26 Fics in 26 Minutes

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A story for a song by a band starting with every letter of the alphabet. Ranging from angst to fluff to humour to porn to general whimsy. Encompassing Boosh, RPS, Nathan Barley, Robots in Disguise, and Asylum, and probably a few other things too.

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Length: words

Notes: Them that don’t want to think about Dee Plume and Sue Denim in that kind of way should skip the letter “V”.

[nextpage title=”Ant and Dec – Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble”]

Ant and Dec – Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble

It’s there, right there. He remembers hearing a routine once about how you could feel an argument coming–”There’s a row in the room, get out of the room!” – but you couldn’t avoid it, and this is it. It’s in the way Noel sighs like a teenager every time he asks him to do anything, even small things. Move your ashtray off my paper. Take that cup out to the kitchen. Turn that down, it’s half ten. A great big sigh, a rolling of the eyes, and then he does it, stomping about and banging everything as loud as possible.

It’s a crackle in the air, the feeling of a storm about to break, just everything tense and strained and at breaking point. He finds himself wandering around the house moving things, waiting for Noel to come back. Doing things he knows will piss him off. Hiding the remote right down the back of the sofa. Putting his favourite mug in the saucepan cupboard where he won’t look for it. Deleting the presets on the radio. It’s childish, and while he’s doing it he can sort of feel himself watching himself, a higher level of his brain standing by with its arms folded, shaking its head. He justifies it by deciding that he needs to get the row over before it builds up any bigger, that they need to row about the radio or the washing up so that they don’t row over something more life-shattering.

But it’s sort of fun now. It’s like a test – how well do you know your boyfriend? You think? Okay, give me ten ways to piss him off, right now.

Julian puts the top back on the toothpaste, screwing it on as tight as possible. Noel has weak and weedy little fingers, especially first thing in the morning.

He moves to the bedroom, bundles up Noel’s old magazines and throws them in the bin. Picks his old T-shirts up off the floor and puts them away neatly, but folds them rather than hanging them up, sharp creases slicing through the painted designs.

The kitchen – this is the part where he starts to worry about his own sanity. He makes toast, and then, using a knife, scrapes as many crumbs as possible into the margarine tub, and stirs it about. Then he wipes the knife off on the inside of Noel’s Marmite jar.

Maybe he could unpick some of the stitching on Noel’s jacket, so the arms will fall off as soon as he reaches up for something. Maybe he could mix peroxide into his shampoo. Or reset the Sky+ so that it stops recording VH1: Behind the Music and starts taping Two Men in a Trench instead.

Mercifully, he hears the front door slam before he can go too far, and Noel clomping up the stairs, huffing and puffing away, muttering to himself moodily. He sits on the sofa, puts his feet up on the coffee table (shoes, Julian, shoes!) and just waits.

[nextpage title=”The Beatles – While My Guitar Gently Weeps”]

The Beatles – While My Guitar Gently Weeps

She should have expected it. He is an adulterer, after all. It is the old cliché – when she met him, he was married, but he left his wife for her, to come to her. It should not be a surprise that he has abandoned her for another, and yet it is, painfully so.

The signs were there. After they made love, entwined together as the music rose around them like fire, climax never more true than it was then, he would mention him. Spider. The wild thing. And he is another adulterer too, the one he had discovered in bed with his wife. Two bastards together, how fitting.

Oh, Spider is so difficult to work with, so tempestuous. He is a beast, he will not listen. Miranda had soothed Rudi in the night, working away his worries and cares until he would rise anew in the morning, to face this Spider, face him down. She had filled him with the confidence he lacked – of course you are as good as him. Of course you are as much a man as he is. You think this is what a man is, to drink himself into oblivion and fuck anything that moves?

She should have seen, she should have. The three of them making music together, out in the desert together, and she saw Spider watching her more than once. Drummers always did. They always wanted to get their filthy hands on the guitar. But she remained faithful to Rudi. She knew that she would never sound as sweet, as young, as he made her, his fingers so swift and clever brushing over her frets. She had ignored Spider’s advances, and so he had turned to the other. To Rudi.

It hurts, but she knows she could get over it. If they let her. If Rudi would sell her, pass her on to another guitarist, so he could live his sordid little sexual life with the freak, she would move on and she would forget.

“Ey, Rudi… Rudi… stop that. No, just for a moment.”

“What is it?” His voice is muffled, she struggles not to think speaking with his mouth full.

“This feels… I don’t know.”

Creaking of bedsprings. “You… you want me to stop? I know I’m having trouble, I told you, I’ve never been able to hold my breath for that long, but–”

“No, no…” filthy laughter, “you’re fine, believe me.” Disgusting, wet lip-smacking sounds. “But it’s your guitar.”

“Miranda?”

“I feel like it’s watching me.”

Padding footsteps now, and then she sees him, her Rudi, beautifully naked. She had forgotten his skin, the colour of soft cocoa powder, and how it would shine to her in the darkness. He runs one nail down her A string, and she shivers.

“I am sorry,” he whispers, and his hands are on her then. For a moment she thinks she might be played, feels herself melting even as she tries to resist, tries to force her strings out of tune because she will not make music for him again, but instead he lays her down tenderly in her case.

Click, click, and she is locked in. She hears Rudi climb back onto the bed, and closes her eyes in the darkness, trying to drown out their music-making.

[nextpage title=”The Champs – Tequila”]

The Champs – Tequila

“I still don’t get it.”

“Look, it’s easy. Tequila tastes foul, yeah?”

“So do salt and lime.”

“You lick your hand…”

“Which one?”

“Ideally, the one you’re not using to drink. Whichever one you don’t write with.”

“… Noel…”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t remember which hand I write with.”

“Just pick up the fucking glass.”

“Okay.”

“No, that’s my glass.”

“Fuck, where’s mine?”

“On the floor somewhere? How many have you fucking had, Julian?”

“Look, we’re… you know, off tomorrow. Off away. Edinburgh. And people, people I know, I’m a popular guy. Drinks were bought.”

“I’ll grab another glass. Stay here. Don’t throw up.”

“I’m not a child.”

“Right, here’s a glass. Here’s tequila. Now, just… no, I’ll pour it, now I think about it. Okay. And pick up the glass.”

“Right.”

“Try again.”

“I can do it!”

“So you’re right-handed, tonight, whatever. Great. You put salt on your left hand then. Your left hand. Julian. The one not holding the glass. The other one.”

“It won’t stay.”

“Goddamn.”

“…”

“There.”

“Noel?”

“And now, you pour a bit of salt on it, not too much…”

“Did you just lick my hand?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to sit here for four hours watching you try and do it.”

“You licked my hand?”

“Don’t – freak – out. For fuck’s sake. I haven’t even got to the lime yet.”

“Why did you lick my hand?”

“It’s what you do. It makes the salt stick, so you can lick it off.”

“Is this a fetish thing?”

“The… the salt? Or the licking?”

“What?”

“On second thoughts, maybe more alcohol is not what you need, right now. If you remember, you’re the one who’s supposed to be driving us up tomorrow.”

“I want to go back to the part where you started licking me.”

“I’ll bet.”

“What?”

“I think. As fun as this is. I might go… over there. And talk to Dave. Or anyone.”

“Are you going to lick them too?”

“Julian, as soon as I come off these fucking antibiotics, I swear. I’m going to get completely trashed, and then lick you all over, and let you fucking deal with a drunk me.”

“You’re going to what?“

“On your hand, you have salt, stuck there, okay? And next to you, is a wedge of lime. You lick the salt off your hand–”

“I knew it was a fetish thing.”

“You lick the fucking salt off your cunting hand, you drink the arsemunching tequila, you bite the cocksucking motherfucking bloody lime. Do not make me go through this again.”

“… what?”

“I’m going home.”

[nextpage title=”David Bowie – Rebel Rebel”]

David Bowie – Rebel Rebel

When you come out from behind the cupboard door acting as dressing room space, she just gives you a look, part disappointment, part disgust. Instantly you find yourself getting smaller, collapsing inwards somehow, arms folded over your breasts to disguise the level of cleavage you thought she might like.

“What is that?” she asks, and wrinkles her nose like it makes you smell bad, too.

“Jesus Kat, it’s just a dress! God!” You sneak a peek at yourself in the mirror, and you don’t think you look too bad. But that won’t last long. It’s like that CD you listened to all last week, loved to death, and then you lent it to her and she hated it. You can’t hear it any more without wanting to dig your nails into your arm in frustration at your own stupidity.

“You look so straight.“ She turns back to the magazine on the bed, filled with pouting boys and wild-eyed girls. “But, you know. If that’s the look you’re going for…”

“Straight? What do you mean?”

Still not looking at you, she waves a hand vaguely. “You know. Straight. Ordinary. Boring. You could be anyone’s church-going daughter.”

You can see my thighs, you know, you think, but you don’t say it because she’d laugh. Even though, for you, it’s a big step. “Look, this is the most… non-straight…”

“Bent,” she supplies, and you jump a little bit but she doesn’t notice.

“This the is the most ‘bent’ thing I own. So exactly what do you suggest?”

She sighs heavily, her breath making her long fringe fly up and away from her forehead. “I dunno. I mean…” She gets up, stands in front of you, hands on her hips, and in the mirror you see the two of you reflected. You used to be so similar.

“I suppose it’s not bad as a starting point. It just needs… more.”

You open your mouth to say ‘more what?’ when she reaches up to your shoulder with her clever little pointy hand, and takes hold of a handful of slippery fabric. There’s a horrific tearing sound, and suddenly you’re left with a dress with only one sleeve.

Your dead sleeve falls down your arm to pool on one wrist, and you stare at it in shock. “Do you have any idea how expensive this was?”

She shrugs, eyes flickering down your body. “Still shit.” She gets on her knees, face level with your crotch, and hoo boy. Both hands reach to the hem, the backs of her fingers brushing against your thighs, and you feel dizzy.

Another tearing sound. “Kat, stop. You can’t just… I can’t go out like this!”

She gets up, one hand on your wrist for support, and wanders over to your dressing table, coming back with a bag filled with bright colours. “Put your head back.”

Maybe you like her so much because you wish you were more like her. As in, if anyone told Kat to put her head back, she’d smack ‘em. But you just go along with it, staring at the ceiling as you feel her breath on your neck and chest, the cold hard slick of something being smeared across your collarbone. Lipstick.

“I’ve been thinking,” she murmurs, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, dark hair falling into her eyes. “Kat is a really dumb name. What would you say to… Neon?”

You’d say, Neon, don’t stop.

“Neon? I dunno. It’s a bit extreme.”

“Perfect.” She grins, grabbing hold of your face and pulling it back down to her own. She leans in, but just paints something on your cheek, bright colours hinting at the bottom of your eye.

“We’ll have to think of a name for you too.”

You frown, and her eyes light up as she paints in the frown lines with eyeliner. “I like my name.”

“I don’t. It’s too straight.” She doesn’t meet your eyes, but there’s a twist to her mouth and a hand on your waist that maybe means straight isn’t what you thought it was.

[nextpage title=”Ed Harcourt – You Only Call Me When You’re Drunk”]

Ed Harcourt – You Only Call Me When You’re Drunk

Knock, knock, knock.

Don’t go. Don’t get up.

A pause. The sound of breathing close against the door, but that must be my fevered imagination, surely?

You really don’t have to. It’s late, and it’s perfectly possible you might be asleep.

I lie there, clenching my hands, lying on top of sheets. So stupid. So stupid. But this is why I bring my good pyjamas, my oh-I-think-someone-might-see-me-tonight pyjamas, wear them instead of my old sweat-stained T-shirt and shorts.

Knockity knockity knock. Beating out some unfamiliar drum line.

For fuck’s sake, have some dignity. Stay in bed, really. Remember how we talked about this, you and I? About how it’s got to stop? And I reasoned with you, and you agreed and nodded your head, and said you’d be strong. You wouldn’t open the door.

Knockknockknockknock.

Don’t open the fucking door.

Problem is, right, I feel my feet hit the floor before I really know what’s happening. Light slices across the room from underneath the door, shadows moving across it here and there, his feet. I feel like I know what he’s thinking from them.

Don’t be fucking stupid, Dave.

I feel like he’s about to leave, and that’s it. I knew I’d open it, argued with myself over and over but I knew I’d be here, because I’m wearing the pyjamas. The ones he likes. Like that joke, about how if a woman goes out with a man, and she doesn’t want to sleep with him, she won’t shave her legs. But all that happens is you end up shagging a hairy woman.

And oh fuck, I’ve left it too late, because suddenly there’s no more shadows, just a perfect line of brightness, and I dash those last few feet to the door, wrench it open–

You look pathetic.

-wrench it open, and stand there leaning on it, breathless, blinking.

I look down the corridor and see nothing, which is impossible, no one moves that fast, especially not after coming straight from that party. I look the other way, and Noel is leaning, nonchalant, against the wall, grinning up at me through his hair, confident.

The kind of look that could almost, almost make me slam the door in his face. The fact that he knows.

“Alright?”

“Y-yeah.” Get a goddamn hold on yourself, get your fucking breath back. What are you, nine? “Yeah, just… you know. Asleep.” I rub a hand over my head, and his eyes drift from it down my body, leaving goosepimples.

“I know,” he says, and he pushes past me into my hotel room, flicking on the light with one hand. I follow, closing the door softly. He’s already sitting on the bed, kicking off his shoes and leaning back. Delicious.

I stay by the lightswitch, one hand on top of my head, blinking unconvincingly. Oh, I was so asleep Noel. Completely not waiting for you.

He lies there, looking up at me, head tipped too far to one side. He’s drunk. And he doesn’t say anything, so I have to, because I have to.

Rich told me once that his secret fantasy – we were drunk, before your mind starts wandering off that way – his secret fantasy was to be in a hotel room, and have some random woman come in, ravish him, and leave, without even telling him her name. How hot would that be.

And I was that far gone I almost turned around and put him straight. It’s not hot, not at all. I mean, maybe it’s that Rich never really finished puberty, always mentally teenage, but I like something a little extra now. I like sleeping together, really sleeping together, not just the sex, which is fairly… I’m kind, I’ve been putting Noel’s poor technique down to the high alcohol content of his blood whenever we meet.

“Good night?”

He blinks at me, trying to focus, and tries to shrug. Oh Noel. Too many muscles moving at once, it’s too complicated. “Yeah, you know. Okay.”

I do know. I can picture the scene so well, which is why I had to leave. Julian glowering at him from the corner because, oh, some stupid fight. Something to do with the show that sort of grew and became a big yeah but you never really listen, do you? Not to me. Selfish. – thing that everyone heard, and I knew tonight would be it, so I left early and waited.

“How is… everyone?”

He looks confused, and there’s a small part of me wondering how much more of these pointless questions it would take to make him ask: Are we going to do this, tonight?

“Fine.” Everyone means Julian, and fine means sulking. Tomorrow he’ll ignore us both until lunchtime, then Noel will find some way of getting back in and he’ll only be pissed off with me.

It’s long enough. I can’t do it any more. It’s three short steps to the bed. He leans back, pulling me down with him, but his arm snakes back behind him and slaps the lightswitch, plunging us into darkness. I wonder if prostitutes do this, if it helps their clients to think of the people they secretly want.

[nextpage title=”Fantastic Plastic Machine – There Must Be An Angel”]

Fantastic Plastic Machine – There Must Be An Angel

It was a Thursday when he found him. The glint of sunlight on the arrowhead gave him away, sitting perched there on top of the shower rail, the fat bastard. Nude and slippery, Vince took no time in grabbing him round his pudgy little neck and hurling him against the wall, with a wet thud like a pat of butter dropped on cobbles. The fat little angel slid slowly to the ground with a moan, and Vince hurried over, putting one foot on top of him to hold him down. He wrapped a towel around his middle hastily.

“Mind telling me what you’re doing in my bathroom?” he asked him.

The only response was a tiny ‘urk’, so he lifted his foot slightly, only slightly, and asked him again.

“Orders… from above… let me go, human!” the angel squeaked.

“Orders? What orders? Who are you?”

“Cupid!”

Vince took his foot off him immediately, wiping it on the carpet hastily. “No you’re not,” he said doubtfully. “You’re just some naked fat midget with a bow and arrow. Watching me in the shower.”

Cupid got to his feet, rubbing at his neck and glaring at Vince. He turned to show him the quiver strapped across his back (along with a wide expanse of bare arse). ‘Cupid’ was written on it in red sparkly letters, and each arrow had a heart at the end.

“Well, what are you doing here then? Perv,” Vince muttered, tucking his towel around himself a little better and watching Cupid with suspicion.

“Oh, I wonder. What could I possibly be doing here?” Cupid pulled out one of his arrows and set it to his bow, squinting down the length at Vince’s chest. “Now, hold still.”

“Hey!” Vince smacked the arrow away, and Cupid let it go accidentally, firing it into the mirror (which was already in love with Vince, luckily). “None of that!”

“These aren’t cheap, you know!” Cupid grumbled, pulling out another arrow.

Vince reached down and snatched his bow away, holding it out of his reach. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m making you fall in love, what d’ya think?” said Cupid, dancing up and down trying to reach his weapon.

“What, with who? Why?”

Cupid pulled out one of those electronic personal organisers from his quiver, and tapped away. “Dixon Bainbridge, says here.”

Vince just gaped. “No way.”

Cupid held up the screen for Vince to read, and as he leaned down, made a grab for his bow. Vince held it too high for him, rubbing his chin with the other hand. “Well, I’m not having that. I’m not going to wander round the zoo after Bainbridge, sending him love letters and writing him poetry. I can’t even spell.”

“Orders is orders,” Cupid said, sticking his tongue out. “You can’t stop me forever. I’ll get you.”

“Yeah? What if I snap this in half, then?”

“Don’t do that!” Cupid yelled, eyes wide as Vince held the bow over one knee. “Please! I can’t afford it, my wife, she’ll go spare… the bank’s already been on at us…”

Vince watched him as he started blubbering. “Promise you’ll leave me alone then.”

“I can’t do that!” Cupid wailed. “They check up on me, I’ll lose my job!”

Vince sighed, twanging the string of Cupid’s bow vaguely and biting his lip. “Well, what can you do?”

Cupid scratched his bald little head. “I… I dunno. I have to put a spell on you, they’ll know otherwise.”

“Does it have to be Bainbridge?”

Cupid’s eyes lit up. “Wait, yeah! I could say… hmmm. A ricochet shot, I was aiming for this guy Bainbridge but I hit someone else instead, freak accident. They won’t like it, but it’s better than…” He trailed off, his eyes on his bow in Vince’s hands. “Who would you rather?”

Vince grinned slowly, handing Cupid back his bow. “Well,” he said. “There is this one guy.”

[nextpage title=”Garbage – Cup of Coffee”]

Garbage – Cup of Coffee

Rich – Herbal tea. You wouldn’t think so, would you? I mean, looking at a man like that, bouncing off the walls and screaming at everyone (in a nice way) you’d figure: total caffeine whore. Coffee cup consumption during the day probably in double digits, and he crashes hard when he goes home, lying in bed shivering and shaking as he comes down. But no, he drinks those fruity (in every sense of the word) teas that take about half an hour to actually brew. Summer Berries, that sort of thing. And most places won’t stock that sort of stuff as a matter of course, so as the Boosh coffee monkey my job is (was) to make sure I always had at least a boxful on hand, usually stashed in my bag somewhere so Noel wouldn’t sit on them.

Dave, being a Southern ponce at heart, more than me and Noel, ‘cause we’re Cockney nutjobs apparently, he drinks posh flowery teas with aristocracy names. Earl Grey. Darjeeling. Couldn’t tell you the difference between any of them – oh wait, there’s one that smells like it’s been brewed in an ashtray, I remember that – but Dave can, and he’s got some crazy system in his head means he knows which one is suitable for whatever. He tried to explain it to me once, how some are better as snack-y drink, this one’ll get you up in the morning, that one will put you to sleep, but I couldn’t keep the names straight, let alone the rules, so I used to just make sure we were stocked up on everything, and let him tell me what he wanted.

Noel – well, time was he’d take eighteen sugars in your most bog-standard tea, he used to like it best when you were forced to drink it with a spoon, it was that thick. But there came a point during the Australian tour where he told us all how we had to stop him from eating junk food and stupid sugary sweets, how he was getting fat – the hell? we said, where are you hiding this fat, then? But once Noel gets an idea in his head, you know, and there was a stretch where he was only on bottled water on account of saying that tea without sugar was unnatural, but eventually that got dull, and then I started carrying around a little clicker thing of those sweeteners. Hermesetas. Click it a couple of times over his cup, more if it’s been a particularly stressful day.

Julian – well. Julian drinks coffee. Black coffee, usually, no sugar. It’s that weird Noel-and-Julian thing of if Noel wants something ridiculously sweet, Julian has to go for ridiculously bitter, just to make a point about age and maturity and responsibility, and most of the time it’s a mock argument, like Howard versus Vince, but sometimes it’s not, and that’s the part where you need to look out. Where you need to make Noel’s coffee half boiling water and half warm water from the tap, in case he starts chucking it about. He used to do that when we were kids, hold a glass of water over my head when I was annoying him, and I’d go, oh yeah, you’ll never do it, Mum’ll kill you, and he’d go, I will too! And I’d go, whatever, and turn around and walk off, and suddenly there’d be this splosh sound, someone running away, and I’d be all wet. He’ll do it, if you push him.

Not sure how it all started, really. I mean, I never wanted to be in the show, because it felt a bit like Mum going ‘Noellll… if you’re going out, take your brother with you,’ and him stomping and huffing and puffing and saying how I would ruin his street cred, even though him and Julian kept saying how there was this perfect part, this thing they’d written just for me, I still felt like all their friends would be looking at me going, awwww. Pitying me. And I dunno, when I did go for it, and it was great and I had a laugh, there was still this part of me feeling like I was trailing round after Noel begging him to let me into his gang. Maybe it rubbed off on them. But we’re rehearsing round at Julian’s flat one day, and Noel looks at me with one eye closed (meaning trouble) and says, hey, get me a coffee, coffee monkey. Julian looks up from where he’s crossing things out in the script, and says, make that two. Three, says Rich, and Dave holds up one hand with a ‘if you don’t mind’ face. And I don’t. Mind, I mean. It’s one of those things where if you joke about it, it makes it matter less, like how (personal theory, don’t quote me) how Fossil following Bainbridge about is sort of like Noel following Julian about. Rich-as-Fossil-as-Noel.

And yeah, later things pick up, and there’s a tour, and Mum says, oh, are you really going to take Mike with you? And Noel grins, and Julian looks at him going, well, we can’t leave the coffee monkey behind, can we? It’s stupid, but you start to sort of take pride in it, remembering the orders, how much milk they all like, buying the ingredients and keeping them stocked, that sort of thing. And you get to see things you wouldn’t normally. Like how Rich going off his teas was a sign of him being worried about what his parents would think of the show. Or like Noel coming up to me in the morning, big dark circles under his eyes and yawning away, and wanting a coffee instead of a tea. Means he’s been up all night. Means Dave probably fell asleep to music blaring away on his earphones on account of, um, loud business happening next door to him in the hotel.

Yes, I know, I’ve known for a while, brothers and sisters generally do, in my admittedly limited experience. And I don’t mind it as much as I mind that he hasn’t actually said anything yet, neither of them has. I think I figured it out that first time I met him, when Noel had just left art college and he was living in London, and he brought Julian to my thirteenth birthday party. This huge bearded man who didn’t really say very much but sort of stood in the corner scaring all my mates, but who brought a present – more than any of Noel’s other mates had ever done – and it was a game I’d really wanted for my Playstation, wanted for ages. Noel probably told him. I know it’s stupid, and selfish, and had he turned out to be a massive wanker it might have been different, but at that age you just do like people who bring you good presents. You could tell it was good ‘cause Noel ran off with it, swearing away in the corner with Julian sitting on the arm of his chair and pointing at stuff, hit that, shoot this, go through there.

But, I don’t know. Everything’s changing now, good and bad ways. Like, yesterday was the first day of filming. New TV show, everyone psyched. And we’re all sat in the green room, the big place for hanging out, and Dave does his usual thing of smacking his lips together, theatrically, then Rich picks it up, then they’re all doing it. ‘Coffee monkey!’ And I hide a smile, sigh, Cinderella to the last, and I go off, looking for the tea and coffee making facilities, got to be around here somewhere. I’m tripping over cables and bumping into lights, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt because we all got there too early and haven’t had our costume call yet. Some runner looks at me first with irritation, and then a carefully obedient expression, Mr Fielding, what can I do for you?

“I’m looking for coffee.”

“Certainly, what do you fancy?”

“It’s fine, really, just point me towards your kettle and your teabags.”

He gives me a look like I’ve just destroyed his reason for living, and somehow manages to steer me back towards the green room while simultaneously explaining how actors (actors!) don’t generally get themselves coffee, they get a runner to do it. He’ll take the order, get it all for us.

And part of me’s going, I’m an actor! I’m not the coffee monkey anymore, I’m an actual part of the Boosh team, I’m an equal.

And another part of me is whining, but they won’t do it right.

[nextpage title=”Hot Chocolate – You Sexy Thing”]

Hot Chocolate – You Sexy Thing

Fossil watched him dance, watched him go. He was a dynamo, pure energy. He was working every part of his body, everything in perfect harmony. His pretty little arse jiggled up and down and around, moving from the hips, thrusting forward in time to the beat. It was pure sex, sex standing up.

The music started to speed up, and he did likewise. Fossil’s mouth went dry as he watched the man rubbing his hands over his body, over his chest, toying with his nipples briefly before going up further. His hands tangled in his hair, his neck exposed as he threw back his head, his mouth open and gasping for air.

He moved one hand to his crotch and saw the object of his desire do likewise, watching him with a smile. He brushed his fingers over his zipper, watching as the man hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his tight trousers and rolled his hips, leaning back and offering himself to Fossil.

Fossil couldn’t breathe, he took a step forward towards the man that he loved, had always loved, and saw the lust in those eyes…

There was a knock at the door.

Fossil fumbled with his radio. “Shit, fuck! I mean, uh, just a second! Important zoo business, hold on!”

He turned back to the man, and saw the disappointment in those eyes. “It’s okay, kitten, we can pick up where we left off. Keep yourself warm for me, okay?” He wanted him so bad.

Listening to Moon mutter and snipe outside the locked door, Fossil stepped forward and kissed the man he loved tenderly, feeling the cold glass beneath his lips warm up in response. He winked a goodbye, and pulled a cloth over the full-length mirror sadly.

Theirs was a love that no one else would understand.

[nextpage title=”IAMX – Sailor”]

IAMX – Sailor

It’s late at night after a gig in which Chris actually plugged Noel’s bass in at one point, and wasn’t too horrified at the results. Julian is there for reasons he can’t quite remember, but it seemed to make sense when he turned up in the crowd and handed them both a glass of champagne, grinning and slinging an arm around Noel’s waist.

Chris is sitting up on Noel’s double bed, back at the hotel room, slumped down so that it’s only his shoulders that are touching the wall, uncomfortable in that good way. Julian is on the floor with the bottle of whatever they could find, something amber and bitter and very Barratt. Noel is hanging half off the bed, upside down. Chris can’t quite understand why Noel is upside down, but it has a little to do with the alcohol and a little to do with his strange variety of exhibitionism. Liquid drips from the glass he’s attempting to drink from the wrong way up, and he giggles, eyes flicking from Julian to Chris like a child at a party. Chris smiles fondly, but Julian’s expression has something more malicious in it. Something darker. He swigs from the bottle, and something passes between the two of them that Chris can’t follow, all eyes and body language and secret signs. A cold breeze brushes over his open mouth and he shivers, wondering if he ought to leave. Wondering if he can leave.

“Chris,” Noel says, turned to him, his voice all high in his throat from being the wrong way up.

“Noel.”

“Have you ever wanted to be a sailor?”

Julian chokes on his drink, and Chris rolls his eyes a little – private jokes. But Noel’s eyes on him are persistent, and he twists his head to the side, rolling it against the plaster behind his neck, thinking. “I wanted to be a ballerina, once. When I was five.”

Noel chuckles, and seems to come to a decision, letting his arm fall towards the floor and trying to put his glass down. He’s dangerously close to tipping it over when Julian leans forward, takes it from him, rests it gently on the carpet next to him. Their fingers brush against each other for a fraction of a second, but Julian watches him and not Noel.

Noel sits up, his hair sticking out at an odd angle before he runs a hand over it hastily. He perches on the edge of the bed, arms behind him, and watches Chris. “But did you ever want to be a sailor?“

There’s a neat line between the three of them, Julian to Noel to Chris, wall to wall.

Chris finishes off his drink, puts the glass down on the little bedside table harder than he means to. “I suppose. I like the hats. And the musicals.”

Noel smiles slowly, stands up. “Because. If you like. I can teach you how to be a sailor.”

“We can teach you,” Julian says quickly from behind him, and Noel’s eyes unfocus a little in a way that means he wants to turn around but doesn’t, that this is something unexpected.

Then he grins, suddenly excited. “We can teach you.”

Chris looks up at him through his fringe, somehow managing to stay calm despite his heart beating a mile a minute. “Do I get a hat?”

Noel crawls onto the bed in front of him, sitting up on his heels. “No. But you might get to sing.”

Noel has a smudge of eyeliner at the corner of his mouth left over from the gig, and right about now it’s very easy for Chris to just reach out and flick it away with his thumb, a dark smear tracing a path to his left cheek. Noel’s eyes duck to his lips, and he leans in, Chris tipping his head to one side to make it easier. Soft mouth on his, girlish almost. A hand on his shoulder gripping too tight, for balance.

Nothing happens, and it’s with an almost comical inner sigh that he realises if anything’s going to get done around here, he’s going to have to be the one to do it. He pulls Noel closer with one hand on the back of his head, and uses the motion to push forward with his tongue, sweeping past teeth that taste of ash. Noel just holds on, letting Chris do what he wants, no resistance. It’s irritating, maybe.

And everyone fancies Noel on some level, because everyone does. It’s a thing, like breathing. But Chris has always, always been more intrigued by Julian. Julian who he doesn’t see as often, but who Noel never stops talking about. Julian, who is a better musician, but when Chris asked him to be in the band, to do a sort of walk-on performance in IAMX, turned him down. Twice. So he kisses Noel hard, not letting his hands sink below his neck just yet, and it’s less about kissing Noel than it is about showing Julian something. Like eating a strawberry slowly, seductively. Chris’ eyes are closed, but there’s a rustling sound over by the wall that means something, and he slips from Noel’s mouth to his cheek and neck so he can peer through his hair and see what’s happening.

Julian’s up, feigning disinterest. Chris sucks on Noel’s neck, making him moan and his hands flutter expertly over Chris’ back in a way they never do when he’s playing, and watches Julian as he very slowly, almost theatrically takes a swig from the bottle, not looking at them. As he steps out of his shoes and takes off his watch, for all the world like he’s getting ready for a game of tennis.

One of Noel’s hands leaves Chris’ back, and he holds it up over his shoulder, behind him, like he’s asking for a drink. “Ju,” he moans hoarsely.

And Julian’s there instantly, hand around Noel’s wrist tight, kissing the other side of his neck. Chris can see his dark head of hair bobbing away, the curve of his back. Julian’s hand slips down Noel’s wrist to his arm, and to his waist, and Chris makes a couple of mental calculations and reaches around, the hem of Noel’s T-shirt soft under his fingers.

Noel’s head is thrown back, eyes closed, so he doesn’t see the look that Julian gives Chris as their fingers brush together. There’s a painful moment of silence, broken only by Noel’s deep breathing, and then Julian ducks his head again and links their hands half-heartedly. Chris gets stupidly angry, what is this, junior school? Fuck this.

He pulls his hand away, and there’s no sign that Julian knows or has even noticed, his fingers splayed out across Noel’s belly, Noel leaning now more towards Julian. Chris sits up properly, lets go, and Noel opens one eye.

Both hands on Noel’s T-shirt, Chris pulls hard. Julian has no choice but to disentangle himself, lean away, as fabric lifts up and over and Noel is now bare-chested. Chris doesn’t look at Julian at all, reserves his most intense look for Noel, who smiles slowly, tongue flicking out to wet his lips. Julian is somewhere there too, but the connection is now absolutely Noel and Chris, and Chris darts forward, taking hold of Noel with both hands and pushing him onto his back, kissing him hard. Pushing him down into the bed, feeling cheap sheets rise around them as he literally forces Noel deeper into the mattress.

Noel’s attention is firmly on him, one hand tugging at the bottom of Chris’ shirt, but the other is half-hearted, half-up in the air and waiting for Julian to take it. Which he can’t. Or he can, but it means being part of this as a threesome, and not as a couple-plus-one. Chris is kissing Noel, letting hands drift down towards his waistband carefully, but his attention is all behind him. Waiting for something, anything.

There’s a slamming sound, and he sits up a little, eyes on the door. Please don’t let Julian have walked out, because Noel is nice and an evening with him would pass the time, but it’s not his goal, his aim. It’s not what he wants, ideally.

Julian’s behind him. There’s a hand up and under his shirt, a mouth wet on his neck, and another hand – Julian’s hand slips down to his crotch and unbuttons his trousers, and suddenly who is it he’s straddling again? He can’t remember, there’s just Julian’s hand slipping inside, cupping him, teasing through the fabric of his underwear.

Julian’s mouth slips up to his ear. “Make room.” A promise and a threat. He can see Noel underneath him, blinking up at them both, sees his own hand on Noel’s shoulder, holding him down.

Julian’s gone, and he takes the hint, lifting one leg up and over and kneeling next to Noel instead, some perverted Christmas scene. Julian on the other side, mirroring him, and his eyes are careful, giving nothing away. Julian reaches out for him, pulls them together, and finally, over Noel, up on his elbows and grinning because he doesn’t understand, finally they kiss.

It’s opposites and alternatives. Julian is stubbled where Noel is smooth, rough where he is passive, not resigning himself to one long passionate kiss but instead a series of open-mouth, wet gasps, teeth and tongue everywhere. Every time Chris moves to catch him, he isn’t there any more, somehow, but his mouth is, swift and painful on Chris’. One of Julian’s hands is on the back of Chris’ neck, fingers rubbing slightly, but when Chris reaches out for the other he finds it on Noel. On Noel’s zip.

He gets a little dizzying rush of anger like, oh, that’s what this is? I can do that. I can. And his spare hand reaches out to Noel’s face, blindly, brushing against his cheek and his lips. Noel is already moaning from Julian’s hand inside his jeans, it doesn’t take much persuasion for him to start sucking on Chris’ fingers like a whore.

Julian stops kissing him, and pulls back. There’s so much emotion in the room Chris can’t work out whether they’re fucking or fighting. Strange half-cues, and they both take off their tops, like a race or a competition, but it’s Chris who gets to Noel’s mouth first, leaving Julian sitting up, stroking Noel’s crotch, hand brushing against Chris’ side where he and Noel are pressed skin to skin.

And then. Noel gets a stupid fucking impulse to actually involve himself in the whole thing, rather than lying there like a rag doll, and twists. He grips with his thighs, and turns them both, moving so that he’s sitting on Chris, who is now flat on his back. Chris doesn’t want to go, but there’s an extra hand nudging at his side, rolling him over, and he can guess who that is.

Noel’s jeans are half off him now, denim rubbing painfully on Chris’ legs, his own trousers pooled around his ankles from where Noel has pushed them down. Julian settles himself behind Noel, nails raking over his back, as Noel reaches down and takes hold of Chris’ cock, Julian’s head on his back.

Julian to Noel. Noel to Chris.

No.

Chris struggles to sit up, but Noel’s hand is firm – the one fucking time the boy decides to actually be proactive and it could not be worse – and he hears the slick wet sounds of lube being smeared onto Julian’s hand. Noel rears up, back arching as Julian enters him with one finger, hand pulling up Chris’s cock as he goes. Everyone gasps.

Julian mutters something into Noel’s ear as he pushes in again, eyes firm on Chris’. Noel’s eyes flutter closed and his head tips back onto Julian’s shoulder, hands close around Chris and careful to go with Julian’s rhythm. Everything from Julian, but he feels so distanced, Chris reaches up and around to pull Julian closer to Noel and closer to him but can’t reach.

Noel moans, a strange spluttered cough as Julian slips into him, whispering into his ear, and they move together, Julian rocking against Noel and Noel’s cock bumping against Chris’ as he strokes him in time. A few false starts but no one said Noel was musical. Chris’ thighs are hot and uncomfortable where both Noel and Julian are resting on them, not even skin, both still wearing their trousers, rubbing against his bare legs. He can’t hear anything except Noel’s moans and Julian’s mutterings, and it’s not fair. It’s not how it should be.

He’s rushing towards the edge but can’t tell whether it’s anger or lust that’s pushing him, hands slipping against Noel’s sides but somehow managing never to meet Julian’s, catching his eyes once or twice but never in a way that actually recognise him being there.

Someone calls “Julian!” as they tip over the edge.

Afterwards, Noel heads almost immediately to the shower, never able to stand being sticky for too long. Chris hears the water run as he searches for his clothes on the floor.

Julian is already stepping out of his trousers, glistening obscenely in the light.

“I’ll use the shower in my room,” Chris mutters.

Julian meets his eyes, dark and cold, and then… there’s something, he glances at the floor and his eyes soften. He takes a step towards Chris and kisses him on the lips gently, gives him a small smile.

“Thanks.”

As the ensuite door closes, Chris seeks out Noel’s designer top to wipe himself down with.

[nextpage title=”The Jam – In the Midnight Hour”]

The Jam – In the Midnight Hour

It was funny how, at a certain point in any party, you could start to sort of feel the ways people got together, or didn’t. Example: there’s this woman. And she’s stunning. Long black hair, although it’s all tied up in a bun, pity. Thick black-rimmed glasses, but you can see her eyes behind them, watching you. Nice face, wicked body, all tied up in this black outfit like she doesn’t want to put herself on show, but you can tell by the way that it tucks here and is loose there that she does, really.

Ultra watches her at the bar, sipping at a drink for all the world as if there was no one else at the club, just her and her clinking ice cubes. And she follows an invisible line in the air (but is it invisible, now? It’s blue and thin, like thread, but perhaps Neon slipped her something in her kisses) over to a dark corner, a man leaning against the wall watching her. Mussed hair, stubbled chin, but not in the way those things can be sexy. Maybe. She doesn’t know, so long since she knew what it was that women looked for in men. He’s sucking on a bottle of beer, watching the woman at the bar, eyes dark, and she sees this jerking movement in his legs now and then like he wants to go over but he can’t.

Another line (this one is red and glows, pulsating to the beat) over to the dance floor. The music sucks, tonight, and she knows she could do better in a way that makes her angry for a bit, but the people are either drunk enough or stupid enough that they can dance to this bilge without listening to it, throwing themselves around like crash dummies. The tramp guy, he’s being watched by a man Ultra did think might be a woman, cross-dressing, before Neon pointed out the Adam’s apple, the hands, so on and so forth. He’s concentrating on dancing, but you can tell by the way that he’s always facing that corner but never actually looking at it, arms open wide to beckon but never making a move, you can tell who he’s dancing for.

Behind him, close enough that they might be lovers, although the way the non-cross-dresser keeps elbowing him in the ribs every time he gets close probably disproves that theory. A man in a blue outfit, bulging and making him look bigger than he is, like an animal with its fur puffed out, dances like an idiot. He’s aiming for sexy but keeps hitting retarded. This isn’t a thread, it’s a field, like magnets and iron filings, and they’re set the wrong way around, Blue-Suit pulled in all the time, Non-Transvestite pushing away, dancing away, pulled towards the corner by his red line.

And then… Ultra squints a bit because this one is harder to see. Up on the balcony lurks a man, and there’s the thinnest of lines connecting him to the man in the blue outfit. It’s fishing wire, curling and tangling like it’s attached to him accidentally and he hasn’t yet got around to detaching himself. But he looks down on the crowd, gyrating to the beat, and he sneers. He watches the man in the blue suit throwing himself at the pretty boy, and drinks, and smokes. Occasionally he glances over at the tramp in the corner, as if to reassure himself that he’s not the only broken link in this stupid chain.

From the balcony, to the dancefloor, to the corner, to the bar, to the wall where Neon and Ultra stand, Ultra closes her eyes and feels the air shiver as she moves into the web. She watches the woman at the bar, and Neon watches Ultra, knowing she wants to go over there, but doesn’t, because Neon wants her to. Neon, for whom lesbianism has always been more of a statement than a lifestyle, something to reject rather than something to choose. Ultra feels the woman at the bar tense up, knowing she’s being watched, and counts to ten, wondering how long she can resist doing something Neon wants.

It’s never long.

[nextpage title=”Ketty Lester – Love Letters”]

Ketty Lester – Love Letters

Vince,

Been here three days, done nothing but rain solidly. Summer up North, I guess. Dad being a bit weird, but Mum says not to worry. Keeps giving me looks. Please ignore this postcard, as it shows sunset over Leeds and as have already said, haven’t seen sun all time have been here. Is there eclipse I don’t know about?

Howard x

Vince,

God, so bored. Nothing to do but watch telly and eat biscuits and drink tea, listen to Mum going on and on about who’s moved out of their parents’ house, who’s left university, who’s working at a top-quality zoo in the US (don’t ask). Told Dad your octopus joke and he laughed, but otherwise hasn’t said two words to me. Something up.

Howard x

Vince,

Sunday lunch in the pub, all old mates there, bit strange. Felt like was sixteen again, had moment going to the bar when was searching for fake ID, heh. Kept coming back to hear someone had made joke but no one would tell me what it was. Maybe come home a bit earlier, what do you reckon? Looked up trains, a good one leaves day after tomorrow, still seats available. Thoughts?

Wish you were here,

Howard xx

Vince,

Shit shit shit. Writing this in café on the corner, apologies for big-breasted woman on front, place seems to be stuck in the Carry On years. Dad knows. Not sure how, I didn’t tell him, sister wouldn’t have, did you? Shit, sorry, freaking out a bit. Weirdness. Haven’t been turfed out of house or anything but not really wanting to be there right now. Coming home tomorrow. Can’t think how he found out.

Missing you,

Howard xxx

Vince,

Post must be there by now. Why haven’t you rung me yet? Phone battery dead and left charger at home, but you have the number here. Can’t ring you ‘cause Dad still on warpath, would ask questions etc. trying to avoid. But if you rang would be better, couldn’t argue so much, I think. Fuck, don’t know. Stupid bloody trains all cancelled, something to do with flooding on the line. Don’t know when will be back.

RING ME.

Howard x

Vince,

Could really do with a fucking friend right now. Also running out of postcards. Soon will be sending beermats home. Apparently Dad planned to knock through my old room into study, make big workspace for model trains etc. Typical Dad fashion, took sledgehammer to wall without thinking. Anyway, found old porn mag had stashed behind bit of wood panelling when was teen, Hot Men Gone Wild or something. Soldiers In Bunks. Therefore – he knows. Sorry for accusing you, head in bad place, but why not rung? Mum not know yet, Dad just moody an shit rning out spce RING

Hwd

Vince,

THANKS. Having to come out to Dad on own. Really great. Perhaps whole relationship just way for you to enjoy self? Perhaps have new boyfriend? With bigger moustache, better knowledge of electro etc? Fuck you. Fuck you completely. Relationship off, telling Dad mag not mine, maybe can convince sis interested in gay porn. No point trying to come out if haven’t even got boyfriend, fuck this, too much hassle.

No love,

Howard

Vince,

SHIT. Please ignore all postcards before this one. Didn’t mean any of it. Parents phone line been cut off, didn’t think to tell me, didn’t wonder why phone never rings. Bought old Nokia charger at market, text you soon. RELATIONSHIP STILL ON.

Love you,

Howard xxxxxxx

VNC PHONE LINE DOWN SRY ALL OK? ALL HERE MENTAL, HOMODRAMA! HWD PS IGNORE POSTCARDS

VNC WHAT U MEAN NO POSTCARDS ARRIVD? HWD

[nextpage title=”Linkin Park – Breaking the Habit”]

Linkin Park – Breaking the Habit

“There,” Noel said, stubbing out his cigarette with a flourish and dusting off his hands over the ashtray. “My last cigarette.”

“Mmm.”

He glared at Julian, thoroughly engrossed in his newspaper, and threw a pen at him.

Julian looked up blearily. “What?”

Noel pointed down at the still smoking ashtray, and then up at himself. “Well?”

“Yes, very nice.”

“You told me to stop smoking. I have stopped smoking. Don’t I even get a little bit of attention?”

“Stick with it longer than an hour, we’ll see.”

Noel threw another pen at him, and Julian put down his newspaper with a sigh. “Tell me your plan, then.”

Noel froze. “Plan?”

“For quitting.”

“I just… have.”

Julian rolled his eyes. “Then let me know when you’re heading out to the corner shop, will you? We could do with milk.”

“Oh, thanks. That’s really supportive.”

Julian leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “Look, you can’t just cut out smoking and expect to get by. Remember all those other times? You have to replace it with something.”

“Like?”

He held up one hand, ticking items off. “Gum. Patches. Those weird blowy plastic things.”

Noel held up his hand, mimicking him. “Tastes foul. Don’t work. Don’t want to look like a mental patient.”

“Well, you have to replace it with something. That way, every time you want to have a cigarette, you just… do something else instead. Have a biscuit. Or, I dunno. Play on the Xbox.”

“We don’t have an Xbox.”

“We’ll get one. With all those manly fighting games. Butch you up a bit.”

Noel mused, drumming his fingers on his chin. He looked over at Julian slyly. “What if I replaced cigarettes with sex, then?”

Julian shook his head, eyes flicking to the overflowing ashtray. “Then I’d get very tired.”

“Handjobs?”

“You’ll be lucky.”

“Blow jobs?”

Julian smirked. “Hmmm… sucking on something to replace the urge to have a fag. Could work.”

“I mean for me, you idiot.”

Julian yawned. “Anyway, how exactly is that going to work when we’re, I dunno, in the middle of an interview? Or down the pub? ‘Scuse me lads, just gonna go down on my secret boyfriend here, mind your knees… ‘”

“We’ll have to start going to different pubs, then,” Noel grinned.

“And be interviewed by a different sort of magazine. NME might still go for it, though.”

“But what am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, suck on a pen?”

Noel searched for a bit, down the side of the sofa cushions and under the table. “Fuck. I threw them all at you.”

Julian rooted around, coming up with a pen that had inexplicably been stuck under his arse.

“Chuck it over, then.”

Julian tapped it against his lips, grinning.

“Aw come on, I’m dying for a pen. Just one. Please.”

“You know what’s in these things?”

Noel nodded. “Yeah. Ink.”

“That stuff’ll kill you.”

Noel got up, walking around the coffee table to try to snatch the pen away, but Julian held it behind his head, forcing Noel to climb on top of him to grab it. There followed a short bout of wrestling, followed by a period of silence, broken only by Julian saying, “Bleugh. You taste like biro.”

[nextpage title=”Madness – One Second’s Thoughtlessness”]

Madness – One Second’s Thoughtlessness

“Anyway, this is all your fault.”

The man sitting next to you on the sofa is glaring at you, but even as you look at him his expression softens, turns into confusion.

“Okay,” you say slowly. “If… if you say so.” You watch him carefully, knowing that his name is on the tip of your tongue, but not being able to reach it. He’s familiar, you know him and you know that you know him, but at the same time you can’t remember anything about him. Which is unusual.

“That’s just… how I feel. I think.” He narrows his eyes, looking at you in the way you know you’re looking at him, searchingly.

You close your eyes, put a hand to your forehead and half-laugh. “Sorry, this is embarassing… what did you say your name was again?”

The man licks his lips, eyes wide, and then speaks all in a rush. “Uh, you first. Your name, I mean.”

“Oh, it’s–” One hand up in the air, you freeze. “Well, I mean, it’s… it begins with…” You have no idea. It’s like meeting up with an old school-friend, you can hear sentences where it should go, you can almost hear rhymes, it’s John or Jack or James, but it’s… like trying to move your hand when you’ve slept on it. The command goes out, but nothing comes back.

“I can’t remember my name!” you admit in a horrified tone of voice, because whoever this is, you feel like you know him, and you want him to help.

This man, dishevelled hair, moustache, dressed in tones of brown and black, looks equally worried. “Me either.”

You sit up properly, taking a good look at your surroundings, muttering, “and where the hell are we?” Some garishly decorated flat, all bright colours and sparkles. The two of you are on the sofa, and when you turn to look behind you, something rolls across the cushions and hits you in the thigh. A blue bottle, empty.

You pick it up and rest it on the coffee table, and continue looking around. “This is weird. This is very weird. I can’t remember… anything. At all.” You feel your head for a bump or a bruise, but nothing.

“Ohhhhhh shit,“ says your maybe-friend, and when you turn back you see he’s peering at the bottle, eyes narrowed and mouth open. He reads out the label. “‘Memory-B-Gone. Clears your mind – FAST.’”

“We drank an amnesia potion? Like, magic?”

He swallows, you see his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “I suppose.”

“But why? What did we want to forget?”

He looks around at the flat and wrinkles his nose. “Maybe we wanted to forget we lived here.“

You slump back down into the sofa, trying to work out what would make the two of you wipe your memories together. An argument? A horrible crime? Maybe it was an accident. Either way, you have no memory left so trying to work it out is fairly pointless. You look up at the other man, who’s stroking his face.

“I have a moustache,” he says, looking confused.

“Yes, you do. What are we going to do now, then?”

He sighs. “Well, I suppose… we try and get our memories back. If we took a potion to get rid of them, there must be one to bring them back.”

You bite your lip. “Is that such a good idea? I mean, if we had something to forget… it could be dangerous.”

He looks worried for a moment, then nods firmly in a way that makes you feel better. “We don’t really have a choice. We can’t just sit here forever.” He starts to go through the pockets of his jacket and trousers, and you move to copy him, then realise that you’re in a T-shirt and jeans, and you can barely get your hands into your pockets, let alone any form of identification.

Your friend pulls out a battered old leather wallet, and opens it. “Here we go – driving license. My name is… Howard Moon.”

“Howard,” you smile. “That’s a nice name.”

His eyes flick to you and he frowns. “A dull name.” He lays the driving license on the coffee table and keeps going. “Credit cards… library card… membership of a Jazz Club? Oh, great.”

You shift along the sofa, trying to see. “Anything about me?”

“Bus tickets, there’s a receipt for what looks like hair products,” he runs a hand through his hair, “probably yours.”

He unbuttons the last part of the wallet and flips it open, revealing a picture of him and some younger guy, black hair, tight clothes. He’s got his arm around him, and the other man has his head on his shoulder. Howard’s smiling at the camera, but this other guy has eyes only for him, staring up at him although all he can see is hair and cheek.

You get a little falling sensation in your stomach at the thought of him already having a boyfriend, which is quickly followed by the realisations that you’re gay and that you fancy him. You put a hand over your mouth and frown, but there’s no reason to be upset exactly, you never knew different.

Howard bites his lip. “Well, I’ve got a picture of you, but who’s this guy?”

And you grin, an all-consuming grin that threatens to crack your face in half. You wonder if he knows what you know. “Is that me?” You point at the dark-haired man.

“Oh, sorry, yeah.” It takes him a fraction of a second to work it out, hand brushing against his moustache and eyes staring at his moustachioed double in the picture. “And that’s… me.”

You spy a mirror on the wall opposite you, and get up, noticing that you appear to be wearing heels. It doesn’t make sense until you’re standing in front of the mirror and you see him get up, looming over you. Of course you’d wear heels. Can you imagine the neckache without them?

It’s weird looking into the mirror at this guy you don’t recognise. You pull faces, waiting for something to click and for you to go, oh yeah, that’s me. You put a hand up to your hair, and when you pull it away your hair is now all sticking up on that side. You try and smush it down hastily, but that only makes it worse, and you force yourself to leave your hands by your sides until you can figure out how everything works.

Howard stands behind you, rubbing at his face and frowning. “Great, how old am I?“

“The perfect age,” you say without thinking, and wrinkle your nose at the fluffiness of it, but Howard just smiles.

You wonder how best to approach the subject. “So, we’re lovers then?” Ah, that should do it.

Howard just nods. “It looks like. I mean, the picture and all.”

“And this place.” You gesture at the flat, which looks like a colourblind artist’s paintpot has exploded over it. “It doesn’t exactly scream ‘heterosexuality’.”

“Plus,” Howard says in a rumbling voice that makes your stomach squeeze with pleasure, “when you got up, I couldn’t stop staring at your arse.”

You turn slightly, trying to peer over your shoulder. “Oh, is it a nice arse?”

“I think so.” He runs his hands over it, stepping closer and letting his hands slip from there to around your waist. “I mean, so far it’s the only one I remember seeing.”

You lean back, put your hands over his, and let him sit his chin on your shoulder. You fit, and it looks that way in the mirror too. You frown. “But we still don’t know who I am.”

His eyes meet yours, and he smiles slyly. “Who would you like to be?”

[nextpage title=”Nina Persson& David Arnold – Theme from Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)”]

Nina Persson& David Arnold – Theme from Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)

Howard wakes up to find himself standing in the middle of a graveyard in his pyjamas, and blinks a couple of times, hoping it will disappear of its own accord. The grass is wet under his feet, and there is a fog rising that reminds him of far too many late-night horror films. Above all, he’s very, very cold.

What. The hell.

He’s been sleepwalking, obviously, but he’s somehow made it out of his flat and down through London in the middle of the night to a graveyard without waking himself up or alerting anyone. He turns around and sees – fuck – sees his car just outside the gates. Sleep driving?

He’s standing in front of Vince’s gravestone.

He’s been sort of staying away from here. He’d come for the funeral, of course, expecting to have to force his way through the crowds. But there had been surprisingly few people there. Mutual friends, zoo colleagues. None of the millions of people Vince had in his phone, none of the people he’d rung from Vince’s little black book. Fairweather friends.

But since then… well, graveyards are creepy. And Howard is coping, actually. He hasn’t gone out and got into a fight, hasn’t drunk his liver away or burst into tears in the middle of Tesco’s. He feels hollow and cold and empty, but he’s getting by. And he’d known that this place, this heap of earth and bones, wouldn’t be where Vince would want to hang around. It’s not his sort of scene. So he hasn’t needed to come, really. Vince has been gone two weeks exactly, and Howard meant to turn up with flowers, but didn’t. Made two cups of tea, instead, and let one go cold on the table in front of him while he sat and thought.

So to be here… he’d thought he was rationalising it, to whatever degree. The world’s unfair, bad things happen to good people, it’s hardest for the ones left behind. Several nightmares, a couple of bad mistakes with girls with long black hair in the street, a few blazing rows with Fossil.

“You took your time.”

He turns suddenly to see Vince perched on top of his gravestone, dressed all in white, boots knocking against the marble girlishly.

“I… I’m dreaming,” he manages, pinching himself brutally in the arm.

“I’ve been trying to get you to come down here for ages, Howard,” Vince says moodily, like how you might talk to a cat that’s stayed out all night. He hops off his gravestone, and walks slowly over to Howard, hands in pockets. Pockets of… white jeans. And a white top, on which Howard can faintly make out the cover of a Sex Pistols album, albeit painted all in shades of grey. It’s the outfit Vince was buried in, but a bleached version of it.

“You’re not real!” Howard takes a step back, barefoot.

“Now.” Vince holds both hands up. “Don’t freak out. But I’m a ghost.”

“Not real!”

“Would it help if you put your arm through me?”

“Uh?” Howard squeaks, and takes another step back. “This… this is your phone call, right? Your haunting? Like when I came back dressed as a gorilla?”

“Ah.” Vince bites his lip and kicks the earth a little. His boot sails straight through a clump of weeds without making a sound. “Not quite. It is a haunting, but it’s not, like, the last haunting.”

Howard holds his ground, shaking a little, and extends a hand towards Vince. It feels wrong to try and touch his chest, so he decides on a manly squeeze on the arm instead.

His fingers close on air, sinking through Vince’s flesh, and he jerks his hand back, rubbing his eyes. “Couldn’t you have just appeared in my bedroom or something? Why drag me all the way out here in the middle of the night.”

Vince makes an ‘oops’ face. “I forgot your address. And this graveyard, it’s not exactly close by, is it? I didn’t want to end up wandering round London on my own. As for the night-time thing, my link with you is strongest after dark.” He nods at Howard’s car. “But it’s alright now, you can drive me back to yours. I can stay there.”

“What? What are you talking about? Don’t you have to get back to Heaven, or whatever?”

“Well, we can talk about that on the way.”

“Vince.” Howard’s tone is stern, and Vince sighs.

“It’s sort of… possible that I might have unfinished business. And it’s sort of possible that I might not be allowed back until I finish it.”

“What are you talking about?”

Vince takes a deep breath. “Okay. Well. Here’s the thing. I’m almost, maybe, sometimes… in love with you. A bit.”

Howard blinks, mouth open.

Vince wrinkles his nose. “Yeah. So, right, you and I are linked. And as long as you’re alive, I have to stick with you, hang around. And you’re the only one who can see me.”

“As long as I’m… Vince, fuck! Do you want me to kill myself?”

“What? No!” Vince’s mouth drops open and he waves his hands. “God, no! I just, I didn’t pick this! And believe me, as long as we don’t have to hang around graveyards any more, I’m completely happy just to follow you around, enjoy life on Earth. Really.”

Howard starts to walk to his car. “This is all a bit much to get my head around, especially at three a.m.”

“Yeah, well.” Vince melts through the door and into the passenger seat. “We’ll get back, you’ll have a little sleepy, and I can watch telly. We can talk it all over in the morning.”

Howard starts the car, and a thought occurs to him. “Hey, do you want to throw things at Fossil?”

[nextpage title=”Otis Lee Crenshaw – Women Call It Stalking”]

Otis Lee Crenshaw – Women Call It Stalking

“Rich?”

Shitty shitty fuck. He pulled his hat further down and the collar of his jacket further up, but it was no good, Matt had already seen him. He looked around blindly for an exit, but it was… fuck. It was behind Matt. Not his day.

“Rich, it is you. What are you doing hanging around in this dark corner?” Matt stood in front of him in a suit – why always a suit with this guy? – one arm on the wall, blocking his way out.

Rich tilted his hat back. “Matt. Wow. What are you doing here?”

“Well, this place is just on the corner by my flat. I always get a coffee from here in the mornings, I… may have mentioned it at some point.” His voice started to falter as he took in Rich’s faux-PI outfit. “Were you looking for me?”

“No!” Rich yelped. “No no no. I was, uh, I was just passing, and I thought, hey, coffee! And then, you know, I couldn’t choose from all these weird kinds and I thought, I’ll just sit in the corner behind my newspaper and, yeah, pick one. Think about it carefully.”

Matt looked round at the blackboard with the three different types of coffee written on it. “You were… just passing?”

“Uh huh.”

“Where to?”

“To… the… park. Yeah, I like to feed those ducks.”

Matt smiled uncertainly, looking down at Rich’s paper, which was all he was carrying. “With what, exactly?”

“I thought… pastries! I was gonna buy a pastry, crumble it up, feed it to ‘em. They love French food, you know, croissants, pain au chocolat, that sort of thing. Probably something to do with… foie gras?”

Matt licked his top lip quickly, left to right, and cleared his throat. Rich tried not to stare. “Are you following me?”

“What?” Rich managed a fake, high-pitched laugh. “What are you talking about? I just like coffee!”

“I’m sure you do, but, well, I was at a restaurant last night with a friend, and I thought… I thought I kept seeing you at another table. At the back.” Matt’s tone is teasing rather than angry, but Rich starts to feel uncomfortably warm anyway.

“I was busy last night. CSI was on, you know how I love my cop shows.”

“And last week, someone kept ringing my home phone, hanging up without saying anything.”

“Probably a wrong number. Did I mention how my phone is out of order?”

“Right.” Matt looked down for a moment, speaking quietly. “Rich. I’m going to go over to my table and pick up my coffee, and go back to my flat. You are welcome to join me. If, however, you’d rather, say, stand in the phone box on the corner and ring me without saying anything, that is of course your choice.” He raised his eyes and tried to hold a straight face. “If you want, I will buy you a pastry.”

Rich pretended to consider it for a fraction of a second. “Well, those ducks were getting kinda fat anyway. Wouldn’t want ‘em to sink.”

“Absolutely.” Matt turned to walk back to his table, and Rich followed, heart pounding.

[nextpage title=”Pet Shop Boys – Love Comes Quickly”]

Pet Shop Boys – Love Comes Quickly

“Fuck. I’m really sorry,” Howard muttered, sitting back up.

Vince tried to hide his disappointment, his chest still rising and falling, his heart pounding. “No, no. Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”

Howard put a hand over his mouth, face tilted away from where Vince was still sprawled on the bedclothes. “It’s really… I mean, I bet you’ve heard it before, but this really hasn’t happened before. Not to me.”

Vince made an effort and sat up, the sheets sticking to his back slightly with sweat, and put an arm around Howard’s shoulders. “Really. It’s fine. We’ve had a bit to drink, and–”

“I haven’t had that much!” Howard snapped, and Vince took his hand away, wrapped both arms around his legs.

“Alright, alright. I’m just trying to help.” He propped his chin on his knees and mused for a bit. “Also, it’s not like you’ve done this before.”

“I’ve done this before, thank you.“

“Not with a bloke, you haven’t.” Vince watched him carefully, but received no contradiction, and smiled slightly. “Thought not.”

“Yeah, alright.” Howard clambered out of bed and started searching for his clothes on Vince’s floor – no mean feat, since Vince’s floor was already covered in discarded clothing.

“Howard, don’t be like that. We can, you know, try again. I thought it was going pretty well, me.”

“It’s late, Vince. I’m tired. This was… I don’t know. A sign, maybe.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled his trousers on, back to him.

“Don’t be stupid.” Vince crawled over to him and wanted to touch him, but resigned himself to just sitting close, looking at the scar on his left shoulder and remembering tracing it with his tongue. “This happens to everyone, sooner or later.”

Howard swivelled to glare at Vince. “To you?”

“Yeah!”

Howard just looked at him.

Vince folded his arms. “Oh, what, I’m not allowed to be a human being now? I might be sex on legs, I might have every bi-curious bloke from here to Shoreditch after me, but it doesn’t mean I have mind-blowing orgasms every night. I’m quite capable of, you know.” He gestured vaguely as Howard turned towards him properly, intrigued.

“… you know?” he asked with the beginnings of a smile, copying the gesture.

Vince sighed, half-closing his eyes. “Accidentally biting down the first time I sucked cock. Or trying to tear open a condom with hands covered in lube, and ending up throwing it across the room.”

Howard smirked.

“Or, and this is a good one,” Vince held up a finger, “losing a condom entirely. As in, put it on, got down to it, never saw it again. Ever. That was a nasty couple of days.”

“What happened to it?”

Vince leaned in slightly. “Howard, when I say ‘never saw it again’, I mean, never. I have absolutely no idea.”

Howard laughed, then closed his eyes as he remembered what he was laughing about, and sighed. “Still. Not on your first go, though.”

Vince pretended to think about it, nodding. “No, no, not on my first go. The first time I went to bed with another bloke I never actually got to the fun part at all. Complete wanker, that one. And, I didn’t have any lube, he didn’t carry any around with him, and didn’t, like, make any suggestions. So not the best start, all round.”

Howard squinted at him. “You’re making this up.”

Vince sighed. “Howard. It’s just sex, really. If all I wanted from you was a quick fuck, I could… well, okay, maybe I couldn’t just go out into the streets of London and find myself another, not without paying for it. You’d have to give me a few days, at least. But I… this is more to me than that, it is.” He lay backwards slowly, making himself comfortable in all his many cushions, and twisted under the sheets, grinning. “Come back to bed.”

Howard smiled, very, very slowly, wolfishly, his eyes crinkling up and his tongue flicking out to lick his lips. “Do you have lube?” he asked.

Vince held eye contact. “Fuck no. I don’t see why your first time should be any better than mine. We want to start off equal, don’t we?”

[nextpage title=”Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now”]

Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now

Noel flew round the flat like a man possessed, throwing things at random into a rucksack. Julian followed in his wake, hands on his head. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m already doing it.” Half the contents of his wardrobe on the floor to find the two or three items that were essential, a process that Noel could argue about for weeks somehow condensed to a matter of seconds.

“Stop it, then.”

“No.” He disappeared into the bathroom, and Julian winced as he heard the sound of china smashing, the little toothpaste mug on the floor in shards. Noel came out holding his toothbrush, and threw it into the bag.

Julian hit the wall with the side of his hand. “Don’t we at least get to have a discussion about this?”

“No.” He was on to CDs now.

Julian winced as he saw Noel throw in a Charlie Parker album, out of spite. “Well, I want to talk about it. It’s a joint fucking decision, after all.”

“You’re in the mood to talk. I’m in the mood to pack.” A couple of DVDs, but specifically not the one they had decided was all about them. Julian wasn’t sure if this was a good sign or not.

Fuck this. Action. I’m a man of action. “Well, I’m in the mood to unpack,” he shouted, going over to Noel’s rucksack and scooping out a pile of clothes, throwing it through the door to their bedroom.

“Stop that!” Noel yelled, dropping the DVDs to the floor and trying to snatch his bag back. Julian ran to the bathroom and emptied the towels and hygiene stuff into the bath, along with a CD, which cracked on impact. His CD, worse luck.

Noel followed him in, taking hold of one of the rucksack straps and pulling hard. “Give it back!”

“No!” Julian tugged back just as hard, his back pressed painfully against the sink.

“You want me to fucking punch you?”

“Go ahead!”

They stared at each other, panting hard, the bag stretched almost to breaking point between them. The air crackled. Julian watched a bead of perspiration as it traced where a strand of hair was stuck to Noel’s forehead.

He pulled one last time, and Noel stumbled towards him, unprepared. He grabbed him, span, pushed his back against the sink, pushed him over, wanting to hurt him. He kissed him on the mouth hard enough to mark, open-mouthed and sloppy, gasping for air.

Noel kneed him in the groin, and he crumbled, fell backwards onto the floor.

“What the fuck do you think this is? A game?” Noel hissed, letting go of the bag. For one horrible moment it looked like he might kick him, but he just shook his head, his eyes filled with disgust, and left.

Julian heard the door slam, and curled over in defeat, clutching the empty rucksack.

[nextpage title=”Robots in Disguise – Hot Gossip”]

Robots in Disguise – Hot Gossip

“What’s the emergency, anyway?” Julian called out as he followed Noel through to his living room.

“You tell me. Dee just said, get Julian, log on to the whatever, show him the thing.” Noel sat down in front of the computer, clutching the piece of paper she’d given him earlier.

Julian threw his coat onto the sofa, standing behind Noel. “The thing? So, you know what this is?”

“Not a clue.” Right, now. She’d said she’d left such easy instructions a monkey could do it, but Noel puzzled at them anyway. “What’s an earl?” he asked Julian doubtfully.

“What, you mean like, lords and ladies?” Julian peered over his shoulder at the paper. “URL, you fool,” he sighed, pronouncing each letter individually.

“And that button is…?” Noel moved the mouse around vaguely, looking for anything marked ‘URL’, before clicking on ‘Go’ without actually having typed an address. The 404 page came up, and he groaned. “What does this mean, ‘doesn’t exist’? That’s what was so important? Something’s been deleted?”

“Move, for goodness’ sake. Go put the kettle on.”

Noel got up happily and let Julian settle himself in front of the computer, fiddling with the height control on the chair and cracking his knuckles and generally acting like he was about to hack into the Pentagon.

“Right, let’s see… blah blah blah queertet blah blah booshslashhaven. Huh. It’s something Boosh,” Julian muttered as he typed it in, Noel leaning on his shoulder.

“It’s not more people dressed up as the Hitcher, is it? There’s only so many short fat women in green make-up I can look at before it stops being funny and starts being sad.“

Julian was silent as he read the front page, the blue background making him look vaguely washed-out.

“Fuck me,” he said eventually.

“What? What is it? Is it porn?” Noel peered at the screen eagerly.

“You know what,” Julian turned back to the screen, “‘slash’ is?”

Noel closed one eye, thinking. “Like, violence? Horror movies, people getting their heads chopped off, that sort of thing? Oh God, is it death threats?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Julian re-read the disclaimer. “It seems, huh. ‘Slash’ is gay porn, basically.”

“You can’t just give stuff new names. Can you?” Noel heard his battered old kettle start squealing as it reached boiling point. “If you could, I’d rename all kettles as ‘evil bastards’.”

“No… it looks like, it’s all to do with fictional characters. On television, that sort of thing.” Julian blinked, the idea ringing a bell somewhere. “Hey, didn’t you once read a porn story about Howard and Vince?”

There was the sound of metal banging against china from the kitchen. “Uh, don’t think so,” Noel called out.

“Yeah, yeah you did. You said so, when we were watching Fountain of Youth. All about chains and things.” Not that Julian had given it a second thought. Or, you know. Four hundred and fifty eight thoughts.

Noel wandered back into the living room, clutching two mugs of tea. “Wait, yeah. Dee found it for me. It was all kinky, lots of bondage stuff.” He handed Julian one of the mugs, and sipped at his thoughtfully. “There’s more?”

“All in this archive, apparently. And,” Julian re-read the instructions, frowning, “I don’t want to worry you, but it looks like Dee’s a member, somehow.”

“Of a place that says that you and I are shagging?”

Julian started to type Dee’s username and password in. “Yeah. You might want to have a word with her about the words ‘low profile’.”

“And the words ‘tempting fate’,” Noel muttered, watching the screen carefully.

“Fuck me,” Julian whistled. “How many stories?”

“They have a Barley category! I was hardly in that!”

“Videos… Boosh… what’s RP-oh.”

“What now?” Noel pulled over his spare chair, and sat next to Julian, resting his cup of tea carefully next to the computer.

Julian turned the piece of paper over and shrugged. “That’s where Dee’s instructions end. So… I don’t know.”

There was a silence.

“We could–”

“It wouldn’t hurt–”

Julian bit his lip. “Right, right. She’s got a favourites list. She’s got a long favourites list. Where does she get the bloody time?”

“Oooh, click on that one! Look, it won an award!”

Julian stared at Noel. “Alright, I’m clicking it.” He hesitated. “What does NC-17 mean?”

“Not… something. Not Cool. Non Compliant.” Noel opened and closed his mouth, realising what he’d just said. “You think it’s a rape thing? Fuck, you think there’s a fic where you rape me?”

Julian froze, his cursor over the link. “I rape you? Why me? Why not the other way around?”

“I don’t know, just seems like… that’s how it would be.”

Julian folded his arms. “Uh huh. You want to explain that, at all?”

Noel winced. “Well, you know. You’re, um, from up North.”

“That’s right, Noel, I am. Once you get past Watford Gap you have to start macing people, it’s practically a war zone.”

“No, but… you’ve got that gruff thing.” He continued hastily, with a feeling of being in a hole and still digging. “A forceful thing. You’re all… manly.” He tried a smile. “Plus, I’m shorter than you are.”

“Oh, that’ll do it. Day after day I loom over you, staring at the top of your head with lust, waiting for you to lower your guard so I can violate your arse area.”

“Just… just click the link. We’ll see.” Noel fixed his eyes on the screen.

There was a soft click. “Right, well, it’s RPS – Real Person Slash, before you ask. As in, you and me, not Vince and Howard.”

“What’s that say? ‘PWP – graphic sexual content.’ Huh. People… people… no, wait, porn! Porn… with… penises. Maybe not.”

As Noel stared into the middle distance, once again unable to disconnect his mouth from his thinking process, Julian scrolled down, mouth opening further and further. “Wow. Just… wow.”

“Did I get raped?”

“No. Well, not yet. But you did get it in the arse, so you’re half right.”

Noel peered over Julian’s arm at the text. “That’s not physically possible. Is it? I don’t think that’s physically possible.”

“Feeling inadequate, are we?”

“Not when,” Noel’s finger brushed across the screen, “not when whoever this is has written that.“

“Huh.” Julian scrolled back up. “That explains why it’s you getting the bumming.”

“What?”

“Well, you’re ‘huge’. I’m only ‘generous’. Clearly, we’ve weighed up the odds and decided the chance of a fatal rectal rupture is slightly lessened if I go for it instead of you.”

Noel’s eyes narrowed. “Why am I getting bitten? And scratched? What’s up with that?”

Julian patted him on the head. “You’re shorter.”

“But look at me! I mean, I only came into the room,” sound of a mouse-wheel scrolling, “five minutes ago, I’m already bent over a desk and begging for it like a slut.”

“Your point being?”

“My point being,“ Noel glared at him, “clearly this is what our fans think of me. I must be wearing too much lip-gloss. Isn’t there a fic where you scream my name out, and you’re the one all beaten up and fucked? Preferably where you burst into tears?”

Julian clicked the back button, flicking down Dee’s list of favourites. “There’s some disturbing ones with a food fixation… one about – ye gods! A pipe? How much must they hate you?“

Noel swallowed.

“Lots of alcohol… lots of stuff about your hair. But it does, indeed, look like you get fucked in every single one.” Julian smirked. “Our fans have spoken. I’ll go grab the lube.”

“I didn’t see much lube in these things, either,” Noel grumbled. “Why the hell did Dee want us to see this?”

Julian leaned back in his chair. “Well, two options. The first option is, she’s doing a good deed in alerting us to the fact that our secret homosexual relationship isn’t quite as secret as we thought.”

Noel pulled a face at the idea of Dee doing something good. “And the other option?”

Julian hid a grin, eyes flicking to the Robots in Disguise poster on the wall, Dee biting Sue’s shoulder fiercely. “You haven’t noticed the femmeslash section yet, have you?”

[nextpage title=”The Strokes – The End Has No End”]

The Strokes – The End Has No End

He’s staring at something over my shoulder, and I tense up, watching him. He’s got a forkful of food in his right hand, but he’s forgotten about it, held just a little above his plate. Lips parted slightly to show a hint of tongue; it makes him look so stupid. I tell myself it’s just, I don’t know. The ‘Specials’ board. An old woman with a hilarious hairstyle. But he’s not laughing. And the way his eyes are skimming up and down, so familiar, I don’t think he’s contemplating dessert.

I put my fork down, and it hits the side of the plate louder than I meant it to, a horrible tinny scraping sound like scratching at glass. He visibly jumps, meets my eyes for a moment, and scowls. That means it was some cute guy, cute girl. He wouldn’t be angry if he wasn’t guilty.

I swivel in my chair, searching the restaurant for who it might be. There are a number of possibilities.

He sighs. “What?”

“Just trying to see who’s so interesting, Noel.”

“I was looking out the window,” he mutters. “I’m not allowed to look out the window now?” He takes a sip of wine, and I hear that horrible gulping sound he can’t help but make.

I turn back, and smirk at him. He hates being laughed at. “Out the window, right.” I point at his chin. “You, uh, might want to get that.”

He looks confused, dabs his chin with his napkin. “Get what?”

“You’re dribbling,” I say, looking down at my plate and slicing another strip of steak calmly.

He leans back in his seat, glaring at me, playing with his salad. Fucking salad again. I’m so tired of this dieting lark. Over and over and never enough. “I’ll write that down,” he snipes. “It’s hilarious. We can put it in the new series.”

I can feel it coming.

“What a pity you save all your hilarity for when you’re out with me, eh? If only you could come up with it when we’re writing.“

Keep eating. Don’t let him see that hit home. “Because you’re doing such sterling work on that front too.”

Noel picks up his napkin, starts tearing at the edges. “Yeah, well. I’ve got my stand-up to think about, remember?”

“I do remember.” I slice up a potato, in half, and again, and again, smaller and smaller. “I remember you telling me that six months ago.”

“It takes time.“

“So I see.”

He drinks more wine, and I eat more food, forcing it down. I can’t look at him, his hands, nail varnish – I’m dating someone who wears nail varnish – wrapped around the glass greedily. Slurping and gulping away.

I return my attention to my meal. “God, this is dry. Really dry.”

He mutters something into his glass, and it sounds like “for fuck’s sake.“

“What? You didn’t cook it, why do you care?” I hiss, leaning across the table.

“Every time. Every fucking time.” He looks me up and down like he was doing before, but there’s no hint of pleasure in this one. “You can never just enjoy a meal, can you? You have to pick it apart. Oh, it’s too dry. It’s too salty. Why don’t they serve carrots? I would serve carrots…”

I wipe my mouth with my napkin, noticing that his is now just a handful of white scraps, and dump it on my plate, right in the middle of my meal. “I’ve had enough.”

“Yeah, but you won’t say anything, will you?” He scrunches up his face, does a stupid squeaky voice that makes me want to slap him. “No, really, everything was wonderful, thank you! Absolutely fantastic.” He mutters into his chest. “I’m the one who has to hear about it. Your fucking complaining, day after day.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He looks from my plate, up to me, and I put my hands on the table and stare at them. “I… I didn’t… miss you. When you were away, last week.”

He folds his arms, fabric twisting and stretching. “What?”

“I enjoyed myself. Going out on my own, having the flat to myself. Not having to worry about you, or talk to you, or–”

“What are you trying to say?”

I take a deep breath. “When we get back to the flat, I’ll pack you a suitcase.”

He laughs, a short, sharp bark of a laugh, and runs his tongue along his teeth. “You’ll what? I’m sorry, you’re the one who wants to end this. I’m not going anywhere. If you want to leave, you can–”

“It’s my flat!”

“Our flat.”

“My name’s on the lease!” I realise I’m shouting. We’ve become one of those couples who everyone watches but no one makes eye contact with, and as I look around I see a lot of heads turned away suddenly, like doors slamming shut.

“You do what you like. I’m staying put.” Noel starts to pour himself another glass of wine, and I pull the bottle away, over to my side of the table. He sighs, shaking his head.

“Are you happy? Like this?” I ask him, and he stares at the tablecloth, jaw set to one side. “I mean, honestly? All we do, is bicker. We don’t even,” I hiss, “we don’t even have sex any more. We can’t write because we can’t speak to each other civilly, we spend all day banging doors and slamming things around, and you’re trying to tell me you don’t want out of this?”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Or maybe you just can’t be arsed to househunt in London again. On your own.”

He looks at me with utter disgust. “Fuck you. I’m going home.”

“Great. I’ll get the bill, then, just like usual.”

He doesn’t look at me as he gets up, strolling out of the restaurant. He looks at the young woman he was staring at before, though, and she blushes. It’s the first smile I’ve seen from him in I don’t know how long.

I wouldn’t mind so much, but this is the second time we’ve had this exact same conversation.

[nextpage title=”Tom Jones – Delilah”]

Tom Jones – Delilah

Noel sat up in bed, and his hair stayed on the pillow. He blinked a couple of times, lay back down, and took a fistful of it in each hand. Slowly, he sat back up, clutching his hair carefully, and he had… two handfuls of hair. Which, when he brought his hands around to look at them, weren’t attached to his head. Just a clump of black, like the sweepings off a hairdresser’s floor.

Julian ran into the room, a tube of superglue in his hand, and saw Noel sitting up. He stopped, his eyes wide, and quickly hid the superglue. “Hi! You’re awake!” he said with unconvincing jollity.

Noel stared at him, still clutching his hair, his mouth open and his head uncommonly cold.

“Um.” Julian took a step forward, one hand outstretched. “Don’t get up. Would you like a cup of tea? I’ll make you one. And some breakfast in bed. Just stay there, lie down.” He backed out of the room hurriedly, and Noel heard him bashing crockery around in the kitchen.

He felt sick, really sick, and weak, like he was going to throw up any minute, and when he threw back the covers to get out of bed he caught sight of his pillow. In a perfect head-shaped oval was his hair. Long, soft black tresses, laid out with reverence, brushed and laid flat. Just no longer attached to his head. He got up, stumbled over to the mirror.

There, in the mirror, was Noel Fielding. With a perfectly ordinary crew cut. He reached up to his head, tried to brush his fingers through it but couldn’t because it was just so short. Shorter than Julian’s. Shorter than Dave’s. He looked like his dad.

Julian hurried into the room with a mug in one hand, and made a small squeaking sound when he saw the bed empty. He turned to the mirror, and Noel made the same sound, gesturing at his head.

“Don’t freak out, okay?” Julian held both hands up, and slopped boiling hot tea onto his wrist, yelping.

“W-what?”

“Okay. Okay.” Julian put the mug down on the floor and wiped his hands on his shirt. “Look, this morning, I got a little… I was up first, and I was just looking down at you, lying there, asleep, your hair all spread out, and I thought… well, I’m not sure.” He swallowed. “I sort of, wondered. What you’d look like. And I only meant to sort of pretend, right? But the next thing I know, is, I’ve got these scissors, and your hair’s all uneven, and the more I tried to even it up, the more–”

“You cut off my hair?“

Julian crossed the room, biting his lip, and stood behind Noel, hands hovering around his head. “We can fix this.”

“How?”

Julian held up the tube of superglue.

“Okay.” Noel backed away. “That’s not going to happen.”

“It’ll be fine! I know where it all goes, I kept it all, we can just stick it back on! No one will ever know the difference.” He started scooping Noel’s hair up off the pillow, holding it carefully by one end, strand by strand.

“I can’t believe you did this! You know how I feel about my hair, it’d be like… like…” He caught sight of Julian’s childhood stuffed toy on top of the wardrobe, and had evil thoughts for a moment, but dismissed them. “It’d be like me shaving off your moustache.”

Julian’s hands flew to his upper lip, but containing as they did Noel’s divorced locks it just made him look like a Chinese opium dealer from a bad 1920s film.

Noel rubbed his hands over his head again, stubbly and itchy like a bad wax. (So he’d heard.) “Do you have any idea how long it’s going to take to grow this back?”

“Can’t you get extensions?”

“I could, if there was anything for them to graft them onto! I mean, this…” He wandered over to the mirror again. “I look like a lesbian. I can’t style this, there’s nothing to work with!”

“I’ll get you some gel.”

Noel stared at him like he’d said he was going to slash his Bryan Ferry poster.

“No gel. We don’t… like gel? We’re against it?”

Noel pointed at the door furiously. “Get out. Now.”

Julian laid the hair carefully down on the pillow and hurried out of the room, which was kicked closed behind him. He took a deep breath, and started hunting around for the number of a salon that dealt specifically in both short hair and repair work.

Julian turned the sound off on the football match as Noel wandered into the room, phone clamped to his ear.

“Yeah, just came out of nowhere.” He sat on the arm of the sofa, watching the television vaguely. “Like a stomach bug, pretty much. Sorry. I know, I was looking forward… yeah, but you know. If I’m going to vomit all over you, might be a bit… exactly.” He shifted, rubbed the back of his head. “Next time, right? Okay. See ya.”

He flipped it shut with a flick of his wrist, and slid off the arm of the sofa onto the cushions next to Julian, cross-legged.

Julian bit his lip. “Sorry.”

“Eh?” Noel didn’t turn his attention away from the screen.

“About you missing the party. It’s my fault.”

Noel glanced at him and shrugged, looking only a little annoyed. “It’s alright. I didn’t really want to go anyway. Who’s playing?”

Julian blinked. “Uh, it’s the World Cup. France against Italy. What do you mean you don’t care? You’ve been talking about this for weeks.”

Noel shrugged again. “Just didn’t really feel like going out. France are in blue, are they?”

“No, that’s Italy. I thought… you said Paul Weller might be at this thing, this album launch, didn’t you? I remember you being all excited.”

“There’ll be other parties.” Noel uncrossed his legs and sat forward. “Do you have the remote?”

Julian looked at the screen wistfully. The final. Still, he had done wrong, and he needed to be punished. Reluctantly he handed the remote control over and got to his feet, planning to switch on the radio in his room.

Noel flicked the volume back on and turned it up, watching the game intently. “If you’re going to the fridge, I’ll have a beer,” he called over one shoulder.

Julian tripped over the leg of the coffee table in shock.

“Can I borrow this?”

Julian looked over the top of his newspaper at Noel’s expectant face, and at the shirt he was holding.

“Why?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. Maybe he wanted to destroy it, destroy Julian’s favourite shirt. Maybe he was going to customise it with holes and sequins and force him to wear it out about town. Or chop it up into little dusters and–

“I just like it.” Noel was already taking his pyjama top off and pulling his arms through the sleeves, about half an inch too long.

Julian almost choked on his coffee. “I seem to recall you have an entire wardrobe filled with your own clothes. If not two wardrobes.”

“Yeah, but… I dunno. It all seems a bit… tight.”

“Tight?” Noel was having trouble with the buttons, so Julian motioned him closer and helped him, working his way up from the bottom.

“Yeah. I just wanted something a bit simpler.”

“Simpler?“

“Yeah, you know.” Noel rolled up the sleeves to the elbow, and undid the top button. “Less busy.”

Julian gaped. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Fine.” He pulled on his trainers. “I’m just going to pop out for a packet of cigarettes, want anything?”

“You’re not even wearing eyeliner!”

“To go to the shop?” Noel laughed, rubbing a hand over the top of his head and making his short hair stick up. “I think I’ll survive.”

“Noel. Noel. Noel. Noel? Noel. Noel.“

“What?”

“This jacket.”

“Yeah?”

“Or this one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Which one do you prefer?”

“God, I dunno. They’re the same colour, aren’t they?”

“Well, yeah. But they’re not the same.“

“… no?”

“They look different.”

“Yeah.”

“So which one? Which is nicer?”

“Uh huh. Great.”

“Noel.“

“What?”

“You’re not even listening.”

“I’m bored.“

“We’re shopping!“

“Yeah, and I’m bored off my arse. How much longer is this going to take?”

“You don’t want to be shopping?”

“Who does?”

“You love shopping.”

“Yeah, apparently not.“

“… I said I was sorry about a million times, you know. I’m really not sure what you want me to do.”

“Eh? Look, can we go to the pub? I’m dying for a pint. And some crisps.”

“A pint?“

“Get both jackets, what does it matter? And then let’s get drunk.”

*

Julian rifled through the shopping bags, putting the frozen food away first. He reached in and pulled out a packet of white chocolate Magnums. He frowned, put it to one side, and emptied the rest of the bag.

Two boxes of strawberry Mini Milks. A frozen pepperoni pizza. McCain’s oven chips. And hamburgers.

“NOEL!”

Noel elbowed open the front door, hands filled with the rest of the shopping bags. “Yeah? What?”

“What’s all this?”

Noel dumped the shopping on the kitchen counter, and dusted off his hands on his trousers. “It’s food.” His mouth fell open. “Shit, did you want dark chocolate? Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

Julian started to pack all the ice cream into the freezer, shaking his head. “Did you buy any salad? Any vegetables?”

“Yeah, course! What do you think all this is?” He opened one of the bags to reveal a kilo of white potatoes, which he hefted into the cupboard with one hand.

“And who’s going to eat all this stuff?”

Noel looked confused. “Well, I sort of thought I might. We might, I mean. You can too. Unless… you don’t want to?”

Julian opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, and resigned himself to simply closing the freezer, full for maybe the first time ever.

Noel passed him a bottle of milk, and Julian frowned. “Full fat?”

“Is it?” Noel muttered. “Did you want something else? I just grabbed the first thing I saw, sorry.”

Julian held the rapidly warming milk in his hand, condensation forming on the bottle. “You haven’t had full fat anything since the early nineties.”

“Milk’s milk. I’m only gonna sling it in a cup of tea, aren’t I? Who cares?” He handed Julian what looked like a can of hairspray, and he winced at the memory.

“What’s this?”

Noel waggled his eyebrows at him. “Whipped cream. That’s full fat, too.”

Okay, thought Julian, maybe there were benefits to this new Noel.

He missed tangling his hands in Noel’s hair, fingers scraping through and around. Grabbing a fistful of it and pulling back, exposing his neck.

But without it… he didn’t miss the stupid bloody spitting noise Noel would make every few minutes as he got a mouthful of his own hair. Or how it would hang down and flick into his eyes if Noel went on top, bending down to kiss him and only succeeding in making Julian sneeze by getting it up his nose.

Noel straddled him, face oddly naked without his hair flicking around it, framing it. He leaned in and kissed him, and Julian pulled him down, momentary physical memory confused when his fingers met only bristles. Noel’s tongue was in his mouth, pushing and tasting, and his hand was on Julian’s nipple, brilliantly cruel.

Noel pulled back from the kiss and sat up, raising his hips, pushing at Julian’s side with his knee.

Julian furrowed his brow, and tried to roll them both, so that Noel was on his back and he was on top.

Noel stayed firm, and pushed harder.

“What are you doing?” Julian murmured.

“Trying to get you to turn over, what do you think?” Noel sat back down and kissed Julian fiercely, one hand on his chest, pinning him down. “Unless you’re not up for it, tonight,” he muttered against his lips. “Which would be a shame.“

“Up for what?” Noel’s hands were roaming everywhere, and he was so up for this, but he couldn’t work out why Noel was still on top of him. If he was going for a new position he could at least say.

“Ahhh…” Noel said, like he’d working something out, and he reached down, shifting slightly, taking hold of Julian’s ankles. He tried to force them upwards, tried to tuck Julian’s legs around his back, cock nudging forward to reach Julian’s arse.

Julian froze. “What?“

Noel pulled back, let go. “No? Sorry.” He swallowed, breathing deep. “I just thought, I mean the signals… if you’re tired, really, it’s fine. I’ll go to the loo for a bit.”

Julian took tight hold of his wrist. “No, I don’t… it’s just… we haven’t. I mean, you don’t. I do.”

Noel stared at him, completely serious. “Well, isn’t it my turn, then?”

“I… I… do you… want to?”

“Do you want me to?”

Julian let out a breath he’d apparently been holding for a year and a half. “Absolutely. It’s just… you never said. Did you want to before?”

Noel kissed him again, and Julian wrapped his legs around him, heart beating fast. “Who cares? I want to now.“

It was fantastic. Mind-blowingly fantastic. It had been so long with Noel, so long since he’d had sex where he hadn’t had to top, and it was like having sex for the first time. Like regaining an arm, or finding an old diary, or… he was incredibly incoherent as he tried to explain it to himself, aching and sticky afterwards, painful in a way he hadn’t been in years, Noel wrapped around him from behind. It was new.

He stared at Noel, hand hovering over his head but not touching. “I don’t understand.”

Noel stared at the floor sullenly. “What? I went to the hairdressers.”

“But your hair’s shorter.“

“Yeah?” Noel made a ‘duh’ face. “That usually happens when you get it cut.”

“But… but… why?“

Noel scuffed the floor with his trainer, sniffing loudly. He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “It was getting too mullet-y.”

“But now it’s short again.” Julian petted it lightly.

“Yes.” Noel smacked his hand away. “It’s was getting too long, and I had it cut, and now it’s short. Okay?”

Julian shoved his hands in his pockets. “I thought you were going to grow your hair back.”

Noel sighed. “Well, it turns out I like it like this. Don’t you?”

Julian chewed on the inside of his cheek. He thought about not being dragged out to Topshop every weekend, or to some pretentious party. Watching the football with a beer. Being able to get into the bathroom whenever he wanted.

“Are you happy?” he asked tentatively.

Noel rubbed the back of his head briskly, making part of it stick up. “I… yeah. I am.”

Julian grinned. “Then so am I.”

Noel smirked, leaned in for a kiss. Grabbed Julian’s arse with both hands, then smacked it, hard. “Get us a Magnum, then.”

[nextpage title=”Ultravox – Vienna”]

Ultravox – Vienna

Vince tried in vain to keep his excited expression in the face of Howard’s horror, his pale face, drained of blood, his open mouth. “Yeah, I know. It’s great, right?”

“You can’t.” Howard’s voice was a hoarse whisper, and he cleared his throat, one fist up in front of his mouth. “I mean, you can’t,” he said more firmly.

Vince fiddled with his hair. “No, you don’t understand. Their singer’s dropped out, right? Had a bust-up with the rest of the band, and they’ve got this tour to do. This Austrian tour. The drummer knows my work from back when I got thrown out of that Japanese karaoke night in June, and he told me to come to the audition, and the record company liked my stuff.” He waved his hands around frantically. “So I cleared it with Fossil and Bainbridge, the Zooniverse gets free advertising, and I get to tour Austria for six months with the band. Wicked, eh?”

“But… but… you can’t.“ Howard sat down on the battered zookeepers’ sofa, sitting uncomfortably on a cushion.

Vince pulled out one of the wooden chairs next to the table, sitting down at a safe distance in case he had to make a run for it. “I just said, though. I can. Bainbridge has released me from my contract.”

Howard rubbed at the palm of his hand with his thumb. “Austria, though. You don’t know anything about Austria.”

“I do!” Vince said indignantly, racking his brains.

Howard raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? Where is it?”

Vince sat there with his mouth open. “It’s… in Europe. Near… Swed–” Howard smirked, and Vince changed tack suddenly, “Swe… Swi… Switzerland. Yeah.”

Howard shook his head. “It’s next to Germany, you berk.”

Vince made a ‘pfft’ sound, blowing his hair away from his face. “That’s not important, though, is it? I’m not walking there. They have people who take care of that sort of thing. Geography… ers.”

“But you don’t know what it’s like there. You might hate it. Do you even know what the capital city is?”

“Of course,“ Vince said confidently. “We’re playing Vienna first.”

Howard’s face fell at an actual piece of information.

“Yeah,” Vince continued into oblivion. “It’s gonna be really nice seeing all those canals, and the gondolas. And all that… you know. Architecture.”

“That’s Venice. In Italy.”

“Oh.” Vince’s face fell. “No… no canals in Vienna, then?”

Howard shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re going to a country you know nothing about.”

“I do too!”

“No, you don’t. You don’t know anything.”

Vince thought for a bit, then snapped his fingers, his face lighting up. “The Von Trapps.”

“What?”

“You know! ‘How do you solve a problem like Maria?’”

“Like who?“

“Uh… um… ‘Doe, a deer, a female deer’, uh, singing nuns, cute children? The Sound of Music?“

Howard picked at the arm of the sofa. “It didn’t sound like music to me.“

Vince stuck his tongue out at him. “It’s a musical. A film, with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. And it’s set in Austria. There.”

Howard smirked at Vince’s extensive knowledge of musicals, but said nothing. “Anything else?”

“Uh… Vienna… Viennese whirls?”

“Another film?”

Vince shook his head. “They’re biscuits.”

Howard nodded. “Food, and a film. Great, Vince, really. You’ll fit right in.”

“And, and,” a dim spark flickered at the back of his mind, and he blurted it out before actually taking the time to think, “and Hitler was Austrian.”

Howard struggled to keep a straight face. “So. You’re going to a country filled with biscuits, singing children, and mass-murdering dictators.”

“They’re not all like that.”

“As far as you know, they are.”

Vince spread his hands wide. “Look. I’m going to Austria, and you’re not going to talk me out of it. It’s all been arranged. I’ll be in Vienna by tomorrow morning.”

Howard nodded, lips set in a thin line. “Fine. Good luck. I’ll just, I’ll just stay here, shall I? Muddle along at the zoo on my own, with Fossil and Bainbridge and no one knowing who I am, while you carry on to fame and glory. Fine.”

Vince moved from his chair to the arm of the sofa, watching Howard warily. His body language said he was about ready to slap someone.

“Well… the record company said I could bring someone. Like, to help dress me and do my make-up and stuff.”

Howard looked at him in horror, and Vince bit back a giggle.

“No, I mean… I thought, I like doing that all myself. I’d only get annoyed if someone was there, getting in the way. So I thought maybe I’d just bring someone along because I’d miss ‘em.”

Howard managed a small smile, his eyes bright, his hand tight on the arm of the sofa. “Yeah?”

Vince nodded. “And then, Leroy said he couldn’t leave work in time, so I thought–”

Howard hit him in the face with a sofa cushion.

[nextpage title=”Velvet Underground – Sunday Morning”]

Velvet Underground – Sunday Morning

“The worst thing about Sunday mornings,” Sue said in a voice that carried across the room to where Dee was huddled under the sheets, “is that they come right after Saturday nights.” She examined her hair in the mirror, pushing it first one way, then the other, then finally just shaking her head from side to side in an attempt to reset it, like an Etch-a-Sketch.

Now she regretted not having brushed it out before she went to bed. But, well. She looked fondly at the reflection of the bed behind her, of the lump in the duvet that gently rose and fell with deep breaths. After gigs they were both fairly… excitable. She couldn’t pass up post-gig sex.

“I said,” she said in a louder voice, turning around and leaning towards the bed, “that the worst thing about Sunday mornings is–”

“-is people not fucking shutting the fuck up.”

“Ah, tis my beloved that speaks!” Sue said, clasping her hands together and tipping her head to one side, making her hair fall in her face again. She blew it away irritably.

“I will kill you. And make it look like an accident.” The muffled speaker made no signs of coming out from under the covers.

“And do what at the club next week, exactly?” Sue said sweetly, getting up to head to their little ensuite bathroom.

“A trained monkey could sing better than you. I’ll make a wig from your hair, dress it up, and throw it into the crowd.”

Sue ran cold water over her face. “At least it won’t land on its head.“

“One time. One time that happened.”

“Twice.” Sue poked her head round the door to see if Dee had surfaced, but no luck. “You hit your head on the xylophone last night.”

“Fuck. I wondered why everything hurt.“

“No, that’s your hangover.” More water to stop her hair from sticking out at stupid angles, and a little mouthwash for morning breath. She was ready to go, so to speak.

She stepped out of the bathroom and out of her robe, sitting back on the bed and tucking her feet under the covers. Dee shifted over a little, but otherwise didn’t move.

“And the bite mark? On my thigh? Is that from the gig too?” Her tone was slightly more playful, and Sue wiggled her toes, pulling the sheets up around her waist.

“No, the monkey did that.”

She got a half-cut-off laugh for her trouble, and a warm hand on her ankle.

“It’s not Sunday morning,” Dee said. “It’s Sunday afternoon.”

“How would you know?” Sue frowned, turning to the bedside table. “Hey, where’s my watch?”

“Under here.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Give it back.”

“No.” The lump snickered, and tugged hard on Sue’s ankle. “Come and get it if you think you’re hard enough.”

Sue kicked Dee in the ribs, or where she thought her ribs were, and ducked under the covers. The sounds of fighting and loving and loving and fighting went on well through Sunday lunch.

[nextpage title=”The Who – The Quiet One”]

The Who – The Quiet One

“I don’t normally do this,” Howard muttered, sitting next to Naboo on the sofa as the shaman gently edged his hand up Howard’s thigh. “I mean, this isn’t… wow. Don’t tell… Vince.”

“You can’t tell anyone about this, okay?” Fossil wiped his mouth on the back of his hand as Naboo adjusted his robes. “I mean, you won’t. Will you? Nah, sure you won’t. Right?” He got to his feet and pushed him, hard. “I can fire you, you know. Bainbridge said.”

“Any port in a storm, and I suppose any mouth will do when I’m stuck in this dump,” said Bainbridge, taking hold of Naboo’s shoulder and pulling him into a Zooniverse cupboard. A broom pressed into his back painfully as Bainbridge pressed him into the wall, hand already fumbling at his zip. “I will, of course, deny everything.”

“It say nothing ‘bout this in Shamen Handbook,” Bollo muttered, closing the bedroom door behind him and removing his hat. “Still don’t think it fair you get to kill me if break shaman/familiar bond of confidentiality. Not fair at all.”

Saboo held his hand over Naboo’s mouth, eyes glittering strangely in the darkness. “I don’t appreciate people voting against me. I’m going to show you what happens when people don’t do what I want.” He pulled his hand away hurriedly. “Did you just lick me?”

Rudi lay on his back, afro spread out around him, thighs obscenely dark against his purple robe, rucked up around his waist. “This… this is good stuff, Naboo,” he said hoarsely, sucking on a hookah pipe. “I could almost believe that you were giving me light hand relief. But of course such things are the stuff of nonsense.” His door creaked, fluttering open and shut obscenely.

Old Gregg leapt out from behind the wardrobe. “Hey, Howa-you’re not Howard. You’re a tiny little man in a dress, Howard don’t wear a dress. And you ain’t got no moustache.” Gregg stroked his seaweed locks obscenely, hands slinking down his body to the hem of his tutu. “But maybe you wanna know me too.”

Charlie faced Naboo down in the Zooniverse. He wanted to destroy, it was Naboo’s job to stop him from doing so. The age-old story – the ultimate fight between good and evil, right and wrong. But… he looked the little man up and down. Perhaps they didn’t have to fight right away. There was time for a little fun first.

Barry tried to push him up against a tent, and with a tearing sound they fell through it into what turned out to be Saboo’s private living quarters. Pushing a cushion out of the way, Barry carefully removed his glasses, tucking them into a pocket. He grinned. “Saboo’s bed is over to my left,” he said in a carrying voice. “He’s pretending to be asleep. Let’s put on a good show, eh?”

Ebola and Anthrax kissed messily, tongues licking and teeth scraping, fiddling with the clasps on each other’s clothing. Anthrax shifted, sinking her fangs into Ebola’s neck, who moaned and held her closer. Anthrax pulled back, dipped her finger into the trail of deep red, and offered it to Naboo. He sucked on her finger gently, holding eye contact, and she snatched it back. “That’s enough,” she said, Ebola smirking at him behind her back. “Sit down and shut up.”

Spider tripped over his own feet, and landed on Naboo’s lap. “Ha! Tiny shaman, I did not see you slumped here on this… beanbag! We have a beanbag?” He furrowed his brow. “Possibly you magicked it up. I do not think Rudi would have bought such a thing. He disapproves of comfort in all forms.” He shifted, one hand pushing on Naboo’s crotch to help him get up. His eyes widened, and he looked up at him with a filthy grin. “I, however, am very fond of the beanbag. Very fond.”

Vince blinked several times, hands twisting on the hem of his T-shirt. “I can’t say I’m not flattered,” he said to his shoes. “But… I dunno. It seems wrong, somehow. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s because we’re such good friends.” He put a comforting hand on Naboo’s knee, pulling away maybe a second too hastily, and got up to head to his bedroom.

He stopped, turned. “Um. You don’t need to worry. I won’t tell anyone, okay? Your secret is safe with me.”

Naboo smiled quietly.

[nextpage title=”XTC – In Another Life (Asylum/Boosh crossover)”]

XTC – In Another Life (Asylum/Boosh crossover)

Through the pouring rain, Vince finally caught sight of Howard, standing right out in the open and looking lost. He made a clucking sound with his tongue, like Jalopey the mother hen would when she caught him with his face all smeared with berries, and hurried out into the deluge, jacket pulled up over his head.

“Oi, ostrich legs! Here I am!” He tapped Howard on the shoulder lightly.

Howard turned around, all-white clothing hanging down from the sheer weight of the rainwater, and stared at him. “What?“ he said with complete and utter disgust.

Vince frowned. Had… had Howard always been wearing that? “I told you to stick with me. We’ll never get this over with if you keep wandering off.”

Howard looked him up and down, and then turned away. “Begone, jezebel. I am waiting for someone far more important.”

“Ooooookay…” Vince muttered, pulling his jacket up further and feeling the rain slip down his stomach and inside his trousers. “Look, I know I got a bit distracted looking at that hat display, but that’s no reason to be in a mood with me.”

Howard didn’t turn around, the set of his shoulders showing that he was still angry.

“Can’t you be pissed off indoors? In the dry?” He pointed over at HMV. “Look, I’ll buy you a CD, yeah? And then all I need is some, you know, new underwear,” he leered as Howard glared at him over his shoulder and walked away, “and we can go home. And take it off.”

Howard stood a little way away, arms folded, back turned, and Vince sighed, sploshed through the puddles to stand in front of him again. “At least come out of the rain.”

“Who are you to keep talking to me so? An inane glob of green phlegm, speaking to me with your mouthparts, with no idea of the danger you are in.” He clicked his fingers suddenly, and Vince flinched. “Go. Or I shall destroy you.”

“Howard?” Vince swallowed. “Are you feeling okay?”

Howard made a little scream of rage, hands fisted by his sides. “My word. You would surely rival Adam in the idocy stakes. Why can you not leave me in peace?” He stopped, mouth open, blinking at the rain, and looked at Vince more closely. “Are… are you perhaps… Adam? Returned to avenge yourself?”

“I’m Vince,” said Vince, one hand on his chest, the rain momentarily forgotten. “There’s… there’s a lemur named Adam. At the zoo?”

Howard stared at the pavement. “I didn’t mean to disembowel him, you know. It was a mere accident of fate.”

“O… kay.”

He looked up at Vince slyly, smirking. “And I didn’t intend to eat the body. But once one has a corpse, what else can one do with it?”

Vince reached up to feel Howard’s forehead, who reeled back, slapping at his hands. “Did you bang your head? Do you know where you are?”

The smile disappeared instantly, and Howard scowled at him. “I am waiting for my beloved. You will speak to me no more.”

Vince scratched his head. “I think we better get you back to the Zooniverse. Get Naboo on the case.”

Howard wasn’t listening, looking at something behind him with wide eyes and a wide smile. “Simon!” he said joyfully, and Vince turned to see… a young, baby-faced man, with blond hair, dressed in similar white clothing to Howard, but except… there was Howard, in his regular tweed, a few steps behind the blond man, arms filled with bags and a grumpy expression on his face.

Simon and Vince ran past each other to embrace their respective Howards, who endured the show of physical affection with similar looks of distaste on their faces.

“Where the hell have you been?” Howard said to Vince, holding a Topshop bag over his head.

“I’ve been here, talking to… like, your twin! It’s mental!” Vince grabbed his sleeve and pulled Howard over to his mirror image.

They looked each other up and down, and then Howard turned to Vince. “He’s got a beard. A little evil devil beard. And no trace of a moustache. How could you possibly mistake him for me?”

Vince shrugged. “I dunno. I sort of… don’t pay much attention to your facial hair.”

“And the complete change of clothes?”

“I thought maybe you bought them. Somewhere. They’re pretty rocking, actually, you could customise them and–”

Vince was jerked out of his fashion reverie by Simon taking a step forward, hands clasped like a head waiter offering them a table.

“Hi?” he said with a little wave. “Um. I’m Simon. Sorry about the misunderstanding before, uh…”

“Howard,” Howard supplied.

“But you can see how I might get you confused for Victor.” Simon nodded back at Howard’s double, who hovered behind him with a superior expression on his face.

“Yeah, me too,” said Vince. “I don’t get it, how is this possible? Do you have a brother, Howard?”

“No,” said Howard, the classic example of an only child.

“What about a long-lost one?” asked Simon.

“If he’s long-lost, then I wouldn’t know, would I?”

“Oh yeah,” Simon said with a little giggle that made Vince smile.

Vince stepped forward, speaking quietly with an eye on Victor. “Is he alright? He was talking about murdering some guy before, someone named Adam or something.” He watched Victor, who made devil’s horns with his fingers and stuck his tongue out.

“Oh, yeah. He’s insane,” Simon said matter-of-factly.

Vince giggled, and Simon and Howard glared at him.

“Sorry, just… we find Howard’s double, and he’s a mental patient. It just… heehee…”

“I’m insane too,” Simon said pointedly. “Well, not really. A bit. Isn’t everyone, a bit?”

“Yes,” said Vince.

“No,” said Howard.

“Anyway, we just broke out of an asylum, just outside of town, and… long story. So we’re on the run at at the moment, sort of… hiding out. There are some others in a bedsit down in Streatham, we only came out for a bit of shopping, got caught in the rain.” Simon smiled cheerily. “I suppose we better be getting back, though.”

“Absolutely,” Howard said quickly, trying not to look at his strange twin.

“And,” Simon took a step forward, mumuring to Howard. “If you ever felt like, I don’t know, trying something new? Victor and I would love to hear from you.” He handed him a scrap of paper with a number written on it, and winked. “Twincest is hot.“

Vince simply gaped, and Simon quickly continued, “Of course, the offer works both ways. Call me!”

He and Victor wandered off in the rain, arm in arm. Simon pressed a kiss to Victor’s cheek, who scrubbed at it irritably.

Howard and Vince simply stood there, dripping.

“I think I may vomit,” Howard said, crumpling up the paper and throwing it to the ground.

As he walked off towards the bus stop, Vince quickly bent over and retrieved it, smoothing it out and putting it carefully in his back pocket. Well, you never knew.

[nextpage title=”Yann Tiersen – Soir de Fete”]

Yann Tiersen – Soir de Fete – roughly translated as ‘Party Night’

Dan Ashcroft regarded his face in the mirror of the gents, and winced. He removed the stupid bloody Preacher Man hat and sailed it across the room, where it came to rest in a urinal. Jones watched it fly by, his back against the wall next to the mirror, and nudged Dan with his foot.

“Won’t you have to wear that again?”

“Not ever. Not if I can help it,” Dan muttered, splashing cold water on his face. Jones nudged him again, and he looked up, dripping from the nose and chin.

“Won’t they want it back then?”

Dan looked him straight in the eye. “Fuck them,” he said, except a drop of water fell onto his lips and made it sound more like ‘Fargle them’, but Jones knew what he meant.

“Yeah, but really?” he said sympathetically.

Dan sighed, resting his head on the sink, and Jones retrieved his hat for him, holding it against his chest.

“I don’t think you look too bad, Dan. It could be a good look for you.”

“Shut up,” Dan muttered into the sink.

Jones put the hat on, tipped it back, and made his best serious face in the mirror over

Dan’s shoulder. “So say Brother Na–” The rest of the words were stopped from coming out by Dan’s hand fisted in his top and his finger on his lips.

“Don’t,” Dan said firmly, and Jones nodded, swallowing, reaching up to take off the hat. Dan took his finger away from Jones’ lips, but couldn’t seem to let go of his shirt. Jones blinked at him, waiting for the red mist to subside, but that didn’t seem to be it.

“Dan, are you o–”

Dan span him around and pushed him against the wall, kissing him firmly, pushing him against the tiles. Jones’ eyes widened, and for a moment he fought with Dan’s hands holding him down, keeping him there, he struggled. But then Dan’s tongue was in his mouth, his fingers at Jones’ waistband, and all rational thought simply went out the window.

Dan’s mouth left his and slipped to his neck, and Jones tried to pull him back up, but Dan smacked his hand away. “Don’t fucking move, Barley,” he snarled.

Jones froze, feeling suddenly cold.

“Ooh dear,” came a voice from the wide open door that led into the club, came a voice from the mouth of Jonatton Yeah? “The Preacher Man secretly wants to bum his disciple, etc? Well Catholic.”

Jones slapped Dan’s hands away from his, and kicked him in the shins until he stepped away, eyes pleading but mouth silent.

Jonatton looked between them both. “Write an article on it?”

“Fuck off,” Dan spat at him, but Jonatton just grinned.

“Poor Ashcroft. Not talking to you, yeah?” He winked at Jones. “Thousand words, usual rate?”

Jones just blinked, head swimming. He heard Jonatton laughing as he pushed past him into the club and lost himself in the crowd, trying not to look at or listen to the cretin spinning the decks and photographing the crowd with his Wasp T10.

[nextpage title=”The Zutons – Long Time Coming”]

The Zutons – Long Time Coming

Vince stumbled into the hotel room, clutching a half-empty bottle of champagne and giggling. Howard was a way behind, having somehow managed to use his key to open the wrong hotel room and almost been murdered by drug dealers, who luckily for him realised he was far too drunk to realise what was going on.

“Howard! I think I found it! I think this is us!” Vince caught sight of the floor-to-ceiling view of New York, and headed towards it, unfortunately running out of legs after the two he had, and crumpling to the floor, amazingly without spilling any champagne. He lay there giggling as Howard finally found their room.

“Vince? Vince! Vince, where are you? Vince, I just met Mr Kipling! He had all these bags of sugar in a briefcase, it was amazing! Vince?”

Howard closed the door, caught sight of the floor-to-ceiling view of New York, headed towards it, and tripped over Vince, who dissolved into laughter again.

“Vince? I can’t see you! Vince?”

Vince crawled up and unhooked Howard’s jacket from over his head, smoothing down his hair. “Hello Howard.”

“Vince! There you are!”

“Here I am,” said Vince fondly, still smoothing Howard’s already-smooth hair. “Here I am.“

Howard’s face was flushed, his eyes were bright and wild. “Can you believe this?”

Vince shook his head, and then couldn’t work out how to stop. Howard took hold of him by the chin and he grinned up at him gratefully. “Thanks. And no, I can’t believe it. I’m going to need much, much more champagne to believe it.”

Howard wagged a finger at him. “Don’t drink the minibar.”

“Why?”

“It’s expensive.”

Vince held up a finger, spilling champagne in the process. “But. We’re going to be millionaires.”

Howard’s face lit up, and he clicked his fingers. “Open the minibar! I demand it!”

Vince got to his feet carefully, using various delicate portions of Howard’s anatomy to pull himself up, which produced some interesting responses, and headed off to find the minibar.

Howard crawled towards the giant windows, and propped himself up against them, feeling excitingly afraid that the glass would suddenly break and send him hurtling towards the city below. The remarkably beautiful city. The city that had brought him and Vince such good fortune and so would now be remembered by him as the greatest city in the world, with the exception of Leeds (because Americans had funny accents and Leeds… ians, didn’t.)

“Howard?” Vince called from the other room.

“I think. I’m going to get more people to call me ‘sir’.”

“No, but, Howard? You want to come here.”

Howard grinned, eyes filled with the amazing view. “No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. Really.”

Groaning, Howard got to his feet, entangling himself in his jacket again. He tore it in his haste to get rid of it, which was unlucky seeing as it was a brand new tuxedo, but he figured that as he and Vince would be millionaires soon, he could afford a new one.

He wandered through various rooms in their hotel suite before he found Vince, sitting on a simply huge bed. A huge four-poster bed, covered in rose petals and with candles lit all around it. A bottle of champagne lay chilling in a bucket nearby.

Howard blinked. “You were only gone five minutes.”

Vince bit his lip, head down on his chest. “I think I did something naughty.”

Howard sat down on the bed next to him, taking the champagne bottle away and putting it down carefully on the floor (on his third try). “Tell me. Tell your bandmate. Your old, million-dollar, highly successful, bandmate.”

“Well.” Vince tipped his head sideways until it came to rest on Howard’s shoulder, which seemed to fit, and so no one made any moves to stop it. Howard put his arm around Vince, and squeezed.

“Well,” Vince said again. “You remember when we did Pieface Showcase and that nice man said he was going to give us a record deal?”

“Vividly.”

“And we signed the contract and then went to meet the boss and then he said he’d pay for our hotel?”

Howard’s lips moved for a few seconds trying to follow all of that, and then he said, “Yes.”

“And you said I should get the nicest room in the hotel because we’re millionaires now and highly successful musicians?”

“That sounds like me. Highly successful.”

“Well.” Vince’s voice got a little lower, and Howard leaned in to listen and then found his head was on top of Vince’s. But it seemed to fit, and no one made any moves to stop it.

“Well, I went and said to the receptionist that you and I were celebrating a new partnership, and that we wanted something a little special to celebrate in style, something private and exclusive and luxury.”

“Sounds perfect,” Howard said, patting his friend’s shoulder companionably.

“Yeah, but. We’re in the Honeymoon Suite.”

Howard sat up, looked around. Walls covered in paintings of Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Marilyn and Joe. Giant bed covered in rose petals. Champagne. Chocolates. And, now he came to think about it, a worrying amount of condoms in the bathroom cabinet, not to mention lube, sex toys, and several pairs of fluffy handcuffs.

He blinked a couple of times. “Well.”

“I said that,” said Vince. “It is a bit, isn’t it.”

Howard took a deep breath, and let go of Vince’s shoulders, standing up with some difficulty. “But it’s not the first time people have… thought that. About us. And I’m not going to let it ruin my excellent mood.” He stared down at the carpet, which was a fetching pattern of red hearts on a white background. “You take the bed, I shall take the sofa, which I saw a moment ago and seemed quite comfortable.”

He turned to leave the room, and heard Vince say, “oh.”

Howard froze, span, felt ill but managed to focus. “Oh?”

“What?” Vince looked up from where he had been staring at the attractive carpet glumly.

“You said ‘oh’.”

“Did I?” Vince sighed. “It’s possible.”

“Why did you say ‘oh’?” Howard asked, taking a step forward.

“Never mind.” Vince played with a ring on his little finger, spinning it round and around. “I think I was just thinking that… so much good stuff has happened today, I was hoping for just one more thing. Like, the most perfect day ever, would have one last, tiny thing.”

“Well, not tiny,“ Vince amended hastily, tugging on his trousers.

“What thing?” asked Howard hopefully, eyeing the huge bed and remembering the handcuffs and also, now he thought about it, what had seem to be a fairly sturdy whip, back in the cabinet.

“It’s not important. I was just getting greedy.” Vince sighed again, a heart-rending sigh that made Howard want to bundle him up and do obscene things to him.

“No, but wait.” Howard held up one finger. “Because there’s one thing that could make tonight perfect for me too.”

“I don’t have any Miles Davis on me.”

“Not that!” A part of Howard’s brain rebelled at discarding jazz so quickly, but it was shouted down by a far more powerful part of his anatomy, that, luckily for him, was focused on the important things in life.

“Then what?” Vince looked up at him through eyelashes, hair curling across cheeks, lips parted slightly, and Howard realised that there were other ways of communicating besides words. He took two steps forward, tripped over the champagne bottle, and rather than giving Vince a chaste kiss on the cheek, was propelled forward into pinning him down on the bed and making their private parts collide in an immensely personal way.

Vince struggled to focus at such proximity, but eventually managed to find Howard’s lips and gave them the attention they deserved. For several long minutes.

Eventually the more rational parts of Howard’s brain (the ones not pickled in finest quality Dom Perignon) reminded him of the need for oxygen in a healthy functioning body, and he sat up slowly, one hand reassuring on Vince’s arm.

“Stay here,” he said commandingly, and Vince shivered. “I’ll be back in a bit.” He got up and headed for the door, coming back briefly to say, “You’re going to love this.”

Vince settled back in the pillows and waited.

Howard headed straight for the bathroom cabinet, throwing the doors wide, making one of them bounce back off the wall and clunk him painfully on the wrist. He opened them a little more gently, took in the amazing and mind-boggling sights contained therein, and swept items into his arms at random. Howard had never heard the words ‘cock ring’ or ‘butt plug’ and wasn’t to know he was carrying armfuls of them at that particular moment in time.

Shedding hardcore fetish gear along the way, he returned to the bedroom, the vicious-looking whip held safely in his teeth.

“Ta da!” he said, or rather “Abaa!”

There was the soft sound of snoring from the bed. Howard dumped his armful of marital aids onto the minibar (where they would freak the shit out of the Vietnamese chambermaid the next day) and clambered onto the bed.

Vince was shirtless, resplendent, and unconscious. He lay back on the pillows, rose petals scattered about him hither and thus, head thrown back and arm cocked at an angle across his belly.

Howard shook him by the shoulder a little, but he was out cold. He curled up next to him, chin resting on his arm. Well, he thought to himself. This is still good, isn’t it?

A certain portion of his anatomy, very wide-awake for the late hour of the evening, complained bitterly.

A certain portion of his brain devoted to the heart-eight time signature and Rhapsody in Blue pointed out that there was no music at all, let alone anything by Charlie Parker.

But the rest of him just peered across at Vince, listened to him sleeping, watched his chest rise and fall, and thought: lucky bastard that I am.

~fin~

Maestro
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