Chapter Text
Sometimes Ray wakes up and feels wrong. Everything about them feels out of place- their clothes, their face, even their limbs, all of them splayed out the wrong way. They just close their eyes and hit the snooze and force themself to try and sleep again.
Sometimes Ray will wake up and wish their flat chest wasn’t so flat, their hips were wider, their voice higher.
Sometimes Ray will wake up and want to wear a skirt to work. Sometimes Ray will wake up and want to put on mascara. Sometimes Ray will wake up with the desire to shave their beard. Sometimes Ray will wake up and their skin won’t fit properly and everything feels too tight and they’ll wish they could just be perfectly in the middle, that no one would assume anything about their gender.
Sometimes Ray wishes they could just be like everyone else.
***
The first time Ray told anyone, they could feel the blood freeze in their veins and their heart stop pumping. The first time Ray told anyone, their breath quickened until they were sure that everything had stopped and they didn’t even know who they were anymore.
“That’s cool, Ray. Thanks for telling me. I— I think it’s awesome.” Kerry smiles this big wide smile at them, and Ray just breathes a sigh of relief and lets a small grin spread across their cheeks.
***
They see him whispering to his daughter, staring at them wearing a skirt, beard as present as ever. The street’s nearly empty, so empty Ray can hear every one of their footsteps echo and they hurry past the two as fast as they can.
“Look at that tranny, what a freak.” He whispers to her, and Ray can feel their blood boil and they close their eyes and keep walking, face red and head down.
***
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
They tear the post offline as fast as they can, but they know that at least a thousand eyes have already seen it. When you use the wrong twitter account to post about being trans, it doesn’t end well. They know that. They know that more than anyone else can, but they just squeeze their eyes shut and wait till the next morning to call in sick.
***
No one says anything two days after that, when Ray comes in sweaty and nervous, covering themself up as best as they can, two hoodies and baggy jeans, desperate to pretend none of it had ever happened.
When Michael looks at Ray he doesn’t seem to notice anything, just greets them and continues chatting with Gavin. When Geoff waves hello, nothing in his gaze even hints at concern.
Ray plants themself in their chair and breathes a sigh of relief, letting themself relax into their usual role of good-at-games, ridiculous guy.
That could be my superhero name, Ray thinks gleefully, Well, if I didn’t already have one.
Everything seems normal, running through a game of GTA V, editing a video, retorting to Geoff’s question of his sickness with the usual- “Blazed a little too much”, searching the web for the worst pornstar name possible, up until lunch, when Burnie says, “So, who hacked into your account?”
“What?”
“The post about being trans, dude. Who hacked into your account and said you were ‘nonbinary’ or whatever.”
Ray’s about to correct him when they think about that guy on the street, telling his daughter what a freak they are. That shuts them up real fast.
“I don’t know. Some asshole, probably.” Ray laughs a hollow laugh and gets out as fast as they can, making up some bullshit excuse about meeting Kerry.
As soon as Ray rounds a corner, running for the nearest bathroom, someone shows up and pulls them into the closest open door, which happens to be a broom closet. The light flickers on enough that Ray can see Kerry’s hair gleam a little, and Ray know it’s safe.
“Kerry, I— I need to get out of here. I accidentally— I mean, not accidentally but on the wrong— I mean, I just couldn’t— I—”
“Ray, it’s okay, calm down I know, I— I kind of just did the same thing and I have no clue what to do, oh god, oh god. I’m so fucking dead, Jesus Christ—”
“Wait, what did you do?” Ray cocks their head.
“I accidentally— Okay, background information. I’m— Well, I’m trans, I mean not nonbinary, um, how do I— I’m. Okay, I’m going to start over. Um,” Kerry breathes deeply and runs fingers through his already disheveled hair. “Well, I’m a trans guy like, y’know DFAB and all that shit and I— Well, Matt was talking about your tweet and then I started to tell him about it— I mean, I didn’t say anything, really, but I kind of hinted at it before I stopped myself. And then I came running here and it’s a good thing I ran into you ‘cause I was thinking I should leave, like, right now, and if you’re going too, then we can go together. Y’know, it can be an adventure. We can sneak around.”
Ray grins, glad to have companionship in something, and begins to look around for a way out. “Okay, so do you think we can just walk out the front door, or do we have to elaborately escape through the sewers or some shit?”
“I like the vents, I think they make things a lot more mysterious and—”
That’s when Ray grabs his arm and pulls him out the door of the broom closet. The hallway’s empty, so obviously Ray pushes both of their backs up against the wall, inching forward and looking both ways. Kerry grips their arm tightly, making more noise than he should— “Shit, sorry, that desk came out of nowhere—” and tripping over things. Eventually they do make it to the front door, past Kara, who doesn’t even question anything they’re doing, and Jack, who just laughs and keeps walking.
The first gulp of air is more freeing than Ray would’ve ever thought possible, and they run to Kerry’s car, waiting for Kerry to unlock it. He does so giddily, pulling the car door shut behind himself and letting himself settle into the seat. Then he laughs, long and hard, and Ray can’t help but laugh too, long peals of laughter filling the empty air, and all of a sudden everything seems funny. And then Kerry takes off his sweatshirt to reveal a trans pride shirt underneath, and for some reason that makes everything funnier.
***
Ray and Kerry spend the whole weekend at Ray’s place, drinking juice boxes and playing Super Smash Bros. They feel like little kids, but as Kerry points out, “At least this time it’s not me in the skirt.” They sit for hours and fall asleep leaning on each other. They talk about anything and everything but Monday, revealing stories of gender and sexuality crises, favorite movies, bullying, new books, assholes, family. Ray even tells Kerry about the guy on the street, and Kerry gets so angry that Ray swears that he’ll Hulk out.
“What an asshole! I mean, it’s one thing to say that at all. It’s another to say it to a young and impressionable child. If I knew who he was he’d be dead, I swear. To make you so upset, just— What a fuckwad.”
Ray likes the feeling of someone knowing about them, who they are, and still treating them the same as before. Ray just wishes they could be okay with telling someone else.
***
Ray wakes up on Monday, and the weight of their tongue in their mouth doesn’t feel right. They slowly blink their eyes open and immediately think, I’m a girl. And directly after, she thinks, Fuck.
Ray wakes up Kerry by pushing him off the couch and then rolling him to the base of the kitchen table, where he finally awakens.
“Hey, Ray.”
“She/her pronouns today, dude.”
“What?” Kerry blinks blearily, rubs his eyes, and then shakes his head, finally pulling himself up to a chair and climbing in.
“She/her, today, okay? I’m just feeling it.” Ray grabs a box of cereal from the shelf and she pushes it in front of Kerry, along with a bowl, spoon, and milk.
“Alright. Got it, she/her today.”
Ray sits down to join him, and they eat their cereal in companionable silence, before they head out the door, Ray throwing an extra sweatshirt of hers to Kerry. They’re in the car when Kerry says it.
“How did you— I mean, how did you figure out you were nonbinary?”
Ray breathes in deeply, pushing atmosphere into her lungs, letting it back out into the still air. “Uh, it’s kind of a long story.”
“We have time. We’re early. How did it happen?” Kerry gives Ray a small encouraging smile, glancing at her before looking back to the road.
“I never really felt comfortable in my own skin, you know? I always felt a little off. Even on days when I was okay with being called a dude, I wouldn’t really feel right. I didn’t feel the way I was supposed to feel. When I turned sixteen, my mom she, uh—” Ray licks her lips, lets her breath come out a little ragged, a little labored, “She found me wearing, uh, wearing a skirt. She’d found me with guys before and— and I guess this was the last straw. She called me a, y’know, a—”
She looks over at Kerry, as if asking if she had to say it. He shakes his head and she sighs in relief.
“She called me a, the f-word. I mean, not fuck, but the other one. And then, she kicked me out. I went to school, I didn’t drop out or anything, and I lived at a friend’s house. But, I didn’t have good enough grades to get any scholarships, so I worked at Safeway after high school. Wasn’t great pay, but I did what I had to do. I, uh, I signed up as female and everyone just accepted it. I would buy bras just to stuff them. But I still didn’t feel comfortable. I felt out of it. One day, I just forgot to wear a bra. I hadn’t shaved either and I guess I should’ve felt bad or, at least, worse than I did. I felt comfortable again. I mean, my manager fired me and called me the t-word, but at least I had kind of figured something out. So, I applied to GameStop as a dude and wore loose clothes everyday and felt kind of okay. I started looking stuff up, all of the gender stuff, and a lot of stuff didn’t mention much, but this one site had all this information about trans people and that’s when I found it."
“Found what?” Kerry asks, nodding a little.
Ray smiles a bit, "Nonbinary. And a bunch of pronouns. There were even links to forums where I met other nonbinary people. Well, not met, but talked to. They told me about even more pronouns and resources and soon I was talking about my experiences and all of a sudden I was Ray, the nonbinary person. I started talking to nonbinary teenagers, about how they should deal with stuff. I made a twitter and talked about how tough stuff was. We just talk. It’s nice to be relaxed. It lists my pronouns and my name—”
“What name?”
“Ray. I kept my birth name. Something about it just feels… right, you know? It always makes me think back to when I was a kid and my dad used to call me his ‘little ray of sunshine’. I always loved that. I always loved being a ray of sunshine, I guess.” She looks over at Kerry, who’s now grinning wildly. “Oh, shut up.”
Kerry shakes his head, still grinning, and puts one hand up in mock defense. “I didn’t say anything.”
Ray shakes her head. “Somewhere along the way I got picked up by Rooster Teeth and I met you and all of the others. And now..." Ray sighs. "I fucked up now after years of this secrecy. That’s kinda my life, I guess. I’m sort of a double agent. Or Hannah Montana. I guess it depends how you look at it.”
Kerry laughs a little bit at that last comment, but quiets quickly,“Thanks for— Thanks for telling me." Kerry reaches over and grabs Ray’s arm, "I’m sorry it was so tough for you.”
“Hey, it’s fine, I mean, it happened a while ago.”
They pull into the parking lot and Kerry murmurs, “Perfect timing," just as they see Matt pull up.
“You wanna wait till he goes in?” Ray asks, her voice nearly dripping with worry.
“Nah, it’s okay.” Kerry goes to open the door, thinks better of it, and sinks back down in his seat. “Maybe we should wait.”
As they sit there, waiting till Matt walks to the building, Ray turns to Kerry and grins, “Will you do something for me?”
***
“Wait, so you’re saying you can do all that? Nice try.” Kerry’s practically yelling it, and unsurprisingly everyone in the kitchen looks up.
“If I can’t, you can, uh, you can… You can put me in a skirt.”
Kerry laughs and smiles widely, “For how long?”
“I don’t know, three days?”
“And what do you get if you win?”
“Not wearing a skirt is a pretty big reward, I would say.”
“You’re on.”
“Hey, what is it?” Geoff asks, cocking his head.
“Oh. Ray says that he,” Kerry winces a little even saying that, but continues, “can run around the building three times before a car can even go around once.”
She nods, “You bet I can. I’m like fucking Speedy Gonzalez.”
“If he doesn’t do it he has to wear a skirt to work for three days.” Kerry smiles, “Plus, facebook and twitter pictures of course.”
Jack grins, “Awesome. I’m betting on the car.”