Chapter Text
Lucy Tucci closed her eyes and willed for just a few more minutes of sleep. But people were gathered outside, practically swarming the sidewalk two stories below her apartment, and they weren’t about to disappear. Many of them had traveled a long way to get to her home in Chicago. She couldn’t make out the muffled words they were shouting, but she knew the general gist of why they were here. A weary groan escaped her as she recalled the events of the past several days.
A week ago, the Boovs’ lunar settlement had used their advanced tech to widen the moon’s orbital pattern. They did so without any sort of consultation with the humans of Earth, and everyone was experiencing the effects. Weird weather patterns, abnormal animal behaviors, weakened tides: the whole planet was caught in a twilight zone. And for those like the people outside, the Tucci family was a convenient target to blame.
Every rain cloud, missing cat, bad fishing day was THEIR fault. Well, technically most of the ire was really aimed at Oh. People didn’t know he was Boov Captain, but they did know he was the only Boov still living on Earth, and that was enough to earn their resentment. It brought a lot of trouble, but if Tip and Lucy were to leave him to fend for himself—well, then the world would be so far off its axis it would go spinning into the sun.
Lucy was shaken from her thoughts by the crackling slam of the kitchen window. Tip had shoved open the pane. Now she shouted to the street below, “I know why you’re here, but it’s not our fault! We had nothing to do with that so quit harassing us!”
Her daughter, as always, was ready to defend Oh from his latest antagonists. She kept up with her brave verbal volleys, and Lucy could only vaguely hear the other side of the shouting-match. But then the group started up a chant, growing louder and louder until the whole neighborhood could hear it:
“BOOV ARRIVED, THE TIDE DIED! BOOV ARRIVED, THE TIDE DIED!”
It took a good minute for Lucy to realize they were talking about the oceans’ tidal shift, not tie-dye clothes. At least the accusations weren’t as serious as they could’ve been.
Someone yelled, “WHERE ARE OUR WAVES, DUDE?!”
Tip shouted back, “THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO BACK OFF! FINAL WARNING! WE WILL MAKE YOU REGRET MESSING WITH THE TUCCIS!”
Lucy thought, ‘Tip is bluffing, the crowd will get bored and leave, everything will work itself out.’ She was clinging to the blankets a lot tighter than they were clinging to her. Days without a decent night’s rest had her body feeling like lead. Even as the chants of the crowd got louder, her eyelids grew heavier. Just. Five. More. Minutes…
“Okay!” Tip piped to her Boov best friend. “I warned those beach bums as best as I could.”
“You dids,” Oh agreed. His voice shook with nervous excitement. “And I has filled the water balloons.”
The combined efforts of dread and exhaustion weren’t enough to keep Lucy down after that statement.
“KIDS!” Lucy rocketed out of bed. Then her bloodsugar tanked and she had to paw at the wall to stay balanced. “Tip,” she cried, stumbling for the kitchen, “Oh! Whatever you’re doing, don’t—”
The crowd’s shouts turned to angry shrieks just before Lucy made it onto the scene. She found herself caught in some heterogenous jar of emotion, with horror and frustration and amazement all piled up but she didn’t know in which order. The dizziness wasn’t helping, either. All she could really do was waver in place and watch the mess unraveling in front of her.
Tip and Oh were wearing pots like army helmets and gathering water balloons like grenades. Except while Tip chucked hers outside, Oh stuffed all of his balloons into his mouth—then stuck his head out the window and chomped down. His nostricles unfurled, swelled almost to bursting, and released torrents of brownish liquid onto the people below.
“Hope you like beef broth!” Tip called over Oh’s shoulder. “But if you don’t, I know something that might!” She pulled a silver object from her pocket. It was a whistle, glinting and winking coyly as it caught the morning sun. She stuck her head out over the sidewalk and blew into it with all her might.
Lucy winced in anticipation of an ear-splitting whistle. But she didn’t hear anything—
Wait.
That’s because it was a dog whistle. The oncoming cacaphony of barks, yaps, and little-dog yips helped her piece that one together.
The kind of tidal wave that confronted the beach-goers was not the sort they could’ve surfed out of. Many a rubber flip flop was abandoned in their desperate flee to their hatchbacks. Needless to say, nobody in the crowd left that protest liking Boov any better—but a few of them would despise snarly toy poodles and slobbery great danes even more. Was that a win for the Tucci family?
No, it definitely wasn’t.
The evening’s news reports would prove that much.
* * *
“But Boov cansnot mind-control dogs to do their evil bidding and attack on humans!”
The handsome news anchor on tv was doing everything to prove that they could. Lucy had gone to bed half an hour ago and they’d immediately switched a cheesy romcom to the local news.
Someone at the protest had taken a shaky video reminiscent of found footage. The video showed Tip and Oh grinning down from the window, then turned into a chaotic blur of motion when shrieks and barks filled the air. The person dropped their phone and the last thing shown was a Saint Bernard’s giant tongue licking the screen.
“Disturbing stuff,” the newsanchor said gravely. “Many protestors were tackled and slobbered mercilessly due to the Boov’s malicious mind-control tactics. Therapy dogs won’t be healing any of that trauma.”
Oh chewed on the end of a nostricle and whined miserably. Tip shifted uncomfortably on the couch next to him.
“I’m sorry, Oh,” she groaned. “I didn’t mean to make all the Boov hysteria even worse, I just want people to quit bothering us! Why do these jerks on tv have to lie about everything?!”
In true teen fashion, she’d went from guilty to angry in the span of a couple sentences. She yanked a scrunchie off her wrist and threw it at the big shiny teeth of the anchorman. Pig pounced from out of nowhere and rolled out of view with the scunchie in his paws.
“I do not blame you,” Oh sighed. He leaned into Tip’s side. “I am only wishing I was like Pigcat. No Captain responsibilities. Just playing with scrunchies. All the litter I could be eating.”
Tip sighed and turned off the tv; the distant sound of their mom’s snores replaced the anchorman’s syrupy voice. She looped an arm around her best friend’s shoulders. “That’s not what litter is for, buddy.”
“I knows.”
“We seriously have to go to New Boovworld tomorrow. People are gonna keep bugging us until we get the Boov to fix the moon’s orbit.”
The alien looked as miserable as she’d ever seen him. “I knows we must go. It is the ‘stressing me out’.”
“Yeah. We’ve all been stressed. Mom especially, I think. She forgets to eat when she’s got a lot on her mind, and I’ve never seen her so bad off from hypoglycemia.”
“Hypoglycemia,” Oh echoed with some disdain. “Too fun-sounding a word. Sounds like something tasty. Or like a party, but the party is being even better because you find secret snacks under the couch.”
“If you say so,” Tip snorted. She didn’t even want to know what kind of ‘secret snacks’ he’d found before. “At least Mom said I can go with you to New Boovworld tomorrow. She would’ve never agreed to that if she wasn’t a tiny bit out of it.”
“I do not know why-for,” Oh said a litte whinily. “New Boovworld is being perfectly safe! Especiallies with friend-Kyle appointed as President under my order.”
“Kyle’s definitely the sort of stick in the mud to keep anything too exciting from happening,” Tip grouched.
She paused, hearing a particularly loud snore from their mom’s bedroom. “Come to think of it, maybe Mom should come with us tomorrow. She needs to catch up on some sleep, and I don’t want anyone coming here to bother her while we’re gone. New Boovworld would be a good place to get away from all the protests.”
Oh also took a moment to listen to Lucy’s snores. He grimaced; “Mimom could’s not be sleeping and making those noises while-for I am saying my speech. Sounds like Koobish mating calls. There would’s be a stampede.”
Tip guffawed and slapped her hands over her mouth. “You are so lucky that I don’t tell Mom what you just said! OH MY GOD. No, I meant she can chill out in Slushious while you’re talking to the Boov! She can nap in the backseat. But seriously, dude…never repeat that in front of her,” she laughed. They snickered quietly with each other, then eased into silence.
Tip laid her head back and closed her eyes. They’d had a busy day, and she was really starting to feel it. Talking to President Kyle and getting everything set up for ‘Captain Oh’s address to New Boovworld’ was emotionally exhausting. Especially since Oh wouldn’t let her yell at Kyle, or even take a couple harmless swings at his hologram. She still wasn’t over how he’d approved the orbital change without consulting them first. All of the harrassment they were getting from the public was his fault. At least with sleep closing in, she could dream about giving a certain traffic cop a couple well-deserved kicks…
Then Oh turned and nuzzled close into her side, and that reeled her back from the edge of sleep. It wasn’t that she was new to him being a cuddle-bug; being his best friend warmed her up to that real fast. But she could feel the deep furrow of his brows and all the tension coiling inside his little body. And now that she’d opened her eyes, she could see the spiky waves of yellow that pulsed over his skin. He’d really meant it before when he said he was stressed out.
“Um…” her hand hovered over his head, “Do you want me to…?” Oh nodded against her side.
Tip pressed her knuckles against the broad surface of his head, in the periphery spot between his nostricles, and began rubbing small circles. His body decompressed like a rubber toy released from a firm grip. She half-expected him to turn into a purple Boov puddle, but he just sighed and let his nostricles unfurl down his back.
She’d discovered this pressure point by accident a long time ago when she’d given Oh a noogie. It turned out that all Boov had the same pressure point in the same spot. And it was a massively taboo subject among the aliens. Just talking about it could get a Boov socially shunned. To them, it was an embarrassing weakness that could easily be exploited by their enemies.
Oh didn’t feel nearly as uncomfortable about it. He’d never really shared the Boovs’ harsh views on vulnerability, and being part of a family gave him security. He still made Tip and Lucy swear up and down and around the world that they wouldn’t ever mention the head rubs to anyone, human or otherwise.
It was a silly thing for Boov to be so wary about, but it made Tip feel special to have Oh’s complete trust. Together with their mom, they’d forged the kind of human-Boov familial unit that members of either species would deem impossible. That was the big reason Oh was putting so much pressure on himself about tomorrow, Tip knew.
He didn’t just want to fix the moon’s orbit so people would stop bothering his family. It was a huge motivator, sure; but as Boov Captain, he dreamed of forging the kind of interspecies relationship that he’d found with Tip and Lucy. If the Boov refused to return the moon—and subsequently, Earth—to normal, they would sabatoge that dream before it could ever become reality.
“Everything will work out,” Tip promised. She knew Oh had fallen asleep, but it was the sort of thing their mom would say. Even if Lucy herself had doubts.
And Tip had her doubts. Secretly, and very guiltily, she didn’t think humans and Boov could be more than distant neighbors caught in the same orbit. After the invasion and the subsequent psuedo-exile, there was always going to be a taste of bitterness between them.
She wanted to be proven wrong, of course. She wanted the world to smash her expectations on the ground and dance on the pieces. She didn’t want a big shiny trophy saying she was right.
But unbeknownst to Tip, tomorrow had a big shiny surprise planned. There were a lot of things that were about to go wrong on New Boovworld. And for all the trouble that had already unfolded between humans and Boov over the past week, it was nothing compared to the interspecies chaos that was going to happen next.