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"Vyvyan!!!" Rick burst into the kitchen, indignantly throwing his hands onto his hips.
"What?" Vyv asked in a less-than-interested tone of voice.
"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about, Vyvyan."
Vyv exchanged a bemused look with Mike, who was busy fishing a six-legged beastie out of his Cornflakes.
"No I don't, Mister Ploppy-Pants."
"A-ha!" Rick crowed, nodding victoriously. "So you *do* remember!"
Mike gave up on the Cornflake interloper and decided to just eat around it. "Remember what, Rick?" he asked calmly.
"Remember swapping my acne pills for laxatives!" Rick gave Vyv what was supposed to be a stern look, but which turned out to be something a lot more akin to the kind of grimace usually sported by someone who had just been bitten by a particularly large and sharp-toothed creature.
"Who swapped your pills?" Mike asked, looking less than interested in the response.
"Vyvyan! That's what I've been saying for the past ten minutes!"
"I don't know why everyone blames *me* for anything that goes the tiniest bit wrong in this house," Vyv protested. "It could have been S.P.G."
Rick looked at him dubiously. "Your *hamster* swapped my pills?"
"Hamsters are very intelligent creatures, Rick."
"Well I'm sure they *are*, Vyvyan," Rick corrected. "I'm sure S.P.G. is the rodent equivalent to Albert Einstein. But I'm pretty sure that his amazing intelligence doesn't extend to opening child-proof bottles."
"Not even Neil can do that," Mike helpfully pointed out.
"Oh, okay," Vyv grumbled, not at all remorseful. "So I swapped a few pills around. I was *bored*!"
"I don't care if you were bored," Rick yelled back. "You shouldn't be messing with my bottom."
"I don't even want to *know* about your bottom, Rick," Vyvyan threw back. "I'm sure it's horrid and spotty and smelly."
"I'll have you know I have a *lovely* bottom," Rick protested. "All the girlies beg me to let them kiss it."
"You misheard," Vyv growled. "They were actually telling you they wanted to *kick* it."
Rick glared at his housemate. "Why do you always have to be such an utter, utter *bastard*, Vyvyan?" he asked stormily.
Vyv calmly borrowed Mike's Cornflakes bowl and proceeded to smash it into small but jagged pieces with the help of Rick's head. "Because I *can*."
Mike looked up from contemplating the mysterious disappearance of his breakfast. "He's right, you know," he pointed out to Vyv. "You are quite mean to Rick."
"So?" Vyv wasn't too disturbed by the revelation.
"*So*," Mike continued. "People might start to think you have the hots for him."
"Rick?!?" Vyvyan squawked. "I think I'm going to be violently and copiously
ill!"
As Vyv proceeded to do just that, Rick frowned, throwing his hands back onto his hips and assuming his classic pose. "And what's wrong with having the hots for me, Vyvyan?" he demanded. "I'm a love god. Why, only Cliff Richard himself is a greater sex demon than I am."
"Love *void*, more like," Vyv muttered, wiping his mouth on a well-read copy of Cosmopolitan, carelessly left on the kitchen table by the sex demon in question.
"Who's a love god?" Neil asked, making a not-so-grand entrance into the kitchen.
"Certainly not you, you slimy little puke face!" Rik sneered.
"Oh, that's right, just bring me down like you always do, Rick."
"Oh, be quiet you pathetic little hippy!"
"It's not pathetic to love your world, Rick," Neil protested.
Vyv grinned evilly. "You love the entire world? That's a bit pervy, isn't it?"
"No, it's not, Vyv. All the animals and vegetables will thank me once they've been freed from slavery."
"Do you know vegetables that talk, Neil?" Vyv asked, genuinely curious.
"All vegetables talk," came the mysterious answer. "We just need to learn their language."
"That's not the only language you need to learn," Rick muttered under his breath, presenting Neil with a terrifying smile when he looked towards the sound.
"No-one answered my question." Neil glared at his housemates. "No-one tells me anything around here."
"There's a reason for that, Neil," Mike explained.
"What is it then?" he demanded.
"Sorry, can't tell you."
As always, Vyv and Rick laughed hilariously and uncomprehendingly at Mike's attempt at humour, before exchanging a puzzled look.
"I don't get it." Neil sat in the chair opposite Mike and crossed his arms in a fair impression of an annoyed hippy.
"That's because you're a girlie *virgin*." Rick attempted an unsuccessful well 'ard look.
"So are you," Neil threw back.
Rick's eyes widened in horror. "Take that back! I'll sue you for libel! I'll? I'll? I'll? cut the flares off all of your trousers!"
Neil recoiled in horror. "You wouldn't!"
"Oh wouldn't I?" Pleased at actually having the upper hand for once in his life, Rick was going to make the most of it, even if the victim was only Neil. "While I'm there," he continued. "I might even replace your silly hippy crystals with S.P.G.'s kitty litter!"
His arms flapping fearfully, Neil panicked for a moment, before heading off in the direction of his most prized possessions.
Ignoring Neil, Vyvyan returned his attention to Rick. "If you so much as *touch* S.P.G.'s litter, I'll remove your head and use it to smash your entire collection of Cliff Richard records."
Laughing nervously, Rick shook his head. "You're such a joker, aren't you, Vyvyan?"
Vyv contemplated the question a moment before answering. "No."
The nervous laughter was becoming a little hysterical. "Oh yes, yes, very funny. Have you ever considered stand-up comedy?"
In response, Vyv lifted a chair high over his head before bringing it down firmly onto Rick's head. Unfortunately, the latter was not conscious to receive the reply.
"They just don't make furniture like they used to," Mike commented wryly as he surveyed the remains of the chair. "That's the fourth chair this week, isn't it?"
Vyv thought for a few seconds. "Fifth."
"As the wise man said," Mike replied, rising gracefully from his own seat, "a house full of students is a house bereft of chairs."
With that, he left Vyvyan alone with the unconscious Rick, heading upstairs for a few more hours of unnecessary beauty sleep.
Bored, Vyv nudged Rick's prone body with the toe of one Doc Martin boot, contemplating the various forms of physical and mental torture open to him. After a few moments of nudging, followed by a few of pointed prodding, and a few more of heated kicking, Rick's eyes fluttered open as he regained consciousness with a quiet moan.
Annoyed, Vyv paused for a moment. "Be quiet," he growled. "I'm conducting an important experiment."
Wincing, Rick clutched his ribs and dragged himself to a vaguely upright position. "An experiment?" he asked. "It feels a lot more like you were trying to remove my vital organs with your foot."
Vyv shook his head, as if confronted with the most imbecilic of fools. "Yeah," he said proudly. "That was the experiment. I wanted to see if it was possible."
Raising his grime-covered shirt a little, Rick prodded the skin beneath, sucking his breath in quickly at the pain. "I'm going to bruise," he complained.
Interested, Vyvyan leant in for a look. "Maybe you'll get gangrene."
Rick quickly tugged the shirt back down, glaring at his housemate. "Don't look at my stomach!" he yelped, horrified.
"Why? What's wrong with it? Let me see!" Eager to view whatever horrors Rick had hidden beneath his shirt, Vyv grabbed at the side not already been held down by it's wearer and pulled. Hard.
A rasping sound was the first indication that something may have gone a little wrong. The next indication was rather more telling, as half of Rick's shirt found itself a new home in Vyvyan's hand. A strangled squawk attested to the fact that the incident hadn't escaped Rick's notice.
"I'm naked!" he wailed.
Vyv frowned and took a closer look. "No you're not. I can only see one side of your chest."
"Don't look!" Rick grabbed the Cosmo and tried to cover up the flesh on show.
"That's got sick on it," Vyv pointed out helpfully.
With a disgusted yelp, Rick threw the magazine to the ground before hobbling painfully over to the window and shrouding himself in the tattered curtain. "I *hate* you, Vyvyan!"
"I hate you too," Vyv replied mildly, following him over, his boredom erased completely by his housemate's strange behaviour. "Rick, why are you wearing a curtain?"
Rick sighed at the obvious question. "Because I don't want you to see me naked."
"You're *not* naked," Vyvyan corrected. "And why not, anyway?"
"Because you're horrid enough to me as it is."
Vyv paused for a moment to process this new information. "So? What, are you worried I'll accuse you of nuding up to impress me?"
"No!" Rick shouted, a little too loudly.
"Good," Vyv nodded, poking the curtain fabric a little. "Because you're not going to impress me by draping yourself in the lounge room drapes."
"?What?"
"I said," Vyv repeated, a little louder. "You're not going to impress me b-?"
"I heard what you *said*," Rick amended. "I just don't know what to *make* of it."
Vyv shrugged. "Do what you want. But, if you *are* trying to seduce me, I find that pain usually works quite well."
"But? but? but?" Rick was uncharacteristically lost for words. "But? you *hate* me."
"Is that a problem?"
"?No?"
"Well?" Vyvyan looked at the other man in expectation. "Are you going to make a move, or should I just go back to decorating Neil's room with the contents of the bottom of S.P.G.'s cage?"
Rick was silent for a particularly long moment before appearing to finally make up his mind. Letting the curtain drop back to its usual position, he threw a weak, girlie punch in the general direction of Vyv's midsection.
Vyv grinned. "Took you long enough," he drawled, before gracelessly smashing his mouth against Rick's own in a violent and prolonged kiss.
"So, you don't hate me after all?" Rick asked when he was finally allowed up for air.
"Of course I do." Vyv rolled his eyes. "It's not like I'd actually *like* someone as girlie as you. It just beats being bored."
Rick contemplated being offended for an entire second before such thoughts were wiped completely from his mind by another vicious kiss.
{fin}
ã �ugustus, 04-01-2001