"I can see that psychology degree came in handy," said Seth, who'd taken to giving each of us massages—him being a masseuse and all.

"Y-Yes," Mr. Hardon said, his eyes growing visibly misty. He suddenly let out a whimper, took off his glasses and wept into his knees, covering his head with his hands. "I just— I-I j-just—"

Murv saw Brick crying so he started crying, too. They were both on the floor, bawling like babies, holding each other, shaking, letting out a shared deluge of tears and snot.

"GODDAMN YOU, TRUMP!" I roared to the world, thumping my chest like a gorilla. "LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO THESE PEOPLE!!!!!"

"JESUS!" Coltrane shouted.

I turned around to see Murv had collapsed, groping weakly with one arm as his other lay limp beside. Mr. Hardon had a hand on Murv's forehead, checking his temperature.

"N-Narm," Murv muttered. "Narm!"

I rushed to his side and cradled his head. "Murv! What is it, bud!?"

And then the world went mute. My ears were ringing. I looked around and saw everyone's mouths were moving but no sound was coming out. A white light emerged in a ring around my vision, flooding across it until I couldn't see a thing. I remember my body jerking left and right—out of my control—and I remember smelling burnt toast and bacon, two of my favourite forbidden foods.

And then a shout from what seemed to be miles away: "JESUS!"

Another, closer now: "Jesus, can you hear us?"

The visual snow cleared, thinning 'til I just saw white specks, then the specks drifted apart, disintegrated. I could see clearly again. Murv was by my side, holding my hand. He'd regrown his teeth and his eyes had a certain debonair quality to them.

"Jesus, good chap, are you quite alright?"

"Murv?"

"I prefer Murvius Roger O'Doughtry'O-Cunnilingusham now, good fellow, but Murv will do, yes, certainly."

Glancing at the others, they shrugged and shared puzzled expressions. "What happened?"

Murv sat me up before explaining: "It was a miraculous event, old bean, and though I'm loath to make presumptions... I do think the good Lord O God filled me up with His Holy Spirit. You see, when I cried alongside the good doctor, gang, I felt something enter my body. Not physically, no, but metaphysically, yes. The only way my limited intellectual capacity could vocalize such an extraordinary sensation was to cry out 'Narm!'—which, of course, referred to the numbness I felt in my arm."

The others nodded in understanding.

"And me?" I asked.

"I believe you had a seizure, old chap. Possibly one of those nasty temporal-lobe epileptic fits I've heard a good deal about. Fits quite nicely with your delusion that God speaks to you, good man."

I rubbed my temples. "Feels like someone took an ice-cream scooper to my brain."

"That would be the traumatic brain injury, dear sir. I do believe I have extensive experience with that! Hawhaw!" Murv guffawed. "Good stuff."

"But... but why? I don't understand. God didn't deliver me a fantastical message or anyth— AHAHFHASFBHSGAKNDSA!" The twitches overtook me again, until the very fabric of my being was ripped in two.

Staring down at my body, at my friends crowding around me. I looked dead. A giant glowing-white hand reached through the cave's ceiling and scooped me up. Riding the hand up into the sky, leaving the world as I knew it behind, shooting up past trees and skyscrapers, clouds and airplanes. Out into space, past the satellites, past the Moon. A patch of star-speckled space flickered momentarily and then it was revealed a spaceship had been floating there, previously hidden but invisible no more.

The hand brought me inside the ship, carried me through its clean white halls and into a throne room, where a glowing man with a long white beard sat upon a great golden chair.

"My son," he said, and I quickly changed the pronoun to He, for I knew this was God who spoke to me.

"Dad?"

"Spiritually speaking, yes," He said. "I've brought you here to teach you the ways to defeat Evil. It involves continuing to tell stories of love that will never die. Keep doing that and you will succeed. The other groups will tell their own stories. Good luck! Bye!"

"Other groups?"

"Er— Um— Yes. Bye!"

I shot backwards like a rocket, whipping through the ship and back down to Earth, popping back into my body.

"Jesus?"

I opened my eyes and sat up again. "I just had an epiphany. God spoke to me. We must take this fight to Satan himself. But first we must energize ourselves. Everyone, gather 'round and join hands. Murv's transformation was just the beginning. The light within all of us will only grow as we tell these stories of hope and love. Follow me, for I am your shepherd and you are my flock."

"Cool. Where are we going?" Dirk asked, tying his shoes and throwing his rucksack over his shoulder. He fitted his beanie over his head, tugging it this way and that until it was perfectly positioned for maximum cool. I never mentioned Dirk before because he never needed to be mentioned. Dirk was a construction worker who moonlit as an exotic dancer.

"Follow me metaphorically," I specified. "Let's join hands."

After we did that, I said, "We need another story, gang."

Seth said he had one. "Just needs a title. What do you think, Coltrane? 'More Than Friends'?"

"Sounds beautiful to me, babe. Sounds like us."

"You're so right, Coley. Okay, this story is called...

MORE THAN FRIENDS by elementalcobalt

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Her fist was slamming on his door, causing an abnormally loud racket for the middle of the night. A door overhang protected her from the rain, but the long trek up his driveway had already left her drenched. Meanwhile, nothing protected her from the wind blowing down the side of the house. Therefore, she stood there and shivered in the cold as she waited for an answer.

This was the state he found his best friend. Daryl opened the door to see her soaked and shivering. Her makeup had long since been smeared to oblivion, her fashionable clothing clung to her body, and her skin appeared red, swollen and bumpy. She wore a pained expression on her face, and it was clear even through her soaked face that she had been crying.

"Samantha, what happened?" he asked, already gesturing her into the relative warmth of his house.

Instead, she threw herself at him, her body pushing up against his as she buried her face into his chest and wrapped her arms around his body. He was only a little surprised by this response, having known Samantha for many years. Within moments, his shirt was as wet as hers, half with tears and half from her drenched clothing.

"Derrek?" he guessed.

He could feel her head moving up and down, and his shoulders relaxed a bit. He put his hand down on her dark, wet hair and patted softly. With that, she seemed to lose all energy, and her body leaned against his without reserve.

"Let's... get you covered, before you get sick."

Samantha didn't respond, but as he finally pulled her away from him, he managed to get her moving towards his bathroom. He found a towel and a spare set of clothing that she had left over at his place, and then sent her into the bathroom to dry herself and change.

In the meantime, he put on some coffee. In truth, he had been asleep when she had started knocking, and even after flinging her soaking body at him, he was still only half awake. As he started hearing the familiar crackling of the coffee maker, he pulled off his wet shirt and tossed it into the laundry. Before he had a chance to go to his room and grab a shirt off the floor, the bathroom door opened.

He turned to see Samantha standing there. Her brown hair still clung to her face, stringy and not completely dried. Her cheeks were still red, her eyes still puffy. She wore an oversized shirt and baggy pants. She had called them her fat clothes, because she only wore them on days she planned on overeating. To him, she looked absolutely beautiful.

He coughed, turning his face with a blush and reminding himself that he was her best friend, and nothing more. To fill the awkward silence, he gestured to the couch.

"Sit down over here. I have a space heater. It should warm you up."

Samantha nodded numbly, heading over to where he gestured like an automaton. A beep told him the coffee was done, and he went back to the kitchen and made two cups. He liked his coffee black, but he knew that Samantha always liked it smothered in cream and sugar, mostly cream and sugar. In fact, you could say she liked cream and sugar with a dash of coffee.

He smiled when he thought of that, but decided not to fill the awkward silence with even more awkward talking. Instead, he sat down next to her in silence, putting the cup down in front of her before reaching over and switching on the space heater. He always left a blanket on the couch, and she had already wrapped it around herself, covering her baggy clothes and red skin. They sat like that, in silence, for at least half an hour. He drank his coffee, warming himself up, while she merely stared ahead, her cheeks dry, but her eyes still glimmering with tears unshed.

She finally got out the words: "He... cheated. Daryl, he cheated..."

Daryl didn't say anything in response. He had already assumed it'd be something like this. Derrek wasn't the kind of guy to break up with a girl. He'd rather just give her less attention, keep his distance, and let nature take its course. They had all been friends in college, but while Samantha knew the Derrek that Derrek wanted her to see, Daryl knew about the kind of man Derrek was inside.

"I'm sorry I ever introduced you to him..." Daryl let out a sigh.

Samantha shook her head. "No... don't be. I asked you to introduce us..."

That was true as well. Derrek and Daryl were put on a project together in class, and she had wanted Daryl to introduce them to each other. Daryl had invited them both to an after-finals celebration, and then promptly called and cancelled due to an "emergency," which inevitably became their first date.

Of course, Derrek had also asked him to meet her, so the feelings were mutual. They each knew ahead of time that Daryl was going to cancel, although neither knew the other knew. Daryl had coached Derrek on what to wear, what she liked to talk about, and where she liked to go. Basically, he guaranteed that Derrek and Samantha's first date would be a success. This was, of course, back when his only experience with Derrek was a charismatic guy in his class.

Samantha didn't know this. She didn't know that her perfect first date with Derrek had been planned and engineered by Daryl. She also didn't know that as Daryl got to know Derrek more, he suspected he'd one day cheat on her. How could Daryl possibly tell his best friend that her boyfriend might be a scoundrel underneath that smooth exterior? This led to Daryl feeling a substantial amount of guilt.

"C-Can I ask you a question?" Samantha looked up at Daryl with eyes he knew he could never resist.

Daryl feared she'd ask if he had known about the affair. He thought it was a fair question, but he feared even more what she'd do if she knew he could have told her and didn't. He gave her a nod anyway, but what came out of her mouth was not something he expected.

"That time all three of us went to the amusement park? I got sick on that ride and threw up all over my shirt. I spent a half-hour in the bathroom cleaning it up, and when I came out Derrek was standing there with an overpriced amusement-park shirt with Donald Duck on it and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol..."

"Well, Donald is your favorite. You always say: 'I go with the duck, everyone else can get f—'"

Samantha gave a wry smile but waved her hands. "Not that. Afterwards, we went to eat and you said you forgot to bring money."

"Derrek paid for you. I wasn't that hungry anyway..." Daryl shrugged, not quite comfortable at where she was going.

"Yeah... but he didn't pay for you..." Samantha tilted her head as she looked at Daryl. "You spent all your money on the shirt and medicine, didn't you?"

"It... seemed like it'd be better if it came from your boyfriend, rather than from me. But he said your shirt would air out and he wasn't going to go hungry for a T-shirt." Daryl scratched the back of his neck.

Samantha nodded, as if that was the answer she was expecting.

Daryl feared where she was going with this. It was his fault that she had fallen for Derrek so hard. It was his fault she was hurt so badly right now. He didn't want their friendship to be jeopardized because of his mistake.

After another brief moment of silence, she looked up at him again. "F-For my birthday, he bought me that necklace I had been eying at the store! I never looked at it in front of him. You're the only one who knew I liked it."

Daryl waved his hands. "I only went halves on that one!"

Samantha blinked in surprise. "You paid for it? But you got me something small for my birthday, that scrunchie."

"Right..." Daryl winced, realizing he had said too much.

She probably just wanted to know whether he had advised Derrek to get it. At the time, Derrek had wanted to have enough money to go to Beerfest, so Daryl had lent him half the cost of the necklace. It was supposed to be a loan, but, well, Derrek never offered him the money and he had never asked, especially after seeing how happy Samantha looked upon receiving it. The small gift was a red herring, since he had to get her something. He said as much, a depressed look on his face as he watched Samantha continue to nod, as if she was coming to a realization.

"The... letter... from Valentine's day..." Samantha was speaking softly now, her eyes looking down as if deeply contemplating something. "Those were your words, weren't they? They mentioned things he couldn't have known."

Daryl didn't meet her gaze, staring straight ahead, a blush forming on his cheeks. He really thought he had been so clever. It seemed so simple at the time. He wanted Samantha to be happy. Samantha was dating Derrek. Thus, anything he did to help Derrek make Samantha happy seemed fair game. He never expected that she would have been able to figure out so much on her own.

He wondered if she knew that Derrek wore blue on every date because Daryl had told him she liked the color blue. Did she figure out that the time he "cooked dinner" for the pair of them, it was Daryl's cooking? How about the day her father had collapsed and she needed a ride? Daryl had borrowed a friend's car so that Derrek could drive her across the state.

A hand touched his own, and he looked up. She was staring at him now, and her look suggested she knew all of that and more. Why did she always look so beautiful, even when she was sad or angry? He was at a loss about what to say. The thing he felt more than anything was guilt. He had helped a guy manipulate her, cheat on her, and break her heart. That was entirely his fault.

"How do you feel about me, Daryl?" she asked.

Her voice wasn't cracking anymore. In fact, she seemed to have a certain strength in her eyes. They seemed determined, but pleading at the same time. They weren't the eyes of someone upset over the loss of her boyfriend, or angry at the betrayal of her best friend. They were eyes that were resolute.

"Wh-Why are you asking so sudden—" Daryl tried to deflect the conversation.

"Daryl... He said he cheated on me because it was obvious I was cheating on him... with you."

"Oh." Daryl turned away, feeling even guiltier now.

"So... what is it? The truth, Daryl, I need to know!"

Daryl lowered his head. He considered lying, but he felt that things were already too late for that. Instead, he decided it was time to confess. "I... I've always cared for you. I just wanted you to be happy. I just wanted you to smile. I love seeing your smile. I'm so sorr—"

Before Daryl could utter another apology, her lips were pressed against his. They were puffy and warm, a little salty, but also impossibly soft. He was shocked at first, but it didn't take Daryl long before he was kissing her back. She pulled away from Daryl and he inhaled a breath, taking in her fresh scent.

"We've known each other for so long. Why did I never see it?" she asked, seemingly angry with herself.

"Wh-What? See what?"

She looked up at him, her head slightly lowered, her cheeks flushed. "You..."

Daryl was surprised to say the least. It was so close to what he had always dreamed she would one day say. "I love you, Samantha, ever since we met. I'm sorry I never told you." The words came out smoother and more certain than anything Daryl had ever said in his entire life.

Samantha's hand was resting on his shirtless chest now, and her body was leaning towards him, her eyes glancing up at him, studying his face as if she wanted to remember every single detail. "W-Will you stay with me tonight?" Samantha asked, her eyes turning away from his by the time she finished.

He reached out and grabbed her chin, turning her eyes back to his. "I will stay with you, forever."

"I-I think I love you, too," Samantha mumbled, although tears were starting to fall down her cheeks again.

The two embraced, kissing and falling back onto the couch, the sound of the rain dripping on the roof was the only other sound heard. They had spent years together, never quite realizing what they meant to each other. That was the night they realized the truth.

That was just the start of Samantha and Daryl. After that, they started dating. Then marriage. Then kids. He loved her, and she realized that she loved him more than she ever imagined.

And at the end of it all, they lived happily ever after.