A chapter in which nothing actually happens. I'll try to do better for the next one. Sorry.

Vince Noir hadn't been Howard's first choice for best mate. He hadn't been anyone's first choice really. The kid was weird; tiny and hyper and not quite in the real world, with eyes like a nervous bush baby. But Howard had let him hang around because truth be told, Howard didn't have any other friends. He and Vince had been the two new boys. Whilst everyone else in their grade had known each other from primary school and already had their friends and cliques in place, Vince and Howard had both just moved to the area and had turned up on their first day of high school knowing no one.

Howard had come down from Leeds with his mum and spoke about it at length, or at least for as long as Vince would listen. He hated London with all its noise and oppressive smells (even if his part of Leeds hadn't been much better) and the stupid accents everyone had. Vince's accent had been the worst of the lot, though different from the North London accents of their classmates. Vince didn't say where he'd moved from, or why, just that he got moved around a lot, and Howard really hadn't been that interested.

He'd eventually fallen for Vince's charm, as Vince got better at turning the charm on, and after a few years he realised that he really did like Vince. Vince made him smile, made him feel like he was actually worth something and that felt good. Yeah, Howard Moon liked Vince Noir. In fact, if he was honest, he loved him - in a purely platonic way of course - not that he ever intended to be honest. They got on like two halves of a whole, balanced each others' weirdness, (except when they made each other worse) until he couldn't imagine his life without Vince in it.

Sure, Vince did a lot of stupid things, made mistakes even a four-year-old would know to avoid, and was way too naive and trusting sometimes, but if Howard could say anything for him it was that he was always there, picking Howard up when he felt bad and solving Howard's problems, usually by getting himself in trouble instead. They'd been on more adventures than Howard wanted to remember or was willing to admit to and he wouldn't have survived a single one without Vince.

Sitting by his friend's bed in a hospital room that reeked of Detol, Howard started to feel sick as he thought back through their life together and just how much he cared for Vince, needed Vince. Worse was all that he still didn't know. They never talked about things. Not first kisses or family or how they felt. They'd been together for nigh on twenty years and Howard knew very little about Vince that he considered to be truly private.

Take his eye for instance. That had been a shock. The doctor had been by to explain that the scar tissue at the back of Vince's eye where the original stitches had been had torn again quite badly and had caused the retina to detach yet again.

Again. That was the kicker.

Howard had used to tease Vince mercilessly for his writing and spelling, for his inability to read properly, for his vacant expression when faced with a blackboard. He and Naboo even used to moan to each other about Vince's inability to see what was right in front of him, whether it was a clearly marked Secret Lab or a label on a bottle that said Do Not Drink in big letters. Howard had always hated how long Vince liked to sit in front of the mirror, twisting his head this way and that like a budgie, as if trying to see a part of his face that was hidden from him. Now he just felt wretched. Finding out that Vince had hidden his dodgy eye from his best friends for so long hit Howard like a frieze block of pain and made him desperate to know what else he didn't know. Like how Vince's eye had been damaged in the first place.

And how he was supposed to contact next of kin in an emergency when Vince's paper work just said N/A. He could contact Gary, possibly, and he'd met Bryan once but he had no idea how to contact Vince's real parents. What did N/A even mean?

He raked his fingers through his greasy hair for what was possibly the hundredth time and then ran his pointer and index finger across his moustache, smoothing it down regardless of the fact that it was already so smooth it could could have passed for a duck's back. He really wanted Vince to wake up. The nurse who'd brought him back after the procedure to fix his eye had told him that Vince would likely be out for a couple of hours and that waking up wouldn't be fun. Anesthetic on top of alcohol consumption and exhaustion and vomiting would make for one hell of a headache, not to mention that his eye would be swollen and sore and he'd caused a hemorrhage in his vocal folds.

The nurse hadn't had much time for sympathy but she'd stopped to explain what a hemorrhage was and pointed Howard in the direction of the coffee machine. She'd also assured him that there was very little paper work to fill out because apparently Vince had been to the hospital before.

Howard felt lost. He'd known Vince for so long and he'd never had cause to bring Vince to this hospital, yet they had Vince's details on file. The only things he needed to fill in were Vince's current address and his next of kin.

He'd never known Vince was so good at secrets.

He brushed Vince's fringe away from his forehead and the bandage over his eye. His skin felt cold and Howard shivered in sympathy. Vince wasn't supposed to be cold.

"Hey, Howard?"

Howard could tell that Vince was grinning, even before he turned around, and when he did he wasn't disappointed. Vince was hopping from foot to foot in the snow and had his hands jammed in his armpits to try and keep warm as they waited for Gary to come and pick them up, but despite the cold he was grinning like a loon. Howard tried to scowl extra hard to balance out the senseless glee but he didn't succeed. Vince was determined to have fun. At Howard's expense.

"When you said you loved me back in the cave, yeah? That was just an 'Oh my God we're gonna die!', sheer terror type response, right?"

Howard rolled his eyes but Vince just laughed and moved closer, still bouncing about in his skin-tight snow suit.

"Come on, Howard. I need to know if you fancy me or not."

"Never fear, Vince, I don't fancy you," Howard sighed, a smile creeping onto his face despite his best efforts. Vince's playfulness was always infectious. "You're the wrong gender for a start."

Vince had laughed at that and struck a ludicrous pose.

"Only just, though, right?"

"What's that even supposed to mean?"

Vince shrugged and Howard shook his head.

"Dunno. Just 'reckon that with the right persuasion, and thick enough beer goggles on, I could probably do it for you," Vince grinned cockily. "Not that I'm offering," he continued hurriedly. "I'm pretty sure you don't need my help, right Ole' Lady-killer Moon?"

"A little less of the old, thank you."

"I'm just saying is all," Vince laughed, ducking away as Howard tried to cuff him. "I can get pretty much anyone. And I 'reckon you'd go for me under the right circumstances."

He waggled his eyebrows saucily and sashayed over and Howard couldn't help but notice the way Vince's body moved, the way the fabric clung to his lithe muscles, the way his hips suggested all sorts of... things. He wouldn't need the beer goggles, he realised. Vince was a beautiful creature, whether you fancied men or not, but Howard really wasn't interested.

"Get away, you little tit," he'd said roughly, smiling as he did so.

"I'm not a tit," Vince shot back. "My tits've frozen off I'm that cold. What happened to my coat, anyway?"

"Blew away when you nicked off with that polar bear, I suppose," Howard shrugged, hypnotised by the way Vince's body was moving. He didn't like being touched - boundaries were important, especially with a little touch-demon like Vince - but he suddenly wished that he could run his hands along Vince's sides, just once.

"Well I'm freezing. Bunch up, I'm coming in."

"What?"

But before Howard could launch a formal protest Vince had swooped in and was standing right up against him within the confines of his mink coat, shivering and trembling like a gender-confused newt.

"Oh, that's better. Cheers, Howard."

Howard had wanted to push the other man away, send him rolling like he'd done when Vince's phone had interrupted the dying words of Biggie Shackleton, but he couldn't. Vince was cold and it wasn't right for Vince to be cold; Vince was the sunshine kid. Besides, he really did like Vince and the idea that he could possibly have... relations... with him had stuck in his brain like a lonely sausage in a bowl full of mash. He was fairly certain he wasn't gay. He'd watched some porn to make sure, and he now knew that he found watching porn of any kind embarrassing and gay porn particularly off-putting. He didn't mind watching it with his eyes closed, which was really just listening to it, he supposed, because the sounds were quite exciting but the idea of being with a man was even more intimidating than being with a woman. But the thought of being with Vince...

Howard groaned. The idea was in his head now and he knew it would stay there for years to come. At least it would provide fodder for those lonely nights in his sleeping bag but then, wanking in the keepers' hut wasn't really a safe idea either. Vince was a restless sleeper and always wriggled his way across the floor until he was pressed up against Howard's body, no matter how Howard tried to push him away. He didn't want Vince waking up to Howard moaning his name whilst engaged in the one man waltz, so to speak.

He groaned again but Vince didn't understand why and chuckled in reply, pushing his body more firmly against Howard's as his shivers started to ease.

"Don't worry, you great lump. I'm not gonna jump you, I'm just cold. You're my mate Howard, I'm not going to mess that up, am I? And besides," the grin was back and Howard, as always, found himself grinning in return. "You're not really my type."

Howard sighed and kept his eyes on the cloudy sky, scanning for the first sign of Gary's plane. Bloody Vince.

Howard shook the memory away, blinking rapidly as he tried to refocus on the form in front of him. He nervously wrote his own name and phone number in the space for Emergency Contact One, feeling like a fraud as he did so, and then fished Vince's phone out of his pocket and scrolled through the contacts until he reached N. He pressed the call button with a shaky finger and listened to it ring.

"Hello, Mr Numan?"