A/N: The biggest of thank yous is extended to all you faithful reviewers and subscribers. And for those of you who've just joined, I hope you enjoy the rest of the weirdly plotted ride!

Chapter title is from the gorgeous song 'Crown of Thorns' by Mother Love Bone.

EIGHT

Mr. Faded Glory is Once Again Doing Time

Vince blearily rubbed his eyes and sat up, trying desperately to gauge his surroundings. Nothing looked familiar, except for the body that was curled up, almost protectively, facing away from him on the other side of the bed they were in. Vince smiled, the inside of his chest swelling with emotion, his alcohol-fogged mind still not processing what had happened. Surely the man beside him was Howard, and when he woke up, they could piece together the missing links of the evening.

After giving the sleeping form a gentle kiss on his bare shoulder, Vince rolled over to grab his phone off the floor and check the time. It proudly displayed that it was 11 in the morning, along with 5 new voicemail messages. All from Howard. Staring at the phone in bewilderment, he keyed in his numerical code and listened to the messages that awaited him. "Hey, Vince… I know things didn't exactly go well tonight, but I want to talk. So… I'll see you, yeah?" Delete. Next. "Vince? It's pretty late. Can you call when you get the chance?" Delete. Next. "Vince? It's 3 o'clock in the bloody morning; where the hell are you?" That was all it took for Vince to drop his phone onto the scarcely carpeted floor.

Everything came screaming back to him. This wasn't Howard. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew…! Vince was almost to the point of shoving his fist in his mouth to prevent screaming his monosyllabic thoughts at full force. In a panicky jolt, the young man threw himself out of the grudgingly comfortable bed, vehemently rubbed his entire mouth with his hand in an erratic attempt to cleanse it, and retrieved his scattered clothes. He was out of the dreadful building- which turned out to be a very cheap motel- within five shaky minutes of getting up. A new record. But he had no time to be proud of that. He had to figure out where he was going and how he was going to face Howard.

Howard. He couldn't find out about this. Courting Mrs. Gideon was one thing, but hitting a home-run with Harold Boon? Vince tried to imagine how he'd feel if his Howard had gone off with Lance Dior- or any man, for that matter. He felt his heart and acidic bile rise to his throat, the latter having nothing to do with the staggering amount he had drank.

"Shit!" he cried, his phone's loud ringing waking him from his terrorized mindset. Fumbling to slide open the device, he answered frantically, "Alright?"

"Vince?" came the reply. It was Howard. Who else would it be? "Oh, thank God!" The relief in his voice nearly killed Vince. He didn't deserve him. "Where are you? I've been ringing you all night!"

Vince continued to pace hurriedly down the streets, illogically trying to escape the recollection of his consummated betrayal. "Yeah, I'm fine, alright?"

"Why didn't you return any of my calls?" Howard asked, his tone slightly scolding. "I've been up all night worried sick! I tried going out to look for you, but things-"

"I told you, Howard, I ain't yours to worry about!" Vince snapped, more focused on his lack of a solid destination than on Howard's words. "Contrary to popular belief, I ain't your wife, so you don't need to keep checkin' up on me!"

"Vince, I-"

Vince didn't want to hear it and slammed his phone shut, silencing the concerns of the other man. This was all down to Leroy. That's who he needed to see.

Howard stared down at his hands, now bruised, as was the entirety of both his forearms. He hadn't meant it to get that far. He had just wanted to find Vince, bring him back home, and tell him the truth. Yes, he did fancy him. Yes, his painting was representative of them and their erroneous inequality. But, as usual, nothing worked out for Howard Moon.

It'd been about 4 in the morning. That was the cut-off time for Vince Noir's all night extravaganzas. It always had been; by 4, Vince was either home, had left Howard a message, or had already informed the older man he'd be gone later than usual. This had never happened before, and Howard was scared. So he foolishly went out looking for his friend.

This hour, which signaled the end of the night yet not quite the beginning of the real morning- sort of the equivalent of the adolescence of a partier's day -was completely foreign to Howard, and home to all sorts of shady characters. So when an obnoxiously Cockney voice said, "Oi, Selleck! Come o'er 'ere," Howard was so out of wits that he'd obliged.

As usual, Naboo had come to the rescue. Howard had been pinned to a grimy brick wall in an unexplored alleyway, being beaten and threatened for money that he simply didn't have on him. And, in typical Moon fashion, he didn't stand up for himself. Although towering over the head Cockney and his three contrastingly quiet followers in stature, Howard was reduced to his life-pleading catch phrase after the first punch. And that had only riled them up further. Naboo heroically landed his carpet in the alley, diverting the miscreants' attention, and his familiar took matters from there. "Quick, Howard, get on!" the shaman cried. Howard didn't need telling twice.

"The hell is wrong with you, you muppet?" Naboo had asked on their flight back to the flat. "I went off to get somethin' to eat an' you'd disappeared from the couch! What happened to waiting for Vince?"

Howard shook his head in dismay. The things he put himself through for that insouciant, self-centered little ponce. Yet how many times had the little ponce risked his life to save him, the delusional, highhanded father figure? Christ, they were both beyond the means of fucked up. Since when had two wrongs ever made a right? Since that day on the school-yard, Howard sorrowfully thought, therapeutically gripping the steaming mug of tea in front of him.

He remembered vividly the first time he fully realized- or was it accepted? -that his feelings toward Vince weren't strictly friendly. He'd been 17, and Vince 16. The younger man had found a date to their high school's prestigious annual Christmas ball with a girl in Howard's grade, and had tried incessantly to get Howard to go, too. Every attempt at persuasion had a similar pattern.

"C'mon, H'ward… what fun will it be if you're not there?"

"Honestly, Vince, you'd be the only one to notice my absence."

"That ain't true! Well… okay. Alright. But… ain't that enough?"

"To put myself through an evening of teenage idiocy, gloomy pop music and isolation? Nothing's worth that."

"But I'll be there! C'mon, Howard, it'll be genius. I'll find you a date and everything, and the four of us can all sit together and take loads of pictures and joke around. It'll be perfect! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, Howard?"

Eventually, Vince had cracked Howard's obstinate armor, and the older boy had agreed to go. Vince had, indeed, found him a date; he'd convinced, with the help of some monetary bribery, who he considered to be the smartest, most mature girl in school to go with him. On the terms of a blind date to build his friend's anticipation, Howard arrived at the ball, expecting to meet the girl at their promised table for four. Only she never showed.

Howard had scolded himself mercilessly for thinking even for a moment that a girl- a real, beautiful, intelligent girl- would want anything to do with him. Vince was inwardly doing the same; it was his fault that Howard was dealing with yet another rejection, wasn't it? Half the night had passed with Howard saying nothing, other than a few unconvincing but heeded encouragements that Vince should get up and have fun. And when Vince seemed to be doing just that, Howard would sit there, fiddle with the table cloth, and curse everything about the night under his breath. He didn't know how much more of this he could take. The DJ wasn't even playing anything that could qualify as music. It sounded more like Transformers getting frisky.

"Howard…" Vince started when he'd snuck back to the table, leaving his date on the dance floor to gush on to her friends about what a gentleman Mr. Noir was. "M'so sorry. I never should've made you come."

"It's okay, Little Man," Howard said, looking emotionlessly down into his plastic cup. "It isn't your fault I'm such a loser now, is it?"

"Come on, Howard," Vince said, sitting beside him. "You're not a loser."

"Just stop it, Vince, okay?" pleaded Howard, snapping his face up to meet the younger boy's. "Stop trying to make me sociable or well-liked or any of the things that you are, because it's not gonna happen. This isn't my thing. I should be left alone, because that's clearly the only time I can do anything right."

"I'm not tryna make you into anything," Vince replied earnestly. "I just wanted you here tonight. You're still the only one in school I actually like, Howard," he added, as if it were obvious.

"Coulda fooled me," Howard muttered as Vince's date approached him. A ballad had commenced, and she wanted a dance. After all, that's why they were there, wasn't it?

Vince looked torn, but allowed himself to be pulled up by the girl. "I'll be right back, okay? I promise, Howard."

Watching Vince get led away from him, Howard felt something hit the pit of his stomach. This wasn't fair. When he was sure his friend wasn't looking at him, he wordlessly got up and stalked out the back exit of the event room. As the fresh, cold, winter air hit his lungs, he didn't feel the relief he expected to. He felt enraged. And not at Vince, or at the idiots who disregarded him, or at the superficial society. Only at himself.

Howard laughed bitterly, almost insanely, as he looked down at his body. He was wearing a suit and his hair had actually been combed through and slicked back. Why did he make that effort tonight? As if emancipating himself from his fashionable peers, Howard aggressively threw the expensive, rented suit jacket onto the lightly snow-coated ground before doing the same to his tie. Seemingly on cue so as to not pass up the fact that he was no longer wearing a jacket, a meager shower of snow began to fall.

"Couldn't let that go, could you?" Howard shouted up at the sky, to the god that he was already losing faith in. "Gotta utilize every opportunity presented to make Howard TJ Moon as uncomfortable as possible? It ain't enough that you gave me a blowhard dad, it ain't enough that you took my fucking mother from me, no, sir! You've gotta take all the little opportunities, too!"

"Howard?"

The boy in question jerked his head toward the direction from which the voice had come. It was Vince, standing cautiously on the steps of the exit, watching his friend with wide eyes. "I was wondering where you'd gone off to…" He slowly made his way over to Howard, whose features were contorted with anger and self pity.

Vince bent down to pick up Howard's discarded garments and brushed the snow off of them. "What'd you go and do that for?" he chided softly. "It's flippin' December." With that, he stuffed the tie into the jacket pocket and draped the second layer over Howard's shoulders. Smiling assuredly, Vince said, "There ya go. You look well handsome. Did I mention that?"

"Don't patronize me…" Howard warned, feeding his arms into the sleeves of the jacket.

"I'm not," Vince calmly replied. "It's true. Any girl'd be lucky to have you, you know that, right? You're not all polished up, but it's a good thing. Sexily disheveled, I think you'd be called."

Howard sighed, letting his anger subside. In a rare moment of vulnerability, he asked, "It's never going to get any better for me, is it?"

"There, there, Howard," Vince consoled, pulling him into an embrace that the older boy surprisingly accepted. "You're gonna be just fine. Ain't you ever heard of karma?"

Howard simply tightened his grip around him in reply, not risking screwing up the moment by speaking. Why did this feel so right?

"I'll tell ya what. We'll leave right now, and we'll do anything you wanna do. We can grab coffee, we can go see a movie, we can go toss eggs at your date's house… we can even go back to your place and spend the night listening to your jazz records. Whatever you want. Sound good?"

"Where's your date?" Howard asked, still not breaking the embrace.

"Inside. She thinks I came out for a smoke."

"Won't she wonder where you went?"

"Yeah," Vince replied. "But who cares? She's got the attention span of a moth, that one. She'll be fine. Besides," he said, with an unmistakable upward inflection. "I'm more of a girlfriend to you than she was to me, right?"

Howard couldn't help but laugh at Vince's attempt to lighten the situation, before realizing how truthfully the joke rang. "Right," he said.

"So," Vince continued, pulling away from the increasingly amorous hug only to slip his arm through Howard's. "Take your girlfriend somewhere nice, 'cos he's freaking freezin' out here."

Howard frowned, the lines on his mature face creasing. The contrast between that line and Vince's most recent outburst through the phone was unbearable. He'd take a vicious beating from a band of Cockneys over that kind of pain any day.

"Oi, Howard!" came Naboo's voice, snapping him out of his nostalgic reverie.

"What is it, Naboo?" he exhaustedly answered, wincing at the discomfort in his neck as he looked behind him.

"Just got a call from Leroy. Said Vince is headed over there. Thought you should know, so you can finally get some sleep. You look a right mess."

Howard sighed. "Cheers, Naboo."

If that was supposed to ease Howard's mind into sleep, it sure as hell wasn't working.