So my phone let’s me make my own gifs and I just noticed something while watching Lost Boys last night when Max is kicking them out of his store
DAVID IS TRYING NOT TO LAUGH!
Look at that smug little shit trying to stifle a laugh, I’m absolutely dying here! I love that he’s just cracking up like “Uh, yeah, whatever you say Max.”
Hey guys I’m gonna be out and about today but before I go out to town I thought I leave you with some little Laddie Headcanons! A special thank you to my co-writer @imlostinsantacarla!
Laddie Headcanons
Unfortunately, Laddie was a part of a home in which a divorce was in the process of being filed. There was an immense amount of tension in the family dynamic whilst his father and mother sought to gain custody of him individually as they were in the midst of a messy breakup. The young child’s grandparents were aiding his father in filing for custody over him as his mother was hell bent on having sole custody without any visitation rights.
It’s well known that Laddie’s face was on a milk carton in the movie, with the word ‘MISSING’ written above it. This is just primarily speculation, of course. However, why else would two parents who didn’t care about their child put up missing person’s posters everywhere? It’s certainly obvious that his parents were deeply troubled and affected by their son going missing, in conjunction with being apprehensive over his safety as they had no idea where he was.
Whilst his father was attempting to gain custody of him with his grandparents’ help, Laddie’s mother lost him one night whilst on the BoardWalk too busy getting drunk at a bar, which is how and where the boys found him. He was all on his lonesome, wandering the BoardWalk terrified. The sight sincerely pulled on their heart strings. Seeing a little kid lost in the dead of night searching for his mother desperately just did not sit well with them.
Armed with the knowledge that their fellow sister Star was having second thoughts over their lifestyle, David immediately took the initiative to coax Laddie into drinking his blood and turning into one of them. This was not only to provide the child with a home, but also a strategy put in place to keep Star close and have her fully commit to their way of life as vampires. After all, girls love kids, don’t they? Surely her maternal or big sisterly instincts would kick in and provide her with the drive to become a caring figure for the young boy whilst solidifying her place in their group. She’d already agreed to the terms, there was no backing out now!
The other boys come to a conclusion of agreement that this is the best option as they cared about Star immensely, least enough to put up a fight when she was considering leaving, and they could not just let a poor boy stay out on the streets with nothing. There was a high likelihood of him getting kidnapped, murdered or something far, far worse whilst he was out there on his own. So they made the collective decision to take him under their wings and into their home, promising him that he would always remain safe with them.
Graciously, as if it were a match truly made in Heaven, Laddie and Star got on swell. The wee boy clung onto her desperately as she truly did remind him of his own mother and how she once was when she was with his dad. Star also bears a resemblance to his mother physically, ensuring that Laddie would bond with her much easier. The boys could not have been more happier and celebrated their success.
And thus it was settled! The boys took Laddie to the hotel and turned him, buttering him up a little in order over the next several to gain his trust and comfort.
“So, Laddie, you like it here?” David smirked at the young boy sat on the edge of the fountain in the hotel.
“Yeah it’s super cool!” He beamed enthusiastically, dangling his little legs off the edge and swinging them back and forth, they barely even hit the ground.
”Would you stay forever?“ David pressed further, blonde brow quirked up in intrigue.
”Can I?!“ Laddie exclaimed with an enormous grin plastered on his childish countenance.
”Hell yeah little dude! We even have a pretty, cool big sister for you!“ Paul interjected just as happily, patting the tiny guy on the shoulder.
"Really?!”
“Mhm,” Dwayne added, “and you can play every night.”
“And you can eat as much as you want without getting sick, dude!” Marko declared.
“So, Laddie, what do you say?” David asked, head cocked to the side as he watched the little runts eyes float from face to face.
He sits still for a moment… “Hell yeah!”
The guys cheered excitedly, Marko handing David some fancy looking bottle, who in turn passed it to Laddie. “All you gotta do now, is drink this.”
“It smells funny. What is it?”
“Old grape juice.”
All the while, when Laddie is missing, his mother is struck with excruciating bouts of grief and shame, and attempts to get herself into a better space. Overcoming the worry and guilt that she feels over losing her son through alcohol, drugs, whatever it was that had caused her to lose her son on the BoardWalk that night, is an incredible challenge. She felt she had let her son down as well as her previous marriage. It only spurs on Laddie’s father to find him and gain total custody of the boy.
Living with four rambunctious teenage boys is a handful in itself, so it’s not a wonder that Laddie swears like a sailor, a terrible habit he picked up from the boys. Yet his one sister attempted profusely to set a better example for him. David and Paul find it hilarious that Laddie has a filthy potty mouth, whereas Dwayne and Star aren’t a fan of his newfound language.
“Hey, watch your language, bud.” Dwayne states sternly, chocolate orbs glowering into Laddie’s smaller ones.
“Pussy!” Paul bursts out in between a false coughing fit.
Laddie truly adores reading comic books frequently. In fact, the Frog brothers knew Laddie far before they knew the Emerson’s, they just didn’t acknowledge the kid all that much since he was far younger than them. This was especially since they were far too engrossed in blabbering about vampires, their investment in their own stuff made it impossible for them to give an ounce of attention to him. In their eyes he was always just the little twerp that stood on his tiptoes at the counter in their parents store, sprinkling dollar bills on top of a fat stack of mad magazine, Batman, and secretly some horror comics stuffed underneath the other ones he’d picked out.
“ ’Scuse me, can I get these,“ Laddie inquired politely, his eyes peering up at the two brothers behind the counter arguing over what the best way to waste a vampire was.
“Uh, yeah sure kid, whatever.” Alan stated fervently, his eyes still plastered on his brother’s brooding gaze.
Edgar stuffed them into a plastic bag without sparing the kid a glance. “$15.75.”
“Okay.” Laddie stated in defeat before scooting over a wadded up ball of a $20 bill onto the counter before collecting his change and leaving with his head hung low.
Laddie is still a sucker for comics and wants new ones on a constant basis, it’s certainly something that aids him in passing the time at the hotel. Yet Paul’s adamant that he isn’t going to pay those dorks at the comic book store a single cent from his pocket. And David is a master at mental illusions, so there is one hell of a team to concoct a way to steal comic books. Neither Paul nor David feel any shame in it. David will create the illusion that Paul is walking by the store, only to actually be stealing a stack of comics to keep the poor kid happy.
Star and her inability to part with her human nature and high morals, is never too thrilled about the entire ordeal of stealing comics for Laddie. Laddie sees nothing wrong with it and only responds with utter enthusiasm at how awesome Paul is because Paul can do whatever he wants! This leads to Laddie following in the footsteps of the other boys, believing that he can both take and have whatever he wants, whenever he wants it no matter if there’s real life consequences involved because he can use his gifts (with training from David) to acquire all of his desires.
It’s also a common occurrence for Laddie to experience homesickness; after all, he misses his parents dearly because even though they weren’t the most astounding or perfection parents, they were still his parents. When this occurs, he’ll often seek out Dwayne or Star for comfort, sitting beside them, perched into their sides. They will attentively listen to him, reminding him of how much they themselves and the other boys love him and how they aren’t going anywhere. They all will be together forever. They’d even let him know that his parents and grandparents still love him too, even if he has a new family now.
Laddie unfortunately had to learn the hard way not to go to David about this specific predicament, because whenever he did, David would unintentionally guilt trip the kid about missing his parents. It wasn’t something he meant to do, it was just that David had never really had a home or a family that cared about him, his world before being a vampire was a dog eat dog world. You had to fend for yourself and choose your family. Even then he’d seen people get chewed out for trusting the wrong folks. So there’s a huge disconnection between the pair when it comes to familial things.
Whereas Marko and Paul will do things that will take Laddie’s mind right off of the down parts of being a missing child. They’ll happily play with him, get him his favorite food, read comics with him, steal said comics from the comic book store, maybe even let him help them tinker on their bikes, blast some gnarly music, you name it! They’re prepared to go all out in helping him feel happier where he is in the present and understand that he has a place with them.
Now, as for Laddie’s tantrums… well, every child has them. Usually they tend to be pretty humorous to Paul, Marko and David- that is until something happens to their precious stuff. To be fair he is an eight year old boy, of course he wants to mess with Paul’s Walkman or Marko’s bike keys! Paul nearly had an aneurysm when he saw Laddie accidentally ripped his mint condition 1965 Playboy Magazine.
”Dude who the fuck- my fuckin- WHAT THE FUCK MAN?!“
Laddie, who had been a bit spoilt from months of pampering from a group of enabling teenagers, showed minimal signs of remorse. ”They were ugly anyway, she hand on granny panties or something.“
Dwayne had to step in and hold Paul back from wringing the kids neck out like a wet dish towel! ”Dude, Paul he’s a kid"
“I will eat you, you little turd!”
Once again, David cracks up frequently until Laddie begins to delve into his stuff also. It all began when he wanted to go for a ride and David being the more lazy member of the group had turned him down, especially in a much firmer tone the second time around. So what did the little shit do? Hide all of their keys to their bikes.
“Dude, where are my fuckin’ keys,” Paul hissed, digging through the cave like a tornado went through the damn thing.
“Yours too?” Marko exclaimed his question, settling down the couch he had lifted onto the ground. “Mine vanished.”
David chuckled to himself, that was until he patted his pocket where his precious motorcycle keys had suddenly proved to be void of its contents. “Alright which one of you assholes stole my keys?!”
However that confrontation ignited an inferno of a tantrum from the small boy, who was so used to suddenly getting his way and now he was faced with the harsh reality of being told no. The boys should have really thought twice of enabling an eight year old boy! A fit from a kid can get ugly real quick, yet it’s a whole different story when that kid is an emotional half vampire that flips tables and screams at such a volume and octave that glass cracks. Star tends to primarily be a softer disciplinarian, she isn’t fond of the idea of yelling or smacking him, she’s much too gentle for that. Dwayne on the other hand, while preferring to approach things along the placid route, feels that sometimes it’s a necessary evil- while David just straight up thinks that a good smack on the mouth ought to settle him down.
Laddie is a thorn in their asses when he’s bored out of his mind, and the boys learned rather harshly and swiftly that having a little brother was not as fun as the Brady Bunch had it appear. This kid got into all their stuff, no matter how fool proof they made it, the kid always found a way! He would follow them excessively around the cave like a lost puppy, tell them the same story for HOURS on end, ask far too many questions that Marko would just blank the kid out with his music, only for Laddie to talk even louder! It was more than evident that the child had little concern over the fact that they were killers, he’d still happily pester them until they vamped out. In fact, he went out of his way to do that! The crazy little shit…
Laddie would climb on top of one of the many dust caked couches in the hotel right next to where David was reading and peek over his shoulder to get a noseful of whatever he was focused on. “Whatcha reading?” Laddie asked innocently, chin resting on the blonde vampires shoulder.
“….War and peace.” David grumbled irately.
“What’s that? It’s big! It looks boring! Why are the words so tiny? What’s it about? Who’s the hero? Who’s your favorite hero? Mine’s batman! Well, I like Iron Man too but Batman has all the gadgets and stuff, and I like his cape but I guess you don’t need a cape to be cool, but I like the cape anyway- I like Superman’s cuz it’s red, red’s my favorite color. What’s your favorite color? Well I mean red’s super cool- oh but black! Black is really cool, i guess you probably like black too huh? I mean you wear it all the time, but really maybe it’s cuz-” he had blabbered all of that out in one go without so much as a breath in between his sentences! And David selfishly wondered what the repercussions were on if he flew the kid onto a random cliff and left him there for several hours. He knew it probably couldn’t be good, but it was worth a try if he was ever going to catch a break and get this book finished! Not to mention the countless times that Paul’s thrown into the mix of things, David can’t stomach it and leaves the room because he can’t handle two obnoxious chatter boxes all at once. Star yelled at him once for hypnotizing Laddie to fall asleep because he wouldn’t stop talking about Batman and Robin.
It’s obvious that Laddie tends to ride with Dwayne, and it’s because Dwayne is capable of ensuring that Laddie stays in one piece. If the kid had his way and rode with Paul… let’s just say that Laddie would be smeared road kill! And frankly, none of the other vampires trust Paul with the kid. Last time he rode with Paul, he was nearly flung forward when he went off of a steep ramp. Star almost slapped the smirk straight off of Paul’s face! Even Marko thought it was a bad move of Paul’s. So, it was a collective decision - minus Paul’s whining and bitching, in conjunction with Laddie’s pouting - that Laddie rode with Dwayne from now on.
When the boys were killed off one by one, Laddie was the only one who was saddened by this, because he had formed genuine bonds with his older brothers and even though they weren’t perfect, they’d kept their word to him and kept him safe. He was going to miss Paul and Marko playing with him and teaching him cool stuff about bikes and rock n’ roll. He’d even miss David and the way the man got irritated whenever he flitted about him. But the one he was surely going to miss the most was obviously Dwayne. Dwayne was like the older brother that Laddie had dreamed of ever since he was a kid. Dwayne had taken him under his wing and ensured that no one messed with him. He listened to him whenever he was homesick and was always super patient with him and just all around compassionate. Out of all of the boys, Laddie related to him the most. And now he was gone. Though each boy held a special place in his heart. As he left the Emmerson residence, he didn’t have the stomach to look at their dead bodies as he sniffled on his way out, tears streaming down his face. Although they hadn’t been the best to Star and sometimes weren’t the kindest to him, he knew that they had loved the pair of them and deep down, Laddie would always love them.
After the entire ordeal, Laddie decided he’d set foot on finding his parents again and sadly left Star behind. She reminded him a lot of the boys and she would always have a special place in his heart. Before he left he hugged the life out of her, staining her gypsy purple skirt with his tears as he thanked her for loving him and taking such good care of him. He promised her that he’d never forget her and he hoped she never would forget him. Star was heartbroken but also knew that it was best for Laddie to return to his parents and live his life out normally. She hoped he’d grow up to be everything wonderful in life and she assured him that he would remain important and ever present in her gentle heart. A long way down the line they met each other again and embraced like close siblings that hadn’t seen each other in centuries. They were much older now and wiser.
But back to the present, Laddie stumbled upon his mother on the BoardWalk that night, as though it were a miracle. The woman looked strikingly similar to Star, she was the woman that he had remembered from earlier on in his childhood, and he was truly overcome with joy. He got to see his father again which made him happy also. Although his parents couldn’t work things out, they managed to come to a steady agreement that they would have equal joint custody of Laddie, which was something that made things easier on him to adjust back to ordinary life. However, whilst he was missing, his beloved grandparents passed away, never having lost hope in Laddie being alive and returning home someday. Laddie missed them dearly but he adjusted as best as he could to his brand new life. He was never really the same after being with the boys and Star and losing them all, his parents were aware of the change but Laddie never discussed what had happened to him, only responding in vague statements or exclamations.
Somehow though, he found a way to keep in touch with Star, Michael, Lucy, Sam and the Frog brothers. They were all connected through these twisted and sad chain of events, and his bonds with them only deepened as he got older. Even Though they had remained adrift in life, Star, Sam, Lucy and Michael showed up for Laddie’s graduation when he finally got through high school. Even still he remained in Santa Carla up until his graduation dinner out with the Emmersons, Star and even the Frog Brothers had shown up. Wandering for a moment on his own, his pace slowed until he came to a haunting stop.
Just beyond the tilt-a whirl, outside the arcade, he swore, parked on the boardwalk he could see a group of biker boys. As the 80s peeled away into the wild teenage rebellion of the 90s, their styles had altered. A blonde still sported a wild lion’s mane, another had messy curls grown out. The platinum blonde one was the first to alert the other three of Laddie’s gaze. The four grunge rockers sported bizarrely skeletal motorcycles, laughing with each other, now carrying mischievous smiles. Before he could even confirm the haunting visage of said familiar faces they vanished in a flurry of roaring engines. The last to leave looked at him with dark, haunting brown eyes. He could see under the guy’s leather jacket and torn up Nirvana t-shirt jagged scar tissue around each of his limbs faded into bronze skin. They just looked at each other for what felt like a lifetime, and a wave of chills trickled down his back. The raven haired biker smirked at him, no malice in his grin. Only a soft farewell, proud even. And then he was gone. Laddie managed to take a deep breath in, silently turning on his heel to return to Star and Michael at the diner. When he got home he was applying to a few out of city colleges, somewhere away from his past.
They’re only bread crumbs Michael. You’ll never grow old, and you’ll never die… but you must QUWACK!
DAVID CAME IN! I’m so excited, he’s sooo cute! Not only is it a really good size, but he comes with a custom Lost Boys bathtub (keep Paul away from it please☠)
Who wants to be the one to tell the boys that when you get takeout you’re supposed to get entrees with the rice and/or noodles?
Alright I’m not expecting cultural accuracy or anything from a bunch of California biker vampires, but cmon who just eats boxes of plain rice?! See, the idea is everyone gets their own rice or noodles, then you take a bit from the meat or vegetable entrees and have it with your rice. That’s why the boxes of rice/noodles/etc are usually way bigger than the entrees. So you got your orange chicken, beef and broccoli, whatever and share it around. I don’t know why but I get so distracted seeing David lap down the most plain looking chow mein on this green Earth. No cabbage, no carrots- I swear it’s just spaghetti! Meanwhile the guys are just horking down plain ass rice without even any soy sauce. I’m dying here man. Cmon y'all have some uber vampire power to hypnotize the cashier or something, I saw that big ol’ tray of food Marko came back with! There is no way you’re struggling so much you can only get plain rice and chow mein Someone please help these boys expand their tastes. “Chinese, good choice”, uhhhh where? That there be unseasoned pasta, darling.
Complete side note but I love that David and Marko use chopsticks, poking around but all the while Paul and Dwayne just stuffing globs of rice into their mouths with their bare hands (no doubt caked in dirt and motor oil) like a pack of toddlers. Max, my god, “boys need a mother” indeed! Yeah, no shit you got them eating like monkeys who got ahold of a take-out menus. Forks, boys, forks! I promise “a billion Chinese people” will forgive you if you don’t use chopsticks!
I shudder to picture them when they get ahold of something REALLY messy like barbecue or some real gnarly turbo dogs.
I can see it now: Paul balancing a soggy cardboard tray of greasy fries on his lap, smearing mustard off his chin until its across his cheek and laughing with a mouth full of burger. Before he’s even done chewing he nearly chokes on his fries cuz he’s scarfing them down like it’s going out of style.
Then there’s Dwayne devouring three burgers because he’s just a bear in human form. Since he’s allergic to shirts he’ll later find an army of crumbs in the waist of his jeans. He tries to hold his milkshake between his legs but of course it’s too tight and he just explodes it on himself. Solution? Just wiping it off with some greasy rag covered in motor oil and sweat.
As someone with long hair I can attest he definitely accidentally gets his hair in it and just hopes he can brush it out once it dries. I don’t doubt all of the boys have managed to get their hair in their food resulting in ketchup blondes and mustard brunette. Dwayne complains about finding long blonde hair in his chili fries and it’s just a game of “wasn’t me”. Paul has eaten so fast he ends up inhaling some of his hair and just gagging on it while everyone busts out laughing
Marko has scraps and crumbs all over himself it’s like a snow day when he stands up. Pigeons just gather at his feet pecking at the remains of his massacred hot dog bun, following him around waiting for his next meal. I can see him doing something really odd like dissecting his onion rings before eating them or only biting the centers of french fries, having to open up his burger and throw the pickles, pissed when theres mushrooms on pizza because “the taste fuckin’ lingers, man!”.
David gets barbecue sauce in his mustache, theres crumbs in his beard that’s basically a “flavor saver” at this point, still refuses to takes his gloves on because food schmood he’s not ruining that juicy ✨aesthetic✨ . Definitely has his hotdog slip out of the bun and just splat! Mustard and relish coated weiner smack dab on his crotch causing the boys to laugh until he chucks the soggy, squashed bun at Paul. Tries to be dignified even when he’s tearing into sauce slathered ribs.
Just remember these are hundred year old teenage boys, I refuse to believe they havent just devolved into absolute savages when it’s just them eating.
