Work Text:
The universe was laughing at Scott, surely.
All he’d wanted to do since he got home was to curl up on the couch and cease to be a person for the next few hours. Maybe rewatch some old highlight reels, or that show that Impulse was so obsessed over.
But of course the universe had other plans. Of course Impulse had to have turned his phone off while filming his podcast with Skizz. Of course Gem was still on the flight home after seeing her girlfriend for the week. Of fucking course, a major tech malfunction had to happen with one of the stage lights and Impulse forgot to leave the repair guy a key to get in. Who schedules a fucking tech appointment at midnight anyways?
So instead of wrapping himself in a blanket cocoon and blocking out the world, Scott had to drive 30 minutes to the auditorium in the pouring rain in order to let the maintenance guy in. Great.
The parking lot was barren, save for a single white van with black text painted onto it. He didn’t bother to waste energy reading the logo, instead pulling his car up as close to the door as he could get and parking. Rain was pouring down like someone was dumping buckets of water above the clouds, and thunder echoed menacingly in the distance. How much do we really need that stage light anyways?
Unfortunately, the thought of Impulse’s disappointed face was enough for him to cave. Grabbing his umbrella, he stumbled out of his car and bolted to the door. Within seconds of leaving, he was soaked, umbrella doing nothing to stop the freezing rain from drenching him. Fingers already numb with chill, he fumbled with the key for a few moments before finally managing to unlock it and stumble inside.
Just as he was about to swing the door closed behind him, another figure darted inside after him, startling a yelp out of Scott until he noticed the man’s toolbox and felt silly.
“Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” The repair man seemed somewhat out of breath, which made sense as he’d parked in an actual parking spot, much farther from the door.
“It’s fine.” Scott said back, mainly out of politeness as he examined the other man. The rain clearly did not do him any favors, black hair and matching mustache both plastered to his face, and paired with his black jacket being equally soaked, it gave him the same vague aura of a kitten who’d been left out in the rain. He clearly had a foot of height over Scott, probably taller than Jimmy if Scott had to guess, and yet he carried himself like he was barely taller than an ant under Scott’s gaze. This is the mechanic Impulse chose?
“I’m, uh, here to fix the light?” The man added, as if Scott couldn’t clearly guess by the toolbox and truck.
“Right. Well, it’s right this way…” Scott trailed off, not sure what to call this mystery man.
“Oh goodness, I didn’t even introduce myself!” The man blushed, and Scott graciously withheld his snicker at the genuinely horrified expression on his face. “I’m Mumbo. From Boatem Repairs? And you are?”
“Boatem?” Scott quirked an eyebrow. “Like, the company Impulse used to work at?”
Mumbo nodded. “That’s the one. We were coworkers for years before he left to start his music career. He’s a good man.”
“Yeah he is.”
“Yeah.”
The silence stretched between them for a couple beats too long to be comfortable, before Scott cleared his throat. “Uh, Stage is this way.”
“Right, yes! Of course.” Scott escorted him to the auditorium, Mumbo splitting off towards the stage when he spotted the light. Unsure of what else to do, Scott settled awkwardly in one of the audience chairs.
Realistically, he knew that he could probably head to another room instead of remaining in the auditorium. Unfortunately, the voice of his consciousness (which happened to sound suspiciously like Impulse) suggested that he should probably stay behind and keep an eye on Mumbo so he doesn’t do anything.
For the next couple hours or so, he valiantly attempted to stay awake (he is not sleeping in front of a stranger, thank you very much), scrolling through social media on his phone as he listened to Mumbo work. Part of him was almost tempted to post about the event, but after catching a glimpse of his smudged makeup in his phone screen he decided to reconsider. That ended up being a smart move when he noticed how low his phone battery was starting to get. Damn it. And, of course, he’d forgotten his charger. Because since when had he ever done anything right?
“S-Sorry, um-” Mumbo’s voice startled him enough to physically jump, although fortunately he didn’t let out any embarrassing noises this time.
“What?” He snapped, a bit too harshly, and a pang of guilt hit him when Mumbo flinched at his tone.
“Sorry to bother you.” Mumbo repeated. “Do you, um, have the keys for the storage closet? It’s locked, and I need the ladder.”
“The ladder?” Scott blinked. “I thought you were fixing the stage light on the ground.”
“Impulse asked me to check on all of them. To make sure that none of them failed during the show. I’ve, uh, already checked the bottom ones but I need to check the ones above-stage.” As if sensing Scott’s despair at being trapped here for longer, he added hesitantly, “B-But, i-if you want I could probably come in tomorrow? I know it’s late and all.”
Scott fought to keep the scowl off of his face. It was bad enough that he’d already been dragged out here once, but to come early again? “No need to bother. You’re already here, aren’t you? Might as well get it done.”
“I suppose…” Mumbo followed silently, as if he was simply a large shadow at Scott’s back as he walked over to the storage closet, fumbling with the different keys on his keychain before finding the one that unlocked the storage room. He barely waited for the door to click open before he started heading back to the auditorium.
“Hey, um.” Mumbo’s voice behind him made him pause. “You, uh, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.” After a moment’s pause, he seemed to realize how that sounded. “N-Not that you’re not allowed to stay! You can if you want, but I know it’s late, and i-if you want to go home, I don’t, uh-” Scott turned around, holding his hand up before he could devolve into rambling.
“Can’t.” Scott held up the key, deadpan. “Someone has to lock up after you.”
“Oh.” Mumbo at least had the decency to look apologetic. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” It was not fine. He was cold, wet, and wanted to go home. Some part of that must have shown in his voice, because Mumbo, blessedly, stopped talking after that.
Over the next couple hours, the two of them managed to settle into some sort of comfortable silence, occasionally interspersed with the sounds of Mumbo tinkering with one of the broken stage lights. Judging by the continual flickering whenever he turned it on, Scott had a feeling that it wasn’t going well.
With his phone nearly dead and nothing else to do, Scott finally gave into his curiosity, and sat down next to where Mumbo was working, peering over at what he was doing. Mumbo didn’t even notice his approach, completely focused as he reached wrist-deep into the light to fiddle with the wires. The entire thing just seemed like an incomprehensible mass of wires to Scott, but Mumbo clearly seemed to know what he was doing, tugging on wires and digging into the machine with a confidence that he hadn’t yet seen from the other man.
Watching him work was oddly soothing, and Scott wasn’t sure when his eyes wandered up Mumbo’s hands to the rest of his body. His eyes, a warm brown, were completely focused, mustache occasionally twitching as he breathed. His hair was still damp from the rain, part of it still sticking to his forehead, but he looked far less like a drowned cat then he did earlier. His jacket sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows, revealing the barest hint of lean, toned muscle. The jacket was definitely thick fabric, effortlessly covering up Mumbo’s form, and he couldn’t help but picture what kind of frame he was hiding underneath.
… Okay. So maybe he was a little gay. So what? If he had to put up with this guy’s shit at 3 in the morning, then at the very least Scott should have the right to find him a little attractive. Just a bit.
His vision trailed a path back to Mumbo’s face, only for his internal thoughts to come screeching to a halt when he realized the technician was looking directly at him. Cheeks warming, Scott looked away, but the damage had been done.
“Um.” Mumbo seemed unsure of what to say, and Scott wanted nothing more than to lie down on the stage and turn into a rock until Mumbo was gone.
“What-uh, What are you doing?” Scott managed to stammer out. “With, the light.”
Thankfully, Mumbo latched onto the change in topic. “Oh, oh! Uh… At the moment, I’m just trying to reroute this wire into the repeater using the torch module-”
After a few sentences, Scott completely tuned out the words in favor of contemplating Mumbo properly. In contrast to the skittish demeanor from earlier, Mumbo’s stuttering seemed to halt entirely when explaining his work, passion shining through his previous anxiety. It was like an entirely different side of him, and Scott started feeling a bit bad for being the source of some of that anxiety for the past few hours.
Mumbo started pointing out several components to the machine, and Scott focused back in to at least try to listen. “-And I know you’ve probably tuned most of this out by now-” Oh. Scott’s face burned, and when Mumbo glanced over to him next he cut himself off, snickering. “You were tuning out, weren’t you?”
“That’s a lot of technology words!” Scott defended. “Impulse is usually the one who handles all the techy stuff.”
“And he didn’t teach you anything?” Mumbo raised an eyebrow.
“Uh…”
The two stared at each other for a long moment. “You tuned him out too didn’t you.”
“… Maybe.” Scott was sure his face was bright red, but Mumbo was properly laughing now, and then Scott couldn’t help but laugh too, and maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, to spend the middle of the night with Mumbo like this.
~
The two of them kept talking after that, time flying by as the pounding rain from outside became quieter and quieter. At some point, the two of them made back to talking about Impulse, Mumbo opening up a little more about their friendship.
“Impulse was the one who got me this job, to be honest.” Mumbo admitted. “We were friends before we were coworkers, and he saw me struggling to get a job and practically begged me to join Boatem.” He laughed to himself. “I barely knew redstone, back then. But I learned quickly. I wanted to prove to him that he made the right decision.”
“He did the same with me, in a way.” Scott agreed. “He and Gem had these grand ideas and they dragged me into the mix as well.” He still remembered the twin pleading gazed on him, Impulse telling him that they needed a guitarist, that he’d be perfect. He’d been reluctant to agree, at the time, but he had never regretted the decision to join for a moment.
“It’s almost weird to see, to be honest. Impulse isn’t usually the kind of person who doesn’t take no for an answer-”
Mumbo cut himself off as the wire underneath his fingertips sparked, and he yanked his hand out with a cut-off yelp before it could hurt him.
“… Okay.” Mumbo hummed, peering into the open panel but not sticking his hand in again. “There might be a problem?”
“… You can’t fix it, can you.” Scott asked, already looking at the stage to try and picture the show without that light. That’s the… Blue light from the third act. Fuck, we need that one. Wonder if we can switch it out with one of the other lights…
“Well, I can!” Mumbo defended, “Just… Not here. The proper tools are it are back at my workshop.”
“Oh.” Scott couldn’t help the sigh of relief. “So… Are you going to come back later then with the right tools?”
“Honestly, it might be easier if I just took it with me, and drop it off before the show.” Mumbo suggested. “That way I can work on it through the night, and if I’m missing anything else I’ll won’t have to go back again to get it. Besides, you don’t need to have to wait for me.”
Scott merely hummed, not wanting to admit that he wouldn’t be nearly opposed as he was earlier… On second thought, hot dude or not he’d rather not have to spend his whole night in the auditorium. “Yeah, that’d be great. Do we need to get a dolly to get this light-”
Scott trailed off as, with only a low grunt of exertion, Mumbo hefted the stage light with ease, oblivious to the wide eyes watching him as he rested the weight of it on his shoulder, and… Okay, sue him. He’s a sucker for strong guys, okay? Hell, even their sound tech Jimmy, a man built like a Greek god, struggled with those lights! And yet Mumbo barely seemed to buckle under the strain. Mumbo’s jacket must have been a lot thicker than he realized to hide those muscles, and the gay part of Scott’s brain (which was all of it, of course) was flooding him with images of Mumbo without his jacket…
Scott shook his head roughly, only to regret it when Mumbo made a questioning noise beside him. Waving him off, Scott followed him to the door, grateful that the rain had stopped. He opened Mumbo’s truck, stepping back to let the taller man load the stage light in.
“Wonderful! I’ll get that fixed up in a jiffy and get it back to you.” Mumbo beamed at him.
“Well, I’m not saying you saved the show or anything, but, uh… We really needed that light. So thank you.”
“Are you…” Mumbo stumbled over his words in a way that Scott was quickly starting to view as endearing. “Are you, uh, going to be here tomorrow?”
“… Mumbo.” Scott’s typical deadpan was undercut slightly by the smile that he couldn’t quite suppress. “I’m performing tomorrow.”
“Performing?” Mumbo’s face twisted in confusion, shutting the truck door before turning back to him. “I thought Impulse said there were no backup dancers at this show. Are you one of the musicians?”
The two stared at each other for a long moment, Scott too stunned to speak. Mumbo’s confusion started morphing into anxiety the longer Scott stayed silent, fidgeting with the edge of the jacket cuff. Eventually it was Mumbo who broke the silence.
“Um… Did I say something wrong?”
Unable to cobble together the words to speak, Scott merely pointed to the left, where the large Gem and the Scotts poster hung next to the door they had just come through. Underneath the logo was an image of the three of them frozen in mid-performance, Impulse in the middle holding his drumsticks in the air with an excitement that could be felt through the poster, his wide grin a perfect centerpiece while being bracketed by Gem and Scott on either side. The two of them had their backs to Impulse, Gem’s keytar hanging around her neck as she gripped the microphone, her other hand pointing out into an unseen audience. And of course, Scott himself, one hand curled around the neck of his bass guitar with the other on his hip, striking a pose. The lazy grin on his face would seem natural to anyone who didn’t know how many hours it took to practice it for the pictures.
It was one of his favorite pictures of the three of them, managing to capture all three of their personalities in a single distilled image. Jimmy had really outdone himself, the lighting blanketing each of them in their respective colors. Scott had insisted that his camera involved some sort of black magic, but Jimmy had vehemently insisted otherwise.
He snapped out of his nostalgia as Mumbo finally wrenched his eyes away from the poster to stare at Scott, then flicking back and forth between them as a horrified realization dawned on him.
“… Oh fuck, you’re Scott Smajor.” Mumbo’s horrified swear was what finally sent him over the edge, and Scott burst into laughter, Mumbo’s face flaming red as he buried his face in his hands. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t even realize!”
“How many guys with blue hair have you met?” Scott crowed back, nearly incomprehensible.
Mumbo’s stuttering reply ended up getting lost before it reached his ears, Scott gasping for breath as he leaned on the edge of Mumbo’s truck. The leftover rain on the car soaked his shirt, but for once he was too preoccupied to care.
“Gosh, I’ve made a right fool of myself haven’t I?” Mumbo inquired, voice muffled with his face halfway buried in his hands.
“A little bit.” Scott responded. “But it was funny.”
Mumbo eventually pulled his hands away from his face, and despite the lingering traces of rosy-pink on his cheeks, he was smiling, eyes crinkled at the edges from the force of it. Every new thing Scott learned about Mumbo made him more and more enamored. How blind must he have been to have missed this until now?
He was definitely staring again, and Mumbo definitely noticed, but it was okay because he was staring too, and Scott didn’t even realize he was moving until his lips were brushing Mumbo’s cheek.
Mumbo stood frozen for long enough that Scott was almost concerned that he’d read the encounter wrong, until he took note of the bright red face and wide eyes.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mumbo.” Scott stepped back. After a split second, he decided to throw in a wink as well, just to make things as clear as possible.
Mumbo unfroze enough to start choking on air, spluttering out some intelligible combination of syllables, and Scott turned around with no small amount of satisfaction. As he walked back to his car, he heard the truck door close, and by the time he’d made it back to his car Mumbo had already driven out of the lot, becoming a rapidly shrinking dot on the road.
Slipping into his own car, Scott gave himself a single moment to bury his head in his hands, mentally questioning every decision he’d ever made, before recomposing himself and turning the key in the ignition. Impulse is never going to hear the end of this…
And, if a small part of him was already excited to see Mumbo again tomorrow, then that was for him alone to know.