Late Night (Zephyr One-shot) (MPhlox)

    There weren’t many places open past midnight, but chances were you had to have a form of identification to get in. The case was the same in Zephyr and Gale’s situation.

    A couple of months had passed since Zephyr’s induction into college, and there was something Gale wanted to do, well, something he wanted to get, to celebrate.

    But no matter how many times Zephyr asked he wouldn’t tell.

    “There’s no rush,” he’d always say, as if saying so would deter Zephyr’s intense amount of persistence. He’d wave it off, as if it was nothing.

    As if.

    Zephyr raised a skeptical eyebrow as Gale turned the wheel into the parking lot of their destination.

    But that was before he could see the sign. His face immediately colored several shades of pink. “H-here? What could we possibly need from here?” He’d honestly never been to the place, much less anything even remotely like it.

    “You’ll see.” Gale smiled at him, but all Zephyr could see were the flashing neon lights that reflected off his large glass lenses.

    With a reassuring pat of Zephyr’s thigh, the pair exited the car and entered the building.

    Of course the first thing that happened was the flashing of their IDs at the front door. Zephyr’s heart had never beat faster for something that didn’t directly involve Gale.

    Of course every item his eyes rested on made him flush a deeper shade than the one previous.

    Of course.

    Zephyr followed Gale through tiny aisles littered with things he would have never thought to exist intended for use in ways he would have never imagined to the back wall. He felt like he wanted to crawl into his oversized sweater and hide in a corner when he first laid eyes on the wall.

    To anyone else, it might have been the least of their worries: the lingerie section. But for Zephyr, this was a sensitive subject. He never quite was comfortable with his situation, the whole ‘excessive amount of estrogen’ that made him ‘prettier than others’, that made him mistakable for a woman.

    Gale stood there, arms crossed, teetering between the men and women’s section. Finally, something caught his eye and he picked it up. It was in the men’s section, but nothing about it seemed too ‘sexy’ to Zephyr.

    Too ‘sexy’?

    Who was he trying to please here?

Gale picked up another box from the women’s section, but there was no comparison. He put the first box back instantly and turned toward Zephyr.

On the cover of the box was a busty brunette sporting a clingy white satin button-down tucked into lacy high-waisted shorts. Her hair was up in a bun and her eyes bespectacled. The box boasted a bonus prop: an extendable teacher’s pointer stick.

    Zephyr challenged Gale’s heated gaze with his own. “Why’d you pick that one and not the other one?”

    Gale couldn’t maintain eye contact. He looked away, and down. Then back up again sheepishly. “My birthday’s coming up.”

    Zephyr’s heart jumped. If this was Gale’s idea of a ‘happy future psychologist’ present...Zephyr couldn’t deny Gale was definitely a man. And it never failed to charm him somehow. “And where in the world are you going to get the glasses?”

    Gale grinned as he slid his glasses off and set them to rest atop Zephyr’s nose. “You’d wear mine of course.”