It turned out that the mob was not satisfied by Romeo’s declaration. That afternoon had seen the arrival of a number of obnoxiously large pickup trucks, blocking off the streets the studio was on. The band had been the target of several conservative boycotts over the years, so perhaps it was no surprise that the rightwingers who already disliked them could be driven to a frenzy by literal xenophobia. 

Watching the mess outside from a second story window, Romeo noticed that a few of them did seem to be accepting the idea that he was actually cursed. That had them mobilized in the name of Christianity. Or, whatever it was angry conservatives pretended was Christianity. 

“I will admit I wasn’t expecting this to go so poorly,” Hermaphoditus’ voice called out.

It took Romeo a few moments to realise it was coming from his phone, which he pulled out of his pocket. Hermaphroditus was sitting on the lock screen, looking all of 10cm tall, their wings not quite fitting on the screen.

“Well, it did,” Romeo replied, staring out at the assembled crowd. “If they keep building up barricades… well, let’s hope the police will actually be useful and do something about them.”

“We blame the internet,” Hermaphroditus said, nodding to themself in an authoritative sort of way. “Salmakis decided to do some reading and it seems to be a perfect machine for the creation of angry mobs.”

There wasn’t really anything to say to that. It was unquestionably true, but Romeo had no real interesting in lamenting the fact that something designed for science had turned into the world’s greatest source of lies. No, he had other matters to attend to, while his uncle/aunt/(???) was actually showing their face.

“I don’t appreciate you messing with my friends, you know.”

The statement seemed to catch Hermaphroditus off guard. The deity took a moment to work out what Romeo may have been referring to.

“That… I think we may have a misunderstanding,” the deity said, tossing on a sort of smile that reminded Romeo of a politician or a used car seller.

“Sure I am,” Romeo muttered, not really wanting to listen to half truths from someone wanting to escape trouble. “Got any bridges to sell me while you’re at it?”

“Bridges?” Hermaphroditus replied, blinking in confusion. “Why would I sell you a bridge? That seems like it could be a very expensive purchase.”

Romeo let out a sigh, a bit annoyed at how their conversation partner was so oblivious to casual expressions and references. Though he did feel that the ‘bridge to sell you’ was an old enough reference that Hermaphroditus should have been familiar with it. Wasn’t it pushing a century and a half old by now?

Well, maybe not quite that old. He wasn’t sure when they’d built the Brooklyn Bridge or if there were bridges before that that scammers had tried to sell before it.

Whatever the case, any further conversation was cut off by the phone starting to vibrate, the pop up for an incoming call from Romeo’s mother pushing Hermaphroditus off of the screen. Putting the phone to his ear, Romeo answered.

“Hello?”

“Sweety, are you ok? I just saw the news,” his mother said.

“The news would have made it look worse than it is. That’s what they do,” Romeo replied. “There’s still a bit of an angry mob outside, but they don’t seem to have pitchforks or anything. We can probably just give it a few hours and they’ll remember they have jobs and homes to go back to, having had enough of the November weather.”

“Romeo. Dear. Any sort of angry mob is cause for concern.”

Mumbling something indistinct, he found he didn’t really have a good reply for that. It was true. Very few people dealt with angry mobs in their lives and even he was fairly new to them. Sure, there’d been the occasional protests outside the band’s concerts or record signings, but they’d always been smaller than this mob. Though, about as interesting. The only noteworthy thing this group had done outside the norm was how some of them seemed to forget they were protesting magic and go back to protesting about him supposedly being an alien.

“Well, however casual you plan to play this, I do want to warn you that Mario has decided to head over,” his mother said, drawing him out of people watching.

“Huh… Mario? Why?” Romeo asked, blinking and finding his eyes darting about the room in confusion, his subconscious apparently convinced they would somehow see a solution.

Monkey brains simply were not prepared for the real world, where many things were not actually physically present.

“Because a certain someone is small in his eyes and, now that he’s found out you’re new to the ‘being a woman’ thing he’s extra concerned about you not stumbling into danger or… something. It seemed like he was planning to drive me and explain along the way, but—as much as I appreciate what a hard worker he is, I am never getting in a car that man is driving again,” Erica explained, letting out a sigh. “There must be something wrong with the roads back in Italy, since the reckless driving certainly isn’t genetic.”

That got a small chuckle out of Romeo, remembering how his mother abandoned her rental car and stuck to trains and public transit after a few days every time she visited Italy.

“Rachel can drive there just fine… anyway, I suppose there’s no stopping Mario. Can’t really phone him while he’s driving,” Romeo mumbled, trying to think over the options.

Adding Mario to the current chaos wasn’t really something he needed. It was very unclear just what he’d do, but Romeo was quite certain he’d make things even more of a mess. Any added variables would make life messier right now. No matter how good their intentions.

“If you need to lay low, you know you’re always welcome back home,” his mother said.

“I appreciate it, mum, but I don’t really know how ‘laying low’ that would be. It’s not like no one knows you’re my mother. The angry mob would just be outside Il Gato instead,” he replied. “I don’t want to put you through that.”

Despite the logic, it still took a few more rounds to get his mother to drop the idea. The way she worried was appreciated, really. But sometimes it didn’t contribute anything but to drag out conversations. Eventually she gave in, though, and he got her to talk about how things were on her end (with the excuse of ‘it would take my mind off of things’). With that she initiated the power mothers have to bring up a dozen different things that scarcely felt like they could have happened since he’d last talked to her. Nothing groundbreaking, but that made it all the more impressive she’d managed to remember it all. 

The conversation (if one could call it that, for how little Romeo replied) was still going strong some thirty minutes later when Rachel strolled into the section of hallway. It was clear she wanted to talk, so Romeo apologized and said goodbye to his mother. Promising to visit as soon as everything blew over, of course.

Hanging up, he then turned to Rachel. “What’s up?”

“The police are useless,” she muttered, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall. “As long as the angry mob outside aren’t getting violent or blocking all the lanes on Markham st. they’re ‘just expressing free speech’.”

“What do you expect? The protesters look like they’re mostly conservative, so I’ll bet a few of them are cops,” Romeo said with a shrug.

Rachel sneered briefly at the thought, before moving on. “Well, I’ve called an alternative connection. It might take them a bit to get up from Hammer City, but Giovanni promised to be more useful than the police.”

“You called the Cattarelli Family?” Romeo asked, not exactly thrilled by the news. For more reasons than their being a criminal element.

“Fight fire with fire. Mob against mob. Makes sense to me… unless you want to risk those idiots out there getting violent when they remember you’re not just supposedly an alien, but also an LGBT ‘alien’,” Rachel replied.

Weighing the options, Romeo had to sigh and deflate. It was a genuine risk. Not just for him, as well. Logan, Frankie, and Jovita were all also potentially at risk.

“Do remember, the Cattarellis know how to keep things clean,” Rachel said. “They know the law as well or better than the police do. We won’t be in any trouble… most of their income is legal these days anyhow. The construction boom has been good to them.”

“Let’s hope—” Romeo began, only to be cut off by the sound of angry Italian shouting from below, mixed in with a few bits of English.

“They got here fast,” Rachel said, hurrying over to look out the window, only to have a look of confusion briefly flash across her usually cool expression.

Having had other information, Romeo felt he could safely guess what was happening and so was unsurprised by the sight below. Surrounded by the angry crowd and oversized pickups (with undersized beds for the actual ‘picking up’ part’) was a small Italian city car with a large Italian man half out the door. Mario was yelling away at the drivers, Romeo not able to make out much of what was being shouted at this distance and understanding even less of it for how much was in Italian. The lecturing seemed all the more total for being in rapid fire Italian, though.

All in all, it was impressive to see the usually soft and gentle Mario so full of fire and fury. Not that it surprised Romeo, considering the context. 

“That man is going to get hurt if he keeps that up,” Rachel muttered, though it was clearly more of a neutral observation than any sort of worry from her.

In all likelihood she was simply confused about his behaviour and wondering why he was keeping it up. Unfortunately, though, Romeo suspected she might be right. As impressive as Mario’s physique was, (and as middle aged and white collar upper-middle-class as the bulk of the protesters were, no matter how large their pickups) the balance of numbers was dramatically against him. Romeo found himself biting his lip, trying to figure out what he could do. 

As he balanced the options, a sleek red Alpha Roma sports car pulled up alongside Mario’s compact miniature city car, two black SUVs of the same manufacturer (and remarkably similar design) following close behind. A person of unclear gender, yet impeccable fashion sense, gracefully stepped out of the sports car as the SUVs unloaded a half dozen suits. 

“Ah, so Geordie was in town,” Rachel said, cheeks flushing slightly.

In an act of exceptional maturity, Romeo excused himself to go stomp down the stairs. His feelings towards Rachel were complicated enough right now without her pining over an ex in front of him. Especially with how tenuous their reasons for breaking up had been… Geordie Cattarelli’s gradual shift from he/they to they to she/they had tested the limits of Rachel’s heterosexuality years before, leading to the slow end of her longest lasting relationship. One that had been maintained by Geordie’s exceptional charisma more so than any romantic tendencies Rachel normally held.

Still, though, the fact that Geordie had managed to win Rachel over on their own charms when she’d only shown interest in Romeo after divine intervention left him feeling rather inadequate. Especially when those charms (and some implied threats) were about to solve the problem of the day.

By the time his slow pouting walk took him to the from the second floor down to the front entrance the angry crowd outside was starting to disperse. A few men in suits were having conversations with the stragglers. Most of them seemed terrified and scrambling to pack their bags, but a few seemed so puffed up on their own egos (or, simply lacking in intelligence) to be unphased by whatever veiled implications of danger the mafia goons were making. Those latter folks were relatively sparse, however, and both Mario and Geordie were being let through by security, their cars already parked out front.

Geordie made it through first, strolling forward with a smile directed at Romeo that was larger than expected. Now that they were closer, Romeo could get a better view of their current look. The flowing jacket and loose partially unbuttoned silk dress shirt were pretty fitting to their usual style, as was the blue dye in her hair, but the angular undercut she now wore it in was familiar for a different reason.

“Nice hair cut,” he said with a smirk.

“I thought you might like it,” Geordie replied. “Figured I might as well get ahead of what’s guaranteed to be the style of the year for the gender fluid community. Let’s me grow it out before it gets too mainstream.”

“You—” Romeo began, having realised that Geordie was the only gender fluid person in his social circle (even if it was at arm’s length) and that he should probably ask them for advice.

That effort was cut off by Mario rushing over and pulling him into a bear hug. 

“You’re alright! I was so worried!” Mario said, lifting Romeo off of his feet.

“Oh my,” Romeo squeaked, not really able to process much more at the moment.

Those were big muscles. 

“Huh, he’s your boyfriend?” Geordie asked. “Not to my tastes, but I suppose one could do much worse than a cute himbo freshly imported from Italy proper.”

The comment caused Mario to put Romeo down, backing away a little while blushing and mumbling half formed sentences, mostly in Italian.

“Scusi?” Geordie asked, leaning in a little and putting a hand to her ear. Her smirk was also all but reaching both ears. “My Italian is a bit rusty and very Sicilian… and I think Romeo’s is even worse. We may need you to repeat that.”

That was a low blow which led to Romeo glaring at them. “Peut-être, mais au moins mon français est mieux que le tien.”

Geordie stuck their tongue out at him as a witty reply.

“Aherm,” Mario said, getting his composure back. “What I mean to say is… Rosalind and I… we are not… that is… I don’t know that we are… are we?”

The last bit was directed at Romeo, punctuated by pleading brown puppy eyes that could probably have melted Rachel’s heart.

“…Wait. I’m male right now,” Romeo said, staring at Mario. “I got the impression you were rather firmly heterosexual.”

“Oh. Well—yes? But you are still very beautiful and kind as una donna, so… and your mother said I should not let a little thing as your sometimes being a man stop me,” Mario mumbled shyly.

“My… I need to have a long conversation with my mother, it seems,” Romeo muttered, before shaking his head. “N—not because you’re not a good guy, but just because I don’t need her meddling in my love life too.”

Both Mario and Geordie raised an eyebrow at that statement, Geordie questioningly probing with a ‘too?’.

“Hermaphroditus. The ancient Greco-Roman deity of marriage,” Romeo explained. “They decided to make my love life a game and seem to be messing with multiple people to make them propose to me. On top of the whole ‘messed with fate’ bit to lead me to their cursed spring where I got splashed with gender-water.”

“Really?” Geordie asked. “It was a cursed spring? And now engagements… that’s just like—”

“I’m aware,” Romeo replied. “Though Hermaphroditus apparently isn’t. It’s just their schtick, and has been for millenia.”

“Do let me know if any Amazons show up,” Geordie said with a smirk.

“Mhm. I think it’s 50/50 that or my dad stumbling into my life with a threat I’ll need to fall on my sword like an ancient Roman,” Romeo muttered, before regretting putting it to words and risking it becoming a reality.

“I think I may be missing something,” Mario said, looking between the two of them.

“It’s an old anime, don’t worry,” Geordie explained. “Anyway, I should go find Rachel. We’ve got some catching up to do, and there’s some business arrangements dad wants me to run by her and Mr. Collins.”

With that, they left, drawing some of the fashion sense out of the room with them. Not having anything else planned, and not wanting to risk leaving the studio just yet while remnants of the angry mob were still to be found, Romeo led Mario to the kitchen area. All the while feeling awkward about being around him as a man. It was surely uncomfortable for both of them, right?

Should he switch forms before inviting Mario to crash at his place, as thanks for driving all the way from Cambridge to try to help? Or was that leading Mario on, making it better to stay a man?

Or was he kind of wanting to lead Mario on because the man was gorgeous and so who would mind a li—no. No. He wasn’t going to drag anyone else into whatever mess he’d fallen into right now.

Also, judging by the way Mario was devouring croissants and sandwiches, it might be more pressing to repay him with a filling dinner somewhere near by. All that beef needed a lot of protein.