Chapter 1. Hangover.

Vyvyan woke up from an annoying sound. He didn't know what the annoying sound was, but it sure as fuck was pissing him off.

Ding, dong, ding, dong.

It seemed to be coming from outside. He sat up. His back ached, and his head was hammering. Besides the bloody bells, he could hear that bastard Neil muttering in his sleep in the next room.

If it wasn't clear already, Vyvyan was in a particularly bad mood this morning. Here's why.
Last night, when he'd gone to take a piss, he'd walked quietly past Rick's room. And by 'walking quietly,' we mean stamping across the hallway so loudly the ceiling on the floor beneath had started to crumble.
Now that wasn't an extraordinary thing in itself; he'd walked past Rick's room loads of times when he needed to take a piss. But this time, the door had been open.

He'd stood there in the doorway for a while, realizing that this was probably some sort of grand opportunity. What kind of opportunity, he had not known. Seeing the way Rick slept? Have a good look at his bollocks in his tight y-fonts? He'd truly had no idea what should be so appealing about that, but he'd looked anyway.

But what he'd seen there in Rick's bed hadn't just been Rick or his bollocks. What he'd seen there had turned his stomach in such a way that he'd needed to sprint to the bathroom to be sick. He'd made it just in time.
There'd been a girl there. A real girl, that was. Not just Rick's skinny bum dressed up in some ugly dress. (Which he'd seen him do before because he'd spied on him a few times. But that was strictly secret information he didn't share with anyone in the house, not even with SPG, his hamster.)

Vyvyan had no idea why the sight of some girl in Rick's bed had made him so bloody sick. He'd felt like grabbing the nearest object and smashing that bint's face to pieces, but all he'd really been able to do at that moment had been to hang over the sink and puke his guts out. When he'd finished doing that, he'd just gone back to his room. He didn't understand what had come over him. All he knew was that he'd just been too bloody sick to even smash anything. So he'd just knocked himself unconscious. That was probably for the best.

Unconsciousness was good. Peaceful. But now this awful noise from outside had woken him up again. He didn't want to remember what he'd seen last night, but it came back to him soon enough. A. Bloody. Girl. In. Rick's. Room. Why was this bothering him so much? Who on earth cared if that stupid bastard had just lost his virginity to some girl? He sure didn't! It happened all the time. People had sex at parties and woke up next to girls the next day. People liked to do that sort of disgusting rubbish. Vyvyan had often observed this. So he REALLY didn't understand why, next to his hangover, there was this nagging voice in the back of his head.

Except maybeeeee… he did know. It might have had to do with that thing that had happened a few weeks ago. Everyone had gone to bed except for Rick and himself. They'd been sitting on the way-too narrow couch that made their arms touch slightly. The program they were watching was shite. Some bloke was throwing eggs into a hole for money, or some stupid rubbish. (Nothing good was ever on, in the rare case the bloody thing even worked. Mostly just that annoying, bald bloke whose face he wanted to smash.)

It didn't matter though. For the first time in months, the two of them weren't fighting. Rick was talking about some poetry lecture or something. Vyvyan wasn't really listening, but to his surprise, he really enjoyed the sound of Rick's voice and his company. It was better than the telly, anyway.

It slowly dawned on Vyvyan that he was having a very alien sensation. He'd felt at peace. Vyvyan had never really been a big fan of peace. Every time Neil so much as mentioned the word 'peace' (or even 'peace and love', which made him gag) he wanted to bash his face.
But right then, with Rick next to him, and no one else around, he'd realized he didn't need to be anywhere else. He was just fine right where he was. With Rick. On that couch. With a really fucking shite program on the telly. Yes, he'd been quite enjoying himself. He always did when he was with Rick, really. Whenever he wasn't too busy bashing his stupid face, that was.

Maybe, he'd thought, he could even go as far as to wrap an arm around his shoulders. That might work. Subtly, he'd cleared his throat, huddled even closer to Rick, and pretended to reach for the remote control while swinging his arm around Rick's shoulder.

"Vyvyan? What are you doing?" Rick had asked.

"I'm trying to show affection, you twat! Can't you see that?"

It had seemed like it needed to sink in with Rick for a moment. Vyvyan, showing affection? He'd never known the punker knew other ways to express himself but violence.

"Well, all right then. I suppose… I suppose that's fine," he'd said, still seemingly somewhat uncomfortable with their sudden intimacy.

Vyvyan had stared.

Rick had stared.

Then, so quickly and unforeseen that not even Vyvyan himself had seen it coming, he'd leaned in and pressed his lips firmly on Rick's. He felt Rick freeze underneath him, and he started roaming his tongue over his lips, trying to find his way in. He would have started to enjoy himself, too, if Rick hadn't pulled away and given him a huge smack on the face with the flat of his hand.

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS THAT FOR?" Vyvyan had screamed.

"I should be the one asking you that, Vyvyan!" Rick had jumped up from the couch, his eyes wide with shock. "What on earth was that about?"

"I don't know! I thought you might like it!" Vyvyan had shrugged.

"Well for your information, Vyvyan, I…." and he'd pointed at himself with a slightly neurotic hand, "don't kiss boys! So take your filthiness somewhere else, you ruddy pervert!"

He'd stormed out of the room and left Vyvyan alone with the telly. Well, that was rubbish, he'd thought to himself, and tried to shrug it off. Only to find he couldn't.

That had been a few weeks ago now. He hadn't tried kissing Rick again since. But he couldn't help thinking about it sometimes. Which was rubbish.
He decided the best way to shut these thoughts up was to scream very loudly, so he wouldn't have to listen to them. He opened his window and started screaming at wherever the sound was coming from.

"SHUT UP, YOU BASTARDS! SHUT UP, YOU BASTARDS! SHUT UP, YOU BASTARDS! IT'S ONLY ELEVEN O'CLOCK!"

He kept screaming like this for a while, but the only effect that had was that it woke up Neil. For fuck's sake. He really didn't feel like talking to that moron right now.

"Oh hi, Vyvyan", Neil mumbled, walking into Vyvyan's room. "You won't believe the dream I just had…"

"I don't care!"

"No, but listen, right, it was awesome. So Rick was like this sheriff, right…"

He couldn't hear another word of this. Without even going to the trouble of telling him to shut his trap, Vyvyan stormed out of the room and slammed the door. It felt like the walls were coming at him.
He was feeling even more violent than usual. For a lack of something better to do, he started to thump his head against the wall. Maybe if he just kept doing that, he would forget about all of it.
When he was up to thump number 523, he heard a smug voice behind him say: "Good morning, Vyvyan."

Rick. Just the person he wanted to see.

"Piss off."

"Vyvyan, do you remember anything about…"

"Look, will you stop trying to blow my concentration, Rick?! I'M TRYING TO GET RID OF THIS HANGOVER!"

"Yes, it was…." and he put his hand on his back, "quite a party last night, wasn't it?"

Vyvyan was overly aware of Rick's hand on his back. Maybe he even shivered a little. But only for a split second. Then he was gone. He thumped his head against the wall again. Number 528.

This was going to be a very long day.