Chris was waiting in the dressing room, face freshly scrubbed but his beard still showing signs of Dina. He was sitting with his head down staring at his hands and looked like he was thinking very deeply. He looked up when Anya entered and sighed. “What are we doing?” He said sadly. “I hurt you so you make a point to hurt me? We were never like this before. Why now?” Anya crumbled a little at the hurt in his voice but she just straightened her back and said “what do you mean? I was just performing, I didn’t even speak to you?” Chris just sighed again and smiled sadly up at her. “You’re going to pretend that all of that act was random? You changed your style after all these years just because you thought you were due a change? That the man you picked out of the audience was the one who had come to see me, just by chance was it? You can fool a lot of people Oliver. But anyone would see through that”. 

Hearing his name was like a thread snapping in his brain, suddenly Oliver was ashamed, standing there in his flashy costume, still a bit breathless from sliding around the stage in his two corsets and he was regretting everything he had just done. He said nothing and walked into the adjoining bathroom and began removing all traces of the wonton slut he had been only moments ago. Chris followed him. 

“Look me in the eyes and tell me that I’m wrong, that you didn’t do that to hurt me.” Oliver ignored him as he carefully put his lashes in their case and slowly started to look more like himself and more ashamed as each piece of the puzzle that made up Anya came free. He poured cleanser gently on a pad and began removing his makeup. He couldn’t meet Chris’s eyes in the mirror, he couldn’t begin to explain what had come over him before he went out on that stage and he couldn’t admit that yes, he had wanted to hurt Chris. He had wanted Chris to become undone and to see him as more than the goofy lil guy he kept around like a sidekick. How could he admit that to the man he loved when he couldn’t even admit that he loved him? 

Chris waited. He didn’t rush Oliver but he made sure that Oliver couldn’t get past him and just leave. He waited and watched as Anya Neese became Oliver again and before his eyes Oliver seemed to shrink a little and his shoulders rose up around his ears as he shrank back into himself. Chris waited some more and eventually Oliver went to turn around and found he couldn’t even walk away from the sink without colliding with his large and now that he thought about it, formidable friend. 

Oliver was had and he knew it. He looked Chris in the eyebrows as the eyes were still too much and said “why are you trying to get me to admit that? What will it change?” Chris raised those eyebrows and Oliver was in sudden risk of looking him in the eyes so he looked down instead. Chris smiled with a very brittle sadness “it’ll change everything. It’ll mean that you wanted to hurt me. And I think I deserve to know that. You’re my best friend. Tell me”. Oliver felt all the shame and fear bubbling up inside him and he just exploded for a moment. A fire burning in his eyes and an intense look on his face but just as quickly as it had come it burnt out. All that was left was the shame. 

“I wanted to hurt you” he mumbled. Chris nodded. “I know. What I don’t know is why? Is a drag queen having fans suddenly offensive? Is me having a friend come by to see me suddenly a problem? Are you allowed to go for coffee with a stranger but I can’t have someone interested in my act come, pay a cover charge that pays you too, and support me? Why did you want to hurt me?” 

Oliver didn’t know what to say. Actually that wasn’t true, he knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to tell Chris he loved him and he wanted to tell him he was sorry he hurt him but he just wanted Chris to be jealous and to want him. He wanted to tell him he loved him so badly it felt like it was crawling out of his throat. He began to sweat. He took a gulping breath and then another. He opened his mouth and closed it again. He was so sorry it hurt him physically. The look on Chris’s face made him nauseous to see and he had done that. He had caused that face. What kind of person does that to someone they love. It really was no wonder Chris was more interested in that red faced man than him, he was cruel and he was mean and he was..deeply ashamed of himself. He thought about Anya crawling around on her knees palming at herself and cringed deeply. 

Chris didn’t move, he just watched and waited. He watched all the conflicting emotions crossing Oliver’s face and felt sick that this was happening to them. Nothing had caused friction between them in years and now he was watching their entire friendship fracture. He saw Oliver look sad, guilty, angry and ashamed. He saw Oliver flush a dark red and then suddenly go pale. He saw himself, as if from a far away place, walk towards Oliver. He wondered what he was going to do? He raised his arms and put them around the scared man standing there in half drag and still, like he was watching a tv show, he watched him grab Oliver, turn him to face him and then it was like the worlds scariest miracle in slow motion. Chris kissed him.