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Jay's Halloween costume might've been the strangest thing in Jellyland—a piece of chocolate cake with a lot of handy pockets and crevices. As aforementioned, that part was quite handy, but the costume itself bulky and awkward. It made sitting in the back of his own car while Sunghoon drove him and Sunoo to a party very, very uncomfortable.
It wasn't actually that uncomfortable, but Jay was preoccupying himself with trivial things so as not to ruminate on The Plan™.
You look delicious, Jake had said, and Jay based his whole costume around that because nothing anybody else said was helpful. Sunghoon, because he knew Jay so well, suggested James Bond, and Sunoo suggested a jellyglorp, whatever the fuck that was. Jay was too short to be James Bond and frankly didn't care enough about the franchise to go all out, and even after further explanation from Sunoo, still couldn't get clear vision of a jellyglorp. So obviously he went with the cake.
"Guys," Sunghoon said. He braked the car and it jostled Jay in his seat in time with the Nirvana blasting from the speakers. "Those aren't trick-or-treaters."
In the headlight beams, what looked like several gigantic gelatinous cat-weasel-slugs wearing brightly colored and equally gelatinous onesies gooped and slithered across the road. Jay reached into the pocket of his costume that stored his unloaded jelly gun.
A man in a padded blue suit with a star on the chest ran after the last of the jellymongers, brandishing a shiny round shield.
Wait a second. "Is that Jake?"
"That's Jake," Sunghoon said.
"He can Captain my America." Jay loaded the gun with his special ammo made by yours truly. Yes, Jay the Genius, everyone. No autographs for the time-being, please.
"You're American, Jay," Sunoo said.
"Yeah that's actually weird, Jay," Sunghoon said.
That's the point, Jay wanted to say, but then he realized what all this meant for The Plan™ and suddenly he didn't care about how hot Jake was because what was less than hot was Jake ruining The Plan™. And still looking handsome while doing it. Then again, he was always handsome, so it wasn't new.
Jay shuffled out of the car with his jelly gun raised. Shot a few hard candy bullets at the jellymongers. Bullets that just went through viscous bodies or stayed stuck in their thick skin. The jellymongers didn't even glance at him. Fuck.
Jake showed up at his side, out of breath.
"Lost your shield, Cap?"
"Ah, well, these things happen, you know—"
"Shit," Jay shouted. Behind Jake, a slug-like jellymonger with two huge antennae advanced. "Move!"
He and Jake rolled to the ground, and upon the new angle, it was apparent the slug also had a particular Captain America shield embedded in its back.
"Okay," Jay said, trying to get his bearings. "You distract it and I'll try to get the shield from the side."
Jake nodded quickly.
"Remember: don't touch the skin or it'll suck you in."
They went at it together, caught it by surprise. Jake waved his arms and threw small rocks at its face and yelled while Jay got ahold of the shield and pulled. The jellymonger pulled, too, with a horrible screech, and Jay ended up on the ground clutching the shield. What was left of it, anyway. The thing wasn't made of vibranium.
"Guys, over here," Sunoo called from the car. Jay and Jake ran to him.
"Where's Sunghoon?"
It became apparent that the constant screaming wasn't only Kurt Cobain's vocals nor the jellymongers but was also Sunghoon being dragged and sucked into the gooey body of one of said screaming jellymongers.
Jay, of course, chased after them.
Jake and Sunoo caught up to him, and Jake grabbed his arm. "We don't have any means to fight them."
Jay shook him off. Hard as it was to look at him right then, it was triple times harder to be touched by him.
"Jake's right," Sunoo said.
They really weren't going to that party now.
Sunoo drove. Jay gave directions. Jake was a Passenger Nuisance. He would argue that Jay was encouraging said Nuisance, but Jake wasn't the one telling the story, now, was he?
"I didn't wanna be Captain America, man, it was the only costume left! I wanted to be Thor!"
"You're too short to be Thor."
"And I'm sure as hell too short to be Cap."
"Okay, fair enough."
Now that he'd forced Jay to admit he had a good point, he just had to dig it in by changing the subject to Jay's costume. "You gonna take that off yet?"
"No, it's comfortable."
In the backseat of the car with nothing but his cake costume and a couple snack packets, Jay embraced the identity of a blatant liar like he would a long-lost lover. Except not lost for that long: he didn't lie to his friends sparsely, but he didn't lie to them frequently, either.
The car lurched to a stop and Jay nearly flew through the windshield. "Oh my god!"
"Sorry," Sunoo said. "I couldn't figure out how to readjust the seat from Sunghoon and it's really irritating me. You know how I get when I'm irritated."
Jake looked worried. "You're not gonna turn to the Dark Side, are you?"
"Of course not. I'm not even close to anger or hate right now."
Fear was kind of unavoidable, given the circumstances, so Jay understood why Sunoo left that part out.
The workshop was quiet. A bit dusty, but otherwise normal. Quite the relief because it really would've sucked if the place had been ransacked by jelly mice while Jay was gone.
"Don't snoop or touch anything," he muttered. "You can sit over here."
The first thing Jake did was snoop and touch things. "You have jellies? Lollies? My favorite!"
Jay snatched the packages from him. The problem was, Jake was kind of cute on top of that handsomeness and annoyingness. He sighed through his nose. "You can have one."
One turned into three, and Sunoo also wanted some, so Jay split one, actual one, with him. God, they were eating him out of house and home.
Jake made a sound disconcertingly close to a moan. "This shit's better than gay sex, bro."
Sunoo choked.
Jay choked harder. "What the hell?"
"Gay sex always sucks ass," Jake said. "No pun intended."
"Maybe you've done it with the wrong guys."
"Oh yeah?"
They made eye contact for a few too many moments. Jay would've preferred not at all. However, real life didn't come with a Preferences tab.
"Tell me, Jay," Jake began—but Sunoo interrupted.
"Let's focus on what we're doing and why we're doing it: Sunghoon. Jellyland."
"Since when do you know anything about this?” Jay asked Sunoo, meaning the jellymongers and the superheroism.
"I know some things, come that may as a surprise."
"It's a very welcome one."
"Um, guys?" Oh look, Jake had gone from snooping and touching to outright rooting around.
"I told you not to—oh shit."
Something that wasn't very welcome? The nests and turds left by jelly mice all over Jay's weapon stash.
"Literal shit," Jake said. "What do we do?"
"Well." Jay put his glasses on. "First you need to wash your hands, what the fuck. And second, I can try to salvage a few guns. You guys figure out how to fight those things."
"Their noses are sensitive," Sunoo offered. So Jake had the right idea earlier: throw things at their faces.
"Very well," Jay said. And they prepared to fight.
On the way back from the brewery, Sunoo was yet again their designated driver. Jake was Passenger Silence. Jay kept his gaze anywhere it couldn't possibly meet Jake's.
The loss burned. Honestly, it was embarrassing. Not just the loss, but the way they'd lost.
After running out of bullets they'd resorted to throwing whatever gum or, in Sunoo's case, slime balls(??) they had stuffed in their pockets, which did near nothing to halt the jellymongers in their breaking-and-entering of the brewery. They were probably guzzling jelly gin and growing ten times more powerful at that very moment.
Sunghoon's absence was loud, when he should've been sitting beside Jay, making random observations they could fake squabble over. Who even knew what the jellymongers were doing to him.
The workshop was quiet again, but this time it was a muffling, deafening quiet. The kind that begs a softer step out of you for fear you'll fuck up the equilibrium.
Jay was pretty sure the equilibrium had already been fucked up. As had his costume—an unfortunate collision with a jellymonger tore half of it off and sucked it right from the ground outside the brewery. He set the bag containing his remaining ammo and gun on the workbench.
Jake had a heavy line for a mouth and a pack of gum passing back and forth between his hands.
"This is my last gun," Jay said after several ticks of silence. "It's the only one left. I don't have any more."
Now the silence felt broken like Jake's shield or the gun Jay lent him.
"Can't you build more?"
"No! I don't know! Not right now. Not soon. If you hadn't messed up my plan, this would've all been over already."
"Would it have? Your bullets did nothing against them."
"I would've figured something out. I always do."
And then they were silent again.
"I wanted to help people," Jake said. "I wanted to protect them. We're doing this for Sunghoon, aren't we?"
"I was doing this for all of Jellyland. Sunghoon wasn't even a concern until you came in."
"We can still figure it out, Jay! I know you don't want me here. It's obvious by now. But we can still figure this out. Just let me help. He's my friend, too. Then I'll be out of your hair."
Fuck, this wasn't how it was supposed to go at all.
"Let us do it together, Jay," Sunoo said from the doorway.
Jay's hand shot to his heart. "Oh my god, don't do that."
"How do we fight them for real this time?" asked Jake, whose hand was also on his heart.
"I don't know," Sunoo said, "but I have a good throwing arm."
Jay's blood pressure went back up when it'd barely begun balancing again. "What do we throw at them? Rocks? That'd do as well as the candy." Maybe worse.
"No, no, wait." Jake looked like his head had sprung a lightbulb. He waved the gum package. "This worked, didn't it?"
Confusion made an appearance on Sunoo's face but Jay... Jay had been enlightened. He was sketching, planning, testing, in an instant, and an hour and twenty minutes later (yes, he was that much of a genius), he had a set of capsules. These capsules were much better than the pill capsules his parents used to make him take because these would contain the biological threats and didn't require ingestion.
He first presented this joy-of-not-swallowing to Jake because he was in the corner reading a book that he must've pulled from behind his ear like magic—Jay hadn't seen a book on him this entire night until now.
While Jake studied the capsule, Jay's nerves pulled him apart and put him back together in the shape of an alert symbol: Warning! This Man Hasn't Apologized For Being An Ass! Which Is Making Him More Of An Ass!
"Hey," he finally said. "I don't mind having messy hair. You don't have to get out of it. Sunghoon and Sunoo aren't my only friends in this."
Jake nodded solemnly. Then his mischievous smile made Jay's blood pressure, blood sugar, everything, do loops and spikes and he was afraid it was quite obvious. Maybe it was just the candy. "You look good with messy hair, Tony."
Whatever Jay was expecting him to say—he himself didn't know—it wasn't that. "My name's not Tony. I'm not Iron Man!"
"'Not Tony', you're still my favorite Avenger."
"Yes, I see what you did there," Jay said before Jake could ask. Over the years they'd known each other, Jake had absorbed all the dad jokes of their friend group and these were the consequences. "I'm still not even an Avenger."
"I don't know, I'd say you're a good Iron Man. Jellyland's best defender, ah?" He nodded as if he were another person agreeing with himself.
Jay pretended to consider it. "If that's really the case, I need Cap by my side."
"I lost my shield, man," Jake said. He sounded the most hurt he had tonight, even since their fight earlier. Jay should've known this would bother him. Should've known a lot of things. But how could he? He didn't know everything and it kind of stabbed his side every day but he did his best even when it burned him out, even when it wasn't healthy.
The capsule rolled from his sweaty hand to the table. He wanted to hug Jake. For the first time in their friendship, he felt like he'd be crossing some barrier if he did. "You're more than a shield."
"Am I?"
"Yeah. You're Jake."
Jake laughed a bit, a private laugh: a privilege to witness. His fingertips flipped the capsule around and around and around. "Let's see what these can do."
Sunoo disappeared through the unguarded—and blasted, thanks to earlier's mess—back door of the brewery, footsteps light. The jellymongers only cared about the jelly gin, not security, so it made sense. Jay wasn't complaining; it made it easier for the team.
In the doorway, since Jay and Jake were next, their bodies were close when they tried to squash through at the same time. Too close. And their faces were also really close for some reason that Jay didn't know at all and wasn't thinking about either. Weren't they supposed to be sneaking after Sunoo? Nothing they were doing felt quiet, but maybe that was the rush in Jay's ears.
Jake didn't look like he was moving anytime soon, and worst of all, he looked amused. "Did you forget something?"
"No, no. I just." Jay fumbled the gun into Jake's hand, making sure his fingers were closed tightly on it, trying to get the ordeal over with as fast as possible. Hence prolonging it. It was funny how that worked, wasn't it? "Don't break it this time."
Jakes amused expression lingered and he still didn't move forward. "Nothing else? For luck?"
"That's cliche and unoriginal and not smooth," Jay said. "Maybe when we're done."
"If we're done," Jake said darkly as they crept inside. Overdramatic. All of Jay's friends were. And you know what they say about the people you surround yourself with.
A big lump (one of the people Jay surrounded himself with) in a back room of the brewery had thick cuffs of pink hard candy around his wrists and ankles, and sat up from his odd slouching position when Jay entered.
"Oh, thank god you're here. I was afraid I'd have to chew through these myself."
"Save your teeth for another day," Jay said. He cut through the bonds with a metal file and helped Sunghoon to his feet. His skin and clothes were coated in a thin, sticky film. Jay didn't say anything about the color because 1: Sunghoon was likely already aware, and 2: Sunghoon hated pink.
"So, uh. How's it going with Captain Loverpants?"
"The only place it's going," Jay said, "is defeating these jellymongers and then home."
Sunghoon smirked. "So it's like that. I see, I see. I gotcha."
Jay regretted mentioning home. "Whatever you're thinking, you're wrong. Come on, we're wasting time."
Jake was already making good use of the gun alongside Sunoo. They'd contained a majority of the jellymongers in translucent white casings—sometimes multiple to a casing, Jay was pleased to note—but at least ten still gallivanted around the place, drooling jelly gin. The smell was a mix of alcohol and the fruitiest jelly one can imagine. And dust, from all the damage the jellymongers had wreaked to the floors and walls and shelves. Jay gave a few casings to Sunghoon and explained what they did and sent him to take care of the loose jellymongers.
Jay's personal target was the source of the jelly gin: the case of bottles and jugs that had been dragged to the center of the room. He dashed for it, but a jellymonger sluiced his path, and he coasted so close to its blubbery jelly skin that his whole left side sported a coating similar to Sunghoon's.
He slammed a containment capsule onto its underbelly as it loped over him, before it could do any more harm, and got a firsthand view of the way the capsule expanded and completely encased the cat-weasel-slug-like creature so that it bulged in some spots and was loose in others like a particularly ill-fitting trash bag.
Adrenaline pumping through his veins sent him around the room (it was a big room), avoiding crashing into shelves of alcohol, tossing casings at as many jellymongers he could reach. Their screams were even worse than they were during the first encounter on the road, amplified by their frustration with having finally gotten their power trip of a drink and had it taken away. But across the room, there was another scream, a different scream. One Jay was pretty sure he'd recognize anywhere.
A throb of panic banked him and he chucked a capsule to protect the last jelly gin case, and he endured the angered shrieks of the jellymongers as he set off across the brewery. Because Jake. He needed to get to Jake.
It was when Jake screamed again that Jay realized he only had one capsule left, and it was clutched in his palm.
Behind a pile of debris the jellymongers had formed by bumping everything with their clumsy bodies, Jake lay, and above him, the biggest jellymonger loomed. Jake was propped against another jelly gin case, smaller than the one Jay had just contained, but valuable nonetheless. Definitely valuable to the jellymongers. And Jake was in their way.
Sunoo and Sunghoon were elsewhere in the brewery, probably still fighting. Think, Jay, think.
But he couldn't think when the jellymonger's goopy mouth drooped closer to Jake's weak and terrified face, and before he could fail at thinking any further, he'd flung the last capsule.
It hit The Last™ case of jelly gin and exploded open with such force that it splattered a bit on Jake's hair and clothing and the jellymonger's nose. The jellymonger's tongue immediately came out to lick at the disturbance and it recoiled, maybe at the texture or the taste, but the important thing was it curled to the side, shaking its head irritably. Leaving Jake alone. Which was all Jay needed.
He collapsed to his knees at Jake's side with his hands on his shoulders. "Come on, come on, Jake, get up."
Jake groaned faintly. But he sat up, and when he listed to the side, Jay was able to support him with his shoulder.
"That's my man."
"I broke your gun," Jake said in a wispy voice.
Jay couldn't hold himself back from smiling, and he didn't want to. "Hey, third time's the charm, right? Don't worry about it. I'm over that." I'm just glad you're safe.
Jake closed his eyes. "Oh, good. I—"
The gargling, sludgy sound of a jellymonger interrupted them, and Jay turned to face it. The one with capsule gunk on its nose had risen, and its countenance spoke of great dissatisfaction with its Halloween night. It lumbered toward them, and Jay grabbed for a piece of debris, anything, to throw, but he didn't need it after all, because the cat-weasel-slug simply dissolved into the ground. The screeching in the brewery ceased and that made a logical conclusion that every jellymonger had dissolved, still out there somewhere, still a threat, but not one that would be encroaching upon Jellyland any time soon.
Slow and steady, Jay's pulse leveled. Slow and steady, he got Jake comfortable again.
"Why do you do that?" asked Jake after some time.
"Do what?"
"Why do you look at me like that?"
"I don't know. I just do."
"You don't look at everyone like that."
"I know."
Jake was looking at him again. It felt like electricity and Jay felt all drawn up like something big was about to happen. It felt like the hum of home. This time, Jay didn't have a gun as a diversion.
It wasn't a long kiss at first. Jay was hesitant, and he pulled away. He smiled nervously. "For luck?"
Again, it was cliche and unoriginal, but there was light in Jake's eyes as he leaned in again, lips finding each other despite their smiles, and Jay felt so cared for, which maybe didn't make sense because Jake was the "man down" in this scenario, but with the closeness of it all, the feeling of Jake walling him in, nothing else existed.
All good things come to an end, though. Other things, other people, did exist, and Sunoo caught them, because it wasn't like they were in a secluded area. Jake's hand flew out from where it'd gone up Jay's shirt under his costume, and Jay nearly jumped out of his pants for a whole different reason.
"It's not what it looks like," Jake blurted. "I don't get off on spooking and detaining living creatures."
"The council and the owners are on their way," Sunoo said, ignoring him. "We're to stay during the investigation."
"Alright," Jay said. "Does it matter how awake we are?"
Sunoo shrugged. "Probably."
"Cool, cool." Though Jay was still wired with adrenaline, he was coming down from the high, and Jake as a pillow sounded like the best thing ever.
So that was what he did, and when the officials (as official as anything ever was in Jellyland) arrived, they found a young adult in—was that supposed to be a cake costume?—passed out on an equally passed out young adult in what was clearly a Captain America costume minus the shield and helmet. It wasn't the strangest thing in Jellyland.