Fic: Marry Me (Howard/Vince, PG)
Title: Marry Me
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Summary: It’s Christmas Eve and there’s a plot afoot.
Word Count: 1300
Rating: PG
Warnings: This fic is so mushy that I collapsed into giggles several times in the process of writing it.
Disclaimer: Boosh is the property of Noel, Julian, and Baby Cow!
Marry Me
Let’s do what Mary and Joseph did,
without the kid.
St. Vincent, “Marry Me”
All day long Vince had been acting quite strange.
Howard had first noticed something was off this morning, just after he’d woken up. At first it seemed like a normal beginning to the day, or at least what had become normal in these last few blissful months. He rose to consciousness at the time he usually did, his body clock so accustomed to rising early that he didn’t need to set an alarm. Vince was pulled snug against him, half laying on one of his arms and sending pins and needles down it. Except he wasn’t asleep, and that was just ridiculous. Vince was never awake this early in the morning, unless he hadn’t been to sleep at all the night before, and that had become a very rare occurrence lately (and when it did happen, it was for another reason entirely than it used to be). Furthermore, he was laying very still, his eyes half-lidded and his face very thoughtful. Thoughtful!
Unnerved, Howard had slid his arm out from under Vince’s body, propped himself up, and asked if he’d like pancakes. And Vince had smiled sleepily at him and said, “You’re genius, Howard,” and kissed him right on that sensitive spot behind his ear, and Howard forgot to keep feeling confused.
Later though, after they had opened the shop, he’d found himself noticing that Vince was acting weird again. He wasn’t reading his magazines, or forcing Howard to comment on his fashion experiments, or attempting to convince Howard to let him build a Topshop made of neon pencil erasers in Stationery Village. Instead he was very quiet, and kind of distracted, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt and glancing at the clock as though he was waiting for something.
At 12 o’clock, Naboo came downstairs. “Shop’s closing early. You two can have the rest of the day off.”
Howard’s mouth dropped. “Are you feeling all right Naboo?”
One side of Naboo’s mouth quirked. “Oh, I’m fantastic. What about you, Vince?”
“All right, Naboo,” Vince said, and Howard realized that he didn’t look that surprised at Naboo’s sudden magnanimity. “It is Christmas Eve, innit?”
Howard started making plans in his head for a nice, restful afternoon with a baguette and some tea and his paperbound copy of Moby Dick (he’d been trying to hack away at it since May, but still only had a vague idea that it was about a whale and a ship and a madman), but Vince begged him to go out and have lunch with him. Howard allowed himself to be persuaded. He did that a lot these days. It seemed to work out surprisingly well most of the time.
After lunch, they went for a walk in the park. Howard thought Vince would want to go shopping, especially since Christmas was tomorrow, but when he suggested it (tentatively - he loved Vince to pieces but going shopping with him was still a dicey prospect) Vince just said he’d got all of his shopping done, and anyway, on a day like today the shops would all be full of total tits in a hurry and it wasn’t any fun with them around.
It began to snow, very lightly, just enough to build up on the grass but not yet enough to stick to the pavement. He put one arm around Vince’s shoulder. It had taken him awhile to get used to behaving like this, especially in public, but he had tried very hard, because he sensed that it was something Vince really needed. And in a certain sense, it made him proud and slightly relieved, because there had been a tiny part of him that worried that Vince would be ashamed of people knowing about them.
Vince leaned his head against Howard’s shoulder. There were snowflakes collecting in his black hair.
“You should have worn a hat, little man.”
“Mmm. Didn’t go with my outfit.”
“Hats are not just fashion accessories, Vince, we’ve been over this! They have a function! A purpose!”
Vince laughed then, and pulled away. “There’s a bench over there. Let’s sit down.”
Once they’d sat down, that feeling that something was up once again began to plague Howard. Vince was looking at him with a weird and kind of intense expression, chewing on his lower lip. Howard was just about to ask him if he was okay, when Vince grabbed his arm with one hand.
“All right, Howard,” he said, and pulled a white box out of the pocket of his jacket.
Howard crinkled his brow in confusion - what could be in there? An elbow patch perhaps? Then Vince opened the box and inside, inexplicably, there was a ring.
Silence. “Er - Vince, what’s going on?”
Vince’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Come on, Howard, ain’t it obvious?” Nothing. “I’m askin’ you to marry me, you stony plinth!”
Howard blinked several times. “M-marry? Me?”
Vince nodded slowly, and said carefully, as though he were speaking to an idiot, “Yeah. That’s why people generally buy engagement rings, you know.”
“But - but that’s impossible!”
“What?” Vince was starting to look a bit pissed off.
Howard stood up. “It’s all wrong, Vince!” He was getting red in the face; even his ears were burning. “I - I’m the one who’s supposed to do the proposing, not you!”
“Excuse me?”
Obviously! That’s the way things were supposed to go - he was the devoted romantic type, Vince was the flighty bohemian, Howard was supposed to sweep him off his feet and take him off to a tower somewhere and teach him the joys of domesticity and monogamy. Right?
Vince stood up, too. “Look - are you gonna marry me or not?”
Howard stopped, and took a good look at Vince. He was rather flushed, too, his lips pressed into a tight line. Howard suddenly realized why he’d been acting strangely all day - because he was nervous. He felt something bend and crackle in his chest, like a log in a fire. He relaxed.
“Of course I am, darling.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Vince said flippantly, and then collapsed into laughter against Howard’s chest. “That didn’t turn out exactly as I’d planned it!”
Howard started laughing too, and wrapped his arms around Vince. After they’d shaken off their hysteria, Vince straightened up and pushed the box with the ring in it towards him. “I think you’re supposed to put this on now.”
Howard took the box and pulled the ring out, feeling clumsy and a little silly, too. The ring was beautiful, but not too showy; he felt a further warmth at the thought that Vince had purposely bought one that he thought Howard would like. He slid it on, putting the box away in his pea coat pocket.
“How’d you get my ring size? I never wear rings.”
“Measured you in your sleep. Naturally.”
He chuckled. “How long have you been planning this, anyway?”
Vince just smiled mysteriously.
Something occurred to him. “What about you? Don’t you want a ring?”
“Of course! I’ve got one all picked out. After Christmas I’ll take you to the shop and you can buy it for me. It’s well glittery.” Vince took his hand and they began to head back to the Nabootique.
“Ah, I should have realized.” They walked in silence for awhile; the snow was coming down much heavier now. “So Naboo knew, didn’t he? What did you have to do to get him to shut down the shop for the rest of the day?”
“We may be hosting a Shaman kegger in the flat sometime in the future.” Vince paused. “Also, huh. I think he said something about our firstborn child?”
Howard took a moment to process this, and then:
“Wait. What?”
The end.
Author’s Notes: The inspiration for this story was that it occurred to me that I’m pretty sure in every marriage fic I’ve read Howard is the one that proposes to Vince, and so I wanted to turn the tables around a little. And I wanted to take a little break from proofreading “Interference”, which is making me cranky at the moment.
Also, I wanted to write a Christmas fic, which this is … kind of.
“Marry Me” is perhaps a bit of a weird and slightly cynical song for a fic this schmoopy and romantic, but I really do love that lyric.
Also, fyi, I’d love to see Howard and Vince go on a seafaring adventure a la Moby Dick. That should be the setting for the movie, yo! Vince would make a cute cabin boy.
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Summary: It’s Christmas Eve and there’s a plot afoot.
Word Count: 1300
Rating: PG
Warnings: This fic is so mushy that I collapsed into giggles several times in the process of writing it.
Disclaimer: Boosh is the property of Noel, Julian, and Baby Cow!
Marry Me
Let’s do what Mary and Joseph did,
without the kid.
St. Vincent, “Marry Me”
All day long Vince had been acting quite strange.
Howard had first noticed something was off this morning, just after he’d woken up. At first it seemed like a normal beginning to the day, or at least what had become normal in these last few blissful months. He rose to consciousness at the time he usually did, his body clock so accustomed to rising early that he didn’t need to set an alarm. Vince was pulled snug against him, half laying on one of his arms and sending pins and needles down it. Except he wasn’t asleep, and that was just ridiculous. Vince was never awake this early in the morning, unless he hadn’t been to sleep at all the night before, and that had become a very rare occurrence lately (and when it did happen, it was for another reason entirely than it used to be). Furthermore, he was laying very still, his eyes half-lidded and his face very thoughtful. Thoughtful!
Unnerved, Howard had slid his arm out from under Vince’s body, propped himself up, and asked if he’d like pancakes. And Vince had smiled sleepily at him and said, “You’re genius, Howard,” and kissed him right on that sensitive spot behind his ear, and Howard forgot to keep feeling confused.
Later though, after they had opened the shop, he’d found himself noticing that Vince was acting weird again. He wasn’t reading his magazines, or forcing Howard to comment on his fashion experiments, or attempting to convince Howard to let him build a Topshop made of neon pencil erasers in Stationery Village. Instead he was very quiet, and kind of distracted, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt and glancing at the clock as though he was waiting for something.
At 12 o’clock, Naboo came downstairs. “Shop’s closing early. You two can have the rest of the day off.”
Howard’s mouth dropped. “Are you feeling all right Naboo?”
One side of Naboo’s mouth quirked. “Oh, I’m fantastic. What about you, Vince?”
“All right, Naboo,” Vince said, and Howard realized that he didn’t look that surprised at Naboo’s sudden magnanimity. “It is Christmas Eve, innit?”
Howard started making plans in his head for a nice, restful afternoon with a baguette and some tea and his paperbound copy of Moby Dick (he’d been trying to hack away at it since May, but still only had a vague idea that it was about a whale and a ship and a madman), but Vince begged him to go out and have lunch with him. Howard allowed himself to be persuaded. He did that a lot these days. It seemed to work out surprisingly well most of the time.
After lunch, they went for a walk in the park. Howard thought Vince would want to go shopping, especially since Christmas was tomorrow, but when he suggested it (tentatively - he loved Vince to pieces but going shopping with him was still a dicey prospect) Vince just said he’d got all of his shopping done, and anyway, on a day like today the shops would all be full of total tits in a hurry and it wasn’t any fun with them around.
It began to snow, very lightly, just enough to build up on the grass but not yet enough to stick to the pavement. He put one arm around Vince’s shoulder. It had taken him awhile to get used to behaving like this, especially in public, but he had tried very hard, because he sensed that it was something Vince really needed. And in a certain sense, it made him proud and slightly relieved, because there had been a tiny part of him that worried that Vince would be ashamed of people knowing about them.
Vince leaned his head against Howard’s shoulder. There were snowflakes collecting in his black hair.
“You should have worn a hat, little man.”
“Mmm. Didn’t go with my outfit.”
“Hats are not just fashion accessories, Vince, we’ve been over this! They have a function! A purpose!”
Vince laughed then, and pulled away. “There’s a bench over there. Let’s sit down.”
Once they’d sat down, that feeling that something was up once again began to plague Howard. Vince was looking at him with a weird and kind of intense expression, chewing on his lower lip. Howard was just about to ask him if he was okay, when Vince grabbed his arm with one hand.
“All right, Howard,” he said, and pulled a white box out of the pocket of his jacket.
Howard crinkled his brow in confusion - what could be in there? An elbow patch perhaps? Then Vince opened the box and inside, inexplicably, there was a ring.
Silence. “Er - Vince, what’s going on?”
Vince’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Come on, Howard, ain’t it obvious?” Nothing. “I’m askin’ you to marry me, you stony plinth!”
Howard blinked several times. “M-marry? Me?”
Vince nodded slowly, and said carefully, as though he were speaking to an idiot, “Yeah. That’s why people generally buy engagement rings, you know.”
“But - but that’s impossible!”
“What?” Vince was starting to look a bit pissed off.
Howard stood up. “It’s all wrong, Vince!” He was getting red in the face; even his ears were burning. “I - I’m the one who’s supposed to do the proposing, not you!”
“Excuse me?”
Obviously! That’s the way things were supposed to go - he was the devoted romantic type, Vince was the flighty bohemian, Howard was supposed to sweep him off his feet and take him off to a tower somewhere and teach him the joys of domesticity and monogamy. Right?
Vince stood up, too. “Look - are you gonna marry me or not?”
Howard stopped, and took a good look at Vince. He was rather flushed, too, his lips pressed into a tight line. Howard suddenly realized why he’d been acting strangely all day - because he was nervous. He felt something bend and crackle in his chest, like a log in a fire. He relaxed.
“Of course I am, darling.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Vince said flippantly, and then collapsed into laughter against Howard’s chest. “That didn’t turn out exactly as I’d planned it!”
Howard started laughing too, and wrapped his arms around Vince. After they’d shaken off their hysteria, Vince straightened up and pushed the box with the ring in it towards him. “I think you’re supposed to put this on now.”
Howard took the box and pulled the ring out, feeling clumsy and a little silly, too. The ring was beautiful, but not too showy; he felt a further warmth at the thought that Vince had purposely bought one that he thought Howard would like. He slid it on, putting the box away in his pea coat pocket.
“How’d you get my ring size? I never wear rings.”
“Measured you in your sleep. Naturally.”
He chuckled. “How long have you been planning this, anyway?”
Vince just smiled mysteriously.
Something occurred to him. “What about you? Don’t you want a ring?”
“Of course! I’ve got one all picked out. After Christmas I’ll take you to the shop and you can buy it for me. It’s well glittery.” Vince took his hand and they began to head back to the Nabootique.
“Ah, I should have realized.” They walked in silence for awhile; the snow was coming down much heavier now. “So Naboo knew, didn’t he? What did you have to do to get him to shut down the shop for the rest of the day?”
“We may be hosting a Shaman kegger in the flat sometime in the future.” Vince paused. “Also, huh. I think he said something about our firstborn child?”
Howard took a moment to process this, and then:
“Wait. What?”
The end.
Author’s Notes: The inspiration for this story was that it occurred to me that I’m pretty sure in every marriage fic I’ve read Howard is the one that proposes to Vince, and so I wanted to turn the tables around a little. And I wanted to take a little break from proofreading “Interference”, which is making me cranky at the moment.
Also, I wanted to write a Christmas fic, which this is … kind of.
“Marry Me” is perhaps a bit of a weird and slightly cynical song for a fic this schmoopy and romantic, but I really do love that lyric.
Also, fyi, I’d love to see Howard and Vince go on a seafaring adventure a la Moby Dick. That should be the setting for the movie, yo! Vince would make a cute cabin boy.