A week before Christmas, they had went down to Ohio to see the family. Seth had been adamant about catching up with Ms. Stefon (he still didn't know her real name), but apparently she had decided to take an extended expedition around Australia with some kind of traveling circus. She sent him strange nick-knacks in the mail. He didn't exactly know why she had sent him a dead echidna hand-stuffed with Witchetty grubs or what he was supposed to do with it ... or even how it had gotten past customs. Well, it was the thought that counted?
His own mother had met Stefon before and seemed to find him adorably fascinating, but he wasn't sure how his ultra-normal family were going to react to him. None of his family ran away to the circus to some foreign country. Or sent their son's-in-law roadkill in the mail.
He needn't have worried. His father, brother and uncles were very impressed with Stefon's ability to knock down drinks like nobody's business. Uncle Geoff was known as the one who out-drunk everyone at Christmas, but he'd been no match for Stefon, who was still on his feet when everyone else was sprawled around the den giggling and making fart jokes.
After such a good time, of course he'd manage to lose him returning to New York.
How exactly do you lose a fully grown human, especially a Stefon type of human? All he knew was their flight had been delayed, so they'd stopped at a hotel and when he woke up the next morning, Stefon had disappeared.
This happened a bit too frequently for his liking. Back at the apartment, he'd constantly wake up to a missing spouse. Sometimes his husband would go missing when Seth was cooking dinner, or when he was in the shower or even once in mid-conversation. He'd just been asking what a human parachute was, when he looked around and he'd disappeared like a puff of smoke into the stratosphere. He'd normally turn up the next day looking dazed and shaky and when asked where he'd been, he'd either make a strange noise or say something like; "Dat's Naaaaysty."
So on day one of no Stefon, Seth decided to finally put up the Christmas tree. Better late then never.
Half an hour of trying to dig it out of the cupboard and then getting increasingly frustrated setting the damned thing up, he realized why he put this job off every year. It was annoying as hell.
On day two of no Stefon, he received a box to his front door from Australia with fragile scrawled in Sharpie across the side. He wasn't sure what to feel when he found half a dozen jars full of dead spiders inside. After making sure they were definitely dead and looking over the Redbacks, Huntsmen and Wolf Spiders, he made a mental note to never ever visit Australia, even if his life depended on it.
On day three, the writhing worry in his gut was making him feel like he'd swallowed a tub-full of snakes. Australian ones, he wasn't too sure.
He'd sent about fifty texts on day two, most of them asking if he was okay, the others enquiring whether it was normal for his mother to send him ginormous hell-spiders in the mail and whether she'd be offended if he set them on fire in a faraway field, before driving off at top speed down the highway. He hadn't got a reply.
Not knowing exactly how he'd gotten to this point, he found himself trawling through the snowy New York streets, rugged up against the cold, looking down alleyways and going into clubs that looked far too normal to ever house the person he was searching for. But he didn't know how the hell to find a place like "You're Mother and I Are Separating" and he just got weird looks when he asked. He must've gone through every nook and cranny he could think of, down every subway, around every corner, constantly trying to get through to him on the phone to no avail. He threw in the towel when the cold finally got to him.
He returned home with an unsettling feeling that he'd only scraped the surface of the city. Stefon's New York was a whole other world that the everyday Joe could never dream of finding.
After a sleepless few hours, he woke up at midnight to a strange scratching sound outside the front door. In his sleep deprived state he thought of giant spiders out for revenge, before he got a hold of himself and went racing across the apartment in sweatpants and an old T-shirt.
And there he was, sitting curled up against the wall, his knees drawn into his chest and his hands over his face.
"Stefon?" he bent down besides him, putting an arm around his back. His husband was panting, drenched in a sheen of sweat and fidgeting even more then usual. The feeling in Seth's chest was like a nail slamming straight to the heart.
"Stefon?" he repeated, feeling the panic bubble up to his throat as he reached over to brush the other man's damp hair out of his face. Stefon just stared past him with glassy eyes, pulling obsessively at his sleeves. His lips looked bitten half-raw and his skin burned hot under Seth's palm.
"What did you take?" he demanded in a croaky voice. Stefon blinked and swallowed thickly, like he'd just snapped back to reality, hands flapping frantically in front of his chest.
"All of it," he whispered back, before letting out a winded gasp as he tried to catch his breath. The vision's that flooded Seth's mind were like bullets, quick and vicious; flashing ambulance lights, cold hospital hallways. A flash of someone getting their stomach pumped that he'd caught on some medical show, that scene in Pulp Fiction with Mia Thurman overdosing and getting an adrenaline shot to the heart, that scene in Requiem For a Dream where Jared Leto stuck a needle into his rotten arm ...
"I'm calling 911," he said, pulling the other man up to his feet. Stefon swayed on the spot, looking like he was about to fall straight over again, gripping onto Seth's arm for balance.
"No ..." he murmured, waving his hand across his face. "M'm fine ... "
"You're not fine," he said, wrapping his arm more tightly around him. "You're about to pass out ... "
He felt Stefon lean his head against his shoulder, pressing into the crook of his neck. He was shaking and sweating so much, it was like he was burning up from the inside out. As he lead him through the apartment, whispering how it was going to be okay, he heard him mutter something back, so breathy he could barely make it out;
" ... no ... no ... don't wanna go, don't, don't want to ... "
He sat him down on the sofa, brushing more hair out of his glazed-over eyes. He felt his husband's ring-encrusted fingers dig into his wrist, keeping him leaving.
"There's ... there's Nampires at the hospital. Don't take me to the Nampires ... "
"What are Nampires?" he asked. Stefon's fingers fidgeted.
"Vampire nurses," he breathed up at him. A shudder wracked through his body and he dry-retched, hands over his mouth. Seth rubbed his back, trying to settle him down.
"They ... they wait until your asleep and st-stick you with a needle and steal your blood uh ... to make Bloody Mary's at the fright clubs ... night clubs for vampires."
Seth wanted to say that he was just delusional and imagining things, but after crashing the near wedding of Stefon and Anderson, he wasn't too sure.
"I won't let anyone stick you with a needle," he said as the younger man slid down further against the couch, his hair fluffing up around his head. "I promise ... "
"They're sneaky..." he said, eyes falling shut. "They'll wait till you just ... just go out for a coffee or something and then they'll get me ... "
"Baby, I don't know how to deal with this by myself," Seth cut in, the panic in his chest beginning to flutter out of control. "I have to call someone ... "
Stefon started shaking his head, pressing his hands over his face.
"Noooo," came his voice through his fingers, shivering even harder the ever. "I can ... I can sleep it off ... "
"Stefon," he cut in again, trying to keep calm. "You know you can't ... "
"Uh, yes I can," he said and Seth almost felt relieved at the catty tone creeping back into his voice. "Been using since I was fourteen ... "
He resisted the urge to say that being on drugs at that age wasn't exactly something to be proud of. Instead, he bent down in front of him, cupping his face in his hands.
"I can't just sit around," he said. "I have to do something ... "
"I don't want to go to the Nampires," he slurred, looking on the verge of losing consciousness. "They're scary ... "
Seth knew he was done for when the other man peered up at him with those big damp eyes. He could never say no to Stefon, whether it was being his Valentine back when they were on the Weekend Update together, or going to a club situated at the top of a burnt out carousel on the lower east side of an abandoned theme-park for their honeymoon.
"I won't take you to the Nampires," he said, brushing those sharp cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs. Stefon continued to stare at him like a stunned rabbit and Seth leaned forward, pressing his lips to his forehead. "Let's get you to bed."
As he helped him up again, he added; "but if you get any worse, promise you'll let me take you to hospital."
His husband tried to nod but his limbs were like tangled puppet strings, his head lolling on his neck. He made muttering noises, leaning heavily against Seth's side, feet dragging, his face pallid as a saucer of milk.
"Dizzy ... " he panted, rivulets of sweat dribbling from his hairline and down over his collarbone. Seth shushed him gently as they went into the shadowy bedroom. He laid him across the bed, over the covers that used to be navy blue, but were now what Stefon called, "Kaleidoscope chic."
He seemed lost to the world as Seth pulled off his gold boots and laid them down carefully on the carpet that he'd managed to keep it's original pale cream color, despite the pleas for fluffy neon green. Climbing in under the blankets, he tugged the other man over so his messy-haired head rested against his shoulder, wrapping his arms around his thin, shaking body.
His skin was still burning too hot and he could feel his heart jumping out of beat in his chest. Seth tried to make out what he was murmuring under his breath as the ringed fingers curled into his old shirt.
"What's that?" he whispered and Stefon's looked at him with overblown pupils.
"Cold ... " he said, eyelids drooping. Seth pulled the covers over him, bundling him in close. Stefon made protesting noises, trying to shake his head, pressing his fingers over his mouth.
"Too hot," he bleated out and Seth pulled the blankets halfway down his torso. This went on for another ten minutes, until seemingly pleased, the younger man fell into a mumbling sleep.
Seth couldn't drop off so easily. He thought about getting up to fetch some water and a hot washcloth but he couldn't bear the thought of something happening while he was gone. So he waited for the other man's breathing to even out and his heart to stop thumping it's irregular rhythm, as he tried to not let the panic overwhelm him.
It took a few of the most terrifying hours of his life until he felt him begin to settle down. Fingers still clenched tight in Seth's shirt, Sethon stopped whispering under his breath and drifted off into a more normal slumber, pushing in close under the other man's arm.
Seth couldn't remember ever seeing him sleep properly like this before. He just seemed to be constantly awake and whenever he was out of it, it was in places he wasn't supposed to be, like on the subway loop around the city or in the corner of his dressing room at four in the afternoon. Waking up in the middle of the night to Stefon sitting at the end of the bed, hugging his knees to his chest and staring at him was definitely another weird thing to get used to, but he'd come to expect it. Just like he expected to wake in the morning to find him gone to his mysterious other land again.
He must've moved into that limbo between dreaming and consciousness, because it seemed like with a blink of his eyes, it wasn't quite as dark any more. He looked around at the clock on the bedside table. It was half past seven and the grey morning light was beginning to move slowly through the curtains and across the non-furry green carpet. He began to pry himself away from his sleeping spouse, Stefon making an objecting sound, clutching his shirt even harder.
"I'll be right back," he promised, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. Getting up, he padded over into the corridor towards the kitchen. He had half-formed plans of making breakfast in bed, when there came the sound of footsteps outside the front door. Glancing around, he heard something solid thumping down, before the footsteps disappeared again, whistling what sounded like Down Under as they left.
Seth moved very carefully through the apartment, hesitated, before slowly opening his door. Looking at the box by his feet, his mind was filled with thoughts of deadly snakes, stingrays and poisonous man-eating plants. He nudged the box with his toe.
Nothing.
Figuring the worst he could get was some icky dead animal, he sighed and picked it up. After bracing himself, he looked inside, feeling his brow furrowing immediately. The box was lined with packets of cookies he'd never seen before.
"Tim Tams?" he asked himself, giving his head a little shake. Well, it was better then spiders.
On top of the pile was a note written in an untidy scrawl.
Greetings from Australia Seth-Cake, darling!
I hope you enjoyed my collection of Australian fauna and flora as much as I enjoyed peeling them off the highway. Except the spiders. Those I tended to find in my sleeping bag.
Seth paused to shudder and remind himself to never go to Australia.
Anyway, these are the best damn things you'll ever eat. It's like an orgasm in your mouth but not those shitty orgasms from some guy who doesn't know what the hell he's doing. It's those kind of orgasms that make you ascend to a higher level of existence and hit nirvana. Speaking of hitting Nirvana, you best believe I hit that back in the nineties.
Here, Seth paused again to wonder if there were any Cobain love children running around for him to worry about.
Anyway, do the Tim Tam slam; that's where you bite each end off the cookie, suck some hot drink through it like a straw and then eat the rest as soon as you feel the drink hit your lips. If you don't, it'll melt on you and if that happens, you better believe you'll feel my disappointment from across the ocean, young man. Now have fun, but not too much fun. I don't want you doing your back again like on that vacation with Steffy. Behave yourself Seth-Cake, darling.
Love the best in-law you'll ever have.
And finishing it up was a complete illegible scrawl of a signature with so many loops and flicks, he didn't even think a team of specially trained FBI agents could figure it out. He couldn't help but grin and shake his head again, propping the letter up at the mantlepiece with the rest of the Christmas cards.
After making two cups of coffee, his with some milk and cream, Stefon's strong enough to melt teeth, he walked back into the bedroom, a packet of Tim Tams nestled in the crook of his arm. The younger man was awake, staring outside where the sun was slowly ascending over the horizon.
"Morning," he said, realizing it was probably the first one they'd ever shared together. Sitting down, he passed the cup over. Stefon was still transfixed with the first light of the day, so Seth reached over and put it down on the bedside table instead.
"What is that?" his husband finally asked in a croaky voice.
"What's what?" he replied, brow furrowing again as he opened up the packet of cookies. Stefon just kept on boggling outside. Seth blinked at him, reminded of when they were back on the Weekend Update and he was never quite sure whether to believe a single thing that came out of his mouth.
"That's the sunrise," he told him and Stefon looked around with an almost comical look of bewilderment on his face.
"I thought that was just a recurring childhood dream," he said and Seth tried to bite back laughter. Seemingly losing interest, Stefon sat up to take his cup of coffee, fussing around with his messy hair.
"This is all Dyke Tyson's fault," he said, pressing a hand to his temple with a wince. " ... gave me a bad pill ..."
Seth didn't want to think about it, so he passed the packet over to change the subject.
"A gift from Ms. Stefon ... " he said with a grin. His partner took one, the befuddled expression still sitting on his face.
"You don't have to call her that anymore, y'know," he replied, taking an experimental bite. "You can just call her Mama Stefon now."
"Got it," he said, feeling his smile grow wider. "Don't eat all of that. We're doing a Tim-Tam slam."
Stefon looked up and raised one eyebrow.
"A what?" he asked with a suggestive lilt in his voice.
"It's not what it sounds like," he said and the younger man pretended to pout.
"Aww, disappointing."
He chose to ignore that comment, picking up a cookie from the packet and biting off both ends.
"You have to suck your coffee through, but then eat it fast so it doesn't melt," he told him and Stefon obediently bit off the other end.
"Bottom's up," he said, still smirking. They dipped their Tim Tams into their drinks and when Seth sipped, he felt the chocolate-flavored coffee flood his mouth. Quickly, he drew the soggy cookie out and popped it into his mouth before it fell apart.
"Oh my god," Stefon said with a hand over his mouth and he broke into that ear to ear grin that Seth just loved so much. "This is the best thing ever ... "
"Does it have everything?" he asked teasingly.
"Yesyesyes yessss," he said, already reaching for another. "It has the melty chocolate crunch, magic coffee goodness and the ability to induce orgasms that ask the question, 'gaaawd, how did that happen?"'
Seth couldn't help but laugh. As they munched through the cookies together, he knew they weren't going to have a moment as normal as this in a long time. He wasn't a hundred per cent used to the strangeness that came along with Stefon just yet. So goddamn, if he wasn't going to savor this along with these Tim Tam Slam's fresh from Down Under.
"To Mama Stefon," he said, raising his coffee cup.
"To Mama Stefon," his hubby replied and they clunked their cups together in a toast.