A Journey Through Time and Space

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The Boosh is on the verge of breaking up for good, but an unexpected and impossible journey to the Zooniverse may teach Julian and Noel how to better appreciate their creations.

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Chapter 2

Contents

Chapter 2

What do you think of this?

Julian strummed out a few chords on the guitar, his fingers nimbly working the strings into a faint vibrato. Listening, Noel pinched the joint between his fingers and took a few jerky puffs off it, then carefully stubbed the roach out in the ashtray. He stared up at the ceiling, finding shapes in the wavering plaster that seemed to match the tune Julian was pulling out of the smoky air. The notes were good, he thought, but they seemed to be in want of something. Another instrument to sing along with them, maybe.

It sounds lonely.

Julian just laughed. Softly, under his breath. It was supposed to sound lonely, he said. The title was Isolation.

Yeah, but you’re not, are you?

Instead of answering, he continued playing the guitar. Noel turned his head and saw that Julian had his eyes closed, his head tipped over so that his hair fell over his face, putting his features in shadow. When he finally spoke, his words came beneath the rise and fall of the music. Don’t be an idiot, he said. Everyone’s lonely. That’s what life’s all about, finding a way to fight off the loneliness until everything finally ends.

You’re fucking maudlin sometimes, you know that?

Another laugh. Julian said he supposed Noel was never lonely. Then he put the guitar aside and they were left together in the shared silence.

Julian was wrong, of course. And a part of him knew it.

The sun had finally forced its way through the clouds, drying out the puddles that birds were busily bathing themselves in, shaking their wings and chirping mindlessly, as if nothing were amiss. Of course, to them nothing was amiss, except for the two zookeepers who looked curiously out of place as they slunk out of their hut, blinking like two snails who’d never before ventured out of their shell. Snails don’t exactly blink, of course, and they look appropriately odd when they try. The same could be said of the zookeepers, who apart from their hesitant behaviour looked the same as ever: one bright and bedecked in glittery plumage, the other rumpled and dressed to match a dung heap. The birds themselves were vividly purple in colour and sounded quite like no bird Julian had ever heard before. He glared at them, so stupid and happy. So perfectly content to be as they were.

“What’s wrong?” Noel asked, and Julian felt him briefly clutch at the back of his jacket.

“Nothing.” Julian forced himself to look away from the birds, which meant he had no choice but to look at the rest of the Zooniverse. It was bigger than he’d imagined. Bigger than the ten by ten metre set, certainly, but more contained than a real zoo. The labyrinthine path they were on wound past various animal enclosures, then disappeared into a stand of trees right where the beverage station had once been. Julian thought absently that he could have done with a coffee right now. An Irish one, heavy on the Irish. He felt, rather than saw, Noel budge up next to him, keeping close as if Julian might spin away into unknown orbits.

“Do those birds look purple to you?”

“Yes,” Julian said in a distant way, concentrating on trying to figure out where Naboo’s kiosk would be in this three-dimensional version of zoo hell. “Don’t look at them.”

“Aw, why not? They’re sort of cute, splashin’ about like that.”

“Fine. Shall we find some bread and feed them the crumbs? Want to throw sardines to the otters, while we’re at it?”

Noel drew away, faintly hurt. “Don’t have to bite my head off.”

Julian sighed. “Sorry. I just don’t think you should get caught up in things just now.”

“Things? What things?”

“Well, just look around,” Julian said, gesturing at the festive purple birds, then toward an enclosure where two lemurs sat on a tree branch, grooming each other in a decidedly adorable fashion. “It’s all strange and beautiful. You know, an awful lot like you. I can just see you gettin’ blinded by the shiny and deciding you’d like to settle down here for a while.”

Julian expected a protesting outburst from Noel, but his friend was curiously silent. Silent because he had wandered away from Julian and was sniffing a large, decorous blossom that bloomed almost obscenely from one of the shrubs that lined the path, inhaling with an expression of bliss on his face that suggested he’d never smelled anything so divine in his life.

“What’re you doing?” Julian demanded, pulling Noel away from the shrub.

“God, smell that thing. It’s exactly like candy floss! I want to have a taste.” Noel reached out to pluck the blossom from the shrub, his eyes wide and glazed over with child-like gluttony.

“Stop that!” Julian slapped Noel’s hand away. “Didn’t you ever read about Persephone and the pomegranate seeds?”

Noel rubbed his hand, a perplexed puppy who’d just been swatted with the evening news. “Is that the bloke who drowned in his own reflection?”

“No!” Julian frowned. There was something familiar about this conversation.

Noel shrugged. “I don’t really read that old-timey rubbish.”

“Well what about the Wizard of Oz? I know you’ve seen that. Don’t you remember the poppy fields?” Julian skipped in place a few times in an eerily inspired imitation of a Kansas farm girl. “Dorothy and her mates nance through the poppies, and they smell so sweet they forget about seeing the wizard and decide to just lay down and sleep for a while.”

Noel smirked at the sight of Julian skipping, mix of clumsiness and charm that it was. “We’re not off to see a wizard though, are we? So your comparison hardly applies. Plus, they were completely high. Poppies, you know.”

“We’re off to see a shaman, though. They’re in the same subset.”

Noel worried at his lower lip. “Naboo, right. Maybe I should stay here and smell the flowers?”

Julian just shook his head, saying nothing because he knew Noel well enough to know when he was stalling.

Sighing, Noel adjusted his cowboy hat yet again, the band of his eyes suddenly shadowed and unreadable. “All right. So where’s he at, then?”

“Should be along this way.” Julian tugged at the crook of Noel’s arm once, then rounded the lemurs’ enclosure, heading for the open area where he approximated Naboo’s kiosk to be. And so it was, the camel’s shutters closed and marked with a sign that read Shaman Off-Duty: Please Visit During Regular Zoo Hours.

Noel looked at his bare wrist, as if studying an invisible watch. “Guess the zoo’s not open yet. Maybe we’d best leave off.”

Julian gave Noel a sharp look. “Why?”

“He could be sleeping.” Noel shrugged in an unconvincing way.

Julian lifted a finger. “Just stay back there. It’ll be fine.” Then he approached the door to the kiosk and knocked rather gingerly, aware that he too was anxious at the prospect of facing down the man who should be Mike… but wasn’t.

There was no answer for a moment, and both Julian and Noel stood frozen to the spot, poised as if ready to run at the slightest provocation. Julian had a brief, wild moment where he wondered what would happen if whoever answered the door wasn’t Naboo—maybe it would be someone they had never even imagined, in all their late night writing sessions where they’d clumsily invented others like Saboo and Tony Harrison. Suddenly, the thought of Naboo not being at the door seemed much scarier than anything else.

Then the door opened, and no one was there.

But Julian, accustomed to having towered over Mike for years, automatically looked down. And there he was, outfitted in a midnight blue dressing gown that precisely matched the shade of his turban, a cup of tea situated between his tiny hands.

“Heyyy. Naboo,” Julian said slowly. The name was like a new flavour in his mouth, despite having said it many times before.

Naboo yawned and leaned against the doorframe. “What do you want?”

Julian twitched. “It’s me, Howard.”

“I know that.” Naboo peered around Julian and studied Noel without expression. “What have you two done now?”

“Nothin’!” Noel squeaked, unable to stop himself from speaking up. “We’re… hey! All right, Naboo! How’s your morning so far?”

Naboo blew placidly on his tea. “Interrupted?”

“Yeah,” Julian said, clearing his throat unnecessarily. “Could we have a word? Vince and me, that is.”

“I suppose. Wipe your feet off.” Naboo turned around and disappeared into the kiosk, leaving Julian and Noel to stamp their wet feet against the mat and wordlessly grasp at the others’ arms before entering, buffeting the little bit of strength between them. The room itself was dimly lit and smelled faintly of hashish, and when Julian pushed through curtain of hanging beads he stopped short in his tracks, his mouth falling open in surprise.

“What’s this?” Julian said abruptly, looking around. The room wasn’t at all like he remembered. Instead, it was a lot more like the series two flat that Vince and Julian had shared with Naboo and Bollo. There was the black and white sofa in the middle of the room, and the bar that was shaped like a ship set up in the corner. Psychedelic wallpaper beamed down at them from the walls, and the coffee table in front of the sofa was crowded with black magic tomes and a large crystal ball that swirled with subtle colours.

“Hey! Why’s it look like—” Noel broke off, having received a sharp nudge in the ribs from Julian.

“Look like what?” Naboo plumped the cushions on the sofa, moving his cumbersome hookah aside and taking a seat, almost vanishing into the cushions as he did so.

“Like… bigger,” Noel said, his voice audibly quivering.

Naboo looked around in a considering way. “Smoke,” he said, simply. “It widens all the pathways.”

“External paths as well as internal ones, eh Naboo?” Julian said, chuckling rather stupidly. God, he hated the way he sounded in here. His voices, his words… they were so Howard. As for the change in Naboo’s living space, it made an odd sort of sense, he supposed. Series two bleeding into series one, the Zooniverse expanding to include particular extensions of itself. Hell, Bollo was probably asleep in the bedroom, sleeping off last night’s deejay gig. Julian hoped to hell he stayed back there. He didn’t think he could cope with a real live talking ape.

Naboo crossed his legs, unconcerned. “You wanted a word?”

“Yeah!” Noel said, his voice a shade too bright. He crossed the room and sat down next to Naboo, rubbing his knees. “You know how it goes. We’ve got ourselves into a bit of a situation and when wonderin’ who could in the Zooniverse sort it out, we thought ‘Naboo, that’s who!’”

“I knew you two must have done something,” Naboo said, frowning.

“No, Sir,” Julian said, raising up his hands. “Something’s been done to us, if you must know.”

“Like what?”

“We’ve been…” Noel trailed off uncertainly, catching Julian’s eye. “Messed about with.”

“That’s nothing new,” Naboo said, staring into his tea. “You’ve suffered unnatural vanity your whole life, and Howard has an inferiority complex that he tries to compensate for in ways that make him come off a fool.”

“I have not!” Noel said, looking offended.

“I do not!” Julian said, at precisely the same moment.

Naboo looked back and forth between them. “I see.”

“Look,” Julian began, pulling up a chair and wishing desperately that he and Noel had planned this out a bit before hand. “We can’t really tell you how we’ve gone wrong. But trust me, we have.”

Naboo looked as if he’d just been asked to swallow a lemon whole. “Trust you?”

“Yes,” Noel said solemnly.

The shaman who was not Mike bent over slightly, his shoulders shaking in what Julian first took to be a strange shaman’s ritual, but soon realised was a supressed laugh. Julian sighed and slumped over in his chair. This was not going well, and unfortunately, staring at his lap had yet to yeild any answers this morning.

“Mike… Mike?”

Julian yanked his head back up. Noel had dropped on his knees in front of Naboo and was looking closely at the shaman, as if trying to catch a glimpse of his brother through that very real curtain of black hair. His face had a dreadful beseeching quality to it, his blue eyes as luminous as a kicked kitten’s. Julian wanted to stop Noel, to pull him away and save him from what was sure to be a heartbreaking sort of realisation, but he couldn’t. Noel was already clutching at Naboo’s hands, his face twisted up as he pleaded with the man he thought was his brother. “You have to help us, Mike. We’ve got to figure out a way to get back. You know me, right? You know who I am.”

Naboo only stared, appearing vaguely horrified as he tried to politely withdraw himself from Noel’s clutches.

“You know me,” Noel repeated, his voice going higher, into the upper registers of hysteria. “I’m your brother! Stop that…” Noel yanked Mike’s hands back into his own. “It’s your brother, Noel. I know that you know me!”

“Noel.” Julian rose to his feet and tried to gently pull his friend away.

“Fuck off!” Noel said, giving Julian’s knees a useless shove. He came to his feet and stalked away, leaning against the kitchen counter and breathing hard. “Fuck! Fuck this!” he said, slamming the flat of his hand against a cabinet, the noise very loud and somehow misplaced in the otherwise serene atmosphere of the room.

Naboo, to his credit, didn’t look half as disturbed by this scene as either Julian or Noel did. “I can’t be your brother,” he said, picking up his tea again. “We look nothing alike. Plus, I’m from another planet.”

“He knows that,” Julian said quickly, taking Noel’s empty seat on the sofa. “But as you can see, he’s gone wrong—”

“—Fuck you, Julian!” Noel threw in, his back still turned as he braced himself against the counter.

Julian gritted his teeth and forced himself to continue. “He’s gone wrong, like I said. And so have I.”

Naboo pursed his lips very slightly. “You think I’m your brother, too? Because that’s even less likely. I’m a swift and silent puma to your awkward Russian bear.”

Still facing the cabinet he had so recently assaulted, Noel made a strained noise. Julian wasn’t surprised. It was Noel who had always compared Mike to a puma.

“No, no… not that.” Julian fiddled with the collar of his jacket. “I’m not Howard, all right? And he’s not Vince. I know we look like them, but we’re actually different people.”

Naboo was silent for a long moment, managing to look at Julian while seeming as if he actually wasn’t. “No,” he finally said. “You’re Howard.”

Julian’s hands unconsciously drifted up to his face at these words, his fingers rubbing at his temples. He didn’t know how to respond to Naboo’s accusation, and it almost seemed absurd to insist otherwise, at this point. He thought of the wizard behind the curtain. He thought of how the wizard, in the end, was just a man, weak-kneed and lined with age, if not wisdom. Someone just as likely to belch, fart, and act a right tit at a funeral. But everyone had believed in the light and magic he had projected from the safety of his hiding place, in the voice that filled the air with the authority of a sonic boom. Who was to say that believing wasn’t the same as being? Give a lion a trinket-like medal, and suddenly he’s brave. Give the tin-man a plastic heart and listen to it beat like a little soldier.

Noel finally turned around. “And what about me?”

Naboo gave Noel brief appraisal, eyeing his cowboy hat and fuchsia tee. “You’re definitely Vince. Bit moodier than usual.”

“But… no,” Noel said, his voice small now, more helpless than angry.

“Waking me up first thing in the morning expecting me to sort out your troubles isn’t the best way to convince me you’re not you,” Naboo said.

It was a maddeningly good point. One that sent Julian grasping into the furthest reaches of his brains for a new approach to this situation. Telling the truth was getting them nowhere. Well then, how about a stretch of the truth? This world was, after all, built upon fictions—a tenuous foundation that seemed as solid as glitter.

“Look, Naboo, you’re a shaman,” Julian began, rather carefully. “Do you believe in things like pluralistic universes? Or traveling through different dimensions?”

Naboo shrugged. “Depends.”

“Okay.” Julian leaned forward, encouraged. “You’re right, we are Howard and Vince—”

“Wot!?”

Julian raised a hand, quieting Noel down. “But we’re a version of Howard and Vince that exists in a universe very different from this one.”

“Go on,” Naboo said, cocking his head to the side ever so slightly.

“In our universe, we don’t live as zookeepers. We’re more like entertainers.”

Naboo smirked. “I’ve seen your idea of entertaining. Dressing up like a pedao and slapping a bass, then waking up in a puddle of your own sick.”

“Yes, well,” Julian faked an unconvincing laugh. “In our universe, we’re respected entertainers. Well, sort of. Anyway, we’re not zookeepers, all right?”

“You’re not very good zookeepers in this universe, either.”

Noel stepped forward. “So you believe we’re from another universe?”

Naboo studied them in that unnervingly subtle way he had. “I believe you believe you’re from another universe.”

“Yeah, but do you really believe we believe we’re from another universe?” Noel asked, setting himself down on the arm of the sofa.

“I suppose.” The shaman was beginning to look bored.

“Well? Are you going to help us, then?” Julian demanded.

“Help you to what?” Naboo was now sending longing glances in the direction of his hookah.

“To get back to our universe,” Julian said, struggling for patience.

“I don’t know. Have you got an amulet or something I can use?”

Noel sighed. “Ju, this is useless. Let’s go back to the hut and think of something else.”

“What else is there?” Julian snapped. Then he addressed Naboo directly. “Look, you turbaned twat. If you can’t cook up a spell or blow some dust or do something of use, then what good are you?”

Noel gave Julian’s shoulder a rough shove, wrenching it good in the process. “Don’t talk to him like that!”

“It’s fine,” Naboo said, calm. Then he locked eyes with Noel. “I’m really not your brother, you know.”

Noel paused in his grappling with Julian’s shoulder. “Then… who are you?”

“I’m the Shaman.”

There was a very long silence then, and the air seemed to grow thicker, somehow, as if it were being opposed and was now on the verge of shuddering apart. Julian let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding, and heard Noel do the same. Noel’s hand on his shoulder had a light touch now, the thumb tracing thoughtful circles against the worn seam of his sleeve.

“Right. Noel, let’s go.” Julian shook his head, as if to clear it, then rose to his feet. Noel did as he was told, turning to give Naboo one last glance, then shuffling to the door and to Julian’s side at the kiosk door. “We did it wrong,” Julian said to him, just under his breath.

“I know,” Noel whispered.

Because as tenuous as the foundation was, as likely as it was to blow apart like a wayward puff of glitter, the Zooniverse had its own special order and logic. And it was an order they had invented. Howard and Vince rarely went to the shaman first, they only ever went where the script took them—but Noel and Julian, so used to treading their own path, so used to improvising, had gone against that order and had hit a small, turbaned shaman head-on. Now there was nothing left to do but back-track.

Naboo watched their back-tracking, retreating backs with mild interest. Then he drained his cup of tea and glanced casually at the dregs left in the bottom.

Howard and Vince are in danger.

Naboo lifted his eyebrows. Well, wasn’t that interesting.

Then he yawned and reached for his hookah.

Vince brushed his lips against yet another warm, downy cheek, getting a nose full of hair that was scented with cigarette smoke and lemony shampoo. He felt hands brush against the small of his back and his shoulders, as if seeking to stake a claim on the parts of his body he might not mind sharing. A nervous giggle sounded near his ear. a strange, single note that tickled and set the hairs on the back of his neck at attention. “Thanks so much,” the giggler said, and Vince jerked his head up, studying a flushed Howard with slightly narrowed eyes.

The giggler had collected her kiss from Vince and flitted over to Howard like flower-hopping bumblebee, calling his name and throwing her arms around Howard for a stiff, awkward hug. Stiff and awkward on Howard’s end, that is, who looked as if he were being put upon by some strange new species of squirrel—something that looked fun to pet but might be crawling with god knows what kind of disease. The hug went on and on, and as he endured it, Howard seemed to lose some of his flush. A small smile inched across his face, and he lifted a hand and gave the giggler’s lemony-scented hair an affectionate pat. This prompted a visible shudder of delight from the giggler, which in turn prompted a disconcerted frown from Vince.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

Vince had tried at least ten doors by now, and every last one of them was locked. “Private Padlocks, Private Padlocks…” he muttered, then called out over his shoulder to Howard. “They’re all locked over here!” He heard Howard sigh in frustration from his end of the hallway, and took a stab at another doorknob, only to have it rattle uselessly in his hand. Rubbing his chin in concentration, Vince noticed that a brass number, 404, was posted on the door, and that the one directly adjacent read 405. Chasing an inkling of an idea, he dipped into his pockets and pulled out a key ring. The fob on it read 414. He studied it, not entirely sure of its significance, and looked up only when he heard a quiet ding behind him.

It was the lift opening up. A maid came out from it, pushing a trolley stacked with white linens and bottles of disinfectant. She gave Vince a quick glance, then dutifully averted her eyes, pushing the rattling trolley past him.

Vince hurried over to Howard’s side. “See her?” he asked, pointing at the retreating maid. “And then there’s this.” He held up the key. “Reckon this is a hotel?”

Howard looked up and down the hallway, his eyes passing over the identical doors with their brass numbers. “Of course,” he breathed. “Of course it’s a hotel!”

“I figured it out,” Vince said smugly, twirling the key ring around his index finger.

“Congratulations on figuring out the obvious, little man.” Howard snatched the keys from Vince’s finger and shoved them into his own pocket, stalking towards the lift.

“Well, you didn’t.”

“Do you mind?” Howard pushed the ‘down’ button on the lift. “I was giving you a chance to use you atrophied puzzle-solving faculties.”

Vince laughed. “Right. ‘What building are we inside today, kiddies? Is it a school? A Tescos? Ah, but no! It’s a hotel. Free smarties for all!”

Howard pointed at Vince in warning. “I’m not giving you any smarties, smarty.”

Vince was still smirking when the lift opened. Internally, however, a very very secret part of him thought it odd that they had spent fifteen minutes in a hotel hallway without realising it. He’d been in millions of hotels before, after all. All around the world, no less! But try as he might, he couldn’t remember the details of any of them. It was more like someone had told him he’d been inside millions of hotels, and that he’d never set foot in one in all his life.

In the end, though, Vince wasn’t too worried about it. He’d never set foot in these purple boots before, either, but they still fit like a dream. Plus the lift was completely mirrored on the inside, and like a magnet he drew close to the surface of one and tousled his already perfectly tousled hair, flicking invisible lint from his shoulders. He could see Julian watching him over his shoulder and pulled an exaggerated kissy-face in response, cheeks sucked in like a supermodel’s.

“Yeah, yeah,” Howard grumbled as the doors opened. “Come on now, peachy puss.”

The hotel lobby was quiet but for the patter of hard-soled shoes on the parquet floor, all of them belonging to the hotel staff. “ Vince’s own boyish gait drew their passing glances, while Howard’s brooding shuffle sent their eyes hurrying back to the tasks set out before them. Looking through the heavy, leaded glass of the front doors, Vince paused rather than bustling though thoughtlessly, as was his usual style. Outside, the street was dominated by double-sized busses and mini-cabs—more vehicles than Vince had ever seen in one place at one time. An older woman’s teacup poodle paused on its lead to delicately defecate on a strip of grass and Vince blanched at the sight, making a mental note to steer clear of its target. “Ready?” he asked.

“Howard Moon is always at the ready,” Howard said lightly, but he was peering through the glass just as intently as Vince.

They pushed through the door together, and Vince reeled back at once as sunshine hit him full in the face. The sky was enormous, studded with a patchwork of clouds that towered upwards, into the ether. “Lord,” he murmured, wishing he had a pair of sunglasses on him. Or a shady cowboy hat, at the very least. A bus whizzed by, the sign on the side advertising LONDON’S NUMBER ONE… then turning a corner before he could finish reading. London, then. A monochromatic and untidy assemblage of brick and stone that didn’t at all jibe with his noir-ish and organised personal vision of the place.

“So,” Howard said, wincing a bit in the daylight. “Where are we going?”

“You said we were going away.”

“We are. It’s your job to narrow things down. To zero in on a specific destination.”

“My job? Why is that my job?”

“Because that’s how it works,” Howard said, as if all should be obvious. “I get us going. I’m the instigator, the motivator. You’re the one who wants to ‘hit the shops’.”

“And you’re volunteering to hit the shops with me?” Vince smiled, though it was laced with scepticism. “Don’t you want to run off on your own, have a sit down in some dreary jazz club with all the other cardigan-wearing nonces?”

Howard paused. “Yesss,” he said, slowly. “If I knew where one was.”

“I see.” Vince tipped back on his heels. “You don’t know crap about London, so you’re tagging along with me like a grumpy saint bernard.”

“I do too know crap about London! I know all about crap. I lived here, you tit. With you.”

“Hey, where do you suppose the old flat is from here?” Vince looked up and down the street, recognising absolutely nothing.

“Dunno. Round the corner, maybe?”

“Hmm. Maybe. Can’t be far, anyway. Let’s have a look.”

They took off to the right, their steps as uncertain as those of elderly American tourists. A man in a track suit bumped into them, throwing a dirty look over his shoulder. A fly buzzed in circles around their heads, as persistent as the confusion they were both trying desperately to hide. Oi! someone yelled, and Vince jumped, unconsciously latching on to Howard’s belt.

“Wait!” the voice came again, and Vince turned around to see six or so bedraggled individuals clambering out from a bus shelter, looking quite as if they’d all spent the night there. “Noel! Julian!” A girl with bright purple streaks in her fringe was leading the pack, her eye make-up smeary. “Hi,” she said, seeming rather breathless as she and her friends caught up to Vince and Howard. “Sorry to spring out like that… we were just…” she paused, giggling in a sheepish way. “We waited for you to come back to the club but you never showed. And I… well, we were wondering if you would sign a few things?”

“Autographs?” Vince said, blinking in astonishment.

“Yeah. If you don’t mind?”

A smile broke out over Vince’s features—fast, as if a switch had been thrown. He was finally on familiar territory. “Course I don’t mind!” he chirped, literally feeling Howard trying to shrink into the background as he did so. “Got a biro on you?”

The girl nodded, and the entire group began to rummage through their bags and pockets, fetching out biros and scraps of paper, speaking in excited undertones amongst one another. “Here,” the girl with the purple fringe offered Vince a thick marker and a pub napkin.

Vince addressed Howard, who was staring at the ground with his hands shoved in his pockets, and made a swiveling motion with his finger. “Turn round, I need a writing surface.” Howard gave Vince a poisonous look but pivoted around and allowed Vince to slap the pup napkin against his back. The crowd tittered at this, and Vince wrote out, in painstakingly neat letters, To the lovely ladie with the purple fringe.—Vince Noir xxx. He then passed the napkin back to the girl with a flourish, who stared at it with a uncertain sort of smile on her face.

“Oh! You signed it as Vince!” She finally said, then giggled as if this were a very clever and unexpected move on Vince’s part.

“‘Course!” Vince dipped forward and kissed the girl’s cheek. Her hair smelled of faintly cigarette smoke and lemony shampoo. “Anyone else?” he offered, opening his arms wide to the small group. A boy stepped forward, probably still deep in teenage-hood, if the unfortunate acne on his chin was any indication. His hair stood up in stiff peaks and he wore a white jumpsuit with odd suspenders and a polo-studded cod-piece. “Hey! I used to have an outfit like that,” Vince said, pointing. “Did you join up with Kraftwerk Orange?”

The boy looked stunned, then burst out laughing. “Yeah. I’m their new frontman. A real shape-puller.”

“Oh.” Vince drew back slightly, watching as the boy did a poor imitation of shape-pulling, looking as if he were aiming for the front grill of a lorry but ending up more like a rotisserie, instead. “Well, watch out for Neon and Ultra,” he finally said. “They’ll not hesitate to cut a bitch.”

Now the whole group laughed, nudging each other in disbelief and amusement.

“Just sign my suit,” the boy suggested, pivoting around. Vince hesitated—marking up perfectly good clothing wasn’t his style—then finally scrawled To the so-called shape-puller, watch out for those crazie birds—Vince Noir xxx. Then he capped the marker and looked up expectantly at the others, noticing that purple fringe was now holding out her pub napkin to Howard, who was staring at it as if he wasn’t sure whether he should wipe his nose on it, or what.

“Please?” she said, smiling sweetly.

“Wh—what?” Howard stammered, looking wildly at Vince for direction.

Vince furrowed his brow, equally or perhaps even more confused than Howard himself. “I think she wants you to sign it,” he finally said, rather flatly.

“Oh.” Howard gingerly took the napkin from the girl’s hand and she pivoted around, offering up her back. Someone handed Howard a biro, and he held it over the napkin with a shaking hand, then finally wrote Howard T.J. Moon. He bit the end of the biro, as if toiling over what to write next. Listen to Jazz he wrote, finishing with a self-satisfied smile.

“Wot? You don’t give rubbish musical advice to your fans, you maniac,” Vince tutted, having watched the whole exchange very closely.

Purple fringe, however, seemed utterly pleased by what Howard had written. She chuckled with obvious mirth, then opened her arms, quite clearly expecting a hug.

Vince turned away. He could see the rest of it in his head, though: Howard’s initial hesitation, followed by the smile that would emerge along with long-sought validation when he felt the girl’s sun-warmed arms come around him. All the merriment of this experience was fast dissolving into something far less pleasant for Vince, and he wondered, briefly, if he had always been dreading this moment. But he knew in his heart that he had not. Because he had never imagined that such a moment would happen, ever. “All right,” he said moodily, pointing with his marker at a short girl in a green cowboy hat. “Want me to sign something?”

“Yes, please,” the girl said, her voice quavering as she held out a slick, white book. Not only was she wearing a green cowboy hat, but her tee-shirt was of the same colour, printed with silver, zig-zaggy lightning motif that Vince found vaguely familiar. She wasn’t smiling and laughing, like the others, but wore a very grave expression as she bobbed up to Vince’s side. “I… I saw your gig eight times. Last night’s was the best. I’m just sorry that it’s all over now.”

Vince was cheered immensely by these words. He looked over his shoulder at Howard. “Hear that? She liked our gig!”

“She did?” Howard squeaked, pausing in mid-scrawl on the shoulder of the shape-puller’s white jumpsuit. “What gig?” he mouthed at Vince.

Vince shrugged, then turned back to the girl. “What’s your name, love?” He asked, taking the book from her hands. It was thin and over-sized, its cover scrawled with chaotic doodles, arcane as a child’s scribblings. “Cool,” he said approvingly.

“The future Mrs. Fielding,” the girl said, then giggled shrilly and clapped her hands over her mouth, rent sombre once more by her own unexpected outburst.

“Mrs. Fielding, is it?” Vince opened the book, looking for a nice spot to leave his mark. The pages were crowded with drawings and photographs, all of them brightly coloured and appealing at once to Vince’s aesthetic eye. He studied them casually, then felt a weird knot turn in his belly when he actually saw what the photographs were of. And it was far different than the knot of jealousy he’d felt worm around at the sight of Howard getting hugs from a groupie. “Hey!” He exclaimed, holding the book up and pointing. “That’s me! And Howard, in his huge headphones.”

“Sign it,” the girl suggested, and Vince saw for the first time that there was something hungry and wanting in her eyes. “To the future Mrs. Fielding, from Mr. Fielding,” she added, licking her lips.

“Right,” Vince said through his teeth. But he continued to flip through the book instead, the knot twisting tighter and tighter as images of Howard and himself went past, all of them blurring together until he couldn’t distinguish between them. “Do you have something else I could sign?” he finally asked, his voice gone dry and sandy.

“No. I want you to sign that,” the girl said, touching his wrist.

Howard came to Vince’s side. “What’s wrong, little man. Forget how to spell your own name?” he laughed at his joke, cheerful at having been asked to sign autographs for the first time in his life. But the laugh died in his throat when he saw what Vince was looking at: a full page spread featuring that green cockney nutjob who had, once upon a time, tried to feed them to a zoo of deranged, ill-behaved animals. “Vince,” he said, very carefully. “I think we better be scootin’.”

Vince looked at Howard through glazed vision. “I don’t like this. I don’t understand any of it.”

Howard’s hand came down on his shoulder, heavy and re-assuring despite the fact that his eyes were darting around in his sockets like pinballs, as they often did when he was nervous. “Just give her back her book, Vince, and we’ll be on our way.”

Listlessly, with fingers that didn’t seem to want to work right, Vince tried to hand the book back to the girl in the cowboy hat. She shook her head, pushing it back into his grasp. “You didn’t sign it yet.”

“I have to go,” Vince said meekly.

“You have to sign it!” The girl said, pushing the book against Vince’s chest.

“I really should…”

“The tour’s over, this is my last chance! And I’ve stayed out all night and my parents are gonna go spare. Noel, please!” she begged, the last word ending on a desperate sob.

“Don’t call me that!” Vince said, clutching her book in his arms and scrambling around Howard to hide in the safety of his height. But the girl only followed, letting out a crazed shriek and jumping onto Vince’s back. “Owwww, leggo, you flamin’ bobcat!” The girl had her fingers in his hair and was tugging hard, as if intent on getting her souvenir at any price. It hurt dreadfully, and tears sprang at once into Vince’s eyes in response to the ripping pressure.

“Leave him be!” Howard shouted, thwaping the girl’s cowboy hat. Unfortunately, his blow go her in the back of the head, too, and she reeled away with a yelp, nearly falling down onto the pavement. Then she began cry: loud, infantile yowls that attracted the curious looks of passersby. Howard stared at his own hand in amazement, having never known it to be capable of such prowess.

“Joanne!” The purple-fringe girl shouted, coming quickly to her sobbing friend’s aid and drawing her into a protective embrace. “What the fuck is your problem?” she demanded, glaring at Howard through her matted, glittery eyelashes.

“My problem?” Howard countered. “My problem is that your friend pulled my mate’s hair,” he said, wrapping an arm around Vince. “No one touches this man’s hair, madam. Not while Howard Moon is around.”

The group took in these words with shocked silence, a few of them shuffling back warily, as if fearing that Howard might come at them with his fist as well.

“You’re not Howard Moon, you’re just a dick. And you’re old, too,” the jumpsuited boy finally offered, standing back with his silently shocked friends.

“How dare you.” Howard drew up to his full, noble height. “See if I ever sellotape a bassoon to my head for your enjoyment again.”

“Howard, come on,” Vince said, pulling at his elbow. “People are starting to stare. There’s a mini-cab… let’s go.”

“Good idea,” Howard muttered, clutching at Vince as they both hurried towards the mini-cab sat idling in traffic.

“Just you wait!” one of the girls shouted. “This will all be on the internet within hours!”

“So’s your Mum!” Howard yelled, making a rude gesture that ignited a flurry of obscenities from their former fans.

“Howard, get in!” Vince tugged Howard into the cab.

“Where to?” The driver asked, speaking around a mouthful of panini.

“Um… “ Vince tried to think. They’d been heading for their old flat, but the exact address—like so many other things—had escaped his memory. “Top Shop,” he finally said. It was the first place that had popped into his mind.

“Oxford Street?”

“Yeah, whatever. Just go!” Howard demanded, pounding on the glass divider. “That was awful,” he said to Vince, staring in wonderment at the hand that had delivered a blow to the girl in the cowboy hat.

“I’ll say,” Vince said, staring hard out the window. “Seeing you giving out autographs… recommending jazz, no less.”

“What’s that you said?” Howard demanded, his lips pressing into a thin line.

Vince glowered quietly. “Nothing.”

“I save you from being hair-raped by a… a miniature, female version of you, and this is the thanks I get?”

“You think my hair can’t take a raping?” Vince reached up and massaged his scalp. “Well, maybe it can’t. So… thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Howard flopped back into the seat, disgruntled.

The next several minutes passed in silence. It was, in fact, the longest bit of silence that had ever fallen between them, and it budged in between them like a pink elephant, stinking up the place. Vince concentrated on the scenery as it flew by. Buildings and more buildings, none of them strung together in a way that made an ounce of sense. It slowly occurred to him that he was still holding the hair-rapist’s book, that the slick pages were clutched between his fingers, creasing from the strength of his grip.

Without really wanting to, he flipped the book open.

Beside him, he felt Howard shift, and he knew that his friend was looking, too.

It was all so familiar it made his head go topsy-turvy. Drawing upon drawing, scribbled in what he could swear was his own hand. Charlie… Tommy Nooka… even that stupid green bloke with the thumb like an obscene cuke. Near the end of the book—which was short, though not nearly short enough—he opened up to a full-page colour photograph of a man-thing with garishly red lips and a very organic-looking head of hair. Howard made a small noise in the back of his throat and muttered something like “Old Gregg.” Vince turned to the last page, where a polaroid snapshot was featured, scrawled with their names: Vince & Howard.

“Have you ever seen any of this before?” He finally asked.

“I saw it when all of it happened,” Howard said stiffly. “Never saw photos and art of it before. Not sure I want to know what sort of deranged person would put it all together into a book.”

“That girl in the cowboy hat made it, I guess,” Vince said, tucking the book under his arm. It was the only sensible explanation.

“Yeah, but how’d she know about that stuff? There’s even a photo of us in those ridiculous nana outfits we wore when Nanatoo was on the loose.”

“My outfit wasn’t ridiculous! It was saucy nana brilliance. Wonder what happened to it…”

“Yeah?” Howard snorted in derision. “I wonder what happened to a lot of things.”

Vince turned, studying Howard’s profile. It was screwed up in concentration, his brows knitted together in that way that gave him the look of someone who didn’t smile nearly enough by half. “What sort of things?”

“Yesterday! What happened to yesterday. I can’t remember anything specific about it, can you?”

Vince opened his mouth to answer, then thought better of it. What good would it do to say Yesterday we were zookeepers… or maybe we were in a band… and I think we might have been working in a shop with Naboo… but wait, maybe we were up in the tundra, looking for a snow leopard. Or was it a precious stone big as a school-boy’s head? He could think of oodles of things that had happened yesterday. He just didn’t know when yesterday was.

“Does it really matter?” he asked, lightly as he could manage. “It’s not yesterday, it’s today. And today we’re going to Top Shop.”

Howard gave him an incredulous look. “Is that all you can say?”

No, but yes. It’s all I can say until I know how to say what I mean to say.

There was a sigh. It was hard to say who it came from.

“Never mind,” Howard said, hasty as you please. “Top Shop. That ought to be good, eh?”

“Oh, it’ll be genius.” Vince smiled at once. “I’m going to stock up on accessories. Hats, belts, wrist-cuffs. Definitely hats. I need something to hide the damage that that crazy wench did to my hair.”

“Aw, did she hurt your hairs?” Howard said in mock-concern. “Are you going into follicle shock?” He reached up and brought his hand near the top of Vince’s hair, not quite touching it, but holding it close as if it were a fire that gave off a special kind of warmth.

“Utter shock. I’m just lucky she didn’t go for the short hairs.”

Howard grinned. “You haven’t got any.”

“That’s cos you used them all in your manky pubic soup.”

“Hey, don’t mock the soup. It’s a delicacy in regions near 90 degree latitude.”

From where he listened in the front seat, the driver put the remains of his panini aside and turned the radio up, drowning them out.

He needs to be touched, sometimes.

It doesn’t take much. Just letting him touch you is enough to get him by. For a while. A barely-there splaying of fingers against your chest, and then the inevitable words: Isn’t that right, Ju?

Stay still. Don’t pull away. This is what he needs.

You don’t need it, or so you tell yourself. You wonder, though. Would your mouth say anything at all if that hand didn’t come against your chest, encouraging the vowels to rise up and show themselves? You speak when it matters. He speaks to keep the air company. Maybe he just wants your words to join his there once and a while.

He needs to be touched now. His body language warns you to stay away: the moody strut of his hips, hands shielded in his pockets, the downward turn of his chin. What’s the distance between you? Less than a metre, physically. But non-physically, even less than that. And that’s why you never need to be touched yourself. Because you know that he’s already there. Lurking in the coils of your mind, grabbing on to your thoughts before you even know that you’ve thought them.

Isn’t that right, Ju?

So why doesn’t he know it, as well?

Whatever happened next, Noel hoped to fuck that Julian wouldn’t touch him. He’d already looked into his brother’s face today, only to see nothing he knew reflected there—just his own eyes, bigger than a bush baby’s as they swam in the inky fathoms of Mike’s pupils. To have Julian act out in a way that wasn’t entirely familiar to Noel now would be the worst possible thing. A stranger for a brother, a stranger for a friend.

He pretended to look through the window into Mr. Roger’s enclosure, idly rubbing at a smear on the glass with the cuff of his sleeve, realising that he was waiting for Julian to speak. It wasn’t entirely fair, was it? To put the burden of silence on his friends shoulders when it was usually he who had a string of words crowding on his tongue, all of them fighting to be the first born.

Noel cleared his throat. “Wow. He really is one ancient snake,” he finally said, going for the obvious. They’d decided to go to the Reptile House after leaving Naboo’s kiosk, figuring that finding the chameleon boudoir was the proper course of action, as dictated by Bob Fossil’s rude orders earlier than morning. The chameleon boudoir wouldn’t lead them back home, Noel supposed, but perhaps it would lead them through whatever string of events the Zooniverse had in store for them. And in following that tangled string, maybe they would find their way out of here. That was the theory, anyway. It wasn’t a very sound one, but neither of them had much else on at the moment.

“Yeah,” Julian offered. “Toothless, too.”

The snake was a limp, near-lifeless thing, snoozing in his slimy water bowl, his saggy mouth flapping with gentle snores. Noel wondered at which point a cobra stopped searching out a narrow escape from his glass cage and simply collapsed into the water for a nap. He thought he heard somewhere that lions never stopped pacing in their cages, not even after years of having lived away from their savannah. Or maybe that was sharks. Sharks never stopped swimming, did they?

“Poor sod,” Noel said, tracing a mindless pattern on the glass with his index finger. “No teeth. Dirty water. He’d be better off anywhere but here.”

“He seems content enough,” Julian said from the far end of the reptile house. Bathed in the gloucous, watery-blue light, he regarded an empty turtle aquarium.

“He doesn’t know any better.” Noel stood upright, compelled to catch up with Julian. Not wanting to be left alone even while they breathed the same air. The reptile house itself was sparsely populated, the cages crawling with more crickets than there were lizards and toads to munch them down. Off to the side of where Julian stood, though, there was a raggedy curtain that looked as if it might have once been a more dignified plush velvet. “What d’ya suppose is through there?” Noel asked, pointing.

“I don’t suppose,” Julian said, rubbing at his chin. “I’d rather leave it alone.”

“Oh, come on. Why?”

“Because. There could be anything behind there. Bad—” he cut off abruptly, making a pained face.

“Ju ju?” Noel offered.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think so. This place can’t even offer up a cobra with real teeth. Can’t even be bothered to outfit him with dentures.”

Julian looked Noel up and down with mild bafflement, as if wondering how he’d ever gotten saddled with such an irrational, ill-behaved creature. It was a look Noel had gotten used to. Sometimes it brought him a perverse pleasure. Sometimes, it brought him the even more perverse hope that Julian would stop him, scold him. Grab on to the scruff of his neck and not let go.

“Fine,” Julian said, too weary to put up a fight this time. “Do what you like. You will anyway.”

Think you’d have learnt it by now, Noel thought, pushing through the curtain without bothering to see if Julian would follow.

The room he entered was cool, dimly lit in a pinkish-red glow that brought European brothels to mind. More curtains were hung over the walls, slightly less tattered than the one he’d just walked through, and the ceiling and floors were printed with whimsical, rococo-styled swirls and curls. An opulent chaise lounge was sat in the middle of the room, studded with silken cushions that, despite looking as if they’d seen better days, were still reasonably plump. Noel took a step into the room and heard something skitter across the floor like light gravel. He squinted, trying to see what it was, and one of the rococo swirls on the floor moved, twitching like a restless tail. Then it came to life and ran over the toe of Noel’s boot. Predictably, he let out a cry of distress.

“It’s a chameleon,” Julian said calmly, having followed Noel through the curtain after all. “They’re everywhere.”

“They are?” Noel looked around wildly, but saw nothing.

Of course we are!

“And look at that,” Julian said, pointing out something that looked like a pile of black rice. “Guano, just like Fossil said.”

“Bat’s shit?” Noel made a face.

Do sweep that up, would you dear?

Noel inched closer to Julian. It was the second time he’d thought he’d heard someone else talking to him, and the way the voice echoed in his mind rather than his ears was giving him a thorough case of the creeps.

“It’s harmless,” Julian said, mistaking Noel’s distress for pure revulsion. “See if you can find a broom or a mop around here. Taking care of the bats in the chameleon boudoir was what Fossil asked of us, so we might as well do it.”

Noel grumbled internally. It was his idea to search out the chameleon boudoir in the first place. Julian was the one who’d said he wasn’t going to do what the “deranged American” asked of him, yet now he was snapping around orders as if it was his plan they were following through on. Noel continued to think ungrateful thoughts as he hunted around the corners of the boudoir, refusing to recognise the more rational voice inside him as it timidly suggested that Julian was just trying to cope, same as he was. Near the back of the room he found some aprons hung on pegs, and a mop, broom, and bucket propped against a rusty sink. He turned the water on full force, steam billowing, and, after a moment’s consideration, pulled an apron on over his zooniform. No use getting smeared up with guano.

“Here.” He hauled the bucket over and plopped it down near Julian’s feet so that hot water sloshed all over his sensible shoes. “You mop, I’ll sweep,” he said brusquely, guiding the broom around the floor hap-hazardly.

Watch yourself. That’s my tail you’re brutalising.

Noel dropped the broom.

“Come on, Noel,” Julian complained. “There’s still more guano over here. And there… and there.”

“Sorry!” Noel hastily picked up the broom. “I’m not givin’ up or nothing. This place just has me a bit jumpy.”

“Why’s that?” Julian asked, his tone suddenly thoughtful as he wrung out the dripping mop. “I actually quite like it. I remember going to the Temple Newsam House about four years ago and looking at their collection of Chippendale furniture… you know how it’s carved with all those shell-like swirls? Made me think of the way chameleons’ tails curl, and I thought if the chameleon boudior were real, it’d be decorated in some wild swirling design that the lizards could just sort of… disappear into.”

There was a wistful note to Julian’s words that caused Noel to pause in his sweeping, wondering what sort of design Julian himself dreamed of disappearing into. “Well, I always thought the room would be all swirly too,” he finally said. “‘Cept I was looking at a display of those giant lollies at the time, the kind that coil round and round like a psychedelic nautilus.”

“Sweets. Your primary inspiration in life.”

“Pretty much. Hey, you reckon anyone other than hippies keep chameleons as pets?”

Hippies! Of all the nerve…

“None of the hippies I know do. They all have rottweilers. Rottweilers with names like China Cat Sunflower and Aoxomoxoa.”

Vince, tell the generic one that American Beauty is the best album by the Dead.

“Ju, I think I’d better have a sit down,” Noel said shakily, dropping himself onto the chaise lounge and letting the broom slide from his grip. Being called “Vince” by the voice was enough to finally drive home the fact that he wasn’t imagining things.

Julian stopped working and leaned against the mop. “Why? We’re almost done.”

“I don’t feel right.”

What’s wrong, Vince?

With those words, Noel looked down and saw that the uncomfortable cushion he was leaning his arm on was in fact a chameleon, purple and bejewelled to match the other satiny cushions that were scattered about the chaise. “What do you want?” he asked, pulling away in alarm.

“A little help might be nice.” Julian sloshed the mop around noisely, frowning in concentration.

You do look a little peaked. The chameleon darted up Noel’s arm and put its scaly claw against his forehead. No fever, though.

Noel went very still, his heartbeat filling his ears as the chameleon looked him over, its eyes rotating around in opposing directions. Julian came closer to the chaise, dragging the mop behind him. “Why is there a cushion sitting on your shoulder?”

I’m not a cushion!

“It’s not a cushion,” Noel said, his voice squeaking. “It’s a chameleon.” As if to prove this, the chameleon changed colours, transforming from a silky purple to a bright, kelly green that matched Noel’s zooniform jacket, complete with a trio of badges on its knobby back.

“Oh. Well, why is there a chameleon on your shoulder? And is it… dressed like you?”

“We’re having a chat.”

Julian sighed. “Why do you insist on muckin’ around, eh? Yeah, I know, Vince can talk to animals. Very charming to pretend you can do the same and all, but I’d like to finish up here, if you don’t mind.”

Noel shifted uneasily, feeling the chameleon coil its tail around his ear—almost affectionately, it seemed. “I’m not pretending. I’ve been hearing them ever since we came in here, all right?”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?!”

“Stop… making stuff up!”

“I’m not!” Noel retorted, balling up his fists in frustration. “Look, I’ll prove it to you. I’ll turn around and you do something behind my back, right? And this here chameleon…”

Jenny, the lizard supplied.

“Right. Jenny will watch and tell me what you’re doing.”

“Jenny?” Julian shook his head in something that looked painfully like disgust. “Are you retarded?”

“Come on! Humour me.”

“As Mowgli wishes,” Julian said, putting the mop aside and crossing his arms over his chest.

Noel shifted around on the chaise until his back was to Julian. “Okay now, do something.” He waited, hearing Julian shuffle around behind him.

He’s got his middle finger up.

Noel smiled a bit. “Jenny says you’re giving me the fuck-off salute.”

“I reckon you could have guessed that one. Doesn’t prove a thing.”

“So do something else,” Noel suggested, beginning to enjoy himself a little. It wasn’t a bad gig, being able to talk to animals, and he thought Jenny might fancy him a bit, caressing his ear with her tail like that. Clearly, Vince was quite the big hit with the animals—just as Noel had always imagined.

He’s kissing his hand. Ew, I don’t like that.

Noel let out a gruff laugh. “You’re snogging you hand, says Jenny. Better hope there’s no guano on it.”

There was a resounding silence in which Noel basked, fully aware that Julian had no choice to accept his word as gospel. He turned around, facing his friend again, and sure enough, Julian had gone red and stormy.

“That’s… not fair!” he burst out.

Noel grinned. “What’s not fair? What are you on about?”

“You can talk to animals like Vince! What can I do? Play the court jester to your Jungle Prince?” Julian paced around in a broody circle. “Stupid, useless Howard.”

“Aw, come on. Howard’s not useless. He’s a multi-instrumentalist, innee?”

“He’s not,” Julian said, slapping a hand against his chest. “I’m more of a multi-instrumentalist than he is. Howard’s just a massive embarrassment of a man.”

“He’s not either,” Noel said calmly, reaching up to give Jenny a stroke. “Vince loves Howard just the way he is.”

Julian stopped in mid-pace, giving Noel a strange look. “What’s that mean? Vince torments Howard for being the way he is. That’s not love.”

Noel rolled his eyes. “We’ve talked about this before, Ju.”

“When we were pissed, you mean.”

“What do you want me to do? It’s not my fault that I made Vince an exercise in wish-fulfillment and you made Howard all about self-deprecation.”

Julian’s features narrowed as he studied Noel with an intensity that made him want to squirm. “I think you’re enjoying being Vince. On purpose.”

Noel sighed. “I think you’re enjoying being Howard! Brooding about and complaining. On purpose,” he added, pointedly.

Julian made a growling sound of frustration and fetched up the mop again, looking as if he’d like to break it over Noel’s thick head. Instead, he drew back his arm and threw it like a javelin at the nearest wall. It hit the curtains with a clatter—Oh no, Jenny sighed—and a flurry of dark, winged things flew from the material, noiseless but for an obscene leathery sound that sent a shudder down Noel’s spine.

“Fucking… bats!” Julian yelled, running for the shelter of the chaise. Noel grabbed on to him at once, throwing his free arm over his head protectively, glad he was wearing a hat. The creatures swooped around them just the same, as if intent on nestling into their hair, and Julian flailed his arms about, warding them off.

Those bats are nothing but trouble. They’ve invaded our lovely boudoir and one of them tried to suck poor Jeremy’s blood out this morning. Jenny said, digging her claws into Noel’s arms almost painfully.

“They suck blood?” Noel exclaimed in horror, budging up closer to Julian.

“They do!?” Julian started waving a cushion around.

Just hold still! You’re upsetting them.

“Stop it, Ju.” Noel latched on to Julian’s hand and pulled it into his lap, holding it still. They winced and curled into each other, marrying their bodies into a protective ball, knees and shoulders bumped together as they blew hot, nervous breath into each others faces. It occured to Noel that the sensible thing to do would be to simply run out of the bat-infested boudoir, but he didn’t bother to point this out. Cool wings grazed the back of his neck and he wondered, briefly, why the bats didn’t seem to have anything to say to him. Not that he was really feeling generous about listening at the moment.

“Noel…” Julian’s hand squeezed at the top of his hip, bunching denim between his fingers.

“Yeah?” Noel ducked away from the sound of nearby flapping, the side of his forehead cracking against Julian’s and making him wince. Maybe it was the brief flare of pain that made his revulsion over the bats fade away. Maybe it was something else.

Julian chuckled nervously, and Noel felt the vibration of it run head to toe through his body.

“We’re idiots,” he said. “We never wrote a song about how to calm down a rabid flock of bats.”

Endnotes: Kay gave me the idea for the decorative interior of the chameleon boudoir—because she’s a genius, pretty much. I’m told that the hair-pulling fan actually happened to Noel, so I’m getting revenge on that meanie by ridiculing her in fanfic form. She’s named Joanne because I knew a Joanne who used to stalk famous writers and stole Vonnegut’s shotglass. So yes, obviously there’s still more of this bad boy to come. And there is a plot of sorts (kinda) emerging that goes beyond Howince and Noelian running around their respective hells. But beyond that, tell me what you think, eh? And thanks for reading!