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Men reading fashion magazines, oh what a world it seems we live in…
Terry Jr. nods his head along to nothing as he flips through an old soccer magazine of Grant’s, sitting in the back office at D.A.D.D.I.E.S in an attempt to ignore the fighting in the main hall. Everyone is pissed. These boys, no, men now, have had over ten years to figure out a game plan against the Doodler, an Eldritch horror that refuses to fucking die.
From what he can hear, not that he’s listening, it doesn’t matter how many sacrifices it takes, they need to get rid of the Doodler at all costs. Ugh. Lark has been fighting that fight since the day the Doodler arrived, trapped in a weird state between love, hate, and guilt. Terry gets where he’s coming from, kind of. It’s strange to look back on their childhoods when they’re barely adults now, but from what he understands (which is very little, if he’s being honest), Lark was always going to be chosen for this. He’s a fighter. He always will be.
Then comes the cries against Lark’s manifesto. Nicky can’t abandon his demon dads, who are honestly tired themselves, and of course Sparrow is trying to find the moral route to go. Grant is just standing there, dissociating, which is all he does these days when he isn’t out practicing violence like it’s his damn job. Terry has heard all of these points before. He knows how this story goes, and he’s sick of it. His friends are going to kill each other if this keeps up, and then who’s going to be there to save the world? Him? Terry Jr.? Fuck that.
Straight men. Oh, a world we live in.
Years in the past, but not many, Terry watches a crane pull up the letters ‘D.A.D.D.I.E.S’ up to a building that Ron is declaring to be their newest business. “It’s the Department for the Acquisition, Destruction, Deployment, and Investigation of Extranormal Stuff, Terry! It just rolls off the tongue!”
“Sure, Dad.” He rolls his eyes fondly, like he’s watching his dad that stepped up accept a promotion at work, as opposed to installing part one of a life-changing plan that puts the entire world at stake. Terry isn’t completely sure about this, but they’re running out of options in terms of cover-ups, and this is their best bet. Plus, this keeps Ron safe. All of his other friend’s dads are always running around, chasing acolytes of the Doodler and risking their lives. Terry hates when Ron has to go on those missions, when he’s gone for days at a time and only texts in emojis to say that he’s safe. No, D.A.D.D.I.E.S. will keep Ron busy in San Dimas, and that is something that Terry will take as a win.
He feels like a scared kid, not knowing what lies ahead. Even if this is for the greater good, even if they have to do whatever it takes, Terry, well…he really doesn’t want to lose another dad.
Why am I always on a plane or a fast train?
He dreams of things that he’s never seen before. It started when they returned from the Forgotten Realms, and they have yet to stop. He’s told Grant, who seems to be their group leader now or whatever, but the guy is so busy that he can’t even offer advice to his best friend. And what kind of best friend is that anyway?
Terry tries not to dwell on that as he makes his way back towards headquarters. Ron wanted him to meet the new intern they hired, some girl that’s been tracking the crazy shit that’s gone down in San Dimas. Apparently, she can trace it all the way back to the 1930s. Coincidentally, his latest dream-slash-nightmare always has him on some weird black and white Depression Era movie set. It’s not even all that dream-like, he knows what dreams are from all those times Willy (fuck that guy) was trying to get in his head. These are more like living someone else’s memories, which is impossible. At least, it should be impossible, but there are a lot of things in his life that should be impossible.
Anyway. The Dreams™, as he has now dubbed them. They’re weird as hell, mostly because they feel familiar. Terry’s pretty sure he wasn’t some shitty actor trying to make it big in Hollywood in his past life, but with how vivid and real these things feel, he’s starting to think otherwise. Some parts are perfectly clear, which is mostly due to how strong the emotions he feels during them are. Showing up on a movie set, bright-eyed and ready to be of help. Getting tickets for a train to… Tennessee? Okay. It’s weird, but exciting, nonetheless, and it brings money in to help the family. He gets it. After his first dad passed away, he would do anything to help his mom keep them afloat. Then there are other parts of the Dreams, but he can never remember the details. Only the emotions. Joy in feeling like you belong with these total strangers that you were forced to work with, and absolute terror in having to get the job done. Those two are more familiar to Terry than he’d like to admit.
He knows what it’s like to be frozen with fear. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be blind, but the person in his dreams does. About a month into these things, he wonders if he really is going insane, if the world is actually totally normal right now, and he’s fighting invisible monsters from a padded room while his mom and Ron search for a cure. He makes a note in his journal to keep himself from freaking out too much, grateful that he’ll always have someone to fall back on.
'Note: If Dreams™ continue, call Mom.’
Oh, what a world my parents gave me.
“You’re never going to have kids?” Grant is looking at him in horror. Terry doesn’t understand why.
“No. Why would I? Kids are so much effort, and we’re a little busy, uh, I dunno, saving the world?” He scoffs. Grant still has that look on his face. “Dude, you still plan on having kids? In this economy? In this world? I’m sorry, but you couldn’t pay me to raise a child in these conditions.”
It should be a straightforward answer for all of them. Their lives are demanding and dangerous. Children are out of the question, aren’t they? Shouldn’t they be? As adults, shouldn’t they be responsible and keep the population safe, instead of adding to the pool of innocent people who get hurt because of their actions? Why is Grant looking at him like that?
His best friend sighs, finally looking away. “I… I want kids. I want to make a better world for them.”
“We need to make a better world for ourselves first.”
Always traveling, but not in love.
Terry had been doing a pretty good job of making the world better, if he did say so himself. That conversation with Grant was long forgotten, but the message stuck. He dedicated himself to his work with Ron, not doing the heavy lifting like the Wilson boys or the crazy magic shit like the Oak-Garcia’s or Close-Foster’s. No, they were Stampler’s, so they did what they knew best and ran a business.
D.A.D.D.I.E.S. Inc. was thriving. They were getting case after case, networking in all the right places, and easily avoiding any claims from both the local and national governments about the work that they were doing in town. Sure, the Dreams™ hadn’t really stopped, and he chickened out of calling his mom. The next best option was Ron, but he hadn’t been any help when it came to figuring out what the hell any of it meant.
“You see, Terry, being blind in your dreams is like being blind in the real world. Except in your dreams, you’re asleep, heh. And you’re not really blind when you wake up. Do you understand, son?” And all Terry could do was nod because that’s just what you do when you ask your dad that stepped up what your nightmares mean as a grown adult. Ron put on his ‘deep’ voice, and was the best stepfather that Terry could ask for at the moment. No matter how much was on Ron’s plate, he was still trying to be a good dad. It meant that Terry walked away from their conversation smiling.
Is it weird to have your stepdad also sort of be your best friend? Sure, he’s got Grant and the boys, but it feels like there’s a distance between all of them now. Normally he’d chalk that up to them growing up, but it’s different. They’re all like business partners now.
He sighs, looking down at his phone to check their group chat. Seeing if he missed anything and maybe trying to pluck up the courage to see if the OG West Rock Elementary School Doodlers (because it was their's first) wanted to get dinner sometime, Terry adjusts his glasses on his face before taking a look at the latest message.
‘Wilson :/ : hey guess who still has both of his thumbs after stopping an incursion and a date this weekend?’
Oh.
Still, I think I'm doing fine. Wouldn't it be a lovely headline?
Terry Jr. was lost. No, really. Because of some recently unfortunate events that he doesn’t super want to get into, there are currently a lot of renovations happening in downtown San Dimas. This means that even though he lived here for the majority of his life, even if it’s not technically the same San Dimas, he genuinely has no idea where to go to find his favorite record shop from youth.
He’s got his eyes glued to his phone map, which is telling him that it should be right in front of him. Which is a lie. He frowns, looking up and down the street before going back to his phone, as if it might just materialize in front of him and save him from his woes. Terry doesn’t even really know why he needs to go to the place, he’s not on the hunt for records like he used to be. A small part of his brain is telling him that he needs it, so he knows that it wasn’t really the end of the world. There are still parts of who he was before, and they can still be part of who he is now. If he can’t find it, he honestly might cry.
It's when Terry turns around for the fourth time that he hears a small laugh come from above him. “Hey stranger! You lost?” He jumps at being called out and looks up, where a young woman is smiling openly down at him from her window. His cheeks flush at the sight, and all he can do is nod. She takes that and runs with it, leaning out towards the fire escape. “I know this place like the back of my hand, what are you looking for?”
As he opens his mouth to call back to her, he’s interrupted by a sound from inside her apartment. “Veronica! Stop bothering people and come help with Theresa!” Now ‘Veronica’ is the one to pause, looking sheepish at being called out.
“One second, Mother! And her name is Terry!” She shouts towards the inside before looking back towards Terry. “Sorry, stranger. Guess fate doesn’t want us meeting today. Maybe some other time?”
And he nods again, because his name from her lips is the last thing he expected today, and god, what he wouldn’t give to hear it again. “S-sure! Yeah. You do your thing, I’ll be back around some other time, definitely.” She gives him a nod and a smile before heading back into the building, leaving him alone on the street. Fuck.
"Life is Beautiful" on the New York Times…
‘Some other time’ doesn’t come for another thirteen years, and a lot of things change. Terry can’t pinpoint when things change exactly, but he knows that they definitely do.
At some point, the old DreamsTM are replaced with new ones, covering fears that Stud leaves in his wake. He doesn’t know when he gave the man in his dreams a name, but it felt fitting enough that he let it stick. He almost misses the guy and the bravery that he carried with him into every situation. Terry wishes that he was that brave. The New DreamsTM are a far cry from train rides and found families, and he doesn’t know how to handle them.
His nights are filled with losing his friends, his family, and dying on a hill as a goth girl holds onto a tape measure. What the fuck is that even about? He wakes up in cold sweats, too scared to leave the comfort of his bed to take a shower, and too detached from his support systems to reach out for help. He thinks that Grant said something about starting therapy, that Marco has been so supportive of him and his decisions. Terry thinks that therapy is all fun and games until you have to explain that you played a part in the literal apocalypse and are now in a constant back and forth with an Eldritch horrorterror. Not that that’s what his friends have been focusing on recently. No, Grant is quote-unquote ‘healing’ and trying to get a job in the local library to appear as wholesome as humanly possible. Lark and Sparrow are going on dates? He thinks they’re dates? It’s one girl and the twins, and he didn’t think they’d be the type to be into that, but also they’re so painfully codependent that it doesn’t surprise Terry all that much. And Nicky…Nicky isn’t around much anymore. Terry misses him.
Don’t even get him started on their parents. If they aren’t out on trips and missing for days, they’re buried in D.A.D.D.I.E.S headquarters in hopes of finding some type of loophole to make the world okay again. He doesn’t even see Ron anymore. Jesus Christ.
He’s wallowing and he knows it. Accepts it even. Terry tries to relax a little and go on his weekly walk, one of the few healthy coping mechanisms he’s adopted after his mom said that he seemed a little overworked and needed to take a break. This was his compromise, a thirty minute walk around town to clear his head and just breathe for a while. He’s got his earbuds in, scrolling through Musicfy in hopes of finding something to drown out the voices in his head. After a few skips and a couple ads, because honestly, the world is ending soon, he doesn’t need to pay for Musicfy Premium, he manages to find something of substance.
‘Rufus Wainwright’, huh? He clicks the first song he sees, and tries to remember why this voice sounds so familiar, and not just because the guy did Hallelujah for the Shrek soundtrack. God, what a throwback. And really, what a banger.
Terry’s got one earbud in, not Airpod, again, world ending so no need to waste on that shit, and is looking down at his phone in thought so of course he didn’t notice the woman in front of him until he’s colliding into her. He flinches back, song still playing as he looks down at her.
"Oh my god, I’m so sorry-” And she’s familiar too. He relaxes a little, and smiles.
Oh what a world he lives in.