Archive of Our Own

Pip had been standing in front of the bathroom mirror for almost twenty minutes.

Not doing anything dramatic.

Not crying. But tears could be on standby if the wrong thing hits at the wrong time.

Just… standing there with their arms folded tightly over their chest like they were trying to hold themselves together with pressure alone.

The bathroom light buzzed faintly overhead.

Their binder felt wrong today.

Not really physically wrong, but they know Jay would have clocked that immediately and confiscated it with Doctor Authority™. It just felt visible. Like every seam and curve had suddenly been outlined in fluorescent marker only Pip could see.

They tugged the oversized black jumper again.

Still wrong.

Their makeup bag sat untouched by the sink. Usually Pip loved drag. Loved the ritual of it. The sharp jaw contouring. The ridiculous sideburns. The theatrical masculinity of it all. Some nights they could build themselves from eyeliner and confidence like a cathedral made of glitter and spite.

Today even the thought of looking at their own face felt exhausting.

A knock sounded softly against the bathroom door.

“Pip?” Tom’s voice. Careful. Deep enough to rattle through the wood gently. “You okay in there, sweetheart?”

A pause.

“Fine.”

Tom waited exactly three seconds.

“That sounded fake as hell.”

Despite everything, Pip snorted quietly.

The door opened a crack after they unlocked it.

Tom stepped in sideways, absurdly tall, ducking instinctively despite the doorway being plenty high enough. His hair was still damp from a shower and he smelled faintly of an oak soap and English Breakfast tea.

His eyes landed on Pip immediately. Not scanning. Not evaluating.

Just seeing. “Oh, honey.”

That nearly broke them.

Pip looked away fast. “Don’t.”

Tom moved closer carefully, like approaching a nervous cat that might bolt.

“Bad brain day?”

Pip shrugged. Then shrugged again harder, shoulders pulling up near their ears. “I look wrong.”

Tom leaned against the sink beside them. “You wanna tell me specifically wrong or just cosmic wrong?”

“Both.”

“Mm. The deluxe package.”

Another tiny snort escaped Pip unwillingly. Tom reached out slowly, giving them enough time to pull away if they wanted. When Pip didn’t, he rested a warm hand against the back of their neck.

“You know what I see?”

“A disaster?”

“I was gonna say my extremely hot spouse, but sure, we can workshop your version.” Pip groaned softly and covered their face.

“I’m serious,” Tom said. “You don’t have to perform gender correctly to deserve comfort.”

That sentence lodged itself somewhere painful in Pip’s chest. Because that was the thing, wasn’t it?

Usually they could play with gender. Twist it around their fingers like ribbon. Some days masculine, some days feminine, some days both, some days neither. Usually it felt expansive. Fun. Like art.

But dysphoria days shrank the world down to a locked room with bad lighting.

A text notification buzzed from Pip’s phone on the counter.

AJ:

sam says ur having a Bad Vibes Day

im outside with emergency chips

Another buzz.

Luke:

AJ stole my chips for “emotional support.”

I want that documented.

Then another.

Sam:

I made brownies. Jay says this can count as medical intervention.

Pip laughed despite themselves, shoulders finally loosening an inch. Tom smiled immediately at the sound like he’d been waiting for it.

“There they are.”

“I still feel awful.”

“I know.” Tom squeezed their shoulder gently. “You don’t have to magically stop feeling awful for us to sit with you in it.”

By the time Pip came down the hall wrapped in one of Tom’s jumpers, the kitchen looked like a support group assembled by opossums.

AJ was leaning against the counter eating chips directly from the air fryer basket.

Luke sat curled in a chair wearing Sam’s jumper again, knees tucked to his chest while nursing a mug of tea.

Sam was cutting brownies with the seriousness of a surgeon.

And Jay, still in scrubs from work, glanced up immediately the second Pip entered.

Not clinically. But protectively.

“There’s my patient,” she said softly.

“I’m not sick.”

Jay pointed toward AJ. “Neither is he, but unfortunately we’re still stuck with him.”

“Rude,” AJ said through a mouthful of chips.

Pip hovered awkwardly near the doorway.

That horrible self-conscious feeling still clung to them. Sticky as cobwebs and honey.

Luke looked up first.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he said quietly. “But you can sit here and feel weird with us.”

Pip blinked. “With us?”

Luke gestured vaguely at himself. “My brain tells me I look built like a haunted breadstick half the time. We ride together.”

AJ pointed a chip at him. “You literally do not.”

“And yet,” Luke said solemnly, sipping tea, “the haunted breadstick persists.”

That earned another reluctant laugh from Pip. Jay moved over slightly at the table, making space without forcing it.

“Bad dysphoria days can distort perception,” she said gently. “Not fake perception. Just… cruelly magnified perception.”

Pip sat down slowly. Tom immediately draped an arm across the back of their chair.

Grounding. Present. Solid.

Pip stared down at the table. “I hate when it feels like I’m failing at being nonbinary.”

The kitchen went quiet. Then Sam said, very matter-of-factly:

“Pretty sure there are no entrance exams.”

AJ nodded. “Yeah, I checked. No scantron.”

Luke added, “No one’s standing outside gender with a clipboard.”

Jay smiled into her coffee. Tom leaned down, pressing a kiss gently into Pip’s hair.

“You don’t owe androgyny to anybody,” he murmured. “You don’t owe masculinity either. You’re Pip on your best days and your worst ones.”

Pip’s eyes burned suddenly. Not because the dysphoria vanished.

It didn’t. But because, for the first time all day, they no longer felt alone inside it.

Pip looked toward the air fryer basket sitting beside AJ.

Empty.

Completely empty.

They narrowed their eyes immediately. “Did you eat all the chips?”

AJ suddenly became deeply interested in the ceiling.

“…I think I saw tater tots in the freezer.”

“AJ.”

“I’m just saying,” he continued carefully, “the potato category is expansive and full of opportunities.”

Luke pointed lazily from his spot at the table. “He absolutely ate all the chips.”

“There were emotional circumstances,” AJ defended.

“You ate my portion during your emotional circumstances,” Luke replied.

AJ placed a hand against his chest. “In my defense, I’m large.”

“That is not a legal defense.”

Tom, who had wandered toward the freezer already, suddenly looked up in horror, “Wait.”

Everyone paused.

Tom slowly held up a half-full bag of frozen tater tots like a medieval knight discovering a wounded comrade, “Those are mine.”

Sam didn’t even look up from cutting brownies. “Tom, you can share the tater tots. It’s not the end of the world.”

Tom clutched the bag protectively against his chest. “You don’t understand. Those are emergency tots.”

AJ looked deeply offended. “And this isn’t a potato emergency?”

“It’s not a tater-tot-level emergency.”

Pip laughed before they could stop themselves.

A real laugh this time. Sharp and surprised.

The room immediately brightened around it.

“There they are,” Sam said softly.

Tom sighed dramatically like a man making a noble sacrifice for the greater good. “Fine. But if any of you touch the dinosaur-shaped nuggets, I become a supervillain.”

“Noted,” Jay said.

Pip smiled faintly into the sleeve of Tom’s jumper, but the uncomfortable tightness across their chest still lingered underneath the momentary warmth.

Jay noticed immediately. Of course she did.

“You,” she said gently, nodding toward the hallway. “Bathroom. C’mon.”

Pip blinked. “What?”

“That binder is sitting weird and it’s making you miserable.”

Heat flooded Pip’s face instantly. Sometimes dysphoria felt humiliating in the smallest possible ways. They followed Jay quietly down the hallway while the others dissolved into a heated argument about optimal tater tot crispiness.

Tom yelled: “IF YOU MICROWAVE THEM I WILL DIVORCE ALL OF YOU.”

Luke yelled back: “You can’t divorce people you aren’t married to.”

“That has never stopped me emotionally.”

The bathroom light clicked on softly overhead. Jay shut the door behind them gently, immediately dropping her voice into that calm, practical tone she used with anxious patients and injured friends.

“Okay,” she said. “Lemme see what’s bothering you.”

Pip hesitated before tugging lightly at the hem of their shirt. “It just feels… wrong today,” Jay nodded like that made perfect sense. Because to her, it did.

Bodies were complicated. Gender was complicated. Clothing interacting with both? Absolute nonsense sometimes.

“Turn a little,” she said softly.

Pip obeyed.

Jay adjusted the binder carefully at the shoulders first, then along the side seams where the fabric had twisted slightly beneath their shirt.

“There,” she murmured. “That’s part of it.”

Pip blinked.

The pressure distribution immediately felt less awful. Not perfect. But less like their skin was screaming at them.

Jay stepped back slightly. “Better?”

“…Actually, yeah.”

“Told you.”

Pip leaned back against the sink, shoulders loosening a little, “I hate days like this,” they admitted quietly.

Jay crossed her arms gently against her scrubs. “Yeah. I know.”

“I feel stupid talking about it sometimes.”

“You know how many cis people have entire emotional breakdowns because of one bad haircut?”

Pip snorted.

Jay continued, “Humans are weird little creatures. We build identities around physical presentation all the time. Gender dysphoria just turns the volume up until it’s impossible to ignore.”

Pip looked down at their hands.

“I just wish I could exist in my body without thinking about it constantly.”

Jay’s expression softened, “that’s a very human wish,” she said quietly.

The noise of the others arguing drifted faintly down the hallway.

AJ shouting something about potato oppression. Tom loudly defending oven temperatures. Sam laughing. Luke attempting to mediate despite clearly making things worse.

Pip smiled despite themselves. Jay noticed that too.

“Your people are very loud,” she said.

“They’re idiots.”

“Yeah,” Jay agreed fondly. “But they’re your idiots.”

And somehow, with the binder sitting correctly and the sound of chaos echoing safely through the apartment, Pip finally felt like they could breathe again.

Pip went to sit on the closed toilet seat for a while after Jay finished adjusting the binder.

Not because there was anything else to fix.

Just because the bathroom felt quieter than the kitchen. Contained.

The muffled chaos from the other room drifted faintly down the hallway.

“YOU CANNOT MICROWAVE TOTS,” Tom shouted somewhere in the apartment like a man defending ancient law.

AJ shouted something back that sounded intentionally inflammatory.

Sam started laughing hard enough to cough.

Jay climbed up onto the bathroom counter with practiced ease, moving Pip’s makeup bag farther from the sink first so she wouldn’t accidentally elbow it to its death.

“Your husband’s fighting for his life out there,” she observed.

Pip rubbed tiredly at their eyes. “He’s emotionally territorial about potatoes.”

“Is he usually this possessive with them?"

Pip nodded solemnly. “Jay, he once labeled leftover hash browns with his initials. Like, on the hashbrown itself.”

“That’s deeply concerning behavior.”

“He threatened Luke with a spatula.”

“Reasonable escalation.”

That earned a small laugh from Pip again before the quiet settled back in. Jay let it settle.

She had always been good at that. Not rushing silence just because it existed. Pip picked absently at the sleeve of Tom’s jumper.

Then quietly:

“Do you ever feel weird about your body?”

Jay’s expression shifted slightly. Not uncomfortable. Just thoughtful.

“All the time,” she admitted.

Pip looked genuinely surprised, “you do?”

Jay gave them a look. “Pip, I work in gynecology. I spend half my life explaining to people that bodies are inconsistent little goblins.”

Another distant yell echoed from the kitchen.

“THE TOTS NEED AIRFLOW,” Tom cried.

Jay ignored him professionally.

She leaned back against the mirror. “But yeah. Of course I do.”

Pip frowned slightly. “You always seem… confident.”

“That’s because confidence and comfort aren’t always the same thing.”

That sat quietly in the room for a moment.

Jay glanced down at her own scrubs. “Some days I feel fine. Some days I feel too short. Too broad. Too tired. Some days I look in the mirror after a fourteen-hour shift and think I resemble a Victorian orphan that escaped a chimney.”

Pip snorted unexpectedly.

Jay pointed at them. “Don’t laugh. Last Tuesday I looked like damp tax fraud.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know,” Jay admitted. “But it felt too accurate.”

The bathroom light buzzed softly overhead.

Pip looked down at their hands again. “I think I get scared that I’m doing gender wrong.”

Jay’s expression softened immediately.

“Pip,” she said gently, “there’s no final exam.”

“That’s what Sam said.”

“Sam is annoyingly wise for a man who buys novelty mugs online at two in the morning.”

A pause. Then Jay continued more quietly:

“You know what I think? I think some people experience gender like a house they were handed the keys to automatically.” She tilted her head slightly. “And some people experience it more like… interior decorating during an earthquake.”

Pip barked out a laugh.

“That’s awful.”

“But accurate.”

Jay smiled a little, “you’re aware of your body in a way a lot of people never have to be. That can be painful.” She shrugged lightly. “But it also means you’ve built yourself intentionally. Piece by piece. Most people never even question the blueprint.”

Pip swallowed hard. Outside the bathroom, something clattered loudly.

“WHO PUT THE METAL TRAY IN THE SINK?” Tom shouted.

AJ yelled back: "PRINCE ANDREW.”

Pip buried their face in their hands, laughing helplessly now.

Jay grinned. “See? Your husband’s out there defending frozen potatoes like a knight protecting the realm."

“He really loves tater tots.”

“No,” Jay corrected softly. “He really loves you. The tater tots are just part of the ecosystem.”

That one hit Pip right in the chest. Because she was right.

Tom wasn’t loud about the potatoes because he cared more about potatoes than people.

He was loud because this was how he kept the room warm. How he filled silence before sadness could settle into it too deeply.

Pip looked down at the sleeves of his jumper wrapped around their hands.

Outside the bathroom: “IF YOU SHAKE THE TRAY WRONG THEY WON’T CRISP EVENLY.”

Jay sighed fondly toward the ceiling. “Your man is battling demons in that kitchen.”

Pip could still hear Tom in the kitchen.

“IF YOU OVERCROWD THE PAN THEY STEAM INSTEAD OF CRISP.”

AJ immediately yelled back: “THIS IS WHY NO ONE LETS YOU GOVERN.”

Jay smiled faintly to herself. Then she looked back toward Pip, softer now.

“You know he’s doing that on purpose, right?”

Pip blinked. “The potato thing?”

“Mhm.”

Another clatter sounded from the kitchen followed by Sam laughing so hard he nearly choked.

Pip frowned slightly. “I mean… yeah, he’s dramatic.”

“No,” Jay said gently. “I mean he’s redirecting the room.”

That made Pip pause.

Jay shifted slightly on the counter, one socked foot swinging idly. “Tom knows you hate feeling observed when you’re struggling.”

Pip looked down immediately because that was painfully true.

Especially on dysphoria days. The second too much attention landed on them, it felt like their skin got too tight.

Jay continued carefully:

"He’s not making jokes because your feelings are inconvenient. He’s making jokes because he knows you should get to decide how visible your pain is.”

The bathroom went very quiet.

Outside, not so quiet: “THE TOTS REQUIRE SPACE TO ACHIEVE GREATNESS.”

AJ booed loudly.

Pip’s throat tightened unexpectedly.

Jay tilted her head slightly. “Tom’s basically standing in the kitchen waving a frozen potato like a court jester so everyone’s attention spreads out naturally instead of locking onto you.”

A tiny laugh escaped Pip despite the sting behind their eyes.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s very loving,” Jay corrected.

Pip swallowed hard. Because suddenly it clicked.

Tom hadn’t been trying to minimise the bad day. He’d been cushioning it. Keeping the room alive around them so they didn’t become The Sad Person Everyone Carefully Watches.

Jay smiled faintly. “Sam does the same thing for me.”

Pip looked up.

“He does?”

“All the time.” Jay leaned back against the mirror. “If I’ve had a horrible shift or I’m overwhelmed or dissociating a little, Sam suddenly becomes the most irritating man alive on purpose.”

From the kitchen: “THE AIR FRYER IS A TOOL OF PRECISION.”

Jay pointed vaguely toward the noise. “See? Same species.”

Pip laughed quietly.

Jay continued:

“Sam knows I hate feeling fragile in front of groups. So instead of announcing ‘Jay’s struggling,’ he changes the energy in the room.” She shrugged softly. “Makes tea. Starts some ridiculous conversation. Pretends to need help opening jars he can absolutely open himself.”

“That’s actually kind of sweet.”

“It’s deeply embarrassing,” Jay corrected.

Then more gently:

“But it’s sweet too.”

Pip stared down at the sleeves of Tom’s jumper wrapped around their hands.

All evening they’d been worried everyone could tell they were struggling. That they were ruining the atmosphere. Taking up too much emotional space. But the kitchen hadn’t become tense or pitying.

It had stayed warm. Chaotic. Normal.

Because Tom had made sure it did.

Jay watched the realization settle across Pip’s face.

“He loves you very carefully,” she said softly.

And that one nearly made Pip cry. Not because it was sad. But because being understood that specifically always felt a little devastating.

Outside the bathroom, Tom yelled: “WHO ATE THE TEST TATER TOT?”

AJ yelled back immediately: “JOHN LENNON.”

Jay sighed fondly. “Your husband is still fighting for his life out there.”

Pip sat quietly for a moment after that, hands tucked deep into the sleeves of Tom’s jumper.

The apartment still hummed around them. Muffled laughter. Air fryer beeps. Tom passionately defending potato integrity like a man testifying before congress.

Pip smiled faintly to themselves.

Then they glanced back up at Jay.

“Does Sam ever wear your makeup?”

Jay blinked once.

“…What?”

Pip immediately looked embarrassed. “No, wait, I didn’t mean weirdly.”

“I know,” Jay said quickly, already laughing a little. “My brain just took a full buffering pause.”

Pip tucked their knees up slightly against the bathroom cabinet. “Sometimes when dysphoria gets really bad, Tom lets me do his makeup.”

Jay’s expression softened immediately.

Not pitying. Just listening.

Pip shrugged awkwardly. “Not even always full makeup. Sometimes eyeliner. Sometimes contouring. Sometimes I just need to see masculine features shaped softly on somebody safe.” They picked lightly at the jumper sleeve. “It helps my brain stop acting like gender is a locked door.”

From the kitchen: “THE TOTS ARE IN THEIR FINAL FORM.”

AJ booed loudly.

Jay ignored the chaos professionally.

“Huh,” she said quietly.

Pip immediately panicked a little. “Sorry, that probably sounds bizarre.”

“No,” Jay said at once. “Actually, it makes a lot of sense.”

Pip looked surprised.

Jay tilted her head thoughtfully. “You’re borrowing presentation without pressure.”

“…What?”

“You trust Tom enough that your brain doesn’t categorise it as performance.” She gestured lightly with one hand. “You’re not trying to become him. You’re just exploring parts of yourself through someone who feels emotionally safe.”

Pip stared at her for a second.

“That was… alarmingly insightful.”

“I’m a doctor. We’re legally required to become unbearable eventually.”

Pip snorted.

Jay leaned back slightly on the counter. “And honestly? Makeup’s already fake. Gender presentation’s already fake. Society collectively decided colored powder means different things depending on who’s wearing it.” She shrugged. “Humans are very committed to strange little rituals."

“That’s true.”

Another pause settled comfortably between them.

Then Pip asked carefully:

“So… would Sam ever let you do his makeup?”

Jay opened her mouth.

Closed it. Then laughed softly.

“You know, I genuinely have no idea.”

“You’ve never asked?"

“I’ve never thought to ask.” She rubbed at her jaw thoughtfully. “He’d probably say yes just to see what happens.”

Pip grinned faintly. “You should give him winged eyeliner.”

“Pip, that man can barely survive moisturizer.”

“That’s because he uses the same soap for his hair, face, body, and probably taxes if he could find a way.”

“That is weirdly true.”

They both laughed quietly at that. Then Jay’s expression softened again.

“But no,” she admitted. “He hasn’t worn my makeup before.” A tiny smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Though honestly… I’d be willing to think about it.”

Pip smiled immediately, “you totally should.”

Jay pointed toward them. “You’re not allowed to make me emotionally experiment with my marriage while your husband’s out there conducting potato warfare.”

As if summoned by the accusation, Tom suddenly shouted from the kitchen:

“WHO TURNED THE OVEN LIGHT OFF? I CAN’T MONITOR THE CRISPING.”

Sam’s voice floated faintly down the hallway: “You’re treating frozen potatoes like neonatal care.”

Jay covered her face with one hand, laughing. Pip leaned back against the toilet tank, the tight ache in their chest finally loosened enough for breathing to feel easy again.

Not fixed. Not magically cured. Just softer.

And sometimes softer was enough to survive the evening, and yet as Pip tilted their head toward the bathroom door as another horrified gasp echoed from the kitchen.

“NO, YOU FOOLS, THEY NEED TURNING.”

A beat.

Then AJ: “I turnt them emotionally.”

Pip looked back at Jay very seriously.

“Should we go steal the tater tots?”

Jay’s eyes widened slightly.

Then, with complete medical decisiveness:

“…oh, Absolutely.”

Pip immediately started laughing.

Jay slid off the bathroom counter and held a finger dramatically to her lips. “This is now a covert operation.”

“You’re literally an emergency physician.”

“And yet today,” Jay whispered, opening the bathroom door slightly, “I choose crime.”

The hallway light spilled around them as they crept toward the kitchen.

Or rather: Pip crept. Jay moved with the confidence of somebody who had absolutely stolen chips off coworkers’ trays in hospital break rooms before.

The kitchen was chaos.

AJ stood beside the counter waving oven mitts around while trying to argue that potato crispiness was some social construct.

Luke sat curled on a stool sipping tea, visibly regretting being conscious.

Sam was laughing into the countertop hard enough his shoulders shook.

And Tom had his back turned to everyone, staring intensely through the oven door light like an astronomer observing a rare cosmic event.

“…beautiful,” he whispered dramatically.

Pip grabbed Jay’s sleeve to stop themselves from laughing too loudly.

Jay leaned down slightly. “See? Deeply emotionally attached.”

“I heard that,” Tom said immediately without turning around.

“Your situational awareness is terrifying,” Luke muttered.

Jay pointed subtly toward the tray cooling beside the stove.

Target acquired.

Pip gasped softly. “There.”

Jay nodded once like a military commander.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I distract the giant. You secure the potatoes.”

“You make this sound illegal.”

“It is illegal. These are Tom’s Emergency Tots.”

Tom finally turned around suspiciously. “Why are you both standing like raccoons near a campsite?”

“Medical reasons,” Jay answered instantly.

“That means nothing.”

“It means everything, you'll see.”

While Tom stared in confusion, Jay suddenly pointed across the kitchen.

“Sam, didn’t you say something about dinosaur nuggets?”

Tom whipped around immediately. “WHAT?!”

Pip moved instantly.

They snatched two tater tots from the tray with the speed of a sleep-deprived cryptid and shoved one into Jay’s hand before ducking behind AJ, laughing helplessly.

Tom turned back around in betrayal just in time to witness Jay blowing dramatically on the stolen tot.

“…You stole my children.”

“They’re potatoes,” Luke said.

“They had potential.”

AJ pointed proudly at Pip. “That’s my apprentice right over there.”

Pip nearly choked laughing as Tom clutched the oven tray to his chest like a widowed Victorian nobleman.

“You said sharing builds character,” Sam reminded him gently.

Tom narrowed his eyes. “I’m building resentment instead.”

Jay bit into the stolen tater tot and sighed happily. “Mm. Worth it.”

Pip leaned against the counter laughing so hard their eyes watered.

And maybe the dysphoria was still there. Maybe it still buzzed faintly beneath their skin like static.

But at least Pip got a good chat and a stolen tot.