#wtals

Chapter 1- Worse Than a Love Square

“Are you alright, Mister?” Hotguy asks as he places Mumbo down on the blessed ground in an alley to keep them from prying eyes.

Mumbo could kiss the disgusting concrete under his feet, he’s so grateful to be back down here. Getting grabbed off the street to be used as a body shield for a villain being shot at was unfair, in Mumbo’s unbiased opinion.

He was having a perfectly normal day too! He bought himself a tea (now discarded somewhere on the sidewalk he was stolen from), he was on time for work (key word was), he had everything ready to go. But now, he’s here. Being rescued by the vigilante duo of Hotguy and Cuteguy.

Cuteguy is nowhere to be seen at the moment, so for now, it was just Mumbo and Hotguy, who is looking at him with uncertainty.

“Sir?” Hotguy asks again, “Do I need to take you to a hospital?”

“No! No, of course not!” Mumbo blurted out, partially panicked. His heart is beating violently in his chest for reasons he unfortunately understands all too well.

He has a crush on Hotguy.

But honestly, who wouldn’t?! He’s Hotguy for Heaven’s sake!

One might even call him a superfan. Mumbo kept that hidden as best he could though, his friends had no idea how much Hotguy and CuteGuy merch he had. He has a very strict rule around his place that people are not allowed to come by unannounced, only so he has enough time to hide all of his merchandise away.

If he’s honest, he’s probably had a crush on Hotguy ever since his first calendar came out. By the grace of some otherworldly being, he managed to get his hands on one when they first went on sale. Once that baby arrived at his house, he may or may not have gone through the whole thing multiple times to admire all the photos. Mumbo’s favorite one just so happened to be on his birth month, a pretty shot of Hotguy sitting on the ledge of a building, the sunset in front of him as it settled below the city in brilliant shades of pink and orange and yellow.

Not to mention, there just so happened to be another photo of Hotguy shirtless. Which Mumbo could barely look at without becoming flustered.

“I- just a little dazed from being kidnapped is all!” Mumbo says quickly. It’s a partial lie, but Hotguy surely wouldn’t be able to tell.

“Do you have any friends or family I can take you to for support?” HotGuy asks next, his brows pitched in concern behind his visor.

“No- well I do- but I can take myself over to them!” Mumbo stuttered out, his brain kept screaming ‘ALERT! ALERT! SOUND THE ALARMS, INSANELY HOT PERSON WITHIN OUR PROXIMITY. EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!’ Which wasn’t very helpful at this moment.

HotGuy smiles at him, making Mumbo’s knees wobble dangerously, “if you’re sure… though I’d really hate to leave you alone after a traumatic experience.”

“HotGuy!” Another voice shouted, “where’s the-” CuteGuy came into view, catching sight of Mumbo and cutting himself off. He seemed relieved. “Oh, thank the Watchers.”

If Mumbo’s brain wasn’t screaming before, it certainly is now. ‘ALERT. EMERGENCY UPDATE. TWO EXTREMELY ATTRACTIVE MEN HAVE APPEARED IN FRONT OF US. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. DO NOT REMAIN CALM.’

Mumbo couldn’t even bring himself to speak at the moment, too caught up in staring at both HotGuy and CuteGuy side by side.

“Sir?” CuteGuy asks cautiously, gently taking Mumbo’s shoulder, when Mumbo doesn’t respond (due to the words dying in his throat) he asks towards HotGuy, “we can’t leave him like this, did he tell you about any friends or family we can take him to for support?”

“What do you think I was trying to do?” HotGuy replied, his tone light so as to not be taken seriously, “he keeps insisting that he’s fine but I don’t believe him either.”

Okay, he has to say something before these two take him to a hospital.

“I’m fine! Really!” He finally manages to blurt out, though his voice cracks and betrays his panic. “I can walk myself home! Or to my friends! Or to work! Goodbye now!”

Mumbo turned to walk away, but was faced with a wall directly behind him. Ah. I appear to be cornered. I forgot HotGuy brought me into an alley.

Slowly, he turns back around, his face burning as he recognizes both of the vigilantes trying to hold back laughter.

Mumbo cleared his throat, “I just need to uh- scoot past you if you don’t mind.” Embarrassingly, his voice cracked and shook, but by this point he’s determined to go to his work and sulk at his failure to leave a good impression on the only major crushes he’s ever had.

Mumbo ducks his head as he squeezes past them, quickly rushing headfirst into the light foot traffic of the sidewalk.

He mutters apologies for bumping into someone, but he keeps up the pace. Not slowing for a second as he made his way to work.

There’s no way he can skip out on working right now. He needs a distraction from this embarrassment. Besides, pretty much all of his friends are too busy to console him right now. Though he can probably complain to Tango or Impulse about it. Maybe even Cub if he’s not too busy.

——End——

That’s all I have for the chapter so far! Honestly it’s a pretty good start in my unbiased opinion (I’m very biased)

BUT AHHH I LOVE THIS AU SO MUCH I NEED TO EXPLODE

THANK YOU DDVAU FOR INSPIRING A NEW FANFIC IDEA FOR ME TO FOCUS ON

Mumbo repeatedly has to shake himself from looking too deep into things that don’t exist, but it doesn’t help that Pearl immediately hunts him down to make sure he’s okay, but simultaneously pulls all the juicy details out of him so she can put it on her blog later.

She wanted to be a reporter long ago, but found that the job was filled with more fear-mongering and stretched truths than she’d prefer (a bigger reason was that most of the work offices she visited for internships were crazy brutal and the benefits offered were little to none), so she stepped into the mechanical world of redstone.

Pearl, despite not working here for a super long time, has already wormed her way to a special place in Mumbo’s heart. He’d consider her as one of his best friends at this point in time. It’s very hard to not adore her.

She’s a wolf hybrid, but more humanoid leaning then some others, her most noticeable traits being grey furred ears and a tail. She never wore anything too fancy like Mumbo did (full suit and tie every day), but her red cloak is a signature article of clothing. She always reluctantly takes it off in favor of a lab coat each morning, grumbling to Mumbo about it every other day or so, her wolf ears pressed to the sides of her head to show her discontentment. Her eyes were also very hard to ignore, an unusual bright amber. But rarely, when she’s especially frustrated with something, they’d shift into a dark red.

Pearl showed a lot of promise as a quick learner, and surprised everyone (including herself) when she was able to work through complex machines with only minor troubles.

For now, she works at Mumbo’s side as his assistant while she learns, meaning he can’t escape her prying questions for more than five minutes at a time.

“Pearl. Please.” Mumbo sighs, though it’s impossible to hide the amusement hidden in his tone. “Nothing happened. Hotguy and Cuteguy saved me, then escorted me to work so I wouldn’t get swarmed by people.”

“Then why are you so red in the face about it?” Pearl teases, poking at his cheek and ignoring how he tries to brush her hand away.

“Because-” Mumbo stumbles over his words, trying to find the fastest excuse he can. “Why wouldn’t I be! I was used as a human shield for a villain, Pearl!”

Pearl hums, obviously not believing him, but she turns back to her work, carefully pulling away a stray wire from the practice prototype they’re working on together. It isn’t much, just a cube meant to light up certain colors based on certain movements. It’s more for training purposes than anything useful.

“You do realize I’ve seen your phone lockscreen, right?” Pearl asks quietly, though her main attention is on the work she’s doing.

Mumbo can feel his face flush impossibly hotter, his hand patting down his pockets to check that his phone is still on his person. “Wh- what? Why would that matter?! It’s just a photo of a sunset!”

Which is true. For his lockscreen at least.

His homescreen however…

“The photo I took of Hotguy and Cuteguy chatting on the rooftop together?” Pearl presses, a mischievous grin audible through her tone. “I know you have it set as your homescreen.”

“Maybe I just want to support my friend and her photography skills.” Mumbo brushes off stubbornly, though he’s incredibly lucky that Pearl isn’t looking at him to see how his face is surely bright red.

He doesn’t need to see to know that Pearl rolls her eyes at him, “as if I don’t have hundreds of better photos of the city and nature and all that fun stuff. It’s okay that you’re a fan of our friendly vigilantes, Mumbo. There’s no need to be ashamed of it. A ton of people are big fans too.”

“I am not talking to you anymore.” Mumbo decides, turning away from her to instead sketch up a rough idea for his upcoming project. Immediately losing himself to his thoughts and shoving Pearl’s teasing to the very back of his mind.

[[[REDACTED FOR SPOILER PURPOSES]]]

“Mumbo?” Pearl asks, effectively pulling him from his thoughts and pointing at a part of the prototype, “could you explain why this repeater here is causing issues to this redstone line?”

“Certainly!”

It’s halfway into his explanation that he catches the victorious smile on Pearl’s face (by that he means the upturn in her eyes, but after knowing Pearl long enough, you can guess her expression even under her mask), and realized he’s been effectively lured into a trap.

He snaps his mouth shut and sputters, “you!”

Pearl laughs at him finally realizing her tricks, though her laughter melts into a teasing coo, “aw! And here I thought you didn’t want to talk to me anymore!”

“I was teaching! It’s my job!”

They bicker back and forth for another ten minutes, Pearl not so subtly trying to trail back into the topic of Mumbo’s morning.

------END SNIPPET------

That's it so far! I've decided that I want Pearl to be one of the major side characters because I adore her and she's really fun to write! (She may be out of character at times because I'm still learning her mannerisms and such)

A lot of fic decisions have changed since I first started yapping about this au! Characters, scene ideas, plot lines, it's been wild. I have so much of my writing spark back because of this and it feels SO GOOD AUGH.

I'll hopefully return with either more doodles, or a FULL chapter of the AU!!!!