"Dan and Jones? Dan and Jones? You're not serious? I mean, you don't actually believe that do ya, Ned? Dan Ashcroft, the writer - our Preacher Man Dan - with DJ Jones, the guy from the hairdressers who puts girls toys on his decks? Shit off mate, they barely know each other."

Ned scrunched his eyebrows and tried to navigate his way along the crowded street. It was Friday night and the clubs were banging but he just wasn't feeling it.

"Yeah, but Rufus right, there's the photos-"

"Photoshop, mate," Rufus replied, rolling his eyes and readjusting his ironically small hat. "You're a graphic designer, can't you tell a fake when you see one? I saw it straight off."

Ned didn't want it to seem like he was just pissed that Jonatton hadn't used any of his layout for the current issue, or the photo spread he'd put together of the new 'tiny pets' trend hitting London straight from Hollywood. Jonatton's pictures, and the article about Dan, had gone in instead and even though it looked like Jonatton had just taken out the pet pics and put in his own and pasted his new story over the old one, Jonatton reckoned it was all his own work - which meant that Ned wasn't getting paid.

But he didn't want it to seem like he wasn't laid back and cool with stuff like this cos the last guy Jonatton Yeah? had labeled "uptight" had left SugaRape a complete social reject and was now apparently working at Dixons. Like actual Dixons! The shop! And Ned didn't want to end up at Dixons. Those guys had scheduled lunch breaks and sales targets and he just wasn't ready for that kind of high pressure environment. But he still wasn't entirely comfortable with Jonatton Yeah's actions over the last twenty-four.

"Yeah," he said casually, "but Dan and the DJ live at the same house."

"We live at the same house! Doesn't mean I'm bumming ya! "

"But-"

"Fuck off, Ned, you poof. I'm not gonna bum ya."

Rufus was laughing but looked a bit uncomfortable as well, like he got when they heard a really brainy joke and they both had to act like they totally got it when really they were thinking to each other that anything that clever couldn't actually be funny.

"Haha, yeah, like I'd want an arse ramming. I'm a muff man. My hair's even a homage to 70s bush."

"Right, good one. But that whole Dan and Jones thing was Jonatton having a, like, breakdown or some shit cos Dan's quit SugaRape."

Now this was news to Ned.

"He's quit 'Rape?"

"Yeah. 'Cos it's goin' all mainstream an shit. I heard he had 'artistic differences' with Yeah?, yeah?"

"Really?"

"Yeah. So Jonatton nicked pics off Claire Ashcroft's phone of Dan and the DJ just sittin' 'round-"

"Claire? Dan's hot sister?"

"The hot piece of Girl-Ashcroft."

"Nice."

Rufus put his fist up and Ned bumped it. Brain jokes they might not get but they knew a hot sister when they saw one. They'd thought about naming them SILFs, for Sisters I'd Like to Fuck, but Rufus had pointed out that it sounded a bit like syphilis, and they weren't sure if it was cool to joke about that shit yet. No one had said they could, and they didn't really want to imply that they had an STI, not even ironically. So they'd dropped the acronym and just did a fist bump to show that they knew what they were talking about, even if no one else did.

"She was bangin' Nathan Barley, 'til she kicked him in the balls over the Trashbat pilot debacle," Ned grinned. That video had gone seriously viral and he'd watched it like, a heap of times, before it was mysteriously taken off the internet when Nathan went to Spain.

"Bum... but, like, narrative - Yeah? stole pics off Claire's phone and shopped Dan and the DJ's heads onto some gay porn."

"For real?"

"Like ultra reality smash down."

"Bum. That is well underhanded."

"Truth. And 'Rape's going down cos Ashcroft's walked and Jonatton's just stirring shit 'cos he's lost control of the place and it's like, well, like-"
"Like Fraulein Rottenmeier and Heidi an' all."

Rufus stopped, making a face at the group of girls who had been walking behind them and were squawking about having to go around, before giving Ned a seriously... well, serious, 'wtf' look.

"What?"

"Heidi," Ned said slowly. "It's like a book, an' shit. What I read."

"Oh. Well intellect."

"... Yeah..."

"Maybe don't say that sort of brain fart stuff in front of people we know though, yeah?"

"Right," Ned nodded.

He wasn't sure that Heidi was that intellectual, he'd read it as a kid. But then again, the only other person who'd even known what he was talking about when he mentioned it was Dan, so maybe it was a brain book.

"So, shall we like, hit the clubs and snag the sugar muffs?"

Rufus nodded and started walking again. They would have brought their scooters so they didn't have to walk like losers but last week they'd been kicked out of a club before they even got in because the chick at the cloakroom refused to check their rides in, even when they'd folded them up. Which seemed unfair to Ned, because they were really very compact. But it had totally rained on their night and they were not going to let that happen again.

"You know where we should go?" Rufus said with the grin that always meant that he was going to say something mental and so ironically cool even Ned didn't always follow it. "We should go to that H8 place where that Jones guy works. Bet it's all going down there tonight."

"Oh, that is well clash. But," Ned looked at Rufus but tried not to look earnest. "I thought you said it was all a load of bollocks?"

"It is," Rufus assured him. "But the idiots, yeah? They don't know that it's a load of bollocks and they'll all be down there to get a glimpse of The Choir Boy and we'll be the only ones who are really cool because we'll know that it's not really cool to be like hating on a guy just for getting bummed, plus he isn't even really getting bummed at all and only idiots will think he is, but we can pretend he is but know that he's not, yeah?"

"Yeah..." Ned blinked. His contact lenses were itching again but he couldn't take them out because he'd left his prescription glasses at home because Rufus said that they weren't dope enough (the ones he had on he wore purely because they were ironic and made a statement about social expectations and that). "Right, let's go see The Choir Boy sing!"

"Right. Until someone asks us if that's what we're doing and then we can tell 'em that we're only there ironically."

"Righteous."

Ned smiled and nodded. As long as it was ironic it was ok. But he could really do with a beer right now, and possibly a sit down. He really did miss his scooter.

The club, whatever it was actually called, was packed, and the bouncer at the top of the stairs looked ready to smash a face in without too much stirring, so they decided to play it safe and just wait in the queue with everyone else, even though they agreed it was lame. And it meant they didn't actually get down the stairs to the club until nearly ten. But when they did it was well plastic.

The place was heaving and so loud Ned felt like his ears were going to start bleeding at any moment but everyone around them was enjoying it so he supposed it was ok. There sure were a lot of women - muffs, he corrected himself - with a lot of piercings and tattoos and that, and dudes in make-up... and Rufus didn't look too impressed actually.

Then the music shifted, like someone was running a knife down a china plate and the crowd began screaming and putting their fists in the air, but in a good way, which meant that this was probably, definitely cool, even if it hurt. He looked up at the DJ booth and felt his eyes go so wide he had to blink a couple of times to make sure his contact lenses didn't fall out, or something. He sort of recognised DJ Jones, from Stanley Knives, and the 'apparently' shopped pictures from the magazine, but he was pretty sure he'd never seen him looking so... attractive.

"He looks like a fuckin' slinky!" Rufus yelled into his ear and Ned winced but had to agree. Blokes weren't supposed to have hips were they? But the Jones guy was moving his body like a chick, hips going from side to side like a proper Beyonce - he had a waist too! A proper hour-glass figure - and there were women at the front of the crowd going wild for it. And dudes. The rest of the crowd were just getting lost in the music/overwhelming noise and weren't paying attention, but Ned couldn't help feeling like he wanted to be down the front, watching the DJ and screaming right along with the groupies.

Which was totally not cool. 'Cos he was cool with gays and that, but that didn't mean he was one. And some blokes kissed other blokes for kicks and that was well punk and subversive and all, but he really wasn't up for doing it himself. I mean, he'd nearly kissed guys a couple of times at college, but that was normal, right?

Except that the DJ up there was biting his lip like he was starring in a Dutch Arthouse film and Ned did kinda want to kiss him. A lot.

Maybe he was really a chick, with hips like that. Except he had stubble on his face and hairy arms - like, really hairy arms - and hairy arm pits and, when he lifted one arm up above his hand to punch the air along with the crowd, Ned could see a dark, hairy, snail's trail going down from the guy's bellybutton and disappearing into his incredibly tight jeans. Yeah, he was definitely a bloke.

He could sort of see why Ashcroft was with him. 'Cos Dan was the sort of guy to wank of another dude for money so it was public know that he wasn't scared of cock. He'd probably kissed loads of guys at college. And Jones was like, hardcore Techno, which meant he was probably up for anything. And this crowd seemed to think he was like, the second coming of Christ, or something.

Preacher Man Dan with the Second-Christ Jones. That was well righteous. He turned to tell Rufus and looked around frantically when he wasn't there. He worried, for like a micro-second, that he'd been stabbed by a fierce eyebrow piercing or something, then saw him dancing, right near the front, hands in the air and his eyes closed like he was really getting into it.

Well if Rufus was dancing then he was allowed to too.

It was official: Jones the Choir Boy was cool!