Fic: Ghosts 7/11
Title: Ghosts
Chapter Title: The Shining Star
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: ~2520
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: Vince just didn’t want to let me leave him alone, hence the length of this chapter in comparison to the quieter, more reserved, chapters from Howard’s point of view.
Once again, thank you to all my betas and everyone who reviews :)
All previous parts can by find on my live journal. x
7. The Shining Star
Vince had gone to bed earlier than usual. He had been feeling exhausted all day, though not really having any reason to. He knew that there was some truth in Howard’s words when his friend had said he would feel better if he actually did something productive. Unfortunately, Vince had lost all faith in his ability to actually complete anything of importance. This had led to a sort of crumpling in on himself.
Where it was obvious to everyone that his confidence had taken a significant blow, few knew the reason for his new, uncharacteristically reclusive habits.
Blame could be placed on the peculiar illness he’d been suffering from for the last few weeks. In fact, time seemed to be playing tricks on his mind; for all he knew this could have been going on for months.
Self assurance was something that Old Vince was never short of, but the peculiar things that had started happening to him were draining him of all his courage. It was taking a nose-dive.
Rather fittingly, he awoke in the night feeling like he had just been bludgeoned smack bang in the face; his nose having received the full shock of it.
He had fallen out of bed and was now sprawled on his stomach upon the carpeted, yet hard, ground. Vince had no recollection as to how he had got there - the simple answer to this would have been that he had fallen out of bed while asleep, which he assumed must be true, but at the same time he was a fair enough distance away from his bed to warrant some suspicions that he had shuffled or walked away from it.
From the jelly-like feeling in his legs he doubted he had been doing much walking.
Currently, the only visible sign of agony from his nose dripped out in all its ruby glory, taking obscene pride in staining the pale carpet. An auditory response to the injury was soon emitted from the back of his throat as he finally grasped an idea of the severity of the whole situation. A long, slow pained whine accompanied with a sob of tears.
This was hopeless. Even in his sleep, separate from conscious thoughts, he was haunted by the seemingly illogical illness that he must, surely, be imagining? It wasn’t like when he came out in a rash after being exposed to the ghastly ‘music’ genre of jazz. It wasn’t like when he had been out drinking the night before and ended up with a smashing hangover the next day. Nor did it bear any resemblance to Howard’s sore red arms after a session of self inflicted Chinese burns…
Vince could not find a cause or reason for what was happening to him, which in his opinion meant that it couldn’t be real.
With a flash of self doubt, he recalled that living in denial was something he was used to.
Pushing himself into a sitting position weakly with trembling arms, he reached over to flick on the lamp on his bedside cabinet. He cringed back as the multitude of photons attacked his delicate retinas. His ears strained as he though he heard someone outside his door. The young man stilled and glanced in the direction of the sound. He was thankful to Jagger when all seemed silent in the flat apart from his own heavy breathing.
A sparkling silver tissue box which had fallen to the floor next to him assisted him when it came to tenderly mopping up his bloodied nose. A fully stocked pile of painkillers in his sock draw with some bottled water dampened the physical stomach churning aching in his face. A decent bottle of stain remover would clean up the carpet.
But Vince doubted anything would be able to repair his pride any time soon.
After an unsuccessful attempt at falling back to sleep soon after cleaning himself up from his tumble, Vince pulled out a blank canvas with some oil paints. He propped himself up on a wooden stool by his easel. The adrenaline rush from his rude awakening had provided him with a sufficient degree of insomnia for him to feel the need to occupy his mind with thoughts other than ‘Oh why can’t I just fucking sleep?’, but he knew the exhaustion which so often followed a ‘life threatening’ event was going to catch up with him faster if he didn’t sit to paint.
Paint threw itself over the previously spotless weave of the canvas. Vince vaguely witnessed the movement of the paintbrush as he, in his state sleepy state, considered what his subconscious muse had decided to paint for him. He seemed to become enmeshed in the intricate patterns and significant conglomeration of colours that the picture slowly acquired. In comparison to other artists, it was a frequent occurrence for Vince’s paintings to appear particularly inane. However, on this occasion it soon became apparent that the focus of the picture was fast becoming something much more horrifying and close to home. After hours of obsessive painting Vince gaped in sheer terror at what he had created.
An image of the Beast lay before him.
Dropping his brush, staining the carpet for the second time that night, he pushed over the easel so as to get the painted demon away from his person as quickly as possible. He staggered backwards until his shins hit his bed where he collapsed backwards onto it, face scrunched up with tears spilling over his bruised cheeks.
Perhaps he would never be able to escape from his terrible clutches?
Vince wondered why some hidden part of him would think it to be so important that he should delineate a part of his own personal history that he had consciously tried to block. Memories should remain buried less they need to be called upon.
As soon as Vince deemed it to be a relatively normal time to be awake, he wrapped himself in his electric blue silk dressing gown and tucked his feet snugly into his favourite pair of slippers. He padded out to the kitchen in search of some food; naturally, waking up early tends to knock your body clock slightly off-kilter and so Vince’s stomach had decided it was breakfast time at the early hour that was half past six.
Upon entering the kitchen he walked straight into a chair, pushing it and causing a horrible scraping sound to echo around the flat. He cringed at the loud sound, and made a shushing sound towards the inanimate object as though begging it to be quiet. Vince threw his hand at the light switch by the door. The room was suddenly drenched in fake brightness that clashed strangely with the natural light provided from the sunrise through the window.
Vince set about making himself his first cup of tea of the day. He was interrupted when heard a rough cough from by the door. He turned to give Howard a crooked grin. His nose was still throbbing painfully, but the electro poof hoped that by dazzling his friend with a smile he would be distracted enough not to comment on the appalling state of his nose.
“What happened?” a gruff voice asked with Howard’s mouth. Today was not turning out to be Vince’s luckiest day.
He frowned at Howard’s question, playing dumb. This only caused his friend to put on his ‘irritated’ look: eyebrows sinking in an adorable way, an exasperated sudden intake of breath.
“Your nose, Vince,” Howard reiterated to him, “what happened to your nose?”
“Oh,” the younger man gasped, feigning new realisation. His stomach dropped and he felt a wave of nausea pass over him. He didn’t want to lie to Howard; he couldn’t lie to Howard. Not well, anyway…
Vince clutched his tea close to him, brain trying to shield him from focusing on the current matter by bombarding him with memories of Brighton shopping trips and happier times. Unfortunately, Howard was still watching him, expecting an answer. Somehow Vince figured it would be better to give a vague response rather than an outright lie like ‘a red octopus sneaked into my room last night and said he’d keep on punching my nose (with all eight limbs in sequence) until I gave him my special hair care recipe’.
“It’s nothing to worry about, Howard,” the younger man took a quiet sip of his drink, being careful not to burn his lips in the process, “It’s not like it’s the first time or anything.”
“That’s not the point, little man.” Howard looked unbearably sad, and it took all of Vince’s willpower not to ambush him with a hug.
“Do you want some tea?” Vince asked, trying to distract himself by grabbing Howard’s Thames-water-coloured mug and making the drink before the other man even gave his approval.
“You can talk to me, Vince.” Howard’s indefatigable concern did nothing to make Vince’s life easier as he tried to move the early morning conversation onto lighter matters.
“Two sugars?”
“None. That’s a pointless question, you knew that.” the older man sounded annoyed to Vince’s tuned-in ears. He had known the answer to the question; he had known it for years.
The man in the electric blue silk dressing gown went about making his friend’s tea. He ignored the older man’s anent eyes that seemed to be following him around, hawk-like - a rather fitting description given the size of them.
Vince set the tea down in front of Howard.
“I heard a bump in the night, Vince,” the maverick recalled. The younger man wondered if he would ever succeed in distracting Howard from this; his unwavering attention was unnerving.
“You new Global Explorer is here,” chirped Vince. His friend reached for the magazine with ardent desire, concerns seemingly set aside for the time being. Success… Vince took the opportunity to throw a slice of bread in the toaster for his own, much awaited, breakfast. If Howard spoke to him during this time then he had no recollection of it, for he was becoming more and more distracted by the exacerbating dizziness that was threatening to overwhelm him. To Vince it soon became transparently clear that he was going to have to retreat to the safety of his room as soon as was reasonable so as not to rise suspicions from Howard.
“Howard, where’s the jam?” he asked quietly. He knew the answer, but he felt that by keeping up appearances he might be able to make his departure prematurely.
“Where do you think?” snapped the maverick who was, for the most part, still engrossed in his latest edition of the Global Explorer.
“Oh, I know exactly where it is, I just thought I’d quiz you.” Playful banter was a useful tool when maintaining pretences.
“Top left like usual.” Vince loved it when Howard played along. “Don’t touch the green jar; it’s Naboo’s.”
“As if.” Vince recalled a time that he had somehow managed to accidentally spill yoghurt on his prize-winning hair.
He soon went about his business, all the while the impending threat of the black abyss of unconsciousness creeping into his eye line.
Before Vince knew he was on the brink of another episode, a sonorous crash made him jump. A split second assessment made him realise that the jam jar, which had been in his hands only seconds before, was now shattered in a jammy mess upon the floor.
“Vince!” he distantly heard Howard scold.
“Sorry! Sorry! I dunno what happened, it just slipped out of my hand.” Vince kept his wavering gaze fixed on his own feet, hoping that he would be able to overcome the giddiness.
“Don’t move,” Howard instructed. Fat chance of that, Vince thought. He watched fondly as his older friend brushed away the glass shards from the ground around him.
“Get off!” Vince giggled lightly. Terrifyingly he felt himself falling backwards, without even a sigh of wind pushing him so. For the second time that day he was thankful to Jagger when he ended up sitting straight onto a stool which had been placed conveniently behind him. He prayed that Howard had not noticed the blunder.
“You better make sure that no glass shards have gone into your slippers. You don’t want them on the soles of your feet,” warned Howard, wisely.
“How dare you,” Vince’s voice sounded faint even to his own ears, “my feet’s souls are perfectly clean; not a point on their licences. Definitely no shards of glass anywhere near ‘em.”
“Suit yourself…”the younger man watched with limpid fascination as Howard appeared to clean the mess as eagerly as a normal person might indulge in a chocolate sundae (not Vince, though. The beautiful abomination was a forbidden food on any diet he knew of- and he knew quite a few. Vince also knew that he wouldn’t be able to eat something like that without physically being able to watch the pounds pile on.)
Vince felt another lurch in his stomach as his vision clouded over once more. He knew he had to get away. It wouldn’t do to let Howard see - not again. He worried too much already.
He couldn’t know.
“You’re such a good wife-y,” the younger man told Howard, pointing out the Henry Hoover and mop in the corner of the room before easing himself off from the stool. With perfect timing the toaster spat out his breakfast and Vince took some honey out of the cupboard behind his head. He fled from the room, stumbling slightly and praying Howard had not noticed.
Once in his own bedroom he shut the door and placed the toast and honey on the floor before shakily making his way towards his rainbow themed bed. Lying back he closed his eyes and breathed heavily, nervous about what he feared was about to happen.
Remembering the previous night’s events, he suddenly sat up. He weakly pushed his bedside cabinet a short distance away from his bed, just in case.
He lay back once more, tears pricking at the corner of his eyes as a sense of dread and helplessness overwhelmed him.
Vince Noir; Rock and Roll Star. He was meant to be perfect; the shining light that would never die so long as he had his believers. He couldn’t be sick; it was against his whole philosophy. Stars can’t just take holidays because they don’t feel well enough to stay up to date with the trends. Stars can’t just blink out of existence without being missed; stars can’t escape the spotlight, no matter how hard they try and be discrete. He owed it to his masses to be there for them - to be the perfect fashion icon. He couldn’t lose himself. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking the things he was thinking. He knew he was solitarily fighting a losing battle. He couldn’t comprehend why these things were happening to him. He couldn’t continue the act while dealing with this larger, more dominating issue; how could his believers continue to believe if he couldn’t believe in himself? How could he shine with the darkness closing in?
And so he stopped shining.