As is public transportation tradition, ‘earliest departure time’ either meant ‘left half an hour ago’ or ‘not leaving for another forty minutes after this time’, so when I got to Alderberg’s one bus stop -- most of the time ran on old-timey trams -- the bus was just pulling up. Not a lot of people came to Alderberg, but it wasn’t a huge anomaly. People went to visit family members in both directions, and the bus was fairly comfortable, all things considered. Due to its remote location, going anywhere from Alderberg was a long drive, and it was a lot safer to fall asleep in a bus than it was in a car, especially if you were on your own. I sat down on the bench and craned my neck to look inside the darkened windows. A few people were getting up but I could only make out silhouettes. 

With the exception of a single, grainy, five year old picture, I’d never seen Crypto. Once upon a time we used to talk all day long, but neither of us had been particularly keen to turn on our cameras, but I had a feeling I’d recognize him if I saw him. And once we spoke I’d recognize his voice. Fuck. I wanted to chide him for coming here but it was my own fault. Sure, me and him had lost touch but we’d been close once and if I’d gone through the trouble of logging in once I would’ve seen his ridiculous plan of coming here and meeting me in person, which was going to go all sorts of silly. For one thing, Crypto thought I was a guy, and while I could do a lot of things with my appearance, I wasn’t going to be looking like one any time soon. Even if I wanted to. Blech. 

Three people got off the bus, and unless my old friend Crypto turned out to be my Old friend Crypto, it was probably going to be the thirty-something that got off last. He looked so out of place, so uncomfortable compared to the population of Alderberg. People here were happy, content, and even on bad days there was a kind of ‘sure, I’m having it rough right now, but at least I have this place’ aura around people, which was completely missing from this guy’s face. He was discomfort personified. I knew I’d looked like that, not too long ago. He was a little heavyset but he did his best to care for his appearance outside of that. Short haircut, clean-shaven, and clothes that weren’t exactly flattering, but that showed he cared about fashion. Not that that was in question, we’d talked fashion a lot back then. 

He looked around, unsure of where to go. Of course, he knew where I used to live, he’d once asked for my address to send a birthday card (it had never arrived. He’d felt guilty for weeks), but he didn’t know where to start. And while he’d get cell reception, any kind of map was going to take at least twenty minutes to load. He sat down on the bench next to me, staring at his phone, probably trying to will it to connect to the barely-present local network faster. Oh honey. He didn’t even really notice me. 

“Hey,” I said. He looked up and blinked a few times, as if he couldn’t believe someone was talking to him. He barely seemed to comprehend the idea that I was real. I saw him staring at me, my face. His eyes lingered on my lips for a moment and I aggressively blocked out any fantasies he might be having. This was my friend, he was worried about me and I about him, and I wasn’t in the mood for this to be getting awkward. 

“Uh,” he finally said. “Hello?” It was definitely him, the voice was unmistakable. I smiled, trying to put him at ease. It was hard, he was clearly uncomfortable out here. He’d been uncomfortable leaving the house before, I was surprised he even made it all the way here. I carefully opened my mind again, seeing if any surface thoughts with me in them made it out. ‘She’s pretty. Why is she talking to me? Does she want anything from me? I don’t know where to go. Is she from here? I should ask her. Would that sound like flirting? Should I just ask how to get to the address? Where was it again? Don’t look at your phone, that’s rude. Say something, you’re staring. Why is she looking at me like that? She’s very pretty. I wish I--’ 

I cut the stream of thoughts off. Goodness, what a mess. Fine, I was going to have to bisect this knot of awkwardness. “Crypto, right?” That did it. He nearly fell off the bench and I failed to suppress a little chuckle. He stared at me, frozen like a deer in headlights.

“Wh-- who are you?” I couldn’t help but grin, he was absolutely precious. He was almost shaking in shock, but he didn’t seem to be all too scared of me. Well, no more scared than a guy with severe social anxiety would be when confronted with a woman who suddenly decided to talk to him and knew his name. Okay, so he was a little scared of me. 

“You came to see me,” I said softly and crossed my legs. “I only saw a few minutes ago. I’m sorry I didn’t respond to your messages. I’ve been… distracted.” The way he looked at me, I got the feeling he was barely processing what I was saying.

“B-- but…” he stammered, “You’re a girl!” I shot him a sideways glance. 

“Your powers of observation are remarkable.” 

“But… You always said… and your voice…” Oh, yeah. I had sounded very different. Even my inflection and resonances had changed drastically since the last time we spoke which was… months ago now. I grinned sheepishly, trying to come up with an excuse that would make sense, but my brain was only supplying me with useless nonsense.

“I was, uh… using a voice changer,” I said, and hoped it didn’t sound as silly as it did to me. Going by the look on his face, it absolutely did. He frowned, his eyes wide.

“Why? We talked about… you know… guy stuff.” Gosh, he sounded so betrayed. I really wished I had an explanation for him, something that would make sense without him running for the hills. What else was I going to say? 

‘Hey Crypto, I found out a few months ago that I’m actually a succubus and actually a girl. I have horns now and I can hear thoughts and fantasies and emotions. What have you been up to?’ I had the distinct feeling that this wouldn’t fly. I sighed. “I know. I was just… scared that, if I told people I was a woman, people wouldn’t take me seriously, or get all weird about stuff.” I really hoped that that was going to be good enough.

He grimaced and got up, pacing back and forth. “But… we talked about… yknow… what it would be like to be a woman! Why didn’t you say anything then? Did you think I was going to make fun of you? Were you just like… silently laughing to yourself?” His moving around became more frantic. “Oh my god, I told you about the dress designs I made for like… that what-if story I wrote…” He rubbed his face and I really had to keep myself from wrapping this dumbass in a hug. He was panicking, and his emotions were coming off him in waves, but I didn’t know what to say. “Oh god…”

“Hey,” I finally said. “Crypto.” He looked at me as I got up. “You’re fine. I didn’t make fun of you, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about, you know, this. Sooner, I mean.” He nodded and took a few deep breaths. “You’re… a good friend. Better than I apparently gave you credit for. I scoffed softly and looked at the bus. “You came all the way here… wait, do you only have a backpack with you?”

He spun around, looking at the bus that was just taking off down the street, and he immediately began running after it, cursing to himself, and I had to keep myself from laughing. Fifteen minutes later and Crypto stood in front of me again, breathing heavily and pulling a large wheeled suitcase behind. There were any number of ways I could have helped him, but most of those involved me making it very clear that I wasn’t human, and my last resort -- sprinting after a bus in high heels -- would not have yielded particularly useful results. I took the suitcase from him and started to walk alongside him in no direction in particular. He seemed grateful and was slowly catching his breath.

“So…” I said, letting that hang in the air for a bit in the hopes that he was going to fill the silence. He didn’t. Alright, fine. “Crypto, do, eh… do you… want to come to my place? It’s not too far and you can sit down and maybe have a cup of coffee or something. We can catch up.” I thought about the house and hoped that Madeline had finished her conversation with Rama. Her support would be more than welcome right about now. 

Crypto just nodded. “You can call me Chris, if you want.” I looked at him. Well, I guess we were on a first-name basis now. We’d only ever known each other’s online handles. 

“I’m Eve.” I had a suspicion that I wanted to confirm. “Do you want me to call you Chris? Or would you prefer I keep using your username? They’re both fine by me.” He looked up at me and frowned, as if the question was suddenly very difficult. 

“Uh… I mean if it really is all the same to you… I just don’t want it to be difficult for you, you know? Or like… awkward. I mean, you don’t have to if… if you don’t, like… I me--”

“Crypto it is,” I said, cutting him off and smiling softly to myself. He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and I tried not to make it too obvious that I was feeling very ‘I told you so’ to nobody in particular. Smug was, in my opinion, not a great look. “So, where to?”

“Well… your place then? If that’s alright. I don’t have a place to stay yet but I can stay in like a hotel or something if that would be less of a problem.” He looked up at me like a puppy in a cardboard box on the sidewalk might look at someone. “I brought some money.” Even if he hadn’t come all this way just to see me there would have been no way I was going to just let him stay alone in a hotel. He looked so lost. 

“Nonsense,” I said. “We have a guest room. You can stay there, we’ll catch up for a few days, and I can show you around town. I’ll prove to you that I’m actually doing pretty good, these days.” I paused. “I know we talked about some heavy stuff back then but I’m… well, I’m not that person anymore.”

“I’m glad,” he said softly as he walked alongside me, looking at the buildings. “Is that the library you were talking about? It’s a nice building. Good aesthetics.” I nodded, and pointed at the adjacent house.

“That’s us,” I said. He stopped for a moment and cocked his head. “You said ‘us’. And we. Who’s ‘we’?” Oh, right. Madeline. I should have said something about that. 

“Uh… My girlfriend,” I said. “Her name is Madeline. She’s the uh, the owner of the library. She’s amazing and if you make any ‘hurr sexy librarian’ jokes I’m going to hit you with a rolled-up newspaper until you behave, okay?”

“Okay,” he said demurely. “I thought you didn’t have anyone.” His voice got quiet and small again. “We talked about it, how we never… you know… we were both alone… how we always…” I shook my head and softly patted him on the back. 

“She’s a very recent development. Moving in just kinda happened. I didn’t lie to you about that. I swear.” I unlocked the front door and hoisted his suitcase inside. While I wasn’t doubting that Madeline was going to be okay with him staying for a bit, I did wish I’d seen his messages sooner. I didn’t like feeling like I was asking for forgiveness. Maddie and I tended to talk everything through. I opened the door to the living room. 

On the sofa sat Rama, who looked first at me, and then Crypto. She’d taken off her suit jacket, which hung over a chair, and she’d rolled up her sleeves. She looked incredibly comfortable, sipping a large mug of tea. Just then, Madeline walked in with a box of cookies. She stopped, looked at me, then at Crypto, then at Rama, and then back at me.

“Uhh,” she said. “Rama doesn’t have a place to stay so I offered to let her stay for a couple of days. It kinda came out of nowhere or I would have said something sooner.” My eye twitched for a moment.

“This, uh, this is Crypto. He’s an old friend from out of town. I, um, I also offered to let him stay for a few days. Uh… same deal. Came out of nowhere. I promise I would have talked to you about it.” Madeline and I looked at each other for a few awkward moments, but I saw the beginnings of a smile play on her lips. This whole situation was ridiculous.

Rama was the first to speak up. Her grin was positively demonic. “Oh, this is going to be delightful,” she said. “I call dibs on the couch.”

Elamimax

This is only going to end well and you know it

There is another chapters already finished for Patrons , as well as some other things I'm working on. As time progresses until the story is finished, there will always be things on there that haven't be released yet, so please consider it. Also, if you like this story and liked the original, consider purchasing it (cheaply) as an eBook, so you can read it on your e-reader of choice anytime, anywhere, and making it so I can keep doing this professionally :) 

I'm also working on a new story, called "We're Not So Different, You and I". It's a Sci-Fi Fantasy Romance. When I hit 30 chapters or the end (whichever comes first), I'll start publishing it on Scribble. The first 17 chapters are already available for Patrons! 

I also want to point people at the discord server of the ever-prolific QuietValerie (right here) where you can find her wonderful stories, like Ryn of Avonside, Falling Over and The Trouble With Horns, as well as other authors' works, and talk about them with fellow fans, and even the authors themselves! I heartily recommend joining it and reading their works! (Also check out Walls of Anamoor. It's rad as heck.) 

Thanks again for reading, and I'll see you all in the next one. 

<3