“Okay what fresh hell is this now?” Asked Clarice as the flowers started freaking out and some enormous weeds threatened to eat them or mow them over. Her team split up, half fighting some weeds, half being constrained by them.
“Sing! Sing to weaken them!” Said one of the flowers, which immediately prompted Clarice to roll her eyes. Anissa and Tallisan seemed busy fighting and protecting barely sprouted flowers from getting devastated by the weeds, so that only left Damon and...her. “They’re getting overwhelmed!”
“Uhhhh...uh…” Clarice eyed Damon hesitantly. She started humming half-heartedly to no tune at all. The flowers once again asked for help. “Hold on! ...For one more daaaay?”
Damon’s immediate instinct was to start ripping into the weeds that were trying to engulf them and he did manage to uproot one or two but, as many as he managed to down, more just seemed to take their place. In the moment when he caught Clarice’s eye, he could have sworn that the look they shared conveyed a reluctant understanding - they were going to have to sing. Both of them had more or less managed to avoid it up until this point but, having seen the others doing it to great effect, it was clear that they had no other option.
Damon had, by no means, been a connoisseur of popular music throughout the years but, by sheer luck, Clarice had started singing a line from a song that came out in one of his more lucid decades.
Grimacing, as much at himself for knowing the words as at their situation, Damon sighed and gave in, singing, “Some day somebody's gonna make you wanna turn around and say goodbyyye. Until then baby are you going to let them hold you down and make you cryyy?” He didn’t know about the weeds but this was making him want to cry.
They should, by now, all be used to this kind of thing but obviously neither of them were too pleased either way, and Clarice felt slightly embarrassed to even be in this whole situation in front of another living being. Well, in front of another person at least, since the flowers seemed all too keen on this kind of crap.
Closing her eyes, Clarice let her shoulders slump as she continued. “Don't you know, things will change, things will go your way- if you hoooold ooon for one more daaaay!”
“It's working!” One daisy said encouragingly. Clarice gave Damon a mirthless smile as another daisy piped up with “Keep going!”
It was then that, wide eyed, Clarice realized she didn't remember the rest of the lyrics. “Uh- hoooold… ooon… for one more day-yay…”
Damon could see that it was working, even before the daisy piped up. A smirk spread across his lips and he couldn’t resist reaching up and pulling the white head off of some bindweed which was drooping down towards him, weakened by their terrible, yet effective, rendition of Wilson Phillips.
Hearing Clarice begin to falter, however, he looked up at her, his confidence melting away.
“Things'll go your waay. Hold on for one more day!” he sang in a vaguely panicky voice. It was dawning on him that he only knew the words to the chorus.
“I don’t know any more,” he hissed at Clarice, his body dropping into a tense fighting stance as he readied himself to fight off more weeds if he had to.
“Yeah me neither! What do you think that was all about, artistic license?” Clarice grumbled back. After a deep, exasperated sigh, Clarice started humming shakily to the tune which was repetitive but at least not as annoying as if she had started in on the chorus again. And then, she started making up lyrics to the tune. Now it was all about artistic licensing.
“I don’t remember being alive when this song was out on the chaarts- on the chaarts! I know it from Bridesmaids mostly and my singing is total trash! Just- die, goddamn weeds, lalala-la if you hoooooold oooooon for one more daaay!”
The weeds seemed to wither and decay finally, and Clarice shot Damon a thumbs up.
Damon stared at Clarice in amazement and no small amount of awe when she started ad-libbing. An amused smile spread across his face despite their less than ideal situation. He had no idea where she was pulling these words from and he realised he didn’t have a hope in hell of joining in with her so he did the one thing he could think to do.
Charging into the clump of weakened weeds, he began yanking at their stems, clods of mud and root flying everywhere in time with Clarice’s solo. Eventually, the few weeds left standing started to wilt and collapse on themselves. For good measure, a few more heads came off in Damon’s hands before he finally fell back to where Clarice was standing.
“Well, that was fun,” he said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “Let’s never talk of it again.”
There was the hint of air guitar accompanying Clarice’s ad-libbing, which devolved into screechy and vaguely guitar-like sounds once she ran out of words and Damon wailed on the weeds. She cheered him on once there wasn’t an ounce of musical inclination left in her, and finally deflated with a sigh as he deemed the job done and rejoined her.
“Good job man!” Clarice clapped Damon on the back. Her smile immediately fell and was replaced by a look of pure contempt. “I hate this place. Let’s bounce.”