Watch Your Back

4-Home Sweet Home.

Some time later, Tiger, Bumble and Tink were all slumped in a row on the sofa in the flat, with Foxy perched on the arm, leaning on Tiger's shoulder. Edmund was sitting on a small futon opposite them; this was the seat Foxy usually took whenever the flat decided to Stage An Intervention.

Edmund had just finished explaining the entirety of the circumstances that had led to his impromptu quitting, and had answered every question his friends had thrown at him as best as he could, thus far.

"Do you think this H.H person is still going to come after you?" Bumble queried. "You know, now you've essentially screwed him over. Bloody nice screwing, I must say. I taught you well."

"That's what she said" Foxy snorted, and Tiger pushed her so hard she fell off the sofa arm.

"Honestly, I couldn't say, Bumble" Edmund admitted, ignoring Foxy's loud complaints from the floor as she scrabbled to her feet once again. 

"Well, that's just fab" Tink commented ironically, glaring at Foxy. "Shut up, Fox, we know you're technically still an invalid. You didn't fall that far."

Foxy humphed and went to sit at the breakfast bar.

"Well, if he does, we're not exactly unprepared" Bumble pointed out. Edmund looked quizzical, and all four of his friends snorted.

"We've been cracking along without you, old bean" Tiger explained, though to Edmund, it wasn't exactly an explanation. Bumble checked his watch.

"Those clients of ours should be arriving soonish, Tink. We'll have to pause this intervention for now. Go stand by the door."

"Since when did you have clientele?" Edmund asked indignantly, as Tink got up from the sofa and made for the door.

"Since I suggested we could offer the empty storage space out the back as a place for people to meet up?" Bumble smirked, twirling a pen on the sofa arm.

"Is that meant to sound as dodgy as it does?"

"Dodgy as it is, you mean" Bumble corrected, still grinning. "As a rather lackluster businessman, poor little me didn't think twice about why an overweight gentleman in his mid-thirties was wanting a space to set up a quaint little gardening club..."

Edmund looked incredulous.

"Nothing's growing in there" Bumble assured him, with a mad cackle of glee. "As far as I'm concerned, it's just a perfectly innocent little hour-long social, where people share gardening stories and trade plant trimmings. We just have to make sure to open the windows afterwards."

Edmund's disgust turned to amusement, as he began to second-guess his policeman instinct and fall back into his old ways. Bumble saw his change in temperament, and leant forward to ruffle his hair.

"You're on the Naughty Step, mind, Mundy" he pointed out. "You'll DJ and nothing else until we're sure this H.H. bullshit's been cleared up."

Edmund agreed heartily.

"Just in case, though" Bumble murmured, as Tiger and Foxy also slunk out of the flat, in order to continue clearing up the Andromeda Club before the night's antics. 

"I want to give you this."

Edmund was led to the door of Bumble's room, but instead of going in, his friend bent down and pulled up the floorboards, revealing a black backpack, which he took out.

"This" he explained "is my Illegal Backpack of Crap."

Edmund gave him a look which screamed 'have you gone mad'. In truth, he was beginning to wonder if Bumble was beginning to lose the plot a little.