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“Please, LaFontaine, wait.” Perry asked. She sounded absolutely desperate, and LaF felt their stomach sink, knowing what their best friend was hoping to discuss.
“Perry, I already said. It's okay. You were stressed, and I was distracted, but it all worked out and we beat the hungry light.” The bio major shrugged, willing their best friend to move on. As important as their gender identity was, they never really wanted to discuss it. The topic was fraught with miscommunication and misunderstanding, with people making assumptions about LaF's life or sexuality, or in the case of Perry, a certain blindness as to why anything had to be different than it had when they were young.
“No, please. I need to apologise for hurting you.” Perry wrung her hands, and LaFontaine speculated briefly about the likelihood of a friction burn.
They sat down before Perry risked combusting. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Lola's eyes widened almost comically before she started stumbling all over her words in fear the opportunity would evaporate. “Okay! I'm so sorry, so sorry. I never want to hurt you, you're my best friend, but I keep doing it. And I know why you're LaFontaine, not...your old name.” She paused for breath, and LaF couldn't help speaking up.
“It wasn't just the name. I figured before I came to Silas that plenty of people would think I'm not normal. I just never guessed that it would be for believing in vampires...” they smiled a little, but it disappeared quickly, “...or that it would be you.”
Perry's eyes welled up with tears, and LaFontaine wanted to comfort her, but couldn't help the fairly large part of their heart insisting that Perry should be comforting them.
As with most things in their relationship, no sooner had one of them thought it than the other was acting on it, and Perry had them wrapped in a huge bear hug. “I'm so sorry. And you're right. And I shouldn't have. And 'normal' is a terrible word. But...” Lola pulled back to stare at them earnestly, “I want you to know that you've always been normal. Kidnappings and vampires and brain parasites were what I was talking about. You, who you are, is perfect.”
“I can't help relating to Carmilla, Perr.” LaFontaine answered, instead of pointing out that brain parasites were in fact very normal aspects of nature. “I'll always relate to anyone who's treated differently because of who they are.” They paused to consider this. “Although I'll still tie them to a chair if they're threatening someone's life.”
“I understand. And I don't want you to change – I never did. I know that your old name hurts you,” Perry took a deep breath, “but one of the reasons I keep forgetting to use 'LaFontaine' is that I never thought of 'Susan' as a girl's name. It was just your name, the name of my best friend who's always been there for me. So I'll do everything I can to remember to call you LaFontaine, but I just want you to know that when I forget, I'm not trying to misgender you. It's just the word which referred to my non-binary friend for the first 13 years I knew you.”
LaFontaine finally hugged Perry back, trying to assimilate the information.
“So, I have a question.” Perry bit her lip and pulled back so she could watch their face. “It's about my identity.”
“Yeah?” LaF felt a vague sense of conversational whiplash.
“Is there a word for someone who's sexually attracted to, and in love with, a non-binary person?”