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Howard stared out over the rooftops, backlit by the moonlight, and felt dreadfully, utterly alone. It hadn’t always been like this. He hadn’t let himself truly notice the change until tonight, but it was hard to miss when he was confronted with a birthday party where absolutely none of the guests were there for him. (None except for Lester, and maybe Vince, but even the latter was in doubt at the moment.)
When they’d met in grade school, he and Vince had both been on equal footing. They were both freaks as far as the other kids were concerned -- one, a strangely adult little boy, more interested in instrumental music, books, and pencil cases than football, video games, and MTV; the other, a fae-like, familyless creature full of odd stories and odder clothes, with a propensity for growling like an outraged kitten in times of distress. Other kids hadn’t wanted anything to do with either of them, and in some ways that had been an easier time. Vince and Howard versus the world.
It had started to change around secondary school. Vince was learning to adapt, putting away his strangest habits for times when no one but Howard was around to see them. Then, when hormones hit their classes like a sledgehammer, everything accelerated. Suddenly, Vince’s interest in eye-catching fashion wasn’t strange anymore; it was attractive, and it was as if overnight Vince had been revealed not as an ugly duckling, but a fledgling swan.
Try as he might to find his flock, Howard remained a lone duck.
Sometime between the zoo and the party, it had all changed again, and it had happened so gradually that Howard had barely noticed. In Dalston, Vince had found more like-minded people. He’d put more of his weirdness aside, no longer confining them to jokes he shared with Howard alone, but dropping them entirely, pretending he’d never in his life talked to a cobra or begged Howard to go to Euro Disney. Among the bright lights and electro pop candyfloss of the city, Vince had blossomed into true popularity, attracting friends like a torch called moths.
And Howard wasn’t even a moth. Howard was still a bloody duck.
Thumbs rubbing circles on his knees, he stared up at the moon’s half-smiling face and wondered if it wasn’t high time he gave up. Vince had so many friends now, would he even notice if Howard left?
The sound of scrambling hands and feet took Howard by surprise, more so still when it was Vince who appeared on the roof beside him, his silver headband catching the moonlight. He looked exceptionally soft like this, his face more rounded and his eyes huge when he caught sight of Howard. It reminded Howard of the old days, the sixth form dance, when Vince had worn glitter on his face and held the stars in his arms.
But it was all myth and magic, wasn’t it? Vince wasn’t the same anymore, and next to him Howard was a relic of a bygone time, as if they were truly a decade apart.
Howard was so distracted by his own morose musings, he barely even noticed when the Head Shaman popped up on the roof beside them. He only tuned back in when he heard his own name.
“Oh yeah,” he agreed, following Vince’s lead on long established habit. “We’re in love.” He was too preoccupied to hear the words coming from his own mouth. They were no secret, anyway. It was nothing Howard hadn’t said before, whether Vince took it seriously or not.
And then, Dennis said, “Prove it,” and Howard’s whole reality flipped on its side in an instant.
It wasn’t how Howard had imagined Vince kissing him. (And he didn’t like to acknowledge that he’d imagined it, preferred to pretend those were the daydreams of an awkward teenager, long left in the past, not something that popped into his mind almost daily.) It was a lot more terrifying than he’d expected -- a sword waving in their direction, Howard’s loafers scrambling for purchase on the roof tiles -- and a lot more wet. Wet, and warm, and sweeter than he’d ever thought, with the brightly sour taste of sugary cocktails on Vince’s tongue and his lips sticky with gloss.
When Vince pulled away, it was as if he took Howard’s thoughts with him, pulled them out of his brain through his lips like so much melted cheese. Dazed, Howard’s hands twitched reflexively toward Vince to bring him back. He was unaware of the Head Shaman’s retreat, only of the entire world split open like a pomegranate around him, seeds of possibility spilling at his feet.
Howard had climbed onto the rooftop thinking his birthday a sham, thinking his best friend was leaving him behind. Moments later, when Howard fell off the roof, he knew none of it was true. No matter how Vince might protest or make noise in front of his fashionable crowd, Howard knew the truth now. The past wasn’t only behind them. It was more than a thread of obligation tying them to one another. Even more than the kiss, it was the bouncy castle that proved it -- a promise put aside for decades, but never forgotten. The kiss was I’m still here, but the gift was I still care, and that was how Howard knew their story was far from over.
-
It was strangely nerve-wracking, watching Ziggy and Charlie ponder over what they’d heard. Howard rubbed his palms against the knees of his khakis, second guessing whether he’d told it right. Stories had never been his department, and even after six years of raising the girls, he was never quite sure where he should embroider the tale or what bits to leave aside. Certainly, they didn’t need to know about the incident with Gregg after, (though Charlie was alarmingly fond of stories about Gregg), but had including Dennis been a mistake? Maybe the threat of beheading was too much for a bedtime story.
Ziggy was still gnawing on her fingers when Charlie finally stopped pursing her lips like an angry librarian and pronounced, “I like it. Well romantic.”
“I liked that the moon was there,” Ziggy added softly. “He’s nice.” She folded back the rainbow quilt to reveal her unicorn nightie and swung her bare little legs to the edge of the bed, but Howard stopped her with a gentle hand on her chest.
“Woah, there. Where do you think you’re going?”
“Gonna ask moon if he remembers tha’ story.”
“You know the rules. No leaving bed once you’re in it, little miss.” Ziggy scowled and squirmed, but she slipped back under the covers beside her sister and let Howard tuck them in again.
“I doubt the moon will remember anything,” Vince said from the bedroom doorway. “For one thing, not a stellar memory on that guy, but also, Howard, why are you lying to our children?”
“I’m not lying, sir. I’m merely--” Howard lowered his voice, “--editing a few facts for little ears.” Vince was taking up the entire door, blocking the exit. His arms were stretched overhead, fingers curled onto the top of the frame. His t-shirt -- some faded band tee he refused to let go of even after his body had stretched and broadened -- clung to his chest, the hemline rising well over his stomach.
One day, Howard hoped to get better at stamping down his dirty thoughts when the kids were in the room. He’d probably master it around the time they graduated university.
Vince’s crooked smirk told Howard he hadn’t managed to keep those thoughts concealed very well this time. “Nah, that’s not it. I mean, that wasn’t our first kiss, was it?”
Howard blinked, shocked for a second before his shoulders rose invade his ears. “I’m not sure what you mean, sir. I think you’ll find that Howard Moon was untarnished by other hands before yours.”
“That, I’m sure of,” Vince said with a grin. Crossing the room, he dropped onto the foot of the bed, stretching his legs out so his feet, in their usual panda slippers, were up by the girls’ heads. “But it’s not the first time we kissed.”
Howard pursed his lips. He had a suspicion where this was going, but found it hard to believe. “Alright, little man. Why don’t you correct the record, then, but--” he shot a glance toward the two little faces peeking out with fascinated eyes over the quilt, “-- mind your audience.”
Vince stuck his tongue between his teeth and gave Howard a cheeky look. “I’ll try. Can’t promise much, though. After all, this all starts when Howard and I were out in the woods on holiday. Of course, when we planned the trip, we didn’t know about the yeti…”
-
Vince was flying. Not literally, but he might as well be. This was probably what it felt like to go for a joyride on Naboo’s carpet, spreadeagled and naked, and that wasn’t a bad idea really. He’d have to file that idea away for later.
If he remembered anything later, which he was already doubting. Vince hadn’t felt this good in years, not at all the parties and gigs put together, not even at that Fashion Week party he’d snuck into that gave away favors in a designer bag the size of his torso. Champagne and ecstasy had nothing on yeti magic, apparently.
At some point, a big bed had been introduced to the equation, and that was the best idea yet. Vince squirmed, trying to roll every bit of himself against the plush sheets. The yeti music was all around him, filling the air with light waves, and he could hear others nearby, voices he dimly recognized as Bollo and Naboo. It sounded like they were whispering to him from the end of a cardboard tube.
He rolled over again and bumped up against Howard -- no, it was Parsley now, wasn’t it? But it was still Howard, his smiling face all glowy and warm beneath his flower crown. Quite nice, that. Vince made a note to nick it later.
Good as Vince felt, Howard must be really off his tits. He was beaming so bright his eyes had squinted up to nothing. Seeing Vince pressed up against him, he actually wiggled closer.
“Aren’t you happy we came now?” Howard sighed, tucking his face into the top of Vince’s hair, one big hand skating over Vince’s arm, leaving a trail of sparkles in its wake. “So happy.”
“Yeah.” It was true, very true, and Howard felt wonderful all cuddled up to him, sturdy and warm as a polar bear, and yet through the pan flute melody sweeping around them, there was a worm inching about in the back of Vince’s brain, reminding him that this was all a bit weird. Naboo had said something before, about Vince being punk, resisting the yeti. Maybe that was the trick, or maybe it was just that Vince was used to being off his head sometimes and Howard wasn’t, but either way, some tiny fraction of Vince’s tiny brain was still conscious that Howard was not usually up on him like this.
That was hard to remember when Howard was trailing fingers over his cheek, tucking stray bits of hair back behind Vince’s ears. Ought to pull awayHoward won’t be happy later if he remembers this.
But what were the odds of that? And anyway, it felt good at the moment. If there was one thing Vince was all about in life, it was stuff that felt good at the moment. He didn’t pull away when Howard cupped his face. It was too rare, getting Howard so affectionate like this, all his inhibitions shut up in a drawer like they ought to be. No, instead Vince did the opposite of pull away, and when their lips met, it was like--
-
“I think that’s more than enough of that,” Howard interrupted. His whole face was red, all the way to the tips of his ears, and he could feel it burning. “This is not an appropriate bedtime story.”
“C’mon, ‘oward,” Charlie whined. She’d managed to wriggle her knees up to her chest, out from under the covers and tucked beneath her shirt -- another old tee of Vince’s that she’d commandeered and then stretched beyond reasonable use by doing just that move. “It was just getting good.”
“It was not. It was getting horrifying.”
“We heard worse as kids, and we turned out alright,” Vince protested. Howard raised his eyebrows, and Vince inclined his head with a crooked little smile. “Well, we turned out alright enough, eventually. Anyway, it wasn’t going anywhere filthy, you freak! Bollo did a flying piledriver on the bed right between us a second later, and we both cuddled up with the monkey man till we got rescued.”
Howard felt a bit of the tension in him ease at that. It was one thing to find out they’d kissed before the party, especially under the influence, but anything more than that and he’d have another existential crisis brewing. “Well,” he said gruffly, looking off toward the unicorn and skeleton posters hung side by side on the bedroom wall. “It doesn’t count anyway. We weren’t in our right heads.”
“True.” Vince tilted his head back, eyes toward the ceiling as he thought, and his dark hair spilled back to the middle of his shoulders. “Would the other one count, though?”
Howard sighed. He could hear Bollo’s voice in his head, echoing, Got a bad feeling about this. “What other one?” Someday, he’d learn not to ask Vince questions he didn’t want the answer to.
-
It was another brilliant day at the Zooniverse, and it had only just begun. Vince was still new to the life of a working adult, but he quite liked it so far. Fossil liked him, and he was living with Howard again, just like when they were at the academy. He didn’t know what Bryan was on about, claiming that Vince would regret leaving university. Life as a zookeeper was like all the best parts of being a kid rolled together -- animals, food, Howard -- and on top of that he sometimes got paid enough to buy new boots.
Vince dug through the pile of clothes he’d left on the sofa the night before. That was his only complaint about life at the zoo so far: the uniforms were well boring, even after Vince modified his. After the freedom he’d had to wear what he liked at uni, getting dressed for work was like being back at the academy, but worse. At least the academy uniforms had allowed for skirts sometimes. Neckerchiefs and badges were cool and all, but Vince did miss skirts.
He let out a small noise of triumph in the empty hut as he finally unearthed what he’d been looking for -- a zebra print silk scarf he’d bought at the second-hand over the weekend. He’d been thinking he’d try wearing it for a day, see if the zebras adopted him as one of their own. Howard had joked that if Vince stood in the herd with the scarf on, he might even confuse Fossil into thinking he’d disappeared. Howard might have been kidding, but Vince thought it was brilliant. He’d been looking forward to trying it for days.
Vince tied the scarf around his neck with a jaunty little knot, then checked the look in the mirror, pursing his lips and tilting his head this way and that, examining every angle. With a satisfied nod, he gave the back of his hair a final scrunching fluff, then headed for the door. It was half past ten and his day was barely starting. Life as a zookeeper suited Vince just fine.
His hand was on the latch when he felt the door shudder. Vince took a half step back, but not fast enough. “Vince!” Howard shouted, barreling through the entrance, and they collided.
The impact was hard enough to stagger Vince back and, reflexively, Howard caught him by the waist. But Howard still had momentum he hadn’t counted on. He stumbled forward, tiny eyes wild, and Vince saw them up close and personal as their lips met, and--
-
“That wasn’t a kiss,” Howard interrupted again. “That was a disaster. Our faces smacked into each other so hard that my nose came out almost as flat at yours.”
“You dipped me, and you kissed me,” Vince insisted.
Howard’s only response was an inarticulate garble. His cheeks were pink from embarrassment. “What did you think, that I swooped in and kissed you, then dropped you on the floor on purpose?”
“Yeah.” Howard stared. “To be fair, it did seem like something you’d do back then.”
“Well, it wasn’t. And that wasn’t a kiss; that was a car crash.” Vince ran his tongue over his teeth and darted a look at the girls, who were still watching their dads with rapt attention. Anything to get out of going to bed on time.
Howard could tell Vince had something on his mind still from the way he shifted his weight on the bed, tucking his knees under his chin to mirror the kids. “There was another time--” he started, and Howard groaned. “It’s the last one! Or, I guess it’s the first one, really.”
Vince’s smile now was a small thing, delicate and twitchy as Howard’s first mustache. He fixed his eyes down on the girls’ bedspread, and his cheeks pinked. It was rare to see Vince blush anymore, but every time the sight dropped Howard right back into their early school days, when Howard was still unsure what the fluttering in his chest might mean. The color struck Howard dumb, unable to protest the addition of another story.
-
Vince knew Howard was blitzed the moment he felt an arm loop tight around his waist, the other man’s larger body pressed firm against his back. When Howard shouted a triumphant, “There you are!” wet against Vince’s ear, he could smell the sharp sourness of ale on his breath.
The girl Vince had been flirting with -- Sheila? Sherry? -- took a half step back, eyebrows rising in alarm. She had great eyebrows, whoever she was. She’d shaved them off and then rebuilt them with stick-on rhinestones, and Vince had been debating if he wanted to try the look himself the whole time they were speaking.
But Howard was drunk and touching him in a very public setting, and the thrilling novelty of that took priority even over brow art trends. Vince twisted around, regretting it when Howard let go of his waist, but once they were face to face, his big hands came back to bracket Vince’s hips. Genius. Vince grinned broadly, barely needing to tilt his head up to see Howard’s face thanks to his newest platform boots.
Howard’s cheeks were flushed, and his squinty eyes glazed. Even the tip of his nose was looking rosy from all the alcohol. It was an appealing look. Vince resisted the urge to bop the tip of his finger against that nose.
“Alright, Howard,” he chirped. “You having fun after all?”
Howard nodded, gaze drifting from Vince’s face to the crowded pub around them, then back again. His grip on Vince tightened. “Getting sleepy,” he mumbled. Vince had to strain to hear him over the noise of a couple hundred university students packed into such a small pub, yelling to talk over the music.
“Want to call it a night?”
The response was much easier to hear, slurred into the side of Vince’s neck by wet lips. “Yeah.”
Vince could see the girl -- Shonna? -- pointedly looking from Vince’s beaming face to Howard, half stooped and nuzzling his beady features into Vince’s hair. Her lips pursed in disapproval, and a spike of vindictiveness shot through Vince. Her eyebrows weren’t that cool.
He reached up and cupped his palm around the back of Howard’s neck, holding him in place as he cheerily informed her, “Looks like we’re heading home. See you ‘round, yeah?” He didn’t wait for an answer, or for permission to leave.
Howard clung to his hand as Vince pulled him to the pub door. As they jostled through the crowd, a few voices called out over the others, cajoling Vince into staying longer. On a normal pub night, when Vince was out alone, it would have worked. He’d have ended up stopping for every shout, happily taking the offers of one more drink, one more dance, one last kiss. Saying goodbye to the bar was an hour long process in and of itself, but tonight, with a stumbling Howard in tow, Vince paused only to wave and yell back a good night.
The flat they shared with Leroy was only a few streets away, so even with Howard in a state, Vince didn’t need to worry about trying to find fare for a cab. The cars circled like buzzards outside the row of pubs and late night coffeeshops, waiting for the hour when a swarm of drunk and confused students would spill out into the night.
Away from the golden lights, music, and shouting of the pubs, the streets were dark and quiet. At some point while they’d been out, it had rained again, and the click of Vince’s boot heels was amplified by the shallow puddles on the wet pavement. He hopped into a couple, deliberately, just to hear the sound, then wrinkled his nose when damp crept into the crevices of his shoes and seeped into his socks.
If Howard had his wits about him, he’d be scolding Vince for that mistake. Didn’t think that one through, little man. But Howard was pissed, and his only response to Vince slowing down was to crowd in close again, pushing his unsteady weight into Vince’s side until Vince opted to sling Howard’s arm around his own shoulders, one hand gripping the other man’s waist, and pull him in a stumbling dance like that the rest of the way home.
Leroy was still out at the pub, and last Vince had seen him, he’d been sandwiched between one boy and one girl, angling for the devil’s threeway. He’d either be home early in a state of disappointment, or he might not be back for days, depending on how that chat went, so the flat was empty when Vince pawed at the switch and flooded the lights on.
Howard blinked beneath the fluorescents as if he were just waking up from a nap. “C’mon, ‘oward,” Vince said, steering the man’s bulk to the other side of the living area. “We’ll get you to bed.”
When Vince had withdrawn from the academy partway through his last year, Howard was already living with Leroy. They’d found one another through an ad for roommates in the student paper, and somehow Leroy didn’t despise Howard on sight. He was far too easy-going for that, and that relaxed attitude had worked in everyone’s favor when, a month later, Vince had turned up at the door with five suitcases despite Howard’s claim that his “old mate from school” would only be visiting for a week.
Leroy hadn’t batted an eye when Vince started dragging home charity shop furniture, slowly turning the three of them sharing the two bedroom flat into a permanent situation. If it bothered him at all that Vince had moved into Howard’s room, or that Howard’s room still only had one bed, Vince’s regular rent checks from Bryan argued a good case for Leroy to keep his lips shut.
It had been a rough few weeks, that little in-between time when Howard was in London and Vince was still in Leeds. There had been a lot of late night phone calls with Vince exhausted, his room a wreck, his throat aching to keep him from admitting what was really on his mind, I can’t sleep right without you here, Howard.
When Vince had arrived, Howard’s bedroom was plain -- a dresser, a desk, a massive antique bed that a previous tenant had left behind. In the months since, the room had been transformed into a space more similar to the attic room at the academy. Howard had groused as Vince drug in star-shaped lights and bohemian fabrics like a cat trotting home with a fresh kill between his teeth each night, but he never actually threw anything out. Instead, he’d helped hang the new prizes, and slowly the space had started to look more like somewhere they both lived.
That was the environment they stumbled into after the pub, Howard quietly scatting to himself, happy in his own head for once, and Vince struggling to stay upright as those last few fruity shots he’d downed at the bar made the world a bit more wobbly.
Unable to support Howard’s weight as well as his own for much longer, Vince guided the big man over to the edge of their bed and gave him a gentle shove. Howard tumbled back easy, eyes as wide as they could go as he found himself staring up at their star-speckled ceiling.
Vince was never much for nursemaiding. That was Howard’s job, after all, but Vince could cover the basics -- Howard was home and in bed. Vince scanned his splayed form and decided he could do a bit better than that and stooped to remove Howard’s awful sandals. Then, he kicked them as far up under the bed as he could. With any luck, a gremlin would scurry off with them in the night.
Howard was muttering under his breath, words a jumble of letters between the slur of drinks and his thickened Yorkshire accent, and Vince was forced to lean in closer to hear. He ended up crawling halfway up the bed, hovering over Howard’s spread eagle. “What’s that? Need something?”
Their faces were close enough, it was impossible to miss the moment Howard’s eyes snapped open. Before Vince could even jerk back, Howard had seized both lapels of Vince’s studded leather jacket. He tugged, and Vince’s elbows gave out like they were made of wet cardboard. Their noses smacked into one another long before their lips met, so Vince was initially distracted from the actual kiss by the sharp throbbing at the center of his face. But once that first spark passed, it was impossible to miss what was happening, from Howard’s hands still fisted tight in the collar of his coat, to his lips moving tentatively against Vince’s own.
It might have been a pretty good kiss, aside from the nearly broken nose and the thick, sour taste of cheap beer on Howard’s breath. For a moment, Vince was tempted to make it a good kiss. It would only take a little tilt of his head, maybe a couple fingers against Howard’s scruffy jawline to get the angle perfect.
But it would still be Howard, and the burn of alcohol in Vince’s bloodstream was a steady reminder that, tempting as it was to fall into the moment, Howard wasn’t someone Vince wanted to have forgetting him or regretting him in the morning.
Hard as it was to do, he pulled away. He was searching his own empty head for a joke to make, searching Howard’s face for clues, but Howard had his eyes closed, his kiss-wet lips still slightly parted. For a second, Vince thought the other man had already fallen asleep.
Then, Howard quietly sighed. “Always wanted a second shot at that,” he muttered.
Clogged as the were with glitter and candy floss, the cogs in Vince’s brain were always a bit slow to turn, and the lingering, buzzing warmth of his last few drinks at the pub did nothing to speed up that process. By the time he’d processed Howard’s slurred words and mumbled out his own confused, “Wot?” in reply, Howard was indeed asleep, the sparse hairs of his ghostly mustache waving in the puffs of air that escaped his lips.
Toeing off his boots, Vince crawled on top of the covers and curled into Howard’s side like a comma. In an hour or two, he’d wake feeling itchy and damp, change his clothes and scrub his face, but for the moment he didn’t want to have to think for a bit. He closed his eyes, pressed his nose to Howard’s shoulder, and fell asleep on a bed of stale smoke, spilled beer, and the sound of Howard breathing.
-
When Vince’s story ended, Howard had his face buried in his palms. He hadn’t even noticed he’d done it, wasn’t aware until he felt Vince’s light touch on his shoulder, heard his tentative little, “‘oward?” like an echo from their school days.
Howard straightened up and tried to shrug it off. The girls, cozy in their fluffy pillows, were starting to visibly flag, little eyes at half mast and struggling to stay open. Ziggy cracked a yawn that took up her whole face, then screwed her fists into her eyes.
Vince was watching Howard through half-lidded eyes himself, not from exhaustion but worry. One look at that shuttered expression and Howard knew what it meant -- Vince thought he’d done something wrong. Howard wasn’t about to let that thought linger. Sadness had no place on Vince Noir’s features; there wasn’t room for it.
“I don’t remember that one either,” Howard admitted, “but it reminded me of something else.” He paused to cough, clear his throat and bolster his courage before admitting, “There was another time, actually. Before that one.”
Vince blinked. “Before?”
“Do you remember?” Howard asked out of courtesy, but he knew the answer even before Vince shook his head. Howard had put the night out of his mind for years, tried so hard to make himself forget, afraid Vince didn’t remember and equally afraid of what it would mean if he did.
Doesn’t count if we don’t remember, he’d told himself a hundred times, but now he felt clumsy and foolish, like a child in a man’s body all over again. Howard had been throwing their kisses away for years, discarding them for not being the perfect size, but Vince had been picking them out of the trash all along.
If nothing else, Howard could resurrect one more for him.
-
Vince’s room at the academy was everything Howard had expected it to be. He’d been inside before over the years, sure, but not for more than a few minutes, and never after dark like this. Before, it had always made the most sense if their occasional sleepovers happened at Howard’s house, where his mom could feed them both a real dinner and his dad could ask prying questions about their schoolwork and Vince’s strange facsimile of a home life. But Howard was trying not to think about Before. Howard was trying not to even think about now.
He’d fallen asleep somewhere in the middle of the last film. He could remember hearing a woman scream, and then Vince pulling the blanket up over their faces to hide from whatever was happening on the screen, and then it all went blank. When he’d woken up sometime later, it was to a grey, silent flicker from the telly, the ghost of a movie long since over.
The room was softly lit in gold, red, and blue from Vince’s many strings of fairy lights. Beyond them, Howard could see pale greenish shapes stuck to the rafters -- glow in the dark stars and planets that never got any real use without full darkness. Beside him in the bed, Vince had slipped down from the pillow they’d propped against the headboard for film viewing. He was curled onto his side, facing Howard, his head pillowed on one hand between his cheek and the mattress, and his mouth slightly parted. In sleep, his pointy features looked much softer, less severe.
Howard tugged the pillow down to rest his own head and stared up at the rainbow-speckled ceiling. Even at the witching hour, Vince’s room was bright and open. Sure, it was a bit chaotic, just like the boy who’d designed it, but at least it gave Howard something to look at. At least, here, he had something to think about that wasn’t--
Something other than--
He wouldn’t even let himself think about her. It felt like jamming his fingers into an open wound every time he tried. When he went out with his dad, people kept coming up and asking about her, and her name alone was a hot stove. Howard flinched from the contact every time. When his aunt had come from a visit, she’d told him it would fade, with time. Howard had already known adults lied to him, so he wasn’t disappointed to find it was happening again.
Unfortunately, Howard didn’t need to think of her, picture her, or hear her name for his heart to run wild. In the unfamiliar room, beneath the flickering telly screen and dancing lights, Howard’s emotions rushed to his face, and everything spilled down his cheeks no matter how he pressed his hands there to hold the tears in.
He was shaking with it, knees and arms curled up, heels of his hands under his eyes to try to hold himself together. He’d only cried once at home, the night after. His dad had heard the sobs through their thin bedroom walls, and he’d turned up the telly downstairs. Since then, Howard had been biting his lips, biting his tongue, pinching his arms -- anything to distract himself and keep it all inside, where his dad clearly thought it belonged.
When Howard felt slim fingers creep into his hair, he threw himself back with a gasp. He was right up on the edge of the bed. The slim mattress dropped off abruptly just beyond his shoulder. Vince’s eyes were open, barely more than slits, and it was dark enough in the warm little room that the blue of his irises looked black.
Even as Howard had pulled away, Vince’s hand stayed out. Howard froze, waiting for a sleepy little, “Alright?” and trying to find a joke he could throw back in return. He could feel the wet streaks cooling on his cheeks, knew that Vince wouldn’t have missed them either.
But Vince didn’t say a word for once, and when Howard didn’t move, his fingers curled into Howard’s fine hair again. It felt far too good to resist -- the light scratch of his blunt nails on Howard’s scalp, the little tugs and tangles where his fingers caught on the curls. Vince flattened his palm and smoothed back the strands from Howard’s forehead, cupped the back of his head, and that was where Howard’s walls shattered.
He ducked his head, pressing his face to the pillow, and when Vince tugged at his neck, he squirmed forward, tucking himself into his mate’s shoulder. Howard felt damp and used like an old flannel, probably rubbing snot all over the pillowcase, Vince’s shirt, everything, but Vince’s fingers never stopped moving. He tucked the longer strands of Howard’s hair back behind his ears, lingering at the ridges of bone there, then started again from the hairline, stroking the curls back, taming the unruly mess Howard had made of it.
“It ain’t so bad, you know,” Vince said, hand warm against the back of Howard’s head. His voice was a whisper, but Howard was practically up against his chest, and he could feel the vibration of it against his cheek. “Bein’ alone, I mean. You get used to it.”
Howard didn’t want to be used to it. He didn’t want Vince to be used to it, either. It wasn’t right, someone as bright and shining as Vince feeling the way Howard felt now, like there was a pit at the center of him. For a second, Howard’s outrage on Vince’s behalf overwhelmed his own pain, and all he could think about was that Vince shouldn’t ever feel like he was alone.
Although he had always tried to convince himself otherwise, deep down inside, Howard knew he wasn’t brave. He wasn’t the sort for big public gestures, or for crossing a bridge without knowing what lay in wait on the other side. He couldn’t say, exactly, what was different on this night. Maybe it was the warm, quiet half-darkness of Vince’s room soothing his nerves, or the fact that his eyes were still mostly closed. Maybe it was the fact that his cheekbones were sore, his whole body exhausted from the intensity of his long-repressed cry. Maybe he was just too tired and too comfortable in Vince’s bed to be afraid.
Whatever it was, it made it easy, somehow, to tilt his head up from Vince’s shoulder, to curl his fist in Vince’s battered Roxy Music tour shirt and hold on fiercely as he brushed their lips together. Vince’s breath was tinged with the sweetness of the strawberry bootlaces he’d been snacking on during the movie, and that felt just right to Howard’s mind. Of course Vince should always taste like spun sugar.
His lips moved beneath Howard’s, barely parting, and Howard abruptly remembered what he was doing. Startled, he pulled back, looking eyes darting around at the nothing in the room.
“Did you hear that?” The only thing he could hear was his own rabbiting heartbeat.
Vince replied with a sleepy, “Hm?” and his fingers drifted from Howard’s hair, palm resting against his shoulder. Afraid to see the look on Vince’s face, Howard used his new freedom to flip onto his other side, facing away. The moon filled up the high porthole window in the attic room, and Howard watched it with a singular focus until his worn eyes couldn’t stay open anymore and he drifted off to sleep, Vince curled against his back.
-
“Mm, I like that one,” Ziggy muttered before breaking off on a wide yawn. She rubbed at her eyes again and wiggled down to nestle more deeply into the pillow. Her curly hair stretched out like tentacles across the sheets.
Beside her, Charlie had already given herself up to sleep. For all she was a ball of frantic energy during the day, the girl slept like a drunk sprawled on a pub table -- dead to the world, mouth open, drool glistening on her cheek. Howard reached out to carefully push her mouth closed, and she snorted loudly, but otherwise didn’t stir.
Howard glanced over to Vince to share his amusement at the noise, but Vince was staring off at the unicorn poster on the wall, his eyes boring through the paper and into the wood and plaster.
“Vince?”
Vince blinked, coming back to himself with a crooked smile for Ziggy. “Sorry. My mind wandered off a bit. You get enough story in your tummy tonight, then?”
Eyelids drooping, Ziggy nodded. Howard could see her fading fast. With a pat to her knobby knee, he leaned in and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Sweet dreams, little lady.”
Though he knew she wouldn’t feel or hear it, he stood up to repeat the gesture with the sleeping Charlie, and watched with a private smile as Vince did the same. They slipped out to the hall together, and Ziggy was asleep before they even flicked off the light.
A natural night owl, Vince usually thrived after the girls had gone to bed. He could spend all day chasing them around the park and still have energy to stay up past midnight working on a new project. Even on the nights he’d turn in early with Howard, it was often a production, and he’d drape himself over Howard’s back and beg to be carried down the hall -- or try to cajole Howard into staying up late alongside him with the promise of artsy films or pancakes, and the implied lure of a nice cuddle.
Tonight, Vince was quiet. If Howard didn’t know him better, he might call the look in Vince’s eyes “pensive.” He nudged his shoulder into Vince, jostling him playfully to see what he could spark, but Vince only leaned into Howard’s chest.
Howard draped an arm over his slim shoulders and tugged him in closer. “Hey,” he said softly, mindful of both Vince’s strange mood and the girls sleeping nearby. “What’s wrong, little man? Did my powerful story set your head spinning?”
Biting his lip, Vince leaned into Howard a bit harder. “It’s a nice story,” he said quietly. “It’s just… I don’t remember any of that. I must have had one foot into sleep, or I fell asleep before you kissed me, or--” He cut himself off with a frustrated noise, then lifted his head abruptly and looked Howard in the eye. “Is that what you meant when you were drunk, then? About wanting a second shot?”
“Ah.” It was ridiculous to think Howard was blushing now. He and Vince had been living together for half their lives, minus a month here or there, and they’d been... romantically involved for over five years of that. He should have been well past blushing over his little teen crush on his best mate. Clearly, he was not.
“Well, it’s just… I thought you’d kissed me back, you see.” He ducked his head, slippery eyes sliding away from Vince’s face so he could avoid seeing the reaction to his words. “And then you never said anything, so I thought I’d probably done it wrong.”
“For how long?”
“A few years. Then, I told myself it never happened at all. I dreamed it.” Howard laughed lightly. “Must have said it so much I convinced myself.”
Vince’s body was tight, tense where he pressed into Howard for comfort, and Howard reflexively ran a hand up and down his spine. “It’s not fair I don’t remember,” he complained, pouting.
“Well, now you’re just being greedy.” Vince shot Howard a narrow look. “You remember all those others, don’t you? I’ve only got this one and the rooftop.”
“But this is the real one, Howard. And we were in school still, and--” Vince broke off on a huffing sigh.
“This is really bothering you, huh?” Howard ran a finger along Vince’s jaw, then tilted his chin up into the light so he could see those blue eyes. “What’s the issue?”
“We were fourteen.”
“So?”
“So, I was already in love with you.” It was a fierce declaration, though not a shocking one. They’d talked all this over long ago, in fits and starts on the rare occasions they felt settled and calm in their bedroom. They’d both been young and stupid back in their school years, dancing around each other -- sometimes literally -- and unable to really accept the truth of what they were feeling.
“If I’d known back then,” Vince said, “then it’d all have been different, wouldn’t it? We’d probably have just… got together.”
“Maybe.” Howard admitted. “Maybe not. We can’t see what might have gone differently, Vince. Not even Naboo can manage that.”
The reassurance did nothing to drive the little frown from Vince’s face, so Howard ran his thumbs across it, smoothing and shooing it away like Vince’s skin was a bit of modeling clay he could play with, until Vince finally huffed and batted at Howard’s wrists. “Stop that. You’ll give me wrinkles.”
“That’s my evil scheme. I’m transferring mine to you. Come here.” He snatched at Vince’s waist, clumsy on purpose so Vince could spin away, grinning at the new game. They scuffled in the hall for a minute, neither putting any true effort into trying to win, until Vince danced back and nearly ran himself up against the girls’ bedroom door.
Howard had him by the wrist before he could bump it. A quick tug, and Vince was in his arms, eyes sparkling and face split wide with silent laughter. Howard wrapped his arm snug around Vince’s waist and dipped him back as Vince clutched his shoulders for balance.
“Don’t drop me on the floor this time,” Vince joked.
Howard paused, inches away from kissing the grin off of him, and pretended to be affronted instead. “I already told you; I didn’t drop you the last time.”
“Yeah, but you’re so much older now.” Some of his laughter burst out when, instead of dropping him, Howard hauled Vince back onto his feet and pushed him toward their bedroom, swatting at his butt to urge him along. He chased Vince down the half lit hall, both of them shuffling in their soft-soled house shoes, holding himself back until Vince darted into the bedroom.
They might both be closer to starting their ages with a four than Vince would ever admit, (He’d be pushing ninety and still claiming twenty-nine someday) but that only meant they had years of practice at Howard sweeping Vince off his feet -- literally. He’d swooped in and scooped the smaller man up the moment they made it through the door frame, then dropped him on the bed before he even had time to yelp.
Vince was still bouncing when Howard climbed up after him. The bed was far from a single these days, more than big enough for the nights when both girls crept in on bare, icy feet, claiming nightmares. But the rest of the room kept much the same feel they always had, with the star-shaped lights draped near the ceiling, swaths of mosquito net draping down over the headboard, and the half of the room by Vince’s closet draped with clothes in various stages of clea, dirty, paint-splattered, and pinned for sewing.
Howard hovered over Vince, helpless to keep the fond smile off his face at the way Vince’s eyes glowed in the soft lighting. He brushed Vince’s fringe back, tucking a longer strand behind his ear, then trailed his fingers over that ivory cheek.
Vince stared up into his eyes, playful grin fading back to a soft smile of his own. His voice was barely louder than a whisper. “Howard, what are you doing?”
“Reenactment,” Howard answered. “Updated for the modern era, of course. Think I’ll skip the crying part, too.” Still cupping Vince’s cheek, he leaned in slow and closed his eyes. It was just a brush of lips, like he remembered, but then another. Another. Each lingered a bit longer, sweet and firm, resisting Vince’s little noises as he squirmed beneath Howard and attempted to deepen the kiss.
He kept Vince there as long as he could. As an actor, Howard was talented, but sometimes it required several takes to get the moment just right. After a dozen or so kisses, he at last pulled back, leaning up on his elbows to stare at Vince’s deep blue eyes and flushed cheeks.
“Alright, now it’s your turn.” Vince blinked, and Howard’s smile turned a bit wolfish. “Say you’d been awake back then. What would have happened next?”
The flash of mischief that crossed Vince’s face was the only warning Howard got before his bendy, remarkably strong little partner had their positions flipped and, settled in on Howard’s hips, Vince proceeded to demonstrate very thoroughly indeed.