Fic: The Date (Howard/Vince, PG)
Title: The Date
Author: thickets, with illustrations by ftw302!
Fandom: The Mighty Boosh
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Word Count: 4100
Rating: PG
Warnings: Awkward virginal Howard, fairy godmother Vince
Disclaimer: Mighty Boosh does not belong to me!
Summary: Yes, Howard, you will go to the ball.
Notes: This started out with ftw302 asking for drawing prompts on Twitter, as she is prone to do :P, and someone suggested Vince helping Howard get ready for a date, which she drew. Then I came up with a story to go with it, and she bugged me to write it. I exacted payment from her with more pictures. :D
FYI I know I have been away for awhile, I have had a crazy August and September! But I have been writing something very long, which will be posted soon, and will also be illustrated by ftw302. ANTICIPATE THIS.
The Date
by thickets
illustrations by ftw302
Vince was in the midst of his daily ritual. He might have called it a morning ritual if it was typically morning when he did it, but in general he didn't wake at a time most people would consider morning. He had already moisturized and toned and he was halfway done with straightening his hair when he had a feeling, like a million tiny crabs were crawling up and down his back. For a second he was afraid they might actually be - Naboo had brought some home inside a terrarium yesterday for unknown and somewhat worrying purposes - but then he noticed a familiar face hovering over his shoulder in the mirror. He twisted around, and sure enough, Howard was standing in the doorway, his eyes especially shifty-looking, twisting his hands nervously.
"Who's minding the shop?" he asked, wondering what on earth could drag Howard away from his retail responsibilities.
"Er, closed for the day," Howard said. "Naboo said he was doing some exterminating, and that we should stay away. Something about a mystical mollusk infestation. I didn't want to know anymore than that."
So that was what the crabs were for. "Oh," he said. He paused. Howard still stood there, smiling oddly, and fiddling with his collar.
"Your feet gone and fused themselves to the floor?" Vince asked, just as Howard started to say, "Er, actually, Vince, I wanted to ask ..." He drew up short, flushing.
"What?" Vince asked suspiciously. He turned his back to Howard and slid the straightener down one last lock of hair, surveying his work in the mirror.
Howard swallowed thickly. "I have a date," he said, in a strange and unusually loud voice.
Vince stared at him in the mirror, unable to hide his shock. "Really?"
With a scowl, Howard crossed his arms. "Yes."
"Oh." Vince pushed down a sudden surge of annoyance, and started fiddling with his eyeliner pencils. He selected one in a smoky blue and uncapped it, but found that his hand was, inexplicably, shaking. He capped it again and put it down. Howard was still there, watching him with a strange expression. "What is it now?"
"I ... I wanted to ask ..." Howard let a long sigh. "I wanted to ask for your help. You know ... to get ready."
Very slowly, Vince turned around again in his seat. "Are you serious?"
Howard's eyebrows drew close together, making his eyes look extra beady.
"You do mean what I think you mean, right?" He detected a slight thumping in his veins: excitement. "You'll let me ..."
"Woah now," Howard said, holding his hands out. "Nothing ... too drastic. I just need ... advice."
"Oh, advice," Vince said, rolling his eyes. He stood up, his weird reaction to Howard's date forgotten in the thrill of the moment. He grabbed Howard by the bicep and tugged him out of the room. "Come on then, Romeo."
*
Back in Howard's little room, Vince flung open the door to Howard's wardrobe with a sense of dramatics which utterly belied the depressing reality within. Inside the small wardrobe, carefully pressed trousers and corduroys, rollnecks and cardigans and jumpers and tweed blazers hung neatly - a repulsive rainbow of beiges and nutmegs and a color Vince thought of as "baked bean". On one side hung the only bit of color the wardrobe contained: Howard's collection of terrifying Hawaiian shirts. Vince shut the wardrobe and leaned back against it, pale and shaken. He felt like he had just stared into the abyss.
"Just give me a minute," he said. "I have to steel myself before I go in there again."
Howard frowned in irritation. "Are you sure we shouldn't call a professional?" he said dryly.
"No, I can handle it," Vince said. "No sense dragging an unfortunate third party into this. I've been building up an immunity to your clothes for years, anyway." He took a deep breath. "Right."
He opened the wardrobe again, and gingerly began to comb through the clothes inside, touching the fabric delicately as though he might catch some kind of disease from it. The disease of tweed. "I'd loan you some of my own clothes," he said, sucking on his lower lip thoughtfully, "but they'd stretch."
"Vince," Howard said.
"All right, all right, keep your trousers on." He peered back to take a good look at Howard's trousers. "On second thought, don't. They're awful."
"I don't want to wear your fripperies anyway," Howard mumbled, and Vince suppressed a smile.
After some time, Vince had, with some reluctance, assembled a small pile of items that he deemed "semi-acceptable". He took another furtive look inside the closet, reaching deep inside and hoping that it might open into another world with better, less ugly fashion choices in it, but his fingers only brushed solid wood. "That's that," he said. "We'll just have to make do." He held up a shirt and a pair of trousers and thrust them at Howard. "Try these on."
Howard held the hangers to his chest, like a shield. "What ... right now?"
"No, next week," Vince said. "Oh, go on. Look, I'll turn around. It ain't like I've never seen you in your pants before. What's wrong with you?"
Vince soon discovered that not only did Howard have terrible style, but he also had a peculiar ability to make any piece of clothing look much worse while he was wearing it than it did on the rack. He didn't so much wear clothing as it wore him, like a jockey with saddle itch, awkwardly and with a fair amount of discomfort. As soon as he put a shirt, for instance, every straight line and seam seemed to fade, turning it into a shapeless sack of fabric. It didn't help that almost everything Howard owned was either too big or too small. It was though Howard was a younger brother, forced to wear clothes he'd outgrown or cast offs he hadn't grown into yet. Why d'you do this to yourself, Vince found himself wondering as he tossed another shirt into the pile. Half of your problem is you, Howard.
Soon they had reached the end of Vince's selections, and still nothing seemed to be working. Howard was surprisingly placid and easy to boss around; only a scathing remark about how he might as well buy burlaps sacks to wear instead made his moustache twitch unhappily. Somehow getting such a mild reaction from him made Vince feel a lot worse about it, and so he sat down on the edge of the bed and thought hard, or as hard as it was possible for Vince to think, about what he should do. Howard sat down next to him, and surveying Vince's furrowed brow, tentatively offered:
"You said the third outfit was slightly less than horrible, so maybe that'll do?"
"No," Vince said firmly.
"It's not such a big deal," Howard said, "this date. Don't overdo it."
Date? Somewhere along the line Vince had forgotten the purpose of this whole venture, and being reminded of it put him in a bit of a bad mood. He felt a nasty comment rising in his throat, like bile, and then he looked at Howard's hopeful smile and choked on it. Why'd he ask me to do this, anyway? He wondered. Since when does Howard Moon pay any mind to dressing well, or at least, what I'd say is dressing well?
"Right," he said, standing up. He went back to the wardrobe and picked through it, and then pulled out a brown corduroy suit. Just the sight of it made him shudder, but it was awfully Howard, wasn't it? It just needed ... a little bit of help. The same as Howard did. "How long do we have? Until this date?"
"Uh -" Vince wasn't sure if the panic and confusion in Howard's face was surprise at being asked this so abruptly or something else. "... Three hours?"
Vince nodded. "That's enough time."
"For what?"
Vince dashed back over to the bed and found the least unappealing shirt - a green t-shirt, remarkably normal for Howard. "Don't worry, Howard. I'll take care of you." Then he ran off to his room, leaving Howard calling his name, confused.
*
Two hours later, Vince sat back from his sewing machine and stretched. His fingers were sore and he thought he might be developing a corduroy allergy to match his sensitivity to jazz, but it was done. He hadn't needed to measure Howard; he had a knack for guessing people's measurements, and Howard's awkward body was familiar to him in a way he'd never realized before.
The suit was, on the surface, not greatly altered from its original state, but Vince had made the cut more fashionable and better suited to Howard's build, and added a little flair to the lapel and cuffs. In a detached manner, he found himself admiring his handiwork and imagining how Howard would look wearing it.
As though summoned by Vince's thoughts, there was a timid knock on the door. "Er, Vince? Are you all right in there?"
Vince snapped to attention. "All right, Howard! Come in here!"
The door cracked open and Howard peered in. "What's going on?"
"I've turned your mucky brown suit into a slightly sharper-looking mucky brown suit. Come and take a look."
Howard entered the room and took the suit jacket from Vince. "Oh ... Vince, that's very ... kind of you."
"And look," Vince continued, holding up the trousers. "I brought these in, right, all your trousers are always way too baggy in the thigh, Howard, why is that? Now they should hug your -" He stopped, smirking. "Go on, try it all on. I want to see how it looks."
Howard, still looking bewildered but also slightly pleased, allowed himself to be herded into his room. A few minutes later he emerged, and Vince was waiting for him, with a comb and a canister of product.
"Perfect," Vince said. "I don't know how I do it." He led Howard into the parlor and motioned for him to sit down.
"Should these trousers really be so tight?" Howard said. "Also, what are you doing with that - ah!"
"Calm down, we don't have much time," Vince said as he rubbed some of the product through Howard's hair. "Let me just get you looking a little bit neater - I see you shaved today, that's a good start at least -"
"You make it sound like I'm a caveman - I shave when I need to -"
"Christy, your hair's like a thatched roof. That's a bit better." Vince ran the comb through Howard's disobedient locks a few more times and set it aside. "Something's missing ..." he murmured. "Er .... one minute ..." He dashed back to his room.
Where was it? He pushed a stack of old issues of Cheekbone over to his closet and stood on them to reach the back of the top shelf. Somewhere back there, he knew he had it ... yes ... he pulled out a shoebox and flung off the lid, and began sorting through it. Finding what he wanted, he dropped the box on the bed and started to leave, then veered back and rapidly looked through a collection of bottles on his vanity, mumbling under his breath as he discarded one after another, before finally selecting one.
Howard was standing in the doorway when he turned around, looking like he wanted to say something, but Vince had no time to listen. "Stand still," he murmured, and pinned the red silk flower to Howard's lapel.
"A flower?" Howard said. "Er, I don't know, Vince ...."
"It's gentlemanly," Vince said, and as he'd hoped, this appeased Howard. He uncapped the bottle of cologne.
"Oh - no Vince, I've got my own -"
"All your cologne smells like sweaty old men smoking pipes and reading library books. Look, this one ain't so bad, is it?" He waved it under Howard's nose, and took a sniff himself - like vanilla and coffee beans, Howard couldn't object to that, could he? Before he had a chance to, anyway, Vince gave him a couple of sprits.
He took a look at the clock. "Just in time," he said, and began to rush Howard towards the door. "You've only got ten minutes. Where are you taking this bird anyway? What's her name? Who is she?"
Howard's face contorted weirdly. "Er ... um ... we're just going to the pub."
"What pub?"
"The ... one down the road."
"That's a bit dull," Vince said, "but maybe she'll appreciate that, especially if she's a good match for you. Eh?" Howard looked a bit annoyed. "What? I didn't mean it in a bad way. Not really. Well, go on then!"
Howard paused at the top of the stairs that led down to the shop and turned around. "Well ... thank you, Vince."
Vince felt a little color rise to his cheeks. "Ah ... right. Have a good time, then. Good luck."
For a minute he thought he saw, strangely enough, an expression of guilt on Howard's face, then he smiled and walked down the steps. Vince closed the door behind him, leaving himself in the flat, alone.
*
After an entire day of quite exhausting and unusual do-gooding, Vince decided he deserved to have some relaxing fun. He put Gary Numan on, and dragged his favorite duvet out onto the settee, and brought out all his magazines, and ate Nutella straight out of the jar with a spoon. After half an hour, he admitted he was bored as hell.
He wondered how Howard's date was going. Did the girl appreciate the fine tailoring of his suit? Did she like the flower, and agree with Vince that it added a nice touch of color to Howard's general woolly exterior? She better had. Vince wrapped the duvet around himself and pulled it over his head. He hoped Howard wasn't ruining things too badly with his natural personality.
Who was he kidding? Of course he was.
Vince flung the duvet off. Well, that was it. He was going to have to check in on them himself.
Of course, he couldn't let Howard know he was there, that would just make the poor bastard even more nervous. He was going to have to go incognito. This meant a change in wardrobe.
*
Not long afterwards (relatively speaking), Vince, kitted out all in black, including black sunglasses and a black scarf, made his way down the street to the pub Howard had mentioned. At first, as he set out, he was still caught up the excitement of spying on Howard's date. But as he got closer and closer to ground zero, the bad humor he'd staved off throughout the day, distracted by his monumental mission to make Howard look good, began to creep back in. He felt a swelling, poisonous feeling rising up in his stomach, and he had to keep stopping himself from biting and chewing at his lower lip. Why he felt so annoyed by the fact that Howard was on a date - and after all the work he'd put into making it a success, too! - was a mystery to him, but he couldn't deny that this well and truly was the reason he was so out of joint.
It was with some trepidation and a slightly deflated sense of purpose that he entered the pub. Suppressing all of his natural instincts to draw everyone's attention to his entrance, he slunk carefully into a booth and tried to blend in with the scenery.
It wasn't easy, not being noticed. Maybe he should ask Howard to give him lessons sometime. Then again, would he ever need or want to be anonymous again? Not likely!
Subtly at first he surveyed the room, but Howard was nowhere to be seen. Gradually he got a little bolder in his search, until finally he was kneeling on the seat and peering around openly, and unbeknownst to him attracting the skeptical attention of several other patrons. Well, where the hell was Howard and his little - his date? Had he got the wrong pub? Had Howard lied to him? Had they left already? Maybe the suit had worked too well. Maybe she'd taken him back to his flat. Maybe Howard was losing his pathetic, long-held virginity right at this minute!
Vince, in his increasing agitation, had taken his sunglasses off and was twisting them in his hands, and because he could see a little better now without the tinted lenses in front of his eyes, he finally spotted Howard. He could see why he'd missed him before; not only was Howard in the darkest corner of the room, but he seemed to be trying to make himself look as small and unobtrusive as possible.
Now there, Vince reflected, was some first class wallflowering.
As far as he could tell, though, the lady of the hour was nowhere in sight. For a minute, Vince was confused. Then he began to construct a story in his mind: Howard somehow coercing an uninterested, or perhaps even malicious, girl into saying she'll go on a date with him, completely oblivious to the fact that she has no interest in him; Howard arriving at the pub, all bright-eyed and optimistic; the long, slow dawn of realization that she wasn't coming, he'd been stood up. And here was the result.
"Oh, Howard," he mumbled. For a moment there was a bizarre sense of relief, and then, even more bizarre, a rush of fury. Right, so Howard was awkward as a three-legged camel, and his style of flirtation was as stale as his chastity belt, and his poetry was so bad you had to forget you heard it right away in order to preserve your sanity. But bloody hell if he was going to let this happen! You don't stand up Vince Noir's best mate!
Now infuriated, Vince marched over to where Howard, still innocent to his presence, was sitting.
"All right, who is she?" he asked.
Howard jumped, jostling his pint of lager. "What - Vince! Why are you here? And what are you wearing?"
Vince slammed his hands down on the table. "Come on, Howard, I know what's going on. Tell me who she is. She ain't gonna hear the last of this!" He paused. "What do you mean, what am I wearing? What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing's wrong with it," Howard said, looking exceedingly uncomfortable, "if you're planning on infiltrating the MI6 under cover of night. Er, why are you here again? What are you talking about?"
"Look, Howard, there's no need to be embarrassed. It's not your fault that trollop stood you up, left you hanging, all dressed up with nowhere to go. I'm going to teach her a lesson, don't worry, Howard."
"Vince," Howard said stiffly, "Vince, calm down. This isn't necessary."
"Oh, Howard," Vince said, exasperated, and flung himself onto the seat opposite him, "don't say that. You always do that. No wonder you never get anywhere with a girl, as soon as the first opportunity strikes you mark yourself down to Salvation Army prices. Howard."
Howard groaned and covered his face with his hands. "Vince, stop it ... this is awkward enough as it is."
"Howard, you can't let her treat you this way. This girl -"
"This girl - there isn't a girl, Vince! I made it up."
Vince blinked. "Eh?"
Howard put his face in his arms.
"Wait a minute, there's no girl? Then who was the date with?"
"Nobody," Howard said.
"You had a date with nobody? Is that some kind of code?"
"No, it means, the date was fictional. A lie. I lied. I didn't have a date."
Vince wrinkled his brow in deep concentration. "So ... no girl ..."
"Right."
"No date."
"Mmm."
"No one for me to go and harass."
"Except for me, precisely. Yes."
"I don't understand," Vince said, relaxing all over. He felt like smiling, laughing, but one look at Howard's crumpled form told him that he probably shouldn't. "Why'd you go and make up a date for?" As soon as he said, he imagined exactly why Howard must have done it - to get Vince to stop teasing him about his consistent bad luck with women, and boost his ego a little bit. He was so distracted by this thought that he almost missed what Howard said next, or perhaps he couldn't quite believe he'd actually heard it. "What did you say?"
"I said," Howard repeated painfully, "I just ... wanted you to pay a little attention to me."
Vince still couldn't make sense of it. "How does you going on an imaginary date get attention from me?"
"Well it has, hasn't it?" Howard said, nodding towards where Vince was sitting across from him that very minute, and blushed.
"Oh," Vince said, and realized he was returning Howard's blush with his own. "Oh. Howard, you ... brick."
"I'm sorry," Howard said, "I don't know why I've done such a stupid thing."
Vince pressed his lips together tightly, and looked Howard over. The suit, he reflected, really was a success. He'd certainly never wear it, but Howard looked good in it. He looked like Howard to the -nth power, Howard as his truest and best self. Vince felt a little dizzy. He thought about the idea of Howard being on a date had made him feel, and how he'd felt when he thought Howard had been so badly insulted, and how relieved when he understood none of it had been real to begin with. He thought about Howard saying, "I just wanted you to pay a little attention to me," and how shy and nervous he'd been when he'd come and asked for help earlier in the day.
Without even realizing it, he got up and walked over to Howard's side of the booth, and sat down next to him. Howard looked at him quizzically and a little wearily.
"It ain't too late you know, Howard," he said, putting a hand on one of his nearest arm.
Howard looked at the hand a little suspiciously. "Too late for what?"
Vince smiled. "To go on a date."
Howard jerked away. "Vince, don't. It's not funny."
"I ain't making fun of you, Howard," Vince said.
"Then what are you doing?"
Suppressing a little bubble of nervous excitement, which he hadn't felt in years, not since he was a teenager really, Vince leaned in and gave Howard a little peck on the cheek. "I'm pickin' you up, you lummox. You wanna go back to my place later?"
Blinking, stunned, and clearly not sure what to think, Howard could only say, "Your place is my place, Vince."
Vince groaned. "Howard," he said. "I am asking you ... on a date. Do you want to go on a date with me, or not?"
For a minute Howard seemed to be frozen, as though Vince's question had physically struck him and he'd been rendered mute and paralyzed. The moment seemed to stretch out for miles. Tentatively, Vince raised a hand and laid it on Howard's chest, right next to the red flower he'd so carefully pinned to Howard's lapel earlier. Howard's heart was going thump, thump, thump, rapidly, beneath his palm. Vince bit his lip.
Suddenly, Howard unfroze. He swallowed hard, and gave a nervous, stuttery nod. "All right," he said, his voice unusually high. Then, hilariously, he took Vince's hand from where it was resting on his chest, and shook it, like they were closing on a legal agreement. Vince smiled back at him encouragingly, suppressing a laugh, and squeezed Howard's hand.
*
"So," Howard asked, as they were walking back home after their date, "what was it that did it?"
"Did what?" Vince asked. He was busy trying to stick the red silk flower, which Howard had given him in a weird moment of affection as they were leaving the pub, into his hair.
"You know," Howard said, with a grin that was trying to dress itself up as rakish, "what made you fall for me? My rugged good looks? My encyclopedic knowledge of the history of pipe-smoking? My keen appreciation for excellent wines?"
"No," Vince said confidently, "It was definitely none of those things."
Howard looked strangely pleased, and with a sudden surge of confidence in his actions, linked his arm through Vince's. "Maybe it was my years of loyal friendship?" he asked.
"Maybe," Vince admitted. "But I think, mostly, it was the suit."
THE END
Author: thickets, with illustrations by ftw302!
Fandom: The Mighty Boosh
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Word Count: 4100
Rating: PG
Warnings: Awkward virginal Howard, fairy godmother Vince
Disclaimer: Mighty Boosh does not belong to me!
Summary: Yes, Howard, you will go to the ball.
Notes: This started out with ftw302 asking for drawing prompts on Twitter, as she is prone to do :P, and someone suggested Vince helping Howard get ready for a date, which she drew. Then I came up with a story to go with it, and she bugged me to write it. I exacted payment from her with more pictures. :D
FYI I know I have been away for awhile, I have had a crazy August and September! But I have been writing something very long, which will be posted soon, and will also be illustrated by ftw302. ANTICIPATE THIS.
The Date
by thickets
illustrations by ftw302
Vince was in the midst of his daily ritual. He might have called it a morning ritual if it was typically morning when he did it, but in general he didn't wake at a time most people would consider morning. He had already moisturized and toned and he was halfway done with straightening his hair when he had a feeling, like a million tiny crabs were crawling up and down his back. For a second he was afraid they might actually be - Naboo had brought some home inside a terrarium yesterday for unknown and somewhat worrying purposes - but then he noticed a familiar face hovering over his shoulder in the mirror. He twisted around, and sure enough, Howard was standing in the doorway, his eyes especially shifty-looking, twisting his hands nervously.
"Who's minding the shop?" he asked, wondering what on earth could drag Howard away from his retail responsibilities.
"Er, closed for the day," Howard said. "Naboo said he was doing some exterminating, and that we should stay away. Something about a mystical mollusk infestation. I didn't want to know anymore than that."
So that was what the crabs were for. "Oh," he said. He paused. Howard still stood there, smiling oddly, and fiddling with his collar.
"Your feet gone and fused themselves to the floor?" Vince asked, just as Howard started to say, "Er, actually, Vince, I wanted to ask ..." He drew up short, flushing.
"What?" Vince asked suspiciously. He turned his back to Howard and slid the straightener down one last lock of hair, surveying his work in the mirror.
Howard swallowed thickly. "I have a date," he said, in a strange and unusually loud voice.
Vince stared at him in the mirror, unable to hide his shock. "Really?"
With a scowl, Howard crossed his arms. "Yes."
"Oh." Vince pushed down a sudden surge of annoyance, and started fiddling with his eyeliner pencils. He selected one in a smoky blue and uncapped it, but found that his hand was, inexplicably, shaking. He capped it again and put it down. Howard was still there, watching him with a strange expression. "What is it now?"
"I ... I wanted to ask ..." Howard let a long sigh. "I wanted to ask for your help. You know ... to get ready."
Very slowly, Vince turned around again in his seat. "Are you serious?"
Howard's eyebrows drew close together, making his eyes look extra beady.
"You do mean what I think you mean, right?" He detected a slight thumping in his veins: excitement. "You'll let me ..."
"Woah now," Howard said, holding his hands out. "Nothing ... too drastic. I just need ... advice."
"Oh, advice," Vince said, rolling his eyes. He stood up, his weird reaction to Howard's date forgotten in the thrill of the moment. He grabbed Howard by the bicep and tugged him out of the room. "Come on then, Romeo."
*
Back in Howard's little room, Vince flung open the door to Howard's wardrobe with a sense of dramatics which utterly belied the depressing reality within. Inside the small wardrobe, carefully pressed trousers and corduroys, rollnecks and cardigans and jumpers and tweed blazers hung neatly - a repulsive rainbow of beiges and nutmegs and a color Vince thought of as "baked bean". On one side hung the only bit of color the wardrobe contained: Howard's collection of terrifying Hawaiian shirts. Vince shut the wardrobe and leaned back against it, pale and shaken. He felt like he had just stared into the abyss.
"Just give me a minute," he said. "I have to steel myself before I go in there again."
Howard frowned in irritation. "Are you sure we shouldn't call a professional?" he said dryly.
"No, I can handle it," Vince said. "No sense dragging an unfortunate third party into this. I've been building up an immunity to your clothes for years, anyway." He took a deep breath. "Right."
He opened the wardrobe again, and gingerly began to comb through the clothes inside, touching the fabric delicately as though he might catch some kind of disease from it. The disease of tweed. "I'd loan you some of my own clothes," he said, sucking on his lower lip thoughtfully, "but they'd stretch."
"Vince," Howard said.
"All right, all right, keep your trousers on." He peered back to take a good look at Howard's trousers. "On second thought, don't. They're awful."
"I don't want to wear your fripperies anyway," Howard mumbled, and Vince suppressed a smile.
After some time, Vince had, with some reluctance, assembled a small pile of items that he deemed "semi-acceptable". He took another furtive look inside the closet, reaching deep inside and hoping that it might open into another world with better, less ugly fashion choices in it, but his fingers only brushed solid wood. "That's that," he said. "We'll just have to make do." He held up a shirt and a pair of trousers and thrust them at Howard. "Try these on."
Howard held the hangers to his chest, like a shield. "What ... right now?"
"No, next week," Vince said. "Oh, go on. Look, I'll turn around. It ain't like I've never seen you in your pants before. What's wrong with you?"
Vince soon discovered that not only did Howard have terrible style, but he also had a peculiar ability to make any piece of clothing look much worse while he was wearing it than it did on the rack. He didn't so much wear clothing as it wore him, like a jockey with saddle itch, awkwardly and with a fair amount of discomfort. As soon as he put a shirt, for instance, every straight line and seam seemed to fade, turning it into a shapeless sack of fabric. It didn't help that almost everything Howard owned was either too big or too small. It was though Howard was a younger brother, forced to wear clothes he'd outgrown or cast offs he hadn't grown into yet. Why d'you do this to yourself, Vince found himself wondering as he tossed another shirt into the pile. Half of your problem is you, Howard.
Soon they had reached the end of Vince's selections, and still nothing seemed to be working. Howard was surprisingly placid and easy to boss around; only a scathing remark about how he might as well buy burlaps sacks to wear instead made his moustache twitch unhappily. Somehow getting such a mild reaction from him made Vince feel a lot worse about it, and so he sat down on the edge of the bed and thought hard, or as hard as it was possible for Vince to think, about what he should do. Howard sat down next to him, and surveying Vince's furrowed brow, tentatively offered:
"You said the third outfit was slightly less than horrible, so maybe that'll do?"
"No," Vince said firmly.
"It's not such a big deal," Howard said, "this date. Don't overdo it."
Date? Somewhere along the line Vince had forgotten the purpose of this whole venture, and being reminded of it put him in a bit of a bad mood. He felt a nasty comment rising in his throat, like bile, and then he looked at Howard's hopeful smile and choked on it. Why'd he ask me to do this, anyway? He wondered. Since when does Howard Moon pay any mind to dressing well, or at least, what I'd say is dressing well?
"Right," he said, standing up. He went back to the wardrobe and picked through it, and then pulled out a brown corduroy suit. Just the sight of it made him shudder, but it was awfully Howard, wasn't it? It just needed ... a little bit of help. The same as Howard did. "How long do we have? Until this date?"
"Uh -" Vince wasn't sure if the panic and confusion in Howard's face was surprise at being asked this so abruptly or something else. "... Three hours?"
Vince nodded. "That's enough time."
"For what?"
Vince dashed back over to the bed and found the least unappealing shirt - a green t-shirt, remarkably normal for Howard. "Don't worry, Howard. I'll take care of you." Then he ran off to his room, leaving Howard calling his name, confused.
*
Two hours later, Vince sat back from his sewing machine and stretched. His fingers were sore and he thought he might be developing a corduroy allergy to match his sensitivity to jazz, but it was done. He hadn't needed to measure Howard; he had a knack for guessing people's measurements, and Howard's awkward body was familiar to him in a way he'd never realized before.
The suit was, on the surface, not greatly altered from its original state, but Vince had made the cut more fashionable and better suited to Howard's build, and added a little flair to the lapel and cuffs. In a detached manner, he found himself admiring his handiwork and imagining how Howard would look wearing it.
As though summoned by Vince's thoughts, there was a timid knock on the door. "Er, Vince? Are you all right in there?"
Vince snapped to attention. "All right, Howard! Come in here!"
The door cracked open and Howard peered in. "What's going on?"
"I've turned your mucky brown suit into a slightly sharper-looking mucky brown suit. Come and take a look."
Howard entered the room and took the suit jacket from Vince. "Oh ... Vince, that's very ... kind of you."
"And look," Vince continued, holding up the trousers. "I brought these in, right, all your trousers are always way too baggy in the thigh, Howard, why is that? Now they should hug your -" He stopped, smirking. "Go on, try it all on. I want to see how it looks."
Howard, still looking bewildered but also slightly pleased, allowed himself to be herded into his room. A few minutes later he emerged, and Vince was waiting for him, with a comb and a canister of product.
"Perfect," Vince said. "I don't know how I do it." He led Howard into the parlor and motioned for him to sit down.
"Should these trousers really be so tight?" Howard said. "Also, what are you doing with that - ah!"
"Calm down, we don't have much time," Vince said as he rubbed some of the product through Howard's hair. "Let me just get you looking a little bit neater - I see you shaved today, that's a good start at least -"
"You make it sound like I'm a caveman - I shave when I need to -"
"Christy, your hair's like a thatched roof. That's a bit better." Vince ran the comb through Howard's disobedient locks a few more times and set it aside. "Something's missing ..." he murmured. "Er .... one minute ..." He dashed back to his room.
Where was it? He pushed a stack of old issues of Cheekbone over to his closet and stood on them to reach the back of the top shelf. Somewhere back there, he knew he had it ... yes ... he pulled out a shoebox and flung off the lid, and began sorting through it. Finding what he wanted, he dropped the box on the bed and started to leave, then veered back and rapidly looked through a collection of bottles on his vanity, mumbling under his breath as he discarded one after another, before finally selecting one.
Howard was standing in the doorway when he turned around, looking like he wanted to say something, but Vince had no time to listen. "Stand still," he murmured, and pinned the red silk flower to Howard's lapel.
"A flower?" Howard said. "Er, I don't know, Vince ...."
"It's gentlemanly," Vince said, and as he'd hoped, this appeased Howard. He uncapped the bottle of cologne.
"Oh - no Vince, I've got my own -"
"All your cologne smells like sweaty old men smoking pipes and reading library books. Look, this one ain't so bad, is it?" He waved it under Howard's nose, and took a sniff himself - like vanilla and coffee beans, Howard couldn't object to that, could he? Before he had a chance to, anyway, Vince gave him a couple of sprits.
He took a look at the clock. "Just in time," he said, and began to rush Howard towards the door. "You've only got ten minutes. Where are you taking this bird anyway? What's her name? Who is she?"
Howard's face contorted weirdly. "Er ... um ... we're just going to the pub."
"What pub?"
"The ... one down the road."
"That's a bit dull," Vince said, "but maybe she'll appreciate that, especially if she's a good match for you. Eh?" Howard looked a bit annoyed. "What? I didn't mean it in a bad way. Not really. Well, go on then!"
Howard paused at the top of the stairs that led down to the shop and turned around. "Well ... thank you, Vince."
Vince felt a little color rise to his cheeks. "Ah ... right. Have a good time, then. Good luck."
For a minute he thought he saw, strangely enough, an expression of guilt on Howard's face, then he smiled and walked down the steps. Vince closed the door behind him, leaving himself in the flat, alone.
*
After an entire day of quite exhausting and unusual do-gooding, Vince decided he deserved to have some relaxing fun. He put Gary Numan on, and dragged his favorite duvet out onto the settee, and brought out all his magazines, and ate Nutella straight out of the jar with a spoon. After half an hour, he admitted he was bored as hell.
He wondered how Howard's date was going. Did the girl appreciate the fine tailoring of his suit? Did she like the flower, and agree with Vince that it added a nice touch of color to Howard's general woolly exterior? She better had. Vince wrapped the duvet around himself and pulled it over his head. He hoped Howard wasn't ruining things too badly with his natural personality.
Who was he kidding? Of course he was.
Vince flung the duvet off. Well, that was it. He was going to have to check in on them himself.
Of course, he couldn't let Howard know he was there, that would just make the poor bastard even more nervous. He was going to have to go incognito. This meant a change in wardrobe.
*
Not long afterwards (relatively speaking), Vince, kitted out all in black, including black sunglasses and a black scarf, made his way down the street to the pub Howard had mentioned. At first, as he set out, he was still caught up the excitement of spying on Howard's date. But as he got closer and closer to ground zero, the bad humor he'd staved off throughout the day, distracted by his monumental mission to make Howard look good, began to creep back in. He felt a swelling, poisonous feeling rising up in his stomach, and he had to keep stopping himself from biting and chewing at his lower lip. Why he felt so annoyed by the fact that Howard was on a date - and after all the work he'd put into making it a success, too! - was a mystery to him, but he couldn't deny that this well and truly was the reason he was so out of joint.
It was with some trepidation and a slightly deflated sense of purpose that he entered the pub. Suppressing all of his natural instincts to draw everyone's attention to his entrance, he slunk carefully into a booth and tried to blend in with the scenery.
It wasn't easy, not being noticed. Maybe he should ask Howard to give him lessons sometime. Then again, would he ever need or want to be anonymous again? Not likely!
Subtly at first he surveyed the room, but Howard was nowhere to be seen. Gradually he got a little bolder in his search, until finally he was kneeling on the seat and peering around openly, and unbeknownst to him attracting the skeptical attention of several other patrons. Well, where the hell was Howard and his little - his date? Had he got the wrong pub? Had Howard lied to him? Had they left already? Maybe the suit had worked too well. Maybe she'd taken him back to his flat. Maybe Howard was losing his pathetic, long-held virginity right at this minute!
Vince, in his increasing agitation, had taken his sunglasses off and was twisting them in his hands, and because he could see a little better now without the tinted lenses in front of his eyes, he finally spotted Howard. He could see why he'd missed him before; not only was Howard in the darkest corner of the room, but he seemed to be trying to make himself look as small and unobtrusive as possible.
Now there, Vince reflected, was some first class wallflowering.
As far as he could tell, though, the lady of the hour was nowhere in sight. For a minute, Vince was confused. Then he began to construct a story in his mind: Howard somehow coercing an uninterested, or perhaps even malicious, girl into saying she'll go on a date with him, completely oblivious to the fact that she has no interest in him; Howard arriving at the pub, all bright-eyed and optimistic; the long, slow dawn of realization that she wasn't coming, he'd been stood up. And here was the result.
"Oh, Howard," he mumbled. For a moment there was a bizarre sense of relief, and then, even more bizarre, a rush of fury. Right, so Howard was awkward as a three-legged camel, and his style of flirtation was as stale as his chastity belt, and his poetry was so bad you had to forget you heard it right away in order to preserve your sanity. But bloody hell if he was going to let this happen! You don't stand up Vince Noir's best mate!
Now infuriated, Vince marched over to where Howard, still innocent to his presence, was sitting.
"All right, who is she?" he asked.
Howard jumped, jostling his pint of lager. "What - Vince! Why are you here? And what are you wearing?"
Vince slammed his hands down on the table. "Come on, Howard, I know what's going on. Tell me who she is. She ain't gonna hear the last of this!" He paused. "What do you mean, what am I wearing? What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing's wrong with it," Howard said, looking exceedingly uncomfortable, "if you're planning on infiltrating the MI6 under cover of night. Er, why are you here again? What are you talking about?"
"Look, Howard, there's no need to be embarrassed. It's not your fault that trollop stood you up, left you hanging, all dressed up with nowhere to go. I'm going to teach her a lesson, don't worry, Howard."
"Vince," Howard said stiffly, "Vince, calm down. This isn't necessary."
"Oh, Howard," Vince said, exasperated, and flung himself onto the seat opposite him, "don't say that. You always do that. No wonder you never get anywhere with a girl, as soon as the first opportunity strikes you mark yourself down to Salvation Army prices. Howard."
Howard groaned and covered his face with his hands. "Vince, stop it ... this is awkward enough as it is."
"Howard, you can't let her treat you this way. This girl -"
"This girl - there isn't a girl, Vince! I made it up."
Vince blinked. "Eh?"
Howard put his face in his arms.
"Wait a minute, there's no girl? Then who was the date with?"
"Nobody," Howard said.
"You had a date with nobody? Is that some kind of code?"
"No, it means, the date was fictional. A lie. I lied. I didn't have a date."
Vince wrinkled his brow in deep concentration. "So ... no girl ..."
"Right."
"No date."
"Mmm."
"No one for me to go and harass."
"Except for me, precisely. Yes."
"I don't understand," Vince said, relaxing all over. He felt like smiling, laughing, but one look at Howard's crumpled form told him that he probably shouldn't. "Why'd you go and make up a date for?" As soon as he said, he imagined exactly why Howard must have done it - to get Vince to stop teasing him about his consistent bad luck with women, and boost his ego a little bit. He was so distracted by this thought that he almost missed what Howard said next, or perhaps he couldn't quite believe he'd actually heard it. "What did you say?"
"I said," Howard repeated painfully, "I just ... wanted you to pay a little attention to me."
Vince still couldn't make sense of it. "How does you going on an imaginary date get attention from me?"
"Well it has, hasn't it?" Howard said, nodding towards where Vince was sitting across from him that very minute, and blushed.
"Oh," Vince said, and realized he was returning Howard's blush with his own. "Oh. Howard, you ... brick."
"I'm sorry," Howard said, "I don't know why I've done such a stupid thing."
Vince pressed his lips together tightly, and looked Howard over. The suit, he reflected, really was a success. He'd certainly never wear it, but Howard looked good in it. He looked like Howard to the -nth power, Howard as his truest and best self. Vince felt a little dizzy. He thought about the idea of Howard being on a date had made him feel, and how he'd felt when he thought Howard had been so badly insulted, and how relieved when he understood none of it had been real to begin with. He thought about Howard saying, "I just wanted you to pay a little attention to me," and how shy and nervous he'd been when he'd come and asked for help earlier in the day.
Without even realizing it, he got up and walked over to Howard's side of the booth, and sat down next to him. Howard looked at him quizzically and a little wearily.
"It ain't too late you know, Howard," he said, putting a hand on one of his nearest arm.
Howard looked at the hand a little suspiciously. "Too late for what?"
Vince smiled. "To go on a date."
Howard jerked away. "Vince, don't. It's not funny."
"I ain't making fun of you, Howard," Vince said.
"Then what are you doing?"
Suppressing a little bubble of nervous excitement, which he hadn't felt in years, not since he was a teenager really, Vince leaned in and gave Howard a little peck on the cheek. "I'm pickin' you up, you lummox. You wanna go back to my place later?"
Blinking, stunned, and clearly not sure what to think, Howard could only say, "Your place is my place, Vince."
Vince groaned. "Howard," he said. "I am asking you ... on a date. Do you want to go on a date with me, or not?"
For a minute Howard seemed to be frozen, as though Vince's question had physically struck him and he'd been rendered mute and paralyzed. The moment seemed to stretch out for miles. Tentatively, Vince raised a hand and laid it on Howard's chest, right next to the red flower he'd so carefully pinned to Howard's lapel earlier. Howard's heart was going thump, thump, thump, rapidly, beneath his palm. Vince bit his lip.
Suddenly, Howard unfroze. He swallowed hard, and gave a nervous, stuttery nod. "All right," he said, his voice unusually high. Then, hilariously, he took Vince's hand from where it was resting on his chest, and shook it, like they were closing on a legal agreement. Vince smiled back at him encouragingly, suppressing a laugh, and squeezed Howard's hand.
*
"So," Howard asked, as they were walking back home after their date, "what was it that did it?"
"Did what?" Vince asked. He was busy trying to stick the red silk flower, which Howard had given him in a weird moment of affection as they were leaving the pub, into his hair.
"You know," Howard said, with a grin that was trying to dress itself up as rakish, "what made you fall for me? My rugged good looks? My encyclopedic knowledge of the history of pipe-smoking? My keen appreciation for excellent wines?"
"No," Vince said confidently, "It was definitely none of those things."
Howard looked strangely pleased, and with a sudden surge of confidence in his actions, linked his arm through Vince's. "Maybe it was my years of loyal friendship?" he asked.
"Maybe," Vince admitted. "But I think, mostly, it was the suit."
THE END