#sdmi fred

Fred felt like he was in the Twilight Zone.

They were once again on the side of the road. The vans were parked side by side, the tire marks of when they nearly crashed against each other painting the street.

He was suddenly really glad he was not the one driving. If it was his twenty-eight old ass looking directly at his seventeen-year-old baby-face he would have launched the car off the cliff and killed everybody. Daphne would have never let him live that one out.

Said seventeen-year-old clone was looking blankly at them. It was freaking him out a little. Either young him was better at poker than he remembered or-

No. Nononono. He was not even going to think about that possibility. Nope.

He thanked whichever gods were listening that it was only young him on the van. He didn’t think that a full gang meet up would do any good for their already on edge nerves.

“So… I believe there is a logical explanation for this” Velma was fiddling in place, a nervous look in her face. The pieces for what the hell was going on were falling in place but the picture they are making was getting exponentially more aggravating the more she looked at Fred’s young face. Even the ascot looked new.

They had all come out of their respective vans, Daphne being the only that was technically inside since she remained on her seat, only her feet on the outside with her door wild open. Fred and Velma were side by side while Scooby was standing next to Daphne's legs enjoying a nice head scratch from purple nails. Shaggy, the showoff, had swiftly made his way to the roof of their van by climbing one of the nearby trees. Joung Fred, however, stood there next to his open door. Alone.

“God, did I really have such a babyface?” Fred looked unblinking at the young clone of himself, one hand absently stroking his chin, probably remembering the days where his face was smoother and the ‘I’m going to grow a beard’ phase haven't crossed his mind yet.  

“Yeah. Yeah, you did. 100% infant with an ascot” Daphne shrugged, a smug look on her face. Fred gave her a side glance.  

“What do you mean by ‘Did have’? Who are you people and why you have my face?” the younger Fred said, apprehensive. The young man was with his back straight as a rod, one foot towards them and the other towards his van, one breath away from dashing back to the stirring wheel and hightail the hell out of there.

At least Fred was somehow relieved that this younger version of himself was not trusting them immediately. He would be really worried if any version of him didn’t immediately think that twenty-eight-years-old doppelgängers weren’t a highly convincing masked crook. Not with their chosen career.  

“Hey look, this is making as much sense to you as is making to us right now. For all we know you are nothing more than a bunch of pixels and we are stuck again in that computer simulation,” he said softly like he was trying to calm a wounded animal.

Younger Fred blinked startled. “…What are you talking about?”

“Oh, he is talking about that one time with the baseball virus- “ Daphne started to explain, just to Velma to swiftly put a hand on her mouth, purple lipstick be dammed.

“That is not relevant now! Look, Fred – I’m assuming your name is also Fred?” a nod of agreement. “Ok good. So, Fred, for what I could take out of this, the facts appear to be pointing at-” but before Velma could finish her phrase, young Fred was already taking a step back towards his own van, his face confuse and even a little frightened.

“What facts? What’s going on in here? All I know is that I went out to get my Dad’s coffee and there were you guys coming on the opposite direction…” his eyes suddenly got a glimmer over them, a tentative smile blooming on his handsome face “Is this a trap?”

“God, I wish” Fred sigh. It would be so simple if it was. “Can you imagine? It would be a weird implementation of the Borden method”

Younger Fred assumed a pensive look.

“No, I think it’s more off an Angier method since you are more my clone than my twin brother.” Said young Fred, one hand over his chin, the other pointing towards Older Fred face, seeing the marks of the added years into his counterpart visage.

“Well, yeah. But I’m not launching you on a tank of water. I just arrived here, I won’t know where to get one.” He gave his younger self a once over, making a quick calculation “To be honest if you, I was more likely to use the Deckard method on you than anything else.”

“Dude, if you can barely find yourself a human-size tank of water, what are the chances of you finding the holograms for that one to work?” Asked the younger Jones but with a glimmer of joy in his blue eyes, the previous confusion and fright seemingly forgotten.

“You talk like I can’t improvise. What kind of amateur do you take me for? And also, do you believe that I don’t have back up holograms on the mystery machine?” Fred, the old, arched one of his eyebrows, a smirk on his face with his arms crossed, his chest puffed in pride of his trap making abilities.

Meanwhile, the gang was watching speechless the back in forth between them as if it was a tennis match. Daphne was especially interested in the overwhelming joy radiating from their lover young counterpart. Didn’t the rest of his gang talk about traps with him? He looked like it was the first time that he could share his interests with someone.

“Well gang, I can say with 99,9% certainty that this is a certified Fred.” Velma declared, both her hands on her hips and her lips pursed in mock awe.

Daphne fake punched her arm, a smile in her face. “Shush, don’t interrupt them. Fred is bonding.”

Both Freds turned towards them after that exchange, remembering they were not alone on that side of the road. Turning their heads back to each other, they started laughing, doubling over when their lungs started lacking air. It was a contagious laugh. Fred laugh was just like that. With two of them, the effect was duplicated so it was no surprise when everyone ended up joining in.

After some time, when they got their breath back, young Fred held out his hand

“I’m Fred Jones, nice to meetcha”

Taking it as the peace offering it was, Older Fred took the hand giving it a vigorous shake.

“Hi, Fred Jones. I’m Fred Jones” he snickered “And this colourful bunch behind me is” he waved his remaining hand on their direction.

“Daphne Blake” the redhead waved.

“Velma Dinkley” Velma fixed the red-trimmed glasses in her face.

“Norville Rogers” he pointed to the lanky man seated on the roof of the van.

“Call me Shaggy” he reclined more on the roof enjoying the morning sun.

“and last but not least: Scoobert Doo. Our beloved Scooby-Doo,” he glances back at young him, a knowing smirk on his lips “But you know that already, don’t you?”

Scooby approached the young Fred. Scooby held up his paw that young Fred took without hesitation.

“Rice to reet you ragain, Rreedie”  

“Nice to meet you again Scooby” he smiled at the Great Dane, with earned him a face full of dog kisses unleashing a stream of laughter from his chest.

“So, like, I take from that we, like, do exist here in this world, right? It’s not just you?” Shaggy asked, jumping from the roof, going towards the laughing teenager who was now on the ground, removing the more than 100 pounds of dog-friend from him.

The young man remained on the ground, one arm over his eyes, whizzing like a dying frog. Panting between the still bubbling laughter, young Fred calmed down slowly. Seeing that the young version of Fred was not going to get up so soon, they joined him on the ground.

Laying on the grass with their heads close, looking at the sky they could easily convince themselves that it was just another day in their lives. One of their moments’ in-between cases, stopping in the middle of nowhere, looking at the clouds. If only.  

“Ok, so what is happening here? is it time travel? Interdimensional time travel?” came the calm question. They side glanced the seventeen-year-old boy in their midst than each other. Shaggy than turned his head to the boy at his right, a smirk on his lips.

“Like, the mystery machine had many upgrades over the years but a flux capacitor was not one of them, man”

Shaggy could feel the hole that Velma was opening on the side of his head with her glare. He was already hearing her voice in the back of his mind saying ‘now is not the time for jests, you absolutely reprehensible man’.

“What Shaggy is trying to say is that, from the moment we arrive at this place, nothing here has been remotely familiar to us. But the few people that we interacted with seemed to know us on a personal level” Daphne tried to circumvent the tension that Velma’s glare was bringing to their small space of side road with a more thought out explanation.

Too bad Shaggy fear of death, always present since the moment he was exposed to the world outside Mrs Rogers womb, was left inside the van because instead of shutting his cakehole and avoiding death: persuaded by Velma he said:

“Like, that is in no way what I was saying- “

“Yes, it was,” Daphne said between her teeth, trying once again to avoid seeing Velma yeet Shaggy into the ocean.

“Nu huh”

“Yun huh”

“Nu huh”

“Yun huh”

“Ignore them, they are five years old,” Fred said, hugging Velma in hopes of changing the course of the conversation and diminishing the death glare. It appeared to be working. Not before Velma smacking the back of the young chefs head, of course.

“HEY!” came two indignant yells, Shaggy appearing more offended at the five-year-old commentary than the smack.

Scooby, face-palming himself, turned to his left and put his paws on both of the young man shoulders (that were trembling from suppressed giggles. At least he was founding their weird dynamic entertaining) and looked him directly in the eyes.

“Rook, Rreddie we come from a rlace ralled Roolsville.  Rhere is no Rristal Rove any rhere” he said, hoping that a more direct approach was what they needed at the moment.

There was a beat of silence. Fred, the younger, was looking at Scooby like he had grown a second head. He looked around, seeing all those faces that were so familiar and at the same time so different. He swallowed the lump that formed in his throat.

“…Please tell me that I understood him wrong and that you guys don’t come from a place called Roolsville.” he pleaded, for the sake of his sanity, that he had misheard the entire thing.

Another prolonged silence.

“You did understand him wrong,” Velma said.

“Oh, that’s a relief-“

“Its actually Coolsville. A town in Ohio”

He blinked slowly. Looking at Velma’s eyes, he pinched himself. When nothing happened, Fred, the youngest started shaking his head in disbelieve.

“…Ohio?”

“Yeah, I know, not ideal. But it’s home so we make the best of it” Shaggy head said from its new location over Daphne’s lap, her hands carting through his hair.

They noticed that young Fred was completely indifferent to their position. Good news, then. His gang at least was the bunch of cuddly bugs that they were.

“It has been a while since we went back home, come to think of it” Daphne mused, French braiding the shaggy hair under fingers.

“We cleared most of the mysteries there, anyway. I think the crooks in our universe may be a bunch of idiots but they are not stupid.” Velma added, snuggling closer to older Fred, Scooby laying over their legs.

“Yeah, to attack the home town of international mystery solvers is the peak of dumb moves” Fred, the ancient, theorized. His lovers nodded. Yeah, that makes sense.

“International?” the small voice got them by surprise. They turned once again to Fred, the infant, laying there spread eagle looking into the sky like he was expecting the heavens to open up and the Archangel Gabriel to come and announce the second coming of Crist.

Older Fred’s face softened. He was suddenly faced with his counterpart age. At age seventeen he could barely imagine how his life was going to go, much least its outcome. Mystery solving had been a childhood passion, but no one, much less himself, could have imagined how much it would grow. Little him probably had his entire world scale vastly amplified in just a fraction of a second.

The possibilities must look so much vaster for him now.

“You betcha, Little Me. Samurai ghosts in Japan, an army of mummies in Egypt,” he said softly, looking at his own young eyes “Hell, is not even international any more. Not after that case on the moon base.”

“Interplanetary mystery solvers, baby!” crooned Daphne receiving the softest cheers from Velma and Shaggy. Scooby let out a melodic howl. Older Fred was pleased that they were all in the same wavelength. That this moment was earth-shattering to his younger self, it deserves a careful approach.

“…Interplanetary mysteries… Interplanetary traps.” Fred, the younger, eyes were sparkling, thinking about all the new plans, terrains to explore and exploit for hiding places, exotic ropes and knots techniques. He was practically vibrating.

The gang laughed good-heartedly. Yup. This was now a 100% certified Fred, no doubt about it.

One by one they got up, Older Fred helping his dreamer self from the ground. The young man was still light years away from them, his eyes big and full of ideas, a goofy smile on his face.

Older Fred giggled and, patting his younger self’s back, he said:

“Oh yeah, all the interplanetary traps. I even made my own traps! Patents and all.”

“What, really???” If the boy was vibrating before, now he was almost phasing out of the dimension altogether. His smile was so bright that it could bring sight back for a born blind man seven times over. It made a mirror smile bloom in his own face.

“Yeah, man. The Jones method for trapping masked criminals.” He looked at the excited boy, who was smiling as if the government had decided that the Leap Year date was replaced and instead of the 29 th of February they added the 32 th of October: Halloween, Part 2, and fell in his heart the same tug of longing that he felt looking at any children of the places that they visited.

They had talked about it. They joked at the dead of the night. It was too soon, they know. But what was so bad in speculation? Thinking about how many. Who was going to carry it? Should they give adoption a shot? Should they give magical baby incubation a thought? That was one of Daphne’s favourite ideas yet. She was mesmerised by the idea of a baby growing on a cabbage (from what Gran had told them it could be any plant really. The popular now was pumpkins and peaches surprisingly enough). Mashing last names together in hopes that their hypothetical children would have a nice-sounding one was a nice pastime when stuck in the road for hours.

Blake-Dinkley-Roger-Jones was the one with the best ring to it, they had decided one drunk night in Paris, perched on the Eiffel Tower balcony disregarding gravity and death (such was the power of wine) then getting away from the edge to waltz to non-existing music, smiling with glee.

They changed the order again the very next morning. What was the fun in sticking to any order anyway?

Shaking his head away from the warm memory, Older Fred passed his arm over his younger self shoulders, noticing that he was, at least, one head taller than him.

Oh, yeah. The second grown spur. He spent an entire year of college getting used to his way longer limbs all over again.

“Tell you what: We go to this Crystal Cove town together and I tell you all about it.”

Younger Fred looked up at him.

“…Will you?” his voice was small. Why was his voice so small?

“Yeah.” There was a sudden felling on his belly. He didn’t like it. He didn’t know what it was but something suddenly was felling off. Why was his voice so small? “We can even try to make a new one together” he suggested, ignoring the felling for now. Maybe it was nothing. It was probably nothing. Maybe.

Little him lighted up like a tree on Christmas, nodding his head so hard he was afraid it was going to roll right of his shoulders.

“Everything is nice, everything is great, but don’t you guys think is going to be a little of an eyesore, not one both TWO mystery machines parading down the street?” asked Daphne, her voice coming from the middle of the clearing where both vans were parallel parked next to each other, breaking the moment.

“Yeah, that would be a sight to see” Velma grimaced.

“Dude, ‘sight to see’? That amount of groovy energy is going to obliterate people on impact” Shaggy and Scooby were looking at both vans with calculating eyes, as if they were questioning if such a thing was possible.

With the way their lives are going so far? It was possible.

“Well, we have two options right now. Option A: Keep it quiet for now. Once we acclimate to the town and the people acclimate to us because let’s face it, trying to keep our existence a secret is going to backfire phenomenally on our asses and cause more trouble than it is worth it.” Velma said, her ‘I’m planning’ pose in full display.

“Option B is:” came the voice from the back from one of the vans. Suddenly, Daphne kicked the backdoors wild open shouting “HELLOOOOO CRYSTAL COVE!!! GET READY FOR TROUBLE AND MAKE IT DOUBLE!!! MYSTERY INCORPORATED IS NOW COMING TWICE AS STRONG!!!” she struck a pose, Shaggy and Scooby throwing confetti over her head while Fred made fake sounds of trumpets. They dissolved in giggles afterwards.

Velma groaned, one hand over her eyes the other holding her glasses.

“One day. One day I swear I’m going to kill you guys in your sleep”

“We love you too” were the four answers that she received.

Fred, the infant, smile at the scene. He hoped that his gang would turn up like this one someday soon. The cuddling also seemed comfortable and fun, he should ask his gang what they thought about start doing that.  

“Ok, what if we did like this: Since I know the place better than you guys I can show you the clearings and caves that we can hide the van and we can go from there.”

“That sounds good but now the question is: which van?” Daphne asked, one hand up pointing from one van to the other.

There was silence. The Freds were suddenly looking at each other in the eye trying to glare the other into submission. It was clear that neither of them would give up their four-wheeled babies.

The glare was intensifying. Slowly they started circling each other as if they were in an old western. The atmosphere seemed to change. Mirroring frowns faced each other with murderous intent. They appeared to want to start growling. Nothing good was coming out of this.

That’s why Shaggy put himself on the middle of the Fred circle before any words could be said and newborn friendships dashed. “Ok, ok, ok. None of that! What if, instead of choosing between vans we, like, fuse them? Would that be good? Would you dudes chill?” he raised one arm to each of them, looking like he was trying to convince hungry reptiles from eating each other.

“And how would we do that?” Younger Fred asked, not as much perplexed as they expected and more on the side of curious, but his eyes never left his perceived threat.

“Like this, dude.” Shaggy smiled at them, straightening his back. He snapped his fingers.

Both vans dissolved into shapes of light. They stayed floating in place for a fraction of a second then, faster than bullets, they flew over their shoulders creating a wind strong enough to nearly throw them all over the trees. Fred took hold of his younger self arm while Velma grabbed the back of his jacket with on hand, Daphne with Scooby on her back with the other, digging her heels in the ground with practised ease. Shaggy seemed surprisingly unaffected by the gale. The light orbs circulated one another in beautiful arcs of colour to them merge behind Shaggy’s back in what looked like a mini supernova. They watched the display unfold in front of them speechless. The gang with amazement that the years could not diminish and the new young member with awe, trying with all his might to understand what was happening before his eyes.

It was finished just as soon as it had begun. Behind Shaggy, the new mystery machine laid there, matching her previous look but at the same time not.

For an outsider, the van was just the same as it was before.

But they knew better.

The Mystery Machine 3.0 was, from the outside, a perfect mix of both vans with some key differences making this MM her own. She had the sliding doors of the other dimension gang van, a feature that was not present on the younger Fred version. Getting closer, putting their hands over the warm metal, they noticed that the paint job remained the same but the green was lighter than before and the daises were particularly bright orange. The van had incorporated the backside door from the younger man's van as well. But the inside…

“Like, I hope that you guys don’t mind that I, like, added some things in it,” said Shaggy, smiling with his hands in his pockets.

They were all in the back door looking in. They turned their disbelieving faces towards the lanky man standing behind them looking proud.

“…Its larger in the inside?” young Fred asked uncertainly of what his eyes were seeing.

“Not by much. I, like, made the whole van a little bit larger that’s true, but the inside is just a little bigger than it was before. Now” he passed them and got inside, laying with his arms crossed behind his head on the brand new sofa perched on the left side of the van “I can lay down back here without having to contract my whole body like a slinky.”

“Well, that your own fault for being a giraffe” Velma laughed going in as well. “Did you upgraded my lab?”

“You know it, honey bee” came the lay back answer.

She clicked one of the small buttons on the opposite wall to the sofa. The upper half of the wall folded back, pushing forward a small table full of beakers, flasks and chemicals. The new wall that came forward had a screen in it, a corkboard full of pictures, calculations and trap anagrams, and a built-in magnifying glass lamp. She seated in a small wheeled stool that unfolded itself from a space that opened in the floor. Ok. Not only is the van larger, but it also has pocket dimensions. He can dig it.  

“I thought that only dentist had one of these…” younger Fred said in amazement joining them in the back as well, touching the magnifying lamp. He was looking around like a kid in the candy shop, looking at the upper wall over the sofa that also had some buttons of their own and he would be lying to himself if he said he was not curious to discover what that wall had to hide “Did you add these tech things or…”

“Nope. Most of them were, like, already here. I just added the chemicals Velma was talking about some weeks ago and the magnifying glass. The rest? I’m not the only one that can make things out of nothing, little dude,” said Shaggy, untangling his arm from the back of his head and pointed towards ancient Fred, who had moved while they talked and was now seated behind the steering wheel. He turned around when he felt eyes on his back, seeing his younger self looking at him, clearly taking that as a confirmation that he could also make vans fuse with his will alone.

“Noooooooo. That’s not true.” He smiled at his lounging boyfriend, then he turned his gaze to his now deflated counterpart “I need duct tape first.”

His gang laughed while younger him wiggled closer to him sitting on the bean bag lying next to the front seat, his eyes shining with that new piece information, crossing his arms in the seatback, resting his head over them. Scooby got inside and closed the door behind him while Daphne went and assumed her place at the shotgun. Fred started the van and turned towards their original destination.

“Do all of you guys have powers or something?” asked the teenager, looking at all of them with new eyes.

“Or romething” said Scooby building momentum in his hind legs for a leap.

“Oh no. No, no, no, nononono” Shaggy hoisted his torso up, waving his hands frantically in front of him to no vail.

Like a bolt, Scooby jumped over his owner sending both rolling into the ground. After licking the lanky man face thoroughly through his laughter and the stream of ‘Down, boy, down!’, the Great Dane jumped to the now vacant seat and made himself comfortable.

“Scooby, you cheater that cheats” Shaggy gave his friend the stinky eye but his smile made it lose its effect. Scooby flashed him his tongue them got even comfier. Throwing his arm over his eyes, the lanky man groaned

“I swear to god, I’m cutting your soda supply. Too much caffeine in your system. There is no way that you have all that energy stored in that furry butt of yours”

The van occupants bubbled with giggles. Velma turned to the younger of then.

“Let us add the explanations of what we can and can’t do for when both the gangs are together. These are, as a whole, pretty long stories. It’s going to be easier to say it in one go instead of repeating it multiple times.” A sudden thought came to her mind. She added, “I take that you guys still live with your parents since you mentioned your dad early, so we are going already to say it twice unless you think that we should tell with your guys' parents present…”

“Nah, tell the gang first. It will be easier that way.” He let out a small chuckle “I can already see my dad trying to find a way to turn this into…” he trailed off, a thoughtful look in his face as if he was remembering something. Out of nowhere, he jumped in alarm hitting his head in the sealing. Ancient Fred hit the brake and turned his torso around to have a better look on his younger face, a concern morphing his handsome face.

“What is it, Little me?”

“I FORGOT MY FATHERS COFFEE” Young Fred had both hands in his head, a panicked look in his blue eyes.

“Ah, shit” the unison answer made the young man smile through his panic.

Turning the van around in a hurry, older Fred was quick to reassure young him.

“No worries, Little me. Here is the plan: we go back there, you give me the order, I go get the coffee since they would find weird for you to change clothes between the five minutes that we were there and then we go find your dad, how is that?”

The young man let a sigh of relief “Thanks, Big me.”

Fred smiled at the nickname, feeling warm. And Daphne had to go and ruin the moment.

“Awwww. They are so cute, they already have nicknames for each other” she giggled and cooed at them.

“Shut up, Daph” both of them turned to her, with just made she giggle harder.

“They are talking together now” Velma joined, hiding her lab after checking it one last time to see if it was all in order.“So cute”

“Adorable.” Came the observation from the floor.  Shaggy laying sideways, one hand holding his head upwards, while the other was loosely over his hip was looking at young Fred with a smirk. He winked a feel seconds later, just to reassure the young man that they were just messing with both of them.

Scooby snickered behind him. “Rovely”

“What is this? ‘Bully Fred day’???” Older Fred asked, giving Daphne a side glare while simultaneously trying to glare at the backseat passengers through the rearview mirror. It was doing funny things to his face.

“Yeah!” was the answer he got while young Fred was looking at his older self-face with concerned, his “Dude, is your face supposed to do that?” was almost drowned on the laughter.

“Nah, he’s fine, little dude.” Shaggy stretched until his hand was in ruffling hair height.

“Hey, do you know how long it takes to get it in place?” Fred, the younger, was battling the hand away.

“Of course, we do. We live with the geriatric version of you” Velma shrugged.

“Velma, I’m 28!” He said with fake anger “You’re just three years younger than me!”

“Irrelevant.” She turned her head sticking up her nose mockingly, one hand pointing skyward.

And so, the journey back to the Blood Stake went like that for the entire trip until they parked once again in front of the red light building. Once there, it was a quick go in, ‘I FORGOT MY DAD’S COFFEE’, comprehensive looks from the onlookers, and go out.

Once back inside the van, Fred, the ancient, turned back around and once again they headed towards the town.

“Okie Dokie, now where to, Little Freddie?” Daphne asked, looking at the teenager expectantly, ready to absorb any road knowledge that he could give her.

“Ok. Once we reach the beginning of the city, you’re going to see the arch with the town’s name. From there you go straight. When you see the Fruitmeir’s turn right and then left. You turn left again on the blue house on the corner; the city hall is the biggest building on the right side.”

“City hall? That’s a new one. Does our version of dad work there?” Older Fred looked at younger Fred in the rearview mirror, the question written in his eyes.

The younger man looked at him for a moment, like he was not expecting that answer from him. He shrugged in acceptance not long after because, you know, different dimension him, different dimension dad. He could ask older him for what his dad did later.  

Noticing the silence, the young man notices that he hadn’t answered yet. Ops.

“Sorry, thinking a little too hard there for a moment,” he said shaking his head.

“Comprehensible, love.” Assured Velma, putting one hand on Fred, the younger, shoulder giving it a small squeeze. “Happens with all of us from time to time”

“Mostly in the shower,” said Shaggy.

“Especially in the shower” added Daphne with a faraway look.

Younger Fred laughed. He couldn’t wait for both gangs to meet. He could already tell they are going to be fast friends.