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In any of his four hundred years as a shaman - moving planet, learning the art of the magical trade, playing in French period dramas, going from place to place and business to business and finding wonderful new music to get stoned out of his mind to - Naboo never would have suspected the problems in his life would include helping two repressed idiot housemates through their monthly marital tiffs, and yet here he was, again, trying to coax Howard and Vince into behaving like adults and speaking to each other.
When returning to the shop from a long holiday with the board of shamen, he immediately realised that Howard was in a mood, and, as expected, so was Vince. As he passed out in his bed, he vowed to ignore this one, but across the next few days that feat got more and more difficult.
Howard in a mood would probably be hard to distinguish from Howard normally if Naboo didn’t have to spend so much time in the house with him. The way he turned up his awful jazz records even louder than usual until Bollo told him to be quiet and disappeared into the shop at the crack of dawn, somehow managing to keep up looking grumpy and prickly despite no customers being there to see it.
For a man who thrived on fading into the background, basking in the peaceful shadow of his life partner and bandmate whenever possible, Howard was great at being an attention whore. It was like he was begging for Vince to notice the snide shutdowns of his usually tolerated fashion ramblings, the frosty silences and loud music, the huffing and puffing and groaning while he did anything that drove Naboo absolutely spare.
And it wasn't as if Vince didn't notice. To Naboo, it was painfully obvious that he did, but he would just keep up with his own tactics so any acknowledgement slipped under the radar. With Vince, it was never a case of doing things to purposely hurt people, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a malicious bastard in his own way.
For Vince, it showed in choosing to not think about the consequences of his actions, switching off the little voice that reminded him to think about people other than himself. It was going out late without locking the shop and lying about where he'd been.
Vince in a mood was short-lived but still irritating and obvious. Vince never got into tangible moods on his own accord, not really. Any external problems had him in Howard’s arms within an hour and sprung right back within two.
It was the domestics that drove Naboo to the brink. Skulking around the flat, him and Howard, trying to avoid each other at all costs. Sleeping on the settee (who got the room depended entirely on which one of them managed to get in first. This was, of course, in their own opinion, an entirely sensible arrangement, but when Naboo heard Vince huffing and sighing and stomping to the sofa in the early morning hours as he got back late from a night out, it came across more like two children fighting for the top bunk.)
Nothing was worse than when Naboo became the middle man. To Vince’s defence, Howard was actually, surprisingly, more guilty of causing this. What Vince lacked in shame he made up for in ego. He'd rather act like he didn't realise there was an argument, just pushing Howard further away and filling the space with catty remarks and excuses to leave.
Howard didn't have the same aversion to grovelling. 'Ooh, can you just find out why he's upset, Naboo?' 'Ooh, can you just tell Vince he's being an idiot, Naboo?'. Night after night, as if he was a marriage counsellor and not their reluctant (usually unpaid - he was lucky if he got a whiff of rent within the month it was due) landlord and even more reluctant housemate.
He did prefer for them to get on for reasons that weren't purely selfish though. It was quite cute, if absolutely baffling, to observe their little rituals from the outside.
The midnight crimping (they didn't seem to realise quite how paper-thin the walls were in that place. This one got annoying on occasion; warmth for the pair aside, Naboo often found himself putting a soundproof charm on the door just for a night of sleep uninterrupted by songs of jackets and jigsaws floating through his dreams),
the explosive mess of their room when he'd go on his rare and dreaded attempts to tidy (when they first moved in, it was more the explosive mess of Vince’s side of the room, split down the middle into beige orderliness and a multicolour nightmare. Naboo had been in equal measures fond and revolted to watch more and more of Vince’s hoard creep across to Howard’s half, very content to not know how it got over there),
And even the ones that seemed only to appear when they were arguing; the door quietly clicking open right after Vince’s aforementioned stroppy resignations to the settee as Howard checked he'd got home alright, and Vince’s little stifled smiles when Naboo would pass on Howard’s stories of that day’s jazz meetup (anecdotes he was mercifully only on the receiving end of when Vince didn't seem available), the lifetime of affectionate exasperation for the man showing even when he was trying to be a bitch.
Eventually, each time, Naboo would admit defeat and help them out of whatever pointless rut they'd gotten into this time. Usually, it was by finally letting Howard into his room to talk it out and pretending not to be bored out of his mind ('he didn't come back from that party until six in the morning, Naboo! It’s like he doesn’t care about his sleep schedule' 'He’s a twenty-six-year-old man, Howard) ('He told a girl who came in he liked jazz and she bought up all the records! All of them!' 'it’s a shop, you're meant to sell things, Howard’ 'I know but they're my records! He doesn’t even like jazz, he's a phoney bebop salesman!').
Occasionally, it would be Vince with queries that made far less sense but could usually also be solved by pretending to listen for long enough ('Naboo, do you have any potions that could make Howard forget I washed his favourite shirt in the wrong temperature on purpose so it shrunk?' 'Why did you do that, you ballbag?' 'It was hideous! It was a mercy!')
Besides the very personal gain of finally being left alone, as little as Naboo liked to admit it, the flat was also nicer when Howard and Vince were together and normal. Naboo rarely stayed sober past his early morning supply jaunts to Tescos with Bollo under normal circumstances, but would make an effort to keep his brain from turning to mush until later on the day they made up with each other, just to witness the place going back to how it should be.
Vince emerging fully dressed at midday to sit at the window and chatter to the city pigeons about fashion trends and what clothes he'd wear and who he'd see that day, and Howard, already awake for a few hours by this point, ready with tea and breakfast. Naboo would watch, relieved, then complete his part in the intricate domesticity they'd built up. Shoo them down to open up shop, hide his joy at the predictable laziness (Vince) and eagerness (Howard, mostly for the stocktaking) he got in response, and get high out of his mind to Rumours.
Everything as it should be.
Nice work, Naboo thought to himself, what would these idiots do without you?