Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was Winston’s birthday, and Jess had the perfect plan to surprise him.

With the cover of being in fake meetings all day, Jess was able to take a trip to the craft store for patterned paper and yarn, and to Walgreens to print out all of Winston’s pictures with Ferguson- and the few he had with his roommates. A year of memories, bound together with glitter yellow string.

She pulled up to Schmidt and Cece’s house, guilt tugging at her gut. For the fifth year in a row, Winston’s birthday had snuck up on Jess. She didn’t have time to prepare. But she was determined not to ruin this birthday too. The fact that Winston’s best birthday with the loft had been someone else’s rooftop picnic and a stolen telescope was depressing, and a blow to her ego. The worst gift Jess had ever given anyone was the “homemade cat toy” she found for Winston last year. The present was late, and it wasn’t a present at all. It was just a really long orange feather she’d found in the back of her craft cart.

She hopped past the hedges and up the steps to rap loudly on the door, but there was no answer. She rang the doorbell. The stupid little song played once, then again, then a tentative third time. She peered around the side of the house, and the windows were all dark. Nobody was home.

She pulled the spare key from around her neck, where it dangled beside the key to the loft. Nick always argued that it would be so much more practical to keep them in her big purses, but where was the fun and sentiment in that?

Of course, Jess wasn’t sure Schmidt would call her breaking into his house fun or sentimental. But he’d given Nick permission, and Cece had never stopped her, so she was sure it was fine. She hauled her bag of supplies into Cece’s office and got to work. The house was in complete silence, something Jess wasn’t used to. She couldn’t risk Winston walking in on her. It would ruin the surprise, and worse, it would reveal how last minute this heartfelt, homemade present really was.

As Jess worked, she wondered where Cece was. It was no surprise that Schmidt was gone, he was always at Ass Strat until late. But Cece worked from home most of the time, and she would’ve told Jess if she had a modeling appointment today, right? And if she was doing something with Winston for his birthday, she would’ve included Jess. Jess was the best at birthdays, and she was the one who actually lived with Winston!
Except, maybe Jess wasn’t the best at birthdays. She had forgotten Winston’s every year since she’d met him. She didn’t know how it happened, it was just a busy time of year. She never realized it was coming until it was there- or in one mortifying case, until two days after.

But this year would be different. She had a present this year, one that she was sure Winston would appreciate. It was dozens of pictures of him, Ferguson, and Aly, bound in bird-patterned paper. For over an hour, she carefully arranged and rearranged the photos until each page was perfect, and only then did she start to glue them down with steady hands. In the empty spaces, she drew little pictures and put down extra stickers from her classroom. 

Once it was finally finished, all that was left was to give it a few minutes to dry. Jess got to her feet and stretched out her aching wrists, deciding to walk a few laps around the house. As she went, she couldn’t help but subtly snoop in her friends’ stuff. Through the ajar closet door, Jess could see a wig head and a collection of sundresses that were not Cece’s style. Maybe Cece’s Boys was branching out to include female models. A peek in Schmidt’s dresser told her more than she’d ever wanted to know. But at least they’d gotten a new melon baller, sitting on the kitchen counter. That really meant they were married. Now Cece was a true mother-to-be.

Jess’ timer went off, and she decided she’d seen everything she needed to see. She carefully bound the pages together, tied off the ends, and carried the book out to her car. It had heft to it, and the leather cover was worn soft. A little burst of pride followed her as she backed out of the driveway.

Next stop was the grocery store. Checking her watch, Jess half-jogged to the bakery counter and flipped through the catalog, looking for something that would work.

“We don’t do custom cakes on demand, ma’am,” the employee explained, appearing from the back. “We can write a message, but anything more than that and you’ll need to call ahead.”

Jess bit back a sigh. This was her own fault. She should’ve had the cake ready days ago, hidden in Cece’s freezer until the time came to take it out.

“That’s fine,” she said, and the employee pulled out a big, blank sheet cake. It was white with a little bit of decorative piping around the edges. It would do.

“It should say ‘Happy Birthday Winston’ on it,” she instructed, peering over the counter on her tiptoes to watch the employer pipe with shaky hands. “W-I-N-S-T-O-N.”

She paid- and tipped, because she was a walk in and she wasn’t a monster- and carefully belted in the cake for the drive home.

“Happy birthday!” She called out into the quiet loft, pushing open the door and pulling through a bouquet of balloons. The only ones available read “CONGRATS GRAD,” “ Condolences ,” and one lone appropriate “HAPPY BIRTHDAY.” To pad out the bunch, Jess had also bought two smiley faces and a balloon with a disney princess printed on the sheer plastic. It was the thought that counted.

Jess set the cake and the balloons on the counter, looking around. Winston wasn’t on the couch watching TV, or at the kitchen island eating the poor excuses for meals that he made when home alone. She picked up the scrapbook and walked up the creaky hallway to his door. She knocked, and there was a furious scrambling inside.

“Don’t come in, I’m- changing,” Winston called out, his voice muffled through the door.

“In the middle of the day? I’ve seen you wear the same shirt for a week, Winston. It’s just me." Jess pushed the door open, holding the scrapbook behind her back.

She stopped. Winston’s chair was swiveled around with its back to the desk. He was wearing a shapey dark blue top patterned with peaches and a flowy black skirt that draped over the chair and pooled on the floor at his feet. In front of him stood Cece, scrubbing hurriedly at his face with makeup wipes. She straightened and turned around, stepping in front of Winston in an almost defensive way. Her face was a mix of vulnerability and a fierce protectiveness usually reserved for Jess and Schmidt.

Slowly, Jess realized what was happening, looking between her friends’ faces.

“Are you?--” Jess asked, covering her mouth with one hand. Winston looked to Cece for help, mouth falling open in an attempt to explain. Cece set down the makeup wipes on the desk and crossed the room to Jess’ side, pulling the door closed behind her.

“This is why we knock,” Cece said, taking the scrapbook out of Jess’ hands.

“I brought cake?” Jess offered, as if it would undo the major breach of privacy she’d just made.

“We will take that cake. But you can not tell anybody about this, okay?” Winston said from the other side of the room. “Especially Aly. Not yet.”

Jess glanced between them, reaching for the right words. Cece's mouth was pulled into a half-grimace. She looked over at Winston, who nodded and buried his(?) head in his hands.

“Winston is.. having some questions. And she came to me for help.” Cece’s voice was careful and measured, and her eyes kept flicking back to Winston, hunched in the desk chair.

“She?” Jess asked, feeling like she was treading on cracked glass. Taking care not to shatter it completely. Cece nodded.

“And you’re the only person who knows.”
“And you, now.” Winston sounded irate, and for good reason. But already, her voice was warming up. She pulled her head out of her hands, and Jess finally got a full look at her. The outfit was cute, and she pulled it off really well. Her makeup was streaked and wiped off completely in places, but even so, Winston looked really pretty .

“At least it was me and not Nick,” Jess said, trying to break the tension. It was met with a silence that stood for several seconds.

“In this case, Nick might be better at keeping a secret than you. No offense.” Cece flashed a smile that looked a little pained.

“You can’t say no offense about that,” Jess argued, a little indignant. “Nick can’t lie about anything! How could I be worse?”

“Nick is good at being in denial,” Winston pointed out. “You’re too nice.”

Cece nodded. “You’d feel guilty calling Winston ‘he’ to everyone else, even if that’s what she asked you to do.”

Jess felt a little insulted that they thought she couldn’t keep this under wraps, but they were right. Already, she was cringing at the idea of navigating those conversations, trying to find ways to structure her sentences to avoid pronouns entirely.

“You know they’d be cool with it, right?” Jess pushed. Winston sighed, glancing at herself in the little mirror Cece had set up. She touched her smudged makeup with one hand.

“Yeah. Schmidt will probably be weird and sexual about it, though.”

“Or try to make you do a skincare routine with him,” Cece added, laughing a little. Winston shook her head, mouth twisting up a bit. Jess couldn’t tell if it was in laughter or just plain disgust.

“Schmidt is weird and sexual about everything. You’re lucky you weren’t there when the National Geographic documentary about anteaters was on!” Cece interrupted with a loud groan. “-I had nightmares for weeks , Winston. Weeks.”

“I know it’ll be fine.” Winston grabbed at her skirt with tight fists. “I’m just figuring things out. I’m new to.. all this,” she said, letting go with one hand to gesture at her whole body. “I only want to come out once. I don’t want to make a big deal of it now, and then make a big deal of it when I’m settled on a name, and make a big deal of it for every step of the process. I want to do it once and get it over with.”

Jess sat down on Winston’s bed, thinking back to middle school. When she’d come out a million different times, flip-flopping between lesbian, bi, pan, even aro for a couple weeks. In college, she’d landed comfortably with the bi label, and she’d mostly stayed put since. But by then she didn’t feel the need to ‘come out’ anymore- she knew it would be met with exhaustion and indifference from friends who had heard it all before.

She thought about offering to help, but drew back. Something was bothering her. 

Everyone knew Jess was queer. Everyone had seen girls leaving her room some of the rare few times she’d tried (and gotten way too attached to) casual hookups, their hair tangled and their clothes rumpled from spending the night thrown haphazardly on the floor. Everyone had heard the stories of Jess’ old exes, from a time before Spencer. Everyone had seen and politely ignored the way she looked at Angie. Or the way she always tried to be near Reagan, how she always laughed harder and smiled brighter when she was around. Nobody mentioned how Jess still wore Reagan’s necklace for months after she left. But everybody saw, and everybody knew.

“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” she asked, looking down at her hands. She tugged at her skin, fidgeting with her fingers.

“That’s what you took away from that?” Cece asked, leaning back with her hands on Winston’s plain wooden desk.

“I’m right next door,” Jess pointed out, deciding to push forward. “I have dresses, closer to your size too. I have tons of makeup. I even have those old wigs from school plays, if you wanted to try out longer hair.”

Jess knew she was probably being an asshole. Coming out was a big thing, and guilt was already wearing heavy on her for being a dick about it. She hung her head and untangled her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she said, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “This is special and you don’t have to tell anyone until you’re ready. I won’t tell anyone either. I promise.” But why Cece and not me?

“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d make it way too big,” Winston said, wheeling her chair over to the bed. “You’d start choosing names for me, and sew flags into my stuff, and you’d be too excited not to give it away, even accidentally. You’re sweet, Jess, and I’m going to really need that kind of support once I’m out, but it’s not what I need right now. Right now I need someone who won’t make it a big deal, and who would take it to the grave if I decide it doesn't feel right.”

Jess bit back the urge to ask more about the names. Now wasn’t the time. She didn’t want to overwhelm her.

“I’ve had tons of trans friends,” Cece said. “Both directions. My first girlfriend became my first boyfriend. I cut his hair for him, and he never looked back. Cracked a few eggs, too. You wouldn’t believe how many trans people there are in modeling.”

Jess thought about how comfortable Winston was with Cece, in a way she wasn’t with most other people. All the “babes” and inside jokes. Winston cried on and off for days when Cece moved out, sulking in her room most hours of the day. She understood now, that Cece was the best possible person for this job.
“I can pretend I didn’t see anything,” Jess said, hoping it was true. Winston exchanged a glance with Cece.
“But you did see something. And since you’re in this now, I want you to be in it. I don’t want the full Jess right now, but I don’t think I’d mind a little bit. Just- only in private, and not in a way that’d spill out into my regular life. Got it?”

“Oh, I can be sneaky. Today I spent hours in Cece’s house and nobody knew.”

“That’s not being sneaky, I get a notification from our camera system every time there’s motion in the driveway.”
“Wait, so you saw-?”

“Yes, Winnie. I saw you and Nick ‘vandalize’ us with those tomato plants.”

“Oh, that was a prank?” Jess asked. “I thought you guys just planted a garden. Winston, that’s just a favor.”

Winston slapped her thighs. “It was a prank!” she insisted, giggling at the thought alone. “Because you guys didn’t expect it. You woke up one morning and there were tomato plants in your yard, in with all the little flowers. Prank Sinatra, baby!”

“Not a prank,” Cece said, shaking her head. “I’ll make you pasta with the sauce from those tomatoes. Is that a prank?”
“Well yeah, because you’re making my prank backfire into just a nice thing you did for me. Now that’s a prank.”

Later that night, Jess was hard at work in her room. On her sewing machine was Winston’s favorite brown jacket, flipped inside out. She was sewing a small patch on the inside of it, practice for a hopeful someday when she could do a bigger pattern in a more visible place. Blue, pink, and white.

“Schmidt’s here!” Nick called from the living room. Jess pulled the jacket off the machine and folded it over her arm. As she walked into the communal space, she flashed a grin at Winston. All evening, she’d felt very conspiratorial. Like she, Winston, and Cece were ‘in on’ something together, sneaking around to hide it from everyone else. She was reminded of the time she and Winston had bought a shitty little bathtub and ruined all of Schmidt’s suits. Or when she and Cece were shoving aquarium rock ‘meth’ down the drain, desperately hiding from the police officer just outside the bathroom door. A rush of nervous adrenaline, and with it, a little joy.

“That’s just Winston’s jacket,” Schmidt said, his forehead furrowing in confusion. “Is that supposed to be a present?”

“Everyone knows that if you regift something, you steal it a few months before their birthday so they forget they ever had it,” Nick advised through a mouthful of pretzels. Aly nodded enthusiastically, perched on the arm of the couch. Nick swiped pretzel crumbs off his lap. “Did you forget Winston’s birthday again?”

“That’s not my gift,” Jess said impatiently, handing the jacket to Winston where she sat at the kitchen island. “I just fixed a tear in it. Winston tried to feed a really aggressive duck.”

“And I will carry the scars my whole life,” Winston said, her face lighting up as she subtly checked the inside. “Thank you, Jess.”
“My real present is this,” Jess said, setting the gift bag on the counter. She’d stuffed it with hot pink tissue paper- on second thought, though, she didn’t know if Winston could even see that color.

Regardless, Winston dug through the tissue paper and pulled out the scrapbook, flipping through it and paying careful attention to each page.

“Good lord, Winston, how many cat pictures do you need?” Schmidt asked, peering over her shoulder. Aly got up from the couch to join them, Nick shambling behind her with absolutely horrible posture. His dark gray shirt was covered in crumbs and grains of salt.

“I’d say it’s a four to one ratio of Ferguson to Aly in there,” Jess said, clearing off the tissue paper and throwing it on the floor for Ferguson to play with.

“He has to have his priorities,” Aly said, putting an arm around Winston and looking at her with nothing but affection in her eyes. Jess winced, but Cece flashed her a Look. She’d promised. “They’re a package deal. It’s Winston and Ferguson, then me. We all know it.”

“Don’t let me become like that when we get a dog, Jess,” Nick groaned.

“You’ll be happier.” Winston scooped up Ferguson onto her lap and moved onto the other presents. A watch from Schmidt, a big succulent from Cece, and… a crumpled sheet of paper from Nick.

“It’s a bonus scene from Pepperwood,” he explained, “where Three-Fingers Shane finally confronts Pamela Andy about the murder of his parents and the accident that took his other fingers.”
Winston gasped. “And you wrote this just for me?”

“It’ll never appear in any of the books. It happens right before Shane goes missing, on the stormy mountaintop.” Nick waved his hand through the air in an attempt at mystery, but it ended up looking more like he was swatting a fly.

“Can I read that?” Aly asked, glancing over at Nick.

“I already have,” Schmidt admitted, beaming. “It’s phenomenal. The conflict felt so real, and the moment with the lightning is just a perfect peak to the tension.” He pulled Nick in by the shoulders and kissed his cheek.

“Whose birthday is it again?” Winston asked, staring at them with half-genuine judgement.

“Stop kissing me,” Nick said, making a big show of wiping it off with a napkin. Schmidt looked absurdly hurt, like a little kicked puppy.

“It’s time for cake,” Cece said, taking Schmidt by the hand and leading him around to the other side of the kitchen counter. Jess sliced it into squares and slid them onto festive ceramic plates, passing them out to all of her best friends. She put a candle into Winston’s, lighting it before setting it in front of her.

“Make a birthday wish,” she said cheerfully, stepping back to dim the lights and take a picture with her phone.

Earlier, she had redone the frosting herself. Winston’s slice read,

“WINNIE!”