#scalien!darnell

The flat was eerily quiet save for the ever-present sound of distant running water echoing from behind the glass partition that kept the climate contained within the Wet Room and the occasional faint chittering of a certain extraterrestrial amphibian who was feeling rather stressed at the moment. It was very unusual for this particular space to be so calm, typically decorated by items strewn about without care, a pile of oddball lizard boys in varying degrees of ‘freakish and large’ and the chaotic, rambunctious energy of the aforementioned blue alien.

But in this moment things were far too tense to enjoy the rare quiet, as the usually full-of-beans Beebop sat upon the floor in a pile of blankets, knees pulled up to his chest and game controller discarded beside him as whatever game he’d attempted to start playing sat paused on the screen. He looked… not even just miserable, but actually pitiful. Bygone felt as though he was watching a kicked puppy lick its wounds and it just wasn’t right to see the little turd looking so lost.

The reason for his upset was clear, and it ironically announced its presence with an obvious lack of someone else’s. For one of the three ‘lizard boys’ was missing from the ranks. The man of the house himself was distinctly absent from the usual vibe of his own flat.

It was a big enough bummer on its own, Bygone and Rex didn’t really get a whole lot of opportunities to visit their Scaly friend, what with the whole ‘tearing holes in space-time and creating links between worlds which weren’t meant to connect’ situation required for them to do so. Surely that wasn’t ever going to cause any problems at all. But it was also a huge kick in the teeth to see the most joy and whimsy filled creature ever to exist among the stars sitting before you deflated like a balloon and doing his best impression of Eeyore.

Sat upon one of their otherworldly friends’ many beanbags, chin resting heavily on his fleshy palm, Bygone attempted to distract himself from the sadness pouring off of Beebop like a stink by focusing on the repetitive flashing of one of the HUD elements of the game paused on the screen. After some unmeasured amount of dreadfully quiet minutes had passed he was drawn from his space-out by a faint clicking sound coming from behind his blind side. Turning his seeing eye to address the sudden change in the room he watched the third and final of the reptilian trio emerge from beyond the Wet Room doors.

He readjusted his hearing aids, which he’d tuned down to drown out some of the crackling Bee’s chirping was causing, before greeting Rex with a chesty “boof”. It was perhaps not as layered as it could have been, granted he was in his human form at the moment and was doing the best he could with his human voice box, but Rex clearly knew what it meant as he responded with a (much more animalistic sounding) grumble of his own.

The shorter of the three (though not at this current moment) was as uncivilized as ever, clearly having just gotten out of the hot springs as his clothes were half dripping. He apparently hadn’t even bothered to dry off before dressing himself, though it wasn’t all that uncommon for the other to just throw himself in the water fully clothed so it was honestly surprising they weren’t completely soaked.

Moving past Bygone and hobbling his way into the centre of the room like a rusty tin wind-up toy, Rex took a moment to gather up some of the discarded pillows and blankets before arranging them in a somewhat circular pile next to Beebop, plopping down beside the tiny alien and giving the other’s uninjured leg a gentle nudge with his nose. The smaller of the three lizards offered a quiet whine to pull the space monkey from his daze, earning him a pair of sad eyes turning to lock with his own.

Beebop removed one of the hands from his knees to lovingly ruffle Rex’s hair between his horns, appreciative for the gesture of support but still not quite able to offer any kind of smile. The tip of Rex’s tail thumped occasionally beside him, indicating that having a dip in the hot springs clearly hadn’t done much to help alleviate his stress either.

In truth they were all kind of worried. It seemed the boys had either picked the worst or the best time to arrive, considering the current state of Beebop one had to wonder what he would be like if he were on his own right now. But they couldn’t have known Scaly would have been called away to a mission just before they had gotten there, one that according to the very concerned amphibious gremlin seemed to be rather dangerous.

Of course danger came with the territory, Rex and Bygone both knew that better than most, but Beebop mentioned something about this being a ‘special threat’.

All of the boys were startled from their specific trains of thought by a sudden rapping on the door. Three heads whipped around to face it, Rex growling slightly like a dog awaiting the postman to slide the letters through the slot. On instinct Beebop rose in a hurry, tripping over his injured ankle with a small chirp as he made for the entryway. Bygone caught him by the arm as he stumbled, holding him steady as he shakily pried his own crinkly bones off the beanbag he was lying on.

Rex too made to slowly approach from behind on all fours, crouched low to the ground in a defensive stance as he followed behind Bygone while he helped lead the overgrown sea monkey towards the door.

Just as they’d reached the edge of the room said door swung open on its own, revealing a tall, dark-skinned man in a white lab coat. Beneath the coat was what appeared to be a purple and black dress shirt with an oddly clashy yellow tie, and sat upon a head of well styled curly brown hair were a distinctly recognizable pair of flame-shield goggles.

Darnell.

Or, some form of Darnell. This man looked enough like him but appeared to be a few years older than the Darnell that Bygone knew, seeming to be more in his early 30s judging by the ever so slightly forming laugh lines around his eyes and the tiniest smidge of salt in his pepper around the temples. The ginger supposed stress would do that to you, he was surprised he wasn’t more grey himself considering how much his transformation probably aged his body. He sure felt it in his bones…

Rex seemed to be too concerned with the flash of white donning the man before him to realize or care who it was, his previous growling now forming into a guttural gator-like hissing. Bygone placed his free hand atop his lookalike’s head much the same as Bee had done before. “Don’t worry man, it’s just Darnell. He won’t hurt you…”

The look in Rex’s eyes read ‘skepticism’ but he relinquished his growling and instead settled for resting at Bygone’s feet like a guard dog waiting for someone to step too close to their master. His eyes were glued to this ‘Darnell’ imposter like a hawk.

Darnell offered a dashing smile and friendly wave as he let himself into the flat, allowing the door to close gently behind him so they could retain their privacy. “Yooo Beebop! Why so blue, man?” the older man greeted, reaching out a hand to ruffle the alien’s hair. Said alien could not appreciate the joke. He would normally have responded with some fake whine about the scientist squeezing his brain with his big meaty hands, but he clearly wasn’t in the mood for his typical antics today.

“Dar-bi! I worry for Bi-bi!” the poor guy seemed frantic as he tore himself away from Bygone’s gentle hold and practically threw himself at Darnell, scrambling around his back and climbing onto the other man’s shoulders like a weasel. After making a circuit around the scientist’s neck like a satin scarf the amphibious lemur made his way back to the floor to circle around Rex and Bygone, his stress clearly triggering his neurotic tendencies as he zoomed about like an unworked border collie trapped in a kennel.

“He’s alone, and I am here! Why here, why not with him?!”

The older man gave Beebop a sympathetic look, he understood how much the little dude cared for his partner and he was sure being stuck here while knowing the big guy was out there fighting against a kaiju-level threat was really hard for him to cope with. But the E.T. had gone and gotten his leg injured, and the ever-protective Pico was not about to risk taking his boo on a dangerous mission when the other was already hurt.

“He’s not alone, Bee. He’s got Cap with him, plus a whole crew of specially trained men and women watching his back. Hell, even Nene’s there!” the biologist tried his best to comfort the sorry boy by offering some reassurance. Pico was a strong force to be reckoned with, sure he himself had a healthy amount of worrying for his brother’s safety but he also had faith that the scaly bastard would give em what-for.

For the first time since Darnell had arrived one of the out-of-place boys finally spoke up, Bygone sheepishly offering his voice. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly is going on anyway?”

The older man scratched his stubbly chin as he processed the question, perhaps trying to formulate the best way to explain. Darnell pulled a pen from his breast pocket and began idly clicking it, probably a stim of sorts while prepping for a serious talk. “Well, we aren’t exactly sure… We started receiving reports of these odd egg-like structures appearin’ near the wastelands at the edge of the city. A team was dispatched to check ‘em out, determine what they were and try to get some samples.”

The flicking of the pen had now become spinning and twirling it around his fingers, his hand movements seemingly becoming more complicated as his thoughts did. “It was found that, at least at the time of investigation, the egg sacs didn’t seem to contain any traces of active life forms. But they were very clearly of organic nature and, frankly, something had to have ‘laid’ them.”

Beebop’s expression was tense as he sat on the floor next to Rex, gently stroking between the experiment’s back plates as the other shook slightly, occasionally twitching even. Bygone however simply nodded along as Darnell continued his tale, looking towards the other’s face but eye not really seeing anything, instead looking through him as his gears turned internally.

Darnell stopped for a moment to cough into his hand before pressing on again. Bygone noted that as ‘interesting’ but filed it away for later.

“Anyway, we found a heat signature coming from what we now believe to be some sort of thermal vent that’s opened up near the desert. Some kinda big nasty must’a crawled i’s way up outta that bitch an’ now she’s out here dropping bastard children left and right.” Darnell clicked his tongue as if to say ‘for shame’. The more he talked the more some of those good old fashioned Nelly-isms started to glimmer through. “But we think we found the main nest. Pico and the Loud Bunch are gone to hit that bad mama where the sun ain’t shine.”

Bygone sucked his teeth as he considered that. That seemed… very reckless. Why would you run straight into the belly of the beast when you’re not even 100% sure what the damn thing is? How do they know there’s not more than one? Question after question swam in the gunslinger’s head as he thought about it more, the loudest of which being ‘who thought this was a good idea?’

Darnell seemed unfazed as he popped the pen back in his pocket, smile still present on his face as he took a relaxed stance with one hand in the pocket of his lab coat. “My man’s got some of the biggest guns we can give ‘em. Whatever’s hiding in there, I hope they like Swiss cheese.”

The other had begun to chuckle at his own words but was interrupted by a soft chiming from within his pocket. Pulling his hand back out with a pager now contained within it, the biologist’s eyes made a back-and-forth motion as he read some sort of text message that had come across it. His expression didn’t change much apart from his smile now becoming more of a straight line, but he pocketed the device back where he’d found it with a gentle sigh before turning to readdress the three boys in the room.

“Duty calls, my friends. If I hear any updates I’ll let you guys know, but I’ve got something I need to attend to.” Darnell licked his lips as he spun around to reach for the door handle, turning his head to throw a quick message over his shoulder before he went. “Everything’s gonna be okay, Bee. Don’t sweat it Lil Man.” and with that he had vanished beyond the door just as suddenly as he came, a humorous ‘later, gators’ directed at the lizard boys as he went.

Drawing a heavy sigh through his nose and scratching the back of his head with his good hand, the currently-human redhead tried to shake the funny feeling he had. Beebop seemed to quiet ever so slightly since Darnell had been to chat with him, though he still wore a sorry little frown on his face as he peered over towards where Rex had moved to lower himself onto the now vacated beanbag, dumbo ears drooped like a sad puppy. Bygone however found himself glancing over at the door, staring into where the older man had vanished beyond it moments before.

He hadn’t really talked with this version of Darnell much since he’d been here, most of the time Bygone and Rex spent here tended to involve some sort of shenanigans and he seemed to be a busy man who didn’t have much time to dilly dally on work hours. The ginger honestly wasn’t sure how much this person was or wasn’t like the Darnell he knew, and given that he’d now sussed out the fact that Beebop was apparently this world’s version of Boyfriend he wasn’t sure it was safe to assume a lot was the same. But he did notice one thing they seemed to have in common.

He knew his best friend to have one hell of a poker face, it was hard to read even for the most seasoned of detectives. But he had one tell that Bygone knew to look for, and that one tiny but super specific wrinkle that appeared next to the corner of his left eye when the biologist was looking at his pager earlier told the gunslinger all he needed to know. Whatever that pager said wasn’t good news and he was trying to keep a straight face about it. That’s what he couldn’t shake.

It was Beebop’s turn to ‘sigh’ this time, though for him it sounded more like someone gently blowing a whistle. The little frog-boy, who was now blue in more ways than one, turned his head to address the other two occupants of the room. “Are friends hungry..? Here smells like Bi-bi and that makes it hurt in here…”

Rex and Bygone shared a glance with each other as Beebop tenderly placed a leathery hand over his heart, emphasizing exactly where it was ‘hurting’. The anguish swimming in his cosmic eyes was enough to shatter even the stoniest of men like glass. Bygone tried to hide the way his hand shook by shoving his organic one in his pocket, thinking back to that look on Darnell’s face again.

Moving to instead gently place his prosthetic one on Bee’s shoulder, he tried his best to form some sort of smile. Though he felt the words waver in his throat as he spat them out like bad lunch.