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Let’s get one thing straight - Mumbo hates being the designated driver.
Just because he’s not much of a drinker, all his friends have apparently taken it upon themselves to be just about the biggest alcoholics they can possibly manage, and it always seems to throw him squarely in the crossfire. Luckily he’s only looking after two of them tonight, seeing as it’s only a small night out (they’re celebrating some small raise that Grian’s had at work, because that’s the kind of small victory they get these days).
Unluckily, that means no Lizzie and no Joel, no Impulse and no Pearl, no Scott, no Jimmy, no Tango, and of course this is the one night that Cub’s come down with a migraine and had to stay home - so it is just the three of them. Just Grian, Scar, and Mumbo with the car around the block.
This is equal parts frustrating and hilarious.
In the interest of fairness, Mumbo has to admit that it’s been leaning more towards the funny side as the night goes on. At the beginning it was just a hot and sweaty bar crowded with people Mumbo didn’t recognise, and although of course the conversation’s always good when Scar’s involved, there’s always a little part of him that’s desperately tempted to go on his phone for the first hour or so just to wait until the pair of them are a little more warmed up. Now, though, once they’ve managed to lead their chronically-tangential discussion from what things have been like at the workplace for Grian lately to the logistics of giving a dinosaur cybernetic components (up to and including the time-travel and/or cloning portion of the hypothetical), his phone sits long forgotten in his pocket and his face has slipped into one of those perpetual smiles he always tends to end up wearing when he’s exposed to utter nonsense for too long.
“No, but you’d - you cannot be telling me you think it would be easier to invent time travel than just - just Jurassic Park-ing it,” Grian says, indignant, half-slurred.
“You’ve seen Jurassic Park, though,” argues Mumbo, “and you know how badly it ended up going.”
“We’re not talking about badly. We’re talking about… the question was how easy it would be.”
“I don’t think that’s true. I think the question was could you do it.”
“No no no no no,” Grian frowns, “it’s - back me up here, Scar.”
Scar does not respond. He’s propped up on his hand, eyes vaguely fixed on something just behind Mumbo’s head. Grian has always been able to drink Scar under the table, though, so it’s less a surprise and more a sign that they should probably think about heading home soon.
“Ugh. I’m gonna go get another drink. Want anything?”
“I’m alright,” Mumbo grins, and brandishes his half-full glass of water. “Make this your last one, okay?”
“You’re no fun.”
“Scar’s comatose.”
“He’s American. Their beer is basically water.”
"Last one, Grian."
"Fine," he sniffs, and he's gone.
"He is a piece of work," Mumbo mutters, more to himself than anything else - and then diverts his attention to the more pressing matter at hand. "Scar? Hanging in there, mate?"
Scar still doesn't reply. Upon further inspection, it looks like he's managed to fall asleep with his eyes open.
"Scar!"
A second or two later, he blinks. "No, yeah, sure. Totally.”
“Scar, are you alright?”
“Sure, sure.”
“Great. Do you think you’re gonna be able to get yourself back to the -”
Scar slumps over. Luckily, his arms go with him, preventing Mumbo from having to deal with a broken nose on top of the two disasters he’s already going to have to drag home. (He can only hope they’re not gonna throw up in the car.)
“Right,” Mumbo sighs.
He risks a glance towards the bar, where Grian has apparently managed to strike up conversation with one of the bartenders, rolling his contactless card side to side in one hand as he does so. (It had been a mistake to let him bring that, that’s for certain. At least there’s a built-in cutoff point that comes with being too drunk to push your PIN into the keypad.) Then he watches them pour Grian something from the draught taps, something uninterestingly yellow-brown that could be beer or cider, and his horror gradually mounts as Grian takes a sip… and then another… and he realises that, yeah, Grian’s just gonna keep standing there.
Last one his shiny black mustache. That man’s there for the long haul, and he’s clearly banking on the hope that Mumbo’s not gonna notice until it’s too late.
“Can you believe it,” he soliloquizes. Is that a word? He’s not sure. Feels appropriate, though. It seems like these days he’s complaining to himself far more often than he is to others, these days spanning up to and including the moment that he and Cub decided they’d take Grian and Scar up on that offer to get significantly reduced rent by living as a four instead of two pairs. To be fair, though, neither of them had realised that Grian and Scar had been neck-deep in separate gay realisations and attempting to shovel dirt over their problems with the move at the time. Unsuccessfully shovel dirt, that is, because not two months into their lease they’d been all over each other. At least it wasn’t Mumbo paying rent for a bedroom that now went empty most days. Except for Jellie, of course.
The life of a self-supposed responsible adult. Endless excitement.
“And I have to get up tomorrow,” Mumbo continues to lament. “I’ve got work. You may have your day off, but I most certainly do not.”
Scar perks up, then, a wavering head emerging from the safety of his sleeves and making delirious eye contact with Mumbo. He’s got fabric marks all down his cheeks, and paired with the scarring that’s already there he’s started to look somewhat like a piece of abstract art with a very limited palette. “Hello.”
“You’ve got the day off as well, and thank goodness for that.”
“Huh?” At least he’s proving he can maintain some motor control skills, because his gaze isn’t drifting. His speech, though, sounds like his tongue has been replaced with a particularly large slug.
“Alright, Scar?”
“Mhm.” Scar looks away; Mumbo takes the opportunity to slide his glass out of his reach and towards the end of the table before he can realise he’s got a fair few sips left. “Whoa.”
“What is it?”
“Y’see that guy?”
He follows Scar’s clumsy point. “... Yes?”
“He’s cute.”
Mumbo does not laugh. He thinks it’s very composed of himself to do so. “Is that so.”
“Do - d’you think he’s single?”
“... He might be, depending on how you play your cards tonight.”
“Oh, I love cards!” Scar gushes, his other hand sliding over to bat at Mumbo’s shoulder aimlessly. “I should - I’m - I’m gonna go - gonna go talk to that guy.”
“Scar, hold on - I don’t know if you can stand at the moment, let alone make it to the -”
Scar lands a foot on the floor, and then another, and then he’s attempting to steady himself on the table, eyes wide with sudden nervousness. “Whooh,” he exhales, “maybe not.”
“Yeah. No, yeah, I think sit back down for the minute is the best idea.” Mumbo’s arms shoot out to guide Scar back into a sitting position. “Don’t throw up on the carpet, either, we’ll get kicked out.”
“I’m not gonna…” Scar mumbles his way incoherently through the rest of the protest, but Mumbo can tell what he’s going for.
Grian, on the other hand, seems to have finally noticed that something’s happening at the table, and is eyeing them with what looks like morbid curiosity. Mumbo levels him a glare that he hopes conveys come back here and deal with your husband right this second or I’m opening all the blinds at seven o’clock tomorrow morning and you can just live with the blinding hangover. Grian smirks and takes another sip of his bloody cider. Mumbo scoffs, because of course.
Scar grabs Mumbo again, this time wrapping both hands around his wrist. “He’s looking at us!”
“So he is.”
“I wanna - I should talk to him.”
“No - stay here, Scar.”
“I think he’s coming over! Does my hair look okay?”
It’s been thoroughly bird’s-nested by the events of the night. “It looks great.”
“How are you two ladies doing?” Grian says, waltzing back over to the table and putting a hand down between them.
“Smashing, thanks.”
“Hello,” slurs Scar, “you wouldn’t happen to know where a man such as myself… would find… an eligible bachelor to spend a little bit of time with?”
Grian blinks. “Oh, you are plastered.”
“I told you this ten minutes ago!”
“So, you single?”
“... I’m afraid I’m actually married,” says Grian, and he tilts his drink hand so Scar can see the glint of gold on his finger.
Scar balks. “I am… so sorry! I had no idea! You’re just so pretty, and I just… I mean, you get it, right? And you look so young as well.”
“I’m flattered, really.”
“No, sssss’riously, whatever… lucky soul snapped you up first, they’re…”
Scar starts toppling again, and this time it’s a concerted effort by both Grian and Mumbo to prop him up with one hand each before he can smash into the wooden tabletop. “Let’s get you home, you spoon,” says Mumbo, not quite able to help the creep of affection into his tone.
“Does this mean I have to down this?”
“I’d rather you drop it,” Mumbo re-enables his death stare.
“Come on, six perfectly good quid I spent on that last drink, and this is at least one-pound-fifty of it!”
“I’ll bloody give you one-pound-fifty in a minute. Support me here.”
Grian gives one last discerning glance at the contents of his glass, and then quietly sings, “Weeeee like to drink with Grian…”
“No.”
“No fun at all,” he repeats lamentingly, and puts the glass down on the nearest side.
“Oh!” Scar’s eyebrows shoot up when he realises who’s putting an arm around his waist. “Good afternoon!”
“Hi, Scar.”
“I hope - I hope your - married isn’t - offended or anything.”
“I’m pretty certain he’d be fine with it.”
“Whoa, and it’s -! Gay rights,” Scar nods solemnly.
“That means so much coming from you.”
“Well, you’re welcome, Grian. Oh! Grian! I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Scar.”
“You were gone for five minutes,” Mumbo can’t help but scathe.
“And I missed him in those five minutes,” Grian snips straight back. “Just because you don’t have a husband.”
“I’ve thought about it.” He’s discussed it with Cub before, even, a few times. Their marriage of convenience is a last resort, but neither of them are quite willing to rule it out - not when Scar and Grian are such an insufferable pair.
“You’re not upstaging us. We’ll get pregnant at your baby shower and die at your wedding reception.”
Logistical improbabilities of either of them getting pregnant aside - Mumbo knows he doesn’t mean it. Not really. The competitive streak in him is just a lot stronger and a lot less inhibited when he’s drunk.
They make it to the car, and Scar even does him the courtesy of throwing up directly down a storm drain on the way instead of on anything that might have needed upholstering, which is very much appreciated. Mumbo doesn’t even bother looking in the back mirror on the way home, knowing he’ll only see a graphic public display of affection that he’s not prepared to witness. (Scar is handsy at the best of times, is all he’ll say.) At least they manage to make it back upstairs and into their apartment quietly; at least it doesn’t look like they’ve woken Cub up when Mumbo walks past his room on his way to the bathroom, given that there’s no lamplight visible through the crack under Cub’s door.
The best bit, though, is that Scar was absolutely not paying attention when Mumbo did pull his phone out, and now he’s got a nice piece of blackmail that he’s never going to use for anything serious.
He hates being the designated driver, sure - but sometimes putting in that unwanted work is just the price you have to pay to reap the sweet rewards of friend-group glory.