[AN: wrote drabbles for all the pairings because of kirby. what a good idea.]

vyvyan/rick:

Vyvyan is giggling, one hand high on his chest and the other pressing at his stomach. A tear trails down his cheek and his wheezing laughter comes out like the most joyous of seals.

It's making Rick laugh, hand clutching at the chair, cheeks aching but unable to look away from Vyvyan.

Vyvyan slips further to the ground, well and truly kneeling on the floor now, hunched over and still yipping in between gasps for breath.

Rick's doing the same, chest too tight to breathe, and it suddenly hits him all at once, crashes over him, the most staggering series of emotions he's ever experienced. He feels submerged, brimming with absolute joy and pleasure and his shoulders are shaking and Vyv is writhing around, hitting his hand against the ground, and Rick thinks this is it, this is what it feels like. This is what he thought he'd never feel, not truly, not in the way the poems describe it. He's never felt so elated. He wants to keep this inside him always, this one memory, this one encompassing feeling, he doesn't ever want to forget exactly how it felt. The moment he realised he was in love.

With a bastard.

Vyvyan has squirmed closer, fingers clutching at Rick's ankle. He's trying to say something but it's not coming out right, and his sounds are distant in Rick's ears, anyway.

Vyvyan rests his head over Rick's shoe as he calms, trying to breathe, trying to still the tremors in his arms. Rick doubles over so that he can reach Vyvyan's shoulder, so that he can run his fingers around Vyvyan's ears, across his forehead, not quite touching the hair because he got in big trouble the last time he attempted that. But he needs to touch him. Because he's there. Because he can. Because good lord in heaven, he's allowed to touch Vyvyan.

One of Vyvyan's eyes open, squinting up at Rick, still grinning with all his teeth. Rick touches over his cheek.

'You're very stupid,' Rick informs him. It sets Vyvyan off again, turning his face into Rick's leg. Rick's breath stutters in a half-laugh.

He wishes he could tell them, those kids at school. He wishes he could show them all how wrong they were. He wishes they could see.

He's in love.

vyvyan/neil:

The moon has risen above the parameters of the window, so that when the static cuts off abruptly and the VCR player noisily begins to rewind, the room is cast into near-complete darkness.

The tap running in the background cuts off with a squeak but it doesn't entirely register in Neil's head, just floats around his being in an orbit of relative half-knowledge.

A glass comes to rest somewhere beside his elbow and Neil nods at it, hoping it won't linger here for too long because Neil's never been great at making conversation with glasses. They don't give much of their emotions away, not like a sturdy carrot or cabbage can.

'Hi.'

Vyv's voice comes out as a thick rasp, and Neil's mind has to tick over it a few times before it settles.

'I got you a drink.'

'Huh?' Neil squints down at the glass as Vyv comes to rest on his knees beside it, his upturned denim legs the only thing Neil can properly make out in the dimness.

'You said you were thirsty.'

'When the video began.' Neil rests his head on one arm so he can better inspect the glass. It gives him an odd look that makes Neil's heart sinks a bit.

'Well I was busy, then, wasn't I.'

The room grows silent again, but for the heavy breaths of Mike spread out of the couch and Rick's odd little snores from where he has his legs tucked up on the rickety chair. Vyvyan sighs and lies down on the ground, mirroring Neil.

'Don't let the cup make you feel bad, Neil. You're better than it.'

'I'm not.'

'You are. You're better than all the glasses in the world combined.'

Neil tries to put on a smile, for Vyvyan's sake. When it doesn't quite reach its mark, he lifts the glass and drinks from it instead. Vyvyan makes a noise of thin improvement.

'You don't have to feel okay, Neil.'

It doesn't make any sense. It's stupid, it's so stupid and it doesn't make sense. Neil hunches his shoulders forward, closing his eyes. He has no reason to feel like this. It's been a nice night, Vyvyan's being kind to him, he has no right. It's stupid.

'Thanks for the water,' he says and his voice doesn't tremble, not even once, but Vyvyan's arm settles across his back anyway, and Vyv's cold forehead studs press into the side of Neil's face.

mike/neil:

'And a shirt!' Neil calls when Mike is two stairs down. He retraces his steps back to Neil's room.

'I'm wearing a shirt.'

'No, but, like, one for your arms. If you can see the sun, then the sun can see you… or…' Neil frowns. 'No, it's a different saying.'

'What if I've got sunscreen on?'

Neil halts his rummaging through the drawer, turning his head again.

'Do you?'

Mike shrugs. 'What if I do?'

'Well, like, the rays can still get to you, right? They burrow into your skin and like, eat away at the cells and stuff and it's really nasty. Like, really, really horrid.'

Mike tilts his head, just slightly.

'Really horrid, Mike!'

'Okay. I'll wear the shirt.'

Neil lifts something sickly green from the drawer. 'You can wear this one.'

'And drown? No thanks, Neil, I rather think I'll find my own.'

'Can you get it, then. So I can see.'

Mike huffs but smiles regardless. 'Anything for you, my sweet lentil,' he calls as he leaves the room. Neil is frowning when he returns.

'Acceptable?' Mike asks, spreading his arms out.

'Lentils aren't sweet, Mike, you know that,' Neil says.

Mike sets his hands over Neil's forearms, gripping lightly, pulling him close. In the beginning, Mike had always pulled Neil by the biceps, but over time his hands had crept gradually lower to a place where Mike's shoulders weren't quite as strained.

'Are you appeased with the shirt, my love?'

Neil's face screws up at the endearment. 'Can you wear a hat, please?' he asks in a small voice. 'And if Vyvyan's going out as well, can you tell him to wear a hat? It's just that he doesn't listen to me and –' Neil's voice takes on a flustered tone '-there are nasties in the sun and they're going to eat his cells.'

'I'll tell him,' Mike says, and tugs on Neil's arm until Neil bends slightly. Mike kisses his cheek. 'I'll get a hat. Then I'm okay to go outside?'

'Yeah, okay, I guess.' Neil's hand grasps briefly at Mike's elbow and then drops. 'Just be sun safe.'

'Always.'

mike/rick:

'Fallen asleep, my son?'

'No.' Rick jerks himself upright, bringing his fist up under his chin in an attempt to look nonchalant. Mike chuckles, low in his throat.

'You're a funny boy, aren't you.'

Rick's not exactly sure why Mike does that, makes himself seem so much older when the rest of the time is spent trying to blend in with the kids. Rick can never quite pinpoint his feelings about it. Whether the warmth in his chest is embarrassment or something else.

'I don't know what you mean, Mike. I'm just a casual guy on a Saturday night enjoying a spot of – uhh, ah, t-table… watching.'

Rick taps his fingers slowly against the table. There's the smallest patch of drool drying at the side of his mouth and he turns it away from Mike's view. Mike's grinning at him.

'Of course you are.'

'What are – What are you up to, Mike?'

'I'm going to my bedroom. Nothing much interesting there but I'll be in it soon.'

Rick laughs nervously. 'Yeah?'

'Yeah.' Mike touches a hand to Rick's shoulder. 'Might I run into you there later?'

'Sure.' Rick's voice comes out breathier than he expects, but he supposes it's all still new. It's all still surprising. Still terrifying. Still brilliant. 'I'll be there.'

'Very good,' Mike says. Rick surreptitiously tries to wipe his mouth on his shoulder.

rick/neil:

'And I don't… and I don't think she likes me.'

'Well, she's stupid.'

'She's not, Rick. She's my mother.'

'I don't know, Neil. I don't know what to say.' Rick's voice trails into something small, and he leans over his bent knees to poke at the dirt at the bottom of the back steps. Neil can see it in his peripherals, but he keeps his eyes on the skyline, the jagged line of roofs digging into the blue. He's got his finger on his wrist to make sure his heart is still beating. It is. He forgets sometimes.

'You don't have to say anything. It was just that you asked.'

'Yeah.'

There's a shift in colour on the ground and Neil reluctantly moves his eyes toward it. It's a ladybird, determinedly crawling the mounds of dirt that Rick has been building. For one horrifying second, Neil thinks that when Rick jabs a finger out to it, he's intending to crush it. His heart stutters. But then Rick's finger settles just in front of it, and the ladybird climbs up onto his fingernail. He lifts it slowly to Neil's shoulder.

'It's just her generation.' Rick lets his arms dangle back between his legs. 'My parents are like that. They're a bunch of squares. I love them, because they're my parents but… I know what it's like, Neil.'

Neil turns his head as far as he can until the ladybird disappears behind his neck. He turns it to the other side to wait but the bug never re-emerges.

'You never seem like you've got any worries,' Neil says, and feels something like guilt lick up his ribs. That's selfish of him to say.

'I don't, not really. I'm great. Why should I have worries.' Rick is still looking down, but he doesn't seem sad. 'I'm a cracker at poetry and I've got great fashion sense and I've got the nicest boyfriend in the world. There's nothing I could complain about. Except the government regime.'

Neil turns his foot, so it touches Rick's. He's not sure he can say anything. He doesn't think he needs to. Rick knows.

mike/vyvyan:

Mike's got a nice shaped head for kissing. It's about the size of Vyv's hands, and Mike's ears are in just the right place to fit comfortably between his fingers. Mike doesn't like it, though, not usually. He says it makes him feel like a bird. Once he'd said that Vyvyan was meant to be the bird, and Vyvyan had said bloody a lot and thrown a punch at not-actually-Rick but a person nearby who looked vaguely like Rick, and then Mike had apologised and let Vyvyan hold his face while he kissed the hurt away. Vyvyan is becoming a stupid sop.

So Vyvyan doesn't hold Mike's face anymore, and Mike doesn't undermine him anymore, but sometimes, if Mike is in a very bad mood, or a very good mood, he'll grab Vyvyan's wrist and move his hand up to his face, and Vyvyan's heart will thud thud thud in the most punk pattern he's ever heard. Mike will half-stand on Vyvyan's feet and it doesn't do anything, doesn't make him taller, but it's nice and Vyvyan likes it. Vyvyan likes nearly everything about Mike. But his head the most. When Vyvyan's fingers touch at the back of Mike's hair, and Vyvyan thinks you've got the world under your thumb but I've got you under mine, just for now, just in this moment.

And the next day Vyvyan will smash his head against walls and jam his own fist into his face for being so stupid, stupid and soppy and disgusting and everything he's never wanted to be. And then he'll smile.

It's the most awful situation he's ever been in.