At home, Franky dragged Spence to his lab downstairs, after Spence made the mistake of asking if the three roommates had any pets. He held Spence’s hand tightly, almost making him trip down the stairs as he excitedly skipped down with a giddy smile. But Spence’s hope for a cute cat or dog died immediately once Franky opened the basement door.

In the unfinished room, there were a few different lit stations and cabinets of tools on wheels. Franky took Spence to each one and introduced the experiments to him like they were people. The first one, closest to the stairs, was a cage with four rats sleeping inside. 

“The gold one is Richard, the grey one is Victor with a C, the black one is Frankie with an I-E and the brown one is Spencer,” Franky said, pointing to each rat. “I just got Spencer. I found him in the woods.”

“Why’d you name them after us?” Spence asked.

“What? I didn’t. I chose the names randomly.”

Spence stared blankly at Franky as the rats started to wake up from the commotion. “Are you being serious?”

Franky smiled again and pulled Spence to the next case--a glass one with a thick yellow coil pressed against the walls. “This is Medusa. She’s a burmese python I stole from the pet store in Moundsville,” he said. He opened the top of the case and gently stroked the snake’s skin. “Do you want to feel her?”

Spence gingerly stuck his hand in the enclosure, petting the snake with his fingertips at first and eventually his whole hand. He felt a smile slowly perk up on his face as he felt the snake’s scales--and he let himself grin when the snake woke up and watched him pet her. 

“She likes you,” Franky said. Spence’s smile fell when he remembered Franky was watching him too.

“I like her,” Spence mumbled. “She’s pretty.”

“Good! You can visit her again sometime.” Franky shut the enclosure and held Spence’s hand to the next one. The snake watched him go, and so did Spence. Franky brought him to another glass enclosure filled with dirt, and a system of tunnels dug by the ants inside spiraled through. 

“This is my ant farm,” Franky said. His attention turned to the cabinet next to the ant case, and he started explaining pheromones to Spence while Spence watched the ants instead. Before Franky was even done talking, Dick came downstairs and cut him off. 

“What are you guys doing?” he asked. 

“Showing Spence my experiments!--I mean pets!” Franky said. Dick sighed.

“Well, can I steal you for a second?” Dick gestured for Spence to come, but Spence’s eyes went wide in fear.

“Umm…like, a kidnapping?” Spence said. Dick groaned and rolled his eyes.

“Can you follow me?” Dick said. Spence’s expression went blank again, and he shrugged before he began to walk towards the stairs.

“Wait! Spence, this is my tarantula named Chuckles and my zombie dog named Baby and my mutated fish tank!” Franky said frantically, waving his hands to get Spence’s attention. Spence poked his head below the stairwell ceiling to look back at Franky.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back to pet your snake,” Spence said plainly. He followed Dick upstairs, outside, and up a ladder Dick placed on the side of the house that reached the roof. He followed Dick as he climbed up and sat on the roof facing the forest at the back of the house, and he sat next to him. The only light came from the streetlights behind them and the moon and stars in the sky above them. It was easier to see the stars now that the streetlights were nearly out of sight. Of course, Spence wished he could see the night sky through the telescope at the observatory outside of town where there was nothing else at all.

“Why are we up here?” Spence asked.

“To do what you’ve wanted to do all night,” Dick replied. Both turned their faces towards the sky. “Why do you like to look at the stars so much?” Dick asked. Spence shrugged, still looking up as he spoke.

“I don’t know. It’s pretty. I’ve always liked space and stuff. My dad was an astronomer, he worked at the Omega…out west, on that road past the gas station,” Spence replied. Dick looked into his eyes when he talked, but when Spence was talking, he couldn’t look at Dick’s face. Yet when he went quiet, he was okay to look at him. Dick couldn’t help but be distracted when Spence finally looked at him. 

“Is he still alive?” Dick asked.

“No. He died in a car crash a few years ago. Don’t you know him?”

“Your dad…?”

“Neil. Neil Shapiro.”

“No. Guess I was too caught up in…you know, my dad. I don’t keep up with the townsfolk.”

Spence sighed. “Yeah, I guess your dad probably had a more exciting run than mine.”

“That must be why you live alone.”

“Yeah. My aunt’s supposed to take care of me, but she doesn’t. She thinks I’m old enough to pay for my own apartment. And I am…obviously, or I’d be homeless. But she never liked me and I never knew why…she’s either racist or she thinks there’s something wrong with me.”

“Like what?”

Spence glanced at Dick for a moment, before sighing again and looking away, down at the woods. “I don't know. Everyone always tells me it's all these different things."

“Well, what do you think it is?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care, really. I know me less than you know me. What I really want to know is why my aunt hates me so much. I mean, I wasn’t a problem child or anything. A little weird, but I got good grades in school. Up until my dad died, at least. I kinda gave up then. Obviously, you know…I dropped out. I understand why she wouldn’t want to take care of me, but she could at least be a little nicer…”

Dick shrugged. “Eh, she’s probably just a racist prick. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you. I’ll find your aunt and kill her or something. What happened to your mom? Did you ever even have one? I mean, obviously someone gave birth to you, but…you know, were you adopted or…or did your mom leave, or something like that?”

Before Spence could respond to the murder threat, he looked over at Dick and squinted. “Are you being serious right now?” he said, his tone turning low. “Seriously, are you joking me?”

“What? No. It’s a serious question. Why?” Dick replied, confused. Spence let out a long sigh and covered his face with his hands. Dick scrolled through his memories to try and find what he said wrong, until Spence finally spoke, his voice faltering between his words.

“Yvonne Shapiro. Does that name not ring a bell for you?” he said.

“No. Well, I know she must be your mom--”

“She was Jeff Fitzsimmons’ fourth victim.”

The shock that rippled through Dick’s heart almost made him jump, and he stifled a gasp as his hands clasped over his mouth. “Oh my god!--I--I’m so sorry! I didn’t know--”

“How can you not know? Your dad ruined your life. He ruined your family. He killed six out of the, like, five hundred people in this town and you don’t know their names?” Spence’s breath built up with each word, and he balled his fists in anger before he let it all out by curling up with his legs against his chest and his head resting in his arms. Dick’s heart sank low as he watched Spence mope at the woods instead of the stars. He stumbled over his breath as he tried to find the words to sufficiently apologize. 

“I…you’re right. I should’ve known. I just…I just don’t remember a lot about that time. It felt so slow when it was happening, but now it feels like…like a dream. Or a nightmare. Not to mention I wasn’t allowed to interact with any of the families of the victims. I was so focused on my dad that I…forgot who he killed.”

Spence sighed. “I’m sorry for freaking out on you all the time.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. I deserve it. You should be around me all the time to keep me in check.”

Spence glanced over and smiled a little. “I thought you weren’t supposed to talk to the victims’ families. Your mom’s gonna be mad.”

“I don’t care. I’ll get in trouble if it means I get to hang out with you.”

Spence sat up as he looked into Dick’s eyes, and they maintained eye contact longer than Spence ever managed before. It was Dick that looked away when he felt his face start to heat. “What do you see up there?” he asked.

“Well…the moon’s almost full and that bright star next to it is Venus. There’s Uranus over there, and, uhm, Orion’s Belt is up too…” he said, pointing to each light as he spoke. “See those three stars?”

“No. I can’t see anything except the moon,” Dick said. Spence reached over and brushed the hair out of Dick’s eyes.

“You can see better without the hair in your eyes,” Spence said. “That’s not a diss or anything. I know how you feel because I need a haircut too.”

“I don’t need a haircut. I like my hair over my eyes so no one can look at them and go ‘oh, they’re so green like your dad’s,’ because they say that all the time. If you need a haircut, you could just go get one.”

“They’re, like, 50 bucks. I’m not shelling out for that.”

“Oh, right.”

“Can you see it now?” Spence leaned over to see the stars from Dick’s perspective. “That real bright one is Venus. Then Orion’s Belt is over there…and the rest of Orion is somewhere but it’s hard to tell with so many other stars around it. And there’s Uranus.”

“Actually, it’s pronounced ‘Your-Anus,’” Dick said. Spence turned to look at him, his face still blank.

“No it’s not,” he said as if Dick was serious. Dick smiled a little, still looking at Spence while Spence turned back towards the sky.

“You’re different when you’re at work,” Dick said.

“What do you mean?”

“At work you’re, like, completely lifeless and bitter. But here, you seem…alive. Your eyes are alive.”

Spence only smiled too once he looked into Dick’s eyes. “That’s because I’m with the moon and stars,” he said. “You’re more alive when I can see your eyes.”

“You don’t like to look at them a lot.”

“I do when I can see them. When I can’t, it feels like I’m talking to a piece of wood.”

Dick crossed his arms and chuckled a little. “Well, I’ll let you see them when we’re alone. Not in public or anything, because then everyone else looks at me weird.”

“I’ll look at you normal.”

When they went back inside, Dick sat Spence down at the dining room table, draped a towel over his shoulders and sprayed his hair with water.