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The hum of Gears’s car engine was quiet. The road in front of him was a new one that he hasn’t gone on yet, but it was exactly like the other ones before. He pulled down the sun blocker as the sun started to rise in the distance. He glanced down at his phone, making sure he was going the right way to the address Iceberg gave him.
He passed a few traffic lights as glanced down at the GPS on his phone, making sure he was going the right way. Green light, green light, yellow, red, stop… green light, take a left, Horrison St.
His eyes flitted across the sidewalks and scanned the fronts of the buildings, checking if there were any living ice cubes waiting on the front steps. As Gears drove closer, Iceberg glanced up and waved an arm up to signal him. The car slowed down and stopped, letting him open the door and sit in the passenger seat beside Gears.
“Good morning Doctor Iceberg.”
“Morning Charles.” Iceberg mumbled, tiredly wiping his eyes. Trees and buildings passed by them as they began to drive back to their apartment. “Sorry for making you come earlier than usual to pick me up from… my rendezvous thing.”
“It’s quite alright. It provides me more time to prepare for work.” The sky was lit with pinks and oranges, the colors reflecting on the bottom of the fluffy clouds. A nice setting for a calm and quiet morning. “The sunrise is a nice view as well.” He added.
“Mmm, yeah. It really is pretty.” Iceberg mumbled again, leaning his head against the hard window glass. His eyelids opened and fell closed repeatedly, trying to stay awake.
Gears looked at Iceberg for a few moments before focussing on the road again. The sunlight casted warm highlights on his dark skin, a gleam of the warm sky reflected in his eyes while they fluttered open.
His eyes finally shut as his breathing slowed, falling asleep. The sight of Iceberg dozing off peacefully in the calm morning made his heart warm. Warm and soft as the sky above them.
Though, as these mornings of picking up Iceberg from semi-strangers’ houses, he didn’t mind and sometimes even enjoyed, there was still a looming feeling that tugged at him.
See, as many people of his generation, he was raised to believe that gay people, lesbians, a “man pretending to be a woman”, anything of that sort, were of the devil’s doing, those who betrayed God's will.
‘Don’t even go near those queers. They’ll make you sick.’
‘Pearls are for ladies, Charles! I better not see you talking to your friends about how your Dad was your mom for a day just because your mother forgot to pick you up either.’
He eventually of course outgrew those beliefs, realizing that queer people are still people. The world was changing, more and more people were able to be comfortable with showing themselves. He should accept them in turn. Though sometimes, those old ideologies would creep through. And, one of those sometimes was now.
Each time Iceberg let him know that he was going out on the weekend, a sense of anger boiled inside of him, knowing that he was likely going to go home with another man that night. A sense of guilt and resentment towards himself built inside of him as well. What kind of person is he being if he’s homophobic towards his colleague? His roommate that trusted him enough to come out as gay just a few weeks prior at that?
Gears huffed out a small sigh as he tried to figure out his thoughts and feelings. Just about twenty more minutes before they can arrive home. The sooner they can get there, the sooner he can bury himself in paperwork and not think about the mess that are his emotions.