Opening Up (Sean/Indigo)

Sean gave a nervous, breathy chuckle. "Tell me about it," he said. "Please don't tell anyone. I'm not out here, I mean I'm not out to people, I mean I'm stealth." He forced himself to stop talking and try to make some sense. "I mean, I'm weird enough, you know?" He was short, had piercings and tattoos, and could barely hold a conversation. The last thing he needed was people wondering what was between his legs or worse.

Indigo nodded vigorously. "Yeah, yeah, I know not-out," he said. Whatever it meant, he'd just go on thinking of Sean as Sean and a guy, because that was what he saw and how he'd been introduced. "I've forgotten already." Did that mean he couldn't tell Jory? Probably. He didn't know that it'd make a difference, though. If he mentioned it at all it'd be on his private blog, without any identifying information. Or to Jory. Maybe.

"Thank you," Sean said, sincerity and relief flooding his voice. It was still stressful and nerve-wracking that someone who didn't need to know knew, but he was fairly certain that Indigo wouldn't tell, and that was good. "Guess that's one way to get the big bad secret out, eh? Um, if you've got like, questions, I'd rather you asked me than you know, assuming or something. Just...not here." Who knew, maybe it would be nice to have someone he could talk to other than his brother or the few school faculty members who knew.

Indigo looked around the rapidly clearing corridor. There were still people though, and not every door would close once classes started. "It's like, none of my business," he said, looking back at Sean. "I mean, if you wanted to talk about it I'd listen. We could, I don't know, like, get coffee or something." It didn't count if it wasn't a date and everyone knew Jory existed, right?

Sean rubbed at the back of his neck and looked down the hallway. "Coffee sounds good. Dunno if I can talk about it, but coffee sounds really good right now." Coffee with liquor in it sounded even better. Maybe four shots of espresso would give him the same feeling. Going to get coffee would, at the very least, keep him from hunting down some alcohol or going into a panic.

Indigo almost said we don't have to, but Sean had agreed, and said that coffee sounded good. "We can just like... have coffee, then," he offered. "And like, talk about class." That was safe. "I kind of miss how cool my Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts was, but I'm learning a lot here. 'Cause like, that's what university is for." Learning. Great change of conversation. Safe, at least. Probably. Hopefully.

"Yeah, university's really brilliant, I love it. Learning more about transfiguration is so much easier with someone to teach me," Sean said. Transfiguration had changed from an interest to a necessity of life, but he'd been unable to really progress past a certain point. "What was the professor like at Hogwarts? I've heard Hogwarts can get kind of ridiculous sometimes."

Indigo gave a burst of a laugh that turned into a snort when he tried smothering it. He cleared his throat and tried to look serious, but a little half-smile remained. "Uh, yeah it could get ridiculous. Like some people were always into drama, but it's not as bad as the media makes it look. Like the Daily Prophet is total trash. Most of their news was like, inspired by real stuff, not even based on it."

Indigo's life hadn't been that dramatic, aside from the few months when he and Jory had been figuring things out. But then, Jory had been through a lot of drama. "I guess it just depended. I kind of kept to myself, so it was just school for me."

"Yeah, my brother was the social butterfly," Sean said. It was pretty obvious he hadn't really been part of the social scene. How he'd managed to even have relationships during his tenure at the school he couldn't guess. Things would likely have been different if he'd been born in the right body, but it was better not to dwell on that.

"There's nothing wrong with staying on the fringes. Well, until you get to university and are faced with one of the most awkward situations ever, anyway." He glanced aside at Indigo and grinned before gesturing down the hall for them to start heading to town.

Indigo's lips curved, and he gave his head a little shake at the joke. "It's no problem, seriously," he said. "Like, no one's ever come up to me like that before, it's flattering." Was it the blonde hair? He knew he'd gotten more looks since he'd gone blonde. He was still getting used to that.

"I don't usually approach people," Sean said. "Usually it's more someone's hitting on me, time to stumble around until the right thing comes out. I don't know how I ever managed to have relationships. Well, I guess that's not completely true..." He trailed off as he thought about it. He'd been a little easy, a little desperate, a lot confused. "But anyway, you're hot, I dunno if I believe that no one's ever done that before."

Indigo laughed, his cheeks pinkening at the compliment. Jory told him he was hot, and people online told him he was hot, but it was totally different hearing it from someone who had no reason to stroke his ego.

"Not in real life, not really," he said. Except Jory. "Well, I mean, like, I go online a lot. It's a Muggle thing, I don't know if you're into any of that."

"My dad's muggleborn, so I know enough to get by," Sean said. It hadn't been a staple of his life, but with muggle grandparents and a father who had grown up around it all he'd picked up some things. "I've used my granddad's computer a couple of times, but I was kind of lost, mostly just read some stuff." Most of his experience was with a muggle by his side, but he'd managed to sneak his way on to seek out information about the muggle trans community.

"Jory's parents are both magical," Indigo said. "I don't think he'd ever seen a computer before me, just heard about them from his little brother. I've shown him stuff, but he'd rather just watch, unless I've got my laptop. It like, does a couple tricks. " He caught himself and paused to take a breath. "Sorry, I'm really into gadgets."

Sean chuckled and shook his head. "Don't worry about it, I can go on about transfiguration for hours," he said. "It was always one of my favorites and now it...it lets me live the way I want to live." Needed to live. He cleared his throat and reached up to flatten his hair to the side. "But yeah, I could talk about transfiguration for ages."