We start this chapter following a boy, name not yet relevant, through the convention hall of the famous gamers convention, Pax East. His chest feels heavy and his throat thick as he searches and searches.
In his hand is two slips of paper, both folded but one bigger than the other. He silently curses as he realises that the papers are starting to get damp from his nervous sweating, prominently in his palms. He searches and searches.
There's a girl next to him, name also irrelevant, walking in time with his strides, obviously leading the way. Her chest is also heavy but her throat is fine, air flowing through it with ease. She understands this feeling as anxious though it isn't a regular feeling and she hates it. She wonders how her friend, the boy to her right, copes with these feelings on a regular basis and just by looking at him and the way his chest rises and falls at an irregular pace she can tell that he is in the midst of a panic attack but he stays quiet. Not mentioning it and powering through it alone because his anxiety is also accompanied by an exciting feeling that pushes him forward and tells him to search and search.
This constant searching eventually pays off when he sees a large crowd up ahead. Normally he would immediately turn around and walk in the opposite direction but what he wants is right at the middle of that crowd and if he is anything, he's determined. He opts to loitering round the edges of the ocean of people and waiting for it to die down, which it does, after an eternity, and what he's been waiting for, what he travelled half way across the world for is right there, in front of him.
He spends his whole life trying to act like more of a man to convince people that he is one, to show them that you aren't the same inside as outside only to ruin that and start sobbing as soon as his idols, the people who have saved his life, and, somehow, managed to convince him to accept himself come into his view.
Cursing, he wipes his shirtsleeve under his eyes and sniffles, trying to stop himself but he can't. The reasons that he is alive are right in front of him and within reach and he is supposed to not cry, or overreact. Please, can someone get some logic?
Soon, a lot quicker than he would have liked, him and his friend are stood right in front of them, taking pictures and getting things signed. He doesn't speak, he doesn't trust himself and he is embarrassed by his high voice, his girly voice so he just stands and lets his friend talk.
One of them, actually asks him if he is okay, to which he just feebly nods and looks down as more tears flow from his eyes. He doesn't want to cry, he is a man, not a girl.
Eventually, he builds up enough courage to go up to the one who had the biggest impact on him and hand him the two pieces of paper, quietly asking him to read the small one now.
He watches as his eyes skim down the paper and he recites it in his head, having memorised it from the many times he rewrote it, like he is reading it aloud.
[I]
Hi. I just want to say thank you. I have been watching your videos for over a year and this is probably like any typical letter you get but you have saved my life on multiple occasions and have helped me accept my self and see that just because I was born a girl, it doesn't mean I am one. So, thank you, so much and I wish I could do more to say this.
[I]
As he finishes reading, he looks up and immediately widens his arms, surprisingly, pulling the boy into a hug. The boy just manages to croak a heart felt 'thank you' into his shoulder, hoping he didn't notice that his T-shirt got a little caught in his dry and stale mouth, before pulling away and awkwardly saying goodbye, muttering it and wanting nothing more than for his anxiety to go away so he can have a simple, civil conversation and to explain the letters for himself. Explain what they mean to him in more than just black ink on a dead tree. He wants to tell him all about his life, how he played power rangers with his friends when he was younger, how his cousin introduced him to YouTube, how he moved house when he was six or how his parents recently split up. But he can't, the words getting stuck in his throat like trying to drag a train through a straw.
He is a couple meters away when he hears a shout, "Wait, what's your name?"
To which he replies, "Oliver-James."
His idol nods his head, smiling gratefully before turning and entering into a conversation with his friends, but not before taking one last look behind him.
The boy's face can no longer be called a face, but a waterfall. His friend, the girl, is staring in awe at him before pulling him into a hug and squealing, like a typical fan girl, right in his ear.
He needs some air. Now.
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It was just a simple interaction, maybe a little, or a lot, different from a normal fan encounter but Josh's heart ached for the boy, Oliver, for reasons he couldn't explain.
After reading the other, six page long, letter, which was basically his life story, he felt like someone had stuck pins in his heart and he wanted to go back and find the boy, tell him that life was okay.
In the letter he had talked, to a large extent, about wanting kids so badly and how he would wake up in a morning with pains in his stomach and chest because he knew that to be who he was he couldn't have his own children and to have children he would have to be someone he wasn't.
It made Josh realise how lucky he was. Of course, he knew he was lucky all along. He had money, good friends and a stable-ish job, but he felt lucky that he was able to have his own kids. It was something that people often take for granted and Josh realised that he had and he felt guilty. It was strange how one person, one letter and thirty seconds could change someone's view on life because with that letter in hand and the image of that boy in his head, he realised that he wanted a baby.
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8 votes, 2 comments. Blah blah blah
Did you guys enjoy this chapter?? It was scary to write because I based it off of my own encounter with Josh but it was very different except for the way he felt and stuff...
Also, my mum said that she wants me to be called Finn.... which do you guys prefer? Finn or Oliver?
Chapter 24 sneak peek:
‘Freya is in a onesie that has ears and a fluffy tail as well as a button on the breast that makes the noise of a rabbit eating when pressed. She feels superior, like all of her subordinates should be bowing at her great rabbitness. They don't, sadly.
A young girl, probably the same age as Freya, with naturally red hair and carrying a babies car seat, walks up to their table.'
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stumbling into line (sidemen ff)
Fanfiction'Would you give up your happiness for her?' 'No, she is my happiness' --- 'One add one equals one. Me add him equals one. Everything equals one. But how you get there is always different.' --- 'Love is a one time thing, but it's so unknown to hum...
