The Mighty Boosh Halloween Special of Doom 2013, Part Two: The Contract

[castie67.livejournal.com]

Title: The Mighty Boosh 2013 Halloween Special of Doom, Part Two: The Contract
Summary: The plot thickens
Rating: PG
Warnings: Vince's hair is threatened! Not for the faint of heart! Read at your own risk!
Spoilers: none
Length: about 1151 words
Disclaimer: The Boosh boys aren't mine.  But if they were......
Notes: Read  Part 1 by ideserveyou; passing the baton to  poshlil for Part 3                                 

                                         
“No it doesn’t,” Howard said, “it says:

HOWARD MOON, BEWARE!

LEST YOUR FRIEND LOSE ALL HIS HAIR!!!

A CURSE I’VE PLACED ON HIM THIS EVE,

HIS LOVELY TRESSES HE’LL BEREAVE.

ONLY YOU CAN HELP HIS PLIGHT,

FOR YOUR BODY I’LL REQUIRE TONIGHT.

"That’s quite good poetry, actually,” Howard mused. “It rhymes and everything –“ Howard was cut off by another wail from Vince. He glanced up from the paper to see Vince holding a fistful of his own hair in his hand, a look of sheer terror on his face.

“Howard, I’m really scared,” Vince whimpered. He held out the handful of hair for Howard’s inspection. “Can you see where it fell out? Is there a bald spot?”

Howard leaned in close and inspected Vince’s head. He ran his hands lightly over the sandy brown mane, being very careful not to tug or pull on it. In spite of his care, a few hairs came loose in his hands. He quickly pulled his hands away and hid them behind his back. “No, no! No bald spot. Not - - exactly.” He immediately regretted that last bit as Vince began to sob in earnest. Howard patted him awkwardly on the back. “There, there, Little Man! It’ll be okay, we’ll figure this out. We’ve been in tighter spots before, eh?”

“How can you say that, Howard? This is my hair! This is serious!” Vince pulled away from Howard’s touch and turned his back on his friend. Howard noticed a few more strands of hair floating to the floor. Howard suddenly felt ashamed of his callousness.

“I’m sorry, Vince,” he said sincerely. “I know this is serious and I’ve been acting like an ass.” He hesitantly put his arm around Vince’s shoulders and was a bit overwhelmed when Vince turned and threw his arms around Howard’s neck. To his credit, Howard didn’t pull away. Instead, he rubbed soothing circles on Vince’s back and offered more words of encouragement. “I promise, Vince, you won’t be bald. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep that from happening to you!”

“So glad to hear you say that,” a smooth voice cut in.

Both Howard and Vince looked up, startled, but there was no one else in the room but themselves.

“Who are you, Sir?” Howard demanded. “Whoever you are, show yourself!”

“As you wish,” the voice answered. As Howard and Vince stared, a very faint outline of a man appeared on the chair in front of the typewriter. “Tap, tap,” the man said with a wink as he struck a key on the typewriter.

“Who are you? What do you want? Why are you obsessed with Vince’s hair?” Howard tried to keep his voice steady.

“Well, of course he’s obsessed with my hair; who isn’t?” countered Vince.

“It is quite nice,” Howard said admiringly. “I especially like the blond highlights you’ve added.”

“Cheers, Howard!” Vince beamed.

“Ahem!” the ghost-like man interrupted.

Startled by the interruption, Howard and Vince turned their attention back to the intruder. “Sorry,” they both mumbled.

“My name is Henry. As you can see, I am no longer among the living. In fact, I have been dead for over 100 years. I mean you no harm. The curse is nothing personal; it is merely a means to an end. That end, Mr. Moon, is the use of your body for the next 12 hours.”

“You want to possess me?” squawked Howard, cowering behind Vince.

“Possession is such an ugly word. And not quite accurate. No, what I’m thinking of is more along the lines of a time-share arrangement. I want the use of your body for a few hours. It’s been a hundred years since I’ve tasted food, smoked a fag, or had a shag.” Henry ran his eyes appreciatively up and down Vince’s body as he spoke, then turned his attention back to the typewriter. He began to type as he spoke. “You’ll be along for the ride, too. I get to call the shots, but everything that I experience, you get to experience, too. It’s a win – win situation. In exchange, I lift the curse from your friend, he keeps his hair, we all get a meal, a smoke and a shag out of the deal, I move out by morning and leave the two of you in peace. Do we have a deal?” Henry whipped the sheet of paper out of the typewriter and handed it to Howard for his inspection. It was a contract which read thusly:

HOWARD T.J. MOON and HENRY THE GHOST do hereby enter into the following agreement, whereby HOWARD T.J. MOON, permits HENRY THE GHOST to inhabit his body from the hours of 8:00 p.m. October 31 to 8:00 a.m. November 1. During that time, said HENRY THE GHOST may perform any pleasurable activity he desires with the body of HOWARD T.J. MOON. It is further understood that HOWARD T.J. MOON will also remain an inhabitant of his body, but he agrees to relinquish control to HENRY THE GHOST during the aforementioned time period.

In exchange, HENRY THE GHOST agrees to IMMEDIATELY lift the curse he has placed on VINCE NOIR, so that no more hair loss will occur to the aforementioned VINCE NOIR. Furthermore, VINCE NOIR is exempt from participating in any activities engaged in by HENRY THE GHOST while inhabiting the body of HOWARD T.J. MOON, but he is welcome to participate in any activities he wishes by his own consent.

There were two signature lines at the bottom of the page. Henry produced Howard’s missing pencil out of thin air and signed on one of the lines. He then handed the pencil to Howard. Howard looked at his watch. It was 7:55. He looked at the contract. He glanced at Vince, then put the pencil to the paper.

“Wait, Howard!”

Howard looked up, startled, at the sound of Vince interjecting. Henry looked peeved. “What?” Henry snapped. “What is your problem? You’re the one who stands to lose something precious, here! Let him sign!”

“Howard, I can’t let you do this! What if he doesn’t do what he says? What if he hurts you? What if he doesn’t leave after 12 hours? Is the signature of a ghost even legally binding?” At Vince's question, Henry looked at the ceiling and tapped his fingers on the typewriter keys. Vince continued, “No, Howard. I can’t let you sign that, even if - -“ here, Vince gulped back a sob, “ - - I lose my hair.”

Howard gathered Vince in a tight hug. “Little Man,” was all he managed to choke out as he stroked the back of Vince’s head. A huge clump of Vince’s hair came out in his hand. Looking at it in horror, Howard clenched the hair in his fist, seized the pencil, and signed the contract before Vince could stop him.

“Howard, what have you done?” Vince gasped.

But Howard couldn’t answer. He’d gone . . . . wrong.

Comments

[poshlil.livejournal.com]

AHAHA, omg, Howard. Oh lord, I have no idea how to continue this. Or, actually, too many ideas. Henry is excellent though - thank you for a thoroughly entertaining chapter and a slightly malevolent ghost to work with. *puts writing hat on*

(pfft, html fail. Sorry 'bout that.)

[castie67.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the kudos. Henry is lots of fun to work with, and he's up for anything, so have fun with the boys! I can't wait for the next chapter to find out what Henry does with Howard's body. ;)

[poshlil.livejournal.com]

I have ~ideas, none of which Vince likes very much. He's properly raging at me about it. He'll just have to put up and shut up. (And that probably makes it sound more interesting than it's actually going to be. :P)

[castie67.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that Part 3 will be brilliant! Remind Vince that Howard is in there, too -- I didn't want to take him completely out of the equation. I can't what to find out what you're going to do with the boys.....
MWAHAHAHA!!!!

[poshlil.livejournal.com]

I don't know about brilliant, but it's done at any rate! And waiting nervously in the moderation queue. :D I always forget that exists; last time I posted anything it was about a fortnight before it got mod approval, so I hope you guys don't have to wait quite so long for this. ;)

[castie67.livejournal.com]

Oh! I can't wait to read it! I've been stuck in the queue before, too. Sometimes there is almost no wait at all and sometimes I've been stuck for over a week. The last time I had really long wait, I sent a very polite inquiry to one of the mods and the story was almost immediately posted afterward; so if your story is stuck for more than a week, you might consider it.

Again, I can't wait to find out what happens to the boys, so I hope we all luck out and your chapter will be available very soon. :)

[poshlil.livejournal.com]

That's not a bad idea actually! I only posted it before bed last night (though that was already a longer writing time than I'd wanted it to be, I had marking to deal with first) so I'll give them a decent chance to see it, but yes, if it's not been dealt with by next weekend, I will do that!

Haha, I just hope you guys like it. I haven't done round robin fic in aaages, and I forgot how tricky it is to not start with your own opening and not direct the next person too much. But having said that, it was a lovely break from the epic thing I've been working on for the last few months, so that was nice. :D

[castie67.livejournal.com]

Yay, an epic, too! I loved your Noelian epic you posted on AO3 -- I remember getting a new chapter almost every single day, and each one was a treat. So much to look forward to!

[poshlil.livejournal.com]

Oh lord, it's going to be about that long again I think. xD I remember you commenting on that - it totally made my day, I wasn't expecting anyone but me and the few people who'd been betaing for me to read the whole thing. Sometimes I'm tempted to unlock it so non-AO3 members can have access to it, but I get a bit squeamish about doing that with rpf. Like... what if the person I'd been writing about saw it somehow? In Noel's case, he probably wouldn't care, the perv. :P But all the same, that's got to be a bit weird, seeing people writing about your actual self. Not weir enough to stop me writing or reading it, but enough to make me think hard about how public I make it.

Sorry, that's a rather random digression. Anyway - yes, it'll be long and it'll probably take months, but it combines my two favourite things: time travel and Noel/Ju. :D I never upload stuff til it's finished (learnt that the hard way) but I did a ridiculous sketch for the opening scene a few months ago, and it has a little excerpt with it. So if you want a teaser, it's on tumblr (http://pipvalentine.tumblr.com/post/50330290167). (And why it's on tumblr, I have no idea. I just spent twenty minutes looking in my creative comm going WHERE DID I PUT IT? Oh, Lil, what are you?)

[castie67.livejournal.com]

I'm in love with that picture. I'm your newest follower on tumblr. :)

[poshlil.livejournal.com]

Aww, thank you :3 I'm so silly with my art, it takes me forever to finish anything and I go for months sometimes without even picking up a pencil. But I kind of want to illustrate one scene from each section of this fic, so... we'll see how I go.

And hello, I've just followed you back! I don't use tumblr for much. Lots of my old lj friends blog there now, instead of here, but I like to lock my entries about life. (And by life, I mean my thesis word count, the ridiculous hat I wore today and all the fics I'm not writing, ha. Hardly riveting material.) Shall I add you here too? I think my friends only post scares people off sometimes - it was mainly to discourage serial adders from a few years back, but it seems to have stopped everyone, and I do quite like having new lj friends! :D

[castie67.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for following me back. I don't blog at all -- I'm only on tumblr to look at the pretty pictures that other people post there and to get the occasional update on fics that I otherwise wouldn't know about. You've already added me on LJ -- I enjoy your regular updates. :)

[poshlil.livejournal.com]

Have I? Good grief, I'm hopeless. Sorry, I've obviously not had enough tea this morning, my brain's not engaged. Though I suppose if you don't blog, I'd never see your username on my flist, which is probably why I thought you weren't there. And yes, I hear you on tumblr - I quite like using lj to get thoughts out of my head, and I know once it's posted, anything can happen to it, but being able to lock stuff means you've at least got a little control over who sees it. Tumblr's so public, and can get so viral so quickly, it scares me a bit.

(Haha, my updates are ridiculous, but thank you. Good to know they're entertaining someone!)

[castie67.livejournal.com]

I use LJ for the sole purpose of writing and posting fics and tumblr just to lurk. :) I've never gotten the hang of blogging -- I'm kind of shy and kind of old (especially for tumblr) -- but I love reading other people's blogs. I've learned a lot from reading blogs on both LJ and tumblr.

[poshlil.livejournal.com]

Tumblr makes me feel very old sometimes. :P But I've found over the years that I'm a lot less shy online than I am in real life - at least once I start talking. I lurk in comms for ages before I say anything, but then once I start commenting, I don't stop.

[castie67.livejournal.com]

I lurked on LJ for two years before I commented on anything, and the idea of writing/posting a story was absolutely unthinkable. Finally the day came when I desperately wanted, no I *needed* a story to be written, so I wrote it myself. I'm not a prolific writer. I have huge dry spells that are interrupted by brief moments of inspiration. But blogging is something I just can't seem to get the hang of. I love reading other people's blogs, though.

[poshlil.livejournal.com]

I've written for practically my whole life. I have notebooks from when I was a kid, before I even knew what fanfic was, where I made up stories about my favourite characters. They're all hopeless, it's hilarious. But I always kept a proper diary too, so online blogging came really naturally to me. When I started, I only had about three people on my friends list, so it felt more like a diary then, but as I got more involved in fandom, I gradually added more. I quite like it, it's nice to get to know people beyond just reading their stories, you know? But I don't get all the social networking and micro-blogging on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook - with lj, I feel like you get more detailed, personal entries for the most part. Facebook seems to be to be just an endless list of what pubs people are at. That doesn't tell me anything.

[ideserveyou.livejournal.com]

This is brilliant! Lots of things I love about this... Howard signing his body over to a ghost in order to save Vince's hair, even though Vince has just realised that there IS something in the universe more important than his hair... And Howard being more impressed by the rhyming of the poetry than by what it says... And the hugs and the touching... *meltst*

This has all sorts of delicious and terrifying possibilities.

And you brought back Howard's missing pencil, too!

[castie67.livejournal.com]

I had two main goals for this chapter: (1) figure out what could have been typed on that paper that would have upset Vince so much, and (2) bring back Howard's missing pencil. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Like you, I toyed with the idea of trying to sneak in some smut, but it felt forced in this bit. I tried to leave the door wide open for future chapters, though. I'm looking forward to poshlil's continuation in Part 3. :)

[life-downsized.livejournal.com]

And Henry said a smoke and a shag for all three of them, right? Subtle, my friend, very subtle!

Loved this! I loved all the adorable little Howard/Vince moments and Henry so far is such a perfect villain. Perfect Halloween fare!

[castie67.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's what I said. ;) I don't really care all that much about the smoke (although Henry might), but I certainly hope they enjoy at least one good shag. I left them a 12-hour window.....

Thanks so much for the kind words! :)

[concupiscence66.livejournal.com]

I thought it had been a few days since I checked livejournal, and it's been over a week! I'm an ass, but this is genius!!! Henry the Ghost is fucking awesome. I laughed out loud and I am very intrigued...

[castie67.livejournal.com]

Thank you! This is the first thing I've written in months, so I'm glad it worked for you. Lil has done a great job with the next installment; I'm looking forward to your awesome conclusion to Howard, Vince & Henry's Big Adventure. :)

[pussywhang.livejournal.com]

awww, this was so good- I loved that Vince would even sacrifice his hair for Howard! And that Howard would sacrifice himself for Vince's sake!

[castie67.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you! I'm glad you like it. Thanks so much for reading it and thank you for commenting! :)