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For Stanley, waiting for Xeno after school was the only ritual of the day that was truly worthwhile. He leaned against the light pole on the corner, lit a cigarette, and let the thirty-minute advantage his schedule gave him pass slowly. He enjoyed that time alone, but he enjoyed even more the exact moment when the crowd of students began to pour out of the building, among them Xeno, who always looked for him first. Stanley was fascinated to see how a small smile, almost imperceptible to anyone else, would form on Xeno’s lips when he spotted him.
Every day, at that precise moment, Stan’s heart would race. It didn’t matter how tough the day had been or the bad taste left in his mouth after yet another argument with his father. Seeing Xeno smile at him like that erased all the noise in his head.
Without Stanley knowing it, for Xeno, the scene was a perfect mathematical constant. Finding the blond boy waiting for him, impeccably dressed, with the cigarette smoke contrasting with the violet of his lips, had an elegance that Xeno found magnetic.
That’s why, when he left school and found the light pole empty that afternoon, it threw him off.
Xeno pulled out his phone and tried calling him repeatedly, getting the same result over and over until the operator’s voice told him the device was turned off. Worry soon crept beneath his calm demeanor. Xeno understood Stanley’s mind very well: when the world became unbearable for him, his first instinct wasn’t to ask for help, but to isolate himself until he could process the shock on his own. Even knowing this, he couldn’t help but worry about him.
He decided to walk straight home. The journey felt longer and more dreary than usual without Stanley’s footsteps by his side; although Stanley didn’t usually talk much, he was always attentive to his reflections and new scientific projects.
As he crossed the threshold, the enormous house greeted him with its usual coldness. His parents were out of the country on a business trip, leaving the house in a dense, absolute silence, even more so than usual.
Xeno went up to his room, set his backpack on the floor next to his desk, and tried to make progress on the physics notes he had yet to finish for a new project he was working on. However, his analytical mind refused to focus. Every ten minutes, his gaze would inevitably drift toward the window or his phone screen, hoping for some sign of life from Stanley.
He knew Stanley better than anyone. He knew Stanley needed space when he felt overwhelmed, but the uncertainty was beginning to wear down his patience. By this time of night, Stan would have already returned one of his many calls, even if only to give a short reply and assure him that he was fine and that Xeno was overreacting.
It wasn’t until one in the morning that a faint tap against his window frame broke the silence in the room.
Xeno jumped up from his chair. As he opened the window, Stanley’s silhouette was swaying awkwardly from the tree next to the frame, and he leaped across the threshold, landing heavily and clumsily on the room’s carpet. He hadn’t fallen, but his body lacked its usual control. His clothes were disheveled, his gaze was alert, and there was a defensive stiffness in his shoulders that made it obvious from a mile away that his afternoon had been a complete disaster.
“Your cell phone is off,” Xeno said, breaking the silence as he closed the window behind him.
“The battery died,” Stanley lied in a raspy voice, avoiding eye contact as he made his way slowly toward the bed.
“Stan, I have been trying to reach you for hours,” Xeno insisted, crossing his arms with that subtle irritation that could only stem from genuine concern. “You could have sent a message before you disappeared.”
“I just didn’t feel like talking. Don’t act like a damn worried wife,” Stan replied brusquely, flopping down onto the mattress. “Just… let it go. I’m here now, aren’t I?”
Xeno frowned. He hated it when Stanley tried to put up a wall between them, let alone do it so blatantly right in front of him.
Ignoring his friend’s glare, Stan rummaged through his pocket until he pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. He placed the filter between his lips, but just before striking the flint, he looked up and found Xeno standing with his arms crossed, watching him with obvious annoyance.
“Don’t smoke your poisonous gas here. Go out to the backyard if you want to do that, but not in my room.”
Stanley clicked his tongue. Paying no heed whatsoever to the warning, he lit the cigarette anyway, took a deep drag, and, in a clear gesture of mockery, exhaled the thick cloud of smoke directly into Xeno’s face.
Xeno clenched his teeth. Taking a couple of firm steps, he approached Stanley and reached out to grab his forearm, determined to pull him to his feet and drag him out of the room.
“I told you not to…”
Stanley let out a faint, sharp whimper of pain and suddenly tensed his arm as he felt the pressure through his clothes, trying to break free from the grip with a movement that was far too clumsy and defensive for him.
Xeno froze instantly. The irritation on his face vanished, replaced by a cold, attentive seriousness. He didn’t let go, but he eased the pressure and carefully pulled the sleeve of Stanley’s jacket upward. As the skin was exposed, fresh red marks, cleanly carved in a horizontal pattern across the flesh of his forearm, were revealed under the lamp’s light.
The silence in the room became suffocating. Having been exposed, Stanley’s facade crumbled completely. He turned his face away in anger and shame toward a random spot in the room; he’d rather look at anything than meet Xeno’s eyes.
“Stan… Stanley, look at me.”
Stan ignored him. He reached with his free hand for the cigarette he was still holding between his lips, took one last drag, pressed it firmly against the wall to extinguish it, and then tossed it on the floor.
Xeno didn’t yell or confront him. He simply let out a heavy sigh through his nose, turned around, and went to fetch the first-aid kit he kept in the adjoining bathroom. He returned a few seconds later and knelt down in front of Stanley, who was still sitting at the foot of the bed, his gaze fixed on a single spot on the floor.
Xeno opened the metal box with precise movements. He took out cotton, antiseptic, and bandages, applying the liquid to the cuts with extreme delicacy that contrasted with his rigid demeanor.
For a few minutes, the only sound in the room was the rustling of the gauze and Stanley’s heavy breathing, until he finally decided to speak:
“I had another fight with my dad and I got really mad,” he said in a choked voice, breaking the silence as he watched Xeno begin to bandage the wound.
“Did you get mad at him?” Xeno asked softly, without looking up from the bandage.
“At myself.”
Xeno finished bandaging his arm, but didn’t immediately remove his hands from his forearm. He stayed there, applying just the right amount of pressure as he processed his words.
“I don’t think I’m quite understanding this, Stan. If you fought with your father, why are you mad at yourself and not at him?”
Stanley let out a dry, bitter laugh. He ran his free hand across his face, roughly wiping away the last traces of violet lipstick from the corner of his mouth.
“Because I realized I’m a fucking idiot,” Stan blurted out, fixing his gaze on Xeno for the first time. There was a dangerous mix of exhaustion and pent-up rage in his eyes. “My whole fucking life I’ve been training to become a perfect soldier. My old man has been drilling me for years on discipline, self-control, and keeping a cool head, and I always played along because I thought I was in control. But today… today he cornered me, we argued, he said things to me, and I just froze.”
Xeno didn’t interrupt him, maintaining an attentive silence.
“I realized that if I get into the academy, they’ll send me far away. Years of training, assignments, deployments…” Stanley clenched his jaw, turning his face toward the window as he clenched his fists. “The problem isn’t the army, Xeno. I can handle that. The problem is that you’re leaving for MIT in a few months. You’ll be in Massachusetts, in your own world. And when I realized that the mere idea of being thousands of kilometers away from you completely overwhelmed me, I was struck by this damn panic… I tried to explain it to my dad. I told him I wasn’t sure, that I felt like something was holding me back.”
Stan let out a bitter, contemptuous laugh, spitting out the last part through clenched teeth.
“He didn’t like it one bit. He didn’t think it was a valid concern… he thought it was a weakness. He stood right in front of me and called me a damn faggot.”
Stanley swallowed hard, letting the air out through his nose in a tremor of pent-up rage that had been suffocating him all day.
“I hate feeling this way. It disgusts me to discover that I’m not as strong as I thought, that my mind and my future are reeling just because I don’t want to lose you,” he concluded, looking down at his bandages with deep contempt. “I didn’t know how to shut off this noise in my head. I felt angry at myself for being so weak in his eyes… and I punished myself for it.”
For someone who used to have a calculated response for everything, Stan’s confession completely disarmed Xeno. There was no pretense in his words, only raw loyalty and a vulnerability that Stanley’s pride found agonizing to bear.
Slowly, Xeno released his forearm and began reorganizing the first-aid kit, putting away everything he used and tossing the used supplies into the trash can. He turned his back on Stanley for a couple of seconds to set the box on the desk; when he turned back to look at the blond man once more, he noticed that Stan had reclined on the bed, his legs dangling off the mattress.
Xeno walked over to his friend and sat down next to him. He ran one hand through the other’s hair and began to stroke it gently. Stan closed his eyes, enjoying the touch and feeling the warmth of Xeno’s fingers against his scalp.
“A ‘damn feeling’…” Xeno murmured slowly, breaking the silence without stopping the steady movement of his fingers. “It’s incredible that a mind as tactical as yours could come to such a stupid conclusion.”
Stanley didn’t open his eyes, but he let out a slight snort through his nose, letting him continue.
“There’s nothing weak about what you’re feeling, Stan,” Xeno continued, his tone firm but free of any accusatory edge. “And there’s nothing wrong with assuming that our futures are intertwined. Did you really think I would just go off to Massachusetts, let them send you to the other side of the world, and never see each other again?”
The movement in his hair paused for a second, and Xeno withdrew his hand. The sudden loss of contact forced Stanley to open his eyes and meet the other man’s gaze.
Stanley blinked a couple of times, focusing on Xeno’s figure. He remained silent for a moment, processing the absence of the touch, and let out a dry, almost reluctant laugh.
“You make it all sound so easy when you talk in your scientific terms, Xeno,” Stan said, pulling an unlit cigarette from his pocket and twirling it between his fingers. “But my old man’s a former Marine who doesn’t think in terms of theories. All hell is going to break loose at my house no matter what happens.”
“Then let it happen,” Xeno replied without batting an eye, maintaining his unyielding stance. “Your father is obsessed with a mediocre structure from the past. You don’t owe your future to his expectations.”
Stan stared at him. His gaze swept across Xeno’s face, from the precision of his posture to the ridiculous certainty shining in his eyes. That was the thing about Xeno: no matter how chaotic the outside world was, he always acted as if reality had to conform to his plans by sheer logic.
“It’s not my old man’s hell that’s getting to me,” Stan admitted, lowering his voice and squeezing the cigarette between his fingertips until it was almost bent in half. “It’s just that if things go wrong, I’m the one who ends up on a ship or at a base on the other side of the country. “While you're working on new projects, I'll be taking orders from some jerk.”
Xeno let out a short sigh through his nose, in that mixture of exasperation and fascination so characteristic of him. He settled onto the bed, adopting the same position as Stanley.
“No one in this world has your tactical ability, Stan. Or your loyalty,” Xeno said, with a firmness that left no room for argument. “My work requires science, yes, but my future needs someone to watch my back. I’m not going to let you rot under the command of a mediocrity. If I manage to become who I want to be, I’ll pull the necessary strings. If you’re on board, I’ll make sure NASA or the Pentagon assigns you to a place close to where I am.”
Xeno paused briefly, letting the weight of his words fill the room.
“Is that clear? There’s no future where we don’t work together. It’s a given. So stop calculating stupid variables on your own.”
Stanley held his gaze for a few long seconds. Seeing that boundless arrogance in anyone else would have been unbearable, but coming from Xeno, it was an indisputable truth.
A faint, weary but genuine smile played on Stan’s lips. He slowly brought a hand to Xeno’s face to tuck a strand of hair that had fallen across his forehead behind his ear.
“You’re a fucking cocky bastard, you know that?” Stanley muttered, dropping the bent cigarette onto the sheet.
“I’m a genius with a plan, Stan. There’s a big difference,” Xeno replied elegantly, allowing a slight curve to form on his lips as he noticed that Stan’s guard had completely dropped.
“Uh-huh. Whatever you say,” Stan said, snorting with restrained amusement.
Xeno looked down at Stanley’s bandaged forearm. His expression turned cold and clinical once more. With a deliberate, careful movement, he brushed the white bandage on Stan’s forearm with his fingertips.
Stan didn’t move, but he clicked his tongue in obvious annoyance.
“Don’t look at me like that, Xeno,” Stan snapped, running a hand over his face and wrinkling his nose in irritation. “You look like a damn combat medic evaluating a defective recruit.”
“I’m assessing an unhealthy coping mechanism, which is quite different,” Xeno replied bluntly, looking up to fix his gaze on him. “Promise me this is the first and last time you’ll do this, Stanley.”
Stan rolled his eyes and covered his face with both hands, letting out a harsh snort.
“Please, Xeno, don’t give me a moral lecture. I already know it’s bullshit. It bothers me more than it bothers you to have to hide my arm like an idiot so no one notices it,” he said in a raspy voice, using his usual dry tone as he moved his hands aside to look at Xeno. “It was a fit of rage. My fucking head was filled with noise over my dad, I didn’t know where to vent my anger, and I took it out the quickest way I could. It just happened.”
“Stan,” Xeno cut him off, abruptly putting an end to the blond’s nonchalant attitude. “Your body is an elegant, flawless tactical tool. Damaging it because of some mediocre old man isn’t just illogical, it’s a waste. If you’re going to break something when you’re blinded by rage, come to my garage, I can build you a weapon, and you can use it to shoot some piece of junk. But you’re not going to touch yourself again.”
Stan stared at him. He found it both amusing and infuriating the way Xeno processed things: instead of getting sentimental or offering cheap comfort, he treated his body as if it were a high-value piece of equipment that couldn’t afford to have any imperfections.
A heavy sigh escaped Stanley’s chest.
“You’re unbearable when you go into quality control mode, you know?” Stan muttered, though the hardness in his eyes had softened completely. “All right, I won’t ruin your ‘tactical tool’ again. The next time I feel like breaking something, I’ll come and break down your workshop door. Happy?”
Xeno flashed an elegant smile.
“Totally satisfied. It’s a much more logical and elegant exchange of resources.”
Stan let out a slight snort through his nose and shook his head. Then, taking off his sneakers with his feet, he settled onto his friend’s bed, lying face down and hugging a pillow. The anger, the mental noise, and the tension from the argument with his father partially dissipated, leaving in their place an overwhelming exhaustion that had been weighing on him all day.
Xeno, for his part, stood up and walked back to his desk.
“Your parents won’t mind if I stay the night, will they?” Stan asked without letting go of the pillow, keeping his gaze fixed on Xeno’s back.
“They’re both out of the country on a business trip and won’t be back for another five days,” Xeno replied, arranging some papers on the desk before turning his face slightly toward him. “You can stay as long as you need to.”
“Thanks… Aren’t you going to sleep?”
“I have to check some calculations first,” Xeno replied. “But don’t worry, I’ll go to the guest room so I don’t disturb you.”
Stan didn’t protest. He simply rested his face on its side against the pillow, closing his eyes as the steady rustling of Xeno’s papers finally lulled him into a deep sleep.
The silence of the early morning grew thick and serene.
Around four in the morning, Stanley opened his eyes. There was no startle or nightmare, his body, accustomed to his irregular sleep schedule, had simply decided to wake up. The room was shrouded in dim light, and Xeno’s desk was empty.
Stan slowly sat up on the mattress, running a hand over his face to clear his head. He felt a slight itch in his throat and that instinctive craving for nicotine. He fumbled in his jacket pocket until he found the pack of cigarettes and his lighter.
He stood up and silently approached Xeno’s desk, noticing several notebooks and scattered sheets of paper on it, covered with mathematical equations and notes in the margins that, although Stan understood them, he chose to ignore.
Stan closed his eyes and, with a tiny smile on his lips, let out a soft snort through his nose. If Xeno said he would move heaven and earth to make their future together work, there was no room for error. Xeno would never dare to make empty promises, especially not to him; he set out equations and made them come true. And for Stan, that was enough to stop fighting fate and take the next step.
When he opened his eyes, his gaze fell to the floor, where he saw a pair of black slippers that clearly belonged to Xeno. Without giving it a second thought, he slipped them on and walked down the hallway toward the trellises and then to the ground floor. He headed toward the back door leading to the residence’s spacious backyard.
Upon reaching the glass door, Stan stopped, noticing that it was open. There, in the middle of the lawn and beneath the clear predawn sky, there was not absolute silence. An upright silhouette stood out next to the metal frame of a large refracting telescope.
Xeno was standing there, wearing a light robe over his comfortable clothes, adjusting one of the telescope’s lenses before leaning in to look through the eyepiece.
Stan watched the scene in silence for a couple of seconds. The chill of the night air brushed against his arms, but the sight of Xeno, lost in his own universe at four in the morning, brought a small, involuntary smile to the corners of his lips.
He took out a cigarette, placed it between his lips, and walked silently across the lawn until he stopped a couple of meters away from him. The click of the lighter broke the stillness of the night as he lit the flame.
“Looking for space invaders at this hour, Xeno?” Stan murmured in a voice hoarse with sleep, exhaling the first puff of smoke into the cold air.
Xeno didn’t flinch, instead, without taking his eye off the telescope’s eyepiece, he adjusted a small focus knob.
“The atmospheric conditions this early morning offer a perfect refractive index for viewing celestial bodies,” Xeno replied in his usual calm, analytical tone. “It would have been a waste of scientific resources to miss this opportunity.”
“Then you should adjust the angle by 2.45 degrees to get a better view,” Stan said casually, taking another drag on his cigarette as he pointed toward the lens with his free hand.
Xeno paused and looked away from the eyepiece to turn his head toward him. He raised an eyebrow, examining Stanley’s face with a mixture of curiosity and refined intrigue.
“A rather elegant calculation for someone who claims to have no interest in astronomy,” Xeno remarked, though he didn’t hesitate to move the telescope mount exactly the fraction Stan had indicated.
As he leaned back over the eyepiece and readjusted the focus, the image of the celestial body he was observing became clear, sharp, and perfectly centered. Xeno let out a brief murmur of satisfaction.
“Elegant, as always,” Xeno admitted, flashing a faint smile as he sat up straight without losing his elegant bearing. “Your spatial perception never ceases to be a fascinating tool, Stan.”
Stan let out a short laugh, almost mocking Xeno’s admiration, and exhaled a thin plume of smoke that rose slowly toward the starry sky.
“It’s not astronomy. It’s simple ballistics and optical correction,” Stan replied dryly, though there was an obvious note of pride in his voice. “When your father forces you to spend hours looking through a scope so you can learn to hunt, you also learn to read the refraction of the air, whether you like it or not.”
Xeno didn’t respond right away. He simply took a step to the side, leaving the space in front of the telescope completely clear for him.
“Check the result for yourself, then,” Xeno suggested, folding his arms and looking at him patiently.
Stan glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, holding the cigarette between his fingers. The crisp four-in-the-morning air completely cleared his mind, and seeing Xeno standing there, sharing that corner of the universe with him in absolute silence, finally erased any trace of the bitterness he’d arrived with a few hours earlier.
He held the cigarette between his lips, squinting at the rising smoke, and took a step forward to get closer to the telescope. He leaned forward slowly until his eye was level with the lens.
There, suspended in the midst of the deep darkness, the celestial body appeared ridiculously clear: its contours, the icy light bouncing off its surface, and the absolute sharpness of every outline.
“Not bad, Xeno,” Stan murmured without taking his eye off the eyepiece, feeling Xeno’s faint warmth as he stood right beside him on the grass.
“Quite an efficient team effort,” Xeno replied in a calm whisper. “My theory and your precision.”
Stan sat up slowly, exhaling gently. He removed the cigarette from his mouth with two fingers and turned his head to look at Xeno from the side. The tension in his shoulders had already vanished completely. The freezing air of four in the morning, the smell of tobacco, and the unyielding certainty that Xeno would always be there, sharing the same sky, were all Stanley needed to know that his future wasn’t ruined.
“I will join the army,” Stan said firmly, exhaling one last puff of smoke into the night.
“So you’ve made your decision,” Xeno replied, showing no surprise, but with a spark of keen satisfaction in his eyes. “Tell me, what brought about this sudden resolve?”
Stan flicked the cigarette butt onto the grass and stamped it out with the sole of his shoe, keeping his eyes fixed on the profile of his friend, who was now gazing up at the sky with his own eyes.
“I’m not going because of my old man’s patriotic speech or his damn medals,” Stan said, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets and shrugging slightly. “I’m going because it’s what I’m damn good at. And because you were right. If tomorrow you’re going to be building rockets for NASA, you’re going to need someone out there to make sure no idiot interferes with your projects. I’ll be the captain. I can do it.”
Xeno flashed a smile laced with that arrogant pride that characterized him. He adjusted the collar of his lab coat and turned toward Stanley, taking a small step toward him to close the distance.
“An elegant conclusion, Stan. The military will give you the tools and the position; I’ll make sure our paths never part.”
“I know,” Stan murmured with a half-smile, nodding his head. “That’s exactly why I told you you’re a fucking cocky bastard.
“I’m a genius with a plan and absolute control of the situation,” Xeno corrected in a calm whisper, offering him an open hand. “Welcome to our cause, soldier.”
Stanley looked at Xeno’s outstretched palm for a brief moment before letting out a stifled laugh. Far from offering a formal greeting, he seized his wrist with firm, decisive force, sealing that commitment in the only way their natures understood.
However, he didn’t let the contact break. In a deliberate movement, Stan pulled him toward his own body, closing the distance between them on the grass dampened by the twilight of dawn.
“Save your enlistment speeches for another time, Xeno,” Stan murmured with weary harshness, narrowing his eyes as his other hand moved up toward the collar of the other man’s robe, clutching the fabric with an almost vulnerable gentleness.
Xeno did not look away. The rigidity of his logic seemed to dissolve under his absolute focus, concentrated exclusively on Stanley’s figure. He allowed his fingers to relax in the blond man’s grip, intertwining with a gentleness that contrasted with his usual demeanor.
“It’s not rhetoric. It’s an absolute constant,” Xeno whispered, tilting his face just enough for their breaths to mingle in the frigid night air.
Stan needed no further reason. He closed the distance and sought out Xeno’s lips in a lingering kiss, imbued with overwhelming warmth and honesty. It was a silent surrender that allowed him to finally lighten the burden that had been suffocating him. He felt, at last, safe.
Xeno returned the gesture with meticulous devotion. He slid his free hand to the nape of Stanley’s neck, deepening the contact with a protective firmness, as if guarding the most precious treasure in his own universe.
As they parted just a fraction, keeping their foreheads pressed together beneath the starlit sky, Stan let out a long sigh. The scent of tobacco and the coolness of the night enveloped them in a private sanctuary.
“While I'm gone… make sure that brilliant mind of yours doesn’t miss me too much,” Stan murmured against his lips, offering a playful, gentle brush before pulling away.
A faint smile, almost imperceptible but unusually warm, flashed across Xeno’s face as he stroked the blond hair at the nape of his neck.
“It would be illogical to miss someone I’ve already incorporated into all my future plans,” Xeno replied in a murmur laced with sweet possessiveness. “Let’s go inside. The temperature is dropping, and my soldier needs immediate rest.”
Stanley let out a quiet laugh against his neck, allowing himself to be led inside the residence. For the first time, he was absolutely certain that, regardless of external variables, Xeno was his one and only true home.