I don't like giving you guys cliffhangers so… here, have a quickly-updated chapter.

Chapter 12: Autobiography

A… wail woke me from my sleep. It probably woke everyone up, honestly. It was low and loud and guttural, a desperate cry. And it was… most certainly Marco's.

My brain was processing my thoughts at exactly the speed you'd expect it to be when I'd just woken up. Slow. Just very, very slow. And although my worry was very up-to date, very current, the rest of my body was taking quite a lot longer to respond in an appropriate way. But eventually, my eyes adjusted and I mentally slapped myself awake. This was Marco we were talking about here, dammit. I didn't care how little my body wanted to leave the bed, how many times I yawned. He was in danger. I couldn't even believe I needed to say this to myself.

My feet plodded along the hardwood floor, across to the end of the hall, and I swung open the door. Star had already gotten there first; but that's unsurprising, considering her room is right next door to his. She held in her arms his crumpled-up form, tears rolling down his face, low wails and incoherent blubbering spilling out his throat. I quickly moved to the bedside, sitting below it.

Twice. This was the second time that this had happened since we'd decided to be together, the first happening the very first night I'd dated him. But that day hadn't necessarily gone well, or even well at all. It was a day I'd rather soon wrap in a package and promptly shove into the deepest and darkest recesses of my mind; god, that day was just embarrassing.

He was there trembling violently like a leaf in a hurricane, his fingers constantly twitching, eyes muddied, constantly shifting left and right, left and right, left and right, unfocused to the world before him, and yet… focused to a different time, a different place that neither I nor Star could ever reach. "Marco…" I murmured, hovering a hand closely to him, not wanting to touch him until he acknowledged me fully; the last thing I wanted was to startle him, or make his situation worse; it was already bad as it was. My top eye flicked up to Star. "Has he said anything to you?"

"No," She answered sadly, shaking her head. I figured then that Marco had allowed her to hold him in his panic and desperation for another's touch; he was clinging to her nightgown tightly, and yet absently, still hyperventilating, still shaking. The Diazes entered shortly thereafter with a rushed disposition, with materials that I supposed that they used for him in this time of desperation: a stuffed bison, a glass of water, a blanket from what appeared to be his childhood, and chocolate.

"Marco," I started again, the edges of my fingertips stroking his leg like I would have his cheek, had I been on a higher level. He didn't so much as turn his head to me, his mind disconnected. "Marco, please… you can talk to us; it's okay. I know you're scared, but we're here now, okay?" I wasn't even sure if my voice reached him at all.

Mrs. Diaz sat beside him on the opposite end of Star, while Mr. Diaz sat beside me on the ground, setting the glass down along with him. His mother draped his small blanket with Samba de Amigo on it, then gently brought him to her chest, shushing him. And after a moment of his mother's gentle touch, the amber glow of his eyes returned, and he vaguely began to refocus the world around him.

He noticed me and his father first, his breath a choppy, wet mess, scattered between sniffles and gasps and hyperventilation. "Marco, hey…" I greeted gently, scooted up to be able to pet his knee.

He sniffled a few more times, took another deep gasp. "H-Hey…"

"You were scared, huh? Probably still are."

"Yea-ah…" He nestled himself closer to his mother's breast, and she stroked through his hair gently.

"That's alright; that's alright. Here then… How about we all just… take some deep breaths together, huh?" I offered, looking to Star and the Diazes. Star agreed, as did Mr. Diaz.

"How about it, baby?" His mother asked, "We'll just breathe a little, so you can breathe a little better."

Between his deep inhales, he nodded, quietly desperate for it all to be over, as we all wished. Collectively, we all took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled it slowly. And as we repeated this several times more, Marco's choppy and anguished breaths became less bumpy, his short gasps more elongated and smooth. He was finally able to settle down, silent tears rolling from a neutral face that appeared unaware of them. He held his mother tightly in a sort of thanks, then finally pulled away.

I and Mr. Diaz resettled onto the bed, and I moved to wipe the tears from his eyes with my thumbs. "You feeling any better now?"

"Yeah… Yeah, a little." He murmured, his voice small and weak from the exhaustion of sleeplessness and fatigue.

"Here, hijo, have some water before you get a headache." His father offered to him the glass of water, and Marco drank down a little bit before he set it down on the dresser next to him. "And here's Muffin." He offered next the little brown stuffed bison.

Marco took it lovingly – like how I would with Scamp – and held it tightly. "Thank you guys…" He gave a small smile, pushing Muffin to his cheek and rocking it slowly.

"Tom," Mrs. Diaz touched my shoulder, "Is it alright if you stay the night here in Marco's room?"

I nodded, petting his back gently. "Of course."

And after a moment of silence between us all, his parents rose. "Here, Marco, we're gonna leave the chocolate next to the water there in case you need it." His mother touched his shoulder reassuringly. "Is that okay?"

Marco nodded a thin nod. "I should be fine… And if I'm not, I'll have Tom here."

"Star," I asked, "Are you gonna stay here with us?"

She furrowed her brow, the air of concern around her not necessarily conjured up at the idea of being left out, but at the idea of being left out while Marco was still frail. "You… gonna be okay here with just you and Tom, Marco?"

He nodded another thin nod. "I think I'll be okay, yeah; thank you, though."

She trusted his word, moving to hug him tightly. "Okay. Just… try and get a good night's rest, okay?"

"I promise." He gave another sniffle. "Thank you again, Star… you came here so quickly; I don't know what I would've done if no-one came… So I thank you for that."

"Oh, psht, Marco! It was nothing." She sat down beside him, giving a rough bounce to the bed. "So… how did this one happen?"

"I had another nightmare…" He murmured, hoping his quick glance to me would go unnoticed.

But I did notice, and I looked to the floor in exchange. "The last one that was that bad was… about me, wasn't it?"

"Yeah… Well, about the ball. But… I don't think it was about you this time, Tom."

"Then what was it about?"

Marco furrowed his eyebrows, gave a scowl. "I… I don't remember. I only remember how I felt."

"So…" She interrupted once more in a quiet tone. "Then it's the nightmare that made you scream?"

"I mean… yeah, I guess so." He stated it as more of a question than anything. "I just… remember, in the dream, that I felt so scared that I couldn't breathe, and so when I woke up, I couldn't breathe. I felt, like… apprehension, like someone was about to kill me, and when I woke up, I just screamed for dear life because I didn't… y'know, wanna die. And then I started panicking… and then all this happened, and… I'm sorry."

"Oh, baby," I slunk my arms around his waist and pulled him close to my chest. "You don't have to apologize for that; you couldn't control it if you tried, and that's nothing you should feel sorry for."

"But I woke you all up…"

"I mean, I think I speak for all of us when I say that I'd much, much rather be woken up than you having to fight this all on your own." Star chirped up in a bubbly agreement.

"Well…" He mulled it over for quite a while, but soon the guilt faded from his features. "Okay then. Thank you guys."

"No problem, Marco! We're friends, remember? We all love you and don't ever wanna see you so sad, okay? Now, I gotta get back to bed, but just remember you can talk to anyone about anything that ever troubles you, okay?"

"Anything…" He murmured in a muted tone. "Alright; I'll keep that in mind."

Star smiled, not quite wanting to get up, but also, not quite sure of what note she was ready to leave on. She lingered for quite a bit as the silence grew around us all, and it was only after it became unbearably awkward that she got up and dusted herself off. "Night, guys."

So yes, in a sort of way, Star and I were back on good terms. Now, initially, we'd put aside our hatred for one-another for Marco's sake, but after a while – and you know how it goes – we began to understand that we weren't all of what we cracked each-other up to be; there was a part of each of us that was… not a bastard nor a bitch, not a demon nor a menace. We were just… misunderstood in each-other's eyes.

After she left, Marco lingered, looking down, lost in thought. He seemed to be in a sort of internal conflict, his eyebrows scrunching every now and then, his expression that of worry. I pet through his hair. "What's on your mind?" I cooed to him gently, kissing the top of his head.

"I…" He hesitated once more. "I wanted to share something with you and Star. Not right now, but… in the morning; right now, I just wanna sleep." He moved out from under me, and I pouted as settled into bed, giving space for me to lay down as well. "You can hug me in bed at any moment you want, y'know." But I sat there, looking like a child who lost his mother at a store, pouting at him until the expression sunk in. He gave a scoff and patted the section of bedding next to him. I finally laid down next to him, felt his arm wrap around till my opposite shoulder. And I was finally satisfied. "Night, Tom."

I kissed his forehead. "Goodnight, Marco."

Morning came with a groan. Marco's groan, to be exact, low and drawling like a zombie.

"Morning, I'd greeted him with a gentle kiss to his forehead once again; I'd gotten into the habit of making this particular kiss my hello and goodbye, and he was almost expectant of it by now. Except, when it was a good morning kiss, it was an indication that he should probably wake up. So he'd groan, groan without even opening his eyes, without even moving. And when I'd tell him, "Come on, Marco, you should get up." His groans would get more irritated, and sometimes he'd swat at me, like he did that morning. Every time I tried to touch him to either drag him up or just to pet his face, he'd swat at my hands and my face like it was all a slap-fight. I gave a small chuckle and shook my head. "Your mom's making eggs and bacon this morning; you don't want it to be cold, do you?"

"Five more minutes…" He murmured, his lips hardly opening.

"Marco…"

"Two more… minutes…"

"Then two minutes will be two hours."

"Don't care…"

"And then it'll be 3 PM."

That's what got him to finally jolt up. "It's one o'clock?!" I gave a chuckle as he looked to the clock on the dresser, seeing that it was only eleven. I was honestly surprised he was able to do even the simplest math with his mind that tired. He frowned at me. "I hate you."

I laughed harder. His hair was disheveled in front of his face, eyes droopy with dark circles, mouth dry, eyes crusted, retainer showing all of his frothy saliva. He looked perfect. "Well, at least you got up, right?"

And he promptly flopped right back down into the pillow, throwing the blanket over his whole body. "Nope."

"Marco, you told me you wanted to tell me something last night."

"Later…" He groaned. "I have, like, twelve hours to tell you guys…"

I waggled my finger. "Ah-ah-ah; you said tomorrow morning, and that means you only have one hour to–!" A pillow smacked into my face.

"Shut up with your… technicalities. Jeez, Tom, can't a guy just sleep?"

"Not if he's gonna oversleep, no."

"Buh…" He finally threw off his blanket, flinging it onto me. I quickly moved to fold it up as he moaned again, finally rolling out of bed. He sat down on the floor, letting himself bathe in the light leaking in from his window, then finally got up, only to sit down on the bed again as I folded the covers onto the foot of it. "Did you get to brush your teeth?"

I shook my head. "No; I was waiting for you, lazy bones." I sat down behind him and gently massaged his shoulders. "You ready to get up while there's still morning?"

He heaved a heavy sigh. "Fine." He rose, finally moving towards the bathroom across the hall. I quickly followed after him. His procedure for brushing was a near-replica for his getting-out-of-bed routine: it was slow and sloppy with languid movements and lidded eyes. I turned my sink's water to the coldest setting, then took a dab of it and pressed it over Marco's eyes. This usually did the trick to wake him up, as it did today. What it also did was deliver a squeal and a slap to my face. But hey, at least it worked. "Tom!" He screeched. "Why do you have to do this every time you sleep at my place?!"

"Because I seriously question how you get up any other day that I'm not here."

"I usually don't…" He murmured, not showing a hint of shame in his face nor tone. "Not unless I have school, or something to do."

"But you were gonna spend time with me, weren't you? Me, and Star, and your friends? Plus there's that thing that you promised you'd tell Star and I this morning."

He spat out the slurry of saliva and toothpaste in the sink. "I will, I will. I still need to get changed and have breakfast first; then afterward, we'll talk about it in my room. But for right now, I just need to get changed, and so do you." He began to shove me out of the bathroom. "So you go and change and I'll meet you downstairs." And he waited there, his head poking out the door, until he could see me turning the corner to leave. I heard him gently lock the door to his room thereafter.

Damn, he was so cute.

I changed into a simple gray sleeveless hoodie and black sweats, deciding that I'd meet Marco downstairs after he changed himself. I honestly… hadn't expected Alfonzo and Ferguson to be downstairs, too. Breakfast consisted of eggs and garlic bread and bacon on a large platter. The two of them and Star were taking generously from the plates, each bite of garlic bread like a new flavor Star discovered, her face melted into a delight, a joy like she never experienced before.

I guess some people are just easier to please than others.

"Hey… Fonz. Ferg. What're you guys doing here?"

Alfonzo swallowed down a tooth-torn chunk of bacon. "Marco said for us to come over last night for twelve o'clock."

"Just to hang out?"

"Yeah. Something like that. So we came over a little early and Mrs. Diaz had breakfast for us."

I sat down beside them. Honestly, this was a normal thing, for the two to show up unannounced. I didn't mind, honestly; I did the same thing, except the two boys would have to knock on the door. I could just appear whenever I wanted, making me a much bigger pest. Marco hurried downstairs, slipping his jacket onto him as he came down, then settled into the last of the kitchen chairs. "Morning guys; glad you could make it."

"Like you weren't about to." My voice was swallowed into the thick pores of the bread.

But not enough; I felt him jab my shoulder. "Well I did get up, didn't I? Even if it did take a lot of encouragement."

Ferguson chuckled. "Classic Marco."

"What do you mean, 'Classic Marco'?"

"How you always take five years to get up." Star chimed in.

Marco only rolled his eyes, the four-against-one odds stacking up against him. "Fine." He finally admitted between a defeated bite of bacon.

Breakfast ended with some pleasant coffee, not too overbearing on the palette, not too weak to be unenjoyable. We moved thereafter to Marco's room upstairs, and he settled on his bedside, his two best friends flanking him. Star and I decided to sit on the floor below him.

He started with a sigh. "Okay, well… yesterday, Star said that I could tell anything to anyone when it bothers me, right?"

"Right!" Star reassured.

"So… This is something that's bothered me for a while, because I've been holding out on you guys. Now, granted, I've only known Star for four months, and Tom, around three-ish. Alfonzo and Ferguson, well… they know what I'm about to tell you, so that's why they're here. Just… to kinda make it more comfortable to say."

I knit my eyebrows, and both Star and I looking to each-other with concern. "Is it anything… dangerous?" I asked cautiously.

"Oh no, no… nothing like that. I'm not gonna die or anything." He scratched the back of his head. "It's just that… I've never told you guys… about me. Okay you guys know me – I do karate, and go to high school and love sushi – but you don't know my… history. My autobiography, I guess. Everything that's happened to me for fourteen years."

Now it was Star's turn to knit her eyebrows. "Huh… when I think about it, you never did tell me what you were like as a little baby boo-boo." She babbled her last words out, pinching Marco's leg where she couldn't pinch his cheek.

He recoiled. "Ow, Star!" He hissed, not angry, but certainly sore. Star gave her cutest apology, which didn't do much in the way of changing Marco's attitude, but since he was already known for being forgiving, he forgave her promptly. He continued, "Well, in any case… I figured I should just go ahead and tell you guys now, whether you guys might hate me for it for the rest of my life…" He took a deep sigh. "I'm trans. So… yeah. Y'know…"

Star looked to him with a confused expression, as did I. But obviously, the matter was very heavy and serious to him, if his initial precaution was that we'd hate him. I felt awful having to ask, "What… does that mean?"

Now he looked to us with a matched sort of bewilderment. "You don't know…?"

"Never heard of it." Star replied.

"I…" He started, but he seemed to be at as much of a loss as the two of us. He shifted in his bed a little. "This is honestly… not what I was expecting…"

"So then… what were you expecting?"

Marco's voice went dry. "For you guys to leave me…"

His words were like a hot iron clamped over my heart. "What?! Why would we ever?!" Star cried. What in the hell was 'trans' that he'd think we'd up and leave him so immediately? What had being trans done in his past that made others leave?! I, obviously, didn't want to minimize his fear nor his pain, so I could only imagine it had come from a place of experience, and that made me feel all the worse.

"Marco," I attempted to calm myself down – not from anger, but shock – trying to speak reasonably, "Whoever you were in the past… it isn't who you are now. Whatever you did then, we won't hate you for it now, especially not leave you. I promise." I looked to Star, and she nodded. "We promise."

He took a deep inhale, then exhaled it slowly, looking embarrassed. "Well… it's funny that you mention that, because… whoever I was in the past was… actually a girl."

A long pause of silence swept into the room, and… my mind went blank. "A… A girl?" I found myself repeating, just to wrap my lips around the idea before my head could catch up.

"Yeah… that's… kinda what trans means. It means that, for all intents and purposes, I was born a girl."

Star gasped in an excited breath. "Marco! Does that mean you're a girl? And when we went to St. Olga's –"

"Star." Marco started, clear and sharp, sharper than any tone he's ever taken on before. "It doesn't mean that I'm a girl. I'm not. Can I… explain to you guys, since both of you don't know anything?"

She quieted down to an apology on her face. "Okay…"

"But don't' be upset; it's fine." I wanted to go up to him, to hold him and have him rest his head on me. The distress in his features was obvious, as was the discomfort. I didn't want to tell him to stop, however, because I knew that the discomfort would only last as long as we didn't understand, and we very much did not understand anything of what he was even talking about. So the only thing I could do was give him my undivided attention.

"Well… here we go…" Marco took a deep breath. "When I was born, the doctors decided to call me a girl, because I guess that's what fit best with… well, the way they decide if you're a girl or boy. So they looked down there after I was born and figured, 'hey, this looks girl enough to me.' So when I went back to my mom and dad after getting cleaned up and stuff, I was in a pink towel and a pink cap and they said 'congratulations! It's a girl!' so my mom and dad just took it the way that the doctors wanted them to. In reality, the doctors use a chart to measure up a newborn's genitals." He saw Star make a mock gag. "Yeah, I know; we have to talk about that stuff. And if a certain part of a baby's, well, parts was too small, they'd be considered a girl. If it's too big, it's a boy. But then… there's kids like me. I was born… a little on the small side, but I was in that middle zone that was the 'purple' zone, the no-zone. They didn't know what to do with me. But since I was born a little on the small side – the pink side, the girl side – that's… where they put me.

"Now… a lot of people – well, a lot of humans I guess, since Mewnians and demons aren't caught up on that sort of business, I guess – consider it to be that I was… 'born in the wrong body,' they call it. But that was never the case; at least, I never felt like that; I don't know how it is for other people. I think I was born right, born… correctly. Like, when I was delivered by my mom and they wrapped me up the first time – right there, there was nothing wrong. But it was everything after that – the fact that they decided who I was before I was who I could say I was – that was wrong. I was born… Rosalita Sofia Diaz, and a lot of people told me that I was the prettiest girl they'd ever seen, and I hated it. And… the reason I say that I wasn't 'born in the wrong body' is exactly because… when I was only like two, or three, when people would say 'miss' or 'little girl' or 'ma'am,' I hated it. I threw more tantrums than you could imagine just saying 'I'm a boy! I'm a boy! You don't know what you're talking about!' " He shook his head, a small smile on his face from the memories of when he was young. "Even as little as three years old, I told everyone that I was a boy. How could I be in the wrong body like that? I was three; I didn't even know there was such a thing as a wrong body; there was only my body. And a lot of people thought it was because I hung around boys – though, honestly, I didn't hang around a lot of them. And I didn't mind dresses, didn't mind dolls, but I liked Legos and GI Joes, and… and greens and browns and camo, but the fact that my mom and dad didn't let me do that because I was a girl, I didn't like that. Eventually, I did get sick of dresses, because I was never allowed to wear pants; it's like making you eat spaghetti till you hate it.

"This… ended up getting to its worst point when I was eight, when I beat up a kid for saying I hit like a girl, so I hit him with a dozen fists, hitting him like just a girl." And with that one statement alone – knowing that Marco was a badass that beat the shit out of some asshole kid for calling him names – I fell in love with him just that much more. "So when time came back around to get my routine checkup, my mom and dad decided to bring it up to the doctor, to see if there was anything wrong with me. So they gave me this preliminary questionnaire, and after I did that, the doctor came back in and asked that I answer some more questions alone, without mom and dad's influence. And he just asked me questions about things I liked, and things I didn't. I answered them honestly, because I didn't think I should lie to him; he was my doctor, and I was eight. So, after I answered his questions, mom and dad came back in. And very quietly, my doctor said to them, 'I just want you to know that there is such a thing as transsexuality.' Just like that. And my mom and dad were very confused at first, but my doctor explained it that I was 'born in the wrong body,' even though I felt that was wrong, but it helped Mom and Dad to understand."

"So…" I interrupted for a minute. "That's what 'trans' means?"

"It…" He scratched the back of his head. Ferguson had a constant, slow rub up and down Marco's back for his comfort. "It means 'transgender,' because it's a nicer word to use, but older people and, I guess, professionals, use 'transsexual.' I guess, anyway. But Mom and Dad didn't… They never meant anything wrong whenever they'd put me in dresses, or called me 'Little Rosa.' They never meant it. They just… didn't understand – couldn't, with what they knew then. So… I never blamed them. I especially don't, because, after he told them everything he had to, they sat down by me in the doctor's room and my mom asked 'is this really how you feel?' and I said 'yeah, of course,' because I always knew deep down it was how I felt. And so then, they were… understanding; they said 'okay, what do we have to do?' and the doctor advised them to, basically, let me wear the clothes that I want, call me a 'he,' let me play with my Legos and my trains, but – and he said this was a very important – if I wanted to still wear dresses and play with dolls, not to restrict me from that, either.

"Basically, what had happened was… those doctors that first delivered me did it wrong. When they realized I was in that 'purple' area – that area between girl and boy – they shouldn't have done anything. They should've brought me to my mom and dad and said 'hey, we don't know what this baby is, so you guys should raise them gender-neutrally until they're about three years old. Then you go ahead and bring them back into the doctor to see what they think,' and they would've seen that I would call myself a boy. And that would've been that. But for eight years of my life I had to live with… being told, basically that my existence was wrong. It's like if I looked to you, Tom, and said 'hey, girl! How's it going?' "

"Then… I'd tell you, 'dude, I'm not a girl.' "

"But what if I said 'yes you are,' and everybody said 'yes you are'? What if we all started calling you – I don't know – Tammy instead, and kept calling you Tammy, and no matter what you said, we'd still call you Tammy and ma'am and princess and heiress? It's just like that." God, imagine that. I certainly did, imagining myself with little pigtails and dresses. I would've burnt them all to a crisp; That one little example gave such an apt idea to me, I could finally say I understood this whole 'transgender' business a little bit.

"Wow…" I went up to him – couldn't help it, really – and sat down beside him, bringing him to my chest. "I'm so sorry, baby."

"It's okay…" He murmured. Star plopped down next to them, but instead, sat down by Alfonzo, a space away from Marco. "Back to the story?"

"Oh yeah!" Star giggled, bouncing up and down with a childish wonder. To her, it was storytime – Marco's story, and I didn't mind, nor did he. This story wasn't a fiction, wasn't a joke, but knowing Star, fictions and biographies are all taken with the same level of excitement.

"So… basically, mom and dad did exactly what the doctor asked them to do, finally listened to me for once. The doctor had said that I might end up wanting to call myself something else, something other than Little Rosa or Rosalita. I decided on Marco. And of course, every now and then, Mom or Dad – Dad especially, because he's the one that called me Little Rosa – they would slip up and call me my previous name. But they'd apologize, immediately call me Marco afterwards, and that made them a whole lot different than the other people I ended up meeting in my life. I got to wear jeans, got to play in sports, but school was… still unforgiving. They still put my sex down as 'female,' still put me down in the yearbook as 'Rosalita Sofia.' Still did everything wrong. And elementary school was okay about it. The students called me what I wanted – what I was called. They called me Marco; it was only the teachers that had an issue. And by then, I was in the third grade, so everyone had already established me as a girl. When it came time for middle school, I had my name legally changed and everything, so not many people knew about me. I ended up getting a big group of friends by the end of seventh grade, and sixth grade is where I met Alfonzo and Ferguson.

"But… it didn't last. By the end of eighth grade, people… found out about me. To this day, I still don't know how, but they did; out of my big group of fourteen friends, suddenly a dozen said I was a disgusting waste of space, unnatural, a lie. That I was just pretending to be a boy to sneak peeks of girls in the locker room – oh, it went on and on…" He sighed. "Only two of them stayed… I guess that's where the worst chunk of my anxiety started out – in that fear of people hating me, because people did hate me, just for finding out that I didn't have as pretty a name as I did before. At first, my anxiety was just over this thing – that people would find out, and I needed to hide it. But it just ended up snowballing that even something like dreams can make me freak out." Star and I frowned. Damn, humans really did suck, didn't they? Not even being able to accept anything outside of what's 'normal' to them. "It's gotten to the point where, just three months ago, I was afraid of being disowned because my dad found out I was bi. I mean… he's seen me go from girl to boy; I hardly think that going from liking girls to also liking boys would be as bad! But that's just… just how my mind works nowadays…" Another sigh.

"I got my first dose of hormones when I was thirteen, just a little bit after I hit puberty. You guys know what puberty is, right? Star, it's like the human version of Mewberty. Y'know? Estrogen, the female hormone, testosterone, the male?"

Surprisingly, she nodded. "It's estrogen that drives Mewberty, anyway. I got you, Marco!"

Well, nobody said that hormones worked the same way in humans as it did in Mewnians. Though, Marco lingered on that thought for a bit with a creeped-out expression. He finally made peace with his face before continuing, "That's what the doctor had recommended, since starting hormones before puberty could be… uncertain and possibly dangerous. So… I've been on T for a year now. The results are… okay. I mean, I can grow my own beard now, and my breasts aren't too puffy anymore."

I smiled. "I'm so glad…"

He nodded. "I didn't mean to get so carried away about it. But… yeah. That's the story of me in a nutshell. A big nutshell, but a nutshell all the same."

"Well, either way, you're perfect to us, okay, Marco? I'm glad you told us, because… now I think I understand the whole 'transgender' bit a little better."

"So…" Star started, cautious. "Does this mean you have, like… boy bits?" Even she felt bad saying that. We all felt awkward hearing it.

Marco grimaced, appreciative of the sentiment, but also feeling just very awkward about it himself. After all, it was his body being thrown under the examination table. "No… And I don't know if I'll really want to. The surgery for that is… really expensive, and as far as I know, it doesn't even function. Plus, I might want babies of my own one day." He took a deep breath, the exhale indicative of just how badly he wanted to get off this topic. I could only imagine how hard it must've been for him; sure, he was able to say all he'd wanted to, but it was probably just weird now. "Well… I'm glad you guys were supportive of me, and didn't think I was, y'know, weird or unnatural."

"Oh, we'd never think of you as unnatural, Marco! Weird, sure, but never unnatural." She slapped him on the back.

"Yeah! Yeah… ow… thanks, though." I helped rub the spot that was now sore. "But I wanna move on to other stuff now, y'know? I just talked everyone's ears off, and even then… I need something to move onto after all this stuff about me."

"Do video games sound nice to you?" Ferguson suggested.

"Yeah, that's fine." He smiled and nodded, petting my head. "That sounds great, actually." He scratched behind my ear, and I nearly melted in his arms before he stretched and rose. "What do you guys wanna play?"