Chapter Text
Slingshot had expected everything to remain the same and that was perhaps the cruelest part of it; the humiliating little certainty with which he had convinced himself that an argument, no matter how ugly, could still be folded away and forgotten if they simply gave it enough time.
A few days would pass, Coil would come into Thieves’ Rest with some cutting remark already prepared for him, Slingshot would snap back, and the familiar rhythm of irritation would eventually soften into something neither of them would name and if the café was empty, perhaps Coil would lean over the counter and kiss him as though nothing had ever happened. He hated himself for how badly he wanted that.
Three days had passed without Coil appearing. By the fourth, Slingshot had begun listening for the bell above the café door with an attention so desperate that every metallic chime made his heart leap before shamefully sinking again. He told himself he was relieved each time it wasn't Coil, that it was easier this way, easier than seeing the disappointment in Coil's face, easier than having to explain why he had spent so long loving him privately and then recoiled the moment that love threatened to become visible to anyone else.
He had wanted Coil. He simply hadn't wanted anyone to know that he wanted him.
The bell rang. Slingshot's head snapped up and for one foolish, involuntary second, his entire body brightened before his mind had even caught up. He hurried toward the register, wiping his palms against the front of his apron as though he could somehow scrub the anticipation from them.
“Welcome to Thieves’ Rest—”
“Yo, Sling!”
“Oh.” He forced a smile.
Skateboard sauntered through the doorway with his usual careless energy, leaning against the counter as though the place belonged to him. Boombox followed behind. Coil walked in last, shoulders slightly hunched, hands buried deep inside his pockets. There was something unusually solemn about him, something stripped of the usual swagger that made Slingshot's chest tighten. More painful still was the fact that Coil looked everywhere except at him.
Slingshot's smile faltered.
“...Hey, Skate.” He swallowed and busied himself with the register. “Let me guess? Mocha for you, and boba for Boombox?”
“Yup.”
Slingshot glanced toward Coil. Their eyes almost met, but Coil looked away first before that could be true.
“How about you, Coil?” The question came out softer than Slingshot intended.
He already knew. Of course he knew. He knew Coil's order with the embarrassing intimacy of someone who had once memorized the smallest habits of another person because he had believed those habits belonged to him. A boba tea with no boba, which would invariably lead to the same stupid argument about how that was merely milk tea. Coil would laugh, call him an idiot, and order unsweetened iced tea instead, and Slingshot wanted to hear him say it. He wanted something ordinary, something stupid, something that belonged to them before everything had become so impossibly complicated. He wanted Coil.
Coil shifted his weight. “Nothing. Don't feel like it.”
Slingshot's fingers tightened around the edge of the register. “Right.”
He should have left it there, he knew that. Instead, some desperate, self-destructive part of him kept reaching for the conversation as though enough harmless questions might eventually bridge the enormous distance Coil had put between them.
“Where are you guys headed after this?”
“Just the usual skatepark!” Skateboard answered immediately, apparently oblivious to the tension strangling the counter between them. “Your shift end anytime soon? You could join us.”
“Nah.” Slingshot busied himself preparing the drinks. “I've been skipping out on work too much, so I've gotta get my hours in this week.”
He looked up to see that Coil was watching him. His gaze was fixed somewhere around Slingshot's shoulder, his expression unreadable, but there was a quiet disappointment in the set of his mouth that made Slingshot's stomach twist.
“Maybe next time?” Slingshot said.
Coil looked away.
“Yeah!” Skateboard said, then leaned in. “We're throwing a surprise birthday party for Coil on Tuesday.”
“Oh.” The baker’s eyes moved toward Boombox and Coil, who had already taken a seat farther away from the counter. He sat with his arms folded, staring down at the table, and Slingshot looked back at Skateboard. “I'm not sure he'd want me there.”
“Why not?”
“We got into an argument a few days ago.”
“Oh?” Skateboard raised an eyebrow. “Really? How come?”
Slingshot's throat closed.
For a moment, he could smell the rain from that day again. The stale sweetness of the market, the coldness that had settled beneath his clothes while he stood there waiting for someone who had already decided not to come back. He remembered Coil's voice afterward, low and shaking with something that had sounded dangerously close to grief.
Faggot.
He had wanted Coil to remain his secret, something he could hold in the dark where nobody could see him loving another girl.
Slingshot stared at the dispenser.
“Um.” He forced a laugh. “Honestly, I forget.”
It was a lie. He remembered every word.
“It was probably something stupid,” he continued, voice becoming thinner. “Coil always takes everything to heart.”
Skateboard shrugged. “Okay! You should come anyways. I'd love to see you there.”
“...Alright.” Slingshot nodded and turned away before anyone could see his expression.
The drinks became an excuse to keep his hands occupied.
He measured, poured, stirred. Ice cracked beneath the scoop. Milk hissed softly against plastic. The espresso machine exhaled a cloud of bitter steam that briefly fogged his vision. He focused on every little sound because it was easier than thinking about the person sitting only a few feet away from him.
He made Skateboard's mocha. He made Boombox's boba. Then, without thinking, he made Coil's. His hands knew what to do even when his heart knew he should not. He prepared the drink exactly as he always had, with the same unconscious precision he had once reserved for someone he expected to keep loving him. When he finally realized what he had done, it was already sitting on the counter.
Slingshot stared at it. He should have thrown it away, but instead, he rang the little bell, and watched Coil walked over.
“Um.” Slingshot pushed the drinks toward Coil, not expecting Coil to have willingly walked over.. “I made you one too. On the house.”
Coil stared at the cup, then at Slingshot. “I told you I didn't want anything.”
“I know.”
“Then why'd you make it?”
Slingshot opened his mouth, but nothing came. Coil exhaled through his nose and picked up the receipt, crumpling it carelessly before shoving it into his pocket. He gathered the three drinks awkwardly, nearly dropping one.
“Now it's just more of a hassle to carry.”
“Oh.” Slingshot's voice shrank. “Sorry.”
Coil said nothing. The silence between them was unbearable.
“Are you mad at me?”
Coil's jaw tightened. “The hell do you think?”
Slingshot flinched. “I was hoping you weren't.”
“Didn't ask what you were hoping for.”
The words shouldn't have hurt, perhaps. Coil had every right to be angry. He had every right to stop being patient with someone who had loved him only so long as that love remained invisible, but still, Slingshot felt something inside his chest pull painfully tight.
“Is this about us?” he whispered. “Come on, Coil. We're friends—”
“But we used to be something more.” Coil's voice cracked slightly on the last word. “And you didn't want that.”
One of the cups crushed in Coil's grasp. It struck the counter and spilled, cold tea rushing across the surface and dripping onto the floor between them. Neither moved at first.
Coil stared at the mess, and his shoulders sank. “...Sorry.”
The apology was so quiet that Slingshot almost wished he hadn't heard it. “It's fine, Coil.”
It wasn't. Nothing about this was fine.
He wiped the tea from the counter with trembling hands while Coil stood there watching him, and for one horrible second Slingshot wondered if he could simply reach across the counter, grab his wrist, and tell him the truth but the words lodged somewhere behind his teeth. What would it even do? Saying them now would not undo what he had done.
So he picked up the ruined cup instead. “I'll see you soon, maybe?”
“I hope not,” Coil said quietly, “but I think we will.”
Slingshot went to the party despite every instinct in his body telling him to stay home.
For nearly an hour, he had stood in front of the mirror beneath the dim, jaundiced light of his bedroom, staring at the unfamiliar silhouette he had spent so long refusing to look at directly. Vine Staff's dress had been hidden beneath his bed for months, folded beneath old clothes and a carboard box of things he had convinced herself he would never need, but it hung from his shoulders with a strange, almost frightening gentleness. The fabric followed the shape of his body instead of fighting against it, settling around his waist and thighs in a way that made his feel simultaneously exposed and protected.
He turned sideways, then the other way.
The person in the mirror looked nervous. His shoulders were still tense, his hands still fidgeting anxiously with the hem, and there were a hundred little things he could have criticized if he wanted to. His shoulders seemed too broad. His arms looked too long. His jaw seemed too sharp beneath the bedroom's unforgiving light. The reflection still carried traces of the person everyone had always assumed he was, but underneath all of that, something was different.
For once, he didn't feel as though he were looking at a stranger.
He wished Coil were behind him. That bastard always knew what to say. Hecould almost imagine him leaning against the doorframe with that infuriating little grin, telling him he looked pretty and then pretending he hadn't meant it when he became embarrassed. The memory hurt enough that he had to look away from the mirror.
“Get a grip,” he whispered.
He picked up his purse and carefully crept toward the bedroom door.
The floorboards complained beneath his weight, and Slingshot froze.
The living room was illuminated by the weak amber glow of a lamp, and Vine Staff sat on the couch with her legs tucked beneath her, idly flipping through something in her hands. The television cast pale, shifting light across the walls, making the room seem to breathe with every change of scene.
Vine Staff looked up.
Her eyes traveled slowly from Slingshot's face to the dress, then back again.
“Oh, hey, Slingchi. Isn't that my dress?”
“Oh.”
Instantly, everything he had liked about the dress seemed to disappear. His hands tightened around his purse. The fabric suddenly felt conspicuous against his skin, almost accusatory. His shoulders became too broad, his waist insufficiently narrow, his hands too large, his reflection from the hallway mirror suddenly grotesque in its unfamiliarity.
“Sorry, I—”
“It's fine, Sling.” Vine Staff laughed softly, and there was no ridicule in it. That somehow made Slingshot more embarrassed. “You heading to Coil's birthday party?”
“Wh—” Slingshot stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “First of all, you're okay with this? Second of all, how did you even know I was heading there?”
Vine Staff stared at him for a moment before smiling. “Because he's your girlfriend, duh?”
Slingshot's face burned. “He's not my—”
“Skateboard invited me, but I didn't feel like going.” Vine Staff stood and stretched, apparently unconcerned with the correction. “Come here. I can help you with your makeup.”
Slingshot stood there lankily for another second before hurrying after her.
“You really don't have to. I can put the dress back.”
“Sisters help sisters, you know? You look cute.”
Slingshot's heart stumbled. “Okay.”
He sat.
Vine Staff began carefully applying makeup, her fingers gentle against Slingshot's face. The room smelled faintly of powder and perfume, with the distant hum of the refrigerator filling the pauses between them. Slingshot sat unnaturally still, terrified that moving too much might somehow shatter the fragile permission she had been given.
She watched herself gradually emerge beneath the cosmetics. A little color around her eyes, something soft across her cheeks, a subtle gloss. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that transformed her into somebody else, because this is who she was always meant to be.
And when Vine Staff finally stepped away, Slingshot blinked at the mirror. She didn't know how to describe it. Her throat tightened.
She looked like herself—not the self she had been instructed to be, nor the shape everyone else had decided for her, nor the person she had spent years performing because it was easier than admitting how suffocating it felt. Just herself.
Vine Staff smiled and began gently brushing through her curls. “How is it?”
Slingshot stared, and her vision blurred. “I look…” Her voice broke. She threw her head backward and blinked rapidly, trying desperately not to cry. “Like myself.”
Vine Staff's smile softened. “And you look beautiful.” She began heating the curling iron, then leaned down until their faces were level in the mirror. “A beautiful lady.”
The tears came anyway.
Slingshot covered her mouth, shoulders trembling.
“Is it really okay? If I like dressing like this?”
Vine Staff looked at her through the mirror. “We all want to feel pretty now and then.”
She gently wiped beneath Slingshot's eye before the tears could ruin the makeup.
“And sometimes there are girls like you who don't fit whatever the Inpherno has decided girls are supposed to look like.”
The curling iron clicked softly as it heated.
“And that's okay.”
Slingshot stared at herself.
Girls. Not boys. Not maybe. Not if. Girls. Her.
She had spent so much time treating the word as something forbidden that hearing it spoken so casually made something inside her ache.
“And Coil?”
Vine Staff resumed curling her hair. “You love him, yes?”
Slingshot nodded.
“Then that's what matters.” Vine Staff's voice was gentle. “There's already enough violence and hatred in the Inpherno. We ought to make room for something better.”
She smiled.
“Love more.”
By the time Slingshot finished getting ready, the room looked almost unfamiliar. Her hair had been curled into soft, deliberate waves, framing her face in a way that made her eyes appear brighter. The dress had been carefully ironed until every crease disappeared. Vine Staff had lent her a pair of high heels and a small purse, and Slingshot held the latter tightly against her side as though it were an anchor.
She stood before the mirror one last time.
“I'm a girl,” Slingshot whispered.
The walk to Skateboard's apartment was an exercise in terror. Every passing reflection became something she had to confront. Every window became a mirror. Every distant laugh sounded, for one paranoid instant, as though it were directed at her. She kept one hand wrapped around the strap of her purse and carefully navigated the uneven pavement in Vine Staff's heels, her steps awkward but determined.
When she finally reached the apartment, she stood outside for several seconds, and when she finally knocked, the door opened almost immediately.
“H—” Skateboard stopped, and his eyes widened. “Woah, Sling! I'm digging the new look. Not exactly what most guys are doing nowadays, huh?”
“No.” Slingshot’s cheeks warmed, and her fingers tightened around her purse, and, before fear could stop her, she smiled. “Because I'm a girl.”
Skateboard blinked and one horrifying second, she wondered if she had made a mistake, but then his expression brightened. “I dig that too, girl!”
Something inside Slingshot loosened. “Thanks.”
She stepped inside.
The apartment was chaos. Music rattled the walls, loud enough to make the floorboards vibrate beneath her heels. Boombox had taken control of the speakers and was mixing songs with an enthusiasm that bordered on violence, while Skateboard attempted a kickflip across the carpet despite the furniture being placed with absolutely no regard for the laws of physics. People crowded around the living room, laughing, shouting over the music, passing drinks between themselves.
It was less a birthday party than an excuse to fill an apartment with noise.
Slingshot slipped into the crowd. A few people looked at her and some stared for a second too long. Her stomach tightened; for a fleeting moment, the old instinct returned, that frantic desire to shrink herself, to apologize, to retreat into the safer shape everyone had expected from her.
No. She wasn't going to do that tonight. Not tonight.
Skateboard noticed her before she had any chance to disappear into the crowd.
“There she is!” he shouted, and before Slingshot could even turn, an arm hooked around her shoulders and dragged her bodily into the center of the living room.
The movement nearly sent her sprawling. The borrowed heels caught awkwardly against the carpet, one ankle pitching sideways before Skateboard steadied her with a laugh. The apartment seemed immeasurably louder from the middle of it while music poured from Boombox's speakers in violent, overlapping waves, bass shuddering through the floorboards and climbing through Slingshot's bones until she could feel each beat in her teeth. Conversation existed everywhere and nowhere at once; dozens of voices colliding into one indistinguishable roar, punctuated by laughter, whistles, the scraping of shoes against the floor, the crack of someone opening a can.
Skateboard grinned and squeezed her closer. “This is my best friend, Slingshot! She’s a girl now, and she still rocks!”
Cheers erupted from one side of the room. Someone hooted. Someone else laughed sharply. Another voice shouted something that Slingshot couldn't make out beneath the music, and then another person repeated it louder, turning it into something unmistakably mocking. The words blurred together, but she caught fragments—girl, finally, look at her, pretty boy—each one slipping beneath her skin with the precision of a needle.
Her face went hot and she tried to laugh, but it came out as nothing. Skateboard, apparently delighted with himself, pulled off his helmet and placed it atop her head.
“There! Crown.”
The helmet was enormous. It slid down immediately, the hard rim pressing against her curls and obscuring most of her vision. The room became a distorted tunnel of light and bodies. She could see only flashes beneath it—Skateboard's grin, Boombox's silhouette behind the speakers, a raised cup, someone's teeth catching the strobe of colored lights.
The bass kept pounding, her pulse following it like a metronome. She could no longer tell whether people were cheering for her or laughing at her.
“Wait—” Slingshot tried to say, but her voice disappeared beneath the music.
She pushed the helmet upward, but someone slammed it back down, and she felt her horns ache.
“I—”
A burst of laughter swallowed the sound.
“Can you—”
Someone shouted over her.
She couldn't hear herself anymore.
The room seemed to expand around her, every sound sharpening at the edges. The smell of alcohol and sweat and warm electronics hung thick in the air. Perfume mingled with the sour sweetness of spilled drinks. Somebody bumped into her shoulder. Another person stepped on the back of her heel. The helmet slipped lower.
She stumbled and a hand caught her elbow and for one awful moment, she thought someone was going to mock her again. Instead, another pair of hands caught her around the waist and pulled her backward.
“Fucking hell, Skate.” The voice was low and familiar.
She nearly tripped over herself, but the arms guided her somewhere quieter. She heard a door slam and the music muffled. Its bass still trembled faintly through the walls, crammed now into something distant and dull but the sudden reduction in sound was so profound that Slingshot's ears rang.
She stood there gasping, grabbing at the helmet, but digits brushed against hers and suggested them to drop. The helm was lifted from her head, and she nearly keened as the cool air touched her forehead, leaning forward.
“Easy.”
She was lowered carefully onto a mattress, her heels catching against the edge before she was guided down fully. The room smelled faintly of laundry detergent and dust, with none of the suffocating perfume and heat from the living room. A small lamp cast a muted pool of yellow light against the wall.
Slingshot blinked and her vision slowly resolved to look at the boxer in front of her. For several seconds, she couldn't believe it.
“U—Wh—C…” Her throat felt scraped raw. “Coi…”
She swallowed.
“Yeah.” Coil crouched in front of her. “Hey.”
He reached up and gently moved one of the curls that had been crushed beneath the helmet. His fingers lingered for only a moment before withdrawing.
“You okay?”
Slingshot stared at him before laughing. It was weak and shaky and dangerously close to crying. “Yeah.” She wasn't sure whether she was answering him or trying to convince herself.
Coil looked toward the closed door.
“Sorry about out there.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Shit's a shithole. Skate isn't exactly the best at knowing how to handle things like this.”
He bounced the helmet in his hands, striking against his knees with a tempo. At some point, it hit his knee in the wrong way and hurt, so he tossed onto the floor. It struck the wall with a hollow clunk. He looked back at her.
“But you're brave.”
“For what?” She bent forward and kicked off one heel. The relief was immediate enough to make her almost groan.
“Gods. They're cute, but they fucking hurt.”
Coil huffed a laugh. “Give me those.”
“What?”
Before she could object, he caught one of her feet gently in his hands. Coil removed the remaining heel with surprising care, setting it beside the other. His hands were warm.
“You came out like that,” he said quietly.
Slingshot's gaze dropped. “I didn't really plan it.”
“I know.”
Coil's thumb brushed absentmindedly over the strap around her ankle before he let go.
“I actually didn't think you had it in you.”
“Why?”
“Because you spent so damn long hiding. Why the change?”
Slingshot stared at the floor and picked anxiously at the edge of her dress. “I don't know. I just… got tired. Tired of looking at myself and feeling like I was borrowing somebody else's body. Tired of pretending I didn't like this. Tired of feeling embarrassed every time I caught myself wishing I could dress like this, or be called something different, or…”
She swallowed.
“I don't know. I only meant to tell Skate.”
Coil's mouth twitched. “Forgot he was a blabbermouth?”
“Yeah.”
“Ha. Even more loose-lipped at parties.”
Slingshot smiled despite herself and for a moment, neither of them spoke. The distant music seeped underneath the door like a heartbeat from another room, and noticing the tension, Coil finally began to stand. Slingshot's hand moved before she could think and tangled in his collar.
“Wait.”
Coil looked down and she tugged. He lost his balance with a startled sound and landed over her, one hand braced beside her shoulder. Their faces were suddenly inches apart. Neither moved. Slingshot could feel the warmth of his breath, the faint tiredness beneath his eyes, how carefully he was holding himself back, so she kissed him.
It was desperate, almost painfully so, the kind of kiss that carried three days of absence and every swallowed sentence with it. Coil froze for half a second before relaxing into her, his hand shifting from the mattress to her waist.
When she pulled away, her breath trembled. “I really missed you, Coil.”
His forehead rested against hers, and his voice was softer than she’d heard in days. “You have no idea how much I did. Though I've got one thing to say.”
“What?”
“I'm sorry. For snapping at you. All those times.” His jaw tightened. “I knew why you were scared. I knew you didn't know how to deal with it. I just… I was selfish as fuck, man, fuck me.”
“You weren't wrong.”
“That doesn't mean I handled it right. I loved you and got angry because I thought that meant you should immediately be ready to love me loudly, and that's not fair. I know what it's like to need time.”
Slingshot stared at him and her eyes burned. “I'm sorry too. For treating you like a dirty secret. I didn't want people to know because I was ashamed of myself, and I kept pretending it was about privacy, but… it wasn't. I love you.”
Coil brushed a curl away from her face. “You ready to tell everybody yet?”
Slingshot considered it but gave a tiny, exhausted laugh. “Eh.” She looped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. “One coming out is enough for tonight.”
Coil smiled. “That a no?”
“That's a very enthusiastic no.” She tucked her face against his shoulder. “Besides, I want to spend your birthday together.”