Fuckingham, Godwin, Erwin and Day

---

His conversation with Mythra had come with plenty of unnecessary discomfortable intimacy and honesty.

"Look, I know you're just...some guy, and no one ever really cares about anyone as much as anyone would like someone to care, but-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. I just dated your brother, you don't have to come give me a confessional."

They'd argued over petty semantics that put slapstick banter to shame - no, literally, because it was embarrassing how picayune it got.

"Look, you want a granola bar, or something?"

"I'm gluten-free."

"You're not gluten-free, you just can't eat it."

"I said, I'm gluten-free."

"Okay. Fine by me."

"It wasn't two seconds ago."

"Well it is now!"

Almost Seinfeldian in its blatant and utter nothingness, which Minoth hadn't minded, because he greatly preferred it to Friends - and somehow Mythra had managed to put him in the defensive position, of all things.

There'd been sudden sidebars answering questions Minoth hadn't dreamed of a self that had dared asking.

"See, like...here's the thing about my gender. If I say something like 'I'm obsessed with you' I mean it in the most hashtag-girl nicest-person-you-know way but like. I'm not pretty girls. I could never be pretty girls. I'm too. Uh. Me. For that."

"Hashtag 'girl'?"

"You wouldn't get it."

"No? Try me."

She, or they, hadn't done so, which had been fine with him, and them, and by the time it was all over and Mythra out the door, Minoth could only hope the intended purpose had been achieved, because as far as he was concerned (and he didn't often think this, since parting ways with the likes of Amalthus) that had been a complete and utter waste of his time.

After all, he really didn't need one-on-one time with Nia's dejection-dumped dates to know how to advise her properly.

"Don't listen to him, he doesn't know what he's talking about. See, what you wanna do with a girl is-"

"I beg your pardon? Just what exactly is it that you're supposed to know better than me? You've never even dated a woman before!"

"Yeah, but you've never picked up anybody."

"I picked up you!"

"Addam."

The named man squirmed in his familiar seat upon Minoth's apartment sitting room's sofa, a little bit. "Yes, love?"

"Don't engage yourself in delusions of grandeur. I can't have you becoming a hopeless romantic too."

To continue the theme of recalling popular turn-of-century sitcoms, Minoth could see, faintly, in his mind's eye, an almost raunchy degree of excess confidence radiating off of him, one that had vanquished his usual demeanor of kindly uncle who spoke in emphatics with a side of religious trauma and ragged scrupulosity.

Nia, hand propped on hip, studied the focused pair with squinting eye as Minoth laid a conciliatory arm about Addam's shamefaced shoulder. "How come you never say anything useful when he's not around?"

And...there went the confidence.

If Nia could reconcile the idea of Minoth giggling with any impression of him, long-held or not, she would have said that that was what he did in response to her question, but she couldn't, so she didn't, and he didn't, and yet he was definitely doing something that indicated rampant childish, nigh-intoxicated amusement as he fell haphazardly over onto Addam's near shoulder, and then shortly after tumbled down into his lap.

"C'mon, Minoth, are you high or somethin'?"

Still laughing. He waved his hand negation in the general area and direction of up, and ended up swatting Addam's nose as it pointed down to observe him (Addam kissed the wayward appendage obligingly to indicate his lack of hard feelings). "Babe, you tell her."

"Oh, well alright. I assume it's something to the effect of that when I'm around I have to be the stupid one, but when it's only you it has to be him - and thank you for the compliment into the bargain, darling."

All told or not, Minoth was still down in his lap, nearly purring like a cat at the pet name. "Not that - you know, tell her!"

There was a regrettably distinct lack of Dromarch available for Nia to lean against as she knit up her eyebrows and crossed her arms and did overall much more than was necessary to appear the calm, collected, sardonic one - Addam's explanation by now was entirely notwithstanding, even if it held a bit of water on other occasions.

"Minoth, I'm sorry, but I really don't know what you're talking about. Do you care to enlighten me, or are we all just going to sit and stew in your theatrical little mystery again, as ever?"

Minoth's index finger was much more controlled this time as he poked it up into Addam's face to beckon him down, whisper something in his right ear, kiss the outside of the canal, and send him back up with a truly abashedly goofy grin on his face.

"Ah, right. We're getting married."

"You WHAT?!"

The confidence returned as Minoth sat back up on half-angles and couched turns.

"It's only one word, Nia, no need to react. Save your energy for bigger lines, come on! Didn't I teach you better than that?"

Corny, but true.

"Oh sure, sure, you wanted me to just sit here and not make a peep, you absolute dweeb. Besides, I'm a little bit annoyed at you now."

"Oh?" he crooned, wolf among imprinted kittens. "Why ever for?"

"Because A, I thought I had dibs," she flicked off on inbound wrist, eyes primly lidded away from Addam's inquiring peer, "and B, I don't even have a date to take to the wedding. Not a very good look for me."

Minoth cocked a brow. "Did he say anything about a wedding?"

"Well obviously you have to have one, so I can be your best man."

"Obviously," he repeated. "That aside, can't you take Dromarch?"

Nia pursed her lips. "Minoth. You think I, a lesbian, am going to go to a gay wedding with a straight-man cat? You're outta your flippin' mind."

(As if she hadn't just suggested that she, a lesbian, and Minoth, a male-leaning bisexual man, considerable years apart in age and typified trauma, were bound in oomfly matrimony for all observable time and all that occurring both and either/or before and after.)

"I wouldn't worry about that too much, Nia, because he'll be there anyway."

"Well of course he'll be there, you two don't hardly know anyone else. I have to be the one doing everything interesting around here," she lamented, not only faux, with a puff of her chest.

"What he means is that Dromarch is the officiant," Addam put in. "You and he were going to be the only other people there, because sadly you're right."

"Yeah, okay." Enough with the pity-party. "Not to be heavy-handed, or whatever it is you'd call it, but what kind of a gay wedding is this if there's nobody there having a good time? Come on, there has to be somebody. Multiple somebodies! I'll make a list."

"She'll make a list," Minoth repeated knowingly to Addam, who nodded in academic accord.

"Come on, don't you have, like, a sister or something? Even if she's straight."

"No sister," Addam said with an almost bittersweet shake of his head. Minoth flourished his fingertips over Addam's throat in a cut-off motion (he'd since lain back down) to signal the same on his part. "And my father's still on business in Mongolia."

"Still? Addam, he lives there. He's not coming back over here any time soon. It's not even back, anyway."

"Right, right. My uncle is over here, though. We could invite him, if you need."

"Half-uncle, dear," Minoth reminded him, "and no we could not. Have you forgotten who his sorry ass is dating now?"

"Oh. Right. Scratch Zettar."

"Hey now, don't give Dromarch any ideas."

And again with his impeccable timing there he was, arrived to Addam's quaint little not-quite-country house like, truly, a butler, but fairly little attention was paid outside of a few enthusiastic ruffs through his chilly fur and a scratch under his chin (would be more like the throat, on a butler with a bowtie to mark it) from Minoth. Addam had gotten back to squares, observing how nonchalantly Nia was typing out some half-detailed text (or instant message, or direct, or whichever) to the only person he knew she knew and trusted outside of the two of them, which was a gentle, refined dancer girl from a continent away, and needed to ask:

"Does she really just exist solely to bully me?"

"You, and any and all other boyfriends." No pause was given to name them. "If she'd been around when I was dating Malos, there would have been a cosmic event, I think."

"So what you're saying is, if they - and I - survive Nia, they're worthy?"

"That's absolutely correct." To Nia, Minoth added, "I think this guy has a chance after all."

"I concur," said Dromarch.

"I owe you," grumbled Addam, into his hands.

---

"How's that pronoun thing working out for you?"

"Oh, well..." Nia fidgeted, feeling for all the world like she were gathering her most polished thoughts pseudo-off-the-cuff for an internship interview rather than just slinging a couple of bad Scrabble words her vest-interested mentor's way. "I think I might want to use he again, actually."

"Oh really? Brava. Or should I say bravo, perhaps?"

"What, because of the gender?"

"Because of the gender."

"Oh, shove it, you. You're still a dweeb, fiancé or not."

"There's the gender again!"

(Yes, she knew how much he loved properly typed and pronounced fully-installed loan words.)

"Fine, fine. Yeah, I guess it's like...I'm not using he in a masculine way, you know? I tried they for a while, but I don't really think it fit. Like, I know I'm doing gender studies and all, and I should be all over how it's a fine gender-neutral pronoun, but it doesn't feel...singular enough, for me. Call me he or call me she, but I've only got one gender. You know?"

"Uh, sure...I know."

She flickered back and forth over the approximate place on the mirrored spectrum where his flipped binary rested with an almost cyclical period, and knew her current fixation on non-mystical gender-fuckery wasn't guaranteed, didn't have to be, wasn't owed to anybody, but he could have agreed a little more staunchly than that, couldn't he?

"If you weren't driving I'd punch your shoulder. You don't know anything."

"Maybe so." Her own bones got a thump. "But I'm trying."

Feeling listless, Nia decided to press the topic. "I wish they had, like, gender engineering or something." Experiments, and identities, and theory, and most importantly über-un-abstract objectivity. "I'd be fantastic at that."

Minoth nodded sagely. "Indeed you would, my dear, and so would I. Which is, perhaps, why I think I'm glad that they don't have it."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"There isn't much that you and I are both good at. In fact, we're most content being completely dichotomized, except for that one common issue."

Nia crossed her arms, highly conscious of the way the seatbelt tightened over her lack of chest. That, of all things, made her feel horribly binary, the wrong way. "I don't believe you."

"Well, for one thing, I'm highly proficient at liking men, which you are both decidedly and rightfully horrible at."

"Oh. Yeah. Well." She almost smiled, and then she did, self-consciously but sweetly.

"Rightfully, Nia, rightfully."

And a big fat yeah, right to top it off. Time to change the subject. "So what's this Patroka like, huh?" He'd brought her up in the context and channel of some backwards-sideways connection to her online friend, and somehow that had circled around to a possible date for the lonely lesbian who'd so proudly expressed that she'd need one to this not-so-bogus (definitely bogus) wedding event she was drumming up.

"She's, ah..." Minoth drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as if that helped him think - really, it was just a subconscious tic, like the humming he did without knowing half the time if it was even out loud. Waiting out the theatrical pause was easy. And, time.

"What, a 'real piece of work' or some other old fogey type of thing you'd come up with?"

"Well, personally, I'd just describe her as...gay."

Operating their precarious mode of transportation though he was, it was only with a mighty summoning up of effort that Nia resisted the urge to reach up and whack Minoth across the back of his ponytailed head. "Of flippin' course she's gay, that's the whole point! Ugh, I'm starting to see what you mean..."

She knew he knew better - more artistic! - ways to describe strong, beautiful lesbians than that. She knew! But sometimes one word did all the trick. She still might have preferred a more...drilled-down path to that solution, though.

---

When Minoth appeared before her the morning of the ceremony with his hair just as roguish as usual, Nia very nearly stuck her tongue out.

"And you're not gonna, like, braid your hair or anything?"

"I'm not a show pony, Nia. This wasn't supposed to be some grand affair."

She rolled her eyes. She had to! "You're getting married, gaywright, not going for jury duty! Come on, at least try!"

She had a blunt bob, and she was telling him to spice it up? Then again, she'd worn her cutest and most daring sundress for this, and had been pointedly shooing Dromarch away from his accustomed position afore her legs, guarding, shielding, protecting, comforting. It was the least he could do.

Later, though, after Dromarch had performed his other sacred duty for the day, Addam found out something else he'd never stopped to consider about Nia's hair. He was somehow disposed into conversation with Brighid, an almost otherworldly lovely woman (Nia couldn't wait to hear Minoth's awe-inspired and awe-inspiring description of her, later) in a deep-cut dress with a slit that somehow managed to be tasteful despite its considerable distance from the lower front-side leg area (perhaps she could use Dromarch's services, here).

But anyway. The revelation. "I'd describe Nia as something like an oven," he was saying gracelessly, almost in attempt at one of Minoth's more artful setups, but only almost.

"An oven? Please elaborate."

The newly reaffirmed Mr. Origo, household plus one loitering somewhere else sociable away from his arm, was feeling debonair, suave, snappy today, you see - enough so that he felt like pawning off one of Nia's worst internet-scavenged puns on his best friend's date. "She roasts me."

Brighid scoffed. "Very well." He supposed a scoff and a "very well" was all a half-baked earnest crack like that deserved, after all. "Still, I don't see how anyone with hair like that is in a position to roast anybody."

"What?"

"It's all brassy. Goodness, give the girl some purple shampoo."

Addam chewed lightly at the inside of his lower lip and made a mental note to add purple shampoo to the plaintext notes app on Minoth's phone. Whether or not the prescription ever actually made it to its intended patient was...the narrator's business.

And later than that, 'round the assortment of assembled dinner tables boasting a scant handful of Tornan standbys here, Indoline businesspeople there, peppered with actual guestly guests like Brighid and her date alongside an old mutual friend with distinctive red hair and...another version of the same woman? ...Addam began to doubt the overall intellectual haleness of Minoth and Nia's all-important, even axial friendship.

"Okay! Time for my speech."

"You're going to give a speech?"

"Of course I am! Look, I wrote it down."

Minoth nodded to Addam once again, recalling the bit of a few weeks prior. "She wrote it down."

They obliged her, of course they did, and once Addam had adjusted the microphone down to accommodate the significant difference in their heights, Nia cleared her throat, and began.

"Ahem. Hello, ah, everyone. I would just like to thank you all for coming and witnessing the gayass union of...deez nuts."

Minoth looked at Addam. Addam looked at Minoth. Minoth looked at Dromarch, and Dromarch looked at Nia.

Then, Minoth bent down to the microphone and with a just-beyond-conciliatory grin added his two cents: "Yeah, I'm nuts about him."

And that was when Addam buried his face in his hands and mumbled so gloriously pathetically, "Why did you have to invite Flora?"

At just about the event's close, Addam spotted Minoth getting spotted, and spotting in return, that unusual döppleganger of Lora's - Minoth wasn't secretive with his acquaintances, but he didn't ramble on the same way Addam might be prone to, instead just dropping names here and there when it was informative or comedic.

"Haze," he could hear his husband (wow! wow!!!) greet warmly, hands in hands, "glad you could make it."

"Oh, Mr. Minoth, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you have updog."

Whether Minoth was simply obliging her, actually taken in by the joke, or too distracted by his disgruntlement at not being called Mr. Origo, we'll never know. "What's updog?"

"Nia! Nia!! Come in here, quickly! I told you I could do it!"