"Why?" asked Ray, not pulling his attention away from the computer. Occasionally there was a burst of frantic typing.

"Because," said Erik as patiently as he could, "I want to play it. Use it for the purpose it was created. What do you think I'd want it for, man? An expensive and rare coaster?"

"Our furniture isn't nice enough to merit coasters, Thor."

Trust Ray to focus on the only thing that wasn't the point. Erik gave up on his search under the couch and turned his head so he could rest his chin on the floor and glare resentfully at Ray's foot. "I was almost at the final boss, Ray! I'd be done by now if it hadn't been for finals. I'm done exams now. I want to relax, have fun, and finish Questing for Eternity. I'm not asking a lot here." Pessimistically and without looking, he swept his arm under the couch again in a wide arc. A few empty beer cans rolled out from the shadows and when he withdrew his hand it was covered in a thick layer of dust. With a grimace, he sat up and tried to wipe his hand clean on one leg of his jeans.

"I don't see why this is such a huge issue for you, Thor. You saw when I finished it last week. What else do you want?"

"Actually," Erik reminded his roommate sharply, "you finished it while I was writing my history final. Dustin was the one here with you." Erik had finished his exam and arrived home just in time to see the tail end of the credits. He grunted, pulling himself to his feet, and stalked to the kitchenette.

"Ah. Well, I guess I just assumed Dust had already explained everything that happened through your psychic connection, so it was like you were right there," Ray said seriously just before there was another burst of speedy typing from stubby fingers.

"We don't have a –" began Erik, then snapped his mouth shut. He grit his teeth against the urge to futilely explode at Ray and call him on his complete detachment from reality. Instead, he turned his attention to the cupboard and began to search among the stacks of games Ray stored there, in between the sporadic clusters of dishes.

Nothing.

"Seriously, Ray, where did you put it?"

"Oh," said Ray airily, "it's not here."

Erik's grip on the cupboard door tightened. "What?" he asked, trying to remain calm.

"Well, you know that end of the year party I'm having," Ray began, finally turning away from the computer. One arm lay languidly across the back of the chair.

"No," Erik interrupted, his voice flat.

"I need Questing for the party."

"You need a video game for a party?" Erik asked incredulously. His knuckles were turning whiter than usual.

"Not a video game, my dear Thor. That video game."

"And you needed it right away."

"Oh yes."

"When," asked Erik in a strained voice, "is this party that you failed to mention taking place?"

"Tomorrow night."

"I don't suppose it would have been possible for you to, say, wait until tomorrow night to whisk the game I rather wanted to play off?"

"God no! You can't leave integral elements of plans like this until the last minute. This is a party, Thor my boy. It's a very serious matter. Organization is dreadfully important under such circumstances."

Carefully, Erik let go of the cupboard door and watched it swing shut. He reached up to rub the spot on his forehead that was beginning to throb with a Ray-induced headache. "Why the hell do you need Questing anyway? What kind of party is this?"

"It's a surprise, Thor. All will be understood tomorrow night."

"I'm expected to go to this damn thing too?!" Erik exploded. He gaped at Ray.

"Of course. You need to get out more, Thor. It worries me how terribly under-socialized you are." With a benign smile, Ray spun around to return his attention to the computer.

A groan of frustrated defeat escaped Erik's lips. Abandoning his desire for a quiet, relaxing celebration of his completion of one year of university mostly unscathed, with maybe a little underage drinking, he simply let his head fall forward and thump against the cupboard door.

Erik trailed behind Ray, grumbling under his breath. He was already feeling disagreeable after Ray had shoved him back in the bedroom three times to change his clothes, explaining that it would be a great tragedy if Erik's towering appearance frightened away all the good looking girls. Seething quietly as he was over Ray's refusal to let him stay on the couch and be comfortably anti-social or let him deal with Ray's stupid party in his own way, he didn't realize until he briefly turned his attention away from his shoes that Ray had led them to campus. With a reluctance he adjusted his slouching, shuffling walk and lengthened his strides to catch up with Ray, whose short legs were covering the ground with surprising speed. He caught Ray's sleeve. "Hey, man, what're we doing here?"

"Going to a party." Ray lifted a hand and snapped his fingers sharply under Erik's nose, making him recoil. "Focus, Thor, focus," he commanded.

"I know that. I'm just wondering why we're walking here. I'd think the point of an end-of-year party would be to avoid the thing we're celebrating the end of."

"This is how we get to the party, Thor."

"Is it in someone's dorm room? It could hardly be your party, in that case, and besides, shouldn't they all be getting ready to vacate for the summer? I was helping Dustin pack up some of his books, I know that much. Besides, if we are going to someone's dorm, we're going the wrong way. They're on the other side of Place Riel."

"My, you are an inquisitive fountain of questions and uninformed babbling tonight, Thor," said Ray easily, shaking Erik's hand free with a little jerk of his arm.

"Ray."

"Patience, Thor, is a virtue you'd do well to cultivate. All will become clear shortly. Now, please, curb your whining. The ladies will not be charmed or impressed by it."

"Really," said Erik. He craned his neck to look at the darkened windows of Arts as they walked past it. "And what will charm and impress these almost certainly mythical ladies?"

"Well, if you could stop whingeing over everything and reacting to every damn thing like it's a sign of the Apocalypse, that would probably be a start."

"I do not –"

Ray held up a hand to stop Erik's protests. "Just act like you've got some self-confidence or pride or anything, Thor. Don't lurk and act like you're the son of the Invisible Man. Talk to the nice ladies. Show some," Ray said something in Italian. "Just," he waved a hand, almost as though he were at a loss for words, "act more like me."

The silence stretched between them as Erik tried to pick the best way to respond. Finally, he said, "Ray, I think that could only add to my problems."

"Have it your way, Thor." Ray shrugged, his confidence unruffled by Erik's words. "I just know one of us is going to get lucky tonight and I, with my incredible ninja skills, never lose."

"First time for everything," Erik said. He glared balefully at his roommate.

"See?" Ray beamed. "That's more like it! A bit of totally misplaced optimism should go a long way, my friend." He thumped Erik's shoulder in a friendly manner.

Erik winced and rubbed at it. "You know I hate you, right?"

"I like the deranged optimism more than the denial, Thor. Girls don't like a guy who lives in denial. But it's nice to see you putting a bit of effort into these things, finally."

Erik stopped trying to prepare a witty comeback of some kind when they began climbing the steps to Education. "Ray, this can't be on the way to the party!"

"And yet it is. See what happens when you put your mind to things, Thor? All that negativity just evaporates – poof! Into the ether it goes." Ray made little exploding gestures with his hands.

"Look, there has to be another way to get to wherever we're going. Somewhere that isn't packed to overflowing with evil exam vibes." Erik eyed the building unhappily as they entered it despite his pleas. The only concession Ray made to them was to tear a few of the arrow-covered notices that had been put up to direct confused and stressed students to the Education Gym, where they would be put through hell for two to three hours, from the wall and shove them violently into a nearby garbage can.

"Really, Thor, I expected a staunch atheist such as yourself to be sensible about something like this and not get bogged down in silly superstition. This is just a building. It is not evil."

"I don't think the place is evil, alright?! It just happens to be the last place in the world that I want to be so soon after completing exams," Erik said.

They walked down a hall and Ray abruptly turned a corner. Irritated but wanting to prove his point, Erik followed.

"The first step, Thor, is admitting you have a problem."

"My only problem," snapped Thor, "is that you're a lunatic!"

"Is the problem that I'm a lunatic or is it your inability to say no to the temptation of lunacy?" Ray asked in a voice heavy with pseudo-solemnity and faux-wisdom.

"Stop doing that!"

"Doing what, Thor?"

"Sounding sensible! Pretending that you have some interest in my life! Acting like you care about people and having real, human emotions!"

"What unfortunate traumas must lurk in your past, my dear Thor, to make you so damnably paranoid at the slightest sign of concern from another human being." Ray shook his head in a parody of concern and braced his hands against a pair of doors. With a grunt, he pushed them both open simultaneously in a needless display of dramatics.

"The only trauma in my past," said Erik as he barely managed to catch one of the doors before it hit him in the face as it began its slow sweep back, "are the ones that've occurred in the past eight months because of –"

"Sh," whispered Ray, lifting a finger above his head for silence. Erik's silence, apparently, for as soon as Erik was quiet long enough for it to be evident that he was not going to resume his grumbling tirade of grievances against his roommate, Ray cupped a hand around his mouth. "Ladies!" he bellowed cheerfully, finally forcing Erik to stop his gloomy contemplation of his battered running shoes and the back of Ray's evil head.

There were three girls heading for them from various directions. One of them had gleaming strips of paper wrapped around her neck and hanging down past her breasts like a scarf.

"Theatre art students," Ray explained in a low voice. "Never try to get a place ready without one. Or three."

"Ray –" Erik began and stumbled into silence as where they were finally sunk in. The shining strips hanging from the ceiling – the high, high ceiling – and the walls had thrown him. There were covers over the lights, giving everything a subtly different look. The floor that Erik was scuffing the toe of his shoe against had been covered from end to end in a massive layer of black cloth with little yellow-white flecks all over it. All had combined to temporarily mask the fact that they were standing in the Education Gym.

Choking back the impulse to yelp, Erik settled for gripping Ray's shoulders as tightly as he could to attract his roommate's attention.

"– looks cool but I'm not really sure it's the best floor setup if there's going to be dancing. The gym floor would be better for that," said one of the girls, a dumpy figure with bright blue hair, chopped short, and a stud in her lower lip that made Erik's mouth ache in sympathy.

"There is going to be dancing, right? You said, Ray!" The second girl gave Ray an accusing, suspicious glare from beneath long brown bangs, the rest of her hair done up in a messy knot. She was Ray's height, so she could glare into his eyes at a perfect level, and she was rail thin, one sharp shoulder visible through the collar of a too-large shirt.

Erik found himself hoping she'd make an excuse to punch Ray.

Unfortunately, Ray just smiled and threw an arm around the brunette's skinny shoulders. "You shouldn't worry about these things, Pat. I have everything perfectly planned and absolutely nothing can go wrong." He put his other arm around the girl with the blue hair and gave her a cheerful squeeze. "And I know it's not an optimal arrangement, dear Cass, but think of the alternatives! The floor itself, as is, would certainly not be appropriate or encourage a celebratory mood in the others."

"We couldn't painted it," said blue-haired Cass, with a wistful note in her voice.

"Well, yes, of course. There are any number of things we could have done, but not very many of those options would have been covered in my clean-up arrangements. I certainly have no desire to end a party by frantically rubbing the entirety of the gym floor with turpentine."

"Ray!" Erik hissed.

"In a moment, Thor," said Ray, waving a dismissive hand. "Ladies, my roommate Thor."

"Erik," he tried to protest, but the three girls, as one person, looked at him briefly before all three dismissed him from their minds and looked back at Ray. Under the circumstances, there seemed no point in pressing the issue.

"I still think –" Cass began.

"It looks lovely," Ray interrupted, his voice oozing approval. "And as long as everyone's drinking, no one will pay the least bit of attention to the floor, beyond noting that it is truly an impressive decorative feat."

"Where is the booze, Ray?" asked the girl with the scarf of gleaming paper. She was positively tiny, not even five feet tall, with bright blond hair in a short cut framing her face. She looked like a pixie.

"It comes, it comes. I didn't want people hauling tables and kegs and such about the place while you were working, Ashley."

"Ashley," gasped Erik and was calmly ignored by everyone.

"Are you done?" Ray asked, casting a curious look about the gym.

"Just about!" Ashley the pixie said and ran off.

"Hop to it, then, ladies. The band and the drink should be here in about ten minutes." Ray grinned and released them both.

"You slave driver," accused Pat, giving Ray a friendly farewell slap to the ass that made Erik's jaw drop.

"This better be a fucking awesome party, Ray," said skinny Pat over her shoulder as she followed the other two. Her voice didn't contain nearly enough malice.

Once the girls were out of earshot, Erik made another grab for Ray. "What the fuck was that, man?"

One of Ray's eyebrows rose. "Poor, sheltered Thor. Those, my young friend, were girls. They're very like us in many ways, but thankfully, for our species, they're the bearers of a delightful pair of X chromosomes which allows them to –"

"Ray!"

"Now, Thor, don't go blaming me for the questions you ask. I can hardly be held responsible for your poor word choice," said Ray, making use of his best future-lawyer voice. His eyes were focussed on Pixie Ashley's back.

Erik supposed that it was impressive, under the circumstances, that Ray had even heard him. One hand bunched into a futile fist as he tried to speak with some level of calm in his voice. "I just meant, fuck, man, what's up with everything? Not," he said quickly when he saw Ray's eyes flicker, briefly, from Pixie Ashley's perky ass, his lips parting, beginning to form the first syllable of a word-twisting response, "everything as in the universe. Or the situation of current world events. Or the meaning of life. Everything as it relates to this! This place that we're standing in, this situation, and those girls. What the hell is all this, Ray?"

With some reluctance, Ray turned and tilted his head to look Erik directly in the eyes, his own going wide with innocence and slightly hurt, vaguely dumbfounded. "This is a party, Thor. I told you that."

Mutely, Erik waved a hand around. He was trying to encompass the entire gym, the decorations, the helper girls, the sheer madness of whatever Ray was hoping to accomplish. Perhaps even force his roommate to see, however briefly, into the realm of sanity and gain some glimmer of an understanding of what his lunatic actions meant.

"The girls are friends of mine," said Ray simply. "Friends, I might add, who do not live lives dominated by fear and suspicious. Friends who appreciate the lengths I go to in order to enliven what might otherwise be a tedious post-secondary education experience, indistinguishable from any other."

It seemed Erik's point had been lost. He glared at Ray's wounded expression. "Oh, yeah, you're a fucking saint, man."

"There you go again."

"Did you hypnotize the girls or something?"

"Please, Thor! I am deeply offended by the suggestion. I am perfectly capable of attracting women without resorting to such unattractive depths. I happen to be considered very attractive by the fairer sex."

Erik tried to scrub the unappealing mental images from his mind. "You don't mean –"

Ray's lips curved into a silent, wicked smirk.

There was a complete lack of justice in Erik's life, he realized, but not for the first time. Or, he feared, the last. He swallowed a lump in his throat and asked, weakly, "Which one?"

Ray pointed to skinny Pat. "Last week of August, before you arrived." The finger moved to blue-haired Cass. "A couple of days in November, once in December, the most of a week in February. And," the finger hovered, briefly, in the direction of Pixie Ashley, "last Wednesday."

Erik shut his eyes. There was something evil lingering in the gym from all the final exams and every drop of it was being channelled by Ray Fujimoto. "How – no, fuck, don't tell me, I don't want to hear a word about this. Ever!"

"Has anyone ever told you, Thor," murmured Ray in a thoughtful tone, "that you might be sexually repressed?"

"I'm not! I'm just confused and not like that! I'm your roommate! If you had really slept with those girls I think I'd have noticed!"

"Voice down, Thor. Gossiping is never an attractive quality in anyone," Ray hushed him. "You might also keep in mind that a true ninja must have many skills. Many diverse skills."

Erik groaned. "I didn't even think you'd had a girlfriend."

"Oh, sure. Plenty," Ray said, his voice casual, as though getting a girlfriend was as easy as going to the store for a carton of milk.

Not that even that had been easy in Crow Lake.

At this point, all Erik wanted to do was sink to the floor, put his head on his knees, and wait for some pitying soul to drop a heavy object on top of him, thereby ending all this confusion and injustice. Unfortunately, it seemed needlessly dramatic and a lot of stern mothering had sapped any dramatic tendencies a much younger Sigurd Thorbiornsen might have had from his being at an early age. It was worse than that, however. Such dramatics were along the lines of the sort of things Ray might do in one of his darker moods. The very thought made Erik shudders, so he confined his expression of frustration a simple "Why you?" muttered into his palms.

"Someday, Thor," said Ray as he clapped one hand on Erik's shoulder – he could feel the solid grip and the unusual texture given to it by Ray's gloves, even through the fabric of his shirt – "you'll come to grips with the simple fact that some people are simply more attractive, more alluring, more appealing –"

"I get it," snarled Erik through his hands.

"– than others. That's what tonight is for, remember." Ray's voice was bright and cheery. With horror, Erik spread his fingers wide enough to stare at Ray, hoping his roommate was joking. No luck. Ray looked disgustingly sincere. "You just have to learn to emphasize those particular qualities that you possess that make up for the fact that you aren't the most attractive or intelligent person on campus." Ray's beaming face bore a brief, uncertain tremula as he thought silently for a minute, diabolical mental gears apparently whirring while his head turned to watch the entrance of several hulking young men – football players, presumably – hauling in kegs and tables. When he turned back to Erik, he had brightened up again. "I have to admit, I haven't a bloody clue what particularly Thorish characteristics you have that someone might find attractive, but I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually."

Again, Erik groaned and buried his face in his hands. "Hate you."

"No, Thor, no you don't. You're envious of me. Can't be helped, I suppose, but give me a couple hours and maybe we'll get you through these issues of yours."

Erik wondered if he had enough cash to bribe one of the hulking football players to drop a keg on Ray's thick skull instead.

If Erik were American, he thought as he hunched gloomily in one corner of the darkened gym, watching a lot of drunk people he didn't know have a revoltingly good time gyrating against each other in the centre of the room, he wouldn't have this problem. With his luck he'd probably have been a casualty in some stupid high school shooting.

No, better. If Ray were American he definitely wouldn't have this problem. What disgruntled student would be able to resist the urge to shoot Ray in his smug, smiling, psychotic skull?

Although there was the distinct possibility that if he were an American, Ray wouldn't be the same obnoxious, deranged Ray that Erik had grown to know and sometimes tolerate. Maybe all those quirks of Ray's that drove Erik mad were simply the product of some weird Italian-Japanese culture shock.

Of course, Erik wasn't entirely sure what culture shock was, but he thought it sounded like something a charitable soul who hadn't been exposed to nearly as much Ray might use as an explanation for his eccentricities.

However, if Erik were honest instead of charitable, or, as he thought, delusional, which he wasn't, despite what some people thought, then he was fairly certain that nothing in the world could possibly excuse Ray. The fact was, Ray would probably act just the way he did wherever he was. Japan, Italy, Canada, Mongolia; all were irrelevant. Ray was the one irritating constant. If he were dropped in Antarctica with nothing bu the clothes on his back, it would probably be the work of a few hours for Ray to be wearing a dead walrus for warmth and organizing the local penguin population into an army to wage war on the nearest iceberg.

Or teaching them to tapdance.

Or both.

With explosives.

All Erik knew was that no power in the world could change Ray and that his problems would be solved if he lived somewhere with readily accessible firearms. It might also help if he knew how to shoot.

Dustin snorted by his shoulder. He was barely visible in the darkness – a gleam of brown eyes, the faintest flash of white teeth, an earring catching what little light there was in the gym – but Erik didn't need to see his best friend clearly to talk to him.

"None of your damn business, eh?" said Erik, his voice not quite loud enough to be heard over the throbbing music the DJ on the other side of the gym was playing. But that didn't matter either.

Dustin shrugged expressively.

Erik ignored this and instead asked, "Are there penguins in Antarctica?"

Hands going to his pockets, Dustin slowly shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again.

"Ah," said Erik. Helplessly, his attention went back to the horde of students Ray had dug up for this catastrophe in the making. He couldn't think of it as a party. In his limited experience, parties were fun. Not things you spent waiting for the cops to show up to. Not seriously, constantly, anyway. There was silence from both sides for a while. Then, a question burst abruptly into his mind. "Dustin?"

Casually, Dustin inclined his head in Erik's direction.

"How did he get you here?"

Dustin's head turned. He gave Erik a long, blank stare.

Erik had the decency to feel embarrassed, his ears growing hot. "Oh. Well. Thanks, man. Good to know, eh."

The stare continued a moment longer before Dustin turned back to looking with bland disinterest at the scene before them. Then, Erik could just make out an abrupt quirk of an eyebrow, casually curious.

The question caused Erik to blink several times in rapid succession, as he contemplated this. Strange spots swam before his eyes for several minutes after, miniature strobe lights flashing no the inside of his eyelids. "I ... don't know, Dustin. I really don't. I tried to ask him, earlier, before things got going, but the sneaky little bastard totally distracted me. Got me completely off track. Did I tell you what he was going on about?"

Dustin nodded.

"Right. Diabolical little fucker."

There was a barely perceptible twitch in the vicinity of Dustin's mouth.

"I know, I know. I should've. I would've, if he hadn't gotten me so distracted. I've been trying to avoid him all night, not track him down." Erik squinted and tried to scan the crowd for the stocky figure that was his roommate. Short or not, Ray should have been doing something to make himself instantly noticeable. "Fuck, I bet he did that on purpose, to keep me out of the way all night so I wouldn't try to make him stop this stupid thing."

A snort from Dustin.

"I said try, didn't I?" Erik snapped. "You gotta at least try," he continued, more to himself than Dustin.

There was still no sign of Ray. He had blended into the crowd with perfect ease, just one face, one body, indistinguishable amongst all the others. Anonymous. Erik would never have thought it possible, not of Ray. With his mind filled to the brim with pessimistic thoughts, he turned his attention from the depressing spectacle of other people enjoying themselves and contemplated his paper cup of beer. It was hardly to be held responsible for Ray's actions; Ray was as maddening sober as he was drunk and this particular cup of beer could not have been faulted even if Ray's insanity was triggered by alcohol.

Yet Erik couldn't help resenting the fact that his drink was doing nothing to cheer him up or make him more positively disposed to Ray's demented gathering, despite what all the advertisements he had seen claimed.

Some things, it seemed, were simply beyond the power of alcohol. Naturally, Ray was included among their number.

Erik lifted his cup and tossed the contents back in one gulp. He wondered if Ray had watered the beer down to make sure everyone got some. He stared at the now-empty paper cup, already gone soft from holding liquid too long. No, Ray wouldn't do that. Erik's lips curled into an unpleasant, insincere smile. No expense had been spared, probably. Somewhere, near the other end of the country, or maybe as far away as Japan, if anything Ray said could be taken for the truth, some wealthy old man was probably unknowingly paying for several hundred students to get stinking drunk on expensive beer.

Erik just couldn't enjoy the stuff with his own fears about what was going to happen crowding his mind. He sighed heavily, but Dustin wasn't moved to respond. After a minute, he pulled his gaze from the empty cup and stared bleakly at the crush of people he didn't know.

A few feet away, close enough that if Erik had balled up his cup and possessed the ability to throw and aim he could have hit them with it, were Sarah. And Ash. Definitely Ash. Frequent punches to the stomach had made it impossible to mistake Ash for anything other than himself.

By no stretch of the imagination could Erik explain Ash's presence. There didn't even seem any point in asking Dustin if he knew, no explanation would be convincing enough. They would all lack something – a genuine reason for angry, anti-social, hateful, alcohol-despising Ash O'Hara to be at a party, any party, particularly a mess organized by Ray. It was impossible to think that Ash didn't know Ray was involved; the entire think reeked of Ray.

That wasn't important, anyway. Erik didn't give a damn what Ash did, where he went, or why.

Except that what was visible of Sarah seemed to be having a very good time. Laughing, even.

With Ash O'Hara, a damn effeminate looking Newfie midget.

Erik hadn't even known Sarah was there.

Certainly, in retrospect, Erik had been standing right there when Ray had mentioned some end-of-year party to Sarah, btu he hadn't thought it was a precursor to an actual invitation. Or for an actual party; at the time it had simply sounded like more of Ray's hollow, puffed-up talk as he was trying to impress a girl.

Ash O'Hara.

Dumbly, Erik pressed his cup into Dustin's empty hand. It crumpled on impact. Dustin arched an inquiring eyebrow.

"Just going out for a breather, eh? Getting kind of funny feeling, with all these people in here."

Tentatively for him, Dustin brought a hand up.

"No, man. Not right now. Back once I clear my head, eh?" Erik gave Dustin a disinterested punch in the arm and aimed himself for the nearest door.

Outside, unlike in the crowded gym, it was comfortably cool with a bit of a breeze. Nice weather for late April in Saskatchewan.

Erik wasn't drunk enough. He wasn't drunk at all. That was the problem.

He walked away from Education, scuffing his feet on the pavement as he went, then the grass. There were a couple other people outside, too. Presumably people living in res who hadn't cleared out yet. Or students in one of those professional colleges that went longer, poor bastards. Or, considering where they were, people who'd been invited to participate in Ray's insanity, going to and from it quite cheerfully.

Idiots.

Two of them had their arms draped across each other, their heads together, laughing.

Erik stared at his feet as he walked past them, until he walked into a tree.

When he had recovered from that, the pair had gone on to wherever they'd been heading. Erik decided that it might be best to sit down until his head stopped swimming. He wasn't actually that far from Education. There was a street and some grass between them, but it was enough for the moment. One hand on his forehead, feeling for a bump or blood, Erik sat down on a bench.

It was one of those benches that were scattered around the campus, with little plates on the back declaring them to have been place in memory of, thanks to, dedicated to. What a strange way to remember someone.

Erik thought himself quite mature for resisting the urge to explore the pockets of his jeans for a pen to make clear his opinion of the little plate. Instead, he draped his arms, harmlessly, over the back of the bench and slid his feet about on the ground in front of it and beneath it. There was still a lump of dirty snow under the bench, hidden from the sun in one corner. Feeling quite ruthless, he kicked it out, spread it on the cold grass in front of the bench.

Tomorrow, the sun would melt it and it would have vanished by the evening. Only, Erik was sure, to be replaced later in may by more.

There didn't seem to be any blood on his fingers. Erik considered that a good sign. He didn't particularly want to go back into the Education Gym and find Dustin to get a ride to the hospital, and he didn't have the money for cab fare. Not even a quarter to call the cab with. And, while he had never been in a situation where he had to hitchhike to the hospital, he was sure it was only a matter of time, and he was glad to be able to postpone it for another day, at least.

No blood. No tangible bruising. Yet.

This left Erik fairly certain the tree hadn't seriously injured him. He supposed he should either get up and go back to the location of Ray's dumbest idea to date or go home and try to sleep, or play a game Ray hadn't absconded with.

Erik sat on the bench and leaned back to stare unhappily at the completely uninspiring night sky.

"Boo," said Ray, his found face appearing abruptly over Erik's.

Startled, Erik snapped to something like attention. Only a quick flip over the bench by Ray kept their foreheads from colliding. Erik grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck, which felt sore and strained from the sudden movement. "What are you doing here?" he asked as Ray made himself comfortable on one side of the bench. It wasn't hard to make his voice irritable and oppressive, under the circumstances, but Ray seemed oblivious as he stretched back, his arms linked comfortably behind his head.

"Saw that you'd bolted," said Ray as though it should be evident that he would leave for no other reason. Almost like he was a sane human being and actual friend of Erik's, instead of the crazy, scheming lunatic who could only make himself useful by ordering pizza. Erik would have been touched, almost, if Ray had stopped talking. But he continued, oblivious to the fact that someone had almost been lulled into having a positive opinion of him, for once. "I assume it's some kind of latent Viking instinct of self-preservation. It's dark, there's flashing lights, you see a bunch of non-Vikings banding together so of course you assume, on some subconscious level, that it's a mob of angry peasants preparing to lynch you or run you out of town with torches and pitchforks. That's quite the mental image, you know. I imagine if Victor Frankenstein had been forced to cut a lot of costs his monster might have looked something like –"

"I saw Ash and Sarah," Erik blurted in a poorly thought-out attempt to shut Ray up, or at least stop that particular direction Ray's monologue was going before it dissolved into complete incoherency.

Ray whistled; long, drawn-out. Far too appreciative. "Well, I can understand needing some private time after that, Thor my boy, but a bathroom would suffice, surely –"

"Not Sarah and your friendly pixie minion Ashley, you dumbfuck. Sarah and Ash. Ash O'Hara. Tiny, homicidal Newfie lunatic? You know, the guy who's left a dozen permanent impressions of his knuckles across your body?"

Understanding dawned in Ray's eyes. "Ah," he exhaled the syllable carefully.

"So you understand –"

"That's even better! Honestly, Thor, what kind of friend are you? Can you imagine the sex? Good Lord, I could be blinded by the sheer magnificence of –"

Erik's protests came from his throat in the form of a strangled cry. Absolutely horrified, he put his head on his knees and tried again. "Stop! Please, for the love of everything, just stop! I do not want to be imagining that!" He rocked slightly, remaining stubbornly hunched over his legs, as though the vaguely foetal position could protect him from the trauma.

Already, Erik's brain cried out for bleach.

"Oh, sure, you're perfectly accepting of masturbation fantasies involving two gorgeous women, but as soon as one of those gorgeous women is practically a guy, you're sickened. I'm fairly certain that's some kind of sexist, Thor."

"Ray!"

"I'm just saying –"

"Don't. Please."

"If you insist, Thor," said Ray.

Erik felt a thump on his back, but other than that, silence reigned, stretching itself across a period of time he wasn't tracking. Tentatively, he lifted his head to peer at the world around him.

Ray still sat there, a silent figure Erik knew from experience he couldn't move. Ray's expression was unusually impassive, too. He was rocklike, if there was a rock that could explode into chaos and destruction at a moments notice.

A dormant volcano.

Mt. St. Raymund.

With tiny, cautious movements Erik unhunched enough to plant his chin in a hand and stare warily at Ray out of the corner of one eye. No direct eye contact. No sudden movements. Nothing to provoke Ray out of his silence.

In the cool air, Erik's cheeks were burning.

"So, I guess she finally gave up and settled for something within her own range," Ray said, staring at the sky.

"What?"

"Sarah. I guess she finally gave up on getting you to notice her."

Erik blinked. "What?" he repeated stupidly.

"She's been infatuated with you all year. Or," still looking at the sky, Ray mimed quotation marks with his fingers, "'crushing' as you Canadians say. You never noticed?"

"No," said Erik. His head spun. A girl liked him?

"She told me."

"Why you? When did you become her confidant?"

"I didn't. She just felt compelled to explain after she turned me down for the third time."

Erik groped for something to say. "You knew I liked her." In his ears it sounded humiliatingly juvenile. Very bad high school drama.

"She asked me not to tell," said Ray. "You wouldn't have me break my word to a cute girl, would you?"

"You're telling me now!" Erik exploded, jerking upright.

"Well, yes. But now the situation is different. She is, as they say, 'over' you. She has transferred her affections to someone she can relate to intellectually –"

"Hey!"

"– and who is quite conveniently in her height range."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"If you two had somehow managed to reconcile your mutual obliviousness, I would give it a week before one of you ended up with severe neck injuries. Probably you. With your entire upper body confined in one of those damnable contraptions, because I'm sure you'd also find a way t break your back as well as strain the lineaments in your neck."

Erik glowered.

"It's for the best, Thor. It wouldn't have worked out and it would be a nuisance for you to write exams with a broken back."

"Forgive me if I don't thank you for coming to that conclusion without me," Erik said sullenly.

"I do, don't worry," said Ray, patting Erik's shoulder lightly. "You'll come to realize how amazing I am with time."

Erik snorted. "I think you're over looking the existence of Ash in this equation, man."

"It's as much of a blow to my self-esteem as yours, Thor."

"Somehow, I doubt that." Ray's self-esteem could probably have an atomic bomb dropped on it and emerge from the wreckage of an entire city unscathed. Or given terrifying mutant powers while tripling in size. Also, there would be lasers coming. From somewhere.

"Come now, Thor. Think of it from my point of view. That lovely young lady who's intelligence suggests she lacks significant mental disabilities would rather pine after you or lock lips with Ash than spend intimate quality time with yours truly."

"How horrible for you," said Erik dryly.

"You see?" said Ray, his hands moving in sweeping, expressive gestures. "Devastating! But I'm not letting it get me down! I'm not sitting outside in the cold moping! I'm certainly not avoiding a bloody fantastic party with a plethora of lovely ladies in attendance."

"You trooper, you."

"If Sarah fell pray to some strange urge that would make Darwin weep to observe it, then I'm sure there's at least one other girl on campus likely to be so inflicted. It couldn't' be a one-time only anomaly," said Ray with increasing enthusiasm, apparently convinced that his words would be taken as encouragement. Thoughtfully, he added, "Maybe it's some kind of extreme height fetish. I mean, there are people on the internet who –"

Erik held up a hand. "Don't finish that thought. I've had enough trauma for one night."

"Fair enough," said Ray, settling back against the bench. After a minute, he started humming. Within another two, he was singing under his breath.

"If I go back to your stupid thing, will you piss off for the rest of the night?" Erik asked hotly after listening to Ray sing for a few seconds. He wanted another beer. Badly.

"– la briglia alla cavalla – contrary to what you may believe, Thor, I do have other things to occupy my attention. Many other things." Ray's voice leered in the darkness.

"And yet you're out here."

"You left an awesome party, quite possibly under the influence of alcohol, without good old Dust to keep an eye on you."

"I do not need keeping an eye on! Particularly not by Dustin! Do you know he nearly drove into the police station once? The police station!"

"I thought you might wander into the street. Or somehow make it all the way to the river and tumble in."

"And?"

"And then I'd be out a roommate. We've got al ease that's good for another year, remember."

Erik groaned. "How could I forget?"

"If you went and got yourself killed, I might end up with a roommate who lacked appreciation for bad Canadian-Chinese takeout. Or," Ray shuddered, "one who might hog the controller."

"How horrible."

"Besides," Ray thumped a hand on Erik's shoulder as he stood up, "you're my friend. Now, let's get your skinny Viking arse back to tonight's testament to my brilliance."

Erik rolled his eyes but scrambled to his feet anyway. At least Ray's stupid thing had beer. He was pretty sure the apartment didn't.

As the two walked back to Education, a thought occurred to Erik. "Ray, why did you need Questing for Eternity? You said you needed it for the party, but I didn't see anything like a TV or even a console in the gym."

"Oh, that. Well, you know how Questing for Eternity had kind of low production numbers over here?"

"Yeah. That's why I thought it was great that you had a copy."

"Well, the fellow who was doing security in Education tonight is what some might call an afficionado of the genre. But, unfortunately, he was unable to acquire a copy when they first came out and has had an unfortunate run of luck in the realm of online auctions."

"Ray ..."

"So under these circumstances, he was more than willing to aid in certain areas of tonight's festivities, which, really, might have been unfortunately difficult and possibly even slightly criminal without him."

"You leant him the game?" Erik suggested hopefully.

"Not exactly, Thor."

Erik grimaced. "I had almost finished that, you know." He wasn't reproachful. He wasn't angry; it was Ray's damn game, if he wanted to use it to bribe university employees that was his business. He wasn't even that surprised, just grateful that Ray hadn't used one of his possessions to buy the man's cooperation.

"I was finished," said Ray simply.

"I know," Erik sighed. "I know." He really needed that beer now.