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

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?"

"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.

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."

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.

"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.

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."

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."

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?"

"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.

Edited 2016-01-02 05:55 (UTC)

"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."

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.

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?"

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.

JW slowly straightened up and squinted his good eye. Ginko was, without a doubt, the pastiest motherfucker he'd ever seen who wasn't a vampire so the sudden bloom of color on his face was sort of hard to miss.

Ginko wasn't one to complain and James had half a mind to think the guy'd walked all the way out here with a fever. Without warning he crossed the floor and invaded the mushi master's personal space to make sure he was actually flushed instead of his eyes being weird.

This man was bright red.

"I think you have a fever. Take some ibuprofen and go upstairs. I'll wake you up for dinner."

Wait. Why was he moving closer. Why was-- okay that was too close. Ginko leaned back a little, his one eye widening. He could swear his heart was trying to break out of his ribcage, and it seemed like there was no way JW couldn't hear it.

"--Huh? I don't..."

Actually, wait.

If JW thought he was sick, he was that much less likely to realize the real reason. Which gave Ginko a little longer to figure out what to do with it. Or... avoid thinking about it. That too.

"...I'm fine."

On the other hand, if he accepted JW's instructions too quickly, it would seem suspicious.

JW leaned away and frowned thoughtfully. No. He wasn't fine. Oh, God, was this what it was like dealing with him?

"Then why do you look like someone hit you in the face with a car door? I swear you aren't costing me any money, it's just a fever reducer. It's cheap."

Ginko hummed uncertainly, glancing away and rubbing together the fingers of one hand. "Look, it's... really not an issue. I guess I could rest, but I'll be fine."

Cheap or not, he'd rather not use up JW's medicine when he's not even sick.

JW worked his mouth from one side to the other as he thought about that. Finally he leaned away and shrugged.

"Alright. I'll make us something to eat for later. Hope you like tacos."

He doesn't buy it. Something is wrong.

He didn't quite make eye contact as he nodded. "Never had them before, but... I'm sure I will. Thanks."

He hurried up the stairs without another word, dropping his box by the bed before flopping down on the mattress and lacing his fingers together over his face.

Dammit.

Obviously, he should do something about this. He can't just... hide it forever. He's not sure how much he's managing to hide it now.

And, if Deuteronomy is right, then JW would probably rather know too.

But that, of course, would require Ginko to tell him.

He rolled over to lie face-down on the bed with a quiet, frustrated groan. Why this.

An hour slithered by. Occasionally the sound of JW bumping around in the kitchen echoed up from below, but otherwise the room was quiet.

Until.

A hollow scraping sound came from beneath the bed. One of the bricks that JW had carefully placed along the bottom of the bed pushed out of place and fell with a thump on the hardwood floor.

In that hour, Ginko almost managed to fall asleep for real. An actual bed was better than he got most days, after all - but that thump woke him up pretty quickly.

He rolled over, leaning over the edge of the bed with a frown as he identified the source of the sound. After a couple seconds, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and crouched down on the floor, picking up the brick in one hand and glancing uncertainly between it and the rest of the makeshift wall under the bed.

It was a brick. A little heavy. A little chilly. Very chilly actually.

A breeze blew through the hole in the little wall and should Ginko peer into the darkness, he would see that it almost seemed to boil with movement. Crumbled cement covered the floor in a fine dust all the way around the bed.

Ginko shivered slightly, pulling away for a moment - and then, against his better judgment (but going along with his stupid curiosity) leaned forward again to examine the hole more closely.

Logically, he knew he should leave it alone... and probably gone to get JW. But the former wasn't really in his nature, and the latter...

He set the brick down on the floor and prodded experimentally at one of the ones still in place.

The brick pushed inward with far more force than Ginko had applied to it and disappeared. However the THUNK of it landing didn't come for quite a while and when it did it sounded very far away. And it echoed.

He almost jerked his hand back, pulling away a little, and then went back to peering into the darkness, frowning. What was under there...?

Ginko glanced over his shoulder, conflicting impulses pushing at each other in his head... then, quick and decisive, he turned back to moving bricks out of the way, making the hole gradually bigger until he could at least stick his head and shoulders in and see if he could see any better that way.

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