In which Alec goes on a date and figures something out, but is still Alec, for the most part.

Alec woke up from a dreamless sleep, blissful yet empty.

He sat up, stretched out his back, and took a glance around.

The ground was soft beneath him, like a massive mattress. He looked down, seeing soft clay in a shade of soothing blue. Experimentally, he pushed a hand down into it, feeling it deform, only to slowly bounce back as he removed his hand. Warm, too. It almost seemed to glow- no, it really was glowing, faint wisps of light escaping from the surface to fill the room with gentle illumination.

Over to the side, he could make out a pile of hands and wings and wetness. Jupiter and Venus and Neptune were sprawled across each other, fingers around feathers around tendrils of affection; cute little noises spilled from the pile as they shifted in their sleep.

Riley, he noted, wasn't here.

Aisha was here, though. He could make out her backside easily enough, standing near the entrance of the impromptu bedroom, as still as a statue.

Nice view.

He took a glance at the walls of painted-on vines. Weird decor, but whatever.

Alec slowly rose to his feet, getting his balance on the soft surface before he went ambling on over towards Aisha.

"You know I can hear you, right?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Yes, and?"

"Touch my butt and I will throw you across the room."

"That so, huh?"

"Please. You're cute and you creep Brian out, but you're not that cute."

"I can creep you out too, if you're into that."

He idly slid up beside her, glanced at her amused smile.

"Maybe later. How'd you sleep, dork?"

"Pretty well for not being part of the cuddle pile. How'd you sleep? Like a rock?"

Aisha snorted, gave him a gentle punch in the side- he could easily tell how much the girl was holding back so as not to hurt him.

"Your jokes are terrible, Alec."

He huffed. "You know you love them."

"Maybe." She smiled again. "Anyway, I slept just fine. Well, I don't think it was quite sleep, but it was close enough."

"Really? If it wasn't sleep, what was it?" He leaned in a little, not bothering to disguise his curiosity.

"I dunno," Aisha murmured, rolling her eyes. "More like just zoning out for a while. Super-zoning-out, I guess?"

"Truly, I'm in awe of your awesome power," he declared.

Her cheeks burned, magma glowing under a skin of obsidian. "Shut up. I'm still figuring it out, okay? All I know is that I'm awesome."

She grinned despite the flush, turning to him and throwing her best cocky, heroic pose. A hand on her hip, a foot forward. Her body glowed. Something he didn't really understand filled the air, a silent herald trumpeting Aisha to the world.

He closed his eyes, and she was still there in his mind's sight, unforgettable.

"Cool trick."

"Isn't it, though? Just look at-"

He stepped up to her and tapped her chest, without opening his eyes.

"Going to get old fast if that's the only trick you got."

Alec saw her pout even before he looked. "C'mon," she grumbled. "I made that statue, didn't I? I've got lots to show off."

He smiled, more hungry than happy. "Then why don't you show me?"

"Because I have better things to do with my time," she huffed.

"Like what?"

"I think I'm like, a foot taller now. I need a new wardrobe. Especially with the new texture." She ran her hand across her stomach, feeling black marble beneath her fingers. "Shopping."

"We're in a mall."

"All the clothes that were any good were looted already. Trust me, I checked."

"You're going to buy things?"

"My hair is made of weird purple and black metal, Alec. I'm pretty sure I don't need to steal anything. Besides, kinda hard to get away with that, now."

"No more sneaking around?"

"Nope." She grinned, silver teeth on lips of amethyst. "People paying attention is a little scary, sure, but the side effects are pretty worth it."

He hummed in thought. "Without that, would you still have done it?"

She tilted her head. "Not sure I get what you're saying."

He wasn't quite sure himself, but kept going anyway. "Like, you could have stayed a squishy human, instead of this cool statue thing. You swapped out your power, right? From making people forget to being unforgettable."

"You catch on quick."

"I know my way around bullshit brain fuckery," he dismissed. "Memory nonsense is close enough."

"Right, right. So, you were saying?"

"You were basically invisible before. Now you're not only visible, you're extra visible. Like one of those shiny orange roadcones. Except prettier, obviously."

She snorted. He barely missed a beat.

"And if you weren't a badass statue, could you handle that visibility? Or would you just be a bigger target?"

He knew where he fell, for one. It was a bit crazy that he'd even get this close to the spotlight.

So why was he here? Not just with Jupiter, whose hands gave him a tantalizing glimpse of the feeling he so craved. No, he'd let the transformed Aisha sweep him up in her wake, even though she had no storm of hands, merely the world's largest spotlight.

Why'd he do that? Why'd he go along with her?

Because, he supposed, she did it with him. Jupiter merely tolerated his presence, for the most part. Aisha welcomed it, and not because of his powers, not because she was using him. She was probably the only person who just liked having him around since… he'd say 'since he'd left his father', but it was probably closer to 'since ever'.

Needless to say, it was a novel experience.

He was starting to think he liked it, too. Weird.

Aisha cleared her throat. The girl had obviously been thinking hard on this one, giving him the time to get lost in thought himself. But finally, she lifted her eyes, spoke proudly.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'd do it. It'd be scary, but fucking everything is scary. Sneaking around is fun and all, but talking to my family, standing up for myself, those things are far more important. Maybe even worth dying for, I dunno."

He looked her over for a moment, and wondered.

Then he let out a snort.

"You're bad at this serious shit, y'know."

She gave yet another roll of her eyes, reaching over and shoving him lightly. "So are you. And you started it."

Alec stumbled, but recovered quickly. "Yeah yeah, whatever. Let's go shopping."

Aisha offered her hand, and he took it, feeling her warmth against his skin, the odd softness of her own flesh.

They walked out the door.

The light of Venus had long since left the mall, but the light of the morning sun calmly streaming in through tattered ceilings was a more than adequate replacement.

The only thing in the center of the atrium was a familiar water feature. Well, not quite familiar. Last night, he'd come back to find that the pillar of clay looked more like feet, the beginning of legs, the start of a statue. And now, it had changed again. Red brick had been replaced with white and gray stone, and in the middle, there was not a pillar, or legs, but the start of a tree. Not a sapling, but the base of a trunk, reaching towards the heavens before ending abruptly as if cut cleanly in cross-section.

And it wasn't quite the only thing there, either. Riley was there too, her back to the two of them, standing in the water and staring at her work. One pair of arms was crossed, while another idly twirled tools as she often did, albeit with the scalpel and stethoscope exchanged for the chisel and stylus.

Interesting.

"Hey, Riley," Aisha called.

The girl raised a hand, waved it vaguely without turning her head.

Alec strolled around, caught sight of her expression. Tight, frustrated, dead set on her workpiece.

"What's got you down, Sawbones?"

"It's not right," Riley grumbled, ignoring the nickname. (Damn, he was kinda hoping to get something out of her with that.) "I'm trying to make a centerpiece, but what am I supposed to make? Statues of mom are way too vain, and I figure a tree makes sense, but trees are supposed to be alive. Not… not dead clay."

He raised an eyebrow. "You're made of clay and you're not dead."

"Yeah, but that's something I have to keep with me. I can make a whole world out of this stuff, but only the bit around me can actually be alive. Without me, this is just a fancy statue. And I'm… not good at fancy statues."

Alec was distantly aware of Aisha's gaze turning on him, but didn't really care. "You, not good at fancy statues?"

"Like… if I make stuff that doesn't do anything, that's silly. Lots of people can do that. And besides…"

Her voice dropped, her gaze grew distant. "...it reminds me of what I used to do. So much of that, what was even the point? To prove that I could? Or was it… was it just because of who it hurt, just because of what people saw when they looked at it-"

"Well," he interrupted, "why does it have to be nothing but this clay? Why not just, I don't know, plant a tree here?"

Riley's eyes, all seven of them (did she grow more when she was thinking hard, or something?), suddenly widened. Then her brow furrowed.

"I've barely touched plants, you know. It's always been meat and metal. I branched out a bit, explored biochemistry and microbiology, but plants? I don't think I could make a Tinkertech tree. Not a good enough one, anyways."

"So make it out of meat and metal."

"Can we not encourage her to descend into Biotinker atrocities?" Aisha grumbled.

"I don't have enough meat. I don't have a source of biomass. Even if I started chopping people up – which I won't, that would be rude – I'd still need dozens and dozens."

"I know there are some people I wouldn't mind being chopped up-"

"Alec."

Aisha's glare arrested both him and Riley. He met her gaze for a moment, then looked away, not really sure why. Riley sighed, turning back to him and shaking her head. As if she had the gall to be offended because he suggested doing exactly what Bonesaw would do.

Damn. She really was serious about this whole redemption thing, huh?

Well, then. Guess he'd have to think a little bit harder.

"Okay, so. This clay needs something to… animate it, right? To make it alive."

Riley nodded.

"Why does it have to be you? Why not something else? Or someone else?"

"Because…" Riley started, and then stopped.

A strange grin spread over her face.

"I don't know!" she squealed, her arms suddenly flailing in excitement. "What animates me?! Maybe it's my power, and I need the world's first parahuman-clay-meat-tree! Ooh, or maybe it's something Devilish, the same thing that animates Jupe-Mom and Ve-Mom and Nep-Mom, and maybe I can borrow a little bit of them! The rush of the waters, the crash of the heavens, the prayers of the heart…"

Riley nodded manically to herself, pulling a notepad from nowhere and scribbling furiously on pages made of clay with one of her styluses.

"Alec, if this ends badly, I reserve the right to punch you in the face," Aisha warned.

"That's fair. Means you can't punch me before then, right?"

She punched him in the side, just to spite him.

He deserved it.

"No! Don't break him!" Riley suddenly shouted, rushing over and pushing the two of them apart. "I might want his stem cells! And maybe I could grab a bit of you too, aunt Aisha!"

He gathered his breath, slowly straightened himself out. "Sooo… hah, what's a stem cell?"

"Oh, I'd just need to take some samples from your bones-"

Alec wasn't one to flinch lightly. Needles going into his bones joined the ranks of the few things that managed to reach that level of 'fuck this shit'.

"I think I'll pass, thanks."

She pouted, but her pout had no power over him, cute though it was.

"It won't hurt! A day or two and it'll be as good as new, even!"

"Still gonna pass. Sorry."

"Come on, auntie, at least tell me I can get a sample from you?!"

"What, are you gonna draw blood from a rock?" Alec snarked.

"After you talk to your moms about this, then I'll think about it," the statue responded, shaking her head. "Right now, I just want to go shopping for clothes, not worry about giant bone needles or mad science nonsense."

Riley reddened, but promptly ran into the bedroom to wake her 'parents', shouting all the while.

Alec laughed, ever so slightly. He was surprised that it was genuine.

"Time to get out of here?"

"Probably. I think those three will have her under control. And if not, I'll punch her for them."

"Sounds like a blast."

Alec hadn't quite realized how annoying shopping after Leviathan would be.

Half of the stores that weren't outright destroyed were closed for lack of wares. People weren't really working or living, they were surviving. Money didn't matter if there was nothing to buy.

Still, the two of them went looking for places to shop. Aisha did all the work, really. Next to her, people barely noticed Alec if he didn't make himself noticed, and he was perfectly happy to fade out of the spotlight. The way she took it was kinda weird, though. When Aisha initiated a conversation, she seemed just as bombastic and forward as yesterday. Yet, when someone approached her, or if a conversation caught her off guard, she became… not shy or withdrawn, exactly, but cautious, her eyes darting around as if looking for hidden cameras or an unexpected attack, listening for double meanings and hidden insults.

The other people around him didn't seem to notice it, but Alec certainly did. He wondered if he'd been like that back at home, always watching for the slightest hint of trouble. Probably, yeah. Pretty much all of his siblings had to be like that whenever his father was around. Even the suck-ups still had to figure out who was an acceptable target and who their father wouldn't be happy to see hurt on any given day.

Life in the Vasil household got old pretty quick.

"Alec?"

For a moment, the crowd focused on him as Aisha gave him her own attention.

He tilted his head. "Sup?"

"Sounds like the Market is still around. A few blocks that way. C'mon, get your thumb out of your ass and let's get going."

"Fine, fine…"

She pushed the crowd aside, and he followed.

The Lord Street Market wasn't on Lord Street anymore, but it wasn't as though Alec really cared. It might have been moved or reconstructed or whatever, but the Market was still the Market.

The mood was different, though. He'd heard the place compared to a glorified garage sale before. This… didn't feel like that.

What was it called when someone died and you sold their old things? Estate sale?

The makeshift stalls were filled to capacity, but Alec didn't recognize most of the vendors, and at least half of them didn't even seem happy to be here. Or, well, they seemed more unhappy than they'd normally be.

And while the people who had approached Aisha on the way here were naturally fairly peppy, the crowd browsing the Market didn't seem to share the sentiment. Some of them had those same smiles of wonder, sure, but most of them didn't, and Alec didn't miss how the crowd opened up around them, keeping a safe distance from the cape in their midst.

Normally, he probably would have done the same. Keeping your distance from an unknown cape was just good sense, after all.

Then again, shadowing Aisha from the crowd would have been a lot of effort. And being at her side gave him an excellent view of how much she was bothering everyone just by existing. All in all, it was worth a few of those stares extending towards him.

He felt his muscles twitch from time to time, but he didn't really care.

Aisha took the anxiety around her in stride, her smile gleaming as she scanned the stalls. Alec followed her, passing up people desperately emptying their perishable foodstocks and sad-eyed parents selling what remained of their children's belongings. Eventually, her gaze settled, and he followed it to one of the tidier-looking vendors, clothes draped on racks that had probably been recycled from some store or another. "CLOTHING EXCHANGE BUY SELL TRADE" had been nailed to the top of the makeshift stall.

Aisha marched to the table, taking the man behind it off guard as she hefted a bag full of clothes onto the counter, the wood creaking under the strain.

"I want some new clothes. All my old shit doesn't fit."

Frozen in the moment, he looked up at her, holding his breath for a good, long second or two.

Finally, he exhaled, and spoke.

"Sure. You're getting rid of all of this?"

"Most of it," she half-agreed. "Brought some old stuff I'm keeping so I could see how it'd look with the new stuff."

The man nodded. "Right. Come back when you've picked out what you want. And get this off my table before you break it."

Aisha pouted, but to no avail. Alec wasn't sure where the vendor found the strength to look the statue-woman in the eyes and say no, like that.

"And you, too."

He raised an eyebrow. "Eh?"

"If you just want to windowshop, go find somewhere else, and make space for people who actually need it."

Alec shook his head. "Please. I'm just taking my time." By which he meant he was admiring the view. Looking at Aisha as she hefted her bag again was more interesting than trying on clothes.

"C'mon, dork. You were gonna 'take your time' all the way into my dressing room," Aisha teased, poking him in the chest with a triumphant grin. "Besides, you've been wearing the same outfit for like, three days straight."

Alec shrugged helplessly.

"I don't exactly have a wealth of options right now."

"That is why we are in a clothing store."

"Fair enough. I am always down to look fabulous." He stepped over to the racks, began to browse. He didn't really pretend not to look at Aisha, but then, Aisha was looking at him too, so whatever.

"Fabulous, you say? Oh, we are going to get along very well," Aisha cooed.

Alec gave her what ought to have been his usual smirk, but he could feel something genuine bubbling up from within it. Something exciting.

She grinned back at him, before sauntering off into the racks, leaving Alec to browse on his own. Not that she was far, but she clearly trusted him to pick his own fashions. Another thing he liked about Aisha. If he'd been shopping with Lisa, she'd have been providing 'advice' the whole time, and sure, the girl knew her clothes, but it got old after a while.

He ran his fingers over the fabrics, ignoring looks from some of the other customers brave enough or chill enough to browse in Aisha's vicinity. No one had told him that he couldn't touch the merchandise, and he wouldn't give a shit if they had.

Skinny jeans had been his style for as long as he'd had style worth mentioning. He had the build for it, small and tight. That being said, skinny jeans alone did not a wardrobe make, and it wasn't like the exchange was wanting for variety, even if the quality left something to be desired.

He picked out a few pairs of them. Some pants, some shorts. A half dozen shirts that looked like they'd fit alright, and…

This skirt probably wasn't supposed to be here. The vendor had done a pretty decent job of organizing the clothing otherwise, given how much of a rush job it must have been.

Alec held the unassuming black garment up, taking a critical eye to it.

This one probably wouldn't fit on him. But why wouldn't another one?

It wasn't the first time he'd thought about wearing girls' clothes, not by a long shot. They weren't always that different from men's clothes to begin with. And when you were on the run, you wore whatever you could get.

Still, he hadn't wanted to put on a dress or whatever before.

But then again, he'd already done it in a sense, hadn't he? He'd been women, or at least rode along with them. Sure, he didn't know their innermost secrets or whatever, but he'd felt what they felt, saw what they saw. The sensation of a skirt flowing over smooth legs. The practiced motions of cosmetic application, almost second nature. Looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking, even if it was involuntary, I'm beautiful.

Maybe it'd affected Alec more than she thought. More than they thought?

He didn't feel like he wasn't a man or anything like that, at least not right now. But he didn't really care about being male, either. Heartbreaker's expectations for his sons were just as bullshit as his expectations for his daughters, just in slightly different ways.

Some of his siblings took a lot of stock in their gender. Cherie could spend half an hour on makeup at the drop of a hat. And father himself, well, if he wasn't measuring his masculinity through his harem, Alec couldn't tell what the point even was.

To Alec, the skirt was just a skirt.

He could wear it if he wanted to. No one was stopping him.

After all, he'd been more men and women than he could count. Compared to the thrill of being a whole other person, putting on a dress was pretty much just like putting on any other costume.

Alec slid over to the women's section and started looking.

He couldn't see Aisha at the moment, but he thought he heard the sound of shifting stone behind a row of curtains.

That was just fine with him, really. Maybe he could surprise her with the new look.

He started taking down skirts and blouses and dresses, humming faintly and ignoring the stinkeyes of a few less-than-impressed locals. What they were doing here when the vendor was a black guy he didn't know, and as long as they didn't bother him, he didn't care.

Besides, they were definitely in the minority. Most of the customers seemed pretty chill.

In the end, Alec had plenty of time to gather up everything that looked like it might be good out of both the men's and women's sections, before he sauntered on over towards the curtained-off changing room that Aisha was in, indicated by the sound of stone and the faint trail of black marble dust on the ground.

He couldn't exactly knock on the door. He settled for rapping his knuckles against one of the supports.

"You in there, Aish?"

There was a moment of utter silence.

"..the fuck did you just call me?"

"I called you Ai-"

"No, but seriously, it sounds like you were trying to say 'Ace' with a mouth full of rocks and booze."

"Do you actually care?"

Another pause.

"...Not really, but I'm still gonna make fun of you for it."

He rolled his eyes, not that she could see. "Whatever. You decent in there?"

"Sure am. C'mon in."

Alec slipped through the curtains, brushing them aside to behold Aisha within.

He looked her up and down, letting her move through a few poses before he met her eyes.

"You look different."

"No fucking shit."

"No, no, you don't get it. You look different. "

She was wearing a set of tight, dark shorts right now, something that hugged her figure. Then again, with her sheer height, almost everything was probably tight on her. Between the fit and the color, one could momentarily imagine that she wasn't wearing anything, and that brought a smile to Alec's face.

But it wasn't like she was wearing something really different from what she'd worn before. Sure, she'd gone with something that blended into her flesh rather than stood out against it, but her tank top was still too small, and her pants still showed off plenty of bare leg. She had wide earrings and jingling bangles that he didn't recognize, but it wasn't like she hadn't worn jewelry before.

Maybe the difference was in the confidence with which she held herself; bravado turned into something more concrete. The weight of her movements, perhaps. It was like the difference between… between looking at a nude model and looking at one of those fancy naked statues, maybe? One of them was just attractive, just sexual, something that was showing off for nothing but itself. As far as Alec was concerned, there was nothing wrong with a woman (or man for that matter!) wanting to be beautiful, wanting to be attractive, wanting to be sexual. But the other one… the other one was something more. Something more artistic, something that had a meaning larger than itself.

She was basically a fancy walking statue, after all. And she'd called herself Monument, of all things.

After another awkward pause, Aisha rolled her eyes.

"Is it a good different or a bad different?"

He didn't hesitate to answer. "Definitely good."

She smiled. "Looks like you've got a pretty good selection yourself, huh?"

"You could say that." With a sigh, Alec let the massive pile of clothes fall from his shoulder and to the ground. (Aisha had a pile too, but it was at least mostly off the ground.)

"Oi. Get your own changing room, dork," Aisha warned.

He, naturally, ignored the warning. "I'd tell you to try carrying this shit around, but you'd probably barely even notice, huh?"

"Not all of us can be so lucky," she started, only to trail off as Alec pulled his T-shirt up and over his body. "Okay, seriously, I will pick you up and throw you over into the next room."

"A bluff," he said, unfazed.

"Wanna bet?"

He smirked. "I'm sure someone would freak out or something."

Naturally, that was when Aisha grabbed him.

"W-wait-"

"Told you so," she sang, lifting him effortlessly over her head, until he could just about see the other side of the divider…

And then, with a laugh, she set him down and just shoved him out through the curtains.

Alec stumbled. "Hey! What about my clothes?"

The pile of clothing came flying out a moment later, striking him in the shoulder and leaving him struggling to keep his balance as he clumsily caught the mountain of clothes.

"Have fun!"

Alec shook his head when he finally got his shit together.

Well.

Alright then.

With a sigh, he ducked into the next available changing room.

A few minutes of rustling fabrics and fumbling with unfamiliar clasps later, Alec posed haughtily in front of a mirror, and Aisha gave… her body a critical eye.

"You look fucking cute, Alec."

She turned, looked herself in the mirror. The person who looked back wasn't the same Alec, really. The black, flaring skirt, white slouch top and open, dark blue sweater made her look, well, feminine. Flattered her figure.

And here she'd expected to feel like a boy in girl's clothes. She'd expected a sort of transgressive thrill, the kind she got from doing something blatantly illegal, and there was a bit of that, but not nearly as much as she expected. It all felt remarkably natural.

Then again, she already knew how it felt to be a woman. And weren't there people who were women even though doctors said they were men, or something?

If it wasn't about anatomy, it had to be something in the head, right?

And Alec knew her own head well enough. She'd craved other people's bodies, used them to feel what she couldn't feel anymore. It wasn't much of a stretch to imagine that they'd left some of those feelings in her body.

She'd been a boy, but she had never considered being anything else. And now that she'd tried it, it wasn't such a bad fit.

Guess she was a girl, at least for the moment. Trippy.

Alec, who needed a better name than Alec, ran a hand over her own top, feeling it against pale, soft skin, eyes wide in wonder.

"Yeah," she breathed. "I do, don't I?"

Aisha put a hand on Alec's shoulder, heavy but not uncomfortable.

"It's not your usual style, but you certainly make it work. Now c'mon, Alec, let's try some more-"

"Alex," she corrected softly. "Alec is a boy's name."

Aisha blinked twice, working through the implications.

Finally, she snorted. "It's literally just Alec with an extra X."

Alex threw up her hands. "I just came up with it like five seconds ago, okay? Gimme a break."

"Okay, okay. But y'know, if you're a girl now, you know what you need?"

"Tampons?"

Aisha rolled her eyes. "No, not tampons. Makeup."

"Damn, you're right. Looks like we have some more shopping to do, huh?"

"We'll make you even cuter, just watch."

"Is that part of your new powers, too?"

Aisha let out a long-suffering sigh.

A/N: Alex knows literally nothing about transgender things I mean she doesn't even know the word transgender please do not take her perspective as any kind of gospel, k?