They had stopped counting the days after twenty-nine.
Not because time didn’t matter, but because after that many mornings of waking up in the same abandoned laundromat with dusty windows and sun-warped floors, days started to bleed into each other like watercolors left in the rain.
Cal and Ren used to be a couple — a standard one, by old world standards. He was tall and lean, a mechanic with a sarcastic streak and gentle hands. She was fire and bark and curves in all the right places, an art student who laughed too loud and kissed with her whole soul. Then the Fusion Wave swept through, and the old world stopped making sense.
Now? Now they were both… something else.
Feminine. Soft. Smooth skin, plush lips, eyelashes like feathers, jawlines sharp enough to cut tension, but rounded enough to be beautiful in a way that made mirrors confusing. No arms. None at all. Just smooth shoulders that led to lithe torsos, hips that swayed when they walked (though they still cursed the balance shift), and legs too long for their thrifted shorts. They were, somehow, almost identical now — two armless, delicate femboys with sensual curves, pretty faces, and bodies like the universe had wanted to paint desire into them.
At first, they were horrified. Cal screamed. Ren cried. They tried to touch each other for comfort, only to remember: no arms. No hands. The intimacy of a brush, a hug, even a damn reassuring shoulder squeeze—gone.
But survival has a way of dulling panic. After two weeks, they had a rhythm. Cal would grab things with his feet while Ren held open the pack with his chin. Ren would open jars with his teeth while Cal angled them on the floor. They bathed each other in cold rain, mouths clumsy, trying not to look too long. They slept close, because it was cold, and because being held in a world without arms was as simple as curling into one another’s bodies and breathing the same breath.
And then one morning, they didn’t flinch from the reflection in the gas station mirror. Cal tilted his head. “We’re… kinda hot,” he muttered.
Ren laughed—short, nervous. “Disgustingly hot.”
“Like, if I saw you walking by, I’d trip over a curb.”
Ren looked at him then, really looked. The slope of his cheek. The subtle pout of his lips. The shadow under his lashes. “Yeah,” he whispered. “You would.”
They didn’t speak for a while after that. But something had shifted.
On the thirty-fifth morning, pink light filtered through the broken windows. Dust danced like lazy fireflies. Ren lay curled up on a nest of blankets and hoodies, Cal beside him, the distance between their faces maybe four inches.
He blinked.
Ren was already awake, staring. Not awkward. Not ashamed. Just… watching.
“Hey,” Cal murmured.
“Hey,” Ren whispered back.
A long pause. Then:
“You ever think about it?” Ren asked, his voice low and uncertain.
Cal didn’t pretend not to know what it was. He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“I think I hated myself for wanting to. For so long.” Ren shifted his face a little closer. “But I don’t hate it anymore.”
Neither of them moved for a moment. Then Ren’s nose brushed Cal’s. A soft inhale. Warm breath. And then — lips met lips.
Not a lusty, crashing kiss. But slow. Careful. Exploration.
Ren tilted his head, mouths parting, and Cal sighed into it. Their lips moved together with aching gentleness, their tongues tentative and trembling. There were no hands to pull each other close, just a pressing of bodies, a slow dance of thighs and stomachs and chests rubbing through cotton and skin and breath.
Cal let out a soft moan when Ren’s knee slid between his, and Ren whimpered in response when Cal kissed along the corner of his jaw, then down the slender column of his neck. They were both hard now, trapped beneath thin shorts, erections throbbing against one another as they slowly rocked together, instinct and comfort and unspoken longing guiding their movements.
“I missed this,” Cal murmured, lips brushing Ren’s cheek.
“Not this exactly,” Ren said with a breathy laugh. “But us.”
Their hips moved in unison, arousal grinding against arousal, breathless gasps echoing off the walls. Ren whimpered as Cal's smooth thigh pressed against his cock just right, and Cal bit his lip hard when Ren’s hips shifted and they found a rhythm.
Their bodies were foreign, yes. But the pleasure was real. So damn real. Slick warmth smeared between them. Their thighs trembled. They pressed tighter, mouths kissing, tasting, moaning into each other’s skin. There was no need for hands. Their whole bodies became mouths, hips, thighs, chests. They made do. They felt.
Ren came first, hips jerking, muffled moan against Cal’s neck. Cal followed a moment later, hot and pulsing against Ren’s belly, grinding in slow, desperate waves as they clung with their legs and teeth and trembling gasps.
They lay tangled and sticky in silence, chests heaving, bodies shivering with afterglow.
“I love you,” Cal said hoarsely.
Ren kissed him again, slow and sleepy and smiling. “Took you long enough.”