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bashingpumpkins · 1 day ago

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i wrote this scene yesterday/today, it's the start of a light plotless fic but i might scrap it okokok s5 made me want to finish this thing. i craved a little loving, platonic friendship. so here’s a fic that’s mostly that. with a chaser of weird sex stuff.

14k rated E

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If you want to get technical, Perry doesn’t stay totally dry on these evenings out with Heinz. He drinks a little.

That’s only because Heinz likes these late night outings with Perry to be fun, and frivolous, wants to share in the camaraderie of unwise alcohol consumption that he really should’ve hung up in his 20s and will regret the next morning. Because decades of hard-earned wisdom are no match for the joy that spills out of him at the opportunity to spend a night of revelry with Perry. He only gets so many of these. Perry only has so many he can afford to give, with the way his life is built.

But if Perry snubs the drink menu then Heinz will, too, or he’ll tone it down with a light wine spritzer that’ll burn off in an hour.

Whereas if Perry orders himself a scotch Heinz feels he has permission to order the gaudiest, most ornamental cocktail they have here, and critically relay his consumption of it to Perry. How they salted the rim like they’re planning to hold a Ford Fiesta rally around it in January and he’s not sure why the club’s custom-printed (who does that?) drink umbrella needs to be impaling 3 cherries and some pineapple and an orange slice, what kind of undersea fruit violence is this anyway.

And while Heinz is demolishing his drink on physical and emotional levels he doesn’t notice that Perry’s not downing too much of his own. At best you could say he’s nursing it, with a criminally neglectful bedside manner, like the kind Heinz’s mother deserves but will probably evade by way of her sweet baby boy. In part so Perry can keep a clear head. And in part because he gets a little transfixed by Heinz’s performance. It’s more absorbing than the alcohol, way better entertainment.

And Heinz talks louder, and he laughs more. He becomes, objectively speaking, a more obnoxious presence at the bar.

But Perry doesn’t care to speak objectively, or at all. Because Heinz is his date. In like a funny ha-ha way, since they’re a thing that’s weird to label or summarize, nemeses turned coworkers turned nemeses again, best guy friends unwinding at Friday night happy hour after a long day of kicking each other’s bodies into sheet metal until something blows up.

But also because this bar has a “ladies drink free” thing, and Heinz maybe thought it would be fun to try his luck at it tonight, just see if he could swing it. Yolo, as the kids definitely still say, Perry the Platypus. And maybe he’s got on a sort of Marilyn wig and a diaphanous shawl and a dress, and is kind of rocking it. And maybe when Heinz placed his drink order Perry caught the bartender’s eyeline, and held it until he saw a muscle twitch in the guy’s forehead, in order to ensure that all the bar’s stated policies would be honored.

When Heinz got his free drink he took it as a win, and privately, Perry likes it when Heinz gets to win. Something his boss doesn’t need to know.

“I’ve cracked the system, Perry the Platypus,” he whispered to him, throat suffused with giggles, a hand up to hide his mouth from the bartender.

Heinz was so guileless in (what he saw as) this act of conniving deception, so kid playing house about it, so hopelessly out of touch, reveling in this small victory — that it was deeply charming, in the way Heinz only ever achieves by accident.

And all of this and the way Heinz looked sparklingly down at him made Perry want to, uh, grab back the bartender’s attention and order them some hot eats.

Perry doubts this free drink acquisition plan qualifies as a dastardly plot. But it was something he felt he ought to keep an eye on. So he’s here, keeping an eye on Heinz at the bar, splitting a plate of surprisingly good mozzarella sticks with him.

“It was an experiment, you know.” Heinz dabs his fried stick in the marinara cup they’re sharing. “A social science one, a one-off. I don’t do a lot of those, as you know. I’m more of a hard science guy. Pipes and wires and what have you. This wishy washy stuff is like,” he waves the mozz stick like a mini baton, “a nice relaxing closer for the day. But not a proper scheme, I acknowledge that. Not satisfying. I mean what are you even supposed to destroy, at the end of it?”

He chortles around a bite of mozz. “My clown face, I guess.”

Perry smiles, minutely. Heinz has on a careful application of foundation, beneath the lip gloss and blush, which Perry knows is helping conceal a days-old bruise. Perry got him with a scuba fin — they’re harder than you expect.

Heinz doesn’t look like a clown right now. Acts like one, sure. Always.

“So yeah: successful experiment. I’m not gonna make a habit of this,” Heinz says, with a trailing tone. Perry senses that this is more of an instruction than anything intended for Perry.

He swirls the ice in his glass and lets it melt, permits himself the barest sip of whiskey soup.

Heinz’s chatter moves from the bar’s drink policy to the day they had today, and the one they’ll have tomorrow, and Vanessa’s AP Psychology project which she’s crushing and deserves 10 scholarships for, and how ungrateful Norm was about the new system of magnetized levitation Heinz had rigged up for his shoe feet.

“It’s like sue me for getting sick of two giant jet-propulsion holes burning into my floor every time he leaves the house. Which is more and more often, y’know, and good for him. But I guess they’re pulling in phones and powertools and cop guns and whatever, big whoop, he can scrape ‘em off. The city’s better off without those things.

“Plus, this affects me too, you know, I had to get him to come back this afternoon to find my keys. Spent 30 minutes looking for them.” Heinz swirls the martini glass, blinks at Perry. He sighfully wheels his shoulders, like he’s shrugging out of vent mode. The shawl’s got big roseate blooms felted into it, in rainbow colors, and it covers most of his bare arms, slides an inch lower at the motion. “Thanks again for waiting.”

Perry nods. No problem.

“At least you can be patient. It’s a struggle for me. I was really ready to hit the town tonight. I mean god, Perry, what a week. You know the ones where nothing’s going right? And no one appreciates you? And then Perry the Platypus says he’s free Friday night and it’s like all you can think about?”

He’s grinning, bumping Perry’s thigh with his knee. Yeah, Perry knows those weeks.

“So anyway it’s all good now, whatever. We’ll work out the kinks. I think there’s a robot rave, or something, tonight, I told him be safe. Sounds like a humanity-conquering cataclysm waiting to happen, I know. Well, we’ll hear if there’s anything on the news.”

The night wears on and at the end of it Perry hasn’t had much at all to drink, is the point, has kept a clear head. Which means that when he and Heinz flounce out the door into chill of night Perry doesn’t go to retrieve his jetpack from where he tossed it in the D.E.Inc truckbed.

Instead he watches with crystal clarity, from the stoop of the bar, as Heinz flops his way over to the driver side door, pitching forward like the parking lot is a funhouse under his feet. He stumbles and catches himself against the glass, laughs, craned against the sloping face of the van, blond polyester hair spilled like fettuccine across the windshield.

“What am I even thinking. Dummkopf, Heinz. You are in no state to drive.

“Perry,” he prompts with a turn, propping himself on an elbow. Perry catches the keys out of the air.

This was gonna happen. The second Perry ordered that drink, this was gonna happen. And not for the first time and not for the last. But hey, it’s a pleasure to save Heinz Doofenshmirtz from a drunk driving accident of his own making.

Perry pauses, after he hops into the driver seat. And the people of Danville, too. It’s a pleasure to save them too, from a lushed up Heinz Doofenshmirtz in a pickup truck. He cranks the engine on.

Heinz leans into the rolled-down window. “Thank you, Perry the Platypus,” he drawls with a tilted smile, one that matches the coy lean of his neck. Perry tips his bill once, a nod.

“You’re my favorite shoof… chauffeur,” Heinz says, laughing through the fumbled pronunciation. “Oh, scheisse. Too much.” He clears his throat, straightens back up. “I’ll see you on the other side, Perry.”

Heinz leaves the window. Perry hits the button for Perry mode, shaped like his foot, and the pedals piston upward to meet him. He presses the clutch experimentally. Still getting used to this, he’s only had the chance to test it out twice so far. But it feels good, like those miniature cars Carl makes for him, nice easy controls — except the shell of the truck around him is enormous, so there’s a nonintuitive mismatch of scales.

Heinz kept the stick shift, though, and the crank-roll windows, in this patchwork antique. Carl would never tolerate that. Perry wouldn’t have it any other way.

When Heinz reaches the passenger side handle there’s a yelp and a thud. Perry jumps — he’s over there immediately, opens the door to find Heinz down on the pavement, leaning into and over his splayed hands with a groan.

“Ohhh. You’ve gotta be kidding me with this. I go all night,” he says, peaky with a kind of about-to-cry indignation, “keeping just perfect balance, made it up and down the stairs, drunk even. And the last possible second! The last possible second, Perry the Platypus. It just fucking folds under me. Aaaagh. Is this gonna swell up? Did I break it?”

Perry has hopped out to kneel behind Heinz’s leg. The copious bulk of the shawl he hefts aside, and Heinz’s dress hems at the knee. His skin’s scraped open there, slick wetness in the dark, coming back plum purple on Perry’s fur in the meager light from the bar.

Heinz whines at the touch and Perry gives his thigh a hasty rub, in apology. “No, my ankle. Can you see?”

Perry ghosts his paw down Heinz’s shin. It’s dark, and the only external damage he can see right now is more scraped skin down the front of his leg, pinpricking blood through Heinz’s nylons. The ankle: could be a sprain or just a twist, but it doesn’t look broken, nothing jutting.

Perry chirrs, in caution, and Heinz hisses in a breath while he unstraps the offending shoe from Heinz’s foot, then the other for symmetry.

They get slotted tidily at the floor of the passenger seat, and when Perry turns back Heinz is sitting butt down on the gravel, legs bent oddly out to keep weight off the bad foot, laughing into his elbows. “Man,” he hiccups. “It’s fine, really, it doesn’t actually hurt that bad. Just freaks you out, falling when you don’t expect it. I should be used to it.” Pause. “I am used to it. Pretty sure I went through worse this afternoon alone. You put me through a few Gs. But I wasn’t in a cute cocktail dress,” he says, opening his arms as if to show it off. “And I’m in a different headspace, fighting you. I’m ready to get knocked around. But this situation, it just isn’t fair. I mean we’re just having a nice time, here.”

Heinz is bobbing on a giddy mix of adrenaline and liquor, but Perry sees tears wet in his eyes, catching light from the bar. So he moves closer to his torso, slides an arm around Heinz’s thigh, for comfort.

This doesn’t have the right effect. “Hey,” Heinz gasps, shocked. “Watch it.” He cracks into wide-eyed laughter, as Perry removes his paw from his leg, where it’s possible he slid a little too far north. Thigh heat lingers on his palm, feels even hotter than his face. Perry growls, in the face of Heinz’s seismic giggles. He gives him a rough shove and jerks a thumb back over-shoulder: in the car.

Perry beelined straight here via jetpack, so he needs Heinz’s directions to get them back on the main drag. They’re on some run-down street west of town, that Perry hasn’t been to.

“Okay wait — yeah, we were supposed to make a left back there. I messed up. Do a U-ey.” Heinz is slouched back in his seat, comfy as he can get, his injured ankle stretched out under the dash. The drink sloshes heavy emphasis into his vowels, hits that “U” extra hard, while Perry hits it on the road with tight control, double-handing the wheel as he turns.

“It’s different at night. See that ugly brown building on the corner? From like the 70s? Vanessa had her ballerina classes there, a decade back. I’m sure they’re long gone.”

He fiddles on a pop station, low volume, and glances up as Perry drives them past. “Yup. Dialysis place now.”

He seems to be in a good mood, thankfully, tapping the sill to the beat of the song. That’s good. Perry’s gonna have to make sure he's upstairs in one piece before running home. It’s not ideal, staying out this late. But he can get away with it every now and again, so long as he showed up to dinner at the house that afternoon. The kids have come to accept, reluctantly, that Perry can survive a few hours out at night.

“Wild platypuses are crepuscular, verging on nocturnal,” Ferb had once explained, by way of justification. Ferb had a way of divining whatever sentiments would best support Perry’s interests at any given moment and shrinking them into Snapple cap facts. Perry was profoundly grateful.

“Aw, that’s cute. I guess that’s why he sleeps all day. Do all your friends come out at night, Perry?” Phineas had grinned at him, scrunching fingers through the fur of his forehead. “We just ask that you’re home by 11, that’s all.”

So he has a semiformal curfew, but that doesn’t usually clash with Heinz’s schedule. Tonight’s a rare exception.

Heinz is still buzzed up, though Perry knows the fumes will putter out soon enough. He’s thinking he might swing by extra early tomorrow morning with a salted-up sausage and hashbrown takeout platter from the deli, to be nice.

Perry drums the steering wheel. Well, he wants to. But that might be overkill. It’s a bit much, bringing your hungover nemesis breakfast in bed, unasked. Especially when the guy’s gonna be targeting lasers at you not more than 4 hours later. Yet here Perry is, planning it out, reflexively. He should probably get a handle on that.

(this got too long, read on ao3 here thanks)

#HELL YES #read later

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