•Mid
•XX16 - XX28 (see bottom bullet)
•Remy's POV
•Contains: cursing, second hand embarrassment (aka might be a little awkward at some points near the end)
•a catalogue of gender throughout the ages. there's no specific date given because this covers multiple days throughout a decade or so. enjoy.

(only he/him will be used for remy until they *figure it out*, since this is his kinda internal monologue, btw)

•~~~~•

Even though Remy would inevitably end up getting arrested before he could even get a third of the way through his senior year of high school, he didn't know about any of that until it was happening to him. So being a sophomore, he thought it important to at least get some of his work done. Especially at the very beginning of the year.

The first week of school was always pretty simple, which was good, since most of the students were all burnt out from starting and then finishing their summer work the week before school started up again. And of course Remy had done the same, but it wasn't exactly procrastination that got him there and more spending all of his summer going from house to house to get rid of the annoying people at his school he didn't feel like dealing with for the next three years of his life. All in all, though, it was nice to have a break from thinking for a bit, his only homework this particular night was a Google form.

Yes, a Google form. Pretty classic, he hadn't looked at it yet but as he was bringing it up on his computer he could suspect it would only be questions along the lines of, what is your name?:) and why are you taking this class?:) and how confident are you in the subject material?:). Just classic bullshit so teachers can figure out who they need to look out for in regards to misbehavior and such.

He clicked on the link to open in. With a sigh, he started clicking on the questions and going through them. He was right, the first three questions he'd thought of were the exact ones he had to answer first. And they were all simple enough, he knew what his name was, he was taking the class so he could graduate in three years, and sure, he could say he was confident in the material. Though to be honest he'd forgotten which class this was even for. It didn't matter all that much.

He scrolled down.

What are your pronouns?

That one made him hum to himself as he went to click on the text box- it wasn't something you'd expect to see in such a Floridian school, but perhaps now that all the conservative people had mysteriously moved across the country the school was making a bit more of an effort to be inclusive. It was a nice thought, even if half the teachers would ignore anyone actually wanting to be called something different.

Remy began to type- he/him. And yet he blinked, furrowing his eyebrows, and hesitated before scrolling down further. Why didn't that feel right?

It had to be right, of course, Remy had never been anything other than a cis white gay man, aka the absolute nightmare of pretty much every single other person in the lgbt community. Clearly any hesitation he had was just... dumb.

It didn't matter anyway. If he was anything other than a guy, who the hell could he tell? Everyone he'd ever been close to was now either dead or had moved on to befriending other people. And whatever role he had in the story he lived in, it didn't give shit about who he was.

He scrolled down to the next question. Is there anyone you'd like to be seated next to in future seating chart arrangements?

Remy met his gaze in his mirror. A cold gush of wind brushed up against his side. Yep, he was alone.

•~~~~•

Doing homework had always been a very boring task for Remy when he was in high school, and he quite honestly never thought he could experience anything more boring.

But of course, sitting on the floor in his very own prison cell in XX21, he had learned one thing. He'd been very, very wrong.

Of course, they still did stuff in prison. Sometimes. But all in all there wasn't much to do. Remy spent most of his time just staring at his own reflection in the metal frame of his bed, contemplating how he'd gotten himself in there and what he'd do if he ever got out and how there could possibly be a way for him to escape his own fate in the first place.

Bed frames weren't good mirrors, but he could see himself in it nonetheless, and from all that staring he knew he looked a lot different than he did when he was eighteen- or, seventeen, technically he was seventeen when he was arrested. Practically eighteen. Besides how old he had been, though, one of the biggest things he'd noticed is that he hadn't grown a single hair facially but the hair on the top of his head now reached down to his shoulders. It had been about the length a normal teenage boy might keep it when he was in school, and of course there was a barber in the prison he could go to if he really wanted to, he'd just never bothered. Besides- he'd be in prison the rest of his existence, didn't matter if he looked like a girl on his deathbed.

...

"Fuck," Remy mumbled to himself, looking away from his reflection. That was startling, for some reason. He hadn't thought about gender in regards to himself in a very long time, and he really didn't care about it at the end of the day, it was just startling to consider he was anything other than a man. After a moment he looked back at himself, reaching behind his head and taking his long hair into his hands, imitating a pony tail.

It didn't matter.

"Would make a good disguise if I ever did get out of here," he mumbled, then dropping his hair. "...not that I ever will."

•~~~~•

Remy was running the fastest he'd ever ran in his entire life through trees in a forest he'd been so lucky to come across.

Despite what he might've thought seven or so years ago, he was out of prison. Not because he was supposed to be, but just because he'd finally thought enough about it and he'd found the opportunity and goddamn had he seized it. He'd ran faster than he ever had and ever would, and now as the sounds of the road had faded around him he'd stopped mumbling curse words to himself and decided he needed to catch his breath.

A random tree up ahead was seen among the many others, and Remy halted himself very suddenly to lean against it, a gush of wind practically stumbling through and past him as he took a startled breath in, cold air wandering into his lungs and somehow to his side as well. He'd been feeling weird brushes of air like that since he'd looked over the cliff, he noted, and he'd always supposed it had something to do with that, so it never bothered him.

Glancing around one more time, Remy brought his hands to his hair- which he'd kept the same length as it was when he was twenty-one- and tied it into a quick pony-tail using a hair tie he'd found abandoned on the sidewalk some minutes ago. Once it was up, he slid down the tree and sat on the grassy Earth beneath him, slipping his one-and-only leather jacket around his shoulders that he'd stolen back just before he escaped a few hours ago. He continued taking deep, quiet breaths, listening for the possibility of anyone still searching for him nearby.

And then he smirked. God, he'd be on the news in a few days, tops. Imagine what the Crofts would think of that? All he really needed to do then was keep flirting with Patton long enough to bait him into a duel so he could kill him. Easy.

Right- he had a plan, didn't he? That was what he needed to be thinking about then. He stood up and started moving once more, this time only walking.

Of course, he needed to find a place to camp out first, it didn't matter where, just somewhere. Perhaps there would be a little clearing in this forest if he was lucky. Then, once he knew he could find it again, he had to get back to his old house to grab his very first leather jacket and some money he'd stored for himself- he really deserved a coffee, wow. Then he'd get an extra t-shirt and jeans perhaps, binge watch some cartoons in Emile's honor, make sure the police were confused about his whereabouts, pay a quick visit to the Crofts... et cetera, et cetera. Maybe he didn't even have to bait Patton, he could just kill him in his sleep. Would be a lot easier.

Suddenly, Remy halted his walking, because up ahead he spotted what looked like a small, abandoned shack. Reveling in his luck, Remy picked up the pace and got to the door of it, decided if anyone lived there he could just kill them, he needed to get back into the practice of it anyway. There didn't seem to be any sign of life though, other than some cobwebs, and somehow the place had light and running water- probably from the body of water nearby. This little shack was as close as he'd ever come to that house Emile wanted to live in when they were kids, wasn't it?- so all in all, he was set.

Finding the bathroom and still thinking about his plan, Remy looked at himself in the mirror. What was the first thing again? Right, get his stuff, buy some more stuff. He'd need a disguise to do any of that, so no one would tell who he was.

With a bit of hesitation then, Remy removed the sunglasses from his eyes and, ignoring the sleepless bags underneath them, hung the glasses from his shirt. He'd kept those things on for so long, people might not recognize him without them. That was good, it was. If he needed to distort his face any more, all he needed was some cheap CVS-type makeup, he was sure it couldn't be that hard to use, he could make himself look a bit more feminine-

Oh, goddamnit. Not the gender questioning again, not then. Remy bit the insides of his cheeks, looking himself up and down before sighing and looking away.

"Fuckin... it wouldn't hurt. I'll use some other random-ass name if I need to ordering coffee and that'll be that. No one would suspect a thing. It's fine."

There was no point in worrying about his gender identity when he'd be dead in no more than two months. It was a hard conclusion to come to, but it was true. Besides- there was still no one he could tell. He couldn't just walk up to Patton and be like, hey, before i murder you, just thought you should know i'm not a man. If he wasn't a man, maybe he was. Or maybe he wasn't.

It didn't matter.

•~~~~•

Out of all the things he did before he died, the one thing Remy was happy he did was give himself a panic-induced haircut.

It was odd. He'd never actually taken the time to really take in and consider the fact that he was going to die before he sent himself out to his death, and the realization hadn't hit him until the night before his final day, so what could he do besides cut his hair into a mullet?

Not the best choice of haircuts, really. He wasn't even sure if he could pull it off right or not. Most people couldn't. But looking at his ghostly reflection in his currently off phone as he laid in bed one day, yeah, it was a decent choice. Better than a ponytail, he would say.

God, he loved being a ghost.

Suddenly then, another ghost entered into the bedroom with a small smile, crossing from the door over to Remy and planting a kiss on his cheek. Remy smirked and fiddled with his engagement ring, and his fiancé sat down next to him, prompting Remy to sit up a bit.

"How are you feeling?" Emile asked him.

"Bored, you?"

"A bit bored myself. How are you with being left alone?"

Of course, the one thing about seeing your beloved for the first time in sixteen years is that you're gonna be hella dependent on them for a while. Remy hadn't wanted to let Emile out of his sight for at least a month and a half, give or take that half month. But now it was around late October, it had been a while since he died, so he was doing fairly well.

"Good. I'm good now, babe."

"Good," Emile smiled once more.

"We should go do something," Remy then suggested.

"Like what?"

"I dunno. What is there for ghosts to do these days?"

"I have been wanting to go clothes shopping- or... clothes-grabbing? They're all free, I don't know what to call it."

"Hmm."

"We could run down to the local goodwill and pick a few things up."

"That works for me."

Both stood up then and began to walk out of their house to the forest surrounding it, then to the sidewalk just outside, hands brushing at their sides before coming together. It was only a short walk, and once they arrived they went around together picking things out, Emile grabbing a multitude of different things while Remy really only grabbed an extra t-shirt or two. He was sure as time passed he'd want to wear something different than what he always wore, but since he hardly left the house at the moment it didn't matter much.

"Do you wanna try any of that on?" Emile asked him after they'd decided they made their final decisions in what to get. "They have changing rooms."

"No, you go do that if you wanna, though. I'm sure this'll fit me. I don't really feel like it, anyway."

With a small laugh, Emile nodded, and then he walked away to the back of the store. Remy began mulling around a bit, running his hands over the ghostly fabric of things until he came across something that looked to be another white t-shirt, and seeing it might be his size he decided to go ahead and grab it, a third one wouldn't hurt.

Of course, pulling it off from the hanger came with the realization that not only was it a mildly cropped tank top, but he was standing in the middle of the women's section. And, of course, gender was back to bite him in the ass.

He'd probably look good in it, too, he'd decided- but did he really want to go out of his comfort zone like that? He'd been avoiding the topic of his gender identity since he was in high school. It had been over a decade at this point, it seemed. He thought he might stop worrying about it after he died but no, he'd never escape it, would he?

He could either keep running or suck it up and take the shirt home. And, with a sigh, he decided the latter was what he'd do.

Looking around the rest of the women's section, he ended up grabbing a pair of shorts and some cheap makeup to go along with it before walking over to where the changing rooms were to wait for Emile, hiding his extra items within the ones he'd already grabbed so it looked like he was only holding the t-shirts. Of course, upon doing this he questioned why he was even hiding it in the first place, would Emile even care? Did he even have any idea of Remy's struggles in this area? Emile had seen him dress femininely to go out and buy coffee among other things, he just likely had no idea that Remy was genuinely enjoying it.

He could just try it all on when he got home and then forget about it, perhaps. If he was lucky he would decide he was nothing other than a man and leave it at that. Because now if he figured out he was anything other than, he'd have to tell Emile, and serious conversations like that sucked.

Soon enough Emile did exit the changing rooms and the two made their way home, sitting their new clothing in their bedroom to be put away later and deciding to watch some TV together, still in their room, as they usually did in the afternoons and evenings. It was there that, after an hour or two, Remy remembered the extra clothing in the pile on his bed and realized he'd have to make an excuse for himself to try it on if he was going to do that at all.

Well. Now or never, wasn't that the phrase?

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom real quick," Remy forced out, standing up from the bed. Emile raised his brows.

"I thought you stopped having those phantom living syndrome feelings months ago?"

"Uh. I did, just thought I might as well try on that new stuff just in case."

"Ah. Alright, dear," Emile smiled at him. "Do you want me to pause it?"

"I don't give a shit, you can keep watching."

"Gotcha."

Remy escaped to the bathroom connected to their bedroom and removed the tank top, shorts, and makeup from their hiding spot, laying it all out in front of him. He considered just throwing it all out and ignoring everything that had to do with it for a moment, but sighed and began changing instead.

It took him a good bit to get everything on, and that included the makeup, which ended up just being a bit of eyeliner and lipstick, but either way once he had the entire ensemble on himself he looked at it all in the mirror, and there he felt a feeling he hadn't felt since... well, probably the first time he dressed femininely, a few months back.

But he ignored it, then. Didn't even give it a pass in thought. He wasn't now, it was on full display for himself to see and think about. He internally began to panic a bit then, and he cursed his younger self for not figuring it all out sooner. It would've been so much easier. So much easier. God, he was an idiot.

He placed his hands on the sink counter and stared at himself a minute more before looking down. He began mumbling.

"His name is Remy... their name is Remy... her name is- no. Their name... mmh. Wow. Fuck me."

He moved back and put his leather jacket back on, but let it dip to show his shoulders, and then placed his sunglasses over his eyes.

And now he had to tell Emile, didn't he? Damnit. Or maybe he didn't. But, of course, he should probably know. They were gonna get married soon. Emile deserved to know everything about what he was getting himself into. At least Remy's gender identity was probably a lot less jarring than his body count.

Remy walked towards the bathroom door and placed his hand on the knob, but then hesitated and removed it. He sighed, leaning his knuckles against the door instead. He moved it to be a flat palm and held his breath.

"Emile?"

"Yeah, Rem?" He called out from the bedroom. The faint sound from the TV halted.

"Weird question."

"Go ahead."

"Uhm. Would you still love me if I-"

"I would."

Remy was silent for a moment. "You didn't let me finish."

"I know. I promise whatever it is, I still love you."

He supposed that was true. Considering the whole body count thing from earlier. "...Right, yeah."

"Are you okay, hon?"

"I'm great."

With a sigh, Remy finally opened the door, only poking his head out. The two made eye contact, and Emile blinked.

"Where'd you get the makeup from?"

"Goodwill."

"Well, it looks good."

"Thanks."

Emile glanced back to the TV then, seemingly expecting Remy to come join him on the bed again, but when he didn't move, Emile looked back. "Are you sure you're okay, Rem?"

Remy sucked in a breath. "Mm. Yeah, yeah. About that. Uhm. I don't... think I'm a dude."

Emile blinked at him blankly a few times, and then he breathed a breath of realization, a small smile falling onto his face. He stood up then and made his way over to Remy, then noting his outfit when he saw it with another smile and nothing more. Drawing closer, he leaned up and kissed Remy on the forehead.

"I'm... not a woman, either, if you're wondering," Remy mumbled as Emile pulled back.

"Well, you're very pretty."

Ah. "Thank you."

"Have you figured out anything specific or is this new information for you?"

"I've just been ignoring it since... for a while, I guess. So it's pretty new."

Emile sat his hands on Remy's hips. "Can you tell me what you know?"

"Uhm... Damn, I hate serious conversations- I don't mind being seen as a dude but I'm not one."

"Okay."

"That's really it."

Emile's hands traveled up Remy's sides to his shoulders, which Emile squeezed reassuringly. "You tell me when you know more, then, is that alright?"

"Mhm."

"Okay. You still good with he/him?"

"Pretty much. I guess I wouldn't mind they either but I really don't give a shit, seriously."

Emile nodded, and he slid his hands back so they were wrapped around Remy's shoulders. He kissed them, briefly, with a sort of sweet intent that calmed Remy's nerves, even if it was brief.

"I love you," he then said, simply.

"Love you, too." Remy was silent for a moment, staring his husband up and down, before chuckling. "If this gives you a sexuality crisis that would be pretty funny."

Emile laughed a bit as well. "I don't think it will. I've always known you're the person I'd spend eternity with, none of that really matters to me."

"Hah... right. Thanks."

They shared a hug, and thankfully the moment had finally ended as the two went back to watching cartoons in bed together, hand in hand, and there Remy realized for the millionth time how lucky they were to be marrying Emile.

•~~~~•
I'm alive, somehow- the author, that is. Not Remy. Anyway. I got second hand embarrassment writing this which is why I put it in the content warnings so I hope it isn't too bad for you guys lmao.

See ya in the next one!