Summer Days

Rating: PG

Fandom: EDM

Ships: ST4T!Skrillmau5

Warnings: excessve amounts of boobage, gender dysphoria

It’s not like she hasn’t started to notice them already, but…

Joel stands in front of the half-fogged bathroom mirror, staring down at her chest. She turns a little bit one way, then the other. When she turns, her reflection is clearly skinny, not very curved- but slowly, surely, her chest is growing less flat by the day. She’s only been on E about five months, but it’s certainly becoming noticeable, especially when she’s shirtless, the small, rounded lumps beginning to take shape there. Looking from the side they’re most obvious, bigger toward the bottom and creating a definite angle. Slowly, as if unsure of herself, Joel takes one into her hand, squeezes a little. It’s hardly a handful, there isn’t much there. The skin is soft and damp. She cups the other and pushes them together. They touch.

A grin spreads across her face as her breasts, small as they are, press together. They don’t really make the Y shape she half-hopes they will, and they still aren’t huge. But they touch. They’re actually big enough to touch! 

Letting go, she lets a giddy laugh escape herself at the way her breasts jiggle when they fall back into place. She touches the underside of one with her fingertips and wiggles it a little to see it bounce more. She giggles.

And then, she stops.

What the fuck are you doing?

Her smile falls. What kind of sick pervert is he? Taking hormones to become some poor mockery of a woman, doing this the moment he grows tits? Playing with them like some creep? Groping the woman he wants to be so fucking bad?

Glancing self-consciously over her shoulder, Joel sighs and lets go of herself. There’s nobody around to watch her, and yet, she feels… judged. Like a failure. Like despite the changes HRT is making to her body, she’ll always be tainted as a man . Like her desire to present as a woman is no more meaningful than her desire was as a kid to dress up as Link for Halloween; that it’s only a costume. 

She sighs and puts on the washed-out Aphex Twin shirt that’s been sitting on the side of the sink waiting for her since she got out of the shower. It’s probably Sonny’s. She doesn’t care. She covers her chest, and it’s like hiding a piece of herself behind the fabric, but it feels safe. Safer than being caught indulging in her womanhood, being caught out as a fraud. 

She leaves the bathroom and makes her way out into the living room, where Sonny is curled up on the couch, bathed in the soft blue illumination of the TV. As Joel walks over, she glances toward the screen, and the moment she sees the History channel logo she can’t repress a little eye-roll, nor the grin that betrays it. 

“You’re watching Ancient Aliens again?” 

Sonny looks up at her, and without even really having to think about it, he lifts his blanket to invite her in. She gratefully accepts the gesture, crawling under the quilt and pressing herself to his side. He’s strong and sturdy, a good anchor to hold onto when she feels like shit.

“It’s fun to watch,” he says in his own defense, wrapping an arm around Joel.

“It’s all bullshit, you know.”

“Oh, I know. Aliens have better things to be doing than teach people how to stack rocks.” Sonny chuckles as he pulls his girlfriend- Joel mulls that term over in her head a little, girlfriend- closer and drapes the quilt over her shoulders. “But it’s kind of funny to see what other people think aliens are like.”

Joel isn’t really paying attention to what he says anymore, though, distracted by her own inner monologue. Girlfriend. Sonny’s always called her his girlfriend, at least since they got together. It’s cute, almost juvenile-sounding. It’s a testament to the power of words that simply being referred to as Sonny’s girlfriend-  by the few people that know about Joel’s transition at the moment- can make her feel like… well, like a real girl. It feels juvenile, but in the female way, the one Joel never got to experience. Girlfriend.

Hand drifting down to rest on Joel’s waist underneath the blanket, Sonny comments, “You know I can tell when you’re thinking about something really hard, right?”

Joel gives him a nonplussed look. Sonny smiles and shakes his head, giving Joel’s hip a little pat. 

“Come on, talk to me, babe.”

Joel shifts a little in her seat, and Sonny’s hand comes off. “Gender bullshit.”

“Dysphoria?” Sonny supplies, but that’s not it. Not completely. 

“I want people to see me as a girl but I don’t want to deal with all the bitching when I come out publicly. All the he just wants attention, he’s a freak, you’ll never be a woman. You know what my fans are like. They’re gonna judge me.”

Joel cringes a little at herself even as she says it, and a lot when Sonny hums and asks, “Whose fault is that, pretty girl?”

The little pet name falls kind of flat, because Joel knows she isn’t pretty. She frowns as she rubs the fabric of the quilt between her fingers. 

“Jo. I’m just teasing.” Sonny offers a little smile as his hand comes up to caress her cheek, fingers gliding across the smooth skin where she’d recently shaved. “So what, you said stuff you didn’t mean ‘cause you were in denial and put off people who were more accepting. Your music still sounds the same. Anyone who cares that much didn’t like it or you to begin with.”

When that doesn’t make Joel smile, Sonny leans in to kiss her. It’s saccharine-sweet, Sonny’s fingertips brushing her hair where it’s just barely grown out, but it’s enough to melt some of the self-disparaging thoughts away. For a moment, Sonny starts to pull back, but then he steals another quick peck before he separates himself from Joel completely. 

“I’ll always be your number-one fan, and I like you when you’re being yourself, whether you’re a man or a woman. Does that help?”

A warm feeling bubbles up inside Joel, one that melts her chilled heart and finally cracks her face into a smile. 

“Yeah. I guess.”

Okay, so she has to try them on in the store instead of just ordering them online because bra sizes and bikini sizes are stupid and you can never be sure until it’s actually on your body. Sure. She understands that. 

She doesn’t feel like any less of a creepy dude as she cards through the different bikini tops on the rack.

She ends up with one bright red one that looks like it covers up plenty, a black one that probably covers more and has a couple stripes running across one cup, and a second black one that looks kind of revealing, but ties around the back of the neck and has a cool star pattern on it.

As she approaches the fitting rooms in the small store, she winces just slightly. Of course there’s a little security desk between the two halls. Steeling herself, she makes her way toward it. 

The lady sitting there looks to be probably her own age, maybe older, late 40s or early 50s. She’s looking down, filing her nails so loudly it seems almost passive-aggressive. At first Joel thinks she can just sneak past, but when she makes her way to the women’s changing rooms, she finds all of them locked. Nobody else had been in the store, they can’t possibly be occupied.

FML.

She trudges back to the desk, defeated, and clears her throat just so the lady will look up and realize she’s there.

“I’d like to try these on,” she says, holding her hand up so barely she’s not even sure the woman can see what’s on the hangers. 

“How many you got?”

“Three.”

Nodding, the woman reaches down under her desk and hands Joel a key with the number 3 on a little keychain. She gestures to her right. “Men’s fitting rooms are that way.”

Joel doesn’t fight with her. She just wants to get her stupid bikini tops. She doesn’t want to get kicked out of the store for trying to go into a female space.

She gets into a room with a little sigh, glad to be out of sight as she takes off her Space Invaders t-shirt and tosses it carelessly on the bench. 

She tries on the red one first. The wire sort of bothers her and the cup is definitely too big. Certainly not. She puts it back on the hanger and throws it just as carelessly.

Then she tries on the plain-striped one. It’s okay, kind of boring but cute. She bounces around on her toes a little, shakes her body back and forth. It fits well, doesn’t slip. She takes a picture in the mirror before she takes it off and puts it down, a little more gently. 

The star-patterned one is the real winner, though. The tie around the neck makes it push her boobs up a little and give them a slightly bigger appearance, and the holographic stars shimmer a little when she sways her body. The top easily passes another shake test, and she snaps one more photo before sitting down and taking it off. Opening her messages, she sends both pictures to Sonny.

better than i expected

She waits for the delivery confirmation, before turning her phone back off and hanging the top back up.

She throws her shirt on and makes her way back to the lady at the desk. She tosses the keys onto the counter as she walks past. She puts the red bikini up and pays for the other two, and as she exits the building, she receives a text back.

You’r fokin glowing babe!!!!!

She smiles just a little and tries not to blush as she shuts her phone off and gets in the car.

Normally, Joel kind of hates California. She’s generally of the opinion that the only good things to come out of California have been Sonny and the Internet, and to be honest, society would probably be better off without the Internet (or at least, what’s come of it since some point in the 2010s). But today’s a little different. She’s got her feet kicked up on the dashboard of the rental car, and she’s hyper-aware of the star-spangled bikini top under her shirt because she doesn’t normally wear a bra, and she’s bouncing her sandal-clad feet on the dashboard to the beat of some rap song Sonny’s playing.

She feels weirdly at ease despite everything. Despite the excitement of showing off her new breasts, despite the anxiety of being mostly-shirtless in public for the first time since her transition, despite the worry of not passing (which she already knows that she never really does). She feels calm. Relaxed. The way most people should at the beach.

The car comes to a stop and Joel looks up to Sonny in the driver’s seat. He hasn’t bothered with a shirt- he doesn't mind showing off the long scars that frame his pecs. He’s strong, it isn’t like he’s totally flat, but he looks like a fucking marble statue that you’d see in Rome, fit and subtly muscular in all the right places, including his chest. 

For a moment, she wonders what it’s like, to be so confident in his own body. In a man’s body. In any body. 

But the thought goes away as quickly as it came to be, as Sonny shuts off the car and gets out. He opens the back to start pulling out beach chairs and towels, and as he does, Joel gets up and circles around the car to get behind him.

“You need help with any of that?” She offers.

“Not really, but you can take the umbrella,” Sonny offers, slinging a couple towels over his shoulders. Joel can see the muscles in his back flex as he moves, and it’s only a little distracting. She takes the obnoxiously bright rainbow umbrella from Sonny, and together they make their way out onto the sand.

It’s loud and crowded- it wouldn’t be Long Beach if it wasn’t, right? But Sonny doesn’t seem bothered. Probably because he grew up here. He probably, like, came here as a kid on weekends or something. It’s a cute thought, actually, imagining little Sonny running around in a cute one-piece with Minnie Mouse on it or something. She smiles despite herself, watching Sonny survey the area for a clear spot to set up their stuff. Eventually, he finds one, gesturing to Joel to follow him.

He sets down the chairs, hanging the towels over the backs of them, and Joel drives the umbrella into the sand to stake claim to the little patch of beach. As she opens the umbrella up, Sonny turns to her and announces, “I’m gonna go back and get the cooler.”

Joel gives him a little nod of acknowledgement as she stands by one of the chairs and stares out at the ocean, at the waves rolling toward the shore. It’s tempting. She takes one more look around, to her left and then her right, and then behind her where she can barely see Sonny disappearing off to the parking lot. She’s the only girl on this beach wearing swim trunks, half out of preference but half because she knows nothing’s gonna make her more dysphoric than a huge, embarrassing bulge in the front of a bikini bottom. And real women don’t have to worry about their dicks showing through their swimwear. Because real women don’t have dicks.

Joel shakes the thought away. No. Not today. Her boyfriend- boyfriend, she repeats in her mind, because something about it alleviates the dysphoria- took her out to the beach to enjoy herself. She’s going to do that. 

She tries not to feel self-conscious as she takes off her shirt. It’s worse now that she has to wear a top piece of some kind, really. If her chest was still flat, she’d just come to peace with being viewed as a cis man just like she has been for the last forty years. But having tits means she’s either passing as a woman, or very obviously trans. She doesn’t get to hide herself in the safety of masculinity anymore.

But… as she looks around, she realizes nobody’s staring. She takes a deep breath and kicks off her sandals, making her way to the shore. When her toes meet the soft, lapping waves, she can’t help but let out a little sigh. She’s okay. Nobody’s even looking at her.

She wades deeper into the sea, until the waves smack her upper thighs and wet her trunks. The wet fabric clings to her skin as the wave washes past, but not too tightly. She’ll be fine.

She makes her way toward a wall of rocks along the edge of the beach, where it meets some kind of pier or marina or something- she doesn’t really know or care. There’s a bunch of rocks piled up. With the water level reaching her mid-back, soaking into the lower edge of her bikini top, she steps onto the rocks. Her feet make contact with something slimy. Instinctively, she lifts her foot and moves it onto another rock without the algae on top of it. That’s better. Leaning in closer, she can see all sorts of little plants and critters living on the rocks; mussels, clams, a pair of starfish. A little snail crawls over the wet surface of the rocks just above the water. 

Distracted by the little creatures, she doesn’t notice a big wave coming in, and it smacks her right on the side of her head, knocking her off her feet and sending her into the water below. For a moment, she panics, the burn of salt in her eye and up her nose, but when she surfaces, she realizes that something feels missing. The back of her bikini came undone. Shit! 

Frantic, she crosses her arms over her chest as she rubs the saltwater from her eyes and struggles upright on the uneven rocks. She’s stepping right on the slimy, gross-feeling algae again, but she doesn’t care, coughing up a mouthful of seawater as another wave barrages her. She falls down again, hardly catching herself on her hands and knees against the rocks, keeping her head above water by mere centimeters. Gasping for air, she gets up onto her knees, her thin thighs straddling a rock, uncaring of the way the jagged thing scratches her pale skin. Shaking her hands and wiping her eyes, she finally opens them, teary and burning.

To see her bikini top bobbing along in the water, drifting away from her. 

Joel scrambles off the rocks to try and get it, but before she can reach, a man plucks it from the waves and holds it up.

“I got you, babe,” Sonny says, smiling.

A little sigh of relief escapes Joel as she sits back down on the rocks, hands coming to cover her breasts. Sonny makes his way to her side, climbing up onto the rocks himself and shielding her from the waves with his body. Gently guiding her to turn and face him instead of the sand, he says, “Let go, I’ll tie it back on.”

Joel’s too embarrassed by the whole ordeal to defy Sonny’s instruction, so she does. Sonny’s hands work deftly as he draws the strings up around her neck and ties them back together there first. 

“These things always come undone if you don’t re-tie them yourself. You have to, like, double knot it,” he informs her, his voice soft. Non-judgemental. She wonders how he came to like someone as mouthy and opinionated as she is, with an attitude like that.

“I didn’t know that,” she mumbles anyway, with an indignant huff.

“That’s why I’m telling you.” Sonny finishes tying the top back on and steps back with a smile. “Now, what are you doing over here?”

Watching the waves crash over Sonny’s back, protecting her from their wrath, Joel awkwardly admits, “I was looking at clams and shit.”

“There are clams over here?”

“Yeah. And other shit.” 

“What kind of shit?”

Smiling a little, now feeling a little calmer without being subject to Poseidon’s wrath, Joel reaches underneath the water and picks one of the starfish up off the rock, presenting it to Sonny proudly. Almost as soon as it’s out of the water, though, he nabs it from her and dips it back underneath the surface.

“Don’t take it out of the water, it’ll drown,” Sonny mutters, even as he turns the little invertebrate over and runs his fingertips across its rough, rigid exterior. The top of it is a rich, deep purple, while the underside sunsets into a warm orange. Eventually, he sets the creature back down on the rock and admits, “That’s really cool.”

“Yeah, I know. Oh, and there was a snail over here, too…”

Sonny’s skin glistens under the bright midday sun as he moves, shiny with sweat and seawater. When he runs and jumps to hit the volleyball, the muscles in his back and legs squeeze and ripple. He twists in the air and lands on one knee, sand kicking up around him from the motion. Pushing himself up onto both feet, Sonny turns to look at the ball as it returns to his side of the net; his pecs jiggle with the movement as he runs to go smack it again.

Joel has been pretending to read for at least 20 minutes, and she hasn’t flipped the page once.

Taking another sip of Corona, she tries to pry her gaze away. It’s bizarre how much her life has been turned upside-down in the past year; before her transition, she would have insisted that there was no way on earth that she was anything but a cisgender man, who was into women and women alone. When she reconnected with Sonny, she would have denied any possible romantic feelings for him- and if anyone had read her brain and proven it plainly, she would have stubbornly insisted that the fact he had once been a woman meant it said nothing about her sexuality, no matter how clear it was to see that he was a man now. When it clicked into place that she didn’t have to stay trapped within the confines of manhood, she still reluctantly thought of herself as just wanting to be a butch lesbian.

And she still thinks of herself as a butch. She doesn’t plan on growing her hair out, not by much. She has no desire to wear a skirt or a dress, ever. She likes her boobs, but not tops that show them off like a centerpiece. She doesn’t wear makeup besides the occasional nail polish, and the only reason she stuck eyelashes and a giant bow on her mau5 mascot was so casual fans would get the memo that she’s a girl now. 

But she definitely likes men. Or at least, she likes Sonny. And he makes a better man than she’ll ever be a woman, really.

The words on the page are still melding together, refusing to capture her attention as a man approaches her. Looking up, she sighs and closes her well-loved Lovecraft collection. The man is tall, dark-haired and tan with the slightest hint of a mustache, carrying a volleyball under one arm. Sonny follows after him, and he grabs a couple bottles of water from the cooler Joel’s sitting next to. He cracks one open and hands the other to the stranger, who flashes him a little smile before looking back to Joel.

“Hey, chiquita,” he greets, and Joel feels her heart flutter a little from the rare feeling of being gendered correctly, even as the nickname feels a little rude. He takes a sip from his water bottle, then continues, “I saw you watching. You want to join us, or are you just gonna watch your novio keep kicking our asses?”

Joel rolls her eyes as she sets her book on the cooler and gets up.

“My name’s Jo, not chiquita, ” she snips, grabbing the ball from the stranger and twirling it between her fingertips. “But I’m happy to help him out.”