shadows_have_offended | [Aug 14] As pretty as you are, you know you could've been a flower

Waking up was a strange experience. There's something, upon waking, that isn't quite right, and Neil's not sure how to put it. Like the bed has gotten larger, or he's gotten smaller. He's alone--and it strikes him that he knew that. Since Nick's disappearance, Neil's been doing his best to not have Caleb over, not wanting to upset the quiet sanctity of his and Rosie's apartment. When she's ready for friends over, they'll come. But it will be up to her, and not him.

He stretches a little, and it's that that really starts to clue him in. How his shirt and shorts move against his body. Weird. But he's still mostly asleep, and it doesn't really mean anything except that he's tangled up in clothes and sheets.

So, blinking sleep out of his eyes, he clambers out of bed and to the bathroom, intent on going through the regular sleepy motions of waking up. Toilet, shower, brushing his teeth, all of those sorts of things. Except--

He doesn't scream, exactly, when he reaches down and doesn't find his dick. He does make a noise. He definitely falls on his ass, scrambling to both look at what's going on and urgently pull his shorts back up so that he doesn't have to. Now that he's startled awake, he's aware of being, well, small. Small shoulders and small waist and small hands. Of breasts under his t-shirt. He doesn't want to look in the mirror, like seeing his reflection makes it more real.

Maybe he can just go back to bed?

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Even with the warning, Neil squeaks. It isn't even that Rosie's hands are especially cold, but there's something about being touched in a way that is wholly unfamiliar that rattles through him strangely, and he can't help the little noise.

At least she's quick about it. Then, Neil's just standing there in the borrowed underwear, vaguely aware of how his chest sits differently with the assistance of the bra.

"Well..." He's quiet a second. "...I guess it could be worse?"

"I know, I know, it's weird," she says, all in a rush when Neil squeaks. The noise, at least, is more surprise than embarrassment or indignation, but it's still enough to trigger Rosie's impulse to keep acknowledging the strangeness of their current situation.

Mercifully, it's all over quickly, and Rosie steps back as Neil looks himself over and gives that hesitant verdict. "It really doesn't look bad," she says. "And, you know, now you'll be a bit more comfortable going out and everything."

"I trust your verdict," Neil says with earnestness. He doesn't know how a girl is supposed to look in her underthings, so he has no idea how he ought to look in them, either. Mostly, he just feels silly and a bit oddly ungainly. Everything is very close, and curiously sensitive.

After a moment of contemplative quiet, Neil shakes his head a little bit. He gets distracted by how much longer his hair is--and it's not even that long, maybe only shoulder length, but still much longer than he's ever had it--and then huffs a noise that's a half long-suffering sigh.

"I suppose that means the rest of the clothes. And then I'll buy you coffee if you'll come out with me to unwrap the mystery of getting my own clothes for this."

"Right, the rest of the clothes," she says, with an embarrassed little laugh at the reminder they're nowhere near finished. Not with Neil still in nothing more than some borrowed underthings.

This was all so much less complex an hour or two ago, when neither of them were aware that anything amiss had happened.

"So, the offer of jeans and a blouse still stands, if a dress would be a bit too far after everything else," Rosie says, turning back towards the closet and taking down a folded pair from the shelf above the clothes rail. She looks again at the clothes on the hangers, pulling out a loose-fitting shirt in pale green that won't look bad at all on Neil's new and different frame. "And of course I'll come shopping with you."

Neil honestly can't say if a dress might be too much. A part of him, the part that managed to swallow all his nervous, hysterical pride and let Rosie help him with this because what other choice is there, wants to say fuck it. This might as well happen. He can roll with it.

But also: it's a dress.

"Let's start with jeans and a shirt for now," he finally says, a little dry-mouth for the nerves of it all. "And maybe we can try putting me in a dress when we look for some clothes. Just to see how it looks. Which will probably be stupid."

"It won't be stupid," argues Rosie, handing him the jeans and shirt with a fond roll of her eyes. It might not be the right choice, in the face of how uncertain Neil still is, but both of them have grown used to trying to bluff things out--especially the things Darrow's put them through, singularly or together--that it comes almost as second nature now.

"You're already better-looking than I am. Which always happens, whenever someone I know goes through this. It's really not fair at all."

"I don't know about that," Neil says. He thinks he's awfully ordinary on a regular day, and that's no different right now except that he's shorter and has more hair and, well, breasts. And while Rosie isn't the type to get his motor running, he can objectively know that she's beautiful.

He puts the jeans and shirt on with little issue, since it's just like putting on his normal jeans and shirt, and he even wears it just like he would normally, with the shirt tucked in and everything. And then he goes to smooth his hands across how it sits and he frowns.

"Why are the pockets so small?"

Rosie shrugs off the demurral, mollified even as she's still convinced it's not quite true. She gives him a little more space as he changes, picking out her own clothes for the day, but she has to laugh when he asks about the pockets.

"Why do you think girls are always carrying around one kind of handbag or another?" she says, turning to look at him as he runs his hands along his waist. The confusion on his face shouldn't be so satisfying. "No one makes anything with pockets big enough. Or, hardly anyone, and when you find something with good pockets, you hope it lasts forever."

"Is that why girls are always shoving everything off on the boys, too? So we have some idea of your pain and suffering? Is it jealousy about us having pockets?" At least he's smiling, at least a little bit. Shakily, but obviously present. "We didn't take them from you."

He puts it in mind that he's going to find something with pockets, because he is not buying a purse.

"Jealousy and revenge," Rosie says, trying for a pointed, stern look, anything to alleviate that last bit of hesitancy in Neil's smile. "And even if you didn't take them, somebody did. Whoever designed things that way in the first place."

She lets out a breath, heavy enough that it's almost a sigh. "Now go, and let me get dressed, and then I'll make us some breakfast before we go shopping?"

Neil starts for the door, then circles back. He pauses to press a kiss to Rosie's cheek, a little mumble of thanks pressed into the gesture before he scurries out.

"I can get breakfast started," he promises. He's not a very good cook, but he's gotten a bit better about things, and he can at least scramble some eggs and make toast. And Rosie is putting herself out to take care of him, so he should take care of her as much as he can.

In any case, he leaves her to it, heading to the kitchen.

Rosie smiles at the kiss, the affection and gratitude contained in it and the accompanying half-mumbled bit of thanks. "Alright," she says when he offers to start on breakfast. She would have understood if he'd left it all to her, if even the simple work of starting toast or putting the kettle on was beyond him after waking up in a body not his own--but he offers, and that's one bit of normalcy she isn't about to take away.

It doesn't take her long to change, picking out a light, summery dress--with pockets, thank you very much--and setting aside a pair of sandals for when they actually leave the house. Going down the hall and into the kitchen, there's still a quick, internal moment where she expects to see Neil as Neil when she gets there. This bit of Darrow trickery is never that fast, though, not for anyone she's known.

Giving him a smile, she goes to the cabinet, getting down two plates for the eggs and toast.

[Aug 14] As pretty as you are, you know you could've been a flower | for Rosie

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