Monty Python And The Barbados Fic (Eric/Mike/OFC)

Chapter 2

     “And so, there’s Terry, slowly unzipping in front of all these Germans, about to reveal all, and I just thought, ‘we’ve got to get the hell outta here!’”

     Eric was entertaining Y/N with adventures of the Pythons filming in Germany, and painting a picture of a Terry Jones she’d never seen before.

     “Are we sure he’s allowed back to Germany?” she asked, “Has he tried?”

     “You know, I don’t know.”

     He hadn’t spoken much about Monty Python as a group before. She decided it was something that he felt was just a part of him, like the birth marks on his left cheek, something that didn’t need to be explained but simply was. Eric spoke about many things with passion and detail, but she hadn’t yet seen him speak about anything with more fondness than Monty Python.

     “It sounds like a pretty good team to me,” said Y/N.

     Eric spoke quickly, “Oh, we were more than that – we were like brothers! Well,” he stopped himself, “Maybe not quite. Something in between cousins and brothers. They were good days. And here we are again!”

     They reached a large stone table that had been laid out with elegant crockery, glasses of varying sizes, multiple bottles of wine (two of which had already been opened), and baskets of bread rolls and assorted fruits. Dinner was to be served shortly, in the English style. There was an unfamiliar sense of formality here, Y/N thought, totally at odds with the silliness and recklessness brought by the vacationing comedians.

     John and Terry Jones had seemingly found the cocktail bar earlier in the day, and were now communicating in shouts:

     “No, NO – we are not talking work anymore!” hollered John, his face now as red as the wine in his glass.

     Terry was insisting that their philosophical exploration of ancient Roman attitudes was not work, and was instead just healthy academic discussion.

     “Who let those two get into the drinks?” Y/N quietly asked, leaning slightly over to Michael who had taken a seat beside her.

     “I don’t know,” he replied, looking her in the face, “I must have missed that part.”

     Eric, remembering past misadventures of Terry and booze, offered a distraction, “Wine, Terry?”

     “Eric, don’t,” cautioned Y/N.

     “He’s fine, love, trust me. It’ll only help him,” he insisted, holding up the unopened bottle of Italian red wine from his end of the table.

     “Here, Terry, have a taste of Italy and consult with your inner Roman.”

     Graham Chapman, who had been unusually quiet for some time, looked an almost fatherly figure at the head of the table, quietly clasping his pipe with intrigue on his lips as he observed the goings on. He had, himself, recently given up the drink entirely, and this proved to be an opportunity for him to assume a position of thoughtful wisdom that had previously been disguised as drunken lunacy.

     “Where’s Gilly?” Eric asked the table, once eating was underway and he realized they were missing an American.

     “The apples got ‘im,” said Michael, falsely stone-faced.

     “Oh yes, it would seem those apples you see in that tree behind me are not to be ingested.” warned Graham. “Poor Terry let his daredevil get the better of him, and we’ve since learned that the fruit are the stuff of fairytales, and would appear to be poisonous. I’d advise you all to stick to the grapes.”

     “What about Terry? Is he all right?” asked Y/N.

     “He’ll live, unfortunately.”

     The dinner conversation continued long past sunset, and Y/N had learned stories and half-stories of filming, touring, dangerous film sets, BBC programmers, and television hosts. Endless names she didn’t recognize were thrown into the air, a memory suggested by one man, caught by the others with laughter and eye-rolling, and vanishing without further explanation. It was thrilling and adorable, she found, but terribly difficult to follow. The Python machine had reassembled, and was ready to roll in full force.

     While discussion at one end of the table turned to marriage, Graham at the other end caught Eric’s wrist, gently pulling his attention.

     “She’s a good one, that one,” he said, looking past Eric at Y/N who was desperately trying to decipher whose wife was whose. Beside her, Michael was smiling and studying her profile, before he caught Graham’s eyes and turned to look the other way.

     “You’ll do well not to fuck this up.”

     “I don’t plan to, Doctor,” Eric affirmed, leaning toward his pipe-smoking friend. “I’ve told her from the start, I’m hers for good, as long as she’ll have me.”