(no subject)
Until he remembered that Howard probably wouldn’t care anymore. Probably wouldn’t even understand what he was going on about. Since the first day Vince arrived at the Zooniverse he never though he would be the smarter of the two keepers, but then one fateful afternoon three months ago Howard had been knocked unconscious when a falling vat of moisturiser fell from where Vince had kept it cellotaped to the ceiling. He had never fully recovered.
Vince hadn’t quite gotten over the guilt of causing his best friends…mental state, and despite Bob Fossil’s best efforts to get him locked away, had managed to get him to let Howard stay in the zookeepers hut to look after him.
“I’m not having some psycho looney tunes stalking the zoo! Without people paying to see it!” Fossil screamed at Vince, slamming his palm on the table.
“What?! Howard wouldn’t stalk the zoo, he’d probably just go after Mrs Gideon the horny old freak!”
“What was that Noir?”
“I mean, he’d sit still and look shy.” Vince quickly looked around the office.
“Yeah…that’s what I thought. I don’t like it Noir…Unless….I do something for you….” Fossil’s face lit up as an insane grin spread from cheek to cheek. “You do something for me…. Paquiche?”
“…What’s quiche got to do with anything, you septic mind tank?”
“You know, those I-talians say it…. I don’t like your tone!”
“Sorry, Mr Fossil.”
“That’s better….My little furry cotton drop….”
“Mr Fossil.” Vince said loudly. “Look - I’m here about Howard. I know he’s not up to doing much around the zoo anymore, but if he can stay with me then I’ll take over all his duties as well as my own, I swear.”
“What about my quiche?”
“…what about your quiche?”
Fossil made a face like a small child.
“I want one!”
Silence.
“….I’ll order in.”
Taking his request as a yes, Vince left Fossil at his desk, drawing what looked suspiciously like pastry.
Putting his key into the hut door, Vince tried to shake off the feelings of guilt he got every time he knew he was about to see Howard again.
As he opened the door, something massive, something entirely too big to be in a small zookeeper hut loomed into view. A giant cake. With icing. And possibly enough strawberry jam to last the entire of England for the next year or two.
Oh, and not forgetting a completely naked Howard sitting on top.
“Vince!” Howard scrambled to the edge of the dangerously swaying cake. “Vince, I made you something - Happy Birthday!”
Flattening himself against the wall to shield the windswept side of his hair getting stuck in the sponge, Vince covered his eyes with his hands. He could still hear the cake wobbling.
“Howard, get down from there! You could... I don’t know, catch diabetes or something! Get stuck in jam! I’d have to eat you out, and then where would we be? Tell you what I’d be - Vince Neil in a leotard, that’s what I’d be!”
Howard continued to writhe about on top of the cake, pretending to swim across it, then lying on his back and pushing against the ceiling, causing him to sink into the cake further.
“Howard…don’t make me come up there.”
Cursing the fact that Howard had somehow escaped the handcuffs Vince had been using to restrain him - he had half a mind to take them back to Ann Summers, if he didn’t have to explain how they got broken in the first place.. “I’ve been keeping my older male friend chained in the kitchen, and it’s only been three days!” - he sat down on the floor, yanking off his lopsided heels and wrapping a nearby kitchen towel around his head to protect his hair. He wished he hadn’t put so much product to achieve his balancing out look since the towel now made it look like he was hiding a flag. Grabbing the first pair of shoes he could find - “What the hell are these?! Croc shoes? I’m not wearing bright orange clogs with holes in them, not even to save Howard’s life!”
….
Grabbing the second pair of shoes he could see, Vince pushed one of his hands into the cake, trying to find something to hold on to.
How did he manage to make something this big?!
He kicked his right foot into the soft sponge.
We don’t even have an oven!
Reaching into the cake with his other hand, Vince touched something hard. (easy…)
“Howard….” Vince said slowly, feeling the object with his cake enclosed hand. “Have you baked a chair into this cake?”
He looked upwards, to where the beginnings of a rusty brown head were slowly moving into view from on top of the cake. Howard looked down at Vince, the top of his nose resting on the frosted edge.
“Yes.”
“You fruitloop.”
“And them.”
“Yeah whatever…”
Bitterly regretting turning down Fossil’s offer of having Howard caged and put on as part of the attractions, Vince continued to climb upwards, finding with each new foothold something else you would never find in Tesco’s finest.
“Bollo! What are you doing in there?!”
“Howard go crazy…ask Bollo to taste cooking mix…see if right temperature…next thing Bollo knew he must be at least …three quarters…original size and Howard is putting him in cake like strawberry!”
“Bollo calm down - you’re alright, just a bit….white with flour, is all…”
”Are you sure Bollo not dead?”
“You smell like it, but I’m pretty sure that’s your breath, which I guess is a good sign.”
“Bollo not small?”
“Listen Thumberbollo, if we don’t get Howard down sharpish there’s no telling what bakery related incidents might happen! We all might get fired!”
“Can’t fire Bollo, Bollo over one hundred years old…age discrimination law.”
“Whatever …I can still get fired, then who would listen to your episode reviews of Cadfael?”
“Tell them no fire Vince… for love between a man and a man is just as precious as love between man and woman… Bollo knows.”
“What?! I’m not gay!!”
Another voice could be heard from within the cake.
“Seeing as there’s a naked man sitting on a cake in your home, you might find that one hard to argue.”
Vince could recognise that sarcastic lisping anywhere.
“Naboo, how does a shaman end up in a giant cake?”
Naboo shrugged. Or Vince assumed he did, the cake around his shoulders jiggled slightly.
“Munchies.”
There was a slight pause.
“Right.” Vince shook his head. “Anyway, I’ve got a plan - Bollo, you eat the icing round this side, I’ll go round the other way, Naboo - you eat upwards from the middle. Let’s do this!”
3 days later…
Vince, Bollo and Naboo sat in opposite corners of the hut, each resembling a giant icing covered beach ball. The leotard Vince had been wearing 3 days ago now would be more accurately described as a tiny thong, Bollo looked like a massive and quite sticky hairball, and Naboo looked content, occasionally picking at the last of the cake.
Howard lay in the middle of the room with his thumb in his mouth, sleeping like a baby. His other arm was curled around a strawberry the size of a small dog.
Vince found the energy to let out a loud burp.
Howard jumped up, suddenly awake and looked around at the cake covered hut.
“Vince, what have you done? Why is there…what is all this?” He said, gesturing to all the mess. “And why am I naked Vince? You said you’d stop all that!”
Vince tried to talk through his brand new hamster cheeks. Of fat.
“Cake……birthday…..cake….”
“Vince, it’s not my birthday until May, you know that. Howard Moon, remember? King of the Zodiac? Big china bull? I see what’s happening here. You bought a cake, wanted it for your own, waited till I had one of me sleeps, and then - whoCHAMA - down in one. You didn’t need to drag me out here naked just to prove something, Vince. I would have let you have your cake. And eat it.”
Thanks for pointing out my lj skills are second to none - none being useless, and me being in second place even after that! have figured out how to do this cut thang ;)