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There had, of course, been clues. Gordon just hadn’t realised they were there, didn’t know to look for them, until much later. It was strange, the way the tingle of discomfort when Gordon walked past the mirror outside the changing room, was disguised by the thrill that came with high-paced training.
Gordon sighed, softly and rhythmically pulling on the front of her hair.
Every time Gordon got into the pool, the rush of water over her ears, the tug at her feet as she powered through layers of cold water, everything melded together. It was afterwards, when the adrenaline and the wrongness mixed together that made Gordon feel like she was made of TV static.
She was lucky, she supposed, that her discomfort had been so easily mistaken for nerves, as she climbed the hyper-competitive ranks of swimming.
Still. Maybe it would have been easier, if she wasn’t pushing thirty when she realised she was trans, if she hadn’t been on the tail end of a rescue, staring at her muddied hair in the back of Thunderbird 2, longer than it had ever been before.
They were on mandatory downtime after several long, hard, back-to-back rescues, rounding out a long and hard month. The piano was alive with Virgil’s playing, a calm background to the wild conversation between Scott and Alan, the noises floating up and into Gordon’s room. Gordon assumed John was somewhere, sleeping off the rest of his gravity hangover.
Gordon tugged at the loose shirt hanging over her shoulders, white singlet clinging to her waist. The quieter month that had preceded the most recent had been good. She’d had time to research, time to process. Then they had been hit with rescue after rescue, and there hadn’t been a good time for Gordon to pull any of her brothers aside, let alone all of them. So she’d not really been putting off coming out. They’d just all been busy.
Now, though, Gordon had that tight feeling in her chest again, that she couldn’t keep going without letting someone, anyone , know.
There was a soft knock at her door, and Gordon stiffened.
John stuck his head in. “Gord—”
“I’m trans!”
John stared at Gordon, and Gordon stared back, just as shocked that it came out of her mouth as John was.
“Oh-kay. Thank you for trusting me with that.” John said, reliably smoothing over the awkward conversation. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Yes! Fuck, yes John, I do want to talk about it. Please.” Gordon’s shoulders sagged.
“Alright.” John stepped into the room, door still open behind him. “I came to tell you there’s lunch downstairs, but do you want to talk now instead?”
Gordon nodded. She wasn’t sure she could hold it in, now that she’d said it out loud. She teased the end of her shirt, and gestured for John to sit on the bed. John shut the door behind him carefully, before crossing the room and sitting down amongst the jungle squid and whale plushies. Gordon stayed standing, staring at her feet.
“So.” John prompted.
“So?”
“So, you’re trans?”
Gordon nodded. “Mmhm.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
“I guess.” Gordon shrugged.
“Okay.” John said. “When you’re ready.”
Gordon nodded, so John knew she’d heard, and she worried her bottom lip with her teeth. How did she explain something so simple, yet so intricate? Something she wanted to share, but at the same time wanted to hold close. Would it make it more true, when others knew? Would it even matter, since it was already true to her? Gordon wasn’t used to being so choked for words.
“I’m trans,” she said, slowly. “I’m a woman.”
“Okay. Thank you for telling me.”
“I wanna use she/her pronouns, but I…” Gordon spared a glance at her brother, his bright eyes soft, and expectant. “I’m gonna keep using Gordon, for now at least. I know that a lot… most trans people change their names, but I like mine, and, and I might change my mind later, but for now…”
“You’re under no obligation to change your name just because you’re a trans woman, Gordon.”
“I know,” Gordon said softly. “I just…” Heat prickled under her eyes. “I’m just.” She sniffled, trying to push away the on-coming tears. “Fuck! How did I not notice before?” Gordon scrubbed furiously at her eyes, whirling to face her older brother. “How on earth did I manage to go twenty-seven years , and not notice I’m a woman?”
John reached out, fingers brushing Gordon’s arm to tug her closer. “Come here, Gordon.” John pulled her gently onto the bed, and tucked her under his chin, and rubbed his knuckles on her back in small circles.
“I’m just so… How ?” Gordon whispered.
“You just didn’t.” John didn’t tack on any softer words. He just continued to rub circles into Gordon’s back while she cried, hot and angry.
After a while, Gordon’s grief for lost time, dissipated into gently pulsing hope. She pulled her arms out from where they were curled between her and John, and wrapped them around him. “Aw, man, John,” she said, voice hoarse. “Guess what?”
“What’s that, Gordon?”
“I’m so happy I told you.”
John smiled. “I’m happy you told me, too, Gordo.”
Gordon pulled away, and grabbed a bright blue squid. “So does this mean I’m your favourite sister?”
“Oh, I dunno,” John said. “Kayo holds that spot pretty tightly.”
“Aww, but Johnny!”
“You just lost all chance of gaining that title for a week.”
Gordon wacked John with the squid. “Rude, you are. Rude!”
“Boys!” Grandma called from downstairs. Gordon winced, the smile dropping off her face. John put a hand on her knee, thumb rubbing gently. “If you want food, come quick!”
“We’ll be there in a minute, Grandma!” John called back. To Gordon, he said. “You want to tell them today, too?”
Gordon shrugged. “Maybe. I’m still a bit… feeling a bit raw, still, so maybe later.”
“Alright.” John nodded. “You let me know, and I’ll be there.”
Gordon smiled weakly. “Thanks John.”
“Of course, Gordon. You’re my sister. I love you.”
“Love you, too John.”
“Let’s get some food, though. We really don’t want to be stuck with Grandma’s leftovers.”
Gordon’s eyes widened in horror. “Absolutely we do not. Let’s go, let’s go.” Gordon shot out the room, and down the stairs leaving a trail of stuffed animals. She was playing it up, just a little bit, John knew, but that was okay.
John sighed, with a smile, as he picked up the few stray animals, and threw them back onto Gordon’s bed. A lot of new things might be coming their way, but some things never change.