Heyhey, my sincerest apologies for how long this took. I was getting kinda worried this chapter was a bit slow and boring, but I'll leave y'all to be the judge of that.

Also injected into this chappie; some random S3 canon reference. Possibly to make up for the fact that the sequel to this, which will come eventually, will ignore certain aspects of this canon in a pretty big way.

But enough of me- have a cup of tea and enjoy at your leisure. xx

Street Kid

After a day or so of continuous walking, Vince came to a city. The city was called Leeds, and Vince thought it looked as good as any other place. He wandered the streets for a while, mildly amused by the local accent, before he found an empty building full of large rooms he could stay in. He didn't have anything with him besides the clothes he was wearing, so he found what he could. He pulled leaves from trees to use as insulation, and learned where he could find discarded items that weren't being watched.

He got by very well. He was safe, though he knew to keep himself to himself, he was warm and dry at night, he could get food…

He had it good.

He had also discovered the novelty of television. He found them in gadget shop windows, loads of them all showing the same thing at once. He wondered why so many screens were needed to show one show. Maybe only one person was supposed to look at a screen at once or something.

One day, he noticed the date in the corner. May the twelfth.

The realisation shocked him, and brought tears to his eyes. He thought back to last year, when Bryan had woken him up early, and he'd been really peed off at first, then he'd remembered what day it was and jumped out of bed and given Bryan a big hug, and Bryan had been so nice to him all day.

What would Bryan be doing now? Did he wonder where Vince was?

Tears began to flow down Vince's face. He really missed Bryan.

"You alright?" asked a voice behind him.

Vince wiped the tears from his eyes and looked behind him. A boy was standing there, a tall boy, older than Vince, or so he assumed.

Vince nodded, sniffling.

A look of awkward concern played on the other boy's face. "What's up?" he asked, sounding slightly nervous.

Vince sobbed a little before he was able to answer. "It's my birthday."

"Happy birthday," said the other boy, sounding positively baffled.

Vince just buried his head in his knees and kept on crying. He felt the other boy come over and sit next to him. He could feel the anxiousness, as the other boy's arms came closer and further away, unsure whether or not it would be appropriate to touch him.

"Is it… because no one's making a big deal out of it?" the boy asked. "Because that happens, eventually."

Vince kept on sniffling.

"How old are you?" the boy asked.

"Ten," Vince replied.

He heard the other boy's sympathetic intake of breath. "Oh, that's harsh," he said. "Your tenth's supposed to be your last good birthday till you're sixteen."

Vince looked up at the other boy, but the other boy wasn't looking at him. He was looking up, with a faraway look in his eyes and a smile on his face. "My tenth was in September. I had a huge party. Went to Laser Quest."

Vince shuddered. The other boy returned his gaze to him.

"Sorry," the boy said. He looked at Vince for a while. Vince was no longer crying, but he was still slumped and sad. "Do you wanna get an ice cream or something?"

Vince gave him a small smile. "Yeah, alright."

The other boy, who introduced himself as Howard Moon, offered to pay for Vince to have whatever he wanted. Vince naturally took him up on the offer, because he had no money of his own and had been stealing for the last few weeks. But he didn't ask for anything particularly expensive, as he didn't want to take advantage of the first friendly face he'd seen in far too long.

"Are you new here?" Howard asked him.

"Yeah," replied Vince. "I got here about three weeks ago."

"Where you from?"

"I used to live in the forest," Vince answered. "With Bryan Ferry."

"No way," said Howard. He stared at Vince expectantly for a while, expecting a different answer, but when none came he laughed and said "whatever," allowing himself to go along with it as long as it didn't prove unwise. "When are you starting school?"

School? Vince hadn't thought about it. Bryan had never expressed any wish to have him educated, but then Bryan had probably expected him to stay in the forest all his life. He hadn't planned to start at all. But would he have to now that he knew someone?

"Er, I wasn't going to," he said. The honest approach, because it made him feel closer to people.

"Really? Why not?" A look of comprehension suddenly came over him. "Oh," he said. "Are you one of those people that live in caravans?"

"In what?"

"Caravans," repeated Howard. Vince gave him a blank look. "You know, caravans. Like houses with wheels. You attach them to cars."

"Like a tour bus?" Vince asked.

"Sort of," said Howard. Vince could see that Howard thought he was a bit weird.

"No, I never lived in one of them," answered Vince. "Bryan did sometimes though."

"Okay…" said Howard. "But you should come to school next year. It's not that bad. Get your parents, or that Bryan guy, to put you down for it."

Vince looked down. He could feel the tears returning at the mention of Bryan's name.

"You alright?" Howard asked, a nervous break appearing in his voice.

"Yeah," replied Vince, choking slightly. "Sorry." He smiled.

"What's up?"

Vince wondered if he should tell him. He seemed nice, and he had tried to cheer Vince up, and bought him ice cream, and he was the first person Vince had had a proper conversation with in three weeks. He wanted to trust him. He needed to trust someone. He had been honest about school. Could he be honest about this?

He looked up into Howard's concerned eyes, studying them for a few torn moments.

"Can you keep a secret?" he asked.

Howard looked around the huge, sparse room. So this was what life was like for a runaway. He wasn't sure what he had expected. He knew the Artful Dodger was a glossed-over sensationalisation, and he had always thought that the streets at night couldn't possibly be as full of hidden dangers as his parents and people at school kept telling him, but he hadn't really expected street life to be like this. It was so… mundane. Vince had made his own home for himself and figured out how to live as normally as possible. He made it look so natural.

But then, Howard had to admit, Vince didn't seem like other kids. He doubted that anyone else could have handled living alone so well. He didn't think he would.

Howard grinned. It might be mundane, and it might be dirty, and it might be a few used blankets in the corner of a room in an abandoned factory unit, but it was so exciting!

He made Vince tell him everything, not wanting any detail spared. He liked watching Vince's face light up, seeing the different emotions playing across his features. He threw his whole body into telling a story.

Howard could have listened to him all day. If he didn't have to be home by half past five. Cursing his overprotective mother, he apologised to Vince and said he had to leave.

"Oh, okay," said Vince, looking a little downcast.

Howard couldn't help feeling sorry for him. Besides which, he really quite liked him. Smiling, he pulled Vince a little closer to him and whispered in his ear "Meet me by the shops at seven."

Then he walked away, waving at his new friend.

Vince turned up as asked, a little early because of the nerves.

Seven o' clock came and went.

Five past.

Ten past.

Was he not coming? Didn't he mean it earlier? Had it just been a cruel joke?

He'd seemed so nice.

Running footsteps thumped on the pavement. "Sorry!" he heard Howard call. He grinned to see the flushed boy running round the corner. "My Mum," he explained, slightly out of breath. "Making sure I go straight there and straight back, and I'm back by half eight… You're so lucky not to have one."

In truth, Vince was missing having someone who worried about him and cared for him. But he decided not to say anything.

"Anyway," Howard continued, pushing a small box into his hands. "Happy birthday."

Vince opened the box, and a huge grin spread over his face. Howard had bought him cake. "Thank you!" he said, smiling.

Howard had gone pink and looked awkward. Vince threw his arms around him, which if anything made him more awkward.

"Er, no problem," mumbled Howard. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" asked Vince.

"Surprise," replied Howard, leading him away.

Howard led him down various streets, with Vince persistently asking for hints as to where they were going. But Howard refused to tell.

"Not till we get there," he kept giggling.

He kept Vince guessing all the way, and when Vince got there he still didn't know where he was.

"It's a bowling alley," Howard told him, before he even opened his mouth.

Bryan had told him about bowling. He had gone once with Brian Eno when he was on tour, but Brian Eno had been thrown out for repeatedly bowling so slowly that the ball stopped halfway down the lane and the staff had to keep going to get them back.

Vince soon discovered he was absolutely terrible. He could see Howard going easy on him, but he still ended two games with less than half Howard's score. On the way out, he jokingly tried to push Howard down the stairs. "You're only supposed to do that to old ladies," Howard giggled.

Vince was slightly confused. Maybe this was one of those strange customs of civilisation Bryan was always going on about.

He didn't miss Bryan any more. Well, he did, but not really. He didn't know if that was wrong or not, but in a way that didn't matter any more because there was no one there to punish him for it, and in any case it didn't feel so bad to him. He had had fun on his birthday without Bryan's presence, and all things considered, that must mean his life in civilisation was going well.

"Oh crap, it's half eight, my Mum's gonna kill me!" Howard suddenly yelped. Shouting a quick goodbye, he ran off round a corner. "I still think you're lucky," he added, popping his head round, then leaving again.

Vince smiled. He set off back towards his room in the factory, realising that he really was the luckiest person in the world.

Howard leant on the side of the phonebox, his face twisted with effort to stop himself laughing at Vince's high-pitched impersonation of his imaginary mother.

"Yes… yes… thank you…"

Suddenly Vince's own strained grin contorted into a look of panic. "They want me to go and sign some forms," he mouthed.

"Tell them your son will collect them and bring them back," Howard whispered.

"Erm… I'm quite busy sorting things out," Vince said in his high woman's voice. "I'll get my son to pick them up from you and bring them back when they're signed." He mouthed his thanks to Howard. "Okay, good, thank you, bye." He hung up the phone.

The two burst out laughing simultaneously, and didn't stop most of the way to the LEA office.

"Don't laugh at me," Vince said outside.

"I won't," replied Howard, his face cracking already.

"You will. Don't," pouted Vince.

He went inside and strode up to the reception desk, and prepared to use a technique that Bryan had called "turning on the charm" or "brainwashing", depending on what mood he was in at the time. It was a simple technique which he'd perfected with the help of most of the animals in Bryan Ferry's forest, none of whom had ever been able to resist it for long. Not even that iguana that went blind.

He just widened his eyes, gave a big grin and brazenly asked for what he wanted. Worked every time.

When he came out, Howard stared at him with his mouth open. Vince flashed him his magic smile and grabbed him by the wrist. "Come on," he laughed.

Howard gave Vince a lesson in forging signatures ("Make sure you've got them written down or you'll forget what they look like, and that'll cause all kinds of problems,"), the forms were returned with the same big sweet smile, and five weeks later, Vince was ready to start school.

Howard waited for him on the first day by the school gates. Vince looked quite excited, but the grin on his face wavered slightly when he saw the sad, worried look that must have been quite evident on Howard's face.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Maybe you shouldn't have bothered with school," Howard replied, guilt making his voice quiet.

"What? Why?"

Howard pointed over across the playground to a tall man in a suit. "Mr Hughes," he said. "Nightmare."

Vince regarded him. "Is he our teacher?" he asked.

Howard nodded.

Vince scrutinised him some more. "He can't be all that bad," Vince assessed. "He doesn't look bad, and if you care about your appearance then you probably care about other things too."

Howard just shook his head. He'd had an incident with this particular teacher once, in Year Four, when Howard had been suspended by one arm from a drainpipe, only a few feet off the ground, completely able to get down and only there in the spirit of helping some younger, much smaller kids, but this tyrant had still insisted on telling his parents about it, and his parents hadn't been happy. Vince really was lucky to have no parents to tell, he decided.

"You two, over here please," the tall, imposing figure snapped, indicating the line the rest of their class had formed. They hurried over, Howard stumbling nervously and Vince in a light jog.

"Morning," Vince said brightly.

The teacher didn't reply. He looked Vince up and down with a critical glare. "Young man, where is the school logo on your blazer?"

Vince answered with no hesitation and no sense of fear. Howard felt it his duty to grimace for him.

"Oh, I'm not very good at embroidery, but I'm getting better. Would you believe it only took me three tries to make the blazer?"

Howard gaped at Vince's uniform. True, he had thought the colours looked a little bit brighter than everyone else's, but he had put it down to the light. The idea that Vince could have made the whole thing himself… no way. How could he be that good at it?

Mr Hughes was also eyeing Vince with a glower Vince seemed to be oblivious to. "May I remind you," he seethed, "that all uniform is to be purchased from the official supplier."

Vince looked up at him, a slight flicker of apprehension just starting to play across is features. "But I- we don't have the money for it."

The teacher stalked off down the line, and Howard thought he noticed his unpleasant mind-cogs working.

Vince picked up school life quickly. He just about got by in most subjects, though he struggled in Maths and excelled in Art. He was even getting popular, not just with Howard's friends but with everyone else as well. Sometimes he thought Howard might be getting slightly jealous of him. He just hoped that his constant hugging was enough to reassure Howard that he was still his best friend.

There had been a slight disaster on Howard's eleventh birthday, which had ended in Vince running through the backstreets and spending several hours hiding from a man who had claimed to have a bouncy castle for hire in exchange for discarded manhole covers, which to add insult to injury, meant that Vince had completely wasted the previous two weeks he had spent stealing the manhole covers from the drains in the first place. Apparently the result had been terrible for both of them, but if Vince was any judge of character then something big and chocolate-covered from the lady with all the cats who lived near the bus shelter a few streets away from him would hopefully make up for it.

And it did. Eventually.

Vince would really have loved to finish that year at school. He would have loved to have spent the summer holidays with Howard, and then gone on to high school with him. But it wasn't to be.

Some time at the beginning of April, a note was delivered to the classroom.

"Vince," Mr Hughes announced. "Someone in the office wants to see you."

He gave a questioning glance in Howard's direction. Howard shrugged.

Vince got up and made his way to the office. He wasn't in trouble was he? He didn't see how he could be. He hadn't done anything. How could he get into trouble for something he didn't remember doing? It wasn't like the incident with the chilli chocolate. Unless someone had found out that when that surge of bets as to which teachers would go menopausal first had been going round, it had been him and Howard setting the odds. But then it wasn't like those odds weren't just made-up numbers anyway. Vince didn't even know what "menopausal" actually meant.

"Vince Noir?" the receptionist said, smiling. "In there."

She led him to a meeting room. She didn't sound angry, far from it, but he had never been called into a meeting room before. There were two people in there, a man and a woman in suits, smiling and trying to look friendly.

"Hello, Vince," said the woman, shaking his hand.

He took it, and then did the same to the man.

"Don't be nervous, we just want to have a little talk with you about how things are at home," the woman continued. "Just to make sure that everything's alright."

"It is," said Vince, perhaps a little too quickly. He noticed them exchange a quick look.

"Sit down," said the woman. "Now, we've noticed something a little bit odd about the address your parents gave us. You see, according to the records, that house is owned by a Mr and Mrs George Periwinkle."

"Yeah, we're the lodgers," answered Vince.

"I see," said the woman, looking a tiny bit irate, though she was doing a pretty good job of trying to hide it. "So if I was to call that house right now, I could ask to speak to Juanita or Nikolai Noir right now?"

"Not right now; they're at work."

"And what do your parents do?" the woman asked.

"Mum's a photographer and Dad's a travel agent."

He was starting to relax now. This should be easy. He and Howard had spent ages coming up with his parents' backstories. It had been Howard who had convinced him to give his parents normal jobs instead of being a supermodel and a stuntman like Vince had wanted, but Vince had insisted on the names, which were his two favourites, and the fact that both his parents had been eighteen when he was born, because that was cool.

"Where were you living before you moved here?" the woman asked.

"We travelled a lot," Vince replied. "We spent a year in Mexico, then before that there were a few months in Iceland, and Norway-"

"Vince," the woman interrupted. "It really is astonishing how much effort you've put into this story, but we have reason to believe you're actually homeless and living alone. Is this true?"

"No," Vince replied with all the conviction of a man on trial.

The woman sighed. "Vince, you're obviously a very clever boy, and we just want you to have all the best opportunities. Someone will meet you after school and take you somewhere we can help you. That's what we want to do; we want to help you."

She had put her hand on Vince's shoulder. Vince did his best to smile through the tears welling up in his eyes. "Okay."

He told Howard about his interview at break time, as soon as they could get away from everyone else. Howard was horrified. It didn't matter what social services or whoever they were could offer Vince; it would take away the essence that was Vince. He was the street kid who knew odd shady dealers and made his own clothes. It was just who Vince was.

"You'll have to go somewhere they'll never find you," Howard told him. "Like… London or something."

"London?" he asked. So far? What about his friends? What about Howard?

"Yeah. Tell you what," Howard whispered. "We'll sneak out at lunchtime, and you can get a train to London."

Vince couldn't concentrate in his next lesson. He was shaking so badly he could barely hold the pen, and did next to no work. But it didn't matter. Because he wouldn't be there tomorrow.

He and Howard managed to sneak through the school gates while no one was looking. They took a detour to Howard's house, where thankfully no one was in, and Howard took some money from a cabinet, and he confided in Vince that he hoped his mum didn't notice for a few weeks at least.

After that, they made their way to the train station. Howard bought the ticket, as he looked somewhat older than he was, and he thought people might be a little less suspicious. Half an hour later they were on the platform, the doors to the train open.

"Come with me," Vince begged.

"I can't," Howard replied. "My parents…"

And then he realised just how important his parents were to him, and how much Vince was really missing.

"All passengers now board please," a tinny voice announced from a tannoy.

Vince wrapped his arms around Howard, finally letting himself cry, and he looked up and realised Howard was doing the same. Tears streaming, he pulled away and boarded the train. As it moved away, he pressed his cheek to the window, and watched, waving and weeping, until Howard had disappeared far into the distance.