Chapter Text
In the next few days there was a constant whirlwind of activity and attention around Mumbo and Grian. There were parties. Interviews. Dinners. Salons. Speeches. Salutes, curtsies, and tipped hats on the streets. Letters of all kinds, declarations of gratitude and admiration and love and all manner of things. They’d even erected a statue of Grian! Admittedly the statue was in a small, quiet square, but it was a statue nonetheless. Mumbo was miffed that he was only an afterthought on the plaque beneath it, but he didn’t necessarily want any more attention than he was already garnering.
Grian, on the other hand, basked in the attention. He gave demonstrations at the University, describing exactly how he solved the case without a single embellishment, no siree. At least, that’s what the enormous posters promised.
Luckily, London’s memory was short. Mumbo knew this. For today it loved them, but tomorrow they would be an afterthought.
And by God, tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.
Blessedly, the days eventually returned to normal, as normal as they could be for two men living in the Neath who’d just solved a twenty-year-old case of a body-swapping serial killer. Grian didn’t take on any new cases, content to piece together the loose ends of the Jack caes. Mumbo began work on a full account of the case, but was often distracted by several hobbies including mechanics and dabbling in the Correspondence. He’d begun to realize that writing probably wasn’t his calling, but he wasn’t sure what was.
Mr Sacks had begun its rounds as Christmas was fast approaching, and though Grian loved the season he was rarely awake for the actual arrival of the…no one actually thought Mr Sacks was a man, did they?
“Has Mr Sacks been around today?” Grian asked late one morning, yawning. Mumbo nodded, pointing to a folded scrap of darkest fabric. Bombazine. “Lovely. Take that down to Merrigan’s and sell it when you can, would you?”
“It’s on my to-do list,” Mumbo said, handing Grian a cup of darkdrop coffee.
“Mm...wake-juice…” Grian mumbled, cradling the mug in his hands.
“I still don’t see how you can drink that stuff,” Mumbo said, wrinkling his nose. “It’s bitterer than engine oil.”
“At least I take mine with sugar,” Grian said through another yawn. “Cub drinks the stuff like water, straight from the pot.”
“Disgusting,” Mumbo said. “Explains why he never seems to sleep, though.”
Grian shrugged. “Seems like a good idea, honestly. You get more hours in the day and everything. I should try drinking nothing but coffee for a week.”
“You’d send yourself to the river by the third day,” Mumbo said matter-of-factly.
“Probably,” Grian admitted. “But it sure would be a Hell of a week.”
“More of a Hell of a week than Polythreme?”
“That was more like a Hell of a month,” Grian said. “And it was crazier than anything coffee or prisoner’s honey could come up with.” He sniffed the air sharply. “Mumbo, have you burnt the tea again?”
“I’ve never burnt tea,” Mumbo scoffed, but Grian followed his worried glance to the corner of the room that held Mumbo’s writing-desk-turned-workbench. The walls were scorched with a star shaped pattern and the molten remains of several lead sheets were barely contained in a ceramic crucible.
“Oh, not again,” Grian groaned.
“It was an accident!” Mumbo protested, guiltily hiding his sooty hands and blackened sleeves behind his back.
“You accidentally started working with the Correspondence again? And charred the wallpaper even more?” Grian let out a deep sign “That’s gonna cost us to fix.”
“‘Us?’” Mumbo asked, raising a slightly singed eyebrow.
“Yes, us. I’ve been actually pulling in a profit lately, if you’d forgotten,” Grian said, rolling his eyes and draining the last of his coffee.
Mumbo snickered. “Oh, you mean the penny dreadfuls licensing your name and image? Those won’t bring in much. You do know they’re called penny dreadfuls, and that’s without the publishing charges.”
“And is that what you’re writing? A penny dreadful?” Grian asked, glancing pointedly at the side of Mumbo’s desk that was still for writing.
Mumbo drew himself up to his full height. “I’ll have you know it’s the most accurate version of the events leading to and including the discovery of Jack’s identity,” he said indignantly.
Grian grinned. “Yes, yes, of course. That’s why it’s only two pages.”
“I’m working on it!”
“You’d finish it quicker if you didn’t mess around so much with words that burned.”
Mumbo groaned. “Just go get dressed, you ratbag.”
“Where’re we going?” Grian complained. “It’s my day off.”
“Out,” Mumbo said curtly.
“Oh, goody,” Grian said. “My favorite place to go. I guess I should break in this new pair of shoes anyway…”
Mumbo rolled his eyes but Grian did manage to get dressed, and within fifteen minutes they had made it out onto the street.
Grian was much more energized and bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. Evidently the coffee was working. “Well, Mumbo?” he asked, quirking a smile.
Mumbo smiled. “London awaits!” he crowed.
Grian whooped and the two of them raced off down Moloch street, laughing together like schoolboys, dodging cabs, and startling pedestrians.
The Neath was a dangerous place, certainly. But in that moment there was nowhere else in the world Mumbo would rather be than running down the savage cobbles at his friend’s side, searching for adventure.