Elijah, despite Casey’s admonition to rest, went back to cataloguing for much of the evening, then studied chapter four of the spellbook more after supper. He continued studying the chapter during breaks from work on Tuesday. An hour after supper, he was ready to try casting a spell on Casey. He went looking for him, finding him in his office.
“You ready to try removing some facial hair?” he asked.
“Try?” Casey asked. “You don’t sound too sure.”
“It’s the first time I’ve modified one of the spells the book gave me. But I’ve gone over the method for changing the target of a spell several times, and triple-checked my work on the modified spell. I could go over it again tomorrow after a good night’s sleep, if you’d rather.”
“No, let’s go ahead. Um, when you used it on yourself earlier, did it make the hair disappear or fall out?”
“I’m pretty sure it disappeared. I didn’t see it falling out or notice it scattered around the floor afterward. – But I was already clean-shaven, so it would have been tiny amounts of stubble I might not have noticed,” he hastily added, remembering that Casey only knew about him removing his facial hair.
Casey nodded. “In that case, what about if I sit in the kitchen with a big towel or sheet spread out under my chair? To test it, I mean. I’m already shaved, too, but I’d rather not get tiny hairs in the carpet.”
“Okay, sounds good.”
A few minutes later, they were set up in the kitchen with a big towel spread out on the floor under a chair from the dining room. Casey seemed to hesitate before sitting down. He asked, “Do you want to pull up another chair, and sit facing me?”
“Yeah, good idea,” Elijah said, and did so. He found Casey still standing with one hand on the back of the chair, fingers drumming on it. “Okay,” Elijah said, “I’ve cast the basic self-directed version of this spell until I can get it to work every time, but I expect I’ll still probably have to cast this one several times before it works. And so I can practice it multiple times and get it down pat, I’m going to cast it on a small part of your face each time. Pretty sure I could depilate your whole face at once if I’d already mastered the spell, though. – Oh, and you know I’m going to have to touch you to make this work, right?” They were both blushing slightly. “I, uh, you saw how I traced symbols on the back of my hand to make my fingernails grow…”
“Yeah,” Casey said distractedly, “I don’t have a problem with that, but… Shit, I should have told you earlier, when you told me you’d gotten the chapter about changing spell targets to unlock if not sooner.”
Maybe this was about the realization he’d vaguely alluded to when telling Elijah about his breakup with Amber? Elijah nodded encouragingly, saying, “I’m not sure what you’re thinking about telling me, but I’ll try not to let it affect our professional relationship, or… or our friendship. And don’t feel like you have to tell me, either.” It felt odd to speak of their friendship, even though he’d said as much to Monica in defending Casey from her aspersions.
Casey laughed nervously. “Yeah, I kind of have to tell you at some point, like in the next five minutes, if I want you to use your hair removal spell on me. And you really seem like a good, decent person, but some people I know have had bad experiences after telling Christian family members or friends they were trans.” Elijah was still processing what that meant – he’d rarely if ever heard “transgender” abbreviated as “trans,” and that meaning didn’t immediately spring to mind – when Casey slapped his hand to his forehead. “Ack, that wasn’t how I meant to tell you. But whatever, you know now.”
Elijah wasn’t sure he did. If Casey used to be a girl, why would she – he – whatever, why would they want to get rid of his facial hair? He or his insurance company had probably paid a lot to start it growing… But Casey was still talking.
“And, well, I haven’t seen a lot of results from HRT yet, but enough that you might notice when I take my shirt off.” Wait, take his shirt off? Then he must want his chest or belly hair removed, not just facial hair. “So I wanted to tell you before we started, make it less of a shock. Though it looks like I kind of failed, sorry about that.”
Elijah realized he had his mouth open and closed it. Then opened it again, about to ask a question, and closed it again when he realized the question he had in mind was probably extremely rude and personal. But if Casey was in a sharing mood, then… No, better not. He ought to take time to understand the bombshell he’d just been handed first instead of blurting out whatever questions popped into his mind.
And now Casey was pulling his T-shirt over his head, and Elijah, finally guessing what he was about to see, averted his eyes a moment too late. He caught a glimpse of a tight bra covering tiny bumps and stubble from a recently shaved chest and belly before he turned to the left and covered his right eye with one hand.
“Sorry, sorry, I should have asked first –” Casey was saying, but Elijah couldn’t process it. He didn’t want to say any of the thoughts that were bubbling in his head. He knew what his parents would say about Casey being transgender, what Monica would say, what his friends at church would say. And he couldn’t refute any of that. But Casey was his friend, he’d stuck by him when his best friend had abandoned him, and he was determined not to say anything mean or hurtful, even if he had to clamp his mouth shut for a week or two until all this turmoil of thoughts calmed down enough for him to say something friendly or at least polite. Or just treat Casey like nothing had happened.
His eyes were still averted when he felt a light touch on his shoulder. He jerked in surprise and involuntarily glanced up at Casey, who’d put his shirt back on.
“Are you okay?” Casey asked.
Elijah couldn’t respond for a moment, but finally mumbled, “Sure.”
“Look, it was probably a bad idea to just take off my shirt without – I was upset for a minute there that you were reacting so badly to me being trans, but you’re not disgusted, are you? You’re just embarrassed – so embarrassed it looks like you might be going into a panic attack. I’m sorry I took my shirt off.”
Embarrassed, yeah, but a lot of other things too. Elijah couldn’t keep them all straight. He realized he was trembling.
“Can you let me know if you’d rather have a hug or just be left alone?” When Elijah didn’t respond, still trying to decide if it would be okay to ask for a hug and not wanting to offend Casey by saying he wanted to be left alone, but kind of wanting that too, Casey backed away. “Okay,” he said, and the thought of how soothing his voice was charged in among the other thoughts and threw them into even worse confusion. “Nod if you want me to turn the kitchen light off. Reduce, uh, stimulation, I guess? I think I’ve heard that’s good for panic attacks, or is it anxiety attacks – not like I – shut up, Casey.”
Elijah finally nodded after a few seconds of indecision. A few moments later, the lights went out, leaving only a faint glow from the microwave clock.
“Gonna sit in the dining room where I can hear you if you call,” Casey said, and then was silent. Elijah’s trembling was starting to die down, and he was feeling almost more embarrassed over his own conduct than he had been over seeing Casey’s – chest. The more he thought about it, the worse he felt – Casey had shared something deeply personal, and maybe it was wrong for a man to try to become a woman, like the people at church said, but Elijah was sure it was also wrong to be mean to people who wanted that, or to jump to conclusions about them… not that he had any conclusions. Just a storm of half-formed thoughts and emotions, some of which had obvious sources even if their intensity was a shock, but some of which (was that jealousy over there?) didn’t make the least bit of sense, even in an unprecedented situation like this.
Finally, after he’d calmed down enough, he got up and made his way carefully down the hall to his bedroom. “’m going to bed,” he called out to Casey. “Sorry.”
“Okay,” Casey called back. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
Elijah wasn’t sure if he would be able to put his thoughts into words as soon as tomorrow. When he turned over in bed again for the nth time and realized it was two in the morning, he started to think he’d be too sleep-deprived the next day to do anything, much less have a complicated conversation, but he did finally start feeling sleepy not long after that, and dozed off before three.
Ah, that was a frustrating read. Guess we'll see how the next day goes though, Casey probably feels like crap now. Not a great reaction.
Hm, yeah, unexpected jealousy (or envy) is telling.
Oh no, I hope Elijah processes this well