Work Text:
Oct 28
Jimmy paced back and forward in his room, thinking about something, not noticing Lizzie enter his room, till Lizzie spoke up, “Jimmy, what are you doing?” Lizzie looked at him confused, as Jimmy stopped abruptly from Lizzie speaking.
Jimmy’s head turns to face Lizzie, about to lecture her, “L-Lizzie! Jeez! You can’t just come into my room unannounced!” Lizzie chuckled, “Why are you pacing? Are you nervous about something?” She had told a week in advance, that her and Joel will be hosting a Halloween party, and all of their friends are invited, that includes Tango.
“The party is in like 3 days! And I don’t know what to wear– What if I look bad, and– and Tango thinks I’m weird…” He overthinks, about the party. Lizzie sighs, “Jimmy– Tango’s not going to think you’re weird” she tries to assure her brother that Tango won’t think of him like that.
Jimmy can barely believe what she is saying, he wants to– he really does, but something is keeping him from believing it. “But– But what if he does” Lizzie shakes her head, “Jimmy, it will be fine” She puts a hand on his shoulder, making him less tense.
“What do you want to dress up as?” Lizzie asks him, she doesn’t want him to dress as something different because of what Tango thinks.
“I don’t know? A cat? It would be funny cause y’know I’m a bird and cats are known to like chasing birds. But what if it’s too childish?” Jimmy automatically other thinks everything.
“Ooh! You could be a black cat, because they are known for their bad luck” Grian says leaning on the door frame intruding their conversation. The two in the room turns around to face Grian, “HEY! You two need to stop just welcoming yourself into my room!” Jimmy complains, to his siblings, for always just welcoming themselves in his personal space.
“Grian’s right, though you should dress up as a black cat it fits you, we could go Halloween shopping, to buy the stuff” Lizzie asks.
Oct 30
“Thank you, you two, for helping us set up for tomorrow” Joel says as Jimmy and Grian helped the other two. “It’s not a problem, so you two doing a couple costume?” Grian looks over to Joel and Lizzie, curious.
“Mhm! I’m going as Fiona and Joel is going as Shrek” Lizzie tells them. “Why am I not surprised” Jimmy sighs, putting the paper cup stacks on the table which had a pumpkin pattern table cloth.
Lizzie and Grian were in the kitchen making food for tomorrow and Grian tells the other two, that some food and drink they have made is in the fridge. “The Jelly and punch is in the fridge.”
Jimmy looks up and faces Grian, “Are you going to make the fudge with seeds in it, G?” Grian rolls his eyes like Jimmy asked a dumb question, “Absolutely, who do you think I am?” Jimmy shrugs, “A menace” he simply replied. But since Grian was so used to be called that he didn’t really care.
“Hey, Jimmy, y’know Tango, is there anything he likes in particular for food?” Grian asks. Jimmy pauses what he was doing and stops to think, “I don’t think so, he hasn’t told me anything about special foods, but maybe something from where he grew up?” Jimmy shakes his head, but gives an idea.
“I’ve never made Nether food. But I could do some research about it” Lizzie mentions, how it could be a good idea if she did some research. “I could– I could ask Tango” Jimmy rubs the back of his arm, already going to his bag that he left at the door to get his phone and text.
“Text Mumbo while you're at it!” Grian calls out, hoping Jimmy would hear.
–
You> Hi Tango
Tango> Jimmy! What’s up!
You> You still coming tomorrow?
Tango> yep, why?
You> okay cool
You> Soo, umm nether food? Like ideas
Tango> Nether food? Are you asking me what’s my favourite?
You> Yes
Tango> I like anything really, spicy foods are nice though
You> Anything in particular though?
Tango> I like chicken with this sauce made from nether warts, I’m pretty sure they sell them at a store.
You>Cool! Thank you
You> Oh by the way what are you going as?
Tango>I don’t actually know, Skizz suggested that we go as our letter from my friend group, because we call ourselves Team Z.I.T.S. But then Zed suggested we go as our favourite person, but then I feel pressured to go as him, but if someone finds out that I’m dressing up as my favourite person is the others will hate me cause then they might think I don’t like them.
You> Tango.
Tango> Yes?
You> Someone told me that I shouldn’t pressure myself doing something someone else wants and do what I want.
You> They can’t hate you for doing something you want to do
Tango> Oh
Tango> Well whoever this person is, they are a smart person
You> They are, they mean a lot to me
Tango> Thank you, Jimmy
You> No worries <3
Jimmy took a deep breath, relaxing himself, and now he has to go text Mumbo, he didn’t really understand why Grian couldn’t text him but okay. He pulls up Mumbo’s contacts and starts texting Mumbo, asking what food he’d like for the Halloween party. In which the man replied with anything but garlic, which made Jimmy laugh. As Mumbo is a Vampire hybrid, he wouldn’t be surprised if Mumbo came as himself, but with more Goth like clothing.
Jimmy tossed his phone back in his bag, walking back to the living room and looking into the kitchen to where Grian and Lizzie were. “Mumbo wants anything but garlic, and Tango wants this sauce made with nether warts. He told me that a store sells them, I can go buy them If you want, whilst you make the other foods” Jimmy suggests to them that he’d get the nether wart.
“That’d be lovely” Lizzie says as she needs some dough on a counter that was covered in flour. So Jimmy does, he goes back to the front door tossing his bag on and putting his carabiner which had his ID card on and then left to go to the supermarket. Whilst the other three got the place ready for tomorrow.
–
Oct 31
“Oh my gosh! Jimmy, you look adorable! I don’t know how you did it, hiding your wings and all” Lizzie compliments his costume. “Thank you! I had Grian’s help with the magic to hide them.” Jimmy does a twirl, showing his full fit.
“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m the best” Grian said with a smug grin on his face. Making the other three roll their eyes. “You look great too, Grian” Joel says. Grian was wearing a scarecrow costume.
“Ehh, it’s okay, it’s like almost the same one from High school, just a bit has changed, like It’s not real hay. Void, I can just feel my face burning and etching when I wore that, it wasn’t the wisest idea, I’d admit, but this one is way comfier” Grian recalls the memory of high school when they had a dress up day at High School for Halloween.
“I remember that! You were complaining to me about it for ages once you got home, you were acting like you were going to die” Lizzie says, embarrassing Grian, which she didn’t intend to if she was being honest.
“I’m glad I didn’t go to the same High school as you. I couldn’t imagine being an exchange student, I’m glad I went to the same one as Lizzie” Jimmy says. “It wasn’t much better, at least when I was there.” Lizzie says in defence.
“I don’t know what you guys went through, but I think High school was mediocre at best” Joel says, when he was in high school it wasn’t the worst thing in the world he met Lizzie in High school, so maybe he was being biased.
Jimmy rolls his eyes, “You’re only saying that is cause when you met Lizzie.” Joel opened his mouth about to say something in defence, but nothing came out, so he just grunted, closing his mouth.
Lizzie looks over to Jimmy and assures him something once people arrive, “If anything gets too much, Jimmy, you can go to my room.” Jimmy nods, happy that he has a ‘safe’ room in case it gets too much.
“What time do people start getting here anyways? Might want to start putting out the food” Joel points out. “I think around 10:25am” Grian says checking the clock on the wall. “So we still have like 25 minutes?” Jimmy asks, waiting for affirmation, which he gets from Grian who gives him a nod.
During the 25 minutes they had left till people would start arriving, they did a small clean up, and putting up last minute decorations.
–
Oct 31, 10:25am
Joel heard knocking at the door and decided to over to it to see the first couple of people, being Scar and Mumbo, “Come in, come in” Joel leaves the door open for them to come inside. Scar was dressed like a Willy Wonka, and his cane was designed like the one Wonka has in the movie. Mumbo of course– like Jimmy guessed was himself but had a more gothic look.
The next group of people was actually a surprise to Jimmy when they saw the pair, it was Katherine and her partner, Shelby. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! Katherine!!!” Jimmy runs over to her and squeezes her into a hug, the fae hybrid was dressed like a cat as well, “Oh, and Hi Shelby” Jimmy smiles letting go of his cousin.
“Hi, Jimmy, it’s been, what, almost a year since we saw each other?” Shelby says hello back, talking about how they haven’t talked in a while. Jimmy leads those two to the living room and sat them down on the couch, “Oh, hello Katherine” Mumbo notices Katherine, who knew her a little bit due to being cousins with Jimmy, Grian and Lizzie.
“Mumbo! Hi, this is my partner Shelby, they use any pronouns” Katherine introduces Mumbo to her partner. And they started chatting with each other, when Scar went over to Grian and Lizzie talking to the pair.
5 or so minutes later the last group of people came, it was Team Z.I.T.S and Pearl with them. Impulse was wearing a demon costume, which made sense because he was an Imp hybrid, so it made the most sense. Skizz was dressed like an Angel, Zed was dressed like a ghost and Pearl was dressed like red riding hood. And lastly Tango he was dressed like… A spy? At least that’s Joel’s guess. “What are you?” Joel asked processing Tango’s outfit.
“You’ll never know!” Tango gave him a toothy grin, not telling Joel anything. “Rude, anyways your boyfriend is waiting for you” Joel says very casually.
“Boyfriend?!” Tango’s says way too loud, feeling his face heats up and not the usual heat he would get from his blaze rods. Speaking of the blaze rods, they appeared again and were rotating around his head. This makes everyone turn to face him, including Jimmy, “Tango!” Jimmy stood up from the couch and rushes over to him, smiling brightly, and Tango looks at Jimmy’s looking at his outfit which was making his cheeks redden, chocking on his own saliva, trying not to spit it out.
Jimmy takes in his outfit, “You look amazing!” Tango looks away, using his hand as a fan, trying to cool himself down, and when he does Jimmy looks at him confused, “Do I have something on me?” Jimmy looks worried, “Do I look bad?” Jimmy began to start over thinking about it all.
Joel began to start, assuring the other man, that it was fine. “No, Jimmy, calm down, It’s gay panic” Jimmy looks confused at him, “Huh?” Jimmy looks at Joel, then at Tango; who was looking away from him. Which made Jimmy all confused.
Joel huffs and shoves the other two to the living room and shuts the front door, walking with them to the living room. “It doesn’t matter, let’s just go to the others.” Jimmy grabbed onto Tango’s hand and drags him to the others, “Katherine! Katherine! You met Tango before, right?” Jimmy goes over to Katherine, and she nods, “Yep, I’ve met him, I made you a new outfit” she says.
“Oh! I’d like you to met my lovely partner, Shelby” Katherine introduces her partner to Tango. “Is this the guy, Jimmy, keeps on talking to you about?” Shelby asks Katherine.
Before Katherine could answer them, Tango spoke before she could answer, “You talk about me?” Tango looked at Jimmy and Jimmy nods, “Well– I mean– yes… I why wouldn’t I talk about my friends” he says as he elbows Katherine telling her to shush, as she wasn’t meant to say that. Especially with that many people.
“Hey, uhmmm, can we talk privately. Shrub, you can talk to Lizzie or Joel, they are over there in the kitchen” Jimmy says to Shelby, and they nod, heading over to the kitchen. “I’ll be back in a bit, Tango” Jimmy tells him, squeezing his hand one last time before letting go and taking Katherine to Lizzie’s room.
–
With team Z.I.T.S
“Okay, I knew you were bad, but that bad” Skizz says, slightly making fun of him, but in a teasing manner. “Shut up!” Tango says, as the blaze rods on his head still weren’t disappearing. Zed starts telling the rest of them he was right and how Tango is obsessed with Jimmy. “I told you! You should’ve seen him when he found out about Scott being Jimmy’s ex, he was so jealous and already hated the guy before he even got to know the man.”
Tango scowls as he listens to the others talk about how he is ‘obsessed’ with Jimmy. He was not… That’s what he told himself, at least.
–
With Katherine and Jimmy
Jimmy paces around the room freaking out, “Katherine! You can’t just be saying that, he doesn’t know what we talk about… He can’t know… If he finds out, he’s going to think I’m a freak!” Katherine watches him freak out, and she tries to calm him down, “Jimmy! Relax, he won’t hate you, the worse he can do is not like you back, he won’t stop being friends with you.”
Jimmy stops pacing, “But–” Katherine glares at him, but not angry, just the look saying ‘Stop over thinking, it’s going to be fine’ kind of look. He takes a deep breath and sits on Lizzie’s bed. “Do you want to tell him, though?” Katherine asks directly, nothing like, are you okay? Do you want to tell others? Do you need help? Or anything like that. Jimmy looks at the pink carpet in Lizzie’s room, leaning his hands onto the ground, pressing down onto her bed.
“I don’t know– I do, but I don’t… Like I think I need to wait– no. I know I should wait, it’s not the perfect time, we have a bunch of people over, and I don’t think he could take me seriously when I’m dressed like a cat.” He chuckles at the last bit, as so does Katherine, agreeing with him. Jimmy was right to wait till another day, although she could see it being a bad for bottling his feelings, she knows she shouldn’t pressure Jimmy on telling Tango.
“Just don’t go talking or texting to me about how ‘hot’ Tango is” She rolls her eyes. “But— Katherine!” he whines, and she laughs, “No. No Jimmy! No more, our text recently has only been about Tango. And as much as I’d like to hear about your little crush. I want to know what’s going with you. I mean, is that thing, have you seen it recently?” Katherine asks, because Jimmy hasn’t mentioned about those things he’s seen.
Jimmy frowns as she mentions those entities, “No. Don’t jinx it, though! I’ve liked not having to deal with them, I just hope they're gone permanently. Plus, you know I’d tell you if I saw them, I promised from the last talk we had.”
Katherine nods, “Let’s head back to the party, okay?” she suggests, as the two walk back to where everyone else was.
–
Back in the living room
Tango tries the Nether wart dip with some crackers, and after he does his eyes light up, “Impy! Try it, it taste it, almost identical to the one back at home!” He dips a cracker in the nether wart dip and passes it to Impy, which he does and when after Impulse tries the dip, his eyes widen, in shock by how much it taste like the Nether wart dip back where him and Tango grew up.
“This is incredible!” Impulse says finishing the cracker, taking another cracker, dipping it into the Nether wart dip. “Thank you, Jimmy wanted it to be perfect, so when I was making it, he would keep a close eye on me” Lizzie says, not revealing anything that Jimmy wouldn’t want. Not the fact Jimmy kept on repeating how it has to be perfect for Tango, and how he would be upset if Tango didn’t like that.
Lizzie didn’t bother telling them all the extra stuff as that wasn’t their business, “He likes taking charge, I see” Impulse points out and before Lizzie could respond, Jimmy was coming from behind, “Who likes taking charge?” Katherine asked who was with him.
“Jimmy, wanting the Nether wart dip to be perfect” Lizzie tells her, making Jimmy shot a death glare at her, she mouths to her brother that she didn’t say anything to expose him. Which Jimmy let’s out a sigh of relief. “Do you like it?” Jimmy asks Impulse.
“It’s amazing! It almost tastes identical to the ones back at home” Impulse tells him and Tango nods in agreement. “It’s perfect! Delicious, you totally have to make me more if I ever come over again” Tango ads on.
Without thinking, he agrees, “Yeah, I’m sure Grian won’t mind you coming over, and I can totally make you more” Jimmy tells him, making Tango smile, “Great” If Tango’s rods were rotating around his head faster. You’re lying. “I I-like your outfit by the way” Tango says.
“Oh– I– Thank you!” Jimmy says a bit embarrassed, “I like yours also, you remind me of one of the Bad Boys… From the movie Bad Boys, not the Bad Boys– as in the villains… I– I’m not– I’m not trying to call you a bad person– you’re an incredible person– I mean–” Jimmy says embarrassed, stuttering over his words, trying to fix what he said, making Lizzie bonk him in the head. “Sorry, what Jimmy means, is that you're a cool person, and really likes you” Lizzie tries to hint to him that Jimmy likes him as she couldn’t handle any longer with Jimmy being all sappy, it was driving her insane, whilst Jimmy rubbed on his head where he got bonked.
“Well, I would hope he likes me” Tango says oblivious to the hint, making Lizzie, Katherine, and even Impulse facepalm, by how obvious the hint was, but they still don’t understand. “Y’know what, I’ve tried, Katherine, you are on your own” Lizzie says leaving heading to Joel and Grian who were talking to Mumbo and Scar.
Although Katherine hasn’t met Impulse before they both looked at each other nodding at each other walking away leaving Jimmy and Tango alone. Jimmy looks up noticing that the others were gone, and it was now just him and Tango, “I– ummm, hi” Jimmy says, when did it get so hard to talk. “Hi” Tango says not knowing what else to see.
“Sooo- how’s the party so far?” Jimmy asks, “It’s good” Tango says leaning on the kitchen counter, in which Jimmy does the same, going next to him. “That’s good, If I was being honest I wasn’t really looking forward to going, I’d rather stay in my room. But then Joel said I could invite someone– so I kinda asked if you could come” Jimmy scratches his arm trying to get out of his system.
“Oh–” Tango turned his head to look at Jimmy who was scratching his arm and looking at the ground. “We each got to invite 2 people, I invited you and Zed, and Grian invited Scar and Mumbo, Joel Invited Skizz and Impulse and well Lizzie invited our cousin Katherine plus their partner Shrub” Jimmy says, still not looking up, but at least he’s stopped scratching his arm.
Tango nods understanding, “I– thank you for inviting me” he looks up and down getting a good look at Jimmy’s costume. Taking a deep breath before leaning a bit closer to Jimmy before relaxing his body so the Blaze Rods disappear, and puts his head on Jimmy’s shoulder. Jimmy tense up for a few seconds by the sudden movement, but relaxes, allowing Tango to lean on him.
This is nice. Jimmy thinks to himself, not wanting to move, he enjoys Tango’s presence and his warmth.
But then suddenly he felt something touching around his calf and looks down to see Tango’s slowly tail going to wrap around his calf. Which makes him try to hold back a little giggle, as he was finding it kinda adorable to him. Seeing what Tango was doing; watching as the blaze hybrid’s tail all wrapped around his calf. He then decides to look up and looks at Tango who was resting his eyes and resting his head on his shoulder, making him smile enjoying how peaceful the man looks like just relaxing peacefully next to him.
If this is what being friends with Tango gets him, he is absolutely fine with that. Being his friend is what matters right now. He’ll tell him some day, but not today. He doesn’t want to ruin what he has right now.