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Ashe stared in the mirror at their body. The way their waist went in and their hips went out. They never had a problem with it. Even if sometimes they wished they had the bottom half of a Barbie doll and the top half of some sort of male doll. Not a Ken doll. Too muscular. They crossed their arms so that they covered their breasts.
What if I'm faking? What if I'm just some confused girl who read too much queer stuff when I was younger? What if my grotesqueness is all a ruse and I'm lying to Ronin and he finds out and kills me because of it? What if my gender or lack thereof is not my own but something that was forced upon me? What if my dad is right, and I'm a girl no matter what? What if- They continued spiralling in their head, snapping out of it when they heard a knock on the door.
"Hurry up in there, sweetheart," Ronin said, the pet name only making things worse with how they associated it with femininity.
"Give me a minute," they replied, shoving some clothes on and heading for the bedroom.
They grabbed a pencil, and sharpen it until it hurt to touch the point. They placed the tip to the skin on the back of their left hand, three pale, this scars there, from the same cause. They movedthe pencil quickly back and forth, learned that friction is better than aggression.
When the skin broke enough that it stung to put their fingers to it, they moved the pencil to a new place, their knee, because it's believable they'd scrape their knee, they did it all the time! When they startesd moving it, it was in bigger strokes, the pencil breaking skin withn three minutes.
Unfortunately for Ashe, Ronin walked in at just that time, though they didn't notice, still going through layers of skin on their knee.
"What are you doing." It was less of a statement and more of a demand. Ronin had his hand on the door handle still.
Ashe quickly hid the pencil. "Nothing." Fuck, they could have said they were drawing. Goddamn moron.
"That doesn't look like drawing to me, Ashe." He rarely said their name unless he was pissed off or scolding them, sometimes for those deep, sweet compliments he said at times while drunk.
Ashe didn't reply, watching the devil walk towards them. They hid all their open wounds, which weren't deep enough to bleed, but would be once they picked at the scabs.
Ronin got on his knees in front of Ashe, grabbing their shin and moving it closer to him so that he could see the open wound. He ran his fingers over it, eliciting a wince from Ashe. "Why, darlin', would you do this to yourself."
"I just- I'm so scared that I'm faking all of my queerness and my grotesqueness and that one day I'll wake up and think 'Oh! I'm a cishet girl now! All of that gay stuff was just a phase,' and I don't want to be a faker because that's a horrible thing to be but what if I am? Because I don't want any surgeries or HRT and a bunch of enby people havevthose but I want my chest to be flatter but at the same timw I want it to be bigger and it all just-" They continued to spiral, Ronin moving closer and closer until his arms, crossed, rested on their thighs and he was face to face with their abdomen.
Ronin soon grew tired of the spiral, taking one of their hands and holding it in his. "Darlin'. Ashe. That's normal to feel. That's practically a fuckin' rite of passage with how many queer people question whether they're faking."
"But what if I am!?" Ashe was genuinely distressed at the idea.
"Are you? You don't go by your birth name or birth pronouns, and you seem pretty fuckin' comfortable in them, more than a cis girl would be at least. And you're still a teenager. It could take you years to find the right word for you. I'll be here to help you rot along the way." His voice was softer than usual, less forced, though that meant it wasn't quite as deep or rough as Ronin preferred.
Ashe was quiet. They were trying to think of away to ask for touch without saying it or seeming as though they wanted it. They taped Ronin's shoulder, pointing up.
"Use your words, darling."
They sighed. "Could you get on the bed with me?"
Ronin obliged, the younger quickly taking his hand again and leaning on him.
"I'll ban you from pencils if you use them to hurt yourself again, darlin'."
Ashe had the urge to say something about how he'll haveto ban them soon, but chose not to give in.
The two sat there until they fell asleep, Ronin's arms around their waist and Ashe's arms around his neck. It was peaceful.