Vince stretched an arm out in the direction of bedside table and mumbled something inaudible.

"huh?" Howard asked, as he brushed the other man's hair with his fingers.

"Need a cig." was the whiney, muffled response.

"You're half asleep, if you smoke now you'll set fire to the bed."

The younger man rolled round to look at Howard and smiled sleepily.

"But I always have a fag after mind-blowing sex."

Howard smiled and leant over the younger man, kissing him sweetly, as he fumbled blindly at the bedside table trying to find the small box.

"Where are they?"

"Draw." was the mumble.

"When did you do this place up anyway?" Howard asked, looking around the carpeted, furnished attic space.

"Ages ago. Used the money from the job on Cadburys. That was the best. £50,000 and more chocolate than you could dream of."

"50?" Howard asked as his fingers brushed with a half empty box of fags. Howard didn't want to think about what, or who had caused the use of the other half. "I'd have thought you'd have got more than that."

"Well, Bollo and Hitcher did didn't they. Not me though, coz I was just a kid back then."

"Right."

Howard lit a cigarette and took a long drag before pressing it to Vince lips. He took a couple of puffs before lolling back onto the pillows and cuddling up to Howard. His eyes closed, his breathing shallow Vince looked like some kind of male model, beautiful and innocent. Howard couldn't help but smile as he took another long drag from the cigarette.

"Stop it."

Howard jumped. He was sure Vince had been asleep.

"What?"

"Stop watching me when I'm sleeping. It's weird."

Howard chuckled to himself, as he stubbed the fag out. "I haven't seen you for ten years. I've missed you."

"You've gone soft, old man." Vince scorned, his voice quiet and heavy with sleep.

"I haven't. I ain't gonna forgive you for not coming to see me. Not even once. Not even in disguise."

"Hitcher wouldn't let me. Reckoned I'd get arrested too."

"He looked out for you then?"

"Yeah. Kicked me out after a year though."

"Why?"

"He was sick of me and he was terrified you were gonna turn up and twist his neck clean off his body. Every time he yelled at me, he'd look around all nervous like you'd jump out from behind a plant and gun him down. Then he realised you weren't gonna turn up and he got less nervous."

"Did he hurt you?"

"No, course not. Just told me to get out. Like I said he was sick of me. I ain't even lived with you that long, you'll be sick of me after a year and all."

"Never."

"Told you you'd gone soft." Vince smiled, bumping their noses together gently. "And he wouldn't let me keep Naboo at the house so I had to mo-"

"Oh not that fucking cat!" Howard cut in angrily. "Isn't it dead yet?"

"Fuck you." Vince snapped, turning away from Howard and shuffling to the far edge of the bed huffily. Howard didn't care. He wasn't going to apologize to the twat.

"How did you drive my car? You didn't have the keys." he said eventually.

It took a while for the answer to come, as though Vince had considered blanking him as some kind of punishment for insulting Naboo but he was too proud of his achievement not to say anything at all.

"I Hotwired it." he said smugly

"You can hotwire a car?" smirked Howard.

"Fuck you. I'm not as shit at being a criminal as you think I am."

"Ha! You're just as shit at being a criminal as I think you are." Howard said softly, tracing a finger down Vince's protruding vertebrae "who taught you that?" he added as he began to walk his fingers back up, marvelling at how soft and delicate he seemed, knowing he was neither.

"Hitcher. He's taught me a whole load of new things."

Howard felt almost saddened by this. Somehow, lying with Vince in this attic had made him forget that the last ten years had existed it at all. He forgot that Vince 'the naïve kid with a knife' was now Vince 'the streetwise man with a gun'. He forgot that everything had carried on just as it had before. He forgot that whilst he'd spent all his time in the cell Vince had been getting on with his life. His thoughts returned to the empty box of post-sex fags.

"Vince?" he whispered, hardly wanting to disturb the peace. This was something that was burning every which way inside him. The thing that he both needed to know and was terrified of knowing."Mm." was the sleepy response.

"Has there been anyone else… whilst I was banged up?"

The silence that followed was louder and said more than any words ever could. Howard pulled his hand away from the younger man and through gritted teeth he uttered;

"That's a 'yes' then?"

"Howard." Vince began slowly, carefully picking his words. "I think it would be better if neither of us ask questions we don't want to know the answer to."

"That is a 'yes'." Howard felt his anger sparking.

"That's a 'drop it'."

"And what d'you mean neither of us should ask questions? I've been in prison, what exactly could I have done?"

"I don't know, you tell me."

"What?!" Howard was riled and even more irritatingly, Vince now appeared to be having the time of his life.

"Who's Gregg?" he said with smug certainty.

"Ho- wh- Y-… what?" Howard said, corpsing like an under-rehearsed actor, though, to be fair, no amount of rehearsing would have prepared him for what came next. "I found a picture." Vince smiled somewhat triumphantly, getting laboriously out of the bed and picking his way through the scattered clothes until he found Howard's jacket. He went rummaging in the pocket and pulled out a crumpled picture.

"To Howard." he read aloud, "I drew this so you wouldn't forget the cell-times."

Howard cursed himself for ever taking the time to teach Vince to read.

"And there's a picture." the younger man continued, "Umm, that's you, the aggressor, as always, and I'm assuming that's him. He seems to be enjoying himself." Vince was giggling by now, "look at that big smile on his face. And here's a speech bubble of him asking if you love him. You better have said 'no'."

"That didn't even happen." Howard growled.

"Bullshit! Look how red and shifty you've gone." he shrieked indignantly, then he walked back to the bed slowly and smiled softly, saying; "I don't mind though. Ten years is a long time, right? But if I ever see this Gregg bloke. I'm gonna stab him up until he's bleeding from places he didn't know existed, capiche?"

"Capiche? Why're you talking like a Italian mafia man?"

"Eh" Vince said in a fairly convincing Italian accent, "I am Italianano, no. My momma, she make-a the best pizzas, they are just-a…mwah." he kissed the ends of his fingers and grinned at Howard broadly, who just looked back and said;

"What the hell was that?"

"Good, weren't it? I went undercover in an Italian restaurant last year. I reckon I make a good Italian."

"No, your too pale."

"Get screwed."

"So, did you meet these people you fucked at the restaurant?"

"Stop asking questions when you know the answers gonna make you mad." Vince sighed, sitting heavily on the end of the bed.

"Why won't you tell me?"

"What're you gonna do if I tell you? Shoot em?"

"Maybe." Howard replied casually, he hadn't really thought that far ahead."Where would that leave us, eh? You banged up for another ten years. Probably longer. And I swear to God Howard, if you go back inside, I ain't gonna wait for you again."

"You didn't exactly wait this time!" roared Howard, something inside him snapping as hideous images popped mercilessly into his head. One after the other, his heart cracking a little as each one appeared. Each more graphic than the last.

"Calm down Howard. None of them meant anything, they were just nameless, faceless strangers who helped me through the nights when I missed you the most.""None of them?!" Howard was beside himself, he was being driven by something else. And it was something else that slapped Vince so hard his neck nearly snapped and it was something else that left Vince clutching at his face, whimpering softly and it was something else that went to sleep on the old familiar sofa.

However, it was Howard that Vince found an hour later, led on the sofa with red, bloodshot eyes (not from crying but because "I'm allergic to… flowers" "There aren't any flowers in the room Howard." "Shut up."). And it was Howard, who let Vince curl up at his side on the tiny sofa and it was Howard who pressed a gentle kiss into the black hair, whispering tearfully (damned allergies striking up again); "I love you… so much".