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Do you think I'd be hot as a girl?”
“What?” Otto's eyebrows are raised and he's looking at Awsten weirdly.
Awsten shrugs. “I've just been thinking about it recently. I think I'd look hot.” That's not weird, right?
“If you were a girl, wouldn't you just look kinda like Gracie?” Otto asks and okay, maybe Awsten needs to reconsider the not weird-thing.
“Ew, dude, why did you have to say that? You made it weird.” He huffs.
Otto rolls his eyes fondly. “Yeah, like it wasn't a weird question in the first place.”
Awsten looks at Otto, teasing smile illuminated by the colorful lights of the TV screen. He runs his eyes over his friend's features, and contemplates. “I think you'd be really hot as a girl, actually.”
An emotion Awsten is too slow to catch passes through Otto's face, then he lets out and exasperated sigh. “And I think you need sleep. You start having weird ideas when you’re tired.”
Otto's probably right, Awsten does get weird ideas when he's sleepy. What he doesn’t know, is that a lot of those ideas involve cuddling up to Otto, or playing with his hair, and other similar thoughts Awsten tends to squash like bugs during the day. “Ugh, fine,” he says, and leaves Otto on the couch.
He wakes up to a mouthful of hair in the morning and– Hey, that's weird, his hair is not long enough to reach his mouth. His eyes snap open and he finds himself looking at a mess of long, curly, brown hair. Before he gets a chance to process any of this, the owner of the hair turns and Awsten can see their face. It's a girl. A very, very pretty girl. Why is there a pretty girl next to him? He's like 97% sure he was alone when he fell asleep. And also. His hair is longer. He can feel it brushing against his ears. What the fuck. Okay. Okay. There has to be a realistic explanation for this. Maybe it's been a couple years and he had some crazy head injury that made him lose some of his memory! This is just a totally normal morning of future him waking up next to his girlfriend, who – now that he thinks about it – looks weirdly similar to Otto.
But then he sits up and he looks down and oh. He has boobs. “What the fuck,” he says out loud with his newly higher pitched voice, which was probably a bad idea because the girl next to him stirs awake.
“Aws?” she asks, rubbing her eyes. “Is everything okay?”
No, nothing is okay, someone stole his dick! Well, maybe the boobs are kinda nice, actually, but it's overshadowed by the. Everything. “I'm a girl,” he says, like an idiot.
The girl – Otto??? She looks like Otto – chuckles. “What an exciting revelation.” She shuffles herself into a sitting position, and stretches with her eyes closed. Awsten can see abs (Abs!!!!) peeking out from under the hem of her shirt. When he looks back up at her face, she has one eye open and is looking at him. “Like what you see, huh?” she teases. Awsten very, very much does, but his mouth is too dry to say anything competent. The girl – okay, if she is Otto, then what's her name? Is it still Otto? Is it something totally different?? – runs a hand through her hair, then leans towards Awsten and gives him a quick peck on the lips, like it's a totally normal thing to do and not something that is about to short-circuit his brain. “You should make some coffee, sweetheart. You start saying weird things when you’re tired.” At this point, Awsten's thoughts have been so scrambled up that he just gets up without a word and heads into the kitchen.
The apartment is an exact copy of his own, so fortunately he doesn’t have to go looking through the cupboards to get the coffee grounds. As he waits for the machine to finish, he spots an open magazine on the kitchen table with the headline ‘Waterparks! The girl band with boy names!’ placed over a picture of them – presumably – that takes up half of an entire page. So that at least clears up his concerns about the names. Taking a closer look at the picture he realizes that ‘she’ would definitely be the appropriate pronoun to use for himself right now. He turns to look at his reflection on the half-full coffee pot, and sure enough, the girl on the magazine stares back at him. Except with less mascara. As weird as it is, he can't help the grin that spreads across his face. Girl him is definitely hot.
The beeping of the coffee machine snaps him out of his thoughts, and he grabs two mugs. He just hopes girl Otto likes coffee the same way guy Otto does.
“Mmm you’re the best girlfriend ever,” Otto says when he hands the hot drink over to her. Awsten sits down cross-legged on the middle of the bed, and just watches her. He's seen Otto like this a million times thanks to all the tours, but he can never get tired of it. Otto always looks adorable when sleepy. Girl Otto... Well, she's just like guy Otto in basically every way. Yeah, her hair is maybe an inch longer and her jawline is a little more rounded, but everything else, down to the smallest mannerisms, is the same.
He wonders how they got together. The only difference in this world as far as he knows is that they’re girls, but judging by the photos he's seen scattered around the apartment, they've been together for quite a while. Maybe it's cause he likes girls anyway. Well, okay he likes guys too, but that's. Different. And Otto– Well, technically he's seen Otto make out with guys at shows back when their lives were all about basement shows.
“What is it?” Otto asks suddenly. She must have noticed Awsten has been staring at her for the past however many minutes.
“Nothing,” Awsten replies. Feeling bold, he continues. “You’re just. Y'know. Pretty.”
Otto rolls her eyes. “Flatterer.”
Awsten shrugs, the corner of his mouth lifting up. “Well, it's true.”
The day goes by just as slowly as the morning started, and Awsten cannot be any happier about it. Apparently at some point his brain just decided to take this as the blessing it was, and rolled with it, which was very nice of it if you ask him. He gets to spend his time doing couple things with Otto, like playing Mario Kart and distracting each other by flirting, or cooking dinner together and trying not to burn anything when they're too busy making out. It's one of the best days he's had in years, which is maybe a little sad because he's still not totally sure this isn’t just some weird dream.
When they turn the bedroom lights off and Otto snuggles up behind him and wraps an arm around his torso, he almost wants to cry. Really, he's almost cried basically every time Otto got close to him – he's a little touch starved, so sue him, – but he thinks about just how nice this all was and– Hold on. Dating girl Otto is great. She's attractive, sweet, and just amazing. Guy Otto is basically the same person. They both like guys. Awsten's an idiot.
With that, he falls asleep.
When he wakes up, the other side of the bed is empty again, and he's back to his old self. He's fully awake in seconds. Before he can think about how terrible of an idea this is and how many ways it can go wrong, he's rushing into the living room. The couch is empty, but he can hear noises from the kitchen. Otto’s leaning against the counter, drinking his coffee, when Awsten spots him.
“Morning!” Otto says. “Did I wake you up?”
Awsten shakes his head. “No, I just. Had a weird dream.”
Otto takes a sip of his drink. “What kind of dream?”
“Not important. Look,” Awsten begins, then clears his throat. “This might seem like it's coming out of nowhere, but. Do you wanna go out with me?” There. He said it.
Otto blinks at him, silent. The more seconds pass, the more Awsten starts to regret existing. But then Otto smiles and looks down at his drink. “Yeah, I'd uh. I'd like that.”
Awsten's whole body relaxes. “Great! That’s– That's great! Do you um. Do you wanna grab some breakfast together?”
Otto grins and nods. He puts his half-empty mug down on the counter behind him, and steps closer to Awsten, reaching out to lock their fingers together. “I bet you won’t regret doing this in the kitchen at 8 A.M. while wearing pyjamas,” he says jokingly.
Awsten laughs. Yeah, it's a little lame, but whatever. Their girl counterparts probably got together in an evening more lame way. “Shut up. Let's get dressed, we're going to the closest Waffle House.” He squeezes Otto's hand, then lets go of it. “Oh, and for the record, I'd totally be hot as a girl.”