Archive of Our Own

"Timothy, love! Your friend's here!"

In the safety of his bedroom, Tim released a hearty puff of amusement that was on the spiky and armed side of grim.

The misapprehensions that parents could harbour belied belief. His mother still thought that her cookies made Tim feel better about anything -- from African massacres to skinning his knee -- and that Tim would be a lovely-looking boy if only he'd stand up straight and comb his hair, and that Tim and Noel Henderson were the best of friends.

The reality was rather different. As a child, Tim had wept to see Ethiopian children starving on his television screen. At seventeen, he knew better than to cry about anything, and even if he did his tears were reserved solely for his own plight.

Where his looks were concerned, Tim knew he was far from lovely. If his mother's definition of 'lovely' could stretch to include acne scars, scrawny limbs, and a nose that could set up independent living on Easter Island, then that was her affair. Tim was long past the comfort zone of self-delusion by now.

And where Noel Henderson was concerned, Tim would happily watch him roast in hell.

A crash from his television screen alerted Tim to the fact that his concentration had slipped. Dragging his gaze back to his now-smoking ruin of a car, he bit off a swear-word before returning to start the game over. He was nearly inclined to yell at his mother for ruining his focus, but it would be a lie. His game had been off all day.

Usually Tim thoroughly enjoyed Saturdays. The weekdays he spent at school were akin to the misery of having his toes nibbled by rats in an oubliette. During his holidays, he worked at a garden centre and had done since he was twelve years old. Hauling huge plants around all day, covered in mud and curious flies, was pure heaven by comparison to school. Tim had begged to be allowed to quit in order to further his career as a landscape designer, but his parents thought he was joking.

Saturdays were a patchwork of sleep-ins, rousted battles on Tim's Playstation, and immersion in books that didn’t have anything to do with getting him beaten up by people who hated swots. Occasionally and reluctantly, he accompanied his father on his quest to Make Tim A Man. Fortunately his father had got the message about Tim and participation in team sports after the first few broken bones, but he still firmly believed that a spectator's life was the life for A Man. Thus Tim had been forced to endure everything from wrestling matches to illegal dog-fights, always wishing he was anywhere else. Given how many other places he found unutterably wretched, he felt that wish said a lot.

Tim knew that one day -- preferably when he was four thousand miles away at the other end of a phone line -- his father would be even more disappointed in his only son and child than he already was. Wanting to give him a few good memories, and to save him from the 'If only I'd's, were Tim's sole reasons for humouring his father.

He was distracted from his splintered thoughts by the sounds of another virtual car biting the dust and his mother's cloven hoof on the stair. Feeling cornered, Tim thumped the controls. If only physically torturing his Playstation would do more than make the screen flicker. Teleporting him to another planet would be favourite.

His mother opened the door. Tim caught the tail-end of her cheery remark: "-- engrossed in his games, probably didn't even hear me."

Tim scowled deeply. He and his mother both knew that he could hear her perfectly well, even when she was at the bottom of the stairs and he was listening to his iPod full blast. At least, he could hear her when she was calling him to dinner. Noel was a far less enticing prospect than dinner. Noel was a far less enticing prospect than being scourged to death by an army of horse-flies with a cat'o'nine tails, if it came to that.

His mother chose to ignore the signals of impending homicide, such as the ominous silence, Tim's murderous glare and the pointed way he was aiming the Playstation controls at her.

"Look who it is!" she said, pretending obliviousness.

Not wanting to in the least, Tim obeyed.

It was indeed Noel Henderson standing behind his mother in Tim's bedroom doorway. It wasn't a figment of Tim's imagination or the product of a fever dream. It was real, and it was horrible.

Noel had his hands stuffed in his pockets and was slouching in the excruciatingly cool fashion he adopted in school. His blue t-shirt dipped and stretched in all the right places, and his dark hair fell in a shining curtain over his disdainful gaze. Tim felt like a spindly foal by comparison.

"Aren't you going to say hello to Noel?" his mother prompted.

"Hello to Noel," muttered Tim. He ignored her scandalised glare and turned back to the television, staring so hard at the image that it coalesced into millions of shining dots.

"Well." His mother cleared her throat. "I'll be downstairs with Helen, Noel love. Make yourself at home. Dinner will be in about an hour's time."

"Thank you, Mrs Steele," replied Noel, in that squeamishly polite tone he used to squirrel out of trouble wherever he went.

"I'll leave you two to catch up then," said Tim's mother. She sounded as eager to leave as Tim was. Tim considered a quick vault through the window, but he knew such an action would leave Noel dangerously close to Tim's journal and his internet favourites list. Always presuming, of course, that Noel could read.

Tim could feel his clenched hands sliding in his own sweat across the controls. His mother's thoughtful suggestion that they 'catch up' was not a baseless one -- at least from her point of view. Until three months before, the Hendersons had lived down the street from the Steeles. Mr Steele and Mr Henderson played golf together, although they were both career men who only made friendships that were commercially advantageous.

Mrs Steele and Mrs Henderson, on the other hand, had first met each other whilst pregnant and had become fast friends. They were the last of a dying breed of professional mothers, who specialised in floral aprons, immaculate hairdos and scrumptious baking. With their family backgrounds intertwined like tangled knitting, what could be more natural than for little Noel and Timothy to be come the bestest of best friends?

Quite a lot, it seemed. Pigs would take to flying shuttles and politicians would grow generous and wise before Noel and Tim were ever anything but pitched enemies.

Of course, it hadn't started out like that. As a kid, Tim had known the layout of Noel's house as well as his own. There was horrifying pictorial evidence of their childhood rapport in the form of naked snapshots. Tim had hinted that these should be ritually burned, but Mrs Steele thought that capturing Tim and Noel in the altogether -- sitting in a plastic paddling pool and hugging -- was an act of cuteness that rivalled anything Ann Geddes had to offer.

Tim begged to differ.

Tinny music filled the room as Tim died yet again. He could feel Noel's presence in the room by the tiny hairs standing to attention on the back of his neck, by the fresh sweat that was breaking out in every nook and cranny of his body, by the way his own face was heating up from rage and another, more shameful, emotion.

After It happened, it had proved surprisingly easy for Noel and Tim to avoid each other. In fact Tim had used 'going to Noel's house' as a handy cover story for years, and Tim supposed that the opposite was true as well. Their parents were more than happy to gloss over It and pretend It hadn't happened.

It was then that Tim decided that all parents everywhere were sadly but irrevocably insane. How they could miss something so vast shattering into a hundred thousand broken pieces was beyond Tim's understanding -- but they had, and afterwards Tim could never see them in the same way again.

Then, three months ago, Mr Henderson had received a huge promotion. Subsequent to this, he had uprooted his family to a more upmarket part of town and a house with a downstairs bathroom and a flat over the garage. It was Tim's understanding that Noel lived in this flat, along with -- if Tim was any judge -- copious amounts of weed and loose women.

What Tim thought would be a blessing in disguise turned out to be a nightmare. He didn't have to catch the same bus as Noel any longer, or walk on the other side of the street when Noel was out with his friends, or leave the local park when he arrived.

On the other hand, he had to endure actual visits.

Mrs Henderson refused to be parted from her kindred spirit, Tim's mother. She made a point of trekking back to the old neighbourhood at least once a week. It naturally followed that Noel would come along for the ride, to see his buddy Tim.

Tim was getting really, really sick of what people assumed to be natural.

So far he'd been able to avoid being actively alone with Noel, sitting mutinously in the living room watching telly with him while their mothers gossiped in the kitchen. Once in a while they had to share a table, and their silence was put down to extreme hunger. Then Mrs Henderson had hit on the 'fabulous' idea of spending whole Sundays with her friend, alternating houses to allow them and their sons spend quality time together. So it was that a fresh hell had opened up before Tim.

In vain he had pleaded for his study day, but his mother was resolute. "You can study on Saturdays instead," was her unwavering reply. To defy her outright was to bring up It and much more besides. So, sick at heart, Tim acquiesced.

And now Noel was in his bedroom. With him. Even that one time Tim had opened his arm with a kitchen knife -- "It slipped" was the post-hospital verdict -- he'd never felt more like dying than he did right now.

He refused to look in Noel's direction. It was his bedroom, he would be damned if he gave up the last right left to him. Fingers trembling, he pressed the buttons to start the game yet again.

"Grand Theft Auto." Noel's voice was strangely subdued. "I've got that at home."

"Wow, fantastic," snarled Tim. "Perhaps we can share jolly tips on our game play. Or not."

"Whatever, Timmy," said Noel. Tim stiffened at the hated nickname, coined by -- who else? -- Noel. At least Timmy wasn't as bad as Tiny Tim, but Tim still hated the moniker because Noel originally hadn't used it for purposes of mocking and scorn and Tim didn't want to be reminded of that fact.

There was a pad of footsteps, and Noel flumped down on Tim's unmade bed. "It's not like I want to be here any more than you want me here. You got anything decent to read?"

Tim looked down at his white knuckles. "Sorry, I'm all out of Playboy. I think my father left me some wrestling magazines -- they're under the bed."

"Anything that's not a magazine?"

Tim's hands unclenched in surprise. "Plenty. Any preferences?"

"You pick."

Heart beginning to pound, Tim awkwardly got to his feet and crossed to his bookshelf. The books, although large in number, were all but hidden behind Star Wars and Lord of the Rings figurines, notebooks, bottles of pens and several computer manuals. He wasn't surprised that Noel hadn't spotted them, but he doubted Noel was looking all that hard either.

He located a John Grisham someone who didn't know him had once given him, and tossed it on to the bed. Unlike most of his books, it was still fresh-looking, the spine and corners unbent. Tim could almost hear Noel sneering.

Tim returned to his controls. His concentration, wobbly to begin with, now looked like it was going to fall off the tightrope entirely as he listened to Noel making himself comfortable in Tim's bed, rustling Tim's sheets and probably propping Tim's pillows underneath his head.

Tim bit down on his lip so hard he tasted copper. Noel let out a gusty sigh.

"This duvet isn't exactly a bed of roses, Timmy boy," he said. "Smells like spunk. You should change your sheets after you wank all over them."

Instantly, a horde of imprecations ganged up in Tim's mind, trying to wreak havoc via his mouth. Tim longed to let them -- longed to throw back something, anything, to tell Noel where to get off or even what Tim got off to. But his lips were frozen shut. The minutes dragged out until it was far too late to riposte, even had Tim suddenly acquired the necessary ability to do so.

From then on, the silence was only broken by Noel turning the pages and the repeated sounds of Tim getting his arse kicked from here to Timbuktu on Grand Theft Auto. As he played on, a dozen new and inventive ways to kill Noel occurred to Tim. He was left seething with a lot of rage and nowhere to go.

Finally, at the end of twenty thousand minutes, Mrs Steele called them down for dinner. Tim had been sitting, motionless with fury, for the last hour. Unfolding took some time, and he was nastily surprised to see that Noel hadn't exited with all due speed. Instead, he was fondling Tim's book -- passing it from hand to hand as if it were a bloody football.

"Here," began Noel, holding it out.

"Keep it."

"What?"

"Keep it." Tim fought to prevent his voice from trembling and giving him away. "Finish the fucking thing, bin it, I don't want it now."

"Okay, fine." Noel tucked the book into the back pocket of his jeans. "Thanks, I guess."

"Don't mention it," hissed Tim. He made to push past Noel, but Noel caught his arm. Tim looked down at it as if it were a mutant growth, and Noel hastily dropped it.

"Sorry," he said, "for what I said about your bed. It was … comfortable."

Before Tim could reply, or even analyse the tiny unfurling of something warm deep in his belly, Noel was gone.

++

The next weekend, Tim had a flash of genius.

He pretended he was ill.

Mrs Steele was far from convinced, but Tim knew every trick in his books. He'd snuck her hairdryer into his room the night before and used it to make his forehead hot. A wet flannel to make him look sweaty and voila: feverish Tim.

"You're obviously in no state to go visiting with me," said Mrs Steele sharply, "but neither are you fit to go gallivanting across the country. Tell your father you're to stay in bed all day. I'll get him to heat up some chicken broth at lunchtime."

"Okay," said Tim, working hard to make his voice piteous.

It was a good thing his mother thought that Tim enjoyed his outings with his father more than life itself; he'd killed two birds with one stone.

His weekends hadn't been this good since the Hendersons moved house. Tim took advantage of his reprieve to the fullest extent, sneaking comics and books into his bed and pretending to be asleep when his father looked in on him.

Unfortunately, such a tactic was unlikely to work twice. Tim harboured fatalistic thoughts about breaking his leg -- or paying one of his bullies to do so -- before the next weekend. However, he couldn't quite bring himself to voluntarily suffer pain -- it was bad enough when it was involuntary.

This time Mrs Steele was taking no chances of her son showing her up in front of Mrs Henderson. She hauled Tim out of bed at the crack of dawn, manhandling him into the shower and picking out his clothes for him. Tim let her, because the alterative was quite obviously being dressed like a child. Her choice wasn't bad, just designed for someone about twenty years older than Tim. He hadn't worn the check shirt since his cousin's wedding, and for good reason. Noel would probably laugh his head off with his friends about Tim dressing up for his visit.

Tim was instructed to wait in the foyer to open the door for the Hendersons. He scowled at his mother's back and his reflection, which was almost impossible to avoid. Mrs Steele hung mirrors on every square inch of wall, or at least it seemed that way. Dealing with one reflection was bad enough; encountering it everywhere he turned was driving Tim along the fast-track to insanity.

It was a measure of his hatred of mirrors that he was actually relieved when the doorbell rang. He snatched open the door and beamed his best smile at Mrs Henderson. She appeared to appreciate the gesture, even though Tim knew -- far too well, after twenty minutes in the foyer -- how much of a car wreck it was to look upon.

"Come in, Mrs Henderson," he said. "Mum's just put the kettle on."

"Thank you, dear." Mrs Henderson kissed Tim's cheek. It felt like being gently slapped with a wet haddock. "Now I've got some delicious gossip for your mother, so why don't you two make yourselves scarce? Run along and do whatever it is boys your age do." She smiled benignly, all unaware of the multitude of unseemly activities that pranced across Tim's mind at her suggestion.

Tim and Noel were left standing alone in the hall of mirrors. Tim stared at Noel's runners -- red Converse, ever-so-stylishly scuffed, the laces a trail of seaman's knots.

"Can I play your Playstation?" asked Noel, his voice shocking to Tim's unprepared eardrums. "Mine's broken."

"Yeah, whatever," mumbled Tim. He climbed the stairs two a time, eager to put space between them if only for a short time.

Tim had turned on the machine and stepped away by the time Noel caught up with him. He knew he was pretty much under bedroom-arrest, because the line of questioning their mothers would take if Tim left Noel alone up here didn't bear thinking about. It had always seemed the easiest, if not the best, thing to do to maintain this façade of friendliness. Tim was beginning to severely rue not being stronger of mind and purpose on that score.

Tim sat down at his desk and fiddled with a biro. His bed was neatly made today, the sheets long stripped since Noel had lolled about in them. He wondered if he should do some maths equations to distract himself, because if there were one thing in the world more frustrating than Noel, maths equations would be it.

Then Noel himself presented an even more dreadful prospect.

"D'you want to play against me?" he said. "It's better with two."

And because Tim's brain and Tim's body were evidently not on speaking terms, Tim found himself beside Noel on the floor. His fight or flight mechanism kicked in. Instead of fumbling the controls and, hence, the game, Tim had never played better. Noel was very good, obviously from hours of practice -- but Tim could think ahead. They were evenly matched. And if it weren't for the fact that Noel's knee occasionally bumped Tim's and set him on edge, Tim would have won hands down.

All in all there were worse ways to spend a few hours. They spoke, but not to each other, swearing vociferously at the screen as if it would be of any great use.

At last Mrs Steele's voice broke their reverie. Noel actually clapped Tim on the shoulder and said, "Not bad, Timmy." Tim nearly swallowed his tongue.

He followed Noel down the stairs, his eyes once more fixed on Noel's shoes. It was only when he nearly walked into Noel at the kitchen door that he realised something that would have been funny, if it were anyone else but Noel. Noel too was wearing a check shirt. Except for the fact that his was green where Tim's was blue, they could have been wearing the same one.

For some reason, it was a relief to know that even Noel Henderson had embarrassing maternal moments.

++

In his heart of hearts, Tim was a little curious about the Henderson's new house. He wondered if it had an airing closet that was the new best place in the world for hiding during hide and seek. Noel had never been able to find him in the old one, even though Tim was a creature of habit and rarely changed his hiding places. Tim's smallness had been a hidden benefit. He'd used to be able to fold himself up into the corners of rooms and even shelves, there to remain undetected for as long as he liked.

With a start, he remembered ten-year-old Noel's plan to get his parents to adopt Tim. They had weighed up their respective parents' merits and ruled in favour of the Hendersons, because Mr Henderson laughed more and Mrs Henderson made the better cookies. They had magnanimously decided to grant the Steeles visitation rights to their son on alternate weekends.

By refraining from complaints and efforts to duck this, Tim's first visit to the Henderson's new house (mansion, his brain whispered), Mrs Steele had graciously allowed her son to choose his own wardrobe. In his bedroom, Tim's favourite Jimi Hendrix t-shirt had seemed a small oasis of comfort in a world gone mad. Now he felt unaccountably underdressed.

Mrs Henderson chose to serve lunch first, instead of dinner later. Tim was quite sure it was just an excuse on her part to show off her new linen and glassware. Mrs Steele oohed and ahhed over it, but Tim felt almost too intimidated to eat. He dropped most of his salad on the floor when he caught Noel watching him with malicious amusement from across the table. He knocked over his water glass not once, but three times. After that, his stomach was too cramped with nerves to allow more that a few slivers of meat to pass his lips.

Although Mrs Henderson had made what used to be Tim's favourite dessert -- chocolate biscuit cake -- he had to plead an upset tummy. It wasn't even a lie. The thought of physically lifting a spoon to his lips while Noel was watching and waiting for him to upset something else made Tim feel nauseous.

The mothers lingered over coffee and water crackers. Noel made no move to leave the table, for which Tim was duly grateful. Anything that shortened the time they were inevitably going to have to spend alone together was fine by him.

At last, Mrs Henderson insisted on showing Mrs Steele her new dishwasher -- although they still planned to do the dishes by hand, as if it were an unusual treat. Tim didn't think he'd ever understand women. His mother owned any number of state-of-the-art mops, but she still got down on her hands and knees to scrub the floor every week. Her reasoning? The mops didn't clean the grouting well enough. Tim's reasoning? She was mad as a snake.

Noel stretched lazily, his shirt rippling up over his skin like an unfurling flag. "I suppose we should go hang out in my flat. Ma hates me being in the house too much. She thinks I dirty it up."

Tim, noting just how low Noel's jeans were slung on his hips when he stood up, agreed -- but for not quite the same reasons.

On a deeper level, he saw that Mrs Henderson's son was no longer the bright, bonny apple of her eye. Of course, Tim felt the need to be guilty over this, even though whatever happened after It was not his fault. Nor, indeed, did Noel's life after It -- aside from being a spectator of some of Tim's worst humiliations -- have anything to do with Tim. Martin Luther and the Great Schism had nothing on It.

The flat was an absolute sty, but Tim expected no better. Not because Noel was a horrible person and lower than the worms, but because even as a kid Noel had been hopelessly untidy. Tim had made Noel Chinese-burn promise to let him have his own room when he was adopted by the Hendersons. Even when he was nine he couldn't abide that level of mess.

A large mound heaped with clothes might be Noel's bed or a portal to Narnia. One closet door swung open to reveal shelves and hangers bereft of clothing, but stocked to the brim with CDs and DVDs. The clothing Noel owned was mainly horizontal and wholly unwashed. A TV-DVD trailing a Playstation and a whirring laptop perched on a desk, most of the surface area of which was covered in what looked like an exploded toolbox. A mini-fridge lurked beneath yet more clothing and, incongruously, a huge stuffed Pikachu. Tim supposed that it contained Noel's supply of beer or even -- knowing him -- moonshine.

"My humble abode." Noel laconically switched on the light, flooding the room with harsh light. It did the place no favours, merely showing up three months' worth of dust and dirt.

"Your mother never cleans up here." It was a statement, not a question.

"Doesn't dare." Noel paused. "I wouldn't let her anyway."

"Neither would I," murmured Tim. The Pikachu was putting him off his guard.

Scarily and unexpectedly, Noel smiled. It wasn't just any smile, either. It was the smile he used on girls he wanted to seduce. Tim wondered if he should draft in the Pikachu to protect his manly virtue. Clearly the foetid smell of the room over such a long period had scrambled Noel's brain.

"Hey, are you hungry?" he said. "I noticed you didn't eat much. Ma's cooking isn't to everyone's taste."

"It wasn't the food --" began Tim. He was about to add It was the company, but Noel had stooped to the fridge and was now holding out a king size bar of Dairy Milk.

Tim found he couldn't finish the sentence. He also noticed that the fridge, although well-stocked with toffee-flavoured yoghurt, chocolate bars and beetroot, was conspicuously empty of illegally-distilled alcohol.

With a flash of dismay, he wondered if he was softening towards Noel Henderson. After all this time, it would be an awful shame.

"So, we playing?" Noel turned away abruptly and thumped the television, which burst into life.

"I thought your Playstation was broken?"

"Yeah?" Noel's feathery eyebrows twisted into a frown. "Well, it got fixed. And we have to do something for the next few hours."

Tim sighed. He knew they did. Telling their parents that they hated the sight of each other, never wanted the other to darken their door again and espousing other, similar sentiments was just too hard. And it wasn't like anyone could see them together.

He dropped cross-legged to the floor beside Noel, trying not to remember how they'd spent a whole summer practising until they could do it automatically. While Noel entered a new game, Tim broke off some chocolate and nibbled at it. It was so cold and hard it was like eating ice, but his stomach had perked up between the table and Noel's flat and was making its presence felt.

The day was humid and Noel's flat doubly so. Tim sucked his thumb thoughtfully, calculating the logistics of eating a rapidly melting bar of chocolate and still beating Noel at Need for Speed 2.

Noel handed him a control and said, "Prepare to die, Timmy boy."

For the first time in seven years, Tim didn't think he meant it literally.

++

Tim's heart thrashed against the cage of his ribs like an imprisoned wild animal. His body, however, was stuck in suspended animation and had been for the last five minutes. Yet it was vibrating constantly if invisibly, like a plucked guitar string.

His hands still held the Playstation controls, his fingers were still stabbing the right buttons. Noel was still throwing his whole body around his control, as was his manner of playing. Perhaps Tim had imagined it.

He rifled through his short-term memory, rewinding back to when he'd last grabbed a piece of chocolate and stuffed in it in his mouth an instant before negotiating a tricky turn. The chocolate melted on his lips as he bit down in concentration, smearing Noel's controls as well and deriving no little pleasure from that small bit of vandalism.

The game was Tim's. He took a moment to swallow and savour his victory. Noel set down his controls to flex his fingers, and turned to Tim.

"Good game," was what he'd said. Tim was quite sure of that, because Noel acting like a civilised human being was still quite the novelty event.

"You have --" added Noel, gesturing to Tim's face. "Chocolate."

Tim reached up to wipe his mouth, but Noel was quicker. Darting forward like a rattlesnake, his tongue was on Tim's chin before Tim realised what was happening. When he did realise, he turned into a Tim-shaped statue.

Two swipes of Noel's tongue -- two hot and wet swipes, Noel's lower lip dragging after even hotter and wetter -- and he was done. He sat back and restarted the game, totally oblivious to the fact that he'd just licked Tim's face.

Five minutes later and Tim could feel the burn of Noel's lips, prickling where his cheek had brushed the corner of Tim's mouth. His skin was drying tighter, closing in against the saliva, as if it wanted to reject it as much as Tim did.

How could Noel possibly be normal? He was sitting there playing -- sorry, winning -- Need for Speed when he'd just cleaned Tim's face with his tongue. Tim wanted to ask him why and then kill him, but that might bring unnecessary attention to the fact that Noel had cleaned Tim's face with his tongue. His tongue.

It had felt rough and slick and even remembering that made something deep inside of Tim squirm. And not in horror, either.

Tim had thought he was relieved when these sessions came to an end before. It was nothing to his solar-system encompassing gratitude when Mrs Steele called to say that she was leaving. Tim couldn't make tracks fast enough.

He scrubbed his teeth for an hour when he got home, ridding himself entirely of the lingering taste of Dairy Milk. The brand of Noel's tongue was far more difficult to remove. Tim went to bed that night tingling from the thought that had popped, unwanted, into his head. It viciously wondered what it would've been like if Noel's tongue had licked him just slightly higher up.

On the lips.

++

"I have an appointment," Tim tried.

"With whom?" asked Mrs Steele, her name in her eyes.

"A person. It's really urgent."

"Reschedule it. Unless you're having emergency surgery, you are not going to be rude to our guests. Whatever would Noel think if you just swanned off while he was visiting?"

"Who cares?" said Tim, but quietly. Mrs Steele pretended she hadn't heard, just as she pretended she hadn't heard for the last seven years.

Tim had been in torment all week. Not the usual sort, where he got books and shoes thrown at his head and orange juice saboteurs attacking his locker. He'd resolved on Monday morning to stop thinking about Noel Henderson licking his chin.

That resolve that had lasted right up until he'd seen Noel in the hallway, at which point it promptly dissolved. All the loss Tim had held at bay for so long came crashing back at that moment, heralded in by the sparkle in Noel's eyes as he laughed with his friends and the way his uniform trousers clung to his arse.

Tim remained betwixt moony and ireful for days, vacillating between staring at Noel's profile in class and mentally wrestling down the part of his brain that was allowing it. He'd tamped his feelings towards his former best friend for a long time now. He'd become exceptionally good at it. The last thing he'd expected was for his walls to be breached by Noel's tongue, of all things.

Gloomily, Tim told his mother to send Noel up when he arrived. He pretended he was going to have a shower, to forestall the need for welcoming the Hendersons. Then it struck him that showering was actually an excellent evasion tactic, so he collected his deodorant and a towel and locked himself in the bathroom.

Over the hiss of water and the rising steam, Tim heard a car pull up. He soaped himself vigorously to drown out the sound, the water sluicing over his shoulders like a waterfall.

The showerhead was running cold by the time Tim yielded to the inevitable. It was then that he realised he'd brought no clean clothes with him. The idea of stepping into day-old boxers did not appeal. He wasn't Noel.

After a cursory scrubbing to wring the damp from his hair, Tim wrapped the towel securely around his waist. He supposed fastening it with a safety pin was taking things a step too far. Besides, there were none to hand.

For some unfathomable reason, he thought that Noel might have stayed downstairs until Tim was presentable. This faith proved wholly unfounded. Noel was lying across Tim's bed on his stomach, immersed in a Harry Potter book.

He looked up when Tim entered, leaving Tim to weakly hope for a swift Armageddon to cleanse him of the shame of being seen half-naked by Noel Henderson. Mrs Steele said Tim was bony and needed to grow into his frame. Tim thought Tim was a toast rack on legs. At least he wasn't condemned to pale skin, although frankly he'd always thought he looked like he'd wandered into a dust storm covered in glue. The moles didn't help.

"I need to get changed," blurted Tim.

Noel's expression flickered, but he did not -- as Tim had hoped -- walk out and leave him to it. "So? Who's stopping you?"

Tim bit back a scream and pulled out of his wardrobe the first clothes that he touched. He desperately wished that Noel would have disappeared when he turned around. His wish was not granted.

Fortunately Noel's bored gaze had returned to the book. Tim dropped his t-shirt over his head and slithered into his boxers with the towel still on. There was one heart-stopping moment when his legs were uncovered, but Tim jammed them into his jeans so fast he nearly zipped his crotch.

"We playing or what?" asked Noel, never lifting his eyes from the page.

"Sure!" said Tim, sounding far too sprightly. All this excitement was going to give him premature hypertension.

Noel seemed to need a lot more room on the floor than usual, his indigo legs splaying out like a broken doll's. He crowded Tim right up against the bed, making him feel like he was ready to be handed his last cigarette before the firing squad took aim.

"Shall we make this interesting?" Noel inquired, his thumbs already hovering over the buttons.

"How -- how do you mean?"

"The winner gets something." Noel shrugged. "Name your price."

"If I win --" Tim licked his papery lips "-- you have to call off Bosworth. A day for each win."

Tim could read nothing in Noel's flat gaze. "Fine." He pressed the on-button, and proceeded to take Tim for the race of his life.

"Wait," gasped Tim, seconds away from speeding his car across the finish line, "what if you win --"

"I kiss you," said Noel calmly, and won.

Tim dropped his controls as if they'd caught alight and tried to back away. Unfortunately, his bed was blocking his only exit route and Noel was already beside him. A nasty little voice in Tim's head wondered if he even really wanted to escape.

Looking supremely unruffled and very much unlike someone about to rob a kiss, Noel pressed the length of his leg to Tim's. He turned his head to face Tim. Tim, sucking in a breath and forgetting to release it, stared straight ahead. In the depths of his switched-off brain, he thought that might deter Noel.

Noel's expression flickered again. He dropped his head forward so that his hair brushed Tim's temple, silky-soft strands slithering forward to obscure Tim's vision. Noel's lips sought the skin high on Tim's cheekbone and pressed in, releasing a puff of warm air to singe Tim's nerve endings.

Among the hundreds of other sensations -- Noel's warm thigh tight against his own, Noel's hair tickling his nose, Noel's aftershave surrounding him, Noel's hand resting lightly against the curve of his hip -- Tim felt a slight, damp heat ghost along his cheek towards his ear. There, the pressure increased, and Tim could hear his breath speed up as Noel lightly inhaled Tim's skin. His mouth moved again to close on the tag of Tim's ear, grazing it with his teeth and touching it with his tongue before retreating.

"There. Not so bad, was it?" Noel's tone was mocking. "Again?" Tim managed to nod. "Same stakes?"

"Yes. Yes. You?"

"No --" Noel grabbed his controls "-- my next one's on your mouth."

Tim mouthed the word "Shit," but no sound came out. He tried his damnedest to beat Noel, but his reactions were sluggish and about twelve seconds too slow. In any case, most of his brain was congregated around his ear, marvelling and making him shiver uncontrollably.

He held on to the controls after he lost, willing it not to be true. Noel tugged them out of Tim's hands and drew them on to his hips. Tim closed his eyes, wondering if he was going to faint.

"That's good." Noel's voice came from very far away. "Keep them closed. Stay still."

Tim felt cloth moving and bunching under his hands as Noel moved. Then there was a warm spot on either side of his legs, and he realised Noel was kneeling over him.

"Try to relax." Noel sounded amused now. "If I wanted to kiss a corpse I'd go to the morgue."

Tim tried to breathe -- normally, or at all -- and wet his lips with his tongue. It was a moment before he realised that the gasp he'd heard hadn't come from him.

"Move your head … yeah," said Noel, his voice closer now, and husky. His fingers found Tim's jaw and glided along to the tip of his chin, which he tilted up.

Noel's lips were cool as snow, and they burned like it. Tim's breath hitched at the first touch and after that he couldn't catch his breath at all. Noel's mouth was stopping the air so Tim tried to breathe through his nose, but all he ended up doing was making his head spin.

Noel rubbed his mouth across Tim's and Tim remembered the way they used to Eskimo kiss as kids, hitting each other's noses hard enough once to give Tim a nosebleed. They'd steered clear of Eskimos after that day.

Noel's lips or Tim's lips were growing wetter, and Tim's lower lip was more in Noel's mouth than on it when Noel broke away.

"Again?"

Coherent thought was an impossible dream, as was speech. Tim just nodded. His brain could handle that.

"Tongues," said Noel. Tim didn't even pretend to try. His car careened off the road in five seconds flat and it took only that long before Noel's hands were on his face again, pulling him in roughly this time. Noel's tongue slipping into Tim's mouth was the most terrifying frightening erotic wonderful strange thing he'd ever felt.

This kiss was different, and not just because that was Noel's tongue in there, exploring the roof of his mouth or nudging Tim's into tentative action. Noel was far less in control this time and Tim had never been, so they were both moaning and panting and Noel's hand was fisted in Tim's shirt and Tim's hands moved up Noel's waist without being told. Noel tried to push Tim flat but there was no room -- the bed was in the way.

Noel growled his frustration and opened his mouth wider, his lips slip-sliding over Tim's chin and his tongue stabbing and swirling like a ribbon. It was only when the force of Noel's determination slid Tim sideways and his head right into the bedpost that the kiss ended at all -- with Tim yelping in pain.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," panted Noel, whose mouth was shiny and who'd never looked less sorry in his life.

"Again?" Tim gestured vaguely at the controls. "You call Bosworth off -- a week." He couldn't care less about Bosworth and his bullies right now, and that in itself was legendary. He just wanted to see what Noel would come up with next.

Noel's eyes darkened. "If I win --" his breathing was heavy "-- I want -- skin."

Tim didn't reply, just grabbed a control. Noel won only by chance because they were both playing exceptionally badly, and because Tim had looked across just before the end and caught Noel licking his lips in concentration.

Once he'd won he laid down the controls like they were delicate china. Tim dropped his as though they were rubber. He stared at Noel, but Noel was reading him, his eyes moving dizzyingly between Tim's eyes and his mouth.

"Come --" Noel stopped and swallowed "-- here. Please?"

Tim crawled, fetching up knee to knee with Noel. Noel's hands shook slightly when he wrapped them around Tim's waist, catching the fabric of Tim's shirt between his fingers. He slowly ran his hands up Tim's sides, an inch at a time, hiking the cloth with him. When he reached Tim's nipples he pinned back the shirt with his fingers, stretching out his thumbs to brush them. Tim would have been embarrassed at the way they went hard, like tiny pebbles, if he weren't so very far beyond the stage of embarrassment now.

Noel's head bent and his mouth closed around one nipple, licking it into a peak as if it were an ice-cream. His hands scrabbled for Tim's back, pulling him closer, and then they both froze at the sound of Mrs Henderson's voice.

"Are you still playing, Noel?" she called. "We have to go soon."

Brought to his senses, Tim still gasped when Noel's mouth abandoned his nipple. Noel scraped it with his thumbnail, and Tim thought he would die.

"Next week," whispered Noel, and scrambled to his feet. "Be right there, Ma!"

++

Tim stared sightlessly at his Chemistry homework. It was demanding that Tim write something about Boyle's law. Tim tried to marshal his brain into compliance, but his brain went 'Boyle-boil-nipple' and he was gone again.

Tim had refused to let constant bullying and paternal disappointment stand in the way of attaining perfect grades and top places in exams. He would have laughed it if wasn't so terrible. All his bullies and his father'd had to do, all along, was coerce Noel Henderson into having sex with him and he'd have been a goner long before.

It was only through a massive effort of will (and because Tim was afraid so much wanking was going to give him arthritis) that Tim even managed to get his homework completed in time. His only consolation was that Noel appeared just as starry-eyed as he did. Although Noel hadn't handed in a full homework assignment since 2003, his standards of back-talking and being the power behind the mayhem hadn't slipped so much since he'd contracted laryngitis.

Tim was a realist. He'd had to be; there was no place in his life for fantasy except for the sort that Dungeons and Dragons provided. If he'd ever thought about it, he would have scorned the notion that regular sex was a panacea fit to cure all ills.

He supposed it was the gods' idea of a justice to make that theory work in practice -- on him.

Bosworth never passed up an opportunity to belittle or beat up Tim, and he was a still a member of Noel's posse, but somehow that didn't seem to matter so much any more. Not when compared to Noel's hands down his pants and his tongue in his mouth as Tim arched against him like a wild thing. He knew Noel still laughed when Bosworth made cruel jokes at Tim's expense, had seen Noel's mouth move to add fuel to Bosworth's fire. Yet Tim had felt those same lips mumble "Jesus Christ, you're so fucking beautiful when you come" into his neck, as Noel's damp fingers slid everywhere with ferocious tenderness.

It didn't make it better, but perhaps it made it okay.

Tim became used to their Saturday games with appalling ease, vicariously reliving each moment throughout the week. Each one left him weak-kneed for the rest of the day, but some memories were extra-special.

The first time Noel's wandering hand had slipped inside Tim's boxers, Tim had gasped from shock and nearly expired. Noel had dragged his fingers through the coarse hair and clenched them suddenly and without warning. Tim had come on the spot.

Several times.

It wasn't until weeks later that, somewhere between Noel's breathy half-requests and his own squeamishness, they'd started to lose the clothing. Shirts and socks first, then jeans, so that they were lying on whichever bed clad only in boxers. Noel on top, clasping Tim's hands above his head and slowly grinding against him. Every so often dipping in for a wet and lazy kiss with lots of tongue, his eyes never leaving Tim's flushed face.

The next weekend Noel had smirked and said he'd run out of clean boxers. When he shoved down his jeans with alarming speed and advanced, he was naked.

Very, very, obscenely naked, with those dark crunchy curls standing out from his torso like coal-dust.

Tim had to be careful not to remember all that exquisite detail too often, for fear he'd actually break his wrist.

But Noel had taken it too far today.

Tim let Noel do practically whatever he wanted on Saturdays. This was not all that much, when viewed objectively: just rapid nakedness and a lot of mutual stroking. No matter how morally ambiguous his motives, Noel's hands had perfect simpatico rhythm. Tim wasn't about to deny him hand jobs in return, or even protest when Noel's finger had briefly pressed back there.

Kissing on school grounds, however, was another matter entirely.

Tim was used to people staring at him. They needed to, for better aim. Meeting their gaze and blushing only fulfilled their mean little desires, so Tim didn’t do it any more. Flicking paper pellets and ink still did not dissuade him. So it wasn't until it was far too late that Tim realised Noel had taken to staring at him. A lot.

Tim's reasoning was that Noel got away with it because he was friends with Bosworth, and everyone knew Bosworth hated dirty little fags like Tim Steele. Besides, who would question what Noel did? The girls all fancied him and the boys all wanted to be him. One word from Noel and they'd have started up a Staring At Tim Club.

During the last class of the day, Tim allowed himself to drift off. Having an actual facility for the English language allowed him to ignore the teacher's lecture on the proper use of adjectives.

The sun was streaming in the window beside him, spilling over the desk where he sat alone. Where he always sat alone. The rays glanced off the blackboard, and Tim shifted a little so that he didn't have to squint. For all that he could define and differentiate between adverbs and adjectives in his sleep, it didn't do to appear less than perky in class. The teachers were his only allies in this school, and fickle ones at that.

Noel was sprawled in his chair two desks along. The friend who sat beside him was dozing with his head on the desk. Noel wasn't much more alert: his cheek was cupped in his palm and his free hand was doodling on a notebook. And his eyes were looking right at the side of Tim's head.

When Tim met his gaze, something happened in Noel's face; something oddly beautiful and absolutely petrifying. The corners of his mouth lifted and his eyes opened wider. A faint speckling of colour appeared on his cheeks.

Tim's heart thumped and he whipped his eyes dead in front position.

Then, as Tim was crossing the football pitch on his way home, Noel stepped out of the lee of the equipment shed. Tim steeled himself for a duffing-up, and his prediction seemed fulfilled when Noel grabbed his arm and shoved him against the side of the shed. He should have been suspicious about the lack of cronies, and the way Noel's thumb was rubbing circles into the thin cloth covering his inner arm. However, Tim had spent far more time getting beaten up than felt up, so he was more prepared for the former.

Noel pressed one warm hand flat against Tim's stomach and leaned in to catch his lips with his mouth. Tim was so startled he stood stock still. Noel's tongue snuck between his parted lips as his hand busily untucked Tim's shirt. He would doubtlessly have proceeded to do these things until Tim was naked and on his knees, but Tim's brain caught up with him.

"Uh," said Tim, stretching his neck to detach his lips from Noel's insistent ones, "what are you doing?"

He felt Noel smile against his jaw just before he kissed it. "You need me to draw you a diagram?"

"We're in school," hissed Tim. "Get off me before someone sees."

Unlike Tim's Saturday moans of 'Please don't … stop … please' Noel seemed to take Tim's objection seriously. He stepped back and Tim could have screamed in frustration, because Noel's hair was all mussed and his mouth was wet.

"Sorry," he said.

"Whatever," mumbled Tim. He straightened his shirt. There were clots of people everywhere, but the lee of the shed was thrust into shade. Besides, it could have looked like a mugging moment from a hundred feet away.

Noel was carding his hair, looking bothered. "I guess I'll see you Saturday, then?"

Tim didn't bother to answer. He hoisted his bag on to his back and walked away.

++

All mothers fondly imagined their child to be the most beautiful in the world. In Mrs Henderson's case, she could be forgiven her pride because her assumption was not so very far from the truth.

The young Noel Henderson had been the focus of many covetous glances from mothers who wished their own offspring were so bright, composed and attractive. Only Noel's parents and Tim were ever privy to Noel's temper tantrums, when he would lie on the floor and beat his limbs off it until he passed out from exhaustion. In public, Noel presented the face of ideal childhood. Not only was he never visibly dirty or smelly, he was also honestly stunning. Until he rebelled at the age of seven, his mother entered him for every Beautiful Baby and Child competition going. He won most of them.

Tim was the apple of his mother's eye, but the worm of most others. Permanently grubby, with shirt untucked and clearly showing what he'd last eaten, shoelaces trailing and nose running, he often looked like a victim of childhood neglect. The only times Mrs Steele ever got truly angry with her son was when yet another kindly person had stopped on the street and tried to sic the Social Services on her. Once she'd asked him if he'd rolled in a mud puddle just to spite her. She didn't believe him when he said Noel had pushed him in.

Having grown up with Noel, Tim was not intimidated by his supposed perfection. Other children who came around to play with Noel were usually too terrified to talk, or ended up being beaten up one side and down the other by him simply because they let him. Tim just walked away when Noel got into a sulk.

Tim's grasp of child psychology had not been strong; he just had better things to do than wait around for Noel to turn into his sunny self again. Once it became obvious to Noel that -- for one person at least -- baking mud pies was preferable to desperately trying to calm him down, he became devoted to Tim. Fortunately, Tim was the sort of child who was utterly oblivious to worship of any kind, so he and Noel got along famously.

Tim's imagination and Noel's perilous sense of adventure made playtime both incredibly enjoyable and fraught with danger. They made endless playhouses out of sheets, branches and appropriated items from their houses that Tim invariably got blamed for stealing. There was an unfortunate air of the Artful Dodger about Tim, while Noel earned more sympathy than Oliver Twist even when he had a scissors in one hand and his mother's Egyptian cotton in the other.

Neither Tim nor Noel acknowledged the females of the species in anything except the vaguest sense. Girls were there to be tied up by baddies and rescued by heroes, and even at that they were a bit superfluous. The problem began when girls stopped being quite so chary of Noel's company.

Against Noel's vociferous protests, Mrs Henderson invited three little girls from the next street to his tenth birthday party. Tim shared in his abject misery at the prospect and they made great plans to avoid these interlopers, which ranged from doing exciting things with their collection of dead frogs to simply throwing cake.

In the end the three little girls were terribly shy and huddled in the living room while Tim, Noel and the rest of the boys tore through the house, enthusiastically shooting at and wrestling each other. They hung back even when the food was brought out, which proved to Tim and Noel that girls were hopelessly weird.

All was rosy in the garden until the little girl's mother struck up friendship with Mrs Henderson and Mrs Steele. From that point on, the girls were always in the background, taking up perfectly good space with frills and bows and pink. Tim preferred to steer clear of them, but their yellow pigtails were just too much for Noel to resist. Even from a young age, Noel had been adept at making girls cry.

One afternoon Tim had to go to the dentist. He shunned this exercise much as a convicted criminal would the electric chair, but his mother was not to be moved -- either by stormy tears or heart-felt pleas. When Tim finally arrived home, exhausted and with his head buzzing from the electric drill, Noel was strangely subdued. The little girls and their mother had just departed. Tim couldn't believe his luck.

It was then that Noel confessed the terrible event that had just occurred. He'd snuck into the living room to tug yet again at those tempting yellow plaits. He'd found the eldest sister all alone with a doll. Noel had jumped out at her and yanked as hard as he could, bringing tears to her eyes.

Tim was bored of this story, having heard it many times over. He began to pick at the scar on his knee.

But that was not the conclusion of Noel's tale. It transpired that, somehow or another, the little girl had wriggled out of Noel's grasp. Instead of running away, as any sane mortal should, she'd leaned in and kissed him! On the mouth!

In his shock, Tim cracked off his scab and didn't even notice until later.

"It was horrible," Noel confided. "But grown-ups do it all the time. How can I stop her?"

"You'll just have to stay away from girls forever," said Tim.

"But they're everywhere!" wailed Noel. "And girls know how to pounce. It was wet, Tim."

In mute comfort, Tim patted his friend on the shoulder.

"Imagine," continued Noel, caught up in his musings, "we'll have to marry one!"

Tim froze in horror. "But you don't have to get married. I'm not."

"You have to."

"Don't."

"Do!"

"Well, I'll marry one, and then I'll divorce her," Tim decided.

Noel seemed much struck by this idea. Then his eyes lit up in a way that told Tim he'd soon be helping Noel to bathe a cat or something equally brilliant in conception and terrible in practice.

"I have a better plan," he announced. "We'll marry each other instead. Then none of those girls can get us."

Tim put his head on one side. He couldn't see any holes in this theory. "All right, then," he said graciously. "Do you want to go do wheelies?"

"Sure," said Noel, and thus their engagement was sealed.

If events had happened naturally, they might have discovered in a few years that such a thing was not possible except in very specialised areas. In a few more years they'd have stopped wanting to -- although Tim never lost his taste for the practice in general. Unfortunately their teacher, Mrs Jackson, decided to hold a class discussion the very next day on what her class wanted to do when they grew up.

Tim hated speaking in class and trembled in fear of being called upon. It was only Noel who understood what he was going through, and told him gruesome stories all the way to school on the Show and Tell days to take his mind off things.

When Mrs Jackson turned her question to Tim, at first he couldn't say a word. His tongue was all heavy and stiff, like he'd just eaten a Mr Freeze. Then Noel's knee bumped against his, hard, and Tim found his voice.

Tim had no definite ideas about his future career ambitions. Sometimes he wanted to be like his dad, and work in a bank. At others he considered such diverse occupations as fire-fighting and flying space shuttles. His plans were always tied up with Noel's, though; that was their one constant. This fact spurred Tim to blurt out, "When I grow up, I'm going to marry Noel."

The room exploded in laughter, but Mrs Jackson's brow darkened. Tim couldn't quite understand why, because it wasn't even like there was any paint close by.

"Don't be ridiculous, Tim Steele," she said sharply. "You can't marry Noel. He's a boy. That's disgusting. Go and stand in the corner until break."

Upset and confused, Tim obeyed. He caught Noel's eye from his place of punishment. He looked just as bewildered as Tim. To assuage his feelings, Noel shrugged and stuck out his tongue at Mrs Jackson while she was requesting of Jessica Mills why she wanted to be a truck-driver -- "because that isn't a very nice job for a girl, dear."

At break time, Noel railed against Mrs Jackson's unfairness and all-around madness. It cheered Tim up, especially when Noel suggested they put an egg on her seat.

There the issue might have ended were it not, again, for yet another fateful intervention the next afternoon. Shane Bosworth, a boy whom Noel and Tim systematically avoided in order to keep possession of their pocket money, had heard about Mrs Jackson's disapproval of Tim's future plans. Many years later, Mrs Steele would express disapproval of the way Shane's parents had brought him up. Too much exposure to violent films and bad language, she claimed, and little to no discipline.

All Noel and Tim were aware of was the fact that Shane was persona non grata for everyone who liked their noses the shape they were, and that he was the boy who knew 'things' about girls and naughty films.

Like most people, Shane made significant efforts to inveigle himself into Noel's good graces. Tim knew even at the time that Noel was flattered by compliments and sweet-talk, no matter who was saying it. Years later, he still couldn't understand why Noel had turned on him so absolutely in order to take up with Shane and his gang. That's how it had happened, though.

Tim had blanked out most the details of that fateful afternoon, but they often returned in three am flashes. They were how he recalled the words 'faggot,' 'ugly' and 'mess him up a bit; we don't like baby gays here.' That, and the fact that Noel had stood back and watched Shane break his arm in three places and dislocate his nose.

During his home convalescence, Tim tried to explain to his mother what had occurred. She managed to fob him off 'until he was stronger.' After a few months, Tim realised that it was she who'd never be strong enough to hear it.

He also asked every day if Noel had rang or called. He never did.

What had been a small seed of confused resentment -- Noel was probably scared, or he might even have been held back by one of Shane's friends -- grew for every hour that Noel ignored him. Tim's understanding of the whole affair was not perfect, but as he grew into a teenager he started to wonder if Noel hadn't set up the whole incident. Long before that, he came to hate Noel with every fibre of his being.

What with all the minor bruises and the cold Tim caught from having his head shoved in a puddle, on top of the fractures, Tim stayed home from school for a fortnight. By the end of that time he'd resigned himself to no longer being friends with Noel when he got back. But a tiny flame of hope persisted in burning -- only to be quenched on Monday morning, when Tim saw that his sticker had been removed from its place on the desk he shared with Noel and replaced with Shane's.

Tim's new place was near the toilets, which always stank. A desk had been retrieved from storage for him, because there were usually no desks in that area. Mrs Jackson, her face grim, had told Tim that he'd be more comfortable there. Utterly cowed, Tim didn't even consider objecting.

Usually people took years to learn to beware those who would be careless with their hearts. Tim had learned it when he was ten years old, and learned it well. When they started secondary school, Noel once started to make an overture of peace. At least, Tim assumed that's what it was. He didn't even let Noel finish saying his name for the first time in three years before he turned and walked away.

Noel didn't follow.

++

"I can't think what's keeping him," laughed Mrs Henderson. "Usually he's down like a dog out of a trap at the scent of food."

Mrs Steele tittered. Tim managed a weak smile.

"Tim, you couldn't go see what's keeping him, could you? Lunch will be another quarter of an hour or so, and it's best hot from the oven."

"Sure," mumbled Tim. He trudged up the stairs to Noel's garage flat, weighted down by invisible blocks of lead strapped to his feet.

After the day of the kiss -- it had been messy and rushed but lovely, which only made it worse -- the events of the past had replayed in Tim's mind with painful clarity. When he was ten, it had been Noel who suggested they 'get married' and effectively ruined Tim's life. Now that he was had just about recovered from that and moved on with his life, looking forward to university and the LGBT societies, it was clear that Noel needed to kick sand in his eyes once again. What better way than to aggravate Bosworth and Co.'s renowned homophobia than to have Tim be seen kissing a boy? That Noel was the boy in question mattered not one whit. He'd escaped the first time scot-free, and he would again.

Tim tentatively pushed open the door to Noel's flat. It was in semi-darkness, the curtains rucked up against the towering piles of possessions but effectively closed. Noel was a barely discernable lump in the centre of his bed.

Ah, thought Tim sourly, he's sulking. It had been so long since he'd last witnessed it that he'd almost forgotten what it looked like. The years had not improved it.

Knocking his fist against the wall, Tim snapped on the light. There was an enraged gasp from under the duvet, which Tim comprehensively ignored. He strode across to the curtains and yanked them open. The sudden light caressed thousands of floating dust mites and Noel's tousled hair, under which he was scowling fiercely.

"What'd you do that for?" he said, anger careening off every word.

"I need some light to see the television," replied Tim, his voice short. "I don't want to go blind on top of everything else, thanks all the same."

"Oh, right." Noel's mouth twisted up into a hideous parody of a smile. Tim noticed distantly that Noel's eyes were red, as if he'd been drinking -- or crying. "You've come here to play with my Playstation."

"I've come here because I can't get out of it," retorted Tim hotly. "Frankly if I had to play with anything it'd be you, but I take what I can get."

Noel made a noise of disbelief. "That's not what you said on Wednesday."

"No, it's not." Tim channelled his anger into enunciating every word very clearly. "I didn't say that on Wednesday because on Wednesday we were in school."

"If you don't want to do the touching thing any more just say so," sniffed Noel. "Don't be such a pussy about it."

With a thin scream, Tim pushed Noel's shoulder. Hard. Noel fell back, Tim looming over him and his knee digging painfully into the wooden frame of the bed.

"Don't you dare call me a pussy," he snarled. "You're not the one who got beaten up every week of primary school. You're not the one who got spit on and whose clothes were ripped and whose books were stolen and whose exam papers were scribbled on, okay? If anyone's the pussy here, it's you."

Tim stopped to catch his breath. In contrast to his previous squinty gaze, Noel's eyes were very wide. "I don't mind the touching. I really, really like the touching. It's the touching at school that is so very not okay. Do you get the difference there?"

"Yeah. A bit." Noel sat upright and Tim fell back. His gaze dropped to where the sheets were pooling around Noel's hips. Noel very clearly wasn't wearing much of anything at all. Tim's stomach swooped.

"Well, good." Tim smoothed out the fabric of his jeans, trying to swallow the nervous trembling in his voice. "I think things are bad enough as it is, don't you?"

"That depends on your definition of 'bad.'" Very deliberately, Noel scooted back on the mattress -- leaving the sheets behind. "I didn't think I was such a bad kisser. Obviously those dozens of girls were liars. I knew I was right about them all along."

Tim's eyes narrowed. "Don't be a turd," he said, and was astonished at Noel's laugh. "I mean," he continued, a little confused and a lot distracted by the way Noel was stretching his long legs -- his long naked legs -- on either side of Tim's waist, "you know that's not what I was talking about."

"What were you talking about?" Noel inquired. One of his fingers wriggled into the space between Tim's shirt buttons, the merest brush of skin electrifying. He leaned forward to burrow his soft lips into Tim's hairline. "I've forgotten."

"Oh God, me too," groaned Tim, pulling Noel's lips away from his ear and on to his mouth.

Noel didn't seem a bit embarrassed about kissing Tim when he was naked and Tim fully clothed. He showed as little compunction as ever about wrapping himself around Tim, and moaned his approval when Tim slid one hand between his thighs and Noel's bare arse cheeks. Tim's fingers squeezed, Noel's hips thrust, and the door opened.

"Noel, Tim, I've been calling you for the last five min …" began Mrs Henderson. She spotted her naked and flushed son in the arms of his former neighbour, and her hand went to her throat. ".. utes."

"Oh fuck," muttered Tim, trying to stand up and shield Noel.

Noel wasn't having any of it. His arms wrapped tighter around Tim's neck and he canted deeper against Tim's stomach. Tim bit his lip, trying not to come in a spectacular fashion in front of his mother's best friend. All the time, Noel's eyes were on his mother's ashen face.

At last she turned and fled. Noel's gaze dropped back to Tim's distorted features.

"Mmm," he said, as if nothing untoward had happened. "Hang on." He ripped down Tim's zipper and pushed the denim out of the way. Tim nearly screamed as Noel bore down, so very hot and slick and he was coming and so was Noel --

Before Tim had even caught his breath, Noel was leaping nimbly off him.

"Time for dinner, I think," he said brightly.

++

Tim cleaned himself up with the edge of Noel's bed sheet, feeling acutely embarrassed. Noel was wandering around his room, pulling on a t-shirt and shorts in between yawns and ruffles of his hair.

"Shouldn't we go down?" ventured Tim.

"Who's stopping you?" asked Noel, with a smile as glittering and hard as a diamond.

Heart heavy, Tim entered the dining room. Mrs Henderson, her features drawn and her mouth tight, presided over the top of the table. Mrs Steele, ignorant of her friend's distress, nattered on about the O'Neill's new BMW.

When Mrs Henderson spied Tim hovering in the doorway, she dropped the gravy boat with an almighty clatter. Viscous brown liquid splattered the pristine tabletop and puddled in Mrs Henderson's Laura Ashley'd lap.

"Helen, dear, are you all right?" Mrs Steele started up from her chair and grabbed a napkin like US Marine would a Kalashnikov. She deployed it against the hopeless ruin of Mrs Henderson's frock while every last remaining drop of colour drained from Mrs Henderson's face.

Tim coughed and took a step into the room. His mother spun around.

"Tim, there you are! Were you sucked into a black hole? What were you doing?"

"Er," said Tim. Mrs Henderson's eyes were fixed on him, her hand fluttering to her throat as if there was a magnet lodged inside. Tim doubted either of the women would appreciate a truthful answer, so he settled for, "Is lunch ready?"

"Yes, sit down." Mrs Steele gathered up the broken shards of the gravy boat. "Helen, you look as if you've seen a ghost. Do you want to go lie down?"

"No." Mrs Henderson's hand trembled like a leaf in the wind. "I'm fine, really. Tim --" her voice broke on the word "-- won't you have some shepherd's pie?"

"Thanks," muttered Tim. He sat down as far as possible from Mrs Henderson while still remaining in the same room, and carelessly dolloped mashed potato and peas on to his plate.

"Tim?" Now Mrs Steele was eyeing him worriedly. "What are you doing? You hate peas."

At that moment Noel chose to make his entrance. Tim groaned inwardly as he realised just how very debauched Noel looked at that moment. His usually satin-smooth hair was sticking up like a cockatoo's ruff, his shirt was inside out and his mouth an angry red. The beginnings of a bruise was coming up on his neck. Did I do that? thought Tim.

"Noel. How kind of you to join us at last," said Mrs Henderson. The bite of acerbity in her voice did nothing to disguise the fact that her eyes were shining with tears. Mrs Steele hopped her gaze between the three of them, clutching the gravy-stained napkin to her chest.

"No worries." Noel slumped over his plate, not bothering to cover his yawn. "What's the grub?"

"Shepherd's pie," replied Mrs Henderson tightly.

"I hate shepherd's pie," remarked Noel, apparently to the ceiling. He shoved up his shirt to scratch his belly.

"Noel," said Tim. He hardly knew what he wanted to say, and God knew Noel deserved what was coming to him, but he couldn't help himself.

Noel flashed him a come-hither look, and said, "Calm down, Timmy. I'll leave some for you."

Mrs Steele's eyes narrowed. "Will someone please explain to me what is going on here?"

"Timmy's afraid that I'll nab all the pie before he has a chance to get some," explained Noel, the picture of innocence. "I'm just reassuring him that he will. Get some, I mean. Timmy will definitely get some. I'll make sure of that."

"Noel Henderson!" cried Mrs Henderson. "You go to your room right this instant!"

"What for?" said Noel. "I'm hungry. Aren't you hungry, Timmy? You should be. We both lost a lot of protein just now."

"What do you mean by that?" snapped Mrs Steele. "Tim, what's he talking about?"

"I, er --"

"What we were doing upstairs before dinner was ready," said Noel, again in that same disingenuous tone. "Jacking each other off, you know? There's protein in sperm and of course all that repetitive wrist action uses up a lot of energy --"

No one saw Mrs Henderson move, least of all Noel. But within a mere instant she stood in front of him and slapped him hard around the face. Noel stared at her for a moment, blood trickling from where her engagement ring had cut his lip. Then he laughed.

"If that's the sort of reaction I get for wanking him, wait till you hear about how good his cock feels in my mouth. It'll bring down the house."

"Wait, we haven't --" said Tim, wanting to clear up the issue. Before he got the chance, Mrs Henderson slapped Noel again. Already his cheek was flushing a dull crimson.

A wild light came into Noel's eyes. Tim had seen that light once before, when Mr Henderson had taken away Noel's new bike as punishment for some minor indiscretion. Neither Tim nor Noel had escaped that light unscathed. History was looking set to repeat itself.

"Go on, Ma," said Noel, licking at the blood that was bubbling down his chin. "I've got so much more to share. I bet Mrs Steele would love to hear about that little hitching noise Timmy makes before he comes all over my hand. It's so sexy that if he hasn't already got me off I come just from hearing it. You should be proud, Mrs Steele. Your pretty little son's turned me into a walking hard-on."

Mrs Henderson made a noise that was half-way between a sob and a scream, and raised her hand again. This time her fingers were clenched into a fist. Tim jumped up, shouting "No!" at the top of his lungs. But Mrs Steele was too quick for either of them.

She grabbed Mrs Henderson's wrist and forced her hand down. Just like that, all the fight went out of her. She collapsed against Mrs Steele, wracked with sobs.

"There, now, Helen. It's going to be all right." Mrs Henderson patted her friend on the back, and turned her flinty gaze on Noel. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Noel Henderson. You have every right to be angry, but you needn't take it out on the rest of us. Tim, you go get some ice for that cheek of his." She bodily lifted Mrs Henderson and started to walk her out of the room. "There now, Helen, we'll get you a sup of brandy and you'll be right as rain in no time. You've had a shock, is all."

Tim didn't wait around to hear more. He slipped into the kitchen and bundled a handful of ice cubes into a tea towel. When he returned Noel was still sagging against his chair, for which Tim thanked whatever deity was currently in charge of disasters and family crises. He'd been afraid that Noel would run off or get some bad ideas from the carving knife, which was still stuck in the uneaten roast.

Crouching down before Noel, who stared vacantly ahead, Tim pressed the ice gently to his cheek. Noel drew in a hiss at the cold.

Tim realised after a while that Noel was not going to make the first move, and his knees were starting to cramp. Shifting his weight on to the next chair, he started rubbing the melting ice into Noel's skin.

"That was impressive," he said. "I haven't seen fireworks like that since your mother broke your light sabre in half."

"She didn't mean to," said Noel quietly. "She's only human. She gets angry too."

"Ah," said Tim. "I take it you're not talking about the light sabre?"

Noel managed a weak smile. "I didn't mean to bring you into it."

"What, you were going to taunt her with our active sex life and not mention me?" said Tim dryly. "That would be worth hearing."

"I don't always think about what I'm saying, you know?"

"I know. You've thrown more tantrums than I can recall." Tim paused, chewing his lip uncertainly. "But … you called me … pretty?"

"Yes, and?" Noel suddenly looked very tired. Tim saw that all the ice was gone, and struck in his hand between his knees instead.

"Well -- why?"

"'Cause you are," said Noel, not even blushing. Unlike Tim, who could have stood in for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer without anyone noticing the difference. "Well, I mean, you're cute too -- you know you always wrinkle up your nose before you kiss me?"

"I do?" said Tim, dumbfounded.

"Yeah," breathed Noel. "You're doing it right now."

Tim's mouth quirked into a smile. "You're just saying that because you want me to kiss you."

"And what if I am? Last time I checked, you didn't seem too unhappy with the whole idea." Noel sat back, scowling as only Noel knew how to scowl.

Tim slugged him in the shoulder. Noel gaped, looking affronted. "Don't be such a baby," Tim admonished. "Of course I want to kiss you, you daft bollocks. C'mere. Is my nose wrinkling yet?"

Noel was already smirking. "Bloody hell, yeah." His hand roughly pulled Tim towards him. "You come here. After all those insults, I'm not moving anywhere."

Tim braced his hands on the back of Noel's chair and kissed him lightly on the lips. Noel shuddered a little as Tim brushed the cut, and when Tim sat back he could taste blood.

"Hey, you call that a kiss?" complained Noel. "Where was the tongue?"

Tim rolled his eyes. "Did you ever consider that you're orally fixated?"

"Did you ever consider that I'll punch you if you don’t snog me properly?"

Tim grinned and cupped Noel's jaw. For an instant, their gazes met, and Tim fully appreciated how very strange and wonderful it was to be able to do that.

Noel tilted his head and the moment broke. A hair's breadth from Noel's mouth, a sharp bang made them both jump apart.

"I've put your mother to bed," Mrs Steele announced without preamble. "I gave her a sleeping pill from the medicine cabinet, so she'll be out for a while. Tim, we need to get going."

For a moment, something like fear flashed across Noel's face. Then it shimmered away, leaving Noel with a flat and darkly bruised expression.

"I'll see you tomorrow," whispered Tim, squeezing Noel's shoulder as he rose. Noel didn't acknowledge either the gesture or the farewell. He drew coldness around him like a blanket and turned his head away.

And in spite of all the wrong he'd done Tim and how much trouble his kisses had brought down upon his head, Tim sensed that there was something very wrong. He feared for Noel, but his mother was beckoning to him and he had to go.

++

The air in the car was redolent of suppressed rage.

After five minutes, Tim dared to ask, "How'd you know Mrs Henderson had sleeping pills?"

The look his mother threw him was scornful. "She got a prescription when they moved house. The anxiety was giving her sleeping problems."

"Ah." Tim was prepared to lapse back into silence, but his mother was not.

"Tim," she said, her fingers clenching and unclenching on the wheel with fainting sucking noises, "was what Noel said true? Are you -- experimenting with him?"

Tim stared at her for a full minute, trying to assimilate her question. Experimenting? What was he, a chemical compound?

"Uh," he said at last. "We're not. Uh. Experimenting. As such."

"So he was lying?" The relief in Mrs Steele's voice was palpable.

"Uh. No. He wasn't. We -- fooled around. A bit. He -- that is, we just --"

"Oh, Tim," said Mrs Steele thickly. Tim saw to his shock that she was crying, tears pouring down her cheeks as she efficiently changed gears and indicated for their driveway.

Tim didn't think it would be right to leave his mother crying in the car, especially when he'd made her do it. So he sat, shifting in his seat every so often and almost wishing she'd thrown a punch like Mrs Henderson.

At last Mrs Steele took her head off the wheel. She gave two loud sniffs and fumbled in her sleeve for her handkerchief. "I'm all right now," she said, smiling at Tim.

It was all Tim could do not to recoil. Her mascara had run and was smeared everywhere except her eyelashes, and her generous nose was bright pink. She looked anything but 'all right.'

"If only you'd told me earlier," she sighed. "It was a nasty shock, hearing it like that. At least if I'd been prepared …"

Tim fought not to frown. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I didn't think you were … gay, now did I?" Mrs Steele sniffed again. "Mrs Gray's son from Kirke Street turned out to be a gay. It's perfectly normal, apparently, and he helped her pick out some lovely new curtains when she redid the living room."

"Mum, what are you talking about?" snapped Tim. "I don't know anything about curtains!"

"But you know, they're very good with things like that. Designing and clothes and so on."

Tim looked at her in disgust. "They? Who, you mean the fags? I wouldn't know, Mum. For me being gay means getting stuff thrown at me in class. Or having people urinate on my clothes while I'm at PE. Or, you know, having my arm broken."

"Darling, what do you mean?" Mrs Steele protested weakly. "I thought you were only experimenting with Noel."

Tim felt something hot gush out inside his head. "Stop using that word, Mum!" he shouted. "I kiss him and we get each other off, but it's not like we don't know what's going to happen when we do, okay?"

"Right, dear, right." Mrs Steele began maniacally folding her handkerchief. "I'm sorry, I'm just a bit overwhelmed by all this."

A dart of pity shot through Tim's rage, but he refused to let it pierce him. "That's your own fault," he said. "Noel was the first boy I've ever done anything with, that's true. But I've always been gay. Always. You just didn't want to see it."

New tears dribbled from Mrs Steele's eyes. Tim was fighting back wet prickles himself. "It doesn't matter, anyway," he sighed. "You'll have the rest of my life to get used to it, unless you want to send me to one of those places in America where they try to cure it."

At that Mrs Steele gasped. "Tim! I can't believe you'd think I'd do such a terrible thing. You're my son. If you want to --" she visibly struggled with the words "-- sleep with other men, then you're gay. But sleeping with men doesn't stop you being my son."

"The son you're disappointed in, though -- right?"

"You have done nothing but make me proud of you your whole life," said Mrs Steele.

Tim wanted to wallow in that, but his ancient pain refused to let him. "Then why, Mum? Why did you let Bosworth get away with breaking my arm when I was ten? Why did you let Mrs Jackson bully me in school?"

"I -- Tim, who is your best friend?"

Tim snorted. "I don’t have a best friend. Bosworth doesn't think little pansy boys are allowed them."

"Then you might not understand this, but -- Helen Henderson is my very best friend. We both got pregnant young, and we both moved with our husbands far away from our families and old friends. We've have got along anyway, but we truly needed each other as well, circumstances being what they were. And then we both couldn't have any more children. I never told you this, but a year after you were born I had an etopic pregnancy and nearly died. The doctors said I needed to have a hysterectomy to avoid future danger."

"Yikes," said Tim, the shock of his mother turning into a human being before his eyes making him revert to a word he hadn't used since he was seven.

"Yikes exactly. Helen, on the other hand, had multiple miscarriages. Eventually they gave up on a second child, just like we had to. It was another bond that drew us together, and made both our sons very precious in our eyes." Mrs Steele sighed. "I sometimes worried that Noel was too precious to Helen -- and he was such a beautiful little boy, nearly perfect. She was constantly terrified that something bad would happen to him."

"Let me guess -- like turning gay?"

"Probably," admitted Mrs Steele, "although it's not something our generation thought very much about. But whereas I have four brothers and know that boys will get into the most awful scrapes, Helen herself was an only child. She'd never really known how to get along with other children when she was one, and she couldn't understand it when Noel tried."

Mrs Steele turned to look out at the profusion of wildflowers in the garden, as if Tim's face hurt to look at it. Tim almost hoped it did.

"You were the only one how could really handle him, you know. Noel would have been fine if it weren't for Helen interfering at every turn, but I couldn't admit that. I didn't want to admit that. I even let her blame you for things I knew Noel had done, because I knew it was water off a duck's back to you. Noel, though … Noel took criticism very badly indeed."

"I'd noticed."

"Then there was that incident in school when you said you wanted to marry Noel when you grew up." Mrs Steele sighed deeply. "Do you remember that?"

"Mum. I have never, despite much trying, been able to forget that."

Mrs Steele made a noise of distress. "In retrospect it was just a silly, childish thing to say. If you'd said it about a girl Mrs Jackson -- everyone -- would have said it was sweet or precocious. Even at the time I was inclined to laugh at first. I knew you and Noel were very close, and that you'd thought that marriage was something friends did."

"It is something friends do."

"Quite. And I remember that when I was eight or nine I'd wanted to marry my brother, because I didn't want to change my last name." Mrs Steele chuckled, but it sounded forced. "Helen didn't see it like that. She thought you -- and by extension, Noel -- had signed yourself up for relentless teasing and bullying by other children."

"She was right."

Mrs Steele continued as if she hadn't heard. "By myself I could have talked her around, but Mrs Jackson was on the warpath. I thought her motives were clear: she wanted to protect you. In fact, she was a right old narrow-minded, bigoted bitch. But who wants to say that about the person they allowed to teach their children?"

"Wow, Mum." Tim was amazed. "You said 'bitch'!"

Mrs Steele grabbed his hands, her heart in her eyes. "I know, Tim, I know that I should have stood my ground. I know what Mrs Jackson did to you in class, what that little shit Shane Bosworth did to you, but if I'd spoken out Helen would never have forgiven me. Besides, I thought you'd grow out of it. And you and Noel seemed to --"

"We didn't," Tim corrected her sharply. "We stopped being friends the day he let Bosworth beat me up."

"Well, there, I suppose it was easier to let myself be deceived. You won't ever comprehend just how terrifying it is to be a parent until you are one yourself."

"Unlikely, in the circumstances," countered Tim.

"The thought of hurting you killed me. And when it was my fault … look, Tim, I can never apologise enough for putting you through that, but it was hard enough to live with myself as it was. And you seemed to be okay. You were never in trouble, you get good marks in school …"

"Hey." Tim hugged her awkwardly. "It's … it's not okay. But I forgive you anyway. You're my mum. I want you to love me. Pretend I just didn't say that."

"Pretending," said Mrs Steele. "And, Tim, I promise not to ask why you've taken up with Noel when you just said you stopped being friends seven years ago --"

"Except that you just did," Tim pointed out.

"Just, don't judge him until you've at least got his side of the story." Mrs Steele sighed. "I love Helen like a sister, but being her son would be tough. Very tough."

"Speaking of tough," said Tim, "Dad's home. Do you fancy telling him before or after tea?"

++

Tim stood quietly outside the door of the Chemistry lab, waiting for the teacher to arrive. He was remarkably proficient at letting himself occupy the smallest possible space during those times when it was all to easy for someone to bump him, knock his books from his arms or spill something on him. A time like now.

Tim wasn't stupid. He knew not every gay person on the planet had to deal with such relentless sexuality-based persecution every single day. He also knew that he'd lucked out when it came to his educational circumstances. He'd known nearly everyone in his class since primary school. It followed that nearly everyone knew that Bosworth wasn't overly fond of Tim, and why. Young teenagers were never going to be hugely accepting of a queer in their midst, but Bosworth had turned up the heat to Spanish Inquisition Fahrenheit.

He was aware that the few girls who shared this class with him were exceptionally giddy today. All he could see of them were their shoes -- precariously high -- and expanses of pale, stubbly legs beneath their rolled-up skirts. Bosworth knew as well as Tim how little girls interested him sexually, but that didn't mean that Bosworth sanctioned him associating with them. That would be a little too humane.

Thus Tim nearly took out his eye with his pencil case when one of the girls stalked into his personal space and said, in a voice hoarsened by cigarette smoke, "You're Tim Steele, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Tim. She'd only heard his name in roll-call every day for the past four years, but Tim didn't like to mention it. People got awfully touchy when you pointed out their mental deficiencies. Touchy to the point of pain, even.

"Is it true then?"

A gale of giggles greeted her words, along with advice that the girl 'Shh' and 'Don't say it, Sandra!'

"I'm sorry, is what true?" Tim dared to move his eyes up to the girl's face. It was a clone of every heavy pan-stick aficionado everywhere, but Tim thought he read something close to kindness in her gaze.

"About you and Noel Henderson!" hissed the girl. Tim hastily revised his opinion of her tender heart. His own plummeted as he spotted none other than Noel and Sam Davies, Bosworth's right-hand man, strolling up to the door.

"What about us?" whispered Tim. It was unlikely that acting dumb would forestall the inevitable question, but hope sprung eternal.

"My mate Cass, she said she saw you two last week behind the sheds," said Sandra. To Tim's petrified ears, she was booming like an elephant in heat. "Course, she saw nothing up close, but it looked like you two were kissing. So she said."

"Well, she saw wrong," snapped Tim. "Why would I kiss Noel Henderson?"

Both Noel and Sam Davies looked over at this rejoinder. It seemed that only Tim felt that it was the original rhetorical question. Noel's face went carefully blank, Sam's post-box red and Sandra's alight with curiosity.

"Well, he's pretty fit," she said, apparently uncaring that the boy in question was well within her earshot. It would have made Tim die of mortification, but his sensibilities belonged to a different age entirely. "And you're gay and all, so why not?"

"Oh, I don't know." Fear tinged Tim's words with hot molten sarcasm. "Maybe because I hate his guts and I wouldn’t touch him if you paid me? I may be gay, but I'm not desperate."

Sandra looked shell-shocked for a moment. Then her lip-gloss cracked and her well-disguised rosebud mouth split into a huge grin. "Right. Good call, mate."

And smoothing down her skirt -- an action which took no time at all -- she wandered back to her friends.

Tim let out a breath of unalloyed relief. He thought, with a bolt of satisfaction, that he'd handled that quite well.

Then he looked up and saw Noel's face.

++

Tim and Noel were in the same class group, but by dint of the fact that Tim was consistently early for classes and Noel consistently late, he rarely saw much of him. It would have meant turning fully around in his seat at the front to catch a glimpse of Noel in his seat at the back. Such untoward movement would have earned him a volley of spitballs at the very least.

But PE was far from such a safe and structured environment. Ever before his and Noel's unexpected rapprochement, Tim had dreaded PE like Odysseus dreaded leaving Ithaca. Where he and Odysseus differed was the repetition of dread. Odysseus suffered being torn from the bosom of his beloved island only once. Tim was forced -- through the cruelty of not having some kind of bone or congestive respiratory disease -- to endure PE every week.

It was little wonder that Tim hated every sport in existence. There were far too many chances for balls or bats to come flying in his direction, and all were permissible under the rules of the game. Thanks to Bosworth's new and inventive aiming methods, Tim used Deep Heat on a more regular basis than the entire Munster rugby team.

Today he was somewhat in luck. The PE teacher wanted them to run an obstacle course in the gym and called names in alphabetical order. This meant that Tim was far back in the line from Bosworth, Davies or -- most importantly -- Noel. In addition, there was only time for everyone to run the course once.

Tim knew he'd trip or fall or fail to launch himself over the horse during his two minutes, giving fuel to Bosworth's mocking fire. But that paled in comparison to forty straight minutes of what the Department of Education and Science charmingly called physical recreation, and what Tim more accurately termed hell on earth.

Tim hung back at the end to offer the teacher help moving the mats. This was a trick that sometimes worked, so that Tim could totally avoid meeting Bosworth in the small enclosed changing rooms. However, his luck had run out with his straight -- if slow -- run on the obstacle course. The teacher thanked him and shooed him off to change.

Tim slipped into the changing rooms and wedged himself into a corner between lockers, the better to avoid being seen. The room was full of raucous boys and the smell of old sweat. Technically it should have been a heaven of half-naked males, and Bosworth certainly believed that Tim thought so. In reality that was far from the truth. If Tim had his way he'd people the changing rooms with well-muscled models from Ayor Studios instead of scrawny, pimpled teenagers.

Tim was buttoning on his school shirt and beginning to hope he'd make his getaway intact when Noel materialised in front of him. Tim's heart sank to his socks at the look on Noel's face. Clearly he meant business. Tim could already feel the phantom aches starting up.

"Noel," he said cautiously.

"Timmy," returned Noel, eyes blazing. "Do you feel like explaining yourself?"

"Huh?" Tim's fingers tugged so hard at a button that it came away from its moorings. He dropped it unthinkingly. "In what way? Do you mean like a description of how I look --"

"No!" Noel's warm breath blasted Tim's cheek, and he shivered. As his gaze was firmly fixed on the exit, he didn't notice the way Noel's angry expression wobbled momentarily before righting itself. "Earlier. Before Chemistry. What you said to Sandra. What was that about?"

"Oh, you mean the part where I saved your reputation? It's okay, you can thank me later."

Noel gave Tim a sharp shove. Tim felt his shoulder blades connect with the breezeblock wall. "Who said I wanted to be saved?"

"Come off it, Noel," retorted Tim. "You have no idea what you'd be letting yourself in for. Do you really want tawdry gossip about you circulating this school? Don't think they won't turn on you because you're gorgeous and popular and all that. That's an even better reason to bring you down."

"And what," Noel ground out, "gave you the impression that I give a fuck about what they think?"

"Uh, let me think. Your entire life to date, maybe?"

Incongruously, Noel smiled. "You once knew me better than that."

"Yeah, and once I had a dick the size of a peanut," said Tim. "What's your point?"

"D'you know why I kissed you last week?" asked Noel softly. Tim noted in alarm that he was practically on top of him. While this could be a very pleasant state of affairs in other conditions, it now meant two things: danger and a blocked exit.

"You were horny?"

"Well, there was that." Noel was very close now. Tim could feel the whisper of Noel's shirt against his bared lower belly. "But mainly I just wanted to. I didn't want to wait for the weekend, or worry about your mum springing us."

"Might I remind you that it was your mother doing the springing, and that a whole school was there to spring us behind the sheds?" Tim was having the greatest difficulty making his words live up to their cold logic when Noel's feather-light knuckles were brushing his bellybutton.

"I'd take the school over my mother any day." Noel grinned in a very disconcerting manner.

With a liquid shock, Tim realised that Noel was going to kiss him. In school, again. In the changing rooms. Not five metres from where Bosworth was regaling the room with his weekend's exploits.

Tim opened his mouth to say 'Don't you dare!' or something else that was suitably quelling. He didn't get past the preliminary stage, for Noel's mouth was already hovering and his tongue slid between Tim's lips as soon as they parted. The hands that Tim raised to push him away twined in his hair instead. Tim's mind screamed betrayal, but his heart just said 'Please, sir, can I have some more?'

Noel's nimble hands slipped around to rub his lower back, making Tim arch like a contented cat. Noel began to do that thing where he drew Tim's lower lip between both of his own, which usually made Tim so hard he thought he'd die before he came. This time, reality came crashing in with a rather more imminent death threat.

"Noel?" said Bosworth, in a voice he'd obviously intended to be commanding but was far nearer to the dying throes of a parrot.

"Mhm," Noel said into Tim's mouth. With obvious reluctance and one hand still on Tim's hip, he turned around. "What d'you want?"

"You," squeaked Bosworth. The rest of the boys stared as if their eyes were due to be harvested for bowling balls. "Him. You! Him! Kissing! Him!"

"Yeah." Noel leaned his head against Tim's. His slight advantage in height caused his stubble to sweep Tim's cheek. It was not unpleasant, except in the sense that it brought a murderous light into Bosworth's eyes. "He's a good kisser."

"He's a boy," thundered Bosworth.

"What part of his anatomy gave that away?" asked Noel.

"Sweet Jesus, do you have a death wish?" said Tim in a terrified whisper.

Bosworth turned his burning gaze to Tim. "It's you, isn't it? You filthy little queer, you've corrupted him! You'll pay for this."

"Correction," drawled Noel. "If there was anyone doing the corrupting it was me. All my idea. Not that Timmy mightn't have thought about it, but I acted on it." He sent Bosworth that sharp diamond smile. "Sorry."

Bosworth's face disappeared beneath a mask of rage. "You will be. I always thought there was something a bit off about you, Noel Henderson. After all, you were friends with that faggot before your father warned you away from him. I'm not surprised he rubbed off on you."

"Or just rubbed me," said Noel. "That's quite nice, by the way -- you should try it."

"Oh no," said Tim, quietly and all but unheard. He knew that look on Bosworth's face. It meant that he was going to hurt someone, hurt them until they begged for mercy and then keep on hurting because mercy was a word with one too many syllables for Bosworth.

In between Noel's bravado and Bosworth's posturing, Tim slipped out from under Noel's arm.

Right up until the minute he stepped in front of Bosworth's fist, he was sure he was going to run for it.

++

Tim was roused from a groggy sleep by what sounded like a troupe of tap-dancing ladybirds. As his brain threw off the mental padding of several doses of painkillers, he realised that the noise was a light hail of gravel against his window.

At some point in the fight, Tim assumed that he'd fallen heavily on his ankle. He couldn't remember anything after the first burst of bright red agony, but when he woke up his face was a patchwork quilt of bruises in varying shades, his left arm was in a sling and his ankle too weak to rest any weight on.

The relentless shower of pebbles continued, effectively putting the kibosh on Tim's chances of falling back to sleep. He grabbed the crutch that had aided his epic journey up the stairs several hours earlier and hauled himself out of bed. It took a good five minutes to cross the two yards to his window. He pulled up the sash, feeling the tender skin of his non-sprained hand cry out in protest at the effort.

Tim wasn't sure who he expected to find waiting outside his window, but Noel was definitely a better contender than Santa Claus or Jesus. As soon as he spotted Tim's head sticking out of the window, his face broke into a grin.

"Wait there!" he said in a hoarse whisper. "Leave the window open."

"You're going to shinny up the drainpipe, aren't you?" Tim sagged against the wall, the tingling in his ankle threatening to escalate into full-blown throbbing.

"Close." Noel's voice floated up. Tim, who was still somewhat heavy from all the drugs that had been recently pumped into his system, fancied that he could see the colour of Noel's words hanging in the air.

He must have fallen asleep standing up, for the next thing he knew Noel was shaking him awake.

"'m sleepy," mumbled Tim. He felt Noel's hand slide around his waist and gasped in pain, for he'd inadvertently pushed against the biggest of Tim's blood bruises.

"Sorry, sorry," said Noel. "Just a few steps more."

"Bed," said Tim, letting himself flop face forwards on to the still-warm pillow.

He drifted in and out of consciousness for what could have been minutes or hours. All the time Noel lay against his back, one arm resting light as thistledown on his waist. At last, the steady flicker of breath against Tim's neck soothed him into full wakefulness.

"Hey, you," said Noel, as Tim gingerly shifted so that he was on his back. Tim saw that one of Noel's eyes was stained blue-black, his eye cobwebbed with pink veins.

"What happened to you?" he whispered.

"Do you remember anything that happened?" asked Noel. Tim shook his head. "Well, Shane attacked you like a bloody tiger, scratching and punching. Everyone was sort of stunned -- usually he doesn't get so extreme, you know? Besides, we were right in school. Everyone knows it's stupid to beat people up in school."

"Yeah, I know," said Tim bitterly. It was stupid to beat people up in school grounds, but perfectly intelligent to do so ten feet from the school gates.

"Eventually he might have remembered that it was me he was after," continued Noel, gentling Tim's elbow with the pad of his thumb, "but I decided I'd better remind him. If you think this is bad, you should see the other guy."

"I already did. There was a mirror in the doctor's surgery."

"Are you angry with me?" Noel's thumb stopped moving. "You have every right to be, I guess."

Tim snorted. "Thank you for that, Brutus. I'm quite aware that ninety percent of the blame for my troubles can be laid at your door, and the other ten percent I get for having the temerity to fancy boys. I should have been born in Ancient Greece. Then it's the rest of you who'd be the freaks, not me. The very thing that Bosworth despises so much about being gay? The Greek men called it arete. That's, like, manly virtues, and they passed it on through sex, so Bosworth wouldn't even have been considered a man by them. And Leonardo da Vinci? He was gay. He said this thing once, I always remembered it, that you have no right to love or hate anything if you haven't acquired a knowledge of its nature. So what right does Bosworth --"

"Tim." Noel pressed his fingers to Tim's mouth. "You're rambling."

Tim subsided in a huff, but before he could even envision graduating to a funk Noel's lips found the soft place beneath Tim's jaw -- one of the few that didn't ache abominably. In between tickling Tim's skin with light kisses, Noel added, "Bosworth is a dickhead. You know that. He's never going to be as intelligent or kind or good-looking as you are, and he knows it. So he hates you."

"Are you telling me he thought all that when we were ten, too?"

"Probably not. But when he was ten he saw me, the kid everyone wanted to have as their best friend, and you were standing in his way. The rest came later, with the inferiority complex."

"I don't know why you were so popular," snapped Tim. "You were an undeserving little shit."

Most annoyingly, Noel only laughed. "I know. I was well lucky the day I got you."

"And then you gave me away again. Clearly you aren't in the habit of being grateful for the hand Fortune deals you."

"You use awfully big words nowadays," mused Noel. "Do you think if we'd stayed friends I would too?"

"There are many things I could say to that, most of them involving very short words with four letters in them. But I'll stick with: we'll never know, will we?"

"Do you think you can sit up?"

"I know I can. The question is why I would bother, when it's the middle of the night, I'm on some kind of noradrenaline high and I should be asleep."

"Just do it," commanded Noel. And, because the habits of a lifetime were hard to break, Tim obeyed. Noel packed the pillows up behind him and pulled a torch from his pocket. "Ready?"

"What for?"

"To go adventuring," said Noel.

He turned the light of the torch under his chin, throwing his face into sharply delineated shadow. With one swift movement, he'd thrown the sheet over both their heads. It made a tight, fuggy little cave. They'd used to do it every time they slept over at one another's houses. As far as Tim recalled, it always gave him a terrible cramp in the neck.

It was a far more sexually charged situation now than it had been when they were kids. They both sat cross-legged; Tim's knees were stapled to Noel's and his bare toes rubbed against Noel's socks. At least he'd taken his runners off, Tim supposed.

"So, where do you want to go tonight in our teleporter?" Noel's voice was soft. The torchlight highlighted his moving mouth. Tim suddenly wanted to kiss him very badly indeed, his own battered face notwithstanding.

"Tahiti," said Tim. "Lots of white sand, blue skies and a very conspicuous lack of Bosworths."

"He'll never touch you again," said Noel, his voice congested. Tim wondered if he was getting a cold.

"How do you propose to certify that statement? This isn't the first time he's put me on painkillers, if you're thinking that's the deal breaker --"

"Maybe because he was expelled and your mother swore in front of the headmistress, the PE teacher, Shane's parents and a guard that she'd sue him from here to Timbuktu if he came within spitting distance of you ever again? The headmistress said Shane had been walking a fine line for months now and suggested he be sent to military school. And the PE teacher said he'd never seen anything so disgraceful as what Shane did to you in the changing rooms, and if I hadn't -- I mean, yeah. That’s how I know."

"Wait, wait," said Tim. "Shane's gone? And what did you do?"

"I might've held him off a bit," said Noel diffidently. "I might've had a few years' worth of not stopping him to make up for. And the headmistress wasn't best pleased that Shane was picking on us because of our 'alternative lifestyle choices.' Probably because she's a lesbian, but whatever, right?"

"She's not a lesbian," said Tim, latching on to the only thing of which he was absolutely certain. "She has two kids and a lovely husband. Did you tell her you were gay?"

"Well, I seem to have come out to nearly everyone else in the past week, so why not her? And it made sure Shane got expelled. School can't afford to let that sort of information get out -- that they're intolerant and discriminatory. Which I might've suggested to her a bit too."

Tim felt the beginnings of a grin push past his sore lips. "I wish someone had told that to Mrs Jackson. That woman made my life a sheer misery."

"Mrs Jackson? The one who -- didn't you hear?" Noel's eyebrows shot up. "She got blackballed from the teaching register. She was slapped with a lawsuit for racial discrimination from the family of a black girl in one her classes."

"You can't get blackballed from teaching," protested Tim. Noel made an impatient noise.

"Well, whatever it is they do to bad teachers. Sacking, flogging, being made to read dyslexic diaries." Noel leaned forward, bringing home once more just how little space there was inside the sheet tent. "So, did I bring a little light into your day?"

"Night," corrected Tim. "And yes. A week in the Costa del Sol's worth."

"Good." Noel smiled, his hands sliding gently up Tim's thighs. "Shall we see if I can't stretch it to a month in Bondi Beach?"

"Wait," said Tim, and Noel snatched back his hands. "What about you? I mean, now everyone thinks you're gay. This isn't going to be nice for you. I speak from experience, here."

"Really, why? Are you going to stop fooling around with me?"

Tim stared at Noel's deadly serious face. "No-o. Not unless you want me to, of course. But what's that got to do with anything?"

"What's that --" spluttered Noel. "Everything, Tim. Everything. You might recall that I proposed to you when we were ten? But what you don’t know is that I've had a crush on you since … forever, probably, but definitely since I realised my dick came with dual functions. Every time I kissed a girl I pretended it was you, and let me tell you that's hard to do with the breasts and the lip-gloss and all. I thought I had to be the stupidest person in the world for letting you go."

Tim could barely speak for blushing, but he mumbled, "So, why did you?"

Noel sucked in his lower lip. "How are your parents taking all this?"

"My dad hasn't been able to look me in the face since I told him. And he keeps jumping away from me when I get near him, as though he'll catch something." Tim shrugged. "Mum's been great, but she's developing an unfortunate tendency to ask my opinion on her new dresses and if I think green curtains would clash with the wallpaper. The other day she tried to make me watch Queer as Folk with her."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. I didn't have the heart to tell her I'd already seen it." Tim paused. "And?"

"Let me put it this way: your parents are having a Hallmark reaction compared with mine." Noel was folding the hem of Tim's pyjama leg between his fingers. Tim wondered if he even realised he was doing it. "You know that day you said you wanted to marry me? Mrs Jackson rang our parents about it. I heard my mother screaming on the phone to yours for about an hour afterwards. Then she screamed at my dad, and then he …" Noel swallowed. "He took a belt to me. He said you were a horrible deviant. He said I should stay away from you."

Tim thought of the numerous times his father had tried to teach him to fly fish, and compared it to being belted by him. It didn't even come close.

"Afterwards he came up to my room. Crying. Said that if I was careful about it, I could still be your friend … but that I'd have to stay away from you for at least a while. Until everything blew over, was how he put it. Well, I didn't have a clue what was happening, did I? I just agreed. Then he left and my mother came in. She was all done up, I remember that, like she was going somewhere. She said she'd invited Shane Bosworth over to play the next afternoon, and that she was going to make cookies for us. You know how often we begged her to make them for us? And how rarely she actually did?"

"Yeah." Tim wanted to say or do something that would convey his feelings in a suitably Shakespearean manner. But he found that his mouth was too dry for soliloquies, and also that exhaustion was starting to make his hands tremble.

"I'm pretty sure my mother was behind it. He only ever beat me once before, when you and I went joyriding on my new bike in the middle of the night. I think my mother wanted me to see my father in the role of punisher, and not her." Noel sighed. "I could have defied them. I know that now. But … I still don’t think I could have."

Tim thought about his parents. About how he'd do anything to undo what he'd done to his father, how many football matches in the sleet he'd attend or maggots he'd stick on fishing hooks to achieve that. One supremely logical part of his mind assured him that his father's reaction was barely a century shy of medieval and, as such, he wasn't worth Tim's notice, never mind his concern. The rest of his brain just wanted his Daddy back.

"Noel," he said, "I couldn't have either."

"Does this mean you forgive me?" Noel looked up, hope gilding his features.

"Not yet," said Tim carefully. "But I think it means there's a distinct possibility that I will."

"Close enough for me." Noel grinned.

"Why are you here, anyway?" asked Tim. "Not but that I'm excessively glad to see you, in one piece and so on, but generally two am is not considered an acceptable time for paying social calls."

"I'm grounded." Noel rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure if it's for punching someone in class or being gay, but grounded I am. And I wasn't about to wait till you were back to check that you were okay. Speaking of which, I have something for you."

Noel rolled forward to yank something from his back pocket. Tim valiantly tried to ignore the black hair that was grazing his nose and how much closer Noel was to sitting in his lap than before. After what felt like a whole era of sexual repression, Noel sat back and presented Tim with a pink envelope.

His mouth curling, Tim opened the ungummed flap and pulled out a card. In the process he spilled enough glitter to supply a craft shop for a month.

The card was emblazoned with the words 'Get Well Soon' and featured two soppy-eyed bears hugging each other. Tim quickly resolved that the artist had never seen a real bear in his or her entire life. There wasn't a slavering fang in sight.

The saccharine verse inside the card had been heavily underlined with purple ink, and the card was signed with a single word: Sandra.

"Looks like you've got yourself a new mate." Noel smirked. "Or a fag hag."

"Sandra? Sandra as in 'publicly outing us' Sandra? Wow." Tim turned the card over, in case there was anthrax stuck to the back.

"She also asked me to give you something else from her."

"Yeah? What?" asked Tim, his amazement at the card dulling his awareness of the husky drop in Noel's voice. An instant later, Noel crushed his mouth on to Tim's. Tim lost his balance and fell sideways, Noel right there with him. They were both half-pinned by the wreckage of the sheet tent, but Noel didn't seem to care and Tim soon ceased to.

Noel had conveniently forgotten the existence of Tim's numerous scrapes and sores, but what he saw when he pulled open Tim's pyjama shirt stilled his roving hands. He looked ready to say something either drippy or vengeful, so Tim clouted his ear.

"A bit lower down, mate," he admonished.

"Sorry." Noel stretched himself lengthways beside Tim, his hand dipping beneath Tim's waistband. "Er, I lied before."

"What?" gasped Tim, affronted that Noel chose to further bare his soul when his fingers were right there.

"That kiss was just from me." Noel tugged Tim's pyjama bottoms down a little.

Tim arched his hips to give him better access, ignoring the cuts and bruises that were filing abuse charges to his brain. "Tell me something I don't know."

"Cheeky." Noel's teeth found his ear. "Keep that up and you'll be waiting a long time for --"

"Boys," said a wearied voice. "It is nearly three in the morning. Some of us have work tomorrow."

Tim froze. "Dad?" he squeaked.

"Mr Steele?" said Noel, sounding like he'd overdosed on helium. Quick as a flash, he dragged up the cloth he'd so recently edged down.

"I know who I am, but thank you for the reminder." Mr Steele shrugged his mauve dressing gown closer to his shoulders and surveyed both of them with a jaded eye. "Well, if this doesn't bring back the past like I don't know what. Can you remember how many times I had to tell you two to shut up during the night when you were kids? Because I can't."

"I kept count for a few months," said Noel, in a strange, disconnected voice, "but I had to give up eventually, the numbers got too big."

"Quite." Mr Steele yawned. "I expect we'll be seeing more of you as time goes on, Noel Henderson, but mind you keep your visits to daylight hours. And if you must stay the night, the two of you can sleep in the guest room. The one that's down the hall."

"Dad?" repeated Tim. His brain was somewhat stuck on the word.

"Yes, Tim?" Mr Steele looked his son in the eye for the first time in a long time. "I can't say I wholly endorse your romantic choices, but I suppose it's a father's lot to disapprove of his son's boyfriends. Your father leaves for work at seven, Noel, so ring him then and let him know where you are."

"Yes, sir," said Noel.

Mr Steele coughed. If Tim didn't know better, he'd have sworn that his father was trying to cover a laugh. "Don't call me sir. It won't help you next time I catch you impugning my son's virtue, I can tell you that much."

"Or when I'm impugning his," Tim couldn't help but add.

"Yes," said Mr Steele. "I expect you will. That's the Steele way. Never had any real backbone, the Hendersons."

With the ghost of wink, he drifted out.

"Huh," said Noel. "I'm beginning to think we chose the wrong set of parents to adopt us."

"Never mind," said Tim. "Your parents will come around -- my mother will see to that. Although you may end up designing pelisses on a professional basis. And if not …"

"Hmm?" said Noel, already busy investigating how much the paternal inspection had dampened Tim's ardour and making up the deficit.

"… we can always get married."