Chapter Text
Now
Vince and Howard’s friendship had many rules: Don’t force Vince to get ready in under two hours. Don’t make Howard wait for more than 4 hours. Never bring up the Geiger Counter Incident. No glitter outside the designated crafting area.
Rather than in order of descending importance, the rules were chronological. You could trace the shape of their entire friendship through those rules.
And it all started with rule number 1. The very first rule of their friendship: At Christmas, only hand-made gifts were allowed, absolutely no store-bought gifts. It was a nice rule. A good rule. And Vince hated it, because he knew he was the reason it existed.
Then
It was the last day of school before winter break, when Howard would leave to visit his grandparents in Wakefield and Vince wouldn’t get to see him for two whole weeks. They’d agreed that this would be the day they would do their gift exchange. It was their first Christmas since they’d become best mates (the distinction between mates and best mates mattered little to Howard, who, at eleven years old, was above such things, but to nine year old Vince it was everything) and Vince was very excited to give Howard his present, because he’d never given anyone a present before.
Vince was quite proud of the gift he’d made for Howard. He’d drawn up a mock cover of the Global Explorer with Howard standing on top of a mountain planting a British flag at the peak and the headline read “World’s Yungest Xplorer!!!” He’d taped the drawing to a piece of cardboard so it wouldn’t bend, and he’d wrapped it with red paper with little holly leaves all over it. He kept it in his backpack so Howard wouldn’t be able to tell what it was by shape.
At the end of the day they met out front by the steps. They always met out front, so they could walk together until they had to split up, with Howard walking toward the residential area with neat houses and nice gardens and Vince walking downtown to the tiny flat where he lived with his uncle.
Vince saw Howard standing at the bottom of the steps. He wore a genius green sweater with white snowflakes. Vince couldn’t afford a sweater like that, but he still wanted to get into the spirit of things, so he had made himself a paper chain boa in green and red.
“Hey Howard!” Vince jumped up and down and waved at Howard from the top of the stairs.
Howard looked up at him and Vince did a bit of impromptu choreography. He loved the way Howard would laugh and then look around to make sure no one had seen him laugh. It was Howard’s best laugh and it mostly came out when Vince was doing something stupid in public and this of course encouraged him to do even more stupid things in public just to catch that laugh, to have those little chocolate button eyes turn his way.
Though the laughter died very quickly when Vince’s baby platforms slid in a patch of ice and he very nearly fell off the stairs. Howard could only watch in horror to see whether Vince would find his balance or go plummeting over. But, just like always, fate smiled upon Vince Noir and he regained his balance and hopped down the stairs as if nothing had happened, because--to him--nothing had.
“Hi, Howard,” Vince said, grinning up at Howard.
“Hey there, little man,” Howard said, his voice still a bit shaky due to Vince’s near miss.
“You got my present?” Vince asked. There was no point in beating around the bush, they both knew why they were here.
“Come now, let’s do this properly,” Howard said. Howard was always very concerned about doing things properly.
Vince made a big show of rolling his eyes, but his big goofy smile reassured Howard that it was all in good fun. “Hello Howard. Happy Christmas. How’s the family? Grandmother’s big neck go down? Great. You got my present?” He made grabby hands.
Howard smiled at Vince, then knelt down to open the briefcase he carried in lieu of a backpack. He pulled out a small package and handed it to Vince. The gift was wrapped with green paper and red glittery ribbons tied in a beautiful, elaborate, pattern.
Vince eagerly ripped open the package, ignoring Howard’s wince at the destruction of his perfect wrapping job. Inside the package was a large padded velvet box. Vince opened the box and inside was a tiara with hundreds of sparkling jewels. It was beautiful.
“Cubic zirconia, I’m afraid,” Howard said. He shuffled around nervously. “But I thought it rather matched your...style.”
“Wow!” Vince said. “This is amazing, Howard!” He threw his arms around Howard and even though Howard didn’t generally like being hugged, he was apparently willing to make a Christmas exception, because he returned the hug.
Vince released the hug. Now, it was his turn to give Howard his present. He unslung his backpack and was about to unzip it, when he hesitated. Compared to the tiara, Vince’s drawing now seemed very stupid. He didn’t think he could take the look on Howard’s face as he forced enthusiasm for a dumb kid’s drawing. It wasn’t good enough.
He pretended to dig around in his backpack, being sure not to reveal the wrapped gift within. “You know what, Howard? I’m sorry. I left your present back at my uncle’s flat. I’ll bring it to ya, tonight, before you leave, alright?” Vince chewed on his lips, to see if his lie would be accepted.
And it was. Howard didn’t question him further. When they split apart, Howard walked toward his nice little house with the hedgerows and plenty of food in the cupboards . But Vince did not go to his uncle’s little flat. He had other plans.
Now
This was a rather important Christmas. Vince and Howard had been together for three years. And they’d honestly never been happier. Once they’d finally admitted that they loved each other, that they were in love with each other, the nasty fighting had stopped.
Before they’d gotten together, Vince had largely resigned himself to his fate. That he and Howard would just snipe and poke and jab at each other for all eternity. Neither of them would ever leave, an occasional tantrum to Denmark notwithstanding (over the years both Vince and Howard had taken several tearful trips to Denmark when they needed to make a particularly large point, which had ruined the entire country for both of them). But neither of them would ever actually try for something more either. It had been Howard who broke the stalemate, on Christmas three years ago.
Howard was always at his best around Christmas time. His most generous, most cheerful, most kind self. It was his favorite holiday. Every Boxing Day, he got going on his plans for the next year. Howard never seemed so melancholy as he was in mid-July, when Christmas seemed so far away and the glow from the year’s previous Christmas was but a distant memory. And the closer they got to December, the more excited Howard became. And he had been extra excited leading up to that particular Christmas.
Vince had been able to tell Howard was planning something big (Howard had been wound tight as a clockspring for weeks), but he couldn’t figure out what it was, until they’d been snuggled on the couch, listening to Howard’s extensive Christmas vinyl collection. Howard had put on a new record, Dean Martin, singing Silver Bells. He’d turned to Vince and held out his shaking hand. He’d said “Care to dance, little man?” And Vince had said yes, surprised and, of course, thrilled. They’d danced, with Howard leading. Vince had laid his head on Howard’s chest, and he swore that Howard’s heart was in perfect time with the music, which figured cause Howard always said that he had perfect tempo.
Howard had maneuvered them over to a special spot on the floor, with an X taped down on the floor, that Vince had not thought to question until that very moment. But then Vince had looked up at the ceiling and saw the sprig of mistletoe hanging over their heads. And then he saw Howard’s shy smile. “Only if you want to,” Howard had said. And Vince had wanted to. And so they kissed. And it was as if the entire universe had snapped into alignment. When they had parted both of their cheeks were wet with tears and they couldn’t tell whose were whose, because they were both crying tears of joy and relief. They’d been together ever since.
A few months ago, Vince had come to a realization. He wanted to get married. He loved Howard and wanted to be his husband--or ugly wife, as he would surely be called. He would never want anyone else, he never had wanted anyone else. And so Vince had decided that he was going to ask Howard to marry him, on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day, they would pile into the van and drive to Leeds to eat Christmas dinner with Howard’s family. But Christmas Eve was just theirs. It always had been.
So he had the perfect time and the perfect place and--second most importantly--the perfect outfit, but he did not have the most important element: the perfect ring.
The ring was a problem. Because the very first rule of their friendship said: no store-bought gifts. It wasn’t their most important rule. But the last time Vince had tried to get out of it, Howard had said it was “symbolically significant.” Not only was it a rule, it had also become a capital T Tradition for Howard. And when something became a Christmas Tradition to Howard, it could never ever vary. Hand-made gifts only, no exceptions.
It was three weeks until Christmas, when Vince went to Naboo about his problem, while Howard was at jazzercise. Vince and Howard had gone to Naboo many times over the years to arbitrate disputes over their friendship rules. Naboo was the world’s leading expert on the byzantine system of rules and regulations Howard and Vince had imposed on each other. And so Vince had gone to Naboo to make a ruling.
First, Vince gave Naboo some spacecakes he’d bought off Leroy to soften him up. Naboo ate 6 of them and settled into a large beanbag chair in his room.
“State your case,” Naboo said.
“Okay well, it’s like this right? It ain’t actually a Christmas present. It’s a present, that I’m giving to him on Christmas,’ Vince said. “It’s actually unrelated to Christmas, I just happen to be giving it to him, on Christmas.”
“Vince, don’ waste my time with this, I said I’d only hear compelling arguments,” Naboo said. He had to set firm boundaries otherwise he’d spend his entire life litigating every little tiff these two berks had.
“It is a good argument! Look, it ain’t a Christmas present alright? I’m just giving it to him, on Christmas.” Vince was in a sticky situation. He didn’t really want to tell Naboo his plan. He wanted Howard to be the first to know, but he knew Naboo wouldn’t rule in his favor if he didn’t know the full circumstances.
“You sayin’ it again, don’t make it any better,” Naboo said, “honestly Vince, this is sad, even for you.”
“Look, what if I make him something and buy him something?” Vince asked desperately.
Naboo pulled out his reading glasses and consulted the Big Book of Rules, which Vince and Howard had collaborated on, and so it had a leather cover with the title spelled out in glitter glue. He flipped it open to the first page. He dragged his fingers through the various subsections and amendments and precedents. Vince watched him with his hands clasped at his chin.
After what felt like an eternity, Naboo took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, and looked up at Vince. “The language is pretty ironclad here, Vince, I don’ see no way around it, if you want to give him something store bought, give it to him on Boxing Day.”
“Boxing Day’s not romantic,” Vince said.
Naboo shrugged. “Look, I got a lot of stuff to do so…”
“Nabooooo!” Vince wailed.
Naboo crossed his arms and then nodded, and Vince was instantly transported out of Naboo’s room. Then, Naboo popped up right beside Vince, causing Vince to give out a little shriek. Naboo grabbed a large bong off the coffee table, nodded, and disappeared back into his room. Smoke instantly issued out from underneath the door. Vince considered kicking the door a few times, but really did not have time for any of Naboo’s obscure punishments that he employed whenever he or Howard bothered him too much, so instead he disappeared into his and Howard’s room to think.
Vince was still sitting on their bed, thinking, when Howard returned from jazzercise. The light had changed, but Vince hadn’t noticed. He only looked up when Howard turned on the light switch.
“Alright there, little man?” Howard asked. He wore his Christmas themed workout clothes, a Christmas sweater with the sleeves cut off and some rather short shorts that said “Santa’s Little Helper” across the back. Vince had made them for him last year for Christmas. He’d never really expected Howard to wear them, but Howard did, quite often.
Vince grinned up at him. It was easy to smile when Howard walked into a room. “Course. I was just thinking.”
“Dangerous, that is,” Howard said. He leaned in for a kiss, pecking Vince on the lips.
“Get off me with ya man stink,” Vince said, making absolutely no effort to push Howard off, and in fact pulling him closer to deepen the kiss.
Eventually, Howard pulled back. “I actually do stink. I’m going to shower.”
Vince watched Howard walk away. How on earth was he going to make a ring that was good enough for that northern jazzy freak he loved so much?
Then
Vince stood outside the record store, staring through the window. He had the perfect idea for a present for Howard. There was an autographed record in the shop, It was called the Whistle, by Stickball Jenkins and the Gym Class 5. Sometimes, Howard would drag Vince to the shop just to stare at it. The problem was that Vince didn’t have any money. He kept himself in sweets and makeup by charming people into giving him stuff or lifting things from shops. But he’d never stolen anything bigger than a tube of lippy.
It had to be done. And he had a plan, of sorts. He’d read in Cheekbone that it was well in fashion at the moment for people to have cubes for kids. And in order to fit the cube’s cube head, the mum’s had square bellies. So he reckoned that he could put a milk crate under his shirt and smuggle the record out like that. He’d put on some makeup, a wig, his tallest heels, then he’d just waltz in as a very respectable and super cool pregnant lady, and waltz back out with Howard’s present. It was genius.
Vince ran back to his uncle’s flat, he still did not like to think of it as home, there wasn’t a bus ticket in sight. He found his tallest pair of platforms, eight inches tall. Bryan had said his ankles weren’t strong enough yet, that he had to wait until he was older to wear them, but Bryan wasn’t there so...wotever.
He got out his blond wig he’d worn to be Lady Di last Halloween. He tucked his own dirty blond hair into the wig and straightened it, brushing the fringe so it laid across his brow just so. Then, he pulled out some blue eyeshadow and red lipstick. The first time he’d come to school wearing this particular makeup combo, Howard had said he looked very...mature, though it hadn’t sounded like a compliment exactly. But mature was right next to old, and that is how he needed to look.
Vince entered the record shop, looking amazing and mature and well old, only teetering a little in his massive platforms. That clerk didn’t stand a chance.
Vince lurched around the front counter and gave the clerk a casual nod, nothing too flirty--he was with child after all--but just the right amount so that the clerk would be so entranced by him that he wouldn’t question just what Vince was up to in the jazz section of the store.
Once Vince was sure the coast was clear, he reached up, snagged the record, and stuck it in the milk crate wedged under his shirt. One of the keys of successful shoplifting was to make sure you didn’t just try to leave the moment the deed was done. Nonchalance was key. So, Vince flipped through a few records, ignoring the rash already creeping across the skin on his belly from prolonged exposure to the jazz record. He glanced down at the watch he’d drawn on his wrist in a stroke of brilliance and feigned shock at just how late it had gotten. He walked up the aisle toward the front door.
The moment of truth. Vince walked confidently right past the clerk. He was almost out the door when--
“Hey kid,” the clerk said. “You gotta--”
Vince took off running out of the shop.