"I'm sure someday I'll be able to share at least some of my powers with my friends and loved ones, or find new ones, and when I do you'll be able to eat nice stuff as much as your heart desires."

"Don't say that before you know my dreadful appetites. Sushi as a cuisine may never recover from the violence I will do to it."

"And if I told you I have access to infinite sushi?"

"...catch me when I'm actually hungry and I will test that claim."

"Very well. And until then I have Baileys gelato." Insert appropriate narration here.

Right, desserts. And tea. It's all very pleasant.

"You know, I kind of know, uh, more about you," and he points at Edmund with his spoon, "as a set of traits than I know you as a, like." Vague spoon wave. "An instantiation? Of those traits? If that makes sense. And getting to know each other is ostensibly one of the primary functions of dates. Which is a roundabout way to ask, tell me more about yourself?"

"Oh, God. I'm less bad at this part than Peter is, but that's really not saying much... I enjoy various media that you're even less likely to know anything about than the average person? I aspire to politics but less because I want to be a politician and more because if only people who wanted to be politicians went into politics the world would be even worse than it is? I, um, like you a lot even though I actually know significantly less about you than vice versa?"

"Have I not been a sufficiently open book?" he asks, grinning, and oh the irony might kill him. "I used to be substantially more masc than this a few weeks ago, that's definitely something you don't know about me. Here's what I used to look like, actually." He kept the same phone he used to have and somehow he still has access to the pictures he'd stored in the cloud so he has selfies.

Glance.

"Wow. I... want to say something mildly insensitive about that picture, and while I actually don't think it's out of line given how you act and behave, I do want to give you a chance to shoot it down."

"Go ahead, now I'm curious."

"I'm very glad you've got a body and an aesthetic you find more personally fitting but if you'd walked through my door looking like that I'd have been paralyzed trying not to physically lick you the second I saw you."

...he grins. "I still have access to it, you know. I could still look like that. In fact, when getting all this magic, I specifically made sure to keep the ability to get back to that. That face and body are..." Shrug. "Mine."

"I am growing pretty fond of this one, though. I might feel like it's 'mine', too, eventually. But—look away for a second?"

Obligingly, Edmund looks away.

(After a second, their waitress looks in the same direction curiously.)

Very narratively convenient. "You can look back."

Edmund obliges.

"How'd - oh. It wasn't makeup. And - and. Oh."

He takes a steadying breath.

"I still like that broad-shouldered American football boy look. But yes, fair point."

"I absolutely like the broad-shouldered American football boy look, too. Well, American soccer and swimming boy look. I was—am—really hot. Am I allowed to say that? I am, right? And—so, lest I leave you with the wrong impression, it's not that I'm any more comfortable with any given gender presentation. I thought I was cis; turns out what I am instead is someone who wants other people to be really really confused. So I do not actually feel any dysphoria in that other shape."

"...well, that's odd enough that I think any shape you take on will confuse me from here on out, so it sounds like it's a win for all parties."

Pause.

"Also, you're still an American football boy if you play football and you're American, you're just not an American football boy."

"Granted, granted. And now I'm of a mind to switch to that face to kiss you. It feels—appropriate—for our first kiss to be wearing my real face. Not here, of course, with onlookers, but."

"Oh. I'd... really like that, actually."

Edmund smiles at his teacup.

Pete grins. "But you're going to have to introduce me to this place's obscure fiction at some point. You can't just tease the character-revealing moments like that."

"Oh God. Are you willing to watch all seven seasons of Kill Six Billion Demons on my laptop? Because-"

"Hang on. How far does that time dilation of yours go? Could we watch seven seasons of Kill Six Billion Demons on my laptop tonight? I'm not suggesting it, to be clear."