#trans liam

Who he sees on the other side is not who he’s expecting, and he’s really rethinking taking his shirt off, because it’s Louis, standing there looking half confused and half like a starving man would look at a piece of meat. Liam covers as much of his naked torso as he can with his hands, suddenly overwhelmingly self-conscious, and then his brain catches up to what’s going on.

“Aren’t you early?” Liam asks, and Louis shakes his head, mostly because he can’t believe Liam and partly to get the very inappropriate thoughts out of his head. Later, Louis, he tells himself. Later.

“Uhh…no? I’m actually about twenty minutes late.”

Liam is, in a word, mortified. He can’t believe he let time get so far away from him! And on such an important night, too; important for Liam, at least. This could be the night that makes or breaks their relationship, and instead of being ready on time, he spent the last God only knows how long sulking in his bedroom over shirts!

“I…” Liam starts, then closes his mouth, wanting to start over but the only thing that comes out is, “I’m sorry.”

Liam can tell Louis feels bad for starting their date off on the wrong foot, even though literally none of this is his fault, and he wants to fix it.

“Can we start over?” Liam asks, hopeful. He’s still got his arms covering himself, and he knows he probably looks like a child standing like that, but he doesn’t care. He just needs Louis to agree and this part of the night will all be forgotten later.

Louis smiles, that one that takes up his whole face that Liam loves (probably too early for that, but whatever), and looks at the floor and nods. If Liam didn’t know any better, he’d think Louis was being shy.

“Yeah,” Louis says softly, looking back up at Liam. “Let’s start over.”

Relief washes over Liam and he smiles, taking a couple steps back into his flat. “Give me five minutes,” he says, and Louis nods, smile still firmly in place.

Liam closes the door to his flat and takes a deep breath before running back to his bedroom and, after a small bout of indecision, putting on shirt number two, doing up his jeans and grabbing his phone off his nightstand before heading back to his front door. He hears what sounds like an alarm going off maybe 20 seconds after he gets there, and when Louis knocks right after, he realizes Louis must have set a timer. Liam opens the door to Louis standing with his back facing Liam’s flat.

“Uh…Louis?”

Louis turns around looking like he’s going to say something, but Liam sees the words vanish from his mind as he looks Liam up and down.

“I was gonna say something cheeky, but you look…so hot. I can’t think.”

Liam smirks, a look one of his friends used to tell him was almost unbearably sexy. Louis looks like he wants to stomp his foot like a child. “I could take the shirt back off,” he offers, reaching for the bottom hem and lifting it a bit.

“NO!” Louis nearly shouts, reaching out to place his hands over Liam’s, wincing when he realizes how loud he was and at the shocked look on Liam’s face. “Sorry,” he says, thinking about moving his hands from Liam’s but reconsidering quickly after. He’s in this for the long haul if Liam is, and damn it if he’s not gonna at least get some hand-holding tonight. “I know we’re supposed to be forgetting about it but if I have to see you shirtless again we’re not gonna make it to the restaurant.”

Louis is blushing again, because he’s wanted to get his hands on Liam since the first time they met, and he’s not usually this bashful but Liam makes him so nervous that he just doesn’t know what to do sometimes. Liam cocks an eyebrow at Louis’s confession, then lets go of the hem of his shirt, gently guiding Louis’s hands off of his own with a look that he hopes is reassuring. He turns to slide on his shoes and grab his wallet and keys. Liam steps out of his flat and locks the door, then turns to Louis and grabs his hand. Neither of them let go, except for when absolutely necessary, for the rest of the night.

*

“I can’t believe you didn’t see the ending coming!” Louis calls to Liam as Liam gets the two of them beers from his fridge. He opens them both and walks over to where Louis is sitting on his couch, one leg folded underneath himself. Liam can’t help but think that Louis looks so…natural in his flat. Like he belongs there. He hands Louis one of the beers.

“I can’t believe you did see it coming! How did you figure it out so fast?”

“It wasn’t that fast.”

“You said the brother was the killer not even twenty minutes in!”

Louis shrugs and takes a sip of his beer. “Okay, maybe it was that fast.” He looks at Liam, feeling the happiest he has in a long time, and he might be projecting but he’s pretty sure he sees that happiness reflected back at him on Liam’s face.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, Louis looking around Liam’s flat and Liam looking at Louis. Liam thinks that now is as good a time as any to tell Louis the truth about himself, and opens his mouth to do so, but Louis beats him to it.

“Hey, is that your family?” he asks, standing and walking over to the shelves where Liam has all of his framed pictures. Well, not all of them. There’s one of him and his parents and sisters he keeps on his nightstand, and another of him and some of his uni friends he still keeps in touch with on his dresser, but other than that, they’re all on that shelf.

“Uh…yeah,” Liam says, hoping Louis isn’t going to ask about his baby pictures. Louis said on their second date, when they got on the subject of family, that his mum’s house is full of pictures of him and his siblings as kids and babies. You’d think we never grew past the age of five, he’d said. If I get to take you there one day, you’ll see. Liam does have a couple up of himself as an infant, but any pictures where he looked even remotely female were nowhere to be found in his flat, so his pictures jump from infancy to the end of his first year of uni, after his testosterone shots started taking effect and he started to finally start looking masculine.

“Who’s this little lad?” Louis asks, holding up a picture of Liam when he was maybe eighteen, curly hair a mess and a plaid shirt buttoned all the way to his neck. “It can’t be the same handsome man sitting on the couch over there. And this hair! Wow.”

“Hey! Don’t hate on the hair, okay?” Liam playfully replies, getting up to stand next to Louis by the shelf. “My mum loved my hair like that. She cried when I shaved it all off not long after that picture was taken.”

Louis puts the picture back on the shelf and just looks at Liam, arms crossed with a soft but thoughtful expression on his face. “Can’t imagine you with a shaved head,” he says quietly, reaching up to run his fingers through Liam’s current hairdo. Liam tries not to notice the slight shake in Louis’s hand as it moves, or how close Louis is standing to him right now, or how Louis keeps looking from Liam’s eyes to his mouth like they do in the movies, or how Louis is leaning in closer like he’s about to kiss….oh. Oh!

“Louis!” Liam says, probably too loud for their close proximity, putting his hands on Louis’s shoulders to stop him from coming any closer. Louis looks hurt, and Liam tries to think of something to say to fix it, but Louis speaks first, as always.

“Sorry, mate,” he says, cheeks red with embarrassment and arms crossing over his chest again, but defensively this time, not casual like they were a minute ago. “Just thought that’s where the night was going, but I must’ve been wrong.”

“No! No, you’re not wrong,” Liam gets out before Louis has a chance to run out the door and out of Liam’s life for probably forever because there is nothing in the world Liam wants to happen less than that right now.

“I’m not?” Louis asks, softening a bit, but still cautious. Liam shakes his head. “Then why’d you stop me?”

Liam looks at Louis for a second, really looks at him, trying to see what kinds of emotions he could be feeling at the moment. All he finds is confusion and curiosity, which are better than anger, Liam guesses, so he sighs and gestures for Louis to sit back down on the couch.

“Sit. There’s something I need to tell you.” Louis does, and Liam starts.

Liam tells him everything. How he was always sporty, even as a kid, and ran track for years, even went to uni on a scholarship for it. How he started feeling different from his teammates around year seven, but didn’t have the vocabulary to describe it until he got to uni and met some new people. How he figured out this thing about himself that made him lose his scholarship, because it was made out for a member of the women’s track team, one with a different name, not a member of the men’s.

Louis stops him there, where everyone he’s told this version of the story to has stopped him so far. “Liam, I’m confused…what are you telling me?”

Here goes nothing, he thinks, and takes a deep breath before just saying it. “I’m transgender. I was born female and raised as the youngest of three girls until I was seventeen, when my doctor said it was okay to start taking testosterone and start my transition into being a male…person.”

This is always the hard part. Not knowing what the other person is going to say. Sitting in agony until they say something. Anything.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

What? “What?”

Louis sniffles and dear God if Liam’s made him cry he’s going to hate himself. “I just…why didn’t you tell me before? Did you not trust me? Or -”

“No, I did trust you! I do trust you. And I really, really like you, which is part of why I waited to tell you. I’ve only done this once before with someone I was dating, and it ended…badly, so every person I’ve dated since then, I’ve waited until a few dates in to make sure they’re not going to do the same thing he did, because I can’t take that again.”

“How many people have you told since him?”

“Just you.”

“'Cause four dates is the farthest you’ve gotten since then?”

“No. ‘Cause you’re the only one I knew wouldn’t run away.”

Louis smiles, something tiny and soft but there, and Liam leans in to kiss him softly, just once, as a thank-you for listening and staying.

It’s quiet for a few minutes, some sort of uncertain tension hanging in the air between them, before Louis stands and stretches a bit.

“Think I’m gonna go home, if that’s alright with you.”

Liam panics. He wants to say no, it’s not alright, please stay and let me know what you’re thinking and never ever leave me…but he doesn’t.

“Yeah, that’s…that’s fine.”

He’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s sad and more than a little hurt, and Louis picks up on that. He reaches out for Liam’s hands and pulls him to stand, too, then wraps his arms around Liam in a hug. He feels Liam relax against him and he knows that was the right way to go.