Chapter Text
AJ doesn’t know why he tells Pip first.
He doesn't know why he hasn't told any of the other three - all of them. They're the ones who have been through more of it with him. They've seen him have his moments which now seem less 'moments' and more 'key character traits'.
They've all but suggested it to him. The talk of masking. The suggestion that they could be doing better - making accommodations. The easy admission that AJ's brain works differently and there's nothing wrong with that.
But still, he has gone through the first GP appointment, the referral, the assessment - and hasn't said a word.
Part of him thinks he doesn't need to. Part of him, always, is scared that they will look at him as a fundamentally different person once they know.
We can't say that. AJ's autistic now.
We won't be able to do that. What about AJ's autism?
He can't hear it in their voices (because another part of him knows they'd never say it) but when he crafts those sentences that reduce him to nothing but the condition (or whatever the right word is) that he has apparently had his entire life, he attributes it to them.
Because it would hurt the worst coming from them.
AJ knows based on copious research that the process won’t be quick. What he doesn’t consider is quite how long this will be going on in the background, in secret, while the rest of his life continues. Even when he gets referred to an assessment centre with a seemingly shorter waiting list than the national average, a year goes past before he is even contacted with the pre-assessment questionnaires.
His mum fills out a form for the assessment, seeming bemused and almost a little upset when he tells her what the GP said. He isn't sure she agrees with their decision to refer him but his parents have never stopped him from doing what he wants, even if the comments that always slip through tend to fester in his mind, making him second guess everything.
His assessor tells him that sometimes it's hereditary. And yeah, he sees that. In another world where his parents aren't retired and this far through life, he imagines either one of them might have been diagnosed too.
They don't think there's anything wrong with him but maybe that's because he works the same way as them.
He doesn't tell them that though. They don't need to hear it.
And wrong is, ironically, the wrong word.
Different, Tom's voice says in the back of his head. And this time it sounds uncannily like him.
For a while AJ doesn't talk to his parents about it properly. The actual appointment is still a long way off and his mum seemed so unhappy to even entertain the idea. And then the appointment is not all that far off at all and he finds himself mentioning it like a teenager trying to beg money for a concert.
You know that thing I mentioned a while ago - well it's happening soon and...
Reliably, they both ask what thing? and the carousel starts again.
"Autism," his mum echoes midway into the conversation, "Oh, Alexander, that makes me feel awful."
AJ's stomach clenches. "It's not a bad thing, mum."
"I know," she replies quickly and he's relieved to find he believes her. "I just feel like I should have noticed - as your mum."
"Apparently people learn to hide it quite well," AJ offers in return, suddenly finding himself comforting her with three days to go until the assessment that has been leaving him nauseous. He wants Tom to sit with him in that feeling. He wants Luke to talk him down. He wants Sam to make him laugh about it. "It's called masking - but, anyway, women and girls do it more often but I guess I might have learned to as well."
"You do think you have it then?" She asks, catching him off guard. "You're talking like it makes sense to you."
"I guess it does," AJ doesn't quite commit, "It felt - relieving to have a doctor say it. And - if it isn't this - I think there's something else going on."
At the assessment, they ask about his childhood. He explains the series of schools and new houses – the changes that left him in a near-constant state of motion. He tells them he learned to fit in, to camouflage with the people surrounding him at any one time. He says that maybe he was just adjusting to the different cultures – that voice in his head saying maybe it’s nothing – and the assessor just nods and moves on.
He is given the results on the same day. There is a certain ceremony to it – he is told that he will be given the results and then they will talk them through. He nods, sitting on his hands and feeling the prickle of pins and needles.
They tell him he is being diagnosed with autism – that it will go on his NHS record and they can provide a letter for an employer or pamphlets for family members. They ask him how he feels about it.
(Strange, he admits, like he doesn’t really know how to be himself anymore.)
“You’re not being diagnosed with a problem,” the psychiatrist reminds him gently, “We’re just giving you information that might help you cope better in difficult situations.”
She points out how he seems to have a good support system. He has answered questions about friends in the assessment form and, while AJ hadn’t had many people to talk about, his review of Sam, Luke and Tom had been nothing short of glowing. When asked to explain why he thought he was still friends with them when so many other friendships had ended in ways he still couldn’t explain, he had simply replied that they seemed to understand him and never expected too much.
Maybe he does know why he tells Pip first.
Maybe Pip represents the perfect mix of safety and distance. Even if they’re just as close to him as Tom is by proxy. Even if they’re AJ’s friend in their own right.
But in the end, they are the one to find him hiding away in the kitchen ten minutes after midnight. It’s New Year, by the way, and perhaps the only day of the year AJ thought he could slip away without anyone noticing.
In his head, it is easy to deflect the questions that will surely come. AJ is in his chronically single era and could simply joke that everyone else had someone to kiss to the soundtrack of fireworks. Pip would either laugh, pretend not to laugh or fix him with that look of thinly veiled concern that looked so much like one of Tom’s expressions that AJ was sure the habit had rubbed off after years spent together.
But he didn’t escape for no reason. The living room had felt too cramped, too claustrophobic. There had been several conversations happening at once and the fireworks display at Big Ben on the TV was mixing with the ambient sounds out the window. And ever since AJ was diagnosed, he’s been hyperaware of the things that get to him – of moments he feels ‘more autistic’ than normal. His senses have been more, well, sensitive. His brain has been more scattered.
He's tired, more than anything. And he’s read enough articles about autistic burnout to have his suspicions about that.
Either way, he’s not exactly on top of his game, conversation-wise.
It’s New Year’s Eve (well, the fireworks mean it’s New Year’s Day by now) and he has autism and the three most important people after his parents have no idea. Indeed, his parents, when he told them, reacted in that same quiet way as they had to the prospect of an assessment. They seem guilty all over again and AJ has been repeatedly reminding himself of what he was told when he got his diagnosis – it isn’t a problem.
“What are you doing in here on your own?” Pip asks, casual at first as they root through a cupboard distractedly. They sound bright, cheeks glowing. Probably tipsy, like everyone else in the living room. AJ has been turning down drinks for most of the night after the first sat too heavily in his stomach, using the excuse of going to the gym tomorrow.
(Sam rolled his eyes. Luke told him to take a day off. Tom squeezed his upper arms and made exaggeratedly approving noises.)
“If you were looking for a drink, most stuff is in the other room,” Pip continues conversationally. Their head pops back out of the cupboard and AJ instantly turns to look out of the window, as if he is distracted by something else. Pip joins him, hovering at his shoulder and talking with a suddenly forced sunniness. “There aren’t many good fireworks in this direction.”
He wonders if Pip will forget an odd interaction in the kitchen in the morning, even though he knows they aren’t drunk enough for that. They aren’t drunk at all.
“I…” And the words get stuck in his throat. He smiles, a twist of his lips that he can’t picture on his own face – can’t tell what he is conveying. “I don’t want to ruin your night.”
“Knowing you’re in here on your own being weird is going to ruin my night anyway,” Pip replies with a familiar sort of bluntness. They give him all of their attention, pushing the cupboard door shut with their knee and then reaching over to nudge the door to.
“I’m good at that, right?” AJ asks weakly. “Disappearing and being a bit weird about it?”
Pip cocks their head to one side, working the inside of their mouth visibly. “Do you want me to get Tom?”
AJ hears the other question there – will he talk to Tom if he won’t talk to them?
“It’s not like that,” he answers the unspoken question, sighing when Pip sits up on the kitchen counter, settling in as if they have no plans to go back and enjoy the party until he says something. “I went to the GP a year and a half ago.”
He tracks the bob of their throat, the almost-teasing nature of their stubbornness sobering. He knows that sentence is the beginning of far worse fates – of hospital trips and diagnoses that actually have implications. Not just him and his brain that doesn’t work right.
Works different. Whatever.
“Had an assessment last month,” he continues quietly, pushing the word out determinedly. “For autism.” He doesn’t look at them. “And I have it – apparently.”
Pip’s hand lands on his arm, tugging him over to stand beside the counter. He still doesn’t glance at them, just standing with his shoulder pressing into theirs. A weight presses against him – their cheek on his shoulder, hand snaked into the crook of his elbow. They fidget, pulling their legs up to sit cross-legged. AJ almost smiles, imagining Tom having a fit about them sitting up where the food gets prepared.
“I’m proud of you,” Pip says eventually, “For finding out and getting yourself an appointment which I imagine wasn’t very fun.”
“I’ve had better afternoons,” AJ replies, feeling them laugh faintly. He swallows tightly. “I don’t think I know how to be myself anymore.”
“I love you,” Pip says quietly, “We all do.”
“Just feels like you’ve all known this version of me that was trying so hard to be someone else,” AJ mumbles, dropping his chin onto their head and letting out a slow breath. Pip tucks closer and hums disapprovingly.
“Then we figure out who you really are now,” they reply patiently although clearly disagree with AJ’s perception of the situation. “But we’ve known things are different with you sometimes and that hasn’t changed anything.”
“Still,” AJ trails off with a shrug that doesn’t quite displace them. If anything, Pip just shuffles closer.
“Tom’s always been a good judge of character,” they say eventually, letting AJ extrapolate from there.
Instead, perhaps expectedly, he deflects. “Must be why he married you.”
“Definitely,” Pip plays along and then returns the favour. “And why he’s stuck with you three for all these years.”
“But will he…” AJ trails off, not wanting to let that impulsive thought out into the world.
Pip fills in the blank anyway and snorts dismissively. “If you were about to say, ‘will he still want to be my friend?’ you need to get that thought out of your head now.”
“I don’t know why I can’t just tell them,” AJ refuses to confirm their suspicions and lets that question stay in his head. Not quite what Pip said – not quite the same phrasing.
Will he still stick with me if I’ve been lying all this time?
“Because you care too much about what they think,” Pip explains simply, “And because you’re scared of what they will think even if they’re three of the best men you’ve ever met and will just give you a hug and instantly try to be better for you.”
AJ’s eyes prickle insistently, his head conjuring up images of that utopia so vivid they almost hurt to consider. He shakes himself and swallows another lump in his throat. “Will you tell him? Tom?”
“I think you should do it,” Pip replies, “Because they will want to hear it from you – all three of them. And it will hurt them to think you couldn’t talk to them. And you will regret it forever if you don’t do it yourself.”
AJ realises that Pip has taken that question differently to how he meant it. He had meant, because Tom is their husband, would they tell him in the way that married couples tend to tell each other things and not would they do it for him. It reminds him, unnecessarily, why he is friends with Pip in their own right – that they are decent down to their core.
And it no longer seems so unreasonable that he told them first.