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Daphne picked at a miniscule flaw in her makeup. Tonight had to be perfect. If her parents were going to let her continue her career, let her continue to be with the gang, she had to convince them that ghost hunting could be respectable, profitable, and safe for a danger-prone Blake.
She might as well have tried to prove that Fred’s thrifted suit was better than a Kiton.
Even though Daphne knew her parents loved she and her sisters, they wanted to be sure each was well-off --- and Daphne could hardly blame them. If she were in their shoes, with their pedigree, she would hardly want her daughter dating a stoner, a hacker, and a college athlete/dropout.
Daphne ran a lint-roller over her dress one last time, trying to eliminate any trace of dog hair. She sighed, shouting down the stairs, “Everyone ready for the gala?” She froze in her tracks, “Jeepers! How?” then tripped down the stairs, landing in a heap with the rest of the gang.
Shaggy choked, laughing hoarsely, “Hoo hoo hoo, we uh, oh boy, we messed up...”
Fred untangled his limbs from the steel net, revealing a crumpled suit, a broken trap prototype, and an excited bounce in his step. He offered Daphne a hand, “The Titan Trapper 4.0. Isn’t it great!?” At Daphne’s frown (wow, could she make a man feel two feet tall) he amended his expression with a nervous smile, “Well, it -uh- will be, that is. Once my caltrops come in the mail…” her frown didn’t waver. “Er- I mean-” but Daphne only began tapping her foot.
Fred tucked a stray lock of Daphne’s red curls behind her ear, “I just thought if things don’t turn out well tonight, it might be nice to have a trap on hand.” Daphne leaned into his hand, a smile playing at her lips, “Freddie, you can’t trap people. We’ve talked about this-”
Velma finally managed to untie the net around her ankle, “Technically, we only told him to stop trapping us.”
Fred gave Daphne a thumbs up, “And I didn’t! Mostly…”
Velma shrugged, “He didn’t mean to, at least. I agreed to be his test dummy if he’d takeover my turn to do dishes, Shaggy was on his 3DS playing Cooking Mama while pacing again, and you tripped over Scooby.”
“Rouch.”
Daphne simpered and patted their Great Dane on the head in apology. “It’s awrhight, Raphne!” Scooby wagged his tail.
Daphne turned away from the gang, embarrassed. Even though she was working towards her black belt in Karate, her clumsiness still reared its ugly head at inconvenient times. Daphne looked down at her purple pumps. “These aren’t even high heels…” she muttered.
Velma eyed a bruise line on her own arm, “Jinkies, Freddie. You’re going to want to put less power behind that net-launcher. We don’t want to maim a crook before we can unmask them.”
Fred helped Velma to her feet while Daphne aided a whimpering Shaggy in fishing out his cracked 3DS. She handed another plastic shard to him, and harrumphed, “This is exactly the kind of thing we can’t do, Gang! Are any of you even dressed for the gala?”
Shaggy stuck out a leather-clad leg, fluttering his false eyelashes, “Like, aren’t I spiffy?”
Fred straightened his navy blue suit, adjusting his egregiously orange ascot, “Ready to go!”
Velma cleaned her glasses using her typical orange sweater, “Done.”
Daphne folded her hands in front of her, inhaling slowly. “Fred, I left a burnt orange tie on the counter. Velma, you need to wear a dress and makeup. Please? Just a little? And Shaggy? Sweetheart? Light of my life? Why are you dressed for the gala like a leather queen?”
Shaggy stomped off dejectedly, “It was laundry day…” Scooby Doo bounded after his buddy.
Velma kissed Shaggy on the forehead as he went and slinked back to her own room while Daphne grabbed the tie she’d picked out for Fred.
When she strung it around his neck, Fred pursed his lips, his eyebrows furrowing.
Daphne sighed, “Spit it out, Freddie.”
Fred hesitated before admitting: “Shaggy was lying about it being laundry day. He spent forever and a day on that outfit. And, Daph, you know that that’s Velma’s nicest sweater.”
Daphne hesitated tying the knot, closing her eyes tightly. She was going to give Shaggy extra compliments and kisses for a month, “I’m so sorry, I just- I don’t want any of you to get hurt at the gala.”
Fred rubbed the back of his neck, “Well, I’m no Velma, but I don’t think your parents would ever hurt-”
“I love my parents- and they’re sweethearts! But they want the best for me, and to them, that means having money and a boyfriend.”
“You have two boyfriends, but go on.”
“What I’m saying is: My parents won’t hurt you, but I want them to like you. And that will take time, and an exorbitant amount of patience, but that’s not even the main issue! The Blakes are business people, so my parents rub elbows with influential figures. Old money, Fred. Old money that will eat you all alive without a second thought.”
She clutched his arms tighter, “For years, they’ve been picking on me at parties for not having a rich boyfriend like my stupidly amazing sisters and I don’t- I-I’m sorry for putting you all through this, but the guests -the investors at this party- are important for getting Mystery Inc. off the ground. We could become a business that can actually sustain itself! I didn’t want to give you all too many details because it would only put more pressure on you, but this isn’t just a birthday gala for me.”
Fred squeezed her hand, “We’re a team, and we can help.”
Daphne shook her head, “Not in the world of socialites.”
She took a deep breath, “I’ve always been the accountant and face of Mystery Incorporated, but now I need to network like a real business woman. I need to prove to investors that I can be a Blake.”
Fred took the tie and turned her clumsy Windsor knot into a neat Eldridge: a side effects of spending so much time learning knots for traps. He brushed a hand lightly against Daphne’s cheek and kissed her gently. Daphne’s heart stopped jumping so erratically and her cold fingers warmed.
He whispered into her hair, “But you are a Blake. You have nothing to prove to anyone, and mystery incorporated will survive no matter what happens. We’ve got each other.”
Daphne smiled softly, but didn’t meet his eyes, “You always know what to say, Freddie.”
Shaggy appeared in the grey, bespoke suit they’d bought last Sunday. Scooby presented him like a court herald, “Now resenting: Raggy Norville!”
Daphne tilted her head with a wry smile, “You look gorgeous as ever, Shaggy, but I will miss your black stilettos.”
Shaggy stuck up his nose, putting on the worst posh accent Daphne had ever heard. “Tut-tut, like, my name is Mr. Norville Rodgers to you, Ms. Blake.”
Daphne and Scooby giggled until Velma’s door snapped open. She stomped out in a slender blue dress that accentuated her auburn hair and full figure. On any other man and woman, the form-fitting clothes would’ve sent Daphne’s heart pattering, but she knew that, despite Shaggy’s jokes, her partners weren’t comfortable in their new outfits. It shone in the way they carried themselves -stiff and warry.
Daphne struggled with a pang of guilt, but swallowed it in favor of taking a tube of lip-liner out of her purse. This was all for them. She deftly outlined Velma’s lips and checked over her eyeliner and concealer. Daphne reached for Velma’s thick, black glasses, “What about those contacts we-”
Velma grabbed Daphne’s wrist before it got close. “The glasses stay.”
Daphne froze. Scooby stepped in front of Velma, “Rah! Duh glasses ray!”
Shaggy tossed a placating glance at Velma, and shoved Scooby behind him. “Like, this gala is for Daphne, you two.”
Velma crossed her arms, “I’m not going to start a fight. …but if this gala were for Daphne, she would be allowed to bring us -all of us- as her partners. We wouldn’t have to ‘straighten’ ourselves out like this.”
Daphne winced, “I would never ask you to make yourselves straight.”
Scooby hid behind Shaggy’s leg.
Velma opened her mouth to retort, but Fred and Shaggy, remembering the last time they allowed Velma’s sarcasm to go nuclear, decided to draw the line.
“O-kayyy… time to go, gang. Daphne, don’t you want to teach me how to pick the limo’s locks with a bobby-pin?” Fred all but snatched Daphne’s elbow and steered her towards the door, but it didn’t stop Daphne from glancing somberly back at Velma.
Velma sobered when she saw the pain written on her girlfriend’s face. She slowly took Shaggy’s arm, all the fight leaving her. As much as Velma scorned injustice, she respected strategy more, and pushing Daphne any more tonight would only poke holes in the plan for their ghost-hunting business.
Daphne turned towards the limo. Velma hadn’t been wrong when she said this dance wasn’t for Daphne. Going to this gala was difficult. It was sickening to have to ask her partners to do this: to show up as two straight couples instead of one queer polycule.
Daphne wanted to get high with Shaggy before a big dance, she wanted to grab Fred by his ridiculous ascot and kiss him, and she wanted most of all to twirl her spitfire, butch, hacker girlfriend around the dancefloor without a care in the world.
But appearances mattered.
Shaggy tilted a thumb back towards the house, where Scooby watched them sorrowfully from the window. “So, like, is Scoob coming later? Cause, like, I know we didn’t get an outfit for him, but-”
Fred slung an arm around his boyfriend’s shoulder, “Scooby’s a talking dog, Hun.”
Shaggy scratched his head, confused, “Yeah, but, like, we could just take off his loq-collar and, like, he could act like a non-talking dog so we could eat all those -hoo hoo- delicious, delicious rich-people snackeroos together.” He rubbed his hands gleefully.
Velma opened the door for her dates, “It’s a no pets allowed party, Shaggy”
Daphne kissed Shaggy on she cheek as she passed, “Sorry, Love. Maybe next time Scooby can come.”
Shaggy stood there for a minute before getting into the limo, staring out into the night, thinking deeply. “Wait. Rich-people parties have snacks, right?” He knocked on Daphne’s window, “…Right???”