Newly Not Cis

Did your nuts un-drop?

"God shut up and just play the game" James snapped.

He had finally recovered from his panics the day before and decided it might be safe to join a game with Ben and Lachie and the first thing they did is whine. Team-based games sucked with these two.

"Dude, what the fuck was that?" Ben responded.

"Just shut up and play," he repeated

"You sound like squeaker holy shit? Did your nuts un-drop?" Ben taunted.

He wanted to respond with something to get him to just shut up but he couldn't find the right words. What he said cut deep. He'd hoped everyone would ignore his voice like Nick did but he realised that wasn't going to happen, that Nick was an outlier. They would investigate, they would find out. He realised he would rather die than be revealed.

"Back off him dude, you two are flaming a little too much. We can barely think," Nick's voice broke through James' spiral. Being defended was both comforting and emasculating. His voice refused to come out, it wasn't like he could defend himself.

"Awww defending him because he sounds like a girl?" He wanted to curl up into a ball.

The game was a blur after that, it was like he went into autopilot, unable to think straight as Nick tried to give him instructions. Ben continued trying to taunt James and Nick but James couldn't react. He could barely hear what was being said. They won but barely scraped by. He left the call, the game and the group chat.

Dealing with a comment about his voice from a random on the internet was completely different from having one of his best friends notice. They knew him well. They knew something was off. They knew that something had changed.

James laid in bed trying to figure out what to do about this voice that made him want to cry. He wanted to hit his voice until it worked. He wondered how voices worked and if it was even possible for him to get back his old voice in his current state. If he could do anything with chemicals or smoking he would do it. Anything to make his voice deeper again.

His phone buzzed. A message from Nick he guessed.

Nick: wanna come over to my place tomorrow?