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booshslashhaven2012-08-12 10:25 pm
agentadvocate.livejournal.com) wrote in booshslashhaven2012-08-12 10:25 pm
FIC: Little Faith [N/J]
Title: Little Faith
Pairing: N/J
Summary: Future Sailor's Tour-era fluff, where Julian is on his last legs and it turns out that sometimes all you need is a little reassurance.
(Set during the filming of Journey Of The Childmen in 08/09)
Word Count: 1400
Rating: PG
Warnings: Big time tired hotel fluff. A few curses.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Mighty Boosh and make no profit.
Author's Notes: I haven't posted here in almost 6 months.
Happy returns. I hope my Childmen references are accurate. I don't usually write post-2001 Boosh, plus I'm not usually this sappy, I swear.
“What did you say that was depressing enough to make them leave?”
Julian motioned with his thumb to the headboard, pointing through the wall to the scuffle of men traipsing down the hallway, dodging half asleep crew members and wonky wheeled luggage carts on their last literal legs.
“I told them the bathroom looked like something Hancock tried to kill himself in.”
“Oh Jesus.”
He lay perfectly still on top of the bed, letting the back of his head slide farther into the cushioning of the duvet, the threadbare corner tickling the nape of his neck.
Noel smirked and scratched the back of his thigh as he laughed, leaning against the old wallpaper by the TV cabinet.
Julian broke the silence with a chuckled, gritty, throat-born laugh.
“. . . Post ‘Punch and Judy Man’ era, booze-stained mirror seeping with regret?”
“The high ceilings and murderous florescent bulb above the sink. Made me want to do myself in n’ all. Maddening. The darkest hour.”
Noel threw himself down parallel to Julian with a creak of the ancient frame, his body splaying out like a ragdoll on his stomach, pink sleeveless t-shirt inching up and wrinkling against the covers. He jostled around like a dog on an itchy rug trying to get comfortable.
“You’ve never had a darkest hour.” Julian tried not to yawn through the words.
“You don’t know that.” Noel bit his cuticles, face half dug into the comforter, looking away.
“You haven’t had time to.”
“My darkest hour would be painfully beyond your wildest expectations, let me tell you.”
Julian rubbed his eyes with the sides of his fists and thought about how to change the subject. He didn’t come to talk to a defensive Noel. He was beginning to forget which facet of Noel he had actually wanted to see.
“What’s in that armoire?” He barely raised his hand to gesture towards one of the ornate cupboards lining the room.
“Oh. Alligators.”
“Hmm. How many?”
“I can’t remember. Their teeth marks go all the way up my legs. I crammed them back in, so... Just watch your feet.”
Julian subdued a grin. His brain scraped along the bottom of his witty repartee quota.
“Guess I won’t leave then.”
Noel craned his neck up in sudden interest.
“Were you leaving?”
“Not yet. . . . I’ve been- I’m worried about the timing in the third-”
“No, we already fixed that. Mike just comes in early to cut you off. There’s no more times we can do the lighting thing different before he starts buggering it up. It’s not our problem anymore.”
“Oh, shit! Yeah, yeah we already- Yeah, I just didn’t...”
“Get it together, boy!” Noel’s open eye shot in Julian’s direction.
“Yeah, I’m-“
“You’re losing it.”
“No, don’t. Don’t say that.” Julian’s voice cracked up an octave with displaced anger.
“No, I didn’t mean- I didn’t mean that.”
Noel rolled over onto his stomach, hair too long and falling over his face. Julian cupped his palm to his own forehead, a worried expression oozing, his other hand’s thick fingertips nervously grazing the front of his teeth. Noel spoke again, quieter and genuinely sympathetic.
“You’re just tired. We’re both tired. We’re knackered and tired. I’m fucking exhausted. Don’t- Don’t blame yourself, yeah?”
Placing his hand flat against Julian’s chest through his sweater, Noel edged closer to the rigid body and pulled himself up to rest his side on Julian’s ribcage. Even in the dimly lit corner of the room, he could make out the bloodshot anxiety creeping across wincing brown eyes.
“Maybe don’t. . . “
Noel let his head fall onto Julian’s stomach, every breath under it suddenly shallow and taut, as if through a sieve. His arm wilted above his head towards Julian’s collar, the back of his hand laid limp against the coarse stubble running down Julian’s neck. Taking in the hanging stucco spattered across the ceiling, he closed his eyes tight.
“I’m not.”
He felt Julian begin to breathe again.
At one time they’d have lain for hours in the exact same position, unmoving, in and out of electric dreams on a patchwork quilt Julian had since tucked away in the back of a dark cupboard.
They’d once roomed in a flat the size of a cupboard. They’d formed a pale pile of living, breathing exhaustion regularly at week’s end. Ink blots on their fingers and peeled wrappers from liquor bottles making a tidy nest around them. They’d doze off and wake up, one gently trying to reposition himself without making the other question the level of comfort they’d achieved on the secondhand pullout couch. Little grasps and clutches were the only way they knew how to check if the other was still blissfully unconscious. Julian always knew the right way to wrap his arm around the bare sliver of waist sticking out at the bottom of a Flaming Lips shirt to lull Noel back into oblivion. They moved in synch, even in sleep, as if they’d been doing the same subconscious dance forever.
Noel cleared his throat suddenly, playing with the black leather band around his wrist as he spoke.
“You can leave if you really want to.”
Julian had already predicted that Noel would question his intentions and had formulated an answer before he even stepped foot in the room.
“I won’t.”
Dave once said they were like identical twins sent away to boarding school. Inseparably similar in the midst of a lot of authoritative people trying to tell them what to do. Still proverbially holding hands in the hallway after all these years. They still spoke the same unintelligible, made up language. It could only be acknowledged through a set of primal nods and halved, discontinued sentences, causing everyone around them to worry they were being left out and anxiously try to smash down their wall. It was chipped and cracked and had corporate fliers pasted to it, but they attempted to patch it on the regular. In the heat of the stage lights and arenas and crowds, they’d gotten lazy and let the tension reach a blistering climax. Lately when they spoke to each other in private, only dust billowed out. The wall was shaky and rattling, but the structure still stood.
A slow, warm sigh hushed out from Julian’s lips, rustling Noel’s bangs across his cheek. His heaving chest jostled the head lying atop it rhythmically up and down. Noel instinctively knew the sound and feeling of Julian unwinding, even if his muscles stayed pensive.
“I’m coiled so tight from the cameras, y’know.” Julian rubbed his eyes again.
“I just felt bad, that’s all. And I haven’t seen you. Not alone, really.” Noel continued as if Julian hadn’t opened his mouth.
“The camera being there all of the time, twenty-four-seven. I’m sick already.”
“We’ll tell them to bin it for a while.”
“We can’t. We’re so close. So close to the end. They need to get everything.”
“Every time he comes near you, tell him to turn it around and go do Rich. That’ll give you an hour of getaway time while he makes them film him dancing. Climb atop the bus and wave your jacket about and I’ll show up with a ladder.”
“Where will we go then? Where’ll you carry me off to?”
“Anywhere.”
“We’ve been anywhere.”
“We’ll go there again.
"It was shit there last time."
"We'll go by ourselves. Just without the other shit.”
“Without all the other shit?”
“Well. It’s not all shit, is it?”
Noel wasn’t perfectly sure what he was defending. He was never sure which aspect of their current lives Julian was fed up with at the moment, so he lumped them all together while trying to soothe.
“Just the shit I don’t want?” Julian scratched the side of his neck Noel wasn’t resting his palm against.
“Yeah. We’ll escape, without that bit.”
“Sounds fair.”
Noel ventured a pensive brush of a finger against the underside of Julian’s forearm.
“You’d like that better?”
“Yeah. Yeah I would actually.”
“We’ll do that then. I’ll rescue you, next time.”
Julian studiously pulled down the hem of Noel’s cut up shirt, holding on tight to the seam, his arm heavy on the length of bone and fabric curled up on his torso.
“We’ll get through it all. It’s not too much longer.”
“Better save me from the bus awfully quick when I call.” He huffed.
“Have a little faith, yeah?”
Julian squinted. Blurring out the dim streaks of light bouncing off the walls, he put his confidence in Noel’s ability to pacify and, like always, his ability to carry him.
“A little’s all I’ve got.”
“Just a little.”
He closed his eyes.
“A little.”
Pairing: N/J
Summary: Future Sailor's Tour-era fluff, where Julian is on his last legs and it turns out that sometimes all you need is a little reassurance.
(Set during the filming of Journey Of The Childmen in 08/09)
Word Count: 1400
Rating: PG
Warnings: Big time tired hotel fluff. A few curses.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Mighty Boosh and make no profit.
Author's Notes: I haven't posted here in almost 6 months.
Happy returns. I hope my Childmen references are accurate. I don't usually write post-2001 Boosh, plus I'm not usually this sappy, I swear.
“What did you say that was depressing enough to make them leave?”
Julian motioned with his thumb to the headboard, pointing through the wall to the scuffle of men traipsing down the hallway, dodging half asleep crew members and wonky wheeled luggage carts on their last literal legs.
“I told them the bathroom looked like something Hancock tried to kill himself in.”
“Oh Jesus.”
He lay perfectly still on top of the bed, letting the back of his head slide farther into the cushioning of the duvet, the threadbare corner tickling the nape of his neck.
Noel smirked and scratched the back of his thigh as he laughed, leaning against the old wallpaper by the TV cabinet.
Julian broke the silence with a chuckled, gritty, throat-born laugh.
“. . . Post ‘Punch and Judy Man’ era, booze-stained mirror seeping with regret?”
“The high ceilings and murderous florescent bulb above the sink. Made me want to do myself in n’ all. Maddening. The darkest hour.”
Noel threw himself down parallel to Julian with a creak of the ancient frame, his body splaying out like a ragdoll on his stomach, pink sleeveless t-shirt inching up and wrinkling against the covers. He jostled around like a dog on an itchy rug trying to get comfortable.
“You’ve never had a darkest hour.” Julian tried not to yawn through the words.
“You don’t know that.” Noel bit his cuticles, face half dug into the comforter, looking away.
“You haven’t had time to.”
“My darkest hour would be painfully beyond your wildest expectations, let me tell you.”
Julian rubbed his eyes with the sides of his fists and thought about how to change the subject. He didn’t come to talk to a defensive Noel. He was beginning to forget which facet of Noel he had actually wanted to see.
“What’s in that armoire?” He barely raised his hand to gesture towards one of the ornate cupboards lining the room.
“Oh. Alligators.”
“Hmm. How many?”
“I can’t remember. Their teeth marks go all the way up my legs. I crammed them back in, so... Just watch your feet.”
Julian subdued a grin. His brain scraped along the bottom of his witty repartee quota.
“Guess I won’t leave then.”
Noel craned his neck up in sudden interest.
“Were you leaving?”
“Not yet. . . . I’ve been- I’m worried about the timing in the third-”
“No, we already fixed that. Mike just comes in early to cut you off. There’s no more times we can do the lighting thing different before he starts buggering it up. It’s not our problem anymore.”
“Oh, shit! Yeah, yeah we already- Yeah, I just didn’t...”
“Get it together, boy!” Noel’s open eye shot in Julian’s direction.
“Yeah, I’m-“
“You’re losing it.”
“No, don’t. Don’t say that.” Julian’s voice cracked up an octave with displaced anger.
“No, I didn’t mean- I didn’t mean that.”
Noel rolled over onto his stomach, hair too long and falling over his face. Julian cupped his palm to his own forehead, a worried expression oozing, his other hand’s thick fingertips nervously grazing the front of his teeth. Noel spoke again, quieter and genuinely sympathetic.
“You’re just tired. We’re both tired. We’re knackered and tired. I’m fucking exhausted. Don’t- Don’t blame yourself, yeah?”
Placing his hand flat against Julian’s chest through his sweater, Noel edged closer to the rigid body and pulled himself up to rest his side on Julian’s ribcage. Even in the dimly lit corner of the room, he could make out the bloodshot anxiety creeping across wincing brown eyes.
“Maybe don’t. . . “
Noel let his head fall onto Julian’s stomach, every breath under it suddenly shallow and taut, as if through a sieve. His arm wilted above his head towards Julian’s collar, the back of his hand laid limp against the coarse stubble running down Julian’s neck. Taking in the hanging stucco spattered across the ceiling, he closed his eyes tight.
“I’m not.”
He felt Julian begin to breathe again.
At one time they’d have lain for hours in the exact same position, unmoving, in and out of electric dreams on a patchwork quilt Julian had since tucked away in the back of a dark cupboard.
They’d once roomed in a flat the size of a cupboard. They’d formed a pale pile of living, breathing exhaustion regularly at week’s end. Ink blots on their fingers and peeled wrappers from liquor bottles making a tidy nest around them. They’d doze off and wake up, one gently trying to reposition himself without making the other question the level of comfort they’d achieved on the secondhand pullout couch. Little grasps and clutches were the only way they knew how to check if the other was still blissfully unconscious. Julian always knew the right way to wrap his arm around the bare sliver of waist sticking out at the bottom of a Flaming Lips shirt to lull Noel back into oblivion. They moved in synch, even in sleep, as if they’d been doing the same subconscious dance forever.
Noel cleared his throat suddenly, playing with the black leather band around his wrist as he spoke.
“You can leave if you really want to.”
Julian had already predicted that Noel would question his intentions and had formulated an answer before he even stepped foot in the room.
“I won’t.”
Dave once said they were like identical twins sent away to boarding school. Inseparably similar in the midst of a lot of authoritative people trying to tell them what to do. Still proverbially holding hands in the hallway after all these years. They still spoke the same unintelligible, made up language. It could only be acknowledged through a set of primal nods and halved, discontinued sentences, causing everyone around them to worry they were being left out and anxiously try to smash down their wall. It was chipped and cracked and had corporate fliers pasted to it, but they attempted to patch it on the regular. In the heat of the stage lights and arenas and crowds, they’d gotten lazy and let the tension reach a blistering climax. Lately when they spoke to each other in private, only dust billowed out. The wall was shaky and rattling, but the structure still stood.
A slow, warm sigh hushed out from Julian’s lips, rustling Noel’s bangs across his cheek. His heaving chest jostled the head lying atop it rhythmically up and down. Noel instinctively knew the sound and feeling of Julian unwinding, even if his muscles stayed pensive.
“I’m coiled so tight from the cameras, y’know.” Julian rubbed his eyes again.
“I just felt bad, that’s all. And I haven’t seen you. Not alone, really.” Noel continued as if Julian hadn’t opened his mouth.
“The camera being there all of the time, twenty-four-seven. I’m sick already.”
“We’ll tell them to bin it for a while.”
“We can’t. We’re so close. So close to the end. They need to get everything.”
“Every time he comes near you, tell him to turn it around and go do Rich. That’ll give you an hour of getaway time while he makes them film him dancing. Climb atop the bus and wave your jacket about and I’ll show up with a ladder.”
“Where will we go then? Where’ll you carry me off to?”
“Anywhere.”
“We’ve been anywhere.”
“We’ll go there again.
"It was shit there last time."
"We'll go by ourselves. Just without the other shit.”
“Without all the other shit?”
“Well. It’s not all shit, is it?”
Noel wasn’t perfectly sure what he was defending. He was never sure which aspect of their current lives Julian was fed up with at the moment, so he lumped them all together while trying to soothe.
“Just the shit I don’t want?” Julian scratched the side of his neck Noel wasn’t resting his palm against.
“Yeah. We’ll escape, without that bit.”
“Sounds fair.”
Noel ventured a pensive brush of a finger against the underside of Julian’s forearm.
“You’d like that better?”
“Yeah. Yeah I would actually.”
“We’ll do that then. I’ll rescue you, next time.”
Julian studiously pulled down the hem of Noel’s cut up shirt, holding on tight to the seam, his arm heavy on the length of bone and fabric curled up on his torso.
“We’ll get through it all. It’s not too much longer.”
“Better save me from the bus awfully quick when I call.” He huffed.
“Have a little faith, yeah?”
Julian squinted. Blurring out the dim streaks of light bouncing off the walls, he put his confidence in Noel’s ability to pacify and, like always, his ability to carry him.
“A little’s all I’ve got.”
“Just a little.”
He closed his eyes.
“A little.”