Feeling (fic)
Title: Feeling
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Summary: Vince looses some old feelings, so Howard gives him new ones.
Word Count: 3000
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own things.
A/N: I'm snowed in so I thought I'd make the most of it.
"You look even more like a girl now,"
Vince laughed and shook his thick fringed hair in the sunlight. It had been a while since he'd cut it, and kind of missed hiding his eyes behind his overgrown fringe. It was like having sunglasses on; you can see people looking at you in the street who would otherwise pretend to be looking over your shoulder, which of course, Vince got a lot. Sometimes he’d even catch Howard doing it.
"Well, I like it!" he pressed, continuing to shake his head. Howard had begun mocking Vince’s latest style statements more regularly, and of course that was to be expected from a man who was aware he was looking older and older every day - not helped by constantly being contrasted with his ever-youthful best friend.
Vince huffed dramatically and turned to the window, staring at a small army of ants crawling along the windowsill. It was a clammy evening, and Vince was feeling positively radiant. Things were going well in the shop, and they both had something optimistic in the way they went about not really selling much and stock checking the exact same things that day; summer was coming and it felt like it was the beginning of a new era, for the shop as well as themselves.
"Vince? Are you listening to anything I'm saying?"
"No"
"I’m inviting Lester over later for the 50th anniversary of Howlin’ Jimmy-"
"Urgh. Minging. He stinks of Albas Oil. And his hair is like a Brillo pad. Not a good combination,"
Howard fought with the smirk on his face for a few moments before turning to hide his amusement, and Vince cackled, pleased with his growing ability lift Howard’s mood in a split second. He didn't mind hanging around the shop all day with Howard much anymore, especially with this new found motivation and excitement in the front of his mind. In fact, some days he would be sad to turn over the open sign at 5pm.
“C’mon Howard, come to The Velvet Onion with me tonight instead, I’m DJ-ing”
Howard lifted his head slowly, a very impressive look of disgust already forming by the time his eyes met Vince’s.
“I’ll play Howard Jimmy Jeffreyson for his 50th”
Howard stared at Vince laughing to himself and strutting over to Howard’s Jazz records.
“Which one is it?” he said, fingering the vinyl jackets clumsily.
Howard darted to his side and elbowed him out of the way, grabbing the top record, smoothing the dust from it and handing it to Vince.
“It’s Howlin’ Jimmy Jefferson actually. And It’s not his 50th Birthday. It’s the 50th Anniversary of his death”
“Typical” Vince laughed to himself quietly.
*
"Big vibes tonight," scoffed Vince as Howard met his side at the decks. "You not been molested yet? Surprising. There's a bunch of librarians hanging around by the bar".
Howard snorted. "Stop trying to match-make me with drunk people," he blinked, staring at the ceiling. "And anyway, its just as fun watching you thinking you’re cool playing this terrible set"
"Terrible?! How can you call Kraftwerk terrible?!"
Vince shook her head in confusion as to why anyone could dispute his music tastes, as usual. He shrugged wide eyed at Howard and continued to tap his foot to the anonymous beat ripping through the night, until Howard huffed and left his side to observe the crowd once more.
"I find it hard to believe anyone could not appreciate Kraftwerk unless they were born in the 40’s"
Vince spun around to see a woman stood at his elbow, close enough to risk being kicked as he jumped in surprise.
"Hmm? Oh... Yeah. That’s my mate Howard. He doesn’t get out much. Into Jazz Funk rubbish"
He paused to watch her reaction, as the smile slid from her face. She was of reasonable height, quite petite, her slender figure emphasised by the bright pink t-shirt hanging off her frame. But despite the screaming colour of her outfit, it was in natural reason that she took him by surprise - bottle green, electrifying eyes stared back at him, framed by blonde hair that was almost white, and unusual coloured skin that he could barely distinguish in the darkness. She was unusual in such different ways than having an interesting haircut, and that, for some reason, intrigued Vince beyond anything.
"Jazz Funk" She said gravely, drawing Vince in with her sincerity, “Is the best form of music there is".
Vince murmured for a while, until she greeted him with a dazzling smile, a short throaty laugh filling the air for a few seconds. He laughed back nervously, more overwhelmed with her presence than he could understand.
"I’m Joking. I’m Helen. Nice to meet you" she smiled, holding out a thin hand.
It had been a while since Vince had considered the prospect of involving himself in a romance - however short lived that was, and it had been a long time since he'd been out on the circuit, having spent so much time with Howard. And even he was getting out now. Vince shot him a look across the room, and he was nodding earnestly to another man dressed in brown, no doubt discussing the death of that Jazz bloke. But Howard was right in letting Vince make him socialize more, and to be honest, if there was anyone Vince could trust enough to hang around for him at the end of the night, it was his best friend. Whatever happened, Howard would have his back.
"Vince" he grinned back, taking her hand and squeezing it a little too tight.
*
Blinded by lust, their fumblings were intense in the darkness of the bathroom, and guaranteed at this point to lead to more intensity. Her breathing was shallow against his neck, and although humanly impossible, there seemed to be more than four hands searching wildly for flesh in their embrace. Beads of sweat on his forehead, he heard her loud breaths against his face, blood fizzling in his veins, and it felt as if all air had been sucked from his lungs by emotion, until she stopped, stone like against his heaving chest.
"What's wrong?" he rasped, aware that her hands were no longer touching him, and she was stood staring him in the face blankly.
He hummed in frustration and looked down.
"What is it?" he pressed, watching her staring at him.
He couldn't describe the sinister atmosphere in the small bathroom as she held a screwdriver between them, reached an arm round his back and struck it into the skin as Vince arched violently, ripping it back out again with such force that he barely found it within himself to remember to breathe.
Not until she had yanked her t-shirt over her head hurriedly, and leapt into her jeans did the pain begin, and yelps began to explode up Vince’s chest and out of his trembling lips.
“Well at least that’s over now. You’re lucky son, coz you might look like a bird, but there’s no way I’m gonna rape a geezer”
He looked up at her suddenly masculine voice, and all he could see in the darkness was the electric green eyes that first charmed him.
“I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again; I’m a peppermint nightmare”
And suddenly the evil look in her eye vanished, and she fluttered her eyelids, looking back at him once more before letting in a slice of light as she departed and left Vince in the darkness.
*
"Vince?" yelled Howard happily up the side corridor. After having just met the new top ten people in his address book, Howard was feeling radiant. He never thought it possible that there were people out there under 60 that also worked tedious jobs in shops and loved Jazz as much as he did.
He wrestled with the locked doors in the hidden corridors of the venue, hoping Vince didn’t forget that they were supposed to be leaving together.
“Vince?” he shouted again. Having not spotted him at the decks for twenty minutes or so, Howard figured he’d gone off with some girl and would come emerging from a dingy bathroom sheepishly any minute.
"Vince, you better not have left my record-"
"Howard?" whined Vince through the wood of the door he was on the other side of.
Howard located the whine and threw the door open, watching Vince choke though a sob, eyeliner streaked dramatically down his face like war paint.
Howard stared down at his best friend curled up on the floor, his hands dropped beside his knees which were folded at odd angles in a pool or red. Howard stood silently and wobbled on his feet as his friend writhed in pain for a moment more before he bit back a sob and drew Howard closer with a shaking hand. Howard’s eyes travelled over his T-shirt that was stuck to his shoulders above the large gash on his lower back, sparkling with blood. It took a while for Howard to register what he was seeing, and it almost comforted Vince to see the horror slide on to his face.
"When... what..." breathed Howard, looking up at Vince and tightening the grip on his hand. “Who did this?”
“I didn’t... I don’t know... this girl..." said Vince, his eyes becoming more and more vacant.
"We've got to get you to the hospital-"
He stopped as Vince used the last of his energy to grab Howard roughly round the shoulders.
"Pleas dont" swallowed Vince. “I hate hospitals”
“Don’t be so stupid, Vince!”
"Let Naboo help, he’s better, he could-"
“No, you’ll die!”
“Please Howard” sobbed Vince, his mad eyes widening as his head rolled. “Please”
He spluttered, falling back to the wall, closing his eyes and letting his tiredness defeat him knowing he was safe with Howard.
*
"You’re supposed to know how to fix these things!" yelled Howard across the counter into Naboo, craning his neck round to see the wound.
“If you wanted a doctor you should have taken him to hospital!”
Howards panic-stricken face fell.
“He begged me not to. I didn’t want to... If he had...” Howard stammered quietly.
Naboo said nothing and continued to clean up the wound with a mysterious glittery purple liquid that conscious Vince would have approved of.
Howard sat opposite him writhing his hands and playing with the end of his scarf, trying to be as supportive as he could be without actually doing anything. He’d practically carried Vince home on his shoulder, which wasn’t hard seeing as he didn’t weigh much and the shop was only around the next road. Although admittedly a screwdriver can only do so much damage, Howard was preparing himself for Vince not to make it. And seeing as he wouldn’t open his eyes, Howard had no trouble in deciding that this wouldn’t end as well as most trouble they got in magically did.
"Howard?"
He looked down Vince, who looked the palest he ever had.
"How are you feeling?" He rasped.
“I...”
Naboo stopped looking at the wound halfway down Vince’s back and watched his grimace. Bollo stomped downstairs and waited in the doorway for the verdict.
Vince looked up at Howard and they shared a glance that neither of them had seen in the other before - Vince had never seen Howard look so anxious; Howard had never seen Vince look so scared.
“I can’t feel my legs”
*
"I can’t believe it was him. I thought he was dead"
“We’ve thought he was dead every time before he’s turned up again though, haven’t we?”
“I know, it’s just he’s never... taken us down like this. Are you sure it was him?”
“Who else calls themselves a peppermint nightmare?”
“I suppose. Well, I called the police, they’re on the lookout for him. I suppose once it’s hit the news it’ll be pretty easy matching his description”
Vince mumbled in response.
"They’ll find him. I've never seen you so... defeated. You should be trying to fight this"
To look at, Vince was completely different that next morning - he wasn’t in as much pain, and hadn’t dipped in and out of consciousness since last night. Naboo had tried to find every single potion under the sun to help Vince and although some of it had helped the pain and the bleeding, none of it had bought the feeling back to his legs, and Howard was starting to loose who he thought looked like his best friend. As the person who acted, sounded and just was Vince Noir had deteriorated in front of him, he had to do what he thought was right.
"l’m taking you to the hospital"
“No, please Howard” Began Vince, hysteria arising in his throat.
"Well what else are we supposed to do?! I’m trying as hard as I can Vince, please don't do this to me. I don’t know what to do," he said.
A gust of wind blew in from the open window and Vince watched it flutter amongst the curtains, breathing in the fresh air.
"Vince, you know I love you" said Howard.
Silence.
“...As a friend, and I’m not going to let you do this to yourself when there could well be people to help you walk again”
Vince remained silent.
“Oh I give up” said Howard angrily, storming out of the room and slamming the door behind him, resting his head against it and thinking about what he’d just confessed to himself. He did love Vince, of course he did, but he didn’t love him, did he?
"I love you too" Vince said under his breath, so quietly he could barely hear or register it himself, looking out of the window.
“Howard?” he yelled from the bed. “If I went to hospital, do you promise to stay with me?”
From the other side of the door, Howard Moon smiled, and the previously dying embers of hope he had left for his best friend were rekindled.
*
“I doubt very much he’ll be able to walk again,” The doctor barked, his eyes traveling along the patterns of Howard’s ‘psychedelic’ hat, “It’s completely destroyed all the nerve endings in the spinal chord. That’s why he cant feel his back or legs”.
The blood from Howard’s face trickled down into his throat and dissolved in the acidic panic that was rising from his chest. He swallowed and leant his head against the door behind him.
Vince could no longer hear their conversation from the bed, and sat biting his lip, holding in the one lone sob that would at some point come out. His bare feet poked out from the covers, limp and lifeless.
It couldn't hurt to try.
He grabbed his thighs and threw them to one side, wincing and propping himself up so he was sat over the edge of the bed.
“Okay. On three” he said quietly to himself.
1
It wasn’t a particularly soft floor.
2
Howard would be awfully upset if he hurt himself.
3
“VINCE?”
Vince had fallen into a heap on the floor, the sob that had resisted in the bed escaping in a piercing cry of defeat.
Howard tore round the corner and through the doors of the ward.
“Are you hurt?” he said, anxious to touch him, not because he didn’t want to hold Vince desperately with every shaking fibre of his being, but because he was anxious not to hurt him.
He shook his head and continued to snivel quietly into his palms.
A doctor came skidding to Howard’s side.
“He’s okay” Howard said, watching him anxiously.
“Mr Noir, it’s not wise to try and walk” said the doctor, grabbing him under the arms and dragging him back up onto the bed again, swinging his legs round and making off up the ward.
Vince raised his head until his eyes met Howard’s. He looked back at Vince with a frown - his skin was ashen and sunk into the bones it hung on. It wasn’t the same person he had seen yesterday on the outside, but on the inside, through his glistening blue eyes, he could see a small part of the person he desperately missed.
“Sorry Howard” he shook.
“Don’t be sorry”
“Will I ever walk again?”
Howard titled his head to the side.
“Probably not, little man. Probably not”.
*
“Vince” Howard said, sat on the end of the bed, “Please”
He sobbed further into the pillow, facing as far away from Howard as his back would let him.
After initial diagnosis, Vince was wheeled through the white corridors and into his own room, a humiliating procedure. Howard wheeled him down, and it reminded him of the small moments he could remember form the previous night - the bathroom, the girl, and Howard taking him home over his shoulder. At least in his own room he was free to shed his grief all day, which he did.
He felt Howard fold in around him and supposed that Howard was now laid beside him, which he was, his legs folded against Vince’s figure on the bed.
“Please stop crying” he said.
Vince fell silent.
“I’m sorry” Howard said, his calm tones trembling in Vince’s lungs. “I’m sorry you have to go through this, and I’m sorry you’re sick, and I’m sorry,” he choked, “that I can’t go through this instead of you, because it’s hurting me just as much”.
“I wouldn’t be able to feel if it was hurting me at all”
Howard shifted over and rested his head on top of Vince’s, who stared ahead, letting his breathing come and go with Howard’s.
In the quietness of the moment, he felt a tear drop onto his cheekbone and run down his chin. Howard’s tear.
Howard lifted a hand and wiped it off the side of his friend’s jaw, holding it reassuringly in his palm. He didn’t say anything - nor did he need to.
They laid like that well into the evening, breathing the same air, thinking the same thoughts, and watching the same sun set as it did every day, knowing that some feelings were never lost, as long as they had each-other.
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Pairing: Howard/Vince
Summary: Vince looses some old feelings, so Howard gives him new ones.
Word Count: 3000
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own things.
A/N: I'm snowed in so I thought I'd make the most of it.
"You look even more like a girl now,"
Vince laughed and shook his thick fringed hair in the sunlight. It had been a while since he'd cut it, and kind of missed hiding his eyes behind his overgrown fringe. It was like having sunglasses on; you can see people looking at you in the street who would otherwise pretend to be looking over your shoulder, which of course, Vince got a lot. Sometimes he’d even catch Howard doing it.
"Well, I like it!" he pressed, continuing to shake his head. Howard had begun mocking Vince’s latest style statements more regularly, and of course that was to be expected from a man who was aware he was looking older and older every day - not helped by constantly being contrasted with his ever-youthful best friend.
Vince huffed dramatically and turned to the window, staring at a small army of ants crawling along the windowsill. It was a clammy evening, and Vince was feeling positively radiant. Things were going well in the shop, and they both had something optimistic in the way they went about not really selling much and stock checking the exact same things that day; summer was coming and it felt like it was the beginning of a new era, for the shop as well as themselves.
"Vince? Are you listening to anything I'm saying?"
"No"
"I’m inviting Lester over later for the 50th anniversary of Howlin’ Jimmy-"
"Urgh. Minging. He stinks of Albas Oil. And his hair is like a Brillo pad. Not a good combination,"
Howard fought with the smirk on his face for a few moments before turning to hide his amusement, and Vince cackled, pleased with his growing ability lift Howard’s mood in a split second. He didn't mind hanging around the shop all day with Howard much anymore, especially with this new found motivation and excitement in the front of his mind. In fact, some days he would be sad to turn over the open sign at 5pm.
“C’mon Howard, come to The Velvet Onion with me tonight instead, I’m DJ-ing”
Howard lifted his head slowly, a very impressive look of disgust already forming by the time his eyes met Vince’s.
“I’ll play Howard Jimmy Jeffreyson for his 50th”
Howard stared at Vince laughing to himself and strutting over to Howard’s Jazz records.
“Which one is it?” he said, fingering the vinyl jackets clumsily.
Howard darted to his side and elbowed him out of the way, grabbing the top record, smoothing the dust from it and handing it to Vince.
“It’s Howlin’ Jimmy Jefferson actually. And It’s not his 50th Birthday. It’s the 50th Anniversary of his death”
“Typical” Vince laughed to himself quietly.
*
"Big vibes tonight," scoffed Vince as Howard met his side at the decks. "You not been molested yet? Surprising. There's a bunch of librarians hanging around by the bar".
Howard snorted. "Stop trying to match-make me with drunk people," he blinked, staring at the ceiling. "And anyway, its just as fun watching you thinking you’re cool playing this terrible set"
"Terrible?! How can you call Kraftwerk terrible?!"
Vince shook her head in confusion as to why anyone could dispute his music tastes, as usual. He shrugged wide eyed at Howard and continued to tap his foot to the anonymous beat ripping through the night, until Howard huffed and left his side to observe the crowd once more.
"I find it hard to believe anyone could not appreciate Kraftwerk unless they were born in the 40’s"
Vince spun around to see a woman stood at his elbow, close enough to risk being kicked as he jumped in surprise.
"Hmm? Oh... Yeah. That’s my mate Howard. He doesn’t get out much. Into Jazz Funk rubbish"
He paused to watch her reaction, as the smile slid from her face. She was of reasonable height, quite petite, her slender figure emphasised by the bright pink t-shirt hanging off her frame. But despite the screaming colour of her outfit, it was in natural reason that she took him by surprise - bottle green, electrifying eyes stared back at him, framed by blonde hair that was almost white, and unusual coloured skin that he could barely distinguish in the darkness. She was unusual in such different ways than having an interesting haircut, and that, for some reason, intrigued Vince beyond anything.
"Jazz Funk" She said gravely, drawing Vince in with her sincerity, “Is the best form of music there is".
Vince murmured for a while, until she greeted him with a dazzling smile, a short throaty laugh filling the air for a few seconds. He laughed back nervously, more overwhelmed with her presence than he could understand.
"I’m Joking. I’m Helen. Nice to meet you" she smiled, holding out a thin hand.
It had been a while since Vince had considered the prospect of involving himself in a romance - however short lived that was, and it had been a long time since he'd been out on the circuit, having spent so much time with Howard. And even he was getting out now. Vince shot him a look across the room, and he was nodding earnestly to another man dressed in brown, no doubt discussing the death of that Jazz bloke. But Howard was right in letting Vince make him socialize more, and to be honest, if there was anyone Vince could trust enough to hang around for him at the end of the night, it was his best friend. Whatever happened, Howard would have his back.
"Vince" he grinned back, taking her hand and squeezing it a little too tight.
*
Blinded by lust, their fumblings were intense in the darkness of the bathroom, and guaranteed at this point to lead to more intensity. Her breathing was shallow against his neck, and although humanly impossible, there seemed to be more than four hands searching wildly for flesh in their embrace. Beads of sweat on his forehead, he heard her loud breaths against his face, blood fizzling in his veins, and it felt as if all air had been sucked from his lungs by emotion, until she stopped, stone like against his heaving chest.
"What's wrong?" he rasped, aware that her hands were no longer touching him, and she was stood staring him in the face blankly.
He hummed in frustration and looked down.
"What is it?" he pressed, watching her staring at him.
He couldn't describe the sinister atmosphere in the small bathroom as she held a screwdriver between them, reached an arm round his back and struck it into the skin as Vince arched violently, ripping it back out again with such force that he barely found it within himself to remember to breathe.
Not until she had yanked her t-shirt over her head hurriedly, and leapt into her jeans did the pain begin, and yelps began to explode up Vince’s chest and out of his trembling lips.
“Well at least that’s over now. You’re lucky son, coz you might look like a bird, but there’s no way I’m gonna rape a geezer”
He looked up at her suddenly masculine voice, and all he could see in the darkness was the electric green eyes that first charmed him.
“I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again; I’m a peppermint nightmare”
And suddenly the evil look in her eye vanished, and she fluttered her eyelids, looking back at him once more before letting in a slice of light as she departed and left Vince in the darkness.
*
"Vince?" yelled Howard happily up the side corridor. After having just met the new top ten people in his address book, Howard was feeling radiant. He never thought it possible that there were people out there under 60 that also worked tedious jobs in shops and loved Jazz as much as he did.
He wrestled with the locked doors in the hidden corridors of the venue, hoping Vince didn’t forget that they were supposed to be leaving together.
“Vince?” he shouted again. Having not spotted him at the decks for twenty minutes or so, Howard figured he’d gone off with some girl and would come emerging from a dingy bathroom sheepishly any minute.
"Vince, you better not have left my record-"
"Howard?" whined Vince through the wood of the door he was on the other side of.
Howard located the whine and threw the door open, watching Vince choke though a sob, eyeliner streaked dramatically down his face like war paint.
Howard stared down at his best friend curled up on the floor, his hands dropped beside his knees which were folded at odd angles in a pool or red. Howard stood silently and wobbled on his feet as his friend writhed in pain for a moment more before he bit back a sob and drew Howard closer with a shaking hand. Howard’s eyes travelled over his T-shirt that was stuck to his shoulders above the large gash on his lower back, sparkling with blood. It took a while for Howard to register what he was seeing, and it almost comforted Vince to see the horror slide on to his face.
"When... what..." breathed Howard, looking up at Vince and tightening the grip on his hand. “Who did this?”
“I didn’t... I don’t know... this girl..." said Vince, his eyes becoming more and more vacant.
"We've got to get you to the hospital-"
He stopped as Vince used the last of his energy to grab Howard roughly round the shoulders.
"Pleas dont" swallowed Vince. “I hate hospitals”
“Don’t be so stupid, Vince!”
"Let Naboo help, he’s better, he could-"
“No, you’ll die!”
“Please Howard” sobbed Vince, his mad eyes widening as his head rolled. “Please”
He spluttered, falling back to the wall, closing his eyes and letting his tiredness defeat him knowing he was safe with Howard.
*
"You’re supposed to know how to fix these things!" yelled Howard across the counter into Naboo, craning his neck round to see the wound.
“If you wanted a doctor you should have taken him to hospital!”
Howards panic-stricken face fell.
“He begged me not to. I didn’t want to... If he had...” Howard stammered quietly.
Naboo said nothing and continued to clean up the wound with a mysterious glittery purple liquid that conscious Vince would have approved of.
Howard sat opposite him writhing his hands and playing with the end of his scarf, trying to be as supportive as he could be without actually doing anything. He’d practically carried Vince home on his shoulder, which wasn’t hard seeing as he didn’t weigh much and the shop was only around the next road. Although admittedly a screwdriver can only do so much damage, Howard was preparing himself for Vince not to make it. And seeing as he wouldn’t open his eyes, Howard had no trouble in deciding that this wouldn’t end as well as most trouble they got in magically did.
"Howard?"
He looked down Vince, who looked the palest he ever had.
"How are you feeling?" He rasped.
“I...”
Naboo stopped looking at the wound halfway down Vince’s back and watched his grimace. Bollo stomped downstairs and waited in the doorway for the verdict.
Vince looked up at Howard and they shared a glance that neither of them had seen in the other before - Vince had never seen Howard look so anxious; Howard had never seen Vince look so scared.
“I can’t feel my legs”
*
"I can’t believe it was him. I thought he was dead"
“We’ve thought he was dead every time before he’s turned up again though, haven’t we?”
“I know, it’s just he’s never... taken us down like this. Are you sure it was him?”
“Who else calls themselves a peppermint nightmare?”
“I suppose. Well, I called the police, they’re on the lookout for him. I suppose once it’s hit the news it’ll be pretty easy matching his description”
Vince mumbled in response.
"They’ll find him. I've never seen you so... defeated. You should be trying to fight this"
To look at, Vince was completely different that next morning - he wasn’t in as much pain, and hadn’t dipped in and out of consciousness since last night. Naboo had tried to find every single potion under the sun to help Vince and although some of it had helped the pain and the bleeding, none of it had bought the feeling back to his legs, and Howard was starting to loose who he thought looked like his best friend. As the person who acted, sounded and just was Vince Noir had deteriorated in front of him, he had to do what he thought was right.
"l’m taking you to the hospital"
“No, please Howard” Began Vince, hysteria arising in his throat.
"Well what else are we supposed to do?! I’m trying as hard as I can Vince, please don't do this to me. I don’t know what to do," he said.
A gust of wind blew in from the open window and Vince watched it flutter amongst the curtains, breathing in the fresh air.
"Vince, you know I love you" said Howard.
Silence.
“...As a friend, and I’m not going to let you do this to yourself when there could well be people to help you walk again”
Vince remained silent.
“Oh I give up” said Howard angrily, storming out of the room and slamming the door behind him, resting his head against it and thinking about what he’d just confessed to himself. He did love Vince, of course he did, but he didn’t love him, did he?
"I love you too" Vince said under his breath, so quietly he could barely hear or register it himself, looking out of the window.
“Howard?” he yelled from the bed. “If I went to hospital, do you promise to stay with me?”
From the other side of the door, Howard Moon smiled, and the previously dying embers of hope he had left for his best friend were rekindled.
*
“I doubt very much he’ll be able to walk again,” The doctor barked, his eyes traveling along the patterns of Howard’s ‘psychedelic’ hat, “It’s completely destroyed all the nerve endings in the spinal chord. That’s why he cant feel his back or legs”.
The blood from Howard’s face trickled down into his throat and dissolved in the acidic panic that was rising from his chest. He swallowed and leant his head against the door behind him.
Vince could no longer hear their conversation from the bed, and sat biting his lip, holding in the one lone sob that would at some point come out. His bare feet poked out from the covers, limp and lifeless.
It couldn't hurt to try.
He grabbed his thighs and threw them to one side, wincing and propping himself up so he was sat over the edge of the bed.
“Okay. On three” he said quietly to himself.
1
It wasn’t a particularly soft floor.
2
Howard would be awfully upset if he hurt himself.
3
“VINCE?”
Vince had fallen into a heap on the floor, the sob that had resisted in the bed escaping in a piercing cry of defeat.
Howard tore round the corner and through the doors of the ward.
“Are you hurt?” he said, anxious to touch him, not because he didn’t want to hold Vince desperately with every shaking fibre of his being, but because he was anxious not to hurt him.
He shook his head and continued to snivel quietly into his palms.
A doctor came skidding to Howard’s side.
“He’s okay” Howard said, watching him anxiously.
“Mr Noir, it’s not wise to try and walk” said the doctor, grabbing him under the arms and dragging him back up onto the bed again, swinging his legs round and making off up the ward.
Vince raised his head until his eyes met Howard’s. He looked back at Vince with a frown - his skin was ashen and sunk into the bones it hung on. It wasn’t the same person he had seen yesterday on the outside, but on the inside, through his glistening blue eyes, he could see a small part of the person he desperately missed.
“Sorry Howard” he shook.
“Don’t be sorry”
“Will I ever walk again?”
Howard titled his head to the side.
“Probably not, little man. Probably not”.
*
“Vince” Howard said, sat on the end of the bed, “Please”
He sobbed further into the pillow, facing as far away from Howard as his back would let him.
After initial diagnosis, Vince was wheeled through the white corridors and into his own room, a humiliating procedure. Howard wheeled him down, and it reminded him of the small moments he could remember form the previous night - the bathroom, the girl, and Howard taking him home over his shoulder. At least in his own room he was free to shed his grief all day, which he did.
He felt Howard fold in around him and supposed that Howard was now laid beside him, which he was, his legs folded against Vince’s figure on the bed.
“Please stop crying” he said.
Vince fell silent.
“I’m sorry” Howard said, his calm tones trembling in Vince’s lungs. “I’m sorry you have to go through this, and I’m sorry you’re sick, and I’m sorry,” he choked, “that I can’t go through this instead of you, because it’s hurting me just as much”.
“I wouldn’t be able to feel if it was hurting me at all”
Howard shifted over and rested his head on top of Vince’s, who stared ahead, letting his breathing come and go with Howard’s.
In the quietness of the moment, he felt a tear drop onto his cheekbone and run down his chin. Howard’s tear.
Howard lifted a hand and wiped it off the side of his friend’s jaw, holding it reassuringly in his palm. He didn’t say anything - nor did he need to.
They laid like that well into the evening, breathing the same air, thinking the same thoughts, and watching the same sun set as it did every day, knowing that some feelings were never lost, as long as they had each-other.