booshslashhaven | In So Many Teacups: Part 4

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Title: In So Many Teacups (Part 4/?)
Author: Grand Mimosa
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,861
Warnings: None.
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Summary: Basically, an Apocalypse!fic where Vince and Howard must survive an alien invasion to re-populate the earth.
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction. I do not own the Mighty Boosh. No profit has been made.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

July 9, 2010

From so high above, Vince’s dark hair looks like a splatter from a leaky pen on the surface of the earth. It moves slowly through the forest, blinking sporadically through the uneven foliage of the trees, as if his entire existence were just a trick of the eye. Howard spots it from the carpet and dives down with his heart like a magnet, Naboo and Bollo protesting wildly at his shoddy piloting.

Vince startles as they descend and stumbles backwards against Gerald’s chest. Gerald squawks and Howard glances at him, surprised.

“You’re here, too?” he asks.

“I-…I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, Howard,” Gerald stammers, “but there’s a very large gorilla sitting next to you.” He swallows. “And also, the carpet you’re sitting on is levitating.”

Howard trips off the flying carpet and pulls Vince close.

“Are you trying to absorb me?” Vince laughs wetly. Howard almost cries and nods, mindlessly happy.

“Naboo! Bollo!” Vince exclaims. Howard steps out of the way dutifully and lets them reunite.

Turning towards Gerald, he scratches his head and squints against the heat. He’s never talked much with this man, really, this man with eyes as small as Howard’s and a growing gut, who probably never struck anyone as special, or noticeable, or interesting. They face each other; Howard thinks it’s a little like facing a mirror.

He’s not very sure how to start.

Clearing his throat, he tries: “You had the chance to make a run for it on your own. Vince must’ve slowed you down, and it’s not like he’s family or anything. Not that, uh, not that I thought you’d…” Howard stumbles. “These are such dangerous times, and, um, thank you, I guess. Thank you, Gerald.”

There’s a slight pause as Gerald squints back and rubs his forehead with a sweaty palm.

“They were good friends, Vince and my Nancy,” Gerald whispers, wane and pale. “You know, sometimes if it’s dark enough and his head’s turned at this angle, well, it’s just they - the hair too, he’s got the same haircut - they do look a little similar, if you think about it.”

Howard backs away slightly, disturbed, but attempts to put on a sympathetic face. “I’m really very sorry about Nancy. She was a magnificent woman.”

Gerald smiles affectionately. “Ha. She whined when the tea was too hot and never picked up after herself, and she always talked too loudly in public places and laughed at the dirtiest jokes. People thought she was crass but all the boys liked her anyway because she was so beautiful.” He wavers. “She always chose me. I loved her very much.”

She always chose me. Howard nods and looks at Vince, Vince with his flirty airs and wide, attractive smile that’s endlessly popular, even when they were at school, when girls and boys from every class would gift him with cups of pudding and cinnamon biscuits as tokens of their affection; Vince would accept them with chaste kisses on the cheek, then split them with Howard later on.

From his periphery, Howard can see Bollo picking Vince up like a precious doll as Vince does nothing to protest, glad to be pampered again after living so long in rubble and dirt. The afternoon sunlight through the leaves mottles his face with shadows; they look like bruises, Howard thinks, and holds tightly to the reassurance that none of them are real. God, but they could have so easily been real.

“I…” Howard begins, but gets tangled up. His head’s a mess, and without really thinking much he pulls Gerald into a quick, firm hug. Gerald let’s out a sharp exhale in surprise, his entire body morphing into one large exclamation point.

Howard frowns and looks him in the eye. “I hope I’ll never have to understand what you’re going through.”

“Me too,” Gerald says.

August 1, 2010

They’ve been living in a cave for nearly a month. Bollo hunts small animals and Gerald cooks them for supper, while Naboo sifts through the spell books he managed to salvage with a deep crease across his brow. During the daytime, Howard and Vince scour the forest for survivors from their group. So far, they’ve found none.

On their first day walking through the forest, Howard tied one end of a blue rope to Vince’s waist and tied the other end around his own.

“So we never get separated again,” he explained.

“It’s like we’re really joined at the hip now,” Vince said. “Where’d you find blue rope, anyway?”

“Uh,” Howard paused. “Naboo gave it to me.”

That night, Naboo angrily questioned them all about the whereabouts of his belt, robes hanging formlessly around his body. Howard discreetly checked to make sure he was sitting on the entirety of the blue rope and shrugged his shoulders. Vince’s face brightened with the barest hint of something akin to electricity, but he kept quiet.

Sometimes Howard finds himself thinking things are okay, now that they’ve found each other and a place to hide and be safe in. But then he’ll remember he’s stranded in a cave, and that it wasn’t so long ago the universe turned on the world and the world responded by eating itself alive; it wasn’t so long ago and already Howard’s forgotten what life’s supposed to be like.

“We’re living in a hole in a rock,” Gerald says. “No hole in a rock is going to protect us when the worst comes.”

“As if it hasn’t already,” Bollo grunts.

“As if it hasn’t already and finished its after dinner tea by now,” Vince says. “And at least it’s a tastefully decorated hole in a rock,” he adds, while arranging the wildflowers he picked across the walls of the cave, stepping back and scrunching his nose, then going at it again, as if he’s preparing for a page in Architectural Digest and everything has to be just perfect, as if it’s his greatest care. “Hmm. What do you think? Too Secret Garden? Or Precious Moments calendar?”

Gerald’s eyes are glossy and unblinking. “No. It’s fine.”

Later that night, Vince pulls Howard aside, away from the firelight and deeper into the cave.

“Gerald’s been acting kind of strange,” he whispers. His hands flit through his hair and settle on his knees, then play with the torn threads of his pants.

Howard bats them away. New clothes are hard to come by, especially clothes that’ll fit Vince, who’s small and angular and growing more and more severe looking by the week. “Yeah?”

“He’s always looking at me,” Vince continues. “And not just glancing. Staring, straight on, and then his face goes all wobbly-like.”

“Huh. Well,” Howard says. “He’s probably just staring off into space. Pondering things and such, you know. Complicated man, and all that.”

“But staring off right at my face?”

“You’ve a rather large face. Probability, you see. And you’re together quite often,” Howard replies, trying not to sound bitter. “Perhaps your face just got in the way.”

Vince laughs bright, staccato notes. “Yeah, I guess. It’s not like he watches me sleep or anything. That would be truly creepy. Perverted, even.”

“Ha-ha, yes. Perverted, creepy, yes, I agree. Ha-ha,” Howard flushes, then conveniently gets a coughing fit and must stop talking at once.

August 19, 2010

The day’s well into evening, even though it’s only just gotten dark outside. The sun’s been stretched long by summer, intensified so that Vince’s skin burns on the high ridges of his cheekbones and the tip of his nose. He doesn’t tan well, turning the dark pink color of stripped muscle instead of a healthy bronze. Vince complains daily that the sunburn makes his face look like a russet potato, and although he can tell his whining is unnerving Gerald and Naboo, Howard lets him without protest because he understands that Vince has already let more of his vanity dissolve than he’d care to admit, and in a way it reminds him of being back in London before, too, when life was all two day troubles and silly adventures that sent you home by teatime.

It should be noted that three days ago, a bat appeared in the cave with a scrap of paper on its back.

“Chrissy!” Naboo had exclaimed, and untied the note. It was in code, and said:

BUTTONS AT TWILIGHT WITH TWO-TOED SHOES.

FROGS DON’T HAVE LIVERS, THEY HAVE TRUMPETS.

SAFE TRAVELS,

BARRY

Which apparently meant, according to Naboo, that there was a safe house in Shanghai, China, where the other shamans of the world were gathered and planning.

“So let me get this straight,” Howard had said. “We, as in four grown men and an ape, are going to fly to China on a piece of heavy cloth with a bat named Chrissy to guide the way?”

“Yeah,” Naboo had replied.

Howard thought things over. Vince appeared beside his shoulder and said, “Does that mean we’d get wontons for dinner instead of squirrel?”

“Right,” Howard said. “Shanghai is waiting.”

Gerald scratched his head from across the cave. “Are we going on holiday?”

And now, finally, the magic carpet is floating by the entrance of the cave, plain and mischievous, like a trap door without the trap. Naboo climbs up first, then Bollo, then Gerald, who’s forcibly pulled on more than anything else. By the time Howard and Vince board, room is so limited Vince has to sit on Howard’s lap. Howard makes a show of annoyance, just for levity’s sake.

“You’ll crush my loins!” he complains.

“It’s not like you’ve ever used them, anyway,” Vince teases.

“I’ll have you know, these loins have had their fair share of lady lovin’.”

From the other corner of the carpet, Bollo holds his head in his hands while Naboo rolls his eyes. Vince turns around with his face raw like a heart. “You Casanova, you.”

Chrissy launches off Naboo’s shoulder then and starts fluttering off without a sound. The carpet moves, smooth and slightly sluggish with their weight, and lifts them up into the atmosphere. Howard would make some terribly pompous comment concerning a phoenix and its ashes, only he knows Vince would nick him on the ear for that.

Vince leans against Howard’s chest and puffs a breath out through barely parted lips. Howard grabs his wrist and feels his pulse hiccup like warped clockwork.

A nervous habit begins to bubble beneath his ribcage. Howard inhales, but is interrupted by a sharp elbow jutting into his stomach.

“Scat and die,” Vince hisses.

Gerald perks up. “You like jazz, too?”

Vince appears vaguely suicidal. The trees are becoming scarce beneath them, and the air is thinner than normal. Howard sputters as Vince tosses his hair purposefully into his face and clicks his tongue.

“The wontons there had better be bloody fabulous.”