Suburban Danvid Family AU

### Content Source/Site

http://instagram.com/eckcrohttp://instagram.com/explore/tags/suburbandanvidfamilyau

The first post — a half-finished sketch — was posted on February 11, 2018.

The AU centers on Daniel, David, and Max's domestic life in the white American suburbs.

## Fanfiction

Eckcro has a series on AO3 called Suburban Danvid Family AU, in which there are, as of late February, two stories.hh

The main fic, (The Bridge to Total Freedom)'s first chapter was posted on February 20, 2018.

A short 2-chapter snippet from Daniel's life in the compound (The Way to Happiness), is complete with two chapters.

## Plot

### Camp Campbell

After the events of Cult Camp, Daniel awakens in the hospital, being treated for the rat poison he ingested. Panicked, he rips out the tubes connecting him to the IV drip and runs. Although weakened, he sets his sights on revenge.

Daniel makes his way back to the Camp Campbell campgrounds, but gets lost in the woods. He finds an abandoned cabin and passes out there. When he awakens, it's early morning. Daniel makes his way to the inhabited section of the campgrounds and steals food and water from the kitchen while the campers are out hiking.

For a while, Daniel mostly stays in the cabin, relying on stolen food to sustain himself. He watches David from afar, trying to formulate an appropriate revenge. However, the more he observes David, the more reluctant he becomes to harm him.

Finally, David finds Daniel asleep in the abandoned cabin and wraps him up in a blanket. When Daniel wakes up, David offers him spare clothes and asks him what happened. Daniel is struck by the kindness David is showing to him, and realizes that he's developed a crush on the other man. The two of them end up spending time together and developing a friendly relationship.

When Max finds out that Daniel is back at Camp Campbell, he is shocked and angry. He tells David that "the crazy cultist" is back. David tells Max that he's been taking care of him, and he is not "a crazy cultist." Max reveals Daniel's original intentions to David, and Daniel, knowing he can't hide it anymore, admits to all of it. Instead of being angry, however, David is simply hurt. He'd come to care for and trust Daniel, and this betrayal cuts deep.

Daniel promises David that he'll never lie to him again, and the two make up.

### Family Life

David and Daniel's relationship moves relatively quickly. They get engaged and married, and adopt Max. The three move into white suburbia, where they have stereotypically middle class white neighbors. Daniel gives up Scientology for David, and dedicates himself instead to the family.

When they first move in, the neighborhoods are shocked to find that not only are David and Daniel not related, but they're married and have a son. Max acts out in his normal fashion, but Daniel reminds him that their neighbors will blame Max's poor behavior on "gay parenting." Reluctantly, Max promises to try to be less confrontational in the future.

David and Daniel casually go job-hunting. Although Daniel is already rich from his cult money, they both think it'd be nice to have jobs. David ends up working at the town nature center, and through "persuasion," Daniel gains ownership of the country club.

Despite the initial tension between Daniel and Max, the two are eventually able to bond, and come to genuinely care for each other. Max is grateful that Daniel's way of showing he cares is fundamentally different from David's; while David is overprotective and sometimes a little too involved for his liking, Daniel has a more laissez-faire attitude. Daniel cares about Max enough that he trusts Max's ability to take care of himself.

Daniel also expresses how much he cares for his family through extravagant shows of wealth. He has a pool installed in their backyard, and buys the family a yacht. Daniel makes sure that Max has a wardrobe of over 30 matching outfits, a different pair of underwear for each day of the year, and any piece of technology he could possibly want. So far, Max owns an iPad, iPhone, laptop computer, desktop computer, several video game consoles, and a plasma-screen TV in his bedroom.

Although Max doesn't know it, Daniel also uses various means to get all the other children from Lake Lilac to move into town so that Max can attend school with people he already knows.

Despite Daniel's looser approach to parenting, David is able to convince Daniel to let him get Max a therapist to work through his emotional traumas.

## Main Conflict

Max notices that other campers from Camp Campbell have started mysteriously moving into town. With the help of Nikki and Neil, he begins to investigate this strange phenomenon, hoping to find a who and a why.

The one camper who Daniel didn't orchestrate a move for was Ered Miller, whose parents are FBI agents. Although Daniel has done his best to wrap up lose ends and cover up his past, he's still worried that he'll be discovered and imprisoned.

Unfortunately, the Miller family shows up in town anyways. Ered's fathers — Patrick and Jeremy — are continuing their investigation on Cameron Campbell, who has escaped from Guantanamo Bay. They detected the improbable amount of Lake Lilac campers moving in at around the same time; the Millers plan to use whatever information they can get from this anomoly to aid in the tracking down and capture of Cameron.

## New Characters

### Adults

#### Neighborhood/PTA Parents

* Sandra
* Jocelyn
* Catherine
* Larry

#### David's Co-Workers

* Chandra
* Kris

### Children

* Annabelle
* Rachel
* Rebecca
* Bryce

## Daniel's Backstory

Daniel was raised in a Scientology compound, where people were supposedly free to leave anytime while in reality, there were a number of systems in place to prevent this. This included, but wasn't limited to: blackmailing, peer pressure, financial reliance, and even murder.

When he was 10 years old, Daniel's parents tried to get him out of the cult. However, Daniel reported their plans to the compound's leader. A town meeting was called, and Daniel was instructed to execute them to prove his loyalty.

Even after that, Daniel was under intense scrutiny from his peers, and had to continually reaffirm his faith. This ultimately led him to be the youngest in the compound to ever reach the rank of Operating Thetan, as well as becoming an Auditor.

## Trivia

* Daniel is an actual Scientologist.
	+ He is both a certified Auditor and an OT-IV.
* Max gets a pet snake.
* The AU creator's other major AU — Jesus Camp AU — also heavily features an investigation spearheaded by Max.
	+ Both investigations are started due to Daniel's actions, although in this AU, Max is unaware that Daniel is behind the events he's investigating.
	+ Neil is Max's second-hand in both AU investigations.

## Discord Summary

On February 6, 2018, eckcro described the AU to his friends. Although it had been in development for about a month, this was the first detailed explanation of it.

## Other Information

A more generic, nonspecific summary was given by eckcro to icelandic\_powerhouse through Instagram direct messages as a “bedtime story.”