"So where you going?" Jayden said through the silence. "You on official business in Boston?"

"No." said Blake. "No, I got a er... a commitment up here, every Sunday." Jayden recognised the tone of a man who didn't want to talk, and dropped the subject.

"Where do you want me to drop you? I mean, thanks for saving my life and all that, but I can't really afford the petrol to take you back to Philadelphia."

"Huh, always figured the FBI paid well, that's why they get numb-nuts posh boys like you." Jayden looked away.

"Yea... well 'posh boys like me' don't want to spend all their hard earned cash on psychopaths with sick in their beard."

"Fuck off Jayden." Blake said half-heartedly.

There was a definite uneasy silence in the car – both men waiting for a reason to fall out with the other. Then Blake, being Blake, found one.

"Hey, posh boy. Why do you have a keyring?"

"What?" Norman asked irritably. He was beginning to get sober now, and he had an awful headache coming...

"I said why do you have a keyring?" Jayden looked across to see Blake had filched his keyring.

"Hey, give that back!"

"What's the point?" Blake said infuriatingly, keeping the keyring at an arms length. "You don't have any keys."

"Just give it back!"

"Not until you tell me why you don't have any keys..." Blake trilled in a sing-song voice, calculated to just the right amount to wind Norman up.

Jesus, he's chirpier than last time I saw him. Any time I saw him for that matter.

Blake fiddled with the keyring, noticing it had a clasp, and something was inside. He tried to open it.

"For Christ's sake Blake, give me the damn thing!" Jayden yelled, grabbing it out of his hand. The clasp snapped, and the photo inside fell to the floor. During a tussle which Norman never really had much chance in anyway, considering he was driving, Blake grabbed the photo and gave it a good look. It was the picture of two young men, probably in their mid-twenties. One had dark blond hair, and blue eyes, and the guy he had his arm around was unmistakeably a slightly younger, happy-looking Jayden.

Must be his brother... Carter thought, but decided to taunt Norman some more.

"So... Norm." Carter started off, leaning back into his seat. "This your boyfriend?" Norman shook his head.

"Nope." Carter grinned, wondering how to make the kid feel more awkward, when Jayden spoke again. "He's my ex actually."

Carter was so sure that he Jayden would say 'He's my brother' that the answer came out before he had processed Jayden's words. "Yea, course he... what?"

"I said he's my ex." Jayden said in a perfectly normal voice, the only indication to any emotion he was feeling the way his knuckles were almost white from gripping the steering wheel so hard. "We were together for six years. I dropped my family for him, all my ex- friends, and moved into his flat. One day, I came home from work, and he'd left a note. Said he was straight. He'd always been straight, and our relationship was just a blip on his otherwise perfect life. Oh, yeah... and for two years he'd been shagging my sister."

For once, Blake was lost for words.

"Right. That sounds..."

"Crazy? Yeah, I know. I was beginning to wonder if I should call them for a reunion with Jerry Springer. Wonder what the title would be. 'Thick-as-shit FBI agent gets screwed both literally and figuratively by sister's husband.'" he sighed and shook his head. "God I'm an idiot..."

Some minutes passed before Carter spoke.

"Mud."

"What do you mean, 'mud'?"

"Well it's not as dense as shit, is it? Thick-as-mud."

Norman turned to look at him, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "You know Carter, coming from you? I'm gonna take that as a compliment."