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booshslashhavenTitle: The Rules of Conversation
Pairing or Characters: Howard/Vince
Summary: Vince is trying to say something. Howard just won’t listen. Fluffy, angsty sweetness ensues.
Word Count: 2,092
Rating: PG
Warnings: tooth-rotting sugary goodness ahoy!
Disclaimer: Don’t own the Boosh boys, don’t sue or you’ll come up with lint.
Author’s Notes: this is incredibly fluffy and contains semi-obscure musical references. What can I say, I’m a sucker for love confessions. ;)
It’s hard for Vince Noir, really. Even if he is the sunshine kid, life gets a little complicated sometimes.
Howard is complicated. Howard is also a great portion of Vince’s life. Q.E.D.
The problem isn’t the band, music being the language of the soul or whatever. It isn’t his clothes, god no.
It’s the words. Vince had never had any trouble with them, or never really noticed his trouble. But lately…
Their relationship hasn’t gotten more complex, goodness me no. It’s just that they’ve stopped dancing around the complexity and let everything out into the (mostly) open air. If Vince wakes up with an arm or a leg thrown over him, or Howard picks glitter out of his hair some days, nobody says a word. They’re not denying anything, but they aren’t really saying anything either.
That’s a bit of a problem. Vince likes to talk. Vince likes to make himself heard. So he does.
First he whispers it into his coffee in the morning, watching Howard sitting with the newspaper at the table, all cozy and proper-looking. Then he murmurs it into a pillow as they sit scrunched together on the sofa watching terrible seventies horror movies and laughing uproariously. He even sneaks into the bathroom and sits on the lid of the toilet to sing it under his breath while Howard showers.
He whispered it to the back of Howard’s neck that night in bed afterwards, while it was strewn with hairs and just a bit damp from perspiration.
“I love you.”
The neck didn’t respond. Howard said something like “mmmmmmmm—oouuuughh” and rolled onto his stomach. Vince repeated it to himself over and over, like a tribal chant or a lullaby, until he drifted off.
It didn’t really work when he tried saying it to Howard’s face.
“Love you, babe,” he said to Howard as they sat down for lunch that day. Howard was reading Chekhov in one hand and found Vince’s with his other , planting a tiny, absent-minded kiss on their intertwined fingers.
“I love you, Howard,” he sighed into Howard’s back as they stood behind the counter. A faint twitch of his moustache was the only thing to reassure Vince he hadn’t gone unheard.
“You know I love you, right?” he asked aloud than night on the couch, head resting on Howard’s shoulder. Howard chuckled slightly, Vince could feel the vibrations from it, and wound an arm around his waist.
“Alright,” Howard said.
It got frustrating. Howard stopped being amused after a certain point. Vince was met with replies of “oh, really?” and “do you, now?” and then “so you’ve said,” and “Vince, I’m using that hand.”
Vince thought he knew the rules of language pretty well, but they seemed to have changed when he wasn’t looking. Worse, it appeared they had only changed for him.
“Hey Howard, need some help?” This was directed at the man’s back as he tied off bin bags.
“I don’t see why I would need help, Vince, unless you don’t think I’m up to the job,” Howard replied stiffly.
“I just meant you might want someone to help you carry the bin bags out, you always say so.”
Howard’s moustache bristled like a little hedgehog. “Ah, is that your subtle way of implying I complain too much?”
“No, I just—” Vince wailed helplessly as Howard picked up the bin bags and the door slammed on the tail end of their conversation.
Howard was twitchy. That was just Howard. But now he seemed oversensitive, jumping at every little thing. Vince cuddled up to his back one afternoon in the shop and Howard spun around in a faux-karate stance.
“What’re you playing at little man?” What was he playing at? What did he want? Was he joking? The accusations never stopped, it got so they couldn’t have a simple crimp without Vince walking off, frustrated to the point of tears.
Howard didn’t even seem aware of what he was doing. Vince caught him sometimes, staring hot and still at him from the corners of his eyes. It gave Vince a little thrill, that stare. Mine, it said, my Vince. Vince had never been anyone else’s Vince, and found he liked it. But when he went to reciprocate—
“Don’t touch me, little man. Not while—”
Not while people were watching. Not while they were both still in their day clothes. Not when he had just made the bed. Not when Vince had just finished riding his hips and wanted a cuddle. Don’t, don’t, don’t.
Vince was sick and tired of don’t. He tried meeting Howard halfway, then three-quarters, then seven-tenths.
“That’s a nice shirt you’ve got on today,” he said. Howard made a wry face and looked down at his tropic ensemble.
“Not funny,” he muttered, and left shaking his head to change.
Vince tried playing with his hair while they stood behind the counter waiting for business to pick up, but Howard flinched away and scuttled to the nearest reflective surface to check for wads of bubblegum, casting paranoid glances over his shoulder.
Howard was, at heart, a deeply suspicious person. That was unfortunate, because Vince had never had anything but trust for everyone and hope that it would be met with trust in return. But hope wasn’t quite enough.
He often found a cold plate of dinner waiting for him after a night of clubbing, staring at him accusingly from the table. Howard gave grunted responses to his stories the day after, taciturn behind his paper. Vince started staying home with him some nights, only a little out of pity, but Howard would needle him about wanting to be wearing out his Cuban heels on a dance floor.
Vince tried to get involved with Howard’s hobbies, he tried. But they were just…so….boring. And Howard didn’t seem to buy his newfound interest in stationary, literature, or one of thousands of dull subjects. Whenever Vince had wearied of fighting his eyelids and excused himself to bed, there was a mean little gleam of triumph in Howard’s eyes. Aha, it said, I knew you weren’t serious.
Vince was tired of it. He was going to talk to Howard, and there was nothing the bitter bastard could do to dissuade him.
He found Howard at the turntable, reverently unsheathing a record.
“You doing some vinyl? Who is it?”
Howard stiffened, just a fraction, but Vince still noticed.
“A bit of jazz, little man. I was just going up to warn you, don’t want you getting hives, now.”
Vince barked an exaggerated laugh at his back and settled in the barber’s chair. When Howard saw that he was not going anywhere, his shoulders sagged.
“It’s Soul Coughing. They’re a bit new, but they lay down a smooth track.”
Vince sighed. In Howard terms, ‘new’ was usually anything directly preceding Margaret Thatcher. It was probably dusty old geezers gurgling into tincan mics and playing one-string guitars with their false teeth. Then the music came on and he was pleasantly surprised.
It was alright. More than alright. It had a beat he could move his feet to, no slap bass and refreshingly little trumpet. In fact he could grow to tolerate it. In fact—
“I like it,” Vince said.
There was a scratch of needle on vinyl.
Howard stiffened, back still turned to him, one hand on the arm of the record player.
“What?” he said with frightening calm.
“That song, I like it,” Vince repeated. “It ain’t much to dance to, but s’alright.”
Howard turned and looked at him. Not staring, just looking. Blink. Blink.
“Oh,” he said lightly, “oh, that’s— it’s just—”
He upended the table, record player and all, arm moving as if independent from his body. The Blu-Tack garden was next, followed by the table of antique lamps, followed by the shelf of miscellaneous pickled things in jars. Vince pinwheeled his arms in panic as if trying to stop Howard without touching him.
“Hang on, hang on, I just said I liked it!”
Howard turned to him, radiating cold fury. “No, Vince. No. You don’t get to say that.”
“I don’t get to? Why?” Vince asked.
Howard shook a finger at him, sputtering. “You don’t get to say that after years of-of-not now, not to me!”
Now Vince was starting to get a little angry. “What’re you on about? I just said I like it is all, isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Don’t say it, don’t even think it if you don’t mean it!”
“You keep begging me to try it, and now you want to throw a fit?”
“You can’t just toss things out like that and expect me to—”
“—like you have the monopoly on liking music—”
“—never once a kind word and now this—”
“—don’t tell me what I can and can’t like, shrimp eyes—”
“—not even a thought to what other people feel, you glittery titbox—”
“—well I like it yeah? And I ain’t takin’ it back, so you can just—”
“—wouldn’t know good taste if danced naked in your boots—”
“—even if the rhythm’s all wrong and my friends hate it and it dresses like a colorblind flamingo, I still love it, and you can’t make me think any different!” Vince snapped and crushed his mouth against Howard’s.
Howard was silent when Vince pulled away gasping for breath, flushed and pink.
“We… are still talking about a song, aren’t we?” he asked uncomfortably. Vince whipped a hand through his hair in frustration.
“Yes! No! I don’t know!”
Howard stared at him, heat risen in his cheeks. The pieces of the unlucky record lay scattered on the floor between them. Vince squatted down and picked up the two bigger pieces with a sigh, fitting them together.
“Shame, they weren’t bad. Never even got to hear the rest of the track.”
Howard sucked in a breath. He was looking at Vince funny, like he’d been hit in the face with something.
“You…you really wanted to hear the rest of it?”
“Yeah,” Vince said glumly, crouching over the remains, “could’ve been brilliant, really.”
“You’re not—you’re not just taking the piss?”
Vince looked up. Howard was looking at him again, that hot, still stare. He didn’t glance away, met Vince’s gaze full force.
“No,” he said in a small voice, feeling that the conversation had gotten away from him. Howard made a little choked noise and Vince found himself being pinned against the wall, kissed furiously.
“Oh Vince, oh god,” Howard murmured against his lower lip, “I love Gary Newman.”
Vince pulled away and stared blankly at Howard. “…what?”
“And the Human League,” Howard growled, grabbing double fistfuls of Vince’s shirt and planting a burning trail of kisses along his neck, “they’re well brilliant. And those blokes with the hair—”
“Razorlight?”
“Yeah, them. They’re good too.” Howard pulled away and licked his lips, suddenly self-conscious. “Just thought…just thought you should know that.”
Vince sensed the moment was getting away from him and grabbed Howard’s arms. “Well, I think Weather Report is great.”
“You do?” Howard looked like a kicked puppy, wincing and hopeful. Vince licked his lips and put his lips to Howard’s ear.
“Yes, and I think the work Jaco Pastorius did with them was…bloody…brilliant.”
Howard’s eyes squeezed shut and he gave a little shudder. “You’re just saying that,” he whispered.
Vince traced a finger along Howard’s jaw, turning his head to face him. “I don’t have to like jazz to recognize technical skill,” he purred, “and that man played base like a fucking wizard.” That did it.
Vince found himself being carried bodily up the stairs, giggling like a man possessed. They stumbled into the flat, fumbled their way to bed, and made sweet, sweet music together.
Afterwards they lay fitted together like spoons in a drawer, staring up at the ceiling, Vince lazily winding and unwinding a curl of Howard’s hair around one finger. Howard broke the silence.
“You know I love you, right?”
Vince smiled and kissed the corner of his mouth. “’Course.”
“It’s just…” Howard cleared his throat, “I figured you knew that already, I mean there’s no way I could…not love you. I thought you knew that.”
Vince remembered Howard’s pathetic little bouts of jealousy and felt a pang of sadness.
“I do, mate, but it’s good to remind me sometimes,” he said, trailing a finger down his cheek, “just in case I forget. Like, every day.”
Howard turned to him and smiled. “I’ll try to remember that.”
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Date: 2011-03-19 06:55 am (UTC)I was going to put some of my favourite quotes here, then I realized I'd actually be quoting the entire story. So I thought I'd just tell you that this was utterly fucking beautiful. Oh man. That whole argument. Genius. AND THEY ACTUALLY FIND SOME MUSICAL COMMON GROUND. Magical. Best magic ever.
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Date: 2011-03-19 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 08:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 10:06 am (UTC)"Vince cuddled up to his back one afternoon in the shop and Howard spun around in a faux-karate stance."
Hope you keep writing in this fandom! xx
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Date: 2011-03-19 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 11:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 02:53 pm (UTC)And this is an epic line
“Yes, and I think the work Jaco Pastorius did with them was…bloody…brilliant.”
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Date: 2011-03-19 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 02:29 am (UTC)Oh sweet lord that was so happy, not to mention hot. I loved it.
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Date: 2011-03-20 12:19 pm (UTC)AHAHAHAHAHA. That is like the ultimate in dirty-talk coming from Howard.
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Date: 2011-03-20 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-22 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-22 04:49 am (UTC)Whenever Vince had wearied of fighting his eyelids and excused himself to bed, there was a mean little gleam of triumph in Howard’s eyes. Aha, it said, I knew you weren’t serious.
Perfect!