Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

art by: katmylittlesunshine

 “What is this place?” Isak’s voice echoes off the domed walls around him. He’s in some sort of bunker, with grey walls that meet in the middle at the top with the centre being a round circle of glass. Or was it a window? 

“Holy…” Even says, his low voice rumbling in the huge space around them as he takes everything in. He walks to the centre of the space, where some kind of living room is set up, and kicks at the corner of the yellow velvet couch just to make sure it’s real. It sits, as if fallen from the sky, in the middle of this weird room, with a coffee table and two plaid granny chairs. It seems that they had fallen into some kind of…

“Alien habitat?” Isak asks, and plops himself down on the antique couch. The cushions don’t have much give, but at least it’s better than the floor.

“With a living room set up in the middle?” Even mutters, shaking his head.

“Where’s the kitchen?” Isak asks, propping up his feet and crossing them at the ankles.

Even lets out a rough laugh, and Isak swings his golden head in Even’s direction.

“You’re in some kind of government testing site and you’re concerned about food?”

“Always,” Isak says with a smirk, tilting his chin up for a kiss. Even replies with two quick pecks, and a little kiss on Isak’s nose before settling in beside him.

“So really, where do we think we’ve gotten to?”

“Maybe we’re just really high and this is a figment of our imagination?”

Even squints his eyes in response. Then he pinches Isak on the arm.

“Hey!”

“Feels pretty real to me,” Even says with a chuckle. 

“You’re a sneak,” Isak says, sticking out his tongue. “And IIIIIII’m looking for a way out of here.”

“Yeah, just look for the big EXIT sign,” Even says, and Isak swats him as he gets up.

Isak walks over to the walls and places his hands on them. He touches them tentatively, then slides his hands down. 

“These walls are…static?” Isak says, asking himself the question.

“They’re screens,” a voice comes.

Both Isak and Even jump and squeal: Even jumps up on the couch like he’d seen a mouse, and Isak presses his back against the static wall so he won’t get jumped.

“Sorry,” comes another voice, and the shrieking happens all over again.

Two boys appear in the living room area with Even, as if out of thin air. 

One of them wears a beanie with his dark hair swooping out from underneath it. His hands are tucked in the front of his blue bomber jacket. The other guy stands close to him, resting his hip on one of the plaid chairs. His hair is dark blond and messy. His wool sweater was a mix of oranges and reds that clashed with the granny plaid, but somehow looks like it was from the same era.

They all spend a minute taking in one another and sizing each other up–Even with his jean jacket and legs for a mile, Isak with his backwards snapback and RBF.

“You must have a lot of questions,” the grandpa-sweater guy says as he sits down quietly on the chair.

“Who are you?” Even asks at the same time Isak says, “Where are we?”

“We brought snacks,” grandpa-sweater says. Bowls of chips and pretzels appeared on the table, like magic.

“Hi, sorry for my boyfriend,” beanie-boy says, his hand resting on Grandpa-sweater’s shoulder. “Snacks, while important, are probably the least of your worries.”

Isak and Even exchange a secret look, and Beanie-boy sees it, his eyebrow quirks in recognition. “I’m David, and this is Matteo. Welcome to the lair.”

“Ominous,” Even says, nodding his head. “Well, nice to meet you both. I’m Even and this is Isak. He’s my boyfriend.”

Isak scampers over from the wall and perches beside Even on the couch, not taking his eyes off the others.

“What is this place?” he asks.

“Uhhh—” Matteo and David look at each other, and Matteo scratches his head, messing his hair up even further.

“It’s not really a place as much as it’s… in-between places.”

“So we’re in purgatory?” Isak asks, crossing his arms. He hates not knowing things.

“Not really?” David says, but he didn’t look too sure. “We are waiting for something, but we don’t quite know what.”

“But in the meantime,” Matteo says, pushing the red bowl full of doritos towards Isak and Even, “we have snacks.”

Even and Isak take this in, and Isak reaches for Even’s hand, already feeling more solid just with his body beside Even’s.

“How long have you been here?” Even asks.

“I don’t know, really. Time’s not… the same here. That’s for sure. But we’ve been here longer than you.”

“Is anyone else here?” Isak asks, crunching on some chips.

Matteo shakes his head. “Just you two so far.”

“But we’re waiting for others?” Even asks, probing.

“Yeah. Two more.”

“Two more people?”

“No, sorry. Two more…” David hesitates while he tries to find the words, then settles on one: “Pairs.”

Isak and Even look at each other, their eyes trying to convey all that they were feeling. Their hands squeeze tight in confusion and fear and a twinge of excitement. 

What on earth have they gotten themselves into?

“The walls,” Isak says, gesturing to them. 

“Yeah, very observant,” David says, and Isak brightens. “They’re not really walls as much as they are screens.”

“I’m sorry?” Even asks, looking for clarification at the same time Isak says, “Of course!”

“That’s how we knew… who to expect. And that there are more.”

Both sets of Isak and Even’s eyebrows skyrocket to their hairlines. Matteo reaches for the coffee table and picks up a remote control that only appears as he’s reaching.

“Woah,” Even says, pointing. “What…”

“Here. We can show you. But this is… kind of all we know.”

Matteo points the remote at the walls and half of them come alive, booming with sound and swirling pixels.

Towering block letters fill the screen, spelling out “Matteo and David” in big blue letters.

Isak crunches on handfuls of popcorn as he and Even watch the people in front of them on the screen like a music video—they lock eyes with one another at school between the lockers, then, later, see each other on the bus.

Isak’s skin begins to prickle.

Next, they are in Matteo’s house, going through David’s sketchbook. On and on, the story plays, and Even and Isak both hold their breath, hearts racing, as the mini film comes to a close.

“Was that… real?” Isak whispers when the scenes are all done, the screens now a fuzzy grey.

“Yeah,” Matteo says, shyly. “Yeah, that’s us. In our real lives.”

“I…have so many questions,” Isak says, and Even puts his hand on Isak’s thigh.

“Beautiful love story, first of all,” Even says, with that eye-crinkling smile of his.

“Definitely,” Isak says, though he’s breathy, his chest heaving with anxiety. “But–”

“There’s more,” Matteo cuts in, his voice firmer than it has been. “Just…watch.”

Isak and Even nod, sitting back to watch the screen again. Isak has so many questions he could fill a notebook, and Even isn’t sure he’d ever felt every cell in his body so clearly as when he was watching Matteo and David fall in love–how it looked so much like his and Isak’s story, just in a different font.

Isak jabs Even in the side with his elbow as their names appear on the screen: “Isak and Even” the screen reads, this time in a flowing script in yellow handwriting.

They both gasp audibly, and Even clutches Isak close to him as they both appear on the screen, their eyes meeting across the lunch room as Even laughs.

They watch their memories like a movie, and Even feels his heart squeeze and expand in his chest at different points– the locker room, the door of Isak’s apartment, the hug in the snow outside the school by the bench where they smoked their first blunt together.

When the “movie” is over, Even has teardrop stains on his shirt, and Isak is curled into him tightly, like a little kid hiding from the world.

“What. The. Fuck.”

Chapter Text

Isak isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry or punch someone. But since his options for punching people are two relative strangers and the love of his life, he settles on grabbing the couch cushion and screaming into it.

Even holds his stomach and takes in his deep breaths from therapy, and even though Isak knows that is a better coping mechanism, flinging the bowls of chips around the entire fucking stupid TV screen purgatory laboratory would feel better because at least he’d be doing something .

He reaches for the bowl of chips and it just…pops out of existence. Probably not unsimilar to how he and Even popped into this weird alternate space.

That’s it! Isak snaps his head up, eyes blazing. 

“Holy fuck,” he whispers. “You’re me.”

He’s looking at Matteo as he says it, and Matteo doesn’t bat an eye, continuing to crunch on his chips. He bobs his head in acknowledgement, a smile playing on his lips.

“Knew you’d get it eventually. I’d get it eventually? We’d get it eventually,” he says, chuckling to himself.

“Yeah, Matteo figured it out pretty quickly. It took me a minute,” David says, offering a small smile to them both.

“Wait, what? What am I missing here?” Even asks, swiveling his gaze between Isak’s face of shock and awe and Matteo and David’s patient expressions, like they are trying to talk kindergarteners through Particle Theory, and it isn’t going very well.

“They’re us. We’re them ,” Isak says, pointing between the two couples. “Their story was our story, just…” 

He leaves the opening for Even to complete the sentence, the understanding dawning on Even.

“Yellow curtains,” Even says in a low voice, like he’s offering up a prayer.

“Exactly!” Isak says, running over to Matteo, whose eyes widen as he gets closer.

“Parallel me! Oh my god, this is so fucking NUTS and I am OBSESSED with it!” He takes Matteo by the shoulders and shakes him in his excitement.

“Woah,” Even and David say at the same time. There is a beat, and then everybody laughs. The dome fills with it, bouncing around their heads.

They talk over each other, excited chatter swirling in the air. Isak and Matteo ask each other questions about their life– “so you had a girlfriend too? But you’re gay? Like, gay gay?” And Even and David pull out their phones to scroll through their downloaded playlists, getting an intimate look at their parallel selves.

“No internet, huh?” Even asks.

“Nope,” David says. “No cell service, no internet, no communication with the outside world.”

“So, what, we’re just stuck in here forever? Watching us fall in love on repeat, doomed to die with our parallel selves and partners?”

“Ah, well,” David says, “Matteo has a theory about that.”

Matteo must have heard his name because he turns from his conversation with Isak, where Isak has one sleeve rolled up and Matteo has one pant leg up to his knee.

“Sharing scars,” Isak explains when Even and David give them an odd look. “Literally.”

“Even wants to know your theory, baby,” David says, nodding in Matteo’s direction.

“Oh yeah,” Matteo ducks his head from all eyes on him. “Uh, well, we had your video, so we knew to expect you. But we also have two more.”

“And right before you two showed up…” David starts, and Matteo brightens, remembering.

“We, like, poofed out of here for a bit? I’m not sure how long, but probably long enough for you two to orient yourselves in time and space. Er, well– as much as you can without all the answers. And then,” he snaps his fingers to make his point, “poof! We were back here, and you were squealing.”

“So you think that we’re waiting for the two other couples from the videos?” Even asks, twisting the top off a water bottle before taking a swig.

“Pretty much. Not sure when they’ll get here, but we’ll know because the lights go out and you just sort of…float.”

“Cool,” Isak says, sarcastically. “Another freaking unexplainable part of this whole thing. Awesome.”

“You don’t want to float in space with me while we wait for our parallel selves to show up?” Even pouts, and Isak tweaks his arm with a pinch.

“It just sucks not knowing things. Like, do we sleep? Is time passing? Are we still on earth? Is the earth still moving? Or am I missing, like, years of my friends' lives? Am I going to return when I’m 80 years old and they’re still 22? Are we going to return at all?”

The last sentence out of him pops the air in the bunker like a balloon, as everyone takes this in, wondering the same thing. 

Are we getting out of here?

“This would be the perfect time to poof into darkness, I think,” Isak huffs, and Even rubs small circles on his back with his palm to comfort him.

“It doesn’t really work like that,” Matteo says, cracking open a beer.

“Woah, what?” Isak says, doing a double-take of the coffee table that now had a pack of beer bottles on it.

“I don’t know, man,” David says. “For some reason, Matteo, like, controls this place. He thinks of something and it just…appears. I’ve tried and it doesn’t work.”

Isak and Matteo share a curious look, and the thought passes between them, sparking their eyes to life.

“Do you think…” Isak starts, then closes his eyes to focus better.

The room is silent for a beat, then Even breaks it with his laughter.

“You would summon a blunt,” Even chuckles, and Isak opens his eyes to see a single roll on the table with his usual heavy crystal ashtray underneath.

“Do you think you’d actually be able to get high here?” Isak asks Matteo and David, tilting his head to the side.

“Only one way to find out,” Matteo says with a grin, and Even and David roll their eyes, as if on cue.

#

“How am I supposed to know if I’m really fucking high, or if this is the poofing into darkness thing that Matteo talked about before?” Isak asks into the darkness around him.

It should be more unnerving than it is, to be ass-over- teakettle floating in the ether. But this day (?) has gone from weird to weirder still, so there isn’t much that is going to surprise him now.

“Do you think we’ll be the ones sneaking up on the new couple?” Even asks in a whisper.

“Who knows? Are we going to all plop back in together? That would be one way to welcome them into this hellhole.”

Even giggles, and Isak’s heart glows in his chest. Well, not literally– this place wasn’t that crazy. At least, not yet.

“I wonder where they’ll be from…” Isak says, and Even shushes him. 

“Keep it down! What if they can hear us! What if our voices are like an almighty being over them, booming into their heads through some kind of parallel universe connection?”

“Unlikely,” Isak says, and Even rolls his eyes again, grateful for the dark to hide his smile.

“Oh yeah? You know these things now?”

“I am very adaptable.” Isak says with an air of haughtiness.

Even cackles at that. “Oh, babe. You’re adorable.”

“I am!”

“Yes, you are adorable.”

“You know what I meant!” Isak argues.

“I did,” Even concedes. “But babe, you aren’t exactly what I would call adaptable.”

Isak makes a little hmmph sound, but they both know that Even is right– Isak just doesn’t want to admit it.

“Oh my goddddd, is it time to go back yet?” Isak asks, changing the subject, a slight whine to his voice.

“We’ll be there soon enough. Hang out with me in the clouds!” Even says. “Can you feel your body? Or are you just, like, a talking head? That’s what I feel like.”

Then a few things happen at the same time: Isak, Even, Matteo, and David all pop into the bunker again, coming face-to-face with the newest couple right as Isak says, “You feel like a talking head?”

It causes the newbies to jump and cling onto each other, screaming at a decibel only dogs can hear. The little, spiky one actually jumps into the tall one's arms, flinging his legs around him like a koala.

“Oops,” Isak says, with a wince. 

“Welcome!” Even says, with a smile.

“To the lair!” Matteo adds, sitting down on the plaid chair, just like he had the first time.

“You probably have a lot of questions,” David says. The newbies just stare, frozen like two deer in headlights.

“Hey!” Isak says, remembering their first moments meeting Matteo and David. “Did you write a script?! ”

David sighs. “I mean, we were here longer than you, and we were kind of bored?”

“So that’s a yes,” Even says, and they laugh.

They all turn their attention back to the newbies when the little one slowly descends his boyfriend’s slender frame to plant his feet on the ground.

“What do you want with us?” he asks, his hands balled into fists at his sides. Matteo’s eyes grow wide, and he looks to David as if to ask what he should do.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Even says, flailing his arms. “Don’t worry. We’re not here to hurt you. We don’t want a fight– trust me, that would be extremely weird.”

“Kind of hot, though, right? Fighting yourself? Huge turn on,” Isak says, and the newbies’ jaws drop open. The tall one starts to sputter, as if he was a robot and his wiring was cutting out.

“This is why we have a script, dude,” Matteo says. “Look at them! You’ve totally freaked them out!”

“Well I didn’t bring them here! It’s a pretty fuckin’ weird place so they need to just get used to it! Like the rest of us!” Isak huffs.

“Easyyyyy,” Even says, his voice low and patient. “We are dealing with some pretty wild news, and some very confused people. Let’s just, take a sec.”

He breathes in dramatically.

The tall newbie takes his cue, taking in a deep breath and closing his eyes. His jaw tenses but his shoulders loosen, just a tiny bit.

“Okay,” Matteo says, pulling a rainbow crocheted blanket out of the ether. “Let’s try this again.” 

He adjusts his shoulders, squaring them and leveling the newbies with his kind yet intense stare.

“Welcome to the lair. You probably have a lot of questions.”

Chapter Text

Once the two new guys have gotten to the point that Isak and Even had– understanding that their parallel universe selves are all getting dropped into this place from who knows when–they start to relax a little more by drinking the beers that Matteo and Isak keep piling on the table with their sudden magical abilities.

The shorter one, Lucas, watches Isak very carefully. His brown eyes narrowed and his jaw tense. He tucks himself in the corner of the couch, as if trying to sink in and escape between the cushions, while his boyfriend, Eliott, leans forward, his hands moving around a lot in a dramatic fashion. They’re from France, and have, of course, a very similar love story to Isak and Even, and Matteo and David.

“I always believed that there were other universes, and other Lucases and Eliotts, but I don’t know,” Eliott says. “I guess I never thought we’d meet each other? I didn’t even dream of it because–”

“It’s impossible?” Lucas says bitterly, his mouth a thin line.

Eliott knocks his knee into Lucas’s leg in response, his arms outstretched. “Darling, these people have lived our lives! Well, a different shade, perhaps, but the same colour. How incredible is that?” 

He shakes his head, and his chestnut brown hair moves with the motion, soft edges flipping out into points.

Lucas isn’t convinced, even after seeing their movie even though his love story with Eliott brings him to tears (that he promptly palms out of his eyes). He’s still unnerved and unsettled and unable to let his guard down.

Which is the total and complete opposite of Eliott. It’s one of the reasons he loves him, but still. Lucas cannot, would not, believe that this is some chance gathering of parallel partners. Like– for what reason? No one could answer all the questions he has, but he knows that there has to be a catch.

“So we’re waiting for one more couple?” Lucas asks, his voice cutting through the friendly chatter of all the others.

“Looks like it, from the movies,” David replies, his fingers playing with the zipper on his jacket.

“Do we get to see the movie before they get here? To know who they are before they come?”

“Uhh,” Matteo says, leaning his head to the side in thought, “David and I saw them all, but, of course, it doesn’t really mean much until we meet you. You know?”

“Right,” Even replies, bobbing his head in agreement.

“But at least we’d know who to expect, right?” Lucas says, swiveling his spiky haired head around to take in everyone else, to meet all of their eyes. Please, Lucas thinks, I just want some semblance of control here!

“Yeah,” Isak says. with a shrug. “Why not?”

The names of the next two they were expecting are Robbe and Sander. They are from the Netherlands. Robbe has a slight frame and pale skin, short brown hair cropped to his head. Sander’s a little bit taller than Robbe, with a shock of white blonde hair and a cheshire cat smile, deep eyes and an artistic view of the world.

There is a moment in their film that wasn’t included in anyone else’s story, and it seems to pull all the air out of the room as their bicycle wheels spin.

Of course, the ending is a happy one, with Robbe and Sander together, just the same way that Isak and Even, Matteo and David, and Lucas and Eliott are.

But there is a moment that fact is in question, and when the screens turned back to their regular black, everyone in the room is thinking it:

What happens to the ones who never find their way back to each other? 

Or worse, still:

What happens to the ones who never find each other at all?

No one says their thoughts out loud, though they probably would if they had the space to go and talk separately with their partner. But everything in this weird dome echoes and everyone is another version of everyone else, so it kind of goes without saying that they all form the same conclusions.

 They have pizza for dinner (Isak’s choice), and talk about how limited space is in the dome’s living area, especially if they are expecting visitors at basically any moment. 

Isak and Lucas take it upon themselves to bring in (from where? still, no answers) some new chairs and couches, both in very different styles. Isak’s brown couch is a soft suede, with a plaid throw blanket in blues and whites, and he immediately lays down on it, putting his hands behind his head in satisfaction.

Even shocks absolutely no one when he jumps over the back of the couch and lands on top of Isak, tussling and laughing and not even close to the edge of the ginormous piece of furniture. 

Lucas’s couch is sleek and navy blue crushed velvet, with modern chrome legs and throw pillows with silver tassels. Him and Eliott cuddle up on it almost immediately, and it quickly turns into an L-shaped couch when Lucas realizes that he didn’t exactly account for Eliott’s long limbs.

“I cannot believe that you could have pulled out ANY kind of furniture, and you chose…that,” Isak says with a laugh, gesturing to the mismatched chairs and 70’s yellow couch.

Matteo crosses his arms in response, but his face still has a soft smile. 

“Hey,” he says, “this is exactly what my grandmother had in her living room at our family cottage.”

There’s quiet for a moment, and then a bit of laughter when David says, partly under his breath, “Yeah, you’re realllllly not selling anyone with that explanation.”

###

The parallels all poof out into somewhere, and soon, Robbe and Sander are the ones screaming, with Sander sweeping his arm across Robbe to push him behind his body, like a human shield.

Matteo begins anew with his script, which, after the kerfuffle with Elu, the others all (mostly) agree upon as a good solution to a really, really, weird and difficult moment. 

Robbe and Sander are surprisingly calm once they sit down and have some tea. (Even and David decide that they need to make the space a little bit more “comforting” – and apparently, as Lucas called it, “hot leaf water” is the answer). 

Everyone’s a bit dazed after watching all the videos, and they descend into an uncomfortable silence after Robbe and Sander ask all the questions that they had.

“I guess I thought that once everyone was here, something big would happen,” Matteo says, confusion rippling the edges of his voice.

“That makes sense, though. There aren’t any other videos?” Sander asks, and they all shake their heads.

The silence surrounds them again, thick in the air and almost itchy.

“I suddenly feel almost, like,” Even starts, and Eliott finishes the word along with him. “Claustrophobic.”

“How have I never felt that before now?” David asks, his head moving around to look up at the little glass windows up at the crest of the dome, right in the centre.

“What if this is it? What if we just die like this?” Lucas whispers, and the others soften instead of bristling at his fear.

“It can’t be,” Even says resolutely, his low voice firm and steadfast. “I just… I have a feeling. There’s something more.”

“There has to be,” Eliott echoes, but the fear in Lucas’s voice can be heard in Eliott’s, too. Isak could feel everyone’s thoughts start turning dark and hopeless.

“Hey, who wants to play truth or dare?” he asks, partly out of desperation to distract everyone else from everything happening (or not happening) and partly to distract himself and not, like, start kicking the screens square faces in, in an attempt to escape.

Everyone looks around, wondering if this is a legitimate suggestion.

“ You want to play truth or dare?” Even asks. His eyebrows quirk up in amusement. Isak’s eyes must show his desperation, because then Even claps his hands together with the sound bringing everyone back to the present moment. 

“Let’s do it!” he says.

“Could be fun,” Eliott says, shifting his shoulder into Lucas, who nods in agreement, though his face looks grey.

“Fuck it,” Matteo says, downing the rest of his beer and placing it on the table on its side.  “Can’t get high, can’t get drunk, can’t get answers… might as well kiss ourselves!”

There’s a beat of silence, and then everyone bursts into uproarious laughter. Matteo’s face blooms with a blush, and David reaches his hand out to him.

“Aw, babe, no. We’re not playing spin the bottle. That’s a different party game.” 

Everyone continues to laugh, and then even Matteo joins in sheepishly.

“Isak put it in my head! It’s not my fault!” Matteo whines, hiding his face behind his arms.

“It’s true, I’ll admit it,” Isak says. “I just didn’t think anyone would be down for that…”

A bunch of people protest all at the same time. 

“OKAY, okay, that’s what I thought!” Isak says over their yells.

“Why is it all the Matteos who want to kiss themselves?” David asks, shaking his head. Matteo sticks his tongue out at him playfully.

“I mean…” Sander starts, and everyone laughs again. 

The air feels lighter already, and they haven’t even started playing.

“Technically, you could dare someone to kiss someone else,” Lucas says, and then he shrinks his head down onto his shoulders as everyone looks over at him, incredulous.

“Very true, baby,” Eliott says, leaning over to kiss his blushing, rosy cheek.

“I’ll ask someone first,” Isak says, clearing his throat. 

“Shocking,” Sander says with sarcasm and a crooked grin.

Chapter Text

“I pick….” Isak looks around at the parallel couples on their couches. Robbe and Sander on a puffy white modular couch that looks like they are hanging out among the clouds.

Isak’s eyes narrow and smiles when his eyes land on Robbe, who hasn’t said very much since getting here and he definitely knows the least.

“Robbe.” 

Robbe’s eyes widened briefly, and he sucks in a few deep breaths, blinking back his surprise. He sits up, straightening his spine, and then gives Sander a look.

Sander gives the teeniest nod with his head, and Robbe turns back to face everyone.

“Dare,” he says quietly, and every single head swivels to look at someone else in response, as if to say, “OMG, who saw that coming?”

“Whoa,” David whispers reverently, vocalizing what everyone else’s thinking.

“Excellent choice,” Isak says, and Even wonders if Isak wishes he’s a game show host right now. “I dare you…to kiss the hottest parallel you.”

“So long as your partner and theirs allows it,” Even says, his voice almost a warning.

“Right, right, of course,” Isak says; his eyes sparkling with intrigue. He’s no longer thinking about the bunker they were in, or his millions of questions. Really, all he’s thinking is– am I the hottest parallel? He knows his own answer is yes… but would Robbe think that?

“Everyone agrees that this is just a bit of fun?” Robbe asks, his voice squeaky and unsure.

“No one’s going to wage war across the space-time continuum if you fall in love with my guy, right?” Sander asks, and everyone shakes their heads.

“I think we’re all pretty happy,” Matteo says, intertwining his fingers with David’s.

“Alright then,” Robbe says, pushing himself up off the cloud couch. He stands in one spot for a minute, looking at each parallel him for a few seconds:

Isak: his pink lips with their cupid’s bow, the golden curls that spring out from under his hat.

Lucas: with his sharp nose and elegant neck, how his eyes are such a deep brown, you could drown in them.

And Matteo: his perma-flushed cheeks and long eyelashes that fan over them when he looks down, the way his honey brown hair swoops in a messy, bed-headed way that works on him.

Robbe knows that he would rather kiss Sander, but also relishes the idea of kissing another person, let alone another one of him . In any universe, he could never have predicted this.

Robbe crosses the room towards Isak, their eyes locked. Isak licks his lips absentmindedly, excitement flickering in the center of him… and then Robbe stops abruptly on his way. He turns towards Lucas, and bends down, climbing on top of him. 

Robbe straddles Lucas, cupping his face in his hands, and kisses him deeply, mussing up Lucas’s hair in the process. 

Most of the room is impressed (save Isak, who is a little miffed that Lucas got kissed instead of him), and Sander’s eyes sparkle, a wide smile on his face, as if he’s proud of his partner for his choice and execution.

Robbe gracefully extricates his gangly legs from around Lucas and walks back to his seat beside Sander, while Matteo bursts into a round of applause. 

“I’ve gotta say, I didn’t think you had it in ya. But I guess, you’re me? Or I’m you? So I should have known,” Matteo says to Robbe with a grin.

“You okay over there?” Even asks Lucas, whose cheeks were crimson, hair flying about every which way, pupils blown wide open. 

He just nods in response, then squeezes Eliott’s hand as Eliott giggles and reaches for him.

“Off to a fantastic start, I’d say,” David says with a low whistle.

“Your turn now, Robbe,” Isak says, his mouth in a tight smile but his arms closed across himself. Even squeezes his shoulder to try and help him loosen up, but Isak hates feeling second best– especially at being, well, himself.

“Okay, truth or dare…” He looks around the room, deciding on his person as he says, “David.”

“Ooh…Hmm,” David hums thoughtfully. “I think, after all that, I have to go with truth.”

“Okay,” Robbe wipes his hands on his jeans, feeling self-conscious after all that. “You and Matteo have watched the videos of all of us the most.” 

When David nods, Robbe continues, “Who do you think the cutest parallel couple is?”

The room gave a bunch of oohs and ahhs , and Sander elbows Robbe as if to confirm that it was a good question.

“Well,” David starts, “obviously, I think you’re all adorable and wonderful, so don’t get mad if I don’t say your name. But I have to say, I really enjoyed the Eliott and Lucas kiss in the rain to mirror the short film. And I’m a sucker for that scene where Lucas is playing the piano and Eliott, like, instantly falls for him. The lighting, the eye contact, both of them with their crazy hair, lingering at the door…” He pretended to kiss his fingers and then says, “Cinema!”

Suddenly, the wall around them all crackles and buzzes, grey static on the screens pulling them out of their games and camaraderie.

WELCOME, PARALLELS. AS YOU KNOW BY NOW, YOU ARE ALL FROM ACROSS PARALLEL UNIVERSES, YOUR LOVE THREADING THROUGH LAYERS OF THE COSMOS AND JOINING YOU ACROSS TIME, SPACE, AND RELATIVITY.

The air seems to be sucked out of the room while everyone reads the screens, wide eyed and suddenly somber, hearts racing, hands squeezing one another in fear of what was to come next.

YOU HAVE ALL BEEN SUMMONED HERE IN A RATHER UNCONVENTIONAL FASHION, BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN TASKED WITH ENSURING THE SAME OUTCOME FOR TWO OTHER PARALLEL YOUS. 

The black screen with white letters cut to shaky home videos spliced together quickly, showing a young boy through the years: a white-blond baby mashes spaghetti onto his ruddy cheeks in a high chair; a toddler in a plasticy firefighter Halloween costume poses by a staircase; an awkward preteen with braces blows out his candles; and hair gelled up into spikes.

The video pauses on a picture of what must be the boy now–tall and filled out, wearing a bright orange jacket on a ski hill, posing with his ski goggles perched on top of his head. His hair is more honey blond now, and long, swooping out almost down to his shoulders, and around the edges of his smile, two snake bite piercings sit like parenthesis.

THIS IS GRAHAM WEAVER, 22 YEARS OLD, ONTARIO, CANADA.

Another picture appeared on the screen, a shorter brunette with wavy hair, freckles, and a huge grin. He stands behind a till in a black apron and white-collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms.

ON FEBRUARY 11TH, GRAHAM WAS MEANT TO MEET VINCE (23 YEARS OLD, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA)  WHILE HE WAS ON VACATION WHERE VINCE WORKS AT THE COZY PINES HOTEL & SKI RESORT. 

A SUDDEN STORM PLUNGED THE WHOLE RESORT INTO CHAOS, AND GRAHAM IS CURRENTLY TRAPPED IN HIS SKI LODGE ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE RESORT. WITH EMERGENCY SERVICES DOWN, GRAHAM AND HIS FRIENDS ARE STRANDED FOR THE NEXT 48 HOURS, WITH THEIR FLIGHT HOME IN THREE DAYS.

A picture of the resort under immense amounts of snow appears on the screen. Then flashes of signs warning that the gondola is closed, the ski hills are closed, and the walking paths are also closed. There is a sign in English and French asking those who are able to stay in their lodgings until emergency services have finished helping the people most affected by the storm, including those rooms in the resort that were smashed into by giant pine trees.

WITHOUT THEIR MEETCUTE, VINCE AND GRAHAM ARE NOT SCHEDULED TO CROSS PATHS FOR ANOTHER SIXTY YEARS. 

IT IS UP TO YOU FOUR COUPLES TO GET VINCE AND GRAHAM TO MEET BEFORE GRAHAM FLIES BACK TO ONTARIO, OR THEIR LOVE STORY IS OVER BEFORE IT BEGAN. 

UNITE THESE TWO, VINCE AND GRAHAM, BEFORE GRAHAM’S 4:45 PM FLIGHT FROM ABBOTSFORD, AND YOU WILL BE SENT BACK TO YOUR RESPECTIVE PARALLEL UNIVERSES. ASK THE STATION FOR EVERYTHING YOU NEED, AND IT WILL PROVIDE. YOU WILL BE TAKEN TO THE RESORT IN TWO HOURS TO BEGIN YOUR MISSION. 

GOOD LUCK.

Chapter Text

No one moves for a minute when the lights come back on and the messages stop, everyone holds their breath as if there are more instructions to follow.

“What….the fuck?”

Matteo is the first to speak, mumbling under his breath in shock and confusion, with maybe a tiny bit of fear in there.

“I don’t understand,” Lucas says, shaking his head.

“Well, you see, Graham is like the me– or maybe the Isak?-- and he and Vince didn’t–”

“No, I get that part,” Lucas says, rolling his eyes and interrupting Even’s explanation. “But…why us?”

“I think because they’re us?” David responds.

“Yeah, we know how they think,” Eliott says.

“But they’re Canadians ,” Isak says, spitting the word like it’s poisonous.

Sander cocks his head to the side out of curiosity. “And? What do you have against Canadians?”

“I mean,” Isak says, gesturing to the pictures of Graham and Vince smiling at them all.

“Aww, they look sweet!” David argues. “And everyone knows Canadians are polite.”

“Polite and boring ,” Isak mutters.

Sander crosses his arms.

“My first boyfriend was Canadian. And my aunt is married to a Canadian! All this Canada-hate is really bumming me out,” Sander says, shooting Isak a dirty look.

“Wow, the old ‘Canadian-boyfriend’, huh?” Isak says, and hurt flashes over Sander’s sharp features before he gets his regular cat’s smile.

“His name was Jack.”

“Was he a lumberjack?” Eliott asks with a laugh, tidying up all the snack wrappers and pizza crusts on the table.

“Can we FOCUS?!” Robbe bursts, his eyes wild and his cheeks blooming pink as everyone gets quiet and focuses on him.

“Yes, he was a lumberjack,” Robbe says, so deadpan that everyone doesn’t really know whether to laugh or not, so they stay quiet. “BUT we have something huge to get ready for. And they said that we only had two hours to pack to travel across the world and… across a bunch of universes, I guess. So, let’s get packed. And then we can formulate a plan on the way.”

David puts a hand on top of Eliott’s as he collects garbage, and when Eliott meets his eyes, he merely snaps his fingers and the garbage disappears.

“I will never get used to that,” Eliott says with a wry smile.

“Good thing you don’t have to,” Even says, his voice low and rumbling. “Robbe’s right. We have limited time and a job to do. One person from every couple should pack a regular bag for overnights–clothes, toiletries, etc. The other couple should pack the winter and emergency bags, including first aid kits, snow suits, hats, mitts, and all of that. Deal?”

“Deal,” a few of them say, and start snapping things into the room out of thin air– duffel bags, backpacks, puffy purple snowsuits.

“I am absolutely not wearing that.” Isak scoffs at Even, who holds up the purple ski suit, which is about two inches too short. 

“Why not? I think you’d look dashing in it.” He pins Isak with a quick kiss while Matteo snaps his fingers. Matteo holds up a lime green ski suit with white trim and a big red lightning bolt on the back.

“Where are you two even getting these?!” Isak huffs.

“If I said, ‘your mom’, would you be offended?” Matteo asks as Even chuckles.

“This is going to take forever,” David moans into his beanie, flopping down onto the couch in defeat.

“David, why don’t you make sure we get all the emergency kits together?” Eliott asks, and David perks up a little with a job to do. 

“On it!” he says, standing quickly to hop into the chaos around him.

#

Two hours later, the couples are mostly packed, but still scrambling. Lucas is dictating sharply from a list he wrote as everyone checks off verbally if they have each item, and Matteo zips his hood up over his face when the countdown clock for the final ten minutes appears ominously on the screens around them.

“My body feels like a livewire. I swear to God, if these Canadians don’t have a spliff for me when we get there…” Matteo says from behind the fabric, his words muffled a little.

Eliott jumps up and down on the spot, shaking his hands out to expend the nervous energy. “Yeah, I could use something to quiet my mind a little.”

“Not to mention my body,” Isak interjects. “It’s like I’m swimming with nerves. Like, that dream where you’re late for an exam, but you haven’t studied, or you don’t know what it’s on.”

“And you show up in your underwear,” Sander laughs, twisting his hand through his hair so it’s sticking up on one side.

“Or it’s in another language,” Even suggests.

“Or it’s, like, quadratic equations,” Robbe says.

“I wonder what’s harder for the gays, a dream where you’re taking a driver’s test, or a dream where you’re taking a math test?” Eliott asks with a smirk.

“Either way, you’re in your underwear, right?” Isak replies.

“Hey, now you sound like Sander,” Robbe says, brightening.

“While all this speculation is SO adorable, the doomsday clock is counting down faster than I can collect my fucking thoughts so could everyone please just SHUT IT?!” Lucas says, exasperated and shaking.

“Woah, woahhhh, my dude,” David says, putting an easy arm around Lucas’s shoulder, which is no easy feat. Lucas’s shoulders are so tense they’re scrunched up to his ears. “We’ve been through your lists. We’ve got the emergency stuff and the snow stuff. What else is eating at you?”

Lucas relaxes into David’s arms for a second, taking a breath. Then, a little more calmly, he says, “I just want to have a plan. I don’t like knowing someone else’s fate rests in my hands.”

“Our hands,” Eliott says, grabbing a hold of Lucas’s hand to make his point.

“Yeah, we’re in this as a team,” Even says, and everyone nods their heads in agreement. 

“So, then can we talk about the plan? I mean, I’m assuming that in–” Sander looks at the clock before continuing– “about 2 minutes and 20 seconds, we’re going to do that “popping” out of here thing that you’ve all told me about, and we’ll probably just “pop” into whatever place we’re meant to be, right?”

“Yeah, it’s not like we’re going on a plane or something, right?” Isak asks, and everyone just looks at one another.

“Are we?” Robbe asks. “Should we all have our passports ready?”

The last two minutes are another mess of chaos as everyone is trying to snap in their new passports and their different forms of ID, money, and credit cards.

“Credit cards aren’t going to work in a timeline that we aren’t in, right?”

“Either that, or the alternate universe me is going to be charged, so basically everything will be free.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works…” Isak says, his eyebrows pinched in thought.

“Well, I’m hopeful that at some point, this will come in handy,” Matteo says, zipping a lighter and some joints in a pocket on the inside of his jacket.

“Couldn’t hurt, right?” Eliott replies.

10…9….8… 

The couples watch as the number tick down, their nervous energy palpable around them. 

7….6….5…..4…. 

“Well, good luck and see you on the other side,” Isak says, and no one has the time to respond.

3….2…..1….

The darkness descends in one swift breath, and the couples are taken to the Cozy Pines Resort. They’re split into two groups. The first group, consisting of Eliott, Lucas, Isak, and Even, are taken to Vince, who is working at the Cozy Pines Cafe.

Matteo, David, Robbe, and Sander, are taken to the snowed-in cabin where Graham and his friends are trapped.

“We really should have made a game plan first,” Lucas mutters. 

Isak cuts his eyes at him. They were dropped behind some spindly bushes by the front entrance of Cozy Pines, all hitting the snow butt-first.

The dark cedar beams of the overhang at the entrance are snow trimmed and heavy, leading the way to the glass doors with a lush carpet inside. The warm air and sweet scent of apple cider hits them as they step inside, stomping the snow off their boots where they’re greeted by a grand lounge area with a huge gray stone fireplace.

The room is dressed in warm browns and deep evergreen tree green, from the chestnut brown leather couches to the sleek live-edged wood of the check-in counter.

The two couples flop down on the couches in front of the fire to figure out what to do next.

“Why did they split us up?” Isak asks, as if anyone would have an answer.

“We should have at least talked about this as a possibility, but everyone else was all, ‘no, let’s make a plan LATER’.” Lucas huffs.

“Because we thought there would be a later!” Isak says, raising his voice to match Lucas’.

“And what good did that do us! Now we’re here, and we have no idea how to get these two together, and we have no plan, and…”

“So, let’s make a plan, babe,” Eliott says with a firm voice. “Let’s think about how we all got together. What are some of the most important things that happened?”

“The solo hangout was a game changer,” Even says, jumping into the conversation.

“Yes, that’s right. So we have to get them alone. Good! That’s good. Isak?” Eliott directs his attention to Isak, his arms folded across his chest in defense. 

“The eye fucking. Like, across the schoolyard, or with the girlfriend while dancing. Wait, does one of them have a girlfriend?” Isak asks.

“I don’t remember anything about a girlfriend,” Eliott says.

“Doesn’t mean there isn’t one,” Lucas mutters, kicking the ground with his shoe.

“Right. We have to expect the unexpected. So, let’s make a loose plan that can be subject to change,” Even suggests.

“So right now the plan is to get them to spend some time alone, get them to eye-fuck, and get rid of the girlfriend. Capiche?” Lucas says, taking over again.

“Uh, yeah. Just one problem? Before we can get them alone, or eye-fucking, we need to get them together.”

“Ahh,” Eliott says, letting out a breath.

“And that means that we have to convince a stranger to brave the aftermath of a storm to go to a shack on the outskirts of the residence…with the promise of true love?” Even says, trying to figure out what they’re thinking as they’re all thinking it.

Isak snorts. “Wow, yeah, that’s never going to work. If you tell him it’s for true love, he’ll absolutely run away.”

“If he’s the Isak he would,” Eliott says, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Wait, yeah! This could work!” Even says, snapping his fingers. “If we can figure out which one of us Vince is, we can figure out what kind of thing will motivate him to go to the cabin.”

“Wait, so if you think I wouldn’t go with the promise of true love, what do you think would motivate the ‘me’, or the Isak or Lucas one, to go out in a snowstorm to meet someone?”

Eliott and Even look at each other, a small smile turning at both of their lips with their answers to the question.

“Glory,” Even says, at the same time Eliott says, “Revenge!”

This time, Lucas and Isak look at each other through narrowed eyes. Lucas is the one who breaks eye contact first. 

“Yeah,” Lucas shrugs, “both of those check out.”

Isak sighs ruefully. “Glorious revenge, it is.”

Chapter Text

“Is everyone in position?” Even’s low voice comes through the walkie-talkie in Lucas’s hands. He rolls his eyes and passes the walkie-talkie to Isak, who responds.

“The Eagle is in his nest.”

Lucas suppresses a snort with his hand. That makes Isak’s prickly mood shift a little, a smile playing on his face despite being paired with Lucas, even after both of them threw a fit.

“Roger that,” Even says, and Isak twists the knob on the walkie-talkie to turn it down, the static getting quieter.

“I can’t hear them,” Lucas says from their spot behind a garbage and recycling station in the main dining hall. When they all spot Vince behind the cafe counter, they know that their first step is to talk to him to figure out if he was the Even or the Isak. This way they can know how to motivate him to leave the comfort of the lodge and go out to find his parallel.

“Shhh,” Isak says, and Lucas flips him off. 

“Just watch for the signal,” Isak responds.

They’re crouched there for what seems like ages, but it’s really only a few minutes until Even reaches up and scratches the back of his head dramatically.

“Go, go, go,” Lucas hisses, and Isak gets up on his feet and promptly topples over onto Lucas, who shrieks, giving them away.

“What the f–” Lucas says, pushing Isak off of him

“My goddamn foot’s asleep,” Isak whispers, leaning on one foot.

“Well wake it up! That’s our cue!”

Their commotion hasn’t gone unnoticed by Vince or Even or otherwise. Residents of the Cozy Pine Lodge all craning their necks and trying to see what these two guys are doing rustling behind the bins of garbage and recycling.

“Uh, I should probably check that out,” comes a buzzy voice from Isak’s side. He and Lucas both freeze, not recognizing the other voice.

“Was that Vince?” Lucas says, in a tiny little mouse whisper. Isak makes a mental note to mock him and his Mickey Mouse voice later.

“It definitely wasn’t Even,” Isak replies from the side of his mouth, like some kind of mock ventriloquist. 

“Do something,” Lucas says with wide eyes, as they both watch as the man who is definitely Vince—and not Even or Eliott—comes out from behind his cafe counter and walks towards them. 

“DO something!” Lucas hisses again in Isak’s ear.

Isak turns around and grabs his stupid, annoyingly beautiful face in between his two hands and plants him with a kiss.

Lucas’s body tenses up—his eyes wide as he takes a few seconds to understand what is happening. Isak is kissing him. As a distraction? Definitely. But is it…surprisingly nice? Also yes. Not that Lucas would ever let Isak—or anyone else on this green Earth—know that.

From the corner of his eye, he can see that Vince has stopped, as if frozen in time. Eliott, behind him, fist pumps into the air as encouragement.

Lucas kisses Isak back at this prompt, opening his mouth more with each kiss, inviting Isak to do that same–-his heart thumping up in his throat. He’s not used to kissing anyone other than Eliott, but Isak is doing this thing with his hands. The scrape of his nails on Lucas’s scalp makes Lucas absolutely melt under his touch.

“Do you,” Isak asks in a small breath in between kissing Lucas, “ ever ” he whispers again, then slides his hand down Lucas’s elegant neck, “shut the fuck up?” 

He doesn’t let Lucas answer, just goes back in and sucks on his bottom lip. Lucas makes a gutteral noise in response that makes Isak grin into their next kiss. 

Isak’s tongue slides warm and hot into Lucas’s mouth. Lucas’s body hums at the feeling. His hands find their tentative way around Isak’s hips—the waistband of his jeans, pulling their bodies together, their chests moving against each other in rhythmic breaths. 

Isak pulls his mouth away from Lucas and, catching a glance of Vince as he backs away, sucks on the thin skin where Lucas’ jaw meets his neck. He swipes it with his tongue and nips gently with his teeth.

When Vince is back behind the counter—and Even and Elliot have shaken themselves out of their gaping stares—Isak pulls his hands from wilding in Lucas’s hair and puts them on each of his shoulders, holding him at arm’s length.

“I think it worked,” Isak whispers to Lucas, who, dazed, has eyes that blink awake as if from a dream.

“It worked?” Lucas repeats.

“Yeah,” Isak says, then gently shakes his shoulders to bring him back to reality. “But the plan’s a dud now. It’s up to Eliott and Even, now.”

So we can just keep kissing, then? Lucas thinks, and then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, coming out of the dizzying kissing clouds. How dare Isak kiss him like that!

“Oh my god, you’re back to making that face,” Isak says, a hand on his hip as Lucas scowls at him. 

“I thought I kissed that face off of you,” he teases, and Lucas’s cheeks turn red.

“You. Wish,” he says through gritted teeth. Isak crosses his arms and leans against the window behind them, giving Lucas a knowing look.

“It’s okay, Little Lulu. I won’t tell anyone how I made you come–” Lucas gasps, ready to sputter a retort, but Isak continues– “ undone with just a little kiss.”

“You just wanted to kiss yourself, you said it back at the bunker, or lair, or whatever. You get off on the prospect of getting yourself hot.”

“And you’re me, babe, so what does that say about you?” Isak holds back a laugh as steam pours out of Lucas’s ears. He stomps around like a toddler, and Isak has to look away in order to not laugh at him, which is why he’s the first to see Even and Eliott walking towards him, with Vince behind them.

He nudges Lucas, whose face is even redder than before at the prospect of talking to, well, anyone, after they watched Isak kiss him senseless. 

“Hey guys, this is Vince. He’s going to help us, uh, find out if our friend is really being cheated on. In that cabin.”

“Huh?” Isak says, without thinking. 

“You know, Matteo? Our friend who is likely, uh, being cheated on by that celebrity model?”

“The who what now?” Lucas asked, blinking. “I know Matteo but…” 

Even holds out a magazine with a glossy cover and the picture on the front is…

“Sander?” Isak says, incredulous. He’s wearing a hole-ridden sweater in front of an industrial-sized fan, his face in a pointed model pout. The biggest words on the cover reference a story inside.

Pop Icon Sander is Ready for More: From the Runway to the Big Screen.

“Right, righhhhhht,” Isak said as he places the pieces of the puzzle together. “Sander, the, uh, big time pop…icon. Seducing Matteo. Yup. That’s…wild.”

“Unbelievable,” Lucas says, then, seeing Vince’s concerned look, he quickly adds, “almost. But, the heart wants what it wants, am I right?”

“Apparently so,” Even says, fighting a grin. “So, we’ve got all the supplies to make the trek to their cabin, and Vince here just got off his shift, meaning we should probably get going before it gets dark.”

“It’s… just after 1 pm?” Vince says, looking at the silver face of his watch. His eyebrows quirk up in the middle, and it makes Even’s heart melt a little. The way he looks like a concerned old man, despite being, like, two years his junior.

“Right, sorry, adjusting to the time difference,” Isak explains, and Vince looks at Even and Eliott.

“I thought you said you guys had been here for a while?”

“What is a while, after all?” Eliott says. “Anyway, this is Lucas, and this is Isak. And they’re our–”

“Friends,” Even cuts in, making eyes at Eliott to remind him that Vince saw Lucas and Isak making out by the garbage.

“Ohhhkay. Gotta say, I’ve seen people hook up in a lot of creative places around here, but I’ve never seen two people absolutely slam into each other the way you two did,” Vince says, his cheeks blushing a little. “That was aggressive . But impressive. Aggressive and impressive.”

Nobody says anything for a moment, and Vince’s blush blooms a deeper pink, all the way up to the tips of his ears. 

“I’m queer, too, by the way. So, just. No judgment there. I mean, I’m judging a little bit about the garbage bins but–”

“Anyways!” Lucas says, and it comes out more like the bark of a yapping dog. Isak, for his part, looks smug and amused, and both Even and Eliott are shaking their heads.

“How long will it take us to get to the cabin?” Eliott asks, trying to change the subject. Vince looks grateful for the save.

“With the amount of snow we have? Probably about an hour or two.”

Lucas makes a startled noise that catches in his throat. “An hour or two? Trekking in the snow?”

Even puts a hand on his arm gently, then says, “But remember, it’s for our good friend and the sake of his love .”

“And revenge! Don’t forget about that,” Eliott says, muffling a laugh.

“Can’t we, like, steal some snow mobiles?” Isak asks.

Lucas whips around to look at Vince, eager for this option instead of walking for hours in the freezing cold.

“Nah, all the snowmobiles are pretty much taken up by EMS. It would have to be a true emergency.”
Everyone looks around at each other, no one wanting to co-opt a snowmobile from someone who’s actually injured or something.

“But we can probably rent out some snowshoes? That would cut down our time by, like, half, I bet!” Vince says brightly, and Isak and Lucas share a panicky look. 

“This way,” Vince says, and he leads them through the Dining Hall to the rental booth down the hall. There’s a cut out in the wall with a ledge, where ski boots and poles and helmets hang in rows behind a bored looking girl with pigtails.

“Let me… handle this,” Vince says in a low whisper as they all approach the counter.

“We’re closed,” Pig Tails says leaning on her elbow over the desk and popping her gum in her mouth to punctuate her statement.

“Hey, Vicki,” Vince says, and she sweeps her eyes over the four others before settling on Vince.

“Hi,” she says, snapping her gum again. She turns her head to the side, as if sizing them all up.

“Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have some snowshoes left, would you?” Vince asks, and she narrows her eyes.

“Snowshoes, eh?” She says, and Isak almost giggles when he hears it. Canadians, eh? he wants to say, but bites his tongue.

“Yeah, I’m taking some friends out for a hike. I really feel for them, because they rented some of our snowmobiles that are taken up by EMS, so… they don’t really get the adventure they signed up for.”

“I, for one, didn’t sign up for–” Lucas starts, but Eliott bumps him gently with his hip to get him to shut up.

“I dunno,” Vicki says. “I’m not supposed to rent ‘em all out. And I’ve only got a family set left.”

“We’ll take it!” Vince says, pulling a clipboard off the ledge and writing down his information. “This is my employee number, just put it all under mine. We’ll bring them back.”

“Due tonight by midnight,” Vicki says, and then disappears into the shelves behind her. She brings two huge pairs of snowshoes, latticed with sturdy wire and straps to hold the boots in. She puts them on the counter and smirks before disappearing again, then returning with hot pink snowshoes that are about half the size as the other ones—definitely made for kids.

“Guess one of you won’t be able to keep up,” she says, shrugging at the fact that they have only four pairs instead of five.

“That’s okay, why don’t you guys just go without me? I’ll write it all down for you…” Vince starts.

“No!” Isak shouts, a little more forcefully than he means to, and then winces. “I mean, we need your guidance. I’m…I’m useless at navigating. We’ll basically just become four more people the emergency services have to help without you.”

Vince chews on his lip, considering. 

“You could use the snowshoes I wore to work today, if you want?” Vicki says, and everyone just gapes at her. “If you want.”

“How are you going to get home, then?” Vince asks.

“My boyfriend will come get me. He’s got a UTV with a snowblower. I hate snowshoeing, anyway, so I was planning to get him to pick me up.”

“What’s your boyfriend doing right now?” Even asks her, and Eliott, Isak, and Lucas can all read his mind.

“Probably shootin’ his paintball gun at the trees on his property, or somethin’ dumb like that.”

Isak and Even exchange a glance, and so do Eliott and Lucas. Vince looks at all of them, a pair of snowshoes clutched to his chest.

“So, we’re not snowshoeing?” Vince asks, wide-eyed, and everyone grins.

Chapter Text

Matteo, David, Sander, and Robbe are dropped off in the snow outside the cabin where Graham and his friends are stranded in.

“Holy shit, this snow is deep,” Matteo says, trying to stand up right.

“That must be the cabin,” Robbe says in a whisper.

Sander starts to move his arms and legs, making a snow angel. The sun is shining down through the trees, causing the snow around them to glitter so brightly that they have to squint.

“Up,” David says to Sander, holding out a gloved hand for him to grab. Sander hesitates, so David says, “Destiny awaits!”

“Well, when you put it like that…” 

They trudge through the mountains of snow and get to the stairs of the cabin–or what would be the stairs without all the snow.

“I think I’m gonna climb it like this,” Matteo says, digging into the snow pile with mitten hands and snow boot feet, trying to climb up on all fours.

“The door looks snowed in, too. We’re gonna have to dig them out,” Robbe says, shielding his eyes from the sun with his glove to see.

The door moves and the snow in front of it stays put–but then pops of copper hair and steely blue eyes appear.

“Oh my, oh dear, we’ve finally been saved!” the voice squeaks out in a funny, cartoon-y way.

“Uhm, no? Sorry? We’ve just…come to…join you?” Robbe says, cringing when he hears himself, and also again when Sander swats at him.

“What! We didn’t discuss this beforehand!” he hisses in reply.

“Sorry, who are you? You’re not here to help us out?” the redhead asks the four of them. 

“Let me handle this,” Sander says, climbing up past Matteo in a flurry of limbs and snow. He gets to a stable spot near the door and stands up, hands on his knees, panting with the exertion.

“Hi, sorry to bother you, I’m—”

“SANDER!!!” the redhead screeches and lunges at him, seemingly forgetting that there’s a wall of snow in between them. “OHMYGOD GUYS! GUYS IT’S SANDER! WHAT THE FUCKITY FUCK!”

He’s shouting now, pulling Sander inside all the same.

“Oh my GOD, how on EARTH did you GET HERE?!” the redhead says again, and Sander turns around to help pull David, Matteo, and Robbe all up the snow cliff and into the cabin.

After the blazing white of the cascading mountain of snow, it takes a minute to adjust to the darkness in the cabin, the glow of a lamp in the corner and a fireplace going.

The redhead and his three friends— parallel Graham among them– all look shocked and fidgety and in awe of Sander.

“You’re… HOW are you here right now?” Graham says, looking at Sander with amazement.

“Sorry, we just… we got lost, and we didn’t know the way. So we stumbled upon your cabin…” Sander says, and the cabin mates exchange wide-eyed glances.

“These folks must be your crew? Were you filming or something?” the redhead asks. His cheeks flush with excitement as he uses his fingers to comb his wild every-which-way mop of hair.

“Uh, no. No cameras or crew here. We were just…” Sander trails off, wondering how much to say. Who was he to them? How could he get them to tell him, without giving it away that he was, really, an imposter?

“Oh! I’ve read about this! You like to sneak off and have adventures sometimes. Your bodyguards sometimes go with you, like a prince or something,” the blonde girl pipes up.

“Yeah!” Matteo says, clearing his throat. “We are,” he puts his arms around David and Robbe, “his bodyguards. That’s right. And we are so dumb, we got him lost.”

“Well, that I’m sure they’ll believe,” Robbe says in a small, sarcastic voice.

“Come in, come in,” Graham ushers them all into their cabin.

They have a moment to look around. There are dirty dishes on the counter, an abandoned chess game on the coffee table, and some empty bottles of booze stacked up in an unsteady-looking pile in the corner.

The parallels introduce themselves using their real names. They are introduced to Graham, the redhead named Hayden, the blonde girl named Nat, and the other girl with short, blue hair, named Kylie.

“How long have you all been stuck in here?” David asks, once they’ve gotten the introductions out of the way.

“Just a day longer than expected,” Hayden says, crunching on a handful of Cheetos. “But that means that Graham here might miss his flight, and have to stay in B.C. forever.”

Graham rolls his eyes at this. “Or, like a normal person, I can just…reschedule it?”

They take a minute to ask Graham where he’s from, feigning interest even though they know all about him—have even seen some baby pictures. 

“But enough about us,” Kylie chimes in, elbowing Graham gently. “We want to know about you, Sander. Aren’t you supposed to be in New Zealand or something?”

“Right, yes. New Zealand. Well, I am fond of those little kiwi birds, I suppose.”

Silence descends as the parallels try to ask who Sander is without actually asking it, and the cabin seems confused and eager to hear more from Sander, who is wringing his hands in an obvious sign of anxiety. 

“Hang on,” Nat says, then she gets up and rifles around in her suitcase for something. She pulls out a magazine with Sander on the glossy cover, along with a pen. 

It’s definitely Sander—sure, his hair is a little wilder, spiking up with product,  and his eyeliner thick around his steely eyes, but it’s inexplicably Sander. On the cover of Vogue magazine.

“Would you mind?” Nat asks shyly, holding it out to Sander. 

“Not at all,” he says with a genuine smile, taking the pen from her and flourishing his signature across the page. 

“Must get annoying, all the fans asking you for things all the time,” Nat says. “But I just… would have kicked myself if I let this opportunity slip!”

“Not at all! Here I am, crashing your snowed-in party. It’s the least I could do.”

He hands it back to her and she clutches it to her chest in gratitude. 

“Could we get a picture, too?” Hayden asks, and Graham shoots him a look. “What? Nat got her magazine, but I don’t have one so…”

After the Sander photo shoot, David notices that Graham is starting to tidy up the kitchen. He goes over to help him, hoping to get some information that he can use to connect Graham and Vince together.

“Sup,” Graham says, pulling down on a plastic lever on the side of the kitchen cabinet and crushing a can into a flat disk. 

“Need any help?” David asks, leaning on the counter by the sink.

“Yeah man, could you break down some of the recycling boxes?”

David pulls open the cereal and Mac and cheese boxes, flattening them down into a slim pile on the countertop.

“Can I ask you something?” David starts, his heart thudding in his throat already. What if he just told him the truth? Would that be breaking the laws of like, parallel universe travel? Would Graham even believe him?  

“How are you going to reschedule your flight if you don’t have any internet here?”

Graham blows out a big breath, the fluffy wings of hair around his ears making David wonder if he’s the Isak of this universe… or just a hockey bro.

“I was thinking about trekking out in the snow to the main lodge building tomorrow morning if we still haven’t heard anything. At least then I wouldn’t waste all my money, even if I had to stay a bit longer. Hayden would let me crash with him.”

“Ahh, okay. That makes sense,” David tells him.

Graham crunches another can into oblivion as a response and David thinks about this. Are the others with Vince at the lodge? Are the others just… waiting for them to show up, meanwhile they’re all here… waiting for THEM to show up? What if they’re at a stalemate and they don't know it yet? 

Suddenly, David thinks about the walkie talkies that they packed— they split them up, right? He and Even made sure to each take one.

“Babe?” David calls for Matteo, who is chilling on the couch, talking to the others. Matteo’s cheeks turn a little pink at the attention. 

 “Can you check if I still have the yellow thing in my bag?”

“Oh, sure,” Matteo says, shrugging as if this means something to him.

“Wait, so y’all work together but are, like, together? Like, boyfriend bodyguards?” Kylie asks.

Shit. 

“Uh, kind of?”

“Kind of? What, are you all together, like some sort of work polycule? Oh my god, Sander are you in this too?!” Hayden asks, starting to bounce on his toes with building excitement.

“No, no, no. Calm down. Matteo and David are the, uh, bodyguard boyfriends, and Robbe and I are… together.”

Hayden lets out a shriek and his hands fly to his mouth. “I KNEW IT!! I KNEW YOU WERE A GAY ICON!! I told them!”

“Okay but? You say that about literally everyone, Hayden. You told me the other day Princess Di should have been called Princess Bi. I think you’ve forgotten that straight people exist,” Nat says with a grin.

“Ugh, I WISH!” he says dramatically, and everyone laughs.

“Anywayyyyyy,” Kylie says, snapping her attention to Robbe, who has been all too pleased to fade into the background of Sander’s spotlight. “How did you two meet? And are you going to come out eventually? Like, have a public relationship?”

“Woah, give them a second to take a freaking breath, Ky,” Graham says. “Just because you took a few pictures with him doesn’t mean you’re, like, pals now and he has to tell you anything.”

Matteo gestures for David with a side nod of his head, telling him to come to the hallway where he is. 

“Where’s the bathroom?” David asks Graham, and he tells him it’s down the hall to the right. Then he slips out and finds Matteo in the hallway, planting a quick kiss on his mouth.

Matteo looks a little dazed for a second, then giggles. “What was that for?”

David shrugs, pulling Matteo closer with his arms around his neck. “Just saying hi to my bodyguard boyfriend.”

“It’s kinda hot, right?”

“Definitely,” they both nod, smiling.

“I found the walkie talkie. That’s what you wanted, right?” Matteo whispers, and the little hairs on the back of David’s neck prickle upwards.

“Yes! Even and Isak have the other one, so I figured maybe we could connect with them? Tell them the plan?”

“Brilliant,” Matteo says, kissing David’s temple as he turns to inspect the walkie talkie a little closer. David turns it on and starts twisting the knobs on top, a slight and fuzzy static buzzing between them.

“What channel did you plan for?”

“Uh…” David responds, a blush creeping up his cheeks. “I mean…”

Matteo lets out a sigh, scratching his head as if it’ll help him think.

“Hey, remember a second ago when I was brilliant?” David says with a cheeky grin, hip checking Matteo slightly into the wall of the hallway.

“Yes,” Matteo nods, “and it would have been even more brilliant if we had a channel to reach them on.” 

Matteo widens his eyes at him and David crosses his eyes until they’re both giggling in the hallway.

“What are you doing?” A sharp whisper startles both of them. Robbe slinks into the hallway from the shadow of the door to the other room. “Is this a secret meeting, or something I should be a part of?”

They explain the dilemma, and Robbe chews on his lip.

“Hey, won’t the others get suspicious if you’re here with us?” David asks Robbe, and he snorts quietly in response, shaking his tousled brown hair.

“Not likely,” he says. “It’s kind of the Sander show in there. I think he’s loving it.”

“Obviously,” David and Matteo both say at the same time.

“Right now, he’s telling them about trip we took to New Zealand,” Robbe says.

“Woah, cool!” Matteo responds.

“We’ve never been to New Zealand.”

They giggle again.

After some more discussion, they decide to test out Matteo’s initial welcome on every channel to see if anyone hears anything. It’s likely that it’ll confuse everyone who isn’t a parallel—or at least that’s what they’re hoping.

“Should we have made code names or something?” Robbe asks quietly, as Matteo starts out on channel one.

The line crackles but they wait, silent for a few moments… and then nothing. 

The same thing happens for channel 2.

“Channel 3 will work,” David says definitively. “Third time’s a charm?” 

He shrugs, still hopeful but not as optimistic as he was a second ago.

Nothing.

When Matteo finishes his greeting for channel 4, they hear… something.

“What is that?” Matteo asks, eyes wide and looking at the walkie talkie in his hand.

“It’s like… a low humming? But it’s… getting louder?”

“Is it in the walkie-talkie?” Robbe asks quietly, “Or is it… outside?”

The sound is louder now, the dull murmur of some kind of static, some kind of movement.

“A lawnmower?” Matteo asks, squinting to try and picture what could be creating the sound they’re hearing.

“Yeah, for all that green grass out there?” Robbe says with a little huff.

“Right…” Matteo says, his eyebrows quirked with a question.

“It’s definitely getting louder, right?” David says. “Should we see what the others think?”

With a few silent nods, they move into the other room, and sure enough, the five of them are all craning their necks to see out the little window at the front of the cottage.

“I’m the tallest, let me see!” Graham says, swatting a hyper Hayden out of his way.

“Don’t hang on the curtain rod, Hayden! You’re gonna break something,” Nat says, scolding. He mimics her back and she pinches his arm playfully in response.

“What’s happening?” Sander asks Robbe, Matteo, and David. He looks at the walkie talkie in Matteo’s hand and Matteo quickly hides it behind his back.

“We’re saved!” Graham says, jumping over the back of the couch surprisingly gracefully, for a man of his height. “It’s a snowplow! That’s gotta be people coming to rescue us, right?”

He swings open the cottage door wide and the others crowd behind him, trying to see over the giant piles of snow in the way.

“Hey!” Graham shouts, waving his arms in the air to get their attention as the engine settles, rumbling low, low, lower, until it turns off.

“‘Sup, man!” The driver says, pulling his helmet off and his neck warmed down his chin to reveal his mouth and tugging his goggles up onto his head.

“Are you EMS?”

“Nah, bro,” he says, hopping off the UTV. Then he helps the two others who were seated behind him. “Why? Do you need help? I’m not good with blood, yo.”

“No, no, we’re fine. Just…trapped I guess? I thought maybe…” Graham says, turning to face everyone in the cabin with a shrug.

“We’re looking for someone,” Isak says, peeling himself off of the lap of someone on the back of the snowmobile. “Or, I guess, a few people.”

Hayden crashes into Graham, trying to get a better view, causing Graham to fall to his knees in the snow pile in front of him. 

“Hey!” he shouts, as Hayden crosses his arms and stands up on his tiptoes to be taller in the doorframe.

“Who are you looking for? We have no one famous here.”

“Nice going, idiot,” Kylie murmurs, helping Graham to his feet as he dusts off the snow on his pants, now wet and uncomfortable against his legs.

“What? No, we’re looking for this guy’s cheating boyfriend,” the driver says. “Sandal.”

“ Sander, ” Isak corrects him. “We’re looking for Sander. And he’s not my boyfriend , he’s with my other friend, Matteo.”

Hayden gasps, flinging his hand to his chest and turning to the rest of the cabin crew. Everyone is looking at the shocked faces of Sander and Matteo, and the reddening faces of Robbe and David. “ Sander , you didn’t!”

“He’s in there?” Isak asks, shielding his eyes from the bright sun trying to see.

“Wait, THE Sander is really in that cabin?” Vince says now, from behind Isak.

“Mike, can you go back and get the others, please?” Isak asks the UTV driver guy. “And let me write down your number.”

“No service out here, broski. Wires are down.”

“How many of you are in there?” Isak asks Graham, stepping towards the mountain of snow at the entrance of the cabin.

“Who even are you,” Hayden asks, now. “What if you’re, like, following him. Paparazzi!”

“I don’t even have a phone that works in this dimen—” Isak starts, then corrects himself. “Phones aren’t working up here, and I have no camera. But Mike?” Isak turns to him, unzipping the yellow walkie talkie and passing it to him. “Keep this on channel 3, yeah?”

“Sure, bud.”

Isak holds his hands up in surrender, now facing the snow-piled cabin. “That’s the extent of my tech. Honest.”

“I’d pat you down but there’s enough gay drama happening here to last a lifetime…” Hayden says, an amused smile on his face.

“Great! We’re coming up!” Isak shouts, as he and Vince scramble up the snow.

Chapter Text

When they get in the cabin, Isak nods at Matteo, David, Sander, and Robbe. He looks at Graham, head cocked to the side to try and remember all the info from the bunker: snowboarding dude from Toronto is all he remembers. He doesn’t even know if Graham is like him in this universe, or more like Even. But he does know that this is Vince and Graham’s first meet cute, and they’ve got to make it count.

“Hey everyone, I’m Isak. Sorry to cause some chaos here with all the speculation about Sander and…” He looks at the two of them: Sander, a loud, sassy, pop icon, and Matteo, quiet and shy in his grandpa sweaters. Isak almost laughs at the thought of them together. “We were just worried about Matteo, here.”

“Wait, let me get this straight– you thought Sander was with bodyguard Matteo?” Hayden asks.

“You never mentioned that Matteo was his bodyguard,” Vince pipes up. 

“Hey,” he says shyly. “Vince. Me.”

Isak widens his eyes, looking for Graham’s response to this weird shy introduction. But Graham isn’t here.

“Wait, where’s the giant one?”

“I mean, I’m 6’1”...” Hayden says in response, hand on his hip with a little flourish.

“Yes, and absolutely fabulous, if you ask me. But I think he meant.. The…uh… other guy?” Vince cleared his throat, his eyes avoiding theirs and a little blotchy blush creeping up his cheeks.

Isak gives Matteo, Robbe, and David a look like, ‘ hey! Vince noticed him! We’re doing this! ’ with his eyebrows up high on his forehead and his grin wide across his face.

“Let’s all introduce ourselves,” Matteo says, stalling for time. Where did Graham go? It’s not like he could have gone far…

“I have to say, I am so confused with all this gay-ass drama that you’ve got going on here,” Hayden says after everyone has introduced themselves.

“Me too, honestly,” Vince says with a chuckle. “And I’m the one who brought them here! I never expected Sander to actually, like, be here. ”

“You didn’t?” Isak asks, puzzled. “Then why did you come with us if you didn’t believe us?”

Vince takes a breath and doesn’t say anything for a second, his eyes narrowing off into the distance as he thinks about his answer to this question. “I guess… I thought it would be an adventure. And I don’t have a ton of friends around here, let alone gay ones. So I guess I thought…” He shrugs to make his point, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Must be nice to be a dude, I guess,” Nat says, with a wry chuckle.

“Yeah, couldn’t be us, right?” Kylie says, and they both roll their eyes.

“Well, you wanted gay friends, you’ve come to the right cabin,” Graham says, breezing into the room and sitting down on the floor in front of the couch his friends are on. 

He’s changed into grey sweatpants and a Maple Leafs hoodie. His hair is mussed on one side from pulling it over his head. 

“We’re all queer here,” Graham says with his eyes on Vince, who looks away for a beat, and then looks back at him, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Oh yeah? You’ve got your own little orgy going on up here?” Vince asks teasingly. Graham’s laugh is loud as he leans back, stretching his arms behind his head and watching Vince intensely.

“It hasn’t quite come to that…” Graham says with a grin. “But we’ll still have to see.” 

He levels Vince with his blue-green eyes and… yep, there’s some definite ~tension~ happening between the two of them.

David’s eyes go wide and wild, and he tries to catch the eyes of the rest of the parallels as he hears the distant hum of the UTV again.

“Let’s go outside and see, uh, everyone! It’s been a while since we’ve all been together, right?” Matteo suggests, pulling his boots on and trying to get the hell out of there in order to not disturb the beginning of… whatever is happening in there.

“Ugh, no it’s so cold out there!” Hayden says as Robbe silently communicates with Sander to get him outside with the slightest nod of his head.

“Aww, come on, we can get more photos if you want!” Sander says.

Hayden, Nat and Kylie all spring up out of their seats, pulling on their snow pants and boots.

“That tall drink of water is myyyyy boyfriend,” Isak says to the others as the UTV carrying the rest of them comes into view.

Vince has a flash of Isak kissing Lucas, who is a little bit shorter than Isak… but he doesn’t want to ask—mainly because this heavenly grey-sweatpants dude is staring at him from across the room and he has no desire to break this spell.

“You from around here, then?” Graham asks, scooching up onto the couch now that everyone is making their way outside except him and Vince.

And thank god for that , Graham thinks.

“Yeah, grew up just outside of town. Used to come here for ski lessons when I was a kid, actually.”

“Really?” Graham asks, smiling wide. “What were you like as a kid?”

Vince sighs, looking up at the ceiling. How honest is he meant to be? Shouldn’t he play it cool to make this hot guy want him? For some reason, though, he doesn’t feel like he can lie. He finds himself just… telling him the truth. And not feeling too weird about it, either.

“Probably the same as I am now– anxious and nervous and… still trying to find adventure, anyway. Even if it scares me.”

Graham considers this with a bob of his head. “I get that. I think it’s admirable to keep chasing after adventure, even when you’re naturally anxious.”

“Thanks,” Vince says.

“Hot chocolate?” Graham asks, standing up and holding his hand out to Vince to help him up and off the couch.

“Please,” Vince says in a voice that comes out quiet. Graham doesn’t seem to mind, just grabs his hand and leads him into the kitchen.

Vince instantly misses the contact of their hands when Graham drops his to fill up the kettle.

“So, what were you like then? As a kid, I mean?” he asks Graham. His fingernails pinch into his soft palms as he tries to calm his nerves and face this fear—talking to the gorgeous guy who looks at him like maybe he is magic.

Graham shakes his head with a small smile. “A terror, I’m sure.”

“Aw, come on. You couldn’t have been that bad,” Vince says, picking a dark blue pottery mug from the shelf and setting it down in front of him on the counter.

“I was, honestly. An absolute energizer bunny. There was this long clothesline in our backyard when I was growing up, and my mom attached, like, a little leash to me. Just so that I could run back and forth, back and forth, across the yard and not, like, set things on fire.”

Vince stirs the liquid as Graham pours the hot water into his cup, stirring up the hot chocolate powder. “Did you often set fire to things?”

“Only accidentally!”

This makes Vince laugh, alarmed and intrigued, all at once.

“Just one time, in grade six,” Graham says, sheepishly. He swipes his hair over his face a little to hide. “I blew up part of the science lab.”

“Yeah, that would do it!” Vince says with a laugh. Then he blows on the rising steam from his mug. “Well, come on then. Tell me the story.”

Chapter Text

The afternoon passes in a whirlwind of chatter—outside building a snow fort (and then abandoning it an hour later when it remained a heaping pile of snow), inside by the fire, over a game of chess, and while making the last two boxes of mac and cheese.

Eliott, Lucas, and Even join the others in the cabin, and it begins to feel extra small with that many bodies inside.

Soon, some of them peel off to take a nap, others doze while reading on the couch, and Even and Isak sprawled out solving an old book of crossword puzzles.

“Uh, how are we going to split this among, like, twenty-five people?” Isak asks, his stomach grumbling. He’s being hyperbolic, but still… the math isn't mathing.

“If only Hayden didn’t eat for twelve, we would have had more leftovers,” Kylie says.

“Hey, hey, you definitely ate more than your share of mini Oreos!” Hayden replies.

“It’s no one’s fault– you weren’t thinking that you’d be feeding, like, a million strangers,” Sander says.

“Still,” David grumbles, tipping the bag of Doritos so that the crumbs ran directly into his mouth. “The snacks are running out.”

Everyone just looks at him for a beat, and then bursts into laughter.

“If only I could pull some food out of the air,” Matteo says thoughtfully, chewing on his lip.

“Ha! Yeah, that’d be the day…” Vince chimes in. He’s perched over by the red brick fireplace, where he and Graham have spent the past few hours talking and laughing and forgetting where they were in a game of chess.

Matteo and his fellow parallels who are in on the joke all look away from one another, distinctly avoiding eye contact.

“What? What are we missing?” Graham says, his eyes narrowing at everyone in suspicion. 

“Uhh…” Eliott begins. Then they hear the rumble of a snowmobile getting louder, approaching the cabin.

“Who would be coming around here at this hour?” Kylie says, craning her neck to look over at the small window, where the sky is turning a dark purple-blue, the tall trees casting shadows across the banks of snow.

“I don’t care if it’s Zac freaking Efron, there is NO MORE ROOM IN THE INN!” Hayden screeches, and everyone dissolves into laughter.

“Wait, oh my god?” Vince says, springing into action and whipping open the door. 

Mike pulls the UTV in front of the cabin and cuts the engine. Vicki gets out from beside him with a huge black box on her lap. She unzips it, and Mike reaches in, pulling out a giant stack of pizza boxes.

Everyone watching through the open cabin door or little cabin window cheers in response.

“Thought you might be hungry!” Mike says, bringing the boxes closer to the giant snow pile in front of the cabin. 

“We are! We are hungry!”

“Thank you so much!”

“You’re a legend!”

Everyone shouts different forms of gratitude in his and Vicki’s direction as Graham slips his snow pants on by the door.

“Don’t forget the drinks!” Vicki says, grabbing a case of pop from the floor of the UTV.

“I’m coming!” Graham shouts to Mike, and they meet in the middle of the snow pile. Graham tosses the case of pop up onto the snow on the deck by the door, and Eliott reaches out, pulling it into the cabin.

Graham gets the stack of pizzas, and then pauses, saying something to Mike. He leans in to hear him better, nodding along.

“What’s up?” Vicki calls up, and looks are exchanged between the people back at the cabin, wondering what they could be talking about. Mike slaps him on the back in a friendly way.

Everyone shouts their thanks again as Mike and Vicki hop back into the UTV and peel out into the night.

As Graham approaches the door, everyone crowds around, taking a box of pizza from the pile he’s holding. They disperse into the cabin, a few people at the small kitchen table, the others settling on the couch and surrounding chairs, the brick ledge of the fireplace, and the floor. 

Hayden puts on a playlist from his phone and everyone eats happily, glad for the warm food and the company, even if it’s a little crowded. Matteo distributes the snowbank-cold pop cans, reminding everyone to open them slowly, and with caution. 

Of course, Lucas snaps his open and it fizzes all over, making him squeal and causing Eliott to laugh, before helping him clean it up. 

“What’s the plan for tonight?” Robbe asks over a mouthful of pizza crust.

“First, we have to figure out where everyone’s sleeping, right?” Kylie says, looking around the room to do a headcount. Ten people is a lot more than the two double beds will fit.

“Are we… staying the night?” Sander asks, half to himself and half to the other parallels. He wonders if, now that they’ve gotten Vince and Graham in the same space, they’d have to stay, just to sleep on the floor of this cabin.

Hayden laughs. “Where are ya gonna go? Your ride just left.”

“Can I…” Sander wipes his hands on his pants. “Is it okay if I just meet with my team? Can we go into one of the rooms for a minute?”

“Now?” Matteo asks, gesturing to his plate, full of pizza slices waiting to be consumed.

“Yes, now,” David says, pulling Matteo away from the pizza plate.

“Sure, just use our room,” Nat says. “Second door to the right. You’ll know it because it’s the one with the bed made and the stuff in suitcases instead of covering the floor,” she says teasingly to Hayden and Graham.

“Maybe if you changed out of the pajamas you’ve been wearing for, like, days, your floor would be messier, too!” Hayden retorts, and Nat sticks out her tongue to him while giving him the finger.

The parallels close the door behind them once in Nat and Kylie’s room, standing in an awkward semi circle around the bed in the center of the room.

“What’s up?” Even asks.

“I was just trying to remember if the instructions had said anything about what to do after getting them to meet.” Sander says. “Or if maybe we’d be able to, like, go back now that our mission is complete.”

“Is our mission complete?” David asks, his face soft and thoughtful.

“I mean… they met. We got them together,” Lucas replies.

“And there seems to be something there,” Isak says. “They were chatting this afternoon for an hour or two, just them.”

“But then they got roped into playing euchre with Nat and Hayden,” Even points out. “Which is not exactly a great way for a spark to blossom.”

“I thought the deal was, we got them together, they do the rest. Right? Like, we were supposed to just…” Matteo gestures with his hands out, as if giving someone a gentle push. “...give fate a little bit of a helping hand, and then fate does the rest.”

“I think if that was the case, we wouldn’t still be here,” David responds.

“What, we would have just poofed out of existence in front of them? All six of us?” Robbe jumps in.

“Yeah, I think that would probably be a bigger deal than the crush they’re forming with each other, to be fair,” Sander says.

“So basically we have to leave them, in order to leave them?” Isak asks, and everyone just stares at him, confused. “We have to get out of here in order to return to our timelines, because otherwise it could mess up this timeline.”

“If that’s the case, why wouldn’t we just,” Eliott snaps his fingers, “like that, right now? We’re all in the same space and away from them.”

Even shakes his head. “But it’s like Isak said. It wouldn’t make sense to them, and they’d be more concerned about figuring out who we were and where we went that they would miss the whole point.”

“Damn, this is confusing,” Matteo says, flopping down onto the bed in front of them. David fiddles with the yellow curtains behind him that hang around the window to outside.

“I think it’s simple, actually,” Lucas says. When no one responds, he gives them his plan. “We spend the night, focused on distracting Hayden, Nat, and Kylie, and setting Vince and Graham up for a night of bonding and romance. Then tomorrow, we walkie-talkie Mike and go back to the resort, and once we are out of sight from these four–and Mike and Vicki, I guess–then we’ll be able to poof out and get home.”

“Deal!” Isak says. “I think this’ll work.”

“But what’s the plan to set up Vince and Graham for romance , as the French one said?” Sander asks, with a cheeky wink to Lucas.

“Yeah, hard to be romantic when you’re shoved in a small space with a billion people,” Lucas points out.

“Uh, guys?” David says, turning back from the window. “I think I have an idea.”

Chapter Text

“Did you know that there’s a hot tub out back?” David asks everyone in the main room while the parallels all trail behind him.

“Yeah?” Graham responds, before laying a card down on the table.

While they were figuring out how to get home after setting up Graham and Vince, the others had started a game of Five Crowns with Nat and Kylie. Hayden watches from a chair nearby, still nibbling on his pizza crust.

“Have you used it yet?” Robbe asks, intrigued.

“Yeah, we all went in when we first got here. With the storm and everything though, we kinda forgot?” Kylie responds. “Why?”

“I’ve always wanted to do that thing where you go in a hot tub surrounded by snow, and then you jump out and roll in the snow before jumping back in!” Eliott says, with a little shoulder shimmy. 

“Oh my god, yes! The tingly sensation is to die for!” Graham says with a big smile. “These ones refused to get out of the hot tub at all last time!”

“It was snowing!” Nat replies.

“And freezing out, with the sky all angry right before the storm!” Kylie says, backing her up.

“I just don’t want my balls to shrivel up inside of me, I don’t really care about the storm,” Hayden says, and everyone laughs.

“Should we go in tonight?” Even asks the group as if they didn’t discuss this plan, complete with a rotation to get Vince and Graham in the hot tub together for maximum ~romance~.

“Yeah, let’s figure out who can go in with whom,” Lucas says, his face very serious despite already knowing who is going in with whom.

“It’s pretty big. The four of us fit in it comfortably,” Graham says with a shrug.

The parallels all look at each other with alarm as they were hoping to suggest duos that everyone would be happy with– except Robbe, who was annoyed that Sander would take Hayden into the hot tub. But Sander knows that’s the only way to not have Hayden join Graham by default.

“I’m good for tonight. You guys can go in though,” Hayden says, unknowingly solving a problem he didn’t even know existed.

“Yeah, me too. I didn’t bring a change of clothes, let alone a bathing suit,” Vince says sadly.

“Borrow mine,” Hayden offers, and Vince shakes his head. 

“Thank you, that’s okay. Don’t worry about me, I’ve rolled in the snow and hot-tubbed many-a-time. But you guys go! Have fun!”

“Okay, here’s the rotation,” Isak says, writing groups down on his notepad. “David, Matteo, Kylie and Nat are first. Then Lucas, Eliott, Sander and Robbe. Then me, Even, and Graham will go last.”

“Sounds good,” Nat confirms, and the first group go to get changed into swimsuits and hats before heading out into the snow.

# # #

Matteo, David, Nat and Kylie spend about twenty minutes in the hot tub, and they jump out and roll in the snow once altogether. When they come back in, they’re laughing and loud, quoting an inside joke that they must have just made up together.

When Lucas, Eliott, Sander, and Robbe are in the hot tub, Eliott tells them all about Lucas and Isak kissing by the garbage cans, and they laugh until their cheeks hurt, red from the chilly air. Sander and Robbe explain how they landed in front of the cabin, and how Hayden and everyone reacted to Sander being there, the international-pop-star-model that he is.

Sander and Robbe tell Lucas and Eliott what to prepare for before they get out to roll in the snow–it’s going to be a cold shock to the system just in the air outside the tub, and then the icy cold of the snow almost burns when you roll in it. Then the dip in the hot tub is tingly and soothing, all at once.

“It’s good for your nervous system,” Sander says. “And your vagus nerve.”

“You’re a vagus NERD,” Robbe says, before pushing him out into the snow with a grin.

Isak and Even back out (something they planned) in front of Vince. 

Even claims he has a headache and wants to lie down for a bit. Graham is bummed, but understands, and flops down on the brick shelf in front of the fireplace.

“You’re not hot tubbing?” Vince asks him from the couch, where some of them have curled up after twenty minutes of trying to figure out how to play an old VHS on the small TV in the corner. 

“Nah, Even has a headache, and everyone else has already gone in and dried off.”

“That sucks, I’m sorry,” Vince says across the room, just as Isak walks in to grab a bottle of water for Even.

“Vince, do you still want to go in? You can use my bathing suit shorts–they’re new, I haven’t worn them,” Isak offers. “This way, Graham wouldn’t have to miss out on the hot tub.”

“Uhh…” Vince considers this, looking at Isak and then at Graham, wondering if it would be a good idea to get half-naked with this hot stranger, or a dangerous idea. A very dangerous idea…

“Up to you, but I’m down if you are,” Graham says, sensing Vince’s hesitation and shrugging his shoulders in nonchalance, as if his heart isn’t racing and hoping for Vince to say yes.

Vince nods. “Okay. Thanks, Isak.”

He deliberately avoids Graham’s eyes, following Isak out to grab the bathing suit from his bag.

“Hey, Even. Sorry that you’re not feeling well,” Vince says when he enters Hayden’s room, where Even’s resting and sleep off his headache.

Even gives Vince a small smile and thanks him, taking the water bottle from Isak before having a long sip.

“Thanks again, Isak,” Vince says, reaching for the bathing suit as Isak hands it to him.

“Look, speaking from experience?” Isak starts, “Even when something, or someone, feels… unattainable, for a whole host of reasons. When you feel…love,” he levels Vince with his gaze, “you have to jump.”

Vince chokes on nothing, making a strange noise. “Who said anything about l-love?”

“Wait, Isak, did you just paraphrase my favourite Mary Oliver quote?” Even asks, half in awe and half in amusement.

“Wait, who’s what now?” Vince asks, swiveling his head between the two of them. “I’m so confused.”

“One of my favourite poets, Mary Oliver, gay icon, says, ‘if you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.’ ”

“Wow, that’s beautiful,” Vince tells them.

“And I think it fits in this situation,” Isak says.

“And what situation might that be?”

“The one where you’re falling for a hot snowboarder who lives on the other side of the country who you’re thinking you’ll probably never see again so you’re pretending to not feel everything for him that you’re feeling and you’re pretending that people just stare into your soul like that and it doesn’t actually mean anything,” Isak says.

Vince’s face turns pink.

“How did you…” he starts, but Isak cuts him off.

“When I first met Even, he had a girlfriend.” 

Vince looks at Even, and he nods in confirmation. 

“He was older than me, and taken, and I tried for a while to convince myself that whatever I was feeling, wasn’t really anything, because it wasn’t convenient . I wasn’t out, and hadn’t planned to be out for a while… if ever. Certainly not in high school. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like.” 

He pauses, then sighs. 

“Or, I could imagine, I guess. And that’s why I was still closeted. Anyway,” Isak says, placing his hands on either of Vince’s shoulders. “Just because the odds are stacked against you, doesn’t mean that something beautiful can’t come of it if you let it. I had to let Even in, and it’s the best decision I’ve ever made. I would make it again, in every universe. So, just… think about that.”

“O…kay?” Vince says, shifting his gaze from a teary Isak, who’s trying to angrily and discretely swipe away his tears, to Even with a lovesick smile on his face, gazing stupidly at Isak like a fool. “I still don’t really know what you want me to do here. Like, do I like the guy? Sure. Is he stupid hot, and also smart, and funny, and do I want to smash my face against his face every time he flashes me his teeth in a smile? Also sure.

But he’s leaving to go home, which is a million miles away. So, the best that can happen is that we share a kiss and I wonder what it would have been like to be with him for the rest of my goddamn life. And the worst is–”

“You don’t share a kiss, but you still wonder what it would have been like to be with him for the rest of your goddamn life?” Even chimes in.

Vince considers this, chewing on his lip. “But–”

“No buts! Just go for it, future plans be damned! If it feels right, give into it. Okay?” Isak shoves the bathing suit into Vince’s hand and ushers him out the door.

Vince stands there for a beat before Isak closes the door.

“I’m scared,” he says in a small voice. And if he hadn’t just had this very vulnerable conversation with Isak and Even, he might have been embarrassed by how much he sounds like a little kid asking for a night light in the dark.

“Vince?” Isak says, with a soft voice but a stern expression. “Join the club. We’re all scared. But are you gonna be scared, and try anyway? Or are you going to be scared and full of regret?” Isak pauses for a second, then says, “It’s up to you.”

And then he closes the door.

Chapter Text

When Vince gets changed, Graham leads the way to the hot tub. The deck is cool under their bare feet, the snow worn down in a path to the hot tub at the edge of the deck. They sink into the water on opposite corners, steam rising around them and curling up, disappearing into the winter night sky.

“Woah, the stars are insane right now,” Graham says, his arms extended out to either side, and his head back. Even from the other side of the hot tub, Vince finds himself staring at Graham’s neck, the smooth skin of his biceps, the fan of his eyelashes as he gazes at the sky.

“You must not see them much in Toronto, eh?” Vince asks, tilting his own head back. The stars are sparkling in the velvet blue sky, shining brightly with thin white-grey clouds passing overhead.

“Nah, it’s too bright. But I do like to go camping in the summer, so I try to get my fill then.”

Vince makes a noise in agreement, keeping his eyes on the sky as his mind wanders back to everything that Isak and Even said—-about love and fate and soul mates. He’s not sure if they even said all that, or if his head is just swimming with possibilities. Or maybe the hot tub chemicals are getting to him?

“Have you ever been?” Graham asks, and Vince takes a minute to register what he’s asking.

“To Toronto? No, actually. But I did go to Niagara Falls once on a trip with my family.”

“Nice, nice,” Graham says in response. 

“Do you, uh, come to B.C. often?” Vince clears his throat. “Or, I guess, I mean, do you know when you’ll be back?”

Graham shakes his head. “Not sure yet. This is only my second time here. Hayden is trying to convince me to stay, but…. You know. I have a life at home. A job and… my family and stuff.”

Vince’s heart sinks, but he nods his head to show that he understands. He knew that’s what Graham would say—because of course this gorgeous guy couldn’t just fall into his lap and stay there, right? The universe has never been on Vince’s side, so why should it start now?

They’re silent for a few minutes, and then Graham gestures to a button on the side. Vince shrugs and nods, and he pushes it. The jets begin hammering water at both of their bodies, and it’s heavenly. Vince actually sighs with relief, giving into the movement and letting the pressure he feels for this moment go, pretends to watch it lift and dissolve out of the hot tub like the rising steam.

He watches the wind blow a small snowdrift from a nearby tree branch, the snowflakes falling like glitter, like dust around them–soft and swirling and then gone.

Like Graham will be soon. Like this moment will be. Or is. Is.

“You know how in the beginning of the Grinch, or maybe the end, where they talk about all of this happening on a snowflake?” Vince asks, his eyes still looking at the sky as he worries that maybe Graham will think this is a weird thought to have.

“Yeah,” Graham says, a grin taking shape from one side of his mouth and pulling it to the other as they lock eyes across the tub. “Totally,” he says, his head bobbing in agreement.

“Do you believe in that? Like, other lives and universes? How, out there, right now, there’s someone else in a hot tub, and maybe the wind didn’t blow snow on them?” VInce asks, feeling a blush creep up his cheeks from the extended eye contact.

Graham tilts his head in consideration, then smiles. “Well, then, they’re out of luck. They don’t get to see your dark hair and eyelashes flecked with little snowflakes.”

Vince sucks in a breath, blinking the snowflakes off his eyes in order to hold Graham’s eye contact. It feels like there’s something between them, tugging them together across the hot tub– they both feel it, this otherworldly pull from behind their rib cages, their beating hearts reaching for each other, pumping faster and filling their ears.

Graham knows that Vince can feel it from the look on his face, but he doesn’t want to make another move after what he just said. And maybe it was just a cute thing to say, but to Graham, it felt like laying all his cards out on the table, like opening his sternum up to see this invisible rope between them tangled up like Christmas lights.

Vince’s heart flies into his stomach when he pushes off the wall he’s been resting at, moving towards Graham. It’s now or never, and he knows it. 

So, he’s taking Isak’s advice, taking Graham’s cue, and going after what he wants, knowing that this doesn’t guarantee anything—this could just be a moment in time that passes like any other. But he’ll be damned if he lets it pass without trying.

Graham’s cheeky face grows more serious in anticipation. In one swift movement, Vince floats close enough for him to grab, and he wrap a muscled arm around his waist and pulls him to his chest. Their lips meet, softly at first, Graham’s mouth closed and tentative, his grip on Vince’s body tight. When Vince touches Graham’s neck, sliding his hand up into his hair, Graham lets out an unintentional moan, and Vince smiles into their kiss. Vince flicks his tongue along Graham’s bottom lip, and Graham opens his mouth hungrily, taking Vince’s tongue and sucking on it as Vince’s hands grab Graham’s face to bring them closer, to take each other’s tongues deeper into their kisses. 

When they break apart, their foreheads stay touching as they try to catch their breaths, chests moving heavily in the still water.

“We…we didn’t even notice that the jets stopped?” Vince says with an incredulous laugh as he looks around him. In the blue glow of the hot tub light, Graham’s looking as hot as ever, his lips swollen and eyes a drowsy kind of dreamy.

“Come here,” Graham says, pulling Vince onto his lap and kissing the stubbly skin of his neck, making his way up to suck on his ear lobe.

Vince tosses his head back to give Graham more space to kiss as he runs his hands along Graham’s shoulders, his arms, the rippling muscles in his back underwater.

Soon, their kisses grow longer, slower, and Vince pulls back to kiss Graham’s nose in a sweet gesture before leaning their chests together and tucking his head in the crook of Graham’s neck and shoulder, like a puzzle piece.

“I hope that the parallel Vince doesn’t bring his swim trunks so that he can borrow some and do this with parallel Graham,” Graham says, his thumb stroking Vince’s cheek.

“And I hope that parallel Vince has the balls to kiss parallel Graham, because if he doesn’t, he’s missing out,” Vince says, going in for another kiss.

“Oh yeah?” Graham says, his voice a little less calm and collected as it was a moment ago and his eyes dazed, searching Vince’s in response.

“But we still haven’t done the thing I came out here for…” Vince says, and Graham wraps his arms around him in a bear hug.

“Well, that’s what I came out here to do,” he says, and Vince grins into his neck.

“Really?” He asks without looking at him.

“Mmhmm,” Graham says right away. “Definitely.”

Vince pushes up off of him a little, just to see his face, to read his face.

“But you were going in with Isak and Even before. Were you planning to kiss them, too?” Vince teases.

“I told you, there’s no orgy happening here…yet,” Graham replies, lifting Vince’s chin to his for another heart-poundingly soft kiss.

Then, Vince not-so-gracefully climbs off of Graham and stands up, peering over the edge of the hot tub at the sleek snowbanks left untouched under the moonlight, and the place where bodies have very obviously mussed it all up.

“You ready to jump?” Graham asks, suddenly standing beside him and taking his hand.

Vince looks at their hands clasped together, and at the blank slate of snow in front of them, crisp and clear and full of potential.

“I’m ready,” he says, and they jump together, into the freezing air, into the icy snow, and into a future they’re ready to make their own.

Chapter Text

CONGRATULATIONS, PARALLELS, ON SUCCESSFULLY BRINGING GRAHAM AND VINCE TOGETHER.

The screens greet them as they all come back to…wherever the heck they started out. 

Matteo and David, Isak and Even, Eliott and Lucas, and Sander and Robbe all breathe a big sigh of relief knowing they completed their mission with only a few bumps along the way.

The day after all the parallels had a big sleepover in the cabin, a rescue crew was sent to help Graham and his friends back to the lodge in time for Graham’s flight. 

Were they ever surprised to see the rest of the people spilling out of that cabin like a tiny clown car! 

At first, the crew seemed angry, but Sander was able to put on his charm and they were all starstruck enough to help them all back to the lodge together.

“We would’ve been here last night, but someone removed this cabin number from our list, so it said it was empty,” one guy on the crew explained.

“That’s weird, right?” Graham said, his voice strangled and strange.

Immediately, Vince narrowed his eyes at Graham. 

“What did you do?”

“Me? I– well…” He stammered, and everyone gawked at him as they waited to hear. “I maaaaay have asked Mike to… delay the crew? Just for one night?” Graham said, with a wince. “I’m sorry! I just, I wanted to spend more time—”

Vince cut him off with his face, grabbing him and pulling him in for a kiss. 

Everyone whooped and hollered so loud. The parallels were screaming and hugging, and Hayden was his loud and dramatic self, asking if this meant that Graham was moving–or if he’d be able to officiate the wedding. Graham decided to postpone his flight for a couple of days while they figured out what was next, and the parallels looked on, beaming proudly. 

“Are we getting married or are we getting rescued?” one of the crew members asked, and everyone laughed when Robbe replied, “Hopefully both, sir!”

In the entrance of the resort, as everyone gathered their bags and things, Graham slipped his hand into Vince’s and squeezed hard.

They all knew that this was goodbye, so they had a giant group hug, and all promised to keep in touch, exchanging numbers that the parallels knew wouldn’t reach them. They wished Graham and Vince luck, and Matteo handed them a wad of hundred dollar bills. 

“Stay here for a few days– it’s on us,” he told them. “Everyone contributed so that you’d get a nice and, uh, more private start to your love story.” 

He specifically nodded his head at Hayden who pretended to tackle him to the ground, and then somehow ended up in Matteo’s headlock. 

Everyone was laughing and tearing up, not wanting to say a final goodbye–the parallels were hanging around, as they didn’t know how they’d be getting out of there without drawing attention to the whole…poofing out of existence thing.

“Uh, guys?” Nat said, trying to calm all the commotion. “Tell me why I just got a story from Sander? And he’s… not… here?” 

She held up her phone and tilted it slowly to let everyone see Sander— very clearly— filming the expansive backyard of a beach house of some sort, with a giant blue pool and statues around it. 

It was very obviously not the Sander who was stranded in a snowed-in resort in British Columbia.

“What the hell?” Hayden said, as he grabbed for the phone.

“Let me see that,” Graham said, lunging forward.

“Well, we hate to have to leave like this, but…see ya!” David said, running towards the big glass doors. Matteo, Lucas, and Isak all followed, sprinting out of there, the other scrambling behind them.

“Love you guys!” Even said, pausing at the door.

“Best fans ever!” Sander said, and then they laughed as they all ran, maniacally, out into the snow before popping back into limbo.

#

“That was truly so close,” Robbe says now, shaking his head and kissing the hand of Sander’s that he’s holding, their fingers intertwined.

“I mean… it wasn’t close. We literally got caught,” Lucas says, slurping noodles into his mouth.

The moment they got back there, they had Isak, Matteo, Lucas, and Robbe “order” them whatever food they were craving after such a rollercoaster few days.

“Yeah, but right as we were leaving though,” Eliott adds. “So that was good.”

“I can’t believe that Sander is a super famous pop star in another universe,” Isak says, shaking his head and grinning as he bites into a hard shell taco.

“Maybe in another universe, I’m, like, a famous artist,” David says, his eyes sparkling with excitement.

“Definitely!” Matteo agrees, giving him a peck on his temple.

“One thing is for sure though. In any lifetime, I'm never forgetting the look on Lucas’s face when Isak kissed him,” Even said, over a bunch of hearty laughs.

The room laughs with him, and Isak shoves his shoulder playfully.

“You all just wish it were you!” Isak teases.

“Wait, does this mean that all the Isaks except Matteo kissed?” David asks.

“Oh my god, no babe, please, I can’t do the spin the bottle thing again,” Matteo whines, and everyone laughs again. “I’m too tired of being so sexy,” he adds with a small smile.

They continue bantering and joking as they eat, happy to be in one another’s company now that they know who they are, now that there’s an understanding about not being anyone else’s parallel as much as just…being themselves in this spot, in this timeline. The vibe in the “bunker” is much more chill and positive this time around, and they can chalk that up to a job well done and a messy few days learning the ins and outs of one another.

“To Vince and Graham,” Eliott says, raising a glass of champagne that he’s pretty sure won’t even get him buzzed.

“To true love,” Robbe says, the tips of his ears turning pink.

“To parallels,” David says.

“To friends,” Even chimes in.

“To us ,” Isak says, and everyone repeats it like a mantra, to us , as they clink their glasses and sip the champagne.

“Are you looking forward to getting back to real life?” Matteo asks everyone.

“If you had asked me a day ago, I would have said, ‘hell yeah,’” Lucas says.

“And I would have said, ‘hell no!’” Sander adds.

Everyone laughs at this, and then breaks off into different pairs and groups, chatting about their jobs and lives and pets at home that they hope have been taken care of.

“Do you think much time has passed? Or is it like that movie where they go to space and come home and like, 5 years have passed?” Matteo asks, and everyone begins to speculate.

“Maybe it was, genuinely like, 15 minutes in our world or something.”

“A smoke break?”

“Best smoke break ever,” they laugh, and then they all stop laughing abruptly when they hear static.

They all look at the screens, expecting something else, hearts pounding so loud that they’re all completely silent, waiting to see what on earth could happen next.

“Uh, guys?” Matteo says, pulling up his shirt to reveal the bright yellow Walkie Talkie that’s clipped onto his belt loop. They all listen, and Matteo picks the Walkie Talkie off his pants and holds it in the middle of them, all circled around it.

“Hello?” comes a crackly voice on the other end. “Hello? Hi, I’m trying to reach the, uh, the guys that I helped out yesterday? It’s, uh, it’s Big Mike, or, just Mike, if you’re not my friend, I guess.”

They all look up at each other and eyes wide in disbelief.

“You left your, uh, thingy here, and I just thought I’d check and see if I could give it back?”

They all burst into laughter, overjoyed at this moment of levity amongst all the hustle and bustle of the past 48 hours.

“Aww, that’s so cute, bless him,” Even says.

“Yeah, Mike really came through for us,” David says, in response.

“That’s a good dude, right there!” Lucas says with an appreciative nod.

“Uh, I also…” he lowers his voice conspiratorially. “I got a DM from Sander to take my picture down but… uh… you’d think if I saved your friend, or whatever, you’d be cool with it? Plus, you’re smiling in it! I posted the good one, not the one where you look like you’re about to sneeze,” Mike continues.

Robbe slams a hand over his face, laughing. 

“The MAYHEM we have caused!” Isak says, and they all laugh.

“The coolest thing is that these Walkie Talkies can cross time and space,” Sander says. “Do you… do you think he’d hear us if we replied?”

The room is quiet for a moment.

“Only one way to find out,” Matteo says, pressing down the button on the Walkie Talkie.