Work Text:
Wolfwood was at the college library early, before work and before his test, and—apparently—before anyone else. The only sign of life was a disembodied sneeze breaking through the dusty, unnatural silence. He curled around his textbook, back aching, hunched over the too-short table and too-tall chair. The sounds of his pencil scraping away at an abused piece of notebook paper accompanied the chapter he was reading, writing down anything he had forgotten. Morning sunbeams finally reached his table as he finished the first half, 30 minutes until he had to leave for his shift.
He took in all his bodily demands as he stretched back in the chair—hungry, tired, dehydrated, the usual. Out of habit, he started walking toward the gender neutral bathroom on the other side of the building before pausing. The men’s restroom was just in his peripheral, the stick figure on the sign taunting him.
He looked around to check, and still no one was there, no one to see him. It’d been a few months since he started passing, but it still didn’t feel right—he didn’t trust people to truly think he belongs.
Tentatively, he opened the door. He did his best to check if anyone else was there without drawing attention, and—once assured no one was hiding on the ceiling—he looked around the small room. It was entirely empty. The stall door, too, flung open with light pressure.
He sighed in relief and closed the door behind him. He pissed, flushed, and washed his hands. As he grabbed a fist full of paper towels, he caught a glimpse of himself in the large, well-lit mirror. The only way he usually saw himself was with a small medicine cabinet mirror under dim lights in his lackluster apartment. These bright lights showed off his acne scars, dark or purplish and pock-marked against his brown skin. He knew they extended down, crossing his shoulders and back, gathering in the spot under his binder where sweat got trapped. He rolled his aching shoulders while raising an eyebrow at the sparse stubble on the bottom of his chin.
He reached up to feel it. He winced when he pushed on a pimple on accident.
His face was different, wider. The arch in his nose that had always been there was especially prominent now. His neck was thicker, framing his jaw. He prodded, feeling the extra fat hanging underneath, watching how the corners of his jaw were sharp below his ears, but under his chin was soft.
The door suddenly opened, jolting him out of his thoughts. Before he could think about it, he was walking out and back to the table, heart hammering in his throat.
That night it happened again. He (hopefully) passed his test, did his normal workout, and made the hot, sunny trek home over black pavement, past way too many cars that were speeding in a thirty.
He grabbed a glass and chugged some water from the bathroom sink, and thick hands released the glass onto the counter. Sweet, cold water rushed over shoulders wider than before, the shape gliding under his palms as he stretched. Even reaching for his chin, it greets him before he expects it.
He stood still in the shower, letting water wash him down as he stared at his body. Had his legs always been that defined? Was his stomach always this pudgy, his hips this narrow? He appreciated the changes, but took issue with parts. His hips weren’t narrow enough, chest still… there . Honestly, if he was just one cup size smaller, he probably wouldn’t mind it as much. At least his ass had filled out. He snorted a laugh at that thought.
He lathered the bar of soap in his hands. Coarse black hair swirled in the suds as he wiped down his body. The hair was patchy, thick on the sides of his thigh and vacant on his knees, filling in on his upper arms but not his shoulders.
The, uh… first time around, Wolfwood hadn’t noticed these things. At some point he’d had to start wearing a bra, disgruntled and feeling trapped . He had tried shaving his legs before giving up with a single stroke, dread filling his mind at the sight. It took a while before the bare patch filled itself in.
Other people always had opinions about this. He was just picky with clothes, practical, physical, athletic. It seemed as long as his hair was long and his body was doing whatever it was doing, others would figure out who he was on his behalf.
There was no body attached to who he was. There was just the feeling of stiff, dry cotton shirts paired with smooth and cool basketball shorts. There were stuffy dresses and push-up bras. There was the sound of rubber sneakers on the waxed gymnasium floor. There was laying on his stomach at the beach, relishing in the feeling of no more weight pulling down on his chest. These weren’t things he had, just things that were. He just was.
But here, in the dingy stained tub with a plastic curtain covered in white calcium leeched from hard water, he flexed his muscles and they moved. He could feel the planes of his abdomen, the thick veins that stuck out on his wrist that sent a strange feeling up his arm as he applied light pressure.
The light seemed to grow brighter, even though it had never changed before. A fuzzy feeling in his head receded like a cloth that had covered his eyes, slowly being pulled back, trailing over his wet hair and leaving with a shiver down his spine. An ambulance passed by outside. His downstairs neighbor dropped something. Wolfwood clearly remembered the last time he’d met her, her name, her face.
He washed off the rest of the soap and shut the water off with so much force the pipes creaked with the effort. He quickly patted himself dry with the towel, dropping it unceremoniously onto the floor; it soaked up a small puddle on the ground, but he sat down on it anyway. He flicked off the light, silencing the exhaust fan, and curled up in on himself, leaning against the edge of the tub.
He hadn’t felt like this since he was twelve years old. His eyes were dry, stinging, wide open in the darkness. Little streams of dusk filtered in through the blinds, letting the dust dance around in front of his face.
It took him an embarrassing amount of time to remember how old he was. He sat there, mind churning about everything around him except the one question he asked of it. He could clearly see the classroom in his mind, hear the swish of paper as others completed the test faster than him. He could taste his breakfast and the smooth coffee he had with it. He could imagine his route to school, to work. He thought about Vash and the girls, Livio and Raz , Melanie all the way back home, how he wanted to call them.
His hands lingered in front of his face, too real.
He was twenty. He didn’t feel twenty.
He laughed, scrubbing his face of tears. The stubble he didn’t know how to shave poked his hands. It was great, had been great, all of this! Every pinch of the needle into his thigh, every time his hands shook too much and Vash did it for him. It was so much better than he had ever felt before.
So why was he so scared ?
He shook again now, in the body of an adult, in his body. The tears on his face were warm like his throat and his breath. The emotions in his chest tangled and swayed and suffocated under the grasp of each other, all clawing to work their way out of his mouth. His stomach was so cold. Pain shot through his jaw and he fought to loosen it.
After a long moment on the ground, he inhaled deeply and let it out. He threw on his sleep clothes while still on the ground. They were all black, light and airy and oversize. The shirt was soft as he experimentally placed a hand flat against his stomach. It changed the shape of his shirt, framing his chest. He frowned, dropping his arm. He forwent brushing his teeth, instead curling up in bed around a soft pillow. The sun streamed down on him and his fan sputtered and kicked. He felt like his fan was speaking, regaling him the tale of these last 8 years of nothingness. His blankets were strewn around him. He was here. That was all he could think.
He was here.