Chapter Text
Doug was dragging Mark along to a formalwear store. Apparently, he was going on another date with Linda Farrell - the drug rep who by most accounts was a good partner for Doug, but Mark avoided drug reps on principle. She, with all her dirty drug-dealing money, lent Doug her credit card, telling him to get a decent suit. Mark wasn’t quite sure why he was here anyway, god knows he was the furthest thing from a fashion expert, but he liked spending time with Doug and Doug wanted him here, so here he was.
Walking through, Doug picked up a few suit jackets, mainly black with big lapels. They were nice, well made, but nothing too out of the ordinary. He would go in and out of rooms with one of the employees, show it off to Mark, who would respond unhelpfully with things like “Nice!” “That one looks good,”, “Oh, she’d like that.” Doug settled on one that he liked, and the employee whisked it away to let the two continue shopping. They had reached the end of the suit section, now transitioning into the dresses. Doug’s smile got bigger.
“I wonder how she’d feel if I got her something. Or better yet, you should get something for Jen. Or maybe for that surgical tech instead,” Doug laughed.
“Jesus Christ, Doug, for the last time, nothing is happening.”
“Not even with Susan Lewis?”
Mark hesitated ever so slightly - not because he wanted anything to happen between the two of them, but it was simply a fact that Susan was jaw-droppingly gorgeous - and Doug would forever be using this hesitation against him.
“Told you. Which one of these would you want to see on Susan then?”
“Doug, come on,”
“Look, I’m just encouraging you to… explore your options. There is more out there than just your high school sweetheart.”
“Doug, stop.”
“Okay! Okay!” Doug responded, but Mark could still see that look in his eyes that meant he wasn’t completely joking about everything he said.
Doug picked one up. “Look at this one, she'd look good in this.”
“Well, now you're going to have to clarify who.”
“Linda,” Doug suddenly got a mischievous grin on his face, “but I bet it’d look good on you too.”
“Doug-"
The dress was thrown at him. It was almost prickly with the glitter it had on it, the light reflecting off the glitter, feeling like it was blinding him. It was a deep green, and with the light and the color he could feel himself being hypnotized by it.
“Well come on, put it on!” Doug said, doubled over laughing. Mark looked up, lost, trying to snap out of whatever trance he seemed to find himself in. As much as he was pissed at the hazing, he was grateful for Doug now pushing him into the dressing room, forcing his body to come back to reality and move.
“Unless you want to change in front of me,” He started laughing even harder, his stupid chuckle that would keep Mark up at night, lying there on his back with his eyes wide open, thinking about his soft eyelashes and his eyes that would literally twinkle in the right lighting and his lips that he’d seen so many women get kissed by just waiting for his turn - and then he’d feel Jen shift in her sleep and he’d come back to reality. He would be wracked with guilt, knowing that Jen wasn’t the only person he was in love with, and he’d lay there for the rest of the night, not sleeping, not moving, just running thoughts through his head over and over.
Doug would never love him, and Mark could never tell him. Doug was never homophobic, at least outwardly, but Mark could see his aversion to every gay patient, his reluctance, and knew that if he ever said anything it would mean losing him. He couldn’t bear that, so he would settle for being the man Doug saw as the brother he never had.
“Did you get stuck?” Doug asked, jokingly, grounding Mark back again. He looked down at the dress in his hand, steeled himself, and tried to get this over with as fast as he could.
“I’m fine, you ass.”
“Don’t be a pussy, come on, show me!”
“Just give me a second! There's straps and stuff, it’s not that easy to put on. How d’ya think they do this all time?”
“Who, women? Well, science does say they’re smarter than us.” He chuckled again. It made Mark almost dizzy.
Finally, he figured it out. He strained his arms to reach the zipper so he wouldn’t have to have Doug do it. That’d make this whole thing even more humiliating. And for the first time after stepping into it, he looked in the mirror.
His height made the dress much too short. It was supposed to be floor length, but it came up to his shins. The slit wasn’t sitting right, coming up just a little too high, revealing his boxers. The waist was too small, straining against his body. But even with the irritation of the glitter and poor fit, he knew that something had changed. He liked it. He liked the way the neckline dipped down his sternum, the way it cupped his chest. He looked away, trying not to get caught up in his feelings before he had to show Doug, and found a safety pin on the ground which he picked up and used to pin the slit together near the top to cover his boxers. He liked it even more. He opened the door, and Doug snickered.
“Such a pretty girl,” Doug joked, but it just made Mark even more flustered.
“Thanks, I guess,” Mark mumbled back. What else could he say to that?
“What’s wrong, Marky-boy? Are you embarrassed?”
“No,” Mark lied through his teeth. He wanted to be alone, out of Doug’s gaze that felt like fire against his skin. He wanted to sit with himself, give himself time to process the fact he liked being in the dress, liked being called a girl. The odd general discomfort he always felt with himself getting 10x worse, localizing on his squared off body and his voice and all the other dead giveaways that made him a man. Doug’s laughing slowed, as Mark stood there awkwardly.
“Can I change out now?”
“What, you weren’t gonna buy it?” Mark just stared at him. “Yeah, buddy, you can change back. I’m gonna go find a tie and then we’re out of here.”
So Mark stepped back into the fitting room, almost ripping the dress of his body, sitting down to catch his breath. He waited for his vision to straighten out, his heart to stop fluttering. He pulled his shirt and khakis back on. They didn’t look right on him anymore.
Doug did most of the talking on the way back. He talked about the usual - women, work, sports. Mark stared out the window, watching the buildings go past.
He got home, dipping into the dark house. He cracked open the door to Rachel’s room, double-checking that she wasn’t staying up late drawing or reading. He went to his and Jen’s bedroom, Jen already settled into bed. He slipped off his sneakers, his khakis, his button down. He hesitated at the shirt - then dug out of his drawers an undershirt to put on. He got under the covers of the bed, trying as always not to wake Jen (succeeding this time, somehow).
He had seen people come into the ER, living as a woman, and he thought about what would happen if he tried to follow that path. But here he was, with a wife who probably wouldn’t love him, who maybe already didn’t, a daughter who needed a father, and a best friend who laughed at the people he might be like. So he did the same thing he had done when he realized what the twisting feeling was in his stomach when he looked at Doug. He closed his eyes, pulled Jen closer, and pretended that this would blow over by morning.