Zephyr had a persistent suspicion that people were avoiding him. At first he thought he was just being paranoid, but the evidence kept piling up. This only contributed to his already foul mood, a great deal of which had carried over from the previous evening. Nothing had gone particularly wrong at the benefit event, but by the time he and Reg had left he'd been overcome by a jittery, nervous exhaustion. Social activities involving large groups often had that effect on him. At least the full-body ache he'd woken up with had dulled into mere general discomfort by Thursday afternoon.

But it still interfered with his day. His fingers wouldn't even close anymore, which made everything from drinking coffee to holding a pencil nearly impossible. He hadn't cried over the milk he'd spilled on the break room counter, but he did nearly bite Oscar's head off for asking him to move over. Zephyr regretted that. But what kind of mood would Oscar have been if he'd been the one struggling to open a Tupperware container for 20 minutes straight? Zephyr had finally given up and washed himself a bowl of grapes for lunch. He didn't mind that so much as he minded being forced to make Reg miss lunch, but Reg had accepted a Power Bar without expressing any disappointment.

But now the entire office walked on eggshells around him, and it infuriated him. He sent Connor home early to finish a term paper for one of his evening classes, and that at least got rid of one minor headache. Connor actually bothered him least of anyone (aside from Reg) and even managed to be relatively understanding... maybe that was what had irked Zephyr the most about him. Connor kept trying to do things for him. He kept jumping up and getting him coffee, locating files, jotting notes, offering to fill out the supply forms. Zephyr tried to convince himself to be flattered or at least grateful, but in the end he was glad to see Connor go. Now if only he could deal with the rest of them so gracefully. Mariluz had decided quite on her own to hold all his calls. He felt both relieved and insulted, but insulted was winning. Sure, he was grouchy and physically compromised, but he could still do his job. He'd done it countless times before in this state.

His instinct to hide kicked in with a vengeance, and as he sat alone in his office, he figured it was just as well that the others chose today to treat him like an untouchable. But after a while the silence started to get to him. As much as he hated to admit it, he was lonely. But what could he do? He scanned his desktop again, but he already knew nothing needed to be done that didn't require some sort of physical exertion. And it wasn't a good time to seek social contact, even if he were comfortable approaching anyone besides Reg. Well, there was still Reg. Zephyr had spent a good chunk of the morning watching Reg work, but it was better than sitting here alone thinking about all the things he would do if only he had small motor skills. Or gross motor skills.

He took the back stairs, which he'd ordinarily consider a really dumb choice, but the stairwell was right near his office, and it seemed like less effort to take it than to walk through the lobby to the elevator. He changed his mind about the effort part halfway down. On the bright side, being forced to take stairs this slowly prevented him from losing his breath by the time he reached the bottom.

Reg sat at the counter in the center of the work area, sketching. Zephyr approached him. "Hey, man, is Marsh around?" he asked loudly as he sat in the chair he'd used that morning. Reg didn't even pause, and Zephyr didn't hear any motion from other parts of the facility. Satisfied, he sat back and watched Reg draw.

Zephyr recognized the subject of the sketch as the motor for Diane Morey's new wheelchair, with modifications marked and notated. Reg's hand flew across the page when he shaded and slowed down to achieve precision on the straight and arced contours. He moved with an agility most people deeply envied when they observed him. Zephyr usually enjoyed watching Reg's hand create magic on paper, but today it only made him hurt more. He tried flexing his fingers just to see if they'd loosened up any; they hadn't. He folded his hands on his lap, tried to stretch the knots out of his back with as little success, and watched.

The great thing about Reg, he thought, was that Reg treated him the same no matter what mood he was in. Reg simply didn't react to other people's moods. Well, he did, but it wasn't the same. Reg never shunned anyone. It wasn't in his behavioral repertoire. Reg never even avoided people because he didn't know what to say to them. Of course, that also meant that Reg didn't deal with people on their own terms; it was always either his terms or he wouldn't deal with them.

Zephyr liked that. Mostly, he supposed, because he was actually familiar with Reg's terms. Nobody else had such clear-cut expectations. Zephyr didn't even understand his own expectations sometimes.

Like now, for instance. What was it he wanted? He felt inadequate, but what exactly did he feel inadequate about? The best he could describe was that he felt like a child who had earned the disapproval of the authority figures but didn't know what he'd done wrong. Marsh wasn't an authority figure, he reminded himself. Oh, but he was. Even Reg still called Marsh "Boss-man" occasionally. But, more than that, people in general were authority figures. Anyone better and more experienced than himself fit that role, and that was pretty much everyone.

That was why he was afraid. When he annoyed the authority figures, they punished him. There was no way to avoid that, because he didn't know the rules. Well, there was one rule he knew - if he spoke up, he would be beaten. If he called attention to himself, he would pay the consequences. That was what was happening now, wasn't it? He had spoken his objections to being treated as openly gay last Monday, and Marsh had belittled him. And last night he had been out of line somehow... perhaps by letting Reg fix those broken items, or maybe it was something he said or didn't say... and his punishment now was isolation.

He could take it. He'd been untouchable most of his life. Keeping out of sight was one of the very first skills he'd ever learned.

It really only upset him because it was so unexpected. It was stupid of him, but Zephyr somehow had gotten the idea that because his MARZ mates were his friends, that he'd be exempt from this treatment. But having friends didn't automatically make him equal to them. He should just appreciate the fact that he had friends at all.

Even if they didn't understand the importance of keeping his mouth shut. That's what had upset him in the first place - he was so careful to keep quiet about his relationship with Reg, and then the minute the information was leaked, he lost control over it. Only a year ago Marsh set up Zephyr and Tracy on that fateful blind date; Tracy was the second person he had ever in his entire life admitted being gay to. Suddenly, the entire EuC staff knew. When he, Reg, and Oscar fell victim to EuC's layoffs, and they and Marsh formed MARZ, it was already an established fact. Now everybody seemed to want to talk and joke about it. People seemed to go out of their way to catch the two of them in private shows of affection, and Reg even seemed a great deal more eager to hug, kiss, even grope him. Reg never did that at work before, did he? Zephyr had even caught himself boldly saying and doing things to further the problem.

It seemed the more people knew about them, the harder it became to keep their affection under wraps. This was not good. It was even dangerous. Zephyr's identity always put him in danger in some way or other, and he did not want his relationship with Reg to contribute to that. Even worse, it put Reg in danger with him. Marsh and Shauna and the others were wrong - Zephyr wasn't being petty; he was justified in his fear. Shame kept him and Reg safe. Or relatively safe. They were never truly safe as long as there were other people in the equation.

His friends threatened his feeling of security. That wasn't unreasonable! That was true! His friends may have meant well by exposing him, but they put him in danger. And now they were angry because being in danger upset him.

"They shouldn't've put me in this position," he informed Reg. "All I wanted was for them to be more discreet when talking about... certain topics. It's not a joke. I'm not a joke. But no, first they tell me I have no right to feel this way, and then they guilt-trip me into going to some social event I know I can't handle, and then when I really can't handle it, surprise, they get all pissy at me. Fine. I don't care. I'm in too much pain to care."

"Pain," Reg repeated without looking up or pausing from his sketch.

"Yeah, pain. I hurt. I'm okay; it's just the usual."

"Zephyr hurts," Reg said.

"Yeah," Zephyr sighed.

"Zephyr is angry," Reg said.

"I... yeah, I'm a little angry."

"Marsh is angry," Reg said.

"At me? Did he tell you so? What'd he say?"

Reg didn't answer. He slid a fresh sheet of paper closer to him and moved his pencil over to create more visual magic on it.

"Fine," Zephyr grumbled. "Marsh can be angry if he wants. He's got nothing to lose. He doesn't have to worry about being tied to a fence post and beaten to--" He stopped himself before completing the thought. There was no need to subject Reg to disturbing ideas like that.

"An equal and opposite reaction," Reg said.

Zephyr gawked at him. "What?" he asked, although he knew Reg wouldn't respond to a request to elaborate.

Reg sketched quietly for a few moments, when he spoke, it was with such great effort that his pencil faltered. "Marsh hurts Zephyr hurts Marsh hurts Zephyr hurts Marsh."

"Excuse me?" Zephyr asked, genuinely confused.

"Equal and opposite reaction," Reg said, looking at his pencil.

Zephyr thought about that, and he had the feeling he almost grasped Reg's intention. He wasn't sure, though; he only knew he had the urge to defend himself. "I... have the right to be afraid," he insisted in a hushed voice.

Reg turned the pencil over and over in his hands. "Zephyr Zephyr Zephyr Zephyr Zephyr...." he muttered to himself.

"Look," Zephyr said as if he were talking to Marsh (although he never would have said it if Marsh were present), "I'm sorry if I hurt anybody, Marsh or anybody. But I have the right to be afraid. I don't care if they don't respect me... I just want them to respect that I'm... I am. I can't help it. I shouldn't have to help it; I'm perfectly justified in being afraid. I'm going to get hurt if I'm too open. That's the way life is. It's just a general truth. People will hurt me. Not can; will.

"If Marsh and them don't believe me, it doesn't make it any less true. It is true. They think I'm like them, that I can just go around doing and saying whatever the hell I want and not face any consequences. But no matter how hard they believe it, it'll never be true. I just can't do that. They're wrong. If they weren't wrong, it'd mean..."

It'd mean he was just like them. It'd mean he was their equal after all, and there was no reason he had to accept their punishment. Or anyone's punishment. And that would mean that so much of the pain he'd endured all his life... no, unthinkable. Of course it wasn't true. That was ludicrous. His life wasn't a waste.

The grapes started to disagree with his stomach. He wondered if it were worth the effort to walk all the way over to the men's room, and then decided it wasn't necessary. Reg stopped muttering his mantra and went back to work on his sketch. Zephyr watched.