"Say what else you will about this whole fuckin' ordeal," Kevin says, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "Food's good and the beer's great. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised at that."
"One of the advantages of starting in Fantasy Spain," I say, raising my own flagon.
He convivially clinks it; I sip where he quaffs.
"Earlier," I say, "you ask me how I dealt with the - condescention. With wolf-whistles and such."
"It drives me out of my mind," Kevin admits. "It's like - it was different when someone back home asked if I was working out because I
was, thanks for noticing. Here they're drooling over things I don't want and can't control."
"It's not really a compliment," I agree, taking a slice of egg pie. "I'd imagine you wouldn't want a stranger to yell 'nice ass' to you across a room even back home in the right body."
"Yeah man, that's a second date kind of thing," he says, letting out a nervous bark of laughter.
"Keeping battle stance helps," I say. "Playing the badass dragonslaying adventurer helps. Folks sense the battle aura and the, like, professionalism."
I peer into an empty flagon. Kevin shakes his, then waves at a barmaid with two silvers in his grip. I take a long look at him, in his body too small and too curved for him, as he hands her the coins and a tip and I see him wink at her as she fills our steins.
"You know the flirting's part of the job to her, that she's trying to get tips, yeah?" I ask.
"And it's working, man." He grins as he raises a fresh beer to his mouth. "If this game wants me to be a girl I'm gonna be a goddamn dyke."
"I mean, same," I say, very carefully. "But I've mostly been dating other Players stuck here. And my case is…"
I steeple my fingers in front of my mouth and frown.
Kevin senses the shift in mood and sits up. "What's going on, dude?"
I sigh, eye twitching at
dude, and look up at Kevin with what I hope is a smile.
"You talked about not wanting that -" I gesture at his chest, my hand describing a curve. "-all that. Bet it feels wrong - every time it bounces or you feel longer hair on your neck or softer skin on your arm is a jarring reminder that you're piloting a foreign body, that it doesn't belong to you."
He takes a deep breath, hand over a grimace. "Shit," he says, and then, "You were always the better poet. That's exactly it. I didn't have the words but those are them. This isn't my body, it's - a rental I'm driving."
"Yeah. That's because I know exactly how it feels," I say, and take a swig of my beer.
"I'll fuckin' bet," he mutters, looking over the amazonian, curvy, vulpecian body I've grown into like a lucky jacket.
"From home," I say. "That's how I felt every day back home in the Bay."
Kevin pauses with his drink halfway to his lips.
"What?" he asks, something raw in his voice.
"You're where I was, approaching it from the opposite direction," I say. "I didn't have words for it either, back home, until I got - stuck here in Mundus like this," and I put a hand over my heart, over my bust.
There was a long moment of silence between us, Kevin glancing at me once before staring down into his beer.
"You were born in a body that suited you perfectly, and when that was taken away from you, you could feel every way your replacement was screamingly wrong," I say. "While
I was born in the wrong one - and only realized why it made me miserable,
that it made me miserable, once I woke up in Mundus with the right one."
"Jesus, Deedee," Kevin said very softly.
And that's when I knew it was safe to cry.
"You must be going through absolute hell," I say. "But I've
been. I can't go back. If we wake up in a hospital tomorrow I might not be Deedee anymore, but I cannot - cannot - be fucking Jake again."
"Not if it's a tenth of this shit," Kevin agrees, offering an arm. "Fucking Christ, no wonder you bit off my head."
I let him put a hand on my shoulder, shudder, breathe, and regain composure.
"Wish I - wish I noticed something Earthside," he says. "Maybe then we wouldn't have…"
He shakes his head.
"Would have had to known me better than I knew myself," I say. "But maybe it's time for a reintroduction."
I put out my hand. "Deedee Yeowoo, healer and martial artist."
He takes it. "Kevin Moon, lately a soldier of fortune. Good to meet you again, my du- uh. Deeds."
I laugh, once, cawing mirth.
"You're fine," I say.
Thanks again to @NekoIncardine for prereading.
