Out of the Woods

(CW: Slurs; Homophobic language)

October 29, 2022

Beth

“I fucked up, didn’t I, Tabby?” I asked, processing everything that had happened a little while ago, ready to throw up everything inside me from all the anxiety that I’d carried since.

“Yeah… I’d say you kind of did,” Tabby said, leaning on the table in the conference room on the first floor. “But, well… All you can do is work with what you’ve done. We all fuck up the first time through. But did you really have to disclose him so quickly?”

“Yeah, I mean… it felt right to do. I wanted to get him ready for Christmas. And that would require, well… having him fully disclosed.” I held my stomach. “I just didn’t want to leave him in the dark, but I had to keep Maia a secret a little while longer.”

“You know we could just bring Maia down to the basement, right?” Tabby said, an amused smirk on her face. “We were planning to have some lockdown time so that the boys could open their Christmas presents. You just created more work for yourself.”

“Whatever do you mean?” I asked, trying to play into the energy that seemed to be happening here, despite the queasiness in my stomach.

“You’re gonna have to actualize Tyler pretty quick if you want them ready by Christmas. They’re still pretty far from that, even if, well… Maia’s loose lips have informed us of a lot.”

“Yeah…” I huffed. Maia wouldn’t shut up about their dear brother, even apparently inside of the basement. Christine would come up regularly complaining about her to Steph during their second year, and I’d often hear horror stories about the absolute menace she was in the basement.

“Do you think they’re going to do it?” She asked. “We can always just… bring Maia down then. It could give them some hope.”

“No!” I shouted, before doubling over. “I’m… I’m dedicated to bringing them above ground. I remember how much faith Maria had in me when I was down there. I want to give Tyler that much faith, you know?”

“You don’t have to bring them up so early. As I said-”

“I went up there, and it settled me down. I want him to go there too. Especially if he cracks between now and then,” I said, ignoring my body to look up and grin awkwardly at the taller sponsor. “We can control it. We always have before.”

“It makes me wonder how much you actually messed up this time, Beth,” Tabby said. She moved around the table towards me, tracing her left index finger on the wooden tabletop. “Believe me, I think how you went about it was silly. You definitely could have caused some lasting damage to the intake. But… it’s gone unpunished so far. I do not want to discourage calculated risk taking, but I think there should be consequences for your actions.”

I pouted, sinking towards the table, coming to rest my chin on the table awkwardly as the rest of my body came to rest on my knees. “Do I have to?”

“Yes.” When Tabby stopped nearby me, she started tapping her fingers on the table. “You can’t just go underneath our noses with something like that, you know? I get that it’s each sponsor's choice as to how they treat their boys in one on one scenarios, but… it’s also so delicate.” She flicked her finger. “Have you heard the house of cards metaphor?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Leigh’s brought it up before, when we were second years.”

Tabby sputtered. “Of course she did.”

“To get to that damn house of cards, sometimes you have to do a LOT of damage to the shell these boys create for themselves. In your year, we broke Leigh; Olivia, and Mary pretty badly to get at what remained.”

“Hey, don’t forget me! I backslid pretty badly in February,” I exclaimed, volunteering information that I knew Tabby already knew.

“Don’t I fucking know it, Beth,” Tabby replied, looking over to the clock. “To some degree, it’s not been us that’s fixed you all. I’ve talked to the other sponsors of your year. Pippa excluded, the six of us regret a lot of things we did.”

“Why would you exclude Pippa in that? She was just as much a sponsor as you all were,” I exclaimed. “Just because she took on second year monitoring duties after that doesn’t mean she wasn’t involved in the programme.”

“The rest of us feel like she did the best she could. Hell, Monica still wakes up in a cold sweat over washing Diana out,” Tabby shot back, and I immediately winced at that thought. As distant as I was from Diana, nobody deserved that, and nobody had received it since. “We know that we’ll eventually have to do it again. We just… we don’t want to until we have to. And we’re more… you know we’re more intentional now about it.”

“I mean, yeah, Tabby! Our whole damn intake, coupled with that pandemic and then Maia crashing into the place in March, made sure that things wouldn’t work like they used to anymore,” I exclaimed. “And then the whole Grandmother thing…”

“We don’t talk about her anymore,” Tabby replied, her voice cold as fuckin’ ice.

“Noted,” I spat back in fear.

“Still, back to where we were…” Tabby quickly warmed up. Her voice was pensive, wistful. If there was a window in the room, she would definitely have been staring out of it. “It’s still a couple weeks out until disclosure. We took on a very early intake, and then added some late arrivals. The whole timeline is a bit thrown off, especially with the histories of Jace and Tyler. Christian’s on time, as is Ritchie, but the rest are just… out of whack, I think.”

“I know, Tabby, I just…” I shifted my eyes away from the concerned, yet frustrated stare of the senior sponsor in front of me. “You’ve read his story. You know why he’s down there. He’s denying it so hard. Jace probably is too at this point. And now I feel like I went way too far talking to him.”

“That’s kinda what happens when you’re new to the intake process. You go too far. You say things you may not fully intend the consequences of. And every year, at least a handful of you girls go through it for the first time, and you all have your regrets. For a lot of you, it’s the only time.” Tabby grit her teeth. “It’s been easier now to convince girls to have a first go-around, but… there’s always been so few ‘senior sponsors’ to go around. Me, Monica, Edy, Maria, that’s kinda been it for a while. I guess you can call Indira a senior sponsor now, but now that Maria’s taken a break, it’s kinda just one for one…”

“I get it.” I looked back up, and the frustration was gone from her eyes. “All I want to do is my best. And I guess I felt that the best thing for Tyler in that moment was to rip the band-aid off, let him process what’s coming for him.”

“And now we’ve got one boy partially disclosed. We’re all holding on by a promise that he won’t tell the others.” Tabby sighed. “Everyone but me this year was new to it. It was more justifiable when it was the five of them. Have four new girls and one senior girl who could ask questions. We thought you’d wait a year to support Steph through her intake, get yourself settled, and then take a boy on next year. And we wanted Leigh to graduate before she started. But she advocated so fiercely to take that boy on, despite everything…”

“You know…” I grinned, pushing a stray strand of hair back to better look at Tabby. “He won’t tell. I know he won’t.”

“How do you know he won’t, Beth? Do you have faith in that decision?” She asked, staring into my soul. “Are you willing to stake the lives that you and your sisters have built on that? Every boy we take on is a risk. Two more like that, in quick succession… is always a difficult ride. Our roster may be healthier than it’s been in 5 years, but that could evaporate with one bad year. We’re always one Craig from another crisis.”

“Yep. He knows that his sister might be alive. To him, that’s worth more than gold. And he knows that talking about this to anyone too early would jeopardise his entire reason for being. It’s… a lever I don’t like pushing, but it’s a very effective one.” I winced for a moment, before staring Tabby directly in the eyes. “He would give up the world for a chance to see Maia. And I don’t want to stop him. So… I’m willing to leverage quite a lot for him.”

Tabby lurched back a bit with her upper torso, a bewildered look on her face. “Never thought you’d use that noggin of yours for anything other than schemes.”

“It’s been a long time coming, I know. But you can’t tell me you don’t owe a debt to some of my schemes, especially with what I did for your little sister.” I gave Tabby a sly grin from across the table.

“Touché.” Tabby started laughing. “I don’t know where I was going with that.”

“Still, I think it’s best that I probably apologise for how I acted to him,” I said. “I think I could’ve definitely phrased it a lot better.”

“Yeah. I’ve watched the tapes and, even if Tyler’s probably imagining it as worse than it was… it was still pretty bad. You mind if we use it as the example on what not to do moving forward?” Tabby gave me a toothy grin. “It might be very effective for that.”

“Go ahead,” I replied. “I’ve no shame.”

“Hell, I think your behaviour as an intake, especially in your second year, should be a case study for the newer sponsors,” Tabby said. “You made even Mia look like a cakewalk in comparison.”

“I aim to please, Mistress Tabby.” I gave her a curtsy with an invisible skirt.

“Where’s a rolled up newspaper when you need one?” Tabby mimed an overly-exaggerated motion, looking around the room with one hand placed sideways on her forehead, as if to shield her eyes. “You’re in the same boat as Maia, you know that, right?”

“And proud of it, Tabby! Taught her everything I know.”

Tabby groaned. “Tell me again why we let you sponsor?”

“Because Maria vouched for me.”

“Yeah… that’s right… Now… for the punishment I promised…”

I gulped. “Yeah, I think using you as an example moving forward on how not to disclose a boy is enough. Your name will be associated with how not to sponsor.” Tabby laughed. “How’s that sound?”

“I guess that’s fine,” I said. “I… I probably deserve at least that much.”

“Believe me, I think it was silly. Aunt Bea was the one who advised this idea. I would’ve suggested much more.” She smiled sweetly, which only served to unnerve me further. “But… I think you’ve been scared enough by how you acted to ingrain the lesson enough. Just take it as a warning.”

---

November 1, 2022

Henry

I heard a few knocks on the room door, which fazed me a bit. Normally, Holly just came in when she needed to talk. We’d discussed that back in early September, and it was an unspoken code we’d followed since. Nobody else really came in, so the knock was quite a surprise.

“C-can I come in?” Ritchie’s voice quietly squeaked from behind the door.

“Yeah, come in, Ritchie,” I called out, with the same tone I always used.

The boy quietly walked into the room, shaking as he always was by this time of day. He was carrying a little book, which he placed on the table behind him. His sponsor, Steph, had been standing behind him, and waved sweetly as the door closed behind us. “I, well, hope you’re having a good evening.”

“What do you need, Ritchie?” Any other boy would have gotten dissatisfaction, perhaps even derision behind those words. But to him, it was neutral. He hadn’t really gotten much time alone with me since Gerald arrived.

“I just wanted to hang out, like we did before,” he replied. I raised an eyebrow, so he added, “I had asked if I could spend some time alone with you, and, well, Steph was all too happy to oblige with letting me come over.”

“Yeah, I have no real problem with that. Just let me know you want to come over moving forward, okay?” I said. “I’d actually clean up for you if I knew you were coming.”

It was a bit of an overstatement. There were just a few articles of clothing strewn over my room, particularly a pair of boxers that laid conspicuously on the floor by the computer. Hopefully, Ritchie wouldn’t notice… or wouldn’t care too much.

“You’re fine, Henry,” Ritchie said, before moving towards the chair hiding the boxers from his view. “C-can I sit in this chair?”

“Do what you want. I don’t particularly mind either way,” I replied, carrying an anxiety that he might judge me for the undergarments strewn on the floor.

“I have a question, though.”

“Shoot.”

“You used to be so talkative outside when it was just us. Why’d you change your tune when Gerald arrived?” He asked me. I sighed, absentmindedly rubbing where my beard used to be before remembering it was now just bare skin and scar. “I don’t mean to impose, but…”

“Not much to say. Rest of them talk for us. I’d ask the same for you.” I shrugged. “You used to be pretty bright and cheerful, but Gerald really started to get you down.”

“I… guess that’s fair,” Ritchie said in return, playing with his hands. “So many boys… just kinda, like… it’s hard to make thoughts that I can vocalise when they’re around. You know how scared I am of them, and there’s no real place for me to join the conversation.”

“Yeah, I get it,” I said. “But you did join in during that makeup conversation.”

“Because there was nobody else able or willing to speak up! It was an opportunity.” Ritchie was blushing furiously. Perhaps I’d struck a nerve. “I was the only one who really knew how to put on makeup. I tried to give Gerald another chance, but… he was just so hard to be around that I just… I gave up, alright?”

“Sure,” I said, flashing a genuine smile. I watched Ritchie light up a bit, and felt my belly rumble with the inklings of a voiceless laugh. “And you’re just a master at women’s makeup. Did you play ladies' roles in theatre or something?”

Ritchie tensed for a moment. I raised an eyebrow, and he responded, “Well, um… yeah. I did as a teenager.”

“Interesting!” That laugh gained its sound, and my deep voice bellowed through the room. “Did they run out of girls to play roles in a play or something?”

“Yeah, actually,” he replied, fiddling with his hands as he melted over the chair with an anxious look on his face. “We once did a rendition of Much Ado About Nothing, and it was an all male group. So they took the smallest boy and put him into the role of Beatrice.”

“Which was you?” I asked.

“Yeah. I actually was well-acclaimed in the local papers for my performance, thank you very much!” He grinned in a way that I hadn’t seen from him in a while. “I was one of the only boys whose voices never really dropped that much, so I was perfect to play the girls. One even praised the ‘little tomboy from Cornwall’ in their review. Tomboy? I don’t think I ever really seemed like a girl. Do I look like a girl to you, Henry?”

Even when blabbing about being read as a girl, the smile never left that boy’s face.

“You know, you look good with a smile on your face, Ritchie. I know it sounds weird to say it like that, but…” I gave him a thumbs up. “It’s gotten me down to see you like that lately.”

“Well, I mean, you’ve always looked down,” he said. “Other than Jacob, you’re as tall as they get down here.”

“Touché.”

“But like, yeah… I loved playing Beatrice. I did it a few more times afterwards. It felt like a role made for me.” I don’t think I’d ever seen him so happy, just talking about this. He looked… adorable, if I was honest. I didn’t want him to stop. “I… didn’t want to ever quit playing the role. But we stopped doing Much Ado About Nothing, we moved on, and next time I got the opportunity, I was with another group, they had girls, and I was stuck playing stupid Dogberry because I wasn’t good enough.”

“Ever get any other roles that made you feel like that?”

“Not really, no.” Ritchie sighed. He looked genuinely bummed out. “And that’s the silly thing, Henry. It makes me so frustrated sometimes. Those few weeks playing Beatrice were some of the best of my life. I think about them a lot. I dream about one day being able to play the role again. I still know my lines; Steph let me have a copy of the book recently.”

“So you told your sponsor about it, too?” I asked. “Sounds like a very risky thing to do. You might give her more ammo to use against you.”

“Yeah, but like… she just gave me this look and said ‘oh, honey’, and didn’t elaborate further!” He replied with frustration in every word, flailing his hands around everywhere. “I didn’t even ask! She just got me an old paperback version and told me to have fun!”

“Would you mind reading me some lines off the top of your head?” I asked in jest.

“Only if you pick a scene,” he replied, grabbing the book and walking over to me. I grabbed the book and flipped through. I noticed the directions in there, with the character’s name listed before the lines. I stopped on a random page, one with heavy Beatrice dialogue, and began to start speaking.

“Good morrow, coz,” I said, with an awkward affect.

“Good morrow, sweet Hero.” It seemed as if a light switch turned on in Ritchie’s mind. He straightened up, his voice heightened up, his stance sturdier. It was a different person behind the wheel at that moment.

“Why, um… how now? Do you speak… in the sick tune?” I said, falling over whatever affect I was supposed to have with my voice.

“I am out of all other tune, methinks.” His speech seemed so rapid. He knew this by heart, he’d done it so many times before, and it was… rather endearing.

“Um… I guess I’ll read everyone else if you’re gonna read Beatrice,” I replied, waiting for a nod before continuing. “Um… Clap’s into ‘Light o’ love.’ That goes without a burden. Do you sing it, and I’ll dance it.”

“You light o’ love with your heels! Then, if your husband have stables enough, you’ll see he shall lack no barns.”

By then, I was starting to understand Ritchie’s cadence, his voice, and I did my best to try and mimic the energy he had in playing his role. “O, illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels.”

“’Tis almost five o’clock, cousin. ’Tis time you were ready. By my troth, I am exceedingly ill. Heigh-ho!” Ritchie exploded backwards with glee. Compared to the reserved, meek boy I knew, this was meeting someone for the first time again, even when you’ve already known them for months. “Oh, gods, I missed this!”

“I’m glad,” I replied simply. I was actually grinning; his energy was rather infectious. “It’s this role, Henry. This role, this lovely experience, I’m glad that I can share it with you.” His smile did not fade, even in the few moments after we had quit acting. “I can see it brings you glee, too.”

“Well, it seems like you probably need it in your life. I’m happy that you seem so happy for once. Maybe you need to keep acting. Did you have other favourite roles you played?” I asked.

“Beatrice was a favourite. But I also liked playing Peter Pan a lot.” He leaned on the wall, tapping his finger against his chin. “A lot of roles felt like me just… playing the part. But those two were some of the only ones that stood out to me as truly enjoyable. That felt truly like the roles that I was destined to play.”

“Well, you’re gonna have all the time in the world down here. Maybe Steph will bring you more of those plays if you play nice,” I posited. He had seemed like a decent kid from the moment that he came down to meet me in the common room back in early September. If anyone else made it out, I’d like it if it was him.

I also felt the growing need to protect that smile. Something about it made my heart flutter a little bit. Boys had never done much for me.

But from what they said, maybe they were something different. I’d just have to wait and see.

“Maybe,” he said. “Do you want to… do something else? I’m sorry if I was monopolising our time with that.”

“No worries. I think it’s something that you need to do.” I smiled. He had deflated, and was making excuses for himself, wasn’t he? “You don’t have to feel like you should be someone else with me. Just be yourself.”

“Alright…” He trailed off, before looking at my computer, which I seldom used. “Do you want to play some Stardew Valley?”

“...Stardew Valley?” I asked.

“Do you… not know what that game is, Henry?”

“It’s a game?” I asked. “It sounds… interesting. What’s it about?”

“So, you inherit your grandfather’s old farm. It lets you leave your old desk job and start over in a town full of people who you can meet as you start farming; mining, and exploring to build your little home. You can also find love there, too!” His smile was much smaller than it was playing the little role he had, but it was still there. Still genuine. Still warm.

“Sounds fun. Can we both play together?” I asked.

“We’ll have to see. Maybe we’ll be able to connect the computers. If not, I think you can play on one computer,” he said. “Either way, it could be fun!”

“Sure, why not?”

---

Christian

“So… how does happiness feel, Tabby? What am I supposed to expect from that emotion?”

I had relented. When she brought me a thick, juicy burger and a big plate of chips after our talk that day, I found my eyes light up. I was putty to her after that; every day since, we’d started talking about emotions in the evening time, as well as what to expect from them. I sat criss-crossed on the bed, having just finished a small plate of jollof that she’d brought me from upstairs.

“Well, I experience it as this warm, light sensation,” Tabby explained to me. I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to trust her, but given that she could kick my ass… best to just go with it. “It emanates from you. It’s a very good feeling. Think back to childhood. When did you feel like that? What brought that to mind?”

“Well, maybe I’d feel that way whenever I won a fight. When everyone would crowd around me, cheer me on. The sense of pride that I was stronger than someone else. That I could command respect.” I felt a small smile creep up on my face when I looked at my sponsor and told her all this. Tabby didn’t look at me with disgust or disrespect; she looked at me with a genuine interest I hadn’t gotten since before my father died. “It was this looseness. The same looseness that I felt now, that I was sure of my place in the world.”

“Did you ever feel that looseness elsewhere?” She pressed. I wasn’t truly apt to answer, but I knew the stakes here. And I felt like she cared.

“With my sisters. I always felt like I belonged with them. And whenever I…” I grimaced, looking away from my sponsor. I felt a soreness in my chest, which made me seize up as it brushed against my shirt. “I’d rather not talk about that right now.”

“That’s fine. I’m glad to hear that you belonged with your sisters.” She relaxed a bit as she leaned against the wall, her arms crossed under her chest. “You don’t have to tell me everything right now.”

“Yeah. Just thinking about them… it makes everything complicated. I don’t know how to feel. I love them, I miss them, but… maybe they would’ve looked for me by now if they still cared.”

“I’m sure they did, Christian,” Tabby replied. “What matters is that you care for them. I wasn’t sure that you cared for anyone before.”

“Oh, fuck you,” I replied with an ounce of bitterness in my voice. “Nobody cared for me. How life goes. The men get thrown to the wayside.”

“I meant that as a compliment, Christian. Other than Jace and Tyler, you don’t really speak kindly to anyone else here. But you know that feeling you got when you talked about them?”

“I guess?” I still struggled to catalogue those emotions, but I went along with it because I was sure that Tabby would explain.

“I saw your smile. You were happy when talking about your sisters.”

I felt a blush stretch across my cheeks. “No, I wasn’t. I was just… longing to see them again, is all. If all my work went to nothing, I’d be right to be furious. I gotta make sure they make something of themselves, so I can feel at peace.”

“But their memory brought you a sense of peace, did it now?” She looked at me, her dagger-laden eyes poking through my skin and towards my heart even as I tried to turn away from her. “I would like for you to speak honestly.”

I sighed. She said the phrase, the one that meant ‘no bullshit, give me what’s on your mind’. “...Yes,” I finally said, mumbling. “I remembered feeling like I did as a kid. Before everything melted into one.”

“Melted into one?” Tabby asked. “That’s… an interesting phrase. What do you mean by that?”

“At some point after about age 7 or so, my feelings just kinda… dulled. It was harder and harder to actually feel anything, you know? I had a lot going on, taking care of my little sisters after my father killed himself. I didn’t have time to think about myself. But when I got older, after my sisters could take care of themselves, I finally had time to… be a kid. When the boys would rough house, play football, or get into fights… I felt my blood pumping.” The memories were faint, but I tried to pull them out for Tabby. I knew what rewards came from the effort. “I could try and feel something again, even if the only feeling that came out was anger. I told you that looseness, maybe it’s happiness, came when I won. But when I lost? Nothing really came of it. I just felt the same as I did before the game started. The lads pulled me up, dusted me off, and we all went and got a pint off of Jimmy for a couple quid.”

“Jimmy?” Tabby asked. “Never heard about him before.”

“Yeah. One of my mates back in London used to be very good at stealing alcohol for all of us to drink. He quit doing it when we were about 17 or so. Never got arrested or anything; he just kind of… grew a conscience about it. Haven’t talked to him since I was 18. Probably won’t ever get the chance again; last I heard, he was an engineer.”

“Doesn’t seem like someone that was a good influence for you,” she said.

“If he wasn’t, then none of the people I surrounded myself with were, Tabs,” I replied as calmly as I would. She kinda insulted my mates, but a part of me knew she had a point. “I just enjoyed roughhousing. I enjoyed the fights. Life was always dull without them, like it just had no purpose to me. I couldn’t really make a future for myself, so I’d try to find something in the now.”

“So… did you just kinda… live for your fights?” Tabby asked.

“Yeah. You could say that.”

“Do you want to live for anything else?”

“No, not really. I enjoyed fighting. It was kinda weird that, well… I stopped myself when Jacob went off like that a few days ago.” I stopped for a moment, resting on that. I looked at Tabby. “I… just didn’t feel it in me. Past couple of weeks or so, Tabs, I’ve honestly felt… a lot more at ease. A bit more like I did before my teenage years. Like I’m a child again. Like… I have someone who cares about me again.”

“Well, that’s good,” she replied, just as happy as before. “Some people lash out because they’re in pain.”

“I thought I just lashed out because it felt good,” I said back. “I didn’t… particularly feel any pain.”

“Well… pain is relative,” Tabby replied, leaving me rather bewildered. “Whether it’s a centimetre deep puddle, or a body as deep as the Channel, water is water. It can still drown you either way.”

“I just felt numb. I wasn’t really in that much pain,” I said. Memories of my little sisters blossoming before my eyes into independent young girls made me unconsciously smile as we stayed in silence.

“But maybe you just got good at ignoring it,” my sponsor said. “Does it hurt now to think about?”

“I… I think so.” Growing away from mom under my guidance made them a bit rowdy, but I wasn’t bothered too much by it. I wordlessly laughed thinking about how Annabelle once stayed in a tree well into the evening, refusing even food to come out until I climbed in and forced her out, only to find that she didn’t even know how to get out. God, how angry I was then!

“But now you seem pretty happy.” Tabby interrupted me, accidentally matching my thoughts with her words. “What got you that way? One of your sisters?”

“Yeah.” One of my lips had curled upwards to a half smile. “A stupid memory. In hindsight, it was terrible that I had to take care of all of them. After a certain point, people stopped coming in to check up on me. I spent the first part of my life making sure they didn’t die, or fall behind in school.”

“That doesn’t seem so stupid, if it made you feel that way,” Tabby replied. “Whatever feeling you’re carrying now, Christian. How does it take form inside of you?”

“It, well, feels like I am flying a bit above that general feeling. There’s a lightness, a warmth spreading through my body, you know?” I said, raising up my injured hand for emphasis. “In every part of me, it’s like it feels like my body is raising itself up. Going from the centre of my chest, up my spine to my face, and out towards my arms. It’s warm, it’s bright, it’s calming. I know that it probably is a consolation but… this is the first time since I was a kid that I felt even an ounce of support.”

“Hold onto that. Maybe, when you’re feeling particularly bad, you could think of that?” Tabby said it like it was a question, but it was more of a suggestion. An order. “I want you to do that going forward. You don’t have to be the one to shoulder the burden alone anymore, Christian.”

“Like… if I’m feeling like I want to deck one of the others down here?” I asked, feeling a bit uneasy at that prospect.

“That’s a good place to start. But I think you’re gonna have more control on that going forward,” she said.

“I’d really rather fucking not control it like that, you know?” I grimaced at my sponsor. “It’d poison my memories of them, I think. And if you lot did that to me, I don’t think I could hold myself back.”

“Alright, fine, that’s fair,” Tabby said. “That’s actually a very reasonable complaint to have about this programme.”

“And jabbing me with who knows what isn’t, Tabitha?” I felt the anger start to boil, pulling the warmth back down into the pressure cooker that built up inside me.

“No, that is, too,” she said, smirking. I noticed her hand hover on that almighty fucking taser.

I let out a huff and closed my eyes. Balled my fist, before wincing from my injured hand reflexively trying to make the motion. “Fuck,” I rasped out, waving the otherwise immobile hand in some desperate attempt to make the pain go away a little faster.

“You already have a reminder of what your anger does to you, Christian,” Tabby responded, moving towards the door after grabbing the tray that had my lunch on it. “Think about what I said, okay? You’ll have a lot of time to stew on this. You’re doing a very good job. I’m proud of you, and I’m gonna stay proud of you as long as you keep moving forward like this. You’ll have a lesson this afternoon; spend your time preparing for that.”

“T-thanks, Tabs,” I stuttered out, the fire put out by that one fucking phrase.

“And one last thing, Christian.”

“Yeah?”

“You have people who care about you now. Who want you to succeed. I want you to stew on that too.”

The door closed, leaving me to breathe, alone in my thoughts, recollections of my sisters’ experiences coming back into my mind to keep me company. But, most of all, I had to sit with the fact that this was on my mind too.

Who cared about me? Why would they?

---

Leigh

“Why the fuck did you put me down to babysit the third years?” Olivia growled at Harmony and I as I led her down the steps to the kitchen where the five of them ate lunch. “Because. You’re gonna be graduating with them, and so am I,” I replied, smiling. “And you know what Aunt Bea has been about the past few years.”

“‘Girls should be able to find family with their graduating class’,” Olivia said robotically, obviously disinterested. “But that’s like… Beth and Steph and all them. Shouldn’t we be trying to spend some more time with them?”

“But you and I are a bit different. We didn’t graduate with the other six. Aunt Bea wants us to socialise with these girls more,” I said, my hands on the scruff of her frilly blouse as the kitchen table came into view. “Plus, you know what question you just answered. I’m going to show you the answer.”

“And,” Harmony added, “you’ve been coming into your own a bit more lately. Leigh and I just want to encourage it a bit more. We want to more aggressively push you in the right direction.

“Leigh! Olivia!” Maia shouted, waving excitedly as we came into view.

I watched Christine relax. “Thank god, some sane individuals,” she huffed, cracking her back and stretching her arms. “I can leave…”

“Hey, Christine, remember. Neither of us have graduated yet,” I said, smiling. Olivia looked away, likely embarrassed about that face. I just pulled her closer to me in a hug, exaggerating the connection for my friend’s sake. “You’re one of the only graduates around at the moment. You gotta keep an eye on us. For all intents and purposes, we’re third years!”

“But, but… Harmony’s here!” The bewildered sponsor gestured at the oldest person in the room, who just smiled ear to ear.

“But you can’t just leave me alone, Christine. What if the girls all try to escape?” Harmony exclaimed with an ounce of sarcasm, putting the back of her left hand to her chest, raising her right up to her forehead, and adding, “Woe is me! If only Christine was here to help me against these hooligans? All because I thought it would be best to give the third years some extra socialisation time!”

“God… fucking dammit!” She slammed a fist on the table, leading to a bunch of giggles sprouting from all the girls there. Even Olivia cracked a smile “Give me one moment of peace! I know most-” She looked at Maia and Nora. “-of them are authorised to be out and about. There’s three sponsors here.” Christine crossed her arms and pouted. “I want to go snuggle with Paige.”

“Sorry, Aunt Christine,” I said, sitting down right next to the bewildered sponsor. “I may be one of you, but I am still technically one of them, too.”

“You’re only one of them still because…” She paused when I gave her a glare, shifting my gaze to Olivia and back at her. She looked away, and grabbed her mug. “Fuck it. I’m not gonna fight it at this point. Monica will be here in a few minutes anyways.”

“Don’t forget, Christine,” Maia said, leaning over the table as closely as she could at her sponsor. “You’re here forever!”

“I’ve been trying to get out of here for a while now, but… someone decided to hack our systems,” Christine spat back. “You dragged me back into this!”

“You were going to be found out if I didn’t do anything. I did you guys a favour,” she said, crossing her arms and flashing a satisfied smile.

“God, Maia,” Nora, a bespectacled young girl almost as tall as me, said. “You will never let that go, will you?”

“Nope!” She beamed.

Olivia, after a few moments, took an open seat next to Molly, who had to move closer to her girlfriend, Regina, to let her and Harmony have space at the table. She blushed as she turned over to see Regina give Molly a modest kiss on her forehead as the two pushed into each other playfully.

“Sorry, girls,” she said. “Don’t mean to take up too much space.”

“No worries,” Regina replied, her voice the best amongst the girls at the table. “It happens!”

“So, Olivia, how have you been doing? Any updates on the boys?” Maia asked, and the other four girls leaned in to her.

“Oh, um…” Olivia stuttered, fidgeting with her gloved fingers. “Rabia’s told me that I can’t talk about that with any of you.”

I smiled. That was quite an excuse.

“Oh, darn,” Nora said with the same cute affect she always had. “I was curious.”

“You’ll get to meet some of them in time,” Christine said after letting out a sigh from a sip of coffee. “I remember how excited all of you were when you met Adele and the others. Now you’ll get to watch the next group stumble out of the basement, just like Olivia and Leigh there got to see you all stumble out.”

“I burst out!” Maia exclaimed.

“Like a damn xenomorph,” Christine said, tapping her on the head with a rolled up newspaper that seemed to materialise out of nowhere.

“Ow! What’d you have to do that for?” Maia exclaimed, acting as dramatic as she could. “Abuse! Abuse!”

“You know that doesn’t hurt, you little shit,” her sponsor replied.

“Maia, you little drama queen.” I grinned. “Don’t think you can feign pain like that.”

Maia pouted. “Let me have my fun, Leigh. I’m going to try, regardless.”

Christine looked over at Olivia and I, her frustration melting into a look of genuine concern. “I also want to check in with the other quote-unquote third years. Are the two of you doing okay?”

“Yeah. My intake’s doing fine,” I said. “Jace has been doing well.”

“And you, Olivia? I know you want to graduate more than anything, but-”

“I know, I know,” she responded, nodding. “I want to do this right. I just… I don’t feel like I can function very well in the real world yet.”

“Hey,” Harmony started, ruffling her sister’s hair. “You’re okay. You’ve started attending classes for your nursing degree. You’re here, talking to your sisters, your friends, and your family.”

“I know. I just lost so much time…” She sighed. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to graduate.”

I frowned. Olivia had been like this for nearly her entire intake. A shell of herself, who had to be nursed back to health by Frankie, and then supported by her sponsor through a rather difficult second year, just to get to this point. It was like she had been slowly dragged out of the cavern she flung herself into, only now starting to see the sun and move past where she was at the very start.

If I were an expert, I’d honestly suspect she was almost at the middle of her second year in terms of mentality. She’d moved along fine enough, but she was a shell of who she used to be.

“You’re finally pulling yourself together, Liv,” Molly said, putting her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “We’ve all been where you are. We already see you as one of us, too.”

“Yeah, you’re gonna make it through!” Maia exclaimed. The rest of the third years at the table, myself included, cheered alongside the self-proclaimed leader of the group.

“T-thanks, everyone,” Olivia squeaked out. “I’m t-trying my best, but…”

“The two of us are just as much a part of this intake as we are of the other intake,” I replied, interrupting Olivia before she could self-deprecate. “We both need to rely on these girls as we figure it all out. And I’m not going to graduate before you. I will be the one to shut the lights on the 2019 Intake, okay?”

“And we’re not graduating until you do!” Jasmine, the quietest of the five girls, finally piped up. Even Christine finally smiled a bit, behind her cup of coffee.

“See, Liv?” I said, gesturing to the girls. “You’re not beyond help. You’re not going to be left behind. We’re not going to let you fall apart.”

Christine leaned into my ear as the third years were celebrating Olivia and whispered, “You know, if you keep this up, they’ll be calling you Aunt Leigh before long.”

I blanched at that thought.

---

Jace

Okay, this time I wasn’t going to fuck up the lesson.

Today, I was the first to the couch, which meant I could snuggle into it and get comfy. The rest of the boys filed in soon after, and Christian got first dibs on spots since he was injured. That meant us and Tyler were on the couch together.

Ever since the two of us got our shots, Tyler seemed attached to Christian’s hip. Whatever that was about, it wasn’t my business, and it wasn’t anyone else’s either. Nobody really bothered the two of them right now, and it seemed as if most of them chalked it up to Tyler being vulnerable after the first dose.

Jacob pulled the beanbag from across the room to sit on it. This left Gerald; Ritchie, and Henry on the floor together. This meant that, now, the two women at the front, Henry’s sponsor Holly, and then Indira, could stand in front of the silent TV and present whatever it was that would happen this week.

As we waited for what felt like a couple minutes, a brown-haired girl was fiddling with a computer hooked up to the television. As before, Christine, as we’d been introduced to in a previous lesson, was basically the tech person for these sort of situations. It was a sophisticated enough operation to have a tech person, apparently. Unless she was basically just a student roped into these sorts of things, it… made sense, with how… sophisticated some of the parts of this operation seemed.

On second thought, Christine being a student made a lot more sense…

“Good morning, everyone!” Holly exclaimed resolutely. In her hands, she was holding an extended pointer for some reason, likely to show off or to tap the air violently with it. “Today we’re going to discuss phobic behaviors. I hope you had a good night’s sleep, because this one is a tough one.”

When I looked around at the other boys when she gave an extended pause in her speech, most had looks of confusion.

“I’m sure w-we already know about homophobia, Holly,” Ritchie said out loud. Henry looked bemused, as if he knew this was coming, and patted the other boy on the back.

“Sure. Homophobia is one type of phobic behaviour. But it’s just one type, you know? There’s transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, fatphobia-”

Jacob raised a hand and stopped Holly’s speech. “Yes, but why are we talking about these things down here? I don’t think that’s something we need to particularly care about right now, is it?”

“It was agreed that you all would benefit from a discussion on these behaviours, Jacob,” Holly said, smiling. “Are you not the one who threatened to assault any man who leered at you?”

Jacob’s eyes widened. “How the fuck do you-”

“You were well known in the Almsworth area for that sort of behaviour, Jacob. It was no secret. I made sure my friends avoided you. People like you,” she replied. “...And we’re about the same age, no?”

I noticed Ritchie switch places with Henry to get further away from the boy being roasted on the beanbag at the moment.

“I thought you were like… 26, Holly,” he said, definitely sounding off-base. “You’re 22?”

“23, but thank you for the endorsement,” she said with a fake smile. “Jacob’s a great example of homophobia in practice down here. Each of us carry our own preconceived notions about others, and it can often turn into behaviours that discriminate against others. Sometimes, it can discriminate against those we care about.”

“Who was it?!” Jacob asked, snarling. Ritchie visibly flinched. “Who told you about me?! When I get my hands on them-”

“See, that’s a big reason why Jacob’s down here, the fight aside,” Holly said, interrupting the boy. “You so deeply feared that someone would objectify you. That you wanted to enact violence when someone tried.”

“What fight?” Henry asked with a cheeky tone, as if on cue. I snickered. Henry seems to never talk without a reason. “Well, two of the boys in here are down here for starting one of the biggest bar brawls in Almsworth history. And Jacob’s one of them.” Holly’s voice did not waver from the tone she had from the start, but it seemed like a playfulness had come in her voice by the way she moved her facial expressions, raising an eyebrow here, or winking. “But Jacob’s got a long history of homophobic behaviour. I’d definitely be careful around him for now if you’ve got any sort of fruitiness about you.”

“You know, I’d come for you right now, but I’m not about to lose this bean bag chair,” Jacob replied.

“Yeah, I’d take it, Jacob,” Gerald piped up, his eyes darting between Holly and the group of sponsors in the back of the room. Some chuckles came from the rest of the boys, myself included. Gerald seemed to smile; maybe, for once, his cheekiness was rewarded.

“Gerald, a perfect boy to talk about for transphobia,” Holly replied. “How many women did you steal money from online?”

“They weren’t women, Holly,” Gerald said, before loud, clicking footsteps slowly made their way to the couch. I watched Gerald visibly shudder, his shoulders shocking up and then down.

“Hmm? What was that, Gerald?” When I looked over, I saw a very short girl in a witch’s costume bounding over to the group. His sponsor had walked over in all her pint-sized glory, holding a Blåhaj and yet not even brandishing her taser.

“N-nothing,” Gerald replied, immediately balling up and leaning towards Ritchie, who recoiled from even being too close to him.

“Ooh, the prickly boy stole money from women?” Christian asked out loud. “How’d you do it?”

“I didn’t steal it from them!” Gerald exclaimed.

“I’d call mass chargeback fraud stealing,” Mia said, a creepy smile on her face, the big, silly, witch’s hat she was wearing causing just enough shadow on her face to be menacing. “Just because you didn’t really get any money out of it doesn’t mean that you didn’t cause them harm.”

“Ah, financial crime. So, that’s what you did, femboy,” Christian said.

“I’m not a fucking femboy, Mr. ‘Brand New Man’,” Gerald said, with a disgusted tone on the last three words. Henry and Tyler actually chuckled at the joke, one with a lot more zeal than the other, and it seemed like Gerald actually smiled in response to the attention.

“So fucking what? Maybe I was deficient in some vitamin, or something,” Christian replied. “Is it wrong to respond positively to a medical treatment? I don’t see you complaining too much anymore.”

“Maybe when it’s COERCIVELY put into your body,” Gerald half-shouted in disbelief at the blond. “I don’t complain because I know it’ll get me put into a sports bra or something.”

“Boys, please, back to the lesson,” Holly said.

“I think I’d much rather have this conversation,” Christian said. As I leaned in to look over at Christian, I also noticed Tyler on the other side of the couch, visibly uncomfortable with the whole situation, looking at his sponsor, who held up one palm and nodded.

“I’m gonna step in,” Indira said. “If you do not refocus, there will be consequences. You will be put into a cell for the remainder of the day.”

“So what?” Gerald asked.

“Do you want to be put into a frilly dress, Gerald?” Mia asked him. “Because this is frilly dress behaviour.”

Gerald sighed. “...Noted.” He crossed his arms and looked away, a pained stare towards the wall, away from everyone’s eyes.

“...Alll-right then…” Holly drew it out, likely trying to refocus things. “And there’s a good example of transphobia, Gerald, thank you. But don’t do it again.”

“Whatever.”

“Phobic behaviours,” Holly continued, tapping towards the powerpoint on the television, which was mostly a bunch of text that she was pretty much reading off of. “Can often stem from a lack of understanding. It’s difficult to put yourself into other peoples’ shoes, and that fundamental misunderstanding of others can lead to mistrust and even violence in the wrong hands. Experience means that you’re, well… you’re familiar with it.”

She pulled up a video on the screen. It was an embed of… PBS? Why the fuck are they using a video from PBS to talk about transphobia and homophobia? “I had this video planned to discuss tips about how to combat transphobia and homophobia, and we’re gonna watch it, but… any questions first?”

I raised my hand. “What about… well, fears that don’t go away even if you expose yourself to it?”

“Sometimes, well…” Holly looked up, pointing her finger to her chin in thought. “It might mean that you’ve got something else to work on. It might come from… perhaps, something you’re holding back? Something that you’re denying about yourself or others? Or maybe you’ve just been taught a certain way, and it makes things difficult to, like, actually accept.”

“So… would it mean that you have other things to address if someone like… a trans person… was uncomfortable for you to be around?” I asked calmly.

“Yeah! You get it!” Holly exclaimed. “Sometimes, it’s just about misguided information. But other times… it’s an entire worldview that you have to figure out. It’s a frame of reference that you have to get used to. I… had to help someone unlearn a lot of religious trauma before, and her experiences informed my own trauma.”

“What if you don’t have any trauma to unlearn, and yet you still feel the way you do?” Jacob asked suddenly, interrupting me before I could continue.

“Are you saying you don’t have any trauma?” Holly asked him.

“No more than the average person, I don’t think. I was thrown into this world, wasn’t I?” Jacob asked. I felt that his comment was rather… smarmy. He seemed more content with showing his intellectual superiority. “I didn’t choose to be here. But I had a normal childhood; my parents weren’t very religious; I didn’t really get involved with the other boys… yet I still feel this way. How do you square that?”

“Perhaps you’re not being candid with the whole story, Jacob.” Holly grinned. “Or maybe you’re being influenced quite simply by the culture around you. That will often determine what you’re comfortable with, and what you feel okay being acclimated to.”

“So you’re saying that my upbringing taught me to hate faggots?” Jacob asked. “I’d think that the hatred comes pretty solidly from within.”

“I’d like for you not to use that word,” Mary suddenly said. I noticed that Jacob tensed up at that point, gritting his teeth. “It’s disrespectful to those around us.”

“But it’s a good example for this conversation. Thank you, Jacob.” Holly crossed her arms, the taser dangling lazily in her right hand, and stared right at the boy, who only mumbled. “For a lot of men, they’re socialized to think that this sort of behavior was okay. And the broader British culture, until quite recently, tolerated it, too. Has anyone heard of the story of Alan Turing?”

All of our hands went up. “Who knows the story that led to his death?”

Only my hand and Ritchie’s hand stayed up. The two of us exchanged nervous side-eyes, Jacob bouncing his eyes between Ritchie and I with a cold fury.

“Would either of you like to fill us in?” Holly asked. Ritchie awkwardly passed his glance over to me, and I nodded.

“Alan Turing was prosecuted for… well, being gay. They forced him to take hormone treatments to… well, render him unable to have children, in lieu of prison time. A couple years later, he was found dead, and it was ruled to be suicide. I’m not sure I know much more about it, but I know that the British government only apologized for this a few years ago.”

I felt Tyler shift in the seat by me. When I looked over at him, he seemed… frightened? Furious? I wasn’t really sure. It was… difficult to process what he was dealing with at that moment, especially with the feeling of a much stronger, taller boy’s gaze locked icily to the top of my head.

“That’s a good enough description, Jace. Thank you,” Holly replied, uncrossing her arms and motioning to the slide with the pointer. A bold picture of Alan Turing graced the left side of the slide, taking up a good portion of it and looking a bit garish. I noticed Christine, the IT girl, wince at something in the slide. “Alan Turing was a hero of the British people after the Second World War. His brilliance was influential in the field of computing, and he was recently voted the greatest Briton of the 20th century by a detestable news organization. But in the 50s, it was his homosexuality, and the societal treatment of that homosexuality that crippled his progress, and possibly led to his own death. We’ve seen it with Oscar Wilde, too. Ian McKellen was closeted until the 1980s, and Oliver Sacks kept it private until not long before his own death, too. Phobic behaviors by society, carried out by individuals, has snuffed out the lights of many brilliant and kind young people, and it has severely hampered others.”

Jacob raised his hand.

“Yes, Jacob?”

“But why should it matter to me that some men want to fuck others in the ass, or that some want to be fucked in the ass?” His arms were outstretched, his fingers splayed out, his palms up in the air. He looked furious, but also dismayed. “Maybe they did some brilliant things. But there were laws on the books. They chose to be that way. If they didn’t want trouble, maybe they just wouldn’t be gay. They could’ve gotten help.”

Holly groaned. “Jacob… you don’t get it, do you? A lot of the time, the things people are phobic over… are things these people can’t control.”

He stood up out of the beanbag. The girls around the room got on high alert, but Jacob did not move forward. He just stared at Holly. “People choose to be fat, Holly.” He hesitated for a moment, but put an even nastier sneer on his face. “People choose to be gay. They know that people are going to be shitty to them, and yet they do it anyway. They accepted the risk. They can control it. Just… be normal if you don’t want to deal with bullshit.”

“Okay, Jacob. We’re not putting up with that. You know the consequences of your actions,” Holly replied, waving the pointer towards him.

“No, I’m not going to put up with that, you little bitch!” Jacob replied, feinting a movement at Holly, making her bounce backwards. The girls started to close in, tasers trained on him. Either he didn’t notice, or he didn’t care. “These are choices, Holly! All of these are fucking choices.”

Looking down at the floor, I saw that Gerald was… looking carefully at Jacob. Watching the broad-shouldered boy’s movements, possibly scanning for some opportunity. Jacob was alone for now, but it could possibly change if someone like Gerald got in on the action. Maybe it could pull in someone else.

But, perhaps, it was all just futile.

Gerald looked away.

“I don’t see how you just accept these things as reality, Holly,” Jacob barked. “Maybe some things are reality! Kids born with Downs can’t help that shit. Autistic kids can’t help that. But being fat? Fucking diet and exercise. That’s what I did. You can choose to be better. Choose to suck it up, and live through the suck until you get to where you need to be. If life is going to be against you, go against life or escape it.”

“Jacob, down. Do you want to be tased again?” Mary shouted, giving a loudness to her voice that I don’t think I’d heard to this point. Jacob recoiled, facing her and backing away, his eyes widening. “You’re here for a reason, Jacob, and I don’t think you want to keep going down this track.”

“Never wanted to be down here in the first place, Mary.” Despite the look on Jacob’s face, the shakiness in his limbs, he took a step forward. “I don’t think I quite deserve it. I’m a normal lad. I-I have normal beliefs. You ladies are the ones who have messed up perceptions of the world.” Another step. “I’ve just played by your rules so far so I could get through. I’m fucking sick and tired of doing this. This is what my experiences have told me was the way the world works. If you don’t like it, tough. It has no time to bend to your whims.” A third step. “So if you want to go against it?” A fourth step. “Prepare for-”

A taser from nearby shot into Jacob, sending him convulsing to the floor. When we all looked over, we noticed that a nervous Steph had preemptively fired the taser.

“S-sorry… I was scared he’d go after Mary.”

Gerald looked seized in shock as Jacob spasmed on the ground in agony. Tyler was beginning to go into distress, and Christian was patting him on the shoulder, giving a stony glare at the sponsor that shocked Jacob. Ritchie and Henry were each shocked, and for once it seemed like Henry was grabbing Ritchie for support.

I simply took heavy breaths, in and out, trying to keep the anxiety, the pit… the bile at bay.

Holly groaned, pinching her nose with her fingers. With her other hand, she tossed the pointer on the floor, which Christine swiftly grabbed and pushed back in on itself. “Alright. I guess we’re gonna end this one a little early. You guys can go back to your rooms…”

---

Leigh

As I sat with a cup of hot tea, I played around with the stats that Jace had unwittingly given me about their music habits.

“Hmm… too much “All Too Well”... maybe I should consider blocking that song for now. They… oh god, I’m gonna have to talk to them about listening to Jagged Little Pill like that, too, aren’t I?” I mumbled aloud, to giggles from the crowd of graduates who had congregated at the table to chat. “And “Matilda”... never gonna block that, but you can’t stop being drawn to that one, can you, Jace?”

“Well, Leigh,” Tabby began. “You don’t have to block the songs. Maybe they really like the music.”

“Well, I wanted them to diversify some of their music taste while they’re down here, Tabby,” I said, pouting. “Also… I’m planning their birthday gift.”

“Oh?” Holly piped up, leaning across the table in curiosity. “Do tell!”

“Well, they’re going to be down here, so I wanted to give them some familiarity. I’m just deciding what songs I can give them from their Spotify favourites, and maybe what new things I can add in the mix.”

“Do you think they’d like something like Plastic Beach by Gorillaz?” Holly asked. “I’m curious what they listen to.”

“I mean, maybe? But they seemed to have listened to artists more like… Chris Stapleton, Taylor Swift, Peter Gabriel, Sam Fender, bands like The Gaslight Anthem and… Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, I guess.” I shrugged. “Aunt Béa would never approve of like… three of those.”

“Yeah, no, she would not approve of giving a first year Bruce Springsteen songs,” Tabby replied, to a chorus of laughter. “There was a girl who actually started belting “The Promised Land” verbatim in on of our faces back in 2016. She got him banned from the basement entirely. It was actually quite funny, actually. She continued to sing it in her room… and now, she’s sitting with us.”

Willow retreated from view, trying to use Monica as a way to hide herself from Tabby. “Bruce Springsteen is very queer music, thank you very much,” she squeaked.

“That is quite a take,” Tabby replied, sipping her tea loudly, giving Willow a strong but playful side-eye.

“Maybe try Kate Bush or Patti Smith?” Holly suggested as a question. “Patti Smith actually covered a Bruce Springsteen song, so you could probably get away with that much if you wanted. Now, you have me curious, though. You’ve got a couple weeks, and I know you, Leigh. Unlike the rest of us sponsors, you actually have some modicum of free time that you can put to this.”

“You’re right. I also want to give them American Idiot, but like…” I grimaced. The overtones in many of those songs would definitely inspire behaviour that Aunt Béa would explicitly disapprove of. Besides, she’d have to approve the final list.

“Too rebellious?” Tabby asked, knowingly. “I know what you mean. I think there’s a few good ones there. You might wanna talk to Jodie. She might be able to give you some pointers. She might also try to sell you on her favourite bands, so I would be careful.”

“Each of you is going to have your own tastes, Tabby. You’re all going to try and sell me on something.”

“I won’t,” Tabby said, shrugging. She had been writing something up while we’d been talking. When she looked down, she noticed a small tea stain on the corner of the paper and cursed before continuing. “I’m not really big on music. It’s all just… background noise to me, usually. Great for working out, but not so much for just listening, personally.”

“Sacrilege!” Holly half-shouted, putting her hand over her heart. “What if our dear birthday boy heard you saying that?”

“Quiet, you,” I said, trying to hush Holly, as impossible a task as that was. “I’ll go talk to Jodie soon. Right now, I’m just compiling their favourite bands. Maybe I’ll give them some band like Dawes right now? I found this adorable song from them called ‘All Your Favorite Bands’.”

“Make sure that it’s both familiar and new, Leigh. This is about growth, and too much familiarity might be a bit… stifling to that,” Monica offered. “I definitely set my first intake back by giving them too much familiarity. It backfired pretty badly.”

“I plan on it. They’ve seemed to have a rough go of things since the injection, Monica, and I want to give them at least some comfort.” I smiled. What would Jace’s name be in a year? What type of person would they be? Would they be roughly the same, or would they decide to be someone else? It’s all possibilities. Perhaps, their music tastes might shift while in the basement.

And if they did, it would be on me to help facilitate the changes. Every song I introduce could be another “Matilda”, another song that fucks with their perspective a little bit and gets them to open up just a little bit more.

“I mean, fair. I assume that there’s also the fact that disclosure is coming up not long after his birthday,” Monica said. “I don’t think a bit of comfort in that time should hurt, but I’d still be careful.”

“No, I know, I know,” I replied. “I was thinking about… 15 songs? Something like that? Small enough that it would be an easy task to accomplish, but large enough to be a liferaft to Jace during a time like this. Like an ‘album that changes your life’ sort of thing. Jace has talked pretty extensively about Alanis Morissette with me. They really vibed with “Mary Jane” especially, but they also liked “Right Through You” and “Forgiven”.”

When I saw the cringing faces from Monica and Holly, I sighed. That was definitely not the best example. I wanted to make them interested in helping, not outwardly concerned with Jace’s well-being… more than that was good practice. “Maybe I’ll add some happier tracks, but like… you have to believe me. I want this to be cathartic to Jace.”

“That sounds relatively reasonable,” Tabby said. She looked away for a moment, and then snorted as her face grew rather amused. “Thankfully, Christian’s birthday is so far away that, hopefully, they’re a girl by the time we get there. I don’t want to have to imagine what sort of gift I’d have to give that ‘boy’ if he made it to May fully intact.”

“Hopefully? Tabby, if Christian hasn’t switched over by then, they might just wash him out,” Monica said with a deadpan delivery.

“I’m not going to think about that,” Tabby said, crossing her arms and looking cross with the other senior sponsor at the table. “Christian’s actually making a lot of progress. Hopefully, disclosure doesn’t rob us of that, but I don’t think it will.”

“You have a lot of confidence in that, Tabby,” Monica prodded in kind. “The boys ebb and flow. And some of them ebb and never flow again.”

“I do because I know they’ll make it through,” Tabby said. “I’m not so pessimistic. I’ve never had a boy wash out on me before.”

“None of them are washouts until someone is, Tabby.” Monica looked away when she said that. We all knew what she meant.

“Well… back to things,” I said. “I’ve got some ideas on how to move forward on their music gift. Anything else I’m missing?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think he’ll appreciate this gift, Leigh,” Tabby said, hugging me tightly to her side. “You’ve become an amazing woman. The only thing keeping you from graduating at this point is yourself. Whenever you believe you’re ready, just tell Aunt Béa, and she’ll let you.”

“Not until Olivia’s ready,” I replied, feeling a familiar presence looming over my back. “I told you a while back: I’d be the one shutting the lights out on this programme.”

“You never had to do that to yourself,” Mary said as she made herself known, kissing the top of my head. “I know how annoying it can be to do inspections.”

“For you, though, Leigh, you know it’s a formality by this point, right?” Tabby asked me knowingly. “You could roll out of bed for it and she’d still approve of you.”

“As long as Olivia is still subject to it, I’m still subject to it. She’s my sister, Tabs.”

“That’s a very mature way of looking at it. I’m proud of you, Leigh.” She pulled me into a hug, and Mary joined in on top. Some of the girls cooed at the public display of affection that could come between a sponsor, their little sister, and that little sister’s girlfriend. It was moments like this that the programme lived for. Each of us used to be someone that we’d rather leave behind, but now we had gone through so many iterations of ourselves that only echoes of that past remained in our thoughts.

“Thanks, Tabby.”

As the embrace broke, we heard shouting coming from the staircase. As the gaggle of third years came down, Nora gripping Olivia’s fleece and pulling her down with them, the graduated girls at the table, myself included, turned our heads to look at the pile of what seemed like veritable teenage girls stopping at the head of the table.

“We came for Leigh,” Maia said, building up the theatrics in her voice. She was definitely doing better; Christine’s lessons were continuing to do wonders.

Mary and Tabby now looked at me, knowing grins on their faces. A part of me dropped from within.

“Oh god… what happened?” I asked Olivia, smiling at the fact that she looked completely disoriented.

“The goblins ambushed me while I was taking a nap, Leigh.”

“I told them where you were so they wouldn’t take me,” I replied. “I’m not being brought into their schemes.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Well, change of plans, Leigh,” Maia exclaimed, bounding over to me and grabbing my jacket. “You’re coming with us.”

“Yeah, Leigh!” Molly and Regina, ever inseparable, exclaimed. “You’re coming with us!”

The rest of the girls started laughing. My heart sank; I knew none of them would defend me at this moment.

“Your problem now!” Tabby said, helping Maia extricate me from the table and get to my feet.

“No, wait, why are you betraying me, Tabby?” I wailed, the crowd only getting more excited, even a few cooing at what they perceived as adorableness and what I perceived as a breach of my trust. “Mary, help me!”

“You’re the one who said they weren’t graduating,” Mary said, grinning. “It’s your problem now. You’re one of the third years.”

“But I had set myself apart! I’m a sponsor! You can’t do this!” I exclaimed, more for show at this point, as Nora, Maia, and now Molly and Regina had their hands on my arms, dragging me away towards the crowd.

“One of us! One of us! One of us!” The third years started chanting in unison after Jasmine started it, to great effect. The few of the girls at the table even joined in, led by Indira, who stood up and applauded them. I gave up, sighing, shaking my head at this nonsense, and let them guide me up the steps to the second floor rooms.

---

“You know you’re too serious sometimes, Leigh,” Jasmine said quietly as we entered Molly and Regina’s shared ensuite.

It was spacious (and one she knew quite well). She thumbed the mark she accidentally made on the side of the dresser as she passed by, being put on top of their well-made bed, where Maia collapsed upon it while the other girls sat on the plush mattress or leaned on the bedframe.

“I am not!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, no, you’ve got a stick up your butt for sure,” Olivia replied.

“Uncalled for!”

“Oh, no, I think it’s very called for,” Nora replied. “You’re a Dorley girl who wants to do law? Think of the conflicts of interest, Leigh! You’re going to want to have fun, but your office is going to be like…” She cleared her throat, dropping back into an intentionally masculine voice before exclaiming, “‘oh no, Mrs. Barnes, you’re going to need to spend 80 hours a day to get all your work done’.”

“What if Mary decides to be ‘Mrs. Wolf?” I asked, moving Maia aside and placing myself on the edge of the massive mattress.

“Hey!” Maia exclaimed, to nobody’s response.

“Remember how Beth never really got pushed to choose a last name?” Olivia replied. “I think it’s like that here. Nobody would believe it.” “...Fair enough.” I rubbed my chin, feeling the tiniest echo of the many treatments of electrolysis that it once felt, imagining times where I’d look in the mirror hoping it was finally clear this time, but it was as smooth as ever.

“You know, Leigh,” Maia said as she rocketed up onto the bed, bouncing me slightly upwards as she landed. “I think that you’re hiding something. You’ve been a bit shifty the past week or so.”

I froze, looking away from Maia, who leaned in closer, “hmm”ing repeatedly, getting louder as she got closer and closer, until she was practically poking her nose into my left shoulder.

“Aha! You are!” Maia exclaimed, rocketing back and raising her pointing finger first up into the air, and then wagging it right at me.

“Um… no, I’m not,” I replied, stuttering, a blush appearing on my face.

“Leigh, you’re a terrible liar, you know?” Olivia replied, flashing a rare smile. She put her hand on my right shoulder and it turned to a grin. “Just tell us. You know you can trust all of us, right?”

“Yeah, I just…” I grimaced. I knew how much Liv wanted to see her wife again, the bouncy young girl who was probably hers, who had her smile in the videos that had been posted on social media, and the world that they had once built together. I didn’t want to talk about seeing Topher again with her. I didn’t want to tell anyone, much less the third years whom I’d been starting to grow that much closer to. “Well… We’re waiting!” Regina replied in her best Caddyshack impression.

“I… might be able to see my brother again soon,” I finally admitted, my voice wavering awkwardly, my hands put out in front of me, wincing for impact.

I felt hands clasp around mine, and when I opened my eyes towards it, I saw Olivia’s eyes meeting mine, a twinkle in them, a pained smile on her face.

“That’s great, Leigh!” She said, her happiness obviously wavering. “I… I hope that you’re able to reconnect with them.”

“He said he never wanted to see me again, but… well, I’m wondering if that just applied to Will, and not to Leigh,” I said awkwardly, but I saw Liv’s faltering face, and I pulled her close to me for a hug. The rest of the third years came around us and joined in, cocooning the two of us in a hug.

“No, that’s great, Leigh,” Olivia said. In the mass of third years, I wasn’t quite able to discern how she was, but as I gripped her back tightly, feeling the curve of her shoulder blades under the button-up top she was wearing, I felt a tear streaming down her face. “That’s really great.”

“I… wasn’t really sure how to tell you about this, Liv,” I said. “So I didn’t.”

“No, no, ol’ Liv is woman enough to handle it,” she said, her voice’s strength betraying her true feelings. “You gotta trust that I am.”

“You’re crying, Olivia,” Jasmine piped up.

“Yeah, I guess I am, aren’t I?” She replied. She wiggled an arm from within my grasp to wipe her eye.

“We’re here for you,” Molly said, the motherly tone that everyone loved from her coming out. Maia was tearing up, and so was Nora. “We know the burden you’re carrying, Liv. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. But you’re not alone in this. We want to help you through this.”

“I just…” Olivia started crying more wholeheartedly. I felt the rush of tears gently lap against my shoulder, the subtle shakes from her ragged breaths, the little vocalisations that indicated the pain that she felt. “I just… I feel so… so alone…”

“Shh…” I quietly said. “It’s okay. You’re not alone. We’re all here. All 11 of us are supportive of you.”

“I was going to… be left behind…”

“That’s fine, Liv. You’re going to make it through,” I said calmly. “The other girls have made it their mission to get you through.”

“M-most of you d-don't… even have to check in with your sponsor… anymore…” Liv was choking on her own words, her sinuses dampening her voice.

“I still do, Liv. And so do all of them.”

“But… you do it by choice.”

“I don’t,” Jasmine responded. “I still check with Indira constantly. I have to. I… f-fell behind the rest of them.”

“And… I check in with Willow,” Nora added. “It’s not out of the norm to need to check in with your sponsor up to right before you graduate, apparently.”

“And you wouldn’t even if you didn’t have to? You and Harmony have one of the closest bonds in the entire intake. I envy your bond, Olivia. You took your time getting here, and it’s meant that the bonds you’ve built are some of the strongest in Dorley Hall. In comparison, I rushed through the programme.”

“I… I know…” Olivia sniffled, obviously in a desperate (and failed) attempt to try and compose herself. “I… I just… felt like…”

“Like you were left behind?” I asked calmly.

“Y-yeah… even Holly graduated on time, but little old me, told I’d need to stick around for a little while longer…”

“And that’s fine! You’re not going to wash out, Liv! Aunt Béa just wants to make sure you’re able to stand on your own two feet,” I said, finally releasing the hug, giving the cue for the rest of the girls to uncouple from the pile. As they scattered into the room and, in the case of Maia and Regina, towards the other side of the bed, I placed my hands on Olivia’s shoulders to direct her attention towards my face, rather than trying to look away.

“You’ve been so good with helping Jasmine through her own struggles with this,” I replied. “I just, we all just, want you to feel the same way.”

“I…” Olivia sniffled again, wiped her eyes first of the tears and then wiped her nose of the snot dribbling out of her nostrils. “I… I need a tissue.”

“Hey, Maia-”

“Already on it!” Maia bounded out of the room with her unlimited energy, leaving such a wake of wind it pulled the door towards the frame and brought it to lazily hang by it.

“It’s normal to feel this way. I still struggle with it,” I replied, removing my hands and shrugging my shoulders.

“But you cou-”

I put a finger to her lips. “Nope. I need it. Tabby agrees I need it. I wouldn’t feel right if I left. And why do you think five of your closest sisters sponsor?”

A look of pained recognition came on Olivia’s face. “Did you all-”

I laughed. “And she figures it out!”

“Holy shit, Leigh, you really didn’t have to do all that j-”

“Liv. We’re an outrageous group already. We had the first ever returning washout. Steph infiltrated the programme. I’m likely the first trans girl to figure out that she was trans before the basement inside of the basement. Beth is… Beth.”

“And I’m just… normal.”

“So were Mary, Holly, and Patty. The four of us impacted the four of you, for better or worse. You shouldn’t compare yourself to us. You’ve gone through so much. But you’re here now, and you’ve grown so much. Okay?”

Olivia sighed. I could tell she didn’t want to say anything. She awkwardly looked away for precious moments before she huffed and replied, “Alright.”

Maia burst in with tissues, shocking all of us as she slammed the door knob about into the wall. “I’m here with the tissues! Let’s turn that frown upside down with some care and some sappy anime!”

The third years cheered, and Olivia awkwardly raised a fist into the air to signal assent. I smiled, knowing that she was in good hands with these boisterous girls. And so was I.

---

Chapter Title: "All Your Favorite Bands" by Dawes.

I'm sorry for the delay! Life happened, and I'm processing it. Chapters will be slow for a bit, but I hope to keep giving y'all more work from this story. I hope you enjoy!

And sorry for the much earlier drop on AO3. I'm working a pretty stressful externship and with it and my family... it's a lot.