Gene stumbled through the door of the flat that he shared with Fred on Heifong III, smelling of cheap whiskey and other people's women. He was flushed and had bruises on his neck the size of castor shells, and every so often he would chuckle to himself.
"G...Gene…?" came a quiet voice from the bedroom doorway. Fred stood there wringing an edge of his pink apron. He looked sort of upset—not that Gene could make out the details of his face terribly well at the moment. He stumbled past the raven-haired man, giving him a slap on the ass that elicited a startled, "Oh!" and a fruity little laugh.
"G-Gene?" Fred mumbled again. "Were you…were you cheating on me again?" He forced himself to keep smiling, but underneath it all, he was crying as a piece of his soul froze over like a rose dying at winter's first frost. Gene's head jerked up and he glared at his lover.
"So what if I was? Y'gonna cry about it, like a whiny little bitch?" Gene had just had an amazingly drunken time with his friends—or at least, he thought he had, because the details of the whole night were kind of fuzzy. Well, he was sure of one thing at least: he'd beaten some bitches and screwed some hoes, and Fred was trying to ruin it again.
"N-no," Fred murmured, choking down a sob. He had learned that with Gene, you had to cry silently or not at all. "B-but…I made your favorite dinner."
"Then I guess it's a good thing I ate with th' boys! All ya ever make is crap, an' just so ya know, that isn't my favorite!" He staggered sideways, looking for the bed and finding a wall instead. "Damn wall," he growled, "Always movin' around!"
"You don't care about my feelings at all!" Fred cried, stomping his foot. Oh why had he fallen for the outlaw's rugged good looks, his washboard abs, his rippling pectorals—suddenly Fred remembered why he'd fallen for him. The hotheaded criminal was no good for him, though, and never had been.
"Feelings are for women!" Gene yelled, stumbling into the same wall yet again. By then, their neighbor seemed to have had enough, because at that moment there was a loud banging on the other side of the wall.
"Shut the hell up over there! All you ever do is yell!" screamed a frustrated, male voice.
Gene's face turned redder and he pounded his fist on the wall. "I'll yell at this bitch all I want!" he declared. He made as if to kick the wall, but only fell over.
"All you do is call me mean names!" Fred cried. "And you never touch me anymore!"
"Waaaah, waaaaaaah!" their neighbor called. "And do you hear that? No? Well that's me playing the world's smallest violin!"
Just as Fred was wondering what in the world a violin was, their front door flew open and in stumbled another drunken man, this one only about eighteen or so, with dark blonde hair and soulfully large blue eyes.
"Jim!" Gene said from the floor.
"Damn, Gene," Jim slurred as he came closer and nearly fell into the bedroom. "You're always drunk…why can't you be more like me?"
"Jim, this really isn't the time!"
Jim blinked at the effeminate man, the gears of his alcohol-saturated brain working slowly (it had been his coming-of-age birthday today, after all). "Hey, I just realized something…there's only one bedroom in your place."
"You just now figured that out, moron?" shouted their neighbor. "They're gayer than…than…than something really, really gay!"
Jim gasped, staring at his redheaded friend like he'd never seen him before. "You're…gay?" he gasped.
Fred poked his index fingers together, sweatdropping. "Um…we kind of figured you knew."
"How could I?"
"We always shared a bunk on the Outlaw Star," Gene explained, hefting himself up with the help of a chair.
"I thought you were just cold!"
"The ship has temperature controls," put in Fred.
"An' then there was the time Suzuka called Fred his favorite girl."
"And the time—"
"Ok, I get it already!" Jim shouted, throwing his hands up. "But, uh…if you're so much in…love," and he said the last word like it made him want to puke, "then how come you were yelling at Fred when I came in, Gene?"
"'Cause he's a whiny bitch."
"Gene, I don't like it when you're drunk!" Fred whined.
"Well get used ta it, beca—"
Gene was interrupted when the door opened yet again. A strong wind blew into the tiny house, knocking all three of them over and blowing in lots of bubbles and pink petals.
"This isn't a shoujo!" Gene grunted, spitting out petals. He, Fred, and Jim looked toward the door and were met with the sight of a tall, handsome young man with a gun at his waist. He was standing proudly as his seafoam-green hair blew back gently, tangle-free, as though caught in a light summer's breeze. This was all quite impressive as the wind was practically gale-force.
"Harry!" Fred gasped, and the three of them gaped at their fallen enemy.
"Fred!" he cried in his beautiful, sultry voice. Immediately the wind stopped and he rushed into the room. It was getting kind of crowded in there, so when he knelt in front of Fred and sexily flicked his hair over his shoulder, Jim got an elbow in the face and Gene found his mouth full of the young man's silken locks.
"But you're dead!" Fred cried.
Harry merely smiled, clasping Fred's hands in his own. "Death cannot stop true love," he said.
Gene, who had spit out Fred's hair, was now on his feet. "True love?!" he demanded. "What the hell's that supposed ta mean?"
"Twue Wuv!" called their neighbor, and this time Gene did kick the wall.
"Would ya shut up already?!"
Fred rose to his feet and picked up a blushing Fred bridal style while Gene stared, his drunken brain trying to work out how twue wuv had kept Harry alive. He'd been pretty sure that he'd died or that he was a computer program now…or something.
Fred swept past Gene and Jim, and carried Fred outside, where a flawlessly white stallion was waiting.
"Um, Harry?"
"Yes, my love?"
"Won't Melfina mind?"
"Oh no, she's very free-spirited. We have an open relationship, and besides, you're much better than that Saurian she brought home last week—it was shedding skin all over the bed." Harry mounted his steed along with the obviously gay man and they rode off into the rising sun to a lifetime of happiness.