#who do i need to pay to get some shaphne drame

[scoobydoominuscoobydoo]

The Meddling Kids in the Car

FF.Net & AO3

-

Darkness.

Silence.

Pain shooting through his leg.

And then he hears grunting, someone struggling to breathe; he can sense tears trying force their way to the front.

Shag realizes that the darkness is being caused by his eyes being shut.

When he does open his eyes he finds that the darkness is barely improved; his world being illuminated by a single car light above him.

It’s that observation that tells him he’s in a car, and after further investigation he can see that he’s cramped up in the back seat. That tells him this isn’t the Mystery Machine or any other form of big car, any small car never has enough leg room for him.

The next observation he makes is that the sounds of struggle from before were coming from the front seat. Shaggy directs his attention towards the front and only needs a moment to spot an orange turtle-neck.

“Velms?”

When he speaks his tongue feels like sand paper and the air is almost damp when he breathes it in.

How long has he been out?

His brunette friend turns to look at him and he sees her face light up, he also notices a large, purple bruise on her temple.

“Shag holy shit! I thought your were dead for a second there.” She says this with a chuckle in her voice and her eyes begin to tear up. She leans back in the driver’s seat and smiles brightly at him, making him worry that he had been out for longer than a couple hours.

Now that his brain is finally orienting itself he takes another crack at examining his surroundings.

“Like sorry to disappoint...” He says softly and earns another chuckle from Velma.

He can definitely confirm that they are in a small car.

And judging by the darkness around the windows it’s late at night.

They must be locked in the car or something because Velma was trying to force open the the driver’s side door. But cars can’t be kept locked from the inside, there should be a way for her to unlock it.

And why was it so damn hot?

Shaggy hadn’t realized it at first but it was definitely sweltering; sweat was dripping from his brow and his breathing had become labored.

Then he took a closer look out the window next to him - his blood went cold.

“Ve- Velma? Whe-Where are we?”

Velma stares somberly at him and takes a deep breath, as if trying to keep her emotions in check, “We’re underground. Buried alive.”

-

Hour One:

“What’s the last thing you remember Shag?”

Her words kinda echo for a second, he keeps trying to pull his body out of a state of panic because in a cramped area like this that could result in death.

How many hours had they been in here?

How many hours did they have left?

“Shaggy!”

He jumps and looks back at her, suddenly remembering that she had asked him something.

He runs a hand through his hair, “I-...I-uh....remember we were at the haunted amusement park looking for Ferdinand the Torture Clown and-”

“That’s not his name.”

“It’s a better name, don’t interrupt me or I’ll forget what I was talking about.” Velma rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, her version of admitting defeat.

“Like, thank you. And.... um Freddie had us split up. You and me plus Scoob - him and Daph?” She nodded and he continued, “So like, you and I were at the employee parking for the clown rental shop just outside of the park. You were on one side and I was on the other.” He looks down at his lap to sigh, he’s been short of breath since he woke up.

“I-.... I remember you calling me over to see something but.... by the time I got to where you were you were passed out and on the ground. Like, I didn’t even get a second to process before I heard a honk and saw bright lights. Th- That’s all I can remember.”

Velms nods, “That matches up with my memories. Somebody came up from behind right after I called for you and then clocked me in the head.” She points up to her lovely bruise, “And then they must’ve sauntered off and waited for you so they could run you over.”

“What?!”

Velms raises an eyebrow at him, “You know? Like with a car?”

“I got run over by a car?!”

“Well dur, did you think that nasty number on your leg was from me?”

Shaggy can’t believe his ears, he follows Velma’s gesture toward his left leg and instantly feels sick. It’s bent unnaturally and on top of the lovely mixture of dirt and blood its got going on, it’s also leaking some sort of pus that is making his stomach churn.

It’s right then that the pain coming from his leg registers, and it must show on his face because Velma steps in, “The adrenaline must’ve been distracting you from the pain...”

He groans, knowing he shouldn’t touch it but desperately wants to do something with it.

“Agh! I-Is is supposed to hurt this much?”

Velma bite her lips for a moment, “I-.....I don’t know. I’ve never been run over by a car.”

He glares at her.

“But it’s probably gonna get worse in these conditions.”

With that, he attempts to move in a more comfortable position, and the pain from the movement causes him to scream.

-

Hour Two:

“How much air do you think we have?”

“Judging by how long we’ve been in here, the size of the car and a couple hours to count the amount of time we were unconscious; I’d say five...maybe six hours at the greatest.”

“Like, fantastic.”

They’re silent for a few moments after that, and Shag finds that the quiet above ground and the quiet below are very different.

He’s hating the below ground one so far because it’s giving him the head-space to count out the minutes till his death.

And whenever Velma feels the need to break the silence, it feels so much louder now.

“Who do you think did this to us Shag?”

He sighs and gestures up toward the sky, however far up it may be, “I don’t fucking know- my best guess is our good friend Ferdinand but this seems like something above his pay-grade.”

A clown skipping around and turning off roller-coasters suddenly burying two teenagers alive seems like a huge leap. Leaps from dangerous pranks to actual life or death situations were rarely made, and Velma couldn’t picture their mask doing this.

“Yeah, I mean clearly this guy is trying to shut down the park because once it’s shut down the land will be at it’s lowest.”

“Like it’s always something with real-estate...”

This quiet is awful.

They can’t even hear bugs chirping.

No sign of life except for them struggling to breathe.

Velma takes another look towards their main problem, breaking the quiet once more, “How’s your leg?”

Shag also sends a glance its way, hating just how bad it looked, “Like it’s doing great, the pus is really coming along.”

Velms frowns at him and he can tell something is on her mind, but it’s something she’s gotta say gently. Otherwise she would’ve already blurted it out. She sighs before speaking, “It’s swelled up a lot in the past hour...”

“Well yeah, it did come face-to-face with a damn tire.” He musters up a grin, because he hopes that’ll help Velma deliver the bad news.

Her mouth is set in a grim line as she stares at his leg for a few more seconds, gulping as she replies, “I just hope it’s not because of infection....”

Shit.

He had forgotten that was a thing.

“And if it is?”

This time it’s Velma trying to summon the smile, her’s is far less convincing, “It’s gonna be a tough few hours.”

At that moment the only thing Shag can think is, ‘Don’t hyperventilate. Don’t hyperventilate.’

Velma can see that all over his face, “Shaggy if you start to panic then we’ll be out of air a lot faster.”

“You think I don’t know that?!” He almost wheezes that statement out, “Not like it matters anyway. We have no clue where we’re buried and there’s no way that Fred and Daphne will know that we’re under the ground!”

Velma bites her lip and looks away from him, wiping sweat from the bridge of her nose.

She’s not used to being the optimist in any situation, but neither is Shaggy. They both find that it’s impossible to put a positive spin on anything, but Shag’s leg isn’t doing too well and if Velma doesn’t bring the mood up he’s gonna start panicking.

She needs to distract him.

“Ou- There’s always the chance that Fred and Daph catch our guy, and if he’s the one who shoved us down here then Fred will get it out of him.”

He rubs his forehead and chuckles, “Yeah... if Daph doesn’t kill him first.”

She closes her eyes and smiles, “Indeed.”

Shaggy follows her lead and shuts his eyes, letting his head lean back against the window.

Pushing his hands into his pockets and letting his fingers trace over every item. He can feel assorted pieces of paper, candy wrappers most likely, his Commander Cool wallet from way back in grade school, that’s definitely a Scooby Snack in his left pocket. For the first time in his life, he’s starving but not in the mood to eat - won’t do much good in a dead body.

He’ll offer it to Velma in a minute.

Pessimistic as she can be, he knows that she has huge faith in Fred and is more convinced than him that their leader will be able to connect all the missing dots.

As smart as Fred and Daphne are, there are too many unpredictable details to make up for.

Suddenly, something pops into his head, he has a cell phone.

He releases his right hand to search his back pocket, relieved to feel the warm plastic at his fingertips. Shaggy grabs it and takes a good look at it; it’s surprisingly not cracked or scratched - at least there are no new cracks or scratches.

He presses the on button and sure enough, the screen lights up, instantly greeting him with Daphne’s bright eyes as Scooby licks her cheek.

She was cackling when the photo was taken, and as loud and extra as Daphne’s laugh could be, Shaggy couldn’t deny how beautiful she looked when she did laugh.

It provides some sort of comfort, in spite of the lack of reception he has.

Those violet eyes seem to relax every nerve in his body, he remembers choosing to make this his lock-screen. He had ran the risks through his head over and over again.

What if anybody sees?

What if Daphne sees?

What are they gonna think?

But, in the end, he lost the battle to those eyes.

Shaggy smiles fondly at the photo, almost forgetting he was in his coffin, but is interrupted by a gasp.

“You’ve had your phone this whole time?!” Velma cries out, forcing Shag to tear his gaze away from Daphne. “Like, calm down Velms, it doesn’t have any sort of signal.”

She stares at him for a moments before saying, “You don’t have the FM radio thing? It comes pre-installed in most phones.”

Shag raises an eyebrow at her, “And then we can do what, listen to the game? Radio and walkie-talkie are two different things.” Frowning, Velma bites her lip - trying to gather her thoughts.

-

Hour Three:

Their breaths are becoming shorter, he can hear just how shallow Velma’s inhales are, and the back of his throat is dry and burning.

Velms has already abandoned her turtle-neck as well as her glasses, which wouldn’t stop fogging up. “Fuck it, I’d rather make the choice to be blind.”

Shaggy had been spending the seconds alternating between looking at the picture of Daphne for sanity’s sake, and then looking down at the state of his leg.

Also for the sake of sanity, but in a different way.

Looking at Daph helped him feel at peace on his “deathbed” while looking at his leg reminded his that he would probably never see her again.

He had cut off the leg of his pants all the way up to the knee with a box-cutter Velma had found in the glove compartment, so as to better see the damage. It was safe to say it wasn’t healing in any way, the swelling had gone up noticeably as well as the pain.

Velms couldn’t really do much about it, just sigh and rub her forehead.

Neither of them saw much purpose in bringing up the bright-side, they had been here for a long time - long enough for reality to set in.

They had seen the last of the world just a few hours ago and now the last thing they were ever going to see was each other.

“Do you take me for granted?”

Velma lets out a soft “hmmm” before saying, “Yeah probably.”

He nods, even though she isn’t looking at him.

“But you can’t hold that against me.”

“And why ever not?”

She chuckles and turns back to squint at him, he knows that doesn’t help any, and says, “Shag, I have known you almost my whole life right?”

He nods again but isn’t sure if she can see that so he says, “At least.”

Velma smirks and continues, “In that time I have found there to be one consistent fact. Nobody thinks less of Shaggy Rogers than Shaggy Rogers.”

The sentence leaves him kind of winded, as if he wasn’t winded enough from the lack of air, and he’s left to ponder it. Velma turns back toward the front, she had said her piece and she had nothing left to throw out. Not like she had to worry about being sensitive with him, the only punishment she’d receive is him ignoring her.

Which works.

Silence being the last thing she remembers, the only peaceful moment in her life.

Shaggy is staring up at the car light, black dots appearing and fading with every blink, left to contemplate so many things and knowing that it won’t do any good.

At this point even the tedious ticking of a clock would be comforting, he was getting tired of listening to his own heavy breathing.

The glaring 57% battery life was mocking him, showing him how much time he had left with Daphne and Scoob before the screen would go dark and he’d never see them again. He heard Velma groan as she turned to look back at him, seeing her slide on her glasses through his periphiral.

“Shag what time is it?”

He didn’t answer, the 57% had just gone down to 56% and now Shaggy was thinking about mortality and how he didn’t have a charger to bring him back to life.

Velma rolled her eyes and leaned forward, yanking Shag’s phone out of his hand.

“Velms! Like what the hell?!” He attempted to grab it back but she was already out of reach, he winced as he leaned a little too far forward and his leg pulsed.

She raises her eyebrows, feeling bad for causing that pain, but keeping her tongue sharp, “I was asking you what time it was, I repeated myself like three fuckin’ times.”

Shaggy rolled his eyes and leaned back against the door, breathing through his nose and waiting for the pain to subside.

It wasn’t.

But it’s not like it mattered anyway.

Velma huffed and turned her attention to the phone, pressing the on button and wishing her skirt had pockets that would have been able to hold her phone. Sucking in a deep breath at the sight of Daphne looking back at her.

Without even looking at the time, Velma brought her gaze to her tall friend.

His eyes were closed as he concentrated on ignoring the pain.

Now Velma knew that a lock screen photo could mean anything, any number of things besides the one thing she’s thinking of.

But as she’s looking at Shaggy right now she can just feel what this picture means to him, why it’s there and why he’s been spending the last hours of their lives looking at it.

Daphne huh?

She can’t help but smile, because she’s learned a thing or two about Shaggy - but she’s also known a thing or two about Daphne.

Velma chooses not to say anything, deciding not to curse Shag with the information that he’s part of a doomed romance.

-

Hour Four:

They’re at the point where labored breathing can be changed to desperate gasps every few minutes, lungs panicking and searching for air before realizing the supply was just low - not gone.

Velma has been mentally counting out the minutes for the past one-hundred or so, resisting the urge to suck in deep breaths.

“Shags.... what is that?”

Her voice is so quiet, they haven’t spoken to each other for nearly forty-five minutes and he had almost forgotten what she sounded like.

“Like, what?”

He just barely wheezes that out.

“W-...What is that?”

She points to the car’s control panel in front of her, the small, grey rectangle resting on top of it to be precise.

“It’s a GPS.”

The earns a gasp as she leans forward in her chair and pops her glasses back on, “Oh my word I am so damn stupid! It’s been here the whole fucking time and I didn’t even notice it!”

Shaggy is surprised she can still summon the energy to shout, or be mad with herself.

He watches as she examines the device, tracing her fingers over each edge - clearly looking for something. She lets out a loud, triumphant laugh as her search merits pleasing results, he assumes as much at least.

“Care to share anything with the class Velms?”

With a grunt and a cackle, Velma crawls over to the passenger side and he hears the pops of the glove compartment being opened.

“This GPS is connected to satellite, real rich shit for sure. And as it just so happens, we have a little green van out there with a spunky navigation system that takes in almost any information sent it’s way.” She groans and slams the compartment shut as she turns her search to the small storage space between the driver’s and passenger’s seats.

“If I can remember the signal our good-for-nothing GPS is on than I could send out our coordinates or something whatever this is only a half plan.” She has yet to even look up at him, searching for he doesn’t even know what.

“Wait.... Velms even if we’re able to send out the longitude and latitude higgledy piggledy, how do we know Fred and Daphne will know it’s us? How are they supposed to know we’re sending this from however many feet beneath the earth’s surface?” Velma doesn’t answer, still not looking up from her goal.

And this makes him angry, the hairs on the back of his neck rising as he clenches his hands into fists.

Without thinking, he reaches forward and grabs onto the collar of Velma’s sweater, tugging her toward him, “Look at me!!! AaGh!”

He immediately withdraws and rubs at his leg, seeing that the redness that originally just surrounded the wound has now traveled up his leg and under his pant-leg. He can see the blood that was clotting now trailing down his calf and onto the seat.

Any form of movement sends Shaggy waves of pain and there’s nothing he can do but try not to scream. All of the pressing pain feels like fire in every place he can think of, this was like nothing else he’d ever felt.

Was this his body finally shutting down?

For now he bites down on his index finger as he feels tears stream down his cheeks.  

His brain repeating over and over again, ‘You’re dying. This is it.’

It’s pushing against his skull with the force of a bullet and more than anything he wants to scream out for it all to stop.

‘I’m not ready!!!!’

That final thought just barely manages to be louder than the rest, not getting a repeat or an echo.

And it’s enough to leave Shag feeling cold; freezing.

“Shaggy... I-”

“I’m nuts about Daphne!” He sobs out, not even bothering to hold it back.

He almost feels like laughing at Velma’s silence, finally she has nothing to say, “I’m over the moon, crazy stupid in love with her.”

Amazingly, she still says nothing.

Shaggy chuckles and wipes the tears from his face, “Like, aaahh.... I love her voice and her laugh - oh my gosh do I love her laugh. And her eyes might as well just be some sort of stun gun for me. Sh-She’s so confident all the time and so smart - Zoinks she’s a genius, and I hate that she lets people talk down to her so much.”

He wonders if she’s staying silent so he can get all of this out, because he’s not really sure when this will stop, if it’ll ever stop.

He’s been holding it in for a long time.

“So-Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night ‘cause I’m completely terrified that she believes all the bad things people say about her.” His profession of love and need to start sobbing have been battling it out in his throat and it’s becoming really hard to even string words together, “Velms she’s so fucking amazing and..... I-I could never be with somebody as awesome as her but....”

The words won’t even come out anymore, just tears and shaky gasps.

Velma bites her lip as she sees the inner-turmoil that’s taking over her best friend.

She leans forward and lightly rests her hand on his uninjured leg, “Shags.... tell me what to do.”

Shaggy locks eyes with her and through his blurry vision he can see that she’s got a somber look on her face, her mouth set in a determined frown.

“I.....”

What does he want her to do?

No.

This is her asking what he wants, right now.

What he needs her to do to help that happen.

“I want to see her again....”

All it takes is that statement and Velma sends him a mischievous grin, clapping her hands together and turning back toward the compartment, “Right! So, as we all know most GPS connected to the car require the actual car to be running, and while the lights are on nothing else in the car seems to be functioning. Lucky for us though, this one is similar to Freddie’s -  meaning it has-”

“A keyhole!” Shag jumps in and Velma snaps and points at him.

“Exactly. Unfortunately, even if we do unlock it - assuming we find the key - we’ll only have a few seconds of time to send out the message before the device shuts off again. These things have shit emergency power and seeing as we’ve been down here for maybe eight hours already it’s safe to say that it’s dead. After that we get zero redos. Got all that Shags?”

Shaggy gulps and nods, “Like no second chances, got it.”

Then a thought pops into his head, “Uh yeah, quick question ma’am. It shouldn’t be hard to find our GPS to send the message to but uh... how are we supposed to know where the hell we are?”

Velma stares at him for a few seconds before smirking, “Ah... that is where you come in my friend.”

“Me?”

She chuckles, “Yes Mr. “I have the nose of a bloodhound.”

“Wha-.. Uh-...I.... Velms, like we’ve been down here for hours and I haven’t smelled anything. Zip. Nada.” Velma simply returns this with another chuckle before replying, “Well you were a depressed loser for a wide percentage of those hours.”

He stares blankly at her before sighing, “Yeah... but- blaming my lack of smelling ability on my mental state has a wide margin for error don’t you think?”

“And do you have a better idea?”

Shag ponders that question for a second and then groans.

Closing his eyes, he tries to concentrate on every little thing his nose has been able to detect thus far. Dirt, sweat, blood, iron, the rubber from the tires; that’s as far out as his senses have been able to travel.

Sighing, he opens his eyes and looks at Velma, “Velms I-”

“Norville Shaggy Rogers, you told me that you - yes you sir, nobody else - wanted to see the love of your life Daphne Blake again. Did you not?” She’s crossing her arms and scowling at him.

Her words send a wave of heat over him and he looks down at his hands, “Like-”

“Yes! That’s exactly what you said! Don’t bullshit me like this, I have seen you pick out every single ingredient in my mom’s vegan lasagna without even tasting it. You were able to help us find a gas station in the middle of Vegas when the van broke down. You’re a freaking X-Man Shags!”

Velma’s eyes are practically glowing as she rants to him, he’s not used to her putting so much faith in him.

And then he’s thinking about Daphne, her perfect eyes being the only thing in the world he needs.

He closes his eyes again and takes as deep a breath as he can.

He’s back at the scent of rubber, weirdly enough, they’re definitely new tires, but he doesn’t think much of it - trying his hardest to grip onto something new. Flames of red and blue and orange dance around under his eyelids, each one something he’s already seen before; no what he needs right now is a new color.

It occurs to him that he probably looks insane to Velma right now, eyes closed and a constant sniffing.

Not like he should be feeling self conscious, he’s just trying to save their lives.

He almost jumps in his seat at the flash of purple appearing just in the corner of his vision. Not wasting another moment gripping onto the color and following it, trying to place what it is.

“Funnel cake.”

He hears Velma gasp, “So we’re still near the park?”

Shag lingers on the shade for a moment longer before nodding, “Yeah, no doubt about it, this is the same stuff from our park.”

Velma nods and bites her lip in thought, recalling that they only had one funnel cake stand in the whole of the park. “D-Do you think you can place how far from the stand we are?”

Shaggy sighs and rubs the back of his neck, “Like, I’ll try Velms...”

Slowly, Shag begins to climb the violet hue, trying his best to avoid getting lost in all the rivaling smells.

It wasn’t helping that the purple was just making him think of Daph and then his mind would start to drift, only being pulled back in by his desire to see the real deal in front of him again.

He’s not quite sure how long he’s been ascending the lavender rope for but it’s definitely been a slow going process because his inhales are shorter and require more effort.

Oddly enough, when he reaches the surface of what he’s assuming is the earth, Shag is completely winded.

And it takes no time for him to be absolutely drowned in a barrage of new colors, all of them trying to get him to look away from the purple. But he keeps his grip firm and tight, noticing that it’s definitely getting brighter and more intense in hue - he has to be close.

Suddenly, all the other colors vanish - being completely drowned in the ferocity of the violet. All Shag can comprehend is purple and he can practically feel Daphne staring into his soul, but this isn’t Daph - this is funnel cake. And it’s right on top of them.

He lets out a gasp and his eyes shoot open, Velma goes from bored and relaxed to alert in a second, “Did you find out where we are?”

Shag nods, still trying to catch his breath, “We-....We’re.....un- underneath.”

Velms raises an eyebrow, “Underneath....the funnel cake stand?”

He nods again, closing his eyes and groaning as he’s overwhelmed by the colors again.

“You mean....directly underneath?”

“L-Like we might be five or six feet below the surface, but we’re definitely underneath the stand.”

Velma is quiet for a second, crossing her arms as she processes the new information, “So....somebody knocks me out, runs you down, somehow takes down the entire stand, and then buries an entire car six feet under, and nobody noticed?”

Shag rubs the back of his neck in thought, “Like, wasn’t there a lot of construction going on? Because the park’s not up to code or something like that? I can’t remember what the lawyer chick said.”

Velms sighed, “Yeaahhh I kinda blacked out whenever she talked, remind me never to go to law school.”

“Noted.”

“Anyway, while you were going on a sniffing adventure, I managed to find the damn key to this stupid GPS. Now I just need to figure out the location of the stand in relationship to the Mystery Machine.” Velma is in super-detective concentration mode right now, meaning she’ll ask a lot of questions out loud but they’re all rhetorical and Shag should not attempt to answer any of them.

That’s Fred’s job, not his.

As he watches the one-woman show play out before him, a question from earlier pops back to the center of his brain.

“Uh... Velms?” She sends him an annoyed look but she stops mumbling to listen, “Again, if Fred and Daph can even get the message and know it’s from us and go to the tent, how are they supposed to know we’re buried under the crust of the earth?”

Velma’s eyebrows furrow and she nods, “Yes, that is an issue...”

She’s silent for several minutes before she snaps her fingers, “Of course!”

Without wasting a second, Velma leans forward and pops open the glove compartment again. Shag can hear her fishing around in there for a few moments before returning back in front of him, holding what looks like a black cord. 

His eyes widen when he realizes what it is.

“Like...is that...”

“Yes it is. A USB hookup. And if I’m right....” Velma reaches over and grabs Shag’s phone from his hand, ignoring his protests, and lines up the plug-in with the phone’s charging port.

“Hah!” She laughs loudly, making Shaggy jump.

“This hookup is compatible with your dumb Android.”

“Okay, like not all of us wanna use a thousand pesos of our parent’s money to buy a phone that’ll break in two months.”

Velma rolls her eyes, “Shag... now is not the time for smartphone feuds. We have our lives on the line.”

“Wh-? You started i-”

“Ah ba ba! More pressing matters... how fast can you type on this keyboard?” Shag’s sighs and leans back against the door, all this action is helping him forget the fact that his leg is starting to look like a zombie’s leg.

“Uuuhhh..... thumbs like lightening. Why?”

“Becaaauuse...” Velma starts as she begins to plug the other end of the cord to the GPS, “I’m gonna need those lightning thumbs to type out some sort of message while I put in our location.”

Shag raised an eyebrow at her, “A GPS is able to send and receive text messages?”

“Shaggy, Fred’s GPS is capable of semi-sentient speech.”

“....Fair enough.”

Without a moment to lose, Velma begins to map out their location in her head, knowing she’ll only have a couple seconds to lock onto the Mystery Machine and then plot out the point toward the funnel cake stand. Meanwhile, Shaggy will have the same amount of time to type out some sort of clue to hint at where they were in the stand.

After maybe ten minutes of psyching up and hoping their thumbs would respond fast enough, Velma slowly inserts the small, plastic key into the keyhole.

Shags hand are shaking but poised to type like the wind.

Carefully, she turns the key until she hears a beep and the screen lights up, giving them a low battery symbol before giving them a map of their location. 

The pressure kicks in as the beeping continues and Velma is suddenly looking for and sort of signal coming from the van, Shag jumps when a keyboard pops up on his screen.

He freezes up for a moment, completely forgetting what he was gonna type, the beeping sending blow after blow at his thought process. 

It takes one particularly deep breath for him to remember his word of choice and to begin typing it.

And then, his screen is black.

Never giving him the chance to finish the word.

“Di-Did you get it?” He asks as he looks up at Velma, she’s panting heavily and gripping either side of the GPS. Her knuckles are white.

“I-....I’m pretty sure I got it, i-it was sent out to the nearest signal I could latch onto. I’m really hoping it was the Mystery Machine.” She says that with a breathless chuckle as she leans back in the driver’s seat, “What about you?”

He gulps and licks his dry lips, “I at least got half of the word....”

Velma chuckles again, this one extremely dry, “What was your word?”

Shag leans against the door again, trying to avoid thinking about how he might have ruined their last chance of survival, “Underneath.”

-

Hour Five:

Shag jolted awake.

He had been fading in and out for the past half an hour at least with each little “power nap” lasting around five minutes.

The last time he had shaken himself awake with a sneeze.

He wasn’t sure that was gonna help any with the oxygen deprivation but at this point Shaggy didn’t even care how much time they had left.

It was narrowed down to either they would be found by the rest of the gang.....

Or they wouldn’t.

Shag pretended that whole unconscious thing was just awful and he was trying his best to avoid it, ignoring all the different stories he’d experience with Daphne when his eyes were shut.

Damn it.

He should’ve stormed up and kissed the living daylights out of her ages ago.

If only the extenuating factor that Daphne may not need - better word - want to be kissed by Shaggy Rogers didn’t take him over.

He certainly understood that.

She could be dating superheros and models and gajillionaires, people born with symmetrical faces and everything.

In his opinion, he wasn’t nearly perfect enough to kiss her, but didn’t change the fact that he wanted to. He so desperately wanted to; lost count of all the times he had been lost in thought and just thinking how easy it would for him to casually blurt out, “Hey I love you. Yes you. In the purple.”

But as easy as it was to say, it was chained down - never to escape his mouth.

Because those damn eyes just terrified him so much when the moment was important to him.

Maybe she’s relieved that he doesn’t love her.

Maybe she really needs him as her friend and nothing else.

He really didn’t want to mess that up.

Groaning, he put those thoughts on the back burner and rubbed his tired eyes that were fighting off the temptations of sleep, and failing. Shag wasn’t sure when but eventually if he let himself fall asleep, he won’t be waking up.

It was at this point he noticed a faint beeping coming from somewhere next to him.

For a split second Shaggy wondered if he had already been rescued and was just hooked up to an IV, safe in a hospital above the ground.

But then, he opened his eyes and indeed confirmed that he was still in the God forsaken car.

The lights had clicked off awhile ago and refused to turn off, making it even harder to resist sleep.

Him and Velma had tried talking back and forth with each other to keep the brain stimulated or whatever. But they soon found it hard to talk and breathe at the same time, so they dropped that.

Luckily, that beeping had yet to stop and was doing a bang-up job of keeping him awake, and annoying the hell out of him.

He heard a shuffle and Velma’s exasperated groan as she sat up and said, “Okay what the hell is that?”

Shag winced as he leaned forward, his leg was completely numb at this point and he was glad the lights were off because otherwise he’d be too afraid to look at it. His eye trained toward where the beeping was coming from, spots of purple blinking in and out around his vision as his eye failed to adjust to the darkness. Gasping as he saw what he believed to be the GPS blinking red in time with the beeps.

A timer set for fifteen minutes in black text stood out over the red screen.

After a couple of seconds Shaggy realized it was counting down.

Down to what, he didn’t know.

Didn’t wanna know.

But for some reason he was still alive to know.

“Like... it’s just one thing after the other isn’t it?”

He said that with a bitter chuckle, leaning back against the door and groaning as he attempted to shift his leg, it hadn’t moved at all.

Velma clears her throat and for the first time in an hour, he saw her face. Well, the silhouette of her face against the blinking, red light. As she’s examining the GPS, her brow furrows and Shag can’t really tell whether she’s confused or troubled. The last thing he needed was for that look to be troubled, his life was already in jeopardy, wasn’t that good enough?

After a few minutes, Velma sighs and leans back into the seat, “This damn thing is connected to basically everything in the car, there’s no way for me to know what this thing is whining about...”

And thus, she begins to think out loud.

Shaggy leans forward some more, with the hopes of preventing sleep - however tempting it may be. Luckily, the consistent beeping in proving rather helpful in that regard.

It was grating to say the least, each beep acting as some sort of needle stabbing into his brain until all he felt was a light stinging. Putting his head in his hands, Shags groans out, “Aaagh why couldn’t this psycho just send us flying off a cliff? Or suffocate us with the damn airbags? But noooo, all our criminals gotta be “quirky” and add sort of fun twist to the horror. God I hate serial killers...”

Velma chuckles and Shaggy brings his gaze up to her, “What? Airbag suffocation is a clever one.” He raises an eyebrow at her before she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, “Whatever, I though it was funny...”

Suddenly, her face lights up, “Airbags!”

Shag sighs and leans back, “Yup, that’s what I said...”

Velma scoffs, “No you dweeb, that’s probably what the damn GPS is counting down to. Once it reaches zero I’ll bet you anything that it’ll activate the explosives in the airbags and blow up the car.”

Shag stares at her, after a beat of silence he says, “I’ll get in on that action, If it blows up and we like, die, then I owe you $50. But if we just suffocate to death due to a lack of oxygen than you owe me $50.”

“Hardy har smartass. The explosives won’t be enough to kill us.... But... they will probably blow a hole in the car, resulting several tons of dirt flooding in and drowning us. That might be a problem.” She leans back into her chair and sighs, Shaggy simply smiles and says, “Hey, so I’ll win the bet either way! Sweet!”

Another beat of silence.

Velma ends it, “Do-... Do you think Fred and Daph have started looking for us yet?” 

She begins to twiddle her thumbs.

“I have no doubt in my mind...” He takes a deep breath, it comes out more like a wheeze, “But, like, it doesn’t matter anymore. We’ve only got like...”

He leans forward to look at the timer.

“Nine minutes and thirty-four seconds until the white light comes to pick us up.”

“Wow, I can’t believe you’re gonna die a virgin...” Velma smirks back at him.

He rolls his eyes and smiles, “Yeah poor me, at least I can die admitting I fell in love. I don’t see your phone wallpaper of a certain trapping enthusiast.”

Shaggy wishes the lighting were better in here because he can tell she’s blushing.

“We-Well I.... I would have....i-if that damn clown hadn’t stolen my phone...”

Velma looks down at her lap as she states this and Shag can’t help but grin, “Well... It’s no declaration of love, but it’s close enough.”

She looks up to glare at him.

She opens her mouth to say something but is stopped short by the unbearable *screeeeech* coming from directly above them.

Shag and Velma’s eyes shoot upward towards the sound, then looking back down at one another - eye widened in shock.

“That-” Shag licks his lips, not brave enough to admit that was what he thinks it was.

Velma on the other hand is plenty brave and finishes, “Was something scraping the roof of the car?”

Shaggy’s heartbeat has sped up to far beyond what is healthy, leaving a drumming in his head to meet the constant stabs of the shrill beeping. He feels like he’s about to throw up, or faint, or both at the same time, it’s almost as if he can every little thing and yet can’t make out what any of it is.

Another long, scrape sends his pulse up even more.

Velma only needs to register the noise for a second before she starts banging on the roof, “We’re in here!!!” Shaggy is almost impressed at how fast she was able to act because all he can do listen to the drumming in his head and stare as his shaking hands.

Velma jumps back when then hear a knocking from above, instantly she bangs up again, “Freddie?! Daphne?! This better be you two!!!”

He can hear her voice tremble as she keeps shouting out.

Whoever is over them is shouting back, but their voice is muffled and neither of them can make out a single word. They both stare at each other for a minute and Shaggy can see that she’s crying, something he rarely ever gets to witness. And then he sees her gaze flicker over toward the GPS and his skin goes cold, it only takes a second for him to swallow up all the needles in his throat before he gets on his knees.

Slowly and with a lot of trying not to cry.

Biting his lip he looks over at Velma who has taken off her glasses to better let the tears flow.

With determination, Shaggy pounds his fist as hard as he can against the cushioned roof of this God forsaken car, “Fred, Daphne!!! There’s a bomb down here!! Like you’ve gotta get outta here!!!”

A sob catches in his throat and nearly chokes him, but he forces it back down.

He can hear Velma pounding away as well, but he can’t even really hear what she’s saying.

But he can feel his knuckle getting bruised and the air being all but gone from the car, and his leg is just introducing him to a whole new world of hurt. 

One that he certainly was not a fan of.

After several second of nonstop pounding, they both stopped, trying to contain their deep breaths. It was complete silence up top, no pounds back and no screeches to be heard, just the eerie beeping.

They were alone again.

Collapsing back against the door, Shag reminded himself that deep breaths were a luxury he could not afford right now.

Daphne was safe.

And that was all he needed to know.

Ever since the day he couldn’t look her in the eyes without being frozen in place, the attention toward Daphne’s safety tripled. Even now, while trapped in a car with no air left to breath and a bomb about to go off, all he could care about is the fact that she wouldn’t be caught up in it.

That she wasn’t the one stuck in the car for who knows how long.

The beeping seemed to get louder as everything else around his senses began to fade.

‘You can make it.’

‘She’s right there.’

‘You just have to survive a bomb blast and then you can fumble out the confession you’ve been waiting for.’

‘And then they’ll amputate your leg.’

He smiled as he continued to fight the battle of keeping his eyes open, seeing that Velma was putting up the same fight.

 “H-” His throat was in agony from the sudden barrage of screaming it had to go through just minutes ago.

“How long-”

“Two minutes and fifty-something seconds...”

Well damn she still had her voice.

Normally, Shag’s voice never gave out like this; but after dealing with oxygen deprivation and holding back tears for several hours - it was safe to say he was down for the count.

He simply nodded in response and tried to sit up straighter, hoping that would scare the sleep away.

Two minutes becomes an eternity when you’re just waiting for it to pass.

And then, poof!

Or, maybe a better word would be “boom!”

At the last second, Shag’s eye had popped open and he realized that Velma was sitting right in front of the airbags.

“Vel-” He coughed, groaning as the coughing didn’t stop; leaning forward, he grabbed her arm and tugged toward the backseat. Her eyebrows furrowed for a moment, but then her whole face contorted in shock, “Aw shit!” jumping out of the driver’s seat and into the back.

She crashed right on top of his problem leg, but he didn’t even have the strength the talk - much less scream.

“Tuck your head in so you don’t get any shrapnel lodged into your eyes.”

He sighed and leaned forward to put his head between his knees, and not even a second had passed when the whole front of the car went “BOOM!”

Something something hotter than Hell itself slammed against his cheek, and for a few moments he heard sizzling.

One of his favorite sounds was being used for evil.

But it quickly stopped and fell from his face.

Shag felt Velma grab onto his wrist and squeeze, as they listened to the car settle. His ears were ringing and he was coughing up smoke and dust, and the heat around them had become so drastically intense that he could already feel sweat dripping down his face.

He opened his eyes and found that the air was out to sting them.

Groaning at the sight of dirt spilling in from the shattered windshield.

He heard Velma let out a cough before puling on his wrist and moving toward the charred, front of the car.

“Velma what-” The coughing fit interrupted him once again.

Velma turned to look back at him, he saw a small shard of the windshield sticking out of her forehead, “We know that whoever is up there digging us out has reached the top of our car, so all we need to do is dig our asses out and then pass out on the roof.”

Shag looked down to see the the dirt was already burying her knees, if they were gonna do this then they needed to do it now.

-

He immediately regretted that decision as soon as his mouth got filled with hot dirt.

Swimming in earth wasn’t exactly a breeze like swimming around in water.

Now that was something Shag was confident in, he had gone scuba-diving so many times he had lost count. But fighting an upwards battle against relentless dirt that needed to occupy every open space was too much. Especially since there was next to know fight left in his body to begin with, just the promise of daylight to caress him and purple eyes to haunt him.

It was a system.

Push up with all the strength he had and then stop, think about food and Scooby and the criminal that did this to them being thrown into jail.

And Daphne, of course.

And even though he was running on empty, he’d push himself up again - squeezing on Velma’s hand to tell her he wasn’t dead yet. And then she’d squeeze back.

He almost made the stupid mistake of opening his mouth again when his free hand no longer felt dirt, but open air.

It only needed to hang out there for a few seconds before felt someone grip onto it, hard, and begin to pull. Shaggy held on tightly to both Velma and the Savior’s hand as, sure enough, he began rise even faster.

And then all at once, there was the sun again, hanging over their heads and welcoming them back into the land of the living.

Shaggy instantly took a deep breath of air as he fell down onto the roof of the car.

Spitting out every last bit of dirt so he could truly appreciate the air he was taking in.

He could hear Velma coughing up a storm behind her and he left out a relived laugh that she had also survived.

Falling down onto his back, he smiled up at the blue sky and felt hot tears streaming down his cheeks.

And then a shadow loomed over him, not even giving him a second to recognize who it was before the figured began to ravish his face with kisses.

Dog kisses.

“He- Hey Scoob! I’m- I’m okay bud, I’m right here!” He reaches up to scratch behind Scooby’s ears, then moving to cradle the dog’s face in his hands. Squishing up his jowls and smiling at how cute he was, “You’re the best pal a guy can ask for. Did you know that?”

Scooby tilts his head and whines.

Shaggy smiles and fights off the sob in his throat, reaching down to pull that forgotten Scooby Snack out of his pocket. 

The dog quickly begins panting and scoops the treat up from Shag’s hand, backing away as he swallows it whole.

He smiles again, before jumping at the feeling of somebody grabbing onto his now dog slobber covered hand.

His vision blurs for a second as he tries to focus on all that red, searching for those eyes he can lock onto.

They’re full of tears and kinda puffy, but they’re so happy to see him.

And he’s totally breathless once again.

But this lack of air is something he can deal with.

“I swear, nobody knows how to scare the living hell outta me like you do Shags.” She says it with a shaky laugh, but hearing her voice is enough to make him sob.

“I- I’ll choose to take that as a compliment.”

He gasps out before letting himself come undone.

Daphne giggles as she brings her left hand up to his neck, letting it rest on his cheek, he thumb barely grazing the nasty burn he just remembered he has.

It’s then that it all hits him.

He almost died.

Like if he were a few seconds too slow for anything, than he’d be dead.

And Daphne Blake is above him, squeezing the life out of his hand and stroking his cheek.

‘You need to tell her.’

‘Before she almost loses you again.’

Now that he has the chance to breathe as much as he wants, he finds that all he can do is hold his breath.

“Daphne.” He almost chokes out, lifting his right hand up to brush some hair away from her tear-stained cheeks.

“Shaggy.” She leans into his hand.

“I-”

‘Say it’

“I don’t think I can lose you again.” Daphne breathes out.

Before he can even think of anything to top that, she leans down and presses her lips to his. And through their actions alone, they both know.

They’re in love.

And the other finally can see it.

Her hands tangle up in his hair and he rests his hands on either side of her neck for support.

And they probably did that for several minutes but who’s keeping track of time?

It finally takes Freddie tugging on Daph’s shoulder to break them both apart.

“Daphne, the- uh... the paramedics are here...” He looks like he’s trying not to laugh as Daph slowly backs away, both of them out of breath and red and pretending they have no clue what just happened.

They hear Velma hoot from a short distance behind them.

-

As Shag and Velma are checked on the gurneys Fred and Daph give them all the details, details which they both already knew.

“And the dang GPS wouldn’t shut up! So then I figured that it was just malfunctioning or something.”

“Freddie, that thing is always malfunctioning.” Velma says as the medic checks her for a concussion.

“Yeah, like, weren’t we supposed to be visiting your uncle this week? Instead it brings us to a haunted amusement park of death!” Winces as they poke and prod his leg.

He hears Velma groan next to him, “Doc, when can I take th damn oxygen mask off?”

The paramedic clicks off his flashlight before saying, “When I say you can...” And then walking away.

Shag chuckles and then lets out a hiss as they try to move his leg.

Daphne bites her lip as she looks down at it, reaching for his hand and tangling their fingers together.

“Nasty right?” Shag jokes, looking up at her.

She gives him a glare that eventually turns somber.

“Just know that she’ll still love you, even with one leg.” Velma yells out, falling into a fit of giggles.

Daph’s face goes red and she rolls her eyes, “I don’t think she’s gonna stop doing that.”

He grins and gives her hand a squeeze.

Suddenly his eyes widen, “Oh! Oh- um do either of y’all remember the name of that lawyer chick?”

Velma jumps in, “Yeah, Shag and I were hashing it all out and we found out that she’d probably have the most to gain from this whole Ferdinand the Death Clown fiasco.”

Fred chuckles, “Ferdinand? I thought we agreed on Beebo?”

“Freddie that’s a dumb name and you’re dumb.” Shaggy says with a smile.

Everybody laughs for a few seconds, just trying to forget the past few hours and remember right now.

The five of them, still together.

“Wait...” Daphne says, “You two were buried alive for hours, and you both spent that time solving the mystery?”

Shag and Velma locks eyes, both bearing a confused look, “Well yeah...” Shag says as he melts into the pillows.

“What else were we supposed to do?” Velma says, eyebrows furrowed.

Daphne and Fred look at each other in astonishment.

Before Daphne snickers and lifts their joined hands up to her lips, pressing a kiss against his knuckles.

“Hey, once a meddling kid, always a meddling kid.” Shag jokes as he ignores the pink, shimmer lip gloss on the back of his hand.

-

A/N:

This legit took me like a month in total to write because work and school and writer’s block are conspiring against me.

This is based off of my favorite episode of the crime drama Bones, the episode is call “The Aliens in the Spaceship” and it’s a masterpiece.

Before Shaggy and Daphne, there was Hodgins and Angela and they are both very similar dynamic wise. What can I say? I have a type.

I’ve have a crime show addiction since I was young and my parents let me watch CSI with them.

And shows like Bones and Castle hold a very special place in my heart.

So I really wanted to pay homage to one of my favorite episodes from a TV show ever.