Gill and Ian had been spending more time together than usual, which wasn't a bad thing of course. I actually thought that it was really nice, because I had really liked Ian, and liked that he and Gill were getting along pretty well. 

Gill actually seemed to be doing really well for a while. Alan coming to Steven's house had caused Gill to worry for quite a while, but when nothing happened, he seemed to calm down a lot more, which was nice. I didn't like Gill being so worried all the time. It meant that, while he was extra cuddly, he also had trouble relaxing, and didn't get enough sleep at night. 

Gill, Mike, and I had all taken to sleeping in the same bed at night, if someone else didn't want one of us in their rooms of course. It had become less and less common for someone else to come wake one of us up to come sleep in their bed with them because they had a nightmare, or were just worried, but it did still happen on the occasion. When all three of us were there, Mike would usually sleep in between Gill and I, and we would rest on him, using his soft chest and stomach as comfortable pillows while Mike wrapped his arms around us, and Gill and I held onto one another. 

Mine, Gill, and Mike's relationship was going really well in my opinion. We were all really happy, and genuinely enjoyed being in one another's company. We would sleep in one bed at night, and made out whenever we were alone, and felt like it. We were always considerate of one another's feelings and comfort levels, and it was great.

Gill, Mike, and I were all making out in Gill's room on his bed one night, and it was lovely. Things were getting pretty heated, and I was happily sucking a bruise into Mike's neck while Gill kissed him, and shifted so that he was straddling one of Mike's thighs. Mike was very obviously hard in his boxers, which was not an uncommon occurrence in times like these, and I wasn't surprised by it. What did surprise me, however, was Gill suddenly pulling away from Mike with a gasp.

Mike and I both looked over at Gill to find him staring at nothing with wide eyes and blown pupals. Gill was breathing heavily, and Mike and I both stared at him in concern until he finally looked up at us, still looking dazed.

"Are you ok?" I asked Gill, sitting back on my feet. Gill took a moment to respond, causing my concern to grow. Mike seemed to get more concerned too as he sat up straight, jostling Gill a little bit, but grabbing him to make sure he didn't fall over.

"Yeah. Yeah I'm ok." Gill responded, blinking a bit. "I just...I felt something, and it felt really good."

"What do you mean you felt something?" Mike asked gently.

"I rolled my hips into your leg a little, and it just...felt really good. I guess the nerves down there are all super sensitive." Gill responded.

"How could you have not noticed that before?" I asked.

"I don't know, it's not like I've never touched myself or anything. And all of my pants are loose now. God I wish I would have known about this sooner." Gill responded, rolling his hips against Mike's leg again. Gill closed his eyes, his mouth dropping open and a small whimper escaping. He looked blissed out and happy, and I was living for it.

I gently pulled Gill into a kiss, which he moaned into and returned eagerly. As things started to get heated again, Mike started participating again by reaching forward and pressing kisses into my neck. I moaned into Gill's mouth, and we both pulled away from the kiss to breathe heavily. Mike pulled me into a real kiss, keeping one hand on my face, and placing the other on one of Gill's thighs.

The three of us continued on like that until we were all breathing deeply, practically unable to catch our breaths at all. Mike was squirming under Gill and I, kind of thrusting his hips up a little bit uncontrollably. Gill and I both simultaneously moved our hands to cup Mike through his boxers, causing him to gasp, and push up into our hands. Gill and I kissed Mike, and gave him hickies, and palmed him until he eventually finished, breathing deeply and sagging into the bed.

***

Things were going really well in all of our lives. Everyone was getting along really well, no one had had and anxiety attacks for a while, and Steven and Jess had told everyone about their relationship. They seemed very happy, and everyone was supportive of them, of course. Things were great. Not to mention, Ian practically moved in with us all, which was actually an interesting experience, for me at least.

I helped Ian move into his room, which is how I learned that Steven's house actually has a lot of rooms that are completely empty. None of them even have furniture in them, which really makes me wonder why Steven and Warren didn't just move into an apartment with an extra room for the lab, or a small house with a garage. But I guess they had their reasons for getting a large house.

While helping Ian move into his new room, he was showing me some of his stuff, and telling me stories behind some pictures he had, or clothes he bought. I was unpacking one box of clothes to hang up and put in drawers when I found a very beautiful white ball gown with flowers all over in folded up nicely and placed in the box with obvious care.

"What's this from?" I asked, holding up the dress as Ian turned around to see what I was holding. A bright smile spread across his face as he came over and took the dress from me, looking at it fondly.

"My prom." Ian responded. "My mom and I went all over the place trying on dresses, and tuxes, or really anything else we could think of that I could wear for prom, before eventually settling on this dress. I looked great in it, I wish you could have seen. Actually I think I have a picture." Ian dropped the dress back into the box and went to rifle through a different box before coming back over and handing me a picture. It was him in the dress, looking absolutely gorges with beautiful black hair, and stunning makeup.

"You really did look amazing." I said, still looking down at the picture. "Is your hair naturally black or blonde?"

"Both I guess. My hair didn't turn blonde until after I mutated, I guess, and that didn't happen until after I was done with high school." Ian responded.

"Did you like it better when it was black?"

"I guess I miss it sometimes, but I think that's mainly because my mom's hair was black like mine, and I liked that we shared that. I like the blonde thought too. It did mean that I had to buy all new hair extensions though, so I guess that was kind of a bummer." Ian chuckled. I chuckled too, looking up at Ian with a bright smile real quicky, before going back to looking through the box with the dress in it.

Underneath the dress was a couple other, less fancy dresses, a few flower crowns, some shoes, and two wooden boxes. I lifted one of them, the bigger one, up out of the box, and held it up to Ian.

"What's in here?" I asked curiously,

"Oh, that's some of my makeup." Ian responded, taking the box from my hands, and setting it down on the ground, sitting down with me so that he could open the box and show me his makeup. There was a large amount of all kinds of makeup in various different tubes, pallets, and colors, along with quite a few brushes of different sizes.

"This is just some of your makeup?" I asked in disbelieve. There was so much in this one box, and I could hardly believe that their could be more.

"Yeah. I've got lots more. This is just what I mainly use."

"I don't even know what some of this is."

"Like what?"

"Like this tube. What even is this?" I pointed to a tube that had lots of bright colored print on it, none of which I understood.

"That's eye primer. I put it on my eyelids so that when I put eyeshadow on, it stays on better. Have you never used makeup before?"

"Not really no. My mom has done my makeup a few times when I was younger, for special events and stuff, but I never got into any of this stuff. I guess i get curious about it sometimes, but I've never bought any for myself or anything."

"Well I really like it. I wear it pretty much every day."

"Really? Are you wearing some now?" I scanned Ian's face, but I couldn't see any makeup.

"Yeah." Ian shrugged. "I contour my face to make me look more 'masculine'."

"You can do that?"

"Yeah. Want me to teach you sometime?"

"Yeah, that would be great."

Ian and I went back to unpacking for a little while. We got all of his clothes put away, and his closet all nice and organized, then we began putting some furniture together so we could put the rest away. Ian was working on putting together his bed frame, while I was supposed to be making a night stand, but I quickly learned that I had no clue what I was doing. Ian laughed at me lightheartedly when he finished the bed frame, and looked over at me to find that I had built half of the night stand upsidedown. I insisted on fixing it myself, so Ian just chuckled again and got to work on a bookshelf.

"Hey Ian? Can I ask you a question?" I eventually asked Ian, breaking the friendly silence.

"Of course Ty? What is it?" Ian asked in response.

"So, I'm a boy, right, and I feel like a boy, and I like being a boy. But, sometimes I want to wear a dress, or put of makeup, and look like a girl. Is that how you feel? Or am I just not really trans?" I asked. Ian smiled warmly at me with understanding, which made me feel a little better already.

"Ty, if you feel like you're trans, then you are, and if you want to wear dresses and stuff sometimes then go ahead and do it, because it doesn't make you any less of a boy. I feel comfortable being gender fluid. It's a label and an identity that makes sense for me. But no matter how you feel you just gotta stick with whatever makes you the most comfortable." Ian responded.

I didn't respond, but I did think over what Ian told me, and I appreciated his help.

***

After Ian was all settled in, things went back to normal. Ian was at our house all the time anyway, so him moving in really didn't make much of a difference at all. Except for the fact that Ian held true to his promise to teach me how to use makeup to contour my face to make it look more 'masculine', which was awesome. I wasn't very good at it, and my first try was an absolute disaster, but Ian was really encouraging and supportive of me. What made the whole experience even better, was when Ben was walking by Ian's bedroom, and decided to come see what we were doing.Then he got really excited and asked if he could help me too.

Ben and Ian were both really happy about helping me with doing my makeup, and the three of us joked and laughed, and had lots of fun. By time Ian and Ben were done, I definately looked like a new man, so to speak. The best part was, I couldn't even really tell that I was wearing makeup, because all of the highlighting and shading looked so natural. Though I was still a little nervous about it.

"Are you guys sure it doesn't look weird or anything?" I asked, looking at my face from every angle in the vanity mirror in Ian's bedroom.

"No, you look great." Ben assured me. "If you don't believe me, you could always just go downstairs and see what the others think."

"That's actually a really great idea. Thank you so much you guys." I smiled kindly, standing up and going downstairs, with the intentions of finding literally any of my friends and asking them how my face looked. Unfortunately, one of the people I ended up finding was not one of my friends at all, but some random ass man who was wearing all black, and had Mike in a headlock.

The man didn't seem to have heard me coming into the kitchen, and that turned out to be a very good thing. The man looked super angry, and I saw that the arm that wasn't holding Mike captive was pointing a gun at April, who was holding her hands in the air, and looking like she was about to murder the man. Mike, on the other hand, didn't look murderous, but he did look afraid, and was silently pleading for me to help he and April. I held a finger up to my lips, telling Mike to be quiet, and not give away the fact that I was there. Mike nodded minutely, allowing me to sneak away and hurry back upstairs to where Ian and Ben were.

"Guys, there is some random man in the kitchen. He's got Mike and is holding April and gunpoint. He doesn't know I saw him, and I'm pretty sure he's alone. Ben, you and I need to got get our suits. Ian, come with us so we can make sure you don't get found." I told Ian and Ben hurriedly. They both looked super alarmed, but they listened, and the three of us snuck down the stairs to get into the elevator to Steven's lab.

When we got into the lab, we found Steven and Jess down there doing only god knows what. I quickly informed them of the situation while Ben and I both started changing into our suits, and Ian went and got Gill and Warren out of the weights room so they would hear what was happening too. Without a word, Gill immediately put his suit on too, and all of us went upstairs to go help Mike and April.

I took the lead, creeping slowly as I snuck up behind the man with the gun and hit him in the head with one of my batons, making him drop the gun and release Mike as he fell over unconscious. The gun went of with a loud bang when it hit the ground, fortunately the bullet didn't hit anyone though, and instead just hit a wall. However, Ben did clamp his hands over his ears, and start suddenly crying, before starting to wave his arms around a bit. His eyes were squinted close, and he was clearly trying to calm himself down. A quick look at him confirmed that he was scared, but not terribly hurt.

April walked over to Ben quietly, and began to do her best to help him out. She made sure to talk softly, and didn't touch him without asking first, and when she did touch him, it was with light and gentle touches. Knowing that Ben was in good hands and perfectly safe, I walked over to Mike to make sure he was ok. There was a little bit of light bruising across Mike's neck, but he was otherwise ok.

"Does anyone recognize this fuckwad?" I asked, lifting up my mask to look at the others, mainly Gill.

"That's one of the guys who was working for Peter." Warren said, looking down at the man with disgust.

"Really? I don't think I know him." Gill said, looking a little confused.

"He was standing guard outside the room they made you sleep in the night we came and saved you. I'm guessing they would post guards like him outside the room each night just in case you tried to make a break for it while everyone else was sleeping." Warren explained.

"So I guess Peter still hasn't given up on trying to get me back."

We all knew that Bill was right, and it meant bad things were waiting for us in the near future.