Otto was hovering over his paperwork for hours. None of the words made sense, the 1st Herrscher was occupying his mind so hard it felt like he could go insane at any given moment. He wanted—no, he desperately needed to interact with the man. He just had to, or this wasn't going to end well.
Then the bright idea hit him like a brick.
His beloved Welt was supposed to pick that Finn's kid up. Some inconvenience, they had said. Everyone was too busy to pick him up, Welt was the only reliable option.
He quickly got up, leaving his work unfinished. He could just finish it later anyways. This was far more important. He finally felt a surge of excitement rush through his veins as he almost ran outside of his office, leaving very confused Amber behind while moving to his destination.
How he learned the kids school was unimportant but when he saw Joachim waiting outside of his school building, he knew he had hit the lottery. Originally, he had planned to make it seem like a coincidence. He was totally just walking through and after seeing Joyce during pick up he wanted to spark a friendly conversation with the man. But this changed everything, and he had a brighter idea. He walked up next to Joachim and put on his best smiling face while kneeling to his level.
Joachim didn't even acknowledged him at first and kept looking to the road but after seeing Otto was still staring at him, he decided to speak.
"Well we can change that! I'm a close friend of Welt, Otto!"
Joachim side-eyed him while taking a step left to open the distance between them
"Like I said, I'm a really close friend of Welt! He is sadly a little late and he didn't want to leave you hanging here! So he sent me to pick you up—but worry not, he's going to join us later!"
Otto said to the little kid who looked at him timidly. Smart kid, he would've thought at any other moment, but right now, it was annoying him. Just accept it, damn kid
Joachim raised an eyebrow at that, almost like he could read his actual thoughts and clutched his bag even tighter. Otto was still knelt right in front of him, fighting the urge to get up and just grab the kid. But no, he needed to play cool if he wanted to have any chance with the 1st Herrscher.
"Big sister Tesla always says do not trust strangers."
"But I'm no stranger, am I? Your big sis works for me, and I'm pals with Welt! Also, I promise to get you ice cream while we wait for him!"
Joachim's demeanor changed with that, looking more willing to come. Even though he was a smart kid, he was still just a child, easily convincible when offered delights. His grip on his backpack loosened up and he looked Otto in the eye intensely, almost as if he was trying to understand if he was lying or not.
This was going to be good, Otto thought as he held the kids hand to make sure he didn't actually lose the child and made his relationship with Welt even worse.
Meanwhile, Joyce was having an internal crisis about his future, because Tesla was going to kill him. She was going to murder him and dump what was left of him to the sea. Or worse, bring him back to life just to kill him again.
He was late to pick up Joachim. His only important job of the day since everyone was busy. And he, with all of his stupidity, was so distracted by a book Einstein gave him that he didn't notice the time! He was running down the last slope to Joachim's school in an absolute hurry, wishing the kid wasn't scared or anything.
He cried out as he slided a bit after stopping. If Joachim was sad or worse, scared, he was officially gone.
When he opened his eyes, however, nobody was waiting at the pick up area. It was completely empty other than a cat laying on the ground. Welt felt like even the animal was judging him and his poor life choices.
"J-joachim, if you're hiding it's not funny!"
He yelled out to the empty field before him, waiting for Joachim to come out of somewhere. Behind a bush, a building, maybe a car. Anything would work as long as Joachim was unharmed. He was feeling like he was going through a heart attack while still holding onto the hope of Joachim just playing a prank on him, that's what kids do right?
If his phone hadn't buzzed for over 20 times, he wouldn't have been separated from his thoughts. At first, he thought it was Tesla calling to check on them, his mind racing as to how he was going to explain this. But when he opened it, the name that popped up wasn't Tesla's. What popped up wasn't even a name, it was a number he did not recognize. He reluctantly opened the messages, and felt his grip cracking the screen when he saw the first picture.
It was Joachim's picture. He had a bowl of ice cream in front of him with his backpack on the next chair. He looked unharmed, which was a good sign but seeing someone had him only spiked Joyce's stress more, as he felt his hand shake as he scrolled to see the other picture, which was a selfie of that blond bitch and Joachim. Welt was thinking about where to punch Otto first when he saw the man had sent a location with the message "I'm waiting for you", alongside many spam texts sent to get his attention.
The next 5 minutes of running happened like he was on automode, because he didn't remember a single thing. Joyce regained his consciousness when he was In front of the cafe, only a door separating him from Joachim and Otto. He wanted to kick that door down and pick it up to beat up Otto, actually an ordinary chair would also work. But he didn't want to scare the workers or cause financial burden to Einstein and Tesla, so he opened the door like any human being would do.
What he did next wasn't so human though. First things first, he ran to Joachim's side, ignoring the blond that was trying to greet him. He started checking the kid for any possible injuries.
"Joachim, are you okay? Did he do something? I swear Otto if you did something—"
"Relax a bit, I'm not going to do something bad to our little guy here!"
Joyce felt snapped at Otto with such a force, for a second Otto was scared it was snapped. He glared at him which surprisingly successfully shut him up for now. Making sure he was quiet for now, Welt's focus shifted to Joachim again.
"Ohm, you're fine, right Joachim?"
Joachim was kinda scared after seeing Joyce's reaction, because he did not want to anger the man. But he nodded, and took another spoon full of ice cream, smearing some over his face. Joyce picked up a napkin and cleaned his face while speaking again.
"Now, Joachim, I want you to cover your ears and close your eyes, ok?"
Joachim, who was trying to make the situation make sense in his brain,answered back. Joyce knew Otto, and while they were sitting together Otto talked about Welt so much that Joachim was convinced they were close like Big sis Tesla and Big sis Einstein. So why was Joyce so worried?
Nevertheless, he did what he was told to. After making sure Joachim couldn’t hear or see what he was about to do, Joyce dropped his smile and grabbed Otto’s collar.
“What in the actual fuck were you planning?”
Joyce demanded, his shoulders were tense like a bomb that was about to off, Otto would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried for the man.
‘’Huh? What do you mean, My dear? I was just helping you out.’’
Otto responded cheekily to Joyce, playing dumb, which only added coals to Welt’s furry. He let go of Otto’s left collar and raised his arm up, ready to punch him in the face to get an honest answer. Otto, still not convinced if he was seriously about to get beaten up or Joyce was just bluffing decided to double down.
‘’Why the anger? If I weren’t the one to pick him up, someone real bad could have gotten him. Y’know you should be thanking me, instead, you’re assaulting me? my heart is broken, darling.’’
An annoyed smile rested on Joyce’s lips as his eye twitched. Otto’s carefree face was getting on his nerves, and his hand was quite bored hanging in the air. So he did the best possible thing, crashed it right to Otto’s face.
Better than good, actually. It felt amazing. Seeing Otto's confused expression and the blood running down his nose suddenly was enough to calm his nerves down.
“Don't play games with me, Otto. What was your real reason?”
Then, that bastard did something Joyce wouldn't even dream about. He licked the blood and smirked, the smile indeed reaching his eyes. Joyce could swear he saw a small hint of blush as well, though he wished it was just a seraph.
“I wanted to talk to you, dear. Take it or leave it, that's the truth deep from my heart.”
Otto offered his answer, his hand moving to tangle his fingers with Joyce's. In the shock of the situation, Welt didn't object either, letting the man connect their hands. He was too stunned by Otto's reaction to object anyways.
“So Welt, will you give me what I want?”
Joyce wanted to punch him again and make it bleed so much, but his violent thoughts were cut by Joachim speaking—yelling, actually. Since he couldn't hear himself—to them.
“Big Brother, can I open my ears now? My ice cream is going to melt!”
Joyce sighed and let Otto's collar, instead moving to Joachim’s side and moving one of his hands away from his ear.
“Yep, it's all fine now. You can finish your ice cream.”
He watched as Joachim immediately went back to devouring the delight in front of him. He smiled to himself and sat next to him, for a moment forgetting about Otto until the man sat right next to him, moving his chair a bit too close to Joyce's chair. He angrily turned to him, but had to gag to stop his laugh from getting out because Otto had put a napkin into his nose, and it looked outright ridiculous.
Joachim also tilted his head, wondering what had happened. Joyce gave him a do not bother look and he decided trying to find out what happened to the weird blond man was less fun than eating his ice cream.
“So Welt, how have you been?’
Otto tried to make small talk, and Joyce, not wanting to disturb Joachim’s fun activity of eating, entertained his attempt.
After a moment of awkward silence, Otto coughed to get Joyce's attention again
“Did anybody tell you your eyes are like sapphires?”
“Yeah! They're really pretty! And…blue!”
Joyce said, not understanding what the hell Otto was trying to gain this time. This time however, he remembered how to properly hold a conversation and followed his initial thanking with a counter ‘compliment’ if you could call it that.
“And yours are like…uhh…spinach…?”
Well Joyce tried, and this was the first thing that came to his mind! Blame Einstein for cooking it last night.
Joachim said from his side of the table before leaving them alone again. Joyce, looking at Otto's reaction, was a bit surprised to see the man had genuinely laughed at his comparison.
“I think I can live with that.”
Joyce didn't know what to say, so he just gave him an awkward smile. The rest of the conversation was more humane at least, with Joyce actually answering back instead of trying to shut Otto's attempts down.
After more than 10 minutes of talking, Joyce eyes Joachim and saw that he was about to finish the brown in front of him, how the ice cream survived this long was genuinely a mystery to him, so he got ready to get up and bring the kids back home.
Seeing Joyce was getting up Otto acted on instinct, his hand graphing Joyce's arm. Welt shot him a look, and Otto immediately let go, and even he seemed a bit taken aback by his act.
“I just wanted to say I—I really enjoyed today, Welt. Thank you.”
Otto offered with a small smile on his lips, and Joyce reciprocated his smile this time.
“Yeah…It was fun talking to you too, I guess..thank you for taking care of Joachim”
‘even though it wasn't your genuine intention’ was left unsaid, yet Joyce felt like Otto knew his feelings. He wiped Joachim’s face for one last time and threw the kid's school bag over his shoulder.
“Yeah, goodbye. See you soon, Joyce.”
Joyce walked with Joachim's hand almost glued to his, not risking losing him for a second time that day.
“We really need to talk about stranger danger.”
When they were out of view, Otto threw himself back at the chair, almost risking falling and laughed like a maniac for 2 minutes before pulling himself back together. He felt like he could finish 2 months worth of work at one sitting, that man really had an affect on him.
Yep here's my slop. You said it was close to your birthday so I'm sending it to you first as a birthday present, happy birthday!!
It's probably really bad but I tried my best lmao, again criticism is appreciated, because this is probably really poorly written.
ANON I LOVE THIS SO MUCH, I WILL TREASURE IT WITH ALL MY HEART AND KEEP IT IN MY BOX OF FAVORITE THINGS!
I swear it remember me to this song https://open.spotify.com/track/1m3VVYtEre9cOkIwf7wwbV?si=s3YD01uJTDKp6XuUH0kjmA from MSI!!
‘Your eyes are like sapphires’ line ACTUALLY FITS THEM SO WELL? MORE IF JOYCE IS SAPPHIRE IN HSR IMMAMQKWKQ
Joachim eating like a pig should be canon actually lol and OMG? Otto being a freak? IN THIS ECONOMY? WITH BLOOD? YOOOOO
And Joyce awakard flirting I’m so happy, not to mention you added Joyce insane strength in canon and how this man can carry the whole AE in his arms and act normally JQKQKQKA
I’m sharing this with anyone I know, even with my cat trust. Thanks for this gift! I love it.
