervously at the large, maggoty humanoid that might come to the next Thanksgiving. Shermie decided to try to move things to a less awkward topic.

"So, Handwitch? Is that a title, or is it your name?"

Handwitch rolled her eyes before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a wallet. She then dug around inside before handing her driver's license to Shermie.

"You have a driver's license?"

She nodded. "I can pass for humans well enough to drive a car, and they can be beneficial."

He nodded before looking at the name on it.

Then he looked again.

Then he passed it to his ma, who looked at it a few times to ensure she didn't see anything.

"THAT'S your name?"

Handwitch nodded.

"Handwitch it is then. Sorry about that, but why haven't you had it changed?"

"Because my parents bound it to my soul when I was born. If I attempt to change it through any means other than marriage, I will pull a Witch of the West and melt."

The two Pines at the table cringed at the image. Alex, meanwhile, grew a bulb on his head that became bioluminescent.

"So that's why you keep flirting with everyone! The sooner you get married, the sooner you can get rid of the name."

Handwitch bit her lip while she thought about how to answer that.

"Partially, but also because I like hot men."

Alex looked at her with a confused look on his face.

"There is snow on the ground; I don't think anyone is hot right now."

All three people at the table looked at Alex in confusion. Handwitch was the first to realize what was happening.

"You aren't even a year old yet, right?"

"Um, yeah? Stan told you the night we met. I'm somewhere between six and seven months right now."

Handwitch began to grimace as she continued. "And when you were with Ford, did he ever talk about where babies come from?"

Alex was now looking with confusion at the witch.

"No? What do babies have to do with overheating?"

At this point, the others at the table were beginning to see where this was going and could not avoid the destination at all costs.

"Who wants to look at pictures of my son? He's ten years old and a great baseball player."

Alex perked up at that.

"Baseball? I saw that sport on TV recently and thought it looked interesting. Do you think that is a sport we could play inside?"

In response to the confusion Handwitch saw on their faces, she quickly interjected into the discussion.

"He fears being in wide open spaces and the sky. It's common among subterranean beings like Alex and the Molemen. That's part of why we have that secret passage connected to the lab."

"Ah, that makes sense. Sorry, Alex, baseball is an outdoor sport unless you have a massive space. You can go a little smaller to practice hitting a ball, but it must still be big enough for balls to fly."

Alex looked a little sad when he heard that. Handwitch laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"We can ask Star if the movement has anything we can use to try it. If not, We can find a massive tent and put it over a local baseball diamond. I know a few carnivals and circuses we can rob."

Alex gave her a small smile at the suggestion. The two Pines at the table instead gave the pair curious looks as they wondered about their relationship.

It almost seemed-

"Dinner is served!"

Stanley chose that moment to enter, bearing a large plate of grilled hot dogs and hamburgers in one hand, a plate of toppings in the other, and some packages of buns dangling under the two plates.

Stan had gotten a short job as a waiter and learned a few tricks.

He then placed it in the middle of the group before taking his spot an equal distance from Caryn and Alex.

"All right, serve yourselves and dig in. Alex, do you want me to explain anything to you?"

Alex shook his head as he watched Handwitch pick up her two burgers and place them on her plate.

"No, I think I got it. But thanks for the offer, Stanley."

Stan nodded before turning to his Ma and brother.

"I am so glad to see you both again! How long will you be staying?"

Shermie shrugged as Caryn looked downcast.

"I set aside a week to be here to see what was happening, but I can extend it if necessary. Ma?"

She sighed. "I need to get my stuff from New Jersey before Filbrock tries to pawn it off."

Stan gave her a puzzled look.

"Why would he do that? I know you fought, but he never did that before when you fought."

Shermie, Caryn, and Handwitch grimaced as they realized Stanley hadn't heard what happened during the beatdown.

Ma turned to look directly at Stan.

"Stanley, your Pa was a terrible father to you. What happened down in the lab was the last straw. The second I can, I'm getting divorced from him." She then gave a humorless chuckle. "I probably should have done that ten years ago and let you move in with me. If I did, then maybe you wouldn't have had to be homeless or so estranged from your brothers."

Stan's expression turned to shock at what she said before morphing into concern.

"Where will you stay?"

She shrugged. "I have a few friends in Glass Shard, and I can stay with or stay with one of you if there's room."

Stanley's face expanded into a massive grin when he heard that.

"In that case, I have good news! I have two options for a permanent room for you in the Shack. There's the attic I was converting into a guest room for Shermie, and there's Ford's old room. Which would you prefer?"

Alex then spoke up. "She can also bunk with me in the portal room. I just got a bed there, and it shouldn't be that difficult to get her on either."

Caryn looked at Alex in shock for a moment before putting on her "I hate that, but I'm humoring you so I don't hurt your feelings" face, which she had learned as a mom of two boys who kept showing her all the insects that crawled into the house.

"That sounds interesting, Alex, but I'll want to avoid stairs as much as possible, so I'll stick with Ford's room."

Alex shrugged and returned to eating, enjoying the taste of the hot dog.

"So Stan, how is the tourist trap business going?"

Stan smiled.

"Great! Business has been picking up due to the signs I put on the roads into town. I'm considering saving enough to rent some billboards on the freeways and interstates around here to pull in more business. The locals also like my attractions, with about a dozen attending my tours daily!"

Alex then spoke up. "I am also planning on helping out. We have plans on making a "Snack Shack" outside to sell concessions to people. I would change my limbs to give out the food each time through a slot under a one-way glass. I was also thinking of trying out swapping out with Stan on the tours to give him more breaks through the day."

Caryn's eyes light up at that. "Would you be ok if I also gave the alternating tours a try, Stan? Not immediately, but I would like to walk through a few and see how they go, but they sound fun."

Stan shot her a smile. "Sure. The two of us can swap between working the register and doing tours. When Alex feels comfortable, we can do a three-way swap around tours, register, and break."

He then realized something and turned to Alex.

"Have you ever tried a female form before?"

Alex nodded. "Yes, when I was with your brother. I can take one, but I prefer male ones." He then held up a hand to stop Stan from saying something. "Let's first see how well I am doing tours, looking like you go before seeing how tours look like her. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. ok?"

Stan continued to stare at him before sighing. "Ok, I just don't want to make you uncomfortable, Alex."

"I know, Stan, but sometimes you need to wear uncomfortable clothes for a bit before they become comfortable. I want to at least try it a bit before deciding. This is nothing like what Ford did to me."

Shermie groaned and then let his face fall onto the table.

"Right, Ford decided to treat something that could talk like a pet."

He then sat up and took a deep breath before continuing. "I am sorry for the actions of my idiotic brother. I will speak with him and try to explain how his decisions made your life worse." He then froze and smiled at Stan. "I think that's the first time I had to give this speech to someone who wasn't mad at you, Stanley. Keep it up." He then frowned when he remembered the rest of the valley hated Ford, too. "Any chance you could get everyone else that hates him to me so I can apologize to them all at once?"

Stan nodded. "Sure, we're planning on opening the casino next week. I would host a massive opening day celebration mixed with paying out the weregild. I can put you in charge so you can apologize to everyone individually."

Stan smiled at him. "On the bright side, I am no longer the family screw-up. As soon as Ford returns, I will be rubbing every mistake he made in his face. Experimenting on the entire valley to the point he got a bounty on his head, ticking half the townsfolk off and ignoring the other half, hiding the journals instead of just burning specific pa-"

Stan then froze before slapping himself in the face. The rest of the table looked at him in concern.

"Stan?"

"I forgot about Handwitche's predictions! She gave me two predictions about the two journals' locations, and I planned to talk to the PTA about them."

Handwitch then realized what he was talking about and gave him a sheepish look. "Does it help that I forgot about it also?"

Stan shook his head and stood up.

"I'm going to write myself a note and stick it on my Mr. Mystery Suit to remind me to talk with Anna tomorrow."

As he left to do just that, the rest of the table continued to eat. The conversation had stalled again, but it seemed more comfortable than before.

"So Alex, you said gender doesn't limit what you can turn into. What is a limit for your shapeshifting?"

Alex looked up from his meal and shrugged.

"I know there's a size limit. The smallest thing I can do is a squirrel, while the largest is either a gremlin or a massive spider, depending on if you're counting larges by size or weight. Other than that, anything goes."

Shermie looked at him in shock. "What about inanimate objects?"

Alex answered by shifting into a novelty lamp shaped like a woman's leg in a stocking. The cord then moved on its own to the wall outlet and plugged itself in before lighting up.

Shermie and Ma looked at him in wonder while Handwitch just gave him a small smile before continuing with her dinner.

"I have so many questions about how that works."

Stan walked into the room at the tail end of his ma's question and shook his head as he sat down.

"Don't ask. Alex doesn't know, and I don't know how to try and figure out the specifics." He then turned to Alex as he shifted back into his base form and resumed eating.

"How are the hot dogs and hamburgers, Alex?"

Alex looked up from finishing off his dinner and flashing Stan a smile, or as close to one as his current mouth could make.

"Delicious. We should set up the Snack Shack to serve these."

As the conversation continued into the night, they fought, asked and answered questions, and mended broken bonds.

It was the best family dinner Stan had ever had.

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I have decided to cap this series at 29 chapters, that way it will end with the year. I am not 100% happy with the in universe pasing and how I have been jumping from one idea to the next with no break, so when I do this again, I plan on setting up a timeline and outline from the start before writing my first chapter.

I have them all written up, and the final chapter is over 6k words.

I have a if you want to support me and my New Year's resolution of posting one fanfic of 2k words or more weekly. This is also being posted on , AO3, and Tumbler.

Remove all the spaces from the URLs to get them to work.

: : / / w w w . user?u=10132890

. c o m : : / / w w w . s/14051718/1/luz–appreciation–week–2022–from–1228248

AO3: : / / works/52823413/chapters/133608991

Tumbler: : / / w w w . blog/brianedner

I am also doing fanfic info dumps, like wiki articles that go one episode at a time, with some compilations at the end on specific topics sorted by episode.

Fanfic info dumps here: : / / w w w . 1228248/gallery