#failedexperiment

“Well, I mean, Gingerfolk are some the only species that look like this and are common enough to show up around, I’ve just never seen-”

“Stop-” Funnel flails his hands. “-Talking about my species! It’s scary enough that I’m even here, I really don’t need anyone making me think about what I am and making me realize how-how SMALL I am.”

To Funnels surprise, Phineas actually zips his lips. As in, he moves his fingers across them and a locked up zipper takes the place of them. He points to the display with a questioning tilt of his head and a thumbs up and, despite everything, Funnel cracks a small smile and lets out a tiny, broken chuckle.

“That’s silly,” he mumbles, hugging his legs. “That’s not what I meant, heh...”

He purposely keeps “I haven’t done that in a while.” solely in his mind.

Phineas’ eyes open up wider before he closes them and nods with his hands held up in understanding. He reaches up to tuck a lock of hair back behind his ear and like magic, there’s a shiny gold key with what Funnel can only assume to be his initials on it held in his hands. He holds the lock in place as he gets it open and unzips the zipper, flicking the key away out of sight once it’s gone from his face.

“Between you and me, Funnel Cake, even I’m starting to think that the key to this conversation is biting my tongue.”

Funnel hides behind his hand as he fights poorly to suppress a snicker and Phineas beams, but when he goes to talk again, Funnel beats him to the punch.

“F-Funnel.” Funnel says quickly and carefully, slowly lowering his knees to sit crisscross when Phineas raises an eyebrow. “Just Funnel is alright. You-You keep calling me Funnel Cake and it’s just.. not that necessary.”

After a moment, Phineas gives him that familiar crooked smile again.

Funnel glances around slowly, once again taking in how this looks like his room, even down to the color and feeling of the satin pillow cases beneath his palms. He rubs his hands against them in a little subconscious motion, finding comfort in familiarity of them regardless of everything. He sinks to his knees and lets his forehead rest against them with a heavy sigh, chasing after anything that’ll calm his nerves right now.

“Are you hungry?”

He will never, ever admit to sitting up as fast as he just did, you’d have to kill him to get it out of him.

“I was told that you liked pretzels, specifically sweet pretzels, so I...”

Funnel follows where the human gestures to the bag on his desk and can’t hold back the way he perks up. He elects to ignore the way his cheeks flush when his stomach growls to save himself his own dignity before he takes a deep breath and walks around the side of the pillow. His steps are careful and calculated with his gaze flickering towards the door for a moment as he moves, keeping his eyes trained on the human.

“Do you want me to pick you up or...?”

Terrified or not, Funnel puts his hands on his hips and tilts his head at that.

Funnel whines and flinches when a loud noise-is somebody opening plastic?-pierces through his hazy consciousness. He groans and rolls over onto his stomach, the simple action winding him and making him pull his bangs over his eyes in an effort to block out some of the light that’s assaulting his senses. Is he in bed? God, his head is pounding...

“Oh! You moved! Are you okay, little guy?”

The sound of glass shattering is almost audible as Funnels eyes snap open.

Funnel peeks out from behind his hair and throws himself backwards when he sees that human looking at him from his place at the desk, everything rushing back to him like a splash of cold water. The movement makes his head throb and his chest tighten as he tries to move away, but the human holds their hands up in a gesture that he can barely recognize as non-threatening.

“Hey, hey! Easy, fella, I’m not gonna hurt you, I promise.”

“I don’t....” He pushes himself up, shaking his head to get his eyes back in the right place. “I don’t know...”

Funnel hisses and groans as he hobbles to his feet and holds his head in his hand, looking around as the confusion finally settles in. He blinks and squints, rubbing his eyes and even going as far as taking his head off his shoulders to make sure his eyes are, in fact, in the correct positions before he puts it back on.

“Is this... my room-”

“I am like seven feet away from that poor thing.” 

Phineas gestures between him and the bed. 

Oh, trust him, he wants to, but he’s frozen. This isn’t a situation where he can gain the upper hand or figure out the others intentions before they get to even intend them. He can’t use his brain here, can barely use it to remember to breathe. He doesn’t what to do or who this is or if they’ll hurt him if he moves, he’s locked into place.

For once in his life, Funnel Cake is completely helpless and entirely terrified. 

“I-”

For a brief, clear moment, Funnel wonders if this is how Fireball feels when he kicks off. One second, he’s locking eyes with a human and the next, he’s tucking and rolling as he hits the ground. He barely hears it when the human calls out as he runs for his life towards the open door, but the only thing he can do is lose his breath as two ribbons soar above him and shut the door in front of him. He grunts as he skids his shoulder into it, thankfully without injuring himself, and whips around, toppling back onto his ass as the human calls the ribbon-his ribbons, those are HIS RIBBONS-back.

He can feel every single one of his senses going haywire as the human crosses the floor in a few easy strides and Funnel is forced to realize just how small he is, especially now that he’s trying to make himself as small as possible. He whimpers as tears well up in his eyes and he tries fruitlessly to back up further even with the door in the way behind him as the human lowers down in front of him, tilting their head as they regard him.

“What in the world...?”

The show continues on without a hitch and, honestly, both Dutch Baby and Funnel seem to forget anything had even happened. Their are performers climbing on the walls to great performers and throwing t-shirts and things to the crowd as confetti litters their hair and costumes. The Leaders themselves are currently spinning in a rapid circle with their legs wrapped around their trapeze hoops and their arms hooked tightly over one anothers shoulders, smiling at one another so brightly.

“'Cause everything you want is right in front of you! And you see the impossible is coming true! And the walls can't stop us now, yeah!’”

Laughter bursts from their little group as Funnels hat goes flying, the ringleader only able to hop it lands somewhere safe as the performers below take over filling the tent with music and their circle expands.

Dutch Baby shouts a little when the black top hat hits her directly in the face. She pulls it away with a huff that Snake Oil snickers at, but her annoyance with being pelted dies almost immediately as she holds the brim of it. The brown and tan ribbon wrapped around it, it seems so familiar to her, though she’s never once been here, let alone seen Funnel in person.