[Crossover: Nathan Barley/The Mighty Boosh] Fic: Smoke and Mirrors (1-2 of 4)
Title: Smoke and Mirrors
Pairings: Dan/Jones and Vince/Howard, with a tiny tiny side order of Dan/Vince and Jones/Howard.
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~12,000
Summary: Paths cross, lips do stuff to other lips, feelings are felt, music is made. May contain chavs, made-up publications, a fully intact fourth wall, and peer pressure from Naboo. May not contain Bollo, who would nevertheless like you to know that Sugar Ape was named after him. Set a bit post-series for NB and post-S3 for Boosh.
Notes: Shiny gold stars to waqaychay for the beta, as well as big fat hearts to storyfan, who_is_small, and random_nexus for viewing this mess in its early stages and assuring me it was not a big sinking failboat.
Convenient linkage without my annoying layout: [1-2] [3-4]
Smoke and Mirrors
1.
The bus is taking ages, which normally wouldn't bother Jones. He'd just listen to a track on low volume and let screaming children and ringtones and laughter bleed into his headphones and see what it can make of itself. Once there'd been a woman with such a delightful cackle that he'd followed her halfway to Ealing trying to get a decent recording of it. The derisive hurr-hurr of the chavs that have piled on and surrounded him now, unfortunately, isn't worth immortalising. He sinks a bit deeper into his hoodie (a pink one liberated from Claire, and the partial cause of the heckling) and tries to ignore them or be amused, but they're waving faux-gold-ringed sausage fingers in his face and trying to tug at his hair. He can feel the other passengers uncomfortably looking away. It's not worth trying to shock them by answering back with something cheeky, or with something so mad they'll think he's a dangerous lunatic, because there's not exactly anywhere else for any of them to go. He just waits it out till the bus inches to a stop in a part of Dalston he can't remember ever even existing before and ducks between them for the exit. They don't follow and he answers their obscene catcalls with a cheery wave from the safety of the pavement.
He's just down the street from a club and thinks for a moment that he sees Dan go inside, but that can't be because Dan's texting him. Swamp Woman teeming with idiots, it says, so he can't be in Dalston. It's the third bar in as many months that Dan's least favourite demographic have deemed 'well endoscopic' or whatever it is this week. He suspects there may actually be spies following Dan, clamouring at the tails of his imaginary cassock. It would probably be easier if they just gave in and started going to the Elephant's Head, which is so obvious that not even the most devout self-styled disciple would put a toe through the door, but the music there tends to make Jones want to peel his own face off. Where are you? Dan's text continues, complete with capital letters and punctuation. He hates textspeak and it never fails to make Jones smile.
Jones has to look at the posters outside the club to be able to answer. He's actually heard of one of the guys DJing, never seen him but been led to believe he's either worth a listen or total rubbish, which at least means it won't be mediocre. It'll do. Jones sends back dalston smwhere velvet onion (Dan's text grammar makes him smile, but doesn't inspire him to bother with pressing the extra buttons) and joins the queue at the door.
Jones walked in and sat down at the bar during a break, so he's already stuck with his his 'Special: Flirtini €6' (which he actually pays for in euros for a laugh because he's got some on him, and the barman takes them without batting an eye) when his ears start to bleed. It's sugary electro-wank and the disproportionately female dance floor is screaming and eating it up. He's not close enough to see the DJ for the machines belching fog and glitter, but imagines some stylie prettyboy with more hair product than brains and talent combined. At times like this, he knows how Dan feels, adrift in a sea of idiots. The difference is that Jones won't sit here steeping in righteous annoyance. He will finish his drink, because he paid for it and it's actually quite nice, but he will do it in peace on the terrace. Then he will go home and see if he can wring a smile out of Dan. Who, he sees, has texted him back. I'll meet you.
dont bother its shit. fuckin off soons i finish drink.
There is almost no one else outside, which is a testament to this berk's draw if his appeal is stronger than absolutely everyone's need for nicotine. The only other person out there is scribbling into a little notebook. He looks a bit like Dan, if Dan were attacked by the 90% clearance rack in a vintage shop. Jones can't pinpoint when he started framing everything in terms of Dan, but he barely even notices it anymore.
"Oi, mate, give you 50p for a fag."
The man's head snaps up. "That was just graffiti!" he exclaims, looking hunted.
"What? No, I said a fag. A cigarette, y'know?"
"Oh." He relaxes and Jones wonders what he thought he said. "No, I don't smoke."
"Fair dos. Came out here to save your ears, then?"
"It's a bit much for me in there," he says with an air of sheepish confession.
"Right? Any tosser with a laptop and a mixer thinks he's a DJ."
"Whoa, now. That's my best mate you're slagging off there, sir."
He seems an unlikely best mate for anyone who'd be mashing up the Human League with Joan Jett for a crowd of screaming girls, but whatever. "Sorry," Jones says with a shrug. He'll stand by his opinion but he'd rather not get in a fight.
"It's all right," the man sighs. "I don't honestly like it much myself." He starts in on a bona fide monologue about hot bebop and Weather Report and Jones tries not to gape or laugh, because he's so fucking earnest and so clearly believes in it, and if there's anything Jones respects, it's that. And then he's genuinely interested, because Howard (as his name turns out to be) starts talking about hooking a Moog up to a crab and a shoe.
"Oh, I've gotta see that!"
"Really? Er. I mean, I could, you know. Show you. Sometime." Howard actually blushes. Poor awkward bastard.
"Now?"
"Yeah! Or no, wait, I should stay for the rest of the-- No, you know what? Vince won't notice. Let's go. It's just round the corner."
Two hours later, Jones is pulling the guts out of an old telephone and showing Howard what wires do what and making new noises and laughing, and it's the most fun he's had in ages without being absolutely plastered. And underneath the tragic clothes and questionable moustache, Howard's really pretty fit, but he tends to flinch away when Jones touches his hand, so maybe kissing him isn't a great idea even if he finds he kind of wants to. Jones likes kissing the way some people like Doctor Who or Hobnobs. He will kiss nearly anyone if he likes them a bit, which has got him into trouble a few times. Howard probably won't hit him, but he might think it's meant to be more than that, because sometimes his gaze lingers a bit and he blushes. Jones is still weighing the pros and cons when the door at the bottom of the stairs bangs open and shut, punctuated by a lot of shuffling and giggling.
"That'll be Vince and his bit of fun for the night," Howard sighs. And yeah, kissing him would be a really bad idea, because he's seen that look and it's not Jones he wants even if he might settle for it. Or, actually....
"Wanna make him jealous?" Jones says with a grin. He shuffles across to Howard and lays a hand on his cheek to leave him in no doubt of how. It's a good plan, he thinks. They both get a kiss at the very least, and maybe Howard will get something more.
Howard's eyes go wide, and him working out that he can't deny his way past this is nearly visible. "I...yeah. All right."
So he kisses Howard. It's nice, really nice. Howard's shy and soft and a bit sweet about it, big warm hand curling into the back of Jones's hair. He had it off with Dan, once, right after they first met, both off their faces, and the way it started felt a bit like this. Dan apologised the next morning, Jones hid his disappointment, and they haven't talked about it since, not even when Dan gets pissed enough to snog him right before passing out. That hasn't happened lately, though.
Jones remembers where he is and what he's meant to be doing when he hears two sets of drunken feet stumbling up the stairs. He moans theatrically.
"Howard!?"
Then it all goes a bit Rocky Horror. Jones falls aside and turns round in mock surprise that turns real, because there with his shirt half unbuttoned and swollen lips and a bulge in his jeans is-- "Dan!?"
"Vince!"
"Jones!?"
It's Vince who unfreezes first, with such a thunderous look that the plan must have worked. "What the hell, Howard?"
"I could say the same to you, sir!"
The two of them start arguing in what sounds like some sort of secret code and seem to forget anyone else is there. Jones catches Dan's eye and Dan cuts his gaze towards the door and they run out into the night together.
There's no real embarrassment beyond the initial surprise of the unexpected encounter; they've known each other nearly ten years, shared living space for two and both witnessed much worse. Except... "Dan, you know that was a guy, yeah?" Because he remembers the 'straight' card being part of Dan's argument, not that Jones really believed him, and it was literally last century.
Dan ducks his head, sheepish around the cigarette he's lighting. "Wasn't sure at first, but the cock sort of gave it away."
Jones wiggles his fingers and Dan hands him the fag. He could easily light another one for himself, but instead they pass it back and forth as they walk. The filter's a bit greasy and sweet. "Are you wearing cherry lip balm?" Jones asks.
"Vince was."
Jones wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. "Great, 'm swapping fluids with your bit of fluff."
"Just spit. Anyway, I'm swapping with yours."
"That wasn't for real," Jones admits. "We were just having a laugh and then he looked all hurt when you 'n Vince crashed in all giggly, so I said let's make him jealous. What's your excuse? And if you tell me you heard any of his set and still wanted to get off with him, I might never respect you again."
"Can't have been that bad. I didn't see it, but girls kept throwing themselves at him the whole time we were talking."
"Have you seen him? He could do a shit on the decks and throw it at them and they'd still try to follow him home."
"Point." Dan plucks the fag from between Jones's fingers without waiting for him to pass it back.
"Why him, anyway? He's like a textbook Idiot. And the whole cock thing."
Dan sighs. "I didn't see your text before I got there. He came onto me and I was bored."
Classic Ashcroft logic. "Too pissed to be bothered, you mean."
"Is that Claire's jumper?" And a subject change ripped straight from Jones's playbook.
"Was. She can have it back when she leaves the Dark Side."
"I'm the one meant to hate her."
"Yeah, but you don't care about anything so somebody has to do it for you."
"I care. Fuck, my leg hurts. Can we sit down?" Dan's already sat on someone's garden wall by the time the question is out of his mouth. His left knee is a mass of scars, some from the fall and some from the surgery to put it back together. He'll be moaning in pain at 5 a.m. and Jones will get him a hot compress and paracetamol that he will lie and say has codeine in. He's probably going to need another surgery to pull all the metal back out, but Dan will ignore that until it's unbearable.
"Maybe if you weren't heftin' electro-ponces about in doorways," Jone's says mildly. He lays a hand on Dan's knee, knowing the warmth will help a little.
"Now who's jealous?"
"Not a bit of it." Rather a lot of it. "He ain't good enough for you and he's in love with his depressive best mate anyway." No, that doesn't sound like anyone else we know. "Plus, you ain't queer, supposedly."
"I haven't claimed that in years."
Jones refuses to allow his world to shift. It doesn't matter, really, what Dan is or isn't. Just because the 'straight' excuse is no longer there doesn't mean Dan hasn't got a whole arsenal of other ones. "You alright to walk? I can phone for a cab."
"I'll make it. It's not far now. Just give me a minute."
Jones rubs at Dan's knee. Dan's hand comes down to cover his and rather surprisingly stays there. "Your massive Northern paw could swallow mine without chewing."
He thinks of Dan's hands round the necks of guitars, never when there's anybody there to hear it. But Dan plays with his eyes closed and Jones can be quiet when he needs to. It makes Dan look happy, peaceful. Maybe that's why he keeps that particular talent a secret, since living off his writing abilities hasn't exactly brought him sunshine and pancakes. He doesn't write for SugaRAPE anymore, but what freelance work he gets is because the editors know that stuff. He's got a short story published in an American magazine that he thinks Jones doesn't know about, except Dan absentmindedly left him a note on the blank side of the cheque stub one day. He knows Dan is afraid of something he values getting broken, but he wishes Dan would trust him with it. If nothing else so that Jones won't have to go to seven different newsagents just to read the story.
"You should have dainty buttoned gloves," Dan says à propos of the hand comment.
"I'd quite like that. All leathery and Victorian." He waves his free hand about in a fey pinky-fluttering gesture and pitches his voice higher. "Cup of tea, cup of tea."
Dan laughs, a warm deep one that Jones doesn't hear often enough. "You sound like Bertie Wooster kneed in the groin."
"I was trying for the blonde bird in that whatsit. But Hugh Laurie's well fit."
"What, all scruffy and American?"
"'Specially all scruffy and American. I like the way he fondles a guitar."
"You would," Dan says at the same time as Jones's brain.
"That's why you never play." Jones takes a light swipe at Dan's perpetual almost-beard. "You're afraid I'll swoon."
"No, it's 'cause I'm rubbish," Dan mutters. He takes his hand away and levers himself up. "C'mon, let's get home."
Jones stands, but then freezes stupidly in the middle of the pavement. Because Dan has said 'back home' meaning Leeds and said yes when asked if he's been home or wants to go home, but in terms of what Dan has called where they live, it's just been 'the house' (sometimes 'the House' with that subtle difference of inflection) if it's been anything. It's a stupid little victory that makes Jones's heart dance.
Dan looks back. "You coming?"
Jones jogs the few steps to his side and wraps an arm round his waist, ready with an explanation about not straining Dan's knee, but he's not asked to give it. Dan drapes his arm over Jones's shoulders, and after a few steps leans on him just a little, to let Jones take some of his weight.
It's something.
2.
Howard turns the swirly pink card over and around in the palm of his hand. It reads, simply, 'Jones' with a phone number and email address at the bottom. He's not even sure he's meant to have it; he found it on the floor after Vince shouted, 'Well, he must've been blind-pissed and desperate to wanna get off with you!' and slammed off to his room.
They haven't talked about it. They've barely spoken at all, really, the last three days. The atmosphere in the shop and the flat has been positively arctic, and Howard knows what the Arctic feels like. He wonders, in a gloomy panic, if they've broken it once and for all. Broken them. He can't wholly blame Vince this time, nor himself. There were equal measures of cruelty in that argument. True, if Howard hadn't agreed to Jones's scheme, they probably wouldn't be where they are now. If Howard hadn't been a sad old sod who jumped at the chance of even a pretend bit of affection. If he hadn't thought, in that moment, that Jones looked a bit like the younger sweeter Vince he missed every day.
Howard is not a massive gayist, but he may indeed be just a little bit gay.
But Vince is to blame too. He's got no right to be telling Howard whom he can and can't kiss. He gave that up when he rejected Howard on the roof.
It's not that he thinks Jones is responsible (though he might be a bit) or that he'll be able to fix anything, but all kissing schemes aside, he thought they were getting on rather well and he could honestly use a friend. And maybe, just a little bit in the back of his mind, he hopes it'll get up Vince's nose.
He dials. Three rings and then what sounds like a chipmunk talking through a Vocoder says, "Leave a message for Jones."
Even though he's rehearsing it as the recording instructs him what to do, he nearly chokes when the tone sounds and it's time to speak. "Erm. Hi. This is Howard. Howard Moon, we met at the Velvet Onion? I wondered if you might like to--" like to what? Something bleeps in his ear. "Oh, you're ringing me back. Hold-- erm. I'm about to-- never mind." He fumbles over to the waiting call. "Hello?"
"Somebody ring Jones?"
"Er, yes, I did. This is Howard. Howard Moon, we met at the--"
"Alright, Howard?" Jones actually sounds happy to hear from him. He also sounds like he's in a train or a shop from all the background noise. "How'd it go with Vince?"
"Terribly, as it happens."
"Oh, shit! Bugger, I'm sorry. I didn't wanna make it worse."
"It's been getting worse for a long time."
"Oh. Well. Can I help at all?"
"I was wondering if you'd show me what you were talking about with the toy trumpet and the typewriter. I mean, if you aren't busy. If you want. Sometime."
"Yeah, brilliant. Cheer you right up, that will. Come round in like an hour, yeah? 118 Hatpowder Street. Oh, I gotta go, this wanker's making a mess of me radio tubes. Yeah, I called you a wanker, Rick, look what you're doing to the--" The line goes dead.
Howard's at a bit of a loss. An hour from now is half past seven, prime dinner hour. Does that make this a dinner invitation? And what should he bring? Howard Moon does not arrive empty-handed when he's invited somewhere. But Jones isn't exactly the sort to give wine or potted basil, and might not mean to serve him anything anyway. In the end, he makes himself a cheese sandwich, pilfers a couple of vintage radios from the 'broken, probably not possessed' box in the stockroom, shouts to the flat at large that he's going out, and buys a mix'n'match of his favourite lagers on the way to the bus.
He's there at half-seven on the nose and dismisses the brief idea of wandering round for a bit to be more fashionably late. That's not his style, though, and Jones doesn't seem to mind his style the way it is, unlike some.
He hasn't even knocked at the 'House of Jones' door when it jerks open and he finds himself eye to eye with Dan, who's got a slightly bent unlit cigarette in his mouth and is smirking at Howard.
"Hello, I'm--"
"Your date's here!" Dan calls over his shoulder and pushes past Howard. His smirk just gets deeper when Jones shouts 'oh fuck off!' from somewhere within.
Howard hesitantly crosses the threshold and Jones bounds up from nowhere. "Fuck off Dan, not fuck off you," he says with a disarming grin. "Alright? C'mon in, 's that lager? Genius, we never get nothing but Stella round here." Howard steps through into a sea of purple and posters and clutter and can't think of anything to say, not that he could get a word in edgewise. "Don't mind Dan. He's a sarky old prick but he's lovely if he'll let you know him-- shit, bakelite, are these for me? Cheers. Step into the casa, bit of a tip but it's home-- hey, 're you hungry? Dan made tikka masala, sort'f even tastes like it."
And before Howard knows it he's sunk into a dubious old sofa eating homemade curry out of a My Little Pony bowl, unable to remember why he was so nervous about coming here. Jones pulls godawful screeches out of things that were never meant for the production of music and doesn't care if it's trendy or what his stylish mates might think. It thrills Howard just as much as it makes his heart hurt, because Jones has got that magic about him that Vince now only shows brief glimpses of, but he's held onto it and let it grow into one of the mad beautiful things Vince used to dream up, full and breathing and alive. It's infectious and magnetic and makes Howard want to create, but the thing is, it's still Vince he wants to run home and share it with.
Somehow Jones senses this, when past midnight they're sprawled on the floor and half drunk. Jones props up on his elbow and just says, "Tell me about him."
Howard does, from the very beginning. About the hyperactive sunshiney kid who borrowed a sheet of paper from him on a stalled train and handed it back with a picture of Howard he'd drawn from across the aisle, not surrounded by buskers and tired mothers, but in a jungle full of fantastical marker-pen beasts. How one day he found he couldn't get rid of Vince, and how one day soon after he found he didn't want to. Of the first night in the zoo, when Vince was terrified but buzzed with the excitement of this new adventure, wide awake and asking what every noise was and making up stories for the ones Howard couldn't identify. Of soothing him through nightmares he refused to explain, and of a very specific morning where Howard woke up to realise that someone he'd seen as an annoying but adored younger brother was actually the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Of insult and injury every time he tried to tell Vince how he felt, shrinking back and lashing out because rather than stand on his head daily to please Howard, Vince is now the unpleasable one. About not knowing how he'd turned into someone Vince could barely even like, let alone admire and respect (but need, occasionally, yes) and how Vince, to his dismay, is now doing the same.
Maybe it's the drink or the lingering secondary smoke, or maybe it's just the relief of having someone to tell all this to who isn't already on Vince's side, but Howard finds his cheeks are wet and that the shoulder of Jones's patched-together leopard and neon t-shirt is very soft and smells of purple bubblegum. He thinks of Charlie and guerrilla Tesco missions and pancake nights and wants to sob.
"He must care, yeah? Else he'd've pissed off ages ago," Jones says. The fact that he's twisting the front of his hair into a plastic children's barrette does take away a bit from the wisdom of the statement.
"Or maybe I should've stayed gone. Maybe I'm just like the old dog you can't bear to shoot."
"Old fuckin' Yeller? Get stuffed, Moon. Give him a chance not to be a tit. Maybe he'll surprise you."
"What do you mean?"
"Well...be nice? Show him you're still the same poetic tosser he followed round the zoo?"
"Oh, thanks."
"I dunno. Maybe you shouldn't, seeing as where my last idea got you." Then he bounds across the room and returns with a guitar that he thrusts into Howard's hands. "Here now, I've opposite of cheered you up. Show me the fastest fingers in Leeds."
There's something about the way he says it, despite the obvious guitar, that gives Howard pause. "You mean...musically, right?"
Jones laughs and bites his lip. "I did, but...." He puts the guitar down and kisses Howard, not for a joke or by force or to make anyone jealous or because anyone's got a sword, but just, apparently, because he wants to. So, technically--or not-technically, but by the rules of what's good and right--this is Howard's first kiss.
It's a good one, not that Howard's got much basis for comparison. A lot like the last time Jones kissed him, except he's not putting on a show. Jones kisses like he talks, animated and a little bit breathless. His lips are soft, sugary from the candy bracelet he's been systematically chewing all the blues off of and one of his hands is doing fluttery ticklish things to a bit of exposed skin at the bottom of Howard's shirt.
Howard imagines taking this to its logical conclusion, and that causes tingling and stirring where it should, but there aren't fireworks and flashing lights. It could be good, though, he thinks -- the two of them up late nights with turntables and trumpets and no gulf of past cruelty between them. Maybe fireworks right off aren't how it goes. Maybe you've got to earn them over time. Maybe kissing Vince made him feel blind and dizzy because he wanted it for so long. But the real problem is that he hasn't stopped wanting it.
Jones pulls back and smiles, not all besotted and starry, just pleased like he's had a nice treat, and Howard knows: it was just a kiss.
"I'm sorry," Howard says, because he truly is. It would be easy, but it wouldn't be right. Not wrong, mind, but not right.
"No need. Think we're sort'f in the same boat."
It's probably wrong to be relieved at someone else's unrequited love, but Howard is. "Dan?"
"For ages. Think I might get there someday, but..." Jones laughs. "Pair of right old saps, we are, passin' up a good shag for a maybe-someday."
Since it's not going to happen, Howard doesn't bother to inform Jones of his lack of practical knowledge in that particular arena.
"Guitar?" Jones says.
Howard takes it gratefully and it washes away most of his discomfort over what's just happened, since Jones doesn't seem bothered at all.
Howard is improvving up a veritable hurricane when Dan slopes in, quietly enough that Howard's too lost in the music until he's sat on the sofa smoking and grumbles, "Sounds like Cliff Richard."
Jones throws a cushion at him. "Shut your gob. I'm recording."
"I suppose you think you can do better, sir?" Howard says, full up with defiant confidence because Jones is a very good audience, and Cliff Richard doesn't even play guitar, thank you very much. He's also a bit afraid Dan will be able to tell what went on earlier and hopes to distract him.
Dan stares him down. It looks like there might be a squint-off in the works, but it turns out he's been deciding something. He holds out his hands and Howard passes the guitar. What Dan plays isn't exactly Jazz, or exactly anything, unless Django Reinhardt getting mugged by a Skiffle gang is a genre, but Howard has to admit it sounds good. Jones is somehow gaping and beaming at the same time, though Dan doesn't see it because he's got his eyes closed. When Dan stops, Howard doesn't get a chance to comment--a technicolour whirlwind blows through the room that turns out to be Jones throwing his arms round Dan's neck, guitar and all, and Howard knows it's time to go.
next
Pairings: Dan/Jones and Vince/Howard, with a tiny tiny side order of Dan/Vince and Jones/Howard.
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~12,000
Summary: Paths cross, lips do stuff to other lips, feelings are felt, music is made. May contain chavs, made-up publications, a fully intact fourth wall, and peer pressure from Naboo. May not contain Bollo, who would nevertheless like you to know that Sugar Ape was named after him. Set a bit post-series for NB and post-S3 for Boosh.
Notes: Shiny gold stars to waqaychay for the beta, as well as big fat hearts to storyfan, who_is_small, and random_nexus for viewing this mess in its early stages and assuring me it was not a big sinking failboat.
Convenient linkage without my annoying layout: [1-2] [3-4]
Smoke and Mirrors
1.
The bus is taking ages, which normally wouldn't bother Jones. He'd just listen to a track on low volume and let screaming children and ringtones and laughter bleed into his headphones and see what it can make of itself. Once there'd been a woman with such a delightful cackle that he'd followed her halfway to Ealing trying to get a decent recording of it. The derisive hurr-hurr of the chavs that have piled on and surrounded him now, unfortunately, isn't worth immortalising. He sinks a bit deeper into his hoodie (a pink one liberated from Claire, and the partial cause of the heckling) and tries to ignore them or be amused, but they're waving faux-gold-ringed sausage fingers in his face and trying to tug at his hair. He can feel the other passengers uncomfortably looking away. It's not worth trying to shock them by answering back with something cheeky, or with something so mad they'll think he's a dangerous lunatic, because there's not exactly anywhere else for any of them to go. He just waits it out till the bus inches to a stop in a part of Dalston he can't remember ever even existing before and ducks between them for the exit. They don't follow and he answers their obscene catcalls with a cheery wave from the safety of the pavement.
He's just down the street from a club and thinks for a moment that he sees Dan go inside, but that can't be because Dan's texting him. Swamp Woman teeming with idiots, it says, so he can't be in Dalston. It's the third bar in as many months that Dan's least favourite demographic have deemed 'well endoscopic' or whatever it is this week. He suspects there may actually be spies following Dan, clamouring at the tails of his imaginary cassock. It would probably be easier if they just gave in and started going to the Elephant's Head, which is so obvious that not even the most devout self-styled disciple would put a toe through the door, but the music there tends to make Jones want to peel his own face off. Where are you? Dan's text continues, complete with capital letters and punctuation. He hates textspeak and it never fails to make Jones smile.
Jones has to look at the posters outside the club to be able to answer. He's actually heard of one of the guys DJing, never seen him but been led to believe he's either worth a listen or total rubbish, which at least means it won't be mediocre. It'll do. Jones sends back dalston smwhere velvet onion (Dan's text grammar makes him smile, but doesn't inspire him to bother with pressing the extra buttons) and joins the queue at the door.
Jones walked in and sat down at the bar during a break, so he's already stuck with his his 'Special: Flirtini €6' (which he actually pays for in euros for a laugh because he's got some on him, and the barman takes them without batting an eye) when his ears start to bleed. It's sugary electro-wank and the disproportionately female dance floor is screaming and eating it up. He's not close enough to see the DJ for the machines belching fog and glitter, but imagines some stylie prettyboy with more hair product than brains and talent combined. At times like this, he knows how Dan feels, adrift in a sea of idiots. The difference is that Jones won't sit here steeping in righteous annoyance. He will finish his drink, because he paid for it and it's actually quite nice, but he will do it in peace on the terrace. Then he will go home and see if he can wring a smile out of Dan. Who, he sees, has texted him back. I'll meet you.
dont bother its shit. fuckin off soons i finish drink.
There is almost no one else outside, which is a testament to this berk's draw if his appeal is stronger than absolutely everyone's need for nicotine. The only other person out there is scribbling into a little notebook. He looks a bit like Dan, if Dan were attacked by the 90% clearance rack in a vintage shop. Jones can't pinpoint when he started framing everything in terms of Dan, but he barely even notices it anymore.
"Oi, mate, give you 50p for a fag."
The man's head snaps up. "That was just graffiti!" he exclaims, looking hunted.
"What? No, I said a fag. A cigarette, y'know?"
"Oh." He relaxes and Jones wonders what he thought he said. "No, I don't smoke."
"Fair dos. Came out here to save your ears, then?"
"It's a bit much for me in there," he says with an air of sheepish confession.
"Right? Any tosser with a laptop and a mixer thinks he's a DJ."
"Whoa, now. That's my best mate you're slagging off there, sir."
He seems an unlikely best mate for anyone who'd be mashing up the Human League with Joan Jett for a crowd of screaming girls, but whatever. "Sorry," Jones says with a shrug. He'll stand by his opinion but he'd rather not get in a fight.
"It's all right," the man sighs. "I don't honestly like it much myself." He starts in on a bona fide monologue about hot bebop and Weather Report and Jones tries not to gape or laugh, because he's so fucking earnest and so clearly believes in it, and if there's anything Jones respects, it's that. And then he's genuinely interested, because Howard (as his name turns out to be) starts talking about hooking a Moog up to a crab and a shoe.
"Oh, I've gotta see that!"
"Really? Er. I mean, I could, you know. Show you. Sometime." Howard actually blushes. Poor awkward bastard.
"Now?"
"Yeah! Or no, wait, I should stay for the rest of the-- No, you know what? Vince won't notice. Let's go. It's just round the corner."
Two hours later, Jones is pulling the guts out of an old telephone and showing Howard what wires do what and making new noises and laughing, and it's the most fun he's had in ages without being absolutely plastered. And underneath the tragic clothes and questionable moustache, Howard's really pretty fit, but he tends to flinch away when Jones touches his hand, so maybe kissing him isn't a great idea even if he finds he kind of wants to. Jones likes kissing the way some people like Doctor Who or Hobnobs. He will kiss nearly anyone if he likes them a bit, which has got him into trouble a few times. Howard probably won't hit him, but he might think it's meant to be more than that, because sometimes his gaze lingers a bit and he blushes. Jones is still weighing the pros and cons when the door at the bottom of the stairs bangs open and shut, punctuated by a lot of shuffling and giggling.
"That'll be Vince and his bit of fun for the night," Howard sighs. And yeah, kissing him would be a really bad idea, because he's seen that look and it's not Jones he wants even if he might settle for it. Or, actually....
"Wanna make him jealous?" Jones says with a grin. He shuffles across to Howard and lays a hand on his cheek to leave him in no doubt of how. It's a good plan, he thinks. They both get a kiss at the very least, and maybe Howard will get something more.
Howard's eyes go wide, and him working out that he can't deny his way past this is nearly visible. "I...yeah. All right."
So he kisses Howard. It's nice, really nice. Howard's shy and soft and a bit sweet about it, big warm hand curling into the back of Jones's hair. He had it off with Dan, once, right after they first met, both off their faces, and the way it started felt a bit like this. Dan apologised the next morning, Jones hid his disappointment, and they haven't talked about it since, not even when Dan gets pissed enough to snog him right before passing out. That hasn't happened lately, though.
Jones remembers where he is and what he's meant to be doing when he hears two sets of drunken feet stumbling up the stairs. He moans theatrically.
"Howard!?"
Then it all goes a bit Rocky Horror. Jones falls aside and turns round in mock surprise that turns real, because there with his shirt half unbuttoned and swollen lips and a bulge in his jeans is-- "Dan!?"
"Vince!"
"Jones!?"
It's Vince who unfreezes first, with such a thunderous look that the plan must have worked. "What the hell, Howard?"
"I could say the same to you, sir!"
The two of them start arguing in what sounds like some sort of secret code and seem to forget anyone else is there. Jones catches Dan's eye and Dan cuts his gaze towards the door and they run out into the night together.
There's no real embarrassment beyond the initial surprise of the unexpected encounter; they've known each other nearly ten years, shared living space for two and both witnessed much worse. Except... "Dan, you know that was a guy, yeah?" Because he remembers the 'straight' card being part of Dan's argument, not that Jones really believed him, and it was literally last century.
Dan ducks his head, sheepish around the cigarette he's lighting. "Wasn't sure at first, but the cock sort of gave it away."
Jones wiggles his fingers and Dan hands him the fag. He could easily light another one for himself, but instead they pass it back and forth as they walk. The filter's a bit greasy and sweet. "Are you wearing cherry lip balm?" Jones asks.
"Vince was."
Jones wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. "Great, 'm swapping fluids with your bit of fluff."
"Just spit. Anyway, I'm swapping with yours."
"That wasn't for real," Jones admits. "We were just having a laugh and then he looked all hurt when you 'n Vince crashed in all giggly, so I said let's make him jealous. What's your excuse? And if you tell me you heard any of his set and still wanted to get off with him, I might never respect you again."
"Can't have been that bad. I didn't see it, but girls kept throwing themselves at him the whole time we were talking."
"Have you seen him? He could do a shit on the decks and throw it at them and they'd still try to follow him home."
"Point." Dan plucks the fag from between Jones's fingers without waiting for him to pass it back.
"Why him, anyway? He's like a textbook Idiot. And the whole cock thing."
Dan sighs. "I didn't see your text before I got there. He came onto me and I was bored."
Classic Ashcroft logic. "Too pissed to be bothered, you mean."
"Is that Claire's jumper?" And a subject change ripped straight from Jones's playbook.
"Was. She can have it back when she leaves the Dark Side."
"I'm the one meant to hate her."
"Yeah, but you don't care about anything so somebody has to do it for you."
"I care. Fuck, my leg hurts. Can we sit down?" Dan's already sat on someone's garden wall by the time the question is out of his mouth. His left knee is a mass of scars, some from the fall and some from the surgery to put it back together. He'll be moaning in pain at 5 a.m. and Jones will get him a hot compress and paracetamol that he will lie and say has codeine in. He's probably going to need another surgery to pull all the metal back out, but Dan will ignore that until it's unbearable.
"Maybe if you weren't heftin' electro-ponces about in doorways," Jone's says mildly. He lays a hand on Dan's knee, knowing the warmth will help a little.
"Now who's jealous?"
"Not a bit of it." Rather a lot of it. "He ain't good enough for you and he's in love with his depressive best mate anyway." No, that doesn't sound like anyone else we know. "Plus, you ain't queer, supposedly."
"I haven't claimed that in years."
Jones refuses to allow his world to shift. It doesn't matter, really, what Dan is or isn't. Just because the 'straight' excuse is no longer there doesn't mean Dan hasn't got a whole arsenal of other ones. "You alright to walk? I can phone for a cab."
"I'll make it. It's not far now. Just give me a minute."
Jones rubs at Dan's knee. Dan's hand comes down to cover his and rather surprisingly stays there. "Your massive Northern paw could swallow mine without chewing."
He thinks of Dan's hands round the necks of guitars, never when there's anybody there to hear it. But Dan plays with his eyes closed and Jones can be quiet when he needs to. It makes Dan look happy, peaceful. Maybe that's why he keeps that particular talent a secret, since living off his writing abilities hasn't exactly brought him sunshine and pancakes. He doesn't write for SugaRAPE anymore, but what freelance work he gets is because the editors know that stuff. He's got a short story published in an American magazine that he thinks Jones doesn't know about, except Dan absentmindedly left him a note on the blank side of the cheque stub one day. He knows Dan is afraid of something he values getting broken, but he wishes Dan would trust him with it. If nothing else so that Jones won't have to go to seven different newsagents just to read the story.
"You should have dainty buttoned gloves," Dan says à propos of the hand comment.
"I'd quite like that. All leathery and Victorian." He waves his free hand about in a fey pinky-fluttering gesture and pitches his voice higher. "Cup of tea, cup of tea."
Dan laughs, a warm deep one that Jones doesn't hear often enough. "You sound like Bertie Wooster kneed in the groin."
"I was trying for the blonde bird in that whatsit. But Hugh Laurie's well fit."
"What, all scruffy and American?"
"'Specially all scruffy and American. I like the way he fondles a guitar."
"You would," Dan says at the same time as Jones's brain.
"That's why you never play." Jones takes a light swipe at Dan's perpetual almost-beard. "You're afraid I'll swoon."
"No, it's 'cause I'm rubbish," Dan mutters. He takes his hand away and levers himself up. "C'mon, let's get home."
Jones stands, but then freezes stupidly in the middle of the pavement. Because Dan has said 'back home' meaning Leeds and said yes when asked if he's been home or wants to go home, but in terms of what Dan has called where they live, it's just been 'the house' (sometimes 'the House' with that subtle difference of inflection) if it's been anything. It's a stupid little victory that makes Jones's heart dance.
Dan looks back. "You coming?"
Jones jogs the few steps to his side and wraps an arm round his waist, ready with an explanation about not straining Dan's knee, but he's not asked to give it. Dan drapes his arm over Jones's shoulders, and after a few steps leans on him just a little, to let Jones take some of his weight.
It's something.
2.
Howard turns the swirly pink card over and around in the palm of his hand. It reads, simply, 'Jones' with a phone number and email address at the bottom. He's not even sure he's meant to have it; he found it on the floor after Vince shouted, 'Well, he must've been blind-pissed and desperate to wanna get off with you!' and slammed off to his room.
They haven't talked about it. They've barely spoken at all, really, the last three days. The atmosphere in the shop and the flat has been positively arctic, and Howard knows what the Arctic feels like. He wonders, in a gloomy panic, if they've broken it once and for all. Broken them. He can't wholly blame Vince this time, nor himself. There were equal measures of cruelty in that argument. True, if Howard hadn't agreed to Jones's scheme, they probably wouldn't be where they are now. If Howard hadn't been a sad old sod who jumped at the chance of even a pretend bit of affection. If he hadn't thought, in that moment, that Jones looked a bit like the younger sweeter Vince he missed every day.
Howard is not a massive gayist, but he may indeed be just a little bit gay.
But Vince is to blame too. He's got no right to be telling Howard whom he can and can't kiss. He gave that up when he rejected Howard on the roof.
It's not that he thinks Jones is responsible (though he might be a bit) or that he'll be able to fix anything, but all kissing schemes aside, he thought they were getting on rather well and he could honestly use a friend. And maybe, just a little bit in the back of his mind, he hopes it'll get up Vince's nose.
He dials. Three rings and then what sounds like a chipmunk talking through a Vocoder says, "Leave a message for Jones."
Even though he's rehearsing it as the recording instructs him what to do, he nearly chokes when the tone sounds and it's time to speak. "Erm. Hi. This is Howard. Howard Moon, we met at the Velvet Onion? I wondered if you might like to--" like to what? Something bleeps in his ear. "Oh, you're ringing me back. Hold-- erm. I'm about to-- never mind." He fumbles over to the waiting call. "Hello?"
"Somebody ring Jones?"
"Er, yes, I did. This is Howard. Howard Moon, we met at the--"
"Alright, Howard?" Jones actually sounds happy to hear from him. He also sounds like he's in a train or a shop from all the background noise. "How'd it go with Vince?"
"Terribly, as it happens."
"Oh, shit! Bugger, I'm sorry. I didn't wanna make it worse."
"It's been getting worse for a long time."
"Oh. Well. Can I help at all?"
"I was wondering if you'd show me what you were talking about with the toy trumpet and the typewriter. I mean, if you aren't busy. If you want. Sometime."
"Yeah, brilliant. Cheer you right up, that will. Come round in like an hour, yeah? 118 Hatpowder Street. Oh, I gotta go, this wanker's making a mess of me radio tubes. Yeah, I called you a wanker, Rick, look what you're doing to the--" The line goes dead.
Howard's at a bit of a loss. An hour from now is half past seven, prime dinner hour. Does that make this a dinner invitation? And what should he bring? Howard Moon does not arrive empty-handed when he's invited somewhere. But Jones isn't exactly the sort to give wine or potted basil, and might not mean to serve him anything anyway. In the end, he makes himself a cheese sandwich, pilfers a couple of vintage radios from the 'broken, probably not possessed' box in the stockroom, shouts to the flat at large that he's going out, and buys a mix'n'match of his favourite lagers on the way to the bus.
He's there at half-seven on the nose and dismisses the brief idea of wandering round for a bit to be more fashionably late. That's not his style, though, and Jones doesn't seem to mind his style the way it is, unlike some.
He hasn't even knocked at the 'House of Jones' door when it jerks open and he finds himself eye to eye with Dan, who's got a slightly bent unlit cigarette in his mouth and is smirking at Howard.
"Hello, I'm--"
"Your date's here!" Dan calls over his shoulder and pushes past Howard. His smirk just gets deeper when Jones shouts 'oh fuck off!' from somewhere within.
Howard hesitantly crosses the threshold and Jones bounds up from nowhere. "Fuck off Dan, not fuck off you," he says with a disarming grin. "Alright? C'mon in, 's that lager? Genius, we never get nothing but Stella round here." Howard steps through into a sea of purple and posters and clutter and can't think of anything to say, not that he could get a word in edgewise. "Don't mind Dan. He's a sarky old prick but he's lovely if he'll let you know him-- shit, bakelite, are these for me? Cheers. Step into the casa, bit of a tip but it's home-- hey, 're you hungry? Dan made tikka masala, sort'f even tastes like it."
And before Howard knows it he's sunk into a dubious old sofa eating homemade curry out of a My Little Pony bowl, unable to remember why he was so nervous about coming here. Jones pulls godawful screeches out of things that were never meant for the production of music and doesn't care if it's trendy or what his stylish mates might think. It thrills Howard just as much as it makes his heart hurt, because Jones has got that magic about him that Vince now only shows brief glimpses of, but he's held onto it and let it grow into one of the mad beautiful things Vince used to dream up, full and breathing and alive. It's infectious and magnetic and makes Howard want to create, but the thing is, it's still Vince he wants to run home and share it with.
Somehow Jones senses this, when past midnight they're sprawled on the floor and half drunk. Jones props up on his elbow and just says, "Tell me about him."
Howard does, from the very beginning. About the hyperactive sunshiney kid who borrowed a sheet of paper from him on a stalled train and handed it back with a picture of Howard he'd drawn from across the aisle, not surrounded by buskers and tired mothers, but in a jungle full of fantastical marker-pen beasts. How one day he found he couldn't get rid of Vince, and how one day soon after he found he didn't want to. Of the first night in the zoo, when Vince was terrified but buzzed with the excitement of this new adventure, wide awake and asking what every noise was and making up stories for the ones Howard couldn't identify. Of soothing him through nightmares he refused to explain, and of a very specific morning where Howard woke up to realise that someone he'd seen as an annoying but adored younger brother was actually the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Of insult and injury every time he tried to tell Vince how he felt, shrinking back and lashing out because rather than stand on his head daily to please Howard, Vince is now the unpleasable one. About not knowing how he'd turned into someone Vince could barely even like, let alone admire and respect (but need, occasionally, yes) and how Vince, to his dismay, is now doing the same.
Maybe it's the drink or the lingering secondary smoke, or maybe it's just the relief of having someone to tell all this to who isn't already on Vince's side, but Howard finds his cheeks are wet and that the shoulder of Jones's patched-together leopard and neon t-shirt is very soft and smells of purple bubblegum. He thinks of Charlie and guerrilla Tesco missions and pancake nights and wants to sob.
"He must care, yeah? Else he'd've pissed off ages ago," Jones says. The fact that he's twisting the front of his hair into a plastic children's barrette does take away a bit from the wisdom of the statement.
"Or maybe I should've stayed gone. Maybe I'm just like the old dog you can't bear to shoot."
"Old fuckin' Yeller? Get stuffed, Moon. Give him a chance not to be a tit. Maybe he'll surprise you."
"What do you mean?"
"Well...be nice? Show him you're still the same poetic tosser he followed round the zoo?"
"Oh, thanks."
"I dunno. Maybe you shouldn't, seeing as where my last idea got you." Then he bounds across the room and returns with a guitar that he thrusts into Howard's hands. "Here now, I've opposite of cheered you up. Show me the fastest fingers in Leeds."
There's something about the way he says it, despite the obvious guitar, that gives Howard pause. "You mean...musically, right?"
Jones laughs and bites his lip. "I did, but...." He puts the guitar down and kisses Howard, not for a joke or by force or to make anyone jealous or because anyone's got a sword, but just, apparently, because he wants to. So, technically--or not-technically, but by the rules of what's good and right--this is Howard's first kiss.
It's a good one, not that Howard's got much basis for comparison. A lot like the last time Jones kissed him, except he's not putting on a show. Jones kisses like he talks, animated and a little bit breathless. His lips are soft, sugary from the candy bracelet he's been systematically chewing all the blues off of and one of his hands is doing fluttery ticklish things to a bit of exposed skin at the bottom of Howard's shirt.
Howard imagines taking this to its logical conclusion, and that causes tingling and stirring where it should, but there aren't fireworks and flashing lights. It could be good, though, he thinks -- the two of them up late nights with turntables and trumpets and no gulf of past cruelty between them. Maybe fireworks right off aren't how it goes. Maybe you've got to earn them over time. Maybe kissing Vince made him feel blind and dizzy because he wanted it for so long. But the real problem is that he hasn't stopped wanting it.
Jones pulls back and smiles, not all besotted and starry, just pleased like he's had a nice treat, and Howard knows: it was just a kiss.
"I'm sorry," Howard says, because he truly is. It would be easy, but it wouldn't be right. Not wrong, mind, but not right.
"No need. Think we're sort'f in the same boat."
It's probably wrong to be relieved at someone else's unrequited love, but Howard is. "Dan?"
"For ages. Think I might get there someday, but..." Jones laughs. "Pair of right old saps, we are, passin' up a good shag for a maybe-someday."
Since it's not going to happen, Howard doesn't bother to inform Jones of his lack of practical knowledge in that particular arena.
"Guitar?" Jones says.
Howard takes it gratefully and it washes away most of his discomfort over what's just happened, since Jones doesn't seem bothered at all.
Howard is improvving up a veritable hurricane when Dan slopes in, quietly enough that Howard's too lost in the music until he's sat on the sofa smoking and grumbles, "Sounds like Cliff Richard."
Jones throws a cushion at him. "Shut your gob. I'm recording."
"I suppose you think you can do better, sir?" Howard says, full up with defiant confidence because Jones is a very good audience, and Cliff Richard doesn't even play guitar, thank you very much. He's also a bit afraid Dan will be able to tell what went on earlier and hopes to distract him.
Dan stares him down. It looks like there might be a squint-off in the works, but it turns out he's been deciding something. He holds out his hands and Howard passes the guitar. What Dan plays isn't exactly Jazz, or exactly anything, unless Django Reinhardt getting mugged by a Skiffle gang is a genre, but Howard has to admit it sounds good. Jones is somehow gaping and beaming at the same time, though Dan doesn't see it because he's got his eyes closed. When Dan stops, Howard doesn't get a chance to comment--a technicolour whirlwind blows through the room that turns out to be Jones throwing his arms round Dan's neck, guitar and all, and Howard knows it's time to go.
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