Reece and Barry spent the first few hours of 2022 celebrating with their fellow drunken compatriots at the bar's raucous New Year's Eve party. The normally straightedged Reece let his hair down(Not that it was very long and voluminous like when he was Regina. As a man, he wore his hair in the traditional short style) and got royally fucked up on copious amounts of alcohol, quickly getting over his fear of public embarrassment by dancing up a storm, grinding against all sorts of hot, fun loving people.
One great thing about this world, Reece thought, was that it never had to deal with Covid-19. Ty had simply wished the virus away as soon as it had started getting bad, meaning that gatherings like the one Reece was embroiled in had never become public safety hazards just like they had (briefly) in his world, and in the many other worlds where The Rona had never gone away.
Around 4:00 AM, Reece and Barry had grown tired of the party, and retired to Barry's apartment after calling an Uber.
They collapsed in each other's arms in Barry's bed, the happy couple both wearing smiles on their faces.
Around 12:30 P.M, Reece had woken up first, Barry's body cuddled up against his, her large breasts resting on his unhairy chest. He squeezed Barry's smooth chocolate colored ass, enjoying the pleasure and the thrill of goosing someone.
This woke Barry up, Barry grinning like the Cheshire cat, and the two showered together in Barry's bathtub, Reece being bold enough to penetrate his lover from behind with his regrown penis. Barry tittered in glee at the strange but enjoyable feeling of letting someone enter her body.
After drying off, the two lovers played video games, particularly Elden Ring, which Reece hadn't gotten to play yet on his Earth.
Barry tried picking Reece's brain more as they explored the world of the game, the cute Chinese man snuggled in her arms, trying her best to learn more about her engimatic new boyfriend. Who was he? What did he do for a living? Alas, she learned that Reece was still playing things close to the chest.
"Oh well. He'll tell me who he is when he's comfortable" Barry thought sadly.
Then talked a little bit more about science news. Reece was so happy that he had found someone as inquisitive about the world as Barry was. His ex wife had *never* posed these kinds of questions to him before, and Barry was enthusiastic about learning more! Reece happily obliged her.
As the afternoon turned to evening turned to dusk, after eating some microwaved burritos for dinner, Reece and Barry parted ways once more.
"Same next week maybe?" Reece asked at Barry's front door.
Barry smiled, the black woman's adorable face morphing back into the handsome man she usually was.
"Its a date!" he bellowed in his masculine voice.
Reece smiled.
"OK, see ya then Barry!"
"See ya, sexy!"
Reece skipped outside of Barry's apartment building, his heart filled with a giddy childlike crush he hadn't felt well, maybe ever.
Barry was just different than the other types of women he had fallen for.
He had loved his ex wife and Jenna Negrotti in their own ways. Savannah was undeniably sexy and seductive, but him and Barry felt...connected.
Almost like they were soulmates.
As Sorceress Supreme, Reece had been pleasantly surprised to discover that the idea of soulmates were 100% objectively real, not an invention by Hallmark.
It was because of the multiverse.
Everything existed somewhere, even abstract concepts like love at first sight.
So it wasn't out of the question that he and Barry were meant to be.
Snowflakes were falling from the dark blue evening sky in steady bursts, the city beautified by their presence. Reece smiled, thinking of how lovely it all looked this time of year.
The thing that a lot of people seemed to underestimate about Reece Chung was how much of a romantic he was. They assumed that as a science teacher, he wasn't able to appreciate poetry and art or the shape of a gorgeous woman's curves. That he measured the marigolds instead of admiring them. That he was Mr Spock from Star Trek, all logic and no heart.
That couldn't be farther from the truth. It was *because* of how much he loved the universe that made him want to understand it all down to the cellular level.
Or, for the last so many years now, the spiritual and metaphysical level.
It was why he and Aziza had been chosen by the brother and sister Sumerian gods to be their avatars on Earth. It was their respective love of learning and exploring. Of protecting the universe so it could be studied and cherished by future generations for all time.
Or maybe all this sentimentality was just the alcohol from last night speaking. Reece still felt a little hungover.
Guess he may as well go back to the bar. Maybe he'd find some other friends to hang out with for a few hours.
He stumbled a little bit as he entered his favorite haunt and scanned the room for someone who seemed like they might be fun to talk to.
Before he had even seen them with his eyes, Reece's acute mystical senses had already sensed their presence.
Goddess damn it. They had found him.
Sitting at a table near the farthest left corner of the bar was was his partner Aziza, and Aziza's girlfriend Kylie.