Silver Moon on Triangle Lake

by julads

In Cambridge in 1920, things fall apart between Kyle and Gregory.

A/N: This is a prequel to the alien!Stan/Kyle fic I'll write one day, and it's predominately a Gregory/Kyle fic. This was my first attempt at writing their relationship, so next time, I hope to make it a lot less miserable. Anyway, some of this is a mess, and it's probably kind of confusing, but I tried and am just glad it's done so I can get back to working on other things.

Please read: There are some upsetting things in here, most of which revolve around Gregory and Kyle's awful fights where they sling shit at each other and end up really hurting each other in different ways. I'm loath to call this relationship "abusive", because that implies a certain kind of situation where one person is the abuser and the other is the victim, whereas that's not the case here. That said, their fights are messy and physical and brutal, so what I'll say is that they're abusing each another.

---

Any minute now was thirty-six minutes late and counting. Kyle could only imagine what his excuse might be: a flat tire, a budget issue, a dissatisfied student. All were plausible, none acceptable. If that son of a bitch weren't driving down Lake View Avenue in his stupid phallic car this instant, Kyle was going to lose his mind and take Gregory's along with it.

The clock ticked harshly in the living room, its heavy Roman numerals staring down at him from where he was sprawled out on his King Louis XVI style settee. His stomach was empty, and he was on his third cigarette, feeling like the room was squeezing him to death, just like he imagined his hands squeezing around Gregory's neck. God, he was going to kill him. It was already noon.

Yet as a brutal ray of sunlight slipped through the clouds, down through Kyle's window and onto his scowling face, he had the reluctant realization that this was very unusual. Gregory was never late. Perhaps something serious had happened. A fire, a car crash, some other horrible accident. But which was more likely, that Gregory had neglected him, or that he'd been the victim of some random accident? For his own sake, Gregory had better hope it was the latter.

Anxiety and anger was a bad combination – it didn't mix well. On one hand, the bagels Kyle had rushed home to make were undoubtedly cool by now; on the other, he could envision Gregory's eyes rolling back into his skull and staying there forever. The thought was upsetting, because Kyle, in fact, had a heart. It was harder now, true, but that was due to situations like these, as well as maybe other horrible things.

The truth was, Kyle Broflovski often got the short end of the stick. Dissatisfaction was a recurrent theme in his life. Silver might as well have been tin, whereas gold was rich in its distinction and loud in its superiority. All his life, Kyle had chased the golden glow of sunset only for it to slip away right when his fingers reached to snatch it. His prize was only ever a twisted silver spoon, a perverse joke of his upbringing. Upon its eggish face, his inverted reflection would always be ready to mock him by saying, "Well, what did you expect?" To get what he deserved, for once. It wasn't too much to ask for. It was even less to ask for Gregory to be on time, given that Kyle was starving himself for him, that he'd made all this food for them. If that man didn't walk through the door with a bullet wound as an excuse, he might just end up leaving with one.

It was almost one now. Kyle didn't even know what to think anymore. When he got up and went to the kitchen, he looked over at the table set with lunch and was so appalled, so infuriated, that he could almost feel the windows of his house threatening to shatter.

From the icebox, he fished out the bottle of Chardonnay he'd uncorked the other night. There were fifty identical bottles in the basement, as well as a slew of other fresh contraband. It was never going to last, a fact that weighed on Kyle's mind constantly. He was still angry about the whole thing. It was something he never expected to actually happen, and the fact that it did shredded the last scraps of respect he had for this country. And it was not that Kyle had had much esteem for America before he was shipped off to Europe. But banning alcohol was rubbing salt in still-bloody wounds. It was abominable.

As he swirled the wine around in the glass, his thoughts returned to Gregory, who had stayed cozy here in Boston. Kyle pulled the silverware drawer open with a slam, eyes narrowing upon the spoons. Life was funny, wasn't it? It was Valentine's Day, his bastard of a lover was over two hours late, alcohol was illegal, his father was voluntarily homeless, and even so, time went on. The thirteenth hour of the fourteenth day slid away, as did the last of the wine, which filled Kyle's glass at the very moment the doorbell chimed.

Burning anew, he marched to the front door with his glass of wine in hand, and through the peephole, saw none other than the man who had wronged him yet again. At this point, six years down the line, Kyle was revolted – though not terribly surprised – that Gregory still had the nerve.

He cracked the door open, not even half an inch, just enough so that he could be heard.

"Where were you," he demanded, nearly growling, his voice raw.

"I'm so sorry I'm late," Gregory said, as if he hadn't heard the question at all. "It's quite a long story, so if you'd be willing to let me in I could—"

"Where were you."

Gregory didn't respond immediately. Eventually, he said, "Perhaps I should come back another time. So I'll just leave this here."

That was when Kyle flung the door open and saw the god-monster standing there with a white box in his arms.

A cake, huh? Interesting.

Cruelly, Kyle said, "And what fresh horror have you wrought upon me now, Mr. Chairman?"

The only evidence of distress on Gregory's face was in the nearly undetectable way his lips pressed harder together. "I don't think this is a conversation you want to have on your doorstep," he advised.

"Because you always know what's best for me, don't you, Daddy?" Kyle remarked, leaning against the door frame now.

Gregory took the opportunity to enter the house, which irritated Kyle, but he didn't stop him.

Only when Kyle realized he had a glass of wine in his hand in broad daylight did he shut the door. Then he turned around to stare Gregory down with all his fury. "I'm not going to ask you again," he muttered.

"Well," Gregory slowly began, setting the box down on the table and going over to hang his coat up, "you could say I was ambushed."

"What?"

Gregory crossed his arms, a pensive look on his face as he chose his words carefully, knowing it was useless. The truth was a tricky thing. "My wife came to campus and hounded me down. It was strange. Very strange."

"You're kidding me."

"Unfortunately not."

Kyle laughed with dry incredulity. "So then what? What happened?"

There was anxiety in the way Gregory swallowed. Kyle saw it, about ready to combust.

Gregory replied, "She more or less dragged me to this place downtown where she'd made reservations. She wouldn't take no for an answer. It was honestly bizarre."

"No, Gregory. No," Kyle said, pointing at him, "what's bizarre is that you went along with it. Are you so fucking spineless that you can't say no to a woman?"

"That's not quite it," Gregory replied. "It's more that she was acting so bizarrely I was concerned about her driving, but then when I tried to take her home, she threw an absolute fit about those reservations."

"And so you acquiesced," Kyle said meanly, nodding slowly.

The way Gregory looked at him then, with this hard expression that seemed to imply he just didn't understand, made Kyle's vision cloud with fury red as blood, staining all actions that followed. That which remained of his wine was not consumed, but nor was it wasted as the liquid splashed into Gregory's face, making him scoff and sputter in shock, the realest response yet.

"You know," Gregory said, taking out his handkerchief to wipe his face, "I really am sorry about this. I didn't mean for this to happen today."

"Your apologies mean nothing to me at this point."

Gregory let out a sigh before saying, "Is there anything I can do for you then, or would you prefer that I left?"

"You treat me like shit, Gregory, you know that? You think you can waltz in here with a fucking cake and I'll just forgive you? Are you insane? Do you think I have such little self-worth?"

"No," he said, "nor do I expect you to forgive me."

"Then why the hell did you even come over here?"

"To apologize. And to give you an explanation."

Digging his index finger into Gregory's chest, Kyle said, "You should have driven her back home and told her never to bother you at campus again. But you didn't, because you have no respect for me. Jesus, I ought to expose you."

"I care about you more than anyone," Gregory slowly said, and he meant it too.

"Shut up! Shut up! Always with that lie of yours!" Kyle barked. "What in your mind is so twisted that you think this is how you treat people?!"

Gregory's brow furrowed slightly. His mouth opened as if to speak, but nothing came out.

"Answer me," Kyle said.

"I don't have an answer for you, Kyle."

"You should be ashamed of yourself," Kyle said in Gregory's face. Then, he pulled back. "You ruin everything. You've ruined my whole life." His eyes were beginning to burn with the threat of tears. He held them back, his hand shaking around the stem of the empty glass.

Finally, true concern washed over Gregory's face, and when he said, "I'm sorry," his voice was filled with earnest regret.

"I hate you," Kyle said, but it came out sad and small. "I hate the things you do to me, I hate the lies you tell and the fact that you're always so fucking nonchalant about it. I hate that there's no fucking escape from this shit."

"Birdie—"

"Don't call me that!" Kyle spat, voice shrill.

Gregory lowered his hand. He looked almost… disappointed. It was so infuriating that Kyle ruptured: "Fuck you, Gregory," he growled, leaning into him, spitting the words out deliberately. "Fuck you." Then, he threw the glass down on the floor as hard as he could, the pieces painting the hardwood floor in a sharp little explosion. He marched over them, his shoes smashing the shards even further. As he stomped up the stairs, he bellowed one last thing down to Gregory: "Don't you dare go anywhere."

---

Above the mirrored cabinet in Kyle's bathroom was a fixture with three lamps, such that whenever he stood before the sink and examined his face, their light bore down cruelly on his every imperfection: his big nose, the scar at the corner of his right eyebrow, the whole rest of his face. His cheeks were blotchy and stained with yet more tears cried over Gregory Haywood. Disgusted with himself, he removed his glasses and erased the evidence with Woodbury's Facial Soap. As much as incidents like these hurt, as much as they were revolting and unfair and offensive, Kyle knew he would never put an end to what he had with Gregory. Doing so would mean losing too much, even if it also meant degrading himself in the process.

He put his glasses back on and looked at himself in the mirror again, seeing himself for who and what he was. As he studied his unfortunate features again, he suddenly thought of the paper bag of cosmetics that was stashed under the sink and would forever be stashed under the sink. He could never throw away anything he'd spent money on, least of all things he'd barely even used. Besides, he probably deserved to be reminded of his stupid ideas every once in a while.

Looking back on it, he wasn't really sure what he'd been expecting – to be transformed into something sultry, like Theda Bara? Actually, yes, he could admit to himself now. After all, he'd reasoned, the tools of the trade were sold at department stores, and his faith in consumerism was strong and well-substantiated.

But that wasn't what brought him to the Shepherd Stores on that day five years ago.

It was a Christmas party.

He was on the trolley to Belmont, all his anxiety contained within him, placated sheerly by hours of assuaging himself. So long as he didn't revisit his worries, the ice-covered lake would appear solid no matter its thinness. And indeed, he did look good, in a black Kuppenheimer suit with a new blue necktie.

The trolley went over the Charles River, the wheels clicking over the tracks with repetitive certainty. The sound was a comfort for the frequency with which Kyle heard it, and he was able to resist feeding the cracks in the lake. They were hard to see anyway, because the sun had already set, and because the world beyond the city was dark, beyond Cambridge even darker, a wide place of little buildings and long hills.

At Belmont Station, Gregory was there waiting for him, just like he said he'd be. He was standing beneath the lamppost's lazy light, one foot on the car. He waved, flashing that brilliant smile of his, the one that annihilated Kyle every time.

"Hello!" Gregory said, voice clean and bright as snow.

Kyle faltered: the greeting he stammered back was graceless, his heart so pounded to tenderness by such little things. Blood colored the cutting board as it did his face, his ears, his cock, dripping off the counter like a hot bead of wax down the side of a candle. While Assistant Professor Kyle Broflovski was straight, severe, sharp, the Chairman of the Department held the match that could ignite him, same as he now ignited the engine, manipulating the insides of the car with the ease and confidence he did everything.

In the front seat, Kyle watched him through the window, setting in his head an impossible tale that was not here nor now nor ever, the air being too cold, the night too dark, and the circumstances too pressing. But as Kyle had dreamed of a life beyond Maxwell Street, so too did he dream of an afternoon drive in the countryside, of sitting in this same seat but fulfilling a role he could not, the bottle of wine in his lap a baby and the desire in his heart normal.

The engine rumbled to life, and with it came all the hard facts of his life, for which he was grateful: he was a man, a professor at Harvard, and he was better than almost everyone, Gregory's wife most certainly included. Again, Kyle told himself he had nothing to worry about, and then he felt even more assured when Gregory came back in the car and said, "You look so good it's killing me I can't kiss you."

So easily Kyle was alit and melting, the Harvard professor transformed into a blushing bride. Indeed, it was he, in his glory and intellect, who had captured this man with the strings of the past, crafting a little web where they spoke of the world as it once was, feeding each other nostalgia by the mouthful and engendering the present in sweat and sound. Their connection was two-fold, of mind and body, worth so much more than a piece of paper.

But with that paper came a life, and children, and a great big house in Belmont that was lit up like a beacon in the night, a palace in a dark kingdom.

Seeing all those people inside made the ice on the lake shatter, and Kyle was glued to the seat of the car, unable to imagine himself going inside. With pathetic desperation, he looked to Gregory, who asked him, "What is it? What's wrong?"

Kyle's response was one of habit: "Nothing."

And nothing should have been wrong; everything should have been fine. All he was doing was going to a Christmas party at the Chairman of the History Department's house, because he was his friend.

Gregory led him inside the house, which was as luxurious as it was on the outside, with a wide curved staircase that spilled into the foyer, the marble floor illuminated warmly by a large chandelier. Yet these and every other detail, from the Christmas tree to the drink Gregory made for him, were inconsequential, only the terrain upon which his eyes sought one particular person.

Once they found her, his heart sank, falling there irrevocably when Gregory called her over.

She was easily one of the most beautiful people Kyle had ever seen. Her eyes were sparkling as she came over to them, carrying herself with the grace and dignity of a queen. She was dressed like one, too: a swathe of diamonds adorned her bare neck, and the gown she wore was a work of art, made up of heaps of golden velvet and embroidered chiffon.

Kyle could have sobbed.

Gregory introduced him to her, and although he glowingly mentioned Kyle's work on the Athanasian Creed, Kyle still felt grotesque before her, like a peasant, or a bug.

But so much worse was what Gregory said next: "And this is my wife, Wendy."

His wife.

His wife.

It hadn't felt real until now, and now it felt so real it didn't.

The three of them acted out a bizarre drama, smiling as they read from the script: "It's a pleasure to meet you"; "You have a lovely home"; "I've heard so much about you." And these words weren't completely false; they were spoken with bits of sincerity and the strong urge to be polite, tossed genteelly from point to point upon the triangle: K to W, W to K, G to W, W to K. The match went on too long for Kyle's liking, and at his feet, he could feel the little circle within the triangle, the secret hole that rolled along GK and grew a little larger each day. At the moment, Kyle was terrified he'd drop something into it, in the same way he was terrified of exposing himself to his students or calling Gregory "father."

Wendy smiled politely, and it sounded like she meant it when she said, "Well, it was lovely meeting you, Kyle. Please let me know if there's anything I can get you."

"Ah, thank you. It was nice meeting you, too," Kyle said, hearing his accent creep and hating himself for it.

After she left, it was only GK and their little black circle again, multiplied by four in two sets of eyes, green and blue, the palette of awareness.

Then Gregory smiled, not that brilliant disastrous smile that left Kyle limp, but a warm, assuring one that came with a pat on the shoulder and an unspoken promise: "You have nothing to worry about."

But as much as Kyle loved how that made him feel – special, loved, important – he worried anyway, for it was impossible not to, just as it was impossible to have only one drink.

By his third, a glass of pinot noir, Kyle was drunk enough to chat with other guests without melting on the inside. One of these was a sociology professor at BU, to whom Kyle was not paying complete attention until he mentioned tramps.

"Have you been to the Bowery in New York? The place is a nightmare, just filthy. They've got a similar situation west of the Loop in Chicago, a street full of bars and cheap hotels to accommodate them," the sociology professor said. "Now, I understand there've been efforts to purge the worst of these places and legislate better housing standards, but there are still far too many men out there refusing to participate in civilized society. It's one of the worst social ills plaguing this country, if not the worst. They need to do more to reform their attitudes, not just their locales."

Kyle stared in disgust and astonishment, unsure how to even respond. Then his anger shoved the words out of his mouth: "You don't know their lives. You don't know what they've been through. You just – you're just assuming they're all losers who've left their families. God, you're so… ignorant," he said, getting angrier as he went on. "There are men out on the streets who did everything right, who did everything for their families. Why don't you go talk to some of them? You might learn a thing or two."

The man was dumbfounded nearly to the point of speechlessness. When he finally uttered more than an aborted word, it was a choppy apology that stumbled stupidly from his mouth.

Even so, as Kyle marched off to the bathroom, he didn't feel like he'd won. The locked door seemed like proof of the fact, and he scowled before deciding to go upstairs. It was probably rude of him to come up here, but wasn't it also rude to expect all your guests to use one bathroom? Most definitely, he decided, and so he scaled the marble staircase to the second floor, finding a long alcove of closed doors and sleepy wall-lamps. It made him uneasy, gave him the feeling he shouldn't be up here, but he began checking the doors anyway: one was a girl's bedroom, another a boy's, a third a linen closet, and then finally, the bathroom.

The wallpaper was dark. A candle was lit. Kyle checked behind the curtain of the tub as he always did and then relieved himself, deciding he would come up here every subsequent time. The mirror on the wall was large yet avoidable, the room being so dim, but when he inevitably looked into it, what he saw was so impossible he was certain his eyes were fooling him.

Yet there it was staring back at him, the shadows and the skin that were his father's face. For a good few minutes, Kyle went on looking at him, waiting for the moment he would disappear and bring his mother back, but for as long as he waited, the reverse only persevered: his mother was dead and his father was penniless in one of the very places so bemoaned by that professor.

Try as he might, Kyle simply could not peel his father from West Madison Street's cheap hotels. And oh, how he had tried. For years, he had pleaded, in person and in writing, for Gerald to come live with him in Providence and later Boston, once even going so far as to "lose" his return ticket during a visit. But nothing could keep Gerald away from Chicago, nothing. And Kyle knew it was more than just pride – it was almost delusion, as if his father was so attached to poverty he couldn't let it go. That was the most disturbing part, that one of the most sensible people Kyle had ever known could be so doggedly foolish.

Then again, his father also believed in god.

Then again, so did Gregory, which was both more and less surprising. More, because he was so educated, less, because his life had been so much easier. Looking around, that much was clear, going down the steps, even clearer. Yet none of this made Kyle resent him. In fact, it only made him more compelled to seek him out, such that the perfection that was Gregory Haywood could shine upon him, be it with a smile, a touch, or a look. These and other things were what sustained Kyle now: he drank every ounce of it, zealous now that he knew what water was.

He spotted Gregory downstairs in the living room talking to someone he didn't know. For a moment, Kyle just stood there in the doorway, peering over the other guests and gazing at Gregory's face. Despite being drunk, the feeling of being an outsider persisted, growing on his skin like algae. It weighed him down as he meandered over to Gregory and presented himself with little more than a "hello."

The man was a family friend, the owner of some such business downtown. Interestingly, he excused himself a few seconds later, though Kyle was hardly bothered by that.

"You seem drunk," Gregory said.

"I'm fine," Kyle said firmly. "I'd like to ask you something though."

"Yes?" Gregory said, eyes clear as he raised his brow.

Swallowing, Kyle looked away and said, "I was wondering if, um, there were assigned seats for dinner."

"There aren't. Why?"

"I just wanted to see if I could sit next to you, maybe," Kyle mumbled, somehow not drunk enough to feel silly about asking.

Gregory's response was not what Kyle expected at all: his face hardened with thought, and his jaw went rigid in consternation.

Replicating the worry twofold, Kyle said, "What?"

"In that case," Gregory softly began, "you'd be facing Wendy the whole time, since I'll be at the head of the table. …Would you be alright with that?"

The scene was painted in Kyle's head in horrifying colors. Of course the answer was no: no, he wasn't okay with it; in fact, he wasn't even okay with being here anymore: he wanted to go home, and he wanted to take every single thing he'd said tonight back into his mouth, into his head, where he'd put them in the box of things he wished he could forget. But no, he'd remember this moment forever, just as he would remember Wendy's little dinner speech, where she said "us" and "we" and "our" and "my husband" as if they were one entity.

In silence, at the other end of the table, Kyle ate beef almost exclusively, thought about putting a knife through his hand, and berated himself for thinking this party was a good idea. After dessert, he poured himself a glass of vodka, claimed a corner of the living room, and stood there smoking, determined to get out of here just as soon as he was drunk again.

God, this was terrible.

He crossed his ankles and sneered at everyone. These weren't his people, though neither were the ones at Harvard, not really. Only when he was completely alone did he feel normal, and that was only if he didn't start thinking about the fact that he wasn't.

But Gregory found him, huddled in the corner though he was.

"Oh, no, you can't use that," Gregory said, trying to take away the saucer Kyle was using as an ashtray.

Evading him, Kyle said, "Well, what else was I supposed to use?"

"An ashtray, of course," Gregory said, and then he looked around the room, the corner of his mouth twisted in frustration. Finally, he shook his head and said, "You know what, it doesn't matter. Just don't let her see you."

Though he tried not to, Kyle couldn't help but smile a little. Gregory smiled back in the same way, a smart, clever grin that delighted in this bit of defiance. Kyle wanted it on him. His eyes slipped down, and he exhaled upon seeing the outline.

"Take me home?" Kyle requested, licking his lips.

Gregory inhaled sharply through his nostrils, a subtle glint in his eyes. Yet his mouth was severe as he said, "Another hour or so."

Ach! "Why?"

"You can finish your smoke and have some more – oh, Kyle, that isn't water, is it?" Gregory said, clicking his tongue. "Let's get you some water."

Back then, Kyle didn't find Gregory's paternalism so irritating. Thus, he almost always consented, even if he did so whilst complaining a lot. What mattered most was that it meant Gregory cared about him. Besides, even when Kyle didn't want to eat lunch or bathe or drink water, he still knew it was what he ought to do. And so after finishing off the vodka, he stood around drinking water and making trips to the bathroom every fifteen minutes.

Nevertheless, time was an agony, and it went on and on until he thought he would lose his mind seeing Wendy Haywood in the other room and then suddenly everywhere else, placing frames on the mantle and pillows on the couch and ornaments on the tree. It was so apparent here, in this space that echoed her squeaky voice three-hundred and sixty five days a year, all that domestic babbling ricocheting off the walls. This was her domain, and Kyle tread upon it carrying that black dot at his feet, the one that went to the core of everything. Black, a secret, a stain. How pathetic was he, to enter this kingdom while he cradled this thing? How stupid was he, to hold it fast even now?

A lot of ash had accumulated in the tea saucer.

He went looking for Gregory. If he wouldn't take him back now, Kyle would just have to pretend he was sick or something.

When he saw him over with that rotten sociology professor, Kyle froze, not going a step farther. For a moment he simply stood there, uncertain how to proceed, until the clouds parted and Gregory noticed him, his eyes assenting at long last.

Just stepping outside was a massive relief. Kyle took in huge breaths of cold air, nearly delirious with freedom. The night was so wide and open that it made him want to run into the woods shouting. Yet he remained calm, breathing deeply as he watched Gregory start up the car. Then, he made a request he'd die to be denied, the one he'd waited all night to ask: "Will you take me back to my place?"

"I was planning on it," Gregory said, a delectable trace of gruffness in his voice as he spoke over the engine. "You're too drunk to ride the El."

"That's right," Kyle declared proudly. "Somebody might take advantage of me."

Gregory paused and stared at Kyle in a way that was not quite reproachful – there was a hint of something else in his eyes. Intrigue? Mischief? Whatever it was, it satisfied Kyle immensely, and he hopped in the car feeling exuberant.

As they drove down the long, dark driveway, the air in the car was swelling; Kyle could almost taste it.

He scooted over so his body was touching Gregory's, then put his hand on his thigh and said, "I saw it before. In the living room, when you were going to take away my ashtray. I'm very good at detecting that sort of thing, you know. I've had a lot of practice. A lot of practice."

"Oh, have you now?" Gregory said.

"Don't act so surprised," Kyle said poshly.

"I'm not."

"You wanted me then," Kyle pressed.

Gregory's tone changed to something darker when he said: "I want you always. I've wanted you since the first time I ever saw you."

Kyle could have squealed with delight. "Really?"

"Really."

"Really?" Kyle asked again, stars in his eyes.

"Must I prove it to you?" Gregory asked with faux impatience, stopping the car just before the end of the driveway.

"Please!"

The rumbling of the engine and the blackness of the night hid a few things: the involuntary breath that escaped Gregory's mouth, the very slight sound as he swallowed. He was sitting there still as a statue, his foot frozen on the brake and his heart pounding in his head, the blood of which ran so red and wild he was nearly drowning in it. Yet the deluge was still held back, just as the walls of his house had contained it all evening. Nothing more had he wanted than to pluck Kyle from the drone of social fanfare and take him up to his bedroom, where he would make love to him with the passion that had held him in a chokehold the past year and a half. And the fact that he could not was maddening in the realest sense of the word. That, like Kyle Broflovski himself, worked the fibers of his mind into hysteria.

Yet here, in the night, there lay empty time and space all around them, acres and hours of opportunity that depended only upon Gregory's taking them. And God, there wasn't a question in his mind that he would turn left and drive down the road, his gloved hands on the wheel as tight as a man's who knew he was crazy but had decided to stop caring.

The impossible creature clapped in delight. It was him: the scholar, the seductress, the once in a lifetime comet, the only thing that ever was or ever would be.

Over and over, his brilliance shook Gregory, hit him hard like a pile of books slammed down a desk, and as he devoured chapter after chapter, his bones lit up so brightly that they shone through his skin. White light, as cool as it looked, was hottest: beyond Kyle's pale skin was a soul that burned and burned, and after a lifetime spent dousing his own flames, Gregory devoured Kyle's fire to the point of delirium.

So too did the moon burn in the night sky, blazing whitely onto the empty street and revealing a mud road that lay forgotten in winter. Gregory turned onto it, the car shifting and bouncing as it went down the crude road.

"Oooh, what's down here?" Kyle said.

"Nothing, as of yet," Gregory replied. "Maybe one day they'll get around to building something. Who knows."

The road ended in a sprawl of cleared land, and the moon was visible again, hanging much more quietly over this lonely place. Gregory hit the kill switch, and the quiet was so palpable he paused for a moment before letting himself fall: he turned to Kyle, took his face in his hands, and almost said a dozen different things:

You have no idea how hard it was for me to keep my hands off you all night.

I want you so much it drives me mad.

Pull me into you and tell me everything you think because I'm desperate to hear it.

You're so perfect, so undeniably, unapologetically you.

I can't believe I went the first thirty-seven years of my life without knowing you.

You're the most erotic creature in the world, you know that?

There's nothing I wouldn't do for you, nothing I wouldn't give you.

You've branded me; I belong to you.

I love you so much it scares me sometimes.

God, you're beautiful.

You've destroyed me, and I'm so grateful for it I could cry.

I love you.

Some of these things Gregory had said before, others he had not, and while here and now, the sentiment of each broiled in his veins, he knew they could only ever come out as English, and that wasn't enough right now. So he spoke with his mouth upon Kyle's, recklessly declaring all those things in their most basic form. In the hotness of his breath, he pleaded for Kyle to swallow them, easing them into his mouth and planting them there, vowing that they were true.

The smallest sound came from Kyle's throat, a sound so sweet and feminine that Gregory was forced to kiss him harder. Each subsequent sound Kyle made flayed his mind further, burning his thoughts so severely that he fumbled in opening the buttons of Kyle's overcoat.

"God, you're gorgeous," Gregory heard himself saying, his voice as heavy as summer air.

Kyle offered no protest, only a breathy, almost delicate, exhale that confirmed what Gregory had said.

"I'm so hard," Kyle said, practically whining.

The way he said it made Gregory groan despite himself, a soft and short one, but an unscripted sound nonetheless. This is what Kyle did to him; this was the power he held over him: to turn Gregory into wax, make him slip all over the place, rob him of the form and grace that defined him. It was terrifying, like falling into a pit and never knowing when you would reach the bottom. But God, was it exhilarating, and God, was he remarkable, his soft chest and stomach, the desperation in his breath, the hardness in pants that Gregory yearned to cradle like the precious thing it was, to put to his face and sigh, his own part aching with how much he craved a likeness.

He cupped his hand over Kyle's crotch and held it there, his intent somewhere between protectiveness and teasing. Through the wool, he could feel how warm he was, how decadently hard despite his inebriation, and from that unspoken premise, he clicked his tongue and continued: "Even though you drank so much. You're ruthless."

"It's your fault," Kyle protested.

"Don't be ashamed," Gregory chastised him, though he couldn't deny he loved Kyle's shame, cruel as that was. He went on: "I'm in the same boat. Weren't you just gloating about it?"

"Yes," Kyle said with a touch of giddiness.

His mouth was open, and he was smiling slightly, panting as he waited for what Gregory would do next, which was to kiss him again, deeply, and then unveil his cock, freeing it from the burden of cloth. As if his heart were being pressed upon, another breath escaped Gregory when he wrapped his fingers around Kyle and plunged him into the safety of his grip.

The sounds of Kyle's moans in the night were the first sounds to exist, the ones from which all others would be made. There was no written record of this world that Gregory had invented; there was only he and Kyle as they were now, in these moments carved from all else. This was the place Gregory wanted to nourish and love and cultivate into something permanent, where he could see the rain fall and buds peak out from the soil and trees waver in the summer wind. But this would not be: in the world they were forced to inhabit, this harsh one outside of Eden, he was the sun and Kyle was the moon, having only these little dusks and dawns, fleeting moments that Gregory held onto despite knowing they were only air. Day in and day out, he and Kyle would go on marching across the Yard and towards the end of time, following the same rules and routines, never taking for granted the little they were allowed to share.

God, it was torture knowing he'd have to take him home later, and Gregory kissed him harder, with everything he had.

Kyle shouted when he came, a long, high sound punctuated by unfinished breaths and drawn out by Gregory, who sucked at his neck and pumped him dry into his palm. Afterward, in the tiny light of the car, Gregory looked at him, this impossibly beautiful man with his head lolled back, his eyelids fluttering upon flushed cheeks. His lips were reddened too, bruised from all the kissing, and so Gregory planted the next one on his forehead, where he held his lips for so long he didn't see Kyle's smile.

---

The wine glass hadn't completely shattered – some of the cup near the stem was still intact, horrifically jagged around the edges. Gregory sighed as he crouched on the floor, holding a piece in his forefingers. These glasses were part of a set, but Kyle had already broken one, thrown it against the wall in the dining room last year.

He had missed Gregory's head by about a foot.

"So when were you going to tell me Gregory, huh? Never?" Kyle had yelled, eyes wild with fury. "You know, I bet you've made love to her and then come right over here to fuck me! I bet you didn't even shower afterwards!"

"Oh, for God's sake, Kyle," Gregory shouted back. "Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now?"

"'Ridiculous'!? 'Ridiculous'?!" Kyle reiterated, nearly shrieking the words. "It sounds to me like you're admitting the fact!"

"I would never!" Gregory barked, hands on the table like claws. "I have far too much respect for you!"

Kyle burst out laughing. It was a boisterous, rumbling laugh, one that boomed through the house far more widely than his shouts. He laughed and laughed until he could hardly breathe, then he wiped a tear from his eye and said, "Ahh, what a surprise, the adulterer is a liar too."

He said it with so much hate that Gregory bared his teeth, feeling his face contort in unusual ways as he said, "Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean it's not true, you heathen."

"Ha!" Kyle barked. "Ha! Ha! Ha! The adulterer has now accused me of heresy! Oh, the horror! Oh, the humiliation!" He slapped his palms together in prayer and looked to the ceiling. "O my god, please show me the error of my ways; please let me be more like the repellant hermaphrodite who fucks his wife before sodomizing me!"

Gregory mocked his mockery: "And O my God, please correct what is broken in this poor fairy's brain that leads him to disbelieve what is plain before his eyes, and please grant him some compassion – for he has none in his cold, black heart – such that he may have some pity upon a poor woman suffering in the hospital!"

"How dare you call me that! How dare you!" Kyle screamed. Then he narrowed his eyes and belted out in rapid, vicious succession: "Adulterer! Liar! Hermaphrodite! Mongrel! Ape! You're the one whose brain is broken! You hide in plain sight, with you stupid little wife and her stupid dinner parties at your stupid house." In a low, vicious tone, he uttered, "But I see you, Gregory. I see you for the freak you are."

"As if you're one to talk!" said Gregory, spitting.

"No, Gregory, I'm not like you," Kyle said, shaking his head. "It takes a special kind of freak to carry on with both at once."

"I don't have a choice! She's my wife!" Gregory barked, finally marching over to Kyle. "You haven't a clue what it's like, having to fuck someone you'd rather not!"

"Oh, shut up," Kyle said, spitting. "I know for a fact you enjoy it."

"Of course you'd say that," Gregory replied, sneering. "Just as you'd let any man off the street have you, hmm? Since you're an invert, after all."

"That's not the same thing, idiot!" Kyle snapped. "You married her!"

"That doesn't mean I want to have sex with her! I never would if she didn't ask!" Gregory argued.

"Well congratulations, Gregory," Kyle said bitingly, "you married a whore."

"Don't call her that," Gregory warned.

"Ooh? Did I touch a nerve?" Kyle said in the most grating tone, amusement in his eyes. "Does it hurt, having your darling little wife insulted? Will you defend her honor, Gregory? Beat up the old queen who called her what she is?"

His hostility was astounding, yet even so, Gregory could feel the pain that throbbed in Kyle's word's, for it was his own. He grabbed Kyle's face and shouted into his frightened eyes, "You're my wife!"

And then he kissed him.

Kyle struggled at first, slapping Gregory's side a couple times, hard, until he gave up and started whimpering, letting himself be kissed. He knew he would start crying any second now; he could feel himself breaking on the inside, his heart crushed to powder: how cruel the hand he'd been dealt; how tragic to only have compromised love, to only love in the shadows of hell. In the aggressive urgency of Gregory's tongue, Kyle could taste it, and it was real, so strong that it thwarted the red gusts of rage that howled within him. Now they hung still in the red-black sky, growing mad with the desire to scatter the dust of his sad and sorry heart.

"I love you so fucking much," Gregory breathed, the words wet and delirious on Kyle's jaw. "My beautiful wife, with her red hair and green eyes and lovely cock," he blathered, grabbing Kyle's crotch and finding him hard. Moaning miserably into his neck, he breathed him in as he touched him, murmuring, "My wife, my wife, my beautiful wife."

The tears came when the winds rolled back in: "Don't you dare have sex with her ever again," Kyle threatened. "I swear to god, Gregory, I'll kill you; I'll come into your house at night and kill you and her both, then I'll burn your house down to get rid of the evidence. Don't think I'm bluffing – I'll do it; I swear to god, I'll do it."

Gregory moved back to look at him, his beautiful, ridiculous wife, whose eyes were streaming from a well of hurt, her gaze drowning in her fury. Taking her face in his hands again, he used his thumbs to gently brush away her tears. "I won't," he said. "I promise."

"How can I trust you?" Kyle asked feebly. "You lied to me for five years. Five fucking years, Gregory."

It was true. Gregory had no excuse, only sorrow and the sad awareness that he'd done what he had to. There was nothing he could say to defend himself, nothing at all, and so he kissed Kyle again, who beat his back a dozen times, furious about a million things, but not that he was being kissed.

"I hate you," Kyle rasped. "You think you can get away with this shit, that I'm just going to weep around your cock and forgive you." Angrier, though nearly whispering, he hissed, "You're a megalomaniac, Gregory, a disgusting, narcissistic hermaphrodite."

Holding Kyle in his arms, Gregory sighed, his breath barely dusting the surface of his misery. Then, wearily, he asked him, "Would you like to use the belt?"

"Don't bring that up!" Kyle snapped. "God, I can't believe you let me do that to you!"

"You can do anything you want to me," Gregory said, resting his cheek upon Kyle's head.

Kyle relaxed then, and the silence was heavy in the room, kneaded by the sounds of their breathing.

In an almost banal tone, Kyle dispersed it by saying, "Let me slap you until you get so mad you bend me over and take me."

"If that's what you want."

"That's what I want."

So Gregory took a step back, slouching slightly so Kyle could reach better. They stared at each other for about a full minute, the emotions on Kyle's face veering from scornful to pained to bitter. Then, abandon ignited his features like a flash of lighting, followed by the thunder of him raising his hand and slapping Gregory's face with all his might.

It hurt more than Gregory expected. But it made him hard, too, harder than it had when Kyle hit him before, because now he was looking into his eyes and seeing the satisfaction it gave him, the beginning of a wild little smirk teasing the corner of his mouth as he panted.

His eyes glued to Gregory's crotch, Kyle taunted him like a child-bully: "You liked that, didn't you?"

"Why, did you like doing it? You seemed to."

Nearly snarling, Kyle shouted in his face, "Why do you hate the truth so much?! I can see your erection, for fuck's sake!"

Then he slapped him again, twice in a row, the tips of his fingers stinging like needles.

Gregory didn't turn to look at him immediately; instead, he stared at the designs of the rug, breathing raggedly as his face and head and cock throbbed so hard he felt like he was underwater. Swallowing down his swollen throat, he returned his gaze to Kyle, who looked like he'd truly lost his mind. It made Gregory want to grab him and kiss him again.

"You're a liar," Kyle said, pronouncing each word cruelly. "A dirty, rotten liar who cheats and steals and lies just because he thinks he can. And you'll never even have to pay for it, either, because there is no god and no hell for you to burn in." In conclusion, he said, "But know this, Gregory: you're a bad person. And that makes me better than you."

It wasn't true; none of it was. Gregory clenched his jaw, nostrils flaring as he saw the satisfaction in Kyle's eyes. Yet there was another part of him, a sick part, that took real pleasure in Kyle's torment of him. It was if he were a horse that Kyle was lashing with a riding crop: he'd endure this for his vicious little queen, taking each hit and seething with arousal and resentment. He resigned himself to it, for he knew it was what she needed.

Damn her for it though.

Grunting, Kyle unleashed the fourth slap, then the fifth and sixth, his hate and rage forced deeper into Gregory with each assault. They oozed down Gregory's throat and into his stomach, where the miscegenation was violent, giving birth to that hateful species once again. Their crusade surged through his veins like lava, powerful, destructive, and unstoppable, and when it reached the tips of his fingers, it could not be contained: Gregory grabbed Kyle by the wrist, flipped him around, and tore his pants down.

"Get rid of this belt," Gregory growled at him, one hand tugging on it, the other taking out his own cock.

Kyle didn't obey – he couldn't; he wouldn't. Swept away by his own storm, he was barely even human anymore; he pressed his palms up against the wall and finally became one with the sad structure, his mouth dry in the short, shredded moment before he was to be demolished. "Break me, you bastard!" the hardwood floor threatened; "Do it!" the window demanded; "The hell are you waiting for?" the chandelier growled through its wine-stained teeth.

It worked: Kyle could hear it in Gregory's grunts as he stripped him of the belt, feel it in his barely-wet fingers as they penetrated him. Squeezing his eyes shut, Kyle swallowed his gasp and flattened the pain between his teeth. It felt like real conquest, which he both resented and craved: he hated Gregory more than ever right now, and yet he was also hard from having slapped him, harder yet from being taken like this. His heart pounded with fear and his cock with arousal, illustrating the sorry state of his sexual self. He was so demented; both of them were: in this hell they had created, they raged against each other in the sickest ways, vying for dominance neither of them ever managed to hold onto. And though today the white devil deferred to the red, he did it so violently it felt like a coup, flooding the red devil with the worst pain. But that was not why Kyle sobbed – he sobbed because it was never so obvious that they were doomed to this: the hitting and yelling, the hate and heartache, the welts and broken china. These were the mountains on their road, the ones they slammed into until they were beaten and bloody, as if they did had no choice but to abuse themselves and each other.

Maybe one day they'd kill each other, but that day was not today: Gregory's fingers were hard on Kyle's hips, refusing to let him shatter. The hermaphrodite was still using him, after all, keeping him alive in the full color of crudeness. As his body burned in intolerable fullness, Kyle yearned to be rubble, to be a thousand pieces of glass, but then he realized Gregory would just fuck that too, finding ecstasy in exsanguination. The freak was that far gone. What a pathetic man, what a repulsive bastard: the bisexual philanderer; the primitive professor; the whore in king's clothing. The silver spoons sewn to his lips slapped Kyle's skin with each thrust, making a sound as grotesque as his desire, which throbbed like a thing of its own. His long fingers wrapped around Kyle's cock, forcing him to enjoy this, and god, was it horrific; god was it good: Gregory worked him like a machine, pumping him in his resin grip and tearing the moans straight from his lungs. But though the white devil subjugated him so, he could never truly vanquish him, only recycle what he had given so that they could do this again: Gregory deposited the elixir of their contempt inside Kyle, and once it was thoroughly planted, he pulled out, staggering backwards into the dining room table, consumed by his exhaustion.

When he opened his eyes, he was still here, with Kyle an autumn leaf in his mustard corduroy jacket, crumpled and shaking; with Wendy in the hospital, drugged and running from a white worm; and with God as his witness, seeing him fail as his life fell apart and he descended into darkness, be it hell or just dirt.

Who could even know anymore.

"Birdie," Gregory said, but Kyle didn't answer. "Birdie," he repeated, becoming frightened.

This time, Kyle turned his head and muttered, "What."

Never had Gregory felt so small as when he asked, "Are you alright?"

Kyle swallowed carefully, and Gregory expected sarcasm, but instead Kyle said, "Fine." Then he pulled up his pants and slowly stood, barely even looking at Gregory as he walked past him.

"Clean up that glass," Kyle told him, and Gregory went to do so, picking up every little piece with his naked fingers.

---

In the brief lapses where Gregory fell asleep at the wheel as he drove home from Kyle's house, he was closer to her than he ever was awake. This her – who was "her" much more frequently but not always – lay in a hospital bed, running as fast as her legs could carry her.

When she looked behind her, all she could see was a great gaping hole framed by a wreath of teeth. She passed houses and buildings, quaint things of stone under the gray English sky, but she couldn't scream for their help. She couldn't even run very fast. The world was weighed down by the thing that chased her, time slowed down to accommodate the white worm's insane speed. Its hunger. Its want of her.

She could already feel its teeth on her on body: a long dash of deep, sharp pain, the opposite of a memory. It would be so much worse.

The worm chomped at her back, its bloody teeth devouring her long hair, slicing it off her with the swiftness of a razor blade – that would be her next, split down the middle, still alive. Throbbing, twisting, bleeding. Revenge for its brethren.

She turned down a street she once knew, and the heels of her shoes crunched under the pivot – crunched, just like that, becoming flat and a little faster. Not much, but thank God for it, because the cobblestones were beginning to sink into the mud, a sludgy, glue-like mud like from that visit to Magdalen. It slowed her down even further, clinging to her flat shoes, eating them up. The worm would win now. It was over. She squeezed her eyes shut, cracking them open and seeing only a little circle of light, through which she saw that very school, surrounded by a wall that was either very tall or very wide – it was hard to tell; it looked like an optical illusion. A mirage through a telescope. It hurt so much. And of course it did – she was dying, falling down into the white worm, surrounded by darkness. Magdalen Tower was so little now, nothing more than a disintegrating photograph. She laughed through the agony – turns out it was just a cliché that you saw your life flash before your eyes when you died. Figures.

The tower disappeared, crumbling along with every other dream unrealized. For a long time, she continued to fall, shifting slightly as she felt herself being digested. It reached a point where the prickliness became unbearable, but then, suddenly, it stopped. She had reached the bottom. Breathing shallowly, she rested upon the flat pit of the white worm.

There was a clock somewhere, ticking sleepily outside of her reach. There was also the vague sound of tapping, a fingertip tapping a window, it sounded like. But it was unusual: it wasn't fast and steady, like a child tapping on an aquarium; it was purposeful, sporadic tapping, like a fingertip hitting glass with quiet thuds.

Slowly, she sat up, squinting in the darkness that had turned a velvety maroon. Far away, there was a door cracked open, from which a soft bit of yellow light pooled into the undefined hallway. With difficulty, she managed to pull herself up and stand. She walked towards the light, putting her hand out to search for the support of a wall but finding nothing. The tapping got louder. Something about it was soothing, like the soft touch of a flower petal on your skin. Almost motherly.

But when she peered inside the door, she saw a man. He was hunched over a desk, staring at a glass panel he had propped up on it. Occasionally, he tapped the panel with his right finger, which caused the boxes on the screen to move like a magic.

The man though… He was beautiful, with a perfect nose and handsome features, yet he still looked boyish, in a way. His black hair was a little long, falling into his eyes, illuminated by the spherical yellow lamp that hung over the desk. You could tell just by looking at him that he was kind.

She stood there staring at him until he raised his head and looked straight ahead in a bland, tired motion. Gradually, his gaze veered towards her, at which point he started, his blue eyes blinking quickly in surprise.

Squinting at her, he said, "I'm sorry, did you need something?"

"No, I—" For once, she didn't know what to say. Too exhausted to be embarrassed, she admitted, "I think I may be lost."

"Oh," he said, brow scrunching slightly. "Well, um, do you need help?"

She looked down the hall, seeing only fuzzy maroon. There was no other light anywhere. She looked back inside the office, a cozy, warm place she wanted to enter. To curl up on the carpet while he sat at the desk like a watchdog. To sleep. She rubbed her temple and said, "If you could just… help me find the exit."

"Of course," he said, as if she didn't even need to ask. He immediately came to the door, where he paused for a moment, looking at her and tilting his head.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing, just… you look a lot like someone I used to know," he said, smiling as he shook his head. Then he stepped into the hall, causing the space to materialize into a bland and minimalistic corridor.

"I think I would've remembered you," she had the sudden confidence to say. "You have a face that's hard to forget."

"Really?" he asked, with sincerity so sweet it made her smile.

"Yes."

"Ah," he said, shyly touching the side of his face. It was cute. He was cute. Hanging his head slightly, he added, "The person I'm thinking of was an Earthling, anyway." He turned to look at her. "You really do look like her though."

"What do you mean, an Earthling?"

"Someone from Earth?"

She looked out the window and saw clusters of strange buildings spread out across the neatly-trimmed grass. They were excessively futuristic in appearance, as if constructed from tin or plastic. The place felt unnatural.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Feller Hall," he said. "The Cross-Cultural Department."

"No, I mean, beyond that. What is this… whole place called."

"Oh, this is the planet Lanulos," he said. "Are you here visiting? Do you… Are you here with someone?"

She ran her fingers through her hair, frustrated. "I'm from Earth," she eventually said, the statement sounding so odd. Looking away, she raised her chin and coolly said, "I'm not really sure how I got here."

"Okay, um," he said, pressing his lips together as he looked down the hallway, thinking. "Do you need me to take you to the Visitors Exchange? I'm guessing you want to get back to Earth, right?"

"Well…" she began, looking out the window again. Regina and Thomas would get over it eventually, Samantha probably not. Gregory, it was hard to say. Hopefully he'd be devastated. He deserved at least a little of that.

But she could already tell that the schadenfreude would be tasteless, not worth it. This wasn't his fault, anyway. It was just… biology.

Besides, she wasn't that bad of a mother, Jesus.

Sighing, she said, "I guess I have to."

"I know it's not my place to ask, but… you're not in danger, are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, nobody's hurting you, are they? You'll be safe if you go back to Earth?"

His eyes had drifted to her wedding ring, which she caught, laughing now that she understood. "Oh, no. My husband is…" The explanation died prematurely. Gregory wasn't truly malleable, anyway, not when he was so goddamn slippery. Wendy knew this, had known it for a long time. She had just wanted to emasculate him in front of this man, shamelessly imply she was a harpy who ruled her own roost. The problem was, it wasn't really true.

"He'd never lay a hand on me," she finished. "He's not that kind of man."

It sounded like a compliment, which made her scowl. As if Gregory needed was more flattery.

"Okay," the man said, seemingly convinced. "Well, let me go grab my stuff and then we can go, alright?"

"Alright," she said, deciding to stay put. The sharpness of the hallway faded as he got farther away. An aftereffect remained, however, sketching the space out in dull lines. It made her anxious, but she wasn't about to go after him. She'd sooner disappear than do that.

He returned soon enough, wearing a jacket and carrying a bag over his shoulder that resembled a postbag. He smiled at her, blue eyes lighting up in recognition. It was precious. What a person.

"Thank you for your help," she said as they waited for the elevator. "I hope you weren't busy."

"Oh, no, I was just looking at something online," he said. "I should've gone home hours ago."

That put a bad taste in her mouth. But then she saw he wasn't wearing a wedding ring. It made her curious. Although maybe they didn't use wedding rings here. Either way, she was going home, so it didn't matter. She really shouldn't be thinking these things, anyway.

As they rode the elevator down, the man said, "The Exchange is downtown, so do you feel comfortable with me driving you there, or would you rather take the train?"

It annoyed her somewhat that he seemed to think she was afraid of men. "I'm fine with you driving," she replied honestly.

Outside, things were quiet, only one other person walking around.

"Is this a school?" she asked.

"Yeah, this is Avelrey University."

"Are you a professor?"

"Yeah, I teach Cross-Cultural Studies."

"Interesting…"

"What do you do?" he asked her.

"I write," she said, feeling compelled to reveal this to him for some reason.

"Yeah? What do you write?"

"Horror stories," she said, watching for his reaction. He seemed a bit surprised, maybe. Teasingly, she asked him, "What, were you expecting romance?"

He laughed and said, "No, but I wasn't expecting horror. It's a very, umm, unique genre, isn't it?"

"Well, perhaps. But everyone loves a good scare, you know? It's fun for me to create that through writing," she said, adding, "Mood is really important. Like right now, look around you. It's dark, it's quiet, the perfect time to see a shadow slip into an alley… Not the shadow of a man, but something shorter. Not a child, either – something about the way it moved just didn't seem natural for a living creature, not even an animal. You can't really explain why, just that something about it was… off." She went on, "But you wonder if your brain's just telling you that, you know? So you feel compelled to check and make sure it was just a stray cat or a raccoon or something. That's what you're telling yourself as you walk over towards it, pretending you're not scared, that this is stupid and you're going to roll your eyes and scoff at yourself when you see an oversized rat scavenging through the trash."

"Then what?" the man said, pressed.

Smiling genuinely, she said, "See? Mood lends itself very well to suspense."

"I imagine you're an excellent writer," he said, and he was so goddamn sincere about it she blushed, which annoyed her.

"I try," she said.

They had crossed the street and arrived at a lot that was empty save a white contraption that looked like a bumper car, except it was much bigger and nicer. The man did something and the large contraption came to life, its blue lights blinking as it hovered about a foot off the ground. He kept walking, unfazed.

She went over to the craft and looked underneath it, astounded that it was hovering on its own. Though not exactly on its own, because in the places where the wheels would have been, there were holes from which air (or maybe gas) was being forced out, thus keeping the craft elevated about a foot off the ground.

"This is an automobile?" she asked.

"Yeah. It's not that different than the ones they have on Earth, is it?" he asked as he opened the door for her.

Guffawing, she said, "I'm certain I've never seen a car fly!"

He stared at her for a moment before asking, "What year do you think it is?"

"1919. Why?"

His brow furrowed.

"Why?" she asked. "What year do you think it is?"

"You said you don't know how you got here?" he asked.

"Well…" She looked down to the street below. "I was in the hospital recovering from surgery, and I just ended up here somehow." Again, she asked, "What year is it?"

His face still awash with concern, he said, "It's 2097."

It was no more preposterous than the fact that she was on an alien planet, yet somehow, it was more shocking.

"I don't know. I just don't know," she finally said, more frustrated than distressed.

"Okay, that's fine. We'll figure this out," he said reassuringly. "But um, first, are you hungry? Because I haven't had anything since lunch."

"I could eat," she said. For the first time, she looked down at what she was wearing and saw it was men's clothing. It made her feel better, in light of the fact that she was accepting help from this man.

As they drove to the restaurant, she looked out the window, taking in every detail of this world. There were other floating cars on the street; shops and signs with geometric writing on them; and people who looked just like the people on Earth. Their clothing was simpler though, with few details or patterns.

"Is this a city?" she asked.

"Yeah, this is Gathering 17," he said. "Avelrey is outside the downtown area though, in a neighborhood called Glasstick. It's still part of the greater 17 metropolitan area, though."

"Oh, okay." She looked at his hands on the steering wheel. They were the kind of hands she wanted to grab, to manipulate in her smaller ones. "What's your name, by the way?"

"Stan," he said. "Stan Marsh."

"I'm Wendy Haywood."

"Well it's nice to meet you, Wendy." Then he said, "Can I ask you where on Earth you're from?"

"I live outside of Boston, in a town called Belmont."

He glanced at her briefly.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing, just… It's weird, I've been thinking of applying for a trip to the Boston area in 1920. That was actually what I was looking at earlier."

"You can do that? Go back in time?"

He was parking the car on the street now, or rather, the car seemed to be parking itself, wedging itself neatly between two others. "Yeah, but you have to go through this lengthy application process and get approved by the Bureau of Time Management and everything. There are a lot of rules you have to follow too, so it's not like you can just go on a whim."

"But why do you want to go to Boston in 1920? What happens then?"

The look he gave her was difficult, hard to feel and hard to decipher. Always with these looks. "I don't think I can really, um, tell you. Sorry. I mean, that's actually one of the rules, you know, that if we bring someone from the past back to Lanulos – which almost never happens, by the way – we can't tell them any of that stuff. And we don't even know how you got here, so…" He trailed off. "I can tell you that it's not like, some big catastrophe. I mean, it's definitely not good, it's pretty bad, actually, but it's not something you're going to be affected by. It's definitely not something you have to worry about."

"Well. Okay then," she said, because what else could she say to that.

The restaurant was a casual kind of place (if she had to guess), but nice, not some cheap diner or something. There were a handful of other people here, most of them at the bar. They went to sit in a booth. At the end of the table, there was a glass container that held panels just like the one Stan was using in his office. After sitting down, he took two out and handed one to Wendy, explaining to her what boxes to touch to scroll through the menu. It perturbed her having a man explain things to her, even if he was a very sweet, unassuming man. The helplessness imposed upon her simply by being in this strange world was becoming increasingly frustrating: though she did quickly learn how to use the device to look at the pictures of food, she couldn't read the language and so had no idea what any of this stuff actually was.

Leaning over the table, Stan said, "So when you know what you want to get, you just press—"

"I'll just get the same thing you're getting," she interrupted him, pushing the panel aside and putting her face in her hands, her elbows on the table. "I'm sorry, it's just – it's too much. I don't know what any of this stuff is and I can't read it, either. So I'll just have whatever you're having. And some water."

"Oh, God, yeah, no, you're right. I'm sorry," he quickly said. "I didn't mean to overwhelm you." A moment later, he said, "I'm going to order a chicken sandwich, is that alright?"

"Yes, perfect."

Stan tapped the panel a few times before taking both of them and putting them back in the glass container. Then he folded his hands on the table, saying nothing for a few moments. Feeling guilty. And worried. He didn't know what to do. "So, um. Are you alright? I mean, right now. Do you feel okay and everything?"

"I'm fine," she said, raising her head but not looking at him immediately. "Why, do I not seem fine?"

"Just asking, sorry," he said.

"I'm fine, really," she said more kindly, feeling a little bad. "Just a bit frazzled, I guess."

Just then, a little door on the wall next to the glass container opened, and she took the initiative of removing the tall, thin glasses from the compartment, proceeding to push the blue drink on over to Stan. Then she pushed the button on top, correctly assuming that it closed the door. It wasn't a big thing, but it made her feel competent.

"Well, we're going to figure this out," Stan assured her again. "I, um, I don't know if you're up to answering some more questions, but I think that would help us narrow things down a bit."

For as much reassuring as he did, it seemed like he needed some too. Trying to smile, she said, "I'm fine. I promise. I really appreciate everything you've done for me, so if I can give you some information that might help, I'd be more than willing to do that."

He sighed with relief and smiled back. "Ah, great," he said. "Well, one thing I wanted to ask is whether you've received any strange phone calls lately. Anything weird, or threatening, or even just calls where nobody's is on the line."

She thought about this for a moment before honestly answering "no." Next, he asked her if she'd seen any unusual creatures lately, like short little men or anyone that looked like a Lanulosian, but the answer to that was "no" too. Anyone who might want to hurt you or your family? Not that she knew of. Was she connected to any higher-ups in the federal government? No. What was the last thing she could remember before she ended up in Feller Hall? Being in her room in Boston City Hospital; falling asleep and dreaming of a white worm. Why was she in the hospital? Having a hysterectomy. Anything unusual about the experience? No.

Puzzled, he shook his head and said, "I don't know. Maybe it was some kind of time hiccup or something. Because it doesn't seem like you were brought here forcibly."

"It doesn't seem like that to me either, but I guess I have no way of knowing."

Stan's brow remained furrowed while they ate. "I could get you a hotel room," he said, "though you're more than welcome to stay at my place, if you want. Tomorrow we can go to the Bureau of Time Management and see if they can help."

"I'd be fine staying with you," she said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He looked at her wide-eyed, genuinely taken aback. "I mean. I don't know. Just trying to give you some options here."

"Just do whatever's easiest," she said. "I have no problem staying with you. You have a couch, right?"

"I actually have a spare bedroom."

"That's perfect then." Then with a gauzy sort of voice she said, "Thank you so much."

Touching the side of his face, he looked away. "Oh, um, sure. I mean, it's not a very big room; the view isn't great, either. It looks down into the alley, so at least you're not looking right into somebody else's apartment."

She laughed – really, genuinely laughed. "Why would any of that matter?"

"I guess it doesn't," he said, smiling a bit.

They finished eating and left shortly thereafter, Stan walking in front of her as they went out the door. It was just after he'd crossed the threshold of the door frame, at that very instant, that a surge of anxiety struck Wendy and she instinctively grabbed Stan's arm.

"Wendy?" Stan said, but it wasn't his warm voice; it was a cooler voice, like marble, and when she opened her eyes, its owner was there looking at her.

"Are you okay?" Gregory asked her.

She wanted to say no. She wanted to say, "Do I look okay to you?" But she didn't really have the venom for it.

"I'm fine," she said.

He looked at her for another moment with pursed lips before saying, "Why don't you eat something? They brought you breakfast."

"I'm not hungry." She truly felt like she had just eaten. There was even the aftertaste of food in her mouth.

"Alright."

Good.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"How are the children?" she asked, suddenly remembering.

"Oh, they're fine. Worried about you."

"Well, have you been reassuring them?" she asked, able to hear the accusation in her voice.

"Of course I have," he said, nearly declaring it in defense.

"Alright," she conceded. "Fine."

Eying him, she saw that he was dressed for work, carrying his briefcase like he was about to walk out the door. He wasn't, of course, but the sight of it bothered her more than ever now, because of what it represented.

"I hope you have something to read, because you're going to be very bored otherwise. I'm probably just going to sleep all day."

"Oh, don't worry. I have some work to do."

"I would prefer you not," she said, deliberately.

"What? Why?"

"I just don't want you to."

"Why?"

"Jesus, Gregory, do I have to give you an explanation for everything?" she heard herself snap. "I just don't want to see you sitting there doing that, alright? Go to the gift shop and buy a paperback or something, take some time to appreciate fiction for once."

"I do appreciate fiction!" he protested, and in any other situation, it would've been funny – maybe even cute – to see how seriously he took the comment.

"Alright, so go appreciate it."

He wanted to argue with her; she could tell just by looking at his face. And if the circumstances were different, he likely would've. That was the thing about Gregory: he rarely just accepted an answer; he always needed to know why. Why, why, why? He called it "intellectual curiosity" or "just the way he was."

It was obnoxious.

But he didn't do it this time.

He just let out a deep breath and said, "Alright. I'll be back shortly."

Only then did she notice how extraordinarily tired he looked. The bags under his eyes hit her in a part of her heart that was struck every single day, multiple times a day. If she engaged the compulsion it prompted, she felt exhausted; if she ignored it, she felt guilty. It was the feeling that she had to take care of everybody. And that was fair, because that was her job, as a wife, a mother. She just wasn't very good at it – she never had been. There was something wrong with her. She was aware of this.

Still, she did feel sorry for Gregory as he left to go buy some crummy novel in the gift shop. She felt badly despite the fact that he had brought this hell down upon her, albeit inadvertently. In reality, she knew, she had only herself to blame. And that made her so angry she could scream.

She was supposed to be working on her novel. Instead, she was in the hospital, feeling disgusting in a hospital gown, her forearm choked in an I.V. The pain was beginning to creep back in too, a loud dull ache that spread over her abdomen. A nurse came in before Gregory returned, however, giving her more morphine, which promptly knocked her out.

And just like that, she was back at the Orlat Café in downtown Gathering 17, standing in the doorway with the alien Stan Marsh. She looked around, stunned, then pinched her skin and definitely felt it. This was not a dream – she was really here. Had she fallen asleep for a moment, dreaming she was back in the hospital? Was it really some kind of temporal rupture?

Stan seemed desperate, asking her, "What? What's wrong? Are you alright?"

She smiled – a fake smile – and said, "I'm fine, sorry. I just…" But she trailed off, at a loss for an excuse. "I'm fine, really. Let's go."

They walked to the car without saying anything.

On the way to Stan's apartment, he told her about the first time he visited Earth.

"I was so nervous," he said, sounding almost boyish. "I was undercover, you know, and I was so afraid people would know because of something I said or the way I talked. Because that's what people automatically assume if you screw up an idiom, right, that you're an alien." He laughed.

"You seem normal to me," she said. "I would have never known you were an alien. Although I guess I'm the alien here."

"Well, that's because Earth's space-time continuum is really different. Us Lanulosians have to speak very slowly over there and make sure we get the rhythm right, otherwise we sound really, really weird to Earthlings. It's a really hard thing to do, especially if you're tired or nervous," he explained. "It's not an issue here though, obviously. And most people these days know English too. There's been a lot of cultural assimilation after Earthlings started immigrating here."

"Oh. Huh." Interesting. "Where did you go on Earth?"

"Oh, I've been all over. Not so much Asia or Eastern Europe though. I spent most of my time in the U.S."

"Oh? Was there a city you liked best?"

"You know, I spent a lot of time in American cities, and while there's a lot I really like about them, they're not really me, you know? I think the place in America I liked most was the Rocky Mountains. I mean, we have mountains here of course, but something about the Rockies really struck a chord with me. I can't really explain it. It's like, this weird and amazing combination of possibility and quiet," he said. "America talks about freedom all the time, and like, you decide for yourself how true that is, but I feel like the Rocky Mountains are where the spirit of America's freedom is."

Wendy liked this. It was real, poetic, heartfelt. She wanted to say that to him, to openly admire his words, but what she said was, "I don't think America is free. I still can't vote."

"Yeah, it's definitely… fucked up," he said as he turned down a street. "I mean, we have a similar history here, and the effects linger on. But you've seen that progress can be made, right?" (She said yes.) "So that's that spirit of freedom, I think, that thing that drives people to want to change things that are unfree. I mean, it's not an easy thing to do, and sometimes people just don't have the energy to fight like that, but the good thing is, you can never really kill the spirit of freedom. It's always alive in somebody."

"I like the way you think," she said, stating her earnest opinion – she wasn't flattering him. "I have the feeling you're an excellent teacher. That you don't just educate your students, but inspire them too." (She couldn't say the same about Gregory.)

"Oh, um," he said, briefly biting his lower lip and staring straight ahead. "I mean, that's like, my goal; that's what I hope to accomplish. So if I come across that way to you, then that's really good." Finally, he said, "Thank you."

She could feel her face smiling. Again, her eyes veered towards his naked ring finger. If it weren't been proof before, it was now that she knew he most likely lived alone. And indeed, when she got to his apartment and saw no indication that anyone else lived there, she was very pleased. That is, until he told her that they would go to the Bureau of Time Management after breakfast tomorrow. She wondered if she should tell him that she dreamed she was back in the hospital while at the restaurant, and that that "dream" had been as real as this "dream," such that it was now impossible to know what was real and what wasn't. Maybe nothing was. Well, she'd tell them tomorrow, she supposed.

The bed in the spare room was comfortable, almost too comfortable. It didn't even feel like a bed; it just felt like… softness. The navy sheets were soft too, and they smelled good. And even though it was dark in the room, the dark sheets helped, helping her blend into the night. Become a shadow. In her life, there were shadows everywhere, on her face, her body, her name that wasn't 'hers.' And if she could just absorb them, eat them all, then maybe she could become them. And in that darkness, there would be no discerning the her that hid behind her hair when she was little, nor the her that would hide in Stan's shoulder in the future. It wasn't that she was scared. No, she wasn't afraid of anything. Maybe she wanted people to be afraid of her; maybe she just wanted to disappear sometimes. One of her many secrets was that she wanted that last one especially, and not just in the frivolous, everyday way, but in the incredible, heretic way. After all, to disappear was the ultimate freedom, to close ones eyes one last time and have nothing, be nothing. And she'd get it one day, years from now, when she finally expired on Lanulos, alone.

But there was a lot of life for her to live before that. She lay flat on her back, her face exposed to the blackness of the room as she filled her lungs with the air of Stan's apartment. Tentatively, she brushed her hands over her stomach and felt what might have been the texture of a scar across her abdomen, but she wasn't sure and she wasn't going to check. She took her hands away and just listened to the quiet. Eventually, she fell asleep, dreaming that she was at City Hospital again, and Gregory was there trying to pretend he hadn't been doing work, but his briefcase was open on a chair, and she wasn't stupid, goddamn it.

He looked at her for a moment before saying, "I don't understand why you don't want me to do my work."

Of course he didn't. Nor would he try to if she explained. He would just argue.

"You lied," she said, her voice gravelly from anger and fatigue.

The way his eyes widened was unexpected, real. It felt good. Again, she told him he lied, making the accusation weightier this time.

He seemed perturbed, maybe, but then his expression hardened, and he said, "I think it's unrealistic of you to expect me to neglect work for a week."

"I don't care," she said. "You said you wouldn't do it and you did it anyway." Laughing hollowly, she looked up at the ceiling and said, "You always think you know best. Oh, Gregory. How very wrong you are."

"Then tell me how I'm wrong." It almost sounded like an order.

"Because you lied!" she quipped, flashing her eyes at him.

"Notwithstanding that, I mean. You still haven't told me why you're so against my getting work done while I sit here all day. You've been sleeping, for God's sake."

Pointing her finger, she shook her head and said, "No. No. I'm not doing this with you right now. I just had surgery, I'm in hell, and I'm not going to sit here and have you arbitrate my requests. If you want to do your work so badly, do it out of my sight."

"Wendy—"

But before he could continue, she pointed at the door and said, "Get out. Get out and don't come back."

He knew it was the drugs and the trauma, but it still hurt being spoken to like this. It hurt a lot, actually. "But what about when you're released? Will you call me so I can come get you?"

"Do you know what a taxi is, Professor?" she asked, hearing how cruel she sounded.

"Oh, don't—"

"Don't tell me what to do!" she snapped, livid, disgusted by him, by the shrillness in her voice, by everything.

"I wasn't—"

"Just get out," she said tiredly, clasping her head in her hands. She was exhausted all of the sudden. "For once in your life, just listen to me, please."

He swallowed and heard himself tightly say, "Alright."

He put the essay he'd been grading back in his briefcase, which he snapped shut before standing and looking at her in that hospital bed. Her gaze was harsh, swords in her eyes, and her long black hair was splayed out everywhere, catastrophic and wild. But the neck of the hospital grown was crooked, exposing her collarbone, and despite her rage, there was hardly any color in her face. God, he didn't want to leave her here all by herself. But she was so angry for some reason, and they didn't need a fight, not here, not now. Nor did he need to be berated anymore.

Before he left, he told her he was sorry. And he wasn't lying: he was sorry for everything she'd gone through and sorry that his presence just made things worse for her. But above all, he was sorry that this was how things were.

As he walked down the hall, the cracks in the marble only got deeper. It hurt more with each step he took, until he was outside in the cold winter air, feeling like the palms of the wind would smash him to dust. He dug out a match and a cigarette and struggled to light it for over a minute. Just before he was about to give up, the wind lulled and the light took.

Above him, the clouds were opaque, hard and unkind. Before him was a large circle of grass, grayish and stunted in winter, also hard, miserable looking. There wasn't anywhere to go. And there could not have been – he would be on this his boat forever, the queens of the sea rocking him back and forth, always vying for a piece of him. The texture of his life was so splintered. It didn't matter what he did; it didn't matter what he dreamed of – his job would always be to face the whimsy of the water, to sail to the right port, to battle every storm.

And he was good at it.

But God, was it pouring.

The sky was horrendous, a black mass of furling clouds that assaulted his body with hard drops of rain. He was laid out on his battered boat, his limbs sprawled out, just taking it. The wind was angry but wordless in its hateful howls, impossible to ignore, impossible to forget. Yes, it hurt. It hurt a lot. But it was their hurt that he took, bearing it upon himself so they would not have to suffer as much, because he loved them.

Even so, the ascent to Calvary that was his life could be an agony. There was no Simon to help carry his load; there was no Veronica to wipe the sweat from his brow. And that was fine, because he was strong.

But it was hard when they weren't even grateful, when they gave him hell for a whole pallet of reasons, some stupid, some justified. He closed his closed eyes, creating a place he hadn't visited in a long time. Things were kinder here, darker. The boat still rocked and the storm still raged, but now a soft powder was spreading across his mind, coating it. This lavender dust was made of old memories, crushed down to their barest sentiment. It was an old dust, decades old, that came from a white house in Surrey. It was a remedy of all the times he had been weak and been comforted.

But there was a cost: his shame was vociferous in the back of his mind, nearly cruel. It reminded him that to be a pillar was to stand tall, to never lean; to forget there was a boy inside him that had once cried; to grit his teeth and bear it, never falter, never tremble, never fail.

It wasn't that it was hard.

It was just that he was tired.

So he let his head rest upon the pillow that was this powder, the particles absorbing into the folds of his brain as they crafted a much softer sea: the boat rocked like a cradle; the wind became a whisper; the rain, droplets from an aspergillum. The clouds dissipated as if they had never been there, revealing a clear night sky with twinkling stars and a thin crescent moon. In the darkness, Gregory's face seemed calmer: though his eyes were still shut, his mouth was slightly ajar in relief. All he felt now was the gentle back and forth of the waves. He didn't think of the splintered ship he sailed, nor the burden of so much black water on his back. Thus, thoughtlessly, freely, he drifted back across the Atlantic, a trip that would take days, all of which were night. The moon didn't change either; it was still a silvery sliver that didn't shine on such cracked marble. It wouldn't speak to him for weeks.

Then one night, a long time ago, Gregory opened his eyes again. He heard commotion in the distance, as if something were being dropped into the water, hitting its skin with slaps and splashes. Squinting, he saw ships nestled in a wharf at the harbor, the city of Boston sprawled out behind it. They were decked with small yellow lights, emanating a colossal fervor, a fiery indignation that burned in the night.

Something was happening out there.

Curiosity motivated him. He lifted his body from its fallen state, feeling his age in his bones as he sat up and stretched. The sounds continued. Were they dumping something? What? Why?

He had to get closer. He wondered if the darkness would protect him and what would happen if it didn't. Alternatively, beyond the harbor was home and work and life again, but he was loath to embrace Ithaca, for he knew it would not embrace him back. Not yet, at least. And so he rowed his boat deeper into the harbor, struggling to see in the little light afforded.

The sounds of voices became more intelligible, though they were still indistinct. He saw that the excitement was concentrated on three ships in the center, surrounded by the others. The crew of those three boats was dumping the contents of boxes into the water before tossing the empty boxes over as well. Through the boiling scent of rebellion, the smell of tea weakly emerged.

Ah, of course: the wharf was a pot, the Patriots stirrers.

And did they ever stir, with their little costumes, their fury, their resentment. Their hatred. That was really what it was – hatred, rejection of the Father. Now, he watched from the hard shadow of a British warship, jaw clenched. The saddest part was that it should have been inspiring; it should have made him want to get up and join them, and perhaps it did pluck an abstract string of his heart, but mostly, it just made him sad.

There was so much waste. All around his boat were unused leaves, now as pungent to him as funeral pyres. He let his hand fall over the edge and glide through the polluted water, some of the leaves sticking to his skin when he pulled his hand back up.

It didn't surprise him to see the two of them on the ship. They were side by side, disguised with blankets on their heads and soot on their faces, but their brown and green eyes were unmistakable. He watched them shake the dark leaves from the boxes, saw the callousness with which they dumped the empty receptacles. For hours he watched, breaking and cracking as history was made before his eyes. The message was very clear – there would be no debate amongst historians, no controversy as to location. It was here, two-thirds of the way to Calvary, on December 16, 1773, that Gregory's left and right arms were shattered by the gazes of two bitter colonists.

He was never really able to hold either of them the same way again.

---

It was a long walk back to City Hospital. He was exhausted before he even set foot on land. And Boston was still wild around him, though not in noise or commotion – in that, it was quiet now, only the rare clomping of a coach or a hushed street-corner conversation. Rather, this wildness was constant, part of the American air by now. He could feel it squeezing him, feel the blank eyes of colonial buildings on him. "Whose side are you on?" they demanded, but he didn't even know anymore.

Boston was smaller now, a pre-Industrial world crammed into a uvula, surrounded by the spit of the harbor. He reached the end of it shortly, then transversed its thin neck to the mainland, where there were only hills and trees. Everything felt useless, the sun tapped out, the moon so dark. Still, he followed the only road, nearly dragging his feet; and still, he kept his eyes peeled, gazing into the black forest. At one point, God knew why, he climbed into it. He didn't even think about it; he just slipped into the woods. It wasn't long before he came across a little meadow that throbbed with a surreal glow, wherein his car stood smiling, as if on display.

He was a new car, a 1919 Roamer touring, black and long and regularly waxed, with an elegant grill and decadent paintwork. For hours he had waited for his master in this little fairy meadow, blinking sleepily to the whispers of sprites. Ever patient, ever cheerful, just sitting in the woods and thinking about him. But his joy dissipated upon seeing his master looking so haggard, as if he had traversed an eternity and come out distorted, sobered to a bleaker reality. The car couldn't describe it in such words, but that is what he saw in Gregory's face as the man stood like a broken mirage in the yellow-green fluorescence. From his engine, the car let out a small rumble of reassurance, his headlights softening as he gazed at him with more sympathy than anyone had in a while. Sympathy, the car had in spades, that and patience, which was only augmented by all the time he spent waiting, waiting, waiting, whether in the driveway, the woods, or Quincy Street in the dead of winter. He had been out here for over ten hours now, cradled in the shadow of Emerson Hall, watching students pass by, all bundled up, and seeing other cars go up and down the street, sometimes marring its side with salt and slush. Unintentionally, of course. Everything could be forgiven, after all.

A history professor, writing neatly in his tiny office about a thousand feet away, did not agree. In effect, he, the moon, had stood firm for nearly a month. It felt like it would mean more if he could go one full cycle in his own darkness. But it was ten degrees out, and the twenty minute walk back home loomed over him as he worked on next week's lesson plans, in the dark except for the feeble bulb of his green desk lamp.

There came two knocks on his door, and he squeezed his eyes shut in annoyance, deciding to pretend he wasn't in, wondering if the light could be discerned from under the door. It was past eight – couldn't anyone ever leave him alone?

Horribly, the person knocked again, and Kyle shut his eyes with disdain before saying, "Come in."

He didn't expect to see that perfect face peek through the crack of the door. It was upsetting. With a scowl, he said, "Something I can help you with, Chairman?"

Genteelly, Gregory replied, "I was wondering if you'd like a ride home. I can wait, if you're still working."

Kyle frowned more severely. This wasn't a simple offer – this was Gregory coming to him when he knew he'd struggle to say "no." And struggle he did, as he sat there thinking about that miserable walk in the cold, thinking, too, that he would be playing right into Gregory's hands if he agreed.

Was it worth it?

"Give me fifteen minutes," Kyle muttered, knowing it would be at least twenty, maybe more.

"Sure."

There was a short delay before Gregory quietly closed the door, though not long enough for Kyle to flash him a questioning glance. Once he heard Gregory's footsteps leave, he went back to working on his lesson plans, not quite as aggravated as he wanted to be. The truth was, it was difficult to sustain anger after such a long day, after all this time. He just didn't have the energy for it.

Once he was finished, he sighed and began packing up. He put his work in his briefcase and then put his coat on, as well as his hat and gloves and scarf, but then he paused before opening the door, his hand still on the doorknob, swallowing as he planned his actions in his head. Funny: you plan your whole life out only to fall prey to a monster. And when the thorns wrap around you just right, your ideals become so much harder to hold onto. They still 'matter', of course, but in a much more abstract way, where you recognize you're an imperfect human in an imperfect world and your values are far too shiny to truly exist. Or maybe you're just weak. Maybe you know how empty the house has felt the past few weeks, but you can't admit that the lingering scent of a man in your sheets keeps you alive.

The doorknob turned, and Kyle came out to find Gregory sitting there at that table where students usually waited. His blue eyes were like bricks, absolutely opaque. He offered him a kind look – not a genuine one, but a polite one, the kind he might give to anyone. It was a blank sheet of paper, perfect but empty.

"Ready to go?" Gregory asked, and Kyle nodded.

So they left, going down the three flights of stairs in silence. There was tension in the air, but Kyle wasn't bothered by it. Outside, it was predictably freezing, which somehow came like a shock. The wind was painful on Kyle's naked face.

As they walked across the Yard, Kyle thought of his father, imagining his leathery old face enduring this same cold. In his mind, he could see the sad shape of Gerald Broflovski curled up on a sidewalk, frozen and barely alive, and Kyle tried to take some solace in the fact that his father was a smart man. He would be inside on a night like this, and though it might not be all that warm in there, at least he wouldn't freeze to death.

Gregory finally said something: "Miserable, isn't it?"

"What?"

"The weather."

"Oh," Kyle said. "Yes, horrible."

Gregory made no further attempt at conversation. While on campus, the strings between them were frozen, congealed in the air and unable to be rocked back and forth by the wind. Electrifying the cables was a memory he sometimes felt in his hands. Roughly twice times a day, increasingly less, he thought of that broken wine glass, the set now ruined, a thought that had somehow become correlated with amputees. Kyle had come back all in one piece, wasn't that lucky? Wasn't that a blessing? He heard this in his mother's voice, always. It even made him a little mad, which was nostalgic, honestly.

The car was silent. The drive would be short – and then what? Kyle glanced at Gregory's face in the meager light afforded by the lampposts. When they reached Kyle's dark and empty house a few minutes later, he inevitably said: "You can come in if you want. If you don't have to get home, that is."

"No, I'll come in for a bit. I'd like to," Gregory said, and Kyle noted the surprise in his voice at the beginning. It was latent, but it was there.

Kyle said nothing; he didn't even look at him. Once Gregory had parked, Kyle got out and went to get the mail, acting as he might on any ordinary day. But he could hear Gregory's shoes crunch on the salt behind him, and he could feel his presence like a tall shadow, like a hole in the ground Kyle would never be able to climb out of. Another sigh escaped his mouth as he unlocked the door and went inside, this one of relief as he smelled the clean, familiar scent of his home. He threw his keys on the table and went to hang his coat up, then got right back to it with handing out orders ("that wine in the icebox") before circling around the first floor and closing the blinds he felt compelled to open every morning.

In the living room, he sat on the settee after retrieving his cigarettes, proceeding to light one as he heard the clicking of glass from the kitchen. It was possible that Gregory was being intentionally slow, perhaps thinking of the non-survivor of the set. Not that Kyle really knew what went on in that man's head. He let out a bitter, airy snort as he exhaled the smoke into the deep beige room, not looking at Gregory as he came in and sat on the opposite couch, setting down the bottle of wine and two glasses on the coffee table. As he uncorked the bottle, Kyle stared at the two glasses, side by side and perfect, each of them soon filled with liquid gold, a little pool into which Kyle now stared without speaking. His head was a labyrinth, and with a newly-minted key, he took some files from a drawer in the wall: "I've spent a long time trying to convince myself that you love me, and that the impossible situation you're in has no bearing on that," he said. "But I don't know anymore. I struggle to understand how you can truly love someone – let alone respect them – when you lie to them about something so big for five years. Or how you could even do such a thing in the first place. And I know you have all sorts of justifications for it, but I don't want to hear them. It's reprehensible, what you've done. There's no way around it."

There was more that could be said, always, but nothing else came out of Kyle's mouth. He was bitter and dehydrated, wanting so badly to erase so many sordid details of reality, resentful to know he could not absolve Gregory of his diabolical ways.

"I won't plead my case," Gregory finally said. "I can only tell you that I do love you, more than I've ever loved anyone else ever. That is my one truth."

Kyle couldn't help but snort. Truth. Funny. This would go nowhere, not that he expected it to, because they were doomed from the start. The water only ever got murkier. He could take it or leave it.

Then Gregory said, honestly, "I'm sorry though. Unimaginably sorry. I don't expect your forgiveness."

"I don't think this is something I can forgive, anyway," Kyle said, not a hint of anger or sarcasm in his voice, only sorrow and fatigue. "I couldn't even if I wanted to. It's just not possible. So I'll just have to live with it."

If Kyle were to look at Gregory, he would see him at a loss, staring at the glass coffee table as if it might assuage the sadness in the room with its clarity, so carefully maintained by Kyle. Yet now, Gregory's glass sat on it without a coaster like a miserable metaphor of his presence in the other man's life. The coasters were over on the narrow bookshelf, next to a ceramic statue of a rabbit that Gregory had never asked about, but it seemed like too little too late. If Kyle noticed and cared, something would happen, but Gregory was arrested on the sad loveseat. This conversation was a swamp, and he pressed his face against a wet tree that was so contorted it was nearly shredded, the moisture and roughness consuming him as it rubbed against his face and sliced everything inside his skull like a knife a vegetable: quick, fast, and hopeless.

Ultimately, he transcribed a dream, the single line so vulnerable it nearly dissolved him: "If I could do my life over, I'd put your first, always."

"Well, you can't," Kyle said swiftly. "It doesn't work that way."

"No, it doesn't," Gregory agreed.

Again, Kyle sighed. He slung his hand with the cigarette over the edge of the sofa and stared down the hall into the kitchen. "Well, since we're being so honest tonight," he said with a twinge of sarcasm, "I might as well tell you that I've been cursing you and your precious family every day the past three weeks."

"Ah, is that why I couldn't find my keys last week?"

It was not terribly hard not to smile. "Yes."

"Well, that's alright. You can keep it up if it makes you feel better."

"Maybe I'll get into voodoo."

"Oh?"

"Stick a needle in your crotch, make you impotent," Kyle replied coolly, peering at him out of the corner of his eye.

"If that would make you happy," Gregory said with such seriousness that Kyle closed his eyes in disappointment.

"You know it wouldn't," Kyle said bitterly, his nostril twitching. "You know how I am."

"Well… Yes."

Rolling his eyes, Kyle leaned forward to tap his cigarette in the ashtray before downing his entire glass of wine and then pouring another one. The bottle was nearly empty now, but there were more in the pantry, probably some downstairs too. There always would be.

He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, the half-gone cigarette in his right hand and the glass of wine in his left, and finally noticed that Gregory had neglected to get the coasters. Kyle didn't even feel like mentioning it though; he almost wanted this ugly moment to be memorialized by an ugly ring on the glass. No one, least of all him, least of all now, realized that such stains were also perfect circles.

"I've spent a lot of time resenting you. This past month, the whole time I was in France. A thousand other times too, but those have been the longest. They ruin me. And I resent that too, because that shouldn't happen. It's not… right," Kyle explained, his thoughts meandering. "Sometimes I think I'd be better off if none of this ever happened. Which isn't to say I think I'd be better off without you. Not now, anyway. I mean, maybe I would be, but I'd also be miserable, and not just for lack of sex."

Gregory's silences were getting longer – this one became so lengthy that Kyle prompted him with a mild "Well?"

"Well," Gregory mirrored, swallowing, "I agree that our relationship has been… tumultuous. But I'd be miserable without you too. I'd die, actually."

Guffawing, Kyle said, "Oh, would you now?"

"Undoubtedly," Gregory replied, not a hint of sarcasm or irony in his voice, his stance as desperate and grave as the star-crossed lovers' sorry end.

"I'm not some rag doll, Gregory," Kyle said. "You can't do such terrible things to me and then act like… like you're the miserable protagonist of a Greek tragedy. Which brings me back to my original point that if you really did love me, you wouldn't treat me like this."

Gregory's chest was tight, the air in the room nearly unbreathable. His voice sounded strange to him as he said, "I can see how that might look contradictory, yes. And I don't want to argue or defend myself, but on the same token, things aren't so paradoxical from where I'm standing."

"Of course they aren't," Kyle said flatly, sneering.

"I never do things with the intent of hurting you."

"That hardly matters when I end up hurt anyway," Kyle said. "You did it thinking I'd never find out, and you'd still be doing it now if I hadn't. Because I know you, Gregory. You're a bad person with this uncanny ability of fooling everyone into believing you're a good one."

"So what do you want then?" Gregory said suddenly, his tone pressing. "What am I supposed to do?"

Bitterly, Kyle said, "See, I could tell you at least a dozen things I wish you would or wouldn't do, but I know it wouldn't change anything. You know what lying is; you don't need to be told not to do it." Then he was a little more honest: "You have no idea what this has done to me. You can't even imagine. To you, it's just a little white lie you had to tell your mistress. You had no choice, you say! Cosmic law forced you to have sex with your wife! Well, Gregory, I don't have any sympathy for you."

"I don't expect any," Gregory said, looking up at him. "I don't know if my apologies mean anything to you, but… I am sorry."

Kyle closed his eyes and exhaled. Neither of them said anything for a few moments, both of them aware that this would only go in circles, endlessly, that it was hopeless: there was no getting off this fair ride. Kyle was just going to have to swallow the bile that rose from his stomach. Maybe he'd be able to forget about the bad taste in his mouth soon, or at least not be so aware of it so often. And that did happen, because this was his life, and he had a lot of practice getting used to terrible things. Eventually, it became just another awful thing Gregory had done, though it was true it was by far the worst. Kyle held onto Gregory's promise that he wouldn't sleep with Wendy ever again, but the first time he and Gregory had sex since then, it kept creeping back into his mind.

Did Gregory grunt like this with her, burying his face in her neck and rising up with that gaze that burned like hot steam, lidded and cloudy? Did he hold her arms up and kiss along neck as if he were marking her, sloppy and wild, his civility distorted by the heat of flesh? And did he moan "you're so gorgeous" into her skin like a mantra that would save him from his sins? Probably yes, yes to all these things, Kyle figured as he struggled to focus purely on the physical, on the fact that there was a cock in his ass and it felt good, telling himself that at least right now, he was the one being loved, ignoring very ardently that this love was cheap and that he was pathetic for taking it, sadder yet for needing it. Yes, he needed this; he could not – would not – go the rest of his life without it.

What he began to do was pretend he didn't know the man who was fucking him. Tonight, the following, a French film, played on the silver screen of Kyle's mind:

He is participating in a beauty pageant in Paris. He looks good, exceptionally good (someone else has done his make-up), and he almost feels it as he sits at the hotel bar with a glass of wine, not drinking it as he swallows up the business man's flirtations. None of it is coy. The fact that he's talking like this in the light of day, making such overt references to genitals, is making Kyle wet. He bites his lower lip, getting no lipstick on his teeth not because he's classy, but because the lipstick he would have used (i.e. would never use again) is in fact in a drawer in Wendy's vanity.

(An informative aside while Kyle showers: after the Boston Tea Party, when Gregory came back to his car on the parcel of land that would one day house Boston City Hospital, he discovered in the front seat of his car a tube of lipstick that Kyle had purchased at the Shepherd Stores on January 2, 1915. Thinking it was Wendy's, he later tossed it in her vanity, where she found it three months later as she was getting ready to go out for the first time since surgery. It was a gold tube with a rose engraved on the top, and the lipstick itself was red-orange, a color she would have never picked herself, which made the fact that it had clearly been used so much stranger. But so many strange things had been happening lately that it was difficult to dwell on any of them, and so she continued her life with one more tube of lipstick while Kyle Broflovski continued his with one less, although he never realized it.)

Later, upstairs, the Polish beauty queen dries herself off after showering, trying very hard not to look in the mirror. Inevitably, he fails. He makes a face and sighs: he won't win. Judgment aside though, there's something very real in his expression at this moment, as if he weren't acting at all. There is a profound melancholy upon his face, a face that has seen many horrible things: the greatest poverty, sickest gore, worst pain, muddiest nightmares. In his green eyes reflected in the glass, he sees someone who deserves more, closing his eyes in acknowledgment that tenacity can only get you so far. Everything else is up to the whims of happenstance, and how brutal those can be for some, how gentle for others. Luck wouldn't be so if there were enough of it to go around, and oh, how she has suffered for the sake of that definition.

Now, she turns away from the mirror and goes back to her room, where she finds the businessman on his side on the bed, still clothed, his pants glaringly tented. It makes her suck in a breath, but then she smirks, tilting her head in a teasing way.

"Did you miss me while I was gone?" she asks, though her lips move to the sound of music, not speech.

The man's voice would be deep yet clear (the actor is British, after all): "Horribly."

The camera focuses on his face: it's a beautiful face, expressly masculine in a European way. His smile is devastating. He reaches out to the beauty queen, sitting up halfway as he beckons her over. She approaches him with faux caution, and once she's standing in front of him, he slides the robe off her shoulder, the tie holding the thing together awkwardly at her waist. He drags his hand down to his small nipple, a gesture that's somehow so erotic it makes his cock throb, makes the whole theatre threaten to collapse under reality. When she looks at him again, that perfect face, those gorgeous eyes, she's determined to see a strange man that just wants to fuck her, not one that's "in love" with her. It works, more or less. It feels passionate, not amorous, as he suddenly grabs her and pulls her into him. Half-kneeling on top of him, she can feel his hard cock against her leg, and she squeezes her eyes shut, wanting it desperately and trying so hard not to think about where else it's been. She lowers himself down into his lap, sitting more comfortably now as he begins kisses her, taking shallow breaths as he assaults her mouth. Then his hand is on her ass, climbing up under the robe to squeeze a cheek roughly, the tips of his fingers digging between them to touch that spot with the same intensity, which makes an involuntary sound escape her throat. His lips are moving over her throat now, saying, "I want you."

Soon, the Polish queen's cock is so rigid that the maleness of the room is ultra-present. Kyle doesn't shy away from it though, so immersed in the sensuality of the slick fingers inside of him, the wet murmurs on his neck, the weight of a man who wants him on top of him. For everything he's had to pay for this, right now it feels worth it. His consciousness is weightless as his orgasm mounts, throbbing within him and eventually forcing him to grab his cock. In turn, Gregory's fingers inside prod that spot harder, faster, and Kyle clings to the last vestiges of the summit before falling off completely, biting down on his fist as he moans loudly, coating himself in spurts of his own ejaculate. Some of these Gregory wipes away, others, he licks. It's shocking to Kyle, able to arouse him even so soon after an orgasm. Pink-faced, he licks his lips and concentrates on the furor of Gregory's erection on his thigh.

Otherwise, the black-and-white screen will start flickering again, and he'll be walking down the runway in a women's bathing suit with Gregory in the crowd under the Parisian sunshine, who'll be thinking of coming back to his hotel room to fuck him just like this, laying him on the bed and then pulling his hips up into the air, transfixed by the slick glow of his perineum in the yellow light of the room. The business man takes his throbbing cock in his hand and positions it at his entrance, proceeding carefully, eyes absorbing him in the moments before he's fully absorbed by him. When that happens, he pushes some steady thrusts into him before guiding Kyle down so that he's flat on the bed, at which point Gregory drops down to cover him entirely, pressing kisses to his ear, to the side of his face. He fucks him delicately, fluidly, devouring the sounds Kyle makes, savoring the "oh god", the "oh fuck." Kyle begins pressing back on him, meeting his short thrusts with increasing fervency, and Gregory digs his hand beneath him to clasp Kyle's dick, just squeezing it, tormenting him.

"Don't just do that," Kyle argues, but his voice his hot and wavering, more desperate than anything.

Gregory indulges him regardless – he almost always does – jerking Kyle off steadily, beginning to really sweat now. He pauses intermittently to cup Kyle's balls, squeezing them and making him throw his head back, sometimes with a groan, sometimes with a whimper. It's a lot to keep up with, but Gregory only allows himself to think of the marks on his back after Kyle's finished in his hand again, drenching his fingers in dribbles of seed. He comes himself in thrusts as frenetic and insane as that disgusting night, grunting breathily as he puts all of himself into Kyle.

In the aftermath, he breathes with the full capacity of his lungs. When he pulls out, a wave of unexpected and tremendous sadness hits him. It's bothersome, disturbingly sentimental, hard to swallow. Kyle sits up now, looking at him confusedly, and Gregory takes him in his arms and just holds him. Eventually he says, "You're the only thing in the whole world that matters to me."

---

Gregory swept the last of the glass into the dustpan before heading to the kitchen to dump it in the trash bin. That was when he saw the table set, with a basket of bagels Kyle had most certainly made himself, a plate of beautiful pink lox and a bowl of cream cheese. The table was set for two. To say that Gregory felt even worse than he already did would be a grievous understatement. He stared at that table for a good few minutes, holding the dustpan and wanting to sob. It was plain on his face. Nothing ended up happening, however.

Like the glass that Kyle had shattered, Gregory had the deep, sad awareness that things were irrevocably broken between them. And though he knew it was mostly his fault, he wasn't sure if he could've ever done anything differently. As things stood, perhaps they were damned to break every wine glass in that set. The question was, how long would that take? And how much pain would there be? Gregory could endure an infinite amount, but he doubted that was the case with Kyle. And he hated hurting Kyle. He knew he did it all the damn time, and he hated it.

Nevertheless, it seemed impossible to put an end to this thing they had. Kyle didn't want that, and Gregory most certainly didn't. So what could be done? The cycle of conflict seemed eternal, any resolution fleeting and unreal, a white sheet over broken furniture.

What Gregory would have done to mend it. In the past year, the bitter thought that some things simply could not be fixed was a headache that never really went away. Even so, he would cling to this broken furniture forever, letting its exposed nails and splintered wood dig into his skin and wound him. Distancing himself was not an option, nor was throwing it away. He needed it; he would suffer too much without it.

But with it, the white house on Lake View Avenue was a den of suffering. No amends were made by the time the sun vanished from the sky and the whole house was dark, and none were made in the bleak stillness of Kyle's room. The few words exchanged were dry and crackling with hurt, a lake turned into a desert. No films were played that evening in Kyle's room, and when Gregory finally left, Kyle was so relieved he couldn't understand why he demanded he stay in the first place: though the house was empty now, the solitude felt so much better, and as Kyle got up to address his awful headache and gripping hunger, he wondered if maybe he really would be better off without Gregory.

As he got the bottle of aspirin from the cabinet, he thought again of those stupid cosmetics under the sink. After taking the pill, he retrieved the paper bag and took it downstairs with him, noticing that Gregory had not lied about cleaning up the glass. Kyle saw the glass shards when he looked in the trash, and upon it, he dropped the bag of cosmetics, followed by the lox and cream cheese, which had been sitting out for too long. And though the trash wasn't quite full, he took it out around the corner of the house and put it in one of the trash cans. With that, his headache seemed to lessen somewhat, and when he went back inside and ate a bagel, he was sure it was true.

He thought of all the different food his mother used to make, how when she made babka, his father would say, "These are so sweet, but not as sweet as you, dear." To that, she would blush and wave her hand and say, "Oh, stop, you." There had been a lot of love packed into those little rooms, and it hurt Kyle's heart so much knowing it was gone forever.

When he went back upstairs, he sat down at his desk and wrote a brief letter in a language he rarely used:

Dear Dad,

Spring recess this year is April 18-24, and I'd like to come visit you then. Or you could come to Boston, if you'd like. I hope you're surviving the winter, by which I mean taking appropriate measures to endure it, that is, not spending too much time outside, not having too much skin exposed. I know you know these things, but I worry. Please remember that my door is always open to you and that you're always welcome to come live with me in Boston.

Love always,
Kyle

When Kyle received a response two weeks later, he planned a trip to Chicago in April. On the Saturday of that week, he would not be in the passenger seat of the phallic vehicle of the god-monster as he was right now. They had just eaten brunch at a café in town, since that Valentine's Day was the last day Kyle ever made food for Gregory. The weather was a bit too cool, chilly and balmy in early March, the threat of snow still at their heels. The trip to Newtonville was amicable, lively, even, as they discussed the missing works of the Epic Cycle, eventually proceeding to Berossus' Babylonaica.

There was someone else en route to Albemarle Golf Club, someone besides the four friends on their spring pilgrimage. This someone was not from Earth, though a version of him was known to someone on Earth by means of a strange accident, a rupture in time that should not have occurred, just like how the book titled with the white monster that caused it should not have been published. Nevertheless, these things did happen:

- The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker was published by William Rider and Son Ltd. in 1911.

- The horror writer Felix Stockton, real name Wendy Haywood, was now dating one alien professor Stan Marsh, who decided not to go to Boston in 1920.

- Yet as there are infinite realities and infinite Wendys and Stans (and even Kyles and Gregorys), so too, was there another alien professor Stan Marsh who 1) never met Wendy Haywood and 2) did end up going to Boston in 1920.

On this day, that Stan Marsh had parked his space ship near Wights Pond in Wellesley and was now on the train to Newtonville. His foot was shaking, and he kept checking his watch. It was almost twelve thirty. The train wasn't terribly crowded early on a Saturday afternoon, and so he had his golf bag propped up on the seat next to him. The trees outside were still bare in the last weeks of winter, hundreds of them flitting by as they train bustled down the tracks.

At Newtonville Station, he exited the train with the golf bag slung over his shoulders, his legs feeling like gelatin. Though he knew which way to go, he felt uncertain in the reality of it. He took a deep breath and started up Walnut Street, distracting himself with the lovely New England houses bathed in the meager winter sunlight. It was partially cloudy today, but the rays of sun penetrating the clouds were delightful, enough to make him smile a little. And the truth was, Stan had plenty reason to smile on this day, no matter the difficulty of what lie before him. In the end, the results did not matter so much as the fact that he would be seeing Kyle Broflovski again.

At the intersection of Albemarle Road and Crafts Street, the Albemarle Golf Club lay tucked into the sprawling grass of the southeast quadrant. It was obviously a former residence, identical in style to the nearby mansions. It was blue, with beautiful white accents and shudders, a huge patio wrapped around it. There were a few cars in the parking lot, but as Stan went down the driveway, he saw he didn't recognize any of them. He wasn't sure if that was a relief or not.

For another few moments, he stood around the parking lot, his anxiety only mounting as he stared at the golf club's double doors. The past few decades had led up to this moment, but suddenly, he didn't feel ready. Yet he didn't have the chance to stall any longer: when someone exited the building, Stan was compelled to go inside himself out of fear of seeming odd. So he walked through the parking lot up to the front door, where he peered inside the glass windows, seeing an empty hallway and a staircase. He went in, quickly noticing the door to the left labeled "OFFICE," which was cracked open. Regardless, he knocked, two times lightly.

"Come in," someone said absently, and Stan pushed the door open with his fingers to discover a room with bookshelves built into the back wall, and before it, a man sitting at a desk and looking up at him from behind his round glasses.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Ah, yes, um," Stan said, trying to make his voice sound normal, "I'm new around here, and I was just wondering if there were maybe some other golfers I could join just, you know, to do some casual golfing."

The man simply blinked. Stan began to sweat.

Finally, the man replied, "I'm afraid this club is members only, so you'll have to have someone sponsor you if you wish to join."

Oh. Oh, no. How had he overlooked something so crucial?

Stan simply stood there, drenched in distress, nearly horrified. "Well, ah—" he managed to say. "T-thank you very much."

He was so shaken as he stumbled back that he didn't hear the front door opening, didn't notice who it was he knocked into until he had more or less fallen into him, sending them both off balance.

So frazzled was Stan by this that he hardly managed to utter an apology before he straightened himself up, at which point, he was rendered speechless all over again when he saw who it was he had fallen into.

He was all those memories personified in full color, standing there in a black overcoat in breathless tangibility, the hair as red and eyes as green as ever, something out of a painting. Stan felt his entire body go soft as he gazed him, a nearly-whispered apology falling from his mouth, thank God. And Kyle stared back at this man, a man he had never seen before but felt so drawn to, and not just because he was handsome, with tan skin, a lovely face and kind eyes. No, there was something here in this little space in the foyer of the golf club, something imperative that had not yet happened in this time, and though Kyle didn't know why, he felt the dire urge to talk to this man, to say something, anything.

As he brushed himself off, Kyle spoke with a certain kind of confidence that seemed to come from nowhere: "No worries. Although… I have to say, I haven't seen you around here before. Are you a new member?"

And before Stan even knew it, Kyle had snapped everything back into place, readily offering to sponsor him. The problem-solver, the technician, a dozen solutions always in his pocket. When Stan smiled at him, it was with the most bittersweet nostalgia and the densest hope: his love for Kyle was born again in this time, and it was so tender it overwhelmed him, so rife in the gratitude he uttered that it made Kyle blush.

"Oh, it's nothing," Kyle said, smiling and shrugging awkwardly.

But the truth was, it was the beginning of everything.