Despite the overall terrible day, the hour on the phone with the hospital is worth it. His appointment is less than two weeks later, and Vincent offers to go with him. Edwin tamps down his instinctive refusal, the rote arguments that it's not necessary, it's only a consultation, Vincent shouldn't worry. That's how they ended up in this fight, isn't it? Vincent wants to be there, wants Edwin to lean on him, the same way Edwin wants Vincent to lean on him. Besides, it's a closing day for Vincent's store, so even though Edwin has always gone to consultations alone, he says yes. Vincent deserves that much, to be involved in Edwin's health. If Edwin wants a serious relationship as he claims, he should start treating Vincent as someone who will be around long-term. Privately, Edwin suspects this also fills a need in Vincent, when he couldn't care for Kim, even if Kim has already recovered.

Vincent drives with Edwin's car and Edwin admits it's nice to sit back and worry about nothing, even if it's just a consultation and he could have gone on his own. They've talked a lot since their fight, and it's nice to hear Vincent's opinion and support, too. Vincent has made him paper flowers for his wobbly, hand-made pottery bowls, and Vincent has cooked for him. It makes it easy to be optimistic about everything, their relationship, his health.

That sense of calm and optimism vanishes as soon as they enter the hospital. In the privacy of their homes and the anonymity of the streets, it's easier to forget that Vincent stands out, always, and by associating with him, so does Edwin. As they approach the receptionist, a voice rears up in his head what people will think of them. Vincent looks understated for his doing, but nobody would think he was straight.

"Hi, I'm Edwin De Clerck," he states, keeping his voice even. Just acting as he would if he was here with Ellen. "I have an appointment with Dr. Smets?"

The receptionist checks her screen. "Yes, that's right. You can go to waiting room C on the third floor. How can I help you, sir?"

"Uhm." Edwin glances behind him, but there's nobody else waiting in line. She must be talking to Vincent. Don't act as if there's anything to judge. You have no reason to hide. "He's with me. He's my ... partner."

"Alright. The elevators are over there." The casual dismissal is so easy that Edwin can hardly believe he doesn't need to argue. Maybe he really should stop worrying what people think.

While they wait for the elevator, Vincent comments lightly: "Did you not want to say I'm your partner?"

"I'm sorry," Edwin immediately says. He doesn't want to give the impression that he's ashamed of Vincent. He's not. Vincent is just ... like something personal that people get to know about Edwin, that they get to judge him on, in a way that was never the case when he introduced Ellen as his wife. "I didn't mean to be like that. It's just ... I'm not used to it yet. Saying it. To strangers."

"It's a curious thing we need to get used to," Vincent agrees, "constantly making that choice of coming out or not. Is it worth the hassle or not? How will this person react? I get it, darling."

They step into the empty elevator and Edwin looks at Vincent. "I'm trying not to care what they think."

"Which is very noble of you and exactly what I told you to do, but it's a little different when you depend on a service. Some things are so subtle that you know, but you can't report them."

"But you don't really get a choice, whether you come out or not."

"And that is my choice. It's just that the other option is to fit into the wrong mould."

"That's unfair."

"The world's unfair, pumpkin. You don't need to come out in solidarity with me."

"I don't want you to go through all the prejudice alone. Not when I can help." He doesn't want to be accepted because he has a choice, when Vincent does not. He's no better than Vincent, no less gay, and if the condition for acceptance is that Vincent bears the abuse in his stead, he doesn't think he wants it. He doesn't want acceptance that will be turned against him as soon as he, too, stops fitting the mould.

Vincent shakes his head, smiling. "Suit yourself, honey. You're so stubborn."

"So are you."

"Like seeks like."

They sit next to each other in the waiting room and Vincent rests his hand on Edwin's knee. Edwin covers it with his own and takes comfort in the press of Vincent's knuckles into his palm. Vincent has beautiful hands, dark brown and elegant. He's put on a light pink nail polish with a tiny diamond in the centre, and Edwin likes how it looks on him. He's a little bit smitten. With the way Vincent winks whenever Edwin's flustered at some new thing, he thinks Vincent knows. It's okay, because Vincent is equally speechless when Edwin has learned to make a Bangladeshi snack or has bought a new CD for him or compliments his clarinet playing when Vincent was just practising.

His hand slides off when the doctor retrieves them, but when they sit in front of her desk, Vincent presses the tip of his shoe against Edwin's. Edwin can't even feel it, but knowing it's there is not so different from holding Vincent's hand. They go through introductions and Edwin says: "This is my partner, Vincent." It comes out clear, confident. As if he didn't stumble only fifteen minutes ago. The doctor must have guessed it from the way they sat, holding hands, because she doesn't bat an eye.

It feels better to claim it loud and proud than the anxiety of half-and-half, of wondering, of showing his insecurity. He's going to stand up for himself, this says. He's not going back into another closet by denying or omitting what Vincent is to him.

They're in this together.***

In the evening, Edwin has basketball training. Afterwards, they go to the café and watch a match on the big screen there. It's exactly what Edwin needed after a doctor's appointment. Even if he's still relatively healthy for his age, a hospital and a doctor don't make you feel good about your body. But after exercise, he feels better in his skin again. Vincent was very kind all day, attempting to cook and agreeing to a game of chess that Edwin predictably won, but being out, moving and using his body, that's what Edwin needed.

He's invited Vincent a few times to attend the training, but after the first time when Vincent met Edwin's friends, he's refused. He'd rather stick to running and dancing, he claims, and Edwin's friends don't need to be his friends, too. They can be just Edwin's friends. It's nice, Edwin admits, to have these friends that are only his. Not Ellen's, not Caroline's, not Vincent's.

Guido is sitting next to him and when the game is over, Edwin asks: "Do you think we can ever just live our life?"

Guido cracks up. "Why are you asking? Did the game give you an existential crisis?"

"I mean as gay people. Or bi people."

"We're living our life now, aren't we? Drinks, friends and a mediocre match. What more can you ask?"

"Yeah, but I was at the hospital this morning with Vincent and I said Vincent was my partner, but you can't say that the same way I could say Ellen was my wife. That's what I mean. All these little things that you don't need to think about when you're straight. You don't need to tell people or wonder how they're going to react."

"Oh, yeah, those little things." Guido leans back in his chair, sipping from his beer. "There are some people who define queerness like that, all these ways that you don't fit what people expect from your gender and sexuality."

"Really? Do you think we can ever be the same as straight people? Just ... gay, or bi, or transgender?" That seems like an ideal world to Edwin, everyone equal but allowed to be different. No judgement, no questions, no hate. But with the way the world is now, he doesn't know if it's an attainable goal.

"You mean if everyone accepted us? I don't know. We'd still be a minority. More young people are coming out, but even then, we're still a minority. We automatically have a different life experience."

"What are you talking about?" Leo asks, returning from the bathroom. He retakes his seat on Edwin's other side and pulls his empty beer bottle towards him, pulling on the loose corner of the label.

"Edwin is wondering if we can ever be the same as straight people, except still queer."

"Oh, that. I doubt it. You don't suddenly forget your own history. There will always be more boundaries to push because people are stupid."

"Tell that to some of those right-wing gay politicians who think we don't need anti-discrimination laws because we have all the same rights. As if that has ever guaranteed equal treatment."

"But a crime is a crime," Edwin argues. "People would still get punished if they discriminate."

"Would they?" Guido sets his glass down, leaning over. "If they refuse to rent you a house because you're gay, that's their right. Refusing a renter is not illegal. Refusing someone because they're gay is only illegal under anti-discrimination laws."

"I hadn't thought of that." He suddenly remembers something Vincent said this morning: Some things are so subtle that you know, but you can't report them.

"Even if they don't say it's because you're gay," Guido continues, gaining steam and confirming Edwin's thought, "there's statistics. Even worse if you're an immigrant. How are you going to fight that without laws? We aren't equal and if they ever stop judging us for sleeping with other men, they'll find something else that's wrong with us."

"That we're too feminine," Edwin suggests.

"Or too obvious, too sexual, too kinky, too obnoxious, too radical. The list never ends." Guido gulps down the last of his beer and puts it on the table with a loud clink.

"Amen to that," Leo says in the ensuing silence. "I'm making it my life's mission to annoy at least one person by being gay."

"You want to annoy people?" Edwin asks. "Won't that make them less likely to accept us?"

Leo shrugs. "I don't particularly care. They're never going to accept us. That's what Guido said: there's always going to be one more thing that annoys them."

"But why annoy them? If they like you, you can show them we're normal people and maybe they'll change their mind."

"I see what you're saying," Guido concedes. "But how often does that work?"

That makes Edwin pause. It worked on him, maybe. Guido and Leo and Marc and Patrick seemed normal and he liked them and then they turned out to be more like Vincent than he'd thought and it helped him understand Vincent. He got to know Vincent and liked him and that motivated him to learn, to accept Vincent's femininity and that men can be feminine. But his parents know him, love him, and yet they only accept his sexuality if it's invisible, ignorable. Vincent's parents have started to come around, but not because he ever compromised, made himself more palatable. He never toned his personality down for Edwin either; only Edwin changed.

"Vincent thinks you need to push and provoke, too."

Guido laughs. "That does not surprise me at all. I was more surprised that you like someone so unapologetic and confrontational, but I guess opposites attract."

"Because I'm not so confident and feminine and knowledgeable?"

"No, I think you're plenty confident and knowledgeable. But you're not one for the spotlight. You're accommodating, you appease people. Based on that one evening I've spent with him, Vincent didn't seem like the type to do that."

"Oh. No, he isn't. I didn't like it when I met him. I still don't understand why push so much. Why not just exist?"

"But we are just existing," Marc joins in, sitting down at their little table. "Except other people think we are pushing because we don't want to be a secret that's only for adults or ignore that we have had to fight for our rights and most of the world still has to fight. We still need to fight. Until last year, we weren't allowed to donate blood. Your guy is transgender, so he has even more fights."

"I know that," Edwin replies, annoyed. "That's politics. But when you're not an activist, you don't need to push. Everyone can just mind their own business."

"But that's the problem," Leo counters. "People don't mind their business. Have you never been told that kissing in public is shoving it in people's faces?"

"People really think that?"

"You clearly haven't kissed Vincent in public very often," Marc jokes.

"Uh." Edwin suddenly feels shy. He doesn't want to say he's a little scared, to hold hands or kiss or hug Vincent in public, that he hasn't been able yet to stop caring about the possible judgement. Because he's a coward who has only recently gained the courage to kiss Vincent when he's surrounded by gay people.

"You don't have to," Guido says. "God knows there are enough homophobes whose attention you don't want to attract."

"I got called some slurs a few weeks ago," Leo says casually, "when I was out with friends. It's those sorts of incidents that make me want to annoy the hell out of the straights."

"Damn right," Marc agrees. "If we need to deal with their judgement, they need to deal with us trying to be louder. I'm not gonna let them silence us."

"You don't owe them anything," Guido tells Edwin. "You don't owe them the comfort of fitting their expectations."

"Vincent said that, too."

"Vincent's a wise guy." Edwin smiles and nods. 'Wise' is not the word he'd use, but Vincent can be keen and observant. If there's one piece of advice Edwin needs to take to heart, it's that he should care a little less about the opinions of the people who don't care about him.

"I think it's about more than their discomfort," Leo says. "They want to discredit us by saying we're too aggressive, too annoying, not polite enough, we want too much. But you can't change anything if you're only allowed to play by the rules of the oppressor."

"You need to go out and demand what you deserve," Marc agrees. "Sometimes you need to be aggressive because they certainly didn't listen when we asked nicely while we were dying from Aids."

Patrick has left the TV screen as well and scrapes his chair over the floor. "Asking nicely only works if they play by the same rules and respect you as a person. And the bigots will never truly respect us, no matter how nice and similar we try to be."

"Well said." Guido lifts his empty glass in a toast. Edwin lifts his glass as well, but he doesn't listen as the conversation moves on. There is a strange knot in his chest, a discomfort that his friends are right. There is really nothing he can do. No matter what, people like his old teammates, his parents, won't look at him the same way ever again. They will never respect him, even if he contorts himself to fit their expectations. Because he can never fit the one true requirement: that he's always been straight and that he never even doubted that.