This is just a silly fanfic I wrote for fun a while ago. I'd love it to be Howince (is that seriously what this ship is called? crikey) but I'm too giggly to write that sort of thing.

Oh yeah, and I tried to make this similar to the show so I've written some songs and a moon monologue. They're… um… interesting. It's difficult because you sort of need to hear the songs…well, sung. And try to read the moon monologue in the proper moon voice! Hope they're up to scratch…

(NOTE: the formatting on my paragraphs has gone a bit screwy, sorry. Hope it's not too anoying to read like this...)

Never Send a Mod to do a Man's Job

The Man of Action.


The alarm started beeping shrilly at precisely 5AM sharp. Right on cue, a sleepy hand emerged from the depths of blankets on the bed and waved about in a bleary sort of fashion. After locating the source of the noise and giving it a thump or two, the piercing beeps ceased and a very groggy Howard Moon rolled out of bed and fell with a thud to the floor.

"Tea…" he mumbled sleepily.

Half an hour later when he'd had a cold shower to fully wake him up and a nice cup of tea, Howard was feeling quite a bit better. He strolled out to get the paper and sat down at the table with a fresh cup, quietly scatting under his breath.

"Now, let me see…" Howard rifled through the paper until he came to the employment section and was pleased to see that pages of available jobs awaited his perusal. Ah, good. Today was the day. Today, Howard Moon would find a job.

Neither he nor Vince had been properly employed since they left the zoo a while back to seek their fortune. Their "band" was promising but so far had unfortunately failed to arouse the public's interest. Although they had been pretty unsuccessful so far, both knew that their musical genius was simply an acquired taste that the general population just wasn't ready for yet. (cough)

But now it had come down to the crunch. Both men were skint, or "lacking funds" as they preferred to say. Howard knew well of the crunch. The crunch meant it was time for serious action. Luckily, Howard Moon was a man of action.

Such a man of action in fact, that after reading the heading of the first job (pastry chef) he promptly fell asleep in his chair.

Howard sat snoring at the table for about five hours until the sound of a slamming door woke him with a jolt. He had just managed to regain his composure and wipe the drool off his chin when a sleepy Vince Noir stumbled out of his bedroom. Vince's flannelette pyjamas were baby blue with little red hearts all over them and he was wearing a matching nightcap. He looked like a twelve-year-old girl.

"Alright, Howard?" Vince rubbed his eyes blearily. "What're you doin' up so early?"

"It's half ten, Vince." Howard frowned. "I've been up since five this morn' if you really want to know." It was a lie, but who would ever know?

Vince put his hands up in defeat. "All right, all right. No aggression before eleven, then. I'm too sleepy to argue." The self proclaimed 'King of the Mods' shuffled to the kitchen in his bunny slippers and put the kettle on. "You want another cuppa?" Howard shook his head. Vince busied himself about making tea and then paused. He looked up at Howard with a sly smile. "Just before, did you say 'this morn'?"

Howard looked slightly sheepish. "Yeah I did. Why?"

Vince laughed. "This morn'?"

"Yeah." Howard replied indignantly. "What of it?"

"Who says morn'?"

"Lots of people say morn', Vince."

"Do they now?" Vince shook his head with a grin.

Howard sniffed. "Yes they do." He shook out the newspaper and put down his pen (which was still unused so far.) "Listen, I need to talk to you about a very important matter."

Vince sipped his tea and leant casually on the kitchen bench. "Go on."

"As you know we're in a spot of financial trouble-"

"Woah." Vince blinked. "Remember my rule about big words in the morn'?"

"Financial is hardly a big word."

"It's big enough, innit? At least let me have my tea first." Vince snorted into his mug. "My first tea of the morn'."

Howard sighed. Vince was unbearably cheeky in the morn'- err morning. He'd have to wait at least an hour before Vince was completely awake and then they could tackle the task at hand. (Howard himself was still yawning but that was beside the point.)
Howard knew that he, the man of action, would have to put in the most effort. Vince was merely his apprentice, his… sidekick. Never send a mod to do a man's job.

An hour later, Howard had finished scribbling notes down about the prospective jobs in the paper and had made a tidy list (split into categories of each job and then alphabetised) with the name of the contact and their phone number. Now all that was left to do was to call some of these people up and try to arrange a job interview. Of course, he'd have to go through the list with Vince first to see if he agreed with the job choices Howard had made. He turned around to have a word with Vince to find him sprawled out on the couch watching cartoons.

Howard cleared his throat pointedly but Vince's eyes stayed firmly fixed on the television. Howard rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Vince?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm watching the Powerpuff Girls." Vince replied, flashing Howard a dazzling grin. "It's brilliant. Mojo Jojo's got some wicked plan, yeah? But the girls are onto him." Vince beamed. "Bubbles is my favourite, she's an absolute darling."

Howard sighed. "How old are you?"

"Same age as you." Vince replied cheekily.

"But seriously," Howard continued, "Are you actually ten years old?"

"Mentally." Vince replied seriously, and then gave Howard a wink.

"It's almost half eleven." Howard continued, ignoring the wink, "Aren't you going to have a shower or something? Get dressed?"

"Yeah, I will!" Vince sighed dramatically. "God, it's the weekend, I don't know why you're so uptight."

"It's Wednesday!" Howard spluttered.

"Oh. Feels like the weekend though, doesn't it?" Vince grinned again, unperturbed by Howard's rising annoyance.

"It only feels like the bloody weekend for you because you're sat on the couch every cotton pickin' morn' watching cartoons." Howard took in a deep breath, calming himself.

There was no point making a fuss about Vince's immaturity. It just showed exactly why Howard was the Man of Action and Vince was merely the sidekick.

Howard continued. "Would you just take a look at this list I made and cross out the jobs you're not interested in?"

"'Course." Vince replied cheerfully. "I'll give it a gander."

Howard passed the list to Vince. "Thanks Vince. I'm just going to the loo, I'll be right back."

A few minutes later, Howard returned to find Vince laughing uproariously at the television. The discarded list had slipped off the couch and was lying forgotten on the floor. Howard picked up the piece of paper and scanned it quickly. "Hey, you've crossed everything out!"

Vince looked up. "No I haven't. Not everything."

At the very bottom of the page, Howard had added 'movie theatre ushers' as a sort of after thought. That sort of work wouldn't pay very much; it was more of a job for a teenager than a Jazz Maverick/ Novelist/ Cyclist/ Rider of the Penny Farthing/ Stamp Collector like himself. But desperate times called for desperate measures, so Howard had added it to the list anyway.

"You really want to do this?" Howard asked Vince in disbelief.

"Yeah why not?" Vince replied cheerfully. "You get to watch movies all day and there's free popcorn. What's wrong with that?"

Howard sighed, knowing that the real job wouldn't be quite so laid back. But what the hell... "I'll give the manager a call and see if I can arrange an interview."