ALL NOVEL 1. However Someone May Title The Beggining Of A Story – Too Long.
"It happened again, Chris." Vincent took steady breaths, a tactic learned from over a decade of therapy to control his body when anxiety takes him over.
"What happened?" Chris looks puzzled at his roommate. The couch creaks lightly as he instinctively shuffles a few centimeters backwards, away from Vince.
Vince looks away, despite him trying to explain to Christopher before about his short breaks from reality that his mind loved to push on him in the least opportune times, Vince could never garner the courage to actually explain the topic of these hallucinations. "You know, the visions."
"Oh, your disorder." Christopher was always the more logical of the duo, something that drew Vince to him since the first time he heard Chris idly muttering to himself something smart about whatever class they were having the day Vince decided to open conversation. "...Wait, was this one about me?"
"It's... It's usually about you." Vince shivers admitting this, his eyes refusing to meet his roommate's, preferring to land on the novelty clock they purchased, forever stuck in time. They bought it broken already, Vince thought the idea of a clock that never moves from its last ticked time would make a good statement about living in the moment, he knew he was the more poetic one of the duo. Chris pretends to hate the clock, every day winding "The damn clock" to the current time out of spite, but can never resist a smirk when saying the words, it's become sort of a game for them, and Vince loves to tease Chris when he forgets to change the time.
"Hey, Hey, wake up" Chris snaps his fingers in front of Vince's face. "Lost you for a moment again." He smirks, teasing Vince. "Don't tell me it happened just now, again."
"N-No! My mind just wandered off." Vince blushes slightly, trying to think about how he was going to explain this. "Yes, it's usually about you."
"Oh, do i have to add Possible Homosexuality to my mental notes on you?" He says it as a joke, but Vince can see in his face that he means it just a bit. "The list is growing quite long."
"I don't like men." Vince says bluntly. He means it. For some reason however, he feels guilty about this, maybe its another thing to study about himself? Maybe find a poetic turn of phrase to classify the reason he feels guilty about it.
"Sure." Chris teases him, not entirely believing it, but also not willing to push. "But dude, come on. Just tell me, you know it infuriates me when something is left unexplained. Remember my gigantic essay on the last episodes of Evangelion?"
Oh, how could he forget. It was fun to watch, and giving poetic and non-specific suggestions to things Chris really wanted to make logical sense about kept both of them in a playful war of meaning.
"O-Okay. Look..." Vince turns his gaze away from Chris. "Cover your face. It's easier for me like this. Pretend I'm Medusa and you're Perseus. Minus the murder part."
"You know the comparison doesn't fit, I am not even carrying a shield, and if you were Medusa i would be dead." Oh, not again. Vince couldn't resist a dumb smile, in a way, Chris's strict adherence to logic was... Attractive? If it were to be a trait on a woman, of course.
"Okay, just cover your face, just do it." Chris put both hands over his eyes, and keeps his mouth shut tight. "So... I-I saw you as a woman right now. And not just you as a woman, I think i was one too. The outlines of clothes, my fingernails were painted, they usually are when i see these things. And you had long hair, really long hair. Longer than it is right now. And you blew a kiss towards me. And I felt things. A lot of things-"
Vince stops talking in shock. Oh no. Chris had taken his hands off his eyes, his face portraying a sense of dismay he had never seen before. Why did he do this? Did he need to go into detail? He knew this was going to happen, he would be judged for it, and their friendship would be over. He waits for the judgement to come-
"Reading my diary is a large breach of privacy. I didn't know you were like this."
What? What diary? Chris keeps a diary? Wait, why is his disappointment not about what Vince had just admitted? He was fully prepared for a blow about being a latent homosexual of some sort, or the ugly words he had read on the internet before about men who cross-dress as women.
"I swear to God. I know nothing about a diary." Vince raises his hands in complete surrender, he wants to grip at the raw essence of honesty.
Chris raises an eyebrow, as if trying to force Vince into another layer of honesty before only theorized to exist, but never witnessed. He spends a few moments, and then the shock from Vince transfers to Chris' face.
"You... You really did not read my diary. You're serious aren't you?" Chris says, in pure shock, getting up from the couch.
"Please, what do you mean with this? Why is this related to your diary!?" Vince shouts in desperation, his hand grasping at Chris' arm.
"Vince... Let go. I need a minute." Chris' eyes close in calculation, a tactic Vince learned he uses when things seem out of control for him, numbers usually seemed to calm Chris down. "Two hours. I'll be in the coffee shop. And then I'll come back. Don't touch anything of mine."
"Chris... I don't know why, I... Can't. I- Fuck." Vince breathes in, his words had pushed the limits of what little breath he had, it seemed like he had forgotten to breathe. "Give me something. Anything. I don't want to be left in the dark here."
Chris considers his words carefully, an eternity passing in their shared bedroom. "A dream. You words sound like a dream i had."
Vince releases Chris' arm. It was real. This wasn't just a psychiatric malfunction of his brain, it meant something. And Chris' had experienced it too, in a more normal way. A dream. Reality was shattering, and with it, it felt like time had failed to tick properly too, in the opposite sense of the broken novelty clock they had picked out together. Time was going by too fast, by the time Vince blinked, Chris had already left the room.
"Fuck, Am I into Chris?"