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Jem feels like she may be little late, a little old, to start having a crisis about her sexuality; she’s three years older than her brother was when he…left, and she knows he already had everything straight, excuse the pun, in his head in relation to his sexuality, his identity, so she feels like she should already have everything sorted in her mind too. She understands that it’s a…it’s a spectrum, and it’s not some fixed point, she understands that it’s fluid, and what you identify as can change, even if she had thought she had it all figured out when she was younger, she might still be in this predicament; but none of this helps matters in the slightest. It doesn’t comfort her.
She never questioned what Kieren identified as, never felt as if she needed to know, because it didn’t really matter to her, she was happy as long as he was happy and nothing that would make her want to gouge her eyes out was happening in front of her. She isn’t even sure if he ever came out to their parents, actually; everyone knows that he and Rick were more KierenandRick than Kieren and Rick, but, she doesn’t know if he ever had to sit their parents down to discuss it. She doesn’t know if he had a bit of a panic, or whether he always knew, or whether he just doesn’t identify as anything. She feels like she might feel better if she knew more about Kieren’s experience, she’d feel a little less alone.
She never even really questioned it, the fact she hadn’t gone through the “discovering yourself” phase. It bothers her, really, that teenagers are expected to go through that phase, especially queer teenagers. She hasn’t used that word as a plausible one to describe herself before, but it doesn’t feel odd, or abnormal, it feels possible, somewhat fitting; even if she’s aware it’s usually a slur, another thing that bothers her.
Some people just know their sexuality. No one questions how someone knows they’re straight. She wonders if anyone has had a crisis about being straight. She doubts it, highly. They haven’t got the prejudice to deal with.
This whole thing is incredibly difficult, because she doesn’t want to be questioning anything, she wants to be able to say that she’s comfortable with who she is, and who she’s attracted to, no matter who that might be, but she can’t say that, because the truth is, in amongst all the chaos and disturbances in her life, she’d like to be able to know what shiny box she fits in to, simply for her own peace of mind, she wants to be able to label herself, would take comfort from it. Just so she can say “I identify as … and I’m okay with that, I’m happy with that.”
She doesn’t even know where to start.
She’s not sure when she began questioning her interest, for lack of a better term. She’s never really been particularly interested in relationships all that much, simply because there’s always been more important things to think about, so she’s never had crushes or love interests; she was fourteen when Kieren killed himself. Everything went to shit then. Her life crumbled around her; the person she could rely on, trust, and talk to when she needed to, tell everything to…he left her life, never to come back.
And then the rising happened, and things got even worse. At fourteen years old, she volunteered herself to help the community, to risk her life to save others, because she couldn’t imagine sitting around while people are ripped apart, and it was a good distraction from what had happened, what she’d lost.
And now, seven years later, her brother is back, has been back a while now, and the world is not put to rights, but its better; she is still unsure and scared and has no idea what is going on, where anything is going. She doesn’t know who is good, and who is bad, and she’s been through too much and not done enough…But, she’s doing better in herself, Kieren has helped her out more than she thought possible, and she’s doing better; now she can do this, she can focus on something that is purely about her, and not really about anyone else. She just wants to do this for herself, to work this out for herself.
But, she needs some help, some guidance.
It takes her an entire week to pluck up the courage to actually make the move to go talk to her brother, but it’s more than just courage that she’d been trying to build up. She has so many different questions, she wanted to be sure that she knew what she wanted or needed to know before she went to Kieren expecting him to be able to answer questions she wasn’t even sure about; questions she wouldn’t have known she needed to ask if she hadn’t done some research online, hadn’t taken some time out to really think and analyse what she’s questioning, and what she feels, and where she thinks she might fit, on her own.
“Kier..?”
She knocks on his bedroom door gently and pushes at the slightly ajar door, slowly forcing it open enough for her to poke her head around, worried she might be interrupting him painting or something. He’s not busy painting, or even drawing actually. He’s reading quietly, sat up on his bed, next to Simon, who’s also reading. It throws her off a bit, but she isn’t really sure what she was expecting. She definitely didn’t realise that Simon was over, but she doesn’t seem to ever realise when he’s there or not, unless he and Kieren are actually in front of her, so maybe that’s not really a surprise.
“Oh, sorry, uhm…”
“Jem. Hi, hey, no, what’s up?”
Part of Jem wants to turn and run, she didn’t really want to do this in front of Simon. But, maybe it’s not really that bad, maybe he identifies differently to Kieren, which would possibly help her, wouldn’t it?
She moves in to the room slowly, and closes the door behind her, smiling when Kieren pulls his legs up and folds them under him, making room for her to sit, watching as Simon mirrors the position almost exactly, completely subconsciously. She kneels on the bed in front of the both of them and waits as Kieren puts his book down, then continues to wait while he looks at her patiently, not sure where to start, how to explain, or what question to ask first. So, she stops thinking and just hopes it’ll flow and make sense somewhat.
“I just… I’m… curious, I suppose, when did you know that you…Did you always know that you weren’t straight?”
That isn’t the best way she could’ve asked that, in the slightest, she realises, and even though she’s focused on her brother, she can see Simon’s eyebrows raise, and his eyes widen slightly in surprise, as she asks; he shoots a sideways glance toward Kieren before looking at her, a mix of understanding and sympathy, somehow, in his expression, and isn’t that weird.
Kieren seems to really think on it, and then he looks at Simon, as if expecting him to contribute as well, which amuses her, thinking it would catch him off-guard, but Simon seems to be expecting it, and merely motions at Kieren as if to say “You first”, which then throws her off a little, but then she opens her mouth quickly and decides she’s just going to ask everything that comes to mind in that instant and get all the answers from them at once.
“And, did you know exactly where you fit on the…which label you fit into, or where you fit on the spectrum? Do you always know what you want from the other person, whether it’s romantic or sexual? And how do you know? And what’s the difference between wanting to be around someone and wanting to be with someone? And loving and being in love? I don’t get any of this, Christ!”
She sounds hysterical and like she’s been reading off the internet, she realises, but she doesn’t know how to talk this through properly, she didn’t really actually expect to ever feel the need to have this conversation. This isn’t coming naturally to her, either, discussing this, even after all her research and planning; it’s making her kind of uncomfortable. But, then Kieren’s leaning forward and wrapping her in a slightly awkward angled hug, waiting for her to relax a little before he pulls back and smiles gently at her.
“Relax, okay? One thing at a time.”
She nods slowly and looks at Simon momentarily, who’s watching them both with a small smile on his face. When his gaze falls on Kieren alone, she almost laughs; she’s pleased to know someone regards her brother as highly as Simon Monroe does. He looks at Kieren as if he’s God’s gift, no matter what it is he might be doing. She wonders if Kieren knows how Simon watches him, can’t imagine he doesn’t, Simon’s not exactly subtle.
Kieren smiles slightly and then purses his lips gently, seeming to be really thinking about how to go about this conversation; he shuffles and looks a bit more serious, as if he’s trying to do this properly. If he’s going to do this, he wants to get it right, really help her.
“Okay, right, where to start; you said you wanted to know what we, I, identify as, right? Uhm. I suppose Panromantic Demisexual? I’ve always been surer about what I identify as romantically than the sexually, but that’s… yeah.”
“Wait, wait, demisexual?”
“Yeah; I only really feel sexual attraction once I’ve formed an emotional one.”
This makes sense, she supposes. She can understand that, and she could probably have figured that that would be how Kieren identified, if she’d understood what Demisexual was previously. It makes sense, with his relationships; she guessed they’d always been emotional foremost, rather than physical.
“Okay, but, what, uhm, what does that mean for relationships? Do you not engage in a physical one?”
Kieren seems impressed at the way she worded the question, so she gives herself bonus points for that one. She waits for him to work out how to answer the question. She doesn’t want him to give her too much detail, obviously, if they are…intimate, but she’s curious. She doesn’t know why she assumes that relationships have to be sexual, doesn’t know why she made any assumptions about anyone’s relationships at all, but now that she’s learning about everything, properly, and trying to work it out for herself, she wants to know as much as Kieren is willing to explain to her.
“Uhm, depends on your definition of physical.”
This makes her pause, trying to force her brain not to supply any mental images. She doesn’t know how to word the next question sensitively.
“So, you two; are you…interested in sex?”
Simon scrunches his nose up slightly, which raises both of their eyebrows, Kieren’s and Jem’s. She tilts her head at him, hoping he’ll feel comfortable to elaborate and explain the reaction to the question. She’s not sure, really, if she understands how a relationship works without sex, she’d just kind of always thought that if you were in a relationship with someone, you generally had sex with them.
When Simon doesn’t immediately begin to offer up any information, seemingly going to avoid getting involved in this discussion, she focuses back on her brother, but before Kieren can speak, both of them are directed back to Simon, his Irish drawl drawing their attention toward him, shocking them both that he’s volunteering information about himself, something he isn’t exactly prone to doing. She can tell he feels awkward and unsure about doing so, knows Kieren can see it too, because he shifts slightly closer and rests a hand on the bed between them, as if indicating that he’s there; he’s close.
“I still feel attraction toward people, be it uh, based on looks or personality, I just don’t feel sexual attraction, really? I would prefer not to have sex, yeah; I’ve had sex, before you ask, I just don’t…I don’t feel the need to…? I identify loosely, I wouldn’t really say I’m grey-asexual, either? And I still like the…”
He pauses and glances at Kieren before continuing.
“Sensual? Part of a relationship, I guess? This isn’t helpful to you at all. ‘m sorry…”
Jem laughs and shakes her head frantically, mightily impressed that Simon actually spoke about himself so freely, she reaches forward and pats Simon’s knee gently.
“No, no, don’t say that, it is helpful, thank you. This is…definitely helping…Wait, what, can I ask what you identify as, if you do identify as anything?”
She waits patiently for Simon to muster up the courage to answer her. She knows he doesn’t actually like talking about himself much, so she appreciates the effort he’s putting in to helping her help herself.
“Homoromantic Asexual, I guess?”
Kieren looks as if he wants to kiss Simon for being helpful, which makes her roll her eyes and pat her brothers shoulder with the back of her hand, motioning to him that she has another question, but is nervous about asking it directly to Simon.
“Not too much detail, but, yer still like kissing?”
Simon looks like he’d be blushing, if he could, and Kieren looks kind of like he might be too, actually; thankfully, neither of them speak up, they both just nod their heads gently, then...
“Kieren snogged me in Amy’s bungalow.”
Kieren actually starts sputtering at the way Simon put that, clearly not expecting him to be so blunt, and when they look toward him, Simon’s reading his book, pretending to anyway, trying not to grin to himself.
“Oh God, that sounds awful. Simon. I didn’t…it wasn’t planned…!”
He sighs gently and scrubs a hand over his face, then leans slightly over and shoves Simon gently, making him almost lose his balance.
Jem starts laughing and shaking her head gently, actually tempted to congratulate her brother on being the one to make the first move, but she doesn’t, she just grins at them both and tries to decide which question to ask next or revisit.
“Yes, Jem, we still like that; kissing is more sensual than sexual, I guess.”
“Wait, so, okay, but you, one of you is more interested in sex than the other, right?”
Kieren nods his head gently, while Simon watches him, obviously intrigued at where this is going.
“Yeah, I would be more interested in sex than Simon, according to where we identify on the spectrum, at least, but, that’s not really a big deal? I don’t feel like sex is important to the relationship, so it doesn’t bother me. I wasn’t interested in sex at the beginning, at all; now that we’ve been together for a while, I’m more interested in it than I was, definitely, but, not enough to ask Simon to find a way to compromise for the relationship, for me, knowing that Simon isn’t interested, y’ know? We don’t have a sexual relationship, and that works for us.”
Simon looks like he’d be blushing again, if he could. She hadn’t really realised how sweet their relationship was, hadn’t ever thought of her little-big brother in a serious and mature relationship. It never really crossed her mind, and she certainly didn’t think about it when she met Simon, she couldn’t imagine two people so different could work well together.
“Did you guys always know that you…are what you are?”
Both of them, at the same time, turn to look at each other, which is totally creepy. Simon looks like he’s not sure which of them should go first. He glances toward Jem and then turns his head to look down at his book again. Kieren realises he’ll be going first.
“I didn’t really think about it much; it wasn’t ever this big thing that I worried about, but I pretty much always knew roughly where I felt I ‘belonged’, yeah. I was sure enough to come out to mum at fifteen, so…”
Jem realises Simon’s not comfortable with discussing his experience with this, so merely nods in response to her brother and tries to work out where she needs to go next. She doesn’t have a chance to ask anything, before Kieren has something to say to her, instead.
“You don’t have to find a label for yourself, you know, Jem. But, if you feel like a label would make you feel more comfortable, and you’re not sure if the definition necessarily, a thousand percent, fits, that is not what’s important, if you feel that that label suits you, and you’re happy with that, then that is what you can consider yourself.”
Jem nods slowly and decides it’s now or never.
“Well, there was Gary, right? But I never really felt attracted to him at all, I just liked that he felt attracted to me; it was nice to feel like someone wanted me. That’s all that really mattered to me, there. I wouldn’t have wanted anythin’ from him if he hadn’t indicated he wanted somethin’ from me…y’know?”
Kieren shifts to sit with his legs out, rather than under him, and rests his arms over his knees, nodding gently, seeming completely understanding. She bites the inside of her cheek, waiting for any sort of response.
“Y’ever think about who you’d like to be in a relationship with?”
She looks towards Simon, who’s finally given up with his book, and is dropping it down to lie on the floor next to Kieren’s bed. He shifts himself, then, ending up closer to her brother, who accommodates for it naturally, posture relaxing, becoming more open; he moves his arms to rest behind himself to stay up-right, one arm going behind Simon’s back on the bed, and hand on the mattress. Simon’s practically fallen in to the position that Kieren was just in, but more closed off and awkward than Kieren made it look; legs bent up, feet on the bed, and arms folded round his knees.
Jem shifts then, realising her legs have gone to sleep, moving so that her legs are bent behind her, hand resting on the bed to her side, taking in the way Simon’s presence seems to relax Kieren somewhat, while she considers her answer to Simon’s question.
“Romantically? I don’t think I really have a preference. But, when I looked into it, the computer said Panromantic is being like… gender-blind? And I don’t think that’s accurate.”
“What about Bi?”
Jem pauses for a moment and considers her brother, biting her lip and shaking her head gently.
“I…don’t actually think I’d want to have sex with a guy, I don’t think that would...”
“No, no, romance, don’t think about sex for now, okay.”
Jem pauses and bites the inside of her cheek again. She thinks about if she could see herself in a relationship, like Simon and Kieren have, with a man, tries to ignore the fact the guy in her head is faceless.
She thinks she could.
Then she imagines it with a female, ignores the face that her brain unhelpfully supplies, and considers it, starting to smile gently. She nods at her brother.
“So, what does that make me? Biromantic? And homosexual?”
Kieren shrugs gently, and she knows what that means; only she can work it out.
It’s not something someone else can decide for you.