fandomhigh | Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Today the shenanigans were inside the Danger Room because even Anakin couldn't source enough strawberry Jello powder to make a dent on the water surrounding the island.

The ~~unwilling victims~~ people showing up would find themselves looking down onto a huge rec room decorated for a child's birthday, complete with streamers, balloons, and a massive pinata (easily the size of a chair) swinging from the ceiling.

And the floor was entirely covered in red liquidy-goo..stuff...because Anakin wasn't actually going to cover everything in lava.

"Welcome to the Floor is Lava!" Anakin's voice boomed out to the audience. "...my son Christopher helped this week. You will work in teams of three to get from one end of the room to the other without falling into the extremely realistic lava...stuff. The fastest team will win a lava lamp but there are prizes for all! Listen for your names. Oh, and no powers, please."

Or sit around and eat fruit gummies, popcorn, cupcake, and goldfish crackers because Christopher had assisted with snacks, too.

TEAM ONE
Liam
Duke
Freya

TEAM TWO
Shuri
Astrid
Mae

TEAM THREE
Alexis
Shunsui
Summer

TEAM FOUR
Elli
Stark
Kitty

TEAM FIVE
Prompto
Wayne
Rey

TEAM SIX
Jaye
Tisarwat
Amaya

TEAM SEVEN
Tony
Sidon
Alara

TEAM EIGHT
Steve
Beaker
Magnus

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"Old enough to have to think about it, huh?" Duke guessed.

“Exactly,” Liam nodded, grabbing on to that excuse. Because it was easier than the truth, which was ‘chronologically roughly the appropriate age for a kid’s birthday party’.

"I hear that," Duke said, like he hadn't been very much aware of turning 34 a few weeks back. "Especially with all these teens running around."

“I don’t even remember what it was like to be that age,” Liam admitted. Which was true... sort of. If he tried, he could remember bits and pieces of what his parents had gone through.

"Considering how my teenage years went, that might be for the best."

It'd involved a lot of sleeping rough and dodging the cops, for one thing.

“That bad, huh?” Liam asked sympathetically.

“Let’s just day I lacked appropriate supervision.”

"You were on your own," Liam interpreted, frowning a little. He might not have much experience with what being a teenager was like, but he knew that wasn't typical.

"Yeah, the Crockers were not winning any parenting medals."

Well, he'd already mentioned his father being dead. So that part probably wasn't too much of a surprise.

"They give out medals for that?"

A beat.

"That was a joke, wasn't it?"

Still not always great at figuring those out right away.

“It was, yes,” Duke assured him. “Though, hey, if they did give out medals, maybe people would be a little less terrible at it.”

“Humor’s, uh, not exactly my strong point,” Liam explained, probably unnecessarily. “I guess I don’t understand- why become a parent if you’re not willing to put in the effort?” he asked, a bit of a plaintive note in his voice at the question he didn’t really expect Duke to have a definitive answer for. He’d always wanted a family, so understanding why someone would wouldn’t want to make the effort was hard, sometimes.

“Pretty sure they don’t do it on purpose,” Duke pointed out. “Mine didn’t.”

That wasn’t entirely true. His dad had been all about having kids. Sons, specifically. Looking for the right one to take up his mantle....

Hey, Liam’s too. One of his fathers, anyway.

“I guess... mine neither. Kind of.” Liam admitted. The amount of choice his mother had had in regards to his birth was... well, he didn’t much like to dwell on it, but all the same, in those few hours that she’d been aware of his existence, she’d wanted him.

"I've heard some people manage to turn that around and make it work," Duke said with a shrug. "Suppose it takes all sorts, you know?"

“Suppose it does,” Liam agreed. “Sometimes I do wonder what it would’ve been like, if they’d known about me. My parents, I mean. But that’s a thought experiment likely not worth dwelling on,” he continued with a twist of his lips into a wry little smile at the callback to their conversation earlier in the week.

Duke nodded. "Fair enough." He didn't spend much time thinking about what it would have been like if he'd actually been adopted instead of his mother showing back up after his father died, after all. "So. What else are you doing for your birthday today?"

A halfhearted shrug. "No real plans," he told Duke. "Might see if a friend on the mainland's free for dinner, but that's about it."

“Big parties are for kids, anyway,” Duke observed. “Swing by the diner sometime, though. I’ll comp you a beer or something.”

Only Liam had never been a kid, and thus had skipped that entirely. Not that Duke had any idea.

“Thanks,” Liam said, genuinely touched by the offer. “Only... make it a soda instead?” he asked. The other day notwithstanding, he generally avoided alcohol.

Edited 2020-06-25 20:31 (UTC)

“Sure,” Duke said. “Whatever you want. Hence the ‘or something.’”

“Oh,” Liam laughed, if a little sheepishly. “Right. Yeah. I guess that would cover a number of possibilities, wouldn’t it?”

“That it could. You could even go nuts and ask for a dessert.”

An expression that was, for lack of a better word, boyish, flitted across Liam's face for just a second.

The suggestion might have seemed like no big deal from Duke's perspective.

From Liam's? It kind of was a big deal.

"Dessert, huh? I might just."

Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday, June 24, 2020

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