It was New Years Eve and Fran had just passed out on the sofa in the middle of laughing her head off at something that seemed the funniest thing she had heard in years but actually was about nothing more special than whether there was any wine left in any of the three bottles standing by her right foot on the floor. At the lack of reply, Bernard blinked once and stared conspicuously at her for a moment or three before remembering that he had been talking about wine a minute or so previously and immediately diverted his attention from his friend's tipped back head, open mouth and at the moment really quite intimidatingly big nostrils and began the search for yet another bottle. This search ended rather abruptly after the about eight seconds it took him to lift a paper off of the desk and then back again and then gaze around the shop for anything liquid and red and just waiting to enter his mouth. The search was unsuccessful for many reasons; the most prominent ones being a) there was in fact no such thing left in the house at that very hour, and b) he was so drunk he could not see past his own elbow.

"Nonsense," he distortedly mumbled the moment later, frowning down at the desk as he threw his hands upon it for potential support. "Wine does grow on trees. And I have books. What could be more logical?"

He held the position for a couple of minutes which he spent blinking and thinking about elephants and what they would look like in little yellow socks. This intense pondering spree suddenly ended, though, as he was awoken from it by a blunt creaking of bedsprings coming from the ceiling. Oh, that's right. The big hairy one had wandered off to bed early. Fifth bottle if Bernard recalled correctly.

The second after remembering this, he suddenly got the notion that he too should attempt to reach a bed. Soft, flat, warm, nice. Covers to crawl under and such other ways to escape the lies and depths of humanity, he thought as he very nearly stood up without falling down again on the first try, and then, as he stumbled along to the staircase and up it, proceeded to picture foxes wearing little yellow socks. The idea of it was mind-blowing and brilliant and he had to remember to write it down in the morning.

Virtually falling into the closest room through something that, by the door-handle pressing menacingly to his upper genital area until he grabbed it and pushed it down, greatly resembled a door in every sort of way, Bernard instinctively clutched the closest thing at hand as not to hit the probable floor so very hard in the surrounding vigorous darkness that swallowed him so with its infinity. What he managed to catch hold of appeared soft and hard at the same time, and greatly resembled the texture of a mattress, and so Bernard decided to climb on top of it somewhere in between the middle of actually doing so and the very end of actually doing so; ending up finding the whole procedure incredibly fast-paced as he moments later laid down upon what was most likely either a bed or a comfortingly split watermelon and smiled to the pillow as his face hit its soft, squishable consistency, closing his eyes fondly and groping around for a blanket or duvet or sheet to tangle himself into and drift off to sleepyland.

Instead he accidentally grabbed onto a large, warm bit of human flesh, and accidentally proceeded to pull it in his direction before realizing that it was in fact not what he had been looking for.

"I didn't take the cookie jar, I'm innocent!" a strangely familiar voice suddenly exclaimed with a following gasp and small panting spree somewhere right beside Bernard as he let go of the wobbly fleshy bit he had just found suspiciously lying in his bed.

"What are you on about, you big-eyed flock of milky flowerpot?" Bernard mumbled creamily as he dug his head further into the pillow; the large, warm, strangely human block lying beside him now moving, in Bernard's opinion, very hastily and with quite unnecessary fussiness.

"Bernard!" Manny exclaimed in some sort of rushed voice he used now and again on occasions of shock or surprise. "What are you doing in my bed? Are you alright?"

"This isn't your bed," Bernard argued, finally finding something like a warm, fuzzy blanket upon another one of those large, fleshy surfaces and pulling it towards him as he continued to disconnectedly speak. "It's my bed and you're in it and why is that so?"

"Bernard, you're in the wrong room," Manny whined in his whiny whine voice and Bernard could feel his breath stroke his forehead in a safe, tickling sort of way. "Don't steal my blanket! I'm trying to sleep!"

"Tell you what," Bernard said, tucking himself in by covering about thirty percent of his still clad body with the freshly stolen blanket of joy and comfort and wrapping the remaining seventy percent of himself around it in a grossly peculiar hug. "I'll just lay down right here and sleep and you can do whatever you want. Play some football, braid your beard, write me a poem about sandals and bellies and sunflowers. Go on, write it."

"I'm not writing you a poem, Bernard. Could you please get out of my room?"

"You get out of my room."

"But I don't want to sleep in your room, your room has diseases," Manny complained in his awful complainy-plainy voice and Bernard reached out into nowhere and patted him bluntly on the chin.

"There there. Have a pickle. Your nose is very hairy."

"That's my beard," Manny said, at last and rather suddenly using his normal talky-speaky-saying things voice, and made Bernard smile pleasantly as he stopped talking altogether for a moment or two. Bernard's hand moved gently downwards. Then up, then back down again. Then repeated the motion several times for no apparent reason at all other than the silky feeling it brought to the palm of his left hand.

"Your beard is as soft as I thought," he then mumbled after possibly multiple seconds of silence. "Is it as soft as you thought?"

The beard shifted slightly to the side, enabling Bernard to grasp it and stroke it more thoroughly as he too adjusted in the bed, moving somewhat closer to the other man and inhaling a mixed scent of wine and some sort of pretty sing-songy pink lump that Bernard had vague associations of being used for cleaning yourself with. The smell was exotic but in a strangely intriguing sort of way.

"That's my hair, Bernard," Manny said in a much pleasanter voice than just before that Bernard rarely heard him use, really, leading to him wonder why that was while in the middle of picturing swans wearing little yellow socks. "You're stroking my hair."

"Well, it's nice hair, I mean," Bernard replied muffledly, his nose bluntly brushing soft and warm and fat as small breaths thudded to his lips as he spoke. "You can touch mine if you want but leave the mushrooms because they're mine and no one else's."

"Wouldn't dream of picking them," Manny said suddenly very closely and Bernard felt sharp hairs prickle his chin. "Hey, Bernard. You're very close right now."

"Does it matter?" Bernard replied, very quietly, now running his fingers through Manny's hair at a slow pace. "I mean, I don't mind. Do you mind?"

Without waiting for an answer, their lips pressed to each other bluntly, hard. Suddenly Manny's hand reached Bernard's elbow. It was quite nice, actually, even though the beard burned his chin quite badly. Manny's mouth was nice, though. Strangely shiver-causing and warm and nice and deep and his tongue touched Bernard's pleasantly and he was obviously a very practiced kisser, which was, as said, nice, and wondrously reassuring. They kissed for minutes; Bernard's arm around Manny's neck and Manny's around Bernard's waist as Bernard curled to the vast lump of human flesh that he just now realized was in fact Manny's body. The whole thing could be accurately described as an oddly pleasant sensation, Bernard thought woozily while also stating the fact out loud, his voice muffled to Manny's soft, slightly moist lips and his left hand now stroking Manny's cheek and forehead and hair in sleepy, mismatching motions. Bernard's eyelids suddenly parted without warning. Manny, he thought as he curled if possible yet closer to the other man, feeling mysteriously accurately like a snuggled kitten.

Manny.

They kissed again, softly. Manny, Bernard thought again.

"What is it?" Manny suddenly asked, his eyes somewhat blurrily meeting Bernard's. "You keep saying "Manny"."

"Well, it's a lovely name," Bernard mumbled, feeling warm and dizzy and very nearly faint. "Why shouldn't I say it? Manny. Manny, Manny, a man of many ma-"

And with that last syllable, Bernard fell right into immediate, peaceful sleep.

-

A few hours of deep, profound and perfectly untainted sleep later, Bernard was awoken by a ray of sunlight stabbing him in the left and right eyes.

"AAAAAAAAH! WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" he shouted, clasping onto the nearest object and smacking himself in the face with it as to avoid said sunlight at any cost. As a result he instantly banged himself hard over the nose and forehead with the hardback edition of The Clean Man's Guide to Further Cleanliness by Sir Alan Mogg and thus fell back onto the mattress with a weak, distraught whimpering noise in humble response.

"Manny!" he then shouted, impatiently not proceeding with gathering neither strength nor New Years Eve memories. "Make the sun stop!"

Seconds later there were footsteps barging into the room. Sandals, Bernard noticed against his will. The two had obviously been living together far too long for their own good.

"Bernard!" Manny said and evidently sat down on the edge of the bed that clearly was not Bernard's; Bernard's room had had the unfortunate window problem taken care of with an arse-load of duct tape a long time ago. "You're awake! Uh. Good morning! D'you want some tea?"

"Tea? What is tea?" Bernard befuddledly spat, unable to see the other man from still having The Clean Man's Guide to Further Cleanliness pressed to his forehead, but feeling him shifting in his seat upon the mattress and moving distinctively closer. "What time is it?"

"Nine-ish," Manny replied and Bernard felt a knee touch his hip through their clothes. "Fran's still down there sleeping. Hell of a night, wasn't it?"

"I didn't noti-", Bernard began, stopping at the sudden touch of Manny's hand to his own where it lied beside him on the mattress. Slowly lifting the book from his eyes, Bernard looked at the hands suspiciously. This felt familiar.

"What are you doing?" he asked mumblingly, still not looking Manny in the eye but blinking slightly at the hands. Manny was warm and soft and weirdly good-feeling. It gave Bernard the rushed feeling of that maybe he ought to revise his latest memories.

"Um. Not much," Manny said tentatively. "Got some toast going on in the kitchen. Are you okay?"

Lips, Bernard thought and remembered. Lips, tongue. There was definitely tongue and it wasn't his. Well, it was but not exclusively…

He inhaled briefly through flared nostrils. Pink fluffy soap smell.

"Manny," Bernard began, lifting the book and his own head until he could see Manny's face what so ever. "Did we… did I… did we do things last night? I mean, here. Did we…?"

"Um," Manny repeated, shifting slightly again but not removing his hand from Bernard's. "Well. We, uh. We kissed."

Bernard blinked again, then momentarily stared into Manny's plush, big-eyed hobbit face.

"Huh."

He stared at the hands again for a moment, then back into Manny's eyes.

"Did I enjoy it?"

Manny seemed to consider it for a second or two, gazing up at the ceiling.

"I'd say so, yeah."

"Huh. Did you enjoy it?"

Blushing nervously as Bernard did not avert his neither pleased nor upset stare, Manny quickly replied, "I-I think so."

"Hm."

Bernard wiggled his hand slightly under Manny's, feeling suddenly warm.

"Well then," he started, quickly looking away from the other man; just a hint of tentative hostility in his voice. "How does this work? I mean, what do you do after these rituals? I mean, are we…," he searched deep and far inside himself, dusted off a phrase he had not used since he had gone to some sort of school and even then it had been in a context of irony, and then suspiciously directed it at Manny with a questioning stare. "… Together now?"

"Do you mean like… boyfriends?" Manny asked in something that depicted both interest and surprise, his whole face rather generally resembling a happy owl.

"Yes, well, I mean, why not?" Bernard said, skipping maybe just a breath too many in one sentence and trying to seem considerably less into the hand still on his and that ridiculous owl face than he actually suddenly rapidly recalled being. "I mean, I wouldn't mind it, really. Are you in or not?"

"I am!" Manny said quickly, clearly baffled but positively so as he then gave a sort of would-be adorable had he been five years old and worn a propeller hat snicker type of smile and flickered his large eyes from Bernard to the side and back again. "Definitely."

"Good," Bernard said conclusively, briefly thudding his hand upwards to touch Manny's in a sort of inverted squeeze type motion he failed to control. He felt odd and misplaced and as though he had been fed marmalade and wine for the past four hours straight, concluding in a sort of pleasant, mild nausea. "Now get me some toast."

Manny gave a brief, joyful-sounding noise as he smiled quite undeniably cutely for a couple of seconds before picking up Bernard's hand and plainly kissing the back of it and then simply walking out of the room and back down the stairs. The short beard tickled briefly and Bernard recalled the softness of those lips almost immediately.

He fell back to the mattress again with a weird fluttering sensation in his stomach.

Now, this year was going to be interesting.