Work Text:
A backache and blood pouring out of him. Shitty way to wake up, in Ace's opinion.
Especially at 4:30 in the fuckin morning, he thinks.
Over the years, Ace had gotten more comfortable in his gender identity. Wearing his binder as a shirt, not wearing his binder at all some days, wearing crop tops and skirts sometimes, things of that nature were back on the table for him after a little personal exploration and expressive experimentation.
But some days weren't so comfortable. Like when his period starts. He had started HRT, but that was only 2 months ago, so he still got his period.
This morning was made extra uncomfortable by the fact that he wasn't wearing a pad, so blood was currently pooling underneath him.
Gritting his teeth, he whispered "Son of a bitch," and got up to go the bathroom.
Another thing Ace didn't like about periods is having to change his pad so often. The blood didn't bother him, it was having to see his legs that made him dissociate sometimes. Those days were behind him now, but that didn't make the little white lines on his thighs go away.
Once everything was cleaned up and pain meds had been taken, Ace curled back up on his bed and grabbed his phone off his dresser.
Gotta be up for school in an hour anyways so might as well stay up, he thought.
So he spent the next hour looking at shitty Pinterest memes about being trans, before getting out of bed at 6:15 to drag his younger siblings out of bed.
Sabo, naturally, was already up and getting dressed. Luffy, on the other hand, was lightly protesting to the concept of being awake. After dragging his sibling out of their bed, Ace went to go get dressed.
My crust pants make the dysphoria go away, they always do, he supposed, so he slipped them on, grabbed his docs and backpack, threw them on the kitchen floor, and rummaged around for breakfast.
"Morning, kiddo. How ya' doing?" sounded from the doorway and Ace looked up to see Shanks standing there, already dressed for work.
"Eh, been better. Coffee?" he asked, holding out a cup. Ace didn't like coffee himself but he made it in the morning for Shanks and pretended to drink his own so Shanks wouldn't know he was just doing it for him.
"Thanks. I gotta be off, have a good day and take care of your siblings, yeah? Love ya."
He reached out to ruffle Ace's hair, which he had yet to braid for the day, and left the room, the front door of the apartment shutting a few seconds later.
Ace decided to be a nice big brother, so he made bagels for all three of them and shoved them in a bag to eat when they got to school.
Luffy came tumbling out of their room with only their binder and a pair of sweatpants on, hair unbrushed and ruffled, mismatched socks on their feet. Ace still doesn't know how they can handle that feeling, but he tosses Luffy's chucks at them and goes to braid his hair and grab his jewelry.
Sabo was the most organized of the three and waited for his siblings at the door until they both ran up, out of breath. The three left to go to their bus stop, locking the door behind them and bounding down the stairs of the apartment building.