[taivan x trans!fem!reader: platonic]
tags: angst - hurt/comfort - fluff - internalised homophobia - internalised transphobia - gender envy - oblivious reader - Taivan being the best couple ever - mentions of ageing - mentions of getting older - depictions of growing older - reader is pre-transition - reader hasn't come to terms with being trans - reader still believes she's make through a lot of this - reader is referred to in masculine terms but not that much.
[wdc: 2.9k] [based on this request]
Now that you’re older, now that your hair is greying and your insides rotting, you are constantly clinging onto the most precious of your memories with a death grip. There are things you never wish to forget, things that were so important in building the person that you became, that you could never imagine forgetting them. Nonetheless, time is a thief, stealing youth, stealing life, and stealing memories that you hold so dear. All time ever did was pass, afterall, and all you could do was try your best to remember.
It was at night, mostly, when you would close your eyes as you lay against your plush mattress and remember the days when you didn’t know any better, when you didn’t even know who you were. Back then, you had very limited knowledge on the type of person you were allowed to be, because back then no one thought you were actually allowed to be that, allowed to be free, to be comfortable in your own body.
They opened your mind, Taissa and Van, and it was as though they had opened your third eye to something you never before knew existed.
You first became friends after Van threw a soccer ball at your head to get you off the soccer field. Due to underfunding, the school had to get rid of the baseball pitch and make both the boys baseball team and the girls soccer team practice on the same field. It was beyond frustrating for both parties and you wanted nothing more than for things to go back to the way they were. One day, the baseball team stayed over their scheduled time so you could get extra practice before a game — despite the fact it was glaringly obvious that you were going to lose — and the yellowjackets weren’t exactly happy about that.
They stood at the sidelines while the coach of the baseball team (Coach Luis) argued with the coach of the soccer team, coach Martinez if you can remember correctly. Some of the girls on the soccer team – Jackie, Van, Taissa, and a girl whose name you can’t quite remember now — were yelling at the baseball team from where they stood at the sides, telling you to get of the field, telling you that your team sucked, telling you that you were never going to win anyway. One of the girls, the one whose name you couldn’t remember, said that they were the superior team so they needed the pitch more. “You’re going to lose your game but we’re going to win nationals,” she yelled, “get off our pitch!”
None of it was particularly insulting to you, you didn’t care much for baseball anyway. In fact, you found their insults quite funny and it was even more humorous that the other guys on the team were legitimately getting offended. You stood there laughing as the team racked their brains to insult the soccer team back.
The yellowjackets were legends at school, everyone knew who they were. They were like the Greek Gods that Odysseus never disobeyed. Everyone caved to their every whim like it was God's will — it was mostly Jackie who was responsible for this, her popularity infecting everyone else on the team she was in charge of and even the losers on the yellowjackets weren’t nearly as unpopular as the actual losers of the school.
Jackie Taylor was otherworldly but the abuse she was hurling wasn’t nearly as funny as Tai and Van. Their insults were creative and true, unlike the unnamed girl who was just stating hurtful and brutal facts. One of the guys on the team, who only joined the team because he was an idiot and needed a scholarship in order to get into college, was beginning to grow frustrated. You heard him mutter something about not taking insults from a bunch of girls before he decided to shout —
— “unless you’re gonna cheer for us and show us your tits like a good woman would, fuck off!” your smile faltered just a little as the other guys on the team snickered and laughed at the ‘joke.’
You turned to look at your team for a moment in order to decipher which laugh belonged to who and when you turned your head back to see why the girls had gone so quiet all you could see was a ball being launched towards your head. You were irritated before you had a chance to realise what had happened, what the fuck did you do? You were just standing there! You didn’t even laugh at the jokes. Why is this your fault and why are you being punished for it?
You had quickly learned that the girl who threw the ball was the goalie. The thing about goalies is that a big part of their job is to throw the ball really far and really hard in order to get the ball as far away from their own goal as possible so that the team they’re playing against has a harder time trying to score.
So, the goalie, Vanessa/Van as you soon learned, had thrown the ball with all her might and all her strength. The ball collided with your head and damn near took your head off, you were knocked down onto your ass and you felt the blood escaping your nose and dripping down your face. Your hand quickly shot up to your nose so you could put pressure on it but that only made it hurt more.
The guys on your team, as well as the coaches, surrounded you to make sure you weren’t concussed and you were forced to go to the nurses office. Van and Tai had gone with you, perhaps because they felt bad that Van had broken your nose — yes, she actually broke your nose.
While sitting on the comfortable medical bed in the nurses office, Van kept trying to crack jokes to cheer you up and Tai kept shooting her dirty looks that were laced with frustration and also… affection? The adoration you saw in Van’s eyes was one that was so blatant, so true, and so pure. You knew, and at first you weren’t sure if they knew too or if they were completely oblivious, but then Tai smiled at one of Van’s jokes and the latter smiled back, a small smile laced with shared adoration. It was like they were the only people in the world. It was like they had a secret unbeknownst to the rest of the world and they were secretly bragging that no one else was noticing it — you noticed it.
And you have all been friends ever since!
You knew what you were, at least, you thought you knew what you were. Gay. You liked boys in the way you were supposed to like girls. They liked girls in the way they were supposed to like boys. And, for the first time ever, you knew that you were allowed to be yourself in front of them and that they wouldn’t depict you as a pervert the same way your friends on the team would. You remember voicing this thought to them once when you were hanging out at the park and Taissa said “then they’re not your friends.”
It was all sunshine and daisies at first, you were more than happy to have friends you could be yourself around, you felt as though you were finally seen for the first time in your life, as though you had just woken up from living a life that wasn’t yours. And then they started acting a bit weird….
When you did or said something particularly flamboyant, they would look at each other as though they had a secret they couldn’t tell you, and this time, you couldn’t even decipher what it was. They’d laugh, you’d go quiet, but you never questioned it. At the time, you weren’t sure why you were so reluctant to question them, now that you’re older you realise it’s because you already knew the answer and didn’t want to have to face it. You weren’t ready.
Sometimes, Van would push open the door for you and Van and say “Ladies first,” with a flirty smile on her face, the first couple of times you thought that Van was primarily showing off for Tai, but after the seventh time she basically snatched the door from you, you began to notice the pattern. You thought she was making jokes about you being gay, and quite frankly, a little bit feminine. You pushed her joke away with a small laugh and pretended it wasn’t utterly frustrating you.
A lot of what Tai and Van did frustrated you.
One time, you were dragged to Taissa’s house by Van and Tai because Van wanted to watch ‘Show Girls’ and Tai had just gotten it on VHS. You ended up not enjoying the film, but Van loved it, and you ended up having fun anyway so you were willing to look past the shitty movie when you recalled the memory.
Van was sitting criss-cross on Taissa’s bed, eyes focused onto the screen as though the movie gods weren’t willing her to look away and you were sitting on the floor leaning against the bed watching Taissa do her makeup across from you. It was quite intriguing, to say the least, because you couldn’t help but wonder what everything was for. Why was she layering these things on her skin? Why was she making her cheeks pink? Why was she making her eyelids blue? And what was she putting on her eyelashes?
She must’ve seen you staring so intently through the mirror she was holding as she dapped the makeup onto her face because a small, knowing smirk, took over her face. She seemed to move faster then and a wave of guilt washed over you. Had you made her uncomfortable with your constant staring? Had you made her feel embarrassed? Maybe that smirk wasn’t a smirk and instead it was a smile of awkwardness.
All of your fears of violating your friend's boundaries went away when she finished the final step, turned around to you, and said “you know, you’ve got very smooth skin.” with a glimmer of playfulness showing in her eyes.
“Thanks…?” you said, unsure of yourself and suspicious of what she was planning.
Van had finally looked away from the TV screen to look at you and Van, the confusion on her face perfectly mirroring yours. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one suspicious of Taissa and her antics.
“And you’re really pretty for a boy,” she said, putting emphasis on the word boy almost making it seem as though she was being sarcastic and you almost sighed. You expected these kinds of jokes from Van but not so much from Taissa, she tended to take things more seriously than her girlfriend who just liked to joke and laugh all of the time. She smiled like she was proud of herself, “you could always be prettier though.”
The realisation struck you like a bolt of lightning, your eyes widening in shock at what she suggested. “No! No way in hell!” you exclaimed, “there is no way you are doing my makeup.”
But instead of backing down, her smile just widened, and ten minutes later you were sitting there on the floor like a good little pup as she applied product after product to your face. Even now, you have no idea how she managed to convince you. It was no surprise that she turned out to be a real-good lawyer and also a fibbing politician.
Van had returned back to her movie, not paying much attention to the ‘torture’ you were being put through. Weirdly, you didn’t entirely hate it. You were a man, you weren’t supposed to be wearing makeup like this. Whenever you said that though, you’d receive dirty looks from both Van and Tai — Tai who would then list men who were actually quite popular for wearing makeup. David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Robert Mapplethorpe, Robert Smith, Mick Jagger etc.
You did feel pretty, though, and you quite enjoyed the relaxing feeling that came with Taissa pampering you. After a while, when she was sure Van wasn’t paying attention, she began murmuring sweet words to you as she stayed focused on your makeup, “admitting who you are can be hard,” she had said, her voice gentle“but living a secret will be much harder. Would you rather die as yourself, as someone who is brave enough to exist in this world being different, or would you rather die as a coward who was too afraid of what others would think about who she is.”
‘Who she is.’ she had said.
And you remembered those words better than you remembered anything about your teenage years because it was the first time you had been forced to face something you had practically ignored for as long as possible.
Her words were like lullabies. Like a poem. They weren't especially profound or deep, they were even a bit stereotypical and overused, but they shocked you to your very core. They made you feel sick in a way you weren’t able to get passed. You had felt as though, for the first time in your life, you had been perceived and you really didn’t like it. It was like getting changed in the locker room for the first time, it felt so bizarre and revealing. Except this was different, because it revolved around you and Taissa and the girl you wanted to be.
Before you had a chance to respond to Taissa’s words — if you even could — she began talking again. Something about wanting to put you in her clothes to get the full effect. You would’ve said no, spewed your words about being a man again and about how you shouldn’t be wearing makeup. But you didn’t feel like a man at that moment, you weren’t a man, and you were grateful to Taissa for shocking your brain and letting you know that she was okay with who you are. So, instead, you smiled and nodded, letting her drag you up from the floor and search through her closet for the best clothes to put you in.
That was one of your fondest memories, the one you would grip onto for dear life even as you greyed.
Time passed, seasons changed, and you drifted apart. You never saw or heard much from Taissa or Van after their plane crash, but you weren’t too offended because you knew they didn’t hear much from each other either. You visited them once the summer after they came back from the wilderness, when they were still together and working through all of the things they had seen and witnessed. It was a short visit, only an hour, and you could tell that they weren’t the same people they were when they left, and that was okay, you made your peace with that because you weren’t the same person either.
You had come to terms with who you are as a person, you changed your name, started the most important journey of your life, made friends you knew wouldn’t judge you for being you, and studied so hard that your hands were going to fall off.
They had experienced something dark, something awful and unspeakable. You never asked what they did in the wilderness because you already knew, everyone already knew, but you also knew that it was a game of survival and they would’ve done anything to live, to survive, to come back to the families and to reintegrate with the world again despite the fact they had witnessed horrors they couldn’t speak about.
Despite the fact that you drifted away from each other, that the trauma’s they had faced were too complex to work through, you would love them forever, until your dying breath. Some people enter your life, even for just a short while, and change it with just a few simple words that wouldn’t matter to anyone else.
Tai and Van had changed your life
And now they were strangers whose laughs you could probably recognise from across the street, and for some reason, you found yourself being perfectly okay with that.
A/N: 1. this is not edited properly because the edits I did didn't save and I was too lazy to redo them. 2. HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!! 3. I'm not a big fan of the ending but I feel as though it was the only one that fit.
