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J pulls his jeans on when he hears the shower running. Shoves his feet into his shoes without bothering to look for wherever his socks ended up. A moment later he steps out into the hallway of the hotel and closes the door behind him as quietly as he can.
The light in the hall is soft but it hurts his eyes regardless.
*
J doesn’t remember when he first realizes his birth name is wrong. It just always is. Wrong. As soon as he is old enough to speak he demands everyone call him J instead. Not Jay. Jay is a name that is not his either. He is J. Just the letter. Just J. That way he can imagine it stands for something other than the unquestionably feminine name he was given at birth. At least Cersei’s name is weird enough to be a little ambiguous, if she wants it to be (which she doesn’t, but still). J’s birth name may as well say GIRL LANNISTER. And that’s not him.
So J goes by J. Everyone but his father calls him that. His father calls him by his birth name. His Full Legal Name. Always. No matter how much J protests.
*
J smells like Cersei. Like her soap. Like her shampoo. Like her perfume. Her scent clings to his skin as he moves aimlessly down the hall, like her gender rubbed off on him. He needs. He needs to be rid of it. He can’t walk around smelling like this. But she’s in the shower in their room and he’s not in their room and he can’t—
He always uses unscented deodorant. Unscented shampoo. He can’t bring himself to smell the way society has decided women should smell because he’s not… He’s not a… But right now he smells wrong and he can’t, he just can’t smell like her right now.
He can’t smell like a ‘her’ right now.
*
J does remember the time his father caught him trying to pee standing up when J was young. He remembers the anger and disgust in his father’s voice as he told him in no uncertain terms that J was a girl. And girls do not do that standing up. Ever.
He remembers crying. At the shock of being caught. At the shame of being corrected. At the humiliation of having to be told something everyone else seems to already know. J can still feel that moment in his body like it happened today. Like it never stopped.
*
He rounds a corner from the lobby and down a promising hallway. Glimpses a sign. The pool is closed for repair but the hot tub is open. Fine. The higher concentration of chlorine will clear his head and scrub his skin of the gendered scents that contaminate him.
He is relieved when the door to the hot tub is not locked despite the late hour.
*
J doesn’t remember when he came to know what his name is. By the time he has language for it his real name is already on dozens of video game save files. Has already been written on hundreds of pieces of paper he destroyed before his father could see them. Has already taken hold somewhere deep within him.
He has a name.
No one knows it but him.
But it is his.
*
J steps out of his shoes as he unbuttons his jeans. Lets his jeans drop to the floor as he heads for the hot tub. His boxers are still on. His t-shirt is still on. His two compression sports bras are still on under that. He doesn’t own a chest binder. His father would disown him if he owned a chest binder. His short hair is already a matter of contention. His whole existence is a matter of contention.
He’s in the water up to his waist before he clues into the fact that he’s not the only one here.
*
J remembers his father buying him and Cersei matching outfits for holidays when they were little. Dresses. Always matching dresses.
J would scream and cry and fight not to have to wear it, but he never won. He doesn’t remember what his father did to get him to wear the dress but he remembers the itchy feel of every party he attended as a child, like bugs crawling under his skin.
“These are my girls,” his father would say to some stranger, gesturing to him and Cersei to introduce them. Every time. “My girls.”
J remembers hating that.
*
Brienne Tarth is the other person in the hot tub. J hasn’t seen Brienne since high school, but he remembers her. Everyone who went to their high school remembers her. How could they not? She was the only openly trans kid at their school.
It’s been four years since J left high school. Which means it must be two years since she graduated. He never thought he’d see her again.
He’s spent four years trying not to think of her at all.
*
He does remember the first time he asks Cersei to call him by his name. They are almost sixteen. They are almost sixteen and Cersei comes to him with an early birthday present. She’d had to buy one of those credit card gift cards to order it for them. She’d used a fake name, just in case someone intercepted the package. That way she’d be able to claim complete ignorance of it. An unfortunate shipping error. Nothing more. But luck is with them because the package arrives when their father and brother are out of town. They are alone. They are alone and she calls him to her room and presents him with the box.
It’s a dildo and a harness. A strap-on. Cersei had talked about this. Cersei had talked about wanting to try this. About getting fucked like this. But she wanted to try it with him. She wanted to try it with him but he didn’t have—
But now he does. A cock. A cock and a harness. In a box in his hands and then on his body. His body. His cock. His body. His cock…
And that night he asks… When they do stuff like this they do whatever Cersei wants. Cersei wants and he gives but tonight, tonight as he feels his cock move in her as he rolls his hips, feels her move around him and under him and with him this way, he asks. He asks her to call him by his name.
And she does. Pulls him closer, cradles his face in her hands and says his name. His real name.
The truth of him on her tongue. In her arms. Around his cock. They’ve messed around more times than he remembers, but it has never felt so good. So right.
Cersei knows his name.
Cersei sees him.
Brienne shows up at their school the following month.
*
Brienne shrinks back into the opposite corner of the hot tub when J sits across from her. J doesn’t know why. Brienne's wearing a bathing suit. It’s not like she’s naked or anything. So who fucking cares? And it’s the hotel hot tub. If she can use the hot tub at three in the morning so can he.
*
Brienne has a word for it. Trans. Not “freak” or “broken” or “disgrace”. Trans. Brienne is trans.
She walks the halls of the school with her head held high, wearing her truth like armour. She knows who she is. What she is. And no matter what cruelty is hurled at her she stands firm. Brienne is trans.
Brienne has words for things J does not dare try and name.
*
“Don’t worry,” J sneers, falling into the tone he takes when some straight person bristles at his masculine-presenting proximity. “You’re not my type.”
Brienne is on her feet the next instant, out of the water from her thighs up and looking down at him with contempt. J is startled by the sudden movement, by her tightly contained fury as she replies, “As if you are mine.” It’s the same icy tone he overheard her use on assholes back in high school he realizes as he looks up at her.
Brienne is standing in front of him in her bathing suit. Her bathing suit that he gave no thought to at all but now… Now he understands exactly why Brienne is in the hot tub alone at 3am. She’s here at 3am for the same reason he’s wearing two sports bras under a black t-shirt.
And J’s an idiot. He’s a thoughtless fucking idiot.
*
J doesn’t make Brienne’s life difficult. Not the way others do. But he doesn’t make it any easier either. He keeps his distance. He’s two grades older than her. It’s not like they would be friends anyway. But his father would kill him if he found out J was friendly with the only openly trans girl in the school.
*
Brienne’s staring down at him without shame, daring him to comment on her body. On her wide shoulders. On her small breasts. On the bulge her swimsuit does not conceal. J fills with such self-loathing he can barely get the words out.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” he says in a mortified rush, “I wasn’t thinking— I didn’t mean—” Oh gods she thinks he’s a transphobic asshole. And he’s a lot of things, but he’s not that. He’s not— “I’m sorry I misspoke I apologize it will never happen again I’m sorry.”
Brienne turns to leave.
“Wait,” J says. “Stay. I’ll go. I’ll go.”
He gets to his feet. His sopping wet shirt clings to his chest and he pulls it away from his body, unable to stand the feel of fabric pressed so tightly against him, exposing his bound chest to her. Even with two sports bras on there are still curves on his body he does not want anyone to see.
He rakes his fingers through his hair and then tilts his head down so his hair falls back over his forehead as he looks over at his jeans. He has no towel. Nothing dry to change into. And he can’t go back to the room. He doesn’t want to go back to the fucking room. Fuck—
*
“You’re nothing like that creature,” Cersei says to him, more than once, when the topic of Brienne comes up.
“Her name is Brienne,” J protests. Feebly. Never enough. He never protests enough.
“Have it your way,” Cersei replies without concern. “But you are nothing like her.”
Even when Cersei uses the right pronouns for Brienne there is vitriol on her tongue.
*
“You can stay,” Brienne says. “If you want.”
They’re both still standing up in the hot tub. His legs are too warm but his torso is chilled. He shivers as he hunches his shoulders forward, holding his arms tightly across his body. Across his chest. He can see goosebumps on Brienne’s arms but she doesn’t fold her arms across her body to warm up. She doesn’t move to cover herself at all.
“I can go,” he says, dropping his gaze and wishing she would do the same. He shouldn’t be here. Brienne is the one who—
“Stay.”
He nods.
They sit back down into the water on opposite corners of the hot tub.
*
J is everything like Brienne. He is everything like Brienne but he can’t be. No matter how much he wants to be more like her, he can’t. He can’t ask everyone to use his real name. He can’t ask anyone to use male pronouns for him. Not even Cersei. Not even when they’re alone together. He can’t. He just can’t.
*
Brienne steals a few glances at him but otherwise ignores him in silence.
Brienne ignores him until she makes a little sound. Like she’s clearing her throat, getting ready to address him. For an awful moment J fears she’s going to say his birth name, but she doesn’t.
“I’m Brienne,” she says instead.
He knows. Everyone in their high school knows her name is Brienne. Everyone in their town knows her name is Brienne. It made the local paper when she legally changed her name. He knows. He remembers.
“And you’re J?” she prompts when he doesn’t say anything back. “Right?”
He nods. He’s got to pull it together. Get out of his head. Get out of his head and into his body. His body that is in this hot tub with Brienne Tarth.
*
He remembers being very aware of Brienne. He notices her in the halls. Every time he sees her in the halls he notices her. And as the months go on, as it becomes more and more obvious that Brienne is transitioning, that somehow she has gotten on hormones at her age, that her parents haven’t disowned her, that she is becoming more comfortable in her body day by day, in spite of everything stacked against her, J aches with jealousy and sorrow too raw to acknowledge.
*
J can’t believe this is actually happening. That he is here and Brienne is right there and there is no one else around.
He spent much of high school wishing he could talk to Brienne. Just the two them. He would catch himself fantasizing about getting locked in a classroom alone with her, or them both getting detention at the same time, or living next door to her, or running into her in the park. Something. Anything. Any way to be near enough to her to get to talk to her alone. To get the chance to ask her the questions that burned in him. The ones he could barely conceptualize in words.
But she’s here with him now. Alone. Just the two of them in this hot tub. But he doesn’t know where to start. Doesn’t know if she would even let him ask. It’s not her job to answer.
He sighs. Pulls his arms tighter to his body. Back then, if he had one question he could ask her, just one, it would have been ‘How did you know? How did you know for sure you were trans?’ He used to think about it a lot. About getting to ask her. Just that one question. He needed to know.
He almost asked her once. Brienne was washing her hands in the restroom when he walked in and stopped in his tracks when he realized they were the only ones in there. The question pounded in his ears but the fear of her giving him an answer kept him silent as she dried her hands and left him standing alone in the girl's restroom. His failure in that moment haunts him to this day.
How did you know? The old question loops in his head as he looks at her now, like a song he thought he’d forgotten. How did you know for sure you were trans?
That is not the question he would choose to ask her now.
*
Cersei knows his name but only calls him that when he’s inside her.
And J is never more himself than when he is fucking her, kissing his true name from Cersei’s lips.
*
“So what brings you to this fine establishment at this ungodly hour?” J asks.
He’s going to ignore everything else and focus on the improbable odds of him and Brienne being in the same hotel on the same night. Of the even greater odds of them being in the same hot tub at the same hour of the night. Math was never his best subject, but he knows they must be astronomical. He can focus on this. He can be here and think of nothing else. He can—
“My dad won a contest.”
“A contest?”
“Some raffle I think. He won two nights at this hotel. But he couldn’t go, so he gave it to me instead.”
“Is this your first or second night?” J asks. It’s such a relief to be able to think about something trivial. To focus on anything other than himself. He was always much better at surviving if he had something to distract him. And Brienne is as good a distraction as he can imagine.
“First.”
“And is it living up to your wildest dreams?”
“Yes,” she deadpans. “My wildest dreams are of a chain hotel with a closed pool and a room with the view of the hotel next door.”
He catches himself grinning.
He catches himself grinning until she asks, “So what brings you here?”
*
J gets to the hotel first. Checks in and makes his way to their room. Cersei will be here within the hour. He glances at his reflection in the TV. Not the mirror. He wants to be in a good mood when she gets here and seeing his reflection too clearly will not help that cause. So the TV it is. He ruffles his fingers through his short hair. It's grown out since he first cut it off and he finally loves the length. Too short and it doesn’t hide his feminine hairline. Now that it’s a little longer his hair falls about his forehead in an almost artful way. He likes so little about his appearance, but he likes this.
He puts on a button-up shirt over his t-shirt, and then a tie. They aren’t going out anywhere. The only place he and Cersei will be tonight is here. Here and together. But he puts on a shirt and tie because he likes how right it feels when Cersei tugs his tie loose and unbuttons her way down his front.
*
“J?”
Brienne’s looking at him with concern. Not curiosity. Concern.
He gives his head a little shake, tries to clear his mind of himself, “Sorry, what?”
“I asked why you were here."
*
The door opens and Cersei is there, striding towards him as she casts her suitcase aside.
J is on his feet and in front of her a moment later, looking at her. Finally.
If J was a woman he would be Cersei. And he’s not Cersei. It’s been months since they saw each other and he has missed the affirmation of her appearance. Identical twins. That is what they were born as. That is what they were born as, but looking at Cersei now, they are not. Her long hair. Her curves. Her body. She does not look like him. They do not look the same. They are not the same. J’s hair is so much shorter than Cersei’s now, his body more muscular, their clothes are as different as night and day.
They still look alike, in a way. But they are not at all identical.
Cersei is a woman.
J is not.
*
“Visiting family.” he eventually replies.
He does not elaborate.
*
He stops her when Cersei reaches to remove his t-shirt, his hands on her wrists. He doesn’t want to take it off. He leaves it on. He always leaves it on. He doesn’t want Cersei to see the two sports bras he’s wearing. He doesn’t want her to lecture him about showing off his assets. He doesn’t want her to see the way the straps dig into his shoulders, the way the elastic presses into his ribs, leaving red lines on his skin. He needs the too-small bras to hold his chest down as aggressively as he can bear, but he doesn’t want her to see them.
J doesn’t want to see the two sports bras he’s wearing either. He doesn’t want to think about them. If his shirt stays on, if the compression bras do what they’re doing, if he doesn’t have to feel the things on his chest moving… he can get through this without his body betraying him. He can get through this and enjoy himself without going away inside.
*
Their meagre conversation dwindles.
J can feel his chance to talk to Brienne slipping away, minute by minute. Soon she will realize it is late. It is late and she has better things to do than sit here with the likes of him. And then he will never see her again.
He spent years wishing for such an opportunity and now that she’s here with him he is in no state to articulate anything. About anything.
He wants to.
But he can’t.
*
Cersei calls him her sister between kisses and his skin crawls. He recoils away from her as if she struck him.
“Sorry,” Cersei says, sounding like she doesn’t mean it at all. She’s probably rolling her eyes but J isn’t looking at her. “Twin. My twin. My twin. J, my twin.”
Her hands are still on him, urging him closer. “Twin,” she says. “Mine.”
*
“Are you feeling okay?” Brienne asks.
J nods, not trusting himself to speak.
His failure is so obvious sitting across from her. Brienne is so much better at this than he is. At being trans. Brienne is trans. She’s trans and she’s sitting across from him and she’s been on hormones for years and she lives in her body, he can tell just by looking at her that she belongs in her body and he doesn’t even know what that would feel like but there she is. Alive and in front of him and using a prize her father won that he gave to her because her father still talks to her, her father still loves her even though she’s trans and J… J is so far behind. It’s too late for him. It’s too fucking late…
*
“Say it,” J begs. His name. He wants to hear his name. Cersei’s the only one who knows. This is the only time he ever gets to hear it. She won’t even use it when they are alone together. They have to be like this. He has to be fucking her to hear her say it. His name. His name. His name. It’s been months since they have seen one another. Months since he has heard it. His name. “Please. Cersei, please. Say it.”
“Aren’t we getting a little old for that game?” Cersei asks, threading her fingers through his hair, pushing it off his face. “You’re the one I want. There is no one here for miles who knows who we are.”
“Please,” he says, shaking his head from her touch so his hair falls forward once more, then fucking her hard, the way he knows she likes, so hard he can almost pretend the cock inside her is his flesh and not held in place with straps. “Say my name.”
The name Cersei says does not belong to him.
*
J's stomach is clenched, his whole body tight with truth he can not reconcile. The truth he does not not know how to survive. He forces himself to steady. To swallow the horror of himself. Of his treacherous body. He reminds himself to breathe. Even shallow breaths. Something. Anything. Anything to hold himself together as what’s inside him threatens to claw him apart. How do I live like this? he wants to ask Brienne, How do I survive?
He has a lifetime of experience enduring the discrepancy between who he is and how he is seen, but tonight, tonight he can’t—
He can’t fucking do this anymore.
*
He does not remember what happens next.
But after that Cersei is in the bathroom and he is alone on the bed.
He’s shaking.
He thought Cersei knew.
He thought Cersei saw him.
And if Cersei saw him he could survive the rest.
But Cersei doesn’t know.
Cersei doesn’t see him.
Cersei doesn’t see him at all.
J can’t bear it.
J can’t do this anymore.
*
He’s trembling again. Dizzy and light-headed. On the edge of hyper-ventilating.
The water is too hot. His body is too cold. He needs to get out of here. He needs to get out of here.
He stands. Tries to stand. Fails.
The world rushes towards him.
He’s not sure if he loses consciousness, but he is in Brienne’s arms when he tries to open his eyes.
“J,” she says. Is saying. A few times. Waiting for him to answer. Waiting for him to say something back.
“Jaime,” he says, he needs Brienne to know. “My name is Jaime.”