ptahrrific | Fake News: Clover and Shadows, part 1

Title: Clover and Shadows (1/5)
Rating: R
Warnings (highlight for the spoilery ones): Trans issues, angst, (skip) character death
Characters/pairings: MtF!"Stephen", FtM!Charlene, Jon, families
Marvelous betas:

stellar_dust and

balljointed
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

Yes, I'm finally posting that story I've been referring to for months now.

An AU/variation on I'll Be That Girl. This time around, not only is Stephen MtF, Charlene is FtM. (So if you thought I was a pronoun ninja before...)

Part of the loosely associated group of fics which I have cleverly decided to refer to as Transverse. Extras are on the index page.

~~Part 1~~ | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Clover and Shadows - Part 1

The morning after the staff party, Jon scrounged up coffee and aspirin, waited as long as he could stand, then dialed.

Judging by the raspy voice on the other end, Stephen hadn't even made it to the coffee stage yet. "Hngh? Whozzere?"

"Hi, Stephen? It's me. Listen, about last night...."

At once Stephen snapped to attention. "You're absolutely right. It was a horrible idea, and should never ever happen again, and if we don't say another word about it as long as we live, that will be A-okay with me."

"It wasn't a horrible idea," protested Jon.

"What?"

"You ran out too fast for me to tell you. I liked it. And I was thinking, if you were free this weekend, we could do it again — only sober, this time — and maybe go a little farther, while we're at it—"

"Oh, sure, Jon!" interrupted Stephen. "It's always about you, isn't it? What you like, what you want, how your asthma is being triggered by my scented candles...."

"Stephen, I—"

"No!" yelped Stephen, more than a little hysterically. "Leave me out of your sick fantasies, Stewart, or I'll report you for sexual harassment. Again!"

The line went dead.

"But you kissed me," said Jon helplessly to the darkened phone.

"No, it's okay," calls Charlene down the stairs, hand on the doorknob. "I just have to get—"

The end of the sentence withers and dies as the scene in the bedroom unfolds itself.

Charlene almost screams. But it's not a robber or an axe murderer, it's — Charlene has to do a double take, but sure enough — it's just Stephen, the bratty cousin who cheats at checkers and once got run up the flagpole by the football team for making the mistake of paying too much attention to Hamlet.

If there's anyone Charlene can take, it's this kid.

A lunge and a quick twist and it's over, Stephen pinned on the bed with arms locked in place, while Charlene hisses, "What are you doing in my room?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Stephen has muscles, but doesn't even try to use them; Charlene barely has to put in any effort to keep the upper hand. "Please, just let me go, I'll never try to be a girl again—"

Charlene's heart skips a beat. "What do you mean, 'try to be a girl'?"

"Nothing!" gasps Stephen. "Nothing, I swear, just let me go—"

"Shut up," snaps Charlene, head buzzing, as if some lock inside it has just been smashed open and unleashed a whole swarm of bumblebees.

Stephen shuts up and lies still, or as still as a person can be when fighting for shallow gasps of air.

"Get out of here," hisses Charlene at last, jumping back and letting the captive go. "And meet me in the orchard Friday after school." Then, before Stephen can make any false promises: "If you skip out I'll send Papa after you with his shotgun."

It feels like a desperately cowardly thing to say, but Charlene can't afford to take chances. Not with this.

Speak of the devil: "You okay up there, pumpkin?" calls a deep voice from the base of the stairs.

"Fine, Papa!" replies Charlene in an artificial trill. "I have to fix my makeup, then I'll be right down!"

Stephen, who has been backing towards the window, stops to gape, brown eyes wide with confusion.

"Get going," hisses Charlene, jabbing a finger towards the clouds.

It does the trick: Stephen shimmies down the big tree next to the house in what seems like seconds flat.

While turning back to the mirror — had to get cleaned up enough that nobody, not Papa or Mama and definitely not the boy at the door with a dozen roses, could guess what just happened — Charlene spots a pair of pantyhose, sprawled like a broken bird in the middle of the floor.

"You didn't need to follow me all the way here," grumbled Stephen as they crossed the hotel lobby.

"Parties aren't really my thing," replied Jon lightly. (Of course he could be casual about it. He had spent the whole time getting congratulated on his two new Emmys.) "And I wanted to make sure you got back safe."

His hand rested on the small of Stephen's back, which was of course completely unnecessary, but if it made him feel better, Stephen figured it couldn't hurt to allow it. Just this once. "'M not that drunk, though."

"Stephen, your voice is going through about an octave a sentence."

"Is not!" insisted Stephen, tripping over the threshold of the elevator (well, whose idea had it been to make the stupid thing so distractingly shiny?) and tumbling into Jon's arms.

Jon caught his breath, but he didn't push Stephen away — and, mercifully, didn't try to press things farther either, letting Stephen have a few moments to enjoy the right right right in the way they fit together without having to worry about the wrong wrong wrong that was—

Shake it off, Col-bert! You're drunk, you're not thinking, you'll slip up, don't let yourself ruin everything after all these years, get away now—

"You smell nice," Stephen announced, voice muffled against the crook of Jon's neck.

Jon snorted, the vibration sending a little jolt through both of them. "That would be the captivating scent of Eau de Hotel Shampoo."

Lilacs.

"Could've been. I wasn't paying that much attention."

You said it out loud? Idiot, idiot, idiot....

"Not now, Sweetness," hissed Stephen desperately.

"Sweetness?" repeated Jon, his grip on Stephen tightening. "Don't tell me you brought your gun!"

The elevator dinged to a stop, and Stephen yanked away as it hummed open. "'S my floor."

Jon threw his arm forward, keeping the doors from closing, as Stephen backed hurriedly out onto the lush red-and-gold carpet. "Stephen, please—" he stammered, looking poised to lunge across the hall. "Just swear to me you won't do anything stupid if I leave you alone—"

You won't be alone.

"I don't have my gun, Jon." She wasn't the gun at all, but Jon didn't need to know that. "I'll see you tomorrow."

With a slow nod Jon stepped back. "Good night, Stephen," he said quietly, as the doors slid together in front of his still-anxious eyes.

It's better this way, murmured the voice in Stephen's head.

Didn't Jon understand yet? Stephen was never alone.

As complaints started to hit a critical mass, Jon called Stephen over to his office. Serious matters were best dealt with on his home turf.

"You can't keep harassing this woman on-air, Stephen," he said sternly. "It's only a matter of time before we hear from her lawyers, we're already hearing from women's rights groups...and even if we weren't, you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

"You don't understand, Jon," growled Stephen, every hackle raised. "It's not what you think."

"Then you'd better tell me what it is," countered Jon. "And make it good. You do realize that stalking is a big deal, right? This isn't—"

He broke off.

Stephen's eyes had misted over. Jon had seen plenty of crocodile tears in those eyes, but the fake kind had never been this subtle. Nor had his friend ever addressed him in a voice this shaky.

"Charlene was...." Stephen sucked in a breath between gritted teeth. "She was the only person who ever understood me."

Stephen is sitting back against the trunk of a tree, in the middle of yet another prayer that Charlene will have forgotten the whole thing, when a shadow falls across the grass.

"Do you really want to be a girl?"

"Don't be stupid," snaps Stephen. "I'm a guy. Anyone can see that."

(Say it enough, and maybe that short circuit will finally stop firing off sparks in Stephen's mind. Like these bursts of disappointment in quick red-hot succession: the visitor isn't wearing a flowing skirt, or a flush of lipstick, or pearl drops hanging from pink-shell ears, or any of the other things Stephen wishes — no, no, does not wish, are you listening, not not not—)

"Well — here, anyway," replies Charlene shortly, thrusting something into Stephen's hand.

It's a folded-over pair of pantyhose.

Stephen cradles the slightly rough material between both palms while Charlene circles the tree and sits, all business, on the far side. They can't see each other now, but Stephen can imagine those fair shoulders braced against the rough bark, can picture the late-afternoon shadow falling over Charlene's body as it reaches out towards the horizon.

"I'd give you the rest of it if I could," Charlene confesses, and there's a shadow over the words too.

From there it proceeds in mostly in stolen moments behind closed doors.

It's Charlene slouching, hair tied out of the way under a baseball cap, while Stephen experimentally slides on a pair of heels. It's Stephen coming back from the sporting goods store and presenting Charlene with an Ace bandage, in return for a few precious pairs of rhinestone clip-on earrings — each gift stored in the giver's room until it can be safely claimed.

It's a comedy, when Stephen first tries to put on lipstick and Charlene guffaws hard enough to fall out of the chair before offering a hand. It's a tragedy, when Charlene needs to shout and Stephen needs to cry and they crash together in a bedroom once they've double-checked the locks, pouring furious murmurs and strangled sobs into the only ears that will listen.

It's Stephen daring to swing her hips when she knows nobody's looking, and Charlene practicing his swagger in front of his full-length mirror, and both of them counting the days until graduation.

They drive for a good hour and a half under the overbright full moon before pulling over onto a narrow strip of grass and clambering out of the pickup.

Neither one likes changing in public. Even the crickets seem like too much of an audience.

Charlene deliberately wore his loosest clothing; he can't go braless (it only leaves his breasts sore and more intrusive than ever), but the rest gets tossed in the bed of the pickup for Stephen to fish out. His hips turn out to be just wide enough to hold Stephen's roomy boxers in place.

Stephen makes a futile attempt to squeeze her legs into pantyhose (they've been in her pocket almost every day these last few weeks, a sheer security blanket in miniature), nearly tearing up when they don't fit. Charlene hisses at her to pick up the pace, so she grabs the sundress and cardigan and scrambles awkwardly into them as fast as she can.

It's a sloppy switch and it'll have to be undone before they reach the bus station, but for the moment it feels like they can breathe again.

They're ten minutes down the road when Stephen realizes her pockets are empty.

"We're not turning around," snaps Charlene, knuckles white around the wheel. "We'd never find the place again anyway."

"Charlene, please—"

"Damnit, Stephen, I brought other pantyhose!"

Stephen cowers in her seat and doesn't reply.

"It's my job to protect you now," adds Charlene gruffly, as the pickup breaks free from the trees and rattles out across a bridge, the river below them glittering with silver. "Let me do that."

Not until they're back on land does Stephen whisper, "Okay."

Jon tried to speak gently. "You know that's what all stalkers say."

"All stalkers aren't me."

"Stephen, I want to be on your side, here. But if there's something else to this, I can't protect you unless I know what—"

Stephen stood up so abruptly that it nearly knocked the chair over. "I don't need your protection. I'll take care of myself."

In an instant, Jon was on his own feet. "You can't just brush this off!" he exclaimed, as his visitor strode towards the door. "The way you're treating Charlene is—"

"Charlene's dead, Jon!"

Jon sank back into his seat, cold down to his bones.

"She's dead," repeated Stephen more quietly, gripping the doorjamb for support. "It doesn't matter how I treat her anymore."

Fake News: Clover and Shadows, part 1

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