Noah still wasn’t used to waking up in a new bed. They’d moved in a couple of months ago, and logically he should be used to it, but it was still disorienting to wake up on what was basically an ocean of mattress. He’d never had anything larger than a twin- not at his mom’s, not at college, and definitely not in LeKay before now. But here he was! In a new house with a bed that had cost more than one month’s house payment. Worth it to not get kicked in the face all the time though. Anyway, point is: when he woke up and stretched out his limbs to find nothing but mattress he felt a little bit like he was drowning.
He rolled over- a not-insignificant number of times- to get to the tiny amount of bedroom floor that they still had. Hashtag throuple life had meant some adjusting of what their conceptions of interior design meant. The weird configuration of space meant that all of Noah’s clothes were in a room down the hall that they were using for his office. That was fine. He didn’t need Sunny giving him the side-eye for how many identical gray t-shirts he owned. He shuffled down the hall, phone in hand, to grab his daytime sweatpants. Fashion icon.
It wasn’t until he’d changed out of boxers and assumed the morning time position of “taking a piss and checking Twitter” that he realized that it was not in fact morning time. It was 3pm. Kat had definitely already left for work at the Goblin Market. No telling where Sunny was, but probably at the Home Depot. Unless she had today off? Probably not a good idea to freeball it into the kitchen downstairs, just to be safe.
Nobody in the kitchen except his good good friend Chef Boyardee. That was an acceptable 3pm breakfast, right? Probably! If Kat was here she’d make him put that bad boy in a bowl, but since he was home alone there was nobody to stop him from grabbing the saucepan by the handle and eating it directly with a spoon. Absolutely no consequences.
As long as he was being healthy, he should probably get some sunlight too. They didn’t really have any neighbors- LeKay’s old suburbs were pretty depopulated and they’d bought a real fixer-upper so they could afford it on their Millennial Incomes. Maybe he’d hang out on the half-rotted back porch and see if his skin was capable of tanning.
Noah opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. It was honestly gorgeous outside. The one thing he absolutely didn’t miss about Chicago was the weather. It seemed like the sky was always the perfect shade of blue here. He hadn’t seen a sunrise in years, but the sunsets were gorgeous. And here he was, in his own house, master of all he surveyed. There were the abandoned houses to either side of them- he was pretty sure Ralphie had called dibs on one of them, but he couldn’t remember which. There was the tangle of kudzu from the yard of the house behind them that was threatening to overwhelm the flimsy chain-link fence bordering their yard. And there was-
Oh, shit. Yeah, it was Sunny’s day off. She was wrist-deep in the dirt, wearing a straw hat with two holes punched into it for her horns and what he was pretty sure was one of his t-shirts. And she was staring at him. He couldn’t imagine why.
“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt,” she said, by way of affectionate greeting.
“Why are you wearing my shirt?” he replied, taking a delicate sip from his spoon.
She squinted at him and stood up, brushing dirt off her knees. “Are you eating soup right out of the saucepan?”
“Correction!” He grinned at her and leaned on the porch railing, saucepan held jauntily in hand. “I am eating Signor Boiardi’s culinary masterwork, the Beefaroni. Out of a saucepan. To save bowls! I’m an environmentalist, Sunny.”
She made a noise at him and crossed her arms. “You have the shittiest taste in food.”
“And worse taste in best friends!” He grinned at her in a way that he knew she thought was annoying. “You are the Beefaroni of people.”
“Explain!” Sunny left her yard-digging efforts and padded up the stairs to join him on the porch.
Noah set down his saucepan. “Controversial favorite, not as beefy as expected, full of carbs.”
“Ugh.” Sunny plopped down on a plastic lawn chair and fanned herself. “Get me a drink to apologize for calling me that.”
Noah snapped her a crisp salute and went to grab some lemonade out of the fridge. It was the good shit, homemade in a plastic pitcher from Susanna Lee’s church. Kat was already talking about sending the pitcher back with strawberry and honey tea. Apparently if you got a container from a friend, you had to send it back full of your own treats. Such were the labyrinthine social niceties of the South. He also put Saran Wrap over the rest of the Beefaroni and stashed that away for later. When he got back to the porch, Sunny had put her hat over her face and was stretched out as far as the porch would let her. He bonked her hand with the glass. “Rise and shine, Thotticus Maximus. It’s not that hot out here.”
“It is if you’ve been out here for hours,” she said, taking the sweating glass. “ And you didn’t answer my question.”
Noah had to genuinely rewind his brain back to the start of their conversation. “Why I’m not wearing a shirt? I dunno, bragging rights?”
Sunny snorted. “Bragging about what? The giant gaping hole in your chest?”
He grinned. “Hell yeah! You know how some trans guys are like ‘oh I paid thousands of dollars to not wear a shirt anymore’?” Sunny probably did not, given that he was one of two trans guys she knew in real life and she was not nearly as online as he was.
She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t pay for that.”
“Yeah, but I got kidnapped by fairies for it and lost a good chunk of my childhood for it. So that counts.” He stretched his arms above his head and watched his ribs move in a way he’d gotten used to in the past decade.
“Everyone did that, I didn’t get top surgery out of it!” Sunny flicked a paint chip at him from the peeling wall behind her. “All I got was lifelong trauma.”
He grinned at her. “You got your braces taken off immediately, I still have to wear a retainer!”
“My teeth were ripped out of my skull, Noah!”
“What do you think happened to my chest!” He dropped his grin and put on his best ghost tour voice. “Some say that the soul of the human who enters the Hedge becomes torn on its thorns, and when a Changeling leaves, those tatters remain, forever trapped at the border of Arcadia, tying us always to the fairy realm. And some even say that the soul calls out to us, begging for us to come rescue it and make it whole again. But these calls are dangerous, for a soul warped by years in the Hedge desires only one thing: oblivion for the Changeling who abandoned it. And that’s why, if you listen very closely at the border of the Hedge, you can still hear the Lost Tits of Noah, crying out for revenge!!!!!!!”
In a perfect world, thunder would have accompanied his melodramatics. Instead, the gentle buzz of gnats hummed in the background and Sunny rolled her eyes at him. “Do you think they got top surgery in the Goblin Market? Like, could I promise someone my boobs in exchange for a wish?”
Noah made a face. “Knowing the Goblin Market, it’d probably make you take them off yourself.”
Sunny smiled. “They have those big bandsaws at Home Depot for cutting lumber. How big of a favor do you think I’d have to owe Jian for them to violate workplace safety?”
If Kat had been there, she would have made some genuinely distressed noises at that. Noah just looked thoughtful. “I mean, you’d have to lay down really weird to line it up right. Would you- is there a grain to the boob that you’d have to go along? Cause otherwise you get titty splinters and nobody wants that.” He paused a moment, then added “Titty Splinters is up for grabs as either a roller derby or drag name if you want it.”
“I don’t want that, actually!” Sunny looked out into the yard. “Anyway. I know you’re probably like, busy or whatever. I’ll let you get back to working on your Squarespace.”
Noah ran that statement through his internal Sunny Translation Machine and came out with ‘I enjoy your company but I haven’t gone far enough in therapy to be comfortable inviting you to join me in an activity that I don’t think you’d like.’ He stretched again. “Nah, my website is pretty solid and I don’t have a tour until like seven. You want any help in the garden?”
Sunny was very carefully looking away. “I mean, I’m not going to stop you.”
“Great!” Noah grinned wide at her. “Lemme grab a shirt. Any reason why you got the gardening bug?”
“I don’t know,” Sunny replied, still looking out at the yard. “I just thought…. maybe it’d be nice to have something that’ll be here next year.”
Noah’s grin softened to an affectionate smile. He shoved her shoulder gently. Sunny leaned into the touch and he leaned in too, bonking his head against hers in a quick gesture of affection. “Hey, can’t wait to see it with you.”
Author's Notes:
Written 4/28/2020. Hey it's these guys! Love these guys.