Fiddleford and Ford have a disagreement over Ford's relationship with "his muse".
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"That is it, Ford. You can't keep doing this anymore."
Ford rubbed his eyes. He felt tired, and angry. He tried not to let his frustration show.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
“You're not yourself anymore. You're constantly being weird, talking nonsense and acting…” Fiddleford shivered, remembering the alien feeling of the scientist as he looked at him with inhuman slitted pupils.
“It's a partnership. It's creation. You wouldn't understand it.” Ford dismissed the concern with a quick wave of his hand.
“Oh I see.”
“Specs, I…” Fiddleford shrugged his friend's six fingered grasp off his shoulder.
“No, that's enough. You are not a scientist anymore. You're just a meat puppet for that thing , that monster–”
“Bill?”
“Yes.”
“Bill is my muse! He understands me. He can show me entire realities in seconds, bring the spark of serendipity right to my hands. I have created more things in the few months we've been together than I have in my entire life!”
“Been together ?”
Ford frowned at him.
“Oh, shut it. You're making it into something it's not!”
“Defend it all you want ‘sixer’,” he air quoted the nickname. “I have seen how exhilarated you become when you come out of one of those ‘deep meditation’ sessions. Lord knows how tainted your soul must be from letting him touch it all over.”
“It's not like that!” Ford threw up his hands in exasperation. "And you didn't seem to have any complaints when we used to do much more than that together!"
Fiddleford's jaw ticked.
“You go into your room and let him possess your body and when you come out you are entirely flustered, flushed faced and sparkling like a tipsy man. How else would you call that, Ford?” Fiddleford pursed his lips. “It's lust . It's wrong.”
The six fingered scientist moved without even thinking about it. Fiddleford braced as he was pushed against the wall. An object clattered and fell off the desk where his hip bumped against the furniture.
“You have no idea what you're talking about.” Ford bit out. His finger dug in between the lapels of his partner's lab coat and stabbed his sternum in slow, furious taps. “Do not speak of him that way.”
Fiddleford stared into his friend's eyes. A strange glimmer swam in them, like the reflection of a screen against his scleras.
“He's here now.” He spoke, more to himself than to Ford. Still the man straightened, glaring down at him.
“He's always with me.”
“And you don't find that strange? Invasive?”
Ford shook his head, stepping away and pacing in a slow circle.
“He sees through my eyes so he can counsel me.”
Silence hung between them.
“You're in love with him.”
They stood still for a moment.
“Go home, Fiddleford. We're done for today.”
“All my things are here. We were supposed to stay the night to observe the stars and their movements!”
Ford shuffled to the corner and picked up his partner's coat. He pressed it to his chest.
“Take a bag with you and come back tomorrow for the astronomical study.” He brushed his hair back and then crossed his arms behind his back. His bespectacled eyes avoided his friend's worried gaze. “I need the night to myself today.”
Fiddleford considered rebelling for a second or two but, really, he'd never been the contentious kind. He picked up his things and left, the door banging loudly behind him. The air was cold. He breathed into his hands and tried to keep his mind off the sting of his friend's betrayal. Perhaps their relationship was not the same to Ford as it was to him.
The unlikely meeting of kindred spirits, the development of a beautiful relationship… It was, perhaps, doomed to fail quickly the same way the frosted snow did as it flurried to the earth. He felt the air prickle his eyes with its snowflakes. What a beautiful anomaly. Unique, ephemeral. He told himself the cold was the reason his eyes watered and slid down his cheeks. After all, this was not goodbye, just an argument. Tomorrow they would look at the stars.
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