Chapter Text
Wilson Schnee had to admit he’d been having a hard time as of late.
His first semester at Beacon had been nothing like what he’d expected. First he was partnered with a child then said child was made team leader and got the team named after herself (the audacity). Then he found out one of his teammates was a secret faunus and former terrorist. Finally, to finish off the painful semester, he got possessed by an obscure type of grimm and had his dreams invaded by his team.
Ruby being the leader he had learned to accept. He was well aware of his own problems, and after seeing his partner in action he had begun to appreciate Ruby’s abilities. Though she still needed tutoring in nearly every academic subject, his partner had a knack for strategy and the kind of attitude a leader should.
It hurt, but he accepted that it just wasn’t meant to be. Maybe in a different life, but certainly not one where he was so distracted with pointless dreams.
Blake being a former terrorist was a harder pill to swallow, and he still felt somewhat conflicted about that matter. He had seen family friends come to one gala then disappear before another. He had been raised to see the White Fang as a boogeyman and part of him still did. The only solace he was able to take in regards to his faunus teammate was that Blake disavowed the violent arm of the White Fang strongly and swore she never participated in any killing.
In the end, after a private talk with Blake, he could begin to see the White Fang’s point. He still disagreed with their current methods, but Wilson could understand what it was like to want something so badly you’d do anything for it, even if his common sense stopped him from taking any drastic action. Some dreams just aren’t meant to be.
The real source of his troubles from his short time at Beacon had been the nightmare. That damn grimm had possessed him and decided to embarrass the hell out of him. His teammates (and Jaune for some unfortunate reason) had gone into his dream and seen things that made him want to gouge his ears out once he’d heard them. Worst of all, Jaune was incapable of keeping secrets and had spilled the details to the rest of JNPR, who now looked at Wilson strangely as well.
He could almost get past the embarrassment of how his teammates and fellow students were depicted in his dream, but his own self-image was what hurt the most. It was enough to make him consider transferring to Atlas, but he knew damage control was important before fleeing potentially tabloid worthy blackmail.
“Who’s Weiss?” Ruby’s question had been innocent enough, but it had sent a bolt of fear through Wilson.
It wasn’t a name he’d said to anyone. His silly notions of wanting to be someone else had been dispelled at a young age by his father’s stern hand, a year of corrective therapy, and the constant reminder of who he was in nearly every sentence Jacques said to him.
“Boy.” Seemed to be Jacques Schnee’s favorite word to say to his eldest son ever since Wilson had made the mistake of expressing interest in being anything but. He said the word with such conviction and anger that he nearly growled it with how it built in his throat.
Though he’d never admit it, Wilson found the reminders excessive and ashamedly quite painful.
Dismissal hadn’t been enough for his team when he tried to dodge his partner’s question. They had clearly already made up their minds, but they just kept embarrassing him as they pointed out every similarity between him and the idea named Weiss. It felt like he was having his teeth pulled while his torturers kept insisting they were acting out of altruism.
“She used your sword,” Ruby pointed out, to which Wilson lied that it was a family heirloom.
“She was the middle child of your family too,” Blake pointed out, the most knowledgeable about how the Schnee family worked. Wilson deflected by pointing out that Whitley was a bat and nothing in the dream world made sense.
“She called us her team,” Yang said, easily the most empathetic and gentle of the trio. Wilson didn’t have a response after the exhausting array of questions, so he just barged out of the room in mortification that his team knew.
They knew what he was.
At the very least, it seemed they were content to keep it to themselves, but Jaune was apparently too much of a dunce to keep a very private and embarrassing secret to himself.
Wilson could tell JNPR knew because they started to look at him the same way his team had for the past few weeks. They looked like they were watching a drowning dog, but were helpless to do anything about it. Their expressions were nothing but pity.
Pity he didn’t want or deserve.
He knew he was sick, that much his therapist had impressed upon him, but he hated the constant reminder that he was deviant. Ruby constantly hovered nearby to make sure he was eating enough and frequently assured him that she supported him as a “partner, leader, and friend, no matter what”. Blake remained mostly passive, but had let up on criticism and once made an offer to talk over tea, which he promptly turned down. Yang had stopped making jokes about him entirely, even retiring the “Ice King'' nickname in favor of just calling him “Schnee” most of the time. Jaune looked at Wilson like he’d grown a second head, which seemed to be the only sensible reaction anyone in their small group of associates had. Pyrrha had begun making efforts to include him in more activities, even going so far as to make the biweekly RBYPN Girls’ Night a general night where anyone was invited, but especially Wilson.
Ren and Nora had by far the most troubling reactions of everyone. Ren actually started talking to Wilson (Ren barely did that at all!), offering to teach him meditation and going out of the way to avoid gendering Wilson or saying his name at all. It was usually subtle, but there were times where it was so glaringly obvious as to be awkward.
Nora just looked sad a lot of the time. She would start out a group conversation her usual energetic self, but as time passed, she would steal increasingly frequent glances at Wilson and get quieter. On the few occasions she was present when Wilson would get upset at the others’ behavior, she would look strangely hurt until she or Wilson left.
It made enough sense to Wilson. Nora probably didn’t want to be around someone with his particular sickness, and he didn’t blame her. Wilson’s therapist had made it clear that people would react negatively to such desires, so it didn’t hurt to be looked at like a sick freak.
He knew what he was.
What confused him more was why everyone else was reacting the way they did. Was degeneracy really so common outside of Atlas that it was fostered instead of treated? Had he not been to therapy, he might have appreciated the support. There were times where it was so hard to not give in, but he knew better. What was he going to do if he did give in like they wanted? Put on a dress, get a wig, and start prancing around with a ridiculous name? He’d look absurd! It’d practically be inviting the mockery of everyone around him.
He’d seen it before. May Marigold had transitioned shortly after Wilson had attempted to come out to his father, and she was mocked up and down in Atlas’s upper crust. Wilson had heard a million horrible things about someone like him, but he had to admit he didn’t quite understand.
May looked good. A simple fact that almost undid the hard work of Wilson’s therapist. He had seen pictures of May Marigold a few years after she had come out and he was floored. It just shouldn’t have been possible, It didn’t make sense. Nobody like him could look so normal. Nobody so sick could blend in with a crowd of people who were mentally well. They would stand out like a sore thumb, even if they managed to do their makeup well enough to hide their unwanted features.
Or so he thought…
___________________
Wilson Schnee sat alone as he watched the rest of his team and most of JNPR engaged in some board game in the library. While he used the free period to study, his fellow students had for some reason decided to play games instead. He normally wouldn’t have minded if they weren’t being so loud in a library. At least Ren seemed to agree, the boy occasionally shaking his head in disapproval.
Wilson thought about saying something, but he had been stilled at the possibility of talking to the others all at once.
He’d been getting worse. Every day the thoughts came back harder than the last until they pervaded his mind every second it wasn’t occupied with something important. He felt so fragile that his composure could break with the right push… and that scared him. The nightmare had ripped open an old, festering wound that now spread through his soul with a violent force. The last time it had been this bad, he had confessed his feelings to his father.
He shuddered at the memory of his father just laughing in response, like it was all a joke. The shudder became a painful jolt when he remembered how quiet his father had gotten after laughing. He might have only been twelve, but he’d never been so scared since.
Jacques Schnee could be such an angry man when he needed to be.
Stop living in the past, Wilson told himself as he forced his attention to his Dust Theory textbook. He once again read the passage about anabolic reactions, trying to absorb the information this time. You don’t want to go back to therapy, do you?
He cursed himself as he once again lost focus because of his inane fear of things which were long past. Therapy had been rough, but it was perfectly fair. Patients like him were deeply flawed, so they required a rougher touch than someone with a run of the mill illness. The worst of it was reserved for those who’d unlocked their auras, like him. He’d unlocked his aura during that fateful meeting with his father, and they used it like a weapon against him. Aura Deprivation Therapy involved using fast-acting aura suppressing drugs to keep the aura low, which created a painful feeling of emptiness in the patient. It was used in extreme cases to punish bad thoughts with the threat of prolonged pain that wouldn’t leave a mark.
Stop! Wilson chided himself as he caught the shiver in his spine. Get a hold of yourself! You’re not a child who needs fixing, you’ve been cured!
So why didn’t it feel like it?
Why was he so scared to get dragged back to that damn hospital? It didn’t even exist anymore after a few too many scandals in regards to the health of patients, so why did it feel like it was always around the corner? Why was he scared to wake up back there again?
He gave up his attempt to read the book and hid his face in his hands to hide the tears he felt trying to spill through, because he felt like crying. Like a child. All these years, all the training and pain, and he was still crying like a spoiled child because the world hadn’t catered itself to him at birth. He had been born into immense wealth and privilege, but that wasn’t enough for the rotten brat that was Wilson Schnee.
My name is Wilson Schnee. I’m a seventeen year old male and my father’s eldest son. I was born this way and nothing can change that, he mentally recited one of his old exercises. He’d had to write a similar phrase a hundred times a day during therapy.
An image of Winter flashed in his mind, mocking him for what he could have been if a coin flip had landed the other way. Schnee genes were strong, so he had to see what he could have looked like if the world were kinder. Winter was everything he wanted to be, in all of the worst ways.
My name is Wilson Schnee. I’m a seventeen year old male and my father’s eldest son. I was born this way and nothing can change that.
May Marigold popped up in his mind, the woman taunting the destruction of every truth he’d been told about people like him. She wasn’t supposed to look so good, so why did she? Could he look that good if he just took a chance?
My name is Wilson Schnee. I’m a seventeen year old male and my father’s eldest son. I was born this way and I don’t want to change that.
“Hey,” a soft voice broke through the repetition. “Is this seat taken?”
Wilson looked up to find Nora standing awkwardly across the table from him. She looked uncomfortable, but was trying to come off as natural as possible. She looked so different than she normally did, lacking the enthusiastic energy she was supposed to have.
To avoid giving away his feelings with his voice, Wilson just nodded in response. He wasn’t sure why Nora had shown up, but he got the feeling the girl wouldn’t just go away. It was better to entertain the intrusion than to come across as rude to someone he rightfully made uncomfortable.
“You doing okay?” Nora asked gently.
“I’m excellent,” Wilson said sardonically, returning to his book to show his lack of interest.
Nora didn’t respond to the flippant dismal of conversation, instead falling silent herself as she screwed her face up in exaggerated thought. She tapped the wooden table nervously as she released waves of nervous energy so infectious it made Wilson nervous.
“Do you have any reason to be here, or are you just trying to distract me from my studies?” Wilson asked, hoping it would be enough to push the girl across from him away. “In case you’ve forgotten, we have a test coming up and I’d like to be properly prepared.”
“I wanted to talk,” Nora said, her voice still being that same gentle and understanding tone Wilson hated.
“I can’t think of something I’d rather do less in a library,” Wilson snarked back.
“If you listen to me, everyone else will go back to normal,” Nora offered, catching the boy’s attention. “All you have to do is hear me out.”
Distantly, Wilson became aware that the sound of the other students’ game had stopped, likely finding entertainment in his current situation. He wanted to reject the proposal outright, but it seemed too good to pass up. Regardless, he couldn’t just accept it, lest he came across as desperate.
“And what makes you think I want to be blackmailed?” he asked, adopting a tone that sounded a bit too much like his father. For some reason, that really hurt him. “I would rather we leave all of this nonsense behind us without some attempt at discussing our feelings.”
“Just hear me out,” Nora said, losing a little bit of her softness. “I know this is hard, but–”
“You know this is hard?” Wilson echoed incredulously, making it obvious just how stupid and meaningless the attempt at sympathy was. “You can’t possibly imagine how embarrassing it is to have people making such… scandalous and ridiculous assumptions made about you.”
Nobody had outright said what they thought he was, but it was beyond obvious with how unsubtle they were being. If he were being honest, he’d rather they just called him a slur and left him alone than continuing to entertain the ridiculous notion that what he was was okay.
“I do understand,” Nora assured the boy. “Ren and I have been together for as long as I ca–”
“Going off on some pointless tangent is not exactly making me want to listen,” Wilson said harshly, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes. “I don’t know why you’d want to talk to me if you’re just going to waste my time.”
“I know you don’t want to listen, which is why I told you everyone agreed to go back to normal if you did,” Nora said, her annoyance shining through more clearly with her chiding tone. “This all has a point, but I can go back and tell them you weren’t interested if you’d rather do this the hard way.”
Wilson huffed and motioned for the girl to continue, just wanting to be done with the patronizing display.
“Ren and I have been together for as long as I can remember,” Nora resumed where she’d been interrupted, returning to her softer tone. “Through orphanage after orphanage and then being on our own, he’s always been there for me. He’s an amazing listener and always knows just what to say. He’s… special to me.” She looked down at the table with a wistful smile before faltering when she returned her attention to the boy across from her. “I’ve always trusted Ren with everything, but I was still really scared to come out to him.”
Wilson paused, almost making an absurd assumption before his mind course corrected to something more logical. “You’re gay?”
Homosexuality had never been looked down upon in Atlas as much as other forms of deviancy. Jacques had hardly even reacted to Winter bringing home a girl one time. It wasn’t common or the kind of thing you talked about in the open, but most didn’t outright hate it in the way Atlas did before the Great War.
“Pan, but that’s beside the point,” Nora flashed a nervous smile as she prepared to shatter Wilson’s world. “You want to be a girl right? That’s why you were one in your dream?”
“A childhood fantasy, nothing more,” Wilson blushed profusely at being called out so directly. The girl’s soft tone did nothing to dispel the way it made his insides twist at being recognized for what he was. “I simply lacked any positive male role models when I was growing up. It’s been corrected.”
Nora gave an interesting look at Wilson’s offhand mention of correction before settling herself once again. “I wanted to be a girl too, for as long as I can remember,” she said as though it wasn’t shameful to admit what she was. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be who you are.”
Wilson's mind froze for a few seconds, his rebuttal dying in his throat as he processed what Nora had said. Once awareness returned to him, he searched for any explanation beyond the obvious. In the end, he elected to ignore it. He'd heard it wrong or misunderstood it. He had to have. “As I’ve said, I dismissed those dreams a long time ago. This flare up is nothing more than unfortunate circumstances,” Wilson felt like the world was coming down around him as he rushed the sentence out. May had been one thing, but he’d only seen pictures. Nora had been in the same school as him for months and he had no idea. She looked, sounded, and (sort of) acted right. It shouldn’t have been possible! “I’ve already been helped. I know who I am.”
“Helped?” Nora asked with a hesitant voice.
“I went to therapy for a year to correct my… issues,” he explained in a disgusted tone as a chill shot up his spine. “I worked for a while, but I’m relapsing now.”
“You got sent to conversion therapy?” Nora asked in a sickened tone that made Wilson's skin crawl.
“Behavioral Corrective Therapy,” Wilson corrected, though he knew there was no difference. “My father sent me to the best hospital in Atlas for a year. I would stay for weeks at a time, only coming home to keep up appearances.” He couldn’t hide the fear in his voice as he talked about his time there. Old memories resurfaced that he just wanted to forget. He thought a year of pain would be worth the cure, but it hadn’t even worked. He was just too broken.
“How old were you?” Nora asked with morbid curiosity, sounding like she didn’t want to hear the answer.
“Twelve,” Wilson said with casual dismal that. For some reason, the confirmation bubbled like shame in his gut. "I was only twelve."
The pained sound Nora made sounded somewhere between a kicked dog and mourning friend. It was shocking and sudden enough that the remnants of conversation from the board game behind her had stopped. It also opened something inside Wilson that split him apart like a floodgate.
He slumped forward in his chair as the fight left his body. Nora was like him, May was like him, and both of them were fine. What was he even fighting against anymore? Why had he even gone to therapy if it wasn't going to work? Was it inevitable that he would give in, that the disgust he felt toward every part of himself would drive him to make such a drastic decision? Even if he did, what would he have left? Could anybody love Weiss Schnee, however she was?
“I’m sorry,” Wilson whined, failing to contain the tears that betrayed him. “I don’t want to be like this. I just… it’s all I can think about after the nightmare. I don’t want to be me, but I know that’s all I can be.”
Nora reached across the table and grabbed one of the boy’s hands loosely. She gave a reassuring squeeze and spoke in a strained voice, “There’s nothing wrong with you, I promise. I know how hard it is and how scary it must be, and I can’t imagine what they did to you in the hospital.” She spat out the final word with the kind of hatred she usually reserved for Cardin. “You don’t have to do anything now or ever if you don’t want to, but I and everyone else supports you, even if they’re a little too forceful in showing it. I know it’s hard to admit. I was scared to tell Ren because despite everything I still thought there was a chance he would hate me.” The way her voice shook betrayed her lingering fear. “It’s awful that you got outed by some grimm to a bunch of people you’ve only known for a few months, but every one of us supports you.”
Wilson leaned in closer so he could whisper to the girl across from him to avoid the prying eyes and ears of his fellow students. “I don’t know what to do.” He held on Nora’s hand a little tighter, scared of what would happen if he let go.
“I can help if you want,” Nora offered gently, matching the boy’s whispering tone. “I’ve been doing this for a long time.” She looked Wilson in the eyes with more caring than the boy could remember seeing from anyone in a long time. “I only want to help as much as you’ll let me.”
“What if I don’t do it right?” Wilson asked, shutting his eyes. “I don’t want to look wrong.” What a horrible thing that would be, to give up so much only to end up losing everything. At least if he turned out okay he could start a new life.
“You’ll look great, you’ve already got a good twink body,” Nora assured the boy with the slightest bit of humor in her tone. “It’ll be tough, but you’ll get through it. You’re probably the most stubborn person I know.”
“I’m not that stubborn,” Wilson defended himself as he found his posture a little more and sat up. “You should meet my father. Talking to him is like talking to a brick wall.”
“If I ever meet your dad I’m gonna break his legs,” Nora said with a restrained anger. “We’ll see how he likes spending a year in a hospital.”
“Remind me to keep you out of Atlas,” the boy remarked with a straightforward tone. “For your sake.” He looked past Nora’s shoulder and was surprised to see the library was empty rather than filled with voyeurs.
Perhaps the others had finally learned how to give someone privacy.
“Feeling better?” Nora asked, standing up but not pulling back the hand she had offered.
“Somewhat,” Wilson admitted cautiously, feeling doubt creep back in now that his emotions had settled. “I still have some… concerns.”
The biggest of them all was his place as heir if he did anything drastic. If word of even just the nightmare had gotten back to his father, Wilson would likely be disinherited by the end of the semester. Could he really throw away the opportunity to run the SDC for the dream he thought he’d given up? What would Winter think?
“That’s normal,” Nora assured the boy, quickly regaining her usual energy. “If it wasn’t for Ren, I’m not sure I could have taken the first few steps. Especially in Anima of all places.” She made an overly exaggerated sour face at the continent. “Vale is sooo much better for girls like us. In Anima we had to buy hormones from sketchy drug dealers, but here the drug dealers are much less sketchy.”
Wilson’s heart fluttered at the casual mention of being grouped in with Nora as a girl, even if it still felt a little strange. He hadn't quite earned the title yet, but that could come later. “Drugs?” he asked, confused why a drug deal was necessary for whatever Nora had planned. “Why do we need drugs?”
“You really are clueless, aren’t you?” Nora teased her fellow student, with a hint of sympathy in her voice. “I’ll explain it all to you later, but for now you just have to know that transitioning can involve medicine. It doesn’t have to, but you seem like the type to dive in headfirst. After you think about it, of course.”
“And procuring this medication involves illicit drug deals?” Wilson asked incredulously, imagining a million ways a drug deal could go wrong. He could be kidnapped or worse…
“Nah, that was mostly for dramatic effect.” Nora shrugged. “They have informed consent here, and you can pay in cash so your dad doesn’t find out.”
“I’ll assume that term will make sense to me soon?” Wilson admittedly felt a little dull for being so lost, but none of this had been mentioned to him in therapy. It all felt so new and strangely hopeful.
“Yup, with Nora as your guide nothing will ever go wrong,” the girl in question declared confidently, slapping her hand on Wilson’s back. “I’ve got a doctor we can trust, a Ren we can cry on, and enough coffee to go to another dimension when the hormones start kicking your ass.”
Wilson just nodded along, unsure how much of what Nora was saying was a joke and how much was earnest. Regardless, it all made him feel better. Her carefree attitude toward the whole affair felt much less condescending than the others and the fact that she knew what he was going through helped to build just enough trust for him to take an insane leap of faith.
The ringing of a bell announced the end of the free period and jolted both of the students back to the reality of school.
“Are you okay to go to classes?” Nora asked with an understanding tone. “If you need some time to think, I can pull your arm out of its socket and get you a day of rest.”
The offer was so casual and genuine it was almost disturbing.
“I think I’ll be okay. Dust Studies is mostly review for me anyways,” Wilson assured the girl, careful to keep his arms out of Nora range.
“If you’re sure,” Nora accepted the decline with an exaggerated shrug and began gathering her things. “I’ve been using Jaune for practice, so I’m pretty sure I could get it right.”
Wilson just nodded absentmindedly as he came to the realization that he now had to face his team. Logically, he knew they would be supportive, but he worried nonetheless. He knew if he wanted to go down this road it would lead to everyone finding out eventually, but the first few steps felt immensely daunting as he faced them.
“Nora,” he quietly called out the girl before the pair began to leave the library. “Do you… really think this can work, that I’ll be good enough?”
“You’re one of the least masculine people I know,” Nora somehow made the seeming insult into a perfect compliment. “You look like the wind could break you if it blew the wrong way. On top of that, you're determined. You’re gonna be fine.”
“That was… oddly nice to hear,” Wilson admitted with unsure acceptance.
“Stick with me and that kind of affirmation is going to come like Jaune to the infirmary on Tuesday nights,” the girl slung one arm around her fellow student and gave a devious smirk.
“That’s what that screaming is,” Wilson suddenly realized why it sounded like someone was being assaulted in JNPR’s dorm every Tuesday night at exactly 6:23.
“Yup!” Nora proclaimed with a satisfied smile.
After a beat of the pair standing there with Nora’s arm around Wilson’s shoulder, the girl turned to her fellow student with familiar soft eyes. “You know we have to hug now, right?” She said it with just enough playfulness to not make it weird. “We both just bore our souls to each other. It’s only right.”
“I suppose that would be acceptable,” Wilson decided to allow the hug, if only because it seemed Nora needed it for some sense of closure. “Just don’t do anything suspicious with my arms.”
He wasn’t sure what exactly to do as hugs didn’t run in his family, so Wilson stood still as he allowed Nora to take the lead with the hug. It felt strange, but also nice. There was an odd warmth to the hug beyond the physical that made him return it on instinct.
“Did you have a name picked out?” Nora whispered into her fellow student’s ear in a tone that was hard to resist.
Wilson sat with it for a moment, paralyzed with fear before he realized that Nora had probably already been told by Jaune weeks ago. She was just giving him the courtesy of coming out on his own terms. At the very least, the practice was nice.
She needed to get this right if Winter was going to accept her as a sister instead of a brother.
“Weiss,” the newly out girl said with a reluctant breath that would break at even a hint of disapproval.
“That’s a beautiful name,” Nora said as she pulled away from the hug with a wide smile, “and just prissy enough to fit.”
“Thank you,” Weiss said, matching the smile on the other girl’s face.
Maybe, just this once, it wouldn't be so bad to dream.