Chapter Text
“Won’t you be lonely by yourself?”
Tommy hums, considering the question. “No? You don’t have to get married, or, or date someone to not be lonely.”
Tommy’s classmate stares at him, and his skin gets all prickly, like he answered an open-ended question wrongly, somehow.
“It’s probably just a phase, just like your other one,” his classmate says offhandedly before walking away as the final bell rings, leaving Tommy to stand with his mouth dropped to the floor.
In Tommy’s defense, he thought he would be able to trust his classmate to not be an obtuse fucking dickhead. He also wasn’t expecting to have to come out at all, his classmate seeing the aroace flag on his laptop. Jumping at the first chance to inform someone of something so important to his identity, Tommy had readily rambled on for a minute or two about aromanticism and asexuality.
He did not expect his classmate to be blatantly aphobic and transphobic.
The first part, Tommy can kind of explain away—and Wilbur would tell him not to, but Wilbur’s neither here nor there. Not many people are familiar with the A in LGBTQIA, thinking it stands for ally, not the a-spectrum. Or people just don’t care, and invalidate aroace people all the time. Tommy’s used to seeing it online.
It’s the second part that shocks Tommy to his core. He’s been out for years, transitioning in early middle school. Tommy’s pretty sure most people have forgotten he was born a girl, the only reminders from Tommy himself. Proudly making jokes or displaying the trans flag any moment he can get is things he’s not ashamed of.
He’s proud of himself and his identity. Fuck everyone else.
But his classmate’s words bother him, something about them sparking a seed of doubt in the back of his mind. It’s not a phase, and if it were, it’s no problem for Tommy to identify as something else, but the lonely part.
Will Tommy be alone for a majority of his life?
It’s a valid fear, one he hasn’t thought too much about, but during some particularly rougher nights, thoughts like those seem to invade his mind, laying on his back, staring up at a ceiling he’s not physically seeing. Those nights haven’t happened in a while, where he twists and turns and debates asking for help. Wilbur made him promise two months ago to call him, to lean on his support system and head to Wilbur’s room.
He’s only had to follow up on his promise three times, twice in one week, and the other after a bad day at school. They would hang out in Wilbur’s room, playing games and watching Netflix until one of them—usually Tommy—would fall asleep, waking up together and well into the morning.
Tommy always sleeps great on those nights.
But the way his classmate said it, said that being trans or aroace are phases. They said it like it’s a well-known fact, that phases are scientifically proven. Like his classmate went onto a nationally accredited website, read up on facts about LGBTQIA identities, and the bottom line had a disclaimer of: It could just be a phase!
Even the most homphobic and transphobic comments Tommy’s received over the past few years haven’t been near as hurtful as this. Sure, slurs are shit, and intentionally being called a woman sucks, but to be dismissed entirely, as if his existence is fake? That shit’s terrible.
He would much rather receive a million f-slurs over the internet than to be told that something he’s struggled with accepting for himself is not real, and that he’ll get over it sometime.
Maybe Tommy should talk to Wilbur about this one if it’s bothering him this much.
The thoughts whirl in his mind as he packs his bag to leave. They stick with him in the back of his mind like annoying leeches that can’t let go as he walks away from the senior lockers and out the high school doors with his school friends. They suck at his soul, demanding his attention and slowly draining him dry.
Leeches multiply by fives, appearing on his arms and legs but congregating on his heart and head. He wakes up the next day with leeches following him down the stairs, spreading their slime and infecting the house with something toxic. They never leave Tommy alone, never straying from his skin despite Wilbur trying to get them off of him.
A week passes, and his friends routinely ask him what’s wrong, hands pulling at the leeches but they only pull at his skin, the stubborn leeches never letting him go free. And it's surprising his friends even ask him how his day is; he doesn't feel like he's that close to them. They really only became friends because they respected Tommy's pronouns when he came out, and then they just kept sitting together at lunch.
A few more days pass, and Tommy wakes up, the amount of leeches halved. He feels lighter, his skin feels better.
It’s noticeable, too. Wilbur comments on how Tommy seems a bit happier and Phil tells him that the color in his face has returned. His friend’s worried glances stop happening so often, and Tommy can feel the leeches drop off one by one, until there is none left.
The doubt and insecurity disappear as do the leeches. He’s forgotten—or at least ignored—the words his classmate said, and he lives normally, confident in himself and identity.
Two weeks after his classmate was transphobic and aphobic, Tommy finds himself in the same situation. Although this time, it’s more precarious.
He’s cornered against a wall, some fucking dickhead transphobes pinning him against it, breath hot and nasty next to Tommy’s ear. The dickhead’s minions are looting his bag, pulling out his school supplies and even some tampons. Tommy doesn’t use tampons anymore, but he still keeps them around, knowing the pain of being on your period but not having anything for it.
Fucking bastards.
He gathers up some spit in the back of his mouth, cheek throbbing where Dickhead hit him after calling him a few slurs. God, this sucks. At least he left his important stuff at home today, like the charm his birth mother had given him as a baby. Tommy couldn’t bear to part with that.
God, what is he going to tell Wilbur and Phil when he gets home tonight? If only they were out, and he could sneak home and put some color corrector and concealer on the forming bruise.
His thoughts are interrupted with another punch to the stomach, before being dropped to the ground. Tommy listens dazedly as the transphobes take their leave, sniding jeers in their, and he slumps against the alley wall, head and ribs in pain. He might have some bruised ribs and probably, definitely, a concussion.
Groaning, Tommy cradles his left side, short bursts of pain everytime he moves his arm. It’s a large effort on his part to stand up and gather his belongings, but he breathes a short sigh of relief when his wallet is safely intact and the rest of his shit seems to be relatively okay.
Maybe it’s a good thing Tommy’s been literally fucking attacked. Then Phil can sue the school, they can get money, move away, and Tommy will never have to go to school again because they’ll be fucking rich.
That’s not likely though, so Tommy will have to settle with only moving schools.
Phil will move schools for him, especially after Tommy finally tells him about the harassment and transphobia he’s been receiving. Only Wilbur knows about the transphobia—not the aphobia, they don’t even know he’s aroace yet—and he had respected Tommy’s wishes to not tell Phil about the shittiness.
He’ll have to come clean about it all tonight if he doesn’t want the leeches returning.