South Park: Dragging Me Down

Home

"Welcome home, Pip."

Pip took an uneasy step forward into the doorway of their farmhouse, dilated pupils scanning every inch of the house to check this was real and actually happening right now.

Was he dreaming this?

He blinked. When he opened his eyes, the image was still there.

He wasn't dreaming.

As he walked into the lounge, he was greeted by a barrage of colourful bouncing balloons, and a banner sporting "Welcome Home" was draped across the mirror above the marble fireplace. Other than the bright trimming sprawled everywhere (which looked a little out of place due to the room's calmer simplicity), the lounge was quiet and immaculate.

Pip knew his mouth had dropped open at the sight of all the decorations. Had the Honeydews genuinely put all of this effort in for him, or had they done all this for someone else they'd adopted and just not told him? He couldn't believe someone would go out of their way for him like this, particularly since they still didn't know him that well.

He felt a hand rest on his shoulder.

"We hope you'll be very happy here, Pip." Gerard smiled, leading him into the lounge area. "We've got T.V, fiction and non-fiction books, board games, toys and lots of teddies for you to play with. I know some of these things are considered a little young for a teenager, but we decidedly went a little overboard - and by we I mean Martha, especially when it came to buying cuddlies."

Pip's stomach fluttered.

"We just wanted to treat you and buy you all the gifts we feel you deserve." Martha added, smile kind.

His heart raced.

"Look at this! We bought you a gaming console, an Xbox!" Gerard cheered, excitedly picking up a selection of games to show him, "Apparently it's very popular. We've got you Halo, some Sonic the Hedgehog games, Call of Duty and something called the Stick of Truth. We didn't know what sort of genre you'd like to play so we bought you a few to try out."

Pip was floored. He'd always dreamed of owning his own console, but his previous caretakers were either too poor or too callous and would never buy him one, and not even give him the pocket money to save up and buy one for himself. Only the cool kids played console games, but now he had one too!

Did that make HIM cool?

He couldn't bear the thought.

"T-Thank you." he replied quietly, feeling overwhelmed by their kindness.

"Oh, take a seat dear." Martha saw he was struggling so guided him towards the sofa.

Pip found himself breaking up inside, his thoughts clashing. Years of abuse had taught him he was a useless child who didn't deserve anything but pain, but somehow a fire of hope had ignited in the pit of his stomach thanks to Mysterion, inspiring him and reassuring him that he was somehow good enough to be loved. Good enough to deserve gifts. Good enough to be showered in affection.

But still...

"I-It's too much. I don't deserve this." he turned away from them, shaking.

"You deserve more than this. You deserve the world, my boy." Gerard patted his back.

"I-I need to make this up to you. Please let me make this up to you. A-Are there any chores you'd like me to start working on?" Pip became tense, knowing he needed to pay them back. "I can do anything you want, honest."

"No Pip. You're not responsible for doing the chores here."

"B-But I can cook and clean, so doing chores isn't a problem.