Challenge # 20: Mistletoe Dreams Part 4

[themogwai.livejournal.com]

Title: Mistletoe Dreams Part 4
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Summary: It’s nearly Xmas, it’s mistletoe love potions, it’s scary, weirdo Druids. Fun, fun, fun!
Word Count: Part 4: 4180
Rating: PG-13: a few rude words.
Disclaimer: Mighty Boosh, its characters and situations belong heart, mind and soul to Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett- and for their meeting and conceiving of such a world we forever more heartily thank them. I own nothing; I’m just playing with the pieces for a space.
A/N: Getting more angsty and involved… enjoy! There will now be a pause as I whiz home for a week to see family. I’ll try to rough out the next bit when I’m there and get it up for you lovelies by late December!

Part 1 Here

Part 2 Here

Part 3 Here



The Zooniverse was quiet. Too damn quiet. Howard padded through the winding alleyways, a worried expression plastered across his face. No people- no noise- no animals! Well, this was meant to be a ‘spiritual plane’ – wasn’t that what that weird Druidess had said? Howard was not what you’d call very spiritual. Oh, he had beliefs, he had a warm core to which he clung in the depths of the night- but it wasn’t a spiritual core. At least, not one he recognised. Being taken to church as a boy had never meant much to him; the experience had not left a great mark on his psyche, except a vague worry about men wearing robes. That Rudi figure had had him worried from the word go- a purple robe? Huge teeth? Howard shivered; they just weren’t right. Funny thing was, there’d been a bit of a resemblance between them… no, don’t go down that way, or you could get your metaphors hopelessly mixed. Best to stick with the plan.
And the plan was… to continue in a stomach-churning state of paranoid unrest. Where the hell had Vince got to? Race me, indeed! As if I could keep up with that hyperactive pixie!
He peered around the corner of what would have been Bollo’s cage, his heart pounding in his ears, breath rasping just a bit in his throat. No shadows- nothing hidden, and yet so utterly alien- too silent- too silent!
“Vince? Vince!
“There y’are!"
Howard yelled, filling the Zoo with sound, and leapt all of three feet straight up. Vince scuttled back.
“Whoa there, big fella!”
Howard landed, hair askew, eyes etcha-sketch crazy. “WHATWHATWHAT!!!”
“HEY! Chill, Howard, s’only me! Look, I found our old hut, and everything’ was as it used to be! I found me old jacket- and it still fits!”
He did twirl to prove that, indeed, the figure-hugging green Zooniverse jacket of old still had the magic.
“W-well, of course it does! You’re just a wee slip of a lad!” Howard blustered, concentrating more on unhooking his clamped, clawed fingers from around the signpost he’d grabbed onto in his alarm, than on what he was saying. Vince stared at him, wide-eyed.
And then he blushed.
He actually blushed
Howard noticed something was different, and stared.
There was a pause known as ‘pregnant’.
“Yeah-um-” Vince coughed, “Well, I found yours, too.”
Seeing something approaching normality in this freaky-verse of a Zoo parody, Howard eagerly grabbed his jacket and heaved it on over the white PJs. There was a ripping sound. The sleeves were up to his elbows; no way was that jacket going to fasten shut as he’d been wont to wear it. He hastily shrugged out, with Vince helping to pull it down at the back before it got any smaller and broke his spine. He threw it on the floor in disgust.
“Never mind, eh? I brought your shoes, too- better than nothing!”
Vince hefted the sensible brown working boots with the steel toecaps that Howard had worn at the Zoo. How own feet were already snug in the white and red cowboy boots he’d practically lived in, once upon a time. Howard remembered when he’d bought them; he’d been so damn proud, using every opportunity to show them off. It had made Howard smile.
”They’ll get mucky and worn, y’know, if you wear them all the time.”
“Not these boots, Howard. These boots were made for bein’ happy!”
And due to some freakish law of the universe that smiles on Sunshine Kids, the boots had survived- although they had got lost in the move to the Shoreditch flat. Vince had been in mourning for a month out of respect.
He took his boots from Vince’s hands and tugged them on. Ah, good, sensible… no, wait…
With a thunderous expression, he let the boots fall.
“What?” Vince, hands dug deep in his jacket pockets, watched, surprised.
“Un-be-lievable! Two sizes too bloody big is what’s up!”
Vince made a sympathetic face. “Never mind, Howard. Let’s explore the Zoo- find out what we’re meant to do here, do it and get home.”
“What, in bare feet?” Howard hugged his arms to his body, grumping.
“You’re cold?”
Vince was right, it was neither too hot nor too cold- a sort of non-temperature only noticeable because it was not at all discomforting. But Howard, working his way into a Grade 1 Pout refused to be soothed or see sense. He poked a finger at the discarded jacket and shows.
“Just sums it up, doesn’t it?”
“Sums what up?”
“My life in the Zoo- discarded, in the dust.”
Vince made a confused face. “You have dust baths?”
Howard heaved an overly-dramatic sigh and slide over to hook his fingers into the wire of the once-bustling spider monkey enclosure. He leaned back against it, cutting a pose of the picturesque, sorrowing figure.
“I never fit in, did I? Howard T J Moon; Too Extreme for the Team, Too Cool for School.”
Vince snorted.
“What?” snapped over the shoulder.
“Uh- sorry. Got some dust in my nose is all.”
“Huh!”
“Is that it? You think you didn’t fit in, so you’re going to have a spaz?”
“Vince, I…” Howard swung around, his fingers still locked on the wire, bracing himself against the fence, he exchanged stares with Vince until he tossed his head away; a rare breed scenting trouble, yet nobly turning his back to it as if it mattered not.
He risked a peek back to see how the act was doing. Vince was wearing his “what the f-?!” expression. That “what the-?! expression. It wasn’t angry or simply annoyed, or even disgusted. It was more amused shock than anything else- a gleam in the eyes giving away how seriously he wasn’t taking this. It struck Vince that he’d never seen Vince show any lingering negative emotion. He’d been depressed when the copy-cats stole their image, and he’d been pretty pissed earlier this evening? Today? Yesterday? about what had transpired at the Onion, but exasperated was about as harsh as Vince got. Careless, occasionally thoughtless, but not cruel. Even with Howard at his most histrionic (and Howard could put the hissy in histrionic when he wanted to), Vince had never given up on him, never stopped talking, cajoling. Oh, sure, they bitched, stropped and sometimes Vince plain ignored him if Howard reminisced over-much, but the glitterball fairy always came back. He came back. Always. And with a smile, a nod, an “alrigh’ Howard?”
“Vince, I-…” he collapsed off the fence. What was the point? He slid down onto his haunches, burying his face in his hands. Consequently, his next words were muffled beyond hearing.
“What?” Vince hunkered down as well, straining to hear.
“I said- I never fitted in, did I? I was- I was the old git no one remembered, fancied or respected. Not even a bit!”
Vince was taken aback by the bitter self-recrimination in his friend’s tone. He was used to Howard having a mood or a good whine, but this was personal.
“Hey, c’mon!” he started, but Howard was on a roll.
“Even the bloody animals hated me!”
“What? That’s ridiculous!”
“Is it? I was bitten, crapped on, kicked, scratched and half-drowned every waking day! It was a good day if I only got a few minor injuries instead of a major one! And Mrs Gideon didn’t even know I existed! I was mocked, laughed at the bitched to Fossil on a regular basis- everyone HATED ME!”
“HOWARD!” Vince shook the hysterical, blubbering man roughly by the shoulders, and then grabbed his face in both hands, staring hard into his eyes.
“HOWARD!” Finally, he had his attention, peering up through tiny, teary eyes.”
“I don’t hate you!”
Howard’s expression seemed to relax just a little- still red faced from the crying, though. Was there even a glint of- hope- in there?
“I-”
But Vince never got to finish.
A smooth, distant riff of cool jazz trombone breezed easily over Vince’s curtailed explanation. He released Howard’s face and sat back, confused. A smell- something swampy, something as hot as New Orleans nights, something that seemed wrong assailed their nostrils. Vince gasped and gagged slightly. Howard, however, had gone completely white, staring over Vince’s shoulder. Catching the terrified expression in Howard’s eyes and his tomb-like pallor, Vince whirled around to see-
“Hoooowarrrrrd Moon! Long time no see, baby. My crooning trumpet queen!”
The figure wasn’t tall, nor even very oddly dressed- very smartly dressed, in fact, in a white suit and dark shirt and white tie. But the face- a blackened thing, with bone-white lines picking out the features. Eyes that glowed red, black teeth and black dreadlocks hanging down from under a white top hat.
“Who the hell are you?”
The creature noticed Vince for the first time.
“Weeell, lookee here! A pretty princess just waitin’ for a good time to come along!”
“For the last time, I’m a bloke! And what are you meant to be? Nice suit, by the way.”
“I am the Spirit of Jazz.”
Vince frowned, and then the sun shone through, he turned to Howard. “Wow! It’s real!”
Howard could only nod, making “guh-guh-guh” noises in the back of his throat. Vince rolled his eyes.
“Look, I’ll sort this geezer out, and we’ll get going, yeah?”
He stood up and turned to speak to the Spirit of Jazz, which was watching him with narrowed eyes. Before Vince could get a word in edgeways, the Spirit raised a peremptory hand, his eyes going awfully wide, and deeply rage-red.
“A-HA! I have smelt your aura, boy, and you is wrong- all that electro mumbo-jumbo is playin’ hell with ma sensibilities. Ah think, ma pretty, that it’s time for you to have a nap!”
“Wha-? Now, wait just a-!”
But the Spirit reached out and caressed Vince’s cheek. He fell with a sigh, eyes fluttering shut, hitting the ground hard and bonelessly.
The sight snapped Howard from whatever hold the Spirit’s presence had thrown over him, and he scooted over on hands and knees, leaning over Vince’s prone form, gently slapping his cheek.
“Vince? Vince? VINCE!”
Vince looked awfully pale. His habitual lack of colour was different- normally he seemed to glow, somehow, like an elf- but this was on the wrong side of ‘interestingly pastel’ and getting greyer by the second. His breathing was getting fainter and fainter even as Howard watched, horrified.
“What’s the matter, Howard? I just got rid of a nasty distraction is all. In a short while, all that filthy electro-shit will be drained from his body, and you and I can be together- forever!” the Spirit flickered its tongue, making soft, wet noises in a manner that was frankly gross.
Howard made whimpering noises and scooped up Vince’s head and shoulders. From somewhere came a flash of defiance- a small detail he clung to.
“What are you even doing here? I’m not playing any instrument!”
“Ah, but How-ward, ah’m here to test ya soul! Come with me, my jazz kitten, and you’ll never be lonely or unwanted again! All I ask is the rest of your soul, and you can have everything you want- away from your dreary existence!”
Howard glanced down at Vince’s face- looking sick and vulnerable.
“All you want- all the respect y’deserrrrve!” The Spirit’s voice was right in his ear, now, rich with promise images of smoky, discreet clubs, adoring audiences, wine, women and song whirled in his brain, as Vince slipped from his numb hands towards the ground once more.
It was the feeling of the unconscious body sliding across his thigh that sent shivers through his body and up, up into the dreams in his mind, the shiver rippling at the images, making them quake, making them break- more images, hidden beneath; a destitute, ragged character blurting a few notes from a battered trumpet in the street in exchange for a few coins that he drank and pissed away on the cheapest, nastiest booze he could find.
“I wouldn’t give anything to him,” one woman passing the beggar said to her friends, “he abandoned his best friend just to climb the success ladder for shallow gain.”
“What happened?”
“The ladder shook him off!”
Cruel laughter in rain-drenched streets, cold, loveless and joyless.
“No,” whispered, awed, saddened.
“Say what, my scat duckling?”
“I said no!” Louder, but still quiet. Howard glanced down. Vince had fallen back to lie awkwardly half-on and half-off his lap. That looks painful. He gathered Vince up again, holding him more securely under the head.
“What you doin’ How-ward?”
“I- I…” the pull was too strong. The Spirit was just too determined. Howard heard its chuckle, low and evil, in his ear. Tears started in his eyes. It just wasn’t fair! No! I won’tleave Vince behind!
“Howwwwaarrrd…” The purr was a combination of bourbon and Miller, a Harley revving as Gillespie blew his life out into free-form music.
“Don’t...don’t you want me?” where did the words come from? Howard didn’t know, and shortly after their effect started to make itself apparent, he didn’t care, either.
“What? What is that- that noise?” For the first time, the Spirit sounded unsure, freighted, even.
Howard screwed up his face, concentrating, what were the damn words? Vince had ponced around to the song often enough in the Keeper’s Hut… oh, yes, it was coming back now.
“You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar/ When I met you. I picked you out; I shook you up and turned you around/ Turned you into someone new…”
“Yaarrgghh! Shut UP!” The Spirit reeled away, hands clapped to his ears. “I’ve gone deeeeeeef!”
Using the few moments he’d bought by selling out, Howard tried shaking Vince awake. No good, and now he looked all but bloodless, his lips, normally so pampered and moisturised, were dry and cracking. Dark shadows lay under his eyes. Howard swallowed and looked around, panicked. Then he looked down at Vince again.
I have to believe, I must believe.
He laid a hand on Vince’s forehead.
“By the Power of Numan!”
A tiny thunderclap sounded over his head and in the air in front of his eyes, reality split open, revealing a gap, glowing golden. Heavenly synths streamed out celestial chords as the face of Numan himself appeared framed with luminescence.
“Howard Moon? Dialled the wrong number, didn’t you?”
“Uh, Mr Numan, sir, it’s Vince. He needs you.”
Gary glanced downwards, then back at Howard. His eyes narrowed. “But you’re not a believer.”
Howard swallowed. “No, but Vince is, and I believe in him.”
Gary looked impressed. “Well, that’ll do, too.”
A beam of golden light snuck out from the opening and fell onto Vince’s brow. Howard hastily removed his hand and watched, amazed, as colour flooded Vince’s cheeks, rushing pink and back to his elegant ivory tone. The shadows and cracked lips disappeared; both peaching out again into full health. His lashes fluttered.
“How’ard?”
But Howard, after seeing Vince was ok, was beaming up at Gary’s face, still in his divine boudoir. “Thank you, Mr Numan.”
“Always here for the right reasons, Howard.”
“Uh- you couldn’t give us a hand with the Spirit of jazz, could you?”
Gary pursed his lips. “Not really my problem. But now one is two again, you have the power to defeat it!” with a short burst of “it’s the only way to live- in cars,” the fissure resealed itself with a tiny pop.
Vince was blinking and rising up to sit on his own.
“Was that really Gary Numan?”
“The man himself.”
“Wow.” Vince gazed at Howard with new respect.
“HOOOWWWAARRRRD!” the bellow shattered the awesomeness of the moment, making them both turn quickly to see- the Spirit, striding over with fury-fuelled eyes, his dreadlocks and fingers snapping a bee-bop in his wrath.
“Not again!” Howard groaned.
Vince, however, was looking a lot less worried.
“C’mon!” he jumped up and hauled Howard to his feet.
“What-?”
"Didn't Gary say anything useful?"
“Mr Numan said now one was two, we had the power to defeat it! But how?”
Vince regarded the Spirit, all but on them again. He grabbed Howard’s hand and yelled in a voice that was honed after years of yelling over the sales rush in Top Shop:
“BY THE POWER OF NUMAN! I dare you to judge me/ Now God has disowned me-”
Howard found his mouth working of its own accord, as he joined in. “I’ve come to you to be saved.”
The |Spirit stopped, dead in its tracks, staring at Vince, then Howard with dread.
“Yeah, listen, bitch, ‘cos Howard’s not yours, ever again! Take your sorry jazz arse and get lost! They say I lost my soul!”
Howard joined in, but with a whisper, tears from his jazzy soul seeping from his eyes. “We all reap what we sow.”
The Spirit shrieked, seemed to swell to five times normal size, ballooning obscenely, and then it exploded in a shower of grace notes.
Vince grinned, dropping Howard’s hand and punching the air. “Yeah! Did for him good, ah, Howard! Howard?”
Howard hastily wiped his eyes. “Yeah, thanks, Vince.”
Vince cocked his head to one side, uncertain.
“I mean it, thank you. It’s just- do you know how much it hurt to sing that- that- electrotravesty?”
Vince’s face cracked a grin. “One day, you’ll know the true meaning of electro, Howard!”

The older man rolled his eyes “Let’s just get on, yeah? Before we meet any other deranged lunatics.”
“Sure, mind you, I hope we don’t bump into Bainbridge!” Vince skipped along beside Howard, but Howard sensed something amiss with the off-hand comment.
“Why Bainbridge? He’s not a menace, just a wanker.”
“I know, it’s just- he always gave me the willies. I mean- what about him and Fossil? That wasn’t right.” Vince shook his head dolefully.
“Never took you for a hard-liner, Vince.”
Vince cast a quick glance at Howard. “No, I mean, it was just because it was those two. At least, it was for Fossil- the whole thing just made me feel queasy, s’all.”
“But I never saw you having a problem.”
Vince did a self-conscious side-skitter. “That’s ‘cos I had me mates around me- and if the guys weren’t there, you were, and it wasn’t s’bad.”
Howard’s eyebrows shot up, but he made no further comment. It seemed a random confession to make, but who was he to argue? He’s just sung a Gary Numan song at a Jazz demon and made it explode.

They walked on a bit. Strangely, the Zooniverse showed no sign of ending; they should have exited by now. They paused in the main central area, and Howard looked about them, puzzled.
“Yeah, so I hope we don’t meet him,” Vince burbled, skipping a little with barely-concealed jitters.
“Meet whom, Vincey?”
Vince gulped. From behind Naboo’s camel-shaped stand strode the broad, angry-faced personage of Bainbridge himself.
Howard spun back, and all but sniggered. He’d never liked the oversized bully- mostly because he’d had more success with Mrs. Gideon than Howard had. And because his moustache was more fulsome and manly.
“What? No greeting for your old pal and superior in every aspect?” Bainbridge was standing right over Vince now, leering down at him.
Tell him he’s got a face like a red balloon! Mock his taste in birds! Anything!! Vince’s mind galloped in circles, desperately trying to find something, anything to latch onto. Howard wasn’t there. Bainbridge had stepped between them, and with the blustering, bellowing explorer leaning right over him and getting seriously into his face, Vince couldn’t see anything beyond those furious, derisive eyes glaring down at him. His mind made a last ditch attempt to get help-
“How-..’d”- whimpered- and collapsed.
“Howard isn’t here to help you now, Vince, see/ saw a chance to get away and bailed1 like the rat he is!” Bainbridge rolled back a fraction and Vince saw he actually spoke the truth- no Howard in sight.
“HA! So much for friends! And now, my pretty, stupid little Vincey, you and I have some unfinished business!”
“D-do we?” a tiny part of Vince not utterly overwhelmed noted with disgust that he was actually cowering.
“Yes. We. Do. Little man.” Vince winced, tears forming in his eyes. In Bainbridge’s mouth, Howard’s term of affection sounded dirty and defiled.
“Just the teeny-tiny matter of an attack and humiliation by your disgusting bubble gum creation. I lost out on a six-book contract! I had to pay back my advance! I was debagged at the Explorers’ Club, and my Korean mail-order whore refused to give me head for a year, and all because of you!”
“S-sorry!”
“Sorry will not cut it, Vincey!” There was a ‘ka-ching’ and Vince looked down and jumped back another pace. Bainbridge had unclipped and opened a vicious-looking hunting knife.
“How about we cut a bit of the ridiculous hair? You look like a woman! And as for your clothes-!”
Vince squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, but it was no good, still the hateful, spiteful words spat at him, full of malice and vitriol, beating away at his defences, wearing him down, criticising his looks, his hair, his style, his walk, his voice, even- mean, hurtful and coming, coming, coming-
“OY! BAINBRIDGE YOU FAT TWAT! PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!”
The yell came from their left. Bainbridge reeled upright, glaring at Howard, who quickly shifted his attention to an amazed Vince.
“Vince! Heads’ up!” and he threw a quantity of cloth over Vince’s head.
Bainbridge watched, and then heaved backwards, roaring with laughter.
“Covering up the sick little creature is not going to stop me, Moon! And I’ll deal with you later!”
He turned back to Vince, only to be met with a determined face and sparkling blue eyes.
“It’s not just any cloth! It’s a poncho!” Howard yelled.
“And it’s impossible to be unhappy in a poncho!” Vince said softly. He looked Bainbridge right in eye- looked all the vicious gossips he had ever come across in the eye- and he laughed. Vince Noir laughed. It was joyful, it was carefree and it was everything that blinkered, angry bigots are not.
“You," he hiccupped at Bainbridge, “you are pathetic! You tiny, sad man- you thief! You liar! You couldn’t explore a paper bag! You!” and he kicked the astonished Bainbridge right in the balls. The bully keeled over, huffing and clutching his privates.
“And your moustache looks fake!” Vince trilled in triumph. Bainbridge howled and disappeared in a ‘poof’ of smoke.
Waving the smoke away, Howard walked over to join Vince, who gazed at him with grateful eyes.
“This-” and his lifted the poncho a little, “-was a genius idea!”
Howard shrugged his shoulders, shyly pleased. “Well, it looked like you could do with a little help, there!”
“WE work well as a team, don’t we?”
“Yeah- yeah we do.” Howard agreed, gazing at Vince thoughtfully. Vince, however, had spotted something.
“Hey! Look! It’s ya togs!”
Howard regarded the boots and jacket Vince held out to him with distaste, and then frowned. “But we didn’t just do a bit circle- did we?”
“Jus’ try’em on!”
“But-”
“Howard! Do it.”
Howard narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“I think it might be better this time,” but by Vince’s puzzled face Howard could see he didn’t know why that should be, either. However, just to prove a point, he took up the jacket and pulled it on.
Perfect fit, snug and comfortable.
Mirroring Vince’s slightly freaked expression, he pulled on the boots as if they might explode if he handled them too roughly.
Again, he couldn’t ask for better.
“How? Why? What? Where?”
Vince was chewing on his lip. Suddenly, his face lit up.
“They always fit, Howard- and so did you.”
“Why?”
“Uh…”
Howard could feel something knocking at the door to his consciousness- something very important. “Home… is... where the heart is.”
Vince met his expression. “Yours was always in the Zoo, Howard.”
Howard nodded slowly, the good times coming back to him now.
“Yes, I- I think it was.” And he smiled. Really smiled.
Vince was impressed.
It made Howard look almost normal.

Suddenly, the walls and floor around and under them started to shake, to blur, vibrating at an ever higher speed.
“Howard?”
“Vince!”
They grabbed at each other as the world started to whirl like a washing machine on high spin cycle.
“AAarrrgghhhhhh!!!”
*THUMP**THWACK*
“Bollocks!”
They landed.

Groaning, they pulled themselves up, and slowly detangled knotted limbs.
“Where are we?” Vince mumbled, rubbing at his head where Howard had accidentally kneed him.
“We’re- in the Shoreditch flat.”
“Wha-?”
But they were.
And there was a low chuckle.
A low, evil, cockney chuckle.
“But y’not out a’the woods yet, my lovelies!”
And the speaker swung around in the large basket chair.
Howard and Vince gulped. Green skin, white eye, HUGELY oversized thumb?
“Yes, boys, it’s me, ‘n I’ll be ya host f’the next part!”
Howard gulped, Vince shivered.
Behind their backs, out of sight of the Hitcher their hands met and clasped in solidarity.