Warnings: Slash (M/M), drug and alcohol abuse, oral sex, references to pornography and masturbation.

Disclaimer: The characters and settings remain the exclusive property of Bryan Elsley, Jamie Brittain, Company Pictures, and Channel 4. I merely borrow.

Notes: Written for the Skins Little Bang on LJ. Thanks very much to youtoxic and ilikesponges3 for all their help, to the mods for running this Bang and to shan_3414 for the help and the arts and the modding! I'm really looking forward to reading all the Big Bang stories.

They were all in a marquee, in a field, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. Rich and Grace danced, eyes locked, hands on hands, oblivious to everything. Alo was happy for them. Really. Rich being happy made Alo happy. He stood a little way outside the open-sided marquee, the coloured lights shining into his face, the stars shining onto his hair, and he watched the dancers. The couples. Couples dancing.

Good band. Alo put his can to his lips again, but all the beer had gone. It had made his head feel fuzzy and his belly burn and he had liked that. But now it was gone. He was exhausted. He leaned his head against a tent pole. His poor, thick, addled head. He grinned to himself. That was just how he liked his head to be. What a day! He had failed and he had succeeded and he was happy now – because Rich and Grace were happy now. And the rest of them; they were all having a good time.

He watched the others watch each other. Liv watched Matty; Mini watched Frankie; Frankie and Matty watched each other. He didn't have it in him to try to work out everything that was going on there. Not tonight. All that relationship shit: he was better off out of it. Stick to porn. That never gave you grief. He thought of his bedroom. Laptop tomorrow morning. Drinking and dancing tonight. He vaguely wondered how they were going to get back to Bristol. There was someone missing in the crowd front of him. Something hit him hard on the back and sent the front of his face smashing onto the tent pole. He dropped his can.

"Alo! Good man! Aloysius. Saved my life."

Alo recognised the slurred almost-speech behind him; he realised who was missing. It would have been a good idea to have known that, he could have kept an eye out, might have had some warning.

"Nick!" he replied, jovially enough. "Scratched ankle, mate. That was all."

"Bloody hurts." Nick was swaying. He'd been off his head all day.

Alo wondered where he'd managed to score with no cash in this field full of strangers. Not that he was surprised. Nick had the sort of face and body that girls liked to give things to.

"Have a look at the bandaging later. Not up to it now." Alo waved a dismissive hand. He swallowed. Little bit nauseous.

"No, it's great." Nick sat down heavily in the grass. "You're a great man. I'm very grateful." He sighed. He pulled a bottle from the pocket of his wrecked Fab Four suit and passed it up to Alo.

Alo took it. It was clear and the label implied Russia. He shrugged and swigged. Nick tapped at the grassed area beside him. Alo shook his head. "Wet."

"Not." Nick patted at the ground again, squirmed slightly. "Little bit," he conceded. "My mate." He clasped Alo's shin.

Wary of being knocked right over, Alo squatted down beside Nick. He passed the fake vodka back.

"I'm very grateful," Nick repeated. "Everything. Not just my foot thing. Man trap. Shit -"

"- I don't think it was actually a man trap. Farmers, you see, they -"

Nick ignored him. "Not just that. Everything. All day. Looked after me. My mate." He swiped an affectionate hand in Alo's direction. "And always. Before that. Fucked things up a bit," he added in a conspiratorial but loud whisper, leaning closer to Alo's ear. "I have. Fucked up lots of things. Got my brother back, though. He's a good man, too. Sometimes." Nick drifted into silence for a while then and stared off into space.

Alo prised the bottle from Nick's hand without him noticing and emptied it down his own throat. Feeling actually distinctly sick now. Good job he wasn't driving. Oh, his poor van! How was he going to collect it? What was his mother going to say? How were they going to get back to Bristol – and then how would he get out to home from Bristol if they did get there?

In a determined, sudden movement, Nick lurched himself virtually into Alo's lap, saying, "I've been a fucking crap boyfriend."

"Right. Yeah." Alo nodded.

"Mini's a crap girlfriend, though. Fucking frigid. Won't suck me off."

Alo tried to push Nick's head out of his lap. "Fucking her best mate wasn't a great -"

"Yeah. I know. I'm crap. I'm such a crap person. Shit boyfriend. Shit team member. Shit son. I don't know why you like me. You do like me?" Nick's dark eyes looked into Alo's face. "You don't just put up with me?"

"Nah, mate," Alo patted Nick's shoulder a couple of times for emphasis. "We're mates, right?"

"Farm boy, my farm boy." Nick staggered to his feet. "I'm going home. Coming?"

"What?"

"I've had enough. She doesn't want me around anyway. Coming?"

"How are we going to -?"

"Find a taxi rank," Nick muttered and marched determinedly off across the empty dark of the field.

It made sense to Alo in that moment and, because Nick seemed to know what he was doing, he followed.

"Not in Bristol now, Dorothy," Alo said eventually, when it all stopped making sense to him.

"Who's she?"

"Don't have taxi ranks in the middle of the countryside."

Nick turned round on the rough road. "Might have mentioned that earlier, farmboy."

There was a little light from the moon, but no street lighting. There were high hedges on both sides. Earlier, Alo had seen the outline of the church on the horizon and felt reassured that at least they would be able to find their way back to the field from the church. Now, though, there was nothing. He licked his finger and held it up in the air. Nothing. Maybe the party was over, or the trees were in the way or something. No party, but there was something else coming through. He tilted his head and slowly raised the rest of his fingers. Then he dropped onto all fours and pressed one side of his head to the ground.

"Fuck you're doing?" Nick demanded.

Alo stood back up and wiped some grit from his cheek. "There's a main road," he said confidently. "A big one." He pointed his whole arm. "That way."

Nick looked at him stupidly. He patted his pockets but there was no more booze, no more pills.

"We can hitch home," Alo explained.

Nick nodded and they trudged off in the direction of the traffic vibrations. After a few feet, Nick said, "I met this woman once. Pictures of her kids." He shook his head.

Alo had no idea what that meant so he didn't respond. They walked some more.

"How am I going to get the van home? Call someone out?" Alo muttered.

Nick said, "Fucked Liv in your van. Sorry about that. Good, though."

They walked. The road forked. Alo went left, Nick followed. There was an open field on their left, now. It stretched for miles. Flat nothing for miles. They walked in the middle of the road, away from the mud. Like it would make any difference now.

"Proper looked after me today, you have," Nick said. "I'm very grateful," he said again.

An owl screeched. They walked. As the sound of the owl died away, Alo thought he heard the reassuring distant rumble of traffic.

"I can't walk much further," Nick said.

"I think we're nearly there."

"My ankle."

"Oh right. Yeah. Yeah, we can rest for a bit. Not in the middle of the road!" he added, as Nick sank to a sit where he was.

There was a ditch and then a fence on one side, high hedges on the other. Alo jogged for a few feet, then turned and called behind him: "In here! There's a track. Bit of grass to sit on!"

It was more like mud and there wasn't much of it between the road and a big, solid, wooden gate, but it was better than having Nick end up as gore on the wheels of a Range Rover. By the time Nick had heaved himself to his feet and limped up the road, Alo was staring at the gate. He read the big Keep Out, Private Property notice, spotted the barbed wire along the top of it and even noted the name of the security company employed to protect the place. Somehow he failed to notice the cuboid shape above it with CCTV printed on the side. The thing saw him though, and it swivelled in his direction.

"Proper mate, you are," said Nick's voice from the ground near his feet.

"Not really," Alo mumbled as he wondered where they were.

"You just saved my life. Useless, worthless life. Thought I had rugby – I had something I was good at, but when you lose faith in -"

"I'm not going to leave anyone sitting in the middle of the road, am I?" Alo paused. "Got to get these suits back for one thing. Yours is such a bloody state."

"That's 'cos I'm useless. Piece of shit. Can't look after myself. But you look after me."

"I'd do it for anyone, mate. Don't go thinking you're special." Alo slid his back down the fence and squatted on the patch of mud.

"Have to thank you, though."

"You keep saying thank you, mate. To be honest, it's getting a bit boring."

"I need to do it properly." Nick edged towards Alo. "Mini doesn't get it. I don't think... I think she might not be my girlfriend anymore. She doesn't know how to thank someone properly."

"Huh?" Alo asked as he became aware that Nick was positioning himself between his knees. Nick put his hand on Alo's fly. "Uh? What?" Alo tried to stand up, to get away, but he was too drunk and too shocked and he ended up toppling them both over. He scrambled out from under Nick's broad shoulders and demanded: "What the fuck?"

Nick looked up from where he had been dumped on his face in the dirt. He looked confused, and maybe a bit hurt. "You don't have to do it back," he said, "it's a thank you."

"What is?" Alo asked. He bent forward and grasped his knees – all that movement had sent his nausea churning.

Nick pushed himself up to a sit. "It's only a blow job! I'm not offering to marry you." He paused, thinking. "Or even not marry you after getting it all set up and then my Dad turns up at the church to forbid it, only he gets talked round, and then -"

"Right, right! I get it!" Alo thought it was interesting that Nick was setting himself up as the bride, but decided not to analyse it. That would have made him Rich and there was no way Alo would get a Justin Bieber haircut for anyone, certainly not Nick. Though, the point of what Nick had been saying, was that they weren't young lovers like Rich and Grace. Which was just as well, because there was something very disrespectful about comparing Alo's best mate's romantic life to an offer of a quick suck up against a gate. Which was certainly bnot/b going to happen.

Alo stopped his train of thought – or tried to – and looked about him. It was a big fence, there were a lot of privacy notices on it. Then there was the road. The sky was properly black and the stars were clear; this was a real sky, not like those funny orange-seeped ones they had in the town. There was the end of the ditch, he couldn't see what was lurking in it and didn't want to look. He could barely make out the hedge on the other side of the road. The only thing which was really close and clear was Nick's big face looking up at him expectantly.

"I'm straight," Alo said.

"So? So'm I."

"Erm..." He didn't want to say that he didn't want his first time with an actual other person to be drunken and grimy and from a bloke he didn't mind, but didn't really like all that much. That wasn't the point anyway, was it? That wasn't what was wrong with this. Was it?

"Look." Nick sounded super bloody reasonable. "I'm not bothered either way." He shrugged. "The offer's there."

"Why?"

"I told you. You looked after me today. I've been right out of it, anything could have happened. It did – that bloody mantrap happened. And you saved me and looked after me -"

"We wouldn't have been wandering through the bloody countryside in the first place if I hadn't driven the van -"

"You remember that party at your place? I saw you talking to Mini. You were talking to everyone. Were you? I think I was. I danced a bit. Anyway. And you were wearing those long, orange things."

"Yeah." Alo couldn't see where this was leading, he hoped it had nothing to do with his underwear. Because there's acceptable kinky, and then there's rugby players with a thing for orange long johns. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Can't remember." Nick shrugged. "I haven't done it before, but - you know – I watched Liv and she's good. It's just nice. I can't think of anything else nice that I could do for you."

"You couldn't just owe me one?"

"It's not like anyone's going to know."

The nausea had passed. Alo squatted back down, with the fence against his right arm to keep him upright. Nick placidly watched him, patting his pockets again and still coming up with nothing. Nothing left. Just the one high available to Alo now – the one he usually gave himself. How different would it feel? Someone else's hand, their mouth, their tongue. Another boy, he reminded himself: Nick. It wasn't like it was Liv who'd offered.

Just before he turned Nick down and got them up and walking to the road again, Alo asked "What's it feel like?" He swallowed. He could hardly believe that he'd just asked that.

Nick nodded. "Good," he said. "Just nice. That's all."

"But, like, how? Exactly?"

It was probably inevitable that Nick replied, "Can't describe it. I'll have to show you," before lurching for Alo's zip and finding the orange thermals underneath the Beatles suit.

That was the moment for Alo to speak. The word was 'stop' and it was in his head, but it never made it as far as his mouth. Nick's mouth, on the other hand, was preparing itself, parting and licking its lips, and Nick's big hands found the opening at the crotch and they pulled Alo's cock through it and somehow it was already stiffening. It wasn't hard, though, not really. It was just starting to uncoil when it was engulfed entirely in Nick's mouth.

"Fuck!" Alo's eyes closed and his arse landed on the ground. That was fantastic! "Fuck!" he said again, and added, "Shit!" for clarity.

His cock was all warm and moist and Nick's tongue was flicking at it. Really not at all like wanking. Hot. And then the suck. Alo thought his nerves were going to break out of his body. The heat and the suction and the tongue and the wet. Nick was right – indescribable. There was a scrape of teeth, but it really didn't matter. Alo's universe had zeroed down to that space between those teeth. And just as he started to get used to the sensation – Nick started to bob his head up and down.

It didn't last long. Alo vaguely thought that he ought to warn Nick before he came in his mouth, but Alo's brain was beyond language. He was only made of sensation. The heat built, the pleasure accelerated, and then he was there.

"Fuck, fuck."

Alo looked up from where he had ended up, lying flat on the ground.

Nick swore again. "I was planning on pulling off. You might have said." He wiped the sleeve of his suit jacket frantically over his face and his hair. It spread the come about and smeared it over the grey material.

"Sorry," Alo said. He swallowed. "Sorry, I couldn't... Look, I've got a tissue." Languidly he checked through his pockets.

"Was I any good?" Nick asked.

Alo nearly told the truth, he nearly admitted that it had been the most mind-blowing experience of his short life. He nearly asked whether Nick couldn't work that out from the body fluid he was trying to wipe off, from the noises Alo had been making and the faces he'd pulled. The post-orgasmic haze was lifting by then, though, shapes were getting their edges back into focus. Instead he just nodded and said, "Not too bad," before tucking himself away and zipping up.

Nick grinned like a primary school kid with a good star sticker in his workbook. "Shall we go and find that road, then?" he asked.

Alo shrugged and stood.

Alo was still blissed out and sleepy when they climbed into the car which stopped for them. He fell asleep on Nick's shoulder on the back seat. By the time he woke, though, the euphoria was gone. He felt sober and cold and the driver was looking at him oddly. In a rush, he became aware of Nick's body against his cheek and he sat upright. Only the nausea remained.

Grey light was beginning to seep through the darkness as they climbed out, thanking their lift. Nick's ankle must have stiffened up on the road, because when he put weight on it, he winced. Alo knew he could have – should have – helped him; just at that moment, though, he couldn't bear to touch him. Nick hobbled, hissing, for a few feet, before he grabbed onto Alo's arm. Alo let him: what else could he do? He allowed Nick to cling onto him as they shuffled towards the taxi rank. He didn't look at the other lad, though, and they didn't talk. Alo tried to ignore his tingling awareness of the warmth and bulk of the body against his, the hands holding his arm.

There weren't any taxis. It was too late or too early or both. Nick sat down on a bollard and sighed. He patted his pockets again: like something to drink or smoke or swallow might have just appeared in them. Alo tried not to watch him. They both startled when there was a loud beep. It was Nick's phone, Alo could see its light shining through the cheap stuff of the suit in the half-light of almost-morning. Nick fished it out and stared at the message. Then he shook his head and put the phone away again.

When the first taxi came, Alo let Nick have it. They could have shared – dropping off Nick and then heading out into the countryside in a new direction - but Alo had convinced himself by then that he could ismell/i Nick, could smell his mouth, smell Alo's come in it. This nausea was never going to clear.

As Nick drove off, he lifted his hand to wave, but at that moment, luckily, Alo's phone pinged. He raised it to his eye-level to block Nick's dark-eyed, smiling gaze. The text was from Dan, an old school friend he hadn't heard from since he'd started college. It just said: Fuck, Alo! What you been up to, mate? and Alo couldn't think of a decent reply to that.

The next morning Alo woke late and disturbed. His long johns were sticky and he hadn't woken up in his own come for years. Vague images still floated in his mind, but he really didn't want to know what he'd been dreaming about. At least his morning wank had taken care of itself; he didn't bother to turn on his laptop.

He had a long shower and concentrated on getting rid of his hangover. He sat down with his parents while they had lunch and he had breakfast and afterwards astounded his Mum by asking if there was anything he could do on the farm to help out. He wanted to be busy; he didn't want to think. He got in from the fields at tea time and saw his phone still next to his bed. He lifted it warily. Not that he was expecting anything from Nick.

Eight missed calls and forty eight messages? Did he even know that many people? Forty eight? The most recent text was from Rich and it said: Only just seen it. Been busy with Grace. Fucking hell, Alo! What's that about? Busy with Grace? Well, he knew what that meant.

His cousin in Lampeter had texted him. Really? I'm so proud to be related, mate!

There were more, some congratulatory, others shocked, but somehow, everyone he knew seemed to be laughing at him. Except Mini. The message from Mini was a vicious tirade full of details about the ways in which she was going to rearrange his body parts. As he read, confused, the phone in his hand began to ring. He was so frozen that he forgot to check the display before answering.

"Alo! Thank fuck! I've been trying to call you ..."

Nick! Alo starred in horror at his own thumb, the one which had accepted the call, as his guts churned and his cock stirred. He blinked, swallowed, and his brain woke slowly.

"What are we gonna do?" Nick was asking.

"What?" Alo asked.

"The bloody viral. The - you know - on the net. Youtube took it straight down, thank fuck, 'cos it's obscene, but it's all over the place already."

"What is?"

"Shit! Haven't you seen it? Jesus! I e-mailed you the link ihours/i ago. What you been doing?"

"Spraying."

"What?"

"Crop spraying. What are you on about?" But Alo was waking his laptop up as he asked. Things were starting to fall into place, and he didn't like the shape they were making. He went into his e-mail account. He had never received so many! He started to look for Nick's address, scrolling through the messages with subjects like iWho'd have thought it?/i and iFamous at last!/i and iIt's not as small as I thought it would be/i.

"I never saw the fucking camera!" Nick was saying. "In fact I'd forgotten all about doing it until I watched it again. Shit! We're dead. We can't go out in public ever again!"

Then Alo noticed that most of the e-mails had attachments or links. He held his breath, his heart stopped and he clicked on one. They were probably all the same. All those attachments. All those links.

His heart thundered back to life. It was grainy and the colours were dodgy, but it was unmistakable. That was him - squatting against the fence, that was the top of his head – and that was Nick, sitting on the ground, reaching a hand to Alo's lap. Alo knew what happened next.

"Have you seen it?" Nick asked in his ear.

"I'm watching it now. Bloody hell." Nick's grey image was moving towards his. "Oh fuck!"

"What are we going to do, Alo?"

"I don't know. Seriously. Oh shit." But somehow, through all his appalled fear, when Nick's on-screen tongue wetted his on-screen lips, and his big hands unzipped Alo's trousers, Alo found himself as turned on as he'd ever been in his life.