Chapter Text
Not a lot of kids got to say they got to shoot their parents with rays of unidentifiable origin, but then, Darla “Geek” wasn’t really most kids.
She also didn’t have normal parents.
So when Sam and Max found a random ray gun, they had eagerly taken it back to her, asking if she could take it apart or if THEY could take it apart or, ooh ooh, could she just SHOOT them with it and jot down notes???
Normally, Geek would shoot them down with a lengthy rules list over why one should never just shoot themselves with a random ray gun, then put up with their whining as if they were the kids and she the overbearing Mother who has to put up with them.
...but...maybe she wanted to see what it’d do, too. Or maybe she had been distracted, or who knows, really.
She just knows that when Max makes his begging plea, she rolls her eyes and sighs, and gives in.
It takes no time for them to stand in front of the wall, Sam looking all proud while Max bounces in place as Geek sets the gun up on a tripod. Hey, she’s not actually shooting her dads, that’d be crazy!
She’s having a doohickey do it.
“C’monc’monc’mon LET ME TASTE DEATH!!!”
“Aw, Max, relax, Geek’s gotta take her measurements!” Sam pipes up, giving her a happy wave as she sighs again, settling off to the side and away from any ray gun backsplash that may or may not happen.
“Finding a ray gun in an alley is pretty suspicious! I’m shocked you’re even letting me do this,” she points out as Sam finally grabs Max’s ears, lifting him a bit and speaking as Max’s legs continue to wheel about in the air.
“Oh, we kinda think it’s just a toy. Or it’ll do something really silly! Don’t worry, honey, your old dads would never let you get hurt!”
Geek just sighs as Max starts biting on Sam’s hand, the dog never even flinching. “That’s not my issue with the entire thing but okay. Ready?”
“Yeppers!”
“YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Geek just shakes her head, then clicks a button, and the ray gun on the tripod fires.
It envelops the two in a brilliant violet light, and she has to hide her eyes under her goggles, something she berates herself for not doing in the first place. First rule of the lab is proper equipment! But she had been so caught off guard with the whole thing, she nearly forgot herself!
The light gets brighter, and brighter, and then it pops like a bubble and fades, leaving two forms slumped on the ground.
Geek hesitates, standing up fast and walking over nervously. “...guys? ...Dad? Pops?”
There’s a lump of white fur, easier to spot. Max is...smaller than normal? But not by much. So a shrinking ray?
That’s what she thinks when she sees Sam’s clothes, how shorter and violently skinny he’s become, how normally he was twice or even three times her height and able to heft her up onto his shoulder but now she could brush his jaw with her head, and she doubted he’d be able to lift her with those stick arms.
Okay. Okay. Smaller, but not dead, right? Right??
She hesitates before reaching out, nudging Max first.
The reaction is...not one she was expecting.
Usually, if she has to wake up her pops, one of two things happens. He either wakes up with a whine and flops himself over her head so she carries him to the kitchen, or he yanks her into the bed and loudly says he wonders where his super ultra smart daughter has gone as she cackles and shoves at him until they fall out of bed with all the blankets.
This was something entirely different.
The mass of white fur yanks back hard, ears in the air, his eyes meeting hers and flicking from golden (“When Max gets scared, it comes out a little,” Sam says, holding her hand as they run through a hail of bullets, “don’t worry about it!”) to black and back again. His fur is standing on edge (growling, yipping, staring at the door when a knock comes unexpectantly) and his teeth are bared. “W-Who th’ hell are you?!”
“Uh.” That was weird. “...Pops? Are you...okay?”
“The fuck didja call me?!” he hisses, wiggling away from her with squinted eyes. It makes her skin crawl, seeing someone she thought she knew view her as...as an enemy...
“Um, I-I-“
“Sam!”
Okay, that made her feel better. Of course they’d recognize each other, that was probably the one constant between the two if there ever was one. She watches him scramble to the clothes pile and shake the skinnier Sam as the dog groans, rubbing at his head. “Max, off with it now, I’m tryin’ ta sleep-“
“We’ve been KIDNAPPED! And not in the fun way!”
Geek does NOT roll her eyes at that because of course he’d think there’s a fun kidnapping, and Sam sits up, all three of them watching his jacket flop right off his shoulders and his button up barely holding it together. “Huh. This ain’t my clothes. Although, they sure are spiffy, very crime noir,” he says, bringing up a paw covered in a sleeve to tug at his tie in a move so Sam that it makes her frown even more as Max clambers over his back, falling into his lap.
“No time for your goofy books, Sam! Look!”
And then he points at her, and now she has two shorter versions of her dads staring at her.
She blinks, then raises a hand, giving a small wave. “Uh. Hi. What uh...hm. Do you know who I am?”
“The fuck we do!”
“Max,” Sam chides, hesitantly smiling at her as his ears flop around his head a bit. “S-Sorry, Max ain’t good around new folks. Um. Sorry, are we supposed to? Why aren’t we in school? My perfect attendance record is in jeopardy!” he yelps, standing up as Max, who had been hissing at her this whole time, tumbles from his lap with a whine.
He’s literally a half head taller than her.
That’s it.
She pieces the puzzle together so fast it makes her head hurt and she groans into her hands as Max tries to climb up Sam’s leg, glaring at her as Sam looks around the lab in interest.
The gun didn’t make them smaller.
It made them younger.
Just what she wanted, her parents as teenagers.
Hopefully she can fix this...