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"You did WHAT?!"
Spoony didn't notice the exact moment when he catapulted out of his comfy green chair: one moment, he was sitting, peacefully gaming without a care in the world, and the next he was on his feet, hollering so loud his voice cracked at a blackened and gently smoking Insano and son. There was a vein ticking in his forehead. He could feel it pulsing with his heartbeat.
At least Insano had the decency to look somewhat guilty. Or as guilty as a scientist bathed in charcoal can look. It helped, a little.
... no it didn't.
"Well…" Insano mumbled. "There was a slight accident with my matter transporter and the latest doom machine, and the result was that, well–"
"You blew up Mount Rushmore?!"
"... well yes, but–"
"You BLEW UP. MOUNT. FUCKING. RUSHMORE."
"It was an accident!"
Spoony's hands started to hurt. He was holding onto his Xbox 360 controller so hard that the plastic was leaving red ridges in the palms of his hands. He collapsed back into the chair with a moan, letting the controller drop to the floor before burying his head in his hands. His voice came out muffled through his fingers.
"You blew up Mount Rushmore."
"It was only Thomas Jefferson! And I can fix it!"
"This is going to be another court case, isn't it?"
"I fear so."
"We need a babysitter."
The summons arrived within a week, the government apparently have become accustomed to Insano's occasional bout of destruction. A babysitter, on the other hand, proved far more difficult to come by. Every person Spoony approached reacted... poorly, mostly due to past experience of babysitting Insano's pink orb-shaped son and Spoony's excitable dog.
The Critic openly wept. Linkara stammered out a desperate excuse about visiting relations. Sage claimed to be dismembering hookers that weekend. The Chick was washing her hair, and her dog's hair, and Nella's hair, and maybe even the couch's hair, who knows.
It seemed as though everybody knew too much. Spoony needed somebody... uninformed. Somebody who had never attempted to babysit for him and Insano before. Somebody innocent, friendly, and helpful.
Somebody from the house next door.
Somebody like... Danny.
Mostly because when Spoony dangled his entire bodyweight from the doorbell until somebody responded, Danny was the only person left in the house, the rest having absconded their various different ways. But hey, she was nice and responsible and she could look after a hamster and an orb-shaped child and a dog weren't that different.
He lured her in with Insano's super-computer. A single slip of the tongue, an idle mention of a membership to Steam and the ability to play Team Fortress 2 and she was eating out of the palm of his hand. It was all too easy.
Far too easy.
Spoony didn't suspect a thing. The next day, he dressed up in the only suit he possessed and forced Insano to put on a clean lab coat, if nothing else, then left the keys with Danny with the instruction to call for pizza if Son of Insano got hungry and to give Oreo a can of puppy food for dinner.
They returned with an acquittal and community service fixing the mountain to find the house on fire.
Well, the basement. The rest of it was still standing, although there were large cracks in the lawn, and smoke was billowing out of Insano's basement window. Son of Insano was rolling on a bed of cookie crumbs, and Oreo was running around chasing her tail on the lawn, yipping and covered in finger paint. And in the centre of it all, hair standing on end and gently steaming, a fire extinguisher in her hands, was Danny. She stumbled forwards and pressed the extinguisher into Spoony's hands. Her eyes were empty and haunted.
"Never. Again."
Damn. Another babysitter lost.