Fic: Bang
Bang
by me, doctorpancakes
Fandom: Mighty Boosh
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1305
Author’s Notes: For Bluey, who asked for “Howard/Vince, Christmas crackers” for Christmas.
There were certain traditions that Howard Moon and Vince Noir dutifully observed every Christmas. In deference to Howard’s almost disturbing interest in schedules and itineraries (and not at all because Vince embraced their holiday traditions with childlike wonder and delight), their festivities followed a rather specific order: every morning, they would get up in the morning and prepare a big Christmas breakfast, and Vince would stand and stare in quiet awe at the glittering mirrorball tree and the many shiny, colourfully wrapped gifts beneath it (until his resolve would inevitably crumble like aged sheep’s milk cheese and he would scramble to open all the gifts all at once, and Howard would drag him, kicking and screaming, away from them). After breakfast (and the traditional holiday washing-up), they would pull out their dusty old Christmas records - which even Howard had to admit were a little stale - and snuggle down to listen to them while sipping hot cocoa. It was only in very recent years, mind, that the snuggling down led to the new tradition of the Christmas Midday Snog. (Howard and Vince were both glad of this new development in their relationship, especially after years of secretly pining for one another, and, in some cases, sneaking in a cheeky wank in bed after they were fairly certain the other one had fallen asleep).
After their Christmas Midday Snog, they would prepare Traditional Christmas Dinner, which consisted of a roast turkey, sage and onion gravy, brussels sprouts, yorkshire puddings, gravy, bread sauce, pigs in blankets, chickens in blankets, scotch eggs in blankets, pork pies in blankets, marshmallow teacakes in blankets, jelly tots, and Christmas pudding topped with a sauce made from melting down all the chocolates in a Quality Street luxury tin into a kind of brown magic.
In the evening, they watched Christmas specials on telly, and Vince would inevitably be frightened at all of the wrong things (“Noooooo, bow ties are not cool! Ugh, it’s awful Howard, look how much brown he’s got on!” he would shout in horror, then proceed to cheer on the evil aliens in their nice mod suits, while Howard would quietly facepalm and take another exasperated handful of Twiglets, until Vince could endure no more trauma and would desperately switch over to a repeat of Fraggle Rock).
But just before dinner was the time for Christmas crackers. Every year, Howard bought two Christmas crackers: one for himself, and one for Vince. Every year, just as they were about to bang their crackers open,
“Listen Howard, I know it’s cracker time, but I’ve really got to go to the toilet,” said Vince, handing his cracker to Howard. “Why don’t you do my cracker for me while I’m gone?”
“Are you sure?” asked Howard.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” giggled Vince, patting Howard casually on the shoulder before toddling off to the loo.
“Vince,” Howard began, unsure of how to approach the subject, “I’ve noticed that, every Christmas, you have to go to the toilet right before we do the Christmas crackers, and you always tell me not to wait for you, and you always let me do yours for you while you’re away. It’s a bit of a weird coincidence, Little Man.”
“Is it?” asked Vince, shrugging nonchalantly. “I’ve usually had a lot of cider and eggnog by this time in the day. Nothing weird about needing to have a wee, Howard.”
“At the same time, every single Christmas day, for thirty years?” asked Howard.
Vince let out a quiet sigh.
“I’m frightened of Christmas crackers,” he said quietly, staring at the table, shuffling his feet.
“You’re frightened of Christmas crackers,” repeated Howard, incredulous. “Vince, it’s a bit of paper tube that makes a little bang and has fun Christmassy bits in. It’s about as innocuous as a pair of cotton socks.”
“I have been for ages, though,” said Vince. “Ever since I was little.”
“But you’re brave, Little Man!” said Howard. “I’ve seen you take on worse things than a little roll of shiny paper with some bad jokes and a tiny plastic trumpet. Remember that time you defeated an entire herd of zombie wildebeests with nothing but the little plastic brush that comes from a bottle of nail varnish and a packet of Angel Delight!”
“Aww, cheers Howard,” blushed Vince.
“You’re the fearless Vince Noir, my beautiful sidekick!” exclaimed Howard proudly.
“Aww, thanks How - sidekick?” Vince shouted in disbelief. “You’re my sidekick, more like.”
“Beautiful husband, then?” ventured Howard.
“Beautiful husband, yeah,” agreed Vince.
“But... Christmas crackers, though?” asked Howard.
“Yeah, about that,” sighed Vince. “See, one Christmas in the forest, I was a bit blue because Bryan Ferry was off touring Europe, so Nandando, the king of the ants, came up with a genius plan to cheer me up. He got the whole colony to pitch in and build me a Christmas cracker, it was brilliant! They wrapped up little jokes and sweeties in banana leaves and bits of old newspapers, and tucked in a tiny stick of ant dynamite to give it that Christmas cracker bang. They were all so excited to surprise me with it, and I was chuffed to bits! Thing is, though, turns out ant dynamite is way stronger than the human stuff, who would have thought? So when I gave it a tug, it... singed my eyebrows right off. It was the most traumatic event of my childhood, Howard.”
Howard was at a loss for words. For years, he had been enacting what he thought was an innocuous holiday ritual, when in fact it was a source of great fear for the most important person in his life.
“Oh, Vince,” he said, laying a sympathetic hand on Vince’s shoulder, “why did you wait so long to tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to get all weird about it,” Vince said quietly, placing his hand over Howard’s with a little squeeze. “Besides, I looked well weird without eyebrows. Threw the symmetry of my face right off. I’ve got a very delicate balance going here. I didn’t want you to have to picture that.”
“Little Man,” said Howard, rubbing circles into Vince’s shoulder with his thumb, “you know we don’t have to do Christmas crackers at all.”
Vince smiled, and shook his head.
“No,” he said, staring at the innocuous cardboard tubes Howard had set on the table for them. “I can defeat this.”
Vince took a deep breath, and slowly lifted the cracker from the table. He held it by the tips of his fingers, barely touching it at all, as though it were a highly volatile explosive. Howard steadied Vince’s shaking hands with his own. Vince closed his eyes.
“Ready?” asked Howard.
“Yes, no, yes, maybe?” Vince whispered nervously.
“How about on the count of three?” suggested Howard. “One, two, three.”
bang
A moment passed in stunned silence, before Vince exclaimed
“Is that it?”
with lightly blushing incredulity.
“That, sir, is a Christmas cracker,” said Howard.
“That’s it,” puzzled Vince. “That was well disappointing. I was all geared up for a really scary incident.”
“You should be very proud of yourself, sir,” said Howard, “bravely overcoming your fear like that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I suppose,” handwaved Vince, “but what am I going to do now I’ve gone and got myself all excited without an outlet?”
Howard considered the question thoughtfully.
“I’m sure we could pencil in a new Christmas tradition before dinner,” he said, with a lascivious waggle of his eyebrows.
And that was how Howard and Vince’s traditional Christmas Just-Before-Dinner Shag came to be.
by me, doctorpancakes
Fandom: Mighty Boosh
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1305
Author’s Notes: For Bluey, who asked for “Howard/Vince, Christmas crackers” for Christmas.
There were certain traditions that Howard Moon and Vince Noir dutifully observed every Christmas. In deference to Howard’s almost disturbing interest in schedules and itineraries (and not at all because Vince embraced their holiday traditions with childlike wonder and delight), their festivities followed a rather specific order: every morning, they would get up in the morning and prepare a big Christmas breakfast, and Vince would stand and stare in quiet awe at the glittering mirrorball tree and the many shiny, colourfully wrapped gifts beneath it (until his resolve would inevitably crumble like aged sheep’s milk cheese and he would scramble to open all the gifts all at once, and Howard would drag him, kicking and screaming, away from them). After breakfast (and the traditional holiday washing-up), they would pull out their dusty old Christmas records - which even Howard had to admit were a little stale - and snuggle down to listen to them while sipping hot cocoa. It was only in very recent years, mind, that the snuggling down led to the new tradition of the Christmas Midday Snog. (Howard and Vince were both glad of this new development in their relationship, especially after years of secretly pining for one another, and, in some cases, sneaking in a cheeky wank in bed after they were fairly certain the other one had fallen asleep).
After their Christmas Midday Snog, they would prepare Traditional Christmas Dinner, which consisted of a roast turkey, sage and onion gravy, brussels sprouts, yorkshire puddings, gravy, bread sauce, pigs in blankets, chickens in blankets, scotch eggs in blankets, pork pies in blankets, marshmallow teacakes in blankets, jelly tots, and Christmas pudding topped with a sauce made from melting down all the chocolates in a Quality Street luxury tin into a kind of brown magic.
In the evening, they watched Christmas specials on telly, and Vince would inevitably be frightened at all of the wrong things (“Noooooo, bow ties are not cool! Ugh, it’s awful Howard, look how much brown he’s got on!” he would shout in horror, then proceed to cheer on the evil aliens in their nice mod suits, while Howard would quietly facepalm and take another exasperated handful of Twiglets, until Vince could endure no more trauma and would desperately switch over to a repeat of Fraggle Rock).
But just before dinner was the time for Christmas crackers. Every year, Howard bought two Christmas crackers: one for himself, and one for Vince. Every year, just as they were about to bang their crackers open,
“Listen Howard, I know it’s cracker time, but I’ve really got to go to the toilet,” said Vince, handing his cracker to Howard. “Why don’t you do my cracker for me while I’m gone?”
“Are you sure?” asked Howard.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” giggled Vince, patting Howard casually on the shoulder before toddling off to the loo.
“Vince,” Howard began, unsure of how to approach the subject, “I’ve noticed that, every Christmas, you have to go to the toilet right before we do the Christmas crackers, and you always tell me not to wait for you, and you always let me do yours for you while you’re away. It’s a bit of a weird coincidence, Little Man.”
“Is it?” asked Vince, shrugging nonchalantly. “I’ve usually had a lot of cider and eggnog by this time in the day. Nothing weird about needing to have a wee, Howard.”
“At the same time, every single Christmas day, for thirty years?” asked Howard.
Vince let out a quiet sigh.
“I’m frightened of Christmas crackers,” he said quietly, staring at the table, shuffling his feet.
“You’re frightened of Christmas crackers,” repeated Howard, incredulous. “Vince, it’s a bit of paper tube that makes a little bang and has fun Christmassy bits in. It’s about as innocuous as a pair of cotton socks.”
“I have been for ages, though,” said Vince. “Ever since I was little.”
“But you’re brave, Little Man!” said Howard. “I’ve seen you take on worse things than a little roll of shiny paper with some bad jokes and a tiny plastic trumpet. Remember that time you defeated an entire herd of zombie wildebeests with nothing but the little plastic brush that comes from a bottle of nail varnish and a packet of Angel Delight!”
“Aww, cheers Howard,” blushed Vince.
“You’re the fearless Vince Noir, my beautiful sidekick!” exclaimed Howard proudly.
“Aww, thanks How - sidekick?” Vince shouted in disbelief. “You’re my sidekick, more like.”
“Beautiful husband, then?” ventured Howard.
“Beautiful husband, yeah,” agreed Vince.
“But... Christmas crackers, though?” asked Howard.
“Yeah, about that,” sighed Vince. “See, one Christmas in the forest, I was a bit blue because Bryan Ferry was off touring Europe, so Nandando, the king of the ants, came up with a genius plan to cheer me up. He got the whole colony to pitch in and build me a Christmas cracker, it was brilliant! They wrapped up little jokes and sweeties in banana leaves and bits of old newspapers, and tucked in a tiny stick of ant dynamite to give it that Christmas cracker bang. They were all so excited to surprise me with it, and I was chuffed to bits! Thing is, though, turns out ant dynamite is way stronger than the human stuff, who would have thought? So when I gave it a tug, it... singed my eyebrows right off. It was the most traumatic event of my childhood, Howard.”
Howard was at a loss for words. For years, he had been enacting what he thought was an innocuous holiday ritual, when in fact it was a source of great fear for the most important person in his life.
“Oh, Vince,” he said, laying a sympathetic hand on Vince’s shoulder, “why did you wait so long to tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to get all weird about it,” Vince said quietly, placing his hand over Howard’s with a little squeeze. “Besides, I looked well weird without eyebrows. Threw the symmetry of my face right off. I’ve got a very delicate balance going here. I didn’t want you to have to picture that.”
“Little Man,” said Howard, rubbing circles into Vince’s shoulder with his thumb, “you know we don’t have to do Christmas crackers at all.”
Vince smiled, and shook his head.
“No,” he said, staring at the innocuous cardboard tubes Howard had set on the table for them. “I can defeat this.”
Vince took a deep breath, and slowly lifted the cracker from the table. He held it by the tips of his fingers, barely touching it at all, as though it were a highly volatile explosive. Howard steadied Vince’s shaking hands with his own. Vince closed his eyes.
“Ready?” asked Howard.
“Yes, no, yes, maybe?” Vince whispered nervously.
“How about on the count of three?” suggested Howard. “One, two, three.”
bang
A moment passed in stunned silence, before Vince exclaimed
“Is that it?”
with lightly blushing incredulity.
“That, sir, is a Christmas cracker,” said Howard.
“That’s it,” puzzled Vince. “That was well disappointing. I was all geared up for a really scary incident.”
“You should be very proud of yourself, sir,” said Howard, “bravely overcoming your fear like that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I suppose,” handwaved Vince, “but what am I going to do now I’ve gone and got myself all excited without an outlet?”
Howard considered the question thoughtfully.
“I’m sure we could pencil in a new Christmas tradition before dinner,” he said, with a lascivious waggle of his eyebrows.
And that was how Howard and Vince’s traditional Christmas Just-Before-Dinner Shag came to be.