Day 1: Jew (Jord/Yew) OTP, Ray/Yavi BROTP

Night at the Museum AU

Something, or someone must have gone wrong in this museum, because firstly, everything smelled weird (although Yew had been in museums before, and every single museum he had ever been to had a weird smell), but more importantly because he swore the dinosaur skeleton had just turned its head to look at him. Like he was a piece of meat, or something.

And then the dinosaur roared, and Yew decided that it didn't really matter if a skeleton could digest you, because you were going to get bitten in half anyway. Fuuuck.

Yew hadn't really wanted to take this job, but he had to prove like he was some semblance of a good role model instead of just fucking around all the time, because that's what adults were supposed to do, right? This whole night guard thing was starting to look like it wasn't the effort, though. And for a half-rate museum in the middle of the city (no one really cared about natural history anymore, right?), it sure wasn't worth the pay. And to top it all off, Marz, the asshole, hadn't left him with any instructions other than the darned instruction booklet which the dinosaur had almost ripped up. That said, the wax figure on the horse in the entrance hall was acting like Yew was his best friend, and so hey, maybe the novelty of the entire experience would trap him here. Yew blinked.

"So, remind me who you're supposed to be again?"

The wax (was he still wax?) man laughed heartily, exactly how caricatures of real people are wont to do, and lifted his sword. "I'm Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States! Don't you know your history, young man?"

Yew quirked an eyebrow. Whoever the fuck this guy was, he sure as fuck was not Teddy fucking Roosevelt. For one thing, he wasn't white. He was definitely some kind of Asian, probably Chinese or something. For another, he was pretty sure Roosevelt had had a moustache on him most days, and this guy was remarkably clean shaven. He pointed out these facts as thoughtfully and politely as you could to a wax figure, that is to say, he didn't.

Ambiguously-white-Roosevelt kind of blinked back at him. "Well, that's the name on the panel, so I guess that's me. Or that's supposed to be me. Who knows these days, really." He gestured vaguely at the display, Yew felt the tiniest pang of sympathy for the guy, who looked kind of crestfallen.

"Okay, well, look, we can uh. Give you another name? To differentiate you from… any other Teddy Roosevelt you might meet? Uhhh." Yew quickly scrolled through his mental list of names and kicked himself in an attempt not to say anything deeply embarrassing. "What about Jordan?" Ah. Yeah, that would work.

The wax figure nodded sagely. "Jordan it is." He sheathed his sword, and gracefully slid down from his horse. "Now, could you tell me how this 'Jordan' is supposed to behave, so that I can address my behaviour accordingly?"

Yew sighed. This was going to be a long night.

Unfortunately, Jordan did not appear to be the only poorly made wax figure in the museum, and Yew was genuinely starting to wonder if they all got shipped in bulk from some obscure Chinese factory. So he ran through the rooms with Jordan trailing behind him, doing his best to take stock of what was actually in this God forsaken museum.

The monkey wasn't a monkey. It was an orangutan, and Yew really didn't know why it had ever been labelled a monkey in the first place. In any case, its plaque helpfully informed him that its name was Zadi, and that it enjoyed being a librarian in its spare time. Yew also didn't know who had managed to create that fun titbit, but at least it was enjoying itself with the YA novels that he had dug out from under the information counter.

Then the Huns had kicked up a fuss, chasing him down the hallway in an attempt to rip him apart, because that was like, their thing. It was horrible. Jordan had to spend ten whole minutes talking the whole bunch down from ripping off his arms and legs, and they had only relented because Jordan said he had snacks or something.

Also, none of them seemed to be named like Huns. Like, wasn't there supposed to be an Attila or something? The leader here seemed to be called Syd, and apparently the other three were her kids or something. Jordan whispered to him afterwards that he had never really gotten why they had such inconsistent naming trends — one was apparently named Angel while the other two were Hazel and Darcy — despite the fact that Syd had spent the one night Marz had left his phone with her by accident freaking out over baby names. Yew just didn't get it.

Yew was also starting to get the sense that Marz and his bunch weren't that great at being security guards.

After that, the duo continued on their merry adventure through the museum and wandered into what was supposedly Sacagawea's room, but the wax figure there apparently preferred being called Mels. "Did Marz name like, everything in this museum completely differently from what it's actually supposed to be?" Yew muttered, and he caught Jordan wince out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, well, he thinks it gives us, uh, personality. Or something like that."

Jordan offered no further explanation on the subject, so Yew just kind of shrugged. If he didn't want to talk about it and just wanted to mope, there wasn't any real reason to pry.

As they headed down the hall to the miniatures room, they heard the dinosaur roar again, and Yew groaned, which made Jordan snort. "Look, that thing is going to eat me the moment I head downstairs."

Jordan laughed. "What? No, dude, Joan just loves playing games. She's basically like a dog or something. Throw her a bone or whatever. Like not one of hers, I mean like a doggy bone or whatever. Just so you know, though, her favourite game is the one where she chases two people into a room then sits in front of the door so they can't get out."

"That's what she considers fun?" Yew made a face. "Okay, I can't fault her, she's like a dinosaur and has 0 actual brain cells."

By this time, they're at the miniatures room, and Yew can hear the sounds of tiny sword fighting and gunpowder. This is going to be a trip, he just knows it.

The two head miniatures are a cowboy and a Roman general. The cowboy (Ray) speaks with the worst, fakest Wild Wild West accent he's ever heard, while the Roman (Yavien) has a really ahistorical, posh, European accent. Both appear to hate each other's guts, because that's the kind of thing that you argue over when your world is as small as you are.

"Dude, Yavien's been shooting fucking catapults into my side of the room!"

"Yeah, well, you wouldn't know technology if it hit you in the face. Like the catapults are meant to do. So there's no harm done, really. Anyway, you've been shooting at us since Day 1, and we always have to return the pellets because you guys have limited ammo, and—"

"Guys, guys, stop." Yew pinched the top of his nose bridge and pointed at Ray. "You, son, need to chill the fuck out. Also, who taught you the word fuck?"

"Marz!" Ray chirped. "He taught us lots of cool words, like aching, and back pain, and how to swear in two languages!"

"Only two languages?" Yavien made the most pretentious noise to ever emerge from a small wax figure. "I had a dream last night about travelling on the Silk Road, and it made me hit my L6 and L7 like a real linguist, thanks to the glory of my empire."

"Why you—" And the scuffle began once more. Yew sighed for the 45th time of the night, and picked up the two mini-figures and pulled them apart.

Ray groaned. "Look, Gigantor, you can't just do that whenever you want! How the hell am I supposed to prove that I'm the best cowboy in the whole of the Wild Wild West if you just keep exercising your huge, monster fingers like that?"

Yew set the two down on the floor. "Look, I personally don't care what you two do in here, just that I don't want any mess on the floor and I don't want to have to explain why there's Roman stuff in the cowboy exhibit. Or like, anywhere other than the Roman exhibit, really. So you guys have to chill, or I will personally come and place an army of alien Barbie dolls in here and they will become the supreme rulers of the miniatures."

Ray and Yavien took a moment to process this, before they both stared at each other in horror. "Aliens?" Yavien stared at Yew in horror. "Cowboys and aliens? I can't deal with this."

Jordan, having now caught onto Yew, nodded like he knew what he was doing. "Yeah, so either none or both. Now, shake hands. And find a goddamn common interest for once."

Yew snorted. "Yeah, like, I dunno. Something weird, that you've never done before. Like figure skating, or something."

"What the hell is figure skating?" Ray glanced at Yavien, who shrugged. This wasn't by any means her area of expertise. "Like, a type of bear or something?"

"I don't know, you guys go figure it out." Yew put his hands behind his head, and leaned back on the wall. "I'm sure you'll become best friends or something. lol."

It was 5am by the time Yew and Jordan trooped down the stairs. Unfortunately, they were only halfway down before Joan fucking bounded over to them. Yew sighed. Jordan, the motherfucker that he was, fucking laughed and approached because the guy apparently had no sense of self-preservation.

"Who's a good girl, who's a good girl!"

God, Yew hated this job already.

"Who's a good— wait, what are you doing? Wait, put me down—" The dinosaur had grabbed Jordan by the collar of his shirt and tossed him into a conveniently open closet. "Wait—"

Joan now turned back to look at Yew, and despite the fact that the dinosaur literally had no eyeballs, Yew swore that he could see a glint in her terrible, terrible eye. "Wait, no, don't—" He backed up the stairs, but to no avail as Joan picked him up and tossed him into the exact same closet, before sitting her ass down in front of the door.

"God damn it." Yew's limbs were all in awkward places, it was the first day of his job and really did he have time to be dealing with this right now? "Move, you fucking lizard! Lizard skeleton! What the fuck!"

"Yeah, she's not going to move." Jordan sighed, and thoughtfully shifted himself so that Yew would be in a more comfortable position. "We're gonna be stuck here for a while."

There was a weird sort of silence. Yew wondered if he could melt a wax figure by sitting next to him. "So, tell me about your life," Jordan began, poking him on what he thought was Yew's shoulder. It was, in fact, his face. "Sorry. But yes, tell me about your life. Where are you from. What are you doing. Do you have a wife? Do you have a husband? I'm not one to judge, people of all sorts come into the museum these days—"

"Look, could I just not talk about that right now? I mean, you're like, made of wax."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I don't have feelings."

There was some more weird silence. Yew could have sworn that the dinosaur was listening to them talk outside. "Okay, well. Sorry." He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. It was a good thing dead dinosaurs didn't slobber. "Uh, I'm Yew. I'm from California. I'm divorced, and my wife hates me while my son is disappointed in me. Okay, your turn." Yew did his best expectant look through the darkness of the closet.

Jordan laughed. "Yeah, well, I don't know who I am, really, remember? I'll just have to figure it out."

Yew thought about that for a moment. "Well, we have time now, I guess." He shifted his body to vaguely face the direction of Jordan's voice.

"Let's talk."

"You're coming back, right?"

Yew blinked at Jordan, who looked kind of nervous, even though he was sitting on top of his horse and everything. "I mean, I work here, so yeah I guess."

Jordan shifted awkwardly. "Yeah, well, you're like. Nicer than the previous bunch of guards, you know? And I just. I don't know. It's more comfortable with you around."

It was almost sunrise, and so Joan had thoughtfully let them out of her hostage situation. Two hours of cramping in the closet made everything sore, so in hindsight, Yew wasn't really surprised Marz had taught the miniatures about back pain. He snorted. "Yeah, well, someone has to watch out for you guys. I don't think that tablet is doing anybody any favours."

But he looks at Jordan, who's still waiting for a real answer, and relaxes slightly. "Yeah, I'll be back." Jordan nods, and settles himself properly on his horse.

Yew watched as the sunlight streamed into the room, and Jordan slowly froze. God, he sure hoped everything upstairs was back where it was supposed to be.

Something's definitely different about the room's demeanour from when he first entered, though, and he can't quite figure out what it is. Yew glances around, and he stops back at Jordan.

The figure had looked proud when he first came in, an over-exaggerated act, maybe of someone that he wasn't supposed to be. Now, a gentle smile had spread across his face, and it glinted softly in the morning sunlight.

Some spicy outtakes:

- I was thinking about who to make the Easter Island Moai and no one really seemed to fit but the idea of 'N N' instead of 'Gum Gum' and 'O O' instead of 'Dum Dum' kind of makes me laugh.

- AU where Ray instead of being a cowboy is just Lightning McQueen. That is all, thank you for your time.

Anyway, welcome to Shipping Week 2019! Insert confetti, insert canned laughter, I can't believe we're all still here writing these things. I'm your host Joan (as is apparently) and I am a dinosaur. Also, I will be attempting the AU challenge this week because that's a thing still. I was trying to explain to my friend how this Shipping Week thing is really just one long meme and she was kind of like, huh, and I was like, yeah, same.

Anyway, this was meant to be a shitpost, but it's 2344 words long. In the words of Yew, 'lol', and I hope the next day's ones don't turn out like this because some of us have to actually go for class. Thank you for your time and I will see you tomorrow.