Foxfire, Esq.

Book 2 | Chapter Nineteen

This Saturday. Meet me at the U Street metro station at nine-thirty, and try to keep an open mind.

That was what I’d told Megan before we parted ways earlier this week. That was where I stood waiting for her, an umbrella over me to keep the light early summer rain off of me. I would’ve waited under the awning covering the escalators down into the metro, but that area had a particularly heavy amount of foot traffic, so I was waiting over near the elevator down to the metro instead.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I checked it to see a text from Megan, letting me know she’d gotten off the metro and was on her way up. I turned off the screen and tucked it away in my purse, then watched the various passers-by. There were a number of drunk college kids — as per usual, DC was home to quite a few universities, and that translated to quite a few university students — but the far more interesting feature, at least to me, was the sheer variety of people engaged in some form or another of public display of affection. Handholding, little whispers into the other’s neck, kissing, pressing into the other so tightly that they were basically hugging while they walked... that was the normal part.

What made it remarkable was the people doing it. A pair of burly, bearded men, each probably twice my weight and three times as strong; a goth girl and a conventionally attractive person of uncertain gender; a broad, pastel-colored, masculine-leaning individual, with an even taller woman on their arm.

And, of course... the middle-aged midwestern white women gawking at these people like they were zoo animals.

U Street was one of the queerest neighborhoods of Washington DC, and the one with the best nightlife. Or that’s what I’d heard, at least; it was a bit hard to go out clubbing when you looked like me, so even when I’d had the inclination to party, I’d mostly stuck to being my besties’ plus-one at invite-only affairs hosted by and for embassy staff. I’d never gone for a night out on the town to just throw back some cocktails and dance the night away. And I certainly hadn’t gone to anything quite like what Megan and I were in for now.

Speaking of Megan, there she was, just stepping off the escalator towards the corner and looking around a bit as she opened up her own umbrella. When she didn’t spot what she was looking for, she turned around and walked slowly along the sidewalk, scanning everybody else around as she headed east along U Street...

... and walked right by, about ten steps ahead of me.

It took all my self-control to keep my tail from giving the game away right then and there. Instead, I watched Megan walk all the way to the end of the block, then stand closer to the edge of the sidewalk as she went back the entire rest of the block and scanned the other side of the street. Megan’s steps had started to get a little stompy by the time she’d hooked back around the metro escalator, though, and her phone was back out, so I figured it was time to take pity on her, and stepped into her path.

“Oh — excuse me,” she said, starting slightly when she noticed somebody in her way, but she didn’t even look far enough up from her phone to see my face, and just moved to skirt around me instead.

“Didn’t expect you to be this absent-minded,” I spoke up once Megan was three steps past me, and couldn’t hold back the grin when she froze in recognition. She paused partway through a step, pulled her leg back, turned on her heel, and finally showed me an expression of sheer disbelief.

“... no,” she murmured. “There’s no way, there’s no damn way that actually...”

“What, this?” I did a quick little twirl, letting my long skirt flare out around me as I tipped my floppy hat up just enough to show the twitch of a hidden ear. “Bit weather-dependent, but works pretty well, wouldn’t you say?”

“Hah!” Megan scoffed and shook her head, but she was chuckling all the while. “Jesus, Naomi, you cheeky bitch—”

“Vixen, please,” I interrupted, flashing her a sharp-toothed grin before gesturing down the block with a tilt of my head. “Now come on, we don’t want to be late.”

“You gonna tell me what for?”

“You’ll see!~” I teased, and started walking.

“Of course not, why’d I even... this fox is gonna be the death of me, I swear,” Megan mumbled as she fell into step beside me, quietly enough that I almost didn’t hear it through the hat. But I did hear her, and it set me off giggling again, to which my sister-in-law rolled her eyes.

So, if it wasn’t obvious, there was an art to hiding myself, which I’d learned during my initial year-long exile in Japan. First: hats were an absolutely crucial accessory, and a floppy or even just somewhat-loose fit would let the hat rest at just the right angle to not painfully compress my ears underneath it, nor press them flat against my scalp, which would’ve also been rather uncomfortable. Second: long, flowy skirts, especially the high-waisted variety, or long dresses that cinched in at the waist before flowing outwards. That was what I had on now, actually — a nice forest-green dress, paired with a brown leather bolero jacket and calf-height boots for the rain. All I had to do was control my posture, not sit on my tail, plus keep it from wagging under my skirt, and presto! Instant not-a-foxgirl.

The “don’t sit on my tail” and “don’t let my tail wag” parts were a little more difficult than you might expect, though — my tail was longer than my legs were, so it had to be corralled a little bit. This was accomplished through the careful application of velcro straps, fastening it to one leg tightly enough to keep in place, but not so tight as to be painful, or worse, cause a bad fur day. And, well, it wasn’t perfect, no, plus it put me off-balance enough that any amount of heel was out of the question... but then again, it’d hidden my tail through a semester and change of law school, and probably would’ve kept working if I hadn’t gotten outed, if the way it’d just worked on Megan was any indication.

Also, lest I forget — the need to conceal myself while in Japan only lasted until the Japanese government distributed those PR photos and the interview with Gorou, so only three months or so.

Reminiscing over, I led Megan to the east end of the block, crossed the street, then turned north and crossed one more time because the light changed, but then headed east again. We walked along U Street until we hit 9th, then hooked a quick left to head north.

“Wait,” Megan said once we’d turned onto Ninth, with our destination right in front of us. “Wait, are you telling me—”

“Mhmm!” I hummed as we joined a line of people waiting outside of the small bar, its windowsills painted in all the colors of the Pride flag — the Progress Pride flag, to be more specific. “I’ll handle the cover charge, don’t worry.”

“Naomi, you—” Megan cut herself off with a groan, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes as she sighed. “Please tell me we’re not here to watch a drag show.”

“We’re not here to watch a drag show,” I told her honestly. “But the people we’re meeting won’t be free until after the drag show, which’ll be close to midnight, so...”

“I hate that you’re right,” she murmured, picking up on what I’d hidden between the lines: this whole shebang needed to be kept quiet until Megan was ready to properly deal with the white supremacist (or supremacists, plural, though I sincerely hoped it was just the one) who’d infiltrated the ranks of the NMR’s officers. And given the need for discretion, it was easier to excuse having evening plans that went longer than expected, as opposed to plans that didn’t even start until after most people’s nights had ended.

“Trust me, as much as this cloak and dagger nonsense might be bothering you, it’s outright painful for me,” I reminded her with a meaningful gesture at my lower back. “Literally.”

“... that’s true,” she frowned. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’ll deal,” I answered with a shrug, though that was at best a non-answer. “Besides, I’m used to it. Just a fact of life for me.”

“If you’re sure.”

Megan’s expression told me she didn’t quite believe what I’d told her, and in truth, she was right to — the base of my tail was starting to ache, and being off-balance had made walking an actually challenging endeavor, but like I’d told her, I’d make do.

“So, have you been to one of these before?”

“What, a gay bar?” I asked.

“A gay — no, you dumb fox, a drag show!”

“Oh!” I exclaimed — then hurriedly brought my hands up to my hat because I’d almost knocked it off my head when my ears perked up. “Nope. First time.”

“Really?” Megan asked, blinking owlishly. “But you’re, I mean... aren’t these a thing with, well, your demographic?”

“Uh...” This time it was my turn to blink as whatever eloquent response I might’ve had faded away into a mess of thoughts, because I... I didn’t know. Was Megan right? Were drag shows a bit of a ‘thing’ among the trans community? Was drag even trans? I wasn’t sure. I’d never even considered these things.

I... I think I needed to ask Casey about this. They’d know, right?

Right?

“Ladies, gentlemen, and those who transcend the need for silly social constructs!” a young man’s voice rang out, saving me from having to answer that uncomfortable question as I turned to face it. “Doors will open in five minutes; if you have the ten-dollar cover charge in cash, I will be collecting it now, otherwise you’ll need to talk to my friend here!”

The speaker was a tall, slender young man, young enough that I would’ve been suspicious of him for being at a bar were it not for his spiel clearly marking him as an employee. He wore a pale, short-sleeved pink button-up shirt a size too small, along with a pair of shorts with such a short inseam that I would’ve hesitated to wear a skirt of matching length. The boat shoes, earring in only the right ear, and perfectly-coiffed hair finished the look, and told anyone with even a lick of sense that this young man was incredibly gay.

The friend he’d mentioned was another young man who looked... well, a bit more ‘normal’, but only at first blush. The slacks and button-up shirt said one thing, but the rolled-up sleeves, tight-fitting vest, and ascot in bisexual pride colors said another.

Given who exactly we were here to try and find? Yeah... what McCain had said to me about hiding the boys where their neo-Nazi parents would never think to look suddenly made even more sense, if such a thing was possible.

“Don’t look too long,” I murmured to Megan, “but I think we’ve found our quarry.”

“Huh?” She turned to look, and I saw her eyes go wide in realization. “Oh. Oh. Oh that would explain running away, wouldn’t it?”

“Mhmm,” I murmured, giving her a LookTM to try and get her to stop talking as one of the boys came up to us.

“Good evening, ladies!” he said with a jaunty grin, fanning a small stack of colorful card stock with one hand. “Do you have your cover charge in cash, or will you need my friend?” The teen — and now that I had an idea who this was, his youth was impossible to miss — tilted his head back at the other teen we were looking for, who was currently busy juggling a card reader and three separate credit cards.

“I think we can make this easy on you,” I said with a smile, and pulled a twenty out of my purse. The teen accepted the twenty, which he tucked into one of his front pockets, then bent and half-tore the perforated strips on two of the tickets before handing one to Megan and the other to me.

“Thank you kindly! Hope you enjoy the show!”

“We will, thanks!”

The teen moved on, and I turned to face Megan, my polite smile dropping away as she looked about to say something, but seemed to think better of it a moment later.

“We can talk to them in a more official capacity later,” I told her, keeping my voice low. “Just enjoy the show. It’s better that we don’t make a scene.”

“They’re teenagers,” she protested. “Working at a gay bar.”

“And?” I challenged her. “One stacked a half-dozen signals that he’s gay, the other isn’t even subtle about being bi. They belong here more than you do.”

“And more than you?”

I glared at Megan, and had to remember to furrow my brows more deeply than normal because my ears, which would normally show my displeasure, were hidden underneath my hat. Megan seemed to almost flinch back from my glare, but took the hint and dropped the subject. Thankfully for me, she also didn’t try to start back up any conversation in the couple of minutes remaining before the doors opened, and once we got the call to start heading inside, it stopped mattering anyway.

The pair of us posted up at a small high-top table along the back of the bar’s cramped space, well away from the speaker setup by the short stage up front. Megan gave the spot a slight grimace, all of her earlier reservations clearly having fled now that we were actually inside — now that she’d been invited inside, more like — but she seemed to understand by the way her eyes flicked from the stage to my hat. The tall bar stools set at the table were high enough up off the ground that I had to use one of the cross beams along the bottom as a stepstool, but even that added height still wasn’t enough to see the stage past some of the people milling around the standing-room-only tables in front.

Not that I was here for the show, really, that was a side benefit at best, but I still would’ve preferred being able to see it.

More and more people filed in, their quiet chatter growing to a dull roar as all the sounds collapsed together into one discordant mess. I shifted uncomfortably on my stool and pulled my ears flat atop my head, then tugged my hat down to try and hold them there. It wasn’t going to help much, but something was still better than nothing.

“You okay?” Megan not-quite-shouted across the table. “Is it too loud?”

“I’ll deal,” I responded, even as the stiffness in my poor abused tail spread up my spine and into my back, where it merged with that same odd backache I’d been having for the last few weeks.

“If you’re sure,” she said, clearly not convinced, but she still let it go and instead grabbed a drink order form from the little holder on the table, along with a stubby pencil from the cup next to them to fill it out. “Want anything? My treat.”

“Just an iced tea?” I requested. Megan nodded and wrote that in, then almost grabbed the cocktail menu that lay on the table before thinking better of it, and just upped the iced teas from one to two. It was around this point that I stopped paying attention to what was going on around us, and just pulled my phone out of my purse to pass the time. I had a couple messages on Line, from Kimi, Kei, and Satsuki, so I sent replies to all of them — along with sending our group chat a picture from the other day of Gorou lounging belly-up in the sun, which got a few responses rather quickly.

Sadly, I didn’t have time for much more than that, because that was when the lights in the bar went down, low-lying spotlights by the stage illuminated the back wall, and the static hum of the speakers surging to life left me wincing, if not quite so badly as the last time I heard a dog whistle. Thankfully all I did was drop my phone on the table, as opposed to knocking over either of the iced teas that must have been brought over while I wasn’t looking.

“Good evening, everybody!” a voice rang out from the speakers, loud enough to cause me some discomfort, if not quite at the point of pain. “Thank you ever so much for joining us this wonderful Saturday night! Please put your hands together for your lovely hostess, the incredible, inimitable, madam Sandra Phoenix!”

About half of the crowd burst into a full-on roar, the volume and acoustics combining to finally reach the point of being painfully loud to my superhuman ears. I had both hands atop my head, pushing down on the hat directly over my ears, but that just wasn’t enough to block out the sound. It didn’t last long, dying down as some music I could barely make out started playing over the speakers, but it was enough to make me regret this whole stupid plan, subterfuge and excuses be damned.

“How’re y’all doing tonight!?” The crowd’s response was pretty much unintelligible to me, and the one sharp yell that came after was too muffled by my hat and hands for me to parse. “Isaac, darling, I love you too, but I’ve regaled y’all with the story of that two-faced twat Darla S. Argent stealing the win on RuPaul’s Drag Race out from under me enough times. The season’s on Netflix now, honey. You can watch it any time you like.”

The audience response to this was a bit of a mixed bag — laughter, cheers, booing... I think there might’ve been an “ooh-rah!” in there somewhere? I wasn’t sure. Weird.

The slight lull also gave me a moment to actually look at the stage, and uh... that...

Okay, look: this wasn’t just my first time attending a drag show; it was also the first time I so much as saw a drag queen at all. And what I saw was — well, it... hm. So: I’m short, okay? Five feet four inches, or 162.5 centimeters, if we’re using less arbitrary measurements. Add five inches or twelve to thirteen more centimeters if you’re kind enough to include my ears. The stool I was currently seated upon probably pushed me up to eye level with somebody six feet tall. The stage itself was about a foot and a half above the floor of the bar. Now, the person standing on the stage?

That specimen was at least six and a half feet tall. And that was before I added the ridiculous platform heels, which added most of another goddamn foot.

He — she — they — fuck, what pronoun was I supposed to use for a drag queen!? I don’t know — but I should! I should know! It, this... ugh.

The drag queen was an absolutely massive specimen — breast forms bigger than my head jutted out proudly from a dress that would have looked almost painted on, if it weren’t festooned with enough bedazzled bits that it might well have been bulletproof had those been real gemstones. The dress was a riot of color, reds and yellows and golds, the color of flames giving way above the neckline to warm, dark-brown skin. The skin itself was the canvas for a different kind of artistry — contouring makeup, bangles, costume jewelry, and other adornments combining to conjure the image of a bird’s plumage, and the whole thing was topped off by wickedly pointed acrylic nails that genuinely looked the part of talons.

Beyond that, while the hair was definitely a wig, it must’ve taken days to style properly — I’d seen “feathered” hairstyles before, yes, but none of them had ever accomplished something quite like this. It was like a bird’s plumage fell down from the drag queen’s head, trailing over one side, somewhere between a wing and a cloak, bright yellows and oranges fading into deep crimson and almost burgundy at the ends of the strands.

But the canvas for all of this was a behemoth with forearms bigger than my waist and robust musculature straining against every strand of fabric on display.

It was a sheath of ostentatious femininity atop a towering beacon of manhood. An inordinately thin but eye-catching velvet glove, pulled taut over a tungsten fist.

And all of it left me feeling something... painfully indescribable.

Something ugly.

But I kept my thoughts to myself. Shushed the inner voice that couldn’t decide whether to avert her eyes, sneer in distaste, or burn it to ash.

It wasn’t the time to think about that.

“The rest of the lovely ladies and I have a show for you tonight! Some of our regulars may have noticed that I’m not wearing a headset mic like I usually do — and believe me, but that made doing my makeup so much easier, y’all got no idea!” The drag queen received some obliging chuckles from some of the audience members, though while Megan was one of them, I was not. “That’s because you, my lovelies, are in for a special treat. Because tonight... is music night!”

A snap of the drag queen’s fingers was the only warning I received before the speakers whined again, and the inside of the bar became little more to me than a chaotic mess of noise. I tried, believe me, I tried to just endure the noise level, to not make a fuss or cause a scene. I slugged down my iced tea, but even the brain freeze I gave myself from sucking it down too fast didn’t alleviate the sharp pain in my ears at every high note.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on novelhall, not stolen versions.

I may have agreed with the song’s lyrics that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, but there was no way that I could. Not with the steadily worsening ache in my spine and tail. Not with the volume and acoustics combining to reach decibels too painful for my ears.

And not with that twisting, nauseous feeling gnawing at my heartstrings with every glimpse of the drag queen on stage, prancing about in that, that... mockery.

I grabbed the bar pencil and an order slip, wrote out a quick message to Megan on the reverse side, stuffed that into her hand, and slid down from my stool. The restrooms were in the back of the bar, behind the stage, and I was so, so tempted to just... blink back there in a flash of violet flame, regardless of the scene it would’ve made. But I didn’t. My passage was far from graceful, almost stumbling badly enough that I drew a couple of looks from people who likely assumed I’d already managed to get myself drunk, and got inside one of the bar’s three single-person restrooms.

I closed and locked the door behind me, feeling the din of the speakers give way to a dull thud of bass and an irritating ringing in my ears. The sudden near-quiet was a blessed relief, but I wasted little time hiking up my skirt and undoing the velcro straps binding my tail to my leg, and once my poor abused fifth limb hung free, fell apart into flame for a fraction of a second.

The ringing in my ears gave way to proper quiet. The cramping in my tail and back melted away.

Then I sat on the lid of the toilet, and let myself use the return of physical comfort to at least try and unpack the emotional discomfort a little bit. I knew my flaws and issues all too well — if I gave myself enough time, I would bury these feelings and never interrogate them, only to suddenly be caught flat-footed should another situation like the one with Casey rear its ugly head. And I couldn’t keep engaging in self-sabotage like that.

So even as I grabbed my compact to touch up my makeup, I used the privacy of the restroom to reflect.

My reaction to that drag queen had been... it was bad. Shit, I was practically bending my train of thought into a roller coaster with how far out of my way I was going to avoid having to apply a pronoun! And that was — I mean, sure, yes, there were probably drag queens out there who were something other than cisgender; hell, I’d hazard that even the ones who considered themselves cisgender were less so than non-drag queens. But there was a difference. It was one thing to be like I’d been, to feel so miserable and confined and trapped by the expectations of the gender I’d been assigned. And because of that, I had understood all too well the allure of women’s clothing, of that forbidden fruit; hell, the first time I’d worn a skirt, mere weeks after taking the form I now wore? It had felt like some kind of trespass, like I was doing something deeply, horribly wrong. But clinging to the thin cotton fabric of a long skirt and trying not to cry at the thought of my father suddenly showing up to tear it off of me was one thing.

That outfit, that — that ‘dress’ the drag queen had been wearing?

That was a satire. That outfit took all the trappings of femininity, everything I’d been denied for years, and pushed it to such a cartoonish extreme that it wrapped right back around to a cruel joke. Women didn’t look like that. I didn’t look like that.

But even as I thought those words, something about them felt... off. Hollow. Wrong. Like it wasn’t my inner voice thinking that. It didn’t feel like something I’d think, something I’d say.

It sounded like... like something my father would have—

A knock at the bathroom door startled me out of what might otherwise have turned into a serious doom spiral, and it was all I could do not to let out anything more than a quiet yelp in surprise.

“Miss? Ma’am?” a young man’s voice asked through the door. “Is, um, are you okay in there?” Then, more quietly, “God I hope I don’t need the mop already...”

Oh. Right. I had just staggered to the restroom, off-balance and wobbly enough that I looked drunk.

“I’m fine!” I called out through the door. “No need to get the mop, just, uh... just needed some quiet, is all.”

“O-oh,” the teen — because I recognized that voice now — muttered, embarrassment leeching into the tone. “Um, j-just a moment, ma’am! Wait right there?”

“Okay?” I blinked, ears following the suddenly-jogging footsteps until they were too far away to be clearly heard over the noise. Why did the kid want me to—

“Here you go, ma’am!” the teen said, his return catching me by surprise as a small plastic baggie slid under the door of the restroom. I kneeled down to pick it up, and saw it was a pair of earplugs.

That... was really considerate, actually. Unfortunately—

“Thank you,” I said, making sure to hold my tail between my legs as I opened up the door so it didn’t peek out under my skirt, “but um... these aren’t going to work.” I looked past the door and up to meet the gaze of one of the teens, the one wearing the pink button-up, and handed the earplugs back to him.

“I... are you sure, ma’am?” The teen was now staring at me with slight suspicion, a kind I recognized all too well: he was trying to tell whether I was actually having an issue, or if it was cover for something else. Given that this was a gay bar that also regularly hosted drag shows, which were mostly frequented by middle-aged straight women, he was right to be a bit suspicious.

“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, really?” I assured him, needing to raise my voice a bit to speak over the music filtering back from the main room. “I just, um. Can’t use these.”

“What?” he asked, though it was less a question and more an exclamation of surprise. “W-well, if it’s allergies, we also have—”

I cut him off by lifting my hair away from the side of my head, showing smooth, unbroken skin where a human ear would have been.

“Oh, I have a friend at school who’s like that too!” the teen exclaimed, eyes lighting up in apparent comprehension. “Abdiel only has one ear, so—”

And that’s when I raised the hair on the other side of my head to show that no, I didn’t have only one ear like the teen’s classmate apparently did. The other side of my head was just as smooth and earless as the other, and that revelation shocked the poor kid into stunned silence.

He stood there in confusion, eyes almost unfocused as he blinked hard and tried to figure out if he had, in fact, seen what I’d just shown him properly. The music out in the bar’s main room faded away, replaced by sudden applause that was even louder than the music had been, and which managed to make it down this hallway more readily than the music itself. And because it was sudden, loud, noisy, and echoing a bit in the hallway, I flinched at the applause, snapping the teen out of his stupor as he looked at me a bit more curiously.

“But how, wait, cochlear maybe...?” he mused, keeping his voice quiet enough I might not have heard him over the fading applause.

“Not exactly.”

And with that, I lifted my hat partway off my head, and wiggled a furry ear around for my captivated audience of one.

“Suffice to say,” I told the stunned teen as I set the hat back down on my head, “those earplugs just aren’t going to do much for me.”

“I — you — you’re Foxfire?” the teen practically gasped out, something all but shimmering in his eyes.

“Mhmm!” I raised one hand, and with a snap of my fingers, conjured a tiny amethyst wisp of foxfire to dance along my fingertips. “Don’t worry, I won’t let it burn anything.”

“That’s...” the teen took a deep breath, shuffled to put his back to the rest of the hallway, and held up his free hand as though cupping something.

Then he closed his eyes, furrowed his brow in focus, and proved my initial guess correct as a shining marble of white-gold flame sputtered to life above his hand. It was bright enough that I couldn’t look directly at it, but something about that fire was just... inviting. Welcoming, even. I couldn’t quite put a finger on why it was, but somehow I could tell that I could brush my arm right up against that little kernel of sunfire and it wouldn’t so much as singe my sleeve.

“Aha,” I murmured, waving away my foxfire as the teen cracked his eyes open. “Well, it’s probably too loud out there for me, so... care to take a few pointers from an old hand?” I asked with a smirk.

“Please?”

“Of course!” I said with a smile. “Lead on, sunshine. Let’s see if I can teach you a thing or two.”

The show dragged on until around 11:30. A quick text was all it took to let Megan know where I’d be, after which I let the teen, whose name I learned was Brendan, lead me back to the employee break room. There was some fun stuff in there, mostly a bunch of paraphernalia that the bar’s staff had collected over the years, but what most interested me was a Polaroid photo stuck to the break room’s fridge. It showed the teen in front of me and the other I’d seen outside asleep atop one another on the break room’s sofa, hands still clasped tight even as they slept.

Writing in sharpie on the white border read “Brendan & Zeke”, with hearts surrounding each of their names. And, well... yeah, if what Megan and I’d seen outside hadn’t been enough of a hint, this neatly explained their desire to get away from neo-Nazi parents.

Brendan didn’t comment on my brief inspection, maybe because he didn’t notice anything amiss about it, or he just didn’t want to look the gift fox in the mouth. Whatever the case might have been, it didn’t take long to sit him down and see what all I could teach him, starting with the single most important rule for pyrokinetics like us: how to avoid collateral damage.

... and then skipping straight to the next lesson entirely, because this lucky son of a bitch was one of the rare few Moonshot whose powers were modal, and he could just choose to not set stuff on fire if he didn’t want to. Then when I asked him to demonstrate, because I didn’t believe him, he wrapped a sheet of paper around his sleeve, set his entire arm on fire, and only burnt the paper!

Was I jealous? Yes.

But from that point, I was able to refine things and teach him another pair of important lessons — how to, for lack of a better word, ‘eat’ a different fire with his own, and how to create, control, and extinguish without gestures. Now don’t get me wrong, gestures were great and wonderful, but a crutch was still a crutch.

About an hour into this little impromptu tutoring session, the other teen, Zeke, came into the break room. For what reason, I don’t know, but he took one look at the white-gold fireball in Brendan’s hands and the purple one in mine, and just... blinked, stared in silence for five seconds, then slooooowly closed the door.

And yes, it was as hilarious as it sounds.

But eventually, all good things must come to an end. Both mine and Brendan’s phones buzzed in relatively quick succession, and I dispelled the wisp of foxfire that I’d had dancing a figure eight around my ears to check what was almost certainly a message from Megan... but wasn’t.

It was instead a group text between myself, Megan, and McCain’s contact.

stay seated and face stage left; will send someone to bring to back for talk

“I-I’m sorry, ma’am? Ms. Foxfire?” Brendan started, tripping over his words as he got to his feet. “I um, thank you so so so much for the help, but I’ve gotta do something now and—”

I turned my phone to face the teen, and let him see the message I’d received from (presumably) his boss. He read the text, then looked at me with a bit of concern and confusion, which would almost certainly give way to anger if I didn’t nip this in the bud. That was generally the last stop for the “I’ve been manipulated” train of thought, after all.

“I was already here for something other than the show, yes,” I admitted, lowering my ears slightly as I offered a soft smile. “But this impromptu training session was genuinely a coincidence, don’t you worry.”

“O-oh,” he muttered, the wind completely stripped from the poor kid’s sails. “Um. Follow me, I guess?”

I shrugged and nodded. Brendan seemed to take that as enough signal to get moving, and opened the break room just in time to interrupt the other teen’s attempt to knock on the door. The pair exchanged some whispered words, which I very pointedly did not try to listen in on, and I instead looked past the pair of bodies to lock eyes with Megan behind them. The two teens left the break room and headed further into the back rooms of the bar a moment later, with Megan and me following without protest.

“We seriously need to look into getting you some proper earplugs,” she whispered directly into my ear when I tilted it her way. “You missed a good show.”

“Yeah, well, show’s over,” I whispered back. “Time to remember why we came in the first place.”

The boys led us past a very rowdy dressing room and up a narrow flight of stairs, which led out into a short hallway with two doors, one to the side and one at the end. Both of them skipped past the side door and headed straight for the one at the end of the hall, which had an interesting plaque on it.

Darius/Sandra

Owner

I frowned, ears lowering in thought. Wasn’t Sandra the name given by the drag queen? Wouldn’t that just be a stage name? Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to really roll that thought around, because Brendan and Zeke knocked on the door before opening it to let Megan and me in.

The office itself was a relatively simple thing — a few photos on the walls, a great big Progress Pride flag behind the desk, another couple of tchotchkes here and there. But there were two main features that stood apart.

First was an extremely tall mannequin, or maybe a dress stand, along with a wig stand beside it. The dress stand was currently occupied by the exact garment that “Sandra Phoenix” had worn downstairs, and the wig stand bore the hairstylist’s magnum opus, even if it was slightly askew. Second was the office’s owner, standing barefoot and half-clothed behind the desk. Even in boots with a slight heel, he towered over me, to the point that I was maybe eye level with the bottom of his shoulder blades. He removed a wig cap to reveal that what little hair he had was buzzed close to the scalp, with little specks of gray and white standing out against chocolate-brown skin, then shrugged on a sleeveless undershirt — a “wife beater”, I think they were called? God, I hate that name — and turned, not to face us, but to grab a pack of makeup wipes out of an open desk drawer I hadn’t noticed before.

“Forgive me for making a production out of this,” the man said, surprising me with a voice slightly above a baritone, but substantially deeper than the little I’d heard downstairs. “Sometimes I’m fine to sit there as Sandra all night, but right now it’s Darius hours.”

“Uh...”

“It's no trouble at all,” Megan said, taking charge and rescuing me from my own confusion. “Thank you for setting up a meeting with us on such short notice, Lieutenant Springfield.”

“Yeah, well, I’m alive because of McCain,” the man said as he pulled out his desk chair and sat down. “That’s not a favor I can ever repay, but damn if I ain’t gonna try. And then some,” he added, nodding at the teens who were doing their best to stand out of the way. “Boys, this here’s Staff Judge Advocate Megan Barnes. Top paper pusher for the DC National Guard and NMR. And the other lady needs no introduction,” the Lieutenant added, almost as an afterthought.

“Foxfire...”

“Better known as Naomi Ziegler,” I told the boys. “And as of last month, McCain’s new lawyer.”

“With a friend in just the right high place to get shit back on track.” Lieutenant Darius Springfield leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together, then did one of those odd raised-head nods my way. “You wanna fill ‘em in, fox, or should I?”

“I’ll handle it,” I said, with a tone that was maybe a bit more waspish than I’d intended. The Lieutenant smirked, the makeup still on his face making the expression seem a bit more catty than it would’ve otherwise. I flicked an ear dismissively, l turned away from him to face the teens instead, and did my best to try and explain this whole clusterfuck.

Problem: Wayne McCain was being framed by his partner-slash-handler, a source that was trusted almost beyond reproach. Solution: Brendan Whitman and Ezekiel “Zeke” Flowers were eyewitnesses to the event, and their testimony could exonerate Wayne McCain.

Problem: they were both minors, and therefore could not legally consent to give testimony. Solution: ask their parents for permission.

Problem: their parents were accessories to the crime about which they would be testifying, and therefore could not be approached to give that permission; this was also ignoring that the two boys had run away from home, but this was getting complicated enough already without adding that wrinkle. Solution: appoint a Guardian ad litem (GAL) for the boys, who would stand for their interests in court, and use their testimony to charge the parents for the crime as well.

Problem: every single person that the boys’ testimony would incriminate were members of law enforcement, and would therefore have some advance warning of both the GAL appointment and any charges headed their way.

Now, ordinarily, this was where we would’ve hit a bit of an impasse. The solution at this point would just be “wait until the boys turn 18 and revisit the issue”, but that wasn’t an option for multiple reasons. However, there was one additional wrinkle to this whole thing, and which offered up a new answer.

Solution: because both Brendan and Zeke were Moonshot, the government suddenly had a lot more options available.

Were any of them good options? Well... no, not really. They were the results of compromise after compromise, of band-aid solutions that would never get a more permanent option simply because of how politically fraught they were. But this solution was good enough, and that was what mattered.

“Essentially,” I started drawing to a close after several minutes of talking, “regardless of what else happens, you two are getting emancipated. Judge Advocate Barnes here will serve as your Guardian ad litem, but the loophole that lets her ignore the conflict-of-interest rules also penalizes her and the NMR at large. Specifically: they cannot make any kind of recruitment pitch towards you two at all until you’re 21 years old.”

“Kids and teens in bad situations get into enough trouble without superpowers,” Megan added, smoothly taking over now that it was her turn. “Trust me when I say that taking a hands-off approach until several years into adulthood has prevented more teenage Moonshot from going supervillain than... probably every other initiative combined.”

“Probably because it isn’t trying to recruit them,” I muttered, drawing a slightly peeved look from Megan. “What? It’s true.”

“But...” One of the boys, Zeke, had half-raised his hand before realizing he wasn’t exactly in a classroom right now. “What if we want to join the NMR? Does that mean we won’t be allowed?”

“Yes and no,” Megan replied without missing a beat. “What would happen is that every six months, there would be a panel convened to review your case. The panel would be three Moonshot: one currently in the NMR, one formerly of the NMR, and one who had never been part of the NMR at all. If, after speaking with you, all three of them determine that your desire to enlist is yours alone, and unmotivated by any recruitment overtures on our end, you will be allowed to join. And even if that’s the case, you two would still receive full benefits until the age of 21.”

“Side note, I’ve already been informed I’ll be on the first panel after you turn eighteen,” I cut in. “I’ll be the former NMR panelist, and if you can convince me, I’ll lean hard on whoever the other two wind up being to let you both in.”

Brendan and Zeke looked at each other, silent communication flying between the two in the form of facial expressions, minute changes of body language, and shifts of fingers on their clasped hands. It was only a few seconds, but the two of them looked at Megan and me with twin expressions of hope and trepidation.

“Can, can we ask a few more things?” Zeke asked for the pair. “Before we decide?”

“If there’s a space I could speak with the two of you alone?” Megan asked, though she turned to look at the Lieutenant, directing the question his way. Lieutenant Springfield lowered the makeup wipe from his face, and nodded briefly in the direction of the door.

“Break room downstairs,” he said to the boys, “and make sure to lock the door.” Then he turned his attention towards me, and lightly wagged one finger at me. “You stay a moment, need a word.”

To ask about his friend? Well, that wasn’t exactly an imposition; I’d be worried too if I were in his position. I flicked an ear and shrugged, letting Megan know it was okay.

“Don’t wait for me,” she said on her way out. “This may take a bit, and needs you to not be there.”

I nodded, at which point she gathered up the teens and left the office, leaving me alone with the Lieutenant. But even knowing we were alone and incredibly unlikely to be bothered, I still waited until the footsteps were out of earshot before saying anything.

“Regarding Sergeant McCain, there’s only so much I’m allowed to—”

“Ma’am, you are helping my friend, and I appreciate that,” Darius interrupted, brow furrowing as his lips pulled down into a frown, “but I will not stand for this ‘LGB without the T’ attitude of yours.”

... what? But, that... huh?

I just... stared for a moment, completely flummoxed by what I’d just heard. What was he, I don’t even...

“I, I’m sorry?”

“No, you’re not,” the man said with a huff, wiping the last of his makeup with the wet wipe before tossing it in the little trash can next to his desk. “Don’t go lying to me, lady. I may not know for certain where on the rainbow you live, but I know that look you been giving me, and if a person gettin’ to choose whether they’re a man or a woman is a problem for you? You’re gonna have a problem with me.”

What. What.

“What in the—” I bit out, but cut myself off when a literal snarl threatened to bubble out of my throat. My ears were pinned back in threat, and I could feel my fur starting to stand on end, but right now I was so angry that I just did not care. “What gives you the right to accuse me of—”

“I run a gay bar that hosts drag shows, white girl!” he snapped, volume carefully controlled even as his tone practically yelled in my face. “And I have seen your type every single goddamn week since we—”

No. No, I wasn’t going to listen to this, was not going to let somebody accuse me of bigotry against my own fucking demographic!

My body dissolved into flame, and I burst into existence in a violet flash right behind the Lieutenant. He shoved his chair out of the way and spun around, stepping back into a ready stance, but I was already moving.

My hand flashed out, and I laid my fingers atop three of the triangular stripes at the left edge of his Progress Pride flag — white, pink, and pastel blue.

“That’s. Me.” My words were hissed through bared fangs as I glared up at the man, and only silence followed in their wake. I had my hackles raised, ears low, tail lashing in agitation, and foxfire threatening to billow forth. It was utterly unacceptable for me to be acting like this in any capacity, but I just did not care. I was too mad, too offended, too hurt to give a flying fuck about—

“Well, hell!”

I blinked, my ears flicking forward at the sudden noise, that sudden... laughter. Unbelievable as it was, Lieutenant Darius Springfield... was laughing.

“You know, that’s not what I’d have guessed, but that’d explain it too!”

“What.”

The man didn’t answer me right away, instead grabbing his chair from where it’d rolled over towards the dress stand, sitting down in it, and letting out a deep, amused sigh before continuing.

“I’m gonna take a wild guess,” he said, clasping his hands and gesturing between me and the flag with extended pointer fingers, “and say you skipped a few steps along the way.”

“Um,” I muttered, the picture of perfect eloquence as I backed away from the Lieutenant’s desk. “I, uh.”

“Heh. Girl, that makes you one of the lucky ones,” Darius continued, his tone turning almost wistful as he looked squarely at the Pride flag. “Could probably go your whole life without anyone thinking you weren’t always what you are now. None of the consequences of the awkward middle steps, either.”

“I, I’m sorry?”

He turned to look at me, and raised one eyebrow. I tracked his gaze from me, to the dress and wig on the other side of the room, and right back to me.

“Lady, it is too goddamn late at night to start unpacking your exact flavor of bullshit,” he said, looking me squarely in the eye, “but suffice to say that even other shades of the rainbow ain’t too kind to those of us what don’t fit in a nice neat little box at the back of the garage. Now, I got shit to do before I can close up shop, and you’ve still got a good man to exonerate. But once he’s free, if you still feel like wakin’ the fuck up?” Darius nodded to the phone at his desk. “You give me a call.”

And with that, Lieutenant Darius Springfield opened up the laptop on his desk, got to work, and dismissed me more effectively than anyone ever had before. There was no “get out”, no tawdry goodbyes, not even an implicit dismissal.

It was a simple matter of showing that I was no longer worth his time or attention, and he had better things to do.

I left his office without a word, ugly thoughts churning up a storm in my mind. It was a good thing Megan told me not to wait up for her, I thought idly as I exited the bar and flickered up to the rooftops, because I probably wasn’t going to have a useful thought for the rest of the damn weekend. Just... fuck. I’d just wanted to give us a bit of levity before the work began.

And instead, I got hit with an emotional tidal wave that I don’t know when, or even if I’ll be able to handle.