One Night Part 2
Title: One Night
Author: Concupid
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: angst, very mild violence
Summary: Vince and Howard aren’t as successful at a nearly all female party as one would expect.
Author’s note: I won’t leave you hanging for long…
“What was that?” Vince whispered as they hurried away from the angry women. It had taken less than ten minutes for Howard to completely alienate the women with his stupid stories and corny jokes and general awkwardness. There were hardly any blokes at the party or the women would have kicked them out sooner.
“I was working the room, using my charisma…”
“You asked a gran to marry you!”
“We had chemistry! Sparks were flying…”
“That’s because she whacked you over the head with her purse. You can’t be so desperate, Howard,” Vince implored. It used to be funny to watch Howard get rejected, but it was getting very sad. “You have to have some dignity.”
“Says a man who couldn’t zip his own trousers.”
“Cheers, by the way,” Vince said, though he had already thanked Howard for the help. The trousers had fit a bit better before his ice cream shake diet. It took he and Howard nearly fifteen minutes to get the zip up without damaging any of Vince’s more delicate bits.
Vince found his way to Leroy’s “entertaining room” and both he and Howard stopped in shock and awe. The room was packed with women of all ages
“We’ve found it, Howard,” Vince whispered. “We’ve found a party where even you can get lucky.”
Xxx
Vince was getting nice and close to a girl named Floss. He was practically nose to nose with her as she carefully applied the deep red lipstick.
“The trick is a lighter shade for lining to create depth,” she explained as she produced another shade. Floss was a professional drag queen stylist, and everything Vince had been looking for in a woman. She could be his wife, best friend and rat his hair until he was taller than Howard.
He felt a sense of dread as another young woman walked over and whispered into Floss’s ear. A sixth sense told him that, somehow, somewhere, Howard was ruining everything.
Floss gave Vince a forced smile before dropping the lipsticks in his hand.
“You can keep these.”
And then she was gone.
“Ouch,” Howard said, as he appeared out of nowhere. “That was ugly. Still no luck then?”
Vince wanted to slap the smug look off of Howard’s face. So he did. He only took a moment to enjoy Howard’s shocked expression before he headed towards the nearest staircase to beat a retreat.
The first door he opened lead to the horrifying sight of Leroy getting it on with three sexy nanas.
“Don’t judge me!” Leroy yelled. “You don’t understand art!”
Vince slammed the door shut and stormed down the hall. He could hear Howard behind him, calling out, “Whoa, there!” and “Steady on,” like Vince was an unsettled horse. Vince tried another door and found Lance Dior and Harold Boon having a three-way with Eleanor. Even though Vince was intrigued by Harold’s knock-off of Howard’s Midnight Cowboy look, he still couldn’t handle more than a few seconds.
“That is not in!” Vince yelled as he slammed the door. He faintly heard Eleanor reply, “Oh, it’s in all right.”
“Hey there, Vince. Whoa now…”
“Just talk properly!” Vince yelled as his eyes filled with tears. Stupid Howard and his stupid ways were ruining what should have been a perfect party.
“Listen here, sir…”
“Stop being so weird!” Vince screamed, covering his ears and leaning against a door. He was afraid to open it and see what lay inside, but he couldn’t bear being out in the hallway, just waiting for someone else’s scorn and rejection.
Howard slowly reached around Vince and opened the door.
“Seems safe,” Howard murmured as he gently led Vince into a tiny, ultramodern bathroom. Vince looked and the toilet and couldn’t even imagine what all the buttons were for.
It took both of them ten minutes of waving, clapping and tapping to finally get the water in the sink to turn on so Vince could splash his face, but he immediately felt better.
“She was married, you know.”
“What?”
“Floss. She’s married to the famous drag queen/gossip columnist ‘Dont-a-tella Versace. She was no good for you. You deserve better than that.”
“Don’t pretend you were being a good friend,” Vince sneered. “You were just jealous I was going to pull and you weren’t.”
Vince was no stranger to rejection, but the party was a nightmare. Women had been turning him down before he spoke a word, and he knew Howard was somehow to blame. Vince could usually manage a few minutes of chat up before he went all awkward and scared a girl away. It was always easier with guys, most of them didn’t care what Vince had to say. All he had to do to pull a guy was to allow himself to be pulled into the nearest restroom.
He suddenly felt uncomfortable with their choice of venue.
“Let’s get back to the party,” Vince suggested, pulling himself together. “There are still hundreds of girls at this party left to alienate.”
“I don’t know, Vince. You seemed to be working your way through the ladies at a pretty alarming pace.”
“Don’t make me slap you again.”
“It was like being hit with a spider web…”
“Shut up!” Vince cried as the tears finally spilled onto his cheeks. “Fuck you! You can’t pull so you don’t want me to, either. That’s not being a friend! For years, I thought there was something wrong with me, but it was you! When I’m not with you, I do just fine. I’ve been with loads of people. People like me, and they think I’m cool and special and you hate it because you hate it when I’m happy.”
Howard twitched and fiddled and blushed, but he didn’t say a word. Vince felt sorry for him, but still a bit too angry to back down. They’d been going through the same routine their whole lives. Howard insisted he wanted something and then systematically sabotaged any chance he had of being happy.
“I want you to be happy.” It was barely a whisper, but Vince softened like a candy bar left in the sun.
Then Howard said, “You can still have a good time. It’s a party, right?”
Vince sighed and prepared himself to go along with Howard’s stupid plan. That was their dynamic: Howard was an ass and got his way because Vince could never say no. Vince could flex his muscles all he wanted, but any attempt he made to move away from Howard’s influence only ended up bringing them closer together. At the end of the day, Vince couldn’t imagine life without Howard, while Howard was always looking to move on.
“What do you reckon?” Vince asked, feigning enthusiasm. “Should we break out the keyboards and do an impromptu show? Throw down a crimp? Bake some pastries for the ladies? What’s the idea?”
Howard smoothed the front of his Hawaiian shirt and ran his fingers through his hair. Even as Vince took a moment to despise the ugly shirt, he couldn’t help but be pleased at the way Howard’s hair fell around his face in perfect disarray. His earlier styling job was holding up against Howard’s nervous fidgeting. Howard’s hair was still a lovely mass of curls and his subtle eye liner was still making his brown eyes look dark and inviting.
“We’re both men of the world, Vince, and this is a very sophisticated party…”
“I am not up for finding a prostitute,” Vince said, putting his foot down. “If you’re determined, I won’t get in your way…”
“Excuse me, sir,” Howard puffed out his chest, awkwardly straining for dignity. “Howard Moon does not stoop to pay for the love of a woman…”
“Eleanor?”
“Or an Eleanor. I’m talking about… thinking outside the box, as it were. Expanding our horizons and perhaps rethinking the boundaries of our current… paradigm.”
Vince watched Howard’s mouth as he sputtered his nonsense. There was no point in focusing on the words, Howard never made sense when he got worked up, but Vince was pretty good at reading Howard’s face. He took in the color in Howard’s cheeks, the speed at which his eyes shifted, the frequency with which he licked his lips.
And he looked at Howard’s neatly trimmed mustache, his styled hair and his eyeliner.
“Howard, are you coming on to me?”
Howard didn’t say a word, which was probably as clear an answer as he was capable of giving.
“Howard…”
“It’s a party, Vince,” Howard announced, forcing a smile. “You know, let’s… do what people do at parties.”
Vince’s brain cell was tripping over himself trying to work through the sudden onslaught of thoughts and feelings. As a result, quite a few of the more negative or cautious thoughts went straight to the shredder.
“I do like a party,” Vince agreed, trying to look sexy and excited but also aloof and disinterested.
“What’s wrong with your face?”
“Not a good line to use when you’re trying to pull. You might want to try being nice.”
Howard looked annoyed for a moment, but Vince refused to retreat. If Howard was going to hit him up for string free frolic in the name of a good time, he could damn well woo Vince a bit.
Howard stared at Vince with an unsettling intensity before saying, “You look nice. Your hair is especially large tonight in terms of both height and width.”
Vince felt an embarrassing flutter in his stomach, like he was being chatted up by a proper man instead of just Howard.
“I know my hair looks good,” Vince said with a roll of his eyes. “You’re gonna have to try a bit harder than that. Got any poems about me?”
Vince had thought he was over the whole Gideon saga, but apparently he wasn’t. It wasn’t like he wanted Howard to treat him like he treated Gideon - Howard was a bit of deranged freak around Gideon - but he felt he deserved a bit more than, “Why not shag in a bathroom? It’s a party!”
“I don’t write poems about you,” Howard explained softly. “We write them together, about our adventures.”
It was nearly enough to make Vince drop his pants, but unlike the other people he’d gotten off with, Vince would have to face Howard in the morning.
“I want a gesture.”
Author: Concupid
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: angst, very mild violence
Summary: Vince and Howard aren’t as successful at a nearly all female party as one would expect.
Author’s note: I won’t leave you hanging for long…
“What was that?” Vince whispered as they hurried away from the angry women. It had taken less than ten minutes for Howard to completely alienate the women with his stupid stories and corny jokes and general awkwardness. There were hardly any blokes at the party or the women would have kicked them out sooner.
“I was working the room, using my charisma…”
“You asked a gran to marry you!”
“We had chemistry! Sparks were flying…”
“That’s because she whacked you over the head with her purse. You can’t be so desperate, Howard,” Vince implored. It used to be funny to watch Howard get rejected, but it was getting very sad. “You have to have some dignity.”
“Says a man who couldn’t zip his own trousers.”
“Cheers, by the way,” Vince said, though he had already thanked Howard for the help. The trousers had fit a bit better before his ice cream shake diet. It took he and Howard nearly fifteen minutes to get the zip up without damaging any of Vince’s more delicate bits.
Vince found his way to Leroy’s “entertaining room” and both he and Howard stopped in shock and awe. The room was packed with women of all ages
“We’ve found it, Howard,” Vince whispered. “We’ve found a party where even you can get lucky.”
Xxx
Vince was getting nice and close to a girl named Floss. He was practically nose to nose with her as she carefully applied the deep red lipstick.
“The trick is a lighter shade for lining to create depth,” she explained as she produced another shade. Floss was a professional drag queen stylist, and everything Vince had been looking for in a woman. She could be his wife, best friend and rat his hair until he was taller than Howard.
He felt a sense of dread as another young woman walked over and whispered into Floss’s ear. A sixth sense told him that, somehow, somewhere, Howard was ruining everything.
Floss gave Vince a forced smile before dropping the lipsticks in his hand.
“You can keep these.”
And then she was gone.
“Ouch,” Howard said, as he appeared out of nowhere. “That was ugly. Still no luck then?”
Vince wanted to slap the smug look off of Howard’s face. So he did. He only took a moment to enjoy Howard’s shocked expression before he headed towards the nearest staircase to beat a retreat.
The first door he opened lead to the horrifying sight of Leroy getting it on with three sexy nanas.
“Don’t judge me!” Leroy yelled. “You don’t understand art!”
Vince slammed the door shut and stormed down the hall. He could hear Howard behind him, calling out, “Whoa, there!” and “Steady on,” like Vince was an unsettled horse. Vince tried another door and found Lance Dior and Harold Boon having a three-way with Eleanor. Even though Vince was intrigued by Harold’s knock-off of Howard’s Midnight Cowboy look, he still couldn’t handle more than a few seconds.
“That is not in!” Vince yelled as he slammed the door. He faintly heard Eleanor reply, “Oh, it’s in all right.”
“Hey there, Vince. Whoa now…”
“Just talk properly!” Vince yelled as his eyes filled with tears. Stupid Howard and his stupid ways were ruining what should have been a perfect party.
“Listen here, sir…”
“Stop being so weird!” Vince screamed, covering his ears and leaning against a door. He was afraid to open it and see what lay inside, but he couldn’t bear being out in the hallway, just waiting for someone else’s scorn and rejection.
Howard slowly reached around Vince and opened the door.
“Seems safe,” Howard murmured as he gently led Vince into a tiny, ultramodern bathroom. Vince looked and the toilet and couldn’t even imagine what all the buttons were for.
It took both of them ten minutes of waving, clapping and tapping to finally get the water in the sink to turn on so Vince could splash his face, but he immediately felt better.
“She was married, you know.”
“What?”
“Floss. She’s married to the famous drag queen/gossip columnist ‘Dont-a-tella Versace. She was no good for you. You deserve better than that.”
“Don’t pretend you were being a good friend,” Vince sneered. “You were just jealous I was going to pull and you weren’t.”
Vince was no stranger to rejection, but the party was a nightmare. Women had been turning him down before he spoke a word, and he knew Howard was somehow to blame. Vince could usually manage a few minutes of chat up before he went all awkward and scared a girl away. It was always easier with guys, most of them didn’t care what Vince had to say. All he had to do to pull a guy was to allow himself to be pulled into the nearest restroom.
He suddenly felt uncomfortable with their choice of venue.
“Let’s get back to the party,” Vince suggested, pulling himself together. “There are still hundreds of girls at this party left to alienate.”
“I don’t know, Vince. You seemed to be working your way through the ladies at a pretty alarming pace.”
“Don’t make me slap you again.”
“It was like being hit with a spider web…”
“Shut up!” Vince cried as the tears finally spilled onto his cheeks. “Fuck you! You can’t pull so you don’t want me to, either. That’s not being a friend! For years, I thought there was something wrong with me, but it was you! When I’m not with you, I do just fine. I’ve been with loads of people. People like me, and they think I’m cool and special and you hate it because you hate it when I’m happy.”
Howard twitched and fiddled and blushed, but he didn’t say a word. Vince felt sorry for him, but still a bit too angry to back down. They’d been going through the same routine their whole lives. Howard insisted he wanted something and then systematically sabotaged any chance he had of being happy.
“I want you to be happy.” It was barely a whisper, but Vince softened like a candy bar left in the sun.
Then Howard said, “You can still have a good time. It’s a party, right?”
Vince sighed and prepared himself to go along with Howard’s stupid plan. That was their dynamic: Howard was an ass and got his way because Vince could never say no. Vince could flex his muscles all he wanted, but any attempt he made to move away from Howard’s influence only ended up bringing them closer together. At the end of the day, Vince couldn’t imagine life without Howard, while Howard was always looking to move on.
“What do you reckon?” Vince asked, feigning enthusiasm. “Should we break out the keyboards and do an impromptu show? Throw down a crimp? Bake some pastries for the ladies? What’s the idea?”
Howard smoothed the front of his Hawaiian shirt and ran his fingers through his hair. Even as Vince took a moment to despise the ugly shirt, he couldn’t help but be pleased at the way Howard’s hair fell around his face in perfect disarray. His earlier styling job was holding up against Howard’s nervous fidgeting. Howard’s hair was still a lovely mass of curls and his subtle eye liner was still making his brown eyes look dark and inviting.
“We’re both men of the world, Vince, and this is a very sophisticated party…”
“I am not up for finding a prostitute,” Vince said, putting his foot down. “If you’re determined, I won’t get in your way…”
“Excuse me, sir,” Howard puffed out his chest, awkwardly straining for dignity. “Howard Moon does not stoop to pay for the love of a woman…”
“Eleanor?”
“Or an Eleanor. I’m talking about… thinking outside the box, as it were. Expanding our horizons and perhaps rethinking the boundaries of our current… paradigm.”
Vince watched Howard’s mouth as he sputtered his nonsense. There was no point in focusing on the words, Howard never made sense when he got worked up, but Vince was pretty good at reading Howard’s face. He took in the color in Howard’s cheeks, the speed at which his eyes shifted, the frequency with which he licked his lips.
And he looked at Howard’s neatly trimmed mustache, his styled hair and his eyeliner.
“Howard, are you coming on to me?”
Howard didn’t say a word, which was probably as clear an answer as he was capable of giving.
“Howard…”
“It’s a party, Vince,” Howard announced, forcing a smile. “You know, let’s… do what people do at parties.”
Vince’s brain cell was tripping over himself trying to work through the sudden onslaught of thoughts and feelings. As a result, quite a few of the more negative or cautious thoughts went straight to the shredder.
“I do like a party,” Vince agreed, trying to look sexy and excited but also aloof and disinterested.
“What’s wrong with your face?”
“Not a good line to use when you’re trying to pull. You might want to try being nice.”
Howard looked annoyed for a moment, but Vince refused to retreat. If Howard was going to hit him up for string free frolic in the name of a good time, he could damn well woo Vince a bit.
Howard stared at Vince with an unsettling intensity before saying, “You look nice. Your hair is especially large tonight in terms of both height and width.”
Vince felt an embarrassing flutter in his stomach, like he was being chatted up by a proper man instead of just Howard.
“I know my hair looks good,” Vince said with a roll of his eyes. “You’re gonna have to try a bit harder than that. Got any poems about me?”
Vince had thought he was over the whole Gideon saga, but apparently he wasn’t. It wasn’t like he wanted Howard to treat him like he treated Gideon - Howard was a bit of deranged freak around Gideon - but he felt he deserved a bit more than, “Why not shag in a bathroom? It’s a party!”
“I don’t write poems about you,” Howard explained softly. “We write them together, about our adventures.”
It was nearly enough to make Vince drop his pants, but unlike the other people he’d gotten off with, Vince would have to face Howard in the morning.
“I want a gesture.”