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Lee woke up early Saturday morning to the sound of flit-fairies buzzing his head. He swatted ineffectively at them for several minutes, but then one flew up his nose, and he sneezed. That woke Tony with a jolt.
"Bwuh? What?" Tony muttered into his pillow.
"Flit-fairies are back. That magical sticky-tape you put around the back-door obviously isn't working." Lee yawned and swatted some more so that this time they wouldn't fly into his open mouth.
Tony groaned. "I'll fix it this afternoon." He slipped his hand out from under the nice, warm covers, pushed his magical will through the symbol on his palm, and thought "fairy magnet" really hard. All the flit-fairies were instantly sucked into his hand like a vacuum cleaner. Tony nudged open the drawer in the bed stand, shook the flit-fairies off into it, and slammed the drawer closed on them again.
"You getting up?" Lee asked and stretched.
Tony grunted into his pillow.
"Slug," Lee teased.
Tony let out a sound like a dying calf. "If you're so awake, you can make me breakfast. And coffee."
"No such luck," Lee gave Tony a quick peck on the forehead, which was the only portion of his body that was currently visible under the mound of blankets. "I'm going running."
"Weirdo," Tony accused illogically and went back to sleep.
Right at the end of Lee's morning run, a translucent force-field appeared directly in front of him. He put his hands up just as he crashed into it, and it glistened and sparked beneath his palms in a wide array of rainbow colors. Lee turned to run around the force-field, but he discovered that it surrounded him on all sides.
About two-hundred feet away, he spotted the minor warlock who had set it up.
"Bwahaha!" the warlock cackled. "At last, that perfect ass shall be all mine!"
Lee sighed and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. The phone rang five times and then went to the answering machine. "Wake up, Tony," Lee said impatiently. "Someone else is after my ass."
There were a few moments of silence and then fumbling as the receiver picked up. "Huh? Lee?" Tony said blearily.
"I need you to come rescue me," Lee explained. "I'm about a block and a half north of home on 53rd."
Tony groaned. "Can't you handle it yourself? It's cold outside."
"Listen," Lee said testily, "the supernatural are naturally attracted to places where wizards spend a lot of time. So your options are either to spend significantly less time in my ass, or come rescue me when I call you."
That seemed to wake Tony up. "I'll be right there," he promised.
Lee hung up. "He'll be here in a minute," he informed the minor warlock, who was still laughing maniacally.
Sure enough, five minutes later, Tony jogged up the street wearing nothing but a bathrobe and Lee's old gym shoes, banished the minor warlock back to its home dimension, and freed Lee.
"All without coffee," Tony complained.
"I'll make you some when we get home," Lee promised.
They went out for lunch because everything in the refrigerator had spontaneously transformed into energy crystals during the night again.
"I suspect it's because I used decaf Folgers' crystals when I set up the charm to keep the flit-fairies out of there," Tony explained around a bite of his sandwich.
"Why on earth did you use decaf, then?" Lee demanded.
Tony made a face. "Who on earth drinks decaf, anyway? I sure as hell wasn't going to waste real coffee while that was sitting right there."
"Well, you're going shopping to replace the food we lost," Lee insisted. "And remember to get some real vegetables this time. Despite what the Goldfish bags say, they do not actually qualify as a vegetable."
"Sure, no problem," Tony agreed.
At that moment, a blob of purple ectoplasm spontaneously popped into existence above their table and fell down upon it with a mighty 'splat!'
Tony and Lee had enough experience with the noon ectoplasm that they'd both pushed their chairs back in unison mere seconds ahead of time, and their clothes were spared.
"Were you done?" Lee asked and signaled for their bill.
Tony sighed as he looked at his last few fries that were now covered in purple goo. "I guess I am now."
"I'd better leave an extra-large tip for the waitress." Lee grimaced at the table.
"Good idea," Tony agreed.
Tony spent the afternoon watching TV, while Lee futzed around in the backyard. Tony frowned as he flicked through the channels: Law & Order, Law & Order, Law & Order, Law & Order… By the time he found Law & Order was on the Cartoon Network, too, he realized he had a problem.
Lee came in through the kitchen door to wash his hands just as Tony was getting himself a can of Coke.
"One of those weird plants that glows in the dark is trying to learn how to speak to me," Lee complained. "I think it's becoming sentient. You're sure it's not dangerous?"
"You mean Gracie?" Tony took a deep, revitalizing sip. "She's just an extra-dimensional observer. She's cool."
"Not her," Lee shook his head, "Molly."
"She's probably just budding, then," Tony shrugged.
"As long as she doesn't try to bud with me," Lee agreed.
"I'll talk to her," Tony promised.
"What's on TV?" Lee asked.
"Law & Order, all stations. The TV's cursed again."
"Are you sure it's a curse and that's not the actual programming schedule?"
Tony shrugged. "In either case, let's get a movie tonight."
"Okay, sure," Lee agreed. "Just let me get changed."
"Ni! Ni! Ni ni ni!"
"Aw, man," Tony groaned. "I thought we'd finally gotten rid of the gnomes."
"Want me to get the broom?" Lee watched the calf-high troop dance around the coffee table.
"Yeah, thanks," Tony agreed. "I'll keep them out of the pizza."
Lee got up, fetched the broom, and began sweeping the gnomes back out the front door.
"Ni!" they said to him in an effort to scare him off. "Ni ni ni!"
"Sorry," Lee apologized and booted them outside, "that only works in Python movies."
"Ni!" the gnomes insisted sullenly.
Lee slammed the front door in their faces.
"It could have been worse," Tony commented when Lee sat back down beside him on the couch.
"Oh?"
"We could have been watching 'Wayne's World.'"
"Point," Lee agreed.
Tony lazily wrapped his naked body around Lee's and nuzzled his hair one last time, before rolling over onto his side of the bed to sleep. "'Night," he murmured contentedly.
"'Night," Lee agreed. He sat up and got his book from the bed stand.
Tony let himself relax into the rhythm of Lee's breathing and the slow turning of pages, and then Lee suddenly started.
"Uh, Tony?" Lee shook his shoulder gently.
"Yeah?" Tony cracked open an eye.
"All the letters on the page are walking around again." Lee handed over the book.
Tony blinked at where all the A's were building a fortification out of I's in one corner, while the E's and U's rolled O's at the dancing consonants at the far side of the page. "The consonants and vowels can never get along," he sighed wearily.
"The vowels always insist it's because the consonants are bad neighbors who have loud parties all the time," Lee agreed.
Tony took a deep breath in and reabsorbed all the magic that had accidentally leaked into the pages. The consonants and vowels moved back to their proper places and settled in for the night. "Here you go," he handed the book back to Lee.
"Thanks," Lee took it from him.
Tony lay back and stared at the ceiling for a while, letting his thoughts wash over him, and then said, "You know, I always wanted this."
Lee looked over at him. "Huh? Wanted what?"
"To have a nice house and a gorgeous boyfriend who I could spend lazy weekends with," Tony explained. "As cliché as it sounds, I always wanted a nice, normal life."
Lee snorted and gave Tony an affectionate peck on the lips. "You," he informed Tony, "have a very strange definition of 'normal.'"
Tony grinned unrepentantly.