Linda smiled at the sound of the front door opening and excited voices of her boys and their friends. Though, 'their friends' felt inadequate. It minimized them. Isabella then Baljeet and Buford had spent so many days in the backyard followed by snacks inside and hanging around until their parents would be expecting them home over the years that they felt more like extended family than mere friends of her sons.
The tried and excited voices blurred in a murmur until Candace's rose above them clearly, "I just wanna know if this is going to come out. This is my good shirt, Phineas!"
"...It looks just like your other shirts--"
"Phineas!"
Linda shook her head in amusement, only slightly concerned that they'd gotten something on her shirt that needed coming out. She hadn't even known Candace had been with them. Since coming home from college for the summer, she'd seemed to be stubbornly set on not getting dragged into her brother's activities. Of course, Candace had called them--oh, what was it?--something about 'insanity inducing adventures of impossible weirdness.'
It was good to see she'd decided to spend time with them after all.
"Oh, there you are Perry." Phineas paused in the kitchen doorway to scratch Perry's head. "Hey, Mom!"
Her smile flickered at the sight of them as the rest of the gang filed in behind him. Not a single one wasn't sporting holes or rips and tears in their clothing, some odd blueish black gunk staining both fabric and skin, her eyes focused on Candace, and hair too it seemed. "What is that?"
Ferb barely glanced at her as he bent to join in of the platypus petting. "A combination of mucus and melanin produced by the," he made a high pitched mewling sound that made everyone in the room flinch, "of the Cartwheel Galaxy." He paused. "We neglected to ask for their planet's name, as their plan to conquer the Milky Way was a slightly more pressing concern at the time."
Buford rubbed his ears. "Jeeze, didn't we already talk ta ya about saying their name?"
With a split-second smirk, Ferb shrugged.
"Ugh, thanks for reminding me why I wanted to shower as soon as we got back." Candace scrunched up her face but didn't stop picking at the stains. Either ignoring or ignorant to the long rip in the side of her shirt.
It was nice to see their imaginations hadn't faded any. But did they really need to ruin their clothes for their game? Perhaps she could patch-up some of them, if the stains came out. Linda sighed. "Why don't you all go get cleaned up while I prepare snacks?"
This was meet with agreements, and Candace's eyeroll and a mutter to low to hear. That didn't stop her from giving the girl a disapproving look. The tone alone was enough to know it hadn't been complementary.
Soon Phineas, and Perry, were the only ones left.
"So what did you really do today?"
Phineas blinked at her, a confused expression taking root. "Uh, we fought some aliens and chased them outta our galaxy?" Then it faded as he smiled. "Saved the world. Same old, same old. Now we get snacks"
