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rainbowfic2026-03-29 06:23 pm
paradoxcase) wrote in rainbowfic2026-03-29 06:23 pm
Realgar #6 [Tales from the Neighborhood]
Name: Everything's A Competition
Story: Tales from the Neighborhood
Plot Thread: Paige Hanby Singularity
Colors: Realgar #6: Dull
Styles and Supplies: Life Drawing, Silhouette, Gesso, Glue (A proposed get-together with a love interest might have to be postponed until much later tonight or perhaps another evening, Aries. This could make you a little blue. Your insecurity might even get the better of you. Does your friend not want to meet? Don't fall into this kind of thinking. Accept that there's a reason and go with the flow. You'll enjoy the date that much more for the delay.), Tempera (Knight of Swords reversed signifies a lack of strategy, where actions are taken without much thought or consideration for the consequences. It suggests a tendency to rush into situations without a clear plan, leading to hasty decisions and potential conflicts. This reversed Knight warns against reckless behavior and encourages the need for patience and careful deliberation. It serves as a reminder to slow down, reflect, and align actions with a well-thought-out strategy in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts and achieve the desired outcomes.), Novelty Bead (disaster bisexual, given here)
Word Count: 3760
Rating: PG
Warnings: A trans character being misgendered/deadnamed for the first part of this, similar to in the first Grant story, also just general teenage drama, because Garrett
Characters: Paige Hanby, Garrett Thomas, Esther Bren, Benjamin Thomas, and brief appearances by Grant, Scott, Scott's dad, and Garrett and Benjamin's dad
Summary: People change. Garrett has trouble dealing with it.
Notes: This is the plot thread that was previously just called "Singularity" - it's named after the character whose real name is a spoiler for the first couple scenes of this piece.
Casey was sprawled on the couch in the living room, watching TV, and Scott and Grant Thomas were leaning up against the other end of it, gossiping about someone who Casey gathered must be some new boyfriend of Scott’s.
“He told me that Lauren asked him which of us was going to be the girl, and how that was going to work with there being three of us,” Scott was saying. He let out an exasperated breath. “It’s going to be painful talking with her, I can tell.”
“She sure has some strange ideas,” said Grant. “She was always one of the people who made me feel the most out of place, before.”
Casey’s mouth twisted in trepidation. He didn’t really see what they found so awful about that idea, and it bothered him. It made him feel like maybe there was something he didn’t really understand that he should. After a moment during which they all just watched the show in silence, he ventured, “What if you do kind of want to be the girl, though?”
Scott looked over at him, annoyed. “You can just say you want to be more submissive,” he said. “You don’t need to enforce this idea that girls always are.”
“That’s not really what I mean, though,” said Casey. He wasn’t exactly sure what he did mean, but it wasn’t something that simple. He didn’t feel submissive towards Garrett at all, for example, but he still did feel like he wanted to be Garrett’s girl.
Grant looked over at him in the slower, more thoughtful way that he did everything, compared to Scott. “Maybe if you want to be a girl, that means you already are one,” he said.
Casey scrunched his face up in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Grant smiled. “There’s a witch with a shop downtown,” he said. “She can make you a potion to try out being a girl. At least, I’m pretty sure she can. Then you can see if it suits.”
Casey frowned. “What if I hate it, though?”
Grant shrugged. “If you don’t like it, you can always go back and get the one that turns you into a boy,” he said. “I can personally attest that that one works.”
Casey lay on his bed upstairs and thought about what Grant had said. It was an idea. Maybe a good one? Girls’ clothes had always seemed nicer, he bet he’d look good in them. And now that Grant had put the idea into his head, he’d started to remember things about his life that seemed to support the idea. He remembered how he’d liked watching Disney princess movies with his sisters; back then, he’d always thought it was just about wanting to get with the prince, but Scott had never liked those, had he? And Grant had always abhorred them. And after all, sometimes it wasn’t about wanting to be Ariel — sometimes it was about wanting to be Ursula.
But Grant was definitely wrong about the whole thing being a completely risk-free experiment. He already knew without needing to ask that his relationship with Victor wouldn’t survive if he did this. He’d still be a friend, probably, but Victor didn’t want a girlfriend. If he decided to go through with this, he’d have to give that up.
Garrett, though… Casey didn’t know about Garrett. He wasn’t sure even Garrett knew about Garrett, Garrett just did not seem prone to doing much introspection in general. The more he thought about getting the girl potion, the better an idea it sounded, to the point where he might even be alright giving up Victor for it, but his thing with Victor had never been all that serious. With Garrett it was different — Garrett was special. If he had to give up Garrett, he didn’t think he could do this.
He’d have to find out what Garrett thought about this first.
When Garrett returned with his dad from the electronics store, he found Casey waiting for him on the front lawn, sitting on the bench that sat along the front of the house. It was a surprise; Casey hadn’t called or anything, and Garrett hadn’t expected him today. He smiled and came over to sit on the bench.
“You should call when you want to come over,” he said. “That way I can convince dad to let me leave early.”
“You would?” asked Casey. “You wouldn’t consider it more worth your time to make another sale?”
Garrett shook his head. Maybe he would have before that night at LuLu, but things were a bit different now. “I always have time for you,” he said.
Casey seemed to perk up a little, but then hesitated and chewed his lip in some uncharacteristic bout of shyness. “I was just wondering something,” he said, with an air of affected casualness. “Would you date girls, at all?”
“No— I mean, not if you didn’t want me to— I mean, I’m with you. Right?” He tried to think if he’d had some interaction with a girl that Casey had misinterpreted, but something didn’t feel right. This didn’t really seem like something Casey would get upset about.
Casey shook his head vigorously. “No— I mean, yes, you’re with me.” He laughed a little nervously. “But I didn’t mean like that. I meant more— would you still want to date me if I was a girl?”
“Oh.” Garrett looked at him, kind of speculatively, and tried to imagine it. It wasn’t really so hard to imagine a girl wearing her hair like that, or wearing those clothes. Would he date her? He hadn’t really thought much about whether or not he’d date anyone until fairly recently, but he couldn’t imagine that Casey would somehow be a completely different person as a girl. He had a stray thought that it did feel like someone like him or Benjamin might be a completely different person in that case, but somehow he felt that Casey would always be Casey regardless. “I don’t see why not,” he said.
Some cautious smile had appeared on Casey’s face as he said, “Would you be willing to treat me as if I was a girl, just for a little bit?” He shrugged. “Just as an experiment.”
“Sure,” said Garrett. He imagined the girl again, and tried to think about what he’d do differently, if anything. “Do you still want to be named Casey?” he asked.
Casey seemed to consider this. “I think… Paige,” he said, after a minute. “Yeah, that feels right.”
They spent some more time there, talking and flirting and a bit of kissing, while Garrett kept the girl — Paige — in his mind’s eye. He wasn’t sure if he was really treating her differently, or was giving her what she’d hoped for, but as they drifted into familiar interactions, seeing her that way felt more and more natural, and he stopped worrying about it.
By the time she said goodbye and left for her house, Garrett was actually feeling a little disappointed that she might want to go back to being Casey the next day.
Trying out being Paige for Garrett had been a resounding success. As the time had gone on, he’d — she’d — found more things to like about the experience, more things she’d been missing from her time with him that she hadn’t realized before. She couldn’t make herself go back to being Casey again after that. Victor would just have to deal with it.
There was no school the next day, so she went downtown to the witch’s shop that Grant had mentioned, which wasn’t too hard to find. The witch understood what she wanted immediately and brewed up a strange pink potion for her. Paige didn’t even wait until getting home to try it out, stopping by a nearby park to drink it. The effects were marvelous, but, oh, hmm, she was definitely going to need a different shirt for this, wasn’t she?
She went to a clothes shop next, and spent some time trying on a number of outfits that she’d always thought would be fun to wear and which now looked great on her. She left wearing one, and with several more in a bag, headed back to her house.
She thought about how she’d tell her parents and siblings about all this. Maybe she should have asked Grant about it beforehand. She hadn’t changed the way she wore her hair at all, so they’d still recognize her that way, right? She had to hope.
But when she arrived back at the house, the front yard was strangely empty. Odd, when everyone was off of school today. When she came through the door and into the living room, she saw where everyone was — clustered around her father, who was sitting dejectedly on the sofa with his head in his hands, Scott sitting next to him with his arm around his shoulders and their sisters huddled in front of the sofa, full of concern.
He blinked at her as she entered, and said, “Casey?”
Paige shook her head, and was about to explain, but he father continued. “It’s— no matter.” He seemed folded in on himself, lost in some thought or emotion. “Your mother left us, today.”
Garrett needn’t have worried about having Casey return the next day, because it was definitely Paige who showed up instead. She had a new set of clothes, but the same hairstyle, and the same hat, and she generally matched perfectly with how he’d imagined her the day before, and he was dying to know how this had come about. But unexpectedly, she didn’t want to talk about the transformation that had taken place, but something else entirely.
“Your mom is… gone?” Garrett asked, not understanding.
“She left,” said Paige. “I don’t know— I gather she went off to live with some other woman, as I understand it. I don’t know why, and dad seemed kind of confused, too.” She made a face. “Scott’s off to college soon, so I’ll probably be stuck at home more often now to look after the little ones.”
“I’m sorry,” said Garrett. “Maybe I could help?”
Paige looked at him with a lack of enthusiasm. “You don’t like little kids any more than I do, do you?”
“Not really, but you’ll be there, too, won’t you?”
“Yeah,” she laughed, a bit. “I guess there’ll be less time to spend at LuLu and Rodney’s, though.” She paused for a moment, thoughtful. “Honestly, I don’t know if I really fit in at Rodney’s anymore. I think I might just be a regular straight girl now, I’m sorry to say.”
Garrett laughed, glad for the change of subject. “That’s fine,” he said. “Really.”
He was about to ask how that had happened in the first place when Benjamin left the house. He looked over at them, and Garrett watched him do a double-take when he caught sight of Paige. He came over, cautiously, and said, “Casey? Is that you?”
Paige stood up from where they’d been sitting on the grass together, in order to twirl and show off her new clothes. “Not quite!” she said. “My name is Paige, now.”
“Oh,” said Benjamin, and he smiled. “You look great.” There was something in how he was looking at her now that had never been there before, and she was looking back at him with that same curiosity and interest.
Garrett felt his heart sink. Hadn’t she said to him on their first night together at LuLu that she would like to get with Benjamin, too? But that it just wouldn’t happen, because Benjamin wasn’t into boys. But she wasn’t a boy anymore. He didn’t mind if Paige dated other people, not really, but it was a little different with Benjamin. Was Benjamin going to take everything Garrett wanted?
But no, he wasn’t taking her. She was talking with him more animatedly now, in a flirtatious way, and Garrett could see her reeling him in intentionally. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Maybe this was what she had actually wanted in the first place. Maybe she had only been settling for him, after all.
They seemed too caught up with each other for the moment to pay any attention to him, so he quietly went back into the house. He had thought to just slink back to his room for the time being, but as he passed a small table in the hall, he caught the glint of a set of car keys. Temporarily misplaced, no doubt, and he’d get and earful if he just took them without permission, but right now he wanted to get away more than he feared his fathers’ wrath. He swiped the keys in a single movement and went out the front with them. Maybe there’d be something, or someone, at LuLu to distract him.
He was starting to think that coming to LuLu hadn’t been the best idea, after all. He didn’t feel like he had the energy to dance tonight, and sitting over at the bar drinking juice was just reminding him of the time he’d come here when he’d kissed Paige for the first time, and Paige saying that she’d wanted to kiss Benjamin, too. He felt empty inside, a dullness settling over his emotions.
The girl leaning up against the bar next to him laughed at something the bartender had said; it was the brash laugh of someone who was having a great time and didn’t care about putting on appearances. He could use that kind of good time. He looked over at her, and then up — she was very tall, even taller than Paige, who was still taller than him even though her transformation had definitely shortened her by a few inches. He didn’t mind. Quite the opposite, really — he’d found he’d actually been missing those extra inches earlier in the evening, even with Paige’s skirt and more feminine face.
“Hey,” he said to the tall girl. “What’s your name?”
The girl looked down at him. She was blond like Paige was, too. “I’m Esther,” she said. “Your name is Garrett, right? I think I’ve seen you around here before.”
He did remember seeing her around, now that she mentioned it — she was one of many acquaintances of acquaintances who he couldn’t really say he knew, but who he might get away with nodding at. But he was seeing her in a different light, now. “Do you want to dance?” he asked. Maybe she would bring the energy he was lacking, and it would infect him, too.
She seemed amused. “Are you sure?” she asked. “Most guys find they don’t want to, when they see I’m taller than them. Look,” she grabbed his hands and pulled him out of his seat so that he was standing, too. “See for yourself.”
Yeah, the difference was even more obvious when he was standing; she must be nearly as tall as Paige had been before she’d transformed, although he didn’t think she quite topped Benjamin’s absurd measurements. He thought about what it would be like to dance with her, and… no, it sounded fun, actually. He grinned up at her. “I’m fine with it.” As something of an afterthought, he added, “My last girlfriend was tall, too.” She smiled at that.
They spent some time on the dance floor, doing silly moves that Benjamin would probably disparage as “not really dancing”, dared each other to try the dance sphere, and both laughed at the other staggering around dizzy afterwards. Her enthusiasm did turn out to be catching. Unlike most girls that Garrett had talked to before, she didn’t bother trying to seem small, or cute, or shy, or pretty — everything she did she did to the fullest extent possible, the largest, loudest, most enthusiastic way, and she pulled him along with her rather than waiting for him to go first. They wound up sitting on the edge of the sunken hot tub with their bare feet danging in the water, eating hot dogs that someone had put on the outdoor grill earlier.
She finished her hot dog and looked over at him, a softer smile on her lips than he’d seen from her earlier in the evening. “You’re pretty fun, you know that?”
He had to laugh a little, to himself. “That was all you,” he said. “I wasn’t in a fun mood when I came here.”
“Oh, I did notice that,” she said mildly. “I guess I just mean that most guys get put off, a bit, when you try to have fun for real. When you don’t fit into their idea of how you ought to behave. But you don’t seem to mind. You put up with me being loud and stepping on your feet and everything. Not like,” she waved her hand over at a cluster of girls sitting around a nearby table, holding themselves back from the general chaos and gossiping in low voices, one of them applying lipliner with a compact. “You know?”
“I don’t think I really have a lot of friends like those girls, so much,” said Garrett. Come to think of it, he didn’t tend to hang around with girls much in general, aside from Paige. Maybe that was why he’d always figured he was gay.
“Ahh, I see,” said Esther, a hint of disappointment in her voice as she said it. “I’m just like one of your guy friends, to you. Not really a girl. Not someone you’d date.”
“Never said that,” said Garrett. Not just that being a guy friend wouldn’t have disqualified her the way she seemed to be thinking, but also… she was hot, as a girl specifically, and not just as someone he could imagine as a guy. It was hot when she laughed, and when she pulled him off to something new, and the way she stood taller than him, and how he couldn’t imagine her sitting quietly in a corner demurely doing her makeup. And maybe that was also part of why the first girl he’d ever had that thought about was Paige, too.
“Really?” said Esther. She seemed to search his face for a moment, looking into his eyes, and it was him who blushed and looked away first.
When they kissed there by the side of the hot tub, maybe it tasted a little like hot dogs, but it felt right, and that was what mattered, wasn’t it? It wasn’t quite enough to cover the pain of Paige going off with Benjamin, but it was almost good enough. And maybe he’d get over it eventually, after enough time had passed.
As they dried off their feet and put their shoes back on, she looked up at him almost shyly, but not quite, and said, “I’ll see you around tomorrow, at school, yeah?”
He smiled. “Definitely.”
Back at the house, everything seemed less right with the world. First, he had to deal with an angry dad who lectured him and confiscated the car keys. Then Paige and Benjamin came out the front door and kissed each other goodnight, which did just drive home that she’d made her choice between them and it hadn’t been him. He’d thought that the night with Esther might have dulled that pain some, but it hadn’t; back here with the two of them it still hurt him so much he wanted to cry.
Benjamin went back into the house and Paige turned to leave, but stopped when she noticed him there. “Where did you go?” she asked, coming up to him. “I was looking for you, but you disappeared.” She put her arms around him and pulled him close, like she thought they were still together and she hadn’t gone with his brother instead.
He did cry then, shuddering against her, unable to contain the hurt. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. “It was him you wanted all along, wasn’t it? You don’t have to pretend to want me anymore. Just go off with him and be happy.” Now that he thought about it was obvious. Of course he wasn’t the one she’d really wanted to be with. “You want to be treated like a girl. I didn’t do it right, did I? He’ll treat you like one of his delicate ballerinas. I never wanted to be with that kind of girl.”
“What?” she said, and she pulled away, seeming genuinely shocked. “I don’t— I didn’t— I always wanted to be with you, Garrett. It was always about you.” She pulled him close again, and stroked her hand along his back. “You were the one who first called me ‘Paige’. I had to try it with you, first, because I wasn’t— I couldn’t be Paige if it meant you would leave me. Garrett, there are so many different ways to be a girl.” The stroking grew more intense. “I’m not choosing him over you. I’m choosing both of you. I can be your girl and his girl, and maybe those are different kinds of girl, but that’s ok. I can do that, right? Please tell me I can do that.” She was shuddering now, too, holding him like a vice. “I didn’t mean to— please don’t leave me, Garrett.”
He took a shaky breath. “Really?” he said. “You still want to be with me, when you can have him, too?”
“I do,” she said. “It’s ok, Garrett, it’s ok. I can tell him I can’t be with him, if you want.” Her voice said she didn’t want to.
“You don’t have to,” said Garrett. “I’m sorry. I get it now. I thought that maybe— it doesn’t matter, now.” He drew another breath, and sniffled a bit. “You can date him, it’s ok, really. As long as— you’re really not leaving me?”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
Calming, he started to see things a little clearer. She could still be his girl. If Esther could be that kind of girl, couldn’t Paige also want to be a girl like that?
Esther. He stiffened, and took a sharp breath. He had made a kind of implicit promise to Esther tonight, hadn’t he? Paige wouldn’t mind, he was sure, but most people would, and he sort of had the feeling that Esther was going to turn out to be one of them. How could he explain all of this to her?
“What is it?” Paige asked, sensing something wrong.
“I think I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he said. “Oh, no, Paige, you have to help me get out of this one.”
Sim Pictures and Notes
Let it be known that this was all my fault, because I went back and forth a bit on who I wanted Garrett to end up with. After Paige transitioned and turned out to have great chemistry with Benjamin, I sent Garrett back downtown and he met Esther, then I thought, wait, no, that's dumb, and took him back home again. Don't worry, though, this will all resolve. Eventually.
I also would like to clarify that Garrett isn't short or anything, everyone else in this story is just stupidly tall. From my spreadsheet:
Garrett is 5 foot 9 and a half / 176 cm as an adult
Paige is 5 foot 11 / 181 cm as an adult (if she hadn't transitioned, she would have been 6 foot 2 / 188 cm as an adult)
Esther is 6 foot 1 / 186 cm as an adult
Benjamin is 6 foot 4 / 193 cm as an adult, and has the third tallest adult height in the neighborhood, after Jasmine's teenage son and his uncle Sebastian (another brother of Grant, Victor, and Benjamin and Garrett's dad).
For the record, sim height has nothing at all to do with who is attracted to whom. I just found it pretty funny that Garrett decided to be attracted to two very tall people.
By the way, here is a picture of teenage Esther standing next to her elderly father, who is one of the shortest people in the neighborhood, mostly due to his age:
Like I said earlier, heights being random has done some funny things to the neighborhood.
Anyway, this is Paige's college portrait after her transition:
She's still a bit odd-looking, but much better now, I think.
Esther Bren is actually Robert's much younger sister - sort of like Victor, she is younger enough than her other siblings that she didn't know a lot of them growing up. This is her college portrait:
Story: Tales from the Neighborhood
Plot Thread: Paige Hanby Singularity
Colors: Realgar #6: Dull
Styles and Supplies: Life Drawing, Silhouette, Gesso, Glue (A proposed get-together with a love interest might have to be postponed until much later tonight or perhaps another evening, Aries. This could make you a little blue. Your insecurity might even get the better of you. Does your friend not want to meet? Don't fall into this kind of thinking. Accept that there's a reason and go with the flow. You'll enjoy the date that much more for the delay.), Tempera (Knight of Swords reversed signifies a lack of strategy, where actions are taken without much thought or consideration for the consequences. It suggests a tendency to rush into situations without a clear plan, leading to hasty decisions and potential conflicts. This reversed Knight warns against reckless behavior and encourages the need for patience and careful deliberation. It serves as a reminder to slow down, reflect, and align actions with a well-thought-out strategy in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts and achieve the desired outcomes.), Novelty Bead (disaster bisexual, given here)
Word Count: 3760
Rating: PG
Warnings: A trans character being misgendered/deadnamed for the first part of this, similar to in the first Grant story, also just general teenage drama, because Garrett
Characters: Paige Hanby, Garrett Thomas, Esther Bren, Benjamin Thomas, and brief appearances by Grant, Scott, Scott's dad, and Garrett and Benjamin's dad
Summary: People change. Garrett has trouble dealing with it.
Notes: This is the plot thread that was previously just called "Singularity" - it's named after the character whose real name is a spoiler for the first couple scenes of this piece.
Casey was sprawled on the couch in the living room, watching TV, and Scott and Grant Thomas were leaning up against the other end of it, gossiping about someone who Casey gathered must be some new boyfriend of Scott’s.
“He told me that Lauren asked him which of us was going to be the girl, and how that was going to work with there being three of us,” Scott was saying. He let out an exasperated breath. “It’s going to be painful talking with her, I can tell.”
“She sure has some strange ideas,” said Grant. “She was always one of the people who made me feel the most out of place, before.”
Casey’s mouth twisted in trepidation. He didn’t really see what they found so awful about that idea, and it bothered him. It made him feel like maybe there was something he didn’t really understand that he should. After a moment during which they all just watched the show in silence, he ventured, “What if you do kind of want to be the girl, though?”
Scott looked over at him, annoyed. “You can just say you want to be more submissive,” he said. “You don’t need to enforce this idea that girls always are.”
“That’s not really what I mean, though,” said Casey. He wasn’t exactly sure what he did mean, but it wasn’t something that simple. He didn’t feel submissive towards Garrett at all, for example, but he still did feel like he wanted to be Garrett’s girl.
Grant looked over at him in the slower, more thoughtful way that he did everything, compared to Scott. “Maybe if you want to be a girl, that means you already are one,” he said.
Casey scrunched his face up in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Grant smiled. “There’s a witch with a shop downtown,” he said. “She can make you a potion to try out being a girl. At least, I’m pretty sure she can. Then you can see if it suits.”
Casey frowned. “What if I hate it, though?”
Grant shrugged. “If you don’t like it, you can always go back and get the one that turns you into a boy,” he said. “I can personally attest that that one works.”
Casey lay on his bed upstairs and thought about what Grant had said. It was an idea. Maybe a good one? Girls’ clothes had always seemed nicer, he bet he’d look good in them. And now that Grant had put the idea into his head, he’d started to remember things about his life that seemed to support the idea. He remembered how he’d liked watching Disney princess movies with his sisters; back then, he’d always thought it was just about wanting to get with the prince, but Scott had never liked those, had he? And Grant had always abhorred them. And after all, sometimes it wasn’t about wanting to be Ariel — sometimes it was about wanting to be Ursula.
But Grant was definitely wrong about the whole thing being a completely risk-free experiment. He already knew without needing to ask that his relationship with Victor wouldn’t survive if he did this. He’d still be a friend, probably, but Victor didn’t want a girlfriend. If he decided to go through with this, he’d have to give that up.
Garrett, though… Casey didn’t know about Garrett. He wasn’t sure even Garrett knew about Garrett, Garrett just did not seem prone to doing much introspection in general. The more he thought about getting the girl potion, the better an idea it sounded, to the point where he might even be alright giving up Victor for it, but his thing with Victor had never been all that serious. With Garrett it was different — Garrett was special. If he had to give up Garrett, he didn’t think he could do this.
He’d have to find out what Garrett thought about this first.
When Garrett returned with his dad from the electronics store, he found Casey waiting for him on the front lawn, sitting on the bench that sat along the front of the house. It was a surprise; Casey hadn’t called or anything, and Garrett hadn’t expected him today. He smiled and came over to sit on the bench.
“You should call when you want to come over,” he said. “That way I can convince dad to let me leave early.”
“You would?” asked Casey. “You wouldn’t consider it more worth your time to make another sale?”
Garrett shook his head. Maybe he would have before that night at LuLu, but things were a bit different now. “I always have time for you,” he said.
Casey seemed to perk up a little, but then hesitated and chewed his lip in some uncharacteristic bout of shyness. “I was just wondering something,” he said, with an air of affected casualness. “Would you date girls, at all?”
“No— I mean, not if you didn’t want me to— I mean, I’m with you. Right?” He tried to think if he’d had some interaction with a girl that Casey had misinterpreted, but something didn’t feel right. This didn’t really seem like something Casey would get upset about.
Casey shook his head vigorously. “No— I mean, yes, you’re with me.” He laughed a little nervously. “But I didn’t mean like that. I meant more— would you still want to date me if I was a girl?”
“Oh.” Garrett looked at him, kind of speculatively, and tried to imagine it. It wasn’t really so hard to imagine a girl wearing her hair like that, or wearing those clothes. Would he date her? He hadn’t really thought much about whether or not he’d date anyone until fairly recently, but he couldn’t imagine that Casey would somehow be a completely different person as a girl. He had a stray thought that it did feel like someone like him or Benjamin might be a completely different person in that case, but somehow he felt that Casey would always be Casey regardless. “I don’t see why not,” he said.
Some cautious smile had appeared on Casey’s face as he said, “Would you be willing to treat me as if I was a girl, just for a little bit?” He shrugged. “Just as an experiment.”
“Sure,” said Garrett. He imagined the girl again, and tried to think about what he’d do differently, if anything. “Do you still want to be named Casey?” he asked.
Casey seemed to consider this. “I think… Paige,” he said, after a minute. “Yeah, that feels right.”
They spent some more time there, talking and flirting and a bit of kissing, while Garrett kept the girl — Paige — in his mind’s eye. He wasn’t sure if he was really treating her differently, or was giving her what she’d hoped for, but as they drifted into familiar interactions, seeing her that way felt more and more natural, and he stopped worrying about it.
By the time she said goodbye and left for her house, Garrett was actually feeling a little disappointed that she might want to go back to being Casey the next day.
Trying out being Paige for Garrett had been a resounding success. As the time had gone on, he’d — she’d — found more things to like about the experience, more things she’d been missing from her time with him that she hadn’t realized before. She couldn’t make herself go back to being Casey again after that. Victor would just have to deal with it.
There was no school the next day, so she went downtown to the witch’s shop that Grant had mentioned, which wasn’t too hard to find. The witch understood what she wanted immediately and brewed up a strange pink potion for her. Paige didn’t even wait until getting home to try it out, stopping by a nearby park to drink it. The effects were marvelous, but, oh, hmm, she was definitely going to need a different shirt for this, wasn’t she?
She went to a clothes shop next, and spent some time trying on a number of outfits that she’d always thought would be fun to wear and which now looked great on her. She left wearing one, and with several more in a bag, headed back to her house.
She thought about how she’d tell her parents and siblings about all this. Maybe she should have asked Grant about it beforehand. She hadn’t changed the way she wore her hair at all, so they’d still recognize her that way, right? She had to hope.
But when she arrived back at the house, the front yard was strangely empty. Odd, when everyone was off of school today. When she came through the door and into the living room, she saw where everyone was — clustered around her father, who was sitting dejectedly on the sofa with his head in his hands, Scott sitting next to him with his arm around his shoulders and their sisters huddled in front of the sofa, full of concern.
He blinked at her as she entered, and said, “Casey?”
Paige shook her head, and was about to explain, but he father continued. “It’s— no matter.” He seemed folded in on himself, lost in some thought or emotion. “Your mother left us, today.”
Garrett needn’t have worried about having Casey return the next day, because it was definitely Paige who showed up instead. She had a new set of clothes, but the same hairstyle, and the same hat, and she generally matched perfectly with how he’d imagined her the day before, and he was dying to know how this had come about. But unexpectedly, she didn’t want to talk about the transformation that had taken place, but something else entirely.
“Your mom is… gone?” Garrett asked, not understanding.
“She left,” said Paige. “I don’t know— I gather she went off to live with some other woman, as I understand it. I don’t know why, and dad seemed kind of confused, too.” She made a face. “Scott’s off to college soon, so I’ll probably be stuck at home more often now to look after the little ones.”
“I’m sorry,” said Garrett. “Maybe I could help?”
Paige looked at him with a lack of enthusiasm. “You don’t like little kids any more than I do, do you?”
“Not really, but you’ll be there, too, won’t you?”
“Yeah,” she laughed, a bit. “I guess there’ll be less time to spend at LuLu and Rodney’s, though.” She paused for a moment, thoughtful. “Honestly, I don’t know if I really fit in at Rodney’s anymore. I think I might just be a regular straight girl now, I’m sorry to say.”
Garrett laughed, glad for the change of subject. “That’s fine,” he said. “Really.”
He was about to ask how that had happened in the first place when Benjamin left the house. He looked over at them, and Garrett watched him do a double-take when he caught sight of Paige. He came over, cautiously, and said, “Casey? Is that you?”
Paige stood up from where they’d been sitting on the grass together, in order to twirl and show off her new clothes. “Not quite!” she said. “My name is Paige, now.”
“Oh,” said Benjamin, and he smiled. “You look great.” There was something in how he was looking at her now that had never been there before, and she was looking back at him with that same curiosity and interest.
Garrett felt his heart sink. Hadn’t she said to him on their first night together at LuLu that she would like to get with Benjamin, too? But that it just wouldn’t happen, because Benjamin wasn’t into boys. But she wasn’t a boy anymore. He didn’t mind if Paige dated other people, not really, but it was a little different with Benjamin. Was Benjamin going to take everything Garrett wanted?
But no, he wasn’t taking her. She was talking with him more animatedly now, in a flirtatious way, and Garrett could see her reeling him in intentionally. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Maybe this was what she had actually wanted in the first place. Maybe she had only been settling for him, after all.
They seemed too caught up with each other for the moment to pay any attention to him, so he quietly went back into the house. He had thought to just slink back to his room for the time being, but as he passed a small table in the hall, he caught the glint of a set of car keys. Temporarily misplaced, no doubt, and he’d get and earful if he just took them without permission, but right now he wanted to get away more than he feared his fathers’ wrath. He swiped the keys in a single movement and went out the front with them. Maybe there’d be something, or someone, at LuLu to distract him.
He was starting to think that coming to LuLu hadn’t been the best idea, after all. He didn’t feel like he had the energy to dance tonight, and sitting over at the bar drinking juice was just reminding him of the time he’d come here when he’d kissed Paige for the first time, and Paige saying that she’d wanted to kiss Benjamin, too. He felt empty inside, a dullness settling over his emotions.
The girl leaning up against the bar next to him laughed at something the bartender had said; it was the brash laugh of someone who was having a great time and didn’t care about putting on appearances. He could use that kind of good time. He looked over at her, and then up — she was very tall, even taller than Paige, who was still taller than him even though her transformation had definitely shortened her by a few inches. He didn’t mind. Quite the opposite, really — he’d found he’d actually been missing those extra inches earlier in the evening, even with Paige’s skirt and more feminine face.
“Hey,” he said to the tall girl. “What’s your name?”
The girl looked down at him. She was blond like Paige was, too. “I’m Esther,” she said. “Your name is Garrett, right? I think I’ve seen you around here before.”
He did remember seeing her around, now that she mentioned it — she was one of many acquaintances of acquaintances who he couldn’t really say he knew, but who he might get away with nodding at. But he was seeing her in a different light, now. “Do you want to dance?” he asked. Maybe she would bring the energy he was lacking, and it would infect him, too.
She seemed amused. “Are you sure?” she asked. “Most guys find they don’t want to, when they see I’m taller than them. Look,” she grabbed his hands and pulled him out of his seat so that he was standing, too. “See for yourself.”
Yeah, the difference was even more obvious when he was standing; she must be nearly as tall as Paige had been before she’d transformed, although he didn’t think she quite topped Benjamin’s absurd measurements. He thought about what it would be like to dance with her, and… no, it sounded fun, actually. He grinned up at her. “I’m fine with it.” As something of an afterthought, he added, “My last girlfriend was tall, too.” She smiled at that.
They spent some time on the dance floor, doing silly moves that Benjamin would probably disparage as “not really dancing”, dared each other to try the dance sphere, and both laughed at the other staggering around dizzy afterwards. Her enthusiasm did turn out to be catching. Unlike most girls that Garrett had talked to before, she didn’t bother trying to seem small, or cute, or shy, or pretty — everything she did she did to the fullest extent possible, the largest, loudest, most enthusiastic way, and she pulled him along with her rather than waiting for him to go first. They wound up sitting on the edge of the sunken hot tub with their bare feet danging in the water, eating hot dogs that someone had put on the outdoor grill earlier.
She finished her hot dog and looked over at him, a softer smile on her lips than he’d seen from her earlier in the evening. “You’re pretty fun, you know that?”
He had to laugh a little, to himself. “That was all you,” he said. “I wasn’t in a fun mood when I came here.”
“Oh, I did notice that,” she said mildly. “I guess I just mean that most guys get put off, a bit, when you try to have fun for real. When you don’t fit into their idea of how you ought to behave. But you don’t seem to mind. You put up with me being loud and stepping on your feet and everything. Not like,” she waved her hand over at a cluster of girls sitting around a nearby table, holding themselves back from the general chaos and gossiping in low voices, one of them applying lipliner with a compact. “You know?”
“I don’t think I really have a lot of friends like those girls, so much,” said Garrett. Come to think of it, he didn’t tend to hang around with girls much in general, aside from Paige. Maybe that was why he’d always figured he was gay.
“Ahh, I see,” said Esther, a hint of disappointment in her voice as she said it. “I’m just like one of your guy friends, to you. Not really a girl. Not someone you’d date.”
“Never said that,” said Garrett. Not just that being a guy friend wouldn’t have disqualified her the way she seemed to be thinking, but also… she was hot, as a girl specifically, and not just as someone he could imagine as a guy. It was hot when she laughed, and when she pulled him off to something new, and the way she stood taller than him, and how he couldn’t imagine her sitting quietly in a corner demurely doing her makeup. And maybe that was also part of why the first girl he’d ever had that thought about was Paige, too.
“Really?” said Esther. She seemed to search his face for a moment, looking into his eyes, and it was him who blushed and looked away first.
When they kissed there by the side of the hot tub, maybe it tasted a little like hot dogs, but it felt right, and that was what mattered, wasn’t it? It wasn’t quite enough to cover the pain of Paige going off with Benjamin, but it was almost good enough. And maybe he’d get over it eventually, after enough time had passed.
As they dried off their feet and put their shoes back on, she looked up at him almost shyly, but not quite, and said, “I’ll see you around tomorrow, at school, yeah?”
He smiled. “Definitely.”
Back at the house, everything seemed less right with the world. First, he had to deal with an angry dad who lectured him and confiscated the car keys. Then Paige and Benjamin came out the front door and kissed each other goodnight, which did just drive home that she’d made her choice between them and it hadn’t been him. He’d thought that the night with Esther might have dulled that pain some, but it hadn’t; back here with the two of them it still hurt him so much he wanted to cry.
Benjamin went back into the house and Paige turned to leave, but stopped when she noticed him there. “Where did you go?” she asked, coming up to him. “I was looking for you, but you disappeared.” She put her arms around him and pulled him close, like she thought they were still together and she hadn’t gone with his brother instead.
He did cry then, shuddering against her, unable to contain the hurt. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. “It was him you wanted all along, wasn’t it? You don’t have to pretend to want me anymore. Just go off with him and be happy.” Now that he thought about it was obvious. Of course he wasn’t the one she’d really wanted to be with. “You want to be treated like a girl. I didn’t do it right, did I? He’ll treat you like one of his delicate ballerinas. I never wanted to be with that kind of girl.”
“What?” she said, and she pulled away, seeming genuinely shocked. “I don’t— I didn’t— I always wanted to be with you, Garrett. It was always about you.” She pulled him close again, and stroked her hand along his back. “You were the one who first called me ‘Paige’. I had to try it with you, first, because I wasn’t— I couldn’t be Paige if it meant you would leave me. Garrett, there are so many different ways to be a girl.” The stroking grew more intense. “I’m not choosing him over you. I’m choosing both of you. I can be your girl and his girl, and maybe those are different kinds of girl, but that’s ok. I can do that, right? Please tell me I can do that.” She was shuddering now, too, holding him like a vice. “I didn’t mean to— please don’t leave me, Garrett.”
He took a shaky breath. “Really?” he said. “You still want to be with me, when you can have him, too?”
“I do,” she said. “It’s ok, Garrett, it’s ok. I can tell him I can’t be with him, if you want.” Her voice said she didn’t want to.
“You don’t have to,” said Garrett. “I’m sorry. I get it now. I thought that maybe— it doesn’t matter, now.” He drew another breath, and sniffled a bit. “You can date him, it’s ok, really. As long as— you’re really not leaving me?”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
Calming, he started to see things a little clearer. She could still be his girl. If Esther could be that kind of girl, couldn’t Paige also want to be a girl like that?
Esther. He stiffened, and took a sharp breath. He had made a kind of implicit promise to Esther tonight, hadn’t he? Paige wouldn’t mind, he was sure, but most people would, and he sort of had the feeling that Esther was going to turn out to be one of them. How could he explain all of this to her?
“What is it?” Paige asked, sensing something wrong.
“I think I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he said. “Oh, no, Paige, you have to help me get out of this one.”
Sim Pictures and Notes
Let it be known that this was all my fault, because I went back and forth a bit on who I wanted Garrett to end up with. After Paige transitioned and turned out to have great chemistry with Benjamin, I sent Garrett back downtown and he met Esther, then I thought, wait, no, that's dumb, and took him back home again. Don't worry, though, this will all resolve. Eventually.
I also would like to clarify that Garrett isn't short or anything, everyone else in this story is just stupidly tall. From my spreadsheet:
Garrett is 5 foot 9 and a half / 176 cm as an adult
Paige is 5 foot 11 / 181 cm as an adult (if she hadn't transitioned, she would have been 6 foot 2 / 188 cm as an adult)
Esther is 6 foot 1 / 186 cm as an adult
Benjamin is 6 foot 4 / 193 cm as an adult, and has the third tallest adult height in the neighborhood, after Jasmine's teenage son and his uncle Sebastian (another brother of Grant, Victor, and Benjamin and Garrett's dad).
For the record, sim height has nothing at all to do with who is attracted to whom. I just found it pretty funny that Garrett decided to be attracted to two very tall people.
By the way, here is a picture of teenage Esther standing next to her elderly father, who is one of the shortest people in the neighborhood, mostly due to his age:
Like I said earlier, heights being random has done some funny things to the neighborhood.
Anyway, this is Paige's college portrait after her transition:
She's still a bit odd-looking, but much better now, I think.
Esther Bren is actually Robert's much younger sister - sort of like Victor, she is younger enough than her other siblings that she didn't know a lot of them growing up. This is her college portrait: