I'm so sorry for the huge delay, I've been distracted by wrapping up the school year and celebrating the holidays. I will update sooner in the upcoming time!

Also, the talented red-river-prince/Yama made this beautiful drawing for this fic:
post/91229868530/red-river-prince-illustration-for-a-fic-by


It was a very boring day in the house of the four students -now temporarily reduced to three. Even more boring than usual. He'd given all his comics away and Vyvyan was still in the bloody hospital. He'd always found Vyvyan disturbing the peace and quiet with his violent nonsense annoying, but not having him around was also kind of… weird. It had been two weeks now since he was hospitalized, and he would be for least for another week. Things had become slightly more peaceful in their household, but also much more boring. Rick sat on the couch, staring into nothingness.

"God, I wonder how bored Vyvyan must be, lying awound in the same woom all day, tied to all these machines", he sighed dramatically. "He must be even more bored than we are!"

"Well at least he has a couple of hot birds to take care of him every day", Mike commented from behind his paper. "That's more than we can say".

"Yeah, that's true", Rick had to admit, although he didn't exactly like the thought of Vyvyan being surrounded by hot birds.

Neil, who was sitting on the floor, cutting out shapes from origami paper, didn't comment.

"What are you doing, Neil?" Rick scorned. "Making a bit of art nouveau, are you?"

"It's for Vyvyan", Neil said. "I'm making him a postcard, right. And I'm making all of us out of origami paper and then glue them of the card, right. It's like, completely self-made and everything. Look, I'll show you". He searched through the pile of paper and held up a cut out little figure with a blue jacket and orange, spunky hair. "This is Vyv".

Rick stared at it. "Why has it got hair?"

"What do you mean?" Neil asked, confused.

"That one has hair. Vyvyan doesn't have any hair, does he? He's lost it all because he's sick! Have a bit of wespect, Neil".

"I know that, Rick!" Neil called out. "I'm just…"

"Guys, guys!" Mike shouted. They were quiet immediately. "What do you say we go see Vyv, huh?"

In a just few minutes they all stood by the car, and after Rick and Neil had a fight about who had to sit in the backseat, (Neil lost) they had a silent drive to the hospital. Rick was confused. On one hand, he was very happy to see Vyvyan again. On the other hand, he would never get used to seeing the punk like that.

They had went to see him every other day. This was better because he needed to sleep a lot. Most of the time, they went to see him with the three of them, but he'd gone a couple of times by himself as well. Vyvyan usually complained about how bored he was and Rick bought him more comics to read when he'd finished the old ones. They still never agreed on what made for a good story, but there were other things they did agree on. They both hated Thatcher, for instance, and they both disliked Neil.

One time, he'd found Vyvyan's mother sitting by Vyvyan's side as he was sleeping, and she had stood up to leave as he'd entered the room. But before she'd went out, she'd came up to him and hugged him.

"Thanks for everything", she'd said.

Rick thought he was usually very well-spoken and smart, but he'd had no idea what to say back. He'd muttered something about 'welcome Mrs. Vyvyan'.

He remembered the day he first met Vyvyan pretty clearly. He'd been sixteen, and Vyvyan being one year older than him, had been seventeen. They were still in secondary school. He had been on his way to his usual solitary spot in the study room, because that's where he always went when he had some time in between classes. He had no friends to hang out with at the time, just this one upper-class boy Henry he sometimes had lunch with. It didn't matter to him, his classmates were all stupid anyway. They weren't smart and poetic like him. He was going to achieve big things. Mummy had said so.

So on the day he met Vyvyan, he was on his way to the study room. When he passed the principal's office, he discovered a ginger haired boy in an oversized Ramones shirt and torn jeans thumping his head against the wall. His hair was very red and very wavy (no Mohawk yet). Rick stood there watching the strange boy repeatedly bashing his face against the wall for a while, wondering if he should say something.

"Excuse me", he said after maybe two minutes, "I don't mean to bother or anything, but are you aware you are looking quite stupid?"

The boy stopped and quickly turned his head. When he saw who was standing in front of him, he walked up to him and took on an aggressive pose. "What do YOU want, you spotty bastard?" His voice was the shrillest and loudest voice he had ever heard.

"Er… Well… I was just saying… you were looking a bit silly".

The other boy seemed to be considering this for a moment. "Why should I care?"

Rick tried to collect his thoughts for a proper response, when the ginger boy interrupted him. "Hang on", he'd said, pointing at him. "I know who you are. You're that complete bastard from my English class".

After a moment of thought, it slowly dawned to him. He had seen this boy before: he sat in front of him and was always laughing about stupid things with his mates.

"You must have mistaken me for someone else", Rick said. He knew most people in English class couldn't stand him, but he didn't necessarily want to admit that to this strange boy. It was hardly his fault he was so much more developed and intellectual than the others.

"Nah, it's you!" The other boy exclaimed. "You're the one who always writes all those poofy poems! All my mates think you're a twat!" He grinned.

Rick raised his chin. "You're just jealous because I'm better at English than you!"

"Aha!" The boy shouted. "So it is you then!"

"No", Rick lied. "I just said that because I'm better at English than everyone!"

That seemed to peak the other boy's interest in him. "How good?" he asked, in a different tone.

"Very good, better than all the others", Rick bluffed. "Why, I don't assume you need help, do you?".

The boy nodded, staring at his shoes, looking suddenly small. "I just had a talk with the principal. They're going to kick me out if I don't pass. This is already my second time doing the year, so…"

Rick was suddenly bored with this conversation. "Well that's very unfortunate and everything, but I'm afwaid it's none of my business. So if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way", he said, turning away.

"Not so fast, bum face!", The boy said, grabbing the back of his jacket. Rick didn't like to be touched by strangers or pushed around, but he didn't know how to fight, so he just slapped him in the face like a girl.

"Is that all you've got, you girl?" The ginger said, and punched him on the jaw so fast he didn't even have time to try to avoid his fist. In response, Rick jumped and threw his whole weight at the other boy, in the hopes of knocking him over. It worked, but not without receiving the boy's knee in his bollocks. He squealed like a pig.

A spectacle of kicking, punching, rolling and even some hair pulling emerged. Thankfully, all the other children were in the cafeteria, so no one was there to see it but a group of hippies who strolled by. No one cared about them anyway.

"Hey!" A voice called out. It was the principal. "You two! In my office, right now!"

No matter how rebellious they both pretended to be, when the principal commanded them like that, they listened. So they sat next to each other in the sober office a moment later. They both looked beaten up, but it was painfully obvious who was the winner. The ginger boy's hair looked rough and the collar of his shirt was ripped, but his face was pretty much unharmed. Rick could already feel his eye and his cheek swelling up. Mummy and daddy would disapprove of this, he thought.

"Basterd, I never liked you, so I didn't expect any better from you", the principal started. "Pratt… I don't really like you, either, but at least you normally behave. What's gotten into you?"

Both of them started shouting and blaming each other, when the principal silenced them. They both got detention for two weeks. None of them protested.

"All right, I'll make you a deal", the ginger boy said when they stood outside of the office again. "You help me with English during detention, and I'll pay you… " he grabbed some money out of his pockets, "ten quid".

Rick snatched the money out of his hands. "Fine", he sighed after a moment of consideration.

The boy smiled. "Great! I'm Vyvyan by the way".

"I'm Wick".

"Wrick?"

"No, Wick, you see, with an R".

Vyvyan shook his head. "Well never mind, I don't need to know your name anyway. I can just call you poof."

"So, uhm, when do you want to meet?" Rick asked.

"Next week?"

Rick nodded.

"Don't tell anyone about this or I'll bash your face in", Vyvyan said, and he walked away.

For two weeks, they had spent every afternoon together in detention, but had never really become friends. Vyvyan had made sure of the fact that Rick had never mistook their relationship for anything other than strictly professional, and Rick had accepted this. He didn't need friends that were stupid bastards. But even though he would never have admitted it out loud, he'd kind of enjoyed the whirlwind that was Vyvyan's presence. Although -needless to be said- he'd had the attention span of a fly and teaching him English had went hand in hand with a lot of sighing and saying how bored he was, at least he wasn't as boring as most of his classmates. Outside of detention, though, they'd stayed away from each other. And when they had served their time, that had seemed to be the end of their temporary 'bond', or whatever it was.

So it was all the more ironic they'd coincidentally moved into the same student house four years later. Despite being older, they'd pretty much picked up where they had left. Rick thought he was an idiot, and Vyvyan thought he was a poof and a bastard. That was how it had always been. That was how it always would be. Or so he'd thought. Everything was weird these days.

Vyvyan's room was at the end of the hallway on the ICU. They already kind of knew their way around in the hospital, and were greeted by some of the staff.

"Hi boys", Helen said with a smile, as she came out of his room.

"Afternoon ma'am", Mike said with a small bow. "How is he?"

Helen sighed. "He's had a rough night. He had his chemo yesterday and he's had quite the night sweat. He's been throwing up a lot. The good news is: he seems to be responding well to the lung treatment, and we expect him to be ready to go home soon".

This relieved Rick more than he let on.

"The bad news is… you know how he's been having trouble eating lately?"

They all nodded.

"Well, his stomach seems unable of processing food, it all comes back out. So we are currently feeding him through a tube. We think he may need start using it at home as well."

A feeding tube? It made him feel a bit sick. The idea of Vyvyan not being able to eat by himself was ridiculous.

"Also, he had a bit of an episode this afternoon: he tried to pull out some of his IV lines".

"Can we see him?" Rick asked impatiently.

"Yes, I think that'd be fine. He just had a nap, so he should be fine to talk to you for… an hour?"

"Hey there Vyv", Mike said, as he sat down next to him. There was a tube attached to the crook of his elbow, attached with a big white plaster.

"Hi Mike", the punk said. He tried to grin and seem confident, but Rick could tell he was tired. "Why'd you bring those bastards?" He nodded to Rick and Neil.

"Shut up, Vyvyan", Rick said.

"Guys!" Mike interrupted. "Let's not fight now, all right? We've only got an hour". He shot Rick a glance and turned back to Vyvyan. "So Vyv, I heard you tried to break out today".

"Yeah", Vyvyan grinned. "I got very very bored".

"Just another week, Vyv, and you'll be out of here", Mike said reassuringly.

Vyvyan didn't answer for a moment. He looked a bit sad, and for a moment Rick thought he was going to cry. He didn't. "Did you feed Special Patrol Group?" he asked instead.

"I did, because no one else ever does anything…" Neil said.

They talked and gave him all sorts of things they had taken for him. Crossword puzzles, today's paper, Neil's ridiculous card… Neil had also taken him a small bag of cinnamon sticks. Since Vyvyan had trouble eating, it really was the perfect candy, since he could just suck on them. He was visibly enjoying it, and he seemed to become a bit more energetic. Helen even let them stay for an extra twenty minutes, but then they really had to go. Mike pulled Vyvyan into a short hug before they left, and for a split second, Rick considered doing the same. But he just said: "Bye, Vyvyan. See you soon".

"See ya, poof".