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booshslashhavenTitle: Ordinary World
Pairing or Characters: Howard, one-sided Howince
Summary: I don't even know what to say about this one that isn't in the fic itself.
Word Count: 1,214
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst
Challenge: #9 (AU)
Disclaimer: Oh, how loudly I disclaim! I throw myself, prostrate (not the second 'r'!) at the great and powerful feet of The Mighty Boosh, which is in no way mine!
Author’s Notes: Okay, I know you're all pretty used to me bringing the laughs, but this one is... this one is a downer. I wrote an incredibly depressing alternate universe.
“How’s everything going for you, Howard”?”
“Fine.” He shrugged. “The zoo’s been all right. Animals, you know... they’re noble in their way, aren’t they? And I got made in charge of the aviary, so... moving up in the world.”
“Good, good. Head of the aviary, that’s important, isn’t it? Must be.”
Howard liked Mr. Attwood. He liked that someone came by the zoo every so often to talk to him. It made it look like he had a friend. And Mr. Attwood liked him, too. He’d said so earlier, while Howard was talking about jazz. He’d said it was a nice change of pace, music theory, and how he enjoyed having conversations that didn’t revolve around train tables and hoovering.
They said their goodbyes near the gates, and Howard went back to sweeping. He wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t blind. He knew Mr. Attwood still thought he was working below his potential. Below his ability level, his intelligence. And Howard knew it, too. It was nice, knowing someone else agreed with him—the other keepers certainly didn’t. But it didn’t matter how intelligent he was if he couldn’t finish anything. His novel sat around, its sole sentence gathering dust. His jazz opus clocked in at eight lousy measures, his playing certainly didn’t garner the proper attention. Hell, he’d dropped out of school to work in the zoo, after all. The only things he ever finished were the awful cream poems he did for Mrs. Gideon, and that was only because writing poems for beautiful women was normal.
Howard had his typewriter for the cream poems—he hoped to salvage the best lines, rebuild a poem he really cared about. He was glad he had the typewriter, his handwriting was atrocious. That trait, he shared with Vince, though Vince had the childlike spelling to match, and Howard was a meticulous wordsmith.
Somehow, he was able to draw. It was the only use of physical dexterity of any sort he had mastered, and he wasn’t even a visual artist. He only drew pictures of Vince, or from him. The way he only wrote by hand if it was a note for Vince to have left.
Howard knew what the other keepers thought of him. He’d heard them laugh and whisper at his back, saying ‘spaz’ into their hands when they caught him in an act of clumsiness, or in conversation with Vince. He’d tried to keep it all internal, but Vince felt so real to him that it just seemed dishonest not to speak out loud.
Vince liked him, looked up to him even. It would have been great, if only he was... well, real.
Howard knew it was childish, stupid even, to have an imaginary friend at his age. Even stupider to be falling in love with him. But he couldn’t help it. There was no befriending the others, and his life with Vince was so much better than his ordinary, un-imagined life. He and Vince had adventures. He and Vince had fun.
He wasn’t a retard. He wasn’t Fossil. He was just... alone. And Vince hadn’t always been imaginary. He’d been a real boy once, and when life without anyone became unbearable, Howard just... recreated him. Aged him up accordingly. Kept him in a little pocket in his heart and held onto him. It helped. Because he had Vince with him always, he never once broke his promise.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Oi! What you doin’, then?”
Howard turned to see a young boy skipping and skidding down the park hillside towards him. They were wearing the same school uniform, though this boy’s was clearly in violation of school regs, buttons and badges pinned on willy-nilly, cowboy boots instead of sensible shoes.
Howard was up to his ankles in the duck pond and feeling quite foolish. No one was supposed to see him ‘til after.
“Committing suicide.” He mumbled.
The boy’s eyes got even rounder. “You gonna shoot yer face off?”
“What? No! I’m going to drown, aren’t I? It will be poetic, beautiful. Like wronged Ophelia. And then... well, they’ll all be sorry, won’t they?”
“Who?”
“Kids.” He shrugged, feeling stupid. “The ones who’re mean to me.”
The boy scoffed. “You drownin’ yourself ain’t gonna change ‘em. They’ll just forget all about you and pick on someone else. Like curtain girl.”
“Who’s curtain girl?”
“You know,” the boy flipped his head forward so that his face was hidden in a mop of shaggy, tawny hair. “She’s a ginger? An’ no one knows what she looks like, ‘cos she’s always like this!”
“I guess I haven’t got classes with her. Nor with you.”
“I just moved here.” The boy nodded.
“Me, too.” Howard braved a small smile. “We came down from Leeds, for my dad’s work. But we’ll probably go back there. He said it’s probably temporary, just for the year. I haven’t made any friends here...”
“Have you got lots of friends back in Leeds?”
“N-no.” Howard admitted. “Not any, really. I’m more of a loner. A maverick. But... they were used to me, there. They didn’t need to bully.”
“I moved here from India. I was raised in the jungle.” The boy smiled.
“... Really?”
“Uh-huh!” He nodded. He seemed sincere, and Howard believed him. Howard would have believed anything from him. “Hey, will you promise me something?”
“I don’t even know your name.”
“Vince Noir, future rock and roll star.”
“Howard Moon. Future nothing.”
“That’s not true. Okay, Howard Moon. Promise me something,” Vince grinned and held out a pinky.
“What are you, eight?” Howard scoffed, but he linked pinkies with the boy anyway.
“Thirteen.”
“Oh. Me, too.”
“You can’t ever let them tossers get to you, not like this, ‘kay? ‘Cause it won’t change anything except you won’t be around no more. So... never do it, right? Suicide? Swear you won’t. It ain’t even that poetic, you turn blue an’ then your corpse pukes up duck water, ‘s not beautiful, just icky. Fish eat bits off you.”
“All right.”
“I mean it, you gotta swear, no offing yourself. Swear it?”
“I swear.” Howard whispered, and he meant it.
“Okay!” And then Vince skipped off again, and they never really spoke.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In the keepers’ hut, it was safe to bring Vince out. There was no one there to make fun when he seemed to talk to himself (and really, there was nothing he could say to the accusation that wouldn’t make it worse, that much he’d learned).
In his world with Vince, it wasn’t just the two of them who were special. In their world, animals talked (well, to Vince, at any rate), the chronic-smoking kiosk vendor was a magically powered shaman, and strange and wonderful things just happened.
Howard hadn’t told Vince he was falling in love with him. If he did, Vince would have to break his heart. There were liberties he couldn’t take, knowing somewhere a real Vince was out there, completely innocent.
Howard made two cups of tea that night, one with too much sugar that he would never drink, one just right. Vince didn’t always remember to say ‘thank you’, but that was all right. Howard loved him anyway. He always would.
~~~FINIS~~~
~Glas
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:05 am (UTC)I'm evil, but I'm not kill-off-ickle-Vincey evil! If it helps, you can imagine that Vince does eventually come to work at the zoo and becomes Howard's friend, brings him out of his shell, romances the heck out of him...
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 08:25 pm (UTC)*bouncy*
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Date: 2009-06-09 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:23 pm (UTC)and thank you ^____^
no subject
Date: 2009-09-28 08:38 am (UTC)http://mightyboosh.diary.ru/p81532619.htm?from=last&discuss#form
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 07:00 pm (UTC)Beautiful fic though, even if you did make me tear up *glare* lol
xxx
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Date: 2009-06-09 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-13 08:20 am (UTC)Or maybe not. Sometimes I get confused. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. The flattered thing.