Chapter Text
Vyvyan yawned and wiped his eyes before adding more ketchup to his cornflakes. It was about twelve o’clock by his estimate (he might have been mistaken - he never did get the hang of telling time) which was earlier than usual, but not early enough. He’d missed his morning lecture. Not that it mattered - despite what his housemates might’ve thought, he was fairly good at his course work. In fact, his lecturers were often surprised by just how good Vyvyan was, and weren’t opposed to making allowances for him. True, his bedside manner left a lot to be desired, but his knowledge, skill and accuracy all had the makings of a brilliant doctor. Perhaps even a surgeon. And as long as he did the assignments and showed up for the labs, he reckoned he was alright. It was just him down for breakfast that morning; Mike was already off at the Kebab, and Neil was out in the garden. Vyv wasn’t quite sure where Rick was. Still in bed, probably. That was where he’d left him.
Vyv shoveled another mouthful of cornflakes into his gob and took a moment to appreciate the solitude - something he never seemed to get enough of lately. It felt like everywhere he turned, Rick was there. Spotty prick’d probably follow him into the lavvy if he didn’t always manage to shut the door in time.
Vyv would’ve been lying if he said he didn’t like it. He loved that Rick wanted to spend time with him. Loved that he wouldn’t leave him alone. And not just because it could - if Vyv played his cards right - lead to a good shag if not a quick grope, though that was always appreciated. It was also nice to have the company. Someone who would stop and listen when he had something to say, and do it out of genuine love and affection rather than fear. He liked that Rick was always there to gel the back of his mohawk into place or straighten the studs on his vest. The poet had once even bent down to retie Vyv’s shoes, lest he trip while chasing Neil with a pickaxe down the stairs. It was these little things that helped their relationship tick along after all this time. They rarely fought in the proper sense. They had scraps, of course, but not to the same violent intensity that had defined their tumultuous “friendship”, and they mostly led to sex. There were also occasional tiffs over minor issues; who got control of the television remote, for example. But there was no real drama . No proper screaming matches about making eyes at some bloke in the pub or forgetting to call when one of them came home late. Honestly, neither of them seemed to have the time, patience, or the attention span to carry an argument on for longer than the three-minute mark, anyway. Really, they were becoming quite horribly domestic. Boring. Vyv should’ve hated it.
Instead, he bloody loved it. He grinned into his cornflakes and resisted the urge to crawl back into bed. No, the silence was good for the minute. A nice break from Rick’s constant, furious screeching. A break from Trotsky, Marx and bloody Cliff Richard. He’d earned one, hadn’t he? They’d been joined at the hip for months! But just as he was about to sink back into the quiet and begin to truly appreciate it, he heard a familiar shriek from somewhere overhead, followed by the sound of Rick’s socked feet banging on the stairs.
“Right!” He yelled, “Where are they? What have you done with them, you bastard!”
“Done with what?” Vyv asked. Rick came over to the table in his bathrobe, hands on his hips.
“You know perfectly well what!” He snapped. This was true, but Vyvyan shrugged anyway.
“Sorry. Haven’t the foggiest.”
“My Cliff Richard albums! Come on, come on! Where are they?”
“Oh, those . Yes, um, I’m afraid I took them to the tip, Rick.”
“You did what? ”
Hmm. Perhaps Vyvyan was being a little presumptuous when he said they hardly ever argued. He could certainly feel a storm brewing.
“I took them, to the tip.” Vyv replied, “Oh, don’t bloody look at me like that! I got sick of listening to them all the bloody time! Young ones this, summer holiday that! Honestly Rick, it’s nauseating! I dunno why I didn’t do it sooner!”
“Vyvyan, it took me years to collect all those albums!”
“Well, now you can collect them all again, can’t you? Think how much fun you’ll have.”
“I can’t believe you! You utter bastard! After everything I’ve done for you!”
“Oh, after everything I’ve done for you!” Vyv mimicked, “God, you’re such a whiny girl . They’re only vinyls, Rick. Cliff Richard vinyls, at that. They’re ten a bloody penny at every charity shop in London!”
“That’s not the point!”
“Look, is all this yelling gonna lead to a shag? Cause Bastard Squad’s on in ten, and I’d quite like to watch it.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that , matey. Your program won’t be interrupted by us shagging any time soon, let me assure you!” Rick flipped his boyfriend the V’s and stomped back up the stairs. He was blind blimmin’ furious - more upset than he was willing to let on - but he absolutely wasn’t about to let Vyv see him cry. Not twice in a week, anyway. Certainly not over Cliff Richard albums. Vyv watched him go, briefly, then returned to his cornflakes. If Rick was going to sulk about it, and he definitely wasn’t going to get a shag, then he really would rather watch Bastard Squad.
“What a poof.” He muttered. It was Rick’s fault, really. Rick’s fault for playing the bloody things non-stop at all hours, constantly repeating the same singles on a loop until Vyv had to puncture his eardrums with Neil’s knitting needles just to keep himself sane. What was the bloody fascination with Cliff Richard, anyhow? It seemed to have worsened in the past year or so, becoming more like an obsessive fixation than a genuine appreciation for the music. There was a time when Rick was quite happy to sit and listen to Dexys, or even Echo and the Bunnymen, but Vyv hadn’t heard him put one of those albums on in months. What, did he fancy Cliff or something? Or was it just that Rick had always been rather sheltered, and had never properly heard anything of value, apart from the occasional music act that set themselves up in the drawing-room? Could his taste in music be changed? Rectified? Altered into something more palatable? Vyv smiled at the thought.
Maybe...
*
“Are you still pissy, prick?” Vyv called through Rick’s closed bedroom door. The response came almost instantly, so loud and shrill that Vyv had to cover his ears to try and preserve what was left of his hearing.
“Yes I bloody well am! I can’t believe you did that, Vyvyan! It's absolutely inexcusable!”
“Look, just come out here, would you? I’ve got something to show you.”
“No!” Rick paused, “...What is it?”
“Come out and see.”
Rick opened the door a crack - he must have been standing behind it - and peered out at Vyvyan suspiciously.
“I don’t see anything.”
“It’s in my room.” Vyv held out his hand, coaxing Rick the way one might coax a frightened animal. Rick had to admit the punk had piqued his interest - neither of them had been in Vyv’s room in months. But he knew better than to blindly trust Vyvyvan, especially after all they’d been through.
“...Is just some sort of trick to get in my pants, Vyvyan?”
“No, it’s a trick to get you out of them. What would I want to get in your pants for? They wouldn’t bloody fit.”
“Vyvyan! Be serious!”
“No! Now get your girly bottom into my bedroom before I knock you out and drag you in there myself!”
Rick chose the lesser of two evils. He shuffled out of his room and followed Vyvyan across the hall, head down, shoulders slumped. Vyv opened the door for him, (surprisingly considerate) gave him a hard shove when he moved too slow (less considerate but far more Vyvyan-like) and kicked his way over to the desk in the far corner of the room. Rick watched with mild curiosity as Vyvyan got down on all fours and started to rummage through the piles of clothes, vodka bottles and various pieces of medical equipment. Finally, he emerged with a battered old milk crate full of records. He grinned at Rick, set it down on a relatively clean patch of carpet, and gestured for the poet to come join him on the floor.
“Right.” Vyv said, “ This , is real music. You can borrow them for a bit, if you want. Gives you something to listen to while you’re replacing all your poofy Cliff Richard albums.”
Rick snorted, “I don’t want any of your ghastly metal music, thank you Vyvyan. I’d rather listen to a live recording of Margret Thatcher, or a deluxe Leonard Cohen album, or Genesis, or-”
“Fine! I’ll take them back then!” Vyv reached for the milk crate but Rick snatched it first, looking much more eager than he’d intended.
“No, no. I suppose it gives me something to do, doesn’t it? I’ll just...I’ll just have a quick flip through, see if there’s anything that takes my fancy.”
“Please yourself.” Vyv shrugged. Rick rocked back on his heels and sat, knees bent, legs tucked underneath him, on the floor next to the punk. He thumbed through the records with caution, under the assumption that Vyv would murder him if anything happened to his vinyls. A hypocritical assumption, certainly, and an entirely incorrect one. Vyv wouldn’t have killed him, just started one hell of a fight.
“Black Flag, Buzzcocks, Sex Pistols, the Ramones - are all of these punk?”
“Course! What did you think they’d be? Classical? Easy listening? ”
“Well, I don’t know!” Rick snapped, “You hardly ever talk about the music you like!”
“I do, you just don’t bloody listen.”
Rick wanted to say that Vyvyan definitely didn’t talk about it, because he was very much in the habit of hanging off the punk’s every word, but he kept quiet. He continued to flip through Vyv’s records, wading through violent cover art and aggressive titles, wondering not for the first time why Vyvyan wanted to listen to anything so blimmin’ angry . He flipped past a particularly distasteful album that depicted the queen with a safety pin through her nose, and was about to give up altogether when one record caught his eye. The album was entirely blank - no name, no title - just a white brick wall on both sides of the sleeve. It was the oddest thing Rick had ever seen. How were you supposed to know if you wanted to listen to it if you didn’t even know who it was by? It felt like a conspiracy, somehow. A secret he wanted to be let in on.
“What’s this?” He lifted it out of the crate and held it up for Vyv’s inspection. The punk stiffened.
“Oh. Erm...that’s the Wall.”
“The Wall? Never heard of them. That’s an odd name for a band, isn’t it?”
“No, poof. The album’s called the Wall. Band’s Pink Floyd.”
“Oh. Oh...I have heard of them. I didn’t know they were punk.”
“Ah, yes. Well, they’re not, really. They’re more...rock. Erm...experimental? Sort of, psychedelic-”
“Psychodelic? You mean like the shite Neil listens to?”
“No! Well, maybe he does. I dunno! It’s not...look, just put it back, alright? You wouldn’t like it.”
“Can I borrow it?”
“Why do you wanna borrow it? I just said you wouldn’t bloody like it!”
“Which is why I want to borrow it. And you said it wasn’t punk, didn’t you? So it can’t be completely awful.”
“...Yeah. I spose you can borrow it. For a bit.”
“Can I go listen to it now?”
“I spose.” Vyv replied, “Make a nice change from Listen to Cliff! ”
Rick ignored him, even though Listen to Cliff was one of his all-time favourite records, “Do you want to come listen to it with me?”
“...Yeah, alright. But not if you’re gonna complain and talk over it the whole bloody time!”
“I’ll be quiet.” Rick said, “...But only if it’s not completely blimmin’ terrible.”
“It isn’t.” Vyv replied, though Rick still looked doubtful. They got up in sync and walked across the hall together, shoulder to shoulder, record pressed between them.