The House Master

The Epilogue too Surreal for a Title

Adrian dresses for the dance, a white polo shirt under a black sports jacket. Vincent walks in and glares at his choice of outfit. "No, no, absolutely not!"

"Why?" Adrian whines as Vincent undresses him.

"It makes you look like a roadman," Vincent undresses him hastily before picking a different outfit, dressing Adrian.

"It's very different." the outfit is a long, flowy pink dress with sleeves that are too long for him and hang below his hands.

Vincent looks up at him and pecks his nose with a tiny kiss. Adrian whines and rubs it. "Hey, that was a stolen kiss!"

"You're no stranger to stolen things," Vincent chuckles and adjusts the ribbon on his Victorian-style suit. He looks like a nobleman, the final touch would be a top hat but sadly they don't have one of those.

They arrive at the school and find Diedrich since he's just finished supervising the younger students' dance. The trio sees teachers at the entrances, searching people's bags. "Shit!" Adrian pulls Vincent and Diedrich into the darkness before reaching into his bag and producing a litre bottle of vodka from inside.

"You can't bring that inside!" Diedrich frowns.

"Oh, can't I?" Adrian hands the bottle to Vincent and adjusts the back straps of his dress.

*

The teacher finishes searching Adrian. "My my, that was a bit handsy," he laughs, but his homeroom teacher doesn't.

Diedrich swallows with anxiety as they make it into the dance and Adrian turns his back on him. "Well, you're the only one tall enough to pull it out!" Adrian huffs impatiently, and from the back of Adrian's dress, Diedrich pulls the bottle out. It was fixed against his back, wrapped in the straps of his dress.

The cafeteria has been decorated into a deep, dark hall with surreal blue lights streaming down from the rafters. Death surrounds everyone, more on-theme for Halloween than Christmas. Vincent remembers a time when he would hide underneath the covers, texting Diedrich to pretend everything was fine. And now here he is, slow-dancing with his boyfriend to Bob Dylan under a synthetic moonlight.

The blue-haired boy looks at Adrian, amazed by how his life changed so drastically over the past six months. Adrian is responsible for this, this is all his doing. Is it possible that he planned all of this, so long in advance, right up to this moment?

"Le's get a song that's just ours," Adrian suggests, his hands on Vincent's hips as they sway to the music.

"I don't expect you to know all the songs I know..." Vincent looks up and starts really paying attention to the music. "But I like this one,"

"Me too, this one can be ours," Adrian spins around, a sudden movement that pushes his back against Vincent, swaying together this time.

"Would you hate me if I sang it?"

Adrian realises that he's never heard Vincent sing, and if that tells him anything it's that Vincent is a bad singer. "Absolutely,"

Vincent grins at Diedrich relaxing by the drinks table and ends the dance. He walks over and fills his own cup with the murky punch. "You know, Adrian didn't replace you, he never could,"