Work Text:
he knows he is clay. this is known. he knows, his friends know, his family knows.
this has been known since clay was a child, since he started wearing cargo shorts instead of frilly skirts, since he buzzed all his hair off at eight years old.
he knows he passes well, too. so, it's always a bit jarring on the days where his reflection in the mirror is. . . different.
bad different, he thinks.
face a little too feminine. chest a little too big. hair a little too long. (it's not just gender related, either, but that's a road that he never wants to go down again, so he focuses on the other bad, instead.)
he knows no one else sees it. no one ever does; it's just him.
it's harder now with someone else in the house at all times.
on those days, food is bad because god forbid he gains enough weight to make him buy new binders. (but sapnap always makes him eat anyway, even a little because he knows.) on those days, he can't stay in the bathroom all day, looking at his reflection trying to force his reflection back to what it usually is. (sapnap always makes him get out. partially because he needs the bathroom too, but also because he knows.)
(maybe it's harder because of sapnap, but he appreciates it once the bad has been sealed away again.)
he likes being pretty. but not pretty like this. this kind of pretty makes him feel ugly.
it's not like he's completely a man, either. man adjacent, at most. but he'd rather eat dirt than be a girl again.
(he always acts a bit different on the bad days. he knows people notice. tommy always calls him 'big man' and 'big d' more on the bad days. he never says anything, but he appreciates it.)
the bad days remind him of why he chose clay as his name. clay is pliable, able to be formed as the artist wants, full of possibility and potential. it's also difficult, stubborn. it takes work to mold clay into how one wants it, and the process takes time. sometimes, clay creations get messed up. their malleability goes both ways, after all.
he likes being reminded that he's still just as everchanging, even if the changes are less than okay. because he knows that he's still clay, and he'll be okay and beautiful in the way he wants on another day. the artistic process is never linear, after all.
clay is clay; beautiful, difficult, messy, malleable. he knows this.
he will always be clay. even when he's dream, he is still clay underneath all the masculinity and the loudness and the grandiosity. clay is dream. dream is clay.
he knows. dream knows. clay knows.