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Jean flicked the body of the needle and pushed up slightly as one pearl white bead bloomed up on its tip.
Locke was sitting on his palate in their hideout from the Grey King. Locke had been out for days after the fiasco with the barrel of piss and the murder of all their friends. While his wounds were tended to by the physiker Jean had gone out and made some money, both to help fund their revenge against the Grey King, and to buy Locke’s medicine month.
Procuring the medicine itself was far harder than just scrounging up the coins to buy it. The Grey King didn’t know that Locke was alive, but he knew Jean was still around. Jean had to be extra stealthy as he approached Jessaline, being careful to not get spotted by the Falconer.
He slid coins over the counter. “The usual,” Jean said.
The Jessaline looked surprised at seeing Jean. “The usual?”
Jean slid a few more coins onto the counter. “For your discretion. The usual, for one of your usual customers if you will.”
She nodded, still a little surprised. By now the word of the death of the Gentleman Bastards—Locke included in that—had gotten around. She dragged the coins with a stick into a bag and handed Jean the medicine. She said nothing more, not wanting a way to incriminate herself.
Jean took the medicine back to their hideout. Locke had been due for it yesterday but he’d been asleep and Jean had needed another day to collect the coin for it. It was an expensive thing that little vial. Jean had half the mind to not buy it and keep the money saved for whatever elaborate scheme Locke had in mind but he knew this was important.
He knew Locke all too well. He knew that the man would be on edge knowing he was without and that wouldn’t do them any good in their fight against the Grey King.
So now Jean sat next to Locke, who had his pants pulled down slightly so Jean could fit the needle into his thigh.
Locke was still sore and exhausted from his very near brush with death but he was ready for this small pain.
“Ready?” Jean asked.
Locke nodded and Jean gently pierced Locke’s thigh before pressing down the plunger.
Locke grunted as pain courses through his leg.
After a moment Jean pulled the needle out. “You made a face again,” Jean said.
“Yes well it hurts.”
“This little thing hurts? I’ve need you keep a straight face when impaled on a sword.”
“The prick doesn’t hurt it’s the medicine itself,” Locke said, getting up and trying to walk around as much as he could, still shaky from his days of slumber, but working the muscle now would make it hurt less later.
“I think that might have been one of the dumber things you’ve said. Medicine makes you feel better,” Jean said with a teasing smile. They’d had this conversation before, but it never ceased to amuse Jean that no matter how hard Locke tried he couldn’t ever keep a straight face through whatever pain he did feel.
Locke paced one length of the room before his knees buckled beneath him from disuse. Jean caught him, easing Locke down onto the palate.
The physiker was nowhere to be seen. He’d offered to administer the needle, but Locke had refused to let him do it. He’d trusted the physiker with every other aspect of his recovery except for this small thing. In this he trusted Jean’s steady hand with a needle more than the physiker.
Laying back in the cot Locke remembered the first time he’d taken the medicine.
Father Chains had pulled him aside one day a year or so after Locke was initiated. Father Chains of course knew that Locke was biological female even though the Thiefmaker had sold him to Chains as a trouble making young boy.
The Thiefmaker had hardly paid Locke enough attention to notice, being more concerned with Locke’s antics themselves than the person behind said antics.
Chains had first thought that Locke had disguised himself as a boy because he thought he’d be a more respected thief among the Shades Hill orphans, but as time went on and Chains never once saw even a single feminine slip up from Locke he’d realize that maybe Locke wasn’t playing a game. Maybe Locke really was just Locke.
Chains didn’t say anything for the longest time, it hardly mattered how Locke chose to present himself, he’d make an excellent Gentleman Bastard man or woman, but Father Chains did think to look into a sort of solution for Locke.
He’d approached Jessaline, asking after some sort of alchemical potion that could change someone’s gender. She’d laughed first, asking Chains if this was for some kind of game he was setting up.
Chains had told her honestly that it wasn’t for a game, but that he just wanted to see if such a thing were possible. There were alchemical compounds to change just about everything else visible about a person, hair color, eye color, scars, wrinkles, why not one that could make a change in the body that resembled male puberty?
Jessaline admitted that she’d never made such a thing herself before but was certain it was possible, given a little bit of time.
Chains had given her coin to keep quiet about the whole matter and then had gone to ask Locke about it.
“If you were invited to a dinner party here in Camorr, what would you wear?”
Locke cocked his head to the side. They’d already eaten dinner, where Chains had asked his questions, and this one was a rather low ball one.
“A well tailored suit but not too ostentatious in color as to outshine the host,” Locke said.
“A suit you say, not a dress?”
It was the first time Father Chains had ever hinted at knowing Locke’s true nature and Locke had been I’ll prepared. He took a step back, fear flashing in his eyes.
Chains took a long pull on his cigar before letting the smoke puff out in a ring.
“You fooled the Thiefmaker, you’ve fooled the Sanzas, but you can’t fool me,” Chains said. “You’re good at playing the part, I never even had to teach you, but how long do you think you can do it for? All young children look about the same, but in a few years time when boys your age will have scruffy beards, deep voices and broad shoulders and girls your age will have breasts and light voices and all that other womanly crap what will you do then?”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“Of course you didn’t. Which is why I thought about it for you.”
Locke winced. “Are you going to make me dress like a girl?”
“Sweet thirteenth no. You wouldn’t be able to pull it off anyway. You have the body of a girl but not the mind, if I’m reading that right.”
Locke felt the tension released from his shoulders. He’d really thought Chains was going to be mad that he’d been hiding this from him.
“I know of an alchemist that could make you something that would in practically every noticeable way make you a man, though I’m told the changes are largely permanent. If given the choice to be a man, would you take it?”
“Yes,” said Locke. It was hardly even a question. He was Locke Lamora, best teaser from Shades Hill. Locke Lamora Gentleman Bastard. Locke Lamora, man.
A wry smile cracked across Chain’s face. “I thought as much. I’ll procure the medicine.”
Locke felt he could cry with joy.
“I haven’t told the twins and I’m not going to. But if you decide to tell them and they give you shit I’ll be sure to knock some sense into them.”
Locke nodded vigorously. No one had ever known about his secret. No one now except for Chains and it felt weirdly freeing. He was always a little nervous someone would call him out on the lie but no one ever had. It felt good in some strange way for someone to see through him so transparently. For someone to see right through his disguise that they saw the reason for it in the first place.
Locke Lamora wasn’t trying to trick anyone, he just simply was Locke Lamora.
He never did end up telling the twins despite Chain’s threat to put them in their place. He realized then that he really had never told them. Not when Chains was their leader and not after Chains died. He’d never told Bug either.
Locke sniffled and he realized that he was crying.
Why hadn’t he told them? It wouldn’t have changed anything. He was still their fearless leader, medicine or no medicine, man or woman he was Locke Lamora, Garrista of the Gentleman Bastards.
“What’s wrong? Does it really hurt that bad?” Jean asked, crouching down next to Locke and taking his hand.
“I never told them,” Locke said aloud, which only spurred on the onslaught of emotions he was feeling. “I always thought I’d tell them some day but I—“ Locke choked on a sob. “I just didn’t, and now they’re—they’re gone.”
Jean pulled Locke into a hug, letting the smaller man cry into his shoulder.
“They wouldn’t have given a single shit how you were born. They probably would have thought you were pranking them.”
Locke felt a smile pull at his lips trying to picture it but that just reminded him that they weren’t here anymore, that he wouldn’t ever hear Bug’s laugh or the Sanza’s teasing ever again.
Jean let out a soft chuckle, rubbing soothing circles into Locke’s back. “They wouldn’t have believed you, at least not at first, and you probably wouldn’t make it easy for them to confirm either, for your own amusement. Bug would try to come up with increasingly elaborate ways to pants you, and they wouldn’t work because you would see them all coming. The Sanzas would probably be a little more upfront about it, we would talk over drinks, and they would recount every single time they tried to kick you in the nuts only for it to have surprisingly little effect, and we would all laugh. They loved you Locke. Don’t think that this would have changed that.”
“I know,” Locke said through his tears. “I think it would be easier if I could imagine that they would have hated me, but I know they wouldn’t have cared.”
Jean hadn’t cared when he’d found out. They’d both been seventeen when Locke had told Jean.
It was late at night and they were in Locke’s room, as they so often seemed to be these days. They’d shared chaste kisses, but things quickly grew more heated. Locke took his shirt off and Jean thumbed at Locke’s pants thinking to do something about getting them out of the way. As Jean’s thumb slipped against the warm skin of Locke’s hip Locke stopped.
“I have to tell you something,” he’d said, which was not exactly what Jean had wanted to hear when he first thought they were going to have sex. I have to tell you something seemed the way to let someone down, I have to tell you something, I don’t want to have sex with you. I have to tell you something, I think you should go. I have to tell you something, I think you’re ugly and I hate you and I never want to see you again. I have to tell you something, I regret ever kissing you.
Locke hadn’t put his shirt back on, but he had sat upright on the edge of the bed where he had previously been practically sitting on top of Jean. Jean had sat next to him a few inches away so they wouldn’t touch.
“What is it?” Jean asked after a momentary lapse into silence.
“I ah, don’t have what you have. . . down there.”
Jean blinked, Locke’s subtlety going straight over his head. “Down where?”
“You know. . .”
“Locke, I assure you I do not.”
Locke huffed. “I don’t have a penis.”
“Oh. Oh? What. . . were you. . .” Jean trailed off trying to think of the right word. Neutered was what came to mind, but he knew there was a nicer word for it, and if he was inclined to still have sex with Locke tonight—which he very much was—then he thought he should come up with the nicer term.
Locke laughed. “Gods no. I was born without one.”
“Oh, ok,” Jean thought for a second. “Wait then how do you piss? Where does it come out of?”
Locke gave Jean a confused look. This conversation was not going where he thought it was. “My vagina?”
An even more confused expression crossed Jean’s face and Locke rushed to explain before Jean could ask another stupid question.
“I was born as a girl, but I’ve never felt like a girl so I just. . . chose to be a boy instead. After Chains took me in, he let me take medicine that let me go through the right puberty, but puberty doesn’t give you what you never had. But I. . . hope this doesn’t change anything; I just didn’t want you to take my pants off and be surprised that’s all.”
“So, we can keep having sex?” Jean bit his tongue. It was what he was thinking but he hadn’t quite meant to say it.
But Locke had just laughed pushed him back in bed and climbed back on top of him.
It had been a while after that first mention until Jean started doing Locke’s injection for him. Chains had done it for Locke the first few times but soon had started giving Locke the needle and telling him to do it himself. Locke protested but Chains mentioned that he wouldn’t always be there to do it for him and that he had to at least learn how to do it himself.
The first several times had ended in a bloody mess. The medicine was remarkably painful as it went in, and Locke had a hard time keeping his hands steady as he pushed the plunger down. He’d gotten better over the years until Locke could give himself the injection without it ending in the bathroom looking like a crime scene.
Two months after Locke had first told Jean about certain facts about his biology Jean had walked in on Locke giving himself the injection.
Locke usually did it in the bathroom but after a prank from the Sanzas gone wrong every surface in there was covered in a fine layer of itching powder that Locke didn’t want to step anywhere near.
He’d been doing it in his room when Jean had walked in. Jean walking in unannounced wasn’t anything new, they’d been walking into each other’s rooms since before they even started dating, but Jean walking in on Locke trying to stab himself with slightly shaking hands was something new.
Locke, startled by the sound slipped and pricked himself. “Damn,” he set the needle down and pressed his thumb to the tiny wound.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Medicine,” Locke had said, pulling his thumb away only to see another bead of blood bubble up.
“Medicine? What do you take medicine for?” Jean asked.
Locke waved a hand vaguely at himself and Jean caught on.
“I knew your roguish good looks were too good to be true,” he said, taking a seat next to Locke on the floor.
“Yes, now stop distracting me, I need to get this in without spilling more of my blood.”
“Do you want help?” Jean asked when he saw the slight tremor in Locke’s hands when he picked the needle back up.
“Gods yes,” Locke said.
Jean took up the needle and inspected it. He’d never done something like this before, but surely just about anything would be better than watching Locke repeatedly stab himself.
“It’s easy,” Locke said. “Just put in in deep and squeeze.”
“Well at least that I know I’m good at,” Jean said, which earned him an eye roll from Locke. He pushed the needle into Locke’s thigh and pressed down the plunger. Locke grunted and made a pained face. “Sorry, did I do it wrong?”
“No that was much better than usual, it just always hurts when the medicine goes in.”
Locke hopped to his feet and started pacing the room.
“What now?” Jean asked.
“Exercising will make it hurt less tomorrow.”
“And could that be any kind of exercise?”
Locke stopped pacing, and smiled. “Had something in mind?”
After the first time Locke had always gone to Jean to do his injections.
“Save it for the Grey King,” Jean now said. “We’ll make him pay for what he’s done.”
“Him and the Falconer both.”