Work Text:
“Thank you for calling ZeroBees Apiary. This is Taerae speaking, how can I help you?”
“My house is fucking— Ah! Shit!”
“Huh?”
As another honeybee makes a BEEline—no pun intended— towards his face, Gyuvin releases a war cry into the depths of his house. He swats furiously, fiddling with two locks and wrestling the screen door. It whacks into the side of his head and he cusses profusely.
“Sir, are you still there? Is this an emergency?”
“There’s so many of them. There’s so MANY of them?!”
“So many what?”
“BEES!”
Gyuvin stumbles onto the back porch and starts towards the front, mucking through the ridiculously high grass. He really needs to mow. But now is no time for that, he has bigger fish — er, bees? — to fry.
“Sure, we can definitely help you with that. How many bees, exactly?”
“Fucking— thousands? Millions? I don’t know!” he whines, eyeballing the chunks of yellow and orange swarming the corners of his house. He feels vaguely sick. “Too many! There’s too many bees!”
“I understa—”
“I was trying to wash my hair and they were in the fucking shower! They were on my soap! They were buzzing around the showerhead!”
“That’s… Certainly abnormal behavior.”
“And then one tried to kill me!” Just thinking about his near-death experience with the insect sends an unpleasant chill down his spine. “I saw my life flash before my eyes! Please get someone out here as soon as possible. I have so much to live for!”
“Okay, sir. We’ll send someone over right away. Are you inside of the house?”
“Hell no?”
“Great. What’s your address and preferred method of contact?”
Gyuvin rattles off his address, checking for any stray bees all the while. Taerae instructs him to stay as far away from the house as possible, to wave down the van when he sees the beekeeper arrive, and, unfortunately, not pick fights with any fuzzy bastards who want to try their luck.
Summer’s sweltering heat prickles Gyuvin’s skin. He rolls up his sleeves, sweating buckets from the limited exposure, and champions the nearest tree as his shade-providing savior. Hand to the bark, he catches his breath with great effort and curses himself for not grabbing a juice box or something.
He shoots a forlorn look at the cooler.
Fuck. Even the garage is swallowed by those fucking bees. They buzz and bounce around, swirling around the gutters and wiggling their oblong little bodies into crevices Gyuvin didn’t even know existed. It’s going to take forever to get rid of all of them.
After the world’s longest ten minutes, a big white van bumps down the road with “ZeroBees Apiary” painted across the side in blue. Gyuvin waves them down, arms flying everywhere, and heaves a huge sigh of relief once the car parks in his driveway.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he says, stepping up to the propped-open door on the driver’s side. “There’s so many bees.”
“Quite the call you gave, apparently. My supervisor said it was urgent.”
“It is urgent. I literally feel like I’m dying. Anyway, thanks so much for being so qu—”
Oh.
Oh no.
The beekeeper shuts the door. “No problem. Can you tell me a bit about what’s going on here?”
“Um.”
Every coherent thought evaporates from Gyuvin’s brain instantaneously. Because why, why, is the beekeeper the hottest man he’s seen in his entire life?
Dark hair, black pearl eyes, and the perfect combination of color on his lips. It has to be lipstick— oh shit, he’s staring.
“Well?”
Gyuvin eyeballs his nametag. Ricky. What a cool name for a cool looking guy.
“I’m Gyuvin,” he blurts instead. Fuck, he’s such an idiot. Fortunately, the beekeeper doesn’t seem the least bit put-off.
“Ricky,” he snickers. “So, Gyuvin, what’s the deal with the bees?”
Gyuvin follows him to the back of the van. “Uh… It started a few days ago, I guess. I started noticing bees more and more, but I thought that was just because it’s summer time, y’know? And then they started popping up in my house, so I was like ‘hm, okay, sure, stay a while,’ but I guess they took that as ‘yeah, move in, bring all your friends and the entire bee population,’ and now I run a bee hotel.”
Ricky laughs. “I see.”
“And they don’t pay rent,” Gyuvin adds with scorn.
Inside the back of the van are various oddities. Wooden boxes, chests, picks, an elliptical net, a few pairs of gloves, three ridiculously oversized white jumpsuits, and helmets with mesh visors. Ricky wastes no time picking a suit, leaning against the back bumper to wiggle it on over his street clothes.
“I’m going to take a look around and see if they’ve built up a new hive. If I had to guess, I would say their old hive was destroyed.”
“Okay, and.”
“That’s why they’re in your house.”
“My house looks nothing like a hive.”
“They’re bees,” Ricky says. “They don’t know that.”
Gyuvin shrugs. “Aren’t bees supposed to be some of the smartest animals on the planet?”
“So are humans. Yet, look at all the stupid shit we get up to.”
“True.” This guy is funny. Pretty and funny? Gyuvin might be in love. “Sorry, go on.”
“Because they’re hanging around your house, they probably started building a hive. It looks like a fairly new development, since they’re swarming. My guess is that they haven’t really established a lot– but if they have, it shouldn’t be too hard to find where it is. The queen will be in whatever honeycomb they’ve built up. Once I find her, I’ll put the comb into one of those—” he points to an empty white chest “—and they should all start to flock to her after that.”
“Huh. That sounds easy.” In every movie containing removal, it usually results in a massacre of the little creatures. Ricky’s plan, however, seems so… humane. “You don’t kill them, right?”
Ricky blinks. “Why the hell would I kill the bees?”
Gyuvin squints at him.
“Aren’t you an exterminator?”
“I’m a bee-keeper, not a bee-killer.”
“There’s a difference?”
Ricky sighs, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “I don’t get paid enough for this.”
Gyuvin opens his mouth to speak, but Ricky pulls one of the mesh helmets over his head, zips his boots, and stomps off towards the house.
Mr. Fearless beekeeper (decidedly NOT bee-killer) wastes no time pottering around in Gyuvin’s landscaping. He helicopters through, displacing all the mulch Gyuvin worked so very hard to set up. Miraculously, the bees don’t seem the least bit interested in him. Maybe they think he’s a giant, albino bee because of the suit. That would make sense.
After making his rounds, Ricky returns with his findings.
“That’s a shitload of bees,” he reports.
“Well, yes.”
“Good news, I found the hive. Bad news, it might take a while for all of the bees to get the memo.”
“How long is a while, like, a few minutes, hours, weeks–?”
Ricky nods to himself. “Probably a couple of hours. You won’t be able to go near the house until most of them are gone. Not without a bee suit.”
“…”
Gyuvin eyeballs the spare suits in the back of the van. Ricky blinks once, twice, and then—
“Can I wea—”
“You’re not allowed to wear the bee suit.”
Gyuvin frowns. “Oh, come on. What, you expect me to just sit around unprotected while you parade around in your super bee gear?”
“It’s not ‘super bee gear,’ it’s a bee suit.”
“Bee suit, super bee gear, same thing. You have extra, and my point still stands.”
“You can wear the bee suit if you wanna clock in and help.”
“Deal.”
Ricky malfunctions. “What?”
“Deal. Put me in, coach.”
“Uh.”
Gyuvin tips his head. Ricky stares, considering him for a long moment. Or maybe he’s mulling over the wage he’s making, or all the better things he could be doing with his time right now instead of helping some idiot college kid with his bee problem. Either way, he sighs. “Sure.”
“Really?”
Ricky nods. “Grab the suit on hook three.”
Gyuvin cheers and clambers up into the van. With Ricky’s assistance, he slips into the jumpsuit, wriggles his feet into a pair of boots that squeeze his toes, and pulls on a pair of way too big gloves. Gyuvin pops a hip.
“How do I look?”
“Stupid,” Ricky replies. He slides the mesh cap over Gyuvin’s head amongst soft whines of protest.
They approach the battlefield.
The enemies have endless reinforcements, thousands upon thousands of buzzing bees armed with stingers, ready to risk it all for glory. Gyuvin has a smelly oversized suit, a slutty pair of knee-high boots cutting off circulation to his toes, and a dream. And Ricky, but that’s relative.
Ricky surveys the frontlines with the eyes of a true, seasoned professional. This isn’t his first war against the two-colored demons. Hands on his hips, he bends at the waist to examine a nearby window. Gyuvin mirrors him.
“Hm.”
“Hm?”
“Weird.” As if that weren’t the vaguest possible thing he could’ve said, Ricky starts off towards the back porch. Gyuvin scrambles after him.
By the time he gets around the corner, Ricky’s actively scaling the side of his house. How and where he found a ladder Gyuvin may never know, but he sure wasted no time getting to the top of it. Gently, his gloved hands sift through the mounds of bees with the kind of ginger care a seamstress uses to thread a needle.
Gyuvin can’t wrap his head around it. Why would anybody in their right mind willingly stick their hand into a mound of bees?
“Aren’t you afraid of getting stung?”
“Nah. The bees won’t hurt you.” Ricky shows off his bee-filled palm. “See?”
In his hand, dozens of bees push each other side to side, vibrating like concert speakers. Their fuzzy bodies are too big for their stringy little legs to hold up, so they bounce around like a bunch of yellow and black bumper cars.
They almost look kinda cute. Besides the deadly stinger. And the beady eyes. Suddenly, the memory from this morning flashes through his mind.
“Evil,” Gyuvin mutters.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
With an eye roll, Ricky carefully scoops the bees back along the gutter. They pop free like clumps of soot. “They’re honeybees. They’re not going to attack you unless you provoke them.”
“Tell that to the bee that tried to take my eye out in the shower this morning.” Gyuvin swerves as a stray squatter makes a BEEline for the gutter.
“Sounds like he was provoked.”
“Not you taking the bees side here.”
Ricky flashes him a little smirk, and fuck, he’s so hot. If all beekeepers are this sexy, maybe he should consider changing career paths. Even if hot bee-man does seem to be a traitor. “C’mon. I need your help with the boxes.”
Fortunately, Ricky does the actual bee-handling.
Gyuvin helps with all the set-up, fumbling through the process of unlocking the white chest with the floppy fingers of his gloves, and holding the ladder steady when Ricky angles to reach really high places. He gets a perfect view of Ricky’s ass when he does this, which is equally as impressive as the apparent plethora of bee knowledge he seems to possess.
There are thousands of types of bees. Ricky names a handful before Gyuvin stops listening, but he listens long enough to learn that different types of bees have different attributes, life expectancies, potencies, and geographical locations.
Most of their conversation is bee-centric, but it steers into something more personal with some light prodding. Ricky talks about how he got into the bee industry when he was high school. There was an apiary near his childhood home, and his mother would buy honey from the owners every Tuesday. Now that he’s older, he’s been working with the bees most of his life and he doesn’t see a reason to move on anytime soon.
Pawing through the gutters and the boards under the roof, Ricky successfully locates the honeycomb containing the queen bee. With great care, he deposits the block of yellow and white into one of the open chests and leaves the top open.
“Won’t she fly out?”
“She’s the queen, she doesn’t have anywhere to be. Everyone flocks to her.”
And flock they do. From the literal woodwork, gossip spreads through the bee kingdom and the swarm starts to relocate. Some bees are faster than others, zipping over and eagerly festering along the edges of the box, buzzing and whirling. Other bees are more relaxed. They mosey over and hover around the edges before finally settling in, rubbing at holographic wings and fluffy antenna.
Ricky steers them under the tree in the front yard and follows Gyuvin’s example by plopping ungracefully into the grass.
Their knees bump together. Ricky helps Gyuvin take off the helmet, then his own, and fusses with his hair. Inky strands sweep across strong bows. Gyuvin notices he has a birthmark under his eye. Cute.
“They’re moving pretty fast,” he leans back onto his hands, “I wouldn’t be surprised if all the bees were out in the next hour.”
“An hour’s not too bad.”
“Not at all.”
Ricky’s lips are pretty. The line of his jaw is sharp, accentuated by the shadows of high cheekbones, and a silver cross dangles from his ear. Their eyes meet, and Gyuvin doesn’t even bother to look away.
“What?”
“Can I say something, like, um. Unprofessional.”
“I don’t think anything you’ve said to me today has been professional.”
“Same goes for you? I could report your foul language to your boss.”
Ricky lightly shoves him. “Fuck off.”
Gyuvin laughs. It squeezes his chest, fills his heart with butterflies. Or maybe he’s severely dehydrated.
“Go on, then. What?”
Gyuvin winks. “You’re BEEautiful.”
“…”
Ricky blinks owlishly, lips pulling into a little “o” shape. “Wow,” he says tonelessly. “That’s—”
“My brain’s been BUZZING with ways to compliment you all day.” Just like the bees, the stupid pickup lines keep multiplying. Although, this time, Ricky’s smiling.
He must get a kick out of it, because something sparks in those pretty eyes.
“Don’t worry,” he says, nudging Gyuvin’s knee. “Just BEE yourself.”
Thousands of bees filing into a tiny white chest sound an awful lot like wedding bells. Come to think of it, their bee suits are white. They’re practically married already!
Gyuvin’s cheeks burn. From the heat, the poorly insulated suit, the smile tearing his cheeks apart, and Ricky’s existence. He bumps their knees together again and delights in the soft laughter it draws from Ricky’s side of the shade.
True to the estimate, nearly all the bees settle into their new home by the second hour. Ricky does one final walkthrough just to make sure there aren’t any stragglers before he brandishes two thumbs up and hauls the closed chest into the back of the van with Gyuvin’s assistance.
Shrugging off the bee suit, Gyuvin suddenly remembers, “Wait, shit, I forgot to pay you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Ricky hangs their suits back on the rack. “You helped out, so it’s stupid to charge. Wouldn’t be fair.”
“Are you allowed to do that?”
Ricky shrugs. “No.” He thumbs his phone, legs swinging over the edge of the van. Behind him, the bees’ are singing a sick new organic EDM track.
“Oh, cool. Thanks. I’m kind of broke, so I didn’t really have any idea how I was going to pay in the first place.”
Gyuvin bites his tongue. Shit, why would he openly admit that? Ricky looks up. “You weren’t going to pay me?”
“Well— To be honest, I thought beekeeping and extermination were, like… Public services.”
“Why would they be public services?”
“Because the bees are free,” Gyuvin says, waving at the box. “Duh?”
“Mm,” Ricky hums, eyes back on his phone. “Terribly flawed logic.”
“It worked out, though! Since you said everything’s going to be free.”
“You know what else is free?”
“What?”
“Me. Next Saturday.” Faster than Gyuvin can blink, there’s a phone on a new contact page pushed into his chest. “Or who, rather.”
No way.
“Are you asking me—?”
“I’m telling you,” Ricky corrects, stretching. His black t-shirt rides up when he does, exposing toned lines of abdomen and— ink? More tattoos? This guy gets more and more interesting by the second. “You’re taking me out to dinner, and you’re buying. We can call it even.”
“Deal.”
After punching in his contact info and exchanging goodbyes, Ricky gets back into the bee mobile and drives away.
Not only is the house bee-free, but Gyuvin also bagged some work experience and a hot date on Saturday night with the world’s most gorgeous man. What a turn of events!
Filled with newfound confidence, Gyuvin strolls into his bee-free house and locks up. He picks out his favorite loungewear and pulls off his sweat-drenched tee with a grimace. Disgusting. He can’t lay on the couch like this.
So, even though he showered this morning, Gyuvin snags his towel from the back of his door and rounds on the bathroom. He flicks on the light.
Gyuvin stops in his tracks. His eyes widen in abject horror.
Five eyes meet two.
There, balancing on the tip of the sink faucet, small but mighty, yellow and black as death, is one singular bee. Gyuvin swallows thickly.
“Hello,” he tries, approaching the counter slowly. “Hi. I’m not here to hurt you.”
The bee, of course, does not reply. Instead, it rubs its front legs together maniacally.
“Um. Are you having a nice day, Mr. Bee? Or— Miss Bee. Or— Mx. Bee.”
The bee buzzes emphatically.
Gyuvin leans over and twists the shower faucet, never breaking eye contact. “Nice. Um. So, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to—”
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!
With all the force of a seven year old hunting down the last Drunk Elephant retinol at Sephora, the bee pounces.
Gyuvin’s life flashes before his eyes in a sea of black and yellow. He stumbles and swats, trips, falls onto the toilet, then the floor, and the bee still chases him. He backpedals and scampers, pushes himself to his feet and takes off into the living room, tries to make distance, but the buzzing assailant is relentless.
The nonbinary bee stops at nothing. Gyuvin tries to loop them around the furniture, but the creature is too smart. They’re always one step ahead of him.
Gyuvin runs for the kitchen, but even the kitchen can’t save him. The bathroom bee makes themselves known as a worthy opponent— and if it’s a fight they want, it’s a fight they’ll get.
Thundering through the house, Gyuvin flings open the front door and jumps outside. The shock of concrete meeting his feet jolts through his legs, and he damn near trips and falls again. But the buzzing sound is coming, and he can’t let this evil, ugly thing win this battle!
The bee zips out of the house. Gyuvin swerves at the last second as the little creature whizzes by like a bullet. Mustering all of the strength he can, he summons his inner track start and shoots back through the entrance, slamming the door hard behind him.
Faintly, the sound of 0.05s of a gram hitting the wood and then the doormat echoes through the house.
