Chapter Text
Cleveland, OH
As he looked out the window of his living room, Mobius watched the chaos on the other side of the glass. In front of his home, a dozen people from the television crew darted about in a frenzy. A director Mobius had only talked to twice before today was waving her phone at an assistant holding a stack of papers. The camera operator ran back and forth across the lawn to make sure everything was in place, tripping over a scooter one of the boys had left out in the process. But there hadn’t been time to clean up, and the cast was scheduled to arrive any minute now…
Mobius couldn’t believe he had let himself be talked into this.
The Fab 5 were all packed into the truck, energy radiating from each of them as they sped down the freeway, ready to embark on their latest mission.
“Okay, who wants to hear about who we’re helping this week?” Karamo began. The rest of the group cheered in response, all geared up to change another life. That was the show, after all.
“Don is a 49-year old single father of two sons, Kevin and Sean. He has been the boy’s primary caregiver since his divorce from their mother five years ago.”
“Mmm okay, we love a DILF,” Jonathan purred.
“He was nominated by his friend Dale, his coworker at Piranha Powersports,” Karamo continued reading off of his iPad. “Don is a… jet ski enthusiast…?”
“A what?” Tan asked, looking genuinely confused.
“Jet skis?” Antoni said, “Like…” he mimed revving an engine, “Jet skis?”
“Yep. Jet ski enthusiast,” Karamo shrugged, “Don recently went through a bit of a life crisis after suffering from a previously undiagnosed brain condition. After this near-death experience, Don’s family and friends say he almost seems like a different person. The doctors have confirmed he is physically fine but everyone in Don’s life can see he’s changed.”
“Damn…” Bobby said from behind the wheel as the mood in the car shifted.
“He still loves jet skis and his sons more than anything but sometimes he seems to forget to respond to his own name. He has trouble remembering things about his kid’s school and numerous other details in his everyday life. But most of all, his friends and family say that Don just seems very sad. No one really knows the reason why, but there are times where Don will stop what he’s doing and just look up towards the sky, withdrawing from the world around him.”
“Poor guy,” Jonathan said.
“Our mission this week is to help this father become a ~Daddy~ again and remember who he really is!” Karamo finished as the group cheered.
It was time to meet Don.
The Fab 5’s truck pulled up in front of the classic suburban two-story house. It was the most normal house on the most normal block, nothing remarkably wonderful besides the fact that it was, indeed, a house. As the group got out of the car and made their way to the front door, they were greeted with a minefield of toys. Discarded bikes, skateboards, rusted roller blades, water guns, baseball bats, deflated soccer balls, the mess was impossible to miss.
As they maneuvered through the maze, Bobby looked around and said, “Two young boys? Yeah, seems about right.”
The group laughed good-naturedly as Tan knocked on the front door.
Immediately the door swung open to reveal a middle-aged man with messy light gray hair and a matching scruffy beard. His face broke into a friendly smile, but before he could open his mouth, two blonde kids sprang from behind him, screaming in glee at the appearance of the Fab 5. They began running around the yard like a pair of golden retrievers greeting their new best friends.
“Hi!!!” Antoni exclaimed at them, ready to meet their enthusiasm with his own.
“Hi!” The rest of the gang said as they directed their attention to the man in the doorway.
“Hi,” he said, reaching out to shake someone, anyone’s hand. “I’m Don.”
Karamo ignored the hand and went in for a hug. Don didn’t seem to know how to handle this and stood planted to his spot til Karamo released him. The second he was free, Don quickly ushered them into the house as Antoni and Jonathan started up a game of tag with the boys outside.
The group continued into the living room and surveyed the state of the home. It was, as expected, in the same state as the front lawn. There was evidence of the two boys everywhere, clothes and toys strewn about, half finished homework spread over the coffee table, and a pile of extremely muddy shoes next to the couch.
Bobby took a look at the family photos around the room. “Wow, who’s this guy!?” He said, holding up a photo of Don and the boys on what appeared to be a fishing trip. This Don’s hair was definitely much shorter beneath his bucket hat and he sported a mustache complimented by a well-maintained 5 o’clock shadow. But most notably, he wore a wide smile reaching nearly all the way to his eyes.
The Don before them still had the creases of a face that had known a lot of joy, but none of it was evident in his expression now. He looked at them with a small sigh and said, “Yeah, that was before I had the uh… brain… thing…” he said vaguely. It was unclear to them if he couldn’t remember what his malady was or if he just didn’t want to say in front of the cameras.
The boys chose this moment to barrel inside, with Jonathan and Antoni at their heels.
“Shoes off, please!” Don called.
The boys rolled their eyes and kicked off their sneakers. Jonathan and Antoni pouted, comically, and went to take their shoes off too.
“And show everyone my lovely feet!?” Jonathan joked, winking at the camera. Kevin and Sean cackled at this as they ran across the room to join their dad.
“Do they run everywhere?” Tan asked.
“Everywhere.” Don said, patting the boys’ heads. They immediately ducked out of his reach and dashed up the stairs.
The tour continued into the kitchen, an equal disaster. Nearly every open space on the counters and fridge were filled with take-out containers. Dishes piled high in the sink and there were several used paper plates stacked on top of the trash bin. The cereal boxes from breakfast had been left out, they now sat next to the half-empty coffee pot that had somehow made its way to the kitchen table.
“Not big into cooking, I take it?” Antoni asked as he looked around.
Don shrugged, “I’m not great with time management.”
“It doesn’t take that long to whip up some scrambled eggs!” Antoni said.
Don looked at the stove, which was currently just being used as extra counter space for last night’s pizza box, “To be honest… I don’t really remember how. The boys tell me I used to make a mean banana cream pie. But that was before.”
When they finally made their way up to Don’s bedroom, the Fab 5 were shocked to find it looked… pristine. There was hardly any evidence of the boys in here, in fact there was hardly any evidence of Don in here. The bed sheets didn’t have a single wrinkle and the corners were neatly tucked in like a hotel room ready for its next guest.
“Um okay, this does not look like a room you spend a lot of time in.” Bobby said.
“No, I do!” Don insisted, “I slept in it just the other night.”
“Um, where did you sleep last night?”
“Oh yeah, I mean last night,” he replied, “I definitely sleep every night.”
Bobby didn’t not look convinced but didn’t press for details.
“Anyway… so your closet…” Tan said, moving over to the other side of the room. He opened the sliding door expecting to find an array of cargo pants matching the ones Don was wearing today. He definitely didn’t expect to find…
“ Clocks? ” Bobby said, looking over Tan’s shoulder. Almost a dozen clocks littered the closet floor, none of them ticking. A small pile of batteries sat off to the side.
“Oh yeah don’t mind that, it’s just a little project in my spare time,” Don explained, but was interrupted when his kids caught up with the group, equally curious about their dad’s room.
“Aha! So that’s where all the clocks went!” Sean exclaimed upon seeing the closet.
Kevin turned to Bobby and Tan, “Dad has hated clocks ever since he got his new brain. Says he doesn’t trust ‘em.”
Don shook his head, “I didn’t get a new brain, buddy.”
“If you say so…” Kevin said. Don looked dismayed but didn't say anything else.
The final stop of the tour was the garage.
“These must be the infamous jet skis!” Antoni said, as the large doors opened before them.
Don smiled and patted the nearest Sea-Doo, “You betcha! Aren’t they beautiful?” He said, a fond smile on his face as he looked upon his watercrafts, “Though unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to take them out since everything happened.”
“Why two?” Karamo asked, “The boys aren’t old enough to ride alone yet, right?”
“I don’t really know why. Can’t quite remember, like a lot of things.”
“Why not just sell one then?”
Don thought for a second and then said, “No, I like to hang on to both. Just in case I ever have someone to ride with.” His gaze drifted outside towards the big oak tree in the backyard, eyebrows furrowed as he grew quiet.
Karamo patted his back, “Well, let’s see if we can take some steps towards helping you find that lucky person this week!”
Don’s laugh had no joy behind it, “I don’t think you’ll find him, to be honest.”
“‘Him’?” Tan said with a smile.
Jonathan wrapped Don in a hug and said, “Well you’ve got to at least let us try, honey!”
When Jonathan released him from their hug, Don had frozen in place. His gaze was suddenly fixed on the backyard with a renewed intensity. He looked stricken, eyes severe and unblinking. The color left his face as he moved from the group with more swiftness than they would’ve thought a middle-aged salesman capable of.
“Don…?” Tan called. They followed to where Don had stopped in the middle of the grass, the leaves of the oak tree blowing gently above their heads.
“I thought I saw…” Don said barely audibly, as he looked around the yard again.
The gang looked around too, quite confused now and more than a little concerned about Don’s mental state.
“Must’ve just been a shadow,” he said with an exhale as he shook it off, looking back towards the group.
“Don,” Karamo said, taking him by the shoulders in an attempt to keep them all focused on the task at hand “are you ready to rediscover your own life this week?”
Don looked around one last time and then shrugged, “Well, why the heck not.”