"So, if we're... dating... now, does – anything have to change?"

"By definition, yes."

Troy bit the inside of his mouth. "...Oh."

Abed blinked and tilted his head to the side. "Oh, I get it. You mean 'do we have to stop being best friends in order to become a couple?'"

"Yeah."

Abed thought this over. "Usually, when best friends start dating, their dynamic completely shifts, and either they get tired of each other, or their other friends get tired of them. And then so does the audience, and then depending on the genre they either break up, move away, or become separated by death, distance, or the barrier between dimensions."

"...Can we not do that?"

"Hm. The alternative would be to keep the current dynamic as a base and simply build on it."

Troy frowned in thought. "So... keep doing the stuff we already do, but add more stuff? Like sex?"

"Exactly. Our relationship will be one of the first steps towards a whole new sub-genre of buddy films."

"Awesome!"

"My dad wants to know if we plan on getting married."

"You told your dad?"

"Yep. He said he was happy if I was happy, and he hopes things turn out well."

"That's pretty cool."

"Yeah. Are you planning on telling your family?"

"My dad is a racist and my grandma is crazy. I think I can just assume they disapprove of my life, and not worry about how much more they might hate it if they knew about this."

"Cool. Cool cool cool."

"You gonna tell your mom?"

"So my dad wants us to come over for dinner next week..."

They were lying on the floor of the blanket fort (bunk beds were really inconvenient sometimes) when Abed said, "We should really tell the group about this. The 'secret relationship' plot has been done to death, and it never ends favorably for anyone involved without some significant bumps along the way. Besides, Annie will probably figure it out soon."

Troy gulped. "Yeah, I guess. ...How – how do we, um..."

"We could go for subtlety. Never outright tell them, but don't try to hide it, and just wait for them to catch on. Or we could walk into the study room holding hands tomorrow."

"We've done that before, though. That one time in Spanish when Chang was threatening to kill everyone's families if more than half the class failed the pop quiz, and that time we had a bet to see who would let go first, and that time Britta wanted to do a photography project for a contest about the hand of friendship knowing no color, but she got the requirements wrong and ended up having to 'shop your hand to look white..."

"You're saying they may not notice. And if they do, they'll probably assume it's for some other reason."

"Yeah."

They stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds.

"I guess we could just... tell them," Troy suggested.

Troy's heart was hammering in his chest. Coming out as bisexual to himself had been awkward and difficult. Coming out to Abed had been easy, because Abed was Abed, and then it had turned out they were both in love with each other, so that was awesome.

Coming out to other people was terrifying and surreal, and Troy suddenly understood all the high drama accompanying such moments on the shows he made fun of.

Abed took the lead.

"Do you guys remember when Troy and I moved in together, and when we announced it to the group you all thought we were talking about something else at first? Well, now we are talking about that something else."

"Awesome," said Jeff, not looking up from his phone.

"Was I here for that?" asked Pierce, frowning.

Troy and Abed glanced at each other. Troy nodded, gripping Abed's hand tightly under the table and focusing most of his willpower on not breaking any fingers.

"Troy and I are dating now!" Abed said, beaming.

Annie's squeaked "awww!" was the only reaction for several seconds.

Jeff stopped moving for a moment. Then he tapped a few more buttons on his phone and slid it into his pocket. "Congratulations?"

A weight lifted one-fifth of the way off of Troy's heart. Or his stomach. Or possibly his soul. Wherever it was, it had been making him feel sick all morning.

"You guys!" Annie squealed, clapping her hands together and jumping up to run around the table and hug them both. "That's so great!" Two-fifths.

"That is... great," Britta agreed, looking like the commercialized holiday season had come early and was inviting her to hold a parade in protest: She was friends with a gay couple now. Troy didn't even care that her happiness was mostly to do with her newfound credentials as an openminded person, or that neither of them was actually gay. It still counted. Three-fifths.

"I knew it," grunted Pierce. "How long has this been going on? Is that why you moved out of my mansion? I knew it wasn't me."

Troy grinned. Four-fifths.

"Um..."

His grin faded.

All eyes fell on Shirley.

"Uhhhm," she stammered, voice shaking, and stood up from her seat. "If – if you'll excuse me for a moment, I just remembered I left an... iron... in the bathroom."

Troy and Abed followed her out the door. Jeff gave them ten minutes of very deliberately not turning around to watch through the glass before going out to assess the damage.

Shirley was nowhere to be found. Troy and Abed were slumped against the back of the couch, shoulder to shoulder, not moving. Troy's face was buried in his arms and Abed was staring into space.

The role of beleaguered kindergarten teacher was far too easy to step into. "What happened?"

"Shirley says she won't speak to us unless we break up and attend counseling," Abed said dully, still staring at nothing.

Jeff blinked. "Really? That seems kind of extreme, even for her."

Troy's shoulders jerked. A muffled choking sound emerged from within the cocoon of his arms, and Abed patted his leg mechanically.

Jeff's eyes narrowed. "What else did she say?"

"Nothing," Abed said quietly. "We kept trying to get a response, but she wouldn't say anything. Except that she would be praying for us. And then she left. Are you going to talk to her?"

Jeff sighed, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Look, I know I'm kind of the go-to guy when it comes to solving ridiculous problems for this group, but this is – actually serious, and beyond not my business, and there is a lot of potential for me to screw something up. I don't –"

Abed sniffed. Blinked. Two tears rolled down his face.

Jeff gaped in open horror and disbelief. What had Shirley done?

Abed blinked again, looking bewildered and frustrated. "I can't detach from the situation. That was the problem earlier. I couldn't think clearly enough to engage Shirley in an actual debate, so we lost her to the silent treatment before we had a chance to really defend ourselves." He sniffed again, wiping his face distractedly before pinning Jeff under an intense gaze. "I know that the 'straight friend defends non-straight protagonist' trope is full of unfortunate implications, but at this point I think it's just down to basic characterization. Troy has been predictably incapacitated due to his tendency to experience negative emotions at an extreme level, and I'm out of the running because I'm too close to the issue – which is somewhat unexpected, but there have been various things that could be construed as foreshadowing in hindsight. ...We can't do anything here, Jeff. Please."

Troy was still convulsing spasmodically and trying with minimal success to complain about Abed's comment on the predictability of his reaction to the situation. Abed was staring at Jeff. Tears were coursing steadily down his cheeks at this point, but his face was otherwise almost completely impassive. "Also, I do have a history of slipping into a borderline-catatonic state when deeply upset by something," he said off-handedly.

Jeff blinked, stepped back, hated life, stepped forward again, and threw his hands out in front of him. "Okay. I'll talk to her."

"She's in the cafeteria."

Shirley was sitting in a booth by herself, pretending to be hunting determinedly for something in her purse. Jeff sat down across from her, grabbed the purse, and slid it to the edge of the table. "What's going on?" he demanded.

"I don't know what you mean, Jeffrey," Shirley said airily.

"Cut the crap, Shirley. What's going on with you and Troy and Abed?"

"What's 'going on,'" she said, using what she thought of as her Wise And Knowing (But Still Not That Much Older Than You Thank You Very Much) Mother voice and what Jeff thought of as her I Know Best voice, "is that those boys are deliberately choosing to put their immortal souls in danger, and I'm choosing to help them save themselves."

"Bullshit."

"Excuse me?" Shirley bristled.

"I said. That's. Bullshit. For one thing, Troy and Abed are not Christians. You don't get to apply your rules to them."

"I am just trying to fulfill my duty as a good Christian, by –"

"Shirley." Jeff closed his eyes briefly, and tried to find a perfect balance between brilliant lawyer and honest friend. "Shirley..." he repeated, more calmly. "This is coming from someone who has no bias, positive or negative, when it comes to religion: The whole 'thou shalt not lie with another man,' or however it goes, spiel? Is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard."

"It's in the Bible, Jeffrey."

"Yes. The Bible. Which was written by humans. And rewritten – by humans. And typed by humans. And translated by humans. And interpreted by humans. That is a lot of opportunities for things like personal prejudice, poor reading comprehension, and bad penmanship to put a whole new spin on things. And don't say He," Jeff pointed upward, "wouldn't let the Good Book get corrupted like that, because from what I understand, a big part of the whole point of your religion is that God lets us make mistakes and then deal with them."

Shirley said nothing, looking down at the table.

Jeff continued. "I don't care that you're a Christian, Shirley, any more than I care about Annie being Jewish or Pierce being crazy. That doesn't bother me. The only thing that bothers me about religion as a concept is that it tends to tear groups with different viewpoints apart. We've been pretty good about that so far, but this – this can't happen. If you're bothered by them being in a relationship, I'm sorry. That's your own problem, and I hope you find a way to deal with it. But you can't make it their problem. They're already going to be dealing with this kind of thing from strangers and classmates and probably a few family members. They don't need it from their friends, too. And I can tell you right now that they can't handle it, because they are both – and I'm going to emphasize this: both – sitting in the student lounge outside the study room, crying."

Shirley looked up with a start, eyes wide. "What?"

"I mean, that's not such a big deal for Troy. He bursts into tears if you hum the opening of Reading Rainbow. But Abed – I don't think I've ever seen him cry. And we saw him have a complete mental breakdown. ...There is something I kind of half remember from that night we got drunk together, but I'm ninety percent sure he was reenacting a scene from a movie I've never watched."

"I – I didn't mean to –"

Jeff reached across the table and laid a hand over one of Shirley's. "Troy and Abed – apparently – love each other. Or at least want to find out if they do. I barely even believe in love, and even I know there's nothing wrong with that. They also love you. And you love them. And regardless of your personal beliefs, you're supposed to be their friend. Now go do the 'good Christian' thing, and the good human being thing, and fix what you broke."

Jeff decided to trust the situation to the three of them for all of two minutes. Then he got up and walked as quickly as possible back to the student lounge.

Shirley, Troy, and Abed were locked in a tight embrace. Passersby were speeding up and throwing awkward looks over their shoulders. Jeff smiled, just for a moment, when he was sure no one was looking in his direction. He glanced over at the study room. Annie, Britta, and Pierce were watching events unfold through the glass walls. He gave them a quick thumbs-up and approached the group hug.

"Well?"

Troy extricated himself from the embrace and moved to stand next to him, looking a little embarrassed, but also happy. "Thanks."

"No problem. Just do yourselves and me a favor and never come out of the closet to Shirley again."

"Deal."

For a moment, the two of them just stood there, waiting for Shirley and Abed to separate.

It became increasingly clear to Jeff that this wasn't likely to happen anytime soon. Abed was clinging to Shirley's shirt with both hands, face buried against her neck. He was perfectly still, but he must have been saying something to her, because every few seconds she would murmur something in response and rub his back or stroke his hair.

Jeff blinked, more disconcerted than ever. "Is he... okay?"

Troy sighed, shrugging lightly. "He's afraid to tell his mom. I think this made it worse. Shirley's trying to help."

"Oh, well – this can only end in sunshine and rai-"

"I don't think I can handle the r-word right now, man."

"...Puppies."

"This has been a weird week."

They were upside-down in their chairs in front of the television, watching the Inspector Spacetime serial that had been filmed that way to see if it added to or detracted from the viewing experience. They were on episode three of five, and so far, all Troy was getting out of it was a headache.

"What?" he asked, attempting to reach for either Abed or the remote before realizing that movement made the headache worse.

"I said it's been a weird week."

"Oh. Yeah."

"Do you think I should tell my mom?"

"What?"

"Do you think I should tell my mom? About us?"

Troy blinked. "It is literally taking me ten seconds to understand each individual word you're saying. I think this is damaging my brain."

"You're shouting."

"That's cool."

"Do you want to stop?"

"What?"

Abed flipped forward out of his chair and calmly reseated himself, pausing the television as he did so. Troy allowed himself to fall over sideways and stay there, clutching his head and wincing. "Ow. Worst idea ever. ...What were you talking about?"

"Nothing."

Britta was, unsurprisingly, suddenly a lot more eager to introduce the two of them to people as her friends, and a lot quicker to write off their antics as adorable. They took full advantage of the latter situation while (usually) putting up good-naturedly with the former.

As it turned out, a lot of Britta's "progressive, free-thinking, politically active" friends were really into anime and some show about demon-hunting. Most of them either befriended the two of them and continued the chain of showing them off, or gushed over how cute they were together.

A select few were far more forward.

"We're fulfilling at least two stereotypes by doing this," Abed pointed out, shutting the apartment door behind Lila and glancing around to make sure Annie wasn't home. "Bisexual promiscuity – or pansexual in my case, but that hasn't really been sufficiently acknowledged by society to have its own stereotypes – and college experimentation."

"Dude, if I was straight, I would definitely jump at the chance to have a threesome with two chicks," Troy said, watching hungrily as Lila started unbuttoning her blouse. "Everyone knows awesome when they see it. You don't have to be bi to know what you want."

"From certain points of view, there was a lot of irony in that sentence."

"Don't care."

"This is so awesome!" Lila crowed, tugging her undershirt off over her head. "I can finally check this off my bucket list!"

Fitting three people comfortably on a bunk bed was deemed far too ambitious a goal for their immediate purposes. They locked the Dreamatorium, briefly explained how it worked, and proceeded to check a few more things off of everyone's lists. Spaceships and time travel cropped up not-quite-surprisingly often.

"It's kind of adorable how he thinks he's bothering us. In a yappy dog sort of way."

"His grim determination is almost admirable."

"Yeah. Dude would make a good space cop in that screenplay we're writing."

"Most of the space cops die."

"I know."

The door opened and shut with a bang as Annie darted into the room and dropped her keys. "There was a super creepy guy trying to give me a ride home from the store. I think he just wanted to know where I lived. I gave him the address of the nearest psychiatrist who isn't Duncan."

"Cool."

"Should have punched him."

Annie set the grocery bags on the counter and stepped into Troy and Abed's field of vision, crossing her arms and frowning. "What's with you guys? The TV isn't even on."

Troy shrugged, staring moodily at the floor.

"A guy named Jake transferred into our screenwriting class last week," said Abed, sounding neutral enough but tightening his grip on the arm of his chair.

"...Yeah?"

"He thinks he can destroy us if he complains enough about people shoving their lifestyles in other people's faces and glares at us whenever we do our handshake or make jokes or speak or touch or look at each other," said Troy, teeth clenched.

"What?"

"But he doesn't bother us," Abed said quickly.

"Yeah," Troy hastened to agree. "He's just really, really annoying."

"And loud."

"And we might blow him up on a space station."

"Fictionally."

"Because he's annoying."

"That's all."

"Yeah."

Annie's eyes were wide, Disney face in full effect. "...I bought ice cream?"

"Cool."

"You're the best."

"I don't care about artistic verisamalia, Abed!"

"Verisimilitude. Seriously, I just pronounced it. And yes you do."

"Not enough to let you put sex videos of us on the internet!"

"No one would know they were real. Nobody thought the Kick Puncher sex scene was real."

"Because it wasn't. And it looked terrible."

"Exactly."

"No."

"What if we shot it, but didn't use it in any of the films? We could just keep it as reference material."

"...No one else would see it?"

"No one."

"...Okay."

"Excellent. Commence Operation: Troy and Abed Make a Porno."

"What, like... right now?"

"Of course not. This lighting is all wrong."

"Plus, it's... The kitchen. We can't – not after what... Annie said she'd kill us."

"You should tell your mom."

Abed stopped moving, halfway through turning the page in his textbook. They were sprawled on the bottom bunk in pajamas, studying. "I don't know," he said thoughtfully, not looking at Troy. "Our coming-out storyline has already had one dramatic confrontation and superficially out-of-character breakdown. Another one would just be pointlessly repetitive."

"This isn't TV, Abed."

"I know."

"Besides, I'm sure fictional characters have plenty of – fights and freakouts and stuff offscreen."

"Good point."

Troy sat up and looked at him. "So tell her."

"Why do you want me to?"

"Because you're obsessed with the fact that you haven't."

They sat in silence for a while.

"I've never lied to my mom," Abed said quietly, speaking quickly and staring up at the underside of the top bunk. "And her not knowing about this sort of feels like lying. I don't like it."

Troy handed him his cell phone. They finished studying.

Abed called her.

The aftermath involved a lot of mindlessly shredded paper and hugging and bruised knuckles against the wall of the Dreamatorium, and, Troy assured him, took place completely offscreen.

"Pierce keeps calling me Gaywad instead of my name."

"I know. I'm Ay-bed the Gay-rab now."

"Seriously? Yours at least rhymes with the horrible thing he used to call you."

Abed shrugged, absently scuffing his shoes along the concrete as they walked across campus.

Troy frowned. "I don't get it."

"He's a thoughtlessly bigoted old man. This is a well-established character trait."

"No, I get that. I don't get – when he's not."

"Ah. You mean like yesterday, when he and Shirley keyed that girl's car and pulled off one of the mirrors after she called us faggots and tried to protest that we were infringing on her rights as an American citizen by kissing in the hall?"

"Yeah."

"Hm. Hypocritical Heartwarming at its finest."

"I heard capital letters. Is that a Trope?"

"Yep."

"I kinda like it."

"Do you think Britta would be in our wedding if we got married?"

Abed shrugged, not looking up from his computer screen. He was nearly done with his rough draft. "Probably."

"I mean, she hates weddings because of something to do with women being property a hundred years ago. But we're both guys. So would she even care?"

"Hm. Gender roles would still play a big part in any sort of traditional ceremony – best man, maid of honor, etcetera."

"...We could ask her to be co-best-man with Jeff. Then Annie could be the maid of honor, and Shirley could be... one of the other maids. Don't we need a bride to have bridesmaids?"

"They could be groomsmen with Pierce."

"Only if Annie is the groomsmaid of honor."

"Cool."

"And they all have to wear different colors, or - costumes from a wedding episode! And we should have one of those chocolate fountain things. And the ice sculptures could be dinosaurs fighting F-15s!"

"Life-sized?"

Troy paused, considering this. "Mm. Nah," he said at last, somewhat sadly. "If it got too hot out, everyone would drown."

"True. Miniatures would be safer. Plus, then we could have more of them."

"Yeah!"

Abed gave up on fine-tuning the end narration. He saved the document and shut his laptop, shooting Troy a questioning look. "Dreamatorium?"

"Yes."

The ice sculptures came to life and attacked New York.