(no subject)
Title: Spring Cleaning
Pairing: Vince/Howard
Summary: Howard is on his annual cleaning rampage when he finds something he didn’t expect.
Word Count: ~2600
Rating: PG
Warnings: Innuendo, lack of resolution, and a few bad jokes...
Disclaimer: The wonderful world of the Boosh unfortunately does not belong to either of us. If it did, then Noel and Julian would be doing this on television :)
Dedication: This attempt at a fluffy fic (which inevitably turned into angst) is dedicated to our friend Aimee on her birthday. Hazel and I hope that she enjoys reading it as much as we enjoyed slaving over it. Without further ado, we are proud to present our first contribution to the Boosh fanfiction community: “Spring Cleaning”.
It was that time of year again. Spring. In Howard’s mind, that meant only one thing - Spring Cleaning. An activity completely deserving of the capitalisation his gave it in his thoughts. Howard made sure that by summer the entirety of the flat and its occupants had been polished, vacuumed, dusted, washed, organised, varnished, and rearranged at least four times. These events were all completely normal when it came to cleaning; or at least normal for Howard. He revelled at the opportunity to disinfect the house from bed bugs, fleas and any other living thing that, in his opinion, shouldn’t exist in the confines of their home.
Naboo was kind enough to let Howard take a couple of weeks off shop work each year for this specific purpose. This way the shaman did not have to hire a proper cleaner who might realise that he was not providing anywhere near the kind of living conditions he was legally obliged to, thereby saving a remarkable amount of money. Bollo generally left Howard alone at this time, in case the numerous products aggravated his asthma - or at least that was his excuse.
So, that was the explanation Howard gave when Vince found him cuddled up to his Henry Hoover at ten o’clock at night.
“What are you doing?” Vince laughed, half in amusement, half in horror.
“Um, I - ” Howard blinked the sleep out of his eyes as he quickly detached himself from his position, unravelling the hose from around his thigh and dropping the nozzle that he had been hugging to his chest. “I was hoovering.”
“Your face?” Vince asked incredulously.
“I must have fallen asleep. Lost track of time.”
“Too right, Howard. You’ve been up for twenty-three hours.” Vince sniggered, finishing his packet of prawn cocktail crisps and dropping crumbs all over the newly conditioned carpets. Howard bit his lip. “You should be nice to poor Henry. It’s only polite to ask him first; you’ve worn him out with all that hoovering malarkey! He’s sucked enough junk for one day I think Howard.” Howard wondered where Vince was going with this. “He doesn’t need to be forced to suck your ‘moustache’ off as well.”
“Rest assured, Vince, I didn’t intend to fall asleep like this,” Howard countered.
“What do you mean?”
“I must have lost track of time and fallen asleep mid-clean.”
“Whoa, what?”
“I said I must have fallen asleep…” his answer was met with a blank expression, “mid-clean.”
“You’re cleaning?! Oh Christ, don’t tell me it’s that time of year again…” Vince’s eyes widened in dismay.
“Yes sir! If you want to help me out I’ve bought you some cleaning gloves.” Howard indicated the cheap yellow gloves lying on the table.
“You are joking.” Vince stated, voice deadpan.
“Not at all, sir.” Howard smiled. His rapist’s eyes focused on Vince’s large, but slightly panicked blue crystals.
“I’m kind of busy actually. Uh, Leroy just invited me out to this new club…”
“Oh yes? What’s it called?”
“The… Dusty Henry… or something. What does it matter, you’re not going anyway,” retorted Vince.
“I think you’re just trying to get out of your flat mate duties.”
“Duties? What duties? You begged Naboo to let you ‘spring clean’! It wasn’t written in the contract or anything.” Vince waved his arms around for emphasis.
“That’s beside the point, Vince.”
“Look Howard, I’ve got better things to do than cuddle up to Henry the Hoover for three days.” Vince walked over to the dolphin shaped bin in the corner of the room and pointedly dropped his empty crisp packet in. “There, I put away some rubbish. Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
“Great,” Vince grinned at his friend. He was just about to leave when he suddenly span around, “Oh! Howard, you're not planning on tidying my wardrobe, are you?”
“Why? Hiding something?” Howard watched in vague amusement as Vince rolled his eyes.
“It’s just… I have my own way of organising it, okay? I can never find anything after you've been in there…” he complained. “Anyway, you might damage the fine fabrics…”
“You’ve let me do it before, remember?” Howard pointed out. “You had those silk trousers; they were left in mint condition!”
“You burnt them!”
“With my hair straighteners, I suppose? Please, Vince, don’t blame me for your drunken blunders.”
“Whatever, Howard. Just...”
“Yes, Vince?”
“...Oh, just leave it to me, alright? I'll do it sometime this week,” Vince finished, looking exasperated. Howard smiled smugly.
“I knew you'd understand, Vince. It’s Spring Cleaning! Everything needs to be cleaned - including your ‘special cupboard’. There’s no telling what might be growing in there…”
“What, like that fungus thing Naboo found under your bed last year that had practically grown tentacles?”
“That was a jar of Tibetan moss. It was incredibly rare and expensive. I still can’t believe you threw it out.”
“It was starting to snore!”
“That was its mating call.”
“A moss mating call?” Vince scoffed.
“Yes.” Howard explained. “It’s a series of low frequency waves emitting from its roots.”
“Right.” Vince said. “As thrilling as moss is, Howard, I’d really better get ready…”
“I haven’t told you the best bit yet - wait two minutes! Vince. Vince!” Howard called out after Vince left the room.
“Later Howard, yeah? Give me a pamphlet or something.” The electro prince’s voice was heard from the corridor.
Howard leant back in his chair and gazed at his Henry Hoover. “It’s just you and me now, Henry.”
Howard thought he saw the Hoover move away from him.
*
This was the situation. It was two weeks after Vince had told Howard that he would clean his wardrobe. It had been exactly one week since he had nagged Vince to do the task. That meant that it was precisely six and a half days since he had been knocked out with a kettle by Bollo (for annoying ‘precious Vince’). His double vision had disappeared three days ago, but Naboo had only this morning deemed Howard healthy enough to give him back his cleaning products.
Howard had had enough. If Vince wasn’t going to do it, then he was going to have to do it himself.
He braced himself with three dusting clothes thrown over his shoulder, a new bottle of polish and a new pair of latex gloves. With Henry the Hoover trailing behind, he strode determinedly up to the forbidden wardrobe.
He wrenched open its creamy doors and stepped towards the Vince-scented garments inside. He breathed deeply, trying to place the different smells. Unfortunately, the deep breathing, assisted by his recent of concussion, made Howard experience a sudden onslaught of dizziness. He staggered headfirst into the expensive clothes, spinning around, falling to the floor, landing on his back and bringing a variety of jumpsuits and feather boas down on top of him.
He blinked blearily. Just as his vision began to clear a small metal tin fell from seemingly nowhere and hit him square on the forehead.
*
When Howard woke, with a throbbing headache, he groaned. He pushed himself up until he was sitting somewhat unsteadily on the floor, and waited for his headache to subside a little. He looked around. The room now looked as though it had been caught in a clothes hurricane. He sighed, and began to gather everything within arm's reach; he'd give it a minute, he thought, before he tried standing up again.
As he reached around through the mess of garments, his questing fingers came upon something hard. He frowned, and pulled out the small metal tin which had knocked him out. Curious now, he opened it. It contained a number of things that had clearly been kept for memory’s sake more than any other reason; a bracelet too small for an adult wrist, an empty pot of nail polish - “vibrant pink”, the label said - a photo of Howard and Vince at school together, and beneath everything else, a folded and rather crumpled piece of paper. Howard wouldn’t normally have looked at it, but this was Vince - they didn’t keep secrets from each other. He unfolded it, and began to read.
Dear Howard,
I’m writing to tell you how I fe I want to explain that I
You know how Gary Numan loves his car? Well that’s how I feel about you. This may sound stupid, but I love you like cheekbone.
I bet you’re wondering why I’m writing a letter to you when you’re sitting right across the room from me, especially when you know I hated English at school. All those stupid exercises. And that creepy old teacher who used to pretend to read your work over your shoulder but really he was looking down your shirt. He looked really freaked out when he found out I was a guy, remember? Anyway. I expect you’re wondering what I’m on about. Well, I’m wondering if you know that I love you like I love people asking for my autograph You make me feel warm and happy like those flirtinis You're my sequins on my mirror-ball suit you feel about me the way I feel about you.
Don’t freak out! Please, Howard, don’t, just for a minute. Let me explain a bit.
I know that you probably just think I’m a bit weird, just your mate Vince who has a weird thing about clothes and doesn’t get jazz. But I can’t just not say anything forever, I’ve got to do something about it. You see, I think I know I’m sort of in love with you. No, not sort of, really, completely, I mean. But I don’t want this to spoil things, okay? If you just want to be friends then that’s cool, I’m happy like that. I just had to say it, just once, because if I didn’t, I think I might explode or implode. Something like that.
Look, whatever you think, will you talk to me about it? I’m not going to push it, I just wanted to know how you felt I’m pretty sure I know how you feel, I’m just your friend and that’s cool.
Feel free to just chuck this in the rubbish where it belongs, don’t let me freak you out I can’t stand seeing you hurt
I know there’s no way, I just wanted to say it.
All my love,
Love,
Your friend,
Vince
The room was completely still as Howard finished reading. Then, with a curiously blank expression, he began to swiftly replace everything back in the wardrobe, including the letter and the tin he had found it in.
*
“Hey Naboo,” Howard called as he knocked cautiously on Naboo’s bedroom door. “Here’s your cleaning stuff back.”
Naboo was poring over an extremely large and very dusty book. Howard figured that it was probably for some Shaman business, but didn’t pry.
“What, have you finished?” Naboo asked without much interest.
“I - uh - um - ” Naboo looked up at him over the heavy book. “Yes,” Howard finished.
“Did you do Vince’s wardrobe?” Howard tensed, but tried not to let it show.
“No,” he responded quickly. It didn’t seem enough. “He told me not too, so I didn’t,” he added.
“Alright,” Naboo concluded, calmly, returning to his reading. Doubts arose in Howard’s mind-tank.
“Why? What’s he hiding?” he burst out. Naboo didn’t look at him.
“What’s it to you?”
“You tell me!”
“You’ve gone wrong, Howard.” Naboo still wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“OK, fine,” Howard admitted. “I went in the wardrobe.”
“Oh?” Howard watched Naboo’s expression carefully.
“I read the letter, Naboo.”
There was a pause. Naboo still didn’t say anything. Howard seemed to struggle to find the words.
“Well ha-ha, very funny. I get it. Good joke.”
There was an even longer pause. Howard turned to leave, but as he stalked out Naboo spoke.
“It wasn’t a joke, you jerk-off.” His words were quietly furious. Howard froze a step away from the door.
“What?”
“That’s pretty cruel way to treat your friend.”
“What?” Howard repeated.
“He pours his heart out to you in a letter and you think it’s a joke?” Although his voice was still quiet, it revealed a surprising amount of emotion compared to his usual monotonous tones.
“What?” Naboo tilted his head to one side and stared at Howard, as though considering him and forming a not-so-friendly opinion.
“Have you gone senile?” he enquired, his tone still deceptively calm.
“I’m thirty-five!” Howard insisted indignantly.
“Yeah, and I’m only forty-three.”
“What?”
“For fuck’s sake, Howard, is your word bank really that limited?”
“Wha - ” He stopped, and then corrected himself. “I mean, what are you talking about, Naboo? What do you mean it wasn’t a joke? You mean he…” Howard took a deep breath, “he really…?”
“He did.” Naboo sighed.
“Did?”
“That letter is months old, Howard.” Naboo explained.
“Months?”
“He did love you, but it was just a phase.”
“It… it was?”
“He soon saw sense,” Naboo assented.
“Right.”
“Look, Howard, best not bring it up with him, ok?” Naboo tried his best to sound sympathetic (not easy for the enigma). “He kept it a secret, he didn’t want you to know.”
“You knew?” Howard interjected.
“I’m not as thick as you.” A change of tack was in order. “There’s no need for you upsetting him over it, Howard. You might think it’s awkward, but it’s over now, yeah? It’s in the past. Don’t be angry at him,” Naboo stressed.
“I’m not…I’m not angry.”
“He didn’t want you to know,” Naboo repeated.
“Right.” Howard mumbled again.
“So don’t bring it up. It’s not worth the arguing and the door slamming,” Naboo instructed him.
“I won’t.”
“You might as well keep these.” Naboo shoved the cleaning products back into Howard’s arms. “It’s not like any of us ever use them.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” Howard was still standing in the doorway. Naboo felt something resembling annoyance. “Is there something else you wanted, Howard? Or do you think you should be getting back to the shop?”
“No, no, nothing. I’ll… I’ll just go now.”
And with that Howard left.
*
It was late. Howard was busy brushing his teeth when Vince got back, shattered from another night of parties and clubs and girls to collapse on his bed, asleep immediately.
Howard came in, folded back the covers of his own bed, but didn’t get in it. Instead he looked around to check that Vince really was asleep before quietly lifting one end of his mattress and pulling out a small, dusty and scruffy-looking envelope. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and opened it.
If anyone was watching who didn’t know Howard Moon, they might have guessed by the way he treated it, by the delicate way he opened the envelope and took out the piece of paper inside, that this letter was from a long-lost loved one. But anyone that did know him would know enough to know that that was nonsense. Howard Moon did not form relationships easily. Howard Moon did not like physical contact. Howard Moon had never dated anyone.
The moon was pale and hard to see and the first dawn rays were beginning to light the sky when Howard Moon went to sleep. But for many hours before that, he could have been mistaken for a statue as he sat, gazing at the letter in the moonlight, the only movement the tear that ran slowly down his cheek, splashing onto the carefully inked words of that crumpled page,
Dear Vince,
I’m writing to tell you I want you to know
It’s a difficult thing to say, but so
I hope I want I know
I love you.
I wish I could tell you.
Howard.