After his friends leave Brandon come pounding back into the kitchen. Aggitated (and concerned) he blares at his stepfather, "What's your problem?"
"N-n-n-nothing" Rick is emiediatly tense due to his stepson's return and tone. "I'm just a little shook up from the explosion. But it wasn't really bad. I'm okay."
Brandon, never having seen Rick act this way wonders if he's hearing the truth but decides to let it go.
"I'm going to go back downstairs," Rick says, "and clean up a bit more."
"Wait! What about dinner? Mom's out of town tonight, arn't you going to make it?"
Normally Rick would have told the 18 year old child to make it for himself, but tonight he just couldn't say no to the boy. While making dinner Rick thought about what was happening. Clearly this was the results of the pink smoke, but who was it affecting, Rick or Brandon? If it was affecting Rick, that ment that somehow he was becoming more submissive; either just to Brandon and His Friends because he ran into them first or to men in general because he had lost his feelings of masculinity. If it was affecting Brandon (and his friends) then it must have to do with their age; the pink smoke only had a reaction to boyz in puberty and not adults. If this were the case then one of the effects it must be having in the boyz was giving them some sort of alpha-male pharamone creating the sense of masculine authority surrounding them. Either way Rick thought as he brought dinner into Brandon, who was watching tv in the livingroom, he couldn't just become his stepson's slave.
Could he?