An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Rating: T
Words: 6.5k
Fandom: The Mighty Boosh
Relationships: Howard Moon/Vince Noir
Tags: Jazz - Freeform, jazz jokes, i'm sorry Thelonious Monk, critical discussion of jazz written by someone who fears jazz, Voodoo, Shaman - Freeform, Shaman magic, gratuitous sexualization of the musician Prince, secret crushes, Love Confessions, idiots to lovers, canon-typical assholery, Crack, girl my crack is fire, my betas tried to make me go to rehab. and i said "no no no"
Howard Moon is a lot of things: jazz maverick, man of action, and massive gayist. When he sees an ad for a club for men who like jazz who like men who like jazz, Howard decides to check it out on the down-low, while Vince is determined to find out Howard's secret. Shenanigans ensue.
Howard perched on a stool and awkwardly drank his pint. None of the men seemed to pay him any mind, engrossed, no doubt, in important, deep conversation about all manner of jazz and jazz-related topics. Howard wondered if he should have brought along Lester Corncrake or one of the old guys who attend his regular jazzercize classes for moral support, but he quickly dismissed the idea. After all, he’d come here to pull… he didn’t want any of his potential jazz-enthusiast suitors to get the wrong idea and think he was taken.
“It’s your first time, isn’t it,” the skinny bartender said in a surprisingly reedy voice. Howard wondered if perhaps the man had a secret life as a clarinetist.
“Yeah,” he admitted.
The bartender raised an eyebrow. “You’ve felt a craving for the passion of jazz for a long time now,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
Howard nodded and took another sip of ale. “I’ve had the Spirit of Jazz inside me. I know what it’s like, to be so full of the Jazz that there’s no room for anything else.”
The bartender gave him and enigmatic look, then nodded. “Perhaps you belong here, after all.”
i’ve been thinking a bit about starting a regular fic rec list, but with a twist: a rec list especially for crackfic. there are a lot of people doing rec lists already, but i’d like to use mine to help get writers of crackfic exposure.
crack is an underrated genre. i think that a lot of funny fics go unnoticed and the writers of humorous fic don’t get the kudos they deserve because people don’t give crack a chance: people assume crack will be badly written, plotless, or pointless. but funny writing is real writing! it takes a lot of work and talent to write humor--it’s just as difficult as writing angst or smut,
so, please hit up my askbox with funny YOI fics! all pairings and ratings welcome. i’m hoping to post the first rec list in a week or two. thanks for your help!
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: Gen
Fandom: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Relationship: Otabek Altin & Jean-Jacques Leroy
Characters: Jean-Jacques Leroy,Otabek Altin,Aliens - Character
Additional Tags: JJ Style Week, Alternate Universe - South Park, when will i stop mashing up gay ice skating and american sitcoms, i guess never, Aliens, Abduction, Anal Probes, Crack Treated Seriously, the author has a crack problem
Summary: As a child, Jean-Jacques Leroy of Montreal had a curious resemblance to Eric Cartman of South Park. And just like young Eric Cartman, one night Jean-Jaques Leroy encounters some visitors from outer space....My entry for days 3 (childhood) and 4 (crossover) of JJ Style Week! AKA: The author has a crack(fic) problem. Don't blame me... Blame Canada!
Read it on AO3!
JJ yawned and stretched, running through his warm-up exercises while he waited for his on-ice practice session to begin. He leaned down to touch his toes, flinching slightly when a pain flared from his butt to his lower back.
“Hey JJ, looks like you didn’t get much sleep last night!” his rinkmate Marceline teased. She was a fifteen-year-old ice dancer, two years older than JJ, who was training under his parents here at the Patinoire Royale.
Her partner, a short and stout half-Native kid named Sebastian, agreed. “You look terrible, JJ.”
JJ yawned once more, and ran a hand through his hair. “I barely slept last night,” he admitted.
Sebastian smirked. “Oh, did you stay up late talking to Isabella again?”
JJ blushed and shook his head. The other skaters teased him relentlessly for his crush on one of the novice skaters, a girl named Isabella Yang. JJ had such a desperate crush on her that he gagged every time he tried to talk to her. “No. Actually, I was having these bogus nightmares all night long...”
“Well...” JJ paused, then took a deep breath, “I was lying in my bed when I dreamed that I saw this bright blue light in the window. The next thing I remember, I was lying on a table, and these scary aliens wanted to operate on me. They had big heads, and big black eyes--”
He was interrupted by Otabek Altin, the weird, silent kid from Kazakhstan who had recently begun training with JJ’s parents. “Visitors,” he breathed, his normally blank face lighting up with something like interest.
All three of the other skaters stared at him, surprised. Otabek had been training with them for a month now, and still barely spoke unless spoken to.
“Wait, what?” JJ asked.
Otabek looked him straight in the eye, his own black gaze searing with intensity. “That wasn’t a dream, JJ. Those were visitors.”
“That was just a dream. My mom said so! “ JJ exclaimed, his voice breaking. Damn puberty.
“Visitors are real,” Otabek insisted.
“Hmm, I’ve heard of visitors before,” Sebastian said. “They abduct people and they mutilate moose.”
“Yeah, didn’t they find a bunch of inside-out moose in Parc Jean-Drapeau last week?” Marceline inquired.
“Whatever, guys. It was just a bad dream,” JJ said, ignoring the weird, unsettling feeling in his stomach that said otherwise.
Otabek cocked his head, looking at JJ intensely. “Didn’t you hear about the UFO sighting last night in Mont Royale?”
"Ooh, JJ, doesn't your family live on Avenue Beaubien? In Mont Royal?" Marcelina asked. Her voice was high-pitched and mocking, as though she knew the answer to that question already.
“No, of course I didn't see anything! Because it didn’t happen!” JJ huffed. What was the new kid’s problem anyway? The Kazakh skater was so damned weird --he never talked to anyone. He’d said more in the last five minutes than he’d said all month, talking about aliens , no less...
“What’s the matter, JJ? Did they give you an anal probe?” Sebastian teased.
“Shut up , hoser,” JJ sneered.
“They do that, you know,” Otabek said gravely. “That’s how the aliens control the minds of their abductees.” He was still staring at JJ as he spoke.
But before JJ could open his mouth to respond, he farted loudly.
“That’s it! You definitely got the probe last night!” Marceline shouted, and she and Sebastian erupted in laughter while JJ flushed with embarrassment.
Only Otabek wasn’t laughing. He was still staring at JJ as if JJ was the answer to a question that Otabek had been asking for a long, long time.
JJ cursed. Nothing had gone right today--he’d woken up absolutely exhausted and things had only gotten worse from there. Not only had he had bad gas all day, for which his rinkmates and classmates had teased him mercilessly, he’d also been forced to stay late at school for tutoring in algebra. Which was totally stupid in his opinion--he was going to grow up to be a figure skater, and figure skaters didn’t need complex math except to add up their program components. As far as JJ was concerned, y=mx+b was totally irrelevant to his life.
And now this: Rue Rachel was closed, blocked off with yellow police barriers and flares. He couldn’t cross the street, and would have to walk an extra kilometer before he reached home. JJ stopped and sighed, fishing around in his bag for his cell phone so he could let his mom know that he’d be home even later than expected.
As he tapped out the text, he overheard two police officers talking to an elderly woman. “That’s the third inside-out moose this week,” she said, concerned.
“Don’t worry, it’s perfectly normal,” the first officer, who was short and portly, answered. He was almost half as tall and twice as wide as his partner, who was tall and thin. The contrast between their appearances was almost comedic.
JJ paused, curious.
“This is nothing out of the ordinary. Moose turn themselves inside out all the time,” the tall, thin officer added.
The elderly woman did not look convinced. “People have been reporting a lot of UFO sightings around here. And lots of black CSIS planes flying overhead.”
Just then, the sky filled with a whirring sound. When JJ looked up, he saw a flock of black helicopters in disappearing into the clouds.
“What was that?” the old woman asked.
“Just a flock of geese,” the first cop said, even though it was almost winter and the geese had long since flown south for the winter.
“Certainly not black CSIS planes,” the second officer agreed.
JJ put his phone in his pocket, detouring around the roadblock. His intestines hurt, and he waited until he was safely around the corner to fart once more. Passing gas helped to relieve the awful pressure in his abdomen, but only for a moment before it returned.
The next day, JJ’s gas was even worse. He kept farting loudly enough that his rinkmates made embarrassing sounds every time he skated by.
“It’s OK, son,” his father said calmly. “You can go home early if you don’t feel well.”
JJ shook his head. “I’m fine , Dad,” he said, just as he let another one rip.
His father grimaced but didn’t say anything more.
Forty minutes later, practice finally ended. JJ was walking to the bus stop across the street from the rink, having changed into his school uniform and waiting for the bus to take him to St. Theresa’s, where he attended the sixth grade.
Otabek was waiting for him in the bus shelter. “Did the visitors come back for you last night?” he asked JJ anxiously.
JJ rolled his eyes. Why was the Kazakh kid so weird? All he ever wanted to talk about was aliens. “Otabek, you weirdo, I know I didn’t get abducted, I know I don’t have an anal probe, and I know I’m not under alien control!” he insisted.
Otabek looked skeptical. “If you don’t have an anal probe, why are you having so much trouble skating?”
“Everyone has off days,” JJ answered.
“And if you’re not under alien control, then why did you admit that you’re not the best skater at the rink?”
JJ looked at him blankly. “Wait, when did I do that?”
“Like five minutes ago,” Otabek said. He took a step toward JJ and began yelling in his ear. “Hey! You alien cowards! Give me back my stuffed tiger!”
“Why did you do that?” JJ winced, rubbing his ear.
“Shit. Um, sorry?” Otabek apologized.
“And what’s so great about a stuffed tiger anyways?” JJ grumbled.
Otabek glared. “It reminds me of someone special.”
JJ farted again.
“Are you sure you should be going to school with a probe in your butt?” Otabek asked.
“Why do you keep insisting that I have a probe in my butt?” JJ huffed.
Suddenly, a shadow blocked out the sun. JJ and Otabek looked toward the sky to see an alien spaceship.
“I want my tiger back!” Otabek yelled, tossing a rock up at the ship.
In retaliation, the aliens shot a laser at the bus stop. Otabek and JJ barely had time to duck for cover before the glass shattered.
“What the hell just happened?” JJ asked his rinkmate, wide-eyed.
“I think,” Otabek said slowly, “that the aliens are communicating with us through the probe you have in your butt.”
The two boys looked at each other, wide-eyed and wild. The JJ let out a particularly vicious fart, and Otabek cracked up. JJ was relieved when the bus finally showed up. At least on a crowded bus, no one would know for sure who was farting.
Finally, JJ dragged himself home. At least today, Rue Rachel wasn’t blocked off, and he could walk directly home. Still, he was relieved when he opened the front door, and immediately made a beeline for his room. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.
Of course, his mother noticed that he’d arrived. Even with five children under ten, nothing got past her.
“JJ, darling! Are you hungry? I made poutine!” she trilled from the kitchen.
JJ’s stomach lurched. He loved poutine, but his butt hurt and he’d been farting for two days, ever since he’d had the nightmare about the visitors. “That’s OK, Mom. I’m not hungry.”
“Are you sure? Growing athletes need their food,” she warned, looking up from the table where she was helping the younger kids with their homework.
JJ nodded. “My stomach kind of hurts.” He let out another fart, grimacing for effect.
“Well, if you feel better, it’s in the fridge,” his mom hummed.
He took two steps toward the stairs, then turned back to call over his shoulder. “Mom, if anyone calls or comes by the house looking for me, I’m not here.”
“OK, sweetheart,” his mom said distractedly, returning her attention to his younger sister’s math homework.
However, only twenty minutes later, a knock sounded on JJ’s door. “Jean-Jacques, your friend Otabek is here,” his mother’s voice trilled from the hallway.
JJ sat up with a groan. He’d been trying to catch up on sleep, but his constant gas made it impossible. The door cracked open, and Otabek stepped into the room with a wrinkle of his nose.
“Sorry, Otabek,” JJ said. “I can’t play today. My mom says so.”
“Oh JJ, it’s just a little gas, you’re fine. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about! Of course you can go out and play.”
JJ narrowed his eyes at his mother. “But mom, I don’t want to play!”
His mom let out a long-suffering sigh. “Now JJ, remember what we talked about. You can’t expect to make friends if you don’t make an effort.”
JJ glared. “Mom!” he hissed. It was a mistake to trust her with his anxiety about not fitting in the with the other kids in school and at the rink. She never did know how to keep a secret.
His mother glared back, and JJ dragged himself out of bed with an exaggerated sigh. There was no fighting her when she had her mind set on something. "Go on, get dressed. Your friend will be waiting downstairs."
"He's not my friend," JJ muttered under his breath, but he knew better than to fight his mother when she got like this.
As soon as the front door shut behind them, Otabek turned to him and said, “We’re going to call the aliens and get my tiger back.”
JJ snorted. “And how, exactly, are we going to do that?”
Otabek looked at him as if he were stupid. “With the probe in your butt, of course.”
“For the last time, Otabek, I don’t have a probe in my butt!” JJ protested. However, as soon as he’d said the words, another loud fart ripped through the air. JJ grimaced--that one hurt. In fact, the flatulence was getting worse....
Otabek took him to the top of the big hill in Mont Royal Park. It took a long time to get there, mostly because the terrible gas had been accompanied by an awful pain in JJ’s butt that made it hard to walk.
“I still don’t understand what’s so important about a stuffed tiger anyway,” JJ complained as they crept up the hill.
It took a minute for Otabek to answer. “My stuffed bear gets lonely without him.”
Otabek was strangely attached to his stuffed animals for a twelve-year-old boy. JJ would never have admitted to any of his rink or classmates that he still slept with the stuffed rabbit he’d had since he was a baby. But JJ supposed it made sense... after all, Otabek was training far away from his family, who lived on the other side of the world. He probably was upset about losing his stuffed animal, and so JJ decided to humor him.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll get your stuffed tiger back. But then I have to go home. My butt really hurts.”
Otabek lifted an eyebrow but didn’t say a thing in response.
Finally, they reached the top of the Colline de la Croix. The Mont Royal Cross loomed high overhead.
Otabek gestured to a rope that had been tied to the base of the cross. We’re going to tie this around your waist so the aliens can’t take you with them,” he explained matter-of-factly. His face was completely serious, not a hint of a joke in his expression.
Otabek was one weird kid, indeed. “Whatever,” JJ said, giving in and letting Otabek tie him to the tree.
They sat and waited for several minutes. Nothing happened.
“This is stupid,” JJ said. “I keep telling you that I don’t have a probe in my butt! The aliens aren’t coming, and you’re not getting your stupid tiger back either!”
“Don’t call my tiger stupid!” Otabek’s eyes narrowed in anger, and he was almost spitting as he talked. It was the most emotion that JJ had ever heard out of his rinkmate.
“Well, why aren’t the aliens coming then?” JJ asked.
Otabek frowned. “I guess we have to signal them somehow,” he said, the furrow between his brows deepening in thought.
Just then, JJ farted.
Otabek snapped his fingers. “That’s it, JJ! All you have to do is fart some more.”
“I don’t think I can fart anymore today.”
“Sure you can!” Otabek exclaimed. “You’ve been farting like crazy ever since the visitors abducted you and put a probe in your butt.”
“For the last time, I don’t have an anal probe!” JJ bellowed, releasing another massive fart as he shouted. As he did so, the pressure in his butt intensified, but JJ ignored it, instead choosing to fart several times in succession to try and ease his discomfort.
Otabek was staring at him, slack-jawed.
“JJ, there’s an 80-foot satellite dish sticking out of your ass!” Otabek exclaimed.
“Yeah, right,” JJ said, turning his head back just to prove Otabek wrong.
Exept Otabek hadn’t been wrong. There was a massive satellite sticking out of JJ’s butt.
JJ gasped in surprise. The satellite shot a beam of bright blue light into the sky, and only a minute later, a spaceship similar to the one that had shattered the bus stop into a million tiny little shards of glass appeared above the two children.
“Whoa, the aliens are going to make first contact!” Otabek cursed. He looked almost eager, and JJ shuddered. He had seen far too much emotion on the normally-reserved boy’s face in the last 48 hours, and it disturbed him more than the probe sticking out of his butt did.
Suddenly, four long, tall grey aliens were standing right in front of the two boys. Their black eyes stared down at them blankly as they towered over the two children, but they made no sound.
“That’s it!” Otabek screamed. “You cowards! You took my stuffed tiger! You’re just a bunch of ^&(& who like to (*(&% while they &(*(*$# and eat ^&*(** while you &*()*(%# your uncle all day long!”
The aliens’ faces remained impassively blank. Though they did not respond to the boys, a porthole on the bottom of the spaceship opened up, and a careworn stuffed tiger plummeted to the ground to land and Otabek’s feet. He and JJ stared up at the spaceship, watching the porthole close with a whoosh before he leaned down to dust off the plush tiger, which had certainly seen better days. It was missing one of its green glass eyes, and the ears were beginning to fray, making it resemble an orange striped tomcat who had gotten in one-too-many fights more than a tiger.
But Otabek just gathered the dirty stuffed thing into his arms, and hugged it close like it was something precious.
JJ was going to say something about that, but all of a sudden, he let out the loudest, longest fart of his life. The sound reached out across the park, echoing off of eastern and northern peaks of Mont Royal. Instantly, the pressure in his anus that he’d been experiencing the past two days released. He’d farted so hard, he had ejected the satellite out of his butt, and it drifted into the atmosphere lazily, like a hot air balloon.
A moment later, a herd of moose appeared on the far side of the cross. The visitors immediately turned their attention to the moose, emitting a series of clicks and high-pitched whines that were almost electronic in nature. The moose cocked their heads, as though listening closely.
Indeed, they were listening. The vague electronic noises the aliens were making was really a sophisticated and ancient language, incomprehensible to JJ and Otabek’s tiny human minds.
Greeting, moose. We come in peace, the tallest alien said.
The moose bellowed softly, but they did not interrupt.
We have studied all the creatures great and small on this planet, the alien said, and we have determined that you are the kindest and the wisest.
The moose bellowed in confusion. Why did you turn some of us inside out? they asked the alien.
Oh, the tall alien shrugged, gesturing to a smaller alien with a disproportionately fat head, even for a visitor. That was Ingrid. She’s the intern.
Ingrid apologized.
The moose shook their horns in understanding. It was universal knowledge amongst the moose that interns often made terrible mistakes. It was the risk you took in order to take advantage of loopholes in labor laws, after all.
Inside this ship, the alien said, the wisdom of the universe awaits you. Join us, and you will survive for eons beyond the extinction of this planet.
The porthole opened, emitting another blindingly blue ray of light. The moose looked up, and the visitors vanished.
A mixture of braying and bellowing sounds filled the air. Finally, the moose charged toward the light, and in an instant, they vaporized as well, right before the spaceship disappeared into thin air.
JJ turned to Otabek. “Dude,” he asked, “what the hell just happened?”
Otabek shrugged, face as inscrutable as ever even though it was half-buried in what was left of his stuffed tiger’s orange fur. Though his face was blank, the kid clung to the tiger with an ardent affection. It was weird seeing so much emotion out of the kid. Before tonight, JJ had only ever seen Otabek look either perfectly blank vaguely annoyed. He supposed that now they were friends or something.
The two boys looked at each other, then shook their heads and made the long descent down the mountain. They were almost at the bottom when JJ cleared his throat. “Hey, Otabek?”
“Hmm?” Otabek said. He arranged the cat plushie around his neck like a furry scarf.
“You’re not going to tell the other kids at the rink about the anal probe, are you?” JJ winced. All the kids already thought he was weird. He didn’t want them to know that the aliens had put an 80-foot satellite into his butt.
“As long as you don’t tell them about the tiger,” Otabek said, offering his hand.
JJ shook. The offer was fair enough: as long as JJ didn’t tease Otabek about his tiger, none of the other kids at the rink would find out about the anal probe. It was unspoken that they would never tell another soul about their encounter with the visitors.
Otabek released his hand, and JJ’s stomach rumbled. It was late, JJ was hungry-- and his mother’s poutine was waiting for him in the fridge. All he had to do was heat it up. He turned on his feet, fistbumping Otabek’s arm gently in a manly gesture of affection. “Well, dude. I guess this is goodnight.”
His friend bumped him back with a soft punch to the shoulder. “Night, JJ.” He paused for a moment. “Thanks for helping me get my tiger back.”
“No problem, bro,” JJ said. “Anytime.” Strangely enough, he meant it.
