Undergrad Alchemy [Part 1]

Wallace escorted their latest roommate-applicant (in fact, their only roommate-applicant for the past two weeks) to the final stop on their house tour: the garage. He gestured to the stacks of boxes, the hanging bikes and the picnic table covered in empty beercans and a bong. The applicant–Jon? Joe? Wallace couldn’t even remember–leaned one of the table’s plastic chairs on its side, then tapped the top of the bong with a smirk.

“You guys smoke weed?” he said, an eyebrow raised. Wallace couldn’t tell if the guy was seeking weed-smokers for his living situation or trying to avoid them. He wasn’t quite desperate enough to lie, however, so it didn’t matter.

“Yeah, on occasion. Although we don’t do it when the landlord’s around.” Wallace shrugged. “The bong is my roommate, Peter’s. That guy gets RIPPED.”

The applicant had adjusted his baseball cap, peering out the garage window. Wallace could hear the sound of the lawnmower. “Who’s the big dude outside doing yard work?”

“Well, that’s the landlord, Tony,” Wallace said. “He lives right next door.”

“He bug you guys a lot?”

“Well, he’s over often, but he’s pretty laid back…” Wallace smiled. “He’s not a big fan of us having parties but he’s usually up for anything else we’re up for. Sometimes he’ll come help us kill a pony keg–”

“That guy looks like he sprinkles steroids on his cereal.”

Wallace looked outside. There was big Tony pushing the heavy lawnmower in a pair of overalls with nothing else under them. He only had one shoulder strap buckled. His thick, tan arms bulged as he pivoted the machine to cut down another swath of grass. He wiped his forehead with the back of his beefy forearm.

“Yeah, I guess he used to be really into weightlifting,” Wallace said. “Like, set some world records or something.”

“Why’s a guy feel the need to get that big, anyway?” the applicant–Josh or Jerry or whatever–scoffed. “Kind of makes you wonder. Chicks don’t like muscles like that.”

“Some chicks do,” Wallace said, starting to suss out what the guy was implying. “Anyway, my boyfriend goes to the gym with him. He could probably tell you a lot more about how and why Tony gets that big than I could.”

The applicant’s eyes went wide. He cocked his head to the side, chuckled, and headed for the door. “Sounds good. I’ll let you know if I decide to take the place…”

“You can talk to my boyfriend, if you want,” Wallace said, twisting the knife deeper. “He lives here. He’s big, too.” The applicant was gone before Wallace was out the door.

Back in their house, Wallace erased the applicant’s name–Jeff, it turns out… he was WAY off!--from the wipe-board on the fridge. George, sweating through his t-shirt and joggers, opened the fridge to grab his post-workout shake. He noticed the empty wipe-board.

“Wait, did that guy come by?” George said after chugging the contents of his shaker in one gulp.

Wallace nodded. “Yeah. Turns out he was a homophobe.”

“Hunh,” George said, rubbing a hand over his freshly-shaven head. He licked his lips, savoring his smoothie, before he raised an eyebrow. “Did you turn him down or did he turn you down?”

Wallace shrugged. “Kind of mutual. I sensed he was weird about gays and just kinda mentioned that you were my boyfriend. And that was it.”

“Well, that’s not exactly true anymore, is it?” George said coldly. For a few seconds, all they could hear was Tony’s lawnmower. Wallace cleared his throat and turned away.

“Wally, we need that extra bedroom filled,” George insisted. Wallace caught a whiff of his sweaty body. He tried to ignore it. “We could have gotten him in here for a month at least. We can’t keep splitting the rent three ways. It’s breaking my bank, bro.”

Peter, his eyes barely opened, sauntered into the kitchen. He stunk of dryer sheets, which meant he was smoking weed in his room; he exhaled into a cardboard tube stuffed with Downy to mask the smell. “Wait, did that guy not decide to move in?” Peter asked. He pulled a bag of microwave popcorn from the cabinet, his breakfast. It was 3:30.

“He was a homophobe,” Wallace said.

Peter blinked his bleary, red eyes, then chuckled. “Well, fuck him, then.”

Suddenly Wallace noticed George leering out the window. Tony had turned off the mower and was chugging a blue Gatorade. George turned, suddenly blushing as he realized Wallace had caught him. He shrugged meaty shoulders. “Hey, you can't get mad at me looking at other guys anymore,” he said to Wallace.

“I can get mad at you looking at our landlord like he’s your next cheat meal,” Wallace said, hastily putting dishes away to busy himself.

“You know, he’s been pretty attentive to me at the gym lately,” George said. “Goes on and on about how much mass I put on. Who knows? Maybe I’LL be HIS next cheat meal.”

“You wish,” Wallace said, his fists clenching when George’s smirk remained beyond the accusation. “I guess we’re both lucky your lifting partner is straight as an arrow, right?”

Peter was emptying his popcorn onto a paper plate next to a cold pop tart. “Wait,” he said, scratching his greasy blonde hair. “Are you guys, like, not dating anymore or something?”

Wallace slammed a cabinet shut, glanced at George to see if he was going to respond, then decided to field that question himself. “We decided we were going on a break,” he said.

“HE decided,” George said. “Which is why I can eye-fuck Tony all I fucking want.”

The door to the backyard swung open. In walked Tony, stinking of glass clippings, gasoline and a thick stink that made Wallace wonder if Tony had forgotten to put on deodorant that day. “You can do what to Tony?” the big man said with a smirk. George turned bright red, the large-framed college student suddenly turning sheepish in front of their massive forty-year old landlord.

“Eye-fuck,” Peter filled in. “But for the record, I didn’t say it. You can guess which one of my roommates did.”

Tony smirked at both Wallace and George, then shrugged it all away. “Whatever,” he said. “Yard’s good. I noticed a beer can out there, but it was some microbrew shit. Seems a little too pricey for you guys, but I just wanted to remind you… drink all you want, just clean up after yourselves, got it?”

George nodded emphatically, eager to distance himself from his earlier faux pas. “Well, you know I don’t ever drink, and Wallace doesn’t drink beer.”

“And I only drink cheap shit,” Peter chimed in as he took his breakfast plate to the living room. George quickly hustled out behind him, leaving Wallace and Tony in the kitchen.

“Was that a new tenant I saw in here?” Tony asked, scratching his exposed right pec.

“Nope,” Wallace said. “The search continues.”

“Can I wash my hands in your sink real quick?” Tony asked. Wallace nodded. He stepped back as the burly man rinsed himself off. Tony cleared his throat and took a step back.

“So, that was really uncomfortable, what Peter said before,” Tony said, “and I just wanted to say… I’m really sorry to hear about you and George breaking up. He didn’t tell me, but I could tell. He’s real quiet during our workouts lately, laser-focused, and with George… you know that’s not always a good thing.”

Wallace snorted. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “It’s amicable and all, we’re just… figuring stuff out.”

“Well, I just wanted you to know, if my presence has caused any issues between you and George… it was never my intention.”

Wallace rolled his eyes. “Tony, seriously, we were just joking around before. Tony was just teasing me…”

Tony shook his head, twiddled his dark mustache with his wet fingers, and headed for the doors. “I really do envy you guys,” he said. “I wish I could have been out at your age. Back when I was in college, it was a really different time for guys into guys.”

Wallace stood there, stunned at the revelation. Had he heard Tony wrong? For two years they’d been his tenants and he’d never said anything before… had he?

Just as the kitchen door was about to swing shut, Tony leaned his wide torso back in and held up a finger. “Oh, one more thing. I’m actually not going out of town next week, so you guys don’t have to worry about grabbing my mail for me.”

Wallace nodded, still reeling from the news. “Uh, okay. Sure. Yeah. Thanks.”

He watched Tony’s hulking body lumber across the lawn to his own house before whirling around. Peter was alone in the living room, zoning out to television with a handful of popcorn in his head.

“Peter, did you know Tony was GAY?” Wallace said aloud, although the last word was a whisper.

Peter’s head slowly turned to him. He blinked a few times before he started nodding. “No, but… y’know? It KINDA makes sense.”

Wallace heard the bathroom door slam upstairs.

“Hey, you think George knows he’s gay?”

Wallace listened as the shower turned on with a squeak.

“Hey, Wally, you think George and Tony have ever–”

“Peter, shut the fuck up,” Wallace said as he jogged up the stairs to his attic bedroom.

*

Wallace lit a candle on his desk and pulled open the top drawer of his dresser. He pulled out a small mortar and pestle filled with shiny gold dust. “Ground pyrite,” he said, setting the mortar on the desk. “Add in some mercury,” he said, opening a tiny vial and releasing a single drop. Carefully maneuvering his thumb and pinky fingers, he tried to trace a complex sigil in the air above the mixture.

“Alekros vanya confit…” he said, his voice echoing slightly as he spoke the arcane words. The mixture in the mortar burst into bright blue flame. “With this, I twist my fates,” he whispered. “May the scales tip in our favor. May we find fortune and plenty to fill the void…” With each word, he felt the electric charge in the air growing stronger. He struggled to remember the exact gestures to harness the growing energy, to shape it to his needs.

Suddenly the trap-door to the attic swung open with a crash, the ladder sliding loudly down to the floor below. The blue flame collapsed into a plume of smoke. The energy was gone.

“Oh, fuck,” Peter said as he climbed up. “Dude, were you doing a magic thing?”

Wallace pounded his fist on the desk in frustration. But for some reason, the longer Peter stared at him with his dopey expressionless face, the harder it was for him to be angry with him.

“Yeah, I was,” Wallace said. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and tossed it over the smoldering remains in the mortar. “I guess it was kind of out of my league.”

“What kinda magic thing?” Peter asked. “Anything cool?” He gasped. “Wait, are you finally doing the invisibility potion?”

Wallace shook his head. “It was supposed to twist our luck,” he said. “For the better, of course. Just stressing about this ‘no roommate’ thing. Sooner or later the month is going to be up, and we’re going broke trying to handle the rent between us.”

“I actually came up with a possible remedy for that,” Peter said, nodding slowly. “Cuz I was thinking, for the party next week, if you whip up some of that anti-hangover elixir, we can sell it… we won’t even mention that it’s magic. We’ll just say, it’s like… all-natural herbal stuff…”

Wallace nodded, considering the offer. “I’ve never thought of using alchemy to make money like that. I’m always trying to turn shit into gold… which NEVER works.” Information crashed in his brain and he suddenly sat up straight. “Wait, Peter, we have to cancel the party next week!”

The attic shook as George’s big body scaled the ladder. “The whole upstairs stinks,” he said, scrunching up his face as his bald head entered the room. “Was it a weed thing–” he said, glancing at Peter, “--or a magic thing?” he asked, turning to Wallace.

“Magic thing,” Peter said. “Wallace is going to make anti-hangover potions for the party and we can sell them to help pay for rent!”

“No, I’m not,” Wallace said, shaking his head, “because… we can’t have the party.”

“Right,” George said. “Tony’s not going out of town. He’ll be here.”

Peter’s face fell. “Oh, man! Guys, I’ve been talking up this party to like… like everyone, man! And I just got a quarter pound of weed, too. Guys, I really REALLY need to blaze!”

George shook his head. “Nope. No dice. Not cool of us to be hiding things behind Tony’s back, anyway.”

Wallace rolled his eyes involuntarily. When he caught himself doing it, he checked to see if George had caught him; he hadn’t.

Peter’s posture fell and he stomped around the attic like a sullen child. “Dammit. DAMMIT! Guys, we have to do something!”

“Tell your burnout buddies they’re going to have to blaze at Phi Kapp,” George said as he started down the ladder again. “And Wallace, no big deal, but just gimme a heads up when you do your magic stuff, got it? Just so I can burn a candle or something.”

Wallace nodded as he heard George’s heavy footfalls crossing the second floor hallway to his own bedroom.

“Wallace, do a magic thing!” Peter said, darting across the room with a quickness Wallace had never seen in the usually inebriated man.

“I can’t just ‘do a magic thing’ dude!” Wallace protested. “I’m not a witch, I’m an alchemist–and not even a very good one! If it’s not in that book,” he said, nodding to his bookshelf–specifically, to the massive tome with a heavy obsidian lock and thick leather straps binding its pages shut, “...then I can’t do it.”

“Do a… a nice landlord potion!” Peter begged.

“He’s already pretty nice,” Wallace said with a shrug. In truth, he had never dabbled much in mind control formulas. The ingredients were always black market fluids and body parts cut off horrifying little creatures.

“Can you, like, freeze time for him? Like for the whole party he’s stuck in the same second and we unfreeze him when he’s done?”

Wallace got up from his desk and gently guided Peter to the ladder downstairs. “Peter, buddy,” he said gently, “you know I can’t just alter reality whenever it’s convenient for us. What makes you think I have that kind of power?”

“B-but…” Peter stammered as he proceeded down the first rung. “But you were just trying to change our luck, right?”

“And I failed,” Wallace reminded him, “because I decided to disappoint my father and go to business school instead of the Arcane Academy. I’m really bad at potions, dude!”

“But didn’t you use a lotion to make George’s dick bigger?”

Wallace’s breath caught at this news. He had his hand on the trapdoor’s chain, ready to yank it shut, but he relaxed. Peter, staring up at him from the floor below, blinked, and then a frown formed on his face.

“Who told you I did that?” Wallace asked. “Not that I did, of course. But why would you say that?”

“Fuck, dude, I think I just said something I wasn’t supposed to…”

“Good night, Peter,” Wallace said, yanking the trap door shut. He switched off the lights and grabbed a small pinch of Lethe’s Tincture from the baggie in his nightstand drawer. A moment after he rubbed it on his gums, he found himself asleep.

*

Wallace knocked on Tony’s door twice. He held his breath, counted to two, and when there was no response, pivoted on his foot and started off the porch. “This was a bad idea,” he said aloud to himself, slipping a hand in his pocket to fish out the small vial there. “This was a waste of my whole day. Stupid stupid stupid…”

He was in the middle of the driveway when Tony’s white Chevy Silverado pulled in. He froze, waved with a weak smile, and backed up. His heart pounded in his chest. Was he really doing this?

“Hey, Wally!” Tony said as he hopped out of the truck. He opened the back of the cab and interlaced his fingers amongst a mass of grocery bags. He hoisted them out, about six fully loaded bags in each meaty fist, and started to walk inside. “Think you can grab my front door for me, buddy?”

Wallace did as he was asked without a word, holding the door open so his big landlord could walk sideways in the front door. (Truth be told, his body was so wide that he nearly had to turn sideways when he wasn’t carrying a full grocery load.) He set everything on his kitchen floor. Wallace awkwardly followed him inside, feeling obligated to give him a hand putting things away.

“You don’t have to do that,” Tony said with a smile. He was wearing a cut-off t-shirt and sweatpants, his usual gym attire, and Wallace could definitely smell a hard workout wafting off his thick body. “Anyway, what brings you by?”

Wallace froze. He couldn’t think of a single excuse that would allow him to abort the plan, so he just opened his mouth and let the words fall out: “I’ve been thinking all night about what you said. About you being gay.”

Tony chuckled warmly. He set down the carton of eggs he was unloading and folded his arms, leaning against the sink. “Ahh. You didn’t know, did you?”

“You never told me,” Wallace said. “Which is, y’know… weird, seeing as you’ve known me and George for two years.”

“George wasn’t out when you guys first moved in,” Tony pointed out.

Wallace shrugged. “Well, he wasn’t out to everyone. But we were hooking up on the sly…”

Tony’s big torso shook with laughter. “Oh, boy, do I know that story well.”

“Anyway, you’ve always been good to us…” Wallace said, his mouth suddenly dry. “And I was thinking about what you’d said, about wishing your youth could have been different…”

Tony’s forehead wrinkled as he considered what Wallace could have been leading up to. “Are you about to admit to me that you’re a wizard or whatever?”

Wallace coughed loudly. “Wait, what? How did you–”

Tony’s eyes went wide. His jaw dropped. “Oh, shit, was that not what you were going to say?”

One of the traits of a successful alchemist, according to Wallace’s father, was the ability to put your emotions aside in lieu of the task at hand. “Focus first. Be human later,” was his motto. While his stomach churned at the idea of George giving up his secret–and it would have to have been George, wouldn’t it?--he knew he had a more important matter in front of him.

“No, no,” Wallace said, letting out a sigh. “Actually, it kind of was.” Tony pulled a six-pack of hefe-weizen cans from one of the grocery bags and offered Wallace one. He didn’t usually drink beers, but Wallace cracked the tab and took a swig without a thought. Tony joined in. “I was just… I made something… for you…”

Tony put a hand on Wallace’s shoulder. “Look, I’m sorry for just calling you out like that. I’ve been waiting for you to share that for me with awhile. Honestly, I have a bunch of questions… and I wasn’t even sure it was real or not.”

Wallace nodded. “Oh, it’s real.”

“What kind of stuff can you do?” Tony asked. He pulled a block of sharp cheddar from another bag, carved off a slice, and offered Wallace one.

Somehow the cheese made Wallace more relaxed. “All sorts of stuff,” he said. “But what I wanted to offer you… was this.” He produced the pink vial from his pocket.

Tony took a look at it, his eyes lighting up. “What’s this going to do? Make my dick bigger?” He shot Wallace a wry grin, but Wallace winced at what sounded like an accusation.

“No, but… it’ll make you young again,” Wallace said.

Tony shrugged. He tilted his head to the side. “I don’t know if I have any interest in being ‘young’ again. I feel like I really came into my own these past few years… really started to know myself.”

“It can’t be easy living in a college town, right next door to a bunch of sloppy college kids,” Wallace said. “I mean, we just do whatever we want, and we don’t have any consequences to our actions. That must drive you crazy.”

Tony set the vial down on the counter. “To be honest? I don’t mean to be rude, but that’s kind of  a patronizing way to look at the situation. Honestly, I’m pretty happy with who I am, Wallace. But I appreciate the, uh… thought behind this.”

“It’s temporary,” Wallace said. “Two weeks, tops. You get to be 20 years old again, fuck around if you want, and a fortnight later you turn back to forty-year old you.”

Tony whistled as he considered the pink vial. “This is for real?” he said, picking it up and eyeing it again. “Like, real magic? Two weeks being twenty years old again? I don’t even know if that’s something I want, but… the idea that it could be possible at all is really intriguing…”

Wallace shrugged. “Honestly, keep the potion. You ever want to be a dumb college kid for a bit, give it a shot. If it’s not for you, so be it.” Wallace finished his beer and headed for the door. “I just wanted to repay all your kindness for these past couple of years.”

Tony inhaled loudly. He shot up to his full height (a few inches shorter than Wallace, although his muscle mass made it seem like he towered over everyone) and emptied the pink vial into his beer. “Fuck it,” he said. “How am I gonna turn down an opportunity like this?”

The door swung open and George walked in just as Tony guzzled back the beer.

“What the–” George said, confused. “Are you guys… drinking? On a Thursday?” His eyes narrowed.

Wallace threw up his hands but found himself speechless. He just shrugged and turned as Tony winced, putting a hand on his firm gut. He inhaled sharply and tumbled backward. He opened his mouth and let out a rumbling burp.

George had already snatched the pink vial off the counter. “Wallace, is this one of your potions?” he asked.

A moment later, he got his answer.

It started with the lines on Tony’s face softening. He blinked and held up his hands. Years of calluses started to evaporate. As he flexed his fingers, they started to thin out as well. His body looked like a deflating balloon as his bulk ebbed away. He opened his mouth like he wanted to speak, then belched again. His torso collapsed as if it was releasing all of its air in that one belch.

Tony’s sweatpants suddenly collapsed to the ground without his muscular legs, his huge ass and thick waist to hold them up. He belched one more time and his short, dark hair lengthened into a mop that fell into his eyes. His mustache grew wispy and then disappeared. His thick neck was the last thing to shift, his prominent adams apple shriveling away in a moment.

“What the… what the… fuck…” Tony said. His voice was different–a tiny bit higher, but far less sure of himself. He fumbled awkwardly as he reached down to pull up his pants. He had to yank the drawstring tight so they would stay up.

“Wally, what the fuck did you do?” George said, grabbing Tony by the shoulders. “Big guy, you okay? What did he do?” He shook Tony a little too hard; this new version of him was barely half the size of George.

“Whoa, whoa, easy!” Tony protested. “Chill, George! I wanted this… I think.” He patted his body down, his eyes wide with wonder as he explored his new, much slimmer frame. Then he trotted away, hiking up his sagging sweatpants as he headed for his bathroom.

“Are you fucking serious?” George said, shooting Wallace an icy glare.

“It’s temporary!” Wallace said. “And he asked for it!”

George followed Tony to the bathroom, banging gently on the door. “Hey–big man? You okay, bud?”

The door opened up and Tony burst out, running full-tilt into George, bouncing off like he’d collided with a brick wall. George grabbed his shoulders and held him steady.

“George, you’re… huge!” Tony said, his eyes going wide. His boner tenting his sweatpants as his lifting partner held him in his muscular arms.