Chapter 6: Saturday December 20th

I relaxed on the couch, trying to find the right christmas station for us to listen to (it’s a surprisingly delicate process with entirely too many options!) while we get our final bit of decorating done. The tree had finally dropped all its branches in the garage, and Frank and Sabrina were busy getting it to sit just right in the room. It was pretty quickly agreed on that it would be a fool's errand for me to try and assist moving the huge ass heavy tree, so they took point on this one.

Frank motioned to me, and I turned to inspect their work. “You think this is good? Straight enough?”

“Hmmm… Move the whole thing a little more over towards you, it’s not quite centered in the room.” They twist the thing and its base over, little by little. “Ok, stop! That’s good! Now just lean it over towards Sabrina a bit, the top isn’t straight and the star won’t go on right with it leaning so far over.”

He gives me a puzzled look. “Sabrina? Oh, you mean the android? Well look at you! A week ago you couldn’t look at the thing straight, and now you’ve got a cute little name for it. That’s adorable, Ants.” I look away back to the tv, heat blaring on my face. I know I was being shitty, but he doesn’t have to rub it in! 

I hear a motion of whirring, and then Sabrina’s singsong voice call out from the base of the tree. “The screws are in, young master Franklin. The tree is completely secure. Should I go fetch mistress Donna and master Vincent?”

I stand up, cutting him off from answering. “Wait, hold on. When you go get ma and dad, would you mind giving me and Frankie a minute to talk first? Just see if you can help in the kitchen or ask dad about something.”

She stands up in a bouncy little motion a little too quickly, bumping into the tree, making it wobble under Frank’s grip. “You mean it’s time?” I nod quickly in response, looking down, and she moves her hands up and down in front of her as she bounces in place on her heels. “Oh my god! Ok, ok, you two talk, I’ll be right back with them. You’ve got this covered Ants!” 

After she rushes out of the room, Frank looks a little dumbfounded. He mawks as he makes his way over to the couch next to me. “That was a little surreal. I had no idea it was capable of being so…”

“Human? Yeah. It’s kinda incredible actually. With how wooden and, like, robotic she was being at first. I had no idea that she would be this real, you know?”

He pokes me in the arm. “You and it have gotten pretty chummy, huh. Naming it, having private conversations. You’re acting like a little blushing bride.”

My face still feels hot, as I desperately look away in embarrassment. “Well I mean I… I might be developing some feelings that I know I shouldn’t have.” He looks at me a little wildly. “You know how you keep saying I should find someone to talk to? That I should be more open? Well, she’s a great listener. Plus, it helps that it’s not embarrassing practicing my voice with her when I do it, you know. And she’s been helping me through a lot of things…”

“Wait, hold on. You actually got a crush on your toaster? That’s hilarious Ants. Oh my god, we have to get you out of the house more.”

I push against him softly. “Fuck you, Franklin. They want this to happen, they wouldn’t make them act so realistic if they didn’t want you falling for it. It’s not like I don’t know it’s not alive, I’m not gonna turn into one of those body pillow freaks on you.” He sticks his tongue out at me and I roll my eyes. “Whatever, little bro. This isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about, you’re the one who brought it up.”

He looks at me softly. “Ok then. What is it that you did then? What’s it time for?”

I finish my giggling fit, looking away slightly. “I… I think it’s time that I told mom and dad. Even though… l, I have to do it. Me and Sabrina have been practicing all the ways it could go, so I’m not going into this blind. But! I really think I need your help with this.”

“Well shit, you mean right now?” I nod pretty hard. “Ok, big sis. Now then. Of course I’ll be here to support you. I’ve always been in your corner, right?” He lightly taps on my shoulder with his fist, and we just sort of sit quietly until the three of them come in.

The relative silence of the radio is cut off by ma coming in with a tray of drinks. “Ok boys, who wants some hot chocolate? I made the real stuff for us here, the rich and creamy one!” I sigh silently to myself. If all goes well, I hope this is the last time I hear that.

Dad comes following in himself, sipping his own cup of something or other (probably coffee) and looks around. “What, you guys haven't even brought up the ornaments yet? What have you two rascals been doing the whole time?” Sabrina brings up the rear, her hands clasped in that default grip of hers. As she closes the door, she gives me a little nod, and Frankie squeezes my shoulder a bit. Well, here goes nothing…

“Mom, dad, before we decorate the tree, I’ve got something I really need to tell you both. Would you mind sitting down?” They glance at each other, before sitting down on the other side of the room together, dad’s arm wrapped around ma.

He takes a long sip out of his coffee before turning to us. “Whatever it is son, I’m sure it’ll be fine. You two didn’t break something putting the tree up did you?”

I shake my head softly. “No, no. Actually, it kinda has to do with school…” They both lean in pretty intensely at that. “Oh, no, don’t worry! It’s not bad… it’s not that bad, I’ve not been rejected or anything. I could still go if I want to. Look, I, uh. I didn’t apply to Elwood for a general technical training course, like I said I did. I already had a discipline picked out. I, uh. Applied to train in witchcraft.”

Mom looked confused at that. “But, sweetie. You… can’t do that. Only women can become witches, the ritual doesn’t work with anyone else.” I feel my heart shatter at that. They know the truth, that I’m a fraud. I wanna run away, but I feel Frank squeeze my arm again, and Sabrina walking up behind me to pat my other shoulder.

I take a deep breath. “You’re right. I should have known it would have never worked. But I tried. I tried and tried, and it never came. The academy knew the ritual could fail, and has fully offered me to train the regular way. But for a while there, I really thought I could do it.”

Dad leaned over from his seat as I curled into mine. “But son, why would you even want to attempt that? Just because your friends did it like that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be able to learn your own way. You don’t always have to be like all your friends.”

“But that’s the thing dad! I’m not your son.” I see a pained look come across his face, and a shocked one across mom’s - oh shit. “Wait, no no no, not like that, shit. You’re my dad, I love you, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, like. I do want to be like all my friends, and not just in the witch way. I’m really jealous about everything they have - their looks, their grace. I… I want to be a witch because I want to be a girl.”

Mom does a literal double take at me. I feel like her eyes are going to pop out of her head. “What! What does that mean? You want to be a girl?” Oh god, this is going to go horrible.

“You know what it means mom, you know what transgender people are. It means that I’m uncomfortable like this, and the only real way to fix it is to change how the world sees me.”

Dad stares down into his mug of Joe. “So, fix… do you plan to, uh. You know… get the surgery?” I can’t help it, I spit out a huge laugh at that. Oh my god can you get any more cliche?

“Yes dad. I plan on transitioning medically. But it’s more than just ‘the surgery’, that’s, like, only one thing that happens waaaay down the line. Actually… I kinda. Already talked with our doctor about all this stuff. I’ve, uh, been on hormones for three months…”

“Three months!” Mom stands up and looks at me. “Baby… you’re serious aren’t you.” She walks over to me, and the pit in my stomach grows pretty heavily. “Did you know about this, Franklin?” 

He nods, putting a protective hand over my shoulder that Sabrina wasn’t occupying. “Yeah. For about a year now. I noticed she wasn’t doing good, and we worked through it together. Sorry we didn’t tell you yet, but I wasn’t going to push her until she was ready.”

I see her start to tear up, hand going up to her eyes. “Oh. my baby. I’m so sorry!” She collapses over me in a huge hug. I’m stunned. “I’m so sorry we didn’t help you when you needed it! I didn’t see anything, I didn’t know! There weren’t any signs!”

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What. I look down at my fuzzy pink pajama pants, pull a strand of my shoulder length hair up to my eyes. “There were signs. How often did you catch me gushing about witchcraft? Or doing girly things with my friends?” I leave the time they walked in on me crossdressing in my room as a kid unsaid, embarrassing enough to be better left forgotten.

Dad looks over at the scene, sipping his coffee. He looks pretty serine for what’s all going down. “I’m going to be honest here son, we just thought you were gay.”

I flinch at that. I think mom noticed because she started squeezing me even tighter - I’m having a little bit of trouble breathing will all these people compressing me! “Vinny, darling. Be more sensitive of what you call him! He just told you he didn’t like being called that.” Well, a little confused, but the spirit is there. Frankly that’s mind blowingly better than I expected from this. I’m a little shell shocked.

“Right right. Sorry kiddo. What your mother says goes, if she’s on board with all this then I am too.” He takes another long sip of his drink. “I love you too Tony. I’m so happy to have a kid like you in my life. Both of you two are everything to me.” He looks ponderous for a moment, and then. “Hold on - you are ok still with Tony, right? Or did you have something else you wanted to be called?”

I look to him, tears forming in my eyes. “I love you too dad. So much. I love all of you. Thank you all for accepting me.” I wipe my eyes dry, and look up at mom. “I do want to change my name. But, I haven’t thought of to what yet. I don’t really have a name picked out…”

“Actually. I.. I have a suggestion. For your name. I thought of it when we were out by the pond together the other day.” Mom looks up at Sabrina, seemingly in shock of what she just said. I guess she really hadn’t shown this side of herself to them either. “Remembering that beautiful scene makes me think of you. And seeing how white everything was… Do you think, m-maybe Bianca would be a good fit for you?” I could feel her fingers tittering on my shoulder, so I reached up to hold her hand still with my own. Bianca, Bianca… I roll it around on my tongue a few times. Can’t say I’m having the same visceral reaction that she had to hers, but something about it drew me to it too. I couldn’t help but feel warm about it.

Mom looked down at me and smiled. “You know, sweetie. Your great aunt was named Bianca. I think it’d be really sweet to keep the names in the family like that. I think that would be a lovely name, wouldn’t you?” I couldn’t help but blush and nod at her. I guess… I guess I’m Bianca, then? 

Oh. Oh wow. I’m Bianca. They’re all ok with me. Even if I couldn’t… even if it’s not really real. I start sobbing big wet tears, laughing. “Oh my god. This is amazing. I never thought it could… thank you all.” Frank squeezes me and I laugh again.

Mom gives me a squeeze too. “Oh baby, I’m so happy for you. But… you think you can go get the ornaments so we can get to decorating the tree now? I think our drinks have gone cold.” Ahaha, oh god. Cold chocolate… I nod and get up, walking down the stairs towards the basement.

“Actually, I should come help you! It’s going to be heavy after all, right?” I hear Sabrina whirr to life, running after me. She grabs my hand, pulling me down the stairs the rest of the way into the basement. Once we’re out of sight of the rest of my family, we grab each other in a tight hug and we practically jump for joy together. I’m certain they can hear us squealing through the stairwell.

“Oh my god, I did it! I actually came out to them! Things actually went well!” I can feel her wiping the tears off my cheeks, my eyes closed in joy.

“I’m so proud of you, Bianca! I told you that you had it in you! And now you have everything you wanted, right!” I feel a shiver go down my spine as she says my new name. As for everything…

“You know what. I got anything that I needed. I might be a fake girl, but I’m going to be the best fake girl there could be. So what if I can’t be a witch, I don’t need a familiar to do everything I’ve wanted, right? And, well.” I reach a hand up to her faceplate, feel one of the cracks running over her cheek. “I wish I treated you better those first few days. I’m so sorry, you didn’t deserve that. I wish you could forgive me for what I did to you, Sabrina…”

I’m cut off by a weird, solid, cold feeling against my lips. And on the left side of my face. It takes a hot minute for me to realize that Sabrina was pressing her face against mine, cupping my cheek with her hand. What… What is she… Oh. Oh my god. My eyes go saucer wide as I realize that she’s trying to kiss me. She pulls back, heavily blushing. “Don’t ever say that about yourself. You’re not fake. You’re real, Bianca. You’re real and you’re spectacular and you're beautiful, and! And I wish you could forgive yourself.” Wait.

“You’re blushing.”

“Don’t make fun of me! I’m… I’m trying to have a heart to heart here! Please, oh god  this is so nerve wracking, I’m so sorry…”

“No, Sabrina. Shut up for a second. You’re blushing. Your face is made out of rock. You can’t blush.” She lets go of me and reaches up for her cheeks, tinking away against the now very blue tinged porcelain. Suddenly, the blush seems to go over her entire body, light pouring out from her face, especially out of the chips and holes. I shield my eyes from it, almost too bright to look at.

When it calms down, I lower my arm from my eyes and look over at Sabrina, who started slowly whining. “Ahhhh, Bianca! Bianca what happened, what was that? What happened to me?” My eyes almost bug out at the sight. Her mask isn’t just fixed, but the cracks and chips are all filled in. With Aqua Gold solid mana. She…

“That… that was magic. Your face was magically fixed. I… Holy shit. HOLY SHIT!” I ran up and grabbed her as tight as I could. I feel like I could have crushed her if she weren’t made of steel and servos. “Sabrina! I wanted to fix you, you wanted me too as well, your face got fixed! Do you know what that is! Do you know what happened?!” I started jumping up and down with her, although she still seemed really shocked.

“You… you did magic? You fixed my face?”

I laugh “No, I didn’t just ‘do magic’! We did it, on will alone! Together! Sabrina!”

“What? What does this mean?”

“It means the ritual worked! It was here the entire time! I’m a witch! Sabrina, you’re my familiar!” I see that bright blue blush creep back onto her face, and she grips me tight, squealing to the daylights come home. It worked, the whole time! The whole time!

“What the hell is all the yelling about down there? Did you find a dead body in the ornament box?”

I look into her face. “Oh my god, we have to go tell them now!” I grab her hand and drag her back up the stairs as fast as we can.

“But… but the ornaments! The lights! We were supposed to grab them!”

“Who fucking cares!” I look up the stairs and yell out. “Mom! Dad! Frankie! Holy shit you are not going to believe this!”