things you said when we were on top of the world

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A/N: This was a mini-fic requested by rainbowratsstuff, with the prompt "things you said when we were on top of the world" for Chief, Lesser, & Cheryl. This is set during the musical, and I've drawn heavily from Good Omens because it's still, to date, the best drunken scene I've ever had the pleasure of reading. (And, yes, the 'aromatic' misspelling is on purpose.)

Also shout out to the Discord folks, especially rainbowratsstuff, for the soap conversation. (This acknowledgement will make sense, I promise!)

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It was three o'clock in the morning. Toad had been in prison for fifteen hours, and the Wild Wooders had been drinking solidly for three of them.

In truth, the only reason the inebriated merriment hadn't begun earlier was because it had taken them that long to locate the key to the cellar, since the previous owner hadn't seen fit to attach a nice convenient 'this one for booze' label to it.

The Chief, Lesser and Cheryl were located on the roof of Toad Hall. At first this had seemed like a jolly good idea to make sure no other Wild Wooders would work through their own booze share and come looking for extra but, as the alcohol had soaked into their systems, it became more of a practical matter that descending the stairs was too much of a hazard.

"What I don't get," Lesser said, "what I don't get is." He tried to focus on the other two, and when that didn't happen, settled for focusing on the two animal-shaped blobs beside him instead. "What I don't get is..." He tried to recall the exact thought that had set him talking.

"Maths," Cheryl said.

"That too," Lesser agreed. "But, but, something else—"

"Never liked algebra," the Chief said. "Can't trust letters that get involved with numbers."

"Exactly."

"If yer a letter, yer stick to the alphabet, simple as that. Yer don't go... yer don't go cavorting with numbers. 'S nasty."

"Shouldn't be teaching pups that sort of thing."

"What I don't get," Lesser tried for the fourth time, "is soap."

There was a drunken silence, or as silent as it could be while two weasels on the ground floor were hauling a piano out into the gardens.

"Soap," the Chief echoed.

Belatedly realising he'd left something out of the equation, Lesser added, "Toad's soap."

The Chief and Cheryl made sounds of understanding.

"Yer think you're looking at a nice tasty cheesecake, then yer bite into it and you discover it's... it's fat and water and... and whatever else soap is made of—"

"Oil," Cheryl said knowledgeably.

"Nah," the Chief said.

"Oil," she repeated.

"Like... engine oil or...?" Lesser asked.

"I don't know, do I?"

"Prob'bly not engine oil though," Lesser said. "Prob'bly one of those fancy oils like coconut oil for Mr Toad."

"If it was fat and water and coconut oil," the Chief argued, "then why can't you cook it?"

"I bet you can."

"You can cook anything if you try hard enough," Cheryl offered helpfully.

"But yer don't get — yer don't get recipes like add salt, flour, and your nearest soap bar," the Chief said.

"Right," Lesser said, and with a gargantuan effort, he managed to pull his train of thought back onto the original tracks he'd set off from. "So why make soap that's aro — aromantic — smells like food?"

"I bit into a doughnut earlier," Cheryl said miserably, "only it wasn't a doughnut."

The Chief decided he was beginning to think far too logically about this whole thing, and poured out another glass. He succeeded on the third attempt. "That's what being rich does to an animal," he announced. "Yer get an idea and nobody can tell you no. The only reason Toad got banged up in the clink for twenty years is 'cause he upset some other rich fob."

"And name-called the police," Cheryl reminded him.

"Exactly," the Chief said. He waved a chicken wing emphatically for effect. "But he goes round crashing his fancy-smancy motor cars for a whole summer and what does he get? Fines. And what do fines mean to someone like him?"

"Nothing!" cheered Lesser in drunken excitement to knowing the answer.

"Nothing!" Cheryl echoed.

"Right!" The Chief spat out a mouthful of chicken wing. "Who makes meat-smelling soap?"