I'm trying to figure out how to wrap up this story, otherwise it'll just be me writing to myself about random days in their lives with no plot or drama or anything. Just kissing and fluff. Sorry it's been a bumbled, uneven sort of story.

"Oi, dick splash! Where are you?" Nathan Barley yelled into his phone, grinning at the bloke in the suit sitting across from him on the bus who was glaring at him and obviously unaware that he was a slave to the man.

"Hi, this is Toby - well, Toby's mobile, my phone - leave a message and I'll call you back."

"Hey, yeah," Nathan shouted, trying to pretend he hadn't accidentally tried to have a conversation with somebody's voicemail. "I'm back from Spain, you bum licker. La Spaniarda, El Espanio, where the pretty girls are desperate for a decent, British cock! As long as it's mine, yeah."

A woman sitting with a fat cheeked kid turned to shoot him a dirty look but Nathan knew she was just putting it on. People back home liked to pretend they were uptight, when really they just needed to remember the word according to Barley. And now he was back and he was going to give it to them.

"There was one chick, yeah? Tits like fucking bowling balls, right. And I smashed her back doors in! Right in! Then her dad comes running in, swinging a fucking bird at me - like, an actual, bird, like a chicken or some shit - and squealing like a fucking pig! All because she was was only fifteen or some shit. Foreigners, right, man? - Holy shit! What the-"

Nathan's head bounced off the metal rail of the seat in front of him with enough force to make him drop his phone as the bus stopped suddenly. He looked around to make sure he wasn't the only person to be caught off guard and realised that they were all staring at him, including the driver.

"Oi, mate, what's the hold up?" he called but the driver just pulled a lever and glared at him as the doors swung open.

"Get off my bus."

"What?" Nathan laughed. It was a joke but no one else on the bus seemed to get it. "Yo, my nigg-"

"Don't you use that word on my bus!" the driver shouted, getting out of his seat and looming over him. "For the last two months this route has been a pleasant and quiet route! Because you were not here to ruin it. You should have stayed in Spain, or wherever you were hiding. Now get off my bus! You are banned."

Nathan looked up at the man. He hadn't really thought about what the driver, who drove the route most days, would look like standing up but apparently he looked like six feet and three inches of bulk and if Nathan knew anything it was that he was weak enough to get beaten up by Claire Ashcroft and would not survive a bloke like this.

"You can't ban me from a bus, it's a bus," he whined. "That's not legal!"

"I'm banning you from my bus for bad language," the driver insisted, ushering him bodily toward the doors. "Or I can report you to the police for admitting to a bus full of people that you had intercourse with an underage girl. Your choice."

Nathan looked around but none of the people watching him were smiling and he was starting to think this wasn't a joke. He grabbed his suitcase and stumbled off the bus, scowling at the grin that appeared on the driver's face. He didn't reckon it was friendly grin.

He fixed his jacket as he strutted away and tried to ignore the cheer coming from the bus. He'd only been away for two months but things had definitely changed. London had lost its cool. And Toby wasn't answering his phone.

He pulled his latest model, extendable handle suitcase with light-up wheels, along the lane way to Pingu's building. Some serious shit seemed to be going down and he needed answers. Like, for a start, there was a great, fat orange eviction sticker on his front door and his key wouldn't go in the lock. If that was a prank it was a fucking good one but he didn't think Toby was smart enough to pull off something like that. Toby was dumb as fuck. He'd probably lost his phone again, that had to be the reason he wasn't picking up.

But his house wasn't the only weird shit going down. He'd passed the SugaRape offices on the bus and had thought to drop in to give Jonatton the down low on foreign girls and their deep love for all things anal - he reckoned Jonatton would jump at the chance to get Dan to do a story on that, especially when he heard that those girls liked tonguing arse as well. Dan would be massively angry and uncomfortable about letting someone tongue his arse! It'd be well bum, which was a royal pun - but all the 'Rape signage had been torn down and replaced with a For Lease sign. It didn't make any sense.

And there was a poster advertising Doug Rocket at the bus shelter - doing a collab with Dajve - and that guy was washed up! Everyone who was anyone knew that! What was going on?

He took the lift to Pingu's flat and banged on the door but didn't get an answer. Maybe the lazy ball licker was sleeping, or wanking into a pillow, but he had to be home. Nathan had closed down Trashbat just after he'd arrived at his parent's holiday home in Spain after receiving a very serious letter from Dan and Claire's mum's legal firm. First she'd totally toppled his plans for a TV Trashbat spin off and then she'd written to him to inform him that the content of his website could land him in serious trouble. She wasn't suing him, the old bint had worded it like she was doing him a favour, but she'd pointed out instances of what she called 'evidence of illegal activity' that could get him charged. He'd dismantled the site and hadn't bothered to tell Pingu, the idiot was probably still confused about why Nathan hadn't given him anything to do and Nathan tried to laugh about it as he banged on Pingu's door.

After several minutes, in which he pounded on, kicked, and swore at the door, which still didn't open, Nathan took a deep breath, readjusted his headset, and called Pingu.

"Hello?"

"PIIINNNGGGUUUUUU!"

"... shit. Hello, Nathan."

Nathan scrunched his nose up and glared at Pingu's door.

"Why the fuck aren't you pleased to hear my godlike voice, you butt munch? And why aren't you home? I need to take a piss."

He was used to Pingu leaving pauses on the phone, the guy didn't know how to hold a conversation, it was no wonder he'd never have a girlfriend.

"Where... where are you, Nathan?"

He could hear someone talking in the background and reacting to his name, and grinned.

"Is that Claire?" he asked but didn't wait for Pingu to answer before carrying on. "DOLL SNATCH! WATCHA DOIN' WITH ARSE-WIPE PINGU? YOU OWE ME A DATE! I WANNA NOSH ON YOU ALL NIGHT, SUGAR TITS!"

"Nathan!" Pingu said with more aggression than Nathan'd ever heard from him before. "She's in the kitchen with her mum! Claire's mum just heard you say that."

"Shit!" He started to pace back and forth in front of Pingu's door. He really didn't want to meet Claire's mum. She was a right dragon lady. Pingu really did have a death wish if he was hanging around that bitch. "Pingu, where are you?"

"I'm..."

Nathan could hear him breathing and felt himself getting cross because Pingu was holding out on him and they were meant to be mates and why was Pingu hanging out with Claire?

"Pingu?"

"I'm... in Leeds," came the barely audible reply.

"LEEDS?!" Nathan cringed at the thought of going somewhere so uncool. "Why the hell are you there, you brainless tit box?"

"I'm here with Claire," he sighed. "Visiting her parents. With Dan and Jones."

"But?" Nathan didn't get it. "Why are you visiting them? Who the hell is Jones? What the hell is happening Pingu? There's an eviction notice on my door!"

"Maybe you should call Toby," Pingu said calmly, but Nathan had gone beyond calm.

"He's not answering," he whined. "Where the hell is he?"

"Probably at work, or with Sasha. He's living with her now."

"What? He's tapping Sasha? The hot piece of front desk ass from SugaRape? And what's happened to 'Rape as well?! What the fuck is going on?"

His voice had gone high and girly but he couldn't stop it. He was really panicking now and he really needed to piss.

"Look, Nathan, I have to go. We're picking up Dan in an hour."

"Picking Dan up from where? Where's Dan? Oi, wiat! You can't just go, Pingu. Where am I supposed to live?"

"Call your dad," Pingu said without emotion. "I'm sure he can sort you out. He was paying your rent anyway, and funding Trashbat after all."

"But can't I just-"

"No.

"Just until-"

"No."

"But I've got to take a slash!"

"Look," Pingu sighed, suddenly sounding so much more mature than he had any right to be. "There's a skip in the alley down the side of the building, you'll be hidden there. No one'll see you. Piss there. Don't call me any more please."

"But," Nathan didn't quite know what to say. Pingu always did what Nathan wanted, always played along. They were mates. "When you get back we could... do some stuff... or shit..."

"I've got a job. A proper job, at CBBC. I'll be getting a pension and everything."

"But we could just hang out. At your place?"

"I don't think so, Nathan. I don't think Claire will want you at our place."

"... What?" Nathan stared at Pingu's door and blinked. And then blinked again.

"Claire doesn't live with you! She lives with Dan. And that DJ."

"His name's Jones. And he and Dan are staying up here for a few months. Claire's... Claire and I... she's my girlfriend."

"WHAT?"

"I'm hanging up now."

"WHAT?"

Nathan listened to the silence after Pingu'd hung up, trying to make everything he'd just been told make sense. Pingu was tapping Claire Ashcroft. Toby was tapping Sasha. He was locked out of his apartment and his bladder was really, really full. He ran down the stairs, letting his suitcase bump noisily behind him, and burst out into the alley, unbuckling his trousers before he was even behind the skip.

Some old bird was back there, emptying out her vegetable peelings (or some geriatric shit like that) and she shrieked at him but he just winked at her and told her she was lucky, then gave her an extra viewing. Not every piece of muff got to catch a glimpse of his arse and dick, especially at her age, and he actually started to feel a better about the fact that the world had gone massively bizarro in his absence, as he watched her huff away. He definitely felt better once he had his dick in hand and was pissing his name along the alley wall.

Why were people so uptight? It never used to be this bad but it felt like everyone had gotten old and boring while he was away, which was well uncool. He wondered what Ashcroft would have to say about it. He'd probably preach it hard to those wage slaves and Nathan could provide some sick beats to back him up. Except that Dan was in Leeds. With Pingu and Claire. And that weird DJ they lived with who turned background sound at Stanley Knives and used second hand decks like a total reject. Nathan frowned. If Dan wanted a DJ mate then he could do a much better job than that weirdo. That guy didn't even rap to his beats, he just made noise. Nathan could spin better than that. And he had state-of-the-art decks. It wasn't fair.

"Ahem."

Nathan turned at the sound of someone walking up behind him, ready to give them an ear bashing for perving on him while he was taking a piss, but the words died on his tongue when he saw the pair of police officers, one staring at his face, eyebrows raised, and the other staring at his exposed dick.

"Shit..."

"Well," said the taller of the two bobbies, a wry smile on his face. "I certainly hope not, young man. You're in enough trouble as it is."

Nathan's hand tightened convulsively around his prick but the rest of him was still frozen. This was well out of his narrative progression. He was the prankster, the happy larrikin, he didn't get busted with his designer denim round his ankles.

"How about you tuck yourself away, sunshine," the other copper told him, stepping forward and pulling out a pair of hand cuffs. "And then we'll take a little walk down to the station, alright?"

Nathan nodded and felt his lip tremble as he tucked himself away, dribbling a bit on his hands 'cos he'd been interrupted and hadn't had a chance for a proper shake to finish off. This was not supposed to happen. He was Nathan Barley. The star of the show.

He should have stayed in Spain.