Beetle

"Of course I am!"

He gives himself beetle swim trunks and a giant inflatable grasshopper.

He rushes into the water. As he does, water splashes up beside him.

He holds his hands up.

"I'm ready!"

"When you're done..."

He closes his hand.

After five seconds, the blue circle disappears.

"Just close your hand for five seconds."

A beach ball appears near Ted.

He tosses it into the water.

+

"You can think about this place like a game.

You can add objects, change their color, change how they feel or behave...you can even change your outfit.

Every location is saved, so when we come back, those changes get saved too."

+

"As long as you're in this mode, you can make as many changes as you want."

The moon disappears again.

The sun is back.

+

"From here, you just need to think about the change you want to make."

Suddenly, the beach gets dark.

The moon appears.

+

"It's easy! Watch this."

Ted holds out his hand like he's waiting for something to be placed into it. After five seconds, a glowing blue circle appears above it.

"Hold your hand out and wait five seconds. Once this circle appears, you're good to go."

+

"And it's a comfortable temperature."

He leans in.

"You also have control here; I'm not the only one that can change things around."

"They won't. But they're real here, and while we're in here, they feel real."

He laughs and rushes ahead with him.

"If it gets dark, we can adjust the sun."

Then, he takes his hand.

"I put shells and gems everywhere in the sand. We can collect them later if you want!"

When they're sitting down, and Ted starts the program, they're suddenly standing on a beautiful beach.

"Spoiling is doing more than what's necessary."

He kisses his cheek. Esme is able to feel it as he normally would.

+

Twenty minutes later, Ted rushes back. He still has his computer goggles on.

He hands Esme his pink ones.

"To the computers!"

"Give me twenty. I'm gonna make something for you."

He takes his hand in his own and kisses the back of it.

And then he runs off somewhere!

"This isn't spoiling you."

Another quick kiss.

"But I can start."

"Really!"

And Ted starts kissing him again like nothing happened.

"You're alive, let's focus on that."

He stretches out.

"I'm on break! Well, I was."

He walks up to him.

"I'm thinking about cutting that break short."

"After three minutes.

Unless you're talking about Esme 2.0. That project will begin never because I like the one I have."

He sits down then stands back up.

"The 3,000 things have no time limit."

"And he was boring? Tough crowd!"

He stays in the same pose.

"I'm still rebuilding all of my stuff. I'm almost done with one room, and after that, I only have 3,000 things left."

"You can look at me. You can hear my soothing voice. I can look at you. You can tell me about your day."

He does a handstand.

"The options are almost endless!"

"Five minutes!"

He points.

"And then we can go back to kissing!"

"We don't allow such rude behavior on the better side!"

He walks away, bends over, then flips.

"You'll have to wait!"

"I'm just a man of ass then. Alright."

He taps his nose.

"Let me know when that changes."

"News to me!"

He takes his hand.

"What's next? Are you a dork too?"

"Thank you!"

Mwa mwa mwa.

"...For giving me a clear reason to kiss you!"

He slowly leans in and gives him a much more ridiculous peck on the mouth.

"And then after that I kissed you for no reason!"

He gestures to himself.

"Anyway, I was so drawn to you (reminder: I'm sexy and hot and handsome and talented) that I had to walk over and talk to you for two hours about science."

+

He pretends to flip a page.

"Second piece of context for this AU, nobody else in our world needs to write an explanation to share a kiss. We're the only ones doing it.

I'd also like to keep the reason (the explanation explanation) a secret so the audience can write their own lore."

+

"Greedy!

Okay, let me set the scene.

I was sitting across the room, when all of I sudden, you walked in!

I was so captivated by your presence and style that I completely forgot to prepare my kiss explanation.

For context, in this AU, we write them all the time."

+

"I need a reason?"

He kisses him again.

"I'll give you an explanation later, name your word limit!"

// "It's not that bad" I said as I wasted an extra ten minutes rewriting this bottom comment too.