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Bob fights the urge to grimace when his stomach cramps, his fingers almost dropping his guitar pick. His painkillers are wearing off, but he doesn’t want to take more pills with Tor and Odin around in case they start asking questions. He never wants them to find out that he bleeds once a month, in case they react badly. And he has successfully lived as a man ever since he moved to Bright Falls and nobody has ever doubted that fact, so he desperately doesn’t want the Anderson brothers to learn he has periods. If they find out he was born a woman, they might kick him out of the band and ruin the life he has built up for himself here.
So, yeah, he just tries to ignore the cramping pain and the blood soaking into one of the tampons he hates buying (he always pretends they’re for the girlfriend he doesn’t have, but he fears that people might somehow clock they’re for him and beat the shit out of him in the general store) and the constant, twinging ache in his back and the overwhelming fatigue. This is nothing unusual. After all, Bob has dealt with this since he was twelve. So, he should just man up and get through this rehearsal so he can go home and have a warm bath to soothe his aching body.
And so far, it seems that Tor and Odin haven’t noticed that he’s… different to most men. And Bob would prefer to keep things that way.
---
Compared to Odin and Tor, Balder isn’t exactly what Odin would call an energetic person, but he always keeps up with them, be that on stage or when partying. But Odin has noticed something in the three or so months since Bob joined the band: for approximately one week out of each month, his behaviour changes. He is much less tolerant of the Anderson brothers’ antics, gets easily distracted and makes more mistakes when performing, and looks fucking tired all the time.
Sometimes, Odin catches Bob sticking his hand up his shirt and rubbing his back, and he always jumps and explains that he has backache. And whilst recurring back problems are indeed a thing, Odin doubts that it would flare up once a month on the clock. Bob must be lying to them.
So, he becomes convinced that something is wrong with Bob, and he wants to learn the truth. And, if possible, do something to help.
---
When they think back on it later, Odin will try to push the stupid idea on Tor. But they both know he’s the idiot who first brings up the incredibly idiotic theory that Bob might be a werewolf.
“Now, here me out here, bro,” Odin says as Tor howls with laughter, “we both know weird shit happens around here. Like with Tom and Jagger and the fucking lake last year. So, how’s a werewolf any stranger than an entire island vanishing and a guy getting written out of reality?”
“Cos we’ve seen that shit and know it’s true,” Tor says, still laughing. “But werewolves… they’re just horror movie shit, bro. What’ve you been smoking? And can I have some?”
Odin raises his eyebrows. “Well, forgive me for wondering why a dude is fucking pale and exhausted once a month every single month.”
“There’s gotta be a less stupid explanation.”
“Well, are you gonna offer one?” When Tor doesn’t speak, Odin pokes his brother’s shoulder. “Exactly. Now quit laughing at me, asshole, and help me find out if anything weird happens to Bob at night on the full moon.”
Tor sighs heavily. “Why do I put up with you again?”
“Cos we’re brothers, and you looooove me…” Odin says, laughing and ducking out of the way when Tor takes a swing at him.
---
They know where Bob lives, so the tracking him down part is easy. Late one evening after Bob spent all day acting different, Odin and Tor hide in a bush outside Bob’s apartment building, waiting to see if he comes out.
“Even if werewolves were real, which they’re fucking not, why’re you even assuming he’d leave his apartment?” Tor asks, thoroughly unhappy that Odin dragged him into this bullshit.
“Well, he rents this place, right? So, he’s not gonna werewolf out in there and wreck the place. It’d piss off the landlord,” Odin explains.
Tor snorts. “Bro, you really think a werewolf would think about things like that?”
He expects Odin to double down on his stupid theory, but his brother instead looks at him. “Y’know… I didn’t think of that.”
“You didn’t think about a lot of stuff, bro,” Tor says. “Can we just go home now? It’s fucking freezing out here.”
It’s the middle of the night in March, the full moon shining brightly in a cloudless sky. And Tor didn’t expect it to be so chilly.
“Oh, quit moaning. But… lemme try a better idea.”
Before Tor can ask what Odin means, his brother creeps out of the bush toward the building. Oh, now Tor understands. Balder lives on the first floor, so Odin might be able to peek in through the window if his curtains are open.
Well, this can only end badly, Tor thinks, sitting back to watch the carnage.
Sure enough, Odin doesn’t get long to peek through Bob’s window before one of his neighbours, who gets out of her car at the time, asks Odin what the fuck he’s doing. And Odin, like the suave rockstar he is, freaks out and scurries back over to Tor.
“Let’s get out of here, bro!” he says, and he runs off.
Sighing, Tor rushes to catch up with him.
“What did you think would happen if you stared through someone’s window like a creep, bro?” Tor asks in Odin’s head as they jog away from the apartment building.
“I didn’t think anyone would see me,” Odin says indignantly.
“Oh yeah, cos your fashion sense is so good for camouflage,” Tor says, his words steeped in sarcasm.
“Anyway…” Odin says, sighing out loud. “I did see inside through a gap in the curtain. Bob was curled up on the couch under a blanket. He looked tired, but very much like a human.”
“As I expected all along,” Tor mutters. “You’re such a fucking dumbass.”
“Takes one to know one,” Odin says, smirking, and Tor shoves him hard enough to make Odin stumble.
His brother just laughs and pulls Tor into a headlock. Tor just rolls his eyes and lets him do it, ignoring the way people stare at them. Although, to be fair, this is far from the weirdest thing the Anderson brothers have done in public. People around here are used to them being fucking idiots.
---
With their stupid werewolf idea thoroughly debunked (“It wasn’t our fucking idea, bro, it was yours,” Tor points out in his head, which makes Odin roll his eyes), Odin and Tor decide to use a much easier method than stalking their bandmate to find out what is wrong with him: they should use the fucking power they’ve had all their lives that literally allows them to read people’s minds (and communicate with each other and, presumably, anyone else with this power) to find out exactly what the person is thinking—including stuff they try to hide from others.
“Why wasn’t that your first thought, dumbass?” Tor says, nudging Odin with his elbow.
Odin elbows him back. “Well, I didn’t see you volunteering that idea either, dickhead.”
Anyway, they have a new, much more sensible plan. And they just need to wait until the next time Bob’s behaviour changes.
---
So, the following month, when Bob once again starts acting strangely, they try to find the perfect moment to spy on his thoughts. And later that day, in their small but comfortable studio on the grounds of the Anderson Farm, Odin finds a good opportunity to do just that. As Bob, who still looks tired and uncomfortable, fidgets in his seat whilst trying to pretend he isn’t fidgeting, Odin focuses hard on his friend… and lets himself slip into Balder’s mind.
He has been able to do this his entire life, but he will never get over how fucking weird it feels to just… hear another person’s thoughts. And yet, he still does it, allowing himself to hear things that Bob has kept from them. It’s a massive invasion of privacy, but they’ve run out of ideas (and besides, following him home wasn’t exactly respectful of Bob’s privacy, so that ship has sailed).
Fragments of thoughts seem to drift around him, spoken in a flat tone like everyone’s inner voices when he reads their thoughts. And, with the ease of someone who has done this since he was a child, Odin listens in.
“…Need more painkillers. But I need a good excuse to go to the store or those two will get suspicious…”
“…I just want to go home. My chest hurts. My back hurts. Everything fucking hurts…”
“…Wish I could just be honest with them. But… but what if they’re assholes about it…”
“…Fuck, am I leaking?” Across the room, Bob suddenly stands up and looks at his chair, and then seems to relax a little—but he looks fucking embarrassed and smiles awkwardly when he notices Odin staring at him. “No… no I’m not. Shit, stop being so paranoid. Still… better go change it just to be safe…”
And as Bob grabs his bag and hurries out of the room, Odin slips from his mind. Struggling to process what he learned, he turns to his brother, entering Tor’s mind for privacy.
“So, what’s up with him, bro?” Tor asks.
“It’s his… fuck, what did Mom call it? It’s his time of the month,” Odin replies.
“Huh? But… but that’s a thing that happens to women, bro. Balder’s a guy.”
“I fucking know that, dumbass. But he was thinking about bleeding, and having stomach and back pain, and when he just ran off, he was thinking about needing to ‘change it’. Maybe one of those pads or tampons?”
“Still, though… dudes don’t get periods, Odin.”
“I’m only telling you what I heard, bro. Go inside his head yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“I do believe you,” Tor insists. “I just… don’t get it.”
“Me neither,” Odin says. Just like Tor, he thought only women bleed once a month. And yet, they have undeniable proof—the man’s own thoughts—that the same thing happens to Bob. When something comes to mind, he gasps out loud, before adding, “Oh, I remember reading something in the paper once. Could Bob be one of those… what’s the word… transexuals?”
“Like a man who was born a woman?” Tor says. “You thinking about that politician who became a woman?” his brother asks, referencing the very news story that Odin thought of.
“Mhm. Surely people can go the other way round too. So, Bob could’ve been born as a woman. It’s totally a thing.”
“I guess that’d explain the monthly weirdness.”
“Yeah. And getting your period’s much more realistic than being a werewolf,” Odin admits.
“Says the guy who thought up that fucking idea.”
“You’re never gonna let that go, are you?”
“Nope,” Tor says. “Anyway… so, I guess we got our answer. How d’you feel about it, bro?”
“Pretty confused, not gonna lie.”
“Yeah, same.”
“But, at the end of the day… it doesn’t really change anything, y’know?” Odin says. “Like… he’s still a guy. And a fucking amazing guitarist. Just a fucking amazing guitarist who gets periods.”
Tor snorts. “Not quite how I would’ve put it, but… yeah, I get what you mean, bro. He’s still one of the guys.”
Odin smiles. “Yeah.”
They both jump when Bob returns to the studio, even though they’ve been talking in their heads and he doesn’t know that they’re aware of his secret. Bob glances at them, raising an eyebrow.
“Are you guys okay?” he asks.
“Yeah! Sure are, man!” Odin says far too loud, flashing a peace sign.
Tor rolls his eyes, but he adds, “We’re fine, hippie-boy. Now, if you’re done fucking around, do you wanna practise some more?”
Bob’s smile is still weary and a little forced, and a look into his mind confirms that his pain saps most of his enthusiasm, but he masks it well. “Sounds good to me,” he says, picking up his guitar.
And as they launch into another rehearsal, Odin forgets all about Bob’s secret, too busy singing to dwell on the fact that their friend has different plumbing to them. And, again, he doesn’t really feel like that fact changes much. Not when Bob plays guitar so well and fits into the band so perfectly. And a trivial little thing like being born a girl will never change that fact.
---
Even though learning Bob’s secret doesn’t change their view of him, Odin and Tor are still aware that he struggles one week out of every month. And despite not wanting to reveal to Bob that they know his secret, they still want to help him out. It isn’t fair for him to suffer through all that pain and hormonal bullshit and be expected to go on as normal when things are anything but.
So, they begin to wonder what might help someone who is bleeding. And, like the rockstars they are, they turn to the first person who has periods that they know: their mother. Their mother moved away with her new partner after Dad died, so Odin and Tor can’t just show up on her doorstep to bother her—forcing Odin to use the telephone instead. She laughs a lot when Odin phones her and asks for advice to help a friend through their period. Mom assumes he’s talking about a woman, so her advice is full of words like ‘her’, but Odin doesn’t bother to correct her in case it leads to her learning it’s Bob they’re talking about.
Anyway, Mom tells him that hormonal changes and pain can make a person irritable, so they should be kinder and more forgiving of grumpiness from this mystery person. She also points out that having a pack of tampons in the bathroom is useful in case the person runs out—the same with painkillers in the medicine cabinet. And she points out that chocolate makes people feel better when they’re on their period, so offering that is a good idea too. Odin makes a mental note of all this information, and he and Tor immediately head out to do just that.
When Bob comes to the studio tomorrow, they’ll follow Mom’s advice and do everything they can to make him feel better without making it obvious—both because they don’t want him to panic about his secret, but also because it’d be fucking embarrassing to admit they had to run to their mother for help despite being grown men. Yeah, if Balder ever found out about that, he’d never let them live it down.
---
The next day, Bob feels even worse than he did the day before, his mood especially suffering because bleeding reminds him that he’s different and his body parts are wrong because real men don’t bleed, and all the tampon packets mention they’re for women but he isn’t a woman and he hates this. And, of course, the cramps are bothering him even with a dose of painkillers in his system, and his back aches no matter what position he sits or stands in. The pain wears away at his temper, and Bob just knows he doesn’t have the patience for Tor being a grumpy jerk or Odin ‘playing around’ with him today. He almost phoned the Anderson brothers and lied about being sick just to avoid coming in today (and that wouldn’t be too much of a lie, given how he was stuck in the bathroom at dawn with an upset stomach like he often gets when he’s bleeding), but he decided to man up and come in. And he tries to wipe all traces of his pain and frustration from his face as he enters the studio, ready for a day of paranoia and pain and a fraying temper.
But, to his immediate suspicion, he notices something is different about Tor and Odin. Instead of bounding over to say hello at an excruciatingly loud volume and roughhouse with Bob a bit (which usually pisses him off because Odin messes up his hair, but he didn’t bother to style it today), Odin just approaches gently, keeping his distance, and says hi at a normal volume for once. And Tor… he actually fucking smiles at him. When was the last time that happened?
“Are you two high?” Bob asks, because in the few months he’s known them, they’ve never greeted him quite like this.
“Nothing like that, man,” Tor says. “You’re probably just imagining things.”
Bob raises an eyebrow. “Sure.”
And Tor… doesn’t act all grumpy at Bob for being sarcastic. He just brushes it off. Which also never happens.
“Anyway, should we get down to business?” Odin says, grinning.
Bob nods. The sooner they finish rehearsing, the sooner he can go home, after all.
A while later, when they take a break from rehearsals to have some water (well, moonshine, if you’re Tor and Odin) and a rest, Odin once again proves that something weird is going on.
“Hey, d’you want some chocolate, Balder?” he asks, wandering over with a bar of creamy milk chocolate in his hand (the sort of bar that Bob always picks when he goes shopping for chocolate).
Bob stares at him. “Huh?”
“Want some chocolate?” Odin says again, holding it closer to Bob as though he simply didn’t see it the first time. “We bought some yesterday and, well, neither of us have fancied any yet, have we, bro? So… do you want some? Or all of it?” Odin chuckles awkwardly, stuttering a little as he adds, “I-If you want?”
At first, Bob wonders if he’s dreaming, but the constant pain proves that theory wrong. And then something else occurs to him and his aching stomach drops.
Do Tor and Odin know? Out of nowhere, Odin is giving him space, Tor isn’t being snappy, and suddenly Odin’s offering him chocolate that Bob can tell they bought for him specifically and Odin is just lying having bought it for them. What the hell is going on? How could they possibly know? He came out long before he moved to Washington state, and nobody here knows about his old life. Everyone knows him as Bob Balder, a man. And yet… the Anderson brothers seem aware that he has periods, which most men absolutely don’t get.
And that’s the thing. Even if they do know… they’re being nice about it. Treating him carefully, like they know he’s grumpier when the pain hits, and giving him chocolate as though they know it makes him feel a bit better. He doesn’t know how the fuck they could know, but… they seem okay with it. And they seem like they want to help him.
His anxiety starting to fade, Bob looks up at Odin. And then, slowly, he takes the bar of chocolate from his friend’s hand. “Um… thanks, Odin.”
“No prob, man,” Odin says, beaming at him.
Bob smiles back.
---
When he goes to the bathroom in the farmhouse a while later, Bob gets confirmation that they know his secret. Because he finds a box of tampons and a bottle of painkillers on the counter, and when he takes the tampons into the living room and asks what they’re doing there, Odin just grins and says, “They’re just in case anyone who comes here needs ‘em.” And Bob can tell exactly who Odin refers to, which makes his chest feel all tight (well, tighter than it already was thanks to the many layers he uses to bind it flat).
And because his stupid emotions are unstable thanks to his period, Bob feels a humiliating urge to cry. So, he hurries back to the bathroom in time to have a little cry (men don’t cry, his mind tells him, but that doesn’t stop him sobbing) because, holy shit, the Anderson brothers somehow know but they’re… supporting him. They’re not disgusted. They aren’t asking him personal questions. They’re not kicking him out of the band. They’re just… okay with him being the way he is. He never, ever thought that would happen. And such acceptance makes Bob cry harder, hoping nobody can hear him.
(And even if they do hear him cry, the Anderson brothers don’t mention it when he emerges with red eyes and blotchy cheeks. They just playfully tell him to get his ass back to the studio for more rehearsals.)
---
So, yeah, Bob still doesn’t understand how Tor and Odin know about his periods, but as time goes by and they continue to treat him like normal, except for being a bit gentler with him and offering him chocolate when he’s bleeding, he relaxes further and accepts the special treatment once a month without question.
And it’s just as well he does, because they’re back to annoying the fuck out of him once Bob is back to normal. But he doesn’t mind. For all they frustrate him, Tor and Odin are great friends and even greater musicians, and Bob loves spending time with them. Especially now he knows they accept him for who he is.