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“Man, Brian May is so cool,” Stan says, reaching forward to turn down the volume of the radio that’s currently blasting a Queen guitar solo, courtesy of the man in question. Even though he’s just parked, he waits to turn off the car so the rest of the song can continue playing.
“I have to say I’m a huge fan as well,” Xeno agrees, opening the front passenger door of the Snyder family pickup truck, which immediately kills the radio right as the guitar solo hits its climax.
“What the hell? I thought you said you were a fan,” Stanley complains, but Xeno has already shut the door behind him. Despite the strange behavior from Xeno, Stan’s heart still skips a beat as he exits the driver’s seat to join his best friend, very recently turned boyfriend. He still can’t believe his luck, that earlier that same evening, when Xeno whittled a confession out of an extremely nervous and hesitant Stanley, he was met with a casual but honest, “I feel the same, of course.” Xeno just as quickly cleared up any confusion as to what this made their relationship, promptly adding, “Am I correct in thinking this makes us boyfriends?” And so here they are, an hour later, two boyfriends on a very impromptu date.
Despite cutting off the radio, Xeno decides to continue their conversation. “I didn’t know you were familiar with Brian May’s work. Though these days he’s better known as Dr. May.” Stan has to think hard about what Xeno has just said. Dr. May? What makes him a doctor? Is that some kind of British thing? Like Dr. Who? That’s plenty baffling on its own, but what has Stan really confused is Xeno’s surprise that he’s familiar with Brian May’s work. Weren’t they just listening to a Queen song? One he’s dying to hear live, at that. Which reminds him…
“You know he’ll be in town next month,” Stan says excitedly as the two of them begin the short trek to the hilltop Xeno chose for stargazing. “And I’m trying to convince my mom to let me go. My old man will still be deployed by then, so it’s only her I need to persuade.”
“Really? Dr. May is holding an event? I might want to go as well,” Xeno muses, reaching his hand out to take Stan’s—who is too busy double checking no one else is around to question his boyfriend’s use of the term “Doctor” , and why on earth he’s referring to a rock concert as an “event.”
“Yeah, he’s on tour,” Stan replies, once he’s checked the coast is clear. “They’ve been working with Paul Rodgers for a few years now, which is cool.”
“Oh. Paul Rodgers?” Xeno tilts his head in what must be confusion.
“Why’d you say that like it was a question? Don’t tell me you forgot Freddie Mercury is no longer around,” Stan replies with a laugh, squeezing his boyfriend’s hand.
“Who said anything about Freddie Mercury?” Xeno asks in a way that makes Stan think he totally forgot.
The hike really is short, because by then, they’ve already reached a good spot most of the way up the hill. Stan sits down, staring up at the brilliant evening sky with his hands behind his head. The sun has only just now set, but a bright white glow emanates through the stars, shining from the edge of the horizon. Xeno takes a seat next to Stan on the hard, rough ground, and when he leans in, resting his head on Stan’s shoulder, it feels like the most natural thing in the world. Stan moves one of his arms to wrap around Xeno, who cracks a small smile at the touch.
“You know, I bet I can convince my mom to let me go,” Stan says, remembering the Queen concert again. “Whenever Rob is deployed, It’s on her to let me have regular teenage experiences he would never allow.”
“It’s true, cosmic dust does need studying,” Xeno notes out of nowhere. Stan isn’t quite sure how the conversation went from the rock band Queen to space dust, but he lets Xeno go along with it. Their entire conversation this evening has been strange, but the last thing Stan wants to do is ruin their very first date. “It’s not just planets and comets and asteroids out there, there are tiny particles as well. We need to account for them in our models in order to get the full picture. See, it’s a new moon, so the sky is dark enough for us to see it. I’m so glad you brought this up. It’s really fascinating stuff.”
Xeno sits up from where he was resting in Stanley’s arms, pointing up into the sky, and Stan realizes what the faint white glow must be: the space dust refracting the light from the sun right back at them. “Wow,” is all he can say in response.
“The particles range from a few to a few dozen micrometers in length, which of course then correlates to how much sunlight they reflect.” As he continues his lecture, the last of the sun’s rays disappear from the horizon, only further illuminating the dust cloud scattered through the sky. Just as radiant as the cosmos above them is Xeno’s face as he continues to explain everything from the particles’ thermal radiation to the kinds of shapes various dust clouds can take.
To be honest, Stan has always had a bit of a crush on Xeno. But it’s times like this, when he witnesses Xeno truly truly in his element, speaking endlessly about his passions, that Stan thinks he might be in love with him. When Xeno reaches his hand out towards the glittering sky up above him, grin still wide on his face as he talks, Stanley can’t help but take his other hand and hold it in his own.
“And isn’t it so cool that we have all this new research on interplanetary dust because of Brian May?” Xeno finally concludes long after the dust cloud has started fading into the rest of the night sky.
Yeah, Stan may have been zoning out a bit during the nitty gritty details, but not anymore. “I am so lost. What on earth does interplanetary dust have to do with Brian May?” he asks, more confused than he’s ever been this entire evening.
“You’re joking,” Xeno says with a cackle. “Did you even read any of his dissertation? Why did you say he was so cool and that you wanted to go to his event if you don’t even know his field of research?”
“Woah, woah,” Stanley interjects, because what. “ I’m talking about Brian May, legendary guitarist for the rock band Queen. Who are you talking about?”
“Brian May, the astrophysicist who recently got his PhD for his research on radial velocities of the zodiacal dust cloud.” Xeno is somewhat tentative with his response. “Are we sure we’re even talking about the same person?”
Stanley groans, because this situation is completely ridiculous. This is why we’ve been misunderstanding each other all evening? “If we had your dad’s smartphone with us, maybe we could look it up. Doesn’t it have 3G?”
“It does,” Xeno confirms, “but I doubt we’d have any signal out here.”
“Well hang on, maybe we can figure this out,” Stanley says, thinking carefully and racking his brain. “I know Brian May composed their song 39 , and that’s a ballad about astronauts and space and time dilation and stuff. He also seems to really like a space motif during his guitar solo sets at their concerts. At the very least, he’s a space nerd like you are. So maybe we are talking about the same person.”
“We’ll have to look it up on your family’s computer when we get back,” Xeno says, seemingly lost in thought. He gives Stan an inquisitive look. “So that’s why you brought up Freddie Mercury? Because you thought we were talking about a rock band?”
“Not because I thought, but because we were talking about a rock band,” he explains, unable to suppress a grin from forming on his face.
Their bickering over their silly miscommunication doesn’t last for very long, though. The two of them eventually find themselves lying down on the bare ground, facing each other, fingers loosely entwined. Their gazes are pointed and longing. Xeno cards his other hand through Stan’s hair, who sighs at the gentle touch.
After a while like this, Xeno finally has something to say. “Some day, when I rule the masses with an iron fist of science, you’ll be my right-hand-man?”
Stan chuckles to himself, because that’s an objectively insane thing for Xeno to say, but he knows it’s meant with complete sincerity. And even worse, when his heart flutters at the statement, at what is essentially a request to stay by his side through time and all eternity, it’s only then that he realizes just how whipped he is for this boy.
“You don’t even have to ask,” he replies, squeezing Xeno’s hand so tightly he starts to lose feeling in his fingers. “I would do anything for you and you know it.”
When Xeno leans in to gently brush his lips against Stanley’s own, his heart races with excitement, and he can’t help but kiss back.
“I guess we were both right,” Stanley says later that evening. He makes eye contact with Xeno, who can only shrug in agreement. They’re in the computer room at Stanley’s house, and on the monitor is a news article:
Queen Guitarist Awarded Astrophysics Doctorate