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When the red guy looks at himself in the mirror, he never truly sees… himself.
Sure, he knows that the thing looking back at him is meant to be him, he knows which one he is, but it doesn’t ever mean anything when there’s a disconnect between Red and his supposed body. The dissociation fluctuates, most days he accepts the image in the mirror, and then there are the days where Red is frightened by his reflection.
The red mass of tangled fur and yarn, the beady, black eyes staring back at him, staring through him never feel right. The only way Red knows that the beast that stands before him is actually him is that it follows his every move, and even then, that’s not much considering the Hell World he and his clump find themselves inhabiting.
Today is one of those days where the disconnect feels like a ravine, gaping and black and endless, like it might just swallow him whole if he looks too close.
Red takes his time inspecting the body in the mirror, pulling back strands of yarn to reveal yellowed, haggard teeth occupying his deep, and quite frankly terrifying, maw. He shivers and drops the hank in his hand, soft hair (he thinks it’s hair, anyways) falling back into its place among its brothers draped across Red’s head.
His gaze falls downward, stopping at arguably his most glaring feature: two twin scars, sitting perfectly symmetrical on Red’s chest.
He doesn’t know where the scars came from, and Lord knows he’s tried to find out. He’d spent many a computer day asking Colin what had happened to him, only to be told conflicting answers each time. Sometimes they were vivisection scars, sometimes red had been hit by a car, sometimes it was just a side effect of rabies; Red had lost count.
He pretends he doesn’t think about them. Pretends they aren’t there. The other two never mind the scars, brandishing their own, origins long forgotten. But they never felt the same. never felt so… intentional. weighty. important.
The scars sit, anchor shapes glaring right back at Red, almost like they’re taunting him, purpose sitting just out of his reach. But they aren’t, he knows even that much. It’s silly, but Red finds a strange sort of comfort from them, knowing that they were important to him once.
Maybe.
Or maybe he’s just gone mad. It's not like you could blame him.
Distantly, Red thinks he hears the duck call his name. He can’t be too sure, considering Red isn’t entirely sure of his own name himself. It’s frustrating as all hell, but so is nearly everything else here, he’s learned.
As he opens the bathroom door and starts down the stairs, the familiar prick of uncertainty bleeding into anger scratches at his brain, almost begging him to just remember-
But he pushes the feeling down, as he does every other time he thinks about the topic. Names aren't new to the three of them, neither is the fact that nobody can remember theirs. It still makes Red want to scream, however. At what, he still isn't sure. Maybe one day he'll figure that part out.
And as Red scrapes his chair against the floor as he pulls it out as a reply to Duck’s snide “took you long enough,” he remembers a time when they'd all tried giving themselves names. It was a tad strange, but something about the ritual felt startlingly familiar to him.
Duck had wanted something he thought was ‘sophisticated’, like Eugene, Oswald, or perhaps even John. No, not Johnathan, you dolts, just John. The yellow one had pleaded to be David, but the other two had vetoed that one. Pouting, Yellow had settled for Door.
When it came to Red's turn, he completely blanked. He knew he had to have a name, behind all the gore and fear that controlled him nowadays, rendering him more of a puppet than a person. But infuriatingly, he felt completely content to just be.. Red.
But how could he be happy to just be known as The Red Guy? It wasn't even his favourite colour! He could have been Tom, or Dick, or God forbid even Harry. And he had chosen Red.
And yet, despite all the conflicting feelings bubbling deep in his gut, making him want to throw up at the sheer idea of being named Red, sits the apathy. Not caring to comprehend who he was or is, not bothering to try and remember anymore. It's too much work, anyways; let's just lay back down, yeah?
The names had been dropped after not even an hour, leaving a sour taste in everyone's mouths. Duck, Yellow, and Red it was.
He's torn from his thoughts like a heart from a body, shocked and surprisingly vulnerable, by Yellow’s voice, and those blank doe-like eyes staring into him.
“Is- are yous broken..?” he asks, his kicking legs slowing, but not quite halting. Yellow fidgets with the tablecloth, twisting the fabric between his fingers.
Red blinks. “Erm,” he looks down at himself and back up at Yellow, helpfully replying, “maybe.”
Duck, face hidden behind his newspaper, scoffs. “Of course he is,” he supplies, “just look at him!” He gestures in the vague direction of Red as if to prove his point.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
The curtain of familiar bickering falls over Red and his clump again, securing him from the unknown that plagues him more often than he'd like. It’s known, and sure, oftentimes it leads to violence, but it’s his and it’s safe.
For now, at least.
The curtain tears away again as Red watches the red beast in the mirror comb through its tangled yarn for the evening, getting ready for bed.
He can hear the other two talking through the thin, felt walls meaninglessly. It's nice, he figures, hearing them chat without any sign of malice or flashes of teeth against flesh. Red tunes into the conversation, task at hand (or, rather, paw) forgotten.
“Can we, uh, haves spaghetti for supper t’morrow?”
“We had spaghetti just yesterday!”
“Nuh-uh, tha’ was, the, uh, th’ green one.”
Silence as the duck contemplates. It really is hard to tell the time here, as well as different pasta types, so Red can't exactly blame him.
A loud, dramatic huff. “Fine.” A cheer.
More silence, and Red assumes the rare kind moment between the two is over, so he continues on combing.
“...Wha’s he doin’ in there, you think?”
“Pah, who knows what that man does in his free time.”
Red nearly drops the comb in his mitt, fumbling to keep quiet and knocking over several other toiletries on the way down. He winces, sucking in his teeth, gingerly picking up the bone marrow flavoured hand wash and placing it back on the sink.
There's that word again; man. Other times it’s guy, once it was even lad. But it always feels the same.
It's absurd how it makes Red feel, makes his heart beat loud enough he thinks he's going to die again. Yet at the same time, it makes his skin burn in such a way that he just needs to scream to get it to go away.
It’s far more appealing than the way he felt when one teacher mistook red for ‘the woman that every group has!’ (Yellow insisted that he was the group’s woman afterwards). Red's fur felt as if it was on fire, his whole chest felt heavy as he quietly corrected them.
That awful feeling had taken nearly two days to finally cease, keeping him in bed the whole time. He felt like if he got up his whole body would collapse in on itself and he’d crumble away like sand, just at the offhand use of ‘she’.
In the end, it took Duck mocking the teacher for the mistake for Red to realize how utterly ridiculous he was being, of course he wasn’t a woman, how could he be so stupid?
And yet, the fear and feeling of being just so uncomfortable remained, creating this childish sense of almost euphoria of being referred to as a man to grip him like a toddler who had just learned how to grab and yank your hair out.
Red shakes himself, takes a deep breath to remind himself that he was just being, as Duck would put it, a pansy left out in the rain. He chuckles at the dumb metaphor. They really are going mad, aren't they?
Red pads out into their shared bedroom, Yellow already snuggled under his multitude of blankets and pillows he refuses to sleep without. Duck sits on his own bed, scribbling in his diary. He nods an acknowledgement to Red as he passes, then collapses heavily into his cool covers.
The room is silent save for pen on paper and steady snores on either side of Red. He closes his eyes, letting the ritualistic sounds ease his anxieties. He quietly grunts as the lights go out, the telltale sign of the duck himself heading off to sleep.
Instead, the squawky voice rings out in the dark, trying its best to be quiet (there wasn't a need to be, really; Yellow was known to sleep like a log. Red thought he had died in his sleep because of this, once.) “Are you broken?”
Red opens an eye, even though he knows he wouldn't be able to see his companion anyway. “Wha?” he replies, ever so verbose.
“This morning, you said you may be broken.” Duck’s beak clicks a few times in thought, and maybe just a touch of impatience. “You've been off all day. What's wrong with you?”
If Red didn't know his friends better, he’d take offence. Unfortunately, he knows these two twits more than he knows himself, and this was Duck’s way of showing he cared. He'd never admit it, of course, so Red had to take it upon himself to translate.
“I dunno,” Red mumbles. “Just thinking, I suppose.”
Duck huffs, as he so does. “About what?”
Red stops short, completely unsure of how to respond. How was he supposed to verbalise his issues with his body and sense of identity to Duck, especially when Red doesn’t have the words to understand it himself? How is he meant to tell his friend how being called a woman makes him want to scream until he can’t anymore, how he isn't entirely sure he wants to connect with the ‘Red’ he used to be, how-
Hang on a second.
Red recalls one of the many unhelpful answers Colin supplied him with when he was questioning the mysterious origin of his chest scars. A ‘mastectomy’, commonly referred to as ‘top surgery’ he’d said, which did actually peak Red’s interest. Unfortunately, he'd been interrupted by Duck wanting to look at a picture of a skeleton before he could look into it further.
Another word had come up with that result, as well.
Suddenly, everything clicked in Red’s head.
“I think I’m transgender.”
“Pah. That's all?”
Red abruptly sits up in bed, glaring over to where he just knows the duck is laying with that bastardly twinkle in his eye. “What do you mean, that’s all?” He can't help the pure incredulousness from seeping into his voice.
The ruffling of the duvet covers tells Red that Duck is sitting up now, too. “I thought you knew, you fucking muppet!” The two are silent for a moment as Yellow stirs in his sleep, before continuing their hushed argument. “You moped in bed all day after being called a woman.”
“So?”
“Oh my God.”
Red watches as Duck’s silhouette in front of the window shifts, and suddenly Duck is sitting next to him on the bed. “We’re all transsexual, beast,” he continues, voice noticeably more amused than upset. “I’m genderqueer, myself.”
Red fiddles with his paws, burning, red hot embarrassment completely replacing all of his previous frustration. That hole he always felt in his chest, carving him hollow had finally found a piece that fits, but now Red just felt right stupid. He opens and closes his mouth, trying to find something to say, but gives up, as he usually does. Pathetic, really.
The duck pats his back, and it looks just a bit silly considering Red is over half of Duck’s height. “Go to sleep, big fellow,” he says, and Red honestly isn’t sure if he’s mocking or not, “that one convinced me to make pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.”
The two part ways, and Red pretends he doesn’t miss the warm weight on his back. As he lays on his bed, staring up at the endless ceiling, he wonders how long he’s been trans, even how he had originally figured it out.
He’s had the top surgery scars for as long as he can remember, and his voice is considerably deep. Red drifts off to sleep, feeling whole for the first time in maybe forever.
That night, Red dreams of a man. A man who feels so familiar, so right to him, but just out of reach. His face is obscured, and his voice is static.
Red watches as the man grows, flashes of needles and hospitals, unhappy families, long red hair and cars in lakes, broken glass and blood floating through the murky water as the man sinks, down, down, until Red can’t see him anymore.
And finally the flashes end, and Red is left alone in an empty lake, and then he’s awake and he’s left alone in the bedroom. He breathes heavily, rubbing at his eyes as the images of his dream fade away, like the ocean slowly but surely breaking apart your sand castle you worked so hard on.
Noise and clutter from the kitchen break the camel’s back, and Red is reminded that he’s home, and the man has been forgotten to time yet again, not even just a memory to anyone.
Red once again heads into the bathroom to start his morning routine; brush his teeth, comb his yarn, then head downstairs to where his two housemates are waiting for him. There’ll be warm smells and bickering, and maybe today the clump will even get to do nothing.
And as he looks into the mirror, he sees himself look back at him. He sees Red.