An Altercation

Vin wasn’t sleeping well.

He had no trouble falling asleep, that bit was fine. He still went to bed by 10:30 every night so he could drag himself out of bed by 6:45 the next morning, but instead of comforting, restful oblivion he had started having vivid, disturbing dreams of a nature he hadn’t had since at least his mid-teens, complete with embarrassingly sticky aftermath.

Could be worse, he’d grumpily thought as he found himself washing his sheets for the third day in a row. At least you’re doing your own laundry these days.

Attempts to drain the lizard before bed in order to head the mess off at the pass were no help. Morning after morning he woke up in a damp sweat, with the faintly gross sensation of his sheets sticking to his thighs. By day four, he’d given up and started sleeping in briefs and pajama pants again. Still gross, but less of an arduous cleanup process, even as sleeping in clothing made his skin crawl.

Aside from being significantly more tired than normal and laundry suddenly becoming a nightly concern, his week was uneventful. Most of the crew at Vin’s job was on holiday break, so it was just him and one other tech on hand for grounds cleanup and maintaining the long canals of silvery blue trout chilling over winter until they could be trucked to various Massachusetts waterways for spring restocking. It was boring, sure, but Vin liked shepherding their main charges from tiny transparent babies to full grown (and tasty) fish. The rest of the work was hard, grueling, and often screamingly dull, but it kept Vin in reasonable shape despite the late twenties bachelor/mature raccoon diet of absolute trash and ramen.

Vin liked working with the other tech on holiday duty in particular. Easton was quiet, steady, and didn’t tend to slack off like some of the others did. She was also sharply, wickedly funny, usually at very unexpected times. Vin could remember more than one instance where she had timed a particularly potent zinger to when he had just taken a sip of something but hadn’t swallowed yet. Said mouthfuls usually ended up in his nasal passages, down the wrong pipe, or sprayed all over whatever was in front of him at the time.

When shit was truly slow at the job (like a winter week of no snow and no school tours due to the holiday) Easton and Vin would just chill in the main office/break room and play chess or cards. She tended to play both with a surprising level of viciousness, and he usually welcomed the opportunity to challenge her. This particular afternoon, however, he was cranky and sluggish with lack of sleep, and he was very much not bringing his “A” game to rummy.

“Everything all right, Becker?” she asked, after his third mistake in as many rounds. “Been looking dead all week. Not to mention you don’t usually fuck up quite this badly this often.”

“Yeah, I’m just tired. Not sleeping well.”

“Know how that goes, man.” Easton gave him a sympathetic smile. “Need an ear?”

Vin shook his head, smiling faintly. “I don’t think I can explain it in any way that would make sense.” Or that wouldn’t make him sound outright barking crazy. Yeah, I accidentally summoned some kind of sex demon, let her kiss me, and now I’m having dreams in 4KUltra of orgies in hell every damn night, waking up in a puddle of skeet, and not getting any rest, no biggie.

Easton nodded. “Not gonna push,” she said, putting three sequenced cards down in front of her and a fourth into the discard pile. “But the offer stands, should you need it.”

“Thank you,” Vin sighed tiredly, picked up a card from the draw pile, grimacing at it before discarding it.

There was a bang as the door of the break room crashed open and a dude dressed in civilian khaki cargo pants as opposed to the mandated overalls swaggered in. He was definitely the sort of douchebag who thought the gray t-shirt with “THE MAN” and “THE LEGEND” printed on it between arrows pointing at his face and his crotch was peak comedy.

“Oh fuck, no,” Easton murmured under her breath.

“I’m back, baby!” the new arrival bellowed, as if this were the best news ever delivered. “Did ya miss—”

He was unable to finish his question before Vin’s fist slammed into the side of his jaw.

There was about a minute and a half of pandemonium and yelling which ended with Easton managing to get Vin in a full nelson headlock and dragging him back, despite the spitting, flailing and swearing.

The guy Vin just punched rubbed his jaw and winced, but looked only mildly annoyed rather than pissed. “The fuck is wrong with you, Pecker?” he asked incredulously. “Why’d you punch me?”

“Maybe stop calling him Pecker, for one thing,” Easton snapped. Her hair had come loose in the scuffle, and she blew it out of her eyes, glaring. “Welcome back,” she continued acidly. “Don’t know what the fuck you did, Carl, but I have zero doubts you had that coming.”

“The fuck I did, I’ve been nothing but nice to Pecker here, haven’t I?” Carl made a face somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. It resolved firmly into a smirk when he caught sight of Vin’s still-bandaged pinky. “Opened the little present I gave you, I see.”

Vin had started to cool off a little, but Carl’s quip spiked the rage again. He lunged forward, dragging Easton along with him before she recovered, digging the heels of her work boots into the carpet and tightening her arms around his shoulders, relocking her hands behind his neck. “Becker. Vin. For fuck’s sake, relax!”

Vin did, letting his entire body including his shoulders go limp, which resulted in him dropping straight down through Easton’s hold to the floor. Once loose, he sprang at Carl again, fist cocked back, only to be pulled up short by the back of the overalls as she grabbed him again, hauling him back hard enough to pop several stitches in the straps. “Chill. The Fuck. Out,” she said. “Not worth the writeup.”

“I’m not gonna have him written up. Nice to see Peck—” Carl stopped as Easton threw him a look that could freeze lava “— erm, Becker here showing some gonads.” He experimentally stretched his jaw out until something faintly popped. “Whew, there she is. Little fuck clocked me good.”

“I’m not little,” Vin complained, not for the first time. He was a perfectly respectable five-foot-nine, but both Carl and Easton had at least half a foot on him in height and wingspan. “Y’all are fucking giant.”

“In all directions, baby.” Carl smirked. “Well I am, anyway. I don’t think it’s polite to speculate on Easton’s dimensions other than her height these days.”

Easton’s mouth thinned to a displeased line. “The fuck you even doing here, Carl? You’re not scheduled to be back until next week, why are we subjected to the unexpected blessing of your presence today?”

“Picking up my Christmas check and also to look in on our boy here. I gave him a present last week to help him with easing some of his…” Carl paused, making a suggestive face before lazily grinning. “Tension,” he finished.

Easton scrunched her nose. “You’d make the worst Dr. Frank-n-furter.”

“Um, you mean the best. I was in the Rocky shadowcast over in South Hadley for a couple years in college.” Carl cocked a hip, giving Easton a lazy smirk over his shoulder. “How d’ya do I… see you met my… faithful handjob man,” he sang in an exaggerated British accent as he minced across the break room, plucked an envelope from the cubby next to the dinosaur-era punch clock, and ended with a grotesquely exaggerated shimmy. The effect was less sexy and more ridiculous looking given the baggy cargo pants, work boots and t-shirt. “Bet I could out-strut you in a pair of platform heels, sweetheart.”

Easton rolled her eyes. “Unlikely.”

Carl snorted. “Soooooo, Becker, how’d it go?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Vin muttered.

“That good, eh?”

“I don’t. Want. To talk. About it,” Vin forced out between gritted teeth.

Carl tucked his envelope into one of his pants pockets and shrugged. “Just tryin’ to help you out, man. Gotta say, it did wonders for me. Getting nice regular workouts without ever going to the gym.”

“The fuck you give him, steroids?” Easton scowled confusedly.

“No,” both Carl and Vin replied simultaneously.

“Look,” Carl added, “I’d tell ya what we’re talking about—”

“Please don’t,” Vin growled.

“—but you got that lovely collection of dark velvet curves and no doubt blazing hot trim waiting for your ass at home.” Carl grinned at Easton, daring her to challenge the vulgarity by showing a few more teeth than necessary. “You don’t need what I’m peddlin’.”

Easton let go of Vin’s overalls, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. Her other hand balled into a fist. “Get the fuck out, Carl. I don’t want to deal with you until Monday, when I have to.”

“Careful with that hand, girlfriend,” Carl baited her. “You sure the recent T&A acquisition hasn’t thrown off your swing?”

Easton’s face turned absolutely stony, which Vin knew was a very bad sign. “Get. Out. Now,” she snarled, taking two slow ominous steps in Carl’s direction.

“Fuck, fine, calm your tits, I’m leaving.” Carl huffed, heading towards the door. “You and I though, we’ll have a chat later.” He pointed two fingers at his own eyes, then pointed them at Vin. “No girls allowed. Happy new year, ta!”

Easton raised both middle fingers as Carl slammed out of the break room, reversing his belligerent entrance. She kept them raised until they both heard the outside door slam as well, then rounded on Vin so fast he backed up two steps, knocking over the table they’d been sitting at and scattering cards every which way. “Becker, what the fuck is going on?”

“Nothing!” Vin took another step back, stumbling over the overturned table and catching himself. “He gave me something before he left. As a joke. It’s fine.”

“What did he give you?” Easton’s voice darkened to a growl.

Vin winced. “I can’t tell you. Look, if I told you that it wasn’t drugs or anything like that, would you believe me and let it drop? Please?” he paused, looking up into Easton’s face. Judging by how dead pale she’d gone and the very slight shaking of her hands, she seemed more scared shitless than angry. “Look, he gave me something asinine because I made the mistake of bitching about how I hadn’t had a girlfriend since before the pandemic. Not drugs, I promise.”

“Like a dick pump or something?”

Vin normally would have died of embarrassment at the thought, but he recognized a convenient out when he saw one. “Something along those lines, yeah,” he said, face scarlet. “Please don’t make me explain more than that.”

Easton glanced down at Vin’s hand, clearly not buying it, but rather than pushing, she closed her eyes and leaned heavily against the wall. Vin guiltily remembered she was prone to stress migraines when she started pressing up under her eyebrows with the heel of one hand. “Sorry,” she murmured, muffled behind her arms. “Don’t wanna be patronizing you or whatever, and it’s really none of my business? But you haven’t been working here all that long and you probably aren’t aware Carl’s involved in some seriously shady shit. I don’t want you accidentally getting caught up in any of that. If he’s given you something, throw it the fuck out. If you safely can, anyway. Nothing is little or harmless if he’s involved.”

“Got it.” Vin smiled sheepishly. “Thanks for the assist. It’s okay though, I’m not scared of him.”

Easton dropped her hand, fixing Vin with a slightly wide-eyed stare. “You should be.”

“Whaaaaaaaat,” Vin shook his head. “You were going to deck him five minutes ago if he didn’t leave.”

“Ha,” she scoffed humorlessly, puffing her hair out of her eyes again. Scowling, she retrieved her scrunchie from the floor, using it to tie her hair back out of her face. “I’m still riding on the fact that I hauled off and KO’ed him five or six years ago for being an asshat the last time we had a… another woman working here. But that was way before I transitioned, and he’s very close to calling my bluff about whether I still can. You heard him.”

“Shit.” Vin took a deep breath, then cracked a smile. “Pity you didn’t knock him out face down in the trout pools out there. One less problem we’d have now.”

“Right?” Easton sighed. “He’s the reason for the last name policy around here, you know. Something about an equity clause in the handbook, but I think the bosses back then liked that eliminating first names cut down on a lot of bother. Well,” she grinned, “until Subramaniam came on, anyway.”

(Subramaniam was a good litmus test of who the jerks were at the hatchery, judging by who shortened it to “Subra”, or worse straight up changed it to “Subaru.”)

Vin frowned, suddenly realizing something. “What even is Carl’s given name?”

Easton’s face drained again. “No one knows.”

“Oh come on, it’s gotta be in his file or on the paperwork or something.”

“Nope.” Easton reached over to the little rack of cards next to the punch clock and fished out Carl’s, handing it to Vin. Just the surname at the top, unlike everyone else’s, which had their full name. “It’s like that in his file too.”

“Even on the drivers license copy?”

Easton looked incredibly uncomfortable. “Two capital letters, no periods. A, Z. That’s it. Man legally pulled his name off the record. Who the fuck does that?”

Vin snorted. “We sure he isn’t in the same boat as you, just going the other direction?”

Easton gave Vin an “are you kidding” face, then laughed. “Kinda wild that didn’t occur to me. Wonder what that implies?”

“Mostly that he’s so much of a jackhole that you don’t want him on Team Trans?”

Easton’s smile died. “That and most people don’t get physically violent when asked what their first name is.”

“Jesus.”

“Uh-huh.”

An uncomfortable silence fell as the two of them righted the table and then picked up the scattered cards, separating them into suits to ensure they’d all been retrieved. “I bet you could still take him,” Vin finally said, just to both break it and erase the extremely haunted look in Easton’s eyes. “You got me into a headlock wicked fast just now, I bet he’d be out before he even saw you coming.”

“Doubt it, but thanks for saying so,” She chuckled. “It’s so fucking strange sometimes dealing with him, especially how quick he pivoted from boys club misogyny to borderline harassment when I came out. I wasn’t expecting to find that weirdly gender affirming.”

“Ew.” Vin made a face. “But I can sorta see what you’re saying.”

Easton shook her head. “Least I don’t have to hear about his belt notches anymore. Fucking hell. He needs to keep my wife out of his disgusting mouth.”

“Wife?” Vin grinned. He’d met Easton’s chaos elemental girlfriend at least twice, at hatchery mandatory fun events. “When did that happen?”

Easton blushed to the roots of her hair. “Hasn’t officially yet,” she murmured. “But we’re looking at this coming summer.”

“Nice. ‘Grats. Did y’all do the whole proposal thing?”

Easton turned even more scarlet and fished into the neckline of her shirt, pulling out a gold chain with a ring suspended from it. It was pretty in a non-ostentatious way: a warm green stone flanked by smaller blue sparkly ones. “Can’t wear it while working, obviously. Happened the weekend I switched with you a couple weeks ago. She sprung it on me under the fucking Rockefeller tree and nearly got herself arrested in the process. Never wanted to both kill or kiss someone so hard in my life.”

Vin laughed. “Sounds about right.”

Easton grinned, tucking the ring back under her shirt.

“Well, ‘grats again. And thanks for keeping me from doing something worse. You really didn’t have to stick your neck out for me there,” Vin added, a tinge guiltily.

“Yeah, I know.” Easton reached out to ruffle Vin’s hair before stopping with a small frown. “Was your hair always kind of a dark red, or did you do something to it recently?”

Vin’s hair had always been the most nondescript, mousy brown imaginable. “Huh?”

She squinted at him, then shook her head. “Never mind. Trick of the light, maybe. Could have sworn your hair looked red for a few moments. Did you do something to it?”

Vin pulled out his phone, flipped the camera and squinted hard at his image, specifically his hair. Easton was right: there was definitely a warm red tone to it that hadn’t been there previously. The hell, he thought, uneasily trying not to make the connection between this latest minor weirdness and the kiss he was trying very carefully to not think about when other people were around. “Heh,” he laughed nervously. “That’s interesting. I mean, I didn’t think it would show up,” he fibbed hastily, catching Easton’s face darkening with concern again. “It sure didn’t under my bathroom light.” That part was at least not a lie.

Easton’s expression held for a moment too long before it gave way to a tired smile. “Well, it suits you.”

“Thanks. I think.”