Spencer liked to think of himself as a pretty reasonable guy. There weren't a lot of things that really upset him. There were even fewer things that made him actually lose his cool. Unfortunately for Stephan, Billy was one of the things from that short list. He'd recently become the biggest thing, as a matter of fact. Spencer had never felt less reasonable than he did right now. He gave in to the impulse to vault across the room and rail on his roomie.

"Let's see how YOU like being a ghost!" snapped Spencer, bringing his fists down on MSS with everything he had.

"Wait! Stop!" cried out MSS, raising his arms up defensively in an attempt to block the attack.

"Just think of it as an experiment!" Spencer's reason and conscience were completely lost to his grief-driven rage. "Not quite so interesting when it's your own life getting destroyed, huh?" He continued to pound against Stephan, not even feeling the impact of his fists through his hysteria. His eyes were streaming but Spencer wasn't aware of that either. All he could feel was the giant ragged hole exploding through his chest and the burning need to make Stephan know what that felt like. Stephan had to understand what he'd taken away from Spencer. He wasn't allowed to walk out of this whole. Not when he'd ruined that for everyone else.

Billy was gone.

Gone.

Nowhere!

He was never going to see him again or talk to him again. Ever.

Gone.

He was having trouble catching his breath. Spencer's fist lost momentum as he struggled not to choke on his gasping sobs. His knuckles smashed into the bed frame as Stephan successfully dodged the swing. His aim was getting worse due to the shaking of his hands and he couldn't see his target properly through the blurriness of his tears.

"Spence, stop!"

He thought it was Stephan calling out. That only made him angrier; that Stephan wasn't even apologizing, just commanding him like the insensitive prick he was. He pulled his arm back for an especially forceful punch.

His attempt to propel the strike met with unexpected resistance. Spencer's arm remained caught in mid air, stalled by a tight grip on his bicep. The fingers on his arm were strong and cool, and very familiar. He held his breath as his eyes dropped down, almost afraid to check in case he didn't find a translucent blue hand wrapped around him.

He knew though. He knew even before he looked that it was Billy.

Spencer's anger quickly broke apart, although the overwhelming grief still stubbornly clung to him. He spun around and collapsed against the ghost.

"I thought you were gone," he gasped, burying his face against Billy's mostly-solid-yet-not-quite-completely-solid chest.

"No need to get your freak-out on there, bromageddon," said Billy, hugging him back. "I was just out in the hallway."

"Why?" asked Spencer. "You almost gave me a heart attack."

"I was waiting until you woke up," said Billy, a little bit sheepishly. "I guess I freaked out a little. I couldn't really deal with hanging around in here with that in the room." He pointed at the body. "Dead things really creep me out, you know?"

"You should have woken me up."

"I can see that now..."

"Well, as you can see I haven't terminated any ghosts," muttered Stephan, rubbing his shoulder where one of Spencer's fists had connected. He backed away from Billy and Spencer. "I'm going back to bed."

"No you're not." Spencer released Billy from his hug and marched over to his roommate, roughly grabbing him by his shirt. "You are going to take care of that," he snapped, pointing at the ex-clone. "Billy and I are going to go out for the day. This room had better not still look like a crime scene when we get back. Got it?"

"I don't have to do anything you tell me," muttered Stephan in irritation.

"If you want to conduct any more of your research or experiments in peace you do." Spencer crossed his arms. "You didn't give us a full disclosure on the clone process before we agreed to it. All of this is your fault, and you're going to clean up the mess. If you don't, I can promise you that starting tomorrow this room is going to be party central until summer break. Don't expect to get any more sleep this year."

"I'm an expert on disruptive parties," Billy chimed in.

"Your immature threat tactics are unnecessary," said MSS. "As if I would waste such valuable material. I have every intention of efficiently recycling the remnant, regardless of what you two violent hooligans harass me with."

Billy flinched at Stephan's description of his clone as a 'remnant.' Spencer cringed at the mental image of what 'recycling' said remnant might entail. They exchanged an uneasy look.

"Well, good," said Spencer, trying to maintain his authoritative tone. He quickly changed into his regular clothes. "C'mon Billy, let's go get an early...uh...breakfast." The idea of breakfast did not hold the same appeal to Spencer as it did a few seconds ago, when he'd first had the idea to go.

Spencer didn't give Stephan another glance as he stalked out of the room. Billy floated smoothly after, but not without shooting Stephan the evil eye as he went.

"Dude, are you going to eat that?"

Billy didn't wait for a reply before snatching some hash browns off of Spencer's plate. He chased it with a heaping spoonful of his own ice cream sundae, which he'd barely swallowed before pillaging a forkful of Spencer's pancakes. His appetite had apparently returned.

"So when is my debut in a Spencer Wright film going live?" asked Billy around his mouthful of food.

"Oh, um," said Spencer. The question caught him off-guard. He'd spent all morning waiting for Billy to say something to acknowledge the elephant in the room—that he was ghostified again. Billy apparently had no intention of going there. Spencer didn't especially want to be the first to breach the topic either, so he'd been finding their conversation thus far a bit haphazard and hard to navigate. "It'll just take me a few days to finish editing it. I should be able to have it up on MeTube by the end of the week maybe."

"Sweet! The fans are going to eat that up. Are you ready to be famous, bro?"

"Heck yeah!" Spencer grinned. "Though I'm not sure what I'm going to tell them when I start getting inquires about my lead star. People are bound to notice your…resemblance to BJC…"

"Speaking of movies," said Billy, completely ignoring most of what Spencer said, "that one about the asteroid with a space virus on it that turns people into living zombies is in theaters now. We could go see that tonight."

"You'd hate that movie," said Spencer, letting Billy's diversion effectively derail him.

"Sure would bromigo," said Billy. "But Rajeev isn't in town, who else is going to go with you to see it?"

"That would be awesome." Spencer looked at Billy appreciatively. He still felt all tense and weird from his unfortunate shock when he'd woken that morning. He was grateful that Billy was acting so normal. He'd been worried that Billy would be really upset to be a ghost again. Comforting people wasn't exactly Spencer's field of expertise. Especially not when he himself felt shaken too.

...Come to think of it though, Billy was acting a little too normal.

He was acting exactly like he had when he'd been a ghost before.

...Not like he had been behaving for the past three months.

Spencer observed Billy more carefully, noticing the fact that he'd settled himself down on the opposite side of the diner's booth. Not so far away as to be glaringly obvious, but normally he would have parked himself as close to Spencer as possible. The Billy of a few days ago probably would have had his arm around him this entire time. Spencer often had to tell Billy to tone down the PDA when they were out, because Billy defaulted to excessive affection and apparently lacked the ability to ever get embarrassed.

Billy hadn't actually taken the initiative to touch Spencer all morning.

Sure, it had only been what, like an hour? But considering that Billy rarely went five minutes without some sort of physical contact, it was hard to dismiss as an insignificant anomaly. By Billy standards, he was being totally stand-offish.

Spencer considered saying something, but felt like he might be being paranoid. Billy had had an even more traumatic morning than him. Spencer couldn't even fathom what it must feel like to one moment be alive, the next find yourself disembodied and staring at your own lifeless face. It must be pretty upsetting, and Billy had now gone through that experience twice. He probably just needed a little space to emotionally recover.

He shoved his plate across the table. "I don't think I can finish these," said Spencer, smiling at Billy. "Want the end of my pancakes?"

"Is the sky blue?" responded Billy, ramming his fork into the offering.

"Well, actually, that entirely depends on the day," said Spencer. "When the Earth's getting impacted by a massive zombie-virus-asteroid I think it turns more of an orangey-red."

"Dude, not while I'm eating." Billy made a face but it didn't stop him from inhaling the rest of Spencer's breakfast.

Spencer tried to respect Billy's possible need for space for the rest of the day. He'd never been a touchy-feely type of person, so the task should have been simple. The problem was, he'd really grown accustomed to Billy's usual level of invasive touching. Not having to shove Billy out of his personal space every five seconds just felt unnatural.

When they got to the movies and it really got going and Billy still didn't so much as put his hand on Spencer's armrest, Spencer decided he'd had enough. He'd been watching Billy more closely than the film, and could see he was by no means enjoying the feature. In fact, Billy'd had his eyes shut for probably 70% of the movie, a stiff cringe suspended on his face.

Spencer folded the armrest up so that there was no barrier between them and put his arm around Billy, pulling them closer together. Billy momentarily stiffened, and Spencer thought (for a second that gave him a horrible twisting feeling in his gut) that Billy was going to pull away. But he didn't, and Billy soon relaxed against him, actually going so far as to open his eyes again.

"I'm totally not scared bro," he made a point of clarifying.

"I know," Spencer played along. "I just wanted to, you know, put my arm around my boyfriend. That's what people do at the movies, right?" The word hung poignantly in the air, as he wasn't usually in the habit of verbally labeling their relationship. He'd certainly been thinking of Billy as his 'boyfriend,' but the actual title had scarcely been uttered by either of them throughout the entire ordeal. It hadn't really needed to be said. Spencer was beginning to suspect that their mutual understanding had lost some of its mutuality. He wanted to make sure it was very clear to Billy that as far as he was concerned, nothing had changed.

"Oh," said Billy, trying to play it cool. There was a hint of surprise in his voice in spite of his attempt. "Oh yeah, well of course." He finally snaked his own arm around Spencer.

After that the movie was a lot easier to enjoy. Even if the people sitting next to them kept shooting Spencer dirty looks for taking up two seats and talking to himself during the most suspenseful parts.

Spencer quickly realized that he might have been a bit hasty in giving Billy the green light to carry on their relationship as usual. It's not as if he hadn't put thought into their situation in advance. He'd spent the entire last two weeks worrying about what would happen when Billy became a ghost again. It had been a lot easier to be optimistic about how they'd make things work when Billy was still human and he didn't have to deal with any potential consequences just yet. It had even been easy to be optimistic earlier in the day when Billy was still keeping his distance. He hadn't really anticipated the sudden onslaught of panic he'd feel when actually facing the prospect of getting a face full of ectoplasm in real time.

An entire day of keeping his distance had apparently built up an insatiable affection deficit that Billy wasn't willing to go much longer without filling. They hadn't even gotten halfway back to the dorm before Billy shoved Spencer into an alleyway and lunged at his face.

Spencer didn't mean to dodge him; he just reacted without thinking. The second he saw Billy coming at him (transparent Billy, glowing Billy, the Billy that's made of liquid chaos,) he had a horrible flashback to how he'd felt when Billy's ecto had turned him into a ghost—not the fun part, sure a lot of that day had been super fun, he'd loved being a ghost…so long as he was under the impression that Billy could change him back—but then there was that terrible moment when he realized that it might not be reversible. The awful feeling of thinking he might have thrown away his whole future, his chances to be a director, and every other experience that was exclusively dependent on being alive, all over some stupid impulsive decision over some special effects. He'd felt like a first rate toolkit and the regret was overwhelming. The building panic until they finally did successfully extract the contaminating ecto from his body had been memorably traumatic.

He'd thought he'd be able to get over that. He was sure that his relationship with Billy was worth the risk. He was confident that even if he did get ectoplasm on him, they'd find a way to undo its effects. They'd solved dozens of ectoplasm accidents over the years. Whatever happened between him and Billy, they'd deal with it in stride. They could handle it.

…In theory.

People's brains are nice logical things up until instinct takes over.

With Billy's ghostly features coming right at his at a fairly high velocity, Spencer's mind didn't have time to reason out all of these things. It just reacted in favor of self-preservation.

The look of betrayal on Billy's face as Spencer pulled away from him was devastating. Spencer immediately wished he'd just let the collision happen because surely any ecto-induced monstrous transformation would have been easier to fix than Billy's crushed feelings.

"Et tu Brote?" Billy clutched at his chest as if Spencer had stabbed him rather than just dodged a kiss.

"Uh…sorry." Spencer rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "I…I didn't mean that. I just sort of panicked a little."

"Panicked?" repeated Billy. "You panicked at the thought of kissing me?" Billy's eyes got wider and wider and began to fill with tears. "Do you realize that most people would panic at the thought of not getting to kiss me? What the heck, Spence!"

"I just didn't want to get turned into a ghost again!" Spencer tried to explain.

"I wasn't going to turn you into one!" said Billy defensively.

"Obviously not on purpose," agreed Spencer.

"You don't trust me?" cried Billy.

"Well…." Spencer paused just a little too long before answering.

"My brofriend doesn't trust me!" sobbed Billy, he began to dissolve into a teary puddle in the alleyway.

"Well, you're sort of proving my point," said Spencer, taking a cautious step backwards. "You're getting ectoplasm everywhere." He looked around nervously, checking to see if there was any garbage lying about that might get negatively impacted from ecto-contact.

Billy quickly re-solidified, absorbing all the ectoplasm he'd flung about. "Dude, I have total control over that," he said, crossing his arms.

"Okay," said Spencer, not wanting to upset him further by contradicting him.

"And you should totally know that, brodizzle," he added.

"I…do…."

"Then there isn't a problem." Billy went back to his crash course with Spencer's mouth. Spencer braced himself, not knowing whether to expect to get turned back into a ghost again, or if something completely different would happen this time (he was secretly rooting for getting turned into a rampaging monster, so long as something crazy had to happen—it would provide him valuable insight into the creature psyche that he could apply to his films after all—not that he wanted a bad outcome from kissing Billy, he was just trying to make the most of things.)

He needn't have worried. Billy's kiss was predictably forceful and wet, but didn't seem to come with any undesirable side effects. Spencer tentatively let him kiss him again. And then again; a lot less tentatively. And pretty soon it wasn't just Billy making the advances and they were back to their usual grinding and making out. And since the alley was fairly dark and secluded, Spencer even began seriously considering going farther than that, slipping his hands under Billy's clothes and loosening the fastenings. Surely no one would notice anything they did here, would they? The alley was a dead end so there was little reason for any random person to stroll through it. And even if someone did, it was so dark that….

…Wait a minute.

The alley had been very dark. It was a bit less dark now. The bluish glow had strengthened. It was as if Billy had gotten brighter.

…Or maybe barring Billy's increased illumination, been the glow of more than one ghost.

Spencer looked down at his arms and discovered the source of the added incandescence. He was definitely glowing. He immediately jumped back and shook his arms, as if he could fling the transformation off. His arms were way bendier than they should have been.

"Gah! Billy!" cried Spencer. "I knew this would happen! Change me back!" He started hacking, trying to see if he could cough up the ectoplasm on his own.

"What's the big rush?" asked Billy, unperturbed by his failure to keep his boyfriend ecto-free, in spite of his reassurances. "You don't have to be anywhere until tomorrow morning. And now you're invisible too."

"But I didn't want to be invisible!" said Spencer in exasperation.

"Yeah, but so long as you already are, you really ought to cash in on its advantages before going through all the trouble to undo it," said Billy, "right now we can do anything we want and no one will notice."

Spencer paused mid-shake. Billy had a point. "Well..." he said, thinking it over.

This is a bad idea, thought rational Spencer. The longer you wait the harder it will be to get the ecto out.

He looked down at the ground, which was no longer touching his feet. He was floating, Billy style, which he had to admit, was pretty neat. He'd really liked being able to fly the last time this had happened to him. It was fun, as pretty much everything about being a ghost had been fun, except for the bit where no one could see him when he wanted them to.

But then, hadn't the whole point of them ducking into the alley been so that no one could see them? Their entire relationship had been just one long struggle for adequate privacy. Both of them being invisible would be super convenient at times like this.

...Not to mention, being able to defy physics sounded like a pretty cool bedroom trick. Spencer's curiosity began to get the better of him.

"I don't want to get turned into a ghost every time we make out or have sex," Spencer stated, stalling for time.

"We'll figure it out," said Billy, closing the distance Spencer had put between them. "We just need some practice."

"We have to get me changed back before classes tomorrow," he added, with a bit less conviction due to the fact that Billy had started sucking on his ear. He'd expected it to feel jarring, because as a ghost Billy lacked any body temperature, and so contact with him usually felt cool, if not outright cold. But now his own body and Billy's matched, so it actually didn't feel terribly different from when they'd both been alive. Except that he felt lighter and the contact had a faintly electric undercurrent to it that felt really interesting and made it very hard for Spencer to concentrate on anything except seeking more of it.

"Dude, we have all night," said Billy, tilting his head down to suck on Spencer's neck instead. "It'll probably wear off before you even have to do anything."

"Maybe," said Spencer, less convinced. He'd already mentally given in though. Billy's hands were rubbing all over him, much more extensively than they even ought to be able to reach, which reminded him just how stretchy ghosts could be. And that was far too interesting an idea not to experiment at least a little bit with.

Besides, he was already getting hard. It would just be totally awkward if he became visible again before taking care of that.

He wrapped his arms and legs around Billy, enjoying the fact that it took no effort at all to suspend his body (since it currently didn't have any physical weight) and went back to kissing him. Billy kissed him back for a few minutes, and somehow managed to make his clothes disappear without Spencer even noticing him do it. Spencer didn't really have the hang of being a ghost down enough to phase his off too, so he pulled away for a moment to get rid of his own.

Just out of habit Spencer nervously looked around, feeling self-conscious that they were out in the open. He knew no one could see him, exposed or not, but he wasn't used to being invisible. It felt weird to disregard their surroundings to this degree—especially after months of excessive caution.

Billy latched back onto him and with only a faint push caused them to spin upside down. For a second Spencer tensed, instinctively reacting to the sight of pavement rushing towards his head. But then they stabilized, and he had to admit it felt pretty cool to be able to hover upside down; it was pretty thrilling really, and he floated them up a little higher, wanting to extend the thrill. He might have kept going but Billy began to arch into him, and his fingers were sliding all over the place again and Spencer lost his ability to focus on insignificant things like gravity or the ground. He could feel Billy's hand kneading against his butt, and the other one slipping down to fist around his shaft. And he was torn between wanting to thrust against both hands so he writhed erratically, trying to feel as much of Billy at once as he could. And then he could have sworn there was yet another hand trailing down his back, but that didn't really make sense, did it? He would have looked to count but couldn't because his face was occupied by Billy's tongue dragging across the roof of his mouth.

Spencer tried to touch Billy back, but his attempts to grab onto him were foiled by fingers wrapping around both his wrists. The constraint did not come at the expense of the other movements and there was no doubt now that Billy was definitely using more hands than he ought to have, and must be shape shifting or something. Spencer had the vague awareness that that was kind of weird, and moreover he probably should object to being restrained, except then he remembered that he was a ghost too—if he really wanted to get free he could just phase through Billy's hands. Except why on earth would he want to do that? What Billy was doing felt insanely good. And being completely at Billy's mercy like this was admittedly turning him on.

He moved his hips because that was really about all of him he had much control over, and Billy increased the pressure he was touching him with, and then the hand that had been kneading him was moving inside him and for a second Spencer was alarmed, because they weren't anywhere near the dorm and didn't have any lube or anything, and yikes this was probably going to hurt—except, no wait, he kept forgetting about the ghost thing, he couldn't actually get hurt, could he? They could both shape shift and didn't feel pain, and dude, the possibilities were pretty endless in that case weren't they? And Billy was already pretty aware of that.

Since he didn't really need to be prepared in any way, Billy didn't waste much time on using his hand, the action had been more out of habit than anything. Without stopping any of the other things he'd been doing, he hitched Spencer's legs around him and entered.

Spencer moaned into his mouth and Billy went in deeper (definitely more than would have been physically possible under normal circumstances,) and it felt so good that Spencer struggled again, wanting to touch Billy back somehow and make sure it was feeling as good for him as it was for Spencer, But Billy seemed determined to stay in control and Spencer wasn't overly motivated to object.

Nearly every movement Billy made seemed almost perfectly synced with what Spencer thought would feel good and it seemed sort of crazy, it was almost as if he could read his mind and—oh wait—Billy was kissing him awfully hard, maybe more than should have been possible. Spencer hadn't noticed because his mind was fairly occupied by other parts of his body, but shit, their heads were actually kind of overlapping weren't they? Billy probably was reading his mind. And when he really started to concentrate on it, Spencer realized he could sort of sense what Billy was thinking too. He just hadn't noticed because Billy was fully concentrating on him so the thoughts hadn't struck him as out of place. He might not have even realized at all if not for a nagging murmur of fear that definitely didn't belong to him. Sure there were plenty of things Spencer was worried about. How he'd get himself changed back after they finished, most notably. But that wasn't an urgent fear, more of just a mild concern. The subsonic anxiety coursing deep below his other thoughts was sharper than that, more substantial. Less confident that everything would work out (because everything always did.)

Don't ever be afraid of me, pulsed the alien thought. Don't leave me for someone still alive. I can be just as good as that. Let me prove I can be better.

The realization that Billy—the most unflappably confident (some might even say egotistical...okay, actually everyone would say egotistical) person that Spencer had ever met—was actually worried that Spencer— totally ordinary (well not so ordinary actually, more like weird, which some might call a bad thing) and chronically geeky—might ever consider discarding him was a startling revelation.

He must have accidently stilled in reaction to the surprising insight into Billy's subconscious. The current of fear suddenly spiked, and then Billy was pulling his head back, clearly dismayed that Spencer had picked up on what he was thinking. He must have assumed that Spencer was too amateurish at the whole ghost business to be able to read his mind back. Or at least too distracted by what Billy was doing to him to notice.

Spencer was not about to let him run away though. He did now pull his confined wrists straight through Billy's hands, and grabbed Billy's head, ramming it back into his. He didn't even bother to think in actual words. He wouldn't have been able to articulate what he was feeling anyway, he'd never been the mushy sentimental type. Trying to put his deep ironclad attachment to the ghost into actual sentences would have just ruined it anyway. He simply projected his feelings at Billy, as strongly as he could manage, and Billy must have gotten the message because he stopped trying to pull away and soon his arms were wrapping around Spencer's body multiple times, pressing them so tightly together that Spencer lost his sense of where he ended and Billy began.

All the while, Billy had never really stopped thrusting into Spencer, and with Spencer's hands free it was easier for him to move back against him. He pressed into Billy as Billy filled and stretched him, his nerves thrumming with need, his mind skipping with more, faster, deeper, and Billy seamlessly complying. And now that he'd become aware of the mental link between them, he could feel what Billy was feeling at the same time as he registered his own sensations. Their pace became frantic as the intensity quickly escalated to a mind-blowing level. Spencer came hard, his fingers clenching against Billy's back.

Billy faltered, and Spencer felt them drop a few inches in the air. For a moment he thought he'd hurt Billy, which didn't make any sense, but he couldn't think of another reason for Billy to almost drop him.

...Wait, he shouldn't have been dependant on Billy to stay in the air. He'd been weightless too...

He was suddenly aware of the unpleasant sensation of blood rushing to his upside-down head. His liberation from gravity had apparently worn off. Spencer noticed with a disconcerting mix of relief and dismay that the illuminated blue translucence of his skin had solidified back to its usual color. He was no longer a ghost. More significantly, he was no longer invisible.

"Ack! Billy! Put me down! I need my clothes!" he whispered in alarm.

It was only after Billy had righted him on the ground and he'd scrambled to get decent again that Spencer was able to fully appreciate just how lucky it was that Billy had been so thoroughly enmeshed around him. That particular stunt might have ended as a genuine fiasco instead of just a moment of brief embarrassment.

"Guess we now know how to get the ecto out of you," Billy snickered.

"No kidding." Spencer braced himself against the wall of the alley as he caught his breath. His heart was hammering hard from the combined fright of nearly falling on his head mixed with coming down from the high of telepathic antigravity sex. "Definitely preferable to making myself puke my guts out. Holy mackerel, that was insane."

"The Cobra never disappoints." Billy smugly stood there, clothes impeccably in place with zero effort required. He looked as if nothing had even happened.

"Not that I'm arguing with you, but could you not do the third person thing at a time like this?" asked Spencer.

Billy shrugged. "Habit," he said non-committedly.

Spencer rolled his eyes.

"So I trust you're less biased against ectoplasm now, eh broham sandwich?"

"It definitely has some perks I didn't appreciate before," Spencer conceded. "And I'm all for doing that again. But we also need to figure out how to do this the regular way without changing me into a ghost too."

"I'm willing to dedicate lots of time to practice." Billy grinned.

"Yeah." Spencer smiled back. "Totally."

While it was going to take some practice for them to get controlled enough at kissing to avoid ectoplasm transferals, the problem of actual sex was easier to solve than Spencer had expected. He wasted no time in checking the Internet for help, and in only a matter of minutes found a number of websites and support groups dedicated specifically to inter-human-ghost relationships. More conveniently, he found a shop on ghoulBay which specialized in ectoplasm control. Apparently 'ecto-proof condoms' were a thing someone else had already thought of and happily manufactured. Spencer ordered a generous supply.

They practiced a lot.

If he didn't know better, Spencer would have thought that Stephan felt guilty about what happened to Billy, because suddenly he was spending a lot less time in their dorm room and it was easier for him and Billy to fit in their epic marathons of practice sex. Which were becoming increasingly less about the need for practice and more just about the sex, as they were getting pretty good at only transforming Spencer when they actually wanted to do it that way (which was still fairly often actually, because ghost sex kind of rocked.) It must just be a coincidence though, because Spencer had decided without question that MSS was a first rate toolbox and things like empathy were definitely out of his emotional range. Nonetheless, he wasn't about to question their good fortune. All the extra time he was getting alone with Billy was awesome.

When they weren't passionately making out Spencer worked on his film projects. He put extra effort into perfecting the video he'd made with Billy and when it was as polished as he possibly could get it, finally uploaded it to MeTube.

Within twenty-four hours MeTube exploded.

Spencer had never gotten so many comments on a video before. The view count on their movie skyrocketed. Billy's resemblance to himself was not lost on a single viewer. Spencer's email flooded with inquires: people asking if it was a stunt double or computer generated; people asking if Billy was still alive. Spencer declined to comment. His silence on the matter only stirred Billy's fans up more. Soon people who never would have watched even a horror movie, let alone specifically one of Spencer's were favoriting and reblogging his film. People were trying to rope him into interviews. Conspiracy theories ran rampant. Still, Spencer kept silent to anyone that asked.

It didn't matter that most people thought Billy's appearance in Spencer's movie was some kind of hoax. Everyone declared that whoever that impersonator was, he was amazing, and wow, it really reminded them how great the Cobra had been, and wasn't it sad that he wasn't really still alive? Such a horrible tragic loss. Because of rekindled interest, Billy's songs started playing on the radio even more and a newly remixed 'greatest hits' album got released. There was talk of a made for TV special in the works, except, wouldn't it be great if Spencer's impersonator could be the star? No one knew where to find him.

Billy was eating up the attention and developed a bit of an addiction to checking Spencer's MeTube page to read the fan comments. He kept replaying the movie on repeat as well, never able to get enough of seeing himself on screen. Spencer was getting a little bit sick of it honestly, not that he'd readily admit to being tired of one of his own movies. Its constant looped playing might actually have something to do with Stephan's new scarcity, come to think of it.

Aside from the headache of too much repetitive video playing and Billy's occasional moping over the fact that there was no way he could star in a sequel, life was seeming pretty good again. The end of the school year was finally drawing close and Spencer and Billy had gotten through it without Billy getting evicted from Spencer's room, or Spencer's grades plunging from all the distractions. Their relationship had solidly weathered some rather major obstacles, and now they had the glorious expanse of summer vacation on the near horizon to look forward to. Spencer was about to have a whole lot more free time, and they'd be roommate-free. That was going to be the best thing. Spencer's parents tended to leave him alone when he shut himself up in his room, and they couldn't see Billy anyway so Billy and Spencer would have almost as much time alone as they wanted.

Billy in particular was ecstatic in anticipation of that. He was constantly talking about all the things he wanted to do with Spencer when they had more time, and were back at his mansion, which did he ever miss. He had buckets of plans and couldn't wait to rope Spencer into them. Which is why it came as a particular shock when he disappeared.

There was nothing remarkable about the morning Billy vanished. It wasn't a weekend, and they hadn't done anything notable the night before. Billy had been in no better or worse of a mood when they'd gone to bed. Nothing was planned beyond the regular drudgery of classes and homework. It was a given that Billy would follow Spencer through the motions of schoolwork and then they'd spend whatever free time was left hanging out. At least, that had seemed like a given to Spencer.

He really needed to stop taking stuff for granted.

Spencer tried not to panic when he woke up and couldn't find him anywhere. He'd felt pretty stupid after the first time where he'd freaked only to find out that Billy was merely waiting on the other side of the door. He forced himself to stay calm and rationally checked the room and then the hallway. When that didn't yield any ghosts he forced himself to walk to the cafeteria, just in case Billy had gotten hungry and sneaked out to raid for food. Spencer searched the entire campus, fighting off the creeping panic that threatened to overcome him.

Billy was nowhere to be found at school. Spencer woodenly shuffled back to his room, at a loss of what to do next. He turned on his computer and stared hopelessly at the screen. He (guiltily, since he hadn't spent nearly as much time talking to them over the past year as he'd promised to when they graduated) emailed Shanilla and Rajeev on the off chance that Billy had left town and gone to visit some of the only people he knew could see him. He didn't expect them to know anything but there weren't many people he could ask. He checked his browser history to see if Billy had left any clues (there was nothing suspicious.) He looked up Billy's profile on ghoulbook to see if he'd left any status updates (he hadn't.) He was running out of ideas for non-sinister explanations of where Billy might have gone. Which only left ideas that made Spencer nauseous with anxiety.

Had Billy been captured?

It didn't seem that likely. Billy hadn't had any run-ins with his old nemeses since he'd followed Spencer to college. Madam X it seemed, hadn't been willing to relocate in order to pursue her hobby of Billy stalking. He'd drawn the conclusion months ago that she'd probably moved on to a new victim, at least until Billy was back in town.

Besides, Billy had been there when Spencer fell asleep. If someone had kidnapped Billy they would have had to break into the room in order to do it. Spencer would have woken up.

...Unless the person kidnapping him hadn't had to break in...

...Like Stephan.

Spencer gazed suspiciously at MSS's half of the room. He hadn't been around when he'd woken up either. It wasn't immediately notable since his roommate had been spending so little time in their room lately.

Spencer got a bad feeling. Now that Billy was a ghost again, he was no longer safe from MSS's interest. Maybe they'd only been lured into a false sense of security that Stephan was no longer after Billy's ectoplasm. Maybe he only hadn't been bothering them because he still had the ecto from their exchange. But that wasn't to say he wouldn't eventually run out. Maybe his needs for fresh ectoplasm had recently opened up. Maybe he'd just helped himself...

Spencer jumped off of his bed and began searching the room more thoroughly, this time checking for clues instead of for Billy himself. There wasn't any ectoplasm smeared anywhere, which at least implied there hadn't been a struggle (or maybe MSS was just very good at forensic clean-up, Spencer's mind added on darkly.) The jar he'd been collecting ecto in was absent as well.

His roommate's computer was on. Spencer glanced nervously at the door wondering if he'd get interrupted and caught if he checked it. He quickly decided he didn't care if he did, because no consequences could possibly be worse than not finding Billy. He had to investigate every option.

There were lots of folders with sciencey-sounding names that made no sense to Spencer. There was a music playlist. There were folders full of photographs that actually showed Stephan having a social life, much to Spencer's surprise. He'd honestly expected to find documents with names like 'top-secret-plans' or 'diabolical_scheme,' not evidence that Stephan actually acted like a normal college student sometimes. Weird.

But then Spencer thought to pull up the Internet. He checked Stephan's bookmark menu.

…Where he found the Cobrahead fanclub page.

…And the Cobrahead facetablet group.

…And news articles about Billy.

…Lots of them.

…A really creepy quantity of them.

Stephan had more articles on Billy saved than Spencer had ever read himself. That was just wrong.

Spencer's heart rate began to pick up as he tried to process what he was seeing. Had all this time MSS secretly been a completely psychotic Billy fan? Had he been setting them up for months so that he could do something terrible to Billy? It couldn't simply be a coincidence.

He started checking the folders again, this time more methodically when the unexpected noise of his phone ringing startled his already tightly wound nerves. He almost jumped out of his seat, his instincts screaming that MSS had probably caught him. The phone rang a long time before he managed to calm himself down enough to answer it. He turned the chair around so that he could keep an eye on the door in case MSS really did barge in and interrupt him.

It was Shanilla on the phone.

"Spencer!" She sounded almost as upset as Spencer felt.

Hearing her voice just made everything worse. It should have been comforting to him at a time like this, but it reminded Spencer of old times, back when Billy had definitely been okay and Shanilla and Rajeev and Billy had all been constant givens. Now Shanilla and Rajeev were far away and Billy was nowhere and hearing her after months of mostly only chatting through text and online only hammered in how different everything was.

"Uh, hi Shanilla," he whispered, chest feeling tight as he stared apprehensively at the door. "Thanks for calling but this isn't the best…"

"Did you find him?" she asked hurriedly, cutting him off.

"No."

"Did…did you break up?" Her voice was weird and strained as she asked the question.

She hadn't known about his and Billy's relationship for very long, Spencer had put off telling her because he'd sensed she wouldn't take it quite as well as Rajeev. And he'd been right. He'd told them over spring break, and Rajeev had seemed surprised, but quickly shrugged it off and laughed and made a bad joke about appreciating that Spencer was leaving more girls available for him. Shanilla hadn't laughed. Her face froze in a twist of surprise and dismay. She'd said something along the lines of "You're joking…right?" and then when Spencer had shook his head she'd excused herself and vanished into the bathroom for twenty minutes. When she came back out she congratulated him in a flat voice and mumbled some excuse about needing to get started on a school project. She hurried out the door without even waiting for Rajeev. Spencer didn't hear from her again for over three weeks.

"No, we definitely didn't break up," said Spencer.

"Oh." She failed to mask the disappointment in her tone.

"Billy wouldn't do something like that without at least telling me."

There was a long pause implying that Shanilla did not entirely agree with that assessment.

"He really wouldn't," Spencer added. "I know he seems like the type that might, and he probably would to someone else, but he wouldn't to me." He sighed. "Look, I'm pretty sure something happened to him. I'm checking my roommate's computer right now, and he's practically got a Billy shrine saved on here."

"A Billy shrine?" she asked. "That's…pretty creepy. I mean, considering the circumstances. He didn't seem like a Cobrahead."

"He can't possibly be. He just hasn't cared about Billy at all this whole year. I wasn't even sure he recognized who Billy was this whole time. I think he was gathering research because he wants to do something to him. Or maybe it's just like a trophy because he's already doing something. Like a serial killer might collect."

"You should record what you're finding," said Shanilla. "Make sure you get evidence."

"Good idea." Spencer grabbed his video camera and turned it on, recording the computer screen as he cycled through all the bookmarks on the browser. "Thanks Shanilla, that's helpful."

"I could be more helpful!" she said anxiously. "I could come help you look for him! Do you want me to come? I could get a flight and be there in a few hours. Here, why don't I come, you probably need me—"

"No, no, you don't have to go through that much trouble," said Spencer quickly.

"It's not that much trouble."

"He's only been missing for a few hours. Maybe if I haven't figured things out in a couple of days you should come then. But I might be panicking over nothing."

"...Maybe..." she agreed. Clearly though, she didn't think he was panicking over nothing. "Keep me updated then. Let me know if I can do anything."

"I will," he promised, grateful for her reliable friendship, even if it was a tad more strained now than it had been back in high school. "I'll call you if anything changes. Thanks, Shanilla."

"Anytime," said Shanilla. "You can call me anytime."

"I will."

He hung up a little quicker than he might have otherwise, but Spencer was getting anxious over the possibility that MSS might walk in on him still using his computer. He closed down all the folders and windows he'd opened and jumped back to his own side of the room, grabbing his laptop so he could get his collected evidence onto his own computer before anyone got a chance to see what he was doing.

There were more video clips on the camera's memory card than there should have been.

Spencer stared at the screen, counting the files showing up in the external drive folder. There was the video he'd just taken. There were the movie clips he'd already uploaded last week, but failed to delete off his camera yet. And there between those things, were two files he couldn't remember filming.

Had his camera just turned on by accident at some point? Maybe he'd dropped or jostled it. The mystery video might be a mistake.

Or maybe...

His hand shook as he reached out to click play.

The footage was dark. Spencer could dimly make out his dorm room, but just barely, the scene seemed to be at night with the lights off. The viewpoint was at around a person's eye level, so it didn't appear to be a mistake of a jostled camera.

For about a minute the screen was silent and unmoving, showing nothing but an empty desk chair and the wall behind it. Then the camera suddenly shook, turning to point at the floor briefly, and then righting to the bed. In the low light Spencer could just make out his own form under the covers. He watched as his necklace seemingly floated off his neck into thin air, then disappeared behind the lens of the camera. Billy blinked into view.

"Huh, almost forgot there that the camera needed some gear. That would have made a lousy video message, wouldn't it bromigo?" Billy's voice was cut short by a low laugh, although there wasn't his usual humor behind it.

Spencer hadn't been prepared for the impact of Billy's voice, his chest clenched, making him feel like he'd gotten the wind knocked out of him. He turned the volume up and leaned closer to the screen.

"Lessee, so where was I?" Billy muttered. "I'm no good at this sort of thing." He laughed again. "Which is why it's a good thing you're never gonna see this, huh? I'm totally going to delete this video when I come back. Right? Yeah, totally. I feel pretty stupid right now, making a video no one's ever gonna see. But I've gotta cover all my bases, yeah? So..." The wry smile on his face dropped and Billy's eyes slid sideways and then downwards. When he made eye contact with the camera again his expression had turned completely serious. "If you're watching this then that means I screwed up. Which...of course is impossible. Everyone knows BJC never screws up." This time his laugh sounded painfully forced. "So I'm probably just wasting my time here but...but just in case. I didn't want to just disappear. That's not really my style, eh brojack? Nah. Can't..." he looked away briefly, "...can't let you forget amount me. Heh." There was a long awkward pause. "As if you could." He rubbed the back of his neck and then nervously glanced towards Spencer sleeping in the bed. "Anyway, this was supposed to be some sort of apology. I'm really sucking at it, huh? Can't say I'm that used to making them. Uh. Sorry, dude. I'm sorry you're having to see this and I'm not there. I'm sorry for screwing everything up. I hope you can forgive me and maybe move on or—" The clip abruptly ended.

Fat tears were falling on his keyboard. "No," Spencer breathed. "No, Billy. You idiot, what did you do?"

He held his breath as he clicked on the second video file.

Billy's eyes looked slightly crazed and his face was much closer to the camera.

"Ignore that last message," he said hurriedly. "I must have gone temporarily insane. You're not allowed to move on, got it? Never. Never ever. You're mine, Spencer Wright, you got that? Even if I'm not here. Forever. Don't you dare forget me, Spence. Don't ever forget me." He pointed at the camera. "So..." there was a hitch in his voice, "...so I'll just...be seeing you around then. Love ya, bro. Cobra out." Billy saluted the camera before cutting off.

Spencer wrapped his arms around himself and stared at the blank screen of the ended clip for a very long time. He felt like someone had strapped an iron band around all his internal organs and was steadily turning a key, tightening the deadly constriction, slowly smothering and crushing him.

Billy…Billy had done something stupid. And he'd known he was doing something stupid. And he hadn't told him he was going to do it.

Billy had left without saying goodbye and hadn't even told him in his stupid message what he'd actually been planning to do. All Spencer knew now was that something terrible probably had happened to him, since he'd been expecting to come back before Spencer noticed anything was amiss, but obviously hadn't made it. But there hadn't been any clue for him of where to look for him or anything he could do to help him.

"You stupid, stupid jerk." Spencer slammed his fist into the mattress. His eyes were burning. "You stupid, selfish, idiotic jerkface."

He fell back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, his mind racing to try and think of where Billy might have gone.

Probably not Beverly Heights. Shanilla and Rajeev weren't there right now, and the only other people who could see him were his enemies. He wouldn't have gone back and let Madame X chase him just because he needed an attention fix, would he? Surely not.

But wait.

Apparently Madame X wasn't the only crazy fan with Billy in their sights. Billy wouldn't have to go as far as home in order to get a dose of psychotic stalking. There'd been another one right here under their noses this entire time. Unbeknownst to them (or at least to Spencer,) Stephan had actually been Madame X version 2.0. Except he'd wanted to do something much worse to Billy than just put him in a jar. He'd wanted to put only part of Billy in a jar.

Had Billy let him?

Spencer tried very hard to think of another explanation for what Billy might have done.

Maybe he'd just gone out for donuts?

…That wouldn't have required a frantic farewell video.

Maybe he'd tried to contact an agent to restart his career, even though he was a ghost?

…Not something to be done in the middle of the night though.

Maybe….

…Maybe….

Spencer couldn't even think of anything else. His gut kept pulling him back to MSS. There was no way his roommate wasn't involved in this somehow, not with the evidence he'd seen on his computer and the meddling he'd done earlier in the year.

But why would Billy willingly go to him?

MSS had already told them that he couldn't do the clone procedure more than once. Billy's ectoplasm couldn't handle it. It had sounded like another attempt would be a death sentence….

…Had Billy really willingly signed up for that?

Why would he do something so stupid?

Because he's Billy. He never takes consequences into enough consideration. That's how he rolls.

Rolled. Past tense.

Billy might be gone for good now.

Spencer tugged at his shirt collar, an unconscious reaction to the tightening feeling in his throat.

Gone. Gone, gone, gone. Why did this keep happening? Why did he keep losing Billy? They'd been so happy, why was Billy willing to throw that away?

He jumped off his bed and started pacing around the room. He had to do something! He had to find them. But he'd already searched all over campus. Where could they possibly be?

Duh.

The basement of the science department, obviously. That was definitely one place he hadn't thought to check earlier. He'd never expected to set foot there again.

Spencer took off at a mad run, barreling through the dorm's doors, weaving around other students and taking the stairs three at a time. In his haste he tripped on a piece of broken pavement and nearly went sprawling but managed to right himself and kept up his momentum. He made it clear across campus in less than ten minutes.

He didn't pause until he reached the door behind which he knew Stephan had his makeshift laboratory. The metal rolling rack had already been shoved aside, indicating that the room was occupied.

His hand hung suspended in the air over the old scuffed doorknob, fingers tensing in anticipation. For all Spencer's anxiousness to intercept MSS as quickly as possible, he was afraid to open the door. He was terrified of what he'd find. Billy and MSS had been missing for hours, the chance that he'd arrived in time to intercept anything seemed, well, impossible. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for visual confirmation of his worst fears.

Like before there was a body on the table. But unlike before, it was now strapped down and had dozens of wires and tubes sticking out of it.

"Billy!"

Spencer started to run towards the table, but a hand reached out and clenched onto him.

"Stop!" MSS's voice was loud and authoritative.

Spencer struggled to get free. "No!" he screamed. "You stop! Stop interfering! Stop hurting Billy!"

"You're the one who's interfering right now," snapped MSS. "The transfer is already underway. It is critical that the procedure is not interrupted. If you disrupt, it will be you who hurts him, not me."

Spencer spun around and socked his roommate in the chest.

"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?" he yelled. "You said it couldn't be done a second time! You said it would compromise him! Why are you doing this if it's going to kill him!"

"It will not."

"But you said—"

"I know what I said," muttered Stephan. "At the time I said it, that was the truth."

"Wait—what?"

"Science is ever making progress. You wouldn't know anything about that though, would you?"

Spencer stopped struggling and looked at Stephan distrustfully. "Wait, you're saying you figured out how to re-use Billy's ectoplasm without hurting him?"

"Among other things," said Stephan haughtily.

"Other things?"

"I solved the acceleration defect."

"You—you solved—"

"I figured out how to make clones with a stable aging process and normal life span," announced MSS.

"How?" Spencer was afraid to believe him. It seemed too impossible. It had only been a few months since MSS had created the first clone. Surely a problem that major couldn't be solved in such a short time, and by only a single person?

"I am a genius," said Stephan matter-of-factly. "You wouldn't understand the details. Now please get out of the way and stop compromising the procedure."

"It's too late to...to stop?" Spencer anxiously stared at the table. He wasn't ready to believe things might work out as conveniently as Stephan claimed. It would hurt too much if he was wrong. Given the choice between keeping Billy as a ghost and an uncertain possibility of him getting a new body, Spencer would definitely choose ghost. No trade off was worth any risk of losing him now.

"Of course." sighed Stephan, obviously annoyed at Spencer's unwillingness to take his words at face value. "But even if it were not, it is not your choice." He pulled out a piece of paper and dangled it in front of Spencer.

I Baruch Cohen, of sound mind (here there was a scribble where Spencer could make out the words 'and body' had been crossed out) do hereby willingly submit myself to soul transfusion therapy under full understanding of its legal shortcomings and potential hazards. It is my will to engage in this experimental procedure and accept full responsibility of any consequences. - BJC

Baruch? Billy had given Stephan his real name?

Billy had never voluntarily used his real name to Spencer. Not beyond merely correcting him when he'd mispronounced it. He'd certainly never initiated its use. How could he share something so personal with this monster that might kill him?

It was like pouring lemon juice in an already gaping wound.

"You said that what you were doing couldn't be enforced by law so paperwork was meaningless," Spencer reminded him.

"True, this was primarily for your benefit," said MSS, shaking the paper. "He predicted you might...object."

"Damn right I object!"

"It does not matter." MSS waved Spencer's outburst off. "This is what he desired and it is too late to change course anyway. His essence will be destroyed if the transfusion is aborted."

Destroyed.

The word slammed into him like a sledgehammer. Spencer started to feel slightly lightheaded and sat down on the floor to regain his bearings.

He was too late to do anything. Whether Billy was okay or not was completely out of his hands. That he'd managed to find him would make no more of a difference than if he'd simply stayed put in their room. The only thing he'd accomplished was that if something terrible happened to Billy, he'd be here to witness the horror.

Why would Billy do this?

"How much longer will it take?"

"Oh," MSS glanced at his watch. "A few hours, maybe."

"A few hours?" Spencer was shocked. "But you did it in minutes last time!"

"Last time you did not receive the results you expected, did you?" said Stephan. "And so we are proceeding with maximum caution."

Spencer sighed. "Okay…okay…I'll just…I guess I'll just wait."

He lasted about fifteen minutes. Waiting was hard when you felt nervous enough to throw up. Each second felt like a millennium.

"Why are there so many things sticking out of him?" asked Spencer. He tried to make the question conversational instead of accusatory, but failed.

"Stabilizers," replied Stephan vaguely.

"Oh." Spencer tried to stay quiet for a while.

"Why are you even bothering to do this?" He couldn't help asking a few minutes later. "You must have gone through a lot of trouble to reinvent the cloning process. What's even in it for you?"

"That's personal."

"Dude, you have my boyfriend naked on a metal slab with tubes sticking out of him and are being completely blasé about the fact that you might kill him. That's personal. You owe me answers."

MSS crossed his arms and was silent for several minutes. "Leslie threw a tantrum when she found out about the previous procedure and its outcome," he finally mumbled. "She figured out what happened when your irresponsible video went viral."

"Who?" None of what MSS had said made any sense to Spencer. He didn't know anyone by that name.

"Leslie," repeated MSS unhelpfully.

"Who the heck is Leslie?"

"My girlfriend."

Spencer's jaw dropped. "You have a girlfriend?"

"Of course I have a girlfriend." Stephan scowled. "Don't be so insulting."

"But…I've never seen her once all year! How could you have a girlfriend and never once bring her by our room?

"She is a rather large fan." Stephan rolled his eyes with the answer. "I would have found it inconvenient had she become too familiar with your obnoxious sidekick."

"His name's Billy," said Spencer resentfully.

"I am painfully aware."

"And he'd seriously freak if he ever heard anyone call him a sidekick," added Spencer. "As far as he's concerned, I'm the entourage. He can't hear you can he?"

Stephan shrugged.

"You better not have just compromised the whole thing because you agitated him." Spencer glared at MSS.

"A dose of reality could only benefit his health," scoffed Stephan. "Now stop bothering me. You could leave and come back in three hours. Go get a sandwich."

"I'm staying right here."

"Than do so quietly. I have important things to monitor."

"So do I," muttered Spencer. He wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knees, settling in to wait. He was not going to let MSS so much as touch Billy again without intense supervision.

"I'm sorry dude," said Billy for the fifteenth time. He didn't look sorry though. He looked like a cat that had just caught the goldfish; a wide grin was smeared across his face, his face that was perfectly opaque and not even a little bit blue. He hadn't stopped grinning since the second his eyes opened on the examination table. Spencer had jolted off the floor the moment he realized Billy was awake, running over and raking over him to check and make sure everything really was okay. Billy's hair had been flatter than usual, due to lack of gel or styling, and he still had medical equipment attached to him, but other than that had looked no different than he had the first time. It was as if he'd never reverted to ghosthood at all.

It had taken a lot of restraint for Spencer to stand back and wait for MSS to detach all of the tubes and wires. And then for Billy to change into proper clothes. The second Billy was done, Spencer had practically launched himself at him.

"You're a jerk," said Spencer insincerely. It was hard to be mad though when he felt so overwhelmingly relieved.

"I knew it would work," said Billy.

"No you didn't," countered Spencer.

"But it did work."

"But it might not have!"

"But it did," said Billy. "And aren't you happy? Don't you like me like this? I know I make a pretty rad ghost, but I'm even more awesome as the real deal."

Spencer sighed. "You should have told me. Way uncool to do something like that behind my back."

"You would have tried to stop me."

"And that you knew that is a pretty big red flag that you shouldn't do something," said Spencer.

"Well, I just sort of had to, brochahontas. I won't do it again." Billy shrugged.

"You'd better not."

"I'll make it up to you." Billy wrapped his arms around him.

"That's not the sort of thing you can just 'make up'."

"You can let me try."

"Well…" In spite of himself Spencer melted into Billy's hug. He had missed this. A lot. Having Billy so warm and solid again felt amazing. "Okay. Go ahead and try."

Billy kissed him. And it wasn't cold, or sticky, or laced with anticipation that there might be consequences. It was passionate and hungry and Spencer couldn't get enough of it. He quickly forgot that he was supposed to be upset or even that they weren't alone.

Stephan made sure to remind them. He coughed loudly. "Please get a room. Preferably not mine."

Billy laughed into the kiss, and then pulled away. "That can definitely be arranged." He grabbed Spencer's hand and still grinning, pulled him out the door.

It was months before Spencer began to actually believe that MSS had been correct in his claim that Billy's new body was stable. He'd walked around practically holding his breath as the third month marker approached. It came and went with apparently no ill effect on Billy's health. Spencer still didn't let his guard down as the following months encroached. He was halfway through his second year of college before he really began to relax and accept that Billy being alive again wasn't too good to be true.

But here they were, half a year later, off-campus in an apartment way nicer than a college student ought to be able to afford, and Spencer was staring at his own photo in a magazine.

"Really?" said Spencer, rolling his eyes at the headline. "They couldn't even come up with different phrasing from last time? I'm just a 'white hot boy toy' all over again?"

"Well, you are pretty hot," said Billy cheerfully. "It's accurate at least. Though you're more of a 'bro toy', if you ask me."

"Lame," griped Spencer. "They practically just recycled the entire article from Serena, and just replaced her name with yours."

"No one remembers that other article," said Billy with a flippant wave. "It was over four years ago. That's prehistoric in celebrity gossip."

"Still lame," said Spencer.

"Hey, at least you've been upgraded." Billy grinned. "I have more fans to be jealous of you."

"I'm not sure that's a plus," snorted Spencer. "But yeah, you are a major upgrade."

"It's a plus when they're buying my new album," said Billy. "They're paying for our digs, bro."

"True." Spencer shrugged. He personally would have been fine with a normal, college-appropriate apartment rather than the ultra swanky abode that Billy had insisted on. But Billy had successfully rebooted his career and could easily pay for things like this so Spencer wasn't one to argue. It made Billy happy, anyway.

"And they're also your fans now, Mr. Broducer," Billy added.

"Also, true," agreed Spencer. With Billy's reappearance into the public eye, the buzz about the movie they'd made only intensified. Spencer became known as 'the emerging young director who 'rediscovered' Billy Joe Cobra.' He suddenly found himself in the spotlight and in demand…and that demand only escalated when Billy announced that he'd only accept movie roles if they were directed by Spencer. In whirlwind time, Spencer had a promising career started to juggle with college.

"…So you better keep them happy. I trust you're working on a bromazing new script for me?"

"…I have something started."

"No zombies," said Billy quickly.

"Can't promise that, dude." Spencer grinned.

"It should be a heart-wrenching romance." Billy countered.

"Not really my style. I was thinking more of a post-apocalyptic thriller."

"…Rock opera," added Billy.

"A post-apocalyptic thriller rock opera?" Spencer raised an eyebrow.

"…With a romance," said Billy again.

Spencer laughed. "That sounds like a mess."

"What it sounds like is a guaranteed cult classic," said Billy, pointing at himself. "Especially with yours truly as the center heart-throb."

"Well, I'll keep all that in mind," Spencer rolled his eyes. "Though I'm not sure I want to write you into romance scenes."

"Jealous?"

"Absolutely not," said Spencer.

"You're jealous," announced Billy gleefully.

"I have no reason to be jealous."

"Of course not bromeo, but you're totally jealous anyway."

"Nope."

"Don't worry, I know you can't help it." Billy wound his arm around Spencer's shoulder. "I'm like a force of nature. An amazing force of sexy nature. It would defy the universe to not be jealous."

"You just keep telling yourself that," snorted Spencer. "Meanwhile, I have a script to write and I think it's going to contain a force of zombies. Do you want to be the sexy resistance or the sexy sympathetic undead heart-throb?"

Billy didn't answer.

"Dude that wasn't a rhetorical question. I actually have a deadline, which is kinda brutal considering I still also have homework…." He turned to look at Billy.

Billy was staring vacantly at the wall.

"Billy?"

"Force of sexy nature," Billy muttered detachedly.

"Yeah, you said that already," said Spencer. "If I agree with you, would you actually help me out here?"

"Force of sexy nature!" Billy's voice was way more excited this time.

"Okay…you just got yourself cast as a zombie. Since you've apparently been lobotomized in the past five minutes." Spencer shoved the celebrity gossip magazine away and reached for a notebook and pencil.

"What? Who's been lobotomized?" Billy suddenly snapped out of whatever it was he'd been lost in.

"You, dorkbrain," said Spencer affectionately. "You just completely zoned out on me."

"No way brocula!" Billy jumped up and bounced around the room. "That was genius at work! I just found my new platinum hit!"

"Huh?"

"Force of Sexy Nature! It's going to be all over the radio by next week! I just have to write it!" He did an impromptu dance.

"Are you serious?" Spencer made a face.

"Serious as a taco in an all-you-can-eat buffet," said Billy.

"Uh, I'm not even sure what that means."

"Me either bro, but it sounded pretty serious."

Spencer sighed. He thought that 'Force of Sexy Nature' sounded painfully vapid. But he also knew that meant it was probably destined for top ten charts. Billy was really good at nailing what would be catchy and popular.

"Fine," he said, with an exaggerated long suffering sigh. "You go write that. I'll just…write this script all by myself. And do this fifteen page essay. I guess…I can manage."

"Of course you can," said Billy, not rising to the bait. "But you won't have to. I'll be done in like fifteen minutes."

"Your whole new hit?"

"Pssht, yeah. I'll have three done. Heck, I'll write the whole rock opera soundtrack in twenty minutes."

Spencer considered this. A zombie opera did sound, well, different. He hadn't tried that angle yet. He didn't hate it as much as he would have expected.

"Okay Mr. Genius," said Spencer. "Challenge accepted. Write me a soundtrack."

"It will be the best soundtrack ever," said Billy, planting a messy kiss on Spencer's cheek.

"It had better be," said Spencer. "Because I need this to be my best movie ever, if it's going to live up to all the hype from that last one. This is gonna be crucial."

"Of course it will be your best movie ever," said Billy with a wink, as he popped out the door. "I'm not the only genius here."

Spencer grinned at the unexpected compliment.

Billy stuck his head back in. "Just to be clear though, I am the bigger genius," he said seriously.

"Shut up and write me my soundtrack," laughed Spencer.

"On it, comandbro." Billy darted over and tilted Spencer's chair back, making him flail. Billy leaned over and gave him a deep, slow kiss. Spencer wrapped his arms around his neck and relaxed into it.

Billy righted his chair and gave him a wink and a salute, before sauntering out.

Spencer was still grinning long after the door had shut. He had a feeling it would be his best movie ever; at least, until they started on the next one. There were a lot of amazing projects in his future. And he and Billy were going to do them together.