Work Text:
As Lucius eases the page out of his sketchbook and smooths it down, your mouth is unexpectedly dry. You tug your shirt on, pull it out to let it ping back over your chest (you wonder if that will ever get old. You doubt it.) and turn your knife over in your hands. The wood is worn and your thumb glides over the Jimenez.
“Here,” Lucius says softly.
Your breath catches in your throat as you study the sketch. It’s you as you’ve always imagined. Lucius has your upper body, its wiry strength, a flat chest with the underlining scars. He hadn’t asked if you’d wanted them in and you appreciate it, the wordless inclusion. You in all your parts. It feels real, all of a sudden, that this is you in every little detail. He’s even included the name on your dagger.
“Thanks,” you breathe. “It’s… thank you.”
Lucius winks. “Any time.”
Nana tells Olu about you as a little girl and there’s a pit in your stomach separate to the embarrassment of childhood memories. The word nags at you: girl. Because you were and you weren’t and whoever you are now, it’s someone whose skin crawls at the word. Womanhood is all the things Nana taught you – revenge and pain and anger and patience and a blessing – and you wish you could be content with it. Wish you could ignore it and stop questioning it.
You really do.
The problem is, you’re not sure what else you are if not a woman. And you don’t think woman would hate it so much. So where does that leave you?
The funny thing is the crew end up being more concerned about your name than you are. They certainly put more thought into it than you do.
You don’t think you mind Bonifacia as a name. It’s the one your family gave you and that supersedes everything else you, reminds you who you were, where you came from; it is not you any more but it’s a chapter of your life vital in getting you here. At the same time, though, there is something foreign to it. You hear it and you recognise it and it is what people call you but you’re not quite sure it’s you. There is a femininity to it you’ve never really been comfortable with.
Not how ‘Jim’ is. You don’t have to think about Jim – the connection is instant. You’re Jim. And Jim is whoever you want to be.
Here is the thing: your wax nose and fake beard feel wrong to put on, pretending to be something else in your skin.
Here is the thing: your chest feels the same.
You keep a wrap of cloth you wind around your chest until it is suitably flattened to your liking – it might be for disguise purposes but you’ve stopped trying to convince yourself that’s the primary reason you do it – and that does the job well enough to fool others. There’s a mishap at first where you have to duck into a corner in a raid to hack the bindings loose with your own knife, because they’ve wound so tight you can hardly breathe, but you figure it out soon enough. It’s worth it. Feeling them there when you lean forwards or reach for something makes your skin crawl. And Oluwande is brilliant but there are nights when the brush of your shirt over skin in bed makes being held intolerable. Your rippled reflection in the washbasin sets a hollow ache behind your breastbone so you learn to wash by touch alone.
The flesh still feels foreign but with your eyes closed, you can almost believe it is.
Apparently there are surgeries that get rid of breasts. Mostly for malformations. Roach hasn’t done them before himself but meat is meat and the longer you live like this the more uncomfortable you’re becoming with them.
The table in the kitchen is cleared in preparation and you are swigging straight from a bottle of rum.
“That’s where the crystals are,” Frenchie says, gesturing across his chest and, more unsure, vaguely around his abdomen. “I dunno what happens if you take them out. What if you get ill?”
“Not a woman,” you say. “And I’ll be fine without them.”
You think. You hope, because it’d be a shitty way to die if you aren’t, but you can’t think of any reason why it would kill you.
“Fuck it,” you say. The alcohol burns the entire way down your throat and you raise the bottle. “Knock me out and let’s do this.”
“Let’s do this!” Roach cries.
She feels wrong, as does woman. It’s another disguise you’ve been forced into and, admittedly, you’re a little afraid to step out of it. Because what if all they see is a girl trying to play at something you’re not? But the beard and the nose aren’t right either, he too much of a weight on your shoulders, too concrete. You don’t want either. She, he, él, ella. You’ll bear it but it isn’t comfortable.
And you still need to figure out what it’ll be in Spanish but the crew take to calling you they and it feels right. Feels like the last part of a jigsaw puzzle slotted into place.
Recovery is a bitch. The incisions run right from the centre of your chest to your armpits and the stitches there tug every time you move your arms too far. Olu helps you gather everything you need for the table beside the bed because you can’t reach too high above or below you. The first few days are a laudanum blur, coils of bloodied bandages, lavender soap the captain offers when you have to sponge bath because you can’t get the incisions wet. You’ve had plenty of injuries before that have gotten wet in worse water than the captain’s bathtub but you listen to Roach because this, this matters to you. It’s important.
When the thickest of the bandages come off, your chest is bruised and swollen around the incisions, for all intents and purposes flat. That makes whatever pain you have to endure worth it. And pain is nothing new to you.
The crew are great about it. Meals brought to your room, pillows fetched and blankets gathered, and the interim when you’re a little too weak to leave the bed but awake enough to be bored, they cram into the room together for story time so you don’t miss it. When you’d mentioned it to the captains, that Roach said you’d need time to heal, Edward had just shrugged and Stede said he was happy for you. Even angry little Hands’ ire is directed at the fact you’ve laid yourself up for two weeks, not the reason why, and it’s funny because it’s the closest thing to a complement you’ve heard him give anyone (who isn’t Edward) when he calls you “the only half competent fucker on this fucking ship” mid-rant.
Maybe it helps you’re twirling a knife between your fingers, trying to figure out how well you can throw with your elbow tucked close to your chest. Well enough to hit him if he got bitchy.
You haven’t cried in years. The sun warming your chest – your bare, correct chest – as the water laps at your shoulders is a joy you cannot put into words. Olu’s concern shifts into an understanding as you grin through the film of tears. His hand in yours, you float together.
There are some things surgery won’t fix. Your voice is too high when you’re not putting in a conscious effort to lower it; your hips are wide enough to make men’s trousers a hassle, fitting too tight around your thighs and merely drawing more attention to the curves you wish you didn’t have. Some you don’t mind as much. Height has never bothered you and what’s between your legs is your business, far as you’re concerned, utterly irrelevant to how the rest of the world wants to view you.
In the end, you never do find a word that fits right but you have a body which does. Maybe you don’t have to be anything in particular.
You’re just Jim.
“Hey,” Lucius says. “Have you ever been sketched?”
And as you brush him off with a laugh, you realise the idea doesn’t turn your stomach like it did before.