Chapter Text
Junior high, in pieces:
His future friends would be shocked to learn of it, but seventh-grade Troy doesn’t actually like gym class. He knows he should, and maybe he would if he could cut the tag off his gym uniform. If the other guys would just quiet down for once. It’s not as bad as pep rallies (pep rallies are murder) but it’s no picnic either.
He keeps a safe distance from his classmates, knowing that they notice what everyone else notices. He does something weird, they laugh, rinse and repeat. Other than that, nobody really takes note of him. And, if you ignore the part of him that wants so badly for that to change, life passes by unaltered.
Until one day, it turns a corner.
It’s been about five months since Troy signed up for track, and he’s learned to ignore things.
It was his mom’s idea, to do after-school sports, and Troy thought that track would be best. He likes the feeling of brisk air against his skin. He’s not particularly strong yet, but he’s a decent enough runner. Plus, he’s allowed to wear his favorite sweatshirt, the one with hoodie strings and Spiderman on the front. As for the other kids, he didn’t figure they’d find him any odder than they already did.
He didn’t predict them finding him fun.
Track lessons have a smaller pool of participants, and there’s not much for a bunch of bored twelve-year-olds to do during downtime other than talk to each other. And so, when he had literally nothing else to do and the prospect of things going wrong felt less present, Troy talked to the other kids. Mostly the boys, because he knew what people thought about guys who prefer to hang out with girls.
At first, the other boys just paid him passing glances when he said anything to them. He’d ask them what video games they’d been playing, and they’d answer with a look that says “what’s it to you?”, which is what Troy expected. They didn’t like his lack of volume control, the way he’d wrings his hands when he thought nobody was looking, and they were especially weirded out by the way his eyes never met theirs.
And then, a shift.
As if a secret had been passed between them, the other boys started to go out of their way to chat with him. They’d ask him about his Spiderman sweatshirt, and he’d go on about comics until the instructor told them all it was sprinting time. They always looked at him (and at each other) with a look of quiet amusement. They’d ask him more and more questions, and smirk when he tumbled over his words.
Were they making fun of him? Troy was pretty sure the answer is yes, but he doesn’t want to consider that. He has friends now, and a lot of them were popular kids. And they’re starting to let him hang out with them at the cafeteria, starting to talk to him during class. Letting their circle open and softly nudging him in.
So who cares if they think he’s weird? Who cares if he’ll sometimes see them mimicking the way he flapped? Who cares if they explained everything like he was a toddler? Big deal. He could learn to ignore that, because it was all in good fun, right? Just a friendly joke between pals.
He doesn’t exactly have a choice. There’s nobody else approaching him at lunch.
Halfway through eighth grade, Troy throws out his Spiderman sweatshirt.
He’s been hanging out with his new friends a lot and they’ve started to rub off on him. He’s been copying the way they carry themselves, adjusting himself so that he doesn’t stick out. He takes after their crude jokes and feigns interest in their interests, because he figures his don’t matter as much.
And as he changes, he notices those around him do too. His friends stop talking to him like he’s five, and they don’t mock the ways he moves anymore, mostly because he’s stopped flapping his hands and making “freaky” noises.
He knows this isn’t ideal. He knows he should have friends who would accept him for who he really is, not who he plays pretend as.
But there’s something so comforting about being part of the crowd. It may be compact and restrictive, but there’s always safety in numbers. Even if he has to make fun of the stuff he used to talk about endlessly, even if he has to visit parties with bright lights and blasting music. He’d rather have that than nothing.
He’s growing up, and the people around him are getting meaner, their language is filling with venom. In the cafeteria, it’s not uncommon for his friends to denounce something as “retarded”. A few times, they’ll give him a satisfied glance, as if to say “isn’t it funny?”.
Troy laughs along. If this is the price he has to pay, he’ll have to grin and bear it.