Alien

Colt whines something high and pitchy, pitching his head forward to thump down hard onto his crossed forearms sat on the bar while the tender cackles at him, her own head thrown with hysterical giggles. He glares over his sleeves, and pouts at how shes wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, cheeks pink from her laughing fit.

"Barbie it is not that funny, low- stop!" He pitches off again with another whine, and Barbie keels over, clutching her stomach as her cackles devolve into giggles.

"Okay, let me get this- no, don't, let me talk!" Barbie beams, pulling her aesthetics only glasses up from her nose to rest in her short curly hair, and he groans. "Let me get this straight," they lean back, arms crossed over her chest, middle back resting on the counter top behind her. He's really getting bullied by someone who's eye level with him while sat down and slouched over a bar. This is a new low.

"This is your first big shoot. You get to stunt double for one of the most sought after bachelor actors in America, directed by Jody Moreno, director of Metalstorm by the way!"

Colt groans and thumps his head on the butcher-block bar top. She really has a way of making things sound a million times worse than they already are in her tone alone. It'd be impressive if he weren't praying to be struck down from his stool by something divine.

"And the second you meet Jody, get the biggest fattest gay crush of your life. Which, can't blame you, because wow she's hot, you lucky bastard," Colt whines and nods into his arms, because yeah, duh, he gets to see and work with her every day, "and instead of playing it cool and chill and smooth in front of said director you decide you're going to make an absolute idiot of yourself, and flirt with her."

Colt nods again, waving his hand to insist she continue while he takes another long sip of his drink. The little flag propped over the rim of it bumps into his nose, and he pouts at the baby blue that tints the bottom of his field of vision.

"Perfect, you first end up tripping over your own feet while walking over to her," they raise their fingers to start ticking off his most unfortunate series of events, "ask the Australian if she's from around here," Colt winces and stares at the ceiling, "and manage to sound like a total douche after she tells you she's a lesbian, by nodding and going aren't we all?"

He throws his hands up in the air, exasperated and distraught while Barbie's face twists into something fondly exasperated, "Well I'm sor-ry that I spend so much time here that I fucked up and forgot how to act! And I wasn't lying, I am a lesbian, I just advertised myself wrong-"

Barbie nods sympathetically, stepping forward to place her hand on his while he melts into his chair, "I know, Colt, but hey! Look on the bright side," they step away, heading to the other side of the bar where a younger couple has been giggling into each others ears, and just waved her over for another round, "at least you still get to look at her every day! Even if it's just from a distance?"

Colt sighs, stares at the ceiling while he finishes the rest of his drink, and then closes his eyes.

The bar is quieter than what he's used to; sure, it's a Monday night, but it's also the middle of June, and he'd expected the speakeasy to be a crowded with people to take his mind off the disastrous day he'd had. Sure, fucking up a pick up line was one thing, but it's not the only thing that'd lead him to looking for a distraction.

Like Barbie'd said, this was his first big production stunt movie. It means higher budget, more complex stunts, and more time to do retakes if they don't like they way he fell from two stories the past five times. Sure, he was getting paid well and this film would help snag him more big movies later down the line, but that doesn't mean he's any less sore at the end of the day, ego and body.

They're only a couple weeks into actually filming the movie, and he's been thrown around more in those fourteen consecutive days than in the rest of his entire career.

He also thinks Jody did more takes to get payback for his shitty flirting, but he can't prove it.

He rests his head on his hands where they're sat folded on the counter and takes his solidarity to scan the dully lit pink room, which hasn't changed much in Colt's few years of frequenting the joint. The speakeasy wasn't tiny, but it was compact; for the amount of space they had, Charlotte's used it well. In the far corner of the room away from the entrance sat a shallow stage, equipped with a couple microphones, one large speaker, the tiniest little disco ball you've ever seen with a cheap set of drums with cherries printed on the basses face.

Around the stage is a cramped conversation pit, with twisting couches creating sections even though they're all pretty much connected, a few high-tops sit along the walls, said walls covered in aging Polaroids and film stills.

There's only about 10 people in the whole room, including himself and the two girls on the other end of the bar. Over in the couch pit there's a small group of friends who're all cuddled up together, whisper shouting what looks to be some ex-related horror story probably, and there's two older butch women at the high tops playing what he thinks is hand and foot.

Behind him the door opens and closes, a pretty series of chimes announcing a new arrival. Colt zeroes in on the melting ice in his crystal glass, letting the Doechii remix from the speakers zone him out.

He hadn't been lying to Jody, earlier, but he knows how he looks. He still has his beard, and in general hasn't done any "work" to look feminine.

Really the only reason he knows he is a lesbian, or would slot his gender identity in the complicated category is because of his old college roommate; he'd helped Diane through most of her early stage transition, and then got to sit and admire while she became the woman she is now. He remembers their late night conversations, him asking her questions that would've been too prodding and too personal if it were anyone else, but he reckons she knew something queer was going on with him the moment they'd started getting close.

His cheeks flush something pink at the memories the alcohol brings back, and he grins into his palm. There's shouting and exciting cooing happening above his head, he reckons it's another regular or a friend joining the gossiping crew in the pit, and watches Barbie's excited talking through his dissociated memories.

Diane asking him to help her when she started taking her shots, kissing his temple when they were over because she was happy she didn't have to do them alone. How she'd straddle his lap, whisper about how he could be her pretty little butch while she played with his hair, and when she'd call him her favorite girl while she fingered him open the first time while they'd been drunk…

There were the softer moments, more than enough. Laid in their separate beds while he'd ask questions; how she knew, what loving a woman as a woman felt like, when he'd curled up with her and admitted he wasn't sure who he was. They'd agreed he could be somewhere in between; woman or man just didn't seem to apply the way he saw people feel confident in, and it worked for him. He was somewhere in between, and he's a lesbian.

He picks up his little flag from his glass and twirls it between his fingers with a soft smile. He's glad he'd had a friend like Diane; he'd probably be a lot more scared shitless if he hadn't had her.

Colt smiles politely at Barbie while they refill his glass, plopping the flag back down into the too vibrant sunrise, and she winks before looking back over his shoulder to the new patron.

Yeah, he's a lesbian, but that doesn't mean he's… too upset by Jody's response to his stupid attempt at a pick-up; he is upset, but it's the embarrassment that's doing the heavy lifting in that department. He's seen plenty of grown men say similar things to other women in this same bar enough to know a majority of the people who look like him and say they're lesbians, don't really mean it. Most of the time it is some creep trying to be funny, especially when they see how well they get along with Colt, and take it as their green light. Hell, he's been the reason a lot of people get kicked out, and he tries not to think about it too hard.

He's also had plenty of other lesbians try to hear him out just to still receive strange looks and rude dismissals, and he tries not to think about those too hard, either.

Colt sits happy in his bubble of anomaly. He's just queer, in the way a lot of people still don't like to get behind.

He downs half of his glass quickly, and closes his eyes. As long as he doesn't press her too hard, he doesn't need to know where on that line Jody falls. He'll just handle the rejection as her thinking he's some douche-y asshole cis-guy, and try to be friendlier going forward so maybe he can make it up to her. Cosplay as an ally-

"Oh! Colt, what're you doing here?"

He opens his eyes slowly, to be greeted with the smug, mauve-and-sinister grin of Barbie. Slowly, he swivels his head towards an unfortunately timed Australian voice, and jumps in his seat when he meets the confused and faux-polite smile of one Jody Moreno.

"Jesus."

Barbie snorts and he snaps his head to stare at her in betrayal, to which she TOTALLY is avoiding his gaze, oh he's going to scold them so bad later, she owes him like five free drinks for not giving him some kind of heads up. No signal, no codeword, no hey the lady you totally dig is like right behind you and has been for five minutes wink, no-

Oh, god she's sitting next to him.

Colt stares down wide eyed into his drink, listens to Jody order a gin and grapefruit, turns his head away to scratch the back of his neck when she stretches her legs beneath the bar with a tired groan.

"I used to come here all the time back in the day," she hums, smiling and thanking Barbie for her cocktail, "I think back then, Betts had only just started."

Colt hums, looking at Barbie while still trying to avoid having Jody in his peripheral. God, dammit why'd she sit next to him?! "Betts' has been out for about a year, right? Took out a lot of savings so she could help her wife with the pregnancy," he smirks, snorting into his glass while raising it to his lips flag tickling his cheek again; he pushes it to the side with his index, "last I checked in on them they're expecting twins. If they're half as bad as Grace and I were, they're really gonna need that time off." He giggles drunkenly, pretending not to see Jody observing him in the corner of his eyes. God, he'd put his sunglasses on to hide if he didn't think it'd make him look like twice the frat douche he thinks she thinks he is.

He hears Barbie tease him something mean about himself and Grace before she swaps the conversation to focus Jody, who recites all the same stuff Colt had told them earlier about the same day. They're both here after finishing a long recording day, they needed to relax, and so on so forth.

It all goes on for a while; Colt sits quietly after butting in to talk about Betts, (he misses her more than he thought, he's probably overdue a visit), zoning in and out of his eavesdropping while he lets the alcohol sit in his system. Some of the anxiety about the whole situation fades away in waves, and he's just finally leaning back in his stool when Barbie walks away to refill the same girls' from earlier's glasses.

Following where she goes, he watches how the couple interact while they're being doted on. Watches while the young femme tilts her equally as young girlfriends chin in her direction, using the reflection of her glasses to fix her lipstick. He smiles softly at the sight, at the masc's giddiness at being able to help her partner in any way she can, dead set in staying just as still as her girlfriend needs her to be.

When he looks away he accidentally catches himself turning to look for Jody, and flushes down his neck to see her already watching him; or, watching him, watch the young couple, and he slumps back down to try and hide in his jacket and glass. It's turning into just the wrong kind of embarrassing, feeling her gaze tugging apart the nails that're holding up his shoddy wooden barrier. God, this fucking sucks, he should just go home. Maybe he can just leave his card on the table and he can get it back from Barbie tomorrow night. He could text her and tell them to use it for Jody's tab too, maybe, or is that weird? Shit he's gotta go call an uber and that'll take too long to leave right now, where'd he leave his phone?

"You never answered my question earlier."

He glances over to see who Jody's talking too, and nearly jumps out of his skin to see shes watching him still. Fuck an uber, he needs to go stand in front of a bus.

"What?"

Nice one, Colt.

She raises an eyebrow, "What are you doing here?"

Now it's his turn to be confused. "… What? Uhm," he raises his glass in gesture, "having a drink, I think?"

You think? He winces.

"Right," she hums, taking a sip at the same time as him, scanning him with a confused look before she looks behind her at the rest of Charlotte's, and he squirms in his seat, "why here?"

He almost answers off the bat, before it really hits him what she's asking, and he swallows the lump in his throat as his face falls from embarrassment to his own apprehension. He can see it, her skepticism, the way shes watching for him to do or say something he shouldn't.

He realizes then, also, that she was watching him watch the young couple not out of her own curiosity, but to see if he was being a creep. Hell, she probably still thinks that's what he was doing, and his stomach churns something bubbly and gross.

She's sizing him up, and he's watching her do it like a bug watching a shoe come down in slow motion, and he thinks he'd rather be sick.

He glances down at his glass, and plucks the little pride flag from the cup to lay it on the counter between them, and he can hear Diane's voice coming out of his own mouth when he meets Jody's eyes again.

"I deserve to be here just as much as you do."

Hell yeah, mental Diane, you tell her!

Both of their eyes flick down to the flag on the counter, and he can see Jody processing the sentence with something considering on her face. While she's thinking he glances over at her glass, and frowns, standing on the foot-rail of his seat to lean over the bar.

He reaches into the rail, finding the little collection of cups holding as many varieties of flags as they could order, and he huffs fondly while he sorts through for the one he needs.

"You said lesbian earlier, right?"

He pulls the whole cup from the rail, meets Jody's eyes, and watches while she sighs and plucks one out for herself to drop into her gin. Only after does he drop the cup back into the rail, and slowly settles himself back into his stool with a wince that he hopes isn't audible over the speakers. His face must show it though, and the older woman is scanning him all over when his eyes fall open again.

They sit in silence for a little while, and he watches her twirl her pink and orange flag around in her cup.

"Okay. How are you feeling after today?"

"Huh?" She has this bright red bandana in her hair tied in a bow at the top, which is unfairly pretty with her blue eyes. She raises an eyebrow at him, something exasperated happening on her face, and he smiles apologetically. "Sorry, what?"

"Were we too hard on you today? With the stunts?"

He shrugs a shoulder, leaning back to look as relaxed as possible; which is swiftly sabotaged when one of the muscles in his middle back pulls and he laughs at the discomfort, "No, no no no, I've been doing this for a long time; I'm basically a professional at this point at getting beat up."

"Almost a professional?" Amusement colors her eyes brighter, and god dammit wasn't he supposed to be watching from a distance?! This is so not distance Colt, "That's funny, since I think I asked for a professional professional when it came to the stunt team. Especially one in getting beat up."

A giggle bubbles out of his throat and he drags a hand down his face as he turns to face forward again, self control buddy, you can do this;

he watches her from the corner of his eyes while his cheeks tint pink instead. If he's gonna be hopeless no matter what by the end of the night, he might as well revel in all this sugary attention while he gets it, right?

By the time he comes-to again for air from the sweet syrupy pull of their teasing play conversations, Barbie's on the other end of the bar closing up shop. It's been about three hours he reckons, knowing how Charlotte's will tend to close just after midnight during the slower nights of the week like today. He's gone through, surprisingly, just two and a half more drinks in that span of time, too drawn in to the words he and Jody exchanged to really care about emptying his glasses. Sure, he'd already had more than enough before she'd gotten there, but he was floating just at a place where he could be happily buzzed from both the alcohol, and affection.

Somewhere along the line they'd scooted closer to one another, probably around the time Jody'd pulled out her phone to show off her pitt mix that her friend is baby sitting for her back at home, and when he'd reached over to coo at the seven year old puppy while swiping through the photos she'd provided. From then on they'd stayed essentially side by side, and he looks down with a flutter in his stomach at how she'd lifted her left leg to cross it over her right at the ankle, and how she'd let him rest his arm on the inside of her knee and thigh where they're laying on top of his own.

Next to him, Jody leans in further, elbow on the counter with her chin in her palm while she observes Colt for a long few moments. Colt sits a little straighter, though subconscious as it is, and quietly preens while she takes him in.

Eventually she must settle on a thought, as she nudges him with her shoulder and retracts her leg so she can turn to face him more fully; he tries not to mourn how much colder his lap gets in its absence, and focuses instead on her attention on him. "Can I ask you a question?"

He shrugs and nods, reaching over for his water to take a light sip, "We've been doing that all night, haven't we?" She shrugs and waits, so he nods his acquiescence for her to continue, "Yeah, yeah go ahead. Whatever it is, shoot."

She nods, and steels herself, and lifts a hand to lay on the counter gently, "I don't mean this in any bad way, or with any kind of hostility, I just want to try and understand…" He tenses, confusion pulling the corners of his lips down with how she starts, and she reaches to grab his hand in a way that he reckons is supposed to be calming; it totally doesn't work, because the butterflies and syrup are back tenfold, but it definitely helps with the worry.

He watches her hand reach out, one finger balancing in the top of his little trans flag in his cup, and she glances first at it, and then himself. Her other hand is stroking lines over the back of each of his fingers, and he hums in his chest at both things happening together.

"You don't have to, I was being insensitive earlier, and I'm sorry, but do you think you could just… explain it to me? Just so I know I'm getting everything right?"

He watches her fingers trace their feather light patterns, and leans experimentally just a bit closer into her side, which she not only allows, but supports his weight, and he shrugs with a complacent nod. So he tells her his story, and she sits and listens.

He tells her the little details about Diane; her start to her transition, he encouragement for Colt to explore his own identity, because how did he know he was just a regular guy if he spent no time thinking about what he could like or enjoy more in himself? Tells her about the late night confessional style conversations, testing pronouns in small groups of girls Diane would introduce him to, and what he'd eventually concluded at the end of their experimentation; he enjoyed being a lesbian, he wasn't a man but he isn't wholly a woman either. He enjoys being looked at femininely, but he also enjoys the way he dresses, his beard, and has never had any serious dysphoria around the way he sounds or looks to others.

He does, however, get euphoria while being talked to as a lesbian, and treated with the gentleness that comes with it. The he/him pronouns, the not feeling a strong pull to have any certain kind of relationship; but that if he did, he wants to be someones girl instead of their boyfriend or partner.

He reiterates; he's an anomaly, he's queer, but if he's comfortable this way then he thinks there's nothing wrong with it at all. Not thinks; he knows. It got driven into his skull real early on thanks to a very special friend, and he smiles while thanking her in his head not for the first time in one night.

At the end of his spiel, Jody's watching him with flickering eyes and something warm in her face that brings back every fluttery feeling he's absorbed through his stomach tonight all at once. Can feel his eyes getting darker when she glances down at his lips, and back up to his eyes, and shivers when she pulls away for just one moment.

When she's touching him again, she has her glass lifted up to her lips while she finishes the last of her drink in a few short swallows, and pushes the glass to the edge of the bar where Barbie will be able to collect it later. Colt also watches, with a drowsy curiosity, as she plucks her little orange pride flag from the empty glass, and drops it into his own cup, settled right next to his blue and pink.

Quietly, he watches her lift his glass from the counter, and offer the small remains of it between them, to which he shakes his head. With a small smile and a huff, Jody lifts his glass to her own lips, finishes his glass for him, and settles his empty cup next to hers, two flags instead of just the one.

Colt knows he must be unfounded shades of pink and red while he meets Jody's eyes in awe, flustered and giddy while he exhales something shaky through his nose. She is so unfairly pretty that he thinks this could constitute as some kind of weird kinky torture if he wasn't enjoying it so much… or, wait, maybe that's where the kinky part comes in? Is she kinky torturing him?

He doesn't get to think about it too hard, because she's picking her card up from the bill folder he never even saw existed, (*god damn you Barbie, you let Jody cover the tabs?!) and is nodding with the biggest, most dopiest grin on his face when she offers her hotel for the night, just because it's closer, and she insists.