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“Daaaad,” Shadia whined as she stomped down the stairs to the kitchen. Hal was at the stove, cooking eggs for Hero and Alogar. He had gotten a late start on them, because while he’d never expected it of Azune, the young man had taken it upon himself to make breakfast for the family before they had to go off to school. When Hal had come down this morning, though, he found that Azune was apparently sleeping in for once, and had scrambled to get food ready in his place. Shadia had been sent upstairs to see if he was awake now and wanted to come down to eat something. The kid was finally starting to put some weight on, and Hal didn’t want to jeopardize that by letting him miss meals.
“What, kiddo?” Hal asked absentmindedly as he tried to tell whether the burning smell was the pancakes or the eggs or just the stove acting up.
“Azune just told me to fuck off.”
“Language,” Hal scolded, with a nod towards Hero. Even if those were Azune's exact words, which he doubted because he couldn't imagine the boy saying that to her, it didn't seem like an unreasonable expectation for her to paraphrase them more politely around the little one. “I told you to knock quietly so you wouldn't wake him up if he was still sleeping, right?” Worst came to worst, Hal could have made sure Azune ate something later. Sleep was almost as important for a growing teen as food, after all.
“I did! He wasn’t! As soon as I knocked he just said to go away. I wasn’t even teasing him that badly.”
Hal sighed. For Shadia, ‘not teasing him that badly’ could mean anything from being perfectly polite to pestering him about why he wasn’t coming out of his room, as long as she didn’t directly insult him. She was still a good kid at heart, but she and her friends had been trying out being playfully mean to one another, a natural part of pushing the boundaries of relationships as young teens, and they hadn’t figured out the balance yet.
If it was Alogar she was having this fight with, Hal would leave the two to sort it out themselves. But Azune wasn’t used to the trials of having a sister, and he was sensitive. Hal decided he needed to go check on the kid, make sure he wasn’t too upset and he knew that even if he’d said no once, that didn’t mean he couldn’t come down and get breakfast whenever he was hungry. Food seemed to be a real sticking point of his trauma from the war, and Hal tried to give him as many reminders and reassurances about it as he could without it getting weird.
“Fine. Here, eat your eggs, I’ll go talk to him. Al, can you get Hero and yourself out the door by a quarter ‘til if I’m not back in time?”
“Yeah, fine,” Alogar murmured. He still seemed half asleep, as he did most mornings. Even with the agreement from him about timing, Hal thought the kids would probably end up late to class. It would be the first time in a while, though, since Azune had started helping with breakfast and making mornings run much more smoothly, so he wouldn’t worry about that too much.
Leaving his kids in the kitchen, Hal ventured up the stairs to the guest room Azune had been occupying for the past four months and knocked gently on the door frame.
“Shadia, go away,” came an immediate fervent whine from inside. Hal was strangely glad to hear it. Azune had been so deferential when he’d arrived, almost taking every statement as an order. Hearing him willing to push back against the kids bothering him, acting like a proper teen and almost like another sibling to them, was such a sign of progress and how much more comfortable he’d gotten here.
“It’s Hal,” he corrected. “Everything alright?”
A thought occurred to Hal, then, that there was a very normal explanation for why a teenage boy might not want to be disturbed first thing in the morning. Perhaps Azune just hadn’t learned yet to pretend to still be asleep while he dealt with it. It wasn’t like he would have had the option of that privacy in a war camp, after all.
There was a long quiet pause. Hal hoped the poor boy wasn’t panicking too badly as he tried to come up with an explanation. He was just about to grunt out, “Sorry, just realized, I’ll give you space,” which would perhaps be embarrassing but at least wouldn’t force Azune to say anything about it, when an answer issued out from deep in the room, softer than he expected.
“Not- not really, no,” Azune said, just loud enough to be heard through the door.
“Okay. Do you want to come to the door so we can talk about it, or do you want to be left alone?”
“I… neither.”
“Okay.” Hal thought fast. Azune didn’t want to be left alone, but also didn’t want to talk about it. Or maybe the part of that he didn’t want to do was come to the door? He had suggested that instead of asking to come in because Azune had a hard time distinguishing questions from requests from orders, and he wanted to give the kid privacy for his room. But maybe he did want to talk about it, and just didn’t want to do so at the threshold to the hallway, where he might be overheard. Hard to tell without asking another clarifying question. “Do you want me to just keep you company out here, then, or should I come in?”
“You can come in.”
Hal opened the door to spot Azune still in bed, half under the blankets, turned on his side and hands clutching around his middle. He looked paler than usual in the light creeping in around the blinds on his window, and his jaw was clenched. Oh. If the kid was sick, that might explain why he snapped at Shadia. One was never at their best when they didn’t feel well.
“You want the door open or closed?” Hal asked as he lingered by it.
“Closed.”
Points to the idea that Azune just didn’t want any of the other kids knowing what was wrong. Hal shut the door and walked further into the room. There was a chair tucked into the corner, which he pulled a little closer to the bedside before sitting down.
“Are you not feeling well, kiddo?” That phrasing would encompass whether the feeling was physical or mental, or even if Azune couldn’t tell which it was. Having been in battle could do a hell of a number on a person’s mind and body. There had been more than one time after Hal had come home that dragging himself out of bed had been an ordeal only manageable with Thaisha’s help or because Alogar was crying and needed him.
“I got my period.”
Oh. That hadn’t been what Hal was expecting. He was suddenly very glad that Thaisha had made sure he was well prepared to help his daughters with all this a few years ago before Shadia had been expected to start puberty. It wasn’t a conversation he had been anticipating to have with a boy Thjazi had sent to his door, but he could handle it.
“Do you tend to get very bad ones?” Hal asked, forcing his voice to be normal. Azune had been with them for four months now, so he should have had at least two periods before this, but Hal had never noticed a thing. He hated the idea that the kid had been suffering through cramps or anything else and having to pretend to feel normal because he didn’t feel safe enough or was too embarrassed to ask for help. But he knew now, and that was all that mattered at the moment.
“I don’t know. This is my first one.”
Oh, Ancients of the Old Path, never mind. Hal was not remotely prepared for this. It was one thing to make sure his daughter had plenty of clean rags available and a pot to boil them in and to bring her chocolate and the special tea with iron and painkilling properties in it and to always carry an extra jacket with him when they went out in case she bled through and needed something to discreetly tie around her waist. He could also be reassured by the fact that he knew Shadia had been well-informed about what was normal and what wasn’t, and knew to say something to Elodie if there was too much bleeding or pain and to come talk to Hal if she was upset about anything.
It was a different thing entirely to suddenly learn that the already traumatized boy he’d had taken in not only had a different kind of body than he’d presumed but was going through something new with that body for the very first time. Hal had no idea what level of education on stuff like this Azune had; if something was really wrong, it was possible neither of them would know. He had to imagine that getting one’s first period might also feel bad for boys in ways that it didn’t for girls, given how associated menstruation was with femininity despite the fact that the correlation between women and people whose bodies did that was far from one to one.
Hal’s first instinct was to call Elodie over to help, but he couldn’t do that because he didn’t want to further imply that link between periods and women, and he didn’t want to out the poor boy either, because Azune hadn’t told anyone he was trans before now and so he probably didn’t want it widely known. He’d trusted Hal with this information, and so he had to figure out a way to handle this alone, even when he could hardly remember half of what Thaisha had taught him about this side of puberty.
For one thing, he didn’t think it was normal that Azune was sixteen years old and this was his first period. What seemed more likely was that his growth had been delayed in this as well as other aspects by a lack of food and sleep while he was at war and likely before that. Thaisha had warned Hal when Shadia took up gymnastics more seriously that periods could be delayed or even stop after one had gotten them from too much strenuous physical activity, and to keep an eye on that as a warning sign in case Shadia started trying to push herself too hard at practice. Azune probably should have had his first period well before now, but it was only with him being at Hal’s house, with regular meals and much more rest than was available at war, that his body finally had enough reserves to react normally to his changing hormones.
Whether Azune wanted this change was a different question, and something that he’d have to talk to him about and offer to take him to an herbalist to address. Later, though. First he needed to know how prepared the kid was for his first period and whether he just wanted emotional support from Hal or needed actual help understanding and dealing with it.
“Okay. I’m guessing you don’t have stuff for it, then?” Hal said. Given that Azune had arrived with little more than the clothes on his back, he thought that was a pretty safe assumption. Azune shook his head. “If I get you some of the things Shadia uses for hers, will you know what to do with them?”
“What do you mean?”
Well, that answered that question.
“Like rags for the blood. I think there's a a special way of getting them to stay in the right place in your underwear, but I don't know it. I could ask Shadia about it, but given your response to her just knocking on your door, I’m guessing you don’t want her to know, and even if I leave your name out of it, she’s a smart enough girl that she’d probably figure out why I was asking.” Azune shook his head. “Okay. In that case, a better bet might be asking an herbalist I know who doesn’t know you, but that’ll have to wait a little. If I bring you some of the pads Shadia uses, do you think you could figure out something that will work comfortably in the meantime?”
“I can figure something out,” Azune agreed, jaw clenching in determination. He had forced himself to sit up in bed by now to talk to Hal, but kept the covers pulled up far above his waist.
“Glad to hear it. Can I ask, did no one in the Torn Banner with you know you might need to deal with this?” That seemed to be the most relevant way to ask if Azune was out as trans to anyone but him. From Hal’s own experience at war, there hadn’t been much privacy to conceal stuff like that, but perhaps with Azune being the only kid his age in the camp, the adults had given him more space. “I don’t mean to pry, I just want to check in about your knowledge on these things and what else I might need to ask the herbalist.”
“Thjazi and Thimble know, and Loza, and Norma, one of the medics, in case I got hurt or needed something. She told me about what to expect, even though I didn’t need it yet, and said to come to her when it did start and she’d help me figure out the practical parts then.”
“Okay. In that case, does this seem about normal for what she told you about? Are the cramps really bad or does anything hurt more than it feels like it should?”
“No,” Azune shook his head, but the way his arms were still braced across his abdomen told Hal he was in at least some degree of pain. “I mean, it hurts some, but I can handle it. I’m, um, a little nauseous, though. So that’s why I don’t want to eat right now, not anything else. But Norma said that’s normal.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that can happen. You don’t need to just tough it out, though. I’ll make you some of this tea we have to help the cramps and bring it up to you. But I’ll put the rags out in the bathroom for you first.”
“You don’t have to- I can come downstairs for it once… once Alogar and Shadia and Hero are gone,” Azune said. “I’m sorry for being such a bother. I got blood on the sheets but I’ll wash them.”
Hal supposed he was probably very good at getting blood out of fabric.
“That’s okay, kid. If you want to strip them off the bed, we can just soak them so the stain doesn’t set and then take them to the laundry with everything else. It’ll be easier for them than you going at it with a bucket and washboard. Bring them and anything else you have down to the kitchen when you come get the tea.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Hal reached out and patted Azune’s shoulder gently before leaving the boy his privacy. He found Shadia’s period supplies under the sink in the bathroom and set them out where Azune would be able to find them. Judging by how quiet it was in the house, he knew even before heading downstairs that the other kids had gone off to school. Sure enough, as he went down to the kitchen, he found all their dirty dishes but no backpacks or other signs of them. After putting the kettle on the stove for tea, he pulled out a large pot for the sheets and began doing the rest of the dishes. If Azune was nauseous, the smell of half-burnt eggs would probably not be the best thing for him.
He had mostly finished with the washing up by the time Azune came down to join him, the sheets and some of Alogar’s old pajama pants they’d given him bundled in his arms. He was wearing another pair of pajama pants and a very loose shirt. At first Hal had thought that was just what Alogar’s old clothes looked like on him, since he was so thin, but much of what they’d given him had been stuff Al had grown out of, so some of it must’ve been tighter. Knowing what he knew now, though, he wondered if perhaps Azune had a reason for preferring baggy clothes.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question about your body? It might feel a little invasive, but I promise I only want to ask to make sure you’re safe,” Hal said a few minutes later while bringing the prepared cup of tea over to him. Azune had already dumped the sheets and clothes in the pot and run cold water over them, which was now beginning to bloom pink. He was moving stiffly and a little awkwardly, and had sat down as soon as he got the chance, which was unusual for him. Normally he had a tendency to stand to attention until explicitly invited to sit.
“… okay.”
“Are you binding your chest to make it look flatter?” Azune nodded. “What are you using for that?”
“Bandages. It’s what we had around the camp and I could bring with me.”
“Okay. I’m not blaming you for using what you had and doing what you needed to do, but that needs to stop,” Hal said as gently as he could. “We’ve got some garments at the theater for actresses playing male or flat-chested characters that do a good job accomplishing the same thing. Even when we have someone playing a part for just a little while, we don’t use bandages because they can cause rib injury and compress the lungs.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, kid. Like I said, I just want to make sure you’re safe. We’ll get you a proper binder as soon as possible, I promise. I’ve got to go to the theater later today, anyway. You can come with me if you want, but you don’t have to.” Hal remembered that Shadia hadn’t wanted to leave the house for the whole length of her first period, and he’d let her skip school the first day. Azune would have the added aspect of perhaps not wanting to go out and see people since he’d been forbidden from binding his chest with bandages. “I can bring them back for you if you’d prefer.”
“I don’t want to be a problem.”
“You’re not a problem. You’re a person dealing with a lot and I’m very happy to help. Please let me?”
Hal got a glimpse of Azune’s sunset eyes welling up with tears before he quickly looked away.
“Okay.” Azune’s voice was tight and high when he finally spoke, still staring down at his tea instead of looking at Hal. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome, son. And once your stomach feels better, please remember to eat something, okay? Even if it's just bread and butter.”
“I will remember,” Azune agreed. For once, Hal believed him.