Chapter Text
The City of Townsville, 1978. A newly bustling and beautiful urban paradise, with a city hall! A central park! A volcano! And a university! And here at this university, we see our young soon-to-be professor! The bright and shining Ken Utonium, in his humble dorm.
Ken is sitting at his desk, flipping from being deep in thought to sketching something in his journal. His desk is covered in books ranging from college textbooks to a dream diary and a couple of sketchbooks signed ‘K. Utonium’. The desk is cluttered, but it’s fairly well organized, much more so than the piles of dirty laundry and empty root beer bottles strewn across the floor, courtesy of his roommate, Dick Hardly. Ken shifts from his focus on his journal to reading a blurb from his diary when Dick quietly steps up behind him.
He quickly swipes Ken’s journal from the desk.
“Oh, Dick!” Ken said, startled.
"You got our biochemistry homework done yet? Don’t forget, it’s due in less than 48 hours… " Dick gestures towards Ken with the journal’s corner.
“Well, I—“
Dick looks at Ken’s journal, disappointed with what he finds within it. Inside are several drawings of three nearly identical little girls. Familiar girls to us, although a bit off in some ways, but not at all a familiar sight to Dick.
"Hey, this isn’t the assignment! This is just a bunch of pictures! What have you been doing all day?"
“I finished our homework a couple of hours ago! I just decided now was a good time to take a bit of a breather and do some… memory analysis I suppose.”
Ken points to the calendar hanging on the wall with the date May 4th circled.
“I mean today was the day those three girls rescued me from Townsville Volcano Mountain.”
Dick leans up against a large speaker, rarely played due to noise complaints, but is used now as a display for his snazzy lava lamp.
“Do you even know if that actually happened? I mean, pfft, a talking green monkey almost threw you in the volcano? What is this? Townsville or Monster Island?"
Ken swivels his stool around to face Dick.
“Oh, it was certainly real, Dick. Those girls saved my life and haven’t left my mind since!” Ken says excitedly. Ken’s excitement then quickly fades into a more reserved and tender smile as he looks down. “I want to raise my future daughter to be just as smart and compassionate as them.”
Dick looks back at the drawings Ken had made of the girls. He looks at Ken and smirks.
“You’ve got a strange mind Utonium, but,” Dick chuckles, “if you want to parent those three girls so bad, y’know I think I could hook you up with some babes that could getcha the whole collection if you know what I’m sayin’.” Dick’s smarmy smirk says all you would need to know about what he implies.
“Hmm… I don’t know how I feel about that, Dick.” Ken says, a bit nervous but trying to be nice.
“Oh come on, Utonium. You’re so focused on this familial fantasy, but you don’t even take action to make it a reality!”
“I appreciate the help, but I think I’d be content even if I had just one daughter with someone I really like.”
“Alright Utonium, suit yourself. Anyways,” Dick stretches his arms and makes his way to the top bunk. “Betty canceled tonight’s romp, and I’ve got nothing better to do than to just… sleep the night away.”
Dick settles himself into bed.
“You should probably get some shut-eye too, you still got our genetics lab assignment to finish up, and you know I’m allergic to snap peas.”
“You’re right. We should get our rest.”
Ken closes his journal and heads to his bed.
“‘Night, Utonium.”
“Goodnight, Dick.”
Dick turns out the ceiling light and they both fall asleep. A few hours pass by, and Ken suddenly jolts up in his bed, he hits his head on the bunk above him.
“Ow!”
This, of course, wakes up Dick.
“What’s going on, Utonium?” Dick said, groggy, peering down at Ken.
“I had that dream again.”
“Oh, brother.”
Dick rolls his eyes, turns towards the wall, and tries to cover his ears with a pillow. Ken stands up to pace around the room.
“It felt so real. I helped her brush her hair in the morning, made her flapjacks, we went to the park and I pushed her on the swings—“
Dick cuts him off.
“—and then it always ends with how she talks about some monster in the closet and you tell her ‘Oh there’s no one there, Powderpuff! Hop aboard the dreamland express!’”
Dick’s impression of Ken was… a bit exaggerated to say the least.
“Well, I didn’t say it like that.”
Dick scoffs and turns to face Ken.
“Look, Utonium, if you want to be a dad so bad and can’t get some chick to collaborate with you, why don’t you use that big square brain of yours and make them yourself, huh?”
Dick rolls back over in bed. Ken walks over to his desk. He picks up his journal and flips to the doodles of the three little girls that saved his life.
“Maybe, I will.”
