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Martin used to fantasize about it, sometimes. The idea of starting T and then just dropping off the radar for a year or two, only reappearing when he can present his transition as a fait accompli instead of an awkward work-in-progress that needs to be explained and justified and defended. Starting a new life in a place where nobody knows him as anything other than Martin.
It was always an unrealistic dream, but it was comforting to think that, in some hypothetical perfect future, it could happen. Some reality where Martin has money and a degree he didn’t make up and a mum who doesn’t make the words look just like your father sound like a capital crime.
And then he went and got possibly the only job on the planet that’s willing to pay him above minimum wage without so much as glancing at his references, and, well. That’s what Martin gets for dreaming.
But, the thing is: if Martin keeps putting off his transition until every star aligns perfectly, he’ll probably never do it. So one day he decides, without telling a single soul, to take the plunge and damn the consequences. He rehearses every possible response in his head before he dials the clinic's number with sweaty hands, stammers his way through the anticlimactically painless process of making the appointment, and then splurges on a celebratory pad thai that he eats alone in his flat while trying not to panic.
It’s...a lot. After all the warnings he’s read about how slow the process can be, how he’ll need to be patient and not get upset if things don’t progress as fast as he would like, Martin is a little taken aback by how eagerly his body responds to the HRT, like its lack of testosterone was a vitamin deficiency in need of correcting. He knew he was already starting at a pretty high baseline - he’s always been kind of big and hairy and oafish, to be honest, and it had made his school days a humiliating hell, but apparently his teenage self's loss is his adult self's gain, because once he finally starts on T things snowball alarmingly quickly.
(Eat your heart out, girl-who-sat-behind-him in-math-class-whose-name-he-can't-remember. He may have been an ugly teen girl, but he's shaping up to be a pretty good-looking twenty-nine year old man.)
It's scary-fun in a good way, for the most part, even the parts that are gross and silly. There are new feelings and new smells and a whole goddamn lot of acne and sweating, okay, and he’s so hungry all the time he could just about gnaw the plaster off the walls, it’s wreaking merry havoc on his grocery budget, and for a while it seems like all the spare time he doesn't spend looking at himself in the mirror he spends with one hand down his pants, because that's definitely a thing too, and. Well. It’s good. It really is.
(God, is it weird that he kind of likes the stink?)
For a while, he feels less like he's hiding in the closet and more like he's- oh, a dragon curled up on a treasure pile, or something, guarding something fragile and precious. He likes keeping it to himself, this happy secret that he enjoys when he's alone in his flat, where he doesn't have to worry about anyone's perceptions but his own.
He procrastinates coming out for as long as he can possibly justify, hovering in what he likes to think of as the “zone of androgynous plausible deniability” until- until what? Until he reaches some arbitrary point where asking people to call him "he" doesn't feel quite so farcical? Until it stops feeling scary? He'll take it to his grave, if that's what he's waiting for.
He probably would have kept dithering over it forever, except the effects are starting to show - show in ways that would be noticeable to people who aren't watching with breathless anticipation for the slightest change - and he’s...yeah, he’s reaching the point where he should probably start having some conversations.
(Martin never thought he’d ever be grateful that his mum only deigns to let him visit her at the care home once in a blue moon. He is not looking forward to explaining this to her.)
(He catches himself thinking, once, about how much easier it would be if she ended up dying before he ever has to tell her, and then spends the rest of the day in such a funk of guilty self-loathing that even Jon gives him a few concerned looks. By way of penance, he writes his mum a long rambling letter about nothing that she’ll probably never read anyway.)
He ends up telling Tim and Sasha first. As it turns out, his plausible deniability hadn't been quite as, uh, plausible as he had thought, and they had absolutely been humoring him when he tried to blame his persistent sore throat and wavering voice on a lingering case of laryngitis. He gets two hugs and a hearty slap on the back from Tim and he might have cried a little, okay, he’s entitled to it.
(And isn't it funny, how having two people laughing along with him about his T squeaks - or teasing him about the time Sasha caught him sniffing his own armpit in the break room - actually makes the whole thing so much less embarrassing. Maybe he's just forgotten what it's like to have friends.)
Which just leaves...Jon. And, you know, the entire rest of the world, but Jon is the one he's most concerned about at the moment. Jon, who seems convinced that every move Martin makes is some kind of deliberate effort to sabotage his career, as though Elias is going to come down here and yank the promotion right out from under him because he noticed a lowly archival assistant used the- the wrong color of filing tab, or something. God.
Martin anxiously chews the idea over in his head for days, which gives him an excuse to indulge his fun new habit of rubbing his chin absent-mindedly when he’s thinking. He’s always been prone to a bit of stubble, even before T, and the bristly new growth - shaven down to invisibility, for now, but still pleasantly sandpapery against his fingers - has been a continual source of quiet delight to him. He privately thrills at the idea that he might be able to manage a proper beard once he gets past the patchy teenage boy stage.
Tim, like a gallant knight, even offers to go take the bullet on Martin's behalf, after watching Martin fret over it for the better part of a week. (Well, he doesn't phrase it quite like that. Tim still seems to be standing by his claim that Jon’s actually a pretty nice guy, once you get to know him. Martin will believe it when he sees it.) But if there’s anything worse than the idea of looking Jon in the eye while he explains...this, it's the idea of sitting outside Jon’s office while Tim makes Martin’s excuses for him, waiting for the hammer to fall.
No. Martin needs to, no pun intended, man up and go get it over with.
Martin takes a moment to enjoy a sensible chuckle at his little joke, then squares his shoulders, marches up to Jon’s office door, and knocks.
And then immediately retreats when Jon shouts through the door that he's busy recording a statement.
Okay. He'll just. He'll give it another fifteen minutes, just to be safe.
-
It's not exactly a surprise, when it finally happens. Contrary to popular belief, Jon isn't completely socially oblivious, and there are only so many reasons why one’s thirty-something year old coworker would appear to suddenly be going through the early stages of male puberty.
Unfortunately, in this case, “unsurprising” does not mean "any less astoundingly uncomfortable to sit through," when the time comes for the big announcement. Despite how dearly he might wish otherwise, Jon ends up sitting behind his desk, listening with glazed eyes and a fixed expression while his least favorite assistant delivers a rambling spiel that seems specifically designed to make Jon writhe out of his skin with second-hand embarrassment.
“- so, anyway, what I'm trying to say is, I'm trans? As in, uh, transgender? Like, female to male? My name is Martin now - well, not legally, yet, but I'm working on it -”
Is this hell? Jon thinks he might be in hell.
“- and Tim and Sasha already know, so that's, that's not an issue -"
A very particular type of hell, tailored specifically to Jon, who has always taken considerable pains to avoid ever needing to have this particular type of conversation with anyone other than his GP. Mostly via the simple expedient of cutting off contact with every single person who knew him prior to the age of twenty-five.
(Jon can admit, at least in the begrudging privacy of his head, that what Martin has opted to do is probably the braver option.)
"- so I just wanted to- to check in, and make sure that it’s not- this isn’t going to be a problem? Right?”
Whole geological ages later, when he? - Martin? - mercifully winds down to a stop, Jon has to take a moment to collect himself, steepling his fingers to stop his hands from fidgeting. If his leg is jittering slightly under the desk, well, that's no one's business but his own.
Jon finds himself torn between a number of different responses, as he hastily tries to figure out how best to summarize yes, Martin, I do, in fact, know what transgender means and of course it makes no difference, why would it and some vague ideas about saying something- something supportive, or at least marginally tactful. Whatever it is one is supposed to do in these sorts of situations, god only knows. He's not a bloody diplomat.
And then his brain does the thing where it can't locate the correct word for a concept, and it automatically substitutes a much more obscure alternative that only barely makes sense in context, and what actually ends up coming out of his mouth is:
"I'm not a plebeian, Martin."
One whole minute later, when Martin looks like he's nearly done laughing himself sick at Jon's expense, it occurs to Jon that maybe, in a roundabout way, he did say the right thing. Martin doesn't seem upset, at least, tears of laughter in the corners of his eyes notwithstanding.
If someone had told Jon that a day would come when he would say something that would actually make one of his assistants cry, this would not have been the scenario Jon envisioned.
"Wh-wh-what does that even mean, Jon?" Martin wheezes, voice cracking slightly towards the end. (Oh, the not-so-fond nostalgia of that sound.) For better or for worse, his earlier tension appears to have completely shattered. "What does that mean?"
"I'm glad you're feeling entertained-"
"I'm sorry, you just- you just looked so offended, I can't-" Martin falls to hysterics again, beet red and gasping, all while Jon grows steadily sweatier and fights to stop himself from tugging at his collar.
"I only meant," Jon says forcefully, as soon as there's room for him to get a word in edgewise, "that, contrary to what you seem to believe, I am not completely out of the loop when it comes to queer issues."
“Oh. Oh!”
And Jon's not sure what he's done to merit that expression. Martin is suddenly wide-eyed, his mouth an o of surprise.
Christ. He'd better not be getting any ideas about making...rainbow friendship bracelets, or some such nonsense. There's only so much camaraderie a man can take. Jon gets enough of that from Tim.
Whatever internal epiphany Martin just experienced, he seems to get past it quickly. He clears his throat and straightens up, visibly trying to regain his composure. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, sorry, shouldn't have assumed. So. Um. We're good?"
What was he expecting Jon to say? No, this is entirely unacceptable, now go put that gender back where it came from or so help me-
"Yes. Quite," says Jon, joining Martin in trying to inject a bit of dignity back into the proceedings. If his face manages to convey anything other than sheer clawing desperation to put an end to this conversation, he'll count it as a miracle.
"Okay. Good. Then, I'll just, uh-"
"Yes. Let me know if you need any- any paperwork signed, or something," says Jon with a dismissive flutter of his hand, his tone sounding only marginally pained. Now please get out of my office.
Martin pauses, dithers like he's considering saying something else, looks at Jon’s face, appears to think better of it, and promptly escapes the room.
Jon sighs and runs a hand through his hair. The back of his neck is burning hot.
Then he startles violently when Martin opens the door a crack, says a quiet "Thanks," and immediately closes it again.
Jon waits a minute to make sure Martin is really gone this time before he gives in to the urge to put his hand on his temple.
Good lord.