Chapter Text
The flat was quiet that night, except for the buzzing audio coming from the tv, a talk show host interviewing some man with a combover. Mostly, this quiet was due to the main offenders of making problems were out at the moment. It had been quiet in their little slice of the universe too, more peaceful than usual. There hadn’t been hide nor tail nor green slimy fingers of any creature trying to steal potions or destroy the world or take Vince on an absolutely disastrous date. That was Howard’s job anyway.
At first, it had been strangely unnerving. That feeling began creeping into their shoulders that it had been good for too long and something downright horrible had to happen soon. Any minute they expected the door to the Nabootique to swing open, the bell ringing somehow anxiously, and some shifty character with bulging eyes would try to kidnap one of the brave shopkeeps. Distracted as they were by each other it would be easy to catch them off guard. Every time the poor bell above the door did its single job of a tinkling welcome to the shop Vince and Howard’s hair would stand on end. Howard practically jumped into Vince’s lap whenever he heard the sound. But it never happened. Day after day the only things coming through the door were customers, Vince’s friends stinking of bright-colored drinks, and the occasional bleary-eyed shaman. After nearly a week of flinching, mostly on Howard’s part, they were all flinched out and had effectively exhausted their nerves.
Left to their own devices they realized that for the first time in the history of Howard and Vince, they could just spend time together. Sure they were always together, they were joined at the hip. There’s a difference though in being in great peril together and being in great comfort together. Spending hours lounging around in soft clothes laughing at nothing. Fixing the other’s outfit in a dusty mirror before they lept down the stairs and onto new adventures, just adventures that didn’t involve such high stakes. A new restaurant, an old cafe, a bakery to quell Vince’s sweet tooth, a record store that smells just like it used to. Sometimes they didn’t know where they were going. What mattered wasn’t the destination, as Howard always liked to remark when Vince would come back groaning of how beige the walls were in that certain venue.
It had hardly been a year since they’d stopped batting their eyelashes from across the room and finally jumped each other's bones.
And Naboo was already fully, fully sick of it.
Hookah smoke thickens the air of the lounge, swirling around the kitchen lights as Naboo checks the time on his macarons. He taps on the little plastic timer with a glittery nail to see the dial quiver. It’s led him astray before. After 200 years of whisking and folding various galactic illicit substances into batter, he’d found he really just liked a good bit of baking. Without the constant need to dig those two ballbags out of one zany situation or another, and usually at his expense, he had much more time. It’s been a hot steaming minute since he’s been able to really put his curly shoed feet up on the coffee table and watch peacock dreams. Uninterrupted by one of them bursting in saying that they’d spilled a potion in his room and now there were big yellow vines growing out of the floor, or the phone ringing because Howard had made a crocodile man very angry. Sure, working at the Zooniverse had been close but there was always something he had to fix there too. Along with baking he’d begun painting his nails, any color to match his robes, reconnected with some old friends of all shapes sizes and dimensions, and started writing a spellbook. Which was taking a lot flipping longer than he’d originally thought it would.
“Bollo hand me that jar there would you?” Naboo motions with his chin as he stirs the filling. Bollo grunting confirmation before shoving off the couch and into the kitchen.
“What flavor this time?” Bollo asks as he slides the jar onto the counter.
“Xooberon Jam.”
The macaron timer goes off with a cheery ding.
The ding, however, is not heard, completely drowned out by the sudden monumental cacophony of sounds that erupts from the far wall. Clanging and screeching and crashing all together. Broken glass and bits of the red plaster wall go flying onto the carpet, nearly landing in the macaron filling. Something like a submarine and a toaster lovechild has just burst into the room like a train in a Magritte painting.
Steam hisses out in big clouds from the strange machine now lodged into their sitting room wall. From the side of the ship a hatch pops open with yet another clang, although it looks like it’s meant to be on the top. Inside the craft shrill alarms and beeps are going off and a smell like burnt hair wafts out. The hulking thing looks like it’s been tinkered together in someone’s backyard, haphazardly stitched together with mismatched bolts and sloppy welding. Although Naboo’s never tried welding, maybe for this ship it could be good welding. A loudly coughing figure tumbles out of the hatch and quickly gets to their feet as if crashing into a building sideways was part of the show. Naboo goes from vague panic to vague annoyance. He didn’t recognize the ship, but he definitely recognizes this joker.
On his many exploits in, maybe what some might call “fundamentally dangerous” or “cosmically illegal,” magical practices he’s had to deal with a lot of this kind of guy. Really he shouldn’t even remember this one in particular. However, their last attempt at any kind of business he’d been a phenomenal jerkoff. So Naboo had hopped on his rug quick-smart and flew out of there.
“What are you doin’ here?” He motions with his chin, only slightly more volume in his voice than normal. Just enough to get the point across, there’s no need to waste breath. The lanky violet figure brushes himself off and secures his knitted hat more securely over his puff of hair.
“You know very well what I’m doing here! You promised me something and then you ran away,” he says in that nasal voice that Naboo feels in his teeth.
“I’m not really that kind of girl,” Naboo deadpans. The disgruntled intruder shakily pulls out a gun that looks just as stuck together with chewing gum as the ship. A few sparks even fly off and he curses quietly. How unprofessional.
“Either you give it to me,” his tall form is practically vibrating with wound-up energy like he’s about to fly apart with a cartoonish sound effect. “Or it’s crunch time.”
Bollo moves to step in front of him but Naboo holds a hand up to stop him in his massive gorilla tracks. He sighs. “I’ll get it for you, but it’ll take-”
“You have 24 hours. I’ve waited long enough.”
Beneath them there’s the telltale creak of a door being swung open and the click and clack of heels and dress-shoes. The voices of his two friends with barely a pinch of volume control between them is in this moment very comforting. Though he’d never let them hear that or he’d be going deaf.
The purple man’s brow becomes even angrier, though it’s hard to tell if that’s the right emotion under the vermillion splash of paint over his eyes. It’s a good look, a kind of Adam Ant flavor. “Who is that?”
“That’ll be my flatmates. ‘Just come back from their date.” Naboo turns off the oven, it’s starting to smell like a fire hazard on top of the smoking ship. “D’you mind?” He motions at the muddy boots of the assailant who lowers his gun an inch and looks down at his shoes. “You’ve interrupted a good bake, the least you could do is not make a mess.” His eyeline snaps back up at the erratic thudding of someone taking the stairs 3 at a time.
“Alright,” Vince chirps at the top step, then his smile falls. “What’s happened here?”
Naboo ignores the question, still very torn up about his cookies, now very much burnt.
“How was date night with Horrid?” Bollo asks casually. Vince’s smile comes back to full brightness at the tone and he opens his mouth to reply.
“Excuse me! I’m trying to have a bit of a stick up here!” The nasal voice gripes again. Vince puts a hand on his hip and cocks his head to the side, his long jacket swinging out beside him with the motion.
“Who are you supposed to be then?”He says as if he’s a glittery doorman, checking a clipboard to see if this guy’s on the guest list.
“My name is not important!”
“Guy,” Naboo says from where he’s puttering around the tiny kitchen.
Vince wheezes out a laugh. “‘Guy?’ Oh my lord really?”
“Vince? What’s going on up there?”
A second pair of shoes thud up the stairs that take each step carefully then Howard’s tall frame enters the party, hovering with a hand at Vince’s hip. At the first sight the state their once cozy room his eyebrows shoot up, making his tiny eyes wide. In a desperate attempt at some sense he makes a lot of cut-off noises, gesturing between the ship, Guy, Naboo, Bollo, and Vince then seems to give up on what to say and sighs.
“Howard’s got a point. What are you doing crashed into our sitting room?” Vince translates, patting him on the arm. Howard nods as if he’d given a grandiose speech on the etiquette of spaceships and how not to literally crash a party.
“I owe him something, don’t worry about it. Bollo get the carpet,” Naboo begins patting his pockets for the keys.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Naboo stares at Guy, completely astonished at the audacity bundled up in one single person. “Well, I don’t have everything I need here. Do you want it or not?” He’s going to need another trip to the fountain after this ordeal is over with, the amount of grey hairs he can practically feel sprouting from his head is outstanding.
Guy laughs a strange almost robotic laugh, a triumphant “haha!”
“You think I’m falling for that? Your familiar can handle it just fine.”
From the other room there’s a muffled, “Bollo no drive.”
“Bollo can’t drive the carpet,” Naboo says with just slightly more edge in his voice.
“Get these tits to do it for you, then.” He waves a hand in Howard and Vince’s direction who have been in their own little bubble. Vince looks up from where he was very occupied rearranging Howard’s hair.
“What? No, absolutely not. We are not in any way involved in this, no sir.” Howard says firmly, shaking his head. Their nominally relaxing evening had already been so rudely interrupted by this mauve stringbean, they can at least cling to the inch of separation they have from the situation. He looks down at Vince for confirmation. Vince though, isn’t nodding along as he normally would, isn’t backing him up. Instead he turns, removing himself from Howard’s side, and gives him a look. Howard knows the look all too well, he’s had it turned on him since he was a wiry tyke and Vince was covered in grass stains. How Howard has given into such a vast amount of things because of that sweetly goading look he’ll never know. The well-rehearsed tilt of his head to look up from beneath his eyelashes and slight crook to his mouth that dimples his cheek on one side. Like he’s trying to get Howard to have just one more scoop of ice cream. “No.” He’s only addressing Vince this time.
“C’mon Howard! It’s been well boring around here lately,” Vince whines, pulling on Howard’s hand as if he could pull him towards agreement. It’s a throwaway comment, Vince says plenty of things are boring. This one though, hits Howard in a sharper way than it should, catches him and cuts him on the cheek like a stray piece of glass.
“You think it’s been boring?”
Vince doesn’t seem to notice Howard’s softly asked query, he looks over as Guy groans dramatically from the other side of the room. He pinches the bridge of his nose and waggles the gun around in his hand to bring attention to the volatile contraption. Ever body in the room jumps just an inch to the left.“If I tell you I’m going to kill your tiny shaman friend, will you stop talking and sod off?”
They both stop in and look at the dodgy weapon following its path to their short stoic friend. There’s an unspoken question of “is he actually going to?” Naboo nods, “yes he is.”
Naboo pulls them aside, under the watchful shifty eye of Guy, and gives them their instructions in hushed tones. The spell is a complicated one, requiring that they visit each member of the Shaman Council and collect a magic object from them. Specifics of the spell are left vague much to the disappointment of both Howard and Vince. He only assures them that if they don’t get back on time he’ll turn all their clothes into natural yogurt, yes even if he’s dead. Seemingly out of thin air he unfurls a map and marks little X’s on it where they need to go. Both nod and ask varying levels of panicked questions before they’re hurried onto the carpet and speed off into the night.