A/N: sorry for the long wait for this one! i dont really have an excuse, but GCSEs and planning for my next story (Ratae Corieltauvorum) have got in the way. but i wont ramble for any longer - just enjoy :)

Chapter Six

As far as both of them knew, things were totally fine between Lex and Nicholas. Neither of them would have assumed the other was harbouring some kind of secret, and neither was going to bring it up any time soon if they had. It was not the best foundation to build a friendship upon, but in a strange way it worked. With both sides presuming everything was fine and dandy, there was nothing to stress about and certainly no “we need to talk”s.

Lex used his time away from Nicholas distracting himself from the inner workings of his heart. His secret, he hoped, would just go away in time if he left it well alone, and it was easy to imagine John’s face in the place of Nicholas’ whenever his mind trespassed onto that forbidden ground. He had no idea that his friend was doing the same sort of face replacement a few doors down, but the other way round.

Nicholas had originally intended to complete his Sudoku puzzle (it was a toughie, and he was beginning to hate the number seven), but had changed his mind the moment his pen met the thin newspaper. He then discarded the Sudoku instruments and lay back on his bed, staring at the dipped ceiling with the patch of damp in the furthest right corner.

It was then he began to think of Lex.

-

Much later, when the sun had just about got tired of hanging in the sky for all this time, Nicholas decided he wanted to get blind drunk. For this he knew just the place, and just the person to go with.

After all he knew Lex was totally fine.

“Yeah, course I will!” Lex had exclaimed when met with the proposition, “You know I never pass up an opportunity to drink my dosh away. Lemme just grab my jacket; it’s a bit cold.”

If Nicholas had been able to see into the future he would have just warned his companion not to bother – the brown leather number just ended up draped round the Austen boy’s shoulders by the end of the journey to the pub anyway.

The boys seated themselves down in the same places they were on that first night they were acquainted; at the same bar Nicholas had wasted all his remaining cash on strange alcoholic concoctions. Both of them liked the familiarity, and took great pleasure in saying “Same as last time, please.” to the grinning barman. Soon their tiny table was groaning with shots, tankards of ale and some drinks not even Lex had seen before.

There wasn’t much pausing in between drinks for talking, but that suited the two of them fine. Lex was happy to concentrate on filling the gut-wrenching hole at the pit of his stomach with pungent liquids, and Nicholas was just going to drink until the face in front of him turned into Carrie. Since he’d had a little trouble with it before.

He consoled himself with every shot.

“I’m…” He muttered, quietly enough for Lex to be oblivious. Next shot. “Not…” Next shot. “…Gay.”

“N… N… Nick?”

Nicholas’ mind almost combusted with the shock, but his body was so weighed down by alcohol he barely even twitched. Holy crap, Lex was talking to him now.

“What?” He replied, hoping the irritation wasn’t showing in his voice. He wanted a drinking buddy, not someone to have a chinwag with. Talking was wasting valuable drinking time, and he could still feel his legs.

“You know… you know… d’you still wanna find a… what’s the word? A… fuck, I can’t remember.”

Nicholas burped, and then swallowed his lunch back down again. “A wife? ‘S’at what you meant?”

“…Yeah. Wife. You still wanna look for one?”

A grimace. “Guess so.”

“’Cause… ‘Cause I can help you. I’d like to. Let’s get you a wife, Nick.” He grinned an intoxicated grin, “A wife.”

Just as the pair were about to engage in some dangerous eye contact, a petite brunette sauntered over, looking remarkably sober for the time of night and her company – a bunch of rough looking lads playing some sort of drinking game involving overuse of the word “Fackin’”.

“Er, hey.” She spoke with a voice like teaspoons tinkling inside a teacup. Nicholas looked up, grunted once, and looked down at his half empty tankard again.

“My name’s Sally, and I was wondering if I could buy you a drink or something? Or we could go for coffee tomorrow, maybe?”

“I don’t like coffee.” Nicholas whispered into the rim of his glass. He practically had his face in it by now with the way his head was drooping. His eyes were barely open, and he probably wouldn’t have even noticed if it’d rolled right off his neck.

“You what?” The girl had lost her porcelain tone.

Nicholas giggled. “Don’t tell anyone,” He was still whispering into his glass, “But I don’t like coffee. I like teeeea.”

Then, when his forehead slipped off the rim and hit the solid wood of the table without him even flinching, Sally took it as her cue to leave. Nicholas was still moaning the word “tea” as she strode off to rejoin her mates again.

“What the… what the fuck is… the fuck are you doing, man?” Lex had gotten up and staggered round to Nicholas’ place at the table, knocking shot glasses to the floor as his arm dragged along the wood beside him. “What’d you knock her back for? She was FIT.”

The rough lads at the table across the room had been informed of the Austen boy’s rejection, and were now glaring over at the inebriated pair, flexing their fingers menacingly as they did so. They could have been doing the Can-Can in frilly jumpsuits for all Lex or Nicholas would have noticed, though.

“I like tea.” Was Nicholas’ reply, as if that answered anything. He began to sway to an inaudible beat, gently singing a tune that veered wildly from bass notes to higher-than-high falsetto, and consisted of the words: “Tea, Tea, I like tea.”

His face was still against the table.

“You could have… you could have fucked that one nice and proper. She’s a good fuck. Looks like a GOOD FUCK.”

At the same moment six of the lads rose from the tough table the barman rushed over to the two friends and quickly ushered them out of the bar, muttering something about how he didn’t care who liked tea – he wasn’t going to have another fight in his bar, no way, not after last week.

So Lex and Nicholas found themselves sprawled across the pavement of Granby Street, both with their eyes closed, chanting the word “tea” over and over again.

-

There were a few things Nicholas had been expecting to experience in the morning. A pounding head: of course. That came with the territory. A sore arm: probably, from the amount of times he’d carried booze from table to mouth. Nausea in his stomach: that he couldn’t escape from. But waking up to find Lex lying face first down on his chest, slobbering over his designer shirt? Yeah, maybe not.

Oh, and factor in the fact he had woken up by the exterior of The Hunters Arms, having spent the night almost comatose on the pavement. The passers by didn’t even glance in his direction, and that was worrying. He slid himself up into a sitting position with his back against the slimy brick wall, not realising that Lex was going to slide downwards and that his face would end up somewhere Nicholas didn’t really want it to be.

“Lex!”

His companion snorted once, then rolled over.

“No John… not now. I’m tired after last night with Nicholas.” He murmured. Nicholas prodded his friend’s head forcefully with his index finger and soon enough Lex’s eyes flickered open. When he realised just where they were in relation to Nicholas’ body, he almost had a fit.

“Woah Nick!” He straightened himself up immediately, brushing dirt off the front of his shirt with a half horrified, half disbelieving look on his face, “What the hell did we do last night?”

Nicholas had no idea why, but he laughed. “I have no idea.”

There was a moment of thought where the two of them stared down at the state they were both in: Lex’s leather jacket was wrapped around Nicholas’ dirt-covered legs, and there were a couple of buttons open on the taxi driver’s shirt. Nicholas’ trousers were undone. It was obvious what the two of them were thinking, but neither of them dared to approach the subject. They would have been wrong anyway – the barman had popped Lex’s buttons open as he grabbed the two of them by their shirts to drag them out, and Nicholas had woken up in the middle of the night to try and relieve himself, but had been too out of it to get further than the zip of his trousers. As far as the jacket went, there wasn’t really an explanation for that. But that wasn’t what alarmed the two men as they sat propped up against the wall of the pub.

“How about we just forget these last two nights ever happened?” Lex broke the unbearably awkward silence.

“Yeah.” Nicholas let out a grunt of a laugh, “What two nights?”

And then, magically, the tension choking up the air vanished completely. The pair began to laugh, their shoulders bouncing up and down in an irregular rhythm. Lex’s hand found Nicholas’ shoulder for stability.

“Let’s go home – I’ve got a blinder.”

-

The moment the two of them stepped foot in the London Youth Hostel that morning, they found their faces instantly being shoved into a giant pair of boobs. This wasn’t much cause for celebration, though, as they were Sandy’s, and she was in the mood for some strong reprimanding. That wasn’t even in a good way either.

“You TWO!” She yelled in her Texan drawl as she pulled both of them in for a bosomy hug, her scarlet fingernails digging into the skin on their shoulders, “Would one of ya mind telling me where you’ve been?”

“We stayed over at a friend’s house.” Lex explained, at the same moment Nicholas admitted that they had “gotten rather intoxicated and passed out on the pavement outside the pub”. This did not go down well.

“You slept on the PAVEMENT?!”

“Oh, thanks for believing me, Sand.”

Her grip on the two boys tightened, forcing Nicholas to emit a small groan.

“Don’t you ever do that again, ya hear me? Next time you get so stupidly wasted, just ring me and I’ll pick ya up. I don’t care what time – I am not havin’ two pretty faces like yours spoiled by sleepin’ on the streets. I thought you’d know just what’s out there, Alex!”

Lex shut his eyes, “Not Alex, please.” Sandy raised her eyebrows as if to say “Well that’s what you get for being an ass”, and he sighed. “Anything but Alex. I’ll do anything.”

Sandy’s face immediately brightened, and she released the pair from her vice grip. Nicholas couldn’t stop himself from gulping down a fresh breath of air, making her chuckle. He obviously wasn’t used to her sort of hugs.

“Well that’s rather handy, since there’s a mighty large pile’a dishes in the kitchen there that need cleanin’. That’d be a good start.”

Lex groaned.

“Or wouldja rather stick around here an’ listen to me, Alex?”

“Alright, alright!”

After careful instruction by Lex on just how to use the alien pair of rubber gloves and washing up liquid he’d just been handed (and a fair bit of nudging and winking on the taxi driver’s part), Nicholas found himself elbow deep in soapy suds, actually Washing Up.

If you’ve never ever done something in your life, your first time doing it falls into one of two categories: either you realise you’ve had a hidden talent for it all your life and take to it spectacularly; or you completely suck at it and wish you’d never tried it in the first place.

Nicholas kept telling himself it wasn’t difficult, but he undoubtedly fell into the second category. I mean, he knew what to do and all. It wasn’t rocket science – he’d heard the commoner kids and adults back in Ashmore village complain about how that was all they ever seemed to do. It was just scrubbing at things in a sink. Simple.

Lex hadn’t even noticed that Nicholas was still on his first cake tin after he’d cleared his sink, dried the lot and then put everything back into its rightful place. He just started on his friend’s sink, making idle conversation as they went along.

“So this plan of yours… what’cha doing tomorrow?”

“Uh,” Nicholas still wasn’t much of a multi-tasker, and was finding it difficult to think and clean at the same time, “Nothing that I know of.”

Of course he wasn’t – the only things he ever did were with Lex.

“Well I was thinking we could maybe visit some of the sights of London. I mean, ‘cause we’ve got my taxi and all it won’t cost a fortune, and I’ve always wanted to go to central London. Could be fun, yeah?”

Yes, that idea did sound very appealing. Being driven round London by his new best friend, seeing the sights he’d always dreamed of and going scouting for girls as well? He was in.

“That sounds very agreeable.”

“Oh Nick, you crack me up! So tomorrow we’ll go and look at the stuff I want to see, and we can always go back later to check out the art museums and shit you’re probably into. I’m pretty much free for ages.”

Nicholas hadn’t spotted the flaw in Lex’s statement until now. “We’ll only have tomorrow, won’t we? Well, and the weekend. But then you have to go back to work.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. Tomorrow London, then we can always go on the weekend for your posh stuff. Cool.” He placed the last item of cutlery on the drying rack (Nicholas was still on his cake tin) and pulled his yellow marigolds off with a rubbery flick. “I’m gonna go and see if Sandy needs me again. Yaknow, need to suck up to the boss and all! You gonna be alright?”

Nicholas replied that he assumed so.

“Alright, wicked. Find me if you need me, yeah?”

-

The rest of the day passed without a hitch. Hitch meaning, in Nicholas’ terms, any weird thoughts about Lex. He concentrated most on deciding what to pack for their mini trip (they weren’t staying overnight in central London, but he thought it best to pack at least two changes of clothes in case of emergencies) and what sort of wife he was looking for. He was most partial to brunettes, he thought; tall but not too tall – he didn’t want them to tower over him a la Carrie; an air of elegance and a certain poise, a grace he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Exactly everything Lex wasn’t, in essence.

The pair didn’t speak except for when the blonde poked his head around Nicholas’ door to enquire as to whether he would be going out again tonight. He was not.

“Alright then.” Lex had conceded with a hint of a smile, “Lightweight. I was thinkin’ of leaving about eight tomorrow, you alright for then?”

“That sounds agreeable.”

Lex had then laughed, running his fingers through his mane, “You and your little sayings. Wicked, so I’ll see you tomorrow morning then. I’m off for a night of sweet liquor.”

Nicholas halted his sorting of clothes.

“On your own?”

“Well, yeah, as usual. Sandy and Bryn do have a business to run, after all.”

The thought of Lex sitting at his usual haunt, downing glass after glass of toxic cocktails made Nicholas’ heart clench. But his clothes weren’t going to pack themselves.

“Okay. Have a good night.”

Lex departed, only then registering the sadness of his solitude. Nicholas continued to pack.

-

Nicholas beat his friend down to the reception the next morning. He was hardly surprised, but it felt odd all the same. Bryn was there to make idle small talk with, and that filled the silence before the familiar tapping of Lex’s white leather boots came into hearing distance.

“Hey, Nick! Whatcha got that giant case for?”

He really didn’t know how he did it. There he was, looking as alert as was humanly possible at eight in the morning; eyes shining bright as Nicholas’ polished winkle-pickers.

“For our jaunt, of course?”

“Jaunt?”

He was over by Nicholas’ side now, shoving hands into pockets with a frown on his face until he found the object of his searching: his room key.

“Yes, our jaunt. To central London?”

“Thanks Bryn.” Lex muttered to the man behind the desk, before shoving the key across the wooden surface and then wheeling to face his travel buddy, “Oh, of course. I forget you speak like some seventeenth century lord or summin’. So you all ready? Taxi’s out front.”

Nicholas followed the uneven clomping of Lex’s shoes out of the doors, and then up to the taxi driver’s chariot. After trying to load his humongous case into the boot and having it wrestled off him by his friend, he settled himself in the passenger seat and stared around at the various dials (some familiar and some not) until someone thoroughly excited by the prospect of their journey joined him in the vehicle.

“I’m looking forward to this.”

“Me too.” Nicholas found himself agreeing.

Both parties found the journey to the hustle and bustle of SW1 rather pleasant. Nicholas could have done without the continuous bombardment of the Fab Four the whole time, but he had learnt to cope with that sort of thing. As well as Lex’s less than perfect pitch, and his habit of taking his eyes off the road to engage in conversation. He had no idea how the Londoner ever got hired as a taxi driver. But Lex’s tiny foibles didn’t alarm him, so he just kept quiet and joined in the discussions every now and then, enjoying the company.

When they finally reached the hustle and bustle of Piccadilly Circus Lex cut off his engine on a double yellow and pulled out his tacky tourist’s map of London. After studying it for a while, he proclaimed that the two should proceed to Trafalgar Square immediately. Nicholas barely had time to suck in a breath before Lex was on his feet outside the car, crumpling the map in his tight grip and doing some sort of impatient dance on the spot.

“I’ve always wanted to go here. Nelson was one of the most important military figures of his time! And the lions are cool. Let’s go and sit on one!” Lex exclaimed once the pair had made the short walk to the Square. Nicholas could only marvel at how someone so interested in fancy literature and historical figures could be, well, so simple.

But once again, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. It was all just so impossibly cute.

Lex had set himself some mental boundaries for the trip: one was not to get drunk, as he was the designated driver. It was alright winding through the familiar roads of Camden with slightly blurry vision (well, it wasn’t, but he hadn’t been stopped yet), but he rarely ventured into the more central parts of the nation’s capital and there were bound to be more police than people wandering the streets at the time they would be returning home. The second was to keep physical contact with Nicholas to a minimum. The first rule would probably make the second one a bit easier, but he still wasn’t about to mess things up with an unwanted grope or two.

He was straddling one of the giant lions by the time he came round to that point, and the hilarity in the situation did not go unnoticed.

No, he was going to fuck lions instead.

“Why are you laughing?” Nicholas enquired from his position below, but Lex just shook his head, sniggering to himself.

“Get my camera out, would you? I want to document this for all eternity.”

A lengthy rummage in Lex’s bag later and Nicholas had produced an entity that had probably gone out of production decades ago. The Austen boy studied it, trying to figure out how to turn it on, and where the zoom was on the thing.

“There’s no screen! It’s manual!” Lex called down, and laughed again when his companion stared at it like it was some sort of disease. “You can just use yours if it’s too much trouble. I just didn’t want to replace it when it still works fine.”

Content with his state-of-the-art digital unit, Nicholas began to snap away.

“I’ve never really ‘gotten’ technology, you know?” Lex explained once he had vaulted down off the massive lion and then taken a couple of his pal seated up there too (after much instruction from Nicholas about how to work his stupidly expensive camera. The pictures had turned out horrendously blurry, but strangely Nicholas just laughed). “I mean; it’s really difficult to work out. TVs I’m okay with, although I don’t really watch any programmes on them. But computers?” He made some sort of pained noise, “And ever since they put games and cameras on mobile phones, I’ve kind of been lost.”

Nicholas chuckled, slipping his digital nightmare back into its leather case.

“I think you were born into the wrong era, Lex.”

“Yeah, I think so too. Although I think I’d be spending a hell of a lot of time in jail if that was the case!”

Nicholas recoiled, wondering what sort of illegal activity Lex had been indulging in without his knowledge, “What? Why?”

“Well, they weren’t too keen on the gays back then.” He raised his eyebrows, “And I suppose I’d fit into that category.”

Then suddenly, again before Nicholas could process the situation, Lex pulled out his map from seemingly nowhere and began to scan it with his laser green eyes.

“Right, I’ve seen enough of Trafalgar Square.” Nicholas didn’t even bother to point out that they hadn’t even spoken about the column since their arrival when Lex was supposed to be so fascinated by it. “Let’s go to Big Ben!”

And so what if he broke the contact rule with Nicholas when he grabbed his hand and led him towards the Houses of Parliament. Hand holding wasn’t gay, was it?

Nicholas wasn’t thinking so.