DetectiveRed

As always edited by Trismegistus Shandy! Big thanks to them for the help!
Trismegistus Shandy's work can be found on TGstorytime here and Big Closet here.

And thanks to underFlorence for looking over it! Her work can be found here

In only a couple of hours, she had made more progress with James than she had in the entire six months she had been out. They had talked more in those couple of hours than they had in six months. After the deadnaming had stopped, he hadn’t been too bad.

"If you call me by my deadname, I’m leaving, but I can’t leave you like this." She smiled at him reassuringly. She would be lying if she said she hadn’t been tempted to leave him. He had put her through hell at school, but she still remembered their friendship, and despite being the one who ended it, she did miss him.

The look on his face assured her this was the right decision; seeing even just a tiny bit of the fear he had been holding slip away was worth having to stay with him for the night. She thought she might even be able to patch things up. 

Outside of his situation, she wasn't sure what to talk about. She didn't think so little time would have created a divide so great. They ended up where they’d started, watching bad cartoons on the couch. The silence wasn't as awkward as she thought it might be, but part of her wanted to break it. She wanted to know what he had been doing the last six months aside from harassing her. She wanted to know why he was harassing her. She wanted to know if he cared about what she had been doing. 

"How have things been, aside from -- you know?" She looked him up and down. "-- that."

He looked confused as to why she had interrupted his intent cartoon-watching, yet replied regardless. 

"Uhh, I've been okay, I guess. I've been mostly just hanging out with the guys."

She looked at him and tried to pull her best "really" face; he was not getting away with saying so little. She wanted to know what made him do the things he did. It seemed to work.

"Ben's basically like he always is, being an edgelord and trying to get with girls; it's pretty entertaining to watch if I'm honest. Lachie's watching the same big titty anime waifus he always talks about, and Nick is just Nick." A look of confusion flashed on his face like he couldn't find the right words to talk about his one decent friend. "He still gets a lot of shit from the other two for caring too much. He's even tried to get us to stop, you know…” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and made an air-quotes gesture as he said, “...talking to you."

The way he said “talking” made her want to slap him. He and his friends had actively tried to make her life painful, and he called that "talking." Was he so dense that he couldn't see how badly he and his friends had hurt her? 

“You never talked to me, James, you just yelled at me from across the room. To talk to someone you actually have to approach them,” she snapped. It was at least comforting to hear she had on ally outside her friends. Nick had always treated her with respect. She had only talked to him a handful of times, and each time she couldn’t help but wonder why he was friends with the other three.

James sat stared at his lap silently. She couldn’t tell what he was feeling. 

"What have you been doing?" he asked meekly. She almost felt bad for getting mad at him. He looked so weak, his voice was so small, a far cry from the voice he had used mockery of her. He looked vulnerable, the same way he’d looked when his mother had scolded him for befriending her when they were little. She decided to move on. She refused to feel bad for being angry at him.

She wasn’t sure whether he had asked because he wanted to know or to change the subject. Her mind buzzed with things to tell him; she could tell him about Adam, or the mystery hunting or maybe even confront him further on how he had made her life a living hell! She thought it was probably best to keep it simple.

"I have been more me, I guess, for probably the first time since we were kids." 

The memories of when she used to play as his princess came to her mind. It was always James pretending to be a prince and back then he treated her like she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. They were just kids then but she guessed that she wanted him to remember those times too. She wanted him to remember that they were friends even when she wasn’t pretending to be a boy. 

"I've been hanging out with Adam a lot, though; he sometimes helps me look around the school when something weird seems to be going on.  We're like Velma and Shaggy, I guess?" She figured James’ situation would be her next mystery to solve. 

"I thought you would want to be Daphne and Fred." He was still trying to to be playful through his quietness. She was glad he was trying to actually talk to her. 

"I always liked Velma, though,” she giggled. “She’s smart, cute and she has super cute glasses. I wouldn’t mind dating Daphne, though.”

She wanted to laugh at how quickly the conversation had broken down into them joking about Scooby-Doo; the cartoons playing on the TV didn't help to resolve this. It was nice to feel like they were friends again, even if she did want to slap him occasionally.

An hour of cartoon-watching passed with only a couple of snide jabs from James at the ridiculous situations they watched play out. Each jab seemed to make him increasingly uncomfortable. Eventually, he turned off the TV and turned to Katie.

"K, is there anything we can do to make me look more like me?" he asked. 

"What do you mean? Do you want me to make you look like a boy?"

"Please, is there any way I might be able to look like a guy again, without having to leave the house?" He seemed desperate. 

She looked him up and down again.  The shirt he was wearing fit him well, which in this case wasn't a good thing; it made it easy to notice the small lumps on his chest. His hair would also need to change; its length did nothing to highlight the masculinity that remained in his face. 

"I think we might be able to do something? Can you get your baggiest clothes for me and I’ll see what I can do?" 

She also asked him to get some hair ties and a hairbrush before she could begin. She hoped what she had in mind would be enough to make things at least a little better. If he was feeling dysphoria, she wanted to alleviate it as much as possible.

"You're not going to use this to do, like a makeover on me, are you?" he asked nervously

"What do you think I'm going to be able to do with this stuff? I'd need a lot more than this to turn you into Cinderella," she laughed.

She rifled through the clothes she asked him to bring out and looked for whatever would cover him best. She then had him try them on to see how well they hid his figure. Most things that fit this description where hoodies and jumpers, but she did give him the occasional t-shirt to try on. Most of those seemed to drape over his chest instead of hiding it. He’d have to wear those under the hoodies, she decided.

They settled on a large green hoodie that covered up his body shape decently; she still wanted to get him something baggier, or maybe something to bind with. Next, she decided to try and do something with his hair; with the amount that he had, she felt like she could try anything, but still, she restrained herself. 

"How would you feel about a man bun?" She figured something like that would work with what he had, be gender-affirming and be humiliating all at the same time. Perfect.

"Just do it." 

After reading tutorial after tutorial, she had finally perfected his bun. His hairline had remained the same, which was a huge plus.  In the end, he looked like a thinner and more emo version of himself. If he put the hoodie up, it was unlikely anyone could tell his hair had changed at all. 

"I think that's all we can do for now? If you'd like I could message Adam; he might know more." 

"Just let me see how it looks."