“Hey! Over here!” Emma tucked some hair behind her ear as she waved and sat a little straighter. For a brief moment she struggled with the temptation to try to appear perfect. Suck in her belly just a little bit, smiling but not like that, holding her head so the light would hit her jaw like that and maybe her date would think she was, if not perfect, then at least good enough. On the other hand, if he was going to be around for a while (ideal, but terrifying) he’d see her less-flattering angles and, well, maybe it was best to get those over with. Insta filters were one thing, but in person it was just a matter of time before the shadow on the lower half of her face made itself visible. 

“Emmy?” Axton asked. Well, that wasn’t her name, but with a voice like that? She stood up.

“Sure,” she said. “I mean, uh, yeas. Yeah. Yes.” Emma blinked. “Wait, no, I go by Emma. Hi!” She was trying to appear like a normal, functional human being while she tried to get her brain to stop stepping on her verbal keyboard like a disinterested cat. Axton laughed and leaned forward to give her a polite kiss on the cheek. The cat fell over. Right on top of the keyboard.

“Afsz,” Emma said. Axton smiled like he hadn’t just made Emma blush like a teenager, and sat down across from her. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Emma,” he said. “I hope I’m not too late?” She saw his eyes flit to her coat and handbag already on the seat next to her. Emma shook her head.

“No, I’m just terminally early. It’s nice to meet you too, Axton.” Emma had been holding off on touching the little pot of olives on the table in front of her, but now that he was here, there was no need to deprive herself any further. Chewing on the toothpick, she squinted. “Axton… is that a Borderlands thing?” 

“Actually, it’s an old English name. It means ‘From The Town of Ash Trees’ and it’s a name that I’ve always had a real affinity for, but yeah, no, it’s from Borderlands.” He chuckled. “Gotta have goals, right?” He ran his hand through his short, dirty blonde hair. 

“Well, you certainly achieved yours,” Emma laughed, trying not to fawn too obviously. “Goodness. Can… can I ask how long you’ve been transitioning for?” She bit her tongue, but it was too late now. It was going to come up at some point and being rude and too forward, she might as well get it over with already, right? Ughhhhh.

“I don’t mind at all. Five years,” he said, popping an olive into his mouth. “Yourself?”

“About the same,” she said. “And pretty happy with it, although there’s still some stuff I’d change.” She gestured vaguely at her own everything, primarily her face.

“I get that,” he said, “but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Dysphoria is a mean motherfucker.”

“Sure,” Emma said. “Still, I’m sorry if the pictures on my profile gave you the wrong impression, you know?” She tried to make herself small, pulling in her shoulders, hunching over. Maybe if she took up less space, she’d be less—

“Yeah,” Axton said. “If I’d known you were so beautiful I would’ve dressed up. Jeez.” Emma’s head snapped up so quickly it gave her whiplash. Error. Static. Christopher Nolan ‘Bwaaaaam’ noise. And that fucker just winked. 

“Whh?” Emma asked. 

“I’m not kidding,” Axton said. “You really are very pretty. Like, I used to be cute, I like to think I’m pretty good looking now, but I feel way out of my league here.”

“You’re very sweet,” Emma squeaked. “And like… I feel the same, if it helps? You’re pretty... uh… hot.” She felt her ears burning. “Sorry I’m so awkward, I don’t do this very often.” She held up her phone to accentuate her point. “The dating app thing, I mean.”

“Oh, me neither,” Axton said. “Don’t let my confident and relaxed exterior fool you, I’m a bit of a dating disaster.” He leaned back when the waiter approached their table. 

“Afternoon,” the man said. Axton nodded at him, and Emma only just in time stopped herself from doing the same thing. It was weird. Years of voice training, of unlearning shitty behaviours, of teaching herself makeup, of buying the right clothes, of learning how to be a woman in a way that felt right. All that, and she still found it really hard not to do the guy-to-guy head nod. Someone had pointed out once that cis women almost never do it and now she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She cocked her head sideways instead, and realized she hadn’t actually heard a word of what the waiter had been talking about, so she tuned in as quickly as she could and hoped she didn’t come off entirely as an air-headed bimbo. 

“Just a diet soda for me, thanks,” Axton said, and looked across the table at her. “Until we’re sure we want to stay here, that seems like a good idea?” Emma nodded. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Same for me, please.” The little bistro they’d sat down at was one of those hole-in-the-wall kind of places where she knew she could just sit down without a reservation. It was just a matter of time before some dickweasel wrote about it on their blog and it’d be impossible to find a seat, so she came here every once and again, while she still could. The waiter took their order, smiled, and walked away. 

“Where were we?” Axton asked. “Oh, right, dating. Yeah, I haven’t done a lot of it. Honestly, I want to say it’s that I haven’t found the time or that I didn’t find the right person, but that’s not entirely it.” He took another olive. “I’ve just… been working on myself, you know?” Emma smiled. 

“Yeah,” she said. “I definitely know that.”

“Well, I don’t just mean transitioning,” Axton said, “although that obviously plays into it. I mean more like… Okay, I really hope this won’t, like, scare you away or anything, but I used to be a bit of an asshole and there’s been a lot of personal growth these past few years. Hard to hang on to a partner when you’re going through something like that.”

“Yeah,” Emma said again, “I know.” She gave him a sheepish look.

“Oof. You too?” Emma nodded. “Yeah, I came out to myself after a pretty shitty relationship, and I’ve been unlearning bad coping mechanisms since that.” He paused. “Bringing up your ex on a first date is one of those not-done things, isn’t it?”

Emma laughed softly as the waiter served them both their drinks, but she waited for him to leave before continuing. “It’s fine, honestly. I can relate to a lot of that, including coming out to myself after a bad relationship thing. I’ve definitely heard that before.” She sipped her drink, enjoying the drops of perspiration on the glass, the way the ice tinkled. “I… tried dating when I first came out. You’ve probably heard of the trans girl polycule stereotype and like… it’s not not true.” She swirled her drink with the metal straw. “It just didn’t work out. I had stuff to work out too. Okay, so, if you’re allowed to bring up your ex, I can too, right?”

Axton laughed. “Alright, I think that’s fair!” 

“Okay so, my ex is the one that kind of, like, cracked my egg in retrospect,” Emma said. “She was just… awful. Like, don’t get me wrong, the way I was around her was shitty as hell, but she brought out the worst in me. I had a lot of privilege to check, and she and I went around feeling better than everyone for a long time. It was… really gross. But she was also very pretty, and very smart, and when we broke up, a part of me still wanted to be like her. It’s only after doing some real soul-searching that I realized that I didn’t want to be like her as a person, but, well, y’know, as a woman. Because god, she was the worst.”

“Fuck,” Axton said, “you really went for it. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. That sounds like a really rough situation to be in.” He held up his hand to stop her protest before it could get started. “I know, there’s two people in every relationship, and while I’m sure you’re being overly critical of yourself, I do get being the worst version of yourself around someone, and that’s a really hard position to be in. And if I can extend that kind of courtesy to myself, so can you.” He smiled and held up his glass. Emma clinked hers against it. 

“Fine,” she said with mock indignation. “I’ll be kind to myself, but only because I’m being bullied into it by a really sweet first date.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw Axton blush slightly. So he was human after all. 

“I’m glad it’s going well, then,” he said. “And I promise to do my very best to make sure you don’t have to go through something like that again.” He sipped his drink. 

“Oh, don’t worry,” Emma said. “I don’t think you have it in you to be that manipulative.”

Axton shrugged. “Now? No, definitely not. But I used to play a lot of mind games. Before coming out, y’know. I thought that’s what you were supposed to do in a relationship, and like… when you feel like you have to take up a submissive role in the relationship, and your boyfriend is this passive-aggressive dickhead, you kind of have to be a bitch.” He sighed. “Not that I’m excusing my own behaviour, of course. But I think, since then, I’ve just kind of… dedicated myself to radical, kind honesty.” He smiled again, lifting his own spirits like it was nothing. “Like telling someone who seems like an honest, kind, beautiful person what I think of her.” He raised his glass again. 

“You really are very sweet,” Emma said, feeling pretty. This absolute fuckmuppet had just waltzed in here and made her feel pretty. What an asshole. “So it looks like we both had a sexuality-realization after coming out, huh?” 

“Well, sort of,” Axton said. “I always figured I was bi, but I think compulsive heterosexuality had me convinced that a woman needs a man in order to be happy. Turns out that things get a lot more complicated when you don’t realize you’re not a woman.”

“Or a man, for that matter,” Emma giggled. “Yeah. My ex was bi too, but she was pretty dismissive of guys who claimed to be bi.” She frowned. “Weird how much internalized homophobia was going on there.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty pervasive,” Axton said, nodding sagely. “Good on you for figuring yourself out. And good for me, because it means I got to meet you.”

“You’re going to give me cavities by the time you’re done, aren’t you,” Emma said with a smile. “And before you say anything, yes, that goes both ways. It’s been really nice meeting you, Axton. Even if you got your name from Borderlands.” She winked, hoping it looked less awkward than it felt. 

“Okay, listen!” He laughed, “It’s a good name, alright?! Besides, Borderlands slaps. It’s like, the best thing to come out of that relationship. He was obsessed with it.” 

“Huh,” Emma said. “Most of the media I consumed with my ex is stuff I can’t stand anymore. Bad memories, you know? Although I do still come back to some of it.”

“Is that how you recognized the name?” Axton asked. “Just wondering. It’s not the most well-known name. Or the most popular character, for that matter.”

“Well, it’s that, Jack or Roland, and you don’t seem like a Roland,” Emma said. “And definitely not a Jack.” Axton smiled. “No matter how handsome.” Axton blushed.

“Thank you,” he said. “I do my best.”

“Well, you succeed,” Emma said. “So, since we seem to be so in sync, where do you think I got my name from?” She raised her eyebrows, trying to look mysterious with her glass held up. It was basically empty at this point, but it was about the gesture more than anything. A challenge, for the gentleman. 

“Hmm,” he said, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hand and looking deep into her eyes. She’d sort-of expected him to, but he had really intense eyes, and she felt that feeling of happy anxiety in her stomach flutter this way and that. “I think,” he said, “you’re a nerd.” Emma gasped, in real shock disguised as fake shock. He was right, but he shouldn’t say it. “But what kind of nerd? You’re into games, but not just those. Now, not to get too armchair psycho-analyst…”

“Psycho-analyze away,” Emma said with an air of what she hoped was dignity, “I’m an open book, for people who can read.” That had sounded cooler and a lot less condescending in her head. 

“So, I think you’re a full-spectrum nerd. Film, TV, games, and comic books. I think you got your name from one of those when you hatched, and I think you deliberately picked something obscure because you were the kind of person who attained self-worth through exclusivity,” Axton said, hitting the nail on the head so many times Emma had to keep herself from wincing. 

“Ouch,” she said, “no mercy.” Axton started apologizing, but she shook her head. “No, you’re entirely right, and you have nothing to say sorry for. I tried to drag my ex into it but she just made fun of me for a lot of my hobbies. I got into them harder, to spite her, I think. I stepped away from all of that, but the name stuck. So, not only are you on the right track, but I don’t mind you calling out the dipshit I used to be.” She leaned her head on her hands. “Please. Continue.” She saw the hesitation on his face. “I promise I’m having fun.”

“I am too,” Axton said, “I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“If I’m squirming in my seat, it’s for good reasons,” Emma said, and immediately realized just how horny that had sounded. “Wait, no! I mean… yes.. But…”

“No takebacks!” Axton said with a laugh, and they waited a moment while the waiter refilled their glasses and a flushed and flustered Emma tried to look inconspicuous. “So,” Axton said when it was just the two of them again, “I think that, because you used to be like a capital-N Nerd in high-school, you put a lot of value in your own intelligence. Am I close?”

“Unbearably so,” Emma said with a little giggle. “Definitely getting warmer.”

“So, even though you seem like a really sweet and warm character, you got your name from a character that was a lot more… well, less that.” Emma nodded in affirmation. He was reading her like a book. A comic book, in fact. But he didn’t know that. “So I was first thinking Emma Swan from Once Upon A Time…?” 

Emma shook her head. “Close, but no cigar. I didn’t get into that show until after I hatched. I had bad associations with it before.”

“The ex?”

“Yeah,” Emma said. “Is it weird that they keep coming up?” She laughed a little apologetically. “I don’t think I’ve spent this much time thinking, let alone talking about her in years.” She paused. “It doesn’t… bother me, really. Does it bother you?”

“Not really,” Axton said. “I think the kind of person that was so… important to us coming out… they stick around, you know? Living rent free in your head, so to speak. Like, they’re a reminder of who used to be and who we want to be and who we don’t want to be. I used to be an ice cold bitch and oh my god I know who you got your name from.”

“Oh?” Emma said in surprise.

“Emma Frost,” Axton said. “All in. Hands down.” He seemed so certain, so confident, made only worse by the fact that he was absolutely right. 

“Yeahh,” she said. “Speaking of, and this is the last time I bring her up, I promise, I think at first I realized how much she reminded me of the character, and that kind of… cold distance, using femininity as a way to exert power, that kind of thing.”

“Doesn’t sound very healthy,” Axton said. “I can relate. It was always more of a tool to me than anything, a performance.”

“Yeah, that’s how it felt at the time too.”

“Hah,” Axton laughed. “Maybe your ex is trans too!” 

“M-maybe,” Emma said, several thoughts and tiny dashboard-lights vying for her attention. “Um, Axton?”

“What’s up? I really hope I haven’t made you uncomfortable,” he said, and he seemed so genuinely concerned she just wanted to… well, she wanted him to wrap her arms around her because he did look very much like he gave excellent hugs. “I feel like it’s my fault, I started to talk about exes and I don’t want to ruin this. You seem like a genuinely sweet and kind person a--”

“Where are you from, Axton?” 

“I’m from here,” he said, switching gears as quickly as she did. “Born and raised.”

“Me too,” Emma said. “Weird how we never ran into each other.”

“Yeah,” he said, “weird. Although I didn’t socialize much in person these past few years.”

“Yeah, me neither.” She stared at him intently. He stared back. Tension, and the hairs on the back of her neck, rose. “Did you go out much at all, before?”

“Yeah, there’s a bar downtown. It’s pretty small, but it’s got a loyal clientele…”

“Foley’s.”

“Yeah.”

“Not a lot of people know about Foley’s.”

“I know.” Axton chewed an olive with the kind of intensity usually reserved for statues. Emma sipped her drink, and decided to take a shot in the dark. 

“How’s your sister doing?”

“She’s doing fine,” Axton said. 

“Still doing ballet?”

“Yeah, just did a performance last week.”

“Good,” Emma said, staring at a spot on the table. “Good for her.”

“Emma?”

“Yah.” The pause stretched out into infinity and came out the other end. 

“I’m sorry,” Axton finally said. 

“I am too.”

“For who I used to be. For who we were.”

“Me too.”

“And for what it’s worth… I forgive you. I know that doesn’t mean much but--”

“It means a lot,” Emma said, and finally managed to look Axton in the eyes. At least she wasn’t the only one crying, she noticed. “That goes both ways, by the way.”

“Thank you,” Axton said, quietly. “Do you want to… to go…? I don’t…”

Emma chewed her tongue for a moment, and took a breath. “Not… really? Is that weird?” 

“A bit, yeah,” Axton said.

Emma laughed. “Fair enough. I just… I’ve never met Axton before. Not really. He seems really sweet and handsome and kind, and I kind of want to get to know him?” Axton smiled, right through his own tears and hers, and straight into her heart. 

“Emma seems lovely,” Axton said. “She’s very pretty, and while she’s clearly still a little hung up on her ex, she’s also really cool, and clever, and I would love to get to know her better.” They both wiped their tears and laughed awkwardly, when the waiter rolled up. 

“Have you decided if you wish to eat something?” Both of them turned to him, and then to each other. 

“Yes,” they both said, “I think we will.”