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ptahrrific) wrote2010-11-09 03:11 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2010-11-09 03:11 pm
Entry tags:
Fake News: State of Grace, chapter 27
Title: State of Grace, Chapter 27: Separation Anxiety
Fandom: The Colbert Report
Rating: R
Disclaimer/Warnings: See the table of contents.
The book they're reading is Unspeakable Truths and Happy Endings: Human Cruelty and the New Trauma Therapy, by Rebecca Coffey. Clips referenced: the record-breaking season.
Separation Anxiety
September 20, 2007
Thursday
"Can I help?"
Charlene nearly dropped the fabric softener. Stephen was standing in the door of the laundry room, looking with some trepedation at the heap of baby clothes piled on top of the gently thudding washing machine.
"I could fold something," he said hopefully. "Or unfold something. What do you do in laundry rooms, exactly?"
"You used to help me with chores sometimes," reminisced Charlene. "When I couldn't get away until they were finished. Sometimes including laundry."
"I don't remember."
"Of course not. That wasn't you in the first place, was it? Because you're the one who used to think all women like housework."
Stephen flinched, but didn't deny it.
Charlene leaned against the dryer, trying not to feel faint. It was one thing to have a complicated relationship with her cousin, but to know that their bond was not just tangled but fragmented, to be left sifting through the pieces in search of the person (people?) she had known...it was too much. A week hadn't been enough to absorb it. Maybe a year wouldn't be enough. Maybe the rest of her lifetime wouldn't cut it.
"I saved you from bears, that one time," faltered Stephen. "That was me. Nobody else."
"There aren't any bears in that forest!" cried Charlene. "There never were! It was coastal South Carolina, we were ten minutes from Aunt Patty's house, you could have brought back one of the grown-ups before I met so much as a squirrel! Have you ever done anything real for me, Stephen? Was any of it you?"
"I don't know!" shouted Stephen, loud enough to drown out the spin cycle. "I thought it was all me! Even if I didn't remember half of it, I thought my childhood was mine!"
His voice broke as his shoulders slumped, eyes pleading. Familiar eyes, no matter who was looking out of them.
"I want to do things for you now," he continued. "But I don't know where to start. I buy you fancy clothes, you hardly ever wear them. I sing your praises on the show, even the Academy doesn't bother watching. I write you songs, you flee the country."
"You can't just be him?" blurted Charlene.
Stephen's anger surged back in full force. "Well, fine!" he exclaimed. "If I'm not even good enough to do laundry with, then you can just do all the unfolding yourself!"
"It's folding!"
"Whatever!" snapped Stephen, not even looking over his shoulder as he stormed away.
◊ · § · ◊ · § · ◊
September 21, 2007
Friday
If Tracey hadn't seen Stephen's rapid shifts for herself, she never would have believed the rest of it. Although to be fair, it was hard to believe anything bad of Stephen when he was sitting calmly in broad daylight with George swaddled in a duck-patterned blanket in the crook of his elbow, every inch the Stepford Mister Mom.
"Can I meet them?" she asked, hoping that was an appropriate question. (Why did Miss Manners never give any advice about this sort of thing?) "To get properly introduced, I mean."
"They don't parade around on command," said Stephen bitterly. "Well, Tyrone might, but he's been hiding."
He looked guiltily at everything but Charlene; Tracey, sitting hip-to-hip with her, put a comforting hand on her knee. Stephen was a challenge to parse at the best of times, but it was no struggle to figure out that Charlene was hurting.
"It's probably best not to push any of them," noted Jon. "It'll just scare Stevie, and it sounds like this other one, the girl, doesn't like being out at all. I think Tyrone would take it as exploitative...maybe Caesar, too. I don't know about, uh, Sweetness." He turned to Stephen for confirmation. "Does she even like being out in the first place?"
Stephen looked at him in surprise. "Jon? She's out now."
Tracey scooted back half an inch before she could stop herself. It was some comfort that even Jon flinched at the revelation. "Y-you're her?"
"She's not talking to you," said Stephen impatiently. "She's just listening. And watching. Looking over my shoulder, because she's got my back." He shifted his grip on George, the better to wave vaguely at some invisible figure behind him.
"I don't like the sound of this." Tracey didn't elaborate, but the thought went on: At least the others sound related to Stephen, younger selves he could regress to. This just sounds like a hallucination.
"Well, she doesn't like you, so I guess that makes us even," Stephen shot back.
Jon put a warning hand on his arm; Stephen quieted, even managing to sink into only the mildest of sulks. "Does, ah, does she have anything to add? Or should we move on?"
"Movin' on," affirmed Stephen. "To next weekend, for instance. The church is going to have a barbecue on Saturday, and I was thinking I would offer to host it here. Would that be okay?"
It was surprisingly easy to settle into the arrangement of mundane details: how many people would come, what food they should provide, which doors would have to stay closed to avoid giving away how closely the Stewarts were entwined with the Colbert household. There wasn't even a fight over who would run the grill, just a token protest from Stephen about the need to reserve it for proper American cooking, to which Charlene replied tersely that she did remember how they cooked in South Carolina, thank you very much; and Stephen promptly changed the subject.
◊ · § · ◊ · § · ◊
September 22, 2007
Saturday
Jon opened the book at the increasingly frayed blue sticky note, where he made it through almost two pages before tripping up at a sentence that began To be honest, I wondered whether Madeline was psychotic when I watched her shout warnings of danger—"Hey! Go back! Go back! It's not safe here!"—to the walls....
Stephen filled in the silence for him. "The author is stupid."
"I wouldn't say that," hedged Jon. "She counters it in the next sentence, see? She's just admitting that she had some understandable human confusion to start off with."
"Well, she shouldn't!" exclaimed Stephen, setting his jaw. "Why does she think people avoid talking about this stuff in the first place, huh? You can't blame us for holding back, not when we have no way of knowing who's going to go all reacting-like-a-human over it! So we're on lithium! So what? You can't get mad just because we didn't feel like letting the whole world know!"
"Stephen, I'm not mad about that!"
Stephen, and his eyebrows, jumped. "You're not? I mean, of course you're not. Why not?"
Jon shrugged. "It's your business, isn't it? Yours and the doctor's."
"I told Charlene." Stephen peered at him, hawklike, as if trying to spot the break in his cunning façade of nonchalant acceptance. "I didn't tell you, but I told Charlene. That doesn't bother you? Just the least little bit?"
The book fell closed as Jon turned his full attention to Stephen, trying to project an extra helping of calm and reassurance to make up for the week he had evidently missed. "Stephen...did you think I'd be jealous? It doesn't work like that, I promise. You're allowed to confide in more than one person. There are things my brother knows about me that I've never told Tracey, and vice versa. It's good that you have two people to lean on. Three, if you throw Dr. Moreau into the mix."
"Four," admitted Stephen after a beat. "Sometimes I talk to my priest."
"Ah! That's good. I mean, I guess it's good. I'm not exactly the expert on priests, here. But if he's someone you can confide in, all the better."
Stephen squirmed in his seat. "I thought you'd be upset that I wasn't trusting you."
"You can trust me without telling me every detail about everything," Jon assured him. "Although, for the record? I'm not going to write you off as psychotic, no matter what medication you end up on."
One of Stephen's hands inched over to give his a hopeful squeeze. "What if I yelled at the wall? Would you think I was psychotic then?"
"You do that all the time anyway, right?" reasoned Jon. "Every round of Formidable Opponent. The way it looks in reality, I mean, before it gets green-screened."
"But would you understand if I did it without the screen?"
"What?"
"Because it feels the same to me either way," said Stephen in a rush. "It's like there's another me on the stage. It's really Stevie or Tyrone, but they look like me when they're out, and—I could do it right here, Jon, and you would only see one of me, but it would be the same thing—and you would get that it's not crazy?"
"Of course," said Jon quickly. Sure, he might have some understandable human confusion, but he would get over it. That was close enough, right? "I'll understand."
"Shut up!" barked Stephen.
Jon's heart skipped more beats than was probably healthy.
"No. No," continued Stephen. "I don't have time for that right now."
Oh. He hadn't been asking hypothetically.
Jon watched with anxious attention, trying to picture (Stevie?) standing before Stephen, pleading in a voice that only Stephen could hear. It made the audible side of the conversation clearer, but, if anything, even less comfortable.
"And it'll take even longer if you don't stop whining!" snapped Stephen. "Shake it off, Col-bert! Yeah, that's right. And stay there."
After a few seconds of silence, he turned back to Jon, slightly flushed but with some of the tension drained. "Sorry about that," he said, beckoning at the dog-eared book. "We can go back to reading now."
Jon's throat was nearly too dry to speak. "We can take a break, if you want," he said at last. "If there's something Stevie needs, you can go get it. You don't need to stay down here just for the sake of it."
Stephen sank grudgingly back against the couch. "Stevie always likes it when you read."
◊ · § · ◊ · § · ◊
Over the next half hour Jon turned pages one-handed while Stephen crept progressively closer, until his head was pillowed on Jon's shoulder.
Halfway through a paragraph (They're not as clear cut. Soon they'll be a memory), Stephen unclasped his hand from Jon's, the better to reach possessively across Jon's stomach. "I don't want to stop," he whispered. Stevie's voice.
"Hey, honey," said Jon softly, draping his arm across Stephen's back. "We're going to have to go upstairs eventually."
"Didn't mean reading," mumbled Stevie. "I meant stopping. Like the kids stopped being with the lady in the book."
"They're still around," said Jon, trying to be reassuring in spite of a sudden stab of unease. The woman whose words he was reading had described two alters, both children, and was now implying that her healing would only be complete when both of their personalities had dissolved into hers. How long would that take for someone as deeply divided as Stephen? Was it even possible? "They're just combining into one person. They're going back to being whole."
"Doesn't sound like it. Sounds like they're going away."
"Yeah, it kind of does," admitted Jon.
"Because we're different," insisted Stevie. "We like different things. We think different ways. Tyrone likes carrots, an' I don't. I like books, and Sweetness can't even read. Caesar does things with girls, an' Tyrone does them with boys. Stephen wants you to be his boyfriend, an' I—I—!"
At a loss for words, Jon settled for rubbing comforting circles against Stevie's shoulder blade.
He had a pretty good idea what the boy was getting at: Stephen brought out Jon's protective streak at the best of times, but with Stevie those feelings were downright paternal. How could he possibly elide that into his relationship with Stephen? To say nothing of the kaleidoscope of emotions he felt towards Tyrone, already confusing enough with their fractured mix of resentment and sympathy and fragile seeds of understanding. And then there were the alters he barely knew, and possibly more that he didn't know at all....
"The woman in this chapter, she's just one case," he offered at last. It might not be right, but Stevie was clinging to him, a child seeking shelter from a nightmare, and he had to come up with something. "Even if this is what she needed, it doesn't mean it's right for you. Don't feel bound by it, okay? There must be other options. We'll keep reading until we find them."
◊ · § · ◊ · § · ◊
September 26, 2007
Wednesday
"Honey, about last night...."
"Hm?" prompted Jon over the noise of the water.
On the other side of the frosted shower curtain, the blurry silhouette of his wife was putting on foundation. "You think it's time to talk to a doctor? Or at least start answering some of those email offers with the really bad spelling."
Jon let out a self-conscious laugh, the echo ringing on the tiles around him. "Do we have to do this while I'm naked?"
"Believe me, there are things I would much rather be doing while you're naked."
She was trying to make a joke; Jon sobered anyway, running hands through his hair one last time to make sure all the suds were gone. "Was it that bad? I thought you liked oral."
"And don't you forget it!" exclaimed Tracey. "But it's not the only thing I want, you know? If it was, I probably would have just ended up with a woman in the first place."
The handles squeaked as Jon twisted them, shutting off the water. As the last of it gurgled down the drain, he pushed a handful of the curtain aside and leaned out, sopping curls plastered to his head. "Are you, uh, serious about that?"
His wife was squinting into the mirror to touch up her eyelids, making her expression hard to read. "Well...yes."
"You never mentioned it." Or had she tried, and he had written it off? It wasn't like there hadn't been other important things he had ignored or dismissed in the nineties.
"Why would I?" protested Tracey, now looking decidedly defensive. "There are lots of ifs. If I thought songs with three chords and more screaming than singing were the highest form of art, I probably would have married Barry Hopkins from the tenth grade. Does it matter?"
"I guess not," admitted Jon, groping for a towel. "Listen, don't worry about it. I have faith in your continuing attraction to tiny neurotic Jewish men."
Tracey's relieved smile was one of the finest things he had ever seen, and the last thing he wanted to do was put it in jeopardy. Well, second last. The very last thing he wanted to do was mislead her.
"But I don't think Viagra's gonna fix this," he continued. "There's some stuff I need to talk to you about, okay? Once I have some pants on, I mean."
◊ · § · ◊ · § · ◊
September 29, 2007
Saturday
The crowd in the backyard was modest, but twice as chattery as it had any right to be. Tracey could still hear the clamor inside as she pressed a bandage over the scrape on Nate's knee and sealed it with a kiss. "There we go. All better?"
"It don't hurt!" insisted Nate. "I'm an astronaut!"
"And a very brave one you are," agreed Tracey, managing to get in one good ruffle of his hair before her son scampered off to rejoin the other kids. It took some effort to resist the instinctive urge to lock him inside until he was bulked up in everything from a helmet to kneepads. (Maybe she could even have sold him on it as an astronaut outfit.)
She did a quick mental survey before following him outside: was there anything she needed to do in the house? Food to bring out, maybe? Or would that seem too much like a hostess for someone who was supposed to be nothing more than a friendly guest?
And was somebody crying?
Tracey pricked up her ears. It was faint, yes, but somebody was definitely wailing. Not outside, either. Upstairs.
George.
She took the stairs two at a time, sprinted down the hall, threw open the nursery door—
—and breathed a sigh of relief. Stephen was already there, crouching in the middle of the beanbag chair for all the world like a mother eagle guarding her nest, rocking the sobbing infant hesitantly in his arms.
"Hey," she said, when it became clear that Stephen hadn't even registered her presence. "Can I help with—?"
Stephen's head snapped up to look at her, and the words died in her throat.
Her gut worked it out first, but her mind quickly agreed: there was no mistaking that hard-edged stare. Could she get George away? Would he be dangerous if she tried? Or did George's wail mean it was too late?
"The baby's crying," said Sweetness.
It came out as a low hiss, not quite the animal snarl of a few weeks ago, but close enough to give her chills.
"He won't stop," continued Sweetness. "It's okay. I've got him. I'll keep him safe. I told him. I told him and told him. But he's still crying."
"M-maybe he needs something else," stammered Tracey, her parental autopilot starting to kick in in spite of itself. "Have you checked his diaper? It smells like he could use a change."
Sweetness eyed her narrowly. "How? How does he get that?"
"Stephen knows how," stammered Tracey. "If you could just get him back...."
"He's scared," snarled Sweetness. "He'll cry. If he comes back right now he'll remember and he will hurt and he will cry."
"O-okay. No Stephen. Right. Well, ah, do you want me to show you how?"
Stephen's lip curled. "If you hurt him I will shoot you."
"If you threaten me, I'll leave," snapped Tracey. "Do you want help or not?"
After a moment of pontification, Sweetness decided not to call her bluff. "Help," he (she? it?) agreed. "Show me."
On shaky legs Tracey stepped over to the changing table. Diapers. Wipes. Baby powder. It was all there, along with a fluffy towel that looked good as new. For that matter, maybe it was. Maybe Stephen bought fresh towels every time George needed changing. She wouldn't put it past him.
"Lay him down here," she directed, once she had everything lined up. There was an eerie awkwardness about the way Sweetness moved, as if Stephen's body had been built with the elbows on backwards, and it didn't help that George wriggled frantically when he was let go. Still, he ended up more or less centered on the clean diaper she had laid out. "Now undo the old one."
The whole scenario tumbled still farther down the edge of the uncanny valley as Sweetness tried, scrabbling at the tapes with fingers that that were frozen together, hands contorted into stiff, unmoving claws.
"Do you want me to try?" stammered Tracey.
Breathing hissily through clenched teeth, Sweetness edged away. "If you hurt him—if you—don't hurt him."
A stirring of what felt unexpectedly like sympathy rippled through Tracey's heart. "Nobody's going to hurt your boy," she said. "I'm just undoing the fasteners, okay?"
She narrated the rest of the process, every step slow and steady, though she kept her eyes studiously on George, the better to avoid Stephen's twisted figure. The baby's cries had reduced to sniffles by the time she taped the clean diaper in place; she retrieved a fresh wipe and dabbed the streaks from his face with exaggerated care, then, finally, looked up.
Stephen's elbows were resting on the table, chin propped on his cupped hands, taking it all in with big eyes and a slightly thoughtful pout.
"He should be fine for a while," said Tracey cautiously. "Did you get all that?"
"I think so."
The voice gave Tracey a start. Not only had it jumped to the highest register Stephen could pull off while still passing for natural, the prodigal Southern accent was back in full force.
"You're good at that," continued definitely-not-Stephen, admiring and wistful all at the same time. "I bet you're a good mom."
Just when Tracey had thought she couldn't possibly be more surprised. "I—I do my best," she allowed. "Do you want me to stick around? Or—or do you want to come outside?"
"No!" blurted not-Stephen. "You can go. I'll just stay here. I can watch George, too. I'll be real careful, don't worry!"
Tracey was abruptly and vividly reminded of the girl from the next building over, the freckly sophomore who babysat Nate and Maggie once in a while. "Sure. No problem. I'll be right outside, though, okay? If you need anything else, just, um, holler."
Not-Stephen giggled, scooping up George with exaggerated care. "Sure thing, Miz Tracey."
◊ · § · ◊ · § · ◊
September 30, 2007
Sunday
"Can I help?"
Tracey breathed a sigh of relief. "Would you? I don't want him alone right now."
Stephen hadn't imagined she would accept, much less this easily. But sure enough, she was patting Jon's shoulder with calm finality, while he stared blankly at a TV that had been switched off half an hour ago. "Did you hear that, hon? Stephen's gonna sit with you a while. I'll be back later, okay?"
Jon managed a nod, so Tracey stood up and made way for Stephen to slide in next to him, close enough to see that his eyes were dull and glassy.
"It's going to be fine, Jon," offered Stephen, using his most convincing Newsman Voice. "Everything's going to be fine. Jon, look at the bright side."
At last Jon found his voice, though it came out a desolate moan. "The bright side?"
"Exactly! Think of it this way: the Mets just had a record-breaking season!"
In the doorway, Tracey froze.
Jon stared tearily at Stephen for a moment...
...and giggled.
"That's it!" urged Stephen, pumping his fist encouragingly at nothing in particular. "That's the spirit! Fight it! You can beat that gnawing existential despair. ...Unlike, apparently, the Mets."
Jon collapsed against his side, helpless with laughter. As Tracey slipped out the door, Stephen even thought he saw her flash a discreet thumbs-up.
Fandom: The Colbert Report
Rating: R
Disclaimer/Warnings: See the table of contents.
The book they're reading is Unspeakable Truths and Happy Endings: Human Cruelty and the New Trauma Therapy, by Rebecca Coffey. Clips referenced: the record-breaking season.
Separation Anxiety
September 20, 2007
Thursday
"Can I help?"
Charlene nearly dropped the fabric softener. Stephen was standing in the door of the laundry room, looking with some trepedation at the heap of baby clothes piled on top of the gently thudding washing machine.
"I could fold something," he said hopefully. "Or unfold something. What do you do in laundry rooms, exactly?"
"You used to help me with chores sometimes," reminisced Charlene. "When I couldn't get away until they were finished. Sometimes including laundry."
"I don't remember."
"Of course not. That wasn't you in the first place, was it? Because you're the one who used to think all women like housework."
Stephen flinched, but didn't deny it.
Charlene leaned against the dryer, trying not to feel faint. It was one thing to have a complicated relationship with her cousin, but to know that their bond was not just tangled but fragmented, to be left sifting through the pieces in search of the person (people?) she had known...it was too much. A week hadn't been enough to absorb it. Maybe a year wouldn't be enough. Maybe the rest of her lifetime wouldn't cut it.
"I saved you from bears, that one time," faltered Stephen. "That was me. Nobody else."
"There aren't any bears in that forest!" cried Charlene. "There never were! It was coastal South Carolina, we were ten minutes from Aunt Patty's house, you could have brought back one of the grown-ups before I met so much as a squirrel! Have you ever done anything real for me, Stephen? Was any of it you?"
"I don't know!" shouted Stephen, loud enough to drown out the spin cycle. "I thought it was all me! Even if I didn't remember half of it, I thought my childhood was mine!"
His voice broke as his shoulders slumped, eyes pleading. Familiar eyes, no matter who was looking out of them.
"I want to do things for you now," he continued. "But I don't know where to start. I buy you fancy clothes, you hardly ever wear them. I sing your praises on the show, even the Academy doesn't bother watching. I write you songs, you flee the country."
"You can't just be him?" blurted Charlene.
Stephen's anger surged back in full force. "Well, fine!" he exclaimed. "If I'm not even good enough to do laundry with, then you can just do all the unfolding yourself!"
"It's folding!"
"Whatever!" snapped Stephen, not even looking over his shoulder as he stormed away.
September 21, 2007
Friday
If Tracey hadn't seen Stephen's rapid shifts for herself, she never would have believed the rest of it. Although to be fair, it was hard to believe anything bad of Stephen when he was sitting calmly in broad daylight with George swaddled in a duck-patterned blanket in the crook of his elbow, every inch the Stepford Mister Mom.
"Can I meet them?" she asked, hoping that was an appropriate question. (Why did Miss Manners never give any advice about this sort of thing?) "To get properly introduced, I mean."
"They don't parade around on command," said Stephen bitterly. "Well, Tyrone might, but he's been hiding."
He looked guiltily at everything but Charlene; Tracey, sitting hip-to-hip with her, put a comforting hand on her knee. Stephen was a challenge to parse at the best of times, but it was no struggle to figure out that Charlene was hurting.
"It's probably best not to push any of them," noted Jon. "It'll just scare Stevie, and it sounds like this other one, the girl, doesn't like being out at all. I think Tyrone would take it as exploitative...maybe Caesar, too. I don't know about, uh, Sweetness." He turned to Stephen for confirmation. "Does she even like being out in the first place?"
Stephen looked at him in surprise. "Jon? She's out now."
Tracey scooted back half an inch before she could stop herself. It was some comfort that even Jon flinched at the revelation. "Y-you're her?"
"She's not talking to you," said Stephen impatiently. "She's just listening. And watching. Looking over my shoulder, because she's got my back." He shifted his grip on George, the better to wave vaguely at some invisible figure behind him.
"I don't like the sound of this." Tracey didn't elaborate, but the thought went on: At least the others sound related to Stephen, younger selves he could regress to. This just sounds like a hallucination.
"Well, she doesn't like you, so I guess that makes us even," Stephen shot back.
Jon put a warning hand on his arm; Stephen quieted, even managing to sink into only the mildest of sulks. "Does, ah, does she have anything to add? Or should we move on?"
"Movin' on," affirmed Stephen. "To next weekend, for instance. The church is going to have a barbecue on Saturday, and I was thinking I would offer to host it here. Would that be okay?"
It was surprisingly easy to settle into the arrangement of mundane details: how many people would come, what food they should provide, which doors would have to stay closed to avoid giving away how closely the Stewarts were entwined with the Colbert household. There wasn't even a fight over who would run the grill, just a token protest from Stephen about the need to reserve it for proper American cooking, to which Charlene replied tersely that she did remember how they cooked in South Carolina, thank you very much; and Stephen promptly changed the subject.
September 22, 2007
Saturday
Jon opened the book at the increasingly frayed blue sticky note, where he made it through almost two pages before tripping up at a sentence that began To be honest, I wondered whether Madeline was psychotic when I watched her shout warnings of danger—"Hey! Go back! Go back! It's not safe here!"—to the walls....
Stephen filled in the silence for him. "The author is stupid."
"I wouldn't say that," hedged Jon. "She counters it in the next sentence, see? She's just admitting that she had some understandable human confusion to start off with."
"Well, she shouldn't!" exclaimed Stephen, setting his jaw. "Why does she think people avoid talking about this stuff in the first place, huh? You can't blame us for holding back, not when we have no way of knowing who's going to go all reacting-like-a-human over it! So we're on lithium! So what? You can't get mad just because we didn't feel like letting the whole world know!"
"Stephen, I'm not mad about that!"
Stephen, and his eyebrows, jumped. "You're not? I mean, of course you're not. Why not?"
Jon shrugged. "It's your business, isn't it? Yours and the doctor's."
"I told Charlene." Stephen peered at him, hawklike, as if trying to spot the break in his cunning façade of nonchalant acceptance. "I didn't tell you, but I told Charlene. That doesn't bother you? Just the least little bit?"
The book fell closed as Jon turned his full attention to Stephen, trying to project an extra helping of calm and reassurance to make up for the week he had evidently missed. "Stephen...did you think I'd be jealous? It doesn't work like that, I promise. You're allowed to confide in more than one person. There are things my brother knows about me that I've never told Tracey, and vice versa. It's good that you have two people to lean on. Three, if you throw Dr. Moreau into the mix."
"Four," admitted Stephen after a beat. "Sometimes I talk to my priest."
"Ah! That's good. I mean, I guess it's good. I'm not exactly the expert on priests, here. But if he's someone you can confide in, all the better."
Stephen squirmed in his seat. "I thought you'd be upset that I wasn't trusting you."
"You can trust me without telling me every detail about everything," Jon assured him. "Although, for the record? I'm not going to write you off as psychotic, no matter what medication you end up on."
One of Stephen's hands inched over to give his a hopeful squeeze. "What if I yelled at the wall? Would you think I was psychotic then?"
"You do that all the time anyway, right?" reasoned Jon. "Every round of Formidable Opponent. The way it looks in reality, I mean, before it gets green-screened."
"But would you understand if I did it without the screen?"
"What?"
"Because it feels the same to me either way," said Stephen in a rush. "It's like there's another me on the stage. It's really Stevie or Tyrone, but they look like me when they're out, and—I could do it right here, Jon, and you would only see one of me, but it would be the same thing—and you would get that it's not crazy?"
"Of course," said Jon quickly. Sure, he might have some understandable human confusion, but he would get over it. That was close enough, right? "I'll understand."
"Shut up!" barked Stephen.
Jon's heart skipped more beats than was probably healthy.
"No. No," continued Stephen. "I don't have time for that right now."
Oh. He hadn't been asking hypothetically.
Jon watched with anxious attention, trying to picture (Stevie?) standing before Stephen, pleading in a voice that only Stephen could hear. It made the audible side of the conversation clearer, but, if anything, even less comfortable.
"And it'll take even longer if you don't stop whining!" snapped Stephen. "Shake it off, Col-bert! Yeah, that's right. And stay there."
After a few seconds of silence, he turned back to Jon, slightly flushed but with some of the tension drained. "Sorry about that," he said, beckoning at the dog-eared book. "We can go back to reading now."
Jon's throat was nearly too dry to speak. "We can take a break, if you want," he said at last. "If there's something Stevie needs, you can go get it. You don't need to stay down here just for the sake of it."
Stephen sank grudgingly back against the couch. "Stevie always likes it when you read."
Over the next half hour Jon turned pages one-handed while Stephen crept progressively closer, until his head was pillowed on Jon's shoulder.
Halfway through a paragraph (They're not as clear cut. Soon they'll be a memory), Stephen unclasped his hand from Jon's, the better to reach possessively across Jon's stomach. "I don't want to stop," he whispered. Stevie's voice.
"Hey, honey," said Jon softly, draping his arm across Stephen's back. "We're going to have to go upstairs eventually."
"Didn't mean reading," mumbled Stevie. "I meant stopping. Like the kids stopped being with the lady in the book."
"They're still around," said Jon, trying to be reassuring in spite of a sudden stab of unease. The woman whose words he was reading had described two alters, both children, and was now implying that her healing would only be complete when both of their personalities had dissolved into hers. How long would that take for someone as deeply divided as Stephen? Was it even possible? "They're just combining into one person. They're going back to being whole."
"Doesn't sound like it. Sounds like they're going away."
"Yeah, it kind of does," admitted Jon.
"Because we're different," insisted Stevie. "We like different things. We think different ways. Tyrone likes carrots, an' I don't. I like books, and Sweetness can't even read. Caesar does things with girls, an' Tyrone does them with boys. Stephen wants you to be his boyfriend, an' I—I—!"
At a loss for words, Jon settled for rubbing comforting circles against Stevie's shoulder blade.
He had a pretty good idea what the boy was getting at: Stephen brought out Jon's protective streak at the best of times, but with Stevie those feelings were downright paternal. How could he possibly elide that into his relationship with Stephen? To say nothing of the kaleidoscope of emotions he felt towards Tyrone, already confusing enough with their fractured mix of resentment and sympathy and fragile seeds of understanding. And then there were the alters he barely knew, and possibly more that he didn't know at all....
"The woman in this chapter, she's just one case," he offered at last. It might not be right, but Stevie was clinging to him, a child seeking shelter from a nightmare, and he had to come up with something. "Even if this is what she needed, it doesn't mean it's right for you. Don't feel bound by it, okay? There must be other options. We'll keep reading until we find them."
September 26, 2007
Wednesday
"Honey, about last night...."
"Hm?" prompted Jon over the noise of the water.
On the other side of the frosted shower curtain, the blurry silhouette of his wife was putting on foundation. "You think it's time to talk to a doctor? Or at least start answering some of those email offers with the really bad spelling."
Jon let out a self-conscious laugh, the echo ringing on the tiles around him. "Do we have to do this while I'm naked?"
"Believe me, there are things I would much rather be doing while you're naked."
She was trying to make a joke; Jon sobered anyway, running hands through his hair one last time to make sure all the suds were gone. "Was it that bad? I thought you liked oral."
"And don't you forget it!" exclaimed Tracey. "But it's not the only thing I want, you know? If it was, I probably would have just ended up with a woman in the first place."
The handles squeaked as Jon twisted them, shutting off the water. As the last of it gurgled down the drain, he pushed a handful of the curtain aside and leaned out, sopping curls plastered to his head. "Are you, uh, serious about that?"
His wife was squinting into the mirror to touch up her eyelids, making her expression hard to read. "Well...yes."
"You never mentioned it." Or had she tried, and he had written it off? It wasn't like there hadn't been other important things he had ignored or dismissed in the nineties.
"Why would I?" protested Tracey, now looking decidedly defensive. "There are lots of ifs. If I thought songs with three chords and more screaming than singing were the highest form of art, I probably would have married Barry Hopkins from the tenth grade. Does it matter?"
"I guess not," admitted Jon, groping for a towel. "Listen, don't worry about it. I have faith in your continuing attraction to tiny neurotic Jewish men."
Tracey's relieved smile was one of the finest things he had ever seen, and the last thing he wanted to do was put it in jeopardy. Well, second last. The very last thing he wanted to do was mislead her.
"But I don't think Viagra's gonna fix this," he continued. "There's some stuff I need to talk to you about, okay? Once I have some pants on, I mean."
September 29, 2007
Saturday
The crowd in the backyard was modest, but twice as chattery as it had any right to be. Tracey could still hear the clamor inside as she pressed a bandage over the scrape on Nate's knee and sealed it with a kiss. "There we go. All better?"
"It don't hurt!" insisted Nate. "I'm an astronaut!"
"And a very brave one you are," agreed Tracey, managing to get in one good ruffle of his hair before her son scampered off to rejoin the other kids. It took some effort to resist the instinctive urge to lock him inside until he was bulked up in everything from a helmet to kneepads. (Maybe she could even have sold him on it as an astronaut outfit.)
She did a quick mental survey before following him outside: was there anything she needed to do in the house? Food to bring out, maybe? Or would that seem too much like a hostess for someone who was supposed to be nothing more than a friendly guest?
And was somebody crying?
Tracey pricked up her ears. It was faint, yes, but somebody was definitely wailing. Not outside, either. Upstairs.
George.
She took the stairs two at a time, sprinted down the hall, threw open the nursery door—
—and breathed a sigh of relief. Stephen was already there, crouching in the middle of the beanbag chair for all the world like a mother eagle guarding her nest, rocking the sobbing infant hesitantly in his arms.
"Hey," she said, when it became clear that Stephen hadn't even registered her presence. "Can I help with—?"
Stephen's head snapped up to look at her, and the words died in her throat.
Her gut worked it out first, but her mind quickly agreed: there was no mistaking that hard-edged stare. Could she get George away? Would he be dangerous if she tried? Or did George's wail mean it was too late?
"The baby's crying," said Sweetness.
It came out as a low hiss, not quite the animal snarl of a few weeks ago, but close enough to give her chills.
"He won't stop," continued Sweetness. "It's okay. I've got him. I'll keep him safe. I told him. I told him and told him. But he's still crying."
"M-maybe he needs something else," stammered Tracey, her parental autopilot starting to kick in in spite of itself. "Have you checked his diaper? It smells like he could use a change."
Sweetness eyed her narrowly. "How? How does he get that?"
"Stephen knows how," stammered Tracey. "If you could just get him back...."
"He's scared," snarled Sweetness. "He'll cry. If he comes back right now he'll remember and he will hurt and he will cry."
"O-okay. No Stephen. Right. Well, ah, do you want me to show you how?"
Stephen's lip curled. "If you hurt him I will shoot you."
"If you threaten me, I'll leave," snapped Tracey. "Do you want help or not?"
After a moment of pontification, Sweetness decided not to call her bluff. "Help," he (she? it?) agreed. "Show me."
On shaky legs Tracey stepped over to the changing table. Diapers. Wipes. Baby powder. It was all there, along with a fluffy towel that looked good as new. For that matter, maybe it was. Maybe Stephen bought fresh towels every time George needed changing. She wouldn't put it past him.
"Lay him down here," she directed, once she had everything lined up. There was an eerie awkwardness about the way Sweetness moved, as if Stephen's body had been built with the elbows on backwards, and it didn't help that George wriggled frantically when he was let go. Still, he ended up more or less centered on the clean diaper she had laid out. "Now undo the old one."
The whole scenario tumbled still farther down the edge of the uncanny valley as Sweetness tried, scrabbling at the tapes with fingers that that were frozen together, hands contorted into stiff, unmoving claws.
"Do you want me to try?" stammered Tracey.
Breathing hissily through clenched teeth, Sweetness edged away. "If you hurt him—if you—don't hurt him."
A stirring of what felt unexpectedly like sympathy rippled through Tracey's heart. "Nobody's going to hurt your boy," she said. "I'm just undoing the fasteners, okay?"
She narrated the rest of the process, every step slow and steady, though she kept her eyes studiously on George, the better to avoid Stephen's twisted figure. The baby's cries had reduced to sniffles by the time she taped the clean diaper in place; she retrieved a fresh wipe and dabbed the streaks from his face with exaggerated care, then, finally, looked up.
Stephen's elbows were resting on the table, chin propped on his cupped hands, taking it all in with big eyes and a slightly thoughtful pout.
"He should be fine for a while," said Tracey cautiously. "Did you get all that?"
"I think so."
The voice gave Tracey a start. Not only had it jumped to the highest register Stephen could pull off while still passing for natural, the prodigal Southern accent was back in full force.
"You're good at that," continued definitely-not-Stephen, admiring and wistful all at the same time. "I bet you're a good mom."
Just when Tracey had thought she couldn't possibly be more surprised. "I—I do my best," she allowed. "Do you want me to stick around? Or—or do you want to come outside?"
"No!" blurted not-Stephen. "You can go. I'll just stay here. I can watch George, too. I'll be real careful, don't worry!"
Tracey was abruptly and vividly reminded of the girl from the next building over, the freckly sophomore who babysat Nate and Maggie once in a while. "Sure. No problem. I'll be right outside, though, okay? If you need anything else, just, um, holler."
Not-Stephen giggled, scooping up George with exaggerated care. "Sure thing, Miz Tracey."
September 30, 2007
Sunday
"Can I help?"
Tracey breathed a sigh of relief. "Would you? I don't want him alone right now."
Stephen hadn't imagined she would accept, much less this easily. But sure enough, she was patting Jon's shoulder with calm finality, while he stared blankly at a TV that had been switched off half an hour ago. "Did you hear that, hon? Stephen's gonna sit with you a while. I'll be back later, okay?"
Jon managed a nod, so Tracey stood up and made way for Stephen to slide in next to him, close enough to see that his eyes were dull and glassy.
"It's going to be fine, Jon," offered Stephen, using his most convincing Newsman Voice. "Everything's going to be fine. Jon, look at the bright side."
At last Jon found his voice, though it came out a desolate moan. "The bright side?"
"Exactly! Think of it this way: the Mets just had a record-breaking season!"
In the doorway, Tracey froze.
Jon stared tearily at Stephen for a moment...
...and giggled.
"That's it!" urged Stephen, pumping his fist encouragingly at nothing in particular. "That's the spirit! Fight it! You can beat that gnawing existential despair. ...Unlike, apparently, the Mets."
Jon collapsed against his side, helpless with laughter. As Tracey slipped out the door, Stephen even thought he saw her flash a discreet thumbs-up.