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Scott was in another boring, lame Goodwill. He counted his blessings that it was with Ramona and not Knives, but still. It was a boring, booooring Goodwill. Like, you can get a bunch of cheap stuff here, sure. But half the store’s full of clothes or furniture that doesn’t fit in his apartment.
Sorry, old apartment. Wallace kicked him out for his Paris trip. Well, it was more their lease was running out and they super weren’t going to get a renewal because their landlord hated them. Something about late payments? Eh, whatever.
Ramona took one look at his clothes, said "Dude, we need to get you some new threads," and now he was here. Immediately, Scott knew they weren’t just going to get duplicates of the clothes he already had. That was fine. It would be nice to not run out of clothes in the middle of the week. Without Wallace’s clothes to use, he’d be in a lot more trouble.
So, yeah. He’s in a boring Goodwill. He’d be playing his PSP if he could, but Ramona wanted him to look at clothes. Which he was... technically. Mindlessly flipping through clothes with a dead eye stare counted as looking at clothes. They sure were clothes! Some whites, reds, a green, more grays, more whites. Uuuughhh, clothing was so boring! He already got the best find in the world, a tri-force shirt, last year! What else was there to clothing?
Ramona continued looking through the aisles. Maybe she was shopping for herself too. Ramona looked good in anything, because with full honesty and sincerity here, Ramona looked great. That was a fact as real as gravity and dropping coins after a fight.
And another completely serious, fully definite fact was that Scott hated clothes shopping. His mom would torture him with monthly trips when he was younger. But he never found anything more than boring jeans, some socks and boxers, and more boring t-shirts.
Everything else didn’t feel right. Anything buttoned was too preppy or Econ major. Anything flowery was basically a jerk’s summer wear or way too flashy for him. And then... god, what else was there? He hated shirts that talked about the outdoors, gaming shirts was too on the nose (not like the tri-force shirt. That was classy and awesome!) and he can’t just wear shirts from shows he hasn’t watched!
Clothing sucked! Ramona clearly hasn’t gotten the memo. Maybe he should just tell her to stop shopping for him. He snakes his way over between the clothing racks to reach Ramona’s little cart. He sees a collection of ripped jeans, plaid, sweaters and skirts (he could tell by the flares). Ramona looks up from the racks towards him, a bit confused.
Their eyes meet and Scott quickly backs off without a word. Weird. He turns around, but Ramona doesn’t let him escape.
“Hey, what was it you wanted to say?” Ramona calls out, letting go of the clothes.
“Huh? Oh, nothing.” Scott said quickly, trying to take another step away which only pulled Ramona closer.
“Scott, what’s the matter?” Ramona continues, glancing to her cart and back to him, “Is clothes shopping really this big of an issue?”
“No, it’s alright. I mean, you don’t have to get me any clothes or pick out anything. Since that’d be... easier...” Scott trails off, eyes falling to the pile of clothes in the cart. He didn’t like how they felt. On his eyes.
“Dude, we’re literally here to get you new clothes. You didn’t like picking them out so I’m doing that.” Ramona folds her arms, setting her foot in between the wheels.
“Can’t you also try them on? And just... put them in your closet?”
“That’d make them my clothes. Look, there’s some stuff in here that if you don’t like it, I’ll wear it. But you need to try them on.” Ramona explains, making sure to add, “ actually try them, put them on and decide if you like them.”
“How do you even do that?” Scott groans, throwing his arms over the cart and plopping his head onto the clothes.
“Do what? Put on clothes?” She laughs, covering her mouth to not be too loud.
Scott turns to the side, facing Ramona, “Deciding if you like them.”
“I dunno, you just... look at yourself and go, ‘Yeah. I like this’, or ‘it’s missing something’, or ‘wow, who the hell is this?’.” Ramona pats his back, “I’m sure you’ll get a better feeling once you try on some clothes.”
Scott continues to be a sack in the cart. The sack starts to groan.
“How about you try on some clothes and report back? That’ll help me.” Ramona puts her hand under Scott’s stomach and pushes him up. Her Frankenstein monster groans “Fiiiiiiiine”, grabbing at the pile of clothing without thought. He trudges away with further grumbles.
Ramona watches him leave with an amused smirk. She’ll help Scott find his style eventually. She looks back to the cart, seeing what she needed to get for herself. Oh, it looks like Scott grabbed one of her skirts by mistake.
Just put on the dumb clothes, all of these dumb clothes. Ripped jeans? Sure! Stupid! Who was he even trying to fool? These were bought ripped! What was the point of buying clothes pre-ripped? He put them on.
Yeah, they looked dumb. It showed his unshaved legs. It looked stupid. But he needed a reaction from them. Ramona wanted him to have a reaction to these stupid clothes. But beyond the word stupid, he didn’t really get it. It wasn’t ‘him’. Who was ‘him’? He wasn’t good in English class.
But he just felt weird with them on. Was that a good enough excuse? Like he was making a statement he couldn’t fill in. Let him be the boring t-shirt & jeans guy, thank you very much! No shame in being the default by default!
Okay, so jeans were a bust. No biggie. He’ll try... the cargo shorts! Yes! He puts on the khaki cargo shorts with confidence. This was him. He liked it. They were kinda cool actually. It was actually pretty good to have stuff that were decidedly Not Jeans. Having something that wasn’t just more blue, blue, blue, was appreciated. The only issue was, again, his legs. But whatever! Did it really matter? Naaah.
Cargo shorts were Worth It. They had Pockets. Did he use any more than two? No, but it was about The Looks, whatever they were. Scott didn’t understand the difference, but they did feel comfortable. They were breezy and easy to wear!
There were a few buttoned shirts, but they were a bit thicker. It was kinda nice, though not exactly him. Kinda him? He tries them on. He supposes they look nice. It does cover him, but the thought of his mom calling him ‘handsome’ right now was a bit off putting. He felt like a dumb kid when he heard it. But they’d suffice and he’d get them just to say he got new clothes. He takes them off, getting ready to leave.
He didn’t get a lot of clothes in his grab attack. He’d just about gotten through all of them when-
“Oh!” He remarks without thinking. He was confused what exactly he was looking at, but once he orientated it correctly, he could see it was a skirt. A flowery skirt with cute little white and yellow flowers over the green base color. It kinda looked nice, actually.
After looking it over in his hands for a bit, he moves to put it back down. But then he has a thought, a stupid, terrible thought. He could put it on. The very idea feeling like he was sticking his hand in the cookie jar. But even still, there was this weird fascination he had. It was certainly different. It’d really shake up his wardrobe. It’d... do what Ramona wanted.
Damn it! No! Guys don’t wear skirts! They wear pants, shorts and other dumb stuff. What does he do? He needed to wear this, but it’d be really dumb! He’d feel so stupid, but his heart was racing. He needed to try it, just see how it was.
It was a kilt, yeah. He takes off the cargo shorts and being more nervous than he’s ever been, he puts his legs through the skirt, pulling it up. Huh. No weirdly magical moment. Scott looks back up to see his reflection and-
He looks like a girl! Okay, not really, but his uncut, long hair was not making him look manly at all. His figure. It was a rectangle, but it still felt oddly nice. Oddly... right. The way the skirt hung, the way his heart tensed and his breathing slowed. The moment seemed to last forever. He just... stared, utterly bewildered.
Did he... like it? He’d never felt this good wearing something, so he guesses that he does. It was completely different from everything he wore. Did he like wearing women’s clothes? What was wrong with him? And yet, a small part of him wondered ‘maybe nothing is wrong with me’.
He needed answered. Ramona knew stuff about clothes, about weird feelings. He could just ask her. But he’d have to go out there in this . His excitement turned to dread. Maybe Ramona could join him in- Scott, you absolute genius!
“Pssssst!” Scott hisses loudly, peeking his head out of the changing room to see Ramona not far away.
“Ramona!” He loudly whispers to get her to walk over.
“Dude, what?” She asks, walking to the changing room and seeing how Scott hung weirdly against the door.
“Can you... come in here?” He asks quietly, looking at the ground.
Ramona narrowed her eyes, trying to see what Scott wanted. While she wasn’t sure what was going on, she could tell Scott needed her help. She joins him in the changing room and immediately she sees what’s gotten Scott in a twist.
“Oh, nice,” She comments without thought. That seemed to shock Scott to his core.
“You... you like it?” He trembles, pointing towards her with a wild and crazy stare.
“Yeah. It looks nice. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do the Flowers pun, but I think they look good on you.” Ramona explains, giving an approving thumbs up.
“So... if we actually bought this...” He looks at the skirt and actually grabs at it. It was real. It was on him .
“It’d be yours.” She finishes. How do couples finish sentences? She wasn’t sure if that’s what Scott wanted, but it felt right.
“Woah...” He keeps staring down at the skirt, the fabric. It felt great. And Ramona was here so it was extra great. “It’s not weird?” He asks without thinking.
“No? You can like wearing a skirt, Scott.” Ramona puts a hand onto his shoulder which at first seems to make things worse. Scott gets scared, tensing up and catching his breath, but then he’s about to relax, let his shoulders fall and let the moment rest.
“Okay, because this is really weird.” Scott sighs, tilting his head towards Ramona’s hand. This action makes Ramona pull him into a hug. He panics again, but he has to push through. He returns the hug and puts his head on Ramona’s shoulder.
Scott talks right as Ramona tried to break the silence, “I’ve never felt this way about clothing.”
Ramona moves closer, letting their legs rest next to each other, “How does it feel? Good?” Scott nods into her, “Okay, wanna... try on more skirts? We could try some dresses.”
“ Ramona ,” Scott grumbles, “I can’t just wear skirts and dresses all the time.”
And then Ramona says something, he wasn’t expecting, “Why not? Kim wears skirts like all the time, dude.”
“Yeah, but I’m not Kim.” Scott replied with more snark than he meant to. Seriously, Kim and him were completely different people.
“Scott...” Ramona starts, not sure how to exactly say it, “You can just be someone who wears skirts and dresses. Whether that’s a guy or a girl or whatever.”
Scott pulls away, a ‘?’ above his head. “A guy or a girl? Aren’t I already a guy?”
Ramona shakes her head, “You can be a girl if you want. You’ve heard of transgender people, yeah? I kinda figured with your friend group it’d come up.”
Scott knew the idea, but... He had to laugh, “Ramona, you can’t just be a girl because you want to. Then everyone would want to be a girl.”
“You do realize most guys are happy with being guys? And this is your life. If you want to be a girl, then do it. Life is too short to hold back.”
Scott was silent, utterly struck in disbelief. Somewhere along his racing thoughts, he started to cry. And then it just kept coming. Ramona pulled him into another hug and he shook in terror. After everything with Future Scott, he had sort of accepted it as inevitable. He’d do everything he could to avoid it, but maybe that’s exactly what Future Scott did! The way he saw it, he had 13 good years left with Ramona and then that was it. He had come to terms with it and it was only now that he realized how fucked up that was.
“I... I don’t want to be a guy...” He admits, unable to find the strength to hug her back. He kept crying and crying.
“You don’t have to be,” Ramona offers, rubbing his back, “Do you want to be a girl?”
It takes Scott a few moment, but she eventually nods, mumbling a yes into Ramona.
“Awesome. I’ll get you a few skirts, dresses and other stuff to try on at home, okay?” Ramona continues to rub her back, “Will you be alright while I get that stuff purchased? And you alright taking the skirt off for a bit?”
Scott mumbles another yes. This’ll be a really weird exit, but she’ll manage.
“Oh! It’s Kim,” Scott awkwardly moves a hand to answer her phone, “Hey Kim!”
“Scott, where are you? We have practice today, or did you forget again?” Kim groans from the shitty speaker of Scott’s phone.
“Ah crap, I completely forgot!” She almost hit her head for being such a dummy, but that wasn’t a good idea, “Can we reschedule? Ramona’s painting my nails.”
Kim is silent for a moment, “She’s what?”
Ramona butts in, “I’m painting her nails.” Ramona looks to Scott, quickly realizing what she just said. Scott just laughs.
“Scott... what?” She really had no other words.
“She’s painting my nails red!” Scott cheers, “Oh, and what do you think of the name Scarlett?”
“What about it?” Kim has to ask right back. Knowing Scott, he (she?) wasn’t going to actually answer any of her questions.
“For me! Do you think it suits me?” Scarlett cheers, smiling at Ramona brighter than she’s ever done before.
“I’m... I’m going to tell them you’re busy. Have... fun?” Kim answers, hanging up because how does she even react to that? Her first boyfriend was actually her first girlfriend.