Calm During the Storm
Category: The Mighty Boosh
Characters: Howard Moon, Vince Noir
Pairing: Howard Moon/Vince Noir
Genre: Fluff
Rating: G
Status: Complete
Length: 1-5k words
Notes: The first fic for the Boosh I ever wrote. Seriously fluffy.
Written this past June as a sort of coping mechanism as the American Midwest was constantly battered by storms, and thus leaving me terrified nightly.
Calm During the Storm by Severa
New Orleans, the birthplace of Jazz. It was only proper that Howard Moon would finally find fame there. He stood before a full auditorium of Jazz afficienados, all giving a standing ovation. His ending electric bassoon solo was a triumph. The crowd was demanding an encore. “Howard! Howard! Howard!”
“Psssst. Howard! Howaaaard! Wake up!”
Howard started awake, instantly dismayed not to find himself in a large New Orleans Jazz club, but rather in his bedroom above Naboo’s shop. Instead of a crowd of admirers repeating his name, it was just Vince, shaking his shoulder. “What?” He growled.
“It’s storming out.” Vince whimpered. There was a sudden flash of lightning followed by a loud clap of thunder.
“I can see that.”
“I think it’s really bad.”
Howard clicked on his bedside lamp and blinked up at Vince. He was standing in his pyjamas, clutching the small, purple, stuffed bunny named Eno that was covered in glitter and sewn sequins. He was biting his lower lip, and his big blue eyes were unbelievably wider in panic. “Since when were you scared of thunderstorms?” Howard asked.
“Since always! Please, can I stay with you tonight? Else I won’t get any sleep from worry.”
“I thought you loved lightning! Half your clothes have it.”
“That’s fake lightning! The real stuff is well scary!”
Another flash brightened the room, and a loud crack of thunder echoed down the London streets. By the time the sound faded, Howard found himself sharing a bed with Vince clinging to him with one arm, and the other securely squeezing Eno closer to his chest.
“There’s not enough room!” Howard wheezed, Vince’s arm around his chest making it difficult to breathe. “Look, we’re not going to get any sleep this way either. Why don’t we go to the living room, turn on the telly and watch the weather reports.”
Vince’s death grip lessened a little. “They can tell us how much longer we have to live through this hell?”
Howard patted Vince’s shoulder awkwardly. “Yeah, exactly that.”
Vince finally detached himself from and slid out of bed. Howard sat up himself and threw back the duvet. Vince’s distraught expression was temporarily displaced by an amused smirk. “That’s what you wear to bed?”
Howard looked down at his brown and beige checkered pyjamas. “These are practical pyjamas, sir, the kind that come from a long tradition of design that doesn’t need to flaunt itself like some,” he said, giving a poignant look to Vince’s black polyester sleepwear with pink stars that lit up under black light.
Whatever Vince’s retort was going to be was lost as the next lightning flash and clap of thunder seemed even closer. “Whatever. Can we turn the telly on now?”
Outside, the storm raged on. In the living room, Vince sat on the floor, knees drawn up, his back against the sofa. Howard searched between the cushions trying to find the remote control even though it would’ve taken less effort just to walk the two feet to switch it on. With a triumphant cry, Howard removed it from the mysterious void that is the in-between of sofa cushions. He joined Vince on the floor and pressed the power button.
The first thing to appear was the late-hour test card with its annoying high pitch tone assaulting their ears. The noise was one thing, but the girl with her clown Howard always found rather creepy. Who was she? And why was such a little girl always up so late at night? He quickly started going through the channels for some kind of weather report.
Finally, he came across an attractive blonde holding a pointy stick standing in front of a some radar imagery that resembled the London area. It was completely covered in a dark red splotch. Vince gulped. Howard was about to ask what sort of childhood trauma made him so scared of storms when lightning had struck a wire, sending a jolt of electricity through the cable line causing the television to explode. Vince yelped, jumping back and falling over the back of the sofa.
Then all was darkness.
“Howard? Are we dead?” Vince asked from the floor.
“No, we’re not,” he sighed. “The power’s just gone out. All down the street it looks like, maybe more. I’ll have to try and find the torch.”
“It’s all right, I have one!”
There was a soft click, and then the walls, ceiling, and floor were spotted with dots of white light slowly spinning.
“What is that?”
Vince picked himself off the floor. “It’s my mirror ball torch!”
“Your what?”
“Mirror ball torch.” Vince held it up. The handle was an ordinary plastic tube like any other torch, but atop it was indeed a small, rotating mirror ball. “Can we go down to the shop?”
“What for?”
“I want to be less close to the sky.”
The now constant lightning made Howard agree with the sentiment. Howard pulled Vince along with his specially designed torch back to his bedroom to grab a pillow and his duvet. If they were going to be in the shop all night, Howard intended to be at least a little comfortable.
They made their way downstairs. In the mood lighting of the mirror ball torch, the shop with all its odd odds seemed even creepier than normal. The rain drove against the metal shutters and the lightning continued to be seen through the glass door. Howard was starting to think it may have been less scary to stay in the flat.
“There’s got to be some kind of candles or lanterns done here, yeah?” Vince asked.
“Probably. Have any matches?”
“No. You?”
“No.”
“What about in Stationary Village?”
“Matches aren’t stationary, now are they?”
Vince scoffed. “Didn’t realize it was a gated community.”
The thunder boomed so loud its vibrations shook the very walls, rattling the door on its hinges. Vince and Howard jumped, clinging to each other. “Maybe we should go to the cellar,” Vince suggested.
“We don’t have a cellar.”
“Store room, then?”
The thought of spending the night in the cramped room did not have an instant appeal. But the quick succession of lightning and endless rumble of thunder changed Howard’s mind.
Inside the storage room was standing room only. So they did, Vince holding the torch between them. Howard was changing his mind again. But Vince looked much calmer, and his death-grip on Eno loosened. Maybe it was worth it then.
He assessed their surroundings (such as they were) and formed an idea. He pushed Vince back a little. “Give me some room.”
“What? How?”
“Just stay right up against those shelves, breathe in and hold it, or something.”
Vince tried to do as he was told. Howard set his pillow on the floor against the door (the only free bit of wall), and folded the duvet up into a cushion, setting that on the floor as well. Then Howard sat down and leaned back against the door. Much more comfortable. He sighed. He looked up at Vince who was giving him a curious look. Howard opened his arms. “Come on, then.”
Vince smiled. He set the torch on the floor, and then scooted over so that he was sitting in front of Howard, a little adjustment and slide brought his back against Howard’s chest. “Thank for this,” Vince said, leaning his head back on Howard’s shoulder.
Howard patted his hair. “Sure thing, little man.”
With the lightning out of sight and out of mind, and the thunder muffled, Vince fell asleep less than a minute later.
