booshslashhaven | Fic: Blue Boosh

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Title: Blue Boosh
Rating: PG for now
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Word count: 1851
Summary: A spell outs the entire queer community, by turning them blue. The darker the blue, the higher up on the Kinsey scale. Vince, who has always happily admitted to going both ways, is a light indigo and his most pressing concern is finding an outfit to best compliment his new skin tone. Howard, the "straightest man Vince knows" is both puzzled and upset to find himself nearly navy.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Mighty Boosh or the short story "Am I Blue?"
Author Notes: This was originally intended for the LGBT fest, but I didn't get it together in time. I am incredibly rusty, so please bear with me.

Through the haze of indigo smoke, Naboo sleepily recognised the two figures of his lodgers walking into the flat, arguing.

“I said I was sorry!” Vince said in exasperation, trailing after Howard. He tried to put his hand on Howard's shoulder, who shook him off angrily.

“Sorry is not going to cut it this time, Vince,” Howard said, stepping further away from his friend and batting him away.

“All the other clubs were closed and they do the best cocktails,” Vince replied, still trying to reach out to Howard.

“Don't touch me!” Howard said and violently pushed Vince away from him.

“It was just a gay bar, Howard, I didn't think you'd mind.” Vince looked up at him with big, hurt eyes. Howard met them briefly before shying away from the eye contact and looking away. A long drawn out pause stretched seconds into centuries as they avoided looking at each other.

“I'm going to bed,” Howard said shortly and left the room.

Vince lifted his hand halfway up and started to reach out, before sighing and bringing it back to his chest as Howard slammed the door. Naboo sat up slowly from his recumbent position on the couch, making Vince jump and clutch at his heart with both hands and giggle nervously.

“Naboo, I didn't see you, you scared me,” he laughed weakly.

“What's all that about?” the shaman gestured vaguely towards Howard's room.

“We went out. He didn't like where I brought him,” Vince muttered towards the floor. Naboo raised an eloquent eyebrow and looked at him with half lidded eyes.

“Not like that! Just went out like friends,” Vince said quickly, “Howard's like the straightest person I know.”

“Yeah, right,” Naboo replied noncommittally, “Go to bed, Vince.”

Vince's frowning face was indistinct through the smoke and had a slightly blueish cast to it. Naboo smiled slightly and turned back around, settling himself against the cushions.

*~*~*

The penetrating ring of the alarm woke Howard suddenly. He groaned and rolled around reluctantly to turn it off. His sleepy mind was left with lingering images of dark hair and creamy white skin. What had he been dreaming about? Mrs. Gideon? No, not her, he hadn't thought about her in years....

He shook his head to clear the half forgotten dream and heaved himself out of bed. A glance at the clock told him that it was still only a little bit past seven, nobody else would be up yet.

Howard shuffled down the hall towards the bathroom, rubbing his eyes and yawning, still half asleep. Once there he let his muscle memory dumbly guide him through his morning routine, squeezing out a neat pea sized amount of toothpaste onto his tooth brush and brushing his teeth half heartedly. With his mouth full of foam, he looked up at the mirror. He stared at his reflection for thirty seconds and then looked down at his hands.

The scream carried through the entire flat and within seconds, Vince was bursting through the door, kimono flapping behind him. He stopped abruptly when he saw Howard. Or, more accurately, saw what colour he was.

“You're blue,” he said simply and Howard stopped screaming to stare at him like a lost puppy. A rabid one, with all that foam around his mouth and dripping from his chin.

“Wicked! The Hindu deity look is well in,” Vince babbled excitedly with a wide smile, “Here, I'll get behind you and we can do the arms-”

“Vince, you're, you're-” Howard stuttered ineffectively before Vince started to talk over him excitedly.

“How did you get it so even? Who did your back for you?”

Vince was staring closely at Howard's torso, seeming not to notice Howard's mouth flapping open and shut ineffectively.

“You're blue too!” Howard managed to blurt out, eventually.

He looked down. He was. Not as dark a blue as Howard, more of a light indigo than anything else, but blue never the less.

“How did you paint me without waking me?” he asked, half appalled half impressed.

“I didn't do this!” Howard snapped and kneaded his temples, “This is a dream, it must be,” he muttered under his breath.

“I thought you dreamed dead boring things, like jazz solos and hardback books with small print,” Vince said, with his head cocked to one side, “This is too interesting to be one of your dreams. It's probably mine.”

Howard looked through his hands at him and frowned.

“My dreams are more than adequate,” he said defensively, “I had a cracker about a mountain made entirely out of Bovril and bassoons last week. And if this is your dream, why did I wake up first? Answer me that Mr. Technicolour Kimono.”

“Keep your hair on,” Vince rolled his eyes and turned to study his reflection in the mirror, “This isn't right,” he said, frowning too.

“You're not wrong there,” Howard shuddered, as if trying to shuck the strange hue off.

“I'm clashing with my skin,” Vince said and slipped his kimono off, “I'm gonna have to completely revolutionize my wardrobe.”

Howard stared speechlessly at him.

“I'll be sorting out an outfit, might take a while, don't wait up,” Vince said over his shoulder as he turned to leave the bathroom, stark bollock naked.

*~*~*

Trying to suppress the image of Vince's luminous blue arse in his mind, Howard walked towards the living room, shaking like a leaf. A blue leaf. A blue leafy, many fronded member of the herbaceous family. Which was blue.

He switched the television on and turned the volume down. The last thing he needed to face was an irate Naboo and/or Bollo at this hour of the morning. He hunched up in the corner of the sofa and hugged his legs, watching the early morning cartoons distractedly.

After about an hour, no matter which station he turned to, there were emergency news reports of people spontaneously turning blue world wide. That was both comforting and alarming. Comforting that he and Vince weren't the only ones and alarming that it wasn't just some spell or out of date potion gone awry that Naboo could sort out.

“At least one in ten people are affected, with estimates rising hourly,” said a blonde newscaster, her skin still pink and human.

Howard switched channel. An aquamarine man was talking about the different hues... apparently there were very few people who'd turned as dark a shade as Howard... the lighter the blue, the more common it was appearing. Ha He'd always known that he was a man of distinction and rare quality. Vince was proven beyond all doubt to be more common than him, the little muck rake.

He shivered slightly, remembering Vince's long uncovered body, the unnatural colouring making him look like a sprite. But, heaps of people were that colour now, that paltry, pale blue. Howard's strong shade of navy was much.... Hang on, what was Mr. Aquamarine saying now?

“... link with homosexuality. The darker the blue of the skin, the farther up the Kinsey scale the individual...”

For the second time that morning, Howard Moon screamed.

*~*~*

It took Vince half an hour to get Howard, blushing an interesting shade of maroon, to explain what had made him shout. The words came reluctantly, one at a time with several minutes between them at times. Eventually, Vince got the gist of it and understanding dawned across his face.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he said, infuriatingly knowledgeably, “Cos I ain't that dark and I go both ways.... I mean, if you put your arm next to mine, I'm about half as- Oh!”

The deeper meaning of what Howard had told him sunk in and he looked at his friend, wide eyed and open mouthed.

“So you're-” he started, pointing stupidly.

“I'm not!” Howard snapped, “This is... some kind of mistake or something. I must have gotten it mixed up, it must be the lighter the blue, the gayer you are. So I'm so blue that means that I'm not... you know... at all!”

“Yeah but Howard,” Vince said awkwardly, “You said the news people said that only a few people were turning blue... and there's more than a few straight people...” he trailed off awkwardly.

It was true. That's how babies were made after all. Most people did like other people of the opposite gender and just that. Not that you'd know it with the crowd he usually hung out with, but still.

Howard's face crumpled and he hid it in his hands.

“All these years...” he mumbled into his palms, “Oh god.”

Vince felt his tummy twist, seeing Howard so sad like that. He didn't understand it, he'd always known that he liked girls and boys, and liked them both more or less the same. He'd never angsted over it or worried about what people would think. Poor Howard, he thought everything was so important.

“It don't change nothin'” he said, putting a hand against the other man's arm and feeling it flinch at the touch. But he wasn't brushed off, which was something.

“No,” Howard replied flatly, “It changes everything.”

Vince bit his lip nervously and leaned towards him, wrapping his skinny arms around him in a tight embrace. Howard stiffened as he felt the foreign arms circling him and the other body up in his personal space. It was... nice.

They leapt apart as door banged open and Naboo stumbled in, en route to the kitchen to get some emergency wotsits. He saw Howard and Vince out of the corner of his eye and continued on, before double taking and staring at them.

“Oh.”

*~*~*

The four flatmates were sitting around the kitchen table, which really wasn't big enough to sit them all at the same time. Bollo was crushed into the corner next to Vince and Howard was sitting next to Naboo, opposite, fixing him with a murderous stare.

“I just thought you should see that you knew lots of-” Naboo waved his hand absently.

“Queers,” Vince supplied helpfully.

“Yes, thank you,” Naboo shot him a nasty look.

“Wat? It's ok to say queer, it's been reclaimed,” Vince sulked under his breath.

“Anyway, that they'd always been there and that the world hadn't stopped turning.” Naboo shrugged. “I didn't realise that you were...”

In the pause in conversation, everyone looked discretely (they thought) at Howard, who bristled under the scrutiny.

“I mean, I thought you were a bit, just not this much,” Naboo finished bemusedly.

“What do you mean by that, sir?” Howard asked defensively, to which Naboo gave an enigmatic look.

“Nothin', nothin'” he said quietly and his eyes flickered towards Vince, who was trying to part Bollo's fur by blowing on it to catch a look at the skin underneath.

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