Seri groaned. “You just want to go shopping, don’t you?”
Severo chuckled. “It won’t be that bad.”
Seri slumped on the table. “Don’t want to.”
Seri stoodthere squinting at a yellow onesie with blue stars on it. “What do you think, Skya?” he asked her, holding the garment up for her to see.
The little girl was sitting in the child seat in the shopping cart. Skya seemed happy as can be now, apparently over the horror of their attempts to get her to understand that the disguises were still them. After failing to convince her, they opted to just wear hats and scarves inside. Though, Severo had changed Seri’s eyes still.
Skya looked at it, all gummy smiles, before making grabby hands. Despite still not being awake, he smiled and let her have it.
He really, really needed coffee…preferably an ice coffee loaded with sugar. Well, he didn’t need it, but he wanted it. No, he needed—ughhhh.
“Oh, Oh! Look at this, isn’t it cute?!” Severo whisper yelled.
Seri turned, grimacing on catching sight of the piece of fluff Severo was holding up. “You are not dressing my daughter in that.”
“Oh, come on. She’d look adorable in it. It’s pink, with a tutu!”
Skya stared at it, not really reacting.
“She hates it. So, no.”
“She doesn’t even care what you put her in, so what does it matter?” Severo huffed, putting the pink onesie back.
“She communicates her likes by grabbing. She didn’t grab, thus she doesn’t like it,” he said as he started looking through the rack again.
“Fine, how about this one?! It’s adorable!”
He looked up with a sigh and eyed the new monstrosity. Bows everywhere, once again, it was pink. “No…”
“I think you just hate the color pink,” Severo groused.
“Look.” He sighed again. “I’d prefer to stick with gender neutral clothes until my daughter is old enough to choose for herself. Or himself, or themselves. As much as the US government decides my kind can only officially choose their gender identity at eighteen, the fact is, it happens many years sooner. Until then, while I’ll use she, her, and daughter, and all those female pronouns, I won’t dress her in a way that may risk her hating all her childhood photos due to what I put her in.”
Severo slowly lowered the frilly, bow-covered dress. “Is that how it went for you?”
“I was born female, and grew up in a government run institution. I was forced to wear dresses and girly clothing, even when I stayed male. Right up until they kicked me out at eighteen. My pronouns, my identity, were never once respected there. They handed me a digital album, filled with photographs of someone that had my face, but not a single one of them was me. I won’t have my child look back and not be able to recognize themselves in their photographs. If she chooses to grab a frilly pink dress, I’ll get it. But as she hasn’t, I won’t.”
He would never let that happen to Skya. Because he knew how it felt, even now, looking at photographs that had his face, but weren’t really him. Preston had taken hundreds of photographs documenting his torment.
The Dweller put the outfit back. “Fair enough. I’m sorry you don’t have any photos to look back on when you were a child.”
Seri shrugged. “It is what it is.” Suddenly feeling awkward, he cleared his throat and turned away. He smiled on finding Skya staring up at him, holding tightly to the yellow onesie with the blue stars. She smiled back.
“How about this?”
Seri narrowed his eyes and slowly looked over his shoulder. “What is with you and your outfit selections?!”
“What?! It’s cute!? It’s a little cow. It has black spots and there is a hood, and look…a tail,” Severo defended. Skya giggled and started to reach. “AH! She likes it! She likes it!”
“Oh my Goddess… You are going to have my daughter dressing like random animals, aren’t you?”
“Maybe…but she likes it sooo….” Severo scooted closer to the cart and held it out to the little girl.
Seri sighed as Skya grabbed onto it with a squeal and hugged it to her. “The white is going to be a nightmare to keep clean.”
“Nah, nothing a good wash can’t fix!”
