I realised that I leave for The Netherlands in a week and should probably get this story done before then so I've been doing some writing and finally found a kind of ending. This isn't the ending. This is the kind of middle.

Ta.

Howard woke with a shout. The nightmare was still vivid in his mind, even though his eyes were open. Why couldn't it just stop? It'd been over two years already.

...

The fire was licking up the walls around him, the thick smoke burning his lungs and distorting the room.

There was something on top of him and he couldn't escape. He screamed for the weight to be removed, to get off him, but it didn't. It had taken a long time for Howard to realise that the weight was Vince and that Vince wasn't moving. He'd pushed the small boy off onto the bed and stumbled upright, staggering to the door. Opening the door hadn't cleared the air much so Howard had rushed back to scoop up Vince.

He'd been heavy. Heavier than Howard had thought he could be and he hadn't got him very far.

...

Howard rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes and moaned, trying to get rid of the memory. He'd spent the last two years trying to get rid of that memory but he knew he never would.

The fire fighters had arrived quickly. They'd got Vince out.

Vince had been lucky, they said as they lifted him into the ambulance and placed an oxygen mask over his smoke smudged face. He'd been driven away, again. And once again Howard hadn't run fast enough. He'd gone back to watch to burning house, staring at the flames as they devoured the wood, knowing somehow they were devouring his perfect world as well.

It wasn't fair.

Vince had spent three weeks in the hospital but Howard hadn't visited. He'd wanted to but he was scared. He hoped that he could visit when Vince got to go home but Vince never came home. There was no home to come back to, and no foster parents either.

Vince had disappeared again.

Howard eventually found out through the school that his friend had been claimed by another relative, taken to Europe. And that was that. He had been pulled from his life again and Howard hadn't said goodbye. Hadn't said sorry.

It had been two years.

Howard was fifteen years and three months old. He could pass for twenty easily. And he was alone. He had no friends and he was ready to chuck in school and run away. Once he'd imagined that at this age he'd be having adventures, shaping up to be a real man of action, with his best friend, the boy he loved to bits, at his side. Now he wondered whether Vince had been a delusion after all.

He looked over at his bedside table and the picture displayed lovingly beside the digital alarm clock. Vince had taken the photo, hanging off Howard's shoulders and grinning like an impossible mixture of angel and gremlin. Nightmarish and utterly beautiful. Howard was doing his own annoying smile, the one that made his eyes go all crinkly and closed up. He looked like an old man when he smiled and it just made Vince look even younger. The photo was two and a half years old now, and had been taken the day they'd first battled the Squirrel People in the alley behind Howard's old house.

Howard sighed. He missed that house. The new house was ok, he supposed, but he didn't like his housemates. He didn't like his mother's new husband. He didn't like his mother's husband's children. He especially didn't like that everyone expected him to refer to them as his step-father and step-brother and step-sister. He hated that they were all so happy.

He was counting down the days until his sixteenth birthday, when he could leave home without being considered a runaway. He had a plan to travel Europe, and somehow, he didn't know how, find Vince. He had taught himself to play the guitar and trumpet and keyboard and he intended to busk his way from place to place. It would be rough he knew, but he had to prove that he was worthy of the name Howard TJ Moon, worthy of being the man Vince had wanted him to be. It was nine months to the day until his sixteenth birthday. Nine months until he could start his journey to find the tiny, pointy faced boy who made his mind light up with just a laugh, who made his heart do a jimmy flip with a flash of that mega watt, Vince Noir, smile.

Howard frowned as he sat up in bed and began to fiddle with his brown quilt cover. He knew it wasn't normal to be infatuated with a boy who was only twelve. He worried that it made him a pedo, or something, but he'd loved Vince since he was ten, before he considered that it wasn't normal to love your best mate like they were your saviour.

He'd discovered girls in the last twelve months. It had been quite odd. Girls were nice to look at, he realised, and he'd quite like to be allowed to go out with one, you know, to chat to and have a cup of tea with. He wasn't sure about kissing them and he didn't really want to hold hands. Hand holding was something special he did with Vince. It didn't feel right to do it with anyone else.

He wondered if Vince was into girls yet. Probably not.

Howard often forgot that Vince was younger than him. Vince was twelve and Howard didn't think normal twelve-year-olds were into girls. Not that Vince was normal. Vince was weird. He hoped he was still weird. It'd be sad if he finally found his friend only to discover that he'd gone normal and was wearing grey by choice.

He glanced back at the picture and smiled. It was ok to smile when he was alone, no one could make fun of him when he was alone. Glancing at the photo unfortunately also alerted him to the time. Eight o'clock. He was going to be late for school.

It was a Tuesday.

Howard hated Tuesdays.

The walk to school was long because Howard was dragging his feet. He hated being late but he hated school more. And he hated Tuesdays because Tuesdays meant PE and Howard wasn't sporty in the slightest.

He made it through the morning by keeping his head down and avoiding eye contact and when PE came around he went to the far corner of the football field and tried to avoid the ball and the other kids.

It didn't work.

The ball came flying and hit him square in the chest and he fell backwards, landing awkwardly and still refusing to look up, hearing the laughs of his class mates, feeling the intense blush creeping up his neck to his cheeks. He saw the feet running toward him though, flashy football boots all silver and pink. Who in his class wore boots like that?

"You alright, small eyes?"

Howard couldn't breathe. It couldn't be possible. He couldn't be this lucky. His life didn't work like this. This was... mad.

Then again... it was a Tuesday.

"Howard? You alright? You hurt or just in a trance? I didn't mean for the ball to hit ya, Howard. I just wanted to get your attention is all. Howard?"

The voice was a little deeper, less rough around the edges, but it was the same voice.

And who else in this boring school would own silver and pink football boots?

He looked up.

"Vince?"

The hair was dark and streaked with blue and red and the eyes appeared to be rimmed with eyeliner. The nose was a little more crooked, like it had been broken, and there was a general sense that this was not a kid, not a little boy anymore. But the smile was still the same and when Howard finally looked into his eyes he felt like his body was being filled with lemonade, fizzy and bubbly and overwhelming.

"Vince."

"Alright, Howard?"

"D'you... want a sandwich?"

Vince began to laugh, and Howard began to grin and before he knew it, Vince was on the grass beside him, cackling and holding his stomach, looking and sounding like an absolute lunatic. He threw the ball back to the other students, who were standing and watching in bemusement before turning to Howard and giving him a tight hug.

"Don't touch me!" Howard yelped and Vince's arms disappeared along with his laughter. Ever since the night of the fire, waking up with a person's weight on him and not being able to move, Howard had been weird about touch. It wasn't that he didn't want to hug Vince, he did, but he just freaked out when another person put their weight against him. It had made it even easier for the school bullies to get to him and while he wanted to be able to be hugged, he just couldn't get past the fear that had built up in his head.

He glanced around, relieved that the football game seemed to have recommenced and no one was looking in their direction. He wasn't sure how well he'd be able to control his emotions right now and he really didn't want an audience.

"Are you ok, Howard?" Vince asked, dipping his head so he could look into Howard's face. It was such a sweet and familiar gesture that it made Howard begin to relax but he was still hugely confused.

"You look exactly the same!"

Vince grinned.

"Boy who never grew up, I am. But I ain't really the same, any more than you. You're a right buffalo man now!"

"I, I... What are you doing here, Vince?"

The younger boy looked a little hurt but bumped his shoulder against Howard's in a matey way as he sat down next to him, pulling his legs up to his chest and resting his chin on his knees.

"Came to find you, didn't I? Thought you'd be happy to see me."

"I am! I just... How did you get here?"

"Plane. Then car."

"But, but..."

Vince sighed, taking pity on Howard's confused mind.

"I've been livin' in France with my uncle Jean Claude the last few years, ever since... you know."

"Yeah, that," Howard nodded and felt Vince's fingers creep into his hand. He gave them a reassuring squeeze.

"Well, turns out I have a few relatives over there. Shoulda guessed with a name like Noir, I suppose. One of the old geezers, some Duke, took a shine to me and when he died a few months back he left me all his money. Crazy, right?"

"A bit."

"So now I'm loaded, though Jean Claude says it's called being 'Independently Wealthy', or some bollocks. Most of it's in an account I can't touch 'til I'm well old - like thirty! - but I've got enough. He helped me get a place here, hired me a nanny/house keeper type so I won't get in trouble for being an unaccompanied minor, and wished me luck. Genius, innit?"

Howard had gone beyond confusion. Vince was here, sitting beside him on the grass, holding his hand, talking about inheriting from a duke, and he just couldn't take it in.

"But why come here? To Leeds? Ever since I've known you you've complained about this place. If you've got that kind of money why come here of all places?"

Vince gave him a look that said very clearly that Howard was an idiot, but it was an affectionate look all the same.

"Clean your ears out, I told you already. I came to find you. Did a pretty good job too, considering you've moved house again, and schools. You're a hard man to track down, Howard Moon. A right maverick you are."

Howard chuckled and felt Vince lean against his shoulder. It was just like old times but surely that was strange. It shouldn't be so easy, should it?

But they'd slipped back in to their friendship with barely a hiccup.

...

And that was how it began again.