A Kind Of Emotional Tether

Part Two

"Someone that has a strong connection to you. A kind of emotional tether."

-

When an average day for you is being tormented by some sort of terrifying creature that has the habit of chasing you with the (assumed) intent to harm; you tend to get jumpy.

Even if the terrifying creature always ends up being made of some sort of silicon that hides the face of a loser who had nothing better to do than mope.

After the gang had solved their first legitimately dangerous case together, Daph couldn't sleep a wink. Same with the second and the third and the fourth.

The constant chases, grotesque creatures popping out of the darkness of some sort of abandoned building. Her somehow always being the first to get grabbed.

It became way too much way too fast.

Day after day she realized how selfish people can be, how quickly these people became convinced dressing up in a costume and hurting people was their only option.

How could she trust anyone that was outside of the van with the funky paint job?

She had no idea how Fred could look so many people in the eye and trust them, she admired how his faith in humanity hadn't collapsed after seeing how evil it could be. She believed that was one of the reasons why she loved him, his ability to trust people.

It had taken a while, but she was able to believe in people again. She wasn't totally sure how she had done it, forcing herself to trust in people wasn't exactly the easiest thing.

It wasn't the waves of therapists her parents threw at her.

It wasn't listening to thunderstorms and drinking coconut water.

It wasn't even stress eating that helped.

She figured if it worked for Shaggy then it could work for anyone.

But then she remembered Shaggy wasn't "anyone," he was far from being anyone.

He didn't care what others thought about him, he wasn't afraid to admit his flaws and his issues. He was a coward and proud of it. If he had a problem with something he would lay it all out on the table.

That was something Daph couldn't imagine doing. Her stress was always layed out in a hinting manner, one that nobody bothered to pick up on. So instead she'd scream into a pillow for a few seconds until she felt like she could smile at people again.

Of course that was replaced later on by her new belief that people could be inherently good. That definitely made her happier.

The chases, the grotesque creatures, getting captured. It all was now met with her undefeated optimism. That was also added to the fact that they had all gotten a lot better at what they do, so the chance of something going wrong was at an all time low.

It felt nice to be able to outsmart people who deserved to be reminded how stupid they were.

But that didn't mean there weren't smart bad guys out there. Smart bad guys they were bound to run into eventually. And eventually those bad guys would outsmart the meddling kids.

-

"I keep running through the plan over and over in my head a-and there shouldn't be any faults to it." Fred was pacing back and forth while he rubbed his forehead, maybe trying to get his brain to turn back on. Maybe trying to pull it out of the state of panic it was in.

"Freddie, thi-this isn't your fault. That guy got the best of us, right Scooby?" Daphne was sitting on the bumper of the Mystery Machine, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. Scoob didn't move from where he was laying and nobody had been able to coax him out to talk or move or.....anything.