New chapter! I lied, this is the penultimate chapter. And it's a gloomy one…this story is labelled humour and yet this chapter is more depressing than funny!

Judging by the reviews, I put my characters through too much trauma:
"Poor Noel!" count: 7
"Poor Vince!" count: 6
"Poor Julian!" count: 2
"Poor Vince's hair!" count: 1

Clearly, Julian and Vince's hair need to go through more drama to even it out :)

My back hurts and I don't own the boosh!

Chapter 10

Julian didn't know how to calm Noel down. The last time he had seen him this angry, it had been in some bar, Noel had been wearing a newly bought vintage coat that had cost him an arm and a leg, and he had argued with some chav who threw his drink all over it. It had been completely ruined, and it was vintage, so he couldn't just pop out and buy a new one. Anyway, he had gone pretty mental and was on the verge of killing the guy before he was calmed down. This reminded Julian of that moment.

Noel sprang out of bed, despite his hangover and still being in the previous night's clothes, and pushed passed Julian.

"Where is he?" demanded Noel, the newspaper now crumpled in his grip, "I swear, I'll kill him!"

Julian gulped, worried at how he sounded like he meant it, and rushed over, grabbing Noel's upper arm and pulling him to one side. "Calm down, we can sort it out…just make a few phone calls-"

This, evidently, was not the correct thing to say. "Make a few phone calls!" yelled Noel, wrenching his arm free from Julian's grip so hard that it left purple thumb prints on his skin. "And say what? Oh, sorry, that's not me in the paper, it's my identical friend who just happened to be there too!" He didn't wait to hear any more reason from Julian, he stormed off down the hallway and thumped on the door of the spare room with his fist with such force that Julian thought it might come clean off its hinges. Noel looked fairly skinny and weedy, but Julian was sure he didn't want to be on the receiving end of his anger.

No sound came from the spare room, Julian supposed that Vince was pretending nothing was up. Julian had already told Vince about the story and how angry Noel was going to be when he found out. It seemed only fair to give him a bit of a warning and a chance to think up some excuse to save himself. Noel banged on the door again, despite the fact that the skin on his knuckles was screaming at him that one knock was enough. He was met with nothing but silence from Vince's side of the door, and wasn't prepared to wait. Noel flung the door open, and it crashed loudly as is rebounded off the spare room's wall. Julian saw him open the door, and stand, poised and ready to mouth-off at Vince in a way he wouldn't easily forget. He stood, paused, and then turned to Julian, the same expression he had saved for Vince on his face.

"WHERE IS HE?" he snapped.

Julian felt something in his stomach like a particularly heavy stone had been dropped there. Great, now he was going to be on the receiving end. Vince must have realised the trouble he was in, and legged it. In some ways, Julian reckoned it was a fairly wise choice on Vince's part. This decision would give Noel a chance to calm down before he got his hands on Vince…or it might make him even angrier. Julian hoped, for Vince's sake, it would be the former.

"Where is he?" He demanded an answer again, although his voice was lower and a little less hostile.

"I don't know!" said Julian helplessly, "He must have heard you get up and gone…" He was never very good at lying.

"You told him, didn't you?" Asked Noel with a raised eyebrow, not believing a word. Julian decided he was probably better just admitting it, and nodded his head slowly. Noel gave a sigh, and leaning against the wall, slid down it until he was sitting on the floor. He ran a hand through his dishevelled hair. His anger seemed to disappear as quickly as it had appeared, and left behind exhaustion and the heavy weight of several problems. They needed to find Vince, plus solve the issue that Vince had left behind. Noel rested his head in his hands for a moment, before tilting his head on one side and peering at Julian hopefully as if he was looking for some magical solution.

Julian felt a rush of sympathy for his friend and lowered himself into a sitting position next to him. "We better go find him…he's nothing but trouble, out there on his own…"

"He's nothing but trouble. Full stop." Noel muttered, but offered a smile as an afterthought, turning his comment into a joke. He leant over and grabbed the phone that was on a table in the hallway. "I better check out these angry messages you were talking about. Better sooner than later I suppose…ripping the plaster off in one go…or whatever they say…"

Julian smiled at his friend's ability to make a joke whatever happened. He watched Noel's expression as he listened to the first of a few voicemail messages. It was more or less neutral for the first few, then it dropped slowly, with each bitter word on the other end of the phone, until it was so far from where it started that it looked like a different person.

Julian put his arm around Noel's shoulders, taking the phone from his hand and cutting off the voice that was playing on the other end.

"You alright?" he asked carefully, feeling like he was putting salt on an already painful wound. "We can sort it out, you know, it could be worse…"

Noel sighed, summing up the effort to speak. "Yeah, but you said that when I had my amazing vintage coat ruined…"

- - -

A car's breaks squealed loudly. It had just avoided hitting some guy who seemed to have no idea how fast cars travelled. The driver shook his head as he sped off, he wasn't going to be held responsible for someone else's stupid actions.

Vince gasped as he was sure he had just seen his life flash before his eyes. The traffic around London confused him…and he couldn't understand why the driver of that car seemed annoyed that Vince had escaped unscathed. He was shaking his head and everything! Vince was getting tired of walking around and around streets that all looked the same to him. The rows of houses all looked identical to Noel's, and he was worried that Noel would come bursting out of any of them at any given moment, effing and blinding. Vince wondered how long it would be before he could go back, and hope that Noel had calmed down and forgiven him. He couldn't really understand it anyway…why was Noel angry about something that Vince had done…wouldn't Vince get blamed for it anyway?

He was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly collided with a girl on the street. He offered her a mumbled apology and was about to move on when suddenly he was knocked backwards, with his cheek burning like it was on fire.

His head was spinning as he stumbled backwards. When it finally stopped, he focused on the girl. She was young, couldn't be over twenty, and her face looked absolutely murderous. She lowered her hand to her side, and then raised it again to point an accusing finger.

"How could you do that to Dee?" She shrieked, near to tears. "I admired you so much…I can't believe it…I can't believe you!" Her voice cracked, and she stormed past Vince, wiping the tears away before they left her eyes, in an attempt to protect her carefully applied eyeliner.

What was that all about? Vince held his hand to his stinging cheek, fretting over the red mark that was sure to appear within a few minutes. He wished he was back home. At home, randoms didn't just come up to you, smack you, and then walk off crying. London was so confusing…