Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2010-11-10 10:08 am
ptahrrific) wrote2010-11-10 10:08 am
Fake News: Five Ways It Could Have Failed
Title: five ways it could have failed
Fandom: The Colbert Report
Rating: R
Warnings: Character death, in various but uniformly painful ways.
Disclaimer: Not real; not mine.
Summary: For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
A handful of brief AUs to the Expectingverse. Some will only make sense if you've read the revised State of Grace.
one.
Three months in, and Stephen can't keep food down.
Jon visits, bearing the most audaciously star-spangled bouquet he could find; Stephen's sitting up in bed, chattering away excitedly in spite of the IV drip in his arm. Deprived of his nightly from-the-gut outlet, he keeps talking long after he has to lie back, and Jon listens until he drifts off entirely.
After the operation, he stares at the wall.
Jon brings white camellias; Stephen rouses himself long enough to attack. Where do you get off talking about him? You don't even think he was a person!
There are no words to cover all of Jon's it's not like that and of course you get to grieve and I'm so fucking sorry, and Stephen throws an untouched dinner tray at him before he has the chance to try.
two.
Charlene stays by her cousin's bedside long after his friends have gone home.
She's nodding off in her seat when he pokes her knee. "Charlie? Is that you?"
"Still me," agrees Charlene blearily. "Been a while since you've called me that, though."
"Tell me about it." His weary grin makes her think she must be delirious or dreaming; an hour ago he couldn't speak for long-dry sobs. "Let's go somewhere, Charlie."
"What? Where?"
"Who cares? Anywhere. Everywhere. Let's take some cash and change our names and hit the road. Doesn't matter where, so long as it's the fuck away from here."
Charlene rubs her eyes, already pulling together the skeleton of a plan. "You'll need a fake ID."
"Already got one." He squeezes her hand. "Think you can get used to calling me Tyrone?"
three.
Because my wife insisted.
...
No, no, she was right. I blew up at our four-year-old the other day. A month of successfully convincing everyone I'm fine, and then the dog walks in covered with finger paint and I go ballistic. That was kind of a clue.
...
A month since the funeral, I mean.
...
Sure, I felt it then. Who didn't? Bawled through the entire fireworks display.
...
It's what Stephen would have wanted. And I'm not just saying that to make myself feel better, either. The man earmarked a couple hundred specifically for the explosions.
...
No, I heard about it from Lorraine. She's handling the cash. He left everything to his kids, you know, care of her. His other kids, I mean.
...
Of course I mean him. You think he didn't count?
...
Well, he did. And don't you dare start reading a future of pro-life marches into that, or demanding to know if I really think it was worth Stephen dying to give that baby thirty-eight hours of breathing through a tube, because, you know what, I don't, okay? I don't think it was fucking worth it! But it was Stephen's fucking choice, and if he hadn't been the kind of idiot who took crazy fucking risks with nothing on his side but sheer willpower then I wouldn't have loved him, and I'm so fucking sick of everyone trying to turn their coffins into fucking political footballs!
...
What can I say, doc? It feels like hell. All the time. I could rail at you for years and not get through it all, and none of it would bring either of them back, so what's the fucking point?
...
Yeah. Yeah, I'll stay.
four.
He's going to be okay.
It doesn't matter that his eyelids are seared with the image of a too-thin body under glass, swaddled in blankets that don't keep it warm and tubes that aren't helping it fill back out. Nor is it any big deal that the only thing he can feel anymore is the echo of sterile plastic gloves, keeping any germs from crossing between his finger and the tiny hand that no longer has the strength to close around it.
Plenty of folks have been through worse. And, with the help of their loved ones, they coped.
So he's going to cope.
After all, he reminds himself, as he polishes her for the last time: Sweetness loves him.
five.
For eight years Benny's parents only got the letter out once in a while: for safekeeping, they explained. When the paper started to fall apart anyway with all the times it had been folded and unfolded, Mom had it put behind glass, so now Benny can look at it any time he wants.
He's got the envelope too, the one with all the crossed-out names ending in My son. It's not exactly a message for him like the letter is, but he likes to read the other names and think about all the people he could have been, Billy and Charlie and Joseph Alois Ratzinger and George.
One day he carries the frame to the door of the balcony (not onto the balcony, because if it fell onto the streets of New York they would snap it up and shatter it like a mouse in a lion's jaws) and calls, "Dad? How come there's two handwritings on my letter?"
Dad, who always puts everything else down when Benny wants to talk about his real dad, comes in right away. "Sometimes your father's handwriting got scribblier," he explains, putting an arm around Benny's shoulder. "Usually when he was stressed, or dealing with something very important. I probably have some old notes of his that were in that style. Want me to see if I can dig them out?"
Benny shakes his head. "It's okay. I was just curious."
He carts the letter back to his room and puts it safely away. He doesn't need to be looking at it all the time, after all. Just so long as it's there for the next time he has questions.
Anyway, it's not like he minds being "Benedict." Dad says it means "blessed."
Fandom: The Colbert Report
Rating: R
Warnings: Character death, in various but uniformly painful ways.
Disclaimer: Not real; not mine.
Summary: For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
A handful of brief AUs to the Expectingverse. Some will only make sense if you've read the revised State of Grace.
one.
Three months in, and Stephen can't keep food down.
Jon visits, bearing the most audaciously star-spangled bouquet he could find; Stephen's sitting up in bed, chattering away excitedly in spite of the IV drip in his arm. Deprived of his nightly from-the-gut outlet, he keeps talking long after he has to lie back, and Jon listens until he drifts off entirely.
After the operation, he stares at the wall.
Jon brings white camellias; Stephen rouses himself long enough to attack. Where do you get off talking about him? You don't even think he was a person!
There are no words to cover all of Jon's it's not like that and of course you get to grieve and I'm so fucking sorry, and Stephen throws an untouched dinner tray at him before he has the chance to try.
two.
Charlene stays by her cousin's bedside long after his friends have gone home.
She's nodding off in her seat when he pokes her knee. "Charlie? Is that you?"
"Still me," agrees Charlene blearily. "Been a while since you've called me that, though."
"Tell me about it." His weary grin makes her think she must be delirious or dreaming; an hour ago he couldn't speak for long-dry sobs. "Let's go somewhere, Charlie."
"What? Where?"
"Who cares? Anywhere. Everywhere. Let's take some cash and change our names and hit the road. Doesn't matter where, so long as it's the fuck away from here."
Charlene rubs her eyes, already pulling together the skeleton of a plan. "You'll need a fake ID."
"Already got one." He squeezes her hand. "Think you can get used to calling me Tyrone?"
three.
Because my wife insisted.
...
No, no, she was right. I blew up at our four-year-old the other day. A month of successfully convincing everyone I'm fine, and then the dog walks in covered with finger paint and I go ballistic. That was kind of a clue.
...
A month since the funeral, I mean.
...
Sure, I felt it then. Who didn't? Bawled through the entire fireworks display.
...
It's what Stephen would have wanted. And I'm not just saying that to make myself feel better, either. The man earmarked a couple hundred specifically for the explosions.
...
No, I heard about it from Lorraine. She's handling the cash. He left everything to his kids, you know, care of her. His other kids, I mean.
...
Of course I mean him. You think he didn't count?
...
Well, he did. And don't you dare start reading a future of pro-life marches into that, or demanding to know if I really think it was worth Stephen dying to give that baby thirty-eight hours of breathing through a tube, because, you know what, I don't, okay? I don't think it was fucking worth it! But it was Stephen's fucking choice, and if he hadn't been the kind of idiot who took crazy fucking risks with nothing on his side but sheer willpower then I wouldn't have loved him, and I'm so fucking sick of everyone trying to turn their coffins into fucking political footballs!
...
What can I say, doc? It feels like hell. All the time. I could rail at you for years and not get through it all, and none of it would bring either of them back, so what's the fucking point?
...
Yeah. Yeah, I'll stay.
four.
He's going to be okay.
It doesn't matter that his eyelids are seared with the image of a too-thin body under glass, swaddled in blankets that don't keep it warm and tubes that aren't helping it fill back out. Nor is it any big deal that the only thing he can feel anymore is the echo of sterile plastic gloves, keeping any germs from crossing between his finger and the tiny hand that no longer has the strength to close around it.
Plenty of folks have been through worse. And, with the help of their loved ones, they coped.
So he's going to cope.
After all, he reminds himself, as he polishes her for the last time: Sweetness loves him.
five.
For eight years Benny's parents only got the letter out once in a while: for safekeeping, they explained. When the paper started to fall apart anyway with all the times it had been folded and unfolded, Mom had it put behind glass, so now Benny can look at it any time he wants.
He's got the envelope too, the one with all the crossed-out names ending in My son. It's not exactly a message for him like the letter is, but he likes to read the other names and think about all the people he could have been, Billy and Charlie and Joseph Alois Ratzinger and George.
One day he carries the frame to the door of the balcony (not onto the balcony, because if it fell onto the streets of New York they would snap it up and shatter it like a mouse in a lion's jaws) and calls, "Dad? How come there's two handwritings on my letter?"
Dad, who always puts everything else down when Benny wants to talk about his real dad, comes in right away. "Sometimes your father's handwriting got scribblier," he explains, putting an arm around Benny's shoulder. "Usually when he was stressed, or dealing with something very important. I probably have some old notes of his that were in that style. Want me to see if I can dig them out?"
Benny shakes his head. "It's okay. I was just curious."
He carts the letter back to his room and puts it safely away. He doesn't need to be looking at it all the time, after all. Just so long as it's there for the next time he has questions.
Anyway, it's not like he minds being "Benedict." Dad says it means "blessed."
no subject
Despite the precise warnings, I didn't expect these to be quite so sad.
Number two is enticing in a "self-destructive road-trip to flee from pain" sort of way; Charlie and Tyrone traveling together sounds rather adventurous.
Five does salve the hurt of the other four (as you no doubt intended) a little, and it's got to be Jon and Tracey that have adopted Benny, right?
What further cracks me up is that I know a Benny, and picuring him while reading made the whole thing rather odd.
Thanks for sharing these, and I'll comfort myself with the notion that since they are written out here, the actual State of Grace story won't include any of these tragedies.
no subject
#2 would walk the line between "wacky roadtrip hijinks" and "everyone else is devastated that Stephen has gone missing." With an ongoing plot thread in which Charlene starts encountering the other alters. In this version, all memories of there being a baby at all have been blocked from Tyrone so that he can function, and Stephen is either catatonic or shattered completely. But the rest of the trauma still calls to be dealt with.
#5 is indeed the hope-for-the-future salve, with Jon and Tracey as the adoptive parents. Jon agreed to be George's backup legal guardian when Stephen originally asked him to be godfather.
Ah, there's more than enough tragedy in State of Grace without killing off the main characters. (...So much for comfort.)
no subject
and that is all i guess
is the Stephen in the second one really gone forever? :( because if so I do believe that that one is the saddest idk. being broken beyond all repair is far worse than being dead imo
ugh there is nothing left of me but a puddle of tears. i have to second o, this was far more sad than i expected :(
no subject
The more I think about it, the more I feel like he might have split further, with each of the new alters taking a piece of the memory so that none of them have to handle it all at once. Whether that would be undoable, I don't know. Healable, maybe -- but definitely not easily.
And I repeat, there's not much you can do with dead infants that is any less tragic D: