The remainder of my afternoon went as a bit of a blur. I was surprised by how good, if tense, a time I had with Snake’s gang. There was a sense of peace that kind of overtook me from how quickly Dean and Lukas had switched to thinking of Snake and me as girls. A bit surreal even, but I was better off counting my blessings and hoping for it to always go this smoothly, even if I blatantly knew that wouldn’t be the case.
The potion wore off for me hours before we’d estimated it would for Snake, courtesy of her double dose, so I waved them all goodbye while they stuck around at their lair waiting for their chief to be able to go home in boy mode. The journey back home was uneventful, and after I’d arrived I even found within myself some unknown energy to do part of my homework for once, mentally preparing myself for what I had to announce at the dinner table. I felt proud of myself - was I finally getting back to my studious habits?
On Sunday morning, as soon as I was done gulping down my breakfast, dressing in the usual tee plus jeans combo and packing my backpack in case I felt the drive to finish my homework, I was out the door and I walked to the alchemist’s mansion. After I rang the doorbell, I had to wait a dozen seconds before getting to hear a key turn in the lock and the door opening, revealing Lucille still in fleece nightwear, allowing me to add late riser to the list of things I knew about her.
“Oh Jamie, you’re here early. How’d it go with your parents?” She asked, sidestepping to let me enter.
“Well, I did stutter a lot I guess, but your plan worked like a charm, so, uh… Thanks.” I gave her a warm smile, to which she replied with a grin and a thumbs up despite the tiredness.
“Well, you can go wait in the game room while I finish my breakfast. Don’t make too much noise though, I have a couple guests still sleeping.” She dragged her feet back in her kitchen with a yawn, while I climbed the stairs and installed myself in the room Snake and I had been in yesterday. I unpacked my potion from my bag, took a dose and comfortably settled in my girl form as I grabbed a controller and turned on the console.
It was about a half hour later that I heard the door rattle and someone coming in the room. I quickly threw a glance backwards in between two punches, spotting Snake, already in her mixed-strength girl form, sporting a gauze on her nose and her left cheek. I paused the game and stood up in shock, closing the distance and hugging her. “Gosh, Snake, what happened?”
She was surprised for a moment, before returning the hug and ending it just as quickly. “Nothing I didn’t expect.” was her cryptic answer.
Even though she refused to directly say it, I could still connect the dots. So, it hadn’t gone well with her parents. I let my gaze fall to the floor, holding her hands in mine. “I am so sorry.”
Snake clicked her tongue. “It’s whatever. I can handle it. I’m just living here now is all, it changes nothing else.” I could tell to the tone of her voice that she wasn’t believing in what she was saying, but I couldn’t blame her. All I could do was offer another hug, before we sat back down on the couch together. “As for you?”
“Mom was a bit weird about it at first, but after I drank the potion, she seemed to understand a bit better. I think she bought some books on the internet about it so she can research it herself. Also…” I zipped open my bag and pulled out one of the few dietary complement drinks that I’d shoved in it. “I’m on these now. So I stop being scrawny.” Putting it back in the bag, I sighed and dug my back deeper into the couch. “So much easier to care about my health now that I actually like what I get to be.”
Snake nodded in understanding. She certainly showed me more empathy than ever before. “Gonna actually get off the bench in sports class now?”
I thought it over before offering a meek smile. “Maybe? Let’s keep to baby steps for now. What about you, isn’t it gonna make you feel too boyish?”
“Oh fuck.” She replied, apparently the first time she even thought about it. “Well, the goal is that I lose my sexism, right? Can’t do that if I don’t fight back against it.” The door rattled while she was speaking, Lucille entering the room. “I’ll be fine, when I got a problem with someone I always face it head on, guess it’s just one I got with me for once.”
“Heya girls. How’s your nose this morning, Snake?” The alchemist said, leaning against the couch.
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“Feels better I think.” She replied, pulling off the bandage and revealing a mean slashing scar along her right nostril. “It doesn’t hurt anymore at least.”
Lucille crouched and looked at it a bit closer. “Yeah, looks like the medical potion did wonders. Do you wanna keep the scar? Because otherwise one or two more should suffice to heal it fully.”
Snake slid her fingers on the wound’s remains a few times. “Do I gotta decide now?”
“Nah, you’ve got, what, two months before it fully settles like that? I was asking in case you already knew.” She turned her gaze onto me. “As for you Jamie?”
I repeated what I’d said just a moment ago to Snake, showing off the bottle before putting it back in my bag.
“Good, very good. I’ve got some paperwork to go do for your transitions, mind fetching me when my other invitee wakes up?” Lucille asked, raising back up to her full height.
“Sure.” I simply replied.
Snake and I passed some time teaching her how to play video games a little better. Her muscle memory of the controller layout was starting to develop, and that allowed her to enjoy it a bit more. The self-satisfied grin on her face when she managed to reach the end goal was reward enough. Helping people was fun.
I eventually heard someone walk down the stairs, prompting me to get up from the couch and check the corridor to see if that was Lucille’s invitee. There was a man (I assumed he was a man, for he had stubble) there, looking pretty tired with some awful bed hair. As he spotted me he simply offered a wave before going down to the first floor.
As I’d already visited most of the rooms before, I managed to find Lucille’s office relatively quickly, then it took half an hour more before we all convened in the kitchen again.
We were all sat at the table, save for the alchemist who was busy taking care of the dishes of the morning. The other guest simply ate some jam bread with some coffee in some silence, before Lucille eventually cleared her throat, prompting him to look confusedly at her. She gestured toward us and he promptly gulped down his bite of bread. “...Heya.” He muttered.
After a sigh, Lucille took over for him. “Raph, this is Snake and Jamie, the two kids I talked about yesterday. Snake, Jamie, this here is Raphael, who’s the one I made the gender potion for in the first place.”
“So… That’s the dude that was a girl, but has a gay wife so he needed to be a girl again?” Snake asked, jogging her memory as she spoke.
Lucille leaned against the counter, crossing her arms. “Not the right way to put it, but yeah, that’s the person that asked me for help escaping their problems, just like they’re trying to weasel out of this conversation right now. Raph!”
“Do we really have to do this this early in the morning, Lu?” He took another bite of his meal.
“So… Does that mean he didn’t drink the potion in the end, if he’s still a guy?” I asked, tapping my fingers against the table until I realised I was doing it.
Lucille shook her head. “No, they did.”
Raphael jumped to the defensive, burying his head into his shoulders. “Come on Lu, are you really gonna drag me through the mud in front of kids?”
“Yes I am, because this is an intervention and you need to learn to actually face your problems instead of asking for magical solutions that’s only gonna make it worse for you in the long run. Too bad I had to wait until something actually bit you in the butt for you to become somewhat receptive.” Lucille turned her head towards us again. “And for you two, this is just more trans 101 lessons like yesterday. Use they/them for Raphael.”
Snake rested her head on her hand, looking somewhat bored. “Okay… But why?”
Lucille beamed, launching herself into a pre-planned explanation. “Well, some people are non-binary, means they’re neither fully a man nor fully a woman. There’s ton of different possible identities there. These people usually tend to use different pronouns, most of the time they/them-”
Snake cut her off. “Nah that I know, I saw it on the internet, I meant why, I thought they were a dude.”
She bit her lip, apparently containing disappointment over losing an occasion to teach us something as we already knew it. Her expression switched back to pensive as she looked for the right words. “Well, Snake, remember how the first time you took your body potion, you felt yourself being kind of stretched thin between what you wanted to be and what you thought you had to force yourself to be? Until much by chance it settled as somewhere in between. That’s pretty much what happened with Raph. Wanted to stay a man, thought they had to force themselves to be a woman for their wife… I’d do a second potion to switch them back to male, but I don’t trust them not to force themselves even further towards female right now.”
“Dang, can’t you give this guy a break?” Raphael replied, bringing their hand behind their head and scratching at their hair before pouting. “Okay yeah getting mildly dysphoric over calling myself a guy sucks. Much preferred the happy butterflies. Consider the lesson learned.”
Lucille heaved the deepest sigh I’ve ever heard from her yet. “Alright, alright, I’ll… Damn do the potion again if I have your trust you’ll use it to switch yourself back. Gonna take me a few months. Better use them to plan a course of action with your partner, okay?”
Raphael’s answer was a sincere, if dejected, nod.
The rest of the day resumed pretty simply, with me geeking out in the alchemist’s game room while Snake went out to spend the afternoon with her crew. Lucille and Raphael busied themselves in her office… And it was on this calm, maybe even anticlimactic note, that the most important week-end of my life ended. I don’t quite know what the future has in store for me, but now that I know I’ll get to face it head on on my own terms, with a newly found reason to care about myself… Maybe life just got that bit simpler. Picturing where I would be in a decade had always been impossible for me before, but now? The image is crystal clear.