Weird-looking, half blind, spook wrangling world-walkers that smoke.

[goldeneyeball]

THREAD DIRECTORY

One Fine Day
A Taste of the Future
Pumpkins
Aches
Trauma 50% Off!
I Got a Disease and You're the Cure
Taco Night
Buck Eyes
The Turns Have Tabled
JW and Ginko's Fancy Dinner Date
You Know What They Say When You ASSume...
Sit, Stay, Beg

Comments

[onegreeneye]

Ginko stared blankly at Deuteronomy, trying to process what she just said.

Aaaand a little longer.

Give him a few moments, it's still sinking in.



Ginko started slightly, his one eye widening and his mouth starting to just fall open before he caught it. "Wait, he... JW--"

From the look on his face, she may as well have just told him that JW had been a pile of chipmunks in an ugly shirt all along (except less disturbed than if that had... actually been what she just told him).

[deuteronomy]

Deuteronomy waited.

And waited.

THERE IT WAS.

A dark chuckle started up in her throat. Oh, humans. They always made things so complicated. She then made matters worse by doing an admittedly poor imitation of JW's voice.

"Ginko's so nice. Ginko's so smart. You know what Ginko showed me today, Deut? I need another library book about fish for Ginko. I want to make sure the cooler in the woods is stocked for Ginko. Ginko, Ginko, Ginko."

[onegreeneye]

His shoulders started to pull up slightly, staring in shock in Deuteronomy's general direction but not quite at her. He didn't even notice his face slowly flushing redder by the second.

JW actually... felt that way. About him. Why? How? How long had this been going on with Ginko just not noticing, the whole time they'd known each other?!

He sort of looked a little like he might be about to panic again.

[deuteronomy]

Deuteronomy's ears moved forward again and for a moment, she worried that she'd broken him. While she didn't know Ginko well, JW sure was fond of him and it wasn't the same as when he'd pined over that hot nurse that one time.

She rared up on her hind legs and waved a paw, not nearly close enough to Ginko's face for it to make much difference.

"He's not a bad guy. He's weird and selfish and petty and lies a lot but...you could do a lot worse. Just saying."

With that, she dropped back down and started padding away, having said her piece.

[onegreeneye]

He flinched anyway, blinking away whatever state of shock he had been in. And, as he listened, his shoulders sagged slightly.

"...You don't have to tell me that." He already knew, way too damn well. That was kind of the problem here.

He looked over his shoulder, back at the door, and his fingers curled and uncurled by his sides. Part of him was tempted to leave anyway; get out of here, don't let himself think about it too much, and...

And what?

Not coming back... as much as he may have hated to admit it, it just wasn't an option. And besides, if JW came looking for him in Japan, he knew he wouldn't have the heart to drive him away.

Part of him asked why he would drive him away to begin with. The rest, of course, knew that the answer was because Ginko was a goddamn disaster who really shouldn't have been wanting a relationship to begin with, let alone pursuing one, and who even knew what must be wrong with JW for him to want that too.

He walked back up the stairs and pushed the door open again.

[goldeneyeball]

He heard the screen door creak.

"Deuteronomy? That you?" He'd gotten two of the shelves in place but now he was crawling around on his hands and knees squinting one eye and then the other because he'd dropped a one of those little finishing nails and DAMN IT THE WOOD GRAIN AND THE NAIL WERE GOING THE SAME DIRECTION FUCK EVERYTHING. "I need a pair of eyes! And don't actually pull 'em outta your face this time."

[onegreeneye]

Ginko walked hesitantly back into the living room, tilting his head slightly at JW crawling around on the floor and barely catching a smile that he probably wouldn't have even noticed a few minutes ago. He squatted down next to him, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Think just one might be of some help?"

[goldeneyeball]

JW was pretty sure Deuteronomy didn't wear shoes but he heard weirder things on his off-days. It wasn't until Ginko had already crouched down that he thought to look up.

"Wah! Hah, God, you snuck up on me." He let himself laugh. "Can't hurt. I'm trying to find a nail on this goddamn hardwood. What happened to your emergency?"

You can't just come right back in after an exit like that like it's no big deal, Ginko.

[onegreeneye]

He nodded and got down on his hands and knees next to JW to examine the floor, giving a soft, uncertain hum at that question.

"Realized it's been dealt with, after all."

Sort of.

Not really.

But he can't do a lot about it until he figures out what to do.

[goldeneyeball]

JW lifted a brow not unlike Deuteornomy but he let it go because his buddy was back and he didn't like to look a gift horse in the mouth. The nail was far closer to Ginko's knees than JW's.

"Another good thing about this shelf is, I'll have somewhere to put the junk I don't end up sellin' instead of having to drag it all the way up into the attic."

[onegreeneye]

"Yeah, that certainly sounds more convenient... how often d'you usually have to do that?"

He blinked, catching sight of something on the floor, and picked up the nail to pass it to JW. "This what you were looking for?"

[goldeneyeball]

"In the hot months? Pretty often--hah-hey!" He grinned again, wider this time. "Thanks. You know between us I think there might be a half decent set of eyes."

He took the nail and moved over to the pile of parts that was slowly becoming a book hself and held it in place, skillfully taking up his hammer again and tapping away.

[onegreeneye]

He gave a soft laugh and sat back again, watching JW get back to work. It was only after a few seconds that he caught that dumb smile creeping onto his face again. Dammit.

He faked a couple coughs, bringing a hand up to cover his mouth until he could get it to stop that. "So, uh... anything else I should do?"

[goldeneyeball]

"Unless I drop something again, nah. You just sit there and look pretty." He joked easily and continued to work. It wasn't entirely a joke, but he said it like one because he thought it would make things easier.

[onegreeneye]

Ginko would have easily taken it as a joke just a few minutes ago, but... he had found out a lot in the past few minutes. He gave a weak, unconvincing laugh and completely failed to keep his face from turning slightly pink. "Right. I'll just... yeah."

[goldeneyeball]

Eventually, the pile of boards and screws became a bookshelf. It looked nice. None of the shelves were crooked and they hadn't had any parts mysteriously left over. Take that, crumpled instructional sheets in the corner!

"You take that side," JW instructed as they moved to stand the thing up. JW clenched his teeth and tried to disguise just how much lifting something like this strained him.

[onegreeneye]

"Got it." He nodded and took a hold of the shelf, as directed, trying not to do too much worried staring in JW's general direction. He didn't have too much trouble with the weight of the shelf, accustomed as he was to hauling around a huge box on his back, but he already knew perfectly well that JW wasn't built for things like this the way he was.

Ginko wasn't really used to pretending to be having more trouble with something than he really was, and he didn't know if JW would notice anyway, but he could give it a shot. After all, it wasn't like it was all that hard to just keep his feet spaced slightly further apart, keeping his gaze a little more intently focused on the shelf than he needed to.

It also had the welcome side effect of keeping him from staring at James for a few seconds.

[goldeneyeball]

Soon the shelf towered above them, an empty monolith.

JW let out a puff and straightened up, dusting his hands on his jeans from all the little bits that had filed off of the structure while he'd hammered and fitted and drove in the screws.

"Whelp! That does it!" He turned to Ginko and offered a hand. "You saved my ass a shameful trip next door."

[onegreeneye]

Ginko shook JW's hand with only the tiniest bit of awkwardness, giving him another quick smile. "Glad I could help. Looks like it came out pretty well, too."

[goldeneyeball]

JW withdrew his hand again and looked upon the bookshelf with his chest puffed out.

"It did, didn't it?" He turned to Ginko again, still tired but still grinning. "Now that my doin's all done, what brings you all the way out here? How's the village?"

[onegreeneye]

"Ah, there was..." He almost tried to think up some excuse for why he had to go check on the village, but... forget it. "...there wasn't actually much going on in the village. I had some free time, thought I might as well stop by."

'Free time' here meaning 'no prior commitments preventing him from walking all the way to that particular village just to visit some guy from the future', and now that he had actually realized WHY that seemed like a good idea he felt pretty stupid for not working it out sooner.

[goldeneyeball]

"Some time!" JW had a good laugh at that because time travel. He was hilarious. "There's plenty of time to waste here!"

He stooped down to start picking up the shreds of plastic and paper that the nails and screws came in before moving past Ginko into the kitchen where the trash was. He started humming again.

"I think that about does it for me for today. We can figure out this shitty dishwasher another day."

[onegreeneye]

After watching JW for a moment, Ginko stepped into the living room to pick up any bits of packaging still left on the floor. He followed James into the kitchen to toss them in the trash - and then he realized he was humming again. Dammit.

And of course, now that he's aware of it, he can feel heat creeping into his cheeks again. Dammit.

"Alright, yeah... should I go, or do you want to talk or something a while longer?" He's not sure which answer to hope for.

[goldeneyeball]

JW turned from trying to shove the bent cardboard into the trash, looking startled before he reigned himself in.

"Go? You're always welcome here, you know that. That's why we set you up a bed." Boy Ginko had been acting weird today. Different weird. He hoped someone wasn't trying to trail Ginko. It would only be natural for someone to get suspicious of a strange man with antlers popping up in town so often. Mushi or no mushi, he was pretty sure that wasn't normal in Nowhere Japan. "What's eatin' you?"

[onegreeneye]

Oh god why did he have to bring up the bed of all things. Normally he probably wouldn't even have noticed but today was weird and now Ginko's face was flushing a shade brighter.

"--Uh. Nothing. I'm alright, just... tired, I guess." Even as he said it, he was chiding himself for that awful excuse.