There was more than one reason for the discomfort, of course. The waiting rooms were some of the barest, most clinical rooms any of them had ever seen, at least in memory– stark white stucco walls, tinged a fuzzy, sickly blue from buzzing fluorescent lights overhead, none of which flickering or about to wink out, but certainly giving the impression that, at any moment, one would do so and send the entire room into pitch darkness.
Next to nothing colored the walls, save for the most generic of generic office paintings, which really only added to the bleak tone with their faded colors and bland subject matter. The floor was plain linoleum– off gray-white dashed with small flecks of other colors– dashed with the occasional scuff mark of a tennis shoe from an impatient– or, perhaps, terrified– patron.
The chairs were straight-backed and made of hard, solid wood. Far from rickety, they were possibly too sturdy for their age, likely far older than the oldest of the children patients, having just turned seven and three-quarters, thank you. Their padding was thin, overly imprinted with the rear ends of several individuals, with the design worn away to reveal a plain, hopeless gray.
The silence of the rooms added, could only add, to the unease– to the point where one could hear the quiet buzzing of a fly outside of the waiting room, beyond the wooden door to the rest of the offices. No person, adult or child, in any of the three rooms made any sound, too afraid that the slightest noise might trigger an avalanche of accusation, of blame, of terror.
The reason each family had come to be in these dismal, blank offices, however, was most likely the most uncomfortable thing of all.
“Excuse me,” and each of the three families– nine individuals in total– jumped in surprise at the sudden voice of a nurse, head poking through the door, “the doctor will see you now.”
Nervously, as though the second anyone moved the dam would break and that would be end of whatever fragile normalcy they’d managed to keep over these past few months, the families– fathers, mothers, children– stood from their seats in a quiet scuffle of wood against smooth flooring, and followed into the unknown.
The doctor studied the sheet of paper, one in a thicker stack of documents hardly held together by a meager manila folder, before turning to the family, once more sat in uncomfortable chairs in an equally uncomfortable and yet smaller room, fingers twisting in their laps. The child rubbed at a lighter patch of skin on his arm, as smooth and blank as the rest of him.
“Not a mark left?”
The parents nodded, a small, nervous gesture, tightly controlled. It looked like, to the boy, they were controlled by a puppet’s strings; if he squinted, he could see them.
“And how old is he–”
“–she?”
The child flinched, tugging her– no, ‘he’ and ‘his’ were right, but they wouldn’t understand– sleeve down, though it went unnoticed by his parents, far too preoccupied with the expert’s questions.
“Old enough. Seven.” His mother swallowed, lifting a trembling hand as if to place it on her child, before reconsidering. She placed it on her lap, instead, gripped tightly by the other. “That’s the age–”
“–right?”
“It is.” His tone was clinical, but not entirely unkind, simply stating the facts of the matter. Whatever the emotion or lack thereof in his voice, it didn’t help the tension in the cold air, too thick to even attempt to cut with a knife.
“Are you sure he’s not just a late bloomer?” The auburn-haired child’s father sounded desperate, voice strained. The boy left his arm bare, a hint of a scowl on his face, keeping his eyes firmly on the floor.
It wasn’t a new thing to see his father frustrated by him.
The doctor sighed, as though she were losing patience and yet still digging deep to find more. “There are no late bloomers; it always happens at seven years of age. Not having a mark is rare, but it can happen. I’m sorry, but your son–”
“–daughter,” the child flinched again, “is simply going to be without a mate.”
He didn’t look up to see his parents, but he could tell their faces were crumbling, could practically feel his father reaching out to put an arm around his mother, but never him.
Never once him.
“Can’t we just–”
“–force it? No one can go through life without a mate, it’s.. it’s..”
“Unnatural,” his father finished, vaguely– well, perhaps not so vaguely, considering the growing expression on his face– disgusted. “Give him a shock, or- or a medicine or something. He can’t be like that.”
“He can live a completely fulfilling life, I promise you.” The boy could hear her shuffling through more papers, and he glanced up through floppy brown hair to see his parents taking packets, pamphlets, printed with things he couldn’t make out quite yet. “He’s completely healthy, completely normal; just–”
“– different.”
After a few more questions, possibly even thinly-veiled threats and a couple of pleads, each family thanked their doctors for their time as politely as they could manage, shaking hands with white knuckles and suspicious, frustrated, despairing glances at one another.
As the parents walked ahead, clutching colorful sheafs of paper and arguing, debating in hushed whispers, pressed tightly together as if it would keep out the entire world as they tried to wrap their heads around it, each child stopped in the hall, turning back to look at the doctor.
Chris, an indigenous boy with patches of lighter skin and a nervous twitch in his fingers. Ruby, a boy with an identity that had never matched himself, pretending to be something else. Alex, a boy with a deep frown, matches and firecrackers in his pockets, voice permanently locked in his throat. Each one looked back, betrayed, upset.
Terrified.
The doctors could do nothing more than shake their heads, sorry to condemn them, but unable to change the verdict. One even mouthed an apology.
Whatever hope there might’ve been left deep inside the children visibly vanished, right before their eyes, and– with sagging shoulders– each boy turned to follow his parents out and into the world.
Chris remembered, when he used to go to the doctor’s for a check up or what have you, his family would get him an ice cream on the way home. He really liked mint chip– extra cold, refreshing, sweet, with just a bit of bitter chocolate. Surely it would happen again, though it was in the middle of cold, dreary, drizzly November.
They didn’t stop for anything, not even a bathroom break, and his fingers twitched as the air in the car grew stale and tense.
Ruby kept the sleeve of his jacket pulled up, exposing a pale, smooth, unmarked forearm to the cold light streaming through the car window. With his right hand, he carefully touched the stretch of canvas that should’ve held what his parents had on their arms, tracing words that weren’t and never would be there.
“Ruby! Put your sleeve down, girl, or you’ll catch your death!”
He quickly tugged it down, hiding his flinch, and turned to count the raindrops on the glass, once, twice, three times, just to be sure. The number kept changing.
Alex didn’t pay attention to his parents on the way home.
He thought about his gecko: how he had spots and dashes and marks all over his scaly skin, just like he was expected to. He lived a happy life in a big tank with a sun lamp and all the insects he could wish for.
Could a leopard gecko still be happy without being spotted?
Probably, but he wasn’t a gecko, was he?
Alex moved to Somerset with his family after the holidays, the very moment the roads are clear of travellers and snow slush. Their car was packed full to the gills, with a trailer to hold everything else that couldn’t quite fit. At least he got to keep his gecko with him, dozing in his cupped hands to keep warm and cozy.
In all honesty, the boy wasn’t surprised; he’d heard whispers and plans for weeks, now, starting the night they’d returned from his appointment. He’d been immediately sent up to his room, as if he had been doing something wrong, and before he could get halfway up the stairs, he heard the kitchen door shut tight.
Well, if he was the cause of all of this, Alex thought, he deserved some answers, too.
In retrospect, he honestly wished he hadn’t been so curious.
“… it’s embarrassing!” He could hear his father, standing and pushing back his dining chair roughly, wooden legs scraping against the tile floor. “How can we face everyone? They’ll take one look at him and–”
“I know,” his mother soothed, though Alex could detect the same undercurrent of frustration, of hopelessness, under the mask. “We could always cover him, they won’t have to know.”
His father snorted derisively. “As if he’ll keep that on for the rest of his life. They’ll know he’s broken the moment they ask.”
He’d never been called embarrassing before, and he wasn’t sure what other people’s thoughts had to do with what wasn’t on his arm, but he didn’t like it.
Quickly, he dashed back up the stairs, taking care to miss the one creaky step, and sat in his room as he was told. The next morning, he got the news.
It wasn’t as though it would be hard for him to uproot his life and just move away, not really. His school was the same as, he suspected, any other school around the country, and not many children were keen to make friends with someone who wouldn’t– couldn’t, really– yell and scream and have overly-loud conversations with them.
No skin off his nose– there were even more wild, tangled, overgrown places in Somerset, according to his parents, so his adventuring wouldn’t be hindered.
He liked adventuring. Out in the wild, no one would try and force him to talk when he couldn’t. He could run wild through ferns and bracken, leap over rocks and fallen branches, and haul himself up rough-barked trees until his hands ran red and he could see forever in every direction.
Besides– here? Here, no one tried to take away any of his implements of destruction. Candles just didn’t burn the same way piles of leaf litter and torn up papers did.
The little town just wasn’t home, though.
Their new house was a little more rickety, a little more creaky, and the paint in his room was starting to peel back just a touch, to where a small patch was completely bare where his bed sat. There weren’t any stairs, just a long, low house with a garden shed filled with all manner of random things, including his bike; the cabinets were short and squat, and filled with shelves, making them the worst sorts of hiding places; and lastly, all of the rooms were just cold, crowded, or some measure of both at once.
They were far away from people, too, a good third of a mile from the town center, though that was really his father’s decision. Less people to look at his son and wonder where he’d gone wrong.
Alex wondered that, himself, especially the night before school started back up. He lay there, under his familiar sheets in an unfamiliar room, listening to the creaks of the boards and the groans of the poor radiator trying desperately to put out heat to no avail, and picked out an additional inch to the bare spot’s diameter.
The next morning, he went to school with his left forearm as bare and mark-free as that spot.
Chris had lived in Somerset since the moment he was born, but that wasn’t the only way his case differed from Alex’s.
For one, he didn’t creep downstairs the night he got home, listening at doorways and trying to keep quiet, only to overhear things no child should ever hear said by their own parents. Instead, quiet as a church mouse and a fraction more confused– of course a mouse would be confused, they had no concept of human religion– he stayed up in his room as directed, working with a ball puzzle.
It was an odd, paradoxically complex with such a simple concept: get the small metal ball, really more of a bead, into the hole at the end of the maze. Tyler got it from his cereal box, gave it to Josh to play with, who then gave it to Stephen, who gave it to Chris with explicit instructions to bring it back before anyone knew what he or Josh had done.
That was a few days ago, and Chris wasn’t too sure how that thing turned out. He hoped they were all still friends.
And he really kind of wanted that cereal, if only for the prizes.
As he worked at the toy, tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth in concentration, he thought about what had transpired that day.
He hadn’t had to go in to school. The ball rolled down a long, thin hall in the contraption.
There was a long car ride to a place he’d never been before. The ball turned a corner onto a new straightaway.
He had to sit in a creepy, uncomfortable waiting room for what felt like forever. Overcorrecting, the ball rolled backwards and into the corner.
He found out why his parents– and just about everyone, really– were panicking the moment he turned seven. Down the straightaway and a new corner turned.
As it turned out, he was kind of broken. He tilted carefully, taking great care with the ball, trying to avoid the pitfall waiting for him, just before the end of the puzzle.
And it couldn’t be fixed.
With a disheartening dink, the metal bead rolled right into the pitfall as if it were meant to do so all along, the rest of its motions simply a formality, or the toying of a cat with a mouse.
Chris huffed, tossing the toy down on the bed. After a moment’s thought, he followed suit, plunging his face into the cool softness of his pillow. He came down the next morning, having fallen asleep purely on accident, to see his mother putting away a few groceries.
She’d gotten mint chip ice cream.
“You’re perfectly fine,” she’d stated that night, pointing with her spoon still dripping pale green. All three of them sat on the couch, bowls of ice cream in their laps, because Chris really couldn’t eat all of it, himself, even if it was his treat. “No matter what anyone says about your arm, you are fine.”
Chris watched her, mouth full of ice cream and unable to speak. He digested the words for a moment, swallowed, then turned to his father, continuing to chow down on the remainder of the two scoops he’d been given.
“She’s right. You’re our boy, and you’re great like you are. You don’t need anything else on you.” He nodded with finality, taking the last spoonful of the melting dairy dessert and letting the newly empty spoon drop into the bowl with a clatter.
The boy, still scooping his ice cream into his mouth as fast as he could eat it without getting brain freeze, believed him.
When he came to school after the holidays, he didn’t show his arm with an air of rebellion, as a challenge. He left it covered with his jacket, because it was cold outside, and if he were asked, he shrugged and pulled up the sleeve.
It was just a bit of writing. Who cared?
Ruby certainly did.
He didn’t even have to be told to go up to his room, unlike the other two. Rather, of his own accord, he raced ahead of his parents, keeping his sleeves firmly down by clenching the ends in his fists, and called for his dog. The lab instantly woke from his doze on the kitchen floor, scrabbling his paws on the tile to get traction and pelting after his master in an instant.
It all really happened before his parents had much of a chance to say anything to him, either about what happened, running in the house, or letting Oscar into his room. Not like telling him not to do it had ever done much of anything.
The moment the pair of them were in his– thankfully non-feminine– room, he flopped down on his own bed, trying very hard not to cry. Sensing this, Oscar whined quietly, hopping up next to the child and wriggling his head under his bent arm, attempting to nudge at his face with a cold, wet nose and scratchy whiskers.
“Hey,” Ruby admonished, turning his head to get away from the still-whining dog, though it hardly sounded as scolding as he’d hoped it would. “Stop it.”
It got him a long, wet lick on the cheek in return.
“Gross!” He wriggled away from the dog, wiping his cheek on the soft fabric of his jacket’s shoulder, making sure to get his long, dark hair out of the way first. With that thought, it brought him back into his despair.
His mom really was proud of his hair, and it showed in the way she cared for it: brushing it to a shine before bed and before school, taking great care to style it the way she used to style her own, and running her fingers through it whenever she could. She said he was lucky.
He really didn’t think so.
Wriggling to the end of his bed– and avoiding a solid whap from Oscar’s wagging tail in the process– he pulled a beanie from deep within his toy bin. It wasn’t his, not in the way that he’d bought it or been given it, as his mom had adamantly refused upon hearing of his desire for a hat; he’d actually swiped it from the coat closet in the front hall, before they took all those things to the charity shop. Well, if they were going to give it away, anyway, why shouldn’t he have it?
Not particularly careful with how he treated his ash-brown locks, he twisted them into a rope, coiling it carefully up on the top of his head, and pulled the beanie down over it. Sure, it was a terrible fit, since it was made for adults, but he at least didn’t have to look at that long, girly mop anymore. With his fairly-neutral clothes, in shades of blues and reds, and his hair all curled up and hidden, he looked just like– he was– a boy.
He’d always wanted to be one. Things like ‘girl’ and ‘she’ and ‘her’ as attributed to himself always made his nose wrinkle and his belly twist uncomfortably. It just wasn’t right, it wasn’t himself, just like the name ‘Ruby’ wasn’t.
The name was female, most of the clothes were female, his hair, his body, everything was female except for himself, in his head and in his chest. He’d gotten a lot of nasty words thrown his way for expressing that in class, once and only once, when in a class discussion.
What do you want to be? “Well, a boy.”
The moment he said those three words, all hell broke loose in a cacophony of jeers and laughter, even from his teacher, who didn’t even bother to hide her booming laughter for the first few seconds.
“You can’t be a boy, you’re a girl!”
But he wasn’t a girl, not at heart, and not in mind, but his protests went unheard, and he was skipped over for the rest of the discussion.
He had to write a few lines at recess that day for ‘causing a disturbance’.
With all that said, his own lack of soulmark, missing ink on his left forearm, was just another way he was broken, and another way for people to say cruel things.
His body, maybe, could change. Maybe he could grow up and cut his hair short, have a boy’s name and boy’s clothes and be treated as a boy and never once have to respond to the name ‘Ruby’ or ‘she’ or ‘her’ ever again.
But he’d always be blank.
His eyes were stinging, a painful tightness starting to creep up into his throat, making it hard to breathe; he curled his fingers into fists, pressing them into his eyes so hard he saw colored spots in the dark, and let out a shuddering breath.
“Hey, Oscar.”
The lab looked up at the sound of his name, then scrambled off the bed, leaving it a mess of wadded sheets.
“Wanna play with the car I found?” Ruby held up the tiny metal car, paint chipping off, dirt and sand under the wheels from the playground he’d found it in.
Oscar let out a quiet boof, and allowed the boy to roll the car over his back and sides, like a soft, golden road.
Ruby went to school with long purple sleeves, hair shiny, his beanie left at home under toys, and he never once bared his arms.
Chris met Alex first.
It was in secondary school, surprisingly enough; their village was small enough to only have one school system. For years, it was through sheer chance that they never actually met beyond a glance here or there at assemblies and such– they had different teachers every year.
Now, with multiple teachers in multiple subjects, in one small school, it was bound to happen eventually.
Third period German was the best option for himself, Chris thought. It wasn’t too early that he was still half asleep at his desk, and it wasn’t so late that he’d stopped paying attention entirely.
That, and he wasn’t about to speak French or Spanish, and Japanese, however interesting, seemed far too difficult for him to wrap his head around. English was a Germanic language, right? Then it should be easier than any of the other languages available.
If only his deskmate weren’t so grouchy, or at least didn’t look like a complete asshole all the time.
The auburn-haired boy hadn’t cracked a smile, looked bored, or really looked anything other than extremely upset or possibly a lot pissed off– Chris wasn’t so good with faces. It made him anxious, to be honest– though just about everything did, these days– and he’d scooted over with his things to be further away, fingers drumming on his book.
His deskmate glared, or looked like he glared, and Chris stopped.
He at least learned his name (Alex Smith) during roll, when– rather than give a half-hearted ‘here’ like near everyone else in the classroom– he simply raised his hand, quieter than a mouse. Funny, really, Chris thought; he’d believed a kid like Alex would respond in the most surly way possible.
Alex wasn’t actually surly, or really all that pissed off. He simply had a really angry resting face, had developed it from years of snide remarks and outright hostility in his direction; in all honesty, he was more confused by his deskmate’s (Chris Trott, he’d learned) anxious fidgeting and distance. He didn’t really want to scare off this kid.
The resting face had its uses– mainly, sparing him from ridicule about his lack of speech– but he wished he could turn it off for a second or two, at least so Chris wouldn’t completely panic every class.
People panicking made him angry, but not in the way that he’d take it out on them– not usually, anyway. Angry in the way he wanted them to stop, angry that he couldn’t help them do it, angry that people’s minds turned against them at the worst moments like his own did.
A lot of things made him angry. He wasn’t the type to be nervous or scared, not to the point of shutting down. To the point where he blew up and made others nervous or scared, which– you guessed it– also made him angry.
His firebug tendencies used to help that, when he was younger; watching leaves or papers burn up was watching his own irritation and upset burn up, more fuel for the flames. He still did it, sometimes, but electronics– video games, specifically- had started to take over. It was a good outlet for anger born of anxiety, his own or otherwise.
Speaking of, the boy’s anxiety was so palpable that it actually startled him when he spoke up.
“Alex, right?”
He blinked, seeing Chris staring right back at him, his attempt at a friendly face edged with still present nerves. It took a moment, but he nodded.
“I’m Chris. Or Trott, whichever.” He shrugged, and after a period of awkward silence, spoke up again. “Can I call you Smith? Fits you better, and it’s only one syllable, like Trott is. Don’t like wasting time.”
Smith nodded again, mouth twisting in an attempt to keep from laughing. Honestly, he was nervous, which was why he was babbling; it shouldn’t be funny, it should– usually would– be making him angry, and yet…
He must have looked even more angry, because Trott moved back a little more. “Sorry. I do that, sometimes. Uh.” He scratched at his floppy hair with his left hand, pushing it out of his eyes. “We’re practicing words.. do you wanna help?”
He couldn’t speak, and this is where the trouble would start. Still, Trott looked too anxious still to try and approach anyone else in the class for practice, and he could still do the words his own way. For the third time, Smith nodded.
“Okay.” He glanced at his book. “Frau.”
His accent was off, but that was to be expected. Smith wrote down the word in his notes, making sure to put the definition beside it: Frau - woman. When he looked up, ready for the next word, he saw Trott looking at him expectantly.
“You’re supposed to say it, too.”
Smith sighed, looking up towards the front of the classroom. He wouldn’t get anyone else to explain it today– she was too busy reading through her own notes to really bother. Reaching up his hand, he tapped at his throat.
“Oh.” Trott frowned, brow furrowing. “You can’t speak? Are you sick?”
Smith gestured with his hands for a moment, then paused upon seeing Trott’s blank stare, still confused. Not everyone could read his signing; it was surprisingly easy to forget that when he used it so often. Scrabbling for his paper and pen, he scratched out the words.
I’m mute. Never spoken a word.
“Oh,” Trott said again, and Smith could practically feel the heat rolling off of him, for how embarrassed he looked. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t know, I should’ve–” Smith gave him a look, now plainly amused, and he stopped babbling again.
I’ll learn to write it, you learn to speak it. What’s the next one?
The brown-haired boy watched him curiously, then smiled, pleased to find it reflected on Smith’s face. It transformed him, really– instead of being unapproachable and kind of grouchy, you really wanted to know him.
And he did– especially since he hadn’t missed that Smith’s left arm was just as bare as his own.
That line of questioning came later, weeks later, during a study session turned game night, when they were both overstuffed with junk food and attempting to decide what to play next, sprawled out next to each other on Trott’s floor.
“Hey,” he’d said, pawing at Smith’s arm to get his attention, though he really didn’t need to; his head was right next to Trott’s, making it impossible for him not to hear. When his friend turned to face him proper, Trott pointed to his blank arm. “You don’t have a mark.”
Smith jerked back a bit, uncomfortable and now defensive, though he’d never really been that way before. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d never honestly expected Trott to notice it, perhaps it was the fact that he was his best friend and pointing out something broken that he really wasn’t too proud of.
Before Smith could write or gesture– he’d started to learn some of the more basic signs as time passed– Trott tugged down his own sleeve, leaving the patched dark skin in full view.
“Neither do I.”
The auburn boy blinked owlishly, keeping his eyes trained on the very spot he’d looked at on his own arm, blank and smooth as anything, but on another person.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed; I’m not,” Trott continued, replacing his sleeve, simply because it was cold, and not to hide it. “Just writing. It doesn’t matter.”
Smith grinned at him, slowly but surely, and his friend nudged at his side.
“Yeah, yeah, now pick one, you twat, it’s been an hour!”
They went their separate ways for uni.
It wasn’t anything personal between the two– if anything, after four years, they were closer than they had been. It wasn’t a matter of drifting apart. Sometimes you have to go in different directions, and that was alright with them.
Trott didn’t want to go to Wales, anyway, for reasons Smith wasn’t able to get out of him no matter his methods. The topic simply made him anxious, drumming his fingers and fluttering his hands over everything within reach, picking at his clothes and messing with his hair.
“Wales,” he’d said, during one conversation about the topic, “isn’t bad; I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s just not…” He waved a hand carelessly. “It’s not good, either.”
It was really the best Smith was going to get.
In all honesty, it wasn’t like the two friends were going to be completely isolated from one another, not in this day and age; with mobile phones, instant messaging, and online gaming, it could be like they never left. Well, save for shoving at one another and bed hogging and such.
That one was actually kind of a plus.
If they ever really did miss it too badly, which they said to everyone they could that they absolutely wouldn’t, there were always breaks.
It was here, at Portsmouth, at the start of his second year, that Chris met Ruby.
Well, not Ruby anymore. It had been a very long, very hard, very emotionally exhausting road, one that wasn’t quite finished yet, but Ross was that much closer to actually being himself, for the first time in his life.
He’d turned up at home one afternoon, at 16, with all but a few inches of his long, thick hair cut off. It wasn’t the greatest cut, considering tufts stuck out at every angle imaginable and was longer in some places where it shouldn’t have been, but it was better than shoving a foot and a half of heavy, insulating hair under a beanie and having it come out more tangled than a rat’s nest.
Ross remembered that day very well: his mother sobbed over the loss of her pride and joy, something that didn’t even belong to her, and he got grounded for a month. A little overdramatic, to be quite honest, but he was happy with himself.
Changing his name– legally, that is– was next, which took more paperwork and time than he’d expected and really thought was necessary. The name actually took quite some time to figure, considering the innumerable ones available to the public, filling up books and websites. Even the ones starting with ‘R’– he liked his initials, what could he say– were too many to count, but ‘Ross’ eventually was found, and it clicked. It just worked for him, fit him properly.
And it was one syllable, which made it even better. He was just glad his parents gave him a masculine middle name, as a tribute to a family friend– it saved him a hell of a lot of time.
On all records, he was male. His name was male. His hair was male. The rest of his body would take time, and a lot of money he currently did not have, but it was closer than he’d ever been before. It was something.
That something was just enough to get him out of the company and shared residence of girls, at least, starting this year. After an entire year of everything reminding him that everyone saw what he wasn’t, it was a welcome breath of fresh air.
Learning from past experience, Ross hadn’t overpacked, and that was a good thing: it took less time to get everything in place, just how he liked it, and it was less to count and take back home.
He really liked all of those things, especially counting.
In fact, he was right in the middle of it, carefully counting out his actual school supplies one at a time (1-2-3-4 notebooks, 1-2-3-…20 pencils, etc.) because, if he didn’t do such a thing, he would never know if he’d missed something.
Which was amazingly stressful and something he really didn’t need.
As he counted his boxes of paperclips and staples (3 of each so far, but you never know), a thump and a low curse startled him, shattering his concentration, leaving the jagged edges to unravel his entire process, as well as his patience.
He didn’t get angry; he just whined defeatedly, low in his throat.
“Sorry.” That was a new voice, not the one of his flatmate; curious, Ross turned away from his carefully sorted desk to see exactly who was coming around. New people made him more than a bit uncomfortable, for more than one reason.
“Fuck– did you break it, Trott?”
“No!” The other person– Trott– grunted from in the hallway. “I wouldn’t break anything, I’m not that clumsy– oh.”
He stared at Ross, and Ross stared right back, wary, but a little amused at his own fear. This guy was far from a threat, being short and pudgy and just generally… well, non-threatening. If it came to blows, he had no need to worry about his own safety.
Well, not that he was a violent, confrontational sort of person, but it at least looked that way.
“Oh, right, you’re his– I’m Chris Trott. Trott.” Trott shifted the heavy box awkwardly from arm to arm, attempting to tuck it under one or the other before finally giving it up and setting it on the ground.
Ross took his outstretched hand, shaking it briefly. “Ross Hornby. Ross. If you’re moving in, too, I’d appreciate you not breaking things.”
His face crumpled into especially frustrated indignance, and he threw his arms out as he spoke. “I didn’t break anything!”
“Look, if you do, just clean it up. Own up to it, it happens.”
“I don’t break–” Trott cut off, seeing Ross’ poor attempt at hiding a cheeky grin, and huffed. “You’re just as bad as he is.”
“He’s worse,” the other voice called cheerfully, soon following with a squawk as Trott leaned into the hallway, chucking a crumpled piece of newspaper from the box.
Ross watched for a moment, amused, before his eyes darted back to his desk. All of that sitting there, still uncounted, had his stomach tying in knots, but he hadn’t said goodbyes yet or been dismissed, so–
“I’ll be quiet, promise.”
He blinked, turning to see Trott watching him, a bit sympathetic, fingers twisting into his sleeves or picking at the hemline– they never seemed to stay still. “Huh?”
“So you can get back to your counting.” Satisfied that he’d now been heard, the shorter man stooped down to rifle through the rest of the packed items, taking great care to put everything down as quietly as possible. “I used to do it, too, until..” He trailed off, waving one shaking hand in the air.
Ross raised an eyebrow, a little mystified still as to how he’d figured it out without seeing him in action. “Until…?”
Trott shrugged. “Not important. I’ll tell you later. Go on.”
After another few moments, Ross turned back to his supplies, counting softly under his breath and tapping with his fingers, making sure everything was there and in place. Behind him, Trott continued to unpack, smiling as he listened.
Time was spent together after that day– a lot more time than either of them had expected at the moment. When you take the exact same classes for the exact same degree at the exact same university, and you’re already friends, anyway, you work together.
You do shooting, editing, composition, audio… every step of the process, all on the same projects. It was a wonder the instructors hadn’t caught on yet and split them up; in all honesty, however, they didn’t mind.
In spending so much time together, you notice things; nice to know, but they were of surprisingly little importance. For instance, if Trott got too nervous, he took his twitching and shaking hands and played an instrument until he’d unwound himself. Ross had a stash of chocolate kept in a drawer under his bed.
Ross was frugal, saving money wherever he possibly could. The reason why– transition was expensive– came out later, forced out of him from Trott’s immensely concerned face, and the moment it all came out, he was desperately looking for anything to count until he could just calm down, losing himself in those numbers.
Trott had nodded, understanding, and said nothing else on the subject. Instead, he took out the bars in Ross’ stash and set them on the desk for him to count.
Trott’s left forearm was as bare and naked as Ross’. The taller man had pointed, eyes wide, and his friend nodded energetically, excitedly explaining Smith’s own bare arm.
Ross couldn’t wait to meet him.
They all met, in person, that next break, and called it the Apocaweekend. After all, three people with no mark whatsoever, being friends? It had to be the end of days.
Of course, they’d played some games together before then. Assorted shooters, GTA, and even that new game in alpha, Minecraft.
Ross liked that one especially, being able to count out blocks and make the constructs of his dreams.
Smith liked burning them down until Ross wised up and stopped making them out of flammable materials.
Until that point, it was voices– or, in Smith’s case– words written on a screen, working up to their last conversation, which finally included faces and gestures, obscene and otherwise. They’d made their plans that night, hurriedly going over what they were going to do, what they could possibly see in Somerset, of all places, and valiantly attempted to help Ross understand at least a few of Smith’s gestures.
He got ‘hello’, Trott’s sign name– ‘t’ and ‘small’, which got no end of laughter from Ross– and his own sign name– ‘r’ and ‘dog’. After all of that, however, he looked more lost than either had ever seen him.
Trott translated his gestures for the rest of the conversation.
They– meaning Trott and Ross, having shared the trip– arrived Friday afternoon in front of Trott’s house, grumpy from traveling but glad to be done with it, at least for now, and tugged their bags out of the tiny trunk they’d been stuffed into.
This was the designated meeting place, after a good bit of debate, and they’d hardly started up the walk when Smith arrived to complete the trio.
“Finally!” Trott headed back down to the street, hoping to meet his friend halfway. “We’ve been waiting for–” He stopped, wide eyed, then pointed at Smith’s head. “Your hair.”
Smith grinned, hoisting his bag onto his back to free his hands, and signed, yeah, isn’t it great?
Ross watched him, as well, jaw a little slack. “It’s…”
Green. Bright, fluffy, kelly green, all over his head, rather than the auburn his friends knew him for. Well?
“So, if it’s all over his head,” Ross started, slowly, “does that mean he’s a top, or…?”
“Nah, it means he’s a switch,” Trott replied, voice tight and strangled as he held back laughter, both from the sight before him and Ross’ words.
Smith rolled his eyes at his friends, still snorting and trying desperately not to laugh, and pushed past them, signing something quick before he went.
“Oh my god.”
“What’d he say?” Ross watched Smith’s retreating back; he still wasn’t all that great at deciphering his gestures, and by ‘not all that great’, he meant ‘terrible’.
“‘That’s not what this color means’, and–” He coughed, looking at the pavement under his feet. If his skin weren’t so dark, Ross was sure he’d be red by now. He’d never known him to be shy.
“And what?”
Trott opened his mouth, as if to answer him, before shaking his head. “I’ll tell you later.”
“What?” Ross watched him hurry into the house after Smith, still looking down at the pavement. “You can tell me now–”
The door shut.
“Trott?”
What happened that evening was, honestly, kind of an accident.
They’d been crammed onto Trott’s bed all evening, after a brief yet intense argument over who should sit where. Not one of them had given an inch, and it simply ended up with the three all in one giant tangle of limbs, rather than properly sitting up to play the games they’d had lined up.
It felt pretty nice, which is why they hadn’t moved except to get something to eat. The remnants of that still lay on the desk pressed against the wall, a mess of soda cans and boxes of takeaway.
Smith had swiped a sharpie from the pencil holder, and he twirled it in his fingers, watching it pensively from his position half on top of Ross and being a rather warm pillow for Trott to rest his upper half on.
His eyes flicked down, towards the patched skin of Trott’s left arm, then back to the pen in his fingers. He uncapped it, showing the felt tip filled with blue dye. Considering each for a moment, he took the arm in his hand, lifting it up closer to his face, and pressed the tip of the pen to his friend’s skin.
Trott let him, for a few seconds, still lost in the haze of comfort and immense amounts of junk food, before he finally caught on to what was happening. “Hey,” he admonished, though without any amount of heat behind the word. “What’re you–”
Smith waved a hand in a short gesture. Shh.
Disgruntled, Trott tilted his head up towards his friend, unable to see what he was writing but getting the growing feeling that it wasn’t a particularly kind thing.
Finally, Smith stopped writing, blowing on the markings gently to dry them– the cool air sent a shiver down Trott’s spine– before releasing the arm and reaching over for Ross’, who had been watching the proceedings with faint interest.
There, on a small, paler patch of skin, in Smith’s scratchy handwriting, was Chris Trott’s a twat - Alex Smith.
“A class act,” Trott snorted. At least it would wash off, eventually. After a few minutes, he heard Ross speak up.
“He did it to me, too.” Ross Hornby’s also a twat - Alex Smith.
“Give it here!” Trott swiped for the pen, startling Smith into giving it up with the sudden, violent movement. Before Smith could gesture anything, be it a protest or another insult, his own left arm was taken, and Trott scrawled his own words onto the skin. Don’t be friends with Alex Smith, it’s a mistake - Chris Trott.
Smith pouted. Ross snickered.
“Well, since everyone’s in on it.” Ross put his arm within reach, and Trott scrawled a message there, too. Rule one: shut up, Ross - Chris Trott.
Seeing the words, Ross’ face quickly morphed into an indignant frown, and he took the pen for himself, pulling Trott’s arm to him. I was going to say something nice, but I remembered it’s Chris Trott - Ross Hornby. Then, feeling it was only fair to complete the cycle, scribbled on Smith’s arm. The biggest mistake you could make - Ross Hornby.
Smith grinned and signed something. After seeing Ross’ blank stare, Trott sighed.
“He said it sounds like you’re talking about yourself.”
“Well, I have a sign for you, mate.” And, with that, Ross gave Smith his middle finger.
Through all the jabs and joking around, this felt comfortable, being in a big pile and not having to worry about anything. Ross felt no compulsion to count the wrappers around the room, Trott’s hands were as sure and steady as they’d ever been, and Smith felt calm, though a little warm and tingling as he watched them.
These marks would wash off, but they could always put new ones on. Maybe, Smith thought for a moment, sitting back and listening to Ross and Trott trade another barb, if his friends wanted, they could be different marks. He’d bring it up another time.
The point was, though each did have their problems, and they always would…
They weren’t quite as broken as they used to think.