Work Text:
Out of all the Joker Out members of universe 10, Jure is certainly the most versatile: he can play the drums, obviously, but he’s also very good ad playing hide and seek, and he knows how to sharpen knives and travel between universes, but the thing Bojan 10 loves most about him is his ability to cook.
"I’ve always wanted to have a friend who would cook for me," admitted Bojan 10, the day the drummer joined the band, when they were all together in the studio.
“First of all, Bojč, Jure is now in the band for his drums skills” Kris 10 pointed out. “And he doesn't have to cook anything for you anyway.”
"There's no need to be so mean, Kris." Jure 10 laughed "I'd love to cook for you all!”
Hearing that conversation, Jan 10 felt a little neglected: “Hey, Bojč! I cooked for you lots of time! I thought you liked my bolognese risotto.”
“Of course I love your bolognese risotto! But I’m curious to eat something cooked by Jure. Something different from your bolognese risotto, I mean.”
So Jure 10 said “You know what? I wanna try and make pizza, one of these days.”
“Oh, that would be great!” Martin 10 exclaimed, who at the time was the bassist of the band -and let's say hi to Nace 10, who still had no idea of what he would have gone through-.
“I promise nothing, it may be awful” Jure 10 warned. “But I'll try my best!”
"Don't be afraid" the bassist reassured him "We’re a band, we share successes and failures.”
And after those words, the boys arranged to meet for the following Friday evening.
When the designated day came, Jure 10, as soon as he woke up -so at 2:13 in the afternoon- he began preparing pizza.
While the drummer was busy, he heard a presence behind him, and hurried footsteps.
“Who's there?”
The only response the boy received were further steps, which Jure 10 decided to follow, until, having reached the bedroom, he saw that the window had been opened.
"A long-legged friend thought it best to pass by my window without even saying hello. Rude," Jure 10 said to himself, before looking out the window and noticing Martin 10.
"Martin!" he called him.
The bassist looked behind and yelled “I’m sorry, I don't know what happened! I just want to go back!” and in that exact moment, the guy disappeared.
“Oh boy…something's gonna happen.”
After that little accident, Jure 10 resumed his work and fortunately the drummer managed to carry out the process without a hitch: he seamt to have a natural talent.
The first ones to arrive at Jure 10’s were Bojan and Martin 10, and especially the first was utterly enthusiastic: “Oh, Jure, I'm looking forward to eating your wonderful pizza.”
“It's just the first time I'm making it, I'd save the good adjectives for later” Jure 10 said, hoping to meet the expectations of his new friends, then he added “Martin, what happened this afternoon?”
“Uhm…” Martin 10 was not sure about what the pink haired drummer meant “Nothing? I’ve been home with Bojč all the time.”
Jure 10 smiled and patted him on a arm “Okay, so you spent a peaceful day.”
“No peace without pizza” Bojan 10 asserted.
“Calm down!” Martin 10 scolded the singer “You're having it very soon.”
When dinner time finally arrived and the pizzas were baked, the boys ate with gusto and Jure 10 was greatly amazed by how well it turned out.
“Oh my God, Jure. This a symphony, not a pizza” Bojan 10 commented in a dramatic tone.
“Thank you!” the drummer happily said, with great satisfaction.
That evening was a lot of fun: after pizza the five boys played various board games, of which Jure 10 has a collection, and it was a beautiful moment when Jure 10 and the others got to know each other better and the foundations were laid for what eventually became a beautiful friendship.
It was very late when the boys left Jure 10's house, and when the drummer went to bed, unaware of what was going to happen.
It was 11am the next morning when Jure 10's phone rang, waking up the drummer while he was dreaming of flying a plane.
“Martin?”
“Good morning, Jure, I need some help. We have a problem. But I warn you: it's something…weird.”
Jure 10, accustomed to so-called ‘weird’ things, was not afraid of what the bassist was about to tell him.
“It's okay, talk.”
“It’s about Kris. Uhm…okay, I came here at Kris’s, and no one opened the door when I knocked. I got worried and called Bojan, who has the key to his apartment for emergencies. He opened the door and…well, we really have an emergency.”
“What?”
“He turned into a teddy bear.”
Jure 10 couldn't believe his ears, but he knew he had to keep a cool head: "Has something so…surreal happened to you before?”
"Well, certainly not at this level” Martin 10 admitted.
Jure 10 sighed deeply and, after a pause to think about what to do, he said "Okay. See you at Kris's?”
“Yeah, please. Knowing that I can count on someone to try fixing it would make me more calm.”
While Martin 10 was talking on the phone, Kris 10 felt helpless, in fact he could not move. Despite this, the little teddy bear had sight, hearing and touch, for who knows what strange reason. The teddy bear could even talk, to be precise he didn't move his mouth, but the moment Martin had hung up the call, he heard his friend's voice ask "What did Jure say?”
“On his way.”
“I’ll have to wait an hour! And what for? I need a miracle!”
Bojan 10, with dreamy eyes, stated “I think Jure can perform a miracle. Have you seen his face? He must be an angel.”
“I’ve never seen a pink haired angel” the taddy bear contradicted him.
“And what about regular angels?” Martin 10 asked.
“You can't see it, but I’ve just rolled my eyes.”
“Don't be jealous, Krisko!” Bojan 10 smiled “You’re an angel, too. When you're not in this form.”
A few seconds later, the singer demanded “Can I cuddle you, teddy?”
“DON'T YOU DARE!”
First thing Jure 10 did when he arrived at Kris 10's apartment was take the bear in his hands, and greets him with a little voice "Hello, little one! Let’s see what’s wrong with you.”
“Oh yes, please, you need a careful analysis to understand what's wrong. In fact, if you don't focus enough you almost won't notice it!” Kris 10 replied.
“Sassy princess” commented Jure 10 "I'll put you here, on the sofa, between the cushions, tiny bear, while I ask your friends if they have ever dealt with magic.”
Martin 10 frowned, confused, and replied "That's not even a question, because magic doesn't exist.”
Jure 10 nodded “Sure, there must be a scientific explanation to our friend turned into a stuffed animal.”
"Can the incredible goodness of your pizza be classified as magic?" Bojan 10 asked to relieve the tension of the moment, but that was not the result the singer obtained: on the other hand, the drummer showed an astonished expression and exclaimed “Oh fuck!”
“What?”
“When it comes to magic, and something new happens, the cause must necessarily be something new. I had never made pizza before last night and you had never eaten it. Bojči! You're a genius!" Jure 10 explained briefly, then took the singer's head in his hands and kissed his forehead.
Bojan 10 blushed "Oh, thank you" he giggled.
“So, what's the theory?” Martin 10 questioned “There's a correlation between the pizza and Kris?”
“A magic correlation” the drummer pointed out.
“For your information, I’m rolling my eyes again” Kris 10 repeated, in frustration.
Martin 10 began to give up: such an absurd story had to have an absurd cause, and since he had no idea, he preferred to follow Jure 10's one.
“How do we find out if this is true? We go back in time to when you made pizza to see if you accidentally put a secret ingredient in it? Or what?”
And at that exact moment, Martin 10 disappeared, much to Bojan 10’s fright.
“Martinček?!” he yelled.
But Jure 10 had already connected the dots and figured out what was happening: “Don't be afraid, the man really travelled in time and space and he's now in my house, escaping across the window of my bedroom. Now we wait for him to come back and then we go together in another universe to find the answers we are searching for.”
At that point Kris 10, on the verge of a mental breakdown, decided to intervene: “Listen, Jure, the way you talk about magic and time travel and another universe like it's nothing is starting to scare me."
Jure 10, in fact, taken by the events, took for granted that all those things were normal, simple everyday life, but for the others present in that room it was not like that at all.
“Okay, I’m sorry. For everything. I’d like to explain but I prefer to help you first. I can do it, but I need you to trust me.”
“I trust you” Bojan 10 stated, while Martin 10 was reappearing at his side, in the middle of a run. The young bassist, however, found the coffee table in front of him and tripped over it, only to fall disastrously.
“See? He came back!” Jure 10 exclaimed, then he asked Martin 10 “Tell us, have you been to my house by any chance? And did you escape out the window?”
Martin 10, helped by the drummer, got up and confirmed Jure 10's theory “But how do you know?” and, with this question asked, he realized, pointing at the drummer: “Oh! You know it because you had already experienced that moment! I actually went back in time!”
Jure 10 nodded: “Yup.”
“Okay, what's next?” Bojan 10 asked.
Jure 10 pulled out from under his sky blue shirt the golden chain that the singer had always glimpsed around the drummer's neck, revealing a key of the same color. "Now we're going on a little trip," announced Jure 10, taking off his necklace. "Follow me, and as we reach the right door I'll explain everything.”
“Which door are you talking about?” Kris 10 questioned. “And are you going without me?”
“No, Kris, you're coming with us. Just choose who you want to take you aroud.”
“Martin, of course! Certainly the most reliable among you.”
"I may have been offended by your choice” Bojan 10 complained “but given your current condition, I will move on now. Let's go, Jurček, I’m following you everywhere you will go” he added, placing a fist over his heart and looking intensely into the drummer's blue eyes.
"I don't think it's appropriate to threaten Jure like this" Kris 10 retorted, already in Martin 10's arms.
The drummer looked around, then approached Kris 10's kitchen door and inserted his golden key into the lock. But when he opened the door, the kitchen didn't seem to be there anymore, and it scared the little teddy bear very much: "What the hell have you done? Where's the kitchen?”
"It's okay, I just used this," Jure 10 explained, holding up his key, "to turn your door into a dimensional portal. But it's temporary and I swear on my knives set that you'll get your kitchen back.”
“On your what?”
Jure 10 didn't give an answer to that question, rather he walked through the door motioning for the others to follow him. The drummer closed the door and began walking through the multiverse hallway, explaining to Kris, Martin and Bojan 10 everything about it and about multiverse in general. Each of the three had a different reaction to those words: Martin 10 was curious, Bojan 10 showed an enthusiastic expression, while Kris 10's teddy bear features hid what in human form would have been a shocked face.
"I don't know if I should have told you about it right away, but after all what you were looking for was a drummer, and I didn't think the rest was important, nor did I think it could turn out like this" Jure 10 concluded.
Martin 10 then spoke up and replied "It's true, we were looking for a drummer, but we also want a friend, and I would like more sincerity from a friend. You were afraid of scaring us, perhaps, and I understand that. But don't ever think that we won't accept you even knowing that you are a…”
“Multiverse traveller.”
“We're walking a lot ” Bojan 10 complained.
“Of course we are! We come from universe 10 and we gotta reach universe 112. And here we are!” Jure 10 announced, inserting the key into the lock. “We come from Kris's kitchen, that means we'll pop out in the kitchen of Kris 112. He's someone who needs to be taken the right way, so leave it to me.”
The pink haired drummer knocked the door, and a Kris voice answered: “Only a Jure can knock at my kitchen’s door. I hope you're not the number 54, if you're him I'll make you regret being born. Choose wisely.”
Not scared at all, Jure 10 reassured Kris 112: “I’m not the number 54, I’m the number 10, with three friends, people I trust.”
“Well, come in.”
Bojan 10, in the second he saw Kris 112, was stunned: that alternative version of Kris had dark brown hair and bronze glitter on his eyes. He sat on a couch with a guitar on his legs, while beside him there was a notebook and a pencil. Driven by curiosity, the singer approached to read what was written, but Kris 112 had quick reflexes and took the notebook so that Bojan 10 couldn't read. The green eyed singer didn't seem to be happy about it, and with his tail between his legs said "Too bad, I could have helped you. Our Kris has already written that song" he then turned to the teddy bear, still in Martin's arms: "Isn't that true, honey?”
"I didn't read, what song is it?"
"It's Dopamin.”
Kris 112 wasn't quite sure what he had seen, a voice identical to his had just come out of a teddy bear?”
"The universe 10 me is a stuffed animal?”
“This is the reason why whe’re here” admitted Jure 10. “We must consult Jan.”
“Okay” Kris 112 replied bluntly.
“Can you drive us there? Please?”
“No?”
“Why not?” Bojan 10 asked. “You're in the middle of an…artistic crisis. I see it in your glittered pretty eyes. But if you drive us at Jan’s, we will be able to make our Kris human again and he will help you write Dopamin. Deal?”
Kris 112 sighed “Okay, deal. But I have to go to the bathroom first.”
Jure 10 didn't expect the young guitarist to be so easily convinced by Bojan 10.
"How did you do?" he asked him.
“My magnetic charm, perhaps?”
But Martin 10 shook his head "While you were talking to Kris 112 your eyes changed colour, it must have been something magical.”
Jure 10 laughed “Oh, Martin! You quickly got used to the idea that magic exists! But tell me, what color had Bojan's eyes become? I didn't notice it.”
“They were kind of golden.”
“Oooh! Congratulations, Bojč! You’ve just hypnotized someone for the first time! Well, we have a time traveler, a hypnotist and a teddy bear. We definitely need to talk to Jan 112.”
When the boys arrived at the door of Jan 112's apartment, it was Jure 10 who rang the bell, adding "It's me! Jure 10! Igor, it's me!”
“Meow!” said Igor 112.
“Here I am!” added the deep voice of a man, before the man himself opened the door.
The drummer jumped with excitement "Hey, Nace!" and then overwhelms the man in a hug. “You have a mullet!”
“Jure! Yeah, do you like it?”
“I do! It’s so cool!”
“You came here with some friends.” Nace 112, looked at all of the other people and noticed Kris 112 “Hi, Kris! What are you doing here? I thought you wanted to avoid magic.”
“And that's true, I just brought the universe 10 guys here. Apparently none of them know how to teleport.”
“Oh, they're not Jure 25. The only Jure who can teleport!” Nace 112 explained. "Well, it's not that great, on the contrary: the maximum distance the Jure 25 can travel is one kilometre."
"Anyway, more than I can do, which is zero" Jure 10 admitted. “Is Jan there? We need a consultation.”
“Yes, I'll take you to him, come in.”
“Meow!”
Jure 10 looked down at the cat and exclaimed "Hello, Igorči!" he crouched down and started cuddling him.
“Meow!”
“Come on!” Kris 10 hurried him “We’re here for a reason!”
“Sure, let's go.”
The boys, accompanied by Nace 112, entered a room with soft red light, where Jan 112 was playing a keyboard against a wall.
“Hi.”
Jan 112 greeted the new arrivals with a faint voice, then he noticed Jure 10 and a smile grew on his face “New troubles? Oh! Are they from your universe? I knew that the paths of your lives would cross. And that teddy bear? Oh, don't tell me, let me guess.”
The 112 version of the guitarist got up, took a deck of UNO cards and shuffled them, saying: “Let's go and make ourselves comfortable, my assistant will prepare some tea for you.”
Everyone sat on armchairs and sofas around a table and Jan 112 began to take cards from the deck and place them on the table.
"Oh! A yellow 2! You're telling me that puppet is a Kris!”
“First of all” Kris 10 said “There was no need to ask the cards who I am, secondly, what’s the correlation between me and a yellow 2, and then...you use UNO cards as if they were tarot cards? Just…why?”
“Because it’s the right way to use them?”
“It’s a game” Bojan 10 answered.
“You use these cards as a game? That's weird. Now let me see more about what happened to Kris.”
At that point a UNO reverse card was revealed.
“Oh!” Jan 112 was surprised “It was my fault?” he asked, taking another card: a wild card.
“Right, me from another universe.”
“Oh, shit!” Kris 10 exclaimed.
“What?”
“Yesterday after dinner Jan said 'I want a capybara', but I understood 'You're a teddy bear' and I said 'I don't want to be a teddy bear' and so that means that... the UNO reverse card means that I myself I caused this misfortune!”
“Those big ears and you misheard a whole sentence?” Bojan 10 pulled Kris 10’s leg.
“Hey!” Martin 10 scolded the singer -again-.
“What about the wild card?” Jan 112 wondered “Oh, the wild card figure has slices. Have you by any chance eaten pizza?”
Jure 10 nodded as a confirmation, and added “All of the weird stuff happened after that. I think there's a correlation.”
Jan 112 then added another card to the others on the table: a green 1.
"Well, exactly. There's a correlation.”
“I really don't get how you find the meaning of these cards, but I think we gotta trust you” said Martin 10.
Kris 10 still had a doubt: “But I said I don't want to be a teddy bear.”
So Jan 112 explained, taking a +4 card and a stop card: “It’s all clear. You eat the pizza, you have magical powers, they’re totally casual and you can't control them. What you say matters, but not totally. And that's all. 50 euros, please and thank you.”
Kris 10 protested “You just took some random cards and made up their meanings, and we were the ones who had the most insights into what had happened to me. Plus you couldn't even tell us how to fix it! And do you want 50 euros?"
"It's a good price, don't complain.”
“Jure! Why did you take us to this…”
“Okay!” Jure 10 stopped the teddy bear shaped guitarist from saying any bad word, and asked to Jan 112 “I’m paying you only if you give us a good advice.”
Jan 112 shuffled the deck again, then he he took the last card: “It’s a red zero. You gotta do absolutely nothing. The effect of Kris's self-enchantment will wear off on its own and Bojan will lose his ability to hypnotize people and Martin will lose his time travelling skills.”
Martin 10 laughed “Skills? Not really. Oh, wait! We never told you about about hypnosis and time travelling!”
“But I know. The cards never lie.”
Jure 10 took fifty euros from his wallet and gave them to the guy, saying to his bandmates “He’s talented and gifted, I knew coming here was the best idea.”
Kris 10 stayed a stuffed toy for a couple more days, and everyone else was extremely careful about what the guys said in the meantime.
Jure 10, when the guitarist returned to being himself, accompanied him to the 112 universe in order to help Kris 112 write Dopamin, as promised.
The things that happened did not change the guys' opinion on the pink haired drummer. On the contrary, they showed enthusiasm in having discovered that they were not the only ones in the multiverse and in the existence of magic -especially Bojan 10-.
“Okay, but I’m not making pizza anymore” the drummer stated.
But we know well that he made pizza again. And again. And many more times.
What can we say? You can't pass up something so good!