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He’s known Demencia for a long time. Maybe not very long, but long enough. He didn’t actually expect for them to become friends.
They were colleagues first. Then they spent more time together out of necessity. They were the only two lackeys that Black Hat could use, so they were paired together on missions and such.
Flug used to hate her. She was too loud. Too bubbly. Too unpredictable. He didn’t like any of it.
For a while, he found Black Hat more tolerable than Demencia because at least you could predict what Black Hat would say to you at any given moment. If you disappointed him, you would know. If you did a mediocre job, you got no response. If you did a good job, you barely got acknowledged. It was easy to figure his reactions out—or at least understand there was virtually no variance to them over time—even though his personality remains an enigma.
But Demencia? You could tell her, “Good morning,” in response to her saying, “Hey, Fluggy!” and she’d get mad that you weren’t paying more attention to her. Or you’d say, “Good morning,” and she’d go, “Do you want to hear about something cool that happened yesterday?” And she’d tell you even if you said, “No.”
It was a constant guessing game with her and over time it actually wore Flug down. So now that he was used to her, he actually gave up on being a tight-ass. Now he just took her in stride, and it was working out quite well. Too well, actually. Now they were friends and Flug didn’t know how to act. He wasn’t very good at making friends or keeping them, so this was scary.
He hadn’t told her much. She knew very little about him, thank the stars.
He wasn’t even sure if he could consider them good friends. They barely did anything together outside of work. He learned all of the information about her unwillingly. And her? She doesn’t even know his favorite color—only what time he wakes up and goes to sleep—and yet even that’s too much for him. He doesn’t know why she’s never pried into his life when she pours news about hers directly into his brain on the daily, but he’s thankful for the lack of interrogation.
On the more cutesy side of things, they used to have an unwritten rule that they’d never be affectionate with each other, and for the most part this has stayed intact. They don’t ever say that they love each other, even now. Flug never asks for affection from her. On the other hand, she doesn’t ask—she just throws herself at him on occasion, usually for a hug. He obliges.
Furthermore, she doesn’t tease him as much as she used to. He never told her to stop—she was just really good at picking up on his reactions. Sometimes she plays the act up but stops when Flug seems to have had enough. But that still means that Flug has told her nothing. Demencia’s guessing is doing more work than he is.
Unfortunately for Flug, right now all of his walls are down. He doesn’t know why, but when he gets invested in his work he tends to ramble about things. Anything and everything. He talks to himself. He also yearns to talk about himself on occasion but stops himself before he does. He lets his guard down in his laboratory and he doesn’t ever expect an audience. Usually when there is one, it’s Black Hat—who, by the way, isn’t a very good conversation partner. Thus, Flug rarely talks to Black Hat to begin with except to appease him.
On the other hand, when Demencia is here they usually make small talk—and he means very small—or they bother each other. Demencia usually entertains herself if she finds Flug boring at the time (which is often); she knocks shit over, fiddles with Flug’s decorations, and generally is a nuisance. On occasion, she catches Flug when he seems to be in the mood to talk. And that’s rare.
So when he starts the conversation, she is instantly curious as to how it might go.
“How do I look to you?” Flug says, out of the blue. He doesn’t glance up as he says this, only continuing to train his attention on his work.
Demencia hangs from the ceiling above him, her neon hair waving about all over his goggles. He pays no mind to it, though on another day it might drive him insane.
She does this sometimes—pesters him for the hell of it.
Actually, no—she does it all the time.
He’s grown used to it, but sometimes it’s irritating. Now is not one of those times. Right now, he’s somewhat thankful for her presence.
“Like a loser,” she replies, but it lacks venom.
Flug replies quite neutrally with, “Is that so?”
“Uh huh. Why’re you asking? You trying to show off your new haircut or something? Because if you are, it’s not like I can see it.” Her eyes dart off to the side. “And if you do have a new haircut, you don’t have to show me. It’s not like I would be able to tell you how you looked with the new one. You know, since I wouldn’t have been able to see your old haircut.”
“I…” He blinks, unsure of how to respond at first. “It’s nothing. I was just wondering.”
“Are you insecure?”
A flinch, mostly kept internal. “Am I—am I insecure? No.”
“Are you sure?”
His lip twitches. “Are you stupid?”
“Maybe a bit,” she shrugs. “But you are, too. I can read right through you.”
“No you can’t.”
A pause. “Eh, you’re right. I can’t.” She leans forward so some of her hair catches on his goggles. “I just know you’re acting weird. You hate drawing attention to yourself most of the time. It’s why you wear that bag.”
Straightening in his chair, Flug glances up at Demencia more directly. His goggles don’t reveal any emotion. He reaches a hand up to pull her hair out of his goggles. “Maybe it is.”
“It’s pretty obvious that that’s the reason why. You don’t have to feel sensitive about it. I get it.” She stops swinging from the ceiling, stopping so that her and Flug’s faces are mere inches apart.
“You get it.” He repeats. He flexes his fingers in his rubber gloves and they make a terrible sound. He quietly adds, “You don’t get it. You have nothing to feel insecure about.”
“What? Of course I do.”
“You’re pretty, and fun, and everyone loves you.”
“Well, yeah, but sometimes I feel bad about myself. Like when Black Hat tells me I’m gross or threatens to kill me for flirting with him. His reactions hurt sometimes even though sometimes I do all that as a joke. It’s okay to have bad feelings. I think. But even if it’s not, I still do. I’m human. Or…part human. I feel like a lot of people do that.”
“Maybe.” A small pause. “Sorry. That was rude.”
“What, do you feel bad about something? You know, it’s okay if you do.”
“I don’t. Not about anything in particular, anyways.” He doesn’t make eye contact.
She leans her head to the side. “Do you want to…”
“Talk about it? No.”
“Okay.” She leans up towards the ceiling so she can detach herself from it and ambles down a nearby wall until she’s on the ground again. “Should I... Do you want me to go?”
“Should you go?” Flug tears his gaze away from the laboratory table. “I—no, you don’t have to.”
“Do you want me to...I don’t know, stay? I won’t touch anything, I promise.”
“I don’t care. You can do whatever you want. I’m just working.”
“I know that, dummy. You’ve been working for hours. You know, like you always do.”
The air is suddenly a bit heavy. Awkward, even.
She stands a ways away from him for a few moments before stepping closer to watch Flug work.
He doesn’t shoo her away. He continues screwing tiny bolts into a metal contraption, which he hasn’t explained anything about.
“What are you working on?”
A small scoff. “That would have been a good question for the beginning of the conversation, not now.” He drops a small screw and tuts. “It’s a flamethrower.”
“A flamethrower? Doesn’t Black Hat have a billion of those?”
Flug shrugs. “I don’t know. He wants another one. He says he needs one that spits out green flames. Apparently the fifty that he has that already spit green flames aren’t satisfactory enough.”
“Wow.” She almost says, “What a dick,” but stops. It’s Flug’s boss, after all. And he’s her boss as well, even though she barely does anything. And Flug seems to like him, even though he doesn’t get paid.
Oh well. She doesn’t want to get on Flug’s bad side, especially since she doesn’t know what side of Flug she’s on at all. “Is it hard? Your work, I mean.”
“Sometimes.”
“It looks hard.”
He scans her face after a moment, stopping his ministrations in the process. “You know, you ask me that a lot.”
“And you’ve given me a different answer every time.”
“Huh. Do I?” He doesn’t seem like he actually cares about the answer he’s giving.
“Do you lie about stuff like that?”
“Why would I? My work is hard. You don’t do it, so you have no idea.”
“I don’t know. I just wanted to ask. You know, ‘cuz I feel like I know nothing about you.”
“It doesn’t really matter. I know a lot about you. Isn’t that enough?”
“Yeah, but I wanna know about you. It’s boring to talk about myself.”
“You don’t seem to get bored of it.” He raps his fingers against the table as he uses his other hand to search for something he needs. “I don’t want you to know about me.”
“That’s awfully direct of you,” she muses. “Are you hiding something? A dark secret, maybe? Something more sinister than my own origin story? I know you’ve committed a bunch of crimes, and that you’re evil, and that you don’t eat breakfast. I also think that your favorite color is blue, but that’s just a guess.”
“It’s yellow, but I know why you think it’s blue. It’s because just about everything I own is blue. Right?”
“Probably. Thanks for telling me your actual favorite color, though. I don’t like yellow.”
Flug almost laughs at her delivery of that line, but holds himself back. “It’s a color that’s hard to like, I guess.”
“But you didn’t answer my other question—or questions, plural.”
“I am hiding dark secrets. That’s what you’re supposed to do with dark secrets. You know, because they’re secret.”
“But could you at least tell me one? I’ve told you all of mine.”
“I doubt that,” Flug replies. “There’s no way.”
“Well you’re wrong. It’s because I trust you.”
Flug’s face sours. “You trust me?” Demencia watches a muscle in his neck tense up for just a moment as his voice raises a bit. “You don’t know anything about me. You just said that.”
“Well, I mean...maybe not, but you don’t seem like the type of person to air out someone else's dirty laundry. You don’t even complain about anything. Like, ever. So yeah, I do trust you. And everything I told you has been the truth.” She taps her fingers on the table next to Flug’s hand, glancing down to look at her fingernails. “And I mean, I was born here after all. I don’t have any other people to tell my secrets to.”
“Hm,” is all Flug says at first.
Demencia’s eyes follow Flug’s motions down to his fingers, where he isn’t doing work. He’s rolling a wire between his fingers. She watches as he grips it tightly, like he’s trying to snap off the end of it with his nails. Then—
“You have to promise not to make fun of me for this one.”
“Why would—” She starts, then stops. “I promise not to. You’ve never made fun of me for any of my secrets.”
(“That’s because I didn’t care about them,” he wants to say. But that would be wrong, too. He does care. Just a bit.)
“There was nothing to make fun of you for. And besides, this is related to that question from earlier. You know, about how I asked you how I looked.”
“Oh. Is it?” She doesn’t know what else to say. It’s like Flug is a thousand miles away from his body right now. He’s wavering like a child who’s afraid that his parents are going to yell at him.
“Yeah. I…” He puts down his tools. He puts down everything, actually. “I don’t know. Sorry, this feels really cliché. You know, like a TV show. This is like a confession scene or something. Not that that’s what this is about or anything, just—” he pauses. “It feels inorganic, is all. I almost don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“I...you don’t have to. I said that already.”
Flug begins to shake. Very subtly, until it becomes not-so-subtle.
Demencia doesn’t notice it until she hears tiny squeaking sounds from Flug’s fingers rubbing against each other through his gloves. “Flug? Are you okay?”
He doesn’t say anything for a second, and then he just stares at the wall. “I don’t know what to say. I feel like I opened myself up to conversation and now I just want to shut down again. I’m sorry.”
“Dude, you don’t have to be sorry.” She watches him intently, and notes that it almost looks like he’s going to crumble. “You didn’t do anything bad.”
“I just…” He starts.
Selfishly, secretly, Demencia is excited. Excited to know. Excited to hear something juicy about Flug. She wants to encourage him, but she knows better. So she just waits for Flug to fill the silence himself.
“I feel like a woman.”
A blink is all Demencia can manage. Then she repeats, “You feel like a woman?”
There’s no response.
“What…”
“I said that I feel like a woman,” he says again. It feels less confident this time. More...sad.
“Are…” Demencia stops, mostly confused. “Is that bad? That’s not bad. Right? Because I’m a woman. Is it bad to feel like I do?”
“It is bad,” Flug mutters. “It’s bad. It feels bad.”
Demencia frowns. She was unsure of how to navigate this, and she definitely feels less capable now that Flug looks like he’s crying.
“You feel like a woman, and that’s bad.” She stops and thinks to herself, muttering out loud. “Why would that be bad?” She ponders it for a moment or two, then her face hardens. She leans in towards Flug, and he leans away. Harshly. At this, she pulls back, trying to regain her composure and failing horrifically. “Is Black Hat insulting you? Your boss? My boss? Is he telling you that you’re weak or something—you know, like a woman? Because if he is, that’s offensive. Women aren’t weak. I’m not fucking weak. Do I need to go attack him? I’ll attack him.”
“It’s not him,” Flug breathes. “I’m the one telling myself that.”
“What? You’re telling yourself that you’re weak? Why?”
“Not that,” he sighs. “I’m telling myself that I’m a woman because I was a woman, Demencia. And...even though I’m telling myself that, I’m not supposed to still feel like one. I thought I was past that.” He nearly spits this, like she’s stupid for not knowing. “I don’t know why I feel like—” He stops, reaching under his bag to rub at his eyes. “This sucks.”
“You…” Demencia blinks. “Oh.”
Flug settles his bag back on his face and looks over at her. “Can you just be honest with me?”
In a panic, Demencia doesn’t move. She just holds his gaze.
“Do I look like a girl? I know it sounds stupid, but just answer me. I’m this close to shutting up out of vulnerability.”
“No,” she says plainly. “I wouldn’t have even thought about that, if you hadn't told me. I don’t think you look like a girl. You look very manly. Very much like a man. The most man, ever.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Flug doesn’t look grateful for the answer. “But I’m…” he touches his goggles. “I’m...scrawny, and skinny. My hands are all feminine and I look like a girl under the bag. My voice isn’t deep. I don’t know how nobody’s figured it out yet.”
“You’re…” spiraling, Demencia wants to say. She’s not sure if he can even hear her anymore. He does this sometimes—panics, right down to his bones until he excuses himself and breaks down officially. It’s kind of sad to watch, but he never lets anybody help him. She just prays and hopes it doesn’t happen in front of her. If he pushes her away, it’s game over. Even if she wants to help, he never lets her. “It’s probably because you don’t look like a girl. You don’t act like one, but even that sounds stupid out loud. Everyone’s behaviors are—what’s the word—genderless? Or whatever. I hate saying that, but yeah. People think I’m a tomboy and stuff. But you don’t look like a girl. Not at all. Not to me, or 5.0.5, or Black Hat. Probably. Who cares what Black Hat thinks. I don’t even know if he has a gender.”
“Even if I feel like one? Even if I look like this?”
Demencia watches as Flug nearly rips off his bag.
God, this is too much information at once.
As the bag is pulled away from his face, Flug looks down, then up. He does it quickly, like he can’t bear to wait for the rejection and hostility any longer. He just wants to get this over with.
Demencia tracks the introduction of facial features.
Fluffy hair that was a bit messy. Forehead. Eyebrows, scarred and tense. Eyes, which she instinctively wanted to call bright. They were glassy at the moment, the skin around them puffy.
Cheeks, scarred. Ears with no piercings. Nose, which was running.
He seemed to realize a bit too late, wiping away a bit of snot as she moved lower down his face.
Philtrum. Lips, chapped and bitten one too many times. Teeth which were a bit out of place. He’d opened his mouth to breathe and that was how she’d seen a bit of them. Nothing to comment on there.
Chin, scarred. Neck, mostly bare.
She scanned up and down, trying to attach the appearance of Flug’s face and voice with his body.
“You can say I’m…”
“You just look like a... like a guy,” Demencia says softly. “I mean it. You look like a dude. I have no reason to lie to you.”
Flug instinctively reaches up to try and cover his face—no, his mouth. The lower half of his face. It looks like he’s smiling, but Demencia can’t tell. Maybe he’s grimacing. Again, she knows nothing about him—except now, she is aware of the fact that he’s transgender. Not that it matters, anyway. It doesn’t change her opinion of him in the slightest.
Unprompted, Flug slides off of his chair and wraps his arms around her. He’s taller than her by a bit, so he comes in to rest his head in the crook of her neck. He doesn’t know why he goes in for a hug—it’s random and out of character and deeply uncalled for, and—
“Aw—” she starts.
“Don’t.”
Demencia sighs. “Alright, alright.” She returns the hug and squeezes him a little too tight. “I know it must have taken a lot for you to tell me that. Thank you.”
“It—” he starts. “Wait. My binder,” he squeaks, after a few seconds.
They’d resorted to simply holding each other in a comfortable silence, and neither of them cared to break away from each other. After all, Flug gives nice hugs when he wants to, which isn’t often. And Demencia gives Flug too many hugs for him to care about whether they’re bad or not. Sometimes he appreciates them, like right now. Except when they get close to crushing his ribs.
“Your binder?” Demencia repeats, pulling away.
“Yeah. It’s—” he looks away.
“I know what a binder is. I have access to the internet.”
“Oh. I mean, I haven’t...had time or money to…” He looks down. She looks down with him, and then looks up.
“You need money?” She blinks. “We should tell Black Hat.”
“Please don’t.”
“I—Oh. No, I don’t mean telling him about you being trans.”
Flug flinches at the word ‘trans’, like he doesn’t like admitting that fact to himself even though it’s been his agonizing lived experience.
Demencia continues. “I don’t care about telling him shit. He can find out for himself if you want. I mean we can tell him we need to rob a bank or something. And that you need a vacation.”
“Oh. I don’t think that’ll...um...go over with him very well. He doesn’t like letting his employees rest. Especially not me.”
“Why haven’t you thought of asking, you little genius? I thought you had more than one brain cell in there.”
“I’m afraid he’d call me out or something for...pocketing company money. Or whatever. He has a problem with everything.”
“He’s not going to have a problem with you if I can help it,” Demencia mutters. “He doesn’t hurt me even when I get on his nerves. Have you noticed that?”
“I...huh.” Flug taps his chin. She watches him do it and momentarily thinks, he’s cute. “No, I haven’t. But I guess you’re right. He does it to me, though. Like that one time he collapsed me into nothingness so he could get me in his office that one time.”
“But that wasn’t to punish you,” Demencia points out. “That was so he could get something out of it. Like I said, he won’t hurt you. And this time I’ll be on your side. I usually don’t do that.”
“Yeah, you just leave me to suffer his wrath.”
“Eh, you seem to handle it well.”
Flug snorts. “I try to, as best as I can. I’m not very good at it. Maybe I just look like I am.” And as he says this, he turns around to put his bag back on his head.
Before he can, Demencia stops him. “Um,” she starts.
“Huh?”
“Does Black Hat know what you look like? Under the, uh, bag.”
“Oh. Um, yeah. He does.”
“He does? And I didn’t get to know until now?”
“It’s not like I wanted him to see,” Flug protests. “It was an accident.” He rubs his face. “And it was like, one time. A really long time ago. When I first got here.”
“Did he... say anything about it?”
“Did he say anything about my face? No, not really. He just looked at it and then went on with his life. I didn’t think much of it at the time, because I was scared shitless by him. I try not to think about it, though. Retrospectively, it feels like I was pantsed. But I’m rambling. Again, he didn’t say anything about my face.”
“Oh. Well, it’s nice. It’s...very Flug. It’s fitting.”
“I...thanks,” he laughs. “I grew it myself. Well, and with the help of testosterone. To give me more sharp edges and such.”
“Sure.” Demencia walks over to the laboratory door, preparing to open it but waiting until Flug has his bag on. “Would you ever...you know, want to parade it around? Maybe when you feel better about yourself? I think it would be nice to see your face more...often. Sorry if that sounds weird or selfish, but it feels more...real. You know, to talk to your friend without a bag on their head.”
Flug makes a contemplative noise. “Maybe. But not now. I’ve been vulnerable for like, thirty minutes. That’s enough to last me a whole year.”
“Yeah. I agree. I didn’t know what to do with you for a while there. You scared me.”
“You scared me. I thought you were going to freak out when I told you. Or make fun of me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t. I said that already. And I don’t think anyone in this house would, either.” She chews the inside of her cheek. “I’m just surprised you never said anything to 5.0.5.”
“Of course I did,” Flug says, almost offended. “I tell him all of my problems. He doesn’t seem to understand them, though, or maybe he does. He just doesn’t tell anybody else. If he did, he’d be in huge trouble.”
“Oh, okay. So Black Hat is the only one who doesn’t know?”
“Yeah, and I don’t really need to tell him. There isn’t a reason to. It’s not like it’ll ever come up. What’s he going to ask me? ‘How’s your gender doing today?’ I hope not—I’d cry.”
“I don’t know, Flug. How is your gender doing today?”
He scoffs at her, grabbing a ray gun off the wall as they both depart the laboratory. “I don’t know, Demencia. Better than earlier, I guess. Thanks for asking.”