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“Hey, Taylor?” Link asks, looking up from his sketchbook and kicking his legs back and forth in the air.
“Yeah?”
“How did you know you were trans?” he asks, grabbing one of Taylor’s plushies—a weighted Ditto plush—and squeezing it against his chest.
There’s a certain glint in Link’s eye. One that’s not just out of curiosity, Taylor senses, especially with the way he’s worrying his lower lip between his teeth.
Taylor pauses the anime on his laptop and turns over on his mattress so he’s lying on his stomach just like Link.
“I was really little, and I think i just didn’t like being called a girl? So my mom stopped. She asked me if I wanted to change my name, but I like my name.”
“So you just… felt like you were a boy?” he asks with creased eyebrows.
“I guess, yeah.”
“Did you like, wish that you were one?”
“No, I think I kinda just told my mom I was a boy, and she was like ‘okay cool.’”
“So it wasn’t like, like you weren’t like, upset that you weren’t a boy or whatever because you knew you were one…?”
Link is doing that thing where he subconsciously pushes back all of his cuticles one by one. It’s a nervous stim Taylor’s noticed quite often, though sometimes he’ll start tearing at his nails without realizing and Taylor has to hold his hands and stop him.
“I wasn’t upset or anything, I think it might be partly because I was so little. But my experience isn’t, like, universal. My mom is trans too, and I don’t think she realized it until highschool? I don’t know.”
“I didn’t know your mom is trans.”
“Yeah, she is. If you want to, like, ask her stuff then I’m sure she’d be cool with it,” Taylor says, eyeing Link to try and identify whatever’s going on in that beautiful brain of his.
Taylor’s gotten a little more curious lately about what’s been on Link’s mind. Last time they went to the mall his gaze lingered on the dresses and skirts at Hot Topic. Taylor was just there to get some more graphic tees, and he didn’t really take Link to be into that kind of fashion, but maybe there’s another explanation.
“Do you… are you…” Taylor starts, treading lightly, because Link’s never brought this up before.
“Just curious. Uh, I, yeah I’m just curious.”
Taylor leans over and sneaks a glance at Link’s sketchbook. It’s a self portrait, it seems, and he’s wearing a flowy dress and holding a soccer ball in one hand and making a peace sign with the other.
“Do you wanna wear a dress?”
“I think they’re pretty.”
“I think you’d look pretty in one.”
Link buries his face in the Ditto plush he’s hugging.
“Um… sorry I don’t know why I wanna keep talking about this…” he says.
“Go ahead, I’m chilling,” Taylor says.
“Okay, like, you, you wear dresses and skirts and stuff sometimes, and you’re still a guy, obviously. So I… I…”
Link turns to lie on his back and presses his hands against his face with a big sigh.
“Sorry, this is so random,” he says, “I’m just… I don’t know? I don’t know. It’s nothing, really.”
Judging by the shuddering breath Link takes in, Taylor suspects it really isn’t nothing.
“Link, hey,” Taylor puts a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. You can talk to me about it. I’m all ears.”
Link sits up and buries his head in his knees. “I—I don’t know why, lately I’ve just been, like, like, I hate my voice. I’ve hated it since it dropped but I was like oh I’ll—I’ll get used to it, but I—I—”
A sob rips through him, and he curls further in on himself. Taylor is quick to wrap him in a tight hug.
“Sorry I—I don’t know, I’m so confused, because sometimes I’m like, I’m like oh, I wish I was a girl, but I’m not, and I can accept that, but every time I think about it I feel like throwing up. Is that normal?”
“That sounds like gender dysphoria to me.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Link cries, lifting his head from his knees to rest it on Taylor’s shoulder. “I don’t—I—I don’t know why I’m… I’ve… I was fine before but I just… I guess it’s just… puberty? Like I’m like oh yeah, this is… this is real… and I’m scared —”
Link cries harder, and Taylor can feel and hear him start to hyperventilate, and Taylor knows Link is already prone to panic-attacks, so a dysphoria induced one isn’t too far-fetched at all.
“Link, Link, I need you to breathe.”
Link whines and shakes his head, trying to say something but it all coming out in a nonsensical babble.
Taylor backs up and cups Link’s cheeks in his hands. “Link, it’s okay, I promise. Just take a deep breath.”
“Can’t—” Link forces out between gasps. “‘M freaking out.”
“I know, I know, but listen to me. My mom transitioned in highschool, and she’s so much happier now. She made it though all the tough shit. You can too. You can be a girl.”
That latest sentence seems to strike a chord with him, because a whole new onslaught of tears comes flowing out. “I—I’m so scared, I don’t wanna have to—to—to tell everybody…”
“It’s okay, it’s okay, you can wait until you’re ready. And I can help you with that if you’d like.”
Link nods, loosening up a little and breathing deeper.
“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to—to—to freak out on you like that.”
“It’s totally okay, I promise,” Taylor says, hugging him again and rubbing his back, “And hey, we can go shopping sometime soon to get you some dresses. If you like makeup, I know a little, and Hermie knows a lot. Scary also knows a lot.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Do you want me to start using femme terms for you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want.”
“Okay, well, we can maybe try things out? What about pronouns?”
“I think I still like he/him, but I also like the idea of using she/her…”
“What if I use she/her for you in a sentence and you tell me if you like it?”
“Okay.”
“I love my best friend Link. She’s so cool, and she’s so pretty, and I’m gonna take her shopping to get some cute dresses.”
Link leans back and Taylor looks to see him smiling so wide. “I like it a lot.”
“Hell yeah.”
“My god, I’m so sleepy,” she says. “I always get sleepy after breaking down like that.”
“It’s okay, you go to sleep, and dream about spinning in the new dresses we’re gonna get you.”
“Okay, I will,” Link says, turning to lay down, resting his head in Taylor’s lap. “Thank you. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Taylor says before planting a kiss on her forehead.