thegingernut
I wound up pulling over so Alice and Rose could puke. Afterwards I showed them how the windows worked so they could get a little fresh air. Victoria tried to barge her way into the drivers seat again but I was having none of it. We were past the dangerous part, but she still didn't have papers and I wasn't letting her in the drivers seat until I could get her some. I wasn't pnning on gaslighting any strangers into being her former roommate or anything, but I could at least find a DMV and ask to use their printer.
Once we got back on the road, I struck up a conversation. "So have any of you ever been out of town before?" I asked. "Only to like barns in the middle of nowhere to pick up one of the Elders on out of town business when Elder Nichos is busy" said Victoria. The others didn't even have that. "Well its great. We're going to a shopping mall out of state. There aren't many left, but I think you'll appreciate the atmosphere more than a bigbox store."
"What's a bigbox store" asked Alice. "Big tax evading entity. You can buy almost anything under one roof, but the pces ck personality." I responded. "You keep saying buy. Where are we going to get money?" asked Victoria. "There's a financial assistance program for homeless children run by a charity operating out of New York State. It doesn't pay much but it covers my living expenses. Food will be a little tight this month but now I know they just… give it out if you ask I don't have to worry so much about that. I get 80 dolrs a week and usually only leave town on alternate weeks so we get a budget of about 160 dolrs. We're going to need like 35 of that for gas for the car and another 40 for some medicine I need so that leaves us 85 for thrifting charity shops. Probably won't be the best haul especially split 5 ways… But isn't the real treasure the friends we made along the way?"
"I think I hated you less when I thought you were an outsider" groaned Rose. "Oh don't be like that. You know you love me" I chuckled. "HEY! MINE!" barked Leah and pulled her in for a hug while making angry eye contact with me in the rear view mirror. "Oh don't be so stingy, we could share her" I ughed. "… I'm warning you!" she grunted. I stopped smiling. "Sorry. I was only joking around. I didn't mean to upset you" I said. "I would totally date either of you though"
"HEY! What about me" Alice pouted. "Oh you'd be my favourite girlfriend" I said with a smile to mask my sudden nerves. "She's literally a boy, there's nothing stopping you dating her" Leah grunted. "She's not and she doesn't need to be anyway, I am literally as gay as a tree full of monkeys on atrazine" I said. "Gay?" asked Rose. "Yeah. I'm a girl who likes girls. I am gay" I said. "That's a THING?" gasped Leah. "Yup. If you were both a year older I could literally take you to get legally married to Rose while we're at the court house picking up Victoria's fake drivers license" I said nonchantly.
"Yeah, but… she wouldn't want that, right Rose" said Leah small'ly. "She's resting her head on your shoulder you USELESS LESBIAN!" I scream-ughed. Alice started ughing. "What happened to build up?" she chuckled. "Rose has been wearing Leah like a fur coat all morning, there comes a point where you need to shit or get off the hole" I said with a roll of my eyes.
The conversation petered out for a minute. I discovered why next time I checked my mirrors. Leah and Rose were making out in the back seat. I smiled to myself. "Could you two not?" groaned Victoria. They hurriedly split apart and started looking anywhere but each other. "That's not nice Victoria" I said levelly. "Oh bite me, who wants to be pressed up against someone while they've got a tongue down their throat. Like, privacy!" she snapped. I sighed.
"So Victoria, do you have a boyfriend?" I asked. "I did. I dumped him after I found him two timing with my sister a couple months ago" she said sourly. "Sorry that happened" I said. "Eh, I don't want to talk about it. Or boyfriends in general. Or girlfriends" she grunted. "Alright" I said with a slightly forced smile.
There was silence for a little while. We joined the freeway. I pushed the accelerator to the floor and started transmitting a general "GET OUT OF MY WAY" to clear the overtake ne. It is shocking how many people don't know you're meant to stay in the rightmost ne unless overtaking. Suddenly Victoria spoke up again. "So this thing where women marry women: How does that work exactly? How do they have kids and stuff? Don't you need a man for that?" she asked. "They look after orphans who have no parents. Or sometimes one or both of them will go out and have a short term retionship with a man to get pregnant. There's also some more advanced options but you probably don't have the requisite biology context to understand whats going on even if I expined it" I said.
"Gay men have the real trouble of it. If they want to have kids that are biologically theirs, they need to pay someone to have a kid for them, and that can get really expensive really quickly" I added. "Why would anyone care if the child was biologically theirs" grunted Leah. Oh yeah. Most beastshifters were adopted, weren't they? "To sensible people like you and me it doesn't matter one bit. But normies get really obsessed with their genetic lineage" I noted. Leah let out a bark of ughter. "Normies, I love it." she chuckled. Then there was silence for a bit.
"Miss Cooper told me beastshifters get adopted a lot. Were you adopted Leah?" I asked. "Sure, I have two Moms, a Dad and siblings from both. Its no big deal" she said. "What are your siblings powers?" I asked. "Well Tanya amplifies people's emotions. Useful for making them make stupid mistakes or so she says. Sasha can make people hallucinate. She can't make you see specific things but when your senses are impaired like that you're as much a risk to your allies as your enemies. And Seth's a goatshifter" she said. There was a note of pride when talking about all of them. "The one who stopped a charging bear at the soccer game?" I asked.
"What the hell were you doing close enough to the shifters game to see that? Do you have a death wish or something Vanessa?" said Leah darkly. "Okay, in my defence nobody told me it was a cannonball shooting zone" I said defensively. "Someone really should have. That's one of the first things they tell us in the school for young kids" she said angrily, though not really toward me.
"Does Seth have siblings that aren't your siblings?" I asked. "Yeah, but I don't know them that well" she responded. "Is that not weird?" I asked. "Not really. We're not automatically friends with each others friends so why would it be weird not to share all our siblings?" she asked. I nodded. Sounded sensible.
Conversation died off for a minute. "Hey, what's your two's problem with Alice anyway" Victoria asked. "Ask Vanessa. I don't want to die again" grunted Leah gncing at me through the rear view mirror. Her tone was more akin to talking about a bad hair day than a (temporary) murder. Beastshifters really were something else. "Its Alice's story to tell if she wants" I said. She turned to Alice. Alice took a deep breath. "You tell her Nessie. You expin it better than I can" she said. I took a deep breath of my own and let it out. "Okay, so some people are born with bodies that make them uncomfortable. Alice is one of those people so she uses her shapeshifting to become something she likes better. Rose and Leah are uncomfortable because one of the things she changes about herself is her gender" I said clippedly.
"Wait! So she's Adrian Cooper?" said Victoria. "I will make you teleport yourself to the god damned moon!" I snapped. "Temper dude" she snapped back. "I FUCKING MEAN IT!" I yelled. "Whoa, chill! You really need to calm down" she grumbled. I took a breath to steady myself. I was driving. Not being calm could lead to fatal consequences.
"Look. Alice is trans. Out here in the big wild world, not calling trans people by their preferred names and pronouns is going to be seen as bullying. Someone might punch you for that. And the sort of people who'd stick up for you would stab you and leave you to die in the gutter for being a witch." I said. "Trans folks and gay folks get treated with a lot of the same irrational hatred as witches. Hating on us is only going to lose you allies. Because your enemy's enemy should be your friend, excepting rapists because they just suck"
"Hey, I don't hate her. I just know her by reputation and her reputation is she's a weirdo who likes pretending to be a girl" said Victoria. "She's not pretending" I said. "But she's not like, really a girl though, right?" said Victoria. "By what metric" I said. "Huh?" asked Victoria. "What special quality is shared by all girls but not by Alice?" I asked. "She's like, y'know…" said Victoria. "No, I don't. Say it out loud" I said dangerously.
"Okay, she doesn't like, have to worry about men leering at her" said Victoria. "Do too" snapped Alice. "Okay, but you could just like, shapeshift to avoid that, right?" said Victoria. "And you could teleport someone to the bottom of the Lake and leave them there. Are all witches with cool powers immune to creeps?" I snapped. "No! Its just… it doesn't feel the same for men, okay" said Victoria. "The fuck makes you think you know what goes on in a mans head" I grunted.
A swasticar pulled out in front of me and then brake checked me. I was slowing down from the moment he crossed the white line and slowed down just enough to not rear end him. I barely restrained myself from killing the driver with a dark thought. "BATHROOM EMERGENCY" I cursed instead. 200 yards from an exit. He cut across 2 nes to take it.
"Men and women are different, right?" was all she could manage after being given a full 30 seconds to think. "Not as much as you might expect" I grunted. Victoria was silent for a moment. "She's always trying to get into girls only spaces. What if she makes someone uncomfortable?" she asked. "I like girls. Rose likes girls. You got a problem with us in girls spaces" I snapped. "That's different. Its not like you're actually going to… y'know" she said. "You vastly underestimate the intimacy of girl/girl retionships" I said with a sardonic smile. "Then I… guess I would be uncomfortable" she snipped. I gnced at Leah in the mirror and she gave me a wink that I'm pretty sure meant "if you need help burying her body I'm all in".
"Then by that logic, anyone in a changing room could be lusting and leering after you. So is anyone safe really? Anyone could be gay or trans" I smirked. "That's… that's…" she trailed off. She didn't speak again for a while.
"Look. Trans people have been using changing rooms of their preferred gender for years in the wider world, and the number of incidents is vanishingly small" I said to console her. "… Okay, but wouldn't it be easier for everyone if they were just, normal?" said Victoria. "She is normal. And you can't possibly imagine what its like for…". I trailed off. Wait. Mind control. I could literally just make her.
"Hey, I have an idea. Why don't I just show you what its like for her with my powers. I propose a challenge. I'll project feelings of gender dysphoria with my powers. If you can withstand them until we reach the mall, you can talk shit about trans folks all you want. But if not I don't ever want to hear a word about it from you again. Fair?" I said with my best vilin smile, not that she'd see it.
"Sure, why not, it can't be that bad" she said with an angry grunt. "Rose, Leah, Alice. You'll all be in the spsh zone. You game?" I said. "Beastshifters don't back down from challenges" Leah growled with a grin. "I'm game" said Rose. "It won't effect me, will it" mumbled Alice. I reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. "Sorry, but a feeling this big goes to who it may concern" I told her. "Do you have to?" she murmured. "Can't think of any other way to shut her up" I chuckled. She took a deep breath. "Fine. Just do it. She won't st 10 minutes anyway" said Alice with conviction.
I took a deep breath. Oh, this was going to suck. I reached into the annuls of my mind and began kicking down doors that had had castles built to keep them closed. I reached down and called forth my every insecurity and every dark thought I'd ever had about my own body. Every backhanded compliment from my father. Every well meaning anti-affirmation from my mother. And then I channelled all of it like a prayer to the foulest of monsters.
I could feel it taking over me. My legs were too hairy even though I'd waxed them st week. My skin felt rough, like it had never known moisturizer. Every breath I took sounded deep and sonorous and way too loud. I didn't dare use my voice. And I felt the *thing* between my legs, like a tumour.
There was silence in the car for a while. Dysphoria isn't exactly a fast killer. More of a boiling a frog until it notices something's wrong affair. Eventually someone in the back seat started scratching their face noisily. I didn't check who. "Alice, is this like, accurate what you feel like when you're a boy?" asked Rose. "Um… sort of? It normally creeps up on me. Its like your body wrinkling up when you go swimming. It normally doesn't get this bad this fast" she grunted, angrily scratching at hair that wasn't there on her own neck.
"COULD YOU CLOSE YOUR DAMN LEGS, THERE ISN'T ENOUGH ROOM!" snapped Victoria. "I can't. It feels like I'm squishing it" Rose snapped back. "**IT** ISN'T EVEN REALLY THERE. ITS JUST A PHANTOM LIMB OR SOMETHING" yelled Victoria. "Then why don't you CLOSE YOUR OWN DAMN LEGS" yelled Rose. "Could you stop yelling? Its really distracting and I'm already having enough trouble concentrating on the road with *this… Atmosphere!*" I groaned. "SHUT UP VANESSA!" they both snapped. "EVERYBODY SHUT UP" I commanded with my powers. There was silence for a few minutes.
It was Victoria who broke the silence. "You're exaggerating, it can't be this bad" she said. "Feels like when I've been stuck in human form for a while, but in reverse" said Leah. "WHAT?" snapped Victoria. "Its like, when I'm stuck in human form too long I get this itch, like phantom fur that wants to grow in. But this is like fur growing in but not? Its hard to expin, but I think I understand where Alice is coming from now. Shifters gotta shift" she said.
"Its more complex than that. You don't need the ability to shapeshift into a girl to want to be one. There's a lot of people out here who'd trade their left leg for Alice's power" I mused testily. Given my power's falloff I was suffering the worst of it. "Are there people out here who want to be wolves and bears and rabbits?" asked Leah. "Yes. Yes there are. They're called therians. You might like them if you met them" I grunted.
"Leah, do you think I'm growing a beard" Rose asked. She sounded worried. I didn't bme her. Beards suck. "Nah, its just your imagination. You're beautiful" ughed Leah. "Are we there yet?" snapped Victoria suddenly. "At least 45 minutes to go" I said. She swore under her breath. "Fine, you win, not being a girl fucking sucks. Can you STOP NOW?" she growled. I took a breath and tried to put a lid back on all of my emotions. That went exactly as well as you probably guessed it would. "Apparently not" I said zombotically. "WHAT!" snapped Victoria. "There's a servicing station in 4 miles. We'll stop there so I can calm down" I said emptily.
---
It was a tense few minutes. I took the next exit then pulled into a parking space outside a filling station. "Don't get too far, we'll be back on the road as soon as I calm down" I said. I got out of the car. I grabbed my hoodie from the trunk. I folded it up to make a pillow. I walked a football field in the opposite direction from the freeway and the filling station. I screamed into my makeshift pillow. Emotions I hadn't let myself feel, even when I was safe beyond all reasonable doubt came tumbling to the forefront and savaged me like unleashed animals. The fear of my father's fists. The guilt for my mother's madness. The crushing isotion of that cage-like cabin my father kept me in. The hopeless mencholy of friends I could never see again lest they warn my father I'm alive.
I cried. I stared in bemusement at the tears on my fingers. Oh, NOW of all times that starts working. Fucking perfect! Here I am meant to be taking my new friends for a fun day out and I go and pull something out of the trauma pile to win a stupid argument with a stupid person who doesn't stupid matter and it all comes crashing down and now I'm crying too hard to drive.
Something warm and soft wrapped its arms around me. I was crying too hard to tell who. Alice probably? A second set of arms grabbed me from the other side. Big, muscur arms. Must be Leah. They held me as I sobbed. They didn't say anything. Just held me together so I didn't come apart at the seams.
I don't know how long I sat there and wept. Maybe minutes, maybe centuries. I eventually cried myself out. I let out a few more sobs, until they eventually fell back to sighs. I pushed myself up. Leah and Alice were by my sides. "You good?" asked Leah. "I think so… sorry, I don't know where that came from" I muttered. "That wasn't Alice's… existential dread we were feeling in the car, was it?" asked Leah. I froze for a second and then shook my head.
There was a short silence. "Maybe… maybe someone in town could help you. One of the healers perhaps? If they can regrow a lost legs they can probably help you grow boobs she suggested. I let out a sad giggle. "Oh Leah. Do you really think I'd leave something so important to fate? Don't worry. I can fight my own demons. And there are other powers than magic. They just [sniff] work slower, that's all" I said.
"Heh. If you say so. You don't have to fight alone though. If you need someone to kick that tall, knife wielding shadow monster's ass, you just ask, okay?" she said with a smile. "I don't [sniff] want him dead. I just want him gone" I whimpered. "Then I'll kick him all the way to the coast" she said with an evil grin. "Thanks Leah. [sniff]. Come on, lets go to a mall"
I wandered into the filling station. The attendant handed me the key to the bathroom without me having to ask. I wandered in and took a look at my face. I looked like crap but at least I mostly looked like girl crap. My makeup was a write off. My hoodie was a mess of blush and mascara. Great. I washed what was left of it off and did my best to get it off my hoodie. Good thing it was bck.
Refreshed, I returned to the car.
---
Gabrielle tore down the freeway. She was in a foul mood as usual. They were opening a damn abortion clinic within 30 miles of her town. As a god fearing christian, she wouldn't stand for this. A baby-murder factory in her backyard? Unspeakable! So she had her husband make her a wooden signpost to which she could nail a slogan printed across 2 pieces of letter paper. "Jesus hates baby killers". And as she drove she took a deep breath and began to pray. "Lord, grant me your strength so I may perform your divine will. Guide my heart so I may show your kindness!"
One of the things to note about Vanessa's power is that while its main limitation is its range, some minds are more or less receptive to some ideas than others. For example, "HALLUCINATE BEING A MAN" would bounce off a car full of girls and women like common sense off the house of commons. Which meant using more transmit power to make the whole thing work and more risk of leaking to other drivers. Now most were only close enough to the epicentre of the storm to feel a brief tinge of discomfort. Poor Gabrielle was uniquely vulnerable to that particur idea, and it effected her long before she saw that corol in her rear view mirror and long after it had passed from her peripheral vision.
Suddenly, Gabrielle felt something strange. A sense of power that she had never known she was longing for. She felt the hair on her legs pushing its way out like children on the first day of school vacation. She felt the muscles in her arm thicken, her shoulders broaden. Her chest felt numb, and somehow ft and the small amount of fat on her waist suddenly felt like a great beer belly.
More hair seemed to push its way out, on her face and on her beautiful manly beer belly. And then she felt it. A thing between her legs that was not truly there but felt so real she could touch it. She was a man! She felt so powerful. So free. And for the first time in almost 20 years, she felt right. No. He. He would call himself Garrett. He would go to the bar on weekends and drink beer, and pick up chicks, and py poker! He'd walk alone at night and if anyone gave him grief he'd beat the crap out of them! And for the first time since he could remember, he gave a smile of pure joy.
And then Sgt Hale's car finally pulled too far ahead and the illusion shattered like his dreams. And like the dwellers of Pto's cave, all he could do was return to reality, where he was a christian mom who stood outside abortion clinics holding signs that said useless ptitudes. But he could never again see the shadows of the cave as anything but empty and dull. Someday he would have to leave the cave. The darkness could never be his home again.
