UNDER YOUR SPELL . . . marjorine / reader
Under Your Spell — Snow Strippers
Marjorine, beautiful as she was, was frighteningly insecure. Perhaps it had something to do with her upbringing — her parents were, frankly, massive assholes who grounded her frequently for her feelings as a child. Emotional regulation was hard when you were locked in your tower for doing anything aside from smiling and following rules you couldn’t possibly know about until you broke them.
As such, she was a people pleaser until she grew into herself, though she still catered frequently to your needs and neglected her own.
It was a learning process. You were working on it.
All this to say, she tended to do most of her crying in the bathroom of your apartment with the shower running, as though trying to drown herself out. She was quite a loud crier, though, and it was easy to hear her over the spray of water hitting the shower floor.
You leaned against the doorframe, pressing your forehead to the smooth surface of the door, and frowned to yourself.
Marjorine was such a sweet girl at heart — soft and easily hurt — and she cared so fiercely for her friends. Including her friends’ opinions. Meaning that when one of them said something revolving around her, she tended to take it to heart.
You worried your lip between your teeth as you debated knocking. On one hand, she could likely use the comfort, hard as her sobs were. But on the other, you knew she liked to cry things out on her own sometimes. It was hard to gauge what kind of day she was having as far as comfort went.
“Marj?” you called. Her crying hiccuped for a moment, then stilled altogether, and she sniffled quite loudly.
“Yeah?” she uttered miserably. It tugged at a chord in your chest, nearly bringing tears to your own eyes — tears you pushed back. You needed to be strong for Marjorine. You had to be a strong shoulder for her.
“Will you let me hug you?” you asked. She shuffled for a moment, then the bathroom lock clicked unlocked. You pushed it open slowly and peered inside, frowning immediately upon the sight that greeted you.
Her face was flushed, tear tracks mixing with mascara you’d put on for her that morning. Her nose was running and her lipgloss was smudged across her chin. She was curled in on herself, knees to her chest, hair pulled out of the pretty little pigtails you’d helped her with that morning as well.
You sank to your knees and shut the door behind you, shuffling until you were sitting in the same position as her directly beside her. She leaned over and turned the shower off, then curled right back in on herself.
“Wanna talk about it?” You rested your head back against the wall, turned to the side to look at her, and offered up your hand. She took it readily and entwined your fingers as she wiped at her puffy eyes with the other.
“Eric said I was flat,” she muttered in that sweet little Southern accent of hers. Her voice was starting to get more comfortable in a higher register thanks to the vocal training the two of you were paying for. As it turns out, conning people into engaging in cryptocurrency was a lucrative market — lucrative enough to afford a cushy apartment, hormone therapy, voice lessons, and a fancy new Porsche Marjorine bought you for your birthday.
“Eric is also stupid,” you reminded her. She giggled softly, but her smile still wobbled, and her lashes wetted themselves again.
“He said I’d never look like a real girl,” she punched out, her lower lip jutting out in a pout. You poked it with your index finger, then smoothed your thumb over her cheek and squeezed her hand in yours.
“You already do,” you whispered, “because you are one. You understand that, right? You don’t have to look like a ‘real girl’ on the outside to be one as long as you know you’re a girl on the inside. That’s all that matters. You know who you are, Marj.”
She puffed out a sigh, cheeks inflating, and lifted her free hand to twirl a lock of blonde around her finger. “I just want other people to see that too.”
She looked so sad, eyes all downcast and teary, chin shivering and dimpling. You tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and folded your hand under that same quivering chin, coaxing her into looking at you. She couldn’t bite back the soft smile she wore every time she looked at you. It was cute that she couldn’t fight back her care for you.
“I see it,” you assured her, brushing your thumb rhythmically over the apple of her cheek. “Stan does. And Kyle. You know Bebe, Wendy, and Nichole see it too. Hell, Craig and Tweek got you an estrogen cake after you got your first prescription. Kenny started HRT just so you wouldn’t be going through it by yourself.” She grinned softly at the memory.
“All the people closest to you see you as the girl you are, Marj. Eric Cartman is a self-serving, narcissistic, stupid bitch whose only accomplishment in life is convincing his mother not to kick him out when he turned eighteen. Your biggest accomplishment is waking up every single morning, letting me dress you up the way you like, and going out there to set an example for other little girls whose inside doesn’t match their outside.
“You deserve way more than what Eric fucking Cartman can give you, baby. What our friends are doing for you? What I’m doing for you? That's the bare minimum of showing we care. You shouldn’t accept anything less just because he knows how to pull your strings and manipulate you into keeping him around.”
Marjorine mulled over that for a while, letting her head fall fully into your hand, the shuddering of her chest coming to a slow stop.
“You’re right,” she murmured, her eyes fluttering closed. She tilted her head to press a soft kiss to your palm. “I should block him on everything, huh?”
“Only if you want to,” you reassured softly. She wiped at her face one more time before she let go of your hand and pushed herself to her feet. Her long skirt swished against the Hello Kitty socks stretching up her calves as she shuffled to the door and opened it slowly.
“Now that I’m all better,” she murmured shyly, glancing bashfully in your direction. “Wanna go fool around?”
You sprung to your feet so quickly you slipped and hit your head on the counter.
