#also please pay no mind to the minifridge when Harold hands out drinks

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Nerdsitting

Tagging time! As well as explaining what the heck I’m doing with this mess of a fanfiction! Yeah!

@vizivoir, Special delivery! (They asked to be tagged so as not to miss it, and tagged they will be!) 

@sugarandmemories, I may or may not have borrowed your Melvin’s insomnia, neglectful parents ((Yeah, guys. In the books, they actually were there, they just didn’t pay much attention to him. He even switches off the “Dramatic Effects” on the Combine-o-Tron so as not to wake them up.)), and slight eating disorder. Ahaha..the chance was too good to pass up.  Please don't sue. :) ;)

As for what I’m doing, I don’t really know. It’s fluff. It has George and Harold subliminally taking care of Melvin...you know, making him eat something, cheering him up when he’s down, getting him off that good ol’ polyphastic sleep schedule. Ergo, Nerdsitting. Enjoy!

Melvin Sneedly had just wanted to pick up the latest issue of Scientific American at the Hobnobs Comix Shop downtown before the quality deteriorated or the magazines sold out. Was that so hard to ask?

Apparently, according to the universe, it was.

When a bald, portly man wearing nothing but his underwear and a red polka-dotted cape fell out of the sky and dropped to one knee, Melvin completely lost his train of thought and instead decided to take a tentative step back. On the man’s back, two of the more mischievous students in his class beamed back at him, giving a polite wave.

“Hey, Melvin!” George chimed.

“Do you always greet people this way?” He wheezed, slamming one hand to his chest in shock.

“What, ‘Hey’ and then his name? Dude, is this a trick question?” Harold said softly, tugging George’s shirt.

“I think he means on the back of a superhero wearing nothing but his underwear and a polka-dotted red cape.” the boy responded. Climbing off, he gestured regally to the caped crusader, followed closely by his best friend.

“Melvin, this is Captain Underpants. You may remember him from that time you tried to rid the entire school of laughter.” George said. Captain Underpants stood up and gave a happy “thumbs-up” at his cue.

“Anyway. We thought we’d stop by. Didn’t think we’d see you at the comic store! What’cha getting?” Harold added.

Taking another step back, Melvin clutched the strap of his backpack instinctively before responding.

“I was just going to see if I could acquire the latest copy of Scientific American before it sold out...but now, I think I’ll go home and take my chances tomorrow.”

“Ah, that’s a shame, young nemesis,” Captain Underpants chimed in, “For my amiable sidekicks and I might provide delightful company in your education! Why, they themselves have documented several episodes of my life in this praiseworthy format!”

“You mean the comic books they sell on the playground, in which I tend to be frequently incriminated as some sort of nerdy villain against laughter?”

“Sidekicks! You didn’t tell me that you knew the one and only Anti-Humor boy personally!” he gasped excitedly. “Will you sign my cape?” he said to Melvin with a slight bounce.

Melvin shrugged and produced a black Sharpie from his pocket, much to the delight of the hero. Walking around him, he wrote out “Anti-Humor boy” in his careful cursive, then patted the delighted captain on his back.

“Now, off to Dumb Stupid Nerd Jail for you!” he cheered, hooking his fingers into the startled scientist’s neckband.

“Captain Underpants! Melvin...received time off for good behavior! He’s totally cool now!” George blurted in a panic, pressing the side of his sneaker into his ample stomach as if he were trying to stop a wild colt. To Melvin, he added, “Sorry, man. You..wanna come hang out with us for a while? We have a tree house!”

“It’s a pretty cool tree house.” Harold added, cracking a grin.

“Ummm...yeah, I still think I’ll pass. Call me again when I’m in the mood for getting made fun of for a full hour or two.” he said, walking off.

“Aww, Melvin, don’t be like that! Isn’t your house like, two miles away, anyway? We can totally give you a ride to the amazing Tree House Comix Inc., you can chill with us, spend a few hours playing Tetris or drawing nerd comics or something, and then we could take you back home!” Harold explained, hastily putting brown, white, and light orange button-eyed socks on his hands and right foot respectively to illustrate his vision. (The tangerine sock, Melvin noted, even sported a sported a tiny black bow tie and ginger woolen hair.)

“Or,” he continued as George gave Melvin a look that seemed to reveal that Harold had drawn out points with improvised sock puppetry before, “You could get your magazine and go back home.” The light orange sock puppet, to Melvin’s amusement, switched places with Harold, tucked a tiny bubblegum comic that he supposed was supposed to be the four hundred and fifty-third issue of Scientific American under his cotton arm and left, leaving sock puppet George and Harold giving each other blank expressions.

“You’d want to read it as soon as possible, but put it in your bag so you wouldn’t walk in front of a bus or something, and then you’d walk two sad endless miles without a friend, sadly listening to-you were listening to music, right?-sad music as you trudged home. Sadly.”

To emphasize this point, Harold took an extra few steps away from Captain Underpants for some unknown reason, then poured a miniature watering can over a dejected sock puppet Melvin, accompanied by a melancholy classical tune from his phone.

“And then you’d get home,”

The music stopped and the watering can was thrown to the side.

“Read the magazine, and die of sadness and boredom, and that’s why you need to hang out with us and have a ton of fun today!”

Melvin smiled slightly and shook his sock puppet counterpart’s hand.

“Deal.”

“To the Underwear Cave!” Captain Underpants cheered, kneeling down again.

“He means to our tree house.” Harold whispered, swinging back onto the superhero’s back and offering his hand to Melvin, who took it gratefully. 

On the ride back, George and Harold filled him in on everything. 

“Okay, so..Captain Underpants can’t get water on his head. Don’t ask.”

“He’s also a total goofball and wants to fight crime whenever possible. As in, if you have five extra minutes, he’ll be convinced that there’s some sort of crime going on somewhere. And there usually is...it’s kinda like how the little kid summoned all the demons to the hotel with his sixth sense in that one movie? Yeah, like that.”

“You okay, Melvin? You look a little freaked out...I know, the first ride is always a bit weird. You ever jumped out a window and slid down a lamppost before?”

“Why would I ever have done that? I mean...Oh no. Don’t tell me that you two have done that. Scratch my last question, how many times did you do that?”

“Um...a lot?” Harold laughed nervously, “Uh...do you wanna text your parents, let ‘em know you’re at our place?”

“They’re working late at the lab all week. Ciana and I are left to fend for ourselves, I’m afraid.” 

“Oh. I see. Well, that’s great, because we’re already here!” Harold said, giving another flourish to the tree house. Several mechanisms were affixed to various places, presumably meant to help one scale the tree in a much more complicated way than necessary. 

“How fast does Captain Underwear fly, exactly? Because this seems less like coincidence that we landed right now, and more like lazy writing on the author’s part.” Melvin said, adjusting his bow tie.

“Yeah...she does that. Consider your flight twice as fast with the right dialogue!” Harold said, ably climbing up the wooden steps, followed closely by George, then Melvin. Once inside, Harold excitedly pointed out the sleeping bags, mini fridge, comic gallery, television, and gaming system. 

“Oh...wow.” Melvin responded, his hazel eyes flashing with jubilee.

“So...what’cha wanna do?” 

“Well, you wouldn’t happen to have a deck of cards around, would you?”

George cocked his head, surprised by the ginger’s simple request. “Um..yeah, we have cards!” he said, withdrawing a deck from his pocket, “I should warn you though, I hold a pretty tight spot as Go Fish champion.”

“Oooh, Billy’s pretty good at Concentration, too.” Harold added. 

“Do either of you know how to play poker? I mean, not necessarily for gambling reasons, but...” he paused to withdraw a small drawstring sack from his bag, pulling the cord and tipping it over the floor to reveal a shimmering stream of chocolate coins, a small confectionery fortune by his feet, “for chocolate coins?”

“Awww, bro! This is probably the best thing you’ve ever done! No offense, I just...didn’t think you’d go for gambling and stuff. Even fake gambling. Or chocolate. Orrrr fun.” Harold said, his voice dropping off as he twisted his hands against his shirt.

A week before his third-grade graduation, Melvin looked up from his book to see a group of children in the cafeteria trading candy cigarettes. “Hey! You four are violating Rule #7,438: Section Five: ‘Smoking of cigarettes on campus is strongly prohibited! Note: Even if they aren’t lit! Note: Even if they’re candy cigarettes!’ I’m telling!”

“Awww, man.” They said, tucking the packs into their lunchboxes dejectedly. 

*****

“Well, I’m up for it in any case.” Harold responded, “I’m also about to go get a sandwich-either of you two want one?”

“I’ll take one!” George said, fanning out the deck, “I’m starving!”

Melvin politely declined, earning a look of confusion from both of the troublemakers. The truth was, in fact, that he had been so caught up with his studies that he hadn’t eaten in days; even when he and his sister ordered dinner, he would take a slice of pizza up to his room, then generally put it on top of a bookshelf, forget about it, and leave it for Danderella. At school, he never so much forgot his lunch as the desire to eat it; every time since Monday, he had felt a peculiar weight in his stomach, telling him to stuff it in his locker, to give it to somebody else, just to continue with his extra-credit assignments. That was the important thing, most of all-the extra credit was worth it, worth the fatigue and distorted rhythm of his perfected order to life, worth the trembling in his legs, all for the extra plus on his A’s, the smiles on his teachers’ faces, the extra cache he relied on when he stuttered during an oral report or rushed his penmanship in a five-page essay, earning him a docked half-point or so. 

Besides, eating was a waste of time that could be better dedicated to his research.

Still, Harold came back a few minutes later carrying an extra dish between the two in his hands, the rim meticulously balanced on the edges of the other two. Propping one knee under the paper plates, he passed out the sandwiches to all three of them in turn. 

“For Monsieur George”, he said, faking a French accent, “Your peanut butter and gummy worm sandvich, vith cold can of ze finest Mountain Dew, as well as light side of chips.” 

“Why, Mr. Hutchins, this is a rather delightful spread.” George said, feigning the voice of a luxuriously wealthy diner in a black-and-white film.

“And for Monsieur Melvin, ve have ze freshly pressed grilled cheese sandvich vith Dr. Pepper and chips. How do you like?” 

Melvin took the tray and aligned the neatly cut sandwich to a more aesthetically pleasing angle relative to the soda and Doritos bag. “Oh, uh..thanks for the sandwich I didn’t actually ask for?”

Harold broke out of his waiter impression for a moment. “Sorry, I didn’t explain this one. It’s a goofy tradition we have- you have to respond in a fancy accent.”

Melvin nodded slightly, then replied in a Russian voice, “Okay, I get it now. But my waitering friend, I have not placed an order!”

“Ah, vell, I fear ve have made an extra sandvich anyhow. So..you might as well take it, compliments of ze Tree House Gahden-Gahdens.” 

He grinned and sat down at his place, carefully arranging his hand of cards and setting down his own tuna salad-chocolate chip-miniature marshmallow sandwich with Sprite and Fritos. 

Melvin took a bite of the sandwich, and it tasted like...well, like a regular grilled cheese sandwich, but like something more at the same time. Something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. 

“Did you use oregano in this?”

Harold winked, swallowing a bite of his own lunch before speaking. “Original Hutchins recipe.”

#########

“So, Melvin...do you have a hobby besides Science-y stuff and card games?” George asked.

“I make papercraft modules, play World of Warcraft, collect little tin cars, alphabetize everything, sort laundry by color in rainbow order, lightest to darkest...lots of stuff. Why?” he asked. 

“Eh. Just seeing if you do anything cool. Which you don’t.”

“What?”

George shrugged. “I call ‘em like I see ‘em.”

“O-kay...so, what do you two do for fun, besides card games, getting into trouble, and making comics?”

“Not much. Mostly just laugh at silly stuff and hang out in the club house. Skateboarding. Watching TV. Playing video games. That sort of thing.”

“How did you hook a television up to your club house?”

“Oh, it’s pretty interesting, actually!” Harold interjected, “You see, Mr. Beard built the basic layout, but one summer we actually earned so much money from odd jobs that we bought a second-hand television from somewhere, screwed a power outlet to the underside of the house, and hooked it up ourselves! Creative thinking, huh?”

“Mm-hmm..” Melvin said distractedly. “You two realize we’ve spent four and a half hours playing card games, video games, and goofing off?”

“Welcome to summer vacation, genius!” he said, nudging the scientist in the shoulder.

“Yeah..but it’s a two-hour walk back to my house, and given the time-” he paused to gesture to the hands on his watch cocked at 10:28-”I should probably start heading back. So, if you’ll excuse me-” he started to climb down the wooded steps of the tree house- “I’ll go. Thanks for having me over.” 

“Hang on!” Harold said, jumping off the top platform, grabbing one of the sturdier branches, and gently sliding down to the grass, “I’ll ask my dad to give you a ride! We’ve never seen your house anyway-is it like, a mansion or something?”

George straddled the rope of the tire swing and slid down, remaining on top of the tire. “Yeah, maybe it’s a science lab! Or an apartment!”

Harold looked at his black-haired friend peculiarly. 

“How is an apartment interesting?”

“It could be a nice apartment!” he retorted. “Or maybe one with a ton of secret passageways and a chocolate chandelier!” 

“I live in a pretty boring house, you two.” Melvin chuckled softly, “Though of course, I wouldn’t decline a ride, if it wouldn’t bother your parents too much.”

“Oh yeah, no! Not at all!” George responded, running inside and reemerging with his father, who ruffled Melvin’s hair with only a slight bit of annoyance not directed at him, but rather, at being interrupted while he was reading his favorite novel. (And he’d just gotten to the good part, too.)

“So, you’re the Sneedly kid who needs a ride, right?”

“Yes, sir. I apologize for bothering you this late, just-”

“Well, there’s no need to apologize, little fella! My son says you live way out of this neighborhood, is this true?”

“Well, yes, you could say that.” he responded, fingering the edge of his pressed sweater.

“May I ask for your address?”

“It’s 1123 Wilson Way, sir.”

“Oh, okay! Well then, you boys buckle up for the Beardmobile! Harold, do you want a ride home too?”

The blond giggled slightly at the question, almost involuntarily. “Yes, Mr. Beard. Thank you!”

############

He had expected the trip to be awkward, that he’d be staring at his hands the whole way until George’s father let him off, but after forty-five minutes of conversation, Melvin found that he didn’t mind it so much after all.

When they finally stopped at the address, the mischief-making duo stepped out after him, each giving some sort of salute to their chauffeur.

“Are you two planning to move in?” Melvin asked bemusedly, “ Because I’m not sure you quite fit the...atmosphere.”

In unison, George and Harold both bowed deeply to the ginger, acting the part of a high-class attendant. 

“Vy, Mr. Sneedly, ve came as escorts to see your fancy house!” George said, faking the second faux French accent and hooking his arm in Melvin’s.

“It is the least ve could do for a friend in need at-” Harold said, taking the boy’s skinny wrist gently in his hands and glancing at his watch-”11:15 at night!”

Melvin rolled his eyes and smiled. 

“ Vous êtes deux fous. Je suis honoré d'être considéré comme votre ami.”

“...I have no idea what you just said.”

#########

Up in his bedroom, the boys dropped their arms and simultaneously dropped to one knee, giving an over-dramatic grand sweeping gesture.

“Your room, Mr. Sneedly?” Harold said, cracking a grin.

“Yes, yes, you have both been fine escorts. Now please, leave so I may continue research.” he said, in imitation of a wealthy person while struggling not to smile.

“Ah, but school starts at like, 6:00 AM! Surely, you’d want to get more than forty minutes of sleep tonight?”

“I’m not even going to ask how you got my polyphastic sleep schedule down.”

“Tough luck, sport.” George said, doing a bad impersonation of his father, “The, um, school code or something says that even crazy mad scientists with flammable chemicals and miniature robots have to sleep longer than the car ride it took to get here.”

“Yeah, and if you don’t, then...uh..we’re going to hypnotize you!” Harold said, his thumb rubbing his bare index finger instinctively.

“What? Bro, we might accidentally turn him into Doctor Octopus or something!” George whispered.

“Yeah, he already did that. Remember that Octopus-robot thing he had a while back? Good point, though.” Harold whispered back.

“Sooooo you’re both going to stay..in my room...while your dad waits outside...until I go to sleep?” Melvin asked.

“Yup! We can even give you a mild dose of sleeping powder if you’re going to be all stubborn and stuff!” Harold chuckled.

“Either you broke into the White House or the stuff you have doesn’t work. And I’m going to guess you-”

Harold tore open a waxy paper packet, shook the contents into his palm, and blew it gently towards the boy, who stood his ground rambling about the homeostatic process and cytokines while visibly becoming more exhausted as he spoke. Before long, he fell asleep on the spot, and the ten-year-old bit his lower lip and pressed his hand against his heart. 

“Awww, he looks so adorable when he’s asleep!” he murmured softly.

“Did you just drug Melvin? Because, I know this is a bit hippo-critic-y, but we could probably get in a lot of trouble for that.”

“Nah, it’s corn starch. But since we told him it was sleeping powder, it actually worked-I think that’s called the Placenta effect.’’

 Turning to George, he rattled off instruction with surprising authority.

“Alright. You, get his shoulders, and I’ll get his feet. We’ll lift on three..” 

Together, they tucked him under the oddly-unwrinkled sheets, George taking off his glasses and propping them up on his nightstand as an afterthought before they ran downstairs beaming and jumped into the “Beardmobile”.

“Did we just nerd-sit?” Harold laughed.

“Yeah...I think we did!” George responded, holding out his fist expectantly.

“Nerdsitting.” The two said once more, fingers dancing in the cool night air as they pulled apart.

FIN!

Haha, sorry for another Author’s Note down here. Just wanted to point out, that, if anyone was wondering, Melvin’s French translates roughly to “You’re both fools. I’m honored to be considered your friend.” 

Pandafish!