Howard could sense a weird vibe as he opened the door to the Nabootique. He figured Naboo was just messing around with some Shaman business so he ignored the weird feeling. However, he did find it weird that neither of the Noir siblings were in the shop, usually one of them was downstairs just sitting. Not because it was their job, it was just their exhibitionist tendencies to show off whatever their latest fashion accomplishment was. Somedays it was hair, somedays outfits, other days were accessories and on more than one occasion, make up. But this day was different, the shop was deserted. To their credit though, the sign was turned to "Closed." He continued to the back of the shop to see things hadn't changed since he'd left two days previous, which made him doubt that anyone had been downstairs at all. Except for Naboo, his cupboard was downstairs but he wouldn't open the shop, he didn't bother with actually working in the store despite the fact that he owned the place. Howard continued upstairs and saw a distressing sight.
Noella was sitting on the couch in sweats and a t-shirt and her hair in a ponytail. In fact, it looked like she hadn't washed her hair in days. Howard was surprised she was home at all, normally she would be walking King's Row or clothes shopping at Topshop. He put his bag down and she quickly turned, startled. Noella's eyes were red from crying. It looked like she had attempted make up but had given up. Overall, she looked like a wreck, nothing like the heavily made up Shoreditch princess she usually was. Noella slowly eased her self up from the couch and walked toward Howard, her arms crossed and shaking. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach, the only reason Noella would be this distraught was if something happened to Vince. Howard felt panicked as he carefully asked, "What happened? Where's Vince?"
Noella's eyes started to water and she quickly brushed the tears away in vain. She let out the sob she had been holding back, it sounded like a dying animal and sent shivers down Howard's spine. It robbed her of the little energy she had and she slid down against the wall, head in her hands. The sound of the sob brought Bollo and Naboo out from the back of the flat. Bollo went straight to her and tried to comfort her. He looked up from the sobbing girl, "Can she see brother?" he asked Naboo.
"I think that'd be okay, better than her sitting here sobbing. It might help him too." Naboo said. Bollo nodded, helped Noella up and helped her walk the few feet to Vince's bedroom door. He pulled the door closed behind him to give them some privacy.
"What's wrong with Vince?", Howard asked still panicked. He noticed the remnants of a broken mug sitting in the refuse bin. Clearly, something major had happened while he was gone.
"Vince is sick. Very sick. He just collapsed out of nowhere a few hours after you left. Ever since then he's been in bed, too weak to get up. He's burning up and getting worse. Ella has taken this especially hard because she said that's what happened to their parents before they died. I wouldn't find it hard to believe that what killed their parent's was passed onto Vince. Howard, this most likely will kill him."
Howard was shocked, to his knowledge Vince knew little to anything about his parents. He had never talked about them. All Howard knew was that he was an orphan and was raised by Bryan Ferry in the forest, as was Noella. He'd never mentioned anything about a disease that ran in his family. He probably didn't know. "Naboo, can't you do anything. Use any of your shaman stuff?"
Naboo sighed, "No, I've tried everything I have. It's seemed to only make it worse. The council won't hear any of it. I'm sorry, it's out of my hands."
"You have to pull through this, Vince," Noella said wiping tears from her eyes, "Please, you have to!" She grabbed her brother's hand and squeezed it. "I don't wanna lose you like we lost mom and dad." She bent her head down and wiped her tears on her hand. The sight of her brother broke her heart. He'd lost half a stone, his hair looked horrible and his skin was ghostly pale.
"Don't worry Ella, I'll make it through this. You probably look worse than I do." He was distracting his sister to get her to stop worrying. Truth was, he was terrified of what could happen. He certainly knew what could happen to him and it scared him. Vince didn't want his sister to lose the only family member that she had left. They were the only two in their family left to have the Noir name. He motioned to his sister and she crawled across his bed and laid next to him. She was incredibly worn out, mentally and physically. Soon both of them had drifted off to sleep, Vince's arm around his sister and her hand on his chest. Both of them dreamt of when they'd first seen each other.
Vince was ten when Noella was born. He didn't know he had a sister until five years later when his parents died. Right after Vince was born he had been sent to live with Bryan and told he had no parents or relatives. Vince left Bryan's care when he started primary school, after that he lived in various children's homes. It was at this point he met and befriended Howard. When he was fifteen, he dropped out of finishing school and started working at the Zoo with Howard. He had been working there for about two months when Bryan contacted him and informed him that his parents had died. Bryan had to explain to Vince that they had lied to protect him and that he really had a little sister, Noella. They were living in America and Vince flew over to meet his little sister and try and comfort her. He remembered the moment so clearly. Bryan was standing there and next to him was a small girl. She had long black hair and big blue eyes. She had the Noir cheekbones even at five. Unlike most five year olds, she wasn't shy. Noella had run right up to him, she knew that was her brother. They spent two days together before they agreed that Bryan would bring her up as he did Vince. After that he said goodbye and flew back to London.
Noella stirred awake for a moment and looked at her brother. There wasn't any pain on his face. Slightly panicked, she put her hand on his neck to feel a pulse, it was still there and a quite a bit stronger than before. He sleepily murmured, "Little Ella." She got tears in her eyes again, those were the first words he had ever said to her those eleven years ago. Curling up closer to Vince, she laid her head on his shoulder. To her surprise, his arm wrapped around her. Slowly she drifted back to sleep.
About an hour or two later Howard and Naboo came into Vince's room. Noella woke up and sat up. Her brother was still asleep, she checked his pulse again, it was a tiny bit stronger than before, this was a good sign. Naboo looked at her, "How's he doing?"
"Better actually, his pulse has improved quite a bit," She put the back of her hand on his forehead, "His temperature has gone down a little too." Noella herself felt a little better. Maybe she had just needed some sleep, she hadn't gotten any the past two days. All of a sudden, Vince stirred. She instantly turned toward him.
"Ella?" He asked wearily, "Where are you?" He shifted a little before Noella stopped him by putting her hand on his arm.
"It's okay, I'm right here." Noella said gently. She reached down and grabbed his hand.
He looked up at her. There was a small smile on her face, you could hardly tell though, there was still so much sadness and worry that no one except her own brother see it. "I dreamt back to when I saw you for the first time. Remember, when you were just a little girl. Right after. . ." His voice trailed off when he saw the tears brimming in his sister's eyes.
" . . . After mom and dad died." Noella finished the sentence for him. He squeezed her hand. Right now, looking at Noella with her big blue eyes, tears streaming down and her long black hair that was down and messy, she looked identical to what she looked like that day eleven years ago. Only she was no longer the innocent little five year old he met, she was now the jaded sixteen year old who had been through too much, although every once in a while that little girl would come out in her. Vince was no longer the confused fifteen year old either, he was now the confident and vain twenty six year old who practically lived in Topshop. In theory, they were both better people when they first met. But somewhere along the line they both became incredibly vain and narcissistic so, presently they got along very well. "I had the same dream." Noella said, her voice cracked as tears started sliding down her face. She wasn't entirely sure if they were sad or happy tears, she thought they could be sad but was pretty sure they were happy tears. Brushing the tears away she looked at her brother, "How you feeling?"
He shifted, "A bit better, I'm quite thirsty though." He gripped the back of his headboard and attempted to pull him self up but ended up requiring assistance from Noella.
She motioned to Howard to get him some tea, she decided that if Vince felt up to drinking something that she would accommodate him. Naboo went over and took a blood sample from Vince's arm. He still cringed at needles so he jumped a little bit. By the time Naboo had gotten the sample Howard was coming back with the tea. He handed it to Noella who handed it to Vince. She scooted closer to him and helped him drink the tea. He was able to finish two more cups before feeling it helped. The warm tea made him tired and he fell back asleep.
It was half midnight and they were all tired again. Naboo, Bollo and Howard had been sitting in Vince's room with Noella. At one point they convinced Noella to go take a shower and change and that Vince would be fine while she was away. She complied for his sake, if she had her way she would've stayed there. But she went into their shared bathroom and washed, blow dried her hair and loosely braided it. She then went to her room and grabbed her duvet and pillow and went back to Vince's room.
When she came back to the room Howard, Naboo and Bollo were leaving to go to their own rooms for the night. Howard told her that he had waken momentarily before falling back asleep but other than that not much had changed. They all said goodnight before Noella closed the door and left the lamp on the dimmest setting, she didn't want to turn it all the way off in case anything happened during the night. She then put her pillow down next to him, laid down, pulled her duvet over her and fell asleep.
Vince woke up and sat up straight, his heart was racing and he was all sweaty. He looked over at the clock: half four in the morning. He ran his hands across his face and through his hair. To make sure his nightmare wasn't true, he looked frantically around his room before looking next to him. Noella was laying there, peacefully asleep. Gently, he put his hand on her head, she stirred a little bit and scooted closer to him, but didn't wake up. Vince was jut now starting to feel the headache that he got when he sat up so quickly, but he didn't regret it. His nightmare scared him, badly. He dreamt that something very bad had happened to Noella. He didn't know what exactly, he wasn't sure if he just didn't remember or had just blocked it out already. It didn't matter, his sister was sleeping soundly, completely safe and unharmed. Still, he couldn't bring him self to go back to sleep. So, slowly he tried to get up. Grabbing the headboard he swung his legs over the side of the mattress and slid off. Trying to keep his balance he grabbed the nightstand and slowly made his way over to the window.
Vince held him self up by holding onto the window sill and looked out side. It was a mostly clear night, he could see the crescent moon and some stars. He turned his gaze down toward the city and could see the lights of London. He couldn't help but think about his friends, who were probably still out. "Friend" was a term he used lightly, the more he thought about it they weren't really his friends. They only seemed to be his "friend" after a few drinks and even then, they really didn't act like they cared about him. They were more like people who just went to clubs with him and that was it. Vince didn't really know what friends were like, he realized that he had just basically been around users his whole life. The only constant friend he'd ever had was Howard and even then Vince didn't know if Howard was his friend because he pitied him or because he truly liked him as a person.
But now, there was Noella, his biological sister. Whether she'd admit it or not, she depended on him. He was her big brother and they were the only family members each other had. He turned and looked back at the bed, his sister was still sleeping. She looked so innocent, which was far from the truth but at the moment she looked like she had never done wrong in her life. But there was still some innocence left in her, when Vince was her age he'd made so many mistakes already and now at twenty six he had made even more. He was determined that she wouldn't go through that. Besides, Noella had their parents raising her until she was six and then Bryan raising her up until she was fourteen and now it was up to mainly Vince. Vince's childhood however wasn't quite as constant. Bryan raised him until he was five and after that he was bounced around to various children's houses before finally moving into a hut at the zoo at fifteen and then moving to Shoreditch by twenty. The difference between them was clear: she had stability growing up, he hadn't. After all this thinking Vince felt really tired so he slowly made his way back to bed. The instant his head hit the pillow, he was asleep.
Muted grey light filled the room when Noella woke up at 6:50 AM. It was a bit chilly so she pulled her robe on and slid out of bed and walked to the window. Upon pushing the curtain open she was greeted by typical London weather, grey overcast clouds and rain. Vince was still asleep, so she quietly slipped out of the room and got some coffee, she never liked coffee in the past but for some reason it seemed appealing at the moment. As a precaution she grabbed a cup of tea for Vince in case he was awake when she walked in. She was glad that she did because her brother was awake and was thirsty. Noella helped him drink his tea again although he was ever so slightly getting his strength back. Naboo came in again and took another blood sample. Noella distracted Vince so he didn't jump when he took the sample.
It was around this time Noella seemed to remember someone touching her head, she was pretty sure it was Vince. She also slightly remembered hearing someone walking. Was it Howard? Naboo? Bollo? No, none of them would come in while they were sleeping, that just left Vince. "Hey bro, did you um, get up and walk at all last night?" She turned to him and asked. As soon as she said she heard how ridiculous it sounded, if Vince said no, she'd probably just dismiss it as a dream.
He shifted to sit up a bit more, "Yeah. I did actually, I walked to the window." He didn't think she'd know. Noella was surprised, he had gotten up and walked across the room on his own, with out any help from her.
"Oh wow. That's... that's great." Noella was positive her brother could hear the tinge of unsureness in her voice. Vince did hear this, he confirmed her suspicion by shooting a confused look at her.
"Aren't you happy?" He was desperately trying to figure out what she was thinking.
"Oh incredibly! You're getting better!" Noella was a bit nervous now. She was concerned that her brother now thought she was not relieved that he was getting better, which was far from the truth, she was overjoyed.
"Then why aren't you..." Vince was cut off by Howard entering the room. Noella viewed this as a chance to be away from Vince for a while. Plus, Howard had barely been around Vince since he returned from a two day jazz fest in Leeds. It was during those two days that Vince fell ill. She figured she should give them time to reconnect.
Noella looked back and forth at both of them. "I think I need to give you guys a moment or two," She looked at Vince and with weak laugh said, "After all, Vince is probably sick of me." Without waiting for a response from either of the two men, she turned and left Vince's bedroom, closing the door behind her. Through the door she heard Howard and Vince's muffled voices. From the tone of their voices, she concluded that they would need some time. Enough time in fact, for her to go out and take a well deserved walk.
It had taken her about 10 minutes to get ready. She didn't put on nearly as much eyeliner than she usually did and didn't go for extravagance. She wore just jeans, a t-shirt and one of her brother's old jackets, but she did wear her silver boots. Her hair was bugging her so she just double braided it. When she looked in the mirror, she didn't recognize her self. Normally, she looked like an electro princess, now she just looked like a scene kid. But for once, she didn't care
After doing a small lap around the park, Noella started thinking of places she could go to kill the time. Suddenly, she remembered overhearing Vince and Howard talking about the zoo they had worked at. It was where they'd met Naboo and Bollo. She decided she wanted to go and check it out. There was only one problem, she had no idea where a zoo could be in Shoreditch.
It took a few store clerks to give her the information she needed. Turns out, if she had gone just two blocks more and taken a left, she would've been there. The area surrounding the zoo was a part of Shoreditch she'd never seen before. There were no clubs, no stores, no restaurants, no cafes, no trendy hipsters walking down the street. There was no indie music playing on outdoor speakers, which was quite a common practice in the heart of city. This place was almost depressing. Buildings, which looked like they used to be houses, were dilapidated and abandoned and their gardens were over grown and jungle like. The thing that really made the area so haunting was that there was no life around her, no birds, no cats, no foxes, no rats, not a single trace of life. She honestly felt quite scared. After slowly meandering down the broken and cracked sidewalks, she finally saw a big, black, wrought iron gate looming about sxity meters ahead of her. She figured that the gate had to be the entrance to the zoo. She was right.
Noella felt as if she was in a horror movie as she approached the gate. Through the bars she could see the zoo. The cages and most of the buildings were still intact and almost in better condition than the buildings in the surrounding neighborhood. After a firm push on the gate, they creaked open with a god awful sound that made her thankful that no one was around her. Looking around as if she were expecting someone to jump out of an overgrown shrub, she cautiously took her first few steps into the zoo.
An eerie feeling hit her like a wave as she looked around at the remnants of a place that held so many memories for her brother. She tried to picture a young fifteen year old boy with incredible hair, big blue eyes, and very defined cheekbones wearing his customized zoo jacket, bouncing around talking to all the animals and dressing them up as 80's pop stars. All this while being followed by a taller man with a small mustache, small brown eyes and curly brown hair, begging the child like boy to calm down. She'd seen a picture or two of her brother and Howard from this time period, they both looked so different. Back then, Vince had blonde hair and black bangs and a more fluffed hairstyle, now it was all over black, a bit longer, and sleeker. Howard on the other hand had more facial hair and filled out quite a bit. His hair was longer too. Thinking about them back then reminded her that they used to live in a hut in the zoo. In fact, Vince was living there when their parents died and he had met Noella. It gave her a new mission, she had to find the hut.
It actually didn't take too long, after wandering around she saw what she assumed was the hut. It was a small green building tucked in the back. Eager to get to it, she ran. She had no doubts this was the hut once she got to it, not only because it was the same one in the pictures she had seen, there was also a small sign next to the door that said "Zookeeper Hut." Feeling brave, she walked to the door and slowly turned the handle. It was unlocked, so with a gentle push, she opened the door.
The entire interior was about the size of the living room in their flat. Dingy light yellow paint covered the walls while old scuffed wood comprised the floor...
(10/02/2010): So that's all I have so far. I'm probably gonna binge on series one to get a better description of the hut. This is my first fan fiction. Hope you liked it.
UPDATE (02/22/2015): It's been almost five YEARS since I posted this and now I'm finally getting around to writing part two! In honor of that, I've gone through and revised/updated this chapter. Fixed some continuity errors and spelling/grammar mistakes that have been bugging me.
If anyone is still reading this, chapter two should be coming soon. I'd say by the end of March 2015 at the latest. I've been on a huge Boosh binge lately and my writer's block for this story has disappeared completely, so it shouldn't take me too long to finish the next part.
XX – Nicole