Disclaimer: I do not own The Young Ones or profit from writing about them, so on and so forth. Enjoy.
"I don't see why you get to watch Antiques Roadshow when I specifically said I wanted to watch Midsomer Murders," Rick glowered at Mike. "It's not like you pay for the telly license, in fact," And here his lips parted and drew back in an insipid grin, "you haven't paid it in over thirty years."
Mike glanced up from the sofa to Rick, hoping to detract attention as he slipped the remote control from the arm of the domestic house furnishing into his trouser pocket.
"I've been busy, haven't I?" He countered. "So many chicks, so little hours in the day… and night." He added as an afterthought, his gaze drifting back to the screen which was currently depicting a porcelain armadillo that had been hand-painted by blind murderers in the far reaches of sunny Alaska. It was valued at two pounds. "I wonder if we have any of them in the attic," he mused quietly to himself.
The sudden high pitched cry, tinged with the mellow growl of middle age, of "Honey, I'm home!" rang out, closely followed by the door to the living room being battered off its hinges as an aging punk with badly dyed orange hair that hardly lived up to the former glory of youth crashed through it. He landed face down on the floor amongst various door debris and followed up his impressive entrance with a few moments of recuperation and a groan of "I'm getting too old for this."
"Another door broken, Vyvyan, and who's going to have to pay for it? That's what I want to know." Rick glanced around, his eyes almost popping out of his head with self-righteous indignation. Leaning in closer to his wheezing housemate, he jabbed a finger at his own chest. "Me. That's who."
The v's were flicked unceremoniously in his face.
"Oh yes, that's very mature isn't it? Just swear it up, yes, ruddy well swear it up young man, it still doesn't change the fact that I'm the only one who works around here, whilst the rest of you go swanning around and making a general nuisances of yourselves."
This line of attack couldn't simply be answered with a hand gesture, no, Rick had gone too far to expect such pleasantries now. Vyvyan stood up and picked up the hat rack which resided beside what was formerly known as the living room door. Too late the antagonist realised what was coming and therefore received a skull-smashing blow to the top of his head. He crumpled to the floor with nary a whimper.
"Anything good on the telly, Michael?" Vyvyan asked happily, returning the splintered weapon to its former position. He strutted over to the sofa, went to launch himself over the back, then thought better of it and sat down the conventional way instead. It was better for his back that way.
"Yeah, a cup of tea," Mike quipped half-heartedly, his concentration now being mainly swallowed up by an antique blow up doll.
"Good quipping. Phwoar, how much is that?"
The relative peace was once again disturbed by Neil creeping in through the back door, a straggled bouquet of flowers protruding from his right ear amidst greasy strands of brown hair that were meant to be covering a bald spot and receding hairline, but weren't quite managing.
"Hi guys," he muttered dejectedly, eyes downcast to the old grimy carpet. Reflectively he wondered how they'd all managed to hold onto their student house after having left university sans any qualifications whatsoever approximately three decades ago. It didn't matter anyway, nothing mattered - he'd lost his job at the florists… again.
"I think I'll just go kill myself now, okay?" He heaved a sigh, knowing that no one would be listening to him as usual. Another failed suicide attempt was in order, what could he chose tonight? Death by undercooked lentils? Yeah, he hadn't tried that one in a while. Mind made up, he shuffled over to the cupboard and gingerly prised it open, already cringing in expectation of the cascade of crockery. Nothing happened.
Vaguely surprised at this stroke of luck, he looked up only to have his face fall. After he had picked it up and berated it for being so rude and falling off, he gave the cupboard a second look just to confirm that it was as completely and utterly empty as his cursory glance had informed him. He was wrong – the cupboard wasn't completely empty, there was a small pumpkin seed tap-dancing in the corner. So much for death by undercooked lentils then.
He bypassed the prone body of Rick on his way to the sofa, ignoring the common sight and instead thinking about how horrible life was. It had always been horrible of course, in fact if one was to think of anything bad that had ever happened, right, anything bad that had ever happened anywhere, it had happened to him… and happened ten times worse; but life just seemed to be even more horrible than usual. 'Anus horribulus extremus bogus' as they say in Latin. He'd lost his hair, he'd lost his job, he'd lost his virginity… no, not that last one. He had nothing to show for his life except a completed astro star chart on his bedroom wall that predicted an untimely and fiery death.
"When did this happen, guys?" Mike suddenly spoke up, cutting through Neil's train of thought like a mind reading arrow.
"When Vyvyan hit me on the head." Rick interjected, pulling himself up onto his feet and shaking the last muzzy strands of unconsciousness from his head.
"No, I mean when did this happen?" The cool person of the sorry quadsome waved an arm vaguely to indicate the elusive 'this'.
"When did what happen, Michael?"
"We're not young ones anymore."