Chapter Text
Everyone always says the mirror makes them look more beautiful.
They bash cameras and low quality videos for making their voices deeper or they’re faces distorted or anything in that nature.
To me the camera and low quality videos are a safe place, a place where I can look at myself and think, wow I really look like a boy. They are the only things that make me look the way I want to look.
Which is why I’m standing before a mirror, fist clenched into a fist and trying not to take a swing at the reflective glass showing me my image, what I am on the outside. The lie I’ve been born into.
When I was little my sister and I used to place fairytale games, she being the dashing princess with a sparkling pink dress and me. The knight dressed all in gray with a sword and shield. I would save her from my big brother, the evil dragon, and together we’d run off into the sunset.
The problem with this was I refused to remove the costume, when my mother tried to dress me in the sparkly dress instead I wriggled out of it. My brother always handing me a pair of slacks and button down when my mother bore down on me.
The dresses made me cry for a reason I did not understand as a 7 year old. The idea of long hair and make-up and other things society claims are girly made me sad. I think my mom thought I was going through a rebellious phase, hell I thought I was going through a rebellious phase.
That was until the summer of my 15 birthday when I found a Myspace group called ‘Pansexual Awareness.’
At first I thought it being some kitchen fetish thing and avoided it completely, this being until Phil started talking to me and he told me has was pansexual.
I worked up to courage to ask him what the fuck pansexaul meant and Phil explained to me it was liking all genders.
Even after 30 mintues of asking I was still confused. 'Isn’t that just bisexuality?’
Then Phil said no and told me the one thing that changed my entire life. He taught me about the different genders, transgender, agender, gender queer, all of them. I had to log off Skype earlier because it all clicked that day.
Now, 10 years later, here I am, still a girl, still uncomfortable with myself, still wrong.
I could feel the tears growing in my eyes. My fist uncurling and the check between my fingers drifting towards the floor.
The slip of paper came yesterday in the mail, payment for Phil and I’s last radio show, as usual we got halves and today I turned it into my account to see the number that toke the breath from my lungs.
$50,000. 10 years of waiting and here I am, $50,000 for the operation.
The number felt like a curse and a blessing, I could be me now, I could walk confidently in my own shoes for the first time. No more tears and turmoil. Then I remembered the worst is yet to come, I still have to tell everyone my parents, my friends, the fans, Phil.
Grabbing my breasts I spread them far apart as I can, looking at the short lived flatness of my chest
Doing this always makes me feel so pathetic, like the scum of the god damn Earth. Yet it also makes me want to cry because there’s what I’m going to look like soon. As a boy.
“Hey bear. What’s wrong?” A pair of arms wrap around my waist and a mass of black hair appears on my shoulder. I gasp in surprise, jumping as Phil pulls me close.
“Nothing. And don’t scare me like that you pogonia.” I tease, ruffling his hair a bit.
“Pogonia? You’re comebacks are getting weak my love.”
“Shut up.” I let out a breathy laugh, realizing how weird I must’ve looked not three seconds ago.
“Don’t hate me, I’m just here to ask why you looked so insecure just then.”
I freeze at the mention of before, feeling the blood drain from my face. I can’t tell him, not yet. Not now.
“I wasn’t– I wasn’t acting insecure are you blind Phil?” I force myself to laugh.
“Sure. Sure.” Phil kisses the bottom of my chin lightly before going on. “Now, what’s really going on? Do you think you’re boobs are too small. Because I think they’re perfect.”
I can feel the tears start to pool in my eyes before I can stop them. Phil likes my boobs, what if that’s all he likes me for? What if I tell him and he leaves me or tells me I’m sick in the head for feeling this way? I can deal with the entire world hating on me but not Phil, never Phil.
“Love? Wha-” Phil begins to ask before I collapse to the floor, tears streaming down my face. Phil comes with, tightening his grip on me.
“Stop touching me! Please, please just stop.” I scramble from his embrace, backing against the bathroom wall breathing heavily. It feels like my throat is being ripped apart and I can’t bring myself to speak. He’ll hate me I know he will.
“Dani-”
“DON’T CALL ME THAT!” I screech, covering my ears.
Danielle Danielle Danielle. They’ll always call me Danielle, I’ll always be Danielle. Nobody will ever know.
Phil grows silent, standing and mimicking my movements on the opposing wall.
Daniel, that’s all I want, to be Daniel.
“I’m going to bed.” I choke from my throat, rushing for the door. “Don’t follow me.”
I don’t sleep.
-~-
6 hours later when I’m certain Phil has fallen asleep I begin my plan.
Creeping from my bed I tiptoe towards the bathroom, noticing with a rush of guilt all the beer and wine bottles gracing the kitchen counter while I swipe the scissors.
It’s peacefully silent as the scissors slice through my hair, I feel far away and distant. Wathcing in the mirror as each swipe takes another chunk, they fall around me like confetti, welcoming my new self into the world.
Clumps of brown and black fall to my feet, tickling the bare skin. I work quickly, keeping my fringe in place while working blindly on the back.
slice slice slice
Soon enough I place the scissors on my desk and asses the damage. It looks good, I thought I’d somehow destroy the whole thing but I look moderately nice. Gathering up all the hair I can I dump it into the waste basket and head for the shower.
“Dan?” A exhausted, slurred voice comes from my right and I look over to meet Phil’s tired eyes.
“Phil!” I scream, hands instinctively flying to my hair and pure panic making my whole body turn cold.
“What did you–?” Phil asks, dropping a bottle of beer from his hand to run it through my short hair.
I stay silent, letting him look over my new haircut and fighting to keep my breath from stopping completely. My throat tightens and I know this is it, he knows now, it will click any second.
“You look beautiful as always.” Phil mutters, kissing me softly before brushing his fingers through my hair gently again.
“Beautiful? How can you say that? You hate me now? Do you not know what I am? Phil are you to drunk to understand? How can you love me?” I snap, tears coming back no matter how hard I try to keep them away.
“Do you want me to call you Danielle?” Phil answers, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me into a large hug.
“No. I really don’t.” I answer honestly, fisting his collar and burying my face in his neck.
“What would you like me to call you love?”
“Daniel, or Dans fine. And maybe – if it’s not too much of a hassle – he?”
“Daniel. I like it simple. And calling you what you are is never going to be a hassle, trust me.”
The tears are really flowing now and I mutter. “So you don’t… hate me?”
“How could I hate you? I love you, I love the person you are in here.” Phil kisses my forehead softly before continuing. “And I will continue to love you until I get killed in a freak bear mulling accident.”
“You dork.” I whisper, voice cracking.
“Dan and Phil. I like it. Though we have the most common names of all time.”
“Wedding planners hate us. Old men from the 1950’s with the same names despise us. We’re are Dan and Phil.” I sob a little harder.
“Don’t worry, old men from the 1950’s are going to die soon anyway.”
“Phillip! That’s rude you know!”
“I don’t really care Daniel.”
The mention of my name makes my chest warm and more tears fill my vision. “I love you you pogonia.”
“I love you too bear.”
And with that I think telling the rest of the world will be easier, with Phil my side I am invincible, an unstoppable force. We’ll keep each other safe and always and no matter what gets thrown at us we’ll pull through.
Together.