Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first thing that comes to Troy’s mind when his vision clears is that every high school looks the same. He’d thought, originally, that the dirty grayed walls and tiled floors were unique to his and his classmates’ experience, but as he looks around, taking note of the unfamiliar team logo, the graffiti on the lockers and the way the afternoon light falls through the overhead windows from the wrong angle, he realizes that this is very much not his and Annie’s Riverside High. It’s also not his apartment, which is weird, because he was pretty sure he was sitting on his couch just a second ago.

Okay, first things first. He looks down at himself, sees that he is still wearing his brown hoodie and black jeans, and lets out a breath. If this is a dream, it’s not one of those where he is naked.

Next, he reaches out a hand to touch the nearest locker. His fingertips brush cool metal, before catching on the edge of a Mario sticker. ‘Huh,’ he mutters. Abed told him once about the illusion of hyper-realism in dreams. Troy’s never had one like it, most of his dreams are just about flying, or running from his Nana, or the kind young healthy men have, so this is new, and kind of cool.

A loud thump echoes through the hallway. Troy winces. That sounded like someone being slammed into a locker. He’s sure of it, because he used to be the asshole that did the slamming.

‘What’s the matter, nerd?’, a voice calls.

It’s not his, which is a relief. He’s not trapped in a memory. Troy takes two quick steps and rounds the corner.

Bunched up in front of him are three guys in letterman jackets. They’re sports types; cool kids; the kind of meanies Troy was once, when he too was holding up scrawny younger boys by the collars of their hoodies. One of the guys picks up their victim’s blue backpack and turns it over. Several books, a notepad full of drawings, assorted crumpled candy wrappers, a VCR and a handful of colorful pens scatter across the floor. The last guy, who doesn’t yet have his hands full, plucks a stack of square pieces of paper from the mess.

‘Yo, check it out! Tickets for The Dark Knight!’ He flips through them. ‘Five of them!’

Bully number one shakes his victim. ‘What does a freak like you need five tickets for? The friends you don’t have?’

‘Maybe he wants to spare others the pain of sitting next to him,’ number two suggests.

The group sniggers, and Troy feels something twist in his guts. He, too, would have laughed, once upon a time.

The kid in the hoodie is quiet.

‘When’s it starting?’, asks guy one.

‘At three.’

‘That’s in half an hour,’ number two supplies, shaking his wrist.

‘Shame,’ says bully one. ‘Because it looks like your afternoon plans just changed.’

He lets go, yanks the extremely lanky kid away from the locker and opens the door. Heat curls in Troy’s guts. He walks up to the group, shoves guy three out of his way and growls. ‘Hey, loser. How about you try picking on someone your own size?’

The first two startle, but otherwise don’t seem to see anything wrong with their behavior, because they keep hold of both the kid and his backpack.

‘Dude, what the fuck is your problem?’

Troy shifts his weight to the front of his feet and lets his lips roll into a smirk. He picked up a fair bit of Muay Thai traveling along the coast of Thailand. ‘You are my problem, asshole. Let go of him.’

Reluctantly, the guy does.

Troy turns to the second one. ‘Drop that.’

The second guy looks at the first guy, then drops the backpack.

‘Now,’ says Troy, the smirk falling from his face. ‘Get the fuck out of here before your afternoon plans turn into a month of detention.’

It’s probably not the best of threats, considering they must know he is not a teacher here. But luckily, he looks like enough of an adult to these teenagers – not that he feels like one; twenty-seven is barely enough time to figure out what he wants to do with his life, and he’s been around the world in a floating nutshell of a boat – to discourage any further aggression. Or maybe it’s just the way his shoulders stretch out this hoodie. Either way, the guys shoot one more deadly glare in the direction of their victim and storm off.

‘Thank you.’

Troy turns around. ‘You’re welc- Huh!?’

It’s Abed. He’s three inches shorter and decidedly younger, in jeans that look even tighter than the ones he wore his first year at Greendale, but it’s definitely Abed. His yellow hoodie – it’s the one with the DuckTales logo on the front, Troy recognizes it now; it’s the one item of his clothing that Abed is more protective of than the stuff he got from his mother – hangs off of his bony frame. Troy puts candy corn on his mental grocery list, for the calories, and then crosses it out again, because he probably won’t remember when he wakes up, anyway. Then he puts it back on again, just in case.

Abed finishes picking up his backpack and straightens, moving with all the grace of a newborn foal. His face looks softer, rounder, and his eyes are as huge as Bambi’s. He holds himself with his shoulders pulled up and an expression of wariness that makes Troy’s chest constrict. Like he’s waiting for something bad to happen to him at all times.

‘Who are you? You’re not a teacher here.’

Troy blinks. Okay, this is weird. Abed never forgets a face, and why would Troy dream of Abed not remembering him in the first place? The last time he did that was when he was still at sea, and those fears had turned out to be unfounded. ‘It’s me, Tro-,’ he breaks off as something else occurs to him.

He’s in a school he hasn’t ever set foot in, and just saved a younger version of Abed from a bunch of bullies. This isn’t a dream. It’s the past. Abed’s past. Somehow, he traveled back in time, which would be pretty cool normally, except he immediately managed to ruin it by revealing himself. Now Abed will recognize him when they meet at Greendale! Panicked, Troy thinks through his memories of their first year. Are they changing already? Would he be able to tell?

‘What, uh, what day is it?’

‘It’s Friday, the twenty-fourth of March, about forty past two in the afternoon,’ says Abed, like he’s reciting it from a note card.

‘Oh! Happy b-b-,’ Troy’s heart skips a beat. ‘Bear.’

‘Bear?’

Troy points at Abed’s hoodie.

‘That’s a duck.’

‘I, I know.’ He waves his hands and Abed’s eyes follow the movement, as he knew they would. ‘Are you okay?’

Abed blinks and focuses on his face. ‘Not really. I was planning to spend the day watching all five showings of The Dark Knight, even the late one at ten-thirty pm, to show my father that now that I am eighteen, there is really nothing he can do to keep me from staying out late. But those guys took my tickets and I spent all of my allowance on them.’

He looks down, fingers clenching around the straps of his backpack. Then he freezes. ‘Oh. Unless you mean physically. Then yes, I am unharmed.’

Unharmed my ass, Troy thinks. On the outside, he might look fine, but Troy has spent most of his adult life learning Abed, and this younger version of him has apparently neither the skill nor the incentive to hide his internal turmoil from others. He’s not well. He might not be bleeding, but he’s bruised in more ways than one.

‘I’ll pay for your ticket,’ Troy blurts, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Instead of his wallet, which he kind of expected, he finds a wad of bills folded up and held together with a clip. It’s their grocery budget; Abed likes to go to the farmer’s market when he can, to people-watch, and Troy likes to go because with Pierce’s money, he can afford it, and one of them has to make sure they don’t die of, like, scurvy, or something. He plucks two bills from the stack and holds them out.

Abed stares at him, his expression stuck somewhere between ‘have you lost your mind’ and ‘I can’t interpret this person’s behavior, help.’

Troy wavers. ‘Come on, take it.’

Abed’s frown deepens, and he steps back. ‘No.’

‘No?’

Troy looks at the bills. They look normal. Wait, did the old America use different money? No, he would remember that. He furrows his brows, trying to figure out why- oh! They haven’t met yet. To Abed, Troy is just a random stranger offering him a large amount of cash. No wonder he’s suspicious. Crime dramas start like this. True crime documentaries start like this. Troy winces, lowering his hand.

‘Look,’ he says, trying to seem as non-threatening as possible. ‘I’m really sorry I forgot to get your tickets back from that guy, okay? I really want to make it up to you.’

Instead of replying, Abed looks like he is ready to run. Which is not an expression Troy ever wanted to see directed at him. Ouch. What’s more is that The Dark Knight is Abed’s favorite movie, and the thought of him missing five whole showings of it in one day makes something deep inside Troy ache.

‘Alright,’ he says. ‘How about a deal? Downtown is right around here. You can show me a decent place to eat, because I’m really hungry all of a sudden, and in return I’ll give you the money for a ticket. That way, I’ll be paying you for a service. It’ll be like work.’

‘Can we walk there in broad daylight, avoiding any and all deserted streets, back alleys and dark corners?’

Troy beams. ‘Absolutely!’

Abed gives a curt nod. ‘Alright.’

Troy almost holds his hand out for their handshake.

Leaving the campus of Abed’s high school, it occurs to Troy that he really doesn’t know its name. He vaguely remembers shouting it connected to a slur or two in his football days, but it was never important enough to really stick. He looks around under the poplar trees that line the road leading past the parking lot, but doesn’t spot a sign.

‘Hey, what’s this place called?’

There’s no reply. Troy looks over his shoulder and finds the other four steps behind him, hand clutched protectively over his backpack strap again. Keeping his distance. Something bittersweet swells in Troy’s chest. On the one hand, it hurts to see him so wary. On the other, he’s glad Abed’s already smart and careful.

He meets Troy’s gaze and nods his head. ‘Turn right.’

Troy goes where he’s bid, stepping onto a sidewalk next to a busy street. Sunlight blinds him, now that there is no canopy left to shade them.

Maybe, he thinks, it’s better if he and Abed aren’t talking. It might hurt him now, but the longer he thinks about this brain-wrinkling situation, the more possibilities pop into his head. Time travel is one of them, and there is probably a component of it to this, because how else would he explain a teenage Abed? But that’s about all he knows, and try as he might, he will never be as good as Abed at putting clues together. Did he hop timelines? Is this his own dimension, or a different one? An alternate universe? A mirror ’verse, in which they never meet? The only thing he knows for sure is that he is with a young Abed, who doesn’t know him. So far, he hasn’t found any evidence for having switched timelines, so there is a chance this is their own past. Which is, as far as he is concerned, the most dangerous of options.

The first core paradigm all time travel scenarios in speculative fiction share is: Don’t run into yourself. Considering he knows exactly what year it is, that is pretty unlikely to happen. The second unbreakable law is: Don’t run into anyone you know, and if you do, don’t reveal yourself to them, to avoid causing epic paradoxes. Troy has kind of broken that tenet already. What was he supposed to do, watch Abed get stuffed into a locker? No way.

Well, Abed would probably tell him that he could have gotten the janitor to let his younger self out later, or something. Which is actually a really smart idea. Troy needs to remember to compliment Abed on being such a genius when he’s back in his own time.

Case in point, Troy might have already ruined their future by saving Abed. Anything he says could potentially make time and space disintegrate and erase them forever from existence. So he can’t talk to the younger Abed about the future, or the two of them, or about any of the topics they talk about in the future, because those are conversations they will still need to have later, and Troy’s brain is inching closer to a full on tantrum by the second. He stops short on the sidewalk, taking a deep breath.

Behind him, Abed’s footsteps fall silent immediately. He doesn’t say anything.

Troy wants so badly to confide in him, to ask for help, but he can’t do that without maybe possibly causing the destruction of the known universe. But he also can’t bear the silence any longer.

When he turns, his smile is strained. ‘Hey.’

Abed tilts his head, puzzled. At least he doesn’t have the skill to differentiate between Troy’s real smile and his fake one… yet. It would be nice if he did, Troy thinks, traitorously, because then he would say something and Troy could just break down and tell him everything and let him find a solution – and wow, Troy really needs to get it together before he accidentally wrecks reality.

He points across the street. ‘What’s that?’

The building looks like a small diner with a suggestive looking hot dog outside.

‘It’s a small diner with a suggestive looking hot dog outside,’ says Abed, without any inflection to his tone.

‘Sounds good,’ says Troy. ‘Let’s go.’

He steps onto the street and then resolutely runs across it, sparing only the shortest of glances towards the oncoming traffic. Abed runs after him and nearly gets flattened by a red Toyota.

Troy stops at the curb. ‘Don’t do that thing I just did.’

‘Cross the street without looking?’

‘Yes! Dammit, that could have-’ Killed you, his mind supplies. Fuck, he needs to be way more careful about the things he does.

‘Is it more dangerous than following a complete stranger?’

‘Uh,’ says Troy. ‘Look, they have a buy-one-get-one-free special on right now!’

He quickly strides up to the door. Abed doesn’t stop him, which means he either likes this place enough to consider it ‘good’ as per Troy’s earlier request, or he hasn’t been here before. He certainly hasn’t with Troy – the only time Troy’s been here was with Pierce.

The inside looks exactly like it’s going to look in a few years’ time: kind of like a generic Waffle House, with a tiled floor and silver tables, a vaguely greasy-looking counter and an extremely bored waitress.

‘One hot dog with all the trimmings,’ says Troy, waving hello at the same time. He turns to Abed. ‘Do you want anything?’

He doesn’t really expect a reply, but Abed nods. ‘One hot dog with mustard.’

He steps closer, and huddled across from the cash register as they are, they could almost look like friends. Troy pulls out his wad of bills again. The woman shuffles over to her working space and fixes their order. Bread, sausage, condiments. His stomach growls.

By the time she returns, Troy’s almost forgotten about the situation he’s in. She hands the freshly assembled hot dog over to him, fumbles, and lets go a moment too soon. The whole thing slips out of her hand and splats onto Troy’s front; ketchup, mustard, dried onions and all.

Troy jumps.

‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry!’ The waitress looks a lot more awake than she did a moment ago. Her eyes are wide as saucers. ‘Here, I have, uh. Napkins?’

The bread falls off of Troy, landing on the floor with a dull, squishy sound. ‘It’s- I-,’ he stammers, fluttering his hands over his chest before thinking better of it and reaching for the proffered paper towels. He scoops up a handful of ketchup, leaving a huge red stain. Okay, this is clearly not going to work. He tugs at his zipper. ‘Do you, uh. Do you maybe have a bathroom?’

‘That… That way,’ the waitress says, pointing towards the back.

Troy slips his hoodie off his shoulders, because he doesn’t want the mess to seep through the fabric. He knows from experience that it’s very thin. That’s how they found out the opposite color Kool-Aid doesn’t work.

He’s about to march off, clothing in hand, when Abed grips his arm. Really hard. Like, hard enough to pinch off the blood-flow from his elbow. His eyes are fixed on Troy’s chest with an intensity he would not have expected while he was still wearing his t-shirt. Unless… Troy gasps. Looks down at himself. Shit.

He’s wearing his super special edition Avengers Endgame t-shirt, like he’s been doing all week because it’s so freaking dope. There are only three hundred of it in the world. And the movie came out… in 2019.

Troy panics. ‘Uh, I- It’s not… Isn’t it cool what computer programs can do these days?’

Abed doesn’t move. He doesn’t even blink.

‘Um, dude?’ Troy nudges him. ‘Hello?’

‘You’re a time traveler from the future.’

Troy stumbles backwards, nearly hitting the counter. His heart throbs in his throat. ‘Whaaat? That’s crazy, Abed! You’re-,’ he breaks off.

‘Crazy?’ Abed supplies. ‘I didn’t tell you my name.’

Troy knots his fingers in his hoodie, sweating profusely. ‘Of course you did. You must have, otherwise, how would I know it? You just forgot, with the bullies and all.’

‘I don’t forget things,’ Abed says, face darkening. ‘You’re really not a good liar.’

‘But I’m, I’m not from the future, that’s impossible. I can’t just have woken up here in the middle of your high school after going about my normal day in my time; I didn’t even know you went to school here!’

Abed’s brows go up to his hairline. Troy grimaces. Okay, maybe he really is a terrible liar, but Shirley would probably tell him that it’s not something anyone is supposed to feel bad about.

The other holds up a finger. ‘Thinking logically through the available evidence, that being your insistence to pay for my movie ticket, your leaping to my defense immediately before that, your general jumpiness, the t-shirt, the fact that you know my name and don’t find this-,’ he gestures at himself, ‘-too weird to talk to, leads me to believe that you are from the future, and the two of us know each other.’ Abed turns his big, soulful eyes on Troy. ‘Are we… friends?’

Troy’s throat tightens. He knows Abed doesn’t mean it like Friends, the series, but is genuinely asking if he will, someday, have a friend.

He can’t tell him. Abed already knows enough to change their future forever, just with all of the stuff Troy let slip without meaning to. He doesn’t want to lose Abed; his chest goes tight just thinking of it. But this Abed is looking at him with such hope in his young face, like he can’t believe even the possibility of not always having to be alone, that something in Troy just breaks.

‘Yeah.’

Twenty minutes later, Troy is outside in nothing but his t-shirt, with his dirty hoodie slung over his arm, following Abed like a lost little duckling. He didn’t get time to think. He didn’t even get time to clean himself up. Abed had just turned to the confused waitress, ordered two more hot dogs and a Diet Squirt to go and then told Troy to pay for everything, because he didn’t have any money. Once he’d handed over the cash, Abed had grabbed Troy by the wrist and tugged him outside, down the street, around the corner and into the middle of a local park.

It’s quite picturesque, actually, with a lake in the distance and flowers in the grass by the roadside, shaded by trees. The air is warm and humid, smelling of wet soil. Troy actually thinks they went here once to shoot. He had been wearing a biker helmet, though, so he can’t be sure.

Abed keeps tugging him along, Troy in one hand and their to-go bag in the other, until they are well and truly surrounded by greenery, and the busy street he’d insisted on before is nothing but a distant memory. The only humans left in the area are a bunch of exhausted looking parents with their toddlers, down by the water, trying to keep their offspring from drowning, while also trying to keep from falling asleep. Abed leads them both to a park bench, sits down, and takes out his hot dog.

‘So, how is the future? Is it cool? Do we have flying cars, like people from the thirties thought?’

Troy blinks. Abed stares back, expressionless as a cat, waiting.

Well, the future hasn’t imploded yet. At least Troy doesn’t think so, because he is still here. No other time traveler has shown up to stop him from running his mouth, either. Maybe it’s okay if Troy tells him a few things? Gingerly, he sits down on the bench. ‘No flying cars, but yes, it’s cool.’

Abed nods. ‘I should have expected that. You don’t look very old, so the time window might be too small to develop flying cars.’

Troy snorts. ‘Gee, thanks.’

He takes the bag from Abed, gets his hot dog and unwraps it. Then he takes a huge bite. Chewing, he considers. ‘Aren’t you going to miss out on The Dark Knight?’

Abed shrugs. ‘This is way more interesting. Besides, I only wanted to go because my mo- no, never mind. When did we meet? How?’

Troy swallows. ‘I don’t think I should tell you that.’

‘Given the fact that space and time have not collapsed in on themselves yet, I think it’s safe to assume that time travel, in the way it seems to be working here, will not influence your timeline – if we’re even in the same one. Your presence here is the best proof of that. If you told me something that would alter the course of our friendship, you wouldn’t be here, because in the time you come from, that would have already happened. Which means any information you give me is bound not to cause a paradox.’

Troy rubs a hand over his face. ‘Wow, this is wrinkling my brain.’ Then he looks up, lips curling. ‘Luckily we have these kinds of conversations all the time, and the only thing that proves is that you have read The Time Traveler’s Wife.’

Abed’s face falls.

Troy holds up his palms. ‘But since we’re in the pre-Tenet era, parts of that actually were pretty sound. How about a deal? I will tell you what you want to know, but I’m not going to give you any names or dates or locations, and you aren’t allowed to secretly fish for information that will help you figure it out. Because I know how smart you are and you’d totally be able to interrogate it out of me if you really wanted to, so I need you not to do that.’

He offers his hand for Abed to shake, and after a moment, the other takes it. Still, he’s frowning.

‘If I am really smarter than you, how would you know if I’m not doing it?’

‘Because I trust you.’

Abed startles, eyes going wide, and yeah, okay, maybe Troy did that on purpose because he wanted to take another bite of his hot dog before it goes cold. He actually manages two ere Abed shakes himself out of his daze.

‘Will you answer my earlier question now?’

Troy thinks back, then chews on his lip for a moment, trying to figure out how to phrase his reply without giving anything away. ‘I think we were both in a place in life where we could do with a friend.’

‘What do we do together?’

‘Watch movies, mostly, and shows. We hang, you know. Like friends do. Sometimes we act out scenes from those shows and movies. Other times we just talk.’

‘What’s my favorite show in the future?’

Troy opens his mouth, then closes it. ‘Pass.’

Abed wrings his hands, curling his fingers in that way that means he’s getting agitated. ‘Why?’

Because it’s the first show they watch together from the beginning to the end – which is still open, actually, the final episode has not yet aired – and if he tells Abed about it now, he’ll go and watch it.

Abed seems to be able to follow his train of thought as well as ever, though. ‘It already exists, doesn’t it?’

‘Abed,’ Troy whines. ‘You promised.’

For a moment, it looks as if he is going to push the issue, but then his shoulders slump. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay,’ says Troy, because he knows Abed well enough be certain that reining in his curiosity is no easy feat. He wants to comfort him somehow, use his body to tell him it’s okay, because that is what he, Troy, does, but this is not his Abed. He’s not sure he’s allowed to pat his arm, since to Abed, they’re basically strangers.

The moment passes before he can make a decision, and Abed straightens up again. ‘Are we best friends?’

Troy smiles. This he can answer. ‘Yes.’

‘Do we spend all our time together?’

‘Mostly.’

Abed’s eyes sparkle. ‘Are we the same age?’

‘No.’

Troy shakes his head.

‘Am I way older or way younger than you?’

‘Not… really either.’

Not enough for the age difference to matter, although Abed has always had this aura of maturity about him that Troy used to be jealous of. Even in his most child-like moments, he is definitely the wiser of the two of them. Those few times where he ignored that his actions have consequences, it was a deliberate choice.

‘That means you exist in this time,’ says Abed, and he is getting excited again.

Troy’s stomach sinks. ‘Yes, but-’

‘I could find you and we could become friends right away.’

He jumps up off the bench and Troy grabs his wrist before he can run away. ‘Wait, Abed. I can’t let you do that.’

Abed struggles, yanking at his arm with surprising force. ‘Why? For all you know, this could be the way we first meet!’

‘It’s not,’ says Troy, letting go of him. ‘I… You’re not going to like me much, at this age. Young me. I’m not a nice person.’

‘You are a nice person,’ says Abed, with so much conviction that Troy finds himself wincing.

‘No, I’m not. At this time of my life, I was very confused. About everything. Those guys that tried to put you into a locker earlier? I’m one of them and if I saw you now, I would probably do that without thinking twice.’

His stomach churns at the thought. He can’t even blame it on the hot dog, because he is still holding half of it in his other hand. He sighs. ‘I think you have the wrong idea here, Abed. Our friendship is more of a, uh.’

He was about to say ‘slow burn,’ but bites his tongue.

Abed draws back. Not physically, at least not too much, but inwardly. ‘So you’ll leave me, too.’

‘It’s not because of you,’ says Troy, unable to lie to him like this. ‘It’s something I have to do.’

Abed looks down, caught in his own thoughts. The last time he looked like this, he told them it must be the seventh of December, because there was no way it was already the eighth. Troy feels a heavy cold spread through his ribcage. ‘It’s worth it,’ he says, inching closer on the bench.

Abed scowls. ‘You just said you’re going to leave me, so why should I even bother-’

‘It’s still worth it. I can’t tell you how, and when, and why, but I can tell you that, that-,’ he casts around for a way to say it without revealing too much. ‘You know how sunlight always looks the brightest next to the shadows? You told me once it’s because of the contrast; that it’s important, because without the bad stuff, we wouldn’t really know how good the good stuff in our lives is. You and I, we’re going to be blindingly bright. It’s the best time of my life – and yours. And do you know how I know that?’ He leans in. ‘Because you told me.’

Abed blinks rapidly, and then his face is really close to Troy’s all of a sudden, clumsily smushing their lips together. He tastes of mustard. That’s about all Troy has the time to ascertain before Abed’s gone again.

‘Sorry, I’m sorry,’ Abed exclaims, his arms flailing. He looks like he’s about a nanosecond away from running again. ‘I didn’t mean to ruin it, I just- It was just-’

‘Whoa,’ Troy interrupts, still stunned. ‘Was that your first ever kiss?’

Because his own first kiss with Abed was nothing like that. Abed’s an absolute savant with his tongue; like all the best kissers of film and TV came together one time to teach him their magic tricks, and Troy is really going to need a better metaphor here, because he doesn’t want to imagine Abed surrounded by movie stars who want to kiss him.

In the present – or rather, the past – Abed stops flailing. ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t apologize,’ says Troy. ‘Really, it’s fine.’

Abed’s jaw drops. ‘Oh. Oh! We’re-’

Heat creeps into Troy’s cheeks. Shit, now he has definitely said too much. ‘No more questions!’, he shouts and shoves the rest of his hot dog into his mouth.

‘Just one.’

‘Nu-uh!’

Abed scoots closer. ‘Can I kiss you again? Since our relationship is most likely sexual in the future, there’s no reason- mmph.’

If kissing him is the only way to shut him up, Troy is willing to grasp at that straw. It has the added bonus of keeping his own mouth occupied, so he won’t accidentally blurt out any more crucial information. Plus, this is one of his favorite things to do in the world, anyway.

He’s not sure how long they stay huddled close on the bench, making out. Abed throws a leg over Troy’s knees, crawling into his lap. Troy curls a hand around the back of Abed’s neck to steady him, and it’s nice. Different, but nice.

It occurs to Troy, halfway through, that they should probably make sure no one sees them and calls the cops. Then again, Abed is turning eighteen today, so whom he kisses and when is nobody’s business but his own. He’s a really fast learner, too. Maybe that first time they made it to that base together – Second? Third? It all happened in quick succession with Abed, honestly, once they finally got there – he wasn’t just good at kissing specifically Troy; he had mad cheat codes by way of time travel! Troy’s lips curve, smiling into the kiss.

Abed draws back. The light of the day is orange on his hair, bleeding into red. His expression might be perfectly blank to anyone else, but to Troy, who is in his brain – Annie keeps saying they share their one functioning brain cell – the wistful hesitation is obvious.

‘I should probably go home now,’ Abed says, scanning Troy’s face even though he probably can’t read what he finds there.

Troy keeps his body relaxed, making sure he is not boxing the other in with his arms. ‘What happened to pissing off your dad?’

Abed squirms. ‘I’m not actually trying to do that.’

For a moment, Troy is relieved, because he likes Gobi Nadir. Then he panics, because if Abed doesn’t piss off his dad, he might allow him to go to film school, and then he won’t go to Greendale. But the actual event that makes Gobi forbid Abed from going to film school didn’t happen in the park, it was at the mall… Oh, his brain hurts. If the past few years have taught him anything, it’s to live life in the moment – and right now it feels like he has to balance both the future and the past on a needlepoint. Worse, the expression on Abed’s face is making goosebumps rise on his skin. ‘What’s going on?’

No reply.

Troy thinks through his fact list of Abed, anything the other has ever told him about his past, but comes up blank. ‘Tell me,’ he begs the figure hunched on his lap, still one growth-spurt short of his towering height and looking even smaller now. ‘I might be able to help.’

Abed’s eyes flicker to his. ‘My parents are finalizing their divorce today.’

Oh, fuck.

‘My mother’s moving across the country, for a new start. It makes no sense, because life only starts and ends once. I’ve been trying to tell myself that, but it still feels like the world is ending.’ He wraps his arms around himself, a gesture that surely comes from a movie. ‘On the inside.’

Troy shudders with the effort not to grab him. ‘Please tell me I can hug you right now.’

Abed bites his lip. ‘Okay.’

Troy throws his arms around him and squeezes as tight as he can. At first, this took some getting used to; he used to think he was crushing Abed when he did this, even when the other requested it. Now, Troy knows he’s not supposed to be a warm blanket, when he’s hugging Abed, he’s supposed to be the anchor tethering him to the Earth. So he keeps tightening his grip until the tension starts to bleed out of his best friend’s thin frame.

Abed curls up, pushing his face into Troy’s neck, shuddering like a leaf in a hurricane. Troy makes a decision, timeline be damned. ‘She’s coming for Christmas,’ he whispers, almost soundlessly.

Abed stiffens, but Troy keeps a hold of him so he won’t draw away.

‘You’ll have to get used to her not being a part of your life anymore, but you’re going to see her again. I promise.’

Abed stays still for a moment longer, breathing shallowly, and then wriggles carefully. Troy lets go of him, but they’re still so close he could count his pretty, curved eyelashes.

‘You’re probably not supposed to tell me that.’

‘You’ll have to pretend you don’t know.’

Abed slides off his lap, stands, and hesitates. ‘I’m going to find you someday, right?’

If he hasn’t screwed anything up forever, then yes. Troy nods. ‘I’ll be young and dumb when we meet, though. You’re going to have to teach me lots of things about life, and people, and fun. Be gentle.’ His smile turns a little sheepish. ‘Be patient – and most of all, be you.’

‘You’re the first person who’s ever said that to me.’

Troy thinks of Jeff and grins. ‘I won’t be the only one. Your family is out there, and one day, you’ll find them.’

For the first time since Troy came to the past, Abed cracks a smile.

Troy wakes cocooned in the comfortable warmth of a soft-smelling blanket and sits up straight the moment awareness kicks in. Bright L.A. sunshine streams through the window, drawing a square onto the foot of the bed, where a pair of spider-web-patterned socks are poking out. He rolls over, looming over Abed with a grin so wide it feels like it’s splitting his face. ‘Happy Birthday! Double Happy Birthday! You were adorable at eighteen.’

Abed’s eyes snap open, and then he goes a little cross-eyed trying to look Troy in the face. Troy makes to shift away, give him some space, but Abed pulls him down, smushing them together.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’

Troy laughs, and the vibration jumps from his ribcage to Abed’s.

‘I thought my eighteenth birthday would be the worst day of my life,’ Abed murmurs, nose rubbing into the hollow of Troy’s throat. ‘Instead, it was the best day.’

Warmth blossoms in Troy’s chest, radiating out through his extremities like the morning sun. He positions himself on top of Abed more firmly, lips tugging into a smirk. ‘Let’s see if I can make your thirty-first birthday even better,’ he rumbles, and, much to his delight, Abed’s fingertips immediately brush down his spine. And lower.

Loud pounding on the door startles them both.

‘You two better not be boning in there – and if you are, you have ten seconds to stop,’ Jeff yells.

The door flies open, hitting the wall.

‘That was only two seconds,’ Abed complains, without letting go of Troy. At least he shifts his grip into a more socially acceptable position.

‘Eh, who’s counting.’ Jeff steps aside and the study group – minus Pierce – pours into the room, dragging a banner between two bushels of floating balloons. Annie and Britta immediately join their cuddle pile on the bed, and from the door wafts the mouth-watering aroma of roasted bacon, warm bread and sharp, hot coffee.

Abed tugs at Troy’s clothes to catch his attention, and briefly touches their foreheads together. ‘Most of all, thank you for being right,’ he whispers, so only the two of them can hear. ‘Our future was blindingly bright.’

He laces their fingers together as they sit up, matching gold bands clicking softly, and Troy beams. ‘Still is.’