Secret Transfic Autumn Anthology / #1

Thirteen

by yd12k

A short story about a newly thirteen-year-old and their feelings towards and throughout the day.

 

Your birthday is supposed to be a good day, a celebration of who you are, who you’ve been, and when you turn thirteen like I am, who you’re becoming. Thirteen. The age puberty is supposed to start. Ish. For boys, at least. I’ve known it was coming for years now, but I’ve been able to mostly push the thought out of my mind. I’ve got time to be a kid still. I might be a late bloomer, and not have to deal with this for years to come. Those were the thoughts I’d gone to sleep with.

Most guys probably look forward to puberty, or its effects, at the least. But then, most guys were pretty sure they’re guys, which I wasn’t. I was like, forty percent sure I wasn’t one at all, and thirty percent I was, in fact, a girl. Maybe thirty-five, on my good days. Bad days? In any case, I’d decided to not think about it too much, hang onto being a kid rather than a ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ for as long as I could manage, and eventually what I wanted oughta be obvious, right? And then I’d be certain and could come out. Or pretend I’d never felt uncertain, I suppose.

Either way, it wasn’t like I had to make a decision today. Puberty doesn’t actually start on the dot of one’s birthday, no matter how much my parents told me today was going to be a ‘big deal’. There was no reason, no real reason, for me to be nervous. Still, I could feel my skin crawling in fear of a process that wouldn’t just start all at once. I threw off my covers and got up out of bed, getting ready for the day. When pulling on my pants, they felt weird, so I took them back off and felt my legs, only to make a startling discovery. They were hairy.

Puberty Has Begun.

 

---

 

I was in the bathroom, panicking. This couldn’t be happening. Not yet, anyway. I looked at my dad’s razor and considered shaving it off, before deciding against it. It wasn’t that much, not yet anyway, and it was light in colour. Pretty hard to spot. Besides, everyone grew some hair, and if I cut myself, everyone would know. Instead, I just pulled on my pants and shirt and rushed downstairs.

Mom and Dad were sitting at the breakfast table, smiling wildly. My dad opened his loud, boisterous mouth, somehow sounding even louder than normal. “Finally! There he is! The man of the hour, my son! How’re you feeling, champ?”

I sat down at my chair, my mom piling too many bacon and eggs on my plate. “I’m fine,” I said, adding some ketchup to my plate and eating. “Maybe a little weird? I think it’s nerves.”

My parents looked at each other before smiling brightly at me. “Of course, honey. It’s a big day, after all. You only turn thirteen once! You have a nice day at school, and come home straight away, okay? We want to celebrate in the morning, but you stayed upstairs way too long.” Sue me for having a minor crisis. I finished off my plate, still a little peckish, and looked at my mom, who rolled her eyes and put one strip of her own bacon on my plate, which I quickly ate as well.

Breakfast finished, I grabbed my backpack from its spot near our back door and grabbed my bike, which was how I normally went to school. It wasn’t that far, a fifteen-minute ride, but I only had eighteen minutes left, so I couldn’t take it easy, either. It was all going fine until I arrived at the train tracks. A transport train was just passing by, and I hadn’t been able to sprint in front of it. It took three minutes to pass completely, which would’ve been bad enough if another train hadn’t immediately come in from the other direction.

 

---

 

When the tracks were finally clear, I was utterly screwed. I stood up, putting my weight on the pedals, racing through the piles of fallen leaves with all my mediocre might. Arriving at school a few minutes later (I didn’t have the time to check my phone and measure exactly), I quickly locked up my bike and ran towards my first class. One of the teachers left in the hallways yelled at me for running, but I couldn’t care. When I got to my first class of the day, I opened the door and told the teacher about the incident with the trains. She just nodded and said “Well, you made it just in time, so I’ll ignore your apparent running through the halls just this once, but do sit down and be quiet.”

Classes passed quietly after that, until it was time for lunch, which I was glad for. Despite my big breakfast, I was still somewhat hungry, probably because I’d biked so fast this morning. I found a quiet spot at a picnic bench outside and ate my lunch, mercifully packed last night. It wasn’t long until my friends arrived from the class they shared together before lunch, them all having picked French as opposed to my German. “Hey, Remy,” called Boris, the only other (probable) guy in the group. The other three, Dana, Lily, and Millie, waved hi as well as I muffled a hello with my mouth full.

Dana was the first to bring it up. “So, do you guys all remember what day it is?” she asked with a wicked grin, rummaging through her backpack. Lily looked confused, but Millie nudged her and subtly pointed at me, before all three nodded vigorously and I groaned. “That’s right!” said Dana, a little too loudly, as she pulled a party horn out of her backpack and blew it. “It’s Remy’s birthday! Happy birthday Remy!” She proceeded to sing me a birthday song, my other friends betraying me by joining in.

 

---

 

I had my hands in my hair as my so-called friends finished the third birthday song in their repertoire. As they raised their voices for a fourth, I yelled out in frustration, before taking a few deep breaths to calm down as my friends stared at me in shock. “Sorry,” I apologized, “I’m just a bit frustrated today, and one embarrassing birthday song may be funny, but there’s such a thing as going overboard.”

Dana at least had the good sense of looking remorseful, as did my other friends. “Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t realise you’ve been having a bad day. Any specific reason?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Puberty?”

I immediately knew that was a mistake, as the mirth returned to Dana’s eyes and she struggled not to laugh. “Puberty? What, do you have moonsickness?”

“I… moonsickness?”

“Sorry, sorry. I mean like, a visit from Aunt Flo,” she snickered, clarifying nothing. “Shark week. The red scare.”

“Are you asking if puberty is turning me into a communist?” I asked. Lily and Millie, who had been glaring at Dana for some reason, suddenly broke down laughing, as did Boris. I just groaned again.

Boris decided to help me out, and finally told me “She’s asking if you’re on your period, dude.”

Ah. I glared at her and just gestured to myself in response.

“Sorry, sorry. It was just such a perfect setup, you know?”

I just sighed. That was the occupational hazard of being Dana’s friend, her sharp wit being turned on you. I wasn’t really sure if that had been a very appropriate joke, but what did I know. It wasn’t as though I had any experience with the phenomenon, I thought, a bit depressed.

 

---

 

After an otherwise unremarkable lunch, it was time for gym. Changing into my gym clothes, I noticed that it seemed like I had even more hair on my legs than this morning, which I figured was probably just me remembering wrong. Puberty didn’t work that fast. I hoped.

Gym itself was probably my least favourite class too. I wasn’t completely awful at sports, but I didn’t enjoy them, either, and that showed in my performance. I was frustrated, too, my skin crawling with nerves, and today was handball, a team sport. A recipe for disaster.

The teacher divided up the teams, and I got put on defense. Pretty soon the opposing team was on the attack, and I was face to face with the player with the ball. The thing about handball is you have to throw the ball. You can’t hold it for more than three seconds, or take more than three steps after getting it. And I was pretty sure the guy in front of me had been holding onto that ball for longer, so I grabbed at it. As long as you’re not just hitting the ball out of someone’s hand, that’s a legal maneuver, after all.

To my surprise, he barely resisted, and I had the ball. I took three steps, leaps really, past the attacker, ready to throw the ball to one of our attacking players. Of course, none of them were open at the moment. But the goal was, apart from the keeper. They were moving slightly to the right, towards the side of the field I was on. It was a longshot, but I threw the ball as fast as I could towards the open side of the goal. Time seemed to stand still as the ball whizzed past all the players, including the keeper.

I’d scored.

I’d actually scored.

From the other side of the field.

Time resumed as I processed what had just happened to the cheers of my team. Even the guy whose ball I’d just stolen congratulated me on my goal, and my team decided that with those skills I should join the offense.

 

---

 

Offense sucked. Well, at least, it sucked when the other team was focusing its defense heavily on defending against you. On one hand, their focus on preventing me from scoring meant that my teammates got a good number of goals, and the few times I got the ball I managed to at least make a fun play or two, even if I was prevented from scoring myself.

On the other hand, just waiting until you can play again was a lot more frustrating when you’d just had a taste of victory, rather than just waiting for the game to be over. We won fairly easily in the end, but I was in a sour mood. I could smell my own sweat, too, which was a new and unpleasant experience. 

After the game, which we did win, I headed straight for the showers. Normally I’d dawdle and help with the cleanup a bit extra to avoid the rush, but the smell was overwhelming and hopefully a shower would stop the crawling I felt. While changing and showering, I got a ton of compliments on my performance, and my goal got called a ‘birthday miracle’, which would have been nice, but despite me actually wanting to shower for once, I still loathed the experience and wanted it to be over as soon as possible.

That plan was cut short when one of the guys noticed my body hair. Not the leg hair I’d noticed earlier, but a tuft growing at my groin. Pubes. Fuck, puberty really was coming quickly, wasn’t it. And I was quickly realizing just how much I didn’t want it to be. That throw was probably also my new Teenage Strength. And the food. I was a growing boy, after all. Fuck.

I wondered if I could still stop it. I vaguely knew there was medication to prevent puberty, but I always figured I’d have enough warning to start that if it became important. Now it might already be too late.

 

---

 

Mercifully, Gym was my last class that day. It was school policy to have gym be the last class of the day as much as possible, or if that was impossible to put it before a free period and/or lunch, so students had time to go home and change clothes properly. Nobody wanted sweaty teens in their school.

I was rushing home on my bike as fast as I could manage, preparing to talk to my parents and seeing if there was anything that could still be done. Talking to a doctor and expressing my concerns would be embarrassing, but it’d be infinitely better than this continuing.

As soon as I arrived at my house, I rushed into the backyard and locked up my bike, then entered the house. I startled Mom with my accidental doorsmash (stupid freakish teenage strength), and I called out an apology and told her I wanted to meet them in the living room. She told me to sit down there, she was just finishing cutting the cake, and Dad would be down in a minute.

As I sat in the living room, a thousand scenarios played through my head. Would Dad be disappointed? He loved having a son, even if I didn’t always love being one. Some parts weren’t so bad, fishing was actually pretty relaxing, but overall I just... It just wasn’t for me.  Mom was the bigger wildcard. Dad would either accept me, or he would be clearly disappointed. Mom was harder to read, and there’d always been a disconnect between us. Maybe that’d disappear if I was her daughter? Assuming I was a girl after all, at least. I still wasn’t completely sure of that yet.

After a few minutes of worrying, Mom and Dad came to the living room, singing another birthday song and carrying a cake and some dishes. I was incredibly nervous, so instead of starting with telling them what was wrong, I told them about gym class and my throw. Mom congratulated me, and Dad slapped me on the back, but then the happy moment was over, and it got quiet.

Mom broke the silence first. “Remy, honey, you said you wanted to talk to us about something.”

I swallowed, but my throat was dry. “Yes, well, the throw wasn’t the only thing that was strange today. I’ve been snappy, and hungry, and I’m growing hair in strange new places, and I know it’s just puberty but I wasn’t expecting it so quickly, and--” My dad laughed loudly, cutting me off.

“Don’t worry, son! That’s not puberty!” I stared at him with a questioning look. What the fuck else could this be. “You’re becoming a werewolf!”

What.

Mom looked just as shocked as I was. Dad, on the other hand, kept talking as if this was the most normal thing in the world. “My parents were werewolves as well, you know. It tends to skip a generation, and me and your mom weren’t sure if you were one or not, so we kept it secret from you, but it seems you got the genes after all!”

I was flabbergasted. I didn’t even know werewolves were real, although it did explain most of the day. “That’s what’s been happening to me? I’m turning into a wolfman? Are you joking?” Dad shook his head. “I’ve been panicking about it being too late to stop puberty, and I’m just a werewolf? And you never told me‽”

My parents were stunned into silence by my voice, which’d taken on a growling quality. I would have been worried about that being ruined too, but apparently it was just because I’m part dog.

Dad answered my question first. “Well, son, we wanted to be sure first. No need to worry you about things that may not happen.”

“That’s stupid,” I told him. “Even if you only think it’s a possibility, you should have told me, instead of waiting until it’s… too… late…”

I am such an idiot.

I should have told my parents about my worries earlier, even if I wasn’t sure yet. Because becoming sure like this was the worst feeling in the world. Heck, I should have told anybody. Dana would have helped for sure, and it would have let me figure stuff out a lot faster than this. The minor embarrassment if I’d turned out wrong was nothing compared to this feeling I had right now.

I broke down crying on the couch, and my parents pulled me into a big family hug. Mom gently asked me “You said it was too late to ‘stop puberty’, right? Is that what this is about?” I nodded. “Oh sweetie, you should have told us you were scared.” I knew that now, of course.

“I just wasn’t sure,” I said, a small bit of amusement creeping back into my voice. Dad laughed.

“Like father, like son!” I cringed hard at that, and to his credit, Dad immediately course corrected. “Like daughter? Child?”

“Child, I think?” Child was good. I could handle child. The other option… I was too tired to contemplate right now.

Maybe eventually, though. Hopefully.

We spent the rest of the night as a family, talking. My parents weren’t themselves werewolves, but Mom knew what to expect from her dad, and helped me prepare for my first shift. It was just my luck that my thirteenth birthday fell on a full moon, I guess. I learned many things, such as that I couldn’t eat chocolate during the full moon, but it was fine the rest of the month. On the other hand,I should always avoid silver.

We also talked about my uncertainties, and Mom made an appointment with a doctor for the following day. Apparently, I’d need a checkup after my first shift anyway. Apart from all that, we spent the night together, including after I fully shifted. The next day, we went to the appointment, and not long after I got puberty blockers.

Coming out to my friends, both as a girl and a werewolf, was an adventure, but they all accepted me. I didn’t really want to advertise the werewolf thing, but I transitioned socially not long after. Full moons weren’t too bad apart from the dysphoria they induced, but I actually found a support group with other trans werewolves, and they helped a lot. Packforming is important for us, and they were the best I could have hoped for.

Life went on, with its ups and downs. I made a lot of friends, lost a few too, found family and community beyond my parents, and grew up into a proud young woman. And among all those things, one thing never changed since that first day.

Dana never, ever stopped laughing that I actually had moonsickness.

 

 

Secret Transfic Autumn Anthology / #1

Follow to catch Owen is Scared on October 3rd

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