Gender Bender in a Blue Blender

By Mika Tertius and Toma, with creative input from LunaMuller96

::::::::::

Talon hated his best friend's bed. The thing taunted him with its size. Even the mattress laughed at his frail efforts to deny the fact that he was in love with Adain and that he would never join his friend the way that his mind, and the head between his legs, wanted to. He leaned on the door frame of the imp's room, his light brown eyes searching for a sign of his short friend's whereabouts.

"Aid?" He called cautiously. Talon began calling Adain 'Aid' when they were children after he realized just how many times their parents had to hunt down the first aid kit for the ravenet.

"Hold up, they've gotta be around here somewhere," Adain called from his closet.

The blond looked on helplessly as pants, shirts, and socks were expelled from the closet. So far, his day was turning out horribly. A nightmare at four in the morning left such a deep impression on him that he decided that as soon as Adain woke up, he would confess his love to him. Instead, he found Aid had left their apartment at three in the morning to go to the local twenty-four-hour supermarket to pursue supplies for some supposedly brilliant idea. Since they were eleven years old, Adain and Talon were forbidden to go anywhere near the room across from Aid's father's work-study. When they were eighteen, Adain and Talon moved into an apartment together for easier access to their university and part-time jobs. At twenty-one, one would think that the imp would have long forgotten about such things...

"This time, I'll break through that ward without a problem!" Adain declared as he continued rummaging through the messy closet floor.

Of course, he wouldn't forget. Talon ran his hand through his chin-length blond hair as his patience faded. Adain had always made fun of the fact that he liked to keep his hair long in the past. The fact that his hair had about three different tones of natural highlights didn't help, either. As children, Aid loved to relish the fact that Talon looked like a girl. Unfortunately for him, Talon grew to be a tall and well-defined young man...whereas the imp remained short and looked younger than his age.

"Let's do this!" Adain cried fervently. He emerged from the closet wearing camouflage cargo pants, a long-sleeved black shirt, and fingerless gloves. His short raven hair was slightly ruffled from diving into the closet of no return. His light blue eyes held a glint of mischief and determination. Beneath his eyes were a set of eye-black strips.

"Does it have to be right now?" Talon asked as his last attempt to convince Adain to hold off on doing something crazy. "What's with the getup? Want me to get this on video? I'm sure it would garner a couple hundred likes on TipTop."

Adain gave Talon an unreadable look before looking at his digital clock. It was still only ten in the morning. Well, damn. The blond had a point.

"Heh," He huffed as he began to take off the gloves. "Guess you're right. We've waited ten years to find out what's in that room. I guess we can stand to wait until the afternoon."

The dark-haired man's family were descendants of Warlocks and Witches. Though most of the power that allowed for wards and curses diminished from generation to generation, some still ran in their blood. They'd been told that Aid's great-grandfather had placed a ward on the room across from his father's study. Neither his father nor grandfather cared to tell him what was so important about the room. Why had his great-grandfather chosen to protect it?

Such a mystery became Adain's Pandora's box. If it wasn't for Tal, he would have risked his life to open the door in his early teens and would have probably been electrocuted, turned into a chicken, or worse. Luckily, he had spent most of his free time researching wards and their arcane symbols. It had taken him many years, but he was confident he had finally figured out how to break through it. The blue-eyed young man bent over to grab a bag full of snacks, his reason for visiting their local supermarket at such an ungodly hour, and followed Talon to the kitchen.

Once his friend decided something, he stuck with it until the end. In a way, Talon was glad that Aid had somehow found a way around the ward to the elusive room. He figured an impromptu confession wasn't quite as impressive as opening a door sealed for ten years. So, he decided to wait until Aid's curiosity was sated first. The curse of having a personality as eccentric as Adain's was that it managed to draw others to him on a grand scale...however, it also managed to repulse the same amount of people in the same way.

Talon never knew how to handle the situation whenever the imp's mood changed chaotically. He could manage Adain's energy when it was at its normal levels. But he could never handle his moods whenever something truly upset the blue-eyed guy. As a friend, he could only look on, all the while worrying about one day being the cause of his grief. So, it was with great effort that Talon somehow managed to convince Aid to hold off on his experiment until later in the evening, while his grandfather and father were physically in the house, should anything go wrong.