A/N: Sorry! I know I'm posting this a few hours later than normal but this was a long one (despite my promise to myself to keep these chapters under 4,000 words - hah!) plus I'm pretty sure I've caught flu which is fun! Anyway, thankyou, thankyou, thankyou as always for reviewing and can I just say to PeppermintNightmare (love the name btw) thanks for the heads up about the holster thing! I'll go change it now, I don't really know what I'm talking about with swords :L and omg, 'everything changed when the fire nation attacked' is the new tagline guys. It's settled.
Okay, well, have some funny moments and sexual tension! Woo! Kisses.
"Oh, quit the I'm-an-almighty-Shaman act Denbo, they're doing us a favour here!" Saboo cried, snatching up the crystal ball and putting it in front of a small, blonde boy with a dreamy expression, the name 'Kirk' on his nameplate.
Saboo stood up and made his way over to the two men in front of the table. "Come on. You need to get going pretty soon or Naboo might be a bit more crispy than you're used to." Wordlessly, Vince and Howard followed Saboo as he marched towards a clump of trees nearby.
"I feel I should come too." Dennis spoke up from behind them. "Who knows when my wise words will be needed?"
When Vince glanced up at Saboo he appeared to be having difficulty not rolling his eyes. The four of them strode into the heavily wooded area to the right of the clearing, Vince and Howard trailing behind, their hands still clasped as if they were children on a school trip. Vince hardly dared to look at Howard, despite their intimately intertwined fingers. He could feel the other man start to sweat and his hand become clammy – he was getting nervous. After a few minutes of silent trudging a sound broke through Vince's reverie.
"Aw, fuckin'ell! Saboo you slaaaag!"
"Oh, good. Look who miraculously survived being booted into the beyond." Saboo had stopped in his tracks and was looking disgustedly at a spot obscured to Vince by a large, feathery Head Shaman. He fidgeted about, trying to see what everyone was looking at.
Suddenly he felt Howard's hand grip around his tighter, almost painfully and he looked up to see what was wrong. Howard was staring straight ahead, his height allowing him to see what Vince could not.
"Vince…" Howard breathed in a low voice, looking alarmed.
Vince, having had quite enough of this discrimination just because he was short, pushed past the three others, tearing his hand away from Howard's intense hold. Pushing to the front, he saw what everyone was staring at.
"Bollo!" Vince cried, delighted and moved to rush forwards into his arms. Before he could move more than a step, Dennis slammed a huge hand down on Vince's shoulder and held him in place.
Bollo was seated on the ground a few feet away, facing diagonally away from them, holding an unpeeled banana in his left hand which he occasionally attempted to chew on. Tony Harrison was securely placed in Bollo's large, furry lap, looking somewhat frightened at being in such close proximity with an animal at least ten times his size.
"Wha's wrong?" Vince asked, annoyed. "It's Bollo!"
Saboo shot Dennis a look and Dennis nodded.
"Vince, without Naboo, Bollo is no longer a familiar. He has reverted back to his normal state of being, which is… an ape. A large, dangerous wild animal." Saboo inclined his head towards Bollo, who had now picked up Tony Harrison by the head and was waving him to and fro, like a baby's rattle.
"Oi, put me down! You can't just manhandle me! I'm an esteemed member of the Board of Shaman!" Tony was exclaiming in a shrill, irritated tone of voice. Saboo was grinning now.
Vince looked at Saboo, then Dennis and finally Howard, who was still looking amazed by the entire situation.
"Are you all idiots? How do you think we found Bollo in the first place?! Just cause he don't talk English no more don't mean he's suddenly stupid!"
With that, Vince wrenched himself away from Dennis's firm hand and marched over to the large gorilla. Bollo looked up as Vince approached and started making a cacophony of sounds.
"Yeah, alright Bollo?" Vince asked cheerily, patting his hairy shoulder and crouching down to face-level.
Bollo made an unusual hooting noise and Vince laughed loudly, nodding as though he agreed wholeheartedly with the statement. Dennis and Saboo turned to look at Howard in confusion and disbelief.
"Oh… yeah. He can… talk to animals." Howard said hesitantly, as though expecting them to accuse him of preposterous lies. Dennis shrugged and turned back with Saboo to watch the spectacle.
Vince had now pried Tony Harrison out of Bollo's grasp and had the pink Shaman tucked under his arm, ignoring the protestations from the alien as though he weren't there. He laughed once more at Bollo's indecipherable hooting and then suddenly looked very serious.
"Dennis think Bollo no be able to understand what happen to Naboo. But Bollo hear them talk." Bollo said in a language only Vince could decipher.
"I know Bollo, but don't worry, me and Howard are on the case!" Vince replied, trying to sound optimistic.
"That what Bollo worried about."
"Hey! We're the dynamic duo! It'll be pips, you'll see, Naboo will be back before you know it."
"Vincey must promise Bollo he will be careful. Fire Demon's are bad news. Give Bollo all kinds of bad feelings. Stupid Naboo. He should have waited for Bollo!" Bollo suddenly looked on the verge of tears, though it was difficult to tell beneath all the fur. Vince gave Bollo a quick hug, much to the protestations of Tony, who consequently got a mouthful of monkey hair. "Bring him back Vincey. Look after Harold too."
"Oh, right. No pressure then." Vince joked, leaning back to look at him, but Bollo seemed entirely serious. Feeling like Bollo needed some reassurance, Vince nodded solemnly and gave him a departing pat.
The others looked on in complete disbelief as Vince strolled back over, tossing a now-shrieking Tony into Saboo's arms.
"Sorry. Had a bit of a catch up, we were reminiscing about the zoo days." Vince explained to Dennis's open mouthed expression. "Shall we?"
Dennis looked at Saboo, who had a distinctly unimpressed expression on his face while he listened to Tony's ranting about how to properly treat someone from a different culture. This expression was somewhat undermined however by the way he tightly clasped the alien to his chest, almost protectively.
Sighing, Dennis walked over to a large willow tree nearby and placed his hand on the trunk. The others followed, and Vince saw as Howard held a curtain of branches back for him that his expression looked almost… proud.
"Right." Dennis said wearily (this seemed to be his permanent state of being, Vince observed), "Fastest way to teleport is by Willow. You, Moon, come here."
Howard gulped and walked over to where Dennis now stood, now holding a strand of the willow tree in his hand. Taking no notice of Howard's suddenly quickened breathing pattern, Dennis grabbed hold of Howard's wrist and began to wind the branch around it several times, muttering to himself that he had plenty of other Shamanic duties to be getting on with and why had he volunteered for this again?
Vince caught Howard's terrified gaze and smiled at him. Howard seemed to relax a little after that. This reassurance was suddenly interrupted however, by the unmistakeable sound of Tony's voice yelling in Dennis's general direction.
"Come on Dennis! We ain't got all day! I spent four flippin' hours on that carpet with Tom Selleck and 'is wife snogging in the back!"
"What?" Howard began, alarmed. "We weren't-"
Vince waved his hands at Howard, signalling for him to shut up before he ruined everything, just because he had some kind of phobia about PDA.
"Never mind." Howard mumbled, cutting himself off, his cheeks bright red. Vince rolled his eyes.
"Silence, Harrison! You and Saboo will be back in time for your date." Cries of indignation and disgust filled the air as Saboo and Tony voiced their outrage at such a notion.
A little too defensive perhaps? Vince thought to himself, smirking at the idea. Saboo dropped Tony to the ground and they turned away from each other, scowling.
"Moon!" Dennis boomed, holding Howard's bound wrist up for inspection.
"Y-yes, sir?"
"Summon your wife." Dennis ordered. Vince looked up suddenly and smiled at Howard's bemused expression. That was his cue.
"Comin'!" Vince said, skipping over to where they stood. He looked at both of them in wonder. It's weird how alike they look in some ways. Same eyes an' all.
Dennis held out his hand and Vince, being the effeminate romantic he was, placed his own hand daintily upon it, expecting Dennis to kiss it (or possibly lick it - Vince had learned from Kodiak Jack that there were different ways of going about it). Dennis looked confused for a moment, then grabbed his wrist impatiently. Vince watched with mild horror as Dennis wound a strand of the tree around him. Satisfied with his work, Dennis stepped back and looked at the two men, each now with a wrist suspended in mid-air by a branch of the Willow Tree.
"Well?" Dennis said, impatiently. Vince and Howard stared at him blankly. "Hold hands!" Dennis cried exasperatedly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Howard clutched Vince's free hand with his own immediately, seeming to want this ordeal to be over with as quickly as possible. Dennis walked behind them and strode around the back of the slim trunk. When he returned, he was clutching two large rucksacks that seemed far too bulky to have been obscured from sight. Suddenly, upon seeing the two bags, Howard remembered he had been wearing a backpack of his own. And where's Vince's suitcase, he thought, suddenly alarmed, trying to think back to when they last had them. On the carpet? I don't remember.
"Silence those incessant thoughts, mortal." Howard jumped in surprise, causing Vince to jump too.
"You can…read my mind?" Howard asked, getting more alarmed by the minute. What if he read the truth about his and Vince's relationship- No! Stop thinking that. I love Vince. I love Vince. I love Vince.
"Ugh! Even I can hear that!" came Saboo's voice from where he was sulking in the corner. "No we can't read your mind – who'd want to? But when you practically yell your thoughts at us-"
"Enough! There isn't time." Dennis interrupted, sending Saboo a glare. "I'll deal with you later." Then, gazing down at Tony, he added, "And you. Now," he boomed, turning back to the strung up pair, "take these. They are filled with everything you will need, including your so-called necessities, which I took the liberty of moving from your own impractical cases."
Dennis handed over the rucksacks, placing them in the hands that were suspended in mid-air so they didn't have to break contact. Vince looked sceptically at his ugly, moss-coloured sack. All my clothes are in there? Along with all the weapons and stuff? As if! His suspicions only deepened when he felt the weight of the rucksack – it was as light as a feather.
"We have used what magic we can to make the rucksacks small and light enough to carry." Dennis said before Vince could voice his doubts. "You'll be especially glad of it on the Fire Planet." Vince chewed his lip at that – what's that supposed to mean?
"Right! Ready, then?" Dennis asked, sounding as if he didn't really care at all. They both nodded anyway. Dennis held up his hands, palms facing the two boys and closed his eyes. Vince and Howard locked eyes, their stare unwavering, each needing the other's support.
"Calamanooo!" Dennis called, causing the Willow to shiver. He opened one eye and let out a groan. "Saboo! Tony! Stop flirting and get over here!" Saboo and Tony looked up from their bickering and scowled, but made their way over.
The three Shamen raised their hands (and tentacles) to the two figures before them and closed their eyes once more.
"Weeping Willow, Weeping Willow,
Hear our age-old choir,
Send our two courageous souls,
Into the land of FIRE!"
Dennis finished and looked up, pleased with himself, as the Willow's branches tightened around the wrists of the two men and hoisted them into the air. In a matter of seconds, Vince and Howard, still clinging to each other desperately where whipped into the air and catapulted high into the heavens. A dazzling light consumed them, forcing them to squeeze their eyes shut as they felt the air rushing past them.
When Vince woke up he felt like he was in an oven. Heat weighed down on him from all sides, and the ground he lay upon was scorching - like a baking tray. He was a cookie, forgotten by the baker and left to blacken slowly, agonisingly, until he was inedible.
"Vince!" Ah, the baker! Had he returned for him? Of course he had. He was the exotic Vince Noir! He was probably going to be covered in bright icing and sprinkles and- "Vince! Wake up!"
A cascade of water splashed across Vince's face, washing away his cookie-dreams and sending him, spluttering wildly, into an upright sitting position. After a few rounds of coughing and complaining, Vince looked at Howard who was seated next to him, holding the now-empty bottle which had just been poured on to him.
"What'd you do that for?!" Vince cried, wringing some water out of his ruined hair.
"Vince, we're here! We have to get going! In case you haven't noticed, it's about 200 degrees!" Howard cried, throwing the water bottle into the distance.
"Farenheit? I only know Celsius. Or is it centigrade? I never know."
"Who cares?! Come on, we've got to find shade or we'll burn up." Howard said, moving to stand. It was at about this point that both men realised simultaneously that their hands were still clamped together. Christy! I didn't even notice, Vince thought in wonder.
They both looked down at their hands, then up at each other. With a lot of embarrassed coughing and blushing, they pulled their hands free, choosing to ignore the difficulty of this – they'd been holding hands for so long, and combined with the intense heat, it was like they'd fused together a bit.
An awkward silence now lingering in the air around them, they set off in no particular direction, looking for shade.
"There! Look!" Howard cried joyously, just as Vince had decided he couldn't walk another inch in these Cuban heels. Vince shielded his eyes with his hand and looked in the direction of Howard's excited jabbing. Sure enough, a gigantic rock sat in the midst of an otherwise barren landscape, it's large form casting an impressive shadow beneath it.
They set off towards it hurriedly, their heat-fatigued bodies spurred on by the promise of cool air and shade. Howard slumped against the rock, relishing the feel of the cool stone against his back, even through his shirt. Vince just keeled over and lay starfish-style in the shadow on the desert-like floor.
After a few minutes of blissfully cool quiet, Howard slipped the rucksack off his shoulder and wrenched it open. "What the… It's like a black hole in here!"
Vince reluctantly sat up and crawled over to Howard. He peered inside the bag and was hit with a startling wave of vertigo. "Woah! That is well creepy. I can't even see the bottom!" Vince cried, leaning back and squeezing his eyes shut.
Howard rolled his eyes and shoved his arm into the apparently bottomless pit, feeling around the objects that seemed to be floating about inside. His fingers brushed something papery and he grabbed it before it could drift away. Yanking it out, Howard studied it for a moment.
"Aha! A map! Maybe those Shaman's aren't so idiotic after all." Howard said, laying the map out on the dusty ground and poring over it intensely. Now it was Vince's turn to roll his eyes. Trust Howard to reach his arm into a bottomless bag of mysterious items and come out with a map. Well, he'd be damned if he wasn't going to give this Lucky Dip a go too. Shrugging off his own backpack, which he'd managed to fashion into a stylish – if rather large – belt buckle, he plunged his arm into the depths.
Well that's definitely a water balloon, that's my Jean Claude Jaquettie fedora, that's one of my blue rhinestone Chelsea Boots, mirror… pocket mirror… close-up mirror…oooh! What's that?
Vince's long spindly fingers clasped around the bulky object, pulling it up and out of the bag.
"Oh, cool!" Vince cried, diverting Howard's attention from the map momentarily.
"Vince! Put that down! That's dangerous!" Howard cried, standing up and walking over to him, hands raised protectively. Vince laughed, Howard couldn't be serious.
"What? No s'not!" Vince said, aiming the gun in his hands at Howard's approaching figure. "Howard it's-"
"Vince I'm serious, put it down! You're so immature sometimes! That's not a toy, you could really hurt yourself-"
Howard stopped talking abruptly as the stream of water emanating from the gun hit him square in the chest. Ah, a water gun. Vince was looking at him darkly. Howard realised what he'd just said.
"Ah. Sorry, Vince. I-"
"Forget it." Vince said bitterly. "I know you think I'm stupid but I'm not gonna point an actual gun at you Howard." Vince stood up, tucking the water gun into a belt loop on his jeans. "Which way?"
Howard stared at Vince. In that moment, his best friend seemed world's away from the innocent, bubbly man-child he'd befriended in the playground all those years ago. "Um, North." Howard replied, pointing in what he thought was probably the right direction.
Vince nodded, picked up the bag and set off, Howard jogging slightly to catch up.
"It's Howard right?"
Howard nearly jumped out of his skin upon hearing the voice. Nobody talked to him. He looked up from his journal to see who was mad enough to come near him. A small, alarmingly skinny boy stood beaming down at him, his brilliant blue eyes peeping through strands of dirty blonde fringe.
"Err…"
The boy laughed; obviously he was used to people's astonished reactions. It didn't seem to bother him though, and before he knew it, the boy had plonked himself down on the bench next to him and was peering over his shoulder at what he was writing.
"I'm Vince! Vince Noir. Rock and roll star! What're you writing?"
Howard had a few moments of being too stunned to speak, or even move, but all at once his brain started up again.
"None of your business." Howard replied defensively, snapping his journal shut. Vince was undeterred.
"Ohhh, you're one of those reclusive types? I liked it! Poems an' that. Shows you're creative." Vince praised him, no hint of sarcasm in his open face. How had he seen that Howard was writing poetry? He'd only looked for a few seconds!
Howard, put momentarily off-guard by Vince's seemingly innocent demeanour, was unable to stop Vince when out of nowhere he suddenly seized his journal, darting over his lap like a cobra to grab it and then scooting to the other end of the bench to read.
"Hey! Give it back! That's mine!" Howard cried, jumping forwards to wrestle it back off of him. Vince had only managed to see a couple of pages, but he was unresisting and allowed Howard to take back the small brown book.
"Hmm. It's cool! I like the funny little rhymes you do." Howard stared at him incredulously, clasping his journal to his chest like a wounded animal.
"Crimps." Howard said under his breath. When Vince cocked his head to one side like a curious bird he said, "I call them crimps."
Vince grinned toothily. "Awesome! I reckon I could help out with them, I do stuff a bit like you!"
Howard doubted this somehow – he was a freak, nobody did stuff like him, that's why he was an outcast.
"You know what would be genius though?" Vince continued, uninterrupted. "If you had pictures too! I could do 'em! I do little drawings and stuff. I'll bring some in and show you. We'll be like a team! A dynamic duo!" Vince rambled on, seemingly immensely pleased with his idea.
"Why are you talking to me?" Howard asked, not knowing what else to say, other than 'are you mentally unstable?'
Vince whipped his head round, his messy blonde hair flying about as he did so. "Whaddya mean?"
"Nobody talks to me." Howard replied, trying in vain not to sound like a pathetic loser.
"Yeah, well everyone talks to me and they're not half as interesting as you, I'll bet. People here have no originality." It took him several tries to say that last word and it made Howard smile.
"You'll get bullied for talking to me. They call me names. They'll call you names, too." Howard said, his smile slipping away into the breeze.
"So we'll call 'em names back!" Vince exclaimed, the sparkle never leaving his eyes. "Howard?"
"Yeah?" Howard asked incredulously, a chuckle threatening to burst forth at any moment.
"D'you like Gary Numan?"
"I'm sorry I yelled at you." Howard blurted, unable to bear the choking silence any longer. Vince looked up, surprised.
"S'ok, Howard. I know you're worried about Naboo." Vince sighed, still walking.
"No, I mean before that. Back home, when you… on the day when-"
"Oh." Said Vince, stopping suddenly. He turned to look at Howard, awkwardly. "Don't worry, Howard, you were right, I was slacking off. I deserved it." Vince ran his fingers through his sandy hair.
"Yes, but I realise that you just lost track of time, and I know Bonnie and Clyde is your favourite film, I was just annoyed cause…"
Vince narrowed his eyes at Howard's floundering figure. "Did you want to watch Bonnie and Clyde with me?" Howard stared at Vince, his eyes filled with unsaid things. Then he blinked them away.
"Why do you keep asking me that? Do you think I'm that childish? I can watch it whenever I like! We have it on DVD-"
"Do you think I'm not spending enough time with you?" Vince pressed, stepping forwards, refusing to be brushed off again.
"For Christy's sake, I don't care, Vince! I don't care if you watch our favourite film without me! I don't care if you forget about Pancake Night because you were at a party, I don't care that you stumble in at four in the morning with a bleach blonde tart strapped to your chest every day, I don't-"
Howard caught sight of Vince's open mouthed expression, drank in his raised eyebrows and wide eyes and realised that he'd just sounded an awful lot like he did care about those things. Howard stormed past Vince's frozen figure.
"Shut up." He said, even though Vince had remained completely silent. "Come on, it'll be dark soon, help me put the tent up."
"I swear I had no idea! How was I supposed to know?"
Howard was angry again. Maybe adventuring actually isn't Howard's forte, Vince thought for the first time. He was holding up a sleeping bag in front of Vince's nose. A double sleeping bag. Howard had made Vince check through his bag four times before conceding that yes, this was their sleeping arrangement for however long they were stuck here.
"How am I supposed to get to sleep with you… wriggling about the whole time?" Howard practically yelled, chucking the sleeping bag on to the floor of the tent.
Vince raised his eyebrows. "Well… it's not like we ain't ever slept in the same bed before, Howard." Vince couldn't resist saying, his eyes fixed on the floor.
"That's… completely different! This is a sleeping bag, we'll be like sardines for god's sake!" Vince glanced up and saw that Howard had gone red. Vince didn't mind the situation too much if he was honest. He often slept in Howard's bed if he had a bad dream or felt a bit lonely, or at least… he used to, maybe not so much anymore actually. He didn't get why Howard was making such a big fuss about it.
"Look, will you calm down? It's not that bad, and besides, Mr-Bald-and-scary-shaman might be looking at us in his crystal ball right now!"
Howard looked at Vince as if he were a rambling lunatic. "So?!"
"So, we ain't exactly lookin' very couply are we? We've got to stop bickering!" Vince cried, delving into his bag and somehow finding his Gary Numan pajamas on the first try.
"What do you want me to do, hold your hand while we get ready for bed?!" Howard asked, filled with sarcasm.
"Oh for god's sake." Vince said, picking up his pajamas and walking over to Howard. Howard could only watch, dumbfounded as Vince's sullen expression morphed into adoration and the younger man placed a dry but lingering kiss on his cheek. Before Howard could react, Vince had moved away.
Howard got changed in silence, his back turned to Vince. He slid into one side of the sleeping bag and glanced up, just catching sight of Vince's baggy pajama top sliding over his pale torso. Vince sighed and slid in next to him. It was suddenly freezing; clearly, like any desert, the Fire Planet dropped drastically in temperature when the sun was down. Howard didn't dare move though, he doubted Vince would want to share his warmth, especially now.
When did it get like this? I used to tell him everything. Well… apart from that one, massive thing that he can't know about ever. But then, he used to be so different. He used to look at me like I was his hero, his mentor. I didn't mind the clubbing and parties at first, whatever made him happy and stopped him being bored and moody. But now I just… I miss him so much. It's like he's forgotten me. Or it's like he wants to.
Howard couldn't help rolling onto his side to look up at Vince. He was already asleep the lucky bugger. His eyes roamed over Vince's softened, sleeping face. He looked more like the real Vince when he was dreaming – the Vince free of all troubles and anguish.
More like the Vince I fell in love with, Howard thought, drifting into unconsciousness.