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Herbert needed to get out of this town.
If it were up to him, he’d be getting on a plane to Anywhere-But-Here City and leaving everything behind. Instead, he was stuck in Arkham. Nobody ever left this town. Nobody ever moved on to anything greater. Everyone stayed and bred more people to get stuck in this town so they could breed more people to get stuck in this town. It was a vicious cycle. Herbert wanted out.
Everyone knew Herbert was better than Arkham. They felt sorry for him in a way. People knew he was such a smart boy who had a fiery passion in his heart. He had dreams that could never come true if he stayed. Herbert felt sorry for them feeling sorry. Every time he opened his mouth to explain his theories, he’d get that same dumb look in response. People would always wear the same expression. You’re the only person in the world who understands you. He hated that look. He wanted to be among people who would look at him differently. He wanted people to give him looks that said, I understand you. I see you. That was his goal. He could never achieve it in Arkham.
Herbert had spent a good portion of his life alone for that reason. If adults couldn’t keep up with that head of his, the kids at school didn’t stand a chance. All of the parents envied him for it. They wanted to raise junior Einsteins like Herbert. His classmates were far less fond of him. The only way he could have become an easier target for bullies was if he wore a sign around his neck that said “Will Do Homework In Exchange For Beatings!”
Bullying will only be put up with for so long. Eventually, the punches were returned. Yes, quiet, timid Herbert West got into a fist fight. Everyone heard about it. Just about the whole school was around to see it. Herbert was in junior high, he was only four feet and eleven inches tall, and all it took was one kick in the side to make him go ballistic. He wasn’t afraid to fight dirty. He used nails, he went for the nose, he did everything to ensure he would never be fucked with again. It was the first instance he could remember of people actually being on his side. People were rooting for him. His name was being cheered. It went to his head. Soon, it wasn't self defense. He and his classmates maintained that if he hadn’t been pulled away, he might have landed that kid in the hospital. The guidance counselor separated him and he was suspended for two weeks.
That was the turning point. From that moment, Herbert drew back from his classmates. He stopped sharing his theories with the adults in his life. He was just blank, an empty space where Herbert used to be. It disturbed people. Even when asked, he wouldn’t share any scientific facts or research he had done. His hand didn’t raise when the class was asked questions. Nothing could draw more than a simple sentence out of him. He thought that he was better off safe than social.
That was until Dan Cain.
Dan moved to Arkham when he was fifteen. He was instantly liked by everyone. He was a good student, an incredible athlete, and he was so handsome that Herbert started to become afraid of walking by girls in the hallway in case they fainted like dominos on top of him. Initially, Herbert didn’t think much of Dan. He was just an average boy that he really didn’t have any business caring about.
Then, he began to sit next to Herbert at lunch.
At first, Herbert let him do it without question. He was new at this school, and he didn’t have a clique to fit into. They chatted briefly a few times, but it was never over anything meaningful. Herbert hated small talk. As sophomore year continued and Dan found himself rising in popularity, he would still occasionally sit with Herbert. Everyone was confused by it, even Herbert himself. Dan had other places to sit, yet he still chose Herbert’s lonely little table in the corner.
They became friends right before the second semester ended. Dan sat next to Herbert in biology, his best and favorite subject, and they had gotten nearly identical marks on a test. Whereas most people scored a low B, both Dan and Herbert got a very high A. They began to talk, and pretty soon, they were damn near inseparable.
It was the strangest thing. Dan was still the handsome, new stranger and Herbert was still the creepy outcast. Somehow, they had found each other, and you couldn’t pry them apart with the world’s strongest crowbar. People thought that with time, Dan would become freaked out by Herbert like most of his other former friends, but one little thing made it clear that it would never happen. For the first time since he was thirteen years old, Herbert West could be seen smiling. Every citizen in Arkham knew that it was an unbreakable bond.
Herbert showed up at every practice Dan attended. Dan hung out by the science club room every afternoon to walk Herbert home. They visited the library together, they drove together, a few people had even seen them sitting rather closely at the movie theater on the weekends. Whatever Herbert was doing, it was a safe bet that Dan wanted to be doing it too.
They made plans for their future. No matter the paths they picked, they wanted to go to the same college. They wanted to move in together. Wherever they went and whatever their futures held, they knew that they wanted each other in it.
Herbert’s parents were incredibly pleased that he had managed to make a friend. Dan’s parents were incredibly pleased that his grades were beginning to go up. Herbert was still antisocial, but the depressive state he was in had begun to lift. It was all thanks to Dan.
What people didn’t see was love. What was between them couldn’t be described as anything else. They loved each other. It was a crush on Herbert’s part. He knew he wasn’t straight from the beginning. Having Dan around certainly confirmed this. He was a comforting, masculine presence. Herbert could lean on him. Whenever they weren’t together, Herbert could see him from afar and he just knew. There was a tiny volt of electric love that flowed from Herbert to Dan. It was theirs, just theirs. Herbert had never felt this way about anybody else. He rarely even let his parents touch him, but Dan’s hands had free reign over him. Touch-adverse Herbert became very grabby around Dan which the taller boy found very cute in a way. They shared everything. When Dan slept over, they shared a bed. When Herbert showered at his house, he would always come out wearing Dan’s shirt. When they were hungry, they shared snacks. More than this, they shared things they hadn’t shared with anybody else. They shared secrets, theories about life, and a deep connection.
The only thing that Herbert didn’t share with Dan was an understanding. Dan was straight, he didn’t understand the love they shared. He knew that Herbert was queer, and he felt a need to constantly check in and make sure there was nothing there. Herbert frequently lied to him, saying that it was. Their companionship was so rare, Herbert couldn’t risk breaking it. He needed Dan by his side, forever and always. If lying to Dan and himself meant that he would stay, Herbert could live with that.
However, not for very long.
Dan went to a house party for New Years Eve; Herbert stayed home. He didn’t like parties. They were the one place where Dan could be seen without Herbert attached at his hip. To Dan they were fun, exciting, and a time where high schoolers could truly get wild. To Herbert they were loud, overstimulating, and a time where high schoolers were at their worst.
Herbert had the New York City New Years Celebration on his television as background noise while he read. He glanced up briefly as the ball began its descent. “Five… four… three… two… one,” he took a deep breath in, “Happy New Year.”
He stood up to draw back his curtain a little. New Years was the one time Arkham could have been considered as anything more than a nobody town. Fireworks sprung into the sky and exploded like a thousand stars into the night sky. His parents were out of the house watching them be set off downtown. Herbert chose to stay in because the sound was jarring and irritating. From a distance, however, it was almost nice.
Herbert stood up from the couch in 1977, and he was going to sit back down in 1978. This would be the year he would have to finalize his college plans. Lots of universities had reached out to him already. Most of them were out of state. Some of them were even in Europe. Herbert had been excited by the prospects, but he held back. He wanted to go where Dan could go. He wanted to do this as a team. He needed to do this as a team.
The telephone rang, its shrill tone alarming him for a moment or two. He looked at it puzzlingly. Who could be calling so soon after midnight on New Years? Herbert stepped away from his window and picked up the phone. “West residence, Herbert speaking,” he answered.
“Herbie!” An excited voice on the other line answered. It took Herbert a second before everything clicked.
“Dan? Hi, hello, hi. Uh… happy New Year. How is the uh… how is the party?”
“Herbert… fuck… I am… I’m so drunk right now,” Dan hiccuped. “I didn’t know they’d have alcohol. I went wild, man. I have won so many drinking games tonight.”
Herbert’s heartbeat quickened. “Christ, Dan, you’re only sixteen! That amount of alcohol isn’t good for you. Is this how you want to start the new year? Six feet under?” He couldn’t help the anger seeping into his voice.
“Listen… Herbert… I know I fucked up. I know I shouldn’t be drinking, I just… look, man. I need a ride home. I can’t have my parents knowing I was drinking. Can you gimme a ride back to yours?”
The desperation in his voice made it nigh impossible to say no to him. It wasn’t like Herbert had ever been good at saying no to Dan. He looked around the living room. His parents wouldn’t be back home until later, and they would probably be just as hungover as Dan the next morning, making it easy to sneak him out. “Alright. You owe me so many cokes,” Herbert muttered, fishing his keys out of the ceramic key dish. “Where are you?”
Dan told him the address and they hung up. Herbert slipped a bookmark between the pages of his book and turned off the television. It wasn’t lost on him that the first voice he heard in the new year was Dan’s. That felt special to him. He never gave caution to his first steps into the year ahead of him. He considered it a day like any other. It was simply a reminder that Dan would be with him in these periods of transition.
It didn’t take too terribly long for Herbert to reach his location. He found the house that drunk teenagers were spilling out of, Dan’s car parked nearly a block away. He honked his horn, and twenty pairs of eyes flicked his direction before everyone resumed their make out sessions. Dan stumbled out of the house and approached Herbert’s car with as much grace as a ballet dancer with no feet. When he all but collapsed into the passenger’s seat, Herbert could almost taste the alcohol on his breath. He wrinkled his nose and opened the glove compartment to pull out a brown paper bag. Dan looked at it curiously. “If you must, throw up into this. I do not want to clean your vomit out of my radio,” he said sternly. Dan nodded and the pair took off back to Herbert’s house.
Most of the car ride was spent in silence with only the faint sound of music from the radio filling the air. Despite being so close, Herbert and Dan could be polar opposites on some things. When Herbert drove, he preferred to keep the radio quiet to focus on the road. When Dan Cain drove, everyone within a twenty mile radius knew. He kept the speakers turned up at maximum volume, screaming lyrics to songs he barely knew. Herbert, feeling like he had to say something, picked his brain for a conversation topic. “How was the party? You said kids from Westpoint were there… did you meet anybody new?” He asked.
Dan looked at him like he was speaking a different language. When the sentence finally registered, he mustered a shrug. “I didn’t talk to a lot of people one on one. When I talked, it was, like, to the whole house.”
“Was that girl you like there? Janet?”
Dan snorted. “Jennifer? Uh, yeah, yeah, she was there. Um… she said something kind of weird to me though.”
Herbert cast a glance in Dan’s direction. Throughout their entire friendship, no matter the topic, Dan had never called Herbert weird. Weird didn’t even begin to describe some of the things he talked about, but he never used the word. Using it now has to mean that something was truly strange. “Yeah? What did she say?”
Dan was beginning to look nauseous and Herbert was beginning to pat himself on the back for handing him the paper sack. “She said… um… shit, how did she put it? I was talking to her, flirting, and she knew it. I thought she was into it, but she cut me off and she said… she said that I didn’t need to pretend. I asked her what she was talking about, and she said that she… uhh… she knows I… like you,” Dan slurred. At that, Herbert short circuited. He almost missed a stop sign and had to slam down on the brakes. Dan jolted forward and gagged. Herbert blinked rapidly.
“What?” He asked in a voice much higher than he intended. He knew that people at school referred to him as a queer on multiple occasions, but Dan was always safe. Their friendship was made possible by the fact that Dan had women in his life to ward off the accusations that he was in love with Herbert. He didn’t understand what they possibly could have done to disrupt this. “What made her say that?” He demanded, his tone growing sour.
“Herbert, I’ve been… uh… fuck. God, this is so embarrassing. I’ve been blowing off dates and turning down girls so I can hang out with you. I didn’t know that people would begin to see us like that . I love spending time with you. I always weigh my options. Usually, you’re the greater outcome,” Dan explained. Herbert felt his stomach drop. He didn’t know that he was holding Dan back from romantic exploits. If he simply asked, then they could skip a few movie nights and trips to the library so Dan could go on a date. The jealous side of Herbert’s brain nagged at him as soon as the thought fully formed.
He drummed his fingers nervously on the steering wheel. “Dan… if being my friend is holding you back from other things in life—“
Dan was quick to interject. “No, no! It’s not like that! Those girls, they’re all the same, you know? If I wanted to go to a drive-in or a diner with a pretty, blonde junior or sophomore, I’d have my pick out of a thousand,” he said exasperatedly, as if having beautiful women lining up to date him was some big issue. “That just isn’t the life I want. Guys like me marry their highschool sweetheart as soon as they turn twenty, and they never get to live life to the fullest. You and I have dreams that are too big for this town. Herbert, I don’t want to be a newspaper clipping of a good score I made in a game. I don’t want to be a pencil pusher who always tries to relive the glory days. I don’t want to dive into a mundane, Arkham life and drag some poor former cheerleader down with me. I want to travel with you. I want to go to med school with you. I don’t know where life is gonna take me, but I want it to take me with you.”
Herbert felt his brow furrow and his lips curl into an unpleasant frown. He didn’t realize the lengths that Dan’s loyalty extended. He always assumed that Dan was just a friendly guy with a brain too good to waste in Arkham. He didn’t realize that Dan saw his life in a similar light to Herbert’s own. “Dan… you’re serious? You would do this? You would do what no other person in this town has done and abandon your life to follow me?” Herbert asked, heavy emotion edging his voice.
Dan swallowed thickly and nodded which Herbert could see out of the corner of his eye. He let out a deep breath and looked at the boy in the driver’s seat. “Sometimes… I wish you were a girl.” Herbert’s eyes widened to the size of dinner saucers. He flicked a panicked glance in Dan’s direction, urging him to elaborate. “No, no, not sometimes. I wish it every day,” Dan said with his voice beginning to crack. “I wish you were a girl, Herbert! It would be so easy to fall in love with you. We could be so happy together. And you act like you don’t, but you love me. I want to love you back more than anything else in the world. I don’t want blondes or busty women, I want you. I want to kiss you. I want to wake up to you in my arms. I want to see you wear my letterman jacket in the halls. If you were a girl, we could run off to Europe together like you wanted to. We could elope. We could study and be in love. We could graduate together and come home every day to each other. Don’t you want that? You can’t honestly say you don’t wish it was real. I wish I could give that life to you. I want to give that life to you. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, but I just wish I could do it holding your hand.”
Dan was crying now. Herbert stayed silent. There was nothing else to say. Whatever plan they came up with, it would only hurt them. They were damned if they separated, and damned if they stayed bound. They pulled up to Herbert’s driveway and stepped inside. Dan stumbled into the bathroom to wretch into a toilet. Herbert hesitantly stroked his hair as he did so. When he was finished, Herbert handed him some mouthwash which he accepted gratefully. “Are you… would you still be comfortable sleeping in my bed tonight? I could sleep on the couch,” Herbert offered. Dan shook his head.
“You have a bad back. Besides, your bed is the one place I get to hold you. Nobody else knows it. It’s just you and me. Don’t sleep on the couch.”
Herbert didn’t respond, but they both knew that was his way of agreeing.
They crawled into bed together under the blanket. Herbert set his glasses on the nightstand and closed his eyes. He jumped slightly at the feeling of Dan’s arm snaking around his waist and pulling him close. “Goodnight, Herbert,” he muttered drunkenly.
Herbert sighed. “Goodnight, Dan.” After that, both of them were silent. Sleeping had always been rather difficult for Herbert, and it was made worse by the fact that the person he loved more than anyone on Earth was cuddling him.
Why are you still in Arkham? He thought to himself. The answer was right behind him. Everything would be different after this. He was causing both Dan and himself pain by staying. They couldn’t have each other. It was a fact that he needed to accept sooner rather than later. That offer to complete his schooling in Switzerland was still on the table. He asked himself again, Why are you still in Arkham?
Herbert shut his eyes and went to sleep.
Herbert stepped out of the airport into the bright, morning light. He was twenty-four now. He had needed to flee Switzerland quickly after Dr. Gruber’s funeral. His plan was to apply for a medical school in America that people wouldn’t go looking for him in. The town he chose was quiet. No news ever came from it. No celebrities were made there. Herbert knew it like the back of his hand.
In the back of a taxi cab, he stared wistfully at the dulling sign with chipped paint that read, “ Now entering Arkham, Massachusetts! Enjoy your stay. ”
The town was exactly the same as he left it. The motel still had a missing E on its sign from a storm. The high school still had graffiti on it from one of Herbert’s old classmates. The laundromat still had that supposed 25% off sale that had been ongoing since he was in middle school. It looked like age had never touched the town at all.
He put all of his possessions in a storage unit. Finding a house here would, hopefully, not be too difficult with his budget. Age may not have touched Arkham, but inflation certainly had. He stayed in a hotel overnight, a fancier one than what was the standard in Arkham. Then, he was driven to Miskatonic University, the town’s one worthwhile component. Everyone thought that he was going to attend it before he moved away. Herbert never thought he’d end up back in America at all.
When he arrived, Dean Halsey was very excited to meet him. He was a fan of Dr. Gruber’s work and it was very apparent that he was thrilled to have somebody as close as Herbert was to him attending his school.
“This,” he said, pushing a large metal door, “is Miskatonic’s morgue.” They walked inside and Herbert took in the sight. It was fairly decent. The morgue in Zürich was far bigger. It still fulfilled his needs. “I feel confident in taking you inside on your first day, after all, you did work with death a lot.”
Herbert rarely ever considered that most people would be uncomfortable in a room stuffed with death. The most squeamish Herbert got around it was when having to clean blood out of carpets. He didn’t like the smell of cleaning supplies one bit. Herbert examined the shelves lining the walls. They were stocked sufficiently. He heard the doors opening, but paid little mind to whoever was entering. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a student wheeling a gurney. Fresh meat, he thought.
He turned to see Dean Halsey looking at him expectantly as if he were the one leading the tour. “Your morgue is… adequate,” he said.
The Dean smiled sheepishly. “I know it’s probably not as big or fancy as Gruber’s was, but the first thing you’ll learn in Arkham is that you get what you get.”
Herbert thought about commenting on the fact that he was not new to Arkham, but he held his tongue. It was best that the dean didn’t know too many aspects of his life. He turned his attention to the counters instead. The new blood hadn’t been cleaned off of them, a hazard. Herbert felt himself beginning to feel like more of a health inspector than a student.
Speaking of students, the one who had gone into the other room emerged once again. “Dean Halsey? What are you doing in here?” He asked.
Something in his voice made Herbert freeze. It didn’t exactly sound familiar, but it didn’t sound at all like a stranger’s. Maybe it was an old classmate of his. “I was just showing our newest student around campus,” Halsey answered.
“Really? You don’t usually give out tours.”
Dean Halsey clapped a hand on Herbert’s shoulder to steer him around. “No, not usually, but this one worked with Dr. Gruber before he died!” Herbert didn’t really appreciate being introduced in this way. He complied with the hand holding him and turned around to meet this student that, likely, he would never even learn the name of. When they faced each other, his heart dropped to his stomach. “Dan, meet Herbert West! He’ll be joining you in your third year. Herbert, this is Dan, Miskatonic’s brightest student. I have no doubts you two will get along.”
Dan stared at Herbert, and Herbert stared at Dan. Nobody said anything for a brief but tense moment. Recognition shone clearly in Dan’s eyes, but he opted not to say anything. “Nice to meet you, Herbert,” Dan said in that overly friendly tone that he had never used with him.
He used his first name. Herbert never extended this privilege to strangers. Dan knew that well, and he supposed it was his little way of saying long time, no see. Dan reached out his hand for Herbert to shake, but he didn’t take it. “The pleasure’s all mine,” he muttered, resisting the urge to say ‘Danny’ at the end.
Dan had certainly matured physically. His boyish face had grown more angular and handsome. He packed on more muscle. His voice had dipped into a deep bravado. The thing that had changed for the worse, Herbert thought, was his hair. It was short, spikey, and stuck up in odd places. He missed Dan’s long hair of yesterday which he was free to comb his fingers through.
Dan looked like he wanted to say more, but at that moment, another familiar face joined the conversation and Herbert had to address it. After all, this was the first time he was face to face with Carl Hill and he wasn’t going to waste it by not insulting him. Dan would simply have to wait. He was good at that, waiting.
Before he left Miskatonic, Herbert took a glance at the bulletin board up front. An orange notecard stuck out to him. He took it from its place and examined it. Dan was looking for a roommate. A million thoughts came to Herbert’s mind at once. The only one he could focus on was, I will do things right, this time. He believed it.
He hitched a ride with a few suitcases of clothes and other necessities and headed for Dan’s house in the late evening. He knocked on the door and held his breath. They hadn’t seen each other in so long. He didn’t know if Dan hated him or loved him even more because of it. Furthermore, he didn’t know which option he would prefer. When the door opened, Herbert could feel the heat radiating from the warm house. Dan smiled at him and for a second he could pretend that nothing ever happened at all. He could pretend Dan didn’t say those things to him on New Years. He could pretend he didn’t run away to Switzerland. He could pretend that the letters Dan had sent him, hoping, waiting for any reply were not sitting inside that storage unit. “Herbert,” he said softly, “you came home.”
Dan had put emphasis on the word home. He didn’t mean Arkham. Arkham had never been home to Herbert. He was referring to himself. Dan was his home, and he had come back to it after all these years.
“I’m here about the apartment,” Herbert said. Dan’s ever-intense gaze was gentle. He fished the neatly rolled cash out of his pockets and held it out to Dan. “I have the first month’s rent, and most of my things are in the car.”
Dan accepted the money and beamed. “It’ll be good to have you around again. I missed you. I always knew you were too good for this place,” he said. Herbert felt those dangerous feelings brewing in his stomach again. He had a do-over. He had a chance to rewind and start fresh. They could do it this time. Herbert could do it right. He was wrong all those years ago. He could do this. He could have Dan in this messy, passionate way. Dan made him feel like he could. “I have somebody over right now. Let me tell her that you’re moving in and I’ll help you with your things.”
The taller man retreated inside and Herbert went to the car to gather his things. He’d leave the heavier trunks and boxes to Dan who had always been useful for carrying stuff from place to place.
Herbert stepped out of the cold, October air into the house illuminated by its yellow bulbs like mini suns. Dan was chatting with a blonde woman on the sofa. She turned to him and offered a smile. “Is that him?” She asked Dan. He nodded, and she looked back over at Herbert. “Hi! I’m Megan Halsey. My daddy is the dean at Miskatonic. I’ve heard so much about you! It’s great to put a face to the name.”
“Meg, meet my good friend Herbert West. Herbert, meet Meg, my fiancée.”
If Herbert had any less resolve, he would have dropped all of his boxes onto the floor. Instead, he swallowed and looked to the side. “Erm… hello. I’m going to… uh… Dan, which room is mine?” He asked. It was common, when they were younger, for Herbert to look at Dan for solutions in social situations. He felt he was doing something similar now. Dan pointed him to a door at the end of the hall which he scurried into.
He felt stupid, utterly idiotic. He hadn’t seen Dan in eight years. It was foolish to assume that he was single and ready to accept that he loved Herbert. The warmth of the house felt like fire to his skin, and the smell of air fresheners was suffocating. Daniel had a fiancée and Herbert was going to cry over it. “You’re pathetic,” he murmured to himself. He put the boxes he was holding down on the floor and did his best to keep the tears from coming to his eyes. Dan hadn’t waited for him in the same way that Herbert had waited for Dan. Of course he wouldn’t. The world kept spinning without his presence. Herbert always had an image of his mind of Dan being completely lonely and lost without him. Obviously that wasn't the case. He didn’t know what to do with that.
Then, at the worst possible moment, Dan walked in holding one of his bigger boxes. “Herbert, where do you want…” he froze. “Hey, are you alright? Your eyes look watery. What’s up?”
Herbert wiped at them furiously. “Urgh, allergies,” he lied in a croaky voice.
Dan huffed a laugh and put the box on the floor. “Right. I swear, you could’ve gotten sick from standing outdoors for two minutes. I don’t think I could count on two hands how often I’d have to bring your homework to you when you were home, sick. Some things just don’t go away with adulthood, do they?”
Herbert nodded, though he hardly paid attention to Dan’s words. They continued moving his belongings in with Megan eventually leaving when it began to get late. She kissed Dan briefly and exited the house, leaving them alone at last. Dan was smiling at the door for a few seconds after her departure. “She’s great, isn’t she?” He asked. Then, he turned to Herbert like he expected an answer.
“I suppose,” he shrugged. “I’ve only spoken to her once.”
“Never get to know her, you might just wanna steal her away,” he chuckled. Herbert scrunched up his nose.
“Daniel, you know that I’m—“
“I’m only joking, Herb. No need to take your claws out.”
It didn’t seem like a joke to Herbert. Jokes had two parts, a setup, and a punchline. Dan’s statement had neither. He sighed and sat down on the sofa, pointedly sitting as far away from where Megan sat as possible. “How long…” he didn’t feel like finishing his sentence. Dan sat down next to him, but he wasn’t close at all. In highschool, they practically stuck to each other like glue whenever they sat anywhere. It felt unfamiliar.
“Three years. I met her in my first year at Miskatonic and I knew she was the one. Everything about her is just so… perfect. She’s so beautiful, like, stunning. It’s not just her looks either. She’s so smart and sweet to everybody. She could light a room in pitch blackness. I mean, do you know anybody like that? Somebody that’s just so perfect it seems like they were made for you?”
Herbert blinked at him. His mind only came up with one name. Dan gave him a sympathetic look. “So, I’m guessing you didn’t meet anybody in Switzerland? Don’t sweat it, they just can’t handle your genius brains,” he grinned with a poke to Herbert’s forehead. He forced a laugh.
“You’re right, nobody can handle them. Maybe I should start keeping them in jars instead of the fridge.”
Dan laughed, a real laugh. Herbert liked his natural laugh. It was wheezy and it always ended with a snort. He was about the only person in the world who ever heard it. Dan faked it around other people. Internally, he corrected himself. Megan had probably heard it too. He tensed up again. Dan settled down and looked at Herbert meaningly. “I missed this, palling around with you. I don’t doubt you were doing some mind blowing things across the pond, Dr. Gruber was famous as hell, but I can’t help it. You left so abruptly.”
Herber cast his gaze to the floor. “Something… came up. It made me realize that I couldn’t stay here and rot. I’m only in Arkham temporarily. After I’m done here, I’m going back to Europe. By then, things will have blown over.”
Dan looked at him with a disappointed smile. “Yeah, well, it’s nice to have you while you’re here.” Neither of them said anything for a minute. The buzz of appliances filled the air that words didn’t take up. Words used to be optional for the two of them. There were multiple times when they spent time together with Herbert doing his homework while Dan watched television. It was the company that made it worth it. Dan never enjoyed the sound of a scribbling pencil and Herbert never enjoyed the mindless chatter of television until they began to fill the long spaces between sentences. It had been a comfortable silence, before. It was anything but comfortable right then. Dan cleared his throat. “Do you remember all those plans we used to make about going to the same school and living together? I thought that I would grow up to be an athlete, but being your friend made me much more interested in being a doctor. I guess those dreams weren’t so unrealistic after all. We could have gone to school together. We could have gone here, or in Switzerland.” Dan gave him a meaningful look. “I still would have followed you, you know.”
Whatever Herbert had been holding back couldn't be contained any longer. Dan obviously didn’t remember what had made Herbert steer away from him so quickly. It was eight years ago and he was drunk. Herbert had been an idiot to think Dan would understand this at all. He thought he could make things work. He thought he had a chance to redo everything. This wasn't a redo. Herbert needed to do something that he had never done before.
Before tears could roll down his already burning cheeks, Herbert surged forward and kissed Dan. It was harsh, and it hurt his lips, but he kept going. At first, the taller man reciprocated, albeit confused and shocked. Herbert wasn't inexperienced with this. He knew how to kiss, but this moment was much more than that. Contrary to what Dan believed, he did have a few people in Switzerland. When he was about nineteen years old, Herbert had fallen into a deep depression. Any person that approached him with a kind word could have gotten a kiss out of him. He lost his virginity on a springy, stained bed in a cheap apartment to a man he only dated for two or three months. He tried to close his eyes and imagine Dan on top of him. It made him cry. He was crying now, too. Dan brought out the worst in him, he really did. After a few seconds of them violently mashing their lips together, Herbert crying and Dan groaning, he grabbed Herbert’s shoulders and shoved him away.
“Herbert!” He barked. “What the fuck?”
Herbert scrambled backwards on the couch, preparing for Dan to strike him. “Dan, please! I’ve never wanted anything more! I’ve thought about you for the past eight years. Things were strange back then, but we’re adults now. We can make better choices. Do this with me. I have something I’m working on that will blow the scientific community away, and I need your help. Dan, please don’t leave me. We can do things right this time.”
Dan didn’t listen to Herbert’s rambles. He looked utterly disgusted. “Herbert, you can’t do that. I’m… I’m engaged. I don’t know what idea you got about our relationship, but I’ll tell you what you are to me. You are my friend from high school who just moved back to town. That is it. There were no ‘hidden feelings’ back then, and there aren’t any now.” He stood up and walked backwards away from Herbert like he was a rabid animal. Coincidentally, that was exactly what Herbert was feeling at the moment. The impulsivity and adrenaline that had kicked in when Dan said he would have followed him was now being replaced by a gut-churning guilt. Dan wiped at his lips with his sleeve. “Jesus Christ. What’s wrong with you? I don’t care that you’re gay. I’ve never cared that you’re gay, but if you do that again, you’re moving the fuck out of my house. I’m engaged, Herbert. Engaged to a woman. I am straight. Why have you never been able to get that? Fucking hell. I’m going to bed.”
At the sound of Dan’s door slamming shut, Herbert felt sick to his stomach. If he had anything to eat that day, it would surely be on Dan’s carpet by now. He wasn't sure why he had done that. He wasn't sure why he had moved in with Dan. He wasn't sure why he had come back to Arkham. There was nothing for him here, not even Dan.
He looked solemnly at Dan’s shut bedroom door and made a decision.
Herbert needed to get out of this town.