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Lena was laying on Webby’s bed, scrolling through her phone. Everything was perfect; the temperature in the loft was just right, the sheets were tangled and stretched around her in a way that simultaneously rubbed at an itchy spot on her leg and covered the part of her stomach that her sweater was riding up on, and, most importantly, Webby was snuggled across her, her hair bow tickling at Lena’s beak. She was reading some book on ancient magic rituals, and Lena was holding her tightly in place with her free hand.
It was perfect.
They stayed like that for a long time before Lena heard the soft thmp of Webby closing her book, and then it was about fifteen minutes after that when she spoke up.
“Lena?” she began, her voice soft and cautious.
“Yeah, Pink?” Lena asked.
“I… want to tell you something.”
“Is this another magic question? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what that book is for.”
“No, it’s, um, a personal thing.”
“Ah,” Lena said, as if that didn’t immediately terrify her for no reason. “Well, go for it, I guess.”
“Umm…” Webby paused a moment. “Can we… extricate? I want to be able to see your face ‘n stuff.”
“Oh! Right. Sure.”
Lena lifted her arm up, and they carefully untangled themselves from Optimal Cuddling Position Number Four, as Webby had deemed it. They sat up on the bed, facing each other. Webby was clearly nervous, wringing her fingers together in that way she did; Lena was nervous too, obviously, but she tried to put on her best reassuring smile for Webby.
“So… I’m…” Webby sighed. “I’m just gonna say it, I guess: I’m trans.”
Lena blinked. “Trans?”
Webby gulped. “Um—yeah. I’m transgender.”
“I’m—” Lena looked away awkwardly before her eyes found Webby’s again. “I don’t… know what that means,” Lena said.
“O-oh.”
Well, fuck, this was awkward, wasn’t it? “…Should I know what that means?”
“N—er—well.” Webby was starting to get even more shifty now, clearly very uncomfortable with the situation. “No, I mean, I guess I shouldn’t have assumed—but—oh, gods, I don’t—”
“It’s not a bad thing, is it?” Lena said. “Is it a bad thing? Like a medical thing? I don’t know anything about how your guys’ bodies work. Gender’s like, boy or girl, right?”
Oh, lord, Lena was apparently not helping. Webby’s hands had migrated in front of her face, and she was breathing heavily.
“…Webby?” Lena asked. God, Webby had probably been building up the courage to tell her this for who knows how long and Lena had just shit all over it. “I’m… really sorry. Are you okay?”
Webby was quiet for a few moments before her hands exploded away from her face and up into the air, revealing a big smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m fine! I’m super, duper fine, it’s—it’s really not a big deal!”
Lena frowned. “Webby…”
“No, no, I swear! It doesn’t matter that much, let’s just drop it.”
“I feel like it matters a lot to—”
“Let’s—let’s just go back to cuddling, okay?” Webby said, her voice wavering. “That was nice. That was really nice! Let’s just do that.”
Lena sighed. She hated seeing Webby like this, and she hated even more that it was her that had caused it. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? Explain it to me?”
“I don’t—I don’t want to talk about anything anymore right now,” Webby said, throwing herself into Lena. “Let’s just cuddle, okay? Please.”
“…Alright,” Lena said, letting them fall back down into the unkempt covers. “But I’m always here to listen, whenever you’re ready. You know that, right?”
“I know, Lena,” Webby said. “You’re my best friend. That just makes things harder sometimes.”
And Lena had no clue what to say to that, so she just held onto Webby as tight as she could.
Lena moved through the mansion’s shadows, making her way over to the triplet’s room. Webby had fallen asleep not long after The Incident, and Lena had slunk away; she needed to call in some reinforcements.
God—only Webby could make her go to Huey for help.
She poked her head out of the ceiling right above the top bunk of their bed, where Huey was reading the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook. “Hey, nerd.”
Huey screamed. “Oh my god, Lena, don’t do that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“That’s your fault for having organs and junk,” Lena said. “Look, you know, like, facts and stuff, right?”
“That is why you call me a nerd,” Huey said flatly.
“Can I ask you something then? I need help with a definition. And also general advice.”
Judging by his expression, Huey didn’t quite know what to make of Lena suddenly coming to him for help with a genuine problem. “…Do you want to, like, come in?”
Lena rolled her eyes. “Ugh, fine.” She plunged her head back into the shadows and skirted around the wall, rematerializing on the floor. “There. You happy?”
“Very,” Huey said, climbing down the bunks until he was sitting on Louie’s. The other dweebs were out, it seemed, which Lena was grateful for; she’d prefer to keep this between them.
Huey cleared his throat. “So what did you want to ask?”
“What’s transgender?”
Huey blinked. “Like, what does it mean for a person to be transgender?”
“Yeah.”
Huey scratched his head. “Um. Well, in simple terms, someone is transgender if their perceived gender identity doesn’t align with thier sex assigned at birth.”
“Oh,” Lena said. “Does that matter?”
Huey frowned. “What?”
“Like—sorry, I’m just—I guess I didn’t realize gender was, like, a thing? Like I knew there were like, boys and girls, but I didn’t know it was like a whole thing.”
“You…” Huey narrowed his eyes. “You sound like Louie.”
“What?”
“Okay, okay, let’s back up,” Huey said, putting out his hands. “How did this come up?”
“Um—well, Webby told me she was transgender, and I didn’t know what that meant.”
“Ohh,” Huey said, nodding. “And she didn’t explain it?”
“She… I think she was upset. It looked like it took a lot of courage for her to even tell me in the first place, and I don’t think I responded… in a way she had planned for.” Lena sighed. “I feel really shitty about it, but I don’t know what I can do if I don’t frickin’ understand it.”
“I see,” Huey said. “Well, she was probably nervous because there are a lot of people who don’t really understand people who don’t nicely fit into the whole binary ‘man/woman’ thing that society likes to tout. There’s a lot of hate and denial out there for trans people. And so whenever you tell someone new about yourself, there’s always a small chance they’ll react poorly”
“Like I did,” Lena said darkly.
“No, you just didn’t know! That’s completely different. She was worried you would think she was weird, or think that she isn’t actually her preferred gender. But we both know it’ll take a lot more than that for you to stop liking her.”
Yeah, well, Lena couldn’t deny that. “So—she’s transgender, so… she… was born—er—” She closed her eyes, letting out a sigh. “You may have to spell this out for me.”
“Of course,” Huey said patiently. “Webby’s already transitioned. She was assigned male at birth. She’s a girl.”
Lena nodded slowly, processing that, and then suddenly snapped her eyes open, turning to Huey and letting out an elegant “HWUH?”
“You okay?” Huey asked.
“Yeah, I just— god that feels—like, I can’t even imagine— how could anybody look at her and not see… Webby?”
“Remember what I said about hate and denial? Society has a tendency to look at dumb stuff like body parts and chromosomes instead of actually asking people who they are.”
“That’s so stupid,” Lena said. “I mean, I never really understood what a gender really was, I just—it just seemed to, like, determine how people wore clothes and did their hair, honestly.”
“Well, it sort of does,” Huey said. “People tend to present themselves in a way that reflects their internal gender identity. People who identify as boys tend to present masculinely, people who identify as girls tend to present femininely, and people who identify as neither often present more androgynously. Not being able to present the ways a person feels can actually cause a lot of emotional and physical discomfort. Obviously, though, there are tons of exceptions to all of this; gender identity is very personal, and the only person who can really determine what it means for you is you.”
“WAIT, hold on a fucking second,” Lena said, rubbing at her temples. She could feel a headache coming on. “Do I have a gender?!”
“Uhhhh.” Huey looked around, as if searching for help, but it was just them in the room. “Presumably?”
“What the FUCK,” Lena exclaimed. “I didn’t even think about that. This is so stupid.”
“It could be fun!” Huey said. “There are so many genders, you know? You could be a boy, a girl, nonbinary, bigender, a demiboy or demigirl, agender, pangender, gederfluid, genderqueer, gender—”
“I’m pretty sure this isn’t helping,” Lena said.
“R-right. Sorry. Um.” Huey paused, tapping a finger to his chin. “I think you should actually talk to Louie about this.”
“Louie?”
“Yeah,” Huey said. “Just ask him what gender is. Trust me.”
Lena raised an eyebrow. “Well, alright. And uh… thanks.”
“Of course!” Huey said with a smile. “If you have any more questions, just come to me.”
“You’re still a nerd though.”
Huey sighed dramatically. “Nice seeing you too, Lena.”
Lena stalked into the living room, where Louie was watching TV. “Hey, uh. Twerp. You got a minute?”
Louie shot her a look. “Sorry, twerp isn’t here. You just missed him.”
Lena rolled her eyes. “Very funny. Seriously, though, you got a minute? This is probably important.”
“I mean, I guess so,” Louie said, turning down the volume on the TV. Lena walked over and flopped onto the couch next to him. He grabbed a can of soda and offered it to her. “Want a Pep?”
“I’m good,” Lena said.
“Great, I was hoping you’d say that.” Louie popped the can open and took a sip. “So what’s so probably important?”
“Huey said I should ask you what gender is.”
“Bullshit,” Louie said immediately.
Lena’s brow furrowed. “Um. No, he really did say that.”
“No, idiot, I know he said that,” Louie said. “I mean that gender is bullshit.”
“What?”
“Gender was invented by bathroom companies to sell more bathrooms.”
“…I’m so confused,” Lena said.
“Exactly,” Louie said. “You’re confused because gender is bullshit.”
Lena frowned. “I… guess that makes sense?”
“Okay but for real,” Louie said, turning to face Lena. “Where’s this coming from?”
“Well… Webby told me she was trans, but I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked Huey, and he told me, and then I realized that I probably have a ‘gender’”—she made air quotes for the word—“and then he started listing a whole bunch of labels at me, and then I told him to stop, and he told me to talk to you.”
“Oh, okay,” Louie said. “Yeah, that’s because I went through this, like, whole thing with labels and gender a while ago. I went through like twenty identities in a few months before finally settling down.”
“So, are you trans, then?” Lena asked “A… trans boy? Is that right?”
“I’m more of a trans-don’t-give-a-crap,” Louie said. “Huey says the term for it is ‘agender,’ but I honestly don’t care about all the terms and labels. For myself, I mean. It’s super important to some people, obviously, and that’s totally cool. But all that defining and categorizing is just way too much work if I’m being a hundred with you.”
“I’m not sure that helps me all too much,” Lena said. “I’m like… a girl, right?”
“Sure?” Louie shrugged. “Do you want to be a girl?”
“I don’t know what I want. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“You don’t need to figure it out,” Louie said. “I mean, not if you don't want to. I haven’t. Agender, like, fits well enough, but there’s a lot going on in here that I haven’t really nailed down yet, you know? I’m just kind of vibing with it.”
Lena ran her fingers through her hair nervously. “But I do want to figure it out. I don’t want to just be… amorphous. I’ve had enough of that in my life. I mean—hell, can I even call it a life?”
“Dunno, dude. We’re kind of getting out of my depth here.” He paused. “Are you okay with ‘dude?’”
“I don’t know,” Lena stressed.
“Then maybe you should start asking yourselves those kinds of questions,” Louie said. “Try on some labels and pronouns, see if any stick. Everyone in this family’s really chill with gender stuff, they won’t even think twice. And it’s okay if you can’t draw a color-coded diagram outlining your relationship to gender—we’re not all Hueys. Some of us are Deweys, or Webbys. And you?”
“Lemme guess; I’m a Lena?”
“No, even better. You’re a Louie.”
Lena crossed her arms. “No.”
“Admit it,” Louie said, lifting a finger up from around his pep can to point at her. “You and me? We’re not so different after all.”
“Oh my god,” Lena said. “I’m leaving.”
“Think about all the pranks we could pull off together!” Louie continued. “The schemes! Think of the schemes, Lena!”
“I’m two seconds away from phasing through the floor right now, grass stain.”
“Okay, okay. You’re a Lena,” Louie said placatingly, falling back into his semi-serious tone. “But I mean it! Gender is… it’s really complicated, and really, really personal. There’s all these identities and sub-identities and umbrella terms that are also identities, but no matter how deep you go, nobody’s really going to have exactly the same gender as you. At least, I don’t think so, anyway. So focus less on trying to figure out what box you should fit in, and more on just… being yourself, and figuring out what that means for you. For me, it means wearing a baggy hoodie and eating lots of junk food. For Webby, its sparkles and knives and skirts and grenades. You get me?”
“I… yeah,” Lena said. “I think I’m gonna try talking to Webby again now. This was… surprisingly insightful.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Louie said, taking a sip of Pep. “I always have been and always will be a peerless font of wisdom in a sea of false prophets.”
“I was trying to say thanks, but if you’re going to be an ass about it—”
“You’re welcome, twerp,” Louie said.
Lena rolled her eyes, but giggled despite herself as she got off the couch. “Yeah. Later.”
Louie shot her a finger gun. “Later.”
Webby was awake and sitting on her bed when Lena phased into the loft. She had her elbows planted on the window sill and her chin resting on her palms, looking out over the front yard.
“Hey, Webs,” Lena greeted, sitting down next to her.
“Oh! Lena!” Webby said. “Sorry I fell asleep, you’re just really comfy and—”
Lena waved her off. “None of that, Pink. I… know what trans means now.”
“Oh,” Webby said.
“It was really brave of you to tell me. I’m sorry I was an idiot about it.”
“No, Lena! If anybody was the idiot, it was me! I should’ve just explained it, it’s—it’s not even that big of deal, and—”
“But it is, Webby,” Lena stressed, grabbing her hands. And, boy, did that shut Webby up quick; she froze at the contact, staring into Lena’s eyes. “It’s a big deal to you, and that means it’s a big deal to me, okay? I know I upset you earlier. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t upset me!”
“Pink,” Lena said flatly. “If you always pretend to be fine when I hurt you, I’m not going to know how to stop.”
Webby opened her beak, closed it again, and then sighed. “Okay, you upset me. I… it wasn’t your fault, obviously, I know that. But I just… ugh. It’s a really important part of me, and I wanted to share it with you, and… yeah.”
“I’m not gonna lie, pink, I’m still wrapping my mind around all this gender stuff. I don’t really understand it—I’m not sure if I even have a gender—but what I do understand is you. You’re Webby, and you’re a girl, and you’re my best friend, and there’s nothing in this world that could change that.”
Webby’s eyes trembled, but she threw herself around Lena before any tears got out. “I understand you too,” Webby said. “And I understand that I love you.”
Lena returned the hug, and they flopped onto the bed, naturally falling into Optimal Cuddling Position Number Two. “I love you too, Webby.”