I fear this fic is reaching the end now =[… probably only one, maybe two more chapters! I'm gonna miss it.

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Richmond…


Richmond was next to leave. Though this was less shock and more inconvenient good fortune.

"Oxford?!" Howard asked, "How?"

The boy with bright blue eyes and short mousy brown hair shrugged his shoulders lightly. "I wrote them a letter and they wrote one back saying they wanted me. They said I'm a real go getter, a real punchy character. Do I amaze you?" His parents looked at him with disbelief.

"I don't think your ours." Vince said after a moment. "Maybe Justin Hawkins got in on our cuddle Howard."

"The singer from the Darkness?"

"No. The one that sounds like a robot's hiding in his voice box."

"Steven Hawkins?"

"Yeah, that's him. I reckon he was involved because neither of us are that clever."

"Speak for yourself, sir. I am an intellectual."

"You're not! You didn't even go to university and the lowest Richmond's ever got in an exam is 89%."

"Oh. Biology. That was disappointing." Richmond remembered, eyes glazing over.

"Oi." Howard said, shaking his son's shoulders. "Stop doing that. And Vince, he is ours. However intelligent he is."

"We're very proud of you, Richmond." Vince agreed, turning back to his son, "Very proud. You wait, in a few years time you'll be running some massive corporate industry."

"Mmm, like that place I went on work experience. There was a woman there who gave me a biscuit to eat which had jam that looked like blood in it. Then she gave me a job to do in with the computer but all the wrong things kept beeping and whirring, so I just looked away."

"Are you sure you're a super genius?" Howard asked as his son rambled on.

"So they say." Richmond paused, and then; "D'you think if you ate a cockroach it would survive in your stomach?"

*

"Think of the financial strain Vince." Howard groaned, as he looked through the profits from the Nabootique and the amount of money it was going to cost to send Richmond to Oxford.

"We'll survive." Vince reassured him, kissing him on the cheek. "We always do."

"Hmm." Howard frowned as he ran through the figures again.

"Howard." smiled Vince, settling himself on his partner's lap, "I think you should stop worrying. We've got a son going to Oxford! It's incredible."

"It is. It's incredible we've even got sons. It's not often that I'm glad you don't followed the rules but our sons are the exception."

"Yeah, well rules are meant for breaking."

"But you broke the rules of the nature."

"I'm a maverick." Vince grinned cheekily, putting on his best impression of Howard "I see a boundary, I eat a boundary and wash it down with a cup of hot steaming rules."

"That's my thing!" Howard exclaimed.

"I follow no predetermined ideals, sir."

"I end things with sir, not you!"

"Yeah, but you actually do follow rules. That's the funny thing. I don't, I mean, I don't even do genders - I'm bringing androgyny to the forefront of fashion. I'm a pioneer of fashion and electro music, well, I'm not pioneering electro so much as bringing it back. I'm giving Numan CPR, and resuscitating…"

But Howard never found out who Vince and resuscitated because he kissed him then, as much to shut him up as anything else. They kissed lazily for a while, they never got tired of it. Maybe it was because they had to sneak moments like this when the boys weren't around but kissing made them feel like teenagers snogging behind the bike sheds. They loved the thrill of almost getting caught. It added spice to things.

"Hmmm, that was nice." Vince smiled, as he pulled away, his eyes still half closed in lazy exhilaration.

"Mm, I'm just teaching you CPR." Howard explained. "For when Numan needs it."

"I don't think he'd appreciate it, if I did that to him."

"Ah, you never know, little man."

*

When the day finally came to drop their son off at the gates to Oxford University, they'd never been prouder and tight finances had been totally forgotten. Vince and Howard had told Vinward he had to come with them, so he'd dragged Jones along too, claiming that when he got to Oxford he wanted to know there was at least one person thicker than him there. Jones had kicked him for that and the tiniest of scraps had broken out in the back seat.

The car journey seemed to take forever and it didn't help that there was the constant humming of snide comments firing across the back seats. They got there, eventually, and Jones leapt out of the car like a caged animal. Richmond and Vinward followed at a slower pace.

"Wow! Rich! This place is amazing!" cried Jones, jigging from foot to foot, "It's like a castle and a mansion and all old fashioned!"

"Mm, it's okay I suppose."

"Hey look," Vinward said, picking a student at random and pointing them out, "That boy is a genius. And so's that one. And the girl. And that girl, she's a genius… and rather attractive if I do say so myself." He said as he gazed at the pretty, bespectacled, brunet in the distance. "The perfect girl for a future man of action like myself."

"She looks a bit bland." frowned Jones, screwing his face up as he eyed all her brown cardigan, covering a cream shirt. "She needs some colour and glitter in her life."

"What do you know about girls?"

"Enough to know she ain't gonna be interested in you."

"Perhaps we could make a little wager."

"Okay, I bet you my decks." Jones said smugly. "Against your collection of 'stationary through the ages' that you can't get her number."

Vinward considered this for a second. There were some really priceless bits of stationary in his collection; King Henry VIII's pen, Merlin's tipex and Big Face Jefferson's ruler. That wasn't to be taken lightly but this was in the bag surely. He was fantastic with women, they just fell down at his feet. So he said;

"Fine. Watch and learn little Jonesy." And strolled off across the yard with severely misplaced confidence.

"She's not going to be interested in him." Richmond said in Jones' ear.

"I know." he giggled gleefully, "Fiver says she slaps him."

"I don't gamble."

"You're so boring. Hey, maybe you should go and try for a date with someone. What about her?" Jones said, indicating a plump girl, waddling past with stacks of books balancing precariously in her arms.

"No."

"Her?" he pointed at a different girl, who was sobbing as she said goodbye to her parents.

"No."

"Her?" he pointed at a beautiful, blonde girl with legs that went on forever and hair that shone like gold; skin lightly tanned and blinding white teeth. Jones was kind of glad to discover later on that she was only there to say goodbye to a friend because if she's been that beautiful and that intelligent it would have been thoroughly unfair.

"No." Richmond shook his head determinedly.

"You into guys now or something?" Jones asked, clearly convinced that that was the kind of girl every straight man fancied, "What about him?" Jones pointed out a tall, muscular boy, with floppy blonde hair falling into his dark brown eyes. He was balancing a football on his finger, whilst talking to a group of girls, who were all falling over themselves to be closer to him.

"He's clearly not gay."

"He is. He's bent like a hair pin. He's just in denial." Jones promised, as he caught the blonde boy's eye, flashed a beautiful grin and gave a flirtatious wave, causing the boy to blush furiously and drop the ball. "Told ya." Jones grinned proudly.

"Well, no. Not him." Richmond sighed, "Though I don't think I'd mind, boy or girl. Their skeletons are all the same."

Jones cocked an eyebrow and then pointed excitedly at an attractive young lady slouched against a wall, looking thoroughly unimpressed by everything around her.

"What about her? She looks a bit like you."

"Jones, leave him alone will you." warned Howard as he finally emerged from the car.

"Fine." he sulked, "I'll go save Vin before that girl slaps him." Then there was a loud cracking sound as flesh met flesh and he smirked slightly as he tried to suppress a laugh; "Oops, too late."

Jones did laugh though, when Vinward started to walk back nursing his sore cheek; even Richmond raised a half smile.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do with all that new stationary." Jones said casually to Richmond as soon as Vinward got within ear shot. "Might give it to Dan. He's chewed through all his other pens."

Vinward visibly cringed at the thought of Jones' friend munching through the end of Queen Victoria's priceless parker.

"I'm not giving you the stationary collection." he snapped. "Because that wasn't my fault. I pulled out all by best moves, she just wasn't interested. She was clearly a lesbian. That's unfair."

"What even though she's flirting with that other boy?" Jones inquired politely.

"Look it wasn't my fault." Vinward insisted. "I don't know what went wrong."

"I think, unfortunately for you Vin, you're got Howard's way with the ladies." laughed Vince, which provoked a tiny little 'disagreement' between himself and Howard.

"Where's your halls, Richie?" Jones asked excitedly, everything excited him.

"It's Richmond. And they're down there… I think. I'm not really sure." He said studying the map he'd been given. "But I haven't registered yet. I havn't got the key."

"S'ok. We'll get in." Jones beamed, grabbing Vinward's arm and legging it off in the direction Richmond had indicated. No one had any doubt that Jones would be able to charm his way in, he could charm even the most miserable of people.

"So, dad" Richmond looked at Vince, "dad." he looked at Howard. "Umm, I'm not very good at goodbye, I tend to just disappear so that no one notices. I was ever there. Disappear like a burglar in the night."

"We know Richmond." Howard smiled, remembering so many times in the past that Richmond would just vanish from a room when things began to get tense or awkward, or hide on a ceiling when he was avoiding confrontation and difficult moments. By the time Howard had finished his internal trip down memory lane, Richmond was nowhere to be seen.

"Where did he go?" Howard asked nudging Vince in the ribs.

"I have no idea." Vince shrugged. "I turned around to look at that kid's genius boots and when I looked back, he was gone."

*

"Sooo." smirked Vinward, from his position lazing on the bed as he watched his brother running around Richmond's room touching everything and then replacing it quickly in case Richmond noticed. "How's it going with you and Dan?"

"Brilliant." Jones beamed.

"Well, if I ever see him, he looks miserable as hell."

"Yeah, he always looks like that but… that's just his job. He's got a new one now though, starts tomorrow at Sugar Ape. Apparently it's much better. A real step up. He's happier already."

"Oh look at you." Vinward groaned, throwing a pillow at his brother's head.

"What?" Jones asked, brushing his hair back into place as the offending item landed softly on the floor.

"You're so in love. It's actually sickening."

"Shut up!" Jones grinned. "Anyway, what about you and Lauren?"

"What about us?"

"Oh come on, you've been friends since you were born, virtually. You're inseparable. When are you gonna admit that you love her?"

"I don't."

"Rubbish. You're just like Dad Howard. He told us he loved Dad Vince ever since he met him and they didn't actually get together until after we were born. That's gonna happen to you and Lauren."

"Well, it wont. We wont be able to have kids unless we get together."

"Our dad's did."

"But those were special circumstances. Why? You're not get broody are you, Jonesy? Thinking of stealing some of Naboo's Ovary Juice, having a few sprogs yourself?"

"As if! God, imagine that. I have to look after this figure in the industry I'm in and I don't think Dan's got the hips for child bearing. Anyway, I reckon the shock of kids would kill him." he chuckled at the thought, "But it doesn't matter coz we're both men."

"Well." Vinward eyed Jones' hair, make up and look-at-me clothes sceptically.

"Shut up, what I'm saying is. We're not really supposed to have kids. But you and Lauren are made for each other."

"Things aren't that simple Jones."

"Course they are."

"Only in your tiny little world of beats and Dan."

"There's more to me than that. I am a very complex person."

"Ha! You're about as complex as a bowl."

"Stop arguing." Richmond groaned as he strolled into his increasingly cramped room. "You're acting like you're in a trance."

"He, on the other hand," Vinward continue, jerking a thumb at Richmond, "is like Einstein's theory of relativity."

Jones laughed (though he didn't entirely understand) and Richmond rolled his eyes.

"You nervous then Rich?" Jones asked, blunt as ever.

"No. It's just school but bigger."

"It's not. Everyone here is like Newton and Einstein added together." Jones said.

"Yeah, what are you doing here Richmond?" joked Vinward.

"I was asked."

"You don't have a sense of humour, do you?" Vinward smirked.

"No."

Just then Jones' phone went off in his pocket, sending a bizarre mix of electro, sirens and screeching breaks into the otherwise peaceful air.

"Oh, here we go. I bet it's Danny-boy begging you to come home." Vinward smirked.

"It's dad actually. Hello… yeah, yeah alright we're coming now... You wouldn't leave without us?… alright, alright you would. See you in a bit."

He hung up and looked at Vinward, "I think we'd better go." he sighed.

Then he threw his arms around Richmond's neck. "Good luck." he said, "And don't go trying to leave our family just because you're some big shot Oxford boy. You don't get rid of us that easily."

"I wouldn't." Richmond promised, removing his identical brother's almost vice like grip. "It'll be good to have a few nut jobs to return to after a disappointing term."

"Well, bye Richmond." Vinward added, holding out his hand. Richmond took it and they shook awkwardly.

"Oh just hug you two. Go on Vinnie, you're not going to see him for months." Suddenly, Jones wrapped his arms around both his brothers and brought them into a big group hug.


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