Chapter Text
It was a cold, rainy and also an alone night in the cottage for Hummer. The faint earthy smell of both the rain and the salty ocean water filled through the cracks of the wooden planks, if it weren’t for the fireplace warming up the whole place he’d basically be freezing to death right now.
As much as he wanted to just lay down on his bed, snuggle into a warm cozy blanket while drinking herbal tea, he still needed to continue his research, Levi wouldn’t let someone who just laid back and waited for him to knock on their doors in anyway.
The whole room was a total mess, crumpled paper pieces and his book of records were scattered across the floor as he kept scribbling and tossing away ideas on papers. There was even a special place for the stained coffee mugs he’s too lazy to wash in the corner of the room, gathering dust, it’ll sure be hell to wash those. He lets out a loud groan and crumples up the paper sheet he was currently writing on and throws it away. The moment it hits the floor with a quiet plop, the sound of distant footsteps echo in the hallway with a steady rhythm and a figure emerges from the shadows of the room entrance.
Hummer instantly snaps out of his depressed state and stands up to greet his guest, “Wifies! Welcome, welcome! I’m sorry I woke you up and you had to come here at this rain, but I need to show you some stuff.”, he takes off Wifies’ soaking wet coat and hangs it on a chair near the fireplace.
Wifies lets out a brief laugh before answering, “I mean, I would’ve rather doing this in the morning without any rain, but if this thing’s that important I’m not saying anything. So you’re all good.”, he feels the warmth of wood crackling up in the fire.
Hummer leads him to his research room as grabbing all of his stuff from the table, “Don’t mind the mess please. I’d offer you something warm, but all of the mugs are dirty. And also I probably forgot to heat up water.”, he says as he kicks a giant stack of laundry off their way.
Wifies nods, not knowing what’s he agreeing to, “That’s alright, what are you even searching for though? I thought you already had a lot of records about The Lev-…Levi. What’s all this stuff for?”, he grabs a sheet of paper from the ground and tries to make sense of the messy lines. The words being all scribbled over doesn’t help at all.
Hummer stops, he doesn’t answer to that question and waits for a brief moment to think, “Y’know, this’ll probably sound weird, but…”, he chuckles bashfully, “After you reached out to me, I feel like- I feel like I could take this even way further, y’know what I mean? I suddenly feel like- like having someone by my side after all these months feels…great. Someone to share my faith with.”, he pauses hesitantly, “Is that weird?”
Wifies only stares at him with a blank expression as an answer.
“Y-yeah, sorry. That was weird.”
“No…No.”
Wifies comes closer to Hummer’s side and smiles, his hands awfully close to his, “No, it wasn’t weird. Not at all. I too think meeting you was an important part of my life. If there’s a one I want to do this with, it’s you.”, he looks away for a moment as if he’s ashamed, “But y’know…I thought you were crazy or something when we first met.”, he lets out a chuckle.
Hummer bursts out laughing at this, “What? In which way I look crazy? You’re just jealous because you’re not as handsome as me.”
Wifies cackles, “Dude, you know damn well you’re saying that while looking like a total disaster. You don’t even have a beige shirt, did you just stain all over your white ones?”
Hummer pauses, having nothing to say back, “…Okay. If you’re continuing that attitude you might aswell leave.”
Wifies snickers, “Fine, fine! Not my fault you suck at self care…”, he looks around the records room he’s been to before, just a little messier, “What were you gonna show me again?”, he asks while making sure he’s not stepping on anything important in the mess.
“Oh, oh! Hear this, I recorded it this morning.”, Hummer rushes over to a set of cassettes scattered on top of eachother. He checks their name tags one by one before finding the one he’s searching for, “This!”, he holds it out with pride, and proceeds to put it into a cassette player.
“What’s that?”, Wifies asks.
“Just listen dude.”, Hummer answers, and hits the play button.
With a buzzing click, the cassette starts playing. It just feels a little too noisy because of the quality, but it’s still clear enough to tell what’s going on. The sound of distant waves hitting the shore is clearly audiable, Wifies assumes that this was recorded right beside Hummer’s cottage judging by the ocean sounds. Everything sounds pretty much the same with what’s going on outside since it’s literally the same place, except the current waves are a lot stronger.
“I’m not hearing anythin weir-“
“Shh!!”
Wifies immediately closes his mouth and continues to listen. But still, all he can hear is just the ocean waves, and maybe a few other sea mobs. But that’s it. Maybe he has to be a little more patient.
And the cassette ends.
“Dude, nothing happened?”
“Exactly!”
“…What?”
Instead of elaborating further, Hummer scrambles over to his desk and shoves everything down with a loud thud. He pulls out a wrinkled piece of paper from his pocket and beckons Wifies to check it out.
“See, this is the interesting part! Y’know how I record audio logs every morning and night? Well obviously you know that, now get this!”, he pulls Wifies by his arms and unintentionally forces him to sit right next to him, “The morning I recorded this, I heard this high-pitched screech, almost like- almost like a scream…it- it was in my head…my heart!”, he laughs, “I suddenly had a rush of energy spiralling down my neck! Then I rushed over to listen to it again and- and there was nothing! L-look, I even drew what I felt!”, he shoves the paper in Wifies’s face.
It’s just messy lines of the colors black and blue mashed up with a sprinkle of gold. It almost looks like the modern paintings he sees at art exhibits.
They both freeze.
“…W-what. You’re sure you didn’t hit your head- or…had too much coffee?”
“I’on know man, does that matter?”
Wifies is concerned.
Like, really concerned.
“Dude…are you- uh…feeling okay?”, he asks, not quite sure which words he should use.
“Absolutely!”, Hummer states, which he’s clearly not.
Wifies shifts awkwardly in his place, his two-colored irises directly gazing at the glitching TV screen, reflecting the bright mash of colors in his irises, his face is expressionless, yet again clear as day. How does he even do that? Hummer was always so fascinated with him.
It feels like the moment froze right at that time with the both of them. The sudden rush of nonsensical blabbering seems to be over, but something else is wrong because Hummer can feel that his heart beat is clearly pounding even stronger from before, with a sharp pattern, thump thump, thump thump, thump thump. He’s not dying, which he’s hoping, but the way Wifies looks at him is not helping. His black and white crystal eyes shimmering with the moonlight feels like they’re purposely designed to captivate Hummer, so beautiful, yet so dangerous.
The moment his heart feels like it’ll burst out of his chest and melt into the ground, Wifies saves Hummer from the shackles he didn’t know he was trapped in.
“How much?”
“I- uh…w-what?”
“Didn’t you hear me? I asked how much coffee you’re drinking in a day. Are you sure you’re okay?”, Wifies asks and moves closer to him.
Hummer panics and lies, “Oh-! Uh… I don’t know…one- two?”, he sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
“Don’t lie to me.”, Wifies’ gaze immediately shifts into something that Hummer feels he’s being threatened.
He sighs and leans back as if he’s defeated, “Maybe-…six…or seven- or more. I’onknow…”, the last part comes out so muffled almost like a mumble Wifies barely hears it.
“Ah, that’s why.”, Wifies certainly doesn’t sound mad. But he also doesn’t sound like anything.
“W-huh? Why…what?”, Hummer is praying that he’ll be alive by the morning.
“Hummer…”, Wifies notices that Hummer stiffens in his place, “I’m worried for you. You’re not sleeping properly, you’re barely even eating and every time I come back here…you’re always on something…either doing researchs, or going through old records. You literally just described to me how you went through a caffeine psychosis this morning!”
“Oh. So that wasn’t…Levi…sending me…telephatic thoughts?”
“Yes! You’re sleep deprived man!”
Hummer only stares at his hands instead of giving an actual response, it was only a few seconds before he realized Wifies was holding one of them. His delicate touch gave a sense of warmth to Hummer, a thing he was missing for the past few days apparently. He’s too awkward to move because he’s afraid that he’ll lose this warm moment.
Luckily, Wifies isn’t willing to let go any soon either.
He shifts once more in his place, not like he’s uncomfortable with Hummer, but rather the opposite. He’s too comfortable. Too comfortable that he’s struggling to keep his eyes open.
A tiny tear drop falls slowly from his cheek as he yawns, “I think we can use a little break, wouldn’t you agree?”
Hummer pauses, could he really? He doesn’t have an answer for that, and he doesn’t need one, all he needs now is for this moment to last forever, and he’s pretty sure it will if he stays still for he can clearly see that Wifies is slowly drifting into sleep from the corner of his eye.
Suddenly, Wifies loses to sleep completely and falls forward, he was seconds away from smacking his forehead to the table and jolting in pain before Hummer caught him by his shoulders. He slowly settles Wifies back into his seat, careful not to wake him, but instead, Wifies just slumps against Hummer’s shoulder. He pauses for a moment, and without thinking lets his cold hands brush against his cheeks to take a look at his face in the moonlight, it feels like the world just froze and it’s just them. Hummer never thought he’d achieve something like this, he never did. He brushes against Wifies’ hair just to check he is in fact, real. He looks so peaceful.
Maybe he could use a little break after all.
Hummer releases a deep breath and settles in his comfortable seat, letting sleep take over the night.