Chapter Text
4:45 PM
On a Friday
Philadelphia, PA
The gang stared blankly at their respective phones, Charlie twirling a beer bottle around lazily. They were bored- that was for sure. None of them had any news, or schemes, and not even CharDee MacDennis seemed appealing when they knew their few regulars would be strolling in soon enough. Mac had briefly suggested they watch some show on their paltry, nearly defective TV glitching in the corner of the bar, but that quickly devolved into clawing hands and lengthy fights about what to watch.
Paddy’s Pub was decently clean today, at least relative to any city dive bar. They, or more accurately Charlie, had all week to make it sparkle for their ‘big’ business days- the weekend. Plus, Frank had bought some newer, fancier cleaning supplies after their Golden Bachelor checks arrived last week, even if their pay was docked for traumatizing viewers. The bar itself, aside from an obscene number of scratches and completely uncleanable beer stains, looked almost nice enough to eat off- a bowl of peanuts proudly displayed smack in the middle to prove it. Even the bathrooms weren’t completely riddled with diseases, although they still didn’t seem all that safe. Dennis had forced Dee to leave her “prank stool” in the back, telling the gang he suspected some fans of the Bachelor might want to stop by, and they had to look as presentable as possible. Charlie had tacked on that those teachers they helped out might come back, but everyone gave him a funny look at that notion. Unfortunately for them, there was one man who could instantly bring all the grime and dirt back into this place with just his mere presence.
Matthew Mara, better known as Rickety Cricket, burst through the door and, for perhaps the very first time, strutted excitedly over to the gang.
“Oh goddammit, Cricket. Today, of all days, you have to show up?” Dee perked up and rolled her eyes. “We literally just got this place all clean for the weekend; you’re going to ruin our reputation here.”
“Shut up bird, why are you angry about Cricket being here? Charlie’s the one that got this place clean, and he’s the one who has to rid this place of the stench he brings in.” Dennis challenged, setting his phone down on the bar as the others followed suit, giggling stupidly at Dennis’ bird comment.
“Y’know, normally I would be mad at, like, the cloud of greenness that Cricket likes to drag around,” Charlie thrashed his hands around in front of him to convey the “cloud” as he spoke. “But, honestly, today I’m more interested in why he’s dragging around some kind of… little human thing?” He raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips to punctuate his sentence. Though the rest of the gang chalked what he said up to be some strange phrase Charlie made up to sound poetic and like he knew what a metaphor was, Mac, gullible to a fault, swung his head wildly to try and see what he was talking about.
“Holy shit. There is a kid here!” He pointed accusingly as he stared, mouth agape, at the figure hiding behind Cricket.
“It’s true!” Words whistling through his broken set of teeth, Cricket exclaimed as he thrust the girl in front of him, clutching at her shoulders like some disheveled mess of a proud dad. The girl, who stood only about as tall as Frank, looked wide-eyed back at the gang expectantly, matching Cricket’s expression. (And why she didn’t immediately gag from having him so close to her made her an enigma already) In lieu of the response she was clearly anticipating, the gang silently observed and judged her.
Dee couldn’t help but pull a face at this kid’s outfit. Her face said 16, maybe 17, but her clothes showed some mishmash of an elderly hobo and a 5-year-old. Her legs were boney, even more so than Dee’s own, wearing baggy, begrimed jeans long enough to clothe her entire feet. They ripped and tattered at random points, clearly worn down over the years rather than bought as a style choice. The outermost layer on her upper body was some frayed excuse for a jacket, brown and obviously far too large for her as it drooped, half zipped, off her shoulder. She could’ve sworn she’d seen it somewhere before, but then again, if this girl could afford it, it must’ve rotted away in every bargain bin in Philadelphia for years. Peeking out from behind her jacket was the most confusing part of the ensemble- a bright green Paddy’s Pub T-shirt overtop of a white long-sleeve. Dee figured she either stole it from Cricket or took one of the many floating around in a disgusting mix of baby oil, engine fuel, and whatever grime already lived in the Schuylkill.
As someone who prides himself in his appearance, Dennis grimaced at the sight before him internally. Weren’t teenage girls supposed to care about the way they look more than anyone else? She displayed her face, rife with muck, unabashedly, and Dennis was disconcerted with his inability to separate what were freckles and what were specs of dry dirt. Her girlish, upturned nose was tainted by the misshapenness of the bridge, clearly broken some time ago. It could’ve been concluded from her nose alone that this girl must avoid medical treatment like the plague, but the various scars and gashes on her face confirmed that. Her lip was split open and scared on the bottom left, matching the cut on the opposite side of her face. A faint scar created a break on one of her two thin, oddly shaped eyebrows. Her hazel eyes were bug-like, wide and scared, despite the rest of her face being pointedly smug. It was hard to discern if the pigment on her lashes was built-up filth or just makeup, though Dennis could tell that, once upon time, it was obviously the latter due to the smudging around her eyes. The heavy bags under those eyes, coupled with the sickly look that must come from living on the streets, made her look borderline cadaverous.
Not even Charlie, who routinely delved further into squalor just for the fun of it, could ignore the bird’s nest on top of her head. The right side of her hair looked like it was produced by a seismograph, random bits chopped off at varying lengths. It gave the impression that she must have frequently disguised herself as a rottweiler and entered into dog fights. Perchance she had a run in with some ghouls once upon a time… or just let Cricket cut her hair. Both are equally possible to Charlie. The hair itself was a dusty shade of warm strawberry blonde, combining with her green-heavy hazel eyes to give her a watered-down version of a true Irish look. She had some rough, sloppy version of curtain bangs framing her face about as well as the shattered glass covering Charlie’s picture of The Waitress on his bedside table. Two chunks of hair created a vague appearance of bangs, floating above her forehead slightly in cowlick-like fashion. The rest of the mess was hard to pull out shapes from, looking akin to some indiscernible jumble of crumpled up and shredded paper someone had stuck on their scalp like paper mâché.
Though her eyes danced between the gang, Mac noticed they stayed decidedly on him most of the time. Was he supposed to know her or something? Was it because he pointed her out to the gang- even if Charlie had spotted her first? Whatever the reason, it had anger bumbling up inside him, much to the chagrin of Mac. He didn’t want to have to hit this punk, she looked like she weighed, like, 6 pounds. She was teeny-tiny, like Thumbelina, Dee would say. Protruding out of the top of her shirt, rawboned collarbones all but jutted out of her skin. Mac swore her ribs were visible through her two shirts, and her legs were thinner than a crow’s, or maybe toothpicks, or something that didn’t sound so mean- comparing someone to a bird was reserved for Dee. Even through the giant hoodie she had chosen, it was obvious how gaunt her arms were; she seriously needed to pack on mass. Did Cricket steal all her food or what? Maybe she was here to beg them for a measly bowl of peanuts, lord knows the homeless freak who brought her here had come in and pled for the same many times.
“You guys have been staring at me for like, 10 minutes,” The girl snapped. “Surely you remember who I am by now?” She quirked an eyebrow and glowered accusatorily at them. The gang glanced awkwardly amongst themselves, waiting for someone to either fess up to knowing her or bite the bullet and admit none of them did.
“No, we don’t know you, kid, and I’m not gonna pretend we do.” Dennis finally confessed, straightening his lips into a line before shrugging uncomfortably and taking a drink from his glass. The girl turned her attention from the seats of the bar- currently housing Mac, Dee, and Charlie- to face Dennis standing across from them.
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly expect you to remember me, not if the stories are true.” She gave a criticizing side eye and eyebrow raise to Cricket at the end of her sentence, implicating him as the teller of said stories. He suddenly looked between her and the gang with eyes wide in surprise.
“Right, no, Dennis, I don’t think you ever met her, but, um, Mac… Dee… You guys don’t…?” He trailed off and stumbled around with his hands gracelessly, finally settling on shifting to put them in his decaying pockets, his shoulders stiffly jumping up to convey his sympathy for the poor girl no one remembered. Well, no one bar him, but the gang was still on the fence if they considered him a person at this point.
“What? Why us? This chick isn’t, like, that surrogate baby I had way back when, is she?” Dee asked frightfully. If this baby- or teenager, rather, but same difference to Dee- was connected to her, she knew the gang would force her to take care of her or whatever. She did not feel like trying to house this obviously dirty, Cricket-minded child in her already cramped apartment. But she couldn’t think of any baby-related schemes that didn’t involve her in some way… then again, she couldn’t remember any involving her and Mac, was this some PCP-fueled dream Cricket had?
“I didn’t like… make you… either did I? Because I hate to be that guy, but I am not going to get together with whoever your mother is…” Mac inelegantly fumbled his words, clearly struck with the same fear as Dee. Could this kid be his? He wasn’t exactly careful about that kind of thing in his youth, and this kid was totally old enough to be conceived when he still thought he was straight. And, dear God, that would be such a horrible conversation… like reliving that whole thing with Mandy and Dennis, and that kid of his- Brain? Braid? Something like that. Mac didn’t really like to think about it. He didn’t have the best memory of their old schemes, and certainly not any he had done with Dee. Those were probably buried deeper than anything to do with Barn. Brayden, maybe. That sounded more like a name. He should stop focusing on this.
“Make her?” Questioned Charlie, snickering at the obvious insinuation of his words. The girl, however, grimaced, her obvious irritation growing by the second, anger seeming to escape from her eyes like Superman’s lasers.
“Seriously?” The girl had a mean glare going on by this point. She shoved away from Cricket unceremoniously and gestured to herself with wild hands. “You tried to give me an acting career by painting my skin,” She grabbed at the skin on her face like a particularly violent mother might. “You named me, for crying out loud! You called me- what did you call me? DB?” She threw out that last part like an overthought, but it sparked recognition in the gang.
“DB! It is you! You’re that baby we found, you’re… “The gang gushed with the same excitement Cricket and the girl- no, DB- had when they stormed in. With a roll of her eyes, the girl spoke confidently.
”That’s right, bitches. I’m-
THE DUMPSTER BABY