Chapter Text
Dr. Xeno Houston Wingfield knew that it was only a matter of time. Even if the world was NOT petrified for 3,700, this would happen. It was as inevitable as the sun exploding in 5 billion years. He and Stanley were simultaneously beginning their midlife crises.
It began when Kohaku and Tsukasa's 5-year-old son, Balt (named after Baltic amber), asked Stanley while he was teaching him the art of marksmanship. Balt had inherited his mother's sharp blue eyes and lack of tact; he wasn't as book-smart as his father, nor did he look much like him aside from his hair color. They figured that Balt would make a fantastic warrior, but no boy wants to learn everything directly from their parents, so they picked Stanley to be the child's mentor. "So what WAS like BEFORE the Stone Age, anyway, old man?"
Stanley froze, holding his fire as the words entered through his ear canal and into his auditory processing portion of his brain, frying it. Balt continued, not exactly reading the room much like his mother would, "I've heard the 100 Tales from Auntie Ruri, but you were actually THERE, right? You're even older than my parents, so you've gotta know the most 'bout the old world!"
Stanley stood up and looked the blue-eyed child in the eyes, silently trying to not let it slip out that he was bothered.
"Balt, I'm only 39." Stanley fought the urge to grip the hand of his rifle. No, you're not shooting another child after what you did to Senku.
"Still sounds old to me!" Balt muttered to himself.
"Wait until someone says that to you, brat." Stanley replied shortly. "Anyway, for THAT transgression, I'm making you do 100 push ups and then practice 10 rounds in the range. I gotta go for a quick smoke."
Xeno's gloved hands rubbed some gel on Gen's ever-growing stomach. Gen and Senku were FINALLY having their first child; it had taken them long enough. Most of their friends had already had children; Ruri and Chrome had two, as did Taiju and Yuzuriha. The latter were expecting a third. Xeno pondered if the two couples were having a competition to see who could repopulate the Earth by popping out kids faster.
Though Gen and Senku weren't as sexually-active as the other two. Senku's first love was science, and Gen knew that he'd always be second place in his heart to test-tubes. Though the mentalist had resigned himself to that fate. Though Senku promised he'd be a good father; maybe not as amazing as Byakuya, but he'd try to be there for his child. After all, that was a high bar that no other man could reach.
"You know, Senku told me that you're kind of like a second dad to him, or the closest he can get to now that Byakuya is, well...dead." Gen smiled as looked over at Xeno placing a reader to see what parts the child had grown. As a trans man, Gen more than anyone knew that didn't matter, and he along with Senku had promised NOT to shove the gender binary on their child. Including giving them a gender-neutral name. This was more a formality to check if there were any issues, like a possible breech birth or something of the like.
"They're healthy. A little bit on the smaller side, but nothing to be concerned about. You most likely won't need a C-section. I don't think we'll be getting a warrior here, but given that you two aren't the most physically-adept, that was a given." Xeno answered. "You said that you didn't want to know the sex of the child?"
"That would be preferable, yes. While Senku and I don't care, I'm sure that Yuzuriha would want to make all sorts of gendered clothing. They'd be adorable, I'm sure, but I don't want to force gender on my child. More importantly should they call you 'Grandpa Xeno'?" Gen teased with his devious smirk. "Or should they call Stanley 'grandpa' and you 'grandfather'?"
Xeno froze and gripped the reader in his hand tightly to avoid the gaze of the mentalist. "Just Dr. Xeno would suffice."
"Did I touch a nerve?" Gen continued to tease. Dr. Xeno just stood there; the mentalist was too talented at reading people for his own good.
"I will wrap this up, give you a general health report, and you can change back into your maternity clothing. Go help Senku clean beakers or eat ramen."
"I HAVE been having cravings for ramen," Gen glanced down at his bump, "Are you going to be a ramen addict like your daddy, little one?"
"Get out of my office before you give me diabetes from the cuteness." Dr. Xeno muttered. "I've should've revived a proper gynecologist,"
Once Gen was out of earshot and sight, Dr. Xeno fell to his knees as Gen's words echoed in his head. At 42, he was going to be a grandfather. Sure, not a biological one, but a grandfather nonetheless. He held his face in his hands and groaned. Just then, Stanley walked into the lab with a similar expression on his face.
"What happened to YOU?" The two of them asked each other, shocked at the sight of the other one's despair.
"Balt called me an old man," Stanley answered.
"Gen said that I'd be their child's grandfather." Dr. Xeno explained as he then sat back down on his chair. "You know, I was contemplating writing an autobiography, but I thought I was still too young. All historical records have been destroyed in the intervening 3,700 years. Perhaps we should give a clear account of what life was like before Senku's time? In the early-to-mid 00s? Folks older than us and any actual historians we wake up will write down their own accounts of mid-to-late 20th and early 21st century."
"Hm, not a bad idea!" Stanley smiled. "I like it. We can recreate Evanescence and My Immortal."
"We can add them to the new computer Sai invented so the future may know the legend that is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way!" Dr. Xeno was getting excited.
"True. She wasn't in the 100 Tales. Shame. That Byakuya guy missed a golden opportunity." Stanley agreed. "So where should we start?"
"How about when we met? The infamous Chuck E Cheese incident?" Dr. Xeno suggested.
"Oh my God, I almost forgot about that! Yeah, that'll be a great place to start." Stanley agreed.
Hillcrest, Texas, September 1st, 1998 - Chuck E Cheese
Hillcrest, Texas, was a tiny Texas town with a population just over 1500, so when a Chuck E Cheese opened up right in the plaza of our only strip mall, everyone was shocked. Why would the famed entertainment chain come to a town as distant from real civilization as Hillcrest? You see, Chuck E Cheese was an arcade--a place to have fun and play video games with fake coins they gave you for real money--that also served pizza and shows with terrifying robots in costume.
You may ask why we didn't just order pizza and play video games at home? Well, we did have home video game consoles back then, and pizza, but it was about the experience. They also had a playground with a ball pit that could give you any disease that you wish to get. Especially in a place with a low vaccination rate like Hillcrest.
It may not shock you that I, the eccentric Xeno Houston Wingfield, was the last in my class to be invited to such a social event. Most other children had been to their first Chuck E Cheese party at 3, but I was going to turn 5 soon, and had yet to be invited to one.
Though you see, our secretly lesbian mothers were "best friends" through their book club. My mother, Sophia, the town librarian and the smartest person in Hillcrest aside from myself, ran it. Though my mother was concerned about my ability to socialize with children my age, so she had her secret lover Sandra Snyder's child, Stanley, invite me to his birthday party.
I walked into Chuck e Cheese for the first time and realized how much I wanted to take all of the arcade machines apart and play with their innards.
"Hey, why'd you invite the class freak?" One of his classmates asked Stanley.
"Ma said she wouldn't buy me a new NERF gun if I didn't." Stanley shrugged. "I've actually never talked to 'em yet. It has only been a couple 'o days since we started school."
"I don't think anyone's talked to 'em." Another classmate mentioned, "He's kinda scary. He always has this look on his face that tells everyone to stay away."
"Maybe if he smiled more?" Yet another classmate chimed in. It was then that I walked up to them and tried to put on my best civilian smile, "Hello, fellow children, my name is Xeno H. Wingfield." There was dead silence as all of them looked at my face.
"...You know what? I kinda like it MORE when you DON'T smile." One of the classmates was close to peeing himself at the sight of my fake smile. Stanley rolled his eyes, "Whatever, everyone's a fake, really. So you're good with machines, ain't ya, Xeno?"
"Indeed," I nodded.
"I dare you to mess with the mascots up there." Stanley teased.
"Well, who am I to deny a request from the birthday boy?" I gleefully went up and snuck behind the curtains. The employees were all smoking marijuana outside and eating leftover pizza, so I didn't really have to hide myself that much. I took a few utensils and began to toy with the man-sized mascots' programming. I was having a blast just completely tearing them apart and then reassembling them. As the highly drugged employees wandered back looking like they had just woken up from a coma, I bounced back to the group.
"Whoa, you REALLY did it?" Stanley was genuinely impressed. "I was kidding, I had no idea you could actually DO that!"
"Maybe this freaky kid isn't so bad?" One of his classmates chuckled, "He's got some balls."
"Hey kids, welcome to Chuck e Cheese." The tired voice of the high employee, whom I later learned was named Jeff, in a rat costume welcomed. "Who's birthday is it?"
"It's mine!" Stanley pointed at himself.
"Happy birthday, eat lots of pizza 'n, uh...yeah, let's party!" Jeff nodded and then spotted the cake that had a candle shaped like a 5 and Stanley's name written in icing. "Oh, is that a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, I see? Rock on, lil' man, those are all 'at in a bag 'o chips."
"Is...that marijuana I smell from that giant rodent?" Sophia whispered to Sandra. "Don't they drug-test here?"
"I mean, I'd try some if I worked here." Sandra shrugged. "I have enough stress dealing with four kids on a regular basis."
"Well, let's hear from the old gang, come out 'ere 'n give 'em a show," The mouse-dressed employee unveiled the band of machines: Mr. Munch, a purple fuzzball, Dolli Dimples, a hippo porn star, and Pasqually the Pizza Chef. As Jeff pushed the button to turn them on, they all began to crowd the weed addicted service worker like a bunch of thugs. "What the hell...?"
Mr. Munch and Pasqually held the mouse-dressed man in the air like they were holding up a sacrifice to the pizza gods. "What's goin' on, dude? Chill out, what's going on? Let me down! This isn't cool! Where's the boss?!"
"What the hell...these things barely work, how'd they get so strong?!" The manager came into the room. Suffice to say, the children were all having a blast at Jeff's expense, including myself. Then finally, Stanley got his new NERF gun out and shot each mechanical character until they stopped working. Jeff was mercilessly tossed off the stage by the now-paralyzed machines.
"Alright, who was responsible for this? Was it you, Mrs. Wingfield?" The manager looked over at my mother. She was the source of a lot of ire from the most conservative members of our community, including the manager of the local Chuck E Cheese. Because nothing says a literal, strict interpretation of Biblical laws and scripture than owning a children's gambling den dedicated to a talking pizza-mouse.
"I didn't do anything, my son was the only one who went backstage." My mother defended herself.
"Your son Xeno, right? The weird one that never comes to church?" The manager pushed. It's true, I never went to church, and never will. I was able to read the room enough that I decided to hide in the ball-pit with Stanley, the birthday boy, as paramedics were called in to retrieve Jeff.
"That was SO COOL." Stanley whispered to me as we laid beneath the surface of the ball-pit.
"I would say that your marksmanship is quite elegant, as well." I smiled genuinely this time.
Stanley smiled back at me. "Elegant means 'cool', right?"
"Yes, it does." I replied.
"We should hang out more." Stanley held out his hand out to reach mine.
"I agree." I nodded in confirmation.
It was rather unfortunate that our next time hanging out together was in the school nurses' office where it was discovered that we had contracted streptococcal pharyngitis, better known as strep throat, from that ball-pit. Stanley rubbed his sweating forehead. "God, it hurts to swallow, but it was so worth it."
"I hope my neutrophils hurry up and deal with this ailment already," I groaned.
Sai looked over at Dr. Xeno as he typed his story into a newly-established database for people to write their experiences about the pre-petrification world for future generations to read about. He was organizing it by decades, starting from the 1920s-2020s. "Why did you just fully admit to committing a crime when you were both 5?"
"While, crime is just like drinking water for us." Xeno shrugged. "Birds fly, fish swim, Stan & I strike terror into people's souls."
"Besides, what're you gonna do 'bout, 8-bit boy?" Stanley glared down, instilling him with fear. "What ARE you going to do?"
"N-No, it's fine. I-I can't wait to hear more!" Sai nodded.