Chapter Text
Ollie Reeder could survive his job, but he hated everything about himself while he was there. Come to think about it, he hated everything about himself when he wasn’t there as well.
Well. He liked some things about himself, like his quick wit, his height (you're a lot harder to bully when you're 6'2”) and his ability to adapt to his surroundings with the minimum of internal screaming. That and his rather sharp jaw (which some said could work like a hole punch if he was pushed forward). And his hair was brilliant. Even Phil was jealous of him, and the man had barely more testosterone than he did. And shit hair.
But he hated his body. His hips - they were too wide. Far too wide. They stuck out like someone had put padding around his waist. His voice - he tried to get it as low as possible, but it just ended up sort of squeaky in a way that he hoped no one else could pick up on. At least he'd lucked out in the genetic lottery and ended up with small tits. They could be easily hidden by a binder, which he’d had a hard time sourcing but which was much better than the bandages he used to use at school.
As far as anyone in politics knew, Ollie Reeder was, and had always been, biologically male. A feminine man, sure, but still a man. And he intended to keep it that way.
Because that’s what he was - a man. To himself, and to the world. He even had a girlfriend - who he didn’t really like. But he would think about that later.
“Oi, Bonnie Prince Charlie!” said Malcolm, depositing a heap of reports onto Ollie's desk. “Stop fucking playing with yourself and get these photocopied.”
Ollie felt like crying. His period had started, but he couldn’t tell anyone about it for obvious reasons. Through dint of careful observation, he'd worked out that almost everyone in the office was synced to Nicola’s cycle - which went a long way towards explaining why DoSac was Like That.
Fuck. He had to change his pad, urgently - he'd been sitting here for most of the morning already. He prayed nobody was using the one cubicle in the men’s. He’d spread a rumour that he'd been having really bad bowel problems, which was embarrassing but better than the truth. DoSAC was not the sort of place that encouraged diversity. Diversity in intelligence, maybe, and in people’s ability to shut the fuck up, but not in gender expression.
He sort of wriggled across the room and down the hallway to the gents. He couldn't help feeling that he was being followed. The natural consequence of working in a glass-walled office.
He got himself into the cubicle and gingerly opened a new pad. He'd always hated these things, found them inefficient. But he didn't like having to stick anything up his… well. He doubted that this was any better, though, as the pad didn't really adhere properly to his boxers. Wearing boxers was miles better than the skinny little thongs girls seemed to be wearing at the moment, but it did have its downsides.
There wasn’t really anywhere to deposit the previous pad so he flushed it down the toilet, environment be damned. And then, a voice.
“Ollie… are you eating crisps in there?”
He froze. Shit, shit shit shit - it was Glenn. He made a vaguely affirmative noise, quickly put the new pad in, disposed of the wrapper and made it to the sinks, heart pounding.
“I’m generally very much in favour of a secret snack in the middle of the day, but really, Ollie, crisps? In the bathroom? You'll catch some awful disease left over from when the Fucker was last here.”
Ollie just sort of murmured yes and no in the appropriate places and focused on washing his hands. But there was something wrong - the water wasn’t washing clear, but red. And it seemed Glenn had noticed too.
“Don't worry,” he said eventually, “I understand. It's a pain, isn't it?”
Ollie didn’t quite know what to say about that. He didn’t know what Glenn could have meant - unless - and this was quite a big unless - Glenn was… like him? But he couldn’t have been -
“You should see the doctor about them, though - get some cream. It’s done wonders for mine, they’ve almost gone away.”
“Sorry,” said Ollie, pinching the bridge of his nose, “what are you talking about?”
“Haemorrhoids.” Glenn looked confused. “It's either that or bowel cancer, and you're still a little young for -”
Ollie felt his whole body unclench in relief. No, Glenn did not know he was trans, and Glenn was not trans himself. He was just old.
“Thanks, Glenn.” said Ollie, ducking out of the bathroom as quickly as possible. “I'll get it checked out.”
When he got home, the collective stress of the day and almost being found out hit him like a brick. Ollie felt like he couldn’t breathe, and it wasn’t just the binder (he took that off as soon as he locked the door). Nor was it wholly a reaction to having left the bright lights of the hallway for the dark, musty shithole he rented from a bald man for three quarters of his salary.
His shoulders started to shake a little, and he realised he was crying.
He hadn’t cried in years. Not since the girls at school had called him a dyke and pushed him to the ground - god, how long ago was that? Fifteen years, probably.
For fuck’s sake, Ollie - pull yourself together.
His thoughts did nothing to get rid of the mounting feeling of total panic that was rising up, that was currently at his knees, but soon would hit his chest and by then he’d be unable to stop the total meltdown. It didn't help that most of the stuff he used to ward the negative emotions off - his guitar, for example - was at Emma's. Watching TV just made him feel worse - like he was floating a few inches above his body and looking down at himself being all pathetic and weeping like a girl.
But he wasn’t a girl - he wasn’t.
He was Ollie Reeder. He could get through this.
Ten minutes later he left the bathroom a different man. This time he hadn’t added to the collection of faded scars on his left arm, thank god - just splashed some cold water over his face until he felt vaguely human again. And sprayed himself with Lynx Africa, which he found always made him feel reassuringly masculine.
The next day he found he had a few missed calls from Emma, which was worrying, but then again he was too busy to care. More worrying was the fact that he appeared to have gained his own personal Peeping Tom. Glenn had been staring at him all morning - and not in the old man way of simply not realising that he was looking at an actual person. Proper, intense staring.
“Look, Glenn, I’m flattered, but I’m already going out with Emma.” Ollie said eventually. “Go back to your crusty blow-up doll, she can’t be that bad. She doesn’t talk back to you, at least.”
“It isn't that,” said Glenn. “Ollie, can I have a word?”
Ollie felt his heart drop into his stomach. He didn’t want to tell the man ‘No’ because that might make the situation worse. And then again, it might not be about yesterday. It could just be that he'd seen an interesting bird on his way to work and wanted to tell someone because his life was just that sad. Or else he'd found a revolutionary new way to treat haemorrhoids. They went out into the corridor.
“Ollie - what’s your real name?” Glenn said with a strange look in his eyes.
“What the fuck do you mean, what's my real name? It’s Oliver Francis Reeder. Why, are you trying to hack into my bank account? Are you going to ask for my mother's maiden name and the three digits on the back of my card next?”
“I meant, what's your - Oh, fuck this. I used the cubicle after you, and… I found your sanitary towel.” His voice dropped. “It hadn't flushed properly.”
Ollie started to hyperventilate. He felt his head spinning, and thought he was going to pass out. He made a dash for the exit, and all too suddenly he was on the floor with his head between his legs and Terri insistently offering him a bottle of water.
A small crowd had gathered. Glenn was still there, but now he looked less confused, more concerned.
“Drink this,” said Terri. “You've had a fall, Ollie.”
As soon as he could talk again, Ollie said, in a slightly higher pitched voice than usual:
“Nothing to see here, folks. Back to your excruciatingly dull lives, go on.” The crowd muttered and began to disperse.
Glenn wasn’t going away, though.
He was sitting next to Ollie. Ollie wished he would go away. But there was no moving Glenn.
“It’s all right, um, Ollie. I don’t really understand, though. How does - it - work?’
“Not here.” said Ollie in a strangled whisper, very aware of the fact that they were still in the middle of the bullpen where anyone could overhear.
So he went back to work as if nothing had happened. Got shouted at as if nothing had happened. Made jokes as if nothing had happened. But it had.
And when it was time to go home, Glenn was there, escorting him out of the building like an overprotective dad. Ollie genuinely had no idea whether Glenn would be OK with his past, and he didn’t really want to tell him, but things had come to this point so he supposed he might as well. Never mind if he woke up in hospital the next day having drunk too much in order to try and erase the conversation from his mind.
“So. Um. Ollie. Were you -”
“Yes, Glenn. As we have very much established, yes, I was a girl. Once. A very long time ago.”
Glenn had an implacable look on his face.
“Right, well. Um. I suppose that sorts that out. Does… Does anyone else at DoSAC know?”
At this point Ollie lost his cool.
“No, Glenn, and I don't want them to either. If you’d just minded your own fucking business -”
He realised he was shaking again and felt an arm around his shoulder. He shook it off and tried to walk away. Maybe this time Glenn got the message, because he didn’t try to follow Ollie.
And now, the Northern Line. Back to a nice mews house and a girlfriend who, though she'd never outright stated it, had never quite reconciled herself with the fact of who her boyfriend used to be.