Romeo Romeo - 8

Chapter 8: Scrutiny

Steady bright lights helped Romeo get grounded again. They were in a waiting room of some sort. The bouncer from the club was with them, and they were being called up to a desk. It looked like a hospital emergency room, as Romeo processed that the woman behind the counter was dressed in scrubs.

“Someone put something into their drink,” the bouncer woman was explaining. “We just want to make sure it’s not causing more than disorientation.”

The nurse nodded. “Very well, we’ll just need your health card… miss?”

It took Romeo a moment (and a second ‘miss?’) to realise that meant them, but then they nodded and fished out their wallet, passing the little card over. The nurse took it, but then stared at the card.

“Is this… is this some sort of a joke, miss?” the nurse asked. “‘Romeo Valenti’. Really?”

“Uh, tha—n—not that Romeo Valenti,” they stammered. “I just… I had the same name. And I haven’t updated the health card yet.”

The woman raised an eyebrow, but filled out her information. “Well, you had a good night for it, at least. We’re pretty quiet, so you’ll be able to head right in.”

The woman from the club helped them towards the door, at which point a male nurse appeared to help them.

“Sorry, but family only at this point,” he said towards the woman.

A statement that, for some reason, made Romeo panic. Sure, they didn’t have any reason to distrust the nurses, but… they still felt more than a little out of it, and didn’t want to lose a point of stability right now. And there was something quite comforting about the solidly built woman’s presence.

“She’s my girlfriend,” Romeo had blurted before processing what a terrible idea it was.

The nurse gave the other woman a once over, seeing the word ‘security’ written across the chest of her shirt. He didn’t look convinced. However, the woman seemed to see the worry in Romeo’s eyes and she gave a nod.

“Yeah—Yes. Not for long, but yes,” she said.

There was a brief pause before the nurse gave a very small shrug, but didn’t argue the point. Instead he led them towards a bed, tucked away in a corner of the emergency room. There was another bed in the small room, but it was currently empty.

Blushing while waiting for someone to come do blood work, Romeo turned to the woman beside her. “Th—thank you. And sorry.”

“You’ve had a terrible enough night already. I understand not wanting to do this alone. Especially if they give you any hassle about being trans… they shouldn’t, but if they do,” she said.

Romeo nodded. “Well, um… if I’m going to be saying you’re my girlfriend, I should probably learn your name.”

“Theresa Mishra is my proper name, but my friends all call me Teddy. Since they also say I’m very good for hugging… And you?”

“Oh, uh… Rosalind. Rosalind Valenti,” she replied.

“It’s a pretty name,” Teddy said, a smile on her face.

A smile that caused poor Romeo to blush furiously. What was with her luck and having so many gorgeous people around lately.

Thankfully, she was saved from making much of a fool of herself by the arrival of another nurse. This one took some blood samples, promising the tests shouldn’t take too long. Which made Romeo feel a bit less guilty about having dragged Teddy into all this. Sure, Teddy said she was fine, she had finished her shift and hadn’t had plans for the evening, but all the same…

Thankfully, in the end, it turned out Romeo was processing everything well. Teddy, though, wasn’t ready to let Romeo make her own way home. Not while she was sure Romeo couldn’t be 100% quite yet. As well as the fact it was now pushing 3am. Late enough it was fair for her to worry about a small and pretty girl like Romeo currently was.

Teddy called a cab, the pair waiting quietly for it to roll up. The ride was fairly short, Romeo starting to doze off a little. Arriving, though, she insisted on paying, despite Teddy’s protests.

As they both stepped out of the cab, Teddy looked up at the building and gave a nod. “Alright, yeah, looking at the place I can accept you having paid for the cab.”

Romeo felt slightly self conscious. It was a fairly nice and new condo tower, but it wasn’t ultra luxury or anything. Though she could afford luxury if she wanted these days. If she were actually home more to make it worth it.

“I do want to thank you for everything, Teddy. And apologise,” Romeo said.

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Teddy replied. “But… I would feel better if you gave me a call next time you go clubbing. Since someone as cute but naive as you shouldn’t be at a club alone.”

“Oh… well, I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance, but thank you for the offer,” she said, pulling out my phone.

They quickly exchanged numbers and she started heading in when she was left with a question. “Are you ok to get home? I have a futon if you need to crash.”

Normally, with a gorgeous person so close to her apartment, she’d offer more than a futon, but… tonight that wasn’t exactly on her mind. Not after what had almost happened. A thought that was only just starting to really click in her mind. Someone had planned to…

“I can take a night bus, it’s all good,” Teddy replied. “I’ve got work again tomorrow.”

Romeo nodded. “Well… let me know when you get home, at least?”

“Will do,” Teddy replied.

Romeo then headed in, taking an elevator up to her apartment. She grabbed some food to try to keep herself awake, though she was barely awake when she got the text that said Teddy was home. She ended up passing out on the couch.

-

Waking up the next morning, Romeo realised their phone was vibrating like crazy. Picking it up, they were getting a stream of texts from Rachel as well as a few from Logan and the others.

After a few moments to actually wake up, rather than just to have open eyes, Romeo slowly processed that the messages were about tabloid pictures. Looking at the attached article pages, they realised some paparazzo (or more than one) had taken pictures of them yesterday. Coming and going from their condo tower and spending time with Logan.

The question of ‘who’ they were was leading to wild speculation, but apparently folks had noticed their ‘resemblance’ to their previously fully male self. Some were suspecting a sister or a cousin. Others were saying that Romeo had gotten a secret sex change (in Morocco, for some reason?). Which was the closest to accurate, but also rather unbelievable for how long recovering from surgery would take. Then there was a weird theory about an obsessive fan who’d had plastic surgery to try to become Romeo.

‘So, what are we going to do about it?’ Romeo asked, texting Rachel.

It took only a few moments to get a reply. ‘You’re not doing anything. You have a doctor’s appointment today. I’ll worry about what to say to the press.’

‘It’s my career. And life.’

‘And I’m better at planning. Let me work my magic. You go get a cat-scan or whatever they’ll want.’

Romeo replied with a grumpy emote, but then reluctantly got up and tossed together some breakfast. Then he got dressed, pulling the binder on and making a face at how tight it was. Still, once he’d put on a loose dress shirt over top he thought he looked decently masculine. He’d probably need contouring to look properly like himself, especially up close, but he was pretty sure he could pass for a teenaged guy.

He grabbed a cab to the doctor’s office, well up the way on Bathhurst. The cab driver kept glancing over at him on the drive, clearly almost recognising him, and it left Romeo feeling better. After last night… after feeling so vulnerably feminine, he wanted to feel like his old self again. And be seen as such by others.

After a short wait, the doctor came in to see Romeo and began to ask a number of questions about how he felt. Health wise, he seemed fine, and so that was what he told the doctor. The man then had him switch to a medical gown, before beginning a full physical. The pressure on his abdomen felt odd as the doctor pressed and messaged him, but that was likely a lack of familiarity rather than a cause for concern.

“I think we’ll want to do some bloodwork,” the doctor said. “And… would you accept an ultrasound of your abdomen? I would like to make certain of what I felt in the exam.”

“What you… so you think there might be, uh, new bits in there?” Romeo asked.

“No, I don’t believe so. But I would like to confirm it. Your current physical traits seem inconsistent with—well, with any hormonal balance I know of,” the doctor replied. “Part of why the blood work is important.”

Not having any objections, Romeo agreed to the tests. Even if he was annoyed at having to stay in the medical gown. Without the binder.

The ultrasound found no evidence of any new internal reproductive organs. That was reassuring. He didn’t know what he’d do if his body tried to menstruate without an outlet.

The bloodwork, however, came back more complicated.

“You have nearly even levels of testosterone and estrogen right now,” the doctor said. “And I have no idea where that estrogen is coming from…”

Romeo nodded. “That’s magic for you, I guess.”

“It’s… disconcerting. I will say that much,” the doctor muttered. “Also, I am not passing moral judgement, but we found some trace amounts of a drug in your system that—”

“Oh, that’s… that’s still in there?” Romeo asked.

“Yes,” the Doctor replied. “Again, I am not going to give you a moralist lecture, but with your now unusual physiology, I’m not sure how safe it is for you to—”

Romeo raised a hand, causing the doctor to pause. “I didn’t do it voluntarily. Someone spiked my drink last night.”

“They—they did? Did you report it?”

“Can’t prove who did it. The club was too crowded.”

“Do your bandmates know?” the Doctor asked.

“They would just panic. It’s done. It’s dealt with. It’s in the past,” Romeo said, as much to reassure himself as the doctor.

“Alright… well… in that case, I think you seem fine. Or, at least, as fine as I can work out when magic is involved… which is not something I ever thought I’d be saying,” the man muttered.

-

It was well into the afternoon when Romeo finally got back to the studio. There was a chaotic buzz in the air as he headed over to Rachel’s office. Thankfully she was there, staring at her computer screen, and seeming like she was trying to develop laser vision to get vengeance on whatever it was shining her way.

“So, how goes the excuse crafting?” Romeo asked, sitting down on the edge of the desk and leaning in with a smile.

“You’re a primadonna,” she muttered.

“I don’t think I’m that bad,” he replied, feeling hurt.

Was this about the sex? He’d figured the professional thing to do had been to ignore it. To just move on, after they’d both had their fun.

“No, in the excuse. The best thing I can come up with, to explain you ‘vanishing’, is that you’re having some sort of artistic block. A feeling like you’ve abandoned the music in your soul or some nonsense like that. And you’ve decided to withdraw from public life to find yourself… but you have a cousin who’s a talented singer who might be filling in for the time being. If ‘she’ is accepted by the band and auditions well,” Rachel explained.

Romeo made a face as he stared at her. “Seems like a weird cover.”

“Can you do better?” Rachel replied.

“Well, since we already have Christian fundy types hating us for the queerness, they’d probably hate us even more if we came clean about the magic. Who knows how bad they’d get… maybe we could blame aliens? They could probably do this to someone… pretty sure Frankie and Jovita were talking about an anime where that happened,” Romeo offered.

“Aliens?” Rachel replied.

“Hey! People know they exist! They blew up Halifax. Some of them have been trading with Americans for years. Who knows what they might do if one of them was the fan of a dashing earthling popstar,” Romeo said, flashing a grin and a shrug.

“I… I don’t think spreading lies that involve them is a good idea, though. Besides, if we’re going to blame aliens we might as well just take the plunge and admit it’s magic. It’s just as likely to rile people up,” Rachel said.

“Alright. Alright… so, I take it you want to read over the press release you wrote for me?” he asked.

She nodded, scooting her desk chair out of the way to let him read.