Chapter Text
The Greasy Spoon always smells like coffee, and the floors are perpetually sticky. Dennis’s sneakers make that sort of spongy sound like he’s just stepped in spilled syrup, the tread of his feet louder than it has any right to be. Checkered tile cradles his soles in waves of black and white. It hurts if you stare at it too long. The diner is tiny, really, a whole-in-the-wall in Downtown Pittsburgh, which makes it worse when it’s busy. And right now, it’s busy.
’80s music rattles through the speakers overhead, washing the building in staticky Pat Benatar and buzzy radio hosts that sound way too cheerful for seven o’clock in the morning. They have got to get their sound system fixed.
Dennis swings through the kitchen door with a groan, order ticket in hand, and shouts over the hiss and sizzle of the kitchen. “Two cheese and two large fries to drop,” he calls, turning the ticket in and hating the way his voice cracks on the words. Who orders cheeseburgers for breakfast?
He swallows, ducks back out into the dining room, takes another table. Prays his voice just cooperates with him and doesn’t make him sound like a teenage boy who’s just hit puberty. He’s been on testosterone for over two years already, and still, it doesn’t seem to want to stop changing him. Molding him, guiding him, shaping him into someone new with each passing day.
The bell above the door rings, obnoxious in that way it gets when someone accidentally pushes instead of pulling, and a child shrieks as a family of six trickles in. Dennis debates clocking out right then. Only an hour of his shift has passed, but his scent patch is itchy on his neck, his binder digs into the meat of his ribs, and already he wishes he could take a break to breathe.
There’s so much noise.
He seats them, makes sure they’re far enough away from the kitchen so that if he needs to, he can slip into the back for some reprieve. They’re nice enough, thankfully. A couple of betas with sweet children. Don’t order anything too complicated, smile at him when he brings them their drinks. When they leave, they tip generously, and Dennis thanks his lucky stars for the fifty-dollar bill tucked under a cup of water. He grabs it, ignores the way it’s wet in his hands from condensation, slips it into his pocket.
The morning chugs by like that. Families coming in to eat breakfast together, couples enjoying flapjacks over mugs of black coffee. It’s hectic. He’s not sure how much time has passed, but when he goes into the kitchen next, one of the cooks — Donahue — waves a spatula at him. He’s a big, burly man, all muscle and fat and body hair, and Dennis is not ashamed to admit that when he first started working here, he had a crush on the guy. It was quickly killed when he overheard Donahue speaking about how he and his wife were expecting their second child. Yeah, no. Of course, he was straight. And married. “Dana’s taking her smoke, if you wanna join. Lunch rush won’t be around for a while.”
Dennis lets his shoulders drop, glances at the clock over the sink, blinks in surprise. His feet ache, and the small of his back is tense like someone reached in and squeezed the muscle as hard as they could. “It’s already ten?”
Donahue laughs. “Time flies when you’re having fun, huh?”
Dennis shakes his head, washes his hands in the small employee sink in the corner, wipes sweat from his brow. “Not so sure food service could be classified as ‘fun’.”
A shrug. “All about perspective, right?”
Dennis snickers, pushing out the back door with a, “Be back in five.”
“Make it ten!” Donahue calls just before the door shuts.
The late morning air is chilly. It has goosebumps erupting across his skin, and he hugs his arms to himself, shuffling along the side of the building. Dana is leaning against the white brick wall, jean jacket tugged tight around her, a cigarette nestled between two fingers.
“Thought I’d find you out here,” says Dennis, stopping by her side and sliding down to sit on the pavement. “Princess and Trinity are finishing up with the breakfast crowd. We got a few minutes.”
Dana cocks her bottom jaw to the side, huffs smoke out in one big cloud. “Figured. Those two always manage to get the best of it. Not so many crazies this time o’ day.” She fishes around in her pocket, pulls out a pack of cigarettes, hands him one. She lights it for him, too.
He takes a drag and lets his head fall against the wall. “Feels like winter already. Wish it would slow down.”
Dana nods. “November’s been brutal. Can’t remember the last time I got a break longer than fifteen minutes.”
Dennis blows smoke out his nose. “I think I could sleep for a week.”
She laughs. “You and me both, kid.”
A wave of calm falls over them, comfortable and warm. It does little to protect Dennis from the cold, though. After a minute, Dana speaks again, a smile in her voice.
“Those boys o’ yours comin’ by today? Heard they’d be closin’ early.” She flicks ash off the end of her cig.
Dennis’s stomach does a funny thing, flipping over itself, and he goes red, squinting up at her. “I don’t know,” he says, a little defensive. He’s not entirely sure why.
“Really?” she teases, eyes crinkled with mirth. “You don’t know?”
He rolls his eyes, curls into himself. Doesn’t dignify her words with a response. Doesn’t mention how Jack and Robby gave him a ride home from work the other day, how he had to lie about his address because he didn’t want them knowing where he really lives. She only laughs when he stays quiet.
“I’m teasin’, kid.”
“Yeah,” he mumbles, bringing his cigarette back to his mouth. Dana observes him for a moment, smoke curling in thoughtful circles from her mouth. The silence hanging over them lingers too long, and she turns to face him fully.
“You doin’ okay?” she presses, and Dennis really wishes she wouldn’t. He scratches the back of his head, plays with the curls there.
“Yeah,” he repeats, shrugs like everything’s normal. Because it is. It doesn’t matter that he spends most of the money he makes on hormone replacement therapy and doctors’ visits. Doesn’t matter that he has no place to truly call home. And yet, part of Dennis yearns to be cared for. To be thought of, to be worried about. He’s learned to ignore that part of him. Learned to sew, just so he might thread its mouth shut when it gets too loud. This place, he thinks, is the closest he’s come to having a family. “Fine. Why?”
She echoes him, shrugging with a casual twist of her lips. “Just checkin’. I know how overwhelming things can get. ‘Specially when you work a job like this.”
“Oh,” he says, eloquently. She doesn’t push after that. Just watches him with that sort of weary concern only a mother knows.
Five minutes pass like five seconds. All too quickly, Dana stomps her cigarette out on the pavement, helps Dennis up off the ground. When they get back inside, Donahue is conversing loudly with their dishwasher, lost in whatever story he’s telling. Dennis straightens his apron, smooths down his hair, and slips back into the dining room.
—
Nights in Downtown Pittsburgh are rough. Sleeping outside, though, is worse, and Dennis sends a quick thanks to the heavens for public transport. The bus is warm and full of strangers, and as he sits in his seat, he stares out the window, wondering vaguely if he should have tried to find something for dinner.
He’s only on for ten minutes before the bus rolls to a stop, doors opening with a mechanical hiss. A few blocks down sits a dingy motel. He hops out and adjusts his backpack over his shoulder, makes his way towards it. Ignores his belly growling, the dull ache of his ribs beneath his binder (it sharpens for every hour he spends wearing it, but it’s pain he’s familiar with by now).
It’s not like he can really afford to eat properly. The diner gives its employees one free meal per shift, and the motel offers free breakfast, which is more than he could’ve ever hoped for, but apparently, his body is greedy. Demands more, always more.
Before, he had learned to get by on whatever he could scrounge up — from people’s garbage to whatever leftovers he could find when restaurants were closing for the day. Now, though, he’s grown lazy. Gotten used to eating twice a day, so when he goes to bed hungry, without dinner, his stomach hurts.
It’s funny, the way his threshold for discomfort decreases when he grows accustomed to having most of his basic needs met.
The motel room is dark when he shuffles in.
His scent patch has long since lost its efficiency, but the scarves around his neck have done enough to hide it up until now. He sets his backpack by the closet, flicks the lights on, starts stripping off his layers. When he tugs the scarves off, his scent blossoms around the room, leaking into the wallpaper, burrowing in the corners. It’s tinged with a sour undercurrent, exhaustion and stress weaving around each other in bold strokes.
The shower is warm when he steps in, water hot against his back. He dunks his head under, holds his breath as rivulets stream down his face, over his shoulders. There is something meditative about it. Something ritualistic in the way he conditions his hair, in the way he runs a soapy washcloth over damp skin. Purifying. Cleansing, scrubbing, until the suds on the shower floor are stomped down the drain.
Here, he is not a confused omega, not a girl pretending to be a boy, not a man barely getting by. Here, he simply is.
When he shuts the faucet off and reaches for his towel, padding back into the bedroom, goosebumps erupt over his flesh. He tugs on a ratty t-shirt, steps into his boxers. A testosterone vial sits on the TV desk, gleaming in the overhead light.
His hands shake a little as he draws it up into a syringe, as he flicks away air bubbles. The needle doesn’t really hurt anymore when it pierces through to the subcutis. It stings, but he’s quick with it, pulling out and carefully placing a bandaid over the injection site.
Beneath the skin of his thigh, where dense tissue gives way to fat, salvation blooms in pleasant bursts. Every time, without fail, the shot of testosterone tends to make him a little lightheaded. A little overcome with ecstasy.
You are making a man of yourself. It says. Recreating your body in no one’s image but your own.
When he falls into bed, the mattress is a little too tough to be comfortable, and the room is cold, but it’s enough. He tells himself it’s enough.
It has to be.