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It was another mundane day in Gardenview. It’s really early in the morning and Finn goes downstairs to grab breakfast in the kitchen (which is a glass of water, he’s on a diet).
Finn is what'd you call a "morning person", an early bird if you will. He wakes up even before Sprout & Cosmo, and they’re the ones who do breakfast for most of the toons.
As Finn yawned and grabbed his glass of water, there’s no better way to start the day! He drank it blissfully unaware of what was coming to him.
Suddenly, he heard some noise. Someone, something… Stomping? The sound started getting louder and quicker, as if it was rapidly approaching Finn’s location. Wait, did a twisted break loose?!-
Oh, nevermind, it’s just Shrimpo. The closest thing to a twisted there is in the GardenView lobby.
Finn was surprised, Shrimpo is not one to wake up as early as him- or as anyone for that matter. He usually wakes up in the middle of the afternoon and makes it everyone’s problem. Finn just looks at him, tilting his head.
“Well, well, well. Look what the catfish dragged in. It sea-ms like someone woke up early!” Finn giggled at his own pun, giving Shrimpo a friendly smile. “How ar-”
Finn was immediately cut off by Shrimpo grabbing him by his life vest, similar to those old cartoons with the bully threatening you asking for lunch money. Shrimpo is a bully, but he wouldn’t threaten Finn for no reason out of nowhere, right?
“YOU. ME. TONIGHT. MY ROOM. DRESS UP. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!”
Yes, he would.
Finn just stared at him wide eyed, still processing… whatever this is. Shrimpo still had an iron grip on his vest and didn’t seem like he’d be letting go anytime soon. What does Shrimpo even mean? Is this revenge for all the fish jokes and facts he said to Shrimpo even though he hates them so much?!
“W-whuh?!” Was all that the fishbowl could muster up in this situation.
Shrimpo looks even more annoyed now, if that’s even possible. His face getting redder and closer by every second. Shrimpo pulls Finn closer to his face. “ARE YOU DEAF?!!!” He pretty much barks at the fishbowl. No, Finn isn’t deaf, but with the way Shrimpo is yelling right in front of him, he might as well be now. “I SAID-”
“NO! No, it’s fine!” Finn put his arms up to defend himself. “I heard it right the first time! Pleasedonthurtme-”
Shrimpo lets Finn go. Said fishbowl just sighed in relief, he felt like he was shaking to his core and was about to meet his late grandmother… But this wasn’t over yet. Shrimpo pointed straight to Finn’s face. “6 O’CLOCK. SHARP. NO EXCUSES!!! I HATE PEOPLE WHO ARE LATE!!!”
Finn, still confused and scared sitting on the ground, just nodded his head. “Y-yes sir…” Well, that ‘sir’ wasn’t really necessary and made Finn cringe a little bit the moment the words left his mouth. If he WERE to say something like that, he’d probably say “ aye aye, cap’n! ” But it was already pretty awkward and he wasn’t going to risk making Shrimpo more angry than he already is.
Shrimpo huffed as he let Finn go from his grip. Dropping him straight to the ground and turned away to leave the kitchen. Finn slowly began to get up from the ground and clean the dust off from his pants. Right before Shrimpo left the kitchen, he looked back one last time. “DON’T TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS!!!” He clenched his fist as demonstration, perhaps some sort of threat, then finally made his way over to his dorm at the end of the hall, which could be heard quite loudly since he slammed the door shut.
Finn flinched and just stared right where Shrimpo was for a few seconds, before finally coming to a conclusion…
“Oh my cod” Finn put a hand on his head, voice cracking slightly. “He’s going to krill me.”
That happened in the morning and it’s almost 5PM now… Finn didn’t even leave his room, thinking about what Shrimpo said to him. ‘Dress up’? Like a suit? That people use when they go into their caskets?! Besides, he feels like going to Shrimpo’s room is a death sentence… It’s not like he visited him or anything, but some neighbors complain about the holes in the wall he punches so very often.
Not to mention that Shrimpo would not hesitate on murdering another fellow toon, take Looey, for instance.
So, for short, Finn is pretty much a dead fisherman walking. It’s not like he can just LEAVE GardenView. Toons can’t go in and out as they please!
He gets up and opens his closet… All the clothes he has are just the plain life vest and pants he’s always wearing, except a pink sweater on the side he used for a GardenView Halloween Special and…
The suit he wore for the last Dandy’s World anniversary.
It’s just a plain boring suit, but with an orange fish bowtie, especially for him.
Finn gulped as he stared at the suit, he really didn’t want to go down there, but he doesn’t want to risk being late. A shiver goes down his spine remembering Shrimpo’s words once more…
He takes Barnaby out of his head and kisses the plastic fish. “See you on the other side, buddy…” He’s like a son to him, after all…
… Melodramatic much?
As Finn goes downstairs, his heartbeat quickens by every step.
He eyes the kitchen and the long hallway, Shrimpo’s dorm by the very end… While walking through the long corridor, Glisten leaves his room, he was about to grab a snack until he spotted Finn.
“... What are you wearing.” Glisten asked, although it felt more like an observation than an actual question. He just stared at Finn, wearing that suit, it’s rather presentable, he thinks. Way better than that overly orange vest he wears every day, but also quite suspicious. Why would he put that suit out of nowhere?
Finn felt relieved, fin-ally , a friendly face! “Well Glisten, why do you ask? Do you think I look so-FISH-ticated ?”
“Actually, nevermind, I don’t care anymore, don’t talk to me.”
Upon seeing Glisten cringe even more after Finn spoke, he felt desperate. “No, wait! I’m… I’m dressed like this because Shrimpo asked me to!!” He looked around. “I think he wants to krill me!”
Glisten chuckled. “And who doesn’t?”
“Come on, Glis! You’re really hurting my fin-lings here!”
Said mirror just ignored Finn and kept walking towards the kitchen to get a chocolate or whatever. “Well, Finn, if it makes you feel better… With Shrimpo asking you to wear like that, maybe he’s taking you out to a romantic dinner.” Glisten said, ironically.
“DINNER? SHRIMPO?! Come on! We both know he would never do that!” Finn said, flustered. He’s not really sure why, maybe it’s because Glisten is making fun of him on the verge of his, oh, so dramatic death, but the thought of spending a cheesy romantic evening with Shrimpo makes him feel a bit… Odd. And very out of character for him and said toon.
Glisten chuckled. “I know-” He looked back at the corridor. “Oh, there’s your date!”
Finn immediately looked next to him only to find a very angry shrimp, who’s also dressed very fancy, for some reason. Finn almost jumped straight to the ceiling. Why didn’t he run away when he had the chance?!
“WHERE WERE YOU?! IT’S 06:01 PM!!!”
“I- Uhm, well-”
Shrimpo pretty much yanked Finn by the hand, leading him to his room. “I SAID NO EXCUSES!!! LET’S JUST GO!!! I HATE WAITING!!!” He yelled at Finn, completely ignoring the mirror in the kitchen.
Finn couldn’t even try to let go, water fell down from his head due to the sudden motion and wet the floor again… Someone will need to clean that. But there are bigger issues happening right now, like Finn walking straight to his doom.
When they finally got in the dorm, Finn was pretty much pushed into it, hearing Shrimpo lock the door behind them.
Finn had his eyes closed, not only because he was too afraid to look, but because Shrimpo told him to do so, if he has the time to start begging for forgiveness, it needs to be now. “Shrimpo… I know you hate everything but please consider this! We’re in a cartoon! Cod , I’ll do anything! I’ll stop doing fish puns! I’ll shut up forever! Just please don’t KILL me!!!”
Finn kept his eyes shut, he wouldn’t dare to look. He heard something shuffling, a hushed whisper, the sound of music… Huh? He was extremely confused, he tried opening an eye.
“DON’T LOOK YET!!!”
“EeK!” Finn yelped and immediately closed his eye again.
“OKAY. YOU CAN LOOK NOW!!!”
Finn carefully opened both of his eyes this time, waiting for Shrimpo to be in front of him holding boxing gloves and aiming for him as the next punching target, but instead, he was met with a bouquet right in front of his face.
The bouquet was full of random weeds you can easily pick up from the ground, some of them were actual flowers but plastic ones. He just kept staring as Shrimpo grew impatient and more red than usual. “TAKE IT!!!”
Finn got startled again and took the "flowers". He finally got his head up and looked around Shrimpo’s room. There are holes in his walls, alright, but also, he couldn’t help but notice in the center of his bedroom a crappy wooden table, with two plastic seats from the GardenView lobby for children sitting there, and on top of the table… A very messy spaghetti, of sorts.
… Boxten was here as well, for some reason, standing there looking at the two. Oh, wait, he’s the one playing the music right now. Finn awkwardly waved at him and he waved back, with the usual worried look he has.
He looked back at the bouquet he just got. “Uh, thank you?”
Shrimpo just stared at him and Finn noticed his cheeks get redder, but both of them didn’t say anything. Shrimpo just walked over to the table and sat at the plastic chair that was pretty much his size, Finn followed and sat on the other plastic chair, which was not-very-much-his-size, but still manageable to sit on.
Finn still wasn’t really sure what was going on, he noticed that instead of spaghetti on his plate, it’s just water. He eyed Shrimpo, taking a handful of the food and eating like an animal- well, he’s technically an animal, but he could learn some manners from Teagan, or any of the Toon Handlers for that matter.
After a few seconds of staring, Finn noticed that Shrimpo was pretty much inhaling his food, hands getting dirty, when he finally finished he pointed to Finn’s plate. “ARE YOU GOING TO DRINK THAT?!”
“Uh, no, thanks. I had a big lunch…”
The second Finn said that, Shrimpo drank all of the water and threw it to the ground like it was nothing, it was made out of glass like Finn is and Shrimpo just did that. He still had no idea what he was doing here or what Shrimpo wants, if he doesn’t want to kill Finn… What else could he want?
So Finn gulped and finally asked: “So… Why did you call me here?”
Shrimpo immediately gets up from his chair and looks directly at Finn. “YOU’RE ABOUT TO FIND OUT.” He points at him, as if he were proposing a challenge… Or something else. Shrimpo switches his focus to Boxten.
“Um… Okay.” Boxten timidly replies as he received the signal, putting his hand on the back of his head to turn the key again, as he did it, the romantic song that could be used for slow dancing changed to a more upbeat one.
Finn still had a confused look on his face and it grew even more confused when Shrimpo started dancing. Still maintaining awkward eye contact with Finn with the frown he’s always wearing-
Wait, dancing?
Finn started to connect the dots.
Dress up fancy, dinner, whatever that bouquet is, music, little to no light due to Shrimpo’s awful broken lightbulb that’s usually flickering and Shrimpo, out of all people, dancing ?
Finn blushed as he finally realized. Shrimpo wasn’t trying to take him out , he was trying to take him out.
As the song finally ended, Finn clapped with the ending performance.
“SO… WHAT DO YOU SAY?!”
Finn giggled, feeling giddy. “Yes! I say yes!” He said and jumped to Shrimpo’s arms, tackling him into a hug, then separated immediately.
Boxten looked at the two of them, unaware of what just happened. “Um… Can I leave now? I promised Cosmo I would help him wi-”
“I DON'T CARE, GET OUT!!!” Shrimpo yelled at Boxten’s face and unlocked the door.
“Well, okay..." He walks across the dorm, avoiding the shattered platter on the ground as he finally makes way to the door. "See you around, I suppose?” Boxten scratched the back of his neck.
“NEVER!!!” Shrimpo then shut the door with a slam.
Finn decided to ignore Shrimpo’s attitude towards Boxten. Still feeling giddy, he put both hands on his cheeks. “Wow, Shrimpo… I never knew you felt like that… You reel-y do like me!”
Shrimpo felt surprised by Finn’s words. “I... I TOLERATE YOU!!! IT’S DIFFERENT!!!” He lied, struggling to find the right words as warmth spreading through his face and felt the same feeling on his stomach.
“I’ll take it! I’m not one for roe-mance , but I guess we’re oh-fish-ial now? Heh…” Finn said, still blushing and acting like a teenage girl. “What do you wanna do next?”
The fishbowl’s, now partner, looked him in the eyes and grabbed his hands. “DO YOU WANT TO GO TO DANDY’S SHOP AND COMPLAIN ABOUT HIS PRICES?!!”
Finn blushed even more and sniffed upon hearing such beautiful words. “I thought you’d never ask.”