Space Oreos

They'd finally run out of oreos. It took months, but finally, finally, they'd run out--the last one accidentally ejected into space. Sirius stood stewing in front of the glass window of his ship. It wasn't his fault the oreo had been in that little cup he'd tossed in the trash. Oren was the one who had hidden it there, figured he'd never find it. 

He hadn't. Obviously. Which was why it was floating in space right now instead of in his stomach. Sirius scowled at the speckles of light drifting out of the immense black. 

"Go see the stars," they said, "they're beautiful up there in space." They said. Yeah well, Sirius wished he could haul those freaks up here and make them stare at the murderous fireballs for fifteen months in a broken down ship, with no outside contact and then see how beautiful they thought the stars were. 

Stupid stars. They could blink out of existence for all he cared--the people too. 

The ship had been quiet since their malfunctioning, sandwich loving AI had decided to go completely silent until they were - as she put it - ‘found by certain functioning individuals who could clearly state which sandwich was their favorite as well as help them out of this black hole of utter despair’.

Stupid ship. He was decidedly disappointed in his ship's ability to...well...move.

"It's not your ship." Oren said from the deck where he spun aimlessly in the only swivel chair in the ship. Sirius turned to glare at him. Sometimes he thought his friend could read minds, other times he thought Oren just psychoanalyzed everyone like some villainous creep. Which....he was, a villain--that is---not a creep. 

"So how come we only installed ONE swivel chair?" Sirius said, stepping away from the ship's window. Oren shrugged.

"We should have installed two, because there are two of us."

"Are there." Oren said idly.

Who knew, really, one of them could be imaginary by now. But imaginary or not...Sirius took another step forward. "Up. My turn in the chair."

Oren gave himself another spin.

"Oren."

"There's a perfectly good chair over there." Oren said, still spinning.

"It doesn't swivel." Sirius said.

"Sad."

Sirius glared at Oren, the little..... But instead of grabbing him by his perfectly manicured hair and hauling him off the chair, Sirius walked towards the doorway. "No prob. I'll just go look through your knives." Behind him the chair came to a halt. Slipping out the entrance, Sirius broke into a jog through the steel hallway of the ship. 

"Don't you dare touch them! That's my emotional support knife collection!" Oren hollered from the deck. 

Sirius made his way down the hallway of the ship to the third room to the right. Oren's studious room. It used to have a lock, but now the door knob was completely gone. Sirius shoved the door open. He had melted the knob a few weeks back. Some of his finest work, if he did say so himself. 

Oren's room looked like a real life replica of perfection: it was white--the walls and ground and ceiling-and there was a bed directly across, its stark sheets laid across the mattress more smoothly than Sirius could ever get his hair to lay. To the side of that was a desk, bolted and firm, with a spotless furnish and all the drawers safely locked. He'd have to see about melting those knobs later, maybe to get back at Oren for being responsible for the loss of their last oreo. For now though, there was the matter of the swivel chair and the knives. On the right side of the bed was a sparkling glass showcase, inside which was the most impressive knife collection Sirius had ever seen. And they weren't just ordinary knives, there were knives from nearly every person Oren had ever fought -- and then some which he had picked up from one market or another. Sirius leaned closer to get a better view of a smaller knife, its blade was shaped like a half moon. It---

"STEP.AWAY.FROM.MY.KNIVES." Oren growled from behind him. It was the voice he was famous for, the one that said 'I’m a master villain and I'm to be feared'. At least that's what it said to anyone who didn't know him as well as Sirius. He turned with a smirk. "Oh calm down, I haven't even touched them." Oren stood in the doorway, stiff and imposing in his suit of white with gold trimmings. He glared at Sirius a good moment before stalking forward to inspect his knives. 

"See? They're perfectly fine." Sirius said, "in fact they're perfectly wonde--"

"You breathed on it." Oren huffed. 

"I...breathed...on, what?"

Oren went back to glaring at him. "The glass. You breathed on the glass."

"But it doesn't look any different." Sirius said.

"It does too." Oren insisted, "it just takes a sophisticated eye to see it."

Sirius snorted.

"Okay Back! Back back back!" Oren said, waving him out of the room. "The next thing I know you'll be sneezing on it."

"Alright, I'm going." Sirius said walking out. He hesitated in the doorway, watching as Oren glanced back at his precious collection. Sirius grinned as he watched Oren's eyes snag on the tiny empty place on the far edge of the display case. Oren looked back at Sirius, and then, the man smiled. 

A heartbeat later Sirius smelled the smoke.

Two heartbeats and the ship's fire resistance system blared active.

Five. Sirius was pelting down the hallway to his bedroom and---and, it was in flames. 

His...his bedroom was on fire. How was THAT even possible! The thing was made of steel. But...not everything else was: the furniture, the bed, the---"OREN!" He yelled, gripping the sides of his doorway. The vents opened in his room and released a white gas that filled the room, snuffing each hungry flame as if it were a boot and they--bugs. And then it sucked the remnant gasses back into the vents, sealing them again. Leaving behind a black scorched, smoke smelling, grave of bed-sheets and used-to-be-valuable collectables. 

"Well" Oren said from the hallway behind him, "That's a sight."

"I can't believe this...You don't just set someone's room on fire!" Sirius gestured wildly to his once semi-nice bedroom. 

"Says the person who melted my door knob." Oren said. 

"You put A SCORPION IN MY BOOT."

"Because you lost my knife."

"I..." Sirius paused. "Well, it went to a good cause."

Oren raised an eyebrow. 

"Oh come on, scratching my initials on your armor is a wonderful cause," Sirius turned to inspect his nearly nonexistent bed, "not my fault it somehow wandered off after that."  He poked his mattress and it dissolved into ashes. "Wonderful."

Oren leaned against the wall. "Anyway, you've gotta admit, Sirius, I did pretty good hooking up the ventilation just right so you'd smell the smoke exactly a second before the alarms went off." Oren said proudly. 

Sirius wiped his now ash colored finger on his clothes and deliberately refused to look at his friend. Stinkin villain, had to be so good at his job.  "I suppose you can do pretty good cleaning this up as well," he said, "and replacing all my very valuable collectibles once we get rescued from this useless bucket of steel."

"Hmm. I think I'm going to go on over to the Kitchen and look for something to eat while grieving the tragic loss of our last oreo cookie, instead." Oren said, walking away.

"Hey!" Sirius barked, spinning from the sorry remnants of his collectibles. Oren was already gone. But he wasn't going to get out of this, not this time. The oreo cookie--which was not his fault, in fact, it was Oren who tried to hoard them all up for himself in the first place--was the least of Oren's worries. He grabbed a heavy bag from his closet and stalked down the hall towards the kitchen. 

"OREN!"

Nothing, no sound. Except the thrumming of the horrid prison he'd been trapped in for what seemed like forever now. And he didn't even have a stupid oreo cookie to solace him. Why? Because of Oren, because he stuck it in a cup.  He rounded the corner of the kitchen section of the ship and stopped short. Oren was sitting on the table there, eating cookies. Chocolate chip cookies.

"You've had those this whole time!" Sirius exclaimed. 

Oren stuffed the last one in his mouth. 

"You could have left the oreos for me." Sirius said, jerking his bag open. "But instead you put the last one in a cup."

"A clean cup," Oren said, swallowing. "It was most certainly clean."

He reached into the bag, "honestly I really don't care."

"And I'm not going to help you cle--" Oren paused, "hey, what's in the bag..."

Sirius chunked a shoe at him. Steel-toed, well made, firm as a rock. Made throwing it feel gorgeous. Oren gave a sound like a strangled mouse as he scrambled off his perch and out of the path of the wrathful footwear. It slammed uselessly into the wall behind. Sirius chunked another. 

"Hey!" Oren yelped, ducking behind the counter, "What in the universe are you doing?"

"Throwing shoes at you." Sirius said. Obviously. 

"Now now. Heroes aren't supposed to hurt their villain friends." Oren said from behind the counter. 

"Ah yes," Sirius said, "except that doesn't really matter right now, because if it weren't for you wanting to run off and save the world from imminent disaster, I'd be safely on a planet eating as many oreos as I want."

"Well then, you're welcome. That would be incredibly unhealthy." Oren said.

Sirius threw a gold trimmed boot. It plunked against the counter. Oren peeped up to stare at it, and then ducked right in time as he hurled the boot's pair. 

"Actually," Oren muttered, "I'm rather concerned why you have so many shoes."

"If I wasn't in a broken down ship in the middle of nowhere, with no hopes of ever making it back to civilization, those shoes would be quite valuable!" Sirius wasn't even aiming for Oren anymore. He catapulted a pink dotted pair of tennis shoes into the far wall, they hit it with a satisfying thump. 

Oren stood, staring at him. "You mean to tell me....you collect shoes."

Sirius threw a bright yellow sandal at Oren's face. It didn't even get close, of course. Oren looked at the sandal and then back up at Sirius. 

"You're a shoe collector!" He broke out laughing, gripping the sides of the counter. "How did I not know this sooner!"

Sirius paused his onslaught of shoe missiles, there was only like, one more left in the bag anyway. "They're very expensive. And valuable." he said in his defense. 

Oren only laughed harder. 

"Took me a long time to collect them all too." He muttered under his breath. 

"I'll"--Oren said between gaspy breaths--"make sure to leave you my shoes when I die. Something to remember me by."

Sirius rolled his eyes and tossed his bag in the corner. "I'd probably eject them into space if you did, like the oreo."

Oren managed to stop laughing enough to bow his head and murmur, "we shall forever grieve your greatest mistake, Sirius."

"MINE?"

"Yes." Oren said, "You killed Mr. Oreo."

Sirius opened his mouth to object when the entire ship beeped, as if jolting awake.

"What did my ship just do?" Sirius rubbed his ears, glancing around.

"Um...it's not your ship. It's mine. Remember? I convinced the previous owner to give it in exchange for his life." Oren said. 

"That's not how I remem---" Sirius began.

"SANDWICHES." A crisp, emotionless voice vibrated from the ship's speakers. "THE LIFE-BLOOD OF MANKIND."

"Hey Sandie!" Oren exclaimed happily. 

"Welcome back weird, malfunctioning AI who secretly wants to murder us with sandwiches and false facts." Sirius said. "Guess you got bored, huh."

"HUNGRY?" The ship's AI said. 

"For people." Sirius muttered. "And better company."

"CANNIBALISM, PERFECT." The AI said. "THERE IS A SHIP ENTERING THIS SECTOR AS WE SPEAK."

A ship? Sirius met Oren's gaze for a single life changing moment as the realization sunk in. 

"We're saved." Sirius whispered.

They both raced for the console, and started broadcasting their existence to anyone listening. The radio fuzzed in and out for a few seconds before finally the first voice they'd heard in months came over as clear as the black in space.

"Unknown transporter. This is Fate-12, prepare for boarding."

Sirius grinned, unholstering the pistol at his side. Oreos here I come.