[AN: It's been a while. This is a thing from a long time ago and I kept forgetting what I wanted it to be, and it turned into a huge sweary mess with far too many gaps in it, I'm sorry.]

'Come on, man.'

Neil and Mike are standing at the door, coats on, hands shoved in their pockets. They look awkward. Neil's face seems to droop more than usual, and Mike has been uncharacteristically quiet for the past month. They all have. It's fucking infuriating.

'I'm not coming.' Vyvyan says gruffly, and mashes his spoon back down into his cereal.

'But you, like, haven't been at all and it's just, they're letting him out today.'

'I don't care. I'm glad it happened.'

'Vyvyan,' Mike says in a tone that brooks no argument. The bowl crashes into the ground and Vyvyan throws the spoon angrily after it.

'He's a wanker and I wish he never woke up.'

Vyvyan doesn't stick around to hear the guys' replies, just stomps up to his room and pretends he doesn't hear the front door close. Pretends he's not pretending. Tries not to think about anything at all.

It's all so fucked up.

He goes, eventually, because there's milk on the floor that he doesn't want to clean and probably some other reasons as well. He doesn't need to justify it. He doesn't give a shit.

The receptionist looks taken aback at the sight of him, shuffling papers around on her desk nervously.

'May I help you?'

'Rick,' Vyvyan forces out. The receptionist's mouth opens and closes. She blinks.

'You want to see someone named Rick?'

Vyvyan nods.

'Okay.' She attempts a weak smile. 'May I have a last name?'

Vyvyan doesn't feel a thing, doesn't feel a fucking thing, doesn't feel anything at all. His fists clench at his side, teeth grinding together. The receptionist is subtly leaning away from him. Vyvyan doesn't look at her, looks straight ahead at the wall behind, swallowing carefully. He doesn't move.

'Sir?'

'Never mind.'

He's almost outside again when they see him, patting down his pockets in search of a cigarette he knows isn't there, the one he smoked on the day he found out, right down to the butt with the steadiest hands he's ever possessed.

'Vyv,' Neil calls. He's standing in one of the corridors, harsh fluoro lighting making him look grey, like he's dead. Vyvyan wishes he was. 'Do you know… his parents names? It's just, they can't find—'

Vyvyan doesn't remember moving, but he's got one hand pushing Neil roughly out of the way and a 'shut up' on his lips, so he must have. He walks ahead of Neil but keeps him in his peripheral, watching to see where he stops. In the end, he doesn't need Neil's guidance, he sees for himself.

The bed is nearly as high as Mike is and the stupid anarchist bastard is sitting up in it, ugly fucking bandage obscuring half his head. The other half has been shaved, the prissy pigtails gone. It doesn't look right. Vyvyan's knuckles turn white.

'Hi,' Mike says.

Vyvyan doesn't look at him, looks instead at Rick, staring right back with wide eyes.

'Vyv, he's not the same.'

'Of course he's fucking not.'

'No,' Mike says. 'It's serious. He's not him anymore.'

'Still looks like a bastard.' Vyvyan says it without thinking, and Rick's mouth, not a smile to begin with, falters suddenly. He looks distraught, or… or… panicked. Vyvyan doesn't know how to read human behaviour.

'Hey, now.' Mike pats Rick's hand, sitting against the bed sheets. A tube tapers away from the vein, small, unobtrusive. Ugly as fuck. 'Listen,' Mike is talking to Vyv, now. 'Just sit with him a while, all right? Don't say anything stupid. None of us like this situation, it's just how it is. We're sorting it out.'

Vyvyan doesn't want to sit. He doesn't want to be here at all. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about Rick. He doesn't care about anyone. He sure as fuck has no one that cares about him. If that was him in that bed, if it was him…

Vyvyan sits but he doesn't say anything. He crosses his legs and folds his arms and scowls. The clock ticks on the wall, mechanical, like everything else is this shithole. Vyv stares and he doesn't know who the fuck stares back, because it's definitely not Rick. Rick had never looked this scared.

Good.

Vyv wants him to be scared.

Vyv wants to make his life a living hell, for looking so empty, like a stranger inside a body that Vyv fucking loathes. "It's just how it is". Fucking hell.

Vyvyan doesn't wait for the guys to come back. He walks from the hospital to the closest available pack of cigarettes and smokes them all, one by one, until all he can smell is his own disgusting odour, until he thinks he can't hate himself anymore than he does in that moment.

Rick is in the house when he gets back, sitting at the table with his hands scratching against the wood. Neil has his back turned, stirring at the stove. Mike isn't around.

'Can you take him, please,' Neil drawls.

'No.'

Vyvyan stomps up the stairs.

He can't sleep. He's watched the dot and he's smashed a few things in the basement and he's fresh out of ideas. He's lay down in every feasible position on his bed with a distressingly aware mind and thought if he were a different man he could probably just masturbate and solve the problem. He opens three different textbooks and reads a page from each, retaining nothing, and then he crosses the landing to Rick's doorway and rests his head against the frame.

Rick leaves his door open now, and they leave the bathroom light on for him – not too harsh but enough that he can still see, should he wake. It's excess electricity, but none of them has said a word against it. They'll pay it. They have to.

Rick has always been childlike in his ways, particularly in sleep. He's curled up in the same way, elbow crooked by his face, legs splayed. He looks the same as always, but he doesn't. Vyv can't tell if it's his imagination or not. He thinks, maybe, for the briefest of seconds, that the effects may have reversed. Maybe Rick will wake up and cuss over the whole ordeal and they won't have to talk about any of it. Maybe Vyv will wake up and realised it's just his fucked up dreams again, just his mind running too fast, feeding him a different slice of agony. Something different from the usual routine, the thoughts of slicing pale skin, of marking and bruising, of a body he eventually jolts awake from and tells himself he doesn't recognise, a face he forcefully forgets.

He can't have those thoughts anymore. It's wrong, now that Rick is… what? A child? He's not a child. He's a fucking adult.

Vyvyan kicks his boot where the floor meets the doorframe, and the old house shudders mildly. Rick's shoulders hunch and he becomes stiff and unnaturally still, brow creased. Vyv watches Rick's breath stutter slightly in an attempt to hold it, to be silent, and he sighs.

'It's just me.'

Rick's mouth opens, just a touch, and Vyvyan walks over to the bed.

'Don't be scared.'

He's not sure if you can order someone to do that, but he doesn't know what else to say. He crouches, like Neil did that one time when Vyv was sick, really sick, to feel his temperature. Rick's not sick, so he's not sure where to put his hand. He puts it on Rick's shoulder and Rick jerks. His eyes open abruptly and he flinches, fucking cowers from Vyvyan's touch. Vyvyan wants to choke him.

'Fucking whatever. Be scared, then. Prick.'

He uses Rick's shoulder to push himself upright again, and can't tell if it's satisfaction or sickness that he feels when Rick's face screws up.

He stands for longer than he should, just staring, and Christ, he should have left by now but he hasn't, he's still standing, and Rick is just staring. Vyv moves with an audible squeak of his boots, floorboards creaking under the force of his steps as he goes back to his room. He lies on his bed and thinks about how mad he is that the fucking bathroom light is on, and wakes in the morning with an imprint of his wrist cuff on his face.

Vyvyan pisses the morning away at the pub. He doesn't drink much, but he gets kicked out, anyway. A few of his uni mates get thrown out with him, laughing, debris and drywall powder on their jackets. Rob's got the rat they found inside the wall cradled inside his hands. He says he's going to name it Lemmy, and that he doesn't care how much it bites and that it's probably infected.

Vyvyan's got rubble in his mouth and it's only when he spits it out that he realises he' must have been smiling. He feels… okay, like maybe he can deal with it, today. The guilt feels small, like he can almost ignore it, and if that's what it feels like today, then maybe – maybe – it'll be even less tomorrow, and the next, until it's gone. Maybe he can actually face it all and not feel sick to his stomach. Maybe.

He's feeling good when he gets home. Neil's outside the door, hopping from foot to foot. He stumbles through the same sentence three times before Vyvyan understands, and even when he does, he's still not sure what Neil wants him to do about it.

'Just…' Neil pushes his arms out, as if that might make himself more comprehensible. 'Just, like… you know, make him.'

'Make him,' Vyvyan repeats, eyebrows raised. Like you did before, is what he knows Neil means. He tosses up the idea of ignoring him, watching TV instead, but reluctance implies feeling something about the situation and Vyv feels nothing at all.

He slogs upstairs to Rick's room, where Rick is just a misshapen lump under the duvet, and strips the blankets off in one sharp motion.

'Get up,' he says. 'Or I'll hurt you.'

He doesn't wait around. Seeing Lemmy has brought up a competitive spark inside him and he wants to give SPG another piercing, just to assure himself that he's the more badass pet of the two.

SPG squeaks like anything, but he loves it. Vyv knows he does because he's only tried to bite him twice and he missed, one of those times. SPG stops squeaking when Rick appears, fully dressed, hair somewhat combed. He just stands and waits, staring at Vyvyan curiously.

'Go eat breakfast. Or lunch, or whatever,' Vyvyan tells him, and Rick nods. Sort of. He moves his head in a vaguely affirming manner. But then… well, maybe he didn't, because that would mean… no, he was probably just doing nothing. Vyvyan clips the stud into SPG's ear and dumps him back in the cage.

He stands around for a while, doing nothing. Kicks the bannister a bit until it sticks out at an angle. Smooths his hawk in the tiny space of bathroom mirror that he can see in. He doesn't want to go downstairs because he doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to think about what it might mean if Rick is… if Rick… listens.

He goes, eventually, not holding his breath.

Rick is at the table, eating cereal. He lifts his head, looks Vyvyan straight in the eye, and fucking smiles. Vyv flips him off and goes to kick the bannister again.

It starts a trend. Vyvyan yells and he threatens and Rick listens. Not to anyone else, just Vyv. He likes to be close. Not too close, but he likes to be around. When Vyvyan leaves of a day and eventually trudges back to the house at night, Rick is always there on the inside stairs, or on a chair that Neil has dragged over for him, or, once, on the floor right behind the door so that Vyvyan had accidentally smacked his head with it upon opening. Rick hadn't said anything, hadn't frowned or laughed or even opened his mouth. Just looked up with a pale face and waited. For orders. Vyvyan likes thinking of it like that. It makes him feel like Mike, for a change. Like he's in charge of something.

Vyvyan says and Rick does. Neil says and Rick looks to Vyv for confirmation. None of them can work out why. Neil thinks that maybe Rick remembers something, like a vague sixth sense, a lost memory. Vyv reckons it's probably just out of fear. Mike doesn't like to say anything, sort of just continues on like everything's the same. Like they've dealt with it.

Time passes, and Vyv can eventually start thinking of him as Rick again. Not Rick, but… a Rick. Another one. A different one. One that's not as fun, but not as annoying, either. One that makes him think.

Good days come and go, between the bad days, the average days, the unsure days. Vyvyan will grin, and Rick will as well, sometimes. Then fucking Neil will say something poofy like, 'he likes you, you know', and Vyvyan will relapse. Into the hatred, the thinking too much about everything, the blame and the guilt and the barely supressed memories of the dreams that… fuck, that nothing happened in. That weren't inappropriate because they were just nothing. Nothing. Fuck.

It starts a trend.

Rick speaks one day. He had been sitting on the couch, trying to stand up, but Vyvyan had been pushing him back down by the shoulders each time. At first, it was only because Vyvyan hadn't wanted Rick to follow, but then, well. Rick was enjoying it, and by some twisted form of logic, Rick is a… he's child-like. Vyv chose to humour him, that was all.

Rick had smiled, and then he'd laughed. He bounces whenever he hits the cushions again, and he laughs and laughs and laughs. Like a kid, like a stupid little fucking kid.

He's breathless and flushed, and he looks Vyvyan right in the eye and says, 'I need a drink', and Vyvyan freezes.

The doctors had said that he would talk, when he was ready, but to expect short words. And Rick is sitting there, grinning like a loony, staring with earnest eyes. Vyvyan wants to fucking hit him, or something.

'Then go get one,' Vyvyan says, and he doesn't mean for it to come out so aggravated. He crosses his arms, but Rick still looks cautious as he moves, like the game hasn't ended yet, like he's expecting something. Vyvyan doesn't do anything, but Rick is still smiling. Fucker probably thinks he's won.

The guilt curdles inside Vyvyan's stomach. He doesn't like the smiling anymore. He doesn't want this to be his responsibility. He wants the old Rick back. He wants the old Rick to be dead. He's too messed up for this shit.

There had been a storm (a chainsaw), and one of the neighbouring tree branches had fallen (was cut) into their back yard. Vyvyan's been eyeing it up for a while, deciding whether to divide it into portions or just burn the whole thing in one go. He's eager for a fire, something big enough to balance on the line of uncontrollable, that threatens of fire trucks and burnt houses. He doesn't want that to happen – he doesn't think – but it's exciting to know it could. He'll burn it whole.

The leaves have mostly dried up, and Vyvyan has scored down the branch with an axe to let in some air, like he learnt to do by coincidental chance one night, so that it lights up easy. The flames flare up to a second storey level for the first minute before sinking down to something more contained. The heat makes Vyvyan's tight, lips dry and eyes watering from the smoke.

When he turns around, he can't see a thing, but he recognises a presence. It was something he'd learnt from his stepfather, how to be quick and aware, how to hold one's own. His eyes can't adjust to the dark so he turns back to the fire. If it were Neil or Mike, they wouldn't stay there, silent.

'Piss off,' he says.

Rick hums. He sounds happy. It takes a while for him to emerge, eventually, beside Vyvyan. He seems entranced by the flame and Vyvyan has to yank him back by the collar before the stupid git's hair can catch alight. Rick falls heavily to the ground and for a moment, Vyvyan thinks he may cry, but then he hums again.

'Don't get excited, it's just a fire, you twit.'

'A fire,' Rick echoes.

'Shut up.'

Rick stays seated, crosses his legs and stretches his fingers out toward the heat. Vyvyan sits as well, ripping grass from the ground until his fingers grow cold and he tucks them underneath his arms. The moon crosses over from one side to the other, and the fire wavers and grows steady again. The neighbouring houses all turn their lights out, one by one. Old Rick would have loved it, if he'd known the time.

'Can you say my name,' Vyvyan asks in a low voice, to chase away the thought. He can feel Rick's eyes on him, feel his smile, and he hates it.

'Yes.'

'Don't be a fucking smartass.'

'Yes, I can,' Rick says, so Vyv smacks him over the back of the head. Rick yelps and clutches at his head, tense, then slowly relaxes and smiles ruefully.

'Do you know… that thing that goes woof.'

'Dog.'

'Yeah. What about oink.'

'Pig.'

'Fascist twats with girly helmets and stupid little batons.'

'Pigs.' Rick laughs.

'Smelly, boring hippy.'

'Neil.'

'Me.'

'Rick.'

'No, fucker. Me, say my name.'

Rick's eyes crinkle. 'My name,' he says gleefully.

Vyvyan swings onto his knees, grabs Rick's face and shoves it into the ground. Rick's hands scrabble at Vyv's fingers, but he holds tight. Rick's breathing has gone heavy and laboured, and his fingers scratch more and more. Eventually, a sound breaks from his throat, high, distressed, and Vyvyan pushes harder for good measure. Rick takes a deep breath and howls. Vyvyan lets go and isn't sure what to feel when he realises he's grinning. Rick's face has gone red in the firelight, and he's got wet cheeks. He howls again, and Vyvyan flops onto his back, listens to the sound and laughs. He looks at the moon and howls too, a proper one, long and loud.

Rick stops. Vyvyan can see him in his peripheral, on his hands and knees, watching Vyvyan. Vyv howls again, puts some trills in, draws it out for as long as his lung capacity will allow. There's a breeze in the air and it carries his voice, carries it right to the yappy little furball at the end of the street who answers him with a warbled cry.

Rick makes a soft noise, hesitant, mimicking until suddenly he's not on the ground, he's running circles around the fire with his arms in the air and Vyvyan has knocked Neil unconscious for coming outside to tell them to be quiet.

Rick had said it, once. Back then. Before. He was always saying it, in fact. Bachelor boys, the young ones, any fucking Cliff Richard title he could somehow apply to himself. It sticks in Vyv's brain, now, watching Rick slowly learn things with Neil. Spelling, mostly. Complicated shapes. How to read. Mike's been telling him about geography. Just small things, but they stick. Mike reckons he might even teach him something about finance, and it makes Vyvyan's skin crawl. Rick would have hated that. They can't try and make him into someone he's never been, because then he's not him. Then he's… he's got no soul.

Neil wants Vyvyan to show Rick how to put a record on, and Vyvyan takes a hammer, instead, shows him the most practical uses for either end, prying apart the record player until it's just a heap of firewood.

Rick smiles because he doesn't know what Vyvyan has just done. He doesn't recognise ownership, anymore. He's gained some weird sort of trust that Vyvyan doesn't know the origin of. Except that children trust people, don't they.

'The fucking young ones,' Vyvyan says, and he wonders what exactly it is that makes a man a man as he passes an LP to Rick. Rick doesn't even know what he's doing as he snaps the last of the Cliff Richard records in two.

Vyvyan goes out and doesn't tell Rick he's leaving. He doesn't go home that night because he doesn't want to see the sad fucker's disappointed face, and the longer he puts it off the deeper the guilt becomes.

When he does return, it's with two days missing from his memory, and he submits the third to sleep. He thinks.

He had closed his door, apparently, and no one bothers him. Not at all, not once. He lies until his joints start to ache from excessive rest, until the thing that's digging into his arm becomes too irritating to bear, and then gets up. The thing sticks to his arm and he thinks it's a stud until he flicks it off, has to kneel down to pick it up, holds it to the light and inspects. His stomach sinks.

It's a tooth.

He shoves a finger in his mouth, carefully sliding it across, trying to think back. There's nothing in his memory, nothing but fuzz and the heavy weight of shame that never really leaves him. He keeps his finger there, counting again and again, making sure. Then he looks down at his clean knuckles, strips the blanket from his bed and finds the dark smudges where his hand had been laying, and swears.

He thinks fuck and then he thinks good, and thinks fuck again.

Neil's got a black eye. Rick's got a split cheek, mostly healed. He opens his mouth when he sees Vyvyan, but doesn't smile. Vyvyan can't stop staring. Neil sends Rick out of the room, and Mike tells Vyvyan to sit down. Vyv puts the tooth inside his pocket.

'What are we going to do?' Mike asks.

'About what.'

'He can't stay here. He needs proper care.'

Vyvyan doesn't punch him, but only because Mike still flinches like he was expecting it. Vyvyan wonders if he looks as haggard as he feels, and thinks he must look like some feral, savage animal for Mike to have that reaction to him. Savage, yeah. Scum. He's fucking scum.

'It won't happen again,' Vyvyan says lowly.

'We can't afford for it to happen again,' Mike says. He glances sideways, to Neil. 'We can't afford any of this at all.'

They sit, in some sort of standoff, looking at each other but staring straight through.

'Maybe, for a while,' Neil eventually pitches in, awkwardly, 'he can stay. But you should… probably think about it. What might happen, I mean.'

Vyvyan rests his head on the table. He feels so tired. So achingly tired, right down to his bones. He wants to say something angry and spiteful. Instead, he says, 'I'm sorry,' a rough sound torn from his throat.

He's so tired he could cry. He hasn't slept, not since that day, and he can barely see anymore. His head is so heavy, his vision dark, spotted. He's too exhausted to even move, and all he can do is stare at the stains on the ceiling and try to swallow around the tightness in his throat.

When he's gathered the energy, he turns his head, just slightly, and is startled to see eyes staring at him. Rick has mostly avoided him since "the accident", as Mike calls it. He makes himself small and quiet like a victim of fucking abuse. Vyv feels the tear run down his face, abnormally hot. It's a product of his eyes being open for too long, combined with the anger and the hate, and the crushing weight making his head pound to a degree that the room moved with it.

Rick's lips part, only a few millimetres at best, and Vyvyan imagines the dark space behind them. The space at the top, two teeth to the left. There's a piece of Rick in Vyvyan's jeans, a piece that left behind that gap, and Vyvyan wants to fill it. Wants to fill it with his tongue.

Sick fucker.

Rick nods at him, like that means anything, and maybe it does, because Vyvyan's air all catches up with him at once and he exhales so heavily that the relief knocks him out.

'Heavy,' Neil mutters, and it's dark, it's not comical. It means bad news is coming. Actual bad news. 'It's the SLC. They say they're revoking his student grants.'

'They can't do that,' Vyvyan says slowly, fingers clenching. 'What's he supposed to live on.'

'Well, they can do it, actually. Because, like, if you're not a student, you can't get student loans, right.'

'Shut the fuck up, Neil.'

'Look,' Mike says calmly. 'We'll find somewhere nice for him, okay? I think it's time we contact his parents and ask—'

'No fucking way.' Vyvyan stands and kicks the chair over. Rick watches, worriedly, from across the table. 'They don't give a shit about him, you know they don't. He's fucking staying, I'll fucking pay for him.'

'You don't have to get so heavy about it.'

'Fuck you guys. Fuck you, I'll find a fucking way.'

Rick follows him upstairs, standing in the doorway when Vyvyan hunches over on his bed with his head in his hands.

'Go away,' Vyvyan tells him. 'Go do something.'

Rick stands for a while. Vyv can see his shoes through the gap in his fingers.

'I'm in trouble,' Rick says eventually. His voice wavers. Like a girl, Vyvyan thinks. A stupid girlie. 'I know that, but I don't know why.'

'Because you're stupid,' Vyvyan snaps at him. Rick takes a step back.

'I'm sorry,' Rick says quietly.

'Fuck off.'

'I don't want to go,' Rick says, and it rings in Vyvyan's ears. Rick should have just died. Fuck. Fuck. If he was dead, then none of this would matter. Vyv's going to kill him, if he stands around for much longer. He's going to actually fucking kill him and then everything will be okay again.

He wants to hurt Rick so much, in that moment. He wants to hurt more than he's ever wanted to before. Wants to scratch with his hands and bruise and make bleed. He wants to grab Rick's stupid face in his hands and hurt it, not kiss it. Kissing's for girls and poofs and people who fucking care, and Vyv doesn't fucking care but he's doing it, Rick's jaw clutched tight in his hands, and when Rick doesn't resist at all, steps closer, he pushes Rick back until he's sprawled on the floor just past the doorframe and Vyv can slam it in his fucking face.

Vyvyan's going to be rich. He knows his shit, he does. He's got hands-on experience and he may not know all the fancy terminology but he knows the human anatomy better than he knows anything. He knows exactly what's inside a human, what makes it work and what makes it stop. He's going to graduate and he's going to be a surgeon and he's going to be rich.

Rick just needs to stick around until then, and not get too much in the way. Not do anything stupid, like getting arrested or put away in a home somewhere or passed off back to his shitty fucking parents. He needs to not stand so close to Vyvyan, not clumsily press his mouth to Vyvyan's, not think that that's an okay thing to do.

And that's the thing, isn't it. Vyvyan's going to grow up. He's going to get a job, get a house, be responsible, be an adult. Rick's not going to do that. Not ever. Rick's going to be like this, always. Blank. Not knowing, not understanding. Being taken advantage of. And Christ, Vyvyan seethes at the thought of someone taking advantage of him at the same time that he knows he's going to be the one to do it.

Rick is essentially a child.

He is a child.

He's warm-blooded, and trusting, and he's got skin like heaven.

'Dog,' Rick shouts, really fucking loudly, and looks to Vyvyan for approval. Vyv's been desperately hoping that Raf won't see them, and he hasn't, yet. Vyvyan hasn't told anyone about Rick, about the accident. Why would he, he never gave a shit about Rick before it happened, why should he suddenly become a bleeding heart afterwards?

His mates don't like Rick, he knows that. Or, didn't like him. Whatever. He doesn't want to have to explain why Rick is with him now. Doesn't want to explain anything. But Rick is touching his hand, lightly, just a finger against the back of Vyvyan's knuckles, to get his attention. To make sure he's seen the dog, also.

Vyvyan pushes it away and shoves his hands into his pockets. 'Come on,' he says, and walks away from Raf and the dog. Rick looks devastated when he catches up, lip trembling, but he followed and that's all that matters.

Vyv doesn't say anything, just guides him the nine miles to the pound and watches from a distance as Rick makes his way to every cage, patting every stupid mutt, humming lowly. He's nearly bouncing by the time he's done, vibrating with energy, tripping over himself in an effort to describe all his favourite dogs as fast as he can. He leans in toward Vyvyan and Vyvyan pushes him back, twists Rick's arm in the process. He regrets it on the walk home, Rick gingerly holding him arm against his chest, mouth clamped shut even though Vyvyan knows there are likely a thousand things he's dying to tell Vyvyan about.

When he sees Neil and Mike's expressions inside the house, he wishes he hadn't pushed Rick away. When it's midnight and Rick's asleep upstairs, and they've had the talk, the talk about Rick's best interests, the talk that avoided any mention of Vyv's… attachment to him, even though the undertones of the conversation screamed it, Vyvyan wishes he'd let Rick do it. One last time. One last touch. Wishes this wasn't the memory he was going to be stuck with, now.

'It's, like, for him, right,' Neil says, always talking and never really saying anything.

'Can he have a dog there,' is the only thing Vyvyan can think of to ask.

'Yeah,' Mike says. 'It's catered for his type, Vyv. He'll love it there, you'll see.'

But Vyvyan won't see, because it's 'better for Rick' if he doesn't. Doesn't see, doesn't visit, doesn't even know where he's going. To 'help him adjust'. Because Vyv knows how Rick feels about him, doesn't he. And Rick's too dependent on him, isn't he. And this will be better for everyone in the long run, won't it, Vyv. And it's okay, all of this is fucking okay because Rick's fucking parents are going to pay for it all. Like that, in any way, actually makes it okay.

Fuck this.

It's fucked up.

But it's right.

'Okay,' Vyvyan says, and he hears Rick yelling in the morning and doesn't bother to get out of bed.

Everything goes back to normal. Like Rick has died. Like it should have been, in the beginning, when Rick should have died. None of them talk about it, not any of it, not one mention of Rick. It's how it would have been. This is normal.

Vyvyan devotes his time to study. Kind of. A bit of it, anyway.

He drinks. A lot. And then, after a while, barely ever.

He grows up.

The rat from the pub wall dies, and SPG goes not too long after him. Vyvyan tries to flush him down the toilet, but he won't fit, so he eventually carries the soggy mass outside and dumps him in the neighbour's rubbish bin.

He gets the letter from Ealing before he graduates, and maybe that's the only thing that makes him actually accept his Bachelor degree. Go to the ceremony and flip everyone off as soon as he had the paper in his hand.

He starts immediately, works five years to get to a place where he feels comfortable in his position, in his income, and then he buys a house. He stands in the middle of it and thinks 'the fucking young ones', and then goes out and buys vegetables, just to prove to himself that he's properly grown up, now.

The clock ticks down in his head and he reaches the day when he thinks he's ready. He paces and wrings his hands and then he renovates, to calm himself. He builds himself a study, because if he's going to do this then it should be from a study. He buys a desk and a bookshelf and can only fill a quarter of it with all the books that he owns, and then when that's done, he puts the phone on the desk. On the corner, where it's unobtrusive, but close, for when he needs it. He puts the tooth, in its tiny jar, still tied in the string that used to hang around Vyv's neck beside it. He stalls. He stalls some more. He rolls around on the new roller chair, and then his on-call pager beeps and he goes in to work.

He comes home.

He sleeps.

Then he pulls out the phonebook and calls every applicable contact until he finds the right one.

Oh, wonderful, the lady says. Yes, the dog is still alive, she says, and Vyvyan writes 'buy dog stuff' on his notepad, like an organised adult would do. Of course you can visit, she says. He doesn't have many visitors, he'd like that. If you can give evidence of a stable living environment, she says. And only with his consent, she adds. Then yes, you may arrange for him to leave with you, she says.

Rick is behind the chain-link fence when Vyvyan arrives, throwing a ball and dipping in and out of view behind the old brick building. He seems happy, but Vyvyan hates it. It looks like a cage around him, like a prison. It looks dirty and sickly, so out of odds with Rick's character. The floor inside squeaks and Vyvyan hates that, too. Hates the fake potted plants, faded and dusty. Hates the stained couches. Hates his own reflection in the window, most of all.

He's left his hair down, mostly matted from sleep and sitting uneven, and he wishes he'd thought about ironing his shirt before putting it on. His fashion style hasn't changed a lot over the years, but he's got some nice things. He thought he should wear something nice today, to prove to them he's grown up or whatever, but he just looks like a poof. He doesn't feel like himself and it repulses him. He doesn't know if Rick will even recognise him.

The receptionist is kind, but Vyv hates her anyway. She takes him through the paperwork, briefly explaining the basics but mostly just pointing where to sign or initial. There's a lot of paperwork. When it's done, Vyvyan carefully lays out on the desk his license, his health care card, the bank statements and payslips that he'd printed and organised this morning. The woman takes them, photocopies them, and when they're safely back inside Vyvyan's pocket, she smiles again and says she'll take him to see Rick.

Finally.

Rick is back inside, but the dog isn't. Vyvyan had read something about that in the forms. Separate living quarters. Rick is sitting on the bed, colour high on his cheeks, grinning. Tooth missing, like a kid. But he's not a kid, Vyvyan knows that now. He looks so removed from that first day, all those years ago, white as a sheet, empty and scared.

'You,' Rick says brightly, like a greeting.

'Me,' Vyvyan replies, shuffling his feet.

Rick puts his fingers to his mouth and laughs, and Vyvyan thinks he's missed the joke, but then Rick is up and has his arms around Vyvyan's shoulders, pulling him in with more strength than Vyvyan had thought he could possess.

'It's you,' Rick says into his ear, breath warm. 'Hello.'

The weight lifts from Vyvyan's stomach, and his shoulders relax.

'Hello, you stupid prick.'