Work Text:
Scar looks left, then right, before he rolls across white stripes and up onto a proper walkway. A car honks somewhere behind him, the sound reverberating around the carpark and nearly making him jump out of his skin.
He comes to a stop just outside of the entrance, hovering in the empty space beside a trolley collection. The blue and yellow sign was jarringly saturated against the modern white walls, but seeing it just made everything feel so much more real. That this was all actually happening.
That him and Mumbo, his Mumbo, were finally moving in together; that they would be living together, side by side in their own home with their own decorations and their own furniture, each with their own room with their own space to get away.
Excitement builds in his chest, coiling around his heart and making it beat faster with anticipation.
“Scar?”
He drags his eyes from the door and turns to his companion. Mumbo was gazing down at him with a gently, his dark-brown eyes filled with love and sparkling with their own enthusiasm. He wore his classic black vest and a long sleeve white button-up, black pants and a pair of boots bearing the scuff marks of frequent use. His hair was freshly cut, sitting just above his shoulders with a few curls dangling over his forehead.
He was frustratingly gorgeous.
Mumbo reaches a hand towards Scar, his pale skin decorated with light freckles and the occasional cat scratch. Scar smiles at the faint tan line where his leather gloves would usually reach, left behind for this occasion.
“Scarrr?” he calls again, tapping Scar’s wrist and frowning at him.
“Sorry Mumbo. I was admiring how pretty you are,” Scar grins, a soft laugh escaping him as his partner’s cheeks grow red. “We can go in now, sweet potato,” he says, rolling forward.
“R-right,” Mumbo replies, his stuttering prompting another chuckle from Scar.
The automatic glass doors welcome them into the building with a hiss and signage on the ground guides them towards the lift. Scar presses the button and, soon enough, the metal pulls apart and they step inside, the platform creaking beneath them. The lift rumbles and they move upwards.
Scar fiddles with the folder in his lap, the paper inside covered in sketches and lists of things they’d be ideally be leaving with. He’d spent hours planning each room and researching online to find exactly what they needed.
Living with his parents, most of the things he would want to take weren’t actually his, with the exception of his bed, meaning that he had to buy a lot of stuff. Mumbo had the same problem, moving from a small apartment he’d been sharing with Grian for the last few years meant he could only take his belongings and the coffee table, for whatever reason.
The doors open and the pair step – or roll, in Scar’s case – out of the lift, moving towards the start of the iconic loop. They’d arrived relatively early, around half-past nine, so the store wasn’t too busy, a plus for Scar considering that crowds with a mission were difficult to navigate.
“Want one?” Mumbo asks, holding out a pencil and small piece of paper.
“Sure, thank you,” Scar says, taking it from his hand and tucking them into the folder for safekeeping. “Could you grab a trolley?”
Mumbo spins around for a moment before spotting the carts and reaching them in four quick strides. He turns back to Scar with a grin and settles back at his side as they enter the maze.
The first area was dedicated to living rooms, from which they didn’t need all that much other than a couch. Regardless, Scar immediately makes a beeline for one of the displays. That’s where something catches his eye.
“Mumbo!” he calls over his shoulder, reaching for a plushie sitting on a light grey couch. “Look, look! It looks like Jellie, right?”
“I see it,” Mumbo hums, patting the grey and white cat’s head.
“We need to buy her, Mumbo,” Scar says, staring at his partner and putting on his best puppy-dog eyes. “She’s a necessity.”
“Scar, we didn’t even make it through the first section,” he huffs and crosses his arms, though his smiles gives away his amusement. “We can get her in the kid’s area.”
“But we could get her now,” Scar counters, holding the plushie close to his chest.
“That’s a display one.”
“So?”
“Scar.”
“But Mumbooo! The kid’s area is literally at the very end. I will die without her,” he exclaims, dramatically leaning back and splaying his hand across his forehead.
“You’ll be fine,” Mumbo laughs, stepping away from the display and moving back onto the dedicated pathway to reclaim their empty trolley.
“You hate me,” Scar sighs, following him out of the cramped room.
“You know I don’t. What about that one?” Mumbo asks, quickly distracting Scar from his misery and pointing towards a mossy green corduroy couch in a display a few doors down. “We wanted green, right?”
“Mhm,” Scar hums, rolling into the exhibit and carefully inspecting the couch. The rest of the room complimented it well, though it was too modern for Scar’s liking and there was an explicit lack of plants. But, he must admit, it was a damn nice couch; a soft, subtle green that would blend well with Mumbo’s monsteras and would be easy enough to find colour matches for. “I like it. Could you read out the code, love?” he asks, pulling out his pencil and paper.
“Err- four nine four… eight five one… two eight,” Mumbo reads, crouching down to reach the tag. “Got it?”
“Yes, thank you,” he replies, writing ‘couch’ beside the numbers and stifling a laugh as Mumbo hauls himself up with a grunt.
They move on, following the path and pointing out various items of interest.
“Scar, do we need shelving?” Mumbo asks, gesturing towards a classic cubic bookshelf.
“We do. I want to get a five by five, I think. It’d go behind the couch,” he says, stopping beside the unit Mumbo had pointed out. It was only a two by five. “We’ll keep an eye out for a bigger one, though it’ll probably be better to buy one second-hand.”
Mumbo nods by his side, his partner leaning on the handlebars of his trolley and tapping his fingers to the quiet pop music. Scar takes a moment to appreciate the sharp lighting against his jawline and the wonders it was doing to accentuate his dark hair.
As he goes to roll forward again, Mumbo passes him in a swift motion, holding himself up with his feet dangling above the floor.
“Mumbo!” Scar laughs, watching him drift the trolley and put his feet down to brake for an upcoming corner. “This isn’t a racetrack!”
“Who said that?” Mumbo grins, raising himself off the ground again and sticking his tongue out at Scar as he approaches.
“Just don’t crash into anyone,” Scar sighs as Mumbo takes off again.
Someone steps out from a display and Mumbo’s feet are rapidly pressed to the floor, skittering across the smooth tile as he comes to a messy stop. Rolling closer, Scar giggles as Mumbo apologizes to the lady, turning to him with a sheepish smile.
“What did I just say?” he chuckles, poking Mumbo’s side and laughing harder when he squeaks in response.
“Okay- well, I didn’t crash,” Mumbo retorts, side-stepping Scar’s outstretched arm.
“Right. You just almost crashed.”
“Exactly!” he exclaims, holding his head up high.
Scar rolls his eyes and leads the way into the next section; dining room. They already had a table that Grian had generously let Mumbo take, but they still needed chairs. Much like the shelving though, Scar’s brief but thorough research had determined that dining chairs were often sold second-hand at much cheaper prices, so they move on without interruption.
They wander into an open kitchen display and Scar hums under his breath in approval at the pale colours and wooden features that made the space stand out, at least in comparison to the plain whites and shiny metals of the surrounding area. Their house already had a kitchen unit, so there wasn’t much for the pair to look for beside some helpful accessories; a drying rack for dishes, a wooden chopping board and a couple sealing clips.
The next section was very important: the bedroom. Mumbo needed a bed frame – a friend of theirs had already sold him a spare mattress – and both of them needed bedside tables, or something of the sort at least.
“What size bed did’ya have?” Scar asks, moving past the rows of single beds. He already knew they were too small for Mumbo.
“I think it was either a double or a queen?”
“Queen’ll probably fit you better,” he replies, slowing down and letting Mumbo move ahead of him. “Your pick, angel.”
Mumbo glances at him with an air of hesitance but, when Scar gives him a sweet nod and smile, he begins scanning over the display beds. Parking the trolley out of the way, he wanders into one of the display rooms. A few moments later, he peeks around the corner and gestures for Scar to come over.
“I like this feature wall,” Mumbo says as Scar rolls into the room, smiling at him before sitting down the bed and gazing around the space. “The bed frame is nice too… but I’d probably get a black one.”
The frame was pure white and sat a solid forty or so centimetres off the ground with two hidden drawers underneath, perfect for the amount of stuff Mumbo had.
“We’ll write it down,” Scar grins, pulling out his pencil and scratching down the code as his companion reads it aloud. “Should I note down the feature wall too?” he asks, squinting at the blue paint. He’d say it was cerulean.
“Yes please. I’d also like these bedside tables, just in black…,” he says, turning one of the tags towards Scar. “Would you like ‘em for your room?”
Scar drags his gaze from the paper and examines the furniture beside the bed. They were white and blocky, hosting modern, seamless drawers.
“Not... particularly,” he replies, thinking back to the list he’d pre-prepared. “I think I know what ones I want, just haven’t seen them yet.”
“Let’s try find them then,” Mumbo says as he stands up, following Scar out of the room. “Do you know what they look like?”
“Somewhat? They’re kinda like…,” Scar trails off as his eyes catch on a display out in the open. “Lookie here!”
“Are they the ones?” his companion calls as Scar excitedly rolls over to the tables.
“Yup! Speak of the things and they’ll appear,” he chuckles, reaching for the tag and writing it down.
The bedside tables were a pale wood – Scar swears it said birch on the website – with a small knob to open a single drawer and an empty space underneath. Although a little lighter than the other furniture planned for his room, they would contrast nicely with his dark, kind-of-orange wooden bedframe.
“Very good. Storage next?”
They spent a long time in the following section, Mumbo stuck deciding between getting a chest of drawers or a wardrobe. Eventually, he settled on a black wardrobe with sliding doors, the dimensions – according to him – perfect for the corner of his room just beside his door. Scar’s bedroom, being the larger of the two, already featured a built-in closet and he had plans to purchase a shelving unit for everything else, so they moved on quickly.
They lingered in the next area for a moment, but ultimately, the shared bathroom of the house was pretty much done aside from general decorations, so they walked through in record time.
The following section, however, was perhaps the most exciting to the pair: work stuff. Desks were critical components of both Scar’s art career and whatever Mumbo did with data, not to mention his photography gig on the side.
“Ooh, Mumbo, look at this one!” Scar says, pointing towards a simple wooden desk. It was tinted orange with an additional ledge that sat a good few centimetres higher than the rest of the desk. Scar had been looking for something exactly like this, the shelf allowing him to raise his monitors and simultaneously tuck his paints and pens out of the way. Perfect.
“Is it big enough?” Mumbo asks, squinting at it and sizing it up with outstretched arms. “Surely you need more space for canvases?”
“That is why, dear Mumbo,” he starts, dramatically swinging his hands and gesturing towards a display a few metres away. “I’ll buy an easel.”
Mumbo blinks at him for a moment before following his gaze to a half-study, half-playroom display.
“Scar… that’s a child’s easel.”
“Not that one, silly!” Scar laughs, copying down the numbers for the desk. “Somewhere else’ll have one. A proper one.”
“That makes more sense,” Mumbo huffs, helping to angle the tag towards Scar. “Though… that one is around your height level.”
“Mumbo!” he gasps in mock-offense, splaying a hand across his chest. “How rude! And how completely wrong! It’s shorter than me, and I’m sitting!” Scar laughs, lightly elbowing his partner in the side.
Mumbo laughs, taking a few steps back and pulling the trolley in front of him in defence. He starts walking backwards as Scar rolls forward, the pair’s chuckling echoing around the space. Their shared giggles melt away as Mumbo turns back around and takes up his spot by Scar’s side, resuming their quiet, comfortable silence.
Of course, the silence never lasted long between them.
“Jellie!” Scar exclaims, his voice peaking as he quickens his pace, stopping beside the crates of plushies. “A-hah! I found you! I’m sorry it took so long, meanie Mumbo wouldn’t let me take the display one…,” he pouts.
“Hey!” Mumbo squeaks, staring down at Scar with a grumpy expression, though his lips faintly twitch and his rolling eyes are filled with affection.
“Isn’t she cuuuute!” he grins, waving the cat plushie at Mumbo.
“She’s very cute,” Mumbo smiles, taking her out of Scar’s hands and patting her slowly. “I think she needs a friend though…,” he says with a finger tap to his chin.
Scar’s ear-to-ear grin falls as Mumbo reaches for a whale plushie and tucks Jellie into its open mouth.
“Nooo! Jellie!” Scar laughs, reaching towards the gruesome scene in Mumbo’s arms.
“Gosh- Jellie! How’d you get into this situation?!” Mumbo tuts, swinging the plushies out of Scar’s reach. “Deary me, she’s really stuck!” he says, pulling on one of the cat’s legs as if it was trapped within the whale’s jaws.
“Mumboooo!”
“Scar, I can’t get her out!” Mumbo grins and Scar raises an eyebrow at him. “I think we’ll need to take the whale home and, like, surgically extract her or something.”
“If you wanted the whale you could’ve just said that!” Scar exclaims, his words tangled with laughter. “Didn’t have to make it eat my Jellie!”
“Where’s the fun in asking?” Mumbo sticks his tongue at him, extracting Jellie from her near-demise and tucking her carefully beside Scar’s thigh. He moves back and gestures over his shoulder, swiftly changing topics. “Do we want to go to the restaurant?”
“I’m not particularly hungry,” Scar hums, patting Jellie and supressing a giggle as Mumbo tucks the whale under his arm despite there being space in the trolley.
“Me neither. Market hall time?”
The pair move through the rest of the children’s area and head to the lower floor via the lift. These areas were, as far as Scar knew, mostly filled with decorations and objects that, at most, provided mild additional convenience. By the time they reached the entrance to the self-serve area, their trolley had adopted pale-green dinnerware, cutlery, a green rug for the living room and an orange one for Scar’s room, alongside various photo frames, hanging leaves, candles and a set of cute decorative pillows for the couch.
The self-serve warehouse was almost a breath of fresh air by the time they entered it. ‘Almost’ only because it smelt like a factory. Shelves stretched as high as the ceiling, stacked with the hundreds of furniture options they’d seen in earlier displays.
Mumbo stopped as they entered the warehouse, manoeuvring the trolley into a nook and out of the way. Briefly confused, Scar watches patiently as he begins packing all their smaller purchases into a bag he’d brought with him.
That was one of many things Scar loved about Mumbo. He was incredibly organized in the simplest of ways, always bringing reusable bags so they wouldn’t have to buy new ones, planning routes before they left as to not waste time, bringing small clips with them on picnic to stop close snack bags.
Makes up for his inability to reply to messages! Scar thinks, chuckling to himself as Mumbo grabs one of the larger, flat trolleys and transfers over the rugs.
Off they go again, this time with Scar leading the way as he reads over the numbers in his lap, scanning the shelves and triple-checking before heading down the appropriate rows. A few grunts from Mumbo later and the trolley was stacked with cardboard boxes containing bedside tables and desks and everything else they’d written down.
“Oof,” Mumbo huffs, laying a particularly heavy box onto the top of the stack. “Where next, Scar?”
“I think we might be done Mumbolio,” he hums, reading over the list once more before tucking it back into his folder.
“Finally!” Mumbo replies, dramatically wiping a non-existent bead of sweat from his forehead. “Check out time?”
“Mhm!” Scar smiles.
They join the short line for the self-checkout machines, Scar making polite conversation with the couple in front of them. When it’s their turn, Mumbo scans in all the furniture and Scar lines up all their other purchases, making the process just a little more efficient. With everything back in bags and stacked on the trolley, they move towards the exit.
“I’ll grab the car and meet you back here, yeah?” Mumbo asks as he brings the trolley to a stop by the customer loading zone, leaning it against the poles.
“See you soon!” Scar says with a mock-salute, smiling sweetly as Mumbo quickly walks away.
He shifts Jellie into his lap and watches Mumbo like a hawk until he was out of sight.
Despite the dent in both their bank accounts, there was a bubbling warmth in Scar’s chest; excited to get back and start decorating their home, and to simply spend time with his partner. He had only visited once to dump all of his belongings, and Mumbo had already spent a night, but the next step was properly moving in and making the place their own.
Scar had dreamed of living with someone for a long time, and for a long time he’d suspected it would be a close friend of his, like Scott or Grian. But living with Mumbo – his crush for what had felt like decades – had seemed so far stretched to him that his mind hadn’t even bothered to bring up the possibility in his past dreams.
Now, he was waiting patiently in the carpark of a superstore for Mumbo, a trolley full of furnishings for their shared house at his side.
And, as if his life could get any better, Scar had finally gathered the confidence to take everything one step further. Not asking him to move in or take him on a fancy date, not kissing him silly at every opportunity or showing him off to their friends; no, his master plan involved a loop of shiny silver in his bedroom.
A car reverses into the spot in front of Scar, snapping him out of his thoughts. He watches as Mumbo climbs out and opens the boot, shooting him a quick thumbs-up before starting the lengthy process of loading everything in with huffs and grunts.
Scar watches with the occasional word of encouragement until Mumbo turns to him with his hands on his hips.
“Your turn!”
“Hey!” Scar laughs, handing the items in his lap – with the exception of Jellie – to Mumbo.
He rolls around to the passenger side and Mumbo helps him into his seat. As Scar settles with Jellie sitting pretty on the dash, Mumbo lifts one of his hands and places a chaste kiss on his tanned skin.
Scar chuckles as Mumbo shuts the car door, moving to put his wheelchair in the boot before hopping into his own seat and starting the car. The engine grumbles and they pull out from the carpark.
Conversation during the drive was limited, Mumbo focused on the road and seemingly a little fidgety, whilst Scar was distracted by his overwhelming excitement to get home.
He was a little nervous, sure, but the pair had been together for a while now and were soon to be living together – there were few worlds where his partner would say no.
Scar spent the rest of the ride staring out the window, mentally planning out what he would say and how he would say it, and soon enough, they were home.
Mumbo retrieved Scar’s wheelchair and helped him back in before handing over the house keys and the highly important Jellie plush.
“I’m gonna start moving stuff into the garage,” Mumbo says as he opens the roller door with the press of a button. “I shouldn’t be long.”
“Alrighty! Do we have any plans for dinner?” Scar asks, knowing that the answer from Mumbo’s perspective was a ‘no’.
“Err- no, there’s nothing in the fridge… sorry-“
“Don’t be sorry! I’ll find something,” Scar smiles.
Mumbo blinks at him for a moment before returning the smile, turning back to the car as Scar rolls towards the front door.
Little did Mumbo know, Scar had brought a number of ingredients to the house alongside his other belongings with the intention of cooking up some nice steaks. He opens the door and rolls inside, thankful for the small ramp Mumbo had installed that helped him over the bump of the doorway.
The house was so, so empty. His wheelchair echoed around the combined living room and kitchen, and he couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of the solitary coffee table.
Scar moves into the kitchen and starts pulling items from the fridge, laying them out neatly on the kitchen island. His dinner plans were nothing special, just steak and some vegetables, but he got to work straight away, seasoning and preparing the meat and turning on the stove. Putting the vegetables on to steam, he gently places the steaks onto a grill pan over low heat.
Leaning back in his chair, he watches steam curl and rise upwards as they sizzle.
It’s then that Scar catches sight of his outfit in the glass door of the oven. He was wearing a casual button-up and cargos – utterly unacceptable for the upcoming moment.
He panics for a split second. Mumbo wouldn’t say yes when I’m wearing this! His eyes flick around the space before landing on the door to his own bedroom.
Oh.
I live here now – all my stuff is here.
Scar stares blankly for a second, letting out a rough laugh and running his hands through his hair. The nerves were making him a little silly.
He rolls over to his new room and starts pulling clothes from boxes, keeping an ear out for both Mumbo and the steaks. Picking out a new mossy green button-up – one that’s intentionally cut a little lower – and a nicer pair of pants, he gets quickly gets changed. As a final touch, he messes up his hair and switches his silver earring for a gold one. He also slips a small box into his pocket.
Scar gives himself a once over via his phone camera, deeming himself sufficiently attractive enough to get back to making dinner.
The steaks were still cooking but the steamed vegetables were pretty much done according to Scar’s expertise, so he takes them off and drains the excess water.
He’s so focused on preparing their meal that he doesn’t notice the door to the garage opening, nor the footsteps coming down the hallway.
“Woahh!”
Scar lets out an incredibly manly shriek and whips around, holding a spatula out like a weapon. Mumbo stands there, unable to hold back a laugh at Scar’s reaction.
“It’s just me!” he chuckles, waving his hands around to prove his innocence.
“You can’t creep up on a man like that!” Scar exclaims, crossing his arms with a playfully furrowed brow.
“Sorry, sorry. What’re you makin’?”
Mumbo walks around the counter and Scar lets his gaze travel over at him. He does a double take once he realises that Mumbo’s outfit had changed. It was similar enough, but small chains now decorated his vest and his white button-up was shorter and tighter, lightly outlining his muscles. His pants were less casual and appeared to be smoother as if they were freshly ironed, and they were adorned with their own decorative chains.
“I made us steak. Outfit change?” Scar questions.
“I could ask the same thing,” Mumbo replies with his arms crossed and a confused expression on his face. “I wanted to be more comfortable.”
Scar doesn’t think this outfit looked any more comfortable than the previous.
“I just felt like changing?” he offers, shrugging it off and turning back to their steaks.
They were perfectly cooked now and he quickly grabbed some plates, moving over the meat and vegetables and arranging them nicely.
“Where’d you get the steak from?” Mumbo asks as Scar gestures for him to grab his plate.
“Brought it here with all my other stuff,” he explains, taking his own plate and moving over to... oh wait, there’s no dining room yet.
He glances over at Mumbo who seemingly read his mind, angling his head towards the coffee table.
“We can eat there? I’ll just sit on the floor.”
Scar was about to ask if his partner was sure, but Mumbo had already sat down, kindly smiling at him. He rolls up to the short table with a sigh.
They eat together in content silence, Scar looking over at Mumbo every now and again. The man seemed more fidgety than usual, drumming his fingers on his knife and avoiding eye contact more than normal. Scar blamed it on him moving in nerves.
It wasn’t until Scar finished and set his plate down on the table that Mumbo raised his head and they locked eyes.
“Scar, I really like you.”
“…I like you too Mumbo! Where’s this coming from?”
“I- er, I just want to ask…,” the other starts, readjusting his position and digging for something in his pant pocket. He looked even more nervous now.
It was as Mumbo shifted to kneel and presented a box to Scar with shaky hands, that Scar processed the situation.
“Wha- Mumbo!” Scar gasps, trying to drag his own box from his pants. “Are you- are you about to ask what I think you’re goin’ to ask?”
“Maybe? I- god, Scar, I’m so sorry. I’m rushing things aren’t I? I-“
“No, no, no, Mumbo it’s not- you’re not-,” Scar replies with a giggle. “It’s just that-“ he stops speaking as he manages to grab the box and hold it out towards Mumbo. “I wanted to ask the same thing!”
“…what?!” Mumbo squeaks, his gaze flicking between the items in their palms.
Scar breaks and starts laughing, folding over in his chair and wrapping his arms around his middle. Mumbo follows suit, running a hand through his hair and chuckling until they were both gasping for air.
“I can’t believe- on the same night, really?!” Scar huffs, grinning at Mumbo when his pretty brown eyes meet his own.
“Oh my days, we’re so stupid,” Mumbo smiles, quickly pulling himself up, circling the coffee table and wrapping his arms around Scar in a loving embrace.
They hold each other for a moment with heavy breathing, squeezing one another tightly.
“Is it a yes though?” Scar whispers, missing Mumbo’s warmth as he briefly pulls away.
“Scar- of course it’s a yes! Why wouldn’t it be a yes?!” he says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, hands moving to gently cup Scar’s cheeks.
“It’s a yes from me too, by the way,” Scar laughs, blinking lovingly up at his beloved.
Mumbo leans forward and rests his forehead against Scar’s, eyes flicking across his face.
“I love you, Scar.”
“Love you too, Mumbo.