Chapter Text
“That’s all for today guys. Make sure you go over scenes twelve and sixteen. Dream, remember to work on your inflection for that scene with Sapnap. Oh and Hannah? You left your jazz shoes in the left wing don’t forget to grab them. See you little shits tomorrow.”
“Bye Dadza!”
“Later old man.”
“Bye Phil!”
A scuffling of shoes, water bottle scrapes, and calling out for items echoed through the halls as twenty summat kids trickled out of the auditorium and to their respective rides.
Phil stretched and bent down to pick up his script, water, keys, and- oh ha ha funny, he thought, palming the anteater picture with its eyes crossed out. That little right step-spin-trip and fall move Wil had pulled earlier had probably been his (effective) excuse to get close to Phil’s stash.
Speaking of, “Wil, Tommy, Tech, come on I’m leaving.” He grabbed his coat and started walking down the aisle. “With or without you,” he added when the motions of leaving prompted no response.
“We’re gonna do crime big man, we’re not going with you,” Tommy’s voice called out- seemingly coming from the back of the stage.
Phil laughed. Two could play this game. “Alright. How will you get home then? Walking is pretty far for someone who only brought jazz shoes.”
“I drove dad. Car ‘n shit,” Tommy laughed, thinking he’d won.
“Right, right.” Phil walked back down the aisle toward something that had caught his eye. “And ‘car ‘n shit’ needs keys right?” He spun the Minecraft key ring around his finger, Tommy’s car and house keys clinking together. “Good luck. See you back home after crime.”
Phil spun on his heel, whistling his way down the aisle, spinning the jangling keys around his finger.
“Wait!” Tommy called, throwing himself out of the stage curtains- a snickering Wilbur and Techno following. “I decided to come with you.” He puffed out his chest, following Phil out the double doors and into the parking lot. “Not because you outsmarted me, just because we need to practice our lines right?”
“You do. George is doing better than you at this point and he misses half of the practices sleeping in the band room,” Wilbur chimed in, trailing Tommy to his car. Techno lumped off with Phil, not wanting to get in between whatever war was bound to happen in the short car ride. Ten minutes and a lot of rearview mirror checks later- they pulled up to the Soot residence just in time to pull a fuming Wilbur off a cackling Tommy.
“If I catch you two fighting I’ll put you on cleaning duty and I will make you scrub the stage.”
“Sorry, Phil.”
“Sorry, Dad.”
Phil unlocked the door, tossing his things on the foyer table aimlessly. “Dinner’s in three hours. I’ll be in my room just don't burn the place down.”
“Us? Never,” Techno deadpanned following Wilbur upstairs.
“How do you want to do this scene?”
“So I was thinking for this line-”
----
“Class dismissed. For those of you in drama- Mr. Soot asked me to inform you that your practice will be starting in the band room today. Have a nice weekend guys.”
Echoes of “Thanks” and “Thank You Ms” accompanied the scrapes of chairs as kids filed out of the classroom. A mundane routine of school that was quickly shattered as soon as they stepped into the band room.
“QUACKITY!”
“Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight.”
“Please don’t fight.”
“How many times do I have to say it- NO.”
“Where’s the popcorn, this is gonna take a while.”
“Go Sapnap go.”
“Ten bucks he’s not gonna make it.”
“And this is why I’m never late ya shits,” Phil said, closing the door behind him. Chaos and violence were always options when you threw all of them in a room together.
Twenty kids went dead silent, staring at each other as if daring someone to say anything.
“Quackity started it.”
“Who said that I’ll fight you too.”
“Calm down, please. Or at least save the fighting for after practice.” Phil walked to the whiteboard and uncapped a lime green dry erase. “Improv,” he called, writing the letters on the board as he said them. “That’s what we’re doing today because you guys could use a break from the same scenes.”
“Why aren’t we on the stage then?” Skeppy asked, piping up from the corner.
“I’m thinking more vocal improv. You guys are good at making your body tell the story but your voice doesn’t fully sell it.” Phil pulled out a couple chairs from the stack in the back and sat them in a semi circle. “Five chairs- fight amongst yourselves as to who’s going first.”
While they were debating over that, Phil grabbed five wooden blocks and handed them to the winners of the chair brawl. “Wilbur, here you go. Techno, here you go. Hannah, here you go. Jack, here you go. Dream- actually Dream switch with Bad, I want you to help me.”
Phil handed Bad the block and gestured for Dream to stand beside him. “Alright, everybody listen up- Sapnap, Puffy, Fundy, I’m looking at you, pay attention for five minutes. The idea of the game is to score the most points.”
Techno and Wilbur’s eyes lit up, excited at the idea of a competition.
“The people in the chairs, so Wil, Techno, Hannah, Jack, and Bad, are team one. The rest of you can form groups after I finish.” Phil swirled around into a chair, grabbing a clipboard and paper with a loud snap. “The name of the game is Jailtime Improv. Those blocks are your handcuffs. If you use hand gestures to aid you- your whole team is immediately out. Dream will be judging all the teams and handing out scores, approved by me, and I will be judging George’s team. Just in case.”
There were snickers at that, Dream chuckling and George- still sleeping, right. “Someone wake him up and explain,” Phil said, handing another clipboard to Dream. “Quickly make teams and then we’ll start.
The remainder paired up- splitting themselves into four teams and grouped apart in the room.
“Perfect. Karl, you pick the scene. Start immediately.”
All five heads turned to Karl who thought a moment before saying, “Alien invasion at the McDonalds. What do you do?”
Wilbur looked around at his team, asking a silent question to who would start, and when no one answered- he opened his mouth.
….
“Can I get a- a burger meal with fries please,” Wilbur asked, tapping his foot impatiently.
“Sure! That’ll be $10.95,” the cashier asked hesitantly, handing him the receipt. She grabbed a tray from the counter and put his food on it. “Thanks, come again!” she mumbled, unsure of herself.
“Miss,” Jack called, laughing to himself. “Can I get some ketchup? The dispenser is all out,” he chuckled.
“Of course,” she smiled half heartedly, still seeming unsure. “Techno! We need more ketchup,” she called behind her, summoning an annoyed employee.
….
“Why am I the worker here, I want to switch,” Techno complained, breaking out of character to the annoyance of Wilbur.
“Shut up and keep going, an employee is fine. The rest of the roles aren’t much better, ” Wilbur scoffed.
“Fine, Wimblur. Whatever you say.”
….
“Coming, coming,” Techno called, annoyed at the prospect of actually working. “Hannah, can you help the customers that are coming in,” he grumbled, gesturing to the figure entering the glass door.
“Hand over your chicken nuggies earthlings!” The figure called, laughing maniacally, waving around a ray gun. “We the people of the Eggpire crave the magical sustenance you foolish humans call the nugget meal,” he cackled.
No one in the restaurant responded, looking at each other with blank looks of disgust.
“You can’t just barge in like that waving demands,” Wilbur said gesturing to the counter. “Get in line if you want nuggets.”
The rest of the people nodded, going back to their respective tasks, Techno lugging the bulk ketchup bottle to the station.
The strange species walked through the twisting poles and rope until they got the to the front. “Hi! Welcome to McDonalds what can I get for you?” Hannah asked, putting on her best employee face for this strange man. “I want all of your nuggies human.”
Hannah punched in the order quickly changing the quantity to as many as she could. “Would you like to make those meals?” she asked, pausing expectantly. “Uhhh no human. I just want the nuggies. Nothing else.”
“Alright that’ll be a total of $367.94. And it’s pronounced Hannah by the way. Can I get a name for that?” she asked.
“Bad. I’ll just take the nuggies human.” Bad held out his hand expectantly, the cash register still displaying his large total.
“Hannah. And you need to pay if you want to get anything.” She tapped her foot impatiently waiting for Bad to say something.
“No.” He smiled and pointed his ray gun at an unsuspecting Techno who had opened the ketchup and was pouring it in. “Give me the nuggies or he vaporizes.”
“Woah woah woah, you can’t do that,” Wilbur said slightly panicked, waving his hands around, smiling to himself.
“Yeah, that’s not cool man,” Jack added, stifling his laugh.
“Heh?”
“Nuggies or he gets blasted,” Bad threatened, a hint of humor in his voice.
“1, 2, 3-“ Bad shot, a small bolt of light firing out. Techno ducked on instinct, dodging the bolt within a hairs breath but slipping on a wrapper Jack had thrown on the floor.
He tripped and fell, dropping the ketchup bottle and splattering it everywhere. He lay on the floor stunned and covered in dripping red condiment.
“I did it!” Bad exclaimed turning to Hannah. “The others said I couldn’t but they’re wrong. I’m a bad boy. Now hand over the nuggies.” Hannah glanced at him then the floored figure of Techno.
“You didn’t kill him, he’s just tired,” Wilbur said, lit in his voice, poking an annoyed Techno in the side. “I need a raise,” he groaned.
“MY KETCHUP NOOOOOO,” Jack screamed, falling to his knees and pawing at the spilled tomato.
Bad surveyed the scene and looked back at Hannah. “Can I have my nuggies now?”
...
“And scene!” Phil clapped, snapping the kids out of their acting-induced stupor. “Good, good. Started off a bit rough but you got the hang of it.” Phil turned to Dream who was scribbling notes on his paper.
“Wilbur you did great,” Dream said, giving the brunette a thumbs up. “You and Jack both kinda lost it at one point but not bad overall.” He looked at Jack, “You got the hang of it eventually and got really into your character. Nice.” Jack smiled at the praise, high-fiving Wilbur across the chairs.
“Hannah it took you a bit longer to get in character but you had a bigger part and you did it well.” Dream pointed his pencil at Bad, smiling. “You did the best in my opinion. Good job with the character.”
Dream turned to Techno rolling his eyes. “You did alright I guess,” he said, hint of a smile on his face.
“Like you could do better,” Techno scoffed, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, the thing only standing on two legs now.
“I bet I could,” Dream retorted, hiding his smile behind his clipboard. “Might wanna watch out.”
Tommy pulled the back of Techno’s chair, toppling the already unsteady pinkette. “That’s why you don’t act cocky bitch!” Tommy shouted, scrambling off the floor and sprinting out the door shouting, “Bathroom!” with a cackling Techno hot on his heels.
“Someone from Tommy’s team go grab him,” Phil sighed, holding the door open for Karl who’d been nominated to deal with it.
“The rest of Group one that aren’t involved in a high speed chase at the moment come over here so we can talk more in-depth about the scene. Another group get up on ‘stage’, you guys’ll go next.”
Group two situated themselves on the chairs, swapping blocks because George wouldn’t shut up about needing the blue one.
Phil finished talking to group one and rejoined Dream up front. “Since you’re not judging this one, can you go help Karl wrangle Tommy and Techno?” Phil asked.
“No need,” Karl said, kicking the door open- his hands were full alright- and dragging in, quite literally, Tommy and Techno, who were sporting matching pouty expressions.
Phil blinked, watching Karl throw Techno at Wil and Tommy at Quackity. He really didn’t know what he’d expected otherwise.
“Alright,” he said. “That’s out of the way, so let’s get started. Who wants to pick the prompt?”
“Me!”