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"Robbie, I'm back."
"So, what was the trouble?" Robbie asked over the back of his chair.
Sportacus told him.
"Teenage boys are asses," Robbie said by way of reply.
"I think it's the testosterone," Sportacus said, sitting on the arm of the chair. "I was well-behaved during my 'natural' puberty, it was when I began hormone therapy that I got ... difficult."
"I find it hard to imagine you being difficult," Robbie replied, 'sneaking' an arm around his waist.
"Relatively, you understand. I was still ridiculously nice by the standard of my peers. The elves being a warrior species, adolescent acting-out that would land a human or pixie youngster in a lot of trouble tends to be dismissed so long as nobody is seriously hurt." Sportacus gathered his courage, and slid off the arm into Robbie's lap.
"You're heavy," Robbie murmured, as Sportacus moved so he was straddling his lap.
"Who, me?" Sportacus asked with a smile, cupped his chin, and kissed him, properly this time.
Robbie melted into it, submissively giving Sportacus control.
Sportacus pulled away, nipping at Robbie's bottom lip as he went. "Interesting..."
"I should certainly hope so," Robbie replied. "I'd hate to think kissing me is boring."
"Oh, it's definitely not boring, I just wasn't quite expecting submission."
Robbie stiffened up, looking panicked. "You don't mind, do you?"
Sportacus nibbled at his bottom lip again. "I don't mind. Promise." He felt Robbie relax, and added, "Do you have a bed anywhere in this place?"
-----
"Y'know, when you said you were pre-op, I was half-expecting socks," Robbie said, sleepy and sated, and trying to ignore the fact his partner was doing naked chin-ups using a pipe that crossed the ceiling.
"I wear tight pants," Sportacus replied. "People would notice the lack of definition."
"Good point," said Robbie, and yawned. His last definite memory before he drifted off was Sportacus jumping down, kissing him on the cheek, and telling him to go to sleep.
----
On his way back to the airship, Sportacus ran into Stephanie.
"Doesn't shopping normally take longer than that?" he asked.
Stephanie shook her head. "I haven't started yet. Uncle's busy, and it's not as if I have enough money of my own," she said, shaking the contents of her change purse into her hand as illustration, all silver except for two small golden coins. "Train fare alone would clean me out." She tipped the money back, and then looked up, eyes suddenly bright. "Could you take me?"
"Would you have asked that four days ago?" Sportacus asked warily.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"I'm a man."
"So's Uncle Milford."
"But he's your guardian."
"You're my elf."
"It will still look odd to most people," Sportacus warned.
"I don't care," Stephanie replied. "Its not like there are any clothes shops in Lazytown, so people thinking odd things won't know who we are, and people who do know us wouldn't think odd things anyway."
"All right then," Sportacus said, sighing.
"Do you have any experience with this?" Stephanie asked, as they headed towards the airship together.
"Far more than I want," Sportacus admitted quietly. "I didn't transition until I was an adult."
He turned his head, to see Stephanie staring at his chest, and then turning red as she realised she'd been caught.
"You don't look as if..."
"Mastectomy," he replied shortly.
----
Lillian looked up at the sound of the bell on the door and smiled automatically.
“Good-afternoon-how-may-I-help-you?”
The customers were a man, short, tanned and built, with an odd moustache, and a slender young teenage girl, easily as tall as him, an exotic mix of species and ethnicity hinted at by her olive skin, dark eyes and bubblegum pink hair.
The man fidgeted uncomfortably, and pushed the girl forward with a hand between her shoulder blades.
“I need a bra,” she squeaked.
“We have a wide selection of those,” Lillian replied. “However... you're a pixie, aren't you?"
"Pixie-blooded."
"Well, pixie-fit garments are rarely called-for in Slothsville. They may have to be ordered in from Sleepy City.”
“Is there really that much of a difference?” the man asked.
“It’s all the same sizing scheme, but the proportions typical of the three peoples differ somewhat,” she said. “But I can measure her, and we can go from there.”
“Okay,” said the girl. She took her bag off, and handed it to him. “Hold this, Sportacus.”
Lillian picked up her tape measure, and ushered her into the fitting room.
The girl was built typically pixie, but the measurements were just barely within the range of a few human manufacturers, and she scuttled off to find something appropriate.
She was on her way back with some likely options, when Sportacus stopped her, and mutely fished a pink lace bra out of the otherwise beige-and-white pile before putting it back on the counter.
“Sir?” she queried.
“I don’t think she needs that one,” he replied.
"If you insist, sir, but only a few human manufacturers go to a band this small, especially when you factor in cup size, and I feel we would achieve the best fit if we try the largest possible variety of styles on her."
"If you really think so. It's just..." he sighed. "It looks tarty."
"I highly doubt anybody will see it," she reassured him, puzzled at his opinion of the the bra, given that it looked perfectly appropriate for a young girl to her.
"All right," he said, and put it back.
----
The pink one turned out to be among the best fitting, to Sportacus's dismay, but he kept his mouth shut and paid. The fitter's confusion at his reaction to the garment had reminded him he was an outsider with a different cultural basis. It seemed wrong to him, a little girl owning something that looked like that, but neither Stephanie nor the fitter had blinked an eye. Underclothes for women were supposed to be supporting and practical, and the only reason he could see for wanting them in lace or bright colours was the intention to wear them for an audience.
He remembered his mother's embarrassment and horror when he had discovered a similar undergarment while helping with the laundry one day as a child. He'd handled Mama's normal underclothes, the ones like most of what he'd just bought for Stephanie, before, it was only the coloured lacy garment she'd worried about.
When he'd been old enough to need the accursed things himself, there had been nothing like that in the store, it was only on his first blushing visit to the adult shop on the outskirts of his hometown that he saw something similar. Yet the human store had had them on display all over the place.
"Sportacus?" Stephanie asked, startling Sportacus out of his musings.
"Yes?" he replied.
"What were you thinking about? You looked a little bit sad."
"I sometimes forget I'm not really from around here, that's all."
"I guess it's a long way home, huh?"
"Indeed. But I didn't become a hero to protect my hometown. Most of the people there are more physically capable than me, after all."