And
Marrie
And
Mary
After a lengthy phone call with her mother, Marrie found herself biking to the hospital one-handed. Her excuse for why she needed to go seemed to placate her enough to convince her not to fly to Pax Septimus with money she doesn't have. She avoided telling her mother that she was uninsured, knowing that she wouldn't react well. It took a while to get there, and she fell once or twice (luckily on her good right side instead of on the broken one) due to her lack of having two functional arms, but she made it and checked in to be seen by a doctor in... about 2 hours. Great. She'd be on her phone until then, she figured.
Marrie would not have much time to play with her phone. Or at least, she would not have much time to enjoy doing so in the tranquil environment she was presently in. Over by the desk Two kids were standing in front of the front desk. One was a girl wearing a flamboyant purple suit that probably would have looked better on a man. It was kind of baggy, in contrast to the girl’s otherwise feminine appearance. She had shoulder length hair that had two strips bleached and then dyed red and blue. She also had her bangs dyed red and blue as well.
"What do you mean I need to wait?" She practically barked the words.
”There’s quite a line for new patients.” The clerk looked into the waiting room.
”That other lady is going to be waiting for a while, at least two hours.” The girl took a peak, pouted, and then looked back at the clerk.
"Oh, of course some white princess gets to get in before we do." The clerk took a deep breath, clearly at her wits end with all the other unhappy people she’s had to deal with today.
”Well ma’am, she was here-” "Did you just assume my gender?" She(?) pointed at her(?)self with their thumb.
"It’s zir!" Ze took the boy by the hand and guided him into the waiting room, where zi sat across from the “white princess” to bore holes into them with zir eyes.
The boy would admit it clear as day. He never liked hospitals. Whether it was for a flu shot or for something simple as a check up, he would always have some weird anxious feeling weigh him down no matter how calm he was before. If you'd ask him, he wouldn't know. Probably because of a natural anxiety that something might be wrong, or the strong smell of sanitizer in the halls. Or something worse, like the feeling of death looming deeper within the facility. Or how helpless people are at the mercy of time.
One wrong move, and you're done for.
Grim thoughts aside, he was feeling more flustered than anxious at the moment. The boy in the red hoodie said nothing as the other kid berated the clerk, mostly because any attempts to calm zir down would be drowned out. He could only offer the clerk a sympathetic shrug as he was dragged off. To sit across from the mentioned lady, no less.
While the feminine fellow glared daggers at Marrie, he offered a polite wave.
"Er, g-good evening! Don't mind my friend here, we've been a bit busy." The boy tried to explain.
"What're ya in for?" "Oh, no worries." Marrie said to the boy.
"Just a... olecranon fracture." she said, having looked up the term a moment ago. Then she paused, remembered that she herself had just learned it, and therefor most people wouldn't know what it meant...
"I, er, broke my elbow." Marrie tried to straighten her left arm and was struck by severe pain, wincing and then smiling at the two youths.
"See?" Seeing her try to move her broken arm made the boy panic a bit.
"H-Hey! You don't have to show an example, I get it!" He quickly reassured Marrie, a worried frown on his face.
"Yes, I think we could both see that your arm was broken." Zi folded zir arms and sat upright.
"Let me guess, Bike accident? Tripped and fell into something hard? I’d consider the various farm related injuries, but you don’t strike me as much of a tom boy."Marrie paused at the last comment, before allowing it to bounce off her like a rock on a lake.
"It's okay, it only hurts a lot, heh." She turned to the insulting child.
"Uh... yeah. Bike accident." she managed in a not quite convincing way.
For some reason, the reaction seemed to satisfy zir to the point that ze smiled.
"I'm Mary, by the way," Ze raised zir hand, which was still holding onto the boy's.
"This is Fable!" After zir introduction, ze lowered their hands back down.
"We were going to go on a date, but I decided to stop by here for um..." Ze trailed off for a bit before making zir smile even wider.
"Therapy! Or at least ask about it, but my, therapist, I'm too early see? My apointment is for later, but I need to see them, right now." Ze tapped zir foot on the ground.
"Er, I-I really wouldn't...call it...a "date" per say..." Fable mumbled off, scratching the back of his head. When Mary thought up an excuse, his face comically blanked out.
"My old therapist is in prison for attempted murder." He bluntly said, fib or not.
"Ze was going to suggest zir's to me." Mary raised zir eyebrow briefly, but said nothing before looking back at Marrie with a dead pan expression.
"Uh... uh-huh. Nice to meet you?" Marrie replied.
I'm Marrie. Weird running into someone else with the same name as me, but kind of cool. 'Fable' is a cool name too, by the way. You could even call it... legendary." she began laughing for a moment before raising her left hand to cover her mouth, causing her intense pain which stopped her laughter. Then it registered.
"Wait. Who did they try to kill? A patient? she asked, totally nonplussed by Fable's use of non-standard terms for Mary.
"Well It's more of a moniker than anythi-" Fable rambled, until Marrie's pun caught him off guard. He was locked between a strange cackle and an awkward cough, and the inbetween would sound weird anyways. He cleared his throat once she asked about his little "fib".
"It was. Long story." He simply said.
"Hey man, I've got two hours to wait. If you wanna talk about it, I'm not really a therapist, but I could hear you out. I did some psych research back in school for a class, which isn't really qualifying, but hey, better than nothing, right?" Marrie rambled for a bit until she remembered something.
"Oh, right. Sorry, I don't want to impose on you and your date's time. Sorry." "We're also waiting, so you aren't taking our time." Mary giggled, only growing happier with Marrie the more she spoke.
"My full name is Mariette, It's a little unusual, so everyone just calls me Mary." Zir hand slid out of Fable's palm and up his arm, which ze used to pull him closer.
"But this psych research sounds pretty mature. What grade was it? What grade are you in? You don't look that much older than us.""Oh, I actually just finished highschool last year. It was as a junior and senior that I took the classes." Marrie was suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps she was short for her age. Then again, youthfulness was a good thing, right? ... Right?
The boy shivered when he felt Mary's hand move to his arm. As much as he wanted to be nice, this was kinda making him uncomfortable. So eventually, he gently shook zir hand off him.
"I'm alright." Fable quietly said, to both of them in fact, with a mixed expression.
Mariette gave Fable a looooooong stare before lowering zir hands into zir lap.
"Well, I guess it's just the way you keep your hair. I'm only fourteen, but I can't wait for my next growth spurt!" ze crossed zir brow before looking at Fable.
"I think we need a long story right now, so how about you tell us more about the murder? I didn't get all the details when we spoke last time." Mariette was fidgeting zir hands as they spoke.
Marrie also looked towards Fable, partially reluctant to have him tell a story that seemed to upset him.
Fable frowned slightly for a second.
"Attempted. But... Right. I had a friend once. A superior I looked up to in a way. Prodigal investigator, despite his age. He and his partner would work together to solve even the most dangerous cases, even if they risk their lives to keep others safe...and each other. One case was an asylum escapee. A master of deception and manipulation, no matter how much that sounds like something out of Batman but, anyways, she eluded law enforcement for years. The pursuit ended up to the two of them. They didn't really tell me anything until later, trying to protect me I guess." As soon as he found the words, the story he told flowed out naturally. He furrowed his brows.
"That damn woman. She ended up targeting them. The patient that got shot? Was one of them. The partner. He survived but it still sickens me that I couldn't be there to do something." Fable shuddered.
"I hate not being able to prevent something. I hate it..." His voice ended on a whisper. Even if some things are still left obscured...
This wasn't a lie, was it?
"You were friends with a detective?" Mariette looked more confused than anything.
"That sort of reminds me of '
A Study in Emerald' only without the horror elements, and it's real." With a shrug, ze leaned on their arm rest away from Fable.
At the comparison, the boy offered a tired chuckle and a smile.
"Yeah, not the weirdest thing in the world these days." He said with a shrug in return.
"...I kinda miss them." "I can understand where you're coming from with that last bit. And I'm sorry to make you think about all this again. But, uh, sorry to ask this, but I'm confused. Was it the asylum patient or your old therapist who shot the patient?" "The escapee WAS the therapist." Fable clarified.
"Probably should've specified that earlier." "Your therapist was an asylum patient? They don't sound entirely up for their job then. Or was it like an asylum where even the doctors weren't allowed to leave? Is that a thing?" Fable blinked. He was silent for a moment, before he sighed.
"Fuck if I know." he slumped further into his seat.
"Well that was fun!" Mariette looked at her phone.
"Not really.""But not very time consuming." zir eyes darted around the waiting room before locking on Marrie again.
"So um, I uh... Well you seem nice." Mary inhaled.
"I'm considering hormone therapy. But I'd like to talk to a doctor first." Ze locked zir fingers together.
"I know I'm too young, they'll want me to be at least sixteen before they do anything. But you said you did some reaserch on psych stuff. Does that sort of thing make people happier in the long run, usually?"Marrie thought for a moment while she shook off the stun of what she just heard.
"Well... From what little I've read on the subject, it seems like it's a case by case basis? Some people are more happy, some wish they never did it. I'd say the only way to know is to try, but... It's not really reversable as far as I'm aware. I mean, I guess you could get further therapy to try to reverse it, but I don't know if that would work or not. Again, I've only done a little research on this topic." Marrie took a moment to collect herself before continuing.
"If you don't mind a personal oppinion, I'd say that I wouldn't do it. If you can't find happiness in your body now, then there might be other avenues to change that that are more in the mind than changing the way your body is, you know? But it's ultimately your decision. I'm not so old that I think people younger than me can't make important decisions, I'd just caution you to maybe consider other ways first, if there are any."Mariette's head bobbed up and down while Marrie spoke.
"I see," ze placed a hand on zir chin.
"I don't think... I know the doctor is probably going to say something similar," Mary stood up.
"But um, say I had, two bodies. Would you still think that?""You mean if you weren't satisfied with either, or that you wanted the opposite gender expressed from each? Like one being a boy and one a girl? I guess I'd need to know why you actually wanted the therapy, but that would be an interesting phenomenon to have two bodies." Marrie said, it obvious from her voice that she was thinking it over.
"Yea!" Mary giggled, even if zir nerves were showing a bit.
"If I had two female bodies, would you still say I was better off finding different avenues, or would it be better to alter one of them with hormone therapy?""Well... Ultimately, you can only change gender, not sex, with current methods as far as I'm aware. Therapy would help other people see you as what you want to be seen as, but you'd need some magic way to change one body to a male if you wanted that. I guess it also depends on-" something occured to Marrie.
"If we're doing hypotheticals like that anyway, I guess there'd already be some form of magic in order for someone to have two bodies, right? So maybe it would be better to look into magical means of changing one of the bodies, though they'd have to be really careful in what they did so they didn't fall to dark magic or something like that. At the point of having two bodies, is hormone therapy even good enough?"Mariette was nodding much more excitedly now.
"Thank you, fellow Mary! I think you saved me a good two hours of waiting in line." Ze extended zir hand to shake.
"Maybe later you can stop by the Great Escape and we can all do something fun together! Do you have someone to drive you home? I could have one of my servants- erm, friends pick you up.""No problem, I'm glad that I seem to have been able to help." Marrie shook Mariette's hand with her good arm.
"I should be able to get home okay, but thank you for the offer. And I'll look into the 'Great Escape' when I get home. It was nice to meet you two."Ze nodded.
"Taake care!"Marrie waved and continued her wait. A few hours later she left the hospital with a sling and a elbow that was ready to heal.
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