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Neil’s relationship with gender was a complicated one.
As a child, still bound to that hell of a home, they had been the Butcher’s lovely little daughter. All freckles and icy blue eyes. Small, petite, quiet. That little girl was destined to be a silent background figure, where a woman belonged. Again and again, Nathan tried for a boy with different women, but to no avail.
Eventually, that daughter proved too bothersome, so the Butcher sought to get rid of her, start again with a son. This was where the Moriyama’s came in. She was to join the Edgar Allan Raven’s to be worth something, or die. And this little girl loved Exy, it was her freedom from every terrible thing in her life. She loved the uniform, the way it was so bulky and tough, it made her look tough. She adored the speed of it, when she ran right past the opposing striker. And, secretly, she loved the way the boys didn’t seem to realise she was a girl. Or, not that they didn’t realise, it’s that they didn’t care. They talked about Exy with her casually, complimented her play and jostled her arm with a hefty punch when she scored.
Neil supposed that is where it started.
The boys on her team treated her the same, and that was almost better than the Exy itself.
Then, Kevin and Riko. Just two boys, like the ones on her little league team back home.
Neil had met them in the middle of the court, fully geared up in red and black pads that were definitely too big for her small body, but she loved them.
“Hi,” Neil had waved.
The two boys, a few years older, turned to face this stranger on their court.
“You are Nathan Wesninski’s daughter.” The shorter of the two spoke, he wore a messily drawn one on his cheek.
The girl had blinked, feeling strange at the way they acknowledged her as a girl. The boys from her team never did that. It made her feel defensive. Angry almost.
“I am Abram, I’m here to play.” She had held up her stick, the proportion of it compared to her body was highly comical. Much too long, much too tough. That thought had made her angry again.
And, they played. She was not as skilled as these too, Kevin Day and Riko Moriyama, they were amazing. She watched them with wide eyes, astonished. They were swifter than her, stronger than her, better than her. There was jealousy, envy, she wanted that. She wanted stronger arms to throw a ball into the corner of the goal, stronger legs to push her forward faster, wider shoulders because they looked better under the armor, a lower voice to call out plays to teammates.
Eventually, the jealousy grew and grew. Her skin felt loose and wrong, like she had somebody else's skin and they had hers. Her feet on the court felt unnatural, uncomfortable.
These two didn’t clap her shoulder when she did good. They didn’t say, “Dude, you’re so fast.” or, “Can you teach me that man?”
They told her to move faster, aim better, shoot harder.
By the time they had decided to be done with her she couldn’t move. Her legs felt like they would snap under the weight of another step.
Riko pushed past her, shoving her shoulder, “If you want to make court, you need to be stronger, girly.”
That word, that insult, it got rid of all her tiredness.
She spun around, teeth bared like a pissed off animal.
“Don’t call me that!” The anger was irrational. She didn’t have a reason, it just felt like the worst thing in the world to be called that at the moment.
Riko opened his mouth to spit some more bullshit, but was interrupted by a chain of deeply unfortunate events.
That night, Mary got her daughter out of bed, told her to not make a sound and ran away with her and a bag of money. The girl had been ten.
A week later, hair freshly cut with a pocket knife, they were on a plane leaving some place for another where they said they were people that they weren’t and hid from the people that they were. The little girl sat between the window and her mother, watching skyscrapers turn into green fields. Her mother dug through the duffle at her feet and pulled to black booklets out of a side pocket, she waved them in her daughters face.
“Listen to me,” she whispered. There was an old lady asleep next to her. “You are a boy. Your name is Stefan. You are eleven years old. Repeat that to me.”
This was not a joke, but the girl laughed.
“I am a boy,” And from that moment on, ‘she’ was now a ‘he’.
Neil supposed that was the next problem, because ‘he’ wasn’t right either.
When he pretend to trip and knock down a stack off food in a service station to get the staff’s attention away from his thieving mother, he was not a he. When they said, “It’s okay, young man.” it wasn’t right.
It was better, it made his skin less loose, but not fitted.
Then, when he hit around twelve, and he could no longer hide behind a t-shirt, his mother bought him a binder. Told him, even if you can’t breathe while running, you never take it off. The only time he took it off was to shower and sleep. And he loved this binder. He never wanted to take it off, even when his lungs were going to burst, even when a bullet stained it in blood. It was his comfort. He slept in it when he got older, taking it off made him panic. Acknowledging what was hiding underneath made his throat clench and eyes sting.
So he stuck with boy for a whole eight years, through the pain and the suffering.
Then, on a beach, his mother died. Through that he was still a boy. A son who had lost his mother. A boy on his own. A boy who sat quietly at the bonfire of his mother's funeral. A boy who knew he would never forget the sound of her skin peeling off the vilnal of the seats. A boy who scattered her bones without a tear.
The one who passed out on the side of the high way, hyperventilating and unbelievably tight binder sucking all air from his lungs.
He was a boy in Millport. A boy who changed out separately from the others.
These teammates clapped his shoulder when he scored, and punched his shoulder after a win.
“Great game, son.” Coach would nod his way.
He remembered loving these things when he was little, when ‘he’ was a ‘she’. And he still did. Sort of. Because ‘he’ still wasn’t right. But when Jameson said, “Great shot, man!” it was right. But when Taylor said, “He’s the best rookie I've ever seen.” It felt so unbelievably wrong.
Yet, when Coach Wymack of the PSU Foxes showed up in his locker room, he was a tired boy who was ready to throw away everything.
All through the next year, he was a boy hiding himself and running from others. He was a boy who didn’t know how to be real, a shadow in a world of sun. When Kevin made him remember life as a girl, he felt sick. When Matt was tall and had broad shoulders and a deep voice, he felt angry.
Boy wasn’t right, but when Riko confounded him to Evermore, called him Natalia, forced him into dresses and let his hair grow out to chin length, he desperately wanted to be a boy.
When Riko took his binder and lit it on fire right in front of his eyes.
Neil had been tied up to a chair, unable to move. Riko would turn the torch on him if he closed his eyes. And he lit fire to the disgusting and old binder that Neil had loved. He screamed so loudly he lost his voice, his eyes swollen shut from crying. And Riko was laughing, laughing, laughing.
Wymack had blinked down at him when picking him up from the airport.
He had woken up in a dress, something that flowed and had flowers on it. It ended at his knees. It made him vomit. His hair was skimming his shoulders, red as his fathers. And worst of all, he was wearing a bra where his binder should be.
Wymack helped him up and into his car where he gave Neil his jacket to wrap around himself. Helped him up to his apartment. Where Neil saw his reflection. The panic that seized him was deadly. A woman stood in that mirror. A woman, like Allison. That was him, he looked like that. Wymack had seen him like that. He didn’t even notice the number on his cheek, too busy trying to cut his hair off with a pair of kitchen scissors.
Wymack hugged him on the kitchen floor but all he could feel was his skin being pulled off his skeleton.
After a shower, haircut and a change of clothes, he sat across from Wymack and explained.
“I was born a girl, Riko knows that. He knows that I- He knows how much I hate it.” He cried once more retelling had happened to his beloved binder.
Wymack had never really dealt with what he had called ‘transgender kids’ before. Neil hadn’t even known there was a word for it. Wymack sat there, a little uncomfortable, and explained it all to Neil.
“So you’re a boy.” Wymack told him.
“I don’t think so, Coach.” Neil could have easily said that, yes he was a boy, like his mother had told him. He was a boy. He said and performed it for so many years that he could have agreed. But he didn’t want to lie to Wymack again.
Wymack had stopped dead.
“I don’t know much about this, kid.” He was trying. He wasn’t yelling. “Maybe Bee would know.”
He did not want to go see the team shrink.
Coach made him see the team shrink.
In the end, she said she would get him another binder from a very credible place she knew of. Only problem was that it wouldn’t get here in time to avoid the Foxes' return. It would arrive the day after getting Andrew back.
The Foxes would know.
Kevin already knew.
But Matt would know. Would he still clap Neil on the back after a win? Punch his shoulder? Call him dude and bro, or would he be too fragile? Would Allison try to put him in a dress? Would the boys be uncomfortable with Neil changing out in the same lockerroom?
The time between then and the team's return was one of Neil never leaving Wymack’s apartment, of panic attacks and thoughts about cutting off his breasts with a kitchen knife. He imagined it vividly, Wymack’s supporting presence was all that was stopping him.
Then, finally, they arrived.
They first noticed the scars and the wounds, Dan outraged, Matt silently seething. Then, Nicky very abruptly interrupted with, “Neil, since when did you have tits?”
The world stopped. Neil couldn’t move. Everyone was staring. He couldn’t breathe- he - he couldn’t-
Matt’s heavy hands came down on his shoulders, weight comforting. Neil looked up at him. Matt was smiling.
“It’s okay dude,” He said and Neil felt the weight of the world almost wipe him off his feet. “You’re still our little shit, tits or not.”
Dan punched his shoulder for that but Neil just grinned.
Neil wasn’t big on group hugs, but that day he made an exception.
But then it was time for Andrew’s reaction and Neil had no idea what to expect. He had an idea of what Medicated Andrew might have said, a deeply insensitive joke, but without the meds, Neil with uncomfortably clueless.
But, strangely, Andrew said nothing. To anyone.
Didn’t comment on the injuries or the change in appearance.
It was not a relief. The whole ride back Neil was on edge.
Until, finally, Andrew spoke to him up on the roof.
“I didn’t think my meds were that strong.” He gestured lamely.
“I’m, um, it’s this thing call being trans-” He was getting more and more comfortable saying that.
“I know what the fuck it is, junkie.” Andrew rolled his eyes and lit a cigarette.
“Oh,”
“When I told you to keep an eye on Kevin, I didn’t mean to get tortured by Riko.” Was that then the end of the conversation? Were they never going to talk about it? For some reason, Neil wanted to talk about it, explain himself. But Andrew had no interest.
“You were supposed to be a side effect of the drug.” Andrew said.
“I’m not a hallucination.” Neil said, nonplussed.
“You’re a pipe dream.” He drawled.
And they didn’t talk about it again.
The next day, the package arrived and Neil had a new binder. It was actually white and not a dirty sort of grey with blood stains that never wanted to come out. It zipped up at the front and he could play in it, apparent since it was an exercise one. That made him even more happy to wear it. At the gym the next day he didn’t have to fight unconsciousness afterwards. He loved it even more.
And then they went to Edens Twilight. And Andrew broke down Neil’s world.
“You like me.” Neil said,
“I hate you.” Andrew sipped on his drink, like he hadn’t completely dropped a bomb on Neil’s head.
“But- you’re gay.”
“Yes.”
“And I’m- but I have-”
“You’re a boy, Neil.” Andrew bit back at him. Almost like he was angry at Neil for still doubting himself.
And Andrew did like him, at least he kissed like it. It didn’t matter that Neil had been born a girl, not when Andrew was there.
Neil was back to being confident in himself, his friends and the court bringing him back.
Even when the Butcher came for him, he was strong. When Nathan misgendered him and insulted him, he knew who he was.
He told himself, Boy was right.
But when it came to making ‘Neil Josten’ a real person with the help of the FBI, he was unsure. The box beside the word ‘other’ was all he could see.
Male
Female
Other
He stared at the paper, pen clutched tightly in his hand. He felt two sets of eyes on him, one Andrew’s the other, an FBI agent.
“You good there, son?” FBI clucked at him, clearly telling him to hurry up.
He was a boy.
Just tick the ‘Male’ box.
But he couldn’t.
He wanted to stop lying.
What did ‘other’ mean?
What was there besides the male and female boxes.
The pen was removed from his hand.
“Leave.” Andrew snapped at the officer. “Give us a minute.”
The officer left, muttering something about ‘dramatic queers’, and how ‘it was just a tick in a box.’
“What does ‘other’ mean?” Neil didn’t look up from the box that was leaping out at him, it wouldn’t let his attention be divided away from those five words.
Andrew didn’t ask questions. “Like non binary or genderfluid.”
Neil had never heard of either of those. His throat was tight.
“Whats that?”
“Gender-fluid is when your gender identity or expression changes, it’s not a constant.” Andrew knew a lot more than Neil did. He felt like he should be embarrassed.
“So like, boy today, girl tomorrow?” Neil’s eyes did not leave the page.
“Yeah,” Andrew still held the pen. “Non binary is where you, for lack of a better word, don’t have a gender. You exist outside the binary. Not boy, not girl, not anything.”
Not anything.
Neil reached out and blindly took the pen from Andrew, grip firm and determined. He ticked ‘other’. Underneath where he was told to specify, he wrote is scribbly handwriting,
Non Binary.
Andrew didn’t blink when Neil looked up at him, but Neil felt like the universe was caving in.
Finally, after 19 years, they had the words to describe it.
Not boy, not girl, not anything.
And it wasn’t a big thing.
Coming out a second time to the Foxes was a whole lot easier. They didn’t really get it, but they were trying hard for them because the Foxes were their family.
Aaron was a bit of an ass about it, but after about a month he shut up.
And Neil was finally a real person.
For Christmas, Allison and Matt payed for their top surgery on behalf of the team and every single one of them was there throughout the whole healing process. There were videos saved to phones of Neil high on anesthesia. Nicky attempted to make a cake shaped like a pair of breasts for a celebration party, a joke that Neil actually laughed at genuinely. Even if the right one was a bit droopy. Nicky tried.
They all ate cake and watched a movie, and at the end of the night there was one more present.
In an elaborate golden frame, Neil’s binder from last Christmas was presented.
Kevin put a hole in the wall trying to put a hook in because he sucked at everything that wasn’t Exy.
The frame went up on the wall next to the TV.
Neil loved that binder.
It wasn’t as grimey as the other one had been, and definitely wasn’t covered in bloodstains, but there was sweat stains under the arms and a ketchup mark down in the corner, the zipper stuck halfway and the stitching coming out around the bottom seam.
They loved it, but were wildly thankful to never have to wear one again.
The boys weren’t uncomfortable with Neil dressing with them and Matt still clapped their shoulder.
When the new year of rookies showed up, Robin was the opposite of Neil in every way, but they understood each other in a way nobody had really understood them before. Robin quickly became as close to them as Matt was, and Robin was teaching them more and more about being non binary since they had known who they were from high school. They found it funny that it took Neil an FBI investigation to figure it out. Neil found it amazing that they figured it out when they were fourteen and hiding in their room on the internet.
A few weeks back into school, Neil had a panic attack before Edens.
Andrew had bought them a shirt, tight and form fitting. They wanted to try not wearing baggy shirts anymore since they didn’t have any tits to hide. But this shirt was too tight. It didn’t stop him breathing or anything, it wasn’t restrictive. It just reminded them of their first binder. They were taken back to running down the highway, lungs empty and staying conscious by will power alone.
Too tight
They couldn’t breathe-
Andrew was there. He brought them back.
“I thought this was over-” They had cried. They thought the dysphoria would leave them alone. But now, after that panic attack, it was louder than before.
Andrew quietly sat beside them in the bathtub as they cried. As they hated the fact they were crying.
You sound like a girl when you cry
Neil told the thoughts to shut up which only made them louder.
Then they were now crying because the crying made them feel dysphoric.
They cried in the tub until they passed out. Andrew still there. They heard him say to a person on the other side of the door, “We’re not going.” before drifting off again.
Neil finally caved and agreed to see Bee after that because the next three days after the panic attack saw them confined to their bed, not wanting people to see them. It was like when they came back from the Ravens. Voice too high, shoulders too slim, hips too wide.
Nicky brought them a whole watermelon one day after class. Kevin had questioned it, then further questioned it when they burst out crying and hugged the watermelon. Kevin had been shocked when he found out Neil still got periods and that getting them in the middle of a dysphoric low meant a lot of crying. So, that was a god awful week for them.
But the Foxes built them up again, and Bee suggested testosterone and Andrew still kissed them.
And Kevin was secretly dating a non binary barista?
But Neil was so far away from that little girl and they wished her all the best.