No title for this chapter. If anyone can think of one let me know.

Just to warn you there is a bit of bad language in this chapter as well as mild references to drug taking. The rating of this fic will be going up to an M (as promised in the summary) very soon, meaning this story won't appear automatically any more so make sure you add it to your story alerts!

Thanks for the reviews it really helps me keep going with writing to know someone is reading.

Vince had been sitting in the library for the past hour and had read seven children's books. Needless to say he hadn't moved out of the flat; Naboo seemed to have stopped even bothering to ask him about it. However, that didn't mean he wanted to spend any time with Howard - the mixture of excruciating agony and the equally excruciating awkwardness that had sprung up between them since what happened on the roof the week before made him unwilling to spend more than a few minutes in his company. He had decided that whilst he was on enforced exile from the flat in an attempt to avoid Howard, he may as well try and do something useful with his time, especially as all the people he called friends didn't come out until about ten o clock. He had been in one of those awkward times of day between the shops shutting and it being a decent hour to go to the pub and so had strolled into the children's section, wearing a fringed white vinyl cat suit and cowboy hat and plonked himself down on one of the tiny children's chairs. The staff didn't know quite what to make of him but after a hurriedly whispered conversation, had decided to just leave him to it but keep an eye on him to make sure he wasn't one of those sorts. The head librarian looked over at him suspiciously as he chuckled at the antics of Hairy MacClarey from Donaldson's Dairy.

As he reached the end of book, he felt a vague sense of satisfaction; after all, he hadn't struggled with that one so much and there had been some pretty big words in there. Maybe he should give the reading lark another go. Sighing, he looked up and realised half the lights were turned off and the staff were tidying up. He checked his watch. Seven o clock. Howard would be back from Jazzercise now. He had gone out, throwing his bag over his shoulder, just as Vince had been getting ready. Howard had stopped even bothering to ask him if he was going out in the evening any more, just accepting it without a word instead.

He reluctantly left the library for the chill of the dusky evening air, pulling his cowboy hat down lower over his eyes as a couple of teenage girls walked past him giggling and whispering to each other, wishing for once, that he wasn't quite so recognisable – he really wasn't in the mood for talking to another fan.

He started walking aimlessly down the pavement, trying to muster up the enthusiasm for another night drinking virgin cocktails in a crowded night club, listening to the inane chatter of the drunken idiots he used to enjoy spending time with. After getting drunk at the party for the first time in ages, he had hardly drunk again. It had stopped making him feel like the world was spinning off its axis but it made him think things. Things about Howard. It must be the bloody Shaman juice, he had told himself angrily. Still, not drinking was a pretty poor alternative. Honestly, if one more drunken sweaty girl, (or man, he was the confuser after all) came up to him, their eyes rolling around loosely in their heads and asked him if he wanted to go back to their place, or more often, the toilets, he would scream. The glittery scales of alcohol had been lifted from Vince's eyes and he could see the seediness of his former life in all its squalor.

Seeing the neon sign of the all night café he often went to, flickering in the twilight, he decided to waste a few hours in there before he sought his usual crowd out. Maybe Charlie would even come and visit him like he had taken to, recently.

He was approaching the counter, his eyes scanning the room for an empty table, when he saw Howard sitting in the corner reading a book. What was he doing here? Howard hated coffee shops, deeming it a waste of money to pay a couple of pounds for a tea bag and some hot water. He was about to sneak out the way he came but at that moment Howard looked up and their eyes met. Damn, he thought, trying to decide whether to acknowledge the jazz maverick or just to pretend he hadn't seen him and turn tail and run out the door. Steeling himself to spend a few minutes in the presence of the very person he was trying to avoid, he waved to Howard, trying to look pleased to see him.

"Can I get a hot chocolate and one of whatever that guy in the corner wants thanks Myra," Vince asked, flashing the ancient looking woman behind the counter a cheeky grin. He could feel his heart beating erratically already, and Howard was over the other side of the room.

"About time, he's been hanging his nose over that cup of peppermint tea for the last hour. That's £2.80 please," she said, ringing the drinks into the till.

Vince handed over the money silently, his brain cell racing. If it wasn't for the fact that he had spent so many hours doing exactly what Howard was doing now, the fact probably wouldn't have hit him so hard. Howard was killing time, trying to stay away from the flat for as long as possible. He had made him do that, feel like the flat wasn't his home anymore, that he was a stranger to his own friends. Vince had been trying to push him away and it was working. Only Howard didn't have it in him to leave – didn't have the imagination to start a new life so he just stayed in his old one, miserable. Vince knew it was his fault that Howard couldn't go, on top of it being his fault that he wanted to. He had had the perfect chance to go and make a new life with the bin men and he had dragged him back again. Feeling more guilty than he thought was possible, he wove his way between the tables to where Howard was sat.

Sitting down opposite him, he slid the cup of tea across the table to Howard, smiling apologetically,

"Sorry if I'm interrupting you or anything,"

"No it's alright," Howard smiled back wearily. There was a moment's pause as they both stared at their steaming cups,

"What are you doing here?" they both simultaneously asked, before both laughing self-consciously. Vince gestured for Howard to go first, mainly to give himself some more time to think of an excuse,

"Well, I needed a bit of peace and quiet to think, I'm having a bit of trouble with my poetry at the moment,"

"What, the cream poetry?" Vince asked, leaning forward on the table, for once his voice free from mocking. He was genuinely interested – it had been so long since he and Howard had really talked. Howard seemed to notice the shift in atmosphere and opened up,

"Yes. To be honest, I've come up against a bit of a brick wall. I was thinking of branching out, maybe trying some beige poetry,"

"No way! You're one of the leading cream poets of your generation!" Vince didn't know if that was true or not, but Howard always said it, so Vince thought it might make him feel better. Instead, he reddened slightly,

"Well, you know, I'm a multi faceted being, I can be the master of two genres, of many genres. Not like you, all you've got is fashion,"

"That's not true!" Vince started indignantly, contradicting Howard more out of habit than any real conviction in what he was saying.

"Vince, what do you like other than fashion?"

"I like…retro…furniture, and Mick Jagger,"

"There you go. I have a deep and complex character,"

"Shit off, you're about as three-dimensional as a Ritz cracker. It's always jazz this, jazz that,"

"Hush now, I have many layers. I'm like an onion. People call me Howard Moon the human onion,"

"What people?"

Howard shifted in his seat slightly, his eyes scuttling around nervously. After a long pause he replied, in that tentative tone that Vince delighted in recognising as the voice Howard used when his exaggerating had finally backed him into a corner and he was being forced to flat-out lie to escape.

"Neville Bamshoot,"

"No he doesn't, he calls you the dirty lurker, after that time he caught you hanging round the back of his house,"

"Shut up. The important thing is that I'm like an onion,"

"What, you make people cry?"

"No – "

"You have thin papery skin like a pensioner?"

"No! Look, the thing is Vince, I have many layers, layers that you can't hope to comprehend,"

"I know layers, my hair's full of them,"

"No, layers like the layers of music on an acid bewop track. First there's the trumpet with a skiddly do wow, then comes the drums -"

"Oh, those kind of layers. I don't want them. I'd rather be shallow and transparent like a puddle,"

"Anyway, what are you doing here?" Howard asked, changing the subject. Vince almost thought he could see a smile tugging at the corners of his lips for a second.

"I thought I saw Pete Neon come in here. He's lost his tag and I need to get him again. He's still my most sought after celebrity," Vince lied through his teeth. Howard looked around at the unlikely surroundings for one of London's top pop stars but seemed to buy it, Vince thought gratefully, taking a sip of hot chocolate.

As Vince put the cup down, the trembling in his hand made it rattle against the saucer. He saw Howard's eyes flick down to it, then back up to his guilty face, but neither of them said anything. Vince felt like he had been caught out in a lie.

Howard stared out the window, his head nodding rhythmically and his mouth moving almost imperceptibly, as though he was counting to himself. Vince saw a movement, almost hidden by the table – Howard was gripping his wrist tightly, rubbing at the flesh until it looked sore. He reached across the table to stop him doing it but Howard pulled his arm roughly away,

"Vince, are you on drugs?"

"What? No!"

"Don't lie to me, you idiot. What the hell have you been taking?" Howard's hands were balled up into white knuckled fists and the rage in his voice made Vince cringe away from him.

"Nothing, I don't know what you're talking about Howard. You've gone wrong!"

"Vince, look at you. You've lost weight, you look like hell, your skin's a mess," Vince fingered the spots on his chin that he thought he had managed to cover up, "Your personality's completely changed, you've got tremors. I'm sorry I didn't notice before, Christ, even an idiot would notice. I've been so blind, so wrapped up in myself. We can get help though,"

"I'm not on drugs – I wouldn't. I promise," Vince insisted, glad that he was wearing long sleeves so that Howard wouldn't see the marks on his arm from where Naboo had been taking blood for tests and giving him vitamin shots.

"Oh come on, are you telling me you've never had a line of coke in the dirty toilets of some filthy club because you weren't quite drunk enough to fancy the girl you were supposed to be fucking and you thought it might liven you up, or one of Leroy's shady mates that you wouldn't trust with your pet goldfish, let alone your life, has offered you an e and you've felt too embarrassed to say no,"

Vince shuddered at the pictures Howard's words had painted for him. What he was saying was a bit too close for comfort. It was like Howard had reached into his mind fridge and pulled out a couple of slices of memory pie, and it did not taste good. Little did he know the number of nights Howard had lain awake when Vince didn't come home, to imagine these very scenarios, and worse ones besides.

"That's a bit different from what you're saying – that I'm a junkie or something. Besides, I aint even got a pet goldfish," he smiled, trying to lighten the mood, whilst managing to not confirm the answer to Howard's question that hung between them.

"Well then what is it? Because something's wrong with you,"

Hearing the blood thud sickly in his head, Vince cranked his sunshine smile up a notch, feeling it stretch tightly across his face and dug his nails into the palms of his hands to stop himself hyperventilating. That really wouldn't do right now. He couldn't lie to Howard's face but contented himself with lying's slightly nicer little brother: diversion,

"Do you trust me?"

Howard looked at him, shocked by the directness of his words. Vince wondered if maybe he had been expecting him to come out with something about an albino sea horse or a pair of magic boots or something.

"Yes," he replied, cautiously, although Vince couldn't help but notice how his gaze slithered past him and came to rest somewhere over his left shoulder. Instead of dwelling on that, he stood up and held out his hand to Howard,

"Then come with me,"

Reviews would be lovely!