#also to be clear the reason 'girl' is crossed out is because i'm trans | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

qzwrites · 1 year

Text

Blackmail Boyfriend DVD Commentary Edition

This was fun! But it's a pain in the ass to figure out how to format something like this! Many of the places I looked used colored text or italics for their commentary and I hated that and thought it was inaccessible! So I have set my commentary off and also indented it. Let me know how that reads.

It was convenient to share a hotel room with the only teammate who knew Aidan was trans. It was unfortunate that said teammate was blackmailing Aidan into having sex with him, but Aidan did really need the help keeping their other roommate from noticing anything amiss about Aidan. Aidan figured at least with Trey in the room, Richard wouldn’t do anything.

He should have known Richard better by now.

I talked about this in the original author's notes but this sure is a scenario that occurs all over manga both vanilla and hentai. In high school I read a romance manga about a girl cross-dressing to go to an all-boys school to be nearer to her favorite soccer player and ending up roommates with him, and I have also read comics where it's like "Surprise! The new ace player is Actually A Girl!" which leads to, at best, dubiously consensual sex (whether or not the author seems aware this is dubious is, itself, dubious). Once I had rotated this concept in my mind enough times, I thought it would be not terribly difficult but definitely interesting to start from this extremely dire transactional relationship and end up in an actual romance, especially if, as was usually the case in these "secret cross-dresser" manga, it was about teenagers. So I had the backstory for Aidan and Richard worked out first, but I thought the part where Aidan realized Richard actually liked him was more interesting, which is why I start here.

Aidan was almost asleep when he felt Richard shift behind him. That didn’t alarm him on its own, but then Richard’s hand was on Aidan’s hip.

There were lots of things to dislike about Richard blackmailing Aidan into sex, and one of them was the way Aidan’s stupid pussy did not dislike it. Unlike the way flicking the bean only ever made Aidan uncomfortably aware of his dysphoria, getting pounded somehow wasn’t triggering at all. To add insult to injury, it was way easier to come from. Even though Richard was a transphobic, misogynistic asshole, Aidan’s stupid pussy lit up the second Richard touched him.

I actually hate the word "pussy" but I also think euphemisms and circumlocutions indicate a different type of trans dude. Since I didn't want to write about someone dealing with too much dysphoria on top of the blackmail situation (because how the fuck are you going to come around on someone who is constantly triggering dysphoria? No matter how good the sex is or how nice Richard is, it would just be an overall more negative experience) I thought straightforward but not clinical terms would be best. Also IDK man, I'm also trans, and for whatever reason I find it a lot easier to write a guy talking about his pussy than a girl doing the same. Boypussy is fine, I guess. I also started this story not long after I finished Exciting New Levels of Heresy, in which I managed to avoid using any clear words for Nic's junk literally at all. That wasn't me trying to be coy, I just found it difficult to accept the idea of Nic thinking about zeir body in any of those terms. In the extras set further in the future, ze uses the word "cunt", but freshly-deflowered Nic was just too embarrassed about having and enjoying sex to say something like that. Whereas I kind of wanted Aidan to feel like...you know, a teenage boy. "Pussy" feels like a very teenage boy way to refer to it.

Aidan tried to squirm away from Richard, but Richard just followed him to the edge of the bed, until Aidan had nowhere to go. Aidan hissed, “Trey’s right there!”

“So be quiet,” Richard murmured, sliding his fingers under the waistband of Aidan’s shorts. He pulled Aidan back against him. Aidan wasn’t surprised to feel he was already hard. Sometimes it felt like Richard could go from flaccid to throbbing instantly.

After weeks of taking advantage of Aidan, Richard knew Aidan’s body and how to manage his dysphoria as well as Aidan did. He only used his hand down the front of Aidan’s underwear to shove it down and out of the way. Once he had his cock nestled between Aidan’s labia, he reached up Aidan’s shirt to play with his tits.

Aidan had to bite his knuckles to muffle the sounds he wanted to make. Between Richard’s cock sliding against his pussy and Richard’s fingers pinching his nipples, he was wet enough to take it in no time at all.

Aidan resented how much he enjoyed fucking Richard. Richard misgendered him when they were alone, even if it had been a while since he did so, and he had immediately demanded to fuck him when he found out Aidan “was a girl”. But having to avoid sexual situations that would out him did approximately fuck-all to calm Aidan’s raging teenage hormones, while Richard’s stupid dick actually let Aidan blow off some steam and be less sexually frustrated. It was easier to concentrate on his schoolwork, he had less trouble falling asleep at night, he even played better since Richard started fucking him. It was monumentally unfair. Fucking someone to keep them from outing you should not be so enjoyable.

Richard stopped bothering with condoms after he found out Aidan was on birth control, which Aidan knew was irresponsible but couldn’t bring himself to seriously protest. He told himself it was because fighting Richard on it might lead to Richard outing him, but it was at least half because of how good it felt to not have to stop when Aidan was wet enough for Richard’s cock to just slip right into him, as it did now.

I know I'm not the only person who did stupid things I knew were stupid even as I did them when I was a teenager purely because I was horny. Aidan probably could have found a way out of this situation, even if it would have been tricky to avoid being outed, but he didn't try very hard.

Aidan turned to press his face into the pillow to stop his groan. Richard tugged him away from the edge of the bed, then pushed Aidan down on his stomach and rolled on top of him. Aidan reached down to shove his shorts off one leg, so he could spread his legs that much wider. Richard’s breathing grew harsh and ragged as he humped Aidan like a badly-trained dog.

The lamp between the beds clicked on. Aidan froze. So did Richard, although his cock twitched a bit inside Aidan like it was less on board with this interruption. Trey’s voice said, “What the hell are you guys doing over th–oh my god, are you fucking?”

I tried to push this piece back into being more cartoony, the way some of my older art is, and I'm of two minds about how it turned out. I did have a lot of fun doing the lighting! And Richard's expression cracks me up. Information Aidan does not have available that the reader is getting from this illustration, I guess.

Aidan’s heart raced. He was pressed against the mattress with Richard on top of him, the blanket was still mostly over them. Trey couldn’t see Aidan’s breasts or his lack of dick. It was entirely possible Richard was fucking him in the ass. That’s what Trey would assume.

Except when Richard walked in on Aidan initially, he was adamant that he wasn’t gay, even as he demanded to fuck another guy, because he refused to acknowledge the fact that Aidan was a guy. He could very well out Aidan to avoid letting Trey think he was gay. Fuck fuck fuck.

Richard turned his head to face Trey, but didn’t otherwise move, staying draped over Aidan’s back. “Ugh,” Richard said, “I thought you were asleep.”

“I was, but the sound of what I thought was one of you jerking it woke me up,” Trey said. “Are you two seriously doing it?”

“Trying to,” Richard said. He still didn’t move from on top of Aidan. It was embarrassing as hell, but Aidan had to admit it kept Trey from seeing much of Aidan’s body.

“Dude,” Trey said. He sounded more offended than disgusted, thank god. “With me in the room?”

I have no idea what the differences may be between spending the night in a hotel with a sports team versus a drama club or Academic Decathlon team, but I assumed they couldn't be too different. I don't think anyone ever had sex in the hotel rooms on any of my trips for competitions, but it didn't seem like it would be too hard to arrange if one was so inclined. The main problem, of course, is that they usually put us three or four to a room. But, having Trey in the room to address that and add some risk and excitement to the sex also allowed me to make Richard and Aidan talk about things. And it meant I had an easy set-up for Aidan getting walked in on and outed again, which let me contrast Richard's initial reaction to his new reaction, which forced them to talk some more. It did mean another character to keep track of, but at least I didn't have to get too in the weeds with him. (Shakes fist at all the boys in Childhood Friends, especially you, Paul)

“I thought you were asleep,” Richard said defensively. “We don’t usually have a bed.”

“Can you choose one or the other?” Aidan demanded, face hot. If Richard wasn’t going to be a cowardly asshole and out him, then he really didn’t want to prolong this situation. “Either talk to Trey or fuck me.”

“Uh, I hate to break it to you,” Trey said, “but I don’t think I’m going to be able to fall back asleep.”

Aidan groaned and pressed his face back into the pillow.

Richard shrugged. “I don’t care if you watch,” he said.

“Richard,” Aidan yelped, very nearly making a terrible mistake and bucking him off.

“Oh, calm down,” Richard said. He rolled his hips, leisurely. The felt good enough that Aidan relaxed against his own will. He might also have moaned a little.

“Jesus Christ,” Trey said. His voice broke on the last syllable. He cleared his throat. “Look, I don’t mind if y’all are gay or whatever, but I’m not.”

Aidan tensed back up again. Richard, confusingly, rubbed Aidan’s arm soothingly, on the side Trey couldn’t see. Richard said, “Fine, turn the light off then. I just want to finish.”

“You’re a freak,” Trey said. “Um, Aidan?”

Aidan had to pull his face out of the pillow to answer. “Honestly at this point I don’t care, I want to finish too.”

Richard put his mouth against Aidan’s ear to murmur, “Of course you do, slut.” He rolled his hips again, still slowly enough that it was torturous. His breath was hot on the side of Aidan’s head. “Slutty little faggot.”

Being called a slur should not have made Aidan shudder and clench around Richard’s cock, but it was the first time since Richard first saw Aidan naked that he’d said anything to acknowledge Aidan was a queer guy and not a straight girl. Aidan moaned before he could help it.

Important to establish that, despite being a crude and physically needy guy, Richard was not in fact continuing to misgender Aidan. It takes a special kind of guy to make calling the POV character a faggot an improvement, but it didn't feel like much of a stretch that Aidan would be into it. He is, after all, the kind of person who is unbothered enough by being coerced into sex to not try that hard to get out of it. Him being kind of into it makes that seem more explicable.

“God,” Trey said, and the light clicked off.

“Thanks, man,” Richard said, and started humping Aidan again.

“I hate you,” Aidan said. Richard only grunted and bit Aidan’s neck.

Aidan had a much harder time keeping quiet now that he knew Trey was already awake. Yeah, it was embarrassing that Trey was hearing all the moaning Aidan was doing, not to mention the extremely audible slapping of Richard’s hips against Aidan’s ass, but…he already knew. And with the light off again, the chance he’d notice Aidan was trans was effectively zero.

After a few minutes, Trey made a noise in the other bed. He said, “It does not make me gay to jerk off to this, okay?”

Aidan laughed, which made the muscles in his pussy do something that made Richard groan. “Sure,” Aidan said.

“I’m listening to people have sex,” Trey said. He was out of breath. Fuck, he was actually jerking off listening to Richard and Aidan go at it. “It’s a normal physical reaction.”

I did find myself thinking a lot about a time in my college dorm where I was laying awake with insomnia hearing a weird noise like "what the hell is my roommate dong over there" and didn't realize until years later that she was masturbating. I spent all year waiting until she went to the practice room with her violin! Honestly!!!

Aidan laughed again, and so did Richard. “Yeah,” Richard said, “nothing but normal physical reactions in here tonight.”

Thankfully, after that he settled back down to fucking Aidan. Apart from labored breathing and rhythmic slapping sounds, Trey was quiet as well. With the light off but no worry about waking Trey up, Aidan felt comfortable enough to push himself up on his knees. Richard murmured into Aidan’s ear, “God, you’re such a slut.” Still, he adjusted the angle he was thrusting into Aidan so his next stroke slammed into Aidan’s g-spot. Aidan cried out. Then he was coming, and Richard was still slamming into him, and Aidan was still coming. God, it was fucked up that Richard knew his body so well.

Richard must have come at some point in there, because by the time Aidan was cognizant of anything other than his own overwhelming orgasm, Richard was pulling out of him with some extremely wet squelchy sounds.

Aidan collapsed onto the mattress to get his breathing under control. Now that he was the one listening to someone in the other bed get off, he had to admit Trey had a point. He’d just come, after all, and he wasn’t into Trey, but his pussy still had trouble calming down while he could hear Trey panting and jerking off.

Richard tugged on the hem of Aidan’s shirt. “Roll over,” he mumbled.

“Why?” Aidan asked, but did it. He was a little surprised when Richard leaned over and kissed him. It was hot and sloppy, and he got a bit of Aidan’s nose at first. Richard had really only kissed him the first time they had sex. Considering how short Richard’s fuse was, and how humiliatingly easy Aidan was, Richard didn’t usually bother with much foreplay. He grabbed Aidan’s left boob through his shirt. Aidan groaned. This was not helping him be less horny.

“Knock it off,” Aidan tried to say, but Richard wouldn’t stop kissing him enough for it to be understandable. Richard pushed Aidan’s shirt up and pinched his nipple. “Ah!”

Without Trey in the room, they absolutely would have gone for another round here.

“God, are you still going?” Trey asked. The sound of him stroking his dick did not pause as he spoke. That was definitely not helping Aidan be less horny.

“Well, now we’re listening to someone jerk off,” Richard said. “It’s a natural physical reaction.”

Trey started to laugh, gasped, and Aidan was willing to bet that weird breath he took meant he came. That was embarrassing for him, but also pretty funny.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Aidan said, squirming out of Richard’s grasp. At least with the light still off, Aidan didn’t have to worry about the fact that his unbound breasts were clearly visible under his shirt, especially with one of his nipples all hard from being manhandled. He didn’t much like pulling his underwear and shorts up when he could feel Richard’s come oozing out of him, but even with the light off Aidan didn’t feel comfortable walking around the foot of the bed to the bathroom naked from the waist down.

Once the bathroom door was shut, Aidan turned the light on. His hair was a mess and his boobs were indeed visible in this shirt, but Richard hadn’t left any marks on his neck. He peed, and then spent a not-insignificant amount of time wiping up the mess. He knew dicks were only supposed to ejaculate a teaspoon or some small amount like that, but he would swear Richard came more than that. Although Aidan supposed it was kind of hard to tell apart what came out of his body versus Richard’s. God knew he got pretty damn wet when Richard started pawing at him.

I don't know that Aidan is even thinking about this consciously at this point, but vagina owners please pee after PIV sex! Our urethras are too short to not clean out whatever may have gotten in there during sex! Save yourself the UTI! Also I did establish earlier that they weren't bothering with condoms, which was purely so I didn't have to figure out how to get a condom into this scene without waking up Trey or disrupting the pacing, but also makes the clean-up extra necessary.

He turned the light off before he left the bathroom, then waited until he could see well enough to be sure the light in the main room was still off before he opened the door. He made it back to the bed and under the covers without incident.

“Swear to god,” Trey said from the other bed, “if you assholes don’t go to sleep now, I’m telling Coach.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Richard said. He rolled over and put his arm around Aidan’s waist. Aidan tensed, but all Richard did was snuggle into Aidan’s back. Aidan wished he knew what the hell was going on in Richard’s head, but he was too tired to think about it for long before he fell asleep.

Richard is totally in love with Aidan and Aidan is just like "wtf has he always been cuddly?" The answer is yes, actually, but it's pretty hard to get in those post-coital cuddles when you're having quickies in the locker room.

Being stealth at school wasn’t as hard as Aidan had worried it would be. Enough guys changed for gym in the bathroom stalls because they were shy that it wasn’t that notable that Aidan did it too. It was slightly more conspicuous in the locker room for practice, but most of the soccer team didn’t pay too much attention to him at first, and then they liked him enough because he was a good player to not give him shit about it.

So maybe he’d gotten a little complacent about changing in the locker room. He was on birth control that stopped his periods now, so he didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing pad wings or tampon strings or whatever, and he wasn’t about to bleed through his underwear. More than once he’d actually gotten down to his binder with someone else in the room, without them noticing, because no one was paying attention to him change. So one day after practice, when he was really sweaty and muddy and everyone else had already left, Aidan thought, as long as everyone else was gone, he might as well take a shower.

Literally I don't understand why teen media acts like everyone is fine with changing in front of everyone. This was not the case anywhere I went. Maybe sports teams were more generally blase about it, the way most of the drama kids were, but even after four years of changing in front of each other for shows, there were some people who always changed in the bathroom. I never once used a shower at school until I lived in a dorm, though. Although again: theatre kid instead of sports kid.

He’d almost gotten away with it, even when Richard came back in to get something he’d forgotten in his locker. The showers weren’t easy to peek into from the path in and out of the locker room. Richard called out, “Who’s still in here?”

If he hadn’t responded, Richard definitely would have come to check it out, so Aidan shouted, “It’s Aidan!”

Richard laughed, because he’d been one of the other guys who fell in the mud. “Alright, see you tomorrow,” he called back, and Aidan relaxed.

Too soon, as it turned out, because a minute later Richard was at the doorway to the shower, saying, “Hang on, you never even change in front of us, let’s see what you’re so shy about, anyway.”

Gee, Richard, why are you so curious about seeing Aidan naked?

None of the showers were really set up to provide enough privacy to keep Aidan from being partially exposed. He yelped and spun around to put his back to Richard, but Richard had already gotten an eyeful.

“Holy shit,” Richard said, “you’re a girl?”

He didn’t pay any attention at all to Aidan’s protest that he was not, in fact, a girl. His very thoughtful rebuttal was to gesture at Aidan’s body and say, “Boobs, vagina.” It was annoying enough that his suggestion he could keep his mouth shut if Aidan let Richard fuck him was almost a relief.

I think not writing this out as a full scene makes it stronger. Aidan's extremely judgy narration cracks me up. And it didn't feel like it needed it; the fact that it happened at all is what's important for this story, and I've already gotten the requisite S2B2 sex scene out of the way.

By then, Aidan was done showering. He tried to wrap himself in a towel and go to his locker to get dressed, but Richard grabbed him, pushed him up against the outside wall of the showers, and kissed him. He’d already been hard, and that made Aidan kind of dizzy even if it was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Aidan’s gender.

“What, now?” Aidan asked, breathlessly, like Richard’s dick hadn’t made that clear.

“Why, you got somewhere else to be?” Richard asked, and didn’t wait for an answer before kissing Aidan again.

Aidan lost his virginity on a damp towel spread out on the floor of the locker room. He didn’t come, but it was a near thing. Aidan swore to himself he wouldn’t get off on it the next time he let Richard fuck him, which turned out to be comically over-confident.

Aidan woke up the morning after having sex in front of a teammate with Richard pressed up against his side, his hand up Aidan’s shirt. He was grabbing Aidan’s boob in his sleep. Aidan didn’t know what he’d expected. It was under the blanket, at least. Aidan nudged Richard off of him, then lifted his head to see if Trey was awake. Trey was on his side facing away from them, so Aidan couldn’t tell. It would be too conspicuous to try and wriggle into his binder under the blanket, so Aidan reached for his phone to check the time.

He was just messing around on his phone, aimlessly scrolling social media, when Trey got up from his bed and walked to the bathroom. Aidan immediately dropped his phone to grab his binder. He wrenched his shirt off, pulled his binder on, and was rewarded with the bottom edge of his binder rolling up and digging in painfully, the way it always did he when he tried to put it on too fast. Aidan kicked Richard under the blankets, while he struggled to pull his binder down.

Aidan heard Richard groan, then felt the bed shift as he moved around. Then Richard said, “Oh, shit, where’s Trey?”

“Bathroom,” Aidan said. “But I think he’s only peeing. Give me a hand.”

“Yeah,” Richard said. He grabbed the back of Aidan’s binder and pulled. He reached up with his other hand to straighten out the hem without Aidan having to ask. Since he always wanted access to Aidan’s boobs when they were having sex, he’d helped Aidan in and out of his binder enough times to be decent at it. It was one of the weird ways he was considerate even though he’d blackmailed Aidan into this.

While Aidan adjusted the way his boobs were laying in the front of his binder, Richard grabbed Aidan’s discarded shirt and turned it right side out. He held it out so all Aidan had to do was put his arms and head through it. While Aidan did that, he heard the toilet flush. Richard murmured, “You good?”

I think it says something about Richard (and his relationship with Aidan) that, even though Aidan doesn't realize Richard likes him, he still doesn't hesitate to demand assistance with his binder. They've been doing this long enough that Richard has clearly established that he's going to help Aidan stay closeted, despite theoretically holding the threat of outing him over his head. I don't know if anyone else even noticed this, but Richard going above and beyond by prepping the shirt for Aidan to get into is him doing a really good job of helping Aidan get dressed. I don't mention it in the story, but Richard doesn't have any younger siblings or anything; his experience dressing someone else is all Aidan. He's trying so hard to be boyfriend material without saying anything about it. Idiot.

Aidan yanked the shirt down and flopped back onto the bed. “Yeah,” he said.

“Good,” Richard said. He also laid back down, pulling the blanket up over their chests. He yawned. “What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty,” Aidan told him.

Richard groaned. “That’s too early to be up on a Saturday,” he said, and rolled over to press his face into Aidan’s shoulder.

“Stop that,” Aidan said, shrugging him off. He heard the bathroom door open, and then the sink ran. He was as prepared to face Trey as he was ever going to be. He would have felt more secure with another layer of clothes on, but he’d known he wouldn’t have time to get completely dressed, and it would be weird to get partially dressed and then stay in bed. Aidan wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep, but he didn’t completely disagree with Richard that it was too early to be up. And there wasn’t much he could do in the hotel room if Richard or Trey went back to sleep.

“Are you guys up?” Trey asked from around the corner.

“Yeah,” Aidan said. Richard groaned and pulled the blanket over his head.

“So,” Trey said, coming around the corner and heading for the bed he’d slept in. “Usually I wouldn’t want to be nosy, but I feel like I earned it.” He sat down on the edge of the bed facing them and leaning back on his hands. He was still in the t-shirt and plaid boxers he’d slept in. “Are you guys gay?”

At least that was a question with a simple answer. “Only in the umbrella sense,” Aidan said. “I’m bi.”

Richard flipped the blanket down off his face. “If being into Aidan counts,” he said, “then I guess I am too.”

Aidan looked sidelong at him. That was a pretty clever way to sound like he was saying something he wasn’t. The thing about Richard was that he was inconsistent about the gender thing. He’d been adamant he wasn’t gay and it wasn’t gay for him to fuck Aidan, but he never slipped up in front of other people. That wasn’t Aidan’s typical experience with people who didn’t believe or understand that he was trans. When they had sex, Richard worked around Aidan’s discomfort with having his clit touched. Aidan genuinely couldn’t tell how much Richard was being considerate versus just humoring Aidan in order to have continued access to Aidan’s body.

And now it sounded like he was fine with Trey thinking he was bi, even though he’d been vehement at first that he wasn’t gay.

Richard saw Aidan looking. “What?” he asked. He was blushing. He was blushing?

It was early, and Trey already knew they had sex. Aidan said bluntly, “I kind of figured I was just a convenient hole to stick your dick in.”

Richard shrugged. “I feel like you’d be less irresistible if you were.”

That made Aidan blush. He always thought Richard was just horny, not that he found Aidan especially attractive. That…put some things in a different light.

“For pete’s sake,” Trey said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t make me listen to you two have sex and a relationship discussion.”

“It’s too early to be talking about this shit anyway,” Aidan said. He sat up. “Breakfast is in the lobby, right?”

It was an obvious change of subject, but they both let him get away with it. Aidan steadfastly ignored the way he was still blushing and got up to get dressed.

Richard was in the middle of an argument with Jake about some video game when Aidan and Trey finished eating breakfast, so Aidan and Trey walked back through the hotel to their room to get ready for the day without him.

“Hey,” Aidan said, when the door to the room was closed behind them, “sorry about last night. I did try to tell him no ’cause you were here, but, uh. Not very hard, I guess.”

Trey sighed. “I mean, it sucked to get woken up like that, but it’s not like I’ve never done something stupid because a girl put her hand down my pants, so. Don’t worry about it.” He sat down on the foot of his bed and kicked off the shoes he’d worn to breakfast. He went on, “I mean, we’ve all walked past that nook behind the band room and pretended we didn’t see whoever was making out back there.”

Based on a real nook behind the band room at my high school. Literally on the path to the only bathrooms in the building, and we all collectively went I Do Not See It

That was an extremely generous word for some of what went on in the nook behind the band room. Aidan had never walked past anyone outright fucking back there, but it went a lot further than kissing. “Well, still,” Aidan said. “It was rude to do that to you. But thanks for being nice about it.”

“You know, thinking about it,” Trey said, “I did notice Richard was being nicer to you lately.”

“Ah,” Aidan said. He hadn’t been sure he wasn’t imagining that. Before Richard called him irresistible, Aidan thought any niceness he wasn’t imagining was due to misplaced sexism. Now he didn’t know what to think. To Trey, he said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Trey yawned. “Hey,” he said, “do you mind if I try to take a nap before we have to go?”

“Nah, go ahead,” Aidan said. “Want me to wake you up?”

“I’ll set an alarm,” Trey said. He kicked off his shoes. Aidan didn’t bother, but he made sure to pull the covers up so his shoes didn’t get in the sheets or anything. Trey climbed into bed, messed with his phone for a minute, then closed his eyes. Aidan grabbed the book he was supposed to finish this weekend out of his backpack. After a second, he realized he should text Richard to be quiet when he came back to the room, did that, then went back to reading.

They were playing two games today, so Coach told them to pace themselves. He looked right at Richard when he said, “Don’t push yourselves too hard. We’re trying to build stamina, not let you hurt yourselves.” Richard attempted to look innocent. Coach didn’t fall for it any more than Aidan did.

This got all the way to the S2B2 editorial team without anyone pointing out that I had never named the fucking sport they were playing. It was always soccer in my head, but I sure didn't have that in the initial drafts!

The first game was good. The other team, who they hadn’t played before, had clearly gotten a similar talk from their coach. It was a chill, fun game that felt more cooperative than competitive. It was nice, although Aidan would get bored if every game felt that way.

It made Richard noticeably restless. For a second in the locker room after the game, Aidan thought Richard was going to follow him into the bathroom when he went to change. He didn’t, though, and Aidan took a moment to be thankful he was trans and no one could tell if he was turned on through his clothes. They’d literally just done it last night, why was Aidan already soaking his shorts at the thought of Richard following him into the bathroom? Stupid hormones.

The cafeteria wasn’t staffed, but the coaches had ordered catering and set it up in there. Aidan expected the catering was better than the cafeteria food anyway, so he wasn’t going to complain. He grabbed some sandwiches and a bag of chips, then went over to the water fountain to fill up his water bottle.

When Aidan got to the set of tables the rest of the team had claimed, Jake was laughing at Richard. “Man, you need to lighten up,” Jake said. “Forget superstition, maybe you should get laid before games, work off some of that energy.”

“He did,” Trey said. “It obviously didn’t help.”

Aidan froze in his seat. He was sure Richard did too.

Jake looked from Trey to Richard, then, inevitably, at Aidan.

Trey said, “Oh, dammit, was that–supposed to be secret?”

A story about being repeatedly outed, RIP Aidan

The table roared as everyone who’d heard them demanded details. Aidan didn’t know if he was surprised or offended at how quickly everyone determined Richard had sex with him, and not Trey, before either of them even said anything. Aidan didn’t bother to fight his blush. He only ignored it and unwrapped his sandwich.

“I thought you hated Aidan,” Mark said to Richard.

Before Richard could respond, Joseph said, “Come on, that was obviously his immature little way of flirting.” Aidan had come to a similar conclusion himself, given how quickly Richard jumped to “have sex with me” when he decided Aidan was a girl. He had to have been attracted to Aidan on some level before that, and “finding out” Aidan was a girl let him acknowledge it.

So this isn't a thing I've only seen in one place, but the example that jumps to my mind is Eurotrip; the main character finds out his German penpal is not a dude, as he assumed, but actually a girl, and immediately is like "oh I'm in love with her she's the one". Hey? Hey dude? That's fucking gay. Richard even admits it later, that finding out Aidan "was a girl" let him realize his feelings for Aidan were a crush. Like, I don't know how "latent bisexuality" isn't the only possible answer for this very rapid conclusion. If the only thing that's keeping you from fucking your dude friends is thinking they're dudes, but as soon as you have any reason to think that's not true you're like "okay take off your clothes"...that's actually pretty gay, dude. (This also happens a lot in gender-bender hentai manga. Hey guys? Your dude friend having tits now should not immediately lead to you fucking him and feeling totally secure in your heterosexuality, actually. That's a fucking wild reaction to this situation.) ("Ani it's just a porn premise" WELL SO IS THIS BUT I PUT SOME THOUGHT INTO THE EXECUTION AT LEAST)

“I just thought we’re not that close, I didn’t hear about it,” Trey said. He looked wretched enough that Aidan felt bad for him.

“Don’t worry about it,” Richard yelled, to be heard over the din. “It’s not like we told you not to tell anyone.”

“Is this recent?” someone asked.

“Are you dating?” someone else asked, teasingly.

“No,” Aidan said firmly, in unison with Richard.

“You can’t say you’re friends with benefits,” Mark said. “You’re not friends.”

“Why aren’t you dating?” Joseph asked. He was closer to Richard, but he looked down the table in a way that made it clear he was including Aidan in his question.

Aidan looked at Richard, who stared back at him. Richard was wide-eyed, but the look on his face didn’t tell Aidan anything about how he wanted to handle this. Of course this was when everyone else would shut up enough to listen. Nosy bastards. Finally, Aidan said, “I don’t want to have this conversation in front of other people.”

“Yeah,” Richard said at once, “me neither.” He looked around the table. “It’s none of y’all’s business.”

They do not have this conversation in public because I didn't want to write this conversation with so many other people involved. I can write a big group meal talk, but it's hard, and honestly I don't think it would have been worth it in this case!

“God, I’m sorry,” Trey said, looking from Richard to Aidan. “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s fine,” Richard said.

It was annoying, but Aidan hadn’t heard any homophobia, just nosiness and some I-told-you-so’s. It was far and away the better outing he’d had at this school. “It’s okay, Trey,” Aidan said. He smiled, and hoped it didn’t look as forced as it was. “It’s not your fault nothing in the world can chill Richard out.”

Aidan told himself he didn’t feel bad, redirecting the teasing back to Richard alone. Richard rolled his eyes, but he let Jake resume giving him grief, so Aidan turned his attention to his lunch.

There were an uneven number of teams, so their team had a break after lunch, before their second game. They went to watch the other games that were happening. Aidan hoped he’d fall off the radar of the rest of the team, but he wasn’t that lucky.

Mark climbed over the bleachers to sit down next to Aidan twenty minutes into the game. “Hey,” he said quietly, “are you really hooking up with Richard?”

“I guess,” Aidan said. He didn’t know what else he could say. At least Richard had been just as firm at lunch about the fact they weren’t dating as Aidan had; that could have been awkward. Well, more awkward.

“And you’re…okay? With that?” Mark asked. “I mean, he was such a dick when you joined the team. No pun intended.”

Aidan shrugged. “I assumed Joey was right, and that was his messed-up attempt at flirting. Or dealing with his feelings, anyway,” he said. He wasn’t sure it counted as flirting if you didn’t know why you were doing it. He added, “I don’t think he’s ever been into another guy before.”

I mean, if one of your friends who was kind of bullying a guy suddenly turned out to be having sex with that guy, it seems reasonable to be concerned that something unsavory is going on there. And there is! Or at least there was! So here we see Aidan being offered an out for the first of, like, three times in this story. But he is now invested enough in also protecting Richard, as well as continuing to get laid, that he isn't even conflicted or concerned about taking it without simultaneously outing himself. It doesn't even occur to him! Mostly he just doesn't want to be talking to his teammates about this.

“I guess that makes sense,” Mark said. He scratched his scruffy goatee. “But I don’t know, man, my sisters always say you shouldn’t reward guys who do stuff like that. It’s kind of a red flag, isn’t it?”

Great, he thought Aidan was some kind of foolish damsel. Aidan guessed that was technically better than people knowing he was trans and treating him like a delusional girl. Not by much, though. He said, “I don’t know about Richard, but this is one reason I didn’t want to tell people. It’s complicated. And personal.”

“No, I know,” Mark said, holding up his hands. “You’re a big boy, you can make your own decisions. I just thought, I dunno, someone should check on you. We’ve all known Richard longer than you, I didn’t want you to be, you know, forgotten about.”

Aidan didn’t know what to say to that. “Thanks?” Aidan said.

Mark sighed. “I should have told Trey to do this,” he said.

Aidan laughed. “Trey wasn’t worried,” he said. “I bet he would’ve told you not to worry, too. Not to be vulgar or anything, but there is a reason I’m hooking up with him.”

“Oh,” Mark said. He made a face. “Really?” he asked after a moment. “I mean, you’re right, I don’t think Richard’s ever been into another guy before, and it doesn’t seem like that would lend itself to being good at gay sex.”

Aidan shrugged, still smiling. “I was honestly shocked,” he said. “But it’s really good.”

“Damn, okay,” Mark said. Aidan glanced at him, and saw he was blushing. About time someone else was embarrassed about this. “I guess that answers that.”

In the locker room before their second game, as Aidan walked over to the bathroom stalls, Jake said, “Ah, now we know why Aidan changes in the bathroom. To avoid inflaming Richard’s lust!” Most of the team burst into laughter.

Well, Aidan thought, face hot enough it felt like it might burst into flames, at least this was all sending them off track. No one would guess he was trans if they assumed it was all about Richard, the way he’d hassled Aidan at first, and now not being naked around the guy he was hooking up with when they weren’t having sex.

“Yeah, yeah,” Richard said loudly. “Very funny. I have some self-control, you know.”

“Not according to Trey!” Jake said, and set off another round of laughter. Great, so Aidan could assume everyone knew they’d had sex while Trey was in the room. The guys had probably already started texting other people from school about it. Not only were people going to know Aidan was sleeping with Richard, they’d know he didn’t have enough self-control to override his libido.

He did still prefer that to people knowing he was trans. At least Aidan being horny for Richard was something it made sense to treat him differently for.

The second game was rougher than the first one. This team was not taking it easy. Aidan wound up in the dirt more than once, although he didn’t get injured. Richard was in his element. While Aidan was on the sidelines, trying to catch his breath and hydrate after Coach subbed him out, he found it difficult not to watch him.

Former soccer player had to look up the rules of soccer for this story. Shameful. (It has been like...literally twenty years. It's not actually shameful, it's just annoying because dammit I still had an eidetic memory when I played soccer why can't I find that information in my brain it has to be there somewhere)

Jake elbowed Aidan. “Keep your mind on the game, perv,” he said.

“Shut up,” Aidan said reflexively, but he could feel himself turning red again. “Like you haven’t told us all a thousand times how hard it is not to pop a boner when you go to Crystal’s games.”

“Mm,” Jake said, nodding. “It is hot when people are good at things. Still, embarrassing to be into Richard.”

“If you guys don’t stop saying stuff like that, I’m going to tell you exactly what I enjoy about Richard,” Aidan said. If he chose his words carefully enough, he wouldn’t even be lying. “And I doubt he’d mind me bragging about his dick.”

Jake groaned. “He would not,” he agreed. “Okay, message received, I’ll shut up now.”

“Thank you,” Aidan said, as primly as he could. Jake laughed.

They lost the game, but only by a single point. Considering the other team had at one point managed a four point lead, they felt pretty good about that. After they showered and changed, there was a goofy little closing ceremony, but it was short. Not short enough that Aidan wasn’t ruing and lamenting his extremely sweaty binder. Being able to take a shower before this would be nice.

Except he didn’t know if he’d even be on the soccer team if he was out. Or be allowed to use the showers, if he was. It didn’t usually bother him this much, but two games’ worth of sweat made his binder unspeakably itchy.

Write what you know sometimes means writing about how fucking itchy binders are. Starting T made it so much more urgent for me to get top surgery because being extra-sweaty while binding is a nightmare.

Finally back in their hotel room, Aidan immediately started gathering his things for a shower. The bathroom here locked, and even if it was a pain getting back into a binder not fully dry–and if he was locked in the bathroom with his clothes, he never got totally dry–he had a clean one to change into, and he wouldn’t have to worry about Trey or anyone else seeing him.

“Hey,” Trey said, “I really am sorry about, like. Outing you both, I guess.”

“It’s fine,” Aidan said. He was dithering about if he could get out his clean binder while Trey was right here without him noticing. He didn’t keep his binders in the main pocket of the suitcase, since that was so easy to look into if someone walked by. Was that paranoid? Probably. But as much as binders didn’t look a lot like bras, they also didn’t really look like something a cis boy would have in their luggage. It might invite questions or investigation.

Richard flopped backward onto the bed, jostling Aidan’s suitcase. “I should have asked you not to say something,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”

“I mean,” Aidan said, “I don’t care if people know I’m bi. Honestly, everyone seems more shocked anyone would fuck you.”

“No one is shocked someone would fuck me,” Richard said, frowning. “They’re shocked you would fuck me.”

“Well, by the end of the day he was threatening to tell everyone all about the apparent wonders of your dick,” Trey said, “so at least the whole team understands my pain now.”

Aidan laughed. “Sorry,” he said.

Trey waved him off. “Anyway, I thought I’d clear out until dinner,” he said. “If you wanted to have sex without an audience for once.”

“Uh, thanks?” Aidan said. “But I’m going to enjoy a nice, private shower. Get all this damn dirt off.”

“Also valid,” Trey said. “Have fun.”

He left, the door clicking locked behind him. Aidan yanked off his shirt and threw it to the ground, then grabbed his binder and yanked that off, too. “Fucking hell,” Aidan said, scratching his chest. “That was too long in one binder.”

“Hey, you want me to get your back?” Richard asked.

On the one hand, that felt really intimate and kind of weird to let Richard do, but on the other hand, Aidan could not reach the itchiest parts of his back on his own. He shoved his suitcase to the foot of the bed and sat down with his back to Richard. “Please,” he said.

The mattress shifted as Richard moved over to sit behind Aidan. “My mom always asked my dad to scratch her back after workouts,” he said. “She said her sports bra was way worse than her regular bras for making her back itchy.” He ran the nails of both hands down either side of Aidan’s spine. Totally unable to help himself, Aidan moaned.

I spent my childhood scratching my mom and sister's backs after they took off their bras. Such an important part of being good friends to someone with boobs that require support, IMO. Also just like...the intimacy of this is so not sexual. Especially since Aidan is sweaty and feels gross right now. Although maybe that's my bias as someone who mostly did this for family members before I got married.

“More on the shoulder blades,” Aidan suggested.

Richard moved his hands up. “So, uh, sorry I didn’t tell Trey not to tell anyone,” he said.

“Hm?” It took Aidan a second to process that, lost as he was in the euphoria of having his itches relieved. “Oh. No, it’s okay. Like I said, I don’t care if people know I’m bi. And I mean, you heard them in the locker room, now they think I don’t change or shower with everyone because of you. That’s great for me. Not…as great for you, maybe.”

Richard was quiet for a minute. He moved his scratching down to the red mark the bottom of Aidan’s binder left, where it dug in. Eventually, Richard said, “It’s fine. Kind of weird, but whatever. It is strange to hear you’re giving out rave reviews of my dick, though.”

Aidan blushed even though Richard couldn’t see him. “You can’t be surprised by that,” he said. “Unless you think I’ve been faking it this whole time.”

Richard laughed. “No,” he admitted. He moved back up to Aidan’s shoulders. “I actually started wondering if some of the girls I was with before were faking. You know, in comparison.”

Aidan snorted. “Probably rude to assume,” he said. “I mean, if they said they liked it, I’d believe them.” Although he guessed it was possible some of them had been faking. Aidan would say this for having sex with someone just to get them to do what he wanted: he’d had no incentive to stroke Richard’s ego about how good he was making Aidan feel, which could very well have made Richard try harder. He hadn’t not tried to make it good for Aidan, at least.

“I guess,” Richard said. “Again, I don’t think any of them went around bragging about it.”

“It seemed like the best way to get a bunch of straight guys to stop asking questions about us,” Aidan said. “I don’t even have to lie.” He sighed, and stood up. “Thanks,” he said.

“No problem,” Richard said. He was looking up at Aidan with a weird expression on his face. Aidan wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it had been a mistake to let Richard scratch his back after everything else that had happened today.

Aidan unzipped the pocket of his suitcase he had his clean binder in, then paused. He looked up at Richard. “You’re not going to be coming in and out of the room, right?” he asked.

“No,” Richard said, looking puzzled. “I was just going to sit here and watch stuff on my phone.”

Aidan nodded. “Then I’m going to leave my clothes out here,” he said. “I mean, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Richard grinned at him. “Yeah,” he said. He stopped leering and nodded his head at the bathroom. “I hate how moist my clothes get when I take them into hotel bathrooms. Even when they’re not wet, they’re, like, clammy.”

Richard is trying so hard to be Normal, I cannot deal with it

“Right?”

The water pressure in the hotel shower was crap, but the water heater was in no danger of running out of hot water. And again, this point could not be stressed enough: it was private. Aidan didn’t have to worry anyone would see him. Even on the other side of the door, there was only Richard, who already knew about him. Aidan had a long, adequate-to-satisfactory shower. He got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist and draped another one over his head, then brushed his teeth and moisturized. Hotel bathrooms never had decent bathmats, either. And the towels just got completely wet right away if you tried to use them as bathmats. No wonder their clothes always felt wet.

Hotel bathrooms never have decent bathmats. This must be some kind of law.

Aidan dried his hair and tossed that towel over the door of the shower stall. He went out into the room with just the towel around his waist. Richard looked up and let out a low whistle.

“Fuck off,” Aidan said, rolling his eyes. He put on clean underwear, then the jeans he’d worn to and from the school where they’d played. Those were clean enough, although he was planning to put on a fresh shirt. He thought his torso still wasn’t dry enough to try putting on his binder, so he rubbed himself down with the towel again.

“I don’t want to prove everyone right,” Richard drawled, “but I have to admit watching this isn’t not turning me on.”

Aidan rolled his eyes again. “Yeah, there’s nothing sexier than me desperately trying to dry my back,” he said.

“It makes your boobs jiggle,” Richard said, which Aidan had to admit was true.

The door opened. Aidan jumped and completely lost hold of the towel. He snatched up his binder and held it in front of his chest, like that was going to do anything now. Richard leapt to his feet on the other side of the bed, which was about as useful.

Trey slammed the door behind him and leaned on it, as though someone was going to follow him in. His eyes were so wide they looked like they’d pop right out of his head. “You’re a girl?” he exclaimed, in the exact incredulous tone Richard had shouted those words in.

“Don’t be stupid,” Richard snapped, “of course he’s not a girl!”

Despite himself, Aidan laughed. “What the fuck,” he said. “Since when do you believe that?”

Richard flushed and opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted when Trey said from the door, “Oh, are you one of those, uh, people who was born in the wrong body?”

Aidan grimaced. He kind of hated that phrasing, because Aidan mostly liked his body. Even the parts of it that other people thought made him a girl were fine, on their own. Binding was more annoying than having boobs, honestly, but people wouldn’t treat him like a guy if he didn’t do it. But that was also still the main narrative cis people heard, and the only one they really seemed to understand. If Trey didn’t remember the word transgender, he reached for the definition he had in his head. Aidan said, “Yeah, I’m trans.”

I try not to soapbox too much when I'm writing, but it's so hard to know what people will or won't know about trans people, even writing for a primarily queer audience. This is definitely happening after I was in high school, because Richard talks about watching something on his phone, which was only barely possible when I graduated. I think this part also establishes, if less definitely, that it must be happening closer to its 2023 publication date than the 2005-2009 period I was in high school. Obviously I don't know if anyone at my high school was trans and stealth, but I do know the openly trans kids were generally the ones who either couldn't be closeted or had way too much dysphoria to stand it. Aidan doesn't have that much physical dysphoria (or at least has figured out how to manage it by the time the story happens) but he clearly has enough social dysphoria to lead him to being stealth. I figure he got lucky, relatively speaking, with boobs that bind flat enough to pass and a figure that doesn't immediately scream "my endocrine system was estrogen-dominant during a crucial period of physical development", but I did also make sure to establish really early on that he's on period-halting birth control and his physical dysphoria causes sexual problems for him. I try not to give every character just the exact relationship to their body and dysphoria that I or my wife have, because while that is obviously easier for me to write, I don't want to contribute to any ideas about there being a right or normal way to be trans. Aidan has different dysphoria than me even though I'm drawing a lot on my own experiences as someone who was assigned female at birth but was never entirely comfortable with it. It doesn't come up in this story, although I might write a little extra about it, but Aidan is not on testosterone during the story. I would have to do research about how exactly it works, but I'm in the USA, and I wrote this from the assumption it's set in the USA, so in the back of my head was the idea that Aidan's parents' insurance won't cover transition stuff before he's 18. I guess it's possible they also wouldn't cover it before he was 16, and he didn't want to draw attention to himself by starting second puberty in the middle of everyone else's first puberty. Richard absolutely thinks Aidan is on testosterone, because he's like "well this is what trans guys do and Aidan passes, therefore". Aidan is going to roast him about how stupid that is when Richard knows damn well that Aidan does not have to shave his face. The other stuff is in comparison, so Richard gets a pass on, eg, Aidan having a smaller clit and a higher voice, but facial hair growth is usually a pretty early development in testosterone puberty and Richard should have noticed that Aidan literally never has any stubble.

Unfortunately, at the same time, Richard snapped at Trey, “Don’t be insensitive, that’s an outdated way of talking about it.”

Growing up, I didn't know about my dad's lesbian best friend, I just knew he made lots of gay jokes. I'm pretty sure I learned the word dyke from my dad throwing it around in what I'm sure he thought was a jocular manner that was fine because Denise said it. But when my wife came out to him, he did a hard 180 on her (he had previously stopped liking her the instant it became clear we were dating) and sent her an excessively girly gift as...a coming out present? I guess? (Except he was a boomer and it was 2014, so he sent her a My Little Pony t-shirt. He tried, is my point.) Anyway I'm sure that's where my soft spot for people being aggressively progressive about things they themselves have been shitty about comes from. Sometimes it's hard to understand that context changes how things are received, especially if they're not the kind of person who thinks too much about the actual meaning of their words. I do think it also makes a nice change from the, like, soft progressivism. How soapboxy can it be when the guy snapping about misgendering is also cussing and rude the whole time? Anyway anyway: Richard clearly did a lot of research if he got in deep enough to see people talking about the "trapped in the wrong body" narrative being problematic and outdated. And still, he did not tell Aidan this. A fool.

“Are you kidding me?” Aidan demanded. “You’re telling someone not to be insensitive? You decided I was a girl the second you saw me naked, too! And then argued with me about it!” With one hand, he gestured at the door, which Trey was still leaning against like it or he would fall over otherwise. “At least Trey didn’t demand to fuck me!”

“Dude,” Trey said, and frowned at Richard, “what the hell.”

“Shut up, you did the same thing,” Richard said. He was blushing again.

“Screw you, no I did not,” Trey said. “Even if Aidan was a girl I wouldn’t demand sex with her! Who does that?”

“Okay, yeah, I guess that was fucked up,” Richard said.

“You guess?” Aidan and Trey both asked.

Richard threw his hands in the air. “Okay, it was definitely fucked up, but it worked out okay!” He pointed at Trey. “And you’re not gonna tell anyone about Aidan, right? You can tell this is a fucking secret, I hope.”

“Of course I won’t tell anyone,” Trey said, frowning. “What do you mean, it worked out okay? Aidan,” Trey said, looking at him, suddenly alarmed, “if you want to tell Coach or someone that Richard was, like, taking advantage of you, I’ll back you up.”

Trey belatedly realizing this situation is sus and panicking that he shouldn't have taken it in stride.

“If I was going to do that, it would be better to talk about it not in front of him,” Aidan pointed out. “But I’m not–it’s fine.”

Trey looked skeptical. “If you say so,” he said.

Aidan grabbed his binder from where he’d dropped it when he was yelling at Richard. “I mean, I think we…have some stuff to talk about,” he said. “But you don’t need to be here for that.” He started the process of pulling his binder back on.

“Yeah, why did you come back early anyway?” Richard asked.

Trey blinked and looked around the room. “Oh,” he said. “I left my wallet here. I was going to give Mark money for pizza.”

“Oh, do you think I can get in on that?” Aidan asked. He yanked on the bottom of his binder to get it down where it was most comfortable.

“Sure,” Trey said. He was not looking at Aidan in a way that felt unfortunately pointed, but Aidan guessed that was better than staring. “I mean, if he hasn’t already ordered.”

“It’s only been a few minutes, I’m sure it’s fine,” Aidan said. He turned around to dig his wallet out of his backpack. He heard Trey cross the room to go through his stuff as well. Richard sat back down on the edge of the bed, where he’d been when Trey opened the door.

When Aidan walked around the bed to meet Trey and give him the cash, Trey glanced over at Richard. He asked Aidan quietly, “You sure you’ll be okay if I leave you alone?”

Aidan made an effort not to roll his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. He understood where Trey was coming from, but it was…Aidan didn’t know what it was, but it had been a long time since he didn’t feel safe around Richard. Richard never had hurt him, or even threatened him directly. Aidan apparently had no clue what was going on in Richard’s head, but he was less worried about being alone with him than ever. Maybe that was foolish. But nothing had changed for him since he reassured Mark earlier that day.

When Trey was gone, Aidan turned to Richard, who was still sitting on the edge of the bed. “Okay, first of all,” Aidan said, “since when do you actually believe I’m a guy?”

Richard blushed and looked away. “Since like…the second week we were doing it,” he said. “I got curious and looked up some of the stuff you said online, and…yeah.”

“What the hell,” Aidan said. Thinking back, Aidan guessed it was true Richard hadn’t said nearly as much gendered bullshit after the first few times. Aidan had still been expecting it for weeks afterward, and been on edge about it the whole time, but Richard hadn’t actually called Aidan a girl again. Of course, he also hadn’t said anything to imply he understood Aidan was a guy until last night, when he called Aidan a faggot. Aidan asked, “Why didn’t you say something? Jesus, Richard, half the reason I didn’t want to fuck you is because I thought you thought I was a girl!”

“I thought if you knew I believed you, you wouldn’t let me keep having sex with you,” Richard said, his shoulders up around his ears.

Aidan stared at him. At least it looked like Richard knew he’d messed up. Aidan shook his head and asked, “Why would you believing me when I said I wasn’t a girl change the fact that I didn’t want other people to know? I agreed to have sex with you so you’d keep your mouth shut.”

“I don’t know!” Richard exclaimed. “I wasn’t thinking straight, I just knew I’d somehow managed to get you to–” He snapped his mouth closed on whatever he had been about to say. He started again. “I worried if I said anything,” he said, “you’d realize this was stupid.”

He didn't want to say he'd somehow managed to get Aidan to fuck him, because that sounds bad. Because it was bad!

Aidan rolled his eyes. He walked back to his side of the bed and pulled his clean shirt on. “I already knew it was stupid,” he said. “But it’s slightly less stupid if you’re not thinking I’m a girl the whole time.”

“That’s not true,” Richard said. He looked over his shoulder at Aidan and laughed. “Aidan, it’s so stupid. I’m so stupid.”

“Well, yeah,” Aidan said, adjusting his shirt. “But, you know, on the bright side, you’re a good lay.”

Ani Mosity stories: yes your personality is atrocious, but you're good in bed, so it's kind of a wash tbh

Richard laughed again, sounding a little manic. He dropped his head and put his face in his hands. “Okay,” he said. “Can I–can we start over?”

“What?” Aidan asked.

“Ugh, no,” Richard muttered, “I’m doing this all wrong. At least I can’t get it worse this time, I guess.” He sat up and turned to look at Aidan. He was blushing again. “I already had a crush on you,” he said. “That’s why I was such an asshole all the time. I didn’t–I didn’t realize that’s what it was until that time in the locker room. And then I thought you were a girl and I realized I had a crush on you, except then you weren’t a girl but I couldn’t convince myself I didn’t have that crush on you. And the whole time you were letting me fuck you and it seemed like, you know, you didn’t hate it. So I decided if I didn’t say anything it was fine, because, like…at least you’d keep having sex with me.”

After a moment, Aidan said, “Wow. No, you’re right, that’s very stupid.”

“I know,” Richard moaned. “I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “I won’t tell anyone if you want to stop. I mean, I won’t tell anyone no matter what. That you’re transgender. I don’t know if it makes sense to not tell anyone we’re not hooking up anymore. And, well.” He waved at the outer wall of the hotel room, indicating the walkway. “I don’t think I’m gonna convince anyone we weren’t hooking up.”

Aidan let out a deep breath. “Thank god,” he said.

Richard looked over at him as he sat down on the bed next to Richard. “Huh?”

“Trey was worried just now because it would be really stupid to keep fucking someone who was blackmailing me,” Aidan said. “But if you’re not blackmailing me anymore, then it’s way less stupid to keep fucking you.”

Richard frowned, confused but hopeful. “You don’t want to stop?”

“I mean, we just established I enjoy sex with you enough to use it as a weapon against nosy people,” Aidan said. “So I guess the question is, do you want to just keep hooking up, or do you want to go out with me?”

Richard’s mouth fell open. “You would date me? After all this?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Aidan said, “it’s totally about the sex for me. But even when you were blackmailing me, you were, like. Less shitty than you could have been. You know, helping me in and out of my binder and stuff. So why not? You already said you like me.”

“I do,” Richard said. “Fuck, Aidan,” he said, turning to face him and grabbing Aidan’s hands, “I’ll be the best boyfriend you’ve ever had. I swear I’ll be less of a stupid asshole.”

“You’ll be the only boyfriend I’ve ever had,” Aidan said. He could feel himself blushing again. He was used to Richard being handsy and kind of smug about it. He wasn’t used to Richard being earnest. Even at practice, Richard was usually more snarky than sincere. It was disarming, as well as cute.

“Really?” Richard asked. He looked pleased.

“I mean, I had a girlfriend in middle school, if middle school dating even counts,” Aidan said. They hadn’t done more than kiss. Aidan hadn’t been out then–hadn’t really known he was trans beyond vague discomfort with the idea of being a “young woman”–but Melissa talked a lot about how hot butches and cross-dressers were. That had been Aidan’s introduction to the idea that people could play with gender for reasons other than sex. He and Melissa went to a dance once in matching dress shirts and ties.

- The idea of middle school wlw attending a dance in matching suits is very cute. I bet Melissa is also not cis!

“I feel like if my middle school girlfriend ever found out I said it didn’t, she’d appear out of nowhere and wring my neck,” Richard said. He leaned over, taking one of his hands off Aidan’s and putting it on his jaw. It was surreal, to have Richard kiss him gently like this. Even when he’d thought Aidan was a girl, he had been too horned up to bother being gentle.

Richard's middle school relationship was tsundere-for-tsundere.

It made Aidan perversely turned on. Or maybe he was just used to only having sex with Richard. Either way, he pulled away, then swung his leg over Richard’s lap to straddle him. He stooped down to kiss Richard again.

A little while later, Aidan pulled back just enough to ask, “How long do you think we have before Trey gets back?”

Of course, that was when the lock beeped, and the door scraped open. Aidan slumped in Richard’s lap. Richard murmured, “Not long.”

“Oh, great,” Trey said, closing the door behind him. “So talking about things just made you horny again.”

“It is our god-given right as teenagers to be horny all the time,” Aidan said, craning his neck to see Trey.

“What are you, some kind of homophobe?” Richard asked. “I’m not allowed to make out with my own boyfriend?” Yeah, Aidan already found the hypocrisy endearing instead of obnoxious. Was he that easily swayed by good sex or did he just have bad taste?

“Good lord, this trip has been a nightmare,” Trey said. He walked over to his bed and grabbed his hoodie off of it. “Joey wanted to do a movie night after the pizza got here, so I can give you two hours alone, and if you have sex while I’m in the room after that I’m going to smother you with your pillows.”

“Sounds fair,” Richard said.

“You are a lion among men,” Aidan said to Trey over his shoulder. “A diamond in the rough.”

“You sound like you’re drunk,” Trey said, rolling his eyes. “Is the sex that good?” He shook his head. “Don’t answer that. Just keep it in your pants until the pizza gets here.”

“Thank you!” Aidan climbed out of Richard’s lap, because he didn’t trust either of them if he stayed there. He looked at Richard from beside him. “You should eat dinner before that, then.”

“Yeah,” Richard said, looking back at Aidan. He started blushing again, and Aidan couldn’t imagine why. Then Richard asked, “Will you walk with me?”

“This might actually be worse than hearing you have sex,” Trey muttered.

Aidan laughed. “This is at least partially your fault,” he said, leaning over to grab his shoes.

“You must know that makes it worse,” Trey said.

“Sucks to suck,” Richard said. Yeah, Aidan probably needed to resign himself to the idea he had bad taste.

Still, once they both had their shoes and jackets on, Aidan followed Richard out of the hotel room. Richard hesitated a moment, then reached out for Aidan’s hand. Aidan took it, and they walked through the hotel and down the street to the Taco Bell, holding hands the whole way.

Teen romance can be complicated, and teen romance can be holding hands while you walk to a fast food joint. This was not a story I had trouble ending! It happened sooner than I expected, as you may be able to tell by the fact that it is under 10k words, but I feel good about the tight time-frame everything happens in. We don't need to see the months of having weird transactional sex, we just need to see the effects of it, with both boys being comfortable with each other, and Richard clearly being more into Aidan than Aidan realizes. Once someone else knows about it and starts asking questions, there's no reason to draw it out.

#blackmail boyfriend #fic dvd commentary

5 notes · View notes

oswald-privileges · 3 years

Text

ALL RIGHT BUT YOU ASKED FOR IT

Power of Three as a series is just. full of weaknesses, most of which come down to poor continuity and structure. I'm not gonna try and fix ALL of those, bc that'd be laborious as hell, but I will pick out things that I feel are the most egregious as case studies.

What Po3 does have, tho, is an absolutely shining strength in the concept of its three main characters. After twelve books of Blandly Heroic Protagonist Syndrome, Jayfeather is an absolute godsend. He's angry! He's rude! He's unhappy! He's not nice. I Love Him And He's My Son. Lionblaze has his invincible pride (hah) and emergent bloodlust, and Hollyleaf has her moral absolutism and certainty. These are good starting points for characters. Sadly, the lack of continuity undermines what could have been three really good character arcs.

So! I present to you:

HOW TO MAKE "WARRIORS: THE POWER OF THREE" NOT COMPLETELY SUCK ACCORDING TO MY PERSONAL TASTE; A NON-EXHAUSTIVE, NON-CONSECUTIVE LIST BY ME

ONE

- Have there be a persistant, overarching series threat. Sol is a character with amazing villain potential who does literally nothing except hang around, and do exactly 2 Bad Things completely off-screen. This Is Not Good.

- Instead, have him be present from the second book onwards- initially introduced as a friendly but enigmatic outsider who is slowly revealed across the series to be a complete black hole of a personality, a social parasite quietly rearranging whatever community he's a part of to just-so-happen to benefit him as much as humanly possible. His "preach individualism not starclan" methods are not so much values as one strategy out of many. (to those who know me- yes i have a type. no i will not apologise.)

- Maybe his ultimate goal is to dissolve and centralise the clans or something so that he can live out his life as a political puppetmaster in all the cat-luxury he likes. idk it's hard to imagine overall stakes for this rewrite BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL DOESN'T HAVE ANY

TWO

- For gods sake you don't have a series based on the premise of "the main characters develop super powers" and then only have the second power confirmed by the end of the fourth book. I understand the first book mostly focusing on Jayfeather- his powers are obvious from the start, he's got the strongest personality of the three, he gets access to most of the prophecy plot stuff because of them. But you NEED to have the other two show an interest in something concrete happening to them beyond that, and you need to at least hint towards the other two having something unique to them even if nobody clocks it yet.

- Have Jayfeather tell his siblings about the prophecy by the end of book two at the latest. The amount of time he spends noodling around not sharing it with them is inexcusable. It's not that it's out of character for him to hang onto a secret for a bit, it's just that there's no point and it slows everything down. It would be equally in character for him to go to his siblings and be like "look, i'm SPECIAL. well you as well but ALSO ME". Boy starts off as desperate for recognition, what can I say

THREE

- Have Jayfeather discover that StarClan don't withhold signs or information on purpose for the sake of "building courage and faith" or whatever nonsense. Seeing and communicating the future is metaphysically very difficult, so interpreting signs and messages is a genuine skill, or even an art. The cats of StarClan, however, really are just ghosts, much more similar to living cats than the currently living believe. This is the impotus for Jayfeather's discarding of his reverence for StarClan, which remains consistent throughout the series.

- Have Hollyleaf and Jayfeather both still change their cat careers in the first book, but put place more attention on the fact that they basically switched jobs. Have a scene where they end up yelling at each other, because can't the other see how lucky they have it? The tension breaks when they realise they've both lost something important to them- Jayfeather his chance to prove he's as capable as a sighted cat, and Hollyleaf her path to helping her clan in the way she thinks is best. They commiserate together, and reluctantly promise to do the best they can with their lots, so they don't waste the path the other wishes they'd taken. This closeness is eroded over the series as they disagree more and more on the subject of StarClan and its role in their moral choices and obligations.

FOUR

- Speaking of Hollyleaf! I nearly threw my phone across the room when the first Omen of the Stars book claimed that Hollyleaf "worked so hard to discover her power to help her clan". Where, Ms Erins??? I would have LOVED to have seen that!! Hollyleaf expresses absolutely no concern over the details of what power she has/will develop, and only has a couple of scenes even touching on her ambitions to help her clan. She has some vague ideas about becoming leader and like one scene where she gets to do some leadery things, but that never gets followed up on. What does happen is that the whole "warrior code" thing becomes more and more a part of her personality (for no clear reason) until she snaps.

- Hollyleaf going off the deep end is something I wanted so badly to get into and be moved by, because I could see where it comes from! Her moral certainty is fascinating, especially since it's based in something as abstract as the warrior code- which, when you think about it, isn't really... anything. There's no concrete set of rules that make it up, no traditional wording or cat philosophers, not even any fables. It's a handful of agreed-upon, common sense rules- don't cross boundaries, don't take prey that isn't yours, respect your ancestors, and don't murder. That's it!

- So, combining the above points, I think Hollyleaf not being one of the Three should stay, but both the audience and the characters are given good reason to believe she is. By around the third volume, make it so that Hollyleaf has found that her power is to get cats to "Do The Right Thing"- i.e. what she wants them to do. She sneaks off often to see Sol, who teachs her how to use this power. Her siblings are concerned about this new power, having already gotten a glimpse at what Sol can do, but she's confident that she can only use this power for good. Volume-specific plot happens, Sol manipulates her into causing him to win, she is shocked and horrified, and vows to stick ridgedly to what she knows is right i.e. The Warrior Code

- However, the more fervently she tries to stick to this abstract idea, the less it gives her results, the more her power seems to be failing. Believing that StarClan is taking her power away from her, she becomes caught up in a faith-guilt spiral that puts her in the position to snap at the end of the series. By that point it's clear to her siblings that Hollyleaf has no power- she was just very, very good at persuading people to do what she wanted.

FIVE

- Lionblaze is a girl now because I Said So. This Cat Is Trans And There's Nothing You Can Do About It.

- Her relationship with Heathertail stays the same- childhood sweethearts who are torn apart as they begin to understand the nature of the societal divides that exist between them.

- This can be used to contextualise the whole "half clan/outsider blood" thing as a cultural contradiction. In reality, inter- and outer- clan relationships aren't at all rare. They can't be, otherwise the whole society would be inbred out of existence in like five generations. But if at least one society of humans can spend a good 200 years pretending Sex Is Bad And Sinful Actually then cats can have persistant cat-racism in the face of all logic. Heathertail clocks this contradiction, Lionblaze doesn't.

- Her relationship-to-power arc doesn't need changing all that much either, other than starting much sooner and being more consistent. At first, she's completely overjoyed by her power, since unlike her siblings, it lines up so well with her ambition- become the finest warrior any of the clans have to offer. As the berserker rage aspect becomes more prevelent, she becomes more and more disturbed by the fact that she isn't disturbed by what she can do, and that she doesn't want the escalation of her power to stop.

- Tigerstar still does his thing, but Brambleclaw knows about it. He recognises the signs from when his father used to visit him, and tries to train Lionblaze in his own way. She ends up caught between wanting to be a good warrior, and testing the limits of her power.

SIX

- Jayfeather can stay basically the same because he's my perfect little angy boy and nothing needs to change. His arcs can be strengthened by having a more robust relationship with Yellowfang where they try to out-bitch each other, and coming to terms with his internalised ablism. Maybe he has a chat with Mothwing about faith a couple of times. Him furiously lashing out at being offered help transitions into an acceptence and understanding of his abilities more naturally. He never stops being A Grumpy Old Man.

- All fucking past-lives unexplained time travel goes in the BIN. Doesn't fucking happen. You can have that lore dump sprinkled across the books, or come from going deep into the tunnels and having a surreal meeting. Make it properly eldritch-level scary, shake Jayfeather's confidence in the idea of them being just a bunch of ghosts.

SEVEN

- Have the way Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight present very clearly as parents to the Three be explicitly, textually unusual. One of the things I liked so much about the first series was an almost total lack of emphasis on who was mated with who, and who was related or not. It felt very real to how feral cat colonies form, where raising kittens is a communal job. This gets completely dropped the moment series 2 starts and now the cats have monogamy.

- This emphasis on the family unit and fostering close relationships between parents and kittens is deliberate on the part of both Leafpool and Squirrelflight. Their aim is to cover for Leafpool so she doesn't lose her role as medicine cat- something she already gave up Crowfeather for before she was pregnant.

- In that little bit of backstory, have a robust reason for both Leafpool and Squirrelflight to leave the camp while Leafpool is pregnant and giving birth, possibly one that ties into the present day story in some minor way. I don't know how, it would just make that element of the story a lot more ground than "we left, the kits were born, then we came back and everyone was cool with it"

- When it comes to the "I am Not your mother" reveal, Jayfeather and Lionblaze are confused and hurt that they were lied to, but come to the reasonable conclusion that well, since they were raised mostly by Squirrelflight, saw Leafpool often, and are loved by both, they don't hate her. Lionblaze has something of a crisis over being half-clan, possibly initiating an attempted reunion with Heathertail. Jayfeather is more concerned with how other cats will think it makes him lesser, something he's still sensitive too.

- Hollyleaf, meanwhile, completely fucking snaps at the way her mother Violated Part Of The Code. It's a completely irrational reaction, but expected because she's been growing more and more reliant on The Code for the whole series, and less and less stable in her attempts to aid her clan and train to be its new leader.

- Squirrelflight is the one to murder Ashfur. This is easy to work out while reading- she's literally the only one of the four with a motive who isn't a perspective character. The mystery is less around finding out who did it, and more about why she did it (it's very ambiguous as to whether it was an accident or not). The main tension comes from who finds out when.

- Lionblaze is shocked, awed by how far she'd go to protect the three of them, and reassures her she did the right thing (as a way to salve her own uncertainty over her own longing for violence). Jayfeather makes it all about himself because he's Jayfeather- upset that he didn't know immediately, instead of, you know, figuring it out in a few hours because he can basically read minds. They try their best to hide it from Hollyleaf, who is already rattling around the final volume as a full-on antagonist, but are unsuccessful. This almost costs them something incredibly important- possibly Squirrelflight's life.

EIGHT

- the whole plot with the Tribe Of Rushing Water is a MASSIVE can of worms that could be removed from the series without issue. As it is:

- Characterize the Tribe as uncertain of how to fight other cats, because yes, they haven't had to do this before. DON'T characterise them as pathetic, doing whatever their leader says without thinking, and with ancestors who have Given Up

- Have some of the Tribe be really good at the violence. Worryingly good. Have others be sickened by what they're being asked to do.

- Have some of the clan cats reflect on what they've done. Hollyleaf would be all for introducing this society to jesus The Code, but even she might be horrified at being thanked by a tribe cat who can't wait to get out there and win themselves glory, only to be killed a few hours later

- The Tribe begin a new tradition of marking the walls in the mud they use as camoflage in order to commemorate their battles, and memorialise the fallen. One of the characters reflects on the fact that in a generation or two, the Tribe will feel like it's always been this way. How many of their own traditions- those that feel almost like natural law- started out the same way?

- Have Sol as the leader of the invaders, or maybe having insinuated himself into the tribe as a "mediator" and doing his charismatic cult leader thing.

NINE

- Cinderheart isn't a reincarnation of Cinderpelt. She's just named after her bc Cinderpelt saved her mother from a badger. this is because I think the reincanation thing is stupid and I can't think of a way to make it good.

TEN

- No more using tails as hand gestures like covering people's mouths. Never. None of it. It's expunged from existence.

Disclaimer: I haven't read Omen of the Stars yet, so I can't account for anything that might happen in that series that's grounded in Po3. I'm like... two thirds of the way through the first volume. I'm Not Impressed.

#Warrior Cats #warriors #The Power of Three #Jayfeather #Hollyleaf #Lionblaze #long post

73 notes · View notes