Author's Note: Okay, I finally finished writing this randomly mammoth chapter. There's going to be one more section of it, as soon as I finish typing. I would've kept going, but I need to get home and study. I'm taking my permit test today. Egads. =X

Anyway. Enjoy! Oh, and note the swings. Those are gonna be important.

Without a clear destination in mind, Johnny set off down the road, hands jammed deep in his pockets. He hiked up the hill his house sat at the base of, turning left at the major street it joined. The fence of the community park came into view not long after. Johnny slid through a gap under the fence, sparing him a long walk to the park’s proper entrance, and sat down on one of the swings. It groaned under his weight – he’d outgrown swings ages ago.

The longer he sat there in a fading sun, the more he realized he desperately wished he had a jacket. The temperature dropped with the sun, and the park was starting to seem deserted and threatening.

He shivered there for a while, fighting the tiny part of him that wanted to run home to mother dear. At least he would be warm. That side of him seemed to be winning, even as the realist side of him told him it would be even more idiotic than leaving in the first place. They’d blown up over something stupid, certainly, but if he went back, it would be showing her that she still had control, that he was still a good little boy. He shivered again.

“Alright there, mate?” a voice said.

Johnny jumped, right off the swing and somehow managing a half pirouette in the air.

“That was impressive. Nine and a half out of ten,” the voice said, although Johnny could now see its owner. He was tall, his head adorned with a shock of blond hair, his eyes grayish-blue and twinkling. He spoke with a thick, obviously foreign accent.

Johnny’s heart stopped.

“I know you,” he said automatically, kicking himself as he did so.

“Well good, because I’d completely fucking forgotten,” Vince said sarcastically. “I asked you a question, in case I’m not the only forgetful one here.”

“Oh, um… I’m, uh, okay,” Johnny said, hardly able to form a complete sentence and hardly able to believe it – he, Johnny Newman, a run-of-the-mill upper-class brat, talking with a living legend, who was looking at him with a goofy, self-assured grin. “Kinda cold, though.”

“Should’ve thought of that earlier, eh?” Vince said, taking the swing next to Johnny’s, who hesitantly sat back down.

“I left in a bit of a hurry,” said Johnny, still trying to regain his composure. Vince chuckled.

“You live round here, then?”

“Yeah. All my life.”

Vince snorted. He pushed off the ground, taking the chains of the swing in his hands. His legs fell into the familiar pattern; forward, back. Forward, back. Travelling but not travelling. Going somewhere but staying in one place. Forward, back. The swing creaked each time – Vince had to be at least twenty pounds heavier than Johnny.

“My cousin has told me a lot about you,” Johnny blurted.

“Has he, now? Goody, my legendary status has reached Snotsville.” Vince spoke with a genuine interest, something that surprised Johnny.

“He told me you’re the greatest thief for miles around. All sorts of wild stories – I have to say, half of them I think are lies.”

“No stories about me are lies, mate. No one speaks a dishonest word about me – well, some might, but usually they’re drunk.”

Johnny let out a nervous chuckle. The surrealism of the experience was causing an uncomfortable tension in his chest. He’d fantasized about meeting Vince – even made up conversations in his head. He had worshiped him from afar since the first time Ricky mentioned him. He could vividly remember watching the physical change in his cousin as the conversation turned to the legendary thief. Ricky’s eyes widened and acquired a new sense of life about them. Johnny though he would never meet Vince, but now he was there, talking to him, of his own volition, nonetheless.

Vince produced a small rubber ball from somewhere in his tattered jacket and playfully started tossing it to himself over the crossbar of the swing.

“So what else has your cousin said about me?” Vince said, cutting across Johnny’s thoughts. Forward, back. Throw the ball, catch. Forward, back.

“Well, he didn’t tell me you were Irish,” Johnny said sincerely.

Plop.

The ball fell to the ground below, and there was a loud scrapiong noise as Vince dug his heels into the woodchips, slowing to a stop. Before Johnny had time to react, Vince had jumped off his swing and seized him by his shirt collar, hauling him to his feet.

“I am not Irish,” Vince said, emphasizing each syllable with a dangerous tone. “I’m Scottish.”

“Sorry,” Johnny said hastily. Vince let him go, a glare still lingering about his eyes.

“So you know who I am. Fabulous. Now who are you?”

Johnny opened his mouth to respond, but froze as Vince pulled Johnny’s wallet out of his seemingly bottomless coat pocket. Johnny’s hand flew to his back pocket – How did he get that? More importantly, when? “Johnathan Peter Newman, eh?” Vince said, reading Johnny’s driver’s license. “Ooh, seventy-five dollars in cash, very nice. You can keep the five.”

Vince extracted the bills and threw the wallet back to Johnny.

“Go by anything short? John, Johnny, or just Johnathan? Or Peter, even.”

“Give me my money!” Johnny shouted, incredulous that someone would have the gall to steal from him right under his nose. Vince smiled.

“Hey, I stole this fair and square. I was nice enough not to take the five. What kind of kid your age needs seventy-five dollars on hand for, anyway? Out to buy some pot or something?”

“I do not smoke pot.”

“’Course you don’t, I forgot where I was.” Vince chuckled. “You’re a funny bloke, Johnathan.”

“It’s Johnny,” he snapped, snatching the bills from Vince’s hand. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground, clutching his legs in pain.

“See, now if you had known how to do that, I wouldn’t have been able to take this money in the first place,” Vince said, standing over Johnny. “Never steal from someone who’s stronger than you, don’t forget that.”

Johnny groaned and rolled over in pain, clutching his knees. Vince sighed and stuck out his hand.

“Here. You’ll be fine, just stand up and walk it off.”

Gingerly, Johnny took Vince’s hand. He hauled the younger man to his feet for a second time, and the latter shook out his legs. Vince shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

“Man, this place is doing weird shit to me,” he said, seeming to talk to himself. “Not even a month and I‘m already a poor sap, now featuring sympathy! Fuck, I can’t wait to go back home.”