CHAPTER 11: Rediscovering your gender identity Indiana, 1984.
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IT WAS DIFFERENT without Eddie's bubbly personality constantly surrounding him. Since they talked in the shower, he had been ignoring Steve, and although he knew better than to show it, he was mighty pissed off by it. It just all seemed a bit melodramatic; he hadn't even been here for a week and already Eddie had fallen for him? Not that he blamed him, Steve after all was a very attractive man, but it all seemed a bit over the top nonetheless.
So when Steve entered the room that afternoon, he didn't expect anyone to talk to him, actually. The death glares had started at the breakfast table in the morning after showering, and they didn't seem to end. He didn't even think someone as nice as Robin could put on a frown that extreme. For once in his life, he was actually glad when Mary Brown entered, because that meant they had to divert their attention to her.
„I hope you all had a restful night, after Steve shares his root with us we can move on to step two, how exciting!" she put on a smile, then looked over to Steve, who was nervously tapping his leg.
„My root is that," he shrugged before he looked around the room. „I'm a basketball player, simply put. And I love it. I mean, I love swimming too, but honestly, I'm only truly happy when I play with balls."
Cue laughter — Steve even heard Eddie laugh, which made him feel relieved, and when he looked over to Billy, the blonde guy was covering his face with one hand, slapping his thigh with the other. He seemed content, for that moment; happy, and it caused a weird fluttering in Steve's stomach.
Mrs Brown blinked a few times, entirely unsure what to do or say. „Why," she then shrugged after a while, „thank you for that Steve." she eyed him.
„Locker room showers," he shrugged, leaning against the back of the chair, his eyes meeting Billy's, a sly smile curling up his lips.
Mrs Brown nodded, and her expression seemed understanding, with a big hint of pity. „You're not the first. It's such a common root, I think something should be done about it. But who listens to a woman, right?" she waved it off, straightening her hot pink suit jacket.
„So today we start with step two," she then continued after taking a good look around, „And I'm so proud of you for making it so far. It's not easy to come to terms with the perversion inside of you, but to fix a problem, you need to grab it by the root!"
Eddie let out a frustrated sigh. Like usually, he was seated right next to Steve, and the fact that he wasn't leaning over to him to whisper stupid jokes as he normally would was driving him crazy. He looked over to him, but didn't dare to say the first word.
„Step two," she took to the blackboard, writing down everything she said in pink chalk, „Rediscovering your gender identity!" She sounded awfully cheerful. „So for this, we're going to separate the group by gender and then you're going to form teams of two."
