A/N: I'm back! Very briefly, with just about the shortest story you've ever seen for this fandom. As before, see end of story for inspiration and notes, except this: as I'm sure everyone remembers (how could we possibly forget), MCSM is tailored to the choices you make. My Jesse will read a little or a lot different from yours, depending on the way you do your story. Please enjoy another (very) brief look into the way I do mine.
Standard disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own these characters. Everything belongs to Telltale Games and Mojang.
MINECRAFT: STORY MODE
Bedtime
"Radar? Ra-dar!"
Jesse's voice echoed through the west wing of the Order Hall, which was empty at this time of night except for herself, the parrots, and her intern of three months and sixteen days, but who was counting. The only trouble was, at this time of night, it should also have been empty of said intern.
"I swear, if I find you tabbed out at your desk again—" she muttered to the non-present intern, pacing down the hall toward her office. Sure enough, when she pushed open the doors, the little guy was lying across his desk with his head on his arms, papers scattered across the surface.
Jesse sighed. For some reason, she was always so hesitant to wake him when he was like this.
She looked around at the office, and started tidying up her own desk, careful not to disturb him.
It wasn't large or showy, like Hadrian's had been. Jesse's office was less than half that size, most of its space taken up by a dark oak desk that she only ever sat behind to do paperwork. If anyone was visiting, she usually sat on the desk to talk, or leaned against it.
Radar's desk was smaller and made of birch wood, and it stood to the immediate right of Jesse's and perpendicular to it, so that he faced her. She'd added it in the past few months after she realized he'd need a space of his own to work.
After sorting out a stack of papers and rearranging her books twice, Jesse finally moved over to Radar. She set a hand on his shoulder and gave him a gentle shake.
"Mm?" Radar mumbled incoherently. "What day is it…"
"Probably tomorrow, by now," said Jesse, eyeing the clock in an item frame over the door. "Come on, buddy, up you get. Bedtime."
"I go home when you go home…," said Radar, lifting his head and rubbing his eyes.
"I am home," Jesse reminded him. "You go home when I say you go home, which is usually before the moon starts to go down again. Come on," she repeated, reaching under his shoulders and lifting him reluctantly out of his seat.
He made a weak noise of protest that almost dissolved Jesse's nerve.
"You'll thank me in the morning," she insisted, finally getting him to stand on his own feet. She wrapped his shoulders firmly in one arm, and marched him half asleep out of the office, down the stairs, and out the doors.
The night breeze was chilly as they crossed the western bridge back into town. Radar shivered, and Jesse pulled him a little tighter to her, rubbing his shoulder absently.
She led him on as direct a path as possible, almost diagonally, across town toward the Aquatic District, where he had his apartment. They were almost there, crossing a lesser-traveled street, not far from a building dressed up to look like a ship when someone called a greeting.
"Evening, Jesse," they said. A man's voice. "You're out late."
In the darkness and the glare of the street lamp almost directly over her head, Jesse couldn't make out the resident's face, but she smiled and nodded, a little tiredly, all the same.
"So are you," she said. "Just walking this one home."
"Isn't that—"
"The second time this week?" Jesse nodded. "Yep."
The man chuckled.
"Well, anyway, have a good night, Jesse," he said, and she saw his silhouette give a loose salute. "What's left of it, at least."
"You too," Jesse nodded, and they parted ways, Jesse feeling perhaps a little less tired than before.
Inside the large, blue-green apartment building beneath the giant whale, Jesse led Radar up through a zipper-style water elevator to the second-to-last floor, and into his studio apartment.
Radar sighed and flopped down on his bed immediately. Jesse smiled slightly.
"Attaboy," she said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed beside him. She rubbed his back absently while she looked around.
It was a small affair, certainly more so than her bedroom in the east wing of the Order Hall, but it had an element of familiarity to it, in being full of bookcases and chests, and posters depicting the Order of the Stone. Jesse spotted one of her own almost immediately—a white poster with an iron pickaxe, hung right across the room from the bed. She could tell he'd deliberately placed it so that it would be the first thing he saw every morning.
In the past several weeks she'd visited this apartment multiple times, often to do exactly as she was doing now—put Radar to bed.
"You need to start going home at an acceptable hour," Jesse insisted.
Radar, face down in the bed behind her, made a muffled, affirmative hum which meant she'd be back here doing the same thing three nights from now.
"I'm serious," she said. "That's the end of this, Radar. You go home no later than two hours past sundown. You hear me?"
At that, Radar lifted his head enough to speak and turned to look back at her.
"What if—"
"No exceptions."
The expression on Radar's face made her heart melt.
"Come on, buddy," she said in a softer tone. "I promise I can last without you for eight hours. You need a decent night's sleep, Radar."
Radar didn't meet her eyes, but reluctantly, he nodded.
"Yes, Boss," he said in a voice even smaller than he was.
Jesse smiled, patting his shoulder. Then she stood up, and threw his blanket over him.
"Night, Jesse," said Radar, voice once again muffled by his bed.
Jesse, half out the door, peeked back in and smiled at the lump on the bed.
"Good night, Radar."
The next morning, Radar was in to work a little bit later than his usual compulsive punctuality would allow. Jesse didn't mention it.
And, if there was an extra cookie waiting in the kitchen for his lunch break from then on, then, well, Jesse didn't mention that, either.
A/N: *useless gushing about Radar* So, this story comes from that (literally) transformative moment in episode 3 where Radar decides to make the most of his time in the slammer. One of his new "rebellious" initiatives, he says, is to "Disregard my bedtime!" because he has a bedtime, apparently, and on learning that I immediately knew what I had to do. Also, anyone here that's old enough to recognize Radar's "The West Wing" reference is a saint.
I swear I can write things besides Radar and Jesse. I swear. I'll prove it! My next story will likely be "Spawn," where I take an in-depth look at how people come into the world of Minecraft: Story Mode. As before, (please) let me know what you thought in the reviews.
Happy crafting, may your base be creeper-free, etc., etc.. Peace!