"Seth is right, from what I've heard you did nothing wrong," Jesse agreed.

"Uhh hey, you want a hug? You look like you need one," I blushed.

I normally wouldn't even think of making that offer, but I wasn't thinking straight at the time. The fact we were both guys and it'd be weird for us to hug had already slipped my mind again for whatever reason and besides, comforting my friend was more important than being a 'proper manly man' anyways.

"Is it okay? It's your body," Ian asked Jesse.

"Of course, as long as you don't hurt yourself I don't care what you do in it," she reassured.

That phrasing made some implications I didn't want to think about, so I just went in for the hug. It felt nice, uncomfortably so, as a couple seconds turned to a dozen and neither of us were actively trying to stop it. Ian and I embraced and I felt Jesse's body's toned arms wrap around me. Despite it happening because I was doing it, because I just wanted to comfort Ian, I couldn't help but notice it felt… good, really good. I hadn't realized how touch-starved I'd become since the break-up.

“It's okay, what happened happened, but we're still here, and I know we'll be for each other no matter what,” I promised.

“Thank you,” he mumbled into my shoulder. Jesse opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but closed it.

"D-do you want to join in on hugs?" Ian asked.

"That… kinda sounds nice," Jesse admitted with a sheepish grin.

"Umm… like I'm not saying you shouldn't, but y'know, I'm here too," I pointed out.

"I mean I don’t mind if you don't," she said.

A small bitter part of me wanted to say no, but I fought the intrusive thought down and gave her a nod. The addition of Jesse in the hug was weirdly natural, like a part of me had always expected this to happen or felt like it should. I didn't know if that was really the case, but it certainly was pleasant enough to be true.

“You two are the best,” Ian said. I could hear a bit of a smile in his voice.

After a few moments I felt something hardening against my thigh and looked down. Jesse's jeans had tented up slightly and it was rubbing against me.

"Sorry, I don't know how to control this thing," Jesse apologized and backed up to the couch, breaking the hug.

"Largely you don't, but I don't mind it touching me," I said offhandedly and immediately regretted
it.

They both watched me and they each raised an eyebrow eerily in sync. "I mean it doesn't bother me if it touches me, err, if I touch it -- I mean don't worry about it!" I flustered, much to both of their amusement. I rubbed my thigh where the dick had been brushing against me and shuddered involuntarily.

"Looks like someone else is getting a bit excited too," Ian teased, gesturing to my… growing interest in the situation.

"S-shut up!" I gasped, face quickly turning crimson.

“Doth protest too much, methinks,” he smirked.

“Ian,” Jesse said sternly.

“Sorry, sorry, I'll stop,” he giggled. “He's just so fun to tease sometimes.”

“You two wanna watch a movie?” Jesse asked. I made a mental note to thank her for changing the subject later.

“Sure!” Ian beamed.

After some searching for a decent Christmas movie for a while, we gave up and put on some campy disaster with Santa as a gun-toting badass shooting a bunch of baddies, which somehow saved Christmas. I tried to give it a fair chance, but I stopped paying attention around the time ‘Merry Christmas to all, and to you a goodnight’ was used as a badass line by Santa before he shot a mobster. My thoughts inevitably turned to what had happened before Jesse arrived.

Can you really call having two gay encounters with your best friend a fluke? I'm not gay… right? What am I thinking? Of course I’m not gay, Jesse's body is hot as all fuck, but hypothetically speaking, being into women isn't the same thing as being straight. To hopefully disprove that possibility, I watched Jesse in Ian's body try to unsubtle cover her boner, her lack of experience leading her to try rearranging it in her pants, inadvertently making it harder… to hide. I couldn't help but watch in fascination as I wondered what it might feel like to touch it with less fabric in the way. The awkwardness poking through her tough exterior is kinda cute, I guess, and the massive futch vibe she has works well in Ian's body. It's almost eerie how much more relaxed and emotive she is in that body.

Jesse noticed me watching her and gave me a sly smile. It'd been a long time since I saw her this happy, and even through the disconnect of her being in a different body, it melted my heart and reminded me why I’d fallen in love with her in the first place. I tried to get back to watching the movie, but I couldn't focus on anything other than my dilemma.

Fuck, why does she have to look so good in that body? Is it even straight to like that body right now…? Wait, of course it is, it's the person's gender that matters, not their body. Shit… I made the opposite excuse for Ian. Maybe it doesn't matter who's in what body; there's
at least one man between them, so this isn't strictly straight for me to like both.

"Seth, you good? You're staring," Ian said, rousing me from my thoughts.

"Uhh, yeah!" I blushed and averted my eyes.

"You sure? You're as red as a lobster."

"I'm fine, just spacing out a bit," I said dismissively, and ran my hand through my hair.

What's even the point of pretending? Not like there's anyone left in my life who'd hate me for having these feelings. I sighed deeply and it was loud enough that both of the objects of my slightly less than hypothetical desire turned to look at me.

"Do you want me to get you a glass of water or something?" Ian asked.

"No thanks, just gimme a second to think."

There was a long moment of silence and I realized I couldn't stand to hold this in and that there was no one I trusted more with these budding feelings. I vaguely recalled that Jesse had had a girlfriend at some point before we'd met, and as for Ian, well, I'd always wondered if his attraction for me really was alcohol dependent like I'd convinced myself mine was. What he’d said earlier all but confirmed it, so there was nothing left to do but tell them.

"Okay… so I think I might be, umm, not exclusively into women."

"What?" Ian asked, confused.

"Finally," Jesse snickered.

"You didn't know?" Ian gawked.

"You did?!"

"Of course! I remember how, well, how into it you were when we… y'know," Ian blushed.

"Hot," Jesse commented.

"Jesse!" Ian and I cried in unison, utterly mortified.

"What? You disagree?" she asked with a knowing grin.

"I mean no, but like you can't just say that," Ian admitted.

"Fuck me," I grumbled while ran my hand through my hair, then promptly clarified, "I meant that as an exclamation, not a demand."

"That's too bad, that could've been arranged," Jesse smirked and gave me a wink.

That's just a joke, I told myself. She broke up with me, nothing's going to happen here.

"I see that look,” she chided me. “You're being down on yourself, aren't you?”

“No…?” I tried.

“Okay, let me say in no uncertain terms that wasn't entirely a joke,” she stated.

Yeah right, these two don't want me here for this, my brain told me. I glanced back and forth between them as they both did the same, no one wanting to break the tension. To my surprise, Ian was the one to finally break the silence.

"Hey, Jesse, earlier… you said you didn't mind, umm, what I did in your body."

"I did, didn't I?" Jesse nodded slowly.

"Same, umm, same with my body."

"Nice," Jesse breathed.

I shifted in my chair uncomfortably. This is escalating way too quickly. I can't fucking believe they're actually considering having sex with each other while in each other's bodies. That's either really fucking weird or really fucking hot.

“Okay fine, I'll go,” I sighed and started to get up to leave.

"Wait!" Ian called.

"W-what?"

"I thought you were going to… join us," Ian murmured.

"I don't want to make it weird by intruding on… whatever this is."

"You are not intruding, I'd like for you to stay, and it’s not like this is going to be more weird by being a threesome," Jesse chuckled.

"Yeah, seriously, this whole experience has been pretty damn surreal,” Ian agreed.

"Y-you actually want to… with me?" I stammered and looked back and forth between them in amazement.

"Yes, obviously!" they said in exasperated unison.

“Jesse, you're okay with me being… with Ian too? And vice versa?”

"One step at a time, but yeah, I like both of you so if that's what everyone wants I'm definitely cool with it,” Ian said.

“Likewise cutie,” Jesse winked at Ian, then turned back to me. “Besides, I won't want to be in the way of you being with someone you love!"

"It's not that I love him, it's just I care about him a lot and like being around him and seeing him smile is so–" I stopped abruptly, then self-consciously glanced at Ian.

He looked up at me with those beautiful eyes and gave me the cutest grin I'd ever seen. My heart raced and I couldn't help but smile back, then I blinked several times in realization.

Oh.

Pouncing on Ian, I was suddenly determined to make up for the years I'd ignored my feelings. Our lips met for the first time without guilt or fear between us and it was everything I never knew I wanted.

"I love you too, you silly head" he giggled.

"Love -- you -- too--" I managed between kisses.

"God, you two are so cute together," Jesse smirked.

"Aren't we just?" I made a noise that could've been mistaken for a giggle.

"Hey, Jesse… is it always like this for women?" Ian asked.

"Like what?"

"My emotions," he said, voice wavering, "there's no numbness blanketing them." Although he was smiling tears began to fall down his cheeks. "I'm just… happy."

I squeezed him tightly and rubbed his back. He laugh-cried and returned the hug tenfold. Comforting my friend crying tears of joy over all this hit me – hard. Something was bubbling up from deep, deep within me that I couldn't explain. It wasn't long before tears were welling up at the corners of my eyes and I suddenly burst into rough sobs. I couldn't understand what was going on, but that didn't lessen the impact any. My friends did their best to reassure me they were there for me and everything would work out fine, but it did little to stop it.

“Maybe we should wait on… whatever's going on between us,” I sniffed when the tears finally dried up, hoping they wouldn't question why I was crying in the first place.

“Fuck… yeah, probably a good idea,” Jesse sighed.

“Sorry, I don't know what came over me,” I muttered.

“It’s okay, nothing stopping us from picking this up later,” Ian assured me and started to get up.

“Wait… can we cuddle for a little bit?” I asked quietly.

“Of course,” he smiled and lay back down and gave me a big hug.

We stayed like that for a time, not saying a word. For the first time in years, I was able to fully relax, for a time at least. The anxieties that constantly haunted me were silenced; even the feelings that had sucker-punched me minutes ago faded. The future seemed bright. Whatever happened next would all work out as long as the three of us stuck together and there were no doubts we wouldn’t.

After what seemed like hours, but couldn't have been more than thirty minutes, Jesse whispered, "Remember how I said I kinda liked Ian's whole androgynous guy thing earlier?"

"Yeah, vaguely," I replied, getting up off the couch and stretching.

"Umm, yeah," Ian mumbled.

"I lied, I like it a lot, to the point I'm honestly dreading having to go back to my old body," Jesse admitted.

"Oh! Umm, well would now be a good time to mention the thought of being that body makes me
nauseous?" Ian asked.

"That tracks, you seem way happier now," Jesse nodded.

My eyes widened and my breath hitched. As much as I tend to isolate myself from the world, I hadn't been living under a rock; I could see the writing on the walls and it was one word in flashing neon lights.

"Umm, that said… could you call me Robin and treat me like a girl and use she/her pronouns for me, just for right now? It seems a wasted opportunity not to… umm, try stuff out."

"Try stuff out?" I asked, failing to prevent a rising panic tingeing my voice.

"Y-yeah, don't you ever wonder what it would be like to be a girl?"

"Yeah, but like, every guy thinks about it every now and then. It's just one of those hypothetical scenarios people daydream about," I asserted. For some reason it felt important that I point that out.

"But I have the chance to actually try it for real so I'm going to make the most out of it!" she smiled, then a quick slurry of words poured out of her with unintelligible speed; it was like the words might start burning her mouth if they remained unspoken.

"What was that?" I asked.

"I-I said I like being a girl! I've never been this happy in my life. I've had this feeling that something was horribly wrong with my body my whole life and now…!" She took a long breath and said in a much quieter voice, "Now I'm just me."

My knee-jerk reaction was to object, to point out it was Jesse's body, but I held my tongue. I knew far too well what it was like to hate your body, and besides, Santa was right that this was their decision to make.

"I know exactly what you mean, but in the other direction, although I honestly like my name, but I…" Jesse took a deep breath before continuing, "I want to switch to he/him, permanently. I can't go back to pretending I liked being a woman, I've always resented it. Having people treat me like my opinions don't matter, dealing with periods, having to be the 'girlfriend' in relationships, and having those things on me was slowly killing me." He grimaced, gesturing to his old body's breasts. “Swapping bodies just forced me to realize that I'm a man."

"I've been thinking about this for months, if I'm being honest.” Robin whispered so softly I could barely hear it. “We're transgender, aren't we, Jesse?”

My eyes went from as wide as dinner plates to the whole damn table as I suddenly noticed the similarities between me and Robin. The years of depression, the inability to understand Jesse's, or anyone else's affinity towards being masculine, the recent jealousy towards Robin. Logically it all added up to the same answer.

"Yeah… seems so obvious in retrospect," Jesse agreed. He gave me a meaningful glance, then did a double take as he noticed my state and asked. "Seth? You're white as a ghost."

I started to hyperventilate, and like a trapped deer I looked around wildly for a way out of the situation. Staying wasn't an option; I could see it in their eyes, they'd decided what my panicking meant and nothing would convince them otherwise.

"Hey, it's going to be okay--" Robin began.

Without so much as a goodbye, I flew from my seat to the front door and out into the streets and to my car, blocking out my friends calling out to me all the while. I barely stopped to pull closed the driver's side door before I tore out of the parking lot. When I got home and finally calmed down enough to make logical decisions, I sent a text to Jesse, Robin, and my chat group saying I needed time to think.