literature

Head Down, Back Straight (FrancexReader)

Deviation Actions

vengefulamber's avatar
Published:
594 Views

Literature Text

Head Down, Back Straight
FrancexReader

Keep your head low. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t stray from the norm.

Alarm bells rang in your head as you stepped out of your car and you heard the click of your heel on the ground.

No one’s looking. No one’s looking. Just breath.

Keep your head down!

You’ve dug your own grave with this one, haven’t you?

Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God!

You swallowed your nerves and steeled yourself for the harassment you’d undoubtedly get. There’s no way you can just walk on campus like this and not get weird looks.

“Is he wearing a-”

Oh no!

“Is that a-”

Thankfully, someone came to the rescue, pushing the nervous thoughts from the front of your mind. He wound a lean arm around your waist, pulling you in close and grinning at you. “Good morning, my lovely (F/n),” he greeted as you felt your racing thoughts come to a slow stop until it was just him, “You look very nice this morning.”

You licked your lips. “Thanks, I feel like a fool.”

Francis’s brows turned up and his face twisted in confusion. “Why would you say that, mon chéri?”

You turned your head back down and tightened your grip on your bookbag, slipping from his light hold over your hips. He didn’t expect you to give an answer, he already knew what you would say. You were a boy in a skirt, of course people were going to notice and say things and you weren’t going to enjoy the attention. But you should’ve. He wasn’t lying when he said you looked nice. No doubt you were turning heads just because you looked so beautiful, and not because of what gender roles had to say.

“I thought this would be a good idea,” you muttered lowly, and Francis heard, his chin tilting forward in an attempt to nudge his way closer to you. “I’m doing a speech on internalized misogyny, and I-” your voice faltered.

He clapped his hand over your shoulder. “I think it’s a great idea,” he told you, voice soothing. Your smile was small, but at least it was there.

You were supposed to deliver the speech after school, but you felt there was no need to only wear the skirt then. You wore skirts and dresses at home, and you liked how they looked on you. It wasn’t that you were a girl, or even non-binary, you just liked skirts and felt that they shouldn’t be a purely “feminine” thing. But, as the day progressed, you began to feel more and more conscious of the looks you were getting throughout the day. A few people cheered you on, mostly those who were part of the on-campus LGBT+ club and other girls who were more vocal about their support of “smash the patriarchy”.

The boys were less than accepting, but somehow Francis kept them away from you. (Probably with the help of Gilbert and Antonio, they were never far from him.) Everything was going as smoothly as you could have expected, until lunch.

Your fourth period was nearly across the school from his, but he had walked you there anyways. He was slower coming back, though, and you were forced from your classroom by a teacher who needed to get home for lunch. Outside of the safety of a faculty member’s eyes, you shivered and pulled at your skirt. The long pleats fell to your knees, but you still felt uncomfortably bare as people leered at you from across the hall. Tugging down the sleeves of your sweat so that they fell to your wrists, you crossed your arms and stood as tall as you could. You couldn’t pass as a flat chested girl, you knew that, everyone recognized you as a boy, but it was fine. You were fine.

There’s no need to keep your head down if you’re trying to move forward.

And there’s not need to pretend you’re standing still when someone’s tugging you forward at full speed.

A hand touched your shoulder and you flinched, but it was only Francis. He grinned at you. “My apologies, (F/n), I didn’t realize I had such an effect on you.”

Rolling your eyes, you smiled back. “I thought you of all people would know how I feel about you, oh man of love,” you teased.

Francis’s cheeks grew warm, but his smile didn’t falter in the slightest. He just draped his arm over your shoulders again and began guiding you forward to where you’d be eating lunch. You had to lean down a little for his arm to reach over you, but you kept your back straight as the two of you walked through the school, you in your skirt and him with braids twisted into his hair by the girl who sits behind him in class.

Looking like a couple of cross dressers.

He would’ve argued you were the most attractive men on campus, and you found yourself inclined to agree as you straightened the pleats of your skirt.

Male!Reader
Did you know that until the 19th Century (if I remember correctly), boys wore skirts? The world would be a better place if they still did.
© 2015 - 2024 vengefulamber
Comments5
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
agatstone's avatar
I really loved how unique and interesting at the same this was.