heart, liver, and other matters of the body
Each morning, Lincoln takes in the face in the mirror, and sometimes, he likes what he sees.
Other times, Link glances over the wide eyes done up in borrowed eyeliner, the jawline that seems too square, too sharp today, frets at the broad slope of shoulders, the indelicate scarred brow and callused hands and battered, ashy knees, tries to sculpt the features there into something more feminine with willpower alone.
Or: Lincoln tries on a dress for the first time and comes out to her boyfriend.
ao3
Here's my Swiftli Week fic for Day 6: Secrets! 🤫 I did some research for this one, and it was lots of fun. Hope you enjoy!
(P.S. A little context for the title: xīn’gān - Mandarin term of affection which literally translates to “heart and liver” but is equivalent to “heart and soul” or “my everything” in English. Implies that, like a heart or liver, this partner is something one cannot live without.)
Lincoln Li-Wilson is buzzing with nervous energy all throughout their shopping date.
Link’s boyfriend, Taylor, can clearly tell that something’s off (he’s let his emotions show more plainly over the past few months, but he’s always been observant, always cared, and that makes Link smile fondly).
Lincoln runs a hand along the racks of clothes, distracting anxious nerves through the textures and colors, and graciously, Taylor doesn’t ask.
Not yet , a voice in Lincoln’s head says, only to be batted away by Taylor’s hand brushing against his own as they sift through the clothes together.
The mall doesn’t see a lot of traffic, these days - hasn’t seen a lot of traffic since their parents were teenagers, to be honest - so it almost feels like they have the place to themselves.
It’s nice, Link thinks while thumbing through the hangers, stopping on a flash of buttercup yellow.
It feels soft against the skin, weighty enough to be substantial but not stifling, and the silhouette…
Lincoln takes the garment off the rack, adds it to the others.
Today, today, I’m gonna tell him today, Link repeats like a mantra, disguising nervous, shaking hands by flapping them a little.
“All good, qīn?” Taylor asks, meeting eyes over the rack, and Lincoln’s heart flutters a little at the affectionate name.
After learning how much Link enjoys terms of endearment, Taylor’s insisted on using Mandarin pet names, citing that they still keep up his “cool and slick” reputation in public. Lincoln frankly thinks it’s pretty silly, since anyone with eyes can tell how sappy Taylor is when it comes to…
“Mm,” Link nods. It isn’t a lie, but it isn’t exactly the truth either. “Gonna try these on.”
“Awesome, man!” Taylor replies, and Lincoln doesn’t even flinch. “Want me to, uh, join you in there?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
The offer is very tempting, Link won’t lie, and definitely something they’ve done before - though the trying-on-clothes part historically has the tendency to be abandoned in favor of making out.
“Not today, shǎguā,” Lincoln tells him, voice kept purposefully light and teasing. “You’re gonna have to wait this time.”
“Boo. Have it your way, but I’m definitely sitting on one of those little benches so you can model for me! Plus, my legs could use the break.”
Satisfied, Link leads them through the maze of racks, tries not to dwell on things as they enter the changing rooms marked MEN.
True to his word, Taylor takes up his post on one of the cushioned benches in one of the alcoves, taking out his phone to scroll once he clocks which room Lincoln’s picked.
Link steps in, closes the door, breathes out, and comes face-to-face with the figure in the mirror.
Lincoln’s hair has grown out in the last year or so - rather than being buzzed at the sides, the curls now end around jawline length, depending on how they’re styled.
Taylor visits Hell more frequently, now that things have calmed a little, and Link’s gone with him, asked Terry a bunch of questions about upkeep and styling and braiding that were probably a little too much all at once but were met with enthusiasm and more in-depth answers than what YouTube had to offer.
Link brushes back a few stray twists, meticulously dotted with colored beads and gold cuffs, complemented by the gold flowers dangling from each earlobe and the gold eyeshadow at the inner corners of each eye.
Satisfied, Lincoln begins trying things on, breezing through a graphic Garfield sweatshirt (comfy, but not big enough), a pair of joggers (right size, but the fabric feels a little weird), and an oversized tee shirt (soft and just roomy enough, definitely something to buy).
There’s just one last thing to try.
Carefully, Link takes off the shirt, hangs it back up, pulls on the last article of clothing, shimmies out of the gym shorts from underneath it.
Lincoln fumbles with the side zipper for a little, worried for the briefest moment that it wouldn’t fit around the torso, but manages to get the hang of it, clasps the hook and eye at the top edge awkwardly into place.
Link smooths down the fabric at the hips with nervous hands, then finally allows for a glance upward.
Lincoln stares. And stares.
Someone unfamiliar stares back. But it’s a good unfamiliar, a right unfamiliar.
Link has practiced saying the words in the mirror before, has felt how the shapes of them formed on the tongue, has spoken them into being in whispered, low tones. Link has treated it the same way as practicing his facial expressions, a daily ritual, trying to figure out how to show the right emotions, making sure they look and feel correct on the face as well as in the heart.
Each morning, Lincoln takes in the face in the mirror, and sometimes, he likes what he sees.
Other times, Link glances over the wide eyes done up in borrowed eyeliner, the jawline that seems too square, too sharp today, frets at the broad slope of shoulders, the indelicate scarred brow and callused hands and battered, ashy knees, tries to sculpt the features there into something more feminine with willpower alone.
On those days, like this morning, Lincoln tries out the words again, mouths them out once more in the present.
She. Her.
And they feel real, feel as true as if she had just taken a whiff of that blue power from the FBI.
Sometimes, they don’t fit, just like he and him don’t feel right, sometimes, like a shirt with the wrong texture, a bite of food that’s a little too mushy.
But sometimes, like right now, they fit Lincoln like a glove.
They fit her like this dress.
The bodice hugs Link’s torso, and though it’s painfully obvious that her upper body is all boxes and angles and no curves, she finds that she doesn’t mind too much.
Straps, about the width of two fingers, tie off in elegant bows that rest at the midpoint between her neck and shoulders, drawing emphasis to her collarbones in a way that makes them look almost delicate. Link frowns a bit at the way the neckline makes her shoulders look so wide.
The light yellow fabric goes phenomenally well with her complexion in a way that makes her dark, freckled skin nearly glow, and the texture is a little stiffer than she’s used to, but it has a nice thickness to it and doesn’t chafe against her skin, with enough give that she instinctively knows wouldn’t hinder her range of motion.
The skirt is full, gathered fabric flaring out around her hips and stopping a few inches above her knees, though she thinks it was probably meant to be a longer dress on someone with shorter legs.
She twists around in it, trying to catch a glimpse of different angles, and the way the hemline flutters around her thighs is completely alien to her, but she thinks she likes it.
She feels feminine. Girly. Is girly.
Lincoln feels like a girl. She is one.
“Link, you okay?” Taylor’s voice is muffled through the door, and there’s a small shadow beneath it, followed by a half-hearted little knock.
Shit.
“You’ve been in there awhile.”
Fuck, has she? Maybe she got a little too carried away staring and lost track of time.
Link wracks her brain for a proper response, a yeah, I’m okay or yes, I’m fine, I’ll be out in a minute , but they get stopped up in her throat as she realizes that she’s still wearing the dress and she hasn’t come out to him yet like she planned to.
“Is it okay if I come in? No funny business, I just wanna make sure you’re okay.”
Shit shit shit shit shit.
Taylor wears dresses and skirts all the time, it’ll be fine, he won’t be weirded out by it, Lincoln attempts to rationalize. It doesn’t really work, so she tries to speak again.
“‘M fine,” is all that comes out, high-pitched but not in a pretty way.
“You don’t sound fine,” Taylor argues, voice softened out at the edges so that it doesn’t sound accusatory. “Can I please come in?”
Link squints her eyes shut against it all and nods minutely, then realizes that Taylor can’t see her and manages a shaky “Yes.”
“Okay,” he says, and Link hears the door creak open, then shut, hears Taylor’s quiet footfalls.
“So, can I -? Woah .”
Cautiously, Link opens her eyes to see Taylor shaking off an expression of… bewilderment? Confusion? Curiosity?
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, “I’m just - I wasn’t expecting - you look really pretty, dude.”
Feeling a little too overexposed, too raw, too much, Link can’t help the way she flinches.
“Oh, baby,” Taylor says, sadness evident in his voice, and Link hates the sound of it, hates that she made him that way. “Can I touch you?”
Not trusting her voice, Link nods, and her boyfriend steps closer, winds an arm around her back, and she melts into his hold, crumbles into his familiar warmth.
“You’re crying,” he observes quietly, reaching with his other hand to thumb away a tear, and Lincoln hadn’t even registered the wetness spilling down her cheeks until he mentioned it.
“I’m fine, I promise.” Link’s voice sounds a little too deep to her own ears, discordant with the girl in the mirror, and another tear slips out anyway. “Just… overwhelmed?”
“Okay,” Taylor says, “We can work with that, xīn’gān.”
Xīn’gān , Lincoln thinks, heart and liver, my everything . Taylor only uses that when he’s serious.
“Can you tell me what you’re thinking?” he asks.
“It’s silly,” Link starts, then continues before Taylor can refute it. “I just… it’s hard, and I’ve been meaning to tell you, I promise, I just… couldn’t figure out when or how.”
She laughs a little, then, high-strung and nervous.
Lincoln pulls away, glances at their reflections, and Taylor’s eyes follow hers.
“You’re not, uh, breaking up with me in this dressing room, right?”
“No,” she says, a little too loud. “No,” she repeats, forcing her voice softer, higher. “This is a good thing, I swear, it’s just…”
“Hard?” Taylor asks.
“Mm.”
Lincoln inhales shakily, reaches for Taylor’s hand, and Taylor latches them together, gives them a light squeeze.
God, she’s so lucky to have him.
Her free hand fists in the fabric of the dress, and she squeezes her eyes shut.
“I think I’m trans.”
She said it. There’s no taking it back now.
Taylor’s thumb runs along the side of her hand.
“That’s amazing, babe. I’m so proud of you,” he says, and Link knew in the back of her mind that her boyfriend would always be supportive, but that last irrational bit of fear finally vaporizes.
Lincoln opens her eyes, and Taylor’s looking at her with so much open affection that it makes her eyes water up with tears again, and she brushes them away.
“I’m not… I still like being a guy, sometimes,” She says, the words leaving her in a rush, “but sometimes I feel more like a girl? And sometimes it’s a little bit of both?”
“That’s cool,” Taylor says with another encouraging squeeze to their joined hands.
“I think I might be… bigender?” Link tells him, and wow, it’s so nice to hear the word aloud, to tell someone. “Or maybe genderfluid? Genderqueer, definitely.”
“Thank you for telling me,” Her boyfriend says with a smile, looking a little misty-eyed himself. “Coming out’s really fucking nerve-wracking, isn’t it?”
“No kidding.”
“Is Link still okay to use?”
“I think so, yeah,” Lincoln responds, and she’s thought quite a bit about it. Despite how masculine her full name is, Link still likes it a lot. Maybe she’d find something later, but for now, she’s content with it.
“I, um,” Lincoln stutters, a little unsure of how to word it. “Is it alright if you use she/ her for me today? I still like he/him, but… feminine feels better right now.”
“Of course. Speaking of feminine, this dress looks fantastic on you.”
“Really?” Link asks, twisting a little and glancing back at the mirror, grateful to see that her makeup still looks okay.
“Really. You should buy it! If you like it, too, of course.”
“I do,” She confirms, wiping up the last of her tears, letting go of Taylor’s hand to pat her face dry with the backs of her palms. “I really do.”
“Did you do a little spin yet?” There’s a fond excitement in Taylor’s eyes as he looks her up and down - not just appraisingly, but lovingly.
She shakes her head.
“Trust me, it’s the best part. I know these things.”
Lincoln spins around a little, curious, and the way the dress floats around her, the way the fabric laps against her legs like waves - it’s addictive and oddly freeing. She twirls a little faster, reveling in the feel of it, and a smile stretches wide on her face as she lets out a little whoop of excitement.
“This is amazing, Tay!”
“It’s great, right?”
Link comes to a stop, her dress still in motion from the force of her whirling, and she’s giddy as the fabric swooshes, then settles.
“Yeah. Wow, I kinda never wanna take this off.” She smooths her hands down her sides and over her waist, looking up again at her reflection.
She looks happy.
Lincoln is happy - really, truly, incandescently happy, in a way she doesn’t think she’s felt in a long, long time.
“You do kinda need to take it off to buy it, though,” Taylor says. “As much as I love how gorgeous you look in it.”
“Guess so,” Link says, already dreading changing back. Maybe she can convince Taylor to help her out of the dress - with minimal making out. Maybe.
“Have you told anyone else?” Taylor asks her, dispersing Lincoln’s brief fantasies.
Link shakes her head. “I thought about telling Dad, but, well, he’d want to tell Grant… things are still a little rocky between us, but, like, I still love him, and I don’t wanna hurt his feelings by not telling him directly? Does that even make sense?”
“It does, I think,” Taylor says.
“I’m gonna tell Normal and Scary, soon, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“And… I was thinking of talking to Hermie about… this. Gender,” Lincoln confesses, though she still cringes at the thought of it. She didn’t like to admit it to herself, but they probably knew a lot more about gender nonconformity than Link’s figured out through her own research.
“Mm, my auncle probably has some good insights, even if the two of you don’t really get along,” Taylor muses, seemingly on a similar train of thought.
“She's probably not gonna make fun of me, right?”
Her boyfriend’s eyes gleam with demonic light even in the weird fluorescent lighting of the changing room, brows furrowed, and Lincoln’s stomach does a funny little flip at the expression. “Link,” He says seriously, “If they’re even the slightest bit mean about it, I’m fucking his shit up on sight. I don’t care if we’re related - Nobody messes with my girlfriend.”
My girlfriend, Link’s mind plays back, loops it like a broken record as something shining and effervescent floods the cavities of her lungs. My girlfriend, my girlfriend, I’m his girlfriend .
Lincoln must not be making the right face, because Taylor hastily tacks on, “W-who is also my boyfriend! Sometimes?”
He blinks up at her, brows tilted upwards in concern, a silent are you okay? and god, Link is so, so happy that she lets out a little huff of laughter.
“No, no, it’s not that, I just… I didn’t realize how much I’d like hearing you say that.”
“Oh?” A shit-eating grin forms on her boyfriend’s face, and before she can do anything about it, he’s reaching up to cup her cheek in his hand. “I have the most beautiful, gorgeous girlfriend in the world. I adore her big brown eyes, her pretty hair, her stunning smile… oh, my god, look at that, there it is, my girlfriend’s smile.”
“Stop,” Link says, half-hearted and breathless, so much heat rushing to her dimpled cheeks that Taylor, even with his demonic heritage, can probably feel it. And she would look down, but she’d only meet Taylor’s smug, knowing smirk, and that would only make her more ridiculously happy.
Taylor moves his hands to her waist, squeezes at her sides, and though she’s sure he’s continuing his goofy little litany, she’s a little too overwhelmed by sheer exhilaration to make out most of it.
Not quite sure what to do with all her joy, laughter tumbles out, lower and raspier than she would like at the moment, but loud and bright and full.
“Oh, wow, my girlfriend just laughed and it’s my favorite sound in the whole wide world!” Taylor says, and she can hear the beam in his voice, so wide that his eyes narrow to crescents. “My girlfriend looks so pretty in this dress. I’m gonna have to buy her a dozen more.”
“You are not doing that!”
“Of course I am,” Taylor refutes, shaking his head with that adorable vehemence of his. “I’m rich! One for every day of the week, at least. You look so happy in it. I’m gonna spoil you so bad, wô de tiānshî.”
“Wô de tiānshî,” Lincoln parrots, sounding out the rise and fall of the syllables carefully. “I haven’t heard that one. What does it mean?”
“‘My angel,’” Taylor tells her softly, thumbs gently circling at her waist, and the reverence in his eyes makes her feel simultaneously unmovable and unsteady on her feet. “I always thought it would suit you, but traditionally, it’s used for girlfriends. Unless that’s too, like, weirdly gendered, uh, if it makes you uncomfortable -”
Link crushes her wonderful, amazing boyfriend to herself in a tight hug.
In an instant, Taylor’s arms circle around her, too, and so much about her has felt wrong lately, but this has always, always felt right.
“I love it,” Lincoln says, “I love you . Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Love you, too,” he replies, and they stay like that for a few long moments.
Eventually, Link pulls away, and Taylor drops his arms.
“So, wanna get this dress and get out of here and go for froyo in the food court?” He asks.
“Only if you help me take this off,” Link answers, waggling her eyebrows like Taylor had earlier. "Seriously, the zippers on these things are kinda tricky."
Taylor laughs.
“That’s my girl.”
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