Labels Aren't Real

Content warning for incident involving transphobia/a slur superficially resembling a bundle of sticks, everything ends up okay please don't worry.

This work is dedicated to the author of the story 'Up The Cuts', transpunkprincess. This story reached me at a time and place in which I really needed it. The idea of being able to overcome adversity and find acceptance was relatable in a way everything else wasn't. The story appears to no longer be available, and I wish I had commented to say this at the time. I hope the author is doing okay, and I will always remember Kate and Knives.

greetz to developmental inspirations nightsearcher, xarth, YKN4949

"Oh, come on, Alice. You're amazing, of course you'll find someone," Jay said.

For her part, Alice didn't seem particularly convinced. She was still laying on their shared couch and looked towards some social media clip on the television neither of them were really paying attention to. "I appreciate how you've always had confidence in me, Jay, but your predictions haven't really panned out over the last however-many years," she replied.

This was admittedly true. Though they had grown up in the same town, and Jay had gotten to see Alice blossom into a woman (and stay a nerd), she was still a shut-in, and that didn't exactly improve her chances. Occasionally, Jay wondered if they would have met at all if not for knowing each other earlier in life, but he was just glad they knew each other. He said, "That doesn't mean it can't change. You just have to find the right person, let people get to know you, and one of them will—"

Alice interrupted him and said, "Let someone know me? Darn it, how am I supposed to even begin to do that?"

A silence passed between them, lingering in the air for a brief moment. Jay thought about his possible replies, sighed, and wilted a little. He didn't have an answer to that one, and they both knew it. Being gay definitely wasn't quite the same thing as what Alice had to deal with, and he wouldn't dare ever suggest so. But he had to say something. He couldn't just chicken out of telling his best friend what he thought she needed to hear.

"It means taking a chance, Alice. A risk," Jay said.

The urge to snap back at Jay almost overwhelmed Alice, but with her burned bridges quota already met for the month, she instead took a deep breath and used a moment to recenter herself.

"You're right. But... fiddlesticks. I don't want to get hurt again, and it's really scary. You just seem to effortlessly catch boys left and right, and you're..." Alice motioned with her hands as she searched for the right word. "...hot?"

"Pfft." Jay couldn't help but crack a smile at how she said that. "Okay, so I might have the whole twink thing going on. But one, it took a lot of trial and error and mortifying embarrassment before I could get someone to take me home. And two, you've got plenty to work with, more than you think. It's more about the effort you put in than anything else. I'm not saying the tank top and sweatpants don't fit you, or that your hair looks bad in its uncut state, but you can't deny the whole look is a bit... gremlin-y?"

"Don't forget the glasses." Alice adjusted them by reflex and looked down at herself for a moment. "I know. The other stuff is just so darn difficult. And... like, how much do I need to change who I am to get someone to love me?"

"Someone already loves you, Alice. I know it." Jay put his hand on top of Alice's, a small gesture both of them understood. Alice managed to hold it together for a few seconds before she embraced Jay tightly, collapsed into him, and squeezed his hand back. She hated crying like this as much as her best friend hated to see her sad. With the same calm, reassuring voice, Jay cradled Alice and kissed her forehead, working to soothe her until she finally wore herself out and fell asleep atop him.

What was he going to do with this girl?

The next two weeks went a bit better for both of them. They made a day of getting outfits together, one for each of them. Jay picked out out a colorful shirt and some tan khaki pants, both very basic but also very versatile items. He didn't waste too much time with it. After all, this trip wasn't really about him.

Alice took her time, fighting against her indecision every step of the way, and Jay was more than happy to accompany and aid her. To anyone else, her selections may have seemed excessively plain. Her white button-down shirt, black midi skirt, and complementing shoes, along with her freshly cut shoulder-length hair (courtesy of Jay, unlicensed cosmetologist), acted together to present a muted, conservative palette in black and white, almost the inverse of Jay's selections. Jay, however, could see the attention and pride Alice put into the small details, in every ironed crease and starched collar point. This was a lot for Alice, and Jay was quite proud of what she had accomplished... and he had to admit, when Alice forgot to be self-conscious and just acted with confidence, the appeal of the faux-librarian aesthetic could nearly knock him off his feet.

Things didn't stop improving there there. As Alice was happy to tell him over text, she was meeting people, even if she was still too shy to make it last long or say much. On one call, Alice mentioned how she had lunch with a girl the other day, and the way she pronounced the word 'girl' with such awe and wonder in her voice explained everything he needed to know.

It was a complete surprise when Alice called in tears one evening. She fought to try and explain something through her sobs without much success, unable to manage even basic intelligibility. Jay took a few moments to quickly determine where she was, confirmed she was safe, and sped off without delay to visit her. He could be there in under ten minutes if he got lucky with the traffic lights, and he intended to make his own luck.

The trip was thankfully uneventful. Jay had his own key to her apartment and quietly let himself in. The lights were all dimmed except for the glow of a screen from the living room. He could hear soft, relaxing ambient music and the occasional sniffle. "Alice?" he called out, walking forward and searching around with his eyes.

He didn't have to look very far. Alice was on the couch. Her shirt, stained with tears and other effluvia, was missing its top few buttons entirely. Jay could see where the seams had started to rip under significant force. That barely registered with him, though, and he was more concerned about her face. It wasn't easy to see her in much detail, since the abstract fractal patterns on the television obscured details with its colored illumination, but sitting down next to her made it quite a bit easier.

Alice had obviously been crying quite a bit. Her eyes, partially hidden between glasses too askew to see out of, were puffy and red. The box of tissues she was holding was empty, and the scattered remains of its contents had filled a small wastebin to overflowing and taken up a bit of floor space. And there was the slightest hint of the scent of cannabis in the air. Not entirely unusual for her, even if she was rather straight-laced, but if she had broken it out as an emotional stabilizer, things had to have gone very poorly.

It took a few seconds for Jay to spot another box of tissues on a side table, on the table next to his side of the couch. He delivered it to Alice, and even in that short moment it felt like he was taking far too long to do anything meaningful. At least to him. Just like he had they other day, Jay reached his hand out and put it over Alice's, sharing the same gesture in the same position and location but in a much different context. "What happened...?" he asked softly.

Alice grabbed for the tissues first, slowly but methodically cleaning her face as she made herself calm down (or at least helped herself regain some composure) with long, ragged breaths. "So... you know Mark? Mark J. Baseball player, kind of—"

Jay said, "I know Mark. We've met more than once." He decided not to mention that those wordless meetings were mostly improvised in hidden places, and let Alice continue.

"Right, well, we ran into each other 'cause I was doing some research about scorekeeping in baseball, and I was watching a game in the stands and keeping score. He said hi, we... chatted about some nerd stuff, I liked learning about a player's viewpoint into derived statistics. I, um... remember what you said about needing to take risks? I kind of maybe gave him a little peck on the cheek and asked if he wanted to get some pizza, and his face lit up and he said yes.

"And that part went fine... but later, after we ate but when we were still at the pizza stall, he kissed me on the lips. Just a little one, but... oh god, it didn't feel little, and my heart was going so fast. I knew I was getting in over my head, so I figured I'd tell him when we were in public. Because I had to at some point.

"I thought... fiddlesticks, I thought it'd go okay. And... and..." Alice burst into another crying spell, squeezing Jay's hand back as if it were her only lifeline. It took a moment for her to find her voice, and she cleaned up her face with another tissue, discarding it without even trying to aim for the overfull trash bin. "He went straight from 'it's okay, you can tell me anything' to 'I'm not gay, I don't kiss no f-faggots,' and he.... he grabbed my collar. I freaked out and I think my elbow hit his chin somehow, and that was enough to make him let go so I could get away. I don't know what he was thinking, but... but everyone there saw it and they were yelling at him, and he ran off, somewhere, I don't know where."

That hypocrite, Jay thought to himself. He attempted to find the right words for far too long. There were a few false starts, and he kept tripping over his own tongue. He eventually resorted to simply holding Alice as close as he could manage, as if trying to protect her in vain from something that already happened. Jay whispered into her ear and said, "I'm so, so sorry."

Alice was surprised for a moment, but as soon as she recovered from her initial freeze, she hugged Jay back without further hesitation. "I'm fine," she said, but the token reassurance didn't quite seem to seem all that convincing to either of them. Her hands and clothes weren't quite clean, but Jay didn't seem to mind at all. The two of them had embraced before, but never this closely, and Alice had never hid her face in Jay's shoulder and neck. They had never felt each other's breaths and pulses in any way quite like this.

After a long silence, Alice managed to croak out a reply. "T-thank you. A lot. I shouldn't be this delicate, but—"

"No, fuck that. You got assaulted," Jay said. "It's okay to feel hurt by that. And it's okay to cry. I won't let anyone else make you feel unsafe as long as I'm standing by you." He squeezed her strongly to emphasize his promise.

"—okay, point, but just... I'm real tired of being hurt, Jay, and... feeling lonely. I just want to feel like someone cares, or at least will treat me like a human being without having to lie to everyone all the time."

Something about that confession stirred Jay's feelings around in a way he could feel in his heart. "Nothing about you is a lie, Alice. You're beautiful," he said as he buried his fingers in her hair and stroked down her scalp, the way he always did when they were together.

Alice nodded at his claim with a small sigh, mouthed a 'thank you', and shriveled into the couch. Jay realized that, coming from him, those words didn't quite mean what he wanted them to mean, no matter how heartfelt they were to him. Both their eyes met, and for a moment, any awareness of time itself seemed to melt away as they realized the other understood them in a way nobody else did.

No matter how long it seemed, though, a moment could only ever be a moment, and it passed as quickly as it came. The soft ambient track coming from the television changed to a piano piece, providing a momentary distraction as the album art and title flashed on the screen. The waterfall-like sound of keys played in legato hammered upon both their heartstrings, striking at whatever exposed parts happened to be accessible.

Without a single noise, Alice worked her fingers into the gaps between his and interlaced them with Jay's. This was also new, but it felt... right. Both of them almost felt like they could stay like this forever.

'Forever' may have been fifteen minutes, or may have been an hour, but either way, Jay's soft voice eventually broke the silence. "Alice, may I kiss you?"

Alice said, "Um, of course."

He blinked, realizing he hadn't quite explained his intentions. "I mean... not like usual, not on the forehead. I want to really kiss you, Alice," Jay said.

For a moment, Alice could barely comprehend the words, feeling as if these words coming from Jay were as unlikely as them coming from any given piece of fruit on her kitchen counter. "But... you're gay...?"

"Labels aren't real. And you're the one that taught me that. And I love you." Those words had passed casually between them before, but never held so much weight. And Jay had never been more sure of anything else he had ever said.

For a moment, the silence returned, and its presence was deafening.

Then, in a single motion, Alice plastered herself against Jay as completely as she could manage and pressed her lips against his. The motion was clumsy, inexperienced, and a little awkward as she accidentally bounced her tooth off of one of Jay's. Both of them echoed a small "ow". Alice giggled a little, and then Jay followed, visibly relaxing against each other even as their heart rates skyrocketed.

"Here," Jay instructed, ducking his hand under Alice's hair to hold the back of her head. He guided it towards him for a more controlled contact, pressing his lips against her with more dexterity and deliberate force. They met like that for a few moments before they parted. Some anxiety played across Jay's normally always-confident expression. He couldn't suppress the thought he somehow did it wrong, and asked, "How was that?"

Alice bit her lip, fixing her glasses to stay in place and out of the way. She squeezed Jay's hand and used it to pull him back towards her. "...again?"

Jay complied happily and repeated the motion with the same, predictable timing. Alice kissed back a little more than before, feeling as if she could finally relax. The sensation of Jay's lip on her tongue surprised Alice, feeling startled for a moment before realizing she was the one responsible for it happening.

Without hesitation, Jay responded by touching the tip of his tongue to hers, letting it linger for a single moment before he swirled it around in a practiced motion. A muffled noise escaped Alice's throat and left her lips, her eyes open wide as she pulled away.

"I didn't catch that, you were saying?" Jay teased, which made Alice blush even more than she already was.

Alice said, "You complete jerk—you know exactly what you're doing to me, you... darn experience-haver, you." She couldn't quite string together a sentence, and resorted to shoving Jay in retaliation, albeit not very strongly. The futility of the gesture made them both laugh.

Jay asked, "Is that a complaint? Should I stop?"

"No!" Alice answered without hesitation, quick enough to surprise herself. "Just... like, you're not taking pity on me, right? This is... this is real...?"

"This is as real as you want it to be," Jay said with an affirming nod, pulling Alice into his lap. It was a bit awkward for him to perform with the necessary strength, and Alice squeaked out loud for a moment, but the moment she managed to settle into Jay's lap, she straddled it and faced him, already knowing she never wanted to leave.

As far as Alice could recall, this was the first time she ever felt someone be aroused because of her. She rocked her hips, at first on pretense of making herself more comfortable. It worked for a moment, but the feeling of his hard cock sliding against her bottom, even through a pair of pants, compelled her to continue. With a small rhythm both of them contributed to with the movement of their hips, Alice ground herself back against Jay, becoming just as erect as he is. She knew Jay could feel her and, for the first time, she didn't even think to worry about it. Any thoughts of the world and its norms melted away entirely, allowing her to exist as herself, nothing less.

Jay became just as lost in their shared sensation and thrust back with a little more deliberate force, moaning to make sure Alice knew how much he appreciated her and how amazing they could make each other feel. He still had the presence of mind to keep track of the important things, and while he didn't make either of them stop, he mentioned, "Just to make sure—how far do you want to go right now? And... in what manner?" The various slutty exploits he had shared in stories with Alice came back to his mind, making it hard to predict what she expected from him.

Alice panted for breath and wiped away a little sweat from her brow, realizing she's in poorer shape for physical activity than she thought. "I, um, thought we could... do the... uh..." Searching for words for a moment, she visibly gave up on phrasing and simply proposed, "You could fuck me?"

"Holy shit, you can swear?" Jay replied with an exaggerated reaction. Alice's body couldn't decide whether it wanted to laugh or moan, and her voice froze in place as her mind plotted retribution. This time, she resorted to pushing Jay entirely onto his back, unbuttoning and pulling at his pants. By chance, she managed to expose him all at once, and the sight and warmth of his cock against her hand only heightened the urges she was feeling. Underneath her skirt, she disposed of her underwear, discarding to the side two pairs of panties and a support garment before she resumed straddling Jay again. Her skirt still covered any 'indecent' part of her, but hidden below the fabric, she pressed the side of her shaft against Jay's, giving completely into her instinct and doing what feels good while being plenty loud about the effect he has on her.

Jay continued to be surprised at what Alice demonstrated herself to be capable of, and what she lacked in experience she certainly made up in enthusiasm and lust. "Here... a little tip I learned," he said, reaching under her skirt. She flinched for a moment, not used to being touched there, but it felt so amazing that her hips refused to miss a beat, thoughtlessly chasing the pleasurable sensation. Jay's fingers curled around both their cocks and held them together, letting each of them slide in opposite directions against each other to spit roast Jay's fist. Surprised how much difference just a small change in position and contact could make, she mentally filed away the fact to better indulge herself in her lust.

The sprint was quite something to behold. Alice managed to slow down, not wanting to expend all her energy at once so she could make the moment last. "...can you help me get this toy out?" she asked, guiding Jay's hand to her rear. His fingers found a bit of unexpected plastic, and as they explored the shape, his slightly puzzled face became more perplexed.

"A toy? You're wearing a plug?" Jay asked with an amused smile. Holding Alice's torso to him with one arm, he exerted some force and pulled, slowly easing the toy out of her. Alice gasped sharply as she felt the widest point exit her body, curling her toes and exhaling with a shiver. The plug was indeed just that, wrapped in a black condom, and Jay placed it on the side table nearby. Something about his expression prompted Alice to defend herself.