#trans!victoria

[blusthings]

Chasemarsh family pride< 3

Commission for the wonderful @the-sword-lesbian .Please check out her CM Family stories they’re incredible<333

[meditatemoremedicateless]

Vic and Kate? Tranz

If I take this ask seriously for a little bit, I have fiddled with Kate being trans in the past, although I think I ultimately deleted the head canon that she is. However, if I were going that route, I’d have to head canon her as nonbinary and not transfeminine.

I feel like Kate was the sort of person who grew up accepting the existence of a god, but questioning some of the things that she was told were natural, default, or automatic as a result of god’s intervention. I see this in three concepts: the naturalization of heterosexual identity, the naturalization of binary gender (and within that, the subjugated position of woman- and girl-hood), and animals’ subservience to humanity.

Whenever Kate brought up these complaints, she was fed one of two answers: these things are right because they are God’s way, or these things appear to be wrong but are ultimately right because of God’s Plan. She took both these answers as true, but struggled with them a lot as a teenager. Especially when some injustices were covered under “it’s part of God’s plan” and some demanded human intervention to alleviate (often the continued subjugation of women and queer people, from her view).

Eventually, I think an idea would form in her head that both the expectations and praise she received for being a woman could be combated if she wasn’t one. To be a lesbian would certainly make her fail as a woman in her mother’s family’s eyes, but they might eventually adapt to that fact, still look for her to have kids and raise a family (even with another woman - priorities always shift towards the maintenance of The Family in these families...).

So, in Kate’s eyes, I think being genderqueer would be a pretty big fuck-you to her family without rejecting the underlying faith that they have in common. It’s a way to formulate a life on her own terms. And it would be complicated. I know she’d be full of doubt about it, probably for a long time. But I wish her the best.

(as for Victoria, yeah lol, she’s def trans).

NOTE: I do think romantic partners would have a pretty drastic effect on Kate’s views of womanhood and gender identity, and I think it’s more likely she WOULDN’T go down the route I’ve described above than she would. However, some of the more popular Kate ships (like Marshfield) I think could definitely lend themselves to this version of Kate.

[priestessamy]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Honestly this chapter is pure fluff. You can skip it, but you’ll be missing out on premium good stuff.

It’s like porn without plot but without porn????

I dunno, I just think it’s neat

[meditatemoremedicateless]

Trans Victoria fuels my soul

Me too anon, me too. I love her.

[priestessamy]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Overwatch stuff aside, here’s more adorable chasemarsh stuff

Things are getting serious

[meditatemoremedicateless]

Weathering the Storm 2

Part 1 Here

Tagging people who requested a second chapter: @caparun @blacknwhitekeyz

Summary: After emerging from the mysterious tunnel they had (briefly) called home, Kate and Victoria trek back to Arcadia Bay, only to find it devastated by the storm. Soon they run into Max and Chloe, and the four team up as they search for survivors.

There was no rain beating down the beach. In fact, for as far as Victoria could see or hear, everything was silent. Even the ocean refused to provide its soothing lapping, leaving everything empty. This was impossible, and they both knew it.

Victoria stumbled out onto the beach, too dazed in her disbelief to feel the sand underneath her. Kate lingered at the mouth of the tunnel, unable to leave the strange and discomforting for the familiar and impossible.

"I don't understand," Kate said unconvincingly; "where are we?"

Victoria pivoted, as if Kate's voice suddenly brought her back into reality. The question made her uneasy, and that made her harsh: "Exactly where the fuck it looks like we are, Kate. We're at the beach. We're," Victoria started to pace backwards quickly, wanting so desperately to be wrong but knowing she wasn't as soon as the body of the lighthouse came into view. She didn't yet notice what was wrong with it. She pointed up at it, as if Kate should have noticed it herself, "We're at the light house. You know, the one just outside of town? Like all of Taylor's photos are here? A good sixty miles from where we should be, possibly can be?"

Kate's hand lay on tunnel wall, gripping the stone despite the fact that it was too damp to support her at all. She still refused to leave it, like a child clutching its mother's clothes. She really had gotten attached to that frigid fragment of hell. Victoria would be pleased to never return. She'd brought her phone, and the rest could rot and rust in her pack for all she cared.

"But there's no way, right?" Kate was still trying to work this out rationally.

As Victoria retrieved her phone, she replied, "I just said there was no fucking way, didn't I? Now come out - I'll call us a ride."

She opened up her phone, immediately relieved to see the 6% still available. Thank god. She could make a phone call with six percent. And Kate was finally leaving the security of the tunnel to come join Victoria. That temporary satisfaction dissipated as soon as she saw the 'no signal' symbol.

Victoria wished she was strong. She wished she was so incredibly strong that she could just shatter her phone out of frustration like a super hero. But, try as she might, metal and plastic still trumped her. "God fucking dammit!"

"What is it?" Kate asked, finally making it next to Victoria's side. She looked like an absolute mess - pale, exhausted, and cold, wrapped as tightly as she could manage in her blanket. "Shouldn't we get our stuff?"

Victoria shook her head, looking up from her phone to the shore. Why was there no signal? How far was it to town, really? "No, just, god, leave it. Do you have your phone?"

Kate shook her head in reply, dragging her wet hair over the blanket. Unlike the rest of her, it didn't appear to have dried out at all, despite the fact that she'd unpinned it once they settled in for the night. "No. I mean, yeah, but it died hours ago. I forgot to turn it off." She turned to look at the mouth of the tunnel. "But, I mean, I still need to grab my clothes."

Victoria's grumble approached a growl, but at least now she knew what they had to do. "Fuck that, I'll buy you new clothes. I'm not going back in there." She let out a sigh, letting it fill the space while she resolved herself. She wanted to have the standards to say that she wasn't going to walk all the way back to school after everything they'd been through. Try as she might, though, she was unhappy and numb enough that pushing through the coastal cold with no feeling in her feet or hands just to collapse into her bed or the school showers sounded like enough. This was the sort of dumb-fuck display of resilience that had earned her credit in the Boy Scouts. And they were almost out of the woods, figuratively.

"Kate," she said softly, too exhausted to domineer. Gently, then, like with Taylor, "let's just walk."

Kate's lips pinched in a frown, the sound of her futilely rubbing her arms to ward off the cold the only thing in the silence. And then, "Okay."

And they left the tunnel, and their things, and the beach behind, barely aware of the fact that they encountered no one there or on the two-mile-long hike back to Arcadia Bay.

It was clear what had happened well before they ever made it to town. The closer they got, the more visible the signs of the storm became - trees stripped of their leaves and branches, litter and debris coating the road. By half a mile out it felt like they were trekking through a swamp, not a well-worn coastal highway. High winds were nothing new in Oregon storms, and they helped explain some of the eerie quiet that surrounded the two girls. It soothed Victoria as much as anything could in the cold.

When they reached the town's limits, Victoria tried her phone again. No signal.

Bullshit.

"Any luck?" asked Kate.

Victoria just shook her head and picked up the pace, though every step hurt her feet. There would be many blisters to pay for this adventure, and that, along with everything else, brought Victoria to the edge of tears.

There are no real words to describe what they saw once they left the forest behind and made it to the northern edge of town. There is a level of destruction that can't simply be reasoned in its individual parts. It was like Arcadia Bay - its homes, its gas stations, its diners, even its streets - had been pulled out by the root and thrown away, discarded like a weed. It was like the place Victoria had grown to think of as a second home, without even realizing it, was knocked over by a careless child too small to know the price of destruction, but big enough to cause it so easily. Street signs and street lights, cars and RVs were all just toppled over; every building had parts of it ripped out and scattered, smoke coiling out of a few of them that had spent the night burning.

It wasn't until they were really among the destruction that anyone said anything.

"Arcadia Bay is . . . gone." Kate's voice sounded hollow. Victoria could feel it too - that sensation that something was being ripped out of you with every step.

"Where is everyone?" Kate asked, breaking from her awe and back to her fear.

It was a question that weighed on Victoria's mind as well, but she had hoped it wasn't a question worth asking, that the fact that nobody was around was a good thing. "They must have put out a storm warning and got everyone out. That's why we didn't see anyone driving out or . . ." anyone else wandering in this dead place.

Kate nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. Plus, the city has a whole bunch of houses with Cold War bunkers, so anyone who couldn't get out was probably safe."

Victoria wished that made her feel safe. But the broken glass from overturned cars and shattered store windows was everywhere, and it begged the question: how many people could have gotten out? Is everyone really safe?

"What is that?"

There was a few seconds of lag between Kate's question and Victoria's response, following Kate's pointing to an old blue car turned on its side near the edge of the road up ahead, not really different from any of the others.

Wait, she's not pointing at the car.

Beneath the car was a blue tarp lain over something small. It didn't seem to be held down by anything, so it must have been placed in the past few hours, after the storm ended. People must have come through. Rescue crews, fire fighters, that sort of-

"I'm going to go look," Kate said, her voice finally steady for the first time since the early morning.

Victoria froze for a moment as Kate veered from the street they were on towards the coastal road that the overturned car had been parked (or driving) on. Her breathing felt loud to her amidst all the quiet. Too loud. She needed noise. She needed to keep Kate close.

"Hold up!" Victoria called after her, and Kate stopped and turned as she jogged after her.

The tarp started to feel more and more unnerving the closer they got to it, as from even a few paces away it was clear it was dry, unlike literally every other surface in town. Untouched by rain or wind after a storm . . . although it was a sign of recent life, it felt ominous.

Finally, the two of them stood over the tarp, careful as they could be not to step on the glass. Whatever was underneath the tarp was large, close to six feet long under an 8' by 8' tarp, but low to the ground.

Victoria knew what this was, but every time she tried to say it, to warn Kate, it just got choked in her throat.

Wordlessly, Kate crouched down over the tarp and peeled it back. Her body blocked Victoria's view of who it was, but not what it was. And when Kate recoiled, whether out of fear or disgust, and fell back on glass and debris, Victoria knew she had been right.

"Oh my god," Kate said, then "oh my god oh my god oh my-"

Victoria crouched down next to her, too focused on the dead kid's face to think about how Kate must have just cut herself. She knew him from somewhere. Even with the side of his face cracked open, and the dried blood caked in his hair and staining the dirt, he looked familiar. Small face. Big, brown hair. Sickly pale skin, though that might have come from being dead. Wasn't he-

"That's Warren."

That was the name.

"He's dead."

Victoria nodded. "I guess not everyone got out." She hated how flat her voice was, low and stoic. That's not what she was feeling. She must look like a robot to Kate right now, but oh, how this face filled her with a familiar dread. He was dead, and that opened the door for her that other people might be dead, too.

It took Victoria a moment to recognize an unfamiliar sound approaching, it had crept up so steadily. But finally, something out of the corner of her eye drew her attention, and she saw a red truck coming down the road, slowly, weaving as it may through the debris and muddy sand.

She tapped Kate's shoulder, and pointed over to the truck. She couldn't see who was in it yet, but it was in pretty good condition, if a little muddy, so it must have come from outside of town. It looked pretty similar to Nathan's, actually, but she knew he'd just gotten his re-painted, and this one was a rusted red.

Kate pulled the tarp back over Warren's body, then tried to get before freezing, clearly in pain.

"Victoria . . ." she started quietly. "I think there's glass in my legs."

Victoria stood, offering a hand down to Kate. As she pulled herself up, Victoria pulled up the blanket a bit to see fragments all over the back of Kate's legs, although only a few looked like they'd actually stuck in her. There were a few small cuts, though. They'd have to clean those as soon as they could. In the meantime, Victoria just did the best she could to pick off a few big pieces and delicately sweep the rest off with the blanket.

By the time they were done, the truck had made it to them and stopped, the engine cutting a few seconds later. There were two people in the truck, one of whom was-

"Max!" Kate called, making her best attempt at running over despite really stepping around glass just slightly more recklessly than normal.

The passenger side of the truck opened and Max Caulfield burst out in a rush, just managing to get in front of the truck before Kate threw herself onto her. They held onto each other tightly, not legging go as they talked fast, Kate immediately breaking down. Victoria had heard Kate cry before, through the walls of her room. It was nothing like this. This wasn't crying, really. This was wailing.

Victoria didn't want to get too close to those two, but she also couldn't bring herself to go away. Instead, she and the driver, a tall girl with a familiar but unrecognizable face and faded blue hair stood off to the side, near the back of one of the buildings, putting the truck between them and Max and Kate.

There was a good minute of awkward standing around, trying both to not make eye contact and to not look directly at the scene in front of them. Then, the tall girl chuckled, and Victoria couldn't not look at her for that.

She was shaking her head as she pulled a (miraculously dry) cigarette from her breast pocket. "You survived," she said. "Holy shit. I thought everyone was fucked."

After she lit her own, she finally turned to look directly at Victoria, then drew out another one and offered it. "You still smoke, right?"

Victoria took it, and the girl lit it for her before she responded. "Do I know you?" she asked.

The girl laughed again, louder this time so that Max turned to look (Kate was clutched to her chest and seemed to hear nothing), and it was honestly starting to get unnerving.

"I mean, I guess not," she replied after finishing a drag on her cigarette. Then, another one. "We went to school together for a few years, though."

When Victoria couldn't come up with a name, the girl just quirked an eyebrow, smiled, and said, "Chloe. Chloe Price. We had music lab together. Don't worry though, I only went like, twice before I got kicked out."

Still, finally, pieces were starting to come back together. The scruffy hair. The stupid grin. The very end of a sleeve tattoo poking out from underneath a button-up shirt that was never buttoned up.

"No, no, I remember you," Victoria finally corrected. That seemed to surprise her. "You were Rachel's friend, yeah?"

Chloe nodded, though the grin dropped from her face, and she inhaled and held her breath with the smoke like it was weed instead of a shitty cigarette. "Yeah, that was me. Rachel's friend." She seemed to lose interest in her cigarette after that, though, and just held it in her hand. "Not to uh, sour the nostalgia, but who was under that tarp? Someone you know?"

Victoria shook her head, then paused. "I mean, he went to my school, but I didn't really know him at all. His name was Warren, I think he may have been-"

The name seemed to shock Chloe though, because her composure broke and she cut in, "Whoah, what - Warren? Like, uh, the fucking nerdy kid? Max's friend?"

Victoria shrugged, although that seemed about right. It was hard to compare him to any living person she knew with his eye socket shattered and all, but she thought she'd seen him hanging out with Max sometimes. "I think so."

"Fuck."

What was even the feeling on her face? Anger? Frustration? Exasperation? What was it. It wasn't grief to be sure, but it was wildly more emotional than she'd expected towards someone Chloe had referred to as 'the nerdy kid.'

"I just . . . I literally just met him last night when Max . . . fuck."

Oh, maybe that was it. That dislocation of reality that comes when something that is here one moment is gone the next. Victoria hadn't managed to get angry about it yet. Not yet.

"But you guys. You two, you um," Chloe was struggling to get something out, so Victoria just stared at her silently until she could get it, "you two are, you know, alive! You're okay. Is the school okay? Like, everything inland, it probably didn't get hit so hard, right?"

Victoria shook her head. "We weren't in town. We were on a camping trip. I don't even know how we got here."

"Oh." She'd been pacing a little bit, but Chloe stopped. "So we don't know if . . . anyone in town is okay. We've just got one dead boy."

Victoria nodded. The gesture brought an awful, metallic taste to her mouth though. It made her want to vomit. "Yeah," she replied. "Just him so far."

"Fuck." Chloe looked over at the other two girls. Max had given her sweatshirt to Kate, who looked like she'd stopped crying and stopped holding onto Max, though Max was still petting her wet hair and talking just low enough that Victoria couldn't hear a word of what she was saying.

Chloe shook her head vigorously, as if snapping herself out of some spell. "Fuck, okay. We've got to look for others. A huge fucking storm can't just show up and nobody survives in like, their bathtub or something. And, shit, you're probably like hypothermic, aren't you? Fuck, I'm sorry, I just . . . come on, let's get in the car and go. I have a heater. Come on."

After she had been so calm, why was Chloe so shaken up so suddenly? What was the difference to her between two alive girls and a dead boy in a broken town and a dead boy in a broken town? But even though she started shouting, her voice was unsteady.

"Hey Max!" she called, "can you drive? You can drive, right? They're fucking freezing, can you just - can you drive and turn the heater on? I'll sit in the back. Please. Just. I want to see the Two Whales."

The Two Whales? That shit diner was right next to the beach. Considering how this whole area looked (and it couldn't look that much better), it probably didn't even have a roof anymore. Why would she want to go there?

Despite her silent misgivings, soon Victoria, Kate, and Max were squished into the truck's seating while Chloe sat on the edge of the truck bed, heat blasting as they worked their way slowly through the ruined town.

The scene driving through the town was worse. It didn't have the shock of disbelief like that first image of the town, laid to waste but still intangible. No, soon the buildings stopped even resembling what they had once been to Victoria at all, they were just scene backdrops to a mass murder. There will people dead in the road. There were arms sticking out of the rubble, unmoving (there is nothing we can do - we just have to wait for help to come. We can't unbury everyone). Victoria didn't recognize them, although most of them were still intact enough to be recognizable. That was, at least, until they found Evan, his clothes torn, body half-thrown through the window of a boutique (No, don't stop. I watched him die. He was taking pictures, and he just wouldn't run. Something hit his head - I, I never saw what. He's dead, I'm sorry).

Soon enough, they were parked outside of the Two Whales. About a third of it, as well as a chunk of the parking lot, was crushed underneath a display boat from a nearby boating store. The gross RV that used to hang out at the beach and in the Blackwell parking lot had rammed its way in the corner. It still had a roof, but . . .

Chloe jumped out of the truck bed before Max had even parked the car. "I'm going to see if Mom's here, just real quick, okay?" Then she rushed around the back, looking for a way in.

Max turned towards Kate and Victoria once she'd pulled out the keys. Kate just gripped her knees and said nothing, while Victoria was doing her best not to look at either of them.

"I'm going to go with her," Max said, unbuckling her seat belt and leaving without another word.

There was silence for a while. At least they weren't so wet and cold now.

"Victoria?" Kate asked.

"Hmm?"

"Nothing feels real. I feel like they're not really in there. I don't even feel real."

There was a scream somewhere deep inside Victoria. It had burrowed its way inside her after the horror had ripped her insides out, and now it sat just below her chest, demanding that she let it go. But she didn't know how. She didn't know how to do anything.

"I think we're real," Victoria replied. She'd dealt with dissociating people before, but she didn't know how to even muster the energy. She wished she could disbelieve everything she was seeing. But she didn't. It was all real. Everything was gone.

"Victoria, will you hold me?"

Victoria only nodded, familiar with this exercise from Nathan and Taylor, trying to comfort even when she was powerless to fix anything. Kate scooted closer, putting her feet up on the seat so Victoria could wrap her arms around her.

And that is how they stayed until they heard a scream another minute later. It was bloodcurdling, more enraged than frightened, unlike anything Victoria had ever heard. After a second of hesitation, Victoria opened her door and hopped out. "I'm going to make sure they're all right. Stay here. I'll be right back."

Kate nodded, looking too exhausted to even be afraid of whatever they might have found, and Victoria closed the door behind her. As Victoria approached the stairs of the front entrance (just to see through one of the windows), Max's indistinct voice came through.

"I can't, Chloe. There's no way. I ripped up the photo and it's gone. This wasn't a trade I could make, Chloe, it's a fucking hurricane."

"Max, please. Please, she's my mom. You've got to try. You've got to have more photos from Monday. I can't . . . I can't do this."

"Killing you isn't going to bring back your mom, Chloe! Okay? You were who I could save, the only-"

"Don't - don't touch me. I. I get what you're saying, okay, I just . . . I'm saying it's worth a shot. It's worth any shot, just please go back one more time."

"I won't, Chloe. I'm not going to just watch you die over and over. Even Kate and Victoria are alive, okay - I can't. I can't just throw this away."

This was blowing up. As far as Victoria knew, they were the only four survivors in Arcadia Bay. They couldn't be fighting right now - and Victoria didn't even know what these two were fighting about. She knocked on the wall outside one of the windows hard enough that they should hear, and a few seconds later,  Chloe brought her face to the window, and found Victoria out on the steps.

"We should go," Victoria said.

Once they were all back to the car, they were quick to agree where to check next. It was deep in town, not too far from where the hills started. It was at a higher elevation than almost everything else. Blackwell could still be okay, and their classmates with it. Most of them, at least.

Suffice it to say, they did not really expect their guess to be correct. They expected to find Blackwell shredded like the rest of the town, the fountain statue torn down, the trees smashed through the windows of their dorms. But they didn't. It was nothing like that at all.

Amidst the wastes of Arcadia Bay, Blackwell Academy was still entirely intact. A light breeze wafted through the trees, and the haunting silence that covered the rest of the town was interrupted here by the merry bubbling of the fountain, audible even from the road in this quiet.

Something had protected Blackwell from the storm, and somehow, that only left Victoria more afraid.

[meditatemoremedicateless]

Life in Snippets: An Adventure

Summary: Max and Victoria take a daytrip down to Portland to buy Max new clothes (Courtney wasn’t so happy with the outfit Max wore to her first Vortex Club function). After a surprisingly romantic time at the mall, they have ice cream on a hill at Council Crest Park. Things will never be the same between them.

Words: 6,083

Major Tags: Chasefield, Marshfield, Fluff, trans!Victoria, nb!Max

Tagged: @mute-frisk​ @red-zora​ @melonishus​ @priestessamy​ (I think you’ll like this story, Amy, it’s very gay).

Read on AO3 or ff.net

The Page Before: “Friends?”

September 7, 11:20am

Victoria was almost done putting on her face by the time she heard the knock on her door. That must be her.

"Come in, Max," she called, not looking away from the mirror she used on her desk.

The door opened, and there was a bit of hesitation before it closed. Then, "Hey Victoria."

Sure, Victoria couldn't see her, but she knew exactly what Max would be wearing. A t-shirt or tank top along with that infernal sweat shirt, despite the fact that it had been in the high seventies for the entire month. Max never wore anything different, like Taylor before she had discovered sundresses went with jackets. Luckily, Victoria had prepared for this inevitability.

"There's clothes on the bed for you. You and Courtney are the same size, I'm pretty sure, so everything should fit you fine. I'll do your makeup in a sec."

There was no shuffling to get dressed behind her, so Victoria figured Max must be confused. Then Max said, "Uhh? I mean, aren't we going to buy clothes? Why would I need nice clothes or makeup to buy nice clothes and makeup?"

Victoria sighed, setting down her brush and turning in her chair. Of course, Max was dressed precisely as Victoria had imagined, though she didn't think she'd seen the creepy Silence of the Lambs t-shirt before. Gross. Max absolutely could not be left to her own devices.

"Because, Max, we have to see if the nice clothes will look nice on you. That means you should already be wearing something nice so we can see if it'll match. Of course, these aren't your clothes, but they'll at least give us some ideas as we go along. As for the makeup, I want to know how you'll look in total when we go out. And I get that you don't really wear makeup, fine, but if you're going to start going to parties and meeting famous photographers and talking to nice galleries, you're going to have to look more . . . put together."

Max pouted, shoulders sagging as if she was planning on dragging her hands over the ground all day. She said, "I mean, it seems a little misogynist if people are only going to take me seriously when I look nice."

Victoria rolled her eyes. "Of course it is, Max. The world is a sexist place, doubly so in industries about appearances. We're not about to change that when nobody even knows our names."

Max crossed her arms over her chest, but gave no protest. "Fine," she responded, "I'll wear Courtney's clothes."

"Thank you Victoria," Victoria chimed as she turned back around to face the mirror.

"'Thank you Victoria,'" Max repeated, and then the shuffling of clothes being pulled off and replaced began.

Once Max had apparently replaced her shirt, Max started to talk over the sound of her zipper. "So, how'd you get so good at all this? Looking good, I mean. I never really got how girls just seemed to pick it up."

Victoria was satisfied with her face, so she moved on to her eyes. "Youtube, mostly, and my mom. I can't really say I had a choice."

Max was done, but there was still a lot of jangling. Moving change between pants, maybe? "What do you mean?"

Hmm, that's right. Max really might not know. She doesn't have much reason to. "Well, you see, my doctor was a real bitch. Back when I was fifteen, and I was looking to get hormones, my doctor refused to prescribe them until I had 'lived experience' as a woman. And, in his eyes, I guess that meant having long hair, wearing skirts every day, and learning to contour, because that's what it took. I had no fucking clue there were even standards of care at the time. I thought that was procedure."

Max was done changing, so she sat down on the bed next to Victoria's desk. "Wow . . . that's some bullshit," she said.

"Don't I know it." Victoria smirked, swiveling her chair to face Max with one eye mostly done, so the left side of her face looked much heavier. "But hey, don't I make such a pretty girl now?"

Victoria swiveled back to her mirror, expecting no response. However, she could see Max nodding out of the corner of her eye. Max said aloud, though so quietly Victoria wasn't sure she knew she was speaking, "You really do."

Victoria refrained from talking further, or looking Max in the eye for a minute until she was done. Once her composure returned, though, she turned towards Max again. "Come on, I'll do you and then we'll go."

"I still don't see why we have to go all the way to Portland," Max whined from the passenger's seat.

They were just passing through Tillamook, the most depressing county seat imaginable, and Victoria was taking the time to enjoy the low speed limit by leaning into the wind out of her window.

Victoria glanced at Max, unable to comprehend literally a single idea that came out of Max's mouth. "Are you serious right now? You spent what, a quarter of your life in Seattle before moving back to this hick ass county and you don't see why we'd go to a city to go shopping?"

Max shrugged. "There are boutiques in the county with nice clothes."

It was kind of dangerous to emote too much while driving, so Victoria settled for a "Uuuuugggghhhhh," followed up with a, "No, they have hand-stitched sundresses made by old grandmas and secondhand Urban Outfitter designs with Navajo patterns on them. God, Max, did you even leave your house while you were in Washington?"

Now Max looked annoyed. "Yes, Victoria. I was just never very interested in vanity."

Victoria grinned, putting on a more nasally voice, "'I'm not like other girls.'"

"Got that right," Max laughed, the annoyance disappearing from her face as fast as it had appeared.

"Well," Victoria said, "maybe you should have. Vanity suits you."

Max was still smiling, though an unfamiliar look crept onto her face. She was hard to read, given how little she ever animated. "You think so?" she asked.

"Would I be buying you clothes if I didn't?"

Max sunk back into her seat, elbow up on the window sill, though hers wasn't rolled down all the way. She looked cocky. It was a good look on her, just like Courtney's clothes were. Max could be cute. It was too bad she didn't seem to know that.

September 7, 2:52pm

It had been like an hour. It turned out Max had bigger commitment issues with clothes than Courtney's dad had to her mom.

"Yes! Okay, yes, it's cute. God, okay, Max, it's gorgeous, just please, please decide on something to buy."

Max had eschewed everything too feminine once they'd arrived at Pioneer Place and started going through the clothing stores. Victoria had never really been interested in men's fashion, beyond the extent she'd had to wear a suit on occasion after turning twelve or so for gallery showings and things like that. It was hard trying to mash up her stylistic preferences along with Max's absolute assertion that her pants be from the men's section, because 'they're so comfy, and the pockets are endless!' They'd spent the better part of the hour switching between clingy, arms-length shirts and tops, ignoring Max's interest in a leather jacket. Nobody wore a fucking leather jacket in Arcadia Bay or at art events and it would just look weird.

Max's head cocked to the side curiously. She didn't seem frustrated, which was how she had responded the past six times or so Victoria had announced that an outfit was adequate. "Do you really think it's gorgeous?" she asked.

Victoria sighed, slumping back against the changing room hall's wall. Max was trying on a striped, slightly see-through shirt very similar to Courtney's preferred casual look, though she'd paired it with a cardigan with thick, contrasting lines around the edges. Max looked pretty, very pretty, but like everything else, she was concerned that it was too girlish. Victoria put her hand to her temple where a headache was rapidly coming on. "Yes, Max, I do. You look good in everything - you're skinny and small, so everything fits you, you look a little professional but not so much that you're overdoing it, the cardigan even matches your lipstick, and while you may have no butt, you're wearing boy jeans, so it's not like anyone would notice if you did."

Max's mouth pinched into a point. It looked a little silly with how her lipstick was smeared (she touched her face constantly), but Victoria could tell she was mulling something over. She turned back around to her stall, looking herself over again.

"Are you sure I'm pretty enough? Like this works?"

Victoria had never seen Max like this. It was no wonder that she avoided vanity - it seemed to make her distressed very easily.

Victoria took a few steps forward so Max could see her face in the mirror. "Of course you're pretty, Max. You were pretty the whole time. I think the thing that's bothering you is that you don't want to be pretty."

"What do you mean?" Max asked, clearly confused.

Victoria exhaled slowly, trying to gather her thoughts. She pinched her own sweater, trying to make an example. "Look," she said, "beauty is all about gender conformity, right? People find women beautiful when they highlight everything about them that is meant to mark them as women. The beauty is in the binary, and you hate that."

Max turned around slowly. As Max looked up at her, Victoria became keenly aware of the short distance between them. Max was so pretty. But was it wrong of Victoria to try and make her be? Even if, from every angle she looked at it, she was looking out for Max?

"But don't you hate that?" Max asked. She didn't seem upset, like Victoria had expected. She seemed . . . gentle. Hesitant. Meek, even, like an animal trying to guess whether Victoria were friendly or not.

Victoria swallowed, then nodded. "I mean, of course I do, Max. But I also love being beautiful, and I love people knowing that I'm beautiful. Wanting it to be some other way doesn't make it so."

Max's eyebrows furrowed as she got lost in thought, staring right past Victoria. A woman pushed past them with a huge handful of items, entering the stall at the end. After a pause, Victoria laid a hand on Max's shoulder to get her attention. When Max looked back up, remembering that she was there, Victoria said quietly, "You know what I did almost as soon as I could walk freely after my bottom surgery? When I didn't need any more approval from any more doctors and any more therapists to look like myself?"

Max shook her head.

Victoria reached up, running her fingers through her cropped hair. "I cut off all my hair. I had grown it out for four years. I styled it almost every day. And as soon as I could, I chopped it all off and bleached it." Victoria paused for a second, then continued, "I always hated having long hair."

Max raised her hand slowly, hesitantly, towards Victoria's hair. She paused partway, as if asking for approval, and Victoria nodded.

As she ran her hand through Victoria's hair, she whispered, "That's too bad. I think I would like your hair long . . . it's so beautiful." Sensing Victoria's discomfort, perhaps, Max continued, "But that's not for me to decide."

Victoria wanted to kiss Max, she knew that much. She couldn't tell if it was because of how delicate Max's touch was, or the way she was looking into her eyes, or that Victoria had revealed something personal, or just that they were so close. Victoria had this impulse sometimes, of course, but she'd never known how to act on it. The only girl she had ever kissed . . . she had seen it in her eyes, Victoria was sure. She couldn't imagine any other reason why else she would have kissed her.

"Is it okay if I pick out another outfit for you?" Max asked, dropping her hand from Victoria's hair.

Victoria smiled. It helped diffuse that knot inside her, the one that pulled tighter every time something like this happened. "Of course." Beat. "No promises I'll buy it, though."

Max grinned, and that broke the tension, finally. "That's fair," she replied.

They spent the next twenty minutes or so flitting all over the women's section, although that composed about half of the entire floor they were on, with Max only stopping long enough at a rack to hold something over Victoria's body for a second. She seemed to know exactly what she was looking for - whatever it was, it was red. Red on black? Hmm, no, it looked like Max gave up on that idea rather fast. But after twenty minutes of this mad dash, Max was only holding three additional pieces of clothing from before - a red dress, white lace stockings, and red heels maybe three inches tall.

"Are you - are you seriously going to make me wear heels?" Victoria asked, once Max actually took the box with them. "I'll be a giant."

Max had already starting walking out of the shoe section, but she paused just long enough to look over her shoulder and say almost snidely, "Well, yeah, but a fucking hot one." And then she just kept walking, heels in hand.

Well, all right then, Victoria thought, lagging behind for a moment before jogging to catch up.

"Wait, where are we going now?" Victoria asked. They were headed to a part of the store they hadn't come to at all in the past hour and a half.

"To the part of the men's section where they have suits," Max replied.

Victoria stopped dead in her tracks - it was a pace or two before Max followed suit, turning back towards Victoria.

"Max," Victoria said cautiously, "I haven't worn any men's clothing since I was fourteen."

Max nodded in reply. "Yeah. And I haven't worn a dress since I was thirteen. But you dressed me up like a girl, and now I'm going to dress you a little more nonbinary."

"But I don't know if I'd ever wear something like that," Victoria protested.

"Fair, fair," Max said, taking a step back towards Victoria. "But you'd look killer in a suit."

And she did. The suit was red like her dress and her heels, which was a little too much for Victoria, but she couldn't pretend that she didn't look good. It was bright, and in your face, and it made her butt look good, and it was something she would absolutely never wear, and it made her look huge, and it also made her look hot. Very hot. Even Max's face told her that much.

"I . . . I don't know," Victoria said. It wasn't a custom suit like she would have wanted were she to buy one, and a good three hundred dollars cheaper than any suit she'd ever worn before. Moreover, it was a goddamn suit, and she couldn't think of a place she'd go where she'd be caught dead in it.

Max answered, "Oh, you know. You know."

Victoria's voice rose in pitch as she got more distressed, "I know it looks good, I do, but I feel like this suit is walking imposter's syndrome and I'm so huge with this and the heels."

Max's voice was softer when she replied. "Is it too much?" she asked. "We can stop. You don't have to buy it. I think I just . . . wanted to make something beautiful I wasn't so scared of."

Victoria turned back towards her changing room mirror, taking a step closer to it. She fluffed up her hair. She pulled her jacket taut. She turned to one side, and then the other. Then she just hummed quietly to herself. "I guess I could have it tailored," she said, thinking aloud.

In the mirror, Max's face brightened. "Really? You'll buy it?"

Victoria nodded, exhaling loudly. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. It's only fair, right? Well, in the kind of fair where I have fuck-tons of money for clothes, but yeah."

Max grinned as Victoria turned back around. "Now let me get changed," Victoria said, Max stepping back as she closed the door.

By the time she'd taken the suit jacket off and stepped out of her heels, there was a knock at the door.

"Yeah Max?"

"Victoria . . . do you like me?"

The knot in Victoria's chest returned suddenly, the rope of nervousness brushing over her neck in warning. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean, are you attracted to me?"

Tighter. "What . . . what's bringing this on?"

"I'm very attracted to you. I mean, I haven't been doodling our names in little hearts in my notebook but I . . . like you."

Tighter. "Well I . . ." tighter. "I like you too, Max. You kind of fascinate me."

There was a little chuckle from outside, and then Max responded, "I'm glad."

There was a pause, and then Max's voice appeared again, "Victoria. Would you like to have sex with me?"

Victoria thought she might choke. "Uhhh," Victoria mumbled, then, "like, right now?"

Max only said, "Yeah."

Oh god. Oh my fucking god. She wants to have sex in the changing room. Do I want to have sex with her? Okay, okay, fine, I'm a little curious, but here? Seriously? Okay, wait, maybe that's fine. I've seen like two people come in this whole time, and I can totally masturbate quietly, at least. Am I seriously going to fuck Max in a changing room? What if she's joking? What if I say yes and she's actually joking? Will she make fun of me? But what if I take it as a joke and she's not joking?

"You still there?" Max asked.

"Uhhhhh yeah. Hold on."

After a second longer of hesitation, Victoria unlatched the door and pulled it open. Max stood there, no different from before, in her freaky t-shirt and faded jeans. This was nothing like the first time. This wasn't a seduction. This was . . . curiosity. For both of them.

"Can I kiss you?" she asked. It was soft, forceless, like when she'd reminded Victoria they didn't have to buy the suit. It was different. This was definitely different.

Victoria nodded, and Max stepped forward, standing on her toes as she held Victoria's face and kissed her. The first kiss was soft, just warm and gentle and hesitant. They barely knew each other. Their bodies weren't familiar with each other. That was only to be expected. But the second kiss was hard, and Victoria inhaled sharply in surprise. By the time it was over, Victoria was panting, and she could taste lipstick.

"Oh."

Max stepped in as Victoria took a step back, and the door was latched behind them a second later. Then Victoria was up against the mirror, the glass cool against her legs and neck while Max was very, very warm. Why wouldn't she be? She was always wearing that damn sweat shirt. Oh, nevermind, that was the first thing to go.

As Max's kisses started anew on Victoria's neck, she blurted out, "I've wanted you this whole time." It almost sounded like a whine. Victoria wasn't even sure why she said it.

Max pulled back, blinking a few times in rapid succession. Then she said, "Me too."

Victoria hadn't taken off any of her clothes (she didn't even know if she was going to), but she felt naked, exposed when the truth was out there instead of in her hand. That was how the knot stayed so tight, but it was also what kept her from unraveling. Being in total control of her feelings was her way of being in total control of herself.

Max made a twirling motion with her finger, and then said, "Turn around."

Victoria obeyed, turning until Max's hand fell on her hip, stopping her. The zipper on the back of Victoria's dress started coming undone, and after it, a trail of kisses down Victoria's spine. No, this was nothing like the first time. That had been so . . . sloppy, so careless. Max kissed every notch on Victoria's spine, and nothing felt like the first time.

Victoria's dress was on the floor, and Max's kisses finally ended. There must be pink spots all over Victoria's skin. They really should have used lipstick that didn't come off so easy.

"Why don't you sit down?" Max whispered. "It'll be easier."

Victoria complied. She was nervous. Although this was what she wanted, there was still that little voice telling her that something could go wrong, that Max wouldn't like her, that there would be regrets. As Max's fingers hooked into the band of her underwear, Victoria caught her hands, halting everything for a second. Max looked up at her, unsure of whether or not that was a sign to stop.

"Let me . . . let me do it," Victoria said, and Max dropped her hands as Victoria slid her underwear onto the floor. Victoria swallowed, and said, "Kiss me."

Confusion - finally something! - emerged on Max's face. "Where?" she asked.

Victoria covered her mouth as she giggled, then said, "My mouth, you ass."

Max stood up from her crouch, bracing herself on the bench as she leaned over. "Well, hey, it was a little unclear, okay?"

"Okay," Victoria said, knotting her fingers in Max's hair as they kissed.

Then the kiss broke from their lips, and down Max went her neck, her chest, her stomach, her navel, her-

"You're going to get your lipstick everywhere," Victoria wined. It was already smeared all over Max's face.

Max only smiled, lowering face so that Victoria couldn't see her mouth anymore. "I don't give a fuck about my lipstick," she said, and then Victoria gasped.

September 7, 4:16pm

Max seemed to take the 'eating' part of 'eating ice cream' very seriously. Victoria was pretty sure she'd never seen someone older than six actually try and bite ice cream, and here was Max doing it in rapid succession.

"Oh my God," Victoria exclaimed, "doesn't that hurt your teeth?"

Max licked her lips and then responded, "Why would it hurt my teeth?"

"Because it's cold."

"Why would something being cold hurt my teeth?"

Victoria gave her the most neutral stare she could muster. "Because that's how it works."

Max shrugged, returning to her sugar cone. "Not for me."

They were sitting off the trail somewhere at Council Crest park, whose reviews included several recommendations to make out on the hills. Victoria had no idea if that's what they were here to do, really, but none of the other parks had that even suggested in their reviews. Plus, it had a fantastic view of the city, and that was the most important thing. The view always reminded Victoria of the Japanese gardens - it was too bad they didn't have time to visit on their day trip.

"So," said Max, "if I join the Vortex club after this, does that technically count as nepotism?"

God, Max was a messy eater, and it was distracting. She had ice cream on her cheek in two places - who does that at age eighteen? "You've got a little something, Max, here," Victoria said, swirling a finger on her own cheek.

"Huh? Oh, thanks."

"And as for your question - the Vortex Club doesn't pride itself on its democratic merits. It's more about rising to the nobility, you know, feudalism style."

Max's eyes popped way open sarcastically as she kept eating. "Oh, wow, that sounds totally awesome. Feudalism. Love that."

Victoria shrugged. "It is what it is?"

Max laughed at that and said, "Oh, of course, as long as you're on top 'it is what it is.'"

Victoria stuck her spoon in her mouth for a second, letting the ice cream melt in her mouth for a second. Then she replied, "Yep. And that's how you'll think when you're on top, too."

Max glanced at Victoria side-eye, a smirk on her face for a silent second. Then she shrugged. "Nah. Can't say I'm into that. That's how you get stuff like capitalism, art snobbery, and . . . gender." Max shivered at that last word.

Victoria accepted that in stride. "Those are like my favorite things, Max. I love being an art snob. I was born - no, made to be an art snob."

"You're going to be great at it," Max said, nodding.

"Thanks, jerk," Victoria said, pushing Max's shoulder so she toppled over. Luckily, the ice cream stayed on its cone.

Once Max sat herself back up, she said, "See? See the violence inherent in the system? The oppression? Workers of the world unite, we-"

Victoria reached out again, but this time she grabbed Max's jacket. "Please shut up," she interrupted, and scooted closer to Max to kiss her. It was cold, and public, and just another thing she had never done, and it felt good.

They were both quiet after the kiss, returning to their ice cream. Well, in Max's case, finish chewing the cone, but that technically counted.

When she finished it, though, and there was nothing left to distract her, Max asked, "So, is that it? Are we friends who kiss sometimes now?"

Victoria shrugged. "I'm not the one who decided to toss a casual friendship aside to fuck in a changing room - I feel like you can answer that question better than I can."

Max laid back on the grass. It was shady where they sat, but Victoria could already tell Max was getting a sunburn. She was one of those people with pale skin who just got murdered by the sun, it seemed. Maybe that was why she kept the sweatshirt on all the time. "Hmm," Max hummed. "When I got accepted to Blackwell, I knew I'd only be coming back for a year. After that, it was college and a career, places where my decisions might matter, but here? The worst that could happen is I feel awkward around someone for a year, and then I'd never see them again. So I decided I wanted to be a slut while I still could."

Victoria nearly spit out her ice cream as she started laughing. Lucky that there wasn't enough for big bites left in the cup, perhaps. Max? Max wanted to be a slut? But she was so . . . well, not what Victoria pictured when she pictured a slut.

As Victoria settled down, she asked, "So what? This was your first pit stop on your adventure to be a slut?"

Now that the humor was starting to wear off, Victoria wasn't sure how she felt about that. It made her feel . . . cheap. It was a familiar feeling, and precisely the one Victoria had been hoping to avoid when she'd agreed to it. Then again, what else was she expecting of Max, exactly? What else did she even want out of her?

"I don't know," Max said after a short pause. "I don't think that's it. I wasn't kidding when I said I liked you. But I also . . . want to be kind of reckless, you know? And I'm not sure if you noticed but our classmates are kind of hot."

Victoria hadn't noticed that, actually. Every beautiful person in a place like Arcadia Bay was rare, and their beauty and rarity made them dangerous in a place like this. It was always clear that they didn't belong - to themselves, and to the people around them.

Still, Victoria was getting the impression she knew Max even less than she had thought. "I get that you want to be reckless and all, and that this place is a dumpster you can just as well set fire to as you leave, but your actions still have consequences, Max. I don't mean to sound like an abstinence-only sex educator just . . . I don't know. Things can get pretty fucked up in a year, you know?"

Max laughed, turning to look up straight at Victoria. Even back in her old clothes, Max looked beautiful under the dappled sunlight. Victoria hadn't seen her eyes in the light before, really, but they were . . . good. "Actually, you sound more like Kate Marsh."

Victoria grimaced. That was even worse. "God, fine, I take it back. Fuck everybody, no regrets."

Max's chuckle continued, but she quieted down faster this time. "That's not an insult, you know. I like her."

Seriously? How are Max and I even friends, I swear to God. "Really? You don't find her, you know, irritating? Stuck up? Bitchy?"

"Nah," Max said, dismissing Victoria off-hand. "She seems sweet. Genuine. Really smart. And a little gay, question mark?"

What. "What? What makes you say that?"

"She kind of asked me out on a date, maybe." Max's face pinched. "I'm not sure, but if she weren't Christian I definitely would think it was a date."

Well, that's unexpected. Victoria wasn't sure if that made her like Kate more or less. There was always a little bit of distrust she held for queer Christians, though she hadn't examined it very deeply. If she actually took the time to ask herself, a part of her knew it was how invalid her anger felt in the face of faith, but she carefully did not ask herself.

A question appeared in Victoria's mind. She knew she shouldn't ask it - it would make her seem attached in a way she most certainly did not want to. It came out anyway. "So, this maybe date. What is it?"

Max looked up at the branches of the tree instead of at Victoria's face. "Kate's taking me to a coffee shop downtown tomorrow. She wants to study together, but it's for a class we haven't had any graded assignments in yet, and I clearly don't know what's going on. So I think she's just taking me out for coffee or tea because . . . gay?"

There was a short pause in which Victoria didn't know what to say. Luckily, Max was quick to fill in the gap in conversation. "What's your deal with her, anyway? It's like you disliked her on sight."

That wasn't true. Victoria had at first decided she simply didn't care one way or another about one of the new girls of photography. It wasn't until the end of class the first day that Victoria had settled on disliking her, and the reason was painfully obvious and obviously petty. Kate had taken Mr. Jefferson's TA role. Moreover, she had acted like she didn't even want, like she was doing it just to help out. No one was altruistic without motivation, especially when it came to the rich and famous. Victoria hated people who pretended to be better than they were.

"I guess . . ." Victoria started, but she had no ending for that sentence. What could she even say without sounding childish? "Everything she says seems too good. Like, practiced, 'please notice what a pure flower I am.' Real people aren't like that. They fuck up and have shitty ideas."

"Hmm," Max hummed. Then, she rolled on her side, forcing Victoria to turn a little to look her in the eye. "So what you're saying is that you think she's perfect, and that pisses you off."

"Ew, no. Fuck off." Max was starting to get on her nerves a little, prying a little too close. This was one of the main reasons why Taylor and Courtney were so easy to spend time with - they didn't ask questions they didn't need the answers to. Most of the time, Nathan was like that too - and even better, he didn't divulge things he didn't need to, either.

Well. Victoria couldn't pretend it had been easy to spend time with Nathan lately, exactly.

Max shrugged, dropping onto her back. "Suit yourself," she said, "but I think you'd actually like her, if you talked to her. She doesn't talk much, but when you get her going - well, she knows a shit-ton, I guess I'll just say that."

Victoria didn't want to hear this. "Max. If I kiss you and you promise not to overthink it once this trip's over, will you please shut up about Kate Marsh?"

"Hm. Deal."

This was going to get grass stains all over Victoria's clothes. And even if she'd asked Max not to overthink it, Victoria knew she'd be tearing this whole trip apart long after she'd washed the stains from her clothes and the lipstick from her skin.

September 7, 7:10pm

As she pulled into the parking lot at Blackwell, the nervousness that had begun to grow throughout the trip back reached a head. Victoria had just had a very strange day with Max, and she wasn't sure what it ending meant. Max would finally have something to wear to Vortex Club stuff, so Courtney would finally feel comfortable letting her in. That was good. Victoria was pretty sure that was good.

As they both reached into the back for their bags, Max paused. "You know," she said, "I've never done anything like today. I hope it was okay."

Victoria didn't know what to say to that, really. It was so hard for her to tell what Max was feeling - when their eyes met, Max's eyes were almost just the same neutral, and Victoria never knew what came next. "Yeah, I haven't . . . either." A half truth. "But I think it was okay. I think we're . . ." we're what? What are you even trying to say? "In the clear."

"Yeah," Max agreed, settling back into her chair with her bag in her lap. As she reached for her door, though, Victoria tapped her shoulder, trying to get her attention before Max left, and they were actually, really back at school.

Max looked back. If she knew what was coming, Victoria couldn't tell. She just leaned over the seat and kissed Max, and Max kissed her back. She brought her hands up to Victoria's hair, holding her in longer than Victoria had planned for.

Neither of them wanted their day trip to end. It felt like an entirely different car trip than the one they'd set out on.

Would things go back to normal after this? Or would this 'one more kiss' feeling linger in their classes, when they met in the hallway, at parties? If it did, what then?

Before Max left the car, she said, "Thanks for buying me the clothes. They're really pretty."

And all Victoria had to say in response was, "Yeah, of course."

And their trip was over.

[meditatemoremedicateless]

Trans Victoria is . . . Amazing