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"I don't want any bad vibes, alright?" Neil says, doling out plates of lentil risotto. "I worked really hard on this. I read a recipe and everything, and then there were these little alien guys in the cupboard under the sink, right, and they started, like, rioting, and I could feel my chakras slipping out of alignment, and then SPG crawled up out of the drain and-"
"Where's Vyvyan?" Rick asks.
"Oh, it's fine, actually, Rick. It's not like I was talking, or anything."
"College," Mike says, from behind his paper.
"You what? That leaky pustule actually went in?"
"Does anyone actually listen to me, like, ever?" Neil says. "Sometimes I feel like a novelty coat rack."
"He was chatting up some bird in the refectory," Mike says, folding up his paper and reaching for his plate. "And let me tell you, that boy learned at the hands of the master, i.e: me. She won't know what's hit her, she really won't."
The mouthful of risotto Rick had been sort-of chewing hadn't been appetising to begin with, but now it feels like eating dirt. Neil's saying something, something infuriating no doubt, about Vyvyan and this girl - because Rick thinks it's deeply unfeminist to say bird, and on any ordinary day he'd say so but he feels like all of the words are tangled up in his head.
"God, why don't you just shut up, Neil?" He ends up saying, getting to his feet. "Is it part of the hippy manifesto to be the most irritating and square person alive?"
"There isn't actually a manifesto, Rick," Neil says. "It wouldn't really fit with the whole ethos, you know? That'd be way too regimental."
Rick lets out a wordless cry of frustration and storms out of the kitchen with as much dignity as he can maintain when he trips and nearly goes flying on the edge of the rug.
Timing as impeccable as ever, Vyvyan bursts through the front door just as Rick's rounding the corner.
"Alright, bum breath?" He says.
"Oh, just piss off," Rick says, rushing off upstairs before Vyvyan can retaliate.
-
Vyvyan corners Rick later when he's edging across the landing after a bath. He's just standing there like some creep, leaning up against the wall.
Rick clutches at the neck of his dressing gown and stops short in the bathroom doorway.
"Vyvyan," He says. "I didn't know it was your bath day."
"It's not," Vyvyan says. Rick waits for the fight, for the childish insult, for anything. Vyv just stands there, picking at his cuticles.
"What have you done?" Rick asks, suspiciously, tentatively poking at the nearest floorboard with his slippered foot. "It's not land mines, is it?"
"No."
"Because I've been keeping a note, you know, of everything you've blown up, and me and Mike and Neil are gonna sign it, and then Mr Balowski will know who to charge for it all, and you'll have to pay."
"Mike and Neil will never sign that."
"Yes they will."
"Not if I break their wrists, they won't," Vyvyan says. "Anyway, there are no land mines."
"So what, then? Are you just living outside the bathroom now, is that it?"
"Neil said you didn't eat any of your stupid lentil risotto," Vyvyan says. "He also said you're a spotty bastard and a sissy girly virgin."
"He did not say that!"
"No," Vyvyan concedes. "He said it was seriously uncool of you to leave so much food after he spent so long on it, and don't we all realise how heavy it is being in the kitchen day after day, and then some other stuff, I dunno. I whacked him with the teapot after that."
"Right, well. Good," Rick says. "I'm going to my room now, and if there are land mines I'm gonna give you such a kick up the bottom, you wouldn't believe."
He tries to cross the landing, but Vyvyan gets in his way. He tries to push past, but Vyvyan just pushes him right back.
"Vyvyan," Rick says. "Just get out of my way, alright?"
"What's up?"
"Can you move, please, I've got an important essay to write."
"You've never written an essay in your life," Vyvyan says. "Why are you being such a girl?"
"Oh, I suppose you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Rick says, feeling unpleasantly hot. "If I was a girl. That'd be ideal for you, wouldn't it?"
Vyvyan frowns.
"Don't get me wrong," He says. "You talk shit all the time but now you're really talking shit. What crawled up your bum and died?"
"Mike told us," Rick hisses. "About your conquest. Your bird, and I'm only using that word for illustrative purposes because it's deeply sexist and I'm a feminist, you know."
Vyvyan has the gall to look completely baffled. Rick would give him a good kick in the shin and run if he wasn't so underdressed. As it is, he draws himself up to his full height and adopts a superior air.
"Well, it's none of my business what poor girl you've set your sights on. I only hope she has criminally low standards, for your sake as well as hers. Now get out of the way, please."
He's quite pleased with this as a parting shot, and briefly envisions swanning back to his room awash with triumph, having won the latest battle using only his wits. Bloody Vyvyan and some bloody girl. What does he care? He doesn't, he really doesn't care. He's above all of that, in fact.
Except Vyvyan constantly has to ruin everything, so he follows Rick all the way to his bedroom door, scowling like a particularly irritated shadow.
There's something of a scuffle in the doorway. Rick tries to shove the door closed, but Vyvyan catches him off guard with a pinch on the arm. He barges his way into the room and slams the door behind the two of them.
"Vyvyan," Rick says, with as much dignity as he can muster, hands fluttering around the neck of his dressing gown. "Get out this instant."
Vyvyan's been in his room hundreds of times, of course - usually to set things on fire or put mouse traps in his slippers or sneeze in all of his textbooks. It shouldn't feel so significant for him to be there. In fact, the only point of interest should be that he isn't currently wiping snot on Das Kapital.
Except now they've snogged, haven't they? And it was pretty bloody lovely, if Rick's honest with himself. Or at least, as lovely as something can be with Vyvyan involved.
Everything's been different since. Not like they've been touching bottoms in the kitchen, or anything. Nothing's changed on the surface. It's just this quiet knowledge between the two of them, this tension. Clipped silences and soft brushes of fingers before the inevitable pull and slap.
Take yesterday, for example. Vyvyan had been trying to shove him in the oven, and in between Rick clobbering him with a ladle and Vyvyan trying to bend Rick's leg the wrong way it had been weird.
Rick had been hyper aware of Vyvyan's hands and his stale cigarette breath and how blue his eyes are. Vyvyan had been weird too, just sort of looking at him in between ladle whacks and hissed insults, his eyes all beguiling like a sad dog's.
Cliff only knows what would've happened if Mike hadn't shown up, newspaper under his arm, asking if there was tea in the pot.
Now Vyvyan's been making sad dog eyes at some girl. If she's suitably intellectually lacking then they'll be the perfect match. Vyvyan can go off and marry her and have a load of snotty smelly ginger sprogs. Rick doesn't care.
Vyvyan's still frowning, looking like he's struggling to find the right words.
"There's no girl," He says.
Rick blinks, somewhat taken aback.
"That's not what Mike said."
"What does Mike have to do with it? There's no girl, you stupid great poof."
"Right," Rick sneers. "So who were you chatting up in the refectory, then? Not that it matters."
"I wasn't chatting anyone up! There's this bird on my course, right-"
"I'd rather not hear this, if it's all the same to you," Rick says. "I bet she's revolting."
"- and she was in a bike crash a few years back and she has this metal elbow. Like a robot, or something! So I was asking her about it."
"Oh," Rick says. He swallows. "Well. Alright. Not that it matters, or - not that I needed to know-"
"You were jealous," Vyvyan says, with a glint in his eye. "Bloody hell, Rick, you really are a girl."
"Oh," Rick says, sensing a chance to claw back some of his righteous ire. "Suppose that's why you like me so much, is it?"
"No," Vyvyan says. "I don't like you. At all. You're a horrible annoying bastard with stupid hair."
Rick huffs indignantly at that, automatically reaching up to touch one of his pigtails.
"What does that say about you, then?" He says. "If I'm such a horrible annoying bastard but you still touched my bottom?"
"That I'm a horrible annoying bastard too," Vyvyan says. "Just not as horrible and annoying as you. They'd probably give you a Guinness world record for it. You should get Neil to write in."
"Hilarious, Vyvyan, I'm sure," Rick says. "I suppose you think you're one of the great wits of our generation, do you? Well, I've seen funnier toilet graffiti, I'll have you know."
"If you mean the one about you on the ceiling in the pub bogs, that wasn't me," Vyvyan says. "I only gave Mike a boost. And lent him a pen."
"Vyvyan," Rick says. "Can you just get out?"
"But there was no girl."
"I know."
"Just you."
"I know, Vyvyan," Rick says, loudly. "I want to get dressed, you toxic fart cloud. I can't very well do that with you just standing there."
Vyvyan shrugs.
"I don't mind," He says.
"Oh," Rick says. "I get it. You want to see my nipples, don't you? Maybe even my knob. God, you're such a reprobate."
"No," Vyvyan says, hotly. Rick's satisfied to note that he's a little pink in the face. "If it means so much to you I'll look away."
"No peeking, I mean it."
"No bloody peeking! Will you just get on with it? Ponce."
He dutifully turns his back, facing the door. Rick looks at him for a second, feeling like a deer in headlights, then grabs at the least foul-smelling clothes on the washing pile.
"Don't you dare look!"
Vyvyan scoffs.
"Why would I wanna look at your scrawny backside?"
"Well, I think we've established that you want to do more than look, actually."
"God, shut up. Put some clothes on so I can punch you in the head."
"You know," Rick says, loftily, fingers fumbling over his shirt buttons. "Violence is the last resort of the deeply unintelligent."
"Yeah?" Vyvyan says. "Is that why you were hitting Neil with the Guardian yesterday?"
"Oh, so I should be cowed in the face of oppression, that's what you're saying?" Rick says, fluffing up his damp hair a bit. "Typical fascist viewpoint. If it was up to you the proletariat would never throw off the plutocratic yoke." Then, "Alright, you can look."
Vyvyan turns, and Rick feels like a butterfly pinned to a card. He feels like he might start laughing hysterically, or trying to talk the way girls like, all cool and hard and mysterious.
Except this is Vyvyan. The stuff girls like would probably make him laugh 'til he puked.
This whole situation is beyond a joke, it really is. Rick can't even do normal stuff now. He can't even do nothing without feeling like he might explode into jelly just because Vyvyan's there too, glowering at him.
Part of him wishes they'd never snogged at all. It'd certainly be easier, put it that way. In a pre-snog world, Rick could've cracked Vyv on the head with his bedside lamp, that would've diffused the tension in no time.
As it is, he just stands there, feeling self conscious and stupid and annoyed, somehow. Annoyed with himself for the want clawing at his insides, and annoyed at Vyvyan for causing it in the first place.
Silence stretches out between them, awkwardly.
This is all Vyvyan's fault, Rick realises. He started all this by kissing him. Now he's adding insult to injury by looking at him with his eyes and licking his stupid awful dry lips in a way that makes Rick feel like he's been doused in hot water.
"You look like a wet rat," Vyvyan says, finally. Then, taking a step closer, he adds, "Give us a snog, then."
Rick splutters in disbelief.
"No I ruddy well will not!"
"Why?"
"Well, I look like a wet rat, for starters. And I'm a bastard, with - with crap hair, or whatever it was you just said. So why on earth would you want to snog me in the first place?"
"I fancy you," Vyvyan says, with so much venom it could be a declaration of loathing. "Alright? You stupid sissy bumhole." He shakes his head at himself. "I dunno why. Probably means I've completely lost it."
Rick already had a response ready to go, some particularly withering line of repartee that dies in his throat. Vyvyan's sort of jittering about the place, flexing his hands and staring at the floor.
"You - what?"
"Piss off," Vyvyan says, meeting his eye with a glare. "You heard. I'm not saying it again."
Rick feels really hot and strange. Him! Vyvyan fancies him! And he actually said so! Mike could say what he wanted about some girl but here Vyvyan is, in Rick's room, fancying him!
"Well, I-"
"Don't," Vyvyan says, holding up a finger. "Whatever bollocks you're about to say, don't. I could still bite your fingers off, you know."
"Why?" Rick can't resist saying, smiling his smuggest smile. "Because you fancy me? That desperate to have bits of me in your mouth, eh?"
Vyvyan moves fast then, like a striking snake, giving Rick a hard shove. Rick stumbles and shoves him back.
"You were the one who nearly came in his pants the other day, right, not me," Vyvyan hisses.
"I did not!"
"Yeah, you did," Vyvyan says, prodding Rick in the ribs. "Swooning like the poof you are."
"I was not!" Rick says, slapping his hands away and flicking him on the side of the head. This is comfortingly familiar territory, at least. "Anyway, if anyone's a poof here it's you. You kissed me first."
"Yeah," Vyvyan says, through gritted teeth. "And I wish I hadn't."
"Oh yeah? Is that why you were waiting outside the bathroom for me like some weird pervy?"
Vyvyan grabs hold of Rick's shirt collar and yanks him upwards with shocking strength, jolting his whole body.
"I hate you," He says, so close that Rick goes a bit cross eyed trying to look at him.
"Well, obviously," Rick says, somewhat strained, his collar digging into his throat and making it difficult to breathe. "The feeling is very mutual."
He struggles for a moment, feeling like a fish on a line. Vyvyan is so close he can feel the heat of his breath, can see every single one of his eyelashes. Rick's not gay, alright, he's not - not that he isn't supportive of alternative lifestyles - but there's something about Vyvyan's face, about the warmth of him, that makes him feel like his insides have turned to hot soup.
"Look," He finds himself saying, quieter than he'd intended. "Do you still want a snog or what?"
It's probably the wrong thing to say. Vyvyan bites his lip, hard, then just as quickly soothes the sting with his tongue. Rick should shove him off, then - he should give him a proper whack, the bastard - but there's something about kissing Vyv, about how he pushes and shoves and bites but is somehow weirdly tender about it, that makes Rick feel like he's losing his mind.
Rick imagined, if he was ever snogging someone, that he'd be all smooth and suave and it'd be deeply romantic. Not that he's short on experience, or anything, because he's absolutely not, no matter what any graffiti in the pub might say. But he'd imagined perfume and softness and a girl with a nice pair of- well, it wouldn't be respectful to say.
He certainly hadn't imagined Vyvyan. Not a lot, anyway. Hardly ever, in fact, and it'd be nobody's business if he had. Rick is firmly of the belief that whatever happens in the dark under the blankets in the privacy of his own head is just between him and God - and he isn't sure there is a God anyway, so He can just sod off, the omnipotent fascist.
Vyvyan snogs like a force of nature, like he wants to smash Rick through a brick wall and snog him some more in the debris. And Rick wants him to, is the thing. Rick doesn't mind at all.
He'd never imagined wanting someone this much. He'd never imagined his hands going all trembly and haywire, grabbing hold of any part of Vyvyan he can reach, hair and shoulder and goosepimpled arm. The back of his legs hit the bed and the pair of them scramble on, springs wheezing beneath them.
There isn't strictly enough room for the two of them. There's a mess of elbows and knees in the wrong places for a moment, muttered swear words and choked off gasps. Rick flails his arm and manages to bash the wall, whacking his wrist in the process.
Once Vyv's settled on top of him, he grabs Rick's thigh and squeezes. Nothing else really matters after that.
"You were jealous," Vyvyan says, after a bit, pulling back a little so he can flash a deeply obnoxious smile. "You thought I had a bird and you were jealous."
It takes Rick a moment to come back to himself and open his eyes, his hand fisted tight in the side of Vyv's t-shirt.
"Never mind that," He says, breathlessly. "You fancy me. You! Fancy me!"
"You tell anyone and I'll kill you," Vyvyan mumbles in the space between their lips, leaning in to kiss him again.
Rick turns his face away briefly, desire warring with his need to have the last word in any situation. He feels like he's thrumming with an electric current, sparks catching in his fingertips, points of blinding heat everywhere Vyvyan's touching him.
Vyvyan's eyes are really bloody blue, and his mouth's all pink and shiny. Rick thinks that if wanting to bite the line of his jaw makes him a poof then maybe he bloody is one after all.
"Think that's normal, do you," Rick manages to say. "Threatening to kill someone then snogging them."
Vyvyan shrugs.
"You want normal, find someone else," He says. "Only don't."
There's something about the way Vyv says that last bit that hits Rick harder than any punch.
"Don't?"
The word comes out on the tail-end of a breath, quiet as a secret.
"Don't," Vyvyan repeats, and kisses him hard and horrible, their teeth clacking. When he pulls back again Rick catches himself leaning up helplessly to follow him. "Not that you'd be able to find anyone sad enough - desperate enough-"
Rick digs his fingers into Vyvyan's ribs, making a noise of irritation right into his mouth.
"You truly are disgusting, you know that?"
"Yeah," Vyvyan says, with a stupid grin. "You still fancy me though."
Rick thinks it'd be foolish to deny it at this stage, so he says nothing.
Snogging the smile right off Vyv's horrible face is a far better use of his time, anyway.