Face Reveal

 

@bermuda_octagon974 1 day ago
13:56 omg Mandel on the LP is such a good idea, i know you only meant it as a joke but fr i think you should do it

19:55 lmao I used hamachi too

▴ 6 replies
@iNeedAFatTailToWag 1 day ago
They're finally moving in together lol

@JoHNwoods 1 day ago
THEY'RE NOT GAY PLEASE STOP WITH THIS CONSPIRACY THEORY .🚫 NOT .🙅‍♂️ GAY .🙅‍♂️

@GerschwinImpact 1 day ago
Idk about Screw but Mandel is in fact gay, he's said it multiple times

@27529hUmUlinone 1 day ago
@JoHNwoods Are you okay?

@Quiett4564 23 hours ago
Why is he friends with RockDivine then?

@__L1AR 22 hours ago
@Quiett4564 He did two sponsored videos with him come on , be serious
Also get your facts straight , RockDivine is cool with gay people . And defamation is punished by law ….

 

---

 

 

The thing about stories was that most of them made me feel weird. Excluded. Alien. Most of the time, they don’t even talk about trans people; they assume we do not exist. To the extent that they don’t talk about cis people either, they cannot conceptualise their existence. There are just people. ‘Normal’ people. There isn’t even the pretence of care.

But throughout this past week, very occasionally and with careful guidance, I had succeeded in finding something worthwhile.

Since Sam and Alex had shared some stories about trans people on the Gayvencraft group chat, I’d gained something of an obsession. Negligence in editing became a regular feature of my uploads. Granted, no one had really noticed, but I knew. Instead of checking my work over at least five times, I had preferred to do it only once or twice, then I would slack off and enjoy some stories. And still I didn’t regret it one bit. Each and every time, I was surprised at how much my experiences aligned with the characters. That was the case for realistic settings, of course, but the roots of my discomfort had never been about fantasy either. Even when the characters travelled to different worlds and lived wonderful adventures I wouldn’t ever live, they had some kind of internality, some kind of personal background that just clicked with me. Apparently, if you search long enough, trans stories are a thing that exists. Why had nobody told me about it?

Probably because it was too risky. Coming out was too risky, having widely known stories about us is too risky. And thus we hide.

It was the same for me, I was hiding. There were only a handful of people who really knew me, and it was too risky to extend that group.

I think that’s also why, at that moment, I’d started reading so much more. Even when the stories were merely tangentially related to trans themes or ridden with bad tropes — the ones where the protagonist likes girls at the start but magically ends up liking guys the instant she turns into a girl were the bane of my existence — I was furiously curious. Finally, I was reading stories about people like me. I hid myself, but I was no longer alone. And that made all the difference.

The way Sam and Alex had initially brought up the subject was a bit funny. In one of our chaotic discussions on LGBT subjects, they’d mentioned their imaginary girlfriends again. Alessia and Amy were apparently both trans girls, and for the two scheming goblins, it was of the utmost necessity to do thorough and thoughtful research to reflect that. Which meant: reading trans stories, playing trans games, watching trans shows, and lots of them.

Sam was the more assiduous student. He had read a few hundred thousand words in the span of three months, absolutely devouring every piece of writing he’d find. And cutely enough, he would read the best ones to Alex at bedtime — in order to determine this, he’d set up a list of criteria, which included the amount of handholding involved and whether the story contained the line ‘the girl in the mirror was… me.’

But that didn’t mean Alex was passive in the process. He had actually dipped his toes into writing. He tried writing poems, vignettes, and a few loose drafts for longer stories, trying to put himself in the shoes of Alessia — ‘writing from the point of view of my own girlfriend felt weird, so I stopped. I prefer to immerse myself in a character who is completely removed from me, to explore the topic more freely’ had been his words, minus the typos (he’d written ‘I sotpoped’ instead of ‘stopped’). But he hadn’t shared his work yet, arguing that it felt too personal for the moment and that it stood solely as a pragmatic endeavour, the goal of which was simply to avoid being outed on Covencraft.

In the end, it meant they offered me the perfect gateway to trans fiction. Books, webcomics, films, shows, you name it; they had recommendations for everything! And Sam couldn’t stop spouting titles of more obscure stories. He’d be shocked to learn that they were all saved in a document on my desktop.

The astoundingly eggy behaviour they radiated did not escape my notice. Those two did not sound very cisgender. But I was kind of afraid telling them would sound rude and rushed. How would they react? Would they deny it? Could they lash out? Was I even right in my assessment? Perhaps they have already thought about it and concluded it wasn’t a thing. They could find it rude to question them. The risk seemed too high. Considering this, my first instinct was to let them explore at their own pace.

In retrospect, it felt silly, dumb, absolutely pea-brained of myself that I’d spent so much time, so many years, being afraid. Afraid of a cartoon with a girl protagonist, afraid of a game featuring a sapphic girl, afraid of a book that had the displeasure of not having a boy in the centre of the plot.

They were just stories. Why should I have ever been scared of them? What was so devious about them?

Because then he would’ve been jealous, envious, sad. He would have declined, he would have become bitter, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to be sweet. So he’d stayed away, far away. Any deviation, any fantasies, any questioning would have killed him.

Too many risks. He, too, had hidden himself.

But there she was now, reading them whenever she had the occasion. She loved projecting herself in those fantasies. It wasn’t a source of jealousy anymore. It was a place of comfort. After so much meandering, she had finally found stories about her. About me.

My heart was still basking in the bliss of the reunion with my girlfriend, cuddling her to death in my bed, my eyes locked on my screen, reading about a magical but slow transformation — a sort of fantasy equivalent of HRT, if you will; it was one of my favourite ways of mixing fantasy with a tinge of real life — and gasping every time the main character said something I surprisingly related to on a deep level. Which happened more than once.

That wasn’t my only newfound obsession. Dell was clearly stealing most of my attention. (In the end, she did not keep ‘Lullubelle’ as a name because she’d had the idea of renaming a cow like that on CovenCraft — don’t ask me why.) She was nestled between my legs, listening to some kind of rock tune in her headset, and singing a few disjointed lyrics under her breath from time to time. I was resting my phone on the summit of her head — she had pouted when I did that, but in the end, she didn’t mind — and took advantage of that position to give her a peck on the neck every so often.

In the material I was diligently studying, romance played a big part. And each and every time I stumbled onto a scene that brushed the deepest reaches of my romantic heart, I felt a growing need to reflect those feelings outward. And each and every time, Dell was the receiver of my surplus of love; I would read a kiss scene, feel overwhelmed with bubbly emotions, stop reading for a few minutes, put my phone to the side, press my forehead against her, and repeat her name adoringly. She smelled good. I had forgotten how good she smelled.

Her anxiety about her appearance flared up again a few times since we’d settled in bed. Her dysphoria was preparing for trouble and making it double. And it was almost as frustrating as the geometry of Delaware’s northern border. Although I knew that sometimes even my most genuine words of reassurance weren’t enough, I couldn’t help but want to scream at her how cute she was. How could she possibly refute that simple fact of life?

She had paused her music and let her headphones slide down her neck. “It won’t even work,” she half-whispered to herself. “This is going so fast. I want this, but I didn’t think it through. It’s obvious it won’t work.”

Baffling. Unfathomable. Offensive. 

I opened my mouth to speak, but she continued before I could say a single word.

“You’re all…” She shuffled to get a better look at me and cleared her throat. With each word, I heard it tie itself back. “You’re all small and slender. It’s like you have been made for this, like your body knew and, like, adjusted itself all on its own.” 

This was going too far.

“I—”

I gently cupped her cheek in my palm. “Dell, babe, my love, my girlfriend,” I said cheekily. With the hint of a blush starting to form, she reached for my shirt, buried her head inside, and groaned. “Aww. There, there. We really need to hammer down how adorable you are. You're starting to sound like Zee.

“First!” My hands wrapped around her neck and my mouth got close to one of her ears. “Your face is round and adorable and I love it. Compared to all the angles I got — not that angles are all that bad either — you look feminine, trust me.”

I paused, taking another look at her. My words were effective. I giggled and got back to work.

“And your voice. It’s got so much potential. It’s shocking how much you can already modulate it. I’m sure that with a bit more training you’ll beat even Zee and her breathtaking vocal skills…” I trailed off with a dreamily exhale. But, before I got lost thinking about Zee's lovely soprano for too long, I faked a cough and proceeded, “And that’s without mentioning your adorable squeaks—” Hearing my words, her hands clutching my shirt needily, she demonstrated this wonderful skill of hers again. “Yes, just like that! It melts me, you have no idea.” I smiled broadly and gave her a peck on the forehead. “You look very, very cute, I promise. Trust me, hm?”

“Fine,” she whimpered. “Understood. Please, this is— Whoaw. I don’t know if I can take it anymore. It’s okay, I got it.” She paused. “Goddess, since when am I getting so flustered?” she added under her breath.

My only answer was to grant her another kiss, this time in the back of her ear, then stay there to whisper “One day, I hope you’ll see yourself as I see you. You deserve that. But take your time, babe. We don’t have to rush this. We don't have to rush anything.”

Naturally, a few minutes after that, those words had escaped my mind like a villager from a trading hall, and we decided we would go to the endocrinologist the Gayette recommended in order to get a prescription each. Tomorrow.

But before that, I have to talk about the night we were about to share together. The first night we would ever share together.

Previously, I’d been the one sneakily turning down her offers to stay the night at her flat. She would propose to cuddle for a while longer after watching an episode; she would ask if I wouldn’t mind going under the blanket to get more cosy and warm; or she would say how tired I looked and invite me to take a nap — she would even sleep on a mat if I didn’t feel like sharing the bed. But whatever the suggestion she’d put forth was, I refused. And in hindsight, it was very clear why: I had felt ugly and gross, and I was too afraid that these feelings would intensify during the night. The risk had been too high. I had hidden.

But now? The simple prospect of it had me feeling like a herd of Minecraft cows spotting a bundle of wheat in the hand of their owner. I’d been shifting nervously with excitement since the moment I went to reassure her following the annoying discussions on the server. She had briefly floated the idea, and I immediately jumped on it. And when the time to switch off the lights finally came, when we gingerly slid off underneath the softest blanket mankind had ever fabricated, when I grabbed Dell from behind and nuzzled her hair, my heart burst in fuzz and bliss, and I let out my happiest sigh. If I could make it through that night without melting through the mattress, it'd be a miracle.

“Hey,” Dell whispered, a tad muffled by the pillow she was holding on. “Yesterday, when we met in the stairwell—”

“Oh.” I pulled myself out of her raspberry-scenting hair. “Is this about the waffle thing?” I was hoping she hadn’t remembered.

“Ah,” she stammered. “No.” 

Phew. I was safe.

She mumbled something I couldn’t make out and chortled. “But no. I just wanted to say that I didn’t recognise you. I mean, I eventually got it, you still have your very… particular sense of fashion.”

“Hey!” I bonked her in protest.

She giggled, then continued, “Lake, you’ve changed.”

My heart swelled once more, and I grew an indomitable smile.

“And like— For fuck sake, Lake, you look hot. Your hair, your face. Ugh—” She turned to face me, gaining a premium view of my red cheeks. “There, better.” 

“Thank you, Dell. You’re pretty, too.”

“We’re both pretty,” she said with a giggle, sleepiness starting to make her slur words.

“Yeah.”

“It’s— It’s nice.”

I chuckled and touched her nose with mine. “Yeah, it is.”

“I’m happy, Lake— Ah, have you thought about a new name? Like, not something sour— sourced by Zee?”

“Oh.” I had. “I think I’d like to go with Celia a bit.”

“Eee!” she half-shouted, like she was trying to not wake up our neighbours. “My girlfriend’s name is Celia?” She ended my name — my name! — in a high note, sounding cute and a bit high.

“Yeah,” I replied with a grin as I nestled closer to her. “It is. Now, let’s sleep.”

“Yeag,” she slurred, marking a pause between each word. “Sleeb… You know what? I want a prebby— A pretty dress. I looove youuu…”

It wasn’t the first time I imagined her in a dress. By a long shot. And Zee had some responsibility for that fantasy. But it still held as much power as it first had. Dell and I, in dresses. Oh, I wanted that so badly. And as if to signify this desire, I wrapped a leg around one of hers, ever so gently. “I love you too. Let’s find a dress tomorrow,” I whispered.

We snuggled under the blanket, still facing each other. I turned off my phone. She pressed herself against me and plucked my hand to press it against her chest. She felt cold. It was soothing. Then slowly, we fell asleep.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

When the morning came, Dell overslept, drooling her much-deserved bonus slumber tucked in bed, and I started collecting all the ingredients needed to bake her the surprise I’d been dreaming of.

The first time I’d baked her waffles, it had been almost incidental. She had some basic waffle dough on hand and a waffle maker. I had the time and the skills. And she’d been in need of some reassurance. It had done the trick.

But now, it was such a joy.

I cut myself short of tearing apart the cupboard’s door. In my giddiness, I hadn’t noticed the sheer energy I was channelling into its handle. Not that I was strong enough to actually do any substantial damage, but I was really worried about waking up my girlfriend. So before starting to mix the ingredients together, I’d unfolded a towel on the counter to muffle any noise. I proceeded like a cat sneaking its way to the secret place where the food was hidden without her owner noticing it — swift, precise, and absolutely quiet. You could hear a Minecraft bat flapping its wings three chunks away. Or not. Because, unfortunately, Minecraft bats weren’t a thing in our plane of existence. Yet.

The prior evening, when I went to Dell’s flat to soothe her after the ruckus on the CovenCraft Discord, I’d taken advantage of the opportunity to surreptitiously acquire Dell’s waffle maker, but I got caught red-handed. She only snorted at the sight, asking no further questions. I supposed she had found it absurd. Which surely meant she didn’t know and my plan was still flawless.

I popped the machine open, plugged it in, and started delicately pouring the dough. Every so often, I would glance over at my girlfriend only to see her adorning various sleeping positions: snoring loudly, her arms and legs splayed over the mattress; snuggling the blanket like dear life, practically eating the fabric; and I even saw her head slipping between the two pillows and becoming miserably covered by one of them for a solid minute. I had seen it all. But I don’t think I ever perturbed her sleep, apart from that one time when I instinctively started humming a tune from Celeste, and for a second I thought I heard her humming it back.

Two Brussels’ waffles, light and warm, and almost perfect. They were missing only one ingredient. I opened the sack I had bought at the grocery store the day prior, took a handful, and lifted the plate hiding the two waffles — it had provided a good way to mask the scent and prevent it from waking Dell too early. I propped the two waffles onto smaller plates in order to finish the topping. Still watching my every step, I generously covered the whole thing with a bit of icing sugar and some syrup, then gently deposited the fresh raspberries on each of them. Gosh, that smells good. 

The result made me a bit proud, and I couldn’t help but snap a picture of it.

There, saved.

I was not the type of person who took a lot of pictures. Yet, this moment seemed important to me. Learning that we were still together, but as girls, was important. Learning what had made our relationship so difficult up until now was important. Learning my girlfriend was even cuter than I thought was important. That’s why I’d marked our reunion date on my calendar with an event called ‘❤️’.

I was absolutely smitten with her.

She was still sleeping, so I turned on my computer, hoping the fruity aroma slowly filling the room would be enough to wake her up. I opened Celeste, and I played, my attention turning from ‘strictly focused on not perturbing my girlfriend’s sleep’ to ‘lunging forward in my seat and really, really not wanting to fall in this pit and fail the level for the sixth time’. After a while, I took a pause from repeating the same mistake over and over and made my character crouch repeatedly while figuring out the best route—

“With the amount of squats you make her do, Madeline has to have an enormous ass…”

I screamed, I yelped, I eeped, my controller escaping my grasp like a creeper afraid of a cat.

In response, Dell giggled, putting a few fingers in front of her mouth like a princess.

Though you could argue whether it was a residue of my surprise or a simple natural reaction to hear a giggle so pure, my heart was pounding loudly as I turned to face her. She was sporting a cute, oversized white t-shirt that could almost be mistaken for a dress. Much to my embarrassment, she had already put on a bit of makeup, which meant I was so focused on my game I hadn’t even heard her waking up and going to the bathroom. What it also meant was that she looked splendid.

I leaned on the low end of my voice. “Hey.”

“Hi!” she replied.

She stood there. Looking absolutely adorable. And one thing made itself abundantly clear: I couldn’t wait any longer. I lifted my right arm to cup her cheek. She brushed aside a strand of my hair to clear the way, then closed her eyes. And I kissed her.

There’s something to say about morning kisses. They weren’t living up to my expectations. I thought the moment would be magical and explosive, giving me energy for the rest of the day. But let me ruin it all with two words: morning breath. 

And now let me rebuild it better with sixty-nine words: the moment was so intimate that even a mild case of bad breath proved irrelevant compared to feeling the shape of her lips and melting under the warmth of her needy pants. And the alternative — not kissing my girlfriend in the morning? What the hell? — was ludicrous. So, although the experience was somewhat jarring at first, when I got used to it, I revelled in my girlfriend's morning lips.

“I’ve made something for you,” I said, letting her go for a second, then kissing her again. To see her flushed face one more time.

When she finally had room to speak, she gasped and put her hand in front of her mouth. “You’ve made something for me?! Oh Goddess, I wonder what it is.”

I kept my tone a tad husky. “You’ll find out soon enough.” 

She snorted. “I really hope it’s not waffles with raspberries, ‘cause I’m really allergic to raspberries, you know?”

My pitch immediately jumped up half an octave. “You are? Crap, I—”

“I’m joking, silly. I know exactly what you’ve made because you admitted it to my face. Twice.”

“That— that is true.”

“Also, you’re not very good at maintaining a hot voice. You gotta keep your composure, girl. Though that being said, maybe not? Because you’re adorable like that.”

Crap, that wasn’t the intended effect. “I’m still learning. I’m not used to this. You kinda left a power vacuum.”

“Cute.” She giggled again and lifted me by the hand before sitting down on a chair and looking at me expectantly.

That earned a grumble from me, but I nodded, knowing instantly what to do. I stretched my arms behind my back, then made my way to the kitchen, took the two plates, and served them on my comically small table. “Waffles,” I just said.

“Waffles!” she exclaimed, drooling.

And without waiting an additional agonising second, I munched on the waffle, and all the little strawberry nodules exploded all at once, spraying slightly acidic, fruity juice all over my palate.

“Celia,” Dell said, looking at me with beads of water gathering up in the corner of her eyes, “I fucking love you.”

Heat rose to my head. Not only because of the words of affection, but also because, I had to admit, I'd kind of forgotten having told her about Celia. But the second I heard that name, I felt fuzzies all over my stomach again.

“I— I love you too, Dell.”

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

When I was younger, I used to lock myself in my room to play Minecraft at the slightest sign of rain. It was almost a family tradition; my parents knew that if it rained, I had free computer time. That way, the rain was a sign of comfort for me. When it came down — and Belgian skies be praised, it often did — I could escape reality for a while and get in the zone. Yet, during the past few weeks, I didn’t even feel the need. The association has started to fade out. Maybe there was something to say about feeling at home with one's gender and not needing to seek refuge elsewhere as much anymore.

Today though, I wouldn't be making that argument. How I wish we had stayed inside a while longer to avoid the rain. The cold drizzle gliding right into my face was enough of a nuisance to make me blink every so often, but too meagre for an umbrella to feel necessary. Yet another reason for me to get glasses. But at least the sun was near and approaching, already shining through the clouds. And when I turned in the direction from which the wind and rain came, I could see the sky being fully cleared a few kilometres to the west, on the other side of the valley. A bit of hope.

EEY. “Eey.”

“Mm-hmm.”

XIV. “Xiv.”

“Lift your larynx.”

BXM. “Buh-Xum.”

“Bring a bit of that soft quality I talked about earlier.”

KRT. “Kruh-t.”

“Right. And now lift your pitch a bit more.”

GJR. “Guh-jar.”

“Okay, we have to train your schwa sound; it’s not quite there yet. Listen.” I paused, waiting for the right plate to demonstrate my point. OZN. “Ozuh-n,” I said, with my best girl voice.

“Wow, you can go super high! And it’s so pretty… I want to do that!”

“Oh! Hold it. That’s exactly the quality you're looking for.”

“I want to do that,” she repeated. “I. Want. To. Do. That?”

“Yes.”

“I want to do that,” she continued, letting each sound linger for a while. “I want to do that!”

“You’re doing great. Now, keep that and try to read that licence plate.”

“Ass,” she said in a sing-song voice. Then she realised my trick, turned, and glared at me. I stuck out my tongue. “Ass,” she repeated with the same tone, shooting daggers at me.

I stifled a laugh. “You’re killing it. Well done. Now, I think I hear your vocal folds are straining a bit. That’s not good. Let’s call it a day for now?”

“Mm-hmm, and I’m getting worried that people will look at us weird for making strange sounds. And also… Since I’m… boy… clothes… wearing…”

“Fair. Very fair.”

The streets in this part of the city were still sleeping as we travelled through them, reading licence plates out loud, practising feminising our voices. In the list Marie had provided in one of her leaflets, there were two doctors in the city centre and one in the outermost neighbourhood — quite near where Dell and I lived, actually — and since I had shuddered thinking about the former, we were making our way towards the latter.

The path to get to our destination went through a denser area with a shopping street that was unfortunately a mandatory place to go through. First, because the alternatives would make us late for the appointment, but also because the pharmacy was located there, so we would have to make a stop on the way back. And maybe, just maybe, we could use the opportunity to look for a dress. Maybe.

Some of the streets we crossed had sidewalks thinner than an End Rod, forcing us to move in line or dangerously close together. We rubbed against each other more than once, trying to stay on the pavement. And the moment our hands touched, they locked immediately.

She had been my girlfriend for weeks and I knew her for years, but even then, holding hands in public — although the streets were empty — made my heart flutter. Maybe that was because she had put a bit of light pink nail polish on them before going out. And I’d asked her to do the same for me, making us match.

We took a sharp turn to the right, arriving in the more commercial part of the area. When we saw the number of people go from zero to a staggering amount of three, we let go of each other.

“Celia?”

The name felt right. It felt so right. Oh, the butterflies would never fade away, would they?

“Celia?” she repeated.

“Yes,” I said, turning to face her with my still-dopey smile. “What is it?”

“Do you…” she started, then paused and sighed. “Do you plan to come out? To YouTube?”

“Ah, I don’t know. No? Not now, at least. I feel it’s way too early for this. But I’d like to do it one day, maybe after this season?”

I would rather get misgendered a bit if it meant I could continue doing videos in peace and secure my place on the server. It sucked, but as long as I could be me IRL, keeping it a secret online wasn’t too much of a bother. Coming out now, at the start of such an important project, was too risky.

The most strategic option was to hide.

“After this season? That’s like, in a year? I don’t know if I can wait that long…”

“Wait, when did you plan to come out?”

“Erm, honestly, I just want to have a good enough voice for YouTube. So, in a few weeks tops? I’m not worried that much about the few bigots on CovenCraft. I can tank them. It was Skel’s words about the size of our channel that convinced me. Sure, it’ll be a rocky start—” she chuckled, “—but I’m pretty sure I won’t be kicked, and I’m hoping that me coming out could lead to a positive outcome for others like Sam and Alex.”

I frowned. “Yesterday, you were crumbling in my arms because of the conversation on the server. How are you so level-headed about this now?”

She grinned. “Because you’re there.”

Oh, my heart.

“Ah, yes,” is what I wanted to say. But it came out more as a collection of queer sounds haphazardly stringed together than a coherent reply. It required scrambling the remains of my brain and reforming it to its original shape to the best of my ability to be able to speak again. “And you said you’d do that in a few weeks? Okay, yeah, okay. That's fast.”

“I mean, I am a Celeste speedrunner,” she said with a snark. “Plus, I've already kind of come out to my parents, and I was thinking—”

“You did what?”

“I've sorta come out to my parents,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck in embarrassment, like it was the most simple thing in the world. “They asked me what's been wrong these past few days, and I told them. I tell them everything, you know?”

“That's… Wow. Congrats. That’s huge. How did it go?”

“They didn’t expect it, but they took it very well. My mum was a bit worried about me being a woman because of all the new problems I could come across and all. It was a bit whiplashy and out of place, but it stemmed from good intention. So overall, I think it went the best it could.”

“I never talk to my parents like that,” I said, with a tinge of sadness. Of course, I had wondered how mine would react, but always procrastinated on taking any kind of concrete action. I always felt like there was a barrier between us. “We vaguely keep in touch, sure, but it's surface-level stuff. I always feel like we missed a step along the way, and now we can't have… meaningful conversations.”

She hummed a curt ‘hmm-hm’. She’d always hum a curt ‘hmm-hm’ when she wanted to communicate her thoughtfulness but didn't know exactly what word to use. I liked her ‘hmm-hm’s.

“I guess I can try starting with them,” I carried on. “From there, I could work up the courage to come out to the server, if it goes alright. And it should. There's no reason my parents would react negatively. They’re cool. They knew you were gay and never said anything about us hanging out. Erm, is that okay to say? That you were ‘gay’?”

“Well, in many ways, I'm still gay—” she waggled her eyebrows in my direction, “—but I do like guys so I don't know.” She shrugged. “Heh, it's fine. Don't worry too much, love.” And just like that, she grabbed my arm in an affectionate squeeze.

I giggled and gave her arm a squeeze of my own. “If I had come out to one of them, it would be my mum first. I think she would be more receptive, and I'm scared to make things weird with dad. He might very well not understand at all. But with Mum to help me…”

“You know, I could come with you and—”

“Oh, hold it.” I stopped walking and put a finger on her lips. “You have helped me enough these past few days.” She stared at the finger, starting to cross her eyes. “If I feel like I need a hand, I can ask Zee if she wants to come with me — or even Marie, or Gwenn. And if they don’t want to, then I'll ask you.”

“Fine,” she grumbled, then she smirked for a brief instant, like she’d just had the most brilliant idea. Then she ‘kissed’ my finger with an extra dose of saliva.

I immediately took it out and laughed.

After having appropriately cleaned off my finger, I resumed walking, and she followed. But it didn’t last long.

“I want to spend more time with her…” Each of her words came quieter than the last until she trailed off, stopping in her tracks.

I turned my head towards our path again, searching for what had left Dell speechless, and I was confronted with one of the most wonderful dresses I'd ever seen.

It was an exaggeration, of course. The dress was fairly standard: knee-length, yellow with green accents, and floral designs all over. But seeing that piece of clothing, knowing that you could wear it, wondering how it would look on you, how it would feel at the touch. That was an experience I'd never had.

Dell seemed to have been caught by another enrapturing dress in the same storefront as me. Which meant that neither of us were able to break the other's fixation with a call, a nudge, a pinch, or a little wave of the hand in front of the other’s eyes. It was only after hearing the step of an unassuming passer-by that we realised our state and began our walk once again. You could see our embarrassment in our gaits.

“We should try to go inside and browse clothes eventually,” Dell insisted.

“We should. I agree. Let's try later. After the doctor?”

“Alright.”

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

The appointments were much less anxiety-inducing than our worst fears had led us to believe.

The doctor worked in a huge house — probably some kind of repurposed manor of some sort — with a group of other doctors and medical practitioners. The walls were mostly made of that particular kind of red brick you could find everywhere north of Paris up until Manchester, with white stripes of limestone coursing them horizontally. Ivy had taken control of a third of the facade and could easily eat the rest if it wanted to. Inside, the waiting room looked like a normal lounge from any rich family’s house. In a way, it was very close to a baby's first Minecraft mansion.

We were both sitting in the waiting room, our hormone prescriptions slightly crumpled on the sides, every additional second of patience adding a fold. But our respective reasons for our constant shuffling were different.

Dell had been called by the doctor first, and since she left the office and sat back down in the waiting room, she was a little cube of excitement, dangling her legs and playing with the hem of her sweater, with a permanent smile plastered on her face. She was reading her prescription one more time. As for me, I was extremely anxious about The Dress.

See, there are distinct levels of human interaction. Walking by someone on the street is the simplest of them; it only requires you to worry about the way you dress and the way you move. Doing the groceries might inflict on you the displeasure of using your voice and making purchase decisions that the cashier could potentially judge. They could stare, scowl, or worse, make a remark. Going to a medical professional is almost the riskiest kind. You will have to discuss your personal life at great length and probably expose parts of your body. But at least, unlike going clothes shopping, you can come prepared.

Going clothes shopping today wasn’t prepared at all. And even though I so desperately wanted to try that dress we’d come by earlier, my mind was also desperately aware of all the steps ahead of us still required to get to that part.

I breathed in.

And out.

You’ve done way more embarrassing stuff in the last few weeks, Celia. You can do it.

“Sorry it took so long,” the secretary said, lifting their head from a computer. They’d been encoding our next appointment, in a couple of months from now. “Miss Peeters, Miss Roose, you’re free to go!” they chirped with a smile. They came to us, shook our hands, then opened the door for us and bid us goodbye.

When I stepped outside, carefully getting down the set of seven steps standing in front of the doctor’s office, I felt the sun shine brightly on my face, and I couldn’t restrain myself from sneezing. That didn’t escape Dell’s notice, as she revelled in my humiliation with a giggle. But then she smiled, lunged at me, hugged me stupid, and said in my sweater “We made it. Congrats, Celia!” And after a careful glance left and right, she gave me a peck on the lips.

Holding back from going limp in her arms, I returned the hug and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “We still need to pick up the hormones,” I reminded her with a sigh.

“The pharmacy’s on the way home.”

“Yes. But there’s the…” I pressed my lips together for an instant, taking a big breath, then let them go with an anxious click. “The clothes.”

“Huh.” She let go of me and pondered for a moment. “Well, we’ll see about that when we arrive there. It’s also on the way.”

And we’d have to enter and say hello. I’d have to find the dress with absolutely no idea whether it would remotely look good on me. With each step, the risk of making a mistake would increase. We would be at the mercy of the shop attendants’ gaze and judgement. How on earth could—

It took me an embarrassing five seconds to notice my girlfriend had already begun walking and was looking at me expectantly, mouthing, ‘you coming?’ Her hand was stretched, welcoming me. I had to make a little run to catch up to her and hold it.

“I have another question,” she asked as we set off, and I nodded in response. “I saw you had some trouble in your last stream.”

I tilted my head in confusion. The stream had gone rather swimmingly, excluding the canine interloper.

“Well, okay, you may not have seen it because it went so fast and Craftees deleted the messages. But there were a lot of people asking about your private life and being very nosy about you. And about me, too,” she added after a pause. “More than usual, I mean. And I don’t like it. And I'm much more used to that kind of chat chaos than you. And one moderator is not a lot…” She looked at me sheepishly. “I was wondering if you needed a bit more help with that. You know, now that we are in the fem boat.”

I considered the offer. Since I’d declined her helping me to come out to my parents, I could at least agree to this. It was acceptable. “I guess that would help me a ton,” I said. “I’ll add you to the role in the next stream. And it’s true, Craftees has it a bit rough alone sometimes. Wait. Did you say ‘fem boat’? Was that just a way to make a pun?”

“Ah, no, no, no. You misunderstand.” She frowned and splayed her hands in mock offence. “I meant it. It was a genuine offer. Deep from within my heart. Chicks of a feather gock together!”

“Oh my god. Please, no. No, please stop. You've spent too much time with Zee. This new version of you is scary.”

“Alright, alright, I'll stop,” she conceded with a smirk.

We had decided — understand: she had led me — to take a different path for the way back, through the woods on top of a slag heap. It was a longer trek to the pharmacy, but we didn’t have an appointment to stick to anymore. While we wound down a tiny path through the sprawling vegetation, I was starting to feel the toll of the detour. My legs were burning and vibrating, like they were about to explode. To add insult to injury, Dell took a bottle of water out of her bag and started pouring its contents down her throat. She put the cap back on the bottle and slid it back in her bag, then flashed me an innocent smile.

“You know,” she started, “drinking while walking feels like being face-fucked by water…”

“PLEASE.”

She handed me the bottle, her smile renewed.

Maybe there was some sort of justice in the world. And maybe I was a bit cruel. Because in less than ten minutes, we were standing in front of the shop, and Dell’s cheerful and carefree demeanour had crumbled into pebbles.

I figured it was because she was still wearing mostly guy clothes and hadn’t had the courage to keep on the makeup from that morning. And even though, in my honest opinion, she looked positively gorgeous, she was probably starting to realise that people might assume she was a guy. Which would be wrong + preposterous + ratio.

“Erm… The pharmacy is only a few metres down the street, after all. So—” the word came out wobbly and long “—we could go there first and then come back here.”

“Agreed,” I answered with a firm nod. It was only logical to do clothes shopping last, after all. They can be very heavy compared to hormones.

We finally stopped staring at the storefront and made our way to the pharmacy.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

I was torn. In front of me, a three-metre-wide glass pane, and behind it was the dress. On my side, a plastic bag with a green plus sign printed on it. Should I tear apart the bag and drink all of the content from the bottles contained there, or headbut the window in front of us and steal all of the articles of clothing on display? Granted, the window was probably equipped with an alarm of some kind. And hormones in gel weren’t meant to be ingested. I opted to clutch Dell’s hand.

“You ready?” she asked.

Far from it. No matter how much I had replayed the sequence of actions necessary to accomplish the task — like going through a baking recipe — I froze and inhaled sharply each time we approached the doorstep. “Still need a bit more time,” I said, my voice trembling. “Can we do a tour around the block?”

Her shoulders relaxed immediately. “Sure. Yeah.”

I had never paid that much attention to her posture before, but it was becoming too hard to ignore. She had a way of bottling her fears, and I noticed its pattern. Her nails would dig into her headphone cushions, and her eyes would firmly stick to the ground. She was struggling as much as me, but she didn’t want to show it, like she held on to some sort of assurance she couldn’t quite muster anymore. 

“Good idea. Yeah,” she repeated as she started walking.

The big bush at the corner of the store hid a little alleyway nestled between two blocks. The place was covered by leafless trees, letting a sizable amount of light pass through while still casting an intricate pattern of tendril-looking shadows. Dell was scrutinising them intensely, trying to only walk in the areas of light. She was probably mulling over the challenge to come.

While we traversed the rest of the street, I gathered my courage. This was it. I couldn’t continue to postpone this task. It was self-care, it was the next step, it was not negotiable. I had to do it. And to buy clothes, you have to go outside and expose yourself to the world. There isn’t any alternative…

No, really, no way around it.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

“Okay, okay, add that one too.” She pointed at a cute pink skater dress on the screen. “I’m sure it will match perfectly with the bow from earlier. Yes. Same size as before.”

I clicked the button to add it to our basket.

“Sweet. Thank you!” She came closer to me and gave me a side-hug that almost toppled me over, but she didn’t even seem to notice. She was already pointing at another article of clothing. “And how about this skirt? That would look super cute on you!”

“Huh, I don’t know.”

“You should buy some things too. Just a pair of jeans isn’t serious!”

“They’re high-waist. Plus, there’s already nine items in the basket,” I said with a sigh as I turned towards her. “Don’t you think that’s enough?”

Dell huffed and faced me too, grabbing both my shoulders to make our gazes meet, then she shook her head disapprovingly. “You don’t understand. This is essential, you hear me? We’re starting everything over. We need a whole new wardrobe. Do you want to hang naked in the street? I think not!” She tapped my chest twice in rapid succession. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind, but people might look at you sideways, just so you know.”

I winced. “I can still wear my guy clothes.”

“Celia, you can’t— Do you really like them? Do you want to be a kind of tomboy girl? That’d be okay. Or—” she said the word with intent, marking a pause before asking, “—are you just afraid of testing new things?”

“Ugh. Fine!” I woke the laptop from sleep and searched for the exact dress I’d seen earlier, fighting a blush rising in my cheeks. When I found it, I selected my size and clicked on ‘add to basket’ without thinking twice. “There, happy?”

She beamed. “Yes. Good girl.” She patted me, and I became incoherent for six whole minutes. “Alright, now I also want some kind of sportswear; I don’t want to stop running…”

We continued our shopping session at a good pace, with every click leaving our wallets thinner. Though, viewers had been particularly generous with their donations in Dell’s last Celeste stream, where she had finally beaten the game in less than thirty minutes, so it was my wallet that took most of the toll.

The thought of our hormones waiting in the bag was at the forefront of my mind. I looked at the time — only ten minutes before the time we’d agreed to take our first dose. I looked at Dell, and when she noticed, she smiled, and I smiled back.

Dell searched for her wallet in order to pay — she had lost it again — while I opened my bank app to repay my part to her.

While waiting for her to enter her payment information, I switched to Discord for a few seconds.

#gayvencraft

GLGLOB (that’s me! arf!) _{Today at 04:22}
I’ve been sleeping since 3PM yesterday
Felt sad over what happened 😔
But I’m okay now!

GLGLOB (that’s me! arf!) _{Today at 04:48}
nini

Oh. Someone wasn’t alright.

“Babe, check the group chat.”

She did so. Initially, her eyebrows scowled, reading through the last few messages, then they relaxed; but she still looked sad. “Zee is so lonely…”

“I sent a hug emoji. It’s the least I can do.”

“I think I want to help her. I want to spend more time with her.”

“Me too. She’s so nice.”

“But you noticed it, right?”

“Noticed what?”

“What she did the other day, the way she acted… Keeping her distance away, staring, crying, hiding it. And that moment, when she pinned us against the wall, at the Gayette. It’s kind of obvious, no?”

I shut my eyes and frowned, trying to connect the dots. “You mean, the fact that—”

And suddenly, everything became clear.

“She has a crush on you!” we both exclaimed at the same time.

Our hands both clutched the blanket, and we took a sharp breath, still perfectly in sync.

“No, on you!” we continued, pointing at each other.

“She was with you the whole week, she is physically incapable of leaving your side,” I argued.

“She is looking at you like I look at a french fry cone!” she rebutted.

“You’re the one who’s mad pretty. I’m sure she makeover’d you into her type! And mine, admittedly,” I mumbled, fighting a blush.

“That doesn’t make any sense! She’s the one who taught you how to voice train in the first place. She clearly wanted to enable you to have her voice type.”

I stifled a yelp. “Alright. Fine! We’re equal. She likes us both. Happy now?”

“Yes. Very. Extremely so! But…”

“But the other day…”

“…after we kissed, she…”

“…went outside and…”

“…we’ve been so focused on our reunion so…”

“…we haven’t really talked to her since.”

“Oh no,” we both said.

We froze into position, our pupils widening and flickering like creepers ready to explode, and blush very apparent on both faces. This was definitely an unforeseen turn of events. But not an unwelcome one either.

“I— I could send her a message. Tell her to meet us soon?” Dell suggested.

“She might refuse if she has trouble seeing us together again. She can be a bit dense.” My eyes lost themselves on the wall for a few seconds before landing on the clock. I inhaled an excited breath. One minute left.

Dell pinched the bridge of her nose. “Goddess,” she groaned, “I forgot she thinks she’s a guy.” Like me, she must have recognised that we were now up against a challenge greater than everything we’d come upon before: making that adorable dumbass aware that it was alright for her to have a crush on one of us — or both.

“Well, you're gonna be with Zee a lot at the start of CC, right?" I asked her. In response, she nodded, smiling brightly at the thought. I got up from the bed, lifted the plastic bag containing our hormones, and started rummaging through it. "Then, if that’s alright with you, I think you should talk with her. Flirt with her!"

"W— Wait, you're okay with that?” she spluttered, doing a double take. “Polyamory and stuff? I thought you just wanted to speak with her to — I don’t know — ‘clarify’ things? Tell her we can stay good friends, but that you and I are already together and such…"

I grabbed two bottles of estrogen gel and tossed one to my girlfriend. "Of course I'm okay with that.” I had done my research. Sam and Alex had shared more than a story or two centred around that very subject. “In theory…”

The silence stretched and stretched until finally, very carefully, pondering each of her words, she asked “Do you have a crush on her?”

I did not.

Sure, she was a great friend, and she looked stunning half of the time and effortlessly pretty the other, and her voice was a delight. But that was nothing romantic. It was only an observation. A mere statement of fact. Sure, I wouldn’t mind spending time with her, taking care of her when she was down — or being taken care of when she had that hungry look. But those were all fine feelings to have towards a friend. Did that mean I wanted to get romantic with her? Did that mean I wanted to be her girlfriend? Did that mean I wanted to kiss her?

Fuck.

“Fuck.”

Some kind of tension visibly dissipated from Dell’s shoulders. She started to frantically shift from left to right on the bed, and she flashed me one of the most beautiful smiles I’d ever seen.

I huffed and removed the cap of my estrogen bottle. She gingerly followed in my steps.

And for a moment, we paused, looking at the tips of our bottles, then at the other’s eyes. We nodded, rolled up our sleeves, and pressed. A gooey, transparent, and cold — I did not yelp, shut up! — gel made contact with our forearms.

“If anything,” I continued with a sigh, using my other arm to spread out the gel, “it's her we'll have to worry about.” 

Dell was sloppier than me and accidentally made a bit of gel fall on the bed, but she delicately recovered most of it with her hand and laid it back on her arm.

When I felt like it was sufficiently spread out, I extended my arm to let it dry. “Since she hasn’t made any moves,” I said, “maybe she thinks it’s not even a possibility?”

“You’re right. We’ll have to take the initiative. And I think I can manage that, so I'll talk to her. It’s worth a try.”

“Exactly. Plus, I always wanted a dog."

Dell hid a giggle with her hand.

“Fuck,” she said in a lower pitch than usual, with what I could only assume was a frightening realisation dawning on her. “I put gel on my lips.”

“Larynx,” I warned her.

“No, no, no time for voice training, this might be bad. Real bad. What will happen? Do you think I’ll get lip boobies?”

I snorted and took her hands in mine.

“Or will my lips try to open a pickle jar and fail, and get all emotional and start to cry?”

I looked at her lips, then her eyes, then at her lips again. 

“Or— or will they—”

I made her collapse on the bed, making sure both our arms didn’t give my bed sheets any boobies.

“Oooh,” she said.

And I kissed her.

She squirmed for a moment, finding a comfortable position, then seized my lower back and brought me to her. Our bodies touched and shared their warmth.

She would see how bad I am at having a hot voice.

“Let’s find out together,” I said, “that worked pretty well thus far.”