Archive of Our Own

“No one thought they had much time then, so many of us did… questionable things. There was the looting, of course, and the hoarding. But there were also the fond farewells and late night trysts. Life was an explosion filled with riots, cheap cabarets, dancing girls…”

”And love?”

“Oh yes, and love. There was love like no tomorrow, for there was no tomorrow, but there is always a tomorrow of some kind or another.”

Though he wasn’t exactly there to hear them, Penny’s words referred to many, many things from the Stink Years. The flings, the affairs, the tight-knit friendships, the deep, wholehearted love that people had for one another, not knowing if whomever pulled the strings of their unfortunate existence would allow them to live one more day to feel it.

To what Dr. Billeaux would inevitably overhear from a coworker was a past fling between the stern custodian who ran Amenity #9, and his very own boss, Mr. Cladwell.

Perhaps it was more than just a fling.

It was telling from the way they made a point to avert eye contact with the other whenever they happened to share a vicinity. The way his coworker, Mr. McQueen, seemed to know more than he chose to let on about those two.

McQueen— the oversharing, overbearing, obnoxious Ryder McQueen. The right hand man of Caldwell that just couldn’t seem to keep anything in confidence, not even the company trip to Rio de Janeiro. How he could possibly know more than what he let slip from his tongue was beyond the scientist, and yet the cat seemed to have it when he was confronted with the question of what the two once had.

But Ryder knew more about Caldwell than the doctor ever would, he could see it in his eyes, even in those moments of hesitance.

Still, it went unspoken in the name of maintaining business professions. Much like of what they knew of the lead scientist himself. For all it was worth, he had no prior connections to the rest of the town. He was raised by a well-off family whom he left behind somewhere far off from here to pursue a new life, obtaining a doctorate at TTMEU. Ever since then, he’d been on the frontline of research for the company.

He had everything he needed at UGC. He didn’t need to know what went on throughout the rest of town. He wore that branded blindfold with a joyous smile day after day. Greeted every coworker in the morning, muttering a halfhearted one in the direction of his boss’ less than pleasant assistant. Nodded obediently when confronted with one of Caldwell’s orders. Silent in his presence, never questioning a thing from the older man.

Not a peep.

Just smile, and nod.

And not a doubt he had about any of it. Not until he stood in that room before the infamous Bobby Strong, town-renowned revolutionary.

But the company had long held secrets such as Caldwell’s. Such as the matrimony of Mr. McQueen and Senator Fipp. Even ones such as Lockstock and Barrel, the town police officers. There was far, far more harbored by its staff and higher-ups than the rest of town could even begin to know.

Except for a certain townsman, whose name Billeaux wished he could drop into a vat of acid, the way he once mistakenly had McQueen’s old stapler, and erase it from his mind for good.

Harry Redwood.

A hotheaded man from the poorest side of town, one whose face he had not seen for what felt like ages.

Unlike what his boss and the primary custodian of amenity #9 once had, it had been more of a recent crossing of paths than the scientist would ever like to admit. The Stink Years had been long over, Caldwell’s iron fist already firm on the town’s regulations.

Everything was to be fixed and orderly, much unlike the years of disharmony in the past.

How the stars could align for the two men, so different in their ways— fire and water, day and night, piano and forte— to cross paths, was beyond what either could ever understand. It wasn’t something destined to be. It should’ve never been from the beginning.

The sunset made way for the dusk over the crime-ridden town. The scientist’s heavy black boots dragged across the pavement. The streetlights flickered on, illuminating him in its off-yellow glow. He looked at the gleaming tower over the hill.

The Urine Good Company headquarters weren’t far from here. What was the point in turning back in for the night, anyway? Caldwell was on what was more than likely his seventh power trip of the week, and it was evident from how he handled the meeting with young Bobby Strong. Ryder was off at the police department with Theodore and Issac, alerting them of the people’s whereabouts. Fipp and Millennium had flown the coop, no doubt about it.

Billeaux looked on at the darkening streets ahead of him.

Suddenly, he was only 24.

A bright, optimistic, yet somewhat reserved young man. A recent graduate from TTMEU with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science, as well as a minor in chemistry. He’d come to town rather recently to live closer to school. That, and the water situation hadn’t been ideal in his hometown either. It was a promising change in his eyes.

The streets were barren, the off-yellow lights shining down as he hauled his briefcase over the pavement.

The sound of harsh footsteps that clashed with his own put him at a halt.

Someone was there.

What could someone be doing in this part of town this late at night?

Up ahead, the figure of a man made itself visible under the light of the lamppost.

He quickly realized that stopping must’ve ignited a sense of suspicion in him.

“Excuse me,” he quickened his pace, only to stop once more when the other man turned to look at him.

“You’re— hey, you’s not from around here, are ya?”

Billeaux turned around.

“Me? Oh, well….”

A nervous chuckle left him.

“Ha, you got me there. Yes, I moved here… rather recently, actually. The water situation in my hometown wasn’t great either, see, and well, I supposed starting anew here would be easier, studying at the Third Most Expensive University and all.

“I asked if you’s from around here. Didn’t ask for your life story.”

Maybe he should’ve just kept walking.

“Hold on, the Third Most Expensive University?”

“That’s the one.”

The larger man leaned against the pole, raising an eyebrow.

“Ah, so you got dough.”

Billeaux hesitated.

Was he about to get robbed?

“Well, you could say that.”

“And you got brains too. Not like some of the other fools ‘round this part of town.”

“Really?”

He tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, somewhat flattered.

“What makes you say that?”

“Surely you’ve never seen Amenity #9,” he rolled his eyes, “buncha dunces, I tell ya. But hey, you come to not mind their company every once in a while. Nine’s one of the filthiest urinals in town. But some of us don’t got anywhere else to go.”

“Oh.”

Billeaux fidgeted with the collar of his shirt. He never had to make a visit to Amenity #9. That amenity was reserved for folks down on their luck, or so he heard.

The other man crossed his arms.

“So what’s a guy like you doing out here?”

“Ah, I just came back from TTMEU, actually. It’s a long walk from the station. I happen to pass by this part of town when I make the trek. Might I ask why you’re out here so late?”

“Had to make one last stop at the amenity for the night. Takes forever when everybody’s got the same idea. Old Man Strong was causin’ a ruckus again. That man’s gonna get himself sent to Urinetown one of these days, I tell ya.”

“I see.”

His eyes moved up and down, studying Billeaux intently. The young scientist wore a white collared shirt and black suspenders. He was tanned and short-statured with his long brown hair tied back, his bangs falling around the rims of his glasses.

“I gotta say, you seem a lot more easygoing than some of these nuthouses. I oughta talk to you more… ah—“

“Benjamin.”

“Oughta talk to you more, Benjamin. Give me a break from these fools.”

Benjamin’s eyes searched the slightly larger man. His dark brown hair was slightly overgrown, choppy in a way that suited him. A thick brown jacket was thrown over his shoulders. His pale, round face was traced with dirt.

“I’d like that, um…”

“Call me Harry. And stay out of these streets. Especially with these cops lurkin’ about.”

Harry’s eyes lingered on Benjamin for a second longer, before making his leave away from the light of the lamp pole.

“Well, good night, Harry.”

He stopped briefly.

“Good night, Benjamin.”

Watching him leave, the only thing Benjamin could help but wonder is when he would see him again.

That night was only the first of many. They’d find themselves to cross paths more often than intended. Sidewalks, corner stores, bars.

And yet never did they ever meet at Amenity #9.

It started as just a little small talk. A brief hello. A comment about their often very different days. Another about the recent disturbance in town. Sometimes that comment would become a conversation.

After a particularly taxing work day, the young scientist stumbled into a small, rundown bar in the quieter part of town. Despite not being in a worrying position financially, he wasn’t much of a drinker. Not many people in town could afford to be, unless they were knowingly blowing their already small amounts of cash on alcohol.

At the back of the bar sat a familiar face.

From what he knew about the man, Harry was the type to blow his cash on alcohol. Though, Benjamin was also there, so he wasn’t in much of a place to judge his financial decisions at the moment.

The shorter man took a seat next to the other.

“Benjamin?”

“Ah, long day too?” He asked.

“What’s ya doin’ around here? Don’t you got, I dunno, important things to do?…”

It was evident that Harry had already had something to drink.

“Well, I don’t have to return to school for a little while, and my work was… err, work.”

Harry traced the top of his shot glass with his finger.

“How’s that big fancy school treatin’ ya, anyhow? What is it you did over there again?”

Benjamin perked up at the mention of his studies.

”Oh, I’m majoring in environmental science, and minoring in chemistry. I’ve always been fond of the sciences.”

“Really now…? That mess of numbers and charts and whatever elses? What drew you to that?”

“Oh, a lot of things. But most of all, I admire how it’s all so calculated, objective, logical. You don’t have to take your own feelings into account, because for the most part, they don’t matter! When all that you need is in the data, you really don’t need to confront what’s happening in your own, much more complicated head.”

He let out a nervous chuckle.

“How about forensics?”

“What about them?”

“You know what I mean, like forensic science,” Harry explained, “you study the bodies n’ some other hootenanny.”

“Oh, that’s…”

The comment amused Benjamin, and a small laugh escaped him.

“That’s a completely different kind of science. Either field might feed into forensics at some point or another, but that’s far from what I deal with.”

Harry shrugged, not seeing the humor in what he’d said.

”Hey Gabe, need another o’er here..!”

”Don’t you think you’ll need that for the amenity fee later?” Benjamin asked.

”Probably…” he groaned.

Benjamin reached over toward the bartender.

”It’s alright sir, I’ll buy him a drink instead.”

The bartender shrugged, walking off.

Harry looked at the man beside him, studying him intently as if he wanted to say something.

“Wouldn’t be the worst job ever though. Studying bodies… and murders. Do murders ever interest ya?”

“Murders?”

Benjamin’s eyes widened.

That certainly wasn’t a question he was expecting in regard to what he was explaining.

“Yeah. Ever think about killing a guy? Not just one guy in particular… but you know what I mean.”

He really didn’t.

“I gotta know…” Harry’s excitement suddenly spiked, “what’s it feel like? Is there a thrill to it? Do you regret it later, if there even is a later? What happens when you’re caught? What happens when you’re not?””

“We’ve…” Benjamin cut him off, “strayed rather far from my original point, I see.”

Brushing Harry’s… concerning comments aside, he continued.

“As I was saying, something about the rationality and candidness of it all just brings a feeling of… safety, to me. You’re dealing with facts and data rather than a whirlpool of emotions, subjectivity…. and nuance, oh, mierda…”

His face soured.

“But you see, science also changes gradually with time, so it’s not like you’re stuck with the same thing forever, you know. But you still have that baseline of things you do know. It certainly beats things like, say, musical theatre. Oh, the uncertainty of it all! Not only are you forced to confront your emotions, you must project them! Why, imagine if our lives were a musical!”

A soft smile spread on Harry’s face, amused by Benjamin’s bemoaning.

“Our lives? A musical? You’re pullin’ my leg here...”

“I think if that were the case, I would simply prefer the role of a man on the down low, with one measly line of dialogue before I die tragically in the second act.”

Harry chortled.

“You’re quite the odd fella, Ben.”

Benjamin furrowed his eyebrows.

“And your interest in homicide cases is nothing to put into question?”

“Touché.”

The bartender returned with a drink.

”You know,” Benjamin smiled as Harry took a swig, “I wouldn’t mind buying you another one of these days. You’re… interesting, but you’re— well, better company than I’ve had for a while. I don’t… usually have much company, anyway.”

It wasn’t easy to decipher his own feelings toward Harry. Where his newfound intrigue for the man stemmed from wasn’t something that he could say for certain. He wanted to believe it was almost a brotherly form of endearment. It wasn’t for certain, but he hadn’t seen his own family for a little while now. Surely, he was simply forgetting what it must’ve felt like, right?

”Well, I can’t say I’ve ever met a guy like you ‘fore,” Harry slurred, “that’s for certain.”

”Is that a good thing?”

A moment of hesitation passed the two by before he answered.

”…I don’t know.”

One day the two men had stumbled upon each other in the same part of town once more. Oddly enough, they met in an alleyway behind a building. Much less convenient than the previous times they’ve shared a vicinity, but regardless, Harry sought Benjamin out.

”Heya Benjamin!” He elbowed his shoulder.

The shorter man flinched to the amusement of the other.

”A heads up would be nice,” he furrowed his eyebrows, “how would I have known this wasn’t some kind robbery?”

”Never said it wasn’t. How much are ya carrying?”

Benjamin ignored his response.

“What are you doin’ around here, anyway? This isn’t the nice part of town, you know.”

The two stopped in the middle of the alleyway.

“I’m well aware, I was just running an errand or two. Might I ask why you’ve hauled yourself up over here?”

“I’m on the run.”

“What?”

In the presence of Benjamin’s confusion, Harry couldn’t help but snicker.

“I’m just foolin’ around with you.”

Well, well, wasn’t he just a hoot?

”I just like to get somewhere away from the rest of the mess in the streets, is all.”

A slight scowl appeared on Benjamin’s face, before a more neutral expression took its place.

Despite his irritation, he couldn’t help but be almost charmed by Harry’s mischievous grin.

”I see...”

Benjamin leaned against the wall of the alleyway beside him.

“They’re cracking down,” Harry said, “at this rate they’re one penny away from sending all of us to Urinetown.”

“Really now? Do you know why they’re taking harsher measures?”

“Can’t think of a reason other than they just want us snuffed,” he grumbled, “you see what happens to folks who get taken to Urinetown? They never come back, that’s what. Don’t know if they get locked up or taken out back. Hell, whatever they do to em, I bet they’re better off with the latter.”

Benjamin raised a brow.

“You think so? I mean, I suppose we don’t really know where they go…”

“Yeah, because they don’t want us to know. It reeks of bad business and twisted schemes,” he spat with disgust.

For such an impulsive man such as Harry, he seemed to be thinking about this much harder than Benjamin ever found himself thinking about it.

“Well it’s certainly something to hold some suspicion over…”

A rough sigh left Harry as he took a half empty pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket.

He struck a match over the cigarette in his mouth and lit it.

Benjamin watched him take a drag.

Anything to take the edge off, he supposed. Didn’t have much to lose in a place like this anyway.

”You want a smoke?”

His boots scraped the ground as he hesitated.

”I don’t see why not.”

As if it were any ordinary gesture, Harry held out the cigarette between his fingers toward Benjamin. Before he could take it, Harry held it to his mouth.

Benjamin hesitated. Hadn’t it just been between the other man’s lips? What would that imply? If nothing and he were simply overthinking the matter, wouldn’t it have been easier to simply hand it to him?

Regardless, he hesitantly accepted the gesture and parted his lips for the cigarette.

Suddenly Harry was no longer at his side, but in front of him, his hand firm against the wall behind Benjamin. He’d already replaced the cig in his mouth.

Before Benjamin could even inhale, Harry was touching the end of the cigarette in his mouth to his own, pulling away as it lit.

Benjamin’s face matched the heat of the flame at the end of his cig, but still he said nothing. Not as the smoke irritated his eyes, not as his heart began to palpitate, not as he realized that Harry hadn’t pulled his hand away from the wall, still keeping the shorter man pinned against it.

Their stares locked for longer than Benjamin knew they should have, his eyes wide like those of a deer as he tried to keep himself from trembling under the captivating gaze of the other man, the sheer whirlwind in his mind that left him red and breathless.

It was a brief moment shared between the two, and yet it was unlike anything he’d felt before.

Once they’d parted ways that day, Benjamin found himself almost longing for that feeling again.

Neither would say anything about it. Not a word.

Those conversations would get deeper with time, each one an opportunity to get insight on how the other thought.

Benjamin was quiet and studious, but an obedient listener of authority.

Harry was a rebel, or as much of a rebel as he could afford to be while avoiding the police. He was reckless and impulsive with a hot head.

But there was more to him than what Benjamin had initially anticipated.

Reckless was right, but he was by no means thoughtless. Harry had many of them, in fact. Most were of resentment for his surroundings, but also of suspicion and scrutiny. He was a very malcontent man, and it was clear he thought and felt strongly about the world around him. When they locked eyes, Benjamin saw what he felt to be a small fire in his.

It was in his already observant nature to want to know more and more about this boisterous townsman. And from what he could tell, Harry found a similar amount of interest in him. Benjamin had gone from just another man that he went to when he needed a moment away from the rest of the havoc in town, to a presence he sought out nearly every day. The juxtaposition of how the young scientist, in comparison, saw the world they shared was something that intrigued him. Benjamin assumed it was simply a change from the headless chickens that were often his fellow townspeople, but something else told him that there was more to it.

More that neither chose to delve into.

The two men got on with each other in a way neither had anticipated they would, and neither were used to. Benjamin found himself thinking of Harry more often than he knew necessary, seeing the other man in simple things that ran deeper when he thought of him. Run-down bars, lampposts in the night, cigarette flames.

His own sofa.

A couple of times they would find themselves visiting each other’s houses in town— Harry’s small and run-down, Benjamin’s somewhat nicer. One night the former decided to visit the latter, very noticeably tipsy when the scientist opened his front door.

“Home’s a long ways’ away from this part a’ town,” he slurred, “don’t want anybody to think I’m out taking a night piss behind the bush, nooooooo sir, you know how they are…”

Benjamin still thought it unwise to spend those coins on whiskey, rather than saving them for a pee the next morning. After all, alcohol had risen in price significantly since Cladwell had taken control of the water shortage.

“What is on your face?”

He took notice of a large, swelling scrape on the side of Harry’s face, as well as his hands bruising over.

”Ah, nothin’, I just got into a scrap with a guy is all. Wrong part of town. Sure licked him though. That’ll show ‘em.”

”Putain… come in then! That cut looks awful.”

Benjamin let him blabber about the recent messes in town as he brought out a couple of items. He sat Harry down on his sofa, taking a seat next to him to tend to the wound across the left side of his face. Occasionally he would nod and offer a brief “mhm.”

Suddenly, Harry went silent.

”Heya Benjamin…”

Hearing his name muttered, he paused, a damp cloth in his hand.

“Yes, Harry?”

“You live alone here, don't ‘cha?”

Harry’s expression was one of what seemed of genuine curiosity.

“Yes, Harry.”

“You ever think you’re gonna find yourself a wife?”

An uncomfortable bout of silence followed his question.

A wife. As in a woman? A woman his age or younger whom he would be wedded to? As in a woman he would share a home with? A woman he would start a family with?

“I—“ he nearly choked at the thought, “I… don’t know. I suppose I’ve simply never thought about it.”

Benjamin by no means had any ill will towards women. He didn’t get the chance to meet many ladies in his field of work, but they were always pleasant to perhaps strike up a conversation with every once in a while. But ladies never enticed the young scientist in the way they seemed to entice other men. The way he saw it was simply that he was too involved with his studies to consider marriage as something in the cards for him anywhere but far, far into the future.

He held the damp cloth to Harry’s face, wiping away any dried blood or dirt.

“God, me neither. That settling down mumbo jumbo isn’t worth getting yourself wrapped into. A family with no water supply to even keep it alive,” he scoffed, “forget it. We’re both more likely to get snuffed.”

Benjamin chuckled.

All of a sudden, his smile faded.

A thought weighed down on him, far too heavily for him to possibly ignore.

How worth it was it to let on such a thing to Harry? How would a man like him even react to such an odd confession? To something that could so easily be seen as perverse.

“Harry.”

“What?”

His hand lowered, putting the cloth aside for a pad of alcohol.

“Do you promise that what I say next won’t leave this room?”

His tone was hushed, as if someone were listening from outside the walls.

“Go ahead.”

He faltered with hesitance for a brief moment before continuing.

“Well, the truth is… I’ve never really wanted a wife. Even if the circumstances accommodated it, it’s never something that’s ever, well, piqued my interest.”

Harry listened intently.

“You know, I thought for a while, perhaps I’m just not very people-oriented. I tend to keep to myself a lot. I have no interest in engaging with a lady in that way, when I have no interest in engaging with people and all their simplemindedness.”

Benjamin’s shaking hand reached back to Harry’s face, dabbing the scrape with the pad of alcohol. The latter tried to stifle a wince.

“But I find that to not be completely true. I take interest in you. Perhaps, well,” his face went hot, “a lot of interest.”

His eyes averted the other’s gaze, a rather difficult feat as his hands moved to bandage the wound.

“Perhaps,” his voice softened, “an amount of interest that wouldn’t exactly be… ideal, or well, right.”

The feelings that Harry seemed to ignite in him brought on a considerable amount of embarrassment to be admitting aloud.

”What I mean to say… is that I can only hope that you share at least a fraction of that sentiment. Perhaps I’d feel less unnerved. And I ask if between the two of us, our— ah, friendship— could possibly mean something, anything beyond those run-ins in town. It would bring me delight, I-I think. If, of course, that’s what you want.”

For once, Harry seemed to be at a genuine loss for words. His eyes were glued to the young scientist in front of him, his expression one of bewilderment. Benjamin’s heart pounded loudly in his ears. The only noise in the room was the steady clicking of his grandfather clock.

He took back his hand with haste.

Oh dear, what had he said?

“Or… it’s nothing. You can forget I said anything.”

“Benjamin.”

Timid brown eyes met the gaze of the poorer townsman.

Harry’s expression softened.

”I… can’t say I know exactly how I feel about ya, or even how I’m s’posed to. Can’t tell if it’s the whiskey or if my head is just that damn queer.”

He seemed almost frustrated with himself.

”But I can’t shake that feeling that you’re different than the boys I’ve gotten on with. In a way that makes me wanna say ‘damn it all, that’s enough of that,’ who gets on with another man like that, Ben? But swear to god this town, it makes you go crazy. We’re all sittin’ here worrying if our next day might be our last, you never know who the next person to step out of line’ll be. I’ve known the other townsfolk since I was a boy but you… you’re a different guy.”

His eyes blinked as if he were grasping what was coming out of his own mouth.

”…And I don’t know how much or how little of it I can stand.”

Benjamin carefully moved forward.

”You… still have something on your face.”

He cupped Harry’s face in his hand. With his thumb, he gently swiped away a speck of dirt he must’ve missed.

It had simply been bothering him, he thought.

But a deeply hidden part of him knew that it was a matter of not wanting to delve deeper into what Harry was telling him. He didn’t trust his own mind with interpreting it.

Harry didn’t shrink away, almost seeming to enjoy the softness of Benjamin’s hand.

That was his sign to pull away.

”You’ve been drinking,” he finally said, “I’d hate for you to return home in this state. You’re welcome to rest here for the night. I certainly wouldn’t mind keeping you...”

He straightened the other man’s jacket.

Harry studied his mannerisms, how they were laced with hesitation and regard, but the way his eyelashes seemed to be fluttering at him told him something different.

”Sure would beat going home through those rancid alleyways…”

He grumbled a curse.

”You’re a frustrating man, Billeaux...”

The memory of that night came back to the doctor frequently. Often unprompted and sudden. Night shifts he spent alone in the laboratory. Mornings at the newspaper stand, stacks of papers showcasing a scrappy young man by the name of ‘Bobby Strong.’ One with that same ambitious fire in his eyes, the one he remembered seeing in Harry’s all those years ago.

Only, the flame Bobby carried burned with what wasn’t just resentment and vengeance in the heat of adversity, but hope and optimism.

It was a sentiment Billeaux would be damned if he understood anymore.

Nobody ever truly knew about the two of them. Even the men themselves had a hard time putting their ‘friendship’ into words at the time. Now a good handful of people at Urine Good Company were aware of what they had, just five years before.

The two would go on to share multiple more nights like that one, filled by drinking, long conversations by a lantern, dancing over the crackling radio when there was no reason to. In a town as downtrodden as theirs, it made the young scientist’s heart feel warmer and lighter than it had ever felt before.

”It’s really quite simple,” he explained, “just keep your hands in mine, like this.”

Harry was in Benjamin’s living room, for reasons neither would confess involved the increased patrolling throughout the rest of town that night.

In his eyes, Benjamin could take a guess and say that Harry might’ve rather gone out and faced the potential consequences, rather than stay and be held at his will to learn what he called “a buncha’ mumbo jumbo.”

Still, he remained somewhat attentive for the other man’s sake.

”I’ll demonstrate first, and then you follow me.”

His hands still intertwined with Harry’s, Benjamin stepped forward with his left leg, and then back. He crossed it over his right, before repeating the motion with that leg afterwards.

From the way Harry was eyeing him, there was no denying how ridiculous it might have looked.

”That’s sure… a thing you’re doing with your legs, Ben.”

Benjamin stifled a laugh, “well, then why not try this one?”

On a count of four steady beats, he stepped backwards, alternating between right and left leg. His fingers snapped rhythmically as his arms swung left and right. Or at least, his fingers motioned as if they were snapping. Benjamin couldn’t snap, not that he wanted to draw attention to that fact.

”You repeat that simple motion when I come forward.”

He stepped forward similarly to how he’d stepped back, fake-snapping left and right to the same count of four beats.

”And you do this when you see me walk backward.”

Harry seemed at a loss of understanding.

”Okay,” Benjamin smiled timidly, “maybe that came off as more complicated than I anticipated. Let’s start with that first one, shall we?”

Their hands intertwined once more, despite Harry’s reluctance.

”It helps to say it to yourself. One, two, three, four. Forward, back, cross, again. Other leg now.”

He repeated the motion.

”Now after me. Slow for now, faster once you get the hang of it. Start with your leg across from mine.”

Harry didn’t move, seeming to be in a bit of a daze.

”Harry? Did you hear me?”

He blinked rapidly.

”I heard ya. I heard you prattling, anyway. You…”

His gaze averted the other man, as if he were averting some kind of truth by doing so.

”You just got a way of talkin’, you know?”

Benjamin faltered upon hearing his tone soften.

”Right. What did I say about the count?”

”Oh…” Harry paused, “uh… something about— err… one, three, two, cross… left.”

Benjamin shook his head.

”Left is mine, right is yours. Opposite leg.”

“Opposite from mine or opposite from yours?”

”Mine,” he huffed, “now, a little more attentive this time, hm? One, two, three, four, forward, back, cross— Harry Redwood, you are somewhere else completely right now!”

Harry had tuned in completely to Benjamin’s face— his reddish cheeks, his subtle eye bags, his furrowed brow.

”I… I was just seeing you for a moment, Ben. Nothin’ else. What was that now?”

”You…”

Benjamin’s eyes widened slightly, his cheeks growing a brighter red than before, watching the other man’s gaze continue to linger over him, perhaps a bit too intently.

All of a sudden, their joined hands felt too hot.

”That’s… that’s rather endearing, actually.”

That’s when they parted.

”Hey, I said nothing else,” Harry grew mildly defensive, “I don’t think I’m any good at this dancing malarkey anyway, Ben. You can just—“

He faltered once he noticed the now tender expression on Benjamin’s face. He’d gone quiet, visibly flattered.

”Oh damn it all, what was that you were on about again?”

Memories of their times together, even before they’d truly let on the way they felt about the other, was enough to still give the scientist butterflies as he reflected on them. It had been long ago by now, but it never truly felt that way.

At times, it felt like things had never truly ended.

Soon, the two had run out of reasons to seek each other out in the late evenings, doing so out of a pure will to see the other and waste them in the simple pleasures this town so rarely offered them.

A couple of these rendezvous’ led Billeaux to make some uncharacteristically impulsive decisions.

Ones that he hadn’t known would change the course of their relationship for as long as it lasted and onward.

“I have to ask, Harry…”

The two sat on the edge of a window sill, the sound of people passing by for the nighttime rush in the air. Tired from a long day of work, Benjamin was resting his head on Harry’s shoulder.

“Hm?”

“…Do you believe in love?”

It took an uncomfortably long duration of time for the other man to muster a response to that question.

“You sure don’t see much of it out there, do ya? It makes you think…”

Benjamin hesitantly nodded against the fabric of his jacket.

“To be honest, in a place like this, I think love has about as much hope as a baby bunny drowning in a vat of boiling water.”

Harry’s comment caught him off guard.

“Why, what a thing to say. Where did that metaphor come from?”

An empty chuckle left him.

“Sounded fitting.”

A sigh left Benjamin.

“Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be that bunny?”

“You see what goes on ‘round here? I hardly have to wonder.”

“I suppose.”

The townsfolk were growing restless outside. A hold up at the nearby amenity, Benjamin thought. No doubt it would end up with someone being taken to Urinetown.

“Do you ever wonder what it’s like though? To love?”

He asked, imagining how the streetlights must’ve looked gleaming in Harry’s hickory brown eyes. How the stars that hovered over them would.

“It doesn’t matter in the slightest, but honestly… I don’t even think I gotta wonder about that either.”

Benjamin’s attention was diverted away from the hollers of anxious, angry townsfolk in line at the amenity.

”You know what it’s like… to love.”

A long moment of hesitation passed the two by.

“I think I know more about it than a lot of guys here do, Benjamin. The people here live in fear and that’s all they know. To be honest, it shakes me sometimes, what goes on around here. Don’t go around saying that though.”

“I won’t.”

“But the people up there thrive on fear. That’s how we all fall in line. There’s gotta be more to it than that. But you know what else? Even if there is, there’s no point in pursuin’ it. Especially for a guy like me, who’s hardly worth a nickel. One wrong move in this town and you’re at the gates of Urinetown itself. Step out of line and they’ll bust you up like an overripe cantaloupe. Tell me, what good does love do in a trash heap like that?”

Benjamin sat upright, meeting Harry’s gaze.

“But what if there is a point to it?”

“What, what point can there be? To any of this?”

He fell silent for a brief moment.

His gaze softened as he gently took Harry’s callused hands in his own.

“…Because in a place where you’re left with no choice but to fear what tomorrow holds, sometimes you have to stop and think of today. How do you make the most of what you have now, so that when tomorrow comes, it doesn’t feel like time has been wasted?”

The hollers in the distance slowly began to dissipate. Cops had taken control of the situation by now.

“What do we got now that’s worth it?”

Benjamin’s eyes lingered over Harry’s face.

He mentally cursed himself for what he felt he was about to do, and could only hope that he would have the means to forgive himself for it later.

“Well, I can think of one thing.”

For once the pensive man would find himself going completely against his own cognition. And in a moment of what could only be described as foolishness, he leaned in forward, softly pressing his lips to his.

Expecting to be shoved away and be questioned of his audacity, he pulled back like a ricochet. Harry’s eyes shot wide open, completely dumbfounded.

Benjamin was at a loss for an explanation for what he’d just done.

“Ah— oh, why did I do that? I’m sorry, that was wrong of me, I didn’t mean— oh mierda…”

His eyes darted around the room. Look anywhere, he thought, anywhere but where Harry sat. Maybe a subject to swiftly transition to would make itself known on the dim walls.

It was wrong, what he’d done. Perverse. Shameful.

“I-I shouldn’t have done that…”

He sputtered apologetically, as if it would make up for his error.

”Just— forget it, forget I did or said anythi—“

He was cut off mid-word when he was tugged forward, Harry kissing him back.

Their hands intertwined, Benjamin being pulled in by his shoulder further into the kiss, as he brought up his other hand to caress Harry’s face.

The heat brought on by their close proximity, the longing evident in the way Harry kissed him, eager and wanting. The feeling was unexpectedly warm and passionate. Enough to cloud Benjamin’s head.

Never had he thought he would feel something of this nature. Something he knew to be so wrong, so unbecoming of him, and yet what he felt to be so tender, so right.

Benjamin leaned further into Harry’s touch as it grew more ardent by the second. His heart raced like never before, blinded by the emotional high. All he wanted was to fall into him. To let him have all of his heart, all he was, all of him. His hold tightened around the hand in his, not wanting Harry to let go, not for a second.

A minute had passed in the blink of an eye, with the two eventually parting. The faint taste of whiskey and smoke lingered on Benjamin’s quivering lips.

The rush of such closeness caught up to him, swirling inside of him, making him unsure if he wanted to laugh in bliss or cry from the tension.

Harry stared down at his hand in Benjamin’s. Hands he once swore were made for fighting. A seemingly deep rooted feeling of doubt made itself apparent in his expression.

It was clear what the two meant to each other now.

And yet that clarity rendered every bit as unsettling as the uncertainty.

”…It’s late, Ben, you best be headin’ back by now. I hate to keep you from… from…”

”I will, I just feel… a little lightheaded, is all.”

Harry forced himself to study Benjamin’s face. It had flushed pale.

In all his talk about todays and tomorrows, what would this begin to say about either?

He grabbed his shoulders, smoothening out his sleeves. He took notice of Benjamin’s slight tremble.

”Well… damnit,” he muttered, conflict seeping into his tone “I want— I don’t want you to make the walk if you’re feeling under the weather. I’m sure I have space somewhere for ya.”

”That’d— be nice.”

As if to release the tension whirling inside of him, Benjamin tightly wrapped Harry in an embrace.

”I… think I love you.”

His voice shook with emotion.

It would only be the night they’d spend together afterwards that would convince him of a single truth.

There was no ‘think.’

Harry hesitantly wrapped his arms around him in turn. It stung Benjamin’s eyes. For a man that often tried so hard to act so cold, it was one of the warmest things he had ever felt.

”You’ve sure got a way of thinking about things, Ben.”

At a time in their lives neither were sure it could exist to flourish, what Billeaux would feel from that point was the most joy, the most love he would come to feel for years following. Something he never thought he’d know. From a man he knew to be so crass, so bitter, that love they shared was unlike what he’d ever expected from him. After a life of what felt like lie after lie, all to deter himself from what he knew he was capable of feeling, never before had Billeaux felt something so earnest, so real.

And yet that night was something they never spoke of again.

But it never needed to be discussed past that point for it to root itself in his mind like a parasite. There to remind him when he needed it the least of what he’d lost, what he’d knowingly given up for the path he chose. And only as word of love, hope, and today was spread among the poor townsfolk in the midst of revolution did he begin to reflect on that.

What he had told Harry about ‘todays.’

That regardless of what tomorrow brung, the two would have each other in the moment.

And that was all that mattered. That was all that ever mattered.

It was as if the stars had aligned for them to enter each other’s atmosphere. To make it home, to make it love.

Benjamin watched them dreamily, his head stuck in those small, wispy clouds.

For once he’d find himself giving in to what couldn’t be proven with science, instead allowing himself to feel a sense of hope.

Hope he sought as he looked into Harry’s dark eyes, the stars reflecting in them the way he’d always imagined they would.

”I’ve never had… anything like this before.”

Benjamin’s voice cut through the long period of silence, barely above a whisper. Harry glanced at him.

”Me neither.”

More silence followed before his voice piped up again.

”I wonder how my folks back home would feel. About this, about us. I’m…not sure what I would tell them.”

A shudder came over him that he managed to suppress. For so long, he’d denied that these feelings could ever be felt by someone like him. Benjamin was as lawful as he was rational, and deep down, he knew neither lawfulness nor rationale was to be sought in a connection of this nature. Years spent raised in a devout Catholic household had taught him such.

Harry squeezed his hand.

”That’s tomorrow’s problem.”

A gentle smile appeared on Benjamin’s face, his warm cheeks raising slightly.

Perhaps he’d be doing himself good in laying those worries to rest. Even if just momentarily.

”I suppose you’re right.”

His gaze fell to the ground, not realizing that Harry’s remained on him.

Another quiet moment.

And it would remain that way until finally, from beside Benjamin, came a small ”fuck it.”

Harry ardently wrapped his arms around the other man, his hold tight and protective. Benjamin flinched slightly, before returning the embrace in equal earnest. The dead grass below caught them as they fell onto it.

His face buried into the other man’s shoulder, Benjamin tightened his hold, taking in the warmth of the gesture. It filled him with a deep bliss that made itself evident in his expression as Harry took his face in his hands. Their gazes met, and his dirt-flecked cheeks raised in a beam.

Suddenly, Benjamin’s back met the ground with a soft thud as Harry pushed him onto it, his arms thrown back around his shoulders.

It would only be long enough for Harry to hear a short breath come from the man under him, before their lips collided again. Unlike that night on the window sill, the kiss they shared carried what was no longer apprehension, but wholehearted sureness.

One arm wrapped around Harry’s waist, Benjamin’s other hand burying itself in his dark, messy hair.

Against his better judgement, he knew he couldn’t hold himself back from this for any longer.

Holding Harry’s head closer to his, he deepened the kiss, giving into the desire that filled him in a way he hadn’t known he was capable of. That overwhelming rush of blood and adrenaline that left him breathless, numbing his mind until it was nothing but want.

The desperation in the way that Benjamin kissed him left Harry weak, weak and starving for more.

His hands dug into his shoulders as he rolled over onto the dead grass, Benjamin now straddling him. With one hand he pulled forward the collar of Harry’s shirt, and with the other lifted his chin up. His hands moved from Benjamin’s shoulders to his waist, gripping it tightly.

Wanting his savor, he gently bit down on the soft lip of the other man, causing a small gasp to escape him.

All previous fears of wrongfulness and perversity had strayed far from Benjamin’s mind, replaced by the sensation of longing touch, the sounds of hitched breaths, the taste of an earnest kiss.

When they finally parted, he shuddered, suddenly deprived of what he didn’t know he’d needed, and so desperately. A trembling breath escaped him, warm against Harry.

He studied Benjamin’s face. Wide eyed, red and gleaming, his mouth slightly agape. Harry’s gaze softened, silently admiring him.

”I think tomorrow can wait,” he said breathlessly.

Benjamin didn’t respond. Not for a while.

Instead, he lay his head on Harry’s chest, letting his arm wrap around him to pull him closer.

”It can. For just a little longer…” he whispered.

He knew now of his feelings, and how deeply they sat within him. No longer was he afraid of them, the way he’d been for so long.

Benjamin Billeaux was deeply, wholeheartedly in love with Harry Redwood.

And it was if he’d found the heaven he’d heard of all his life, in what he’d never expected to find.

His eyes lingered over the stars, silently thanking them.

Though he knew, he found it difficult to accept how little power they truly held.

The memory of Harry’s arms around him that night was a memory Billeaux had never let fade. In fact, he still felt the warmth at times, when the air was at its coldest, bringing him a sense of phantom comfort. Reminding him of love and its absence.

Reminding him of that sentiment of ‘today’ he once held so fervently. That sentiment that was lost as the constant threat of tomorrow loomed over him.

Told him that he wouldn’t get to see tomorrow if he didn’t give all of it up for Cladwell.

Told him that he wouldn’t see another night, another long conversation with Harry, watching the light of the street lamps glisten in his deep brown eyes, nor the light of the stars, nor that fire that danced in them that never left. He wouldn’t get another dance, another kiss. There wouldn’t be another evening spent wrapped up in each other, intent on never wanting to let this thing they held so dear go.

Not when the drought was unyielding, widespread to where there was hardly any escaping it. Not when the number of those sent to Urinetown would only continue to rise by the day.

It was damn near detrimental for the lovesick man to bear.

One memory that he could recall had set these fears in place. One that was far more difficult to reflect on.

He began to remember the days far behind him, coming back into town from school. Harry was the only person he awaited upon returning from TTMEU. Usually the other man was waiting for him just the same.

Until one day he returned to nobody at the station.

Once he’d made it to town, already he’d begun to notice the off-putting atmosphere. The townsfolk were no strangers to unease, but they somehow seemed even more agitated, as if awaiting something awful. Whispers about policemen and ‘Urinetown’ filled every corner around town. People in lines for the amenities shifted nervously in their boots.

The anticipation of the people never ceased until he’d made it to Harry’s tiny rundown house on the other side of town.

A hesitant knock at the door drew the other man to creak it open.

“Benjamin, what the hell are you doing out there?!”

Harry pulled the young scientist through the door, slamming it behind him.

“Harry? What’s this about?”

“I thought I told you to stay the hell out of those streets.”

Benjamin let out a quick wince, feeling his fingers dig into his shoulders with a tight grip. He pushed him off and examined him briefly.

Harry’s dark hair was tousled and matted. More dirt traced his face than usual. His eyes were wide with seething fear, anger, and something else that he couldn’t begin to read.

”Hey, what happened?”

“It doesn’t matter in the slightest. Just…”

His voice shook. His clammy hands clenched into tight fists, making small dents in his palms with his uneven nails.

“…stay out of those streets.”

It came out as almost a plea.

Harry didn’t like being prodded about his feelings. Benjamin was aware of that. Something was different about him that day, but he wouldn’t push for him to say anything.

The evening they spent there would continue in a heavy, uncomfortable silence. The already hot-headed townsman might as well have been visibly fuming. He paced around the small, scrappy room for what felt like ages, muttering curses to himself. A piece of garbage rolled over to him, and he chucked it at the wall as hard as he could. The sound made Benjamin jump. The piece of trash ricocheted off the wall and knocked Harry square in the nose. His palms raised to muffle an aggravated scream, pulling at his bangs.

”Harry, this really concerns me.”

His hands returned to his side with a rough exhale, and he refused to meet Benjamin’s eyes.

“I told you, it doesn’t matter in the slightest.”

“Well clearly, it does. I know you like to pretend as if nothing around here scares you, but I know you, and I know it does. How could it not?”

Harry slowly glanced at him. His cold gaze sent a small shiver down Benjamin’s spine.

“How would you know?”

He hesitated under his glare.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t even gotta be around here for half of it. You go to some fancy university outta town. Even when you do come around, you haven’t had to make a stop at Amenity #9 in your life. Because you got dough, that’s why. Yeah, sure, it reeks for everyone in this miserable town, but you don’t know half of what happens around here, Benjamin.”

“Harry, what are you talking about?”

”I’ll tell ya what. We all gather in the same line, morning and night, and stay there until someone nearly croaks. Folks who are real down on their luck will beg Penny to let them go for free. I’ll give you one guess as to where that gets them. The old people have got it the worst of us all. They’ll run off in the night to go behind a tree somewhere. But those cops, you can’t run from ‘em. They drag everyone off to Urinetown. Men, women, old folks. Hell… young folks… real young folks…”

His pacing grew more frantic.

“Those cops, do they even feel a shred of doubt about any of it? Not even when they hear the screams? The screams, Benjamin, you haven’t heard the screams… it’s all a game of shepherd to them, those cops. Even my brother Isaac’s gotten used to it. We don’t know where those folks end up. For all we know, they’re dead at the bottom of an empty ditch. Swinging at the bottom of a rope. That’s where we’ll all end up.”

Benjamin felt helpless in this situation.

The two had many discussions about Urinetown before. It was a difficult topic to gloss over, after all. But it was easier for one who’s lived on the poorest side of town his whole life to see it for what it was. Some of these discussions were even neutral at best. The state of the town wasn’t unfamiliar to Harry by any means.

Why only now did it distress him so?

“I don’t get it,” he exclaimed, “what’s all this about? The threat of Urinetown hangs over this town every day, does it not? You’ve lived it for 20 years. Why so brazen about it now?”

“I bet it’s easy for you to ask that question, you’ve never had to see a friend of yours carted to Urinetown!”

The room fell into an almost death-like silence. Completely quiet if not for Harry’s unsteady breaths.

“You… saw…”

It was admittedly difficult to envision for the young scientist.

”To Urinetown? Oh my…”

It was no wonder something about him was so different that day. Many people had been taken to Urinetown over the years.

But surely it was a different feeling when it was somebody you knew.

Harry stood before him, frozen still if it weren’t for his slight trembling. His eyes widened as if what he’d said brought him just as much disbelief as it did Benjamin.

“Harry, I’m…”

”Only needed a measly fifty cents,” he spat, “got into a scrap with my mother about it. Tried to get into the amenity. Cops got to him before he could.”

His voice died with that last ‘could.’ And in that moment Benjamin recognized the unreadable emotion that had been swirling in his eyes earlier.

Pain.

Grief at the loss of what once must’ve been a cherished friend.

”Nothin’ new ever happens around here,” he choked, “‘they carted ol’ so and so off to Urinetown this morning,’ life is nothin’ but the same thing, over and over again. Until you’re the one in their claws. You’d get sick of it too.”

All over a measly fifty cents.

One might do themselves a favor in planning ahead before a visit to the amenity. If to be carted to the gates of Urinetown for any reason, Benjamin couldn’t imagine a scrappy handful of coins being that final nail in the coffin.

”Well I… suppose we will never truly know what happens when someone gets to Urinetown. We can only hope things will turn out fine for the ones that do.”

“Tell that to him.”

The leather chair creaked under the abrupt way Harry dropped himself into it, burying his face in his hands.

The room fell into a heavy silence once more, only now that quiet would be cut through by a sniff.

And then another.

“Harry…”

Benjamin wished he could offer more understanding. That was what he needed, and he knew that.

But for two men that lived in the same town, they were two worlds apart.

A hesitant hand was placed on Harry’s shoulder. He felt it jerk upwards and back down.

”I’m sorry… truly.”

In a moment unexpected and sudden, Benjamin felt his weight against him.

Harry was leaning on him.

”I’m so sorry.”

Whether he was sorry for the tragedy, or rather the lack of understanding he had toward it, was something unbeknownst to either of them.

With his hand, Benjamin gently carded through his lover’s messy dark hair, bringing his head closer with his other. He was drawn forward by a tight pull at the end of his shirt. For the sake of Harry’s ego, Benjamin pretended not to notice the quiet sobs that escaped him. Instead he simply allowed him to take what he needed, the little he could offer to him, as he continued to mumble a series of ‘I’m sorry’s to him, as if it would make up for how little he truly knew.

For only one of the two men would go on with his life untouched.

But did it really deal as little of an impact as Benjamin thought it had on him?

All in all, they might have lasted for about a year, tops. The last one Billeaux could remember that didn’t feel like a blur. Times weren’t easy, but they were… simpler when it was just him and Harry. Even when their relationship grew more complicated as time passed, they’d drown it in caffeine, liquor and empty affection. What other choice was there? There was no confronting the barrier that separated them socially.

It would soon come to be that continuing to refuse to acknowledge that barrier, only allowed for more of them to be built. More would be realized about each other that only made it harder and harder to stay on the same page. Arguments over everything and nothing at once became more common than they ever had been.

”Again?” Benjamin bit back an exasperated groan.

He pressed a wad of cotton to the side of Harry’s face, the alcohol making him stifle a wince.

”I told ya, didn’t I? That part of town isn’t kind to guys who don’t know how things work over there. Didn’t help that you kept on acting all chummy with me. What happened to a foot’s distance?”

”Well I’m sorry,” Benjamin scowled as he wiped the dried blood from the other’s face, “but with how things have been between us these past few months, you really expected me to simply trail behind you like a lost dog?”

”A foot’s distance means not grabbing my hand when folks are around, Ben. Especially when a guy comes up to me wantin’ to get licked? When I tell you to scram, you scram.”

”Well I’m sorry that I—“ he struggled with the bandage, ”embarrass you so much.”

Harry fell silent as the other applied the bandage to his face.

”It’s not that, Ben…”

He grabbed his shoulders before he could stand, pulling him closer.

Benjamin’s face reddened, his mouth slightly agape. His hands reached for the ones gripping his shoulders. His eyes were glued to Harry’s face that seemed to soften with an unusual amount of concern.

That face that still left him weak in the knees.

How could such a cause of havoc could entice him so intensely was something he never understood.

Without thinking, he leaned in, his eyelids fluttering shut. He could feel the other man breathe against him, leaning in just as closely, wanting this just as much as he did.

No.

Before they could touch, Benjamin pulled back, his breath hitching. He pushed Harry’s hands off his shoulders and stood up.

”I have some… work, to get done.”

Harry watched him leave the room with haste, his expression deprived. Deprived of what his lover once gave so willingly.

Eventually, Billeaux would go on to get his masters at TTMEU. The now 25 year old man was an esteemed student in his department from his studies on water consumption alone. Perhaps this was what attracted the attention of the man himself, Caldwell B. Cladwell.

For it wasn’t long before the scientist was approached with a business opportunity. One that at first glance, seemed to hold the answers to these fears of his, fears that had kept him up at night for months.

“Pardon me, Mr. Cladwell, sir, you want me on your research team?”

“Does it seem like I’m here for anybody else, Benjamin Billeaux, is it?”

“I’m just… oh my. At Urine Good Company… why, they control every public amenity in town.”

Cladwell and the much younger man had been holding a discussion in a small office, the latter sat in a rolling chair. Occasionally he’d start spinning in it, only to be asked to stop.

“Now, if you would be so kind as to aid me in my endeavors, Benjamin, you’ll find yourself with a hefty pile of cash in your hands. And not only that, but if you’d allow me…”

The tall, classy man stood before a projector, and a monochrome presentation appeared on the screen in front of him. Over a gray background read in a black cursive font ‘Beaches of Rio.’ Caldwell clicked through multiple black and white slides, each showcasing a different beach.

Soft, nearly white sand. Beautiful outstretched shorelines with what could only be pure blue water, a truly foreign sight to behold after years and years of water deprivation.

“You see, Benjamin. Once we finish our job around here, and the profits from our efforts all come together, with my generous heart, I plan on treating my most cherished workers with a trip to none other than Rio Del Rio. That is, of course, only if you intend on taking my offer.”

“Mr. Cladwell,” Billeaux let out a nervous chuckle, “how do I even begin? This really is an opportunity you don’t see every day.”

“You don’t see it in every life, either, Mr. Billeaux. Which is why I encourage you to peruse your options. To think of that opportunity. To think of your life, say, five years from now. To think of tomorrow. Report back to me in a week once you’ve decided.”

“And then?”

“And then, it’s farewell to the dirty little bunnies of this town and all their misfortune. Do you ever worry about amenity fees, Billeaux?”

“Well—“

”Well, fret no longer. We’ll have you covered in terms of, oh, you know…”

“That’s… great. I-I’ll most certainly get back to you at once with my decision, Mr. Cladwell!”

Caldwell smirked, a glint of indecipherable motives in his eyes.

“Oh believe me, you won’t need much time to decide. But I am thoughtful, that way.”

If there was one thing Cladwell was right about, it was certainly that first part.

It was as he said, not everybody had this opportunity at their fingertips. Not everybody would get to see the clouds clear for the brighter day ahead.

Billeaux wasted no time in accepting the position.

After all, what was there to lose? It paid more than nearly any other research department in town. If he put his all into climbing that ladder, he could only imagine the influence he could have at that company in five years. This could pave the way to that tomorrow that he so desperately wanted to cling to. Holding onto the present wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough, and he should’ve known that sooner.

Here was the chance to do more than what would only affect the now. Here was the chance to help change the future of this town, of his own life, of what he had with Harry. The only way that love could survive is if it had a future to give it purpose, and here it was, right in Billeaux’s hands.

All he had to do was say the word.

”Mr. Cladwell.”

The older man looked upwards at Benjamin.

”I’ve… decided to accept a position on your research team.”

Cladwell smiled.

”A wise decision, Mr. Billeaux.”

The only thing on his mind from that point is what he would tell Harry.

This would be good for them. He knew it would. If there was any way of preserving this, of preserving the love they had for one another and its ability to survive, he was certain it would be found through this opportunity. After all, Harry already had two brothers at Urine Good Company. One of whom was Mr. McQueen.

The two men would be meeting in his home the following day. Then would be the best time to tell him.

The door to his house swung open to reveal Harry on the other side.

He was greeted with a warm beam.

”Hello, mon chéri!” Benjamin excitedly brought him inside by his hand, “quickly, before anyone sees you.”

For the most part, things had been going smoothly for the rest of the time they spent in Benjamin’s home. The two men were cuddled up on his sofa, stuck in those long, deep conversations. A lantern burning. A radio crackling, announcing the latest decisions made by the Legislature.

It almost started to feel like it used to.

“Do you want to know what happened the other day, Harry?”

Benjamin was absent-mindedly adjusting the other man’s jacket.

“Go ahead,” he shrugged.

“Well, I met with Caldwell B. Cladwell! He asked to meet with me, Harry!”

Harry fell dead silent. He sat frozen as if a gun had fired.

A sliver of uneasiness crept onto Benjamin.

“Wait… what? The Cladwell?”

Harry asked defensively.

“Yes…?”

“Benjamin, what did Caldwell B. Cladwell want to do with you? Tell me, damnit! You didn’t get anybody sent to Urinetown, did you?”

“What?” His eyes widened, “no, no, nobody went to Urinetown, Harry. He made an offer to me.”

The air went colder.

”What kind of offer?”

A moment of hesitation caught Benjamin off guard. He swallowed his doubt and continued.

“Well, you know the people who put these amenities in place.”

“Too well,” Harry spat.

“Yes, and you know who’s on top of it all. Who keeps them all running as intended, so we don’t have to worry about any more water leaving the ground than what is necessary. It’s all Cladwell, Harry.”

He listened, albeit he was visibly unconvinced by everything Benjamin was saying.

“And as you well know by now, I got my master’s recently. And well, you know he’s almost certainly going to send his daughter to one of the Most Expensive Universities once she grows up. We crossed paths, maybe once or twice. And then he asked to meet with me.”

“Asked to meet with you…”

“He asked to meet with me about a job opportunity.”

Harry’s expression made him immediately regret what he was about to confess, but he was too far in to backtrack now.

A mistake that he never learned from to this day.

“A job opportunity.”

“Yes.”

Benjamin took the silence that followed as a cue to explain himself.

“You see, the money that they take from the throng here, it all goes towards research. You know, to benefit the company and their efforts to secure the water supply in this town. They need a good number of people to be able to get that research, and… well, that’s why Caldwell came to me.”

An inkling of excitement crawled into his tone.

“I’m somewhat of a renowned student at TTMEU, and he said he’d learned of me before, of my work in various projects throughout my field. So he asked to meet with me. And he offered me a place on his research department of hydrology at Urine Good Company.”

“And…”

“And I took it.”

Harry sat forward on the sofa, completely speechless with disbelief.

“Oh, don’t you know what this means, Harry? For us? For tomorrow? Do you know how much Cladwell is offering me to take up this position? Why, he said with my potential, I might even find myself leading the effort!”

Benjamin put his hands on Harry’s shoulders.

“This could be it, Harry. This could be everything. This could build tomorrow.”

Harry’s expression morphed from one of shock, into one of pure offense.

“Benjamin, you gotta be kidding me…”

He muttered under his breath.

“What’s that?”

“You gotta be fucking kidding me!” He shot up from the sofa, “You? At Urine Good Company? Benjamin, that pile of buffoonery has reeked of corruption and deceit for years! I would know, I got brothers who work there! Who do you think keeps this town runnin’ the way it does? Who do you think has the Legislature wrapped around their finger? Who do you think gets the final say in what gets you carted to Urinetown?”

“But don’t you see? That’s not something we’ll have to worry about anymore! With me at UGC, everything will be covered. And if they know that you have connections…”

A scoff left Harry.

“Connections I have now haven’t done me any good, but sure. A UGC puppet trysting with a poor man, I’m sure that’ll look swell to Caldwell.”

Blood rushed to Benjamin’s face.

”What?” He chuckled, “what were you planning on telling the man? That we’re just a couple of regular ol’ buds? That we got girls of our own back home? Or were you gonna tell him that you’re a pansy?”

“Harry!”

He tightened his hands into fists to rein in his anger.

”All I’m doing… is telling you to think about the grand scheme of things...”

“There is no grand scheme for people like us in those parts, Ben. Only trouble. The only grand scheme I see is this so-called water preservation business,” he spat, “tell me, why does the Legislature keep hitting us with fee hike after fee hike? Because they care about the betterment of the people? Ah, give me a break! For a guy with university dough, I thought you’d be smarter than that.”

He glared at the young scientist with distaste. His arms crossed over the fabric of his brown jacket.

Benjamin swallowed his frustration.

“If you’d only give this a chance, we’d find a way to move past that. This ‘bad business’ is simply what we need to endure to get to a brighter tomorrow. And with the help of this research, I guarantee it’ll only take another handful of years before a long term solution to this water shortage is found.”

His face hardened, as if to mask any doubt he may have previously held.

“And if what it takes to get to that tomorrow is a couple of strings pulled at the Legislature, and a couple of trips to Urinetown—even if I need to pull a few strings myself to protect us— I think that’s a worthwhile price to pay.”

Their hands forcibly interlocked.

“Think of tomorrow, Harry. Think of what this could mean for us. Think of the life we’ll be able to have five years from now. The love we’ll be able to share five years from now, love like what we had those nights we spent talking by that old lantern. Those nights we spent dancing over that radio. Those nights we spent people watching by the window, stargazing in the grass.”

The light of that aforementioned lantern glistened in his dark brown eyes.

“I could give you everything. I could give us everything.”

To this day, Benjamin wasn’t sure if he’d been imagining the brief way Harry’s face seemed to soften with doubt, before his anger inevitably took over, and he forcibly ripped his hands away from his.

“You’ve gotta be losing your damn mind if you think this is gonna do anything but run this town further and further into the ground. You’ve heard what happens around here. You’ve seen what happens around here. You were there when that old buddy of mine was dragged off to Urinetown. Guess what? I haven’t seen the guy since! You wanna know why? It’s because there’s nothin’ left of him! They probably snuffed him and threw him into the nearest empty ditch, just like I said they would!”

He got in the shorter man’s face, as if saying it any closer would make it any easier to drive it into his head.

“You know what the people on top do to folks who dare step out of line. You know the fear they thrust upon the poorest of us. And yet still you choose to believe that what they’re doing is in our best interests. I gotta say Benjamin, I never took you as being that damn stupid.”

Benjamin took a step back, visibly insulted.

“I thought I ‘didn’t know half of what happened around here,’ whatever happened to that, Harry? Why only now am I suddenly aware of their intentions?”

“Because it doesn’t take a guy with university dough to see it for himself when he’s been around a guy like me for this long. I’ve told you face to face what goes on around here, but you don’t even bother to listen. Instead you go on and on about ‘tomorrow's’ when you can’t even open your eyes to take a look around at what today is like.”

“But I have! I’ve seen the fear in the people’s eyes, I see it every time I walk outside. That’s what I don’t want for us! I do think about that friend of yours that was taken away, don’t you think he had people that loved him, the way I love you? The only way to keep what we have is to hold onto that long-term solution that I trust in the higher-ups to find. What use is there in keeping all our focus on what today holds, when there’s the possibility of a tomorrow to work toward instead?”

“That’s not what you told me that night, Benjamin.”

The air fell into a tense silence.

“What?” Benjamin faltered.

“You wanna know what you told me?” Harry went on, “you told me that when we’re left with nothing but to fear what tomorrow holds, we think of what we have today. And I’ll tell ya, the people here know nothing but fear.”

Hands firmly gripped his shoulders before readjusting themselves to move to his head.

“But you told me there was a point to this, a point to knowing you— no, loving you, loving you the way I haven’t loved another guy in my life. I don’t care what you think this is. If you’ve had enough of the risks and you want to go back to safer things now. You’re the first guy that I’ve seen who’s made me think this way. You changed the way I see all of this that night. And now you wanna backtrack like nothing you said meant a thing.”

Benjamin was left wordless.

There was no denying that the person he was back then was different than who he was now.

He had more crucial affairs to attend to now than ones of the love variety.

For what good was love with no tomorrows to nurture it?

It was something Billeaux asked himself then, and something he still asked himself now. But it was something he found himself asking himself back then as a form of persuasion toward himself more than anything else.

Because as certain as he was about devoting this much of himself to this matter, he needed to be reined in from losing sensibility in those deep coffee brown eyes of his, that flame that never went out. The dirt marks that always traced his face. His dark overgrown hair that was surprisingly soft when he had ran his hand through it.

The time Benjamin had let go of what was logical and kissed him like it was all that mattered.

He wouldn’t let himself be swayed by love’s outstretched hand any longer.

“I was a fool that night, Harry.”

Betrayal glistened in the other’s eyes but still he refused to pull away.

“Seems to me that you’re not much less of a fool now.”

Conflicting thoughts flooded Benjamin’s mind, like water rushing through every puncture in the walls. The longer he stayed this way with Harry, the more convinced he was that he would go against his better judgment and let himself be wrapped into what he would ultimately come to regret. The more he was convinced he’d do something stupid.

There was no other way to prevent himself from giving into his foolishness.

Harry fell back with Benjamin’s shove, his wide-eyed gaze locked on him. The shorter man’s hitched breaths were the only sound that followed. He loathed how the sudden aggression made him tremble with irrepressible emotion.

He loathed how Harry knew just how feeble he truly was.

“If you think I’ll let my love for you come in the way of what we both know is necessary for the better of tomorrow, then I suggest you ‘love’ someone else.”

His attempts at steadying his own voice failed him.

Harry didn’t move.

He merely stood, shock visible through his pained expression.

The light of the lantern began to swirl in his watery brown eyes.

“Maybe I will,” he spat, bitterness and betrayal in his tone all at once.

He turned slowly and with reluctance. Maybe then Benjamin wouldn’t see him hurriedly wiping at his eyes.

Oh.

Oh dear.

Was that how it came out?

It couldn’t have come out that way.

“Harry, no.”

Benjamin rushed to grab his hand, only for him to immediately snatch it back.

“I didn’t mean that, I promise, I didn’t mean what I said! I—“

He pathetically choked on his own words.

“No, I don’t want for you to go. I never meant that I wanted for you to go. I was just…”

Harry turned to face him.

Tears streaked his dirt-flecked face.

“If you really meant that, you should’ve remembered that before you got yourself wrapped up with Cladwell.”

Benjamin was trying with everything he had not to fall apart right then and there.

Blinking rapidly, he balled his hands into fists.

“All— all I ever wanted was for us to be happy, Harry. I wanted for us to have a tomorrow, a reason for our love to mean something…”

“You gave me that reason a long time ago. It seems you don’t care for it much anymore. You don’t care much for this anymore.”

Harry grabbed his bag from the sofa and began toward the way of the door.

“Wait!”

Benjamin pursued him, still pleading with all he had.

“I was stupid, I was foolish! I shouldn’t have said that to you, I know I shouldn’t have said that to you! Please, don’t go… you can’t go.”

Harry was no longer responsive, but he kept begging as if his life depended on it, tears burning his eyes.

“Please, I can’t do this without you. None of it. I love you. I love you more than anything.”

Words slurred and melted together as they began to come out in sobs. His vision clouded over, his trembling worsening with each passing second.

In one last desperate attempt to convince him to stay, he grabbed Harry by the shoulder.

“Don’t…”

He choked out.

“…don’t leave me alone.”

For a moment, everything went still.

He was swiped away by the same hand that swung the door open.

One last bitter, longing glance was shot in the direction of Benjamin.

And the door was shut.

It shut on everything the two men once had.

That first night they spent talking under the streetlights. The times following that they met on the outskirts of town, in rundown bars. That first night Harry spent in Benjamin’s home. The times they spent by that lantern that still burned behind him as he stared at the door. The times they spent by the radio that had long since ceased the Legislature’s broadcast. The times they spent by the window sill. The times they spent under the stars.

The door shut on the long conversations, the drinks, the dancing, the listening, the people watching.

The door shut on the night they first kissed.

It shut on the way Benjamin hadn’t gone back to his own home that night. The past lovers had fallen asleep next to each other, a lone mattress fitting the two of them.

The door shut on their love.

The love they had then, the love they could’ve had in the future, the love they still held for each other even in that very moment.

The love Benjamin tried everything in his power to preserve.

The love he lost.

The door had shut on everything.

Benjamin didn’t know when he’d ended up on the floor. He didn’t know when its tiles had been doused in his tears. He didn’t even know when he’d started to cry.

But cry he did.

Weeping how he’d never wept for another person before. The crackling of the radio across the room was drowned out by his cries. He wrapped arms tightly around himself, pretending it was the arms of his lover around him instead. His chest ached with gross, heaving sobs. They wracked and shook his body for what felt like hours. For what might as well have been hours.

For it would be hours until his pained wails would cease, and he would get up from the floor.

That day never left Billeaux. Not after weeks, months, a year, five years.

He was 30 now. It had been five years since he and Harry stopped seeing each other. And still, that day kept him wide awake at night, wondering how it all could’ve been avoided.

But that wasn’t the point. It never had been.

What happened between Benjamin and Harry couldn’t have been avoided.

Could it have?

Could fire and water exist in camaraderie? Could night and day exist as one? Could piano and forte be sung out in harmony?

There was once a time where Benjamin thought the two went together like yin and yang, complimenting each other in ways they never thought possible. Completing each other in a way they never knew they needed.

But it became clear to him as his bleary gaze lingered over the sky that night, that the stars had not aligned to allow for it.

Though, it was unsure if he believed in their word anymore. If he ever truly had.

It didn’t matter.

None of it did.

From that point on, love wasn’t what needed to be strode toward.

For there was no love to stride toward.

But Billeaux didn’t need love. He never had.

Science dealt with logic and reason.

Love had none.

He was right in avoiding it from the start.

There were far more important, more sensible matters to devote himself to. Love was not one, it would never be one ever again.

The town was a disaster. The drought had ravaged it for nearly fifteen years.

Urine Good Company was its only hope.

That long term solution would emerge from the grey skies above.

But not if he continued to devote himself to senseless love affairs. Not if he continued to let emotion sway his logic.

Not if he continued to love Harry Redwood.

If tomorrow came, it would come for those tough enough to cling to it. It would come for those who devoted themselves to finding it.

There was no tomorrow for those with the misfortune of finding themselves in love’s unrelenting hold.

Throughout all the courses, papers, projects and theses Billeaux had weathered at TTMEU, all the meetings he’d been in to secure his position at Urine Good Company, all the way up until he’d gotten his PhD, nothing he’d been through had come close to the hardship he faced upon losing whom was essentially his only friend. The only love he’d ever had. The only love he would have for the rest of the time he spent in this trash heap of a town.

For it was true. He never did love again after Harry.

Though, if you were to ask anyone at Urine Good Company, especially Mr. McQueen, you would soon hear that Billeaux tended to be rather… social with his male coworkers.

A lot of what Cladwell’s pesky assistant had to say about him was simply rumor, not unlike your average high school gossip. But admittedly, the doctor was a little more— how to put it— coquettish than he used to be.

In simplest terms, he would come to accept that he was homosexual shortly after ending things with Harry. He would also come to find that at Urine Good Company, he certainly wasn’t the only one. You could also ask Mr. McQueen in regard to that.

It was an admittedly unsettling revelation. Daunting, even. Billeaux hadn’t returned to his hometown, to his own family since his realization. How could his folks possibly handle this knowledge of their son? He was everything everyone— family, churchgoers, other trusted individuals— had warned him against being as a boy. An invert, a deviant, a pansy.

Things were different back home than they were in this town. The thought of anyone from where he left ever knowing of him the way he knew himself sent a shiver down his spine.

Had it been there from the start, these feelings of his? For how long had they been so blatantly obvious? How could he only now see himself for who he was, after losing what had made him see it to begin with?

Granted, there was some privilege to be obtained by working under Cladwell, which meant that any potentially scandalous behaviors could be swept under the rug in the name of maintaining business professions. And considering the ethics of the company itself, nobody at Urine Good Company was afraid to play dirty if it meant sparing their name.

McQueen himself had once admitted to the doctor— and him alone— of blackmailing a coworker who had tried to expose the assistant’s secret relationship with the senator. The less than pleasant confrontation ended in him being thrown to the floor by Ryder and threatened into secrecy.

All this to say that there was no shortage of insecurity among the homosexual workers at Urine Good Company. But perhaps it was that knowingness of men such as McQueen that made it easier for Billeaux to come to terms with his own attraction.

But what use was that revelation when the only man he’d ever loved had left him alone?

In attempts to quell the despondency brought on by his lack of any deeper connections, he’d done his fair share of flirting and making eyes with the other men in and outside of his department. Admittedly even going as far as to bring home a few to sleep around with. To say it ever meant anything beyond a handful of flings and trysts was an overstatement.

Nothing would mean anything after him.

For never did the church bells cease to toll for an undead wedding day.

The scientist no longer saw any need to concern himself with love. Instead he would see his coworkers go on to get married, even being invited to the wedding of Mr. McQueen and Senator Fipp, to the former’s dismay.

Harry had been there.

The entire time he had avoided the eyes of the drunken man.

Needless to say, the experience was far from pleasant.

“Can’t you just… enjoy somebody’s presence for once?”

The younger groom had been sassing him throughout the night.

“When it’s one of you?” Billeaux grumbled, straightening his shoulders, “that’s a difficult ask, Mr. McQueen.”

His eyes trailed over to his coworker’s brother, who was visibly intoxicated and was now being picked up from off the floor by
Theodore Lockstock, McQueen’s brother in law via Isaac Barrel.

Amongst all the alcohol, a selfish part of Billeaux wondered if he had been a thought in the poorer man’s head that night.

Or if he had already drank his former lover away.

Through the marriages the doctor had seen, never was he interested in pursuing one of his own. As he was right that someday, shortly before the uprising, he’d find himself leading the research department of hydrology at Urine Good Company, and that alone was all the stress he needed to endure.

His coworkers certainly didn’t make it any easier on him.

It wasn’t that Dr. Billeaux, as he would soon be referred to by, hated his job by any means. Putting the questionable ethics of the company aside, it brought him a sense of fulfillment to be of use in the way he was.

Almost enough that he could begin to ignore all that he had said aside to be part of this effort. The cacophony of emotions in his head needed not to be acknowledged. All he had to focus on was what he was told to do, and what would be gained from the company’s research.

After all, hadn’t he always loved science for that very reason?

In no way did the doctor ever expect, much less hope for his mindset to be challenged. Especially not by being confronted with the presence of a scrappy young townsman.

He anticipated even less that it would be challenged by watching his own manager hold a mirror to the person he’d become.

The meeting had taken place in Cladwell’s office. The boss himself stood in front of a small wooden desk, a typewriter on top of it. Behind the desk stood Mr. McQueen with a briefcase. The company secretary Miss Millennium and Senator Fipp from the Legislature were present as well. And in the middle of it all was the talk of the town himself, Bobby Strong.

If he were to be completely honest with himself, Billeaux wasn’t completely sure why he’d been called to this meeting. There was nothing he personally needed to say to the young man, and for how rarely he was actually involved in public affairs when it came to UGC, he would be surprised if Bobby had any personal grievances with him that weren’t by association.

The doctor hadn’t even gone with the others to dissolve the riot.

Granted, McQueen in all of his spite purposefully locked him out of the office that day— not that he really wanted to be involved, from what he could hear from outside the door, most of what Cladwell had to say had something to do with bunnies— so there was really no way he could’ve joined them. But even if that weren’t the case, Benjamin was never the type for confrontation to that extent.

For being surrounded by so many of his enemies, Bobby stood with a confident air to him, as if he were prepared to take Cladwell head on.

“You’ve caused a lot of… excitement, over the last few days, Mr. Strong. You’ve got a lot of people riled up.”

Cladwell’s tone was suave. The man naturally spoke in a soft, almost calming manner. But never was he slow to raise it when his orders were challenged. Everyone in the room knew better than to test him.

Bobby, however, didn’t.

“This is only the beginning, Mr. Cladwell,” he said, “the people have only just begun to fight.”

Throughout the confrontation, Bobby’s confidence never wavered. Even while being prodded by a number of accusatory remarks, the assistant custodian stood firm by his beliefs.

Somewhere in the middle of their conversation, Officer Lockstock and Barrel would hastily make their way through the entrance of the office, alerting Mr. Cladwell of what was apparently a disturbance at two other nearby amenities. Cladwell asked for Mr. McQueen, who carefully placed the briefcase he’d been holding onto the desk, complete with a flamboyant little flare of his hands.

Typical Ryder, as he so hated to be called.

“Do you remember the Stink Years, Mr. Strong?” Cladwell asked, “those years when the water table started to drop and just kept on dropping? No one thought they had much time back then, so many of us did…”

Reluctant eye contact was made with Miss Pennywise.

“Questionable things. There was the looting of course, and the hoarding. Riots broke out like there was no tomorrow, for there was no tomorrow, but there is always a tomorrow if you’re tough enough to cling to it. Which is why I’ve asked you here tonight.”

The quorum would turn out to be no more than a bribery to convince Bobby Strong to cease the uprising.

Unethical? Possibly. Ineffective? Inarguably false.

Urine Good Company was built off bad ethics, but no one else but its people knew better on how to get a person to do as they’re told.

“The truth is,” Cladwell said in an attempt to make himself sound sincere, “I’m no more evil than you, or Miss Pennywise, or any of those poor people you insist on trying to lead. I’m only a simple man, trying to cling to tomorrow every day, by any means necessary.”

The scientist nodded along, his permanent smile not quite reaching his eyes.

What else was he here to do, anyway?

Mr. Cladwell offered Bobby Strong the briefcase of green hundreds that Mr. McQueen had placed on the table, granting amnesty to his fellow revolutionaries on the condition that they obeyed the improved fee hikes.

The young assistant custodian stared down at the stacks of dollars, conflict swirling in his eyes.

“So many tomorrows…”

“Yes.”

For a moment, Billeaux was convinced this would sway him.

After all, what more could a scrappy townsman want than enough cash to take him all the way to Rio?

Bobby’s hardened face countered the doctor’s thoughts immediately.

“But I’m afraid my conscience will cost you more than a pile of cash, Mr. Cladwell.”

From across the room, Penny seemed about ready to faint.

After all, she, like the rest, knew better than to test Caldwell.

“Bobby… it really is an awful lot of cash.”

“Free access is the only cash I’m interested in.”

Through the corner of his eye, Billeaux could make out Cladwell’s darkening expression.

“I thought he had an understanding, Bobby.”

His voice was as soft as ever, but laced with contempt as he spoke.

“Then understand this,” Bobby spoke loud enough to get the attention of everybody at the meeting, “if there truly is a way to this bright new day, we’ll find it together.”

He squinted at the wealthy man before him.

“And not just the wealthy few. And for that to happen… we need free access.”

Cladwell raised his chin, as if sensing the challenge that Bobby’s words had put in place.

“Free access is impossible.”

“Then that’s what I’ll tell the people.”

The young revolutionary turned his back on the wealthy man to make his leave.

“STOP!”

A powerful voice boomed against the walls of the office. As if on cue, the staff of the UGC and Legislature fell into their places like the puppets they were, silent and still as Cladwell took the reins of the discussion.

“We’ll not return to the Stink Years, Mr. Strong. I won’t allow it!”

The only person who stepped out of line was Penny. The only one who knew Bobby Strong personally.

“Caldwell, what are you doing?”

The once suave nature of the man’s voice was long gone. It carried as he spoke, striking intimidation into the men below him. Billeaux tried not to let it show, keeping his head held high.

“I’ve spent my life building this company, paying off the police, bribing the political elite, and snuffing out popular resistance as if it were a naughty baby bunny in the palm of my hand! My right hand. I’ve centralized all the power into one pinpoint spot between these two ears! And I’ll not allow some dreamy-eyed boy who can’t remember the Stink Years to ruin all that!”

He bellowed.

“SEIZE HIM!”

“Don’t do it Caldwell,” Penny protested, “there’s no telling what they’ll do to the girl!”

Hope Cladwell.

The memory of Hope returned to Billeaux. She was merely a teenager when he’d met her. A bright girl with a head of long, golden hair. They’d never spoken much. He never saw a need to form any connections beyond professional with Caldwell’s daughter.

Lately she’d returned to Urine Good Company, now around the age of 20, if he recalled. A recent graduate of TMEU, she was the new fax and copy girl.

Then, somewhere while the rest of UGC’s prominent figures were out trying to ‘settle’ the riots, Hope had been captured by the revolutionaries, and now she was holed up in the sewer with the rest of them.

“That’s just a chance I’ll have to take.”

The room erupted in gasps of horror.

From beside Billeaux, a comment came from Miss Millennium about Cladwell being “as evil as they say.”

The rest of the encounter began to grow fuzzy in Billeaux’s mind as he stood silently, his face slack with horror.

Only one comment past that point would continue to stick with him.

“You think that just because I love my daughter, I’ll stop clinging to tomorrow? I’ve closed my heart to love once, I can do it again.”

Love was but another thing to be sacrificed in the name of tomorrow. Not a reason to pursue it to begin with. Love was an obstacle, love was to be shut away for the greater good. Love wasn’t the greater good in of itself.

It was only as Cladwell bellowed those bitter, bitter words that Benjamin would begin to truly recognize himself for who he’d become.

In the beginning, what lay ahead of the young scientist was murky. How he’d always hated living with that uncertainty. Science, even in all its complexities, still had a somewhat defined realm of possibilities. Laws were narrow and concrete. What happens in science is set in stone. Theories provide a framework. A reason, a why. Theories are broader, more fallible, and can shift over time, but ultimately they aim to explain phenomena with the consistent use of laws, repeated experiments and evidence.

For all his life, that controlled realm of knowledge had been what drew him in.

It was why he never cared for people, and to an even lesser extent, love.

Love had no laws. Love had no framework. Love had no what, love had no why. Love was everything and nothing and peace and havoc and bliss and despair and solace and agony all at once. He had no interest in anything of such disarray.

But such as the mess that is emotions and all their inconsistencies, he would come to find how wrong he was.

Harry was disarray. Harry was run-ins on the bad part of town, bar crawls on a short wallet, scraps with strangers in the streets, shared cigarettes, nights drunk on a friend’s sofa. He was dimly lit conversations, passionate kisses shared under stars, nights on a twin-sized mattress watching the other dream with longing. He was small pleasures and bigger mistakes. He was impulse and rage as he was care and sincerity. He was fervor and fire in all its forms.

He was everything Billeaux hated about love.

And yet that disarray would draw him in, in a way science never had.

The months spent with that man changed him in ways that he never would’ve thought possible. That flame in his eyes would ignite something in Billeaux’s heart the way he lit Harry’s cigarette. He gave into the uncertainty. Accepted it, even. He thought impulsively. Of the now. Of love. Of today.

But if there was something Billeaux had always been, it was a coward.

And there was something about how the town was beginning to change, something that told him that the present simply wasn’t enough to think about anymore. Urinetown became all too common of a word, enough for dread to begin eating away at his sense of reason. There was a future for this town that needed to be worked toward. A future for the two of them that he needed to latch onto. Taking Cladwell’s offer only further convinced him of such.

That fear took hold of him until he finally gave in.

And in what felt like the blink of an eye, his only friend, his only love, who he had gone this far for in the beginning, was no longer there. The scientist was left alone with only his thoughts for solace.

And it was all his fault.

In the years following he would try with all he had to forget those months spent with the current rebel. As Cladwell had implied, there were things to be worked toward that simply didn’t involve love. Love was what put him in this position, and he wasn’t going to let it ruin him anymore than it already had. The town needed the work of Urine Good Company, and he knew he needed this opportunity. It was the only thing he had still going for him.

Then came Bobby. Young, foolish Bobby Strong. Speaking of freedom, hope, love.

He was sick of hearing Bobby’s name. It was all Cladwell ever talked about now. He didn’t want to think about Bobby, didn’t want to hear anymore about his ‘dreams.’ Didn’t want to hear anymore about the ‘todays’ he spoke of.

Didn’t want to think about how far he’d strayed from how he viewed the world as a younger man.

And how much he now saw himself reflected in the echoing words of Caldwell B. Cladwell.

Where had Billeaux lost himself? Where had he lost the love he knew he still had for Harry?

He knew where he’d lost it.

For he’d lost it long before that door shut.

Only a few minutes had passed. Somewhere amidst the havoc, Miss Pennywise was escorted out by UGC security. Bobby was being escorted out of the office by Lockstock and Barrel, seemingly in the process of being dragged down to Urinetown.

And at so, so young.

It was awful.

Mr. McQueen and Senator Fipp had left upon Cladwell’s orders, leaving only Dr. Billeaux and Miss Millennium.

Cladwell pointed a finger to the former, then to the latter.

“You, you, and…”

He pointed to where Fipp had left from, and redirected it in the direction of Billeaux again.

“You, come with me.”

Even as the secretary, Miss Millennium didn’t engage much with the staff at UGC on much more than a professional basis, and for the majority of the time she and the doctor followed Cladwell, she hadn’t said a word to him.

What was there to say? Nobody wanted to be here in the midst of this complete fiasco.

Suddenly, the boss stopped in his tracks.

“I don’t trust Fipp. He’s always been one for… misplaced priorities. Surely you both understand what I mean in regard to the senator.”

That last word left his mouth with distaste. Billeaux and Millennium nodded silently.

“Miss Millennium, I want you to find Fipp. Find him and make sure that he plans to follow my orders regarding the Legislature. I hate to think he might be flying the coop. Tell him that, Martha. Tell him I’ve got my eye on him.”

Millennium nodded again, leaving without a word with almost a hop to her pace.

Billeaux wouldn’t have been surprised that if Fipp was planning on escaping, she would find a reason to leave with him. Martha wasn’t that dedicated to the job.

The scientist followed Cladwell through the headquarters until they stopped again.

“I plan to meet with Mr. McQueen as soon as he’s done at the police department. Get a hold of as much as your crew as you can, doctor. Tell them procedures will have to be… delayed until this uprising is taken care of.”

As soon as Cladwell turned his back on the scientist, he made a run for it, booking it as far away from this ‘bad business’ as he could.

A feeling told him that he wouldn’t be returning for a long time.

He tore out the band keeping his long hair tied back. He struggled with the buttons of his lab coat to open it, letting the end of the white garment flow behind him as he walked with haste.

Billeaux didn’t know where he was headed. Perhaps he would shut himself in his home until the worst was over. Cladwell would snuff out the uprising and everything would return to its regular procedure.

Oh, what did he have to gain in returning to that crook, anyway? Spending the past five years in that circus of a company had already gotten him enough to board the next plane out of this town. He could fly the coop and nobody would know. He was wealthy, he could get away with it!

The streets that once held dozens were now barren, left in an eerie silence. Hadn’t Bobby mentioned that his throng would leave the sewers sooner rather than later?

The scientist had obeyed Cladwell’s every command for the past five years. He’d given up everything for the man. His own words, his worldview, his sanity, his love. His beau, his dearest, the only one he’d ever loved. He’d withstood the conditions for this long. A Benjamin from only six years ago would’ve dreamed of a position of such importance. But there was only so much he could continue to ignore before he’d realize how pointless all of this was.

Memory after memory had begun to return to him as he strode down that street, of that first encounter at that lamppost. The lamppost he could make out in the distance ahead. Under its light, he swore he could still make out that mysterious figure of a man.

It was one after another. The run-ins in town, conversations at the bar, cigarettes in the alleyway, the hidden confessions and wasted time that became the first kiss they shared, the one after that they shared in the brisk night air, the stars hung above them.

That fight, and then the next. And all the ones after.

The mistake, and then the worse mistake, all leading up to the worst mistake of them all.

Harry had left not knowing the love Benjamin still had for him. Not believing it for himself.

How could he?

Benjamin had never forgiven himself for that night, not after all these years.

Could Harry?

There was no bigger betrayal that he could wage toward everything Benjamin had worked for in the past than the emotions that clouded his logic. Irrational thoughts filled his mind. Maybe he’d find his lost love again. Maybe there was still a chance. A chance to take back what he’d said all those years ago and start anew. No longer did they have to worry about this awful town. Perhaps they could run away together, he thought, desperation and delusion clouding his cognition. Elope somewhere far, far away from here!

It was uncertain if what he was hearing was as much of a delusion as his own thoughts, but as he walked, he began to hear voices. A myriad of them. Voices of what almost seemed to be joy.

Cheering.

Cheering rang in the distance, loud and victorious.

Singing followed not so shortly afterwards. Words began to make themselves intelligible from afar.

Those who made dough from debasing need erasing, need the knife!

Let their blood flow like Campari! We’re not sorry, hey, that’s life!

One last desperate thought crawled into his mind.

One that suggested that maybe it wasn’t too late for the doctor.

A chilling feeling crawled up Benjamin’s spine. For the distance he’d walked having no more than a loiterer or two per corner, he felt as if he were being watched. Stalked, even. Closely, as if he were prey, and the predator was in the bushes, waiting with anticipation for the right moment to strike.

It was only a matter of paranoia.

Perhaps he was still a little shaken after abandoning his duties at Urine Good Company. After the shattering of his long-held worldview. Any man would be carrying himself with some level of apprehension, right?

A cough.

Benjamin’s head whipped around toward the source of the noise, only to find not a single person in sight.

It was beyond paranoia, he thought. He was going mad.

He needed to leave.

He didn’t know how, he didn’t know where. Standing here in these streets was twisting his stomach into knots.

Benjamin quickened his pace. Escape was the only thing that mattered to him in that moment, not the next, not tomorrow, nothing else was important. Now was all that filled his head.

A young woman threw herself in front of him, putting him at a halt. The doctor was met with a seemingly friendly face, adorning a pale dress and a head of long golden hair.

Hope Cladwell.

“Hope?”

She was grinning.

“Why, what are you doing out here? It’s not safe here, Hope. You have to go find your fa—“

In the midst of his confusion, Benjamin found himself surrounded.

How many had crowded around him, tens? Dozens?

He swallowed.

From behind Hope emerged…

No.

No.

It couldn’t have been.

From behind Hope emerged none other than Harry, near identical to how he’d looked when the two last spoke.

What marked the point where Benjamin’s world would distort into something unrecognizable.

That dusty oak brown jacket still fell over Harry’s shoulders, the way it had for years. His dark, choppy hair fell over his dirt-flecked face the way Benjamin had remembered it, matching his deep hickory brown eyes. Those eyes that once looked upon him with a tender, intimate fondness, now striking apprehension into him as he glared with resentment and vengeance.

“Harry?”

Benjamin physically restrained himself from reaching for him. From grabbing his hands and pulling him into a fervent, tearful embrace, everything he was scared would sway him away from what was important. That wasn’t important anymore.

Instead he remained where he stood, hands trembling.

“Harry, please, what’s happening?!”

Harry blinked away an indecipherable emotion in his eyes, before hurling a relentless kick into Benjamin’s shin.

A sharp, pained cry left him as his head hit the asphalt with a loud slam. The sound echoed in his ears, shock clouding his senses until his surroundings grew murky.

“Wh—“ he choked, “Harry, why…?”

His boot collided again with Benjamin’s side, harder this time. The scientist recoiled in agony. In the very little he was able to make out clearly, Harry’s expression read as bitter, almost pained. Still, he showed no sign of guilt.

And if it was that he did hold any guilt for his former lover, would Benjamin even have been able to make it out through his bleary eyes?

As he tried to regain focus, a little girl stepped into his line of sight. She held a stuffed bunny against her red and black checkered skirt, smiling as if this were simply another playground game to her.

An individual so outwardly innocuous, he wondered what part she had to play in this.

His question was answered sooner rather than later.

Her boot came down on his chest, forcing a painful cough out of his throat. His hands scraped against the asphalt as he tried to get free but the little girl kept her boot firm over his sternum, a giggle leaving her as she watched his attempt.

Handing her stuffed rabbit to a woman beside her, the little girl dropped to his level, putting her small hands firmly over a precise area on the top and bottom of his head.

”Snuff him, Sally!”

Her smile widened into what could only be described as a deeply unsettling grin, staring into his gaping watery eyes.

“Please, I’m not—“

He coughed.

He wasn’t Cladwell.

The man who’d taken advantage of a town-wide disaster for his own gain, turning a blind eye on the betterment of its people, putting love and those he held it for in jeopardy.

All in pursuit of tomorrow.

He wasn’t Cladwell.

For instead Billeaux was complicit and enabling, an active contributor to his cruelty in a manner specific to who he was, who he’d become. What he’d become.

And yet, even in that, he was all too similar to the man, in ways he reflected on in what he knew would be his final moments.

All in pursuit of tomorrow.

”Please… just—“

SNAP.

.

.

.

.

Once they liked to shoot their rifles, just for trifles! Hunt us down!

Ba-dap, ba-dap!

Now it’s we who play safari, they’re not sorry!

.

.

.

.

Cheers, whoops, and merry singing filled the air as we paraded around and away from the disfigured body of Benjamin Billeaux.

Little Sally had snapped his neck, leaving him but a pulp on the asphalt. The blood that poured from his head lathered his long hair and stained his white lab coat, leaving it to funnily almost match the little girl’s dress.

I’d seen some upside down things in this town of ours, being a common denominator of much of that ruckus, but seeing the head of that scientist I once knew twisted in the completely opposite direction… damn, it was disgusting. Revolting.

“Well, now that he’s been taken care of as well,” Hope beamed with pride, “I think it is time we find my father, and settle this once and for all. Perhaps Dr. Billeaux did have some good ideas.”

Our ringleader giggled with an almost sort of innocence, before leading us in the opposite direction from Benjamin.

Eager to snuff out that crooked Cladwell, I was quick to follow, only to be hit with a sudden wave of nausea. My mother Penny was eyeing me with concern. What’s the use? I didn’t need concern. I’d called for us to start killing those folks from the beginning, before Hope had even joined our riot. I was proud of it.

“Hey, Hope.”

My words betrayed me. They left me in a shaking mumble, so grossly feeble.

“Yes, Harry? Or should I say… brother?”

Hope nudged me as if we’d known each other for years. Not like I’d nearly riled up the rebels to hang her by a rope not even 24 hours ago. I kept myself from shrinking away from my ‘sister.’

“I…I’ll catch up to ya in a second here. I, uh, I got somethin’ in my boot. You boys move along now.”

She shrugged and continued in the same direction, the rest of the rebels following her. Penny’s gaze lingered on me before she joined them.

My eyes returned to him.

Benjamin Billeaux.

One of the closest friends I’d ever had in this trash heap of a town, and near everybody knew me.

He was an odd fella, to say the least. Almost mouse-like. He was a quiet, rather dainty man, easily startled. The guy had a lot to say though. Always going on about hypotheses and whatnot. He was interesting to listen to at times.

Against my better judgement, I might’ve found myself a little too… enticed by the man. Allured, as if he were a woman.

He wasn’t. I knew that.

But his thoughtful words when he spoke of things that intrigued him, his tenderness unlike what I’ve known from any other man. It lured me in like a moth to flame. His very essence, I started to need it more than I ever thought I could. More than what was good for me.

To my surprise, Benjamin would come to reveal that he needed me in the same way.

We’d had it good for a few months. For once in my life, I thought I’d finally had something that fear couldn’t take away. I thought Benjamin Billeaux was mine to keep.

But fear takes hold of anything it can, and it took hold of Ben. He got stupid, said some things he ended up regretting, and I wasn’t hearing any of it. I was so damn sick of the fear. I had enough of it to put up with in this town without letting it seep into what we had, us two.

I had enough of it in me.

We went our separate ways after that. That damn Cladwell made him the lead scientist at UGC, I heard. Isn’t that what he always wanted?

Well, here he was. Look where that got him.

Didn’t he want to know what it was like to be that bunny?

He sure got to find out this time around.

Looking at him sprawled against the asphalt all mangled and bloodied, I began to remember simpler times with the man.

Nights spent under the star-speckled sky, the now dead man probably sprawled over my floor instead of the pavement, in a fit of giggles after one too many drinks then. He always was the lightweight of us two. Some kind of jazz tune would be playing at the back of the room somewhere. I was never much of a dancer, but Benjamin moved with an almost captivating rhythm.

I found him beautiful.

The question of a ‘sorry’ garnered conflicting thoughts out of me.

Sorry, what for? Giving those folks what they were gonna give to us?

Urine Good Company had the blood of hundreds on their hands, running this already drought-struck town even further into the ground.

Cladwell had taken advantage of the fear that hovered over this town to turn its people into their puppets.

Benjamin just so happened to be one of his favorites.

Sure, I was sorry.

It was hard to not be.

As much as I despised myself for it all these years later, I couldn’t help but cling to those moments like they were the only thing worth giving a damn about in this dumpster of a town. The only thing that made it worth it to sing of today. Before Bobby Strong, those memories were just about all I had.

Maybe they were. Maybe those memories were the only reason I continued to walk the streets of this town, daring to listen to Bobby’s dreams of love, of freedom, of the sky.

No.

No, I wasn’t sorry. I wasn’t sorry at all for what Dr. Billeaux had coming. I wasn’t sorry when it was my own brother.

My heart hit me with a pang. Heavy, almost painful.

My brother, Isaac Barrel, and now Benjamin. Two faces I once regarded with fondness. Of all the humanity.

I forced myself to turn away from him.

Ben, my beloved.

The man I used to be able to hold a conversation with for hours, whom I’d share cigs with, whom I’d…

.

I’m not sorry.

.

Just unsound.

.

.

.

.

“Are you sure you’re alright with me staying here for the night? I hate to feel that I’m putting some kind of burden on you.”

Benjamin lay close to the edge of the small, dusty mattress, not paying any mind to the lack of a bed frame.

“It’s fine, Ben. Don’t want you runnin’ into any of those cops and makin’ them think you’re out for a pee behind the bush, neither.”

He chuckled in response to Harry. A light, gentle sound.

“I suppose not.“

“I’d best sneak you out before my mother comes home though. You’d hate to get an earful from her, I tell ya.”

A hand drew forward a lone blanket, covering the both of them.

“Well, we can worry about that in the morning, amor.”

If Harry’s face reddened upon hearing that name, Benjamin would never know. He snickered.

“Yeah, yeah. Get some shut-eye, Ben.”

He ruffled the shorter man’s hair playfully.

A sleepy smile spread across Benjamin’s face before he wrapped his end of the blanket around himself.

“Goodnight, Harry.”

Neither turned away from the other. Instead Harry watched as Benjamin’s eyelids fluttered shut, and he drifted off into a peaceful slumber. His gaze softened over the sight of his dozing lover. Serene, all his unease regarding the rest of town mercifully distant.

He held a hand to the sleeping man’s face to gently comb away a strand of his soft hair, ensuring that he was fully out of any consciousness of his surroundings.

Bringing him close, he let the words finally leave his lips. Those words he’d been afraid of for so long, but now were all that filled his head, ever since Benjamin found his way through the walls he’d tried so hard to uphold.

“I… I think I love you too.”

The night would make way for the dawn in only a matter of hours. Morning would peak over the horizon.

Tomorrow would bring forth another day.

But as the two men rested beside each other in tranquility, their minds lingered not on what the future would bring, but the simple pleasure sought by existing now within each other’s warmth.

Tomorrow would bring forth pains unbeknownst to either of them.

But all that existed, all that needed to exist in that very moment was love.

And tomorrow felt far, far away.