Alternative Twist: Birds of a Feather Boa
Summary: This is an alternative twist to Will and Jack's storyline in "Birds of a Feather Boa" (Series 8, episode 7)
I'll be including actual dialogue from the episode, so it's not all my own work
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Will was sitting on his sofa reading the newspaper. It was a Saturday and he was relaxing after a demanding week at work. Grace was sat at the table eating her second breakfast.
"Grace do you ever have time to actually work, what with the amount of food you consume everyday?" Will asked her lazily, not looking up from his newspaper.
"Haydatsunfaimmepressanconfooteetin" Grace managed to reply, albeit with a mouth full of food. Will burst out laughing and looked over to see Grace shooting daggers at him. Grace tried again.
"I said, that's unfair, I'm depressed and comfort eating"
"Yeah right" Will scoffed and went back to reading his newspaper. Grace went back to eating.
If they thought they were in for a quiet Saturday, they should think again. Jack practically bounced into the apartment and sat himself down on the sofa next to Will.
"Did you hear the news? I'm moving into a bigger place" Jack screeched to show the level of his excitement.
"Oh my God, when did you decide that?" Will asked, putting his newspaper down to give Jack his full attention.
"Only this morning. The ratings for Jack Talk came in and they're growing so I figured that I need to be in a place which feels more successful"
"Welgodfoyou" Grace called out, again with food in her mouth. She swallowed quickly noticing the confused expression on Jack's face. "Good for you Jack, I'll decorate it for free".
"Oh no, that's ok G, you don't have to do that"
"I want to" Grace said smiling.
"Yeah I heard, anyway" Jack swapped his attention from Grace to Will. "I've managed to save up five thousand"
"I'm so proud of you Jack, you're growing up" Will told his friend affectionately. "You know what? It's Saturday. Let's get the Village Voice and I'll help you start looking. It'll be fun, and we can go to the zoo and see the penguins. There was an article in the paper saying two of them are gay"
"I can look at apartments myself, are you sure you wouldn't rather spend you weekend doing something else?" Jack asked standing up from the sofa.
"Don't be silly Jack, it'll be fun"
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Will and Jack were wandering through central park zoo. Jack was scanning the classifieds. He closed the paper and sighed.
"I haven't liked any apartment we've seen so far"
"Don't worry, we'll find something" Will reassured him. "There's the penguins" Will announced walking over to the penguin enclosure, Jack right behind him.
"Penguins are so cute, which ones do you think are gay?" Jack asked Will. They both scanned the enclosure for a few moments.
"I'd say the two in the corner, whispering and pointing at the other penguins" Will said gesturing to the penguins in question.
"Hi, you guys are gay right?" a woman asked Will and Jack. They both turned around to answer her.
"We're here, we're queer" Jack said laughing.
"Good, will you sign my petition? The zoo wants to separate the gay penguins. They want to send Doug to the Bronx Zoo to mate with a female penguin" the woman informed them.
"That's outrageous" Jack spat shaking his head. "Gays can't get married, but women in the Bronx can have penguins imported just for sex?"
"Just the thought of those two guys being split up, that really gets to me" Will said looking at the two penguins again.
"Yeah, me too" Jack agreed. Jacks phone began ringing and he walked off to answer it.
"You should come to the rally tomorrow. Me and my lesbian friends are going to be there" the woman said to Will.
"That sounds like a great idea. Oh look, that penguin is cleaning his nest and stacking his fish so neatly" Will said fondly, admiring the gay penguins.
"That's Randall. He's a real fussbudget. And the other one, the goofy one, that's Doug. He always waddles into Randall's nest unannounced"
Will laughed. The two of them stood watching the penguins.
"Oh look, Doug just stole his fish" Will said to the woman, poitining.
"And now Randall will probably act annoyed and sulk. Even though he loves it. I'm worried about him though, if Doug gets sent away, Randall will fall apart"
"Really? Randall looks pretty together. You know, except for the lollipop stuck to his back"
"He'd be devastated when he's all alone. He just doesn't know it yet"
"Huh" was all Will could think of to say.
"My girlfriend did this study on gay penguins that were separated. The one that stayed behind, he was a mess" the woman informed Will.
"What happened to him?" Will asked her.
"He gained a ton of weight, and all of his feathers fell out" the woman sad sadly.
Will took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair.
"Sorry about that. Shall we go and look at more apartments?" Jack had returned from his phone call.
"Sure, let's go" Will said despondently.
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Will was at the gym on the running machine. Grace had been telling him for months to get back to the gym. With Grace living in Brooklyn with Leo and children Lila and Ben, she wasn't able to nag him as much as before. Grace had told Will that not only would the weight loss make him healthier but it would probably help to beat his depression. He had to admit the weight had crept up on him. He was almost a stone overweight. He'd also started to go bald, but he just put it down to the fact that he was nearly 46 and single and had nothing to motivate him into taking care of himself.
Will only managed thirty minutes before tiring out. He walked towards the changing rooms and stopped dead. Jack was walking his way. He momentarily wandered if he should hide but before he could even contemplate the idea Jack had seen him and was walking over.
"Will, hi" Jack said, and the two of them hugged.
"You look good" Will said to Jack. He did look good.
"You, um, you look good as well" Jack told Will. Will held back the desire to laugh.
"So, how are you?" Will asked Jack. He couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Good, you?" Jack replied in a bored tone.
"I'm fine"
Will and Jack stood in silence for a few seconds before jack made some excuse about a yoga lesson starting and walked off, leaving Will feeling even more depressed than ever.
Will went to carry on walking towards the changing room but found he couldn't move his feet. A ringing was filling his ear, getting louder and louder. Everything went dark.
Will opened his eyes to find himself staring at his bedroom ceiling. It took him a few moments before realising his alarm was ringing and reached over to turn it off. He sat up in his bed and put his head into his hands.
"Oh my God" Will said quietly to himself.
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Will was in his apartment standing at the dining table, which was covered with card, felt tips, glitter and glue. Jack walked in and walked over to see what Will was doing.
"There you are" Will said to Jack. "Help me make some signs for the rally today. Take a marker and start drawing penguins"
"Sorry, I can't. I've got a lease to sign. I found an apartment" Jack told his friend jumping for joy.
"Oh" Will replied.
"Oh? Will, I've found an apartment. It's all the way down in Tribeca. New kitchen, two bedrooms, hardwood floors and-"
"Well that's great" Will interrupted sounding annoyed. "You've got a new apartment, meanwhile Randall and Doug's love igloo is melting beneath their webbed feet"
"I kinda thought you would congratulate me Will. You were so excited yesterday when we went to look at apartments" Jack said to Will, completely confused by his friends lack of support.
"Well, I'm sorry. It's just a little trivial compared to the civil rights issue coming to a boil at the penguin house. Some people may not think so, but these two little guys a family" Will answered angrily.
"God Will, relax. It's not that big a deal. They're just fish" Jack said trying to calm his friend down.
"Not that big a deal? Jack, don't you understand? Their whole relationship is going to change. They're not going to be able to swim together all the time or share some fish or go for a waddle. I mean, sure they'll want to get together, but something is always going to come up. And then one day, they'll run into each other at the gym, and it'll be all weird and awkward and Randall will be like "Oh, you look good" and Doug'll be like, "Yeah, is that a feather toupee?". They used to be best friends and now they don't even know each other"
Will picks up his completed signs and heads for the door.
"Will, would you wait a minute?" Jack begged.
"No, I've got to go" Will replied, adding unconvincingly "congratulations on your new apartment"
Will left leaving Jack reeling over his speech. He sat down at the dining room and began designing his own sign for the rally.
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Please, please review I will be forever grateful. There'll probably be just 1 more chapter (unless I get completely carried away!)