Trouble With Horns

30: Shitposting as Combat

Something about Dawn’s crazy confession that I was more important to her than being outed to the world had me grinning and strutting, so when we walked into class, I was doing more than a bit of that. I scanned my classmates at the entrance for a moment, trying to push my grin down into something less cocky, and turned to Dawn with the full force of it instead. She dipped her head and grinned back, meeting my eyes through her lashes. Oh girl, you tempt me.

How easy it would be to push her back through that door, all the way to the wall opposite, my lips worshipping that beautiful face of hers the whole way. Damn our agreement to take things slow! I didn’t want to take things slow, I wanted to take her slow. Nice and slow and to completion.

As we moved to our desks, my phone went off with a message from Taylor.  She was being protective, saying that she was going to come and meet me at the gates, then make sure I got home okay. It made me smile how much she cared. I had a feeling that things between us were going to be pretty great going forward. Nothing like the distance that had been growing between us as my dysphoria smothered every relationship I had in my life.

Meeting the eyes of our class, I saw all the usual suspects were there. Rachel, the girl who’d invited us to her party, with her braided blonde hair and easy smile. Nick, the goofball who never let go of his longboard, or his beanie. He was always ready to make an absolute scene of himself to cheer someone up. Dale was there too, a large guy, and quiet, but don’t let that fool you. He had a sharp wit and an impressive left hook. I’d seen him walk right up and clock one of those church preachers with it when they did that megaphone thing out by the station.

Those were the cool ones, the ones I’d noticed of the thirty or so in the class. I liked them, even if I hadn’t interacted with them on anything more than you do with college friends. People you liked and could be friends with if either of you had time to add more friends to your head. Friends took up space there, like an inventory. There was only so many you could remember to hang out with before you of them fell off the shelf.

So the bad ones. Mack was Dale’s evil twin, if not in looks then in temperament. Where Dale was chill, with a slow, easy smile, then Mack was a quiet bundle of seething anger. He had a chip on his shoulder and it was the world’s fault. And Angel? Well, she was anything but, with a sneer that could strip the paint off one of Dad’s skimmers. The last in my top three do-not-like list, was Bernadette. She was one of those girls who’d been bullied as a kid, but hadn’t seen the hypocrisy when she picked up that sword in turn.

They all had the seed of a good person in them, everyone does somewhere, but the trick was finding the ones where the energy needed to help it to grow would be doable.

Where did I fit on this spectrum of cool and not cool I wondered? Was I the stuck up bitch with the fast mouth, or was I the confident goofball… with the fast mouth.

I walked through the class with a neutral smile, flashing all the confused looks with it before dropping myself into my seat with as casual an air as I could manage. When Dawn sat down next to me, it was with a smothered laugh.

“You’re such an attention whore,” she laughed quietly. “It’s endearing, cute even.”

I leaned over to her, dipping low in the process, and looking into her eyes, so gorgeous with their dancing amusement. “Babe, you make me feel like I could walk up onto a stage and sing my heart out to millions.”

With a gulp, Dawn laughed a flushed, embarrassed laugh and shoot her head. “Flirting now huh?”

“With you? I can’t resist,” I murmured slyly, sitting back up and scanning the class.

Oh yeah, Rachel had noticed. She was eyeballing me with that look that said her subconscious had figured it out, but her conscious mind was still playing catch up. I was wearing the same type of clothes that I normally wore after all. Taking pity on her after a minute, I decided to help her along, making a show of taking my phone out. I sent her a winking emoji. My account was still in my name, although for some strange reason my DNA profile had been updated to match.

I’d need to ask May about that. Now that she had a tunnel out of that glass case those bastards had put around her, she was running rampant across the FTLN. I was a little worried that I’d accidentally unleashed the Maypocalypse on the world.

When Rachel got my text, she looked down at her phone for a moment, then her eyes boggled and she looked up at me in astonishment. “Terry?” she mouthed in disbelief. I sent her a wink emoji again, only this time it was with my face, rather than my phone.

She turned to her phone and typed furiously for a moment, and then my phone pinged.

Rachel: Terry???? Why are you a girl?

Terry: because I’m a girl :wink:

Rachel: ????

Terry: I’m trans, if you didn’t realise. I don’t blame you if you didn’t

Rachel: Holy shit, but you were so manly and stuff.

Terry: Yeah, life is weird hey? People are weird.

Rachel: Wow. Wow. Wow.

“I see you told Rachel,” Dawn commented, smiling over at me.

“She was going to figure it out. I was just helping her out a little,” I grinned, my heart floating away at the adorable return smile I got.

Dawn was incredible. How had I not seen this before? She was just so lovely, beautiful… damn. The english language needed more words I could heap at her feet as praise, like I was a royal supplicant begging for favour from a gorgeous queen.

The rest of the class noticed eventually, but our oblivious professor didn’t, so I spent the whole class fielding curious glances, or in Angel’s case, glares. I raised an eyebrow and grinned at her at one point when her stares became just a little… heavy with malice, and she did the whole, sneer and turn away thing. Yeah that’s right. Fuck off and let me do my thing in peace you nosey cunt.

The one I was worried about was Bernadette, if I was honest. She had the light of recognition in her eyes, and it was worrying. If she recognised me as the Demon Girl, that was going to cause problems. I wasn’t really feeling problems at the moment. I wasn’t really feeling college in general, I just wanted to hang with Dawn somewhere warm and comfy.

I'd expected class to be a little bit like this though. No one wanted to be the one to break ranks and point out that there was a new girl in the class, who’d walked in like she was meant to be there. That is, until after class. As soon as the professor was out of the room, Rachel was over to us in a flash.

“You’re Terry?” she asked in a hiss, her face still expressing disbelief. “You were wearing a dress at my party!”

“Yup, that I was. I looked cute as hell in it, didn’t I?” I grinned unapologetically.

She laughed and shook her head in bewilderment. “Damn, this is crazy. How?”

“Shaping,” I shrugged, not wanting to get into too much detail about it.

“But… wow! I didn’t know it could do… That!” she exclaimed quietly, indicating my new body with wide eyes.

“I look pretty great now huh?” I smiled, looking over at Dawn for confirmation.

“Yeah, you do,” she grinned back with a slight eye roll. Sassy girl. Hot, sassy girl.

I’d intended to look right back to Rachel, but I got lost in those dark, mischievous eyes of Dawn’s again, and it was all I could do not to lick my lips in obvious attraction. I wanted to be in her arms so bad. I didn’t really care where or why, I just wanted to be there.

“Are you two…?” Rachel asked, trailing off and miming between us.

“Not that you know of,” I smiled, standing up and logging out of the desk to avoid the question. Turning to Dawn, I had to force myself not to run my hand through her hair as I asked, “Ready for the next class?”

“Yup,” she smiled shyly back, getting up out of her chair. I guess she’d caught my non-answer there, I realised, my cheeks heating a little.

The rest of the day went pretty normally. Everyone figured it out, no one wanted to make a fuss. We were at a college, people were almost aggressively supportive in places like this, and it scared all those who might have had something dickish to say into silence. I was more worried about the shit I’d see on social media, where people could hide behind their phones and computers.

I had a few people recognise me as the Demon Girl from Cora though. Took them a while at first, I think the shorter hair threw them off. Most people were respectful, and I even met one or two cool people, although I kinda just wanted them all to stop coming up to me so much while I was with Dawn. I wanted to concentrate on her. She was always a bit skittish around other people, and so I could see her getting more and more uncomfortable about the whole thing.

As we were leaving college at the end of the day, I got a message from someone rather surprising.

May Heaton: Watch out, airborne bitch incoming!

Why did May have my last name, and why did she have an FTLN account? How did she get her hands on that? I mean, I loved that she had both, but it raised a lot of questions. Wait, airborne bitch? Oh no.

“May just sent me a message saying Krissy is on her way again,” I told Dawn quickly.

“Do you think she knows? Already? Surely not?” Dawn asked, looking worriedly over at the air car parking, where we could see her car landing now. Then she checked her phone and swore, “Oh shit! She texted me, asking if you were here. Weirdo, why does she think I’d reply? I told her to fuck off last time.”

“Should we make a break for it, tell Taylor what happened so she can meet me somewhere else, or wait and see?” I asked.

“No, Krissy will just hunt me down regardless, but you don’t have to be there for that. You can hide if you want,” she said with a pained expression.

“Nah, we always stuck by each other back in the day, I’m not going to stop now that we have each other back,” I smiled, my hand reaching up of its own accord to briefly brush her cheek with my thumb.

She leaned into the gentle touch and closed her eyes for a moment, then jerked away and averted her eyes, blurting, “She’s almost here.”

I turned a little and spotted Krissy a small distance away, scanning the park for us. Her eyes landed on Dawn from across the intervening space, and then she frowned, looking around again. Looking for me. Interesting, so she didn’t know. This was going to be fun.

We waited and watched as she decided to approach. I felt a little apprehension, but at the same time, I felt so much stronger now than I had when I was Terry. I felt more whole, more myself. Krissy couldn’t do shit to me, nothing that would really matter, nothing compared to the pain of living my entire life as Terry. When she was a bit closer, I had to stifle a smirk as she gave me a double take, and then a once over.

“Do I know you?” she asked suspiciously.

“Yup,” I grinned.

“Well? Who are you?” she demanded, clearly already geared up for another pissing contest.

“Tami,” I smiled neutrally.

“I don’t know a Tami,” she frowned, staring harder at me.

“Yeah you do, I’m right here,” I said, fighting a shit eating grin with all my heart. Oh it was so tough.

Krissy didn't answer, instead rolling her eyes and turning to Dawn to demand, "Where's Terry?"

Dawn gave me a sly look for a moment, then said, "Dead, fortunately. If you could ever really say he existed at all."

"Yeah it was pretty brutal. Nanites and chemicals and a bunch of sharp knives just… wow," I giggled, feeling my heart swell with affection for Dawn. We were a team again.

"He's what? Can you stop being idiots for one second and explain?" she asked petulantly.

"Yeah, nah it's true ay. He just... jumped in a coffin full of knives and got sliced all up," I said, making stabbing motions. "Personally I think it was a vast improvement."

“What are you talking about? You can’t be serious,” she said in confusion. “Dawn? Stop fucking with me? I thought we were friends?”

Dawn’s face scrunched up in anger, real anger at Kristina’s words, and she spat her next words with more venom than I’d ever seen her use. “Were. Kristina. We were friends. Like, six years ago, maybe longer. Then you started drinking the fucking dumb church juice like it was that shitty wine you like. You became an awful human, and I became your fucking lapdog.”

Kristina looked like she’d been struck by Dawn, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of crazy psychic blow or whatever, considering the force Dawn had exploded with. Dawn wasn’t done either, she stalked towards Kristina with that same war goddess attitude that she’d used in Cora.

“That’s not just it though was it? You fucking… you fucking manipulated me. You twisted everything, you twisted me around your finger. You knew I was desperate for company, you know… you used me. You… fuck you are evil, you even lied about how you and Terry got together. You said Terry was the one who asked you out. Begged, was the word you used wasn’t it? You said Terry begged to be your boyfriend,” she growled, but I heard a resonating note of anguish in there too.

I stood up, going to Dawn and putting an arm around her waist in an attempt to hold her back and turn her away. Kristina might deserve the verbal lashing she was getting, but I was more worried about Dawn getting upset.

As soon as my arm was around her, she turned and clung to me like I was her only lifeline. In a way, that’s exactly what I was. Dawn didn’t have a family like I did. She had parents, sure, but they weren’t really the loving type apparently. Not anymore. She’d had Kristina, before I’d come back into her life, not that it sounded like that had been very healthy for her either.

Hearing hurried footsteps from nearby, I turned to see Taylor rushing over, looking worried and glaring at Kristina, “Uh, hey guys. Kristina, why are you here?”

“I’m trying to find Terry. He’s my damn boyfriend and he’s avoiding me,” Kristina said, although her heart didn’t sound particularly in it.

“You broke up with her, why do you keep insisting you’re together?” Taylor asked as she walked over to me, looking more confused with Kristina than angry.

“Her?” Kristina asked, and then Taylor reached me and her eyes narrowed.

“Oh shit,” Taylor swore, wincing and already looking into my eyes for forgiveness. I shrugged, I was probably going to tell the crazy ex next to us soon anyway, just to watch her eyes bulge. I guess now was the time.

“Yup, her,” I smiled, and Dawn uncoiled herself from around me to stand next to me, just as Taylor was on my other side. The two most important people in my life, backing me up.

“What…” Kristina asked slowly, clearly trying to make sense of the situation.

“I got myself shaped,” I said matter of factly. “I’m who you knew as Terry, although I’m going by Tami now. Look at Taylor and I, you can even see we’re twins, if you don’t believe me. Actually, fuck, now that I look at myself, I think I was wearing this exact T-shirt when you asked me out.”

“No…” Kristina said, despair rising in her voice. “No, no, no no… this isn’t… you can’t be one of them.”

“Them?” Dawn asked, a dangerous note to her voice.

“One of those… unnatural… those…” Kristina said, stumbling over her words. She stared at me, a look of raw disgust on her face, “You can’t just do that! It’s not how God made the world! You can’t just become a girl!”

“Um, pretty sure I can,” I said, rolling my eyes to hide the stinging of her words as they struck my skin. “I even tested the equipment out like yesterday morning. Seemed to work fine.”

As the last part of my words registered to her, Kristina made a gagging sound, saying, “That’s… disgusting. I will… this isn’t…”

She didn’t have any more coherent words for us after that, turning and leaving, stalking across the concrete tiles of the plaza towards her car. I watched her go with a sigh of relief.

“Oh my god. Really Tami? A masturbation joke?” Taylor snorted, turning and raising an exasperated eyebrow at me.

“What?” I shrugged, finding a smile for her from somewhere inside me. “I’m a sexual person, that hasn’t changed.”

“I know, you’re just funny sometimes,” she murmured, then frowned as all three of our phones went off at once. I unlocked my phone and read the text I’d just gotten. Oh no.

May Heaton: Hold my juicebox.

A whistling caused us all to look up, just in time to see a freight container fall out of the sky to impact Kristina’s currently empty car, the deafening sound of tortured metal and plastic tearing at our ears. Seconds later, the car detonated, the fuel stored within igniting and boiling up into the air in a pillar of flame. Kristina, thankfully, looked unhurt as she sat on the ground where she’d been knocked to her ass.

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