Thank you to my reviewers, much luff to you.

And sorry I've been a while writing this one, I've been busy with college work.. the next chapters may take a while too. Especially with Christmas nearly here. 0


Mike was already downstairs when Vyvyan arrived, sitting at the kitchen table and calmly reading the day's newspaper, just as he had done for the last thirty or so years. Vyvyan gave a small 'good morning' nod, trying not to notice the dark shadows that had collected like miniature unwanted storm clouds of portent doom beneath his housemate's eyes.

Before there could be a chance for awkward conversation, they were joined by the other two, Neil moaning peevishly that he was late for work. He cast around with lethargic urgency for his raincoat and florist's bag of tricks before remembering he had been fired and falling still with a dejectedly opined "Oh. Yeah."

This was followed by a few moments of uncertain silence as the night's dreams flooded back into their collective heads, making them shift uncomfortably, avoiding each other's eye contact by taking an interest in things that had previously gone unnoticed by them their whole entire life – their shoes, the ceiling - Vyv even wandered over to the teapot and examined it.

There was the rustle of a newspaper being folded up. "House meeting in the cupboard under the stairs in three and a half seconds." Mike announced, standing up with an air of decisiveness.

Rick dropped the biscuit that had been making its way to his hungry mouth as if he had been scalded… which he hadn't as the biscuit hadn't just been taken from the oven, but from a very mouldy looking biscuit tin. His eyes narrowed and darted suspiciously from the general direction of the cupboard under the stairs, down to his paunch of middle age origin, one hand flattening against it as a pregnant woman will attend to her paunch of motherhood. "I don't think…" He began, but everyone had already gone leaving him to finish with "…That's a very good idea," to an empty kitchen.

A few seconds later Rick was begrudgingly squeezing himself into the designated cupboard, holding his breath and sucking in his gut as much as was medically possible.

"You're late," Mike observed, consulting his watch even though it was almost pitch black inside the cupboard.

"Sorry, Mike."

"After what happened yesterday I had a very good think about our situation, and came to the conclusion that we're in some Dire Straits here, and I don't mean the band."

The sounds of whining amps and guitar tuning abruptly fell silent and became irked grumbles as the British rock band of 'Brothers In Arms' fame threw down their instruments and trooped out, threatening to sue their agent for lying about the Young Ones gig.

Mike carried on regardless, whilst Neil pouted. "We've wasted our youth, our lives, our studenthood… I don't mean to be the bringer of bad news, but I've got some bad news – we're old ones now, there isn't much time left, we need to have one last final fling to show the world that we haven't forgotten how to live. We need to go out with a bang."

For a second it seemed as if the cupboard had broken out into spontaneous applause, but it was only Vyvyan trying to flatten a droning fly between his palms. "I thought you said you'd put the flypaper up?" He demanded of Neil, purposefully missing his winged target and clapping his hands painfully over both of the aged hippy's ears, making them ring. "And stop doing your bell impression, it's boring!"

"Well, that's all very well and good Mike, but –"

"Shut up, virgin!" The punk roared into his good buddy Rick's ear (he seemed to have a particular vendetta against the ear that morning).

"Then we're all agreed?" Mike enquired after a moderately sized silence, filled only with the buzzing of the winged intruder and the ringing of both Neil's and Rick's ears… okay, so there was hardly a silence at all, but it sounds more dramatic, right? Good.

"How big exactly is this 'bang' going to be?" The People's Poet enquired in a somewhat sulky tone, still wary of the tender-hearted Vyv lurking in the dark beside him.

"How long is a piece of string?" Was the cryptic reply, the cupboard door opening as the miniscule house leader made his way back out into the hallway.

"About as long as you cut it?" Neil measured the ideal length of a piece of string between his hands, frowning in thought.

"That's exactly right Neil, well done."

"Oh, oh yeah, thanks Mike."

"Now come on, my plan's perfectly simple, all we need to do is get some water pistols, rob a bank, try to make a getaway in Vyv's car but crash it into a tree, so steal a bus instead and drive off into the sunset to live out the rest of our lives in the Copa Cabana."

"Guys, guys…" The hippy moaned fearfully as the other three men wandered off, talking over the plans in greater detail with the excitement of people who are excited about something. "I'm getting déjà vu…"