Half-Full of Hollow
Category: The Mighty Boosh
Characters: Bollo, Howard Moon, Naboo, Vince Noir
Pairing: Howard Moon/Vince Noir
Rating: PG
Status: WIP
Length: 10-20k words
Chapter 7
Contents
Chapter 7
Author’s Notes: Back to Howard’s POV.
“You’ve given me a face.”
Howard paused for a moment, mentally replaced the period with an exclamation mark, and then resumed.
“Why have you given me a face?”
A slight frown apparent even through his dynamic fringe, Vince glanced up. His paintbrush dangled midway between his splattered palette and the canvas. “What are you on about?”
“A face,” Howard tried again, still feeling that his voice lacked the particular straining emphasis that this fact demanded. “You’ve painted my face into that portrait. Why?”
“Cool your boots, Howard,” said Vince, twirling the brush through a thick dab of crimson. “I paint what I see, alright? We only went through this for about an hour a couple of months ago when you asked me to paint you last time.”
“That wasn’t just a couple of months—but, but,” Howard stuttered, feeling awfully out of step here. Really, he should be pleased, shouldn’t he? Back then, way back at the Zooniverse, he would have been strutting about in triumph to see the lofty swipe of his moustache curling across Vince’s canvas. But, but—why the difference now? Why was everything so different now, this time, here in the flat with the same old (old) Vince and just boring old (well, new) Howard?
“Look, I dunno,” sighed Vince, brush sliding vigorously across the taut material now, adding slashes of colour to this composition that affected Howard so deeply. “Your face isn’t well bor—I mean, it’s different now, yeah?”
Howard straightened his shoulders, heaving back the old dignity like Sisyphus up the slope. “You drew me with a fleshy balloon for a face last time, Vince. I don’t think I’ve changed quite so much to alter that particular perception of yours.”
Vince pinned his eyes to the canvas, plainly refusing to meet Howard’s (almost unwavering) gaze. “Yeah, you have.”
“Now, you look here, sir,” said Howard, bristling like a mocha stain ‘tache in a gusty breeze. “I’m more of a fleshy balloon now than I ever was back at the Zooniverse!”
For some mad reason, any insinuation to the contrary seemed to be a hideous insult to the former Howard, the Howard of ambition (failed) and courage (in a manner of speaking) and dignity (well, his imagination was working on it, wasn’t it?) That Howard, the Howard of the Past, was to be protected. He was as sacred in all his romanticism as Vince of the Past was. Except that, oh, well. Vince of the Past.
Was now Vince of the Present. And Vince of the Present was still working away at that treacherous image of a face, wasn’t he?
Sacred-ity be damned.
“Back then, Vince,” he said slowly, now working hard to keep the bite from his tone, “you said I hadn’t really done anything, didn’t you? You said that my face lacked character, that I was all ambiance.”
Howard nodded, though Vince determinedly refused to. “So what have I magically done now to earn that character? You’ve stepped in here right out of the Zooniverse, fresh from your buoyant, plein de vie Howard—and you try to say that you see more than ambiance in my face. And I’ve done nothing, really, have I?”
Vince pursed his lips, his cheeks unhappily blotched about with red. His brush strokes had faded from angry slashes to uncertain smears. Finally, as Howard watched, waiting, breathing through his nose, Vince met his gaze.
“Word on the street is that you’ve been slashing up big beefy blokes for your best mate, Howard. I wouldn’t call that nothing.”
Now it was Howard’s turn to flush, and both men averted their eyes while the Man of Action cleared his throat repeatedly.
“That’s not going to swing it, Vince,” he said finally. “I failed at saving you loads of times back at the Zooniverse. Why should this time thrust any weightier substance upon my character?” Next moment, Howard grimaced, and waved a hand in the air. “Replace ‘weightier’ with ‘deeper’, please. I’ve had enough lip from Bollo about my current girth as it is.”
“He told me you stretched his favourite apron, Howard,” Vince grinned, but his mouth soon faltered back into a despondent line.
“Howard Moon doesn’t wear an apron, sir,” said Howard, forcibly injecting some levity into his tone. “This cuisinier shows no concern for condiments. Let flour fall where it may, I say.”
“He showed it to me,” Vince replied, voice still subdued. “The ties were all stretched and straggly, like over-cooked spaghetti.”
“So I fail at that, too,” Howard sighed, and all levity leaked from his voice like gas from the mouth of a balloon. “I don’t even deserve a fleshy balloon, little man. There should just be blank canvas. Man unformed. Nobody ever saw him and nobody ever wanted to.”
“Look, you’re not still mooning over Mrs Gideon, are you?” Vince asked, sounding appalled. “You know she went and got off with that panda, didn’t you?”
“It’s not about Mrs Gideon, it hasn’t been for years,” said Howard softly, and the truth crept into his voice with a timidity that spoke as loudly as a megaphone.
“Well, you’ve never been nothing, Howard,” Vince said, voice the same size as Howard’s, but coming steadily closer. A moment later, Howard felt a small, warm, paint-sticky hand slip into his. He felt too tired to bother flinching away. “You’ve never been nothing, not to me.”
Howard raised his head, shaking his scraggly fringe from his eyes and staring intently at the electro boy who was perched right down at his feet.
“Why?”
“‘Cause you’re Howard, you muppet,” and the mouth stretched into a endearingly toothy grin, “and I’m Vince. You’re not nothing, ‘cause you’re with me. And I’m not nothing, ‘cause I’ve got you jazzing it up beside me twenty-four seven.”
Howard allowed himself one brief, reluctant smile. “Alright, so I’m not nothing, but I used to be a big fleshy dough bag of a balloon, didn’t I? All ambiance and such?”
“Never said ambiance was a bad thing, Howard,” Vince said earnestly, propping himself higher on his knees, and squeezing the hand that lay forlornly in his. “My face is too busy, you said it yourself. But you know what?”
“What, little man?”
“I make too busy work, don’t I? I look well genius, and all the girls love it, don’t they?”
Howard snorted. Vince grimaced a little himself at the memory of the previous day’s events. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it? But you, Howard, you don’t even have to accessorize, do you? Right now, with that cappuccino moustache—”
“Mocha.”
“Whatever; point is, you’re not nothing with me and you never will be. You rescued me yesterday, didn’t you? You got all banged up from it, too. What other accessories do you need?”
At these words, Howard craned his neck downwards and examined the canary yellow knot tied just beneath his chin. Vince’s makeshift tourniquet had stayed there during the night, hadn’t it? He couldn’t really bring himself to take it off—and not for any dodgy reason, either. He was worried that Vince had safety pinned the scarf right the way through to his favourite chequered shirt, that was it.
And yet, as he peered down at this evidence of his battle wounds, the evidence that Vince was currently propping high as a demonstration of Howard’s character, Howard let himself breathe deeply. The sweet, fruity scent of Vince was inhaled straight into the lungs, and he closed his eyes to avoid becoming dizzy.
And then the small hand slipped from Howard’s, and the glorious scent didn’t seem to matter so much anymore.
“Come take a proper look at my painting, Howard,” Vince said gently, placing his hands about the Jazz Maverick’s wrists and heaving him to his feet.
Dully, Howard stepped around to face his portrait, and when he looked, he blinked, and after that he looked more closely.
“I got a bit carried away, didn’t I?” Vince laughed, slinging a skinny arm about Howard’s stiff shoulders. “Thought you’d like the toga and all; you always said it’d suit you more than Bollo.”
“What am I standing on?” Howard asked lightly, shock draining the volume from his voice. “It looks like—”
“Yeah, well, it is,” muttered Vince, digging his heel into the carpet and ducking his head slightly. “It’s my favourite film, alright?”
Howard shook his head. He’d never really pictured himself in a toga, maintaining a ridiculously affected pose with one arm bound in a bright yellow sling, lauding it up atop Pride Rock. He supposed Vince had entered some insane new realm of artistic licence.
He coughed. “It’s pretty good considering you didn’t draw it from life, little man.”
When Vince looked up at Howard, eyes sparkling through feathered fringe, his smile was broad and genuine. “Yeah, I did. That’s how I see you, Howard. Face and all.”