"Ned Roche?" A light, friendly voice called and he was quickly out of his seat. Conor promptly followed and they took a couple of steps—almost in unison—but Ned recognized the noise and gave him and grimace of misunderstanding and annoyance.

"What're you doing?"

"...Supporting my mate?" Conor blankly said, but his voice carried an air of hope. Ned's red brow ruffled.

"Stay here. Talk to him—I'm doing you a favor." Ned stated with resentment, turning before seeing the mess he'd created behind him but that was what he seemed good at.

***

A tall man, handsome in a nerdy fashion, with wavy black hair and a scruff walked back into the cramped room. "Alright, Ned. This is going to sound odd, but we're just going to do a quick ultrasound."

"What? Why?"

"Well the urine samples came back with high levels of a certain hormone and the testicular exam came back negative, so we're checking for any tumors within. This is common for patients that come in with similar fears." The doctor paused and chuckled, "Not that many come in after taking a pregnancy test."

"Yeah, I've always been special. At least , that's what my mum said." Ned joked, laying back on the stiff bed and only then realizing the man had come in with a contraption.

***

Swiftly, Ned slammed the door to the waiting room behind and beelined to the glass, exit door. Conor's voice faded behind him, as he rushed to the wet curb outside and cried. "Hey, Ned, mate." His friend's—only friend—voice rang out anxiously, hidden behind a nearly emotionless face. "Ned?" The voice came closer and a large hand was grasping his frail, small shoulder, turning him roughly. The boy, placed his hands on Ned's shoulders.

"Well, it's not cancer." Ned deadpanned, swatting away one of Conor's hands angrily. "Drive me to Woodhill." Conor made a weak attention to respond, "Just do I.T." His eyes were fiery, but definitely filled with absolute fear and mortification that he was trying to suppress.

"Right." Conor stepped back, remaining there for a second before heading to the driver's seat of the dreaded car. When inside, Ned place his flushed face against the misty window, his forehead making an imprint. "It'll be-"

"Don't."

There I.T was again. The Berlin Wall. After a few minutes of driving that bender time until I.T gave the presence of hours, Conor's plump lips separated, "What if we ran away? Right now. If you're dying then we'll make sure you live before you die, and I want to support you in-"

"Do you ever shut up?" Ned aggressively spoke, slamming his palm against the compartment between them. Silence ran out, Conor hurt albeit not entirely surprised. Ned stared at Conor, his poor downcast face practically shouting "please, save me" but the words couldn't even get into his throat. No, not something as debilitating and vulnerability creating as that. Without any exchange of words, with slight disappointment, he continued to sorrowfully drive. For a brief second he stared at a couple, sharing an umbrella on this rainy day—making each other's days sunny—and laughing about probably nonsense. In a way, Conor envied that. In a way, he longed to have that—what his parents never did and he always yearned for. In a way, the universe played with him and offered but then reconsidered. In a way, he wanted that with Ned...in a more platonic way, of course.

It's incredible how people so close in vicinity can be so far in train of thought, isn't I.T? Ned was nowhere in a one hundred kilometer radius of even considering love at the moment. He had never loved himself, so no one else would. Either way, now he wallowed in regret and watched the couple in the car next to them have an all out war—their words acting like bullets. Each shot, reloaded, repeated. The wife seemed beside herself, the husband in utter disarray, and the small child in the back seat had tears creeping at the corners of his glassy eyes. In a way, he admired their ability to express themselves—dissimilar to his he could. In a way, he wondered if the whole world was like this and one day the child would grow up to be equally as miserable. In a way, he was revolted that the world could hold so many unhappy individuals.

***

The click of their shoes echoed down the halls, few kids seeing them. The ones that did took a second glance, but then the memory fleeted from their heads. Conor stuck close to his friend, analyzing his face to see if he could recognize some novel feature that gave a part of the secret away. His friend remained mum, his mind floating elsewhere. "Go to your dorm. I'm going to find Mr. Sherry." Ned almost demanded, barely even making eye contact with his former closest friend.

Despite his ability to be cool, I.T was known that Conor had a warm, caring heart when he truly cared for someone. "Right. After, you can come back and stay here for the night." Conor said, doubt tangling deep into his tone, "And Ned, you can talk about it...if you need to. Blimey, we're mates. I-" He was abruptly stopped because Ned made a sharp turn into Mr. Sherry's classroom, leaving Conor a staring into space—re-examining how today has gone so far.

Upon entering, his presence went unnoticed. By closing the door behind him, he got the teacher's attention who sat preoccupied by paperwork at a rickety old desk. "Ned! It's so nice to see you."

"No, it's not." Ned retaliated, collapsing tiredly onto a student's desk. He leaned his elbow against his desk and ran the hand through his hair with distress. "It's very not nice. It's terrible. Atrocious. Disrupting and disappointing."

"Well, that's not how I'm seeing I.T. How did I.T go with-"

"Conor is dead to me."

"Right." Mr. Sherry replied as if Ned was joking, a light smile on his face. "Because he comforted you? Because he disturbed me in a class and dropped everything to be at your beckon call? Because he doesn't have a license and risked getting arrested or fined for you?"

Ned listened intently, not allowing how touched he was to show and swallowing a hard lump forming in his throat. He'd remembered all of the events of that day, Conor's gentle embrace and hands that craddled Ned as if he were made of glass, how he almost deserted the blue-green eyed man just to support him, how Conor took all of his harsh remarks with a grain of salt. He remembered vividlythe man that smiled brightly at Conor, like he was the highlight of his week. His eyes glistened and his flushed cheeks had a pink tint to them...or maybe need was just imagining it.

"Hey, this Conor from the Urgent Care facility."

"Of course, I'm delighted you called. After all, I've never been one to believe in love at first sight."

"Truly. But, when a burden gets lifted of your shoulders amazing things can happen. That twat has been bugging me for a year. But you...you can bug me for a year all you want."

"Yeah, well I could bug you in the sheets after our date tonight."

Ned shook the voices out of his head, the thoughts landing in a secluded part of his brain that kept all if what should never be repeated or analyzed. A lot of things about Conor lay in there. "Love can be a difficult thing to cope with, hard to contol, but it also can be glorious."

Ned's head snapped up, looking innocently at Mr. Sherry, "Uh, I think you misread something. Conor and I are not and never will be anything but friends, comrades, partners in crime. Any other phrases for platonic." Ned quickly corrected, almost hopping out of the desk chair to make reassure both of them that Conor was nothing but a mere friend. "Look, I came to ask for some advice."

"On how to tell Conor you-"

"That I'm pregnant."

The pencil fell abruptly from his hand, the paperwork quickly forgotten. Tears of fear, rage and everything between leaked slightly from his eyes. Only two falling down his flushed, depressed face. "With Conor's-" His voice trailed off, Ned nodded profusely and more tear spilled. "Don't cry." The man pleaded, "Not over something like this. Life should be celebrated."

"I can't even abort I.T! I.T would be incredibly invasive and risky, unlike with a woman." Ned yelled, slamming a weak fist on the desk—making a sound that reminded him of a scared rat. "I don't want I.T." Ned frantically shook his head, "I don't want I.T. Take I.T out of me. Kill I.T." He grasped on his shirt, right over his stomach.

Mr. Sherry watched the sight, Ned screaming endlessly and tears running down his face like track participants in the olympics, and tried to asses the situation. "It's going to be alright." He assured, keeping a distance due to policy.

"No! No, my dad is going to kick me out! I'm going to ruin Conor's life, and for what? To fulfill some mediocre image of a family that's implanted in people's minds. I don't want that! I don't want to be a statistic!"

"Ned, then you'll come live with my fella and I."

"And Conor? I can't tell Conor"

"I can't tell you what's the right way to go about that one. Although restricting information could cause problems down the line. But, either way, you're child will be very loved." He reassured, calming Ned only slightly so that his sobs turned into gasping. "I can tell you already feel attached. Otherwise, you'd be already getting an abortion. I know you, if you wanted the fetus gone then it'd be gone."

"I am a stubborn bastard." Ned said, feeling a tear drop from his cheek to the freckled back of his hand, and traveling along the smooth skin towards the desk.

He considered this, then shrugged. "The stubborn bastards are the ones that thrive."