Fic: Ghosts 6/?
Title: Ghosts
Chapter Title: Sweet Enough
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: ~1630
Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, humor,
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: implied mental and physical disorders, mild violence, in-jokes/terms of endearment, shameless self promotion.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Mighty Boosh, but I do own my hair.
Author notes: The ‘shameless self promotion/references to own work’ is the Henry Hoover reference. For more of the history between Henry Hoover and Howard Moon please visit my LJ and take a peek at Spring Cleaning :)
Chapter 6
Howard woke at the sound of a loud thump which bared an uncanny resemblance to something - or rather, someone - falling to the floor. He lay amongst his devilish nutmeg duvet (and matching pillows) with his heart pounding. He strained his ears to hear for any repercussions to the noise, fearing that a burglar or a rat or a fox had found their way into the flat. Perhaps if he lay still long enough they would go away without hurting him? Surely a murderer wouldn’t want to kill him? Surely he wasn’t of any overwhelming significance? Take the small man! Don’t kill me! I’ve got so much to give…
Eventually Howard let himself relax, and he rolled over to go back to sleep - after all, he needed to be up early to open the shop seeing as Vince was apparently incapacitated at present.
Suddenly, he heard a whine break out from another room in the flat. It shortly became apparent to Howard that someone (Vince?) might be hurt. Now it seemed that concern had become preponderant to the cowardice that usually haunted his person. He grabbed his angry muffin towel dressing gown and padded out cautiously into the hall.
There was another low groan from Vince’s room, and the sound of scuffling.
Vince fitting in the blood-red dentist’s chair.
Howard slowly reached for the door handle leading to his room. As soon as his hand made contact with the brass a light flickered on from inside the room.
And then, without warning, the cowardice was back in full force. He jumped back in fright, away from the door. Assuming his good friend must be well, he trampled back to his room as quietly as possible in the silence of the flat.
The next morning Howard woke with a start. He jumped up into a sitting position, brown hair terrifically askew as is common for many in the early hours of the day. Wondering what had aroused him from his sleep, he strained his ears to listen out for any sounds which seemed out of place. A scraping noise could be heard loudly over the warm hum of the water boiler, and Howard instantly realised he was not the first one to awake on this particular morn; someone was in the kitchen, apparently sliding a chair along the hard floor. The small eyed man threw off his bed sheets, dressed himself once more in his angry muffin towel dressing gown, and made his way towards the noise, hoping for some early morning conversation. He hoped that he may even be able to clarify what had awoken him in the night.
Blinking blearily as he stepped into the bright kitchen, he coughed lightly to alert the room’s other occupant to his presence. When his eyes finally began to focus properly he saw that his raven haired friend was smiling at him through his curtain-like fringe. His electric blue silk dressing gown was draped over his thin frame and his feet were being kept warm by a pair of baby pink slippers adorned with silver sequins. None of this was out of place when compared to any other normal first greeting of the day with Vince, what shocked Howard on this particular occasion was how abundantly red his friend’s nose appeared to be. For a moment he pondered on the idea that he might have been experimenting with clown make-up again, but discarded that thought when he finally comprehended the significance of the previously unnoticed swelling of the aforementioned facial feature.
“What happened?” Howard croaked, posing his first question of the day with shocked concern. Vince frowned at him and hummed in fake confusion to what he was being asked. This annoyed Howard who strongly suspected that by answering Vince would have been able to kill two birds with one stone - the second being the loud thump in the night.
“Your nose, Vince,” Howard said slowly and clearly, “what happened to your nose?”
“Oh,” the smaller man turns away from him, grabbing his cup of tea from the table. Howard remembered buying the mug for him when they decided to go on a spur of the moment trip to Brighton; it was white with pink lettering reading ‘Sweet Enough?’. Vince had loved it from the second he saw it, and Howard had thought it to be rather fitting with the theme of the day (but that is another story for another time). “It’s nothing to worry about, Howard,” the electro poof mumbled into his hot drink. He took a sip, then: “It’s not like it’s the first time or anything.”
Howard knew he was referring to the damage obtained by his nose rather than anything as sinister as the method to how it was actually obtained.
“That’s not the point, little man.”
“Do you want some tea?” Vince proposed, immediately reaching for Howard’s mug - the colour of ‘Thames water’ according to the younger man - before he could respond.
“You can talk to me, Vince.” Howard sat down at the table, looking at Vince sadly.
“Two sugars?”
“None. That’s a pointless question, you knew that,” the older man stated with a hint of annoyance. He knew that Vince was deliberately trying to avoid verbal interrogation. The younger man continued to dance around the kitchen, smile never waning as he gracefully opened the fridge to fetch the milk and then smoothly poured the boiling water over the tea bag, letting it stew until it was the exact strength he knew Howard liked.
Once finished, Vince placed the cup in front of Howard, on a small canvas mat, effectively keeping his face hidden behind his hair.
“I heard a bump in the night, Vince,” Howard tentatively offered as an opening statement, unsure of how to approach the subject knowing that his friend would probably be feeling embarrassed if his suspicions were correct.
“Your new Global Explorer is here,” the younger man indicated towards the rather plain, green magazine on the table, seemingly ignoring Howard.
Distracted, the taller man reached for the magazine and simultaneously glanced down at the pile of previous issues which had come to rest on the floor next to his chair; though he had no memory of how they had got there. A fleeting thought made him feel a pang of frustration that Vince could be so evasive as to try and pull Howard away from the task at hand.
“Did you put these here, little man?”
Once again the younger man neglected to answer the question posed to him and proceeded to carelessly throw bread in the toaster and tug the fridge door open once more.
“Howard, where’s the jam?” the smaller man’s voice sounded slightly muffled, probably, Howard suspected, as a result of his injury.
“Where do you think?” the maverick retorted with growing annoyance at his friend’s pretend ignorance. Vince wasn’t as simple as he made himself out to be (or even as simple as Howard thought he was), but he knew he could play the perception of his character to his own advantage.
“Oh, I know exactly where it is, I just thought I’d quiz you,” Vince said, pouting sarcastically.
“Top left like usual,” Howard said, humouring him. “Don’t touch the green jar; it’s Naboo’s.”
“As if,” Vince scoffed, grabbing the strawberry jam but steering clear of the glowing object. He knew of the consequences when it came to messing with Yakult. Total hair-mare. It took days to get the yoghurt from his shining locks.
Having lifted it to the table, Howard was now obsessively filing his collection of the Global Explorer, adding in the new issue after a brief flick through its pages. He didn’t ponder on how effective Vince had actually been in succeeding in his plan to keep him off topic. As he picked up each magazine Howard laughed fondly at the memories of reading about the Amazon wanderer who braved Piranha-infested waters to reach the hidden cave of Gnocchi. The incredible twist in events had led the explorer to what was probably the only genuine gourmet Italian restaurant in the whole of Brazil.
CRASH!
Howard started at the sound of glass breaking behind him. Issues 498 and 316 fell on the floor, but in his surprise Howard failed to notice.
“Vince!” Howard jumped from his chair.
“Sorry! Sorry! I dunno what happened,” Vince breathed out, glancing down at the shattered glass around his slipper covered feet. “It just slipped out of my hand.”
“Don’t move.” Howard instructed. He grabbed the subtle beige dustpan and brush from under the sink and began to clear up the loose shards around Vince’s feet.
“Get off!” Vince giggled lightly as the bristles scraped around his bare ankles. He took a step back and hopped onto a stool, feet clear of the glass.
“You better make sure there are no shards have gone into your slippers. You don’t want them on the soles of your feet,” Howard warned.
“How dare you, my feet’s souls are perfectly clean; not a point on their licences. Definitely no glass shards anywhere near ‘em.”
“Suit yourself…” Howard grabbed some kitchen roll to clear up the jammy mess on the floor.
“You’re such a good wife-y.” Vince indicated towards the Henry Hoover and mop resting in the corner of the room. The toast popped up and Vince quickly reached for the honey in the cupboard behind him and skipped out of the room.
Howard blinked slowly at the space that his friend had just vacated. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw the Henry Hoover move closer to the mop, as if for protection from Howard’s jazzy hands.
Not wanting to upset any more household objects today, he kept his head low and continued to clean the floor, mind buzzing with thoughts about Vince.