Anecdote and Boosh Ficage
First, the anecdote-- went to a real mall (my town has... it's nice and all, but miniscule) with sister to help find awards banquet outfit. Since we were already at said mall, we dropped into their Hot Topic. Last time I was in a Hot Topic, they didn't have acid green garters. They do now. If I wasn't trying to save money, I would've had to get me some, because mmm, garters? And in acid green. Anyway, my sister points out that they have a little crinoline skirt to match. And hanging a couple racks over is the standard pink 'tutu' model.
So I say "See, now whenever I see the regular pink tutu-crinoline-skirt-thing, I'm going to think of The Legend of Old Gregg.", just as the loud-ish music stops. And a girl passing by heading to the other end of the store looks at me, out of the corner of my eye I see hers go big and round, and she giggles, grabs her boyfriend, and hisses 'She said Old Gregg!'. As they headed on their way, we heard her say more, but another song started up, so I'm not sure what it was, it sounded sort of like 'That's the thing I like'.
My sister later said 'That's the giggle I associate with girls with Asperger's. Older girls, where you maybe should have outgrown giggling, but when you hear someone mention the thing you like, you do it.'
Fair enough. I squeal and flail whenever my obsesh gets mentioned by someone. Or if I see something tangentially related in a shop... After the girl and her boyfriend moved on, I said 'Of course, I don't want the tutu any less. I still *want* it.' (Plus, when the thing you're into is cultish or an import, and hasn't hit it big yet, you squeal/giggle twice as loud when a stranger actually knows it, because hey, come on.)
Anyway, my e-mail's weird and acting up and whatnot, so I want to get some unbeta-ed fic up on my personal journal now, but hopefully when I get back home after Oregon, I can get it finished, beta-ed and posted on the haven. I just don't have quite a week before I go...
Title: Emopress
Chapter The First
Rating: I'll say R to be safe, though chapter one not so much.
Summary: Howard discovers the reason for Vince's recent behaviour.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Nothing is.
Author's Note: Set just post s3. Concrit is greatly appreciated on this one, since as I mentioned, this is the un-beta-ed trial run (which I haven't actually done before) of a fic I would like to have polished before submitting to the comm, but may have to wait until I get back from hols to be able to send it off and have it actually go through.
Naboo stormed down into the shop with the blazing fury of a thousand suns in his eyes, and without knowing what was going on, Howard braced himself for the awful banjo music that would surely come.
“All right, which one of you ballbags has gotten into my things?” He demanded.
“What things? What are you on about?” Vince barely looked up from the latest Cheekbone. There was a hint of a sneer to him, though, one that had been all but omnipresent as of late.
“Emopress!”
“Beg pardon?” Howard asked.
“Emopress, the emotional suppressant powder! I haven’t touched it in years and it’s half gone since last I checked!
“It wasn’t us.” Howard shook his head and went back to the concerns of Stationery Village. “Quite frankly, I’d’ve liked to’ve known such a thing existed on more than one occasion, it could have come in handy when I had the chokes. I’m sure there were plenty of times it would-“
“Yeah, well it’s dangerous, isn’t it?” Naboo snapped.
“... How dangerous?” Vince’s Cheekbone slipped.
“... Vince...” Howard stalked around the counter towards his friend. “Tell me you didn’t...”
“Well what was I supposed to do, Howard?” Suddenly, Vince exploded, sending his magazine sailing across the room and shoving past the others roughly. “You were gone and I-There was no one to-I needed it, okay? And I didn’t just take it, Bollo gave me some. Well somebody had to give your bloody eulogy, and I wasn’t in any fit state to, and Bollo said Naboo wouldn’t miss just a pinch, and you were dead, Howard!”
“This isn’t ‘just a pinch’ that’s gone missing, Vince. If you’d taken all this when Howard died, your brain-such as it is-would have shorted out three years ago. Your amygdala would be a shriveled little pebble!”
“Well... maybe there were other times I needed it since. Don’t be mad at Bollo, ‘kay? He only gave me a pinch the first time to get me through the funeral.”
“What could you possibly need something like that for?” Howard started after him.
“You wouldn’t understand!” Vince ran up the stairs, platform boots clattering loudly.
“Don’t turn your back on him, all right, Naboo?” Howard’s hand darted to his forearm of its own accord. “It isn’t his fault I died, after all...”
“I did think it was weird.” The shaman mused. “He was utterly destroyed when he found you, then next thing you know he’s back to his old cheery, brainless self.”
“He found me?”
“Yeah. Went to take you tea and tell you Bollo was doing better and you could switch back.”
“Poor thing. Well. No wonder he was distraught, I mean, he looked up to me back then. He cared about what I thought and the like...”
Naboo fixed Howard with a very sober stare, until Howard felt crawly and uncomfortable with the scrutiny. “If he’s been messing about with Emopress all this time, maybe that’s why he’s been such a tit lately.”
“You think?”
“He’s been getting worse and worse. Magically suppressing your real emotions tends to turn you into an utter prick, Howard. It’s for emergency uses only, why do you think I went ages without touching the stuff?”
“Dunno. Maybe it interferes with getting a good high?”
“Depends on the type, actually. Look, that’s not important right now. We’ve got to get Vince’s emotional centre back in balance. Long-term use isn’t good for a person’s spiritual well-being, it makes you go wonky.”
“This is all my fault...”
“Howard?” Naboo leveled another stare at him.
“Yes?”
“You’re an idiot.”
Howard sighed. He’d expected as much.
“... Vince?” Howard knocked on the door to their room before opening it. It had been a cheery little shared space once, when they’d first moved in, when they’d work on their band long into the night, or wake each other up for midnight crimping sessions. When Vince would cross the divide and nudge Howard out of oblivion to share dreams he’d had...
Now there was a screen up in the middle of the room, and a very definite line showing where Howard’s space ended and Vince’s space began. Howard had measured. Vince’s half of the room was bigger. Not that he minded, as such. Vince would have eyeballed it anyway. And of course it didn’t matter that the closet was on Vince’s side, Howard only needed a modestly-sized wardrobe. It was the act of separation that stung, not the size of the halves.
“What?” Vince muttered into his pillow. His boots dangled over the edge of the bed. Howard sat on the edge and debated patting Vince’s shoulder. “Gonna yell at me some more?”
“I’m not going to yell. I-I’m sorry you had to go through all-I just worry, all right? What else did you have to use this stuff for? I won’t be mad, Vince, I promise, I just... I need to know. All right? So I don’t just... keep worrying?”
Vince shrugged. “Dunno. Sometimes when you’d be acting a right tit over Mrs. Gideon an’ it made me mad ‘cos she wouldn’t ever remember you an’ you just let her... I’m supposed to be the sunshine kid! I can’t go getting upset just because you’re a doormat around women. Then you locked me in the panda enclosure and left me there, I guess ‘cos she come around.”
Howard was having a difficult time processing this. Being upset over being locked in an enclosure was understandable, but he’d had no idea Vince ever got upset on his behalf-Vince was usually the one taking the mick when Howard had rotten luck with girls.
“That bloody camping trip you go and drag me on, then you skip off into the woods and let some deranged mountain man try to rape me, then you go and get us nearly raped by yetis, that was a trying experience, of course I needed to calm down after that!” Vince railed.
Well... that one made sense. And Howard had felt guilty over it.
“After that I started carrying a bit with me when we went off places-never know what could happen, yeah? Dunno... Took a bit when I was waiting for Naboo at Black Lake. I mean, it weren’t bad like finding you all... like finding your-It weren’t-Well, they said you were dead, and I mean... I just couldn’t stand having to sit there next to a bloody seashell-encrusted payphone waiting and doing nothing knowing something awful might’ve been happening to you, and that’s if you were still alive!”
“Yeah... yeah, coulda done with some of that myself during that episode, dangerous or not.” Howard shuddered. Vince didn’t know-and didn’t need to know-everything that had gone on out at Black Lake.
“An’ I was pretty glad of it on that island.” Vince admitted.
“All right. But... that was it, right? You used up the bit you’d snuck from Naboo after that?”
“Well... You said you wouldn’t be mad! I think I probably used some for something after that... I mean, I kind of got that feeling, or that, you know, unfeeling... I don’t remember why I was upset, but I remember it seemed like it would be real funny to... erm, paint that stuff on the shutters. But it was totally under the influence, Howard! If anything, you should be extra not mad to find out about that.”
“I’m not sure that’s how it works, little man... But, I promised not to get mad. So, I’m not mad.” Howard said. Although, he was a little mad. He’d almost forgotten about the shutters. And that business with Eleanor definitely squared them for Kodiak Jack! Yes sir, they were even on that count.
“And then, when Lance Dior happened...” Vince was sitting up now, his hands twisting together.
Howard sighed. “Let me guess, you blew through half his stash.”
“No! Only... you were being so nice to me about it, and even though he was awful and I hated him, it was a bit like old times with us, and that sort of evened it out for a bit, but I don’t know, then I got really upset and I must’ve took some to take a job at Rumbelow’s-“
“You don’t even remember for certain?”
Vince shrugged. “Emopress sort of irons everything out, Howard. You feel safe and not-upset, and you forget all about what was upsetting you and why.”
“You’re all out now, though, right? You can’t accidentally-“
“I’m all out. And I’m not getting my hands on Naboo’s. I mean, you all pulling an intervention on me, he’ll flush it down the loo if I start so much as looking at his stuff now...”
“So that’s it, then.”
“Well... I mean, when you run off to be a bin man.”
“Vince, you threw me over for a cape!”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t thinking, was I? I mean... I really wasn’t. Bit of a surprise to look about later and find you weren’t around.”
“Do you think maybe it was the build-up of Emopress in your system that made you...?”
Vince nodded. “I know I’m shallow, Howard, but I’d never mean to chuck you for a cape. You’re worth an entire outfit to go with, at least. I mean, I’d hold out for all the accessories, if I was in my right mind.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.”
“Aw, you know what I mean!”
“I know, little man.” This time he did reach out, his hand making comforting circles on Vince’s shoulder.
“I took a bunch after your birthday party. I pretended not to care you chucked me, but no one ever chucked me before that! So I went off and snorted the last of my reserve, and that party girl went off without me and I didn’t care about her, either. Then...” He looked down, wrapping his arms around himself.
“Then what?”
“I can’t say. You’ll be mad.”
“Come on, I promised I wouldn’t be. Vince?”
Vince just shook his head. Howard was worried now. Up until that morning, he’d been secure in the knowledge that the closest Vince had come to a drug habit was downing several Café Americanos , or possibly the accidental consumption of one of Naboo’s Alice B. Toklas brownies. Or Naboo’s Alice B. Toklas cream of mushroom soup. Or Naboo’s Alice B. Toklas fish and chips. But now there was this weird magical powder, and something Vince couldn’t admit even after all the rest...
“I won’t be. Vince, if you just stole a bit more, I understand. If you thought you needed it to get through the Black Tubes thing...”
“I started the Black Tubes thing! Howard, I asked Naboo and Bollo-“ He clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Asked them what? You didn’t ask for the powder, Naboo was surprised you’d-Of course, he’s got a mind like a steel sieve...”
“D’you know why they had an opening?”
“Creative differences?”
“Their old lead singer died.” Vince whispered.
“Oh.” Howard wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel. He’d never even have heard of the man if it wasn’t for Vince trying to get into the band. He actually still had no idea who the old lead singer was, aside from ‘dead’.
“It’s my fault he did.”
“Vince, just because you wanted the gig-I mean, even if you said ‘I wish something terrible would happen to him’, that doesn’t make it your-“
“I had Naboo and Bollo do it.”
Howard stood up. He crossed the room, then crossed back. He gave his arm an especially vigorous Chinese burn. It wasn’t true, of course. It was a mixed up memory, like how Vince didn’t remember taking the stuff before getting the Rumbelow’s job or painting the shutters. A mistake. Vince wouldn’t do something like that, not his sweet, naïve Vince.
Only, the Vince who wanted to join the Black Tubes wasn’t sweet, naïve Vince. He wasn’t Howard’s Vince at all. The Vince who’d wanted to join the Black Tubes wasn’t Howard’s friend. When Howard told him he was leaving, to go be in films, that Vince didn’t seem to care about anything more than fitting into a small pair of drainpipes.
Or did he care? Deep down, was Howard’s sweet, naïve Vince there all along, drugged to the gills, his honest pain forcing the monstrous Other Vince to down yet more dangerous magic powder? How much had he taken from Naboo that time? Enough to get a man killed, enough to say goodbye to Howard like he was just going down to the shops, enough to replace him seamlessly, to laugh and tease and not even try to hug him when he returned.
Or... or this was the joke, right now. Other Vince was having a laugh at Howard’s expense, making up this story about getting a man killed. He had a problem, but he wasn’t a monster! At least, he was only the sort of monster who would lighten up his own mood by slipping an outrageous lie into his confessions just to watch his best friend react. Yes, that was...
That was bollocks. Vince wasn’t lying, he looked too miserable. Vince had never been able to fake emotion, it always looked staged when he did. This was real. And Howard could see an itch in Vince’s eyes... one he knew all too well, the kind he’d see in the mirror if he ever bothered to check his reflection before administering one of his burns.
He returned to the bed and pulled Vince into a hard hug. “It wasn’t you that did that. Shh, hush now... It’s all over now, it’s all done with. You’re going to get this thing out of your system once and for all, and you’re never going to mess about with dangerous magic like that again, and-it’ll all be all right, you’ll see. It might be hard, for a while, but everything’s going to turn out.”
“Really?” Vince looked up, his eyes huge and wet and achingly honestly hurting.
Howard swallowed. “Yes.”
Vince laughed, too tired to be properly bitter, but too pained to be mirthful. “This is where you’re supposed to tell the truth and say no... and we’ll probably be killed or something.”
“I am telling the truth. I don’t care what I have to do, but I will see this all turn out. If it means flushing Naboo’s entire store cupboard myself and handcuffing you to that bed, then that’s what’s going to happen.”
“Didn’t know you were kinky like that.”
“Hush, you. We’re going to get past this. And besides, nothing’s threatening to kill us right now. Well, except Naboo. But he’ll probably just have a smoke and forget about it.”
“I hope so. I don’t relish another back-turning, that was well creepy. How do you think he does it?”
“Shaman magic, little man. Now you get some rest. Things will look up in the morning.”
“Howard, it is morning.”
“The afternoon, then.”
“Howard?”
“Yes?”
Vince bit his lip. “Nuffink. Okay. I am sorry.”
“I know, little man.” Howard murmured, slipping out and closing the door behind him.