Oh my.
This is easily the rawest thing I will ever write. It's basically inspired by CowboySneepDip's work and a playlist of the very same name. I really wanted to get in a lot of aspects of the queer femme experience in, not just the stuff I knew. While a lot of it is inspired by guttural feelings, it's meant to be Severa's story first and foremost, and branch out into the stories of others. A lot of it was the desire to really communicate for the Trans TM, which I'm obviously a part of. I swore awhile back that I would try and bring the queer and trans experience to media and tell it honestly, and I am honestly a little disappointed at how much "Trans Character" and "Smut" go hand in hand in fics (not that this is 100% free of sexual content itself) so I wanted to give it a little more honesty.
CWs in case you need it: Sexual Content of moderate explicitness, mental illness, abusive/neglectful parents, transphobia/queerphobia, panic attacks, violence, homelessness, and things like that.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, regret nothing, and let them forget nothing.
I.
Fuckmylife666
Putting yourself together is hard work you barely bother with most of the time.
Not like you have the greatest canvas to work with.
Shave the scruff off. Apply basic makeup. Practice your voice and make yourself sick with how sweet and formal it sounds (you won't maintain that). Tie your red hair into twintails (the ends of which are just starting to reach the caps of your shoulders). Look yourself in the mirror.
You're never satisfied, but you make do.
You go to leave and wonder how anyone even recognizes you anymore.
II.
Fabric
Noire's kind. That's the first thing you noticed about her.
Immediately you were suspicious. Still are, to tell the truth. In your world, no one's nice without wanting to take advantage of you, and you've had enough of that.
Yet, she's still kind to you. In your disasters, your sorrows, your anger, your changes. You aren't the same girl now you were a few years ago, yet in many ways, this is how you always were.
You're her greatest lapse of judgment. A better woman would warn her away, but you've long since stopped being a better woman.
III.
Kim & Jessie
It's a different world when you see her.
Before, it's a lot of many things. A lot of shouting matches and youthful rebellion, a lot of runny mascara and chipped nails, a lot of bruises and crossed out locations on maps. When you see her, it's still a lot of those things, but you're numb to everything except the good.
It's your own world, even if you're just a visitor.
IV.
Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover
Noire probably doesn't know it.
She loves you, sure, but it isn't that way. You know she likes women, but the way she acts sometimes you're pretty sure she likes everything, even and especially that which she shouldn't (like you). She's always been so formal to people, so formal to you, that it should probably keep you at a distance, but you're too stupid to care. You should know better, but she's such a soft-spoken, loyal, sincere, wonderful, oblivious, naive soul in such jagged, wiry, elegant tissue-paper casing that Noire almost feels perfect in her imperfections.
Every time you think you've come to your senses, she does things- small touches of the skin, kind smiles with a blush, comforting reassurances when you're breaking down- that keep you following along with false hope. She doesn't know that when you look distant and daydreamy, it's those actions that make pushing her against a wall and asphyxiating against her lips seem less like a daydream.
You're in misery and you love it.
V.
Young Girls
You and Noire talk about things that young girls talk about. College applications for her, community college life for you. Sometimes you'll exchange beauty tips, and somehow she always asks you for advice more than you from her. She'll tell you something funny her friend did once (though her stories seem to take place years ago), and you'll complain about your mother. Nothing summarizes you two better than that contrast.
Then there are things most young girls don't talk about. You talk about them in hushed tones and voices of condolences. You'll casually recount tales of danger and she'll try to echo that without the gravitas it deserves but cannot have without wounding you. Some of it is talked about with the excited gleeful escape of no one watching. Sometimes Noire will talk without inhibition about her desires, about how fun it would be to kiss every girl who would kiss her back (the most romantic you've ever seen her), and you wonder how, after all that you've been through, she hasn't been inhibited at all.
VI.
Just Friend
She hugs you with all her might when you two set to part.
You hate that she lets go and leaves you faced with the graceless barren March chill.
VII.
Heads Will Roll
You wake up feeling like murder but drink it in like coffee as it energizes you. It makes you feel like everything you hate about yourself is vicious and violent in a good way.
VIII.
Woman King
Sometimes you wonder how you two look together.
You're a mouse in Noire's presence. You are loud, but she is a force. How can such a thin girl stand so prominently? She's her own archetype, a rumbling wave set to conquer the Earth, and she isn't even trying. She's a small, frail girl with faded black hair that she never lets far past her chin, tired olive eyes just under a headband and just over a perfectly daring lolita fashion sense. She hasn't had the wherewithal to try to be anything, and that baffles you because she is.
She's Noire. Her name is Noire. She's the queen of the night. You're just… you.
You used to look at her across high school hallways with lust and resentment, jerking your head away with a biting retort when she noticed you. Sometimes she still tells you she feared she did something wrong when you yelled at her. In your college days and your faulty celebrations of yourselves, she doesn't realize that sometimes you still look at her that way.
She always was a naive bastard.
IX.
Mind on Fire
You stay quiet during math class, begrudgingly participate with your lab team of exchangeable partners in physics, and give them hell throughout history class. Gods, this is college level history? No wonder society is going down the shitter. No one really seems to appreciate it when you talk about the falsehoods and omissions, and maybe you shouldn't get so angry, but you know the damage that whitewashing history and statistics can inflict.
It's not over. The more people say it's over the less it is.
X.
Nothing, Not Nearly
You don't tell Noire about your latest histrionics at school when you meet up at a nearby cafe. She just assumes you have them (and you were that way in high school, so this isn't anything new). You've already bitched her ear off about how invisible it all makes you feel. How it feeds into bad memories that you hate to call trauma because trauma implies that you have a permanent flaw. You're a big fan of making things bigger than they are because the smaller things always hurt you.
She often asks if you're feeling okay. If she's adventurous, if you're having a low moment. When she asks the former, you tell her that you are. When she asks the latter, it's so authentic, so off-script for someone who operates like a call center employee, that you quietly admit that you aren't. She'll hug you with all her limited might and remind you "You know… no matter how bad it all gets, nothing matters more than love. Sometimes you just need to give some to yourself."
You shrug it off. That's easy for her to say when she already has so much in her heart.
XI.
13 Ghosts II
Sometimes you drift off onto Noire's shoulder when you're together. The way she lets you despite the fact that she isn't very strong is the most peaceful feeling you can think of. You apologize every time you wake up, but she waves it off, probably because she should just nudge you off when you do. Maybe still, she's just being polite, but either way, it means the world to you just to be tired and broken near her.
When you fall asleep in your bed alone, it is never nearly as restful.
XII.
Sleepover
Sometimes when you wake up your arms stretch across the bed where you imagine her being someday. You shake your head and growl at your own stupidity. You're usually so demanding, but mere fantasies sustain you so often.
When you and your mother get into a shouting match over how much you changed, so violent that you forget to take your depression medication, you conclude that it may be the fantasies of things being better.
XIII.
Jenny
You aren't sure when the feelings changed.
Well, that's not true. You know when you realized them. It punched you in the face about three years into knowing Noire, and six months into being her friend. You were just 17, so you had the most teenager reaction to it that you can think of- that being, you hated everything and loved it, and probably loved it because you hated everything else. In a world of dead grass and bramble, it drowned you in a sea of emotion. You never struggled against the waves because the idea of being in love felt so soft. It still drowns you two years later.
You just don't know how you got there. Hell, even after you fell for Noire, even after you became friends, you were still yelling at her half the time she looked at you or got too close. As a friend, she wore on you with her endless kindness and admirable stubbornness enough for you to allow her nearby and eventually soften near her. So what about her made you love her?
You can't say.
But it's probably how she never left the more you changed.
XIV.
We Forget Who We Are
Sometimes when you talk to Noire it's the quiet before the storm. It builds up into something you never say, but feel. It's always a bit more serious. It's more honest and undressing than you originally meant to be going in. It's never talk about what happens, but how it leaves you. When you tell her about your fight with your mother, it's about your guilt- she's a single mom, she's raised a problem child all alone in a poor part of town, she's done fine, until Noire tells you that your mother should do better with grit in her voice and fire in her eyes that you never miss. That you are not the problem. That she should respect you more.
She never apologizes, but it always disarms you because it's way too close to who she doesn't want to be, but it's also very kind of her. You usually never have a way to easily recover from that. It's a reversal of roles that you have to remember to gather the parts of you back from.
You just make sure to thank her first.
XV.
Dangerous Woman
Sometimes being you is a thing of beauty.
You shave thoroughly- not just your face, and not just the parts of your body that can be seen. You paint your face like a renaissance woman. You wash your hair a few times over a near half-hour, then overload it with product. You throw on your useless bra, a gray shoulder-less shirt that falsely advertises you as curvy, and a dangerously short skirt over pantyhose. When you're done, you don't look like a natural woman, but the dissonant tones you leave empower you rather than cut you down.
The sun starts to set. It's Friday night and you're feeling frisky. You shout that you're going out. Your mom no longer tries to stop you, and sometimes a cold goodbye is all you get.
It's really all you need.
You've got better things to be than what she thinks you are.
XVI.
New Romantics
Noire meets you at the club that same night. It's unspoken, but when you feel like being queer and darling, she's your chaperone. The gays have to stick together, you suppose. You show the bouncer (or their butchiest bartender; it wouldn't shock you with this dive bar) a fake ID with your name on it. Noire follows suit. With little inspection, she lets you in.
"About time," you tell Noire. "It's fucking freezing."
She takes her coat off to hold, dressed in heels and a floor-length white and green dress. "Short skirts will do that to you."
"Buzz off, bitch," you bite back. Used to it, she giggles.
The club is filled with people you relate to. A lot of wallflowers and a lot of loud talkers. Butches who can drink you under the table and scream excited curse words at a Hayley Kiyoko song. Femmes playing pool in the back room and who lead the charge when making out with you. You observe a lot of them and rarely interact in a way that isn't challenging them. She just dances alone as you watch too closely while she avoids eye contact and rejects advances from other people, sitting alone at the bar when she's done.
You're pulled away by a familiar older goth in a black sheer dress and quickly say goodbye. She watches you go with a sad smile as she drinks her milkshake which isn't even spiked with anything. Before you can tell her to live it up a little, you're gone, pressed against the wall with a leg wrapped around this different woman. You know her enough that you're kind of bored with her. It's a meaningless exercise, a hollow statement of lesbianism. Usually, you two make out and never speak to each other again, but something about her feels unsatisfying. This time, she's greedy like she's trying to consume you. She's pressuring you into caring more than you do. Into wanting her.
You pull away abruptly and leave, your waist scraping against her leg in a way that feels like trouble. She's shocked and a little angry, but you tell her to bug off, and that'll be the last you see of her.
XVII.
Tranz
The people at the bar take your real name at face value. You always perk up when you hear it with a smug smile, and she giggles, joy in her eyes and a familiar blush on her cheeks that illuminates her dimples and the freckles near her mouth. You're working hard for that name, so you reckon you damn well deserve to hear it, but why she's so happy for you every time, a year of barsurfing in, you can't say.
You've been called to pick up an order of onion rings, so you leave your corner booth and do so. Her eyes tell you to stay safe, but you wouldn't ask her to join you if she wasn't comfortable. Besides, you grab them and bring them back in half a minute.
"You having fun?" you ask, picking one up from the basket and playing with it.
"Oh, I am," she promises. She sees the dubious look on your face and adds "I swear! Like, this is the most I've done for myself in awhile."
You smirk and say "Well, I don't know how much sitting alone and watching your friend get her freak on is 'you time', but like hell I'm gonna judge."
She snickers. "So that means you have to stay with me, doesn't it?"
It's her turn to look smug. She's so cute and not smug at all. Feigning tired defeat, you say " Sure " but add "That'll be nice."
She nibbles at an onion ring with a content, adorable smile. "Thanks, Severa," she coos. When she says your name, it always sounds like she means it.
XVIII.
Skin Of The Night
She says she wants to dance.
You set your drink down and get up, making her smile graciously. Noire generally gets tired part way through the night but always has a second wind in clubs like these. She's generally very polite and well-mannered, but something about her skin seems to light up when she's here.
At first, you watch her dance on her own. She doesn't have many steps and prefers to let the music guide her, but she's always so pretty doing so. You get lost in her movements as they flash by in the strobe lights, enjoying seeing her show a little life from a distance more than you enjoy making out with any broad in the back of the bar.
XIX.
Cosmic Love
You don't notice Noire holding her hand out at you until she clears her throat. When you do, you swear the whites of your eyes are visible through the walls. She beckons again, telling you to join her, and you're powerless to resist. She holds your hand as you two sway to the music. It's like you forgot how to dance. You've never been this vulnerable with her before. It's all choreographed admissions of struggle, or spontaneous fights with others that you can shrug off.
Right now, she's terrifying you, and she loves it.
You kind of love it too.
XX.
Then The Quiet Explosion
You don't remember how the fight started by the time it stops. You reckon the goth bitch from earlier had something to do with it by the way she was storming up on you. You recall her yelling about your dick, and then it all went to hell from there.
She's a frail thing, but when something triggers her, she's more violent than you are.
She breaks first.
XXI.
Ribs
It's hard to walk and you're coughing up blood. You miss when the only pain to your ribs was laughter.
Just as you dreaded, you and your mom scream at each other loud enough that you hear her on the phone apologizing to her landlord. She uses the wrong pronoun a lot, but gives you the excuse that she has to in order to clarify things to other people. How is being you so confusing? You remember her yelling about how unsafe it was for you to be sneaking into bars with dangerous women, and you yelling back no shit it's dangerous, being me is dangerous, but if I'm not I'm gonna fucking kill myself.
There's a map on the walls. Stop being so dramatic repeats in your head as you cross off the intersection that the bar was on.
XXII.
Coloring In The Void
"Remember when you told her you'd shove your dick in her face?"
Noire laughs accommodatingly from her end of the phone, even though she rarely remembers blackouts like that. It's both of you trying for normal while not being normal enough.
She says she didn't see her mother Tharja when she got home and still hasn't. She may not be there. You growl, at this point not even hiding how much you hate Tharja even if Noire does not. She asks if things were okay with your mother and you just say that it was bad. She sighs, knowing not to press any further.
You don't apologize to each other, because that would mean that simply being was the true offense of the evening. You weren't looking to start a fight. You weren't looking to have her labeled as a tranny-lover for sticking up for you. You weren't trying to make it so you're too banged up to see each other. You were just trying to be.
You were being the best you could have been, and it wasn't enough.
XXIII.
New Ways
You miss her.
You're texting her often and she's a phone call away but you miss her because she's the only thing you don't hate that doesn't hate you back.
You're hyperventilating and banging on the side of the bed you're otherwise paralyzed on because you miss her so badly and everything hurts and won't stop.
You beg her to stop you.
XXIV.
Fast Car
It's an hour after the panic attack you text Noire about leaving.
Your mom put an ultimatum down- stop going out to those type of bars and getting into fights with other women or get out of her house. You didn't say anything, which probably scared her more than you fighting could have. You knew she wasn't going to be talked down with a fight, especially after calming another one of your panic attacks. She loves you, but she loves order more, and you have not been orderly enough for her to devote her undying love to.
You float the idea by Noire, with the qualifications of you just being angry and having an outburst about your mother. She doesn't respond at first and you're worried you scared her, and frantically send all sorts of apologetic responses her way, shaking your phone as if it's hiding the reply from you.
Then she responds.
XXV.
Run Away With Me
Her message isn't one. It's five at once.
In it, she details that your mother doesn't have the right of this- even if she loves you- and that you'll burn out if you're not careful. She suggests that when she finds a college that accepts her application, she'll live off-campus because she wants you to move in with her. She justifies it with a lot of things- she'll need someone to help her live because she's often so weak, and something about queer bitches sticking together that, even in text, sounds so unlike her that it's ridiculous- but you don't really process any of it because the idea makes you cry.
Whether you have to wait wait a day, a week, a month, or a year, that's worth not going to any seedy bars and getting your ass kicked.
XXVI.
Dreams
As you drift off to sleep, you don't feel alone.
When you wake up with your arms where you imagine your co-conspirator in queerness should be, it doesn't feel ridiculous.
You don't get up for an hour.
XXVII.
All Waters
It's not until the weekend is about to end before you feel well enough to visit her in person. It's at her house where, true to her words, her mother is not. She answers the door looking like a Mimikyu, draped in a yellow blanket gracelessly with a lifeless attempt at a smile on her face.
You two retreat to her room, even though you're alone, because it's the safest you feel. You feel a flush of giddiness as you make your escape. Her room is black with drapes and decorations lining the wall with her memories from the various places she lived before being born here. She doesn't own much, but what she owns, she keeps.
She lies on her bed, looking like death. She says that people left her alone during the bar fight after feeling bad for her, but even if she's telling the truth, she looks like they took a pound of flesh first. After that, you two don't say much, not even making room for small talk, but she holds your hand. You're not scared to take it. No one can see you here. No one can judge you. No one can judge her. You both are too morose to say anything further, and she's not even pretending to smile anymore.
Your honesty has always scared people.
XXVIII.
Jezebel
You two sit on her bed, her hands on her knees, your feet on the floor. She asks you why you chose your name. When you take in a sharp breath, she immediately apologizes, but you hold your hand up. You tell her you aren't sure. It just fits you. You never really planned to be Severa like she planned to be Noire and to be honest, you're not sure if you wanna stay that way. You just know making any changes now would probably get a lecture from mom and about two months of her forgetting to say it.
You would probably be named Jezebel, as a warning to all the Judeo-Christians out there.
It makes your flaws feel like strengths.
XXIX.
Elastic Heart
She offers for you to stay the night, but you can't stand the idea of sleeping on the floor just before the next school day, so you apologize and say goodbye. She looks disappointed but when you meet her eyes she says she'll be okay. A few seconds pass where you stare at Noire, her head cocked up from the bed, eyes giving you permission to leave.
She mumbles a wilted, sleepy I-love-you. You blink, almost surprised to hear it. It's generally implied, not said. Saying it tends to imply the fear that you have lost the love of the other and need to hear it again. You look at your queer trans lesbian co-conspirator and feel so connected to her that you happily say it back, softer than you imagined that you could.
You leave strangely vulnerable, like the night that she danced with you.
You already miss her.
XXX.
The Only Exception
Even wearing a sweater, you're still cold.
You're on a packed bus and feel so alone without her. There are a million eyes here and they all feel like they're staring at you, judging you. When you don't put in the effort to pass, you feel like a spectacle; yet, at the same time, these people will never know you more than the strange looks they could give you. You barely care enough about them to hate them, but after seeing the loveless glares in their eyes, you manage.
Noire's the only one you don't hate.
She's the only one you let lean on your arm when she's tired. The only one you willingly told your birth name to. The only one you could even think of clubbing with in the first place. The only one who tells you things that you need to hear. The only one who stops the spiral. You're queer, trans, clinically depressed, anxious, and nineteen, and she's the only one who makes that all make sense.
Sometimes she feels like only one you'll ever be remotely comfortable with.
XXXI.
I Put A Spell On You
Noire shows up in a knee-high silver dress and white tights after one of your classes. She's still a little banged up with a black eye, but she passes so well that you remember why you both envy and want her. Just like that, your day is better. Just like that, you're no longer at school. Just like that, you're hers.
XXXII.
Liability (Reprise)
You hold her hand as Noire and her creaky joints bend down onto a bench at a nearby park. Neither of you two eat anything; you're rarely hungry. She jokes about being a load in a way that isn't really joking, especially as she goes on about how you're always helping her body settle down or are nearby to do strenuous tasks for her, tasks you've never paid an individual mind to, just as a whole that confirms that you don't altogether care about lifting a few books or holding her hand when she gets unsteady.
You stop her before she finishes and remind her who she got her ass kicked on behalf of.
She gasps and denies it, even though it makes perfect sense to you. You two argue a bit about whose fault the fight was, with her stubbornness eventually wearing you down like it always does. She tells you that you shouldn't apologize for what others do to you, but you can't really fully buy it until people stop doing things to you.
She coughs. "Besides, the things they were saying about you… I couldn't stand it."
It's a rare sunny day. Despite her pale skin, it complements her.
You kick a pebble. "Because they could say it about you too, right?"
Noire tears up as she shakes her head. "No… because they were saying it about you."
You slump over and bow your head. You have no words for how amazed, how galled you are, that someone cares so deeply about you.
XXXIII.
hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have- but I have it
You realize absently that you missed your history class when you finally decide to, after so many days, ask Noire "did you mean it?"
She knows what you're talking about. She was probably waiting for it to truly feel real in your life. With startling immediacy, she nods. "Of course!"
You take in a sharp breath. This is such a big step, to move in together, that even if you're just reserving a spot you're doing the most grown-up thing you've ever done. As lovely of a fantasy as it is, it feels like a big plan you're going to throw away later, a scheme launched when you were both punch-drunk that now you know the impossibilities of.
She bursts through your fears so hard you snap awake and asks "do you still wanna?" but she cowers anticipating your reaction.
"I still do!" you insist. "It just… Seems like it's a pipe dream." Like it's too good for you. Like you're selfish for wanting it.
"I-I…" She stutters when she's nervous, but after years of speech therapy that's the only time she does. "Th-that's what I'm afraid of too."
The two of you go quiet and don't look at each other.
Noire says "I think a lot of the things I want are pipe dreams sometimes."
You buck up. "Yeah, but we still deserve them," you respond defensively to a knowing mmhmm from her. You slump over and bow your head. "I just… don't know how we're gonna get them. But this…"
Noire looks attentive. "What is it?"
"I really want this, Noire. I want this so badly."
Noire giggles, but her blush is telltale- so much so that you almost read into it too much and outright kiss her. She thinks and says "Then… we won't let it go, Sev." She speaks we, for you both, because she knows you'll agree to anything she suggests for the two of you.
You reach for her hand and grab it tightly. She lets you.
XXXIV.
My own strange path
As the sun gives way to other stars, Noire says she should probably head home, and reluctantly, you agree. Your own mother's probably wondering where you are and you're not gonna give her the indication that you were up to any dykery that she didn't approve of.
The two of you stand up, and you realize how sparse the park is. There's no one in view larger than a speck on the horizon. Just grass, bushes, pavement, and this bench.
That might be what compelled her to kiss you.
It's a soft kiss, as soft as her voice and her breath. It's clandestine by nature, but the way that she teases you seems to know that you want more.
So you kiss harder, hand on her back, lips pressing into hers. You almost don't feel her shaking until she hits your back. You realize her lips are not moving and her voice is frantic, muddled into your mouth so hard that you can feel the vibrations. She hits your back again so you let her go as you piece it together.
"Fuck," you groan, stumbling slightly. For a small girl, she packs a mean punch. No wonder she fights people for you.
"I-I'm sorry!" she cries. "I just couldn't think of another way to get your attention!"
You grumble but don't argue. Noire looks terrified as it is, like she's about to fall apart. Suddenly, you look around and realize that you're in the middle of a public park and your eyes widen at how stupid you were.
"Oh, duh," you say aloud. Grabbing her wrist out of tunnel-visioned desperation, you say "Let's find a place near here first."
"S-s-severa!" Noire all but shrieks.
You let her go, eyes widening. Spooked birds fly away and a few people turn in the distance. Before you can panic and wonder if you triggered her rage, she all but hides into herself, tears in her eyes. You go to hug her with an apology, but she says "D-don't. P-p-please."
You pull away, not sure what's going on but having a deep sense of dread.
"I just…" she starts. "I-I need some time to think. I'm sorry."
Instinctively, you say "Noire, don't apologize."
She looks down again and tears form. "Look," she sniffles. "I'm sorry, I just… need a few days alone. T-to figure things out. I'm s-sorry."
The words hit you in the gut with an acute sense of failure. It takes everything within you to not yell, not argue, not fuck this up any more than you have. You just mumble "Yeah, yeah. I… okay."
The two of you stare at each other remorsefully with your apologies. All of yours aren't enough and she need give none of hers. It's okay that she did what she did.
It's just so damn confusing.
"I'll… I'll leave," you offer. Noire waves sadly, out of words. As you walk away, you almost turn back and say an I-love-you, but just before the words escape your mouth, you stop, not wanting to make things worse.
It seems like anything you do will do that.
XXXV.
You're Somebody Else
You take it out on your mother instead.
She says she's signed you up for therapy, but you know better. You know her, so you know the therapist won't understand you. That isn't teen angst either like she says it is. She's tried to take you to therapists before and none of them have understood you. None of them are who you need. They're who she needs.
You black out during it all but as you prepare to sleep you stare at the hole you punched in the wall and all you can remember is snidely demanding to know if she signed Stephen or Severa up. She didn't have a response, and the last words you hear in your head are a bitter, hateful "get the fuck out of my life".
XXXVI.
A Better Son/Daughter
Your mind is blank as you go to school. You don't see Noire, and you behave through history class.
Your mind is still blank when you come home to a bare room with only furniture on it. A few things are packed in a small box on your bed. No makeup, no conditioner, no mementos, no maps.
A page ripped out of the phone book for homeless shelters sits next to it. There isn't a woman's shelter to be found.
You stop feeling anything but numbness. She's not home. She's like Noire's mom. She no longer exists.
You leave your key on the bed and lovelessly dump the box into a nearby backpack. You never pick up the phone book page. You never wait to argue your case or say goodbye. Spitefully, you resolve to leave her last memory together of you punching a wall and calling out her disrespect towards you.
Too bad it'll also be yours.
XXXVII.
Evening On The Ground
You haven't stolen in a while, so you're a little rusty, but you slowly remember your old tricks when you were a rebellious teenager and people didn't just think you were. You manage to get a few snacks to eat from a mini-mart and nick a tiny sleeping bag from a department store. You're good at playing it cool in the stores, probably because you don't give a fuck about stealing from the bourgeoisie motherfuckers, but partially because you're so numb that you can't even try to be anxious.
At least if you're arrested you get to spend the night indoors instead of spending it shivering sitting up on a park bench with a dividing bar meant to deter homeless people from sleeping. It punishes you for being abandoned, and your only comfort is one of the old sweaters that you meant to throw out, punishing you for being trans.
You stop trying to sleep on the bench and move to the ground, out of sight as is your instinct. You don't wanna exist to anyone- from spite more than anything.
You've never been suicidal out of pathological spite to the world, but you're not afraid of being found and you're surprisingly okay with that endangering you.
XXXVIII.
Addicted To Love
The memory of Noire is what gets you through the day.
As you go to various shelters too full of women neglected by society to house more, you think of the way her hand felt when you danced.
As you try and establish a little nesting area at the park under a tree on the bark-laden dead grass you can't clean out, you think of her kiss and how you should have been grateful for it.
As you go to your classes like nothing is wrong, you wait to see if she's paid you a visit afterward even though you know she isn't.
When your phone service goes off, you wish you had texted her and let her know about your situation, but even if it were on you're not sure you would. She doesn't need any unnecessary guilt. She doesn't need to feel like she was wrong. So little can break her sometimes, even if she doesn't show it. You won't pass her wounds off to her.
So you go on, yearning for her but accepting that time needs to pass.
Time is too slow for you.
XXXIX
Crowded Places
You settle into the shitty routine of dead grass and bramble a little too much when Noire meets you outside one of your classes and your first thought is fuck, I look like shit. You walk over to her cautiously, not wanting to break anything that might be invading the air between you. There's joy in your heart and a pit that you're afraid that it will all fall through.
There's a wave of people around you. You only see her.
She quietly beckons you forward with a small smile. She doesn't say anything, but you come with her as she starts to walk away, looking back at you as she does.
XL.
Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby
When you get to Noire's place, you plug your phone into her charger and punch in the password to her WiFi. She chastises you for letting it die, but she's never really inconvenienced. She lectures you a lot over little things- how dirty you are, how messy you look, that you're not talking to her much- but she never lectures you over anything major.
She asks if there's a playlist that you want to hear.
"Oh hell yeah."
You turn on a playlist called The Queer Femme Manifesto. It sounds more important than it is- a bunch of songs you tend to extrapolate queerness from with very sparse songs from popular queer artists because that's what everyone expects a good queer woman to listen to. Still, it blooms with sapphic energy that makes your copious hairs stand on end.
It's also very immature and pedestrian. It's just a teenage mindset to pretend you're more mature than you are.
You play it and then look at her expectantly. She just smiles and gestures to a chair in front of her vanity. "We gotta get you cleaned up," she says. "Badly."
"'We'?"
She giggles. "Of course 'we'!"
You're okay with that. You're just fine with her at your side.
You sing along with the first song that plays.
XLI.
This Is Love
You wanted to ask her where you two were at after everything. If she realized that you were no good for her like you feared that you would eventually let slip. The way she pampers you silences those fears.
She does your hair far nicer than you do, letting it fall free of your customary twintails. She carefully shaves you, washes the dirt off your face, puts a little concealer on you, and cleans out and paints your nails. These are things you can do on your own, but she's far better to you than you have ever been. She's far kinder than she used to be- when you first became friends, she was all about instructing the baby queer (despite being just younger than you). Now, it's something that she doesn't say, but that you can feel, that loves you in her own way.
You ask with a blush if you can use her body shaver. She giggles and says "of course" and adds with a cheekier laugh that she just washed it out today. When you blush deeper, she full-on cackles.
You enter the bathroom alone and quietly cry in the chipped-away bathtub.
You tend to forget too quickly what it's like to be treated like a human being.
XLII.
Here With Me
Not much needs to be said.
Night falls as you crawl onto Noire's bed. Tharja's probably still out doing god-knows-what for a good time as she has for the past few years. Noire says she doesn't expect her to come home, but her eyes give away the implication. Her mom doesn't like having visitors and seems to think Noire needs rest far more often than she does.
You sit next to her and she leans into your shoulder. You ask if she's okay, and she giggles. Then it gets somber and she thanks you for giving her time.
"I think I know what I wanna do now."
You let her lead the kiss. You're so used to it with other women that you don't know why you didn't with her before. She's soft, cautious, and nervous, but you prove yourself.
Somewhere along the way, your kisses get breathier and your skin heats up. Her arms find her way around your neck and you place one hand behind her head and the other on her face. When she lets out a small moan, you realize that things are about to get far more serious than you ever expected so soon after everything.
Okay, maybe now you should talk.
"Are you sure?"
She nods. "I trust you."
"Still?"
She thinks for a second. "You still stopped when I told you to. You just… needed to know what I need you to do."
"The lead's all yours, babe."
She giggles and the two of you fall against the bed. "Just… cut me some slack," she admits. "I've never done this before…" She giggles again, her blush consuming her.
"The way you're embarrassed at the very idea of sex, I can tell," you respond with a playful smirk.
She lightly hits your chest. "Give me a break, Sevvy! I didn't know this was gonna happen today!"
"You knew enough to wash your shaver," you tease.
She laughs madly again. "Damn it!"
"And something tells me I didn't use it as comprehensively as you wanted," you admit.
"Pssh," she says, waving her hand shyly. "I'm sure you'll be fine."
XLIII.
Fade Into You
She leans into your neck abruptly. You're definitely getting hard underneath the sweats you're wearing, but you're not gonna be an embarrassed mess with her. Someone has to be the mature one.
Her words are steam that opens up the pores to your skin. "Gorgeous. You're so gorgeous. You're the one I want." Her sweet talk is clumsy yet authentic, just like her. With a small peck on your collarbone, she adds "The one I've wanted for so long."
You can't believe it.
You like the idea.
You wrap your legs around her and wait for her to feel your dick against her thigh. When she does, the animal in her comes out, and she pushes against your waist. You ask her every time if it's okay when you remove an article of clothing, to the point where she says "Stop asking, boo, all right? Just do it."
"If you say so," you mumble wolfishly, unbuckling her bra just fast enough for her to flash you and work doggedly on removing the last of your clothes. You both have no idea what the hell you're doing, but you love doing it.
She kisses your chest. It's disappointingly flat because you aren't on any hormones or insurance like she is. As if to affirm this, you look down to assess her tits (again, this time not clothed) but you can't from this vantage. You can feel them near your waist and scrape against your flesh all the way down, which is not even something you knew you wanted that badly, but goddamn, apparently any damn thing will do it for ya.
She's flat on your chest, kissing holes into your skin as she progresses lower. You rock your hips in anticipation and whisper "Well? Ain't you gonna?"
She does.
Somewhere along the way, you lose the plot. You lose yourself in her touch. The welcome thing is, you don't mind.
XLIV.
I Really Like You
"You've always liked me?"
"From just after we became friends, yeah."
"That soon? I'm barely able to grasp that you like me at all."
"You didn't notice? I wasn't really very subtle, honestly."
"Babe, I've been crushing on you for years now, if anything I was less subtle."
"Oh my god . Severa! How did I miss it?"
"Probably because one of us is useless and one of us is hopeless and I haven't figured out who is who."
"Oh my god, can we be both? Let's be both."
"Sure, babe. We definitely can."
"Mmm… You're just so snuggly."
"I'm as flat as a brick wall."
"Pfft, like it has to do with that. Your whole… ergonomics. And the way you hold onto me. And the… the fact that it's you…"
"You seriously like me that much?"
"Seriously, boo, I just slept with you and you're asking me that?"
"Hey, I'm a lesbian. I don't know shit about that."
"Sure, sure."
"...Just, I… I wasn't, like… an easy choice, right? Like… I genuinely think you're amazing. Like, that's honest. A little too honest, maybe. I just… I'm so angry, I'm so toxic, I'm so fucked up… I just…"
"Severa? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm good. I just... I really can't comprehend this."
"It's okay if you're having a low moment, Sevvy."
"Yeah… yeah. Even right now?"
"Even right now. I think now's the time we say everything we mean to anyways."
XLV.
Bravado
"I think I was curious about you from the start. And once I fell for you… well, I don't have crushes on many people. I just talk a lot of bravado. It's how I take control of myself. But even as heavy as crushes are, they go away, right? And you were trying to push me away, what with all your yelling and everything. I was just…"
"Stubborn as shit?"
"Probably, honestly. And… I think you started to trust me more. And that… just made me like you more. But when I did, you were… so nice. You didn't mind that you had to help me do things. You didn't mind that you had to calm me down from my outbursts. You didn't mind that I kept guiding you to do things that were hard for you. And you didn't mind that those things were hard for me too. You were mad at the world but so nice to me… a-and I was scared if I-I ever did anything to... t-to jeopardize it…"
"Noire…"
"L-look… I know my mom makes mistakes. I know I'm alone too much. I'm trying to get used to being this sick all the time. And… even though I try to maintain my friendships and go to meetings and do good things for myself, they're so functional. You're like one of the only things I tried to, you know… do on my own. To really invest in. To make a part of my life."
"And now you've made me yours."
"Kinda funny how that happened, right?"
"Pssh. Like you didn't put in work to make that happen."
XLVI.
Recite Remorse
When you wake up, you feel her presence, but she isn't pressed against you like she was last night. You don't have a damn clue as to why until you look over her shoulder and see her bare back, ribs exposed, looking into your open backpack.
Oh. Is that all?
Then it hits you.
"Severa," she starts to ask.
"I'm sorry-"
"W-why are there so many clothes a-and... and a sl-sleeping bag in this?"
She turns to you, begging you not to say what she's afraid you're going to say.
You have to say it.
She's still crying a few minutes later. She's so angry and hurt, and this is everything you didn't want. Life is just this way for you.
"I just wish you had told me," she says between tears.
"I didn't want you to feel bad or anything," you explain. "Things were complicated between us, and I didn't wanna make anything weirder-"
"But even if we never got together, I'd still be your friend!" she all but yells, stunning you into silence. She lets out another sob and says "I'm so sorry."
You shake your head. "No, I getcha."
She wipes her tears. As the source of her grief, you really should do that for her. "I think… what I meant was, you can rely on me. No matter what. I'm your friend and now I'm your lover. We're a team. We're, like…" she closes her eyes. "We're both queer. We're both trans. We're both lez. You know, we know what it's like, even if we live different lives. And... " She drops off. "Yeah."
You take her hand again. "We're hitting real shit now," you say. "It's not all going to bars and dreaming about college. It's… shitty." You stop for a second, but thankfully Noire notices the pregnant pause. "I mean, things were shitty before, but they were simple. There's no easy answer to… all of this."
She nods. "I know, Sev. I know. But we're gonna get through it, right?"
You look at her face. Her olive, almond-shaped eyes, her chin-length black hair faded between dye jobs, her little button nose, her dimples and freckles by her lips, and her shaky little smile that always follows an unfinished statement but is somehow the strongest thing you've ever seen.
You don't believe in forever.
You just believe that the two of you are here right now, and that's a lot.
XLVII.
Perfect Places
You don't sleep at her place every night. You two work that out from the start and acknowledge it. Tharja hates guests and can barely stand it when she's too sober to recognize that her daughter is not resting up still- and she's sober surprisingly often. You want to ask if she can sneak you in, but the way that Noire speaks in frightened innuendos of her mother's anger keeps the request on your tongue. You won't do that to her, but she might have to stop you from killing Tharja one of these days.
You two prepare for when her mother arrives home and you leave before then, your backpack stuffed to the brim with clothing, toiletries, and blankets. There's some money in your pocket to buy food. Noire's insanely generous with her limited wealth, and you try to turn her down to no avail because she's more stubborn than you. She says she's not spending this money so you should have it, but she often forgets that just because you're worse off than her doesn't mean that she's not poor.
She's always been helpful beyond her means.
Sometimes when you burrow into your nest, Noire sneaks out to surprise you during days where Tharja is gowed out. When she burrows up at your side, you warn her that even as night approaches, people might look at you two weird, but she's gotten surprisingly fearless about that lately.
Surprisingly handsier as well.
Not that you mind.
When Tharja is away- which is unsurprisingly often- it's surprisingly domestic. When you first come in, Noire always cleans you up before anything. You see your reflection gradually change in the mirror and your heart softens with it. She's not the best cook, but years of neglect have forced her to make do. You help when you can but mess up so much that you expect her to tell you to go away, but even though a lot of your escapades end in arguments and tears, you manage to become a decently suitable sous chef.
The two of you spend a lot of time talking and just being near each other as best friends, and almost as much time fucking and laying in the afterglow as lovers long after it dissipates. It's just the former when you're out in public, but the both of you sprinkle in gentle, playful touches of the second that makes you anticipate when Noire's mom leaves again. Her inexperience with sex makes her a middling lover on its own, but she memorizes every touch you buckle under and plays you like a sonata with her fumbling fingers.
Even when Tharja's gone, and even when you're clothed, you so rarely leave the comfort of the bedroom. You realize that as rebellious as you think you are, you still crave that safety.
At least you're confident enough to hold hands in public now.
You're finishing out your school term but you doubt that you're applying for another one. No money, no passion, no current aim or declaration in a life that you're barely in control of anyways. You'll figure it out someday, but right now, that's a luxury you haven't been able to afford yet. She's still applying for colleges, but luck isn't on her side.
You two make sure to avoid going to bars. Noire drags you along to a few queer support groups she says she's attending. You don't like half of the women there and you haven't made real friendships with the other half, but no one there engages you in fights and Noire always gets you to calm down.
Eventually, you're able to laugh and crack jokes but you never let your walls down until something about someone saying their parents don't talk to them anymore breaks you and you cry that everyone fucking abandons you. You're surprised that others say they will never abandon you. You aren't sure you believe it, but it's a nice concept. Noire knows you don't include her in everyone that abandoned you and strokes your back, but you still apologize as you leave, which she waves off.
"Those girls," she says about the women, unanimously two-to-thirty years older than her. "Sisters, in some ways."
Sisters. That's such a hard concept to allow yourself to feel. You've always felt of an alien species. Not even Noire was like you. You were a complete mess and in many ways you still are. You don't allow yourself to feel like you're part of anything.
Your ultimate goal is to feel like their sister to anywhere near the extent that you feel like Noire's lover.
Somewhere along the line you consciously let go of the fantasy of changing your name. Jezebel is a good name for the concept of you, but Severa is the reality of it all. Maybe Selena would work in order to refine it, but the whole Selena/Severa thing is something you've worked too damn hard for in order to say it's your name.
There's still so much work to go, but you're proud of your name.
XLVIII.
The Story
You knew when coming out that you were trading away the shot at a comfortable ending for a great perhaps. You knew that people like your mother would find your mental illnesses more challenging. You knew that you were advertising your own alienation to others. You knew that you were sacrificing the meager dream of comfort for a shot at a happy ending that you were going to have to work to get.
Looking back now, you didn't expect everything to get this bad, but at the same time, you aren't surprised by it all. Part of you was always waiting for everything to implode on itself, using anger and distance to brace yourself. A lot of people would think you'd sound dramatic, that you're just being a teenager. You're more than that- you're a queer woman who knows the truth.
You're still not where you want to be. You're still not consistently happy. You're still not comfortable when you're waiting for the sun to set on the park benches near your nesting spot. You're not even completely comfortable on the nights where Noire's mom is gone and you stay at her house, bundled up in her bed under the canopy with her in your arms, your flat chest against the curves of her back that you learn to hold more gently. You're often happy near her, then you're with yourself and realize that you're not. Fears of the ambiguity of the road ahead steal sleep from you too often, on outdoor days or days sneaking into the place you call home.
You're not comfortable yet, but neither is your story over. You're a young, confused, queer trans woman. This is gonna be the hardest time of your life, but you're not going it alone. You have Noire- the reality of Noire, not the concept; your queer co-conspirator-turned-partner in a world that hates you. You're with someone who understands. You're with someone that you fell into hell with- the woman whose learned elegance and organic force of nature inspired you to come out in the first place.
Sometimes you wonder if you and Noire are permanent. If something will divide you. If your anger will prove too much for her. If you're just both victims of young love that will part ways over time. Still, you maintain faith, and the longer you go, the more organic it feels.
When you get through it together, maybe you'll start believing in that happy ending.