Author's Note - CW on this chapter for a pretty rough hatching scene. Lots of internalized fear and dysphoria being brought to the forefront here.

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“No,” is all I can keep whispering to myself. All I can look at is the ground. All I can focus on is the turmoil and confusion sweeping through my mind.

Why did Blake transform after she kissed me?

The question keeps plaguing me. I want to ignore it, but I can’t. It needs an answer.

“Angel?” Blake asks, putting her hands on my shoulders. She shakes me a little. “Angel, it’s okay, calm down, just talk to me.”

“Why,” I stammer out hoarsely, my throat suddenly dry, “Why did you transform, Blake? Why did that happen?”

“Well,” Blake starts, “I mean, there’s only one answer, right? The curse was, um, pretty specific.”

I shake my head. “No, no, that can’t be it. Right? I mean, there’s just no way!”

Blake sits on her legs in front of me.“I’ll admit, I didn’t expect this either, but we have to accept the truth, right? You’re--”

“Don’t say it!” I interrupt, looking up at her face finally. She looks concerned and worried, no doubt for me. Even still, I can’t bear to actually hear one of us actually say it.

“Angel, it’s okay. I’m okay, right? There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong now, yeah, now that you’ve transformed!”

Blake frowns and looks hurt. “What does that mean? That there was something wrong before?”

“No, no, of course not!” I exclaim. I gotta backpedal this. “There was never anything wrong with you. It was okay for you to feel like you did, to be who you are.”

“Right,” Blake nods. “Exactly. So what’s wrong if you are, well, you know.”

“Because it makes no sense! There aren’t any signs! I’m not... I would know, you know? I’d know like you knew!”

“You’d know like me how? Like you’d know that you want to be a--”

“I said don’t say it!” I look at the ground again and hug my arms around my stomach. I feel sick. Nauseous. How can this be happening? It’s like my whole world is crashing down around me.

“Angel, please, you need to calm down. This is okay. It’s okay for you to admit it.” She reaches down and grabs both of my hands, squeezing them gently. “If anything, I’m really thankful for it.”

I look back up to her. “You… You are?”

She nods and smiles. “Yeah, of course! I mean, I really like you after all.” She blushes and bites her lip. “Plus that was, um, a really good kiss, don’t you think?”

Thinking back on the memory of how soft her lips were makes me blush too. “Y-Yeah. It was.”

“And instead of it being some random person, it was with you! Someone I actually know!” Blake adds. She lets go of my hand and gestures at her body. “And look at me! I look so great! My body feels so right, and it was all because of you!”

I can’t help but smile at how happy she is. She’s positively glowing and just looks so incredibly beautiful. I always knew her true form would be breathtaking, but actually seeing this for real is still nothing I could have been prepared for.

Is that… something I want?

It has to be, right? If she transformed after kissing me. It means that I… That I’m…

No, no, no. It has to be wrong! There’s just no way! I mean, Blake is way more feminine than I am, so it makes sense for her. She talks all the time about how she wants to dress up in dresses, and wear makeup, and get her nails done and stuff. But I don’t want any of those things!

I mean, at least not overtly. It’d be kind of weird to try them out as a guy. I don’t want to look like some sort of crossdresser or something. It’d only make sense for me to try those things if I actually looked like a girl. Which I don’t. And that’s fine! Because I’m a guy! I have to be! There’s just no way. I’m sure tons of guys have imagined or fantasized about that kind of stuff idly before. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean I’m actually a g--

No. No no no no no.

“Angel, please,” Blake pleads. I’m not looking at her anymore, I just can’t. Every time I do I start to feel… things. Things I shouldn’t be feeling. “You have to accept this. It’s gonna be okay. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

For a while I’m silent, the only sound I make is whispers to myself as I repeat my mantra of “no” over and over again. Blake eventually puts her hand on my shoulder and it shakes me out of my stupor just slightly enough to stop whispering. I remember she asked me a question. She wants me to talk to her. But I can’t. I can’t talk to her about this. I can’t talk about this at all!

But why? Why can’t I? That doesn’t really make any sense. If anything, Blake is the best person I know to talk about this with. She’s my best friend. And, well, she’s also my girlfriend. And we’re kind of alone in the backroom of film club here after she’s transformed into a feminine form in front of me after kissing me, a cis guy, because of a curse that is supposed to transform her after she kisses a--

No.

...Okay. I’ll talk to her.

“Blake,” I croak out. I wipe some tears from my face. Weird. When did I start crying? “I just can’t be. I just can’t. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Why doesn’t it make sense, Angel?”

“Because I’m not like you. Because I’ve been happy so far. And I mean, I’ve been talking to you for so long now about this stuff and I have such a huge picture of what it’s like to be trans.” I hug my legs up against my chest. “If… If I was, I would have figured it out by now, you know?”

Blake thinks for a moment before responding. “You know, I didn’t know I was until you pointed it out to me, Angel.”

I nod. “Yeah, I remember. But I’m sure you had feelings over your life or something. Just this like, sense in the back of your mind that something wasn’t quite right. That something was missing.”

“Um. Well, not really. I mean, I wasn’t exactly happy with my life, but I never felt like that.” I hear her shuffle her position. “I would think idly about being a girl a lot, for sure. Especially once puberty started for me. But I never thought I was anything other than a boy until you said something. Even after my mom told me about the family curse, I still thought I was a boy. I just realized then that I really wanted to be a girl instead. That the curse was like a way to finally satisfy the curiosity I’d had burning inside me for years.”

 Huh. Not quite the answer I was expecting. “I see…”

“Angel -- is what you said something you’ve felt before?”

“What?” Her question caught me off guard. That’s ridiculous! I’d never felt like that. I mean sure, I wasn’t really happy with life. But I was young and high school sucks. Who would be happy? Lots of people are unhappy. It didn’t mean I was unsatisfied with my gender or anything.

But then, where had I pulled that example from then? I don’t remember it as being something I’d ever heard someone say before. It wasn’t even something I’d read back when I was researching trans stuff last year.

Wait. Oh shit. Why had I started researching that anyways? I can’t remember. I guess it was like a random rabbit hole I’d fallen down? I remember stumbling across a couple subreddits that were LGBT related. Something about eggs. And I remembered thinking idly about being a girl a few times, and I mean, being a girl does sound kind of interesting. But I couldn’t get into the idea of being with a guy, so there was just no way it was for me. Besides, a lot of these other people knew since they were kids or something, and had really, really bad dysphoria. I’m not either of those things.

Oh, wait. My realization last night, about lesbians! How did I forget that. Lesbians are really cool. I could… kinda see myself being one? If I was a girl, I mean. Which is what this is about, right? About me being a--

“Angel? You there?” Blake asks.

“Yeah, I, um, sorry,” I reply. “I’m just thinking.”

“That’s okay. What are you thinking about?”

“...About lesbians…”

Blake snickers, giggling a little. “Lesbians? Really? Why are you thinking about that?”

I blush in embarrassment. “I-I dunno, because I forgot they existed. And, well, back when I was looking up trans stuff, before I met you, I’d decided that I wouldn’t want to be a girl because I’m not into guys. But I mean, lesbians exist, which means you can be a girl and like other girls, and. Well.” I sigh and bury my face into my arms. “Now I’m all confused again.”

Blake is silent for a moment. Again. No doubt analyzing me and trying to think of what to say. “Do you… want to be a lesbian, Angel?”

I bite my lip. “I mean, I dunno, maybe? It’d be kinda cool. But I can’t, you know? I’m a guy.”

Blake shuffles over and gives me a hug. “You don’t have to be a guy if you don’t want to.”

Shit. Tears are welling up again. From such a simple statement? I’d seen it before, on the internet, on those subreddits. But it didn’t carry the weight it carries now. God, do I even want to be a guy? Why am I holding onto this so much? 

“...I think I’m scared, Blake. Like, really scared.”

Blake nods against my back. “I know. It’s okay to be scared. I was too.” 

I snort, sniffling a little too. “Scared? When I told you you could be a girl, you seemed like anything but that.”

“Well… yeah. I was really excited, and happy. That’s true.” She sighs. “But I was also scared. Scared about what that’d mean for me here, at school, once I transformed. I was scared of what other people would think.” She lets out a dry laugh. “I mean I know my mom would be okay with it at least, since this presumably happened to her at some point. But my dad? Does he even know about this? And what about the rest of his side of the family?”

“Oh. I had no idea. I guess that makes sense though. I hadn’t even thought about those kinds of things for you.”

“Mhm.” Blake snuggles more against my back, giving me a gentle squeeze. “What are you scared about, Angel?”

“I’m… I’m scared about those things too.” More tears form in my eyes. I feel choked up. “What my family will think. And, I’m scared about what this means for me. I’m scared about my future.”

Blake hugs me tighter. “Anything else?”

I reach with my hands and hold onto hers. “I’m scared that this means I’ve been living a lie up to now. I’m scared of feeling like I lost time. I’m scared of getting as dysphoric as I saw you get, of feeling that pain.” Shit, the tears are really flowing out now. “I-I don’t want to go through any of that, Blake. I don’t want that.”

Blake squeezes my hands with hers. Her warmth against me feels comforting, even as I feel more terrified than I think I’ve ever felt in my life. “It’s gonna be okay, Angel. It’s not all bad things like that. You might not even feel as much dysphoria as I did, or even any at all.” 

“Y-You think so?”

“Definitely,” Blake replies reassuringly. “Your journey -- it’s gonna be your own, right? It’s gonna be way different from mine. I’m a special case, remember? Who knows what yours is gonna be like.”

I feel a stone drop into my gut. “Oh god, Blake. You’re right. You got to transform, and I, I don’t have a family curse like that! Th-That means I’m, I’d…”

Blake holds me close to her. “It means you’ll have to do it the normal way, but that’s gonna be okay. I’ll be here for you the whole time, alright? And it works out pretty well. I’ve looked at timelines online and stuff, and those girls always end up looking great.”

“But it takes years, right? And you have to spend all this time looking like some gay guy or something, and voice train, and put in all this work and--” I ramble, breathing heavily.

“Angel, please, it’s gonna be okay,” Blake interrupts. Her hands and arms squeeze as she tries to comfort me. “You’re spiraling. Let’s do things one step at a time, okay? We can figure out the rest later.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll try,” I reply back, struggling to control my breathing. In and out. In and out. Deep breaths. Calm yourself down Angel. You can do this. Slowly it starts to work. The panic dies down. All of that, that’s something else. I can worry about it later. First I have to--

Oh god. Do I have to really?

“I don’t know if I can do it, Blake.” I close my eyes tight, dripping more tears.

“If you can do what, Angel?”

“...If I can admit it.”

“Why not?” she asks, her worry evident in her voice.

“Because… Because once I say it, I can’t take it back. It becomes real.”

Blake lets go of my hand and runs her fingers through my hair. It feels really nice. Her new hand feels so small and soft now. I really like it.

“It’s already real, Angel. I’m living proof of that.” I feel her hand stop, hovering in my hair. Then I feel something wet and soft on the back of my neck. Her lips. Did she just kiss me?

“I know this is hard. Really hard. But I’m here, and you’re strong.”

“I don’t know if I am,” I whimper, sniffling. “I don’t think I’m as strong as you.”

“You’re one of the strongest people I know,” Blake insists. “You’ve helped me through so much, you’re the reason I’ve even gotten this far! If anyone can do this, it’s you.”

“Blake…” God, this girl. Again she says one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me. I tear up some more and squeeze her arm against my chest. I feel so weak and vulnerable right now, yet she’s still seeing me as this strong person. How? How does she do it?

“Blake, do you think that I’d, um,” I start as I dry some more tears from my face, “Do you think I’d be any good at it? That I’d be a… good one?”

“Absolutely,” she replies without skipping a beat. “No question about it.”

“But how? I’m nothing like you.”

“So? You’d just be different, that’s all. It doesn’t mean you’d be any worse.” She runs her fingers through my hair some more and I practically melt back against her. “You’d be you, and that’d be all you’d need to be.”

“But who even am I? All of this has me reeling. I don’t even know anymore.”

Blake gently pulls our hug tighter. “Then we’ll figure out who you are together.”

God, I can’t take it anymore. She’s being just so sweet to me, and I’m so broken. The tears flow out like a broken dam and I let out a sob. I turn around, finally looking at her again, and bury my face into her chest. It feels so soft, like a pillow. It’s exactly the kind of comforting thing I need right now. Blake holds me against her, rubbing her hands up and down my back. I feel like our positions have reversed from how they were before. Now I’m the emotional one leaning on her for support. It’s crazy. How did this happen?

Eventually, after a long while crying, I pull myself up and look her in her face. God she looks so beautiful, even with the concerned expression she’s giving me. The transformation did wonders. Every feature has changed in some subtle way. I recognize it as the same face I’ve known from the years of school we’ve had together, but it’s far more radiant than ever before. 

“Angel?” Blake asks, smiling weakly. “Are you, um, feeling a little better now?”

“Yeah.” I wipe the tears from my eyes and sniffle. “Thanks Blake. Sorry I immediately used your new boobs as a pillow to cry into.”

Blake blushes and looks off to the side. “It’s okay. I-It was an interesting experience for sure.” She looks back at me. “But back to you. Do you feel like you’re ready to accept this?”

I bite my lip anxiously. I can feel the tears wanting to come back. But I can’t keep crying about this. I have to move forward from this moment. “Y-Yeah. I’m gonna try.”

Blake pulls me into a hug. “You can take your time, it’s okay. You don’t have to do this now if you’re not ready.”

“No, I, I need to handle this now. I can’t keep ruining your huge moment of finally transforming like this.”

“Angel,” Blake says sternly, “You’re not ruining anything. This is just as huge for you as it is for me. We both have had huge things happen. I want to be here for you right now. As your girlfriend… and as your friend.”

A small sob escapes my lips and I squeeze her tight. “Blake, you’re -- you’re just the best, you know that?”

She laughs softly. “I’m just trying to return the favor and do for you what you’ve always done for me.” She nuzzles the side of her head against me. “I want this to be happy for you too. I want to be for you, what you’ve always been for me. I want to be your rock.”

I pull back a little and look her in the eyes. “No, Blake, you’re not just a rock.” I smile. “You’re my light.” I lean forward and kiss her. She reciprocates, pressing her soft lips against mine. Again my nerves light up at the sensations. God, this second kiss is just as good as the first. I hope they all are. 

We pull back from the kiss and I can feel my anxiety melt away. I feel like, with Blake by my side, I can get through this. I can be strong. We look at each other and she nods, not even needing me to say the words. I take a deep breath, close my eyes one last time, then open them and exhale.

“I’m a girl.”