Written for prompt 'the morning after' at writers_choice at LiveJournal.
The first thing that hits Rick when he wakes up is that he's got a hangover. For the first time, a real, honest-to-goodness hangover. He attempts opening his eyes, and immediately screws them shut again with a whine, trying to pull the bedclothes over his head, as an exceptionally bright and ugly sun chinks through a crack in his curtains and adds fresh new hurt to the bass pulsing through his skull. His mouth feels furry with the taste of sleep and sick, although he doesn't remember throwing up, but then he doesn't really remember very much at all from later on in the evening. He has a brief flash of standing on the coffee table in the lounge at one point trying to give a poetry recitation over the sound of Hawkwind on the stereo, but how he eventually got from there to being in his bedroom with no clothes on is something of a mystery. He's pretty sure he drank an entire can of lager, though, and if he's wild and crazy enough to do that, well, anything could have happened!
Rick's self-congratulatory smile falters. Most of the party was, if he admits it, a disaster. All of the food Neil had made consisted of lentils. Lentil quiche. Lentil dips. The one girl there, who'd only called at the house in the first place to ask for directions, had gone upstairs with Mike and never been seen again. Nobody from either his sociology or his domestic science classes turned up, not even the ones who he despises but invited anyway to look more popular, and the numbers had been filled by some strange friends of Vyvyan's who had come for the free booze. His soliloquies about the oppression of the urban proletariat by the Thatcherite junta had fallen on deaf, if studded ears. He's used to his brilliance going unrecognized by the philistines he's forced to live with, but it's still utterly humiliating.
"Fascists," Rick mutters, petulantly, in an attempt to make himself feel better. It doesn't work, but his stomach gives a violent churn. Now he really is going to be sick. Whimpering miserably, he struggles onto all fours and tries to crawl across the bed. He's convinced that he's not going to make it as far as the bathroom, and even if he does, Mike will probably still be hogging it at this time of the morning, so it's with silent thanks to Cliff and all the fates that he lunges over the edge and makes a feeble grab for one of the Doc Martens he sees on the floor.
He's just wondering why Vyvyan's left his boots in here and exactly how much one of them can hold when the second thing hits him. Hard, in the back of the head.
"You bloody do and I'll kill you," comes Vyvyan's voice, following his right fist in emanating from somewhere beneath the mound of Rick's blankets.
Rick squalls, pathetically. The edge shocked off his nausea, he scrabbles frantically for a sheet, dragging it, prude-fashion, up to his shoulders in an attempt to cover himself. It refuses to stay over his nipples, so he resorts to wrapping it around himself like a bandage. "WHY THE RUDDY HECK ARE YOU IN MY BED, VYVYAN?" he manages to scream.
Vyvyan's slightly flattened orange trihawk appears, followed by the rest of him. To Rick's absolute horror, it quickly becomes obvious that his housemate is as naked as him, the bike chain and padlock still around his neck swinging against his chest, a few hitherto unknown piercings visible that make Rick nervous just to look at. He doesn't even know how you go about piercing somewhere like that. "You asked me," he says, after a moment.
Rick's jaw drops. "I did not!"
"Did."
"DID NOT!"
"Did."
"DID NOT!"
"You remember, then?"
Rick shifts uncomfortably. He's terribly aware of the thinness of the rather sweaty sheet forming the only barrier between his naked body and Vyvyan's stare, and hugs it tighter. Vyvyan, for his part, is looking disparagingly unworried about the whole situation. "Well... no, actually, I don't! But I don't have to! I'm far too heterosexual to think about letting another boy anywhere near my bottom! Notthatthere'sanythingwrongwithbeingnotheterosexualofcourse," he adds, hurriedly. "I just don't happen to be! I happen to be very masculine and butch and - ow, Vyvyan, what was that for? That bloody hurt, you bastard!" And he rubs fitfully with his free hand at the side of his head that Vyvyan's palm has just connected violently with.
"Being a girly poof."
"That's rich coming from you, isn't it, Vyvyan, seeing as how you falsely claim to have been enticed into my bedroom to have CARNAL KNOWLEDGE of me?" Rick pauses, suddenly feeling both panicky and vaguely resentful as the idea starts to sink fully in. Not only has he apparently had anything even remotely resembling sex for the first time without even being able to remember it for future wanking material, it has to have been with Vyvyan. Vyvyan, who uses Rick's Socialist Worker as toilet paper. Vyvyan, who's personally responsible for most of his bruises, notably the ones currently mottling his chest and sternum and caused by his housemate denying Rick's accusation last week that he was a sadist, a psychopath and generally an utter bastard by kicking him in the ribs.
Vyvyan, who might possibly be the only person who's ever been prepared to shag him.
Cringing at the thought, Rick infinitesimally relaxes his death-grip on the sheet. He looks down the cramped bed to where Vyvyan's now looking for his knickers. "Did we... snog?" he asks, tentatively, not certain of what he wants the answer to be.
Vyvyan doesn't bother looking up. "I snogged you."
"I knew it! You just can't keep your hands off me, can you, Vyvyan?" So it wasn't even Rick's fault really, was it? If he was involuntarily molested by Vyvyan, then that doesn't make him a poof, and he's still got a shag out of it. "I'm going to tell Mike and Neil all about how much you fancy me," he goes on, triumphantly.
Vyvyan finds a half-eaten Space Raider in the bed. He sniffs at it, then leans over and stuffs it in the back pocket of his jeans for later. "No, you're not, Rick."
"Why?"
"Because if you do, I'll smash your face in."
Rick quails a little. "Yes. Well... well, never mind about that now, then!" He tries to plant his hands on his hips in a contemptuous way, forgetting momentarily about the sheet, and squeaks in distress as it begins to slide off, revealing both nipples and most of everything else worthy of comment as well. Vyvyan watches, with something resembling interest.
"I wouldn't bother. I've already seen it all."
"Perhaps I don't relish leaving my intimate personal body on display for all the world to see, unlike some people I could mention!" To tell the truth, Vyvyan sitting back on his haunches the way he is is making Rick feel slightly flustered. He can see absolutely everything, from the way that Vyvyan's skin stretches dangerously white over his chest and collarbones, to the hollows of his hips, to the admittedly rather impressive morning semi-stiffie between his legs. All those wet dreams where he's never quite sure, when he wakes up, whether he was with a girl or a boy, have been vague and shadowy and most definitely nothing like this. The addition of Vyvyan's total and undivided attention has his face turning scarlet, and he doesn't even want to consider right now what's happening at his crotch. "Anyway," he finishes, "I thought that you hated me!"
"I do hate you. You're a spotty girly bum-bag and a complete bastard."
"Oh, so you go around snogging people you hate, do you, Vyvyan? I suppose that you plan on snogging Neil too! Or... or Mr Balowski! Or that disgusting rodent of yours!"
"Don't be stupid, Rick."
"I am not being stupid!"
"Yes you are." Vyvyan gives up the knicker search, seeing as they've probably exited the room under their own power by now, and shuffles back up the bed on his knees. After considering Rick, he takes hold of one side of the sheet in each hand, and rips, leaving his squealing housemate completely exposed. "SPG only likes girls," he explains.
Rick briefly attempts hiding his bits with his hands, and then gives up. "Well, why did you snog me, then?" he snaps. "Were you being mind controlled by aliens, is that it?"
Vyvyan pauses in the exploration he's commencing of Rick's left shoulder to roll his eyes. The crook of his own shoulder and neck, Rick notices, bears a strange purplish mark, and he only realizes after he's been looking at it for a minute that those are teeth marks peppering the bruise. It makes him feel terribly anarchic, although he's not altogether sure whether or not he likes the suggestion that he was at any point enthusiastic enough about what Vyvyan was doing to bite him. "'Cos you were so far into that bollocks you were reading it was either that or knock you unconscious to shut you up, and Neil cleaned the floor before the party."
Rick jerks away, glowering, trying to ignore the blunt, rough fingers that he feels run down the ticklish flesh of his side. "I'll have you know that I had a captive audience! Your friends were rather impressed by my witty and cutting-edge insights on our totalitarian society!"
"Rick, they were going to kick your head in."
Rick splutters, and falters. Used as he is to daily abuse from Vyvyan, he finds the idea of getting beaten up by strangers quite frightening, really. He stares at his housemate incredulously as his mind wrestles and gets into a painful half-Nelson with the concept that Vyvyan might actually have done something almost-nice. He closes his mouth, and then opens it again, licking at a new spot developing near his top lip. "Vyv, I..."
"Course," Vyvyan comments, "I didn't know you were going to stick your horrible tongue down my throat when I did it."
"Now, I most certainly did not do that..!" Rick's voice rises in volume, and then wavers as one of Vyvyan's hands wanders behind his head and pulls one of his pigtails in a curious way, just hard enough to cause a sliver of pain that raises delicious goosepimples all over his skin. "...did I?" he enquires, nervously.
"'Duck to water' comes to mind, mate."
Vyvyan gropes him for a bit longer, the only sound in the room Rick's heavy, slightly nasal breathing. After a few more yanks at his hair, the same hand delves between his legs and gives him a squeeze. Rick yelps, and then squirms as the pleasure registers in the seat of his brain. His tongue works around his teeth.
"Vyvyan, why can I taste sick? Did I throw up last night?"
"Don't think so, but I did before I snogged you."
Rick huffs through his nose, trying to keep his mind on his righteous indignation. "There's sick over there on my new *Cosmopolitan* as well."
"That's not sick, Rick."
"You are disgusting, Vyvyan!"
"So are you," Vyvyan points out. He pulls his hand away from where Rick's starting to need it, and pinches the inside of his thigh, hard, then abruptly stands. He fishes for his jeans where they're balled up at the end of the bed.
"Where are you going?"
"My turn in the toilet. Mike goes in first, then me, then you, then Neil."
Rick blinks. "At least I'm not last, I suppose."
"That's absolutely correct, Rick. Unfortunately, I pull the toilet off the wall and throw it out the window after I'm finished."
"Oh, thank you very much, Vyvyan!" Spitting with newly-discovered fury, Rick moves to start gathering up his own clothes, only to realize that he doesn't know where any of them are. He resorts to covering his lap with the pillow with the stained case instead. "And what's more, I want you to know that I never believed one word you said and I don't think you did anything even the tiniest bit sexy with me and just wanted to boast about it because I'm so pretty! Well, you'd have to get up a lot earlier in the morning to catch me out like that!"
Vyvyan shrugs, fastening his belt and pulling his t-shirt over his head. "Please yourself, poof. Thought you'd be happy to be right about something today."
"And what, pray, is that?"
"You're not a virgin."
Rick's screams of, "VYVYAN, YOU BASTARD!" echo through the house long after Vyvyan has stomped through the door and slammed it behind him.