Rising Shards

I was zoning out sitting in one of the relatively uncomfortable seats of the pharmacy, arm stinging a bit from the blood they had to draw. Stella was in the private room now getting her own blood taken. Basically, we were following up on our chat a bit ago about getting certain kinds of shapeshifting pills for some bedroom fun. I was given a folder with a bunch of info on this particular brand of shapeshifting, something only Cani or those under that broad Cani umbrella.

I wondered if I should have been as excited about this as I was, but I let myself have the excited anticipation about getting to try this with Stella, who was more and more excited herself for this the longer we talked about it. I think for her part of it was the thrill of trying out some benefits of Cani shapeshifting while we had sex, and part of it was maybe her starting to think about it as an option if we ever decided to have kids. We already had one, so I don't think either of us were in any rush for that.

We were going to wait for the weekend, but a particularly brutal day of class had me so exhausted, I basically fell down at the kitchen table when we got back together.

"That bad?" Stella asked, rubbing my shoulders.

"So many papers to grade," I said. "So much paperwork, so many appointments..."

"I don't know how you do it during the busy stretches," Stella said.

"I genuinely don't know how I did before I met you," I said as she reached over to hold my hand. "The last time busy season hit when I was single, I kept daydreaming about someone pushing me in a wheelbarrow and just dumping me at home at peak burnout times."

"That's...a daydream?" Stella asked.

"Well, not a good one," I said.

"I don't think we have a wheelbarrow, so I can't take you to bed that way..." Stella said. "But once you recuperate...you wanna try that thing tonight?"

'That thing' referring to Cani shapeshifter pills that'd let us play around in different physical arrangements, so to speak. That gave me a burst of energy (well, I still needed an hour or so to get dinner and recover some strength) enough to head to the pharmacy together.

As I waited, the sleepiness started to creep in again. Before I could nod off, though, I realized someone stood right in front of me.

"Whoa. Fancy running into you here."

I wasn't expecting to see Alix Corinani, but she was popping up everywhere lately. I hoped she wasn't following us around, but it seemed like pure coincidence every time. Maybe she's just weirdly lucky.

"Hey, Alix," I said. "On a...pharmacy date with Pippi?"

"Wait, is she here too?" Alix looked around.

"No, I just..." I said. "Figured, since..."

"I see, I see," Alix said. "Are you with your boo, then?"

"Uh huh," I winced, realizing Alix was probably gonna yap her way into figuring out why we were here. "We're...getting some...medications."

Alix sat down beside me, making my mental calculations of the odds of her getting way too invasive much higher.

"Let me guess," Alix said.

I shook my head. "Maybe let's not do guesses at the pharmacy about medications."

"Oh, yeah, I suppose that might be bad," Alix said. "Can I just make one? I only say this because I recognize that pamphlet sticking out of the bag. The ol'..." She looked around before whispering. "Penile shapeshifting, eh?"

Damn, she noticed before I could even say so.

"Yeah, we're....yeah," I said.

"How fun! One time I took one of those and ended up with two...you knows. Weird night. My date didn't even show up." Alix said.

"Dang, bummer..." I wondered how pissed Stella would be if she walked in on Alix talking about this so casually. I was no prude, and it wasn't like there was anyone else around, so I guess I was just being closed off because Alix's intense extrovert nature and ability to always say what she was thinking were a tough combo.

"Methinks you mayhaps intend to impregnate Stella?" Alix asked, looking very smug about it.

"Please don't phrase it like that," I said.

"I think that was pretty tame," Alix said. "And I keep checking if people are around before making all my tawdry remarks, I'm usually really bad about that!"

"Uh huh," I said, not entirely sure tawdry was the right word there. "Thanks for keeping an eye out."

"You're welcome," Alix said. "So finally putting a baby in that thang, huh?"

"Maybe I wanna get knocked up, you think of that?" I shot back.

"Hmm," Alix traced out in front of my belly. "I guess I could see it."

"Maybe don't do that," I said, swatting her hand away.

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