Gift-Fic: Couldn’t Just Order Up Some Nectar?
by: Flaming Trails

“Flint? Flint, we’re home!”

There was no reply. Victor frowned. “Flint?”

“He must be around somewhere,” Alice said, easing her way around him. “It’s well before the Roofless opens for dinner. Maybe the back garden?”

“Maybe…there’s an easy way to find him, at least.” Victor set down the carrier cage and deactivated the suspended animation device. Moments later, a bark from inside told him Lightning was ready to be let out. “Here you go, boy…is Mummy right?” he added, scratching the corgi behind the ears as he released him. “Is Flint in the garden? Can you find him for us?”

Lightning barked again, then put his nose to the ground, sniffing in a wide circle. “Flint, boy. Flint Lockwood. Find Flint, there’s a good boy.”

Lightning yapped, then took off toward the back, tail wagging. “Guess you were right indeed, darling,” Victor said, grinning. “Here, just leave the bags there, I’ll be back in a moment – ”

“Oh, no, I want to say hello too,” Alice said, dropping the bags on the floor. “We can get to these later. Just be patient with me for not being as fast as the dog.”

Victor chuckled. “I think we’ll both forgive you, under the circumstances.”

They made their way around to the back door, where Lightning was waiting, doing a little eager corgi dance. “Good boy,” Victor praised him, before pushing it open. “Flint! We’re – what the – ”

He froze, eyes wide. The garden was an absolute mess – errant tree branches and leaves littered the ground, and one whole sapling was lying on its side near the fence, roots dangling helpless from its dirt-encrusted bottom while its leaves rotted in the grass. The table and chairs they’d set up for summer were scattered to the four corners, and the birdbath was broken in two, the bowl lying upside-down in the middle of a giant muddy patch. “What – how – ”

“It looks like a hurricane hit,” Alice said, similarly agog. Lightning arfed and ran to roll around in the mud. “Did someone’s weather machine go berserk while we were gone?”

“I don’t know!” Victor looked around wildly, panic welling up within him. “Flint? Ferdy? Ferdinand?!” Oh no – no no no – he’d been through enough in Hill Valley – he couldn’t come back to the loss of one of his most beloved –

Something barreled into him, knocking him to the ground. Victor opened his mouth for a scream – then the familiar feeling of a fuzzy proboscis running over his face turned it into a relieved laugh. “Ferdy!” he cried, his frantic heartbeat slowing. “Oh thank God…”

“Oh thank God!”

Flint Lockwood’s face appeared over him, eyes wide with anxiety and hair in worse disarray than usual. “Victor, I’m so sorry about this!” he declared, windmilling his arms. “His feeder ran out this morning, and I figured I could just mix him up something real quick since you were supposed to be home soon, and…” His eyes flicked left and right. “I think I got the ratio of sugar to water wrong.”

Victor looked up at his fellow scientist, then at his riding butterfly, who was now leaping about the yard, sending the leaves up in miniature tornadoes as he attempted to knock poor Alice flat too. “Oh Flint…” He groaned and rubbed his face. “Well, at least this explains what happened to the yard…”

 The End