A/N: Set during 'Stolen'. Dedicated to Rose for being so nice on lj and cos she thought it was a good idea. I thought of this ages ago but only just got around to writing it. It's only short!

Disclaimer: Much as I'd like to own Vince in an eye-patch, I don't. First few lines of dialogue are lifted from the radio show.

Holiday Snaps

“Hey Howard, how’s it going? I’ve had a crazy day. I never realised you could land a chopper on the back of a hippo, it was brilliant!” Vince grinned as he bounced into the hut, still wearing his eye-patch. Then stopped suddenly as he saw what Howard was doing. “What are you doing? Why are you taking down the pictures of us on holiday?”

“I’m packing up, Vince, I’m leaving the zoo.”

“What?” Vince’s eyes widened.

“I’m leaving the zoo,” Howard repeated.

“Leaving the zoo, what are you on about? What do you mean?” He tried to keep the note of panic out of his voice.

“Nobody pays attention to me, nobody recognises me. I wander round anonymous at the zoo…” Howard complained.

“Don’t be like that!” Vince pleaded. Then his eye fell on the photo Howard held in his hand. “Well, you’re not taking that!” Howard looked down at the picture. It showed the two of them at a party they had gone to while on holiday the year before. Howard, clearly intoxicated, grinned lopsidedly at the camera, one arm slung around Vince who was wearing a ridiculously oversized sombrero and looking up at him, lights twinkling in the background.

“I need this photo,” Howard insisted, “It’s all I have to remind me of that night.”

“You mean your ‘holiday romance’,” Vince said, a sneer in his voice.

“Don’t take that tone, you know how much she meant to me!”

“It was just a one night stand Howard,” Vince sulked.

“You may have one night stands, Vince, I, Howard Moon am above such animalistic coupling. This was a true meeting of souls.”

“As if it was! Bet you don’t even remember her name, do you?”

“Names are not important…” Howard said.

“I knew it. Well, if she was your soulmate or whatever, how come you never saw her again?”

“It was but a fleeting glimpse of happiness in the twilight, to vanish by the morn,” Howard said poetically.

“You mean it was a one night stand,” Vince translated. “What did she look like, then?

“She had…hair. And…fingers. Look, the details aren’t important, anyway. She was beautiful…” He sighed dreamily.

“You don’t remember at all, do you? She could have been a right minger! She could have been a bloke…”

“I don’t expect someone like you to understand, Vince. Nobody understands me, that’s why I’m leaving.” Vince snatched the photo.

“Well, you’re not taking that photo. That night was important to me, too.”

“Oh really?” Howard said sarcastically, “Just because you hooked up with some Spanish floozy…”

“It wasn’t. It was this bloke I’d been in love with for ages, actually.” He went quiet and Howard stared at him in surprise. “At that party. Well, we’d both had a lot to drink. I walked him up to his room and…and he kissed me, it was like fireworks going off and stuff. And then we…well, you know. Best night of my life.” He sighed, staring out of the window.

“What happened?” Howard asked curiously. Something must have happened. He’d never heard Vince mention having a boyfriend. He hadn’t even known his assistant was that way inclined.

“Woke up the next morning, he didn’t remember a thing about it. Must have been more wasted than I thought,” Vince said bitterly.

“Oh Vince,” Howard went over and put a friendly hand on his shoulder. He thought it was probably the saddest thing he’d ever heard.

“’S ok, I’m over it,” Vince shrugged, not sounding over it at all. He looked down at the photo and ran his fingers over it.

“You can keep that photo if you like,” Howard said generously, hoping to cheer his friend up. If possible, Vince only looked even sadder.

“Howard?”

“Yeah?”

“What colour eyes did she have? Your holiday girl?”

“Blue,” Howard remembered, “Very blue.” He looked down at Vince only to find him closer than he’d thought he was, looking at him searchingly with his eyes. His big blue eyes. He suddenly felt very confused. Then, without warning he felt Vince’s lips pressed against his own and his confusion grew. Startled, it took him a while to work out that Vince, his annoying assistant Vince, was kissing him. He pushed him away and staggered back.

“What the hell…?”

“I’m sorry!” Vince suddenly looked scared, “It’s just…you’re leaving, and you were being so nice about the holiday that I thought you might remember…” The penny dropped and Howard stared at him in horror.

“It was you,” he said, aghast, as Vince’s eyes dropped to the floor. “My holiday romance, my mysterious woman, my meeting of souls…it was you all the time?”

“I…”

“And you’ve let me go on about it for months and all the time it was you? You little shitbox! I bet you’ve all been having a good laugh about this, haven’t you? I bet everyone knows all round the zoo! How could you?” Howard stormed out, slamming the door and not noticing the tears that began to fall from his friend’s eyes.

Howard stalked away from the hut, furious, face burning with shame. He avoided eye contact with any of the other keepers who looked at him curiously as he marched on. How could Vince do this to him? His one treasured memory and it turned out to be nothing more than a joke at his expense as usual.

At somewhere around the okapi enclosure, some of the conversation began to filter back into Howard’s consciousness. Vince hadn’t been laughing at him, had he? For a change. He’d been uncharacteristically sad, in actual fact. He’d said he’d slept with someone he’d been in love with for ages. In love with. And who’d forgotten about it the next morning and broken his heart.

And all he’d done was reject him again and shout at him.

Oh, shit.

Howard raced back to the hut but Vince was gone. The photograph was on the floor, the frame smashed and the glass fragments smeared with blood. The picture itself was twisted and crumpled as if someone had tried to rip it and failed. Howard picked it up and smoothed it out and went in search of Vince.

*

Vince sniffed and buried his head in Bollo’s fur. Animals were so much nicer than humans. They didn’t pretend to be your friend and then break your heart by shouting at you and abandoning you. He cradled his hand which he’d cut picking up the now hated photo from the glass.

Bollo patted his back soothingly. He liked the boy with the funny hair that came in and talked to him and brought him pic and mix and tried to teach him the guitar. He didn’t have any tasty fleas to pick out of his fur but still Bollo didn’t mind grooming him and was even getting the hang of blow drying. But today the boy seemed sad, although the gorilla didn’t really understand why. Maybe he’d run out of pic and mix.

“Vince? Vince, I know you’re in there, please come down.” Vince’s sobs started up afresh. Bollo bristled. It was that keeper with the funny stain on his lip, he’d done something to hurt precious Vince. Bollo growled and the keeper took a step back.

“Vince, I’m sorry, alright? I was just…it was just a shock. I shouldn’t have said those things. Vince, please!”

“Go away! If you’re leaving the zoo, just leave!” Vince called.

“I…I had a rethink. I thought…maybe I could stay, at least until we catch the phantom.”

“W…we?”

“Well, if you want to help…”

“Yeah…yeah I suppose I could. If…if you can just forget about earlier.”

“Did…did you mean what you said about being over it?” Howard asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Vince lied, “You know me, can’t concentrate on anything for long.”

“Yeah.” Howard, despite himself, felt a stab of disappointment. “Well, I’ll draw up a plan of the zoo and come up with a strategic plan to catch the phantom. I’ll meet you by the small mammal enclosure tonight.”

“See you then.”

Later that day, Howard waited for Vince by the small mammal enclosure. He was late, as usual. It was a cold night. Howard put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. The photograph. He felt his stomach twist in a wholly unexpected way as he looked at it. Him and Vince. Together. He felt slightly sick but not altogether in a bad way.

“Hey,” Vince grinned at him nonchalantly. Howard jumped, thrusting the photo back in his pocket. All traces of his earlier crying jag vanished, Vince looked as sparkly as ever. “What’s this plan of yours, then?” Howard explained the plan to Vince in minute detail. He thought he caught Vince yawning a couple of times. Must just have been tired, because the plan was intricate and incredibly interesting, Howard thought.

Still, the actual execution of the plan was less than riveting as it involved a lot of waiting. Howard felt himself getting drowsy.

“Come on, Vince, we need to keep awake. Hey, why don’t you tell me one of your stories.”

“I could tell you about Jahooli,” Vince suggested, “and the time he got me some fake id to go drinking in the local pub. You never would believe a leopard could get served at a bar just by putting on a false moustache and calling himself Rodrigo.”

“Or, you could tell me about what happened on holiday,” said Howard. The companionable atmosphere snapped like that.

“I don’t know if that would be a good idea…” Vince said doubtfully.

“I want to know what happened.” Howard said. Vince closed his eyes.

“Ok. We were at that party at the hotel. We drank a lot of tequila. You were trying to chat up every girl in sight, turning on the northern charm and all that. You asked one girl to get in your wheelbarrow and I had to stop her boyfriend from punching you. Funny thing was, you didn’t even have a wheelbarrow. Anyway, that’s when I decided I’d better take you back to our room before you got beaten up or drowned in the swimming pool. It took a while to get you out of the lift, you were kind of mesmerised by your own reflection…that happens to me sometimes, I know where you’re coming from on that one. And then we got to the room.” Here Vince paused and took a long breath. “You pushed me up against the door and kissed me. It was like fireworks going off in my head. Everything I’d ever wanted since I first started here at the zoo. But still, I knew it wasn’t right, not if you were so drunk you didn’t know who I was. I didn’t want to trick you or nothing. But then you said my name.” Vince’s voice dropped to an agonised whisper, “You said my name, Howard, and from then I was lost.” He looked up at Howard, eyes threatening to spill over with tears again. Howard took a step closer to him. Vince turned away.

“What happened after that?” Howard wanted to know. Vince was trembling.

“I…I can’t. Not if you’re going to be disgusted or…”

“I won’t.”

“You led me to the bed and you…I can’t Howard, it’s too…”

“You could show me,” Howard’s voice was low. Vince could feel his breath on the back of his neck and shivered. Howard pulled Vince around to face him and kissed him softly on the mouth. Vince whimpered slightly. “How was that? Any fireworks this time?”

“Don’t tease me,” Vince begged, “You’ve already broken my heart once.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Howard said, stroking Vince’s hair, “Vince, if I left the zoo, there’d be one thing I’d miss more than anything else.”

“The snack kiosk?”

“You, you berk.”

“Oh.” Vince flushed. Howard pressed his body against Vince’s and kissed him again, harder this time.

“I want you to show me,” he whispered, “How we could be. You and me.” Vince needed no further persuasion.

When the phantom appeared at the zoo that night the two zookeepers were far too distracted to notice and the mystery of the missing animals was never solved.