Jess Stone had breasts. He had been like this his entire teen life not quite fitting in anywhere that he had lived and at the same time he hadn’t really had the chance to. His folks moved around a lot with his dad being a hydrological engineer but they were slightly afraid of what might happen to Jess if he attended school. Some people just didn’t get it or wanted too. Jess was now attending a new school when he decided to change things...

Only it was everyone else that was getting changed!

 

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Image Credit: anime couple

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It was just something he had to do. Bring her here and get her out of there. While the guidance councilors office was good and had it’s place it was also pretty central and with the jackals riled up right now it was better to chill out and let Johnny get it out and actually get a chance to breathe on her own terms rather than what some semi or pseudo professional thought was what some book told them.

Jess just adjusted this shoulders and the way they sat and almost leaned on her but wrapped around her a big more. He had always thought that you could change a lot of bullshit for people with a hug.

Thing is, you have to mean it.

He even leaned his head onto Johnny’s and smelled her, her hair and as bad as things were going for her he let himself enjoy it and closed his eyes. It was the hug as much as the smells. Sometimes it’s as good for you to be there and be able to hold someone as it was to be held.

He softly inhaled and he was feeling the effects of a warm soft girl as close as he’d ever had one. Johnny inhaled too and let out a sobby-laugh. “God…Jess do you have a boner…”

“I have a semi.” He admitted as he moved his head so he could look at her blushing face.

“Over me?” She gave him a real shy look but a hint of a smile.

“Actually yeah…”

“Can I ask if you’re gay?”

“Sure go ahead.” He deadpanned.

Johnny gave hit a light hit to his shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes I know what you mean. Yes I like girls but I’m also growing breasts too so honestly while I’m not looking for a boyfriend I’m not going to discount the fact that there might be someone out there that’s a guy to, or other combination.”

“That’s that pan thing right?”

“Yes, I’m rather committed to the idea of me actually being grown up enough that I’ll be attracted to who someone is before what they are.”

“But I’m…” She had this look of needful hope there but he just looked her in the eyes.

“You’re soft, you’re sweet and in addition to being really pretty Johnny you smell good too.”

Her eyes went a little wide. “Jessie…..” She leaned over and kissed him. He kissed her back and broke it when she did and tasted her lips. He just smiled a little before asking. “That was nice Johnny.”

“It was?” She kept looking at him and he just kept rubbing her back. Her eyes got a little big. “Oh no…you didn’t want to kiss me…and I…”

“No, I wasn’t expecting to kiss you, we’ve just met and kissing sort of usually comes later when two people know each other a little bit more.”

“God…….I’m so embarrassed! I thought you were into me and you’re so nice I just thought that…”

Jessie shifted and hugged her again. “Chill, I get it and it’s cool…yeah I find you attractive…and I like you so yeah I reacted and well you reacted it’s nothing to freak out about.”

(Sniffle.) “It’s not?”

“No, last time I checked it’s all kind of the things that we’re supposed to happen when we’re teenagers.”

“Yeah…I…I just never know what to do when stuff like this happens, usually I’d be getting a beating by now or something.”

“There’s people beating you up?” Jessie leaned bad and looked at her.

(Sniffle.) “Not here, not yet… but at my last school yeah they had to get me out of there.”

“Well I’m not going to beat you up, and neither is anyone else either as long as I’m around.”

“Thanks Jess…I’m sorry about the kiss…?” Johnny looked at him a bit sheepishly.

“You’re welcome and I’m not sorry about any of this, my feeling like you felt me feeling or the fact that we kissed.”

Johnny was blushing and Jess smiled some more. “Most people would want a do over.”

“I’m not most people and Johnny?”

“Yeah?”

“Congratulations, this is pretty normal.” He smiled at her and it took a minute and she smiled back and they hugged a little more leaning on the bookshelves and just sitting there kind of smiling and leaning on each other. The bell rang to change classes and Jess leaned over to look at her.

“Better?”

“Yeah, Loads thanks I’m sorry that I yanked you away from class are you going to be in trouble?”

“No, I can play lost. Its registration day and I’m in a new school so I was lost.”

“Oh.”

“You, trouble?”

“Naw, doesn’t matter they’re used to me being like this from last year they might pass it on to the guidance office but like you said it’s the first day of classes so they’ll likely call it a wash.”

“Okay, shall we?”

Jessie got up and helped Johnny to her feet and she smiled but shook her head.”

“Hmm?”

“I’ve never really met a guy like you Jess.”

“Naturally, are you okay now?”

“Yeah now thanks to you.”

“I’ll see you after school.”

“After school?”

“Yes so I can give you a drive home?”

“You have a car?”

“I have a car.”

“Sure, it beats going through all the crap of taking the bus.”

“Good, I’ve got…” He looked at his phone since he’d put his schedule on an App. “Chem then Physics.”

“I’ve got Business Ed. and Home ec.”

They hugged again in the hall getting a few looks from the passers by and he headed off to his classes and made his way through the other kids still getting a few looks and passed Keith and his two buddies and they gave him nasty looks.

“Faggot, queer.” The two Hench-monkeys jibbered at him and he smiled warmly at them and they looked confused and Keith got a black look on his face and pointed at him. “Remember four o’clock and you’re dead meat slant lover.”

“Uh-huh fine whatever where at?”

Keith and company blinked. They seemed confused at his warm smile and the fact that this kid seemed to be looking forward to it.

“The alley by the dumpsters off of school grounds.”

“Fine whatever just you three don’t be late I’ve got lots of other stuff to do today and I can only spare like ten minutes or so.”

Keith looked ready to jump him there and then. “No! No, I’m going to kick you ass you little nip-loving asshole you don’t fucking schedule when I’m going to beat your ass.”

“You say ass a lot you do know this is going to be a fight and not like some after school sex hook up right?”

Keith swung.

Jessie stepped into the swing right up into Keith and that sort of killed the swing but jess took the arm he used to throw the punch and held it like they were going to ballroom dance and gave Keith an actual ball room twirl around using Keith’s own momentum and shoved him letting go into his two friends sending them falling back on their butts for the second time today.

He gave them all a at the waist bow. “If you’ll excuse me ladies I have chem. class.”

The three of them looked very confused like what the hell just happened and it was made all the worse when the kids that had been around them had actually started to laugh at them this time.

Keith got up and fumed and yelled at some of them. “Funny, you think it’s funny? You want a fucking slap, new boy’s gonna get his and this shit won’t be so funny!”

He was looking for jess but he’d already headed off to class and the other kids were giving him looks…looks that he never got. Pissed off he headed off to his own classes.

Jessie shook his head walking into chem. and saw the short gamer guy coming in through the door at the same time. The guy had this big affable grin on his face and was sort of cute in this short slight way that sort of fit his personality. Jess figured he was one of those guys though that a lot of the girls might date if he was the bigger jocker types but they’d be too “High-school” to date a guy that’d be decent or in the way this guy looked likely make them laugh. But even as geeky as he was he seemed proud of it like he wore it like a badge.

He kind of liked him at first sight and getting that grin turned his way actually made jess look forward to the class already even before it started.

The guy looked at him and gave him the Spock eyebrow. “Something wrong?”

Jess looked around. “Looking for a blue booth.”

“Oh?”

“Turns out the Keith fellow and Beevis and Butthead are from the past, I was looking for the Tardis.”

“Oh really why do you say that?”

“Oh he was calling me a Nip-lover and a Jap lover and I’m pretty sure they have to have been brought here from the past for those to be insults nowadays.”

“Oooh…Hai..I think it’s not a Tardis that you’d be looking for but the unfortunate machine called the Re-Tardis”

Jess laughed at that. “Re-Tardis huh?”

The guy did that head up postulating look. “It makes perfect sense, since the Doctor has saved the human race over and over again and with the inevitable result of humanity actually getting it’s act together and becoming a race worth having in the multitudes of realities one of the insane time lords sought to destroy all The Doctor’s good works by creating the Re-Tardis to bring ahead the dumbest more moronic people he could find into this time stream to destroy us all by the dumbing down of the gen-pool.”

Jess laughed again. “Oh god that explains so much! I’m Jessie.”

“I’m Daniel, but Dan works too.”

“Jackson?”

“Unfortunately No, Reilly.”

“Reilly as in the life of?”

Dan grinned even more. “The one and the same!”

“Jess Stone.”

“Any relation to Joss Stone?”

“Nope and I think she’s British?”

“Ah, still smoking singer.”

“Never really listened to her.”

“I’ll burn you a disc.”

“Thanks.”

They shook hands. “Lab-partners?” The both said at the same time. Then laughed again and headed to find a place at the benches that they all used at seats for the class.

Chemistry was pretty basic mostly going over the stuff that they’d need for the class and lab fees and getting lab partners registered with the teacher and that pretty much took up the bulk of the class and Dan was with Jessie in physics as well and there was an actual semi-lecture of why they were here to take physics and why such a class was important as the teacher went off on this actually interesting talk about wind power, solar energy and nuclear reactors and even these thorium reactors that might be produced by china and from those examples of how physics belongs in the bulk of most tech industries like the automotive sections and real world applications.

It was an interesting class, and the teacher had a class/course web page and there was links to the things that he had being talking about.

Jessie had to admit he had a different idea of what classes could be like and chem might be more hands on and maybe boring but physics at least was hitting them hard with some real good why you should know this stuff.

There was even a link to shows of The Big Bang Theory, and physics heavy episodes of Star Trek.

A real geek ran this class and that actually appealed to Jessie and Dan too as they took out their pads and downloaded the links to the school page.

Another bonus, you could e-mail in your assignments.

He was in a decent mood until the final bell rang and he knew that he’d be facing Keith and company. Dan looked at Jess. “It’s getting about that time, are you actually going to go?”

“I have to.”

“Not…really, their just Cromags Jess.”

“I know but you know if I bail then he gets justified in being able to talk shit like he’s been doing. I go and I show others that it’s okay to stand up to these guys and it’s okay to not be as afraid of these guys as they think.”

“And if you lose?”

“Which will probably happen, then it happens and I still stood up to them and more than likely they’ll cheat and come at me three on one but look at me, I’m not all that built Dan it’ll look like actually that they’re being the assholes that they are and even with my ass kicked I’ll still win.”

“I’ll send your trophy to the hospital.”

“Gee, thank Daniel.”

“Hey no problem bud what are lab partners for?”

They walked out to the yards and just around the corner of the building and into the alley by the dumpsters, Keith was his two friends were there and there were a whole lot of other students too obviously there to watch.

“Dan, here hold my coat.”

“Jessie, this is still so not a good idea.”

He took his coat for him anyway and Jessie stepped up towards where Keith was standing and moved to the side as Keith lunged at Jess with snarl of “I’ll kill you, you little asshole!”

It was a full on football tackle into the chain link fence and Jessie felt the air explode from his lungs and Keith was there in his face swinging his fists at him over and over. It hurt a lot and he tried to cover up but trying to do that and with the wind knocked out of you were two totally different things.

Ribs, several hits to there making it worse and a few shots to the head and the third sent jess to the ground seeing stars.

Then there was a scream of anger a very angry female scream and Dan watched Johnny jump on Keith’s back thumping on him with everything she had until Keith’s friends pulled her off of him and threw her to the pavement. “Shut the fuck up faggot!” One of them yelled and they started in on her. Keith laughed and kicked jess twice and went for a third kick and Jessie didn’t even cover up for the blow instead he reached out to the one leg Keith was using as he was kicking and yanked it out from under Keith sending the big jock down.

Jessie was getting back onto his feet and so was Keith and while he got up to his feet jess stayed on his knees and he punched Keith hard as he could right in the crotch. Keith made a high pitched sound and when he bent over Jessie head butted him squarely in the nose.

There was a crunch and Keith went down bawling. “Fuck, fuck, fuck my nose!” his friends turned from hitting Johnny to see their buddy on the ground rolling around in a ball holding both hands over his face.

Jessie stood all the way up and looked at the two of them and ran his tongue around inside of his mouth before spitting some blood out and gave them another warm smile.

“Next.”

They actually didn’t look like they were interested in fighting Jessie because they weren’t stepping up and instead they were looking at Keith then at Jess and back and forth again.

Then there was another girl yelling. “There Brian, that’s the bastard! Kick his ass!”

It was the four girls from lunch time and the one that had tripped Johnny was pointing at Jess and her friends were with here and there were four guys with them looking big and pissed off.

Jess turned a little and waved them over. “Come on in boys and join the party!” They looked a bit confused and the two with Keith had moved to jump Jessie now that he was looking at these four new guys.

Dan knew it was going to be trouble and he tossed jess’s coat to Donnie one of the kids that was in his gaming group and he grabbed the lid off of one of the old heavy tin trash cans in the alley and he yelled at Jessie.

“Cap! Shield!”

It was a fluke catch but Jessie reached out not even really looking in Dan’s direction and caught it. By the handle…one of those fro the corner of your eye things but it looked cool as hell.

Jess yelled. “Thanks Bucky!” as he caught it and as the two friends of Keith’s came at him he braced behind it and lunged into one of them head first with all of his weight behind it and there was a clank-thud and the guy fell flat on his butt.

The other one tried for a tackle bear hug and got the edge of the trash-can lid in the mouth. Keith got up in time to eat a full flat of the shield backhanded smack sending him back down…then an edge of can edge bash to the other guy and Jessie actually moved around using the lid as a weapon and a few times as a shield when they tried to lash out at him.

Dan grinned, never ever give something like that to an angry geek that knows what their doing. It was the freakiest thing he’d ever seen and then he saw the four other guys moving in and he cut them off.

Crazy…he was crazy but like Jessie he smiled at them. “You don’t want to get involved guys.”

“Out of the way geek.”

“Geek huh not shrimp, or something just as stupid?”

“Out of the way.” And one of the others leaned over to the Brian guy. “Hey Bry? Why’s he smiling?”

Dan smirked. “I’m smiling because of Tolkien’s first law.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah you four ever seen Lord of The Rings?”

“Yeah so what.”

“Tolkien’s first law…don’t mess with the little guys.” He smiled and maybe it was more than a little nuts but he took and couple of steps towards the four big guys. He was like half the size of just one of them and there were four of them.

And he was smiling.

That so did not compute.

And if one watched then carefully you could almost see the little bits of smoke coming out of their ears and then Jessie limped up beside him and dropped the lid with a clatter and he reached in his pocket and took out a pack of Juicy Fruit Gum.

Jess said in this gravelly movie star voice. “I came here to chew bubble gum.” He dumped the pack of gum all over the pavement and looked at the four guys with a smile. Dan chirped in with. “Oops…looks like you’re all out of bubble gum.”

There was some quiet in the kids watching and the four jocks looked at the two boys and shook their heads. “Not fucking worth it man these two are nuts! Let get the fuck out of here before the cops show up.”

Brian turned his guys around and left in a bit of a hurry and the girls from lunch followed bitching them out and yelling. “Brian!, Brian! Were the fuck are you going!? That little asshole fucking insulted me!, and the little bastard with him applauded! If you don’t get back here I’ll…”

The Brian guy wheeled on her and yelled at her. “You’ll what!? You’ll break up with me? You whine and bitch and get someone to kick my ass Britney? I was there remember! Maybe just maybe you fucking deserved it!”

She and her friends looked stunned again at being talked to…yelled at like that and she hauled off and slapped him across the face.

Brian looked ready to kill, his knuckles even cracked and he turned on his heel and stormed off.

Britney turned the other way and stormed off but she was heading right for Johnny. Jess started moving and Britney was already fuming. “It’s all you’re fault you little faggot bitch!” She slapped Johnny who was just starting to get to her feet and sobbing a bit and holding herself and her torn clothes and she yelped in pain. Jess yanked Britney away from Johnny.

Britney spit in his face and slapped Jessie hard too. She must have hit one of the places Keith had hit because Jessie swayed. Then gave her an really angry look. She had this really bitchy self righteous smug look on her face. “Go ahead asshole I’m a fucking girl, you can’t touch me, you wouldn’t dare.”

(Sniffle.) “Cunt.” Britney’s eyes went rage big and she turned to see Johnny up again and standing in front of her and passed her a folded photocopied sheet of paper.

Britney snatched it and looked at it. “What the fuck is this?”

(Sniffle.) “My carry letter.”

“What the hell’s that?”

“It says…that legally I’m in transition and I’m considered a girl…too.”

“Too? What the hell why does that fucking matter….”

SLAP!

Johnny had swung her arm back as far as she could and slapped Britney don’t to the ground. She didn’t so much as scream as make the stomped rat sound. Johnny was holding her hand after bending over and over with the pain but even then she yelled at Britney even as she was ugly crying.

“You can hate me, you can talk shit about me and treat me like trash and I can deal with that you bitch, I’ve dealt with it before! But you lay a finger on my friends, hurt them, insult them! Spit on them! It’ll be on Bitch!, You got me? You got me!”

Britney tried to get up but fell back down and puked all over her friends nice shoes.

And that was about the time they heard someone yelling from the crowd. “Campus cops lets book!”

Jess went over and wrapped an arm around Johnny and Dan grabbed his coat and they limped off taking a short cut Dan knew to the parking lot. Jess was getting slower the more time the adrenaline wore off from the fight. “Thanks Dan.”

“Hey, what are lab partners for.”

Johnny snorted and whined in pain.

They all grinned at each other and stopped when the got to the car. They stared at it and Jessie limped over and laid there on top of the hood. He let out a sigh. “That was a lot of air conditioners.”

He motioned for Dan and Johnny to join him. “Get up here it’s nice.”

“But the paint?”

“Who cares, it’s just paint…it’s black and right now it’s warm.”

Johnny tried carefully climbing up and laid down beside Jessie their backs to the wind shield and just let the heat from the car and the asphalt sink into them and Daniel took the other side of the hood and sighed. “Nice car Jessie.”

“Thanks, I wanted something vintage and dad liked the idea of helping me restore it.” He kept his eyes closed and despite the way you could hear pain in his voice he was smiling.

“You sure it’s cool to sit on it like this?” Dan asked.

“I possess my things they, they don’t posses me.” Jessie replied folding his hands monk styled.

Johnny giggle-sniffled. “You are the strangest boy I’ve ever met Jessie and that includes me.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey…I’m plenty strange too.” Dan offered.

“You’re both strange and wonderful and brave and…” Johnny sat up and leaned over and lightly kissed Jessie on the lips then turned and did the same for Dan.

“Thanks Johnny, you’re a sweet girl.” Jessie said and cracked and eye to look at her kissing Dan who was very into it and had a big goofy smile on after she broke the kiss.

“Humma, yeah thank you Johnny…wow…so worth it.”

“Worth it?” She asked.

“The trouble, the danger…he whole thing wa worth it for a kiss like that.” he replied.

“Dannnny….!” She covered her face with one hand blushing.

Jessie nodded. “Getting the reward kiss for being a decent person from a pretty girl…they write stories about that. Sooooo worth it.”

“Jessie….!” She used her other hand to cover up a bit.

Jessie slid off the car and Dan did too. “I’m driving Johnny home you need a lift too Dan?”

“Hmm…cool car, new friends, hot girl…or the bus….I’ll take the ride thank you very much!”

They both reached over to help Johnny get off the hood of the car and she blushed some more. Dan even opened the passenger side front door for her. She got in smiling shyly. “Thanks Dan.”

Jessie smiled because they’d been getting watched the entire time and them seeing this, seeing Johnny getting treated differently…well like they say when you observe something you change it. The rumors and the other stuff from today would change things.

That maybe you can treat the transgendered girl okay and not like a leper.

That maybe the ones that are the popular alpha dogs in school aren’t all that.

He got in his car and turned in over slowly driving out of the school. He popped on his Mp-3 player and one of the songs that got him through his recovery in the hospital back in Cape Town.

{Refrain

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher
But I flew too high

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming
I can hear them say

{Refrain

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, well
It surely means that I don't know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune
But I hear the voices say

{Refrain

No!

Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
The center lights around your vanity
But surely heaven waits for you

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry (don't you cry no more)  

The song kept playing as Jessie pulled them out into the street and it was maybe three blocks before all three of them were singing along.