[00?] baby i was born this way
WARNING: This verse and log will approach and deal with transgender/genderqueer issues. The mun wants to make it clear that she does support the trans community as a whole, and if she fails to properly address/treats issues in a way that is offensive, openly invites herself to correction (but will attempt to treat the subject with all due seriousness.)
That said, if trans issues and sexual situations are not your thing, don't read this log or any ones labeled under the 'transgender' or 'genderqueer' tags. That's the only warning you'll get.
Eames was nervous.
He didn't generally get nervous. Usually he was a paragon of confidence even in the worst of times, remarkably stable even in stressful situations. But he was nervous, now.
Because he was going to share a secret with Arthur.
Eames was male. He had known that coming out of his teenage years, having been plagued by emotional problems throughout puberty that he didn't quite understand until he was older. He knew it with a certainty in his head, confident in his own gender.
But there would some who would disagree, because Eames didn't have, in their words, the proper 'equipment'.
Like many others like him, he'd gone through the therapy and still took the testosterone pills; his mother, remarkable even before he realized exactly who he was, had paid for his surgeries, wanting the best for her son. Like others, he had ended up retaining his genitalia simply because the process to 'correct' it (and wasn't that a horrible word sometimes) was expensive and risky.
He was comfortable in his gender that he didn't mind the differing sex organs. The British military was delightfully progressive these days anyway and had allowed him to join, after all his paperwork was in order.
Perhaps it was that struggle with his own identity that made it easy for him, when he got into dreamshare, to become a forger. To slip skins on and off, male and female (and some, in his forging, who were neither and both, playing with the form), old and young.
When the program had been shut down he had fled it, unequivocally, taking the PASIV with himself.
That was what had brought him to meeting Arthur.
Initially, they had been competitive, almost cruel in their ways. But they had realized that the other was not out to get them, and, both being new, had eventually set out to helping each other, becoming friends (friends who bickered and snarked, but that was their particular brand of friendship.)
But he had never told Arthur, this. Despite being attracted to the man he had never acted on it (though he had had a lovely relationship with a man named Yusuf, a chemist; whom he had told, and whom had accepted him with, Eames thought, easy grace, loving [ for a time anyway ] him the way he was) and though he flirted he generally kept to himself, sex-wise.
Though he had certainly thought of what it would be like to fuck Arthur, to let him fuck him.
And then, eventually, after Inception and countless jobs together, they had kissed. And from that kiss had come dates, the familiarity of each other making it easy to smile and laugh and talk over food.
But Eames had had a hard line about touching, unwilling to go beyond kissing or light touches until he had worked up the nerve to tell Arthur.
Which was what he was doing. Or was going to do, as soon as the words stopped choking on his tongue.
He sat across from Arthur at the flat he'd 'requisitioned' for the moment, picking at his food before he spoke.
"Arthur, there's something I want to tell you."
Want. Not needed to.
That said, if trans issues and sexual situations are not your thing, don't read this log or any ones labeled under the 'transgender' or 'genderqueer' tags. That's the only warning you'll get.
Eames was nervous.
He didn't generally get nervous. Usually he was a paragon of confidence even in the worst of times, remarkably stable even in stressful situations. But he was nervous, now.
Because he was going to share a secret with Arthur.
Eames was male. He had known that coming out of his teenage years, having been plagued by emotional problems throughout puberty that he didn't quite understand until he was older. He knew it with a certainty in his head, confident in his own gender.
But there would some who would disagree, because Eames didn't have, in their words, the proper 'equipment'.
Like many others like him, he'd gone through the therapy and still took the testosterone pills; his mother, remarkable even before he realized exactly who he was, had paid for his surgeries, wanting the best for her son. Like others, he had ended up retaining his genitalia simply because the process to 'correct' it (and wasn't that a horrible word sometimes) was expensive and risky.
He was comfortable in his gender that he didn't mind the differing sex organs. The British military was delightfully progressive these days anyway and had allowed him to join, after all his paperwork was in order.
Perhaps it was that struggle with his own identity that made it easy for him, when he got into dreamshare, to become a forger. To slip skins on and off, male and female (and some, in his forging, who were neither and both, playing with the form), old and young.
When the program had been shut down he had fled it, unequivocally, taking the PASIV with himself.
That was what had brought him to meeting Arthur.
Initially, they had been competitive, almost cruel in their ways. But they had realized that the other was not out to get them, and, both being new, had eventually set out to helping each other, becoming friends (friends who bickered and snarked, but that was their particular brand of friendship.)
But he had never told Arthur, this. Despite being attracted to the man he had never acted on it (though he had had a lovely relationship with a man named Yusuf, a chemist; whom he had told, and whom had accepted him with, Eames thought, easy grace, loving [ for a time anyway ] him the way he was) and though he flirted he generally kept to himself, sex-wise.
Though he had certainly thought of what it would be like to fuck Arthur, to let him fuck him.
And then, eventually, after Inception and countless jobs together, they had kissed. And from that kiss had come dates, the familiarity of each other making it easy to smile and laugh and talk over food.
But Eames had had a hard line about touching, unwilling to go beyond kissing or light touches until he had worked up the nerve to tell Arthur.
Which was what he was doing. Or was going to do, as soon as the words stopped choking on his tongue.
He sat across from Arthur at the flat he'd 'requisitioned' for the moment, picking at his food before he spoke.
"Arthur, there's something I want to tell you."
Want. Not needed to.