Fic: Ghosts 4/?
Title: Ghosts
Chapter Title: Compulsive Liar
Pairing: Vince/Howard
Summary: Howard is worried about Vince’s strange behaviour. While Naboo and Bollo appear to turn a blind eye, Howard is determined to find out just what has made Vince lose his spark…
Word Count: ~950
Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, humor,
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: swears, implied mental and physical disorders, Freud quotes,
Disclaimer: I do not own the Mighty Boosh, but I do own my hair.
Author notes: This chapter is short but it didn’t want to go any further.
Thankyou for all the feedback! I’m afraid the mystery is going to have to thicken before anything actually gets solved. Are you ready for the long haul? (hopefully not too long- my attention span is limited, naturally). I’m trying to keep them in the Boosh world but at the same time shove in some real disorders… some aspects of that are surprisingly easy considering that the characters are supposed to be 2D. Let us think back to the psychologist’s report on the Mighty Book of Boosh when they appeared on Jonathan Ross…
Chapter 4
Compulsive Liar.
'You do not even think of your own past as real; you dress it up, you guild it or blacken it, censor it, tinker with it ... fictionalise it, in a word, and put it on a shelf - your book, your romanced autobiography. We are all in flight from reality. That is the basic definition of Homo sapiens.'- Freud on romanticism.
Despite all the endless stories, Howard still wasn’t sure he could call Vince a compulsive liar. No; the younger man’s eyes held too much honesty (or something) for anything he said to be as clear cut as true or false.
"Did I told you about that time Sianopholsee the Panther tried to get me to go for a romantic firefly-lit meal by the river, Howard?" Vince would say.
His younger friend would often feel the need to discuss the way people admire and fancy his wiry physique. Howard lets him ramble on about the girls and guys and (apparently) big cats that tried to ask him out on a date. Vince claims that he doesn’t care about the numerous proposals; he claims they aren’t important to him. Unfortunately, through years of experience Howard has learnt that Vince does in fact care about the attention; the older man has comforted his friend on too many occasions after an unsuccessful night on the ‘unimportant’ pull to believe him.
"Did I ever tell you about my first introduction to the fashion world?" Vince would ask Howard. "It’s true I was born with the gift for fashion, but a talent needs training and practice all the same. Guanus the Parrot woke me up one morning, dressed in a genius two-part white suit with leather gloves which went over his feet. He told me about Cheekbone and Dazed & Confused, and showed me that I didn’t need to exist in just loincloths and plant-based materials; though I really did like that palm tree cape I made for myself in that last summer…"
It remained a mystery to Howard how a man could be so dependant on keeping up to date with fashion. Still, there was nothing wrong with variations of interests within a population, right? There are so many different types of people in the world that surely there is space for one that is completely obsessed with what’s ‘hot’ and what’s ‘not’?
"Once I woke up and I was covered in spiders and centipedes and millipedes and caterpillars. They crawled all over me," Vince would visibly shudder. "Ooh, that was horrible."
More often than not a story about Vince’s childhood would involve some form of violence or, at the very least, extreme discomfort; if not stated clearly then implied heavily within the words and subject matter. Sometimes Howard felt that the younger man was dodging the real issue and instead delivering a small, inconsequential message about something like ‘the proper way to condition your hair’.
Although, on other occasions Vince would start to babble and end up revealing as much as he could about what he had been trying to hide.
"They really did try to steal my face, Howard. Sometimes they would nearly succeed and my face would be blue and black from the beatings of their wooden tools. I’d have blood running from my nose and my mouth from where I’d bitten my cheeks and tongue. They were well vicious, Howard." Vince would reveal.
Howard suspects that sometimes Vince might just get confused and believe a story to be real; he always did have an over-active imagination.
"What about your real parents, Vince?" Howard would ask on rare occasions.
"Brian Ferry was genius- we used to fly kites made out of vine leaves and old bamboo shoots." Vince would say.
"Your real parents, Vince." Howard would repeat.
"He is my real parent." Vince would insist.
"What about your Mother?"
And then Vince would find an excuse to change the topic.
It must be easy to take a fond childhood tale and imprint it into your memory as reality rather than fantasy. Tarzan wallpaper created the forest scenery. A family joke about Terry Wogan and Brian Ferry leading to a new father figure.
But why run from the truth?
"Do you remember the first time we met?" Howard would reminisce.
"Under that Oak tree, by the ice-cream van." Vince would say confidently. This would cause Howard to frown in confusion.
"No, Vince. It was in the park by the hospital." The older man would explain.
"What?"
"You were with your Father." Howard would recall.
"Brian Ferry?"
"Your real Father." Howard would correct.
"Brian Ferry." Vince would maintain.
"Your Father put you on the see-saw to cheer you up, because you were sad. He asked me if I would join you to balance out the weight."
"Is that so?" Vince would question, doubtingly. "Even if that was the case, Howard, I don’t think our weights would have matched that well." He would laugh, offhandedly to show that he was joking.
"How dare you, sir!" Howard would retort, only to discover that Vince was trying to change the topic. "We were less than eight years of age- we probably weighed the same!"
"We didn’t know each other until we were ten, Howard."
"We were definitely less than eight, Vince. I remember trying to invite you to my birthday party that year but not being able to track you down."
"I don’t think so, Howard."
"I know so, little man."
"I’ve never been to a park by a hospital anyway, I’m certain. Why would I have been there? I’m sure you’re wrong." Vince would persist.
"Your Mother wasn’t well, Vince."
And then Vince would find an excuse to leave the room.
Was it lying if you believed it yourself?