[Fic] Don't Dress Your Cat In An Apron

[kittydesade]

Title: Don't Dress Your Cat In An Apron
Fandom: The Dresden Files (book)
Characters: Marcone, OC
Word Count: ~5300 words
Rating: R
Summary: Marcone has managed to keep his love life a carefully guarded secret, including its... differences. That doesn't mean, however, that he won't fight to protect and keep it.
A/N: Contains discussion and description of transgender and transsexuality and abortion. Thanks, as always, to Kiki and Anna for betaing, and to Bean for putting up with me.

"Don't dress your cat in an apron, just 'cause he's learning to bake
Don't put your horse in a nightgown, just 'cause she can't stay awake
Don't dress your snake in a muumuu, just 'cause he's off on a cruise
Don't dress your whale in galoshes if she really prefers overshoes
A person should wear what he wants to
And not just what other folk say
A person should do what she likes to
A person's a person that way."
-- Don't Dress Your Cat In An Apron
Billy de Wolfe



Another in an endless string of hotel rooms, expensive but obscure. Another weekend spent holed up in a “business meeting,” or so it was put about to anyone who came to his office inquiring. Alex conducting his business meetings in chatrooms from his laptop and in his underwear, sprawled under the blankets on the bed. Marcone was, in fact, spending a couple of hours a day in teleconferences with contacts and conducting business, but the rest of the time was spent in his suite with Alex.

“We could go to the theatre,” he pointed out, as Marcone shed suit coat and tie and belt and joined him on the bed. “I hear there’s a couple of new shows in town.”

“We could also be seen. Be noticed. Be taken account of. And the next time someone wanted to discredit your judgment in running your company, or wanted to influence “Gentleman Johnny Marcone” on their behalf...”

Alex rolled his eyes, shoving his shoulder into the other man’s. Laughing softly as John shoved him back. “I know, I know. All right. Room service and a DVD selection of our choosing.” He pushed a hand through his soft dark hair, succeeding only in messing it about and making it fall over his forehead. “We really need to vary our routine.”

“Next time, you can choose a hotel with a private sauna or a massage parlor.”

He snorted, quashing the habitual moment of gut-twisting terror at the thought. “That would be a massage parlor where actual massages take place, yes?”

“Yes. Your shoulders are too tense. You need to relax.” Which was his cue to either turn around or slump over and be rubbed into blissful insensibility. These had been the first signs of affection from a man too used to holding himself aloof, touches on the shoulder and in his hair, faint smiles. Alex remembered that from their first few meetings.

Not that John didn’t have his reasons, and in all honesty, Alex would never have seen himself with a known or, well, legally suspected criminal of the kind that John was. And he knew he was. He knew what the man was capable of, what his lover had done, at least in general if not the specific details. It was all over the news half the time; he could hardly escape it.

And yet, there were still reasons, many of them, ten of them now kneading the knots out of his shoulders from bending over a keyboard or a circuitboard too long. There were reasons why he was with John. He knew them very well.

They met in hotels because it was easier for him to keep his secrets if the worst the company found out was that he was having a relationship with another man, and if they discovered him and John in a hotel room that was all they would think. It would be slightly scandalous and put down to a still tense environment where such things were concerned. And because, yes, it was easier for John if he was seen as above such things except with paid women or women who took it out in trade. Maybe it should have bothered him that John liked women too. Maybe sometimes it did a little, but not so much as the endless string of hotels.

And yet, when he thought that maybe it would be easier to end it and try to get over him, it wasn’t the thought of having to go through meeting someone he could care about and who could accept him that would terrify him. It was the thought of coming to Chicago and not getting that phone call, hearing that dry voice on the other end of the line, the warmth in his laughter, trading horror stories of meetings and clients and everything else. He would miss that. He would miss the shared jokes and the gray-green eyes and the soft kisses, the warm hands. The reassurance of having another body in the bed with him, even a hotel room bed, propped up late at night and reading the Wall Street Journal by the light of the bedside lamp.

Soft kisses now landing on the side of his neck. He tilted his head for that, smiling a little. “I’m starting to see why you don’t want to go out this weekend.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.” Dry laughter, with a rolling edge of something else that shivered along his nerves. Warmed him inside to out.

Afterwards, John fell asleep with one foot hanging off the bed and out of the sheet and his face planted in the pillows. Alex spent some time on his side, propped up with his elbow in his pillow, watching him.

In the morning they determined that they would go out, at least for breakfast, with the usual ruse of meeting in front of the hotel and playing casual acquaintances. And then one of them would go grocery shopping and they would take advantage of the hotel suite’s kitchen. They got dressed debating breakfast recipes and quietly reveling in the domesticity of it, even if it was only for a few days here and there. As close to a normal life as they would come.

The technology whiz arched a sardonic eyebrow at the crime-lord, buttoning up his shirt. "You are, you know, the only one I would ever let hide me away like this." Like a dirty little secret. Except they were both each other's dirty little secrets. It wouldn't go well for Alex if anyone knew he was dating Gentleman Johnny Marcone, either.

Marcone's tone was equally sardonic as he reached over and finished the buttons on his jacket, smoothing down his lapels. "That's because you are wise, and enjoy living."

"True."

Alex laughed, stole a kiss as John headed into the shower, chuckling. Warm water cascaded down, washed away all traces of his lover’s scent, but also any traces of what they had been doing recently. Putting the disguise back on, at least temporarily, back to what he thought of as normal most days of the week and most weeks out of the year. But this time it was only a slapdash disguise, and it was only for a little while. It was only while he was in public, and then he could take it down again when they were back in the hotel room, in their own quiet little world where things were less pressured, more relaxed. Where they could take their time.



Marcone wondered what was going on when Alex started spending an hour to an hour and a half getting ready, literally standing there looking at himself in the mirror. Half dressed at first, slacks and undershirt, and then fully dressed, and he kept plucking at shirt sleeves and collars and cuffs as though the shirt didn’t quite fit right. As he understood such things, the shirt fit Alex as well now as it had done a few weeks ago when he’d bought it.

“Something wrong?”

Alex stared a moment longer, then shook his head and turned away from the mirror, stride lengthening and taking on purpose and certainty. “No, no. Just thinking.”

Marcone’s eyebrows arched. Alex was fiddling with his cuff links, fingers slipping on what used to be an accustomed task. When had this started? And how had he not noticed if the answer to that was, a long time ago?

Perhaps it hadn't been so long ago. The fiddling lasted long enough for him to stand and then when he started to cross the room Alex had straightened and looked like himself again. The other man gave him a quizzical look, to which Marcone could only shrug. It might have been his imagination, or it might have been some more of what was concerning him and had him staring at the mirror as though he couldn't quite place the familiarity of the reflection. He would have to think about it, and he wasn't going to broach the subject when they both had appointments to get to and only minutes left to spend.

They left the hotel room discreetly. First one and then, after a moment of talking with the bodyguard, the other. And then down the halls and down the elevator as though they had met passing in the hallway.

"When are you next in town?" Alex split his time between the Chicago and New York offices of his company.

"Two weeks. There's a conference in Albany that I have to be at next weekend, but after that I'll be taking up matters with R&D in the Chicago offices."

In other words, he would be in town for at least a week, and although he would be busy he would be expected to have long nights up late in his hotel. Which suited Marcone's purposes.

They exchanged a smile just before they hit the public portion of the lobby, in the hallway in front of the elevators.



"John…"

Alex was sprawled out in the bed, propped up against the headboard while Marcone had his face planted in the pillows. It was one of his rare private moments, it was a moment of peace, he could stretch out with one sock half on one foot and plant his face in the pillows if he wanted.

"Mmph?" Alex was running his fingers through his hair. He would much rather pay attention to that than anything his lover said in that tone of voice.

But then Alex didn't say anything at all, and since the tone of voice went with standing in front of the mirror for hours on end, he rolled his head to one side and looked over at him. "What is it?"

"Do…" His free hand, left hand gestured as though weighing something in it. Words, maybe. An idea he wasn't sure how to express. Something he wasn't sure Marcone would grasp. Anything of that sort?

"Do…"

The silence stretched on through and around the hum of the air unit, the background noise of the television delivering its daily dose of bad news and stock quotes, which these days also counted as bad news. Both of them, usually never letting slide an opportunity for a snide remark about something, ignored it.

"Does anything seem different to you, lately?"

Marcone had no concrete idea what he was talking about, but combined with the fussing over appearance and clothes he had a vague notion or two. There was a second of hesitation between acknowledging the likelihood of what it was and pretending he had no idea before he shook his head. “I haven’t noticed anything, no. Is ... are you feeling all right?” Physically, that is.

“Not especially.”

The way he said it made both of them go still, frozen. For Alex, it must have been that saying it gave it life and presence that it hadn’t had before he’d acknowledged it out loud to another person. For Marcone it was the tone of his voice. That was the tone of Something Very Wrong.

He pulled himself up to his knees, turned so that he was sitting next to him and propped up against the headboard.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” came the frank and immediate answer. Not a conversation ender but a declaration of feeling, answering the question that Marcone had asked, in a way. He didn’t want to talk about it. But he would.

He reached out and took Alex’s hand in both of his, a careful touch, no pressure of hands but the comfort of skin contact. And he waited for Alex to say something.

“I think...” It was hard, painfully and obviously hard for him to get the words out. Like moving mountains. Like an invisible force constricting his throat and for one moment, knowing what he did about the world, Marcone thought that Alex might have come under the influence of some sorcerer or spirit. Except he’d seen men under the influence of magic, and this looked more like an ordinary (if there was such a thing) emotional difficulty. “I believe... that...”

He saw the white around his eyes, the tension under the skin along his throat. It was hard to stay as still as he needed to but he had the feeling if he moved at all, Alex wouldn’t say it, whatever it turned out to be. No matter how unbelievable.

“I’m... pregnant.”

That was somewhat unbelievable, yes, but he’d heard stranger. Or at least, more dangerous. And yet his mind couldn’t grasp the concept. Not as it applied to Alex.

He squeezed his hand to show that he’d heard and tried to bring back certain underneath truths. It was, in fact, physically possible, without any use of magic. He thought. He didn’t know what biological and chemical processes needed to be going right (or wrong, perhaps) in this case to make that a truth to be dealt with but the equipment was still there, however vigorously and sometimes violently ignored. And still, evidently, worked.

And however hard a time he was having thinking of such things, Alex must be having it ten times worse. Marcone had never known him as a woman, only knew of his status as a transgendered person (if that was what the correct phrase was; he believed it was) because of fumbling in a darkened room and a deep and profound expression of trust on Alex’s part. It had taken a while to get used to, but that was years ago. There had been many battles fought since then. Many issues dealt with, many bridges crossed.

This wasn’t one he had expected. Physically, he knew it was within the realm of possibility; mentally he was still stuttering on the idea. And if he was stuttering on it Alex, who had locked that part of himself in a box some twenty years ago and thrown away the key and never looked back... Marcone couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have something like that come crawling out of the box to face you.

“How ...” He cleared his throat, because the last thing he wanted was for Alex to read something in his voice. He had to at least be quiet and rational. “How do you want to proceed?”

Alex sat up, tugged his hand out of Marcone’s and leaned forward, elbows against knees. “I don’t know.”

“Have you at least confirmed this with a doc—“

“No, I haven’t confirmed this with a goddamn doctor,” Alex snapped. As though uncomfortable with what he’d said, anything of what he’d said in the last five or ten minutes, he slid out of bed and started to pace.

Marcone stopped just short of telling him that it would be better to consult with a doctor before making any wild assumptions. The last time he and Alex had discussed seeing a doctor even over a mild illness it had resulted in their first fight. This was considerably more of a sensitive issue. And this time he would wait until Alex said something or until it seemed like the silence was going to strangle them both.

“I have an appointment scheduled with Dr. Hallman in two weeks. Routine physical.”

His shoulders began to unknot slightly; Dr. Hallman was Alex’s usual doctor, and she could be trusted with the truth. She had been taking care of him for years. “She ... will be able to give you your options. What ...”

The traditional options were simple to summarize and easy to list. Delivery and adoption. Delivery and raising the child. Abortion. There were also a couple of options that were less options so much as possibilities, but they were out of their control and Marcone tried not to make a habit of worrying about things that were out of his control.

Alex was standing still and staring at him and Marcone realized he’d been silent for too long. Too long for comfort, at least. He took a breath and looked over at him. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t even know what’s happening to me yet, what do you think I want to do?” Alex yelled. Not an angry yell but a scared one, a yell that made Marcone slide off the bed and go over to him, hands gripping his shoulders. “I want my life back, I want to be norm—“

Both of them flinched.

“I want to be myself again,” Alex said, after a couple of breaths and a second to swallow and regain his voice.

Marcone nodded. Took a breath, and Alex’s hand moved to his shoulder, and then his hand moved between his shoulderblades and it took a second and several jerky movements before they were clutching at each other, fingers curled in their respective under-shirts.

“I want this over, John.”

He’d heard enough threats and warnings in his life to recognize the warning in Alex’s voice. No knowing, yet, what it meant, especially when neither of them yet knew what they were dealing with. But he marked it down for future reference.



Alex’s plane flew out the next day. He’d be back in two weeks, but for the first time he stared out the window of the plane and wished he could stay in New York. This wasn’t something he wanted to face.

It wasn’t something he wanted to face alone, either, but he didn’t know what anyone could say. Even John.

He leaned his head back against the seat. Flight time to New York was two hours, and that was being generous. He barely would have time for a nap on the way there so he didn’t even try. Closing his eyes brought nothing good. Uncertainty and images of evil cackling doctors with German accents and torture implements that hearkened back to the middle ages. Something twisting inside of him that shouldn't be there, a parasite. An unnatural thing. He'd seen the news a few years ago and wondered how the man could go through with it. It wasn't something Alex was capable of doing.

It was knowing that, and thinking about it that way that made him realize he had made up his mind. If he could. The idea of someone clawing around on his insides was bad. The idea of someone crawling around in his insides was worse. He almost couldn't imagine it. Certainly couldn't picture it. The two pictures, pregnancy and his own self image that he'd spent over a decade repairing, were incompatible.

They were landing before he'd realized he'd dozed off. Around him, the click-clack of releasing seatbelts started before they'd even pulled up to the gate. People started to shuffle up and towards the aisles until the mass of bodies prevented anyone else from heading towards the exit. Alex stayed where he was and pulled out his laptop instead, texting the offices to let them know he'd landed safely and attempting to focus on work till the plane was clear enough to exit without being suffocated.

There was an email from John, too. Nothing about what they had discussed at the hotel room, only a mention of how he hadn't seemed well at their breakfast (their public breakfast) and he hoped he was all right, pleasantries. Enough that Alex could read between the lines, at least.

It did make him smile a little. Before he'd left John had made sure Alex agreed that he knew that John would support him, whatever he decided.

"Easier said than done," Alex muttered, looking up again. The plane was mostly clear; he could disembark.

He'd meant to schedule a staff meeting of the New York R&D (all three of them) after he landed, but he'd been overruled. Which meant he had the rest of the day to kill. His apartment was empty and cold, almost arctic with how he'd turned down the AC for the cat.

Musket bumped his head against his hand while he stood in the foyer, keys dropped on the foyer table. Coat still in hand, laptop case under the coat tree. He looked down at the gray head bumping his fingertips and scraping the side of his mouth against his hand. "You didn't even notice, did you," he murmured. "Poor thing. I don't pay you enough attention."

Hell, that right there was a reason he should never be a parent. Too caught up in his work, he had to steal time away to spend time with his lover, didn't even bother spending time with his cat. Poor cat.

"Guess you can stand it without me a little while longer," he said, grabbing his keys and his coat again and heading out. There were a few people who he trusted who were actually qualified to talk to him about what would happen. He hadn't asked in years. Maybe it was time he asked again.






“Have you worked it out?”

Alex’s head jerked up. Hands pressed to the table so hard Marcone could see where the edge was digging into his palm. Shoulders hunched, leaning forward. He was so tense. Any other time, he would have gone over and started rubbing the tension out of those shoulders, asking what was wrong, taking his time with getting answers if they were forthcoming.

But this was different, and shoulder rubs and comforting touches were how they’d gotten into this mess in the first place, though it wasn’t anything Marcone had wanted. And right now he wasn’t sure Alex wanted him to touch him.

And Alex nodded. Pushed harder into the table. Wrong and inappropriate thoughts flashed through Marcone’s head for a second before concern and the beginnings of unfamiliar fear chased them away. “Alex?”

“I’m going to have the abortion.”

Marcone swallowed. He wasn’t sure what to think or feel right now but he felt too much. Horror, fear. His child, his baby, who could have grown up to be anything was now going to be little more than a bad memory for him and Alex. And there was fear for Alex, too, who was terrified of surgery, of being made unconscious and going under the knife, and Marcone knew what fear could do to a person. Alex could panic himself into a heart attack or some other bad reaction and he would lose him to a surgery he had never wanted, that he had put him through.

Abortion was final. It was a clinical, final word. Alex didn’t see it that way, he knew, it was the fixing of a mistake they’d made, and yes, Marcone could not argue. They’d made some mistakes. They’d been irresponsible and they’d never thought it could have consequences like this, and wasn’t that what teenagers thought? Marcone was a man in his forties. He should have known better.

Alex stood, pushed up off the desk and yes, there were ridges in his hands where he’d been leaning. He turned and Marcone’s eyes followed him and as Alex headed to the door he caught his arm. “Wait...”

“You don’t want me to,” Alex said, not looking around.

It was the truth. He swallowed, stepped up next to him. “No, I want you to do what is best for you.” Which was also the truth.

Alex's head jerked up, but he didn't say anything for a second. Marcone watched his shoulders knot and bunch, looked down the length of his arms to where his hands flexed and stretched open, then curled closed again.

"I'm going to have the operation." He didn't even stutter over the word; when they'd first spoken about it he couldn't even reference surgery directly. "As much of it as I can at once. All of the operations are simple, I've consulted with my doctors and it is possible to do at least three of the surgeries in one marathon session. They were consulting with the actual surgeons to make the appointment when I left."

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop to consider that it might be a bad idea, mostly because it was true. "Well, that is the practical thing to do." Considering Alex's fear of surgery.

Except he hadn't counted on that fear driving Alex to push him up against the wall with an angry look and the force of his panic and rage. "Practical. Because you, you are thinking of what's practical, always, all the time. You're not thinking of what's right, what feels right, you're thinking of what's practical."

Marcone backed up. Hands up and open, eyes wide, waiting for Alex to say something he could respond to and hopefully not upset him further.

"Is that what you're thinking we should do, the practical thing? This is the right thing for me to do, John, this isn't practical, this is right. What are you going to do? Are you going to stand there and watch as they cut me open, bleed me out?"

"Alex, they're not going to…"

He was in full voice, powered by terror. Fueled by rage at whatever he had been through in his youth, Marcone had never asked and Alex had never said directly. But it was enough to make him irrational, to make him see in Marcone the representative of all the nightmares and all the threats he'd ever imagined or had to endure.

And why not? It was … He couldn't think of a way to phrase that, even in his mind. It just didn't make sense.

"What."

Marcone blinked. "What?"

"What's that look for."

Slightly wide eyes. "Nothing. I wasn't…"

"You don't like that I'm doing this. You want … is this what you really wanted? To make me belong to you like this? Not …" Alex swallowed, almost panting. "You didn't want… you just wanted… What, someone like you, but who could…"

He waited. Watched. Alex had his fists on his hips, he noticed, an angry and upset man trying not to gesticulate or hit something. He waited for Alex to say something, to clarify the thought that Marcone suspected he could finish but wanted confirmation. And he didn't know how else to get that without hearing it from Alex's lips.

"Alex. I want you to be happy. I want you to be calm, and comfortable..."

"Be calm?" Alex shrieked. "How the hell do you expect me to be calm? I have this... this parasite, this..."

He took a deep breath as Marcone had stepped forward to urge him to do the very thing. Forced his hands open and took another deep breath as the older man watched, frowning and worried. Alex's lips shaped words he couldn't give voice to, words like parasite, and pregnancy. There was no mention of any child.

"You would do it, too," Alex said then. His voice was cold, bitter, but his posture was hunched and tense all over, defensive. Marcone stayed very still and did not interrupt. "You would ... you could wait until I was on the table and then just take it, find some woman, one of those women you hire for your clubs, and..."

"No." Firmly, unequivocal and immediate. He knew where Alex was going with this, and it was disgusting. As much as he twisted inside at the thought of a child of his, dying, he also repudiated the idea that Alex was anything other than Alex. Certainly not an incubator that could be traded away, or whatever part of that he was thinking. That Marcone would sedate him and steal the child away and then go build a perfect life with someone else, evidently.

Alex's face paled, but he didn't correct him or contradict that no. "I never wanted this," he said, maybe not calming down so much as running out of steam. "This was not what I wanted."

"I remember. We had this discussion, you said you did not want the surgery." Calm, quiet. "I didn't press you then, and I won't press you for anything now."

"I can't do this, John," Alex was pacing again. "I can't... I can't. Don't ask me until... I can't."

It had always been a peculiarity of Alex's, something that Marcone only half understood if he thought about it with a cold and logical mind. The way he couldn't say some words as applied to himself. And he knew what Alex was getting at, in the midst of all that panic, the idea that he wanted a copy of himself to bear and raise his child. And his fear of surgery bordering on paranoia and nearly instantly triggered terror. Their first discussion of Alex's difference had also been the first time Marcone had seen the normally brilliant, erudite man reduced to clenched-fist stammering and not being able to force the words out.

And this was ten times worse than a frank discussion of the physicality of their relationship. Marcone closed his eyes and sighed.And before Alex could decide that meant something to be upset about, he reached down and wrapped his hands around Alex's fists, bringing them up to kiss the knuckles of each hand.

"Do you trust me?"

The words were so quiet, they cut through the hysterical words that were still coming. Alex took a breath, then narrowed his eyes at him for a moment. Then nodded, slow and jerky, blue eyes darting over his face.

"Do you trust that I will be there, whatever you decide, however much I may or may not disagree? It is your choice. I have never denied anyone the right to make their own choices and I do not intend to start at such a ... dynamic point."

His voice was brittle when he answered. "Don't. Don't talk to me, don't treat me like I'm one of your..."

There was a flash of a scowl before he took his lover's face in his hands and kissed him.

Alex pushed him away after a second, and he didn't fight to remain.

They stared at each other across a foot or so of empty space.



Alex did have to admit, the doctors were right to advise him not to cram all the surgery into one marathon session. Nearly every part of his body hurt, including parts he didn't want to admit to having. Dr. Wolfe delivered a blistering lecture on what he could not ignore, physically, on the basis that it could be a sign of fatal problems later on, then gave him a softer lecture on after-care treatment and left him to plastic cups of water and hospital jello.

The knock at the door startled him into jerking hard enough to tug the line, which also hurt. Alex looked over and blinked. "… John."

"I had them call me when they were done with you." Not when you were out of surgery or when the operation was over, when they were done with you. Avoiding any hints or mention of what had happened, letting it pass into one more unpleasant, terrifying memory. Alex was absurdly touched by that.

He nodded anyway, hoping, a little, that it didn't show. "Apparently it went well. I was a model patient."

John's smile went slightly crooked, and he closed the door most of the way behind him as he came in. "You argued with me on almost every point, at least you'll listen to your doctors."

And he came in closer, and Alex opened his mouth to protest something when John curled his soft businessman's hand around the back of his neck, warm and was that sweat-damp on his palm? And tugged him forward, lips brushing over his forehead. Alex opened his eyes after a second. His shirt was rumpled. And it looked like the shirt he'd been wearing yesterday.

"I thought I'd stay for a while, if you don't mind."

Half a dozen different arguments came to mind. If someone John knew saw him, if someone Alex knew. There were things John had to attend to. The doctors might not let him. They might fight again. He had just… in John's eyes, it had to be that he had just…

"I don't … mind."

John pulled up a chair next to his bed and pulled a newspaper out of his briefcase. "I know you prefer to get your bad news online, but I thought I would try and convert you to my Luddite ways one more time…"

Laughing through a dry throat wasn't so bad after all.