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Here’s the thing about Kieren Walker: he has always been different.
Even before the Rising, before he was a— a PDS sufferer, he knew he wasn’t like everyone else in his village. His classmates thought he was weird, the way he stuttered, and wore clothes two sizes too big, and drew everything distorted and unreal and in halves, like looking at the world head-on was personally offensive. He never had many friends; the one he did manage, he fell in love with.
(“It wasn’t his fault, what happened,” Simon keeps telling him, and Kieren knows it, is trying to believe it. “It wasn’t yours either. Stop treating Rick Macy like your great Big Bad. He was a child. He was scared. You both were.”)
After the Rising, he thought perhaps the thousands of half-rotted former citizens dropped in the UK’s lap might finally give him a chance to blend in. It certainly felt that way at the treatment center; they all had to keep the same hours, take the same medication, learn the same mantra. I am a PDS sufferer and what I did in my untreated state honestly felt bloody brilliant at the time.
Coming home to Roarton was like jetlag on the return trip; he was treated both exactly the same, and wildly differently. The locals still hurled slurs at him if he looked at them too long, or avoided eye contact, or breathed near them, or didn’t breathe at all. Especially if he didn’t breathe at all. But now instead of a binder and a collared shirt, his armor was mousse and contacts. The words had changed, too: no longer the t or the f, but ever the r, the z, the p and d and s. Either way, he still prayed every day for a miracle, prayed for invisibility, prayed to be dead a second time.
He’d never expected to have these days again. That was kind of the point.
(“Oh, love, I’m sure every little girl wishes she could be someone else.”)
The funny thing is, kids all around him had arms and lungs and smiles swallowed by the barrel of the Human Volunteer Force’s guns, but Kieren returned home host to exactly the same body he’d left in. He couldn’t have lost one little breast?
(Periods seem like a blessing compared to the blood on his hands now. This is not just once a month; this will never leave him.)
They called him lucky, but he didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel much of anything, anymore.
And, then, magically, in waltzed Simon Monroe and Amy Dyer.
They’d come to teach him, to care about him, to up-heave the silence which Roarton had tried so hard to pretend was peace. Everything was chaos, and there were even more reasons to hide in his room until stars died and the universe collapsed, and, if he was honest with himself, Kieren could not have enjoyed it more. For the first time in his half-life and the full one before it, he was treated, not only like a person, but like an equal. There was no blue-blotched pity in this respect, no watery pseudo-sympathy, no scar too big or too bad or too much; a little philosophy-pushing, sure, but so long as he didn’t lose his head (figuratively or literally), the ULA did have some points. Being yourself, having space to be yourself, permission and support and protection, that was important. No matter who said it.
And there were no lies. There was no sugar-coating, no condescension, no it gets better. With Simon Monroe and Amy Dyer, there was only it gets better if you make it better. With Simon Monroe and Amy Dyer, there was only love.
Here’s the thing about Kieren Walker: different has never, before now, meant special.
. . .
Touch didn’t come back right away, or all at once. It returned slowly, painfully, each shot of Nortriptyline inching him closer to whatever semblance of humanity he could still claim. Five for his sight to mend; thirty for smell; countless more for the rest, though they told him he would never fully recover his taste. That's alright. He never had much anyway; not in fashion, not in boys, and certainly not in secrets.
Five for sight. Five for the nightmares, the covered mirror, five for Kieren's last memory and first love with his head bashed in on the cement drive. Thirty for the clean, sharp scent of snow, for the doctors smoking in the restroom of the treatment center like they thought no one would notice the ash clinging to their lab coats. Countless more for a shove to hurt, for Simon’s cracked and broken lips parting under him like so many promises. None for Dad's cooking. None for the black blood in his mouth. He's thankful for that, at least.
Other things returned to him slowly: hope, happiness, a fenced-in sort of freedom. Regret and fear bounced back the moment he was conscious, old friends settling in around the soles of his shoes, saturating every shift and step. I am a PDS sufferer and I hate myself now more than ever before.
They used his birthname in the treatment center, filed him away into the wrong colour-coded drawers until he snapped, canines bared, an animal pounding at his temples, begging for chaos, for death. He bit the temp holding his file, ------ Walker, 18, Female, sliced right through her arm before they restrained him. He apologised, afterwards, explained himself, tried to appear stable and in control, but the damage was done. They let him go by Kieren but they doubled his medication; ran circles around him like vultures. I am a PDS sufferer and if you call me a girl one more time I will rip out your fucking throat with my goddamn fucking zombie teeth you piece of—
When he was finally home he found he no longer had the energy to correct anyone. His parents were busy tip-toeing around another of his conditions, and Gary and his lot would just as soon call him rotter as misgender him. Deja vu rewound and reworked. Jem wasn't speaking to him, but at least when she spat his name like a filthy secret, she used the right one.
He was almost afraid they'd have done his gravestone wrong. I wanted to be cremated. He even went out to check. And they buried you instead? It said Kieren Walker, cut clear and plain as day. That's sweet.
One last returned slowly to this Kieren Walker, this unbreathing backwards version of a dead boy: confidence. Before the Rising, he wore it like leather and spikes, harsh and primal. Some days he was a snarl and a fuck me sooner than a smile or a thank you. He had to be. He had to protect himself. After Rick left for the army, he lost his steel-booted bravado; being bitter all the time is toxic, but it's pure poison when you do it alone. He stopped being so angry. He was just sad.
(If you asked Kieren Walker why he did it, why he unraveled himself in the only place he'd ever felt whole, he would tell you this: when that letter came in, the rest of the world faded out. He didn't understand what there was for him, after that, you see. With his last anchor gone for good, he didn't see a tunnel without a light; he saw a pit, and he was sitting unmoving at the bottom. He was empty and tired and disillusioned. He was sick. He was just sad.)
When he Rose, he was still afraid, but it was a different sort of afraid; tentative and shaky instead of ingrained. He was, somehow, wildly, glad to be given another chance at the life he voluntarily abandoned, but there were so many rules, it hardly felt like freedom at all. He didn't want to— he couldn't— fuck this up again.
With Amy Dyer and Simon Monroe, he learned to feel safe for the first time in this incarnation or the last. He learned to feel comfortable, and brave, and wanted. He wore confidence so differently, this year; less like a loaded gun and more like a bulletproof vest. He was sure of himself, now. He was proud.
It was almost like being grown up.
. . .
“Do you really need all three Keaton Hensons?” Simon asks, voice low as he takes inventory, and Kieren looks up from the pile of CDs in his lap to make a noise of utter disbelief.
“That is a horrible question,” Kieren says, affronted. “Of course I do.”
Simon sighs, defeated, and they go back to sorting. They're sat on his bed, knees touching, Kieren's music collection spread out across the duvet. It's a small lot, seeing as Kieren died and everything good was either donated or squirreled away by Jem, never to return. This is the first time he’s had the opportunity to catch up since he returned home. He's missed entire eras of My Chemical Romance and Ani diFranco, which is frankly a travesty. The list is so long, at this point, he’s pretty sure it would be easier to download everything illegally, but Simon didn't seem too keen on that. It’s all blessedly normal.
“That looks good on you,” Simon says quietly, after a long moment, chewing on the end of his pen. It’s almost comforting to know he has nervous quirks like everyone else. “The varnish, I mean.”
Kieren glances down at his hands. He's wearing black polish on his nails, to cover up the sickly blue tinge they’ve taken on since his revival. He never liked to look at them, even after he decided to go mousse-less, and this seemed the neatest solution. Everyone has a coping mechanism; his happens to be pop punk.
“Oh,” he says, warmth curling in his belly at the compliment. “Thanks. It’s chipping a bit, though. I’ll have to redo it. Thought you didn’t care for makeup and all that?”
“I don’t like socially-mandatory government products used to force perfectly beautiful people into masks,” Simon clarifies. “Nail varnish is harmless.”
Kieren nods seriously. “Unless, of course, it distracts my boyfriend, and he walks into a tree.” (He pretends he doesn’t still get little thrills and spine electricities saying boyfriend. He thinks he does well.)
“You wound my pride, Kieren Walker,” Simon says flatly, hand over his heart and seeming very un-wounded. “I’ll have you know I spent years perfecting the gawk and walk.”
There’s a pause.
“Do you ever wake up in the morning and think, ah, yes, today I will make a fool of myself?” Simon says, looking thoughtful. “Because I didn’t, but now I have, and I’d like you to ignore it, please.”
Kieren pats his knee, and then keeps his hand there, because he can do that now. “Ignore what, sweetheart?” He tries a smile, something curving and a little shy, like the one he wore when he was alive, and Simon’s eyes drop to his mouth. A sudden tension hangs heavy between them. Kieren is absurdly grateful he can no longer blush.
“You know, we’ve been at this music thing for a while,” Simon says. “Might do us good to take a break.”
Kieren laughs, silent and sharp, shoulders shaking. “You’re just bored, aren’t you? I guess we could set it aside for now. What do you want to do instead?”
“I can repaint your nails for you,” Simon offers finally, and seeing the little flash of surprise across Kieren’s face, drags one of his hands forward for inspection. “I promise I won’t horribly disfigure you, I’ve done it before. I had two sisters, you know.”
If Kieren still needed to breathe, his might hitch. “I didn’t, actually. You never said.”
Simon shrugs, the most miniscule upward shift of his muscles, and Kieren knows just what he means. There wasn’t any point.
“Here,” Kieren says, gentle, leaning across Simon for the polish sitting on his bedside table. His arm brushes Simon’s chest as he pitches back, and even though they’re dead and cold, he still feels warm and nervous, a phantom memory of what it was like to have a pretty boy in his room. He passes off the bottle of black lacquer, and Simon shifts, twisting the cap off and splaying Kieren’s fingers across his leg. The denim of his jeans is worn and soft under Kieren’s palm, and his tongue pokes out of the side of his mouth while he concentrates. It’s cute.
Kieren watches him work for a minute, and then, haltingly, asks, “Will you tell me about them? Your sisters?”
Simon pauses, hand poised in the air. “Okay,” he says finally, and goes back to painting Kieren’s nails. “What do you want to know?”
It’s obvious Simon expects him to ask what happened to them, if they’re still alive, if they know where he is, but Kieren doesn’t. He always hated people asking that; how did they die? how did you lose them? as if that was all that mattered, as if they’d never had lives of their own, never smudged a photograph or ate the last scone or laughed until they cried. Instead he says, “Did you do this with them? Paint their nails and stuff?”
To Kieren’s surprise, Simon grins, sudden and sun-bright, all teeth. “I used to braid their hair.”
Kieren smiles back; he can’t help it. “That’s adorable.”
“No, no, you misunderstand,” Simon says, and repeats, gleefully, “I used to braid their hair. I used to braid their hair. Me, Simon Monroe, gay, atheist, drug addict. It was a disaster.” His grin softens slightly, eyes distant. “They never seemed to mind.”
“How old were they?”
“They were nine, last time I…” Simon’s voice is sure, but his hand falters for a moment. “Last time. Nine. Twins. They had such beautiful hair, really soft. It’d fall in these...” he moves his hands in the air, a soft of waterfall motion, murmurs, dreamy, “These kind of waves. Like my mother’s.”
Kieren hesitates, a quiet intake of breath he doesn’t need, and Simon starts slightly, as though he’s only just remembered where he is. He glances at Kieren, sighs, dips the tiny brush back into the polish bottle, and says, “Just do it.”
Kieren blinks at him. “Sorry?”
“I know you’re dying to ask where they are,” Simon says, and then winces, messing up a nail. “Poor choice of words. My fault. Go on, ask.”
“You don’t have to—”
“They’re gone,” Simon says, voice thick, avoiding eye contact. “They went a few months before me. My father was late to pick them up from school one fateful January, and Chloe caught a cold. It turned into pneumonia. Sara wouldn’t leave her side, so after a while they… They just… Well, I suppose it’s only fair,” and the word is pure venom. “Dad took my girls; I took his.”
Kieren frowns, catching his boyfriend’s hand, sitting frozen near his own. He knows how much Simon’s mother meant to him, how much his sisters must have meant, the way he talks about them; how hurt he was by the knowledge of who he’d hurt, that first year back. None of it is fair. Nothing is fair.
(I am a PDS sufferer and what I did in my untreated state still haunts me.)
“I was still using, of course,” Simon continues, squeezing Kieren’s fingers, “so when… When. I drugged myself into a stupor. Didn’t make a sound for a week. I don’t… I don’t really— remember— much, after that point.”
“Did you…?”
Simon’s lips press together in a thin line, and Kieren wishes he could kiss them full again, take away the pain, but he knows better than anyone how pain has to define you before you can redefine yourself. You have to be in pieces before you can be whole again, and Simon is whole, now, in a way; it’s only hard to talk about. The wound is closed, but every so often you pull the phantom stitches.
“Yes,” he says, knowing exactly what Kieren was after. “I did. That was how I, y’know. Went and got myself offed. It wasn’t— it wasn’t their fault, God, I would never want them to think that, if they were here. Never. It wasn’t their fault. I was already fucked up, so to deal with it I got fucked up. Just wired that way.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Yeah,” Simon says, looking at Kieren as if seeing him for the first time. “You do, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Kieren echoes, and manages another smile, so much weaker than a few minutes ago. He takes his hand back, inspects it. “Not bad. You’re next.”
The corners of Simon’s mouth twitch. “Me?”
“It’s an initiation process. All the kids are doing it. Give me your hand.” Simon presents it, and the bottle of polish, and Kieren knocks aside a pile of CDs to get closer, and they trade jobs.
“Did you do this with Rick?” Simon asks quietly as Kieren paints his index nail black. There’s no jealousy in his voice, no bitter resentment; it’s pure curiosity. Simple. Scientific. Kieren almost wishes he were jealous, as if that might soften the blow, but that’s just not Simon. He’s not asking, Am I better than him? only, How have you changed? Only, I want to know everything about you.
“No.” Kieren sighs. “It’s a recent initiation process.”
“Sorry,” Simon says, wincing. “I could’ve worded that better. I just thought, since we were already—”
“Yeah,” Kieren says, and rubs his thumb over a scar on Simon’s ring finger, faded white and fitted snug against his knuckle. “What’s this?”
“Ring I died in. Or it was meant to be. They wouldn’t let me keep it.” Simon pauses, and then takes the bottle of nail polish from Kieren and sets it on the bedside table. (Rings and nails, Kieren thinks. Halos and stigmata.) “I’m going to kiss you now, if that’s alright.”
“Yeah,” says Kieren, and leans in.
They make out for ages, abandoning their original project entirely, CD case carnage pushed to the side in favor of more widely-enjoyable pursuits. Simon’s mouth is rough and sweet in the hollow of Kieren’s throat when he starts to wonder if he could get off like this— or rather, starts again. Metaphorically speaking, he definitely could, because Simon is wonderfully persistent, but physically, being dead, it seems like a bit of a hurdle. Nortriptyline only goes so far. No bruises, no orgasms; not exactly fair, but apparently the price for semi-eternal semi-life.
Simon seems to have other plans, however, because his hand slides steady up Kieren’s shirt, and when his thumb brushes the edge of Kieren's binder, he stops kissing, and simply rests his head on Kieren’s shoulder.
“Does it bother you?” he asks quietly.
“What do you mean?” Kieren asks back, tamping down the venom in his voice. That I’m different? That I’m trans? That I can’t be what you want? There are a million ways to end that sentence, and he doesn’t think Simon meant to imply any of them.
“That you never got the chance to transition,” Simon says. “I hate to think you’re unhappy.”
“We’re all trapped, in a way,” Kieren says, snide, and Simon even quirks a smile at that. Kieren can feel it against his collarbone, comforting and natural, and reaches up to card fingers through Simon’s hair, trying to give it back. “In our bodies. In this town. All we can do is keep moving. Keep pushing back. I am a PDS sufferer, and someday the walls will give.”
“Mm. I thought I was the preacher.”
“Well, it’s your day off.”
“How lazy of me.”
“Yes,” Kieren agrees. “And I am happy, you know. Jem makes me happy. You make me happy. Amy— Amy would definitely want us to be happy. And,” he adds, shifting so he can grab the ever-growing list of catch-up music and raise it triumphantly in the air, “Amy would want me to buy all three Keaton Hensons.”
Simon laughs into Kieren’s throat. “I suppose I’ll have to listen to them with you, will I?”
“Oh, yes,” Kieren says solemnly. “It’s an initiation process. All the kids are doing it.”
“No,” Simon murmurs, throwing an arm around Kieren’s waist and grinning, soft and summery and carefree. “Not all the kids— just us. We’re special.”