The Grasshopper Unit (1/2) Spy AU
Title: The Grasshopper Unit (1/2)
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and this clearly never happened.
Warnings: kid!fic (but not THAT kid!fic). Actually more like toddler!fic. Do not attempt to read this without a healthy does of insulin nearby.
Summary: Almost a sequel to The Negotiation Limerick File. If you haven’t read that, this will make even LESS sense. One of Mikey's wacky inventions gets used by accident. Mayhem and toddlers ensue.
Notes: This started as comment fic in my journal, so the following people should be credited with anything funny and/or cute in this story: ignipes, emilyray, thepouncer, wildestranger, and t_usual_suspect. All the rest are the parts *I* wrote.
This is a present for liketheroad, who is pretty much the best ever. Thanks to imntsaying for reading it through and not defriending me.
10,000 words (of toddler!fic, jeez, peer pressure is DANGEROUS, kids).
“The thing is,” said Gerard, fidgeting. “The thing is. Are you sure that’s what happened?”
Mikey’s face was absolutely as blank as it could possibly have been. “It’s no weirder than that time in Berlin with the ninjas,” he said. “Remember? We had to tell everyone we’d set Bob on fire to explain that.”
Gerard nodded quickly. Bob felt a little resentful about the whole thing; next time a supervillain caught one of them and decided to torture him, it could be Gerard, and he could come up with his own excuse. “I’m just asking, though,” said Gerard. “Because. I mean. How can you tell for sure? That’s the question.”
Frank laughed his super high-pitched obnoxious giggle. Bob looked at him balefully, but Frank thought that was even funnier.
“It’s pretty obvious,” said Mikey. “Go look for yourself.”
“Let’s just survey the damage,” Ray ordered. Bob liked it when Ray took charge; he was sensible, even if everything he said sounded a little ridiculous because of the high-pitched voice. Ray swung the hotel bedroom door open.
There was a kid sitting on the bed. Not a kid like Bob had been hoping was sitting on the bed; not a surly twenty-year-old with a stern glare. No, this kid was little enough that his feet dangled well above the floor, and his face was all round with baby-fat; he couldn’t have been more than five. Five on the outside. More like four.
The glare was the same, though.
“There’s only one,” said Gerard, frowning. He was lurking in the doorway, but it wasn’t like any of them were shoving to get inside.
Mikey waved vaguely. “They’re in there somewhere. I’m pretty sure. Unless they went out the window.”
“Oh, Jesus,” said Ray, and pushed past them into the room.
Bob looked at the kid on the hotel bed, and the kid on the bed looked back at him. It was almost a stare-off, but Bob wasn’t trying to look scary - he didn’t like scaring toddlers - and the kid looked kind of uncertain under all the glaring. “Where’d Ryan go?” Bob asked. “Spencer. Where are Jon and Brendon and Ryan?”
Spencer looked at him suspiciously, which Bob got; grownup Spencer wasn’t much for giving up Ryan, either. It was one of the reasons he was the best spy in the band. Spencer crossed his arms and finally said, “He’s hiding.” His voice was tiny and piping and kind of adorable, and he looked mad as hell.
“Hiding where?” Ray asked impatiently.
Spencer clearly wasn’t going to answer. Bob could have killed Mikey for building a new machine out of the coffee maker and then using it on Panic when they were only in town for the weekend. If he’d turned Frank into a toddler they could have claimed he was off getting married again or something. Shit, if they turned Frank into a toddler who would notice? But if Panic went missing it would end up a thing. At least he hadn’t sent Spencer into the seventies again; the hour and a half where they couldn’t find him - it had been a week for Spencer, it turned out - had been hell on Ryan, who didn’t have nerves of steel when it came to missing best friends.
There was a giggle in the closet. A really loud, happy, ridiculous giggle.
“Brendon,” said Bob immediately, and slid the door open.
There were three more kids in the closet. Bob ignored Spencer’s outraged noise to make sure Mikey’s machine hadn’t accidentally given anyone two noses or three arms. They looked just about like he’d expected; Brendon was sitting cross-legged and covering his mouth with both hands, all big eyes and smothered giggles. Ryan was as far back into the corner as he could get, knees drawn up and biting his lip, staring at Bob with huge, scared eyes. Jon was sitting next to him, holding his hand, looking pretty mellow about the whole thing.
“Tag, you’re it!” Brendon burst out, smacking Bob on the knee, and scrambled to his feet. He was out the door and past the grownups standing there before anyone else could react.
“Brendon! You have to stay with us!” Spencer yelled, and took off after him.
Frank laughed so hard he staggered a little bit, and Gerard had to support him with one arm. “I’m gonna go get them,” said Frank, running after them into the hotel suite.
Bob looked at Ryan and Jon, still curled up in the corner. “You hiding?” he asked quietly.
Jon shrugged. Ryan hesitated and then nodded.
“It’s a good hiding place,” Bob said gravely. “But you can come out now.” Ryan looked distinctly uncertain, and Bob thought that maybe the fact that he was now one one-millionth Bob’s size was the problem. Bob had saved the world a few times now, but he’d never dealt with toddlers. “Do you remember us?” he asked.
Ryan considered, and then shrugged. “Kinda,” he said reluctantly. He hadn’t let go of Jon’s hand.
“How old are you?” Ray asked, squatting by the closet door.
Jon held up his hand, all five fingers out. “My birthday’s in September,” he said. “I’m gonna be seven.” Clearly he would have held up six fingers, but Ryan had a deathgrip on his other hand. “And Ryan’s going to be six. Brendon just turned five. But I’m the oldest by a lot.”
“So Spencer isn’t even five yet, oh my god. Do you remember us?” Ray asked hopefully.
Jon nodded hesitantly. “You’re… We know you,” he said. “You’re not strangers. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”
Well, that was something at least. Ray looked at Bob, and Bob shrugged. Kid brains were little and squishy and it was no real surprise that all their grown up memories weren’t totally intact if they’d gotten kid-ified. At least no one was screaming stranger danger and demanding their mommies.
There was a high-pitched squeal and a giggle that might have been Frank, or it might have been a pre-schooler. Frank walked back in, with Brendon slung over his shoulder upside down, giggling and turning red and kicking wildly. Spencer trailed behind them, giggling too.
“Frank’s a cheater!” said Brendon, flapping. “I said Bob was it!”
“You remember our names?” asked Bob.
“I do,” said Spencer immediately.
“Oooooh, I’m gonna throw up,” said Brendon happily.
Gerard recoiled immediately. “Jesus, Frank, put him down.”
Brendon giggled when Frank flipped him over and put him down on the bed. He swayed a little and fell on his back. Spencer climbed up next to him, and once Spencer was there Ryan was willing to edge out of the closet, although he dragged Jon along with him. They climbed up on the bed, too, Ryan sitting carefully behind Spencer and Jon poking Brendon thoughtfully in the stomach to make him giggle.
Gerard pursed his lips. “Okay,” he said. “So we kind of have a problem. What do you guys remember about spying on the United Nations building this weekend?”
Brendon wiggled so his head was in Ryan’s lap and blinked at them. “I wanna be a spy,” he said. “Can I have a ray gun? Pzzzow, pzzzow, pzzzzzow.”
“Stop it,” said Spencer, smacking his hand. “They’re real spies. It’s not a stupid game.”
Ryan tugged on Spencer’s sleeve and whispered something to him. Spencer rolled his eyes and shook his head, and Ryan got the same pissy, grumpy look he always had when Spencer didn’t let him be in charge. Ryan whispered again, a little louder this time.
Spencer sighed, incredibly put upon. “Okay, fine,” he said. “Ryan wants to know if Gerard has crayons to color. Gerard likes to draw, right?”
Bob had to work incredibly hard not to burst out laughing. “You remember that, huh?” he said.
Spencer frowned. Little or big, Spencer was pretty sensitive to being laughed at. “I remember you’re a band,” he said. “And you’re spies. And we’re a band too, but usually… Usually we’re bigger, right?” He screwed up his face thinking about it, and it was so fucking cute Bob could have died.
“Not much bigger,” Frank muttered, and giggled. Mikey cracked a smile, too.
“Bigger enough,” Ray clarified. “Mikey, how soon can you fix this?”
Mikey looked at the coffee maker. It was mostly shards and smoke and dead wires fizzling on the floor. “I dropped it,” he said unnecessarily. “I wasn’t expecting it to go off, I was just trying to show it to Jon.”
“An hour?” Bob asked, stomach flipping over. “Two?”
“More like a day, at best,” Mikey said. “I’m gonna go email myself, see if I solved this problem already. I mean, I warned me not to fuck around with it, but.” He shrugged. “I don’t listen.”
Gerard was getting a panicked look on his face, like when he thought Frank had been captured by the bad guys. “We can’t have kids around for a whole day,” he said. “We don’t… What do they eat?”
“I like french fries!” Brendon chirped. “And pizza. And chicken fingers. And spaghetti. And-”
“And absolutely nothing with sugar,” said Ray.
Mikey sighed, like he couldn’t believe how hard his life was, and wandered off to his laptop. Bob had mostly gotten over the weirdness of Mikey emailing himself from the future, but he couldn’t get over how nonchalant Mikey was about it.
“Maybe if they just stay right here, and sit quietly, and no one moves-” Gerard started.
Spencer crossed his arms. “Do you have crayons or not?” he demanded.
Gerard flapped, clearly nonplussed. “I… Yes,” he said. “Well. I have watercolors. And charcoals. And pastels.”
For the first time, Ryan’s face lit up with something like excitement. “Go get them,” said Bob firmly.
“But he’ll get them all over his little hands!” Gerard complained. “He’s probably all sticky!”
Bob gave him a stern look. “You’re usually all sticky,” he pointed out. “When’s the last time you showered?”
“But!”
Ray patted him soothingly on the shoulder. “It’ll give them something to do. Little kids don’t just sit around,” he said.
“I did,” Gerard sulked, but he went off to get them anyway.
Frank looked thoughtful. “My comics will distract them for a little while,” he said. “But I think maybe a rousing game of Red Light, Green Light, is what’s called for here.”
“I wanna play, me me me me!” Brendon yelled, sitting up so fast he almost smacked Ryan in the face with his head. “Spencer, come play with me. Jon! Come on!” He seemed to know Ryan wasn’t going to, because he grabbed Spencer and Jon by the hand and launched himself off the bed.
“Hallway!” yelled Frank, and led the way. The kids ran after him, although Spencer looked back over his shoulder at Ryan, who nodded.
“Doesn’t he usually not like them this much?” Bob asked Ray, frowning.
“Frank’s just excited to have people around as immature as he is,” Ray sniffed.
“Right,” Bob said, “Because you’ve never filled my shoes with toothpaste just for fun.”
“Shut up,” said Ray, and looked at Ryan. “So,” he said awkwardly. “Coloring?”
Ryan nodded.
“Coloring,” Bob sighed. This hadn’t been in the spy-training manual anywhere.
\\\
For about an hour, it wasn’t that bad. Gerard spread out his notebooks and a bunch of different kinds of pens on the table in the main room of the suite, and Ryan climbed up in one of the chairs and drew. Mostly flowers, and sometimes stick figures who might or might not have been his band. Meanwhile the door to the hallway was open, and Bob could hear Frank yelling “Green light!” followed by giggling and pounding sneakers, and then “Red light!” followed by more giggling and what sounded like tiny people crashing into each other.
Bob was pretty sure it couldn’t last, though. It was getting late - Panic had come over to see the plans for the weekend’s break-and-enter after doing some press stuff in New York - and it was well past dinner time for kids. It was edging toward what Bob considered bed time. He had no idea that anywhere in his brain lurked information like “what time pre-schoolers should be in bed,” but there it was.
When Frank finally said, “Okay, that’s enough,” there was a chorus of “Awwwwwws,” from the hallway, but they sounded tired. Frank pushed the kids back into the suite, where Spencer promptly went straight to Ryan, and Ryan promptly started coloring on him.
“Can we watch TV?” Jon asked.
“TV rots your brain,” said Ray.
“Of course!” said Gerard at the same time, and they glared at each other.
Jon ignored them both and climbed up on the couch. “Cool,” he said. “Thanks.”
Brendon was still standing by the door, fidgeting from foot to foot. “I’m bored,” he said, looking appealingly at Bob.
What the hell was Bob supposed to do about that? Grownup Brendon had more energy than ten normal people; this little tiny one looked like he could run a marathon. Bob looked around the suite for something to distract the kid. He wasn’t going to settle for TV or comic books or coloring. “Uh,” he said finally. “Tambourine?”
“Tambourine!” Brendon yelled, throwing his arms up in the air. That was something big Brendon did sometimes, too. Bob pointed and Brendon ran to grab it, shaking it with wild enthusiasm and a lot less skill than usual.
“The tambourine is mine!” Spencer yelled, wrenching his arm free from Ryan. “Brendon! It’s mine!”
Brendon stopped mid-bang. “But you don’t like it,” he said.
“But it’s still mine!” Spencer jumped off the chair and tried to wrestle the tambourine away from Brendon, who went from astonished to hurt to mad over the course of about three seconds, and wrapped both arms around it.
Spencer managed to knock Brendon over, but Brendon dragged Spencer down with him. It was the noisiest fight Bob had ever witnessed, between the tambourine and the shouting and the tiny kicking feet. Ray looked at Bob, and Bob sighed. He leaned over and picked Spencer up by the arm as Ray grabbed Brendon.
“Play nice, or no one gets it,” said Bob. It was weird, the way his dad’s words just appeared in his mouth like that.
“But I had it first,” Brendon wailed, and burst into tears. Ray’s face was hilariously horrified.
Spencer had a death grip on the stupid tambourine. He looked defiantly at Bob. “It’s mine,” he said insistently.
Bob was way, way over his head here. He knelt next to Spencer and looked him seriously in the eye. “Do you just grab things away from your sisters like that?” he asked.
The change was immediate. Guilt chased shame across his face, as Spencer looked down at his shoes and shook his head.
“I didn’t think so,” said Bob. “Listen. Give Brendon the tambourine, okay?”
Spencer mumbled the world’s most insincere “Sorry,” and handed the tambourine to Brendon. Brendon stopped crying immediately, and Bob filed that way; Brendon could turn tears on and off at will. The little faker.
But Spencer had been nice, and he was technically younger than Brendon, even if he didn’t act like it, so Bob picked him up and put Spencer on his shoulders. “How’s that?” Bob asked.
“Awesome,” said Spencer. He patted Bob on the head a couple of times.
“Me, I want to, me next!” Brendon yelled immediately, standing up.
Bob rolled his eyes. “One at a time,” he said. “Go play with Ray or something.”
He’d meant it as kind of a joke, but Brendon looked seriously at Ray. “Can I braid your hair?”
Ray blinked. “I… guess so?” he said.
“Okay then,” said Brendon, and that was one crisis averted.
\\\
Ray ordered everything Brendon had listed from room service. They seemed a little surprised, so Ray shouted at them - he was a surprisingly good shouter - until they agreed that they’d find chicken nuggets and fish sticks, too, somewhere in the kitchen. They might have taken Ray less seriously if they’d seen him with his hair in nine or ten messy and weirdly uneven braids. Brendon looked awfully proud of himself.
Ryan was still coloring, about half on the paper and half on his own arm. “What are you drawing?” Gerard asked, since it mostly looked like swirls.
Ryan shrugged and pointed to Frank.
“That doesn’t look like me,” said Frank.
Gerard rolled his eyes. “He’s drawing your tattoos,” he said. “Duh.”
Ryan’s smile was quick and brilliant and Gerard returned it with his own doofy lopsided grin. “I get you,” said Gerard, and leaned over the table to high-five Ryan.
“I want to color, too,” Brendon announced. “Can I color with you, Ryan?”
Spencer, still on Bob’s shoulders, tightened his grip on Bob’s hair a little. “You’re too messy, Bren, you’ll get the color everywhere,” said Spencer.
“No, I won’t,” said Brendon, helping himself to a handful of charcoals. “I can be careful.”
“No, you’re messy,” said Spencer imperiously, and maybe being the tallest person in the room at the moment wasn’t helping his apparent Napoleon complex. Bob thought about it for a second, and then reached up and tickled Spencer’s knee.
Spencer giggled and kicked him. “Knock it off,” he said, so Bob did it again. Spencer squirmed and laughed and kicked. Bob had his other hand on Spencer’s arm, so he wasn’t too worried the kid was going to take a nosedive to the floor.
“Stop being bossy,” said Bob.
“I’m not, I’m - Bob!” Spencer squealed, trying to bend in half so Bob couldn’t tickle his side. “Stop, stop, stop, stop!”
Ryan was looking at them with undisguised horror, so Bob stopped. “He’s okay,” said Brendon reassuringly. “Bob’s just playing.” Brendon’s face was totally covered in grey smears, and his shirt was probably ruined. Bob rolled his eyes.
Spencer was still a little breathless from giggling. “I’m not bossy!” he said, and then immediately, “Put me down, I wanna sit on the couch with Jon.”
Of course he did. Bob swung Spencer down and Spencer climbed up on the couch with Jon, who was hypnotized by - “Frank!” Bob yelled. “Are you watching Desperate Housewives? That show’s full of sex!”
“They’re not really little,” Frank grumbled.
“Frank, god damn it,” said Bob.
Brendon’s eyes were huge. “You swore,” he whispered, looking scandalized.
Was tiny Brendon still a Mormon? Bob wasn’t sure how that worked. “Uh, sorry,” he said.
Ryan was thoughtfully coloring a pink flower on Brendon’s arm. Brendon giggled. “That tickles,” he said. Ryan stopped, and Brendon said, “No, it’s okay. You can color on me if you want. We’re boyfriends.”
He said it so fucking casually that Bob just froze. He looked at Ray, and Ray looked at Gerard, and Gerard shrugged. Frank laughed like a hyena. “Boyfriends?” asked Bob carefully.
“I remember that,” said Brendon certainly. “I love Ryan and Ryan loves me. Ryan, I’m gonna draw a heart on your face, okay?” Ryan nodded, and Brendon picked up the red marker.
Bob could have thrown up from all the cute. “Oh,” he said. “You remember that, huh?” He wondered what else Brendon remembered, and how his little kid brain was making sense of it.
“Spencer loves Jon, but they’re not boyfriends,” Brendon went on. He would apparently chatter to himself all day, if no one stopped him. “Even though Jon loves Spencer, too.”
“I do,” Jon agreed from the couch. Spencer slouched a little, blushing.
“And Ryan loves Spencer, but that’s different.” Brendon’s heart looked more like a birthmark. “That’s best friends.”
“Why aren’t we recording this?” Frank asked suddenly. “This is the greatest blackmail material of all time.”
Ray frowned. “Because what if someone saw it, dumbass? You gonna explain about Mikey and everything?”
“Oh.”
Gerard, though, had a vaguely evil look on his face. “Jon doesn’t love Spencer like best friends?” he asked Brendon. He was coloring, too, but it looked like zombies and vampires.
“No,” said Brendon confidently. “It’s like I love Ryan. Okay, done!” He beamed at Ryan, and Ryan beamed back. Being boyfriends apparently cheered Ryan up.
Gerard cackled to himself. “I thought so,” he said.
“Gee,” said Bob warningly. “Stop trying to fix everyone up.”
They were saved from impending moral crisis by room service arriving. Ray insisted everyone go wash their hands, and there was a lot of pouting and yelling - mostly from Frank, who didn’t see why he had to, too - but everyone trooped into the bathroom to wash. Bob was relieved, because Brendon had gotten filthier faster than any child he’d ever met before. Not that there had been a lot.
Dinner should have been easy - it was all kid stuff. Mikey was abstaining, still emailing himself and muttering angrily that since he was in the future he really could have been prompter. Gerard and Frank split the pizza and the kids went for the finger food.
But all the tiredness Bob had been waiting for suddenly appeared; Spencer and Brendon reached for the same french fry at the same time, and Brendon burst into tears. “Ryan, eat something,” Gerard ordered, but Ryan just shook his head and shoved the plate away with his arms crossed.
“He doesn’t like that,” said Spencer authoritatively. “He only likes some stuff.”
“Like what?” Ray asked.
Spencer shrugged. “He likes sandwiches.” Ryan leaned over and whispered something to Spencer. “And ice cream.”
“He’s not having ice cream for dinner,” said Bob flatly, and Ryan stuck his lip out with a tremendously pouty expression.
Jon looked thoughtfully at the food and then threw a fry at Brendon.
“Hey!” said Brendon. He’d been knuckling his eyes with one hand and yawning. He threw a fry back.
“Oh, no,” said Ray, but Frank had already grabbed a handful of fries and was defending his side of the table. A whole bunch got caught in Ray’s hair - Ray didn’t appear to notice - and Bob had to grab the fries away from everyone and stand up.
“These are not dinnertime manners,” Bob growled. “Knock it off.”
The kids looked a little chastened, but Frank didn’t, not at all. “Frankie,” said Gerard, nudging him with his shoulder. “Set a good example.”
Frank looked poutier than Ryan.
\\\
“Bed time,” said Ray.
“No,” said Jon immediately.
“You’re all gonna sleep in here,” said Ray, pointing to the room with the biggest bed. “Like a big sleepover.”
“Okay,” said Spencer. He was holding Ryan’s hand, and they had some sort of whispered conference. “We don’t have our toothbrushes, though.”
“Hotels have extras, don’t worry,” said Ray, who was a big fan of dental hygiene.
“No,” said Jon again, and marched back out to the living room. “I’m the oldest, and I’m not tired!”
Bob would have gone after him, but he caught Brendon’s face out of the corner of his eye; that was exhaustion, and those were real tears, and that was a real trembling lip. “I want my mommy,” said Brendon quietly.
Bob swore under his breath. A lot. And then he scooped the kid up and said, “Well, she’s not here right now.”
That was apparently some sort of magical key to the floodgates, because Brendon promptly burst into huge, heaving sobs. His face got all red and his nose got snotty, and he wailed and kicked and hid his face in Bob’s shoulder.
“I’m gonna have to wash this shirt,” Bob muttered to Ray.
Ray had his mom face on. Apparently it wasn’t just for herding Frank around and making sure everyone had their safety equipment before they started a really dangerous mission; it worked for child-wrangling as well. “Frank, go get Jon. I don’t care if he bites. Gerard, help Ryan and Spencer get ready for bed. Bob, try and calm him down. I’m gonna go make Mikey fix this ASAP. Tomorrow’s too important to spend it babysitting.”
Bob nodded. The mission tomorrow was pretty fucking imperative, which was why they’d called Panic out to help in the first place. Frank went after Jon, who started yelling about fair and being the oldest, and Ryan pulled Spencer into the bathroom. The idea of Gerard helping anyone wash up was hilarious to Bob, but he was a little too busy at the moment to laugh.
“Hey,” he said quietly to Brendon. “Bden. C’mon.”
“I. Want. My. Mommy,” Brendon hiccupped, pounding his fist against Bob’s shoulder. “I don’t want to be here anymore! I want to go home.”
They couldn’t exactly call up Brendon’s house and tell them what had happened. “We’re in New York,” said Bob quietly. “Your mom’s in Las Vegas.”
“Noooo!” Brendon yelled. He was crying so hard it was difficult to tell what he was saying at all.
Bob wasn’t great with little kids, and he had next to no experience with tiny, screaming, unreasonable children having fits. “Hey,” he said firmly. He sat down on the bed and pried Brendon off his shoulder. Brendon’s face was a mess, and his chest was heaving with sobs. “Tomorrow’s a big day,” he said. “You remember how we’re spies?”
Brendon nodded shakily. He snuffled and wiped the snot on his hand, which was fucking gross.
“Well, you guys are supposed to help us tomorrow. And you can’t do that if you don’t get some sleep.” They also couldn’t help if they were in fucking preschool, but Bob decided not to bring that up. “You’re gonna have to be brave about this, okay? And tomorrow, after we fix this, if you want to go home, you can, I promise.”
Brendon hiccupped and burst into tears again, but Bob was pretty sure he’d cried himself through anger all the way to exhaustion. “I wanna go home,” Brendon said again. His eyes were fluttering shut, and he had to keep reopening them with serious effort.
“Tomorrow,” Bob repeated. “As soon as Mikey fixes this.”
“Don’t,” said Brendon, “Wanna.” He sort of collapsed onto Bob’s shoulder, and Bob could feel the way his shoulders were shaking, trying to cry, but his breath was evening out. He could tell exactly when Brendon gave up and fell into sleep, too.
Spencer and Ryan came back in, holding hands. “All clean,” said Gerard cheerfully. “I brushed my teeth, too, see!” He exhaled on Bob, who rolled his eyes.
Frank dragged Jon in by the arm. Jon had gone boneless and limp in a beautiful example of passive resistance, and he was opening his mouth to scream, Bob could tell. “I’m the oldest,” Jon started shrilly.
“Jon, shhh,” said Ryan unexpectedly. Jon stopped immediately to look at him. “Brendon,” Ryan said, pointing.
Jon considered for a second, and then sighed, terribly put upon. “Fine,” he whispered. “But I’m not gonna brush my teeth.”
“Eww,” said Spencer. He climbed up on the bed and Ryan went with him. Jon followed. They kicked off their jeans and sneakers - thank god the clothes had shrunk with them.
Bob wasn’t risking waking Brendon back up, even though he was pretty sure the kid was out for good. He pulled off Brendon’s sneakers and said, “You guys got room for one more?”
Ryan immediately squirmed over so there was a space between him and Spencer. “In case he wakes up and freaks out,” he said. That was more words than Bob had heard from Ryan since the whole accidental-kid-ening.
Bob put down Brendon as gingerly as he could. Brendon didn’t stir. Ryan wrapped an arm around Brendon so he could hold hands with Spencer again. Jon had his arms crossed resentfully, but he wiggled over so he was pressed up against Spencer’s back. Bob pulled the blanket up over all of them and shut off the light.
“I’m gonna sing a lullaby!” Gerard whispered happily.
“No,” said Frank. Gerard looked at him, astonished. “All the kids’ songs you know are about dying,” Frank said firmly, and pulled Gerard away from the door.
“’Night,” Bob whispered.
“’Night,” Spencer and Jon whispered back.
They were never, ever going to survive another day of this, Bob thought grimly, and went off to menace Mikey.
Part Two
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and this clearly never happened.
Warnings: kid!fic (but not THAT kid!fic). Actually more like toddler!fic. Do not attempt to read this without a healthy does of insulin nearby.
Summary: Almost a sequel to The Negotiation Limerick File. If you haven’t read that, this will make even LESS sense. One of Mikey's wacky inventions gets used by accident. Mayhem and toddlers ensue.
Notes: This started as comment fic in my journal, so the following people should be credited with anything funny and/or cute in this story: ignipes, emilyray, thepouncer, wildestranger, and t_usual_suspect. All the rest are the parts *I* wrote.
This is a present for liketheroad, who is pretty much the best ever. Thanks to imntsaying for reading it through and not defriending me.
10,000 words (of toddler!fic, jeez, peer pressure is DANGEROUS, kids).
“The thing is,” said Gerard, fidgeting. “The thing is. Are you sure that’s what happened?”
Mikey’s face was absolutely as blank as it could possibly have been. “It’s no weirder than that time in Berlin with the ninjas,” he said. “Remember? We had to tell everyone we’d set Bob on fire to explain that.”
Gerard nodded quickly. Bob felt a little resentful about the whole thing; next time a supervillain caught one of them and decided to torture him, it could be Gerard, and he could come up with his own excuse. “I’m just asking, though,” said Gerard. “Because. I mean. How can you tell for sure? That’s the question.”
Frank laughed his super high-pitched obnoxious giggle. Bob looked at him balefully, but Frank thought that was even funnier.
“It’s pretty obvious,” said Mikey. “Go look for yourself.”
“Let’s just survey the damage,” Ray ordered. Bob liked it when Ray took charge; he was sensible, even if everything he said sounded a little ridiculous because of the high-pitched voice. Ray swung the hotel bedroom door open.
There was a kid sitting on the bed. Not a kid like Bob had been hoping was sitting on the bed; not a surly twenty-year-old with a stern glare. No, this kid was little enough that his feet dangled well above the floor, and his face was all round with baby-fat; he couldn’t have been more than five. Five on the outside. More like four.
The glare was the same, though.
“There’s only one,” said Gerard, frowning. He was lurking in the doorway, but it wasn’t like any of them were shoving to get inside.
Mikey waved vaguely. “They’re in there somewhere. I’m pretty sure. Unless they went out the window.”
“Oh, Jesus,” said Ray, and pushed past them into the room.
Bob looked at the kid on the hotel bed, and the kid on the bed looked back at him. It was almost a stare-off, but Bob wasn’t trying to look scary - he didn’t like scaring toddlers - and the kid looked kind of uncertain under all the glaring. “Where’d Ryan go?” Bob asked. “Spencer. Where are Jon and Brendon and Ryan?”
Spencer looked at him suspiciously, which Bob got; grownup Spencer wasn’t much for giving up Ryan, either. It was one of the reasons he was the best spy in the band. Spencer crossed his arms and finally said, “He’s hiding.” His voice was tiny and piping and kind of adorable, and he looked mad as hell.
“Hiding where?” Ray asked impatiently.
Spencer clearly wasn’t going to answer. Bob could have killed Mikey for building a new machine out of the coffee maker and then using it on Panic when they were only in town for the weekend. If he’d turned Frank into a toddler they could have claimed he was off getting married again or something. Shit, if they turned Frank into a toddler who would notice? But if Panic went missing it would end up a thing. At least he hadn’t sent Spencer into the seventies again; the hour and a half where they couldn’t find him - it had been a week for Spencer, it turned out - had been hell on Ryan, who didn’t have nerves of steel when it came to missing best friends.
There was a giggle in the closet. A really loud, happy, ridiculous giggle.
“Brendon,” said Bob immediately, and slid the door open.
There were three more kids in the closet. Bob ignored Spencer’s outraged noise to make sure Mikey’s machine hadn’t accidentally given anyone two noses or three arms. They looked just about like he’d expected; Brendon was sitting cross-legged and covering his mouth with both hands, all big eyes and smothered giggles. Ryan was as far back into the corner as he could get, knees drawn up and biting his lip, staring at Bob with huge, scared eyes. Jon was sitting next to him, holding his hand, looking pretty mellow about the whole thing.
“Tag, you’re it!” Brendon burst out, smacking Bob on the knee, and scrambled to his feet. He was out the door and past the grownups standing there before anyone else could react.
“Brendon! You have to stay with us!” Spencer yelled, and took off after him.
Frank laughed so hard he staggered a little bit, and Gerard had to support him with one arm. “I’m gonna go get them,” said Frank, running after them into the hotel suite.
Bob looked at Ryan and Jon, still curled up in the corner. “You hiding?” he asked quietly.
Jon shrugged. Ryan hesitated and then nodded.
“It’s a good hiding place,” Bob said gravely. “But you can come out now.” Ryan looked distinctly uncertain, and Bob thought that maybe the fact that he was now one one-millionth Bob’s size was the problem. Bob had saved the world a few times now, but he’d never dealt with toddlers. “Do you remember us?” he asked.
Ryan considered, and then shrugged. “Kinda,” he said reluctantly. He hadn’t let go of Jon’s hand.
“How old are you?” Ray asked, squatting by the closet door.
Jon held up his hand, all five fingers out. “My birthday’s in September,” he said. “I’m gonna be seven.” Clearly he would have held up six fingers, but Ryan had a deathgrip on his other hand. “And Ryan’s going to be six. Brendon just turned five. But I’m the oldest by a lot.”
“So Spencer isn’t even five yet, oh my god. Do you remember us?” Ray asked hopefully.
Jon nodded hesitantly. “You’re… We know you,” he said. “You’re not strangers. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”
Well, that was something at least. Ray looked at Bob, and Bob shrugged. Kid brains were little and squishy and it was no real surprise that all their grown up memories weren’t totally intact if they’d gotten kid-ified. At least no one was screaming stranger danger and demanding their mommies.
There was a high-pitched squeal and a giggle that might have been Frank, or it might have been a pre-schooler. Frank walked back in, with Brendon slung over his shoulder upside down, giggling and turning red and kicking wildly. Spencer trailed behind them, giggling too.
“Frank’s a cheater!” said Brendon, flapping. “I said Bob was it!”
“You remember our names?” asked Bob.
“I do,” said Spencer immediately.
“Oooooh, I’m gonna throw up,” said Brendon happily.
Gerard recoiled immediately. “Jesus, Frank, put him down.”
Brendon giggled when Frank flipped him over and put him down on the bed. He swayed a little and fell on his back. Spencer climbed up next to him, and once Spencer was there Ryan was willing to edge out of the closet, although he dragged Jon along with him. They climbed up on the bed, too, Ryan sitting carefully behind Spencer and Jon poking Brendon thoughtfully in the stomach to make him giggle.
Gerard pursed his lips. “Okay,” he said. “So we kind of have a problem. What do you guys remember about spying on the United Nations building this weekend?”
Brendon wiggled so his head was in Ryan’s lap and blinked at them. “I wanna be a spy,” he said. “Can I have a ray gun? Pzzzow, pzzzow, pzzzzzow.”
“Stop it,” said Spencer, smacking his hand. “They’re real spies. It’s not a stupid game.”
Ryan tugged on Spencer’s sleeve and whispered something to him. Spencer rolled his eyes and shook his head, and Ryan got the same pissy, grumpy look he always had when Spencer didn’t let him be in charge. Ryan whispered again, a little louder this time.
Spencer sighed, incredibly put upon. “Okay, fine,” he said. “Ryan wants to know if Gerard has crayons to color. Gerard likes to draw, right?”
Bob had to work incredibly hard not to burst out laughing. “You remember that, huh?” he said.
Spencer frowned. Little or big, Spencer was pretty sensitive to being laughed at. “I remember you’re a band,” he said. “And you’re spies. And we’re a band too, but usually… Usually we’re bigger, right?” He screwed up his face thinking about it, and it was so fucking cute Bob could have died.
“Not much bigger,” Frank muttered, and giggled. Mikey cracked a smile, too.
“Bigger enough,” Ray clarified. “Mikey, how soon can you fix this?”
Mikey looked at the coffee maker. It was mostly shards and smoke and dead wires fizzling on the floor. “I dropped it,” he said unnecessarily. “I wasn’t expecting it to go off, I was just trying to show it to Jon.”
“An hour?” Bob asked, stomach flipping over. “Two?”
“More like a day, at best,” Mikey said. “I’m gonna go email myself, see if I solved this problem already. I mean, I warned me not to fuck around with it, but.” He shrugged. “I don’t listen.”
Gerard was getting a panicked look on his face, like when he thought Frank had been captured by the bad guys. “We can’t have kids around for a whole day,” he said. “We don’t… What do they eat?”
“I like french fries!” Brendon chirped. “And pizza. And chicken fingers. And spaghetti. And-”
“And absolutely nothing with sugar,” said Ray.
Mikey sighed, like he couldn’t believe how hard his life was, and wandered off to his laptop. Bob had mostly gotten over the weirdness of Mikey emailing himself from the future, but he couldn’t get over how nonchalant Mikey was about it.
“Maybe if they just stay right here, and sit quietly, and no one moves-” Gerard started.
Spencer crossed his arms. “Do you have crayons or not?” he demanded.
Gerard flapped, clearly nonplussed. “I… Yes,” he said. “Well. I have watercolors. And charcoals. And pastels.”
For the first time, Ryan’s face lit up with something like excitement. “Go get them,” said Bob firmly.
“But he’ll get them all over his little hands!” Gerard complained. “He’s probably all sticky!”
Bob gave him a stern look. “You’re usually all sticky,” he pointed out. “When’s the last time you showered?”
“But!”
Ray patted him soothingly on the shoulder. “It’ll give them something to do. Little kids don’t just sit around,” he said.
“I did,” Gerard sulked, but he went off to get them anyway.
Frank looked thoughtful. “My comics will distract them for a little while,” he said. “But I think maybe a rousing game of Red Light, Green Light, is what’s called for here.”
“I wanna play, me me me me!” Brendon yelled, sitting up so fast he almost smacked Ryan in the face with his head. “Spencer, come play with me. Jon! Come on!” He seemed to know Ryan wasn’t going to, because he grabbed Spencer and Jon by the hand and launched himself off the bed.
“Hallway!” yelled Frank, and led the way. The kids ran after him, although Spencer looked back over his shoulder at Ryan, who nodded.
“Doesn’t he usually not like them this much?” Bob asked Ray, frowning.
“Frank’s just excited to have people around as immature as he is,” Ray sniffed.
“Right,” Bob said, “Because you’ve never filled my shoes with toothpaste just for fun.”
“Shut up,” said Ray, and looked at Ryan. “So,” he said awkwardly. “Coloring?”
Ryan nodded.
“Coloring,” Bob sighed. This hadn’t been in the spy-training manual anywhere.
\\\
For about an hour, it wasn’t that bad. Gerard spread out his notebooks and a bunch of different kinds of pens on the table in the main room of the suite, and Ryan climbed up in one of the chairs and drew. Mostly flowers, and sometimes stick figures who might or might not have been his band. Meanwhile the door to the hallway was open, and Bob could hear Frank yelling “Green light!” followed by giggling and pounding sneakers, and then “Red light!” followed by more giggling and what sounded like tiny people crashing into each other.
Bob was pretty sure it couldn’t last, though. It was getting late - Panic had come over to see the plans for the weekend’s break-and-enter after doing some press stuff in New York - and it was well past dinner time for kids. It was edging toward what Bob considered bed time. He had no idea that anywhere in his brain lurked information like “what time pre-schoolers should be in bed,” but there it was.
When Frank finally said, “Okay, that’s enough,” there was a chorus of “Awwwwwws,” from the hallway, but they sounded tired. Frank pushed the kids back into the suite, where Spencer promptly went straight to Ryan, and Ryan promptly started coloring on him.
“Can we watch TV?” Jon asked.
“TV rots your brain,” said Ray.
“Of course!” said Gerard at the same time, and they glared at each other.
Jon ignored them both and climbed up on the couch. “Cool,” he said. “Thanks.”
Brendon was still standing by the door, fidgeting from foot to foot. “I’m bored,” he said, looking appealingly at Bob.
What the hell was Bob supposed to do about that? Grownup Brendon had more energy than ten normal people; this little tiny one looked like he could run a marathon. Bob looked around the suite for something to distract the kid. He wasn’t going to settle for TV or comic books or coloring. “Uh,” he said finally. “Tambourine?”
“Tambourine!” Brendon yelled, throwing his arms up in the air. That was something big Brendon did sometimes, too. Bob pointed and Brendon ran to grab it, shaking it with wild enthusiasm and a lot less skill than usual.
“The tambourine is mine!” Spencer yelled, wrenching his arm free from Ryan. “Brendon! It’s mine!”
Brendon stopped mid-bang. “But you don’t like it,” he said.
“But it’s still mine!” Spencer jumped off the chair and tried to wrestle the tambourine away from Brendon, who went from astonished to hurt to mad over the course of about three seconds, and wrapped both arms around it.
Spencer managed to knock Brendon over, but Brendon dragged Spencer down with him. It was the noisiest fight Bob had ever witnessed, between the tambourine and the shouting and the tiny kicking feet. Ray looked at Bob, and Bob sighed. He leaned over and picked Spencer up by the arm as Ray grabbed Brendon.
“Play nice, or no one gets it,” said Bob. It was weird, the way his dad’s words just appeared in his mouth like that.
“But I had it first,” Brendon wailed, and burst into tears. Ray’s face was hilariously horrified.
Spencer had a death grip on the stupid tambourine. He looked defiantly at Bob. “It’s mine,” he said insistently.
Bob was way, way over his head here. He knelt next to Spencer and looked him seriously in the eye. “Do you just grab things away from your sisters like that?” he asked.
The change was immediate. Guilt chased shame across his face, as Spencer looked down at his shoes and shook his head.
“I didn’t think so,” said Bob. “Listen. Give Brendon the tambourine, okay?”
Spencer mumbled the world’s most insincere “Sorry,” and handed the tambourine to Brendon. Brendon stopped crying immediately, and Bob filed that way; Brendon could turn tears on and off at will. The little faker.
But Spencer had been nice, and he was technically younger than Brendon, even if he didn’t act like it, so Bob picked him up and put Spencer on his shoulders. “How’s that?” Bob asked.
“Awesome,” said Spencer. He patted Bob on the head a couple of times.
“Me, I want to, me next!” Brendon yelled immediately, standing up.
Bob rolled his eyes. “One at a time,” he said. “Go play with Ray or something.”
He’d meant it as kind of a joke, but Brendon looked seriously at Ray. “Can I braid your hair?”
Ray blinked. “I… guess so?” he said.
“Okay then,” said Brendon, and that was one crisis averted.
\\\
Ray ordered everything Brendon had listed from room service. They seemed a little surprised, so Ray shouted at them - he was a surprisingly good shouter - until they agreed that they’d find chicken nuggets and fish sticks, too, somewhere in the kitchen. They might have taken Ray less seriously if they’d seen him with his hair in nine or ten messy and weirdly uneven braids. Brendon looked awfully proud of himself.
Ryan was still coloring, about half on the paper and half on his own arm. “What are you drawing?” Gerard asked, since it mostly looked like swirls.
Ryan shrugged and pointed to Frank.
“That doesn’t look like me,” said Frank.
Gerard rolled his eyes. “He’s drawing your tattoos,” he said. “Duh.”
Ryan’s smile was quick and brilliant and Gerard returned it with his own doofy lopsided grin. “I get you,” said Gerard, and leaned over the table to high-five Ryan.
“I want to color, too,” Brendon announced. “Can I color with you, Ryan?”
Spencer, still on Bob’s shoulders, tightened his grip on Bob’s hair a little. “You’re too messy, Bren, you’ll get the color everywhere,” said Spencer.
“No, I won’t,” said Brendon, helping himself to a handful of charcoals. “I can be careful.”
“No, you’re messy,” said Spencer imperiously, and maybe being the tallest person in the room at the moment wasn’t helping his apparent Napoleon complex. Bob thought about it for a second, and then reached up and tickled Spencer’s knee.
Spencer giggled and kicked him. “Knock it off,” he said, so Bob did it again. Spencer squirmed and laughed and kicked. Bob had his other hand on Spencer’s arm, so he wasn’t too worried the kid was going to take a nosedive to the floor.
“Stop being bossy,” said Bob.
“I’m not, I’m - Bob!” Spencer squealed, trying to bend in half so Bob couldn’t tickle his side. “Stop, stop, stop, stop!”
Ryan was looking at them with undisguised horror, so Bob stopped. “He’s okay,” said Brendon reassuringly. “Bob’s just playing.” Brendon’s face was totally covered in grey smears, and his shirt was probably ruined. Bob rolled his eyes.
Spencer was still a little breathless from giggling. “I’m not bossy!” he said, and then immediately, “Put me down, I wanna sit on the couch with Jon.”
Of course he did. Bob swung Spencer down and Spencer climbed up on the couch with Jon, who was hypnotized by - “Frank!” Bob yelled. “Are you watching Desperate Housewives? That show’s full of sex!”
“They’re not really little,” Frank grumbled.
“Frank, god damn it,” said Bob.
Brendon’s eyes were huge. “You swore,” he whispered, looking scandalized.
Was tiny Brendon still a Mormon? Bob wasn’t sure how that worked. “Uh, sorry,” he said.
Ryan was thoughtfully coloring a pink flower on Brendon’s arm. Brendon giggled. “That tickles,” he said. Ryan stopped, and Brendon said, “No, it’s okay. You can color on me if you want. We’re boyfriends.”
He said it so fucking casually that Bob just froze. He looked at Ray, and Ray looked at Gerard, and Gerard shrugged. Frank laughed like a hyena. “Boyfriends?” asked Bob carefully.
“I remember that,” said Brendon certainly. “I love Ryan and Ryan loves me. Ryan, I’m gonna draw a heart on your face, okay?” Ryan nodded, and Brendon picked up the red marker.
Bob could have thrown up from all the cute. “Oh,” he said. “You remember that, huh?” He wondered what else Brendon remembered, and how his little kid brain was making sense of it.
“Spencer loves Jon, but they’re not boyfriends,” Brendon went on. He would apparently chatter to himself all day, if no one stopped him. “Even though Jon loves Spencer, too.”
“I do,” Jon agreed from the couch. Spencer slouched a little, blushing.
“And Ryan loves Spencer, but that’s different.” Brendon’s heart looked more like a birthmark. “That’s best friends.”
“Why aren’t we recording this?” Frank asked suddenly. “This is the greatest blackmail material of all time.”
Ray frowned. “Because what if someone saw it, dumbass? You gonna explain about Mikey and everything?”
“Oh.”
Gerard, though, had a vaguely evil look on his face. “Jon doesn’t love Spencer like best friends?” he asked Brendon. He was coloring, too, but it looked like zombies and vampires.
“No,” said Brendon confidently. “It’s like I love Ryan. Okay, done!” He beamed at Ryan, and Ryan beamed back. Being boyfriends apparently cheered Ryan up.
Gerard cackled to himself. “I thought so,” he said.
“Gee,” said Bob warningly. “Stop trying to fix everyone up.”
They were saved from impending moral crisis by room service arriving. Ray insisted everyone go wash their hands, and there was a lot of pouting and yelling - mostly from Frank, who didn’t see why he had to, too - but everyone trooped into the bathroom to wash. Bob was relieved, because Brendon had gotten filthier faster than any child he’d ever met before. Not that there had been a lot.
Dinner should have been easy - it was all kid stuff. Mikey was abstaining, still emailing himself and muttering angrily that since he was in the future he really could have been prompter. Gerard and Frank split the pizza and the kids went for the finger food.
But all the tiredness Bob had been waiting for suddenly appeared; Spencer and Brendon reached for the same french fry at the same time, and Brendon burst into tears. “Ryan, eat something,” Gerard ordered, but Ryan just shook his head and shoved the plate away with his arms crossed.
“He doesn’t like that,” said Spencer authoritatively. “He only likes some stuff.”
“Like what?” Ray asked.
Spencer shrugged. “He likes sandwiches.” Ryan leaned over and whispered something to Spencer. “And ice cream.”
“He’s not having ice cream for dinner,” said Bob flatly, and Ryan stuck his lip out with a tremendously pouty expression.
Jon looked thoughtfully at the food and then threw a fry at Brendon.
“Hey!” said Brendon. He’d been knuckling his eyes with one hand and yawning. He threw a fry back.
“Oh, no,” said Ray, but Frank had already grabbed a handful of fries and was defending his side of the table. A whole bunch got caught in Ray’s hair - Ray didn’t appear to notice - and Bob had to grab the fries away from everyone and stand up.
“These are not dinnertime manners,” Bob growled. “Knock it off.”
The kids looked a little chastened, but Frank didn’t, not at all. “Frankie,” said Gerard, nudging him with his shoulder. “Set a good example.”
Frank looked poutier than Ryan.
\\\
“Bed time,” said Ray.
“No,” said Jon immediately.
“You’re all gonna sleep in here,” said Ray, pointing to the room with the biggest bed. “Like a big sleepover.”
“Okay,” said Spencer. He was holding Ryan’s hand, and they had some sort of whispered conference. “We don’t have our toothbrushes, though.”
“Hotels have extras, don’t worry,” said Ray, who was a big fan of dental hygiene.
“No,” said Jon again, and marched back out to the living room. “I’m the oldest, and I’m not tired!”
Bob would have gone after him, but he caught Brendon’s face out of the corner of his eye; that was exhaustion, and those were real tears, and that was a real trembling lip. “I want my mommy,” said Brendon quietly.
Bob swore under his breath. A lot. And then he scooped the kid up and said, “Well, she’s not here right now.”
That was apparently some sort of magical key to the floodgates, because Brendon promptly burst into huge, heaving sobs. His face got all red and his nose got snotty, and he wailed and kicked and hid his face in Bob’s shoulder.
“I’m gonna have to wash this shirt,” Bob muttered to Ray.
Ray had his mom face on. Apparently it wasn’t just for herding Frank around and making sure everyone had their safety equipment before they started a really dangerous mission; it worked for child-wrangling as well. “Frank, go get Jon. I don’t care if he bites. Gerard, help Ryan and Spencer get ready for bed. Bob, try and calm him down. I’m gonna go make Mikey fix this ASAP. Tomorrow’s too important to spend it babysitting.”
Bob nodded. The mission tomorrow was pretty fucking imperative, which was why they’d called Panic out to help in the first place. Frank went after Jon, who started yelling about fair and being the oldest, and Ryan pulled Spencer into the bathroom. The idea of Gerard helping anyone wash up was hilarious to Bob, but he was a little too busy at the moment to laugh.
“Hey,” he said quietly to Brendon. “Bden. C’mon.”
“I. Want. My. Mommy,” Brendon hiccupped, pounding his fist against Bob’s shoulder. “I don’t want to be here anymore! I want to go home.”
They couldn’t exactly call up Brendon’s house and tell them what had happened. “We’re in New York,” said Bob quietly. “Your mom’s in Las Vegas.”
“Noooo!” Brendon yelled. He was crying so hard it was difficult to tell what he was saying at all.
Bob wasn’t great with little kids, and he had next to no experience with tiny, screaming, unreasonable children having fits. “Hey,” he said firmly. He sat down on the bed and pried Brendon off his shoulder. Brendon’s face was a mess, and his chest was heaving with sobs. “Tomorrow’s a big day,” he said. “You remember how we’re spies?”
Brendon nodded shakily. He snuffled and wiped the snot on his hand, which was fucking gross.
“Well, you guys are supposed to help us tomorrow. And you can’t do that if you don’t get some sleep.” They also couldn’t help if they were in fucking preschool, but Bob decided not to bring that up. “You’re gonna have to be brave about this, okay? And tomorrow, after we fix this, if you want to go home, you can, I promise.”
Brendon hiccupped and burst into tears again, but Bob was pretty sure he’d cried himself through anger all the way to exhaustion. “I wanna go home,” Brendon said again. His eyes were fluttering shut, and he had to keep reopening them with serious effort.
“Tomorrow,” Bob repeated. “As soon as Mikey fixes this.”
“Don’t,” said Brendon, “Wanna.” He sort of collapsed onto Bob’s shoulder, and Bob could feel the way his shoulders were shaking, trying to cry, but his breath was evening out. He could tell exactly when Brendon gave up and fell into sleep, too.
Spencer and Ryan came back in, holding hands. “All clean,” said Gerard cheerfully. “I brushed my teeth, too, see!” He exhaled on Bob, who rolled his eyes.
Frank dragged Jon in by the arm. Jon had gone boneless and limp in a beautiful example of passive resistance, and he was opening his mouth to scream, Bob could tell. “I’m the oldest,” Jon started shrilly.
“Jon, shhh,” said Ryan unexpectedly. Jon stopped immediately to look at him. “Brendon,” Ryan said, pointing.
Jon considered for a second, and then sighed, terribly put upon. “Fine,” he whispered. “But I’m not gonna brush my teeth.”
“Eww,” said Spencer. He climbed up on the bed and Ryan went with him. Jon followed. They kicked off their jeans and sneakers - thank god the clothes had shrunk with them.
Bob wasn’t risking waking Brendon back up, even though he was pretty sure the kid was out for good. He pulled off Brendon’s sneakers and said, “You guys got room for one more?”
Ryan immediately squirmed over so there was a space between him and Spencer. “In case he wakes up and freaks out,” he said. That was more words than Bob had heard from Ryan since the whole accidental-kid-ening.
Bob put down Brendon as gingerly as he could. Brendon didn’t stir. Ryan wrapped an arm around Brendon so he could hold hands with Spencer again. Jon had his arms crossed resentfully, but he wiggled over so he was pressed up against Spencer’s back. Bob pulled the blanket up over all of them and shut off the light.
“I’m gonna sing a lullaby!” Gerard whispered happily.
“No,” said Frank. Gerard looked at him, astonished. “All the kids’ songs you know are about dying,” Frank said firmly, and pulled Gerard away from the door.
“’Night,” Bob whispered.
“’Night,” Spencer and Jon whispered back.
They were never, ever going to survive another day of this, Bob thought grimly, and went off to menace Mikey.
Part Two