Page 2 of Shifter Omegaverse AU

“Oh,” Rowan mumbled, grabbing his badge and shoving it, along with his hand, into his pocket. As subtly as he could, he tried to rub away the feeling of the foreign fabric still imprinted on his fingers. He didn’t like touching…well, anything, really, but especially not strangers or their things.

“I’m Milo, by the way,” Milo said, not that Rowan had asked.

Rowan waited the customary beat, expecting Milo to offer their pronouns, but when none came, Rowan sighed internally. “Are there pronouns you prefer?

Milo blinked up at him, the gray seeming to shimmer under the glaring fluorescent lights. “You know, no one’s asked me that in a while. Most people use he/him, and you can do the same if you prefer.”

Rowan really had no preference whatsoever, but of course, he didn’t get a chance to say that. Suddenly, Milo had that look Rowan’s eldest sister, Raina, got before launching into a three-hour explanation on subtractive sculpture theory.

“To be honest, though, it’s been ages since I’ve given this any thought. I think that in some ways, I don’t really identify with any gender. My aunt used to tell me that made me genderqueer, but she was much more hip with the lingo than I am. All I know is that women’s clothing has always fit me better and made me feel happy, but the few times I tried using she/her pronouns at work, my coworkers seemed pretty put out. On the other hand, I’ve always liked the way they/them sounds, but no one ever wants to use those for me, so I stopped asking.”

Milo shrugged, like that wasn’t the saddest, most random thing Rowan had heard today.

“If…you prefer she/her pronouns—” Rowan began.

“Oh, no, I feel like that’s only ever been sometimes, and I’m not really sure what times, so you can really just use he/him; it’s not a problem,” Milo said, waving one hand in the air, while the other dug through the tightly packed contents of the backpack. “My aunt was the only one who ever switched pronouns for me, and, well…she’s been gone almost two years now, so I guess that won’t be happening again.”

Okay, Rowan had been wrong. That was the saddest thing he’d heard today.

“You said you like the way they/them sounds?”

At Milo’s quick nod, Rowan cleared his throat. He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation in front of a life-size statue of a bag of popcorn.

“If you had to choose for yourself, not based on what I or anyone else prefers, would you want to use they/them today?”

Milo pulled out a bright red apple, of all things. “You know, now that you mention it, yes.”

“Okay, then, how about I use those for you?”

The barest hint of a smile touched their lips. “Alrighty then. Apple?”

The absolute last thing Rowan wanted was an apple from a stranger who had just been scrambling around on the floor. Any one of those things would have been a deterrent, but together they made Rowan’s skin feel like it wanted to crawl off his body.

“Were you really going to bring an apple into the movie theater?” he asked. His hawk shook out his tail feathers like he couldn’t believe it either.

“I was going to bring four apples into the movie theater, but I’m hungry now, so I’ll just bring three. Unless you want one, in which case I’ll bring two. Ethel will understand. Or she won’t. She doesn’t always understand things, but she tries.”

Milo continued holding the apple out to Rowan, but he kept his hands fisted in his pockets.

They stared at each other in a clear stalemate until finally Milo shrugged and shoved the apple back into their bag. “Okay, suit yourself—oh, hey, they have a bar! Any interest in grabbing a drink? Or were you heading into a movie?”

Rowan had once been swindled out of all twenty dollars in his wallet by a fast-talking, very persuasive neighbor girl at her lemonade stand. It had gone a little like this: rapid-fire questions that stunned Rowan into agreeing to everything she said until he was somehow left holding a tray of six lemonades for himself and his family, who unsurprisingly were not interested in lemonade in the dead of winter.

“I’m waiting for my brother. He’s running late, though, which is rather typical,” Rowan found himself saying.

Under normal circumstances, he probably wouldn’t even volunteer that he had a brother, but this entire encounter had been far from normal. He didn’t typically get assaulted by backpacks and then have rather personal discussions about gender in a movie theater lobby. He supposed that, all things considered, his familial strife was hardly an overshare.

“Oh, that sucks,” Milo said, closing up their backpack, without their phone or any ridiculous number of apples. “Ethel is always on time, except when she isn’t.”

Against every ounce of better judgment, Rowan found himself following Milo to the bar. His hawk cocked his head, equally confused but not putting up much of a fight. After all, he really didn’t have anywhere else to be, and at least there were no vomiting children on this side of the lobby.

The pair placed their order with the bored-looking bartender, and once they had their drinks, Milo led the way to the first high-top table in a row of empty tables. Seven PM on a Tuesday apparently wasn’t prime time for the movie theater bar, but Rowan preferred it that way.

“So, what movie are you seeing?” Milo asked.

Rowan eyed the stranger he was somehow about to share a drink with and decided he might as well answer.

“My brother Ruben bought the tickets, so it’s probably something with guns and explosions in it. I’m just going along with it because…"